glass's page

If [Battle Oracle's Curse] is changed, then please also update Weapon Trance to be more like Embodiment of Battle, in that it upgrades as the levels climb.

The disparity between the two focus spells (that seem to exist for the same purpose) only makes sense in a context of Battle Oracles getting something that Witness to Ancient Battles Animists don't. Currently, that's the spell immunity working for beneficial spells too.

Embodiment of Battle is Sustained, while Weapon Trance just flat out last the full minute, so the former should be better, all other things being equal. Whether it should be that much better is an open question.

I can agree that there's a bit of mental reconciliation that needs to happen to reframe the Bard's once-per-round compositions as a continuous, uninterrupted performance. The issue I'd see with the above, however, is that sustained effects last until the end of your next turn, which I think would be a significant mechanical buff to compositions: with this, there's a significant risk players would still not Sustain their compositions, but would instead cast a composition every two rounds to apply the benefits across most of that duration. I'm not sure if there's a way to bring Sustaining into compositions without reworking their mechanics overall.

Thanks Teridax - I missed that detail because the bard IMC basically never benefits from his own anthem, so extending it to the end of his turn for free would make no difference. But may player's bard is not all bards - I'd imagine Warrior Muse bards would get a lot more use out of it.

Maybe I could say something like "The caster may expend their first action each turn Composition Cantrips for another round. This is similar to Sustaining the spell, except that the spell ends immediately if the caster does not use the first action in this way on any given turn."

You did not quote me, but this seems to be a response to my post....

As if talking to a genie, it's best to still be clear about restrictions from the GM side and set interpretations earlier rather than later.

No, it isn't. Because the game has hundreds, probably thousands of rules that will be followed as normal in a typical campaign. If I am GMing, I am not going to waste time confirming all of those. Instead, I am going to talk about the rules I am changing (which is a much shorter list).

Because that the rule only works of off GM Core is only partially true. The rule works off of GM Core and the vanilla rules in Player Core. FA has few restrictions, but it also has few allowances, which means that where the rule is not expressly states, the vanilla rules apply.

Obviously?

But just as obviously, the core Archetype rules do not include any FA-specific restrictions.

1. Dedication limits still apply, which is to say, to move on to a new dedication, you need to satisfy your current dedication with a minimum of 3 feats.

Again, obviously. What did I say that made you think I did not realise that?

2. Deviant Feats are not available, as they are not a part of the default archetype progression without GM opt-in.

I have never heard of "deviant feats" so I cannot comment on this one.

You would probably get more/better responses if this was in the Season of Ghosts forum, or the AP General form.

Add me to the camp that unless additional restrictions are specified up front, FA only has the restrictions stated in the GMG and/or GMC (as in, basically none). And I do not add any such restrictions, unless for a very campaign-specific reason.

Also, not all archetypes even have enough feats to be the sole archetype for an FA character, so any restrictions need to be added carefully.

My groups finished chapter 5 Curse of the Crimson Throne last week, and chapter 2 of Strange Aeons last night. Therefore, we have rotated back to Abomination Vaults (out of scope for the thread, being PF2), and will be rotating back to Savage Tide in a couple if weeks. The delay in the Sunday-night game is ironically to play a one-shot of actual Call of Cthulhu!

EDIT: I am a player in everything except AbV.

That all said, I do understand folks being frustrated about this.

To be clear; I am not frustrated with you - the decision you made is not the decision I would have preferred, but your reasons make sense.

My only frustration at this point is with other posters who keep trying to add an extra reason which is obvious nonsense. Posters who have, as they say on TVTropes, no sense of scale.

I cannot speak for the very latest APs because I have not seen inside them. But for the Paizo products I have seen I haven't noticed any increase in cartoonish-ness. Of course, that might be because I have always thought Paizo artwork was pretty cartoonish.

glass wrote:

I don't see immunity to spirit damage mentioned there (unsurprisingly, as I don't think spirit damage existed prior to the Remaster). Does it inherit it from somewhere?

The definition of Spirit damage which explicitly excludes Constructs.

Well, that's a silly place to hide the rule...why is it not under the Construct keyword, with all the other stuff Constructs are immune to?

(Rhetorical question - I know you guys did not decide to put it there.)

So weird that a lot of my impactful action with my magus were with spellstrike spells that didn't have the highest damage but other useful effects.

Is this in response to me? Because I don't find that weird at all - but I would venture to suggest that most of those "useful effects" were aiding your allies in dealing big damage, or buying them (and yourself) more time to do so.

Anyway, AIUI what was being objected to is being relegated to mostly Spellstriking with Cantrips, which tend to have less in the way "useful effects" as well as less damage. So it's kinda moot.

The fact that in P1E you could reload as a free action with feats is sorely missed in P2E.

I always thought that that was kinda weird actually - I'd much prefer firearms that could not be reloaded that quickly, but with other rules around them to that made them competitive anyway. But it seems they did neither.

That's just moving the goalpost now. I'm done here.

I am not detecting any goalpost moving in Teridax's posts.

Okay I get it, the only way to play is to do big damage. Goodbye.

Kinda yes?

In a typical campaign, you are going to get into a lot of fights, and PF2 is very unforgiving IME. So either you do "big damage" to the enemy or you die.

Obviously it is possible to play in campaigns with a lot fewer combats than is typical, or with combats which are much easier than the guidelines recommend/APs include. But in those cases, how combat-specific features work doesn't really matter.

I mostly play online these days, so I could...but I don't.

Oh wait, you meant the characters?

Maya Coleman wrote:

The team does not usually look over charts like this, but thanks for making it and sharing it here! And yes, Tridus is right, the errata is coming soon! I think it's while I'll be out for my surgery next month, but a comment section will still be made so everyone can discuss!

I hope that surgery goes well!

This!

ETA:

For most spontaneous casters this table would be identical to the spell slots one (with class features that add extra ones not included). Bard, for example. Premaster Oracle also worked that way.

I would not be at all surprised if they standardised on "repertoire = slots" because it saved a table's worth of page space (at least in part).

Would anyone like to see Archetypes for specific Ancestries in 2e Pathfinder if there aren't any already? I honestly wouldn't mind seeing a 2e take on the Dhampir Kinslayer or Elf Treesinger.

I think an archetype should be locked to a particular ancestry if, and only if, it involves using a physical, biological feature unique (or nearly so) to that ancestry. Which is a high bar - as others have said, archetypes that rely on something common like wings can just say that.

Claxon wrote:

as a GM I like the secret rolls and the misinformation on critical failures.

As a player I hate this with a fiery passion, as a GM I "only" intensely hate it.

I am kinda the opposite - I loathe having to come up with plausible-but-false information everyone crit-fails a RK check (which happens a lot, because the DCs are so high).

I don't mind it so much as a player (although TBF I have GMed a lot more PF2 than I have played). The players in my Abomination Vaults game do not seem to mind it too much either (although I would go so far as to say I like it).

Part of me wants to house-rule it out. But I don't want to invalidate all the stuff that builds on it, plus I am wary of house-ruling things back to how they were in PF1.

I agree! And if you read my posts carefully, you will see that I have the agreed the entire time. The problem is that my players don't, even after reading this thread.

So what's the problem? Tell them you're the GM and you're going with your interpretation of the rules (they can consider it a house rule if they prefer).

Or if you prefer, tell them you're going with their interpretation of the rules. If people occasionally have to come out of delay earlier than they would by RAW, that a minor annoyance at worst AFAICT.

Paizo could solve this problem in five minutes with a FAQ entry

FAQ entries take a lot longer than five minutes, and with their various tribulations lately, Paizo do not have the bandwidth address imaginary rules problems (they do not seem to have the bandwidth to address real rules problems in a timely matter). If the fact that someone somewhere could possibly misread a particular rule was enough to generate an FAQ entry, the FAQ would be near infinite. Because someone somewhere can always misread any given rule, no matter how clear you try to make it.

I do not understand how this sort of reception is supposed to help the game, or Paizo, but we should be trying to do better than "if it isn't a problem for me, then it isn't a problem."

What reception? People saying that you can Delay into the next round, and that the rules are fairly clear on that score? Given that you can and they are, I'd say that's exactly the sort of reception you should expect.

Wow, that generated a lot of discussion. It answered my question pretty comprehensively, so thanks everyone!

Back in AD&D 2e, the Monstrous Compendia were in 3-ring binders, so you could arrange them however you like.

...in theory. In practice, I would often struggled to arrange them as I wanted because they were often quite wide-ly spaced creatures on either side of the same sheet. I'm not sure if the OP's project will have the same issue.

We finished chapter 9 (I think) of Savage Tide last night, and will be rotating back to Strange Aeons next Sunday. Meanwhile on Thursdays, we are continuing to explore Scarwall in Curse of the Crimson Throne.

I am a player in all those. I am running Abomination Vaults on Thursdays and we will be rotating back to that after we finish the current chapter of CotCT. But that's PF2.

glass wrote:

There is no paradox, there is no rules hole, there is no problem. The unsupportable claim that there is does not become any less nonsensical with repetition.

A legal 1st level character can become illegal at 2nd...

No, it cannot. Because you select both the class archetype and the heritage at first level, and you know at first level that they are incompatible. So it is already an illegal combination when you select it. How and when that incompatibility would manifest is irrelevant, because you can never get to that point.

All I have been arguing for "you cannot take two options with mutually incompatible requirements". It should be obvious and uncontroversial. It is the opposite if nonsense.

glass wrote:

Good thing I never said "Just don't use it" then, eh?

That's exactly what you said.

glass wrote:

It is trivially solved by not taking the illegal combination in the first place.

Please stop deceptively editing my posts. Yes, I said that you cannot take two incompatible options on the same character, and I stand by that. "It" in context was the singular option you straw manned me as saying you should not take so you could pretend my argument led to ridiculous conclusions; a distinction I further clarified in the sentence immediately after the one you quoted.

EDIT: I have just had a look through your other recent posts and they all look pretty reasonable. What the hell happened to you in this thread?

I would not say I am worried - Paizo have had some pretty bad issues recently, but there are reasons to be cautiously hopeful that things will things will improve (now that the Remaster process is finally pretty much done, hopefully things should be a bit less rushed).

If they do, I will continue to buy their products as interest and cash flow allows. If not, I'll spend my money elsewhere. Either way, it's not something worth worrying about.

OTOH, I will admit to being a little sad about what has happened to PFS. And that aspect doesn't seem likely to turn around any time soon.

glass wrote:

People keep talking about "two conflicting rules directives" as if this is an unsolvable problem, but it just isn't. It is trivially solved by not taking the illegal combination in the first place.

'Just don't use it' is a terrible argument that could be used excuse literally ANY error or needed errata.

Good thing I never said "Just don't use it" then, eh? Indeed, I could not have, because there is no singular "it" for me to tell people not to use. We are talking about a combination of two things (which AFAIK are unproblematic individually), not a single item.

My arguments in this thread are unlikely to have any general applicability, because these arguments do not come up often. Not because the situations don't come up often: "Options A and B are perfectly legal individually but illegal in combination" is common as dirt. But normally everyone just accepts that and moves on, rather than pretending there is some terrible rules problem with that incompatibility.

And if people do start talking about there being a problem with selecting incompatible options, I am fine with "don't" being general advice for those cases.

Ascalaphus wrote:

I don't consider this an error needing errata.

Just to be clear, I'm not arguing for it needing errata, just that there is an odd hole in the rules that can cause a paradox.

There is no paradox, there is no rules hole, there is no problem. The unsupportable claim that there is does not become any less nonsensical with repetition.

glass wrote:

EDIT: SBG does not apply because there is no rules issue here to resolve. "You cannot take Ancient Elf and also be a Flexible Spellcaster" is no more a rules contradiction than "You cannot take Ancient Elf and also be a dwarf".

…but you can be an ancient elf and also a dwarf. You would be a dwarf aiuvarin with the elf atavism feat. You can just do that. Dwarfs have a long enough lifespan, one “measured in centuries”.

Okay, nit picking acknowledged. I did not know about that feat. Is there a feat to get two elf Heritages on the same character? If not, pretend I said "Ancient Elf and Arctic Elf". If there is, pretend I picked two other options that are actually incompatible. EDIT: How about "full (not MCA) fighter, wizard, cleric"? (You could get two out of three in a Dual-Class game, but I don't know any way of being all three.) EDIT2: Technically that's three options, but the principle is the same.

Or just pretend I appended "without using an extra feat".

As an aside, how do you know dwarves live for hundreds of years? I cannot find it anywhere.

Anyways, even if not literally false, this analogy would still be terrible.

It would be fine.

If dwarves were invalid picks for ancient elf because they didn’t have a long enough ancestry, how is that at all comparable to the situation at hand?

It would be a situation where two PC options that are legal in isolation are not legal in combination, without its being a rules contradiction, and without SBG being invoked. Obviously, this is not something that should need demonstrating, but *gestures vaguely at the thread*

The current issue at hand is that you have two conflicting rules directives, in a circumstance that doesn’t even exist at the level which you make the decisions that would later cause it.

True but irrelevant. If you take a class archetype at first level, you know at first level that you are committing to spending your L2 feat on the Dedication. If you cannot make that commitment, at first level, then you cannot take the archetype. The Dedication feat is not a surprise sprung on you at L2 - you know it is coming!

People keep talking about "two conflicting rules directives" as if this is an unsolvable problem, but it just isn't. It is trivially solved by not taking the illegal combination in the first place.

NGL I'm a little surprised at how hostile the reaction to the OP is here. This is like, pretty standard weird rules quirk territory.

I am not seeing any hostility towards anyone, but especially not towards the OP (who seems to have correctly divined that they are incompatible, barring an additional rule which does not exist, but can easily be house-ruled in.).

glass wrote:

By your own wording, they are "mutually exclusive" - by definition therefore, you cannot select both of them. You have to pick one or the other.

You missed the 'otherwise' there which is kind of the point.

But there is no "otherwise" in the rules, that is purely your invention. They are not "otherwise incompatible" - they are simply incompatible. It is not possible to simultaneously both take and not take the class archetype's Dedication at level 2, and there is nothing that exempts you from either requirement.

Unless you can provide a rules quote to the contrary, in which case I will of course reverse my position (but I would still ask you why you had not provided it already).

'Obviously I shouldn't allow my players to stack them' is a perfectly reasonable ruling, but so is 'obviously this is an exception to the norm since the feat is packaged with the option.'

Either are fine at your own table, but OP is just pointing out the lack of explicitness here, hence the thread being in rules discussion and not advice.

No rulings are required. The first is RAW, the second is a perfectly reasonable house rule.

Finoan wrote:

Ancient Elf not removing the restriction on taking additional dedication feats is not unclear.

You can select two character options that provide you with feats that are both otherwise mutually exclusive with each other.

There's no defined rules mechanism for resolving the inconsistency and we've already seen multiple opinions on how the interaction should be resolved.

That's like, the literal definition of unclear.

Is "you cannot select incompatible options for your character" really a rule that needs to be explicitly stated? IMNSO, that is the obvious default. By your own wording, they are "mutually exclusive" - by definition therefore, you cannot select both of them. You have to pick one or the other.

I don't think this is an edge case, and I don't think the rule Ascalaphus quotes is even necessary. There is simply no issue here to solve.

Accusing others of invoking abuser tactics over a class discussion? Mods don't get paid enough for this s#@#.

Kinda yeah. While I understand (and share) the frustration of the people talking about "gas lighting" they really should find a different term. By definition, gas lighting requires a close personal relationship (family, romantic partners, close friends); an abuse of trust from one of the people the victim should be able to trust the most. Even if the tactics may be somewhat similar, forum posters do not have the kind of relationship necessary for gas lighting to be possible.

No forum poster is going to make me question my grasp on reality (although they might make me question theirs).

Gas lighting is a truly awful practice, and using the term where it does not apply trivialises that.

Which is not to say posting in bad faith, or making arguments so poor they are indistinguishable from bad faith, are okay. They very much are not, but they are a long way short of gas lighting.

TLDR: Please don't cheapen the term "gas lighting" by using it for frustrating forum conversations.

Quoting a couple of posts from the Impossible Magic thread, to respond to them in a more appropriate setting.

Tridus wrote:

There's ballpark ~100 non unique creatures weak to slashing or bludgeoning. I can't get an exact number because I can't get the filter to behave how I want it. Probably doing something wrong. Comparatively, there are exactly 2 weak to force, and they're from the same AP. So in terms of exploting weaknesses, this change is a massive loss.

There are ~288 non-unique resistant to both bludgeoning and slashing from what I can tell on AoN (usually in the form of physical resistance), but that's out of ~2840 non-unique creatures.

All this assumes an equal distribution of creatures in adventures. Which, nice as it would be to get a more balanced distribution of creatures, isn't exactly how it's done.

It does, because that is a reasonable assumption (the only reasonable assumption) across the span of the whole game. Obviously the theme of an adventure is going to affect the mix of adversaries compared with monster books. But there are a lot of adventures and they do not all have the same theme. So you cannot assume that the mix more favourable to either version of IW.

It is really not psychic players complaining about this.

Add me to the list of non-Magus players complaining about it, although TBF I have never played a Psychic either - for PF2 I have mostly been the GM, and have only been a handful of sessions with a PC (I cannot remember which classes, but I am pretty sure not Magus).

Not nearly as many as I am tempted to, because at some point it would be less a few house rules and more a rewrite of the game.

I resemble that remark! Years ago I had a massive multi-page house rule doc, decided it was too unwieldy, and started over with a new shorter one. Which started growing. The shorter one is up to 16 pages now!

TBF, that is partly due to how it presented - some things are spelled out in full rather than (or as well as) being bullet-point changes. For example, there is a table collating what each Knowledge skill covers from various sources, as well as incorporating our own changes. There are also sections covering using 3.0/3.5 content and Multitrack (our version of gestalt), an Index, and a Changelog.

Despite my tendency towards verbosity, I tried to keep the major house rules to a minimum: There are only ten (really nine, because no 3 is a partial exception to no 2):

There is a much longer list of Minor House Rules, because each time we come across something wonky or unclear and resolve it, we write it down. I am not going to list them all here, but most of the entries in are small QoL fixes, only affect a small subset of characters or situations, or are how you would expect it to work anyway if you had not dug into it.

Some of the more noteworthy are

- all classes with 2+Int skill points are increased to 3+ (considering bumping them to 4+)

Four as has worked fine for us, although as you can see from the above spoiler, we made an exception for Int-based full casters.

- Meteor Swarm functions as it does in 5e

I like that! Word-for-word exactly as 5e, or just the save-once-damage-once aspect?

glass wrote:

Lightning Raven wrote:

The fact is that PF2e spellcasters only have problems because they are playing with old hardware. By that I mean they are using vancian casting on a new system.

Unlikely, given that the non-Vancian Psychic is pretty clearly less well regarded than the Vancian Cleric or Druid.

I honestly would want to know why people don't consider spontaneous casters as vancian casters when they are pretty much the same thing.

Simply answered by pointing out that they are, definitionally, not "pretty much the same thing." They are different things. Opposite things, even. Conversely, I don't know why a handful of people want to broaden the definition of "vancian" to the point of uselessness.

Vancian casters memorise/prepare/slot individual instances of spells, and each specific instance is used to cast that spell (and only that spell). Spontaneous casters do not have to do that - their slots are fungible, and only assigned to individual spells at casting time (which admittedly makes "slot" a poor term in that case, as nothing is ever slotted into them).

Most, if not all the problems from the psychic (and arguably a ton of casters in the system as well) comes from the fact that its a vancian caster.

Zero of the psychic's problems arise from its being vancian, because it isn't. Please stop trying to redefine words with a well-understood and useful meaning. Especially when you already have "daily".

As The Raven black said, this has been the operation of things for a long time. Since 1E, even.

That might be the issue though - they are applying PF1 logic to PF2, but they are not the same. In FP1, resistances with very common but vulnerabilities were much much rarer. So a rare damage type is almost always an advantage. But in PF2, weaknesses to particular damage types is much more common - if not as common as resistances, then not far behind. More things resist Bludgeoning than Force, but more things also take extra damage from Bludgeoning than from Force. So it is no longer as pure an upgrade.

Without doing any in-depth analysis, I would guess Force is probably still an upgrade over Bludgeoning, due to incorporeals if nothing else. (It does still help against Incorporeal, right?) But I doubt it is enough of one to offset the reduced base damage, especially at higher levels.

Verzen wrote:

WWHsmackdown wrote:

Might be time to find a system that better serves your needs

There are no other systems. PF2E is better than D&D5E and pointing out what doesnt work mathematically for PF2E to change for PF3E and you coming in here telling me to find a diff system is as dumb as me pointing out what problems our gov has and some random person saying, "if you dont like america the way it is, leave." Lol

There are literally dozens of other systems besides PF2E and D&D 5e

Thousands, probably. But Verzen was clearly not being literal when they said that there were no other systems. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to find a group to play whatever their first choice would be - they get to choose from the 2-3 most popular systems (at best).

Blades in the Dark exists, but if everyone you know will only play D&D or PF it's existing doesn't do you much good.

LOL the two of you don't make 2% :D

It stays at 99!

I feel compelled to point out that 99! is a very big number.

I am not QuidEst, but....

LOLWut? The +3 guy literally has a 10% increase in how often it succeeds.

No he doesn't. He succeeds on 10% of the total possible rolls where he otherwise would not have, but that is not the same thing.

You're totally going to have to walk me through that 33% reasoning.

If the +1 character would succeed on a 15+, then the +3 character succeeds on a 13+. That is 8 results rather than 6. 8 is 33% greater than 6.

This would be easier for people running Extinction Curse to find if it were actually in the Extinction Curse forum. I have flagged it for a move.

A poster named Torrontor posted a guide to all the APs published to date (as of last year). It is linked at https://paizo.com/threads/rzs5t5jd?Tarondors-2025-Guide-to-the-Pathfinder

The Golarion-set ones (which is all except the three published in the Dungeon-Magazine era, which are set in Greyhawk) are all assumed to happen in chronological order, but with a few exceptions it doesn't really matter what order you play them in - you should probably play the Runelords APs in order, but aside tat most of them are fairly standalone (there are call backs which could constitute minor spoilers, but nothing major).

TriOmegaZero wrote:

I feel old knowing I started playing TTRPGs in 2005.

I started around 1993/1994.

1988 in my case, I think.

I like PF2 (seemingly more than the OP), but there are a few issues I hope PF3 addresses when it eventually shows up.

Personally, I hope that PF3 does not get rid of attributes. However, I do think that a class's attack attribute should go from effectively baked in to actually backed in.

My biggest issue with PF2 casters is the way their spell slots scale. PF1 casters started with a few, and then scaled up to so many slots that there was barely a restriction (which was lucky because the cantrips were terrible). PF2 tried to fix the huge number of spell slots at higher levels, by starting even lower but still scaling up quickly. Whereas I think the number of spell slots should start more generous, but scale up much less.

Then there are feats...you pick a lot of them, sometimes two or more per level, and they are often pretty small individually. They are well siloed, so it's not as onerous as it could be. But I would still like there to be slightly fewer feats that were each slightly chunkier.

Then there is the rigmarole of Medicine checks after each fight. Which is more annoying than PF1's happy stick dance, because it takes longer at the table and distorts the character build of which unlucky player drew the short store more. Don't get me wrong, I like that Medicine is a viable option now; I just wish that a) it was a bit less fiddly, and b) it wasn't the only option.

That ties into my last issue (that I can think of OTTOMH): Magic items are underwhelming, especially consumables (and consumable adjacent things, like wands).

Regarding the whole oracle thing: I had not played PFS since before COVID (for various reasons largely unrelated to PFS itself), and I was looking at getting back into it a little while back. That notion coincided with, in fairly quick succession, the oracle debacle and the similar screwing over of players with legacy clerics of Gorum. There was also the gutting of Campaign Mode for no discernible reason, which I became aware of at the same time (not sure when it actually happened).

As a result of those things, I did not get back into PFS, nor will I any time soon (definitely not under the current leadership, possibly not ever).

In my case, it did not put me off Pathfinder entirely (although I can see how it could for others). But "not put[ting] me off" is way too low a bar - PFS is supposed to encourage me to play and buy stuff (and through me, other people), not merely avoid driving me away.

My Thursday group is still going through Curse of the Crimson Throne. We decided to stick with it until we are done exploring Scarwall (at which point we will rotate back to my PF2 Abomination Vaults game).

On Sundays, we finished the first chapter of Strange Aeons (we're still not much the wiser about what's going on, but we have a target for further investigation next chapter), a couple of weeks ago. So we rotated back to Savage Tide, with an extra player). We have had one session so far, in which we basically had one fight, and met the new character. In the Abyss!

Each impact is one instance, and applying the highest res/weakness among all 3 kinds, trait, type, or custom, literally covers all possible edge cases.

Pretty much. You'd probably want to call out a few specifics/exceptions (like persistent damage should probably create new instances each time it fires). But it is almost certainly less text than the current mess.

IMO, the existence of immunities (including precision) is fine in principle, they should be given out extremely sparingly.

Unfortunately game designers tend to dish them out way too generously. Which is understandable - if you're designing a monster on a particular theme, it kinda makes sense in the moment to give it immunities related to that theme. Which is fine on an individual-monster basis, but scales horribly. What you need to do, for the game as a whole, is fight that tendancy, hard, and only give immunities where not doing so would be utterly non-sensical.

In more recent games (like PF2), designers have realised that they need to fight against that tendency, but they still are not fighting hard enough IMO. For example, PF2 red dragons are still immune to fire, despite being flesh-&-blood creatures (TBF I don't have the new dragon book, and I could not find cinder dragon stats on AoN, so that might be changing).

As a side issue (not really applicable to swashbucklers), I also think that a Fire Kineticist should be great at fighting fire elementals, not near-helpless against them. She is a master of fire, and they are literally made of the thing her whole class is all about! However, I seem to be the only one who thinks that.

Perpdepog wrote:

I'm personally not a fan of both making a staff's attacks work like casting a spell and also making runes apply to those attacks; that feels like it's stepping on the toes of martial classes. I would definitely apply runes to the staff's attacks if the attacks keyed off Dex, however, or even if they worked like normal weapon attacks but used the casting stat to hit.

I don't understand what the difference between "work like casting a spell" and "work like normal weapon attacks but used the casting stat to hit" would be, in any practical sense.

Presumably the target audience for these kind of staves is typically going to have better proficiency with Spell Attacks than Weapon Attacks?

Having finally got AoN to load so I can see what they currently do, I think I mostly agree.

I do think it would be nice if the number of feats in that archetype has some influence, but I obviously we don't want the barbarian archetype to end up with more HP than a actual barbarian, and there is also the issue of different martially-flavoured archetypes on the same character. So I am not sure how to implement that cleanly and fairly.

Aaaargh. Making a spelling error, copying-&-pasting it a bunch oftimes, and spotting it after the Edit window closes is not my idea of a good time. I meant "worn" not "warn". And someone introduces some other kind of wand... in the footnotes.

Anyway, moving on. Defining categories of feats by name is kinda "low tech". A more PF2 approach would be to give the approriate feats a Resonate keyword and refer to that, and that would also give me more flexibility in naming that. So pretend I did that in the above post.

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Resonant Revitalisation† (Feat 1)
[Archetype][Resonate]
Archetype: Resonator
Prerequisites: Resonator Dedication

As a Free Action you may spend Resonance Point on a magical or alchemical†† Healing Consumable that you have in hand. If you do so, and then use the Consumable before the end of your turn (or start using it, if it would take longer than a turn), the amount of hit points restored is increased: Any die rolls are maximised, and static values or modifiers are doubled. Additionally, if the item is alchemical, it also counts as magical if it is beneficial to do so.

Note that, unlike most other items you could spend Resonance Points on, Comsuambles do not need to be Invested.†††

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Aeon Resonance†††† (Feat 6)
[Archetype][Resonate]
Archetype: Resonator
Prerequisites: Resonator Dedication

As a Free Action, you may spend a Resonance Point on an Aeon Stone which is Invested and orbiting you. If you do so, you gain the benefit of its resonant power for the next five minutes (or until it ceases to orbit).

Okay, time to start figuring out some specifics:

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Resonator Dedication (Feat 1*)
[Archetype][Dedication]
Archetype: Resonator
Prerequisites: Trained in Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion; Int or Cha +1**

You gain a pool of Resonance Points which can be used to activate Resonate Feats (Feats from this Archetype whose names begin "Resonate"). The number of points in your pool is 12 plus the higher of your Intelligence or Charisma, and gains two additional points for each other Feat you have from this Archetype. You refill the pool back up to its maximum number of points during your daily preparations.

Additionally, you gain one Resonate Feat of your choice, for which you meet the prerequisites.

You may take a second Dedication*** Feat before taking two feats from this Archetype provided the second Archetype is a Class Archetype for a spellcasting class, or is an Archetype which grants spellcasting. If you do so, you must have two additional feats from Resonator, and typically also from the other Archetype, before you can take a third Dedication.

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Resonate Blasting Rod (Feat 1)
[Archetype]
Archetype: Resonator
Prerequisites: Resonator Dedication

You may Invest one or more Blasting Rods as part of your daily preparations (even though Blasting Rods are not warn). You may make an attack with an Invested Blasting Rod that is held in your hand. The cost is one Resonance Point, unless the Blasting Rod's level is higher than your level, in which case the cost is equal to the difference in levels.

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Resonate Wand (Feat 1)
[Archetype]
Archetype: Resonator
Prerequisites: Resonator Dedication, ability to cast spells from spell slots

You may Invest one or more Daily**** Wands as part of your daily preparations (even though Wands are not warn). When you have a wand Invested in this way, instead of activating it once per day (or twice by damaging the wand), you activate the wand by spending Resonance Points. There is no limit to how many times you can activate the wand other than the number of points you are willing and able to spend, and you never risk damaging the wand. The cost is one Resonance Point, unless the wand's level is higher than your level, in which case the cost is equal to the difference in levels.

Aside from the Resonance Point cost and number of uses per day, the wand functions as normal.

If anyone else uses a wand you have Invested, it counts as the second daily use (regardless of whether or how many times you have actually used it), and therefore they must roll to see if the wand is broken or destroyed.

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Resonate Staff (Feat 4)
[Archetype]
Archetype: Resonator
Prerequisites: Resonator Dedication, ability to cast spells from spell slots

When you prepare a Staff as part of your daily preparations, you may also Invest it (even though Staves are not warn). When you have a Staff Invested in this way and Cast a Spell from it, you may spend Resonance Points on the activation in one of two ways:
-If the spell uses charges, it uses a number of charges equal to one third of the spell's Rank (rounded up), rather than equal to the Rank.
-If the spell has an attack roll, you may apply any Weapon Potency Runes on the Staff to the Attack roll (but not any other Runes).
In either case, the cost is one Resonance Point, unless the wand's level is higher than your level, in which case the cost is equal to the difference in levels.

Aside from applying one of the above-described benefits, the Staff functions as normal.

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Extra Resonance (Feat 6)
[Archetype]
Archetype: Resonator
Prerequisites: Resonator Dedication, Int +1, Cha +1

You add both your Intelligence and Charisma to your Resonance Pool, rather than one or the other (this is in addition to the two extra points you gain because this is a Resonator Archetype feat).

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Extra Feats: Trick Magic Item, Incredible Investiture

I had another idea, which keeps the wands themselves as they are in PF2, but adds other ways to improve them that are optionally bought into by specific characters. Maybe that will be better received than this idea has been: Behold, the Resonator Archetype.

(Well, a very sketchy first outline of the Resonator Archetype at this point.)