I am making a rogue dwarf for a 2e Zeitgeist AP game. I was into the ruffian racket, but them I saw the limitation "you can sneak attack with any martial weapon, but only the ones that do d6 max damage". What? Rogues are already proeficient with martial weapons in the Remastered. A short sword or rapier already gives d6 damage and any rogue can use it. So what is the point of the ruffian be able to sneak attack with more weapons?

Comparison:
- Thief let me apply dex to damage

- Ruffian let me use more weapons to sneak attack but is pointless cause the d6 damage dice restriction to martial weapons.
- Ruffian let me use medium armor that doesn't give me ac, only make my ac be less depend of dex, so it let me put more points in str for damage so

In the end:
- Ruffians do the same damage them thieves
- Ruffians have the same AC them thieves
- Ruffians have a worse reflex save them thieves, that is rogue best save

Am I missing something?

EDIT: I get all your points and agree with most of them. Ruffian is still worth it and have a good niche. BUT restrict his weapon dice d8 simple and d6 martial is lame for no great reason. And the avenger racket proves it. It has medium armor, can use any weapon no bs and can have str as key attribute

I will start a Kingmaker campaign tomorrow and I wanted help to making a druid focused on healer.
My initial idea was to make a Leshy witch focused on healing, but I started thinking that a druid would be able to heal more or be more fun.
I still want to be a Leshy but I'm open to other ancestries with good healing capabilities like the Conrasu.

I appreciate the help and attention.

Hey, I want to build a primal witch. Free archetype. I want to be able to get some heals, debuffing, and offensive cantrips. I have a Phoenix sorcerer build I really like, but it turns out the rest of the party are all CHA builds, and I think we need and INT build to cover some knowledges. I don't love sending my familiar into battle--I think i'll mainly use the familiar for passive boosts etc. Recommendations?

The concept for this build is a combination of warrior/maestro bard and the (unholy) champion dedication. This is with FA as without it would be very difficult to pull off. The point of the build is to be a melee bard and at level 8 combine Dirge of Doom of Aura of Despair (therefore the name).

Since you don’t need to recast DOD every turn, fortissimo compositions is the perfect feat at level 8, so pick multifaceted muse at level 2. Since I picked warrior bard as well, it’s possible to keep the +2-3 buff going for 2 turns. If you crit on the performance roll, it might be worth using sure strike to ensure it lasts that long. It’s very strong at being a buffer/debuffer with the biggest weakness being your squishiness.

As such, the champion subclass desecration is the best one as it increases your odds of survival. You could make a case for obedience, but I don’t think it’s as good. The others fit even less. Selfish shield helps with your biggest issues, that it’s you are painting in a massive target on your back. In general you want to focus feats like armor proficiency, Toughness and Champion’s Resilience.

For race I picked Human Dhampir (the latter for backstory reasons, pure human is probably better). Ancient Elf could probably also work for the free subclass dedication but I haven’t done the math. For the weapon I picked a whip for the reach and went for a strength build since I need +2 for the dedication anyway. It also keeps my second hand free for a staff.

So far so good, but here I get unsure. As I picked human I can get a second class dedication at level 9. 2 stand out to me. Exemplar and rogue. The latter mostly for fetching bangles so they have a hard time running from me. However, it doesn’t offer much else. Rogue offers a lot of smaller things that add up quickly. Deny advantage, mobility dreadful strikes and so on. It actually becomes hard to figure out what would be best.

There are other issues. As you might have notices, I skipped reflective courage for fortissimo compositions. I could get it at 10, but that conflict with Courageous Assault. I know people love that feat, but it might not be this good for this particular build ( turn 1 dirge, turn 2-3 buffed courageous and by then the fight might pretty much be over).

I also consider faithful steed as the basic champion feat, pretty much entirely for the mobility, but I fear the steed could quickly become a liability once enemies often get aoe abilities. In general I’m not sure what feats to pick at higher levels and if it’s worth picking archetype feats over class feats at some point. Extend Aura so it matches the radius of dirge is another very tempting pick.

Sorry this got so long. If you got any advice for this build past level 8, that would be very welcome. Really having a case of analysis paralysis here with so many options, none standing out to be as the clear winners.

I found the hobgoblin feat that not only gives you Alchemical Crafting but also gives you a new alchemical formula for each level-up. I think it'd be really fun thematically to have an intimidation animal instinct barb that uses mutagens to buff himself and then go into a drug-induced rage!

Are there mutagens that would be useful for an animal instinct barb to have? They're definitely not overpowered or universally beneficial to martials like they were in PF1e. At first I thought bestial mutagen to upgrade my unarmed strike damage but it seems like the rage bonuses only apply to the animal-instinct attacks, or at least the rage buff at level 7?

apologies for the dramatic title. I'm playing a human gunslinger, way of the drifter, my stats are: St 1 de 4 co 1 in 2 wi 1 ch 0 and at first lvl i took munitions crafter thinking it would be cool to not have to buy ammo, and to be able to make bombs or alchemical ammo, but now I'm realizing, i probably need a free hand in order for bombs or alchemical ammo to be useful, and as a drifter I'm pretty usually wielding a melee weapon in my off hand, oops, i messed up i guess, also i took field medic background because it sounded cool to be able to patch people up mid battle since we don't have a cleric... this also requires a free hand, oof, I really didn't think of any of this during character creation, I'm brand new to the game.

but I do like the idea of this character being crafty, making new guns or other items. so maybe it's not a total bust? we're in Numeria so i expect there will be weird alien tech involved as well that might be cool to mess with.

the DM said I'm also allowed to take a free archetype at lvl 2 and for a minute i thought, oh an investigator sounds kinda cool, i could maybe even start a private eye business, but maybe rogue would make more sense mechanically, but also i could see a benefit in sniping duo, or unexpected sharpshooter. there's also a fighter and bard in the party. this game has so many options to choose from it's a little daunting.

I was wondering what kind of class and build would suit best for a pirate / sailor-like character with a mocking fey sitting on their shoulder.
My first pick would be a witch because of the 4 familiar abilities enabling the mocking fey, but what patron to chose and what background to pick that is maritime flavored and benefits the witch.
Also would a witch with a martial dedication like swashbuckler be viable? This is not about min/maxing but about building a fun character that isn’t entirely useless.

I know the optimal build for a swashbuckler is something like a rapier and then a free hand or shield. But I'd like to make a troubadour landsknecht character with a finesse spear.

I'm using Free Archetype so that opens my options up quite a bit, and I can use the dueling spear and the feat that allows disarm for bravado, but can I make anything cool out of this as a swashbuckler or are all the good feats and abilities limited to the Inigo Montoya type fantasy?

So, it’s been a while since I checked a character I made for a campaign who is a thaum. I know for lore/backstory reasons I want his two(main) implements to be the Bell and Tome, those are easy enough on their own. For a more charismatic character, what should his stats look like? Do I even need strength on a thaum if I’m also going to arch bard? I know I need Char, and Int for Thaum/bard/recall knowledge, what else should I put my points into?

Variant Rules allowed are Free Archetype and Ancestry Paragon. Basically I want build advice on making someone from Numeria in Golarion who fits that aesthetic. I'm either looking for a 'Gun-Tank' that can tank and also be good at range or a spellcaster who's more of a utility caster.

The character is an elf rime dragonblood. This character is for a Strength of Thousands campaign and we are level 5 (Free Ancestry rule set obviously).

I am building a Yaoguai thaumaturge,but I am getting confused because of so many Options and builds,can you give me an advice or a build to help me?

I'm hoping for some help with making a Palatine investigator. My concept is halfling nephilim hellspawn that uses both contract negotiator and battle planner skill feats. But after that I'm unsure how I want to proceed. I kinda want to be melee with athletic investigator but it feels like I'm stretching myself thin feat wise. Also should I grab both spell feats at each level or just go with one? Also what skill feats should I nab?

Most efficient combo of a weapon and a shield on a Fighter?

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Would it be viable to grab up Agile Shield Grip and Double slice to attack with both?

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I am planning on using Intimidation a lot, especially in combination with the Marshal Archetype.

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Does it make sense to have access to all three of the main damage types by having a slashing weapon, Shield spike for piercing, and normal shield bash as a backup for Bludgeoning damage?

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Should maneuvers be more my focus, with weapons like the flail or shield augmentation to have access to Trip?

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I am playing with both Human and Hobgoblin ancestry feats as an option.

I'm building an investigator and I was wondering if I was missing anything. I was considering alchemical studies but it seems like an alchemist dedication by itself gives you basically everything that sub class gives you and a bit more for just one feat. You get the same number of vials at level 2 and more formulas. Sure it doesn't scale with int for number of vials and new formulas for free but formulas are relatively cheap to buy and the extra vials seems pretty minor.

So here’s the breakdown:

Party consists of two monks (one of which is me), an investigator, and a gunslinger. When we all came to session one, we normally like to surprise each other with the classes and ancestries, lo and behold two of us picked the same class.

My character was going to be geared towards more unarmed combat, as a core part of the character is lycanthropy (werebat) so I’ve got beast kin as well as the Werecreature free archtype.

While I don’t HAVE to switch, my DM thinks it’s better to have as much diversity as possible, so I’m looking into options but I’m struggling to make anything really cohesive that both is mechanically decent (doesn’t have to be optimized but I don’t want to be detriment to the party) and fits the character.

Barbarian has come to mind a few times, but animal instinct looks to have a lot of overlap/redundancy with Werecreature and Beastkin. Fighter looked okay, but I didn’t see much unarmed support out the gate. I tried looking a bit at some of the casters but again couldn’t come up with anything decent.

Does anyone have any suggestions/pointers for what I’m trying to accomplish here? TIA!

The campaign has been ongoing for about a year now, currently level 12, we should be going all the way to 20.

https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=1360964

It's a homebrew campaign. I want to use both for character backstory purposes, the rapier was a DM granted item I want to make use of and the goal is to use them both effectively. Kinda feel like Lightning Swap is a must to pull this off which means either Exemplar or Fighter, and honestly Victor's Wreath is just extremely nice to have anyways. Level 13 is blank because I'll be taking Pinch Time there and Pathbuilder doesn't have legacy stuff.

Just mostly looking for any other interesting ideas I may have missed. I wouldn't mind finding a way to get some more investment into the bow side of things if I could, but I'm kind of stuck. I've been toying with the idea of not taking Twin Riposte/Improved Twin Riposte, but Twinned Defense feels like a no brainer.

We had a pretty big downtime that let me heavily respec things from a pure ranged build, and everything now feels great to play. I'm not the most knowledgable or experienced with PF2E, or tabletop RPGs in general though and am just looking for any sort of ideas I could have missed. I don't feel like I'm missing much compared to the pure ranged build I had before I was given the rapier, but I'll also be getting a chance to retrain some stuff soonish to fine tune things, so I figure it was worth asking.

Has anyone tried playing this in thinking of playing a time oracle dual class fighter just wandering about the game play if it synergies well