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KPC_Mammon posted:Didn't realize it was free archetype. PFS uses that houserule? I'm personally not a fan, but I know the thread loves it. People like to argue that it isn't a meaningful power increase and then min max the hell out of it while saying fighter is broken due to a +2. Something doesn't quite add up. Free Archetype's not broken because it's mostly horizontal power boosts, barring a few exceptions like fighter/barbarian. It gives you more stuff to do, but it generally doesn't make what you're best at that much better. (See: the earlier conversation about how stacking Ranger's two-weapon fighting feats and Dual-Weapon Warrior gives you a stupid amount of attacks under ideal circumstances, but in practice it's not worth the effort in actual play and you're better off doing something else. Dual-Weapon Warrior's tuned for classes that don't have dual wielding support naturally.) It doesn't bring it closer to 1e in terms of giving you a billion niche options for your white-room million-damage combo, but it does in terms of just giving you a lot of bits to stick together. Of course, that big complexity jump that a lot of players bounce off of is an underappreciated reason to make a curated list of archetypes that are available in your campaign for thematic reasons a la Strength of Thousands vs just throwing the floodgates open and letting them pick anything. So I get it.
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Oct 7, 2023 16:51
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Having seen a Fighter with free archetype Barbarian, an Inventor with FA Mauler, and a number of squishy classes with FA Champion or Sentinel that's exactly my point. It is a vertical power boost if you know what you are doing. If you don't optimize you get a lot less out of it.
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Oct 7, 2023 17:00
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PFS doesn't let you get the free archetype so you replace class slots with it. I was trying to say that familiar seems more lateral utility/roleplay than optimized damage stacking. Both are fun. Not having free archetype seems super limiting Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Oct 7, 2023 |
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Oct 7, 2023 17:30
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If you banned a handful of OP archetypes it would be a lot better IMO (Sentinel, Champion, Beastmaster are the big ones off the top of my head that easily provide a straight-up power increase)
Piell fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Oct 7, 2023 |
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Oct 7, 2023 17:46
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Piell posted:If you banned a handful of OP archetypes it would be a lot better IMO (Sentinel, Champion, Beastmaster are the big ones off the top of my head that easily provide a straight-up power increase) But I want a pet leopard. 
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Oct 7, 2023 17:59
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Piell posted:Double Slice has no MAP penalty for the second attack, its extremely good. If you're flurry ranger, once you are adjacent you can Double Slice and then Twin Takedown for two attacks at no penalty and two attacks at -4 (assuming agile) Twin Takedown applies MAP to each strike normally, and double slice counts as two attacks towards MAP, even though it doesn't apply them to itself.
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Oct 7, 2023 18:22
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3 Action Economist posted:Twin Takedown applies MAP to each strike normally, and double slice counts as two attacks towards MAP, even though it doesn't apply them to itself. Piell's math is correct. MAP for a flurry ranger using agile weapons is 0, -2, and -4 (until level 17 when it becomes 0, -1, -2). Double slice's attacks would be made at full bonus, but then Twin Takedown would be using third (highest) MAP math, which is -4, for both of its attacks.
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Oct 7, 2023 18:33
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Our session this last Thursday night, a couple nights ago, went much better than our last session. One of the guards who was present at our capture last week came to deliver us some supplies - some daggers, a set of thieves' tools, and a note saying to meet someone. Our inventor jimmied the lock without issue, and our sorcerer came up with the brilliant idea to use Illusory Disguise to disguise herself as a guard, pretending to do a prisoner transfer. As we were leaving the cell block, we also sprung a drunkard from his cell, whom we dubbed "Guinness" due to him being so goddamn drunk that he'd forgotten his name. The ruse was incredibly successful thanks to a string of high rolls and cautious movement; we were noticed a few times, but the Sorcerer fast-talked her way out of just about every situation with chat about nepo babies and a guards' union, and consistently high rolls. Our luck held out all the way up to the entrance of the jail, where the deception finally failed against the head jailer (nat 2s - twice, after a hero point!) and we had to fight our way past him. Amusingly, the DM had originally intended for us to fight our way out from the start and get better weapons along the way, so we were stuck with daggers - or at least we all would have been, but two of us happened to have natural weapons. We also had an unexpected advantage in Guinness taking the beer we'd offered him as part of the cooperation agreement and flying into a Drunken Rage - between the five of us, despite taking some heavy hits, we were able to clobber the jailer into unconsciousness, and we tied him up and gagged him with a bar of soap. ...As a prank, before we left, we left a note saying that he was doing special ascetic training and not to disturb him for any reason. He was beating prisoners, so I can't say I feel too badly about it. With our group having escaped jail, Guinness parted from the group to go get his drink on again, and the rest of us headed back to the inn we'd started at to make contact with the person mentioned in the note - surprisingly, we ended up in a meeting with the guard captain (Captain Sabine Hayton) who had been sent to apprehend us by the rich betrayer jackass from the previous session (Barnaby Babbington, of the Babbington Boys!), as well as the guard who'd slipped us the escape kit, who revealed herself as a changeling, who'd adopted the name "The Boys" from her experiences with her adoptive mother, Captain Hayton. Captain Hayton gave us back our original weapons, and has offered us a mission to break into Lord Babbington's (Barnaby Babbington, of the Babbington Boys!?) estate and rescue some prisoners he's holding. That's probably what we're going to prep for and do next session, and I'm quite excited. e: we also finally hit level 2 after our jailbreak!
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Oct 7, 2023 18:41
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KPC_Mammon posted:I guess it brings the game closer to 1e in terms of charop? I could see other people liking that a lot. lol it doesn’t get even a little close a well optimized pf2 character is noticably stronger than a non optimized character. a well optimized pf1 character needs an entirely different campaign than a non optimized character for anything to present any challenge at all sugar free jazz fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Oct 7, 2023 |
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Oct 7, 2023 19:01
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That also assumes a level of competence. All the charop in the world doesn't help if you have a swash who regularly neglects to try to gain panache or an animal order druid who rarely ever commands their companion.
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Oct 7, 2023 19:25
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Dick Burglar posted:Piell's math is correct. MAP for a flurry ranger using agile weapons is 0, -2, and -4 (until level 17 when it becomes 0, -1, -2). Double slice's attacks would be made at full bonus, but then Twin Takedown would be using third (highest) MAP math, which is -4, for both of its attacks. Ohhhh. Yeah that's cool, assuming you're in position to use it.
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Oct 7, 2023 19:37
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It's worth noting that Double Slice actually gets less and less effective the more you reduce your MAP. It effectively grants you +X to a single attack roll per round where X is one stage of your MAP, so with a normal agile weapon that's +4 but as a Fighter with Agile Grace or a Ranger with the Flurry edge that drops even further to +3 or even down to just +1 at the very high end. A Fighter with Graceful Poise gets to treat Double Slice as only one attack for MAP purposes, but that only extends the bonus from one attack to two attacks (because your MAP caps out after two attacks anyway). A Ranger with Twin Takedown doesn't really need Two-Weapon Flurry which is what the Dual-Weapon Warrior archetype is mostly sought after for, so if you wanted Double Slice it'd be better to just go Fighter and pick up Attack of Opportunity/Reactive Strike in the same bundle. As others have mentioned though, a two-weapon melee flurry Ranger is very dependent on positioning, though slightly less so with reach weapons. The whole class feature is about attacking as many times as possible in a round. Outside of the mounted companion gimmick, it's just a good idea to have either Haste up or just a pair of Boots of Speed for an extra Stride action when you need it, although the first one can get you a fifth attack in a round if you don't need to spend an action on movement.
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Oct 7, 2023 21:25
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That's why I built my ranger as a half-elf, so I could grab Pinch Time. Obviously it's better if somebody else can cast it on you, but hey, still better to have access to it than not.
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Oct 7, 2023 21:33
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Vanguard Warden posted:It's worth noting that Double Slice actually gets less and less effective the more you reduce your MAP. It effectively grants you +X to a single attack roll per round where X is one stage of your MAP, so with a normal agile weapon that's +4 but as a Fighter with Agile Grace or a Ranger with the Flurry edge that drops even further to +3 or even down to just +1 at the very high end. A Fighter with Graceful Poise gets to treat Double Slice as only one attack for MAP purposes, but that only extends the bonus from one attack to two attacks (because your MAP caps out after two attacks anyway). Double slice still has value as an equivalent to Power Attack for high resistance enemies though. (The damage from both attacks is combined and resistance/weakness is only applied once. This also means Double Slice is really bad if you are able to hit a weakness.)
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Oct 7, 2023 21:44
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Ryuujin posted:Not sure if Plant should be separate or an option under Elemental now that Plant and Metal are Elements. Minor correction: plant isn't an element, wood is. Pathfinder's elements are a combination of the five elements of wuxing (fire, earth, water, metal, and wood) and the four greek classic elements (earth, wind, fire, and water). You could have an aboreal wood elemental, but I think you'd be fully justified in calling something like a creeper vine or living fungus a distinct category.
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Oct 7, 2023 21:47
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Good point. Could have a separate Plant Morphology, and then when Wood and Metal Elementals get revealed could add them to the Elemental Morphology.
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Oct 7, 2023 21:52
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Ryuujin posted:Good point. Could have a separate Plant Morphology, and then when Wood and Metal Elementals get revealed could add them to the Elemental Morphology. They have been revealed, though. There's even sidebars in Rage of Elements on what to change to make a creature into a wood or metal elemental. Anyway, wood as an element also covers a lot of plant stuff, but I'm confident you can differentiate turning into a plant monster from turning into a wood elemental that works like a fire elemental but the fire blast does piercing damage instead. Summoner has both Plant eidolons and Elemental eidolons associated with the Plane of Wood, so it shouldn't be too hard.
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Oct 7, 2023 23:34
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Chevy Slyme posted:Double slice still has value as an equivalent to Power Attack for high resistance enemies though. (The damage from both attacks is combined and resistance/weakness is only applied once. This also means Double Slice is really bad if you are able to hit a weakness.) Twin Takedown combines the damage of both attacks for the same reason. And, since I feel like the opportunity to use Twin Take down and Double Slice on the same turn is not something I'd expect to be able to rely on, I'm gonna skip it. Which is good, because I've already got too many feats that I want and not enough spots for them.
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Oct 7, 2023 23:45
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I deeply hope they adjust the wonky level progression of Captivator at some point. It uses spell schools so it already doesn't work properly with remaster, so it seems like it would need errata eventually either way.
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Oct 7, 2023 23:54
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Taciturn Tactician posted:I deeply hope they adjust the wonky level progression of Captivator at some point. It uses spell schools so it already doesn't work properly with remaster, so it seems like it would need errata eventually either way. I would guess it’d show up in player core 2 next year, if they choose to redo it to let it function at all.
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Oct 8, 2023 00:50
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Captivator is trivial to make work with the remaster. Just replace references to the Illusion and Enchantment schools with references to the Illusion and Mental traits.
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Oct 8, 2023 00:58
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Playing around with some free archetype builds, and unless I'm missing something it doesn't seem like there's a 'sword and shield' specialty dedication (short of just going Fighter multiclass). Do people think that's just a gap, or is there some reason they wouldn't do when there's archer, duelist, mauler, and twin weapon dedications? e- or am I just missing that dedication somehow?
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Oct 8, 2023 04:12
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Fidel Cuckstro posted:Playing around with some free archetype builds, and unless I'm missing something it doesn't seem like there's a 'sword and shield' specialty dedication (short of just going Fighter multiclass). Do people think that's just a gap, or is there some reason they wouldn't do when there's archer, duelist, mauler, and twin weapon dedications? Bastion is the shield specialist dedication.
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Oct 8, 2023 04:14
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Chevy Slyme posted:The beginning of Sky King's Tomb has the characters doing level 1 dipshit odd jobs around town, and one of them is dealing with a Knight of Lastwall who happens to be a half orc, and the intended resolution is that you overcome dwarven racism and help this noble half orc recruit some strong warriors to go off and fight tar baphon. So I asked my GM about this and he has no idea where you are getting that resolution from other than the guy being a half-orc.
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Oct 8, 2023 22:27
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Proven posted:Yep. You still have to follow all shield rules, including using an action for Raise Shield before using the Shield Block reaction. Cool, still seems pretty handy. Single action to raise shield puts it on par with Earth armor AC wise which seems pretty good. Big Mouth Billy Basshole posted:The way I read elemental blast is using the cold damage type would give it the cold and water trait. Adding reach to the attack wouldn't change that, only if you made it a physical type of damage. Dope. Reach cold crits while enemies are slipping and fall on ice here I come. Here's the build I'm going with, anything stick out as a foolish noob trap poo poo? For Abomination Vaults, we're level 5 right now. https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=555344 Basic gameplan is keep enemies 10 ft away while I've got Winter Sleet going. Weapon Infusion to hit then with 2 action melee elemental blasts so I get extra damage off Strength and Constitution, and maybe luck out and crit so they're Slow 1. Then still have 1 action left for moving/recall knowledge/raise shield/trip/grapple etc. Alternatively 2 action Tidal Hands to hit groups then final action to reactivate aura and get a Blast in. Timber Sentinel for helping allies/myself. Deflecting Wave for oh-poo poo-more-acid blobs! Few things I'm not 100% sold on: Level 3 - Fleet vs Toughness. Toughness because I'll be in melee-ish range but Fleet because Hardwood Armor reduces my speed from 25 --> 20 which sucks. At least 25 ft is nice for out-moving a lot of slower monsters. Level 6 - Wooden Palisade vs Two Element Infusion. Wooden palisade because it just seems pretty useful to cut enemies off and eats actions by at least requiring them to attack it to get through. Two Element Infusion I'd switch Level 5 to add the Wood Critical Blast effect. Then could combine Water/Wood into one blast, which on a crit (while enemy is in Winter Sleet) would both Slow them AND entangle in roots and do Vitality/Bludgeoning together which is pretty great for Abomination Vaults. Seems good as hell but is a wall better?? Level 8 - The Hurricane vs Sanguivolent Roots. Hurricane because I've got Safe Elements so can safely turn it into a 3 action Overflow that doesn't hurt allies. Sanguivolent Roots seems neat for hybrid heal/damage, however this is AV so relying on "living enemies" could be rough? Level 9 - Cyclonic Ascent vs Solar Detonation vs The Hurricane. Cyclonic Ascent, flying? duh that's awesome! Have Weapon Infusion so can fly up to 100 feet in the air and just crank out Air Bow Blasts. However AV is mostly inside so not sure how much use this will get. Solar Detonation seems great against Undead, however it's 3 action Overflow and doesn't really synergize with anything. If I took Sanguivolent Roots in the previous, could switch out to Hurricane here which does synergize.
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Oct 8, 2023 23:48
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appropriatemetaphor posted:Cool, still seems pretty handy. Single action to raise shield puts it on par with Earth armor AC wise which seems pretty good. One note regarding the armor. If you meet the strength requirement you reduce the penalty by 5, so it essentially goes back to your default speed. Fleet is still helpful but with weapon infusion, you should still be effective nearly anywhere on the battlefield. Two element infusion does interfere with weapon infusion, so you won't be able to use both with the same elemental blast, so that's something to keep in mind. I also think safe elements only affects your auras, and then your stances so I don't know if it makes your allies immune to Hurricane. I don't have to many notes on your build. Let us know how it works out in practice. Big Mouth Billy Basshole fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Oct 9, 2023 |
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Oct 9, 2023 00:19
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Big Mouth Billy Basshole posted:One note regarding the armor. If you meet the strength requirement you reduce the penalty by 5, so it essentially goes back to your default speed. Fleet is still helpful but with weapon infusion, you should still be effective nearly anywhere on the battlefield. Ah forgot Hardwood Armor is only medium. Well 30ft movement is even better. And yeah Two Element Infusion seems a little too all on getting crits. That wood wall is a potential party-saver as well. Ol' Safe Elements also adds a single action ability "Pacifying Infusion" can exclude allies from area effects.
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Oct 9, 2023 02:04
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appropriatemetaphor posted:Ah forgot Hardwood Armor is only medium. Well 30ft movement is even better. Ah, I didn't read the full description of safe elements, that's even better than I thought.
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Oct 9, 2023 02:10
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At-will walls are incredibly good and are even better when you're in dungeons all the time and can completely cut off some enemies. Definitely get the wall, even if it only blocks off one enemy for one round thats basically a no-save stun 3 (remember to put it one square out of the enemies reach if you can so they also have to use one action to get in range to attack it)
Piell fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Oct 9, 2023 |
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Oct 9, 2023 02:56
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appropriatemetaphor posted:Cool, still seems pretty handy. Single action to raise shield puts it on par with Earth armor AC wise which seems pretty good. Looks good to me - Safe Elements + Winter Sleet is an amazing combo, and simply keeping it up while doing whatever blasting, utility or support your party needs round by round is a great way to play a Wood/Water Kineticist. Note that Weapon Infusion can grant Thrown or Propulsive if you need more range while still making use of your Str score. This is particularly good when you take Aura Shaping at level 10. Level 3: Fleet. More HP is always good, but you already have great Con and plenty of defensive and healing options. I’d say an extra 5’ of movement is more valuable to you than a few extra HP at this level. Level 6: Wooden Palisade. Walls are great, even if they are 3-action overflows. There are definitely going to be times when splitting the battlefield is worth turning off Winter Sleet for a round. Conversely Two Element Infusion will interfere with Weapon Infusion, and requires using your level 5 junction to get the Wood crit effect. Another option is to fork to Air at level 5 and start picking up Air’s excellent utility infusions for movement, invisibility and flight. You can then take Rising Hurricane (the Air/Water composite infusion) at level 6 to get a long range AOE to start the battle before activating Winter Sleet and closing to melee in round 2. However this might not work as well for an indoor adventure like AV. Level 8: Not really a fan of either. SV only damages living targets, and only heals or inflicts vitality damage if a living creature took damage. Call the Hurricane + Safe Elements requires you to be within 20’ of your targets but then turns off Winter Sleet for the round. I’d take Cyclonic Ascent (if you forked to Air at level 5) or another healing infusion (if you didn’t). Level 9: Fork to Air if you didn’t already. Or to Fire and take Solar Detonation. This is another great AOE option - especially against undead - and unlike Rising Hurricane it doesn’t need high ceilings.
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Oct 9, 2023 03:17
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Are there good ranking/recommendation lists out there for spell selection, particularly for Primal and Occult? I'm assuming the RPGbot lists for Divine and Arcane are mostly correct and just missing some newer stuff.
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Oct 9, 2023 03:50
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Fidel Cuckstro posted:Are there good ranking/recommendation lists out there for spell selection, particularly for Primal and Occult? I'm assuming the RPGbot lists for Divine and Arcane are mostly correct and just missing some newer stuff. Despite the name, Gortle’s Spell Guide for the Sorcerer is a pretty good overview of all four spell lists.
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Oct 9, 2023 04:10
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Featherless Biped posted:Despite the name, Gortle’s Spell Guide for the Sorcerer is a pretty good overview of all four spell lists. Thanks. I can handle looking through fighter feats, but spell lists just break my brain and always have.
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Oct 9, 2023 04:19
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Fidel Cuckstro posted:Are there good ranking/recommendation lists out there for spell selection, particularly for Primal and Occult? I'm assuming the RPGbot lists for Divine and Arcane are mostly correct and just missing some newer stuff. There’s also this guide which just covers all four spell lists without dividing them up; it’s relatively comprehensive and up to date.
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Oct 9, 2023 04:28
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I found RPGBot's guide to the be kinda out of date and not always that great tbh.
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Oct 9, 2023 08:23
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Clerical Terrors posted:I found RPGBot's guide to the be kinda out of date and not always that great tbh. agreed, I generally go with whatever the most current guide is over here.
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Oct 9, 2023 08:32
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RPGBot just outright misunderstands rules occasionally, and also tends to ignore the implications of things like rarity tags. Like when he claims that Sending is bad because you can just learn Teleport two levels later and have the conversation in person.
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Oct 9, 2023 14:38
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The Knights of Last Call youtube series on spells is pretty decent. The host will sometimes be wrong about things but he listens to input from chat and they eventually rate things pretty reasonably. They have a spreadsheet you can search for ratings, which works better than skipping around dozens of hours of streamer video.
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Oct 9, 2023 17:10
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Those of you who watch/listen to PF2e APs, can you point to any episodes where they try to do a, for the lack of a better term, "surprise round" by-the-book? You know, every does the appropriate Exploration Activities, they roll Stealth for initiative, maybe they all roll higher than the enemy Perception maybe some don't, maybe the enemy gets the highest initiative on the first round and starts Seeking them, etc. Before you start posting links to the explanation videos, I have seen them, I want to see an actual example of an actual group doing all that.
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Oct 9, 2023 20:11
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Featherless Biped posted:Despite the name, Gortle’s Spell Guide for the Sorcerer is a pretty good overview of all four spell lists. I mean, Sorceror has access ot all four lists, so it makes sense.
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Oct 9, 2023 21:05
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