Shoony deserve more love dear paizo!

Shoony deserve an own Deity, some Shoony demigod or Shoony ascended Character.
These poor little fellas lost Aroden, they struggle with their decreasing Numbers and with the lack of Love they get from their Creators.

Shame on You Paizo. May the Pugatory begin!

Abadar’s edicts state that one must “bring civilization to the frontiers”. As agents of nature, druids are opposed to this. Is there any way to get holy sanctification on a Druid to prevent the forces of Abadar from hunting my PC? Will summoning a tree temporarily with Timber make me an enemy of Abadar? I’m a little worried, as the followers of Abadar are everywhere, or at least everywhere there’s a bank.

(In all earnestness, I think people are a little too worried about necromancers and morality, and wanted to draw a parallel with another class!)

I need help choosing a way to run my combats as a DM. Im a beginner and I think Ill try all of them but my heart, style and quick preperation tells me to go with theater of the mind. Does it even work in pf2e? Do any of you run combat like that? If not, why? And what other style of visualization do u prefer? How much prep time do need? Etc

Really looking forward to this one!

Title. Are there any good sorcerer bloodlines or other classes that really fit a telepath, telekineticist, pyrokineitcist, esper, etc?

I want to make a few homebrew spells and I want to make sure they are balanced. I was hoping someone had make a chart to compare spell damage to make sure that my spells aren't above the curve. If anyone has anything of the sort, I would appreciate taking a look at it.

I dont know who needs to hear this, but based on posts since necromancer was announced, it seems to be a lot of us.

Pharasma isnt the last word on morality. If you arent her worshiper, then breaking her anathema says nothing about you.

You can suck up to her and do what she wants in hopes of a better judgement after death. But following her edicts doesnt rule out being a genuinely evil bastard. Creating a plague that kills by transmuting blood into holy water? Pharasma loved this. 0 bodies desecrated, and everyone who dies cant raise as undead. A true hero.

She has power over you, not a sound philosophical basis for her preferences.

If her rules were at least consistent then unsouled undead wouldnt be a problem for her at all. Raising a zombie that's basically an animated object spell you cast on a corpse doesnt divert any souls from the river. But somehow Pharasma still bans it.

Please just stop caring what she thinks. We defy the powerful every day, we can stop pretending she is the last authority on necromantic morality.

Does a Gap-Touched Jotunborn Laughing Shadow Magus with the Veildancer archetype completely maximize teleportation, or are there any anti-synergies?

It is bonkers

I've recently remastered my Runesmith, and played my first game with it tonight. He isn't geared for healing, but it turns out those healing abilities are good.

Vital Compound Invocation [Feat 6] [One-action] [Healing, Invocation, Runesmith, Vitality]
You can invoke runes from traditions that manipulate vital energy to restore flesh. You Invoke two Runes—one must be a divine rune, and one must be a primal rune. In addition to the runes’ normal effects, one creature that’s within 30 feet of both invoked runes regains Hit Points equal to 5 + double your level.

The healing is very noticeable in combat, much stronger than for example the life boost hex that costs a focus point. Furthermore there doesn't seem to be any limit to spamming it after the fight to fully heal the whole party. I know full healing between fights is the norm, but full near-instant healing seems over the line.

However, it's not the only such ability that the runesmith has. Nothing is stopping me from invoking this rune over and over:

Germantria, Rune of Partnership [Rune 9] [Magical, Rune, Runesmith]
[...]
Invocation (healing) The connection between you and the rune-bearer is severed in a burst of healing energy. Both you and the rune-bearer regain 20 Hit Points.
[...]

And these are just the two examples I found building my character, I'm sure there are more, so I'm left wondering: is it a change of direction to allow full near-instant healing? Is Runesmith supposed to be a great healer? Or are these abilities almost certainly being errata'd with a 10-minute cooldown? Is there a cooldown for these that I'm not seeing?

The necromancer is, mechanically, an incredibly interesting class, but the class fantasy is specific enough that it won't work for all APs, campaigns, or party compositions.

Luckily, as we like to say here, flavor is free.

So: what are your favorite reflavorings of the necromancer?

Here are the ones I've thought of:

• Spirits of pure magic (most appropriate for spirit grim fascination)
• Nature spirits (flesh grim fascination -> plant matter instead of flesh)
• Elementals (spirit grim fascination -> air, blood -> water, bone -> metal, etc)
• Divine spirits (e.g. Valkyries) or demonic entities (orts or lemures)

Arguably some of these might thematically suggest changing the magical tradition to match the reflavoring but that's optional (though would make for interesting class archetypes).

Due to lore reasons, my GM and I agreed that allowing a Magus with the Divine rather than Arcane list would fit the best for what I wanted to play. Thus far, I've marked a few important spell for every rank:

• All Ranks: Heal
• 1st: Bless, Benediction, Protection
• 2nd: Sound: Body and its peers, Resist Energy
• 3rd: Warding Aggression, Heroism, Holy Light
• 4th: Heightened Silence, Vital Beacon, Fly
• 5th: Blink Charge

Have I missed any good one for those ranks, specially from the newest book? I plan to get Adapted Cantrip and make do with Divine Lance and Gouging Claw, maybe get a damaging focus spell later down the line. I'll also likely ignore save spells for the most part.

Hey everyone,

frequent lurker here, never posted before though. While watching the subreddit, a few discussions regarding lackluster Skill Feats came up. From what I understood of these discussions, Skill Feats are one of the least liked aspects of PF2e. I can concur - in my singular campaign which I GM I have 4 players who don't really care too much for reading, thus have a very hard time sifting through the different Skill Feats.

So I tried to change that, and came up with a system I'd like to showcase today. It's called Skillpaths and was created with the following goals:

• Clear up Skill Feats - make it more visible what the Skill Feats improve.
• Provide clearer choices for players based on character idea, not perceived power of the Feats.
• Remove (the few existing) feat taxes or must-have feats that reduce customization possibilities.
• Full compatibility to normal rules.

A short summary:

Every Skill gets different Skillpaths, for example:
Athletics -> Climbing, Jumping, Might (Grappling and Shoving) and Swimming
Diplomacy -> Favors, Rhetoric, Connections

For each path there are three path feats, that give all feats related to that Skillpath, e.g. for Athletics Climbing:
Climbing Path - Trained -> Combat Climber, Rapid Mantel
Climbing Path - Expert -> Lead Climber, +1 item bonus to Climbing checks
Climbing Path - Master -> Quick Climb, +2 item bonus to Climbing checks

In addition there is a base feat that takes strong, unusual or generally fitting feats.

Athletics Base -> Titan Wrestler
Diplomacy Base -> Bon Mot

IMO this makes the characters a tad stronger, this should be mostly horizontal though. Choosing Skill Feats should feel better now though, going to test this with my group when I get the chance.

___

I'd like to showcase my Homebrew and ask for your feedback. While in theory playable already everything is open for discussion, this is a big draft and could change massively. So I got the following links for you:

Google Docs for a detailed explanation

A Catalog of all Skillpath Feats

A Catalog for all new feats and one spell (I tried to keep the number as low as possible)

Github for Foundry for easy testing

Direct manifest link: https://github.com/xSilvermanx/pf2e-skillpaths/releases/latest/download/module.json

___

Looking forward to your feedback! I do think that this looks promising, hope you agree on that. At times creating the different paths was frustrating though due to lack of suitable feats. Thievery only has one path, Burglary. This is sad because the Skill could see different Paths like Lockpicking or Pickpocketing. This is true for quite a few skills.

Have fun reading, hope you can follow me somewhat.

Last note: I hope that the Github is ok regarding the Licensing. Don't intend to violate ORC so would appreciate a heads-up if anything needs to be changed.

Best,
Sebastian

I think I will be staring at some of the new dragons for the next 2 days.

I totally agree with the title. Although I love the whole concept and vibe of the Necromancer, I think for my current group (Sorcerer, Warrior, and Rogue), I think a Runesmith supporting with Runes and eventually Being on the front line would be more interesting. And that's where the Necromancer comes in, so as not to completely give up on playing Necromancer, I thought of Dedication just to have my own flank partner.Thoughts? Thanks! For your information, we're at level 13 with FA playing Ruby Phoenix!

I play pf2e with my home group but I've been discovering some systems for solo play. I enjoy the pathfinder mechanics a lot but wondered if there are any supplements available for oracle rules or similar to help with running a solo character.

Any suggestions?

Step 1: Be Grandma

Step 2: Store your sewing kit, I mean thieves tools/disguise kit, in THAT cookie tin (you know the one)

Step 3: Profit.

I oopsed into a quite strong thrown weapon character a few years ago when I played pathfinder 2 for the first time and I’m wanting to play again. I want to share my character idea, to both get feedback before I play again and showcase a build that a lot of other people seem to struggle to make. I haven’t played since that first weekend 2 years ago, so I’m probably going to butcher some game mechanics, please correct me.

I played this character at level 1, 2 and ~5ish, over the course of 4-5 one shots in mostly PFS play (the level 5 was outside PFS, but basically followed all the same rules).

A tool for every job, 10 steps ahead of the enemies.

Mastermind Rogue, Alchemist Dedication (Grandma Elf), Quick Draw, (more alchemy at level 4)

Combat: Identify enemy weakness via Recall Knowledge, throw the thing that hits that weakness. Recall knowledge also makes enemies off-guard, one of the only ways to get that juicy effective +2 to hit on thrown weapons! (off guard). As a player who doesn't have any player knowledge of weaknesses in PF2, this was SUPER NICE!

Alchemist dedication gives so many additional options. Have a couple permanent bombs (gold cost) in a mundane (not throwers) bandolier, and a couple daily bombs from level 4 alchemist dedication. Now you can hit: Fire/Lightning/Cold/Splash weaknesses with those bombs from 1 action, Spam Splash/Acid weaknesses with Quick Alchemy if needed along with a few more bombs that cost 2 actions.

• I'm aware Investigator + alchemy stuff exists. Math/action economy didn't add up when I looked at it. Less skill monkey, less recall knowledge, no ranged off-guard.

For your bread and butter turns, you can pick Slashing/Bludgening/Piercing thrown (from your Throwers Bandolier at level 4+), via Throwing Hammers, Star knives, darts, and apparently Shurikens (I didn’t use them, but internet said they are negligible bulk, woohoo).

• You can also get COLD IRON thrown weapons, along with similar weakness targeting things! hit ALL the weaknesses! (this might have been why I delayed throwers bandolier, dunno)

• Note: You’re not in a rush to get a thrower’s Bandolier, since getting a striking rune on weapons that only do 1d4 damage. Use your early gold to ensure more bombs. Most of your damage is coming from Sneak Attack and hitting weaknesses. Bombs will do sneak attack damage to the main target they hit. Their splash damage does not apply precision damage.

• Bombs/potions can’t go in a thrower’s bandolier, place them in a mundane bandolier

Don't be afraid to flank in melee, as it's guranteed off-guard vs. a -chance- of failing. It's roughly the same action economy (stride into position vs. stand and recall knowledge). You can get extra health potions via alchemy, so spending some (but not all) time in melee might take some pressure off your tank. You still have GREAT AC due to high Dex + (possibly) nimble dodge. Just remember, flanking Off-guard applies only to melee attacks so no bombs (thanks Owlbear137!)

Quickdraw works with loaded slings

At level 2+ store a couple 6+ loaded slings in a mundane bandolier. With Quick draw, you can one action draw and fire a loaded sling, then free action drop them, rather than reload. 1d6 damage is higher than your thrown weapons against enemies with no weaknesses to slashing/priercing, and the range increment is 50! 2.5 times farther than a starknife. Even though they won’t have the +1/striking from a throwers bandolier (they’re not a thrown weapon), having an instant-long range option is incredibly valuable, as you can get two shots of -instead- of striding into range to throw. You can leave slings behind for bulk reasons if you pick up loot in the dungeon, as they don’t have a cost to replace.

Thanks to Nimble Elf, we have 35 speed, allowing us to get in position to throw easily, or occasionally flank and be in melee. Speed keeps us much more safe and allows us to get safely into positions that provide flanking. If I’m first to act in combat, I don’t usually charge in, I recall knowledge and quick draw slings (due to extra range), firing two shots from behind the tank/beefcake.

Roleplay:

I am a skill monkey, everything but performance is trained so I have mechanically impactful roleplay options. And I’m grandma. 10/10 floppy hats and ginger snaps. Playing an old person with low charisma (aka gives zero fucks) that -does- actually know better than you is fun af. I roleplay that I -was- an adventurer… 500 years ago, and I’m basically remembering more as I level up, as the past couple hundred years I’ve been… doing non-adventuring stuff. * On level up I get skill feat “Lore ____”? Yeah, my character pulled out a text book and read up on the subject. Side note, she wrote that textbook 400 years ago, after her first retirement from adventuring.

Skills:

Every single skill feat is “Additional Lore.” This allows you to get automatic scaling on more specific information, making your Recall Knowledge checks more impactful (Specific lore lowers the check DC compared to using something like "religion", Additional lore also auto-ranks up "At 3rd, 7th, and 15th levels, you gain an additional skill increase you can apply only to the chosen Lore subcategory".)

I had: Undead Lore, First World Lore, Hell Lore, PFS Lore, Outer Rifts Lore, and basically was just rotating through all the planes with lore if I was in a more dedicated campaign, I’d get lore related to it. I then had Expert in Society to try to get better checks on more mundane enemies, and would eventually get expert etc. on broader topics like nature/religion etc.

Attributes: +0 Str +4 Dex +0 Con +3 Int +2 Wis +0 Charisma.

I tested +4 int a level 1, but with all the +lore, it was okay to drop it to just +3. Damage from Strength is irrelevant but I was running into issues with being able to carry all this bulk, due to so many potions. Seriously considered picking up Hefty Hauler until I get +1 strength at level 4. I think I dropped/sold my rapier for bulk reasons. Low Con has been survivable so far, due to being able to avoid melee. Plus, I’m grandma. Ye-old bones or something (even though elves don’t really age like humans)

Past level 2 ideas:

Skill feats = additional Lore, as it auto-scales with player level. Throwers bandolier a level or two late, since buffing 1d4 damage is irrelevant (the +1 to hit is nice). Level 4 Improved Alchemy for more GOOD bombs a day, that only cost 1 action (no quick alchemy tax)

5/6/7, I’m unsure what to get Level 5 Ancestry feat: Free Heart?, something with more lore? Dunno. Level 6: Analyze Weakness? Level 7: Some useful

Level 8 is a no-brainer. Advanced Concoction (Alchemy Dedication)->Efficient Alchemy (Level 4 Alchemist Feat) This should override the hard limit of “4” advanced alchemy products per daily preparation and replace it with 6+ INT, or 10-11 FREE bombs/potions per day.

Level 10: Dunno Level 12: Maybe Alchemical Power, to make all my bombs scale proper.

If I do find a good group to play with, I’ll have time to figure out later levels for sure.

So Reddit, here’s what I ask of you:

Give me your BEST grandma story, even if it’s unrelated to Pathfinder. I need more roleplaying ideas. Oh, and suggestions and/edits to the build would be great.

So I'm looking into building a Dwarf Sparkling Targe Magus, with the theme "you can't ignore me due to the high damage I'm doing, but you can't kill me cause Shield Block." I want the character to have high Int due to character backstory. Another reason is that I think Spellstriking with saving throw spells shouldn't be a bad thing either — even if the Strike misses, you still get some guaranteed damage, or even better, a debuff. Based on that, I'm still not sure about the ability split:

• 3 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 1 / -1 — with Dwarf I can go this route and get better Fort and Will saves which fits the theme, but I'll be behind on Striking, which is the main activity I'm planning to be doing.
• 4 / 1 / 1 / 3 / 0 / 0 — or I use the standard ability spread.
• 4 / 1 / 2 / 2 / 1 / -1 — or should I just go this and accept that +2 Int isn't too bad?

What do you think? How bad would it be to not have maxxed out Str right from the start? If it helps, we're going to play with Gradual Ability Boosts, but key ability score can only be raises on lvl 5/10/15/20.

EDIT: We are going to play levels from 1 to 20.

EDIT 2: thanks for all the answers, I think the problem highlighted quite clearly - I need to have decent Con to stay alive, I want to have high Int as I said, and it's very beneficial for Magus to have high Str. The problem is that it's not achievable with Dwarf. So to clarify the chain of thoughts a bit - what if I treat Spellstrike as action compression feature often and use saving throws spells. Essentially, that's what it is - using Spellstrike I can cast Slow or Thunderstrike with one action (let's ignore recharge for now). Then it's ok to miss a Strike here and there, cause I'm going to do some damage / debuff anyway.

Not sure if others feel this way, and maybe it will make more sense once I see the full book. But the Necromancer feels like it makes more sense as a charisma or wisdom caster. Using your sheer willpower or force of personality to command thrills and bend death to your whims

If i had to pick I'd pick wisdom as the game doesn't have a wisdom based occult caster yet so its a niche not yet filled.

How would the ranger warden spell Keen Smell and the foil senses skill feat interact? A few days ago during session my party was ambushed by some enemy assassins, and the party ranger used hunt prey on the boss assassin and casted Keen Smell. The spell gives imprecise scent and specifically states the hunted prey cannot be undetected while within the scent's range. But the boss assassin had the foil senses skill feat, which means he's always taking special precautions against special senses. The players and the dm were both confused on this interaction. RAW would the boss still only be hidden or would the boss become undetected if he successfully hid then snuck even in the scent range?

Hi all!

On the advice I got from this sub, my group has been dungeon delving through Abomination Vaults, and it was fantastic advice we're absolutely loving it so far.

We're about to run the Otari Graveyard encounter, and I'm thinking about completely redesigning it to make it feel like a much bigger, more memorable event.

The main reason is that my party is level 3 instead of level 2, so they'll probably steamroll the encounter as written. But if I'm being honest, I also just enjoy building cool set-piece encounters, and I'd love to turn this into a major battle even if it ends up taking more than one session.

The Foundry map already includes:

• 3 Zombie Shamblers
• 5 Graveyard Skeletons
• 4 Otari Guards
• The Scalathrax

My first question is: what other undead would you swap in or add to make the fight more interesting than just waves of generic zombies and skeletons? I'm looking for creatures with fun mechanics, interesting abilities, or memorable battlefield interactions.

Second, what story elements or encounter mechanics would you add to make this battle really stand out? Environmental hazards, objectives, reinforcements, haunted graves, rituals, waves of enemies I'm open to pretty much anything.

Finally, I'd like to change how the Otari Guards are portrayed. In the book, they're frightened and quick to flee. Instead, I want them to stand their ground and fight with real courage, fulfilling their duty even if it costs them their lives. Mechanically, they'll help absorb some of the pressure from the PCs, but narratively I think it would make for a much more emotional and heroic scene.

Has anyone redesigned this encounter before or have ideas that worked well in their own games? I'd love to hear any suggestions or inspiration. Thanks in advance!

As the title says.

I plan to grab either the Rogue Archetype or the Beastmaster Archetype. Ancestry Paragon and Free archetype variant rules. Kingmaker campaign.

Got tapped to run TotT last minute, starting like next week. Super excited. Could someone tell me what Holds are most important to the AP?

I'll be reading the books before we start obviously but info from anyone who has played it will save me a lot of time.

I'm fairly new to Pf2e and have 3 players who are totally new to TTRPGs (other than Beginner Box). After discussing a few potential APs with them they asked me to run SoT, mainly because they liked the magic-school theme and wanted an RP-heavy AP.

They've built a Fighter, Ranger, and Kineticist. Nobody is trained in Arcana, Crafting, Occultism, or Religion, and the only player trained in Diplomacy & Deception is considering changing their build to dump CHA. No one has any innate spellcasting (though of course they can get Druid or Wizard Free Archetype from Level 2).

Are they going to be okay? Not sure if it'll be an issue or if I'm worrying for nothing. :')

If it's leaving too large a gap, then I'm considering:

1. Ask them to reconsider their classes (don't really want to do this obviously)
2. Have some NPC students follow them around when I think it's necessary to help them out with skill checks (and combat if necessary?)
3. Add a GMPC to their cohort to basically be a buff-bot and cover some of the skill gaps
4. Run it as is and believe in my party :D

What do you suggest?

This question was only proposed when the classes of Guardian and Commander first came out. Now that it's been a while, I'm actually working on a commander and I was curious what you guys might suggest for a good free archetype now that you have had some time to play.

Current thoughts are:

1. Archer (for ranged)

2. Investigator

3. Alchemist

4. Rogue (with finesse weapons)

5. Maybe inventor?

Curious to hear what anyone has tried from experience.

I'm soon to join a Pf2/Sf2 crossover campaign and wondering what best rounds out the party. So far we have a Maestro Bard, Guardian, Cloistered Cleric, Thief Rogue, Sparkling Targe Magus, Analyst Witchwarper, and Sniper Operative. On a typical week one or two players will be absent but the DM's brother playing the bard is always there and the guardian and cleric are usually present too.

We are level 4 right now, playing free archetype if that matters. I don't remember everyone's archetypes.