Red Griffyn's page

I've removed some of the more political posts as we don't allow those on our forums, but thank you to everyone who has tried to get the conversation back on track! I'm leaving the comments that have general critiques on when errata comes out and the ones that remind everyone that the previous posts were political just for public awareness!

Removing various pro paizo employee posts but leaving the one blaming the union.. is a choice. That topic isn't what I would call political.

Just know, community my new deity post may look unhinged, but was contextually relevant.

THIS JUST IN. There is actually a small errata available for the Lost Omens: Divine Mysteries Web Supplement. Paizo is adding one additional deity for everyone to use at their table.

Deity Name: Late Stage Capitalism (The King of Exploitation)
Category: Trash Baba Yaga Brought from Earth
Edicts: Bring 'race to the bottom' late stage capitalism economic death spirals to all civilizations. To exploit workers in increasingly maniacal ways in pursuit of the 'free' markets. To eliminate human rights. To increase shareholder returns.
Anathema: To pay fair market value for local labour, regulate industries, improve quality of life of workers, allow workers unions, prevent wealth concentration, and prevent the formation of oligarchies.
Areas of Concern Wealth, Labour, Merchants, Corporations.
Religious Symbol: A thinly gold plated lead meme coin
Sacred Animal: Plough Horse
Sacred Color(s): Platinum, Gold, Silver, Copper, Red (blood toned), Blue (sweat toned)
Pantheons/Covenants: The Abadar Reign that Dude In Please LTD., Trickle Down Economics Inc., Tax Havens LLC., CEOs of Offshoring Operations Corp., Union Busting Partnership

Divine Attribute: Conmanstitution
Divine Font: Harm
Divine Sanctification: Only unholy (but can present as holy to divination spells with enough righteous self belief)
Divine Skill: Thievery
Favored Weapon: Whip
Domains: Wealth, Pain, Toil, Trickery
Alternate Domains: Tyranny, Plague, Destruction
Cleric Spells: 2nd: Death Knell, 5th: Rip Spirit, 6th: Dominate

I would call it something like

"Waveform Wizardry: A Martial Treatise on Empowering Your Body with Spells

or

"Bounded and Confounded: Gish Galloping to Success"

It would be a complete book dedicated to pushing out bounded caster class archetypes, have a general one that applies to any caster, and fixing existing new ones (battle harbinger) to ensure they follow the magus/summoner design principles. It would include (either as a class archetype, subclass, or archetype as appropriate):

Skald Barbarian or Bard
Mesmerizer Bard/Witch/Psychic
Arcane Duelist Bard or Wizard
Dawnflower Dervish Bard
Shifter Druid
Synthesist Summoner
Dimensional Excavator Alchemist
Spiritualist Bard/Witch/Psychic Class
A Black Blade/Phantom Blade (apply to any caster)
Vox/Soundstriker/Thunder Caller Bard (martial sonic blaster)
Psionic Psychic
...

There are so many gishes and design space there you could publish way more than one book.

I do wish they would maintain a list of what will be looked at so we know what will or won't even get an errata. Then you would at least know if any particular issue is:

1.) Waiting to be read and acknowledged
2.) Initial go/no go on whether it IS an issue
3.) Slated for Review
4.) Being Reviewed
5.) To be errata'd in 20XX Spring/Fall Errata.

I remember the hype last year when it sounded like we'd be getting more expedited FAQ content. But obviously there is some friction points behind the scenes that is making that remain status quo.

Red Griffyn wrote:

The issue is that we need to read text like [razing] with the notion of a "default specificity."

Where the text talking about dealing dmg w/ the weapon is specific or "closed," and that it's not talking about all manner of unpredictable and unmentioned effects to be a part of "weapon damage". In that context of [razing] it's only talking about a base weapon, and we need to allow the terms used in that context to be sort of ~locked down in a way that matches that context.

_____________

When you start talking about possible triggers of [razing] beyond property elemental runes, this "no, they don't interact" becomes a lot more clear.

Basically, there's just no way to allow all manner of disconnected special damage to reasonably proc [razing].

There's all kinds of ways for a weapon to "deal damage" via spells or other effects.
Even the Spell Reservoir property rune makes the need for a "specific default" limit to Razing.

An AoE or over time spell in there would proc with every separate tick of damage.

Even the notion of a weapon getting persistent damage via effect shows that it's not reasonable to have [razing] trigger every little tick, imo.

The problem with invoking "default specificity" is that it requires agreement on a hierarchy of specificity. As well we still assume inherited traits unless there is a specific overriding/negating element of a more specific rule. For example birds can fly vs. penguins don't fly means penguins (which are still birds) do not fly. It feels like you are trying to manifest the 'negation' out of thin air, when realistically all we have in the system are enabling language and nothing to negate/overriding the language from more general cases.

Level 1: The most general case is a weapon deals damage.

Level 2: Razing Weapons deal +2 dmg/weapon damage dice when damaging an object.

Level 3: A razing weapon with a corrosive rune adds any passive/constant effects to the weapon damage dice per the rules example that uses a flaming rune which also has a success/crit passive damage effect.

Level 4: A razing weapon with a corrosive rune, when critting, deals damage to an object of 3D6 acid damage.

So with no negations between levels of specificity we are left with only one conclusion which is the razing property (a property of the more general case) will be triggered by the more specific case of a razing weapon with a rune that can deal +3D6 on a crit.

Your discussion of spells is a red herring because you've added another level of specificity:

Level 5: A spell uses [insert level 3 or level 4 description of weapon]

Spells have their own rules that specify they only do what the spell effect says it does and so you NOW have the introduction of text (whether implicit or explicit) that has the potential to negate or override. That is a huge difference than the rules text that says all constant and passive effects of runes (e.g., like flaming damage runes) apply to weapon damage (that is additive/enabling rules language).

You have to give me a specific example with a specific spell that we can walk through because the spell reservoir rune doesn't appear to challenge anything in the above interpretation. Notably because the only passive effects of the rune are letting you cast a spell into it and immediately identify spells cast into it. When you activate one of the two effects you are no longer in the causal rules chain of 'passive and constant effects' as you are 'activating it'. As stated previously they did that because many runes of activation effects and those do not have any enabling language to 'add to the weapon damage' as the passive and constant effects do.

This is also true for spells like weapon storm where the spell effect specifies that you are dealing 4 damage dice the same size as the weapon, but not that you are dealing damage WITH the weapon. The only spell I can recall that even remotely does that is Hand of the Apprentice and I would obviously let razing trigger as you are dealing damage as if you hit with your melee weapon (which would trigger both the corrosive rune/razing on a crit).

Because i'm not talking about it being a crit effect, I'm talking about it being a separate effect from the weapon and thus not being "Damage with the weapon". Because thats what I see from those same quoted rules,...

The rule example language is verbatim

Property runes, by contrast, grant more varied effects—typically powers that are constant while the armor is worn or that take effect each time the weapon is used, such as a rune that grants energy resistance or one that adds fire damage to a weapon's attacks

There is no daylight there. Passive effects of property runes on weapons adds to the weapons attacks. You separating it into a 'different effect' is contrary to the rules which are telling you it effectively should be treated as one singular event/activity/combination of traits/etc. The enabling language has made the passive corrosive rune effect essentially a new critical specialization or deadly/fatal effect that is hyper niche to blocking shields and party armour loot.

Red Griffyn wrote:

Corrosive Rune wrote:

Acid sizzles across the surface of the weapon etched with this rune. When you hit with the weapon, add 1d6 acid damage to the damage dealt. In addition, on a critical hit, the target's armor (if any) takes 3d6 acid damage (before applying Hardness); if the target has a shield raised, the shield takes this damage instead.

Runes wrote:

...Runes must be physically engraved on items through a special process to convey their effects. They take two forms: fundamental runes and property runes. Fundamental runes offer the most basic and essential benefits: a weapon potency rune adds a bonus to a weapon's attack rolls, and the striking rune adds extra weapon damage dice. An armor potency rune increases the armor's item bonus to AC, and the resilient rune grants a bonus to the wearer's saving throws. Property runes, by contrast, grant more varied effects—typically powers that are constant while the armor is worn or that take effect each time the weapon is used, such as a rune that grants energy resistance or one that adds fire damage to a weapon's attacks...

So the game considers that your weapon attack is modified with the damage per the rule text under runes. When you critically hit with a corrosive weapon it adds 3d6 damage to their armor (or shield if raised) which are objects.

I don't think this conclusion is quite correct for the same reason as the Shock rune. Yes corrosive does add acid damage to the weapons attacks, Yes on a crit the extra effect will activate.

But not every rune effect adds to the weapon's damage or cause the weapon to deal damage, if the effect activates on a crit and affects another target than the original then it's hard to argue that its the weapon that deals this damage when thats not explicitly stated. How would this interact with its more potent cousin of Decaying or is persistent damage entirely untouched by Razing.

Don't get me wrong, it makes sense narratively that Razing works with...

I fail to see how it being a crit effect or being a non primary target matters to the outcome or rules interpretation. Deadly/Fatal traits are critical effects and we can still rule they deal damage to targets. Axe weapon critical specializations say nothing about the axe touching another target but you are able to deal damage to a secondary target on a crit. Splash damage, crit or not, can be adjudicated to deal damage to people or potentially objects in the area.

There is no interface between the rune and the weapon once the rune is attached its passive/constant effects "are the weapon's effects" per the rules language example under the Runes rules. A crit effect is a passive effect and the rules use that language so as to separate runes that have activation effects. Any additional separation between the passive/constant effects of a rune and the weapon/weapon damage are imagined with no basis in the actual rules.

It is a common error in logic that I see made in other TTRPG rules forums all the time:

"If I do A then B effect happens, if B effect happens then C effect happens, however because C happened from B then it isn't A doing it so effect D cannot trigger."

But none of that happens without A. Its all a nested/dependent sequence of events that can't be separated from each other. When you do separate them from each other artificially you end up in a never ending race to the bottom to deny basic system interactions. It wasn't really your weapon that dealt the damage but the muscle in your arm so no runes should apply... or was it the electric impulse from your brain to your nerves so your strength bonus should apply, or was... (see what I mean). The system tells us what makes sense instead of us relying on GM gut feel of where to draw arbitrary interfaces/bounds.

So in this case:
1.) I strike with a corrosive razing weapon.
2.) I crit so crit effects of my weapon trigger.
3.) A passive/constant effect of the corrosive rune is indistinguishable from and effect of my weapon per the runes rules.
4.) As a weapon crit effect, my weapon deals acid damage to a secondary target (i.e., the armour or shield of the person I crit weapon).
5.) Since I dealt damage to an object with my razing weapon, I deal razing damage to that object.

As for what to do with a decaying weapon, I think its the same as the corrosive rune. I would say you deal that razing damage every time the persistent damage triggers as a causal chain driven by your passive/constant weapon damage.

It really doesn't break verisimilitude to do any of that. The razing weapon is even better and damaging objects and so when your corrosive acid gets in or your persistent decaying void energy eats away it does so at a faster rate (same as if you just put something in acid OR smashed it to bits and increased the surface area of something before putting it into the acid to increase the reaction rate).

The ability to use the "Cast a Spell" activity for the purposes of activating an item (scroll, spell heart, etc.) comes with the spell casting dedication. This was clarified by a Paizo designer for a few years and was updated in the latest errata:

Page 215: The magic items you can activate with a spellcasting archetype included a limited list, but was not meant to be that narrow. Under Spellcasting Archetypes, change the final sentence of the first paragraph to, “ The spellcasting ability from a spellcasting archetype also allows you to use Cast a Spell activations of items (such as scrolls, staves, and wands).”

Lets slap some rules together:

Razing weapons are particularly good at damaging objects, structures, and vehicles. Whenever you deal damage to an object (including shields and animated objects), structure, or vehicle with a razing weapon, the object takes an amount of additional damage equal to double the number of weapon damage dice.

and

Acid sizzles across the surface of the weapon etched with this rune. When you hit with the weapon, add 1d6 acid damage to the damage dealt. In addition, on a critical hit, the target's armor (if any) takes 3d6 acid damage (before applying Hardness); if the target has a shield raised, the shield takes this damage instead.

and

Property runes add special abilities to armor or a weapon in addition to the item’s fundamental runes. If a suit of armor or a weapon has multiple etchings of the same rune, only the highest-level one applies. You can upgrade a property rune to a higher-level type of that rune in the same way you would upgrade a fundamental rune.

and an example in rules of how runes interact with weapon damage

...Runes must be physically engraved on items through a special process to convey their effects. They take two forms: fundamental runes and property runes. Fundamental runes offer the most basic and essential benefits: a weapon potency rune adds a bonus to a weapon's attack rolls, and the striking rune adds extra weapon damage dice. An armor potency rune increases the armor's item bonus to AC, and the resilient rune grants a bonus to the wearer's saving throws. Property runes, by contrast, grant more varied effects—typically powers that are constant while the armor is worn or that take effect each time the weapon is used, such as a rune that grants energy resistance or one that adds fire damage to a weapon's attacks...

So the game considers that your weapon attack is modified with the damage per the rule text under runes. When you critically hit with a corrosive weapon it adds 3d6 damage to their armor (or shield if raised) which are objects. If this happens on a razing weapon you have now dealt damage with a razing weapon to an object and it adds 2x weapon damage dice in damage bonus to those specific objects (not the target themselves unless they're some kind of animated object). I would rule that this works but with the following caveats:

1.) As the 3D6 is 'on a crit' it is itself not doubled.

2.) With respect to weapon damage dice, for the razing trait, you would, per the rules text only count your weapon damage dice (not including the 3d6 or other rune effects like fatal, deadly, etc.).

3.) Per 1, I wouldn't double the razing damage caused by the weapon if it was triggered by the acid rune crit effect (i.e., incidentally to armor or a raised shield). I would double it if it was a normal rider effect to attacking another razing identified target (e.g., animated object) because you triggered it off the attack action. This is the really only grey area ruling here without explicit rules, but feels like a reasonable adjudication.

4.) If you crit on something like an animated object you would only get that same effect once (i.e., doubled per crit, but not doubled + one more instance triggered by the acid rune as the same effect wouldn't stack). You might get it more than once if your crit is impacting the creature and the corrosive rune's crit effect applies to something else like the armor, but this is super corner case at this point.

At the end of the day I'm really not sure this is anything powerful to worry about because:
- It requires you to crit (if you are not a fighter or gunslinger this isn't going to come up that often)
- On a crit you're much more likely to kill w/e you're hitting so I'd hand waive you destroying their armor/shield to keep combat moving.
- If successful it causes you to destroy your loot.
- It opens the floodgate to the GM destroying your stuff with similar tactics (generally its unspoken TTRPG etiquette that your GM will not try to destroy your PCs magic items more than 1-2 times a campaign and mostly puts rust monster type encounters in to push PCs to play more tactically vs. trying to permanently wreck their stuff).

For those reasons this interaction is pretty unlikely to occur or is more often to be a net negative when it does work.

The only reason I wouldn't allow this to work is simply for ease of GMing. If this is your PCs main gimmick, you are asking your GM to determine every monster's armour's/shield hardness, track a second/third hp pool for their armor/shield, and track a second/third AC metric for each creature in case you break the armor/shield. Most people don't really want that additional overhead prep work to prevent this feature from slowing down the game mid session. I'm not saying this is "right", but I wouldn't be surprised if you found yourself suddenly attacked by naked monsters.

Attack rolls include:
- Melee Attack Rolls
- Ranged Attack Rolls
- Spell Attack Rolls

Anything that can adjust attack rolls as an umbrella term will apply to the three kinds of attack rolls via a parent child relationship. This relationship is not bi directional so something like a fury cocktail will only add bonuses to melee attack rolls (as specified) and won't apply to the broader term Attack rolls.

There is no formal rules specified for what a melee/ranged spell attack roll is other than it likely comes attached to a spell with touch or a range.

If weapon or unarmed are specified then that qualifier means when using weapons or using unarmed strikes. In 98% of cases those preclude spell attack rolls as there are like < 5 spells with spell effects describing the use of a weapon/item (e.g., hand of the apprentice).

So compare a weapon potency rune that applies to all attack rolls with said weapon vs. Fury cocktail (only melee attack rolls) and only examples like the former could apply to spell attack rolls that also include weapon usage.

But bless, courageous anthem, heroism, etc. Typically apply to all attack rolls, including spell attack rolls.

Errata/Clarification -> Its a walk, bear with me.

Can Spell Attack Rolls benefit from weapon potency runes (specifically in the case of the Hand of the Apprentice) focus spell. There is a lot of supporting RAW that says yes, but then there is one ambiguous rule term 'special benefit' in one section that makes it unclear.

Yes RAW text:

Attack Rolls can benefit from item bonuses from potency runes. Attack Roll says:

The bonuses you might apply to attack rolls can come from a variety of sources. Circumstance bonuses can come from the aid of an ally or a beneficial situation. Status bonuses are typically granted by spells and other magical aids. The item bonus to attack rolls comes from magic weapons—notably, a weapon's potency rune.

and Weapon Potency Rune says:

Magical enhancements make this weapon strike true. Magical enhancements make this weapon strike true. Attack rolls with this weapon gain a +1 item bonus, and the weapon can be etched with one property rune., and the weapon can be etched with one property rune.

Spell Attack Rolls are Attack Rolls:

When you use a Strike action or make a spell attack, you attempt a check called an attack roll. Attack rolls take a variety of forms and are often highly variable based on the weapon you are using for the attack, but there are three main types: melee attack rolls, ranged attack rolls, and spell attack rolls. Spell attack rolls work a little bit differently, so they are explained separately on the next page.

The wording 'work a little differently' is all explained by the paragraphs describing how to select the right attribute based on casting stat from different sources of casting.

Spell Attack Rolls can benefit from item bonuses. In addition to them receiving the wording from Attack rolls (parent child relationship), Spell Attack Rolls also include:

Spell attack rolls can benefit from circumstance bonuses and status bonuses, though item bonuses to spell attack rolls are rare

Spell attack rolls being rare means they CAN and DO happen. It is a factual statement that it is rare because there are maybe 2-3 total spells in the game that have ever had it be applicable.

HOWEVER this directly contradictory language for spell attack rolls is under the spells section and one or the other sections needs to be changed to be consistent:

Some spells require you to succeed at a spell attack roll to affect the target. This is usually because they require you to precisely aim a ray or otherwise make an accurate attack. A spell attack roll is compared to the target’s AC. Spell attack rolls benefit from any bonuses or penalties to attack rolls, including your multiple attack penalty, but not any special benefits or penalties that apply only to weapon or unarmed attacks.

Clarification is needed here on what is meant/intended by 'Special Benefit' as every other instance of this verbiage applies to more specific cases/niche rules like class/archetype feats/features, item activation effects (e.g., talismans), spell sustain effects, special rulesets. These special benefit examples include:

- Animal Companion support benefit
- Item and Sizes for using weapons larger than your PC size
- Basic Action Sustain pointing specifically to item activations or spell effect sustains.
- Wizard Thesis benefits
- Alchemist Research Field benefits
- Oracle Curse Benefits
- Oracle Mystery Benefits
- Reputation Rules for reputation point benefits
- Psychic amp 'sepecial benefits
- Cathartic Mage emotion effects on your spells
- Pre-remaster talismans activation effects
- Cooking Special Meals

Beyond that the fact that you can benefit from all bonuses but not special benefits would be self contradictory as weapon runes (per above) are clearly part of the 'general ruleset' being explicitly called out in the attack roll section as the way to get item bonuses (which is downloaded to spell attack rolls via the child parent relationship).

Further if the intent was to prevent fundamental runes specifically then that wording also doesn't work because the +1 CAN be applied to maneuvers (which are not just the weapon) for shove, trip, grapple, etc. so you would just need to have a weapon with a maneuver trait to bypass it.

I'm just sick of having this RAW discussion and would like to never have to think about it again. Please tell us if this damn spell will get a weapon potency rune on the item via clarification or errata on the Spell Attack text that uses the special benefit text.

You could take ki strike or ki rush since they weren't technically overwritten by remaster. But a better way, if you qualify, is to take student of perfection and then jalmeri heavenseeker, which gets you both by L4.

Red Griffyn wrote:

What is a mirror defined as in game?

- Mirror implement has a few qualifiers but there is not "M"irror definition in the game.

Its described as hand held. A shield is not held in the hand, it is strapped onto a part of the body (the arm). Sure it has a handle that you use to make it function, but the same thing is true of a parachute: strapped to you, uses a handle to make it function. Is a parachute hand held because you must grasp a handle to make it work?

That isn't true as per the base shield rules:

Shield: A shield can increase your character's defense beyond the protection their armor provides. Your character must be wielding a shield in one hand to make use of it, and it grants its bonus to AC only if they use an action to Raise a Shield. This action grants the shield's bonus to AC as a circumstance bonus until their next turn starts. A shield's Speed penalty applies whenever your character is holding the shield, whether they have raised it or not.

Raise a Shield is the action most commonly used with shields. All shields, unless specifically noted or described otherwise, must be strapped to your arm and held in one hand, so you can't hold anything with that hand and Raise a Shield, and you lose the shield's benefits if that hand is no longer free. A buckler, however, doesn't take up your hand, so you can Raise a Shield with a buckler if the hand is free (or, at the GM's discretion, if it's holding a simple, lightweight object that's not a weapon).

Additionally we can look at the 'wielding item rules':

Some abilities require you to wield an item, typically a weapon. You’re wielding an item any time you’re holding it in the number of hands needed to use it effectively. When wielding an item, you’re not just carrying it around—you’re ready to use it. Other abilities might require you to be wearing the item, to be holding it, or simply to have it.

So per the shield rules to make use of a shield we must be wielding it. To wield it we must be holding in our hand per the first shield rule paragraph. It only if we want to use the Raise a Shield action that we must also have it strapped to us. Therefore just holding the shield in one hand allows shields to qualify as being wielded, albeit a shield that you can't raise for an AC bonus. This is an important distinction because you could use the shield as a weapon for other actions when unstrapped (e.g., throwing shield/integrated shield/shield bash strikes or activation uses of magic shields, or some feats that give abilities to wielded shields).

The question as to whether strapping it to your arm suddenly makes a 'handheld item' no longer hand held is a novel argument. So lets explore that thought. There are a few items in the system that connect a hand held item to something else and offer some form of precedent:

- Weapon Harness: Lets you attach a weapon to yourself and doesn't change anything about the weapon's hand held nature.

- Harnessed Shield: lets you attach/lock in a lance/joust weapon into the shield to use as a two handed shield/weapon combo. It does change handedness in some instances because you have to move the whole shield + long reach lance object as one, but it explicitly says it changes the number of hands.

- Gunner's Saddle: Lets you attach a gun into your saddle as a mount and still fire it. While stabalized this way that means you must still be weilding it in the appropriate number of hands (despite its attachment to the harness) otherwise the item is immediately broken as you could never wield a weapon to fire it.

In all of these cases having your hand held item attached to another thing doesn't change its distinction of being 'hand held'.

So lets see what the rules say about being 'hand held'. I couldn't find a specific instance of that but the game does have relevant rules to your point about carrying items:

A character carries items in three ways: held, worn, and stowed. Held items are in your hands; a character typically has two hands, allowing them to hold an item in each hand or a single two-handed item using both hands. Worn items are tucked into pockets, belt pouches, bandoliers, weapon sheaths, and so forth, and they can be retrieved and returned relatively quickly

So there is a specific distinction in the rules about what I believe you're claiming (i.e., when it is strapped it is no longer 'held' but would be 'worn'). However, per the definition of worn items, the act of strapping a shield to your arm does not push it from the 'held' category to a 'worn category', which is clearly a category meant for easily accessible stowed items you can use in combat vs. stuffing it to the bottom of your backpack and having to spend 2 minutes looking for the flint to start a fire.

We can also look externally for some common language definitions of the word hand-held:

Oxford Dictionary: designed to be held in the hand. (when used as an adjective).

Another important distinction comes up here in understanding the difference between being 'designed' to be hand held vs. being 'held in the hand' (adjective vs. verb). This should make intuitive sense because if I designed something to be hand held, adding another means of attachment doesn't prevent it from being designed to be hand held, especially when the attachment method doesn't prevent its use (i.e., it gets moved to worn or stowed categories per the game definitions). In the case of the shield, the straps only increase its use cases and still allows you to use it for all the other functions (so long as you continue to hold it -> i.e., it is held in the hand during use).

In the definition of the mirror implement hand held is used as an adjective. This is further reinforced by the statement:

While larger mirrors hold the same mystic connotations, thaumaturges always choose small, portable, handheld mirrors as implements so they can use them easily while adventuring

Which implies that you can use a larger mirror (within the zeitgeist of why a mirror would provide this power), its just impractical for adventurer's purposes. So a PC won't do this, but an obnoxious NPC in his lair might do this.

We can even cite the shield implement for what they consider a reasonable sized shield to inform us what a reasonable size is:

You can choose only shields with a Bulk of 1 or less as an implement, which allows you to position your shield while managing your esoterica

So even for the shield implement, it thinks anything of 1 bulk or less (which is most shields except the big tower shield/fortress shields) can qualify as 'reasonable size/weight' to allow for the fluid use of esoterica.

So, in summary, shields are hand held items by all rules text and logic in the game. They are designed to be hand held and they are required to be hand held to be used (with the exception of the buckler that can just be strapped for the specific Raise a Shield action). The straps don't push it to being a non-hand held item and only enable additional use cases.

Red Griffyn wrote:

Is this balanced?

- YES! Further evidenced by the NOW existence of a shield implement proving it was never the intent for 'shields' to somehow be excluded from being implements.

That's twisted logic. The most obvious explanation for the shield implement is that the player base wanted a shield-wielding Thaumaturge and couldn't get one before due to hand use limitations, so Paizo added that option.

When I say 'balanced' I mean are we changing the ultimate game meta. Normally you'd be talking about damage or specific options (e.g., amped imaginary weapon on a magus pushes the meta, but the focus spell itself does not push the meta). In the case of the shield we have to look at what having a shield enables and what the opportunity cost is.

So in general terms every class has access to the mechanics of a shield to raise it (including the shield cantrip which requires no hands). Literally every class has the ability, so there is nothing inherently powerful about letting a thaumaturge raise a shield. So what do they gain? They're conceivably able to hold two implements while also having the ability to raise a shield. But we can already do that through selection of more passive implements (e.g., tome), selection of more flexible implements (e.g., regalia), or through the use of the wide variety of integrated options on a shield where you could make it a weapon implement, or as I mentioned through the now existent 'shield implement'. So IMO there is no push in the meta power scaling by allowing 'mirror' to be a shield and all you end up doing by arguing against that point is reduce build diversity within the community.

As to why Paizo did a thing. Its always generally pointless to speculate. However, my guess wouldn't be that 'players wanted a shield'. They wanted 'a shield that I can effectively use'. Hence why the shield implement gives you the shield block general feat, has action compression built into that lets your raise it as a free action whenever you exploit vulnerabilities, makes it effectively indestructible, and explicitly lets you use it when broken (removing the huge weakness of what if my implement breaks from an item type that is meant to take damage). A mirror implement shield is not a good shield within the 'meta' of shields as it would require you to take the shield block feat, require additional actions on a highly action constrained class to raise, require the shield rune feats to compensate for a worse material selection, and threatens the function of your implement when it gets the broken condition.

I would have no problem with Harles asking their GM for that or their GM doing it, I just see that as homebrew, not RAW...

The bottom line for me is that I don't think the devs intended mirror shields, and for me both your syntax and physics arguments fall flat because I try to read for their intent...

That is exactly the problem. All the YMMV for thaumaturges comes from this people ignoring the rules (RAW!) and making up their own personal RAI and declaring it is RAW. That is 'the homebrew'. The rules exist so we can all have an explicitly enabled shared delusion together. They don't exist to confirmation bias your opinions on how it should have been designed or what you think the designer's intent was.

We have lots of people in the community who have GM'd for years and are comfortable making in session on the fly statements to keep things moving. IMO that kind of activity biases people to doing the same in these kinds of discussions online about rules. However, you're supposed to then go read the rules to ensure future rulings are consistent and RAW. That is the thing people online do not do. They don't cite rules, they just cite their own opinion on RAI as "RAW" and don't seem to have the self awareness that they are doing that.

The fact that people deride the attempt to structure arguments and cite rules is insane. For me, any attempt to state what is RAW with no reference to actual rules text is a big red flag for 'this is just my opinion/homebrew'.

Northern Spotted Owl wrote:

There are a bunch of two-in-one implements that are logically consistent. Any implement could also be regalia. You could have a tome with mirrored cover. A spiked shield could be both a shield and a weapon.

But those are all too-clever bits of rules lawyering that only a particularly accommodating DM would accept. The Thaumaturge is designed to require holding one implement in each hand.

In the topic at hand, I’d suggest a champion archetype for a Thaumaturge in a front-liner role. The combination of of lay-on-hands and shield reaction are great additions. Plus, you get access to heavy armor.

Agree with everything you just said.

While there are implements or ways an item could fit into two implement categories, the class is not intended to actually function that way and as a GM I absolutely rule that each item can only function as one implement.

As to whether a shield could be a mirror implement, there was an argument for it prior to shield being its own implement category. Now since the release of that, I again as a GM wouldn't allow it to be anything else.

Anyways, I agree with the idea that if you want to be a frontliner taking the champion dedication for heavy armor, lay on hands, and some shield reaction feats could be helpful. But the actions spent on using the shield will harm you ability to output damage. The main thing you'd want to grab from champion (IMO) is quick shield block, but it's going to be high level to grab. You might actually be better off with going Bastion archetype if you want shield related stuff, to get earlier access to quick shield block.

No one is advocating that they have a 2 in 1 implement. I'm stating that some implements can be multiple types of objects. A shield could be a mirror, could be a weapon with shield spikes, could be a shield for blocking I'm not saying it can be multiple implements in one item to free up a hand, but that they CAN have a shield that is a mirror implement OR a shield that is also a weapon implement or a shield that is also a regalia implement.

Implements have a list of permissive/exclusive requirements. Any object that qualifies should be allowed. Just because there is a shield implement doesn't mean ALL shields have to be shield implements. The current design specifically gives you the ability to select higher level magic items that are necessarily dual purpose (not dual implement purpose) so you can keep upgrading/improving your implements (otherwise you couldn't possibly have magic items that are both category x and implement category y). They also clearly made very flexible form factor implements like Regalia that can be almost anything. If anything the designers have clearly pointed out that the intention is for flexibility, NOT, hyper restrictive siloed implement functional form factors. The point of view that implement definitions are highly restrictive is a perversion of the class design that is so careful about allowing all kinds of weird esoteric objects to be implements.

Before there was a shield implement the argument I saw from others was ... shield can't possibly be an option for any implement because there is no shield implement and so thaumaturges were never allowed to have shields at all because: 1.) they can't be an implement and 2.) it would drop implement empowerment as having another 1H weapon via shield bash. Now that there is a shield implement the goal posts are shifting to say it must be that and only that. The community can't have it both ways.

Again, take this discussion to the other thread linked in a previous post of mine please.

"You can polish a shield so it functions as a perfect mirror that somehow never gets impacted by being used as a shield in combat". And you say other people are inventing things that don't exist?

You're doing some classic rules lawyering to create an interaction that doesn't work and clearly isn't intended to. It absolutely doesn't work. We've already been through this ad nauseum.

'Classic Rules Lawyering' lol. Its called structuring an argument. You just state things with now reference to RAW and proclaim your interpretation to be correct. Incredulity Fallacies are not 'evidence'.

What is a mirror defined as in game?
- Mirror implement has a few qualifiers but there is not "M"irror definition in the game.

What is a mirror defined as out of game?
- One of many applicable ones include: a reflecting surface, originally of polished metal

What is that metal in historical reference?
- Typically silver, bronze, and copper alloys

Does that metal exist in the System:
- Yes, silver and by extension dawnsilver

Does the game acknowledge that historical fact:
- Yes, it has a number of mirror/reflection themed objects made of silver and dawnsilver.

What is a mirror implement?
- Small, portable, handheld mirrors as implements so they can use them easily while adventuring

Can one of those objects qualify as a mirror?
- Yes, they even use mirrorlike in their descriptions

Is the mirror function intrinsic to the magic of the item or material
- Material

Can we make a non-magic version
- Yes because a polished silver shield literally is equivalent in every way to a small handheld, portable, mirror which would be made of ... POLISHED SILVER.

Is this balanced?
- YES! Further evidenced by the NOW existence of a shield implement proving it was never the intent for 'shields' to somehow be excluded from being implements.

Is this fun?
- Yes the player gets to keep their main character concept focal point of a mirror and can build their layout differently to hopefully enjoy playing the game despite community member RAI homebrew deviations.

Stop derailing the thread and go take it to the other thread where lots of discussion has happened already.

What objects in the game qualifies for those definitions?
Is there precedent in the system for those objects?

Well, since this discussion was dragged into another thread, I'll go ahead and say my two coppers.

There's an actual shield implement now. Regardless of "it doesn't say you can't" RAW, a good number of GMs are going to point you to use that instead...

Fundamentally every option you take is 'ask a GM' as they can ban anything at their table regardless of balance, RAW, RAI, rarity, etc. Its also my general recommendation to GMs to review everyone's character build and explicitly ask what their 'gimmicks are'. I go over every remotely weird rule interaction/gimmick with my GMs as a player and with my players as a GM and get everything green lit, even if they won't see if for 4-8 levels).

My preferred position to use when discussing things in the community is:

- Is it RAW -> Assume it works. GM may have a small list of 'banned things to consider that they will explicitly mention (e.g., exemplar dedication, amped imaginary weapon starlight span magi, etc.).

- Is it RAI -> Ask your GM, YMMV, but most GMs will allow it.

- Is it not RAW/RAI, but doesn't push meta -> Ask your GM, YMMV, but some GMs will allow it.

- It is not RAW/RAI, pushes meta -> Assume it doesn't work. Select permissive GMs or high fantasy tables might allow it to work, so only ask if that describes your GM/table.

I always put 'caveats' of YMMV on the latter options, but never on RAW. I think it is totally fair to assume RAW works (sans the explicit list your GM may identify). There are GMs that will ban RAW on the subjective basis of 'they don't like it' because it doesn't mesh with their 'right' or 'wrong' preconceived notions of the rules. But this isn't an investor prospectus meeting where I need to include endless 'Safe Harbour Statements/Forward looking statement disclaimers" in case your GM likes to homebrew RAW. You just deal with that for your individual case and its part of good table etiquette to ensure everyone at the table has fun. Until I see every post say "Disclaimer: Ask your GM", I think I'll save the word count.

Its also a poor framing on your part to say my position is only "it doesn't say you can't RAW". The definitions for implements provide definitions of what the implement can be using both restrictive and permissive language. Some are very restrictive, some are not. That is all there is too it. The framing should be that many community members overly restrict implements to hyper narrow definitions by creating new hombrew rules and THAT is why you should ask your GM for permission in case they also homebrew. Otherwise you're smuggling in a lot of bias/shifting the burden from the real culprits for 'YMMV' results.

In my specific post in the other thread I cited RAW, specific magic items (also available higher up in this thread), historical precedents that most mirrors in a relevant time period were polished silver, pointed to how you could polish a silver shield to work that way as a L2 non-magic item (since the polishing of a shield is not in any way magical), pointed derailers to bring their discussion here, and other posts about alternate options in class/out of class. That IS a good advice post/posts IMO. If people are going to needlessly tell a new player about their homebrew restrictions on the class they already aren't happy with they'll push them further away from a solution that works or potentially away from the system.

Others keep stating their homebrew RAI interpretation of implements restrictions with gusto and confidence and 0 evidence/arguments. At least you're willing to recognize that you have your own personal interpretation, which is one step better than other community members.

Red Griffyn wrote:

It works perfectly well when your shield is the mirror implement.

No it doesn't, especially not now that there is an actual shield implement. Don't confuse them by starting this up again.

Yes it does. Implements have specific language that define what they can be or not. They DO NOT have language that says "and... because another implement can also be a shield you cannot pick a shield".

You're inventing a rule out of thin air.

Don't confuse the community by pretending there is RAW that doesn't exist.

So - on top of everything else - I shouldn't have been getting implement's empowerment anyway?

This is just the worst.

Honestly, we're almost done with this adventure, midway in the AP. I think I'll just retire the character at the end of this adventure and create something else.

Implements empowerment works in the following situations:

1.) An implement (any that could be a weapon)
2.) 1x1H weapon + an implement (non-weapon)
3.) 1x1H weapon + an implement (any that could be a weapon)
4.) 2 Implements (any that could be a weapon or not)

You just can't hold more than 1x1H non-implement weapon.

So mirror shield + any 1H weapon is fine. If you were using a shield, weapon, and 'mirror implement' you would have been 'outside of RAW' or should have been spending actions to swap hands. Just make it a silver mirror polished shield and move on with life.

Using a shield (without it being the shield implement) is a costly descision as it reduces your damage quite a lot - implements empowerment does not allow a shield in the other hand.

Likewise using thaumaturge archetype on a class like champion, which usually has either 1h+shield or 2h weapon, does not work - you have to handle your implement (need a hand).

It works perfectly well when your shield is the mirror implement.

The requirements for a mirror implement are:

Mirror implements represent misdirection, illusion, and sleight of hand, bending and shifting a perspective and the way you look at things. While larger mirrors hold the same mystic connotations, thaumaturges always choose small, portable, handheld mirrors as implements so they can use them easily while adventuring. Mirror implements are associated with the harrow suit of keys, and the astrological signs of the stranger and the swallow.

So we have 3 properties to qualify:

- Small -> this is a relative word whose size should be framed by the 'can use them easily while adventuring'. A shield qualifies. A Large mirror, for me, would be like a massive hallway mirror/bedroom mirror and the guidance for 'small' is just to avoid picking something immobile like an entire hallway mirrored wall to set-up a trap.

- Portable -> a shield is portable.

- Handheld -> A shield is handheld (strapped and handheld to be specific) AND this is not a "H"eld Item rule reference so it doesn't have to be specifically in the "H"eld magic item category to count.

Therefore a shield CAN qualify as a mirror so long as it can preform the function of a mirror.

Turns out they can as evidenced in the system which explicitly has 3 mirror shields all made out of silver and or mithral and at least 16-17 other instances of mirror items across a variety of item categories. Here are the shield ones:

- Turnabout Shield has a mirror like finish and is level appropriate and you can throw a shield rune onto it if you want to block with it.

- Reflecting Shield

- Evil-Reflecting shield

(FYI Mithral/Dawnsilver in the system is described as a slightly different hue of silver).

Historically mirrors in REAL LIFE were just polished pieces of silver and the game clearly acknowledges that across armor, weapons, shields, and items.

If this all sounds familiar to you, its because we had a lengthy debate about it HERE. I don't think anyone made any logically consistent and sound arguments against my position that were not thoroughly rebutted. I'd suggest you go re-open that debate there instead of derailing this thread if you have an interest in further debating the topic.

Since the shield can be an implement it qualifies as holding an 'other' implement for the purposes of Implement Empowerment and there is no conflict. This is also true for multiclasses into thaumaturge since you can have your favourite choices of 1D8 1H weapon to pick from.

TLDR: Harles you can have a L2 silver shield that is polished to a mirror like finish (or use the turnabout shield if your GM requires an explicit item to enable it vs. polishing your own). As your mirror implement, your shield will not reduce your implement empowerment damage or do any other things suggested by others in this thread to your DPR output or introduce additional hand issues (beyond you having to hold it).

So it sounds like the mirror implement is sort of a fixed concept in your build. One alternative option to consider is you can pick up the mirror implement via a Thaumaturge MC at L6 and skip the entire thaumaturge chassis if there is another classes play pattern that you would like more?

You could be a rogue, monk, champion, fighter, etc. that would benefit from a 15ft teleport, have more action compression for your shield, have more generically applicable reactions, improved AC scaling, etc. It won't necessarily be a better skill monkey though.

Otherwise I think a thaumaturge MC champion can actually be relatively good for you. The champion archetype provides scaling heavy armor, focus point options for domain spells/lay on hands, champion reactions (e.g., obedience to punish people that hit you as the front liner if you need a more selfish champion reaction), and a free rune (great with a switch hitter thrown weapon so you have a ranged option to avoid having to move), and a L1/L2 feat that gives a stride + raise shield + strike action compression. I would ditch the weapon implement and switch to regalia (which can be a weapon) and gives a lot of passive bonuses to skills and damage as well. If you can get scaling proficiency/access to the Tamchal Chakram it is a great switch hit finesse thrown weapon (With deadly d6 and agile as well).

The commander L10 feat, targeting strike, has prerequisites listed as "Prerequisites Guiding Shot; Set-up Strike". As compared to the L12 feat fortunate blow that has "Prerequisites Guiding Shot, or Set-up Strike".

I assume the L10 feat prerequisite is an error since people are unlikely to pickup both guiding shot and set-up strike (likely one or the other based on if you are primarily ranged or melee). That would lead into the L12 feat more easily as well.

Can you give a little more context:

1.) What feats have you taken?

2.) Are you willing to rebuild the entire thing? What build rules are you following?

3.) What ancestry do you have?

4.) What would be an exciting play-style for you? Do you like doing lots of damage, do you like support via buff/debuff, do you like ranged vs. melee, etc.

5.) What is your party composition?

We can suggest some better ideas after you answer those questions. However, some general thoughts:

Thaumaturges are a fairly action constrained class and have a reduced attack bonus for half their levels in exchange for great CHA based skills/Recall Knowledge and really big static damage numbers. It sounds like you've picked some implements that exasperate that (e.g., mirror requiring actions to use or weapons that don't really do that much since the reaction is limited to the target of your exploit vulnerabilities) and a playstyle that makes it worse (e.g., raising shield).

Seeking action compression via attack style (e.g., ranged vs. melee), feats (e.g., spirit warrior giving a pseudo flurry of blows or a mature animal companion from beastmaster/cavalier giving a free move), passive implements that don't push you towards burning actions (e.g., regalia/tome), or seeking other '1 action/third actions' other than raise shield that you find more satisfying (e.g., intimidation to demoralize enemies, which everyone can benefit from).

In class you should also pick up sympathetic vulnerabilities at L6 to reduce the number of times you need to exploit vulnerability.

Consider an example playstyle change:

- Take Cavalier at L2, Animal Upgrades at L4/L8, Sympathetic Vulnerabilities at L6. Now you effectively have a free move once per round while mounted (essentially what you would have spent 1 action on the mirror implement to do), one-two actions to strike, and 1 free action for a demoralize. If it is a FA game you could also add in Spirit Warrior since cavalier has skill feats so you could exit by L4, and pick up the spirit warrior dedication/L6 feat Cutting Heaven, Crushing Earth with a ancestry with a ranged unarmed strike to be a switch hitter. That build would get a free stride via the companion, a 1 action 2xstrike action compression, and still have 2 actions left over to do w/e (cast a spell, bon mot + demoralize, etc.). Swap mirror to something else like tome that you don't really care about having in hand and is more passive.

Ultimately, you also have to keep in mind that a good chunk of the classes power budget is put into being a skill monkey/Face type CHA based martial. So they aren't supposed to be some kind of combat powerhouse because they can be really good out of combat. They are more just a solid/reliable contributor.

My least favourite anathema was the animal instinct barbarian anathema:

"Flagrantly disrespecting an animal of your chosen kind is anathema to your instinct, as is using weapons while raging.

In remaster, what they did was just make it part a 'feature' of the instinct. No real reason here and it greatly limits you from having a ranged back-up weapon if you can't close the distance for w/e reason (e.g., too far, flying, etc.).

I decided to make a guide for the Crossbow Infiltrator Archetype.

Link:

- The Silent Quarrel: Red Griffyn's PF2e Crossbow Infiltrator Guide

There is also a rollout in the following places:

Reddit

Paizo Forums

I wrote up an extensive guide for the new Crossbow Infiltrator archetype published in Battlecry! in 2025. The guide is located here:

- The Silent Quarrel: Red Griffyn's PF2e Crossbow Infiltrator Guide

The guide includes the following sections:
1.) Rating Key
2.) Crossbow Infiltrator Role
3.) Analysis Philosophy / Basis
4.) Archetype Problems to Solve
5.) Play Styles
6.) Reload Styles
7.) Ability Scores
8.) Backgrounds
9.) Ancestries
10.) Crossbow Infiltrator Archetype
11.) Class Chassis
12.) Other Archetypes
13.) DPR Results and Analysis
14.) Familiar Options
15.) Equipment / Items
16.) Spells 
17.) Sample Builds

I got really entranced by this archetype because it rehabilitates a really bad weapon (crescent cross) but does so in a way that doesn't break the game. There was a few posts regarding the archetype, but little analysis or assessment of how to build or play one. I also wanted to show that 3x0 MAP strikes with a really bad weapon is not immediately broken and have provided an entire DPR analysis section that looks at evaluating the archetype within the context of its 2 turn rotation.

I would appreciate any feedback that people have so I can incorporate it and improve the overall quality of the guide.

Thank you to everyone who has the time to read this and thank you to everyone that writes guides. This was a extremely intensive process and it makes me value other guide writers even more than I already was!

Yeah its completely superfluous in 100% of cases. Even in the cases where you would trigger a reaction or suffer some kind of damage if you move you could just choose to 'step' as part of running reload or just not use running reload and stand in place.

I think the only purpose of this feat is to give access to the repeating crossbow/bandolier if your GM is abusing the rarity/access system.

Please let the thaumaturge wand implement use exploit weakness/IE or tune down to 1 action or 'Something!' to boost its early level implementation. The class is to action heavy for a 2 action activity as more than a back up rotation item.

Please let thaumaturges just 'work' with 1H+ weapons without having to jump through 1000 hoops.

Please let thaumaturges free action exploit weakness like a barbarian can rage.

Please boost the power of the mind smith (its weapons are very under-tuned).

Please do something for the psychic (extend the length of unleash psyche, ditch the stupefied, bump them to 3 slots per level, or give them a secondary 'focus pool' like cursebound traits on the oracle.

Apologies if it was stated above, but the marshal archetype stance feats are easy dcs now in remaster. So as long as you bump diplomay or intimidation at L7 and L15 you can auto succeed entering your stance regardless of your CHA.

My idea requires your GM to give you a few things to help it get off the ground earlier on:

- Free-archetype
- GM allows you to swap your 1st level focus spell for Hand of the Apprentice (build it centered on this)
- GM waves class archetype exit requirements so you can get focus spells up to 3 faster (so your build just works earlier, not because you won't stick with your many archetypes).

Now we're good to go.

Goblin Duskwalker adopted by Dwarves:
- Burn-it feat for a +1 to +5 status bonus damage when hitting with your flaming rune HoTa
- Quietus Strikes to boost damage by +1/+2 damage at L9/L16
- Telluric Strikes to boost it by +1 to +4 circumstance damage at L13+

Archetypes:
- War Mage: Grab the bespell weapon boosting L4/L10 feats, the intimidating metamagic, and shield drain bond feats. The L4 bespell boost isn't really necessary until L10 since 1d6->1d8 is 1 DPR, but 1d6 to 2d8 is pretty good.
- Psychic: first to get 3 focus points by L6 (doesn't really matter which ones, but guidance/glimpse weakness from infinite eye have out of combat/3rd action viability. Grab the spell slots when they suit you, but eventually you can get heroism from the occult spell list.
- Alchemist to get scaling energy mutagens in a spider shifting collar AND to help you craft low level alchemical bombs for a weapon siphon (1 L1 bomb per combat).
- If you still have things to burn feats on then cleric for emblazon energy at L16

Wizard:
- Mostly feed the feats into archetypes
- Grab bespell weapon at L4
- Maybe grab convincing illusion when you can afford it as well and go all in on INT/CHA for a face wizard?

Playstyle:
Now you have 3x1 action mega hand of the apprentice strikes, metamagic to turn anything into 'fear lite' spell, convincing illusion (with a familiar to auto aide) on a face wizard.

Sure you don't have as many 'high level slots' but I think it would be quite effective since you can easily weaponize illusory object with convincing illusion for all day control and have a great 1A focus spell.

All of the 'melee only weapon strike boosting feats/options' do work for HoTA based on how it is worded so you're getting:
- Energy Mutagen (1d4 to 2d6)
- Weapon Siphon (1d4)
- Burn-it (+1 to +5 Status)
- Telluric Power (+1-+4 circumstance)
- Spellheart (1d6 to 1d8) OR Bespell Strikes (1d6 to 2d8)
- INT Mod (+4 to +7)
- Weapon Spec (+2)
- Emblazon Energy (+1d4-1d6)
- Striking (1d12-4d12)

Also HotA is one of the few spells you can get an item bonus to attack. Yes I know some may try to litigate this in replies but feel free to make a separate thread for that derailment. I'll just say:
- Weapon Potency runes add +X to 'Attack Rolls'
- Spell Attack Rolls ARE Attack Rolls
- Spell attack rolls can benefit from circumstance bonuses and status bonuses, though item bonuses to spell attack rolls are rare -> implying they CAN benefit from item bonuses

OTHERWISE:
I think a illusory object/convincing illusion + intimidating fireball is a great way to lock down enemies. I think the use of weapons on it is still a bit 'questionable' unless you plan to use ranged weapons (e.g., repeating crossbow) as a 3rd action option.

The Solarian weapon potency crystal is using PF2e language instead of being consistent with SF2e language (e.g., tracking).

This sets up a situation where it won't interface correctly with current or future items. For example, the duo-enhancers don't work (per RAW) for two solar manifestations as grade gets replicated (so effective striking rune) but not the weapon potency crystals (i.e., +1/2/3 to hit) since they don't use the SF2e language of tracking +1/2/3.This makes it cost prohibitive in a non-ABP game to keep your solar manifestation weapons remotely relevant as the price for the upgrades are not less to compensate for the base assumption of 'one rune set' in the standard WBL curve.

Suggested: Update the solarian solar manifestation language to use grade/tracking language to be self consistent within the system. This will allow duo-enhancers to work and many other potential future items to interface properly without this being a routine issue (similar to how kineticist doesn't interact with most of the PF2e framework).

My rule of thumb when accusations like these start flying around unprompted on these forums is to find out where the person making the accusation is committing the same fault they're trying to pin on someone else...

Having two strong turns single-handedly guaranteed by a feat is already way above the expectations for most feats, and two turns will often be half an encounter or more...

So, to be clear: I'm not discounting the fact that the ranged portion of the crescent cross becomes less effective once you've emptied it of its shots, I'm simply pointing out that by the time you've run out of shots, the feat has already worked significantly above the curve. Because encounters tend to last 3 to 4 rounds, having two rounds' worth of very strong turns, i.e. half the encounter or more, is more than what one feat can normally provide on its own...

False premise #1 -> Encounters tend to last 3 to 4 rounds. This is not an a priori fact like many people in the community try to treat it. The value will be based on combat severity, environmental effects, party composition, player preparedness, player skill level/execution, and to a certain degree luck based.

So lets propose a basis so that we don't keep talking past each other.

Basis #1: Parties are at full health and have renewable resources maximized before an encounter.

Basis #2: Due to Basis #1 an encounter of < medium threat is irrelevant to a discussion. Trivial and low severity encounters are not a significant challenge, drain on non-renewable resources, or otherwise pose a threat to party member lives. PCs are anticipated to win them so moving the 'meta' on trivial and low severity threats is irrelevant to the balance/meta of the game. I would say the bar for a low optimization table would be impact on a moderate+ severity encounter or severe+ severity encounter for a high optimization table.

Basis #3: Assuming a 4 person party, a PC that is taking a 'striker' only type role (ranged or melee) will be responsible for at least 37.5% to 50% of the fielded creature's HP pool to compensate for any PCs that might fill utility, buff, debuff, or healing roles in combat. This equates roughly to everyone having to do 25% of the fielded HP total but accounts for party variations.

Basis #4: Severe level encounters have an environmental effect that requires at least 3 actions to deal with across the entire combat (e.g., difficult terrain, draw/sheathing to climb/swim, extra strides to avoid issues, etc.).

Basis #5: PCs must spend a minimum of 1 stride to get into position at the start of combat.

Basis #6: PCs will need to switch targets (once per enemy) and suffer the action taxes that come along with with that.

Basis #7: PCs that require a specific status will need to pay the associated action tax to set-up the status (e.g., flatfooted) per combat, per enemy, or per round as necessary.

Basis #8: An PL = CR monster will have the high end of moderate hitpoints.

So put that all together and see what it manifests. For a 4 person party a moderate encounter is 2x PL=CR monsters and for a severe encounter is 3x PL=CR monsters. A striker only PC like this needs to be achieving 37.5%-50% of the monster HP pool. So the test of how long an encounter will be is how long it take to achieve this in rounds.

The bog standard fighter with a 1D12 weapon is doing the baseline 37.5% damage every full round to one enemy of equivalent HP.

In a moderate encounter that would include 1 action to move in, 1 action to move to the new enemy, 6 actions worth of attacking. So lets call that a 3 round combat with a good party composition. If they have to do 50% of the HP damage then that likely requires 3 more actions worth of attacking or a 4 round combat. So we've validated that a 3-4 round combat is reasonable for moderate severity encounters.

In a severe encounter it would include 1 action to move in, 2 actions to move to new enemies, 9 actions worth of attacking, 3 actions for environmental effect mitigation. So that is now 5 rounds. If you have to do 50% of the damage like before, it is likely another 4-5 actions so your combat has jumped from 5-7 rounds.

So in general 3-4 rounds is a LOW estimate for average encounter length if your striker is a 1D12 2H Fighter, whereas it may be significantly higher (5-7 rounds). IMO, I find most medium encounters to also be pretty easy, despite the 'subtext' in the encounter building GM rules, so I usually consider a good baseline scenario to be 3 CR = PL Monsters with one monster dying every 2 rounds (6 rounds total) as a good 'first check'. Then you take the results and see if you would have killed the monsters faster based on the share of HP% and work back effectiveness against that baseline.

IMO if your combats are only taking 3-4 rounds all the time then you're running a campaign that has a relatively low difficulty or low complexity assumptions built into your encounters. If your GM and players like that, great, but the meta of the game shouldn't be tuned around that campaign style. At that point winning it in 3 or 4 rounds isn't a big issue because your expected to beat every encounter and feel like high fantasy heroes.

I think we know the real reason for you not sharing your calculations, which is that sharing them would disprove your point.

Weird dispersion to throw when you aren't providing any basis for your claims. If you want to know the reason(s) here they are:

- #1: the community calculator doesn't export to imgur anymore so I have to export to excel (great function) and plot it to share myself. That second step is a pain in the ass and makes it just the extra bit more time consuming to share results versus sharing in the past.

- #2: I'm a little busy. Lots of family events/holidays and an unfortunate funeral to attend. Also, I like looking at the most interesting things first with my limited free time. Go over to the Team+ discord and you can see a full excel sheet update evaluating a 0 MAP strike for their new Magic+ battleform spells.

- #3: Since a 1 round DPR value is of no value in assessing this feat, that means I have to do multi-round DPR calcs which take far longer and are much more intensive. You can't readily do it in the community calculator and have to start computing R1, R2, etc. turn sequences which deviate based on class/build (which is what I've spent most of my time trying to figure out). If you want to do the 6 round combat simulation its even worse. There are so many virtual action taxes in making this feat work across a whole combat that it really isn't a simple feat to graph all the relevant information.

Anyways, if you check my history I often include links to imgur/excel to substantiate my claims. I'm actually fairly consistent in this matter across these forums and reddit. I have a sense that your projecting a little bit here since you haven't actually provided any evidence of your own? Your random one off claim of damage at a specific level is not sufficient 'evidence'. Give me assumptions, in the build, the combat, multi-round combat, enemy saves or AC, L1-L20 projections, etc. I don't think you understand how useless a statement like "33 DPR form L5 rogue vs. 22 DPR from horizon sphere" is. Show me you understand any of the virtual action taxes inherent in the feat's use during combat?

The issue that's becoming very obvious here is that you're looking at the two halves of this weapon in isolation while conspicuously refusing to acknowledge how they're both the same weapon.

They aren't the same weapon. They don't use the same stat, they require interact actions to swap modes, 1D6 ranged with NO damage modifiers is NOT good despite your insistence, and you at least finally stated that a 1D4 non-finesse melee side is not strong. A combination weapon is saving you money. The fact that it requires STR in melee makes it a non-starter/irrelevant option because you're going to end up -1/-2 on attack bonus which is easily a 15-25% DPR drop (on the very weak 1D4 weapon). Again, the point is the DPR goes down so much that its worse than just reloading this thing and firing again, hence the quickness I have in dismissing it. The parry trait is also irrelevant? This PC isn't going to waste an action to parry. They are a striker. I'm not going to lose sleep over calling a bad weapon a 'bad weapon'.

Red Griffyn wrote:

Its just a lot of qualitative hand waiving to say 3x0MAP strikes is insanely OP without understanding how it actually unfolds in combat. Trying to contextualize it against other feats that do the same is apples to oranges when your remember those other weapons are reload 0, have static modifiers like propulsive or thrown, have larger weapon damage dice, might gain their static damage with less virtual feat or action taxes, might have theirbown means of MAP fixing, and can much more flexibly fit into reactive turn rotations if the enemy isn't perfectly where you want them or doing what you thought.

I do think we're committing that very same qualitative handwaving now, though. We all seem to be collectively forgetting that the crescent cross is a combination weapon that doesn't just cease to work when it runs out of ammunition; you can switch to melee mode and keep attacking just fine with a parry weapon. To qualify subsequent turns as "off-turns" therefore strikes me as incredibly blinkered, because those are turns where you'll be able to choose from any other feats you have access to in order to start making use of the melee part of those weapons. Those turns are only "off-turns" compared to the insanely strong burst of power you'd get from your first two turns (which, it bears repeating, is often more than half the turns you'll get in a combat encounter), and it is bizarre that we're imagining that a character would have absolutely no feats to use during those turns at all. If we want to honestly start talking about contextualizing, let's start with that bit of actual context.

Its an aweful combination weapon. One side uses dex to hit and a 1d6 damage dice with no deadly, fatal, or static modifier. Then the other side uses strength on a 1d4 damage dice with no deadly, fatal, or agile. Your attack stat is split and you have the two smallest damage dice sizes available to choose from. Your attack stat forces a 16/18 starting STR/DEX which kills your ability to have out of combat skill and utility while still leaving you behind on attack bonus on the smallest non finesse melee damage dice. Most 1d4 martial weapons have finesse, agile, and like 2-3 other traits like deadly, trip, etc. I have no idea why you think its good or balanced. Its objectively very weak on both sides of the weapon and the ranged side is only made relevant by this one feat. No PC would choose to use this weapon if given a free choice in the system unless the purposefly want to handicap themselves for flavour/theme.

While I'm not sharing my DPR calcs, the ones I've run are not making your burst turns actually better than the meta of the game and on many builds is just flat worse. It might be burst for that specific weapon relative to itself, but it isn't when compared to other weapons that are objectively better through higher damage dice, static modifier adders, and better traits. There was an interesting reddit post in the last 2 weeks about what people considered their minimum viable weapon dice and traits are. The most common answer I saw was vaguely aound a 1H×1D8 strength longsword type weapon. So while you seem to think 1d4 strength melee and 1d6 no static bonus ranged attack is viable, it definitely is not true for everyone. The value of it sharing runes is completely ignoreable via blazons of shared power AND you seem to foget it requires an interact action post crescent spray to change to melee mode plus a likely move action to get into range and then 1 more action for a worst strength strike in the game attack. At that point why wouldnt you just reload 3 times and crescent spray the following turn if its burst is so egregiously good?

You can't have it both ways. If the weapon has a burst damage round you can't then baseline the weapon on that burst damage and ignore then long term effect of non burst turns against the overall combat sustained damage metric. Ignoring the 2 turn cycle clearly built into the weapon in a comparison is a bad faith position.

As for feats, this comes online at L6 for most builds because that is when they have access to a reload compression. It might even be L8 if you want two weapons in hands to grab dual weapon reload as a non gunslinger (or are you burning actions to draw and stow or dont have multiple of these things firing/reloading to get multiplenup front rounds of crescent sprays). In a non FA game this is 3-4 feats to be viable and the reason you dont have other feats until halfway through the game unless you're going to hand waive all of the context issues like reloading with two weapon in hand, reload action compression, turns to get static damage boosts, interacts to swap weapon modes, or additional combat specific taxes like needing to move alot, climb, getting dropped and picking up weapons, etc.

Also, while I'm seeking a way to have a crescent spray every turn because optimization is fun for some of us, it doesn't mean youre suddenly doing a 3 strike crescent spray significantly more than half of your turns. The baseline is half of your turns. If you gimp your blazons of shared power selection its half+1 combat rounds. Obviously I'm seeking better than that.

If you want to evaluate it generate a 6-7 round severe combat scenario (since less than severe encounters are generally speed bump fights of little consequence). Use at least 3+ enemies and see how this thing does versus various other meta builds. See how many rounds (time to kill) it actually lasts and comparitively how many actions are denied to enemies. Then we can compare burst damage, average DPR, enemy actions denied, and time to kill so we aren't trying to white room a mediocre burst turn without any other context.

You also do not need to load all 3 barrels, you could always only reload 2 barrels. You are still doing 2 Actions for 2 Strikes at 0 MAP against the same target, sure it isn't the whole 3 Strikes for 2 Actions but is 2 Attacks at 0 MAP as good as making 2 strikes at 0/-5?

I really like that observation. For some reason my brain had assumed it had to be fully loaded to initiate the activity bad brain!). That makes using in following rounds way easier with a reload compression so your off turns dont have to suck as much.

The question as to whether X number of 0 MAP strikes are better or worse than X other strikes is highly dependant on build level, and what you could have done with the same baseline build assumptions elsewhere.

A 1d6 weapon with no static modifiers on a non martial attack bonus is a bad weapon strike.

For example, DPR on an exemplar with the starshot ikon is pitiful. Even at 3x0MAP strikes it only slightly better than a standard 3 strike comp shortbow fighter (which is substantially worse than a 2H fighter, before we take into account easy flatfooted debuffs or attacknof opportunities in combat). That fighter is using 3 actions and a virtual action to move into place, but your crescent cross is using 2 for the crescent spray and another virtual 3 actions to get back to a place to using it again. So a fair statement is how much DPR does a martial do across 2xrounds using 5 actions. That is 2x0map strikes, 2x-5 strikes, and a move unless we start looking at people using their map fixing feat options like exacting strike or power attack (with furious focus) and a strike, or double slice, etc.

I can get up to a 2H 1d12 melee 3 action fighter DPR on the gunslinger because it comes with a +2 to hit and a a +2 to +3 damage modifier from the class fearure and another bump from weapon specialization scaling.

Just intuitively you can gut check this. 1d6 with no modifiers vs 1d12 with and additional +4 to +7 static modifier. Jumping from d6 to d12 is 3 DPR (basically one of the 0 map strikes dice) and the static modifier make up the average dpr of that third 0 MAP strike. Obviously the probability distribution of 3 strikes vs 1 will clearly be in the favour of 3 strikes, but compare that to 2x0MAP strikes and 2x-5MAP strikes. Its not hards to intuit how some geneic martial swinging a d12 with their own modifiers and map fixing activities can easily outpace crescent spray when taken in the context of a full combat trying to use this thing.

Classes that can add static modifiers to ranged weapons are the ones to test since the static modifier becomes more important than the crappy weapon damage dice. But you have to balance that with the virtual action taxes. Thaumaturges need to spend multiple actions in combat to get their static modifier via explot weakness. Rogues need to make enemies flatfooted at range, usually requiring an action per turn to generate that via tumble behind, feints, demoralize, etc. Champions need to burn 2 actions to get draconic barrage and/or multiple smite actions. Rangers need to hunt prey multiple times a combat. So those 5 virtual actions go up to 6+ without reload action compressions which you only get at L6 (less of a worry with FA and a gunslinger or ranger base class).

Its just a lot of qualitative hand waiving to say 3x0MAP strikes is insanely OP without understanding how it actually unfolds in combat. Trying to contextualize it against other feats that do the same is apples to oranges when your remember those other weapons are reload 0, have static modifiers like propulsive or thrown, have larger weapon damage dice, might gain their static damage with less virtual feat or action taxes, might have theirbown means of MAP fixing, and can much more flexibly fit into reactive turn rotations if the enemy isn't perfectly where you want them or doing what you thought.

You have to review the feat in the broader context.

What does it do:
- Makes a really bad weapon good for 1 round, but not better than a 2H martial that can do that DPR every round for no resource cost or action tax hoop jumping.
- Makes critical effects more reliable due to 3x0MAP strikes (so on a gunslinger, looking at debuff runes like fearsome or similar things becomes enabled/more interesting).

What are the bad parts:
- Requires 3 actions to repeat that good round (i.e., average across 2 rounds you're worse than a ranged martial).

- Reloading requires the use of two hands so you need a L6 tentacle potion + prehensile tale, double weapon reload, or literally dropping expensive items on the ground with retrieval belts, or limited to ratfolk cheek pouch quick stows. This limits your ability in combat to react with items to emergent effects during combat.

- Pays an opportunity cost vs. the already good meta options (beastmaster for a free move/attacks at L4+, focus points for great amped cantrips from psychic, etc.).

- Forces the payment of blazon's of shared power to have any DPR relevance past round 1 (either for a second crescent cross or a melee weapon to switch hit that will be limited to 1H finesse weapons). I'm assuming here that we aren't using the melee portion of the crescent cross because it has a different attack stat and a 1D4 dice (so much worse than most options out there)

- Maybe forces you to also buy doubling rings if you want both two crescent crosses and a finesse weapon.

- Doesn't provide a in built way to change weapon damage type (you need other effects for that to mitigate resistances to peircing which are fairly common).

- Competes for other 2 or 3 action abilities that might be more powerful (later levels) or contextually better (casting a spell, drinking a potion, moving to apply battle medicine to a downed ally, etc.).

- Doesn't somehow get you re-positioned if combat isn't perfectly within your range or otherwise obstructed by the map/terrain. Until L6 within the class via infiltrator's reload the whole thing is almost unusable without free archetype and running reload.

Homebrew?
I don't think there is anything to fix. I has limited uses in combat or averages out over dead rounds to be no better than other ranged combatants. It requires more WBL than others to keep yourself DPR relevant past round 1. It has an appropriate opportunity cost/doesn't interact with all sorts of other good effects (bespell weapon, spell hearts, etc.) by being a defined 2 action activity.

Most importantly it makes a completely unusable weapon actually use-able/balanced in the context of a typical 4-6 round fight. These are the kinds of feats we want Paizo to publish. Lets make some other awful weapons relevant in the game!

I'm surprised no one has said gunslinger. They got:

+2 to hit with multiple weapon groups as long as the melee ones are on combination weapons (so best switch hitters now)

Extra boost to ranged DPR

Spell Shot got a L4 eldritch archer spell strike.

Alchemical Bombs feat now gives 4+1/2 level at level items (so scale much better) with ways to get versatile vials now as well.

Red Griffyn wrote:

Tarik Blackhands wrote:

Red Griffyn wrote:

I'll set the bar at 'could I achieve this in PFS2e with any party comp' as my line in the sand with allowances for (solved with Free Archetype for home games).

Oh! Oh! I got it! You have a party member stand next to you and spend 3 interact actions reloading your crescent (2 if you're feeling particularly generous and spend one reloading yourself). Fulfils the requirement of working in PFS2e with any comp. This conundrum is solved lads.

Won't work... random stranger wouldn't spend their actions on your shenanigans.

They were being sarcastic

Yeah... obviously? I was also being sarcastic.

I've GMd for a lot of families (typically a parent Cleric and multiple kids with PCs that have death wishes or a spouse team). PFS1e had lots of teamwork feats and friends/partner builds. The worst example I had was two small PCs in a trench coat pretending to be 1 PC who had managed to get the one 'mount PC' a fly speed (No I don't remember what/how they exploited multiple RAW corner cases to get this doable in PFS lol). I just remember them getting annoyed that I required them to use the actual flying rules on the mount PC (as if I didn't do the entire table a favour by not wasting 30 minutes debating over their shenanigans and just letting them have their cool moment).

That being said, I do think requiring 3 PCs (crossbow infiltrator, caster, and commander) is 'above and beyond'. You know what ALSO hits like a 2H character and only requires 1 PC? A 2H melee martial lol. Its a teamwork game, but you're not 'validating' a build if it is making the collective team worse than if you just didn't do it. That is what is cool about this archetype/option. You're not breaking the games meta.

If you want to do this setup solo, good luck.

I agree it is not solved problem. We've gotten to 3 times in the first 3 rounds with a bad 4th turn.

There is only one bomb, currently published, that will work the way you want because they never gave it the consumable trait.

Silver Orb

Its not very good.

Red Griffyn wrote:

I'll set the bar at 'could I achieve this in PFS2e with any party comp' as my line in the sand with allowances for (solved with Free Archetype for home games).

Oh! Oh! I got it! You have a party member stand next to you and spend 3 interact actions reloading your crescent (2 if you're feeling particularly generous and spend one reloading yourself). Fulfils the requirement of working in PFS2e with any comp. This conundrum is solved lads.

Won't work... random stranger wouldn't spend their actions on your shenanigans.

Following:

- Gunslinger (Drifter) MC Crossbow Infiltrator for a really cool switch hitting build (eventually goes poisoner/poison weapon feat line to boost crescent cross damage)

- Summoner MC Captain using the ranged summoner build guide to form your own 3 party 'back line' with the sharpshooter/ranged eidolon/electric arcing summoner.

- Commander MC Ostilli Host for a Class DC scaling 1 action electric arc option. Basically play as a 'weaponless' commander who vowed to never raise their own weapon in anger. I want to build on as many Class DC specific options like breath weapons and other things from ancestries where ever possible to make this double down on fun options.

- War Mage Wizard Class Archetype is sort of really interesting because a 10ft push free metamagic and the L6 intimidating spell (yes, I want a fear/explosive/fireball lol).

How is it not solved? I just used the new content to make it so you are able to reload the capacity 3 gun in 1 round. Commander Tactic Reload and the new spell Helpful Reload, how is this not a solution to the problem, it just requires you to use 1 action to reload. Unless I am missing something that makes it, 1 Actions Reload, 2 Action Crescent Spray and boom, you can repeat this every turn!

However the item is Tech and the Crescent Cross is not a tech weapon. So you really are stretching this solution. The two weapons and items are not compatible.

To 'solve' the problem you need a independent and solo PC means of reloading your crescent cross to fire every turn. There are other levels of 'solving' like using the drifter reload to have off turns where you still strike twice, but ultimately getting a crescent cross activity off every round is 'unsolved' and may not be able to be solved with available options.

Its fine to suggest teamwork options, but forcing the choice of class/tactic of one PC and then prescribing that commanders spend 1-2 actions a round and casters burn limited 2nd level+ spell slots and all their reactions is not realistic or reliable means of doing this.

I'll set the bar at 'could I achieve this in PFS2e with any party comp' as my line in the sand with allowances for (solved with Free Archetype for home games).

The suggestion of duo-enhancers 'if your GM is okay with it' is pretty easy for a GM to 'convert' since its just blazons of shared power or doubling rings without all of the associated hoops to jump through. It doesn't 'solve' anything but can help a general population of players with GMs willing to approve its use.

I dont think its a solved problem yet tobsay we have a way to do this. But a few things I've noticed with some more thinking time:

SF2e has an elegant solution your GM is willing. It has a pair of gloves or arm bands that replicate only the fundemental runes (not property) of what your weilding (that enables having a primary weapon and a series of weaker secondary items sincenits only relqtes to what youre weilding and not what specific weapon it is). There is also a tail blade, which could let you have a 1d4 freehand finesse weapon for switch hitting (it looks like a laser sword, but Im sure a basic daggernwould be fine).

As well running reload is good, but the archetype has a L6 feat to let you reload then sneak. My brain hadn't parsed it but sneak is a half speed stride (you still get the move regardless of whether you suceed at stealthing or hiding behind cover). There are 4-5 ancestries that can boost your sneak speed by 5 ft and at L7 you can sneak at full speed with a master stealth proficinecy skill feat. So for most classes a slightly worse running reload is there at L6. That makes a few classes I had otherwise dismissed nore viable. If you do actually get the sneak off that can lead to some nice rogue sneak attack damage.

I dont think shadow sheath works because of the following wording:

These copies retain the runes and abilities of the hidden weapon, though if you use any limited-use abilities (such as talismans or Activations with a frequency limit), they count against the weapon’s normal usages

So even if you could put it in the sheathe, I would rule that using up ammunition counts as a limited use ability.

Its the same reason I can't put a bomb in the shadow sheath and have infinite bombs for the day.

All the other reasons people gave also limit it, but just fundementally I dont think it gains you anything except a free hand (but you could of had that anyways with just one crescent cross).

One thing I did realize after watching a starfinder 2e ancestry preview video is that ratfolk can use their cheek pouches for quick stow at L5. So you can free action a crescent cross into your mouth and then use the retrieval belt to pull a melee weapon into your hand as a free action or as part of a quickdraw draw and attack). That helps with the off turn to switch to and use an off hand finesse weapon. If you used it with the drifter way reload (melee strike + reload) you could running reload free action swap for melee, then change to melee mode as an action and get a second reload and one strike with the way's reload.

It also has me reconsidering whether we should just be using the drifter way and one crescent cross. It means your off turn will generally be running reload into melee, way reload/strike x 2. That isnt a bad off turn, although you'll be stuck with a piercing wind, triggerbrand, or mace multipistol.

You won't have pistelero challenge, but perhaps going marshal + dread marshal stance could be good for the extra status damage and pseudo limited range fearsone rune (again primarily in a FA game).

I'm slightly confused by your analysis.

The topic of the thread is whether the feat is OP. I think if all you're doing is having a fun alpha strike/mag dump turn on Round 1 that this is balanced. You get to have a single round comparable to a 2H martial at range, but otherwise have to switch weapons, reposition, and use another weapon. You could reload one weapon and fire every round but then your average damage is basically half a 2H melee martials per round which is worse than just using another ranged weapon that fires 2-3 strikes per round.

If that is all you want, then its all fine and balanced and you can get off the train. You don't need to have dual weapon reload to juggle multiple weapons, deal with blazons/doubling rings, etc. You could have a dueling pistol or some other better ranged 1H reload weapon and simply work with that.

However, what is better than 1 round like a 2H melee martial? Its 2 rounds with crescent crosses. So round 1 you mag dump, round 2 you mag dump. But now what. You have 2x1H empty ranged weapons that without the feat sort of suck AND you had to burn a blazon's of shared power to keep your fundamental/property runes shared (otherwise you lose out on accuracy or damage). This is where we can optimize and figure out what to do.

NOTE: I'm assuming you are not playing with ABP, otherwise having an infinite supply preloaded crescent crosses is very easy to achieve (as is being suggested by Trip and others). But WBL makes it nearly impossible to keep two fully runed items specced out without significant implications for other parts of your character (e.g., no skill boosting items, delay in major runes for armour and weapons, no consumables, etc.). So lets just assume that is not attainable.

Now you can go 3 paths: You can either, try to reload one of the two weapons and use crescent spray another time, you can switch off to a melee weapon via doubling rings since you can't have multiple blazons of shared power on a single weapon, or you can accept a crappy 1d4 STR knife melee mode of the crescent cross.

Path 1:

Acknowledging that you had 2 spare actions in the past two mag dump turns that you could have used reload action compressions (think running reload or or special gunslinger reloads like demoralize + reload for a pistelero or melee strike + reload for a drifter). That means if you started in range you could mag dump a 3rd round since you'll have 3 spare actions across 3 rounds to reload one crescent cross. At this point, you're probably stuck doing crescent spray every other turn or using the reload + strike feat for a cooldown round + 2 more reloads. If you had to do something weird with the round 1 action, then you're probably still getting a 3rd crescent spray in round 4.

Path 2:

You end up dropping a secondary blazon's of shared power weapon onto the ground (not great in many combats) as a free action so you could free action draw your melee finesse weapon (so if you don't need finesse then just use the melee part of your combination weapons). OR you could use one action for the new weapon exchange action to sheath a crescent cross and draw the new weapon and another painful action to switch the primary blazons of shared power from ranged to melee mode. However, you probably also need to move (so running reload) which leaves you with either a no attack round OR a static turn with one reload+strike (then swapping to melee/drawing your melee weapon).

If your a gunslinger you probably are using a triggerbrand or piercing wind so you still have +2 to hit and are still using a finesse melee weapon. If you're any other martial you're probably using a dogslicer so you're stuck with a 1d6 weapon in the other hand. You could use a bladed gauntlet as the only finesse free-hand weapon (to otherwise avoid the action burn if you drop your secondary crescent cross similar to L7+ with a retrieval belt). On subsequent turns you can probably use stab and blast at L8+ to slowly reload your crescent cross back to full and do another crescent spray 2-3 rounds later if combat isn't over by then.

Path 3:

Go 18 DEX, 16 STR and accept your crappy crescent cross melee mode after your ammo is all gone. Personally I want my accuracy at maximum values, but I will recognize that this is probably very easy to do and accept as your fate. For a gunslinger you'll still be +2 to hit with the combination weapon which can make up for L1-L4 and L10-L15 and L17+ where your STR will be behind by 1 from dex if you're investing STR at every attribute bump level.

Comparison:

So path 1 has a HUGE benefit, which is you don't need any STR investment what so ever because you don't plan to ever use melee. That means you can have better face/int skills (probably picking one over the other) and put into DEX/CON/WIS/INT or CHA. You avoid the cost of doubling rings and upgrading them. However, this path is most viable for the gunslinger because you need a wide and varied reload compression feats to avoid having really dead off turns past round 2-3. Personally I think this path is better. because you're going to be able to crescent spray 3 times in the first 4 rounds with poor performance after that (this is really only doable by the gunslinger and maybe the ranger until much higher levels due to reload support). Otherwise it is more like 2 crescent sprays in R1/R2 and then 1 crescent spray every other round with really bad off rounds.

Path 2 makes you very flexible, but ties up your WBL in both blazons of shared power and doubling rings and I heavily suspect you'll run into hand issues trying to keep things in the right mode at the right time and burn up late combat actions doing next to nothing because you're trying to get things in the right spot.

Path 3, much to my dismay is probably viable. But you need to be heavily investing in STR. The opportunity cost of that vs. Path 1 is very steep. You could be costing yourself up to 7 stat boosts in other stats (if you have an 8 STR ancestry vs. trying to start 16 and drive it to STR 20 by L15.

Summary:
Is it overpowered. In most cases the answer is no. It puts damage up front in combat, which is nice and of greater benefit, but you're on par with a melee martial at range for 1-2 rounds then a crappy archer from then on and it'll balance out over a 4-5 round combat.

If everything comes together though, I can squeeze out a 3rd round of crescent spray which makes it a strong option, but not OP for longer 5-7 round combats. This isn't some kind of true strike amped imaginary weapon alpha strike option.

Preloading with poisoned bolts does shift damage higher in both cases, but you can't 'do that forever' in an adventuring day by any means. You also will run into a lot of poison resistance/immunity that completely negates it (e.g., there are like 2-3x as many poison immune creatures as there are fire immune creatures). So I'm going to choose to ignore this since so many creatures are just outright immune and you'll likely end up wasting most of your preloaded bolts.

I think the Thaumaturge route might the most viable.

Perhaps. But if you have more than 1x1H weapon then do you benefit from Implement Empowerment? I think you could have one of the weapons be your regalia and sidestep it, but a lot of people don't like my interpretation of the IE wording when I say that. Thaumaturge also has almost no reload support, but you could get 1 really good round then use the L6 reload + shoot with decent effect.

I feel like to get the most out of this, dual weapon reload, is almost mandatory. At higher levels (L7+) you can use a retrieval belt, but I don't think it is as easy unless you're using regalia/weapon implements, which isn't necessarily ideal for most thaumaturges.

You run into a similar issue with non-gunslinger classes since only the gunslinger can snag it dual weapon reload at L1, but everyone else has to dip into another class for it or pick it up at L6 in the archetype. Even if I wanted to say, be a champion with two of these things and utilize draconic barrage, I'm going to struggle to use two of these things until higher levels when I get reload feat support.

The only other class with really good built in damage riders/reload support is the ranger (i.e., precision/gravity weapon, running reload, the remaster crossbow hide+reload).

This archetype is going to be a fun nut to crack.

I am not sure best way to optimize this would actually be. It is a bit of an odd feat, it is incredibly powerful but then you get stuck with either a d4 finesse weapon which you are a Gunslinger and have +2 to your Attack for crits or you go Thaumaturge for the boosted damage per shot. So really you got options, you could go Gunslinger for +2 Accuracy, Thaumaturge for increased base damage or go Rogue and try to get 3 shots with Sneak Attack.

Optimization paths:

- Gunslinger: +2 to hit, +2/+3 slinger precision, pustelero challenge, munitions crafter + poisoner for pre poisoned no action bolts (from the poison weapon feat and advamced alchemy with scaling item dcs)

- Draconic Barrage: +1 to +15 static damage with a burn-it goblin per shot. Takes a setup round though.

- Thaumaturge: big static modifier damage and with 0 MAP strikes you paste things to the walls.

- Rogue: figure out a ranged off-guard method like dread striker and demoralize, then take the poison weapon, improved poison weapon, and 3rd feat in the chain. Pre poison your bolts outside of combat. Multiclass into alchemist or cleric for draconic barrage or sonething thag ensures you get flst footed conditions.

Functionally, Crescent Crossbow Training is the Triple Shot Feat. But for a capacity weapon and with hefty action tax to reuse. Thats the question really... is the action cost to reload enough of a counterweight when compared to a similar feat that can be performed every round has -4 to its attack penalty while being accessible two levels later, Both requires a prerequisite feat so they are somewhat equal in feat and upfront action cost but not neccesarily when it comes to drawbacks, They shouldnt have equal drawbacks obviously with one being reload 0 and can just be repeated every round but to me it thry missed something...

They did. Its that triple shot is a trap feat and way undertuned. It only pulls ahead with a very high level feat that drops the axcuracy penalty. You get better DPR with the L1 fighter feat extracting strike to map fix a 2nd strike miss. You get more out of a ranger dedication and hunted shot at L4 and that is also 2 levels earlier. Double shot and triple shot are just bad feats.

You would need to swap weapons in one hand and change the primary crossbow into melee usage on to transfer the runes trough doubling rings though? Remember, Abilities that require a type of weapon like melee, two-handed or similar only count active usage... I would rather just use the reloading trick feat and stay shootin.

Either way its going to get atleast a few changes such as weakness and damage bonuses only being counted once, just consider this on something that gives out weakness or damage bonuses. Ofcourse it may see some targeting/MAP/action changes, wouldn't surprise me

Yup it'd be 1 action to swap weapons in one hand and 1 action to flip to melee mode (not a trivial task). It may also be of marginal benefit vs. reloading twice + the reload+shot so on the next round you can do the 3 shots again.

I don't think this was printed/written in error. They're trying to get people to use one of the mechanically worst set of weapons (repeating hand crossbow, hand crossbow, gauntlet bow, and crescent cross). They don't have finesse, they don't have static damage modifiers, they don't have repeating (well 3 of 4), they don't have deadly, they don't have fatal). If they didn't have something like this which turns them into DPR relevant options for 1-2 rounds then why would anyone take this archetype or use any feat beyond the repeating crossbow training (if their GM was forcing them to pay the feat tax for the 2 reload version of a repeating hand crossbow).

I'd suspect their calculus for the archetype is the average of one round of good damage + 1 round of mostly reloading with poor damage evening out. Kinda similar to the rune smith's multi round rotations for set-up/explode (this is just explode the reset instead). It'll be a little better in a few classes hands because they can get ways to add more static damage than a generic martial to these (i.e., gunslinger, thaumaturge, and rogue), but the 'two round average' of 2 strikes + 2 strikes is probably similar in DPR when you math it out.

The first question I have before giving my oppinion of it being op or not, Do we have anything that would let someone project runes onto both crescent crossbows? Because to my knowledge Doubling Rings only works with Melee weapons (and the clarifications for CRB regarded abilities that care about what kind of weapon, such as a two handed weapon care about what the weapon is currently used as, not the intrinsics of the weapon)

Blazons work though, but the ability feels very much akin to Magnetic Pinions in terms of power and clunkiness, With so many more actions needed to reload you arent getting many uses out of it as you could with pinions in a long combat.

We will just have to see as I kinda fail to see any OP shenanigans regardless of single target outside of the precision damage clause being missing.

Blazon's of Shared Power and if you want to switch hit with a finesse weapon then doubling rings as well so you could end up with 3 weapons.

Using two of them gets you two great rounds then your potential drops significantly. But that is fine, its better to hit hard in rounds 1 and 2 to focus fire enemies down to deny actions to the enemy.

If you start combat in a good position you could fire all 3 and then reload. Then fire the other 3 in round 2 and reload. The reload at the top of round 3 and fire the first crescent cross again. That's why running reload or other reload compressions are good. But, this is definitely an alpha strike assassin type play style.

What do you think of kineticist damage?

The kineticist damage is good enough when able to AOE. They can hit a lot of targets for decent damage, especially for unlimited use.

But their single target damage seems very lacking. They have a real lack of single target damage impulses for use against single bosses like dragons or a single BBEG. They could use some single target damage impulses for use against bosses.

By level 15 or so, the average martial is using a 3 dice weapon with multiple energy runes.

An average rogue thief by 15 with an elven curve blade doing 3d8+11 plus 2d6 plus 3d6 sneak for a total range of 19 to 65 per action with automatically applied riders.

Whereas a kineticist at level 15 is using flying flame or solar detonation if fire for even single target dmage.

Flying Flame with impulse junction is doing: 8d6 to 8d8 with impulse junction for 8 to 64 for 2 actions with AOE possibility.

You're missing some build options:

Aura Junction: Enemies in your kinetic aura gain weakness to fire from your fire impulses. The weakness is equal to half your level (minimum weakness 1).

Thermal Nimbus: You direct waves of warmth into or out of your kinetic gate to drastically shift the temperature around you. Choose cold or fire. You and allies in your kinetic aura gain resistance equal to your level to damage of that type. Any creature that starts its turn in your kinetic aura or moves into your aura during its turn takes damage equal to half your level of the chosen type. Elemental resistance from a gate junction is cumulative with resistance from Thermal Nimbus.

So your level again in static modifier from L5 on wards.

so 8D8+15 = 23 to 79 for two actions within a 25ft (at L15) aura.

Fire damage is all about getting multiple Flying Flame targets as the damage from flying flame is > that what you're able to get with a blast so its worth more to move so you can get more than one enemy in flying flame if need be. But if you don't need to move you get flying flame + a kinetic blast.

As well a random 'range' of damage values doesn't really tell us anything. Flying Flame is a Save DC and a third action throw away kinetic blast is at 0 MAP. Whereas a non-martial striking 3 times is going from 60% to hit a CR=PL creature on average from L1-L20 on the 0 MAP strike, 35% to hit on the second strike, and 10% on the third strike.

My experience in play is that their DPR is lower than I'd like, but not awful. Like a bomber alchemist it is matching martials when they get 2+ creatures in their AOE turn rotations. Whether that scratches your itch or not is up to you, but not every class can be focused on single target damage.

I'm a fan of Air/Earth since you can get desert wind to add damage (similar to fire, but less) and get a free half speed stride before using a 2 action impulse. With the right selections you can get a 60ft speed (so free 30ft stride every round), perma flight, and a way to go invisible (so move to toss a boomerang + kinectic blast against a flatfooted enemy). They also make a great scout.

Seeing that the thing is called Crescent Spray, it might actually also be an issue of forgetting to add a targeting restriction ('against different targets') in there. All the other MAP-ignoring, single target multi-strikes have the 'combine damage, precision only once' clause iirc. But hey, enjoy it while it lasts.

I feel like the flavour of the archetype is very much 'assassin's creed' break into the targets room at night and murder this one person (ideally without being spotted). The half page of flavour text before the dedication feat is basically an homage to assassins creed IMO.

The feat text has you reloading between shots, so I'm not 100% sure this is some kind of wild spray so much as its trying to land 3 clustered poisoned crossbow bolts in a weakspot of the targets plate mail.

I will agree that these kinds of feats typically either have a 'combine all damage for purposes of resistance/weakness' like double slice or 'must shoot other targets' like double shot (which eventually lets you do it with separate targets after triple shot anyways). I sort of like it not prescribing a gamestyle since its tied to such an undercooked weapon.

Other than the name there isn't any real flavour text to tell us what is happening in the actual feat itself.

Yeah, its a fairly obvious mistake. The weapon description is:

"A crescent cross combines a small scizore with an arm-mounted crossbow apparatus that can hold up to three bolts at a time."

The remaster TV clearly forgot about the crossbow weapon group since they also missed it on gauntlet bow, rotary bow, and taw launcher. All of which explicitly state they are 'crossbows' in their description.

Regardless. It still works. Unlike the fighter L5 feature that specifies a "weapon group", the gunslinger feature just says firearms and crossbows (with no reference to a 'weapon group'). It also doesn't capitalize firearms or crossbows so it isn't an explicit rules element reference that you might tie to the specific firearms/crossbow weapon groups. As, such any reasonable means of identifying something as a crossbow does interface and work (i.e., that the weapon explicitly says it is a crossbow).

This is just like pre-remaster times where 'cross-bows' were identified explicitly from their description text as there was no crossbow weapon group (and all of these weapons worked perfectly fine then without any consternation). I think someone identified this specific thing for errata now that there is a crossbow group, but designers forgot to update TV with these changes.