So apparently I've accidentally been giving my players the ability to strike several times a day, even several times per turn? And I didn't even check the chalice like ever. Like what the hell do I do? I can't just tell my party of more than a year that I've been missing this obvious rule for such a long time, they're already used to falsely being able to strike several times! Any ideas?

Hello, i am trying to learn art for visualizing my world. I want to create every important NPC , building, place and monsters by hand. It's been 6 weeks and this is my first "monster" and I wanted to share with you. She'll be the first "boss" of my party will encounter. I'll use weak template for 5 person party level 1. I think it'll be a challanging yet beatable encounter. Any feedback and critiques are welcome.

The store page right here mentions "the orc homeland of the Hold of Belkzen", who was first put into the Eye of Dread meta-region, as one of the Saga Land's sub-regions to be included in the book. But i just saw that yesterday James Jacobs made things clear on the Paizo forums, so i decided to share it here since the store page wasn't updated yet.

Preface that this might be biased as I'm currently playing Kingmaker and a lot of the INT skills have downtime utility the rest of the tree just doesn't.

I've been stewing on this for a while, and I'm starting to feel like out of all the stats dumping INT has the most tiny consequences that all add up. Every character starts with a Lore at creation, but yours is never going to be quite up to par. Any archetype that has actions based on a Lore is similarly stripped down, as well as any ancestry feats that grant Lores.

Performance is notoriously pretty bad on anyone but Bards and Fan Dancers and its EA is very location dependent, which means that unless you just want to do things subpar for the entire campaign, you kinda have very little to do in downtime that you don't need to finagle with the GM about.

Speaking of Bards, did you know that multiclass spellcasting Archetypes require you to invest in the skill associated with their tradition, rather than their KAS? I was pretty zonked when I realized I needed an INT skill for a CHA casting feat.

In comparison, STR is entirely safe to dump for anyone who doesn't fight in melee as long as you have Acrobatics for Escapes and a Spacious Pouch for your stuff. DEX can be tricky, but Bulwark mitigates a lot of the consequences if Stealth isn't a daily occurrence for you. CHA you're straight up peachy without unless the party splits from their face during a diplomatic mission for some godforsaken reason, though I'll admit it can hurt when you get a really good speech in negotiations but fumble the roll.

CON and WIS I'll say with my whole chest you should never dump completely even if you don't want to max them. Two saves most often targeted by save or suck effects, health, and perception=initiative.

Though maybe I'm just salty that the frontier realities of the Stolen Lands aren't as welcoming to a skald Exemplar writing of his own exploits as I'd hoped.

Thoughts? Am I missing something extremely obvious? Maybe I should learn how to actually roleplay instead of trying to find everything I'm allowed to do in the rules?

Familiars hopping on and going with you on your person has not been explicitly stated in the rules, but is implied to be allowed as RAI

however, now that we just got Floating Harness, we could see that as implying that companions have to always move on their own, even to stay adjacent to you in combat

I know there's more use cases for this like animal companion and eidolon always staying adjacent or coming with despite your fly speed, but it just looks like it implies Paizo intended familiars to be unable to go with you unless they do their own movement themselves, so no sitting on your shoulder and being ferried by you.

What do you guys think?

For the record, I don't hate spell slots. I think it's a fine design, and I'd happily run a game with them. The problem is at my table players do not like to pick a caster, and the reason is always the same. They look at the slot column, they know they will spend the best spell by the second fight.

So I tried to build something that keeps the choice and drops the budget. It has been running for a while now at levels 1 to 10, one group through level 10. The starting idea, fatigue instead of slots, is borrowed from a Brazilian game called Arcana Primária, which I'm crediting because it's someone's design. Nothing from their book is reproduced here, and nothing from Paizo either.

The rule

You don't have spell slots. You have a number called Magic Fatigue, and it gets added to the DC of casting.

Effective Casting DC = base DC for the rank + your current MF + Repetition Strain

You roll d20 + level + proficiency + key ability, plus 2 if the spell was prepared or is in your repertoire, against that DC. Success, the spell happens. Failure, it doesn't, and fatigue goes up. MF floors at 0 and caps at 10.

Rank categories come off your highest rank: High is your top rank and the one under it, Mid is one below that, Low is everything else.

Cantrips never roll. A two action cantrip removes 1 fatigue, guaranteed, even if the target resists or the attack misses. That line is the whole recovery system. A tired caster is not sitting out, they are casting small and getting safer, and then they can push again.

Things I'd call the interesting parts:

On a normal failure you choose: eat it, or Forced Effort, where the spell works anyway and you pay 2 more. Not available after a critical failure.

Cast the same spell at the same rank twice in a fight and every later copy gets +2 DC and +1 extra MF, stacking. Prepared casters get out of that by preparing a second copy. Spontaneous casters get one free repeat per rank. Signature spells don't give you more ammo, they give you the spell at other ranks, which is how you dodge the strain by moving sideways.

At 10 fatigue you can't attempt checked spells, and you can burn hit points instead: free action, fatigue drops to 4, Drained up 2, no daily limit, the limit is your body. That is the answer for the player who says "but what if I just want to keep going".

The Foundry VTT Macros

It needs a counter. I know that. Running this on paper means tracking one number per caster per fight, and if nobody at the table wants to do that, the system will drift and the caster will say "I think I'm at like 5". In practice a d10 next to the sheet works.

The Foundry macros do it properly. Two Script macros: the caster picks a spell off their real spellbook, the macro rolls the check, applies the fatigue, tracks which spells have been repeated, prompts Forced Effort, and posts the spell card without spending the slot, because in this system a slot is not a resource. There is one d20 for the casting check and the spell attack, a Hero Point prompt that shows your current result before you spend, a Counterspell flow, and a separate Spellstrike macro for the Magus that compares one strike roll against AC and against your casting DC.

Repo, with the quickstart, the full rules and the macros:

https://github.com/Thilaq/Escalating-Spellcasting/

Also: this is not a conversion of every option in the game. I converted what I thought I should, Divine Font, the wizard's bonded item, the three arcane theses (Spell Substitution, Staff Nexus, Spell Blending), Studious Spells, the Spellstrike, the eidolon feats, the Animist's two spellbooks, staves, wands and scrolls. Counterspell got one line rather than a conversion, it's the game's rule plus what you pay in fatigue. Bard, Druid, Oracle, Sorcerer, Witch and Psychic have a paragraph of guidance each, not a per-feat audit, and archetypes are barely touched. For anything I missed the full rules have one line for the GM to convert it on the fly, and that has held up so far.

What I want to know

Is the critical failure column too steep above level 10? I have no play above 10 to check it with.

And whether Refocus should be as free as it currently is. Fatigue clears to zero after 10 minutes of downtime, once per hour, riding on the game's own Refocus activity.

Hello everybody. A discussion came up at my table regarding the regenerate spell.

An allied NPC pf the players lost a limb in battle. The party and everybody else had to flee.

The Player characters leveled up and the cleric finally got access to the regenerate spell.

Now it says it can regrow lost organs and/or reattach lost limbs.

Now the cleric argues that the lost limb of the NPC counts as a organ an will regrow. The DM says its a lost limb and could be reattached not regrown. But as the aforementioned fight is month ago ingame the lost limb cannot be retrieved. So the NPC stays crippled.

Whats your take on that?

My group and I are about to start playing PF2e, and we're all coming from D&D 5e. One of the bigger conceptual differences I'm anticipating is Exploration Mode. In D&D, we've always handled exploration fairly loosely: the players describe what they're doing, and the DM decides what checks or consequences apply. Pathfinder obviously codifies this much more with activities like Search, Scout, Avoid Notice, Defend, Detect Magic, Investigate, etc.

I have a cheat sheet that lists all the Exploration activities (along with combat/skill actions), and initially I was planning to give it to everyone and have them choose an Exploration activity whenever we're travelling through a dungeon or similar area.

However, I'm wondering if that might actually make things more confusing for new players.

Instead, I'm thinking of initially running exploration much like we're used to in D&D. I'd ask something like "What is everyone doing as you move through the dungeon?" and let them answer naturally:

"I'm keeping an eye out for traps." → Search

"I'm watching for enemies." → Scout

"I'm moving quietly." → Avoid Notice

"I'm walking at the front with my shield ready." → Defend

"I'm looking around for clues." → Investigate

I'd then tell them which PF2e Exploration activity corresponds to what they've described and briefly explain what it does mechanically.

After a few sessions, once they've encountered the common activities organically, I'd start asking "What Exploration activity are you using?" and let them use the cheat sheet themselves. Less common activities could simply be introduced whenever they become relevant.

Does this sound like a good way of teaching

Exploration Mode to players coming from 5e? Or is it better to introduce the system properly from the beginning and get everyone accustomed to explicitly choosing Exploration activities straight away?

Cheers for any insight!

Hey everyone!

Time for yet another update to Heroic Build, my free form-fillable character builder and play sheet for Pathfinder 2e Remaster:

Download

And as always, I keep it free but a donation really does help cover the cost of the software I use to make these, so it is appreciated!

Changelog

• More ancestries: Gnarefoid, Nuar and Vulkarisu are in.
• Sprite added: the little ones are covered now too.
• The Luminary is back: I'm fairly sure I had this class in at some point and then lost the code somewhere, so it is definitely in there this time ;)
• Human (Starfinder) as its own option: it works differently to the Pathfinder one, so it gets its own entry rather than sharing.
• Attack calculation fix: an empty range field still counted as a range, so it always went to Dexterity and skipped Strength. That is sorted. Thanks blackwingboy for the tip!

After following and play Draw Steel I developed a PF2 template for myself to turn any enemy into a 4e style minion. Allowing me to flood the battlefield with little goodbers.

This template does not work for spellcasters and creatures with spellcasting impacting enemies will lose it, to prevent giving yourself 4 Slows for the price of 1.

Template fot the Statistics at the bottom of Post.

Creating Minions

• Choose a creature without Prepared or Spontaneous Spellcasting
• The Creature looses all Auras and all but 1 Passive Feature, 1 Reaction and 1 Activity without Subordinate Actions.
• Minions can be broken up into squads of 4, each worth half XP.

Acting Together

A minion Squad can only meaningfully affect combat when they act together.
When a squad acts together you roll only once for the whole squad and compare that roll to the AC of all targets.; all Squamates perform the same action and all Squamates use the Highest MAP in the squad.
A minion can choose not to act when the squad acts together losing the action, or can use a Minion Basic Action to help themselves.

• A Squad can perform a Strike, Activity or Minion Skill Action only when they act together.

Mminion Skill Actions

• A minion squad can only perform the following skill actions together:
• Grapple, Trip, Shove, Reposition, Seek.
• When performing a skill action together the squad rolls only once and each creature targeted can only be affected by the effect once.

Minions's HP Pool

• When a Minion takes damage from a strike or a single target effect the whole troop loses HP equal to the amount of damage dealt, potentially killing multiple Minions at once.
• A Critical Strike dealing 30 damage to a Hobgoblin Soldier minion will do 30 damage to the HP pool of the whole squad, killing 6 minions of the 8.

Minions and AOEs

• Minion squads are particularly susceptible to damage-dealing area abilities that target multiple creatures, because the minion squad’s HP pool takes damage each time an individual minion takes damage.
• However, such area effects can kill only those minions who are in the area. For example, a fireball dealing 18 fire damage to each target in its area.
• If three hobgoblin soldier minions with 5 HP each with are caught in the area, the minion pool loses 15 Stamina instead of 54, leaving the other minions in the squad unscathed.

Minion Basic Actions

• A minion can take any of the following Basic Actions.
• Escape, Stride (Climb, Swim, Fly, Burrow), Stand, Step.
• Minions can be broken up into squads of 4, each worth half XP.
• HP: 1or Low: 20, 2-4: +30, 5-20: +40
• Divide equally between 8 minions and round to the closest for HP breakpoints.
• &
• Minions act as one, roll once for effects that effect others and effects that effect themselves, such as attack rolls, saves, Damage rolls.
• When more than one Minion Targets the same creature they do not all roll for damage or force more saves, instead for every additional minion participating they Deal Additional Damage that is applied on a Failure but isn't doubled on a crit.
• Damage: 4 or lo: +1, 5-8: +2, 9-12: +3, 13-17: +4, 18+: +5||
• Level Adjustment: +2

https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=1564508

As a tribute to the great Tim Curry and his phenomenal on screen performance I wanted to make a Long John Silver character build. I tried to make it within his flavour, but I did also want a build that would actually be pretty good. Perhaps there are a few things you could change to make it even more fitting. Captain archetype would be a great addition, but I wasn’t sure what to do with the follower system.

This build is made with Free Archetype and Automatic Rune Progression in mind since that is what my table always plays with.

Perhaps it isn’t the most flashy and unique build, but there are a few notes I wanted to highlight:

• There is no Cutlass weapon in pf2e. Given the weapon he uses in the film there is an argument the scimitar would be a better fit, but it would not function with the build at all.
• I wish I had a background that allowed for an additional point of charisma, but since he is introduced as a cook it had to be that
• There had to be a few betrayal themed feats in, like Bitter Taste of Betrayal and Opportune Backstab
• Walk the Plank was an obvious include
• Reveal Machinations reads a bit more grandiose, but I felt like it was a good fit for the way he betrays Jim Hawkins
• Legendary professional required Pirate Lore to be picked up, because how else are you going to be a professional pirate?

I have been running these characters through Rusthenge and we have continued on to Seven Dooms. See the comments for details on who they are.

I'm making a Runesmith that uses his familiar to trace runes but I'm having a hard time envisioning what a glyph familiar would look like.

Is it just a floating rune? Is it a manifestation of a rune's meaning? Is it a little robot with a rune on it? A tiny rune dragon maybe?

I don't have the book and the text doesn't give much insight into the intended idea of the creature. How would you all describe your "living rune"?

Edit: Thanks for all the suggestions! I ended up combining u/duzler 's stone with a glyph on it and my tiny rune dragon idea and made it in hero forge Pet Rock

Overwhelming Energy is a one-action 10th level Spellshape feat that causes a spell to ignore some amount of resistance to energy damage.

This includes ongoing or persistent damage from the spell, and gives the example Wall of Fire.

Wall of Fire is a three action spell.

I was curious, so I did some digging around AoN, but the only way I could find to spellshape Overwhelming Energy on Wall of Fire was the 20th level Sorcerer/Wizard feat Spellshape Mastery.

Is anyone aware of any other ways for a character to carry out the example from the feat other than being a max level sorc/wizard?

Krugg and his Dodo "DeeDee"
made them for a high-powered mythic campaign so the build is a little silly- level 12 dual class Dwarven Guardian/Fighter with a Cavalier archetype, and a few sneaky extra Monk feats thrown in. The Dodo is a Terror Bird, and I decided right away that she's an endangered statblock. If she dies ol Krugg will never get another mount. Unfortunately it's had the side effect of the DM feeling bad and avoiding opportunities to attack the dreadful beast- Though maybe that's a "Lobster too buttery" type moment...

I play him to mostly just bog down enemies and block/intercept attacks, he has a few abilities that allow him to unarmed attack even if both hands are full, so I interpreted that as headbutts. But he never does too much damage tbh.
He is fun to play though, I get to yell at everything and headbutt doors open. And feel like a hero when I intercept a crit for an ally.

in terms of art- man I struggled rendering this one tbh! kinda at the limit of what I know how to do, this illustration has for sure taught me I gotta get back to some studying and figure out lighting and colours a bit better. I could keep stirring this particular pot but I decided to call it finished, serve it up, and just be happy with it so I can move on to other works. Might have some more PF2e characters to upload here soon!

I was re-reading divise a strategem today and found something interesting. If you choose a skill strategem you are locked out of striking the target but you are not locked out of athletics maneuvers against the target. Already that's pretty nice for any weapon with an athletics maneuver trait since you can just pivot over to that if your strategem is low.

What's REALLY interesting is when you involve the athletic strategist feat. It lets you use your attack strategems for athletics, but it doesn't say anything about locking you out of athletics maneuvers if you choose a skill strategem. Let's say you were a dedicated grappler. You could devise a strategem, see you rolled a 3, decide to take a skill strategem, then just attempt to grapple the target again and get a new roll. Essentially it's a free hero point on all athletics maneuvers.

Now how good this is in actual play will come down to the age old investigator question of how often your GM lets you DAS as a free action at your table, but if you want to play an athletics maneuver focused character and your GM is very lenient on how often DAS is free, investigator can be a sleeper pick to get insane benefits either as an archtype or class.

TLDR: devise a strategem does not lock you out of athletics maneuvers even if you have the athletics strategist feat. This can effectively give you free rerolls on athletics maneuvers.

Was considering adding something that is just a Falcata stat wise but a flail instead of a sword. Maybe an edged hoop of steel for slashing, or a simple heavy steel spike situation for piercing, or just a good ol cube of metal for bludgeoning.

Do yall think the prone condition following a huge fatal crit would be too punishing?

hey all,

if you're a game master who regularly runs introductory games (like at your LGS or conventions) and want to offer your players a taste of character creation, then you may be interested in our product BUILD YOUR PREGEN.

here's how it works:

1. ask your players their class and subclass choice
2. players get their class sheet, which has its key attribute (4) filled where needed (including attacks)
3. then ask their ancestry choice
4. players get their ancestry subsheet and glue it on class sheet
5. players distribute their remaining attributes (ancestry determines which is -1 and which two cannot be 0)
6. players fill skills: from ancestry, background and extra ones from class
7. they then calculate HP, buy equipment, note down AC and damage

and they're ready to go!

if you're not fully bought in to the idea, there's also a demo sheet (strong fighter) that you can download to see if you can use that idea in your games.

But why not iconic pregens?

fair question. i think it comes down to priorities: in events where i simply want to run my game as smoothly as possible, i too go for pregens (though i prefer to make them myself, tailor-fit to the adventure, rather than use iconics)

however, i think character creation is a vital part of pathfinder experience and if my primary motivation is promoting pathfinder to new players, i'd like to include a semblance of character creation. inspired by Apocalypse World's playbooks, this is the fastest solution i could arrive at (obviously since PF2 is a bit(!) more involved than Apocalypse World, so even the fastest solution is not as fast)

I have a runesmith in the party and I'm trying to figure out if they could etch/trace onto this and have the effect work like with standard runes etched onto the bandolier.

It says

>it can be etched with runes as though it were a one-handed thrown weapon.

But obviously whet this was written it was talking about traditional rune etching.

I dont think it would have a balance issue as the intent of this item is to make throwing based classes less cumbersome. And that spirit would carry to a throwing based runesmith.

My partner is having huge trouble running RotRL, because she struggles to run victory point based subsystem scenes. I on the other hand am running Hellbreakers and FotRP and killing it on sections based in the reputation, influence and chase subsystems.

Do we know anything about how Vaultlines will be structured? She really wants to run if it's mainly a megadungeon or hexcrawl (she's done AV and 7DSP really well), because she's very excited for cavern elves, but it might be better if she experiences it as a player if the adventure is more based in subsystems.

So is there enough info out of Vaultlines yet to start working out who should GM?

Hi, my group of friends is gonna restart a campaign we stopped almost at the beginning 2 years ago. The thing is, we started that campaign as DnD and now the master wanted to change to Pathfinder, so we agreed to it. Now, I haven't played pathfinder so far (thou the master says I'm gonna be the one to love it the most), so I could really use some help to translate the character to have the progression clear from here on. So thank you in advance if you comment.

My character is a semi-elf (a human aiuvarin here, I suppose) who has lived as a woodcutter all her life and now has been recruited to go to war, etc., etc.
My idea on dnd was to start as warrior, multiclass to barbarian, and eventually go for Eldritch Knight. So I would go with Axe and javelins as thought weapons and at the end of the campaign have them even returning to me.

So in pathfinder I think I should go with warrior and stick to it, but i'm not sure... and I still lost myself in class feats, archetypes, and all that...
So, can some veteran give me advice on how they would build a character with that idea?
And also, what background would fit a lumberjack the best? scout? I have found some online, but I'm not sure if that is homebrew or even from the first edition, and the one who is master this time is not very fond of homebrew...

Disappointment with Sterling Dynamo is a frequent point of discussion here. I would LOVE to hear your blue-sky ideas for how it could be better, more fun to use, or just to serve the fantasy better.

I have a player whose character lost an arm past the elbow due to illness at a young age, and basically wears a slab of iron in the rough shape of a fist. I'm considering offering a souped-up homebrew version of Sterling Dynamo a few levels down the line after they help out a mechanic who specializes in prostheses. I might integrate some of your suggestions for that, but I'd also just love to hear your ideas about SD in general!

So I'm writing my first ever fanfiction and one of the characters in the fandom I'm writing for plays D&D and Pathfinder. Now I've not played either of these myself so I was wondering how I can write a chapter of 5 people playing Pathfinder Table Top. Any tips I can follow so it'll be as accurate as possible.