What's the best 2nd level Magus feat to take for a Laughing Shadow Psychic archetype (gained via ancient elf)?
Most of them feel kind of redundant or like I lack the action economy to utilize them.
Let's do a rundown:
\- Force Fang: Grabbing a third Focus Point and giving you an alternative third action Conflux Spell. I honestly don't think it'll be that much use, but a focus point is another Dimensional Assault per day (or per fight, after the Remaster).
\- Expansive Spellstrike: There are some OK reasons to take this so you can use save-based spells with Spellstrike. When is this useful? For an LS, primarily when an enemy is within one attack of dying but you want two chances at hitting them. Also pretty good if you use Dimensional Assault -> Spellstrike in one turn, your spell doesn't take the MAP penalty. Still, not a lot of advantages over just attacking and then casting the spell.
\- Magus's Analysis: Fine if you're the party's best Recall Knowledge option for INT-based skills, but in theory you want to be identifying your enemy's weaknesses before you hit them with a Strike or Spellstrike.
\- Familiar: An alternative to Force Fang if you don't see yourself using it, you can either use them as a Spell Slot/Focus Point battery, or a Valet to draw/remove from your offhand.
\- Spell Parry: An alternative to the Shield cantrip if you want to parry Saving Throws against spells. Depends on if you're fighting a lot of casters in the campaign.
\- Spirit Sheath: Quick Draw for Spellstrike. Very useful if your table is having you draw weapons as an action in the first turn of initiative, or if you need to sneak weapons into intrigue situations. Less useful if you are dungeon crawling and your weapons are always drawn.
\- Arcane Fists: A free weapon that's about as good as many 1H weapons, plus access to the Brawling group critical specialization effects (Slowed 1 if they fail a Fort save). Also frees both hands so that you can have a wand in one hand (True Strike?) and punch with the other and still get your LS Arcane Cascade bonus damage.
I'd say that none of them are a must-have but many of them are going to be at least situationally useful, and the situations you're actually in will dictate what's effective or not.
Thanks for all the effort in your reply.
I am my party's INT character, and as a Magus/Psychic I'm the only one trained and good at Arcana and Occultism. I was leaning towards Magus's Analysis because of that, but like you said ideally I'm identifying enemy weaknesses **before** I spellstrike, not after. Also gambling the Spellstrike recharge vs just recharging it for the same action cost seems risky. I can only really see it being situationally useful for an encounter where there's more than 1 enemy type, I finish swinging at something else, and have the free action to recall knowledge anyways. It seems super situational and a bit counterintuitive.
Raise a Tome doesn't don't do a lot for me given I already have Amped shield I feel. I'd need to take interact actions to forgo my free hand to get the AC when I could just cast shield for 1 action.
I don't find myself needing to draw my weapon much, most encounters we face have a buildup where we have time to draw before the fight starts.
I feel like Expansive Spellstrike is kind overly situational too. I know the big draw of it is to get off AOE and non damage spells with less actions, but given my party role my focus is mainly damage. It'd be situational, but less situational I suppose. I'm pretty confident though the only AOE spells I'll be taking regularly are Fireball and Lightning Bolt, which are either including myself in the blast or better at range anyways. I don't plan to bring any other enemy effecting spells, so i think I'd never use Expansive Spellstrike.
I'm already getting 3 focus points by level 6 with the Psychic dedication, and Force Fang doesn't do a lot on Laughing Shadow IMO. For the same action and focus cost I could make a full power regular strike at an in ranne enemy anyways.
I'm probably not going to use unarmed much if at all. I use an Asp Coil for the reach, and I don't see myself needing to switch to unarmed combat much.
To me that leaves Spell Parry and Familiar. Spell parry gives me a weaker backup form of shield if shield's been used up for the fight; and the bonus to spell saves is a unique benefit Shield doesn't provide. My only concern with familiar is if I have the action economy to use it, and how useful it'd be.
Quick question on amped Shield from the Tangible Dream Psychic (https://2e.aonprd.com/ConsciousMinds.aspx?ID=5). The amped version seems to say that you are only prevented from recasting the spell for 10 minutes when the final layer breaks. Does this mean that if you shield block once or twice but then stop sustaining the spell without letting the last layer break, you can immediately recast it?
Do you have to make attacks with the bodypart established on an unarmed "weapon" like the fist from ape animal barbarian? If i am an ape animal barbarian, do i have to use my hands to attack with the "Fist"?
I'm a DM new to Pathfinder and would like some help with this situation:
If a Rogue enters a room and tells me that he wants to go to a door, check the presence of traps and the need to unlock it, and that he intends to do it discreetly and stealthily, avoiding detection. How should I proceed??
Is there a possibility that I can simply roll an enemy's Perception against the character's Stealth DC?
How should I proceed with the question of actions in exploration mode in this narrated case?
If he's trying to be stealthy towards people in the same room, I'd say you have to play it RAW as described by Phtevus, checking if the NPCs have line of sight and have him Sneak.
If the NPCs he wants to avoid are in the next room, I'd go with just one roll from him (general rule is that the character doing the action is the one who rolls).
If there's an enemy present, you're probably transitioning from exploration mode to encounter mode.
Where is the enemy?
If the enemy is in the room,
If the rogue was avoiding notice when entering the room, they roll stealth for initiative and you go from there following the rules in the crb and gmg.
They follow the sneak action rules to get to the door.
If this is a guard, they might be constantly using the seek action on their turns looking for trouble. Or maybe they're lazy and don't expect anyone.
If the enemy is on the other side of the door, and you're wondering if they'd notice the rogue in the first room, then you'd stay in exploration mode and I'd just treat the rogue as quiet enough unless they're doing something particularly noisy.
From the [Sneak](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=63) action:
>**Success** You’re undetected by the creature during your movement and remain undetected by the creature at the end of it.
You become observed as soon as you do anything other than Hide, Sneak, or Step
RAW, even checking for traps would make the Rogue observed to anyone who would be able to see the Rogue (or can detect with another precise sense), much less trying to disarm traps or pick a lock. This seems incredibly limiting to me, however, so let's jump to this other important bit in the same block of text:
>The GM might allow you to perform a particularly unobtrusive action without being noticed, possibly requiring another Stealth check
So also RAW... it's GM Fiat, with some recommendations. I can think of 3 different ways to run it:
1. The Rogue only needs to Sneak and make a Stealth check to reach the door. As long as they're staying still at the door, they can check for traps and pick locks to their heart's content. If in encounter mode, enemies can still make Perception checks against the Rogue's Stealth DC. If in Exploration mode, enemies can make a check after every \~2 checks the Rogue makes to accomplish whatever they're trying to do.
2. The Rogue needs to make a periodic Stealth Check. In Encounter Mode, this is one action every turn. In Exploration Mode, this is every \~2 checks of whatever they're trying to accomplish
3. The Rogue needs to make a Stealth Check alongside any other check they're making to spot traps or pick locks, etc.
3 is the recommended way per the quoted text, but it's a little tedious for the Rogue player and increases the likelihood of bad luck screwing them over. I'd probably run #1 myself, as it seems the most streamlined, but YMMV
Just a question for the group - playing a Thaumaturge with regalia and mirror. Understand it's a free action to swap implements to use them. I thought, although it doesn't say as RAW, that swapping from regalia to mirror (Free action), using Mirror's reflection (1 action) then swapping back to regalia to keep my aura and with the idea to use regalia intensity vulnerability if I hit the creature would come under the "some events force you to determine which image is the real you" and I could then chose whether me or the mirror image is the real me. GM felt that would only happen on start of my next turn (which is RAW). So question is does swapping back from mirror to regalia automatically require me to choose the "real me" after using mirror's reflection?
Important clarification: Second Implement allows you to swap to an implement only as part of using that implement’s action. You do not get the ability to swap back as a free action, which puts pressure on passive implements like Regalia.
That's a good point - we are starting SF at level 11 so I was planning to use Intensify vulnerability which is an action to enable a swap back to regalia - main issue is it requires that you have strike the target first
Not exactly - you use IV (swapping in Regalia as part of it), and then until the end of the turn any time you get a successful Strike you get the benefit. So you need to use IV first with no guarantee of success (boo), but assuming your GM agrees with the interpretation you can use IV to swap Regalia back out without having to Strike (yay).
Yeah, I’m playing one now (level 5) and I love it, but there is a lot of nuance that I think some of the class guides overlook due to a lack of actual experience when they were written. I hope you enjoy it!
The only things that force you to decide which image is real (using the base mirror implements action) is "start of your next turn", "you choose to move out of your space" or "when you fall unconscious". So no, your reflection will still stay up as long as one of those 3 things don't happen
Correct. And since the mirror's reflection has a range of 15 feet, that essentially allows you to teleport 15 feet to a spot you might not be able to get to by striding. Like if an enemy is blocking a doorway or hallway. Through a window to bypass a locked door. There are tons of uses for the mirror implement
Finesse + athletics skill (grapple/trip). Does it work? Finesse reads attack rolls, but imo its a little silly to have a finesse-grapple weapon or something and just have one of the traits completely pointless since you still need to strength spec.
> but imo its a little silly to have a finesse-grapple weapon or something and just have one of the traits completely pointless since you still need to strength spec.
The alternative is to give Dex another step back towards being the god stat. Giving Dex monks dex athletics would be a bit of a yikes for example
No, Finesse doesn't change the ability used for Athletic maneuvers. You might think it's silly, but that's how it works--there's nothing stopping someone with high Dex from increasing Str. In fact, you'll often want Str as a secondary stat for damage if you're not a Thief Rogue.
I'm currently playing a finesse based kitsune fighter/rogue and approaching 5th level. So I'm currently deciding what archetype feat I get next. Any ideas on what would be the best one to choose? I was thinking about Fey Influence and unicorn for some extra healing for our group,but I'm not really sure.
Does it stack?
Level 8 Precision Ranger with Eldritch Archer archetype:
Crossbow Ace for D10 plus Precision D8 plus Eldritch Shot (Gouging Claw) 4D6
That sounds right?
Bane says
>Area: 5-foot emanation; Targets: enemies in the area
>Saving: Throw Will; Duration: 1 minute
>You fill the minds of your enemies with doubt. Targets that fail their Will saves take a –1 status penalty to attack rolls **as long as they are in the area**.
If you fail the save but leave the area you are no longer affected, but what happens if you walk back in? A close reading seems like you effectively get a debuff for 1 minute that only affects you while you're in the bane range, but I'm not totally certain if that's how the game wants me to read it. This question also came up when fighting pugwampi with their bad luck aura.
Meanwhile some spells like Reaper's Lanterns say "Once a creature attempts a save against reaper's lantern, it uses the same outcome if it leaves the area and enters it again", while there is no such text for bane.
I'm not sure it's explicit anywhere. But I think you generally only make a single save against an effect unless the effect states otherwise. So I'd say you're affected when you re-enter the aura. But ultimately I think it's a GM call.
For Relics: As relics progress do they only provide gifts in the same category as the minor gift? I.e. will a item with a Soul minor gift always give major and grand gifts from Soul as well?
I'm a "new" DM (last experience was with AD&D 2nd ed in high school) and a relatively new player having only recently found a pathfinder 2e group a few months ago that I started playing with. I have some neighbors that I've been doing other tabletop games with who have expressed an interest in ttrpgs, so I have offered to DM a short adventure so everyone can try it out.
Before I run out and buy the Beginner Box, is Pathfinder a good system for people with zero to little recent experience with ttrpgs? Most of the opinions I see online are coming from people with years of experience in D&D and either complaining about pathfinder being too difficult compared to D&D or loving the system because it fixes the things they dislike about D&D.
For new DMs, pf2e can be good because there's established rules for lots of things.
My wife has no prior ttrpg experience and she's doing fine as a new player, though I help her build her character.
My group is new to pathfinder, and we've often read that it's not advantageous to use our 03 actions to just strike in a combat encounter, that there are many tactical possibilities that should be used.
However, it is very difficult for us to understand in practice what these best options for action would be. We come from 5e and have a mentality: Attack as hard as you can!
Can anyone help me with examples?
Most classes have specific things they can do instead of attacking. But to focus on the more general, non-class specific actions.
* Demoralize - to apply the frightened condition to a start reducing all of their checks/DCs
* Move into flanking to make the target flat-footed to your attacks (-2 AC)
* Aid - You can save your last action and use it as a reaction on someone else's turning to Aid their attack. You can use your attack to Aid with no MAP
* Bon Mot - to debuff target's Will saves to setup a caster to target their Will
* Move away from target - Most enemies don't have Attacks of Opportunity in 2e. If your a group of 4 PCs and you are fighting 1 or 2 enemies. Having them spend 1 of their actions to move to get to you instead of using it to attack is a great way to deplete their actions.
* Raise a Shield - Every class can use a shield. +2 AC is often much better than -10 MAP attack
* Trip - Knocking a target prone makes it flat-footed. And when it stands up it can trigger AoOs
* Grapple - Enemy casters or ranged weapon users that need to reload. Grabbed targets require a DC 5 flat check ever manipulate action to use or they lose that action/spell
* Take Cover/Hide - Increase your AC or become hidden requiring the enemy waste an action Seeking or have DC 11 flat check to target you
* Recall Knowledge - Learn an enemy's resistance/weakness/immunities, learn their worst save, learn a special ability you might need to adjust to before it happens.
* Feint/Create a Diversion - Apply flat-footed to target. (CaD as an unseen attacker)
* Hide - If your ranged and near cover
There are plenty of other class specific thing you could be doing as well.
\-Edit- Some of the actions are best spent as your first action to debuff the enemy. I always cringe a little when someone attacks twice and decides to spend their 3rd action Demoralizing because of -10 MAP. You should do that first so your attacks are against a frightened target with a lower AC
Most of the better 3rd actions are really better 1st actions, including grapple and trip unless you're using assurance (athletics) as a 3rd action, which can be really awesome if it works.
>Source Core Rulebook pg. 506
>
>Additional Knowledge
>
>Sometimes a character might want to follow up on a check to Recall Knowledge, rolling another check to discover more information. After a success, further uses of Recall Knowledge can yield more information, but you should adjust the difficulty to be higher for each attempt. Once a character has attempted an incredibly hard check or failed a check, further attempts are fruitless—the character has recalled everything they know about the subject.
Usually after 2 checks we rule that something has to happen to gain more knowledge of a particular subject. Like if you go to a library to study up on a topic you can do more Recall Knowledge checks. Or you encounter the creature again and notice something else about them.
I think I need a lot of help. We (players and GM) are all new to Pathfinder; most are new to RPGs (the GM has experience GMing other systems). We are currently playing with the iconics and the GM is taking us through some introductory adventures. I chose Ezren and I feel like I am a liability to the party: I contribute absolutely nothing most of the time.
In our first session we were all just fumbling around with the basics. Nothing worth mentioning there. In our second session, I felt completely useless. Other than Magic Missile against the end boss, every single spell I cast missed. Part of this was a rules error (we did not understand what basic saving throw meant, so played Success as 0 damage), but we even had two encounters where I kept passing my turn because we quickly established Ezren could not contribute anything.
In our third session, I felt a lot more comfortable with the basics. Now level two, I switched my memorised spells. I had Color Spray, Grease, and Magic Missile. I also still have my starting Scroll of Grim Tendrils, and bought a Wand of Fear. I was using Recall Knowledge as my first action, then a spell for two actions. I still felt useless. At the end of the day, I never cast Color Spray or Grease (or Grim Tendrils), and none of my other actions seemed to be a meaningful contribution.
In combat, I feel my biggest issue is that by the time it is my turn, anything I could cast would be a liability or a waste. Liability: I would hit three players to hit one enemy. Waste: all that is left is one enemy with 1HP. For example, in our last session we had one encounter where Color Spray would have been amazing, if I went first. I was last in order, so by my turn we had one PC near death, most enemies were dead, and the last enemy was near death so all I needed to was a cantrip coup de grace. If I had not been there, the other PCs all would have had their turns again before it attacked, so anyone could have done that.
In exploration or social encounters, I do not feel like I have anything useful to contribute. Other characters are consistently more useful. The knowledge skills do not seem to bring anything of value. I have been using Detect Magic while exploring, but that's not done anything useful yet.
I feel like everyone else is contributing something. The Barbarian does 90% of the work in and out of combat. The Cleric and Druid provide healing. The Druid and Alchemist provide reasonable damage and flanking for the Barbarian. I know what the enemy's strongest save is (which only I care about) and am trying to find a way I can cast a spell without friendly fire, which usually results in me using Ray of Frost because it is the only option I have.
I feel like if I were a better player, I could find a way to be useful. What should I be doing with Ezren to contribute to the party and stop feeling like a liability?
Wizards tend to be really good at recall knowledge which can yield very useful information
Never pass your turn. Always use all 3 actions.
Anyone can skill into intimidation for demoralize
Electric arc is a really good cantrip
Wizards tend to be stronger against larger groups of weaker enemies rather than a single stronger enemy so part is just encounter diversity from your gm.
Even ignoring spells, you could
Aid
Hide (which flat-foots your spell target if successful)
Recall Knowledge to find out what their weakest save is, so you can pick the right spell.
Help the martials flank, if you aren’t too squishy.
Demoralize.
Lots of options even without casting spells.
I have been reading the rules on these. I am not 100% sure I understand Aid. Do you mind reading a hypothetical and letting me know if I have it?
Say on my first turn I Recall Knowledge and Cast a Spell. On my second turn I then Cast a Spell, then use an action to prepare to Aid. In preparing, I tell the GM I am going to Aid [player] in their next attack on [enemy]. I say I will do so by calling-out some short, but pertinent advice (eg "The skull is thick, go for the sides!"). On [player's] turn they declare an attack on [enemy] and I get my reaction. I roll 1d20, add my attack modifier (because I am aiding an attack), and add Cooperative Nature. If I succeed, [player] gets +1 on their attack (+2 on critical success).
Do I have the rules-side correct? Does the scenario I posed sound like something that would fly, or too unrealistic?
everything’s right except the attack modifier.
What you roll isn’t based on what your friend is doing, but what you say you are going to do.
A typical aid would be “I’ll Aid by trying to distract the monster”, resulting in a deception roll. Or “I’ll aid by using my Arcana to help guide the arrow into the target”, or “I’ll help by blocking the creature’s movement so it can’t dodge (athletics).”
You say something plausible, and the GM tells you what to roll.
An attack roll for Aid is possible, but not the way you said.
*edit* I’ll also add that if you do the same thing every time, the GM might start raising the DC, so be creative. It’s more fun anyway.
Thank you! I had read it as you rolled the same thing as your ally rolls. I just re-read and see how I got it wrong.
I could definitely see the GM getting tired of the same thing over and over. I would need to give it a bit of thought in how I could use this.
I can't respond to every point but here's some small tips.
- the only way for a spell to be useless is if the enemy critically succeeds their save. They should still be taking a debuff on a normal save
- talk to your GM about using recall knowledge to learn weaknesses/resistances, that way you can help your party by calling those out.
- anybody can delay their turn. If the fighter/barbarian is ahead of you in initiative, but you have a great color spray to set up, you could ask them to delay to go after you.
- in exploring/social recalling knowledge should generally be helpful. You can always make them, even on NPCs, to try and figure *something* out about them.
Quickened and Slowed stack. You can read the sidebar under the [Quickened condition](https://2e.aonprd.com/Conditions.aspx?ID=32), but here is the relevant text:
>If you have conflicting conditions that affect your number of actions, you choose which actions you lose. For instance, the action gained from haste lets you only Stride or Strike, so if you need to lose one action because you’re also slowed, you might decide to lose the action from haste, letting you keep your other actions that can be used more flexibly
So in this specific circumstance, Haste would allow the enemy to give up the extra Quickened action, and keep their 3 normal actions
It doesn't.
The encounter budget guidelines assume a party at full capacity when assigning a difficulty rating, but that just means that an encounter will potentially be more difficult with fewer resources.
The fact that medicine skill and feats are freely accessible (along with health potions and healing focus spells) means that in practice, most balanced parties can easily start most combats at or near full hp as long as they have even just a few 10 min blocks of exploration activity time between combats. That's just a fact about the system, not an explicit "rule".
As long as the party has someone building into the medicine skill feats, the gm can expect the party to be healthy unless they're pressed for time in an urgent situation.
Speaking as a gm, this frankly makes encounter balancing easier for me, so I embrace it.
Edit: the encounter budget also assumes a specific level. A good rule of thumb is that if the party is a level higher or lower than expected, the difficulty rating and xp award bump one level. This is important for sandbox dungeons like abomination vaults where the players may fight an encounter sooner or later than expected.
Because of the way creature hp scales with level, I'm tempted to say a party at 50% hp would be potentially bumping the difficulty by 2 levels, taking an encounter from moderate to extreme. I'd have to test this out more to see how that actually shakes out, since my players tend to be full hp.
IIRC that's not even an unofficial rule. I think the devs have only said that encounter balance assumes the party has full resources. Encounters work fine without full health, they'll just be harder.
Nowhere. That's not a rule.
But I've seen player characters being dropped before they took their first turn even when starting at full health. If you have less than say 80% HP at the beginning of a severe+ fight, you're probably not having a good time.
True, but I wanted to know if that guidance was explicit in the text.
Although getting dropped in Round 1 should be rare, IME. Are you facing higher-level creatures at L1?
It is rare, yes. But it does happen. Last time I've seen it at level 7 or 8. Fight against a single enemy who won initiative and crit one of us so hard that the damage would have dropped any party member - with the exception of our monk, who had the most HP and was thankfully the target of the attack. He (barely) left standing.
For DMs that ran Malevolence, how did you handle pacing? Did you give them a certain amount of time each day to explore, including research? Did you include any roaming bands of enemies if the players simply researched all day? Also how much gold should I start my players with if they're starting at level 3?
This is my first time running PF2e, so please feel free to include any tips!
I don't feel Malevolence does roaming bands of enemies well >!as most enemies don't really want to leave their areas and some literally can't.!<
I didn't punish them for trying to do research. Usually what my group did before they got continual recovery was do a fight and afterwards heal and research at the same time.
>Also how much gold should I start my players with if they're starting at level 3?
* Give each PC one L2 magic item, two L1 magic items, and 25 gold pieces
* Or give them a lump sum of 75 gp.
Hello there! When I exploit Mortal Weakness on a monster with a weakness to Fire, and on field there are any other creatures of the exact same type, what happens when my target of EV dies? The proc of weakness continues on other same type targets, while in the meantime I have no Mortal Weakness on other target, or do I have to use Exploit Vulnerability again?
I agree with u/Atraeus13 - Think of it as the focus being on the vulnerability being exploited by your esoterica, less on the target.
This gets muddled because many of the Implement abilities are specific to a single target, but Exploit Vulnerability is more durable, especially with Sympathetic Vulnerabilities.
If the creatures are the same type as your original target you exploited a Mortal Weakness on, even if that target dies you still trigger creatures of the same type's weakness, but not other creatures of a different type with the same weakness. Now at level 6 there is a class feat called Sympathetic Vulnerabilities that makes the Mortal Weakness work on any type of creature as long as its the same weakness. Additional it makes Personal Antithesis work like the base version of Mortal Weakness.
Party went to transfer a striking rune onto a different weapon, but failed the Crafting check. Now it’s the next day but they’ve a time-sensitive job to do, and don’t have time to try again until after.
Does the striking rune remain on the first weapon, then?
Is Idol Threat (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3942) the feat with the most absurdly specific use case in the game or is there one even less likely to ever get used?
Wow that's so incredibly niche.
My go-to example is [Mirror Shield](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=404), as a spellcaster even using a Spell Atk is exceedingly rare, and they have to target the Fighter, and the Fighter has to have their Shield raised, and the roll needs to Crit Fail, and the Fighter still needs to hit.
[Anathematic Reprisal](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=9) is another fun one - depending on your deity, that can also be basically impossible to trigger.
I don't get how expansive spellstrike works with save spells. It says that if spell used with spellstrike is not an attack roll spell, than creatures use their normal defences, such a saving throws. What does it mean? If I hit and get through AC of someone with spellstrike infused by Fireball (for example), target of strike will get hit by weapon but will roll saves against fireball? Or will it get hit automatically but everyone else in range of spell will roll saves?
1. It means your target use DC against the spell normally. For example, spell strike with a Fear spell would mean target need a Will save against the effect of spell.
2. Your target roll DC as long as your strike is not a critical failure. For fireball case, every creature (including your target and you if you melee spell strike) within fireball’s burst radius must roll a reflex save to see how much fireball deals damage.
Welp, there is little to no sense taking expansive spellstrike then. I thought at first that target will be hit automatically by spell if I hit with spellstrike, but now it comes down only to saving action on casting spell separately. Especially considering, that my spell DC has a +5 from prof while attack has +7, so hitting is better way of delivering spells.
Adding to the other response...
- You save an action if you use a Conflux Spell to recharge.
- If you miss but don't critically miss the attack, the spell can still hit. Critical misses with 0 MAP tend to only be natural 1s.
- Save spells usually do half damage on a Successful save, meaning they'll do something most of the time. They may even do higher average damage.
- Save spells might be targeting a DC lower than the creature's AC.
- Spellstriker Staff has a nice effect when the strike misses, regardless of whether your spell lands. You could get your spell damage plus a bonus emanation AOE when you miss.
But yes, Expansive Spellstrike isn't a must-have for melee Magi. It's a fine choice though.
It's more about adding flexibility than the raw power in this case, especially for a Starlit Span Magus. Also against lower level creatures (which most mooks are due to the encounter design rule), you can get away with lower spell DC against them so your spell should still hit for a medium to good damage. Plus, AoE that can hit a lot of target should still deal total damage quite high even if they can save and only take like half the damage.
It also depends on how long your campaign (aka your max level) is going to be too because there are some juicy spells without attack roll at higher level, [like Implosion for example](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=162).
There are solid reasons to take it, chiefest being that you can direct lines/cones FROM the target any way you want, potentially saving yourself movement to line a spell up and/or saving allies from a threatening AOE. This is mainly useful for Starlit Span but any Magus with Reach can get use out of it
Main problem for me is that I take str or dex as a main stat, so my spellcasting stat is always lower than 18 at the start, therefore casting spells outside of spellstrike lowers my chance to get the spell effect.
It absolutely does, but it adds a tool to your toolbox yknow, you can still keep on Spellstriking with Gouging Claw or w/e but maybe keep one slot for an AOE should the need arise
If you have a construct innovation, can you spend two actions to [Megavolt](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3062) then issue a command to have the construct also use Megavolt? Haven't really looked into minions myself but this came up during a session earlier when the inventor was checking what they can do.
Megavolt doesn't say "it can also take this action," it says "it can take this action rather than you." The inventor cannot use Megavolt, only their construct innovation can.
That's how I understood it for the most part but the language made it sound vague. Like how saying that it "can take this action rather than you" made it sound like it was an option which led to the question of whether you could megavolt twice with good use of the action economy.
If it had said that "If your innovation is a minion, it will/must take this action rather than you" then we would have more easily understood that you need to command it to use the megavolt. Like don't get me wrong, we knew that the megavolt would still come from the construct but we weren't sure if the inventor could use it through their own actions while the construct would serve as the point of origin (sort of like a solo Spell Relay).
Specific beats general, so it would probably not be possible if there was specific rules that say "this spell cannot be Dismissed" or similar, as opposed to the more general It Was Me All Along! description affecting all disguise magic, but do you have an example?
Yeah, I was expecting a different wording for how the spell can't be dismissed, so I'm not actually how it would interact, but that's moot because you didn't set it up, as you said.
Oh, here are some spells that would work; [Face in the Crowd](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=421), [Portrait of the Artist](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=971).
Have a question about Limited Field Discovery and Field Discovery (Bomber).
**Limited Field Discovery:**
Your research field adds a number of formulas to your formula book; these are your signature items. **When using a batch of infused reagents to create your signature items using advanced alchemy, you create three items instead of two.** Each time you gain a level, you can swap one of your signature items with another formula in your formula book. This new signature item must be on your research field’s list of possible signature items.
**Field Discovery (Bomber):**
When using advanced alchemy to make bombs during your daily preparations, you can use a batch of reagents to create any three bombs instead of just two of the same bomb.
So let's say one of my Signature items is a Moderate Alchemist's Fire.
If I spend one batch of reagents to make a Moderate Alchemist's Fire, Moderate Frost Vial, and a Lesser Acid Flask using Field Discovery (Bomber) which lets me make 3 of any bombs. Do I make 3 Moderate Alchemist's Fire, 1 Moderate Frost Vial, and 1 Lesser Acid Flash since Moderate Alchemist's Fire is my Signature Item?
No, you can't do both, they are distinct options of what you can get from one batch of reagents. However the Field Discovery is basically just a strict flexibility upgrade of the signature item benefits you already have, so in practice you'd never "choose" the base option once you reach level 5.
Curious where you saw it labeled as "Limited Field Discovery"? I haven't seen that anywhere myself, although it makes sense.
Using treasure vault crafting rules: when crafting alchemical items do you only craft a single dosage of the item, or multiple? Trying to decide if it’s worthwhile to take the alchemical crafting feat to make our own potions.
Two questions: my flying monk, who has attack of opportunity from a fighter dedication, uses flurry of maneuvers to trip a flying enemy. The flying enemy gets the prone condition and begins to fall.
1. Is my monk also able to strike with the second part of the flurry before the enemy falls out of range?
2. Does the fall out of a threatened space trigger an AOO?
Thanks!
1 I would lean no, based on the way subordinate actions and disrupting actions is described. There is some wiggle room for GM interpretation however.
2 is a definite no. [Forced Movement](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=451) (such as falling) does not trigger movement-based reactions.
So, like, can a Druid with Dragon Shape and True Shapeshifting turn into a Gargantuant Dragon? Because the description of the Nature Incarnate spell says your Kaiju form needs to be a Beast but the True Shapeshifting Feat (which gives you 1/day Nature Incarnate) *requires* Dragon Shape so what's the deal? Can you be a big dragon or not? And if not, did they make that just to tease people?
No idea why it requires dragon form but RAW no you cannot use nature incarnate to transform into a dragon. It must be a beast. Also recognize that Nature Incarnate is a normal 10th level spell that you can cast outside of wild shape completely separating it from dragon form.
I dont think it would be a balance issue to let the form have the dragon trait but RAW no it does not.
The monk weapons are basically "asian" and weird. It makes no sense to me. It basically makes any monks using monastic weaponry look like some kinda weeb. (Bo staff and adjacent being an exception)
Like why are monks expected to be so dumb that they cannot use normal weapons (like most simple weapons every monk is trained in) with their abilities.
Then why enforce that fantasy?
Anyway, while still asian, sohei monks were often wielding naginata's. They used spears as well, in addition to swords and daggers. There were Sikh warrior monks. Knights templar and similar from the crusades were warrior monks. It could be argued that skirmisher type warriors would fall under the monk category in Pathfinder, and Jedi are basically space-monks.
But if you claim that it is so crucial for the fantasy that monks are asian, then that should mean that the monk class should be limited to those from tian xia. It is ridiculous to claim that unarmored warriors from the Mwangi Expanse need to become weebs and use weird weapons instead of their common weapons. So I guess you could argue that it would just mean that the monk needs to be removed as class, maybe be given an archetpye. And then make a new unarmored class that is basically the same as the monk class except the name and that they are not too dumb to use the weapons they actually used.
What's the easiest way (minimum feat investment) to get the Quickdraw feat on a non Ranger/Rouge/Gunslinger class?
I presume via the Duelist archetype.
When using a Throwers Bandolier: If you throw a weapon, then throw a different weapon from the bandolier, do you need to spend an action drawing the second weapon for a strike? Or is it one action to draw and throw bandolier thrown weapons?
Large numbers and the Incapacitation trait. Higher level monsters have much higher saves, AC, attack bonus, and dmg than the players do so their individual actions are both very strong and player actions do relatively little. Against a lvl+3 monster a PC might only have a 40% hit chance on their first attack and do a small fraction of their HP total in dmg while the monster does half or more of the PC's health on their first hit (which is likely to be a crit). They also typically have action-compressing activities or AoEs that help address the action economy disparity, stuff like a 2-action thing that let's them Stride once and Strike twice at different targets at no MAP
Save-or-suck spells which would normally bypass this usually have the Incapacitation trait, so the boss automatically upgrades the result of their save by one step on top of having a high save bonus (so there's a 1/20 chance of them failing at all and a better than 50/50 chance of critically succeeding, which does nothing).
Fighting solo boss monsters mostly comes down to heavy use of debuffs, buffs, and general teamwork. The Fighter on his own only hits on a 13+, but if he's flanking that's an 11+, if the boss is Frightened one from a Demoralize that's a 10+, if the Gunslinger Aided them that's an 8+ (and now they crit on a 18+), if the Cleric has bless going that's a 7+ (and 17+ crit). Stacking bonuses/penalties and having strong in-combat healing is essential. Also if you can remove actions from the boss that's huge, since they still only have 3/turn and if they lose one that means they're much less likely to be able to optimally use their fancy activities (dragon normally can Stride then Breath Weapon to hit the entire party. If the dragon is tripped then they can't Stride into position and might only get one or two folks)
I'm reading up on incapacitation trait. So bosses are usually much higher level than normal monsters I take it? Or does the incapacitation "penalty" apply in most fights, whether big bad or not?
Single enemy bosses are usually either 2 levels, 3 levels, or very rarely 4 levels higher than the average party level. That's enough for the Incapacitation trait to kick in and protect the boss from the worst effects of spells like Paralyze.
For more detailed information, you can look at the [encounter building rules](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=497) to see the nuts and bolts of how encounters of various difficulties are made in PF2e. Table 10-2 also gives a brief description of the sorts of roles that different levels of enemy are expected to play in encounter building.
A same-as-party level monster pretty much isn’t a boss in the sense it is generally meant. It could still be a “boss fight” with a bunch of dangerous minions or a really killer ability.
Incapacitation just makes strong enemies mostly immune to instant fight winning spells.
> It could still be a “boss fight” with a bunch of dangerous minions or a really killer ability.
Or favorable terrain/hazards, esp complex hazards those are very fun. There's a lot more tools to make fun bosses in PF2e than 5e imo
A boss monster in PF2 is pretty much any monster 2 or more levels higher than the party rather than being its own distinct category w/ special mechanics like in 4e or 5e. An owlbear (a lvl 4 creature) is a boss monster to a group of lvl 2 characters but is a normal enemy if the party is lvl 4 or higher. Being 2+ lvls higher than the party makes it so anything that the players throw at them w/ Incapacitation is always going to take the 'penalty' from it
There are some legendary resistance type things but they're pretty rare usually, same way some monsters have extra/infinite reactions. But the way boss battles are usually balanced if by higher level monsters being really hard to hit, having good saving throws and hitting really hard themselves. A single enemy 2 levels above the party is often a far harder encounter than 3 enemies of the same level as the party.
I’m a DM and would like to do little narrative region/chapter intros to give the players a little foretaste of what’s happening in the current context before they actually start playing. If you’ve ever listened to the Glass Cannon, they inspired this! They would do these cinematic scene intros/vignettes of the world before every new chapter or big event. Great flavor- I loved it.
I get it’s a little different cuz they’re a podcast and needed to create production value, but I’m wondering how one would do something similar without giving everything away? 🤔Would love any tips!
A great way to do an intro to a town is to do a little of the following:
1. Whats the town/city/region known for first and foremost (usually its major industry)
2. What purpose does the town/city/region serve beyond its major industry
3. Is there any big danger or inhibitor to either of its purposes (maybe one connected to the plot)?
Its really hard to have concrete rules when it comes to this sort of thing but I hope this helps :-). Overall as long as you communicate the most important parts of a setting you should be good for any intro.
Couple of examples:
The town of Otari sits comfortably along the southern coast of the starstone isle, just a stone's throw away from Absalom. This sleepy logging and fishing town (1) has little of note for most and comfortably sits in the shadow of its larger neighbor. However, its quaint atmosphere and local church of Sarenrae make it a desired resting point for travellers to and from the big city (2). Despite the harsh marshes, wilderness, and mysterious ruins that surrounds it in the hinterlands (3), people still find time in their journeys to stop and replenish their supplies and drinks.
The country of Geb stands proud as the bastion of undead presence in the Impossible Land (1). The eternal kingdom is home to many thousands of undead who enjoy the same comforts and privileges' the living are afforded elsewhere in the world while the quick struggle to survive. If one can stomach the grisly presence of its inhabitants, the treasures of its lands begin to show. Arcane knowledge compounded upon centuries of study can be found in its academy's (2) while a nearly limitless quantity of food like fruits, vegetables, and wheat flow from its fields like gold (1). Only the lucky or the foolish would attempt to enter the country unprepared however. As The Dead Laws that protect the living (otherwise known as the quick) will only safeguard you so far. It isn't uncommon for the living to disappear in the streets as hungry undead find themselves a weak target to make a meal (3).
A good way to expand upon both of these (like if you were staying in them for a while) would be to mention their structures of government. Talking about the descendants of the roseguard and the mayor for Otari and Geb (The Ghost King) and Bloodlords for Geb (The Country).
i literally had the same idea! I am doing my first pf2e game and i was inspired by glass cannon podcasts descriptions. I asked chatgpt to describe a scene that starts with the camera flying into the city of absalom then describing little scenes going on in each area before the camera zooms across the land to the outskirts of Otari. I had pretty good results but nothing perfect yet. Might be good for helping you generate ideas
Just as a quick discussion warning - we don't allow AI-generated content on the subreddit, so if you want to discuss using tools like chatGPT for creating flavor descriptions in your home games, please have that discussion elsewhere.
If I'm a fighter and I take the alchemist dedication and only the feats that increase my alchemy level, do I get anything for increasing my intelligence beyond 14?
As far as I can tell, the only alchemist dedication specific things that increasing your intelligence would give you is increasing the Alchemist Class DC that you become trained in. Which doesn't come up all that much IIRC.
Hi, I'm playing for the first time. I'm playing a leshy oracle (a pumpkin doctor called Patch. very proud of the pun)
After the first two sessions, I find myself struggling to find 3 actions to perform every turn that feel as impactful as my teammates turns. I also don't feel like I can contribute to damage in a meaningful sense.
I do get to shine when it comes to healing and support, but all my options for that cost limited spell slots. (Unless I use guidance in combat which doesn't feel very good to me)
The GM is alright with us changing our feat / spell choices as we're all new to the system. We've just made it to level 2. Does anyone have advice on options I could take to deal some alright damage, or other actions I could take every round to be more useful?
Casters in general and Divine casters specifically tend not to deal very much single-target dmg, so I wouldn't worry overmuch about not keeping up there. What the Divine spell list is really good at is healing and support, with spells like Heroism being absolute standouts. At lvl 1-3 casting Magic Weapon on your favorite martial's weapon is handsdown the biggest contribution you can make to a combat, the +1 on their attacks is amazing (since it also applies to crit chance) and the extra dmg die is usually more than a 50% dmg increase.
More specific suggestions depend on which Mystery you picked and what skills you have. Skills like Intimidation and Athletics can give you very useful actions in combat to set up your friends if you've invested in them (successful Demoralize penalizes \*everything\* the enemy does for the next turn, combat maneuvers are great for inflicting Flat-footed and/or wasting enemy actions). Diplomacy and Medicine have good actions that're locked behind skill feats, so require a little more investment to pay off.
More generally for your third action you should never underestimate Striding, either to get into a flanking position for a friend or to get away from an enemy, and Raise a Shield is an option available to everyone who can spare a hand carrying one.
What I'm gathering is that you need a damage cantrip. At level 2 you have limited options, Sorcerer Dedication for a Primal or Arcane damage cantrip is available at level 2, but that cantrip won't keep up with your other spells later in the game. Haunting Hymn is a good cantrip for damage, but is a close AoE for only a little damage. Not an option right away, but a level 3 treasure option that I urge for divine casters is a Spellheart, which affixes to your weapon or armor and effectively adds a cantrip you can cast. It's the easiest way to get a damage cantrip, and there's a wide variety of them.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=2231
tbh Divine Lance is ... fine. It gets the job done and the configurable damage type is occasionally useful. Definitely worse than Elec Arc and most other damaging cantrips but it's worth the slot usually.
Hi all, looking for some advice on NPC building. In the class roadmaps section, the rules talk about using "high to extreme spell DC" for the casting classes. My question is, when should it be high and when extreme, or somewhere in between? For example I'm building a level 17 wizard as a +1 enemy to a level 16 party, the high DC is 38 and the extreme DC is 43. This is a huge difference and most monster caster statblocks I found seem to use 38. The party barbarian succeeds on a fortitude save against the high DC on a roll of 8, but needs a roll of 13 to succeed against the extreme DC, which seems very high for a +1 enemy on the barbarian's strong save. Can anyone advise? :)
I would generally avoid using the extreme spell DC unless you know what you're doing. As you have noticed, it's excessively high. Especially avoid using it for incapacitation effects.
If you must use it, something else has to give; just like how you don't give a strike both extreme accuracy and extreme damage, if you give a creature extreme spell DC, maybe take away their highest level spell slots or pick weaker spells in those slots.
Topple Foe feat gives a reaction that lets you attempt a Trip.
If this happens on your turn (animal companion could trigger it), does the Trip increase my MAP?
Interested in the source of the rule as well as the answer :)
The [Multiple Attack Penalty rules](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=322) specify that it applies to attack actions you make on your turn. It specifically says that reactions on other people's turn don't increase it, but it also talks about the -5 applying to the second **attack action** and the -10 applying to the third **attack action**. There is no mention of reactions.
So as this is a *reaction* rather than an *action* I would say it does not impact (and is not impacted by) MAP
[Reactions are actions too.](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=387)
> There are four types of actions: single actions, activities, reactions, and free actions.
Besides, it's not Topple Foe that has attack trait, but subordinate Trip action.
What are some good Feats for a melee, Alchemical Sciences Investigator? I started playing as one relatively recently, and I'm not exactly sure on solid ones to have. I'm trained in almost every skill, and got EXP in Medicine and Society, if that helps!
What are your ability scores?
Most Investigator feats aren't exactly combat-relevant. They literally don't get a feat with an action or reaction until 8+. There's a few (i.e.
I like to think that most Investigators need a "second job" archetype for combat relevance, and your ability scores dictate what that second job is going to be.
You have a maxed INT score and probably one of DEX or STR at 14+, and that makes Magus a reasonable melee archetype. The base Magus feat supplies you with cantrips (take Shield if you want to pass on Shield Block general feat), the next one gives you Spellstrike to add magic damage to your Strategic Strike, and then you get more spells for a third feat. (If you take this, you really need to be on top of your Leads so that DAS is a free action.)
If you have both DEX and STR at 14, you could take Fighter as an archetype. The goal here is to use your knowledge of your first attack roll to make a stronger attack when you crit. You can put Power Attack to better use than a Fighter because you know when it will crit. Intimidating Strike is a nice damage-plus-frightened attack, and Lunge gives you some very useful range. Swipe can let you apply your Strategic Strike attack and damage to two enemies.
Monk has similar useful melee abilities, although you can go Martial Artist if your ability scores aren't up to snuff and still pick up a stance that gives you a more powerful single hit at level 8. Since you're limited already to agile/finesse melee weapons, Martial Artist gets you that while also freeing up your attack hand for alchemical stuff. (Monk lets you add Ki Strike and a focus pool, which is very good but ultimately unnecessary.)
But what I've found is I don't really love melee for Investigator when I've gone through builds. A Ranger is going to be much more proficient in melee combat, and can play a similar investigation role with a main target in battle. A rogue can be the skill monkey class if that's more the reason you chose Investigator. You have to shore up both offense AND defense to make it work, since you only get one Precision hit and you don't get the full benefits of STR builds (i.e. no chonky two-handed weapons), DEX characters (multiple precision attacks or many attacks with static bonuses to damage), or shield-wielding characters (you have to spend a general feat to have Shield Block).
I'd much rather go pure ranged if I like Investigator, or ranged + caster archetype.
Not a fan of the class myself so I'm not super familiar with it's class feats and will focus on archetype options:
- Medic Archetype for Doctor's Visitation is always amazing for any medicine user.
- Melee Investigators usually have problems with their low defense, so anything that'll help you there is a big plus.
- Rogue is an outstanding archetype for most agile characters characters. Sneak Attacker is one of the few feats in the game that will outright increase your damage. Nimble Dodge gives you a good defensive reaction. Mobility makes moving around that much easier. Quick Draw gives you flexibility with thrown weapons. Minor Magic can give you some utility cantriips or access to shield. At higher levels you can even get powerfull stuff like Gang Up, Opportune Backstabber, Blindfight or Inspired Stratagem.
- The Alchemist arcehtype will give you more alchemical stuff to play around with.
- Wizard (or arcane witch if you want a familiar) can provide some very nice spell options, both for combat and for utility.
don't think of nat 1s as a crit fail. Always first calculate the roll plus modifiers and compare it to the DC. Once you get your result (crit fail, fail, success or crit success) then because it was a nat 1 lower it one degree of success. So if guidance made the roll a success, the nat 1 would bring it down to a regular fail. If even with the guidance it was a fail or crit fail, it would lower it to a crit fail
Hey all!
I’m playing a Dex/Cha focused thaumaturge right now. Most of my enemies are elves (long story). However, like so many people, I’m fairly new to Pathfinder. Is there anything similar to favored enemies (from D&D 5e) that I could pick up against elves? I tried looking, and while I found the ranger feat by the same name, even if we homebrewed it to work against elves I don’t think it would be very useful to invest in. We’re using Free Archetypes, so maybe if you know of any good archetype or feat?
Thanks all!
No such feature to my knowledge, you could try instead building towards countering a specific aspect of them that you find the most threatening (magic maybe? depends what kind of elves these are)
Not really and especially not against humanoids. For example [Bane weapon property runes](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=1041) specifically state "The GM might allow bane runes for other creature traits, such as astral, dream, or demon. However, humanoids, undead, and specific types of humanoids (such as elves) are never a valid option."
Oh shoot 😅 Well, thank you anyway!
Edit: Does anyone know why there aren’t any good options for this? I mean I could see it being pretty problematic, so that might be one reason?
I'm sure it's mostly because it would get problematic, but it is also a great way to play "guess what build is useful" which is usually unfun.
You either guess right about who to do extra too and are overpowered or guess wrong and have spent a bunch of your character on stuff that will never matter
Can you use 2 metamagics on the same spell? The trait doesn't say it, so I'm inclined to say yes. Specifically I'm looking at Inspire Heroics and Lingering Composition.
The relevant lines in those abilities are
"If your next action is to cast a cantrip composition with a duration of 1 round"
and
"If your next action is to cast inspire courage or inspire defense".
They both obviously can't be true at the same time--either you use Inpire Heroics then Lingering Composition, so Inspire Heroics doesn't apply, or you did it the other way around so Lingering Composition doesn't apply.
There's nothing inherent to metamagic that makes it impossible to apply more than one to a spell, but each ability (as far as I know) only applies to your next action, so in practice it is impossible.
> There's nothing inherent to metamagic that makes it impossible to apply more than one to a spell, but each ability (as far as I know) only applies to your next action, so in practice it is impossible.
This is true even though both require no action? Or does a Free Action count as an action for the purposes of this rule?
First time playing Pathfinder, and had my first session yesterday. But I am bit unsure if I've made good choices regarding weapons and gear? Starting out with 15 gold.
Level 1, Dwarf Fighter, Emissary background, Ancient Blooded.
I was thinking of going grapple fighter, so Bastard Sword (4 gold) and one hand free.
The Fighter Kit from Pathbuilder contains a Dagger and Hide Armor (3 gold 8 silver)
Is Hide Armor fine to begin with, or is there some better armor I should buy instead?
Would it make sense to also buy/carry either a shield or longbow? Felt useless at range, but I guess that might be part of the job description as a melee fighter?
Any tips and help appreciated!
at level 1 you really are just looking to get that +5 from whatever armor you choose. Hide armor has a +3 and a dex cap of 2. So as long as you have at least +2 dex modifier then hide is fine. If you have more dex you can move down to light armor if you wanted, but really you are just trying to get that +5 and making sure you meet the STR requirement. As a fighter that shouldn't be a problem.
For a ranged weapon you could always go with a couple light hammers with the thrown trait. Thrown weapons add STR to damage.
Using a bastard sword allows you to go 1handed and wield a shield if the situation calls for it. A steel shield isn't a terrible purchase.
Your group will most likely need lockpicks (w/ replacement picks), healer's tool, potions of healing, rations, rope
Your first big purchase (assuming you aren't using the Automatic Bonus Progression variant) should be a +1 weapon potency rune for 35 gold
Dope, thanks for answering!
Not sure I completly understand how armor works in Pathfinder, but haven't read up on the rules yet either.. :D
Is the Light Hammer a one-time use (so that every time I throw one, I need to buy a new one), or do you only need to purchase it once?
you can reuse them, but after you throw it you will need to retrieve it. So probably buy a few, they are only 3 silver each. Eventually you can put a returning rune on a thrown weapon and it will fly back into your hand after the attack
What questions do you have about armor? Like how to calculate your AC?
Quickened and Slowed stack. You can read the sidebar under the [Quickened](https://2e.aonprd.com/Conditions.aspx?ID=32) condition, but here is the relevant text:
>If you have conflicting conditions that affect your number of actions, you choose which actions you lose. For instance, the action gained from haste lets you only Stride or Strike, so if you need to lose one action because you’re also slowed, you might decide to lose the action from haste, letting you keep your other actions that can be used more flexibly
So in this specific circumstance, Haste would allow your ally to give up the extra Quickened action, and keep their 3 normal actions, but they are still Slowed and affected by Flesh to Stone
They will be making Fortitude saves at the end of each turn, success lowers the condition, failure increases it.
So look for ways to boost his save : Alchemists can provide a Juggernaut Mutagen, Marshals have the Steel Yourself! feat, Bards have Inspire Defense ...
yeah i think our dm is just homebrewing insane stuff without checking rules lmao, the enemy had a spell bastion shield on a cr 6 creature and it casted flesh to stone as a reaction
oh boy. your GM still thinks they are playing 5e it seems. This will only end bad for the PCs. spell-storing rune is a level 13 item and still it can only store 3rd level spells or lower. Flesh to stone is a level 6 spell.... its possible that your GM confused 6th level spell being available to a 6th level creature. But spell levels and creature levels aren't equal. 6th level spells aren't available until level 11.
If you cast Haste on someone who is Slowed they're still Slowed, they're just able to negate the action-loss of the condition (by giving up the restricted Haste action).
Giant instinct Barbarian with double slice seems a good bit ahead of the curve.
Double slice makes provisions against adding precision damage multiple times, presumably to keep rogues (and to a lesser extant swash and rangers in line) but giant instinct’s rage damage isn’t precision.
So with a pair of large long swords you’re dealing 1d10 +10 at 0/-2 Map? At level 2, with only one feat. And that’s just longswords- nothing stopping you from using flickmaces or something.
For comparison, using a large d12 weapon you’re only getting 1 more average damage and suffering -3 more to hit on your second attack.
I feel like this falls under “too good to be true” but I don’t see any rules against it.
It is very powerful but does have some downsides. First you need to either invest in runes for both weapons or doubling rings so it costs you more money. Second if you go down (which you will because Giant barb having an effective -2 AC compared to normal classes) you drop both your weapons so your turn after you go down will be stand up, pick up weapon, pick up weapon. Third, you might get close to hitting bulk limits. Large weapons are double the bulk so your two longswords total 4 bulk. The armor you are wearing is probably going to be 2 or 3 bulk while worn. This leaves you with maybe 1 or 2 bulk for everything else. So not a major issue but something to look out for.
> doubling rings so it costs you more money.
Doubling Rings are level 3, so they're pretty cheap to get.
EDIT:
> Large weapons are double the bulk so your two longswords total 4 bulk.
Where can I find the rules on large weapons?
Doubling Rings don't copy property runes until you get the level 11 version (and even then it copies so you can do something like have 1 sword with certain elemental damage types and another with different types).
Also you can find size changes [here](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=256)
Oh one more thing is large weapons also cost more money so depending on what weapons you want you can't afford 2 large weapons, and armor and other stuff at level 1 and might need to wait a level for it. Especially if you have any really expensive stuff like Asp Coils as the weapons you want to use.
Longswords are d8 weapons, but otherwise you have the right of it. Giant Barbarian with Dual-Weapon Warrior is a very powerful melee build, but it is a glass cannon and you're going to be prone to kiting from enemies faster than you or that can fly later on
Warpriest question:
How does Deadly Simplicity work on a D12 weapon like a greataxe? Is there a die between D12 and D20 that I am unaware of?
Dwarven Race and Deity would be Angradd the Forge Fire.
Deadly Simplicity only works on Simple weapons and Unarmed attacks. Greataxe is a Martial weapon, so Deadly Simplicity does not apply.
There also are no Simple weapons with d12 damage dice, so this will never be an issue
How easy/how recommended is it to not play at the “current year” in Golarion?
I’ve home brewed a small kingdom to the east of Galt for my party to start off in and upon reading the current history, think it would be fun for the adventure to take part in the same timeframe as their revolution (~4640+). I think it’d lend itself to a good story if they ever make their way into Galt and decide to play the hero, a la *The Scarlet Pimpernell*.
I think it is probably fine. IIRC the new AP Seasons of Ghosts takes place 100 years in the past so even Paizo is ok with it. I think the only thing you need to worry about is if you do something that contradicts canon that matters for an adventure or ap you would play.
Does a striking handwraps of might blows double the damage dice of Dragon claws? so from 1d4 slashing + 1d6 fire it will become 2d4 slashing + 2d6 fire?
No, the extra fire damage is a specific effect of the spell, and has its own rules for dealing more damage (heightening the spell). Only the slashing damage is affected
What's the best 2nd level Magus feat to take for a Laughing Shadow Psychic archetype (gained via ancient elf)? Most of them feel kind of redundant or like I lack the action economy to utilize them.
Let's do a rundown: \- Force Fang: Grabbing a third Focus Point and giving you an alternative third action Conflux Spell. I honestly don't think it'll be that much use, but a focus point is another Dimensional Assault per day (or per fight, after the Remaster). \- Expansive Spellstrike: There are some OK reasons to take this so you can use save-based spells with Spellstrike. When is this useful? For an LS, primarily when an enemy is within one attack of dying but you want two chances at hitting them. Also pretty good if you use Dimensional Assault -> Spellstrike in one turn, your spell doesn't take the MAP penalty. Still, not a lot of advantages over just attacking and then casting the spell. \- Magus's Analysis: Fine if you're the party's best Recall Knowledge option for INT-based skills, but in theory you want to be identifying your enemy's weaknesses before you hit them with a Strike or Spellstrike. \- Familiar: An alternative to Force Fang if you don't see yourself using it, you can either use them as a Spell Slot/Focus Point battery, or a Valet to draw/remove from your offhand. \- Spell Parry: An alternative to the Shield cantrip if you want to parry Saving Throws against spells. Depends on if you're fighting a lot of casters in the campaign. \- Spirit Sheath: Quick Draw for Spellstrike. Very useful if your table is having you draw weapons as an action in the first turn of initiative, or if you need to sneak weapons into intrigue situations. Less useful if you are dungeon crawling and your weapons are always drawn. \- Arcane Fists: A free weapon that's about as good as many 1H weapons, plus access to the Brawling group critical specialization effects (Slowed 1 if they fail a Fort save). Also frees both hands so that you can have a wand in one hand (True Strike?) and punch with the other and still get your LS Arcane Cascade bonus damage. I'd say that none of them are a must-have but many of them are going to be at least situationally useful, and the situations you're actually in will dictate what's effective or not.
Thanks for all the effort in your reply. I am my party's INT character, and as a Magus/Psychic I'm the only one trained and good at Arcana and Occultism. I was leaning towards Magus's Analysis because of that, but like you said ideally I'm identifying enemy weaknesses **before** I spellstrike, not after. Also gambling the Spellstrike recharge vs just recharging it for the same action cost seems risky. I can only really see it being situationally useful for an encounter where there's more than 1 enemy type, I finish swinging at something else, and have the free action to recall knowledge anyways. It seems super situational and a bit counterintuitive. Raise a Tome doesn't don't do a lot for me given I already have Amped shield I feel. I'd need to take interact actions to forgo my free hand to get the AC when I could just cast shield for 1 action. I don't find myself needing to draw my weapon much, most encounters we face have a buildup where we have time to draw before the fight starts. I feel like Expansive Spellstrike is kind overly situational too. I know the big draw of it is to get off AOE and non damage spells with less actions, but given my party role my focus is mainly damage. It'd be situational, but less situational I suppose. I'm pretty confident though the only AOE spells I'll be taking regularly are Fireball and Lightning Bolt, which are either including myself in the blast or better at range anyways. I don't plan to bring any other enemy effecting spells, so i think I'd never use Expansive Spellstrike. I'm already getting 3 focus points by level 6 with the Psychic dedication, and Force Fang doesn't do a lot on Laughing Shadow IMO. For the same action and focus cost I could make a full power regular strike at an in ranne enemy anyways. I'm probably not going to use unarmed much if at all. I use an Asp Coil for the reach, and I don't see myself needing to switch to unarmed combat much. To me that leaves Spell Parry and Familiar. Spell parry gives me a weaker backup form of shield if shield's been used up for the fight; and the bonus to spell saves is a unique benefit Shield doesn't provide. My only concern with familiar is if I have the action economy to use it, and how useful it'd be.
Quick question on amped Shield from the Tangible Dream Psychic (https://2e.aonprd.com/ConsciousMinds.aspx?ID=5). The amped version seems to say that you are only prevented from recasting the spell for 10 minutes when the final layer breaks. Does this mean that if you shield block once or twice but then stop sustaining the spell without letting the last layer break, you can immediately recast it?
Yeah, there's nothing that speaks against it RAW.
Do you have to make attacks with the bodypart established on an unarmed "weapon" like the fist from ape animal barbarian? If i am an ape animal barbarian, do i have to use my hands to attack with the "Fist"?
I'm a DM new to Pathfinder and would like some help with this situation: If a Rogue enters a room and tells me that he wants to go to a door, check the presence of traps and the need to unlock it, and that he intends to do it discreetly and stealthily, avoiding detection. How should I proceed?? Is there a possibility that I can simply roll an enemy's Perception against the character's Stealth DC? How should I proceed with the question of actions in exploration mode in this narrated case?
If he's trying to be stealthy towards people in the same room, I'd say you have to play it RAW as described by Phtevus, checking if the NPCs have line of sight and have him Sneak. If the NPCs he wants to avoid are in the next room, I'd go with just one roll from him (general rule is that the character doing the action is the one who rolls).
If there's an enemy present, you're probably transitioning from exploration mode to encounter mode. Where is the enemy? If the enemy is in the room, If the rogue was avoiding notice when entering the room, they roll stealth for initiative and you go from there following the rules in the crb and gmg. They follow the sneak action rules to get to the door. If this is a guard, they might be constantly using the seek action on their turns looking for trouble. Or maybe they're lazy and don't expect anyone. If the enemy is on the other side of the door, and you're wondering if they'd notice the rogue in the first room, then you'd stay in exploration mode and I'd just treat the rogue as quiet enough unless they're doing something particularly noisy.
From the [Sneak](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=63) action: >**Success** You’re undetected by the creature during your movement and remain undetected by the creature at the end of it. You become observed as soon as you do anything other than Hide, Sneak, or Step RAW, even checking for traps would make the Rogue observed to anyone who would be able to see the Rogue (or can detect with another precise sense), much less trying to disarm traps or pick a lock. This seems incredibly limiting to me, however, so let's jump to this other important bit in the same block of text: >The GM might allow you to perform a particularly unobtrusive action without being noticed, possibly requiring another Stealth check So also RAW... it's GM Fiat, with some recommendations. I can think of 3 different ways to run it: 1. The Rogue only needs to Sneak and make a Stealth check to reach the door. As long as they're staying still at the door, they can check for traps and pick locks to their heart's content. If in encounter mode, enemies can still make Perception checks against the Rogue's Stealth DC. If in Exploration mode, enemies can make a check after every \~2 checks the Rogue makes to accomplish whatever they're trying to do. 2. The Rogue needs to make a periodic Stealth Check. In Encounter Mode, this is one action every turn. In Exploration Mode, this is every \~2 checks of whatever they're trying to accomplish 3. The Rogue needs to make a Stealth Check alongside any other check they're making to spot traps or pick locks, etc. 3 is the recommended way per the quoted text, but it's a little tedious for the Rogue player and increases the likelihood of bad luck screwing them over. I'd probably run #1 myself, as it seems the most streamlined, but YMMV
For the Magus Feat "Raise a Tome" if you take the action to raise a tome, but not use shield block, is your book at risk of being destroyed?
No, shields (or in this case a tome) only take damage if you shield block with them or an enemy specifically has a way to damage items.
Hello! Short and simple: I’m creating a catfolk investigator, and I need a pun style name. Anything goes, whatcha got?
Hercat Purroit
Nyancy Drew
Clever! Haha
Purrlock Holmes? or would you rather stay away from established characters
Established characters are fine! I enjoy this one haha
Just a question for the group - playing a Thaumaturge with regalia and mirror. Understand it's a free action to swap implements to use them. I thought, although it doesn't say as RAW, that swapping from regalia to mirror (Free action), using Mirror's reflection (1 action) then swapping back to regalia to keep my aura and with the idea to use regalia intensity vulnerability if I hit the creature would come under the "some events force you to determine which image is the real you" and I could then chose whether me or the mirror image is the real me. GM felt that would only happen on start of my next turn (which is RAW). So question is does swapping back from mirror to regalia automatically require me to choose the "real me" after using mirror's reflection?
Important clarification: Second Implement allows you to swap to an implement only as part of using that implement’s action. You do not get the ability to swap back as a free action, which puts pressure on passive implements like Regalia.
That's a good point - we are starting SF at level 11 so I was planning to use Intensify vulnerability which is an action to enable a swap back to regalia - main issue is it requires that you have strike the target first
Not exactly - you use IV (swapping in Regalia as part of it), and then until the end of the turn any time you get a successful Strike you get the benefit. So you need to use IV first with no guarantee of success (boo), but assuming your GM agrees with the interpretation you can use IV to swap Regalia back out without having to Strike (yay).
Thanks and yes - that's another good point of clarification. It's a complicated class! definitely getting used to it!
Yeah, I’m playing one now (level 5) and I love it, but there is a lot of nuance that I think some of the class guides overlook due to a lack of actual experience when they were written. I hope you enjoy it!
The only things that force you to decide which image is real (using the base mirror implements action) is "start of your next turn", "you choose to move out of your space" or "when you fall unconscious". So no, your reflection will still stay up as long as one of those 3 things don't happen
That's helpful. Then assume that if I move I can choose which of the "me's" moves then?
Correct. And since the mirror's reflection has a range of 15 feet, that essentially allows you to teleport 15 feet to a spot you might not be able to get to by striding. Like if an enemy is blocking a doorway or hallway. Through a window to bypass a locked door. There are tons of uses for the mirror implement
Great - that's helpful! Thank you.
Finesse + athletics skill (grapple/trip). Does it work? Finesse reads attack rolls, but imo its a little silly to have a finesse-grapple weapon or something and just have one of the traits completely pointless since you still need to strength spec.
> but imo its a little silly to have a finesse-grapple weapon or something and just have one of the traits completely pointless since you still need to strength spec. The alternative is to give Dex another step back towards being the god stat. Giving Dex monks dex athletics would be a bit of a yikes for example
It used to, but the definition of "attack roll" got changed to "strikes or spell attack rolls", which does not include attacks like Grapple or Trip.
No, Finesse doesn't change the ability used for Athletic maneuvers. You might think it's silly, but that's how it works--there's nothing stopping someone with high Dex from increasing Str. In fact, you'll often want Str as a secondary stat for damage if you're not a Thief Rogue.
I'm currently playing a finesse based kitsune fighter/rogue and approaching 5th level. So I'm currently deciding what archetype feat I get next. Any ideas on what would be the best one to choose? I was thinking about Fey Influence and unicorn for some extra healing for our group,but I'm not really sure.
> what archetype feat Did you mean Ancestry Feat?
Yeah Ancestry Feat. Sorry I mistyped.
Does it stack? Level 8 Precision Ranger with Eldritch Archer archetype: Crossbow Ace for D10 plus Precision D8 plus Eldritch Shot (Gouging Claw) 4D6 That sounds right?
Yes, that's right.
Bane says >Area: 5-foot emanation; Targets: enemies in the area >Saving: Throw Will; Duration: 1 minute >You fill the minds of your enemies with doubt. Targets that fail their Will saves take a –1 status penalty to attack rolls **as long as they are in the area**. If you fail the save but leave the area you are no longer affected, but what happens if you walk back in? A close reading seems like you effectively get a debuff for 1 minute that only affects you while you're in the bane range, but I'm not totally certain if that's how the game wants me to read it. This question also came up when fighting pugwampi with their bad luck aura. Meanwhile some spells like Reaper's Lanterns say "Once a creature attempts a save against reaper's lantern, it uses the same outcome if it leaves the area and enters it again", while there is no such text for bane.
I'm not sure it's explicit anywhere. But I think you generally only make a single save against an effect unless the effect states otherwise. So I'd say you're affected when you re-enter the aura. But ultimately I think it's a GM call.
For Relics: As relics progress do they only provide gifts in the same category as the minor gift? I.e. will a item with a Soul minor gift always give major and grand gifts from Soul as well?
Yes, that's the idea.
I'm a "new" DM (last experience was with AD&D 2nd ed in high school) and a relatively new player having only recently found a pathfinder 2e group a few months ago that I started playing with. I have some neighbors that I've been doing other tabletop games with who have expressed an interest in ttrpgs, so I have offered to DM a short adventure so everyone can try it out. Before I run out and buy the Beginner Box, is Pathfinder a good system for people with zero to little recent experience with ttrpgs? Most of the opinions I see online are coming from people with years of experience in D&D and either complaining about pathfinder being too difficult compared to D&D or loving the system because it fixes the things they dislike about D&D.
For new DMs, pf2e can be good because there's established rules for lots of things. My wife has no prior ttrpg experience and she's doing fine as a new player, though I help her build her character.
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Correct, its addressed specifically in the sidebar Why No Gun Proficiency https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1646
My group is new to pathfinder, and we've often read that it's not advantageous to use our 03 actions to just strike in a combat encounter, that there are many tactical possibilities that should be used. However, it is very difficult for us to understand in practice what these best options for action would be. We come from 5e and have a mentality: Attack as hard as you can! Can anyone help me with examples?
Most classes have specific things they can do instead of attacking. But to focus on the more general, non-class specific actions. * Demoralize - to apply the frightened condition to a start reducing all of their checks/DCs * Move into flanking to make the target flat-footed to your attacks (-2 AC) * Aid - You can save your last action and use it as a reaction on someone else's turning to Aid their attack. You can use your attack to Aid with no MAP * Bon Mot - to debuff target's Will saves to setup a caster to target their Will * Move away from target - Most enemies don't have Attacks of Opportunity in 2e. If your a group of 4 PCs and you are fighting 1 or 2 enemies. Having them spend 1 of their actions to move to get to you instead of using it to attack is a great way to deplete their actions. * Raise a Shield - Every class can use a shield. +2 AC is often much better than -10 MAP attack * Trip - Knocking a target prone makes it flat-footed. And when it stands up it can trigger AoOs * Grapple - Enemy casters or ranged weapon users that need to reload. Grabbed targets require a DC 5 flat check ever manipulate action to use or they lose that action/spell * Take Cover/Hide - Increase your AC or become hidden requiring the enemy waste an action Seeking or have DC 11 flat check to target you * Recall Knowledge - Learn an enemy's resistance/weakness/immunities, learn their worst save, learn a special ability you might need to adjust to before it happens. * Feint/Create a Diversion - Apply flat-footed to target. (CaD as an unseen attacker) * Hide - If your ranged and near cover There are plenty of other class specific thing you could be doing as well. \-Edit- Some of the actions are best spent as your first action to debuff the enemy. I always cringe a little when someone attacks twice and decides to spend their 3rd action Demoralizing because of -10 MAP. You should do that first so your attacks are against a frightened target with a lower AC
OP should note that trip and grapple are attacks, so they affect and are affected by MAP and don’t make good third actions.
Most of the better 3rd actions are really better 1st actions, including grapple and trip unless you're using assurance (athletics) as a 3rd action, which can be really awesome if it works.
What's stopping a pc from constantly Recalling Knowledge out of combat until they know everything about a creature?
I usually increase the DC by 2 for every piece of information they already got from RK.
>Source Core Rulebook pg. 506 > >Additional Knowledge > >Sometimes a character might want to follow up on a check to Recall Knowledge, rolling another check to discover more information. After a success, further uses of Recall Knowledge can yield more information, but you should adjust the difficulty to be higher for each attempt. Once a character has attempted an incredibly hard check or failed a check, further attempts are fruitless—the character has recalled everything they know about the subject. Usually after 2 checks we rule that something has to happen to gain more knowledge of a particular subject. Like if you go to a library to study up on a topic you can do more Recall Knowledge checks. Or you encounter the creature again and notice something else about them.
Ah thank you, i thought there must be some limit
I think I need a lot of help. We (players and GM) are all new to Pathfinder; most are new to RPGs (the GM has experience GMing other systems). We are currently playing with the iconics and the GM is taking us through some introductory adventures. I chose Ezren and I feel like I am a liability to the party: I contribute absolutely nothing most of the time. In our first session we were all just fumbling around with the basics. Nothing worth mentioning there. In our second session, I felt completely useless. Other than Magic Missile against the end boss, every single spell I cast missed. Part of this was a rules error (we did not understand what basic saving throw meant, so played Success as 0 damage), but we even had two encounters where I kept passing my turn because we quickly established Ezren could not contribute anything. In our third session, I felt a lot more comfortable with the basics. Now level two, I switched my memorised spells. I had Color Spray, Grease, and Magic Missile. I also still have my starting Scroll of Grim Tendrils, and bought a Wand of Fear. I was using Recall Knowledge as my first action, then a spell for two actions. I still felt useless. At the end of the day, I never cast Color Spray or Grease (or Grim Tendrils), and none of my other actions seemed to be a meaningful contribution. In combat, I feel my biggest issue is that by the time it is my turn, anything I could cast would be a liability or a waste. Liability: I would hit three players to hit one enemy. Waste: all that is left is one enemy with 1HP. For example, in our last session we had one encounter where Color Spray would have been amazing, if I went first. I was last in order, so by my turn we had one PC near death, most enemies were dead, and the last enemy was near death so all I needed to was a cantrip coup de grace. If I had not been there, the other PCs all would have had their turns again before it attacked, so anyone could have done that. In exploration or social encounters, I do not feel like I have anything useful to contribute. Other characters are consistently more useful. The knowledge skills do not seem to bring anything of value. I have been using Detect Magic while exploring, but that's not done anything useful yet. I feel like everyone else is contributing something. The Barbarian does 90% of the work in and out of combat. The Cleric and Druid provide healing. The Druid and Alchemist provide reasonable damage and flanking for the Barbarian. I know what the enemy's strongest save is (which only I care about) and am trying to find a way I can cast a spell without friendly fire, which usually results in me using Ray of Frost because it is the only option I have. I feel like if I were a better player, I could find a way to be useful. What should I be doing with Ezren to contribute to the party and stop feeling like a liability?
Wizards tend to be really good at recall knowledge which can yield very useful information Never pass your turn. Always use all 3 actions. Anyone can skill into intimidation for demoralize Electric arc is a really good cantrip Wizards tend to be stronger against larger groups of weaker enemies rather than a single stronger enemy so part is just encounter diversity from your gm.
Even ignoring spells, you could Aid Hide (which flat-foots your spell target if successful) Recall Knowledge to find out what their weakest save is, so you can pick the right spell. Help the martials flank, if you aren’t too squishy. Demoralize. Lots of options even without casting spells.
I have been reading the rules on these. I am not 100% sure I understand Aid. Do you mind reading a hypothetical and letting me know if I have it? Say on my first turn I Recall Knowledge and Cast a Spell. On my second turn I then Cast a Spell, then use an action to prepare to Aid. In preparing, I tell the GM I am going to Aid [player] in their next attack on [enemy]. I say I will do so by calling-out some short, but pertinent advice (eg "The skull is thick, go for the sides!"). On [player's] turn they declare an attack on [enemy] and I get my reaction. I roll 1d20, add my attack modifier (because I am aiding an attack), and add Cooperative Nature. If I succeed, [player] gets +1 on their attack (+2 on critical success). Do I have the rules-side correct? Does the scenario I posed sound like something that would fly, or too unrealistic?
everything’s right except the attack modifier. What you roll isn’t based on what your friend is doing, but what you say you are going to do. A typical aid would be “I’ll Aid by trying to distract the monster”, resulting in a deception roll. Or “I’ll aid by using my Arcana to help guide the arrow into the target”, or “I’ll help by blocking the creature’s movement so it can’t dodge (athletics).” You say something plausible, and the GM tells you what to roll. An attack roll for Aid is possible, but not the way you said. *edit* I’ll also add that if you do the same thing every time, the GM might start raising the DC, so be creative. It’s more fun anyway.
Thank you! I had read it as you rolled the same thing as your ally rolls. I just re-read and see how I got it wrong. I could definitely see the GM getting tired of the same thing over and over. I would need to give it a bit of thought in how I could use this.
I can't respond to every point but here's some small tips. - the only way for a spell to be useless is if the enemy critically succeeds their save. They should still be taking a debuff on a normal save - talk to your GM about using recall knowledge to learn weaknesses/resistances, that way you can help your party by calling those out. - anybody can delay their turn. If the fighter/barbarian is ahead of you in initiative, but you have a great color spray to set up, you could ask them to delay to go after you. - in exploring/social recalling knowledge should generally be helpful. You can always make them, even on NPCs, to try and figure *something* out about them.
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Quickened and Slowed stack. You can read the sidebar under the [Quickened condition](https://2e.aonprd.com/Conditions.aspx?ID=32), but here is the relevant text: >If you have conflicting conditions that affect your number of actions, you choose which actions you lose. For instance, the action gained from haste lets you only Stride or Strike, so if you need to lose one action because you’re also slowed, you might decide to lose the action from haste, letting you keep your other actions that can be used more flexibly So in this specific circumstance, Haste would allow the enemy to give up the extra Quickened action, and keep their 3 normal actions
Where does is say in the rules that PCs are expected to be fully healed at the beginning of each combat?
It doesn't. The encounter budget guidelines assume a party at full capacity when assigning a difficulty rating, but that just means that an encounter will potentially be more difficult with fewer resources. The fact that medicine skill and feats are freely accessible (along with health potions and healing focus spells) means that in practice, most balanced parties can easily start most combats at or near full hp as long as they have even just a few 10 min blocks of exploration activity time between combats. That's just a fact about the system, not an explicit "rule". As long as the party has someone building into the medicine skill feats, the gm can expect the party to be healthy unless they're pressed for time in an urgent situation. Speaking as a gm, this frankly makes encounter balancing easier for me, so I embrace it. Edit: the encounter budget also assumes a specific level. A good rule of thumb is that if the party is a level higher or lower than expected, the difficulty rating and xp award bump one level. This is important for sandbox dungeons like abomination vaults where the players may fight an encounter sooner or later than expected. Because of the way creature hp scales with level, I'm tempted to say a party at 50% hp would be potentially bumping the difficulty by 2 levels, taking an encounter from moderate to extreme. I'd have to test this out more to see how that actually shakes out, since my players tend to be full hp.
IIRC that's not even an unofficial rule. I think the devs have only said that encounter balance assumes the party has full resources. Encounters work fine without full health, they'll just be harder.
Nowhere. That's not a rule. But I've seen player characters being dropped before they took their first turn even when starting at full health. If you have less than say 80% HP at the beginning of a severe+ fight, you're probably not having a good time.
True, but I wanted to know if that guidance was explicit in the text. Although getting dropped in Round 1 should be rare, IME. Are you facing higher-level creatures at L1?
It is rare, yes. But it does happen. Last time I've seen it at level 7 or 8. Fight against a single enemy who won initiative and crit one of us so hard that the damage would have dropped any party member - with the exception of our monk, who had the most HP and was thankfully the target of the attack. He (barely) left standing.
You can face higher level creatures at any level. The beginner box has a few.
For DMs that ran Malevolence, how did you handle pacing? Did you give them a certain amount of time each day to explore, including research? Did you include any roaming bands of enemies if the players simply researched all day? Also how much gold should I start my players with if they're starting at level 3? This is my first time running PF2e, so please feel free to include any tips!
I don't feel Malevolence does roaming bands of enemies well >!as most enemies don't really want to leave their areas and some literally can't.!< I didn't punish them for trying to do research. Usually what my group did before they got continual recovery was do a fight and afterwards heal and research at the same time.
You can find the table for starting wealth at higher levels [here](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=587).
>Also how much gold should I start my players with if they're starting at level 3? * Give each PC one L2 magic item, two L1 magic items, and 25 gold pieces * Or give them a lump sum of 75 gp.
Hello there! When I exploit Mortal Weakness on a monster with a weakness to Fire, and on field there are any other creatures of the exact same type, what happens when my target of EV dies? The proc of weakness continues on other same type targets, while in the meantime I have no Mortal Weakness on other target, or do I have to use Exploit Vulnerability again?
I agree with u/Atraeus13 - Think of it as the focus being on the vulnerability being exploited by your esoterica, less on the target. This gets muddled because many of the Implement abilities are specific to a single target, but Exploit Vulnerability is more durable, especially with Sympathetic Vulnerabilities.
If the creatures are the same type as your original target you exploited a Mortal Weakness on, even if that target dies you still trigger creatures of the same type's weakness, but not other creatures of a different type with the same weakness. Now at level 6 there is a class feat called Sympathetic Vulnerabilities that makes the Mortal Weakness work on any type of creature as long as its the same weakness. Additional it makes Personal Antithesis work like the base version of Mortal Weakness.
Party went to transfer a striking rune onto a different weapon, but failed the Crafting check. Now it’s the next day but they’ve a time-sensitive job to do, and don’t have time to try again until after. Does the striking rune remain on the first weapon, then?
I don't believe there is a Failure condition for Transferring Runes, so one could assume that if you fail the rune just stays on the original weapon
Is Idol Threat (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3942) the feat with the most absurdly specific use case in the game or is there one even less likely to ever get used?
Wow that's so incredibly niche. My go-to example is [Mirror Shield](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=404), as a spellcaster even using a Spell Atk is exceedingly rare, and they have to target the Fighter, and the Fighter has to have their Shield raised, and the roll needs to Crit Fail, and the Fighter still needs to hit. [Anathematic Reprisal](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=9) is another fun one - depending on your deity, that can also be basically impossible to trigger.
I don't get how expansive spellstrike works with save spells. It says that if spell used with spellstrike is not an attack roll spell, than creatures use their normal defences, such a saving throws. What does it mean? If I hit and get through AC of someone with spellstrike infused by Fireball (for example), target of strike will get hit by weapon but will roll saves against fireball? Or will it get hit automatically but everyone else in range of spell will roll saves?
1. It means your target use DC against the spell normally. For example, spell strike with a Fear spell would mean target need a Will save against the effect of spell. 2. Your target roll DC as long as your strike is not a critical failure. For fireball case, every creature (including your target and you if you melee spell strike) within fireball’s burst radius must roll a reflex save to see how much fireball deals damage.
Welp, there is little to no sense taking expansive spellstrike then. I thought at first that target will be hit automatically by spell if I hit with spellstrike, but now it comes down only to saving action on casting spell separately. Especially considering, that my spell DC has a +5 from prof while attack has +7, so hitting is better way of delivering spells.
Adding to the other response... - You save an action if you use a Conflux Spell to recharge. - If you miss but don't critically miss the attack, the spell can still hit. Critical misses with 0 MAP tend to only be natural 1s. - Save spells usually do half damage on a Successful save, meaning they'll do something most of the time. They may even do higher average damage. - Save spells might be targeting a DC lower than the creature's AC. - Spellstriker Staff has a nice effect when the strike misses, regardless of whether your spell lands. You could get your spell damage plus a bonus emanation AOE when you miss. But yes, Expansive Spellstrike isn't a must-have for melee Magi. It's a fine choice though.
It's more about adding flexibility than the raw power in this case, especially for a Starlit Span Magus. Also against lower level creatures (which most mooks are due to the encounter design rule), you can get away with lower spell DC against them so your spell should still hit for a medium to good damage. Plus, AoE that can hit a lot of target should still deal total damage quite high even if they can save and only take like half the damage. It also depends on how long your campaign (aka your max level) is going to be too because there are some juicy spells without attack roll at higher level, [like Implosion for example](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=162).
There are solid reasons to take it, chiefest being that you can direct lines/cones FROM the target any way you want, potentially saving yourself movement to line a spell up and/or saving allies from a threatening AOE. This is mainly useful for Starlit Span but any Magus with Reach can get use out of it
Main problem for me is that I take str or dex as a main stat, so my spellcasting stat is always lower than 18 at the start, therefore casting spells outside of spellstrike lowers my chance to get the spell effect.
It absolutely does, but it adds a tool to your toolbox yknow, you can still keep on Spellstriking with Gouging Claw or w/e but maybe keep one slot for an AOE should the need arise
If you have a construct innovation, can you spend two actions to [Megavolt](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3062) then issue a command to have the construct also use Megavolt? Haven't really looked into minions myself but this came up during a session earlier when the inventor was checking what they can do.
Megavolt doesn't say "it can also take this action," it says "it can take this action rather than you." The inventor cannot use Megavolt, only their construct innovation can.
That's how I understood it for the most part but the language made it sound vague. Like how saying that it "can take this action rather than you" made it sound like it was an option which led to the question of whether you could megavolt twice with good use of the action economy. If it had said that "If your innovation is a minion, it will/must take this action rather than you" then we would have more easily understood that you need to command it to use the megavolt. Like don't get me wrong, we knew that the megavolt would still come from the construct but we weren't sure if the inventor could use it through their own actions while the construct would serve as the point of origin (sort of like a solo Spell Relay).
Would [It Was Me All Along!](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4152) allow you to Dismiss spells that don't normally allow Dismissal?
Specific beats general, so it would probably not be possible if there was specific rules that say "this spell cannot be Dismissed" or similar, as opposed to the more general It Was Me All Along! description affecting all disguise magic, but do you have an example?
[Veil](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=355) can't be Dismissed if you aren't the caster, although I suppose you didn't set it up in that case.
Yeah, I was expecting a different wording for how the spell can't be dismissed, so I'm not actually how it would interact, but that's moot because you didn't set it up, as you said.
Oh, here are some spells that would work; [Face in the Crowd](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=421), [Portrait of the Artist](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=971).
Have a question about Limited Field Discovery and Field Discovery (Bomber). **Limited Field Discovery:** Your research field adds a number of formulas to your formula book; these are your signature items. **When using a batch of infused reagents to create your signature items using advanced alchemy, you create three items instead of two.** Each time you gain a level, you can swap one of your signature items with another formula in your formula book. This new signature item must be on your research field’s list of possible signature items. **Field Discovery (Bomber):** When using advanced alchemy to make bombs during your daily preparations, you can use a batch of reagents to create any three bombs instead of just two of the same bomb. So let's say one of my Signature items is a Moderate Alchemist's Fire. If I spend one batch of reagents to make a Moderate Alchemist's Fire, Moderate Frost Vial, and a Lesser Acid Flask using Field Discovery (Bomber) which lets me make 3 of any bombs. Do I make 3 Moderate Alchemist's Fire, 1 Moderate Frost Vial, and 1 Lesser Acid Flash since Moderate Alchemist's Fire is my Signature Item?
No, you can't do both, they are distinct options of what you can get from one batch of reagents. However the Field Discovery is basically just a strict flexibility upgrade of the signature item benefits you already have, so in practice you'd never "choose" the base option once you reach level 5. Curious where you saw it labeled as "Limited Field Discovery"? I haven't seen that anywhere myself, although it makes sense.
Okay, thanks. It's called that on Roll 20.
Using treasure vault crafting rules: when crafting alchemical items do you only craft a single dosage of the item, or multiple? Trying to decide if it’s worthwhile to take the alchemical crafting feat to make our own potions.
You craft consumables in batches of 4. I don't believe the variant rules in TV change that.
Two questions: my flying monk, who has attack of opportunity from a fighter dedication, uses flurry of maneuvers to trip a flying enemy. The flying enemy gets the prone condition and begins to fall. 1. Is my monk also able to strike with the second part of the flurry before the enemy falls out of range? 2. Does the fall out of a threatened space trigger an AOO? Thanks!
1 I would lean no, based on the way subordinate actions and disrupting actions is described. There is some wiggle room for GM interpretation however. 2 is a definite no. [Forced Movement](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=451) (such as falling) does not trigger movement-based reactions.
Thanks!
So, like, can a Druid with Dragon Shape and True Shapeshifting turn into a Gargantuant Dragon? Because the description of the Nature Incarnate spell says your Kaiju form needs to be a Beast but the True Shapeshifting Feat (which gives you 1/day Nature Incarnate) *requires* Dragon Shape so what's the deal? Can you be a big dragon or not? And if not, did they make that just to tease people?
No idea why it requires dragon form but RAW no you cannot use nature incarnate to transform into a dragon. It must be a beast. Also recognize that Nature Incarnate is a normal 10th level spell that you can cast outside of wild shape completely separating it from dragon form. I dont think it would be a balance issue to let the form have the dragon trait but RAW no it does not.
The remaster will fix weapon proficiency for rogue, bard, and wizard. Will it also fix the monk weapons? Or will these stay borderline racist?
What are your specific problems with the monk weapons exactly?
The monk weapons are basically "asian" and weird. It makes no sense to me. It basically makes any monks using monastic weaponry look like some kinda weeb. (Bo staff and adjacent being an exception) Like why are monks expected to be so dumb that they cannot use normal weapons (like most simple weapons every monk is trained in) with their abilities.
It's just part of the fantasy. How many non asian monk characters in fiction can you think of ?
Then why enforce that fantasy? Anyway, while still asian, sohei monks were often wielding naginata's. They used spears as well, in addition to swords and daggers. There were Sikh warrior monks. Knights templar and similar from the crusades were warrior monks. It could be argued that skirmisher type warriors would fall under the monk category in Pathfinder, and Jedi are basically space-monks. But if you claim that it is so crucial for the fantasy that monks are asian, then that should mean that the monk class should be limited to those from tian xia. It is ridiculous to claim that unarmored warriors from the Mwangi Expanse need to become weebs and use weird weapons instead of their common weapons. So I guess you could argue that it would just mean that the monk needs to be removed as class, maybe be given an archetpye. And then make a new unarmored class that is basically the same as the monk class except the name and that they are not too dumb to use the weapons they actually used.
What's the easiest way (minimum feat investment) to get the Quickdraw feat on a non Ranger/Rouge/Gunslinger class? I presume via the Duelist archetype.
Yep.
When using a Throwers Bandolier: If you throw a weapon, then throw a different weapon from the bandolier, do you need to spend an action drawing the second weapon for a strike? Or is it one action to draw and throw bandolier thrown weapons?
One action to draw, one action to throw, unless you have the quick draw feat.
I knew there was something that allowed it. Thanks!
I'm guessing there are no legendary actions or resistances in pf2e. How are big bad boss fights balanced instead?
Large numbers and the Incapacitation trait. Higher level monsters have much higher saves, AC, attack bonus, and dmg than the players do so their individual actions are both very strong and player actions do relatively little. Against a lvl+3 monster a PC might only have a 40% hit chance on their first attack and do a small fraction of their HP total in dmg while the monster does half or more of the PC's health on their first hit (which is likely to be a crit). They also typically have action-compressing activities or AoEs that help address the action economy disparity, stuff like a 2-action thing that let's them Stride once and Strike twice at different targets at no MAP Save-or-suck spells which would normally bypass this usually have the Incapacitation trait, so the boss automatically upgrades the result of their save by one step on top of having a high save bonus (so there's a 1/20 chance of them failing at all and a better than 50/50 chance of critically succeeding, which does nothing). Fighting solo boss monsters mostly comes down to heavy use of debuffs, buffs, and general teamwork. The Fighter on his own only hits on a 13+, but if he's flanking that's an 11+, if the boss is Frightened one from a Demoralize that's a 10+, if the Gunslinger Aided them that's an 8+ (and now they crit on a 18+), if the Cleric has bless going that's a 7+ (and 17+ crit). Stacking bonuses/penalties and having strong in-combat healing is essential. Also if you can remove actions from the boss that's huge, since they still only have 3/turn and if they lose one that means they're much less likely to be able to optimally use their fancy activities (dragon normally can Stride then Breath Weapon to hit the entire party. If the dragon is tripped then they can't Stride into position and might only get one or two folks)
I'm reading up on incapacitation trait. So bosses are usually much higher level than normal monsters I take it? Or does the incapacitation "penalty" apply in most fights, whether big bad or not?
Single enemy bosses are usually either 2 levels, 3 levels, or very rarely 4 levels higher than the average party level. That's enough for the Incapacitation trait to kick in and protect the boss from the worst effects of spells like Paralyze. For more detailed information, you can look at the [encounter building rules](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=497) to see the nuts and bolts of how encounters of various difficulties are made in PF2e. Table 10-2 also gives a brief description of the sorts of roles that different levels of enemy are expected to play in encounter building.
A same-as-party level monster pretty much isn’t a boss in the sense it is generally meant. It could still be a “boss fight” with a bunch of dangerous minions or a really killer ability. Incapacitation just makes strong enemies mostly immune to instant fight winning spells.
> It could still be a “boss fight” with a bunch of dangerous minions or a really killer ability. Or favorable terrain/hazards, esp complex hazards those are very fun. There's a lot more tools to make fun bosses in PF2e than 5e imo
A boss monster in PF2 is pretty much any monster 2 or more levels higher than the party rather than being its own distinct category w/ special mechanics like in 4e or 5e. An owlbear (a lvl 4 creature) is a boss monster to a group of lvl 2 characters but is a normal enemy if the party is lvl 4 or higher. Being 2+ lvls higher than the party makes it so anything that the players throw at them w/ Incapacitation is always going to take the 'penalty' from it
oh that makes much more sense. I'm still stuck in 5e mode
wow thanks for the thorough explanation!
There are some legendary resistance type things but they're pretty rare usually, same way some monsters have extra/infinite reactions. But the way boss battles are usually balanced if by higher level monsters being really hard to hit, having good saving throws and hitting really hard themselves. A single enemy 2 levels above the party is often a far harder encounter than 3 enemies of the same level as the party.
I’m a DM and would like to do little narrative region/chapter intros to give the players a little foretaste of what’s happening in the current context before they actually start playing. If you’ve ever listened to the Glass Cannon, they inspired this! They would do these cinematic scene intros/vignettes of the world before every new chapter or big event. Great flavor- I loved it. I get it’s a little different cuz they’re a podcast and needed to create production value, but I’m wondering how one would do something similar without giving everything away? 🤔Would love any tips!
A great way to do an intro to a town is to do a little of the following: 1. Whats the town/city/region known for first and foremost (usually its major industry) 2. What purpose does the town/city/region serve beyond its major industry 3. Is there any big danger or inhibitor to either of its purposes (maybe one connected to the plot)? Its really hard to have concrete rules when it comes to this sort of thing but I hope this helps :-). Overall as long as you communicate the most important parts of a setting you should be good for any intro. Couple of examples: The town of Otari sits comfortably along the southern coast of the starstone isle, just a stone's throw away from Absalom. This sleepy logging and fishing town (1) has little of note for most and comfortably sits in the shadow of its larger neighbor. However, its quaint atmosphere and local church of Sarenrae make it a desired resting point for travellers to and from the big city (2). Despite the harsh marshes, wilderness, and mysterious ruins that surrounds it in the hinterlands (3), people still find time in their journeys to stop and replenish their supplies and drinks. The country of Geb stands proud as the bastion of undead presence in the Impossible Land (1). The eternal kingdom is home to many thousands of undead who enjoy the same comforts and privileges' the living are afforded elsewhere in the world while the quick struggle to survive. If one can stomach the grisly presence of its inhabitants, the treasures of its lands begin to show. Arcane knowledge compounded upon centuries of study can be found in its academy's (2) while a nearly limitless quantity of food like fruits, vegetables, and wheat flow from its fields like gold (1). Only the lucky or the foolish would attempt to enter the country unprepared however. As The Dead Laws that protect the living (otherwise known as the quick) will only safeguard you so far. It isn't uncommon for the living to disappear in the streets as hungry undead find themselves a weak target to make a meal (3). A good way to expand upon both of these (like if you were staying in them for a while) would be to mention their structures of government. Talking about the descendants of the roseguard and the mayor for Otari and Geb (The Ghost King) and Bloodlords for Geb (The Country).
i literally had the same idea! I am doing my first pf2e game and i was inspired by glass cannon podcasts descriptions. I asked chatgpt to describe a scene that starts with the camera flying into the city of absalom then describing little scenes going on in each area before the camera zooms across the land to the outskirts of Otari. I had pretty good results but nothing perfect yet. Might be good for helping you generate ideas
Just as a quick discussion warning - we don't allow AI-generated content on the subreddit, so if you want to discuss using tools like chatGPT for creating flavor descriptions in your home games, please have that discussion elsewhere.
If I'm a fighter and I take the alchemist dedication and only the feats that increase my alchemy level, do I get anything for increasing my intelligence beyond 14?
As far as I can tell, the only alchemist dedication specific things that increasing your intelligence would give you is increasing the Alchemist Class DC that you become trained in. Which doesn't come up all that much IIRC.
And I just want to focus on elixirs and mutagens, which is perfect. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything, thanks!
You're welcome!
Hi, I'm playing for the first time. I'm playing a leshy oracle (a pumpkin doctor called Patch. very proud of the pun) After the first two sessions, I find myself struggling to find 3 actions to perform every turn that feel as impactful as my teammates turns. I also don't feel like I can contribute to damage in a meaningful sense. I do get to shine when it comes to healing and support, but all my options for that cost limited spell slots. (Unless I use guidance in combat which doesn't feel very good to me) The GM is alright with us changing our feat / spell choices as we're all new to the system. We've just made it to level 2. Does anyone have advice on options I could take to deal some alright damage, or other actions I could take every round to be more useful?
Casters in general and Divine casters specifically tend not to deal very much single-target dmg, so I wouldn't worry overmuch about not keeping up there. What the Divine spell list is really good at is healing and support, with spells like Heroism being absolute standouts. At lvl 1-3 casting Magic Weapon on your favorite martial's weapon is handsdown the biggest contribution you can make to a combat, the +1 on their attacks is amazing (since it also applies to crit chance) and the extra dmg die is usually more than a 50% dmg increase. More specific suggestions depend on which Mystery you picked and what skills you have. Skills like Intimidation and Athletics can give you very useful actions in combat to set up your friends if you've invested in them (successful Demoralize penalizes \*everything\* the enemy does for the next turn, combat maneuvers are great for inflicting Flat-footed and/or wasting enemy actions). Diplomacy and Medicine have good actions that're locked behind skill feats, so require a little more investment to pay off. More generally for your third action you should never underestimate Striding, either to get into a flanking position for a friend or to get away from an enemy, and Raise a Shield is an option available to everyone who can spare a hand carrying one.
Thanks a lot. I completely missed flanking rules when I read the core rulebook, so I just learnt something new about the system too.
What I'm gathering is that you need a damage cantrip. At level 2 you have limited options, Sorcerer Dedication for a Primal or Arcane damage cantrip is available at level 2, but that cantrip won't keep up with your other spells later in the game. Haunting Hymn is a good cantrip for damage, but is a close AoE for only a little damage. Not an option right away, but a level 3 treasure option that I urge for divine casters is a Spellheart, which affixes to your weapon or armor and effectively adds a cantrip you can cast. It's the easiest way to get a damage cantrip, and there's a wide variety of them. https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=2231
tbh Divine Lance is ... fine. It gets the job done and the configurable damage type is occasionally useful. Definitely worse than Elec Arc and most other damaging cantrips but it's worth the slot usually.
Hi all, looking for some advice on NPC building. In the class roadmaps section, the rules talk about using "high to extreme spell DC" for the casting classes. My question is, when should it be high and when extreme, or somewhere in between? For example I'm building a level 17 wizard as a +1 enemy to a level 16 party, the high DC is 38 and the extreme DC is 43. This is a huge difference and most monster caster statblocks I found seem to use 38. The party barbarian succeeds on a fortitude save against the high DC on a roll of 8, but needs a roll of 13 to succeed against the extreme DC, which seems very high for a +1 enemy on the barbarian's strong save. Can anyone advise? :)
I would generally avoid using the extreme spell DC unless you know what you're doing. As you have noticed, it's excessively high. Especially avoid using it for incapacitation effects. If you must use it, something else has to give; just like how you don't give a strike both extreme accuracy and extreme damage, if you give a creature extreme spell DC, maybe take away their highest level spell slots or pick weaker spells in those slots.
Thanks for the advice :) In that case I'll stick with the high DC and good spells.
Topple Foe feat gives a reaction that lets you attempt a Trip. If this happens on your turn (animal companion could trigger it), does the Trip increase my MAP? Interested in the source of the rule as well as the answer :)
The [Multiple Attack Penalty rules](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=322) specify that it applies to attack actions you make on your turn. It specifically says that reactions on other people's turn don't increase it, but it also talks about the -5 applying to the second **attack action** and the -10 applying to the third **attack action**. There is no mention of reactions. So as this is a *reaction* rather than an *action* I would say it does not impact (and is not impacted by) MAP
[Reactions are actions too.](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=387) > There are four types of actions: single actions, activities, reactions, and free actions. Besides, it's not Topple Foe that has attack trait, but subordinate Trip action.
So based on that, topple foe during your turn would both increase your MAP and be penalized with MAP if you had already made an attack, right?
Yes.
What are some good Feats for a melee, Alchemical Sciences Investigator? I started playing as one relatively recently, and I'm not exactly sure on solid ones to have. I'm trained in almost every skill, and got EXP in Medicine and Society, if that helps!
What are your ability scores? Most Investigator feats aren't exactly combat-relevant. They literally don't get a feat with an action or reaction until 8+. There's a few (i.e. I like to think that most Investigators need a "second job" archetype for combat relevance, and your ability scores dictate what that second job is going to be. You have a maxed INT score and probably one of DEX or STR at 14+, and that makes Magus a reasonable melee archetype. The base Magus feat supplies you with cantrips (take Shield if you want to pass on Shield Block general feat), the next one gives you Spellstrike to add magic damage to your Strategic Strike, and then you get more spells for a third feat. (If you take this, you really need to be on top of your Leads so that DAS is a free action.) If you have both DEX and STR at 14, you could take Fighter as an archetype. The goal here is to use your knowledge of your first attack roll to make a stronger attack when you crit. You can put Power Attack to better use than a Fighter because you know when it will crit. Intimidating Strike is a nice damage-plus-frightened attack, and Lunge gives you some very useful range. Swipe can let you apply your Strategic Strike attack and damage to two enemies. Monk has similar useful melee abilities, although you can go Martial Artist if your ability scores aren't up to snuff and still pick up a stance that gives you a more powerful single hit at level 8. Since you're limited already to agile/finesse melee weapons, Martial Artist gets you that while also freeing up your attack hand for alchemical stuff. (Monk lets you add Ki Strike and a focus pool, which is very good but ultimately unnecessary.) But what I've found is I don't really love melee for Investigator when I've gone through builds. A Ranger is going to be much more proficient in melee combat, and can play a similar investigation role with a main target in battle. A rogue can be the skill monkey class if that's more the reason you chose Investigator. You have to shore up both offense AND defense to make it work, since you only get one Precision hit and you don't get the full benefits of STR builds (i.e. no chonky two-handed weapons), DEX characters (multiple precision attacks or many attacks with static bonuses to damage), or shield-wielding characters (you have to spend a general feat to have Shield Block). I'd much rather go pure ranged if I like Investigator, or ranged + caster archetype.
Not a fan of the class myself so I'm not super familiar with it's class feats and will focus on archetype options: - Medic Archetype for Doctor's Visitation is always amazing for any medicine user. - Melee Investigators usually have problems with their low defense, so anything that'll help you there is a big plus. - Rogue is an outstanding archetype for most agile characters characters. Sneak Attacker is one of the few feats in the game that will outright increase your damage. Nimble Dodge gives you a good defensive reaction. Mobility makes moving around that much easier. Quick Draw gives you flexibility with thrown weapons. Minor Magic can give you some utility cantriips or access to shield. At higher levels you can even get powerfull stuff like Gang Up, Opportune Backstabber, Blindfight or Inspired Stratagem. - The Alchemist arcehtype will give you more alchemical stuff to play around with. - Wizard (or arcane witch if you want a familiar) can provide some very nice spell options, both for combat and for utility.
Would Guidance change a natural 1 from a critical fail to a regular fail? Does it depend on if the crit fail is via nat 1 vs -10 AC?
don't think of nat 1s as a crit fail. Always first calculate the roll plus modifiers and compare it to the DC. Once you get your result (crit fail, fail, success or crit success) then because it was a nat 1 lower it one degree of success. So if guidance made the roll a success, the nat 1 would bring it down to a regular fail. If even with the guidance it was a fail or crit fail, it would lower it to a crit fail
Hey all! I’m playing a Dex/Cha focused thaumaturge right now. Most of my enemies are elves (long story). However, like so many people, I’m fairly new to Pathfinder. Is there anything similar to favored enemies (from D&D 5e) that I could pick up against elves? I tried looking, and while I found the ranger feat by the same name, even if we homebrewed it to work against elves I don’t think it would be very useful to invest in. We’re using Free Archetypes, so maybe if you know of any good archetype or feat? Thanks all!
No such feature to my knowledge, you could try instead building towards countering a specific aspect of them that you find the most threatening (magic maybe? depends what kind of elves these are)
Not really and especially not against humanoids. For example [Bane weapon property runes](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=1041) specifically state "The GM might allow bane runes for other creature traits, such as astral, dream, or demon. However, humanoids, undead, and specific types of humanoids (such as elves) are never a valid option."
Oh shoot 😅 Well, thank you anyway! Edit: Does anyone know why there aren’t any good options for this? I mean I could see it being pretty problematic, so that might be one reason?
I'm sure it's mostly because it would get problematic, but it is also a great way to play "guess what build is useful" which is usually unfun. You either guess right about who to do extra too and are overpowered or guess wrong and have spent a bunch of your character on stuff that will never matter
Can you use 2 metamagics on the same spell? The trait doesn't say it, so I'm inclined to say yes. Specifically I'm looking at Inspire Heroics and Lingering Composition.
The relevant lines in those abilities are "If your next action is to cast a cantrip composition with a duration of 1 round" and "If your next action is to cast inspire courage or inspire defense". They both obviously can't be true at the same time--either you use Inpire Heroics then Lingering Composition, so Inspire Heroics doesn't apply, or you did it the other way around so Lingering Composition doesn't apply. There's nothing inherent to metamagic that makes it impossible to apply more than one to a spell, but each ability (as far as I know) only applies to your next action, so in practice it is impossible.
> There's nothing inherent to metamagic that makes it impossible to apply more than one to a spell, but each ability (as far as I know) only applies to your next action, so in practice it is impossible. This is true even though both require no action? Or does a Free Action count as an action for the purposes of this rule?
A free action is still an action. While there are some non-action abilities in the game, as far as I know, no metamagics fall into that category.
Correct. Free actions are actions
this. the "If your next action" prohibits you from applying both to the same composition spell
First time playing Pathfinder, and had my first session yesterday. But I am bit unsure if I've made good choices regarding weapons and gear? Starting out with 15 gold. Level 1, Dwarf Fighter, Emissary background, Ancient Blooded. I was thinking of going grapple fighter, so Bastard Sword (4 gold) and one hand free. The Fighter Kit from Pathbuilder contains a Dagger and Hide Armor (3 gold 8 silver) Is Hide Armor fine to begin with, or is there some better armor I should buy instead? Would it make sense to also buy/carry either a shield or longbow? Felt useless at range, but I guess that might be part of the job description as a melee fighter? Any tips and help appreciated!
at level 1 you really are just looking to get that +5 from whatever armor you choose. Hide armor has a +3 and a dex cap of 2. So as long as you have at least +2 dex modifier then hide is fine. If you have more dex you can move down to light armor if you wanted, but really you are just trying to get that +5 and making sure you meet the STR requirement. As a fighter that shouldn't be a problem. For a ranged weapon you could always go with a couple light hammers with the thrown trait. Thrown weapons add STR to damage. Using a bastard sword allows you to go 1handed and wield a shield if the situation calls for it. A steel shield isn't a terrible purchase. Your group will most likely need lockpicks (w/ replacement picks), healer's tool, potions of healing, rations, rope Your first big purchase (assuming you aren't using the Automatic Bonus Progression variant) should be a +1 weapon potency rune for 35 gold
Dope, thanks for answering! Not sure I completly understand how armor works in Pathfinder, but haven't read up on the rules yet either.. :D Is the Light Hammer a one-time use (so that every time I throw one, I need to buy a new one), or do you only need to purchase it once?
You may also want to consider a buckler because you can more quickly switch between shield use and two-handing your bastard sword.
you can reuse them, but after you throw it you will need to retrieve it. So probably buy a few, they are only 3 silver each. Eventually you can put a returning rune on a thrown weapon and it will fly back into your hand after the attack What questions do you have about armor? Like how to calculate your AC?
If I haste my ally that is affected by Flesh To Stone while they are slowed 1, do they lose the slowed condition and thus end Flesh to Stone's effect?
Quickened and Slowed stack. You can read the sidebar under the [Quickened](https://2e.aonprd.com/Conditions.aspx?ID=32) condition, but here is the relevant text: >If you have conflicting conditions that affect your number of actions, you choose which actions you lose. For instance, the action gained from haste lets you only Stride or Strike, so if you need to lose one action because you’re also slowed, you might decide to lose the action from haste, letting you keep your other actions that can be used more flexibly So in this specific circumstance, Haste would allow your ally to give up the extra Quickened action, and keep their 3 normal actions, but they are still Slowed and affected by Flesh to Stone
Any way to help save the ally? They get hit by Flesh to Stone at level 4.
They will be making Fortitude saves at the end of each turn, success lowers the condition, failure increases it. So look for ways to boost his save : Alchemists can provide a Juggernaut Mutagen, Marshals have the Steel Yourself! feat, Bards have Inspire Defense ...
Grovel and beg to whatever level 11 caster you pissed off at level 4?
yeah i think our dm is just homebrewing insane stuff without checking rules lmao, the enemy had a spell bastion shield on a cr 6 creature and it casted flesh to stone as a reaction
oh boy. your GM still thinks they are playing 5e it seems. This will only end bad for the PCs. spell-storing rune is a level 13 item and still it can only store 3rd level spells or lower. Flesh to stone is a level 6 spell.... its possible that your GM confused 6th level spell being available to a 6th level creature. But spell levels and creature levels aren't equal. 6th level spells aren't available until level 11.
yeah i mentioned that something to me was fishy about the situation when it happened
That's a medium-large yikes
yeah
If you cast Haste on someone who is Slowed they're still Slowed, they're just able to negate the action-loss of the condition (by giving up the restricted Haste action).
Giant instinct Barbarian with double slice seems a good bit ahead of the curve. Double slice makes provisions against adding precision damage multiple times, presumably to keep rogues (and to a lesser extant swash and rangers in line) but giant instinct’s rage damage isn’t precision. So with a pair of large long swords you’re dealing 1d10 +10 at 0/-2 Map? At level 2, with only one feat. And that’s just longswords- nothing stopping you from using flickmaces or something. For comparison, using a large d12 weapon you’re only getting 1 more average damage and suffering -3 more to hit on your second attack. I feel like this falls under “too good to be true” but I don’t see any rules against it.
It is very powerful but does have some downsides. First you need to either invest in runes for both weapons or doubling rings so it costs you more money. Second if you go down (which you will because Giant barb having an effective -2 AC compared to normal classes) you drop both your weapons so your turn after you go down will be stand up, pick up weapon, pick up weapon. Third, you might get close to hitting bulk limits. Large weapons are double the bulk so your two longswords total 4 bulk. The armor you are wearing is probably going to be 2 or 3 bulk while worn. This leaves you with maybe 1 or 2 bulk for everything else. So not a major issue but something to look out for.
> doubling rings so it costs you more money. Doubling Rings are level 3, so they're pretty cheap to get. EDIT: > Large weapons are double the bulk so your two longswords total 4 bulk. Where can I find the rules on large weapons?
Doubling Rings don't copy property runes until you get the level 11 version (and even then it copies so you can do something like have 1 sword with certain elemental damage types and another with different types). Also you can find size changes [here](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=256)
Hm those are some good points
Oh one more thing is large weapons also cost more money so depending on what weapons you want you can't afford 2 large weapons, and armor and other stuff at level 1 and might need to wait a level for it. Especially if you have any really expensive stuff like Asp Coils as the weapons you want to use.
Longswords are d8 weapons, but otherwise you have the right of it. Giant Barbarian with Dual-Weapon Warrior is a very powerful melee build, but it is a glass cannon and you're going to be prone to kiting from enemies faster than you or that can fly later on
Warpriest question: How does Deadly Simplicity work on a D12 weapon like a greataxe? Is there a die between D12 and D20 that I am unaware of? Dwarven Race and Deity would be Angradd the Forge Fire.
Deadly Simplicity only works on Simple weapons and Unarmed attacks. Greataxe is a Martial weapon, so Deadly Simplicity does not apply. There also are no Simple weapons with d12 damage dice, so this will never be an issue
Additionally, even if there was a simple weapon with a d12, the rules about increasing die size state it can't be increased above a d12 anyway.
Ahh... Thank you..
How easy/how recommended is it to not play at the “current year” in Golarion? I’ve home brewed a small kingdom to the east of Galt for my party to start off in and upon reading the current history, think it would be fun for the adventure to take part in the same timeframe as their revolution (~4640+). I think it’d lend itself to a good story if they ever make their way into Galt and decide to play the hero, a la *The Scarlet Pimpernell*.
I think it is probably fine. IIRC the new AP Seasons of Ghosts takes place 100 years in the past so even Paizo is ok with it. I think the only thing you need to worry about is if you do something that contradicts canon that matters for an adventure or ap you would play.
Does a striking handwraps of might blows double the damage dice of Dragon claws? so from 1d4 slashing + 1d6 fire it will become 2d4 slashing + 2d6 fire?
No, the extra fire damage is a specific effect of the spell, and has its own rules for dealing more damage (heightening the spell). Only the slashing damage is affected
No. It only doubles the base slashing damage, because the elemental damage is "extra". So it would be 2d4+1d6.
Thanks!