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I am designing a Loremaster and would appreciate input. I believe this is all PFS legal though a boon is required. This shell should work for any class and race combination, though high intelligence is probably desired. I am personally leaning towards human wizard.
For the background choose Pathfinder Hopeful. Society skill is good as it ties into Int. Int and Con are the required stat choices for the background. Most Loremasters would likely want Int, but if not then Con is a good choice for everyone. Importantly it gives Additional Lore feat. This is also a good background for many characters. You were hoping to join the Pathfinder Society, and congratulations you got in!
We will also be a Field Commission Agent. First level bonus lore being of your choice. Also, while working with any faction would be ok, I think Horizon Hunters might specifically be desired.
1st Level: With Additional Lore pick "Underground" The specific pick will be important later and this simple feat ties the whole build together. Also, this could a decent roleplaying reason why you know so much. You have lots of contacts
2nd level: Loremaster Dedication (the point of the build) Recall knowledge on everything
3rd level: Honorary mention - Underground Lore progresses to Expert because of Additional Lore. If you have been working with the Horizon Hunters then you should also now have the Storied Talent boon, allowing you to earn income at your level rather then -2 your level. You can use your scaling Underground Lore to earn income
4th Level: Class feat - Loremaster's Etude and Skill feat - Kreighton's Cognitive Crossover (Loremaster Lore with Underground Lore). The class feat gives a focus point and make recall knowledge even more reliable. Also a good chance you can refocus that point back before you need it again depending on situation
5th level: Bonus Skill feat - Unmistakable Lore via Field Commission Agent. You meet the prerequisite with Additional Lore taken earlier. Can no longer ever critically fail recall knowledge via lores and if rerolling via Kreighton's Cognitive Crossover w/ Underground Lore and crit succeed could gain "Even more information or context then usual" Not being able to critically fail is important as a crit fails prevent the Cognitive Crossover from working. Also knowing everything is good, a Loremaster never wants to get anything wrong.
6th level: Skill feat - Orthographic Mastery (Loremaster skill feat) While good on its own, being able to read anything seems decent to me. It is also important as then you can take now another dedication.
7th level: Honorary mention - Underground Lore progresses to Master because of Additional Lore.
8th level: Class feat: Golden League Xun Dedication. Boon Required. Needs Master in Underground Lore (This is automatic because of scaling with Additional Lore). The dedication provides 2 bonus expert skills which are nice. while recalling knowledge with Underground Lore if you get a success you instead get a crit success. With a crit success then also get even more information (see 5th level) . Also earning income with Underground Lore, any success will be a critical success. If you wanted to work with a faction other then Horizon Hunters, you could alternatively at level 8 get Experienced Smuggler skill feat. You can become can expert in Stealth at a minimum with this dedication and get better income using Underground Lore.
It is a bit odd that you almost want to fail with your Loremaster Lore so you can roll on Underground Lore, but it is interesting and an even better fallback plan should your initial roll not be what you want.
That is as far as I have gotten. It seems to be a nice package that works with nearly anything. It leaves open all general feats, all ancestry feats. Your 2nd and 8th level skill feats are also open as is your 6th level class feat. Not having class feats might hurt the most. Being human and having Natural Ambition might take the sting out of that a bit.
The boon shouldn't be too hard to get, just play or run Ruby Phoenix Adventure scenarios. Also there is time to get to this point and you could just GM them yourself if needed. People are normally happy if someone else is a GM for a time.
I would appreciate any feedback
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Venture-Agent, Colorado—Denver
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4th Level: Class feat - Loremaster's Etude and Skill feat - Kreighton's Cognitive Crossover (Loremaster Lore with Underground Lore). The class feat gives a focus point and make recall knowledge even more reliable.
I'm no optimized PC builder, but one thing that caught my eye, since I'm familiar with the feat...
With Kreighton's C. C., you can only choose one Lore. The other skill needs to be Arcana, Crafting, Medicine, Nature, Occultism, Religion, or Society.It even says in parentheses "(any one)".
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"Any one" means you must choose any one specific lore. Not just lore as a whole subcategory. So you can't use "Lore" you would have to choose "Warfare Lore" You can certainly tie in two specific Lores together.
I don't think your interpretation is correct. However, for the sake of argument if you couldn't, just tie in Loremaster Lore to Arcana or Occultism and take your normal skill increases in the chosen skill. I'm guessing most would do this anyway as wanting Loremaster skill to increase later on is important and at 15 there is always Grand Unified Theory which is amazing and requires Legendary Arcana anyway. You'd end up 95% of the way there, just with fewer critical successes on the rerolls and would be less interesting. You would still never crit fail on the initial roll once you get Unmistakable Lore and thus and would always get your reroll if you failed. Everything else works as stated.
Honestly, it would probably even be more optimal in the long run as if you fail an Arcana knowledge check you would have the backup with Loremaster because it goes in both directions. Arcana checks would be made much more often then an Underworld Lore (or whatever Lore) check.
There is always the Pocket Library spell as well which could bridge the gap on the important rolls early on before level 5 and Unmistakable Lore.
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Venture-Agent, Colorado—Denver
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"Any one" means you must choose any one specific lore. Not just lore as a whole subcategory. So you can't use "Lore" you would have to choose "Warfare Lore" You can certainly tie in two specific Lores together.
I don't think your interpretation is correct. However, for the sake of argument if you couldn't, just tie in Loremaster Lore to Arcana or Occultism and take your normal skill increases in the chosen skill. I'm guessing most would do this anyway as wanting Loremaster skill to increase later on is important and at 15 there is always Grand Unified Theory which is amazing and requires Legendary Arcana anyway. You'd end up 95% of the way there, just with fewer critical successes on the rerolls and would be less interesting. You would still never crit fail on the initial roll once you get Unmistakable Lore and thus and would always get your reroll if you failed. Everything else works as stated.
Honestly, it would probably even be more optimal in the long run as if you fail an Arcana knowledge check you would have the backup with Loremaster because it goes in both directions. Arcana checks would be made much more often then an Underworld Lore (or whatever Lore) check.
There is always the Pocket Library spell as well which could bridge the gap on the important rolls early on before level 5 and Unmistakable Lore.
Ah. Good points. I guess I did interpret it wrong.
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I think, as a base class, wizard would be fine. Though, mastermind rogue could ramp well off of a successful RK. Investigator could similarly work well.
Edit: Actually, action economy-wise, a witch could also work.
Tell me who they are.
While questions about the flavor of the character are nice to iron out, it is far from necessary before the mechanical build is solidified.
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Okay, so your loremaster knows things. Tell me who they are. Where are they from? What do they do in combat to help their teammates after they have identified the monsters? Why did they get drawn into a life of crime in the Tian Xia underworld?
I'll echo these questions. Even if you do all of this, you've invested virtually all your class feats and several skill feats into being able to roll on knowledge checks you probably could have made anyway. If you want to maximize those Lores you're probably intelligence based which means you're probably not lacking skill points and 3 out of 5 recall knowledge skills are Int based. We don't know anything else about the character -- not even a base class.
This reminds me of a build I saw early in 2e where someone made a master of all languages combining lots of different feats. I don't know precisely how many they had but I do remember that even with knowing 20+ languages we still ran into a scenario where all their linguistic mastery didn't do anything. And that all came at the cost of other versatility.
So let's just focus on the more pressing question: you make your recall knowledge check successfully. What next? What do you do?
I often like to come up with a build then do a backstory to support the build rather then the other way around. Depends on the character. You also don't need a roleplaying reason to have the mechanic.
The character is still the character. You still have your class to do whatever you want. If you are in a situation where knowledge doesn't apply then do something else. A witch or wizard suddenly doesn't stop being able to cast spells. A rogue or investigator can still do their things.
Some of the choices absolutely benefit the base class as well. I would say Loremaster's Etude is even better then the wizard comparable feat Linked Focus as an example. Spellcasters tend to like more focus points in general.
Of course you give up some class feats in exchange for others, but that's ok. I think the skill feats chosen would appeal to someone wanting to be a Loremaster. Skill feats tend to be less impactful overall and I have made choices that are more impactful then most.
What I like most about this build is that the feats and selections build on each other, which is something that you can't always easily find in PF2E. Every level being impactful, more then just a +1 due to level increase and makes a neat package. One can even peel back layers on this package to suit an individual playstyle and change it.
Example, Don't take Golden League Xun Dedication if you don't want it. It isn't critical to function. Change your initial lore to Library Lore and now your character is a bookworm and the 8th level feat is freed up. I just feel its interesting how even the initial Lore selection at character creation influences this choice and ties it all together.
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Okay, so your loremaster knows things. Tell me who they are. Where are they from? What do they do in combat to help their teammates after they have identified the monsters? Why did they get drawn into a life of crime in the Tian Xia underworld?
You tell me! this isn't a specific character rather then a template you could overlay over practically any character. I thought it was fun to do. One can make thier own backstory
Contributor
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Oh, you're looking to build this as a template rather than for a specific character? I missed that. I thought you were looking for feedback for a planned character.
I also do minor mechanical skeleton work before building most of the personality, but as it looked to me that the mechanics were complete on your idea, I felt that the next step was laying on personality and backstory. I've had to abandon mechanically excellent characters because I could not find their voice. They become unplayable for me if I don't know who they are.
A wizard who knows things will always be welcome in a Pathfinder Society scenario, because skills are such an important part of the game. But... I would not be able to play this character at all because right now they are a statblock to me instead of a person.
The thing that I find most interesting in this whole build is the Golden League Xun dedication, because that grounds the character in a number of ways. It tells me that they spent time in Goka or Minkai, that they are able to blend into the local society around Goka, that they have spy skills, cool tattoos and are morally flexible when it comes to organized crime. Suddenly I have something to work with, that makes the character breathe for me.
But... If this is not your planned character, I'll just say that the mechanics look fine.
Hmm