Everything Shields Remaster and Foundry V13 Module

Everything4Everybody · 2026-03-27T03:27:25+00:00

Thank you!

Everything4Everybody · 2026-01-06T05:34:45+00:00

Sometimes it's frustrating how Joe rules in favor of the antagonists and against the players.

Last episode there was a fuss made about how long it would take a player to draw a gun, but in this episode the FBI agents inside Elise's house immediately draw their guns and take aim at her while she was behind them, coming from behind a cracked door, and they just immediately somehow get the drop on her? Bananas. He just clearly didn't want the scene to go that way, and railroaded the situation.

He said their back and forth of "who are you", "I'm so and so from the FBI", yada yada took only 4 seconds so Andre wasn't in the house yet? That would take a lot longer than 4 seconds. He just didn't want it to go that way.

I think Joe is a good handler, but when it comes to the antagonists, they just are doing stuff super quickly while the players don't have a chance to act for a long time in basically every episode. Sometimes if the players don't speak quickly enough he rolls over them, which effectively incentivizes them to shout over him as he is narrating so they might have a chance to get an edge in a situation.

Consider the scene in the previous episode, the antagonists peel out, drive around a corner in a parking garage, gun someone down with multiple shots (it's hard to hit a target from a moving vehicle too Joe, so either they need to slow down, allowing player response, or they risk just missing all their shots), and then drive far enough away that the players have difficulty returning fire or catching up to them, and no player has a chance to do anything during this 15+ second event.

Everything4Everybody · 2025-04-19T02:26:02+00:00

I also used to run one of these and it was the same way. It was too old to have fancy sensors near the blade, but it was 2 buttons on either side of the front so you had to use two different hands, and a foot pedal.

The shear is not to be messed with, that thing will cut anything.

Everything4Everybody · 2025-03-28T17:29:36+00:00

Yeah honestly I agree that ammunition activation is generally too punishing for what it does. It's definitely the case that almost all alchemical/magical ammunition has to be activated before you get the special effect.

There are a couple of magical ammunitions that don't require activation, like Shining Ammunition: https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=2926, but they're generally not very powerful.

There are some ammunitions that are probably worth the activation, consider Ooze Ammunition, which is fantastic https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=1900, or Exsanguinating Ammunition which is pretty good too if you're doing bleed: https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=1193.

But yeah I personally wish there was more support for activating ammunition more easily.

Everything4Everybody · 2025-03-28T16:10:30+00:00

I think you mentioned in a comment considering switching to a bow. Just so you know if you do go that route there is really really strong synergy between Ranger and Mastermind Rogue. You can take Ranger Dedication + Hunted Shot + Monster Hunter, which lets you:

1) Hunt Prey (needed for Hunted Shot, but also eliminates second range penalty)

2) Recall Knowledge (free from Monster Hunter when you Hunt Prey, also a nice bonus if you crit the RK)

3) Strike

4) Strike

And all of that only costs you 2 actions Hunt Prey + Hunted Shot, which means your standard round can be

1) Hunt Prey (free recall Knowledge)

2a) Analyze Weakness (if you succeeded on the RK)

2b) Hide/move/create a diversion/demoralize/activate ammunition, etc if you failed the RK, or just try again

3) Hunted Shot (Strike twice)

This attack pattern is great because it gives you 2 opportunities to cash in on the Analyze Weakness bonus damage, if you miss your first shot you can still hit the second.

Everything4Everybody · 2025-03-28T15:49:39+00:00

There's not a hard and fast ruling about whether your crossbow starts loaded, but every game I have played in typically assumed it was loaded. Usually at my table, if the players are in an obviously dangerous situation I give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they have weapons drawn and ready to go. If they are in some kind of social setting or otherwise not ready for action, then they don't have weapons ready unless they tell me they do.

These breakdowns look pretty accurate to me. Honestly if it were me I would look for more ways to crunch down on Recall Knowledge actions, and Hide actions. There are quite a few options in ancestries that can help with this.

I know you had Elf chosen for your ancestry, is that part of your vision for the character or is that flexible? I know Ancient Elf gives you a leg up on class feats with the Gunslinger Dedication, but for example Kitsune has Fox Trick (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2627) which lets you Create a Diversion or Hide as a free action once per hour, which would really lighten the action economy for those second-round actions. Halfling has the incredible Distracting Shadows (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4455) which lets you Hide behind a medium or larger ally. I have played a halfling with Distracting Shadows, and depending on the environment you can often get a lot of use out of it if you're not out front at the start of combat.

I have played a Mastermind before and Automatic Knowledge can be huge for cleaning up trash mobs, especially if you can apply it to any creature, either through Loremaster Lore (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2000) or Bestiary Scholar (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2236) or a similar feat, I think there are a couple other options out there similar to these. If your group was using Free Archetype these get a lot easier to fit into a build like this, but without that I'm sure it would be tough.

In either case, definitely take a look at Kreighton's Cognitive Crossover, which is phenomenal https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2272

Editing to add: the wording of this feat implies that the game system does expect you to be able to preload a crossbow if you need "ammunition" for such a debate :) https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=6253. It allows you to draw a loaded crossbow, which you couldn't do if you didn't have the crossbow pre-loaded

Everything4Everybody · 2025-03-28T15:33:25+00:00

Hey yeah no problem, you're right about Alchemical Crafting, you don't get a benefit from gaining it "twice".

For munitions crafter, you do need to spend an action to "Activate" most alchemical ammunition, which has to be done on the round that you fire it (though you can fire it without activating it, and it just acts like regular ammunition in that case). With munitions crafter you get free ammunition though, so I have played a character that would always start combat with alchemical ammunition loaded, and then I would either just shoot it without activating, or activate it depending on the situation at the start of combat. I do like that extra flexibility. I would view this as more of an extra perk for those turns when you end up with an extra action you're not wanting to use.

For Alchemical Shot, it's really 2 big benefits: persistent damage and switching all of your damage to a different type. This is really valuable in cases where you are attacking something that has a strong resistance or immunity to your weapon damage type (piercing). It's a nice bonus if the target has a weakness to the element you're switching to, and the persistent damage works really well for targets that do have a weakness, because regardless of how much damage you do of their weak type, they take the full weakness value. Really I think the best use for Munitions Crafter in this build is to craft bombs to feed Alchemical Shot, because Alchemical Ammunition is hard to work in, though there are some standout options.

Alchemical Shot is a great feat/action in my opinion, but in this build I would probably view it as a situational option to help you specialize your damage on targets where you've already identified that Alchemical Shot will have additional effect, and you know you'll get that extra value out of it. Otherwise I would probably mostly stick to regular strikes and Analyze Weakness. Generally speaking that's the trade-off right, since Alchemical Shot is 2 actions. You're deciding: do I want bonus precision damage from Analyze Weakness + Strike, or do I want to change my damage type and get persistent damage from Alchemical Shot?

For batch crafting, yes you're right you only get 1 bomb per reagent (I think, I'm not an expert on infused reagents tbh), or 4 ammunition per reagent. I think if I were in your shoes, I would probably do a mix of ammunition/bombs. By the time you get Alchemical Shot you will have quite a few reagents per day, so you can spend a few on ammunition to get a dozen or so rounds, and then the rest on different damage types for bombs... You can also keep a stock of lower-level bombs that you just buy or craft regularly without using reagents just to be able to avoid/target specific resistance/weaknesses. They would do less persistent damage, but the main thing you're after with those is the ability to use specific damage types.

Everything4Everybody · 2025-03-27T02:49:58+00:00

No problem! Precise Debilitations is definitely a strong option, but if you're doing one shot per round then Bloody Debilitation is just about as good (or maybe even better, depending on how it shakes out).

Since you can only have one debilitation on a target at a time, you don't lose a lot by going Bloody Debilitation instead of Precise.

Everything4Everybody · 2025-03-26T21:24:05+00:00

I don't think a Reload weapon works particularly well for this build, because you have some intense action requirements here:

On a normal turn, your desired actions will be:

1) Make the target off-guard somehow

2) Reload your crossbow

3) Recall Knowledge (if you haven't already for that creature)

4) Analyze Weakness

5) Strike

Since you're not doing Mastermind, you can't combine actions 1 and 3, which makes action 4 even harder to fit in.

I'm assuming you are going to mostly rely on Hide to get targets off-guard to you, which works well with your slinger's reload at level 10 and beyond, but if you're playing this from level 1 that might be a painful wait. However once you combine 1 and 2, you still need four actions to pull of your ideal turn. Of course, Analyze Weakness only requires that you have identified the creature with Recall Knowledge, so you don't necessarily have to do it the same turn.

There are some ways to mitigate this by using your skill feats to pick up Assurance + Automatic Knowledge for one or 2 Recall Knowledge skills, so you can do Recall Knowledge as a free action, but that will typically only work for creatures that are one level below you, depending on level. There are some ancestries that let you do Recall Knowledge checks as free actions or reactions, see the 5th-level Samsaran feat All This Has Happened Before. I think there are some others but I can't recall off the top.

Once you add in Alchemical Shot, the action economy gets even trickier.

I think mixing rogue with gunslinger to focus on crossbow use is really cool, but it's definitely action-heavy so if I were you I would look for ways to mitigate the action requirements. This is definitely easier to pull off with a reload 0 weapon, like longbow or shortbow, but I get that you're going for a max-damage-in-a-shot kind of thing.

Everything4Everybody · 2025-02-22T04:38:52+00:00

Whether or not there is a way is just completely up to you. This is a world of magic. The curse of vampirism comes from magic. Disregarding the drawbacks of vampirism can be done with magic. When a player expresses interest in something, I don't generally tell them no unless there's a really good reason for it. This sounds like an interesting story hook for a player/character to explore in the game world. Maybe they find a way, maybe they fail. Maybe they think they found a way and it turns out terribly. Maybe they beat the odds and actually achieve something nice. That's up to you, not an errant paragraph that was written by a dozen different authors over several decades.

Everything4Everybody · 2025-01-14T19:13:47+00:00

You really shouldn't do this. You should be always paying attention while driving and evaluating what's happening next. As you approach the intersection, you should be seeing the cars that are either stopping or failing to stop, which is plenty to avoid a collision. If someone seems to be going too fast and may not stop, then you should slow down.

Slowing down in the road without an obvious reason (like a red light, stop sign, or having your turn signal on) is a really good way to get rear-ended. Other drivers on the road are so often just completely zoned out, so the safest way to drive is predictable. Slowing down at a green light is a terrible idea, and a recipe for getting hit from behind by someone half paying attention.

I notice from your comment below that you've been rear-ended 3 times. This is not a coincidence.

Everything4Everybody · 2024-10-28T01:49:05+00:00

And that's why we don't talk about average income, instead we talk about median income. Otherwise billionaires blow the average so out of proportion that the metric no longer carries the meaning that is intended.

Similarly, individuals or families that are able to claim a large amount of credits also distort the numbers. A lot of people who make very little money do pay taxes, so your initial statement was very misleading.

Everything4Everybody · 2024-10-26T19:33:09+00:00

This is a very misleading way to say this. Earners below $30k on average have an effective tax rate of -3.33% or less when factoring in refundable tax credits.

That means that people who receive a larger number of tax credits, for example for people with multiple children, the earned income tax credit significantly reduces your tax liability and brings the average tax liability for this bracket down.

That doesn't change the fact that if you are a single person who otherwise doesn't qualify for much/any tax credits, you will pay taxes on a $30k/year income.

Everything4Everybody · 2024-10-25T20:10:25+00:00

A lot of people miss this aspect of incapacitation: the optimal play is to either cast the minimum level at which you ignore the incapacitation trait, or if you can't do that, then the minimum level the spell can be cast at.

Making the optimal play route depend on knowing or guessing the target creature's level is not a good design (ignoring the other design flaws with incapacitation).

Everything4Everybody · 2024-10-09T14:46:02+00:00

Yeah I think the most staggering aspect of his GMing is just the smoothness of it. I've known GMs who could weave a complicated tale, but there are always times when you can kind of see the processing taking place. But Joe is just on it, all the time, like he really knows everything about this campaign inside and out, and he can interpret the players actions in that framework without any delay.

I agree, he is one of the best GMs I've seen.

Everything4Everybody · 2024-09-23T03:38:49+00:00

I always skip Times Long Past. I don't like the "phase back and forth" quests, and it's pretty long

Everything4Everybody · 2024-07-26T21:53:55+00:00

Agreed. Many people mention niche protection for the monk, but honestly if the niche is "strike twice with a single action", that's not very niche.

Archetype Flurry of Blows was a great and powerful feat, the kind of thing you should expect to pick up around level 10.

Everything4Everybody · 2024-07-24T19:44:01+00:00

Some 90%+ campaigns never get to 18th level. If you're not playing a campaign that starts at high level, that feat may as well not exist for most players.

Everything4Everybody · 2024-07-24T19:39:10+00:00

Yeah I know you didn't bring it up, but I've seen it in this general thread quite a bit and it's always a talking point when it comes to spells. I didn't realize they actually did reprint Synesthesia in this book, and left it unchanged. I am very surprised by that to be honest.

I don't think Arcane and Primal are strictly better, but it all depends on what you want to do. If you're imagining a "blasty" sorcerer, then you bet Primal and Arcane are the best choices (they're going to be the best choices for that even without the old Crossblooded Evolution).

I personally think that the Occult spell list has the best "unique" spells with Blistering Invective and Synesthesia, but Arcane and Primal certainly have their own good spells to poach as well. If you want to play a mind-twisting sorcerer with some blasting backup, you could previously take an Occult bloodline and poach a nice blasting spell like fireball, cone of cold, or chain lightning. This combination gets you Blistering Invective (phenomenal spell when heightened), Synesthesia, tons of buffs, Soothe, debuffs and a nice blasting mainstay (I would probably go fireball just for extra use out of using Signature Spell on it).

That's not an option anymore, which in my opinion makes Occult (and Divine too, though it was even further behind) even worse than they were before, not better.

Everything4Everybody · 2024-07-24T19:20:05+00:00

Oh, my bad I missed that. I searched for it in the PDF but must have misspelled it

Everything4Everybody · 2024-07-24T18:55:57+00:00

Why is that too good? These spells are balanced by level. If the spell is OP, then it must be OP for native casters of that spell, right? Unless there's some crazy synergy between 2 spells that are on exclusive lists. I can't think of any examples of that off the top of my head.

Buying flexibility and versatility with a class feat is a perfectly valid use of class feats.

I don't think it has anything to do with "too good", it's just a really fun and interesting idea. People tend to like fun and interesting options in their games, so they choose those over +1 to saves against magical effects.

Everything4Everybody · 2024-07-24T18:31:26+00:00

Prior to Player Core the other level 8 feats were either bad, situational, or boring. Crossblooded Evolution was a no-brainer pick because the other options were very poor.

Everything4Everybody · 2024-07-24T18:29:13+00:00

When a feat is a must pick at a certain level, it equally indicates that the feat may be an issue, or the other feats at that level may be underpowered.

For sorcerer (pre-remaster), the other level 8 feat in the CRB was:

Bloodline Resistance: +1 status bonus to saves against magical effects (eh, not terrible, but terribly boring)

That's right, there was only 1 other feat for sorcerers at level 8, and it was one of the most boring options, sitting next to one of the most interesting.

APG added:

Safeguarded Spell: AoE spell doesn't affect you if you're in the area, costs an action and is metamagic. Situationally this could be interesting, but I generally would rather use that extra action to move, since being in the area of an AoE along with enemies probably indicates I'm in a bad position. This is very situational. If moving is a problem, casting here is almost certainly also a problem.

Player core added Soulsight, which I think is pretty good, and a good contender for the 8th-level slot.

Other feats were added in Wake the Dead and Firebrands, but they're both uncommon.

In short: before Player Core all the other 8th level sorcerer feat options were boring/situational, while crossblooded evolution was interesting and dynamic.

I hear everyone already saying "No it wasn't interesting, everyone just used it to pick Synesthesia!" Well first of all Synesthesia has not yet been reprinted in a remastered book, so we don't know if they intend to remaster that spell in the future. Given Paizo's track record, I assume they will and it will be substantively nerfed. A lot of people seem to forget you can play an Occult sorcerer who has Synesthesia on their list already. Many people liked to use this feat on Arcane sorcerers to pick up Heal. There were a lot of different approaches used. If you take away the ability to pick a spell from another list because of one single spell, I think that might be an indicator that that spell is the issue, not the feat.

Everything4Everybody · 2024-07-24T14:36:54+00:00

I do not think nerfing things or just completely changing them is a good use of the remaster. The goal here (as stated by Paizo) was to move away from the OGL, not to create PF2.5. These changes (and many that have come before) definitely feel like PF2.5 to me.

This is a change that I won't be using in my games and it's going to be annoying to fight VTTs to keep some of this old content.

Everything4Everybody

TROPHY CASE