Pathfinder 2e General Discussion

I've been looking between fighters, rangers, monks, and magus for long range builds, and each of them have their own perks and flavors that are fun and varied.

So what is your favorite setup for a bow user?

I should probably preface this with that I haven't actually had a chance to play the game yet. I'm just looking at the materials and trying to learn for now. Not to mention, it doesn't really impact my character-designing decisions too much, but the more I think about it the more odd it is.

It being a background instead of a heritage notwithstanding, the only reason I could think of for it not making you undead(or at least having the option) was balance concerns regarding an undead player character. I mean, obviously, right? But...then I remember you can just literally play as a skeleton.
So...what's up with that? Am I the weird one here?

In other words, what's an official rule or interaction between different rules in Pathfinder 2e that you think is dumb?

I'll preface this by saying I'm a very new GM, so I'm fairly sure I made the wrong ruling here, but as the saying goes, the best ruling is the one that keeps the game going. I was running the first session of Abomination Vaults last weekend and something came up that I'm not sure how to handle RAW.

Basically, a PC wanted to use the Lie activity in order to talk their way out of a fight. They were fighting a group of Mitflits, and had already used Recall Knowledge to know that Mitflits are easy to manipulate. The PC speaks Undercommon, and they are a Bard, but they want their character to be friendly and therefore didn't like the idea of using Demoralize or Coerce. They instead tried to use the Lie activity. They told one of the Mitflits that the party was sent by their boss, and therefore they should let them go. They rolled a critical success on the Lie. Now I needed to decide what to do with that.

This was a weird situation, because the rules don't really say what lying can accomplish. All it says is that the target believes the lie. Given that the combat had already started, and the PCs had already attacked some of the Mitflits with lethal attacks, it seemed impossible to me that this Mitflit would actually stop fighting (ie. go from hostile to unfriendly), even if he believed the lie. The lie was convincing in terms of how it was worded, but the situation in which it was spoken made it kinda unbelievable. But then again, Mitflits are supernaturally easy to manipulate and bully. Ultimately I ruled that the targeted Mitflit would become Frightened 1, as though the Bard had succeeded on a Demoralize. My reasoning being that the Mitflit believes the lie, but also believes he should continue fighting the PCs. This cognitive dissonance in his mind shocked him and distracted him from the fight at hand.

I'm curious if any GMs out there have any tips on what the best way to handle this would have been.

The TL;DR of the rule is:

The 6 classic ability scores are (allegedly) not well-balanced among themselves. So the attempt is to fix that by:

• Combine Strength and Constitution
• Split Dexterity into 2 (basically, Dexterity: the stuff with your hands; and Agility: the stuff with your feet and body)
• Charisma becomes the stat for Will saves, instead of Wisdom

In short, do you agree with the stated goal of the system? Whether or not you do, do you think these particular changes are a good way of addressing that goal?

Have you ever tried out this variant, how does it go in practice?

I'm struggling with overly confident players. Obviously, killing a PC is one way to make them think twice about the next time they pick a fight, but I don't want to resort to that if I don't have to. Is there a long term status condition or something I can subject them to that's good at making players averse to picking fights, even when they think they can win?

The PDF for the Remaster Core Preview is now available. Seems to mainly include stuff relating to things mentioned in Rage of Elements, including the text of several of the new or renamed spells.

There's a new rule on focus points that says "The maximum number of Focus Points in your pool is always equal to the number of focus spells you know" which seems very significant, though I've seen clarifications elsewhere saying that it's still gonna be capped at 3. The limit on refocusing to just once is gone, though.

Because you need to hold it in your hand which would invalidate most magus subclasses as they either need a free hand or hold a 2-handed weapon!

For Every Place the Train Went, A wagon is made, so it starts with your players entering a Wagon that looks like their City, Then as they move in it, they discover Fun universe you and your player like, Transforming the Travel episode in a Memorable One-Off where they live new things, and a small DM challenge, and when the players get out of th...

publication croisée depuis : https://lemmy.world/post/1892386

Behold, envision a figure of unparalleled greatness, a majestic legend whose name echoes through the ag- Ok I'm doing too much. So, Imagine the king is an absolute legend of a hero, and people think he's ruling over the land but he's been dead for 50 years and no one knows, and people create a Mythos about him, saying things he never actually did to want to look cool and say they saw him

Besides the obvious, like moving, Take Cover, Bon Mot, and Raise Shield, what are your favourite things to do with your third action?

Whether it's an option that can apply to a wide variety of characters or requires a very specific niche build.

These were previewed in this Roll for Combat video from two weeks ago.

Transcription:

Updated Rules

The rules in this book are fully updated to work with Player Core, GM Core, and Monster Core. If you're using the Core Rulebook, Bestiary, and other older books, please note the following changes. You can find a preview document with the full details at paizo.com/corepreview.

    Alignment has been removed. Followers of some deities can commit to being holy or unholy.

    Attribute modifiers function like ability modifiers. Ability scores have been removed.

    Components for spells and item activations are replaced with the relevant traits.

    Elemental scamps have replaced mephits.

    Genies have been reimagined to better match folklore. In this book are janns of all elements, jaathooms of air, jabalis of earth, ifrits of fire, and faydhaans of water. The ifrit geniekin are now known as naari. New genies of metal (zuhras) and wood (kizidhars) also make their debut.

    Languages of elemental planes have changed to Susarran (air), Petran (earth), Pyric (fire), and Thalassic (water).

    Off-guard was formerly known as flat-footed.

    Munsahirs have replaced azers (page 131).

    Planes include some new names (page 8).

    Reactive Strike functions like Attack of Opportunity, but with a more descriptive name.

    Spell rank replaced "spell level" for a clearer distinction from the level of characters and items.

    Spell schools are no longer a part of the game, though illusions still follow special rules.

    Vitality and void replace positive and negative traits and damage.

    Wish is now a ritual, not a 10th-level spell.

Hi,

The other night one of my players used their magical crafting to (successfully) transfer a striking rune from one weapon to another.

The time it takes is 1 day according to the rules.

I was wondering if there are any feats to reduce the time required for this?

There was a thread with the same title on that other site, but it was 2 years ago and there are 6 new classes in the game since then along with all the other new content and changes in meta thinking. And like the OP of that thread, I have players new to Pathfinder (and others new to TTRPGs), some of whom have expressed an interest in those new classes.

So, how would you rank the classes in terms of difficulty of play, as well as in terms of how much work they take outside the session?

I've noticed that many archetypes with a level 2 dedication feat simply don't have any level 4 feats. How does this work with the free archetype variant rule? Do you just discard the bonus feat slot at level 4? Also, does playing with this variant rule essentially make it impossible to take a level 4 dedication feat at level 4?

To mimic what some did on reddit when the new books got out. Just got my copy of Ragoe of elements and I'll answer some questions that are in the book.

Got any questions on the lore update or the new class, hit me up!

• Art is fantastic
• kineticist class is as versatile as many hopped
• • light armor (maxing at master at 19)
• • class DC/attack master at 15 edit: legendary at 19

Not looking for Foundry support or any other VTT. I'm about to start GMing Pathfinder for the first time for players who are all completely new to Pathfinder. Some have D&D 5e experience, some are new to RPGs.

Some might be willing to pay, but I suspect most probably will not, so I'd definitely prefer ones that have at least the character building content from the CRB for free. Definitely open to paid recommendations too though, if they're really good.

Interested to hear what options are out there, and what quality of life features they have to walk players through creating a new character or to help while playing at the table.

As a GM I'd like to feel like I fully understand how to utilize my monsters tactically, but over the past couple months as I've been running the beginner box and now leading into Abomination Vaults, I feel as though I'm very often just making three strikes with an enemy or moving and striking twice unless the enemy has a very specific action in its statblock which is obviously better. Like a dragon is obviously supposed to use its breath weapon, but then I ran goblin warriors last night and I couldn't even figure out how to use their scurry reaction beneficially.

My group (usually in person) just got Foundry VTT for us to play while some people are out of town. I've always heard that Foundry has really good Pathfinder 2e support and it looks really good from the player side. However, I'm the GM. What are some good resources for getting our game up and running? Music, tokens, maps, tips and tricks? I'm brand new to the platform so starting from scratch.

I heard some rumors of people rabidly defending the power of familiars during the pf2e playtest, however, this diverges significantly from my own play experience.

What are the usual, concrete combat uses of a familiar, assuming using specific familiar abilities, and assuming no specific picks or combo?

There are many classes and ancestries in Pathfinder Second Edition to be a part of. Which combo would you be if you could both choose for yourself?

For class I would pick to be either the Druid class or the Summoner class. The Druid one is due to its collection of shapeshifting feats and spells as well as its generalized nature based magic. I like shapeshifting as a concept, and usually this class in TTRPGs is based around that as well as having some nature magic to spare. You ever heard that "the power of nature is impossible to resist" before? Though annoyingly in game the shapeshifting feats take more than all the slots if you want maximum shapeshifting capabilities and variety. The Summoner one is because I could have a sunflower monster, which I imagine would be something like Blossomon from Digimon, or a magical beast such as a stegosaurus, a giant skunk, or a giant vulture on my side. It would be cool to have a friend in the form of one of my favorite flowers or animals. Then on top of this I still have some magical power myself... not a lot of spell slots but I have some still.

For ancestry, if the ancestry feats were based on their abilities and habits, the human ancestry would be me because there's a feat they can learn that grants them an archetype for the other class I wanna be. That means I could have both advanced shapeshifting powers as well as the ability to summon a beast or plant monster friend. I would be of the beastkin heritage because then I could be like a humanoid skunk, vulture, whale, or stegosaurus too; it also means I have some deeper ability to have animal like abilities such as a larger body, refined scent and sight in darkness, and maybe the ability to fly or dig better.

If I ran on free ancestry rules the extra feats would likely go towards having a familiar and also an animal companion... which would make me kinda like a walking zoo. Maybe I can be that guy who's a skunk man that turns into various animals, has a sunflower monster that's his friend, and also has a vulture familiar and a skunk companion.

This is a dropped spell from a recent Paizo twitch stream. Thought the community here might want to see and comment if they haven't already.

I have a 4 player party that will be level 7, intended level of this boss is 10. I have a fighter, gunslinger, magus, and monk.

I haven't been able to find a witch npc, so I created it using pc rules as the gmg suggests. He has an ac of 28 and 118 hp.

Does this seem too low? My fighter could crit and potentially take him halfway down in one hit.

Also, does anything on the spell list or feats/actions seem too strong?