Let's talk about some niche, unexpected, weird, or fun builds.

[Arachnofiend]

One of the ways Pathfinder separates itself from similar systems is build diversity - the developers give you a set chassis to start from but a ton of modular options to adapt or radically change that chassis.

So lets do some character concepts that don't fit what you'd expect of the class listed on the character sheet. My first suggestion: the melee sorcerer. I think mixing it up in melee with touch attacks is going to be much better in this edition than it was in PF1 - you can use your casting stat to hit, d6 classes are much more durable than they were before, it's far easier to increase your dexterity and constitution without sacrificing your casting stat...

But the most important bit is that touch spells are just way better than they were in PF1. Shocking Grasp has gone from "Weapon Specialization for a Magus" to legitimately hitting like a truck, and will hit even harder (and have a higher chance of critting!) against many humanoid enemies.

I think a Draconic Sorcerer who uses their third action to cast Shield will be able to do great damage and have plenty of survivability. Shield gives you +2 AC with each cast because of blood magic, and if things get too dangerous you can heal yourself back up with Vampiric Touch. Being a melee character makes line attacks much easier to use without hitting allies as an added bonus (Grim Tendrils looks pretty good).

[FowlJ]

It's pretty simple/obvious, but as far as stupid builds go I feel like mention does need to go to the MegaCaster™ - by starting from one full caster and using literally all your class feats on multiclassing, you get full multiclass casting in two other casting classes for a total of 4 extra spell slots of 1st through 6th level and 2 extra spell slots of 7th and 8th, probably from two different spell lists.

By dropping the breadth feats from your multiclasses and using the human feat Multitalented you can go for a third class and have up to 6th level spells in it, but apart from being The Master of All Four Spell Lists that's probably not worth the six slots you lose for it.

[Paradozen]

This isn't a powerful trick, but enigma bards at 16th level can, as a free action, get 2 pieces of information about whatever is nearby without rolling a die. There's just a solid chance one is wrong. Automatic Knowledge+Bardic Lore+Dubious Knowledge+Know-It-All.

A Maestro Bard can string together some solid defenses for the front line by giving the fighter Inspired Defense and Spirit Link to resist a decent amount of damage and heal a bit each round too. Make them a Gnome and they can sleep off all the damage with Vivacious Conduit. And if you throw in harmonize you get to inspire courage still once you are in position.

[Kyrone]

Gnome Scoundrel Rogue using Magical Trickster on Ancestry Cantrips and Scrolls with trick magic item but never actually getting any magic dedication.

Rogue Archer with Alchemist dedication with Quickdraw to toss bottled lighting to get the enemy flat footed for ranged attacks.

[Xenocrat]

Arachnofiend wrote:

I think a Draconic Sorcerer who uses their third action to cast Shield will be able to do great damage and have plenty of survivability. Shield gives you +2 AC with each cast because of blood magic

Unfortunately this part doesn't work.

Blood Magic wrote:

Whenever you cast a bloodline spell using Focus Points or a granted spell from your bloodline using a spell slot, you gain a blood magic effect.

Cantrips don't trigger Blood Magic.

[Arachnofiend]

Ah, well that's unfortunate. Still not bad, Shield's a good cantrip regardless and it just means you get the same benefit on the turns you use True Strike.

[Ventnor]

Gnome Champions who get a familiar can use that familiar to deliver Lay on Hands healing to their allies across the room while they hold the line.

[cavernshark]

Moment of Clarity as a first level barbarian feat makes it possible for Barbarian/casters to exist. It'll eat an extra action in combat, but you can reasonably pause to cast something if you need too. It opens up all kinds of options like Barbarian/Clerics or Barbarian/Wizards.

[Wikrin]

Ranger Crossbow Ace that takes the Cleric Dedication, follows Abadar, and takes the Deadly Simplicity Cleric feat. Regular Crossbow now deals 1d12. Plus, it makes a nice thematic combo.

A Monk can build for jumps, but a Monk that takes the Alchemist Dedication can produce and use a Leaper's Elixer to astonishing effect. Since it allows you to make vertical leaps of the same distance as your horizontal leaps, I mean. With Assurance in Athletics, I think you can just straight-up declare "I leap 30+ feet into the air without rolling". Doesn't come online until midgame (maybe level seven? I forget), but it's still a fun combo. Plus, Quicksilver Mutagens when you're not Leapering.

This is less a build, more an observation: A *LOT* of unexpected creatures in the Bestiary count as animals. Bonded Griffon, anyone? Try not to get yourself mauled to death.

Rogue Thug that worships Asmodeus and takes the Cleric Dedication for Deadly Simplicity is a fun combo. Pushes the Mace up to a d8, which is as high a die as the Thug can really synergize with. Is it worth it? Probably not, but it's a combo.

Haven't yet figured out the best way to take advantage of it (since no class gets many applicable feats), but a Sling is explicitly one-handed. I always like the ol' Sling & Shield combo.

[lordcirth]

Wikrin wrote:

Ranger Crossbow Ace that takes the Cleric Dedication, follows Abadar, and takes the Deadly Simplicity Cleric feat. Regular Crossbow now deals 1d12. Plus, it makes a nice thematic combo.

A Monk can build for jumps, but a Monk that takes the Alchemist Dedication can produce and use a Leaper's Elixer to astonishing effect. Since it allows you to make vertical leaps of the same distance as your horizontal leaps, I mean. With Assurance in Athletics, I think you can just straight-up declare "I leap 30+ feet into the air without rolling". Doesn't come online until midgame (maybe level seven? I forget), but it's still a fun combo. Plus, Quicksilver Mutagens when you're not Leapering.

This is less a build, more an observation: A *LOT* of unexpected creatures in the Bestiary count as animals. Bonded Griffon, anyone? Try not to get yourself mauled to death.

Rogue Thug that worships Asmodeus and takes the Cleric Dedication for Deadly Simplicity is a fun combo. Pushes the Mace up to a d8, which is as high a die as the Thug can really synergize with. Is it worth it? Probably not, but it's a combo.

Haven't yet figured out the best way to take advantage of it (since no class gets many applicable feats), but a Sling is explicitly one-handed. I always like the ol' Sling & Shield combo.

You cannot increase a weapon die size twice (pg 279) Stick with Crossbow Ace for your first one.

[Wikrin]

lordcirth wrote:

You cannot increase a weapon die size twice (pg 279) Stick with Crossbow Ace for your first one.

Ack! You are correct. Apologies. That is sad, but understandable. :(

On the plus side, I had another dumb idea. Deific Weapon on a Champion of Nethys bumps up the Staff's damage die. Pull some multiclass shenanigans to get your hands on Shillelagh. Use your Spirit Ally to grant some additional effects. Staff lord.

[Leotamer]

A vertical jump has a DC of 30. With Versatile Human/General Training, you can Assurance(Athletics), and Martial Disciple for Quick Jump. Crane Stance reduces the DC by 5.

Your Assurance of 12 critically fails your DC 25 vertical jump check but does let you jump 15 feet vertically.

At level 2, you take the alchemist dedication.

You spend your skill increases in athletics and crafting.

You can craft greater leaper's potions at level 12.

You can get cloud jump at level 15, which is the same time you can start auto-high jumping.

I am honestly not sure how to calculate your jump height with this build, but I believe the answer is "Way more than you will ever realistically need."

With Flying Kick, I believe you can effectively attack anyone, anywhere.

[Quandary]

Ventnor wrote:

Gnome Champions who get a familiar can use that familiar to deliver Lay on Hands healing to their allies across the room while they hold the line.

Lay on Ferret

[lordcirth]

Ventnor wrote:

Gnome Champions who get a familiar can use that familiar to deliver Lay on Hands healing to their allies across the room while they hold the line.

That sounds fun. It's quite possibly enough of an improvement to focus on the Mercy feats.

[Arachnofiend]

Wikrin wrote:

lordcirth wrote:

You cannot increase a weapon die size twice (pg 279) Stick with Crossbow Ace for your first one.

Ack! You are correct. Apologies. That is sad, but understandable. :(

On the plus side, I had another dumb idea. Deific Weapon on a Champion of Nethys bumps up the Staff's damage die. Pull some multiclass shenanigans to get your hands on Shillelagh. Use your Spirit Ally to grant some additional effects. Staff lord.

This is the funniest idea I've seen yet. You're worshipping Nethys, god of magic, just so you can be better at whacking people with a stick. Absolutely genius

[Leotamer]

Nethys anathema is choosing mundane means over magical ones, but you are whacking people with a stick in a very magical way.

[Zwordsman]

As a sidenote on "Master of the four spell lists"
I'd like to purpose that be tittled "Omnicaster" instead of Megacaster

[Arachnofiend]

Leotamer wrote:

Nethys anathema is choosing mundane means over magical ones, but you are whacking people with a stick in a very magical way.

You are correct; this character would be in a similar vein to the Nethys-aligned Magi that have been described in prior books. It's still really funny to me, though.

[Micheal Smith]

Dwarf fighter or barbarian with toughness and Mountain’s Stoutness. You get to add your level in HPs 2 times on top of the already high hit points from the classes and if you have a high con that helps. Then the recovery save is reduced by 4.

You could even take diehard and make it dying 5 instead of 4 and be one tough dwarf.

With the barbarian, you could take renewed vigor keep getting temp hit points (assuming they are gone before you go again) and make it more difficult to kill.=

[lordcirth]

Arachnofiend wrote:

Leotamer wrote:

Nethys anathema is choosing mundane means over magical ones, but you are whacking people with a stick in a very magical way.

You are correct; this character would be in a similar vein to the Nethys-aligned Magi that have been described in prior books. It's still really funny to me, though.

I think it could be considered anathema to whack anyone with the staff without Shillelagh active, though? Not sure if Divine Ally really counts, since you aren't applying any skill to it.

[MaxAstro]

Leotamer wrote:

A vertical jump has a DC of 30. With Versatile Human/General Training, you can Assurance(Athletics), and Martial Disciple for Quick Jump. Crane Stance reduces the DC by 5.

Your Assurance of 12 critically fails your DC 25 vertical jump check but does let you jump 15 feet vertically.

At level 2, you take the alchemist dedication.

You spend your skill increases in athletics and crafting.

You can craft greater leaper's potions at level 12.

You can get cloud jump at level 15, which is the same time you can start auto-high jumping.

I am honestly not sure how to calculate your jump height with this build, but I believe the answer is "Way more than you will ever realistically need."

With Flying Kick, I believe you can effectively attack anyone, anywhere.

I haven't looked at vertical leaping, but I did the math on horizontal leaping and came up with a monk that can Assurance 200-some foot jumps - that was without Alchemist dedication, so I'm sure you could push that significantly higher.

If you have walls to wall jump off of, I suspect you could clear a football field in a turn, without rolling.

[PossibleCabbage]

I'm kicking around a monk who uses tiger stance for 10' steps and MCs Paladin for Retributive Strike and Ranged Reprisal. I thought about a 2nd MC (best be human) for tentacular limbs, then I realized I could just take monastic weapons and use a bo staff. Still wish I could get a 2nd reaction somehow, though.

[Arachnofiend]

This isn't exactly a stupid build because the point is that it is very well supported, but looking over the Fighter something the new Fighter seems to do extremely well that the PF1 Fighter struggled with is a character for whom doing damage is at best a secondary concern.

Snagging Strike -> Demoralize -> Dueling Parry is a full round routine that will apply some serious debuffs with exceptional reliability, all while being about as durable as a sword+board Fighter. I think the preferred weapon for this would be the pick - you're only making one attack at your highest bonus so might as well select the weapon that comes with few bells and whistles other than doing more damage on a crit. Clearly this is a build you take when you have other characters carrying the brunt of the damage load, but a lot of characters will appreciate the biggest bad in a group being flat-footed and frightened.

[Paradozen]

Wizards can have a pikachu familiar. Your familiar gets spell delivery, you get shocking grasp. Spend your turn yelling "Pikachu, Use Volt Tackle!"

EDIT: Don't forget to pick up life link so you can save him from a swarm of spearrow.

[breithauptclan]

lordcirth wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:

Leotamer wrote:

Nethys anathema is choosing mundane means over magical ones, but you are whacking people with a stick in a very magical way.

You are correct; this character would be in a similar vein to the Nethys-aligned Magi that have been described in prior books. It's still really funny to me, though.

I think it could be considered anathema to whack anyone with the staff without Shillelagh active, though? Not sure if Divine Ally really counts, since you aren't applying any skill to it.

Make it an actual spell-storing staff. Then it is at least a magical stick that you are beating people with.

Plus, you could describe it as 'smiting enemies with the holy symbol of my god' instead of 'beating people with a stick'. That should make it good enough to avoid anathema problems.

[Ravingdork]

Occult sorcerer can get invisibility and silence.

Pick up wizard dedication, basic arcana, and advanced arcana to get Conceal Spell and Silent Spell.

Get your Stealth training as high as you can.

Now you can cast a great number of spells with no visible manifestations and no verbal components while invisible and silenced. A true stealth caster.

Great for an assassin, infiltrator, saboteur, or spy.

[Paradozen]

Rogue multiclass Bard.

You take the spell Illusory Creature and the feat for inspire courage.

You conjure an illusory double of yourself.

Then you sing a duet with yourself about how amazing you are while killing the poor fool flanked between you and your double.

[baahk36]

Dwarven angelic sorcerer. Spirit link, angelic halo, shield other. Take toughness and mountain stoutness. Basically become an HP battery for the front liner. Pair with a shield focused champion for even more damage mitigation and laugh as monsters try to eat through the resulting mess.

[Pumpkinhead11]

Quandary wrote:

Ventnor wrote:

Gnome Champions who get a familiar can use that familiar to deliver Lay on Hands healing to their allies across the room while they hold the line.

Lay on Ferret

This speaks to me on a spiritual level.

[MaxAstro]

Bouncing off of Paradozen's idea, rogue multiclass druid.

Train your own flanking buddy. :D

[Appletree]

MaxAstro wrote:

Bouncing off of Paradozen's idea, rogue multiclass druid.

Train your own flanking buddy. :D

I'm quite fond of the gang-up feat when you're riding a horse.

[Siro]

Perhaps an Elf Monk, whose main goal is to run around the battle field at top speeds. Of the top of my head 30 feet from ancestry + 5 from Nimble Elf feat + 5 from the Nimble feat + at level 20, 35 from class, + Enduring Quickness for an extra movement, + Boots of Speed for another 5 + Ki Rush to stride twice in one action = 80 feet per stride, for 560feet in one round if you use all 4 actions to do so, and activate Ki Rush 3 times. (And I’m sure I missed other/ better opportunities to max the movement)
Put on some red spandex, say your the Flash, and call it a character.

[Ventnor]

Pumpkinhead11 wrote:

Quandary wrote:

Ventnor wrote:

Gnome Champions who get a familiar can use that familiar to deliver Lay on Hands healing to their allies across the room while they hold the line.

Lay on Ferret

This speaks to me on a spiritual level.

You could also give the ferret the ability to let you recharge a Focus Point once per day. Now you have even more heals because of your ferret!

[Seisho]

I just noticed that the limitation for the damage from Rage is specifically the Agile trait - so if you eshew class dc based skills you are perfectly fine making a dex based rager of any kind

[PossibleCabbage]

Seisho wrote:

I just noticed that the limitation for the damage from Rage is specifically the Agile trait - so if you eshew class dc based skills you are perfectly fine making a dex based rager of any kind

Specifically this is of benefit to: rapier barbs, spiked chain barbs, elven curve blade barbs, whip barbs, and my personal favorite- nunchaku barbs.

[ikemook]

It's not really a ridiculous build, but I've been working on a conjuration wizard with alchemist multiclassing that I'm really excited about. One of the tricks I've thought up (assuming I'm not reading the rules incorrectly!) is combining Obscuring Mist with Cat's Eye Elixers.

Cat's Eye Elixers, among other things, effectively negate concealment. Obscuring Mist, at least as far as I have been able to figure out, has been changed so that it only provides concealment, not total concealment. So...

1. Spend the morning preparing some of those elixers and hand them out to the party.

2. In a particularly tricky situation, or an important combat, drop Obscuring Mist (which has a range of 120 feet) in a tactially useful area. I believe that if you're willing to wait two turns, or are Hasted, you can use widen spell to fill a bigger area.

3. Party drinks their elixers.

Result: Everyone in the party effectively has Blur in regards to any enemies within the cloud or who are attacking from outside the cloud.

Haven't tested it yet, but it looks fun. It's hardly overpowering (80% hit chance is still pretty good), but I'm looking forward to being able to use it.

It also works with alchemical smoke bombs, but not as good (less area covered). And of course, if you have an alchemist in the party with the formula, you can do this much earlier than Level 6. Level 6 is the earliest you can get access to higher level formulas when multiclassing into alchemist.

[Edited to add some clarity.]

[Xenocrat]

ikemook wrote:

2. In a particularly tricky situation, or an important combat, drop Obscuring Mist (which has a range of 120 feet) in a tactially useful area. I believe that if you're willing to wait two turns, or are Hasted, you can use widen spell to fill a bigger area.

Neither of these methods work, you can't metamagic a three action spell without quicken spell or a capstone that gives free metamagic.

[shroudb]

i'm inclined to make an inquisitor.

start off as a human ranger to pick up on first level both monster hunter and hunted shot, and then multiclass off to cleric except for master monster hunter at 10 (<- that's basically when the build is complete^^). That means you'll use your 2/4/8(breadth)/12/18 feats on spellcasting. at 9 you pick up rogue archetype from human, increase your skills a bit, and at 14/16 you'll pick up you're next and dread striker.

(master spellcasting is optional, but at this point i think the extra spells will benefit more than impossible volley, but who knows)

skillwise, we obviously max nature and intimidation and thievery, alongside feats like battle cry and etc, and then survival for tracking and stealth probably.

this will end up as a character that uses Nature (wisdom) for all of his creature identifications, be really good at tracking, searching, and generaly "roguish" stuff, and also be quite competent with free action intimidations, both at the start of the combat, and as the combat progresses and he downs enemies.

[ikemook]

Xenocrat wrote:

Neither of these methods work, you can't metamagic a three action spell without quicken spell or a capstone that gives free metamagic.

Whoops! You're right. Also, rereading Widen Spell, it specifically says it only applies to spells without a duration.

Thanks for the heads-up!

[Xenocrat]

If you're thinking about a stupid one handed instrument Bard, it looks like you mostly can't. But if you do want to, the Horn of Blasting is "held in 1 hand" and provides a +2 item bonus to performance. Rapier in one hand while you blast away with the other on your horn.

Alas, the Maestro's Instruments are two handed.

[Pumpkinhead11]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Seisho wrote:

I just noticed that the limitation for the damage from Rage is specifically the Agile trait - so if you eshew class dc based skills you are perfectly fine making a dex based rager of any kind

Specifically this is of benefit to: rapier barbs, spiked chain barbs, elven curve blade barbs, whip barbs, and my personal favorite- nunchaku barbs.

An Elven practitioner of the Martial arts, exiled and shunned for his brutal effectiveness and loud cries in the heat of battle. His name? Luce Bree

[Appletree]

The monk in the game I'm running has decided to build his entire character around jumping and running up things. The other players, of course, have decided to egg him on.

[Captain Morgan]

Micheal Smith wrote:

Dwarf fighter or barbarian with toughness and Mountain’s Stoutness. You get to add your level in HPs 2 times on top of the already high hit points from the classes and if you have a high con that helps. Then the recovery save is reduced by 4.

You could even take diehard and make it dying 5 instead of 4 and be one tough dwarf.

With the barbarian, you could take renewed vigor keep getting temp hit points (assuming they are gone before you go again) and make it more difficult to kill.=

I had one of these in the playtest with light armor and low dexterity. Turns out HP tanking works really well this edition. The sea serpent has such tremendous attack bonuses that it had no trouble inflicting huge damage on everyone despite the high AC of the fighter and champion. So when the armored blokes were knocked out and/or swallowed whole, the barbarian still had plenty of health. He dove down the throat of the serpent, cut his buddy out of the stomach, and dragged their body to shore.

[Quandary]

ikemook wrote:

Cat's Eye Elixers, among other things, effectively negate concealment. Obscuring Mist, at least as far as I have been able to figure out, has been changed so that it only provides concealment, not total concealment. So...

I'm not going to totally divert this thread, but the situation on fog rules actually isn't quite that clear:

First of all, fog itself only references Concealment applying when viewed thru "significant amounts of fog" which isn't quantified.
It doesn't seem clear whether one square of fog (i.e. minimum volume in game) is sufficient to count as "significant" or not.
Obscuring Mist does directly state all square suffer Concealment, but is that specific or just restating general RAI?
(OM also doesn't specify the circumstance penalty to perception, which is inherent variable to fog depending on "thickness" (density/distance/both?)

Further, although fog rules themself only reference potential Concealment, if you look at Perception Tiers you see the Hidden Condition (synonymous with Full Concealment, which doesn't exist distinct from Hidden Condition) explicitly mentions "deep fog bank" as eligible for Hidden. So fog CAN also apply Hidden / Full Concealment, but again the rules don't quantify what "deep" means. Does one side of Obscuring Mist to another (or thru it's thickest part) count as "deep"?

I raised this issue here, which so far hasn't attracted much attention because... not a character option ;-)

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42nz7?Fog-Smoke-Perception-Tiers-and-Good-Time s#1

[shroudb]

Quandary wrote:

ikemook wrote:

Cat's Eye Elixers, among other things, effectively negate concealment. Obscuring Mist, at least as far as I have been able to figure out, has been changed so that it only provides concealment, not total concealment. So...

I'm not going to totally divert this thread, but the situation on fog rules actually isn't quite that clear:

First of all, fog itself only references Concealment applying when viewed thru "significant amounts of fog" which isn't quantified.
It doesn't seem clear whether one square of fog (i.e. minimum volume in game) is sufficient to count as "significant" or not.
Obscuring Mist does directly state all square suffer Concealment, but is that specific or just restating general RAI?

Further, although fog rules themself only reference potential Concealment, if you look at Perception Tiers you see the Hidden Condition (synonymous with Full Concealment, which doesn't exist distinct from Hidden Condition) explicitly mentions "deep fog bank" as eligible for Hidden. So fog CAN also apply Hidden / Full Concealment, but again the rules don't quantify what "deep" means. Does one side of Obscuring Mist to another (or thru it's thickest part) count as "deep"?

I raised this issue here, which so far hasn't attracted much attention because... not a character option ;-)

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42nz7?Fog-Smoke-Perception-Tiers-and-Good-Time s#1

i think all mentions for fog from spells/items only reference giving concelment (not being "thick enough" to actually hide/stealth in them).

i think the concept of fog thick enough for you to completely hide (to get the hidden condition) is more about GM/Hazards that can create such a thick fog to do so, and not by player agency ones.

tbf, it needs to be some really really thick fog, to be able to disappear in just 10-20 feet of it.

now, if this fog is like 100+ feet away and it's thick enough, then maybe you can, maybe you can't, i think it gives the agency to the GM to make such calls.

[ikemook]

Quandary wrote:

I'm not going to totally divert this thread, but the situation on fog rules actually isn't quite that clear:

First of all, fog itself only references Concealment applying when viewed thru "significant amounts of fog" which isn't quantified.
It doesn't seem clear whether one square of fog (i.e. minimum volume in game) is sufficient to count as "significant" or not.
Obscuring Mist does directly state all square suffer Concealment, but is that specific or just restating general RAI?

Further, although fog rules themself only reference potential Concealment, if you look at Perception Tiers you see the Hidden Condition (synonymous with Full Concealment, which doesn't exist distinct from Hidden Condition) explicitly mentions "deep fog bank" as eligible for Hidden. So fog CAN also apply Hidden / Full Concealment, but again the rules don't quantify what "deep" means. Does one side of Obscuring Mist to another (or thru it's thickest part) count as "deep"?

I raised this issue here, which so far hasn't attracted much attention because... not a character option ;-)

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42nz7?Fog-Smoke-Perception-Tiers-and-Good-Time s#1

That's an interesting point. At the moment, barring some clarification from Paizo, I'd say that (RAW) Obscuring Mist only provides concealment, not the Hidden Condition. Obscuring Mist in P1E explicitly mentioned in the spell text that being further than 5 feet from someone else gave Total Concealment (e.g. the Hidden Condition). P2E does not mention that. I mean, logically, you'd expect that areas deeper in the mist become increasingly more difficult to see. But Pathfinder doesn't run on real-world physics and logic.

Of course, that could be an error! I'd be interested to see if there's any clarification on this in the future.

And even if it turns out that OM was meant to create more than the concealed condition, Cat's Eye Elixer also reduces the Flat Check of hidden creatures to 5. It basically reduces "Total Concealment" to "Concealment" and "Concealment" to nothing. So, for me, it would largely depend on whether or not my fellow party members saw benefit in imposing differential penalties on themselves and their opponents in a way that benefited them.

[ikemook]

shroudb wrote:

i think all mentions for fog from spells/items only reference giving concelment (not being "thick enough" to actually hide/stealth in them).

i think the concept of fog thick enough for you to completely hide (to get the hidden condition) is more about GM/Hazards that can create such a thick fog to do so, and not by player agency ones.

tbf, it needs to be some really really thick fog, to be able to disappear in just 10-20 feet of it.

now, if this fog is like 100+ feet away and it's thick enough, then maybe you can, maybe you can't, i think it gives the agency to the GM to make such calls.

As a GM, if I were running a home game and someone pulled this tactic in an area that was *already* misty or foggy, I would be strongly inclined to rule it as creating thicker conditions. RAW, that probably wouldn't work, but I'd strongly consider pulling some GM perogative there.

Because, I mean, technically speaking, you could cast Obscuring Mist in a bank of heavy fog and make everything *less* hidden. Which would probably bend my sense of logic a little too much for a home game ^_~

[Quandary]

Like I said, I don't want to divert this thread, but I did respond to you in that thread I linked, so best to follow it up there:

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42nz7?Fog-Smoke-Perception-Tiers-and-Good-Time s#3

[Quandary]

ikemook wrote:

And even if it turns out that OM was meant to create more than the concealed condition, Cat's Eye Elixer also reduces the Flat Check of hidden creatures to 5. It basically reduces "Total Concealment" to "Concealment" and "Concealment" to nothing.

I'm trying to not divert the discussion here to general Fog (and Smoke) rule, and I responded to your general point re: fog in the appropriate thread (see link), but re: Cat's Eye specifically I can say it doesn't work exactly like you say: It specifically reduces Flat Check, but it doesn't get rid of Hidden Condition itself (Total Concealment per se doesn't exist, Hidden Condition just has it's 10+ Flat Check, but there is other implications of the Condition which don't go away by modifying that Flat Check)

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42nz7?Fog-Smoke-Perception-Tiers-and-Good-Time s#4

[shroudb]

ikemook wrote:

shroudb wrote:

i think all mentions for fog from spells/items only reference giving concelment (not being "thick enough" to actually hide/stealth in them).

i think the concept of fog thick enough for you to completely hide (to get the hidden condition) is more about GM/Hazards that can create such a thick fog to do so, and not by player agency ones.

tbf, it needs to be some really really thick fog, to be able to disappear in just 10-20 feet of it.

now, if this fog is like 100+ feet away and it's thick enough, then maybe you can, maybe you can't, i think it gives the agency to the GM to make such calls.

As a GM, if I were running a home game and someone pulled this tactic in an area that was *already* misty or foggy, I would be strongly inclined to rule it as creating thicker conditions. RAW, that probably wouldn't work, but I'd strongly consider pulling some GM perogative there.

Because, I mean, technically speaking, you could cast Obscuring Mist in a bank of heavy fog and make everything *less* hidden. Which would probably bend my sense of logic a little too much for a home game ^_~

i don't disagree with any of that.

that's why i called it that the most possible thing they had in mind was that it's in gm's agency to say when fog is thick enough to hide in it or not.

"base" spell/item gives just concelment, but with preexisting enviromental conditions, or even with something abstract like distance from the fog, it can easily change.