The Contrarian's page

Even if the items need to be used or be wasted, a Garden of Healing built in a city can spit out Contagion Metabolizers, etc, while the PCs are away. The PC can come back to collect a fat purse from the hireling who sells the daily healings. Even if the gross-costs net per-Activate value is like 20% of its listed gp cost, it's still kinda a yikes gold factory.

No such thing in PF2e.

By the time the PCs pay their hirelings, purchase the materials necessary to sustain and maintain the garden, taxes on the products, fees to the local crafter guilds, and bribes to criminals and politicians to get around red tape and other troubles, they're just making an Earn Income check to see what's left for their own personal profit.

I do nothing, as there's no problem.

Pathfinder 2e is perfect as it is.

agree on the fireball (because it's visible as soon as it leaves your person), disagree on the "the direction the pain comes from"

Witch of Miracles, Deiven, shroudb:

That's not how fireball works. The explosion of fire simply appears; there is no "trail back to the caster."

Exemplar should only give the Transcendance with a once per 10 minute limit. And even then it'd be super strong.

Exemplar should not have a once per round limit on Transcendence unless gained from the archetype.

They may touch imaginary weapon and they may not.

I'd wager that it gets a power boost in some way. ;)

In that example you won't benefit from the precision damage because you've already used it. But I'm not sure what extra combo you're missing there.

The combo of following up a high damage hit with a guarantee of another high damage hit (especially if you were lucky enough to have crit the first time). Sure the precision damage doesn't carry over to the second Strike, since that is once per round (what is it with Paizo limiting everything to once per round anyways?), but guaranteed extra damage after already landing a high damage Strike would have been pretty sweet.

My point is, if you take all the ikons that benefit archers, you can't benefit from them all. If you take all the ikons that benefit throwing weapons, you can't benefit from them all. If you take all the ikons for most any other theme you want, you can't benefit from them all.

It's inefficient. It's lack of synergy. It's waste. It's the extra hoops that hold back the swashbuckler, the witch hexes, the inventor, and many other classes.

The limit of one transcend a round really limits what you can do with the ikons.

For example, if you use Gaze Sharp as Steel for the defensive bonuses against ranged attacks with your archer exemplar then for your first action transcend A Moment Unending to get the precision damage bonus on your next attack and into Unfailing Bow for the passive damage bonus, Strike with your bow and hit, you can't then make use of Arrow Splits Arrow.

In fact, you will almost never get to use Arrow Splits Arrow while benefitting from those other ikons.

The exemplar is rife with "obvious combos" that simply don't work well, if at all, due to that limitation. It's a shame they limited the class so much. I've seen more than my fair share of exemplars who, in practice, had at least one dead ikon that almost never saw the light of day.

The class would have been better if they started with only two ikons and didn't have the once per round transcend limitation.

Is it intended to redesign/design the dragons as "more nightmarish" and "outerworldy alien"?

They're neither of those things. They're just different. If they weren't, WotC could potentially sue Paizo out of existence.

And because of the way human brains work, different naturally trends towards the subjective uncanny valley.

Note that PC undead using the skeleton ancestry and the undead archetypes from Book of the Dead are subject to the Doomed condition (as well as many others that normally don't affect undead)...

Unless applying the optional "Unleashing the Undead" on page 45 of that book.

Hence why I said "generally destroyed." There's exceptions to almost everything in Pathfinder.

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned that undead cannot be doomed by the breath weapon yet.

Their breath is a line of spirit damage that dooms undead creatures, helping guarantee their destruction.

Undead are not impacted by doom since they are generally destroyed at 0 hp.

Your soul has been gripped by a powerful force that calls you closer to death. Doomed always includes a value. The dying value at which you die is reduced by your doomed value. If your maximum dying value is reduced to 0, you instantly die. When you die, you're no longer doomed.

Your doomed value decreases by 1 each time you get a full night's rest.

Oftentimes undead don't even have a soul present for the powerful force to grip in the first place.

Double Strike combines the damage, no? Isn't it then fair to assume that both strikes are made simultaneously and therefore should both gain the benefit of an off-guard target?

Thanks for the help! I'll take this back to my table and see what they think. I suspect they will agree with you.

Because of that bad OG construction, you need special lines for every case where that assumed total of four is wrong.

Ah, that makes sense.

The current phrasing is not as clear or as obvious as I'd like though.

Even now it reads to me like you add the value of the witch bonus to the bonus value granted by the feat. Kind of like how armor potency runes don't add an item bonus to AC, but rather increase the item bonus granted by armor.

If I have two apples, and Gary is to deliver me 3 apples, and Bill tells me he is going to deliver 2 apples plus an amount equal to that which Gary is delivering, then when all apples are delivered, I should have 10 apples.

2 + 3 + 2 + 3 = 10.

I don't see the source of your confusion.

You do not get to add twice your bonus familiar abilities for being a Witch.

Except the feat clearly states to do exactly that: "Add the bonus familiar abilities you gain for being a witch to this amount."

2 + 3 = 5.

Then why would it say "Add the bonus familiar abilities you gain for being a witch to this amount."

"This amount" being the extra abilities granted by the feat.

If that wasn't the case then surely there's no point in including the above text in the feat. It goes without saying that a feat that gets you extra familiar abilities isn't going to take away abilities granted by a different source.

Enhanced familiar says "You can select four familiar or master abilities each day, instead of two." For witches it then goes on to say "Add the bonus familiar abilities you gain for being a witch to this amount."

So if I'm playing a 6th-level witch, my familiar would have...

2 base abilities that all familiars get
1 patron themed ability
1 bonus ability at 1st
1 bonus ability at 6th

For a total of 5 familiar abilities.

If said witch took Enhanced Familiar, then at 6th level the familiar would have...

2 base abilities that all familiars get
5 bonus abilities from Enhanced Familiar (2 base + 3 more equaling witch bonus abilities)
1 patron themed ability
1 bonus ability at 1st
1 bonus ability at 6th

For a total of 10 familiar abilities.

Is that right? Seems like a pretty meager feat if not.

How long can a magus sustain that though?

My last activity was Swipe, but my last action was a Strike. If both are true, then Drink of My Foes has had its requirements met and should work, without violating the "activities and their subordinate actions are not the same thing" rules.

If an activity is not its subordinate actions, then it gains none of the traits or other properties of its subordinate actions, no?

Seems like quite the slippery slope as that logical process and line of reasoning would completely break the game when taken to its logical conclusion.

Ergo, it must be the case that Swipe can be used prior to Drink From My Foes.

My citation is common sense. If a group of people come together to play soccer, and the referee is changing the rules on the fly, or following the rules of American football, then expectations have been subverted. That is very likely to make for a bad time for all, and players would rightfully be calling foul if such changes weren't agreed to by all parties in advance.

It's simple adherance to the basic social contract of gaming.

Reminds me of the "'I' before 'e' except after 'c'" rule.

Unless the creature has the Mindless trait or is a Construct. Or is a homebrew creature or the GM has otherwise tweaked the stats of the creature.

Any GM who tweaks existing stats without informing his players that, that is something he might do from time to time during the course of play is not only cheating, but subverting the expectations of both the game and its players.

Can Shape Wood create a metal gear solid box/basket for concealment?

Shape wood can only target wood, and has no effect on metal, gears or otherwise.

exequiel759 wrote:

Master Han Del of the Web wrote:

Being able to auto-crit on aid actions at 9th level has some nice perks.

Assurance (Diplomacy) for a character with the One For All feat.

Damn, that is a really good combo.

It really isn't.

That's all well and good until you find yourself stuck with a GM that won't let you use Intercept Attack to cover a friend from an unseen distant sniper because he hasn't called for an Initiative roll yet.

Guardian reactions aren't guaranteed if you haven't yet rolled for Initiative.

Is it though? Seems like two feats from two different classes to me.

This is probably one of those "magic does what the rules say and nothing more" situations. The map's passive provides +1 bonuses to survival and relevant RK checks, that's it. Yes it's a map, but in the rules if you want to translate "I use the map" into some skill check, then it's getting you +1 on the skill check.

I'd like to direct your attention to this thread.

THIS IS A PROBLEM.

THIS IS A FEATURE.

Pathfinder 2e is quite nearly perfect at all levels of play.

The Contrarian wrote:

The GM can decide to send a level +10 dragon against the party. So what? That in no way changes the standard expectation.

It becomes a self-fixing problem at that point.

New adventurers, new GM, new campaign. All good.

A broken game is a good thing?

EDIT: Ah never mind. Forgot who was speaking to. Cats love breaking things.

The Contrarian wrote:

Finoan wrote:

The GM can choose to make any check secret...By RAW, GM decides.

Entirely moot.

The rules that are printed are entirely moot when deciding what is or is not a houserule.

Brilliant.

It's not brilliant. It's stupid.

No, wait...agh!

Got me again, Finoan.

;P

All the actions that would be Stealth checks as defined in the skill have the Secret trait.

Yet Avoid Notice does not. Until it gets errata to change that, it's a house rule.

The GM can choose to make any check secret...By RAW, GM decides.

Entirely moot. The GM can decide to send a level +10 dragon against the party. So what? That in no way changes the standard expectation.

pH unbalanced wrote:

When I was GMing Prey for Death, the party used it constantly. Of course. It was an infiltration mission.

One additional advantage that no one has mentioned is that if you use Quiet Allies and fail, you can easily use a Hero Point to reroll. If everyone is rolling Stealth separately, it might suck up many many Hero Points.

Sadly with how Avoid Notice typically is a secret check you cant use hero points with it.

Making the Stealth check to Avoid Notice a secret check when the exploration activity lacks the Secret trait is a house rule.

Like the lightning dash user, I rule that aerial boomerang ceases to exist upon impact with a solid wall that it can't break through.

I hope he is able to find a GM better able to meet his unique needs someday.

;P

Yes, you have to avoid the... two? casting eidolons, but that's the same as, say, outwit ranger.

Outwit rangers are awesome. People just don't know how to properly leverage its amazing abilities properly.

Don't know what you guys have against phase bolt. It's awesome! Against baddies with cover or shields it's suddenly like being a fighter with +2 to hit. Great for shooting through over-eager martials too who don't know to wait before charging in the way.

It is rather vague, in't it?

It was my understanding that a grognard was a roleplayer who refused to move on from an older system in favor of newer ones.

...and Shield Block is not something you have to choose to take, it's there if you want it. It's not like its taking up space for something else.

Ever hear of class design power budgets?

It's totally taking up space that could have been used for a more versatile option.

Actually an Unarmed attack can be a fist or other appendage, but fist is still just that a fist unarmed attack, so that a monk can kick harder is not actually RAW.

Unarmed attack states: you can usually use the same statistics for you first unarmed attack for attacks with other body parts, thats not the same as they are the same thing. so powerfull first only boost just the fist.
just as it dont boost you bite if you have one of those unarmed attacks

Unarmed attack Core 1 275 wrote:

The Unarmed Attacks table (page 277) lists the

statistics for an unarmed attack with a fist, though you’ll
usually use the same statistics for attacks made with
any other parts of your body. Certain ancestry feats,
class features, and spells give access to special, more
powerful unarmed attacks.

But most gm's prob dont have a problem with a monk kicking or headbutting harder :p

This is what I was talking about.

I've heard it said by some that fist is it's own thing, and the ability to use other body parts (specifically to attack when your hands are occupied) is unique to the monk class.

Nope. It's the other way around. Everyone is wrong, and I'm the only one that is right.

Also, Dork S. and shroudb were clearly mistaken in their assertion that people don't post just to agree with the prevalent (incorrect) opinion.

Just look at any social media post! Herd mentality at its finest!

This feels like a RavingDork post.

No it doesn't.

Loosing = The act if making something less tight.

Losing = No longer having track of one's posession.

I would say yes. You simply move 1-4 feet, instead of the 5 feet required to get to the next space.

No one would tell you "you cannot Stride less than your full speed." I fail to see how this would be any different.

Here is the entry. You can read it yourself.

Thanks for providing a source link, but that's wrong.

Grapple is checked against Fortitude DC, not Reflex DC. ;P

What part of the game did you unexpectedly like?

The end.

The Contrarian wrote:

WatersLethe wrote:

Why are high level staves such a letdown?

They're not though.

I hope that this means that you found a proper use for them. Could you please explain it?

Though they can be expensive, they are also fun! And they also serve to expand my versatility and range, often with a cool theme to boot!