Northern Spotted Owl's page

Split hex is so good that I’d plan to retrain another feat to it at 10th level rather than waiting for 11th. That and accursed hex are the top tier of hex feats.

I like 4 different thaumaturge builds:

1) champion/sentinel dedications with weapon & tome
2) marshal dedication with regalia
3) psychic dedication with any implements
4) sorcerer dedication with any implements

I'm currently running 1 (and 4 with a free archetype) in Strength of Thousands and thoroughly enjoying it. Casting True Strike once a day is pretty terrific.

Note this, from the sorcerer’s shapechanger bloodline:

“Mutable Flesh (Su) At 3rd level, once per day when you cast a transmutation spell with a duration of 1 minute per level that affects only you, you can increase its duration to 10 minutes per level. At 9th level, you can increase the duration to 1 hour per level.”

Unarcane brought this to my attention.

Good morning all.

This effort was quite the lift. Though it came as a great many folk were moving away from PF1.

So I'm curious, has anyone found it useful? Perhaps, and then perhaps not.

Problem is with that BAB, you're never going to hit anything with an attack unless it's a touch attack

Note that the cartomancer witch delivers these touch spells as ranged touch spells via her cards. So the 1/2 BAB is actually fine.

"In addition, the cartomancer can deliver a touch spell with a thrown card. This uses the Deadly Dealer feat (see below), except the attack is resolved as a ranged touch attack and the card deals no damage of its own. This ability can be used with any card (not just one from the cartomancer’s spell deck)."

I would go with the synthesist since it has the mechanics you’re looking for. Then just reimagine the details as nature themed.

I should have been more clear that this item applies to prepared casters. Your spellbook (or witch familiar) may or may not include additional spells any given morning. These may or may not be spells you would want to actually memorize.

First session I got deific obedience with Count Ranalc. This obedience was easy to perform, granting my character:

"You gain a +4 sacred bonus to AC against attacks whenever you are denied your Dexterity bonus (such as in a surprise round or when paralyzed)."

Potential utility: a +4 sacred AC bonus is pretty attractive, though this one is fairly situational.

Actual utility: none, as this didn't occur.

Azothath -- I like the "flip the tile" idea quite a bit. That is now canon.

The flight hex is great for defense, as well as utility. And False Life might be worth a 2nd level slot.

For 4th level spells I recommend Black Tentacles, Confusion, and Summon Monster IV.

Cheers

If you really want to min max play an Archaeologist Bard/Paladin. You get full BAB, all good saves, CHA to save, a bunch of immunities, good skill, both divine prepared and spontaneous arcane casting, evasion. You are a better rogue than an actual rogue. Make sure on of your spells is Heroism and you can get a +5 (with the trait fates favored) on nearly everything.

Another good combination would be ranger/inquisitor. Again, you get full BAB, all good save, two spell lists, lots of class abilities from both sides. Ranger gives you combat feats that allow you to ignore prerequisites, favored enemy and terrain, Inquisitor gives you bane bonus on some skills, judgements and a domain or inquisition. Once you get to 10th level you have both evasion and stalwart so if you make your save (all good saves) you take no effect from any spell.

It occurs to me that your ranger/inquisitor and my slayer/inquisitor are nearly the same suggestion.

Northern Spotted Owl wrote:

Alternately, a Slayer/White-haired Witch gives you full BAB, good saves, all the ranger & thief abilities, studied target, full spell casting, 15-30' reach (since you start at 8th level), swift action constrict, free action grapple, swift action trip, and strangulation. And you are not grappled when your hair is grappling an opponent. In fact, this is nuts. You would need the feats: Arcane Armor Training & Arcane Armor Mastery.

Have you tried playing that? It sounds cool at first, but thinking about it, it seems like all the various checks would just get annoying to run every round.

Ha. Fair point.

I've never played a gestalt game. Always wanted to play a white-haired witch, but outside gestalt it's a bit of a sad class (1/2 BAB and low hp).

Let's say you trip/grapple/constrict everyone within 15', then cast vomit swarm. Tell me we're not having fun now. Maybe cast chill touch while you're at it. Add in excruciating deformation when you really feel like it.

A Slayer/Inquisitor gives you full BAB, good saves (fort & reflex, plus fort & will), all the ranger & thief abilities, studied target, and bane. Plus some divine spell casting.

Alternately, a Slayer/White-haired Witch gives you full BAB, good saves, all the ranger & thief abilities, studied target, full spell casting, 15-30' reach (since you start at 8th level), swift action constrict, free action grapple, swift action trip, and strangulation. And you are not grappled when your hair is grappling an opponent. In fact, this is nuts. You would need the feats: Arcane Armor Training & Arcane Armor Mastery.

That’s a ton of work, and pretty insightful. And yes, the goal is Fey hijinx.

My character is a witch, so he:

Trades out summon monster for SNA. Modest loss.
Loses vermin shape, but gains Fey form earlier. Modest gain.

(And yes, the goal is to lose only the “series” polymorph spells, not Alter Self, etc.)

Say that’s worth 1000-2000 gp.

Gains a feat, or rather 50% of two feats. Where neither of those feats are predictable.

Each potential feat is about 30-60% useful.

E.g. Fey obedience to Shyka is amazing, while Ragadahn is likely useless.

Fey Spell List (assuming 70% the value of the original feat)
10000*50%*70% = 3500 gp

Fey Obedience (assuming 50% the value of choosing a specific Eldest)
10000*50%*50% = 2500 gp

That’s 7000-8000 gp, a bit below your 8500. That said, I might be under-valuing early access to fey form.

In our last session we each gained a card/tile and were told to create a magic item corresponding to it.

I've built a fey-themed item. First, a mixed ability that's perhaps more of a negative than a positive.

You gain the Summon Nature's Ally spells on your spell list, but lose any Summon Monster spells. Likewise, you gain Fey Form but lose every other series of polymorph spells (beast shape, monstrous physique, etc.). These are each from the Druid list, so you at least gain Fey Form on the early schedule.

Then the key ability. Each day when you prepare your spells, toss a coin.

Heads: You gain Fey Spell Lore, with the spells added to your spell list whether it is a druid spell list or not. Then spell list is not fixed, and is a random (1d6) from:
- Fey Spell Lore's listed spells
- Cleric Charm domain's spells
- Cleric Luck domain's spells
- Cleric Trickery domain's spells
- Sorcerer Fey bloodline's spells
- Witch Trickery patron's spells

Tails: You gain Fey Obedience to a random member of the Eldest for that day. You must perform the obedience to gain its benefits.

In terms of pricing, I think the first ability is more of a negative than a positive since Summon Monster is generally more flexible than SNA. And Fey Form is among the weakest polymorph spell series. I'm really not sure how to price that.

Then ioun stones that grant a feat are 8,000-10,000 gp. But this is a varying feat that you can't particularly depend on. Each spell list has at least a few good spells, so that's nice. But only a couple of the Eldest's obediences are very useful. So again I'm a bit unsure how to price this.

How about Druid 20/Monk 10 with Feral Combat Training.

That ought to be a formidable wild shape.

With PF2 there's a significant shift toward tactics & teamwork rather than the character-building that characterized PF1. And the significant decrease in attacks of opportunity has radically reshaped mobility.

What are the encounter tactics you've been happy with?

About the best we've mustered runs along the lines of: trip, attack, step away.

Cheers

Give the Gravewalker Witch a look too, while you're at it.

Spells: You get most Cure spells later, but gain a number of nice arcane spells. At 2nd level alone: blindness, euphoric cloud, spectral hand & web.

Hexes: Your first isn't until 2nd level. Note that hexes are supernatural, and hence not subject to spell resistance. This becomes pretty significant around 10-12th level, so it may or may not matter for your campaign.

Your BAB, access to armor & HP are worse.

Cheers.

There's a lot of rules lawyering going on here. Most of it in good faith I believe.

But the degree of this back & forth really makes me think we need an official rules clarification, preferably with a few examples.

Nine Lives is an amazing spell, but I doubt my GM would go for my character discovering catfolk heritage at 15th level. Now, if we found a high level catfolk cleric I would absolutely explore ways to learn it.

From there I still have trouble setting a best choice of two 8th level spells.

Maze -- This is the simple answer for the mindless opponents that witches struggle with. But I'm kind of fine letting the rest of our party shine while I struggle with those. This would be great to have in my back pocket if I knew in advance that we were facing constructs.

Mind Blank -- We're at a level where opponents are clearly scrying on us. And +8 vs mind-affecting spells is nothing to sneeze at. It's maybe not exciting because it just sits there protecting you.

Greater Prying Eyes -- The only significant limitation here is the 25 word command. Hours/level of eyes/level with True Seeing is kind of ridiculous.

Summon Monster VIII -- Oh look, 1d3 greater earth/air elementals. That'll solve a lot of problems.

The 2nd tier (in my appraisal):

Resurrection -- When you need it, you need it. But I guess I'm inclined to buy a scroll if it comes to that.

Storm Bolts -- 15d8 of selective damage is nothing to sneeze at. And I lean toward area/mass effects for my spells. Maybe that 1 round stun pushes this up in my estimation after all.

I do appreciate the thoughts thus far. Cheers all.

Those are good choices. I’d probably skip irresistible dance since you have hexes that achieve similar things with similar limitations

A fine point. Thanks.

We're working our way through War for the Crown, and we're officially in rarefied territory. I get access to my first 8th level spells.

My short list is:

Maze
Mind Blank
Greater Prying Eyes
Summon Monster VIII

Others of interest:

Mass Charm Monster
Irresistible Dance
Resurrection
Storm Bolts (witches have so few ways to actually do damage...)

And then there are the less useful, but still compelling:

Create Demiplane
Curse of Night
Curse Terrain, Supreme
Death Clutch
Fey Gate (I mean, why not?)
Quintessence Mastery
Symbol of Insanity

So, who among us has made these choices? What were you happy with?

Cheers

Standard action summons is enormously valuable. If a combat is decided in perhaps the first four rounds then bringing the additional forces in the first round rather the second makes a substantial difference.

For *any* witch you should strongly consider being a half elf so you can get the 3rd level spell Paragon Surge. This gives you access to any hex for minutes/level. Many witch hexes are far too situational to choose as one of your feats, but are occasionally brilliant.

For a winter witch I also like sylph.

Feats I like for a witch (apart from your DC choices above) include:

Accursed Hex
Improved Familiar -- particularly a fairie dragon or sylvanshee
Improved Initiative -- hex an opponent before the rest of your party pummels them
Split Hex

And, just to repeat myself, I really like using hexes for single-target offense (slumber & ice tomb) and a combination of utility & battlefield control for my spells, e.g. Web, Euphoric Cloud, Glitterdust, Barrow Haze, Sleet Storm, Thorny Entanglement, Black Tentacles, Confusion, etc.

Cheers

Too me both the skald and the inquisitor are my choices to keep. I would swap out the rogue first and the warpreist second. The inquisitor is STR based so will benefit more from the skald’s inspire rage than the unchained rogue with DEX to damage.

From what I understand you need more than one character with social skills for the AP. Both the skald and inquisitor excel in this area and both of them are better at it than the rogue will be. Trying to get something past a well-built inquisitor is extremely difficult. Fooling a rogue is fairly easy in comparison to fooling either of those classes.

To me other than the rogue this party has some serious synergy going. When the warpriest cast blessing of fervor and the skald grants inspire rage the whole party starts acting like full BAB classes. Then the inquisitor uses Bane and studied strike to boost himself up even farther. All three of the other characters have good fortitude and will saves. The will saves of the inquisitor and warpriest are going to be about as high as you can get. The rogue is definitely the one that needs to worry about will saves.

I'd swap the rogue out for one of:

Magus -- 6/9 arcane spell casting, and a solid martial
Wizard/Arcanist/Sorcerer -- 9/9 arcane spell casting
Witch -- 9/9 arcane-ish spell casting + hexes

The witch really shines using single target hexes, area effect spells, and rounding that out with summon monster.

That’s said, the full winter witch gives you overlapping blasting and debuffs that add up to a solid package.

Good morning. A few suggestions. Take whatever suits you, ignore the rest. :)

Elf traits:
Replace Weapon Familiarity with Overwhelming Magic.
Or, replace Weapon Familiarity with Fleet Footed for +2 initiative.

Feats:
- Dazing won't do you a lot of good because you don't have many spells that cause damage. Though a dazing spiked pit sounds kind of brilliant.

Spells:
2nd: Blindness, Euphoric Cloud
3rd: ***Sleet Storm***
5th: Baleful Polymorph, Overland Flight, Suffocation

In short, my only strong recommendation is Sleet Storm. Cheers

Maybe if you have bad DCs, but Grease is a solid spell through mid levels. A big part of spellcasting is picking the right tool for the job. Big humanoid monsters also tend to have relatively bad reflex saves and rely heavily on their weapons. Grease is also very helpful if a teammate gets grappled. It's a very versatile spell that can stay relevant till fairly high levels.

Once my character cast Grease on a stairway that soldiers were climbing to attack us. Another character had summoned ... something large ... maybe a bear. So he sent the bear charging down the greased stairs.

Cyder wrote:

Main issue my player is having with Thaumaturge is finding an archetype that works well with it. We are playing with free archetype and she doesn't want to take an archetype lile talisman dabbler ir Eldritch Research cause its just more or the same and doesn't really expand the character flavour much. As Thaum is so action hungry many of the other archetypes don't gel well with it.

Happy if people have good suggestions. We are playing AV. 3 person party and they are smashing it so far. Her thaum background is storm survivor, her family were sailors before the ship went down

My Thaumaturge is a Marshal.

I looked at archetypes for a thaumaturge pretty closely. I think your best choices are:

Champion -- Heavy armor, healing touch & champion's reaction
Marshal -- aura w/will save bonuses, dread or inspiring stance
Psychic -- cantrip & spells
Sentinel -- Heavy armor & bulwark, can be stacked on top of Champion
Sorcerer -- spells & bloodline

Northern Spotted Owl wrote:

I read through the Oracle mysteries, and most of them seem a bit awful. As in, mostly wouldn't want to use your focus spell at all. So I must be missing something.

Cosmos & Life looks like the only exceptions.

For the other mysteries, do you just avoid your focus spells entirely? Take the mystery benefit and pretend you don't even have focus spells?

Try these for suggestions. I have one for each mystery.

Yes you need to be really careful with some mysteries. Some you want to run hot. Others you want to keep restrained until critical times.

Very nice. Thanks Gortle.

And thanks for all the responses. That gives me a reasonable feel for how folk are handling the oracle.

Cheers.

I read through the Oracle mysteries, and most of them seem a bit awful. As in, mostly wouldn't want to use your focus spell at all. So I must be missing something.

Cosmos & Life looks like the only exceptions.

For the other mysteries, do you just avoid your focus spells entirely? Take the mystery benefit and pretend you don't even have focus spells?

There are 3 references to the psychic:

A NOTE ON THIS GUIDE -- "building a psychic"

Character Creation 3.5 Class Abilities -- "general class features of the psychic"

Odds and Ends 7.2 -- "when playing a psychic"

Cheers

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/summon-swarm/

Spiders of course. Or Vomit Swarm if there's a witch in your party.

ForsakenM wrote:

So far, while I can AC stack with Mage Armor and my 'Monstrous Shape', we've been getting handed a lot of AoE attacks that require saves...and my saves suck because I have an 11 in all but Int and Dex due to rolling like garbage.

For saves, Greater Gift of Consumption is amazing. It takes two hexes, but it lets you outright ignore a fortitude save per round. That sounds like exactly what you need.

I rated all hexes and commented on them, you can find that here.

@Owl: No love for Barrow Haze?

Our mid-level party was poisoned by a spy master who had previously cast Delay Poison, and was consuming the poison with us. Our witch used Greater Gift of Consumption to redirect a dose to the spy. A sorcerer cast Dispel Magic on him, and he failed his saves against both doses.

So that was fun.

And yes, Barrow Haze is pretty great.

I agree with Deathless on hexes, though I'll emphasize the Flight hex. Five separate 1 minute flights/day is a lot of utility at 5th level.

For spells I like area effect ones since hexes are single-target.

2nd

Blindness - Yes, this is a single-target spell, but the save is Fort while Slumber targets a Will save. And its effect is brutal.

Euphoric Cloud -- Area effect, targets Fort.

Glitterdust -- Area effect, targets Reflex

Vomit Swarm -- Honestly, this is the most enjoyable witch spell. At 1d6/turn in a movable 10x10 square it can do decent damage. But really you should have it because it's more fun than any other spell.

Web -- Area effect, targets Reflex. Nice synergy with Vomit Swarm -- watch as a few opponents struggle through a web full of spiders.

3rd

Dispel Magic -- At higher levels you'll always want this memorized. At 5th level a scroll probably suffices.

Qlippoth Appearance -- Paralyze an opponent for 1 round, once per level.

Remove Blindness, Curse, Disease -- These are each worth having on a scroll.

Sleet Storm -- This spell is a powerhouse. It shuts down all sight, slows movement. Cast it in a room and wait for opponents to stumble out the door one by one, or cast it over 2/3 of your opponents so you can divide & conqueror.

An Undead Master Wizard / Gravewalker Witch is an amazing necromancer, has spells galore, and hexes.

The spells are all int-based. All you need to do is avoid combat.

If you want to be a beast (pun intended) with polymorph spells then you need a higher BAB so you can reliably hit stuff. The best way to do that is probably via an eldritch knight.

1 wizard 1
2 wizard 2
3 wizard 3
4 wizard 4
5 wizard 5
6 fighter/paladin/whatever 1
7 eldritch knight 1
8 eldritch knight 2
9 eldritch knight 3

The key benefits here are:

* Your BAB isn't too far behind a full martial class
* Your spell casting is only 1 level behind a full caster
* You've gone with wizard for its robust spell list rather than witch because eldritch knight does not advance other class features such as hexes.

Cheers

Hey guys, I wanted to give an update.

So the above spells are all still my Patron spells, and while there might be some debate on their strength or scaling, this is due to my frienDM trying to make my Patron spells themed on transmutation spells of which the list was relatively limiting in his opinion to make a properly-scaling Patron spell list.

However, based on his decision, Gwynnifred (my witch) will have the ability to use Monsterous Physique a limited number of times per day in a similar vein to Druids with Wildshape and that it will level up with me at benchmarks but still have all the proper restrictions and the additional note that the more I use it the more it starts to affect me when I revert back.

Additionally, we have expanded on the concept of Potion Lung and I will be able to eat spells and spit them back out a number of times per day as well.

Since my DM doesn't approve of Ritual Hex, I'm going with Accursed Hex and Accursed Hex Mythic as well as Extra Hex for the three feats I get (my party gets an extra starting feat).

I'm grabbing Cauldron, Evil Eye, and Slumber as my starting Hexes...now I just need to come up with some spells to take before this Sunday...

A key detail to keep in the back of your mind is that a witch is a 1/2 BAB class. That is, you'll never be very capable in combat. Most of your transformations will have more utility value than anything else.

The Jinx Witch is a fine archetype for a campaign where you will regularly be targeted by spells, but even then doesn't really shine until 10th level.

At least that's my take.

That looks like a fun build.

As a changling you'll certainly want the Witchborn trait. Another trait that any witch should consider strongly is Pragmatic Activator. The Dreamweaver archetype is open to you, and very cool for the right campaign.

The feat Mother's Gift: Uncanny Resistance is one of the few scaling SR options in the game, and you should take it.

Swamp's Grasp is a solid, thematic hex for you.

In terms of spells, in combat the area-effect ones punch above their weigh. E.g. at 2nd level: Euphoric Cloud, Glitterdust & Web. And Vomit Swarm is so much fun that every witch should take it.

Here are a few fey I categorized when I wrote my witch guide.

Fey Form

Looks like I need to revisit their sizes though.

Ok, so if trading it out is the only way, then I guess I'm not going to get Critical Conduit. The familiar I'm planning on taking has Flyby Attack, which I want to keep.

The Beast-Bonded archetype looks neat, but it clashes with Invoker. Both of them change out the 8th and 10th hex.

But it seems like I CAN take some familiar feats if they're from that Folio source? Is that right?

The key question is, do you want to take the feat Improved Familiar? Note that some (primarily the ones with hands) can use wands.

The feat Evolved Familiar: Skilled can then give your familiar +8 in one skill. The familiar shares your skill levels, but then uses their own bonuses. So, for example, a faerie dragon familiar is a dragon and so has the class skill UMD (+3), a charisma of 16 (+3) on top of the witch's UMD skill levels. An evolution bonus of +8 UMD on top of that gives them a very good chance to use almost any item.

Lots of good, if occasionally conflictory, feedback. Thanks all.

I'll answer a few questions first:

Weapon implement: flail
2nd implement: provisionally a tome, though amulet, mirror and regalia are still under consideration

So then archetype options include

Sentinel:
heavy armor, including expert at 11, master at 19
bulwark at 10

Marshal:
improves intimidation or diplomacy to expert. (with thaumaturgic expertise
this puts you on track for 4 legendary skills, e.g. intimidation, diplomacy, athletics & arcana)
dread stance at 4
inspiring stance at 4
topple foe at 10

Champion:
heavy armor, though it never improves past "trained"
champion's reaction at 6
anything else here? I haven't looked at it closely yet

Thanks again.

Howdy. Our old party, plus a couple new-ish folk have just started Strength of Thousands. We are:

Investigator
Swashbuckler
Thaumaturge <-- me
Ranger (archery, not melee)
Druid
Oracle

I have a weapon as my first implement, leaning toward tome for 2nd. I'll take wizard for my free archetype. From there I have a couple questions:

1. Should I invest in the scroll thaumaturgy/esoterica feats? I'm not sure whether that's less important since I'll have my wizard dedication.

2. Should I add another dedication, or lean into the thaumaturge class feats?
2a. Sentinel: heavy armor & mighty bulwark
2b. Marshal: dread stance, etc. Do I really want more choices for my actions?

Obviously there's interaction between those two questions. If I don't add another dedication, then I have more room for class feats, such as the scroll chain.

Thanks so much.

That sounds like great fun.

I just re-read the Thaumaturge description, and I'm pretty sure you lose Implement's Empowerment (+2 damage/die) if you dual wield. But it looks like that's your only limitation.

"You don't gain the benefit of implement's empowerment if you are holding anything in either hand other than a single one-handed weapon, other implements, or esoterica, and you must be holding at least one implement to gain the benefit."

Well, that, and only one of them can qualify as your weapon implement.

"If you acquire a new object of the same general implement type, you can switch your implement to the new object by spending 1 day of downtime with the new item."

Cheers

The healing hex is decent for niche in-combat healing. Besides improving to cure moderate at level 5, the additional +1 per level is better than a wand.

It's not that healing hex isn't good or useful. It's just that some other hexes are even better. For instance, slumber is game breaking for many encounters.

There are a few clusters of hexes & feats that round out a blaster witch.

1. slumber, ice tomb -- backed by accursed hex and later split hex
This gives you frankly over-powered will-based and fort-based hexes to complement your reflex-based blasting.

2. protective luck, cackle & soothsayer
This yields over-powered buffing, since the 1/day/target restriction was not applied to protective luck.

3. gift of consumption & greater gift of consumption -- backed by accursed hex and later split hex
This shores up your weak fort save, and is occasionally amazing. One limitation is that monsters with poison or disease are commonly immune to poison or disease, though that doesn't prevent you from targeting them and hence saving yourself.

4. misfortune & cackle -- backed by accursed hex and later split hex
Your one hex option vs constructs & undead, though not as important for a blaster.

And then there are the utility hexes:
- flight
- prehensile hair -- reach plus the utility of high strength
- swamp's grasp -- nearly unlimited terrain control
- ice plant -- grants a "natural armor bonus" and so stacks with an amulet which grants an "enhancement bonus" to natural armor

Healing is nice in early levels, but only until the party can afford a wand of cure light wounds.

Gift of Consumption & Greater Gift of Consumption shore up your weak fort save. And occasionally they're amazing.

Swamp's Grasp also gives some nice battlefield control.

Cheers

All this talk about wizards. They seem generally fine.

The witch is a wizard without: scroll savant, drain bonded item, or school spell slots.

Most oracle mysteries/curses are nearly unplayable.

These seem like the problem areas for casters.

Agree on Havocker (generally inferior) & Invoker (great).

The other good choice is a Winter Witch.

Elf with Overwhelming Magic: conjuration for +1 DC
Affinity for the elements for +1 DC
Elemental Focus for +1 DC
Winter Witch archetype:
- Ice Magic for +1 DC
Winter Witch prestige:
- Unnatural Cold (3rd level) reduce cold resistance by 1/2
- Unearthly Cold (8th level) half of your cold damage ignores cold immunity/resistance
- Inexorable Cold (10th level) +1 CL, +1 vs counter/dispel

That's a total of +4 DC for your cold spells at 1st level.

Frozen Caress turns all of your touch spells into cold spells, adds another +1 DC and 1d4 cold damage. This makes prehensile hair and/or spectral hand more attractive.

Good morning. Is the PF1 Guide to the Guides an ongoing concern? Or has it more or less become an archive?

My issue is that the idea of combining a naginata with a three-section staff is just terrible. This weapon’s key design principle is: maim anyone who tries to become proficient with it.

I'm leaning toward a rogue for our upcoming Strength of Thousands AP. It'll be our group's first foray into 2e.

Notably, Strength of Thousands grants a free archetype of druid or wizard along with extra feats at each even level that can only be used on that archetype.

The obvious choice is eldritch trickster/witch/wizard. You have the occult & arcane spell lists and get a ton of spells, and they're both int-based. (The eldritch trickster/cleric/druid has too few attack spells, weakening spell sneak attack -- right?) I see two problems there: 1. spell attack DC will fall behind, so you can't count on spells & sneak attack over the long haul (do I have that math right?); and 2. the eldritch trickster only grants a single feat, along with early access to magical trickster. And extra feat is nice, but is it better than what the other rackets give you? I lean toward no.

So that leaves us with:

thief/wizard -- I could multiclass into witch for the 2 spells lists, as above, and still have the thief's dex-to-damage & thievery.

ruffian/wizard -- Same as above but, you know, with a ruffian. I'll have to sort out whether intimidate or trip (or both) are the way to go.

ruffian/druid -- I want this to work, but I don't see any good intimidation synergy with a druid. Wild shape looks roughly comparable to the ruffian's melee prowess, rather than a clear benefit. Do I lean into the animal companion option, maybe the leaf order for healing?

mastermind/wizard (yay int!) -- We already have a ranger/druid in our group, so I'm pretty hesitant to go this way since it looks like a build that really wants to be ranged.

What am I missing?

Thanks,
Owl