Yes, flanking is not something you can do at a distance. You'll need to use other ways of making a target flat-footed for spells cast from a distance.
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Flank with a whip in hand. Ok, still semi melee, but can be useful sometimes.
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Flank with a whip in hand. Ok, still semi melee, but can be useful sometimes.
Hah. You beat me to it. That was my thought to. If you use a reach weapon you can flank at the range of the weapon - even if you aren't using that weapon for your attacks.
Which is stupid; but it works, RAW.
You do still have to use the base reach of the weapon. So it wouldn't be counting things like Lunge or the Extending Rune when calculating if you have flanking or not. At least not for anything other than attacks made using those actions with the changed reach.
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Is flanking JUST for melee?
Flanking makes your target flat-footed to you (and your flank partner).
In PF1, the attack itself had to qualify for flanking. That is no longer the case with PF2.
So if your target is flanked, they are now flat-footed for any attack you make; could be a melee attack, a ranged attack, or even a spell attack.
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HERE is one of the original threads (back in 2019) discussing the differences between flanking in 2E vs 1E.
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Alright, a shame there's no way to do it, but I guess it is what it is. So for a rogue sniper, the only way to get the sneak attack is if she's hidden?
A few options come to mind but no means exhaustive:
1) Mastermind Racket for Rogue should allow you to set up flat footed yourself but you need to use an action to recall knowledge to ID the opponent
2) Have helpful players that knock enemies prone.
Grappled.
Prone.
Hit by bottles lightning.
Hit with a sword crit.
Frightened, if the rogue takes Dread Striker.
Affected by some spells.
Affected by various feats, like Shared Stratagem or Snagging Strike.
There are lots of ways that a target might become flat-footed for this rogue. You just can't pick a single one of them and say "I'll always do that, with only minimal teamwork needed" so easily as flanking.
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Alright, a shame there's no way to do it, but I guess it is what it is. So for a rogue sniper, the only way to get the sneak attack is if she's hidden?Even this doesn't necessarily work with spellcasting as you don't actually make a Strike with spells:
Source Core Rulebook pg. 252 2.0Move, Secret
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Success
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You become observed as soon as you do anything other than Hide, Sneak, or Step. If you attempt to Strike a creature, the creature remains flat-footed against that attack, and you then become observed. If you do anything else, you become observed just before you act unless the GM determines otherwise. The GM might allow you to perform a particularly unobtrusive action without being noticed, possibly requiring another Stealth check. If you speak or make a deliberate loud noise, you become hidden instead of undetected.
While Rogues are generally in a good place in PF2e, the Eldritch Trickster is kinda hard to make work...
Another thing to note:
I think word from the designers is that you can't benefit from flanking if you're using any ranged attack. So even if you are in melee range, to make enemies flat-footed against your spells, you'd need to use a melee spell attack like Produce Flame or Shocking Grasp.
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There are so many rules problems with that proported statement, that it should just be ignored. Designers have to follow their own rules.
I mean, IIRC they said if the rules say otherwise, they need yo be changed. So while agree that it's nowhere near RAW, it does seem to be RAI.
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I mean, IIRC they said if the rules say otherwise, they need yo be changed. So while agree that it's nowhere near RAW, it does seem to be RAI.
The statement is just wrong on a technical sense. If you are quoting you need to give the full context. Yes a ranged weapon can't cause flanking. But it can benefit from its target being flat footed. Which you can do by having another weapon or unarmed attack available and within reach.
I can make an enemy flat footed by threatening to kick it with my boot, which I do by just being adjacent to it, and having an ally who can make an attack on the other side. Then I can fire my bow at it and gain benefit from it being flat footed.If the designers don't like this then they need to change the rules, because thats what their rules say. Its perfectly clear. Its not unreasonable.
I'm not sure what to tell you. I completely agree with you on the RAW, so there's no rules to be quoted that say otherwise.
Still doesn't change the fact that I seem to remember one of the designers saying you're not meant to benefit from flanking when doing a ranged attack. I think it was in a video somewhere but I don't remember where I heard this.
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My recollection was yes they gave a statement that they probably didn't intend to allow it, but that fixing it now was a can of worms and having to research how various wording choices chained through other rules, etc. Produce Flame was mentioned explicitly as needing special attention, etc
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I'm not sure what to tell you. I completely agree with you on the RAW, so there's no rules to be quoted that say otherwise.
Still doesn't change the fact that I seem to remember one of the designers saying you're not meant to benefit from flanking when doing a ranged attack. I think it was in a video somewhere but I don't remember where I heard this.
Yeah, I also remember a video where a designer says that a Witch Archetype's familiar doesn't come back the next day if it dies and the character can just live without their spellcasting for the rest of the adventure.
And one where the same designer says that just a spellcasting archetype dedication feat is sufficient to cast spells from scrolls even though the rules for the CRB spellcasting archetypes clearly say otherwise.
Unofficial errata is unofficial for a reason.
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Buddy, we are all totally new to this, still running the beginner's box adventure. And I went from never having played a TTRPG before to GMing this one. I think we're doing pretty well, how about cutting us some slack.
I seriously doubt HammerJack is intending any disrespect. He is just trying to warn you away from a very common problem new players have (and come on these forums complaining about when it doesn't work): expecting the same tactics or tricks to work in every encounter and situation.
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Alright, a shame there's no way to do it, but I guess it is what it is. So for a rogue sniper, the only way to get the sneak attack is if she's hidden?
One of the better ways to do it is if one of your teammates makes the enemy flat-footed. Pathfinder 2 is very much set up to encourage teamwork, instead of only trying to make a build that does everything on its own.
Fighters for example have quite a lot of feats that make enemies flat-footed, like Snagging Strike, Combat Grab and Knockdown. When your buddy does that, you can take advantage. And of course, anyone could just work on getting good at Athletics and using Trip or Grab.
There are more ways, but my point is: coordinate with the other players what you all want to do and how you can help each other.
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Buddy, we are all totally new to this, still running the beginner's box adventure. And I went from never having played a TTRPG before to GMing this one. I think we're doing pretty well, how about cutting us some slack.I seriously doubt HammerJack is intending any disrespect. He is just trying to warn you away from a very common problem new players have (and come on these forums complaining about when it doesn't work): expecting the same tactics or tricks to work in every encounter and situation.
Yes, please don't take this as a "you need to learn to play!" kind of thing. It was not intended to be one.
Rattling off a whole litany of things that can result in a flat-footed target has become a kind of a kind of a habit because questions of "but how do ranged rogues get sneak attack off?" come up A LOT. And because I have seen even players that are not new trap themselves into a really unsatisfying character by making two major mistakes:
1. Treating it as "the rogue must achieve their own flat-footed target" instead of as a team goal.
2. Trying to say "X is my routine for getting a flat-footed target" instead of saying "this is the entire toolbox of options I need to be ready to dig through".
I think my tone in how I said it wasn't the best, though. And that's entirely my fault. I've run into the question a lot of times where it starts getting presented to people as "ranged rogues can't flank, therefore there is no good way to get sneak attack" or "stealth is the only option", which is not true, and I think I've gotten to the point of having kind of a kneejerk response to start rattling things off and reminding people that tunnelvision is a trap because I really hate seeing that kind of statement go up where new players will see it and be misinformed if there isn't a response.
Note that the Archer Dedication has a 6th level feat for ranged flat-footed attacks, though it doesn't help w/ casting spells (which yes, requires teamwork so likely shouldn't be built into a PFS PC unless playing with a regular team).
I'm also reminded of many early laments where a player would dislike their PC (often a Fighter) because they were inflicting conditions that lasted only until the beginning of their next turn. "I can't use these!"
When, of course, they weren't meant to; the feat would set up their allies. As a rule of thumb, it's generally much easier for PCs to set up circumstances for each other than for themselves. And feats that are charitable to one's allies are often strong, which is one reason the Bard's considered so strong for empowering Strikers.
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Flanking has now been officially errated:Page 476:
Flanking was ambiguous on what happened if you made a ranged attack while within reach of a foe you are flanking. To make it clear that only melee attacks benefit from flanking, change the second sentence to read "A creature is flat-footed (taking a –2 circumstance penalty to AC) to melee attacks from creatures that are flanking it."
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Flanking has now been officially errated:Page 476:Flanking was ambiguous on what happened if you made a ranged attack while within reach of a foe you are flanking. To make it clear that only melee attacks benefit from flanking, change the second sentence to read "A creature is flat-footed (taking a –2 circumstance penalty to AC) to melee attacks from creatures that are flanking it."
So you definitely count as flanking, you just don't treat them as flat-footed. A subtle but important distinction.
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Flank with a whip in hand. Ok, still semi melee, but can be useful sometimes.Hah. You beat me to it. That was my thought to. If you use a reach weapon you can flank at the range of the weapon - even if you aren't using that weapon for your attacks.
Which is stupid; but it works, RAW.
Yup. No longer works, RAW.
But you do still provide flanking to others. Just not for your spell attacks. Or ranged attacks.
LOL Is there any reason for produce flame to have a melee option now?
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So Produce Flame, Gouging Claw and Shocking Grasp are now the only common attack spells able to benefit from flanking.
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Now Magus has one more advantage over other spellcasters. This don't affect the spellstrike.
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Well. It was fun while it lasted :-D
I had already replaced my whip with a staff on my linguist bard for a shadow signet assisted true strike biting words, but it was fun. Also for the primal witch who used my whip for some searing light flankin attacks on synesthesia-ed enemies while blessed...
The good old times.
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LOL Is there any reason for produce flame to have a melee option now?
I mean, it now has a purpose, where previously it did not :P