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I'm very new to Pathfinder 2e, having played four times since its release (PFS organized play only), and now I want to immerse myself into learning the rules of the game. I'm going to make 4 PC characters and self-GM/solo the Abomination Vault series. I think this will be a fun way to thoroughly learn the rules at my own pace without risk.

My question for the Forum is what 4 character classes should I make to navigate the Abomination Vault series? As a bit of a restriction, I only own the Core Rulebook, Bestiary (1), and Game Mastering Guide for rule books to draw on (plus the Abomination Vault AP); that represents my class limitations for these 4 characters. I wanted to take a Cloistered Cleric (Dwarf), a Ranger (elf), a Wizard or Sorcerer (Gnome probably sorcerer), and maybe a fighter or a champion. If you have any recommendations in this regard I would really appreciate it. I am especially interested in whether this party should have a cloistered cleric or a warpriest, and whether the ranger's planned Bow emphasis would make the party vulnerable in melee.

Thank you in advance for any assistance you provide.

If I wanted to take 5 or 6 characters, would I have to adjust encounter difficulty for a bigger party? Four PCs is the norm now for AP design, is that right?

I'm returning to Pathfinder after 3 years away.
In second edition:
Is anything changing in the Golarion world setting that I need to know about in advance? I'm still waiting for my 2 core books to arrive.

I have a ranger in PFS who has just hit 4th level, and can choose his first spell(s). Resist energy seems highly useful.
Then I got to thinking that in PFS, I think I could get a wand of Resist Energy, since it is a level 1 Ranger spell, for 750 gold.

1) Am I right that in PFS I can buy a wand of resist energy for 750? I'm wondering if you can even buy "ranger-made" wands.

2) If I buy a wand of Resist Energy, does the wand have to be of a SPECIFIC energy type, or does the user of the wand get to decide which energy type they wish to block with each casting of the spell?
My reading is the latter.

Guys, I have a campaign that takes place all around the Selen river centered around Riverton (Kyonin-Galt-River Kingdoms).

I'm really concerned with trying to make up-river boat travel viable given the technology and magic of the time.

Can anyone give me some creative ideas for divine magic that might be useful to help boat travelers either take advantage of winds in order to sail up-river (however slowly) or magic that might lower water resistance, or magic that would help oars (or rowers) push water more efficiently/longer/harder), especially stuff that is lower levels (spell level 1-3).

Thanks. There are so many spell sources, and I only have the CRB and APG plus some player companions. Plus I'm nowhere near as clever at mixing spell effects as this community.

Guys, I have a campaign that takes place all around the Selen river centered around Riverton (Kyonin-Galt-River Kingdoms).

I'm really concerned with trying to make up-river boat travel viable given the technology and magic of the time.

Can anyone give me some creative ideas for divine magic that might be useful to help boat travelers either take advantage of winds in order to sail up-river (however slowly) or magic that might lower water resistance, or magic that would help oars (or rowers) push water more efficiently/longer/harder), especially stuff that is lower levels (spell level 1-3).

Thanks. There are so many spell sources, and I only have the CRB and APG plus some player companions. Plus I'm nowhere near as clever at mixing spell effects as this community.

I have a whole campaign based around my players being pseudo-emissaries of a monarch. My campaign will have them traveling away from the kingdom virtually the entire campaign, with stops back home between missions (leveling, downtime, etc.).

I'm a novice with Pathfinder magic, and I'm not sure what magical means of communication may exist for the world.
Can anyone give me some ways for immediate communication across distances in the pathfinder world? Distances would be fewer than 750 miles (maybe even half that). Whether it's one-way communication or two would also be important to know.

I played a PFS game called Destiny of the Sands in which the main NPC gave the party a gem with some type of spell that enabled us to talk to him (one-way) when we completed our mission, but I don't remember what it was.

I'm writing a character background, and the character's father has gone 'missing.' The plan is to have the father alive and for a future reunion to take place.

My question is whether there exists a spell in the rules (I'm kind of new and my spell knowledge is very limited) that would enable my character to know whether his father is alive or dead?

Presuming such a spell exists, I'd like the character to know that his father is at least alive (or at least 'not dead' depending on how the spell may work).

This is on Golarion, by the way, if it matters. And the folks involved are Elves.

I have everything set up for my first Pathfinder campaign.
In the early part of the campaign, my players have a lot of traveling to do within the River Kingdoms (this is not Kingmaker, though).

I have a calendar set up, I've got the phases of the moon to keep track of, I've got weather plans, and I know to try to bring the country alive with description.

But from a challenge standpoint, I want to get some advice from experienced GMs about how to make travel more interesting and a compelling part of the game.

From a plot standpoint, the travel isn't linked to wandering monsters or anything. My players have to go from Riverton to Daggermark to Rookwarden for specific challenge encounters.

I have a pretty good plot and story, I'm using the Ultimate Campaign Contact System, and I want to make the journeys seem important. Please any advice would be great.

If you have any advice about logistics systems for lots of travel by the party, that would also be helpful.

So the Selen river has barge travel. Can barges travel upstream in this era of 'technology'?

Situation 1:

I have 10 HP
I have 4 HP lethal damage
I have 4 HP of non-lethal damage.

I am healed for 6 points. What is my status?

Situation 2:
I have 10 HP
I have 8 HP of lethal damage
I have 3 HP of non-lethal damage (I am unconscious but not bleeding, I think)

I am healed for 8 points. What is my status (knowing I am now conscious at a minimum)

Inner Sea World Guide River Kingdoms Map:

What are the red lines?
The key doesn't say (at least in my hard copy).
At first one considers that they are boundaries of the various kingdoms.
But that doesn't make sense because when you consider cities on the map, and the River Kingdoms companion book, several cities listed as belonging to Daggermark are within the red lines of Tymon (if they were borders).

Are they roads or river trade routes (as some are along obvious river routes)?

I'm totally confused by the red lines.

My PFS Gnome is level 2, and has a smidgeon over 2,000 gp accumulated.
He's a really fun character to roleplay, and now that I have his personality developed a bit, I intend to play him more.

He has pretty 'normal' Oracle of Flame (Pyromaniac gnome) stats, something like: 9/12/14/14/10/18 (or something - I don't have him right in front of me, but the stats aren't unusual).

He has a buckler shield, an armored coat, a longspear and a light crossbow, plus a wand of Cure Light Wounds with 50 charges.

Since I am a tank-oriented player, this Oracle of Flame (Pyro) is very unusual for me, and I'm not really sure what the priorities for gear acquisition should be. Any advice would be appreciated.

And as a more specific question: What scrolls and/or potions does this character want to acquire as he 'grows up' for emergency situations? I know that for PFS, one-shot items can be bad ideas, but once in a while they can save your life.

Hi everyone.
I am an owner of the hard-cover of the Inner Sea World Guide, but not the PDF.

I am going to start a campaign in 4650 or so, and it will feature the geography between Kyonin & Galt, Andoran & River Kingdoms (/Razmiran). The issue is that Razmiran did not yet exist then, but was a series of River Kingdom domains.

So as I design maps, particularly maps for the web page that everyone will access for background data, I want to have a map of the region that does not have "Razmiran" and its boundaries.

I have heard that the PDF files can be edited (by what program I'm not sure) so that you can filter out layers, and that borders and titles are one layer.

So I'm thinking of buying a PDF file. But I have a few questions:
1) Is it true I can get a map of a paizo PDF edited so that borders are not present? 1b) What about city names?
2) What 3rd party editing program could achieve these results?
3) Would it be a better idea, given the goals, to buy the Inner Sea World Guide PDF, or the large-poster Golarion World Map PDF?

Thanks for any advice

As I develop ideas for my house rules for an upcoming campaign, I wonder if I want to improve the bonus that shields give.

My campaign will be slow advancement, 5-people, using a 25 point (Epic) point buy (with a restriction that no stat can be reduced below 9 prior to racial mods). Characters will get maximum HP per level.

I think shields are under-utilized and under-protective in Pathfinder, but is it enough to warrant taking any action about it?
I'm not sure I know enough about Pathfinder to balance this kind of thing.

I also like simplicity, so I was thinking that whatever the AC bonus a shield gives, the shield also confers DR equal to the AC bonus.

But yeah, I hear someone out there in internet land saying "If you like simple, leave it as is..."
So maybe I should just listen to that, because honestly, I have a fair number of character gen house rules as it is (multi-class, as I said before).

What the heck does that mean?
If I'm making a Fort save, it's Con-based.

If I'm the caster, the DC is based on whatever my casting stat is (among other things).

Though I'm asking this question based on the Ghoul bite attack, I see it all over the place, and I don't understand the phrase "The save DC is Cha based"

I recently came across a great miniature of an owl, and while I was not considering an owl as an animal companion to either my Level 1 Druid, or my Level 2 Ranger (both of whom are PFS characters), but now that I have a cool miniature, I might like to change those plans.

I do own the Animal Archive player companion, so I know there are some tricks in there that I can teach (like 'bombard' or whatever it's called, to drop potion/bombs).

But what other useful advantages can a flying animal companion bring to my characters? Should I use him with the Druid or with the Ranger?

Skills and feats to consider? Are they survivable if used with discretion?

Thanks in advance.

I am thinking of making my ranger into a Ranger/Evangelist, but my Ranger is shield specialized, so he fights up front and uses medium armor.

What would the negative consequence be for an Evangelist in medium armor?

I'm confused about the Sellen River.
How does the Sellen river start at the Lake of Mists and Veils, head south, and somehow get through the mountains that border Andoran/Galt/Taldor?

Basically, the river has four major branches. It doesn't make any sense to me. Which way does the western branch flow? East?

Does anyone know sourcebook material that specifically talks about the river? I have a campaign designed to take place between Kyonin/Galt/Andoran. I know it's a 'major river' but that's about it.

I build all of my characters from interesting miniatures that capture my fancy. I'm pretty new to Pathfinder Society play, with four characters, a 1-ranger, a 1-wizard, a 2-flame oracle, and 3-fighter. All based on miniatures I liked.

One of the PFS veterans suggested that I make up a bunch of characters so that I can have characters across a bunch of level ranges, and with a variety of types to help a party fill essential roles.

I know I want a druid, and I have that miniature ready and build thought out.

I also want a cleric. So I want to fill the cleric role with one of the two miniatures I have picked out. And whichever one ends up the cleric, the other needs to end up something useful.

The two miniatures in question are a dwarf with pick/axe & shield, whose armor could be considered heavy, medium, or light.

The other miniature is a humanoid in full helm, so he could be any human/elf/half-orc, etc. He is armed with a spear in a very cool bracing pose, and a shield. He also has a sword on his belt. His armor can only be seen as medium or heavy (he has a pseudo phalanx fighter type feel).

I'm thinking of choosing between Cleric (of whatever domain) and an Oracle of Battle.

Since I'm new to Pathfinder, I'm overwhelmed by the variety of domains available to me via the CRB and APG. Since I play a flame oracle, I understand that class better (but why have two of the same basic class?).

Preference wise, I think I'd like to put the dwarf to use as a cleric. I don't have any dwarf characters. The dwarf wouldn't be as well suited to the oracle, I don't think.

Role-wise for my future cleric, I want to be good-aligned, positive energy channeling, able to support the front line combatants very closely. So dwarf seems to fit there as well. Deity decision is open, I like to roleplay but I don't know much about deities yet (I do own Dwarfs of Golarion now, so I'll learn). I could mostly use help on what domain to choose to be a type of battle cleric? What stats should a dwarf pursue, what feats are essential for a dwarf cleric at level 1 & 3.

Thanks for any help.

The helmeted guy I will probably hold off on, unless you think I should create a half-orc or human oracle of battle/cleric. That's also a possibility (as long as he's using a spear and shield ;) )

I'm a big fan of Golarion; it's one of the things that attracted me to Pathfinder. I have the Inner Sea World Guide, so I know some basics about Kyonin and the Dwarven Kingdoms from that book.

I'm wondering what other source material might help me better understand the history of the core rulebook non-human races, especially Elves & Dwarves.

I hope to (in the pipedream sense) design a campaign that jumps to an earlier point in Golarion history (post death of Aroden still, but anywhere thereafter is fair game), and I want to tell a Dwarf/Elf focused narrative, aiming for 1/3 or less players as human.

What else might I read to better know Golarion's (particularly Avistan's) Dwarf/Elf societies.

As the subject reads:
I'm assuming GMs cannot independently decide to use the hero point system from the APG for his chosen PFS game?

I just bought my first character folio. I do think it's a pretty quality product.

But I'm a little unsure how it will hold up to repeated writing, erasing, and re-writing.

I'm normally a pencil guy, but I have a bad feeling that that will tear it apart, eventually.

Does anyone have any advice on preserving the condition of the folio?

I came to PFS from a competing product that did not have levels or alignment or detect spells.

I dislike Detect spells because RAW they can be used as radar, which is meta-gaming, and I specifically request my players agree to make a concerted effort not to meta-game.

I just want to do away with all detect spells (or make them many levels higher to justify the radar-like power).

I realize it makes it very difficult for players to know what to pick up and loot, but it's a simple enough step by the GM to describe things in a way that prepares the player.

What unforeseen consequences might I be creating by doing this?
(I would probably keep the Paladin's ability to detect evil, and similar class-based, spell-like abilities that are specific class features.

I expect the answer to be "no, you can't" but please respect my need to earnestly ask the question.

I have GM'd about 4 or 5 games, I guess now. I enjoy it.

But I've consistently run across a couple players in my area who rob the game of fun for me because they don't seem to be there to HAVE fun. They are there to beat every encounter as fast and lopsidedly as possible. One in particular never smiles, laughs, interacts with other players, and has treated me in a way I feel is disrespectful (he has 30 years experience, I've been playing PFS since August but RPing for 30 years as well) so he likes to roll his eyes at me a lot.

I play in my free time to have fun. I have PTSD, and I don't need to try to compete with one player to make it fun for the other 5 and for myself. The only solution I see is to give up trying to run PFS in my area.

What are my options?

Simply put, does the damage that the attacker does also apply to his own weapon (which may have different hardness and hit points)?

I have a level 1 Ranger that I like a lot, and he's half-elven, so he gets two favored classes.

I don't multiclass - I'm new to PFS, so I haven't tried to overcomplicate things. But now I've been playing for 9 months or so, and after picking up the APG and the Animal Archive, I'm really super-duper excited to have an active animal companion. Thus, why I took the Ranger.

And I am planning to be a light armor wearing, archery type ranger, so I was thinking IF I multi-class, I would either go Rogue for a couple dips (because I find disable device to be an under-present skill in my area for PFS).

But after reading a thread about druid vs. cleric, and hearing the ways you can use instant summoning, and wild shape, and knowing the spells I have access to for an animal companion already, I wonder if I just don't take the Druid at level 2 or 3 and do it a few times.

Can you tell me if Ranger-Druid is dumb and too redundant?
If it's viable, can you tell me any advice about when to take druid and how far?

I had planned to be a standard ranger, but if I add druid, then I can take one of the archetypes that I like (skirmisher or the one where you give up favored enemy to help your group get a FE-like bonus).

Thanks for any insight you can add.

I've been playing Pathfinder for about 8 months now, and tonight while I was brushing up on rules reading, I noticed that there is an armor class bonus for kneeling (+2) while you are conducting ranged combat (it's -2 if you're doing melee).

Does anyone have experience with how to use this?

I have an archery ranger (just level 1, newly created), and I'm just wondering why I couldn't use my move action (at a minimum, I could also see it being only a swift action, but hey, that's me).

What actually is the movement action to kneel?
Can you trade 5-feet of move for kneeling?

I've never seen anyone use this, but then before tonight I really didn't know it existed.

I'm new to pathfinder, but old to RPGs. I've been messing around with PFS, including having some GMing under my belt now (with a lot of positive feedback for my GMing).

I want to launch my own Adventure Path campaign, and I did a lot of research to reacch the conclusion that Kingmaker was the AP for me to start with. I drove down to my local hobby store where I had seen the Kingmaker line before, only to learn that Volume 1 and Volume 2 are very difficult to find, and very expensive to find. I searched online and saw that yeah, Volume 2 is especially rare and expensive, which I assume is related to the "Kingdom Building" part that is present in that volume. So I told my local store owner that I would have to choose a different AP then (and as a side note, Wrath of the Righteous might be a good altternative...)

Then he says to me that I can still download all of the volumes in PDF (actually he has volume 3-6 in his store; I had thought he had all of them). And he's right; I can buy volume 1 and volume 2 online in PDF form.

My question about the product is this; is there anything absent from the PDF version for sale at Paizo.com that I would have gotten if I bought a hard copy, specifically for Volumes 1 and Volumes 2?

If it's the kingdom building aspect of the AP, can that be replaced by the information in Ultimate Campaign (or from some other source)? Because I also want to get ultimate campaign.

I want Kingmaker because I'm very curious to expand future campaign work into the River Kingdoms, an area that intrigues me a lot (based on what I've read in the Inner Sea World Guide). But like I say, Wrath of the Righteous is reasonably close to River Kingdoms (for future expansion into my own ideas) and also looks like a great AP (I love good versus evil).

I would love to have some info from veterans who know the AP and the kingdom making aspect of volume 2.

Generally speaking, can a Pathfinder predict his income per adventure by Tier?

For example, I've played a lot of Tier 1 stuff (and I'm a new player, btw), and it seems pretty predictable that 500 gp is the norm at that Tier.

I'm also new to the Pathfinder game itself, so I'm learning about how the enchantment process for equipment goes (armor, weapons), or at least I hope.

So for example, I have a fighter who has done 2 adventures, and made 1000 gp. I spent 350 (IIRC) on a masterwork weapon so that later I can enchant it, once I can both afford it (about 2000 more gp I think) and once I have enough prestige/fame to buy something that costs that much.

For his armor, i upgraded from Scale to Banded, and I think I put Masterwork into it (even though I will move to Plate Mail at some point, I figured I would eat the loss when I sell it later).

I've been at a number of tables where someone tells me that this or that piece of gear is essential (cloak of resistance +1, or magic weapon, or adamantium weapon, etc.,) and outside of KNOWING I need a magic weapon as soon as I can buy one, I don't know what else the fighter needs to save for.

I also have an Oracle of Flame that completed his first adventure tonight, and I don't know what to do for a gnome Oracle at all in terms of gear.

If you can provide any help or insight, I am thanking you in advance for the help.

I'm new to Pathfinder organized play.

I've got one character, a half-elf ranger.
My ranger just completed his third chronicle/game, and has reached level 2.

I've been going over all sorts of things as I figure out how many skills I generate, hit points, etc.

During my review, I have found that I have Point Blank Shot written down on my character (from Level 1) but as far as I can now determine, at level 1, I should not have had any feat at all.

At level 2, I am choosing the ranged combat/archer archetype, and only now, if I'm correct, can I choose my first feat from those listed on page 65 of the Core Rulebook, which could include Point Blank Shot if I so choose.

If I am mistaken, and I did have a legal way of choosing Point Blank Shot at 1st level, please let me know. Otherwise, I think I will scratch it off and choose Rapid Shot instead as my level 2 (and only) feat.

Thanks

PS: I have another problem that I left a message about in customer service.
For my first organized game, I forgot my character number (my own account number (dash-1) and the GM gave me a character number. I had already registered at Paizo.com and have the account number under which I am posting this. I've now played 3 games with the character number assigned to me, and I expect the GM updated his sessions using the number he gave me.
Is this a problem, or should I just go ahead and start playing the character with the account number I had already registered with? If you can give me any help on this, please respond.

I'm a new player to pathfinder organized play.
I've played 3 games, all with one character.

I have a problem in that the account number I have here doesn't match the character number that I was given for my first adventure.

I'm not sure what to do about that, but at my local gaming store, they told me to contact customer service about that.

If anyone can help me, I would appreciate it. If this is the wrong venue for this help request, I apologize and would ask you to steer me toward the right place.

Thanks