I have posted this a few times on reddit, but decided I should post it here for Paizo visibility, hoping they will address some of the stuff in the errata thread, and because it was a fun thought exercise maybe someone here would appreciate.
**No sane DM will allow this**
!!!Long write up warning!!!
Horde of Underlings - How to Break 1k Damage in PF2e.
https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=1477966
You need to be a Faith's Flamekeeper Witch with Lesson of the Shark - Blood in the Water, Alchemist, and Wylderheart FA. Alchemist can be skipped but you'll need to buy Blood Bombs. You need Vicious Howl from Wylderheart at 8. This can be done without Free Archetype.
Horde of Underlings lacks the minion and summoned traits so YOU count as dealing the damage. It also does not combine damage like most other spells, each minion is a seperate instance of damage.
At level 6 when we get Blood in the Water a turn looks like this:
T1 Blood Bomb, Blood in the Water (2d6 save for half).
T2 Cackle Blood, do 2d6 on the sustain (save for half). Cast Horde of Underlings for slashing. Deal 2 (flask) +6d4 autohit (horde) +12d6 (Blood save).
Blood in the Water Sustains on each instance of slashing damage!
Our damage scales fast:
At 7? 2 (flask) +2d6(save) +8d4 Autohit +16d6 (save for half) +2d6(cackle save).
At 9? 2 (flask) +4d6 (save) +10d4 Autohit +40d6 (save) +4d6 (cackle save) = Average Damage 195 or 127.8 if we assume 60% damage on Blood in the Water from saves (80% Save rate).
Now lets start adding some real damage:
Prebuff with Vicious Howl from Wylderheart and EVERY SINGLE DAMAGE ROLL ADDS +4 (circumstance).
Stoke the Heart adds +4 Damage at this level to every roll (status). This is a sustained hex, so without Quickened Casting or another trick it doesn't work very well.... yet.
Add in a buddy with Shining Symbol at 9? and that's another FLAT 55.
If you were hasted (via Cauldron Haste Potion?): you can prebuff Vicious Howl, then Stoke. T1 Sustain Stoke, Strike Blood Bomb, Blood in the Water. T2 Cackle Blood, Strike Inflamation Flask, Let Stoke Drop end of turn, Horde of Underlings
10 (flask) +4d6 (save) +8 (howl+ stoke) +5(symbol) +10d4 +80 Autohit, +44d6 (Save) +88 (howl+ stoke) , +55 (Symbol) = 426 Average or 364.2 accounting for saves.
Inflamation Flask adds another 2-3 Slashing Weakness. A Field Propagandist can use Invent Vulnerability for 5 - 13 slashing weakness. Ruffian Rogue Vicious Debilitations can add 5 Slashing Weakness.
At 20? Assuming a Huge creature and Greater Shining Symbol with a Ruffian Rogue buddy?
t1 same set up, Effortless Concentration Stoke
t2 Effortless Concentration Blood, Cackle Blood, Sustain Blood, Quicken Horde.
14 (flask) +8d6 (save) +10 (stoke+howl) +16d4 Autohit +64 (howl) +96 (stoke), +152d6 (save for half) +76 (howl) +116(stoke), +190 Shining Symbol, +80 Vicious Debilitations.
Average Damage = Around 1022 (I multiplied the average shark damage by 0.6 to approximate the save for half, or 80% save rate, so this is conservative). Which is enough to kill most monsters in the game near twice over. Even without support our average damage is 735.2 is enough damage to kill even a level 24 Requiem Archdragon at 500 hp. The maximum damage ends up being 1650. You can kill that dragon 3x over.
Keep in mind that any physical / slashing resistance, environmental damage, or aura damage messes this whole chain up, no matter how cool it is. It also takes prebuffing + a round or two rounds of set up, and is single target. So good luck using it on high level monsters!
Someone smarter than me can probably optimize this further.
Because missing those traits, it is a spell that you control, not another creature that you control, no different to RAW as Floating Flame or Illusory Creature. And as a spell you control, you are the source of the damage
Half of why I posted this was because it was a fun write up, the other half was to get it fixed lol.
I smell blood of optimizer in the water!
Yeah, no.
"Blood in the Water Sustains on each instance of slashing damage!"
Horde of Underlings is one instance however much they are.
I may even add "The First time on each round" to "When you Cast or Sustain this Spell" in Blood in the Water. Maybe not though.
Most bonuses for damage also won't multiply, so also once per Horde of Underlings.
Weakness to spirit definitely won't multiply and it's already one Blood in the water instance.
Slashing Weakness and any weakness never stacks! Only the highest works! And again once per instance of Horde of Underlings.
So, you can recalculate now :-)
From Blood in the Water:
If you deal slashing damage to the target while the spell is active, you automatically Sustain this Spell. If you cast blood in the water while a previous casting of this hex is still in effect, the previous effect ends.
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Horde of Underlings is specifically missing the Combine Damage line that is present in other spells in abilities.
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Horde:
Rare, Concentrate, Manipulate
You summon six underlings, such as skeletons or kobolds. When you cast this spell, you decide what kind of creatures they are, if they’re Small or Medium, and whether they deal bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage (choose once and applying it to all underlings). Each underling has 1 Hit Point, 5 AC, and automatically fails all saving throws. Each underling appears in an unoccupied square of your choice within the area. The underlings don’t block movement, but they are difficult terrain for creatures other than you.
Each underling attacks one enemy adjacent to it (if any), automatically dealing 1d4 damage of the chosen type. The First time you Sustain the spell on each subsequent round, each underling moves 20 feet toward the nearest enemy. If an underling ends its movement adjacent to an enemy, it damages that enemy as described above.
Heightened (+1) The number of underlings increases by 2.
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Also you can definitely have multiple weaknesses, only the highest of a single type applies. And I calculated it that way anyways.
Doesn't matter in the least.Horde of Underlings is specifically missing the Conbine Damage line that is present in other spells in abilities.
If it didn't matter, none of the abilities in the game would have that line. Yet Force Barrage and Overwhleming Combo, along with many others, do.
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Ah I think you got me. The most recent errata damage change that I hadn't read.
"Under the revised rules, each weakness and resistance can trigger only once during an effect (such as a single Strike or spell)."
I wrote up this build without the rules change knowledge.
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I'm just going to put this here to try to close out the thread for any wanderers that stumble upon it.
From the Spring 2026 Errata:
"To add an extra clarification here, a “single effect” includes all the damage, traits, and other characteristics of a Strike or spell. Subordinate actions with their own effects and damage rolls typically get treated separately unless they state otherwise, such as the ranger’s Hunted Shot feat"
Depends on if the attacks of the summoned dudes are considered subordinate actions with seperate damage rolls, but my intuition tells me they are not, since Horde reads "attacks", which is not an action. So it probably doesn't work anymore. Remember that it's okay to be wrong sometime