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  Megathread archive

What the tittle says.
One of the pet peeves I have with the game is how gatekeeping it is with actions that are locked behind feats. I also feel that many, many, many MANY low level skill feats exist only because the devs didn't find a better way to "fill up" the spreadsheet of skill feats by level with something that felt level appropiate, so they give you shitty things instead.

In my last Adventure Path (Outlaws, for that matter, but will do it in all my new campaigns too) I tried something "bold". I gave, for free, all level 1 skill feats to everyone. Literally ALL level 1 skill feats, to literally everyone. EDIT: as long as you meet the prerequisites, that is. You need to be trained, and so on.

And it's working perfectly. It doesn't break anything at all, it requires less book-keeping, it removes some feat-taxes (hello, Battle Medicine!), it doesn't gatekeep things you *should* be able to do by default (like talking to two people at the same time), and everyone is able to do more things.

Yes, that means Assurance is free for everyone. No, it doesn't break anything. We played for 15 years with the "take 10" rule and it was fine, this is similar. It works in combat, but only for skills, and it doesn't add your ability modifier. It's fine. It won't break anything.

Yes, that means Dubious Knowledge is free for everyone, and that's GREAT. It means even in a failed Recall Knowledge roll, you get some things right and some things wrong, which is a great concept other RPG embrace as part of design (Fail Forward).

All level 2 and above skill feats (the ones that require you to be Expert or above) still exist, so not everybody can run up walls or hide in plain sight. But everybody knows more about their religion than they do about other religions, by default. Everybody can trick people to make them believe he casted a spell they used from an item. Everybody can try, with a roll, make their mount go faster. Everybody can use their knowlege of how Society works to get info from it.

All those things, and every other, are things I always felt should be possible to everyone. I don't see why players are required to spend a feat tax to do something cool that might or might not happen even once in the campaign, or to do things that should be common sense for them.

I acknowledge that there are a few level 1 feats where this might feel ackward. Like Steady Balance, Cat Fall, Combat Climber, Hefty Hauler, intimidating glare or Titan Wrestler. Some of those fall into the "feat tax" category, so it's not like you are giving them for free to the players that need them (like Titan Wrestler or Intimidating Glare), and some others are just not that big of a deal (like Steady Balance only means in general Balance is slightly better). I am sticking to my guns and letting them for free anyways, but I guess some people will preffer to leave them as level 2, add them as effect to other existing level 2 feats, or simply ignore the feat as a whole. I make an exception with Cat Fall myself, allowing it as is at Expert level 2, and allowing the first level effect but with an Acrobatics Roll.

The rest of the feats, I don't bother. Yes, that means all players trained in Athletics have +2 bulk compared to those who aren't trained in Athletics. I'm ok with that. Yes, that means all players trained in Intimidate can scare off an animal by looking at it or doing gestures and growls. I'm ok with that.

So that's it, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

TLDR: I removed the feat tax for all little things the game gatekeeps behind level 1 skill feats, and it's working great for me. Maybe some people might want to give it a try.

EDIT: just to point out... The game is incredibly solid. As long as you don't touch the math, you can literally hit it with a hammer and it will survive. Give out feats, remove them, use spellpoints instead of Vancian magic, change crit specialization, add new weapons, soften up the actions needed to use a potion, or any other crazy idea you got. Give it a try , see if it is fun for your group, and move on. Don't be afraid to experiment, the game won't break unless you touch the underlaying math. As long as the math is tight, everything will work, it will just give you different experience and we don't all like the same flavor of ice cream.

My vote would be the fact that the fuse stance capstone feat for monk works with ANY stance trait abilities, not just monk stances.

Title. We're running Eberron but in Pf2e and I think thematically a character that's entirely non-magical (or at least almost non-magical) is pretty rad in such a magically rich setting. Alas, there's pretty much no guns in this version of Eberron, nor will I really be arguing for their case to the GM. Inventors seem like they're pretty action hungry so I'm gauging what the community thinks works best/what they have fun with.

What's your guys preferred ranged option in this scenario and what modifications would you add?

Personally, I think it could be interesting that Off Guard could stack like other conditions, starting at -2 AC. That way if a enemy is flanked and prone, the modifier would be -3 AC, rewarding the strategic creativity of the players.

I've been looking at the list of companions lately and one of the things that struck me is that I don't think there's a lot of resources for sifting through this rather huge character option. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others, so I wanted to see the community's opinions on which ones are the most powerful and potent. As far as my own notes...

• Nimble companions are widely regarded as being a lot stronger than Savage companions, and somewhat stronger than Indomitable ones as well. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like the remaster has changed this at all; while I do think the significant health advantage Indomitable companions have over Nimble ones is underrated, having both their defensive and offensive stats scale off of the same modifier is still quite a bit more powerful than anything else and Savage's lack of defensive scaling is a huge turn-off.
• Mounted companions are good for getting a "free" stride action every round and can use some decent support abilities, but are somewhat incomparable to companions expected to strike. I mentally categorize mounted vs striking companions differently; some companions with the mount trait are perfectly strong unmounted as well, however.
• The name of the game is generally utility / crowd control. Being able to use support and advanced maneuvers to add debuffs such as prone, frightened, or grabbed is more important than just damage, although damage is nice too. Some damage-focused companions, such as the Dromaeosaur, are still attractive options however.

All that being said, here's my quick (uh, maybe not so quick) list of companions that I think are pretty good- I'd like to hear everyone else's thoughts, especially from people that have gotten to play with them more than I.

• Tripping companions: Wolf, Triceratops, Earth Elemental. Wolf's Takedown is the best CC a companion gets since it's 1+1 actions instead of 2- if you miss, you can spend that action on something else. Support ability is just okay. Tricera's Lumbering Knockdown is a 3-for-2, and you can just run back and forth if you don't need the stride. The support ability is 1d8 persistent damage, the highest on offer, and only requires the target be prone which is fairly easy to do. The Earth Elemental has the same ability as Lumbering Knockdown but has lower stats than other companions and a weak support ability.
• Grabbing companions: Bear, Elephant, Scorpion, Tyrannosaurus, Ulgrem-Lurann, Wood Elemental. Lots of companions here so I'll go quick. Scorpion, Tyranno, Ulgrem-Lurann, and Wood Elemental have two-action "if you hit you grab" abilities. Scorpion gets to attack a second time but is also the smallest. Elephant's only works on enemies two(!) sizes smaller and is a Grab + Reposition, very difficult to use because of the targeting limitation. Bear is a 1+1 but requires you to lead with a claw attack (weaker than jaws) and to hit with MAP. Higher upside but much less reliable. Wood Elemental, like all elementals, has worse ability scores than all other companions.
• Shove / Reposition companions: Augdanar, Cave Gecko, Elephant, Goat. Mostly here for completionism since tripping and grabbing are stronger, but they're here. Goat notably has Shove on its natural attack and its shove is a 1+1 which is nice.
• Frightened: Ape, Hyena, Tyrannosaurus. Ape can both frighten with support ability or advanced maneuver, and has a built-in feint attached to the latter. Hyena is Dex-based and has a nice advanced maneuver to tack on free damage. Tyranno has the aforementioned grab which is very nice.

While there's some other great companions I haven't mentioned, this post has already become far, far too long so I open the floor to you guys. What companions have you had success with? Which ones have fallen flat? I'd love to know.

This is our 5th session playing PF2E... So help me check if this is the right way

Group need to find a specific plant.

The Ranger first roll a Recall Knowledge with Nature, to discover that it grows by the river side/edge/border(?). If they fail, they need to look for the information elsewhere.

With the info, they go to the place, and start looking for it. So they start using the Seek action to find the plant. Because I don't want to make they roll every 6 seconds, I will make each roll equivalent to 10minutes of seeking.

As they are in a time presure, every check matter, that's why I'm making this encounter/scene.

Is this how it should be done? Or am I doing something wrong by the rules?

This is based on how the Eldritch Trickster rogue subclass wasn't included in Player Core 1 while the Spellshot gunslinger was revised to gain wizard archetype feats. I know both of these were considered pretty bad in the past (not sure how the new Spellshot is).

While I don't remember if Paizo said anything about the Eldritch Trickster returning in future books, I do still think these "semi-multiclass" subclasses/archetypes are an interesting concept and I'd still like to see Paizo experiment and try to make them into viable options.

So I was wondering what others in the community think about these types of subclasses? Would you like to see more of them, assuming they're well-designed? And which classes would you like to see gain them in future books?

For example, I think an investigator with some spells would be interesting. I'd assume they'd have a way to use their stratagem roll with spell attacks, which would be a neat synergy. And I'd also like to see some connection between non-combat cantrips such as Detect Magic or Read Aura with the "detective work" side of the class.

I keep seeing posts that say two contradictory things: First, that the poster "loves the three-action economy", and second, that they're mad about all the things that cost actions.

Buddy, you don't love "the three-action economy". You love having more actions. Everything costing actions is the core of the three-action economy. Your problem is that you're thinking about it backwards.

In some action economies, you only have one action. In those, there's a host of other things that are "free" but limited in some way. People coming from 5e are used to this, and 4e, 3e, and PF1 all had the same behavior: one core action and possibly some non-fungible* other things you could do.

That means that if a 5e character doesn't have to move on a turn, their Speed is wasted. Opportunity Attacks had to be designed the way they were because movement was completely free. Knocking someone prone is a waste of an action. All of the non-fungible parts of your turn are wasted whenever you don't need to use them.

What the PF2 action economy has done is take all of those things and assign them a cost so that you can exchange them for each other. And then it gave you their value back as actions. Instead of getting one action and a bunch of non-action things, you get three actions. The fact that the things that aren't actions in 5e now have an action cost is literally the price you pay for getting three actions per turn.

So what you're complaining about is that you don't waste part of your turn because you didn't need to move. You have fundamentally failed to grasp what the economy is doing; you just want to do seven things each round.

If you "love the three-action economy" but "hate that taking out a potion costs an action", just go play 5e and give everyone three actions per round. That's what you want, after all. There's nothing wrong with wanting that. It's not a game I would want to play, but you do you.

Just know what it is you're doing.

*: Fungibility, for those with NFTs on the brain, is the property of being exchangeable for other things. Movement in 5e is non-fungible: you use it or you lose it. Movement in PF2 is fungible: instead of spending that action to Stride, you can use it to Swap equipment.

Hello people, I'm trying to figure out if the opportune riposte is something worth of level 10 reflexive riposte. The skill seems so cool on paper but hoping for a crit fail doesn't seem enough cool against derring do or the defensive stances. I know later on you get to riposte on fails too but investing on more reactions for a riposte you will rarely get at the cost of not taking AC feats (which Will grant you more possible riposte)...

What are your thoughts? And how would you build around this?

I think I have this right, but please help me confirm.

My party’s Druid casts wall of fire, and does it as a circle/10 foot radius.

My Monk whirling throws a target through the circle … hits the wall once going in, a second time going out.

So, target should take: * 4d6 first pass through the wall * 4d6 second pass through the wall * 3d6 whirling throw damage

Is this right?

Is a spiked shield one item or two items? If you draw it or drop it, it's one item - but when you buy or enhance it, it's two.

Specifically, this distinction comes into play for the Metal Kineticist, using Flash Forge or Plate in Treasure. Can I Flash Forge a spiked shield, or are the shield spikes a second item? If I use Plate in Treasure on my spiked shield, do the spikes get plated also?

I mostly want to say yes, but part of me says this is giving two effects for the price of one. What do you think?

I’ve been thinking of trying a Thaumaturge and was wondering if a Twilight Halfling with Titan Slinging with “Weapon” being my first Impliment would be a good idea. I know there isn’t “sling support” but was hoping class features would offset that.

As far as stats go: Str -1, Dex +3, Con +1, Int +1, Wis +1, Cha +4 I don’t love the negative strength, but I felt like I needed a few more hit points and would like a little better success rate at all the Int based skills the class gets, so I’m not sure if there is a good stat to give up a point in to get 1 point of damage back.

Planned to use Cultist as the background and ended up trained in Acrobatics, Athletics, Medicine, and Stealth (in addition to all the “free” skills) which all seemed to fit a monster Hunter theme.

So, will this work? Is it garbage? Thanks in advance for the advice/suggestions/constructive criticism.

I love the idea of the spell, but preparing a 7th level spell in order to coat a +2/+2 weapon seems kind of hard to me ! Like, at the level of the item, you don't even have an appropriate spell slot, and for the next two levels, it's your higher spell slot ! And getting scrolls isn't really efficient, given that you got to heigthen the spell as your equipment gets more and more powerful. I think the effect is awesome, but I'm struggling to use the spell efficiently

Hello, I am a relatively new GM in PF2e (I ran the beginer's box and a few one shots). I have a few questions about running the game: 1. Initially I planned to use the ABP, but I heard that some players only use the parts regarding the weapon runes. Regardless, of which one I choose, how should I adjust the how much treasure I give my players? 2. One of my players is a storm druid. He likes the character in the roleplaying sense but seems to struggle with which spells to prepare. I am rather uncertain myself, but how can I as the GM help this player? (Due to flavour, he prefers picking lightning and wind related spells) 3. Maybe relating to the previous question- the party has no main healer; we have a ranger, a barbarian, a rogue and the forementioned druid. They managed very well so far, with the barbarian tanking in the front and the rest managing DPR and taking down the weak foes first, but eventually this might become a problem. How can I make sure they have sufficient healing going forwards (we have just reached level 4)?

I have not played a in person game basically since Covid happened, now I am thinking in running one. So, I was wondering a if there are any AP that are particularly well suited for a in person game. The people I play with are seasoned RPG players, but have not played much of 2e yet.

I am currently running a phytokineticist in wardens of the wildwood (just hit level 3). I am in love with timber sentine but i am having trouble forming a vision for what the character doesl. I am wondering what you fine folks recommend for cool stuff to do as a wood kineticist.

Here they are, from Grand Bazaar.

The character needs to dedicate a hand to holding the bag of powder, it goes out only to an adjacent square (which needs to be the correct square to begin with), and the reduction from invisibility to concealment lasts only until the end of that specific turn.

Faerie fire simply is not in the remaster. (I consider it a very handy spell.) There is only revealing light, the updated form of glitterdust.

Yesterday I made a post asking what firearm people wish were in the game, I have a look at some idea and tried homebrew them and this is the result.

PF2E More Gun

I only made historical firearm and tried to make it lore friendly as much as possible, firearm technology wouldn't surpass the early 19th century era.

I can remember this specific creature, but not the name or where I found it. I could use help finding it, if anyone knows what I'm talking about. I want to say it was from the Lost Omens Mwangi Expanse or Lost Omens Impossible Lands book. I just checked both of those books and couldn't find it.

They're basically blobs of pink flesh that pour of a wound or pit in the world, either due to nearby demonic influence or something like fleshwarping, I forget which. They smell TERRIBLE. They can combine into larger forms, and you can have one as a familiar, though most people hate the smell. I want to say that if they go a certain distance past the wound they're from, they can't exist and break down.

If they're from the Worldwound, they might be from the World Guide instead.

Did I hallucinate this whole thing, or is this an actual creature in PF2e?

Many thanks if someone can find it!

I love giving my players abilities or items that give them temp hp. I don't have to worry about them dying, so I can toss anything I want at them and no one dies because I read an ability wrong. Healing still matter cause the temp hp doesn't last long. But I haven't played much of 2e. So I don't know much temp hp affects the system. What is everyone's opinion?

Clerics are noteable for having 4-6 font spells that are at full spell rank, and being prepared means that they don't need to learn Cleanse Affliction or whatever like spontaneous casters and potentially never use it, while Witches have the same number of ranked spells.

With the exception of Life Oracle giving d12 heals, how would I sell to players playing Divine casters that are not Clerics?

Need a quick clarification. As the title asks, my group has been running it as though being prone both lowers the prone thing's AC -2 while benefitting an attacker with a +2 to hit. I don't think this is the correct way of doing it, as when prone, according to Nethys, the prone character has a -2 to AC and to ATK rolls. Nowhere does it mention a +2 to anything or one.

Edit: thank you all for the responses, should be clear on it now.

Earlier today I remembered a discussion from a couple months ago about "what would your dream AP concept be" (which I assume comes up semi-regularly, but I've only seen once). And then I remembered that Norgorber has four different Aspects, with some worshippers only following one of those aspects, and potentially entirely distinct cults based on different parts of his persona.

If there was a Norgorber-centric AP or single-part adventure (a la Rusthenge or Malevolence), what would you want to see in it? Plot elements, level range, mechanics?

Personally, one of my favorite things about Norgorber is that I once saw someone say "there is circumstantial evidence that he is actually four halflings in a trenchcoat", and considering we're seeing a bunch of APs centered around specific ancestries right now, I think a lot of halflings could be fun. I also would like to see different factions following the different aspects, and the party maneuvering between those factions.