r/Pathfinder2e

What are some classes you've really found mechanically, functionally, and narratively interesting, vs. ones you've found lacking in those departments that you've played or tried?

For me, Necromancer is a stand-out hit. Thralls are a huge level of flexibility, and there are numerous directions you can take the class with various themes and roles. You have multiple ways to approach (literally, even) an enemy and many ways to harm them, with several focus spells enabling reflex saves. You can even tool your necromancer to be a healer pretty effectively, and commanding /summoning a thrall gives you a very useful third action to weave between spells.

Commander meanwhile felt a bit less engaging to me. Range issues with the banner, coupled with running short on actions to actually use commands and reposition made things a bit of a challenge and led to a lot of turns where it felt like you weren't living up to your potential or fantasy. While I had a similar problem with Runesmith, at least runesmith made up for it with reliability, given its abundance of save effects.

Honorable mention for a bland design for me has been what little I've played of the Slayer playtest. While power wise it felt okay, its current iteration felt kinda generic in its rotations, especially since a lot of the trophy reinforcements are mostly passive effects. I'm hoping it shapes up a bit more during the playtest and gets more specialty actions. I often found a hard time figuring out what to do with my relentless action, especially when I needed to hold the front line.

Pf2e was introduced to me about three years ago, and in that time I have been a DM and a player in more than a few APs. As a system I love it, it is perhaps one of my favorites and the biggest draw in for me is that there are few limitations when creating your character and while the rules can be pretty rigid at times I find that they have very little bearing over my creativity and imagination. Big win overall.

I have been a DM for a Abomination Vaults and Kingmaker campaign for nearly two years, and I have just started a Fists of the Ruby Phoenix AP for a group of friends.

I have been a player in Kingmaker, Rusthenge, Age of Ashes, and a few others. Unfortunately none of which have finished due to real life issues but I have experienced each of these adventure paths in varying amounts.

Now that you know a little more about my experience let's get into the issues.

Some classes feel like they lack synergy with the party in general. A friend of mind explained them as 'main character syndrome' classes and with my first hand experience I would tend to agree with his analysis.

My first real experience with this was when I was playing alongside an Exemplar in Kingmaker. There were other circumstances that may have colored my perception but overall it felt like the Exemplar was the main character. He trivialized most challenges, and far exceeded the performance of any of the other player classes.

As a player I tend to gravitate towards the more roleplay aspects of a ttrpg, but the Exemplar was absolutely a big numbers guy and enjoys finding ways to break the system. Often times combat would be over before the second round and it became obvious that the group would function fine if 2 or so people sat out of each combat and just let the Exemplar go brrrr. No hate towards him, he's overall a wonderful person and I would argue that there is nothing wrong with either our approaches to Pathfinder.

The Age of Ashes campaign I am in is going strong and we recently advanced to level 13. The group works together well, we rely on each other a lot and overall I feel it is balanced. Combat is challenging while not overly punishing and gives me enough wiggle room to attempt some of my more creative use of tactics. For reference the group consists of a Witch, Wizard, Cleric, and Guardian.

While the Kingmaker group is no longer a thing I feel like these two games are a night and day comparison and I am fully aware of what a group with good teamwork should look like.

My current dilemma is this; I have found myself in a group with two puppet Necromancers that have different grim fascinations. I play a Rogue and I am often left wondering what I am even doing there and am getting a similar main character vibe that I had way back when playing with the Exemplar. There are in-character issues with this group as well but I don't feel like it is immediately relevant. ^(Yes, the undead are the issue.)

How do people navigate groups like this? How would you find the coveted teamwork in a group where 2 of the players could theoretically handle the encounter on their own given enough time or prep? Maybe I am overestimating Necromancer but from what I have seen it feels a little bit over tuned. Please feel free to point out if I am wrong.

Edit: Big thanks to people with helpful insights and suggestions. I appreciate you. I realize some folks may think I am attacking their favorite class or something but I have tried to give a lot of grace here in acknowledging there could be other things at play and I refer to my Exemplar friend with fondness even though our playstyles differ. I'm just trying to figure out how to fit into a new party comp with two of nearly the exact same class. Honestly switching my character to a third puppeteer Necromancer instead of my Rogue comes to mind as it would be pretty funny.

Heyo all, I run an after school Tabletop Gaming club for 7th-12th graders. We decided this year to transition away from D&D 5e (2014) to Pathfinder 2e Remastered after looking at the decline in D&D’s quality over the last few years or so.

I’ve been playing and running games for the last 15 years, but PF2e is still relatively new to me. I’ve got the kids starting with the beginner’s box, but after we finish that, I’m hoping to have the kids GM for each other so I can fall back into an advisor role.

I know tabletops more broadly, but not quite the specific eccentricities of Pathfinder. What advice would you give to first time players and newbie GMs when it comes to pathfinder specifically? Easy mistakes, common misunderstandings, that sort of thing?

PS Sidenote: I kinda want to get some prewritten modules for the club for kids who want to try GMing something a bit more structured. Any recommendations are welcome

Hi everyone, I recently came up with an idea for reaper Necromancer who was a former Knights of Ozem whose entire squad was slaughtered by undead but gain the power to commune with his (now incorporeal) squadmates. His reasoning for being a necromancer was that he would be keeping the memories of his squad (who were quite close with him) alive and allow them to continue the fight against evil. Since he's based in Lastwall, I wanted him to be a worshipper of Iomadae but I wonder if this go against her anathema? The undead he summons would only be consensual former squadmates so no creation of unwilling undead, and they would be fighting a righteous cause against evildoers.

If Iomadae would not work, what good/natural god do you think would be a good pick? Please let me know and thank you in advance. (I have Nocticula in mind as the patron of exiles, since I doubt the Knights of Lastwall would welcome a necromancer among their rank)

Hi everyone. As the title suggests, I’m trying to build a Wolverine-style character using the Monk class, since it offers strong unarmed combat capabilities. I was really disappointed with the Ranger class—specifically how *Twin Takedown* requires a weapon in each hand and the discovery that unarmed strikes don't count as weapons. I saw a video by Time2Dice where they used the Changeling heritage and "Slag May" for unarmed attacks, which I thought was a brilliant idea.

To give you an idea of ​​the character concept: he’s an expert tracker with keen senses and high Survival stats; he’s an Elf with the Changeling heritage. The build is for Level 5 and uses the Gradual Ability Boost and Free Archetype variant rules.

As far as I'm aware, I haven't been able to dig up any discourse around this. There is a lot of specificity when it comes to the blinded condition and how it is handled in play, but my cursory google searched yielded no results on casting area spells or abilities while blinded. They don't have a target since they're blasting an entire area, and while that makes sense within the fiction, what I'm having trouble wrapping my head around is how accurate a caster is when they use an area spell? Are they still able to establish a point of origin even while blinded?

TLDR; How does one handle a spellcaster who uses for example a fireball spell while blinded?

Edit: Hey guys. Thanks for all the insight. I still feel like it bends the fiction a bit, but I'm settling over the Raw ruling of Blinded having no affect on area spells. It seems smoother to just let area spells simply work over trying to account for being blinded and trying to pinpoint a burst through perception checks or other actions. Thank you all for your responses!

The title is exactly my question! I am planning on running Kingmaker for Pathfinder2e soon, and I am curious to see how many players others have run for. I've heard that 4 is the sweet spot for all AP's, but I also have the possibility of a 5th who would like to join. I've heard all sorts of things about this adventure path difficulty-wise, from people who say it was too easy for their group to others that say it can get very challenging. I'd like to retain a level of challenge while not absolutely obliterating my party WITHOUT having to do many adjustments.

I'd like to hear from other GM's about how many players they ran with and if they found that number to be a good fit, too weak, or too strong. Thank you!

So for a backup character for my ongoing pf2e game I want to try the Runesmith because it sounds like a lot of fun. I did a lot of researching and decided to do a ranged runesmith given the party make up.

I would just like some critque / advice on how I did and if things work the way I think?

Like if I Tattoo Zohk on myself does that mean others can move towards me faster?

Should I pick different damage runes

Should my free archtype change? I am not sure what's better between Alchemist and Gunslinger or something else entirely

are there better feats I should be looking at? etc...

I'm not building for optimazation but I also don't want to run into problems later

I previously posted here asking for input of things Play by Post community would want in a Discord bot. I now have enough done to start sharing. If you are interested you can check out https://tablegoblin.com, which lists commands and has a link to the dedicated Discord for support or hop over to r/TableGoblin. The bot isn't available for general release quiet yet, but will be hopefully in the next week or two after the database backend gets the upgrade it needs. Anyone wanting to test it out is welcome to join discord and I can spin you up a campaign if you want to test being a GM, or I can add you to an existing one if you just want to test the player options. I hope to hear from some of you soon.

Current bot functionality

1. Chat controls to post as your character/eidolon/companion/familiar instead of yourself. GMs also have an option for a GM persona and NPCs.
2. pc::"It's a good day to die!" {strike}

gm::"You walk into a tavern and spy an eccentric gnome behind the counter"

npc::Golin::"You can't catch me!" {cast}

2. Campaign creation builds out a category with channels and unique roles to grant GMs and Members. Also provides campaign rule selection like free archetype, ancestry paragon, skills paragon, dual class, relaxed mount rules (no actions spent for pc mounting pc), hero point base of 10, and enforcement of the dedication requiring 2 additional feats before another dedication is taken. Want to limit uncommon and rare ancestries as a whole or partially, we got you covered.

3. Character builder, fully within Discord, along with a Level Up option.

4. Companion / Familiar / Eidolon builder

5. Encounter tracker for initiative, status effects and general combat options. Encounter's can be set to payout loot or not, and respect the treasure rules of PF2. Any remaining budget at level up reminds the GM so they can keep party on track or not, their choice.

6. Battle map (up to 5 stored at a time), can be grided or gridless but the bot asks the dimensions and builds a legend around the outside to identify the column/row. Flanking is automatic, terrain can be added for walls, rough terrain, greater rough terrain, and water. Working on hazards currently. Terrain and movement respect PF2s rules. Fog of war is shared amongst the party, line of sight matters.

7. Using the Table Goblin character builder, or importing from Pathbuilder, the character sheet is stored within the bot, a dedicated one is spun up for your companions as well. A character sheet is broken into section of Overview with stats, saves, AC, HP, companion names and aliases. Then Combat with strikes available to you and your companions. Spellbook where all spells are stored with indicators of how many spells per rank you have left for the day. Gear with all your equipment. And last for Companions with additional details of each companion you have.

8. All PF2 creatures, ancestries, heritages, items, spells, weapons, armor, classes, archetypes, feats, and skills are present (some feats might need bugs worked out still, there's a lot!).

9. Towns! Add a town to your campaign, give it's name, region and level. Want it generated for you? Sure thing, just leave the sections blank except for level. Shops are auto generated, with appropriate level inventory, includes a vendor and a plot hook the GM can see. Don't like the inventory? Restock it with a simple command.

10. Combat lets you select a target, roll for the hit or the save (creature auto roll saves, players can be prompted or auto rolled, your table your choice), and damage/healing rolled on a success.

Things still in the works

A. Area effect spell / hazard auto targeting

B. Starfinder 2e if enough interest is shown

C. Bug fixes and edge case features

TL;DR - New PF2 Discord Bot make life easy, join Table Goblin Discord here: https://discord.gg/CPBxmmJ8 (open for 1 week to 25 people)

Encouraged by an extremely kind email reply from Rachelle Willemsma, creator of the most recent iteration of the Pathfinder class infographic at https://willemsma.design/pathfinder/ , I created a website that will generate an infographic for new players, to give them an overview of all the classes for Pathfinder or Starfinder second edition. It has all currently released and playtest classes. You can add the pre-gens/iconics as graphics if you want, add your own custom ones, or leave them out. Lots of settings.

https://pf-sf-infographics.top/

Ok, but why?

The use case I envision is to get it printed and laminated at a print shop on like 24"x36" paper, and put it on a wall in a game shop. Or you can just print the "booklet" version on regular paper and bring it with your pregen stack.

Known issue: I'm not very familiar with a lot of the new classes, and especially the playtest classes. My characterization and summary of each class, and the ratings in terms of offense/defense/support/utility/difficulty may be way off. I'm actively looking for constructive input to make it better.

It may be easier for new players to glance at this graphic and pick a character that either looks appealing or has a strength they think they'd enjoy. If they like to deal damage, pick one with high offense. If they like to help the party, pick one with support. If they like to always have a useful skill out of combat, pick one with utility.

It can also help intermediate players select a character class when putting a table together. Have two barbarians, a fighter and a rogue, and not sure what to pick? You probably want someone with strong support/utility in the high magic ability category. Of course, veteran players know everything by heart, so.

Behind-the-scenes Info

The "GitHub Repository" link at the top will take you to the code. It is free and open source. This infographic is customizable and editable just by changing a few settings in the web application, or editing small configuration files.

Before publishing, I obtained email permission from the originator of the infographic idea to leverage her idea. If she had said no, I would have kept it private and never shared it with anyone except the tables I play at in person. But she was extremely gracious and supportive, and this would not have been possible without her hard work as inspiration.

I have no motivation to make a single cent off of this work, even if it were possible (and since this is leveraging Paizo Community Use content, I probably couldn't make any money off of it, legally, even if I wanted to). I am simply offering this for the benefit of the community. Use it or don't, it's all the same to me. :)