Rycke's page

One thing I will say about the action economy. The fighter (Hey, Claudius!) is using trips to excellent effect. With 3 actions per round, the main foe is spending one (or 2 if the fighter's AOO crits) of these actions standing up leaving only 2 actions to actually do some damage. I like the ideas I see in the spoiler responses and will probably implement some of these. As for why I allowed the free archetype, it was mainly for the fun factor. We're playing this campaign that will likely take several years. It gives the players a chance to experience more of the game than they would. I will make a (small) bump to difficulty to account for this.

Thanks to Claudius for starting this conversation and to all that have been participating!

I'm the GM in this situation and it's frustrating. With both of these characters having Attack of Opportunity (or equivalent), moving away from them is very punishing, costing as much as a third of my hit points. Lower level critters swarming them doesn't help because they hit so seldom and die so quickly. The best tactic seems to be a larger higher level critter that can block them from a distant caster, but running an adventure path doesn't put that situation in place very often.

I'm still having fun and am looking at adjusting future encounters to make them a bit more challenging, but at the same time, I don't want to punish them for building and playing well.

Admittedly, I didn't read all 13 pages of this discussion, but from what I have read, you'd think the only thing you can do with a shield is use the Shield Block reaction. The AC benefit of raising a shield is worth it regardless of using the Shield Block reaction. There are plenty of other things to do with your reaction even if you have your shield raised.

As a GM, I wouldn't even let this happen unless the player is trained in deception. If they are, it's a simple deception vs NPC (or PC) perception DC to fool them.

I flagged your post as in the wrong forum. You'll get more meaningful responses if it's posted either in the Strange Aeons forum or the First Edition forum.

You violated the terms of service by posting this.

One of my players is a Monk Farmer. He uses a combination bo staff/spade in combat. He treats it like a bo staff and says he trained with it, so he knows how to adjust for the balance. I told him as long as he pays for both items and accounts for the bulk of both items in his inventory, I don't have a problem with it.

It depends on the meaning of the word "is".

What are the chances that Paizo would publish an annual that would come out once a year (duh) that collects all of the character options (feats, archetypes, spells, items, etc...) that were published in adventures (APs, standalones, PFS, etc...) in the previous year? It would be great to have this data all in one place rather than scattered around 20 or more modules.

You have to turn them on, Morty! The shoes have to be turned on!

Something that seems to be immediately obviously incorrect is the scale on the Circus Camp map. It says that each square is only 5 feet. That would mean that each of the wagons is only about 5 ft. square. The area around the fire is definitely not large enough to contain the reverie described in the faerie fire encounter and Bardolph's wagon isn't even large enough to contain a grizzly bear.

The spell description is very clear. If someone is questioning this, just have them read the ENTIRE description, not skip around to just find the parts that make things look their way.

You can look at the bottom of the main page. This has links to all of the products releasing last month, this month, and next month.

You can also click on Store/Pathfinder. The first image on this page has a link below it that links you to all of the 2nd edition rules books. Under the second image, the Adventure Path link will take you to the 2nd edition adventure paths present and future.

I'm not sure how to get to the Lost Omens books.

It says you can make a melee strike against the triggering creature. My question is does a Grapple or Trip count as a melee attack?

The short answer is yes, grapple and trip both count as melee attacks. The longer answer is that they do NOT count as melee strikes which is what the Stand Still ability grants you.

I found this gem. It has room for 3 boxes of pawns and several dozen books. It also has side pouches for dice, pens, pencils, etc...

Game Haul

Since anecdotal evidence is the best proof, my Rise of the Runelords group is so excited to move from 1st edition to 2nd that I'm

I thought the Tengu originated in Dumbo.

I feel like the class needs to add its intelligence to perception checks in general or at least in pursuit of your "take the case" or whatever.

Intelligence oddly seems like a prime dump stat given you already have plenty of skills to begin with.

With the tight math of 2nd edition, you'll never get "add stat bonus to another check". You might get a substitution of int for wis when performing certain action, though.

Time and time again I saw player characters (newbs and veterans both) win initiative and accidentally break encounters with a single spell or full attack (in home games and published adventures). It most definitely happened more often than not. And this occurred without super builds, just run of the mill characters using Core Rulebook options.

I had a group of characters who trivialized the whole 2nd level of Thistletop because they had a witch with the Sleeping Hex. The witch successfully slept every one of the named NPCs and the Dwarf Ranger coup de graced them to pools of bile with his Earthbreaker.

Shouldn't the backpack errata say "treat your encumbrance limit as 2 bulk higher"--that would be far easier on the players and GMs from resource a management perspective, right?

No, because then pedants would equip a backpack and full plate armor and say they're at 2 bulk.

That would be like giving someone the ability to make bullets if they know how to fire a gun.

So far, my hands down favorite is Magic Weapon. That's the single spell that has caused the most damage of anything else I've cast.

What are yours?

Are you REALLY stuck, though? You can still get treasure. If your group isn't into crafting, just use the stuff you find. If your GM is just throwing out runestones to a party that doesn't have anyone trained in crafting, he's just being mean.

I don't think the GM needs to reward a group with already upgraded items if they didn't have the foresight to have someone in the group able to do this. By your line of thinking, a GM who does damage to a party with no healers, no one trained in medicine and who didn't buy healing potions is just being mean.

Enlarge made ****** for my group. He casted it on himself for +4 dmg and 15 ft. reach and it was just horror-incarnate for my group. Largely due to Enlarge. So IDK about players but NPCs like it ).

We have spoiler tags for a reason. Tons of people are playing through this AP and aren't to this point yet.

Sexual orientation isn't political, or at the very least, making it political is something done by people who want to make non-heterosexuality taboo.

If you honestly believe that it was only made political by the political right, you should open your eyes. It's a big world out there.

I've got a player who wants to become a lich (sigh. there's always one). Please give me your opinion if the rules I've created (many of these are amalgamated from various sources) are too tough or too easy.

Thanks.

1) Each lich must create its own phylactery by using the Craft Wondrous Item feat.
2) The character must be able to cast spells and have a caster level of 11th or higher.
3) The phylactery costs 120,000 gp to create and has a caster level equal to that of its creator at the time of creation.
4) In order to create the Phylactery, you must cast reincarnation on the soul of a loved one killed by your own hand, funneling the soul into the Phylactery rather than into a new body.
5) Creating the Phylactery will take 960 hours of work.
6) The full price of the materials (120,000 gp) must be paid at the beginning of the work.
7) The soul must be cast into the Phylactery once the work is complete.
8) The DC to create the Phylactery is 5+caster level (currently 18). Failing means the materials (including the soul of the loved one) and time are wasted. Failing by 5 or more is considered a critical failure and results in the creator’s soul being drawn into the Phylactery and his body destroyed. You cannot take 10 on this roll. A natural 1 will always result in a critical failure.
9) The process of creating the Phylactery is an act of the utmost evil and merely beginning the process will blacken your soul to the point that any paladin in your presence would have to make a fortitude saving throw equal to your caster level or fight you to the death.

OK, so even though the spell is on both lists, an arcane caster can only learn spells from either a scroll, an arcane spell book, or another arcane caster. I guess that makes sense, but I was hoping it wasn't the case.

If a Wizard is in a party with a Druid and assuming the Druid is willing to discuss her spells with the wizard, can the wizard attempt to add primal spells up to their current spell level to his spell book? According to the rules for learning a spell, all you need to do is spend an hour per spell level in conversation with a person who knows the spell, so I believe this would work.

As a Wizard at level 1, and I expect up to about level 4, I keep Magic Weapon memorized daily and usually use my Drain to cast it again. It is hands down the highest damage potential of any 1st level spell on the list.

It doesn't have to be complicated. If the GM says "Goblin 4 hits you with an attack", you can say "I wanted to use Nimble Dodge". He should let you use it this time and the next time it's his job to say "Goblin 4 attacks you with his wakizashi" at which point you can say "I use Nimble Dodge". You just have to train your GM :)

"hide behind the mountain of dead bards": no seriously, if you are a small character, the ancestry feats for sneaking are exceptionally good and with a bit of mobility they easily allow one to hide even mid combat if he needs a breather.

Next one is concelment/dazzled: there are plenty of ways to gain some concealment or inflicting dazzled, and it's a flat 25% miss chance.

mobility class feats: Stuff like "strike and step/stride" and etc basically make enemies not wanting to pursue you simply because you keep denying them "actions".

Teach your frontline how to grapple: Grapple quite streamlines in this edition and it's more than worthwhile. Keeping the bad guys into place means kleeping them away from your backline as well.

and even if they break the grapple, the Escape action is an Attack action. So: escape, move, attack means that at most your backline suffers only 1 attack at -5.

Concealment is a 20% miss chance. It's a DC5 flat check.

I don't get why everyone is ignoring everything except the plus to ranged attacks. It's also giving you plus to 3 skills and a saving throw as well as plus to your speed. I haven't played this edition yet, but I'm pretty sure there's more to it than pointing your weapon at something and rolling an attack roll. It sounds like a pretty good trade-off to me.

Something I didn't see mentioned here is that Double Slice has the "Press" trait. This means it can't be used until you've already done an attack this turn. This means that both attacks will be at -5 (or -4 for agile).

It's not 2nd edition, but you could try Larian's Divinity Original Sin and Divinity Original Sin 2.

If you're on a tight budget, buy the Core Rulebook and use SRD for everything else.

That's not really true about the alchemist. You only need the infusion discovery if you want others to be able to the alchemist's job for them. A cure light wounds extract does not heal you for 1d8+level. It allows you to touch someone and heal THEM for that amount.

Focus powers aren't designed to be something you save up and use in emergencies. They're designed to be a reliable resource that can be used every encounter.

The Glass Cannon Podcast will be running Emerald Spire converted to 2e starting in Q4 of this year.

N.
Name: Undy Termind
ABC: Gnome/Worked in the back room of a mage shop for 30 years/Wizard
Catchphrase: Did I tell you about my kids?
Weapon of Choice: Magic

(Worked in the back room of a mage shop for 30 years is a custom background. Skill Feat: Quick Identify, Skill: Diplomacy, Stat increase: INT or CHA, Lore: Merchant Lore)

My first (of many) character will be a Gnome Wizard. He grew up wanting to be an adventurer, but he got his future wife pregnant and ended up dropping out of the Wizard Academy to raise his child. He got a job in the back room of a magic shop identifying magic items brought in by adventurers. Being married and raising his children staved off the bleaching for a while, but now that the kids are grown and the wife (gods rest her soul) has succumbed to a wasting sickness, the bleaching is calling him to get out their and pursue the dream of his youth.

If you only buy one PF2 product other than the Core Rulebook, make it the Condition Cards. Your players will thank you if they don't have to search through the Rulebook every time a condition is applied to them.

If it's available to be taken multiple times, it will be called out specifically in the description. If it doesn't say it, then you can't.

I'd like to see an advantages/disadvantages system where you could do something like my character has only one eye, so he has a -2 to perception checks based on seeing. His empty eye socket unnerves people so that they are anxious to be rid of him. He gets a +2 to Diplomacy attempts involving haggling.

I'm currently playing a cleric going through Carrion Crown using Playtest rules, so I suppose I'll just convert him to 2e when it goes live.

ClanPsi wrote:

I haven't heard anything, but I sure hope so. Proficiency is more than enough. Just have UTEML at 0-2-4-6-8 and leave it at that. It'd be so clean and nice.

Then a level 20 fighter with a strength of 24 and a +5 weapon in Pathfinder 2 would have a +20 to hit, where as in PF1 the same fighter would have a 31.

Comparing the number in PF1 to the number in PF2 is meaningless because they're different systems.

An Adventure Path is long. Let them get through book 2 quickly. There's still plenty to look forward to.

You can always make up the experience they may have gotten on the way to Turtleback Ferry.

Interesting! Sounds exciting for the witch!

The CR could've been tweaked a bit to challenge them more, methinks. But if your players dug it, then great!

Curious what point-buy are the characters?

They're 25 points. If I had it to do over, they'd be 15. Also, I later found out that there is no line of effect to someone in an ice block, so he couldn't have drained his levels. As it stands now, he thinks he did. They moved on to Teraktinus, so I'm going to have them see Longtooth flying away in the distance.

For the hags, I used three female wizard figures from the introductory box set since I had them disguised. I had the Annis Hag figures from Bestiary 3 ready to go, but the PCs failed their sense motives and left before their alter self spells ran out.