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https://2e.aonprd.com/Search.aspx?q=enlarge&type=eqs&include-types= item&display=short
Size-Changing Rune
Dinosaur Boots
The titanic fury cocktail does enlarge and potentially a larger item bonus than your weapon potency runes at the cost of -1 ac and -2 reflex saves.
Also a handful of ancestries get a permanent enlarge ability at level 13 (Automation, Beastkin, Conrasu).
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The titanic fury cocktail does enlarge and potentially a larger item bonus than your weapon potency runes at the cost of -1 ac and -2 reflex saves.
And Clumsy 1.
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i'd love to know what consumable/item/noncasting options for enlarge there are for my Barbarian character. Please does anyone have any suggestions?
Is there a reason why you're not playing a Giant-Instinct barbarian?
In general, in PF2 enlarge is more useful for the increased reach than for anything else.
Now, extra reach is nice, but the damage bonus is only so-so.
My point here is, make sure you understand what you're really getting out of it if you're coming from PF1. In PF1 it was valuable for melee characters because it increased your strength, your weapon damage die, and reach.
In PF2 it doesn't change damage dice, and the damage bonus is on the small side (+2). To me, becoming enlarged isn't as important as it used to be.
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In PF2 it doesn't change damage dice, and the damage bonus is on the small side (+2). To me, becoming enlarged isn't as important as it used to be.
And the Clumsy condition that comes along is a very problematic one as, in PF2, AC is important to everyone, even Barbarians.
Yep, and specifically with things like Titan Fury cocktail it gives you clumsy 1, but the cocktail also has a -1 penalty to AC and -2 to reflex saves. And IIRC those penalties stack with clumsy, which can be a very bad time.
It's for a Ligneous barbarian, he didn't want to go Giant instinct.
I still probably wouldn't bother with worrying about becoming large, it's still not that great of a benefit.
However, if I were the PC I would likely consider the druid dedication and some wands of Tailwind to overcome the speed penalty caused by the Ligneous Instinct, but otherwise that's a really cool new Instinct.
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He would be using Enlarge with Whirlwind. Huge size would be important.
Huge...
Then the only way to get it is Enlarge or Giant Instinct.
Yeah, to get huge size it's basically only 4th level Enlarge spell.
Which would still mean druid dedication. But hey, druid dedication can solve both speed and size issues, and makes sense for an Ligneous barbarian.
And still allows the character to focus on Str>Dex>Con>Wis and ignore int and cha.
That said, it's worth paying attention the fact that Whirlwind Strike is 14th level, and prior to that getting large or huge isn't that useful. Don't get me wrong, I like having increased reach, but the downsides of being enlarged are significant.
Also consider timing and positioning.
It's great when you can go in pre-buffed, but PF2 buffs have such short durations that more often one would need to buff in the first round, and that's kinda costly. Even worse if a Barbarian trying to self-buff via spells.
And while it's easy (and AWESOME!) to imagine a Huge Barbarian attacking a horde via Whirlwind, in play any bunched-up minions will already be fireball bait. So are you going to plant yourself in the middle? Better have Haste to get to attack them all in round one because you're intentionally surrounding yourself...and cutting off allies who'd love to launch their AoE attacks w/o you there.
That is if there's a path to get there, and if they've left you room.
Whirlwind's still worthwhile holding the line, not surrounded, if you can hit two or more, but one has to consider the party's spatial needs too. While battle sites do get larger with higher levels (yay!), so do the enemies, so they can't bunch up that well, and w/ Reach often won't.
Large size (with a Reach weapon) provides most of the benefits with much less investment. You can spam pre-buffs of a 1st level spell much easier, like before most every door (another issue w/ Huge, going through doors.) And as noted there are other routes to Large, not so much Huge.
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You can spam pre-buffs of a 1st level spell much easier, like before most every door (another issue w/ Huge, going through doors.)
Wait, which 1st level spell gets you large size?
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You can spam pre-buffs of a 1st level spell much easier, like before most every door (another issue w/ Huge, going through doors.)Wait, which 1st level spell gets you large size?
Lol. The one in a previous edition. :P
Still getting interference from decades of residue.Yes, Enlarge is 2nd level now.
Which is kinda funny given how much worse it is, but that might be why so many did spam it in PF1. I burned through a few wands in PFS1.
Yeah, in PF1 Enlarge Person was almost too good of a spell for what it did. You had plentiful access to it via wand, and with a Wand Key Ring and a little UMD investment even non-caster could reliably use it. And the duration was minutes per level. But because it's a first level spell, it was cheap, and if you wanted you could in theory get a high caster level version of the wand.
At caster level 1 it's 750 gp for 1 minute.
Later you could have a 7500 gp wand for 10 minutes. At high levels that's trivial money, and could last you several encounters.
In PF2, I find enlarge to not really be worth the actions to cast, especially in combat. The damage bonus isn't great, the main attraction is reach. But the increased "aggro" from being large and the reduced AC make it not worth it to me.
"In PF2, I find enlarge to not really be worth the actions to cast, especially in combat. The damage bonus isn't great, the main attraction is reach. But the increased "aggro" from being large and the reduced AC make it not worth it to me." - Claxon
This.
Coupled with fewer AoOs/RS's per round for Reach to mesh with, and the primacy of each round's first Strike attempt making movement less costly (esp. vs. its cost to 3.X/PF1 Full Attacks).
I wonder what the player's expectations are (or how many hordes they're fighting w/o party AoEs).
I wonder what the player's expectations are (or how many hordes they're fighting w/o party AoEs).
If I had to guess it's someone who has limited experience with PF2, and they don't understand all the paradigms at play.
Whirlwind attack from a huge creature with a reach weapon sounds like it would be awesome. But I think in actual gameplay it probably won't be better than something like Vengeful strike, which you will get to use much more often (although it has a cost in reduced AC). In my experience you're just not going to have 3+ enemies in reach that often, even at huge size, although that is quite dependent on map size, which can be campaign and GM dependent.
My group typically finds most provided maps to be on the too small side, and tends to double their size.
Like if you're an Elemental Barbarian and the party is struggling with lack of AoEs, just take Elemental Explosion at 6th level. It's once per Rage, but it's solid damage and has the same range as your enlarged, reach whirlwind attack.
The real benefit to being big as a Barbarian is fishing for Reactive Strikes. Giant Barbarians benefit much more from being able to take free swings at people who walk through their space than they do from giant whirlwind attacks.
My main party have a Giant Barbarian with a reach weapon that uses RS and Whirlwind and we played AoA up to lvl 20 with this barbarian.
Due this in practice I can say that Whirlwind with a giant barbarian with a reach weapon is pretty good when facing many enemies.
They main problem that we notice with such barbarian is the battle field. Many time the barbarian doesn't have enough space to become larger. I'm no saying that the 3-actions cost of Whirlwind isn't a problem too but be able to move with a big creature in small rooms or find space to become large or huge is more problematic.
After get the size and position my barbarian player just begin to spin until kill every enemy while have more than 1 enemy in reach. It's basically a smaller "fireball" that doesn't uses limited resources and doesn't cause friend fire.
Another problem that I can point about giant whirlwind barbarian is that they compete with casters for AoE space. When we have a sorcerer was common that the giant barbarian player preventing the caster to use AoE effects forcing it to be restrict to chain lighting (that isn't AoE). This ended when my sorcerer player switch to a thaumaturge and the rogue player switch to a kineticist (kin can avoid friend fire problems with Safe Elements).
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Another problem that I can point about giant whirlwind barbarian is that they compete with casters for AoE space. When we have a sorcerer was common that the giant barbarian player preventing the caster to use AoE effects. . .
Heh. The Sorcerer's answer at our table was, "Here's a Backfire Mantle and two healing potions."
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Another problem that I can point about giant whirlwind barbarian is that they compete with casters for AoE space. When we have a sorcerer was common that the giant barbarian player preventing the caster to use AoE effects. . .Heh. The Sorcerer's answer at our table was, "Here's a Backfire Mantle and two healing potions."
Now that's a true sorcerer player.