r/Pathfinder2e

For example Necromancers: these are pretty universally evil and their abilities are pretty disturbing so in many homebrew campaigns I imagine it would be hard to make them work.

Or maybe you have a specific combo in mind, but it requires multiple players cooperating heavily.

Or it's just way too high level. Or the PC is just evil. You get the idea.

Edit: I know that I can play a necromancer in the official setting even if it still has problems IMO. But what about any other high fantasy, be it an established setting or a homebrew one?

Focus spells comes in all forms and sizes, some are meant to lessen the burden on your spell slots, providing a less powerful option than at spell lvl equivlent at a per encounter prize. For exampel, Elemental blast is a one level lower dmg equivlent to fireball. Then there are some that simply make your spells better, such as ancestral memory and everything in between.

Which class do you find has the best selection of focus spells, either due to the power of thier focus spells or the amount. Also, what do you consider to be the best focus spell in the game

So I've been thinking about making an Anadi character (Grapple and trip on an unarmed fangs attack seems really fun to use with a 2 handed melee weapon) but... Do they actually just not get a level 17 ancestry feat? How does that even happen? I know I can just take a lower levelled feat instead, but it just seems bizarre that they were published like this.

These two rackets really love the Spirit Warrior archetype. They both seem rather effective, but what differences in tactics and strategy can be expected between Ruffian Racket and Thief Racket?

Hi all,

I have a player who has made a Minotaur Champion who seems to be trying to combine sword-and-board, having reach, and using Double Slice. They seem to want to be able to wield a melee weapon in one hand, a shield in the other, whilst also being able to use a melee weapon and their horns as a Double Slice attack. Also using Defensive Advance as another feat. All with reach.

Is this possible or are we confusing 1e rules with 2e rules? I don't seem to be able to find a comprehensive "yes" or "no" on this.

Any and all assistance given is greatly appreciated.

~M@

I'm skimming through Secrets of the Unlit Star and worried about the two severe encounters on the second floor.

The first one is >!B7. String Slimes x 2 (each one at PL+1). When a slime splits, it creates 2 slimes with the same offensive threat. Slashing damage is very common so a new party who doesn't know slime abilities can easily trigger one or both slimes to split and turn this into extreme+!<

The second one is in >!B8. Shadow Twigjacks x 2 (each PL+1). They start off hidden trying to ambush the players, which can easily lead to a first round of crits if they successfully hide and anyone is off-guard.!<

I'm thinking I should nerf these by applying the weak template. Has anyone already run this adventure and have thoughts on these two fights?

Background: First time I am running a campaign. The players are about to encounter a ruffian gang of as-of-now-unkown affiliation, who have cursed a Naiad Queen and corrupted the natural order of a major river she is the warden of. They are trying to obtain a magic item she guards, which they think can help them achieve their goals.

If the players defeat the gang, they can help the nymph queen recover her health and her domain. Since one of the players is a bard, and also picked the polymath muse at character creation without any backstory elements referring to a specific muse (he just wanted to steal with phantasmal minion), this could be an opportunity for him to get a muse, showcase his performance art, and get some boons.

However, since the players are level 2 and the queen is level 7, I am worried about potential balance issues arising. The statblock doesn't give info on what levels the blessing is appropriate for, and it would be an asymmetrical buff.

The rules in the Monster Core say this:

Inspiration [three-actions] (emotion, mental, primal) The nymph queen inspires a single intelligent creature by giving that creature a token of her favor, typically a lock of her hair, though it can be some other significant object as well. As long as the creature carries her token and remains in good standing with her, the creature gains a +1 status bonus to all Crafting checks, Performance checks, and Will saves.
If the nymph grants her token to a bard, and she's the bard's muse, the queen chooses one additional benefit granted by her token: a +1 status bonus to all Lore checks, a +2 status bonus to Performance checks when determining the effects of compositions, a +4 status bonus to untrained skill checks, or a +2 status bonus to Will saves against fey.

The triple buff of crafting, performance and will seems strong because of the variety, and cannot be numerically nerfed. I guess the question here would be whether to give this out as-is, or maybe remove one or two of the buffs.

For the second part with the chosen buff, the fey will not be a big thing in this campaign, and I don't see the Lores coming up in the campaign all that much, since those are very specific and not very visible in their Pathbuilder menus. On the other hand the +4 to untrained checks would be impactful and useful, but may lead to some get-out-of-jail-free moments for the bard, or tread on another player's secondary/tertiary skill investments. The composition performance check is the most logical one, but that one is also questionable since it is a +2 right off the bat.

Has anyone encountered something similar? What would be the best course of action as a GM?

TLDR: GMs with better sense for the game math, should I tweak this (potentially permanent) level 7 buff for a level 2 character, and if so, how?

Edit: Forgot to mention that the bard does not have a very optimised build. He is playing a dwarf, and has a -1 to his charisma stat, meaning he had a +3 at level one.

Hey all. Been playing PF2e with my TTRPG group for the past couple months, just hit level 4, and as per the title, my character concept feels like it's stifling me mechanically.

My character is named Orm The Anchor (pronounced D'Anchor), because he woke up on a beach with no memories (or pants), with a tattoo on his arm that says "Orm" and an anchor tied to his back. He's a Planehopper Jotunborn barbarian path of the giants, the stat distribution is Str +4, Dex +1, Con +2, Wis +2, Cha and Int +0.

Now onto the issue:

Orm fights with the Anchor, which is a reskinned Large size Maul. Seeing as how he's named after it, I can't *not* fight with it. But it feels like anything I wanna do, I have to release grip on it, and then I can never land an attack.

Drinking a potion? Free action release grip, action draw, action drink, action re-grip, if I don't have to move or do anything else that turn.

We were fighting some fire enemies so I wanted to trigger a bottled rain, my DM let me trigger as 1 action without forcing me to draw it, but still I have to release grip.

Commited my whole turn to wrestling a drake? Awesome, but now my friend with a commander dedication can't use Strike Hard on me because I can only punch.

In a perfect situation where I'm already gripping the anchor and there's an enemy right next to me? I can do a 2 action attack (like power strike/something from mauler/Using the Trollhound Pick effect that my DM let me transfer to the anchor), but I don't know what to do with my 3rd action because my to-hit isn't good enough to overcome MAP for another swing, I didn't build into intimidation/feint because I don't have CHA, and I can't trip/grab/whatever because I don't have a free hand. Maul can only shove.

Now it's not like I'm useless in combat - Holding down a drake for my allies, or hitting a kelpie with a 50 damage crit with a lounge chair is certainly fun, but I still feel like I'm constantly wasting turns on re-gripping the anchor.

I have talked to my DM, and we have thought of some solutions, including:

-Paying some gold to modify the anchor into counting as a dwarven waraxe instead of a maul

-Buying Large size brass knuckles so I can punch hard on turns when I can't grip the anchor

-Taking quick draw and the DM would allow it to count for regripping, but that's a 2 feat investment.

Has anyone else felt similar frustrations with 2 handed weapons? Are there any other suggestions you think might help mitigate?

Disclaimer, I am rather new to this system and have only been GM'ing games in Pathfinder for about a year and a half, so my game knowledge is not the greatest. I am learning more day by day though.

I started my longterm campaign about a year ago with the knowledge that as time goes on necromancy would become a large part of the campaign, and the large threats would all be necromancers of some variation, so I began looking into necromancy a couple months ago. As a hint to this upcoming revelation I gave my players a grimoire called, Instructions for lasting agony, which causes a new effect for any harmful necromancy spells cast through it. Now here's the kicker.

I couldnt find anything on Foundry, the VTT we use for every session, about what quantified as a "necromancy" spell. There just wasn't a tag for it, and no page listing all the spells. So of course I went to the good ol' archives and guess what? There was a page that included a handy tag for necromancy specifically. "Great!" I thought to myself, before diving into the page and slowly realizing the most glaring issue i have come across yet.

It was a MESS. Only 74 spells were listed as necromancy spells, which with my background in D&D seemed outrageously low considering this game has probably 3 or 4 times more spells in it. I had to take a step back and reevaluate the situation. "What makes a necromancy spell is probably different in this system" I thought to myself again, only to find out that I dont think there was any thought put behind what a necromancy spell is either. At least not on this page.

Heal is not a necromancy spell. Neither is Harm. Yet Healing Well and Soothing Spring are both considered necromancy spells. Also, spells that make ZERO sense are listed as necromancy spells, like Magic Stone, Steal Voice and even Cleansing Flame are all necromancy! Why is Magic Stone, a spell about throwing rocks real good, a necromancy spell?!

And finally there's the spells that SHOULD be necromancy spells, like Bind Undead, Rouse Skeletons and even SUMMON UNDEAD which are completely left out of the page. What is the point of a page of necromancy spells if you dont include the necromancy spells?!

Now I know the intention is probably that all of these spells are categorized properly SOMEWHERE out there, or they were intended to be necromancy spells but just got lost in the mix of the massive amount of content this game has. I dont think any of this is malicious or lazy, just unfortunately an afterthought. But then where am I supposed to find a credible definition of what a necromancy spell actually is? With so much content and books to sort through, how am I supposed to know how to run necromancy here?

I know the Necromancer class is coming out with the next major book, so i really hope this is something thats clarified with an errata on spellcasting, but until then how would you classify necromancy? What is and is not a necromancy spell?

https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=117

The page on Necromancy from AoN I am referencing here.

Hey folks. Couldn't find condition rings models for PF2e newer remix, so created some over the weekend. Sharing them freely with everyone. It's my first 3D model ever, so if you have feedback, I welcome it. Thanks!

https://preview.redd.it/64bykn883ibh1.jpg?width=1536&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0039a1a2943e7c660adb0efe7115b44ecc8397d

https://preview.redd.it/tfjdaz293ibh1.jpg?width=2042&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a15d65821970320e70fc78f26fce1bb979588b75

When Magic+ released (by Teams+), the big ticket item was Essence Casting, but I haven't seen much discussion about Aspect Summoning and Forms.

Aspects are basically a set of abilities and templates that you can combine to get the specific creature you want when using a battle form or summon. For summons, this means you don't have to reference the bestiary to find what you want to summon, though you don't gain access to the unique, signature abilities that you'd get out of the bestiary. For battle forms, this means you pick what template and abilities fit the creature you want to use, rather than the current MO of picking a specific animal from various similar options. The templates often grant unique actions themselves as well (which is something I felt was missing from a lot of battle forms in the base game), and then the abilities that you can choose add another layer.

However, there are a LOT of templates and abilities in the book--14 pages with 2 columns per page, with 3-5 options per summon/form spell. Reading it over is kinda intimidating.

I'm curious if anyone's tried it out and what their experience with it was like.

There are hundrers of threads, asking for items, that would suit a particular character, build or flavor. Most of the times you get your usual suspects: fundamental runes, skill/perception items and staves, with a cheeky "Second level wand of Tailwind" suggestion, quickly turning into a full-blow civil war over the balance of this wand and stepping on the heels of classes and abilities, that grant status bonuses to speed.

However, there are things that are just good to support the whole party, that are talked about much rarer. With battlecry, we received a whole category of "party items" in the form of banners (all uncommon/rare, because, god forbid, we have teamwork in our teamwork-based game!), but even aside from those, there are still few great ways to invest gold, that benefit the whole party.

What other items like those are there? Which, if any, did your party use, and how much did you enjoy them?

Right. I'm going to be running strength of thousands in about 2~ or so months on foundry VTT. Grabbed the first two PDFS. loaded them up into the PDF modules.. and... one doesn't work at all for SOT and the other doesn't load in half the content (the map images being the big one).

I'm on V14 of Foundry presently.. is there a PF2 PDF converter that works properly presently? something that's been updated? I HAD heard someone abandoned the old one they had been working on for years (seeing as most PF2 content is just officially on Foundry now).

Obviously the real answer is 'something mundane so if you're caught you can pretend to be a civilian' but in the case that you specifically wanted clothing to make you LESS likely to be seen. Without constantly having to swap it out less you have to carry too much extra junk, or waste spell-slots.

I have read Shinobi did exactly this; looking like peasants 99% of the time, and occasionally switching to something blue when sneaking at night where being seen period was a loss state. As despite our thinking of 'night sky=black' it actually has a bluish tint, particularly in the days before constant light pollution.

But.. does this logic still apply in a big city? If someone is skulking around Absalom somewhere they don't belong what would be the clothing colour of choice? Or would earthly tones that match the stone, and wood of the buildings make more sense? Or neither?

The reason I ask is I recently got art of my Psychic OC Ksenia. But she still needs a cannon general purpose 'outfit'. The character was devised as being part of the local guard/police force as an operative of sorts. While lawful as fuck she became an adventurer after revealing some corruption in their ranks. This got her 'promoted' for catching the wrong doers..... into useless positions that got her out of the WAY. Not being a fool, she realized this was a punishment NOT a promotion and was quick to 'retire from service'.

As she started out as a Urban stealth expert I feel like her default sneaking suit should fit that tone, with spells, and disguise kits for alternatives when they have time to plan, and resources to waste.

Hello Fellow Travelers

Ok so, as read the Alchemical Crossbow is just a normal crossbow with a device strapped on that allows you to insert a "bomb" and then coat your next 3 bolts in the bomb juice for extra damage during a short period of time. The cost of this is reducing the crossbow's range to 1/4 of standard, and obviously gold.

So my question, is there any reason the Alchemical Bomb Juice deceive shouldn't be treated as a weapon upgrade that can be applied to other crossbows?

Like would you allow a character in your party to build an Alchemical Heavy Repeating Crossbow? Or an Alchemical Sukgung?

Please and Thankyou