Anyone willing to share the general effect (not verbatim mechanics) of Cenotaph Stance? Currently playing a level 15 Lastwall Sentry pre-Gravelands so I’m interested to see if any of these will become my next feat choice!
I’m not looking to engage further in this thread, but as a career-long product manager I wanted to pass along a truism from the field: Users are adept at identifying problems, and usually bad at identifying solutions. Even assuming we have the domain expertise, we lack the relevant perspective across the entire market (of which participants here are a narrow and unrepresentative sample) as well as insight into the business and company dynamics to usually identify the best way to sustainably solve the issues we raise. I mention this to point out that ways we individually think may solve the issues, even ways we may all generally agree are a good way to solve the issues, are likely not how those issues will best be solved.
Me, a few weeks ago: I wish people would move on from the caster debate. Everyone is talking past one another, assuming the worst intent at times, and persuading no one. Somewhere at Paizo: *Monkey’s Paw closes* — I know I’m shouting into the wind, but I’d love for this thread not to become a repeat of the locked one on the clarified Dying rules. It’s many of the same names, making the same arguments, with the same growing aggression in tone.
This is so unnecessarily hostile. They were referencing the varying descriptions found across the CRB and GM materials, a full discussion of which is summarized here (https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/176z4ya/how_does_your_table _run_wounded_and_dying_a_poll/) and predates Remaster tweaks.
Thankfully you can go at it from the Occultism route rather than Religion.
Hmm that's an odd middle ground. Guess just pick an appropriate god at the time if you don't worship one lol, never heard of prayer that isn't to a god or ancestor or something.Does anyone know if the new remove curse skill feat on the religion side needs the pc to follow a deity?There is no mention of needing to be devout. You do, however, need to perform the act of prayer. pray to a specific god, a pantheon, a generalized higher power, to your community, to the land, the moon and stars, etc. Pray as a devout follower, as a general petitioner who knows the old ways, as a ritualist engaging in more like a transaction or possibly demanding the result, etc. unlimited combinations of petitioned, petitioner, and method!
It's not. It is Swap + Strike. 2 to 1. Which I think is what a lot of people have as a vision when they hear about Quick Draw, until it actually plays out. Again, personally I think it's cool to enable the idea of a combatant who has a lot of different trait weapons and has spent their treasure on several more runes than usual to make them remain competitive. It's very flavorful, without being notably more powerful, especially once you factor in the feat and money and bulk investments. And even so, I think very few of my fellow players would find this interpretation determinative in selecting Quick Draw versus other options.
The example is both reasonable and a little facetious, because you're only taking more hits in the situation where you've gotten a small heal and (presumably) remained a threat. Scenario 1: Unconscious, dying out, not stabilized. You're likely to die without getting stabilized. You're very likely to die if hit, and that hit be critical. Scenario 2: Unconscious, stabilized. You're not likely to die, either due to recovery or intervention. You're very likely to die if hit, and that hit be critical. Scenario 3: Conscious, stabilized, alive with few hit points. You're not likely to die, due to intervention. You're very likely to die if hit, but that hit is much less likely to be critical. Scenario 4: Conscious, stabilized, alive with most of your hit points. You're not likely to die, due to intervention. You're unlikely to die if hit, and that hit is much less likely to be critical. --- A lot of this boils down to how safe unconscious vs. nearly-unconscious PCs are treated. What if I as a PC get healed but pretend to stay unconscious, or remain down and make evident I'm out of the fight? A lot of our tables have adopted a logic of "enemies don't try to kill downed PCs because they aren't a threat anymore" but never attempted to create more than a binary on what being a threat means. It's simple, and there's value in that simplicity, but it also creates this weird dynamic of being less concerned about dying PCs than nearly-dying PCs at times. At least for our table, the knowledge that there were many tables already playing with these rules without some gamebreaking issue, the knowledge that a shift of in-combat tactics can help with the frequency of the issue under dispute, and trust that the rest of the system is fairly balanced and tight are collectively enough for us to at least give them a sincere try before homeruling. There's no right answer here, but wherever your respective tables land, I hope you at least give it a fair bit of consideration.
It's one of the possible uses for the interact action. Since it's specifically called "swap", not "draw", it should be incompatible with Quickdraw and similar abilities (unless those get changed). Draw isn't an action or really defined as a particular sub-action, to my knowledge. Quick Draw allows "Interact to draw a weapon" so without having the remastered rules in front of me it might be a DM call on if they feel swapping to draw a weapon vs. drawing a weapon with a free hand are materially different types of Interact for Quick Draw. The feat isn't commonly sought anyway, so I don't see the harm offhand.
Yeah, I think the biggest thing for me (as a player) is our DM sometimes resorts to older styles of dungeonbuilding, with close rooms where foes can sometimes spill over depending on how combat goes. While there is explicit guidance to GMs in PF2 to treat multiple encounters without a 10+ minute rest as one encounter for the purpose of budgeting, he doesn't always do it - each room or maybe a couple rooms are designed as a balanced encounter. From chatting with others, he's not alone. As the ability for the party to recover from things going sideways diminishes within an encounter, as others have already said in this thread, the importance of appropriately balancing those encounters grows. DMs really need to lean into the concept that a single encounter is basically all the fighting between 10+ minute rests, no matter how that fighting takes place.
Correct. Adjacent question - It feels like you all always wanted to keep a pretty defined line between "shields with magic effects" and "shields to block with" with both getting the benefits of raising a shield. I was surprised to see that the rune offers the same tier of benefit as the Sturdy Shield given this, and had been assuming it would be a version or two behind Sturdy for any given level. Can you share a little about how thinking changed within the design team around the above? Was there concern about power budgets early on that were deemed unfounded with time, or the cost differential was a sufficient tradeoff, etc?
The way Wounded works even going from + to 0 and back already makes immediately healing downed allies unintuitively bad--Wounded 0, Dying 1 can take up to 2 more direct hits before things are desperate if the enemy is the type to finish off downed foes, but healing that person after each drop makes them a bigger target and can leave them with few enough hit points that they might just stand up into in instant Dying 2 plus now they'll have a second Wound if they stand up--but when you add in that creating Wounds by healing felled allies also makes their floor time more lethal means its better to hold off on that instant heal unless you know you can put enough healing on them that they can stand back up safely. One thing that might change the logic here is the -4 to AC you have while unconscious, significantly increasing the likelihood of a critical hit and corresponding +2 Dying. If the enemy isn't interested in continued strikes on the unconscious PC, I think the logic of keeping them down until the situation gets safer makes typical sense. If the enemy is food/spite-motivated or mindless, or you don't know for certain what it will do next, it might make more sense to get them back conscious however you can.
Totally agree this is largely about expectations and the associated ideas of what acceptable tactics are. Is this significantly more deadly for those not already playing this way? Yes. Can it largely be resolved by a mix of shifting tactics within the combat and battle preparation prior? Yes. Will it be as or more fun for players? Mixed bag. Our table is nervously excited to adopt this rule - it's already prompted talk about putting more of our resources into in-combat healing and the like, and our most aggressive martial player (finally, FINALLY) acknowledged he needs to stop just running in and trusting it will work out.
Thanks for the quick hits! Break Curse sounds great. Anyone willing to share how Holy/Unholy runes work now? Do they work differently for sanctified vs. unsanctified PCs?
I could take the talisman Feat to create the prisms for free but I don't like the idea, I would anyways buy a few ones for emergencies to draw scrolls of heal I agree - if you have reliable access to merchants, buy them. Even in a game with no real access to commerce for the early game (Tyrant's Grasp 2e conversion), I didn't find the talisman feat worth it. I wish they were Level-3 instead of half level, because they were just coming online way too late for us across Combat, Exploration, and Social.
Also I'll mind the limitations for empowing and my "free" hand, I'm under the assumption that the scroll "burns away" when I cast from it, so using it right away before anything else should be enough to keep my hand free. Yeah, if you use it before you get into Strikes you'll be golden. Edit: common sense tells me that scroll thaumaturgy and gloves of storing should work together but... The gloves state that I need a "free" hand which I don't quite have as I'm holding my implements You are 100% right - I forgot that I've got an unusual situation going on that enables it (Mind Smith and Quick Draw resulting in a free-action summonable/dismissible weapon, essentially). You can still keep store/draw most implements with the glove though, which can help action economy when you don't already have everything set up walking into a fight. Alternatively, creating or buying Retrieval Prisms as already noted.
I think Thaumaturge *looks* OP on review, but in play you'll quickly find yourself reasonably constrained if you're playing it all as-worded. I really like it, but wanted to give that heads up because I've seen a few fellow players now have an expectation mismatch from theorycraft to play. You're extremely versatile but also pretty fragile in terms of setup. For instance, Implement's Empowerment is very specific with its requirements, and having a scroll in hand would technically violate the qualifications to boost your weapon damage. Opening a door necessitates putting something crucial away. Assuming all of your combats are not initiated by the party with a round of prep, I've found a lot of my actions in ambushes or time-pressure scenarios going to getting everything set up while allies can immediately roll into striking. If you're facing a diverse collection of enemies, you'll be spending more actions Exploiting Vulnerability, etc. As Yellowpete already notes, the single biggest benefit I've found so far in terms of magic items is getting some Gloves of Storing. Having a scroll or implement stowed away is huge for the above. Happy miracle working!
I have a Paladin PC that is absolutely destroying pretty much everything thing I throw at the party. I am totally fine with this, but I want to throw the party a challenge every now and then. I recall seeing either a spell or feat or that counters or lessens the effect of smite good, but I can't find it. Does this ring a bell for anyone and if so, what book is it located in? Corruption Resistance and Warding armor enhancement are the only things that come to mind. An intelligent villain may try to get the paladin to burn their smite uses throughout the day on lesser threats. You can also set up neutral enemies to detect evil through a variety of spells and effects. Once a paladin wastes a smite in this fashion, they may become far more reticent to use it without detecting evil first. In which case an evil character that detects neutral may succeed. Realistically though, you're gonna keep running into this problem if you only have a few fights per day, and they are all against evil foes. Changing either side of the equation reduces the value of smite evil.
In broad brushstrokes, I would recommend the following: 1) Determine a character concept first. Everything you read on forums and guides is going to lean heavily on the optimization side, but most of these builds honestly aren't fun. Either they are very time-intensive at the table (running more than 3 summons at once), are one trick ponies (charging mounted barbarian), or most often, their output per round is orders of magnitude higher than other party members (leading to resentment, optimization arms race, etc.). Knowing that, use the guides to avoid pitfalls, but whenever you have to decide between that extra oomph of optimization or a worse choice that fits thematically, take the thematic choice. Wizards in particular become more and more powerful relative to the rest of the party as you level up. Magic is the currency of Pathfinder, and by level 13-15 you'll be a robber-baron. In particular, this gives you more freedom to take a slightly less optimized path. 2) Treatmonk's guide hits on this pretty effectively before it gets to the crunch, but Wizards really do excel as controllers. It's a playstyle that I find a lot of joy in, where you are basically changing the battle/skill environment to make your party's success inevitable. Everyone loves you as a result, and you know that your well-timed Haste is what allowed the fighter to triumph without stealing the spotlight from that player by casting a quickened, maximized fireball and clearing out a room in one shot. Scouting out a boss with Arcane Eye, making an appropriate knowledge check to realize it's a spellcasting lamia, and devoting yourself to counterspelling (after buffs) so that the boss doesn't get to cast save v. deaths is the sort of thing that only a full spellcaster can do. With that in mind, the oft-cited comparisons to Batman are accurate. Your weapon is your toolkit of spells, and knowing how to use each one to solve the problem in front of you. It follows that the focus of your feats should be in improving all of your tools, rather than just making one tool amazing. A spell-perfected enervation will be terror against most foes, and then absolutely worthless against creatures immune to its effects. I prefer a bit more gray across the board than that sort of black/white scenario. Specifically, I focused on (not in order): -Toughness (shore up hp)
If you want to go summoning, I strongly encourage you to take Spell Focus: Conjuration, and Augment Summons. If you use them mainly as meatshields, consider Superior Summons as well. For spells, I chose anything that buffed the party, helped my character thieve, or were major utility spells. If you focus on damage, figure out a way to deal with creatures that are immune to those damage types (ability to swap damage types on spells, or somehow bypass resistance). If you focus on energy drain, find a way to deal with creatures immune. But again, keep a weather eye on whether it all fits thematically. My character was a thief who became the unwitting pupil of a devil. He never bothered to learn the underlying theory about spellcasting, just the minimum needed to cast the spell. I never took metamagic feats (though I did get a Rod of Quicken), and bought or stole access to spellbooks in any town we entered. To focus on his vagrant background, I took Spell Mastery multiple times. A terrible feat you'll almost never need, but that combined with the Spellbinder archetype allowed him to cast at least 2 spells per spell level without his spellbook and only a few minutes of prep time. The core concept was "how would I design a wizard who could escape as many jail cells as possible?" With the amount of spells known and available slots (transmutation focus, thassilon specialist), I had enough tools in the toolkit that his power level stayed balanced/just ahead of the party for the entire campaign. It was one of the most fun campaigns any of us had been part of. Looking back, I wouldn't change a single thing. |
