siegfriedliner's page

Finoan wrote:

When the poster in that thread said "instances of damage are any given damage that has a distinct damage type" that is incorrect.

Damage type is not what causes separate instances of damage. Damage source is. It doesn't matter if the damage type is the same or not, if the source is different then it will be a separate instance of damage.

You're just not reading it right.

A new instance of damage is any given damage (e.g. +2 damage, +1d4 dmg) that has a distinct damage type (e.g. fire damage, spirit damage, slashing damage).

A simple +2 damage or +1d4 danage without a distinct damage type, e.g. precision damage are not new instances of damage because they lack a damage type.

Source doesn't matter, only (additional) damage with its own damage type.

Example:
A Fighter with Exemplar archetype (& Fire-Spark) with a Brilliant Flaming weapon ikon hitting an undead fiend has 5 additional instances of damage:
+ 2 fire from ikon (Energy Spark: Fire)
+ 1d4 fire from Brilliant
+ 1d4 spirit from Brilliant
+ 1d4 vitality from Brilliant
+ 1d6 fire from Flaming

But the +3 damage from Weapon Specialization would not be a new instance of damage, because it lacks a distinct damage type – it just increases whatever damage the weapon already deals.

distinct = definite & obvious
distinct != different

Exemplar specialisation equivalent is typed spirit damage

It is going to be unfortunate for the party that goes hard into fire damage and doing all this weakness proc stuff on a final boss who ends up being unexpectedly resistant or immune to fire damage.

the spirit vunerability one is the most reliable unless the final boss is a construct greater astral ensures full effect.

Holy is a good rune, astral is a good rune, brilliant is a good rune. Shining Symbol is 2 actions for 10 minute aura

benwilsher18 wrote:

lots of good thoughts

Yeah, I guess that is why it is not the change that bothers me, it is the fact that some of this has been (and continues to remain) confusing for a long time, but it didn’t have clearly over powered exploits so people just ignored the confusing bits. Without the ability to generate specific weaknesses, these edge cases were fine to just resolve at the table in specific encounters.

I still don’t think elemental betrayal for Fire is particularly broken as it is resource intensive to maintain and any fire resistance pretty much neutralizes the whole strategy since resistance tends to exceed the weakness this gives.

If the Fire kineticist aura applied to other characters, that would be broken because the resource usage is nearly negligible, so it does seem like every weakness granting ability is going to have to be very closely balanced.

Argueably it does at 18th when your impulse adds 1d6 damage to all your allies attacks

The new weakness meta is a mistake i hope gets re-errata quickly.

If you already have Slam Down, Crashing Slam means you automatically trip the enemy and inflict another weapon die.

Great value for a Fighter IMO.

Its a good feat, still dont think it compares to automatically disrupting spells on a hit or an extra reaaction so i am not convinced its a good level 10 feat for a fighter but grabbed with free archytype or a maybe level 16 its good.

I kind of hope they stack, if your facing a swarm of straw man with heavy area and fire vunerability it makes sense for a fire cone to be more effective than an ice one.

So you use divine immolation on a swarm and they catch fire.

The inital damage definatly triggers the swarms area weakness but does the persistent damage ?

Does persistent damage from an area effect inherit the area trait or is now the persistent damage just persistent damage.

Crashing Slam even with the eratta is a moderate to good feat, prone is a great condition and more reliable prone is useful.

But it doesn't compare to Disruptive Stance (becoming the bane of casters) and Tactical Reflexes (becoming the bane of casters twice per turn).

So given you will want those two first and if your going reach you will want whirlwind strike at 14. It really does push it down the priority list.

So becauase 10th level fighters have some of the best feats in the game crashing slam wasnt one of those before a nerf probably doesn't help.

So slam down moves down the list to be weaker than combat reflexes and disruptive stance its now skippable for a reach fighter when before it was one of the premier options.

Its a strange errata but the example shows how how much vunerabilities can stack, any weakness all at later levels is going to stack at leadt 4 times, one for each rune, the weapon damage type and poasibly holy/unholy as well.

So the Fire Kineticist biggest damage improvement for specialisation was the aura that gave enemies weakness 1/2 level to damage vs from fire from your impulses this was already a big deal in terms of the fire Kineticist damage.

But now with each spell effect creating its own instance, impulses like furnance form don't just add a dice of damage they add another instance to apply that weakness too to and ignite the sun gets to add 1d6 + half your level damage to enemies in your weakness aura to all of your allies attacks too.

This seems a big boost buts its pretty late, what do you think is this a substantial buff to the Kineticist or just a nice to have ?

Also are there any of impulses that boost impulse and strike dmaage that can stack this further.

Whats intersting is this reminds me a lot of the alchemist discourse from the orginal handbook but i am not hearing the oh but actually psychics are great crowd i suppose that is because what they offer is directly and easily comparable to other classes pre-core alchemist was so different and complicated that it defied obvious comparison.

I'll repeat what I said on reddit:

The answer is 2. It doesn't work. If you're wielding two weapons, you are by definition not wielding "a single one-handed weapon." The word single matters quite a lot there.

It doesn't make sense for it to be 1 because the word single serves no purpose in this sentence otherwise. You can't wield two weapons in one hand so that condition can never ben broken if it's only looking at one hand at a time. This includes free weapons, because they're not "wielded" while the hand is occupied with something else.

Thaumaturge can't dual-wield if you want to use Implements Empowerment.

Some people's attempts to rules lawyer around this by claiming "logic" while just ignoring what "wielding a single weapon" means aside.

I mean you are wielding a single weapon and an implement (which just so happens to be a weapon)

So lets look at the creatures with high resisst physical or resist all.

Ghosts - new iw is worse because old one did more damage and had the force trait

Remastered Golems - resist spells and resist physical old IW weapon was better because higher damage

Creatures with resist physical vs metals new IW is better if DR is high.

So new invisible weapom is better vs enemies with high/ extreme resist physical without resist spells or being bypassed by force. This is going to be a small number of creatures.

Rogue should be in a tier on its own. You can use rogue archetype on any class and improve the class. Whether it's a martial taking something like Mobility or Gang Up or a caster taking Mobility and using it increase their number of proficiency skill ups. It is the multiclass archetype that offers so much to any class.

This is on top of being an S tier class as a base class.

Don't get me wrong i love the rogue archytpe its the one i pick most often in free archytype (i love skills, I love mobility I love gang up) but I am not convinced its better than the champion.

Ranking the Best Multiclass Archetypes (Post‑Psychic Nerf)

With the sudden — and questionably tragic demise of the Psychic archetype as a real powerhouse, I’ve been re‑evaluating which multiclass archetypes now stand at the top. I’m weighting low‑level feats more heavily, since those tend to matter most in actual play.

Below is my current tier list, followed by short explanations for each rating.
Tier List
Low Tier (1–2.5★)

Summoner

Gunslinger

Wizard

Psychic

Mid Tier (3–3.5★)

Fighter

Barbarian

Cleric

Monk

Sorcerer

Magus

Witch

Druid

Animist

Investigator

Inventor

Swashbuckler

Guardian

Oracle

Ranger

High Tier (4★+)

Champion ★4.5

Exemplar ★4.5

Commander

Alchemist

Rogue

Bard

Kineticist

Individual Ratings & Notes

Fighter — ★3
Strong dedication and early access to Reactive Strike. Solid feats overall, but often overshadowed by more specialized combat style archetypes.

Barbarian — ★3
Rage is a powerful feature with drawbacks. Feats are solid but not exceptional.

Champion — ★4.5
One of the strongest dedications in the game. Excellent 4th‑level feats and extremely strong 6th‑level options. A true powerhouse.

Cleric — ★3
Decent dedication, good early feats, and versatile spell and focus access.

Commander — ★4
Great early feats and highly flexible commands.

Exemplar — ★4.5
Overtuned at level 2. Very flexible overall. Not sure it surpasses Champion, but it’s close

Kineticist — ★4
Tree Sentinel alone carries the archetype. The rest is mediocre, but that one option is strong enough to elevate the whole package.

Monk — ★3
Good defensive perks and decent feats. Would have rated higher before the Flurry nerf.

Oracle — ★3.5
Strong revelation spells, good spell access, and a solid dedication.

Psychic — ★2.5
Weak feats, underwhelming dedication, and more limited spell slot access than other caster dedications. Focus spells are fine but not enough to save it.

Ranger — ★3
Great for ranged builds. Solid feats with some early standouts, plus access to focus spells.

Rogue — ★4
Excellent dedication, strong feat access, great skill boosts, and meaningful damage increases.

Sorcerer — ★3
Good spell access and some strong focus spells. Early feats are okay.

Magus — ★3
Powerful for martials but fiddly and risky. Feats are decent.

Summoner — ★2
Personal bias here — I dislike the weakened eidolon and lack of action compression. Probably underrated due to preference.

Alchemist — ★4
Versatile and powerful, especially for utility.

Animist — ★3
Fairly versatile, nothing standout but nothing bad.

Guardian — ★3.5
Similar to Champion but worse. The reaction is once per 10 minutes and weaker overall. Still decent, but lacks a strong focus spell.

Swashbuckler — ★3.5
Versatile and opens up many options. Looks weaker than Rogue/Fighter in their niches, but One for All is great and boosts its rating.

Investigator — ★3
Powerful but gated and sometimes inconvenient to use.

Druid — ★3
Good early feats, focus spells, and spellcasting access.

Wizard — ★2.5
Mediocre feats but strong spell access.

Witch — ★3
Good early feats and spellcasting access.

Inventor — ★3.5
Strong dedication (free +1 AC for medium armor users). Crafting progression is nice. Overdrive access is less impressive due to scaling issues.

Gunslinger — ★2.5
Fairly niche overall.

Bard — ★4
Focus cantrips are excellent, early feats are strong, and the archetype is very flexible.

Would love to hear if you agree, disagree, or think I’ve completely missed the mark — what would you change in this tier list?

Amp are really metamagic/spellshape that applies to specific cantrips but that require spending a focus point instead of an additional action.

Allowing them to combine opens the door to possibilities impossible to assess.

Warp space + Reach spell would give 60 ft additional range for example.

You cannot combine spellshape and amp just like you cannot combine 2 amps AFAICT and you cannot combine 2 spellshapes.

So i have to admit i tend to ignore enitrely the pretty meh amp swapping feats (because for the most part they are terrible) and just see the class as having modular cantrips (like the 4e psion).

So i tend to percieve as why cant one class metamagic their focus spells when every other class can.

If they had made the augment swapping viable and interesting i would agree with you.

True I know but the recent flair up had me questioning if that is the way it should be if there was a genuine balance reason for it. I remember a couple years back being annoyed when was playing a sixth pillar archtyped psychic and was sad I couldn't use touch focus on my amped spells and even then I wondered did the amps need this rule.

I was wandering do you think there is a signifcant balance need to make amped spells incompatiable with Meta Magic feats ?

Do you think they added that as future proofing to avoid potentially broken combinations in the future. Or are there some "illegal" combo of amp and metamagic that would be broken ?

So Cleric and fire ray/ withering grasps + gouging claws for at will damage is fairly comparable in damage to old invisible weapon and the cleric domain gives you access to better feats than psychic for the most part.as well as coming online 2 levels earlier. So im terms of total power magus hasn't changed just the psychic. Obviously post remaster all bets are off for the magus but based on all of the remasters it has a 60% chance of being better than worse.

WWHsmackdown wrote:

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

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

Yes there are there are lots few of them might have the numbers or the draw of 5e and pf 2e but its stupid to discount them.

When i envision brace i think raised pikes at the battle of Helms Deep, part of the reason those tactics work is that horses don't like running into spikes and neither do people. So my visualisation of bracing is inherently obvious. By there very nature most of the braced weapons are big and imposing.

So in practice the katana is a long saber (long curved blade)

Its good for slashing and was used mounted its less good at piercing than a long swords (which are more squared off structured around thrusting).

Deadly does meet the thematics of Katana having a reputation for being lethal.

D6 is the damage for a short sword which seems a little low.

Maybe an advanced d8 deadly slashing (not versatlile) weapon would fit. But d6 and deadly seems a reasonable compromise.

Lay on Hands is probably as spamable as any of the cantrips psychic provides and can also be gotten as a dedication, i have seen a lot of people build around medic far more than psychic, acrobat can be massive too, someoneone knocked double slice but if i am dual wielding or facing moderate resistance it makes me more powerful and whilst that may be situational i control the situation. Psychic is a strong option amongst strong options not ridiculous outlier like thr exemplar.

exequiel759 wrote:

There's even examples of really cheap magic items which are used in certain regions which are widely accesible to even the townsfolk, so why make it so non-mages can't activate certain magic items other because it used be like that in older editions?

Because casters are special. Really special. And must be.

Don't agree? Than all casters must get their 8-10 hps per level, any armor they want and weapons mastery on the level of melee classes if not the Figther. How is that you said? Oh, yes: "PF2e is built around heroic fantasy"! Great! Let's get rid of "squishy casters" once and for all! I'm all for it.

Casters are special because they have a good number of high level spells (for what ever you are). Martials gaining assess to a few spells at low dc's doesn't break the game.

Obviously tailwind is interesting its a bit of a non brainer one feat a level 2 wand is cheap for +10 bonus to speed and speed optomisation is important.

Setting Magus aside, the problem with it is that the Dedication is way out of whack with other Dedication feats. It gives you a LOT for a single feat, including the signature ability of the class.

It's not the strongest dedication feat compared to spirit warrior and exemplar it's weaker, compared to two weapon fighter (double slice), paladin (scaling armour proficiency, skill access to a strong focus spell and reaction), rogue (light armour proficiency, skill feat and two proficiencies), blessed one (powerful focus spell) it's on par.

I am not declaring it as weak it's a top tier dedication but given it's I'm the middle of the best dedication feats it's not an outlier.

On the one hand psychic is the best caster multiclass dedication feat because it gives a lot in one feat.

On the other hand its not the best caster archytype being weaker than bard and sorcerer as a whole imo (its at least comparable).

Its also not the best multiclass dedication feat, rogue and champions both get a lot for their entry feat enough to be comparable.

Its not the best archtype dedication feat,the two weapon fighting archytype, blessed one, spirit warrior, exemplar all get powerful abilities you can build around that are stronger or at least comparable.

People probably think its too strong for 2 reasons magus synergy (more an issue with magus than psychic imo) and because its nice as a free gift with human and ancient elf free dedication feat which sees it as a common pick.

Given the main issue is a magus issue it think adjustments are needwd there rather than here.

It's not like the caster has their bearings; it's only the player's meta-knowledge that provides the data the PC needs. So how are they getting that data? Can't detect the spot, then can't discern it's the spot you want. So 50% miss chance at minimum, say if an ally points out the direction to shoot or you're using a line AoE vs. a noisy enemy (or cone with near certainty). Unless the caster's dropping it on themselves of course.

But yeah, I'd certainly let them cast it. Hard to say they can't. Just beware, it's a literal shot in the dark.

ETA: There's a maxim for battle to seldom trust your eyes and never trust your ears. Such a cacophony A pitched battle would be very loud, with all kinds of actions packed into seconds, made worse if inside like many are.

So when your blinded enemies and allies are hidden to your rather than undectected so you do maintain a knowledge of where everyone is to the nearest 5ft square.

There are a couple of ways I could see unleash being changed that would keep the risk reward

The witchwarper way, unleash is a free action on iniative but has to be sustained, as well as the sustain action you can sustain by casting an amped psychic cantrip or unleashed psyche action if you fail to sustain then stupify.

The inventor way - make a skill roll based on your subconscious mind as an action on a failure get spell level x 1 damage, on a success X2 and on a crit success X3 on a crit fail stupify.

They built an anti-war PC for an AP w/ "war" in its title? Awkward.

And does he not think the party's an actual squad? Because it is. Squads aren't only military (who aren't only war), they can be police officers, firefighters too. Assuming he's heroic in the least, he should be able to accept a squad for such civic duty.

It is ill luck that Paizo kept Commander rather than a less hierarchical name, but that doesn't mean his PC is accepting your PC's authority, only their insight, sense of timing, etc., like a boxer's coach where it's still the boxer in charge.

With that small a party (and such a high level) I'm surprised you'd want to try a Commander. Even if the Champion's player plays ball, that and Guardian make for poor synergy w/ Tactics anyway (compared to other classes, not dysfunctional). It's just those three class tend to live vicariously by supporting the offense of others, so I hope they both went with big weapons at least. Seems that Druid's going to be working overtime, even as they're protected like a prince.

So yeah, glad you're considering switching back, maybe waiting for better opportunity w/ less adversarial RPers and class synergy.

So far having cold iron weapons and holy rune go a incredibly long way to making any melee builds viable against demons.

Also we have free archytpes and my commander is an eagle knight with two attacks of opportunity which can also be triggered by someone attacking an ally that alone should keep my damage at a reasonable level.

We have 3 high ac heavy armor martials with a lot of damage mitigation so even if we're not doing great damage might still function attritionally. Also the fact I don't have two melee martial allies means I won't end up spamming Demoralising charge which means I will have a lot more freedom when it comes to tactic choice I might use slip and sizzle etc.

I think I will just go for it and see how a commander fairs in a 3 person party. We only have 3 levels left so even if it's not great it will be fun to try.

They know that I have enough free reactions that they won't have to give up their reactions they even stated they didn't want the free reactions. They are mostly a gm and they are very inflexible when it comes to flavour, things are what they are in they don't want to debate nuance.

So I know they won't change their mind or compromise so it's comes down to do I compromise and how do I compromise and how do I stop my irritation from negatively affecting the game.

So we were playing Spore Wars and the commander came out and as a real lover of the warlord in 4e I was super excited for the commander so I asked to retire my old character and play one and the GM was happy.

So to set the scene we had a four person party a guardian (recently changed from an anamist because he thought the class was cool and wasn't enjoying the anamists complexity) a liberator champion (on holiday) and a caster druid.

So I built an 18th level warlord and was really happy I had a couple of tactics that gave movement to multiple allies and multiple melee strikes which I thought would be really cool and effective we played one session when the champion was away and I had fun.

The champion came back from holiday and told me he woudn't be squad mate because he felt that made his character too much like a soldier and he is antiwar.

So I was a little off put if he wasn't a squad mate he couldn't benefit from my class features and that means I needed to rethink my whole build.

I am also a little bemused for him not wanting to feel like a soldier in the war ap where we are irregulars for the Elven Crown.

So how should I handle this shift back to my old character, should I percervier with my commander and does any one have some build advice for a high level commander in a party with a guardian and a druid (caster).

Is it reasonable to say I won't engage with his characters class features infuture so he can't champions react for me, I don't flank with him and don't benefit from his aura etc.

What would you do ?

Squiggit wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

suddenly turned it into

To be clear, the text of the tumble through ability has not changed meaningfully since PF2 released, so "suddenly turned into" is an incorrect assessment.

This isn't even the first time it's come up in rules discussions.

It's never been a replacement or equivalent to stride.

I don't know about you but I have had at least a dozen ocasions where tumble through has amounted to nothing but a stride because I have failed the check or misjduged difficult terrain and a large enemy space and couldn't make it all the way through.

So my tumble through followed by a strike on an enemy was in practice the exact same in both actions costs and effects as me striding and striking. See fairly equivalent to me.

siegfriedliner wrote:

The tumble through action is clear how it works and Michael response was clear that developers were aware of how the action works and built the ability accordingly.

Your free to do things at your table how you like but you are basically allowing a vibe check to overrule relatively clear mechanics.

It is cheesing a rule, pure and simple.

Tumble Through is not a replacement for a Stride. They are separate actions.

I agree they are separate actions a stride action allows you to move move your land speed across the ground.

A tumble though allows you to stride, swim, fly, climb as long as you have the respective speed and during this movement you can (but not must) attempt to move through another creatures space.

The tumble through action is clear how it works and Michael response was clear that developers were aware of how the action works and built the ability accordingly.

Your free to do things at your table how you like but you are basically allowing a vibe check to overrule relatively clear mechanics.

Dragon quite often have fly speeds in the several hundred feet and so are extremely adept at hit and run tactics and the spellcasting variant can keep 120ft away whilat area effecting pcs.

In an open space they can be impossible for certain parties to deal with if they skirmish or even if the party can skirmish the fights can be drawn out games of tag which can make an encounter take too long.

But this does mean dragons are often uniquely challenging which fits for an archetype monster. Also interestingly fast speed seems more inconic to dragons in pathfinder 2e than breath weapons which you can find reskinned on a massive variety of monsters.

This is the theoretical max I think you can get with one round of buffing, this assumes you are a L18 bard for eternal composition who has grabbed All For One and beast master.

1st Action (hasted) + Corageous Anthem Fortimo +3 attack and damage to all allies

2nd Action Demoralise/ Scare to Death - Frightened Two

3rd Action - True Targets - Advantage roughly worth 4 points

4th Action - All For One

Free Action - Pet Flanks +2

Reaction - Aid + 4

So you give + 9ish too all allies in range of your effects (+5 with Advantage)
and that one special ally who is flanking with your pet gets +15ish (+11 with advantage).

The time I felt most frustrated with the finisher system is with the gymnast where your gymnast mechanics mech terribly with your finisher mechanics so I endwd up frequently ignoring finishers in favours of trips and grapples and derring do. If you take reactive strike and have a fighter or ranger worth standstill in the party your be fine damage wise but ignoring a main class feature is a little sad. But that was with the old edition haven't played a remastered on yet.

He cares ABOUT evil dragons, but he doesn't care FOR evil dragons.

Your area of concern doesn't have to be something you like. It's just something you pay attention to.

I am going to assume the Izaya logic of loving "Humans" as a plurality but pretty much hating people.

There are a couple of things about the warped by rage feat for exemplar that I am not certain about and was wondering if their was consensus.

First the feats calls at that it can used with both a worn and a body eikon and then says you can choose to forgo the immanence effect when your body eikon becomes empowered.

Do people take this as am admission that they forgot that you could use this feat with worn eikons or intentionally making it so that if you have this on a worn eikon you can't choose to forgo the immanence effect?

Dwarf fighters can build themselves pretty much your going to be slow so I commend unburdened iron and heavy armour.

Then it comes down to how you perceive yourself fighting if you want to wield two weapons double slice is almost mandatory.

If you want to be a duelist wielding a one handed weapon in one hands and grappling manuevering with the other then snagging stance is great, so is combat grab and dueling parry at 2. I recommend sudden charge as generally useful even more for the slow dwarf.

For all maritals I rate speed increasing items and feats, so maybe get fleet and boots of bounding at later levels as having to spend another action or not getting to strike because your off by 5 or 10 feet of movement and can't reach an enemy is always annoying.

This isn't really a feat advice but if you wield a polearm or reach weapon your reactive strike feature will likely end up being substantially more powerful and see quite a few reach fighters with slam down who are looking to create as many reactions triggers as possible.

Transpose is a tenth level summoner feat that lets you switch places with your eidolon (via teleportation) it's kind of cool.

I was thinking that for a necromancer having a similar feat to switch positions with their thralls would be very cool and would add some mobility to thralls they don't currently have.

One of the concerns people have is runes stacking together to do a massive amount of damage.

I was wondering if the solution could be that when you invoke two damage ruins instead of getting one each of effect you get a new composite effect based on both those runes.

In practice it would mean you would need a smaller number of starting runes to balance the number of combination effects but I recon it would be pretty cool to be able to combo your runes into different effect.

Personally if I wanted to make the rune smith more martial, I would create resonance effects where a rune inscribed on your weapon interacts with a rune inscribed on the enemy for some sort of effect alongside invoking one of the runes.

Like for example if you had a wind rune on your weapon and the enemy had a fire rune whacking them would instead of the usual firey burst effect create a flaming vortex ring that does perhaps half damage but imbolised on a failed save and does some additional damage if they are still immobilised in the ring at the end of their next turn.

Quote:

This is one of the things which I think shows how what the hobby treats as the traditional view on what meta-gaming is and what should be done about it are rooted in inherently GM-versus-players mentality.

To be honest, calling "metagaming" is usually a way to try to bludgeon disruptive players back into line. I don't think there's a consensus view on what is and isn't metagaming—and there definitely won't be one for a game designed to be a tactical game like PF2E.

Heck, "metagaming" is viewed very unusually in most online 2E discussion spaces. For example, when was the last time you heard anyone say, "But your magus has no reason to suddenly gain psychic powers—that's metagaming!" Yet that is precisely one way (and a very common way) to bludgeon people with the metagaming hammer in other games. "Why are you doing this optimized build that makes no sense for you in-character? That's metagaming!"

I also think there's never been a clear line across the hobby on what metagaming even is. A lot of puzzle-filled dungeon crawls are fairly metagamey, and are designed as challenges to the player rather than a challenge to the player's character. Is it metagaming to use OSR tactics in these situations, like the 10ft pole or using water to check for traps? Does it depend on if your character would think of it themselves? Different tables tend to fall in different places on this issue.

Besides, even if the person described in the original post is clearly being a bit silly, I think there's reasonable arguments not far from where they are. Things that are good play (like using Bon Mot before Synesthesia) can indeed begin to feel a bit metagamey to some sensibilities. I can reasonably see someone asking, "Why do you always insult them before you cast spells at them? That's oddly calculated and repetitive. Would your character really do that? Isn't it pretty mean? You're so nice out of combat." Likewise, it'd be fair to ask, "Why are you casting Fear all the time? Do you enjoy people being scared...

I take it as written that caster know that irritated and afraid enemies are more susceptible to mental magic and ruthlessly exploit any advantage they can get. Because exploiting all advantages is the only way to become and old or experienced adventurer.

Ravingdork wrote:

"our characters don't possess any knowledge of the game's mechanics; of every +1 that they can get. I'm not going to metagame."

Nice. Toxic metagaming in the opposite direction.

Yes, a certain level of metagaming is necessary for the players to be able to tell a shared story.

There is also a certain amount of 'railroading' that is necessary too.

I always assumed characters new how their mechanics work so s rogue knows that they are good at taking advantage of an enemy bring distracted by an ally.

Rune of Clumsiness
Whilst inscribed on a person they are clumsy 1

When invoked they must make a reflex save or fall prone and take some bludgeoning damage from a dramatic prattfall. Possibly 1d6 per two levels due to the inclusion of the prone effect.

Damaging runes scale in line with blast spells (fireball, lightning bolt etc) at 2d6 those damages can be fair high and usually just above that of a strike and are balanced against being two actions and only once per turn.

Now from reading the feats and actions are designed with spamming runes in mind so you can have 2-3 going off per average per round with a little optimisation. So it appears that the runes have been designed to be used several times a turn like strikes but without the limitations of MAP and with damage on par or better than strikes which seems stranger.

What is even stranger is how throughly the designers have been conservative especially in the playtest before this in limiting the damage of at will spell like abilities for example the kineticists could only dream of having a damaging effect that scales at 2d6 each level where the runic smith can do it multiple times per turn and later include some area effects with considerably smoother action economy.

Which has me questioning why the change to a more adverenturous design choice.

So one damage invocations seem to be appropriate in terms of damage for two actions.

So then balance wise unless they substantially nerf the damage they are going to have to probably limit you to either one invocation per action or make tracing two actions.

Perhaps having it scale a 1d8 would be the best bet.