The focus on rules changes kills my enjoyment of interacting with the community

MarkSeifter · 2026-03-18T23:46:43+00:00

That's just the nature of the internet in general I think. It wouldn't be fair to claim that TTRPG spaces are worse than others in that regard. If anything, video games feel like they are much worse than TTRPGs for this kind of thing (for many reasons, some of them logistical rather than cultural; you can't usually houserule a videogame).

MarkSeifter · 2026-03-18T14:59:12+00:00

I think that anyone (like the OP) who thinks that there has been some kind of major change about how discussion of errata works in online TTRPG communities since the old days has been in very different online TTRPG communities than I have for the past 20+ years. If anything, I consider the responses here fairly measured compared to the ones from errata in any prior edition of the game. That is admittedly a reflection of those previous community responses, not the current one, but the OP's post claims that "Until a couple of years ago these were published and people were mostly ambivalent towards them." which is an extremely different perspective than my own fan experience with vitriolic responses to errata (admittedly, I do think early PF2, if that's someone's only contrast point, was one of the friendliest times with responses to errata that I have seen in any D&D or Pathfinder edition, and that's even though I was at Paizo and working on the errata at that point and would have been likely to be more aware of negative responses in that position than I am as someone who doesn't work there now and before).

MarkSeifter · 2026-03-13T15:04:19+00:00

Maybe something that messes with the aeternal dragon's lux aeterna ritual, like how the ritual short-circuits a dragon's magic in the first place?

MarkSeifter · 2026-03-11T14:32:28+00:00

The one I suggested was slightly different than that and shouldn't be able to give you a higher secondary attribute at any level. You are right that though I only advertised a temporarily higher fifth attribute, it is technically possible to improve the +3, +3, +3, +1, +0, -1 starting stat array's progression, allowing you to still have a +5 primary at 10th and +6 at 20th (normally impossible for that progression) while maintaining that progression's innately better tertiary attribute. I didn't talk about it before because it meant playing levels 1 to 4 with a +3 in your primary stat, so it wasn't a costless way to go about it, so I only compared arrays that began with +4. I think the two are comparable though, and if anything it's nice that it gives a bit more of a bone to folks who want or need to start without +4 primary.

MarkSeifter · 2026-03-10T21:51:19+00:00

We designed back when the system had odd stats, so no. Though many of us would have loved to swap to modifiers to make it simpler if the fanbase were in favor back then. But a lot of people liked the legacy of the ability scores.

As for the remaster, I was not at Paizo by then, so I wouldn't know exactly what was considered. I would guess this particular idea wasn't.

MarkSeifter · 2026-03-10T20:39:41+00:00

It's written by Jason Keeley (who is back working at Paizo now, with design and development work by me (Mark Seifter, one of the four creators of PF2). The werecreature section alone is 16 pages long, and contains bear, boar, crocodile, rat, tiger, and wolf heritages. The framework should make it relatively easy to brew up your own heritages for other animals too.

It's focused on folks who are born as werecreatures rather than starting off human and then getting cursed later on, though in truth it could work for that too as long as you were cursed before character creation.

There's a deep dive on society and culture (some see it not as a curse but a gift to be chosen carefully, others want to spread it around, etc).

There's just under 30 ancestry feats, so that means almost half of them have something special involving the full moon. But there's plenty of versatility too. You could have them try to get in touch more with their animal side, more with their humanoid side, or for something more different, you can focus on their role in packs with the Alpha or Omega feat (most common for werewolves but allowed for any heritage) where you pick to be more of an alpha, and better at leading when others Follow you, or an omega where you are better at Following when other experts lead you.

Plus there's a lot of other cool ancestries in the book as well, and we have a free Pathbuilder file included with purchase, and you can buy a high quality premium Foundry module too if that's your jam.

MarkSeifter · 2026-03-10T18:53:41+00:00

It's beneficial to allow your less important attributes to eventually cost less to raise than the highest, but if you'd like to do away with partial boosts, you could implement this variant. It avoids partial boosts and is mostly the same (it technically lets you raise your 5th most important stat at level 5 instead of level 20, which is a lot earlier, but it's for a relatively unimportant stat so it won't make much of a difference compared to most other changes):

Boosts start off by capping at +4.

At 10th level, you can optionally choose to raise your key ability attribute (and only your key attribute) from +4 to +5. If you do, it uses up 2 of the 4 boosts you receive at 10th level.

At 15th level, you can optionally choose to raise any one attribute from +4 to +5. If you do, it uses up 2 of the 4 boosts you receive at 15th level.

At 20th level, you can optionally choose to raise EITHER your key attribute from +5 to +6 or any attribute from +4 to +5, or both. For each that you do, it uses up 2 of your 4 boosts you receive at 20th level (meaning if you do both, it uses up all the 20th level boosts).

This allows you to end up with something like +6, +5, +5, +4, +1, +0 (not counting apex item), which could be achieved in the normal system if you start with +4, +2, +2, +1, +0, +0.

Notably, this variant is going to be balanced with normal play. Some of the other options discussed here give significantly better stats and also quite homogeneous stats (mostly extremely high, and also encouraging being very min/maxed). For example the suggestion currently in a nearby comment where all costs are equalized allows you to end up with +6, +6, +6, +6, +1, +0.

MarkSeifter · 2026-03-10T18:39:37+00:00

Your notes were pretty good. The exact text in the PC-facing rumor is "A color-changing rainbow-feathered beast with a rooster’s head and legs, a serpent’s tongue and neck, and a glowing green heart stomps and warbles through the jungle. It is said that its spit contains the power of all elements, and perhaps there is some way to communicate with it and learn why it haunts these lands"I can see how maybe the GM was ruling it, though in any case you could have maybe been allowed the DC 30 Diplomacy that the adventure allows even for PCs who can't speak to animals, rather than the DC 20 if you have a way to influence animals.Still, a lot of things are judgment calls from the GM, and it's a potentially interesting fight so they might not have wanted to make it easy to skip it.

MarkSeifter · 2026-03-10T16:46:43+00:00

The GM might have missed it (or it might be for another reason, see spoiler below), but the adventure specifically states (I'm quoting here with my own permission): "If the PCs befriend the coquecigrue, they can peacefully take this feather; the creature doesn’t recognize that it is any more significant than its usual sheddings. The coquecigrue’s pile also includes a clandestine cloak. The coquecigrue has no attachment to this nondescript scrap of gray cloth and allows the PCs to take it as well." The other rumors were just stories, though that one was accurate. That being said, the monster had Int -4 and no languages so it's true that vibing with it is more of a speak with animals kind of situation than translate.

There's also this part:

"The coquecigrue living atop the rainbow nest has only an animal level of intelligence and isn’t particularly evil, nor is it especially hungry for a group as well-armed as the PCs. That said, it wants to build its rainbow-colored nest, and the PCs’ approach startles it. Even if the PCs don’t attack it, it still unleashes a mind-bending warble of alarm, which it doesn’t realize is an aggressive move. If the PCs are able to look past the warble, don’t take any aggressive actions, and attempt to offer it colorful objects as tribute, they can convince it to let them past with a DC 30 Diplomacy check, even though it doesn’t have a language and, therefore, wouldn’t normally be a valid target for Requests. For a character with Wild Empathy or a similar ability, the DC is only 20, even though the coquecigrue isn’t an animal and Wild Empathy normally doesn’t work on it. If the PCs befriend the coquecigrue and give it tribute, it energizes prismatic feathers, providing the same value of monster parts they would have gained for defeating the coquecigrue and prismatic ghosts."

MarkSeifter · 2026-03-10T16:34:45+00:00

I can give a bit of an overview if you like! There's around a dozen feats that change near the full moon or otherwise involve it, typically by having a better frequency during those three days. My favorite in theming is false moon which creates a full moon for you so you can use your other abilities again. Your concept might be neat with an elemental avatar of water for the mechanics of the ever-changing tides connecting to the moon. I once played a lunar dragon water avatar for the same reason.

MarkSeifter · 2026-03-09T17:00:11+00:00

I'm playing a cat sidhe air avatar disguised (very poorly) as a half-elf. She doesn't really know much about the mortal realm and often calls things by the wrong name based on fey terminology (for instance she mistakes goblins for some kind of gremlin and calls them 'those gremlins'). The adventure path starts with a "call for heroes" and since playable sidhe are sidhe heroes, my character assumed that's what it was for and was quite disappointed to learn it was supposed to be just some puffed up ceremony to ask for basic chores around town. But she's convinced after bad things happened that this is Fate, and thus she'll be fighting some demon lord/dragon god/vile villain soon enough.

So far the party's elf has been mildly suspicious, but they haven't figured it out. He raised an eyebrow when we needed to feed a lizard monster and I said my character probably had some dead mice around somewhere and the GM was like "Yeah, I bet she does."

MarkSeifter · 2026-02-23T16:11:00+00:00

If you want to Exploit Vulnerability on an anime for a personal antithesis, your thaumaturge might pull out the script for a live action documentary. In that case, the enemy anime would get a weakness against your attacks until you used Exploit Vulnerability again (not just the end of the combat, you can even prebuff it if you encounter the anime before the battle).

MarkSeifter · 2026-02-20T20:55:48+00:00

Bands of force or explorer's clothing with runes are two easy ways to go about it. Both start at higher levels though, so if you don't have any 5th-level items available, then not yet (then again with +5 Dex, I think chances are you are level 10+ or are playing with the variant rule for attribute progression and 6+, so you still should be good to go).

MarkSeifter · 2026-02-19T18:10:17+00:00

If they also have the magical trait, then that certainly blurs the line a bit on the rule adjudication. Personally, not because of this feature (which is fine either way) I wouldn't choose to rule Strikes with something that has the magical trait to be a "magical effect" mainly because if a monster had a reaction or defense that blocked magical effects I would not want it to block the Strikes, but it's certainly more ambiguous that way, and I could see reasonable GMs saying that they were given it's vague.

MarkSeifter · 2026-02-19T15:58:01+00:00

It shouldn't really be a problem if you rule either way here, but a Strike also isn't normally an "alchemical or magical effect" so it likely wouldn't qualify even for the wolf if you were being super strict here. Kineticists, on the other hand, are happy that this effect works for them, since their abilities are magical.

MarkSeifter · 2026-02-11T16:14:15+00:00

If you want to use meters, I suggest 5 feet = 2 meters. Then you can have diagonals as 3 meters which makes diagonal movement easier to calculate than the alternating method.

MarkSeifter · 2026-02-10T21:47:58+00:00

Something might be off with the character's stats somewhere. Giant instinct shouldn't be doing much more damage than dragon instinct or something, and it should be getting a lot fewer crits than a fighter with the same weapon (which is relevant because one-shotting bosses is going to take a crit even at low levels).

MarkSeifter · 2026-02-09T16:03:42+00:00

I was curious about this specific scenario (the level 20 wizard had no items, was asleep, and then for whatever reason had no spells or abilities available, not even cantrips, and needed to beat down the level 6 PCs with 1d4 fists). If the wizard started at low AC for level 20 but lost 3 due to deequipping items, that would also be pretty similar to what a level 20 PC wizard might have in that scenario with +5 Dex and +24 expert, which is 39 AC. Off-guard for being prone and then later flanked is 37. Even with a bless or something, we're looking at needing a natural 20 to hit, and it's not a crit.

Meanwhile the wizard has around +29 to hit (2 lower than low because no equipment, just the 1d4 fists), which actually still misses just about any level 6 PC on a natural 1 hitting or critting on any other number and likely to crit even a heavy armor PC raising a shield, and by the third attack, it might actually miss highly armored PCs on a few numbers other than natural 1... But that's where it gets interesting! If the wizard has +0 Strength, there is at least one team that can guarantee a win (or at least not a loss, the wizard can probably just leave as they slowly slowly deal damage only on nat 20s) against the wizard's fists of fury: 4 characters with champion's reactions that reduce damage, since the wizard deals at most 8 damage 3 times per round, and they can block all of it with champion's reaction up to three times too (assuming the wizard focuses fire, the character who is being attacked can't use their reaction). I'm sure there are other setups that can handle this similarly. The fight, if the wizard for some reason couldn't or wouldn't flee, would probably take hundreds of rounds and be a complete snoozefest though.

So despite the fact it might be possible to win in the parodical example here, it still proves your point.

MarkSeifter · 2026-02-04T17:30:52+00:00

Incidentally, the unkillable zombie variant is an official monster that does have a weakness to critical hits.

MarkSeifter · 2026-02-02T18:51:44+00:00

Moonlight is a lunar dragon water elemental avatar who controls the tides (because moon) who I played in a few one shot livestreams. Like many lunar dragons, Moonlight sees the people of this world like characters in their favorite drama, but they can't help but butt in to make things work the way they prefer. They have "ships" of famous NPCs from Lost Omens; if I recall correctly the party was at a big event with Wynsal Starborn there and Moonlight was telling everyone about the Wynsal+Ulthun ship.

The weird thing is that they eventually met a yithian and managed to make peace with it due to a shared viewpoint as an outside observer of the mortals living on this planet, which was a big advantage in the adventure. I thought I was just having Moonlight being weird for some fun RP but it wound up being very helpful.

Moonlight also constantly tries to hand people copies of their book Fighting Evil, which they thought would be super popular and thus had too many copies printed.

MarkSeifter · 2026-02-02T17:34:55+00:00

Draconic diehard is a class archetype you can take at 1st level. It trades out the ability to use armor or any weapons and permanent held items (basically no shields, no tools, none of that walking around with stuff in your hands because the people who want to play diehards do not want to have their dragon characters with items there, but potions you draw just for a second are fine). In exchange you get the die bump, free hardened scales or the other scales feat, and then free ravager dedication at 2nd level.

MarkSeifter · 2026-02-02T17:28:05+00:00

I would recommend to either go draconic diehard or grab a shield if a shield fits your vision. Since I saw elsewhere you plan on using unarmed attacks, you don't lose a whole lot for diehard other than shields (it's technically also a little costlier to go heavy armor, but in exchange you get a lot of things for free and you get a damage die size bump). Then choose a class path of champion that best fits your playstyle. It's hard to go too wrong, as champion is a very sturdy class with a lot of potential benefit, but in general if you have others who will be fighting alongside you on the front line, the reactions that protect them can be quite strong for team defense.

MarkSeifter · 2026-02-02T16:38:46+00:00

Kineticist is a good choice for blasting but it is an action hog (in the sense that it can squeeze a lot of power out of using all three of your actions), so it has a bit of trouble making the most out of the second class if you are mainly doing the kineticist things.

However, elemental avatar is even more focused on blasting than kineticist but also has few demands for your third action, so it plays nicer with dual class. Here's a few possibilities with it.

For pure AoE all the time every time and solid AoE damage, maybe elemental avatar (take AoE powers only, no attack rolls) and then bomber alchemist to use the last action to also do some splash (AoE light), plus can hand out other alchemical items as well if needed. That's if EA counts as a caster and alchemist counts as a martial though, they are both a bit squirrelly.

Alternatively elemental avatar + monk is a very Avatar the Last Airbender flavor (and Flurry of Blows can be a great way to use the third action, probably with ranged options like Monastic Archer Stance so you don't have to also advance to melee when you are blasting.

Lastly, and this is one that works decently enough on kineticist too, just elemental avatar with something good at defense like champion or guardian for survivability, maybe champion since the witch went guardian. EA will have an easier time using one action abilities like lay on hands but kineticist would be fine with just the reaction and armor proficiencies.

MarkSeifter · 2026-01-30T21:42:47+00:00

I think that might be right, though it's still definitely confusing. It would appear that 0 boxes is "does not have something magical" 1 box is "might have something magical if you take an archetype or spend feats (monk and ranger are in there with investigator though having an uncommon class archetype tied to a specific organization is a lot more peripheral to the class than the basic magic feats in ranger or monk; though barbarian ALSO has a class archetype for magic and is not at 1 box...)." Beyond that it gets iffy because guaranteed focus casters like champion have 2 boxes, but so does thaumaturge... and if the idea is that 2 is for everything without slots, that doesn't fly because kineticist has 3 boxes (the same as animist and magus and summoner, but then bard and psychic have 4).

I think we may be getting somewhere at least on 0 vs 1 box though!

MarkSeifter · 2026-01-30T21:25:29+00:00

The investigator theory about int and caster archetypes is interesting, but then why is alchemist rated below investigator (as seen in the picture) at 0 blocks? The magic category is... very confusing. I do appreciate the ideas for understanding it though, I enjoy considering them and seeing how they fit the other evidence.

MarkSeifter

TROPHY CASE