PlantThings's page

Is a feat like the Summoner's Ranged Combatant for your thralls, or I guess for the Create Thrall cantrip specifically in this case, out of the question.

I think a feat like Advanced Weaponry, also Summmoner, that gives upgrades/options to Create Thrall attacks couldn't hurt. Or these could be feats that grant new grave cantrips options altogether that command thralls to do different things. Although I think even Create Thrall could easily afford to be able to command more than just Strikes baseline.

I'd be open to a spell slot progression like Magus/Summoner depending on what we get for it. Maybe a tad more at 3 slots per two highest rank spells instead of 2.

Or maybe just have options that allow us to sacrifice/"spell blend" slots for other benefits or to activate other abilities. You know those grave spells that need an existing thrall? Maybe if you didn't want to sac a thrall for whatever reason, you can instead sac a low rank spell slot in place of a thrall to cast the grave spell directly from yourself.

Hmm...

Screaming at someone as you leap out from hiding works, but then trying to hide without first pulling a disappearing act... I'm not sure. I think it depends on how much your GM likes Batman.

The less noisy way is to use Intimidating Glare with the Battle Cry Demoralize. However, the visual trait means it would be just as overt.

While not quite the same, an Undead Eidolon has the undead trait and void healing but is considered a living creature due to its initial ability.

I think most people use this sentence under the Dhampir entry as the best guide for how it's intended to work. "You have the void healing ability, which means you are harmed by vitality damage and healed by void effects as if you were undead."

The "as if you were undead" part, which is unfortunately absent in the void healing description, heavily implies that you are targetable as undead if you have void healing, but specifically for void or vitality damage and healing effects. As a Dhampir, you should still be targetable as living for everything else. I don't think it reads that way RAW, but it is how most groups I've seen treat it.

With how many different spells and effects that specify they target living or undead while assuming living doesn't have void healing and undead does have void healing, I think the Void Healing description itself should just specify how it affects targeting, if it's even supposed to.

Yeah, I thought I was going crazy reading the Step part of the Divine option. Triggering as a blood magic option would make it more interesting though.

Its also really wonky in the other direction: a living creature that uses this to get Void Healing is still alive, so things like Heals damage effect and the Vitalizing rune don't consider them a valid target at all and don't do anything. A LOT of effects that do vitality damage specifically say "if the target is undead", which you're not.

The problem is really on those other things and how they limit targeting to living/undead creatures, instead of "creatures with vitality/void healing".

My advice: don't run this RAW, much like how no one ran Arcane Cascade RAW for years.

Now that you mention it, since the remaster, several things that target undead has also added the line “or otherwise has void healing.” It’s not on everything, but I think it’s on enough that it’s heavily implied that’s a given.

And like you said, having vitality/void healing making you count as living/undead respectively despite what you actually are makes everything work smoothly. Things that have effects for both living and undead like Heal and Harm also become unecessarily difficult, otherwise. I mean, that’s how most of us rule for Dhampirs.

Thanks!

This is the additional effect of Nudge the Scales:

In addition, you can mediate during your daily preparations

to place yourself on one side of the scales. Choose life or death.
If you align yourself with life, you are healed by vitality healing
effects, as normal for most living creatures; if you align yourself
with death, you gain the void healing ability, causing you to be
healed by void effects that restore Hit Points and any other
effects that restore Hit Points to undead creatures.

I might be overthinking how this works so I could use some confirmation how far off I am.

On a regular living creature, if you choose death, you remain living but gain void healing. You now heal and get targeted like how a Dhampir would. Easy.

On a Dhampir, a living creature with void healing, if you choose life, you remain living and you ignore your void healing ability. I know it doesn't say "remove" your void healing directly, but I'm sure it's meant to override it with the life alignment effect. You now heal and get targeted like every other full living creature would. Also easy.

On an undead, like a Skeleton or any Undead archetype, if you choose life, you remain undead but ignore void healing. You are undead but you ignore void healing, which I have no examples for.

Since most vitality healing effects requiring living targets, this really doesn't do much for the still undead PCs. Unless of course, does the line "If you align yourself with life, you are healed by vitality healing effects, as normal for most living creatures" qualify enough as 'specific overrides general' to allow the targeting and healing of an Undead PC with vitality healing effects?

The only mystery that would've needed a completely new mystery benefit is Bones. Everything else was completely unique and sorely missed.

Oh and then maybe Lore keeps the extra spell slots since their benefit was one extra spell known per rank.

If you want to also dabble with more earth spells and more spell slots for actual summoning, going Arcane caster with Undead Master archetype is also an option. Otherwise, Undead Summoner is great if you're leaning more towards one big boney buddy and want the Archeologist dedication asap.

Airlift has some neat utility as a single movement Fly spell but for your entire party.

PlantThings wrote:

Imperial being my favorite bloodline, it makes me feel elated it got some love. But apparently, maybe a bit too much?

Did its other focus spells, Extend Spell and Arcane Countermeasure, get any changes too?

Countermeasure is the same AFAIK.

Thanks for the info!

Nice to hear about Countermeasure, one of my favorites. The old Extend Spell was so narrow to what it could apply to that I'm honestly glad to hear it change into anything more flexible. But we'll have to see the whole picture on all of these new blood magic changes.

Imperial being my favorite bloodline, it makes me feel elated it got some love. But apparently, maybe a bit too much?

Did its other focus spells, Extend Spell and Arcane Countermeasure, get any changes too?

I love everything I'm reading so far, especially for the cursebound trait. Also, we did it Divine Access bros! More domain access is a nice surprise. And of course, more feats for the one of the most feat starved classes deserves a big thanks!

Oh man, I cannot wait to fall in love with this class all over again! I'm always down for another round of playing with every mystery.

The glass shield changes are tight. Big ups.

I'd certainly give the choice to the player between paying a Focus Point or increasing their curse level when they cast a Cursebound Focus Spell. It solves the issue for some Mysteries but not all of them.

Anyway, the Oracle needs a deeper rebuild of Mysteries to work fine. I don't know if Paizo will take this time, time will tell (3 months, that's not much).

I personally haven't tried this in a game, but I have seen it suggested more and more as a temporary homebrew and/or an actual change ever since the focus point changes.

Agreed that it doesn't solve everything, but I do love that it solves the big and annoying issue of the curse locking oracles into one cursebound focus spell after the first encounter from level 1 to 10. And I think it does it in a clean and fun way. The resource management in choosing between paying a focus point or advancing your curse is so my jam. I like how it also plays nicely with how each mystery mostly have different preferred curse levels.

It is steadily becoming my favorite new Oracle wishlist change, just behind a built-in Divine Access class feature.

Little quibbles with edge cases aside (they exist but that's for another thread), the new state of condition removal spells is SO much better, I am livin' as a Life Oracle who can feasibly (albeit with some effort!) cover all of that now. Turning 8 condition-clearing spells (Remove Fear, Remove Paralysis, Restoration, Restore Senses, Remove Disease, Neutralize Poison, Remove Curse, and Stone to Flesh) into 4 (Sure Footing, Sound Body, Clear Mind, and Cleanse Affliction) that address everything the old ones did and way more, and do it more practically for combat, is nothing short of blessed. ~w~

Being able to officially remove those conditions from undead PCs with those spells is really nice too since they're all non-vitality healing effects! Well, except Sound Body.

Pour one out for Plant Form.

It lost the Shambler battle form option. It only has Arboreal and Flytrap now.

Also, I know this was in the preview but Entangling Flora (previously Entangle) not requiring existing plants or fungi is much appreciated. It's now great for setting up effects that do need existing plants or fungi like Nature's Reprisal.

The number of spells and abilities which makes trees are steadily growing.

I’m excited to build my Arbourmancer!

I really can’t express how thankful I am for all the love Paizo has given to plant and now wood options in this game. They already had me with Leshies, but I never expected the ever-expanding garden of 2e to grow this big and often.

I constantly fall in the cycle of forgetting and getting reminded of Daze having a duration entry. I'd love for that to be addressed, and hopefully clarified in general for other things.

Oracle is a mess of good ideas that for me don't quite work. Maybe I am not getting it but the burden of the curse seems to high? I loved oracles in PF1, loved the detriment of 1st level that got benefits to work around/overcome it later. Now the curse/mystery forces a certain kind of playstyle great in theory but unless the optimum moment for your mystery/curse to shine present itself you are playing at a disadvantage for using your classes core mechanic the rest of the time.

Imo Cosmos is the only mystery that nets positive on the overall risk/reward. Not so much that the curse bonuses are powerful and morseo that the penalties are easy to mitigate and manage. Its decent focus spells and amazing mystery benefit are what pushes it above the threshold.

Everything else just breaks even or is worse off for playing with their curse. Life has great bonuses offset by very risky penalties. Bones has middling bonuses that almost perfectly cancels its penalties. Flame and Tempest are held back by the divine spell list more than anything. Battle's penalties are more significant than its benefits, while Time is the opposite, with its benefits lacking compared to its penalties. Ancestors is intrinsically rough due to its gimmick, but at least its a gimmick. Lore is too tragic to talk about. I haven't played Ash.

I'm pretty high on the Bones Oracle more than most, but I do think it has the worst Mystery Benefit in terms of design and deserves a second look.

It's an on daily prep decision to gain negative healing. It's too situational, both in effect and application, compared to the others it often feels like you have no Mystery Benefit to work with at all most of the time. I wish it was something you can do more on the fly instead. Maybe not exactly combat useable but at least as a 10 minute activity once per day.

The alternate effect, if you have negative healing already, isn't any better. Specifically since its improved recovery check doesn't stack with Toughness unlike Mountain's Stoutness. It's also disappointingly redundant with the major curse.

These are quite specific so I'm not holding my breath, but the general idea is giving some Sorcerer and Oracle focus spells another look. The few that live rent free in my head:

For Alchemists, I'd appreciate Double Brew and Alchemical Alacrity become more practical. Quick Alchemy brews lasting until the end of your next turn instead of the start would be nice (essentially free Enduring Alchemy), but I wouldn't mind even more of a push than that.

Oracles should at least get their Divine Access feat bumped down to level 1.

Then there's debate between just straight up giving each mystery a spell list like the Sorcerer and Psychic or giving the class one free instance of the Divine Access feat. I personally like the latter because it highlights a very unique class feat to players from the very beginning. You get a few thematic spells, but further investment isn't pushed. I also like that everything else is already built-in for it. It just needs to be stated you get it, saving some text space in comparison to a spell list.

Other than that, I think all Oracles really need is another balance pass on each mystery's curse risk-reward ratio. This ideally also takes into consideration the strength of the passive mystery benefits and focus spells, which vary quite significantly. I'm fine with the more even risk-reward curses like Bones and Life, but I've gradually preferred wanting a more noticeable lean toward a clearly rewarding like Cosmos. A popular concern I've noticed from those new/unfamiliar with the class is that the minor curse only dishes out penalties. I can see how that feature is a frequent focal point. While I don't think the minor curse needs to grant benefits, I do feel the curse boons need to be more pronounced in spite of the curse penalties (although a few curse penalties are truly just too harsh/limiting as is). At minimum, the moderate curse would need to have eye-catching benefits that make it feel worth pain of being cursed.

Is being stunned on your turn is still up in the air? There was recent errata that touched on stunned in general, but I don't remember if it actually addressed that specific timing.

The big 2 for me are already mentioned. Recall Knowledge. Negative healing/undead trait rules, specifically the undead trait entailing immunity to healing effects. I do believe that's the final loose end of those rules and removing it cleans everything else up.

Additionally, I think the removal of the word "mitigate" to convey what you can and can't do to circumvent Oracle curses would go a long way. I think every other word used (reduce, remove, negate, and ignore) is comprehensive and clear enough, and mitigate just muddies this.

Life Oracles are set up to have a neat and unique healing playstyle in combat.

What you lack in free Heal spellslots, you make up for with damage redistribution with Life Link. Gradually mitigating damage from your party makes for efficient 3-action AoE heals. Your natural d12 Heals under moderate curse makes for great burst heals, which is perfect for your personal Heals since you redirect a lot of damage to yourself.

Often this means you are the one in the most need of healing, which seems horrible due to minor curse. But since this leaves the rest of your party generally healthier, you can actually save up on actions and Heal spells. You don't have to chase allies down too much, they go down less from the HP buffer you provide, and maybe you burst Heal yourself once per encounter. Sometimes not even since with Battle Medicine, on top of everything else, you're pretty good at keeping everyone standing by the end of the encounter. Maybe not topped off on HP but standing. And at that point, you can Treat Wounds your problems away.

This becomes more serviceable at higher levels when Life Link gains more targets. A bit dependent on party size too as Life Link's heightened scaling is awkward.

1 psychic refocus

This and eidolons using mundane items I'm super curious about.

With the influx of Summoners and Psychics at tables I've played at recently, I've noticed GMs are pretty 50/50 on how they rule these two. We even had a long but fun quibble on the psychic refocus trick with one table. Hilariously, the Psychic player wasn't even the one who brought it up.

Healer’s Blessing, in particular, does take the penalty separately because it is an additional healing instance to the triggering heal. If it was simply a bonus to a heal, like Undeath’s Blessing, there would be only one instance of healing to penalize.

I'm not sure that Divine Access is a must take, I'm currently playing a cosmos oracle with pretty much no intention of taking it, although that might be the exception to the rule.

That’s the beauty of it all. Cosmos is the most independant mystery from Divine Access because of its small deity list, solid focus spells, and its favorable curse balance.

Every Oracle getting a free Divine Access feat would appropriately help many of the other mysteries without overimproving an already solid one.

Two changes that are constantly at the forefront of my mind:

1) Enduring Alchemy should be removed as a feat. Quick Alchemy's last sentence should then be changed from "it remains potent only until the start of your next turn" to "it remains potent only until the end of your next turn."

At the very least, it's a courtesy to Double Brew and especially Alchemical Alacrity. I think it's perfectly appropriate to expect those class features to function effectively without having to take a separate feat. Alchemical_Genius already touched on this, but I think it's worth reiterating for much it smooths out for such a tiny change.

2) Oracles should get one Divine Access feat for free at 1st level. Divine Access should also at least be a level 2 feat.

With the clamor for Oracles getting more spells to better support each mystery, utilizing the already established Divine Access seems to make the most sense. I especially like how it showcases early on how integral and unique the Divine Access feat is to the class, even if some mysteries are more thirsty for it than others.

The ones I’ve got down currently are forestall curse, reach spell, then 16 and 20 are Necromancer’s visage (mostly a flavour choice) and oracular providence.

Reach spell for any caster with good 1-action spells is always nice when you can get it. An extra 10th level spell is always welcome. Ironically, I don't think I've played a Bones Oracle after the release of Book of the Dead so I've never even read Necromancer's Visage. It seems really fun in the right campaign so I hope it serves you well.

Unfortunately from a character perspective I don’t think there’s any way for this particular bones oracle to get the things you’re talking about through divine access. She worships Pharasma.

Thankfully, you don't need to worship the deity you choose for Divine Access at all, so you should be good. You can take Divine Access multiple times after all.

I went the diplomacy, Bon Mot route, but intimidate would be better. Strictly combat wise at least.

Both are great in different ways, so it's all preference imo. Frightened is just more universal being able to improve all of your save spells while Bon Mot and Evangelize are specialized for Will save spells, which is a lot of what the Divine and Occult lists have to offer. So Frightened will help out your non-Will save spells like Soul Siphon, but inflicting Frightened is usually a Will save anyway like with the Fear spell.

Solid spell list too by the way. Those spells are exactly what a lot of Oracle players look for when considering Divine Access support options. You should be fine.

What did you spend your feats on out of interest?

I've had a few Bones Oracles, but all have either had Blessed One or Medic as early as level 2. Blessed One is great since Lay on Hands bypasses your minor curse, but a little clunky if you have negative healing active often. Medic is the opposite with Battle Medicine not caring about your negative healing state but takes a huge blow from your minor curse. It's campaign dependent imo, but healing is healing and Bones literally lives and dies by it. With free archetype games, I often end up taking both.

Debilitating Dichotomy, Mysterious Repertoire and Forestall Curse are the must have Oracle feats for me personally. Divine Access too but if you're multiclassing anyways, you might not need it as much. I take Nhimbaloth for Cloudkill if I'm going for that gimmick. Otherwise, I go for what Gortle already pointed out with Shax, one of the best deities for Bones last I checked. Not going for the additional revelation spells really opens up a lot of class feat space so that's great for your multiclass or any other archetypes.

I started prioritizing Canny Acumen over Diehard early on to help avoid going down in the first place. I've learned that Diehard is more for later levels, specifically as the extreme curse safety net.

For skills, I'm all in on the Medicine and feats that improve Treat Wounds, but I also go hard with Intimidation and feats that improves Demoralize. More ways to set up Frightened is really good, especially for increasing Soul Siphon's success rate. Demoralize into Soul Siphon is a common turn for me, and that's only two of your actions. For my Cloudkill build, I additionally focus on Stealth for the Sneak feats.

One thing to note about Soul Siphon is that the temporary HP it grants has no duration. So it's something you can keep from encounter to encounter, which covers the Drained HP reduction from your curse really well.

Personally, I think Bones is one the mysteries that's pretty peachy with it's curse up at max at all times. I used to think the opposite because Drained and Wounded spooked me, but in practice, the benefits from your curse helped mitigate a lot of my worries. That and Soul Siphon's temp HP. I basically spam that whenever my temp HP goes down to keep it up as much as possible. Just be wary of your targets for the best temp HP efficiency; getting those crit fails on low fort enemies will feel very good.

Imo, it's only the extreme curse at high levels that you actually have to be mindful of. You can also just have Diehard or keep a Regenerate spell handy in case of emergencies.

Armor of Bones is okay and can work, but I've preferred Soul Siphon over it lately for both damage mitigation and focus spell usage. I second Debilitating Dichotomy though, if you do want another cursebound spell.

A mostly for fun interaction with your curse I like to shill is with the Cloudkill spell. Under moderate and/or major curse, you can stand in a Cloudkill with little risk. You can redirect its movement easier this way too.

Not the most pressing but I’d appreciate any clarification on the intent of what “mitigate” means for Oracle curses.

More than anything though, I want Life Link to have its heightening improved. It’s primed to neatly heighten +2 instead of awkwardly heightening at 3rd then at 6th and 9th. I’m biased though. Life Oracle is my favorite single entity in the game.

Compare flame oracles options with spells to what tempest has.

This issue here is twofold. Fire spells are more ubiquitous in the CRB, and deities don't update their spells with new releases.

We got some new air and water spells in SoM, but I don't think any have appeared in any new deities since. It's just the waiting game at the moment, unfortunately. Although I do hope for a custom deity ruleset, similar to personal staves, that would easily squash this issue.

Excited for Wood Kineticists? You'll have them in August.

Absolutely! I just don’t know which plant ancestry I’ll pair it with first.

I’ve been pretty spoiled by 2e when it comes to plant options. At this point, the only thing I could really ask for is more options that give the plantmancer vibe through subclasses. The Druid has never filled this hole for me, even outside 2e The Plant Summoner does though, and I love it. I wouldn’t mind more of that.

I don’t even care which classes get a plant-themed subclass. I’d take as many as I can. Sorcerer and Oracle would probably be the most likely out of the casters; I’m really fishing for cool low level plant focus spells. Maybe Alchemist and Barbarian for the martials?

I just want voluntary flaw system to land stayed the same.

In fact I'd like to hear why they changed it.

Did they feel that extra +2 was overpowered?

I often utilized it to make a weird build work. Now I don't have that option by raw

I feel you. The new universal ++ option is a godsend for me with how much certain +s or -s would put me off toward certain ancestries. The removal of the old voluntary system does surprise me considering how well it worked across different players and tables. The people who used it loved it and the ones that didn’t showed no hate. This is all anecdotal though.

It’s still a net gain for me, personally, even if I’m a bigger fan of the +++- spread. You won’t see me complaining if the old voluntary flaw system just suddenly came back though.

The clarification section is something I've longed for. I love it and can't wait for more! It's already answered a bunch of longstanding questions in my groups.

The fungi inclusion is something I didn't know I needed until now. Thanks Paizo!

What cavernshark proposed is a nice middle ground to test before fully swapping lists. Essentially, you allow your Oracles to get one Divine Access feat for free from the get go while still allowing them to take it additional times in the future. You can even give them extra free Divine Access feats at certain levels, almost like a class feature, if one isn't enough. This seems like the least disruptive change since it's just repurposing a feat the Oracle already has.

From there, if you still feel it's lacking, you can then make custom deity spell lists like Gortle said. I'd look through the Elemental spell list, personal stave rules, and the appropriate traits for those particular mysteries (fire for Flames and water/air for Tempest) for inspiration and guidelines.

On a similar note, do sustained 1 minute spells qualify as well?

I've been subconsciously discounting them just because fully sustaining a spell for 10 minutes doesn't seem prudent. But who knows, it could open up a bunch of interesting possibilities if so.

I didn't consider battle forms before, so that's fun. Just to make sure, do the self-casted spells (like battle forms) still count toward the "single target" prerequisite of the spell? Even though they don't technically target?

And yeah, I'm not too worried using it regularly for combat although the pre-casting possibilities are a unique aspect to look out for during play. It does seem it would shine better with spells that are also beneficial outside combat, but 1 minute spells geared for out of combat aren't exactly the most prolific by design. But to be fair, I have yet to look into SoM and books after for spells for this specific interaction.

I've played several Imperial Sorcerers, but I've never got the chance to pick up Extend Spell. I'm considering taking it this time around. What are some good or cool spells to use with it?

The most obvious one is 4th level Invisibility. Otherwise, I guess it's good for pre-buffing with spells you usually can't pre-buff with, but if we're talking combat, just having Arcane Countermeasures locked and loaded has always served me well already.

Just because you have focus spells and reaction doesn't always mean you are using them. There are plently of Oracles that have focus spells to burn - like a Psychic they get preferential class treatment - but really don't want to advance their curse until they have to. Probably half of the Oracles never really want to go to their major curse. Example Lore or Bones. I actually like the Oracle with a side of Pyschic.

Too true. The extra control you get over your curse while still able to make use of your focus points is super handy. That's why Blessed One is a particularly popular archetype Oracles dip into. One feat for one non-cursebound focus spell is a great deal.

Oracles having lackluster class feats also makes the dedication lock more bearable. Sad but convenient in this context, like a curse, if you will.

You gain a 1st-level psi cantrip for a conscious mind other than your own; this can be either the unique surface cantrip or one of the common cantrips and the accompanying amp.

Surface cantrips are specifically the 1st level psi cantrips unique to your conscious mind so it should just be limited to those. The ones you get at 6th level are called deeper psi cantrips, and the ones you get at 10th level are called deepest psi cantrips.

I had a group comp similar to this, but instead of a Champion, we had a Barbarian and everyone heavily built for Intimidation. I kept the theme going by building an Intimidation Imperial Sorcerer, but I didn’t boost any other CHA skill. The others covered deception, diplomacy, and performance, while I just did my best impression of a Wizard. Oh, and I was also the medic. It was fun time.

I think an INT class in general would be great for your party, but if you wanted to stick with a spontaneous caster, Sorcerer is your best bet. The Imperial bloodline in particular can feel very Wizard-like being already trained in Arcana and your first bloodline spell covering any other skills you’re missing on-demand. Boost WIS for your medical needs or INT for even more skills. You shouldn’t have to worry about upstaging the other charismatic characters as long as you avoid the CHA skills that they already cover. You even have the luxury of easily avoiding performance, unlike the Bard.

Isn't a little underpowered on a demon eidoon which is by default chaotic evil?

I could understand choosing alignment damage on an angel eidolon to deal good damage ( dealing zero damage against neutral beings, but also zero damage on your allies), but unless being evildoers against the forces of good I can hardly see evil/chaotic damage as useful on any AP.

Oh, I should've specified I was considering it for an upcoming evil campaign I'm going to play in.

I find the Dragon Eidolon to be uninspiring. It's abilities are mostly meh. The breath is ridiculous. And the 3 attacks for 2 actions are hardly strong.

For an AoE-based Eidolon, I find the Angel Eidolon with Eidolon's Wrath to be so much stronger. Sure, it's a focus spell, but it only affects enemies (unless you have some evil doer in the party, but it's uncommon) and it triggers one of the most common weakness.

Yeah, I've never been a fan of most two-action abilities Eidolons get, especially the exclusively damage-based ones like the Dragon's. I'd rather use those actions on a utility or support spell from a Fey Eidolon.

Although, I've never considered using Eidolon's Wrath with alignment damage to avoid the friendly fire. I always avoided it because of the friendly fire, but I might try this out on a Demon Eidolon now.

Maybe the issue you got with your Summoner came from your Eidolon looking more powerful than it should have. That's why I dislike all the size increases abilities on the Eidolon, they push enemies to attack it when it's not exactly a tank.

This has been an interesting dilemma for me. Even for the Plant Eidolon that wants the reach, I’ve come to not like having my Eidolon be such a big target at the start of combat. I’m starting to prefer enlarging with Evolution Surge once I’m already positioned to my liking despite the extra setup. The Shrink Down feat would’ve been nice here if it wasn’t another feat slot I can barely afford if I’m also getting the size increasing feats already.