The Gleeful Grognard's page

Dragon Claws got a bad rap imo. They were a full 1 minute free claws. No concentration. The extra damage scaled up to 3d6, and they gave you resistance to boot. Even better, the later bloodline spell 'Dragon Wings' gave you the option to use two focus points for claws when you cast the wings.

In theory, the focus spell and it's later twin we're really thematic and impactful. The issue came from putting them on a caster frame with no means of capitalizing on the full possibilities. (Much like the current hiccup occuring with Battle Oracles now.)

Honestly it makes me want design a class archetype for both "subclasses" on these two classes. Turn them into wave caster gishes, power them up into a stronger frame and let them go to town. Enhance the blood or curse aspects a bit. Will be some fun developing while I wait for the next scholastic school year.

It bugs me that some folks are cheering for the replacement to dragon claws... it is a two action attack focus spell... with cantrip tier damage. It is almost always beaten out by save cantrips.

I don't require something to be optimal, but damn it would be nice to see it useful at all. I see it as even more situational than dragon claws.

I don't know, I am certainly not against the idea. But I am not sure how well they can represent it via an Iconic.

I also don't want it to be furthering the fetishisation that is so common in geek media regarding autistic representation. The best way to sidestep that issue is with fleshed out characters that have story involvement, which could occur with an Iconic... but is unlikely to because of how/why they exist.

For the record I am also on the autism spectrum, my father was also diagnosed in 2020 and I am pretty confident my late grandfather and my aunt on my father's side are also.

But it is extremely broad and more inherently formative to who someone is than sexuality, gender or in many cases physical disabilities are. Not more important mind you, just more formative as it touches on literally every aspect of life and who someone is by its very nature.

What I don't want to ever see are mechanical representations of autism or any other neurodiversity in game, but I generally trust paizo not to muck that up.

I guess it will depend on the iconic and trusting in paizo not to look for an "autistic class" to associate with it.

Alchemists previously were weak in low level play, and required system mastery to make good in mid and high level play. Where they could shine really brightly but only if the player leaned into the class advantages.

Now they are quite decent in low level play, and fall off a bit for mid and high level play. I wager they will still be seen as the ugly duckling of pf2e and sadly this time there won't be any real system mastery arguments. But at least they won't be terrible in the hands of a newbie who wanted the flavour, just kinda subpar.

Oh they have new rules for bulk where large characters are concerned, weird.

You basically is ruling that anything that goes up more than Air Walk requires a Maneuver in Flight.

Again nothing in the rules states that more than 45 degrees is a steep ascent/descent you are basically house-ruling here.

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

- "If not why the hell I will waste an action to Maneuver in Flight making a check with risk of failure if I can simply move a bit horizontally and prevent the "steep ascent"?"

Because it restricts how you can move and what spaces you can go through.

Sorry but I don't understood what do you want to say here. What restricts how I can move and what spaces you can go through?

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

- "Why I will waste an action to Maneuver in Flight making a check with risk of failure if I can simply use a reaction to Arrest a Fall or if I don't want to go down so fast why not just do the same as I made to ascend just moving one square horizontally?"

Same as above but with the added element of, you may not have a reaction (either through spending or denial) or may have already spent your reaction... and you might want to actually choose where you move to. If I am arresting a fall I may take no damage and fall 50 ft. But I may only want to descend 20 feet.

I just need to descend in circles like a vulture (that why I said that I just need to move a bit horizontally without need to use Maneuver in Flight).

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

As for rolling only when in a dangerous situation... that imo is just a good call in most cases. Don't make players roll when failure would have no consequences at all. Just slows games down and causes players to check out, even if players profess to liking the click clack of dice.

But usually the failure consequences are just don't move. But I agree that just slows down the game.

Slow down and read "the way I rule" is my being fully aware that it is my ruling and not my saying this is how the system is written.

As for your comment vs air walk, yeah? Not sure what your point is. My players prefer stable guidelines and this makes the rules at my table clear for them and angles past 45 degrees are objectively steep. Something being steep is generally considered to be when its vertical axis exceeds its horizontal axis.

Why you can't just circle down/up, because if you don't have the space or don't want to be moving through areas of danger (say reactive strike) then it restricts you. It isn't something that always matters, which is why it isn't a problem as a mechanic.

And for failure consequences, not moving in combat matters. In scenarios like high winds, chases or with something else going on it matters. My point is out of combat with no risk attached I just assume PCs can take their time and do it.

So at my table manoeuver in flight rarely comes up, because PCs and NPCs can do things in other ways most of the time or have large bonuses and or assurance so it can be ignored for those who plan to do it all the time.
But when it does come up it is because the PC wants to do something they are either not good at and the situation demands it or they are forced into it.

Keep in mind most true flight doesn't come into play until level 7 for PCs.

The way I rule it is steep ascent/descent is anything beyond 45 degrees and manoeuver in flight replaces fly for the actions that are required for it.

E.G. flying vertical requires the check and you move up to your fly speed as a part of that action. Speed adjustments for moving up or down are then applied as appropriate.

As for reasons why:
- Actions that grant fly subordinate actions or let you take fly actions in place of strides do not allow for manoeuvre in flight actions.

- "If not why the hell I will waste an action to Maneuver in Flight making a check with risk of failure if I can simply move a bit horizontally and prevent the "steep ascent"?"
Because it restricts how you can move and what spaces you can go through.

- "Why I will waste an action to Maneuver in Flight making a check with risk of failure if I can simply use a reaction to Arrest a Fall or if I don't want to go down so fast why not just do the same as I made to ascend just moving one square horizontally?"
Same as above but with the added element of, you may not have a reaction (either through spending or denial) or may have already spent your reaction... and you might want to actually choose where you move to. If I am arresting a fall I may take no damage and fall 50 ft. But I may only want to descend 20 feet.

As for rolling only when in a dangerous situation... that imo is just a good call in most cases. Don't make players roll when failure would have no consequences at all. Just slows games down and causes players to check out, even if players profess to liking the click clack of dice.

Age of Ashes is an excellent AP with a really really really weak start and like all APs requires a bit of rewriting to tie things together, but since books 3-5 all tackle one enemy group directly, book 6 tackles their originator. And book 2 and 6 tackle the bigger overarching threat that created the reason for villains. Any decent GM can do a lot with it.

But boy the first book is just... bad, and the second really falls down a bit with the hexploration (but is an excellent setting). If I was to run it again I would simplify the first book, remove the goblin blood caves and have the party do an old fashioned dungeon delve to save the goblins from what came from below.

Also, the keep really needs a better map.

Also the next one I may be a bit biased towards because I am running / propping it atm. But if you treat gatewalkers and stolen fates as one big adventure where a motivation of twisting fate is fixing the negative aspects of the end of gatewalkers (and letting the negative aspects actually happen) it can work.

But gatewalkers does need a decent amount of fixing imo, firstly it isn't remotely an investigation xfiles adventure, secondly nearly all the villains are best served by removing "they are evil and unhinged" and leaning into nuance. Imo it is the best set piece adventure of the lot though and it has some really fun villains to play with.

I really dislike arguments that revolve around something happening or not that isn't to do with the system as justification as to why something is good/bad

Sure a GM might not give the resources required to buy / learn more spells... but if the party is starved for wealth then the martial will be hurting even more without runes. Now you could say the party will give the martial more money and the wizards will go without, but that again isn't a matter of system but rather a matter of how GM is running and how the players are playing OUTSIDE of system expectations.

It is like saying consumables are trash because a party has a bunch of people who forget they exist or have phoenix down syndrome.

Also, learn a spell is extremely cheap and an exploration activity. If there is more than one caster in the party you won't even have to seek out other spellcasters to learn from to get a massively expanded spell list. Yes there will be niche campaigns where you have no access to other spellcasters at all and are unable to learn new spells, but it is not core to the PF2e experience.

As for casters being weak... I have also run a lot of APs. Age of Ashes, Extinction Curse, Agents of Edgewatch, Abomination Vaults (on my third group atm although they are only level 3) and have just started Gatewalkers to lead into Stolen Fate.

Casters in my games have universally been extremely valued and often been the MVPs. Even with low level play, my second AV group had a champion, rogue, druid and wizard... and the druid and wizard were not only the answer to many issues but frequently out damaged the rogue and champion where a meme was every time the casters were major contributors it was exclaimed "the casters, so bad, so terrible". And both players were the least experienced; it was their first time playing casters.

Then there was Age of Ashes where a player couldn't make it for the last 2 sessions of the campaign and I wasn't willing to delay any further. So his friend who had never played PF2e before but had GMed pf1e and been a player in my 5e group took over his character. Not only did he play the bard exceptionally well, he was by far the most influential force in 6 of the final 8 encounters, which was notable as I ran a chunk of those as a boss rush with no time to rest or recuperate including only two rounds to ready themselves to fight the final boss.
Which shows how much the player themselves matters (he is currently playing a wizard in my third AV group and is consistently very useful, despite the party being a rogue, kineticist and fighter)

Does this mean spellcasters will always be powerful, hell no... does it mean there is one optimal build. Not even close.

One thing I will say though, spell substitution is probably the only wizard thesis I would take. It has more of an impact early game before you can load up on niche scrolls but it is still really useful for whenever the day doesn't proceed as expected.

> rewards specializing over generalization

Just a quick note before I go to bed, I have run a LOT of PF2e since it launched. And I cannot disagree with this more, PF2e punishes specialist builds quite a lot and thanks to the way it's math works really rewards people for branching out.

Not to say people have to, but they will generally be more powerful for doing so.

> I mentioned once that, shouldn't the GM be able to balance for a team composition. D's defense was that, "the encounter calculators don't account for bad party comp

I mean, I wouldn't recommend a new/learning GM having to do the work, but the easy answer is just run easier combats. If the party struggles with severe, run moderate. That is one of the wonderful aspects of a working encounter system.

Oh and just to put your mind at ease somewhat. PF2e is far from the TPK machine that people make it out to be, as a rule I tend to see players dying most when they are stuck on optimisation concepts from PF1e/5e.

But I have run a party in which every PC was a primary spellcaster, one where some PCs forwent fundamental runes to differing degrees to invest in more interesting active use magical items. And another where the cleric had a strength penalty and no dex, as such played with -6 to -9 less AC than the fighter (which means they could get crit very easily)... and it all worked out fine.

There are ways to build a non functional party/PC... but it is quite difficult.

Just to clarify things, Player B has no problem with D playing what he wants to play. And if what he wants to play fills a niche or completes the party comp, fine. His issue was D mainly coming in with the PF meta mindset instead of just making a character out of the air he wanted to play and just be like "this is what I'm playing."

See... B does seem to be stepping into the bad/wrong fun side of discussions. I could see it more if player D was telling other people to choose different options, complaining about having to play support or something similar, but you haven't indicated as such.

PF2e is balanced enough that a meta minded player won't upset party balance or play style. Let alone a support character. Not a dig at 5e (I still run 5e) but it isn't 5e.

If there are concerns about whether player D will roleplay well or create an interesting character, that is a different kettle of fish. But not really related to filling gaps meta wise (one of my current players loves playing support and is mechanic minded so he looks to that first and then comes up with a compelling character idea tweaking it as he goes. Another player from the past only ever played guide builds with meme personalities that ended up basically being themself... but that was an issue with the player and no amount of forced suboptimal play would make them create interesting characters)

As for potions, I wouldn't allow no interact usage. It is a part of how the game works and interactions with flat checks, reactions like reactive strike and turn planning keep it interesting imo. It also becomes pretty boring and powerful as the game continues if it is allowed to spread to other potions and consumables, and immersion breaking if it doesn't.

I wouldn't allow it. It let's players choose which of the attacks will hit and let's them load up on that specific roll (sticky bomb for alchemist for instance) and it also avoids the scenario where you can get critical failures.

It goes against the spirit of the feat and is a flat power boost letting you entirely ignore AC.

Maybe that's the point; 3d6 of varying elements is mathematically strongest but boring.....incentivising getting a flaming rune on your vengeance sword AND two other interesting runes instead of squeezing out an average 6 extra damage

Are you saying paizo wanted to incentivise other property runes so:

- They disallowed stacking the same rune because that was mathematically beneficial and players would gravitate towards it over other property runes.

- They allowed stacking of different runes because although being mathematically significantly more beneficial than stacking a single rune it is boring and players aren't likely to choose mechanically strong boring options.

Stacking single runes is an average of 3.5 extra damage per rune. But stacking multiple is potentially much higher thanks to weakness coverage and differing crit riders.

I can get behind the logic to a point, but the idea that one was disallowed because it was boring, and the other was allowed because it was boring and mathematically powerful feels odd.

Maybe the answer for my games is simply to give damage runes a trait that denies etching of other damage runes (and gives blade ally champions an exception for their feature ofc)

But this is all off topic at this point.

On the tangent of added damage property runes I find it so weird that paizo specifically forbids doubling or tripling up on the same type.

There is almost never a scenario where having 3d6 extra fire damage is worth it over having 3 different damage types (four if you are a blade ally champion) that can each trigger weaknesses and bypass resistances or immunities a creature might have.

It also incentivises getting opposing damage types to best cover your bases.

It feels super flavourless to me and explicitly denies flavourful options.

Your consumable example doesn't make it a better feat given that group with even a moderately competent caster with a heal spell will keep a player from dropping without a consumable at low level and at higher level you have a sufficiently high hit point pool to not need a consumable during combat.

My experience with healing consumables consumables is more that they are used in addition to any healing. Or as pre-emptive topups so casters don't have to waste slots on heals when they could be doing something more impactful/interesting (as a martial losing a second and third attack is far less impacted than a caster losing two attacks.)

Then we branch out into non healing consumables and thrown items which is where I have seen quickdraw being used for the most in mid and high level play. "I will swallow splash so I can trigger weaknesses" is something I have seen a lot. Chugging a mutagen to cover for a save weakness mid combat is another common one. And then there are the various situational potions that are nice to have on hand just in case and cost very little.

I also can't be particularly excited about that one. I'm glad it will exist for the people it's useful for (i see questions like "Is there a good statblock I can grab for a [Level X] [Class Y] NPC?" in some PF2 related discord servers often enough). But it's not something that I personally have a lot of need for, since the NPC building system has been pretty fast and effective when I've needed it.

For me it was useful for on the spot npcs I hadn't planned for rather than for custom npcs. At least in pf1e, but I can't see how this would change if I had access to it as a resource in pf2e.

I think my group would riot if I asked to take a 10min break to stat up a handful of npcs mid session lol.

Regarding that's odd, I had concerns initially but after running the game for an investigator I am less bothered by it. Is it auto success perception at times... sure... but it is only one thing that strikes the player as odd, often someone sees it anyway so the player gets extra context and it has sparked a number of the interactive player/GM conversions that people above indicated they were concerned about losing.

As for my remembering it, I had the player prompt me for a bit and gave them permission to do so Incas they thought I had forgotten something, but honestly just treating them as if they were doing a quick search of a room whenever they entered a location became pretty second nature to me.

That said, I had already overcome some of my hesitance to roll free gameplay after I embraced passive perception as functionally a roll floor in 5e.

This is not to say the investigator is fine though, devise a stratagem is an awful mechanic in play (at least during low levels) and follow a lead I find to be clunky.

They don't exist as a balance tool, but rather as an easy way for GMs to prohibit something without creating too much fuss about it. I don't like that idea because TTRPGs are a hobby that mainly involves talking, and if a GM wants to remove certain options its as easy as that GM saying "This isn't allowed" instead of trying to justify that with the rarity traits.

It isn't about prohibiting though, it is about creating a permissive environment where the onus is on the player to ask and not the GM to have to comb through every choice.

Then there is the psychological difference for people between asking for something, people being told they have to ask for literally everything (the tashas cauldron approach) or being told no out of the blue like in pf1e.

Yes there are arbitrary elements, but it creates a structure for a GM to build off of or to lean on. The game is filled with arbitrary design decisions and cut off points.

But it very much exists for a purpose; beyond new or inexperienced groups.

As someone else said, the issue is what rarity traits cover rather than the trait themselves. As it stands rarity means both how common something is and whether it is restricted for choice or not. But I also get why paizo didn't want to create two traits for the same rough mechanical purpose. And rarity parses better for most than unrestricted, restricted, gm only, gm only unique.

I still want a magus style caster for divine, occult and primal traditions.

Infact I am still a little bit miffed that they didn't make the class flexible from the start.

Generally I want less classes and more subclasses and class archetypes with feat support though.

I play both games but I enjoy 1E more. 2E definitely has better, cleaner, more streamlined rules, no doubt. But for me it's not alot of fun, mostly because the classes are very one-dimensional and really "samey". Martial classes have a template they mostly follow, and Casters have a template they mostly follow. I just don't see much difference between classes.

Customization wise, there's not much I feel I can do with a 2E character either. Once Ancestry, Background and Class have been selected, the character is basically on rails. Class feats are mostly underwhelming, Skill Feats are easily the worst thing about the system, and archetypes in general are very weak and in many cases make your character worse, not better.

It's really too bad, because the 2E rules set is vastly superior, but the actual fun of the game took a big step back imo.

Imo I feel almost the reverse on many of the points, which is where personal taste comes in.

I like building powerful synergies into PF1e characters on paper... but they are generally very static in play and my choices lock me into future choices fairly early on so I feel way more constrained in practice.

Pf1e feats generally feel underwhelming or immediately thrown out for me unless they are specifically enhancing the build I am going for, or are the standard that are always picked to either make the character work at all or reduce in play tedium so much I can't justify not making room for them.

For me the fun at character creation took a big dip with PF2e but fun actually at the table went way up, a microcosm of this would be power attack imo. Any player choosing power attack in PF1e will use it almost every single round for the rest of their game, in PF2e I see fighters weighing it up against a third attack, crit increasing buffs, enemies with resistances/hardness and shields, movement options and various skill actions even at low levels.

Casters I see grabbing scrolls, wands and staves to expand their spellcasting repetoire. Using a combination of weapons, spells and skill rolls and using a wide range of their spell list as they level rather than being limited to their higher slots. Now a pf2e with isn't shutting down combats like my PF1e witch did, but it isn't repeating the same 4 tactics and choosing from the same small list of always BiS spells that the target isn't immune to. (Closest we have is synaesthesia, which I expect to get errataed/cut)

Not to say you have to like this, but I don't think it is a matter of paizo choosing balance over fun.

Firstly, a bunch of those aren't needed to be tracked separately and stuff like "raising a shield" is self tracked for players.

Secondly the brain can handle a lot, given that you will have static effects that tend to last all or most of a combat players will just note down what effect is in play and when it expires and ignore the daily ones.

E.g. how much mental effort does it take to track a rank 2 longstrider or haste cast on party members, very little.

You are seeing a bunch of icons, including subordinate effects, but realistically there is not that much that needs active tracking. It is just that foundry needs to have a way to visualise it because people aren't doing it manually.

I mean, is the issue that heropoints are ruining your game, or you re unhappy at the pacing the players have set?

If it is the latter, bring that up directly unrelated to the heropoints, if they bring up heropoints and gaming the system you can always just suggest you can remove heropoints.

I am not sure how much of a benefit one point every hour to one player, is worth players dragging a game out over.

This is all assuming this is real and not just an elaborate "this would make for a cool what if", because, RD is a very proficient what if'er. (And yes I know the words speculative hypothetical form analysis, I just I like what if'er better)

Valid question. Has ANYONE actually played/run every pathfinder 1e adventure path all the way through? I've never heard of it just because of time constraints.

I know people who could have, but ultimately people will generally have adventures they just bounce off of thematically and have no intent on ever running/playing.

With a good and organised group a PF1e AP can take 6-10 months of weekly games, if you have two weekly games (say play in one, run the other) then it is quite doable.

But again, don't know anyone who would want to. System burnout alone would make it a pointless endeavour imo. Even with something like PF2e I would get insanely bored of playing/running it and nothing else.

That said I have a feeling the OP more wants a thriving player options scene rather than caring too much about adventures.

It seem silly it doesn't work on mindless creatures

Why?

To be honest this is probably the last time I will be posting on this forum and that is because (no offense intended) I realized I just cant enjoy this game as a it is but reading the thread about the idea of a 3rd edition made me wonder a few things so here are the questions:

1- will second edition ever be more like first edition?

2- will there be more pathfinder first edition

3- will a hypothetical 3rd edition if it comes out be more like first edition?

4- will there be anything at all similar to first edition?

5- is there any game that is still supported that is like first edition

So you can probably guess where I'm going with this I loved first edition but can't take this game is there any hope I will get what I enjoy or any viable alternative? I guess the answer to the first question is probably no but one can hope.

1. Depends on what you want it to be closer to pf1e with and what differences cause the most strife. But if we are talking about official changes to the system, no. I can on the spot identify a few variant rules and house rules that would push it a lot closer to what I recognise as 3.5e system design though.

2. Highly unlikely, PF2e was partly moved to because PF1e sales had been drying up for a long while.

3. Again depends on what parts of 3e you are referring to. I wager a 3e would swing more towards that design in some areas, if only because pf2e has swung more in that direction in some areas itself. If you mean using 3e as a framework again, not a chance, even before the ogl stuff.

4. You tried playing more pf1e? The redundancy in this question is starting to push the bounds of plausibility.

5. Giving the benefit of the doubt that this isn't a troll post, no for the same reasons Paizo isn't doing it. PF1e/3e isn't fun to run for a large number of GMs on a fundamental level, it takes way too long to prepare for, breaks in a bunch of ways and requires learning/recalling swaths of bespoke rules without coherent mechanics to run it as intended. And anyone wanting to pick up the torch would be competing against PF1e and its 10 years of content, that is mostly free... really really niche market.

Yeah dying value increasing is any time it. Well, increases in value. That is the trigger.

You don't get back up and aren't concious so it is actually really rare that it makes a useful difference in combat since allies will usually get you back up, but it will 100% always stop you from dying (which is why it uses all of your heropoints)

I should note that in pf2e resurrection options are both restricted and generally not reliable. I have watched a party bankrupt themselves trying to resurrect a fallen ally 3 times in a row and have the ally still stay dead.

Another thing to note, it doesn't clear persistent damage or save the downed PC from getting caught in more AoEs. Although thinking on that, I may start houseruling that it does auto cure persistent damage at my table to give a bit more value to saving heropoints (my party learnt long ago that they are better spent than saved)

Yeah the Oracle needs some love, I cannot disagree with people who want to disconnected the curse and mystery enough though.

I also dislike the idea that some have paizo can't use downsides like curses in class design. It reminds me of the discussions surrounding precision damage/sneak attack, immunities/resistances (and wanting bypasses) and the toxicologist (poisoning undead, elementals, constructs, etc)

However, ancestors as written is just awful... I like me a wellspring mage/wild magic sorcerer... but the dice rolling each round is clunky, it actively limits what spells you can use and in actual play makes you have to build incredibly broadly as a jack of all trades, who can't actually use chunks of their trades at will so is objectively bad at it.

Lore Oracle is worse though, it's curse benefits are actively counteracted by its negatives. That and assurance for automatic knowledge does not scale right in high level play... it is like having flame Oracle but all your enemies get immunity to fire.

Honestly though, if I were to redesign the Oracle going down a Psychic route could have been interesting. The other class that requires focus point help :p

I think D&D's Forgotten Realms (not to mention comic books) have pretty conclusively proven what an incoherent nightmarish mess "rewrite the entire setting every time there's an edition change" actually works out to be in practice.

Their god of magic has been killed and resurrected so many times she's like Schroedinger's Cat, you don't know if she's alive or dead until you open up the new edition.

I think a big part of that not working is poor execution and trying to keep much of it the same as much as allowing it to change.

Plus, way smaller implications than rovagug dying.

A better comparison would be warhammer the end times as a transition into age of sigmar lore wise.

Not that I am saying I would like this shift btw. Just saying that the only way to tell the story well would be to go big, and the only way to go big in a decent fashion would be to do so with a range refresh (e.g. a new edition) where old products being invalidated is more accepted/understood.

Personally I find the gods being in a cold war esq tensions state and golarion being a prison planet to be way more interesting. I also find rovagug narratively to be a more interesting apocalyptic device than eldrich beings or biblical beings.
Having rovagug being a Tyranid esque consumption device of destruction without malice or ego, a force of nature, is interesting to me without it being something I need to see played out.

To put it a different way, the biggest reason I think Rovagug is worth keeping around is the same reason Aroden is dead and prophecy was made unreliable in the setting. It may be a meta reason, but it keeps mortals mattering while allowing the true powers to remain both powerful and well defined (less ineffable).

Rovagug was never a good target to kill for PF2e... it is something that should happen with an edition change, when it is fine to invalidate all the old lore and books.

And even then, imo it would destroy one of the better storytelling conceits the writers of Golarion have when it comes to balancing the experience of humans in a world where real gods exist and have serious godly powers.

It was never going to be given the level of attention it needed to be given, so it is right that it didn't happen imo.

Which is exacerbated by a nearly entirely work-from-home staff, per James' comments in another thread.

Paizo must have been trailblazing because Paizo has been like that since near the inception of PF1e :p

Hidden Mind also counteracts as if it was one rank higher, making it a pretty powerful total counter to magical detection, revelation and scrying, as well as giving that +4 bonus, so it is still a vastly better spell, but I guess the the Veil of privacy is more like the "I am about to go attend a secret meeting" spell that you cast before you go to the meeting, and it will last until you get back. I guess it has its place, but I agree that it does feel like a collection of spells could have been grouped together with heightening effects.

Agreed on both counts.

I kinda feel that way about a whole bunch of pathfinder (1e and 2e) options sadly, I love pf2e... but so many spells seem to be printed to give more spells.

I was happy to see some spells getting compressed in the remaster... but not enough imo.

That said I also have a friend and GM who prefers class spell lists to traditions and thinks spells and feats should be broken into as many unique variants as possible. So I know I do not speak for everyone.

Logical marking/layout is not their style in general. Only bare minimum like degrees of success and targets are marked. Well, you know it yourself.

To be fair, in the playtest they were trying to use simpler, clearer and more rules focused language... and a large enough majority of people really hated it to get them to change to more "natural" language, which is significantly more work to maintain consistency in.

Not that it was perfect in the playtest either, but that paizo was actually dissuaded from going further down that route.

That would at least explain why no one is up in arms about "That player is already playing a Human with Versatile Human heritage, so now I can't."

But that still doesn't explain why this houserule is in effect. Why is the entire party collectively limited to one Rare build option... and how do they choose fairly which player gets to have it?

I get that this is likely you just "asking" a question to voice your dislike of the idea but I will engage it in good faith.

In my groups the party can have two uncommon or rarer characters, one of which can be rare. This is for thematic reasons and to stop the walking menagerie effect and has been extremely effective at doing so.

The way we determine who gets what is an effort assumption, in my campaign material I specify that I expect more effort/study/integration regarding uncommon options and even more regarding rare. The group as a whole then decides on who gets the slots.

I also reserve the right as GM to allow more if people have worked together or just put in enough effort that I am convinced it won't negatively impact the campaign experience and immersion.

And as a final note I tend to alter rarity when it comes to different geographic regions or campaign themes.

Honestly though, since implementing the rarity rule it has never come up as an issue. Where as prior I had a few players who would basically try on something "weird" as a costume and either make it a meme or have it be entirely meaningless. Worst case scenario is where one player would choose something and put effort into planning and knowledge, and another would hear about it during character creation go "cool" and not put any effort in and drag the tone of both characters down.

Amusingly this was something I came up with for the group in 5e (hence the using of race in my examples), since it had common races, uncommon races and I chose to describe everything post phb as rare.

Speaking of Starfinder, since it's mentioned an Shelyn has been off seeking a cure for ZK all of 1E and earlier, she's a good bet for having changes happen to her, because it's not like it would directly contradict anything established in Starfinder canon; we have "goddess of love and beauty, ZK's sister, looking for a cure" and that's it; maybe she's different to how we know her in Pathfinder, we have no way of knowing. (And yes this works even if the "changes" are that she dies; a god coming back to life isn't really any weirder than a god dying, after all.)

Unfortunately paizo have made starfinder an alternate timeline, I say unfortunately because it also means the mystery of the gap is meaningless and in turn so is any lore in starfinder relating to pf2s/pf2e.

I'm beginning to think the Prismatic Ray deities are fairly safe, and that the change coming to that pantheon is more likely just a rename, or perhaps one of them being a bit rattled by the effects of the Divine War. And I now find myself gravitating towards gods I wouldn't have thought in danger when this whole things was announced as being the ones to bite it. Namely, people here are convincing me that Rovagug (who is so central to Golarion) and Gozreh (who's just kinda boring) aren't as perfectly safe as I thought.

Rovagug in particular is interesting. His confinement keeps deific intervention in Golarion at a minimum so as not to crack the cell; what happens if he's out of the picture? And more, what happens to the Darklands if he's gone? The old lore centered around how his corrupting influence was the reason behind many of the awful stuff down here. And what happens to a planet when its raging, blasphemous heart is but a rotting corpse?

...but I'm still kind of hoping he survives because "The Cage" is a fantastic title for a planet. Anyway, I find myself unexpectedly wishing for an Irori prophecy, just to see what it's like. I'm coming around on the guy. Also that other one, but I should really stop talking about Her.

I am still holding onto hope that Shelyn "dies" and merges with her brother. But far less.

Rovagug I don't want to see, I don't want the gods to be more active in Golarion and I don't want their power hierarchy to break down without the nuclear arms pact that is Rovagug. It is something I could see in a pf3e and setting shake-up, but not with only one book. I just feel like paizo couldn't feasibly do it justice and as such it would just end up being hand waived to keep the status quo and therefore all interesting changes would be moot.

I don't get why everyone finds Gozreh to be boring, or why that makes it a good target to kill off the dual natured God of Nature.

Yeah, Paizo's plan is clearly to release mixed GM and Player-Use books like Rage of Elements, Howl of the Wild, Book of the Dead, and Dark Archive than straight up Bestiaries. This makes sense since everybody wants to own the book with a new class, most people are going to want to own the book with the new ancestries, but mostly the GM buys the bestiaries.

I just hope they knock it off with scattering GM content through player content... dark archive was the worst for this with literal adventure content in nearly every chapter.

In general it just devalues the books for me as a GM though, I have a couple of players who buy the books and they read through them because they have paid for them... which means if a piece of monster art stands out they will generally geek about it and read it out of curiosity. So I have learnt anything from a bestiary is safe as a rule, but anything from one of the mixed books gets a "oh I remember this" or similar when I bring it out.

With the ORC update to the product now available, will the content in the Foundry module be getting updated soon or will it be waiting until Bestiary Core comes out later this year?

Later this year is this month. Just letting you know :p

How would you go about fixing that then? Increasing their Hit Points from 6 to 8 potentially and up their Defenses by one Proficiency level?

No idea, the biggest issue is strength based companions imo.

I would probably trial giving animal companions a witch familiar like "resurrect during preparations" style feature. Or a ye old breath of life style focus spell.

Forced size scaling and durability at higher levels. Also recovering the companion after it dies (1 week of downtime is a long time to be without a significant portion of character feat investment)

Something to mention is animal companions now benefit from quickened which is a decent bonus at higher levels (previously quickened and slowed didn't impact minions).

I disagree that DR is the primary issue, they certainly don't scale damage as fast as I would personally want but DR is far from an every combat issue and advanced manoeuvres/support helps drastically.

Flight is nice, but again pretty situational to the combat. Does feel awful if you can't cast fly on an AC and it does end up being an aerial fight though.

Is having 2 Attack lower then my main character too low? I have had many instances of an animal companion missing because it's roll was -1 or -2 lower then the enemy's AC. has anyone else felt Animal Companion Attack is far too low?

I mean, it is only 5-10% less accurate (than a master prof martial), suggesting it is "far too low" is a bit hyperbolic... the whole point is to avoid it being a cheap martial since it doesn't share MAP with the main character.

Not to say animal companions are problem free, but accuracy isn't something I would say is an issue.

RAW shield hardness would trigger off both attacks and then you would combine what is left.

RAI I am almost certain you are meant to treat it like a resistance in a scenario like this.

TSandman wrote:

You could use a D8 for the scatter around the Target square..

So, that's kind of what I was originally thinking, but then I realized it would probably give an unrealistic and unintended advantage to an alchemist by letting him still do automatic damage to a target he can't see. And if that target has a weakness to certain bombs, then it's even worse.

I think it'll just miss everything and/or get an appropriate narrative.

If it helps, just because a bomb hits something doesn't mean it is going to break. If they were that fragile they would be breaking on your person and be suitable to carry as a weapon.

Think of it as the bomb hitting at the wrong angle or cracking and spilling its contents in an ineffectual way mostly on the ground.

Or you could do the miss check and attack roll anyway where if they roll a hit/crit and there is a target in that square it will deal splash to the target and all others but not the primary bomb effect and nothing on a mjss (imo more sensible than a scatter die approach in this case)

Last night the alchemist in the group was Blinded and his target became Hidden to him. He threw a bomb but failed the flat check. Does the bomb still land in the target's square as if he had simply missed the target?

The splash trait requires you to "fails, succeeds, or critically succeeds"

The flat check means it outright misses at targeting and doesn't proceed to degrees of success. So no splash RAW.

Think of it like you would a critical miss which would also not hit anything with splash.

Weird niche case regarding instances of damage, if you are able to use two splash traited attacks that are combined, say with dual slash via dual thrower. Targets around the initial target will take two instances of splash damage even though the main target will take combined splash damage as a part of a single instance, due to how the damage is dealt/trait is worded

Now I 100% don't expect the devs intended that interraction and I would combine for simplicity and to stop shenanigans vs enemies with weaknesses. After all it is already dumb that the splash trait means that if your enemy is stronger than you and has a weakness it is often better to target an ally with a backfire mantle and minor alchemical bombs than to target the enemy directly.

But still a fun exception.

I should mention that templates exist in pf2e in the sense of giving traits, resistances and abilities.

https://2e.aonprd.com/MonsterTemplates.aspx

It also customisable lists of slot in abilities

https://2e.aonprd.com/MonsterFamilies.aspx?ID=92

(Other examples I can think of are cryptid mutations from the dark archives book and zombies). You can make your own similar lists for class abilities imo.

I agree with others that you should (and I do mean should) attempt to get used to the new system. Because bottom up design has always been awful, slow and imbalanced.

The pf2e way is faster, more balanced, way less rigid and encourages creativity. But it is different, just gotta get used to it first.

So if I wanted to make a skeleton fighter ogre I would:

- choose a level I wanted it to be.

- adjust figure out its rough stats according to the creature design scales and choose those values at a higher level (lots of free digital tools to do this online)

- apply the skeleton template

- give it a thematic skeleton ability, in this case nimble to go along with the fighter theme.

- give it attack of opportunity, and sudden charge and or brutish shove.

As other people have said. You combine the damage, it is objectively one instance of damage.

Same wording that makes this so as double slice; if it were worded like hunted shot I could see there being a RAW to RAI ambiguity (although as a GM I would rule it as being a single instance for consistency sake).

Larian paid Hasbro to be able to make BG3, they did not come to Larian. It was apparently not a short task to convince them to allow, Larian to make it either.

BG3 is a game that I enjoy inspite of itself, and I don't think all of it's rule changes were for the better (not having delay actions made me pull out my hair).

Thankfully it wasn't too easy for me as I held back on playing until after Honor mode released for my blind playthrough.

Yes, take cover has a requirement and that requirement must be fulfilled at all times to gain the benefit. They are not prerequisites, which is a separate game term for this reason.

I gave the example in a recent very similar thread of the raise a shield action, it requires you to be wielding a shield. If you then take off that shield, even though the raise a shield action says you retain the circumstance bonus until the start of your next turn, you will lose the benefit as it is a requirement for the action. Not a 1:1 example but does the job.

In addition take cover provides you an upgrade to your cover, so if it upgrades you to greater cover from one angle. It, may upgrade you to standard from another and none from another. It is inherently flexible because it has to be. It also remains in effect all round so if you are shoved prone, you will gain the effect, as well as if an ally uses an ability that creates something that satisfies the requirement. (You do need something to take cover with to start with though.)

Agreed; although a rules headache, some of the principles of the old golem antimagic were cool.

Many a PC got excited when they realized they could do the damage of a top level spell slot using a cantrip, if they hit the right damage type.
And the ability to slow one made the wizard player shine, after they got the RK.

Now by targeting the golem's "weakness" they can be exactly as effective as they would normally be expected to be.

Also because damage was overridden my players were especially excited when they realised they could do top tier damage but on a successful basic save.

It is a big part of why golems were fun for casters at my table. The rogue pulling out a dragon's breath potion for a stone golem was a highlight for the rogue too.

SuperParkourio wrote:

Stone Dog wrote:

I'd think you'd still have to interact to hold it, you just don't have to go get it and it can't be removed from your person.

All shields need to be held to control it otherwise they just flop around on your arm and get in the way. Even bucklers, which aren't just fancy forearm guards, they are held in the hand.

Not bucklers. They can explicitly be used as long as the hand is free, or even if that hand is holding a Light non-weapon.

Yeah, I know that is the way by RAW and how D&Desque games have done bucklers the way they are for years and years, but it is weird. Bucklers are held in your fist. They are glorified and ergonomic pot lids you can parry and punch with.

Yeah that has always been a niggle for me, that and horses being dramatically faster for travel over distance.

They are dramatically better for reserving stamina irl, but unless you are swapping horses you aren't galloping them long distances without pause, their hearts and bodies aren't made for that sort of stress what with a rider, saddle and gear strapped to them. (One thing 5e does well. Long distance travel on horse lol)

I am just sad that the remaster didn't nerf it. Every single game I have run since launch had PC's default to tier 1 bags of holding and never bothering with anything larger since that much bulk is extremely hard to fill, especially when multiple PC's will buy them (and you can get 4 tier 1 bags for the price of tier 2).

But yeah as stated above, both items are described as sacks in their rules text, I don't think there is intentional nerfing and art is frequently inconsistent. I mean I can point to some elves with normal eyes :p

The requirement isn't a prerequisite, it has to be fulfilled throughout the entirety of the action. And since what gives cover is conditional to the person targeting this can be true for one and not for another.

To put it another way, raise a shield has a requirement that you are wielding a shield. If you remove your shield or it breaks before the start of your turn you do not benefit from raise a shield until the start of your next turn even though raise a shield states that this is the duration of the effect. This is because you no longer meet the requirements.