Pathfinder 2e General Discussion
- www.humblebundle.com Humble RPG Bundle: Pathfinder Second Edition Bundle of the Dead by Paizo Inc.
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19990878
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Coming Soon: Pathfinder: The Dragon's Demand - Kickstarter
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19801235
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What class build would Phoenix Wright from Ace Attorney have?
Assuming his ancestry is human bc he's a human in the games, what would a defense attorney build be like?
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Clockwork(ish) boss fight help?
Hello friends,
I'm newish to 2e and realize I can't just throw shit at the wall and make stuff up like in 5e, so I'm looking for some help/inspiration for a boss monster.
The setup is that my players (4-5 at level 4, ABP, FA), are headed to the countryside to retrieve a clockwork core from an ancient golem (futuristic campaign). I, of course, want the golem to wake up and fight.
I'm thinking an extreme level fight, so he'd be +4 to their level, if I remember right. Creature lvl 8 ish. Probably giant or larger in size.
But I was hoping I could do it like the Mario Odyssey fight where the pyramid boss shoots his fists out, and have those be separate pools of HP for the players to try to destroy. One potentially holding a shield with a reaction to protect the core, while the other shoots out to fight?
Does anyone know how to handle this well? Or what links I should be checking out in the archives?
Thanks!
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Get everything you need to play Pathfinder 2E, including a physical edition of the Guns & Gears sourcebook! Pay what you want & help charity with your purchase.
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The Rules Lawyer covers the new Monster Core book
YouTube Video
Click to view this content.
What do you think of the changes? Are there any things you're looking forward to?
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Help with a player that likes the idea of being a caster, but not the mechanics
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/11298431
> I've been a DM for about 3 years, and have predominantly run one-shots and short campaigns in DnD5e and PF2e. I have a player who persistently builds primary caster based characters, but then won't do anything in combat but "I stab it with my dagger." They rarely use cantrips, and basically won't cast a leveled spell unless I suggest it immediately before their turn. They seem to enjoy playing despite the fact that they're far too squishy to be a front-line melee character and don't utilize most of their class features. I've talked with them explicitly about how their play style seems to be discordant with the kind of play they want to do, and that maybe next time they should try a paladin/champion or a fighter/rougue subclass with some minor casting. They agreed at the time that sounded like a good idea, but low and behold showed up to the next one-shot with a primary caster, and over 3 hours of play and 3 combats never cast a single spell, including a cantrip. > > I enjoy playing with this persons as a whole. They are engaged in the fiction, and are particularly engaged during exploration activities. They tell me they also find combat quite fun, and they are requesting I run a mega dungeon in the near future. > > As a general rule, I like to let people play how they have the most fun, but issues have arisen with this play style. Namely, all of my TPKs have been associated with this player charging a squishy character directly up to a significantly stronger villain and continuing to stab it with a dagger until they went down, significantly hindering the party in the action economy and resulting in a TPK. I feel I have to intentionally weaken all of my encounters to keep the party feasible in the face of such mechanically poor combat choices. > > What else can I do to help drive this individual towards melee builds, and/or help encourage them to change their play style to better suite the caster classes they choose?
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The Pathfinder 2E Abomination Vaults Humble Bundle
www.humblebundle.com Humble RPG Bundle: So You Wanna Try Out Pathfinder by Paizo EncoreWe’ve teamed up with Paizo for our newest bundle to help you get started in the Pathfinder 2nd Edition TTRPG, including the digital Beginner Box, core rulebook, Adventure Paths, and more.
Last year’s wildly successful humble bundle is back for an encore!
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Do new releases of the PF2E core books contain the corrections made in erratas?
I'm aware that initial releases of the core rulebooks contained some errors that might affect play, and that erratas have been released that correct these mistakes. However, do they fix these mistakes in the books themselves in later releases or versions? Or will I have to cross reference the erratas and make the changes myself in the book?
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Paizo Blog: Infinite Top Performers: August in Review!
Wednesday, September 27, 2023
Paizo Staff post on the top selling licensed "Infinite" products for August 2023.
> What is Pathfinder and Starfinder Infinite? > > Pathfinder and Starfinder Infinite is a program that allows you to create content (adventures and locations; monsters; character classes, archetypes, and backgrounds; fiction; etc.) based on Paizo’s intellectual property (IP), including Pathfinder’s Lost Omens campaign setting, and to make some money while you’re at it. Your work might even be recognized by the community and earn you an invitation into the Infinite Masters elite creator program.
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Classy Dragons and Kitsune of Golarion are on my short list for purchase. Starfinder - Planar Powers looks cool too but I will wait for Starfinder 2e before I get anymore Starfinder products.
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Player Core Preview: Spells and Spellcasting, Remastered
Pathfinder Lead Designer Logan Bonner further discusses changes to spells and spellcasters. The reasons behind the changes and what they hope to accomplish.
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Pathfinder Playtest: Halfway There!
Wednesday, September 20, 2023
Design Manager for the Pathfinder Rules & Lore team Michael Sayre posts about the upcoming Pathfinder War of Immortals (which he lead on) and the classes Animist and Exemplar (the first Rare class). He also discusses an apparition and a spell that will more than likely be left out of the book but deserves an honorable mention.
Hopefully I got the link working in this post. :D
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Let's Fix AID in Pathfinder 2e (Rules Lawyer)
YouTube Video
Click to view this content.
- The DC to aid is the same as the DC for the skill itself, by default. (With flexibility based on the specifics. E.g. if using Deception to Aid a strike, the DC might be the enemy's perception DC.)
- Instead of Crit success/Success/Fail/Crit fail being +2/+1/0/-1, it's +4/+2/+1/-1
Watch the video to see the logic Ronald uses to arrive at this.
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Paizo Blog: Find Your Path, Sept. 2023
Wednesday, September 20, 2023
An unamed staff member posts about new APs (Adventure Paths) and apparel. Also, Pathfinder: Gallowspire Survivors is in Early Access on Steam and 20% off right now (USD $5.59 instead of $6.99). It's a rogue-lite bullet-hell action RPG Pathfinder themed game with mixed reviews on Steam (52% positive at the moment.
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Paizo Blog: Player Core Preview: The Wizard, Remastered
Tuesday, September 19, 2023 Senior Designer James Case (he / him) goes over some of the thinking behind the removal of schools of magic from Pathfinder 2e and shares a new wizard feat.
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Should I be "mystifying" the items in the Abomination Vaults Foundry module?
I've never really run 2e before this except for the Beginner's Box, and because I worked that into Foundry myself I mystified all the items. But I see that the AV Foundry module doesn't mystify anything, which leads me to wonder if I should be making players identify items or not?
Obviously healing potions I don't, since they have encountered them enough to know what they are.
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If Pathfinder had a brand-specific term for "Gamemaster", what would it be?
A lot of RPGs use a specific term for their game to refer to the gamemaster of that game. D&D obviously has the Dungeon Master; the Storytelling system (used by Vampire: The Masquerade) has the Storyteller; Call of Cthulhu has the Keeper.
If Pathfinder was going to have its own unique term rather than using the generic Gamemaster, what should it be?
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What rules/abilities impose a flat check before you can do something?
I can think of grabbed, hidden, undetected, and concealed, and of course recovery checks when you're dying, with its weird rule where it's a flat check but not a set DC.
What else calls for a flat check?
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Paizo stream in ~1hr showcasing the two new classes.
> We've got a busy week here at Paizo. Come to twitch.tv/officialpaizo on Thursday, Aug 31st at 4 p.m. Pacific for a special livestream to kickstart our Pathfinder Playtest. Join Michael Sayre and James Case as they talk about the design concepts behind our two new classes!
I have no idea what they would even be at this point, I've kind of got every class I want. They did show off the gorgeous new cards in a very recent blogpost though, maybe a harrower of some kind? I'd be super suprised to see the original version of the Medium that uses harrow legends instead of mythic legends.
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How do you decide what treasure to give players?
The CRB has recommendations for number and level of permanent items by level, but how do you actually select what these are?
It recommends that in place of 1st-level items, giving out mundane stuff including weapons & armour, so would that be things like giving a shortbow user a composite shortbow? Other than composite bows (and full plate, which is outside the 10–20 gp price range it lists anyway), won't characters usually have started with all the mundane equipment they want?
What other options make sense to give low-level characters?
And as you level up to higher levels, are the bread-and-butter permanent items going to be runes for them to place on their weapons & armour? How do you decide what to give and how to balance the "necessary for balance" with "fun flavourful stuff"?
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Is picking a lock harder than it should be?
A level 5 rogue will quite probably have a thievery dc of 13, if they invest in it and max dex. The average lock has a dc of 25 and requires 4 successes. It takes a roll of 12 or better to have a single success, and will average about 9 rolls to rack up those 4 successes. With 9 rolls wherein you crit fail on a 2 or lower, the likelihood of breaking a pick is ~61%.
Should a level 5 rogue take a minute to open the average lock, and more likely than not break a pick in the process?
And let's look at a good Lock: DC 30, requiring 5 successes. The level 5 rogue will only succeed on a 17, meaning it will take on average 20 attempts to get those 5 successes. On one attempt in a thousand our Lvl 5 rogue will open this lock before breaking a pick, and will typically break 3 in the process.
Am I missing something?
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Any Excel users know of a formula to generate a list of dN numbers?
To save time running a game I thought it might be handy to have a pre-generated list of die rolls to use during encounters. A spreadsheet like Excel seems to be an ideal place to do this, but my knowledge of this type of app is sorely lacking in just how to do this.
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(Pathfinder Society) Questions about the druid's Wild Shape + Polymorph
Please note the PFS tag. This needs to be a Rules As Written (RAW) discussion.
When a Druid uses Wild Shape they're using Polymorph to change, let's say into an Animal Form as an example.
First off Mark Seifter has previously confirmed in a How It's Played interview that you can use Handwraps of Mighty Blows to determine (from Wild Shape), "If your unarmed attack bonus is higher, you can use it instead." (With the caveat that it can't be the same, but must be at least 1 point higher than the battle form's attack modifier.)
The Polymorph traits states, "If you take on a battle form with a polymorph spell, the special statistics can be adjusted only by circumstance bonuses, status bonuses, and penalties. […] Your gear is absorbed into you; the constant abilities of your gear still function, but you can't activate any items." (Emphasis is mine.)
Please take a moment to look at Animal Form and note what's covered under "statistics" (the first bullet list), and what's listed under "specific abilities" (the second bullet list).
So that seems very clear that even if Handwraps allows you to use your unarmed attack bonus, its Item Bonus won't apply. But I have a few questions about other things:
- What about feats, like Fleet (+5 to your base speed)?
- What about Runes, like Striking or Crushing?
- What about magic items, like Goggle of Night (which grant the sense Darkvision)? (And remembering that magic items change size to fit the wearer.)
- (Plus things I'm sure I've not considered, so please mention them if applicable!)
To me it seems that:
- The "statistics" mentioned: AC, Temp. HP, Senses, Listed Strikes*, and Athletics* (*Both have a specifically mentioned override if your own is higher) cannot be changed unless it's by a Circumstance and/or Status Bonus, or a Penalty, since these are specifically called out. But,
- The "specific abilities" mentioned: Speed, Strikes, Damage can be changed since these are not specifically called out.
Does that sound right?
I just rebuild a 5th level character as a Wild Shape Druid and woo boy this stuff is a lot to wrap your head around. Thanks in advance for sharing your experience and insight on this matter!
2023-08-27 Update: I've found a Paizo forum post by Michael Sayre (Design Manager) about how to handle Battle Forms (https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43e5b?About-official-clarifications-erratas-and-FAQS#44):
"Battle forms? Is the number you're looking at granted to you by the spell? Then it can only be affected by circumstance bonuses, status bonuses, and penalties. It doesn't matter what the thing you're trying to add is, only that it's not one of those things. Is it a number you got from somewhere else, like your normal AC or attack modifier? Then it can be affected by the things that normally affect those statistics, including item bonuses from handwraps of mighty blows and whatever other effects you have that normally change that number or are called out in the effect that let you take on the form. Half the confusion on this front is specifically because Mark gave an "unofficial" answer outside of the FAQ and errata process that ended up being thrown around to muddy the waters, which is exactly why official answers like that are kept to FAQ and errata releases by policy."
So that clears up a lot of the questions I had about Battle Forms, and u/[email protected] was correct in that everything listed is a "special statistic" as far as what can be changed.
However the thing you need to ask your GM about is anything (like a Fire Rune) that adds "additional damage" as that's not an official game term.
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Are ranged weapons just worse than melee?
I'm GMing for a group where everyone (including myself) is entirely new to Pathfinder. We had our session 0 recently followed by a quick practice combat. The thing I noticed from that, plus a little theory crafting of building a low level character myself, is that people using ranged combat felt very underwhelming compared to melee weapon users.
- They couldn't add any modifier to damage
- They had far fewer feats upgrading them (particularly compared to dual wielders)
- They had fewer "third action" options
- Less ability to help out allies with things like flanking
- Can't opportunity attack
Sure, for all that they have the advantage of being safer from getting damaged. But it didn't really feel like a worthwhile trade-off. Does this get better as you level up? Is it just something caused by inexperience? What options can/should you take to make ranged combat feel more interesting and valuable?
For context, my party had a rogue and a ranged fighter as ranged users, as well as a barbarian and a magus in melee, and a druid and sorcerer as casters.
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Pathfinder 2e encounter builder
This is an encounter builder a friend of my and me developed as one of their pet projects.
Check it out if you are looking for some tools.
Also it's open source, if you want to contribute and make it better.
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Question about non-magic healing
One of my players is an investigator who has taken the secular medic background. He is enjoying his character, but his one point of problem is that he doesn't have a way to use his intelligence or Lore: Anatomy to roll for treat wounds or battlefield medicine.
I understand the math in PF2e is very tight, so how 'breaking' would it be to give him the chance to take a homebrew feat that is basically the Crystal Healing feat but for Lore: Anatomy or Lore: Surgery? I'm thinking I would call it "Surgical Training"
Thoughts? Am I missing a feat that already does this? Please let me know!
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What god do you think will die?
At GenCon they announced that one of the core deities was going to die. What deity do you think it will be and why? Please try to avoid spoilers in your explanation.
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How does the maths work out with Agile attacks?
Basically wondering if someone else has already done the calculations to work out when a lower damage attack with the Agile trait is better than a higher damage attack without it. Is there a good rule of thumb here?
The specific scenario I'm looking at is one of my players' Badger animal companions, which can take 2 actions. If it's in a situation where both those actions are going to be attacks, is it better to bite twice (1d8 without Agile) or bite and then claw\* (1d6 with Agile). I am mainly wondering about the general rule of thumb though, if there is one.
\* I'm assuming my reading on the rules here is right. If the first attack is not Agile, but the second one is, that's still only the -4 penalty, right?
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What are some good "sticky" monsters/npc's to use as frontliners?
I have a group that is very mobile and I want to start challenging them more/give the enemy caster a turn or two to get cooking. What are some good enemy frontliners? I realize I could just have the frontliners they run past just do the same thing and go after the casters, but that feels a bit chaotics and I like me a nice setpiece now and then.
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Paizo Gencon 2023 Sale - 23% off
If you're looking to add to any of your Pathfinder 2e or Starfinder products, there's a sale going on during Gencon at the Paizo store.
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Starfinder Second Edition announced! Compatible with Pathfinder 2e Remastered and all future Pathfinder 2e content!
- First playtest packet available now at: https://paizo.com/starfinderplaytest
- Initial playtest packet available has a Laser Wolf enemy with a sidebar on how to tie it into Pathfinder 2e now! I've always thought Pathfinder needed more Laser Wolves, and now my dream is real.
- Full playtest starts August 2024
I think this also signals there's still a long future of Pathfinder 2e ahead of us. I can't wait to see how Paizo ties the universes together more.
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Links to common tools in sidebar?
Do we want to include links to common tools/websites in the Sidebar? I was thinking AoN, PF2Easy, Pathbuilder and maybe PF2Tools?
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Paizo announces two new classes are coming later this year
They have not announced what those two classes are. Speculate below.
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What is your favorite archer build?
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?
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Silly noob question, but...like, why aren't revenants undead?
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?
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When it comes to rules, what makes you say "I recognize that the council has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it"?
In other words, what's an official rule or interaction between different rules in Pathfinder 2e that you think is dumb?
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Question about the Lie activity in combat
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.