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Hi everyone! I ran a short adventure with my usual playgroup to test both of the new classes: Animist and Exemplar. I thought it would be cool to share how that went and how the players felt about those two in actual play, so here it is!

This post is not an in-depth analysis of the classes. I intend to do that at a later time. Having the "field experience" to inform it first is very important, and that's what this one is about.

The Adventure

I decided to run this playtest for 8th-level characters, as I think the mid levels better represent how a class is supposed to feel like. It has also been stated by Paizo that this is a level they usually get little feedback about.

The PCs were a group of 5, between famed heroes and people who just happened to be oddly powerful for their circumstances. One night, they all had a shared dream of an angelic being clamoring for their help. The hammer of a demigod, Ur, which fell onto the earth ages ago on top of a mountain, was being corrupted by some sort of evil cult. That, in turn, corrupted the land around it and its inhabitants. She needed their help to cleanse and recover the hammer. As they accepted the mission, they were teleported together to the base of said mountain — the Mountain of Myths.

Convenient, perhaps, but this is a playtest after all. I only needed as much story as it took to justify their quest.

The adventure was more combat-focused, consisting of three encounters varying between Moderate and Severe. There were also a couple of places where the characters could get advantages with preparation and use of skills and utility magic. In some cases they did, in others not so much, but we'll get to that in a bit.

The Party

For some additional context, I'll give a short description of each character, and do the same for the players who piloted them and their backgrounds and likes.

Filomena is a Sprite Animist, who wanted to protect nature and the land from the corruption that was spreading. She's a Channeler, and built for a more classic caster-y feel, also taking some Leap-based feats (Powerful Leap) and items (Boots of Bounding) to take more advantage of Sustaining Dance. Her player has been playing PF2 for about three years, but has no TTRPG experience prior to that. She's a caster main for flavor reasons, and although blasting is her favorite part of casting, she has played all sorts of them by this point.

Han is a Human Exemplar, who accepted the quest mostly as a challenge to herself. She went the Str/Dex route with a Noble Branch Longspear, Palisade Bangles and Scar of the Survivor. She also took Hurl at the Horizon and Fighter MC for Rebounding Toss. Her epithets were Mournful and Peerless Under Heaven. Han's player is somewhat new to PF2, but has played D&D and especially Vampire the Masquerade before. He also has a background in tactical videogames, and tends to enjoy making more well-rounded characters who can adapt to situations.

Kyavan is our other Human Exemplar, who found this adventure a convenient way to run away from a loan shark he got in trouble with. Not all heroes have noble goals, after all. He opted into medium armor with a general feat, so he could leave Dex a bit lower and put more points into Con and Wis. Kyavan had a Longsword Gleaming Blade, Victor's Wreath and Gaze as Sharp as Steel, with Radiant and Whose Cry is Thunder as his epithets. He specced into Duelist for things such as Duelist's Challenge and Dueling Parry. His player has been playing 2e for a while, and comes from 5e before that. He tends to play "strikers" or "DPS" in pretty much every game, TTRPG or otherwise.

Krod is an Orc Fighter, who just thought climbing up a mountain and beating cultists sounded fun. He wielded a Greataxe for unga bunga big damage, though also had feats like Swipe and Lunge for a little more versatility in his bunga, and specced into Charisma/Intimidation for debuffing. He served as an interesting foil to see how Exemplar compares in terms of damage and utility to the "top dog" as many would say. Krod's player is the most experienced with PF2 in the group, though he is a funny guy. He always play very simple characters who beat things up, but does so in a more tactical manner.

Aeris is a Human Air Sorceress, and the last member of the group. Like Han, she saw this as mostly a way to challenge herself, but worried a bit more about the whole corruption issue in a personal way. As an Elemental Sorceress, her main thing was blasting, though she did take a variety of spells anyway and that became very relevant across the adventure. She also took Rogue MC for You're Next and Dread Striker. Her player is the newest one to PF2, though he is someone we jokingly call "game genius", because he tends to learn these things very fast. I don't play with him long enough to know his exact preferences.

Character Creation

I'll skip Aeris and Krod for this part, since everyone knows how creating a Sorcerer and a Fighter is like.

The process of building the two Exemplars was great overall. Both players were going crazy about just how many cool options the class has. They also both came up with at least two or three different builds in little time and had trouble choosing between them. Han's player also commented that it was really interesting how the ikons and epithets lend themselves to building a story.

In terms of negatives on character building, both players pointed out to the same thing as the main issue: the ikons don't seem very well balanced with each other right now. Han originally wanted to take Eye-Catching Spot, as it fit her flavor better, but it seemed so bad compared to the other options (and simply a worse version of Palisade Bangles on a different slot) that she ended up switching it out.

The lack of an unarmed option, and the incredibly disproportionate amount of weapon feats compared to the other two types were also mentioned as issues. I know some of these have already been addressed by the devs. As one last thing, Kyavan's player felt like the lack of medium armor proficiency forced him to pick that proficiency up elsewhere, and that it was weird as a whole that the class doesn't have it. I definitely sympathize with that feeling.

As for Filomena, the process was considerably clunkier. Animist is also very cool, and she loved the Vessel Spells and how good the feats were compared to moster casters', but oh boy, is this class dense. Between the hybrid casting method and muddy subclasses without a clear direction, it took almost an hour of reading, re-reading and explaining just to stick in her mind how the base mechanics of the class work and how she should build to get what she wanted out of the character. And then she also had to choose multiple apparitions. After all that, she ended up going with Imposter in Hidden Places, Steward of Stone and Fire and Guardian of Groves and Gardens as her three default ones, with Steward as her main.

First Encounter

As our heroes woke up from their dream, brought together to the base of that odd mountain, they took a couple of minutes to talk to each other and figure things out. Of course, being a newly-formed RPG party, that ended in goofy bantering, with a highlight to Krod's extremely swaggy Clockwork Heels. Who doesn't love an Orc in wheeled shoes? But they did have a mission after all, and so the group moved on to the trail up the mountain.

It didn't take long before signs of the corruption started showing. Right on the entrance of the trail, two giants awaited — their eyes completely darkened and dripping with a black ooze. That wasn't a good sign. The party didn't have much time to think before they attacked, and so our first encounter began. A Frost Giant, and a corrputed, weakened version of a Cloud Giant, whose stats and abilities I brought down to level 8 using the monster creation guidelines. This totaled 100 XP - a Moderate encounter for a 5-person 8th level party.

Our heroes did not have a good start. The Frost Giant won initiative, and proceeded to critically hit Krod and Kyavan with his swipe attack, rolling an 18. I also rolled high on damage, and that took more than half their HP. Aeris lined up both giants for a 4th level Bolt, which did some damage to the Frost Giant, but the Cloud one, fittingly, rolled a nat 20 and critically succeeded. Kyavan used his Mirrored Spirit Strike, but rolled a 1 and a 2. Han tried to attack... another natural 1. And then the Cloud Giant critically hit her with a 19 on Wind Strike for almost 90% of her health. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried. This was probably the worst initial sequence I've ever ran to a group.

Luckily — if a little late — things started getting better. Han started the fight with Palisade Bangles up, which made the -8 unarmed attack from the giant miss her by 1. This stopped her from being knocked to zero. Krod repositioned and used Power Attack on the Frost Giant, finding out he wasn't very fond of the Flaming rune on his axe.

And then she came. An AC-130 bomber in Pixie form. Filomena activated Channeler's Stance and threw 2 Earth's Biles against the giant, which caused 2 instances of damage + persistent against his fire weakness. A round, some more brawling and a bunch of Sustaining Dances later (including one who tanked an AoO that probably would have downed Han), Krod and her had basically melted the level+1 giant while the others dealt with Cloudy. Not before he tried to reposition and successfully immobilized the Orc with his cold breath, but Lunge gave Krod just enough reach to finish him off.

Han was struggling to survive, and the 15 feet throw range on her spear helped her action economy a ton in this situation. She healed with Scar, which in turn dazzled the Cloud Giant. She managed to get one Strike in because of an earlier Demoralize from Krod, and that was pretty much the only one she hit. Better than poor Kyavan, who didn't even get that luxury, Victor's Wreath or not. I think his highest roll in the whole encounter was a 5, and even his utility like the +1 aura and the re-save against an effect, which he used on Krod to try and help him escape the ice, didn't manage to make a difference. Ouch.

Aeris missed an Elemental Toss, but switching to the Will spell Phantasmal Killer made a big difference, as the enemy failed and took a bunch of damage + increased her frightened condition to 2. With how much the Exemplars were goofing around thanks to poor rolls, the giant switched her attention to the casters. She attacked Aeris from a mile away with her Ranseur, and guess what? Natural 20. Another crit, an 18 on the dazzled check, and another party member with single digit HP. She also kicked Filomena a bunch with her agile attacks, but the sturdyness of Animist + dropping two Biles to Heal herself near the end helped her stay healthier than her peers.

From there, it was more Strikes and Earth's Bile + cantrips until the second foe eventually fell. In the end, no one went down, but the fight was a little demoralizing and way harder than it should. Of course, a combination of players rolling this poorly and the GM rolling this well is an anomaly. I think the players also struggled a bit with the size of the creatures + their huge reach, which made their usual "flank and spank" tactics a little harder to pull off. If anything, the fact that Han still managed to be useful and even clutch in some situations with such bad rolls attests to the power of Exemplar's utility.

Second Encounter

After some trouble with the giants, the group needed to recover. There's no need to go into detail here, but I will say that the out-of-combat healing ability of both Animist and Exemplar (if taking Garden/Scar) is absolutely crazy.

The journey continues. As the trail went on, the group started to noticed why the place is called Mountain of Myths. The normal laws of nature don't quite apply there. The mountain is a lot bigger than it seemed from afar, and there are many different biomes at different levels of it. They pushed through it all, though, until they heard a worrying sound. Voices. Distorted chanting...?

Still at a safe distance, they investigated, and found two humanoids: a hooded man in dark-red clothes, and a woman with snake hair and a bow. The man's face was not visible, but the Medusa also had those terrifying black eyes, and they said something about "finishing the ritual" while walking around the entrance of a cave. More bad news, but this time the party wouldn't let them be the first to attack.

Using the spells granted by her Imposter spirit, Filomena made herself and Han invisible with a 2nd and 3rd level slot, and the two put themselves in advantageous positions: Filomena took some higher ground, and Han successfully sneaked so that the mage cultist would be in her reach. The less stealthy party members stood a little further away and, with some Delay tech, Aeris started the fight with Revealing Light. Or as we like to call it, "The Flashbang".

The party also had a little surprise coming for them, though. As soon as the fight broken, two minotaurs came down from the upper level of the mountain. One of them blocked the passage of the group's non-invisible warriors, while the other tried to flank the Sorceress who stayed behind. Final setup: one Elite Medusa, two Elite Minotaurs, and a Demonologist. Technically a 100 XP Moderate encounter as well, but with three Elite creatures and disadvantageous terrain, it was realistically somewhere between Moderate and Severe.

The Demonologist passed the save against Aeris' spell, while the Medusa, despite her high Reflex, rolled very low and failed. Both dazzled, one for 2 rounds, the other for a minute. The Demonologist tried to Fireball Aeris, Kyavan and Krod, but they all rolled very well, and the mage end up taking more damage from invisible Han's Reactive Strike than he actually dealt with the spell. Now this was a much better start for our heroes.

Filomena used her higher ground to, once again, activate her stance and start blasting away with Earth's Bile. Targets were too spread out for the small AoE, so she decided to focus the Minotaur blocking the path, and it was very much worth it. A failure and a critical failure on the saves, and a good chunk of damage. Han saw this and decided to focus fire on the same foe, which resulted in him being almost dead after a Strike and the Strike, Breathe, Rend transcendence.

The Medusa shot Kyavan and hit him, but the second attack missed thanks to his wise decision to start with Gaze as Sharp as Steel as his active ikon. He failed the roll against poison, but re-rolled it into a success with a hero point. When it came to his turn, he sadly had to spend the whole thing Striding to where Han and Filomena were and Shifting Immanance, because his initial positioning was not very helpful. The Exemplar's lack of mobility proved to be a distinct downside in this situation. Krod, being the good Fighter he is, almost one-shot the other minotaur with a Power Attack crit, and only didn't kill him because the second attack missed, even with Furious Focus.

Round two, the party is doing very well and the bulldozing continues. Aeris kills one minotaur and damages the Demonologist with an Airball, and then uses You're Next to Demoralize as a reaction and finish the other minotaur with an Elemental Toss. They did do some damage to the party before dying, but it was almost negligible. Filomena continues her explosive rampage with an Earth's Bile into a 4th level Explosive Earth spell, finishing the Demonologist off. Han is very thankful for Aeris' previous "flashbang", as it turned the Medusa's critical hit with a deadly bow into a miss, with a roll of 2 on the flat check. She did, however, make Han slowed with her Petrifying Gaze. Krod Sudden Charged in to dish out some extra damage.

Kyavan arrives with a Mirrored Spirit Strike on the Medusa, and finally, thanks to all the gods, gets a nat 20 on the first attack. He did miss the second one, but that crit did about 70 damage between weapon damage, spirit damage and Whose Cry is Thunder. Han approached and missed all her attacks the previous turn, but simply positioning well proved to very important here. After some more kaboom damage from Filomena and a Phantasmal Killer from Aeris, Han left the Medusa half-dead with a Reactive Strike as she tried to reposition, and finished her off in her own turn with a basic Strike. Her original plans were more complex than that, but being slowed as an Exemplar really hurts.

This encounter was supposed to be harder than the first, but through better tactics, preparation, and dice that weren't absolutely atrocious, it ended up being much easier. I think the players also started "getting" the new classes a little better at this point.

With what seemed like the night coming — it was hard to tell in that eerie place — they went into the cave to rest, finishing the day.

Third Encounter

During their rest, Filomena thought about changing some of her apparitions, but ended up not doing so. In her words, swapping a whole list of spells for another whole list of spells mid-game felt like so much trouble, even compared to normal prepared casting, that it wasn't worth it. So that put aside, they continued onwards to finish their adventure.

As the group finally reached their destination, the view was quite bleak. A dark atmosphere, and the Hammer of Ur was spreading that black ooze through the cracks of the place it once landed. Standing next to it, a single humanoid creature with a grim mask and blood-red robes. The air around them smelled like death. The party knew what to do, but by now they had learned it wouldn't be so simple.

Filomena, with her absurdly high Perception modifier thanks to Medium's Awareness, tried to look for what else was wrong about that place. She rolled poorly and failed by one. But as the rest of the group tried to engage what seemed like their final foe, they quickly found that out anyway. Five shadowy undead creatures, consumed by or perhaps even made of that corrupted liquid, sprouted from the ground, and thus our final encounter began.

The vampire cultist boss was a custom-ish 10th level creature, built by applying the weak template to a Provincial Jiang-Shi, swapping their Reflex and Fortitude saves, then increasing their speed and HP a little but reducing their physical resistance and cutting on some immunities, spell slots and changing some spells. The shadow undead mooks were reflavored Withereds. Totaling 155 XP, this was a severe encounter for their group, within a tiny margin of error.

Kyavan went first, and started things off with a bang by sending an air slash imbued with lightning and thunder towards the vampire. That was the description of his Judgement From Clear Skies. The physical resistance reduced the base damage a little, but it was still a very good hit, and he then swapped to Victor's Wreath. Aeris Thunderstriked the boss, but they ended up passing the save and it was not very effective. The other three tried to start clearing some of the minions with basic Strikes and a Channeler's Stance + Fireball from Filomena, which damaged a lot of them but didn't quite finish them off yet.

On the vampire's turn, Synaptic Pulse was cast, with the whole party except for Filomena being in the area. This was the moment where Exemplar's early Master in Will made a huge difference: both Han and Kyavan rolled a success turned into a crit, and were unaffected. Aeris and Krod failed, getting stunned 2. The minions had really bad initiative and acted all together in the end, using their Surge ability and flanking to dish out some sneak attack damage. Kyavan only took one hit, but Han and Aeris each lost about a third of their health.

Kyavan striked some more and tried to use his Victor's Wreath transcendance to free Aeris from her stun, but she failed again, as the DC of 30 was very high. The sorceress had to spend her only action moving away from the enemies and out of flanking. Filomena, as expected, started her airstrike bombing by Sustaining Dance one Earth's Bile to reposition and casting two more, almost killing two of the minions. Han tried to use Rebounding Toss but failed the first attack, losing the action. She did hit a spear throw with her third action, though, almost killing another creature. Krod used his trustworthy Lunge to reach the boss and hit him for a decent chunk of damage.

This was the moment where the players regretted not focus firing. The cultist boss used a 3 action Harm, damaging all of them and healing almost every creature on the opposing team, since by this point everyone was bunched up. The withereds kept slashing, but their onslaught slowed down at this point because most of them had their Surge on cooldown.

Round 3 comes, and what was starting to look like a potential problem quickly swung again to the players' favor. Filomena chunked some of the mooks back with her Biles, and it was enough for Krog to kill two of them with a critically hit greataxe Swipe. He then moved to a better position to set up flanking for his buddies. Han killed another withered with some Strikes and Strike, Breathe, Rend, and Aeris damaged more of them and the boss with an Airball and Elemental Toss. Kyavan used Sever Four Butterfly Wings, which sounded cool on paper but wasn't super effective in practice, as with two hits followed by a miss it ended up splitting his damage and wasting actions more than helping. After everything, they managed to cut their enemies down from six to only two.

With their meat shields almost completely gone, the vampire started getting a little desperate. They went on to cast Repelling Blast, trying to damage the three melees of the group and push them away, with moderate success. Han, however, critically failed, and had already used all her hero points before. She was sent flying, knocked prone and had single digit HP left. The problem is, the remaining withered also had the exact same fate. I don't even remembered who finished that one off, but it was basically a non-threat at this point.

The nuisances were dealt with, and now it was time to focus on the main threat. Kyavan and Krod were flanking the boss, and chunked them significantly with a Power Attack and a Mirrored Spirit Strike (turning the damage into spirit was great to pierce the physical resistance here). Han had to simply get up, move and heal herself with Scar, but that by itself dazzled the boss with no saving throw, which frustrated any remaining plans I had of using melee attacks and Drain Qi. Filomena switched to single target blasts now, and if the dazzled and flanking weren't enough, Aeris threw a Reach + Slow on the vampire, who failed the save. This was the moment where I basically threw the towel.

From there, it was basically mopping up a boss that had been turned into barely a threat. They tried to use Vampiric Exsanguination and 2 action Harm in later turns to keep themselves "alive" as long as possible, but at this point it barely mattered. Kyavan went down, but Filomena put him back up with a 2 action Heal, and from there it was throwing everything they had at a meatbag until it eventually died. Funnily, the sprite got the last hit with Explosive Earth again.

Ending

With the hard part of their journey complete, the only thing left was to cleanse the hammer and retrieve it. Except... neither was exactly possible. The weapon was the size of a small building, and the corruption was already too entrenched in it. The celestial woman from the dream sent them a final message, grievingly telling them that the Hammer of Ur, the last remnant of her late son, had to be destroyed. She asked the casters in the group to mark it with her holy brand, allowing her to do the job herself.

As the group fled the mountain with divine help, an enourmous golden arrow came from the sky and crashed against the hammer, causing what could be described as a celestial nuke. That did stop the corruption, however, and as they floated back to the base of the mountain, they could see the plants and creatures of that land going back to normal. Quite a beautiful view.

With a bittersweet ending but a feeling of victory, our playtest was over.

Thoughts and Comments

In this last section, I'll gather and share comments and considerations my players had about the classes in the post-game. These aren't organized in any particular order:

- Everyone seemed to agree that the overall power of Exemplar's abilities seemed about right, at least if you pick the good options. Neither of the two Exemplars could quite compete with the Fighter in pure damage, but they did that well enough even with below-average rolls, and they had a good amount of utility for a fully martial class.

- Discussing the power level of Animist was a bit hard. Some players expressed that Earth's Bile + Sustaining Dance spam with Leap investment resulted in too much damage and mobility for a full caster to have without even spending slots. However, that seems to be an outlier build for the class, and we're not quite sure about how the others would fare.

- Filomena's player enjoyed the Animist overall, but felt like it was too complex to read, understand and actually use all it has to offer. The table overall agreed that they would feel the same if they were the ones playing the class. Swapping your spell list in a 10 minute rest in big chunks like that and with all of them being sigs is a bit impractical without a lot of setup (like printing cards of your apparitions, making multiple Foundry sheets or something similar).

- When asked about it in more detail, she said she would prefer if the class was, or at least had an option to be, more focused. Cuting on the versatility of crazy spellcasting methods, infinite signature spells and swapping half your spell list extremely fast to be better at a certain set of things depending on what apparition she wanted to focus.

- Filomena's player felt like spamming vessel spells was very effective, but not very fun. After casting one, she felt too pressured to keep the sustain going for the entire encounter unless something really bad happened. This ended in her actual slotted spells being a little underused. Sustaining Dance was quite overcentralizing on her build, but the action economy would have been super clunky without it.

- Both Exemplar players commented that the class felt good to play and flowed well until the moment you're stuck in an ikon that has a situational transcendence. Choosing between a dead action (Shift) and a virtually-dead action (using a transcendence that does nothing in the moment) isn't the best feeling. Having one of your three base ikons have a niche special action felt like a bit of a trap, and currently a lot of them do.

- Repeating some of what was said in the Character Creation part, both Exemplars felt like internal balance between options within the class is what needs the most work right now. A lot of focus is put on weapons as well, and all the rest seems a bit undersupported.

- Both Exemplars liked the idea of having optional focus spells, but did not like that those were pulled from Cleric Domains. They'd prefer if the class had its own martial-inclined focus spells, like a Monk.

- Both Exemplars felt like the class' action econony made it very hard to use skill actions, or any other actions that aren't the class' abilities.

- Kyavan's player restated his desire for medium armor as a base thing in the class, citing how some classic Exemplars like King Arthur used medium or even heavy armor, on top of mechanical concerns.

- Kyavan's player said the whole ikon shifting thing works, but both from a thematical and a character building standpoint, he'd like to have the option of building a simpler Exemplar who has a single ikon that's iconic to them (no pun intended) and focus on that only.

- Kyavan's player said Gaze as Sharp as Steel has a glaring issue right now. It doesn't give you Reactive Strike often enough that you feel comfortable skipping the feat, but if you do have the feat, the transcendence is completely useless.

- Han's player was particularly fond of Palisade Bangles, as giving all your allies an AC bonus that stacks with shields is rare, unique and feels particularly on-theme. The transcendance, however, only being able to pull a target towards you and with a Fortitude save, ended up being too situational. She only used it once, unsuccessfully.

- Han's player thought Peerless Under Heaven had an extremely cool flavor but was a little underpowered. Simply getting crit spec as a 7th level feature felt weak compared to Whose Cry is Thunder, and the active was too much of a risk for too little a reward.

- Han's player felt like Scar of the Survivor was considerably stronger than other body ikons.

- As a last note, to address narrative concerns I've seen some having: no one in our group felt like Exemplar was particularly inclined to causing "main character syndrome". Some players expressed the class doesn't even feel like it needs to be Rare.

Ever since the game released, people have asked for blasters to be better, and have been met with different variations of "but casters have spells, they're too versatile, they can't do high damage!". Alright, that's fair. Ever since then my group and I have been waiting for the famed Kineticist, the class that doesn't have slots but is a magic user that can be a real blaster. What we got in this playtest is as far away from that as it can possibly be.

Let's start with Blast. TL;DR: it's basically a bow. Maybe a slightly worse bow. d6 agile, or d8 but with pretty bad range. d4 with high range if you want to snipe people with wet noodles. "But it's ranged, it should be balanced with a bow!", you may be thinking. And yeah, except this is not a Fighter with a bow. It's not a Ranger or Inventor with a bow. The blasts do the same damage as a Champion with a bow. The class that explicitly doesn't have any damage booster feature because it's tanky as a brick and has the best reactive ability in the game. Not only we're competing with that low of a bar, but we're probably losing to it, because Kineticist also hits with a secondary stat and has a random 2 level delay on their Expert attack proficiency.

But it also has non-blast impulses, and those might make up for it, right...? Well, let's take a look at those. The average overflow impulse does 2d4 + 1d4 per 2 character levels, which is ever so slightly worse than a cantrip like Spout or Scatter Scree (1d4+4 + 1d4 per 2 character levels). But they're AoE! Yes, they are, but they also cost 2+1 actions, and are on a class that only goes to Master DC and will probably want to Apex Str or Dex instead of their key. Some, like Tidal Hands or Aerial Boomerang, are a little stronger, but they also come with area shapes that make you spend even more actions setting them up (cones and lines). And let's keep in mind we're comparing them to cantrips, the weakest feature of a class that has full spellcasting. And Scatter Scree is also an AoE that's basically a more convenient 5ft burst. And I didn't even bring Electric Arc into the table!

As for weaving blasts and overflows to take advantage of one being a save and the other being an attack roll... well I won't say that's not possible, but realistically you can only do that every other turn, assuming you never ever have to move or take any other actions, which is quite an assumption.

Look, I'm not saying this class is all bad. It has neat utility options (shoutout to Flinging Updraft a.k.a The Yeet™). It has good ideas. But man, for it to remotely live up to expectations from people who wanted a no-nonsense blaster, people who liked 1e Kineticist, or honestly, even the own balance of PF2 in terms of how much the Kineticist gives up for the features they get, the damage potential needs to be buffed... A LOT.

With the latest releases, I believe it's become more and more apparent that Paizo's general philosophy with post-core content is to undershoot things. By undershooting, I mean aiming the balance point of new content at or slightly below the mildest options in the CRB. And well, it makes sense. Power creep is a problem that has plagued games forever, and an option that's too good is a lot more disruptive than an option that's too bad. These arguments have been thrown around many times, and honestly, they're not wrong.

But... I still think that has lead to an overall unsatisfying arrangement. What inspired me to make this post was some recent discussion about the APG errata and general disappointment with Witches not getting any changes despite their "meh" status. This is a feeling that has been bugging in the back of my mind for a lot longer than that, though.

It just seems like new content is so conservative in regards to power level that it's almost always worse than what already exists. New classes have worse base stats, more downsides and have to jump through more hoops in return for some gimmicky abilities. New archetypes are often way too costly for what they do, and sometimes straight up make your character worse (looking at you, Elementalist and Vampire). The few exceptions tend to be on the smaller scale and almost feel like happy little accidents, like a single spell or item in a whole book.

At first it made sense to me, but over time it's slowly making me less and less excited about new content. Of course I'm not asking for every new class to be a Bard and every new feat to be Divine Reflexes, but can't we do a little better than now?

Hello everyone! Since PF2 released in 2019, the Monk has always been my favorite class, but I've noticed a lack of more in-depth guides about it. After playing a considerable amount of different Monks and building more of them than I'd like to admit on Pathbuilder, I decided to give a try at making said guide.

HERE'S THE LINK TO THE GOOGLE DOC.

If you have any feedback or things you'd like to discuss about the class, you're more than welcome to do so.

As much as 2e combat can be fun and engaging, with the amazing 3-action economy and some incredibly fun feats like Whirling Throw in the game, I've been having a feeling recently that there was something a bit missing compared to other editions of d20 systems I used to play, and I think I finally managed to pin down what it is a little better. As much fun as it can be to get a Bleeding Finisher crit on a Swashbuckler or to have an enemy crit fail one of your spells as a Wizard, it seems like the great, great majority of cool moments in Pathfinder 2e boil down to one thing: extreme luck.

What's really missing, in my opinion of course, is limited-use abilities that let you, the player, choose when you're gonna have your flashy spotlight moment, or at least give yourself a huge chance that that will happen. Actively seeing you have a great opportunity in hand and making yourself shine, instead of just reacting to a moment of dice luck with a cool description. The great, great majority of martial abilities and feats are at-will, and even for casters using a top level slot hardly ever feels like something out of the ordinary. You have your rare thing like Quicken Spell in the bunch, but they're usually restricted in so many different ways that they're rarely worth using.

That being said, I do think there are some outliers. Ki Strike is a very cool Focus Spell for Monks that let you specifically have this one, powerful alpha strike when you want to, for no added action cost. Path of Iron from Martial Artist is another good example. Even more so than these two, the PT Gunslinger feat called Dance of Thunder, despite the not-so-perfect execution and being quite a weak feat for its level, shows the potential this kind of ability has if it's executed on a little better. I really hope we see more stuff like this in the future.

Every time I see the topic of difficulty come up in the boards or on the Pathfinder Discord, one thing that is said a lot, even by some people who defend the standard difficulty of the game being where it is (I don't), is that Adventure Paths and modules in 2e are generally very hard. Harder than most GMs would ever make their homebrew games. And honestly...? It's really jarring to me that this is the case.

As the content that is most easily accessible to people who are new to the game, shouldn't published adventures be playable and fun your average group who picked up the game somewhat recently? Instead, they're filled with very level+ boss fights, even at low levels; sequences of a bajillion encounters that you need extremely tight resource management to even have a chance; and a very scary amount of deathtraps and similar things.

On the last point, difficulty isn't the only reason I think AP designers seem to be treating the game like an old school meatgrinder. Between level+ bosses with death effects, hazards that crit people on 12s, and monsters and traps that can literally instakill you on a critically failed save (with an obtusively high DC to pair, of course), pretty much every adventure that isn't the Beginner Box's seems to be going for the feel of a gritty grimdark game where life's always on the line and you can lose your character to one unlucky moment. But isn't Pathfinder supposed to be a game about epic heroes?

Super hard adventures existing is not a problem, don't get me wrong, but should't they be the minority? Or at least, not the majority (or all of them)? And probably advertised as such? Expecting new GMs with new groups that picked up their first AP to know how to adjust difficulty down, or even know that it needs to be adjusted in the first place, is insane to me. It feels like putting the burden on the wrong people, and ends up being a huge barrier of entry to a game that is otherwise very accessible.

I guess I might be screaming at the wind, but if someone on Paizo is reading this: please, try to consider new and casual players a bit more when designing your next adventures. They need content they can pick up and play too, and probably more than anyone else. Pathfinder isn't, and imo shouldn't be, a hardcore-exclusive game.

All right, I know, the title of this post sounds like insanity. The class has GUN in its name. But I do hope to make at least a somewhat reasonable point here. The more I read the Gunslinger class and especially after seeing it in play, the more I think having the class this tied up to guns is just damaging to what it could achieve. Why? Because there are a few awesome feats and abilities in the Playtest that show what a gem this class could be if those ties were loosened a bit.

Things like Risky Reload and Dance of Thunder show a glimpse of what a high-octane martial that takes big risks for big rewards looks like. Not like Swashbuckler, that relies a lot of randomness and the risk is simply not doing damage for the turn, but a martial class that can actually nova with a big special move, but also risks a lot to do it. Others, like Grit and Tenacity and Drifter's Wake, show how awesome a class with the theme of an iron will wanderer who does precise maneuvers and tricks that basically defy reality can be. But... being so tied to guns (and other reload weapons, for the matter) really seems to be holding the class back. You have to spend so many feats on "fixing" reload, and so much of the power budget is allocated to being the best with guns, not to mention how other styles that could have played amazingly (like full melee or a trickshot archer) are excluded, when, in my opinion, they really don't need to.

I have seen a good amount of suggestions of making Drifter the class and Gunslinger one of the subclasses. Honestly? I love it, but I'm pretty sure it's not happening, as Gunslinger is already being marketed as such. But I really hope to see more ways for people to experiment with different playstyles in the final release, instead of being so pigeonholed into a few specific weapon pairings by proficiency and mandatory features.

I've been toying around with some fun builds lately and decided to share a couple here. This is the first one and probably my favorite. The class being used is Swashbuckler, and the main idea of the build is being a hybrid between a mid-range damage dealer and a party supporter by taking advantage of two very cool feats from the class: One For All and Flying Blade.

This is pretty short-ranged for a ranged build, but it compensates for that by doing a lot of damage compared to what an archer would, and also turning your other damage dealers into freaking monsters. If you like the idea of weapon throwing, which is usually not very well supported in most systems, and also throwing inspiring one-liners at your friends and quips at your enemies, you might really enjoy this build.

The build comes with a mini-guide explaining the choices and how to use it, so I'll put it in a separate document for ease of use:

Here

What I'm going to talk about here is something my players and I have been having issues with for the little over a year we've been playing 2e, but the recent removal of finesse maneuvering as a mechanic is what made me think I really need to start a thread about this. The main issue boils down to Dexterity-based martial characters having a lot of issues with build paths and early game damage.

Archers have the advantage of range, but their flat 1d6 damage with the usual preferred weapon (Shortbow) is so low that you can actually do more damage with cantrips for the first few levels (considerably more at level 3). And that's not even counting Electric Arc. Characters with a damage booster like Sneak Attack or Precision Edge get a little better, but the early levels are pretty sad if you are a Flurry Ranger archer, a Fighter, a Monastic Archer Monk or, god forbid, an archer Champion.

But archers do have the range advantage after all, so let's get into what I think are the real losers in this whole situation: Finesse melee characters. Finesse characters exist in a limbo, or a catch-22, or whatever you want to call it, because they have two options.

One of them is going full Dexterity and ignoring Strength, which promptly causes you to have all the aforementioned issues for archers, except you lose the one advantage they have. You have archer damage, but no range. Even Swashbuckler, the class that is explicitly made to fight in melee with finesse weapons, can barely do the same damage of a Greatsword swing from a Champion at level 1, with a finisher, if you have no Strength. A finisher that requires setup with a failure chance and extra actions. I won't even go in detail about Fighter, Flurry Ranger or any of those poor unboosted souls, who can do upwards of 60% less damage than their Str counterparts with similar weapons (Rapier vs Longsword, for example).

The other option is investing in Strength, which should be easy enough. Except... it isn't. 18 Dexterity and 16 Strength takes away almost all of your stat boosts at level 1, and Strength, unfortunately, is a stat that scales backwards as a secondary stat. What I mean by that is, the more you level up, the less signifcant Strength to damage is, going from about 90-110% extra damage to barely 10%. The more you level, the more you regret putting those points into Strength instead of the saving throw stats, which high level monsters can absolutely anihilate you with. And if you are a class that needs a third stat, like 90% of Swashbucklers, you have no option. The best you can ever get is 18 Dex/16 Cha/14 Str, which still leaves you with some not-so-great damage while also having low Con, low Wisdom and isn't even a valid array for a lot of ancestries.

Starting a finesse character at level 1 and leveling up to 20 or starting it at 11 and leveling up to 20 are two completely different experiences where one of them is clearly more satisfying, and I would definitely argue that's a problem.

Now, I won't pretend having high Dexterity instead of Strength does not have its advantages. You do have higher Reflex saves, you do have better ranged options, and you do have a wider array of skills, but Strength users have many options to cover from those weaknesses. Bulwark exists. Mighty Bulwark exists if you really want to push it. You can Trip with Bolas at a distance against flying enemies, or get some anti-air spells via Dedications or Ancestry feats. Most of the essential uses of Acrobatics can be covered by Athletics, and while Thievery and Stealth are good skills to have, not having them is not gimping your character in any way or form. I can very safely have an effective 18 Strength / 10 Dexterity character, but the only way to ever do the opposite and not having to slog your way through the early levels is playing a Thief Rogue.

And it's not like Strength doesn't have its own strengths (haha) either. They have bigger dice on weapons in general, and access to good two-handed weapons. Heavy Armor gives you +1 AC. Athletics is one of the most rolled skills in many games, and maneuvers, if Strength is your main stat and you're fully investing in it, can be amazing. Finesse characters used to be able to do this, but they can't anymore. The already weak characters got even weaker with the last errata.

I don't know what's the best solution for this. Letting more people use Dexterity to damage is an obvious suggestion, but given how a lot of people are more afraid of the ghost of Dexterity, the God Stat, than I'm afraid of fighting a Lesser Death as a Magus, that might not be the best solution. In the end, I just hope Paizo finds a way to give your dextrous warriors out there who prefer using their grace and precision to fight than their brawns some love. They really need it.

Boss fights in PF2 have two traits that... I won't say are necessarily issues for everyone, but they have been appointed as issues by my players and also by a lot of people in these forums. They are:

First: instead of feeling like an epic battle, bosses make the players feel somewhat useless because their chances of succeeding at any given task are so low. This is extra bad for spellcasters when they need to use resources to do their thing, and a lot of people feel like using their strongest offensive spells against bosses is a waste of time, unless they're Magic Missile.

Second: boss fights are extremely swingy because bosses crit so easily and they'll almost always down all but the beefiest of PCs in one well-rolled attack. If you're a fragile spellcaster, it almost feels like every boss has a Disintegrate attached to their weapon.

The solution I'm proposing here is something I've always used in previous systems but only came to more consciously think about after Matthew Colville's video called Action Oriented Monsters. If you haven't watched it, I definitely recommend checking it out. In PF2 terms, it basically consists in, instead of simply using a level +2, level +3 or level +4 (oof) creature, using a slightly weaker creature as a baseline and adapting it. This differs from an Elite Adjustement in that while the Elite Adjustment simply makes a creature have the stats of a higher level, we are going to adapt it specifically with being a boss in mind, while keeping the fight less swingy.

I've effectively done this a couple of times by now, and it has worked very well. However, this is not anything exact nor am I a game designer, so these are more like tips of things to try than a straight process. Tinker with it until it feels good for what you game wants to do; this is an art, not a science. With that being said, here's an aproximation of what I'm doing:

- Pick a creature you want to be your big baddy. I've found this works better with level +1 creatures, but as long as you can adapt the to hit bonuses, saving throws, skill checks and DCs of a creature to be somewhat close to a level+1, you can pick something lower or much higher and it can still work.

- Considerably increase the hit points of the creature so it can take a good beating from your party before going down. Do NOT increase any other defensive stats to anything higher than what a level+1 creature would have.

- If you picked a creature that has a starting level too different from your party's level, consider messing with it's normal actions and abilities a bit. Give it new abilities if you feel like one normal turn from the creature might be too weak (the advice in the GMG can help with this), and remove them if you feel like it might be too strong. This is extra important for Spells: be VERY careful so your boss doesn't have spells that are too strong for the party to handle.

- This is where the magic happens. Give your boss actions it can use when any other creature's turn ends. I like to give them a number of "boss action points", just like they have three in their normal turn, and some of these consume 1, 2 or 3 of these, using the already-established 3 action system to our advantage. It's important to note that, following the rules for Free Actions, no matter how many "boss action points" an action costs, they can only use one per trigger. This way your players always have a chance to react to a boss' move before it makes its next.

What these abilities can do? Well, anything, but be careful with giving the boss too many offensive options it can use to Nova. What I've been doing is that any strike made with these actions has a -5 Penalty. Making them multi-target damage (so the boss is threatening to everyone but can't focus fire one target to oblivion), utility, summoning weak minions, changing the nature of the battlefield and repositioning are also things that can work very well. Again, Tinker with it, this part comes with practice.

- Make so this creature counts as a level+2 for the purposes of Incapacitation, Counteracting, etc.

Once you're done with it and with a bit of trial and error, the result will be a boss fight that the players can't insta-win with one button (because the Incapacitation trait is still there and the creature has a lot of hit points), and is still very threateting to the party (since they essentially have the action economy of multiple creatures), but also won't make your party feel like they fail 75% of the time they try to do anything and can instantly die to a crit on a natural 13.

Before I end this, you might be asking "isn't this basically 5e Legendary Actions with extra steps?". Well... yes, it is. I have many gripes with 5e, but I think Legendary Actions are an incredibly good design and something that Paizo could have used very effectively in this game, since the game is all about actions and it already has it's entire framework built around them. If you think this is a cool idea but I've missed something, please leave a comment saying so, and if you ever get to try it, please let me know if you liked it or if I indirectly TPK'd your party :)

This is the first post I make here since the Playtest, but I think it's an important topic that hasn't been discussed that much. The starting shield numbers are fine, I have nothing to complain about them, and I really love how the shield rules work in general, but... When you get to higher and higher level shields, stuff starts getting a little worrying, to say the least. The problem can basically be summed up as "anything that's not a Sturdy Shield gets progressively worse at blocking with levels", but I'll explain it in more detail here:

Let's start with the Lion's Shield. It's a level 6 shield, 6 hardness, 36 HP. Not exactly the best, but it's still pretty useable at that level. Compared to a level 4 Minor Sturdy Shield (8 Hardness, 64 HP), it's a little weaker and more expensive, but has an effect. It's not the greatest effect to be honest, but if this was the norm, I would be pretty much fine with it. But it's not. It gets worse, much worse.

Let's take our shield dude to 10th level and take a look at the Forge Warden. Gives a bit of fire resist, lets you deal 2d6 damage to someone when you block their attack. Pretty good, right? Well, its stats are Hardness 6, 24 HP. Not only atrocious compared to a level 10 Sturdy Shield (Hardness 13, 104 HP), but it's actually worse than the 6th level I just mentioned. In fact, it's just slightly, almost insignificantly better than a 1st level Steel Shield. Just as a point of comparison, a Marid, which is a pretty averagely-statted 9th level creature hits for 2d8+11, which could easily destroy (not break) this shield in one hit. Without a crit.

As I've mentioned though, this gets worse as you go higher in the levels. If you look at the highest level specific shield in the game (that's not the Indestructible one, which is good for obvious reasons), the Reflecting Shield, it has... The exact same stats as the Forge Warden. What? At this level, even a level-4 creature can easily one shot this on a low roll. Just as a comparison, a 19th level Sturdy Shield has 20 Hardness and 160 HP.

My point with all of that is. I'm pretty sure the intention would be that you could choose between having a Sturdy Shield and block a decently higher amount of damage, or have a specific shield and block a little less, but have a cool effect too. That's totally not what happens in practice though, because it looks like all the specific shields were statted completely ignoring their levels for some reason.

I've taken a look at the Precious Metal shields, and they follow the same pattern for the most part. Some (like the Orichalcum Shield) are a little more decent, but some others (like the Silver Shield) manage to be even worse. In general, I'm happy with the shield rules, but I'm really trying to understand what happened with their stats.

PS: Just as a cool little Shield Fact™️, if you use an Arrow-Catching shield against an arrow of a level-appropriate creature, you have like a 90% chance of attracting the arrow to you and that arrow instantly breaking your Arrow-Catching shield like a sheet of paper. Fun times.

Jason and Erik did an interview at games UK Expo. The interview itself wasn't very spoiler-y, but they did flip through book pages. I took the time to capture the best frames where the lighting lets you see each part of the pages with a video editor and put them all HERE.

PS: Yes, I have a lot of free time and not a lot of sanity.

I was taking a closer look at the Bard now, since one of my players is going to play one and it's the first one I have in a PF2 game, and I've noticed something odd. One of, if not the most popular concept for a Bard is the guy that weaves between playing his instruments to cast spells and striking with finesse weapons. However, with the current rules, it looks like you can't play an instrument as part of the Material Casting action if one of your hands are occupied unless you have some type of exotic instrument that can be played with one hand. From what I can see, in practice that would mean wasting a lot of actions sheathing and drawing your weapon, even if it's a one-handed weapon, and that a Bard is actually better off not using the instrument and just casting spells with a component pouch. Am I missing something?

So those who have seen some of my previous posts probably noticed that I'm not a big fan of ACP and speed penalties from armor. I do think both share three main issues:

1 - Overcomplicated. Although it might be confusing for very new players, I don't think subtracting a number from your checks or you speed is hard. The problem is knowing which actions it applies to, and if things are going to work as Jason said on the stream (some non-Attack uses of Athletics also don't get ACP), it's going to get even worse.

2 - Heavily punishing for martials. Right now both of those make heavy armor extra punishing for melee Strenght-focused characters, who are the ones supposed to be good with heavy armor in the first place. You basically only use it if you are "forced" to by having low Dex.

3 - Too easy to get for spellcasters. Currently a Wizard or a Sorcerer can get a Paladin Dedication or a Fighter Dedication and another feat to just unlock heavy armor and increase their AC by a ton with no stat investment. ACP and speed penalties are also a lot less harsh for them in general than they are for martials.

I'm here to present an alternative for those who have a similar feeling. I've been using it for 2 or 3 sessions in my home game and it's working great:

ACP and speed penalties are removed. The Clumsy trait is removed as well. Some armor and shields have a Minimum Strength stat, that goes as follows:

Chain mail, breastplate and heavy shields: 12

Splint mail and half plate: 14

Full plate: 16

If you wear a piece of armor or a shield that you don't fulfill the minimum Strength requirement, you get a -4 untyped penalty to ALL Acrobatics, Athletics, Stealth and Thievery checks, your speed is reduced by 10 feet and you have to pass a DC 5 flat check every time you try to cast a spell with a Somatic Casting or Verbal Casting action or fail and lose the spell.

The Noisy trait gives you a -2 item penalty to all Stealth checks.

Being encumbered now gives you a -2 item penalty to all Acrobatics, Athletics, Stealth and Thievery checks.

Unburdened Dwarf's ability becomes: You can ignore the speed penalty from being encumbered and you can wear armor and shields with no downsides even if you don't meet the minimum Strength requirement.

I was taking a look at the poison rules and some things came to my mind. Injury and ingested poisons are simple enough (although I'm going to houserule that you don't lose an injury poison on a miss). I'm trying to understand, however, the other two types.

Contact poisons: Let's pretend that not being able to apply it to a melee weapon attack makes sense. Can I apply it to a crossbow bolt? Can I just throw the bottle into someone's face? I'm trying to understand exactly how this works.

Inhaled poisons: Those are a lot more understandable, but there's still one thing I'm trying to get. Do I create this cloud of poison by throwing the bottle at a point? If so, what's the range for this?

I'm finishing up the details and houserules for my upcoming Rise of the Runelords: PF2 Edition campaign. After a lot of playtesting, me and my players came to the conclusion that we love PF2, but we absolutely can't stand classic Vancian casting, so I'm houseruling it away in favor of the Arcanist/Neo-vancian style.

Currently I have so that casters can prepare an amount of spells equal to Level + Casting Stat Modifier (like 5e), and they can cast any prepared spell using a level-appropriate slot as normal for Arcanist Casting. However, my biggest issue has been how to give more stuff to Bards and Sorcerers to make them not completely obsolete. More spell points? Individually buff all of their powers? I'm not sure, so I'm here asking those who have more system mastery to help me with this. If you have a better way of determining the number of prepared spells that would be great too, I'm satisfied but not set in stone with the current one.

So... I've been in the Playtest forums for a while, and now that the Playtest is coming to a real close, I wanted to write a pretty extensive text on my general impressions and what I'd like to see going foward. I hope this feedback is somehow useful for the Paizo.

First of all, thanks Paizo for providing this Playtest environment and actually hearing and working on the feedback you get. Unfortunately this should be the rule for Alphas and Betas but it isn't (D&D Next Playtest, WoW BFA Beta, etc.). Like everyone I had some things that didn't go the way I prefered, but that's just life. Also thanks to all the other folks in these forums that engaged in civil discussion about all that stuff, both those who agreed and disagreed with my points of view. Without further ado, I can't humanly talk about every thing that I like/dislike, but here are some of the highlights:

The Good

- The general vibe of PF2. I don't know if that's the objective that Paizo is looking for, but the game really felt like and attempt to give depth and choice without unnecessary complexity. As a player/GM who always found PF1 to be too complex for the sake of it in a lot of thingst but also found 5e to be too shallow, that's great.

- The 3-action system. This is probably the single most loved feature of the Playtest and there's a reason for that. It's even simpler than 5e's move, action, bonus action to explain for new players while also giving a huge amount of different options on how you want your turn to go.

- The design on martial classes. The Fighter, Monk and Rogue gain extra points here for me, but all martial classes are miles away from the previous iterations. They are stronger, but not too powerful, and most importantly, they have tons of variety. When I read the Fighter Feats for the first time I was thinking about like 10 different builds and each one of them actually played in a different way in combat.

- No more /caster level scaling on spells. I know this hurts for some people, but this was the root of the "linear fighters, quadratic wizards" problem. You got new, more powerful options but all your old options also got stronger, automatically, so every new caster level was exponentially more powerful than the previous one. This got out of hand really fast.

- Weapon traits. Oh boy as a fan and student of HEMA how much I love those. Of course they aren't 100% realistic but weapons actually behaving differently and not just having different damage die, type and crit rate/damage is great.

- Modularity. The way characters are built in PF2 makes customization very easy, and the amount of different combinations will grow exponentially when new options from splatbooks are added. This also makes homebrewing a lot easier. I also really love the multiclassing system.

- Monster design. The 3-action system combined with the new design choices on monsters makes them really amazing. I'm not that concerned about "monster math being different than PC math", but I'm mostly talking about their unique abilities and actions. Every creature feels unique and not just a reskinned bag of hit points with maybe a 1/day ability.

- Character balancing. I love the fact that you can now have an optimized and a non-optimized character in the same party and both can actually play and contribute to the group. You can't just pull some weird bonuses from somewhere and have +18 to something at level 5. It's also a lot harded to make a useless character unless you actively try to.

The Bad

- Classic Vancian casting. I have an extensive thread about this, not going to cross-reference to it, but I really think keeping this is an unnecessary nod to tradition and a big gatekeeper for new players.

- Magic item dependence. I know the big six were reduced to like... the big two? But I'd rather see the big zero, and people getting magical items because they do cool stuff, and not because they are useless without them.

- How some things that any human being is capable of doing are gated for no reason. I'm talking about things like Quick Intimidation or Group Impression. Do I really need to have a feat to try to coerce someone in the beggining of a conversation? Or... god forbid... TALK TO MORE THAN ONE PERSON AT THE SAME TIME?

- Armor. Just armor in general and the way it works. Currently wearing anything other than Light Armor feels like a penalty for not having enough Dexterity. Shoehorning some classes into using Heavy Armor doesn't solve the problem, it kind of makes it worse. Also, big ACP + tight math = classes are bad at the things they are supposed to be good. The Fighter in heavy armor probably has worse Athletics than the Wizard.

- Trinkets. They could be implemented a little bit better with Resonance and Focus, but since those two are gone now, I don't think they are going to work very well either way.

I'm not going to talk about the math because of course that's something that needs a lot of work, and it's probably what they are working the most in right now.

The Ugly (things that were great ideas but need better implementation)

- UTEML. I know the math on this is going to change, and I like the changes, but it's not enough. Better examples for what higher levels of proficiency can do and rebalancing the Skill Feats to be a lot better than they currently are would help this aspect a lot.

- The Divine spell list. It really needs more options, Heal is good, REALLY good, but the rest doesn't have enough power and versatility.

- Bonus types. I love that the amount got reduced, but there are two big issues here. The first one is how much stuff that are base class features just overlap (Barbarian Rage being the big example). The second one is how confusing the terms Conditional and Circumstance are.

- The Alchemist. The class got a lot better with 1.6, but my biggest gripe is still how most of their buffs get almost useless if you just have level-appropriate magic gear. Also only Mutagenists getting mutagens by RAW is just crazy.

- The Paladin. Again, 1.6 had great changes. I still really dislike how the class is attached to a reactive playstyle, instead of it being an option. Also, read the armor part.

- Powers. I really, really love the idea of powers and spell points, but maybe with the Paladin being the exception, all powers are just so... meh. Some of them are really flavorful, but they are currently very weak in general. I know some classes like the Universalist Wizard aren't supposed to get powerful Powers, but the Sorcerer and Cleric definetly should, for instance. Their Bloodlines/Domains are a huge part of their identity.

I could also talk about non-blasting spells in general but again, I know Paizo is working on that.

That's basically it. Although I'm not quitting, I'm probably going to reduce my activities on the forum until any news come from Paizo. Again, thanks to everyone that participated in this, and I'm hoping Pathfinder Second Edition becomes the greatest game it can be.

This is probably going to be a pretty long ramble. I usually don't do this, because I am liking the way the Playtest is going in general, but this topic is pretty important for me. Well, here we go:

I'm trying to understand why Paizo didn't even leave a question on the surveys about this, classic Vancian x other systems (Arcanist, most probably). I mean, is it so set in stone that they aren't willing to get feedback on this? If so... why? I'm gonna talk a little bit about my experiences with it but this one single thing has been the biggest roadblock for new people to get into PF2 from what I've seen. By pretty far, actually. Well, here are some of the reasons I think Vancian casting is bad and should be replaced by Arcanist or other more modern spellcasting system:

- As I've said, it really turns new players down from trying the game. I have commented about this in other threads, but almost every person I pitched PF2 to and didn't want to try it was because of this. And, also, from the 20 or so people that I've DMed to, this was a dealbreaker for like... half of them?

- It doesn't make any sense. People call it "revolver spells" for a reason, I mean, do you get Neuralyzed by MIB every time you cast a spell? I had multiple people that didn't understand the logic behind this even after playing 5 or 6 sessions as a prepared caster, they just kind of accepted it.

- It makes prepared spellcaster's power level fluctuate very hard between adventuring days. If you prepared the correct spells you are going to contribute a lot or even auto-win the encounter (although the latter was reduced a lot in PF2). If you prepared the wrong spells you can sit down and pull your popcorn, because you aren't going to contribute at all.

- A little bit of an extension of the last point, but this makes people afraid of preparing cool and different stuff. You could prepare some castings of Bind Undead to enter the Necromancer's tower, but what if he has non-undead minions first, or his minions are already binded by him? Well, guess it's better to just prepare 3 Fireballs then. People end up just preparing their generic spells over and over again because any other thing could go to complete waste.

- It even hurts spontaneous casters as well. How? Because now their advantage is just not using this terrible system. If prepared casters used Arcanist-style casting, Bloodline Powers and Compositions could be a lot stronger without making Sorcerers and Bards too powerful in relation to the rest of the casters.

Paizo, I'm here to sincerely ask: You don't need to just go and change the entire spellcasting system with no data, but please, at least consider letting people give feedback on this in the surveys. I've seen so much people both in the forums and IRL manifesting that they want this system gone. Even some diehard PF1 fans have said that if one thing should actually change, it's this.

Title. Does Arnor Check Penalty need to exist as a game mechanic?

Apart from making heavy armor something you would only pick if you want to dump Dex, it creates another issue that is even worse IMO. People that should be good at certain things are equal or worse than those who shouldn't because they are wearing armor. This also creates another deeper issue. Pathfinder 2's proficiency system is built with the assumption of an universal math, but ACP kind of breaks it.

Every single skill check, attack, etc. can have the same DC to represent the same difficulty, but if you do this to Athletics checks, for instance, the success rate is going to be a lot lower for a lot of characters, because there is a -1 to -5 there that doesn't exist anywhere else in the system. So you either need to lower the DCs and use a different math just for those checks, and make them a walk in the park for those who don't have ACP, or you don't and now the Fighter with 18 Str has a 70% chance of failing at something he is supposed to be good at.

Now let's talk a little bit about the other side. What's the real benefit of this mechanic other than "it's legacy"? Realism? A lot of people have mentioned guys doing cartwheels in plate armor and the like, but even if it was that encumbering, is a guy climbing in armor immersion-breaking in the same world that guy can jump off a cliff in armor and not break his legs?

No matter what's your opinion on the Cleric class itself, I can safely assume that most people agree the current Divine spell list has a lot of problems. With some of the ones I've seen appointed the most being:

- Lack of good, non-situational, offensive spells until very high levels.

- Low duration and/or effect of buffs

- Control/Area Denial spells just being a lot worse than the other spell lists

- Heal and Breath of Life apparently taking all the "power budget" from the entire list.

- Harm scaling a lot worse than Heal. I can see the issues that much single target nova with 3 1-action Harms could cause if it scaled with 2d8, but it's too bad currently.

Feel free to add more of the problems if I forgot some (I probably did), but I'm mainly asking for your possible solutions. I came up with one thing that could help a little bit:

Adding a generic cantrip that actually deals decent ranged damage to any creature. Something like Sacred Flame from 5e. It doesn't need to be as good as Ray of Frost (maybe the same damage with a Save instead of a touch attack, but with no rider effect?), but it needs to exist.

I'd like to know what is the one aspect of a class that bothers you a lot or even makes you not want to play that class at all. Please try to keep it at just the one thing that you dislike the most, so the feedback is easier to read.

I will start with mine: The fact that all the Alchemist's elixirs and mutagens don't stack with magic items, and a lot of them are made useless by just having level-appropriate potency runes.

I've recently bought Rise of the Runelords on Fantasy Grounds to DM for my regular group after our last campaign ended. They are all new to Golarion, and they really liked the idea of the adventure path when I pitched it to them, so I decided that this will be our next campaign.

However... I've heard A LOT of people saying that while the campaign is pretty balanced between roleplaying, exploration and combat in the first books, that is not the case in the later ones. Our last campaign ended early because we were playing Out of the Abyss (5th Edition adventure) and it just became a slog after a while with just combat and loneliness in the Underdark, which works kinda like a megadungeon, and I don't want the same to happen here when we get near the end of this AP. Do you guys have any tips on how to balance RP and combat a little bit better, especially in books 4 and 5?

After some discussion me and my group pretty much unanimously accepted that we didn't like damage die scaling with magic weapons instead of the character. I already gave a lot of feedback on this, but since we've completed the Playtest and now want to just play for fun (and we really liked the system) I'm just going to houserule that away.

I'm just going to give extra damage die at some levels for everyone that is at least trained with that weapon, however, there is something I'm not really sure about. Should I do it on levels 4/8/12/16 or 5/9/13/17? The former is the levels that characters are supposed to get magic items, I guess, but I'm not really sure. Especially because spellcasters only get new spell levels at odd character levels so there could be a lot of discrepancy between characters in those even ones.

I would like to re-open a discussion that I find very important, and has actually been opened here some times, but in most cases started with a very specific example or request and eventually derailed into something else.

Paizo seems to be trying to find a way to make all attributes useful for all characters, which is indeed a great way of giving more options and more diversity. I'm currently running a campaign of 5e to some newer players that find 3.5 and PF1 to be too complex, and some of the things that really bog me there is how Intelligence, Charisma AND Strength are completely dumpable if your class doesn't depend on them somehow.

Before starting this thread I have asked both groups I'm currently DMing the Platest to about what they think each attribute acomplishes now and how they are balanced against each other, before taking specific class scalings into account. This is the general feedback I've gathered from them and from myself as the DM:

(All the comments below are as of update 1.6 and considering the Resonance Test)

Strength - In a weird spot, of course it is fine if you are going to attack on melee, and composite bows adding damage based on Strength is a cool plus, however... I say it is in a weird spot because the feedback I've got from my players was basically: If you are not using it to hit stuff, it is useless, UNLESS you are someone like an Alchemist who needs to carry a lot of extra junk, then you kind of need some bumps in Strength just to be able to work properly as a character. And then you buy a Bag of Holding and it is useless again.

Dexterity - Used to be a god stat in previous editions, managed to be even more godly in 5e, and now it is... pretty balanced actually. Reflex saves are good, AC is great, finesse weapons, ranged attacks, cool, but cutting Initiative from it actually made it a lot less absurdly mandatory. This, however, created another issue that I'll talk more about soon.

Constitution - Was probably too weak in lower levels because of the Ancestry HP bonus and pretty meh at higher levels. Treat Wounds changed it, now it is a lot more useful and in a pretty good state in general.

Intelligence - This was probably the most uncontrovertial, and not in a good way, unfortunately. 9 out of the 11 players I asked just straightly said that it is pretty bad. Intelligence being mainly for skills is fine, but with the current way skill increases interact with it, in which you can only get trained in new skills by increasing Intelligence but not increase the rank in ones you are already trained, you only want Intelligence in a very specific case. If your class gives you a decent ammount of skills, it is not needed. If your class gives you a small ammount of skills but you don't want to focus in a lot of them anyway (and this is usually the situation for most Martial characters), it is also not needed.

Wisdom - A little controversial but the general consensus was that Wisdom is the new god stat. It only gives you three things (apart from the skills that use it), however, these are probably three of the four most important things in the game that every single character will want: Perception, Will Saves and Initiative, with the fourth one being AC. Of course the sample size is very small, but I have a pratical example of this too. As I've said before, I have 11 players, currently, in total. Only a single character didn't bump up Wisdom as much as he could, and that's because he deliberately wanted to have low Perception as a quirk of the character for being very absent-minded.

Charisma - Most people seem to agree that Charisma was the ultimate dump stat in PF1. And it was following the exact same path in PF2, until the Resonance Test. With the Resonance Test rules, most of my players said that Charisma is in a pretty good spot, however, this may vary a lot depending on what the developers actually do with this system in the final game. If Charisma is still relevant for Focus or something similar, it should be in a pretty good spot.

I would also like to add that, in my opinion, potent items as they stand are very unhealthy for stat balance and for the game in general. The +2 part is fine, maybe a little boring, but fine. However, getting any one stat straight to 18 really encourages people to dump stats in the long term, since a bump to a stat from 10 to 12 for example will be completely wasted when you get an item that boosts it straight to 18 anyways.

I would like you guys to share your opinions about the subject, but more to detect what are the issues currently than to try to give specific solutions, those would probably work better as a separate thread.

So... one of my players is an Alchemist and he asked me something that I didn't really know how to answer. Let's say someone needs one of his Elixirs of Life but has none in their person and the Alchemist wants to heal that ally. Walking to them, giving them the elixir and them consuming it uses 3 actions (2 from the Alchemist and one from the ally). It seems like the best course of action would be walking to that ally and giving them the Elixir in their mouth... in the middle of a combat... which is really weird, to say the least.

Are we missing something and there is another less silly way of doing that or is that the case, indeed?

Hello again, people, and here I am with another thread related to skills. This one is less of a "rethink how the system works" and more of a list of small suggestions on how Skill Feats can work to make them cooler. In my opinion, of course.

Without further ado... Catfall is awesome, I guess most people can agree with that. And since I really liked this style of feat and I have a lot of free time because I'm unemployed, I've decided to make a Catfall-style feat for each skill. I'm not a game designer, these are probably not going to be very balanced, but they are more to show the potential that this system has. Some of those were also designed to substitute and/or pack together a bunch of the less interesting feats.

Arcana

Arcane Scholar

Prerequisites: trained in Arcana

You studied hundreds, maybe thousands of books, scrolls and did experiments related to the arcane arts. You treat a critical failure in a Recall Knowledge check related to Arcana as a normal failure. If you are an expert in Arcana, you treat a critical failure in a Identify Magic check as a normal failure. If you are a master in Arcana, you can now critically succeed in a Recall Knowledge check related to Arcana, and if you do, the DM might give you additional information on the subject that you normally wouldn't have access to. If you are legendary in Arcana, you treat any success ina Recall Knowledge check related to Arcana or a Identify Magic check as a critical success.

Athletics

Marathon Runner

Prerequisites: trained in Athletics

Your intensive training lets you run a lot better than a normal person. You can Hustle for 1 hour without being Fatigued instead of 10 minutes. If you are an expert in Athletics, you incrase your speed by 5 feet. If you are a master in Athletics, you can hustle at full speed without ever getting Fatigued. If you are legendary in Athletics, you are immune to the Hampered condition.

Crafting

Crafting Artisan

Prerequisites: trained in Crafting

You can now try to craft an item that is of one level higher than yours. If you are an expert in Crafting, each day you spend to reduce the price of crafting an item counts as 2 days. If you are a master in Crafting, you can try to craft an item that is of two levels higher than yours. If you are legendary in Crafting, you can still craft an item even if you fail, but you spend the maximum ammount of both time and materials to do it.

Deception

Master of Lies

Prerequisites: trained in Deception

You are so used to lying that you learned to mask your lies and don't look as bad if you are caught lying. If you fail a Decepcion check to Lie, the target only gains a +2 circumstance bonus against your future lies. If you are an expert in Deception, they gain no bonus instead. If you are a master in Deception, you can retry any Deception check you make to lie by twisting the story you told. If you are legendary in Deception, people initally believe all of your lies, unless the DM decides that lie is too unbelievable to be affected by this feature.

Diplomacy

Cunning Diplomat

Prerequisites: trained in Diplomacy

You are very good at negotiating, flattery and gathering information. You treat a critical failure in a Gather Information check as a normal failure. If you are an expert in Diplomacy, you treat a critical failure in a Make an Impression check as a normal failure. If you are a master in Diplomacy, you can now critically succeed in a Gather Information check, and if you do, the DM can give you additional information on the subject that you normally wouldn't have access to. If you are legendary in Diplomacy, any creature that is not hostile has a one step better attitude in relation to you.

Intimidation

Better Feared than Loved

Prerequisites: trained in Intimidation

You've learned to intimidate people to get the results you want, looking more intimidating than you normally would. You can treat any critical failure in a Coerce check as a normal failure. If you are an expert in Intimidation, your targets become frightened 2 if you succeed in a Demoralize check against them (but not fleeing). If you are a master in Intimidation, you treat any success in a Coerce check as a critical success. If you are legendary in Intimidation, you can attempt to Demoralize all unfriendly and hostile creatures within 30 feet of you at once by spending an extra action on Demoralize, then making a single Intimidation check against all of their Will DCs.

I've got one little extra here: Please make a feat that lets you use Strength instead of Charisma for initmidation.

Lore

I really couldn't think of anything related to lore, it looks oddly specific to have feats related to it, IMO.

Medicine

Medical Doctor

Prerequisites: trained in Medicine

You either studied or practiced medicine a lot, and you can do things that commoners might think are magical. When you succeed in a Treat Wounds check, count as if you succeeded (normally) in a Treat Poison check to help the affected creatures as well. If you are an expert in Medicine, when you succeed in a Treat Wounds check, the affected creatures gain extra hit points equal to your level. If you are a master in Medicine, when you succeed in a Treat Wounds check, count as if you critically succeeded in a Treat Poison and Treat Disease check to help the affected creatures as well. If you are legendary in Medicine, you gain a special use of Medicine:

Stich Limb

You spend 8 hours trying to stich back a limb of a humanoid that was lost less than 72 hours ago, then attempt a Medicine check. The DC is usually the hard 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.

Success: The limb is stiched back and goes back to normally working after 1 hour.

Critical Failure: You can't try a Stich Limb check again with the same limb for the same patient.

Nature

Nature's Friend

Prerequisites: trained in Nature

You have a connection to nature and also studied a lot about it. You treat a critical failure in a Recall Knowledge check related to Nature as a normal failure. If you are an expert in Nature, you can give specific and complex commands to an animal that's obeying you, and they can understand and will try to follow your orders in the best way possible. If you are a master in Nature, you can now critically succeed in a Recall Knowledge check related to Nature, and if you do, the DM might give you additional information on the subject that you normally wouldn't have access to. If you are legendary in Nature, you can try a Handle an Animal check against a hostile or unfriendly animal to make its attitude towards you indifferent.

Occultism

Occult Investigator

Prerequisites: trained in Occultism

You deeply studied about things that other people probably find unsettling and wouldn't even come close. You treat a critical failure in a Recall Knowledge check related to Occultism as a normal failure. If you are an expert in Occultism, you can Read Esoterica at the same speed you would read a normal text, and you treat a critical failure in a Read Esoterica check as a normal failure. If you are a master in Occultism, you can now critically succeed in a Recall Knowledge check related to Occultism, and if you do, the DM might give you additional information on the subject that you normally wouldn't have access to. If you are legendary in Occultism, when you succeed in a Recall Knowledge check to know about a creature of occult signifcance, you know what is its highest and lowest stat, what it is vulnerable and resistant to, and if it has an ability or special action that defines the creature, specific details on how it works.

Performance

I also couldn't think about anything for Performance, at least for now, I'll add it if I think about something cool later

Religion

Theologist

Prerequisites: trained in Religion

You studied a lot of sacred texts and heard a lot from religious leaders. You treat a critical failure in a Recall Knowledge check related to Religion as a normal failure. If you are an expert in Religion, you can Read Scripture at the same speed you would read a normal text, and you treat a critical failure in a Read Esoterica check as a normal failure. If you are a master in Religion, you can now critically succeed in a Recall Knowledge check related to Religion, and if you do, the DM might give you additional information on the subject that you normally wouldn't have access to. If you are legendary in Religion, you gain a special use of Religion:

Ceremony of Protection

You spend 10 minutes doing a ceremony to protect you or one willing creature from outsiders. You spend 50 SP of holy water, silver dust, salt and other religious materials. Until the next rest they make, the affected creature gainst resistance 10 to good and evil damage, and they are immune to any possession effects.

Society

Studious of Society

Prerequisites: trained in Society

You know enough about society in general to know how to survive very well in it and use your knowledge to your favor, and you have a lot of contacts. You treat a critical failure in a Recall Knowledge check related to Society as a normal failure. If you are an expert in Society, when you use Create Forgery, your document can only detected as a forgery if someone is closely scrutinizing the document on the lookout for a forgery, otherwise you automatically succeed. If you are a master in Society, you can now critically succeed in a Recall Knowledge check related to Society, and if you do, the DM might give you additional information on the subject that you normally wouldn't have access to. If you are legendary in Society, you have gathered enough contacts that you can afford a moderate lifestyle for you and up to 9 other creatures for up to one week just by asking for favors, as long as you are in a medium or larger settlement that is not hostile to you. You also know about at least the existance and location of all black markets and secret organizations in said settlements.

Stealth

Silent as the Night

Prerequisites: trained in Stealth

You have learned to sneak around undetected to even the most keen eyes and ears. If you try to Sneak in a place where the existance of intruders is not known, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to the Stealth check. If you are an expert in Stealth, you can treat a critical failure in a Stealth check as a failure. If you are a master in Stealth, you can become sensed if you would become concealed, and become unseen if you would become sensed. If you are legendary in Stealth, creatures can only ever detect your presence (by seeing or sensing) if they are actively looking for you or patroling.

Survival

Survivor of the Wild

Prerequisites: trained in Survival

You are used to passing days or weeks in the wild. You treat a critical failure in a Survive in the Wild check as a failure. If you are an expert in survival, you can try to use the Track action again 10 minutes after a failure, instead of one hour, and you can move at full speed while covering tracks. This also applies to up to 9 other creatures that are with you during Exploration Mode. If you are a master in Survival, you automatically succeed in any Sense Direction checks in a terrain type that you are at least a little used to. If you are legendary in Survival, you treat a failure in a Survive in the Wild check as a success, and a success as a critical success. Also, if you critically succeed, you can provide food and shelter for up to 9 other creatures instead of just one.

Thievery

Sleight of Hand

Prerequisites: trained in Thievery

You can do and conceal small moves of your hands naturally. You treat critical failures in the Disable a Device and Pick a Lock action as failures. If you are an expert in Thievery, you can try a Thievery check to free yourself from items such as a handcuff or manacle, even if both your hands are restrained. If you are a master in Thievery, you ignore all the restrictions on the Steal an Item action. If you are legendary in Thievery, you treat successes in the Disable a Device and Pick a Lock action as critical successes, and you can try those actions using improvised objects in place of thieves tools without any penalty.

We — and by we I think I can include Paizo as well — all know that the proficiency system still needs some work, skill feats are mostly bland and very unbalanced (some skills like Acrobatics has awesome feats while others have basically nothing), and some other things. However, I'm here to tell a little story about how I've been using this system and why both me and my players are really loving it.

In both of the groups I DM for, I've written the following text to them and sent in our Whatsapp groups, explaining how the proficiency system is going to work at my table for skills:

"Your proficiency level basically determines the level of absurdity of the things you can try to do, and it grows exponentially with each new level. Some more in-depth explanation about each proficiency level with examples below:

Untrained - You are on the level of a normal person who has little to no experience doing that thing. You can try to do things that a normal human being can do naturally, things like trying improvised swimming, escaping a grapple, knowing rudimentary stuff about the most well-known religions, trying some improvised first aid or picking a pocket from someone who isn't paying much attention.

Trained - You are still on the level of a normal person, but one with training, being formal or informal. You can try to do a little more specific or demanding stuff, like trying to swim through a flowing river, moving through tree branches to find a spot to hide in a tree, knowing some more specific information about the most well-known religions, treating wounds like a person with proper training or picking a decent lock.

Expert - You are on the level of a skilled professional in that area of expertise. You can try to do things that a person without a lot of training wouldn't even bother with, like trying to climb a 2,5 meter wall and holding on top of it, jumping of said building and rolling when you reach the ground to take less damage, knowing things about religions that even most people from said religion don't, making a surgery or pick a lock that was specifically made to be extra safe.

Master - You are at the cap of normal human capacity in that skill, or maybe even a little bit superhuman. Some examples of that can be an olympic medalist, a member of Cirque du Soleil, the Winchester brothers in the last seasons of Supernatural, Doctor Strange before the accident or those escapists that escape from water tanks with their hands and feet locked while holding their breath. You can try to do things that are pretty absurd in the eyes of normal people, like trying to make an olympic-record long jump (30ft or 9 meters) through a cliff and grabbing the other side, tumbling between five scythe traps in a way that none of them hit you, knowing some secrets about religions that probably only the high-high-end hierarchy members know, making a surgery to stich an arm back to a person or picking an advanced lock with nothing but a quill.

Legendary - Now we are in the fantastic, absurd, "Bos taurus feces" level. Just go crazy, that's it, unless you try to absurdly bend the basic laws of the universe, I'm probably going to let you try it. You can try to do things like jumping from the ground to the top of a 3-storey building in one go, jumping off that building and falling without even taking damage, knowing ancient secrets of religion that were forgotten by society for centuries, saving a person that had their heart pierced (without spells or magic items) or steal things from a person who is just looking directly at you without them noticing (I'm looking at you, Dohvakin)."

If a player tried to do something that requires a lower level of proficiency, I would give a 1-tier lower skill check. If the required proficiency was a lot lower, I'd just let them auto-succeed. For instance, if a player was a Master in Athletics, I would let them swim without a check unless they were trying to swim naked in the Arctic Ocean with a 10kg weight attached to one of their legs or something.

For those of you wondering, yes, I had to remove and/or change a lot of Skill Feats like Powerful Leap for that to be possible, unfortunately. This was just an experiment after all, but the final result was: Both groups really loved it, they literally went from midly amused to "OMG this is the best skill system I've ever played with", and all that I did was interpret the rules a little bit more openly, adding one or two houserules and reworking some feats.

After this wall of text, my final message to Paizo is: You have created a GREAT concept for a skill system, and with a little bit more thought put into it, it can become 10 times greater. My personal suggestions would be either specifying the great stuff characters can do at high proficiency levels, or just let the GM decide but give a better guideline. Also, removing those boring "+1 to x in y situation" Skill Feats and creating more that let you auto-succeed at awesome stuf like Catfall would be great. But I'm not a Game Designer, I'm just a GM and homebrewer.

PS: Sorry if some of the things I say are kind of confusing, English is not my main language.

Just to give a little context before the question: Now that the the playtest cicle started "calming down", one of the two long-term groups I DM for actually liked the system so much that they want our next campaign (which is conveniently starting in a month or so) to use PF2. Of course we are going to have a lot of house rules, but going to the point now. The setting is Eberron, or at least a slightly different version of Eberron that I use. For those who don't know it is a D&D setting with a technomagical feel. There are three races that I'll need to homebrew to make Eberron... well, Eberron:

Shifters (kind of half-lycantropes) are mostly fine, I can include their transformations as a heritage thing with no problems. Changelings and Warforged however... not so much.

Changelings are kind of an inbetween of humans and doppelgangers, and they can morph into other humanoids within the same size category (only the Changelings, clothes and equipment don't morph with them). This is a very powerful ability in itself, and I can't tie it to Heritage either because this is what defines the race.

Warforged are a similar story. They are a mix of a living creature and a magical construct, and because of that they don't need to sleep, eat, drink or breathe, and are also resistant to poison and immune to diseases for obvious reasons.

The thing is, how do I handle that? Currently I have them getting those things for free, but the races have one less Ability Score Increase (Warforged are just Constitution, Choice and Changelings are just Charisma, Choice) but I don't know if this is the best way of doing that. What do you guys think? Do you have any suggestions?

Before starting, I gotta say that I really like not having two billion different types of bonuses like Pathfinder 1. However, the current way things are working is very frustrating for a lot of people, specially for those who like playing support of buff-focused characters. I, too, think that stacking a ton of buffs shouldn't be possible, but the Bard in our group got very frustrated that his buffs from songs and spells didn't stack with... the natural abilities of the other characters. Things like Barbarian Rage, some Feats, etc. And I've seen some other people here in the forums sharing similar experiences.

Proposal: Add a new type of bonus called... supernatural... power...? I'm very bad with names, but the final result would be something like this:

Item bonus: Bonuses from magic and high-quality items (unchanged).

Circumstance bonus: Result of tactics and specific situations (unchanged).

Conditional bonus: A supernatural or extraodinary ability that is innate to your character's capacities. Things like Rage, most Monk Stances, Dangerous Sorcery, etc. (change: remove Spells and other similar buffs from this category).

New bonus type: Things like buff Spells, bardic Compositions and other similar effects would go here. Bonus from alchemical items would also go here, which solves another problem, Alchemists having their elixirs and mutagens being rendered useless by the magical bonuses of armor and other worn items, without making them stackable with Spells for some really munchkin-y stuff.

Of course a change like that couldn't be just done in a vacuum, it would need some balancing in other areas. I also know that this is just a speculational change from a player that probably isn't going to happen, but I'll leave the suggestion here. What do you guys think about a change like that or something similar?

I was reading some stuff in the books and here in the forums about Ancestries, then something came to my mind... why was the "base" speed in the game changed from 30ft. to 25ft.? Actually, there are three questions I have:

1) Could someone explain to me what is the reason behind that change? I mean, they wouldn't change a long-lasting tradition for no reason, but I'm not getting it.

2) What are the underlying consequences that this causes in combat? I've GMed a considerable amount of games using these rules but nothing stroke me as "this specific thing feels different because of the smaller speed".

3) Could I easily homebrew this away without some really bad, unintended consequence? Basically increasing everyone's speed by 5ft. Some of my players really dislike it the way it is now.

I have DM'ed for some groups throughout the Playtest but always in person. Now a group of friends that live far away from me want to test PF2, using Roll20 as we always did. However... the current iteration of the character sheet in Roll20 has a lot of bugs and is not very intuitive, we are probably going to use some type of document sharing instead.

Anyways, my question is: Is there any info about an update or a new version of this sheet? I'm kind of curious about if we are going to have it updated during Playtest, after it, only on the final product release or if this is the final version of the Roll20 sheet.

Maybe (probably) I'm missing something very obvious, but I couldn't find in the Rulebook what happens to your HP while you are transformed with things like Polymorph or Animal Form. I know in 5e your HP is completely overwritten, so if you transform into a beast that has 100 HP and you take damage or get dropped to 0 during this form, nothing happens to your original self. Actually that's why Druids have basically infinite HP at higher levels in 5e.

How is this handled currently in the Playtest, is it the same as 5e, 3.5, PF1 or a completely different way?

I've recently GM'd my first playtest sessions with a group of friends (the group is pretty diverse, we have 3.5 players, PF1 players, 5e players and one person that is kind of new to tabletop RPGs in general). We have played some at low levels and some at highers levels to know how the system works in both tiers. Everyone liked the system in general, but when we started to do high level stuff, almost everyone complained about how adding your level to everything is pretty odd, and I didn't like it as a GM either.

Then I started reading about it here in the forums and from what I've seen it's a VERY contorversial topic, but Paizo doesn't seem very inclined to remove it from the core system.

I am here to suggest that they at least create an optional rule explaining how to do it properly, it could be called Realistic Progression or something like that (I'm not very good with names). The point is, of course just not increasing the players' AC, to hit, skills, etc is pretty easy, but when it comes to check DCs and monsters it becomes kind of tricky, if there was a guideline on how to do it it would be a lot less of a hassle for those who don't like it.

Of course the exact opposite could be done, having no +1/level in the core rules and the optional rule be called something like Heroic Progression, and I would personally prefer this way. However, this post is assuming that they really are going to keep it in the core rules as it is.

One of my players in a Playtest session I'm running really likes Diablo and he wants to make a Barbarian that wields two one-handed axes like his character in that game. However, I've looked through the class and it seems like it doesn't have anything that supports a playstyle other than a big, two-handed weapon. Am I missing something? I thought this modular class design was the perfect opportunity to give martial classes more freedom in how they want to fight, but if a Barbarian doesn't have any feats that let him be effective with two-weapon fighting that's very disappointing.