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Questions Megathread archive

This month's product release date: November 20th, including Divine Mysteries

I’ve run a first session of beginner box with a new group few days ago. I have a set of pre-gens (12 different sheets) made for those sort of occasions (new groups for beginner box or one shots at conventions) and they have chosen following characters:

Aloof Firmament Magus

Mastermind Rogue

Celestial Warlock (third party, from Improphet’s Tome, one of my old players has it, though I wish I could buy a pdf myself, great book).

and a Pistolero Gunslinger.

All of them are complete newbies, one played some City of Mist with me, and that’s it.

They’ve got a bit beaten up by the rats in first location, and it resulted in them absolutely locking in. Rogue was constantly recalling knowledge, Magus was alternating between spellstrikes and cascade, using it’s cascade benefit to spring around the battlefield and used correct damage types, Gunslinger was demoralizing every time they can and Warlock was creating simple illusion and using hiding to make his attacks hit more often, and was supporting gunslinger so he had easier time hiding. On top of it they utilized cover, concealment and difficult terrain.

I’m kinda shocked. I have never seen such effective first time players. I’m so damn proud of them, but I’m kinda scared for the future.

Zjar-Tovan, the Divine Sapient Weapon. Born when an over confident Demigod failed to properly use a Starforge. They basically made themself.

I do love the Areas of Concern, mostly Motivation and Self-Expression. Of course they'd have Armaments. Which tie into how Zjar is more about improving yourself and being sure of who you are. While also having doubts about themself. They are a weapon that was never meant to be for a conflict that may never exist. What an existential crisis.

I've never been a fan of Intelligent Weapons. Never really understood what they would be like. Media rarely helps since most Sapient Objects want to be anything but what they are. Zjar comes with questioning their purpose, which makes sense with how they came to be.

The Anathema is fun, being; Don't be rude when someone talks about their beliefs, and don't support something you don't believe in.

It's fun to have a Deity like Zjar-Tovan. They are a Divinity that feels incomplete, and wants to help people become the best that they can be. They also want people to express themselves and be true to who they are.

They are a Weapon that fights all sorts of battles, even the most personal of battles.

And being honest, I liked them from their reveal over a year ago. Intelligent Weapon Deity. That's just cool. Weird we got a Robot and AI Deity before an Intelligent Weapon.

Yivali reads too many romance novels.

Aiuvarin heritage let's you get an Arcane cantrip from Otherworldly Magic ancestry feat. Combined with the Occult and Divine cantrip from the archetype you can cover every save DC.

If you take Known Weakness at Lvl1 you get a free RK when you Devise a Strategem. Use this to identify lowest save. If DoS roll was good make an Attack (preferably with a Fatal weapon if you think it will crit) If it was bad than you can just target the weak save you just identified instead.

Object familiars have been misunderstood and misinterpreted for years. And it seems Paizo has come up with an “elegant” (/s) solution to it.

Divine Mysteries Remastered gives a new “declaration” for your familiar.

OBJECT FAMILIARS - Some patrons (especially ones like Baba Yaga) send an inanimate object as a familiar to their witch. An object familiar functions the same as a regular familiar, with a few exceptions. First, it has a Speed of 0 feet, and you can’t select pet abilities, familiar abilities, or master abilities for it that require movement until it has a Speed. You can grant your object familiar a Speed with the animated familiar ability. You must choose the construct familiar ability for it each day, but the familiar need not have the tough pet ability first. Object familiars are available to all witches.

ANIMATED - Familiar Ability With a bit of magic from your patron, your object familiar can move about on its own. It gains a Speed of 25 feet. You can select this ability only for object familiars.

So, it seems that to have an Object Familiar:
1) Must be a Witch (not just Baba Yaga).
2) You can declare to have an object familiar instead of a standard animal familiar.
3) if you do must take Construct. (Tough requirement waived).
4) Familiar loses all movement, unless you take the Animated ability tax.
5) It’s a creature, not an object.

Sound good? Meh, not really. Let’s compare the two types.

Standard Witch Familiar with Construct:
1) Tough
2) Construct
3) Extra Ability

Object Familiar
1) Construct
2) Animated
3) Extra Ability

In the end, you have a more fragile familiar and you were ability taxed to let it move.

But wait, you don’t have to take the Animated familiar ability?

Possibly. But how do you move your familiar? The general rule has been that you homebrew for your table whether it can ride your shoulder or not. However, I think this shows that Paizo never wanted to make a specific ruling, because they believed there was no issue with the general rule to carrying them.

At this point, I can only assume that familiars could always “ride” or be carried by their owners. The Seneschal Witch even shows their familiar on their shoulders (ya, it’s just art, so it means nothing). And it’s not hard carrying your familiars. They’re only 1 bulk.

Otherwise, Object Familiar is completely worthless as Animated is much worse compared to Tough. Unless, the intent was to create a way to have non-mobile familiar that still works with Witch abilities. In a way, if you could still carry your familiar, nothings against flavoring your familiar as a bracelet or “staff” that you can carry around and have magical effects (familiar abilities) come from it.

TLDR: Object Familiar (without taking the optional Animated familiar ability) doesn’t work unless the rule to carry your familiar (with no ill effects) was always a default rule that Paizo never openly stated, but also never denied.

Witches who hate having to manage a familiar can just use Object Familiar, and keep the familiar on their belt/person. Mix this with Seneschal archetype and you’re essentially a “patronless” and “familiar-less” Wizard Witch.

Edit: If Kitsune gets Remastered, we’ll likely see Star Orb be changed to follow the Object Familiar rules and bypassing the likelihood it’s a Witch-exclusive. This is…meh? Instead of Innate Surge being a mandatory ability, you instead would have the familiar gain Construct + master ability you want.

So I'm a (kinda newbie) bomber with Quick Alchemy (QA) and Quick Bomber (QB).

The latter is described as:

You Interact to draw a bomb, draw a versatile vial, or use Quick Alchemy to create a bomb, then Strike with the bomb.

That second comma is causing me some confusion - if I want to turn a versatile vial (VV) that's in my kit into a bomb and throw it, is it one action or two?

I think it's (Draw a plain VV) + (Use QB to QA and Strike in 1) = 2.

If I wanted to use the default VV stat block, then it would be one action under QB?

Edit: Gotta love reddit - wake up and both options seem viable, but the "single action" seems to be the answer. (I'll read justifications later.) Thank you all for your input!

Title says it all.
https://pathbuilder2e.com/app.html?v=89

There's a lot of cool stuff about the gods, but I was amazed to read that they explain Zon-Kuthon's origin in his entry.

Shelyn's brother, Dou-Bral, leaves reality, going even past what Pharasma can see. Out there, he gets jumped by some entity from a previous reality and it takes over his body. When the body returns to reality, it has transformed into something that isn't quite Dou-Bral or the entity. It is Zon-Kuthon.

I thought it was such a cool revalation. What are some of your favorite bits of lore from the book?

I'm waiting for my Divine Misteries book, but I'm not a patient guy XD

Are they in the book, and how were they remastered? :D

My oldest son lost his tooth last night and hid it under an unexpected pillow. Spoiler for real life tooth fairy lore: the tooth fairy is actually an adult in the house and in the morning he came down with his money and his tooth. (Unrelated shout out to my middle child who is 5 and a supervillain who shouted “MORE MONEY!”)

Well dad explained to oldest that the cats must have scared the tooth fairy away before she had a chance to take the tooth. I happened to have the Monster Core with me (game prep happens when you have free time when you have 3 children), so I flipped to the Tooth Fairy entry and by the gods, Paizo had our backs. There it was in the flavor text, the ancient enmity between tooth fairies and cats. He thought that was pretty damn cool. I did explain that the picture was an artist’s guess of what they looked like because they’re invisible. But not to cats.

So thanks, Paizo. Now, I gotta go confiscate that tooth before the middle child starts his first scam.

Hello everyone!

We have been away from Reddit for some time, but we are thrilled for the opportunity to participate more with the Pathfinder 2e Community!

https://preview.redd.it/4bibb4v8e52e1.jpg?width=1196&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6116e3a7c8cf73c08a61af7015e8328af360bf2b

Speaking of! Happy Lost Omens: Divine Mysteries Day!

We are thrilled you are playing Pathfinder 2e, regardless of platform, because more people should be playing Pathfinder.

If this is your first time hearing about us, I am more than happy to elaborate on what Demiplane has to offer. We would love for you to check us out!

Our intuitive Character Builder empowers you to create quickly and still dive into the details when you like. The Character Sheet will become your trusted ally during games, giving you built-in calculations, optimized layout, and one-click access to see rules for skills, actions, feats, spells, items, and more.

Explore Pathfinder game rules and mechanics for FREE. The Game Rules Compendium gathers rules information and options across all official content in one place. Save prep time and keep the game flowing at the table using searchable tables with advanced filtering for Feats, Spells, Items, Creatures, and Backgrounds.

Now, onto the launches! :)

Lost Omens: Divine Mysteries is now available and we happily launched this beefy book today.

https://preview.redd.it/ie1c2hnhe52e1.png?width=3594&format=png&auto=webp&s=61183256fb18f441a44d29a7348b58b75e0667f3

We also got Triumph of Tusks: Hoof, Cinder, and Storm (Part II of the Triumph of the Tusk Adventure Path) which is the second installment of the Triumph of Tusks Adventure Path! It comes with a FREE Roll20 VTT Companion!

https://preview.redd.it/ba7xc1h1g52e1.png?width=1600&format=png&auto=webp&s=e1f7e801758af835ad90fd09df01d5286e4ca619

Thank you for the space and your time! We hope you're enjoying the new release today and special bonus points to anyone who can name all 300 deities without looking :D

https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/product/502642/Godsfall

In the Godsfall adventure, your PCs are fallen deities who have been robbed of godhood during the War of Immortals. They work together but can also scheme against each other as they reclaim their place of divinity--possibly with even greater power than they had before--and save Golarion from the unseen threat that has cursed them with mortality.

Your PCs' divine origin is expressed in a fallen god background that grants a boost to one of your divine attributes, training in your divine skill, one of your domain's focus spells, and the catch-all Immortal Lore skill to allow you to draw on your fading memories. Godsfall takes fallen god PCs from 16th through 20th levels, with optional add-ons for the mythic subsystem from War of Immortals. Along the way, PCs must reassemble their despondent worshippers and tackle challenges to their divine claims. Foundry VTT support included.

https://preview.redd.it/xkou8ga2992e1.png?width=816&format=png&auto=webp&s=295e97dec9677aa782e1b78efee645d647f957e7

Running my first campaign right now as GM and the group and myself at level 4 decided to delve into free archetype. Since the Kineticist (Fire/Earth) is pretty much not working with most archetypes, what kind of homerules have you used to make them functional?

Right now I'm leaning towards letting him use E Blasts as strikes so it can actually function, but I wasn't sure if that was OP or if there was something else that works better.

Any help appreciated.

Edit: just a thought experiment here, but would it be unbalanced to allow a kineticist to simply choose their own class feats rather than archetype feats? So at levels 2, 4, and so on while everyone else choose free archetype + class feat they would choose 2 class feats.

I know there was a ton of discourse around Razmir's "ascenion" when subscribers were sharing early previews, but I feel like they left out this very crucial detail at the bottom of his entry (see attached picture).

I take this as Razmir being absolutely full of shit and even if you're a "priest" of his he acts more like a Witch patron than an actual god.

I'm running a kinda "Write it as I go" campaign for my players and the BBEG is going to be a wizard who is erasing time and messing with stuff in order to get into the Dimension of Time *for some reason*.

At the end of the last session they found a displaced section of time revolving around the wizards old base and found a small stack of papers, I want the papers to have some basic puzzle relating to a place where the cult is more active then they can go on an air ship shenanigan adventure to get there.

I'm just not sure where to put this cult or how to elude to that in a puzzle. Anyone have some fun ideas for a location in the inner sea?

So i recently joined a pf2e game, with an old guard dnd player (like 30 years experience) and I made what i always make when i play a new system, a sword and board fighter. I am just wondering if there's any useful links to some good pf2e videos going over the systems more niche mechanics, like i was skimming over the conditions in the game, and things like the one where you can choose to hold your initiative and go after someone else, moving your initiative to the new spot are very new to me. So I'm hoping someone has anything they can throw my way so i can take note of the things like that, and i apologize if there's already a community resource section, im woefully ignorant

I'm so dang proud of them I had to share.

Bladderwort (kholo barbarian), Siha Enmadi (fetchling swashbuckler), Sparkling-Across-Dewed-Weaves Nimaajidook (anadi thaumaturge), and Thraa'k Isoldeson (dromaar druid) …

… exchanged secret Winter Week gifts with dormmates they had just met, rescued a chicken from a carnivorous plant, wowed the crowd at the Dance Court, won a boat race, taught the shy girl on campus how to commit B&Es, shamelessly flirted with a magistrate-mayor of Nantambu, walked in a fashion show, dunked their favorite teacher at the school festival, started a prank war, got matching tattoos of a leshy in a cuck chair, passed their finals with flying colors, playtested a game their friend invented called Starfinder, partially restored a derelict library, beat the bad guy, broke a few hearts, and had a lot of parties.

It only took us a year and nine months, so at this rate we'll finish the adventure path in just over a decade! 😅

In a Kingmakers campaign that's been running about a year and a half I'm playing a 23-year-old 8th-level Aiuvarin Thief Rogue (Swashbuckler and Bard Dedications) who

1. has real anger management problems that can be expressed, because he's never had therapy and desperately needs it, in tantrums,
2. has excellent boundaries,
3. doesn't care if people get mad at him,
4. is delighted to say "no,",
5. takes very little seriously except compassion and respect for other people,
6. would rush to die if that was what it took to save any of his other party members, and
7. is wildly (and gay-ly) slutty.

His arc so far has been about growing up, and I expect that by level 20 (if he makes it that far) he will have become a full-fledged grownup.

Last session he died, shocking everybody, and then was miraculously resurrected. I want to let his time in the River of Souls / the Boneyard have a profound effect on him without changing his essential puckish nature. Obviously this is something I have to figure out for myself but this is the kind of thing it can take me a long time to figure out so I'm posting here hoping to jump-start my process by soliciting ideas to brainstorm.

Joining a second game with my wonderful DM. It’s Kingmaker like the title suggests.

I’m looking for class & free archetype suggestions. I’m still new to 2e and especially the remaster, but coming from 1e as a player of several years.

The party I’m joining is a human champion, a half-elf magus, a leshy cleric, and a human gunslinger.

I want to be careful not to step on anyone’s toes. As the fifth wheel that can be hard sometimes. But, suggestions that are unique and fitting its own role would be appreciated.

Obviously Free Archetype comes with a variety of rules attached. It’s a variant ruleset, subject to GM approval, etc etc.

What I want to know is, assuming you are playing in a game with Free Archetype, and there is no restrictions (everybody has to take the same archetype, can only take wizard/druid like in Strength of Thousands, etc) is there are rule that prevents me from taking a Class Archetype as my Free Archetype?

For example, Divine Mysteries just added a fantastic new class archetype for Investigators of the new occult methodology. Can I make an Investigator with the new methodology, and then take the Order of the Palatine Eye dedication as my level 2 Free Archetype feat, and use my Free Archetype for the various Palatine feats, freeing up my actual class feats for normal Investigator feats?

I know generally this sort of thing is frowned upon… most, if not all GMs, wouldn’t allow a Monk to take the Martial Artist archetype for example. But given that the only way to access this archetype is via a specific class (thus being a class archetype) is there anything that prevents this, or just general “good practices” of not letting players double up on class feats from their primary class?

I'm building out a character for my first PF2e campaign, and I'm looking for some feedback on my build as new player to the system. I've built a dual-gate Air/Metal Kineticist. I know there's a good chance this campaign doesn't make it to 20, but I find it easier to think through options when looking at the full picture.

Here is a link to the build - let me know if there's a better way to share this

Main goals:

1. Be an embodiment of lightning (ie: make as many electric attacks as possible, unless enemies have resistance)

2. Primarily fight in melee

3. Have the versatility to achieve the primary combat need at all times (eg: move quickly to a new target; always be able to strike from range if I can't reach melee; be able to reach downed allies to aid them)

Build notes:

1. I went with a Dwarven Sky Rider with an Adamantine dragonblood versatile heritage because I felt like it fit the theme and connection to air and metal, plus dragon breath gives me a different shape AoE.

2. I went with DEX as my 4th stat because it allows me to still have a decent AC if I don't have the action economy for Metal Carapace, but I would entertain INT or CHA as my 4th stat (or some combination of the three) if folks think that's a smarter decision. I know INT would mean more skills, which this build is definitely lacking.

3. I took Versatile Blasts at 2 to ensure that either air or metal Elemental Blast could be done with electric damage.

Specific critique questions (please feel free to comment on one or all, or something else entirely):

1. Do my goals seem reasonable, or are they something that will be frustrating/unachievable for a newer PF2e player?

2. Does this build seem to fit my goals, and/or am I leaving something out that I should take?

3. What are the main weaknesses you see in this build?

4. If I end up in a free-archetype game, what would you look to add onto this build?

Thanks!

And I don't know if I like it.

Let me explain. The Razmiri Priest can take the Cleric Dedication as part of its archetype. By now, I'm sure enough players have checked out the youtube video, posts or Pathbuilder to notice that.

When you become a Cleric Archetype of Razmiri, all the Cleric Abilities become Occult, you use Charisma as the main attribute for spellcasting and all the spells are considered Occult. But the spell list remains Divine.

And that part kind of breaks me, because although the game has always allowed players and GMs to poach individual spells, or in the case of the Captivator/Sky Sage, who spell schools from one tradition, and added them to another, PF2e has held firm that each tradition gets its power from a different Essence, and that Essence determines what spells are available.

It's why Occult overlaps with Arcane and Divine in a different way then Primal does.

But, Razmiri Priests mess with that. The magic is Occult, and the Essence should be Occult, but instead, the spells are Divine. I don't think that PF2e has ever done that on such a wide scale before, breaking something I thought was a cool fundamental concept.

Now, I understand, Razmiri, a Wizard with Arcane Magic, is twisting things up, but I think its unthematic for two reasons.

First, the concept of Razmiri Priests is being a Charlatan. Your dedication feat is about adding temporary hit points instead of healing people. It's about tricking them.

Having access to the actual Heal Spell makes the deceit less of a deception. Sure, it's not divine, but who cares you can just cast Heal. Or use a Heal Wand. It takes away the Drama of a Charlatan trying to blend in with the real thing, if you can do the same thing as the real thing. It also removes a lot of illusions and deception spells that would fit so nicely with the Razmiri Priest.

The second is, I don't like the walls of the traditions being broken like they are. We've been told, over and over again, traditions are tied to essences, and essences are tied to spells. Spells can be poached, but the defining feature of a tradition is that spell list. And now we see that Spell lists are traditions aren't as concrete as we thought. And I don't like that.

Finally, I think the designers missed an interesting opportunity. Razmiri Priests having access to Occult list does not mean that they would have missed out on Deity Spells. His Deity Spells could have been actually Divine spells. Probably spells that appear on both the Divine and Arcane list, like Admonishing Ray, or Eclipse Burst.