Sandstone's page

"or increasing its clumsy condition by 1 if it is already clumsy"

is a specific rule that beat general rule of duplicate effects, so RAW it would stack up even with itself.

if thats intended thats another story, and i leave that to your GM.

I miss my Highly intelligent animal companions from 1:e, they where power-houses.

Now they are just Meat pinjatas or mounts.

Fistbump of Healing!

The ability literally says the dragon drags the target along for the burrow, meaning it then leaves them there. That's 40ft underground. With no burrow speed to get out.

They are fully immobilized, and if they don't already have an air answer (all my PCs now use Deep Breath, because of insta death scenarios just like this one), then they are going to suffocate.

Even without scenarios like this, Deep Breath is always a pick for my high-level casters, it saves you from alot of hassle's and effects.

its also fun envisioning to not be breathing most of the day and just taking big breaths from time to time to top off the "tank".

Shapeshifting is another thing they over corrected when coming from 1:e

But they could salvage it be releasing a Class Archtype similar to Battle-harbinger, that sacrifices spell slots for removed restrictions on battleforms and alot of better feats for being a martial, possibly to even include some teamwork feats if they decide to go animal companion rout.

In-case peopel dont read general forum and have missed it.

You all spoke, and we’re changing course! With the Pathfinder Spring Errata blog just around the corner, take a look at this note from our design team about how we're addressing the weakness rules!

The Pathfinder Design Team wrote:

We released a clarification on how to apply weaknesses and interpret “instance of damage” with the set of FAQs for the 2nd printing of Pathfinder Player Core. With the overall negative response to the clarification, we want to acknowledge the community's preference for something easier to apply, as well as the particular concerns about the possibility of repeatedly triggering the same weakness multiple times in a way that feels unintuitive and exploitable. We hear you about the wording of the text in Player Core being too vague for all but the simplest situations, so we’re looking at both an erratum to that text and a full clarification with a deeper level of detail for those who want it.

We’re removing the old clarification to avoid further confusion. For GMs looking for immediate guidance, here’s the general idea behind the upcoming version, which should cover most situations: Each Strike, spell, or other effect can trigger multiple weaknesses, but each weakness can be triggered only once. All the damage being done as a part of the effect, regardless of its source, is combined before processing the immunities, weaknesses, and resistances. For example, a Spellstrike using thunderstrike and a shock weapon would combine all the electricity damage. For resistances, you still apply only the highest resistance if more than one resistance would apply to a single source and type of damage. This primarily happens with weapons that have a special material; a Strike with a cold iron spear against a creature with resistance 10 to cold iron and resistance 5 to piercing would reduce the damage by 10. Resistance to "all damage" still works as written, but will be reviewed during the process for consistency with any other revisions.

In reading your responses, we are seeing that

...

Awesome! Thx for the information.

Back to regular then :)

I think you understand it correctly curses are harder to remove,

often they add some way to remove them, but it could be further ahead in the adventure path, or they assume the party get to high enuf level to be able to pick it up themself(even then they usualy have options like a scroll or staff that can be found as such).

Corrupting Spite while not harmless and cant kill you itself. so i dont see the big issue. at maximum you get drained 4 (and they get a new save each round, to become better or worse)

sooner of later you will find someone that can remove it (in a large city for example) or level up to pick a remove curse option yourself,

Trip.H wrote:

Just to +1 onto Flame Wisp.

It has always been the example for something that is entirely outside the Strike, its trigger condition is irrelevant to if the spell is enhancing the Strike, or is a separate impact.
There's nothing in the text about it adding its damage to the trigger.
Therefore, the spell creates an entirely different "spell hit" instance of damage, like sustaining a Flaming Sphere would.

Even for those who think the RaW says that "each swing/impact is a single instance of damage containing many types," Flame Wisp is still the example for what kind of effect does create a second instance of damage.

I still point to the much lower damage and limited charges of Flame Wisp in comparison to the other fire buffs like Flame Dancer as evidence for that "each swing is one instance" claim; Flame Wisp trades away damage to gain the ability to proc weakness independently of its trigger. It even trades away the ability to buff allies, Flame Wisp is self-only.

Doesn’t the errata example make it crystal clear that spells at least need to be considered as separate instances of damage? It would be nice to have real examples instead of hypothetical ones, but the only thing we know about them in the example that is meant to illuminate an instance of damage is that they are spells that add damage to the strike and that they count as separate instances, even though they do the same damage type.

People are extrapolating a lot from this, like that all things that add damage to a strike must be discrete instances of damage because these two spells are, but the example does explicitly call them out as spells, so there is still ambiguity as to whether runes are discrete instances or part of the weapon, and when/whether class or character-based bonuses are as well.

I get that some people want a consistent and easy mechanical way of separating instances of damage, but I agree with Trip H that trying to do that and treat everything in the errata example work the way it is...

Agree. said in the start that the clarification was only explicitly calling out spells as separate instances, and got heavy backlash.

Edit:
but the foundry talk puts some wrenches in that, but its what the clarification say.

personally i will wait for foundry's update and see how that is, since we use foundry anyway we have not bothered to make manual adjustments for weakness yet.

There is a screenshot from Discord floating around that is from Foundry after they have talked to Paiso about more clarification.

Here is a text variant from that. each - is its own message

- we got a couple of clarifications on the clarification already

- I think we can distill an actual rule

- What i distilled was that an instance is some quantity of damage from a source that has an explicit damage type.

- So weapon specialication damage and vicious swing dice aren't instances, but inventor's offencive boost is--even if you make it the same damage type as your weapon

- if sneak added nd6 slashing damage that'd be something

- but not nd6 damage where the damage type is inferred somehow.

- We also asked about situations of combining damage, like with flurry of blows

- in that case all source information is lost. and it's down to damage types

Not to be that guy but Fireball dont have a projectile or hints at a projectile in Pf2

"A roaring blast of fire detonates at a spot you designate"

so you just point and that point explodes.

But that dont change anything about LoE

And as others have said Dispelling globe only cares about "whose area or targets enter into it" so even with a projectile it would not matter

Paiso if you see this include abit more information and scenarios in the example. maybe something like this.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Elemental Instinct(Fire) Barbarian, with +3 striking holy Conducting flaming cold iron battleaxe, with Sun's Fury and Flame Wisp cast on it/him. it also used Rage(Fire) and following up that with Conduct Energy(free action) before striking

A Terotricus Effected by Wish-Twisted Form Giving it Resistances fire 10; Weaknesses fire 5, cold 15, cold iron 15, holy 15, slashing 10

Lets say the damage roll results in
4 fire damage from the flaming rune,
7 fire damage from conductive,
7 spirit damage from the holy rune,
16 slashing damage from the cold iron battle axe,
12 fire damage from rage,
1 spirit damage from Sun's Fury spell,
4 fire damage from Sun's Fury spell,
and 3 fire damage from Flame Wisp spell. So we’re starting with a total of 54 damage.

--------------------------------------------------

this tests both 2 types of spells that add damage to strikes, multiple different sources that adds the same damage type to a strike and resistance + weakness to the same type that also have multiple sources, while still keeping the holy and material weakness.

tried to find a better monster but could not find one that fit and decided i did not want to make a custom one so i slapped on Wish-Twisted Form instead

Only spells buffs are clearly singled out as separate weakness trigger in the FAQ clarification

We dont realy get any information about all the other sources of added damage such as feats, rage and so on.
they did not add any extra info on the flaming rune, it did not get any extra text just treated as damage from the strike, so why would something like rage or other feats be different?

they did tho several time single out the spells in their text and how they worked, and was specific they both triggered weakness.

So in my mind, Foundry's interpretation is 90% there, they just need to fix how they treat Holy/unholy and add a special case for spell buffs to be separate.

I dont think the clarification say or their intent is that all separate sources of damage should trigger a separate weakness.

Agree with Finoan, and i dont see anything from the FAQ clarification that would imply or change area weakness. if anything as he said the holy example would make it more clear that it would be once.

Spring 2026 FAQ for Player Core

Page 315: Update the second paragraph of animal form to “You gain the following statistics and abilities regardless of which animal you choose:” There was a slight reword to the fourth bullet point for space: “One or more unarmed melee attacks specific to your battle form, which are the only attacks you can Strike with.”

so they re added statistics for animal form, still only to that paragraph(second paragraph) as they themself refer to it as.

Battlecry! pg 140, Hexwise Banner

"You and allies within the banner’s aura gain resistance 5 to damage from spells; for spells that apply multiple instances of damage, such as force barrage, this applies only to the first instance of damage."

Unsure how this is meant to function based on the example. Force barrage specifically combines the damage, i.e. one instance*, per target, so resistance would only apply once anyway.

Unless the intent is that for spells that hit multiple targets, like fireball, only one target gets to use the resistance?

Personally I'm ignoring the force barrage example for now, it seems like a mistake.

*or at least "one instance" as much as we can infer what that term means, since it is not defined in game and has caused issues elsewhere

My take is that they picked a bad example, but wanted to clarify that any spell that do multiple damage instances(to the same target) would only gain the benefit once even if they dont have the text like Force barrage do. (there are some spells that dont, "Horde of Underlings" for example),

Claxon wrote:

I only say it's unclear because I have no idea what "special statistics" are.

Way I read it, special statistics are those explicitly mentioned by the form you polymorph into.

For example : "You gain the following statistics and abilities regardless of which battle form you choose:
AC = 18 + your level. Ignore your armor's check penalty and Speed reduction.
15 temporary Hit Points.
Low-light vision and imprecise scent 30 feet.
One or more unarmed melee attacks specific to the battle form you choose, which are the only attacks you can Strike with. You're trained with them. Your attack modifier is +16, and your damage bonus is +9. These attacks are Strength based (for the purpose of the enfeebled condition, for example). If your unarmed attack modifier is higher, you can use it instead.
Athletics modifier of +18, unless your own is higher.
You also gain specific abilities based on the form you choose:..."

then that could imply that the next block of text that only say "You also gain specific abilities based on the type of animal you choose:" ...

This would be the sections where Battle forms gains their speed, attack type and damage btw

and the first section talking about statistics is AC, HP, Attack and Skill bonuses

It could be the intent and would remove alot of questions regarding battle forms and would make them more viable, but they refuse to say anything to clarify.

---------

But to throw a wrench in and muddy the water even more. in the remaster some Battle forms got remastered and they removed the Statistic Wording in the first sentence.
Namely Aerial and Animal form lost the word Statistics

but, Avatar, Dinosaur, Dragon, Elemental, Insect, Monstrosity, Nature incarnate, Pest and Plant form did not lose the usage of Statistic in the first section.

look over all the spells and effects that is suppose to be auras (according to paiso) and make sure they have the aura trait.

its an easy "fix" at the table, but it makes it inconsistent depending on GM if they are auras or not.

Just pushing out a Leshy iconic because its popular i feel is the wrong things to do.

it need to have a reason beside popularity, it need a reason to exist and preferably have a great story.
you can always tell if something is forced so i rather not have one then have a badly done one.

let them cook if it take them years to include a leshy iconic so be it.

I Would say the base items changes, and then you apply the reinforcing runes effect.

I agree with taks, Ascalaphus and ScooterScoots on this.

Ofc its Each square. that both make more sense to me and is whats written.

But i do agree that its weird and an oversight that Large PC's have special rules that dont apply to large NPC's in cases like this.

as a side note: Im starting to wonder why are some people on this forum always trying to bend/Balance the rules to minimize the effect of resistance and weakness?

why cant something be effective or ineffective is the right circumstance?

and most creatures would be aware of their weakness, and would not run straight thru something deadly without cause.

Ofc everyone is allowed to run the game as they see fit, but as a rule question it would be Each square

If every moment of impact is an instance of damage, then the RaW rules work without need to contradict a passed-down RaI ruling.

While it's irrelevant, it's likely the cold iron ax was used as the example because it's the zero-variable lowest level situation one can come across. Elemental runes are level 8, but a cold iron ax is level 2.
(and there's plenty of low level fey,...

You just Cherry pick the words you want to fit your interpretation, im sorry but your interpretation is one of the wildest here.

There is no world where they would use the words "This usually only happens" for something that super common or for a case that should always apply, they are on a wordcount budged for the books.

and the example makes it super clear that they are talking about the physical instance of the attack that are both Physical damage and have the extra trait (cold iron) at the same time and in that special case only one of the highest weaknesses/resistances apply.

its not relevant if you have added fire, cold or other separate damage types, that is covered under the base rule for resistance and need no specifics or examples.

Must say some realy do some crazy mental gymnastic to justify how they want it to work, rather then reading and treating it as all the other rules.

Lets go through them, and make some comments after each rule section.

If you have resistance to a type of damage, each time you take that type of damage, reduce the amount of damage you take by the listed number (to a minimum of 0 damage).

The Basic rules for any resistance, that all the sections under it still follow and they just provide more specifics/Examples of some cases.

Resistance can specify combinations of damage types or other traits. For instance, you might encounter a monster that's resistant to non-magical bludgeoning damage,
meaning it would take less damage from bludgeoning attacks that weren't magical, but would take normal damage from your +1 mace (since it's magical) or a nonmagical spear (since it deals piercing damage).
A resistance also might have an exception. For example, resistance 10 to physical damage (except silver) would reduce any physical damage by 10 unless that damage was dealt by a silver weapon.

Just rules for special cases on some monsters. we can ignore this most of the time

If you have more than one type of resistance that would apply to the same instance of damage, use only the highest applicable resistance value, as described in weakness.

The referensed Weakness text:
If more than one weakness would apply to the same instance of damage, use only the highest applicable weakness value.
This usually only happens when a creature is weak to both a type of damage and a material or trait, such as a cold iron axe cutting a monster that has weakness to cold iron and slashing.

........

But i do agree that Holy/Unholy might have some problems here, even if they probably should fall under materials in my eyes, they should tho only happen once so maybe treating them like the water example is better, (but its more a issue if how the trait is applied rather then the resistance rules)

It's possible to have resistance to all damage. When an effect deals damage of multiple types and you have resistance to all damage, apply the resistance to each type of damage separately. If an attack would deal 7 slashing damage and 4 fire damage, resistance 5 to all damage would reduce the slashing damage to 2 and negate the fire damage entirely.

This is also a rule people stumble over in their thinking, but only if you ignore the first section and try to extrapolate more rules from just this text.

resistance to all damage falls outside the basic rule for resistance "each time you take that type of damage, reduce the amount of damage you take by the listed number" since "all Damage" is not a type,
so they spell it out and explain that all damage is equal to having resistance to all different damage types and gives a nice example of it.

Why they talk specifically about multiple damage type effects is to make it clear that the one instance of "resistance all" is applied to all possible applications of it and not only applied once.
This is not an issue for multiple different resistances since they already only apply once, but they all do apply to the same effect per the basic rule.

This is how Foundry do it and how i chose to do it at my tables, there is no mental gymnastics needed(just a basic rule with 3 very specific exceptions)

Just to make it clear to Vlad, since he asked his question with both Wizard and sorc

Wizard is a Prepared caster so they dont need to.

While Sorcerers is a spontaneous and needs to learn spells at the rank they want to cast it.

Yeah, it's "increase to" not "increased by".

Plus, at all levels it is an increase:

At lvl 1 1die+4>2
At lvl 4 when you get striking, 1die+4>4
At lvl 10 2dices+6>4
At lvl 12 when you get great striking, 2die+6>6
At lvl 18 3dices+8>6
At lvl 19 3dices+8>8

You would have to seriously break the economy (runes 2-3 lvls earlier) for the "per die" bonus to outscale the static.

Agree with this, it say "increase to" so it clearly a replace.

I hope by the time PF3 rolls around we get a better take on weapons vs unarmed. There's so many feats that casually mention weapons and thereby exclude unarmed strikes when it doesn't feel like that was a particular balance goal. Just habit of phrasing.

I'm also still miffed that rangers are not that good with claws. As a nature-oriented class they should have nice synergy with close-to-nature ancestries with nice unarmed strikes, but instead it's a big nothingburger.

to be fair i think its intentional from paiso's side, feels like they have done alot of designe desitions based on pf1 and removed alot of synergy potential, especially in the natural attack department but also in alot of other areas.

NorrKnekten and Easl is correct,

the bleed is not increased, even if the bleed was not a crit effect it would not be increased since it dont say its increased.

Basically me and another GM have different opinion when you look at the "damage dealt".

Requirements Your last action was a successful Strike with the barrow’s edge Effect Your blade glows as it absorbs your foe’s vitality. You regain Hit Points equal to half the damage dealt.

He looks at what damage the target took, applying both resistance and weakness, block and also accounting fore hit-points left, so if the target only have 2hp you get only 1 healing.

While i would rule it as half of the total damage of the attack before resistance, weakness, and block.

Basically he checks hp lost at Step 4: Reduce Hit Points
And i argue its should be at Step 2: Damage Type: "Once you've calculated how much damage you deal, you'll need to determine the damage type."

How do you/Would you rule it? or do you have any other insight?

all great points on the fire ress.

Same agree with SuperParkourio.

lonodor88 wrote:

But nowhere have I found that it is impossible to create a fireball on a bridge and launch it into the water.I understand that this implies indirectly, but maybe there are specific examples of other effects?

See "Aquatic combat." https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2438

I would guess that most GMs would use the last bullet to say no to what you're suggesting: At the GM's discretion, some ground-based actions might not work underwater or while floating.

Firstly im not sure how i stand on this topic.

but have 2 things to point out.

why did they bother with saying that both ranged attack "used by an underwater creature or against an underwater target" and not use the same wording when talking about fire traits and spells.

Also why would they bother with "You gain resistance 5 to acid and fire."

if there is no way to cast fire traits things into the water?

------------------------------------------------------------------

Kinda unrelated also, Fireball is not a projectile in its description in pf2 its just a targeted blast that appears at the target location.

Human Exemplar with Fighter dedication wielding a Greatsword and fullplate

Daughter of Gorum, no record of her existence before Gorums death now she wanders in searching for new and larger battles.

leaving it open if she really have any connection to Gorum or his death,
or if she is just a fanatic follower trying to keep his legacy alive.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

simple and abit corny but i like it :p

Emanation and Auras, there is still several spells and effects that hints to be auras but dont have the aura trait, this makes play with them vary greatly depending on the GM, and official errata would be appreciated.

to give one example Incendiary Aura.

Nelzy wrote:

Errenor wrote:

Firstly, no, Bane and Bless aren't always battle auras, see above.

im afraid you are mistaken, they are always Battle auras for Battle Harbingers dont matter how they are cast.

but i agree that its a gray area when you cast a spell without spellslots or font
"regardless of whether they were cast with your standard spell slots or your divine font spell slots." dont have to be a exclusive list, its just an example and their intent for scrolls and staff could be there but as i said its a gray area.

I think doing this you take things out of the context. Full (almost) entry:

"Instead of preparing heal or harm spells with your divine font, you instead gain the battle font, which allows you to prepare battle aura spells. You gain 4 additional spell slots each day at your highest rank of cleric spell slots. You can prepare only bane or bless in these slots. Any feats and effects that refer to a battle aura refers to these spells, regardless of whether they were cast with your standard spell slots or your divine font spell slots."
This whole paragraph is about your divine font only. Then normal slot spells added. And that's all. Nothing else. "These spells" are bane and bless from font slots about which there was the discourse above plus normal slots which added explicitly.
If they really were going to allow all sources they should've written exactly that: "refers to bane and bless spells, regardless of whether they were cast with your standard spell slots, your divine font spell slots, magic items or any other source" for example.

I feel that the comma and word usage suggest more, since they could have used alot clearer words to express that only Battlefront and regular spellslots counted.

but you are right that its speculating on paisos intent, and pure RAW you are correct.

Example of shorter and more clear: "Any feats and effects that refer to a battle aura refers to these spells only when cast with your standard spell slots or your divine font spell slots."

and since paiso spends quite alot of effort minimizing word count(sometimes they have made thing unclear that way) in their books i feel that they intended something more.

Firstly, no, Bane and Bless aren't always battle auras, see above.

........You can prepare only bane or bless in these slots. Any feats and effects that refer to a battle aura refers to these spells, regardless of whether they were cast with your standard spell slots or your divine font spell slots.

im afraid you are mistaken, they are always Battle auras for Battle Harbingers dont matter how they are cast.

but i agree that its a gray area when you cast a spell without spellslots or font

"regardless of whether they were cast with your standard spell slots or your divine font spell slots." dont have to be a exclusive list, its just an example and their intent for scrolls and staff could be there but as i said its a gray area.

Edit: but i do agree that having permanent +4 aura sounds tgtbt even at that level.

There are too much emanation spells and effects that are obvious auras but without the trait that paiso need to fix.
some of them are easy to "fix" ourself since they are clearly auras in the flavor text but its an ongoing problem and it looks like some in the design team have forgotten that the aura trait exists.

Moment of Clarity should be a free action in my opinion and just be a feat tax.

if they really want to they could make it a feat chain, with second feat making it a free action,
or even take a middle step with it costing you a reaction as the second feat and the third make it free.

---------------------------------------------------

but in the world we are living in you can still be a mounted barbarian on a mature animal companion that gets a free action every round.

---------------------------------------------------

As for your homebrew thing, it sounds cool and but maybe only give the animal rage if you also have the Shared rage feat.

adding
"If you have the shared rage feat your can use Share Rage as a part of this action but only on your animal companion."

i would just handle it RAW

Sorry if anyone read my first rambling. (Removed it in edit)

after discussing it with my friends we found this.

Razmiri Mask.

Have a specific override on its Temporary Hit points, so unless normal temporary hit point dont wake you up, this text would be pointless.

but that also makes "In Lightning, Life" use on uncontious pointless you might say.

but thats not 100% true since you can be unconscious without having 0hp or dying

I would follow : Gain actions when commanded or Gain actions when the master decides not to command the companion (for those who can act without command).

It feels like the most simple way to do it.

i Would agree with this

Some of the old "foods" got reprinted in Treasure Vault, that have the only true list of Alchemical foods.

So you can argue that any not reprinted are not food enuf to qualify or was just forgoten.

its impossible to say, so without GM fiat, you only have the list in Treasure Vault to use as alchemical foods.

Any Arcane or Primal that wants to hold their breath prob uses Deep Breath
and then its a lesser issue

-------------

But Hammerjack is right, all spells make you lose all air unless things like the Subtle trait

Baarogue wrote:

But a ranger's animal companion doesn't need it

>When you Hunt Prey, your animal companion gains the action's benefits and your hunter's edge benefit if you have one.

Yeah, that is tucked away in the feat description for Animal Companion rather than being part of the general class features for Ranger.

Which also indicates that this only works for the Ranger's Animal Companion gotten with that feat. If you get your Animal Companion from other feats such as the Beastmaster Archetype, then that doesn't apply. Not sure if that is a bug or a feature.

Considering that there are other types of companions besides Animal Companion (Undead Companion, Construct Companion), I am leaning towards feature. Getting any Companion from an Archetype rather than from the Ranger class feat is intended to mean that you don't get to share your Hunter's Edge.

It prob was/is intentional since Ranger even had different rules for Mature animal companion, they could only Stride toward or Strike your prey before the remaster.

Even if we use the most generous ruling(one that i agree with) that you take the doubled damage,

i never take that rune for its crit effect but rather theme or to bump my already existing electricity damage(usualy because of character theme :p)

getting a smal amount of spread out damage rarely do anything, especially when you cant controll when it happens.

Nelzy wrote:

When you run out of air, you fall unconscious and start suffocating.

The exact timing on when you lose all air whit casting spell and when you fall unconscious is debated some, its like if breathing out all the air in your lungs but keep holding it, you would fall unconscious (hard/imposible to do irl since we dont have 100% body controll)

For non spellcasts los of air happens at end of turn or out of your turn(saves).

but i guess you are talking about stopping holding their breath before they runs out of air, but then the condition would happen since you are not holding your breath and would need to resolve the spell since it dont have a enter/start turn wording on its effect.

a side note

There is also some discussions on what happens when you run out of air in a breathable environment, since you fall unconscious do you still hold your breath and are therefor still suffocating?
Logical if you would just fall unconscious woudld you not stop holding your breath?

Edit even if you rule that they dont fall unconscious when they run...

Above, it was being said you don’t suffocate at all with this spell

Thus I’m right back where I started haha

No the spell itself dont have anything with Suffocating its the act of holding your breath to prevent the spell that can cause Suffocation

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------

Bluemagetim wrote:

The loss of a round of air happens at the end of the creatures turn for first two listed.
For the last two those happen in that moment so if a creature casts a spell that requires speech with 2 actions they lose all their rounds of air after that spell is cast thay are no longer considered holding their breath and now with their last action must strain to breath the stifling air. If they had no actions left after casting the spell their turn would be over and next turn if still in the area of the spell would need to strain to breath then.
If a creature is crit on an opponents turn and loses their last round of air at that time, if they are still in the area when it becomes their turn they will need to use an action to strain to breath.
It doesn't specify that breathing needs to be the first action just that it needs to happen in the turn if the creature is not holding their breath.

This makes sense for the most part, but wouldn’t the specific requirement of spending an action override that spell (if you had no actions after the spell)?

To me that kinda seems like straight up ignoring a part of the spell if you could cast a spell without repercussions. Like if you casted a 3 action spell and just ignored the action tax?

you would need to have started holding you breath before entering the spell(or before its cast on you) for that to even be a possibility so not realy a problem

Bluemagetim wrote:

I treat holding breath as automatic/no cost for those that have rounds of air left to do so when the spell is cast on an area they are in.

Its those creatures that have run out of rounds of air that have to deal with straining to breathe the stagnant air.
And when considering this spell lasts for a minute and the rules for holding breath:

a creature has rounds of air = 5 + Con
They lose 1 round of air each round holding their breath
They lose 2 instead if they attack or cast a spell
They lose a round of air if they suffer a critical hit or critical fail a save
They can't cast a spell that requires speaking without losing all their rounds of air

The effect is limiting and can become punishing even with holding breath as a given.

What happens when you run out of breath mid-turn? Do you instantly lose an action? If you’re casting a spell using all your actions, do you lose that spell?

When you run out of air, you fall unconscious and start suffocating.

The exact timing on when you lose all air whit casting spell and when you fall unconscious is debated some, its like if breathing out all the air in your lungs but keep holding it, you would fall unconscious (hard/imposible to do irl since we dont have 100% body controll)

For non spellcasts los of air happens at end of turn or out of your turn(saves).

but i guess you are talking about stopping holding their breath before they runs out of air, but then the condition would happen since you are not holding your breath and would need to resolve the spell since it dont have a enter/start turn wording on its effect.

a side note

There is also some discussions on what happens when you run out of air in a breathable environment, since you fall unconscious do you still hold your breath and are therefor still suffocating?
Logical if you would just fall unconscious woudld you not stop holding your breath?

Edit even if you rule that they dont fall unconscious when they run out if air and just stop holding their breath, or stop holding their breath after their last action, they are still in the area of the spell and would have its effect first thing next time its their turn.

Creatures in the area that breathe air and aren't holding their breath must spend a single action on their turn straining to breathe the stagnant air; once they do, they still mostly breathe their own exhaled air, taking 3d6 poison damage (basic Fortitude save) and becoming fatigued.

So when they creature starts its turn in the area,

Not needing to breath or holding its breath counters the entire spell

just to make it clear, the action you are forced to take have nothing to do with holding its breath, its just an action tax similar but mechanical different from slow

can a pc that has a claw or bite attack put runes on his claw or bite?

same answer as before, the solution is Handwraps they put runes on "all your unarmed attacks" dont care where they are or how you got them

Apart from Battleforms, poor Wildshape druids

I feel that if they intended for the damage to not be dubbed on crit they would have added a statement about it in the text.

something like this.
"electricity arcs out to deal an equal amount of electricity damage, Before doubling to up to two other creatures of your choice within 10 feet of the target."

if we assume that we are not mythic creatures and...

Mythic Resistance only being bypassed by Mythic Strike and Mythic weapons that would makes it more inline power vise to Mythic Resilience that screws caster over big time.

but both sounds horrible/unfun to play with.

and if i dont misremember where there not a few low level mythic weapons in that book aswell? so its not only level 20 items.

but personally i agree that we would be mythical creatures, and the mythic rules as a whole are just made to favor martials more.