What are some odd or interesting game mechanic interactions or team interactions between characters that were clearly unintended but still work out to interesting ends?
Is there a feat combo or two rules subsystems that might not have been considered by the developers?
I'll start with one that I just learned of:
Animal companions and mundane steeds cannot use non-land speeds when mounted, unless they have the Mount ability.
However, using Athletics to Climb or Swim is not using a Climb or Swim Speed.
Therefore, you can spend a single action to command your steed to make two Climb or Swim checks, quite possibly with a higher Athletics modifier than your character possesses. Furthermore, you don't need to have your hands free, since it's your mount that's doing the climbing, leaving you to shoot your bow or cast your spells.
Another, more commonly known one, is casting aqueous orb followed by laughing fit to kill an enemy via the drowning and suffocating rules.
It is also amazing how many very important objects can fit into a bag of weasels. A fistful of sand, for example. Makes 500 toads seem like child's play.
My elder daughter pointed out one in our Strength of Thousands campaign. She built Roshan, a rogue with two spellcasting archetypes. She gained Sorcerer Multiclass Dedication from the rogue's Eldritch Trickster racket and Gelid Shard archetype from the free archetype option. I was willing to waive the rule about two archetypes, "Once you take a dedication feat, you can’t select a different dedication feat until you complete your dedication by taking two other feats from your current archetype." She pointed out that that was not necessary. Gelid Shard is an artifact archetype, and artifact archetypes don't have a dedication feat. Instead, the character gains the archetype by binding with the artifact. Therefore, Roshan never took a second dedication feat.
Any source of airlessness plus the mask of uncanny breath can force full suffocation.
Battle Oracle spell immunity plus any buff with an immunity based cooldown like guidance.
Holy water is technically a valid choice for a thrower's bandolier.
Use an awful athletics check to intentionally critically fail to force open anything you lock up to make it harder to open.
It's been patched out, but stunning a delaying creature used to make them unable to take the free action to rejoin initiative (and it was obviously overridden by the gm anyway).
Use an awful athletics check to intentionally critically fail to force open anything you lock up to make it harder to open.
*chuckle*
Battle Oracle spell immunity plus any buff with an immunity based cooldown like guidance.
This is a pretty good example of the kind of thing I was looking for.
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My favorite combo can be done all in house for a high level wood kineticist. You can combine fearsome familiar along with elemental apotheosis to gain the elemental and wood traits to benefit from the aura effects of a Twins of Rowan summon.
On a smaller note, you could possibly convince your GM to allow you to fill a hand cannon with a bunch of sliver coins for more affordable silver ammunition.
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Never buy a 50-foot rope when you can buy a climbing kit for the same price instead. The latter comes with a 50-foot rope, as well as a hammer and pitons (which are often great for jamming doors). The pulleys (great for lifting and moving heavy objects), crampons (which make terrific hangers for your gear when you jam them into walls), and grappling hook (for getting to those hard to reach places, like that flying beast that's been harassing the party) that it also comes with are all very nice to have too.
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Not an odd interaction, but an immensely satisfying one I got to use during a 2E conversion of Shattered Star.
Played with the Time Mage archetype and picked up Into the Future, which was great to use with Time Beacon so that I had all of my actions available on the following turn. Typically this would be so I could have enough actions for a Sure Strike / True Target and Disintegrate and still have the option to rewind and try again if it came up a dud.
Against the BBEG I used Into the Future / Time Beacon to set myself up for Timeline-Splitting Spell, so I could effectively get four attempts to nuke 'em (the spells being cast were 8th rank Disintegrate and 9th Rank Dimensional Excision). Turns out I didn't need to trigger Time Beacon because the Dice Gods favored me strongly (Nat 1 counterspell check from the BBEG, nat 20 to hit them with Disintegrate, Nat 1 on their Fort Save to take them down), but it was fun to have that potential insurance just the same ;P
As a 1-handed Thrown weapon of Light bulk in its melee mode, the Dagger Pistol can be used in a Thrower's Bandolier or, even better, put in a Shadow Sheath Ikon.
It’s not that crazy, but it is surprisingly good for how clunky it is
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Not an odd interaction, but an immensely satisfying one I got to use during a 2E conversion of Shattered Star.
Played with the Time Mage archetype and picked up Into the Future, which was great to use with Time Beacon so that I had all of my actions available on the following turn. Typically this would be so I could have enough actions for a Sure Strike / True Target and Disintegrate and still have the option to rewind and try again if it came up a dud.
Against the BBEG I used Into the Future / Time Beacon to set myself up for Timeline-Splitting Spell, so I could effectively get four attempts to nuke 'em (the spells being cast were 8th rank Disintegrate and 9th Rank Dimensional Excision). Turns out I didn't need to trigger Time Beacon because the Dice Gods favored me strongly (Nat 1 counterspell check from the BBEG, nat 20 to hit them with Disintegrate, Nat 1 on their Fort Save to take them down), but it was fun to have that potential insurance just the same ;P
I got to dr. manhattan disintegrate a spawn of rovagug once when I/it rolled a double crit on my spell combination double disintegrate.
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Never buy a 50-foot rope when you can buy a climbing kit for the same price instead.That doesn't seem correct?
50ft Rope is 2 SP
Climbing Kit is 5 SP
AoN has rope listed as 5sp. Been that way in every book too that I'm aware of since the advent of 1st Edition Pathfinder.
At least the 10 foot ladder is now more expensive than the 10 foot pole (people used to get the ladder then split it into two 10 foot poles for the price of one).