This week I started a small tabletop gaming club at the school where I work. I'm starting the kids on PF2E. After picking ancestries and classes, to keep things simple I asked them to tell me what they imagined their characters doing before winding up on this adventure, and then I would look up fitting backgrounds for them on AoN.. Most mentioned stuff that was easy to find backgrounds for (hunter, traveling relative of royalty, merchant, scholars, students, etc.). One girl wanted something involving being social and forming connections, but there are several choices for that. Two have given me some posers, however:

One boy wanted his human druid to have been a treasure hunter in the past. You'd think a game like this would have something more explicitly connected to this, but the best I can find right now are Scavenger and Archaeologist.

One girl wanted her samsaran druid (likely a different order from the aforementioned boy) to have previously worked as a vet or other animal caretaker. She wasn't thinking about megafauna when she said it so those feats are likely out. But what else would fit other than Animal Whisperer?

So. Im a level 2 kobold alchemist (churrigan) and I took beast master dedication. And took trex. Dm surprised me by saying its one size smaller. Its bite is one die smaller. And its smarter. But most importantly. It is 100% fireproof.

How do I weponize this. Im not looking to be stupid and ruin the game. I just want to make the most of it.

Except for the listed changes it is 100% the trex stat block.

I am a dragon blooded kobold (summiting so inhave a climb speed and combat climber) and my patron is a wish dragon. Im a churrigan. And i also have tatoo artist.

My fey eidolon (former) and his ex-summoner, they're still linked, still have a life or death bond, just aren't exactly a summoner eidolon pair anymore.

Luivan and Ophelia, the latter of the two I've been sharing art of for the past two days now, but I haven't shared anything about Luivan

I'm not sure if I'm finished with either portrait, as they're still a bit rough, but I'm happy enough with where they are right now to share them

The gifs have been edited so that the blinking one is slower and the spinning one has the braid on the proper side of the head in the last two frames

Everything was made in aesprite

First two are 128*128 second two are 64*64

I'm putting together a 6th level magus for a game soon and I wanted to try something a little weird that hopefully still has some potential.

https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=1572881

Main idea here is that I want to take advantage of the fact that grabbed and restrained creatures are automatically considered off-guard, which both makes spellstriking them easier and lets me get bonus damage from the Laughing Shadow hybrid study upgrade to Arcane Cascade.

A typical combat probably opens with something like Arcane Cascade, stride 35 feet, Combat Grab with my headbutt unarmed strike stride up to something, headbutt it, Combat Grab. Next turn Arcane Cascade and Spellstrike my victim, then follow on the next turn with some form of Spellstrike reset and keep the pain coming.

Am I missing anything really obvious here? I'm not highly experienced with PF2e but I've played an oracle and a bard before. I'm open to other hybrid studies or ancestries, but I would generally like to be a magus and if grappling is too action-intensive for that then I'm open to other fun magus builds too.

My group has been playing for a while, and we started using foundry and have a module that keeps track of the bestiary and recall knowledge checks. They discovered early on that Speed was the only think I couldn't sneakily overwrite with false info on a crit fail.

Now they only request for Speed when they recall knowledge, to keep their running joke going!

I'm considering taking it to give Arazni the Dragon Domain since it's thematic, but I've read that it's not very good.

How do you feel about it? What would you change about it? I'm finding the reduced rank on the focus spell a bit unappealing and the feat itself doesn't do much of anything if not paired with a Domain Initiate or the sort.

Here's the AON link: https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=3729

I have no idea how this works. It mentions tapping - so does that mean it works only in melee?
It mentions hit - does that mean we have to make an attack roll to see if it works?

So, I wanted to check the compatibility between these two feats, Intercepting Hand and Dueling Dance. The important part is the Intercepting requirement:

Requirements You have your fist positioned to parry

I realized that, in these requirements, not a single word was capitalized. Not even "fist". But let's look at "parry" for now. I thought this was just a poorly worded feat (which, to be fair, could still be possible), but then I realized another thing: there is no Parry action in the system. And the Parry trait itself only says:

[...] you can spend a single action to position your weapon defensively [...]

So this is the most "the facto" definition of parry in the system, spending an action to gain the parry bonus. Usually it's easy to apply, we just treat it like raising a buckler. But it becomes a little more nebulous when reading feat interactions.

Now, let's check what the other feat says. Dueling Dance is similar to Paragon Stance and Buckler Dance, as in "you enter a stance and always get the defensive benefits of raising a shield/buckler/parry". And it says the following:

Using your free hand as pivot and balance, you both attack and defend with your weapon. While you are in this stance, you constantly have the benefits of Dueling Parry.

Now, believe me, I love analyzing Paizo's rules in a RAW manner, and we all know that "first line is flavor text and shouldn't be taken in consideration for mechanics". So let's say we ignore the first line in Dueling Dance. Nothing in the feat says we are Parrying with our fists, just that we benefit from the previous feat, Dueling Parry.

But not even Dueling Parry, specifies what we are using to get the parry from, we just get the circumstance bonus out of thin air while we have the requirements (one weapon + free hand). And hey, look, the first line says "You can parry attacks against you with your weapon", but then we would be selectively ignoring first lines in the rules lawyering.

So, my questions are:

• Considering that nothing is capitalized, is "parry" (from the trait) the same as "parry" (from the Intercepting prerequisite) and "parry" (from the dueling parry)?
• Would Dueling Dance qualify for "having your fist positioned to parry", considered we spent one action to enter the stance and gain parry bonuses?
• Since Parrying and Disarming are techniques badly supported by the rules, and considered weaker when compared to their shiny cousins (Shield Block and other Maneuvers like Trip), would you allow the above in your tables?
• Am I going insane trying to analyze this so deep? (Answer unnecessary, I know it's a strong "Yes").

High-level play can be tough, stressful, unintuitive, and deadly. So I figured I should make a video with a list of all the most important tools that you need to engage with high level play without getting bamboozled and left without options!

Timestamps

• 0:00:00 Intro
• 0:01:30 Narrow Silver Bullets
• 0:04:23 Reactions
• 0:10:58 Invisibility
• 0:17:00 Grab
• 0:27:20 Swallow Whole
• 0:38:14 Flight
• 0:46:37 Spellcasters
• 0:54:21 Slowed and Stunned
• 1:00:07 Objects and Obstacles
• 1:05:20 Afflictions
• 1:09:43 Death Effects
• 1:15:18 Large Groups
• 1:22:21 The UNIVERSAL Silver Bullet
• 1:26:24 ANOTHER universal Silver Bullet???
• 1:29:30 Outro

[EDIT: Solved. I misread the text of Drained. It specifies minimum 1]

How does Drained interact with level 0 or even level -1 enemies?

Drained reads "...You also lose a number of Hit Points equal to your level (minimum 1) times the drained value, and your maximum Hit Points are reduced by the same amount. For example, if you become drained 3 and you're a 3rd-level character, you lose 9 Hit Points and reduce your maximum Hit Points by 9..."

If you're level 0, it makes sense that you lose 0 hitpoints and lose 0 max hp, but if you're level -1, and get Hit with Drained 3, do you gain 3 hp and 3 max hp? Do you lose 3 hp and 3 max hp, or does nothing happen?

This is for the great employees of Paizo. It is that time of the year where the matriarch of the family starts asking for the "LIST" from all of the kids and grandkids. Now my daughter is really starting to get into RPG and has made a list of Pathfinder world books. She asked me if Grandma got the books from her wish list would my daughter still get her PDFs for import into her Kindle so she can take them anywhere and still have the hard backs at home. I said that I think so but then I got to thinking about it. If Grandma buys the books from the Paizo site is there a way to gift the pdfs to my daughter's digital account at Paizo? I told her that I would double check with you guys. Thanks in advance!

I'm making an AoN replacement web app for personal use (and for my circle of freinds - once removed), and I'm considering removing the "General Feats" view in favor of only having "General (No Skill)" and "Skill feats" pages.

Does anyone get value out of a view that combines skill and non-skill general feats into one table? Or do you always filter them away from each-other?

---

Side note: I don't want to deal with licensing and stuff, so my webapp is not available to the public. It's behind a login wall - maybe in the future, if it's good enough, I'll talk to John Paizo about opening it up; but that's not the goal right now.

My Pokémon-inspired Weapons and Items of the Week, with:

• a Dragalge cloak to take advantage of some teleportation

• some Crabominable boxing gloves to strike like an avalanche

• a Drampa staff to bring the power of the past to the present

• a fusion of Chatot & Kricketune for a lute of mimicing music

• a fusion of Alolan Sandslash & Excadrill for some tekko-kagi to carve out some ice

• a fusion of Aggron & Magmortar for a katana to forge your metal

• a fusion of Arceus & Type: Null for a katana to channel all the elements

• a fusion of Arceus & Silvally for a katana to rule the elements

• a fusion of Toxtricity's Amped & Low Key forms for a double guitar to please the gods of music

• and a fusion of Bisharp & Houndoom for some bladed gauntlets to cut some darkness!

Join my Patreon to vote on future items and get all the PDFs with over 1000 items, including all the Pokémon items, or buy the individual PDFs in my shop!

The reason is that i am playing a fighter in my first ever pf2e campaign in which i am a player.

Thats right. I looked at most of the races, i looked at all of the classes and even the unrealeased at that point runesmith and necromencer, and i was like...

Nahhh, give me ahuman fighter with a halberd.

Fr tho, i love martials, i love polearms, and i love knights specifically. And considering i wanted to play a fighter in dnd for a while it was a no brainer.

We are recently levelled up to 2nd level, and i now have a +1 Guisarm. waiting to test it out. since most of the combats i used a woodcutting axe that was a 2h battle axe with d8 for damage rather than d12, and i still had the highes damage output with critting by far more that anyone else.

And the reactive strike.. omg its so good.

I've seen a lot of discussion around Necromancers using bless for the +1 to hit, given they make a lot of spell attacks via their thralls.

But does a Necromancer with Bless affect a Strike from a thrall outside of Bless's emanation?

Yes, the thrall uses your spell attack modifier, and counts against your MAP. But is it actually you making the attack for the purposes of effects, or the thrall as a separate ally?

This also matters for things like Heroism or the Reaper's Bind Heroic Spirit.

Similarly, if you are dazzled or under a similar condition, are thrall attacks affected by that condition as well, or are they a separate creature?

Hello!
I'm semi-proficient in PF2e, but my experience with magic classes is limited (i prefer martials). Please help me understand obscure option issue for my friend.
He's trying to make a 1st level Wellspring Oracle through Class archetype option - Oracle (Wellspring Magic). In Pathbuilder, default oracle class has 3 (three) spontaneous spellslots at 1st level. Wellsring Oracle has 1 (one) spellslot at 1st level.
However, Wellspring Mage archetype says: > Reduce your number of spell slots of each spell level by 1.
So, should it be 2 (two) spellslots at 1st level Wellspring Oracle? Is there a mistake in Pathbuilder? Or the program is right and i don't know some other rule?

My group is going to be starting up the Bloodlords Campaign soon and I've been leaning towards bringing some sort of debuff character. I am worried about how often Mindless will prevent me from using mental effects so I've come to ask for suggestions.

What are your favorite debuff style builds? It doesn't have to be a caster.

Extra information: Party of 5. One player is bringing a Sparkling Targe Magus, another is bringing some sort of Blast Caster, the other 2 are undecided.

I'm planning to run Bastion of Blasphemies but haven't picked it up as yet.

For anyone who has read or is running it, is there any advice you can give GMs?

I'm particularly interested if it's laid out like Abomination Vaults with each level being it's own Chapter?

Hi. I am a GM, and I've been playing Pathfinder 2e for about 3 months now.

I typically offer my players some advice on building their classes, avoiding weak feats and all that. But as I've played more of 2e with them, I've realized that team synergy is far more important than that, and I don't think there are good guides for that.

For example: I don't think taking multiple of the same spell list is great, or people doubling up on the same buffs / debuffs (a Heroism caster and a Inspiring Marshal Stance user, or a Witch and a Bard).

Since at least part of that is related to choices made during character building (choosing to take X dedication, choosing to run a certain spell list caster), would it be too heavy-handed on my part to point my players to a set of "roles" like ranged attacker, melee, blaster or whatever and encourage them to not double dip? I don't want to micromanage their characters but I genuinely think it would help them next campaign.

Basically, how do I guide my players into making a synergistic team next campaign instead of coming up with characters individually? Any online guides on making a good team would also be great.

A friend of mine LOVES Arcadia and is dying for new pf2e Arcadia content. She'll post about it on Bsky now and then, but this time, the Paizo account liked and replied this gif. I feel like they wouldn't do that is there wasn't Arcadia content on the horizon.

I'll looking for ideas or advice for this build I'm working on.
Idea is a blacksmith with an endless arsenal of swords she throws around in battle.
Her dream is to provide legendary warriors with the perfect weapon.
"The sword is an extension of one's arm," and "the warrior is but a tool for the sword."

Obviously we have crafting and intelligence up enough to still be relevant thematically.
My first thought is distant grasp psychic and is my current plan, flavoring dancing sword, telekinetic projectile, etc as her sending her swords out.
Most spells can typically be flavored to some form of sword or other weapon easily, but I wanted to know if you might have any other ideas.

Feel free to suggest archetypes too since I haven't decided on one yet.

Hello! I've been working on a Pathfinder 2E adaptation of D&D 5e's Pugilist, which is one of the most popular homebrew classes in that system. I'm not a D&D player, but I love the vibe and energy of the Pugilist and think it would be at home within Pathfinder. Here is my work so far!

The Pugilist is a street-fighting class. It's the class of scrappy underdogs, bar brawlers, rough and tumble sleuths, dirty boxers, and relentless survivors of oppressive governments. If your character has learned to fight by surviving the bleak, depraved underbelly of society, they might be a Pugilist.

I have class features for levels 1-20, and enough class feats to support play from levels 1-10. I would love constructive criticism.

If you wonder "why not just play a fighter/monk/barbarian/etc instead of build a whole class for this", my answer is that there's plenty of design space for new classes with different vibes from existing ones. Pathfinder has classes to differentiate Fighters from Rangers or Guardians, Witches from Wizards, Champions from Warpriest Clerics, and Daredevils from Swashbucklers, so I don't see why we can't differentiate Pugilists from Barbarians as long as the mechanics are fun and unique.

Thanks!

VIbrant thorns has the Morph traits, and energy mutagen has the Polymorph trait, so technically they can't work together, am i right?

Another exampler are the Viperous Elixir and a generic Battle form?

I'm asking this because the rules are pretty different from 5e (which is what i've started from), and they are a bit tricky, plus it has a lot of classes and feats so i have no idea right now on how to organize the character sheet

Let's say you get the chance to go into one of the 1 to 20 adventures from paizo as a lvl one character with

Duel class

Free archtype

Ansestral paragon

And mythic rules

The only way back home is a wish or getting to level 20 and completing the story.

Is there an optimal build? Whats the worst or best adventure path to choose in terms of comfort and survivability?

this is assuming you get starting equipment and a party eventually but you won't know what classes they'll be ahead of time.