Zarkias's page

Yes it is thematically odd that you use some shadow that is detrimental to you even if it's your dedication specialty.

And even more with the fact you can spare allies but not yourself. Not intended imop but it is indeed what is writen.

Then I think this spell is missing something. Darkvision to limit hindrance of darkness is quite common but greater darkvision is realy niche.

A wording to let you target yourself like the allies to not be hindered or an immunity to it, or a way in the archetype to get the greater darkvision or even a spell to give you greater darkvision would be logical.

As is, this spell is quite locked to users of offensive AOE spells that stay at the back and put this spell on the frontline.

Hello,

On a research to get Shadow Siphon on a cleric build, I stumbled upon Shadowcaster Archetype.
One of the feat in this archetype "Unending Emptyness" gives access to the focus spell "Darklight"

https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1060

But there is something off about this spell: it doesn't prevent the caster from being hindered, especially on vision because ShadowCasters don't have greater darkvision (only Shadowdancers)

Is it intended this way or not ?

Well, I think he read the wording of "Heal" spell costing 2 actions as a range of 30 feets maybe a little too literate ? I guess a range spell can be done in a range of touch.

Amazing news. Foundry VTT is soooo great !

Next step: partnership with World Anvil :3

Oh, little question here. I've bought the physical beginner box. Is there any discount to purchase the foundry one ?

I asked my GM if my Rogue touches the priest, would the priest be able to heal the Rogue an he stated "only if the spell has a range of touch".

I was also thinking about the seek action from the priest... would it be possible for my rogue to lower the stealth DC trying to be seen by the priest ?

Or any other mean to continue benefiting from the party that I didn't figure out ...

Can you willingly switch on and off this Blank Slate, for example to let your allies detect you in order to be able to target you ?

And what if you get knocked out ? Do Blank Slate still apply ?

So if I read clearly, the 4th level of invisibility doesn't prevent the manifestations for casting a spell ?

Let say a character is under 4th level invisibility spell and has previously cast ventriloquism to project voice up to 60 feet away. He is now unnoticed by the ennemy and then casts a spell with somatic and verbal components, using ventriloquism to project the voice somewhere else.

Creatures in the scene have only visual precise sense and no other senses except hearing that could reveal the character without using a well directed seek action.

In that situation:

- is the character undetected (because the sound of casting has been heared even if misleading but everything else remains invisibile) ?

- is the character merely hidden (because the spell manifestation upon casting it still originate from the right position making creatures aware of the exact square the character is in, while still being unable to observe the character) ?

Thanks for the answers.

I get it now for the class spell.
I also get the difference in logic about describing flavour and rules

Here the remaining unclear thing for me:

"You immediately gain the effects of the Sustain a Spell action"

I interprete this as follow (please let me know if i am wrong):

As the effortless concentration is a free action that allows you to "gain the effects of" it's not the same thing as doing that action, so you're not actually doing the "Sustain a spell" action and therefore don't apply the listed traits of that action (aka Concentrate).
The free action itself has only traits related to the class so there is no concentration here.

I guess the intent here is mostly combat encounter focused, but I don't see anything that would justify you being fatigued after 10 minutes with that feat.

But reading again the rules for sustained spells I got this:

"Sustaining a Spell for more than 10 minutes (100 rounds) ends the spell and makes you fatigued"

I think here that the best way to consider this is to end the sustained spell (whether it was sustained by the action or the effects of it) but not be fatigued as the intent there is to mimic exhaustion from a lasting and demanding activity (aka Concentration here).

What about "Effortless concentration" feat ? It says the following:

(Trigger: Your turn begins.)

"You maintain a spell with hardly a thought. You immediately gain the effects of the Sustain a Spell action, allowing you to extend the duration of one of your active class spells."

Many questions about it:

- Does the trigger means it can only be used in combat ?
- Does "gain the effect of" means you do perform the action you benefit from ?
- Does "class spell" refers to your tradition spells or your focus spells ?

In short:

Can I sustain a spell that has no duration specified more than 10 minutes without becoming fatigued using this feat as I "maintain a spell with hardly a thought" ?

Friends of mine are stating that being able to ride a flying mount is somewhat unballanced as dealing with flying ennemies is hard on early levels.

5 minutes is long. My character could be riding the owl and spamming rays of frost while being out of range most of the time, so I can see their point here.

Still... being able to do just that is awesome and I can't wait to actually do it :p

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Thanks for the answer on the flanking question. What you say here is that with the familiar manipulation ability, a weapon at hand, AND the ability to reach an adjacent tile are enough to be able to flank. Correct ?

Ok, no strikes, whatever the size. Doesn't make that much sense but anyway... thanks for the clear answer :)

What about flanking and riding ?

Hello,

I am playing a witch on Arcana tradition with an owl as a familiar.
My witch got to level 3 and can now cast the spell Enlarge.

As my familiar should be qualifying as a "willing creature" I can cast the spell on it.

So here are the questions with the now Large size familiar owl:

- Can my normal sized witch ride the owl for the duration of the spell ?
- Can the Owl threaten an ennemy regarding the flanking rules ?
- Can my witch order the owl to attack as part of the minion commanding action ?

I've searched a bit and it appears that the spirit of the rules for familiars revolve around boosting the master whit no ability to attack where animal companions are the ones suited for combat but this is not really clear as justification about this comes mostly from the size of the familiar.

So what prevents a large sized familiar from attacking apart that it would probably die due to poor AC and low HP ?

Only one plea here :

For mounted combat, please let medium creatures with range weapon keep their reach from any square of the creature they are mounting.

I am very interested by the answer about mixing actions of AC and PC.

I raised many related concerns here

I have seen many threads talking about them as part of a topic but nothing specially dedicated. I saw a 1.5 update coming and comment about Animal Companions with lacking data, reason why i create this topic.

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Animal Companions can be of different kind and uses. They can be a mount for anyone (usually a horse) with improvements for paladins and cavalier archetype. They can be different animals for gnomes and druids with more uses like scouting, mounts or helping in battles.

I think these Companions should be of limited effectiveness for easy acces and more effectiveness for more investment in more difficult access and balance is quite difficult. I think that these animal companions should not be as effective as a regular character but should be viable enough to bother investing in them as a good strategy.

Major complaints comes from combat uses of animal companions as mounts or as dps/tank uses. These complaints i've seen so far are linked to 3 things:
- Low HP
- Low AC
- Action economy

Many ways exist to limit these drawbacks as healing, barding or feats (druids / ride) but these ways need quite a strong investment impossible at low level and are not progressive enough to feel the animal evolve smoothly with the PC.

The best path is the Druid from Animal Order, the specific class of PC i am playing because you get animal companion with better statistics, a way of healing with spell points and many feats increasing animal companion efficiency at lowest levels in the game.

But even with the best possible build, you come to limits that makes animal companions not viable at low level and I will quote myself from another topic:

I confirm that Animal Companions are easy to die. Reason comes from a low AC at low level with not very much HP. They can get critically hit quite often and sometimes one shot as a result.

Therefore Animal Companions are way better staying behind waiting for opening and coming to deal damage and flank isolated monsters. They are not suited for "tanking" which usualy comes to mind when playing a caster PC.

Slightly more AC feels enough for me to make them viable at both. At the moment, they start at 12 to 14 AC at level 1 (10-25% critical hit chance and 60-75% hit chance against them) and should begin at 14 to 16 AC IMO because level 1 monsters have roughly +5/+7 to attacks. (5-15% critical hit chance and 40-65% chance to hit against them)

By the way, nothing is said in rules about their way to die. Do they die if HP goes to 0 or do they go through dying conditions like PC ? To allow more impersonalisation/roleplay, and because Animal Companion was dying often, we finaly houserulled them to be dying like PC but unable to rise back with PC's hero points.

I would add here that the best advantages from druidic path for animal companions comes from healing possibility and free action from animal companion during a round since level 4. But even there, Animal Companion can be killed with a critical hit quite often, hampering the PC a lot with its efficiency as there is an investment in the Animal Companion making the PC less effective than other PC whithout its Animal Comapnion and it feel like a punishment not really deserved when a critical hit happens, killing the animal.

I am still low level with my PC so I do not know the feeling for higher levels and especially with the only barding option without runes to improve AC.

Please tell us more here about your feelings with Animal Companions, PC you've seen with Animal Companions and their overall effectiveness using them or why you choose not to go for Animal Companion in your PC build. What do you think about everything said here also ? Am I wrong somewhere ?

I am playing a Druid from animal order and I confirm that Animal Companions are easy to die. Reason comes from a low AC at low level with not very much HP. They can get critically hit quite often and sometimes one shot as a result.

Therefore Animal Companions are way better staying behind waiting for opening and coming to deal damage and flank isolated monsters. They are not suited for "tanking" which usualy comes to mind when playing a caster PC.

Slightly more AC feels enough for me to make them viable at both. At the moment, they start at 12 to 14 AC at level 1 (10-25% critical hit chance and 60-75% hit chance against them) and should begin at 14 to 16 AC IMO because level 1 monsters have roughly +5/+7 to attacks. (5-15% critical hit chance and 40-65% chance to hit against them)

By the way, nothing is said in rules about their way to die. Do they die if HP goes to 0 or do they go through dying conditions like PC ? To allow more impersonalisation/roleplay, and because Animal Companion was dying often, we finaly houserulled them to be dying like PC but unable to rise back with PC's hero points.

I also tried this ...

If the control area is a problem, then, what should we say about a warrior with a spear on which one cast enlarge heightened to 4th level ?

This is making the fighter huge with a reach increase of 10 making a fantastic control upon 3*3 square + 4 square on each side making a 11*11 AoO control area.

Effective mounted combat require good mount, feats investment and actions to handle, mount and command the animal.

I really don't get it ...

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In my situation, i want to use tactical mobility with my mount but in order to do so without huge disadvantage, i need to pick either gnome or halfling as a PC.

Why is that so ?

Mounted attacks

You and your mount fight as a unit. Consequently, you share a multiple attack penalty. For example, if you Strike and then Command an Animal to Strike, your mount’s attack takes a –5 multiple attack penalty. You act as if you were in any square of your mount’s space for the purpose of making your attacks. This means that, as a Medium creature, you can attack a creature on one side of your Large mount, then attack a creature on the opposite side of your mount with your next action. If you have reach, the distance of your reach depends partly on the size of your mount. On a Medium or smaller mount, use your normal reach. If you’re on a Large or Huge mount, you can attack any square adjacent to the mount if you have 5- or 10-foot reach, or any square within 10 feet of the mount (including diagonals) if you have 15-foot reach.

As it appears, here, the only real benefit on being mounted is mobility as long as you don't get in range of opportunity attacks.

Mounted defenses

When you’re mounted, attackers can target either you or your mount. Anything that targets multiple creatures (such as a spell with a burst area) affects both of you individually as long as you’re both in the area. Your mount is larger than you and you share its space, so you are screened (see page 314) against attacks targeting you when you’re mounted if the mount would be in the way. You count as being in an attacker’s reach or range if any square of your mount is within the attacker’s reach or range. Because your movement is limited while you’re riding a mount, you take a –2 circumstance penalty to Reflex saves while mounted. Additionally, the only move action you can take is the Mount basic action to dismount.

So you get screened and gets +1 AC. Seems fine but remember that animal companions have AC that sucks and are likely to get critically stroke.

But what really bothers me here is that an ennemy with a reach weapon can attack you 10 feets away from you mount but if you carry the same weapon this ennemy would be out of your reach.

I hope this will be changed because it seems wrong to me.

Sorry to bother with this very niche problem but it really sucks.
Anybody else playing with reach while mounted ?

I don't get why the small size PC are allowed something interesting with mounts that is impossible for medium PC.

In order to get same treatment with medium PC, you need to have a reach of 15 foot that no weapons allows.

Did I miss something ?

Thanks for your answers.

@Zioalca: What about AC non magical bonuses from armors ? Do they add to AC written on polymorph spells ?

This would be too overpowered for fighters with oppotunity attacks IMO.
A general feat that could increase reactions by only one with a minimum in intelligence (say 16) without item bonuses and a minimum level (say 7) could be more balanced though.

When you cast a polymorph spell, it is said that you gear is absorbed into you and that it's constant abilities remain active.

-> Do that means that wearing a non magical +4 armor you use the spell writen AC +4 from your gear or do the constant abilities refer to magical bonuses only ? Same question for weapons wielded when transforming concerning damage bonuses.

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It's said in case of losing an animal companion that you can replace it at no cost during downtime.

-> Can you change your animal and the abilities chosen or do you have to stick to the previous choices ?

This topic is intended to ask questions without making feedback, arguing balance or making suggestions all subjected to debates that need their special topics.

Here i begin :)

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Metal armor and shields are anathema to druids.
A druid that gets armor proficiency of fighter/paladin multiclass can gain access to heavy armor.

-> Is there any non special material (like darkwood) heavy armor that isn't made of metal ?

Could it be legit to call for full plate made of turtle shell or other exotic material that doesn't give gameplay benefits out of not been made of metal ?

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Message cantrip has a verbal component. Command animal is also a verbal thing.

-> If you want to command your animal companion at distance and remain silent, do you need to spend 2 actions or could it be considered that the cantrip action is part of the command animal action ?

***

During exploration, you might encounter animals. Charm spells and diplomacy especially for druids can lead to friendly animals.

-> Can these animals become Animal Companions ? How do you proceed ?

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Most spellcasters have their key skill they can use to learn a spell. This can be used by any of them except sorcerers if i get i right.

-> Do that learning concerns only spells that are rare or uncommon ?

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-> Is there any mean to provide an existing weapon a trait it doesn't have initially such as the "finesse" trait ?

In fact, if you want to mount as a medium PC, there is quite a lot of drawbacks and before level 8 the only available mount is a horse where small PC can mount anything at a minimum level of 4.

Another thing to consider here: handle an animal is a manipulate action that triggers opportunity action, therefore you might need to dismount in order to move away from or move around a fighter if you don't have the ride general feat.

Last consideration: Armor Class of Animal Companions is low and your mount is really vulnerable making you likely to lose it.

I start to think that mounted combat for medium PC is only viable for ranged fight and mobility, and this is quite sad in my opinion.

I've been thinking about building a druid PC able to ride his Animal Companion.
I was thinking it pretty easy to do but I ended finding it very costly as you are obliged to use a horse before level 8 if you are of a race different from halfeling or gnome which I don't find appealing. And you can do it by level 8 only if you take savage for your animal companion.

Wrapping my mind around that, another thing bothered me. I was planning to attack with a reach weapon in order to remain no too close to combat and out of reach of opponents able to use attack of opportunity. Where a halfeling could mount by lvl 4 and keep reach, the problem with a large mount is that you loose your reach because you need a reach of 15 foot to keep ability of attacking in melee without being adjacent to opponents.

I end up with being obliged to wait level 8 with a savage companion not as good as nimble to increase it's Armor Class and I lose ability to reach from distance if I ride it. Me and my animal companion count as a large creature in term of space in battle and therefore are more likely to be attacked by more opponents. Last but not least, if I face a warrior, I am in trouble if I want to cast most of my spells.

Result is that mounting cost a lot and is kinda bad strategically choose if you are not a small size PC.

I suggest changing rule of reach when mounting creature by being able to shift your position where you want on your mount for a purpose of determining reach only and increasing animal size also with nimble or let player chose initial animal size between small and medium or add a druid or general feat that allow growing animal companion by one size.

If it is costly, that should be efficient in my opinion.

What if instead of being bolstered in case of critical failure, patients gets bolstered in case of simple failure ?

Good healers could still decently use the action. Poor healers could still try out but will likely stop healing after a few tries. Soon enough everybody would be bolstered to other's treat wound actions and the party would have to rest.

Suggestion (Changes indicated in bold ):

TREAT WOUNDS
Requirements You must use healer’s tools (see page 186).
Each Hit Point that you heal using this action costs 1 Silver Piece as a replacement for used components in your healer's tools. If you ever run out of money, adjust at will the Hit Point recovered to match the Silver Pieces eventually used. Using this action without a minimum of 1 Silver Piece in your inventory results in a critical failure.

You spend 10 minutes treating up to your Intelligence modifier (minimum 1) injured living creatures (targeting yourself as one of them, if you so choose), then attempt a Medicine check. The DC is usually the medium DC for your level, though the GM might adjust this DC due to circumstances, such as trying to rest during volatile weather or when treating magically cursed wounds. A given creature can be subject to only one Treat Wounds attempt per 10-minute period, so two characters can’t treat the same target’s wounds simultaneously.

Success: You treat the patients’ wounds. Each patient recovers Hit Points equal to its Constitution modifier × your level or equal to just your level, whichever is higher.
Critical Success: As success, but double the healing at no extra money cost.
Failure: You don't treat the patients' wounds. For each patient treated, you have to spend Silver Pieces equal to its Constitution modifier x your level or equal to just your level, whichever is higher.
Critical Failure: As Failure, and the patients are bolstered against your Treat Wounds.

Sorcerers in full plate doesn't bother me. Having them all have LG alignement is more of a problem IMO

Do Paladins need to be LG ? They should more reflect the alignement of their deity, shouldn't they ?