Ryangwy's page

Yet another wrench that I'm surprised has not been thrown yet, is that the rarity tag DOES equate to power. And it's just silly to claim otherwise.

No, that's rarity = no testing. Prey Mutagen shares the level 1 rare alchemical consumable tier with... Addiction Suppressant, Elsie's Excellent Bottled Vim and Redpitch Bomb. It's just way easier to not notice all the crap options for items. It does mean they're more likely to break fundamental system principles.

But Firebrands exist.

The rarity tag is doing multiple jobs here (how much testing we did for this thing, how badly will it change your campaign, how literally rare this thing is) but I think the Exemplar is mostly the third option witht he second added because, well, you're already there.

Which is to say the thought process is probably: Gods dying are rare -> Exemplars are rare -> since Exemplars are rare, we can give them more campaign tone affecting abilities like epithets -> remind GMs that since Exemplars are rare you can say no to having 'Bob the Mournful, Peerless Under Heaven' in your campaign

I think it is pretty important to remember that PF2 actually does a really bad job (which is a really good thing) at representing a lot of Western philosophies, especially those that push into religious faiths and world views. Divinity as represented in PF2 (and D&D) has been called sacrilegious by many and the closer it would try to represent one particular religious world view, the more problematic the game would become for even more people, even if much of the fiction that inspires players of the game gets away with exploring those ideas and beliefs more closely than a game itself can.

Oh, I definitely agree. It's been said before that on matters of magic, D&D is bad at describing anything except itself, and divine magic is one such core pillar of D&D magic. The most flavourful magic classes in PF2e are the ones most distant from D&D and also the ones who take the biggest sledgehammer to slot casting (animist, psychic, etc.)

Still, though, it's undeniable D&D uses Western fantasy as a baseline (and also became sort of a baseline for Western fantasy) and so just flat out doesn't have support for things common in Eastern fantasy. Inasmuch as D&D has ninjas, they (and monks) are drawn from Western superhero comics. Or the hilarious but real subcategory of Japanese Western Fantasy which includes Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy.

Like I think that Kongming is a larger than life character that pushes much closer to a super mythic Old Man Jatembe, that is going to be able to do more than any player character is going to be able to do short of the highest levels of the game, so we are probably looking at combining mythic destinies and features that would probably be fairly underwhelming in play because the magical powers don't need to be able to kill demon lords or the greatest dragons in the land by themselves, but would level armies of lower level human soldiers.

I'm using Kongming as a touchpoint but this is what I mean by the fan-wielding strategist being a very common Eastern fantasy character that just... never appears in Western sources or the kind of Eastern fiction that gets spread widely in the West. The animist is a specific kind of Eastern character too, because they're based on animism (duh) which is, of course, different from being a strategist. Baby Zhuge doesn't need to shape the land or slay demon lords but turning an area of ground into mud and commanding an ally to Shove an enemy into the mud is definitely within scope of PF2e early levels.

Which, again, I'm aware that it'll likely never be made because the proportion of Paizo customers who are even aware this is A Thing is miniscule! It's just there as a supporting argument as to why it's simultaneously true that what I call the folklore ninja is both very popular and widespread in Eastern media and also very different from what TTRPGs will accommodate. The fact you're not aware this is a whole trope despite your knowledge of Eastern philosophy is kinda the proof of that.

Which ninja are you trying to be though when you talk about "folklore ninja"? Do you mean like Jiraiya with his affinity for toads and very high magic arts? Do you mean the version of Ninja's from the Iga Clan whose techniques were mostly misdirection, acting, and information gathering with a slant towards religious zealotry? Do you mean like legendary figures like Hattori Hanzo, who was primarily a samurai who used information gathering to help the Tokugawa?

I picked the term to mean stuff like Jiraya, yes. Though I should note while the 'historical' Iga clan (there's a lot of postfactual myth-making about the Sengoku) obviously don't use magic, the Sanada Ten Braves version do and that's part of the folklore I'm talking about. It might be better to call them 'manga ninjas' or 'Naruto ninjas' to avoid confusion with other kinds of historical folklore but a lot of people seem to think Naruto is deviant from standard ninjas when it's actually very standard and I want to avoid that too.

It's in the same way the Paladins of Chalamange are also real people with real, non-magical deeds but the paladin (now Champion) class is about the story version that ride hippogryffs, heal with a touch and fight without dying for days due to divine intervention.

I think there is a misconception that casters can’t use weapons at all.

It's not a misconception - it's a statement on the needs of a folklore ninja, which none of the existing options you mention capture on their balance of specific kinds of magic, weapon use and trickery because, well, it's a niche that is very authentically Japanese and everything you've mentioned are all very Western takes on the concept.

Sure, you can cast invisibility on a rogue. The 3.5e ninja is exactly that class, even. It's also not the folklore ninja, and I feel like PF2e should make a better try of capturing the authentic culture - one that's actually fairly tight knit, because it all came out at the tail end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th century - than just saying 'but you can cast magic, stealth and use shurikens, why aren't you happy?'

Paizo can also just not do a ninja, of course, that's their right. But morso than the samurai, the ninja is a bunch of puzzle pieces that don't cohere well (admittedly, we're also missing e.g. the Chinese strategist ala Kongming who controls the weather and constructs formations of the eight elements to coordinate armies, for another example of an Eastern popular character archetype on melding natural magic and warfare that the Western sphere doesn't grok at all)

The difference betwen the ninja/strategist and a rogue/commander witha druid archetype is that the ninja/strategist controls nature to sneak/command, while the archetyped options controls nature and also sneak/command, but they're separate buckets that occasionally synergises. The understanding is very different. It's Eastern philosophy that even the five-element monk is tepidly skimming over because it isn't very prevalant in the West

No argument that other classes may have non-melee skills that fit the trope well. However it baffles me that people keep thinking of fighter as 'mono-focused' when it is as good with all the other weapons as the Commander and Ranger and the other martials. Nothing prevents you from taking your specialty in Sword and then swinging a polearm or firing a bow when the need or situation calls for it. It's like saying "Bob has a fruit salad with world class cantaloupe. Charlie has a fruit salad with average cantaloupe. Therefore, Bob can only possibly ever eat cantaloupe." It just does not follow. Bob isn't more limited than Charlie - rather, Charlie is more limited than Bob.

... Because increased proficiency is the Fighter's damage booster? Rogues and barbarians also get all martial weapons, nobody will say the rogue is as good with the greatsword as a barbarian or the barbarian with the shortsword as the rogue because they don't get their damage booster (ok, the barbarian gets it halved) on some weapons that they have full proficiency in.

what they want is an anime swordsman that slashes the air to throw shockwaves to their enemies, cut buildings in half with a single slash, and jump to deflect a meteor that could have destroyed the whole city

I'm fairly certain the iconic Japanese sword user that does those things use a greatsword... I do agree that a lot of people have attached things to samurai that don't even match how they're 'properly' used, as a catch-all for 'sword thing in East Asia' (extra funny when the katana, like the longsword for knights, wasn't even their main weapon).

Ninja type stuff exists in many classes. Monks get wall running and water walking, etc. and can do some of the supernatural agility things. Rogues get a touch of that at high levels, and are fantastic at the assassination angle. I think Kineticist actually touches on some of the more magic ninja stuff, if you want someone who fights by chaining fireballs into faces and such.

The specific niche that's missing (and that probably needs a whole class to accomodate) is 'I cast magic to breathe fire/turn into a giant/summon a frog behind you/create illusions/teleport and you're so distracted by that I stab you extra good' which is arguably what the folklore ninja is at the core. That's genuinely unreplicable ATM; of the three classes that want to strike and magic, Magus and Summoner want to do it simultaneously to add the damage together and Warpriest/battle harbinger are entirely about buffing.

I would argue that the current traditional western warrior classes probably do not fit well with their Oriental versions. Sure there is the Champion but the Champion is more religious based and deals in Divinity. The Divine in Korea were more like shamans and I suspect the Flower knights more than likely would know arcane magic rather than divine. Same with the Samarai. Certainly Smarai and Hwarang would be better trained in Lore skills and maybe would have a bardic ability to recall any lore even if they did not have it.

It's true the Fighter is a bad fit for Eastern noble warrior class. That's because the Fighter is a poor fit for almost all noble warrior classes (here meaning the social construct); the thing about being a class of people whose entire life purpose is to get swole to crunch heads is that you end up picking up a variety of weapons to cover all angles.

The Fighter is monofocused on one weapon type due to the gamification of the concept of the fighting man; it's easy to give pick-from-list abilities that benefit one single weapon, and over time that became the mechanical identity of the class. That's not to say the Fighter is a bad class; it instead best represents citizen militias like the Greek hoplites and English longbowmen who only have time to practice one weapon, or professionalised military like Swiss Guards, Zweihanders and the ubiquitous Pikemen that don't have infinite money to chase being good with everything.

The noble warrior class is better represented by the Ranger (remember, Aragon is a king) or Commander; good with multiple different weapons, familiar with nature (a reminder that hunting, tracking and raising combat animals was a noble pastime) or warfare lore. This honestly covers almost all such people across all cultures, really. There's no need for them to know magic (beyond what the Ranger can already get) or have Bardic Lore, you can just pick up more lores (or archetype in) if you feel like it.

Honestly it sounds to me like there's at least three themes that different tables, players, or GMs would want to emphasize (realistic stealth ninja; magical ninja; james bond ninja), so any class or class archetype is likely to disappoint at least 2/3 of players lol because it won't reflect their mental notion of what it should be. And while it's nice to recognize original folklore, modern books and films are perfectly fine for a player to draw their PC's inspiration from too.

Yeah, that wraps back to why it's unlikely for a ninja or samurai class to be made in PF2e, where Paizo tries to be a lot more careful about the class fantasy (okay, R&R, but I think that would make them more cautious going forward, not less). If ninja makes it back in, it's going to be, as I mentioned, because no better name can be found for magic rogue class and they decide that making the TMNT/Daredevil/Batman fans unhappy their ninja has too much magic is worth it.

To be a bit more productive than that, if I could propose a framework for such a ninja to fill a genuinely missing class fantasy, I would base it off the Warpriest (no doctrine selection here). They get full martial weapons at 1st level but no shield block/medium armour, swap their Will progression for Reflex, s*~%tier sneak attack progression (start 1d4 ala Sneak Attacker, caps out at 2d6) that applies to damaging spells, their choice of Arcane (Int) or Primal (Wis) casting with the appropriate skill + Stealth, Swash type additional skill increase, no font, the ability to add a +2 circumstance bonus to Strikes (starting 5th) and saves vs spells (at 7th) against off-guard enemies (this probably means dropping master Strikes at 19).

To tie it together... a 1st level free action metamagic that lets you Create a Diversion using Arcana or Nature any enemy who you didn't critically miss or that didn't critically succeed against your spell, lasting until end of next turn, and a two-action Strike that makes hit enemies off-guard to your next spell? So unlike the Magus you'll be trying to alternate damaging spells and Strikes, unless you can enable off-guard in another way.

I can think of many more potential additions but I'll leave it as this for now.

I would love a swashbuckler build that was more oriented toward stealth and gadgets. Can easily build any number of action spies that way, like a fantasy James Bond, Batman/Robin, creepy shadow clown, etc., but also fit ninja and assassin tropes. Sneaky tricky tots and flashbang surprises make for great showy fun just as much as ninja flips and swinging from ropes. And with the right build on an awakened duck, well, Let's Get Dangerous.

Ehh, we already have Dex Armour Inventor for that...

I think that it's important to view ninja 'gadgets' more like spell components (e.g. fireball needing guano, animal friendship needing food) than technology. I think a fair, culturally accurate representation of ninjas needs to cast off the arcane and/or primal list because the trope makers like Sarutobi Sasuke (yes, really, many of the important ninjas in Naruto are based off folklore ninjas) and Jiraya can breathe fire, wind and poison, jump supernaturally, turn invisible, teleport, grow larger or smaller, summon animals, transform into animals... if that sounds like a best hit list of the arcane and primal tradition, it's because it is. Yeah, sure, they breathe fire by hiding flint in their mouth and create obscuring mist by tossing homemade bombs, but doesn't that sound like a prepared caster?

I think this also represents a lot of arcane trickster tropes (except the spellthief but spellthieves are awkward) and I think excluding the nonmagical or focus point only concepts that people also call ninja is a good idea. Those are already covered by stuff like Magus and Ranger (and... not very ninja tbh but I watched Ninja Sentai Kakuranger, I'm probably an outlier for English speaking ninja fans)

Yeah something like a naruto ninja is just as much of a worthwhile trope as magical girls are ala starlight sentinel. It's far enough removed from any realistic depictions of ninjas imo.

Funnily enough as I understand it the Naruto-style ninja is actually the 'original' and the nonmagical assassin is the fictitious Western invention.

(With a bit of historical weirdness in that many of the folklore ninjas were real people from the Sengoku that were postfactually grouped together as ninjas and also given supernatural powers at the same time, so people checking out their historical selves do see a regular person good at sneaking and killing, in the same way that there's almost certainly a historical King Arthur.... who isn't Christian, doesn't wear plate mail and can't be a knight because the concept (as used) postdates him.)

I think there's a nonzero chance of the ninja being an official class in PF2e because arcane trickster is a pretty deep well of class space that's currently unexplored (no, the now-defunct arcane trickster for rogues doesn't count) and 'ninja' genuinely is the cleanest one-word name you can ascribe that class.

The samurai... isn't a class. It's at minimum two completely polar concepts, one being an armoured knight except with Japanese weapons and armour and the other being a silk-wearing duelist ala swashbuckler. The PF1e samurai is just a very specific calvalier, anyway, which is now (mostly) the 2e commander. There's unfortunately no way for a swashbuckler to repeatedly draw and sheathe a katana for bonus damage but iaijutsu is specific enough a concept it can easily go unfulfilled just because nobody in Paizo wants to do it

Play samurai and ninja to your heart's content. Nobody is gatekeeping.

I think the issue is that the history of specifically the ninja and samurai class in D&D history is pretty fraught. Did you know the 3.5e ninja class explicitly notes that it's completely wrong for any depiction of the ninja but they thought it's fine because nobody gives a s$%@? I'm not making this up.

The other issue is that these are very specific cultural classes, and that's problematic for the Tian Xia Character Guide because needless to say the rest of Asia doesn't have samurai and ninjas. There's no easy way to genericsise them the way we do with barbarians (and most of the other cultural classes have been dropped - shamans are now animists, calvalier is an archetype). I'm admittedly weirded out why there's no iaijutsu archetype, being the one samurai trope that genuinely isn't captured at the moment, and the arcane trickster really just doesn't work ATM. But classes have way more weight than archetypes and you can't have the headliner player facing option be two extremely Japanese specific classes without essentially saying all of Tian Xia is Japanese. Which is then a problem the other way. And then you have to ask where else are these guys going to show up?

Two Champion reactions, assuming you can pick a different cause. Having both the selfless and selfish reactions would be amazing, and undead champions can get both shield of the spirit and touch of void (living ones can already get lay on hands via blessed one). You can also get all three blessings.

So someone wearing Light Armor can get a shadow rune, using up only one investment slot. But someone wearing an explorer's outfit with the accessory shadow rune has to use up two investment slots?

But then it doesn't take up a rune slot on the armour, because it's a completely different item, I think. It's an interesting balance point and I'm not surprised it seems to be only skill boosting and energy resistance runes that get it, because you could also wear a different magic item to do the same.

Honestly though do good AP Dms give advice on how to beat endgame bosses or advice throughout the campaign, without direct spoilers? I've played with very few GMs that give character building advice. Like if I were to actually build a Sorcerer who's only attack spell was force barrage and all my other spells were say, water walk, fly, haste, ooze form, etc. where I actually had zero spells affected by charisma, would the DM actually say something and make suggestions on the spells? Or if I had an archetype that had little sense, like Sorcerer with Barbarian archetype would the DM actually question it or ask why. I had a DM while playing Abomination Vaults, I was playing a Wizard, he examined my playstyle and my wizard died. He told me I'd like Magus better and how to effectively use one and this was on Start playing. I did like Magus better. But DMs like that even on Start playing are rare.

There's a general amout of advice GMs should be giving which is roughly what the Player's Guide give. A general lowdown on common enemy weakness, resistance and immunities is worth it so that Fire Kineticist don't die against Devils, say. Spore Wars is heavy on holy weakness and mental immunity is good advice. Pointing at Treerazer specifically is less so.

IMO GMs probably should do some sanity checking on characters too and not maxing your KAS is the reddest of red flags. I don't care that you're running all nontarget spells, Dispel also is against your DC and look at that, Treerazer has dispel! For free, even!

Yeah, if 'deal bazillion damage to Treerazer' is a concern you should be rocking something like double Shield of Faith Champion with maximum aura size to force Treerazer to eat a dozen automatic holy damage procs.

And give the whole party void immunity somehow because Treerazer's best ranged options are exactly that.

Otherwise, the best options are actually holy or sanctified divine spells that target reflex, which the good options have already been listed, and possibly trying to get Sickened or Clumsy to make them even more likely to stick.

Don not get obsessed with piddly tiny damage on miss, if you care that much about that play a Swashbuckler, slings suck

So basically the question is, are you making a force barrage character because you like force barrage, or because you think you can't damage Treerazer and other presumed challenges otherwise? If it's the latter, I would instead recommend using Divine Wrath and Divine Immolation as your damaging spells of choice.

Theaitetos' Oracle build is still perfectly useful, especially as Foretell Harm lets you double-dip on the holy weakness. Either grab Ancestral Memories from Sorcerer as mentioned, or see if you can go study Chrysopoetic Curse (it's uncommon, so require GM approval) as a way to stick Clumsy 3 on a failure or clumsy 1 on a success. Your path to victory will probably look like Conquering Soldier->Ancestral Memories into Chrysopoetic Curse if you can or Divine Immolation otherwise->keep spamming Divine Immolation until the persistent damage sticks, making sure to Foretell Harm whenever you can.

Of course, your friends should be helping you as well! You don't need to be the only one trying to land sickened or clumsy on Treerazer

what do you mean by playing the buff/defuff game? If I cast haste on all my allies which isn’t affected by how much cha I have is that not a buff? Or elemental absorption. Many bosses are immune to debuffs or at least resistant in every version of D&d I’ve known. Immune to demoralize, fear effects, etc. +2 vs fear effects.

If you're unfamiliar with PF2e, the answer to 'what do I do if a maxed out fighter can only hit the enemy on a 17' is 'give buffs and debuffs until it's more of a 11' which is broadly doable especially since, I have to emphasise, you are not fighting Treerazer until level 20.

Treerazer is tragically immune to mental and poison, but there are ways to stick sickened and clumsy that aren't those, so use them. Heroism 9th is the easy way to give others +3 everything. There's four of you vs one of him, you should be able to get that to stick somehow. Ideally by having, you know, a good casting stat.

But more generally, it's incredibly silly to leave most of your kit as a caster at home because you're scared the enemy crit succeeds. Spells that target enemies are good! OK, not AC spells, but still. Treerazer has a low Ref of +40 and no way to upgrade saves. The aforementioned Divine Immolation is a reflex save spell with persistent damage that deals holy damage, its weakness. It will chew through Treerazer's HP if you do the sensible thing and max out your casting stat. Heck, cast Divine Wrath anyway; it targets the stronger Fort save but it inflicts sickened on failure.

Also, I have to emphasise:

I’m betting other bosses/enemies have really high ac and saves

Treerazer is level 25. Not even AV was mean enough to throw PL+5 enemies out like candy. Most bosses you face will not be nearly as hard to hit BUT they will have more minions that can hurt you, more ways to put the hurt on you. Get a good casting stat and save spells. Don't pin everything on the reliable but piddly damage of force barrage. Please. That's just asking to be TPK'd 2 levels in because you hit the boss every turn for negligible damage instead of casting spells that actually hit the weaknesses of the mass of PL-1 enemies who are ripping your face off.

You... you do know you're not aiming to kill Treerazer in a white room, right? It's a level 25 unique creature, you are not fighting anything close to it, I'm not sure why you're taking Treerazer's stats to be representative of anything

If you're that microfocused on beating Treerazer (and only treerazer) without playing the buff/debuff game you're better off finding some way to automatically or near-automatically apply holy damage (holy champion w/ shield of the spirit, swashbuckler multiclass exemplar to Precise Strike with sanctified soul, anyone who can cast Divine Immolation). At least then you won't die to the regular enemies because you hyperfocused on a low damage spell thinking you can't hit enemies for ???

Shield Fighters get innate access to Slam Down, combined with Reactive Strikes and the crit spec of flails you ensure those buggers have no choice but to hit you. Don't give them bad choices, give them no choice! Alternatively, combat grab

Wait, I'm sorry, Crossbow slayer does not... interact with the crossbow's reload or any other stats. At all. Really?!

I'm struggling to come up with something that does this better than "take Champion Dedication on Spirit Instinct Barbarian", since that gets you what you want and is already in the system.

Possibly giving divine focus spells the rage trait so they can actually cast them while raging. But otherwise yeah, esp since the request was to spefcifically be two-handed big damage, which means that the defensive reactions and shield access are unneeded. It could well just be a variant instinct that grants Champion Archetype ala Spellshot and puts the Holy/Unholy on Spirit Instinct damage, since then it'd get heavy armour in a feat.

Pathfinder 1E's core books were setting agnostic, and it was never a problem back then. I literally didn't even learn that the Lost Omens Campaign Setting was a thing until after like 5 years of playing Pathfinder 1E, that's how setting agnostic it was. Especially since we were using d20pfsrd, I didn't even know about Pathfinder gods and goddesses until that time. None of the groups I was in ran Lost Omens, I was actually the first one among my friends to even bother to learn it when I started to get my feet wet GMing.

PF1e (and 3.5e and AD&D and 5e and 4e and...) are exactly as setting agnostic as PF2e actually. As it's once been described to me, D&D games only ever simulate D&D worlds; Vancian magic is a very notable case but there's just so many other minor things that assume the world works in certain ways that you could certainly ignore but no moreso than PF2e. I'm not actually sure what you need to drop from PF2eR Player Core besides the Golarion and Inner Seas subchapter in Introduction to meet the PF1e standard of 'setting agnostic' - classes still had forced anathemas that were in many cases even more severe and setting-implied than in PF2e, still had deities with specific combinations of domains and favoured weapons and alignments, actually has spells with specific names, which PF2eR dropped. I guess flavour text on ancestry feats, as opposed to the giant block of text on races that nobody reads?

You don't actually need any justification for those things to be in the feat buckets of certain ancestries and not others. Just like how there's no internal setting justification for why certain feats are in some classes' feat buckets and not others.

Oh, certainly. I agree. It's just that if that is sufficiently setting agnostic I'm not sure what is being asked for here besides, IDK, putting greataxes and rotary cannons in the same book? That seems to be more likely to make people throw their arms in protest at their relative die sizes than anything positive, and anyone willing to run a game where greataxes wielded by dragon barbarians deal more damage than rotary cannon wielded by soldiers can just do that even under the current model.

What is Allfinder doing that PF2e and SF2e separately aren't? I'm having a hard time seeing what big barriers there are to reflavouring that PF1e didn't have.

Also, 'setting agnostic' will kill 90% of ancestry feats. Without a setting, there's no reason for elven curved blades to be elven, for dwarves to know stonecutting, for gnomes to cast primal innate spells. You'll just be left with purely biological feats.

The main thing combination gun weapons need are legendary attacks to trigger their devastating crits which Gunslingers get post master and ways to not waste actions reloading which gunslingers also get so... yeah. Gunslingers are that class, -2HP per level is not anywhere near a problem esp when it's easily fixable.

Non-gun combination weapons are a different matter but I guess you just play fighter since bows don't care about reload.

EDIT: I forgot non reload combination weapons don't have critical fusion so nix that. Both combination bows have the monk trait so that signals pretty clearly who uses the mikazuki/bow staff (notably, both have parry in their melee form) and the Wrecker... has ranged trip?

- Inventor gets 8 hit points, auto-scaling crafting, no bonus skills, crafting is not useful in a lot of places. They should be a 10 hit poitn class like Swashbuckler...

- Gunslinger class kit makes it once again like Swashbuckler. It should get either Auto-scaling in the Skills the Gunslinger's way give and/or give it 10 hit points, it shouldn't be a 10 hit point class.

Inventors theoretically get pseudo-casting from unstable actions and stuff, though they could sure use the 10hp too. But first fix unstable actions.

Gunslingers don't actually use their skills exclusively - -some ways, like Pistolero and Sniper, use it far more than others, like triggerbrand and drifter, and you can absolutely ditch all the skill stuff in favour of other things. I mean, they won't mind extra hp, but I've ran for one and tested playing another and they don't really run into any real chance of hitting the floor. It's definitely not Daredevil level of being chained to skill progression or forced to eat every single reaction.

As for the Slayer, the class is a bit of a misnomer in my opinion, because they're largely terrible at actually slaying creatures at most levels and shine mostly through utility. I think their signature tools are terribly-designed and definitely believe they should have some measure of killing power built into their kit as a baseline, ideally some kind of execution ability against their quarry. I actually quite like their tool feats, though, and feel that the class could actually be really interesting if they got their core features sorted out. Decoupling their quarry from trophies and making quarry easier to mark I think would go a long way towards making their gameplay loop smoother, as would actually letting them use their special Lore skill to find and mark quarry before a combat encounter.

It really does seem to be more of a blue mage, a class that gains powers by encountering foes with those powers. Incredibly funny that even the much-maglined Inventor still gets offensive power baked into their defensive subclass and the Slayer... doesn't, somehow. You take the Blade or you live with being a pillow that doesn't even have any real way to get enemies to trigger your defensive abilities. And that's not even getting started on the other two tools!

I think the idea is you use Monster Lore and Society to RK on what kind of creatures you'll find in advance but... Slayer really functions on angles that don't match actual gameplay.

Sadly, Inventor indicates that Paizo really, really loves making changing damage type take at least a day.

Those are some fun ideas but also kind of complicated.

I feel like a more likely solution is just explicitly allowing trophies to be described as hunting notes or the result of some ritual (literal or not) associated with victory and to just allow trophies from nonlethal 'kills' with some caveats to prevent trophy farming (even then trophies aren't really impactful enough to make that feel like a huge problem even its most exploitative state).

Trophies being concerned mainly with what traits they have makes repeats kinda pointless, actually, which makes avoiding taking three trophies off the same guy kinda naff except for, I think, the odd case where you're fighting a bifurbicated enemy setup and need to quickly switch between two sets of traits on your tools rapidly (thinking AV floors 6-7). Which I'm honestly going to say that the slayer should just be able to swap their trophy of choice every 10 min anyway, it's fine.

Like, to be clear, it's a special kind of ridiculous to drag along a grothlut and an imp unconscious so you can switch between anti-devil and anti-aberration on the switch of a hat but that's really the only use case I can think of for doing so.

Yeah, Untamed scaling Pest->Animal is a perfectly fine progression for normal Druids - you can Untamed Shift for d6 agile claws until then or pick up, say, Animal or Storm Order first and grab Order Explorer at 2nd when you get Animal Form straight up. It's just not helpful for people who want to shapeshift from lvl 1, which is why this ends up circling back to 'class archetype or Shifter class' if that's the main fighting style rather than just one of several good options.

On the class archetype side, I would put forth that it gets a d6 agile finesse strike even in Pest Form (aka Untamed Shift) and its 2nd level class archetype feat lets cast the spell on roll initiative. Meanwhile, the druid also gets a 2nd level feat that lets it cast a 2-action spell when it spends 2 actions to untamed form once per 10min. Both are action savers but push in very different directions wrt spellcasting (and are deliberately antisynergestic and occupy the same level so you don't take both)

(After that comes a wishlist of things that any untamed form caster should get, like the ability to decrease size on casting that also decreases reach and getting Nature Incarnate as an option before hitting level 20, and things only the class archetype should get, like Reactive Strike and some Channel Smite equivalent)

I think for KAS at least, it depends on the amount of space. In the book itself, there is a picture of Lini on the page with Untamed Order. All an addition of "If you started with this order, you can choose Strength or Dexterity as your Key Attribute" would add is about 2 lines. There's about 2 lines past the Shield Block class feature before we get to the Lini picture, and even then, the picture can be shrunk by a small percentage to make room for a third line if needed.

You don't really need a fundamental change to a class in that case. It can just be an add-on to the Untamed Order paragraph. Pagination-wise, the page has the room.

Sure, but conceptually Druidic Orders are meant to be enterable at any point in levelling by taking the respective feats, you just get one free. So it'd be odd to have just the one order have a benefit that only works if it's your first. I'd rather they save that linespace for something that doesn't care if you get Untamed Order at 1 or 2 or 6.

(It also doesn't solve the 'pest form does nothing' issue, though you do have untamed shift as the fallback)

So, can we sum up:

1. Pretty much everyone wants a Shifter class that is a martial focused on shapeshifting.

2. Untamed Order doesn't scratch the martial shifter itch, and at best is a decent to good utility option on a full caster chassis.

3. There may be some room to improve Untamed Order martial ability, since action costs and feat costs may not have been fully integrated into the budget, but most agree there is not much if any head room there, and if it is it's only at the highest levels where it falls off. A class archetype to limit spellcasting would *likely* be the best way to get more martial potency on an Untamed Order druid.

4. If we accept that a Shifter class is available to scratch the martial shifter itch, that class could be paired with a druid multiclass to get much of what is left on the class fantasy bone for people who wanted to play a shifting focused druid. This would also allow the Untamed Order shifting to potentially change focus and allow in-form spellcasting or something similar to give shifting druids a truly unique and powerful benefit.

Agreed with all of this - functionally, a 'problem' with Untamed Order (and why the Moon Druid comparisons don't work well) is that it's not an exclusive subclass option, it's a level 2 feat some druids get at level 1. That's why you can't KAS Str, or remove spells slots, or whatever, without building a new class archetype or flat out class, because that's just not possible the way the druid is built.

Notably the class archetype will still be able to poach the elemental focus spells anyway via Order Explorer, though at 2 feats (low level ones admittedly) that's not as trivial as it is for baseline druids. The class archetype can revamp KAS and casting and progression to be like BH (messier because they need to remove half a dozen class features and re-add them but doable) and maybe the level 2 class archetype feat lets you transform on roll initiative? That's a big encouragement to not cast spells, I suppose. I mean, after you figure out how to fight in 'pest form' for your first two levels (I almost forgot about that, heh). Then you give it access to a bunch of useful martial feats like Reactive Strike I guess.

I feel there's a degree of wishful thinking going on here, where arguments from verisimilitude are being used to effectively eliminate the established differences between types of armor in Pathfinder. For starters, the claims are false: full plate very much did restrict mobility and was exhausting to wear, which was a key factor in certain historical battles such as Agincourt. Coupled with the development of ranged weaponry powerful enough to pierce most armor, this led to heavier armor being phased out over time. Second: even if we were to assume that full plate didn't restrict mobility at all in real life, that is separate from how it is conceptualized in Pathfinder as exceedingly heavy (which it was) and intended to sacrifice mobility for increased protection. We can talk about a full armor maneuver class all we like, but that's ostensibly not what the Daredevil is designed to be.

I do think, as a person who made a rodelero class and thus put a lot of thinking into what 'rolling around' even means, that once again it comes down to - 'who is the daredevil representing'? Which, once you take away the people who are more swashbucklers, is some combination of 'modern-day superheroes' and 'nobody'. Which is not to say the time period Golarion is set in doesn't have people tumbling through enemy ranks and disrupting formations with shoves! They're just, generously, medium armour at minimum because it turns out if your goal in life is to roll through a pike wall you better make sure you don't bleed that easily.

Of course, most people have never heard of the rodelero because, well... it's not a great strategy. Inasmuch as maneuvers are used in RL warfare, it's to keep people in one place (mostly by, well, armoured knights who have dropped their weapons to give you a big hug and knee you in the groin), not move around all over, and the conceptual space for that moving around is covered by the swashbuckler (who's setting up for the perfect shot) and the monk (who does that while punching you).

That said, this piece of feedback is likely not going to make it through, so you're probably right that we have to accept the designers really like Daredevil and Robin and work with the class fantasy they gave us, not the one we want.

So, regarding the armor issue, I think many are focusing too much on the modern context of daredevils, considering only our contemporary world where armors are light in general. I can't see the same problem when translating this to a medieval fantasy world, where this type of daring character can't wear medium armor.

I actually made a 3.5e class based exactly around a real life example of such - the Rodelero, a heavy armour class focused on Tumble Through to people to sneak attack them. It's... not quite what the playtest daredevil is, more of a 2e swashbuckler mechanically that only cares about acrobatics, but it's important to note that 'heavy armour person rolling up under some enemies with too much reach so they can shank them' is in fact a RL guy from exactly the period D&D and PF are primarily based on.

The issue is, what does the Druid do when the party has a Cleric and a Sorcerer already? It doesn't compare well to either class in their niche and doesn't really have a niche of its own. It feels very much like a 3.x/PF1 bard, where it's a good fit once every other role has been filled, but never something a party would want instead of a more optimal setup.

I mean... it does compare fairly well to their niches, actually? You probably replace the cleric with the druid if you are in a campaign with few undead/unholies and more things with elemental weaknesses so you aren't twiddling your thumb where there's nobody to heal (Outlaws of Alkenstar comes to mind). The ability to off-tank compared to a sorcerer would also matter if your primary DPS is ranged for whatever reason or enemies themselves are ranged or have a lot of movement options (again, see Outlaws of Alkenstar). I understand they taper off at higher levels but they get good focus spells very early on and can accumulate them cheaply. They may taper off at higher levels but I'd actually argue that at 1-4 when slotted spells for damage sucks a druid beats the sorcerer and oracle and still has time to give everyone rank 2 tailwind.

The fact that the Untamed Druid is sitting on a full caster's worth of spellcasting proficiency and spell slots is in my opinion a strong reason to let their shapeshifting power come from mixing battle forms and spellcasting.

Agree with basically everything here. People don't want a caster with twenty unused slots because they turned into a bear, they just want someone who turns into a bear and punch faces and they're locked onto the druid for lack of options. But at the same time many people want to turn into a bear while casting spells, and that's valid too (and close to what PF2e druid is). Split the class fantasy so they can actually be good at what they are.

Well, yes. That's why letting the druid do limited casting when they cast untamed form will be of the biggest help to untamed fullcaster druids, not adding more stats. That lets them leverage what their actual strength is and not leave them in a quantum state where the sum total can be too powerful but also most people will run it badly.

(Note that the druid is a 'specialist' as a caster already - they're basically as good as a cleric at healing in any single combat, though they deplete heals faster, they get access to the best blasting spells, though not the status bonus sorcerers get, they still get access to the really good buff spells like, I have to reiterate, haste and slow. They can just cast 2nd rank tailwinds out of every slot too, and have the cheapest baked in access to mounts for free moves. The issue is that untamed pushes them into an area they aren't a specialist in, in the same way say, scroll thaumaturgy does for thaumaturges, which doesn't really stop them from being perfectly competent in their role any more than spending an entire turning casting a single scroll spell does for thaums but if a thaum refuses to do anything other than cast scroll spells they suck too; giving thaums full casting is not a solution to that.)

I feel like I need to reiterate that giving the druids buffs to lift up their later level performance, where their early game chassis advantage over casters not named 'animist' or 'oracle' (gag) fade away, is fine. Smoothing over some pain points for shapeshifting is great. Making a class archetype or even a flat out shifter class is great.

The problem is that this keeps, somehow, returning to making the druid shapeshifted to be pegged to the higher end of martial play without accounting for their spell slots. Because you can't separate the spell slots from the druid! The druid is a perfectly good buffer, can cast heal spells and has a selection of great focus spells. Even if the primal list is constructed in a way to make casting 1 action spells into untamed being not great, that doesn't shake the fact the druid can, at any time, unshapeshift and cast heal. Or cast Haste 6 then shapeshift. Or... well. It's why I think letting the druid cast a spell in conjunction with shapeshifting is a better solution than giving them numerical buffs to shapeshift forms, because then you eat up those spell slots to do so and account for them.

And also because the other usecase for untamed, being a cantrip that gets around spell resistance, is a very good option at low levels. I mean, even non-druids tote around shapeshift spells for a reason.

So the 'perpetually shapeshifted' class needs to not be a fullcaster druid while having a full martial chassis plus benefits, and the fullcaster druid could use some touch up to make shapeshifting work better with the buffs on the primal list that really should go well with it as well as fill out that nasty remaining gap, but please don't conflate them. Putting both goals as the same class... I won't say will never happen, because PF2eR has been playing a lot looser with balance than I'd like, but I won't enjoy it.

druid design would be to introduce a structural split similar to the Warpriest and Cloistered Cleric distinction. Providing two clearly defined paths—one emphasizing martial capability and the other emphasizing spellcasting—would allow players to intentionally choose the role they want to excel in. This avoids forcing a single baseline that inevitably leads to circular debates about what druids “should” be good at.

1. Druids Already Carry Unique Restrictions
Druids operate under anathema and are bound to protect nature. These thematic constraints limit their behavior in ways other classes do not experience. It is logical, then, that they should receive compensatory mechanical strength. A class with additional narrative burdens should not also be mechanically underpowered.
2. Their Identity Is Built on Being a Force of Nature
The druid fantasy is not that of a mild generalist. It is the image of someone who channels storms, commands beasts, and reshapes the battlefield. A class with such a strong thematic identity should have the mechanical tools to express that identity
3. Versatility Requires Meaningful Specialization
Druids are inherently flexible, but flexibility without specialization leads to mediocrity. By offering distinct paths—martial-focused and spell-focused—the class can preserve its versatility while still allowing players to excel in their chosen role.

I mean... that circles back to 'make a class archetype or a whole new shifter class', not 'buff untamed order' because untamed order exists as part of the flexible druid who grabs that, animal order and storm order all at the same time.

I am entirely in favour of a brand new martial primal class or class archetype which is fighter-level (keeping in mind wildshapes inherently have every maneuver tag baked in and the ability to splice new movement options so we're talking freehand fighter not two-handed fighter) while having next-to-no spellcasting.

... Also, druids have always been versatile, they were always the animal companion and wildshape and cast lightning and cast heal class simultaneously. It's a 'strong' thematic identity in the sense that it's the primal spelllist, which means the druid already has all the tools it needs, by casting spells. Their anathema has at most cost them some AC in times past, not any meaningful restriction on their offensive output. We're not talking monk or gunslinger level of 'ten thousand buffs to make subpar weapon work'.

It is illogical to balance out of combat utility versus in combat.

Yes every class should be aimed at around the same power.

Then you'd be better off knocking down the fighter and rogue rather than trying to drag all... how many classes up to their standard?

Besides, untamed druid, which has the fallback of being a 3 slot primal caster with full access to the spelllist, isn't just purely out-of-combat versatility. The versatility is very real in-combat too. Awkward, but real. Just putting heals in those slots is already good. That's always the tension, a very real one. Spellcasters can't be balanced around people not casting spells, because 'cast three top rank slots of good spells' is always the most effective thing to do in an encounter. Unless it's an encounter with lesser deaths, I guess.

I'm actually well aware of how powerful spellcasting is—probably more than you think. I just think it's a bad reason to try to nerf an order. If Swashbuckler and Investigator are weak, then they need a tune‑up; the answer isn’t to drag Untamed down. was your question actually serious? The argument of “they should suck so I feel better” is the worst. If you’re too weak, seek remedies—don't seek to down other classes.

This isn't a 'they should suck' this is a '(remastered) swashbuckler is the gold standard of balanced martial power' and 'investigator is roughly where martial with heavy out of combat investment is' which is where a untamed order druid who never uses spells in combat should be, logically.

Maybe investigator could be bumped up a bit but if you try to get everything chasing fighter highs that's just asking for power creep and isn't going to be particularly healthy or fun. PF2eR Rogue was a mistake, for instance. It's not like I'm asking for a nerf to Untamed, I've actually suggested several buffs - I just want to be clear that the buffs should not be with an eye to make them match fighter, because fighter is very close to being a mistake even with them getting nothing else and druid chassis does not qualify as 'nothing else'

And just to be clear, I’m not asking for the Druid to overshadow the Fighter. I want the Druid to be competitive, not dominant. If the Fighter is outputting around 80, the Druid should reasonably be able to hit something like 65. Right now, it feels more like Fighter 80 vs. Druid 40, and that gap is simply too wide. and in fact not balanced

Serious question: where do you think Swashbuckler or Investigator lands on that scale? Because the Fighter is slightly ovetuned and very easy to optimise, but the druid needs to not overshadow all martials.

(And like... you really cannot underestimate how much having access to the entire primal list, for free, does to the druid. The tricky part is unlike the animist you can't doublecast your best buffs with shapeshifting at the same time - I should mention Floating Flame as an otherwise very useful prebuff - but even then you're the one who gets free access to casting Mass Haste to start the battle, for instance)

Re: balance I think anyone thinking small bits of Resist All being dolled out in places other than incorporeal and champion reactions were balanced on blocking every damage type separately may have forgotten the Guardian playtest - I think Paizo just thinks they're neat and only care if they exceed a cap. 'Bad high level feat' is kind of par for the course ever since the beginning. A Port In Every Home is still there.

They will also not actually say that because has anyone ever seen MaRo's inbox? You need to have very specific wiring in the brain to respond to the nth comment about how [current thing] is destroying the game, sales are not a valid metric and player satisfaction is clearly being measured wrongly by calmly telling them they really, really don't have the full picture and need to think boarder than their own local community.

Like to be clear reload weapons aren't good but the gunslinger gives them the perfect set of buffs to make them good, in my experience. Bows are weirdly overtuned (they could really stand to lose the deadly IMO, both from a balance perspective because they get composite and from a realism perspective because they're the least lethal IRL ranged weapon in the game, Hollywood is obsessed with unrealistic arrow OHK that don't exist IRL) and I think get really good in ranger/monastic archer hands but the non-archetype bow fighter is not it.

But gunslinger subclasses are mostly good (mostly, I'm looking at you Vanguard) after they fixed spellshot, dual wielding and combination weapons. You can do better with FA and the right set of archetypes with bows but monoclass players without FA are unlikely to be disappointed. My Sniper Gunslinger player described it as the perfect AFK build - he wakes up when I say it's his turn, quickly figure out which 2 action shot and 1 action reload he wants to do, rolls once, then goes back to sleep. It's apparently quite zen.

Slinger's precision is...fine I guess? I mean, composite bows add half your Strength to damage so I guess the damage is comparable to that? I don't know why crossbows have to deal less damage though. They are already worse than firearms if that was somehow possible.

Large Bore Modification is the equivalent to Composite, IIRC, but I think most gun users who aren't doing melee hybrid would be happier dumping Str for other stats. Snipers get the best Power Attack in the game IMO, too. Bow fighters really do suffer from how little the fighter chassis benefits them beyond the starting +2 IMO but I've not really seen one do the whole 1-20 so I can't be sure. Level 20 Sniper gunslinger, though. Outdamages the barbarian consistently.

Crossbows premaster suffer from being all simple - that's fixed now, and they have their uses, though they compete with beast guns in the niche of 'I can't crit, now what'. I wouldn't play gunslinger for crossbows but a backup crossbow does quite a bit to help (that said, I was generous with fully runed up weapons as loot since I knew my players wouldn't sell them off)

Well, Gunslingers specifically get around that with their innate flat damage buff and their slinger's reload and stuff. Bow fighters don't get any of that. Still sucks for, uh, everyone else, I guess, except level-5 mooks who were only hitting you on their first shot on a 19 or 20 anyway.

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It will take me a few days to respond to everyone who have kindly posted in this thread; work, medical visits, and family have taken up a good chunk of my free time recently.

I already have a few things I want to further develop:

1) Using tools to perform the math to determine crafting times and earning income.

2) Moving away from the mindset of "Cure Light Wound Wands" and "Scrolls of Knock, Sleep, and Magic Missiles" that saw so much heavy use in 1E (I understand it is a "new game math" in 2ER, so they are no longer needed.)

3) How to determine different "Security Levels" for banks, magic shops, and rare materials/commodities on a scale from "A Locked Door and a Guard Dog" all the way up to "Stored in a Pocket Dimension and protected by an Immortal Guardian". I had to learn how that kind of thing worked in 1E, now I have to relearn it again for 2ER.

Along the lines of "What would stop someone for casting "X spell" and just walking, teleporting, ghosting, or appearing inside the bank vault and robbing the place blind without leaving a trace"? You know, the kind of things creative players like to pull on the GM.

So, 1 is already in AoN. Not everyone likes those times (they're not livable wages, the rationale being that adventurers aren't doing all the work to make sure they can create and sell stuff smoothly that dedicated NPCs would) but they're there.

For 2), the replacement for wands of CLW is either Treat Wounds or a healing focus spell. These are all very efficient, especially as you level up! Let them be.

3) The basics are the Simple DCs and the DCs by level table (depending on circumstances). The more advanced fact is that many of the 'ghost mechanisms' are uncommon or rare, so teleporting inside the bank vault might not even be an option. And NPCs are allowed to have asymmetrical options! Players trying to do that might need to pass an on-level skill challenge based on the magical skills to get in, even though there's no published ritual to do so!

I think part of the problem is no matter what you do the druid will always be a full spellcaster. So untamed CAN'T be as good in melee as a pure martial class, because all of a martial class goes into their melee (in this case), and the druid will have a secondary option even if they otherwise invest entirely into being a melee shapeshifter, so by nature, they need to be a little behind, so that versatility doesn't make them just outright better. Its a VERY narrow space to try and get a balance right in.

Yeah any further way of 'buffing' the untamed druid needs to drain the spell slots somehow, whether it's as a wavecaster or baking in the ability to cast a single spell into the focus spell or special shapeshift-only primal spells, because otherwise you have an entire 3 slot legendary spellcaster just... there, able to switch on a dime.

Because in the end untamed form is a free top rank encounter-long spell (until 19th) and sure you're putting in a few feats for it and shapeshifts aren't the strongest spells but that's still a lot of free spells on top of your regular spells.

It would be reasonable to adjust "Market Value" by a settlement's location, access to trade, and demand for specific items accordingly?

A sleepy peaceful farming village out in the boondocks with no real threats might not have many too few magic items available for sale/barter, while a thriving costal town near a hotbed of local threats on a major sea/land route might have a thriving market for specific magic items?

Yup, it is! Even in published APs, we see things like settlements having a higher level for specific items ('consumables up to 8th' on a 4th elvel settlement, for instance) and price markups and markdowns (I've seen up to 150% and down to 90%) on specific categories of items.

Sniper Gunslingers have some very proscribed actions (that go to hell if you drop a titan with multiple AoO on them, fun times) but I'll say they're in the late game by far the most reliable way to deliver at least one big crit at the beginning of every battle because unlike melee plebs they can just have hidden for their attack option trivially. That no need for teamwork works in their favour, IMO. They maintain their ability to 'collapse the flank' past the point the Str bonus for melee attacks are a rounding error on damage and the need to actually get to the enemy (and not death spiral afterwards, costing your party actions in subsequent turns) make sending a pick user, say, less appealing

Slayer is sorta weird in that the risk half of the class (everything about Quarry) and the reward half of the class (Tools and trophies) are almost totally separate. I can see how on paper they look like they meet, but in practice they don't, and I don't think many people are particularly attached to Quarry at all. Should just go full Thaum/Exemplar and put everything into the tools and trophies. Make the tools a bit more niche and give more ability to swap them out would be enough of a reason to want to study your 'quarry'.

Toughness does not increase your Fortitude save though.

At 1st level, it is only 1 more HP. I think it can wait till level 3.

Warpriests start with expert Fortitude, they'll be fine. Retraining heavy armour into Toughness and potentially dropping Con for more Wis is entirely survivable, basically.

Something else I need to consider: as a Versatile Human, she gets a 1st level General Feat. So far I've only considered Toughness, which fits the concept, but I'm not sure the +1HP/level helps as much as other feats might.

Everyone has the retraining advice, but I should note Toughness is essentially +1 Con, which means you effectively start 3 all in your important stats. And if you really want to lower Con for Cha or Wis, you can do it.