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I don't think the OP is arguing or even suggesting anything about the in scenario use of the Crafting skill. The post seemed entirely focused on the use of the Crafting skill to use the Craft (Downtime) action in Society.

Crafting isn't useless, but it is bound in power to the point that the mechanical hoops it takes to get an edge out of it often isn't worth what you put in outside of a few corner cases.

Crafting in PF2 is most effective when 1) you don't have access to items via a settlement level or rarity and 2) you have downtime to really take advantage of creating items. These are usually campaign dependent and -- as you noted -- the global campaign really doesn't support those conditions well. We operate out of Absalom and on-level levels are always available. Uncommon and Rare items are more often controlled by chronicle access or AcP boons. And downtime for players is fixed. Everyone gets 8 days per scenario or 24 days per level. Using all that time for Earn Income nets X money (a small % over your overall net worth), and Crafting in that same time only gets some small % above that.

I think that crafting is balanced for Society play in general, but being balanced may not be fulfilling for the Crafting power fantasy. In general, I think for it to be more fulfilling, we'd need more ways for crafters to be able to use their crafting to access things. More boons for access to rare materials might help in this way, or even some crafting specific boons that allow someone to make an uncommon or rare item (but not just buy it outright).

I like the Influence subsystem in concept, but in practice it does leave much to be desired and you end up having to strategize the system itself instead of really worrying about what's being said to the person. The biggest trap is the opportunity cost between Discovery and Influence. You can't spend time chatting with someone to get to know how to Influence them because you can easily run out of time to do so, especially when you often don't know how many arbitrary rounds of dialogue you're going to get. And sometimes the success or failure conditions on those influence can be very binary (e.g. you didn't hit the threshold at all so you get nothing). And it's even more complicated when you've got to also juggle the strategy of that same opportunity cost on multiple NPCs at the same time.

There are also good chases out there. I like them mechanically because they do leave room for collective group success and sometimes they allow for choices which make sense. The little bit of strategizing on who goes first makes a big difference. I'd like to see more options on chase cards where a single action against a high DC (e.g. unlock a door with Thievery) might immediately allow the party to proceed vs. some other checks to navigate through a bunch of corridors or something. The crit success condition kind of does that, and with appropriate DCs it can feel good. But this is all in how it's implemented.

That's been my biggest takeaway. If the subsystem is designed *exactly* the way it's written, they work pretty well. But sometimes they're deployed in tricky ways with different assumptions in mind. That can run against what players expect when they encounter the subsystem. One example I can think of off hand is a chase where you're pursuing someone, but they aren't actually represented on the map. You cannot actually catch them. Each time you clear a block, the narrative is they're one step ahead. This can feel like a failure to the party but the system is actually designed just to measure how many rounds it takes to get through the obstacles with scaling of the next encounter based on that. The same is true of some of the more complicated influence scenarios -- influencing a single NPC is hard. Trying to do it to 4 at a time is even worse when you don't know at all what the victory condition is. In combat, I know I need to knock out, kill, or get my enemies to flee. In a skill challenge it's often not clear.

One thing I've tried to get better at as a GM is to tell the party up front "This will look like an chase/influence, but your goal is 'X'" especially if assuming it works like a regular chase or influence will result in a bad time. There's definitely a balance in trying to expose the mechanics of the system to make it clear while also not focusing on them so heavily that it removes the immersion and interesting options. And gauging how the party looks during the execution -- if they're feeling down by results try to encourage them especially if they're actually doing better than they think they are based on their expectations of the subsystem.

As noted above no.

I'll point out that the opposite isn't true. The Sorcerer's Undeath's Blessing 1st level focus spell. "For the duration, harm and heal spells treat the creature as undead."

So if you just need a template to homebrew something akin, there's at least that as an option.

For what it's worth, at least for spontaneous casters we do have a truncated form of "the spells you know" and it's called a spell repertoire, not a spell list.

I think that if "your spell list" was meant to be the spells you *personally* know, whether in your book, your familiar, etc then they'd have given it a name like the repertoire. Further, classes with unlimited access to their whole tradition (clerics, druids) would have a ludicrous advantage over other classes.

I'll admit I think some of the language around "your spell list" is colored a bit by my experience from 1e and I think it's something of a holdover. Not explicitly but if you read from that perspective it seems intuitive and if you don't read from that perspective I can see how it's easy to take an alternative intepretation.

Don't remind me of THAT special. It ended right when it would have started to become interesting!

I'm not so patiently waiting for when we get to go back with higher level characters and explore deeper.

While I agree that certain "skill challenge" subsystems get overused, any time you roll a skill to do something, that's a skill challenge. Some of those are team based pass/fail, some of them are individual, some of them are subsystems.

I think you might be experiencing a problem with GMs who don't (or can't) take the time to really flesh out the skill challenges beyond the mechanics. Even the simplest form of "everyone gets a chance to do something" and there's a collective victory condition can be an opportunity to let people describe what they're doing. And a GM is well within their rights to provide circumstance adjustments based on those responses.

I'll admit that my delivery of these can range from explicitly "everyone roll something appropriate off this list" at the short end to trying very hard just to use narrative to explain what's going on and engage with each player to elicit their skill or work through the system.

Just for reference, the Core Rulebook equates a Spell List with the spells of a given tradition and notes that some classes can add spells from other traditions to their own, thus adding them to their list. Those spells become the tradition (e.g. a Divine Fireball for a Saerenite cleric).

Magical Traditions

Spellcasters cast spells from one of four different spell lists, each representing a different magical tradition: arcane, divine, occult, and primal.

Your class determines which tradition of magic your spells use. In some cases, such as when a cleric gains spells from their deity or when a sorcerer gets spells from their bloodline, you might be able to cast spells from a different spell list. In these cases, the spell uses your magic tradition, not the list the spell normally comes from. When you cast a spell, add your tradition’s trait to the spell.

Some types of magic, such as that of most magic items, don’t belong to any single tradition. These have the magical trait instead of a tradition trait.

I have not found this language in PC1 or PC2 yet though.

A spell list is just your tradition + any bonus spells out of your tradition you can learn as a result of a class feature (e.g. deity spells for Cleric, mystery spells for Oracles, bloodline spells for Sorcerers).

The spell on the wand just needs to be one you could theoretically cast either because it's A) on your tradition or B) you have access otherwise. For example, a Fey Summoner would have Primal + any spells which they'd otherwise be able to access via Fey Gift spells (Illusion and Enchantment). It's a little weird since the Remaster did away with spell schools, but I think you can get the idea.

Do NOT start with all the hazards triggered to make this a more "exciting" fight.

When I played this, we had 5 copies of the hazard on the board (high tier, 6 players: 1 x L4, 3 x L5, 2 x L6). The GM made an honest mistake and had them all trigger at the start of the fight (missed the line they only roll initiative after their reaction). This meant that in a single round we were being subject to 20d6 damage across five reflex saves. Burning hero points on saves and everything had most of us down to less than 1/3 health and an animal companion in a dying state in one round before most of us had gone. We players at the table were incredulous since it felt like there was no chance. On my turn I spent all of my actions trying to identify the hazards (I used Act Together to have my Eidolon and I both try to figure them out) and succeeded. Only two of our PCs had Religion or Occultism appreciably trained. Our GM allowed us to disable them from a distance and even with that I failed and so did the other player. Most everyone else either tried to close on the ghost, do some damage if they could, or heal if they couldn't do anything else. Round two was going to murder an animal companion before any of us could even go.

All this to say, if you're wondering what happens if they all trigger... it's basically death. We were all visibly frustrated at this point and I pulled the GM aside to confer. We found the issue and rolled back the damage from round 1 to keep the fight going (accepting that we'd spent round one healing/spending actions and hero points) and in the next round only had the two active which should have been on as our party had advanced to the docks. I haven't read the scenario in full yet to GM, but based on what I saw it seems like the spirit is probably meant to lead you around the lake a bit, staying out of range until people close and then moving to the next. But yes, if the party has no way to turn these off they will absolutely murder everyone quite quickly if they activate to many at once.

This post reminds me a bit of this other post about there being to many leaders in the Society, to the point that it's difficult to get connected to specific faction leaders.

I've been playing since 2014 and feel a bit similarly to you -- especially over the last few seasons (3, 4, and 5 specifically). The metaplot simply hasn't captured me in the same way that other seasons did. Even Season 1, which had a relatively soft metaplot, felt like we were reopening and exploring things for the society as a whole.

My favorite arcs so far have not been metaplot related (season 2 being the exception), but are instead continuous development arcs where we're either exploring new things or dealing with the aftermath of major world events: the three Pallid Peak scenarios, exploring the Azlanti ruins of Blackwood swamp, or exploring and dealing with the aftermath of emergence of the Gravelands. Season 2 felt similar in that we were focusing on exploring and dealing with our own exploration of the Cyclopean ruins in Iobaria. Even when that metaplot had us in other regions, it generally tied back to that exploration.

I think back to PFS 1 seasons and they felt similarly more tied to a theme than any particular NPC. Season 4 was all about ancient Thassilon and it allowed you develop strong feelings about Shield Heidmarch. I'm hopeful for this season since it ties so heavily into the Godsrain and is also continuing arcs like the Mountain of Sea and Sky (also loosely connected to Forest of Spirits).

All that said, I can certainly accept that my brain is tinged with a certain amount of nostalgia for some of the earlier seasons and it may also be that I'm missing a lot of the rougher edges. So I'll just emphasize that I'd like to see more development along stories where the Society is actively exploring new regions / ruins that might not be tied to the meta plot of a given season.

I've tried an Organsight build before and it's neat when it works but the limiting factor is that it's not actually a buff to you, but a spell cast on the target creature. So in practice unless you're going up against one big thing that's going to last multiple rounds you tend to have a lot of set up to knock something out quickly. And if you are going up against that one big thing, it's probably higher level than you and might even be rare or unique which makes landing the medicine check difficult and the subsequent strike to deliver the persistent damage.

Several of the other backgrounds from the BB made it into the Player's Core 1, but not Deckhand. The Sailor background gives the Underwater Marauder feat, but that is not a good fit for a character that was more focused on staying above the waves. According to the AON website, Deckhand is limited, and requires a boon to unlock. I don't see any rational reason for it to be limited like this, nor can I see any way to get a boon that would unlock it.

By any chance was this a mistake? Should the PFS option be Standard rather than Limited?

It's a Chronicle boon for playing the scenario.

Access to the Deckhand background. Must have played at least one level of Menace Under Otari to obtain.

I can further confirm that the full text of the boon allows it for all of your characters once you claim the boon. So it's a very low barrier to entry and probably meant to encourage the Beginner's Box.

It's probably worth noting that if Vapor Form conveys immediate ability escape, it's actually better than Unfettered Movement for most tactical purposes and therefore more versatile in a single spell slot.

A player under Vapor Form could 'automatically escape', Stride or Fly away with Resistances, and then dismiss the spell.

As it is, Unfettered Movement still requires the player to spend the action to escape, it just becomes an automatic success but does incur the MAP penalty and that doesn't put them any further from their opponent.

If you do decide to let Vapor Form grant a bonus to escaping, I wouldn't let it be automatic and probably mimic the Unfettered Movement function. I'd probably only allow Escaping (bypassing the limitation on Attack Trait actions) and doing so with a circumstance bonus as best - maybe +1 or +2.

Both are 4th level spells with similar durations (minutes) and a range of touch. In a situation where a player may get Grabbed over and over, the Unfettered Movement is superior, but for a quick escape Vapor Form would be much better to prepare.

There are several feats that make it quite clear that 'Command an Animal' on a minion is intended to happen exactly once per round. This is in addition to the general text of the Minion tag.

Companion's Cry is featured on a number of classes and archetypes and provides a way to extend that single Command action to grant additional actions at a worse rate of return (1 for 1 instead of 1 for 2). Inventor also has this feature baked into the Construct innovation.

Other feats also note the one time use of Command an Animal like the Druid's Instinctive Support which provides a unique benefit to commanding quickly, but still limiting to 2 actions.

Your proposed example is simply too good to be true. The power of Cavalier's Charge is that you're getting to combine 3 actions in a unique order (the Strike occurs) in the middle of the two Strides by the mount. As noted in this thread, minions can only have 2 actions a round, taken when Commanded unless you have an ability that explicitly lets them receive more.

I think, generally, the rules don't support a familiar going off an reconnoitering a hex on their own. Animal Companions and Familiar's don't really get separate exploration activities from their masters. That said, I agree it feels like something a player should be able to invest in. I'd consider creating a familiar ability similar to the other assistive ones like Ambassador, Second Opinion, and Partner in Crime.

Spotting Partner:
Your familiar is particularly good at helping you scout unfamiliar terrain. When you use the Reconnoiter activity in hexploration, your familiar assists your efforts and provides a +1 circumstance bonus to your checks to find hidden special features, or +2 if you're a master in the associated skill. Your familiar must have Share Senses and a movement speed appropriate for the terrain (Swim, Flight, Climbing, etc), as determined by the GM.

Doing this would allow a player to derive a benefit from their familiar, and it's made with a significant choice because if an encounter happens during the Reconnoiter, the familiar won't have other powers to lend to the player that day. Further, this keeps the familiar and caster working in tandem and doesn't split them mechanically. From a narrative perspective, they'll range apart briefly, but for any shift to encounter mode during the day you can keep them together.

As for spells: I'd probably let the use of a non-trivial spell or resource expenditure to abstractly grant a circumstance bonus to a Reconnoiter or Map the Area check or count as an automatic success in some cases. It's not strictly necessary to say the spell is doing all the work and most spells are written with encounter mode or exploration mode (not hexploration) in mind. It could be that as your player is Reconnoitering, they see something in the distance and use the spell to help get a better look before proceeding farther.

One of the thing PF2 managed to get rid (mostly) was the obvious association between a build and a ra... an Ancestry. The only one I see is the assocation between Bouncy Goblin and Swashbuckler.

Now we have an obvious association between Minotaur and:
- 2-hander Fighter. One of the most efficient and common Fighter build. 10ft Reach + large size will guarantee tons of AoOs, there's no reason to play another Ancestry.
- Barbarian. Giant Stature without paying for the feat nor taking the Clumsy condition. Also, excellent stat spread. Most Barbarians will be Minotaurs from now on.
- Paladin. The stat spread is not as optimal as the 2 previous build, but Ranged Reprisal with a 10ft Reach Greatsword and Large size to attract attention on a tank is just golden.
- Guardian. So obvious I think most Guardians will be Minotaurs.
- Armor Inventor. The stat spread compensates the low hit points pool of the Inventor and extra reach is just bonus.
- Monk. Extra attention and excellent stat spread, it will be a classic.

Overall, there are 10% of the builds in this game that will be associated to Minotaur as other Ancestries will be far behind. That's a significant hit on build diversity.

I think you are absolutely overestimating the impact of this ancestry on character choice. The fact that the option exists does not in any way shape or form alter the fact that every other ancestry is still capable of being an objectively effective 2h fighters, barbarians, paladins, guardians, armor inventors, and monks. Even just clocking those as 10% of builds is an overstatement.

Outside of whiteboard theory-crafting and online guides, most players are going to pick ancestries based on the vision they have for their character and not a hypothetical optimized build. And the system supports that. The Elf fighter is no less effective than they were before. The Dwarf Giant Barbarian is still plenty. The Fleshwarp Monk can still have a good time. The Halfling Paladin is still going to exist.

How do I know this? I've GMed over 90 PFS sessions, played in probably as many or more, and participated in three adventure paths as a GM and player. This does not make me the most diehard player, but I'm consistent with a wide spread of players and builds. In that entire time since 2e launched, I never once saw Fighter with a gnome flick-mace in the wild. It didn't impact build diversity in practice outside of isolated situations. Even if Minotaur is a strong option for certain (arguably thematic builds), it's not so strong that it's going to discourage players from playing what they want and being effective at their chosen roles (class).

Quote:

Who wants True Specialist Mages?

TLDR: Not really it's of no interest. Just add some archetypes or feats that specialize your character.

I know they always talk about the way the Wizard or Arcane list are makes it hard to make Specialists like the Necromancer or Conjurer etc. How it needs a change to not make these concepts work or not feel bad for being limited when Arcane can do it just as well giving up less. I don't disagree but I also don't really care at all that is the case honestly.

I would rather they make some feats to make you a better Specialist that cross classes. You can be a Cleric or Wizard Necromancer whatever you like. We'll get an update to the Runelord eventually with its AD&D 2e like Specialist restrictions hopefully should be better than what we have.

The devs saying they can't make X specialist because of the Arcane list just feels like maybe they personally want to make a Specialist class. Seems more of a more dev frustration (mild annoyance?) than something I would care about. I get why they want to push for a change like this for the Arcane list because everyone wants development to be easier and more fun. Makes sense but I don't know how much it's even wanted from a consumer level. Surveys to poll the community about it at some point maybe?

I am not fussed about the fact that it can't be done or done well personally because that isn't the avenue I would want it done. I don't know the community at larges feelings on this line of thinking so maybe someone could inform me if there have been labyrinthian threads on this exact topic in the past and if this is just another rehash.

^^^ This.

We have archetypes. Specialist themes are perfect archetypes to go onto many different classes and it's what I was hoping to see more of in Secrets of Magic. They can even be class archetypes that mess with your overall spell slots/spell lists like Wellspring Mage or Elementalist.

I don't think this needs to be a whole class. As described above it feels like an extension of a sorcerer where the bloodline is the focus and it'd probably end up looking more like a psychic.

When will the Kineticist class be available for use in organized play in 2e? Will it require a boon?

Content from a book is never sanctioned before street date (August 3rd, in the case of Rage of the Elements). Organized Play has generally tried to make sanctioning happen as close as possible to street date as possible, and I imagine they are keenly aware that people will want to use this class at GenCon and, more generally, ASAP.

While I can't say with 100% certainty, I do not think we have any reason to believe it would.

To be more complete, the Guide to Organized play contains a reference to what you can do with Downtime without a boon.

Retraining: Using Downtime to retrain character options(Core Rulebook 481) works as written, with a few clarifications.

Some items are changeable for free, such as name, gender, appearance, or other cosmetic designators.
Pathfinder training may be changed and takes 14 days.
Changing a selectable class feature takes 28 days.

If characters earn enough XP to level while still in the process of retraining, they can choose options legal for their new build, though the ability is unusable until the retraining is complete. An option being retrained is lost at the time the new option becomes usable.

Player Owned Ships [Vanity Only]

I'd love to see the return of the ships/property vanity boons from 1e. It was always fun being able to own a ship and then when a scenario calls for it be able to say "we'll take my boat!" This should be entirely cosmetic only -- it's a quantum boat that takes the shape of any other mechanical boat needed in a scenario and doesn't change how the scenario works and can include language that says "the GM has final say if the players can use the PCs boat" if it doesn't work for plot purposes. There is no mechanical benefit to this, but a savvy player could get a hireling with Sailing Lore to be the first mate (or you could bundle a hireling into the boon and up the cost).

I'd love to see the Soulforger be offered in a limited fashion. Effectively the boon would act as the GM and create a cause / limit the expansiveness of this option (assuming that's the primary reason it is currently limited).

An example implementation might be a Soul Path for each PFS Faction where they champion the ideals of their group, gaining access to appropriate edicts and anathemas and a specific set of essence powers and their associated corruptions. This would not require new rules content and just have the Org Play team act as the GM for this archetype.

I don't think it's even fair to call that a strict reading. It says follow the crafting rules with the following exceptions. Neither of those exceptions skips crafting feats.

Even if you have those feats you're likely still getting a benefit by being able to focus on a skill that you've invested in with skill boosts. A wizard with Master Arcana can use that instead of a Trained Crafting skill. The two days less downtime is kind of whatever but it's also a bonus.

Players are in battle and one of the pc’s is paralyzed. (Crit failed against the spell Paralyze).

The pc in question is a Liberator Champion.

Now being paralyzed states: “…and can't act except to Recall Knowledge and use actions that require only the use of your mind (as determined by the GM).”

Would they be able to use their Liberating Step or not?

Liberating Step has no traits which "force" it to require anything more than a mental action but it also isn't explicitly a mental action, so it's entirely up to the GM per the rule you quoted.

As a GM, I always ask the summoner to clearly articulate their Act Together (e.g "I Act Together to have my Summoner Stride and my Eidolon use a two-action activity") It's really important for the players and the GM to be explicit about the action use. I try to do this myself when I play my Summoner as well.

Another area though that often comes up outside of combat is during exploration or other activities. Unlike Companions or Familiars, Eidolons do get to participate granting a second Exploration Activity except when there's a victory point system based on a total number of PCs. This can be a very important thing because it can mean the Summoner might be able to make two checks.

As a GM just make sure you know when those 'per/player victory point' systems are in effect and communicate to the Summoner that either they or the Eidolon needs to make the check and otherwise make sure the Summoner knows both can act. Likewise, as a player, when opportunities to roll come up be sure to ask the GM if you both can roll or not. You should advocate to use your class ability here but also understand when you can't.

Hello everyone,

I'm relatively new to PF2e and currently read descriptions of polymorph spells. Comparing them I've stumbled about a small but maybe important difference:

• * Some of them (e.g. CRB's Aerial Form, s. https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=4, or SoM's Aberrant Form, s. https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=861) contain the phrase "When you cast this spell, choose", while ...
  
• * others (e.g. CRB's Animal Form, s. https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=10, or SoM's Ooze Form, s. https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=962 ) contain the phrase "When you first cast this spell, choose"
  

(Italics added).

Now I am confused.
Does the latter really mean that you have to make a binding decision at the first casting time of the spell, and afterwards you can only assume the exact same form at subsequent castings?

If Yes:
- How permanent is that choice? Until the characters death? Until retraining? (And then retraining what, exactly? - A choice within a spell? Are there precedents for something like this? Would it be like retraining repertoire spells?)
- It would definitely reduce the usability of these (by default usually just 1 min long) spells. Intuitively this interpretation feels wrong to me. (But who am I to criticise.)

On the other hand and if No:
- What is the word "first" supposed to mean there?

Thanks in advance for any help and additional thanks for all the community support in general. It helps me a lot to get into this game, which (honestly) appeared pretty scary at first. (Keyword: 600+ pages CRB :-))

The choice in both cases is made upon casting the spell, not when learned. The simplest answer here is that the word 'first' is extraneous and probably missed in an editing pass. It doesn't add anything here and it can be read the way you did or just read as "right after you cast this spell."

A piece of advice that I can offer you is that while there are hundreds of rules, they are attempting to write them in ways that allow for common sense interpretation and not legalistic parsing. A challenge, sure, but not impossible. The General Rules are a useful lens to keep in mind while reading. Of note, the section on ambiguous rules gives GMs clear override authority when something would be problematic / not make sense.

Interplanar adventures? Geniekin and aasimar/tiefling nephilim always available plz?

If past patterns hold, and I'm simply speculating here, any discounts or removals of costs for specific ancestry access would probably happen *after* the season and not before. The Remaster might change that sooner/faster, but, again, pure speculation.

How do you get access to the Phoenix bloodline for PFS2e? I am aware one is via the Ruby phoenix Adventure Path, but is there any other option?

At present it is only available from the Adventure Path.

Sometimes a rule could be interpreted multiple ways. If one version is too good to be true, it probably is. If a rule seems to have wording with problematic repercussions or doesn’t work as intended, work with your group to find a good solution, rather than just playing with the rule as printed.

It is fairly clear in context that the initial starter item is not meant to be more than what you could normally get at level 1. An exquisite sword cane is a level 4 item with significant value at level 1. The very next sentence in implements supports the idea that your starting implement is worthless and you can upgrade it: "If you acquire a new object of the same general implement type, you can switch your implement to the new object by spending 1 day of downtime with the new item"

The simplest way to adjudicate this is to look to the Inventor Weapon innovation which is probably the closest analogue to the Thaumaturge weapon implement:

"It begins with the same statistics as a level 0 common simple or martial weapon of your choice, or another level 0 simple or martial weapon to which you have access. You can instead use the statistics of a 1st-level common simple or martial weapon of your choice, or another 1st-level simple or martial weapon to which you have access, but you must pay the monetary Price for the weapon."

Your GM could certainly let you get an exquisite sword cane at level 1. I wouldn't. And I doubt many others would either.

Okay, so your loremaster knows things. Tell me who they are. Where are they from? What do they do in combat to help their teammates after they have identified the monsters? Why did they get drawn into a life of crime in the Tian Xia underworld?

Also, don't underestimate the time and energy required to run an Adventure Path! Ruby Phoenix will take longer than you might think, though it's a fun high level adventure, and I agree that you would find players for it.

I'll echo these questions. Even if you do all of this, you've invested virtually all your class feats and several skill feats into being able to roll on knowledge checks you probably could have made anyway. If you want to maximize those Lores you're probably intelligence based which means you're probably not lacking skill points and 3 out of 5 recall knowledge skills are Int based. We don't know anything else about the character -- not even a base class.

This reminds me of a build I saw early in 2e where someone made a master of all languages combining lots of different feats. I don't know precisely how many they had but I do remember that even with knowing 20+ languages we still ran into a scenario where all their linguistic mastery didn't do anything. And that all came at the cost of other versatility.

So let's just focus on the more pressing question: you make your recall knowledge check successfully. What next? What do you do?

I'm not sure what you mean drop Haunting Hymn for Animated Assault since Haunting Hymn is a cantrip. I liked HH as an multi-target cantrip but daze probably is better just for the stun even if it's only on an unlikely crit fail.

Sorry, Haunting Hymn provides you an AoE damage spell early on which is mostly useful for targeting weakness when it comes up or maybe fighting a bunch of clustered lower level enemies -- but these situations aren't so common generally that Hymn ever really works out being a better option than just Telekinetic Projectile something, or doing a Bon-Mot Daze. So I was suggesting keeping the cantrip until you can get a different AoE (Animated Assault being the first on your short list, though Concordant Choir is also a very flexible option) and rely on that for those situations. This would free up your cantrip for Daze or ... anything else? I just think in practice you're going to have a mostly dead cantrip slot in Haunting Hymn.

Your list looks really close to what I'd recommend.

I'd drop Haunting Hymn in favor of Animated Assault once you can get it. It's more reliable AoE damage and the sustain aspect also creates area denial. I've kept it running just to dissuade enemies / force weird movement from them. Daze is more reliably useful with it's range and combos with your Bon Mot and your allies Intimidate.

If you're going to do Animate Dead you need to make it Signature and expect it to come from your top slots to remain relevant. There are some pretty good undead options these days for utility, but you'll still need higher slots. I'd probably avoid this or lean into it heavier.

I probably wouldn't start running Dispel Magic until level 3+. It may come up beforehand but you really want it in your top or second highest level spell slots anyway and magic effects you need to counteract aren't all that common in the 4-5 range.

Rouse Skeletons and Animated Assault are competing in functions (minor AoE with passive area denial/control targeting Reflex). Probably pick one or the other.

It's not always the best plan, but I like to make sure I have a Reflex, Fort, and Will save targeting options in my top level or signature slots. Slow is obviously your best Fortitude option, Animated Assault/Rouse Skeletons is your Reflex... you're lacking a strong Will target spell. Consider Roaring Applause: it's a will spell which will sync with your Bon Mot and Intimidate, gives you a sustain option, and which can create slowed 1. If your Barbarian takes AoO it's even better.

I'd hold off on Shadow Projectile until you move up in spell levels. It's fine to dump on lower level slots but when you first hit 3, there's more potent / powerful things you can be doing. Time Jump has a lot of utility to be able to position better. It's definitely something you'll want to consider having at some point.

Edit: You may want to look at the Spell Trickster archetype instead of Pistol Phenom. A lot of your spell choices merge into it with Summon Ensemble giving you another Performance based debuff potential using your cantrip choice. Forceful Push and/or Larcenous Hand let you make that Mage Hand more useful. Siphoning Touch with Reach Spell could also be a great combo for adding temp HP to your Barbarian or Gunslinger friend in a pinch.

The better question however is why.

If you have to ask this question, this rune wasn't meant for you. It's amazing that it's only level 2.

I think having a second version of the scenario with different AcP would be an elegant and very thoughtful way to handle this.

How does the druidic prohibition against metal armor and shields interact with armors and shields that are primarily made of a non-metal but have metal components like the studs of a studded leather armor, the mail undershirt of an armored coat (both are classed as part of the Leather category) or a wooden shield with a metal shield boss or shield spikes?

For simplicity, I've always used the armor category. It's the cleanest mechanically. Nothing prohibits a druid from having metal on their person at all (e.g. tools) so I just decided that if it's mentioned as primarily leather or wood, it's good to go.

For what it's worth, we're facing a similar issue in Austin. Our primary local game store only stays open later on nights when Magic has tournaments, which provides a bit of flexibility but it messes with our usual schedule a lot.

If anything, this might help make a strong case for some higher level quests going forward too: maybe breaking some of these arcs into two parts each worth 2 xp.

Okay, so a few options.

The Blessed One dedication would give you lay on hands. This would help offset your slightly lower divine font and also give you a secondary use for your focus point when Death domain isn't relevant or prudent. You could just focus on cleric feats after that or keep boosting your lay on hands.

The Medic archetype can help boost your focus on non-spell healing, boosting your medicine proficiency and offering faster ways to get people up with Battle Medicine. This leaves you more flexibility to choose non-support spells. A nice feature of this archetype is that you can be done with it and move into other archetypes quite quickly since it has Skill feats.

Soul Warden is a specific archetype for Pharasmins. It'll focus heavily on stopping undead (which you're probably already pretty good at without the archetype) but it might be of interest.

For Druid, there will only be a bit of overlap with your Divine list -- mostly in the restorative side of things. You'll gain access to a lot of useful utility. For example, you could use the level 2 primal spell to cast heightened Longstrider giving you a significant movement speed boost all day. The divine list doesn't really give you ways to solve 'worldly' problems often, but primal gives you that even if you only have one spell per slot until you pick up the later feats.

For example:
Level 1 -
Gust of Wind: always relevant to blow away hazards or flying creatures
Pest Form: useful scouting utility
Jump: Quick maneuver or bypass hazard

Level 2 -
Longstrider: 8 hours of a good movement speed buff
Enlarge: Useful for some front liners (talk to your party)
Loose Time's Arrow: Mini haste for a round for the party
Spider Climb: Climb speeds can get you and your party around hazards

Level 3 -
Earthbind: Bring flying creatures down for melee to engage
Haste/Slow: Amazing spells
Wall of Thorns: Helps control the battlefield

As a bonus, it's wisdom based for you so your DC's won't be terrible even as the spell levels lag behind. You could use the cantrips granted to pick up some additional attack cantrips that Divine lacks (Electric Arc, Scatter Scree, Produce Flame, Ray of Frost, etc) to let you target reflex and / or more easily trigger elemental vulnerabilities.

You can also pick up a Druid focus power to offset your Death domain instead of grabbing Time or something else. Leaf order may be the most thematic, and it's focus power are also restorative (Goodberry) so it'd be a bit like grabbing the Blessed One dedication, except at level 4. The Stone or Storm orders might help you debuff opponents for your front line.

How did I miss sound burst on my cleric and bard? It seems so much better than concordant choir.

I personally think Concordant Choir is better for a few reasons:

But ultimately they sit in a repertoire about the same. Given the flexibility on Concordant Choir it's probably stronger a signature spell for a spontaneous caster.

Welcome to PF2. For some advice: don't stress too much about optimization. Your base class handles most of that for you with being a full divine caster. If you've maxed wisdom, you'll be able to cast spells offensively just as well as anyone else. Your 12 charisma will give you two top level heals per day -- probably for emergencies especially if you're leaning into medicine for out of combat healing. Nothing stops you from preparing additional heals too.

Spell choice will be the biggest thing to drive your build (probably more than feats). The divine list isn't super diverse, but you do have some decent options to do what you're trying to do with Fear, Agonizing Despair, and Phantasmal Killer (thanks to Pharasma). Calm Emotiions is also quite strong as a debuff if you have good initiative (clerics generally do with high initiative) and if you keep it in your top slot.

Those all focus on Will saves, so you'll want some backup spells known to target other saves if you want to be more of a debuffer. Concordant Choir is a very flexible variable action sonic damage spell which targets fortitude. If you can't use that spell or want to restrict yourself to Core, Sound Burst also works. It's not sexy, but until your party gets striking runes, Magic Weapon is probably the biggest heavy hitter especially if you're going against something immune to mind affecting and not undead.

At 1st level: Fear and Magic Weapon + 2 Heal spells is a pretty decent arsenal to bring.

As a cloistered cleric, you're probably going to be a little easier to hit so may want to stay at range. Death's Call may not see quite as much value for you since you need to be within 20 feet. That said, of Pharasma's domain that's a pretty strong pick. You may want to look at grabbing Expanded Domain Initiate at level 4 and pick up the Time Domain. The focus spell is a very powerful reaction (something you probably lack) which will help you maximize your heal spells. It's sort of another way to achieve what you were trying to do with Death's Call.

Otherwise, I'd definitely recommend looking at some archetypes. Don't be afraid to diversify. Rogue Dedication can be a simple addition that'll make it easier for you to wear armor, get you extra skill trainings, and additional skill feats. Druid can work if you want additional spells. If you tell us more about your concept and what you want to do, we may be able to help suggest others.

Oh I'll be there too. If you're running anything, let me know!

Yeah but now that you are not your own ally can you hit yourself for 1d4 with the second strike of a flurry to target yourself with a spell storing weapon?

It's not good, but it's certainly shenanigans.

You could do that anyway, regardless of whether or not you're on own ally. Spell Storing only cares that you hit a creature.

It is notably inconsistent. I would expect that Community Knowledge was deemed too good for a level 1 ancestry feat, then Nanite Surge would need to be as well. Though admittedly because so many Android Feats key off of Nanite Surge, that may have been trickier to remove. That's all speculation though. I have no insight into why this wasn't allowed.

Since you're primal (elemental), I'm here to plug Geomancer if you want to unlock a kind of fun playstyle. The dedication and fourth level feat to enter any 'terrain' gives you a way to uniquely metamagic a lot of your spells.

I run a Halfling Fire Elemental sorcerer. Fire / Desert is my default, but I've selected my spells known to ensure I have a way to capitalize on earth, water, air spell effects too. I've grabbed a Verdant Staff, which with spontaneous casting allows me to cast plant spells from my staff too, so I can take advantage of the plant based terrains.

A default attack routine for me is to cast Elemental Toss (Fire), enter a Desert Attunement, and then throw a Fire Spell with a rider effect of debuffing everyone hit by it all in round one. There are other builds you can do by leaning into your selected element. An earth based one could have you casting earth spells and shifting your attunement benefit to give temp HP to others.

You have to be clever with your spell selection but it can really do some cool stuff if you lean into it. Secrets of Magic and some of the newer books have added a lot of dual-element spells which really makes this shine.

Depending on how tied you are to magic thematically, mechanically you may want to look at Inventor. It grants you explicitly non-magical ways to achieve many of the effects you're looking to create. You could make your shield or armor into your innovation when you choose the dedication at 2. From there you have a few options.

If you choose armor, you could grab Explosive Leap at 4 with Basic Innovation which would replicate Dimensional Assault, allowing you to leap around combat once per fight. You could give your armor the Otherworldly Protection or Muscular Exoskeleton modifications at 8 depending on how you were feeling or grab another Inventor feat like Megaton Strike, Gadget Specialist, or Searing Restoration.

If you chose weapon, Haphazard Repair would let you quickly repair your shield if you chose to make that your weapon innovation, admittedly only with a free hand though. Alternatively grab the same Explosive Leap as above. At 8 you could give it Entangling Form by grabbing Basic Modification, giving your shield the grapple and trip traits which pairs nicely with your use of aggressive block and allowing you to do all three main maneuvers with your shield.

Brilliant Crafter at level 6 would grant you expert crafting and then master when you hit 7, allowing you to diversify your skills. If you went with the armor innovation, that Muscular Exoskeleton at 8 would be granting you a +2 circumstance to all your shoves with your shield.

I agree with Gortle. I've mostly played Divine casters (my main and 4th characters are ones) and the spell list is more interesting than it looks like at first glance. It's also true that nearly all divine casters can add a bunch of spells from other traditions (only Summoners and Witches can't).

Switching from Divine to Primal is obviously a strong change in terms of available spells but not one that will imbalance the game. I'd just bar Divine Access from the available feats as it's obviously related to Divine but also because Primal casters are not supposed to cherry pick spells from other traditions.

I agree that allowing the swap from divine to primal probably won't break the game, but the rational you're providing isn't backed up at all by the actual game. There's no hidden rule stating that "primal casters shouldn't be able to get spells from other lists." Every single primal class has built in ways to access it even before you get into archetypes like the Magaambyan Attendant and Halcyon Speaker.

Primal witches can grab spells from several lists via Lessons.
Primal sorcerers can get them from their bloodline (notably Fey/Nymph get a lot of arcane/occult spells) or from the Crossblooded Evolution feat.
Druids can accessa handful of illusions the via a level 8 feat.
Primal summoners can access illusions and enchantments with a Fey Eidolon.

So I don't really think it's fair to say that Primal isn't meant to go cross-tradition.

To the OP: An alternative approach would be to simply give your players the cleric ability to worship a deity and access their spells natively without needing to take Divine Access. This avoids the wholesale spell list swap. Oracles could still benefit from Divine Access by getting access to a second deity. Entirely homeruled, but it's a shorter throw and potentially less unbalancing.

I'm fully aware it's against RAI, but around tables like PFS ones where RAW is applied strictly it is the actual meaning of the rule.

PFS GMs GM's are empowered to use their discretion in the face of: "Unclear rules, or situations or player actions not covered by the rules." They are no robots bound to individual player interpretation of "RAW." In fact, you'll find no such phrasing in any PFS guidance for PF2.

If you came to me with this argument I would kindly tell you you're mistaken and move on with the game based on the fact that it doesn't make sense in the context of any other hunt prey or ranger edge ability. It's too good to be true and the simplest interpretation is that the language is a little weird.

You could, if you so chose, contest that ruling even as you've admitted your reading almost certainly isn't intended, and I'd just refer you up to another Venture officer who is probably going to agree that your reading doesn't make sense in the context of every other hunt prey ability.

There's another 7-10 coming out next month.

It's also worth pointing out that the PFS devs have put a much higher focus on repeatable content in PF2 than they did in PF1. So much so that it's entirely possible to make an infinite number of characters and get them to level 5-6. I wouldn't necessarily recommend following this path exactly every time as it's not practical in many cases and you may not want to do the same scenarios over and over. But it does help with allowing play even when you're waiting to play one of your higher level characters.

Level 1:
Beginner's Box 1
Beginner's Box 2
Pathfinder Trials (1)

Level 2:
Intro 1: Second Confirmation (1-2)
Intro 2: United in Purpose (1-2)
Absalom Initiation (1-4)

Level 3:
Lions of Katapesh (1-4)
Tarnbreaker's Trail (1-4)
Lost on the Spirit Road (1-4)

Level 4:
Intro Season 3 (1-4)
Intro Season 4 (1-4)
Any random non-repeatable

Level 5:
Star Crossed Court (3-6)
Crashing Waves (3-6)
Guardians Covenant (3-6)

Level 6:
A Most Wondrous Exchange! (5-8, coming out Dec 2022)

I think it's great that psychic adds options to players - that the dedication is competitive with others. But I don't think it's actually so good that it's a 'must-have' or 'game breaker.' If anything I'd like to see more multiclass dedications offer a bit more earlier.

Bard buffing was already available from the Bard dedication. Admittedly it comes online at 8, but amped guidance takes a reaction and a focus point.

A magus with psychic dedication doesn't get the psychic's ability to regain 2 points back between fights so a magus using these tricks isn't using their conflux spells. So yes, they can true strike nova once but they aren't using any of their other abilities.

There were a handful of boons on PF1 chronicles marked 'Legacy' with the intent that they would potentially play forward. I can think of only one so far that was actually employed. But it's entirely possible we'll see others come into play as Season 3 was much more related to the Society's past and who knows what Season 4 will bring.

For what it's worth, the faction boons are relatively minor. They played a much larger role in season 1 but the last few seasons have placed significantly less emphasis on them. They can add a few unique options but you can reasonably ignore most of it.

That said, keep an eye out for the free Wayfinder boon (not to be confused with the one that costs AcP) when you hit a specific level of reputation.