Aid is a reaction, and it's a circumstance bonus which means it doesn't stack. So it's not like 10 minions = +10 with no other downside. In other systems that's exactly how it works and it's how a pack of weenie minions can work together to land a single or a few blows on tougher PCs. But PF2E didn't go that route. 10 minions = +1 and then they don't get to shield block or whatever else they were going to use their reaction to do. So the vast majority of the time, the minions are much better off just doing their own thing.Oh God!
I never thought about give Aid to a Boss using its "minions" this would end pretty devastating!But you are right this is RAW. Just a bit too much but it's RAW.
Well, if it's an 'Aid per action' then it'd could theoretically be up to four Aids (barring other abilities)
One for each action and one for a reaction if the person aiding has the same sort of reaction (maybe? Seems sort of in the weeds there but I'd allow it.)
If Aid with melee weapons makes sense, then I see no reason for ranged not to.
How do you Aid with a bow?
Because I clearly see how you can Aid with a sword, by grabbing attention and coordinating your attacks with your ally so they have more chance to land theirs. But with a bow, you can only shoot. But maybe you have an idea I don't think of.And also adding Attack trait for non-Strike actions (and not actual maneuvers with effects for an enemy) I think is too much. Especially for the action which is supposed to be exactly an alternative to 3rd attack.
So now you Aid with a bow without even firing it, so what are you doing with it?
In general, I add the Attack trait to the Aid action if you use an attack roll to perform it because... it seems obvious.
And I find that a near automatic +3 to hit without any form of investment is a bit too strong for a third action. I don't want Aid to become the automatic third action of all high level martials as it is boring.
Actually, I'm also following the rules to the letter: "You must explain to the GM exactly how you're trying to help, and they determine whether you can Aid your ally."
So if there's no need for an explanation because Aid becomes automatic then I think we are not following the rules. As such, I don't want to encourage any form of automatic ways of applying Aid (unless the character paid feats for that).
Aid is a reaction, and it's a circumstance bonus which means it doesn't stack. So it's not like 10 minions = +10 with no other downside. In other systems that's exactly how it works and it's how a pack of weenie minions can work together to land a single or a few blows on tougher PCs. But PF2E didn't go that route. 10 minions = +1 and then they don't get to shield block or whatever else they were going to use their reaction to do. So the vast majority of the time, the minions are much better off just doing their own thing.Oh God!
I never thought about give Aid to a Boss using its "minions" this would end pretty devastating!But you are right this is RAW. Just a bit too much but it's RAW.
The point is that's pretty common to have pretty a strong monster accompanied with some weak monsters. These Strong monsters that have +1 or +2 levels higher than players if get the pretty common Aid bonuses from minions may be turned in critical hit machines petty easily!
AoE Spoiler:
And if it's ranged Aid to Strikes from archers?I personally don't allow ranged Aid as it doesn't make sense to me. Nothing forces you as a GM to accept any kind of Aid.
Also, you can give the Attack trait to the preparatory action, which would then include MAP and be rather tough before very high levels.
GMC recommends to only allow Aid if the char is close to target or the ally:
It’s up to you whether someone’s preparation is enough to let them Aid an ally. The preparation should be specific to the task at hand. Helping someone hold a lockpick steady might be enough preparation to Aid an attempt to Pick a Lock, but just saying you’re going to “encourage” them likely wouldn’t. Second, the character who’s attempting to Aid needs to be in a proper position to help and able to convey any necessary information. Helping a character Climb a wall is pretty tough if the character a PC wishes to Aid is nowhere near them. Similarly, a character usually needs to be next to their ally or a foe to Aid the ally in attacking the foe. You’ll also need to determine how long the preparation takes. Typically, a single action is sufficient to help with a task that’s completed in a single round, but to help someone perform a long-term task, like research, the character has to help until the task is finished.
If Aid with melee weapons makes sense, then I see no reason for ranged not to.And if it's ranged Aid to Strikes from archers?I personally don't allow ranged Aid as it doesn't make sense to me. Nothing forces you as a GM to accept any kind of Aid.
Also, you can give the Attack trait to the preparatory action, which would then include MAP and be rather tough before very high levels.
Spotter exists. You can use your perception to aid an archer/gunslinger pointing weak points, giving tips from wind, helping with the ammo and so on.
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Aid with ranged weapons is all about forcing their behavior. Getting them to duck down, momentarily throwing off their balance; or to dodge out of the way, towards your ally's oncoming sword; or bracketing a foe with a flurry of shots so as to limit their movements and reduce their ability to dodge other attacks.
Powerful monsters with allies can be really brutal! Flanking plus Aid is a whopping 3-point swing at a minimum. That will turn "mostly crits" into "always crits" in short order.
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Regardless of the practicality, balance or realisticness of Aid at range, Paizo's thinking on it has evolved to not allow it and many GMs won't either. Brief history lesson:
-The Aid action itself just says "attack rolls and skill checks" can be used to Aid; it does not specify a range.
-The original version of the fighter feat Assisting Shot just let you use Aid with ranged attacks. When people pointed out nothing in the rules prevented you from doing that without the feat, Paizo changed the feat to the current version.
-Paizo released the GMG with guidance suggesting only characters in melee could Aid on each other's attack rolls.
-Paizo published the swashbuckler feat one for all, which let you use Diplomacy to aid on any check or attack roll within 30 feet.
-Paizo published the gunslinger with the fake out feat for ranged Aid. (Though this also saved you the action of preparing to Aid.)
The narrative that emerges is the understanding of Aiding at range varied between designers early on, but there's been a strong move towards codifying it as melee only by default and needing feats to do it at range.
With a bow, I clearly see how you can Aid
See? Easy!with a sword, by grabbing attention and coordinating your attacks with your ally so they have more chance to land theirs.
If I consider the Greatsword Fighter the enemy has in their face at 10 in terms of attention you are at 1 with your bow. The enemy ignores you as you are not an immediate threat and as such your Aid just fails.
If you want to divert their attention at range you need to roll Deception. If you want to look threatening more than you actually are you can roll Intimidation. But Attack Rolls won't help you there.Nope. Not at all, not even close.
Yes, definitely and clearly. You can disagree with me but you can't say I don't add the Attack trait to Aid performed with an Attack Roll as I definitely do that and I have the right per RAW.
It's these sorts of things that lead me to recommend one for all and fake out all the time to dodge all the ambiguity over Aid.
The psychic also has a couple of “always aid attacks (or anything)” options. One in Silent Whisper cantrip at level 6, the other in Int subconscious mind during psyche.
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Except it hasn't. There's that word 'usually'. Which is enough.
Yes, you guys could forbid ranged Aid. Which is a bad move, low-level (yay! I'm on topic now!) ranged rangers could need it very much because they have nothing else to do. I know, I played one. Also making 3rd attack is so much more boring than Aid.
Yes, you could add Attack trait to Aid with "attack rolls" for no reason.
You also could say 'Meteor strikes, it's 300 damage, you die'. So whatever.
No need to go into the hyperbole, you know. We can fully speak about the issue archers meet at low level (at all levels in my opinion) when using their third actions.
I also don't think Aid is much of a solution. At level 1, you have 10 chances out of 20 to give a +1 and 3 to give a +2. So it's less interesting than a +1 on average. A third attack at -10 should generally be more interesting. Aid becomes a strong strategy when you are Master. Before that it's just meh.
I don't notice any change in teamwork or tactics in remaster.
I'm using Aid now. I wasn't before.
But I doubt that has anything at all to do with the Remaster.
;)
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All the talk about aid brings up another question. Has the PF2e remaster improved or changed teamwork and or tactics? if so how?
A few things off the top of my head:
Reposition enables some tactical options (like pulling an enemy out of a choke point) and makes others easier (e.g. moving one enemy closer to another so both can be caught in an AoE). It's not a major change but it is a small improvement.
Swap makes various item juggling stuff more reasonable on action economy.
Disarm is much more often a valid tactic.
Early level battlefield control is much stronger now that Entangling Flora is a fully reliable 20' burst of difficult terrain with bonus effects.
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Reposition enables some tactical options (like pulling an enemy out of a choke point) and makes others easier (e.g. moving one enemy closer to another so both can be caught in an AoE). It's not a major change but it is a small improvement.
Yet I didn't saw anyone using it. The fact that Reposition is an attack still makes the player to usually prefer to Step.
Swap makes various item juggling stuff more reasonable on action economy.
But I don't consider swap as a tactic. I have 2 players the uses a Gauntlets equipped with runes and Doubling Rings to use different precious material weapons.
Before the swap they just drop the weapon in the ground and take it back when the encounter ends. After the swap they just swap it. In practice almost nothing changed.
The player who likes the swap more was our champion that uses it to take potions without need to take the weapon that he dropped in the ground in same turn allowing him to keep the shield risen in that turn and just draw the weapon again in his next turn. Yet it's situational. He doesn't uses potions (or any other consumable item) too frequently.
Disarm is much more often a valid tactic.
I still didn't saw the new Disarm being used in practice. Most monsters that my players faced since we begun to use remastered rules was unarmed monsters. The other point is that our Fighter have Knockdown Slam Down so it will pretty hard to us to see him using Disarm and the other 2 Barbarians the we have in the party uses different strategies (one of them uses Grapple frequently (when not used Embrace the Pain) to use with Aerial Piledriver so he rarely try to use another thing and the other Barbarian is currently pretty happy using reach weapons with Titan's Stature to Whirlwind Strike every enemy in the room and usually doesn't care into Disarm, Grapple or Trip).
Early level battlefield control is much stronger now that Entangling Flora is a fully reliable 20' burst of difficult terrain with bonus effects.
In a pursue maybe. But during normal encounters I rarely saw any movement reduction abilities being that much useful. Most melee players and monsters when enter in melee range just fight without worry too much with movement. Also most of my encounters happens in small rooms without much space to use movement speed effectively.
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I didn't see any response to it, but somewhere upthread someone expressed concern about the ghoul's paralysis ability. Ghouls no longer have that ability.
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I once had a summoner pinned between a bonfire and the big bad. So I used Act Together with my eidolon to have the summoner Reposition the big bad next to the bonfire, then the eidolon Shoved him into it. The summoner then used his two remaining actions to draw out a huge jug of oil, and poured it over the poor sod.
It was a glorious example of team work.
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"Aid" is not solely limited to posing a violent threat to the enemy. Otherwise aid on non-combat checks would be impossible, yet it's mentioned tons of times in the PC. Aid could be, as someone else pointed out, acting like a spotter to identify a good target, or weaknesses. "His left pauldron is loose!" It could be being next to the archer, sword drawn, so that the archer isn't distracted by the thought of being stabbed by another enemy. It could be yelling at the opponent to make them momentarily look away from the archer. And so on.
Around my table, if you want some cheap Aid you can use at range on any enemy you grab the feats. I won't devalue One For All by giving the ability to Aid by "yelling at the opponent to make them momentarily look away".
Also, the Aid action clearly states that you have to come up with a probable explanation and the GM says yes or no. If there's no point in saying no because you can get away with nearly any explanation then I think you are not following the spirit of the rule.As for Aid's effectiveness, it depends on your level. At low level, it's rather weak. Once you get Master, it becomes very strong, one of the strongest third action in the game. For me, Aid should always be worse than Demoralize as Demoralize asks for some investment and has limitations (the Mental Trait and the fact that it doesn't stack with most debuffs). Once you get to +3 and even +4, Aid becomes largely equivalent to Demoralize (depending especially on initiative order). So I don't see the point in making it that easy to use.
So why not let your players describe some fantasy, action-movie type action they're doing to help their archer friend and let that role play have a positive effect on the game? I mean, if the fantasy accommodates letting a dwarf trip an ogre, surely yelling at an opponent for a temporary distraction isn't so unrealistic as to require the GM to prevent it, does it?
Sorry, but for me it's just too cheap. A very imaginative player that always find a good reason to Aid will certainly get me on board. But "yelling at an opponent" is just ridiculous to me. I ask for something more compelling and, certainly more important, based on the actual situation and not some cheap always reusable Aid.
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It's hard to see in the new rules, but there's a new option to throw items at allies for a ranged hand-off. It sounded like a super neat way to add potential team-play, especially as an Alchemist player.
I have been waiting/watching for a chance to do it ever since I started Swapping. I've literally not done it once since seeing the new Interact rules. However, Swap enables an Alch to hold an elixir/item without the need to Activate, Drop, or waste an action w/ Stow. Even better is Swapping away a (used) non-consumable like a wand into a consumable, then having a free hand after it is used.
The irrelevance of the item toss is honestly, the same old issue of "consumables are generally not worth the actions" paired with the old "battle maps are too small" problem. It means that the stars really need to align for tossing an elixir at an ally to ever be relevant.
Either my Alchemists just Stride and feed, the ally hands are full, or using said item is less effective than throwing a cantrip or a R1 spell.
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As far as ranged Aid goes, I did that a fair number of times in our Amb Vlts campaign that finished, even as an action-hungry Alchemist. We do not track mundane arrows, and from about L4 onward they used a 1+ H bow.
The GM ruled that the ranged aid was an actual arrow shot, and I do think they would have disallowed the ranged Aid if the PC did not have that 1-Action thwip on demand.
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I do agree that Aid has issues from a balance perspective, and I honestly think it needs to have opposing/scaling DC for foe-facing Aid attempts. Even if it's simplified into a [PL +- x] --> DC = [15 +-(x?y)] kind of formula.
However, IMO Aid is NOT as problematic as the simple Trip is.
The catch is that Aid's power is directly and dramatically altered by your Class / PC having a decent Reaction.
Some classes like Alchemist are, frankly, shitouttaluck when it comes to Reactions. Aid can be amazing for them (even with the lower accuracy). Meanwhile, a Champion or Fighter, preparing an Aid?
Sure it happens, but it's in response to some special circumstance.
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Aid IS worse than demoralize.
Demoralize has many limitations: once per creature, Mental and it doesn't stack with most debuffs. So there are tons of cases where you just can't use it when Aid is always available (circumstance bonuses to attack are the ratity). And if the enemy plays right after you it's just a -1 to all actions when Master/Legendary Aid gives a +3/+4 to one attack (obviously you'll choose the most significant one). You also have to consider chances of failure when Aid automatically critically succeeds (unless the GM changes the DC but that's a massive nerf akin to saying that Aid doesn't work).
So no, Aid is not worse, it's different.
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A low level improvement I noticed is 60 foot range on some cantrips. That is a nice little upgrade. Makes them more valuable.
Needle Darts, Divine Lance, Slashing Gust. A few more longer range options are nice to have. Frostbite is 60 feet now, used to be 120, so a nerf there. I wouldn't have minded seeing more cantrips with a 60 foot range as that has value at low level when you use cantrips the most.
Spirit Damage makes Divine Lance more fun for divine casters. Definite upgrade and easier to run as a DM. Not having to check alignment for damage runs smoother.
A low level improvement I noticed is 60 foot range on some cantrips. That is a nice little upgrade. Makes them more valuable.
Needle Darts, Divine Lance, Slashing Gust. A few more longer range options are nice to have. Frostbite is 60 feet now, used to be 120, so a nerf there. I wouldn't have minded seeing more cantrips with a 60 foot range as that has value at low level when you use cantrips the most.
Spirit Damage makes Divine Lance more fun for divine casters. Definite upgrade and easier to run as a DM. Not having to check alignment for damage runs smoother.
Not sure what you mean. My casters use both frostbite and ray of frost just fine.
They're different spells that do different things.
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One nice thing about the remaster is it gave us spell versatility that we otherwise never would have seen. E.g., lots of same damage type and spell rank, but now save with potential crit fail rider instead of attack.
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For me, Aid should always be worse than Demoralize as Demoralize asks for some investment and has limitations (the Mental Trait and the fact that it doesn't stack with most debuffs). Once you get to +3 and even +4, Aid becomes largely equivalent to Demoralize (depending especially on initiative order). So I don't see the point in making it that easy to use.
Personally, I enjoy incentivizing teamwork and variety in tactics in the party, and I'm happy to facilitate Aid checks that others might not in pursuit of that goal - it's fun when the magus breaks from their normal action routine to prepare an Aid at a distance with Crafting to describe a vulnerability in the construct they're fighting. The tactical variety is an important part of it - I trust my players, and we have an understanding that they're not going to be able to use the same skill to assist every round and build it into their baseline tactics without an ability that facilitates it. One for All is still useful for allowing it to be Diplomacy, no matter what, and for the ability to make it a baked-in part of your tactics - but if in the middle of a combat, someone spontaneously wants to use their Forest Lore check as a one-off thing to point out a terrain feature that would give an advantage then it's flavourful and teamwork-building, so I'm all in! :)
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For me, Aid should always be worse than Demoralize as Demoralize asks for some investment and has limitations (the Mental Trait and the fact that it doesn't stack with most debuffs). Once you get to +3 and even +4, Aid becomes largely equivalent to Demoralize (depending especially on initiative order). So I don't see the point in making it that easy to use.Personally, I enjoy incentivizing teamwork and variety in tactics in the party, and I'm happy to facilitate Aid checks that others might not in pursuit of that goal - it's fun when the magus breaks from their normal action routine to prepare an Aid at a distance with Crafting to describe a vulnerability in the construct they're fighting. The tactical variety is an important part of it - I trust my players, and we have an understanding that they're not going to be able to use the same skill to assist every round and build it into their baseline tactics without an ability that facilitates it. One for All is still useful for allowing it to be Diplomacy, no matter what, and for the ability to make it a baked-in part of your tactics - but if in the middle of a combat, someone spontaneously wants to use their Forest Lore check as a one-off thing to point out a terrain feature that would give an advantage then it's flavourful and teamwork-building, so I'm all in! :)
Must be a Starfinder habit, but before this conversation I hadn't even thought of using aid in combat in a PF2e game, in Starfinder it's only used for skill checks. I do really like the idea of coming up with creative ideas of how to use skills to aid combat.
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Aid is pretty good in combat as long as your GM is open to letting it shine.