shroudb's page

striking is no go for the bombs, they are already at the correct dices, the property runes is what would change the math.

so, at level 12, the vast majority of weapons will be at 5 dices, 3 from striking and 2 from elemental runes. bombs are at 3 dices, so they are behind.

that's why bomber starts to get left behind around level 10+ which is when martials start putting the elemental runes on their weapons while alchemist doesn't have such "math fixers".

at that point, bombers that want to stay relevant switch to status inflicting rather than damage because they simply can't keep up.

now, i'm pretty sure that the rai was never about the bombs, and going by a reading of the raw that runes can only be placed on permanent items, i'd say that similarily you can't "tranfer" the runes to the bombs either. Which is a shame, but at least we did get at least 1 super poerful status inflicting bomb in the book.

i'd have to wait and see the actual effect all those small buffs that have been trickling down towards alchemist in this book, when put all together, accomplish for the class.

i am hopeful that it will be a little more competitive at least.

shroudb wrote:

Leaving aside bombs, really excited for flying blade swash as well!

With finishers being specific actions, your action economy is better treated with a returning rune still. Unless you have access to shurikens. Those you can use finishers with without extra actions.

shurikens was what i was thinking, yes.

Leaving aside bombs, really excited for flying blade swash as well!

Generally speaking, feats can help either with action economy, or with accuracy.

So you have stuff like double slice (2 actions for 2 attacks, but the second has big accuracy boost (no MAP)
Vs stuff like Flurry (2 attacks, 1 action)

Similarly, knockdown is accuracy enhancer. So knockdown is 2 attacks (attack+trip) for 2 actions, but no MAP on the trip.

Staff acrobat is the action economy enhancers for trips.

2 trips for 1 action, move+strike+trip for 2 actions, and etc.

(plus some extra goods like an AC increase stance, allowing to trip/shove gargantuan creatures, and etc)

Attacking attended objects is not supported by the rules.

And for good reason too, breaking the npc weapon is a minor hassle for them, breaking the pc weapon is rendering a high level martial almost obsolete for a whole long time (weapons being often more than half the budget of a character).

Unattended objects like barrels, doors, etc? Sure, go crazy.

Escape by hitting the grappling weapon away? Sure, that's an Escape using attack roll.

VampByDay wrote:

Dubious Scholar wrote:

...I actually just figured out a way to get to 26 while trying to figure out how soon I could make that more sustainable (as burning through scrolls is not economical).

Instead of a scroll, using Drakeheart Mutagen gives you +4 item but limits you to +2 dex. But that allows you to hit 26 total instead, and if you use Ancient Elf you can have Alchemist Dedication at 1 to brew 2 per day for free.

The trick with Mage Armor is that monk can't hit the AC cap that way until level 5 since it's a 1/5 armor (same as runes on explorers clothes or bracers of armor), so the mutagen gets you to the maximum +6 total earlier.

As fun as that build is, spending 2/3ds of your actions cowering behind a tower shield is kinda . . . eh? That being said . . . 22 from not using a tower shield is actually still really good. Plus side, you don't need access to a rare fighting style for this way of doing things.

Ancient elf for alchemist still awesome idea though!

10(base)+5(Expert and level 1)+4(mutagen)+2(Dex)+1 (circumstance from crane wing)=

23, crane wouldn't stack with shield.

so starting with a 14 dex and alchemist dedication you would be at 10+5+4+2 so 21 without circumstance bonuses, and then going up to 23 with a shield or 22 with crane.

It can still be 24 if you run a basic shield instead; spending 1 action to raise a shield isn't a bad use of an action, and if you're not using it to block, being able to benefit from other specific shields might be a nice thing to do.

Is the boomerang too good? Compared to the chakram and its d8, is triple the range a fair trade? It's got a whole new niche next to pistols with the range it has. Eclipses every other thrown weapon it seems other than the fact you can't melee with it.

we needed a good martial thrown weapon thought.

i'm kinda tired of throwing javelins which are simple weapons even though i have martial proficiency.

Claxon wrote:

So, I am by far not an expert, but I want to make sure we have the same understanding of how multiclassing in PF2 works and what you will get.

At no point in a character's career can you ever become a Fighter 4/Barbarian X, where those are levels. Your levels will always be in fighter. You can get the barbarian dedication, which will get you rage. While you choose an instinct, you don't actually get any of the additional abilities they would normally grant (this is for balance). Rage will get you a +2 to damage, but comes with an AC and action restriction penalty. It's not great. If you eventually grab the instinct ability feat you can get another damage bonus, but it again comes at a penalty with Clumsy 1.

True Strike and crit fishing is a much better plan honestly, even if more limited use. The penalties from rage and clumsy may not seem that bad, on paper but you will feel them more than you expect.

For reference at 20th level your fighter might deal something like 4d8+14. Depending on weapon it could be 4d12+14. That's an average of 40. Rage + Instinct Ability can make that 46. A 15% increase, but at the cost of restricted action usage an Ac penalty. Personally I think it's a wash.

Like if you get overly focused on damage numbers, you might think it's a good idea. But from an overall character stand point, that lower AC is going to punish you. And unlike the barbarian, you don't have extra hp to make up for it.

oh, I am totally aware (as I already mentioned couple of times) that Barbarian might not be the best dedication to take. As I said it's still a draft, once I get better I will do proper xls calculations whenever +6 damage and extra HP offset -2 AC enough or not.

But now you speak my language. The idea is to find what is best dedication, best feats, archetypes etc. to take to support what I have in mind. Right now I really like idea of AoE Knockdown Fighter with Intimidation debuff, though I am open for any other good things. Like Trustrike you mentioned,...

for Quake:

you stike the enemy that's in that square (if there's any) and then Trip everyone that's in that square plus all squares directly connected to that square. So basically a 3x3 trip centered on a square up to 2 squares away from you. With a possible strike on the initial target if there's anyone there.

For Imp Knockdown:
It doesn't do anything with hammer quake.
Imp Knockdown requires you to use, and makes better, the Knockdown activity.
If you aren't using that exact activity, it does nothing.

now, if you ARE using Knockdown, it basically means that if you hit, you also trip without a check needed (as opposed to WITH a check needed).

As it stands now, especially with what we've seen in TV, advanced are direct upgrades power wise compared to martial.

I think that the access problem can be fixed with a weapon master archetype.

An archetype feat is an investment enough that will keep the separation between martial and advanced, and not have every single one handed martial running around with a falcata.

If it were just a general feat, by 3 or 7 everyone would upgrade to the advanced weapon imo.

You can then populate the rest of the archetype with generic weapon based feats like power attacks, point blank shots, and etc.

breithauptclan wrote:

The best advice that I can give you is that you cannot build an optimized character in a whiteroom if the intent is to play the character in an actual game. If you pick only options that are powerful for yourself, then you are missing the more powerful options that support and help your team.

Instead you need to optimize your party as a whole. Even better is if you can optimize your party tuned to the needs and expectations of the campaign. A dungeon crawl campaign like Abomination Vaults is going to need different optimization than an investigative campaign heavy on alchemical themes like Fall of Plaguestone.

Such informations won't be available to me for some time, so right now let's just say I am looking for general best melee build and let's try to build that without guarantee that there will be other specific character to put specific buff (although mentioning them is cool too, I can always advice such support character to someone) on my melee monster. Though knowing my group I can say that there is big chance that one will be sort of support caster for group if such role is big and nice in PF2e (in DnD support is meh, CC is the king).

As for campaign, we usually don't do much crawling, we have around 2-3 combats per session/long rest, or even just 1. We usually just mix exploration, sandbox, investigation, combat, treasure hunt. We don't setup for any particular "theme of whole campaign" as our GM just goes with the flow and sets new adventures per each few sessions.

That's all I can say if that helps.

it really depends on the whole team in pf2 though.

as an example, you can spend resources getting stuff to make your enemies flatfooted, but if you have another melee to flank with, suddenly those resources arent that great.
but then you get a 3rd member of the team that's ranged, and suddenly your "make target flat-footed" shines again because now you effectively buffed that ranged character as well.
and etc.

as a general advice:
any build that has a good 3rd action that's not attack based, that can reliably pull off 2 attacks per turn at half+ their turns, and has a reliable spender for their reaction, will do well in pf2.

having a support like bard will be a big boost to any party, but not mandatory, but some stuff like flatfooted and maybe a -1 status penelty on opponents (like from Intimidate or other sources of Frightened) are much more reliable to get the upper hand.

well, a straight up fighter is always going to be a strong melee.

fighter's high accuracy directly translates to more damage and more critical hits, and he isn't shy on defences as well.

one of the things you will notice is that most of the "power" of the classes comes straight from the class chassis. You use your feats to expand horizontally on that, so as to have a wider variety of tools, rather than a straight up increase in what you are doing already.

There are some exceptions ofc (like dangerous sorcery on a blaster is straight up more damage) but for the most part, the above is true.

a very vanilla party of a fighter, a cleric, a rogue, and a wizard is actually already quite optimised as long as you don't deviate from what's expected from you (like the fighter investing in strength and the rogue in dexterity)

Having said all that, there are indeed some things that are a tad stronger than others, so, as an example:

hammers/flails are better than other weapons in general if you get critical specialisation from your class. That is, because they have by far the best crit spec out of all weapons. Swords on the other hand have one of the worst.

AoO is very strong in pf2, so, something with reach to trigger that more often will be an overall increase in damage, even though reach weapons are generally a die lower than non-reach ones.

AoO with a reach flail/hammer is combining the best out of the two worlds. Now not only you get those AoO more often, but if you happen to crit, then you automatically drop them prone and they basically just lost their entire turn trying to get to you (move to get to you, stand up, move to get to you is 3 actions spend on their part just to reach you).

yeah, tiny can be anything from a single spider within a spider swarm to a cat or even a monkey.

something like tinkerbell as an example, would be a luminous sprite.

breithauptclan wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

So Trip is still better than say [i]Earthbind[/b] at bringing something to the ground, even if it arrests it's fall preventing damage.

Well, maybe. Though I am not sure how most characters are going to reach far enough to trip something flying overhead. Earthbind has a 120 foot range.

Monks move real fast. As far as I know the bonus to movement for ground movement translates to flying which uses their ground movement to set the speed. It says add the movement bonus to your speed. Not sure the specifics of how that interacts with a variety of rules. With the base fly spell, they can cruise up to a flying creature and crush it to the ground fairly easy.

Techniocally i think they only gain land speed.

relevant rule:

Core rulebook p.463

Whenever a rule mentions your Speed without specifying a type, it’s referring to your land Speed.

"I once saw him kill three men in a bar...with a pencil." As you can see game master an assassin is highly motived, extremely resourceful, Quick to improvise and adapt to any circumstances to overcome overwhelming odds with share tenacity and bravado.

Understandable the rogue class states simple weapons however the Archetype Assassin Dedication clearly states my agile and finesse weapons and unarmed attacks gain the backstabber and deadly d6 weapon traits when you're attacking your mark.

Which leaves one to believe that there is a small oversight in the rogues training as a dagger and a short sword are finesse weapons the sap and shortbow are Martial. The whip is listed under both Martail and finesse and rely on Dexterity to hit and strength for damage. My Character has a 18 ability score with a +4 modifier. Even without training which only means I do not receive a +2 modifier I should at the very least be able to crack the whip to tant, distract and or intimidate. It is you to your discretion to allow me to substitute one of the trained weapons listed for the whip. You would think that the whip would be an intricate part of the Drow matriarchal Society, but I digress.

Just saying if John Wick can kill three men in a bar with a number 2 pencil I should be allowed to carry a whip and look cool.

It's a much bigger difference than +2.

Untrained is +0 and Trained is Level+2

So, at something like level 4 you are already at -6.

But even at -2 (trained vs expert as an example) the difference of a +2 is quite substantial in pf2. As an example, fighter is one of the best martial classes in no small part due to that +2 above the other martials.
---

For the second part of you post about the Assasin, you are confusing a few things.

Weapons in pf2 fall generally in the categories of "simple", "martial", "advanced".

So, someone trained, as an example, "in simple and martial" weapons treats all the weapons under those categories as trained.

Similarly, someone proficient in "simple weapons plus bows" (a sorcerer with the Archer dedication as an example) gains proficiency in all weapons in the simple category plus the bow.

In the above case, it doesn't matter if the bow is a martial weapon because he directly gets said proficiency from a feature. Similarly, despite the bow being a martial weapon he is proficient in, it doesn't somehow make him proficient in other martial weapons.

Rogue is proficient with all simple weapons plus a few more specific martial weapons.

Now, going to Assassin, Deadly and Backstabber are weapon traits.

Deadly means on critical you do more damage, Backstabber means when you are flanking you do extra damage.

Those have absolutely nothing to do with Proficiency.

The Assassin feature basically makes all agile and finesse weapons having something extra, but it doesn't somehow make you more proficient wielding them.

---

All that said, I agree it's much easier to simply ask the GM to switch the core weapon proficiency of the Rogue to Martial+Simple instead of Simple+a few martial.

The specific weapon lists seem to me to be relics of the past.

Take note that if he does so, the latter class features that change trained to expert, and expert to master, should also properly change, or else it's kinda pointless.

SuperBidi wrote:

I'm sorry Leo, but that's just wrong. First, Witch Dedication asks for Intelligence, so it's actually an asset for the Alchemist who can easily grab it. Second, Spirit Link is just plain bad and there's no way I'll put that on my higher level spell slots.

It's a nice combo on paper, but it doesn't leave the paper.

I can understand the doubt, but, having used the build several times, I can attest to its efficacy.

I am curious what you dislike about Spirit Link.

i don't like Spirit link either.

i think the Martyr feat is much better at doing something very similar but much faster, much more direct, and without wasting a whole turn of spellcasting to set it up.

basically spirit link is wasting a turn for an effect that provides a net 0 towards the party HPs.

The obvious upside is splitting the damage, but in my experience it's rare that you don't get damaged anyways (thus already splitting the damage) and the effect is so miniscule that it just doesn't seem worth both the actions and the spell slot.

Yeah, the rules say that basically as long as you are using some form of limb, that should generally be attackable.

Weapons or effects like the monk shadow stance that allow reach grab without risking your limbs are a different case though.

PS: I also noticed that the tonic give the herbalist archetype a boost: who says no to poultices that give fast heal/temp hp and get a roll to stop persistent damage?

Notable that the temp hp lack the healing trait, so herbalist doesn't have access to them.

He does get the fast healing one though.

shroudb wrote:

graystone wrote:

SuperBidi wrote:

First, as you have a Familiar with Valet, you can take Extra Reagents for one more reagent.

I've haven't found Valet [1 action] overly useful as you need to use both interact actions [to draw into your hand] from the familiar to get an action benefit: with Quick Bomber for bombs, I don't find I need to draw and use 2 non-bomb items most rounds.

it's good at high levels when a single elixir of life is not enough healing.

it allows you to draw 2 of them with 1 action and then spend 2 actions using them on the target.

Oh, I understand that there might be times when it could come in handy, I'm just says I haven't found myself in such situation often enough to make it worth while IMO: it requires a target needing enough hp heal to need 2 elixirs AND requires me to start next to that person to feed them AND needing to put my familiar in danger to do so [it's Interacting and since you have to be next to the target, it can be in reach of reaction triggered by Manipulate]...

Now if you go full on healer and start every fight with a choker-arm mutagen high enough to give you enough reach to multiple people and/or keep your familiar out of danger, I could see it become a solid option but that's a higher level combo IMO.

the other way to capitalize on it, and usable way before choking was having amount. You could interact from away, so no aoo to grab them, and then move for free with the mount and apply them.

it's generally only useful if you go full on healer though, which in reality, as a chirurgeon, before all those updates, it was kinda necessary to do to keep up.

shroudb wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

But have been so overdone you reach the point of drow burnout.

I blame Drizzt.

One can stomach only so many dual wielding drows...

Back in and through the whole adnd 2nd edition it was almost customary that each of our playing groups had at least one of those in...

It started before Drizzt: in ad&d, drow where the only ones that could dual wield without penalty. I can remember quite a few spiked buckler and sword ones.

well yes, but at least in my area, the popularity only exploded when drizzt novels came out and everyone wanted to go the edgy "i'm fighting against my whole race" kinda character for some reason.

SuperBidi wrote:

First, as you have a Familiar with Valet, you can take Extra Reagents for one more reagent.

I've haven't found Valet [1 action] overly useful as you need to use both interact actions [to draw into your hand] from the familiar to get an action benefit: with Quick Bomber for bombs, I don't find I need to draw and use 2 non-bomb items most rounds.

it's good at high levels when a single elixir of life is not enough healing.

stuff

my comment about pfs vs homebrew/ap was less about the length but more about the variety of stuff you usually need. Healing wise, from the point you can reliably spend 2 per heal and still have left some, you are usually good. (which i think the minimum is like 12 of them as i put in my allocation).

pfs being random groups basically means that you are less effective as a support that you can customize both your group and your allotment to cover things (i.e. if your ally knows you can give him X, he can skip getting that on his own).

ultimately, i find from my experience that stable groups that know that they will have an alchemist learn how to more effectively rely upon him, and while that is actually great for the alchemist, it also strains his reagent allocation by actually having to use them for their intended purpose (i.e. provide buffs and support to the party).

similarly, the things that happen during the adventuring day, especially in homebrews, are far more varied than what happens in pfs (at least in all the pfs modules that i've played, which are not a lot, like 10 or so), meaning that it is beneficial for the alchemist to have more slots open to give those circumstantial utility buffs to the party, hence why when i am able, i liketo have more slots open to actually be able to provide those.

i think 3-4 is a safe number if you just want to use them on elixirs of life, but then you dont have anything left for utility, which is why i like to have at least like 6 or so of them.

---

for the new tonics, i think that both the temp hp one (even though it's not healing) and the fast healing one should be great as a padding for a longer fight. Now, not all fights are long, but usually there is at least 1 per day that somehow ends up being longer, which is why i put enough of those in to cover like 1-2 fights, and they should be quite a boon.

---

for offence, i think that grabbing the feat that lets you pilfer perpetuals from others, and grabbing the new skunk bomb is actually quite strong. Especially with how the errata now allows you to pick up the skunk bomb with the 1st pick and then pick another bomb for the 2nd pick (since skunk bomb doesnt actually scale all that well, you can pick up either a 2nd debuff like lightning bomb or pick up acid bomb for a bit of persistent damage).

if you are going strength, and are relying on the reach mutagen, then i think it's a must to invest in Athletics since it can allow reach trips and grabs to try to be more of a controller when you dont need to heal.

having an extra -1 to attacks, on top of the lower ttack of the alchemist, i dont think it's worth it to go for the AoO route. At least with athletics you have proper proficiency advancement.

worth to note, that with the new fast healing elixir, Chirurgeons are the best healers to get the party on their feet without the need for the party to stay immobile.

while they will have to wait the 10mins in between the healing, they dont have to wait to get a resource back, but they can continue doing what they would normally (moving, exploring, skill checks, etc) and just reapply every 10minutes.

even if they are in a dangerous territory and exploration is not feasible, the +10hp and at 11 +30hp extra per 10minutes means that they are much faster getting the group up.

But have been so overdone you reach the point of drow burnout.

I blame Drizzt.

One can stomach only so many dual wielding drows...

Back in and through the whole adnd 2nd edition it was almost customary that each of our playing groups had at least one of those in...

shroudb wrote:

A theoretical reagent allocation for a 15th level alchemist would look (imo) something like:

12 elixirs (4 reagents)
3 of the new fast healing (1 reagent)
4 of the temp hp new one (2 reagent)
4 mutagens for reach (2 reagents)
7 open reagents for condition/burst (7 reagents)
That leaves only 4 for party...

I'd change a few things.

First, as you have a Familiar with Valet, you can take Extra Reagents for one more reagent.
Then, I'd take Battle Medicine into account. First, because the Chirurgeon has free Medicine proficiency. Second because you can benefit from your extended reach for Battle Medicine. Third because you heal at touch range so you won't need to move to use Battle Medicine. So even if the Cleric can also take it, at these levels it should nearly never do it when the Chirurgeon will use it always.
And finally, I'd really cut on the 7 open reagents. You only need them for emergency healing and condition removal. 4 should be enough.
As you give a lot of healing to your Cleric, I'd use 6 reagents for Elixirs of Life.
It leaves the Alchemist with 12 Alchemical Items for combat purposes.

Also, I don't see the point of that many Restorations. You can't use it in combat and your Staff of Healing should provide a few for you. In my opinion you can forget about them.
It leaves the Cleric with a level 12 spell list.

The Cleric can remove:
In combat: Paralyzed.
Outside combat: Clumsy, Enfeebled, Stupefied, Disease, Curse, Drained, Doomed.
After resting: Petrified.
The Alchemist can remove:
In combat: Fear, Paralyzed, Blinded, Deafened, Sickened, Slowed, Poison, Disease.

In terms of emergency healing:
Cleric: Healer's Blessing + Heal 8 + Staff of Healing = 127 healing.
Alchemist: Quick Alchemy + Double Elixir of Life = 138 healing.

In terms of normal healing:
Cleric: Heal 8 + Staff of Healing = 108 healing.
Alchemist: Valet + Double Elixir of Life = 98 healing.

The temp hp and fast healing elixirs can help for normal healing. Healer's Blessing...

The reason for the amount of Resto was just me being lazy. I was simply dismissing the rest of the 2/4 spell slots since in the grand scheme of things they are irrelevant.

I didn't factor battle medicine because frankly both have the same access and both will probably reach the same numbers using it, since both use their primary ability score for it.

The same goes for Blessed one. Both have access to it.

I also dislike having only 4 open ingredients because that drastically diminishes what I think is the only thing alchemist has above cleric, and that is spontaneous access to utility.

That said, I think you say that most of your experience is with pfs, which is in actuality far different than my experience which is either homebrew or paths. The two have vastly different adventure day lengths. So that might be the reason for the difference in our perspectives.

So it's consensus that the feat Ammunition Thaumaturge only allows for the use of Slings, Hand Crossbows, and I guess Blowguns unless you also find a feat for Firearm proficiency?

And "Just use thrown weapons, lol" is the answer to "why does this feat suck RAW?".

Do I have that right?

It works just fine with firearms, firearms work greatly with thaumaturge.

So it's actually quite good.

Ok, I see your point, but I still disagree, especially because of that:

shroudb wrote:

So, your prepared healing and utility using Advanced is counterbalanced by Clerics spell slot healing and utility.

But Cleric's spell slots don't cover healing and utility much.

First, outside your highest spell levels, you'll get disappointing healing out of your spell slots. So most of your healing will come from your Font. The Alchemist can just use 5 reagents for 15 Elixirs of Life (which is roughly equivalent to 6 maxed out Heals once you're in the 2-digit levels) to get the same amount of healing than whatever the Cleric can expect from both its Font and its spell slots.
For Condition Removal (I assume it's what you meant by "utility"), the Cleric is in the same boat. Because a lot of Condition Removal spells ask for a Counteract check, you need to use your highest level spell slots to cover them.

So I don't see the Cleric spell list helping a lot in the healing/condition removal department.
On the other hand, Advanced Alchemy will cover all non burst healing for the Alchemist and can cover condition removal as well (even if, like the Cleric, it's better to use Quick Alchemy for these). Then you have Quick Alchemy for mostly Condition Removal and the rare cases you need burst healing (even if with Merciful Elixir you can do both simultaneously sometimes).

I also would like to add, even if it's a bit outside the debate, that if the Cleric uses its highest level spell slots for healing, it is left with nearly nothing if it doesn't want to heal. The Alchemist, on the other hand, just needs a bit of Advanced Alchemy left on the side for Bombs (for examples).

A theoretical reagent allocation for a 15th level alchemist would look (imo) something like:

For the cleric, he can allocate his 8th and 7th to healing, which is more or less equal throughput as the Advanced Alchemy stuff.
His 2nd level and 4th slots would be Restorations. So those are some extra sources of status removal, comparable imo to the free anti poison stuff of alchemist.

And then he still has his 6/5/3 slots for buffs like heroism and etc which should far outstrip what the alchemist can provide with only 4 reagents. (but the alchemist can tap into his healing reserves open slots for something needed in a pinch).

And then you have 5 Font Heals vs 7 open reagents. Font is stronger healing wise even vs the maximised elixir, so I'd say those are about equal.

shroudb wrote:

I mean... Most of your list is based on an "errata pending" that we don't know if we'll ever get.

No, only 2 items. Overall, my list is accurate.

shroudb wrote:

Using perpetuals to remove conditions doesn't actually work as it is currently since even a nat20 on the roll fails to remove level appropriate stuff.

Not for Disease and Poison where the item uses your DC and level whatever the level of the item. Its just for Sinew-Shock Serum and Focus Cathartic that I hope there'll be an errata.

shroudb wrote:

Assuming that at high enough level you have like 6-7 open reagents, if you calculate that those are simultaneously your burst healing and your condition removals, you are no much different than the 5ish font Heals that cleric has.

Not really. The Cleric Font is its base healing (the Cleric doesn't have burst healing). The Alchemist base healing is based on Advanced Alchemy. So the Cleric is sharing its base healing and its condition removal when the Alchemist is sharing its burst healing and its condition removal. The Alchemist is in a way better situation.

shroudb wrote:

Going even deeper, into feat expenditure, his 1 vs your 2 for the same thing, and since he can use a lowly 2nd level spell to deal with any status penalty, he can more easily grab stuff like Blessed one and its continuation to assist him in that front.

It starts to be complicated if you add Archetypes into the mix. I mean, the Chirurgeon is a good candidate to take the Medic Archetype due to its heavy focus on Medicine and extreme reach with Choker-Arm Mutagen. So I'm not sure Blessed One will give you much more than what the Alchemist can get. But more importantly, it's not really part of the class itself.

But those 2 (actually 3) items are what covers everything except disease and poison (which I already said that indeed is its strong point).

Without merciful, shock sinew and focus cathartic on the list, you are down to using full reagents for anything non-poison related.

And if you are using your full allotment to cover healing, I'm also using the clerics full allotment to keep things fair.

So, your prepared healing and utility using Advanced is counterbalanced by Clerics spell slot healing and utility.

Your ability to extend this healing/removal using Quick is then comparable to Clerics ability to extend his healing/removal using Font.

I am still unclear what is the difference between skills. I have taken the advice and did some changes. I run in to dead ends resourcing skills.

I went with
Rouge stealth
Thief racket Stealth, Thievery
Hounded Thief Thievery skill, and the Underworld Lore skill, gain the Pickpocket skill feat.
Crafting, Alchemical Crafting, Deception for Assassin Dedication Prerequisites.
Intimidation as one of your trained skills and [6] Intimidating Glare to fit Xelphens chiseled facial features with a sullen or scowling expression. Jet-Black skin tone, Long silver braided hair, piercing bright red eyes. Demoralize a creature without speaking.
Twin Feint and Tumble behind

Thievery
Stealth
Pickpocket
Intimidation
Intimidating Glare
Twin Feint wielding two melee weapons like a whip and a dagger
Tumble behind
Crafting
Alchemical Crafting
Underworld Lore
Deception
Str 12 Dex 18 Con 10 Int 12 Wis 10 Cha 16

I can be the smallest of the party and the most feared LOL crack whip tant stab.
I am unsure things right as I can't read the rules or data on skill feats and class feats.
BretI said at the end something about 2nd level to get a needed skill to qualify for the archtype. anyways I been very busy "fixing stuff"

You people are awesome! You all are very helpful and I am very grateful for the advice. Thank you for taking time to help out!

Skills are your proficiency in doing stuff.

As an example, Stealth is your skill to hide, and thievery is your skill to steal and disable devices. Athletics is your skill for jumping, climbing, and such. And etc.

It goes from Untrained, to Trained, to Expert, to Master, to Legendary.

Each skill also has its own Skill Feats. Those are extra abilities that you can pick to do using that skill.

As an example, while Athletics is your skill to jump, Quick Jump is an Athletics Skill Feat that allows a running jump without the running part.

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A rogue gets some starting skill ranks set to Trained (stealth, the racket one, and 7+Int more) and then every level you either increase one more from Untrained to Trained, or increase a Trained to Expert (and down the line, from Expert to Master, and from Master to Legendary).

You also get another skill from your background as well a Lore from your background.

Skill Feats are something else entirely as I said above.

You get 1 from your background, and then Rogue gets 1 every level.

From your list, Intimidate is the Skill. Intimidating Glare is a Skill Feat. It gives you a different/modified ability based on the base Skill (you can demoralise without speaking).

As an example, if you want to be able to make poisons to play the classic dark elf poisoned weapons angle, you can pick up Craft as a skill, and Alchemical Crafting as a skill feat, and now you can spend your downtime crafting poisons.

shroudb wrote:

at most he is elevated to the power level of the rest of the healers, each one with his own strengths and weaknesses.

Yeah, I quite agree. I need to see it in action to really know if it's worse, equivalent or better.

Still, about status removal, I'm not sure the Cleric is that better. If I make a list of each Conditions comparing Cleric and Chirurgeon:

Curse:
- Chirurgeon: Nothing.
- Cleric: Remove Curse and Channeled Succor.
Petrification:
- Chirurgeon: Nothing.
- Cleric: Stone to Flesh.
Disease:
- Chirurgeon: Quick Alchemy for a check every hour. Perpetuals at level 11.
- Cleric: Remove Disease after a long rest, Channeled Succor at level 8+.
Poison:
- Chirurgeon: Quick Alchemy for a check every hour. Perpetuals at level 11.
- Cleric: Remove Poison.
Persistent damage:
- Chirurgeon: Depending on the persistent damage type, there are a few Elixirs and Mutagens you can use.
- Cleric: Resist Energy is your best bet.
Frightened:
- Chirurgeon: Merciful Elixir at level 10 with Quick Alchemy.
- Cleric: Remove Fear.
Paralyzed:
- Chirurgeon: Merciful Elixir at level 10 with Quick Alchemy.
- Cleric: Remove Paralysis then Channeled Succor at level 8.
Clumsy/Enfeebled:
- Chirurgeon: Sinew-Shock Serum with Quick Alchemy. As it's a Healing Elixir, I very much await for an errata allowing the Chirurgeon to use its level and DC to the check, but it's not there.
- Cleric: Restoration.
Stupefied:
- Chirurgeon: Focus Cathartic with Quick Alchemy. As it's a Healing Elixir, I very much await for an errata allowing the Chirurgeon to use its level and DC to the check, but it's not there.
- Cleric: Restoration.
Drained and Doomed:
- Chirurgeon: Nothing.
- Cleric: Restoration.
Blinded/Deafened:
- Chirurgeon: Greater Merciful Elixir at 14.
- Cleric: Restore Senses.
Sickened:
- Chirurgeon: Greater Merciful Elixir at 14.
- Cleric: Nothing.
Slowed:
- Chirurgeon: Greater Merciful Elixir at 14.
- Cleric: Nothing (but you say you found something so I may have...

I mean... Most of your list is based on an "errata pending" that we don't know if we'll ever get.

Using perpetuals to remove conditions doesn't actually work as it is currently since even a nat20 on the roll fails to remove level appropriate stuff.

So, for each and everyone of your "Perpetual" in the list you should replace with "1 full reagent".

And then you see how forbiddingly expensive that becomes.

Assuming that at high enough level you have like 6-7 open reagents, if you calculate that those are simultaneously your burst healing and your condition removals, you are no much different than the 5ish font Heals that cleric has.
Going even deeper, into feat expenditure, his 1 vs your 2 for the same thing, and since he can use a lowly 2nd level spell to deal with any status penalty, he can more easily grab stuff like Blessed one and its continuation to assist him in that front.

Status Removal.

Contagion Metabolizers allow you to easily get rid of Poison and Diseases (especially when you get them through Perpetual Infusions (11+) as you'll be able to do it for free every hour then).
Merciful Elixirs at 10 can counteract Fear and Paralyzed (once again, you can combine it with Perpetual Infusions for at will tries, even if you aim for a nat 20 on the counteract check). Greater Merciful Elixir add Blinded, Deafened, Sickened and Slowed.
The Alchemist can remove the Fatigued Condition for 30 minutes per day.
And Elixirs like Focus Cathartic and Sinew-Shock Serum can help also, even if their lack of efficiency limits greatly how much you can get out of them.
The Cleric can remove a broad range of effects, but for most of them you'll need to prepare it beforehand or wait for a long rest. Channeled Succor (8+) helps with 4 Conditions but costs your Font slots, so you are still quite limited in its use.
Overall, even if the Cleric can remove as many Conditions as the Alchemist, the need to prepare the spells beforehand strongly limits its efficiency when the Alchemist can use Quick Alchemy a few times per day to help with unexpected Conditions. Still, the Cleric can Remove Curse and Stone to Flesh, 2 very important conditions.

nah, i think they still lag quite a bit behind a divine caster/blessed one for condition removal.

The only condition they are actually good to battle is poison/disease with the new item.

Merciful is still quite horrible since it uses the item level of the produced Elixir so it will usually have quite the hard time counteracting level appropriate threats (because those still level every 4 levels instead of 2...).

and spending your few Quick Alchemy reagents on that seems very expensive, those are your only ways to burst heal.
So it directly compares to using Heals out of font to do the same thing, only that Heals have a higher chance of success due to them always bein on-level.
Restoration is also very cheap as a second level slot to reduce conditions instantly without a check.

The alchemist seems to have quite a lot of circumstantial elixirs to combat specific ailments with a check and counteract and such, and that means that you will have to spend full reasgents on a chance.

There's still also no way to combat really crippling conditions like slow, curses, petrify, and etc.

Don't get me wrong:
Vault adds quite a lot to the table, but i don't think you can call them "the best healer", at least not yet.
Chirurgeon seems to have been given enough tools to actually stand on its own two feet and be competitive, but i'd say at most he is elevated to the power level of the rest of the healers, each one with his own strengths and weaknesses.

I'm a little sad that the sticky-lite magic item doesn't work with calculated/expanded splash.

(at least according to my reading)

the feats read as they trigger the moment you throw the bomb, IF the bomb has splash damage.

the item seems to use base splash value and removes the splash from the bombs.

So if a bomber decides to use those, he actually loses quite a bit of damage.

As an example, a greater alchemist fire would go from doing 3d8+8 splash +3 persistent to 3d8+6 persistent, losing the 5 bonus from intelligence.

So, if you are losing 5 damage to get 3 persistent damage, the only actual payoff seems to be if the persistent sticks for 3+ rounds. At 2 rounds it's a wash (which is a net loss since damage now>damage later)

Unless the intent was that calculated/expanded splash to work with it though, in which case a dev input would be greatly appreciated.

Speaking from the narrative point of view expressed by the OP of "why does the heartiest barbarian gets penaltized more than the scrawny ones?"

The other side of the story is that Barbarian is THE class that relies straight up to their physical condition the most.

So, given equal amount of tiredness, if the fighter can still rely on his techniques, and the mage on his mind, but the one who fully relies on his body, is in a worst spot.

Yeah I've only faced fatigue a handful of times, and the vast majority of those it was self inflicted.

It's very far from a "common" condition.

There are mechanics that do cripple certain classes for a lot of the classes, and some of them pop up much more often than fatigue.

Apart from the above, you are also wrong about the "martials kill in 1-2 actions" especially in higher levels.

Pf2 is much less of a rocket tag than pf1 or dnd is.

A single martial won't be downing by himself level appropriate threats in 1-2 actions.

That's why group effort and buffs/debuffs are so much more important than simply being a glass cannon in this edition.

I have seen both a Oscillating Wave and The Silent Whisper in action. I think Oscillating Wave does more damage. Silent Whisper has a nice base cantrip with Forbidden Thought, but it only works once per target per battle. Shatter Mind is nice too.

Oscillating Wave is pretty nice. Does very consistent, long-range damage. You can alternate between fire and cold damage, so you don't get too locked down if you need to figure out a weakness. Their higher level cantrips and bonus spells are pretty useful.

The other Psychic minds don't look so great. But those two seem decent. Psychic isn't a bard or druid, but it's not too bad.

I've been playing an infinite eye and it does feel good.

Glimpse weakness has been an amazing 1 action cost ability giving steady, no save, damage when I happen to have an extra action remaining.

And I almost always use an amped Scan to open all battles, getting automatically highest/lowest saves and giving the whole party bonuses to attack and damage to burst something early on has been good.

And ofc guidance is there to help boost even more when needed.

Granted, I play him a bit more support oriented, with my spells focusing on control, buff, and Aiding, so I usually Unleash midcombat after I set the buffs and the debuffs, and so the Stupified doesn't really hinder me that much.

Liogo wrote:

This is all really wild. I think I've been going off of the playtest refocus rules this entire time, apparently never noticing it changed on official release. This is how it is in the playtest--

Quote:

If you’ve spent at least 2 Focus Points and spent Focus Points only to amp psi cantrips since the last time you Refocused, you regain 2 Focus Points when you Refocus. Otherwise, you regain 1 Focus Point.

I think that is still equivalent. Even under this rule you could spend two focus points on Lay on Hands, refocus one point, spend it on an amped cantrip, then refocus for 2 points.

The errata needed to make it work the way that is likely intended would need to have the refocus ability look at your focus point usage for the entire day.

Something along the lines of "If you've spend Focus Points only to amp psi cantrips or fuel psychic abilities since your morning preparations, you regain 2 Focus points when you Refocus, up to your maximum of 2..."

No, that's a terrible nerf.

That would flip the advantage straight to a disadvantage for a class that already pays a huge price for said advantage.

At most, the wording should be cleared like "regain as much focus points as psychic focus powers used since the last refocus".

But I think that power wise, it's fine to just keep it as it is now RAW.

Basically now, you are still hindered, and need double the time to refocus if you've used something else than psychic focus powers. That's still a definite drawback.

So,one of the interesting possibilities with Perpetual Infusions Elixirs of Life is the Merciful Elixir and Greater Merciful Elixir feats. The Minor Elixir of Life won't do any good, but the Lessor at L11 is a different story (Merciful Elixir coming in at L10.) Merciful Elixir is like Clay Golems and Mutagens: it uses the Item level for Counteract checks, not level/2. So the 5th level item can conceivably Counteract up to an 8th level spell, and as it uses Class DC -10 for the roll modifier it has a chance.(Not a great chance, but a chance.)

The Moderate Elixir at L17 would be decent Counteract fuel against anything, affecting Level 9-10 effects on a success and everything else on a fail.

Plus, the cooldown period would not apply to this type of use. Niche, but then again, a lot of Healing can be said to be niche.

for items you divide their level by 2.

that's why perpetual cathartics/sinewshock/etc and such will be 99.9% of the time useless.

As an example, Level 11, you get your 2nd tier of perpetuals.

You can pick up to 6th level, but highest focus cathartic would be level 4.

So +8 on the check, vs a DC of 28, A nat20 will make that a crit success and be able to counteract a... level 5 thing.

So, highest you can cure is level-2 things (effect level 5) which are mooks. And you need a nat20 for that.

I need to re-visualize how the flickmace works. I thought you swung it and hit the button at the right time to convert angular momentum to linear momentum (similar to how you throw a baseball) so the weighted ball went in a straight line at which point it would retract due to whatever internal gizmos are involved.

What does it look like when you sweep with one?

from the description i got something like a flail with elognated steel cord instead of a chain and a weighted ball insead of a spiked one at the end tbh.

so sweep does make sense in that format.

I wish they fixed the progression of the healing elixirs more than anything else.

Having 1d6 till level 5 is the obvious one, but there literally is no reason why elixirs "skip" every second "spell level" and it really messes up their output for half their career.

It's not even a text space issue, since the actual number formula is there, they could simply wrote "1d6 + (1d6+3) for every 2 levels after 1" and just list the names and be done with even using less space than now...

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

The magus does not have first level spell slots, then they equip an item that gives them spell slots, so they do, and then they use those spell slots normally, because why wouldn't they?

If I substitute the word "magus" with the word "fighter" or "barbarian," I think you'll finally understand the issue with this statement being made and expecting it to just work as you say it should, because in this case, it's identical. Neither of those classes can cast 1st level spells. Neither can a high-enough level Magus without Studious Spells. It's no different for a Summoner, and it's no different for a Ranger or Champion or any other non-spell-based character. If you don't have the ability to cast that level of spell, you can't benefit from it. Full stop. And this is a limitation put forth by Bounded Spellcasting, not from the Magus class in particular.

Again, without Studious Spells (and without following the restrictions set by that feature), high enough level Magi can't cast 1st level spells any more than a Fighter or Barbarian can. Suggesting it does means you're reading something outside of what the rules are telling us, which tells us that it's written poorly and needs to be changed to reflect what it's supposedly intended to do.

Just as well, casting from a staff or wand is different from casting from your own spell slots, because they have their own limitations and mechanics. A Magus can cast a 1st level spell from a Wand because the spell is on their tradition's list. Same for a Staff, provided it has the requisite number of charges. A Magus still can't cast a 1st level spell from their slots once they reach high enough level unless it's from Studious Spells, though. Funny how that works and is intended by the mechanics of Bounded Spellcasting.

Ok Some interesting points. Consider three different items: a Staff, a Wand, and a Ring of Wizardry.

1) What happens with a non spell casting class like Fighter, who takes the feat...

The issue is that I don't think there's anything restricting you "knowing" or having in your spellbook higher level spells than you can cast.

So, using your examples, a 2nd level fighter with wizard dedication CAN cast 4th level spells with the appropriate ring and spellbook in hand.

Even outside this, any noncasting class can actually now get 4th and 3rd level spells with just the dedication.

Correct, each is its own separate "weapon". (weapon in quotes because it doesn't mechanically count as a weapon).

Speaking about upgrading a natural attack, the only way (that I can think of) to increase the damage die is if there's an option to directly do so in the same place you got it to begin with.

As an example, an ancestry with a d6 bite may have a feat that can upgrade it to d8. And etc.

Ofc, handwraps work for natural weapons, so a D4 bite with striking handwraps equipped will be 2d4.
And static bonuses like stuff like sneak attack, implement empowerment, rage, and etc also stack up on the base die as normal.

If you don't have reactions Guidance is pretty nice as well, and you can later on pick Glimpse Weakness which is very nice for those turns you have 1 action remaining as some free no-save damage.

It ignores rarity yes. Just a standard level based DC.

I'm not seeing why it would overwrite.

The mirror image breaks on specific actions/action traits, and summoning another isn't one of those.

That reminds me of pf1 spell grabbing tracking down spells from 6th level spellcasters and going "I'll get haste as 2nd level because summoners have it at that level".

Thankfully pf2 has doubled down on the fact that the letter of the rules is less important than their spirit.

Yeah for fundamental runes I always interpreted it as "use the highest".

But if you want stuff like flaming and frost on it, you have to buy it separately.

Squiggit wrote:

Akjosch wrote:

For example, Cheliax Lore could have a feat which allows you to navigate the law system with ease, using (and abusing) it to your advantage.

I mean isn't that just what you'd use Cheliax Lore for normally?

Does it? Because "normally" (as in, according to the rules), you use lores only for Recall Knowledge and Earn Income; unless it's explicitly specified (like Cooking Lore for the meal recipes). What I'm envisioning here is a feat which would for example allow you to use Cheliax Lore to Coerce (instead of Intimidation) or Create Forgery (instead of Society), with a suitable bonus to both.

And sure - many such feats would be highly campaign-specific. But then, there are many campaigns which are bound to a region anyway, so those would fit in them nicely. For example, looking through Kingmaker (2e), specific feats for Cooking, Warfare, Politics, River Kingdoms, Brevoy and Pitax lores would fit in there nicely.

the laws of Cheliax are a part of Cheliax. So finding the specific law you want could easily be a Recall Knowledge on Cheliax Lore.

i dont want us to fall in the pf1 trap that everything needed a feat to do it.

Gortle wrote:

You are missing the point. It is actually an illusion.

And I think you are ignoring some rules text. It may be an illusion, but it is affected by things exactly the same as you yourself are. And those effects also affect you yourself even if they were applied to the illusory copy.

Anything that affects you also affects it though. So the ground affects the illusion?

What he is trying to say, and I agree, is that due to magic being magic things get weird and there's a line that needs to be crossed.

As an example, you say "gravity affects the illusion so it drops" but on the exact same principle "the illusion doesn't fall because the mass (ground) under your feet affects it".

Is there a reason why we should only count gravity but not mass?
And if we aren't counting mass as something, does that makes us immune to physical?

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The OP asks an impossible question to answer using real life logic because of the state of the mirror image allowing something to exist in two opposite states simultaneously.

So, without actual rules that describe how the "magic" works, the inability to apply real world logic on the effect means that each gm will have to make a call on every such instance.

I think that all Recall skills absolutely need and would benefit from a skill feat that gives them a cantrip.

Arcane has detect magic.
Religion could get guidance
Primal probably a blast
Occult an illusion one.

If you are worried about easy access to cantrips across characters, just make it a master requirement.

Crafting imo also should get some in combat love.
Something simple like "spend 10 minutes to fortify an armor/weapon, increase their bonus by 1 for the first round of next combat, more targets at expert/master/leg".

Performance should have a feat to feint or bon mot with it.

I'm not sure for society play, but given feats like the group stealth one, and since we're talking about ambushes, I can see rolling once with these caveats:

You'll have to roll with the lowest stealth of the group.
If you don't beat the perception DC of someone from the players, your ambush will be perceived by that person, meaning he could go before them if their initiative is high enough. If multiple players roll higher initiatives it may turn the ambush on its head since then multiple players will be acting before the enemies.