Tridus's page

The rule does not flat out say that. It does not say, "the GM can adjust this DC".

The rule says, "the GM can adjust this DC for particularly hard or easy tasks".

The GM has to justify changing the DC. Not just change it on a whim. And not just change it permanently.

The GM is also the one who decides what is a hard or easy task. That's RAW. Since the GM can change the DC by RAW for a hard/easy task and the GM decide what is a hard/easy task by RAW, the GM can change the DC by RAW.

You might not like that it's RAW, but that doesn't matter in a RAW discussion. The GM can set this DC to literally anything they want RAW and they justify it by declaring "this situation makes difficult enough to warrant DC X." That's RAW.

SuperBidi wrote:

Count me in the "It's just flavor text" crowd.

This seems plausible, but it begs the question:

Are there any other weapons with rules text in their description block? Off-hand, I can't recall one, but I don't have time to investigate at the moment.

Yes. War of Immortals has the Fighting Oar:

A fighting oar is a sturdy boat oar, typically made of wood, whose haft and blades are reinforced for use in combat. A fighting oar adds its item bonus from weapon potency runes (if any) as an item bonus on Piloting Lore and Sailing Lore checks made to pilot a rowed vehicle (for more information on vehicles, see here).

The Battle Saddle from Treasure Vault would be another one, since that's where it explains that you can use it's Parry trait either for you or your mount.

So rules text can very clearly be in that block, and it's not just flavor. So that leaves two possibilities for the boomerang:

1. They wrote flavor text that does nothing despite saying that it does something and expect people to pick up on it not actually doing anything because it uses the word "throw" instead of "strike".

2. It's simply a terminology error that didn't get caught by editing but the obvious plain English reading of the text is what they intend it to do.

I know which one of those I'd bet on given that such mistakes are fairly common.

Those are narratively similar to Aid, but have some differences. They are very much different mechanically from Aid.

Yes, and I said as much. But they're the closest examples of what was described as how Aid is being provided, because there is no actual such action in the game except one that costs a class feat. And the fact that it costs a class feat should probably imply that it requires that to do it, but anyway.

Since there's no mechanical equivalent but there are narrative equivalents, I used them for comparison to show how silly it is that one of these requires DC 15 and the other one at high level will be ~DC 35. They're not THAT different.

If you don't like the rules, then houserule them. But call it a houserule. There is nothing wrong with houseruling rules that you don't like or don't think work well.

But don't try to push your houserules as official rules.

If you are scaling the Aid DC to the enemy's level when using Aid for attack rolls, then that is a houserule.

If you are unscaling the bonuses and no longer have the increased bonus for higher proficiency when you crit the roll, then that is a houserule.

In all cases, you should be announcing your houserules to the other players so that they are aware of them and can adjust their tactics accordingly. Otherwise you end up with frustrated players like Ravingdork wondering why the official rules aren't being followed.

Since the rules flat out say "the GM can adjust this DC", it's by definition not a house rule. The Aid rule itself says it. It's RAW.

But yes, I do announce it clearly, have already stated that in this thread, and the fact that you spend so many words trying to browbeat me over it as if I spring this as a surprise on players isn't discussing this in good faith: it's an attempt to shut down discussion.

We don't see surgeons operating on patients alone for good reasons.

The people assisting surgeons are generally other specialists like anesthesiologists or nurses, which are highly trained medical professionals. They're not someone who took the two day workplace first aid course outside of a crisis situation where no one better is available (and certainly not someone just winging it with untrained improvisation).

Specialists and nurses are definitely better than trained and are doing things much more difficult than a DC 15 would imply, since that's the same DC as effectively applying basic first aid to wounds at level 1.

The example is utter nonsense.

The boomerang description IMO is just lore description without any mechanical use because "after a successful throw" means nothing mechanically.

So the fact that it literally says "returning to the wielder after a successful throw" doesn't do anything because reasons? It's obvious what is intended here if you just read it as English instead of as a technical definition.

By this logic, does the special text on every other weapon that has some also not do what it says because it's "lore description"?

What really defines it is the Recovery trait.

The recovery trait does what it says it does. The fact that it's there doesn't mean this item can't also do something else separate from it.

Tridus wrote:

I find this interesting, mostly because I've run Ruby Phoenix twice and I've found the setup pretty easy: either you're going because you want to test yourself for fame, or because the prize for winning is so powerful that it's going to be a big help in whatever other thing you're trying to do.

I think my post addressed your first setup option for the groups I have/potentially have/have had to hand; the second makes sense in theory but I'm not sure I could make "you have completed this 1-10 story, now go to the Ruby Phoenix Tournament to get some extra power to nail down the ending" work particularly well without undercutting the 1-10, though that may well just be me.

Probably depends a lot on how the players feel. Players that don't feel like that character's story is "done" yet and want to play them again will be an easy sell because the player themself wants to accept it.

For a player that is happy with how the story ended? Significantly tougher, for sure. In that case just making a new level 11 character and treating it like a new campaign is also an option.

Blave's correct. In the Champion class, you pick your Deity first for this reason. That determines what you can sanctify as (Holy/Unholy) or if you can't.

Your cause must be compatible with that, since a cause that requires Holy sanctification isn't an option if your Deity doesn't allow Holy sanctification. So yeah, the deities that don't allow sanctification are limited to the causes that don't require it. This is in the Deity/Sanctification section of Champion, before the Cause part:

Depending on your deity, their sanctification can make you holy or unholy. This commits you to one side of a struggle over souls. Whether you become holy, unholy, or neither will limit your choice of causes, devotion spells, and feats.

If you “can be” holy or unholy according to your deity's sanctification entry, you make that choice, and if you “must be” holy or unholy, you gain the trait automatically. If the deity lists “none,” you can choose only options that don't require the holy or unholy trait. If you are holy or unholy and gain the opposing trait in some way, you lose the previous trait until you atone.

Not really. Unless you are Legendary, which doesn't happen often, you'll roll for a +3. And you need a critical success, so DC 25, which isn't trivial before the highest levels. It costs an action and a reaction, which is a steep cost, especially at high level where you should have a use for your reaction and interesting third actions.

My level 9 SoT party is crit succeeding on a DC 15 Aid in things they're good at on 5-8 on the dice. Even the Cloistered Cleric using an unarmed strike is crit succeeding with a strike to Aid on a 12 on the dice.

They're not even in the upper half of the level range yet, let alone at high level. It's absolutely trivial well before "the very highest levels", since the ability boosts at 10 and more +2 bonuses (which they largely don't have yet) will bump those numbers up fast.

At actual high level they'll be crit succeeding on any roll other than 1, which would be a success. The only time it takes the very highest levels to trivialize this is if you're using Untrained Improvisation rather than something you're actually good at.

Overall, I find Aid to be working as intended. Raising the DC would very certainly make it not worth it.

That's not my experience and I use higher DCs. What it does do is stop the Cursebound (aka: Enfeebled) 3 Cosmos Oracle (aka: my Kingmaker character) from going "well I ended up in melee and have one action left, I'm going to crit succeed to aid someone else's strike with my fist that would probably miss if I attacked and would do almost no damage even if it did."

I would allow an archer to aid a melee attack. If they wanted to use their attack modifier they'd need to actually fire an arrow, which I'd allow since it just means spending ammunition alongside needing to make the roll. If they wanted to full-on fake that they were going to shoot, I'd call for Deception as they make a big show of being about to shoot but then not actually releasing the arrow.

If literally shooting the target doesn't provide a distraction, why would pretending to shoot them provide a distraction? The target is already defending themselves from you because that's how the game works. Thats why things like Feint require an action with a much higher DC to create an opening and Fake Out exists as a feat so you're investing something in the ability to do it.

All this is doing is taking a MAP strike with a low chance of success and turning it into a bonus with a much easier DC, for doing literally exactly the same thing. That's not a case for why this is a good idea: it illustrates the problem perfectly. Even at MAP 10, a DC 15 strike is trivial for a high level character.

I disagree.
Doctor: "Scalpel please, assistant"
Medic: {hands scalpel}

Handing someone a scalpel is worth a +2 bonus? I really, really don't think that is in line with how you get other +2 bonuses in this game.

Another example would be a ranged combatant aiding a melee combatant. The person at range has literally no hope of performing a melee attack on the target. They simply cannot do what the target of the Aid action can do, because they are out of range. But distracting the opponent, making them think you are shooting at them, etc. could, for some GMs and depending on the circumstance, be considered a reasonable basis for Aid.

FWIW I don't disagree with your comments about raising the DC at higher levels.

The closest equivalent to that in terms of an action that already exists in game would be to improvise on Create a Distraction or Feint, and neither of those have a DC close to 15 against a high level enemy.

Which is the whole point: Aid is providing bonuses completely out of line with its difficulty relative to doing any other method of getting those bonuses if you leave the DC at 15. There's nothing wrong with someone wanting to do these things, but the idea that they should just auto crit succeed because "high level" is fundamentally different from how the rest of the game works.

I'm not sure if this is something Paizo deals with in their errata...

But Korakai's Remastered Pregen Sheet (1/3/5) has some mistakes in the Revelation Section.

For lvl. 1 sheet: Pg. 2.
For lvl. 3 sheet: Pg. 2.
For lvl. 5 sheet: Pg. 3.

For Lvl. 1/3/5 Korakai, on the page with Revelation Spells and Curse, it says under Revelation Spells:

"When you cast a revelation spell, it causes your oracular curse to progress (see Oracular Curse below)."

That is no longer true in the Remaster.

For lvl. 1/3/5 Korakai, on the page with Revelation Spells and Curse, under the Tempest Touch spell:

"Tempest Touch (uncommon, cold, cursebound, focus, manipulate, oracle, water)"

Revelation spells no longer have the cursebound trait, so Tempest Touch should not have the cursebound trait in the Remaster.

For lvl. 5 Korakai, on the page with Revelation Spells and Curse, under the Charged Javelin spell:

"Charged Javelin: (attack, cursebound, electricity)"

Charged Javelin is a revelation spell, but revelation spells no longer gain the cursebound trait. Charged Javelin should not have the cursebound trait in the Remaster.

AFAIK the pregen characters are handled by the Organized Play team, so you might want to try posting this in the Pathfinder Society forum.

It's definitely wrong. I noticed it last time I was at a PFS game and someone wanted to use Korakai. Oracle is already complex, so trying to explain those kinds of errors really didn't help.

I just watched the latest episode of the wheel of time, Tel’aran’rhiod. In an attempt to not spoil anything I am going to be vague. Rand sees the distant past. Much of the "technology" looked sci-fi to me, but was defiantly magic. Is this a descent visual for what ancient Azlanti looked/felt like? The scene was short but when I saw the giant floating orb I immediately wondered this question?

They did an awesome job on Rhuidean in that episode! Adding some extra context as a book reader:

So the difference in Golarian is that as James said, most of the technology isn't really more advanced. The magic was more advanced and more widespread and could be mixed with technology.

But the way the WoT show portrayed it was pretty cool and IMO it's in the ballpark at least, so it could be a good metaphor rather than a literal "it looked like this".

"handwave-y clauses" are exactly what keeps the Aid action worth including in the game.

No it's not. It's a powerful action even with a DC that doesn't result in a critical success on a 2 on the dice.

Even the trivial DC is deliberate (especially given the DC dropped by 5 with remaster updates) so that the action can remain worth considering actual use of past the initial stages of the game (which funnily enough people used to talk about how that was the worst time to try to use the action before the DC was lowered)

The DC 15 is still often harder than the DC of doing the thing for a level 1 character, especially since the person with the best modifier in the action is probably rolling the action itself and not Aid. It's just less of a problem than it used to be, where the base DC should have been ignored completely because it made aid useless for several levels.

But it's still extremely common GM advice to change this DC frequently/always, because at high level there's no real point in having a DC at all if you leave it at 15 since its impossible to fail. And if something is difficult enough to need a roll at all, there should be a chance of failure.

It also makes no sense to me that someone trained in a skill who had absolutely no hope of doing the thing themselves is capable of providing meaningful assistance to someone who is legendary in the skill doing something extremely difficult. Like, my training in first aid is not going to allow me to assist someone doing surgery, let alone allow me to critically succeed at said assistance 95% of the time. That doesn't make any sense at all.

That's also true in combat: the idea that you can provide a +4 bonus (which almost nothing else in the game is capable of doing) on a DC 15 check that is impossible to fail is absurd. Much smaller bonuses have much higher DCs against that same opponent to get because they scale, and this one should too for the difficulty of actually providing that aid against the foe you're fighting.

I set this to an Easy/Very Easy DC depending on the situation, all the time. I don't have any problem with people still using Aid. They're just more strategic about it than it being the automatic best thing to do in any situation where it's allowed.

Bluemagetim wrote:

Lol you could have players play I rolled low again bingo.

If they fill out their bingo card they get a 20 on their next roll.

A game within a game.

Rerolling a crit fail into a fail still feels terrible. Hero points should be a meta currency for enabling something you want to happen, to take some of the chance out of the game. However you can make that possible, it should be there to help players.
I do sort of like the idea of villain points though, as Bulmahn and some other GMs have done on streams, perhaps getting one when ever someone gets a crit off a hero point or something.

Rerolling a crit failure into a failure often has a very big impact on the outcome, including going from "you died" to "you didn't die". It's not as impressive as simply shrugging something off entirely, but it is a substantial swing in outcomes.

One house rule we run locally is that if you reroll a fail/crit fail with a hero point and the outcome isn't better, you keep the hero point. Spending it for no effect sucks so its a simple "you don't actually spend it until it makes a difference" change.

That said I've always liked meta currencies like Fate points and if players wanted to beef up hero points in terms of "I spend this to succeed" I'd consider it on a basis like that, where the points don't really "go away" but move around the table, which means the GM can acquire and use them in this situation too.

I just turned level 12 as a Bard and I took the Talisman Dabbler Archetype. I can now make two talismans with an item level of 6 or lower. Could anyone recommend some good ones to make?

You can't make it yet, but if you have anything that is powered off Performance (like Lingering or Fortissimo), Orchestral Broach is really strong. I think you can make it at level 16.

Retrieval Prisms are handy for an item that might need to be retrieved quickly, like a scroll.

The real hard part about Talismans is the sheer quantity of them makes it hard to find what you want. Its a bloated list with a lot of very specialized things. There's a big list here, but I don't know how up to date it is.

Also it says I must know the formula how do I go about knowing the formula?

Note that Talisman Dabbler says this: "You can craft talismans and know the formulas for all common talismans of your level or lower." So you already have those ones. (If you didn't, for common items, you can usually buy the formula. You can also reverse engineer it from an existing item.)

For uncommon/rare ones, its up to the GM if they are available to you at all and how you'd want to access them. Personally I like to have them hidden in out of the way places or as a quest reward from some NPC that knows it and wants a favor in exchange for the knowledge.

Sniping Duo is a fun archetype for a team situation like this, though you're the one that takes it rather than the other person (who is your spotter). Not providing cover for each other is huge if the other person is melee since it means they don't get in your way, and there's a lot of nifty abilities in there for just this kind of scenario.

Generally speaking because most Firearms have Fatal, Gunslinger tends to lean to being a crit-happy class. Crits are very good and you want them. So a good synergy is something that helps you do that.

The most obvious one is Bard: Easy access to attack boosting abilities and debuffing magic can tilt the numbers drastically in your favor to get more crits. Of course, Bards synergize with basically everything because its just a really good class, and any party of random players tends to benefit from having one.

Another way to go is with a Trip/Grab character. Something that will be in melee. This both makes it harder for enemies to get in your face but also being grabbed or prone puts flat-footed on the target, lowering their AC and making them easy to hit. You don't have a ton of easy ways to make that happen yourself, so someone doing it for you is hugely helpful because it means more crits.

Lots of builds can do that. Fighter with a 2h weapon and Slam Down is an easy one to build: it's got good damage in its own right and with heavy armor and good HP it has some durability. It also benefits from its own ability: Fighter has Reactive Strike so if they trip something, when it stands up, the Fighter gets another attack. You can also take some CHA and get Intimidate for Demoralize as Fighter doesn't really need DEX or INT so you can invest a bit elsewhere. (My son played a Fighter with good CHA in Extinction Curse and he was a wrecking machine.)

Lots of other ways to do it of course, but I've seen combos like that in action with a Gunslinger in games I've run and it can really lay down some hurt.

The key to me, for fitting together APs, is not so much geography as credible character continuity, which may well be an aspect specific to the players I have to hand. Stolen Fate was easy to fit with characters from multiple 1-10 APs because it had "the cards selected YOU" as an opening and characters feeling they should investigate that even with a deal of reluctance worked for the players; on the other hand, for all the many and definite virtues of all the 1-10 APs, I've still to see a group finish one who would plausibly have any interest in Fists of the Ruby Phoenix, ten levels of characters invested in a life-or-death struggle for survival like Quest for Frozen Flame just does not pivot well into "and now you're going to leave everything you have spent the last ten levels investing in to go compete in the Magical Olympics on the other side of the world" for us. A 1-10 that focused on people adventuring purely for fame, fortune and fun, without any deeper stakes to care about, is I think what I would need to fit there, and I have no idea how plausible or commercial that might be.

I find this interesting, mostly because I've run Ruby Phoenix twice and I've found the setup pretty easy: either you're going because you want to test yourself for fame, or because the prize for winning is so powerful that it's going to be a big help in whatever other thing you're trying to do.

It's been an easy one to get started on in my experience. (It's also great in its own right, which is why I ended up running it twice! Both groups completed it.)

I'm an atheist IRL who has a hard time with faith... and I've played a lot of Clerics. Some of that is because I like the class. But some of it is also trying to work on something that I don't understand as a means of trying to gain some understanding.

I think this is an entirely normal thing to do via roleplay: you can be something that you're not in real life, after all, and try to explore it. (It also applies in other contexts, like a LOT of trans folks have used roleplay as one tool to help figure ourselves out.)

Thanks for the responses everyone. I mean it.

Sure, but is a cleric having their own agency typically seen as a bug, as the divine magic essay implies, or are there canon clerics that would scoff at that essay? I think that's the bedrock of what I'm trying to ask.

Course there's always Oracles if I did decide to go that route...

Something to understand here is that the single biggest difference between a Cleric and an Oracle is that a Cleric chooses to be a Cleric. It's a path of study, faith, work, and constantly trying to uphold the tenents of your faith.

A Cleric is usually in a faith that they believe in, and so pushing its agenda forward isn't some burdensome challenge (most of the time): it's what they would do anyway.

Kyra (the iconic Cleric) is the best example here: she's a Cleric of Sarenrae, who wants her to heal the sick, help the downtrodden, try to redeem those who have done wrongdoing, and smite those that can't be redeemed. Kyra doesn't do that stuff because Sarenrae demands it: Kyra wanted to do that anyway and Sarenrae's faith is a beacon of light on those goals (not to mention a very powerfuly ally).

Kyra has free will, here: she could wake up tomorrow and retire or decide she now wants to pursue building a financial empire (and Abadar might take her in as a follower). She'd probably lose Sarenrae's blessing, but that's it. She doesn't do that because what she wants and what Sarenrae want are the same: she's there because she wants to be.

I don't think the essay in question conveys how this actually works in the fiction super well, because Clerics tend to gravitate to faiths that align with what they believe in already. Like, a Cleric of Nethys doesn't need their brian scooped out and replaced to be interested in Magic: the only reason to every train for that job in the first place is if you're already REALLY into magic.

Comparatively, an Oracle does not choose. Oracles are cursed and simply have access to power. Mechanically the big difference here is that an Oracle isn't bound to a deity: if you flagrantly violate the anathema of a deity as an Oracle, while it might piss that deity off, it doesn't impact your abilities in the slightest.

An Oracle can follow a deity if they want to, probably because they believe in it, but they don't have to and if they don't, nothing really changes.

I've just always seen clerics played as being like 'Oh no, I didn't REALLY do anything, it was all my God,' as they're 1 hp away from death, which again seems self debasing.

I think that's just a certain style of playing a Cleric. It's definitely not the only one. A Cleric of Shelyn should take pride in their art: they created it. Shelyn doesn't want the credit. Likewise back when Gorum was around, he wanted followers to test themselves in battle. Victory belongs to the person doing the fighting, not Gorum, and Gorum never expected otherwise.

Some deities may expect more obedience and praise than others, but demanding this kind of self-debasement isn't actually that common among the main deities. To use Kyra again as an example, when she does some great dead, she might do it in Sarenrae's name, but she's not acting like she had nothing to do with the outcome. And if she tried, Merisiel (her wife) would protest. ;)

If 'humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less,' then it should be able to coexist with a healthy level of pride. A cleric of saerenrae should be allowed to own the fact that they just nearly got themselves killed while fighting to help others, while acknowledging there's more to be done, IMO.

They definitely do!

Clerics are people, and people can have pride. This can also get to the point of being downright prideful, and even a good deity like Sarenrae has had followers in the past that were overly prideful and not exactly the best examples of the faith. And that's before talking about other gods like Abadar or Asmodeus, who are not known for having humble followers. ;)

Clerics are also often imperfect. Even if you want to push the faith of a given deity, you're may fall short yourself sometimes. That can make for some very interesting stories, and some deities are more forgiving of that than others.

Nobody really gets long term support except casters via spells.

This is not really true. Casters get support constantly via spells, but martials get support via items like weapon runes & useful equipment being added, which happens reasonably often. Classes also get extra abilities added sometimes in APs or other books, though I think there's fewer "this AP has feats for classes" is less frequent these days vs adding an archetype.

Both of them also work with Mythic.

Almost none of what I just said applies to Impulses at all because impulses are their own thing and don't interact with any of the core game systems. Adding stuff that impacts spells doesn't touch them. Adding runes for weapons doesn't touch them. Adding buffs via alchemy generally doesn't touch them. Mythic doesn't work with them (which is one of the big problems I have with how Mythic is designed). They're off in their own land entirely and Kineticist is basically frozen in time as a class because of it since the only real new option it ever gets are archetypes that let it do non-Kineticist things.

Runesmith runes have a real danger of falling into that same trap, where they get one release and then basically don't exist ever again as far as any future content is concerned.

I'm not sure what you're looking for specifically, but for all the adventuring related stuff, you'd just do standard PF2 scaling for adding more people: rebalance encounters for 6 instead of 4 using the rules for building encounters (or a calculator like this one) to aim at the same target: a Moderate 3 encounter in the book is for 4 players, so you'd add/change creatures as needed to make it a Moderate 3 for 6 players. Then add more treasure so there is enough to go around with the new players, and you're done.

I don't think anyone has done this specifically, but its the same process for every AP and generally just requires adding some creatures and treasure.

Big question: Will the AP have modifications in it to play it without Mythic?

I would say they can stack.

Dire Form is not an action itself. It just gives your Hybrid Form the effect of Enlarge, but nothing more. You are not casting a spell. You don't get the duration, range, targeting, Manipulate or Concentrate traits of the spell, so why would you get the Polymorph trait? It would not make any sense.

Now, the Change Shape action comes with the polymorph trait, but that counts only during the action as it has no duration. Your hybrid form or humanoid form are both natural forms and only the act of switching between them has the polymorph trait, not being in a form.

This means the change shape action will counteract polymorph effects, both beneficial or negative, but nothing more. So, Qi Form will be contested by the Change Shape action, but assuming Qi Form will not contest being in either hybrid or humanoid form.

You can definitely rule it that way. But what I'm looking at here is that Dire Form only functions while in Hybrid form. If you polymorph into something else (ie: Qi Form), you're no longer in Hybrid form.

That interpretation gets to the same place as "polymorph effects can't stack" except without the odd situations of trying to claim Hybrid form is some always-on polymorph and the problems that come with that. Instead it's a much simpler "you polymorphed into a different form, so you're not in Hybrid form, so Dire Form shuts off."

I like that better for my game's purposes, so I'm going to use that. The player is fine with it, and it's easy to implement. It's not the most RAW reading, but RAW here is a bunch of edge cases and missing clarifications, so I'm fine with that.

YMMV.

It's hard to say on the Dire Form issue, though. While being IN hybrid shape alone clearly shouldn't be considered a polymorph form, Enlarge's effects still have the Polymorph tag on them - it's not a tag just applied to Enlarge's Cast a Spell activity, it's a tag applied to its effects as well. But if we read it that way, any shapechanging ancestry that uses "the effect of pest form" (again, kitsune, yaoguai, etc.) now has the same issue as paragraph one where now they're just super hard to poly, willingly or not.

The reading that has the least amount of conflictions and snags within itself happens to be the most permissive one here, I think, with Gortle's reading? If you're afraid of it becoming a little cheesy, I don't think there's a problem with bringing said concern up with that player, just in case.

Yeah, that makes sense. Though one remaining question I have is that if you use Qi Form, are you still "in hybrid form"? You just polymorphed into something else.

So at that point, it's easy to say "you polymorphed into a new form, so Dire Form shuts off". There's no conflict there in terms of counteracts or issues, it's no different than changing into humanoid form and having it turn off.

That prevents it from stacking, which is the same basic outcome as if someone tried to cast Enlarge on you while in Qi Form.

That's what I'm leaning towards going with. So it all works and there's no "you're always under a polymorph effect" situations, but you can't stack the two of them together.

How open to discussion are your players? You could also probably smooth a lot of this over by approaching them, explaining, "Hey, this may technically allow someone to be under two Polymorph effects. I'm considering allowing it, but under the caveat that you guys don't go looking for other combinations to exploit this ruling with." That generally works at my table.

Oh, very! This came up because the player in question asked me what would happen with all this and I'm trying to figure out how to answer. :)

Ravingdork wrote:

It works with Qi Form and other polymorph effects just fine. Dire Form says "you gain the effects of enlarge." It's not actually the spell (or even a magical effect) and thus not a polymorph effect.

An Enlarge effect can, and probably still should, be a Polymorph trait effect even if it is not a spell (or even a magical effect).

This is really where the hiccup is. I think for the heritage to work ass intended you have to accept that hybrid form itself doesn't have you under a Polymorph effect while you're in it, because any other ruling there leads to some really bizarre outcomes.

So Hybrid form itself is the "natural form" and the PC isn't under any effects while in it. So the question is simply: does Dire Form change that?

If the answer is yes, then we get the same issues as if hybrid form is an always-on effect: anything that tries to polymorph you has to counteract Dire Form to do it. If the answer is no, that means there's no issue except that the player can't turn Dire Form off by any means except "change to humanoid form" because there is no effect to dismiss or not turn on.

Also, the Beastkin Change Shape ability has both the Polymorph and Primal traits, and Primal includes the Magical trait. You can argue that since the hybrid form is listed as the default, then being in that form is not inherently a Polymorph effect. But don't expect that to be a universal ruling. That isn't consistent for many of these shapechanging ancestries, and it seems to be chosen arbitrarily. If it is considered to be a balance problem, then the GM is within bounds to prevent it from working with other Polymorph effects.

That's kind of the whole thing, yeah. RAW I think it works simply because the other readings lead to significantly more problems.

I'm not sure I want to allow what is effectively two polymorph effects to stack in Dire Form & Qi Form (even if its not technically that), both because the rules normally disallow that and this just appears to be a loophole, but also because I'm not sure if I'm opening the door to some other interaction that I haven't thought of that would be far messier.

Great discussion, thanks folks!

I know that Change Shape on Beastkin has been asked about before, but I'm looking for opinions on this specific situation. I have a Beastkin Monk player. They want to take Dire Form, which gives their Hybrid Form the effect of Enlarge. So far so good.

They want to then also take Qi Form, which is another polymorph effect (assuming I allow it since its uncommon). They want to know if both of these work at the same time.

Beastkin says this about the forms: "A beastkin's hybrid form is their natural shape."

Based on that, I assume that while in hybrid form, they're not under the effect of a polymorph ability and thus should be able to use a polymorph spell on themselves. Trying to use Change Shape while Qi Form is up would conflict (as per Polymorph's rules). I'm not sure about if they try to use Qi Form while in Humanoid Form, which is a longstanding question about if Change Shape is ongoing or not (but its unlikely to be a frequent problem since this player almost never leaves hybrid form).

I'm less sure on how Dire Form factors into this since although its applying to the base hybrid form, its also a polymorph effect and thus it doesn't feel like it should "stack" with Qi Form. But at the same time, if they're always under a polymorph effect then they have to counteract Dire Form to Change Shape, which doesn't make a ton of sense to me.

So for the purposes of making this work, I'm thinking of ruling this way:
1. Qi Form works in Hybrid Form without issue since that's their base form.
2. Dire Form isn't going to count as an ongoing polymorph effect, so using Change Shape or Qi Form won't require a counteract (nor will enemy polymorph spells).
3. That said, Qi Form and Dire Form won't stack since while in Qi Form you're not actually in your Hybrid Form anymore (you polymorphed into something else).

Thoughts? There seems to be some edge cases in play here where RAW is unclear or clunky, so although I'm curious about RAW interpretations I'm also entirely willing to house rule this so that the player can do cool stuff without opening up stacking polymorph cheese.

Thanks.

Hello, I see people are adding spell casting modifier to damage rolls of spell attacks. In Foundry for pf2. I see the same rule applied.

I do not see mention of this in official rules. Even the spell itself does not indicate to add spellcasting modifier. Where is this rule indicated?

Originally in PF2, many cantrips did add your spellcasting modifier to their spell damage (while many others didn't). This was removed in the remaster.

If you're still seeing this in foundry, the most likely reason is that the version of the spell that is being cast is the original version. I found in some of my games that Foundry didn't automatically update already existing spells on characters and I had to pull out the new versions myself.

If people are doing it outside of Foundry, then the most likely explanations are that they're still using the old version of the spells or that they are using a house rule (this change was a nerf to caster damage in most cases and was unpopular with some folks who may have simply decided not to use it). That'd be a question for your GM.

Tridus wrote:

Most of the time, I agree. But there's some enemies where it simply doesn't make sense for them not to. Smart enemies that are aware of the healer should either try to shut down the healer or try to prevent people from getting back up, because anything else just makes them look incompetent. Likewise with say cultists of Norgorber whose entire goal is to kill you to please their God: them deciding to specifically NOT kill you defies the entire stated reason that they're there.

...

But if the BBEG isn't willing to kill you so you stop thwarting their plans, it's kind of hard to believe they're actually a threat.

It's not "unwilling to kill," it's "not going to waste time murdering someone while there are people actively attacking you."

Even with the more murderous enemies you describe, it generally makes more sense for them to focus on active threats and then to go back to do the murder once that's done. They're not deciding not to kill you, they're holding off for 30 seconds because another issue is more pressing (not getting killed themselves).

And that's for enemies where killing is the objective. There's plenty who are "willing to kill" but aren't going out of their way for it--like the PCs themselves, in most cases.

Not when they know the party has a healer and any downed PC will get back up. You're not neutralizing threats if you move on to someone else and let the downed person get up to start attacking you again. Moving on at that point is a great way to find yourself surrounded shortly thereafter.

At that point if the NPC's goal is to kill them, they need to actually go for the kill to keep the downed PC down.

They very much should not. I don't want to play OfficeFinder 2.

And having my hero fatigued because "It's midnight!" gets me back to reality. It's not heroic at all and it doesn't make sense in a game where my Barbarian has +20 Fortitude and Juggernaut.

For sure. These things are best played more loosely than "oh it's been exactly 16 hours without rest, apply fatigued mid situation!"

Like, using the fatigue rules on the temperature table, I'm not sure the historical march of the 104th Regiment of Foot could happen. That's 1100km in 54 days in a 19th Century Canadian winter, on foot, with military kit. And while I'm sure they were really tired by time they arrived, they were definitely marching more than 2-4 hours a day to make that kind of speed.

Personally, I mostly use the Fatigue rules in a high level "you've been awake in a combat alert state for 36 hours straight and you're wearing down" kind of way and don't really pay much attention to these more specific details. If a group is taking precautions against extreme conditions and is getting sleep when they can, just let the players be heroic.

There's a subtle difference between two cases:

* Someone goes down, and the enemy doesn't know/suspect they could get back up again

* Someone goes down, they get healed back up, and go down again

For example, if you're fighting a T-Rex, it doesn't know about your cleric. But if you're fighting a major demon and your cleric has been throwing around a lot of holy smiting magic, it's gonna be more aware.

I also don't like a playstyle where enemies go after downed PCs, and pretty often there isn't a "need" for the GM to do it. But I'm not gonna promise they will never do it.

Most of the time, I agree. But there's some enemies where it simply doesn't make sense for them not to. Smart enemies that are aware of the healer should either try to shut down the healer or try to prevent people from getting back up, because anything else just makes them look incompetent. Likewise with say cultists of Norgorber whose entire goal is to kill you to please their God: them deciding to specifically NOT kill you defies the entire stated reason that they're there.

At this point the party tactics need to include screening the healer so they're hard to attack and drawing attention away from the downed PC so the enemies need to focus on those that are still up. If a PC tries something to protect a downed PC (even just hurling insults or such), I'll factor that in because saving your friend with a well-timed insult creates a pretty awesome table moment.

Enemies that are trying to take prisoners, or simply create a situation where they can escape (because they want to live) are totally different and taking out threats is usually going to make more sense then killing someone who is down. I also have a group of PCs who have a reputation for NOT killing enemies and those that know about it may conclude that in a fight with this group, killing someone who is down may make them respond in kind whereas if the fight goes south and no one is dead, surrender and self-preservation are on the table. Especially if they're being attacked by the PCs: the NPC goal in this situation might just be to escape or survive and dropping people is just as effective at that as killing is, without creating a desire for vengeance.

But if the BBEG isn't willing to kill you so you stop thwarting their plans, it's kind of hard to believe they're actually a threat.

It's very much a "know your players" situation to determine just how often NPCs should be willing to go for the kill, but it's pretty rare for me to take it off the table entirely.

Problem is: the game changes drastically from low levels to mid levels. my point is that 1-5 pathfinder is a COMPLETELY different game than 7-20 pathfinder mathematically speaking

Speaking as a longtime GM? This is entirely valid. I'm not sure if I'd put the breakpoint at level 5, but its somewhere in the vicinity:

- Early on, the difference between a "defensively tough" class and a "fragile" class are pretty small because everyone's running at very similar proficiencies and such. This starts opening up after a few levels.

- Characters get more ways to interact with battles and more options to shift the situation into their favor, which makes the ones that can do that feel like they're actually getting their cool stuff. (Gang Up and Opportune Backstab are absolute game changers for Rogue, for example.)

- HP goes WAY up relative to incoming damage. Level 1 battles are very swingy because HP pools are small relative to incoming damage and its not at all difficult to drop someone in one hit.

Hell, level 1 is basically the only time in the entire game when PCs are actually at risk from the massive damage rule (which is why I ignore that rule). A Creature 3 encounter (which APs do at level 1) is fully capable of outright killing a level 1 PC via massive damage with a crit. Extinction Curse has one encounter in particular that it's very possible for this to happen even to a tanky PC like a Champion. This simply can't happen at level 10 because no Creature 12 is capable of doing that kind of damage.

This isn't really a new problem: PF1 is notorious for the character you actually want to play not coming online for a few levels and PF2 is far better about that. But level 1 characters can pick up bad habits because the deck is just stacked differently than it is a few levels later.

There's an unwritten expectation here that "16 hours without rest" isn't "16 hours of full exertion activity". There's time in there for daily preparations, cooking & eating, bathroom breaks, maintaining gear, training and study for those things you get when you level up, and so on.

The "8 hours for normal temperature" thing is where that unwritten expectation is being expressed. Everywhere else its more of an assumption than a rule, and the rules in exploration mode generally try to be more high level.

Ruby Phoenix runs into this because book 1 has that exploration section for much of the book, and it decides to go with 16 hours of full activity if the PCs max it out.

My advice, having run Ruby Phoenix Twice? Ignore the temperature table, and give them the full 16 hours on Bonmu Island. The adventure does not give the PCs enough time to fully explore the island barring some exceptionally fast exploration, even assuming 16 hours. Taking more time away from it will mean less exploration, and my experience here is that the PCs already felt disappointed that they couldn't clear the map.

They will REALLY not like it if you take away more actions because of this temperature table.

(Hell, I went even farther and handwaved in some crafting time because one of the PCs was a crafter and telling them they couldn't use that at all during book 1 didn't feel great. So I said "you can do 1 day of crafting during your 8 hours of rest because fun", and while that isn't even remotely RAW, it let the players enjoy the book significantly more by eliminating conflict between "using actions to explore" and "using actions to let the crafter use his skills and move this super awesome rune we got to the Fighter's weapon.")

So... since nobody has mentioned this:

Rival Academies references Dark Archive and Impossible Lands, so I'm guessing those two are planned to be Remastered, since it seems odd otherwise to use them as references.

They're probably relevant so they use them. If they do get remastered the page numbers don't tend to change since the layouts of the books don't really change outside of something more drastic like Player Core, which Dark Archive wouldn't be getting.

Impossible Lands is a Lost Omens book and most of it wouldn't change even if it was remastered.

Hell, Extinction Curse referenced Absalom: City of Lost Omens, which came out over a year after Extinction Curse did. And as mentioned, books like Bestiary 2 and 3 are referenced in new stuff. I don't think this means anything: it's just a reference to where things currently exist that are relevant.

ElementalofCuteness wrote:

FAQ which should be errata'd "Instant of Damage" Because it is odd that Resist All applies to all damage while Weakness All does not. This might not be a true Errata but is going on since Day 1 of Pathfinder Second Edition's Release.

I find it funny to see this because when I brought this topic up in a different thread, I was told repeatedly that Weakness All does in fact apply to every damage type in an single attack since each they are supposedly all separate instances of damage and Foundry does it that way.

But yes, I would like to see clarification on this rule because the specific clause for Resist All is written as if it's an exception while Weakness All doesn't have it at all. So either the clause is redundant or Weakness All functions differently than Resist All.

Anytime this topic comes up you'll be told multiple things because there has never been consensus on how it actually works in these more complicated cases. Weakness All is a new one because until Mythic it was just theoretical since nothing in the game did that.

This whole part of the rules is the poster child for why PF2 needs a FAQ similar to what PF1 has. A couple examples of the complex cases would clear it right up.

as well as the Lost Omens books that have a large number of character options like Character Guide, Ancestry Guide and PFS Guide.

Just to address this part specifically - Lost Omens books have typically not gotten reprints in the same quantity that core books do, if they get one at all. Quite a few of them aren't impacted that much as world setting stuff isn't really impacted by the remaster and most of them aren't rules heavy.

For the ones that are, Gods & Magic is the only one that has gotten this treatment that I'm aware of, in that it was replaced by Divine Mysteries. Character & Ancestry guides would be the two most likely to be, unless their rules content is just moved elsewhere at some point.

But I don't think its that likely you'll ever see a remaster update of something like the PFS Guide as getting enough sales to warrant reprinting it might be a challenge.

Yeah, that sounds right.

This whole system gets very silly when dealing with carrying loot you find while adventuring, which is usually medium size, though. A medium longbow is 2 bulk, so for you its 2 bulk.

A medium longsword is 1 bulk, so for you it's L bulk.

A medium shortsword is L bulk, so for you it's negligible bulk.

That means that on a medium character finding medium gear, 1 longbow = 2 longswords = 20 shortswords, in terms of bulk carrying capacity.

But for you finding medium gear, it's 1 longbow = 20 longswords = ? shortswords. Since the shortswords are now negligible, the limit is "ask your GM". It's never made any sense to me at all.

I've found that tools often don't handle this very well and manual intervention may be required to get it to behave. When I had a Sprite player in Foundry it definitely didn't handle it correctly (though that was quite a while ago) and I had to override the character's encumbrance limits to make it functional at all. Haven't had one in Pathbuilder lately.

But if we are going to consider actions taken outside the current turn when determining "your most recent action," that does open up other shenanigans, like casting a spell on your turn (or a reaction spell on someone else's rurn) then using Bespell Strikes at the start of your next turn.

I think for this reason, it is generally accepted that actions on other turns don't work as "your most recent action", as described in the spellshape sidebar.

This one used to come up with Magus: if you end your turn with a spell, can your first action on the next turn be Arcane Cascade? Back then, the requirement was "You used your most recent action to Cast a Spell or make a Spellstrike."

If you haven't done anything since (no reactions or free actions), you meet the literal requirement there at the start of your next turn.

This one is no longer a question because in the errata they added "this turn", so now it's explicitly not allowed.

Now have fun with the question of "does this one being changed to explicitly disallow it mean that it's normally allowed?" ;)

According to Logan Bonner, the answer is No, "your last action was X" never counts actions from a previous turn.

To repeat, "one per type" has to invent a set of nonexistent secondary rules/procedures out of thin air to handle arbitrary damage grouping, where "one per impact" does not.

"One impact is an instance" is imo the ruling that better matches the system's math, is simpler to run, and is easier to understand.

Of course, "one impact is an instance" means that Resist All explicitly works differently than everything else because Resist All is actually defined in that it applies to all types of damage on a given attack and thus happens multiple times on "one impact".

So now you have this exception, and the situation that goes along with it where a Flaming Slashing weapon behaves differently against a foe with "Resist All 5" than it does against one with "Resist Slashing 5, Resist Fire 5" despite being effectively the same thing as every damage type mentioned in the attack is mentioned in both resistance lists.

That oddity goes away if you treat it in the other direction where each type of damage is an instance: all the fire damage gets lumped together, all the slashing damage gets lumped together, and you apply each one. Now resist all and multiple resists work exactly the same way and you have a simpler implementation. This does require making the assumption that two different sources of fire damage combine into a single "instance", but I don't mind making that assumption to get consistent outcomes.

For consistency, I like to apply weakness the same way, and until Prophesized Monarch came along that generally worked pretty well.

Is it what's intended by the rules? No idea. But it works, it's easy to explain to someone new at a convention game, and its how Foundry does it so if I want all that sweet automation I'm going to go along with it. :)

Ultimately there's never going to be a decisive outcome on this until Paizo actually gives us one, which they seem unwilling to do.

Better questions would be does a fight end far to fast if you apply each weakness as extra damage?

There's a mythic ability that gives "Weakness All 20". Treating that the same way as resist all where it applies to everything, a Flaming Corrosive Thundering Sword will get an extra 80 damage per hit.

That's obviously an extreme case, but it's an ability that explicitly exists and it will cause anything hit by it to absolutely melt. In fact there was a post on these forums where that happened to Treerazor.

With that ability, it's pretty clearly making things die too fast.

That said - IMO weakness should work the same way as resistance because it makes the rules easier to understand and apply if they're consistent. And you can do that, so long as there's some thought put into creature design and ability design such that you don't get situations where there's 4 separate weaknesses to trigger simultaneously.

The whole problem here is I don't think anyone can say with absolute certainty just how this is supposed to work in these more complicated scenario... but if it works this way, Weakness All just shouldn't exist.

(This whole "instance of damage" thing and how multiple weaknesses/resists interact is one of the most consistently confusing parts of the system and Paizo's adamant refusal to release a couple of complex examples showing what is supposed to happen is frustrating as hell.)

Ready uses actions as part of your turn. Using the action you readied is a reaction, and is almost always happening during someone else's turn.

This seems clear cut to me. You used your actions, your turn is over, so the "end of your turn" happens. The fact that two of your actions gave you the ability to use a reaction later is irrelevant to how turns work.

Player Core makes this pretty explicit:

When it’s your turn to act, you can use single actions ( [one-action] ), short activities ( [two-actions] and [three-actions] ), reactions ( [reaction] ), and free actions ( [free-action] ). When you’re finished, your turn ends and the character next in the initiative order begins their turn.

I can understand it wanting to carry over to the next turn and if someone wants to house rule that, then cool. But it's very clearly a house rule.

It's a fair interpretation. But I remember way back when, I think in some old post or interview, he said that the idea behind Shield Block was to be simple, that's why you know the damage before you choose to block and that's why it applies resistances first. That way, you just need to reduce it by hardness and apply the same damage to both the character and the shield.

Just don't ask me where I read that because it was years ago.

I remember the same thing. And it makes sense: a lot of PF2's design philosophy is to simply fiddly, complex rules and have less of that so the game is easier to learn and play.

"You and your shield take two different damage amounts because resistance only applies to one of them" is definitely a more complicated rule than "you and your shield take whatever gets through."

It makes both playing and implementing the rule in tools like VTTs easier if it works that way. That was (and probably still is) a consideration for the rules designers.

The Total Package wrote:

Pronate11 wrote:

When I played my bard in stolen fates (so levels 11-20), Rallying anthem was used so much more than dirge of doom purely because of the much higher range. I had so many 60 ft+ range spells that I was rarely within 30ft of a solo boss, and in a group fight I was usually only within range for like half of them. And due to bad luck, in most of the cases where I was within 30 ft of enemies either I was halfway though a lingering composition because they where too far away at the start of the fight or the enemies happened to be mindless. It just never seemed worth it to spend actions to move that close, not use lingering composition until round 2-3, just to debuff the attack rolls and saves.

Interesting, I am also playing Stolen Fate so perhaps Rallying Anthem is the way to go.

To be fair, I would not be surprised if the foundry module, which has bigger maps than the standard cramped maps of every AP, played a large roll.

It does help, but I find some players just prefer to stay farther away if they can. If you're doing that, Rallying is better because it works at the range you naturally want to be at and will just feel better to use.

One of the challenges with a question like this is that there's no "right" answer. These are all good abilities. Which one is better depends on a pile of factors, and one of those factors is "we're using big maps so everyone is spread out more." :)

Hmm interesting, I read in a popular guide the following for Rallying Anthem "Against multiple weaker opponents (or just when you’re outnumbered), Inspire Defense is superior to Inspire Courage because the damage resistance will apply many times."

Well it will apply more often, but is that really better than defeating enemies faster?

In a fight like that, the enemies have lower attacks, save DCs, and AC. It's easier to crit them. Inspire Courage/Courageous Anthem will thus increase your crit rate even more, and there is no more effective damage prevention than "defeat the enemy faster so it doesn't get to attack at all."

Compared to 2 resistance at level 8? IMO, the best defense is a good offense in that situation.

I also read this for Dirge of Doom "Dirge of Doom is better and times when Inspire Courage is better. If your party is doing more attack actions, stick with Inspire Courage. If the enemy is doing more attacking, use Dirge of Doom."

Frightened lowers enemy AC. Courageous Anthem increases attack. The net result of -1 AC or +1 attack is the same on your chances to hit.

Courageous Anthem can have Fortissimo used on it and Dirge can't, at which point it becomes a bigger modifier. Same thing if Frightened is going up some other way (such as via Demoralize or Fear), since Dirge doesn't stack with those and thus won't do anything while those are up.

But Dirge also lowers enemy saves so it helps casters, and Courageous Anthem doesn't do that.

Got invited to a game by a GM that was running Rise of the Runelords anniversary edition. Stuck around because that was fun and I was already familiar with 3.5.

Switched to PF2 because it's just so much easier on the GM side to run, and the adventures serve as a pretty good base to run a campaign from. Also, you know, there's so much queer representation that I get to see myself in it. :D

Ohh, I was thinking with Fortissimo and Rallying Anthem you could extend it for an additional round with a strike, on that second round I can now cast Fear (3), which would be a lot stronger than just Dirge, no?

If you're fighting packs of enemies, Fear 3 is a great spell. If you also need a strike in the same turn, you need to be in position to do that without a move action or also have Haste. Super cool, very powerful combo though, and the resistance from Anthem will help in this situation!

This is much less effective against big single target encounter foes, who are much more likely to resist the fear and also much harder for you to land that strike on (and can lay a beating on you in response).

Consider that on a single big enemy you can Dirge and then Synesthesia, which is applying Frightened before they roll their save against an absolutely crippling spell. Because Dirge has no save to resist it and is 1 action, you're effectively helping yourself hit the hardest targets with spells that can end fights if you land them.

TBH - Rallying Anthem is good. I think Dirge is better, but there's no bad pick here. If you like the Fortissimo Rallying sustain with a strike plan, take it. You'll have fun with it. :)

Is there anything actually stopping you in the Lore Skill from actually picking up Esoteric Lore as a Wizard? Just a weird question I had thought about to be fair which I would assume the answer is no but is there anything truly stopping this? Out side of the switching Int for Charisma of course.

Yes.

You have specialized information on a narrow topic.

What Esoteric Lore covers is not "a narrow topic", so the first sentence of the Lore skill blocks this.

You could try to argue with your GM that you're taking a different skill that also happens to be called "Esoteric Lore" that only covers "some specific esoteric thing", and if your GM allows that then you have an ordinary lore that covers those topics. But it won't qualify you for things like Diverse Lore.

The short answer is really "who else in your party is putting up Frightened?" Because if the answer is "no one", Dirge is arguably the strongest composition cantrip in the game. It lowers enemy offense AND defense and works on almost everything without a check or save. It's almost like shaving off a full level off everything you can hit with it.

Rallying Anthem is good, but it's not "make every enemy in range worse at everything with few exceptions and almost no way to defend against it" good. It also has to compete with Courageous Anthem for actions (and Fortissimo).

Dirge's main weakness is that because it's putting up Frightened, if someone else is doing that then it loses value, in which case something else is better. So your party composition matters here.

This can also be somewhat level dependent, because at high level a Bard themselves can cast something like Tempest of Shades or Weird and also use Rallying Anthem (because Eternal Composition is amazing) and if you're able to AoE Frighten everything on your first turn like that, Dirge loses some value though it can be great in a longer fight.

Finally, Dirge has a shorter range and requires you to get closer. This often won't matter, but if you really like being able to hang back farther than 30', factor that in.

I would imagine both would be used when your party is outnumbered on the battlefield, meanwhile courageous anthem would be used when your party outnumbers the enemy.

I think this is the other way around. Rallying Anthem is great when you're fighting a single very strong enemy as it will have high strikes and high save DCs on its abilities. That means the bonus is reducing your teams chance to be hit AND crit. Crit failing saves against boss monsters is really bad.

Against large number of weaker enemies, those numbers are both lower and you probably aren't being crit/crit failing except on a nat 1/20, which doesn't change.

I'm still curious about the divide, if any. Is it possible that the fist damage is nonlethal, but the acid and fire damage is lethal? How would that even work?

There is no such divide. A strike can be nonlethal, in which case the whole thing is nonlethal.

Presumably that means you burn a non-vital area. Nonlethal punching with a flaming fist frankly makes far more sense than a nonlethal flaming greataxe does, at least.

An extra +2 to attack rolls is not the same as Rage, Sneak Attack and Spells getting more powerful with levels.

If you give Legendary Proficiency to every class, what does the Fighter have left?

If you remove Legendary Proficiency from every class, what does the Fighter have left?

This is a lot of words without saying anything of substance whatsoever.

Dude, Mythic Proficiency can be access by anyone.

Kineticist has entered the chat.

Mythic is also an optional, poorly designed system that very few tables will ever use. It's completely irrelevant here.

Quote:

Literally anyone can craft their own weapons if they take Crafting. That's not an Inventor thing. Modifying weapons with additional traits IS an Inventor thing. That's the whole schtick of the weapon innovation.

Fighter doesn't need that and there's no particular reason to give it to them.

Really? Where are the rules to craft custom weapons? There's none... A regular blacksmith cannot craft a longsword with extra traits, for instance. The Fighter should be able to be "the only one" to wield weapons in creative ways.

So again you're back to "the fighter should be able to do this because I want it". That's nice. You've said that like 15 times. We get it. Stop pretending like that's any kind of reasonable argument in favor of why it should be that way and it's just your personal bugbear that you want Fighter to be a different thing.

NoxiousMiasma wrote:

I really want an Ocean Stuff book. We've got enough aquatic ancestries to do a whole adventuring party without doubling up, but we've only got the Player Core and GM Core paragraph each for underwater rules. A version of Aquatic Adventures for 2e, especially with a full suite of underwater hazards, would be very cool, or even a Lost Omens: Wide Seas. Give us a Grindylow Goblin, an Aquatic Elf, or maybe a Triton or Cecaelia, and maybe a Fleshwarp heritage for aquatic stuff - algollthu and krakens both appear to do fleshwarping. Maybe a spellshape to do fire effects as steam, so they work underwater? And of course a bunch of magic items and spells for underwater stuff (I'd love to see some rituals based on real sailor superstitions, too - whistle up the wind and blow down a storm!)

I don't think an AP or similar would work well for this, just because every adventure needs to be viable for the iconics. We don't have enough aquatic iconics for the adventure not to have to cater to land walkers in a way that would effect the feel of the adventure IMO. I'm not a big fan of "stranger in a strange land" trope when you can just be the people of that land.

It's less about the iconics and more about charcters in general. Too many PC classes simply don't work well underwater and too many things are shut down. It leads to a severe narrowing of the options for play and people going outside of those will have a bad time.

As soon as an adventure goes underwater for even an encounter, casters need a way to breathe underwater or they effectively can't cast and might as well sit out. Any build that isn't good at swimming will have an absolutely awful time. And on and on it goes. This was an issue in PF1 as well, except the adventurer writers back then just didn't seem to worry about it as much. But I'm playing in Shattered Star right now and in one of the cases where we needed to go underwater at low level, half the party said "right, good luck" and just sat out because they didn't have builds that would function and we couldn't easily go back to town to fix that. (And one of the characters that did actually attempt it had to be rescued by the other one and helped back inside before they drowned. It was not a good time except for the one character that could actually manage in that environment.)

PF2 isn't particularly better in this regard except that adventure writers seem to do less underwater stuff, especially at low level. For an entire adventure to be underwater, you might as well all play Merfolk or the GM needs to hand out some alternative, and it's a tough sales pitch for an AP to be so limiting. Ruins of Azlant spends a lot of time underwater and as seen in the rankings, tends to suffer for it.

Less hostile underwater rules would help, but since we don't have those, an underwater AP would require some major accomodation upfront to let PCs ignore the underwater restrictions or it's just not really gonna fly.