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Ratfolk Roll is a pretty cool feat. But exactly how cool is it?

Your ability to curl up into a tight ball comes in handy. You roll up into a ball and move up to four times your Speed in a straight line down an incline. If you reach the bottom of the incline or hit an obstacle during this first turn of movement, you stop rolling safely. Otherwise, you automatically keep rolling at this Speed during subsequent turns until you hit the bottom of the incline or an obstacle ends this movement (which can happen in the middle of your turn). You're slowed 2 each turn after the first that you keep rolling, and if you hit an obstacle on a turn after the first, you and the obstacle both take 4d6 bludgeoning damage and you stop rolling.

At first I thought this was an ok, if expensive niche feat. Then I read into it a bit more and came to some surprising conclusions. I am posting to see if my read on this is reasonable.

So if I have this right, you can roll down an incline 4x your speed for 2 actions, then continue at that speed until you get to the bottom of that incline or hit something in the way. If this happens after your first turn rolling you take avg. 14 damage but otherwise are fine, not even prone.

The weird bits:
1. Aside from being slowed 2, there are no other restrictions placed on what you can and can't do with your remaining action. You could be tumbling 100 feet down a hill, then make an accurate shot with a firearm for example. Or you could "roll" a further 25 feet (assuming 25 speed character) by striding, but this time in any direction you want, including back up the hill.

2. There is no guidance given on the minimum and maximum angle that qualifies as an incline for Ratfolk Roll's purposes. How steep does a hill have to be to qualify? Does a vertical wall count? While I am a fan of leaving some specifics up to the gm, some guidance on this would be nice. Personally, I love the idea of a ratfolk rolling down a vertical wall stopping to take a shot with their Arquebus every 200 or so feet to account for a reload round.

Does that sound reasonable? If not, why?

So Find Flaws is neat. It asks you to make a recall knowledge check using your Cha in place of whatever the key stat for the skill you choose happens to be, the result of which determines whether you can use Esoteric Antithesis or not, or if it costs an action.

Wait. A recall knowledge... a secret roll... that you know the result of... because your core mechanic revolves around knowing the result of that check.

Double down on the Thaumaturge's included Dubious Knowledge by taking Unmistakable Lore and Esoteric Lore, and suddenly you not only can't Critically Fail, you will always get some useful knowledge (with the dubious knowledge inherent in said feat) and you Will know whether or not you failed, succeeded or crit succeeded based purely on your ability to use Esoteric Antithesis.

Is this intended? I don't know. But I feel like it may be an unintended consequence of tying a class' core mechanic to what is normally a metric the player wouldn't know.

I'm not even sure you could divorce the two honestly.

Edit: I suppose I should make a point in the post. I feel like this may lead to a substantial amount of meta gaming. It is a blank check for using player knowledge of creature's weaknesses and resistances.

Sorry I got rambly. I've been awake for a few too many hours. Am I over reacting?

Fused Staff combines a Stave and a Weapon in such a way that you can use the Stave to cast spells for the purposes of Spellstrike.

Let's say that you have a Spellheart, any random one really, on a Stave. You then use Fused Staff to fuse said Stave into your weapon which also happens to have a different Spellheart attached.

Is there anything stopping you from casting either Spellheart cantrip from your weapon? Would you need to shift the weapon to Stave form to benefit from the Staves Spellheart? If you are allowed to cast the Stave spellheart from the weapon, does the weapon gain the spellheart bonus effect?

At first blush, I say no since in theory, the spellheart "merges" with the weapon in the same way that the Stave does. It also feels like one of those unintended consequences and almost "too good to be true." Almost.

On second thought, it does give an Inexorable Iron Magus a method for benefiting from two weapon spellhearts as if they were dual wielding instead, something that other characters can already do.

Thoughts?

So, we have a new weapon trait, and it's pretty neat.

Resonant weapons are currently limited to the Wish Blades and Knives but you can make any weapon you like Resonant with the Conducting Rune and doing so even buffs the damage considerably, from 1/ weapon die to a d8.

To gain this damage you have to have use Conduct Energy, which is a free action you gain when wielding a Resonant weapon. Conduct Energy has the requirement of, "Your last action or spell this turn had the acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic trait."

Assume that you are a character wielding a Resonant Weapon who also used Produce Flame as their first two actions on their turn. At first glance I thought that the requirement of Conduct Energy would preclude it from working with Bespell Weapon or similar other actions that trigger or require your last action to be a spell. But upon reading it again, I noticed that the requirement is worded, "Your last action or spell..." which leaves the door open to two different interpretations of this interaction in my view.

1. Both clauses apply, meaning that if your last action was to use Bespell Weapon, you would not fulfill the requirements for Conduct Energy so could not use it without first using another action with the appropriate trait.

2. Only the appropriate clause applies, in this case your last spell had an appropriate trait allowing you to use Conduct Energy, even though you used Bespell Weapon between the spell and Conduct Energy.

Neither of these free actions are free actions with triggers, so assuming you can satisfy both of their requirements, you can use both of them on the same spell.

Opinions?

So, Megaton Strike.

You activate gears, explosives, and other hidden gadgets in
your innovation to make a powerful attack. If you’re wearing
your innovation, make a melee unarmed Strike or a melee
Strike with one weapon you chose during daily preparations;
if you have a minion innovation, it makes a Strike; and if you
have a weapon innovation, make a Strike with your innovation.
If the Strike hits, it deals double the usual number of weapon
damage dice (two for a weapon without a striking rune, four
for a striking weapon, six for a greater striking weapon, and
eight for a major striking weapon).
Special If your innovation is a minion, it can take this action
rather than you.

So does this mean that on a Megaton Strike, any effect that triggers based on the number damage dice dealt by the weapon? Examples would be the Jousting trait (especially when paired with a Horse companion's support ability) or the critical specialization of a Pick?

I don't see a reason why it wouldn't, and I'm not sure if this is really unbalanced since Megaton Strike is Unstable.

Thoughts?

I'm not sold on the current design of the firearms as is. The damage feels a bit low generally, and having them all be Reload 1 is questionable.

We are talking about black powder muzzle loader weapons, not neat cased ammo bolt action firearms after all. A musket would take at Least as long to reload as a Heavy Crossbow, the Arquebus even longer due to it's longer barrel, and how unwieldy it would be.

Then we have the addition of Versatile B/Modular. What is this supposed to represent? The ability to use the weapon as a melee weapon? If so, does it retain it's Fatal trait? If not, then what, we have blunt bullets? Modular on the Hand Cannon makes some bit of sense, as you can load sharp projectiles for Slashing and rocks or some such for Blunt damage, but a musket ball/bullet is... just a bullet. There isn't really a good way to make that bullet deal a different "type" of damage.

I would have preferred to see more refined later age firearms honestly than Black Powder weapons like this. Simple Revolvers, limited magazine fed weapons like the Volcanic etc... They are just more interesting than Muskets.

The weapons being black powder style weapons also make some of the feats feel... off. Pistol Twirl for instance is just asking for your ball/bullet to come flying out of your barrel, followed by a stream of your powder.

Thoughts?

So Striker's Scroll is neat. I actually really like it, and despite it's gold investment, I think it's a handy "fix" of sorts for a lot of the doom and gloom surrounding the 4 slot magus.

But I have questions to pose:

Say I were to grab the Rapid Affixture feat at 7th, would that feat effect the Affix a Talisman action required by Striker's Scroll? Would you be able to, with Legendary proficiency in Craft, affix a scroll in 3 actions?

If I were to Dabble in Talismans a bit, and decided to take the Talismanic Sage feat, would that feat allow me to affix a Talisman as well as a Scroll on the same weapon?

Personally, I feel that both of these examples are perfectly valid. Striker's Scroll calls out using the Affix a Talisman action, only modifying What you are affixing, not creating a new action. So any modification of that action from other feats/abilities should naturally also work with Striker's Scroll, right?

Thoughts?

These are a few weapons that I love the idea of, and would love to see implemented.

Thoughts?

So in this time of social distancing and shelter in place orders, my group and I have shelved our face to face game days. In lieu of that we have decided to try our hands at a Discord run Play by Post game. I will start by saying that while setting something like this up, including deciding what rules you want to enforce so far as timing and reactions go, takes a lot of work it has been very worth while. I highly encourage groups that have to postpone their face to face games to try out this style of game.

While our group has used virtual table tops, Roll20 most notably, in the past to enhance our games we decided to go with a simpler play by post style of game using PF2 and Discord as the medium. This allows us to basically check in throughout the day and run the game as we go. We simply added a dice roller (we used SideKick which has been fantastic btw) and set our house rules then started like any other campaign.

Our "house rules" in effect for the game are pretty simple. We decided to forgo person by person initiative, instead doing initiative by "side". This means that at the beginning of an encounter, everyone rolls initiative, then we average out the total for the players and the enemies. Each side then takes their turn all at once. This helps the play by post format immensely, as the game doesn't bog down as much as you wait for that one guy to log on and take his turn to decide your turn. Reactions were tricky to figure out. We ended up with a "standard" trigger system where the player with the given reaction lays out what they are waiting for generally, then if the player isn't online while the GM takes the enemies turn the GM or another player online makes a good faith effort to apply the reaction properly. It works for us, since we know each other so well.

Other than that everything runs smoothly as is. The GM keeps a simple map updated with the latest rounds movements.

We are just wrapping up our first combat which was a Moderate encounter (lvl 5 character start) and took 3 rounds over 2 days. That sounds like a lot of time, but in all reality with a play by post game a lot happened in those 3 rounds!

All in all, I feel like my group may keep a play by post game going even after we return to face to face game days. Again, I encourage those who are having issues playing at the moment to try out a format like this. No having to be online at particular times, or dealing with Roll20 or a similar VTT's quarks.

Anyone else trying out something like this? If so, how do you like it?

Moving the discussion started by Quandery in this thread regarding Eschew Materials and it's usage or benefits.

The previous question posed by Themetricsystem was:

Are you certain that the Manipulate Trait is applied to Eschew Materials for Wizard?

I'm not seeing ANYTHING that indicates that's true at all, it simply notes that you don't need to use Material Components which is specifically where the Manipulate Trait is included. The replacement air-drawn sigils and runes or whatever that are noted on the Feat mention nothing at all about them having the Manipulate Trait and as far as I understand those replacement rules completely override everything normally involved with the Material Component and it's associate Traits.

This probably needs a new thread...

By my reading the answer would be yes, the "eschewed" material component would require "manipulate".

You can use clever workarounds to replicate the arcane essence

of certain materials. When Casting a Spell that requires material
components, you can provide these material components without
a spell component pouch by drawing intricate replacement sigils
in the air. Unlike when providing somatic components, you still
must have a hand completely free. This doesn’t remove the need
for any materials listed in the spell’s cost entry.

Since the feat doesn't say that you replace or remove the component, instead saying that you provide them with an alternative to the pouch, the "component" you are using is still a Material component, which has the manipulate trait.

As to other possible uses or benefits of the spell Feat, I really can't think of any beyond not having to carry a Spell Component Pouch.

Anyone know of any benefits we may be missing?

A buddy of mine came up with the core idea for this potential Archetype. We hashed it out and have a solid baseline that needs some polish. Essentially born from wanting something more for Talismans. Figured best to post it and get some feedback. (Anything in Parenthesis is my comments on the reasoning behind some of the rules, ignore them when reading the rules for clarity). Without further to do:

Artificer Archetype
Feat Level 2 (Could be higher looking at other Archetypes, but wanted to start at 2 and see what people think.)
Requirement: Expert in Craft, Int 14, Magical Crafting* (May waive the Magical Crafting feat requirement.)
Grants Talisman Specialist (Based VERY roughly off of Snare Specialist, though I generally have little love for Snares as implemented currently). You specialize in creating magical trinkets to assist your allies on their adventures. If your proficiency rank in Crafting is expert, you gain the formulas for three common or uncommon Talismans (page 565). If your rank is master, you gain 6. If your rank is legendary, you gain 9. Each day during your daily preparations, you can prepare four Talismans from your formula book for without paying their cost. You craft these special Talismans as a part of your daily preparations, they do not require any additional time to craft. The number of Talismans increases to six if you have master proficiency in Crafting and eight if you have legendary proficiency in Crafting. Talismans prepared in this way don’t cost you any resources to Craft. (This is essentially carbon copied from the Snare Specialist Ranger Class Feat. I do not necessarily like the way you gain Forumulas through this rule, nor necessarily the amount of "free" talismans it grants. Feedback would be appreciated.)

Level 4 Feat: Quick Talismans
You can affix talismans rapidly, potentially even in combat. If your proficiency rank in Craft is Expert, you can affix a Talisman in 1 minute. If your rank is Master you can affix a Talisman in 3 interact actions. If your rank is Legendary you can affix a Talisman in 1 interact action. (Feels pretty standard.)

Level 4 Feat: Extended Talismans
Your Talismans are more potent than the standard versions. When a Talisman you have crafted is activated, the activating character makes a DC 15 flat check. On a Success the Talisman remains potent and is not consumed. On a failure the Talisman is consumed as normal. (Not sure how much mileage a character can really get out of this. Was considering lowering the DC of the Flat check based on Craft proficiency. We wanted to avoid making players track "charges" or something similar.)

Level 6 Feat: Powerful Talismans
Your Talismans are more powerful than the standard versions. Talisman effects lasting less than one turn now last until the end of your turn. Talisman effects lasting until the end of your turn now last until the end of your next turn. A Talisman with an effect triggered by a failed check does not extend its duration. (The intent here is mostly targeted at things like Bloodseeker Beak or Potency Crystal. Any Talisman that just reduces the failure of a check by 1 level wouldn't apply for obvious reasons. Need help with wording though.)

Level 6 Feat: Rework Talisman
Requirement: You have a Talisman equipped and the conditions for activating it have not been met.
You can rapidly rework the magic of a talisman to suit a different purpose. If you are in a situation that would satisfy the requirements for a talisman which you have the Formula for, you can expend your equipped Talisman to benefit from the effects of that other talisman. Once you benefit from that talisman it is consumed, even if you have Extended Talismans. (This felt neat.)

Level 10 Feat: Resonant Talisman
Requirement: Extended Talismans
Whenever you benefit from a Talisman, your allies also benefit from that Talisman. Your allies must meet the activation requirements of that Talisman, but do not need to spend an action if an action is required. If a Talismans effect is extended by Powerful Talismans, any time an ally meet the activation requirements of that Talisman they immediately gain its effects. (This feels suitable as the "capstone" of the Archetype. Any thoughts?)

That is what we have for now. Are exploring potential higher level feats for the archetype, but this felt like a good starting point.

Comments? Questions? Ideas?

So I pulled a dumb and forgot that casters can automatically recognize a spell being cast so long as they have it prepared or in their repertoire. So to avoid this in the future, I requested that each of my players playing a caster provide me with a list of their spell repertoires and prepared spells. This led to an interesting question posed by my parties Monk: He has Ki Strike, does that count as a spell for the purposes of instantly identifying a spell?

Identifying Spells

Sometimes you need to identify a spell, especially if its
effects are not obvious right away. If you notice a spell
being cast, and you have prepared that spell or have it
in your repertoire, you automatically know what the
spell is, including the level to which it is heightened.
If you want to identify a spell but don’t have it
prepared or in your repertoire, you must spend an
action on your turn to attempt to identify it using
Recall Knowledge. You typically notice a spell being
cast by seeing its visual manifestations or hearing its
verbal casting components. Identifying long-lasting
spells that are already in place requires using Identify
Magic instead of Recall Knowledge because you don’t
have the advantage of watching the spell being cast.

The immediate problem I see is that neither the Monk or Champion prepare their Focus Spells nor are they called out as having a "spell repertoire". They simply have access to these spells so long as they have the feat in question. So the question is can a Monk or Champion identify one of their known Focus spells (Ki spells or devotion spells respectively) instantly using the Identifying Spells rule, or would they be forced to make a Recall Knowledge check?

So it recently came to my attention that neither the Heal nor Harm spell have the Attack Trait, even when used in the 1 action version which has a Range of Touch. This tells me that you do not have to make a Melee Spell Attack roll to use either spell on an opponent. Is this also true for the 2 action Ranged version?

The example that brought this to my attention was Channel Smite. Does Channel Smite constitute 1 total attack for Multiple Attack Penalty, since the Strike within Channel Smite has the Attack Trait, or should it constitute two attacks for that purpose?

TL;DR, If a cleric tries to give you the bad touch with 1 action Harm, does he have to roll to hit to touch you. If so, should this be an Attack action and contribute to MAP?

So this came up when discussing a character build for a ranger. Ranger Snare Specialist Feat, and Snares in the wider PF2 system feel unfinished and borderline broken as is.

When creating a snare, you use the base Craft activity. Fair enough, that makes sense. The base Craft activity allows you to craft any item with the Consumable trait (which all snares have) in batches of up to four with one check and as part of the same activity. Looking at crafting snares, we see that a snare must be created within a single 5-foot square. However there is no limitation to the number of snares that can inhabit that same 5-foot area. This creates a rather odd scenario:

Jim the Ranger hits level 4 and takes Snare Specialist. He is now able to create 4 snares without paying their cost (excepting any additional crafting requirements of course) per day, and if they normally take 1 minute to craft, he can do so in 3 interact actions. Rules as worded, Jim the Ranger can use the Craft activity to place all 4 of his "free" snares in the same square with 3 actions. Let's use Biting Snare as an example because it has 0 additional crafting requirements. This leads to some unlucky enemy stumbling into 4 basic reflex saves against a base damage of 20d6. This feels very strong for a level 4 character to be able to do, even if only once per day.

It gets a step stronger when you consider the defensive ramifications. Let's say that your party has a home base. Why wouldn't the ranger spend their down time days priming the home base with 4 snares per day for any unlucky invaders? Since there is no "duration" or decay of even the Rangers free snares, this is possible.

Nothing in the rules disagrees with this as written. I believe that this is an artifact created by taking a normally downtime activity and trying to use it's rules for an in combat action.

As a houserule to discourage abuse I have set down that snares cannot be placed in the same 5 foot square as another Snare. Additionally a ranger can only "craft" one snare at a time using his 3 action feats. Snares can still be crafted in batches during downtime, but their locations cannot be an unreasonable distance apart (read this as usually in the same "room" or area) otherwise they do not count as a batch and must be crafted singularly with separate checks.

Am I just misreading the rules here, or are Snares woefully undeveloped?