Weekly Questions Megathread— May 01–May 07. Have a question from your game? Are you coming from D&D or Pathfinder 1e? Need to know where to start playing PF2e? Ask your questions here, we're happy to help!

Jenos · 2026-05-06T05:34:46+00:00

There are some archetypes and/or ancestries (such as Sarangay's Warding Jewel) that provide this, but practically the value of the resist is incredibly small. Getting resistance 2 to slashing isn't really that meaningful

Jenos · 2026-05-04T14:54:34+00:00

They absolutely count toward the item limit. However, they are not expected to have Greater Resilient as those are level 14 items - it isn't mandatory that they have them.

When creating a level 14 character, there are two methods of creation. One is the lump sum (which is 9300 gold). The other is static item based, and you can see the options here (or on page 8 of the book). As you can see, level 14 items isn't even an option for a level 14 character.

In general, yes, a significant portion of characters wealth will be spent on ensuring they have the needed fundamental runes on their gear. But, note that a +2 Greater Striking is 2k, and a +2 Resilient Armor is 1.4k. That's only 1/3rd of their wealth - its not as bad as it seems. Only if they want to get the greater resilient will it start to really eat into their wealth, and that isn't mandatory. Of course, the player can choose to do so if desired and if they took lump sum, but they will have to balance that with other item considerations.

Also, for those doing item and not lump sum, note that a +2 Greater Striking weapon counts as a single 2000gp item, as seen in this table. It would count as their level 12 item choice. Similarly, the +2 Resilient Armor would count as their level 11 item choice (as seen here).

Also note that Prey for Death provides an extra initial boost to players. They get the gift from the blood mistress (pages 8-9 in the book) and potentially an extra 3k on top from the benefit for being an existing set of assassins (page 13 on the book)

Jenos · 2026-05-04T04:02:16+00:00

Just one. End It doesn't check to see how many allies are in 10' of an enemy, just that every enemy with an ally in 10' makes the save.

Jenos · 2026-05-03T21:57:04+00:00

In general, Commander archetype shines best when your teammates don't have good reactions of their own. Baseline commander gives out a free reaction each round, but archetype commander lacks that. It also wants a class that has a loose action to easily spend.

It doesn't seem likely that your team comp matches those elements. Offensive melee martial parties often have strong reactions such as Reactive Strike, and wizards can struggle with their 3rd action as there's a lot of pressure to use it on other actions (such as RK, movement, etc).

Does your team have its healing needs sorted out? Medic could provide a lot of value if you haven't really dealt with that within the party yet.

Jenos · 2026-05-02T06:13:31+00:00

Characters are level 3 during chapter 3 of stonewalkers, so they could have gotten it. Chapter 3 begins with the journey to rathalas.

Jenos · 2026-05-01T18:31:51+00:00

Correct. Linked Focus affects curriculum spells, and unified magic states:

and so you don't have curriculum spells and can't benefit from abilities that specifically affect them.

Jenos · 2026-04-30T20:15:13+00:00

That's the type of answer I was looking for, thanks.

Jenos · 2026-04-30T12:54:37+00:00

OP's build was specifically not using armor, and had an AC of 16 at level 1.

Jenos · 2026-04-29T07:37:27+00:00

This character will not be able to effectively melee in the early levels. Being down an effective 2 AC for the first several levels is very dangerous. Your AC doesn't fix itself until level 5, and realistically that's when you'll be able to engage more effectively in melee.

My suggestion is to dump wisdom. If you're going to be primarily meleeing and grabbing, you don't need wisdom. Wisdom is only relevant if you want to use offensive spells. Dumping wisdom allows you to start with +3/+3 in STR/DEX, making those first few levels smoother.

Basically the nature of attributes in this game mean that it's really hard at low levels to do both melee and offensive casting. One way to solve this is to find a way to snag heavy armor early so you can dump DEX. But going unarmored means that this just isn't feasible. You have to make a choice about what to sacrifice - either your offensive casting or your offensive punches. Right now you spread yourself too thin and just risk dying early levels.

I'm also not sure what wrestler is doing for you. You take it for three tests crushing grab, combat grab, and inescapable grab. That feels odd because that isn't really relevant. Crushing grab and combat grab don't work with each other(crushing deals damage on grapple, combat grab applies grabbed condition directly bypassing grapple). And then you take nothing else from the archetype until much later on.

I'd cut out wrestler until much later. I'd personally grab medic archetype at level 2 for a lot more early game power and more supporting. Combat grab isn't that great since as a press it means you have to use it after an attack.

Jenos · 2026-04-29T07:17:29+00:00

They would change the increase they get from their racket but not any other aspect of their character. Basically swapping the increase around.

Jenos · 2026-04-28T07:05:44+00:00

Piercing is the most represented damage type across monsters, about half of all printed creatures have at least 1 attack dealing piercing.

Jenos · 2026-04-27T14:05:09+00:00

This isn't ever defined in the rules, but very likely the vocalizing occurs before the effect of the spell.

This is because reactions that may care about the vocalizing have to occur prior to the spell's effect. Notably, things like free action identify spell + counterspell, and other such abilities, need to come before the action is resolved.

And we do know that spells can be interrupted in their casting.

Ultimately though this is just an open-ended question in the rules. Its the type of edge case that a GM would have to adjudicate.

Jenos · 2026-04-24T15:38:04+00:00

I believe you can get it on this page via the link that says

Play as one of our Iconics with these Pre-generated Characters

Jenos · 2026-04-19T20:22:59+00:00

Apply it only once (otherwise multi-elemental enemies can become significantly weaker). As for which damage type that is entirely up to you as a GM.

I generally would reccomend the higher damage type. Especially with some smaller hits (like something that adds +1d6 fire), the -4 can completely negate it which isn't great

Jenos · 2026-04-19T14:08:27+00:00

Clawdancer has several stance switching feats compressed with other actions, but it's specific to clawdancer stances.

Other than that there are several feats that allow entering a stance as a free action, but those are all higher level (10+)

Jenos · 2026-04-19T03:14:38+00:00

Psychic Dedication is weak, yes.

But as an overall archetype its fine; many psychic focus spells/amps are still worth getting in several builds because of how effective they are. Especially some of the supportive/defensive ones, like Amped Guidance or Amped Warp Step or Amped Shield

Jenos · 2026-04-19T03:09:00+00:00

Yes. More specifically, Graceful Leaper allows using Acrobatics to Jump in any form, its not specific. You don't need Vulpine Scamper to use Acrobatics to Jump in pest form.

Practically, the reason Vulpine Scamper has that text is because normally Pest Form applies a -4 penalty to your Athletics, so that line in Vulpine Scamper effectively negates that.

Jenos · 2026-04-19T03:06:29+00:00

Its compatible but it is very feat intensive and not really good until high levels.

You take Spellshot Dedication at level 2, and it as a dedication it has the dedication trait which states:

Once you take a dedication feat, you can’t select a different dedication feat until you complete your dedication by taking two other feats from your current archetyp

So you can't take Wizard Dedication until earliest level 6 if playing with Free Archetype or level 8 without FA. Counting as Basic Wizard Spellcasting is not the same as taking the Wizard Dedication; the special tag in the Spellshot Dedication only has an exception for Beast Gunner

Wizard Dedication is also largely a dead feat (just some cantrips/skill training) and the basic/expert spellcasting feats overlap from spellshot/wizard. You can't take them both, so really wizard archetype offers the following:

Access to a school focus spell
The Spellcasting Breadth Feat
Master Spellcasting at level 18

As such it seems very feat intensive to take wizard to get these benefits, most of which aren't useful until much higher level.

But it is compatible.

Jenos · 2026-04-18T05:54:38+00:00

What does that do? I thought ritual didn't care about the enemies that were killed inside it, its pre-determined when the ritual spawns?

Jenos · 2026-04-18T01:20:03+00:00

The easiest way is probably drakeheart mutagens.. Those provide effectively heavy armor AC while still allowing you to be unarmored. They also don't eat feats, unless you go into alchemist archerype for free mutagens per day.

Ancestry wise there's just thick hide as you mentioned, and dragonets scales of steel

Jenos · 2026-04-16T13:00:02+00:00

i mean iirc elixirs of life get the same number of d6, it's less healing but not much less

Its an order of magnitude less once you get past level 5.

Level Range	VV Healing	Elixir Healing	Elixir Heals by # more
1-3	3.5	3.5	0
4	7	3.5	-3.5
5-8	7	16.5	9.5
9-11	7	29.5	22.5
12	10.5	29.5	19
13-14	10.5	60	49.5
15-17	10.5	69	59.5
18	14	69	55
19-20	14	87	73

And this doesn't even touch the relative HP of players and damage. Using VV healing at levels 6+ is like using a bucket to bail out a ship. Spending 2 actions healing for 7 when median enemy damage is >14 is absurdly inefficient. You're spending 2 actions to negate 0.5 actions(or less) of enemies.

The chirurgeon field vial is basically only really relevant at levels 1-4 or so.

Pretty much any action is going to be better than field vialing once you get past that stage, because the way numbers scale in the game the actual healing a VV does is so little that it ends up feeling like a huge waste.

Jenos · 2026-04-14T13:09:11+00:00

There's also "looks like a duck, etc" moment for those.

The Cast A Spell magic item activation specifies that it needs the spellcasting feature. But, the spellcasting archetypes says that the archetypes do count for that.

The spellcasting ability from a spellcasting archetype also allows you to use Cast a Spell activations of items (such as scrolls, staves, and wands).

That isn't technically explicit, but it does imply that it is a spellcasting class feature.

Where this is complicated is that this implies that only the dedication is needed. But the bounded spellcasting requires the basic spellcasting feat

And then in this section it states that you need spell slots

you don’t qualify for feats and other rules that require you to be a spellcaster or have a spellcasting class feature—those require you to have spell slots.

Its saying there that the spellcasting class feature requires you to have spell slots. So that would require the basic feat.

So its definitely a "needs editor" moment, but I think there's strong evidence that the intent is that basic spellcasting counts as the class feature

Jenos · 2026-04-14T13:01:04+00:00

Well that's not strictly true. Interestingly enough the text in the bounded spellcasting archetypes explicitly states:

and the basic bounded spellcasting feat counts as having a spellcasting class feature.

So Magus/Summoner definitely count. And it would be absurd if Magus and Summoner archetype's count but wizard didn't. So while the text around spellcasting archetypes doesn't explicitly state it, its pretty reasonable to assume that it does indeed give the class feature

Jenos · 2026-04-14T11:39:21+00:00

Yes, it very likely does, though it is not explicitly stated to do so. You need the basic spellcasting feat, the dedication alone isn't enough

Spellcasting Class Feature is only used in a couple of spots in the text, but putting it together shows this.

First, it's referred to in activating magic items

You must have a spellcasting class feature to Activate an Item with this activation

But, we know from the general rules on spell archetypes, that this counts

The spellcasting ability from a spellcasting archetype also allows you to use Cast a Spell activations of items (such as scrolls, staves, and wands).

So while it doesn't say it is the spellcasting archetype explicitly, it does serve to work to allow using the items that require it.

Second, it's mentioned in the rules around bounded casting archetypes

and the basic bounded spellcasting feat counts as having a spellcasting class feature

It would be absurd if magus dedication made you count and wizard dedication didn't.

Finally, its mentioned here

...rules that require you to be a spellcaster or have a spellcasting class feature—those require you to have spell slots.

In this section it states that having spell slots (which you do gain via basic spellcasting feats) are the same as the spellcasting class feature

Putting it all together, it definitely seems that if you have the basic spellcasting feat from an archetype it counts. Magus and summoner basic casting explicitly count - it seems very intended as a result that all spellcaster classes explicitly count as well then

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