graystone's page

What do you have to archetype in to get winter bolt and fire ray?

Cleric of Yamatsumi archetype. Cleric Dedication, Basic Dogma (Domain initiate [cold]), Advanced Dogma (Domain Initiate[fire]).

Dragonchess Player wrote:

What you can do is have someone cast runic body on the animal companion.

I mean... technically you can do that, but it won't do anything. It gives item bonuses that animal companions cannot benefit from, so it does absolutely nothing.

Player Core wrote:

The following are the base statistics for a young animal companion, the first animal companion most characters get. You adjust these statistics depending on the type of animal you choose. Animal companions calculate their modifiers and DCs just as you do with one difference: the only item bonuses they can benefit from are to Speed and AC (their maximum item bonus to AC is +3). As you gain levels, you might be able to make your companion stronger by advancing it.

I was about to say the same but after some thought, it would make the attack magical and could improve the number of damage dice. So it would do something, just not add to the to hit numbers.

Against a lower level enemy though:

Level 8: DC 24 -> 22
2/20 crit fail, 9/20 success

Perfectly reasonable odds for an independent action we weren’t otherwise gonna use. Gotta treat it with a grain of salt but it’s reasonable to trust i.e. weak save off that.

Then you adjust the DC for rarity and you'll likely get be looking at similar numbers to the first example. Characters focused in Recall Knowledge skills can have a hard time making the DC's, let alone familiars lacking skill proficiency bonuses.

For RK it comes back to the classic question of "can you get the lower DC for coming up with the name of a specific lore that you don't actually have?" I don't think there's consensus about whether you should be able to do that.

Yes, that can make the case for using familiars to make those checks even worse.

I think most people know familiars can do this, it's just normally a bad action.

Demoralize benefits from the speech ability but doesn't require it, and RK probably needs speech to tell you anything useful about the enemy (as funny as it is for your familiar to know the enemy's weak save and have no way to convey this).

Without speech, Demoralize is a level-4 roll so... not worth drawing attention to your familiar. Even with speech, a level roll is a bad action: better to take cover to avoid possible area attacks.

For RK, it's best off rolling lores for the DC reduction, and can be... ok at it? Better than a character with no investment at all in RK, which is extremely funny.

With crit fails giving incorrect info, a check with bad chances is better off not being rolled IMO.

Spellcasters can also select the Skilled ability to add their spellcasting attribute modifier and level to the familiar's Demoralize or Recall Knowledge skill proficiency. Spellcasting attribute modifier is generally at least +3 and usually higher.

You're better off using Snoop, Second Opinion, Partner in Crime or Ambassador to giving your familiar the ability to Aid you to boost your own roll. It's a free +1-4 on your rolls which is means it's at least on par with what the familiar can roll and the character can benefit from speech and items what can buff the rolls that the familiar can't.

The Daredevil's size doesn't change (at least not often).

Enlarge is a rank 2 spell for large and 4th rank for huge. It's not hard for the Daredevil to jump sizes regularly when needed. Taking into account several ancestries/heritages have feats that grant enlarge as an innate spell, the daredevil can change sizes without needing a buddy to do it. Add to that, you can get Size-Changing on your armor, Dinosaur Boots, Applereed Mutagen [w/ Collar of the Shifting Spider], wands of enlarge, ect.

Well Air Walk still works for aerial combat even though it's legacy since a same name replacement wasn't made. And for aerial combat, Trip would be the way to go and once close enough to the ground, I'd say the ground counts as a prop for flying/airborne creatures.

Swimming though is an issue. Honestly, I don't know why they don't make all the feats work like Daring Stunt.

You could go Haft Striker Stance and swap between a 1d10 weapon with a maneuver trait and maybe reach and a 'club'. Or is you plan to go mostly shove, a good old Maul gets you a 1d12 weapon and an agile 'club' all in one weapon.

Fair enough- I guess my approach would be either building around the other feats, or swapping weapons once you have Rushing Strike. The only maneuver trait on a d12 weapon is Shove, and that would require a blocking prop to not shove them out of your reach for Daring Reversal.

You can add Disarm, Trip and Grapple with the Inventors Weapon Innovation: Entangling Form. You'd have to wait until 8th but you can have a Maul that's 1d12 B Disarm, Grapple, Shove and Trip. [or add Sweep, change damage to 1d12 S and Advanced weapon if you change a Butchering Axe instead]

The mechanics worry me more than the name... :P

graystone wrote:

shroudb wrote:

I can't in good faith agree to the ground being a prop.

Every single "you are next to a prop" requirement becomes meaningless if so.

I think it should work for a flying character. 3D movement opens up the floor and ceiling IMO.

that's why I said "in good faith".

Permanent flying is something that comes way later in the game progression, imagining that the whole class design from level 1 is based upon a limitation that only may arise at some point around level 12+ and enven that as a very drawn out maaaaaybe, is not realistic.

I meant when they were flying they could use the floor as a prop, not that the existence of flying opened it up from 1st.

I can't in good faith agree to the ground being a prop.

Every single "you are next to a prop" requirement becomes meaningless if so.

I think it should work for a flying character. 3D movement opens up the floor and ceiling IMO.

Yeah stuff like this makes me kinda think this is going to get some errata or a look at. Just seems kinda weird and underwhelming like why would I even try to shoot these out of a crossbow at those levels why not just shoot the crossbow and do more damage. Unless you knew a target had a massive weakness to holy/unholy and at low levels that just isn't common enough to warrant all of this.

The weapon is still a thrown weapon so you add Str damage so at first, you could be doing 1d4+3 [vs 1d8 for normal crossbow] and that's not bad and it can trigger S and P weaknesses [and Holy]. At 4th, you can pick up the upgrade feat and add 1d6+4 B, so able to trigger all the physical weaknesses + you can add silver or cold iron. And if the target has none of those weaknesses, you can always fire the crossbow normally.

An interesting character would be to pick up both Bloodseeking Blade [Sukgung] and Consecrated Panoply.

I feel slayer right now doesn't give me anything that the thaumaturge didn't before

It doesn't force you to take Dubious Knowledge, which makes it a better class just for that. :P

I feel that Crossbow Slayer should be able to apply to weapons in the crossbow weapon group, rather than just crossbows. Gives ability to switch to a heavy crossbow or a hand crossbow, and would provide compatibility with Starfinder's crossbolter.

Looks at Crossbow Ace

Crossbow Terror just mentions crossbow when it's clear it's meant for the group.

Crossbow Crack Shot mentions crossbows but makes it clear to covers the group by mentioning what happens if you're using a crossbow with backstab.

I think it's safe to go with the more expansive reading unless it's clear that it means JUST the simple weapon crossbow.

Acrobat Dedication for the scaling Acrobatics seems worth it.

I think Consecrated Panoply really has to go down the Crossbow Slayer path. You use the spikes stats except to use the crossbow's range number for it's Thrown number so it retains its Str damage bonus which helps make up for it's lower damage. This lets you put runes on the crossbow solving that problem. Then you can take Expansive Panoply to use Club, Dart or Shortsword stats.

So you could use a Sukgung 1d8 P, Fatal Aim d12, Range 200 ft for normal attacks and can instead deal 1d4 P + Str, 1d4 S + Str or 1d6 B + Str [for triggering physical weaknesses] plus is Holy/Unholy and Silver/Cold Iron or Adamantine. Seems pretty versatile. Vicious Spike also doesn't care about die size.

The class REALLY needs a way to be able to increase the size that can use their feats on. Hard locking it to 1 size bigger just sucks.

I'm very concerned about the Daredevil having a focus on press actions which is inherently going to be at lower accuracy. I just don't like it as it currently is. I feel the features are fairly underwhelming and the class just feels all over the place.

It sort of feels like the class should fighter levels of of accuracy to offset press action lowered numbers.

The feat says level 1, not level 0. I still think it probably needs to scale somehow, because most of the options are mutagens, etc. It's going to be a dead feat eventually regardless.

And even things like Darkvision are level 2, not level 1.

Ok, error with Demiplane then as it says level 0.

Perpdepog: when you reference damage steroid, are you talking about stunt damage? the very conditional and harder to pull of thing where you actually have to move an enemy into a solid surface to get it?

Remember it also "includes a creature that is larger than you." This means the smaller you are, the easier it is to get stunt damage. So a halfling with titan wrestler could toss a ogre into your human fighter for stunt damage.

That is so situational, I would not count it. don't get me wrong, I love it as a bread-and-butter ability, and in most cases you can pull it off, but in the most necessary cases (boss fights against big monsters) it will be the hardest to get.

This does lead into the second issue, increasing enemy sizes. With the class revolving around athletic checks, it's going to need a reliable source of size growth to stay within titan wrestlers size difference to use those maneuvers.

"You gain a catalyzing flask as a secondary tool, a special alchemical vial that contains a level 0 common alchemical elixir of your choice."

the issue is that there ARE no "level 0 common alchemical elixir", or any level 0 elixir at all. This means that this 8th level feat is a dead one.

The link to Demiplane takes you to the Impossible Class Playtest, not the Risks and Rewards Playtest.

So yes, the white room scenario of "starts next to an opponent in melee." Very uncommon, I've never seen it happen myself.

It's a LOT easier with a Commander: They can give them an extra reaction to use to move to a foe so they start next to them and still has all their normal reactions. it's quite easy to move it out of the white room.

For exploration wands and scrolls, studious spells and maybe dedications (or other items giving slots) are what you'd use. That's the cost of the magus chassis, you don't use magic as liberaly as a full caster, it isn't your role.

But the same rational also works for spellstrike. Why not get some scrolls [w/ Striker's Scroll] and maybe a dedication for some focus spells and spells? The result is the same [more available spells to use in exploration] but it also allows for more spells in combat. Sounds like a win/win.

On most days 4 spells is enough, especially if you supplement with scrolls, wands, staves, and so on.

Sure, especially with Fused Staff, but that's only is you both want to use consumables on the regular and also want to toss around a lot of cash on spell items [staves and wands] while also managing armor and weapons and all the other stuff you want. Magic equipment shouldn't be a crutch to make a class work at baseline. I have a similar complaint with thrown builds.

I was pretty neutral on the remaster change to allow all classes to refocus all their focus points when the remaster first came out, but I have soured on it as the remastering process has run its course. Focus spells used to be a pretty heavy investment for most classes not built to use them a lot. Now it is just this optimizing resource you are either exploiting, or you are wasting a major power source. It has really killed the psychic for me. It has also flattened the magus and the summoner for me, and hybrid casting as a mechanic generally. 3 focus spells really is all the spell casting most casters need to do in 3-4 round encounters. They are not as good as spell slots generally, but for general combat they can be about as good as casting top rank -1 sells for lower levels and top rank -2 at mid levels, and top rank -3 at the highest levels.

It's pretty much the opposite for me. I was never overly thrilled with the psychic, so there wasn't much to sour. I didn't really like wave casting, so I was already archetyping for spellcasting so easier focus spells is mostly a sidegrade, so not a "pretty heavy investment" for me at least. IMO, it's all good stuff. It just removed some hoops for things people where already doing.

Just remind them that ammunition is destroyed upon use. >XD

lol That's why you go for a javelin or chakri. Or a grappling arrow/bolt that is specifically not destroyed. Or a dagger, dart, shuriken, or starknife with a blade launcher.

Regardless of how people homebrewed it, the previous rules did keep it in check.

I found it was more overlooked or forgotten vs homebrewed. I know quite a few people that were surprised when people brought up it was a new thing.

You can "function as that object for allies to use". You can't function as a rock for the purposes of hardness against an enemy's attack, and the Change Shape rule says you don't get any special abilities of what you turn into.

I'm not sure why people seem to think this would be some kind of exploit: it takes an action to change into it and you can only speak and crawl in that form. That means if you spent 2 actions and a reaction to ready a change for 5 hardness, you'd then have to spend another action to actually DO anything, meaning 3 actions and a reaction for 5 hardness to an attack... Ok, sure.

Change Shape rule says you don't get any special abilities of what you turn into.

Special abilities, sure doesn't get them. However: "The monster doesn't gain any special abilities of the new shape, only its physical form. For example, in each shape, it replaces its normal Speeds and Strikes, and might potentially change its senses or size." it's physical form IS gained and things about it's physical shape and makeup are gained, like speeds and Strikes. So it's not quite as simple as you put it. hardness isn't a special ability.

Special Abilities
Source Player Core pg. 41
"Any other entries in the sidebar represent abilities, senses, and other qualities all members of the ancestry manifest. These are omitted for ancestries with no special rules."

Special Abilities for items means magic abilities [GM Core pg. 130] so Hardness isn't included [unless it's adding it magically]. As for as I know, those are the only 2 places mentioning Special Abilities.

Exactly. Before remaster the refocus rules made picking up a focus spell to spellstrike with a strong option that came at a pretty huge cost for over half of your character's career.

As a reminder you could only Refocus 1 point if you had spent one since the last time you refocused.
So if you used a focus spellstrike, you had to choose between lowering your max focus pool for the day if you needed to cast another focus spell, or find something else to do.
That's what kept it in check.
With the remaster, it has basically no cost to spam and that's why it has become an issue.

Plus the magus doesn't need it to function: case in point all the magus characters i've played.

You just needed things like Energized Font and Familiar Focus if you wanted to use multiple focus spells in a combat and recharge to a pool of 3. They also got Conflux Focus and Conflux Wellspring at 12 and 18 to regain more than 1 per refocus. So you had to jump through hoops with more investment, but you could do it.

The feat doesn't explicitly state "You cannot transform into objects with broader mechanical implications", but I think the intent of the feat is very clear that you're only mimicking the form of that object and gaining something like hardness is not the intent.

IMO, the feat seems to imply that you'd have to be able to transform into objects with broader mechanical implications. The form in the name can't be used if you take damage from heat/fire. Same for a wok or a waffle iron. Sledge hammers and mining picks would have to be hard enough to affect stone. A portable anvil, like what's in the Repair Toolkit, has to have the ability to survive being hammered repeatedly and not be damaged.

That said, I'd make sure it's limited to the "form of a simple tool or object", so no special materials [an adamantine sword isn't "simple"], so any hardness would top out at 5. That'd mean taking damage from falls over 10', and anything like being fired through a wall would hurt quite a bit: a catapult deals 5d10 bludgeoning and you get to take 5 off... It would mean that metal tools actually work, such as a frying pan not taking fire damage from use.

What if instead the user had two daggers with a returning rune on each? It would meet the requirement at the start (and also doesn't specify whether the strike is melee or ranged) but as soon as the first strike is made the thrown weapon would become ranged and "fail" the check. Then as the strike ends the dagger would fly back in the hand of the user, becoming a melee weapon again and thus the requirement would again be met for the second strike.

The easy way to make sure there aren't any issues is to wear free hand weapons: if you wear gauntlets then throw daggers or get disarmed, you'll always have a weapon in hand.

About the usage of Twin Takedown with melee weapons with thrown trait, I simply don't allow using them with Twin Takedown once IMO the feats is clearly made to not be used with ranged attacks. The usage o thrown trait to workaround this is just a don't wanted workaround that takes advantage from 2 rules that probably aren't just wasn't consider working together.

This is a grey area. While requiring melee weapons implies melee Strikes, it departs from other similar feats like Double Slice, that are explicit is requiring a melee weapon for the strike. It most likely isn't intended, but I don't see any issue allowing it, since thrown builds can always use some help and it's not overpowering anything. Requiring Dual-Weapon Warrior just for a dual throw ability on a ranger just seems a bit mean.

Knuckle Duster is singular throughout the entry, the Black Powder Knuckle Dusters are plural throughout the entry.

Could be different people making the entries: knuckle-dusters is commonly used for singular items, like brass knuckles, so it's not surprising that they didn't change it or think of it as sloppy editing: the editor/checker might fall on the side of using the s on the end.

Here, literally shortly after I pointed out Kip Up will be taken for a lot of builds around the time Crashing Slam is.

Ok. You said "people" so I was expecting multiple people.

I said it here:

"Crashing Slam is when you were supposed to get a major upgrade (especially with Kip Up becoming a lot more common at that level) and your class feats overall are a lot more powerful."

Crashing slam is 10th level, so that's only the second skill feat you can get from the 7th level ones if you're spending just skill feats. I took that to mean they would be taking it pretty much as soon as they can since we're debating the value of a 10th level feat being devalued by a 7th level feat. the longer it takes for Kip Up to be taken, the less it matters. Again, I didn't take this to be you're saying that most martials will eventually take it at some level, maybe significantly after they could take Crashing Slam.

graystone wrote:

pauljathome wrote:

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.

It is very un fun and very bad game design

I'm with you, hate it so, so much. For instance, I refuse to use a Thaumaturge unless the DM allows me to NOT take the Dubious Knowledge feat. I have no interest in increasing the amount of incorrect info i get. :P

skill issue shrimply ignore the information

Sure I can ignore it, but I find the whole rigmarole pointless and annoying and since the character is based around rolling Recall Knowledge all the time, I'd rather not buy into it. It's simply anti-fun for me and would suck all the enjoyment out of the experience for me. I'd rather get no right answer than get 2 even is I can figure out which one is true: often i already know the right answer before the roll but I'd rather not play along wrong answers. When a 'smart/knowledgeable' keeps coming up with wrong answers, they don't seem very smart/knowledgeable anymore IMO. I know some people love it but I'd rather not.

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.

It is very un fun and very bad game design

I'm with you, hate it so, so much. For instance, I refuse to use a Thaumaturge unless the DM allows me to NOT take the Dubious Knowledge feat. I have no interest in increasing the amount of incorrect info i get. :P

Is there a reason people keep mentioning taking it as a 7th level general feat?

Who's doing that? People mention it's a 7th level feat because it's level as a skill feat that requires Master. Skill feats go level 1 [trained], level 2 [expert], level 7 [master] and level 15 [legendary]. Saying 'hey, it's a 7th level feat so it competes with other 7th level [and then legendary] feats' doesn't implies taking it as soon as possible.

And the whole point is that someone might not even pick it up until level 10, 12, or even 14 (same as Crashing Slam) -- especially given Acrobatics is often a secondary or tertiary skill.

I sure didn't get that as your main point. If your numbers for the ratios is for Kip Up by 20th level, I'd be more likely to go with them for dex martials [you eventually run out of useful skill feats] but the 'value' of it weakening prone/trip lessens the longer it is till it's take. On non-dex martials, getting master on Acrobatics isn't something I see often. On NPC's, I can't recall any NPC with Kip Up.

Most dex based classes will have it.

It's competing with Stealth skill 7th level skil feats like Foil Senses, Vanish into The Land and Swift Sneak. As such, I'm not sure 'most' dex classes will have it. will have it and even less Str will, since that means they're advancing a skill to master that they likely aren't maxing out the stat for: most people aren't throwing away one of their 3 skills they can ax for a single skill feat. I'm not even sure most rogues, with all those extra skill feats, have it.

Absolutely. Though usually the problem I run into the most with these kinds of setups is that characters who want to be using ranged weapons are usually not built for Athletics maneuvers, since Athletics requires proper investment into Strength (especially with the -2 from Ranged Trip tacked on) to work.

The best setup I saw for this was actually a STR based Aiuvarin Precision Ranger who did what you say (Mutitalented at 9th for Inventor -> Initial Modification at 10th) and slapped Blunt Shot on a Gauntlet Bow. With Far Shot he had 120 feet of Ranged Trip, which he mostly used to bring down annoying fliers. Called it his pocket net gun.

I've seen it on a Way of the Vanguard Gunslinger using a Sukgung w/ Reinforced Stock and it did ok. And, yes, they used it for those pesky fliers. Nothing brought them more joy than tripping a flyer from more than a football field away. ;)

Balkoth wrote:

Tridus wrote:

Creating a NPC with it is perfectly reasonable. MOST of the NPCs having it is not.

I've literally never said most NPCs have it.

I said most martial-like NPCs have it. That's a huge difference. So like 30-50% of NPCs overall which make up like 30-50% of opponents.

So like 9% to 25% of overall opponents.

Still a huge ratio IMO. I do not think 9% to 25% of Martial PCs have it.

Yeah, I'd be surprised if "30-50% of NPCs overall" had master acrobatics, let alone have picked that specific feat. I might be able to buy 9% of martial-like NPCs have it but up to 50% of all npc and 35% of all opponents? Can't see it.

The only way to get any kind of range is by being an Inventor*, since then you can slap Ranged Trip on something like a Sukgung and trip people 200 feet out. But then, you're playing an Inventor, so there's that.

You can get it on a 10th level aiuvarin character [Multitalented (inventor) + Basic Modification and no ability requirement]. So a 10th level gunslinger could use that Sukgung to range trip from 200' [or 400' away if they pick up Far Shot] ;).

NorrKnekten wrote:

Ofcourse this doesn't mean they can hide their spellcasting but its still neat that effects like Silence doesn't stop them.

I think a 2nd-rank Silence on the Psychic would actually hide the auditory manifestations of his spells, so if he is invisible as well…

"Your spells still have clear and noticeable visual and auditory manifestations, as normal for a spellcaster.” Invisibility makes you invisible, not your manifestations.

Invisibility: "Illusions bend light around the target, rendering it invisible." The target, not the manifestations. So you'd still get the normal spellcasting visuals.

Also like to note that pets being unable to use actions with the attack trait means that they can't escape grabs and the like. Very bizarre change. Feel quite sorry for any witch whose familiar is grabbed now.

They made an exception for Escape and Force Open.

"The Pet feat restricted Strikes, but was intended to be broader. Change the final sentence of the first paragraph to “A pet can’t take attack actions except to Escape or Force Open.”"

Wow, I didn't think instances of damage would get explained until PF3. Overall, I can't say I'm upset about this batch of errata. Some errata needs errata, like polymorph and non-natural speeds, but that's par for the course with PF2 errata.

Squiggit wrote:

Also, was nerfing the Pet feat on anyone's bingo card???

Pet?? Look what they did - or didn't - do to Familiar.

Still no clarification on how long commands are followed when not in combat. Still no ability to use trained-only actions of skills even with the Skilled ability.

But now I can't use the Spellcasting ability to cast Biting Words or Hydraulic Push. Because those are attack spells and are now forbidden just like Strike.

At least they can still Force Open. ;)

Gunslingers can actually have a fix for alchemical ammo they make! They have a feat for activating ammo when they create it with quick alchemy.

SuperParkourio wrote:

Tridus wrote:

Like, I feel bad for OP here who has no chance of getting an official answer and thus the best we can do amounts to "RAW is X and we run it like Y because Z reasons." Because when we can't even get answers to the most basic things that should be really easy, what hope is there for anything else?

Well, we just got the errata for the psychic's entropic wheel amp that didn't work, so maybe there's hope after all.

What!? Where?

they added several 2026 spring errata to the FAQ.

Let me just look up 'instance of damage'...

However, that's in part because one of those class features vastly expands the flexibility of spontaneous casting.

I didn't mention signature spells as those are part and parcel with spontaneous casting.

Squiggit wrote:

glass wrote:

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

They're all running on fundamentally the same basic mechanics, so this distinction isn't really important.

The distinction between Vancian and non-Vancian casting is not "really important" to the question is whether Vancian casting is the root of casters' problems? I am lost for words.

That's because no one complains about that. Take another set of classes, sorcerer and wizard, and you'll find that the one with the same kind of casting to the Psychic, the sorcerer, is more highly thought of because of the class features. To be honest, I've seen more people value a spontaneous casting than prepared overall.

As for the Psychic vs Cleric or Druid, it's more that the Psychic only has 2 slots per level vs a clerics/druids 3 slots plus clerics/druids can pick any on level spell on their list they have access to per day and they have better class features. Spontaneous vs prepared doesn't impact the Psychic issues much IMO.

Also the remaster PDF is massive at 241MB and took some time to open.

I compressed it to 76 MB and it works a lot better. :)

whereas in my opinion the Sniper is a bit more dependent on the battle map and how they act during exploration (you basically have to constantly Avoid Notice to be able to roll Stealth for initiative, and hope you've got cover or concealment to be able to Hide during combat).

I got around this by taking the Spell Trickster Dedication which gets you Barrier Shield: it allows you to cast a Shield spell for standard cover, allowing your Slinger's Reload anyplace. You spend an extra action a round, so you're stuck in place, but it helps in a pinch.