Scarablob's page

And extend it to other low cost weapons such as sling, darts and shuriken, maybe even whip. To stand for enchanting the gifts of the natural world, such as branches, rocks, vines with its might.

This is a thing that would be great yeah, I feel like the verdant weapon stuff that's already here is a good basis for that, but it's far from being enough. I guess runic weapon/body basically fill the role shillelagh or magic stone were supposed to have, but it's not the same thing since these are spells available for all spellcasters, and since these spells are better used to improve your martial companion, not your own weapons.

Not as good as a pure martial but probably about 80% or so as effective as a martial (depending a bit on which exact level within that range and which martial :-)).

Which means that there is VERY little room to improve their martial abilities without going the full on Shifter route.

One good thing to note is that since almost all of the martial abilities of the druid so far are tied to wild shape or general polymorph effect, Paizo could give them a handfull of feats that improve their weapon use without pushing them over the edge, since polymorph effect are incompatible with weapon attack.

It wouldn't make druid better as "semi martial" but open up new ways for them to fufill that fantasy without always relying in transformation. but yeah, an actual shifting martial is sorta needed at this point, there seems to be quite a lot of people that want to play this kind of character without being saddled by spellcasting (and having their martial abilities nerfed as a result).

I also have to add to the voices requestion things like decay/blight druid, or more in depth fungal stuff, or even primal necromancy. The spooky druid of death and decay is my favorite aestetic hand down, and it is underserved currently, despite spore order being nice to have.

Looking at it, tremorsense could use a clarification. The intention is for the sense not to pick up entirely unmoving object, but it's unclear about what a creature need to do to count as moving or not.

I'd say any creature that did any amount of physical movement (and not just striding, as even attacking someone with a sword require significant movement that would show up on the sense) during it's turn do count as moving, even if they didn't leave their square and are "technically" not moving in between turn. But what do they need to do to count as *not* moving, and thus invisible to tremorsense? Do they need to completely skip their turn, spending all three action standing still? Do they need to spend only a single action at the end of their turn to "freeze in place" (meaning you essentially forego an action each turn to avoid being detected by tremorsense)? do "freezing in place" make you off guard?

On the fly, I think I'd consider someone invisible to tremorsense if they didn't use any action with the manipulate, attack or move trait during their whole turn. which is pretty steep, but it's the price for removing the sense of a creature without any save or diceroll.

We've talked quite a bit about what "flavor" of druid is left underserved here, and how the plant druid have an abondance of option compared to others, but I think we should talk a bit more about the gameplay gameplay side of thing.

Druid have multiple "class fantasy" it can fill, and I feel like a few of them are lacking at the moment.

The plant order (and it's suborders) fill the "crowd control & terrain mastery" role, with stuff like garland spell and impalling briar, as well as both suborders having focus spells about area denial, and also a bit of "healer" role with the cornucopia focus spell (altho this one is much less pronounced, since cornucopia is the only healing thing you get from feats and druid features). It is well furnished on top of all the area effect spell the primal spell list have, but I won't complain if we get more of it since it is my favorite role to play.

The wild order fill the "frontline caster" niche, alongside the cleric, even if I think wildshape have quite a few issues and a lot of people would like it to be expanded into something more significant. Polymorph as a "druid archetype" do have a lot of feat, even outside the wild order, so I feel like "volume wise" the archetype is well served, even if the execution isn't the best.

I am however a bit sad these are basically the only thing that can boost the druid martial prowess (or frontline survivability). The druid shouldn't be able to become as reliable a frontliner as an actual martial, but a couple of feats that could increase his frontline ability like the cleric have, without relying on polymorph effect always, would be good to have. Maybe a couple other feats thrown toward the verdant weapon stuff, or maybe some feats that improve your shield, or even that would buff your use of "flavorfull yet weak" druidic weapons like sickle, sling, quarterstaff or blowgun could be good to have. Metal order could be an alternate "frontline druid" order, likewise for a "decay/rot/death" order if it's a melee debuffer like it was in PF1.

There's the "elemental caster/blaster" fantasy that the elemental orders try to fill, but appart from storm, they are a bit lacking, due to only really being present in a single pre-remaster book. It definitively should receive more stuff, not just the addition of the "metal order", but more stuff for the existing ones, perhaps feats buffing the use of certain damage type from members of certain orders, or feats rewarding crossing between elemental orders.

And then there's the animal order, which fit the "minion master" class fantasy. Which it does well with your animal companion, as well as the ranger and beastmaster, but it does miss a pretty important part of the fantasy, being the ability to fight alongside multiple animals. Of course they can't (and shouldn't) give the druid the ability to summon hordes of animals like they did in PF1, but I do think there should give you more reason to use summons, especially given how weak summoning is in PF2 in general. Something allowing you to command your companion and sustain a summon animal spell in a single action could do a lot for making the fantasy more tantalising. Or commanding a leshy familiar and sustaining a summon plant spell. Actually, I'm a bit surprised there isn't already a feat that allow you to command both familiar and companion at once if you took order explorer to have both animal and plant order, it seems fun, flavorfull, all without seeming broken, especially since it require prior investment.

"Land orders" are a bit more difficult to tie to a possible gameplay niche, as they used to be more about noncombat utility in their specific biomes than in combat special effect. The one niche that comes to mind is to tie them to the "terrain mastery" side of things, with creating AEO zones to shape the battlefield, but this is already quite filled up by the plant order(s), even if it's not the same flavor. Beyond that, all I can think of is like, case by case effect depending on the orders, which would be really cool but demand a lot more legwork for each individual order, and probably not much possibility to grow (but then again, most orders don't receive a lot of new stuff anyway...).

There's a joke in my group that I always play halfling, druid, or halfling druid, but if we play spore war, it would be difficult not to play a spore druid. Potentially of the halfling variety too, altho a fungus leshy or an elf is also tempting.

As a druid affictionados I can't complain about the abondance of plant and spore stuff since "life druid" is by far my favorite flavor, followed by land druid, with elemental druids being pretty far behind. We do need more animal feat or suborder that aren't automatically tied to polymorphism or the animal companion tho, I understand that it's a harder sell to have animal spontaneously appear from nowhere compared to plant, but there got to be ways to make interesting stuff beyond what we already have.

Also, we don't have enough insect druid option, my bug hunger is far from satiated.

The main issue with Strength of Thousands or any 6 part AP getting the hardcover treatment is size. While I'm sure there's backmatter that can be cut I don't see it going under 500 pages. And sure they did it for Kingmaker but that doesn't seem to be a decision they want to repeat.

Although if there's a 6 part AP you can split into two books it might work.

This may be irrelevant since it's a different publisher than Paizo, but the company who translate and publish the pathfinder 2e books in french do exactly that, dividing the 6 part adventure into 2 hardcover, including strenght of thousands. So there is precedent for doing two hardcover for a single AP, even if Paizo aren't the ones directly doing it.

They also used to translate the PF1 books, and used to follow the english release with 6 book per AP, but seemingly changed their mind with second edition, because while age of ashes still have the 6 separate book, it went with the two hardcover format ever since extinction curse.

By dividing the AP in two books, I think it still somewhat run into the issue of the latter books selling less than the first one, but with only two volume, I think far more people just buy the two at once rather than one and then wait to see if the campaign goes far enough for them to need the second. And even for those that buy them one by one, the chance of getting to module 4 is higher than the chances of getting to module 6, so they buy the second hardcover more frequently than they would buy the last module.

Making a PC into a linnorm king also run with the stolen land issue, which is that a piece of land cannonically controlled by a PC must fade into the background in latter product because Paizo have no way of representing the direction the many parties may have chosen for their land (and of course, they can't put "your guy" as official ruler, since there's thousands of "your guys").

Which is why most other AP that do give PCs important political role either have them be agent of an important NPC, which then is used to represent the AP victory (like galfrey in wrath of the righteous), or have an important NPC gravitating around the party can otherwised be used as a stand-in for the party, and "cannonically" end up receiving whatever important post the party could receive by the end of the adventure (like Tessa in skull and shackles).

On that note, I wonder wether Berline the halfling necromancer from Blood Lords will end up being a significant figure the next time we look at Geb. With her role as the original patron of the party that have a lot to profit from their success, she is well positioned to take the place of "adventure NPC get a level up from the AP success", but the fact that it is possible for her to die in the AP make me doubtfull. I would like seeing more of her, we can never have too much halfling, and she have quite a unique position.

What i'm most interested in for a saga land book is more varisian (both the people and the region) stuff, and a new look on new Thassilon, especially since this is going to be post revenge of the runelord. Yes I know Varisia is already one of the most thoroughly explored part of golarion, but I still like seeing more of it.

Beyond that, I'm interested in what they'll do with the realm of the mamoth lords, because I feel like pathfinder have been steadily increasing the technology level, and a "low tech" region is bound to have interesting stuff, if only in contrast. Also, I want to see if the kellid regions remain as human centric as they were in PF1, or if they make some non-human ancestry more important in the region, and, if they do, which ones. With the new goliath ancestry, giant are expected, but I hope halflings are also quite present, because I love a good "little guy against huge monster" narrative.

Not bad per se, but also like... they're a three slot caster and that's the end of the sentence. Their best nonspell features are being wisdom based and having a pretty good statline, which is strong in its own right but also doesn't have a very high gamefeel necessarily compared to other caster gimmicks.

Like maybe the best feature of the druid right now is that the only other prepared primal caster is the witch, which is basically worse at everything in exchange for a dodgy cantrip.

I do agree that it's probably the main issue with the class, that "being the primal caster" took up so much space in the class chassis that it didn't leave much space for more flavorfull or unique elements, leaving them feeling pretty generic. It's sorta the same issue that wizard have with "being the arcane caster", while cleric and bard manage to avoid it by having more baseline unique stuff with the composition and the divine fonts. And the feats don't give enought unique customisation to compensate this relatively boring baseline.

I absolutely adore the druid flavor, I'm the kind of player (when I'm a player, I tend to GM more than I play) that could play just different flavor of druid for every character I make and still have fun, but compared to PF1, druids in PF2 just don't feel all that exciting to build compared to most other class.

The two things that actually made me interested to play druid in PF2e was the release of the spore order (alongside the plethora of leaf order feats) and the spooky druid feats from dark archive, both because they feel like they open some interesting customisation and playstyle without being mandatory or bland. If other orders could be given more depth the way the plant order have with the new suborders and feats, and if there could be new flavorfull "order agnostic" feats, it would go a long way making the class more appealing, even if at this point they can't really fix the issue of the chassis itself feeling bland.

One of the thing that make druid feel like it doesn't have that much choice is that a lot of the feats are order based, making them unavailable for druid of other orders, or (for animal and wild order) mandatory in order to keep your order special feature "on level", so in the end, you end up not feeling like you have that much choice.

Of all the orders, I feel like plant is the only one that feel really good to build, due to a good number of unique feat that aren't mandatory but offer more option and playstyle. The class could certainly benefit from more feats for the other orders to get them on par with plant order (and it's suborders), even if there isn't any fixing the "mandatory feats" issue for the animal and untamed orders at this point.

I'm all for the seasonal and location specific order, because even if I sorta understand Paizo for stepping away from them since they are a fair bit more specific and slot into fewer adventure than the elemental or plant/animal/untamed ones, there is a lot of flavor in them and they could make for some really interesting playstyle. But I think fleshing out what we already have (beyond plant order, which is already pretty well rounded, even if I won't complain if it get more) is a bit more important.

But beyond more feat orders, I think more neutral "available to all" options could also do a lot to make druid feel more interesting and unique. Right now, the only "neutral" options are the basic spellcaster package, which is fine but unexciting, the "druid feature from PF1 we ported onto PF2 but put as feat instead of part of the class chassis" (like the ability to replace any spell by summon spell, the timeless body, the poison resistance, etc), which feel like flavor tax more than anything, and only a handfull of feats that feel interesting and unique in a way that can shape your playstyle, like the menhir feat or the "stealth druid" feats from dark archive. Having more of the last kind of feat would go a long way to make druid more exciting to build.

echoxero wrote:

Lex Winters wrote:

PG is out, a concise 10 pager.

Where did you find it?

Click on that link.

I mean, yeah, the link goes to the player guide, but I would also be interested to know where I was supposed to find it if someone hadn't thrown it here. Because I can't find a link to the guide on the hellbreaker store page like I can for the rest of the AP.

Untamed form is one of my small pet peeve with the game, with the way it's a focus spell that need feat investment to remain relevant through the levels. I really feel like insect form and dinosaur form should have been included in the base spell the way animal form was, insect shape is a sidegrade that don't give new impactfull feature, and dinosaur shape is basically "animal form but bigger and for a higher level range", the former feel like a flavor tax, and the second a straight feat tax.

Things like soaring shape, elemental shape, plant shape, those I get, they do give you really impactfull option like the ability to fly or deal/resist elemental damage, but having to pick up new feat just for the ability to remain usefull just feel bad. It's somewhat emblematic of my main issue with the druid (or probably with spellcasters in general), that a lot of their feat feel like a tax you need to take instead of cool new stuff as they should. Some feature feel like they should be part of the class/subclass and not be locked behind a feat, like monstruosity form, and some feel like they should be available at an earlier level, like the ability to switch between form without having to go through the "normal" shape (which I am convinced isn't locked to a level 20 feat because of balance consideration, but because the designers just though "what is the coolest feature we can give to cap off wildshape?" and slapped it onto the capstone feat, hereby locking it away for 95% of the level range just to make the capstone feel a bit more special).

I mean, all of those examples are different kind of evil campaign, just like how "crusader fighting demon", "agent of the magaambiya" and "adventurer trying to do the right thing" are all different kind of good campaign. "Evil campaign" isn't a single thing, it can be explored in a lot of different way. Just like some good campaign are mostly down to earth and other have the party frequently mingling with angels and fighting demon/devils/daemons on the regular.

For the moment, the "lawfull evil" side of things, where player work for an evil regime/organisation are are expected to want to climb up the ranks have received the most adventure/module out of all the way to play an evil campaign, with two AP dedicated to it as well as a rather in depth adventure. Which I understand, those adventure allow Paizo to explore some of the government/organisation of their setting from "the other side", it's naturally easier to write than an adventure in which the party are independantly selfish and self serving, but still, I think the next one ought to be more on the gremlin/independant side of things.

Make the party (eeeeeevil) pirate, bandit, make them create a thief guild, hinge the very setup of the campaign around wanting to take someone else's treasure, do a dark mirror of kingmaker in which the party are bad guys trying to take control of a town/region for themselves, there's a lot of things that could be done to make a fun evil campaign that don't retread the lawfull evil/minion of an evil organisation stuff.

Ohhh, the monster is interesting, it really open up some fun uses, especially with the burrow speed that allow it to potentially escape once a party member is infected, which then create some very interesting roleplaying opportunity, as well as providing some obvious goals to the party that should keep them engaged. especially with the obvious infection the player are aware, but with them being unaware of the evolution if the creature don't want them to be, that's a neat idea.

For the aasimar feat though, I have to ask, was it intentional to make it so the "beast of nirvana" don't immediately gain a level 1 beastkin feat like the dragon gain a level 1 dragonkin one? I feel like the access to the change shape alone isn't quite worth the tradeoff there, but I'm not sure.

It is a rather common setup, but it's notable that these adventure aren't exactly the most popular ones, (or, in the case of skull & shackles, that the first module in which the players are press ganged is often considered one of the worse of the AP).

I do think party as minion/employee that have to answer to a higher authority is perfectly workable, but not really in the way Hell's Vengeance (or skull&shackles) did it, having a patron giving you missions and having some expectation in how it should be handled is fine, having them breathing down your neck and overbearing isn't. And while it was fitting for minion of an evil aristocrat, or press ganged crewmember of an evil pirate, it's hardly "fun" to play. Compare to Second Darkness (in which the first few modules are considered the best ones), the boss despite being basically a crime lord is much more lenient and let the player act as they see fit as long as they don't eat his profit or hurt his reputation.

I think the party should either start as semi independant agent that do get mission from someone else but are given lots of leeway in how they approach it (and, perhaps more importantly, in how they carry themselves), or, if being so independant at low level in such organisation would be weird, they should simply not start as minion, but as completely independant people that are only integrated in the organisation once they accumulated enough level (and reputation) for them to "make sense" as semi-independant. Because having an overbearing patron is felt as a massive railroad in my experience, forcing the group not only to do certain things, but also to act and roleplay in a certain way or else.

And yeah, I know about the noise about needing good opponent for an evil adventure to work, and I'm somewhat inclined to agree, altho not as strongly. My main reason being that "good creature" are usually massively underused in good or normal aligned campaign because it's much more difficult to make it make sense that the party would be fighting them, so an evil campaign is the perfect excuse to finally use them at their full potential. The main issue being that altho they must still feel "morally good", they also need to not "feel bad to kill", because otherwise players would be unmotivated to continue the campaign, and it's a hard thing to balance.

I'm fine with blood lord being a "neutral trending evil" AP more than an outright evil one, because it open interesting roleplay opportunity for an actual good party in how they act toward some of their evil "allies", or in how they support the pharasmin and how it could cost them, but I would like to see an actual PF2 evil AP where you fight more celestials or things like that. I think there's a lot of way this can be done, especially if the AP step away from the (rather restrictive) "lawfull evil" framework into a more chaotic one, by hinging the setup on having the party be self interested instead of trying to fit them into a restrictive organisation.

I've read (altho not run) Hell's Vengeance, and I think one of the main issue is that the player start as mook that have to obey and grovel before their boss and remain just servant of people more powerfull than them for most of the early modules. Having the PC be just mook for someone else that have to obey is always a hard sell, especially when that someone isn't meant to be likable. It does perfectly fit the "lawfull evil" setup, but I don't think it's a kind of evil (or even of lawfull evil) that's particularly appealing to players.

One of the appeal of an evil party is that player can let out their inner gremlin and do stuff without regard for moral, which let them "play around" much more, but this kind of setup, while it does lift the "moral" constraint, impose another set of rule that the player are expected to adhere to even more strictly, so it doesn't feel great.

It is notable that Blood Lords, the most "lawfull evil" coded AP since Hell's Vengeance, significantly alleviated this issue by making the "early boss" far more likable and less overbearing, and allowing the party to become "free agents" much, much sooner. Along with not forcing obvious evil action to the player and giving option that accomodate a "secret good" party that try to change things from the inside. The AP apparently have some issues of it's own (mostly due to the fact that undead opponent are mostly balanced around fighting living player, making some encounters wonky), but I don't think I've ever seen someone complain that it was restrictive in the same way HV was.

Honestly, I feel that Blood Lord really show the lesson learnt from Hell's Vengeance in how (not) to write an evil AP. Likewise for Prey for Death, lawfull evil adventure, but you spend it away from your boss making your own decision instead of being forced to be an obedient mook.

The other thing Pazio seems to have learned from Hell's Vengeance is to not have "good" opponent, even as an evil AP, because killing good people feel bad (or at least it felt bad in HV), but I'm less sure I would agree here. I feel like the issue of HV wasn't so much the fact that the ennemies were "good aligned", but rather the fact that the party weren't given much reason to actually hate them appart from "they are our ennemies, go kill them". And on top of not being given a reason to hate them, a fair few of them were explicitely past victims rising against their oppressor, which really made fighting them (and possibly doing worse) into straight puppy kicking territory.

But I do think there can be stories in which genuinly good characters are satisfying antagonist for an evil AP, they just have to be written differently. Having a less likable personality and backstory (pompous ass that's genuinly try to do good is a perfect fit) would go a long way, and having them "wrong" the party in some way at the begginning of the adventure (for example by starting the adventure with them throwing the party in jail, or with them causing fall of whatever evil stronghold the party was a part of, or with them taking away the party's ill-gotten treasure) is a sure way to ensure the party is motivated to get back at them, even if those antagonist are morally in the right.

Alright, the big question for these new class is "what's gonna be the theme of the book?". Guardian and commander were in the "war" book, fitting for the two classes, necromancer and runesmith are apparently going to be in a "secret of secret magic" book, also somewhat fitting, but what would unite these two?

Personally, I'm feeling a PF2e version of ultimate intrigue/some kind of urban book, purely based on vibe.

I once again have to bring the Giant Wasp animal companion to the table. It have a 40 feet fly speed. It's advanced manoeuver take to action to either fly 15 feet and strike, or strike then fly 15 feet. It's worse than simply flying and striking normally, and it's not clear what was the intent at first, if it was supposed to be a single action, if it was supposed to not trigger reaction, there's no indication.

Likewise, the "elemental familiar" feat of the kineticist is extremely unclear. It say that it give you an "elemental familiar" with an element tied to one of your own... and that's it. No indication if it give you a familiar with the elemental trait (without needing to take a familiar ability), if it give you one with the "elemental" familiar ability (nor wether it give it to you for free or if it take one of your familiar ability slot or if you also need resistance as usual), or if it give you a specific elemental familiar as the page reference next to the term seems to indicate (which would explain why unlike every other class that give a familiar, kineticist have no way to obtain more familiar ability, if it give you a specific familiar from the start, but this would be highly unortodox and would need to be clearly explained).

And finally, the untamed shape need to be updated to automatically include the insect shape form, why do you curse me so to take additional feats to play an insect druid when from level 5 onward it have the exact same power level as animal shape? Why does bugkind must still labor under the yoke of Paizo's oppression when during a whole edition they were called "vermin" and "mindless" and still now they must offer feats to their oppressor to have the right to exist?

If this is about the Mythspeaker module, I think you should probably take it to the mythspeaker portion of the forum, you'd have better chance finding an answer that way, since James Jacob (Paizo's creative director) is far more active in the AP section of the forum than in general discussion.

The rule is I believe, immunity before weakness before resistance.

Meaning you attack for 10, it get increased to 15 because weakness, it get lowered to 5 because resistance.

It's not the most intuitive thing (I would have expected resistance to go before weakness, because resistance feel more "surface" than weakness, and thus that one would need to pierce through it to inflict the weakness), but I think it was done in that order to favor the player, since resistance can be punishing enough to certain type of character as it is. (Players are more unlikely to have weakness/resistance than creatures, and making weakness go before resistance mean that when you deal damage lower than the total resistance but higher than the resistance minus the weakness, some damage go through, while it would deal no damage if the order was reversed)

I think the closer we'll get is the "Ostilli Host" and "Thlipit Contestant" archetype from Howl of the Wild.

The first one is clearly about a symbiotic relationship between a specific ancestry and the Ostilli, and it's noted that this ancestry get access to it even if the archetype is uncommon. It does specify that other ancestry can also bond with the slug (and thus access the archetype), but there is clear theming, and the fact that this is explicitely open to the Sukri but no other ancestry is as close as it get to ancestry specific.

The other is about a martial art of grippli fighting using their prehensile tongue, that was latter adapted by Iruxi using their prehensile tail. Not technically ancestry limited, but you need to have the physical attribute necessary to enter it in the first place (there's also other archetypes for characters with claw or wings).

These are I think a good middle ground between "clearly of a certain culture + relying on certain physical characteristic" without just ensuing a blanket ban on anything "out of the norm". Fleshwarp for example being able to have an appendage that they can use like the grippli use their tongue make sense, but would much probably have been excluded if Thlipit Contestant was ancestry locked, simply because the writters would probably have stopped at the most obvious ancestry instead of noting every edge case. Likewise if you want to consider that the Ostilli can only bond with exosqueletton, I somewhat doubt that insectile sprites, beastkin or even the possible Trox that might one day be released would have been included on the "possible ancestry for this archetype" if it was strictly ancestry locked.

I'd say if you fight random basic goblin tribes at a level where you're able to stack enough instance of damage for this ruling to be problematic, you probably don't need to abuse any loophole to roll them over. This doesn't strikes me as a "low level" kind of issue.

The idea that you could proc that multiple times per attack is going to just melt enemies. We saw that when a poster here ran some Mythic fights to try the system out, someone landed Decree of Execution to give Weakness All 20 to Treerazor, and proceeded to melt him in no time flat.

You get a +3 Holy Thundering Shocking weapon and that's 80 extra damage every hit.

I don't think that kind of outcome is the direction things should be going, especially in more standard play.

It's noteworthy that "decree of divine execution" is an incapacitation and mythic effect that need a critical failure to apply this "weakness all" to any creature above level 18, or for you to spend a mythic point, while treerazer isn't mythic. Not only is mythic in general not exactly "standard play", but it's against a creature that wasn't built to go out against mythic player in the first place, it being outclassed in this scenario is rather normal.

(also I don't think this scenario work in the first place because Treerazer is immune to death effect and the decree have the death trait, but I understand that the point isn't about treerazer in particular)

But truth be told, at that high a level, creatures (especially bosses) have a lot of resistance and immunities, to the point where even if you have as many damage rune as you can on your weapon to maximise "multiple weakness", you very likely end up hitting one or more resistance/immunity with a few of the damaging effect and can't capitalise on them at all as a weakness.

Honestly, appart from it making the math more complicated (which is IMO a really fair point), I feel like most of the criticism levied against this change boil down to white room math that aren't problematic in actual play when happenning to miraculously have a weapon that have all the perfect runes stack on it to proc 3+ weakness at once while avoiding all immunity/resistance is extremely unlikely, but awesome in the rare time it does happen (or require the player to extensively research in advance on the monster it's tracking and prepare specifically for that encounter, which is something that I actively want my players to do as a GM).

The worse it can be abused is through giving foes "weakness to all damage", and I think the only way to do that in the whole game is through 2 archetype specific level 18 feats, that both have limitation and don't remove resistance or immunity. And at that point, I feel like if you're level 18 and your team have invested into "multiple instance of damage" synergy to maximise these things... having a big effect is kinda deserved? Or at least not problematic?

Ritual wise, I feel like the uncommonness don't relate to knowlege of them being limited to some specific part of the world, but rather to it being hard to learn on your own without assistance or patronnage. (not unlike how every focus spell is uncommon for similar reason).

Things like animate object feel like most wizardy organisation know how to do it (there are animated object all around golarion), you just have to pay (or be a part of it) to be teached how to do so yourself. Create undead obviously circulate all around golarion since there are necromancer everywhere, but since it's illegal in most place, it's the type of secret that is transmited in hushed voice, or that an aspiring necromancer need to "dig out" while researching the work of their former peers in order to uncover. Likewise for awaken animal, it feel like the kind of knowledge that any powerfull/ancient enough druidic circle probably know, but they won't teach you unless you prove yourself worthy of knowing it or have a good reason.

For uncommon spells on the other hand...

Scrying (and all the related spells that prevent/foil/detect scrying) feel like it's a "technological bubble" in itself, any area where some proeminent power is able to scry will have all other powers try to acquire the same ability and means to resist/detect it's use. Any arcane spellcaster-heavy place (all the area around new thassilon, the entire area surrounding the eye of dread, Absalom, nex/geb, Natambu, etc) probably have scrying (and anti scrying) as relatively well known and "accounted for" thing that people can do, while I expect places with less active arcane spellcaster to have it be uncommon or unknown.

Likewise for "detonate magic", "dispelling globe" and the like, these spells feel like they would sprout out in a region where magic (and specifically arcane magic) use is especially plentifull and commonplace, while regions that see less spellcasting activity would just rely on "dispel magic" as a "one size fix all" anti-magic spell.

Teleportation effect are more interesting, they were obviously put at uncommon not out of worldbuilding but to prevent them from invalidating some campaign/adventure, but in effect, it does look like these are commonplace in metropolises like Absalom, and far less common in more rural places. Which of course stem from the fact that metropolices have more magic users than rural places, but it does paint an interesting picture, in which every "big city" are "close together", in that it is rather trivial to find a way to teleport from one to another as long as you have enough money/magical ability, while the rural and wild expanses away from these siege of power are more isolated and distant, even if they are geographically closer. As an exemple, I expect that someone at the western extremity of Kortos (the island were Absalom is) would likely take longer and have a harder time in general getting to the eastern extremity of the same island than someone in Absalom trying to get to Quantium (Nex's capital). In a way, it remind me of how Castrovel is depicted, with incredibly vast expanses of wilderness, with large cities spread amongst the surface, connected for the most part by magical portals, the existence of which mean that develloping trade or travel route "on land" is less attractive, which result on the wilderness being left untouched in most region.

There are however two notable exception for these teleportation effect in the player core. The first one is "nature pathway", and the other is "umbral journey", and by extension gate and other mean of plannar travel. These feel like spells that, like rituals, aren't limited to some part of the world, but rather jealously kept secret by some group or individual that would rather not share it. Nature pathway have "druidic secret" written all over it, and the plannar travel ones feel like they are uncommon because some faith or groups with privileged relationship with some other plane would rather keep their privilege for themselves.

And then there's raise dead. It's sorta ubiquitous in the lore, and honestly, it feel like it's uncommon either because "organised religion" have a monopole on the thing and try to keep it to prevent "rogue cleric/oracle/sorcerer" from intruding on their market (which wouldn't really make sense for good nature faith), or.... simply uncommon because it's so costly only rich people can ever afford it, making it uncommon out of class divide.

The presence of "exciting character options" is making me hopefull that we'll see new stuff for bellflower archetype altho i'm not sure how well the network would fit in a "war" adventure path. I hope they are present in some capacity, I love them (they are unironically the most interesting part of cheliax for me) and I'm always up for seeing more of them.

total air walk W, lmao

Wait, doesn’t the battle form only kill your fly spell of the fly spell was before the battle form? Not if cast after? I’m not crazy, that’s definitely a valid interpretation here right?

I do believe this is how it's supposed to work, the transformation "eat" your normal speed, but you can then modify it afterward without issue.

Honestly, I think there's an argument to be made that the fly spell (and the tailwind spell) don't modify your "base stat", but give you a "buff totem" instead, that last for the duration of the spell or until dispelled, and since battle form don't dispell it, it should still give you the buff. And thus that while battle form make you lose "your speeds", since you keept the "buff totem", you keep the speed bonus of tailwind or special speeds you got through other spells.

I mean, the purpose of this sentence is pretty obviously to clarify that no, a human that turn into a shark don't get to still sprint on land, and neither a strix that turn into one can keep it's wings to fly.

I take offence to the giant wasp not being fixed, it's advance manoeuver (fly for 15 feet then strike, or strike then fly for 15 feet for 2 actions) is still strictly worse in every way than just flying and attacking in any order (it have a 40 feet fly speed).

Likewise for the "elemental familiar" kineticist feat, it's wording is still vague and it's unclear wether it give the kineticist a familiar that is an elemental (without the elemental familiar ability), if it give it the elemental ability (and wether it "eat" one of the two familiar ability by doing so or give that ability for free), or if it give the kineticist a "specific elemental familiar" right out of the gate (which would explain why the class don't have access to enhance familiar like any other class with familiars).

Mhhhhhh, I have more than one question so I'll let you chose which one you want to answer amongst those :

- On the "player option" side of things, will it have new stuff for some existing class or archetype, and if yes could you tell us which ones? (I'm thinking mostly new class feats and extension of undead archetype in particular, but things like the new druid orders from wildwood or harrow bloodline from stolen fate were also quite hype).

- If it's (mostly) a megadungeon AP, I'm assuming there's going to be a "base town" in which the PC can recover and regroup and have intrigue with a few of the NPCs, can you give us a preview of it's "vibes"/wether there are some plotline or NPC you are especially proud of? I've ran Rise of the Runelord in 1e and am currently running a "precampaign" for 7 Dooms for Sandpoint, and some NPCs really stuck to my players (namely Podiker, Broder Quink and Hannah), so I'm interested in any "outstanding personality" that might pop up in here.

- You said it was inspired by souls like and universal horror movies (amongst other things), any monster in particular you'd like to show us? Or maybe an haunt or just a general scene/moment that you think will really stick with most group that play the AP?

Isn't Hell's Destiny scheduled to release latter than this AP? That would explain it.

Also, from my understanding, HD is intended to be a possible followup for Hellbreaker, so maybe they're witholding some info that would be "Hellbreaker spoiler" until after Hellbreaker release.

EDIT apparently I was wrong and hell's destiny is indeed intended to release first, so yeah, I assume it's because Hell's Destiny is so tied to Hellbreaker that it doesn't make sense for them to advertise the second one before the release of the first, while Bastion of Blasphemy is it's own separate thing and thus can be hyped separately.

Weren't the "final boss" of the skull&shackles AP chellish corsairs? Honestly, I can see the shakles letting vidrian ships pass for free as long as they pay a tribute (on the spoils of war) on the way back, it's a win-win for them.

However, the fact that pretty much everyone around Cheliax (appart from Nidal) have every reason to help the Andoran side make me think Cheliax will probably have a big ace up their sleeves in that war. Either some magic thingy that can put all of their foes on the backfoot at once (like some hell portal openning way behind the ennemy lines with armies of devils ready to step out of them), or they have a "surprise ally" that's gonna join the war on their side (or at least overtly support them) that people aren't expecting. Given the "world war" thing going on, I expect it to be more the latter.

I feel like out of the country that could reveal themselves as Chelliax ally in this war, those in the golden road are the most likely to be it (mostly because they haven't really been active in PF2 "story" so far, while the Avistani country have had a lot to deal with these past few years). While it's my least favorite pick, I think Rahadoum is probably the country most likely to be "it", simply because it's closest to Cheliax and the whole antireligious angle make them easy to "fit" as ally to the diabolist as well as being a "not that bad Cheliax ally" that could be swayed away from supporting them by the PC by engaging in politicking (while parties like Nidal are jsut straight villains).

Qadira is the other big obvious choice, simply because on the contrary, they are the ones most distant from Cheliax proper, and thus all the horrors of diabolism happen "out of sight" for them, and supporting Cheliax in a bid to weaken andoran and by extension Taldor is sort of an obvious choice. And like Rahadoum, there can easily be a module/adventure in which the PCs have to do some politicking to get them to back off of the alliance without just jumping to "kill them" as the easiest option.

Appart from those two, the other parties I can see working with Cheliax would be Katapesh (because money), and Thuvia (not only because money, but also because Thuvia don't have a central government and is more a loose alliance of city state, and thus there can easily be a situation where some of them are swayed to Cheliax while some are reluctant/unwilling to support them and the thing devolving into a mini civil war in the country).

Then why is the Goddess named progenitor of the goblins and orcs and other monstrous races an objectively evil goddess?

Why, despite them now being playable as PC's, are nearly all sapient undead evil by definition.

Why do these tropes that are born of religious persecution and malignment still part of their narratives?

And yes, Paizo is doing an amazing job working to purge the meta of their world of horrible ideologies. they are putting in work doing it, and I appreciate that. and again, it's why I'm talking about this on a Pathfinder community and not a D&D community. But just because they are doing hard work and making the effort, doesn't mean they've completely fixed everything and there aren't places left to criticize.

Weren't the orcs more about Rovagug than Lamashtu originally? I don't think Lamashtu was ever meant to be their progenitor (and I don't think Rovagug was meant to have been the orc progenitor either, it was more because they had that angry "Hate everything" mentality).

Goblins (and goblinoid in general) on the other hand definitively were hinted pretty strongly as being progeny of Lamashtu with the bargheist hero gods, or at least progeny of those hero gods (which are also evil). And beyond goblins, there are a bunch of other "monstruous" creature whose lore is basically "it is said that the first one were birthed by Lamashtu/Rovagug".

But while I understand the concern, I personally don't mind that some creature, even playable ones, are "canonically" progeny of an evil god. I actually like it, especially if the creatures then are shown to not evil like their progenitor. That an evil godess can give birth to a "neutral" ancestry, who tend toward evil purely due to cultural stuff and not because they are hard coded to to so is pretty interesting, it naturally create stories of these people rising up against not just any random evil god, but their actual creator, it bring nuance to the cult of these deities, it balance nicely with the fact that ancestries created by "good god" aren't necessarily good themselves (evil dwarves exist after all), and finally in reinforce and show the free will and agency of mortals, instead of making it a world were only godly stuff matter and mortal are just pawn that always play a predetermined role given to them by their almighty superior.

As for intelligent undead, I agree with you that I don't like seeing them as "always evil" as demons and the like, since them as tragic figure is very compelling and making it so the turn "switch them to evil" have always been lame to me, but it seems that the lore is heading away from that anyway, with some of them (that aren't ghost, as ghost were always the exception to that "always evil" thing) being shown as neutral fairly recently (and I believe Arazni assencion to the core 20 is also meant to accomodate nonevil undead PC). So I don't really see the point in criticising this further since they quite visibly decided to move in this direction already, the only reason they still seems to be "locked" to always evil is because most pathfinder material date from before that switch.

I want to continue exploring this bias of "Chaos is wrong, Lawful is Right"... because... wow. are people who are "Just following orders" right? even if those horrible orders are lawful?

was Robin Hood, the scarlet Pimpernel, Star Wars Rebels, Br'er Rabbit, etc all inherently wrong for being forces of chaos?

The issue of the whole "law vs chaos" alignment axis is that while pathfinder tried to fully decouple it from the "good vs evil" one, is that for the longest time in DnD, it really was true that chaos was another type of evil, and lawfull another type of good. With some version of it even having a "linear aligment" that goes from "chaotic evil" as the worse evil to "lawfull good" as the best good (and not having "lawfull evil" or "chaotic good" as possibilities), and some version that did feature the full 9 alignment spread, but presenting lawfull good as "the best good" and "lawfull evil" as "the evil you can actually negotiate or ally with when things were dire", while chaotic evil was "kill on sight always" and chaotic good was "ultimately good, but a bit of grey morality (AKA edgy good)".

And while pathfinder tried to get away from that even before removing alignment altogether, and while DnD is also trying to "equilibrate" the evils nowaday, it's still a persistent idea that remain. It goes back to the roots of the hobby where the "always evil" races were almost always tribal "chaotic" society, while the "good ones" were closer to western civilisation (and presented as more lawfull and "enlightenned").

Also I believe that Elric of Melniboné (which is the first bit of fantasy I'm aware that did the "chaos vs order" as cosmological powers and much probably influenced it's appearance in DnD), had chaos being antagonistic most of the time. Even if the books described "order" as no less monstruous (and Elric was meant to serve balance between both), Chaos was specifically the one on the offensive during the story and is the antagonistic force for most of it, so it's natural that people taking inspiration from it without thinking too much about it would make the chaos side "evil" and the order one "good".

But yeah, I agree that decoupling chaos/order from morality argument is much more interesting, and that it was tied to it mostly because old edition of DnD followed a vision of morality in which western civilisation and status quo = good while nonwestern culture and upsetting the status quo = bad.

As the other say, it's not really supported, and I believe it's because implement are partially balanced by the fact that you can only wield 2 of them at any given moment, but you could hold all 3 at once if your weapon implement don't use your hands (or two implement and another held item). Appart from that specific case, I don't think having a natural weapon as a weapon implement increase the thaumaturge power at all, it make it so it's a weapon implement that can't be disarmed, but the fact that it can't be disarmed is already "baked in" the natural weapon power budget itself I believe.

So honestly, I'd allow it if the natural weapon is literally your hand and doesn't "count" as a weapon implement if you're holding something with it (basically making it so you effectively "swap" your weapon implement with whatever you're holding in that hand), if your character have only one arm (making it so it can have two implement as other thaumaturge with the natural one playing the role of the weapon implement), or if you rule that your character is a bit clumsy and can't use it's natural weapon as implement if they are also holding two different object (that they can't wield alongside implements) in their hands.

Or if I'm in a group that don't care that much about balance. It's a power increase for sure, but it's not that dramatic.

The few thing we know about Aroden is that he was a wizard, and that he was from ancient Azlant. So in my view of things, I decided to tie his death to the dissapearance of Lissala, AKA the thassilonian (and originally Azlant) godess of rune and magic, that we know is still alive, but who have dissapeared and nobody know where she is or what she is doing, even her own servant and herald know.

Basically the idea is that as the date of his "glorious return" to golarion was approaching, Aroden decided to add even more flair to the event by also bringing back the godess as an ally/lieutenant of his (since we all know he loved to have women serving as his right hand), and went looking for her, but didn't succeed and died instead. Specifically, in his search for her, he found a divine equivalent to the good old "symbol of death" and just dropped dead then and there.

The reason is multiple, I like the idea that his undoing was purely his own ego (he didn't need to go looking for her, his return was already written in stone), because "ancient golarion" is full of reference to the older DnD edition (the runelords obviously working with 2e wizard rule, the green faith being 2e druid...) and Aroden dying because of the stupid unfair trap you can't predict or resist to and just have to sorta know it's there that was frequent in old DnD is funny, and because I find Lissala's whole deal more interesting than Aroden so I don't mind subbordonning his mystery as a smaller part of hers.

Also, because I have idea for a megadungeon campaign with Lissala having locked herself at the center of it, and having "absolute" runes that have irresistible effect and act more like puzzle than normal hazard is pretty central to this idea. And having literally Aroden corpse being what foreshadow/warn the party about the rune/symbol of death would be pretty neat.

To my knowledge, the giant wasp animal companion still hasn't been fixed. It's advanced manoeuver take two action to either fly 15 feet then strike, or strike then fly 15 feet, which is strictly worse than just using it's base fly speed (40 feet) and a strike in any order.

It's a bit annoying since unlike a bunch other small mistake there's no clear indication of what the upside is supposed to be here, is it supposed to take just one action, and it's action compression that give the wasp a diminished "stride" for free? Is it supposed be a movement that don't trigger reaction, giving the wasp a 15 feet "step" that fly? The name of the maneover is "darting strike", is it supposed to let you strike at any point of your movement, letting the wasp close the gap, strike then retreat?

Other than that, something that stumped my player and I recently is the kineticist familiar feat, it's unclear wether it give the kineticist a familiar with the "elemental" familiar ability and one that you can choose, with the "elemental" familiar ability for free and 2 you can choose as usual, or if it give you one of the specific elemental familiar present in the book (which would explain why unlike any other class with familiars, there isn't any "improved familiar" line for the kineticist). We settled on the second option for now, but some clarification would be welcome.

Ever since I've read the impossible land book, the idea of an adventure with the party being the crew of a flying ship really grew on me. Seeing this exact setup being the framing device of the Howl of the Wild book only reinforced this interest.

It's such a simple but so evocative premice, I'd love to see an AP with this setup. I guess that it would force the adventure to either happen mostly in the air, which might get stale (and very deadly), or for the ship to regularly "touch land", but I do think there is a way to make it work, and if it does, it could be one of the most unique and beloved AP.

If the leshy iconic "issue" (not really an issue, but let's pretend it's one) drag until pathfinder 3, Lini better start feeling nervous. Druid is *the* perfect fit for a leshy class, given that leshies were first created to be druid variant on the "craft construct", and then a druid specific familiar. And also, the whole plant/nature thing.

Anyway, off the top of my head, the class that don't exist yet that would most fit a leshy iconic would be a spontaneous primal spellcasting class (something which I'm still surprised animist didn't end up being), a primal bounded spellcasting class (which could be "shifter-lite"), an actual shifter class, or.... to completely sidestep the (admitedly very important to leshy) nature element and instead lean in the "discovery and curiosity" aspect of things and become an item based class, like an alchemist but for all other item instead of specifically alchemy and consumables. Altho I'm not too sure such class in the works, given that alchemist is already a bit controversial.

Was just thinking about this, and an AP where the PCs are theives / pirates and the books are built around heists, abductions, banditry, shakedowns, etc.

Maybe just a level 1-10 AP as they rise in the criminal underworld of some major city.

Being "locked" into being bandits is a hard sell for an AP, since evil scenario aren't that popular, however one way to do it while accomodating the groups that don't want to be evil would be a sort of treasure hunt. Where the PC learn of the existence/location of something very valuable, and retrieving the shinies is the main motivation of the adventure (which could mean that the adventure is a heist if it's in a urban setting, or an expedition for a wilder one). Where the "villain" of the AP is either whatever is keeping the treasure, or another rival group that set up to do the exact same thing as the party (or both).

This kind of setup accomodate a group of greedy pirate or bandit PC, while not completely closing the door on good characters that might want to use the money for something more noble than simply to get richer.

I think serpent skull tried to do this, but the 6 module format forced the story to become bigger than that by the end, while also having the issue of early mwangi... not being the best, and the classic issue of mismatched expectation with the player guide not advertising the fact that the core of the adventure was going to be a treasure hunt all that well.

But I'd accept it gratefully if no PC ever gets into a fight with Sorshen, or if there's never an attempt to conquer Varisia by what's left of Zutha.

Speaking of Zutha, what happenned to him? From what I heard, one third of his soul cage grimoire got destroyed in return of the runelords, and this somehow destroyed his soul, but what of the two other third, were they also destroyed? From my understanding his grimoire worked like the book of the damned, with a "it pop back into existence if you don't destroy all three parts in quick succession" clause, was it not the case?

Just like the swords of sins (or other intelligent items) that possessed their weilders, I like the idea of the evil grimoire that slowly turn it's user into Zutha, that's a pretty unique way for a lich to come back to (un)life and it's very evocative.

This looks odds to me? Either I'm missing something about that monster or there is some kind of mistake in it's description.

This lame take is certainly in line with this forum. They didn't "make the game easier", they removed unintended interactions between flavour and rules. Worshippers of Urgathoa weren't supposed to be unable to play Blood Lords because it primarily features undead opponents. Worshippers of Pharasma are supposed to be able to play in most Adventure Paths, which tend to involve looting at least one tomb.

Agree with you on Urgathoa, Desna and Nethys, but Pharasma does feel a bit weird, because while the tomb looting was rare enought to not come up too much (but enough to make the anathema an interesting conundrum), the new formulation feel like it refer to any looting of dead body... which include any opponent you just killed. And as we all know, looting your opponent is basically the fundation upon which the whole pathfinder economy is build, so preventing the pharasmin believer to loot at all is rough. The formulation also make it weird, as I don't really see how someone can loot the dead in "good" or "bad" faith. They can do so for good reason or because of greed, but "in bad faith" imply that they lie about their true intention.

As if you could rob any tomb or corpse just to sell it latter as long as you're open that you're a tomb robber, but that if you pretend to be a tomb robber, but are instead someone tring to get these item back to their original owner, then you suddenly violate the anathema because you were acting in bad faith.

I'd just say to express in the Playtest Survey what you're like to see in the complete class.

I don't really get what is your point here, aren't these forum made specifically for people to tell what they think about the iteration of the class that's being playtested?

Sure, interaction with already released element of the game need less playtesting, but it still need some of it if they want to use these elements in uncommon ways. And these forum are made for us to talk about how we feel about the current iteration of the class, so i'm reporting (and I'm not the only one), that from my perspective, the necromancer don't interact enough with necromancy in general, instead focussing solely on it's own special feature. So I'm expressing that I would like more feature, no matter the form they take, that allow for this class to make better use of the already released necromancy option.

A better version of the shambling horror focus spell would fix a lot of those feel problems. A focus spell that's basically summon undead except it has to target a corpse. Unlikely, even if they lowered the level of the summon to not be top tier spell, it would then fall right into the useless bin for a lot of players.

Honestly, given how "not meta" summon spells are (for good reason), I feel like having a feat that turn them into focus spell (and thus allow you to cast them at max heigtenning without having to lose your other top level slot) would be far from broken.

Druids already have a subclass that take two spells (pest and animal form), smash them together and turn them into a focus spell (with even added upside), with the possibility of adding even more spell to the pile and adding even more upside to them through other feats, so turning normal spells into focus spell isn't broken by itself, it depend on the specific spell. And summon spells have enough restriction I feel to make them fine as focus.

Do note that I say that in the necromancer thread, but I'm not talking solely for them. Summoners, sloth wizard, and druid all deserve a way to get such upside I think, even if it cost them a couple of feats to get to it. Because right now, summon really doesn't feel worth using.

I think Ragathiel "swapping" is now more unlikely than ever. Even if Ragathiel as "good" was kinda debatable, he was a bit too extreme and I can see how it felt weird for one like him to be considered "cosmically good", he absolutely picked a side in the war between holy and unholy, and it sure wasn't the unholy side. I feel like Ragathiel is an incarnation of the "angel going overboard in their crusade to smite all evil" trope, and that despite the edge and possible moral dubiousnes of such character, they can't not be holy.

it's one of the case where I feel like calling these side "holy and unholy" instead of good and evil actually enrich the world, because it allow for less than ideal divinity or character to be holy as long as they stand against the "unholy" side, and for unholy divinity or character to still show some amount of virtue or moral backbone, as long as they stand against the "holy" side. While before, having a "good" god that was morally not that great felt like a complete oxymoron.

But you can just take reanimator or undead master and add those options in? What benefits is gained by printing them again outside of vibes?

To make the class more connected to the rest of the system instead of being an odd duck that doesn't interact with anything other than it's own special rules?

Beside, "vibe" is a quality in itself. A class that all about summoning, controlling and exploiting undeath but doesn't actually interact with any undeath option outside it's own chasis feel fake. It's as if the "undead" theme was just a paintjob and could be swapped with literally anything else without changing the class at all. Giving them features (be they feats or class ability) that actually interact with the rest of the game undead option ground the class theme much more.

Look at the druid for exemple, the primal spells and their focus spells give them a "nature" feel, sure, but it doesn't stop here. They have feats that allow them to talk to any animals or plant, not just their special companion or the one they summons. That allow them to ignore any strong wind, or to swim in any body of water, to ignore any plant based difficult terrain, etc etc. Their "one with nature" feel don't just stop at their own ability, it's connected to the rest of the game system. Likewise for alchemist, what they do is directly connected to the alchemical item anyone can get, it's not limited to special decoction only them can brew.

Beside, it's not as if these change need to be a big power jump. Between affecting the class special ability that they always have access to, or some more niche thing that they must specifically "buy into", like undead summons or an undead companion, the latter will always be more conditional and require more investment to work, so it balance itself out. But even just having the class synergize, even a tiny bit, to these option would go a long way to make the fantasy more "real", and feel less isolated and disconnected from the actual world.

EDIT : On reread, I feel like you have misread me, I'm not advocating for adding undead companion feat tree to the necromancer here (I think it would be nice, but it's not necessarily needed, as long as there are available enought archetype). What I'm saying is that the necromancer feats and feature need to account for undead companion or summon instead of just being only about thralls, thralls, thralls. A lot of these feature could easily be written as "target thrall or undead minion you control" instead of just thrall, and it would make the class feel more flavorfull, more connected to the rest of the system, for a very low power boost (as setting up before using the incredibly easy to create thrall is inherently easier than undead summons or undead companion). Likewise, it could easily have a handfull of feats that doesn't interact with thralls but with other undead themed part of the game (like a feat giving them better access to the summon undead spell, or to the harm spell), like the summoner feats that interact with summons spell instead of their eidolons.

Nice to see this!

However, I have to point out that the advanced maneuver of the giant wasp animal companion from Howl of the Wild is still broken, in that it offer no benefit over simply using one action to fly then one action to attack (or the reverse).

For those unaware, the Giant wasp have a fly speed of 40 feet, and it's advanced manoeuver take two action to either fly for 15 feet then strike, or strike then fly for 15 feet. It doesn't have any other effect, and doesn't offer any action compression or any kind of upside over simply flying then striking in any order, in fact, it's strictly worse since the fly speed in this action is less than half of the wasp base fly speed.

I'm pointing this one out specifically because unlike a lot of obvious mistake, this one is actually a bit difficult to homebrew, as it doesn't gives off a clear idea of what the manoeuver was supposed to be. Maybe it was supposed to take one action to do this, and thus be simple action compression, or it was supposed to be a "skirmish" ability that allow the wasp to strike at any point during it's movement (and thus allow them to do a "get close, strike, get away" in only two action, even if the move speed was reduced). Or it could even be supposed to be a movement that doesn't trigger reaction. But as it stand, it's difficult to make a call, as it's difficult to decide which one is the intended ability.

A public "future errata" page,

A monthly dev roundup Q&A (delayed and curated community Q & dev A reverses the prior incentive for toxic alarmism; incendiary comments don't get picked, while insightful ones do),
etc,
all can systematically reduce the toxicity.

While I do agree that Paizo could be a bit clearer on "what problem they are aware of and looking forward to fix, and what they don't consider a problem", I do have to point out that a "rule pending for future errata" list could be far more noxious than the current level of toxicity if handled incorrectly.

Publishing such list would create very clear expectation, and if they struggle to find a satisfying "fix" for one of these issue, or worse, change their mind about a certain issue and decide that they actually don't want to errata it anymore, it can very quickly be seen as "betrayal" for the fans that expect these rules to be errata'd in the very next rollout when they see that they aren't (or worse, when they see that the rule is taken away from the "to be fixed" list). Furthermore, all contentious rules that does not appear in such list could then grow even more toxicity, as the part of the community that consider this a problem and want this rule changed would now feel vindicated, as Paizo would be openly disregarding their concerns by ommiting it from "the list".

These two issues also create a big problem, as Paizo would only want to post the rules they are 100% certain they will errata shortly in such list to avoid the first issue, but doing so will amplify the second one as most of the rules people are unsatisfied with fatally won't show up there.

So not only doing this would require a lot more work from Paizo, it's could also be a double edged sword, so I understand that they are wary about how to approach this. Personally, I think it could be nice if they introduced a short "errata preview" telling us of the biggest things they are 100% working on and are certain will be part of the next errata wave, so that we know what to expect, but it would be far from a magic "fix toxicity" button, and they need to clearly set expectation with it.

Injection weapons for Alchemists definitely sound cool! I'm still trying to perfect my paintball potions in a slingshot idea, and injection weapons sound like a fun departure for more chaotic alignments, due to feelings around needles.

Speaking of slingshot, I can't believe we don't have any feat or ability yet that allow the player to use alchemical bombs as sling amunition (even if all it does is letting you use the sling weapon range increment and/or potency rune for the bomb). Not only is it an obvious combo, it would help carve a niche for the slings weapons, which is a bit lacking for the moment.

Other than that, I agree with botbrain here, it's nice to see these feat offering a broader range of weapon to access, I hope it's a sign that weapon proficiency get a bit easier to get by as non-human moving forward. I understand why advanced weapon had to cost at least a feat for non-fighter, free access to them is one of the core fighter feature after all, but it always felt bad that you had to play a human if you wanted true access to 99% of them, because the ancestry specific feats were extremely specific and only the human feat "unconventional weapon" actually allowed normal scalling for basically any weapon you wanted. I always felt like either the ancestry feat had to be expanded to englobe whole weapon subtypes to actually measure up to that versatility, or that the "weapon proficiency" general feat should have allowed you normal scalling for the weapon you chose, not that "trained from 1-10, expert for 11-20".

I mean, the Summoner doesn't really incentivize the class to summon anything either but that's what we got.

The summoner do get a few feats that incentive using summon spells, which is more than I can presentely say for the necromancer and undead options as of now.

But also, I think you're right, it's true that the summoner don't actually insentivise summon that much. But I'm of the opinion that this is somewhat of a flavor fail, and that if summoner is to be remastered, it should be touched up a little to make it better at summonning (well, I'm of the opinion that summons spells in general should be modified a bit to not hog the top level slot and jump in utility so much depending on your level, but I think that battle is lost).

So I'd like if the necromancer class was a bit more in tune with necromancy, instead of being solely focussed on it's special mechanic to the exclusion of everything else. Most of the chassis and power can come from thralls, no problem with that, but it shouldn't be so entirely closed to every other form of necromancy.