Rfkannen's page

Hi, a white back I made a backup character for if my pc dies in any of the campaigns one of my dm runs (since they are all set in the same setting). I still like the character, but feel like my old build could be updated for modern options and remaster.

The character is an adventurer hunter. The kingdom he works for has noticed that adventurers can grow in power quickly, and can cause major political commotion, so they made an organization to secretly keep adventurers in check. His job is to join adventure parties, and try to help aim them in the direction of the enemies of the kingdom. If they refuse to do so, or start causing problems, he will report back to the kingdom, become an enemy npc, and come back as an assassin trying to whipe out the party (he would not actively make any moves against the party while a pc, and the party has been warned he would be a traitor and are cool with it)

The whole concept of the organization he works for (which a past pc of mine established) is that they are used to targeting threats much more dangerous than they are, and refuse to ever be in a fair fight (his department handles adventurers, but other departments handle, or set up other people to handle, high level threats like demonic incursions and dragon invasions). They always come into a fight with all the knowledge they can get, they like to sneak into encampments and posion food and sabotage equipment, trick people into unwinnable situations, attack from far away and then run before being caught, etc. They are annoying, and will slowly wear down their prey. Not sure how to represent that in a pc, since this organization was mostly formed as npcs (gm's suggestion to make a pc one, I liked the idea)

The organization also worships a "desert spirit", and has strong ties to the elemental planes of earth and air, with some fire connections as well.

What builds do you think would fit this type of character? I am interested in different versions, since I don't know what campaign he would wind up being in (since I don't know when my character will die). However, one campaign he could be for has a thief rogue and a scoundrel gunslinger, and I am interested in if their is a way I could get the concept without stepping on toes mechanically.

Any thoughts are appreciated!

I am extremely excited for mythic, just because I feel like pf2e is already the system I WANT for epic "demigods like gilgamesh and hercules face off against threats to the cosmos" gameplay. The high level feats really lean into that, and I think the system is just well built for it in general.

Mythic would be nice to just give it that little extra push.

What I would want: a variant on free archetype.
Mythic archetypes don't increase the mechanical power of a pc much, but they increase the narrative power a lot. Let you do things which seem like level 15 things to do at level 2. but mechanically not much stronger than a normal level 2 archetype. Stuff like wrangling rivers and moving mountains and... honestly any examplar feat.

Honestly all I want for mythic really is free archetype exemplar???

But yeah, my hope is that mythic doesn't increase the mechanical power of a pc anywhere as much as it increases the narrative power of a pc.

Anyone run the numbers on a support kinetist yet?

I really love the idea of running a support kinetist, but am having trouble making one I would prefer to have in a party instead of a druid in any circumstance but a campaign with really REALLY long adventuring days.

I feel like a support kinetist should be there, but I just can't make it work. Highest levels spells always seem to be better at healing, control, buffing, debuffing, terrain making, etc than anything a kinetist can put out.

So far, it really seems like full tank is the best use of the class.

I am very Water/Wood: This just seems like an interesting combo for a support character. That protector tree impulse is really inspiring, as well as being location-dependent. You've got heals from two different elements, and water repositioning shenanigans. I'm not sure exactly what Wood is handing you here, but in general, it seems like it's a great setup for someone who spends most of their time helping out their friends while still being able to contribute on the damage side of things.

The really nice thing about water/wood is that the main heals (from water; ocean's balm at level 1, torrent of the blood at level 6. From earth; fresh produce at level 1, dash of herbs at level 6) each specify that a pc affected by them is immune to THAT effect for 10 minutes.

You also could pick the composite impulse, which is weird but CAN offer more healing in certain influences

So the combo of those 4 feats would let you do pretty potent healing to every member of your party 4 times per combat. I'm not sure you NEED that much healing, in fact you might never use all of it, but it is fun to have!

The one problem with dual element is that you don't get their starting junction at first level, and you need to spend one your (pretty limited) junctions to get it later if you want it. Some of them are easy to skip (I am not sure why you want to punish people that hit you as a metal kinetist, I'd think you'd rather they focus you instead of your allies right?) but some are hard to skip out on (with water, moving your ally a square whenever you use a 2 action impulse on them is HUGE)

Though at HIGH levels, that dual action aura junction looks really nice.
My favorites of those: metal gives -1 to enemy attack with metal weapons, -1 to ac. An ally that stats a turn in a wood aura gains thp. With those two combined your party is WAY harder to kill.

I wouldn't build around blasts, but combined blast earth/wood with both critial junctions is hilarious (on a crit, your blast knocks people prone AND entangles them in a way that takes an action to remove. That's trading one action of yours for two enemy actions if you crit!)

Rfkannen wrote:

But if you build for it, you get a LOT of tools to make up for your low hp.

I'm not sure I'd count someone with average hp/level and maxes Con as having particularly low HP.

Good point, I just meant you get 8 instead of the 10 of most classes considered "defensive"

I think a kinetist might be the best non-champion support/tank in the game if you build for it. Less protection and sturdy-ness, but deals more damage.

Was curious about what the kineticst is good at, so I went though and here is what I am thinking:

Single target damage: Its fine. if you don't build for it, you deal enough to still be relevant but not great. If you do build for it, you never reach fighter, ranger, or barbarian levels, but are good enough that I think you could serve as your party's "main damage person" and not have problems.

Aoe damage: really nice! A kineticst built for aoe damage will do less damage than a spellcaster with their BEST spells, but they never run out. even if this isn't the focus of your build, it isn't hard for most kinetists to grab at least one really nice aoe effect. Because of that, I would argue they might be the best option for aoe damage in the game?

defensiveness: this is a tough one. If you don't build for it, you are actually really squishy. But if you build for it, you get a LOT of tools to make up for your low hp. Not champion level, but I would argue on par with monk or fighter if built right.

Protection of allies: NOT SHABBY! Not that many classes really get tools for real "tanking", kinetist doesn't get many tools for this, but the ones they have are pretty good. Hard to rank this; worse than champion, but I think on par or a little better than fighter or monk? could be overestimating it though.

Control: . They have a lot of wall abilities and a ton of abilities for controlling enemy movement. Again, worse than the best a spellcaster could put out, but you can do it every (other) turn, which is huge.

defbuffing: I have a lot of trouble evaluating debuffing in general, they don't get many options for this, but the ones they get seem pretty good?

buffing: There are some great standouts (the wind one that lets all your allies do a half move for two actions looks incredible for level 1), but I wouldn't put it as one of the best buffing classes.

minionmancy: Not on summoner level, but I would say if you build for it, you are a bit better than a normal spellcaster.

healing: normally it seems fine, not great not bad. however, I might be wrong, but I think if you WAY over focused on healing you could get REALLY good at it . Like, not great in white room math, but I think a kineticist that focused on healing would be good in actual play.

Scouting: a wind one would actually be a really nice scout. A bit worse than a rogue, but not bad!

Not sure of the accuracy of any of that, but those are my impressions.

didn't know it already come out

does everything kineticist use constitution or does attack still use str and dex

really doesn't want to build another multiple attribute dependent class

You can build a kineticst that is 100% constition, but your going to want either dex or (with certain implueses) str for ac. But you could limit dex to 16 and use studded leather.

You can build a more strength based one if you want, but it isn't necessary.

What options are there for anything with ice?

level 1 non-impulse feat: you can use cold for your blasts.

level 1, two action, 10 foot burst in range, does damage and makes difficult terrain that lasts until melted with fire or time.

level 4, 1 action, stance, things that try to move in your aura fall over. things you hit with impulses are slowed

level 12, 2 action overflow, target a creature, it gets slowed, frozen solid, or frozen then slowed depending on how bad save.

level 14. 3 action overflow, cast wall of ice.

I think thats enough to make an ice themed character? not really sure though.

How high is the rage damage for elemental barbarian?

instinct ability raises it from two to four. Specialization turns it from 4 to six.

How do you read the level one kineticist familiar feat?

From what I can see, it lets you pick any of the specific familiars from the elemental familiar section of the book, including the elemental scamp, which requires 5 familiar abilities. However, that seems way too strong for a level 1 feat, so I imagine I am misreading it.

Rfkannen wrote:

Kineticist seemms super cool.

I'm trying to figure out how to run a support one, water has the best healing, and its single element bonus of moving people 5 feet is FANTASTIC, but I feel like most of its feats aren't fantastic?

I think a multi gate that started with wood and earth, and then got some air feats, would be the best support build? You got a little bit of healing from wood, some controll from earth and air. Seems like it could fill what most parties expect from a support caster (though the lack of buffs would make it not as good).

I think I remember paizo saying that they balance things around a classic fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric party. It seems like this class toes the line between fighter and wizard, not as good with the damage and tanky, and not as versatile as a wizard, but filling the damage and control well enough. However, that is just looking at it for a little bit without play experience. It feels like there are things that SHOULD make it fill that cleric role, but I am not finding ways to make them add up right.

Someone over on the Reddit AMA said they the Wood element was a better healer than Water. Have you tried looking more closely at that? I don’t have my sub PDF yet, so I can’t verify it for myself yet.

I am honestly kind of confused by the wood healing

Is it okay to post reworded mechanics? I can't find a rule saying you can't, but if I just missed it, tell me and I'll delete this.

Water kineticists can take an ability called oceans balm. You touch a creature, it regains 1d8 hitpoints, has resistance 2 to fire for 1 minute, and can attempt to counteract any current effects of being on fire. the creature is immune to this ability for 10 minutes. every 2 levels, the healing increases by 1d8 and the resistance increases by 1.

Wood kineticists can take an ability called freh produce. pick a creature in your (10 foot) arua, a peice of fruit appears in their hands (or at their feet if their hands are full). The fruit disapears at the start of your next turn. A creature can spend an action to eat the fruit, if they do they heal 1d4+1 hit points, gain resistance 2 to void damage, and feels so full they can't eat any produce for 10 minutes. ... and every 2 levels the healing increases by 1d4+5 and the resistance increases by two.

So at level 1, water kineticist is just straight up better. At higher levels, the amount of healing from wood is higher, but it requires one of your actions AND one of your ally's actions. And also it doesn't work on characters that have both hands filled (like a sword and board tank).

I feel like wood kineticist is technically better at healing at higher levels, but it also seems a bit clunky. Water seems a lot more reliable and consistant.

Kineticist seemms super cool.

I'm trying to figure out how to run a support one, water has the best healing, and its single element bonus of moving people 5 feet is FANTASTIC, but I feel like most of its feats aren't fantastic?

I think a multi gate that started with wood and earth, and then got some air feats, would be the best support build? You got a little bit of healing from wood, some controll from earth and air. Seems like it could fill what most parties expect from a support caster (though the lack of buffs would make it not as good).

I think I remember paizo saying that they balance things around a classic fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric party. It seems like this class toes the line between fighter and wizard, not as good with the damage and tanky, and not as versatile as a wizard, but filling the damage and control well enough. However, that is just looking at it for a little bit without play experience. It feels like there are things that SHOULD make it fill that cleric role, but I am not finding ways to make them add up right.

If I may bring this up in a more visible position:

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

I was wondering what the names of the new genies and geniekin are. I've seen the names zuhra and jaathoom in preview, but it would be nice to have them all in one place so it's easier to start making the mental switch with a completed reference.

... oh and if you have the patience to indulge me, the correct plural if they differ from typical expectations of English.

kizidhar are wood genie

fire geniekin are now called naari
metal geniekin are called talos
wood geniekin are called ardande
undine, suli, oread, and sylph are the same

How well do you think a support or control focused kineticist would work? Like could you make a useful kineticist that focused on things other than dealing damage? Could you build a kineticist as a "cleric replacement" in a classic wizard thief fighter cleric party?

Asking because the kineticist seems like the coolest thing ever flavorwise, but I don't really like playing focused damage dealers, get a lot more fun from healing, controll, buffs, debuffs, and stuff like that.

What do you mean by cool stuff? Looks cool? Or highly effective and wrecks the enemy? Almost every class looks amazingly cool at high level. If you want highly effective at high level, fighter, rogue, almost any full caster because high level spells are nasty, giant and dragon barbarian, wild shape druid, swashbuckler with perfect finisher.

Those classes do some crazy stuff at high level in terms of wrecking enemies. I've seen it in play.

I was interested in what different people found cool!

But personally if I had to pick I would prefer looking cool over actually being effective. I like insane high level nonsense!

High levels are being able to do super cool stuff. In your opinion, which classes get to do the most cool stuff at higher levels? What is your favorite high level cool thing a class gets?

Heritage was one of the things I was stuck on. Toy makes sense for something that was a toy, I was picturing him looking like some sort of teddy bear so stuffed makes sense, wished alive makes sense for something that was wished alive, aasimar makes sense for something made by someone who would later become a god, and undine makes sense for a water theme. Are any of them mechanically better than the other?

Champion would be a lot of fun! Really lean into the "defender of children" thing! Out of curiosity, why did you pick redeemer? I think it would be fun!

If you wanted to go whole in on the defender theme with a champion, how would you do it?

Tempest oracle would also be a ton of fun! He could be a healer, which fit, and being able to see through his god's rain would be a great flavorful benifit! And he could be a little rainmaker himself with a storm surrounding him! A soggy little toy is ADORABLE!

For a while, I have had a backup character made specifically to make another player in my group cry (they find it hilarious and are cool with it). While I like the character, my build for them wasn't super flavorful, mostly because I came into it with a pre-determined class. I would love to get y'alls help maximizing the flavor into a fun build for this!

This player had a previous pc who ascended to godhood and became known as the rainmaker. Rainmaker's thing is using magic to make people's lives better. She made half the magic items on the continent, mostly utility things that improved people's lives; water systems, communication, etc. Her other divine feats were all water related; she put out a fire that was burning half a continent, she helped a city get clean water, she accidentally made undines a thing, etc. Just a god all about compassion and taking care of people. The gm and the rainmaker's player agreed I could stat her godly domains, skills, and weapon as long as it felt right.

The rainmaker had a niece who was born as an undine, My idea was that when the niece was around 5, she was terrified of the dark, so the rainmaker built a toy to help her feel safe. When squeezed, the toy would say something like, "don't worry, I'll keep the monsters at bay!". It was a quick gift, made in a single night, to help her feel better.

One hundred years pass, the rainmaker goes off and becomes a god, the niece grows up and has kids, who have kids, who have kids, etc. And the toy gets passed down for generations of this undine tengu family.

One day the toy's owner and her parents were on vacation away from the main family and got attacked by a giant monster. Everyone was killed, and the kid's final wish was for the toy to come to life and protect her. That wish, combined with the little bit of godly magic left in the toy, brought it to life. The toy scared off the monster, but the girl was too injured and died in its arms.

The toy was ashamed, as it had failed in what it believed its purpose was ( actually protecting its creator's family, which it wasn't really built to do). So it vowed to make the world safe for all children and went off to go adventuring to achieve that goal. It is deeply convinced that its creator is ashamed of it, and will punish it for failing its purpose, and it is doing everything it can to avoid her and her clergy.

Any ideas for building that backstory into a flavorful character? How would you build a sentient toy ,built by a god of crafting and water, who had the goal to protect all the world's children? Thank you for any ideas you have!

Rfkannen wrote:

My group is going to try out pathfinder 2e starting next week! we are going to play two level zero one shots, and then if we like one of the two a lot we are going to continue it onto a full campaign.

we are using the level 0 rules from the game masters guide, with the apprentice thing where we get some features from a class.

we have been playing mostly dnd 5e for a while, and I am exited to try out the new system! I was wondering if you had any suggestions for what type of characters would be good for getting a good feeling for the system?

For one character; I am SUPER interested by the whole athletics system, it being able to trip and push and all that as basic abilities sound fun! So I am thinking one of my character's will be a martial with athletics and intimidation. Not sure what ancestry, class, or weapon though.

I have no idea what the other character should be.

Any ideas or tips? I want to get a good feel for the system!

How did this turn out for you? And what level 0 one shots did you use? Home brew or no? I plan on doing this for my players in an upcoming AV campaign.

It was a ton of fun! It didn't wind up turning into a campaign, but was still a good experiance. It was a homebrew adventure

In your experience, is a character that invests in one of the healing focused archetypes, and focuses on medicine, enough healing for a party? Or do you typically need a healing spellcaster to really keep up with severe and extreme encounters that might happen?

There is one very specific type of character I really want to play but haven't been able to find something exactly for, a character like Slayer from dungeon fighter online or Raven from elsword. (Also to a lesser extent kayn from league of legends.)

A guy with a cursed demon arm (raven's was a robo-demon arm) that grants wild powers. Dual wields, one hand has a sword, the other hand attacks with a demonic claw. Can call upon the power in their arm to do big magical attacks. Big story elements about trying to control their powers.

Really, both were pretty clearly their games barbarian equivalent, but getting a demon claw and magic powers on a barbarian in pf2e is tough.

One mechanic I really liked in both was the choice of secondary class at higher levels; you could choose to give into your demon arm and go full berzerker, you could choose to master your demon arm and get more magical ability, or you could choose to forsake your demon arm and go full swordsman. Not sure how you would represent a choice like that in pf2e though, part of what I found fun about it was that you didn't have to pick at level 1.

Yes I was an edgy 13 year old, how can you tell?

So you mean different musical genres, not story genres?

Some are so tied to cultures not present on Golarion that it'd make one's backstory a bit contrived. Not sure there'd be any difficulty other than that as Bard is mechanically lenient re: Perform & instruments.
What mechanical issues are you seeing other than pianos being difficult to cart around on adventures?

I wasn't seeing an issue, I just thought it would be fun to emphasize things

Here were ideas I had:

For a metal bard you could go warrior bard to be tanky enough to survive headbanging, and then boost intimidating to get battle cry for a strong opener.

For a really sad blues bard you could get dirge of doom.

For a classical bard you could focus on summon spells to get a whole orchestra

Etc

Bards are an extremely cool class in pf2e, and the idea of a magical musician is always a ton of fun! The classic image of a bard is usually a medical folk singer with a lute, but there are tons of different genres that you could build a bard to play.

If you wanted to build a Bard who played a specific genre of music, how would you represent that genre mechanically?

Just to give some example genres: A Sea Shanty Bard, A blues bard, a classical bard, a Reggae bard, a hymn bard, a country Bard, etc.

Tried making a build: https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=259035

Does that seem decent?

Flavor is up to the player. So making the character creepy is solely your responsibility. It has very little to do with class mechanics.

For mechanics, this sounds like Mutagenist or maybe Toxicologist. It is a bit of a stretch, but you could make Chirurgeon work too.

Since you aren't using Free Archetype, taking an archetype will be noticeably more expensive to your build. But you can still do it. You might take a good look at Clockwork Reanimator. That would give your rogues another flanking partner and really sell the flavor of the character.

This is true! I do have some ideas for the creepy mechanics (mainly boosting occultism, so I can cast the create undead ritual and use disturbing knowledge to terrify people), I mostly mentioned it to see if there were any other freaky alchemist options I missed.

Chirurgeon had been my first thought(partly because the party lacks healing, partly because my characters name is Doc so it felt appropriate lol), why would it be a stretch? Mutagenist and chirurgeon both look interesting! My one worry with mutaginst is that for flavor I would rather avoid going high strength and sentinel (my character is both elderly and an elf), would a dex based mutagenist who mostly hands out his mutagens to the rest of the party instead of using them himself work well? Toxicologist looks like overall a great time!

Clockwork re-animator could be really fun! I just tried it on pathbuilder and realized that ancient elf doesn't work on non-multiclass archetypes, which is a shame, that would have been a fun mechanical interaction. could be fun even without that though!

Long story short: group made characters for a new campaign. current campaign lasted way longer than expected (new campaign will start in Febuary). The gm isn't able to run right now, so I ran menace under otari for the group, with all the other players playing the same builds they will play in the other campaign. Afterwords, we decided it would be more fun to have an alchemist than my planned investigator, so I want to find a new build that fits the group.

The group: A thief rogue, wields a rapier, going to take cathartic spellcaster archetype, is the scout. A pistol phenom scoundrel rogue with an air repeater, is the high charisma face. A tyrant champion with the dual wielder archetype, is the tank.

The party worked out really well, the two rogues covered most skills, the champion was able to draw a lot of attention from enemies, the thief was able to be a great flanking partner to the champion. the scoundrel was able to snipe away hard to reach enemies and target people who ran away. The one thing they were missing was any major buffing abilities (and I am thinking an alchemist who hands out elixirs would be a great build to fill that)

My character: picture old elven doctor frankenstein. Creepy old elf man who cuts up corpses, does creepy experiments, is searching for eternal life, and is creepy. Mechanical goal would be to focus on buffs and debuffs. I would prefer to avoid spellcasting on him. Here is my investigator portrait of him https://twitter.com/rfkannen/status/1570854935159525376/photo/1 )

Campaign does not use free archetype.

Any recommendations for a suitably creepy elf alchemist build that would fit that party? I want him to both provide the support the party needs, and be as freaky as possible!

Thank you for any suggestions you have!

In the spirit of Halloween, how would you build Halloween monsters as pcs in pf2e?

My take: "The Mummy". My thoughts for the mummy build were: Can curse people, has vaguely divine powers, is a mummy. I would go fervor witch, and at level two I would take both the mummy and curse maelstorm dedications. (drop curse maelstorm if not using free archetype). For skills I would focus on athletics (the mummy can run up and grab you) religion (you were probably an archpriest or monarch in life) and occultism (to grab the feat that lets you scare people with disturbing knowledge). When you can, grab the lessons to get good curses to throw out. It isn't a very optimized build, but I think it would work (though I'd love to hear alternative builds that might work better) Here it is to level 10. . https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=248878

Any other ideas for Halloween monster themed builds?

I've seen a lot of people say that the best way to build a warpriest cleric is to dumb wisdom and focus on strength and charisma. I was wondering, how does that work at higher levels? Focusing just on buff spells, athletics (from what I can tell they will need to use athletics more than strikes at higher levels), and their divine font. Are the high level divine buff spells enough to make them useful at higher levels? Or are they going to feel that drop in wisdom as spellcasting gets stronger? How do low wisdom clerics do at higher levels?

Self buffing for casters is in the same spot as blaster casters: Sure you could do it, but the game makes it as hard as physically possible to just come out mediocre three times a day.

Self buffing for martials is in the spot of: Sure you could do it and become much stronger, but its better if its a caster spending its actions for it and not you.

Self buffing for Alchemist is literally just, "STOP WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Just go give your buffs to the martials and let them handle it."

*****************

Any way you slice it self buffing as of rigth now is something to do because "oh look this is cool" than it being actually good. The game actively fights against self buffing to the point that Warpriest (who used to be the best self buffer) is literally just a worse cleric and a bad martial.

I'm suprised to hear that about the alchemist! I had heard that toxicologists in particular where pretty good for swollowing a mutagen, poisoning your weapons, and getting to town. You find it usually a better strategy to instead give those elixirs and poisons to allies?

How is the strategy of using buff spells on yourself in pf2e? It seems a lot less powerful than in pf1e, but is it still a viable option? What types of characters are best at it? What have your experiences with it been?

Speaking for flavourful options, I would probably pick:

-Wishborn fits right into your backstory and makes a lot of sense as a 'fearless' poppet defender. Toy makes a lot of sense also, but the tiny size could be a challenge in combat.

-In terms of a fierce defender faithfully protecting the innocent from monsters in the dark, I would pick Paladin cause. If going Tiny, I'd probably lean into the idea of freeing those captured by monsters and pick Liberator instead so as not to rely on reach for reactions.

-Champion lvl 2 feat Vengeful Oath (for Paladins) seems tailor-made for this backstory, bringing holy retribution to those who would harm the innocent.

-No good ideas for archetypes popping out, but you might have the Cha to run a Bard and pick up some emotion-inspiring effects that jive with the 'I will protect you' magic lingering in the toy... alternative Oracle could bring some kind of curse while also tying into the divine power, though you may not want/need to really dig into the lingering mote of power that animated you.

(It might not necessarily fit the theme of the god, but it would fit the theme of the character if you ended up with the curse from Battle--the curse represents the fact that you are a mere stuffed toy so your body is pretty weak except then the divine power literally sustains your body while engaged in the purpose you were made for, fighting monsters. Sure that would take a few feats to come online but it's a cool vibe and it gets you some divine spell support along the way)

Those options all sound great! Yeah toy would be great but it would probably be too much of a headache. How would wishborn and stuffed compare mechanically? (I was also considering undine and aasimar because water god, but I really do like to the official poppet heritages) Vengeful oath would fit extremely well! Oh man, I am not sure if I want to go the spellcasting route on this character, but that curse rp would be FUN! I really like that idea!

I have an idea for a poppet champion, but I am unsure how to build it. I would love y'alls help!

For context: In a previous campaign in this world, there was a family-focused tengu druid pc who crafted a TON of magic items during the campaign, eventually becoming a god with a focus on crafting and weather (mainly rain and water in general). Her cult is pretty popular in the modern-day setting.

My poppet's backstory: The old pc had a niece afraid of the monster under her bed, so the pc made a giant stuffed animal knight with a simple enchantment to repeat the phrase "don't worry, I'm here to protect you!" when squeezed. The knight was passed down for multiple generations, its fur getting matted and its eye-popping out, by generations of tengu kids loving it. Then, one day, its owner's house was attacked by a giant monster who killed everyone inside. The child's dying wish was for the toy to come to live to protect her, and that, combined with the bit of divine magic the pc left by the pc, finally brought the toy to life as a poppet... but it took long enough that the monster had already fled to scene. So the poppet swore an oath to its creator, promising to protect all the world's children and slay the beast that it couldn't protect its owner from.

So poppet champion seems pretty obvious, but I am not sure how else to build it.

What heritage would you go with? What cause? (the dm and that player never statted up that pc's divinity, and both said I could go for whatever I wanted mechanics-wise, but the pc herself was chaotic good). I think champions work well with picking up an archetype, but I can't think of any that would fit this character, any ideas? Any tips for making a champion build that synergizes well with poppet feats?

Any ideas for building this character?

Offhand, I don't think any of these characters will translate well:

Rfkannen wrote:

Someone I play with is talking about relaunching one of her old 5e campaigns using pf2e. However I am curious, how well do you think this party would convert to pf2e?

We only had like 4 sessions, so I don't know all the other characters deal SUPER well but this is what I figured out:
* A little orphan annie style human wild magic sorcerer, really played into the wild uncontrollable nature of her magic. Magic was flavored as literally weaving together the web.

Human Sorcerer is easy enough, but I don't think chaos magic is a thing in PF2.

Rfkannen wrote:

* A firbolg barbarian. A tarzan type raised by giant apes, mechanically a bear totem barbarian who did a ton of damage.

No firbolg rules, but a Animal Instinct or Giant Instinct Barbarian sounds like it fits the general concept (you will have to choose between 'giant' and 'tarzan' concepts).

Rfkannen wrote:

* A halfling pact of the chain fey patron warlock. Was only in one session so I don't really know this characters deal.

No real Warlock equivilent in PF2: Maybe a Witch if you want to play up the 'patron' aspect...

Rfkannen wrote:

My character was a member of a homebrew race; which were an empire of lawful evil half ice giant half elves. He was mechanically my best attempt to make a warlord in 5th edition, a valor bard. He was the party leader and did a lot of control and support magic.

Plenty of strong Bard options, but I don't know what to say about your ancestry.

One melee, two casters, and a bard is probably not anyone's first choice for a group makeup: The casters will probably end up in melee more often than...

Yeah thats fair and what I was expecting.

pf2e does have wild magic! Its a class archetype called the wellspring mage, it seems pretty fun!

My character is definitely the hardest part, he needs to be a melee character for the party to really work. Are there any non-bard options that would fit the basic idea but make the party balance better?

Someone I play with is talking about relaunching one of her old 5e campaigns using pf2e. However I am curious, how well do you think this party would convert to pf2e?

We only had like 4 sessions, so I don't know all the other characters deal SUPER well but this is what I figured out:
* A little orphan annie style human wild magic sorcerer, really played into the wild uncontrollable nature of her magic. Magic was flavored as literally weaving together the web. Was focused on blasting magic, which is harder in pf2e.

* A firbolg barbarian. A tarzan type raised by giant apes, mechanically a bear totem barbarian who did a ton of damage.

* A halfling pact of the chain fey patron warlock. Was only in one session so I don't really know this characters deal.

My character was a member of a homebrew race; which were an empire of lawful evil half ice giant half elves. He was mechanically my best attempt to make a warlord in 5th edition, a valor bard. He was the party leader and did a lot of control and support magic.

Other facts about him that could possibly (but not necessarily) be represented mechanically: He was inspired to pick up music after his human bard husband died of old age (not sure what muse that is). He was devout to the god of pure law. His motivation was to fix the mortal races and make them live as long as his people did. His culture had a major necromancy thing going on, and he has some mild experiences with it but wasn't able to bring back his husband for unknown reasons. I was picturing him started to do mounted combat at higher levels (riding a Pegasus) but we never got to the levels where he could do that so it isn't nececary to carry over.

Would this party convert over well? How would you build it? (I am up for changing parts of my character to make the party work better)

I am mostly a player, but a while ago I decided to get some practice running pf2e by gming menace under otari, finding players using reddit's looking for group subforum.

I was thinking of doing that again, since it was a lot of fun! However, I then remembered that pathfinder society has some sort of dm reward system. So I might as well run it with some extra player option restrictions to get those!

However there are two things that are making me not sure:

It seems like pathfinder society mostly wants dms who are fairly good at the system. I have a lot of experience with other systems (mostly 5e), but my only experience with running pf2e is that one time with the beginner box. I am also not super confident with the rules of pf2e so far and often have to check stuff like skill actions during combat when playing.

The society rules were kind of confusing, but it looks like pathfinder society only wants you to run either bounties or adventure paths. I would be wanting to run something in the length of 3-10 sessions, not 1 or 30. I am not sure pathfinder society has any adventurers of that length that are legal.

Should I wait to run pathfinder society till I am more confident in the system and am comfortable with my schedule in running a full adventure path? If you would suggest just going for it, any recommendations for what adventurers to run? (also where do you usually find players?)

great discussion here! I did not think people were still talking on this thread till I just checked.

The gif was not helpful on my prompt in hindsight. My real question was: how viable is it to play a character that looks and acts like your traditional full caster, but stays in the frontline alongside the melee fighters.

I love playing casters, and I like the classic unarmed appearance of mage characters, but I dislike being a backline character.

I would prefer not to do any melee attacking at all, but if some is needed to have a reason to stay in that range, I would prefer to use a staff over any other weapon.

What I was looking for was a character wearing a robe, holding a staff, and casting spells, but who also had a reason to not hide in the back.

Just saw the compliments on the art, thank you!

I really like the changes on the build, I can see that being a much smoother leveling and play experience. I like the feats you added, especially blind fight and and reason rapidly. I always like my martial characters to push the bounds of reality at higher levels, and both of those feel very fantasy in a way I enjoy!

If the dm does wind up allowing free archetype, but only allowing ones that are either mostly flavor or feel thematic to a naval exploration campaign, what would y'all recommend as an added free archetype?

Just wanted to check one more thing before fully 100% deciding on investigator, what are you supposed to do when you get a bad roll on devise a stratagem?

Mainly, I really like this build and think it fits the character super well, but it doesn't have any spells, athletics, or social skills, it is going to need a rapier in one hand and a free hand for medicine so it can't hold a shield. I'm kinda just not sure what you do when attacking is a bad option.

If you were playing the build posted above, what would you do when you roll a bad stratagem?

Do any of the new skill feats give you actions that would be useful in combat?

I really like the shared stratagem feat and how it synergizes with having rogues in the party, but I can see how taking medic dedication at level 2 would make low levels go smoother and let me take the skill feats earlier. I'll switch it to that!

Alright I think I am deffinitly going investigator! it looks like it fits the character better than I thought, generally works smoother than the alchemist, and all around seems like a good time! I talked with the gm about it and they also said it sounded like it would be fun to gm for!

Hows this build look? I went as support heavy as I could. https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=197986

I just talked to my party about this and they said they liked the change, but were worried that the investigator was similar to the rogue class, and so it could have too much overlap with the two rogues.

Does the investigator play similarly to the rogue? What overlap would I have to worry about? How different could I make it? Do you think investigator is too similar to the rogue?

I hadn't considered taking alchemical crafting on an investigator, that would add a lot of the flavor back in without overcomplicating things!

The campaign was pitched as a pirate exploration campaign, so the pirate archetype gets a pass for being extremely thematic.

Thaumaturge might work poorly with the gm's setting. It has a magic is rare but really powerful thing. And my character had a whole hatred of magic story which might make the class weird since it seems pretty magical. The mechanics sound PERFECT though, I'll have to give it a look when it comes out!

Good point on the alchemical shot gunslinger covering some weakness, I'll pitch that!

Campaign appropriateness could be a major problem that you bring it up. The campaign is going to be a heavily player exploration campaign with the pcs having a pirate boat sailing from island to island. No overarching mystery.

The gm doesn't often use random encounters, we usually know about encounters beforehand, but will the lack of mystery make the class awkward?

A year ago, my group made characters for a new pf2e campaign, but because of life stuff, it is only now starting (well, in about three months, but we have a definite plan!). I am excited about my character, but a couple of factors are making me consider whether I should switch him from being an alchemist to an investigator. Mainly, this is the dm and all the other players' first time pf2e; the dm is talking about possibly using automatic bonus progression, and also, the game is using foundryvtt.

The interactions between alchemy and automatic bonus progression are complicated, and I feel that using a virtual tabletop makes them more so. I would feel bad making the dm have to figure out how to run all that stuff while also running pf2e for the first time. And since we are moving from 5e, it might be nice not to complicate things for the other players with mutagens. I thought a forensic investigator with the medic archetype would be decent for getting my "creepy graverobbing doctor" character working smoothly. But, On the other hand, an alchemist might be necessary for this party.

The other players are:

I was scrolling through my reddit history and found this post I made two years ago on a dnd 5e subreddit. The best answers in 5e kinda worked but didn't really fufill the fantasy I was looking for. How does pf2e do this concept? (I am not looking to play this character, I am just curious)

"In most rpgs I have played, when you are a caster, you are either a cleric, a big walking tank, or a wizard, who stays as far outside of battle as possible.

Spoilers for last night's owlhouse episode, but I saw this https://twitter.com/SpencerWan/status/1297388656655659008 and I loved how kinetic and tactile the fight was between these two mages, while still fully being a magic fight.

So I am looking for something like that, a build that emphases movement, getting into melee on occasion, and stuff like that, but is still 100% caster, not a gish, only weapon they should be holding is a staff and they should focus on spells.

The most important part is asthetics, I want something that looks (withought any reflavor) like a 100% classic mage, but has a bit more movement and close range combat.

Any way to do that?"

I don't think I got the "not much reasons to hit you" Part.

I mean, if you are a frontline, enemies are going to hit you

Personally I often find in most of my parties at least half the party will remain in melee, and if a monster sees two people, one of which is hard to hit and the other of which is easy to hit, they are going to hit the easier target.

So I like it when I play a tank to have some way to make the enemies want to attack my character (champion reactions and grappling being my two favorites)

Power armor is rad, but the inventor armor innovation looks like it has less to actively do than the other innovations, and it looks like it could fall into the tank fallacy (tons of defense if you are hit, but not much reason to hit you)

What have your experiences with it been? What is your opinion on it?

Rfkannen wrote:

Hopefully there is SOME undead themed alchemy thing in the book though, I want to really get that re-animator vibe!

If nothing else, you can take Undead Master to give yourself an undead companion, and then describe it as an alchemical reanimation.

Oh that would be really fun! It would fit the character really well!

My ideal gameplay would to mostly be playing a size large construct that grapples and trips enemies. Summoner's spellcasting might be better mostly because I am having trouble figuring out how you hit someone with a sword while in a mecha lol. It does seem like there isn't much of a reason to ride a melee eidolon though.

I have a character for a campaign that has been pushed back a couple times, and I am VERY interested to see if I can use stuff from book of the dead for him.

Basic concept is a creepy elven doctor alchemist who studies corpses and the line between life and death. My gm and I were talking about making him mechanically a dhampir to represent him being a vampire taking suppressants that keep himself mostly alive.

I would LOVE to make him a proper vampire, but I am doubtful if it is a good idea. There aren't any casters in the party, the campaign will take place during the day, and we will be on a boat. If vampires can't stand running water, or the only way to conquer sunlight vulnerability is with spells, I will have to avoid making him a vampire.

Hopefully there is SOME undead themed alchemy thing in the book though, I want to really get that re-animator vibe!

Both the summoner and the inventor have options for having a construct you can ride around with. I really like the idea of playing a mecha rider, but I am not sure which of the two would be a better option.

Which would you suggest?