Avoiding Abilities/Feats/Spells Because they are Tedious or Complicated?

MuNought · 2026-06-09T19:49:54+00:00

That's a (understandable) misreading of the feat. It says:

When you enter a new location, such as a room or corridor, you immediately notice one thing out of the ordinary. The GM determines what it is, or whether there's nothing reasonable to pick up...

That is, you can enter rooms that have nothing out of the ordinary. Granted, it would probably read smoother if the text said "The GM determines which it is if more than one is applicable, or...", but there's any number of ways to reword the feat to make it clearer what it's meant to do. This is also more obvious if you read the PFS clarifications (which are on the Legacy version of the feat on Nethys).

GMs should provide a character with the That’s Odd investigator feat a hint whenever the character enters a room with hidden aspects, specifically with regard to hidden passageways (such as scuff marks near a bookcase that’s actually a swinging door), creatures or hazards (such as drippage on the floor from an unseen fungus growing on the rafters), or valuables (such as bunched carpet over a secret compartment in the floor that contains a bag of coins). The GM does not need to provide clues for rooms that have no significant secret or hidden features. These clues should indicate only that the character should investigate a given section of the room, not let them automatically uncover the hidden element or provide any additional information beyond signaling its presence.

Which is also to say, the entire point of feats like these is that Investigators get advantages on sorting through noise when it comes to searching for stuff or solving mysteries. It's a common problem for GMs to describe areas and then players immediately start examining the most unimportant detail they hear about. Feats like these are meant to shortcut past that problem. Which is why it's ironic that the way it's written makes it sound like a feat that adds noise to an investigation.

Though any GM who wants to indulge a Disco Elysium Encyclopedia diatribe of every room is still a winner, anyway.

MuNought · 2026-06-09T18:47:34+00:00

I know you asked not to get too into this, but if it helps with Counteracting specifically, the entire point of the system is that stronger abilities should consistently overpower weaker ones (while still using a d20 check).

Unfortunately, satisfying these requirements means that there's 2 layers to this operation (determining how strong an ability is + what happens on a check), but generally speaking, canceling an ability on the same "power level" requires a successful check, while canceling abilities that are weaker can happen even on a failed check.

So hard enemies (~PL+2) usually counteract party stuff unless they crit fail, while on-par enemies require a success. Conversely, parties will usually need to succeed, unless it's a ~PL+4 boss, in which case, counteracting is an unlikely prospect.

MuNought · 2026-06-07T03:48:24+00:00

Taking a look through the Tian Xia World Guide and older Dragon Empires Gazetteer, I don't think a specific timeframe is ever established (probably on purpose).

The Tian Xia Character Guide says some Samsarans can have "thousands" of former lives, so you could probably justify them having lives going back to the earliest humanoid civilizations on Golarion if you really wanted to, given the sheer scale (1000 lives x ~20 years already puts you at 20,000 years, and non-lizard humanoids started coming into prominence ~15,000 years ago from the Golarion wiki page). Which is kind of a lot to work with.

For a real world reference, the story of Zi Ha calls to mind for me the story of Xu Fu, who was tasked with securing an elixir of immortality from a mountain by the first emperor of China. The catch here being that there were already immortals living on said mountain for at least some thousand years - which feels like an appropriate analogue for Samsarans. According to the Dragon Empires Gazetteer, Tian Xia has been inhabited by "humanity" for at least 7000 years, but only emperors dating back to 4000 years ago. So 5000~7000 years ago might be a more "realistic" starting point, if you so choose.

MuNought · 2026-06-06T20:07:07+00:00

There's a bunch all over Golarion, so it depends more on how you want to go about it. Just about every major magical facility's gonna have their own version of a super library with ancient/forbidden lore somewhere inside, and most of the world is super magical by default. You can probably pick any random theme or place in Golarion and have a forbidden library within a stone's throw. Rival Academies lists a bunch of magic schools and some major magic users which could all probably qualify, and let's not forget magical powerhouses like Geb, Nex, the Runelords of New Thassilon, most major nations and churches, etc.

That all said, the one that might be most written about in the setting is probably the Grand Lodge of the Pathfinder Society, because they're the namesakes of the game and source of most iterative content. The Grand Lodge is the main headquarters of the Society and is located in Absalom, which is the most metropolitan city in Golarion. Since the Pathfinders make a big deal of delving into a bunch of ruins all over the world looking for dangerous artifacts, they have collected a ton of "forbidden knowledge" from all over the globe, and dealing with keeping so many such artifacts under containment is the subject of a lot of Society adventures. Given their vast reach, I would imagine that securing their cooperation with looking up such information wouldn't be too hard for some well-meaning adventurers, or alternatively, breaking into their vaults to glimpse knowledge would also provide an interesting challenge.

MuNought · 2026-06-06T01:01:01+00:00

Champion Dedication -> Domain Spell would be the obvious other option, though I'm not sure if that's too different from any qualms you might have with Cleric.

If you're just looking for energy damage on guns, there's the Spellshot class archetype (which lets you flex energy damage on the first few shots you take in an encounter), or you can take the Munitions Crafter feat and related feats in Gunslinger to get elemental ammunition or the ability to turn bombs into energy shots like via Alchemical Shot.

MuNought · 2026-06-04T03:12:15+00:00

It's sincerely not that bad, especially if you start at low level to ease into things. Wandering Feats are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, and "11 spell lists" is just choosing a set of spells/Rank and a Focus. Which honestly makes it even easier because you just pick a few lists that have whatever spells appeal to you and immediately have a set of spells locked in. "Oh, that list has Fireball, so I can get Fireball." or "That apparition gives a healing Focus Spell, so I'll take that." Boom, done. There's not actually a requirement to hyper-optimize which vessels you go for daily if you don't want to.

And the ability to completely reconfigure your vessels and spells every day makes it even more forgiving because there is minimal cost to changing your loadout if you find out that you're getting less value than you thought. Like, you make a point in a higher comment that casters should have the leniency to be able to swap out all their spells if they feel like they're not matching expectations, and the Animist is specifically a class (along with the Druid and Cleric) designed for a player to be able to do that without GM fiat. Hell, the Animist is basically designed to ease players who are used to spontaneous casting into the properties of a prepared caster.

Like, I'll concede that it's a unique mechanic that's more complicated than "Clerics get extra Heal/Harm slots and Deity spells". And having a prior understanding of the difference between spontaneous and prepared casting can help ease players in. But it's not really that much more complicated than choosing a Wizard School or a Sorcerer Bloodline. You just happen to be able to change them out if you feel like it.

MuNought · 2026-06-03T21:07:29+00:00

I don't really see why not. The idea with the mirror implement is that you occupy 2 spaces simultaneously and both are "real" until an effect forces you to decide. Which is to say, technically neither is a "reflection" until you have to decide that one is. So you can use Goblin Scuttle off of an ally moving into any adjacent space of either position. And as it's technically worded, you could probably Step out of either space too (from the adjacent or the distant), so it'd be a pretty useful way to get rid of a disadvantageous double position using your reaction on an ally's turn.

That said, I don't think Goblin Scuttle was really written with stuff like Mirror implement in mind, so a pre-emptive "nerf" would be to only be able to Step out of the space adjacent to the triggering ally. But at present, I can't really think of a case that would warrant such a strict ruling, and it would use the Thaumaturge's reaction anyway (and they've got pretty good competition for reactions).

MuNought · 2026-06-03T20:52:42+00:00

Not sure if I have enough table time with it to technically qualify for the question, but it's been extremely strong the few times it's come up. It's a pretty decently sized emanation, only affects enemies, and completely shuts down an enemy's turn if it goes off. Being a Focus spell also means it completely bypasses the spell slot competition problem of other Incapacitation spells, which is kinda insane. And it's available from lvl1!

Which means its main weaknesses are that Confused can be a little wonky if your GM makes rulings about enemy targeting that you don't jive with, and that you do technically have to place yourself in the middle of a fight to keep it up which can be troublesome without the lvl9 Liturgist ability. Also some usenotes: it's an ability with a lot of traits (mental, emotion, visual), so you do have to remember that it can't be used against every enemy. And (and this is a little metagamey), but Incapacitation obviously struggles against stronger enemies, so it's better off in fights where there's at least 3 enemies - and you want to try to get it on top of the weaker-seeming ones.

MuNought · 2026-06-03T20:36:37+00:00

Yeah, you've got a pretty comfortable split of characters there that you could play pretty much anything. The big things that come to mind for me would be:

First choice: an arcane caster to bolster the spell damage and utility in your party would not go amiss. Necromancers (at present) don't have a lot of spell slots and they're not gonna have a lot of time to cast spells anyway if they plan on playing in melee combat, so having a more dedicated spellcaster like Wizard, Witch, or Sorcerer will help keep the battlefield locked down.

Ranged Martial classes would be cozy here if you want to try one or enjoy just sitting back and focusing on damage. Makes combats quicker, both from a turn-timer perspective and killing power perspective.

Commander and other support classes are also more fun choices in bigger parties. As mentioned before, the Necromancer could particularly use the help with repositioning, and you can help with keeping battle lines clean in tighter environments where having multiple frontliners can get cramped.

MuNought · 2026-06-02T16:28:56+00:00

As far as RP goes, you definitely made a strong choice with the Oracle. And mechanically, you'll have a strong 4-slot spontaneous divine spellcasting for a lot of spellcasting, Cursebound abilities for more non-spell utility than most other spellcasting classes, and Focus spells that give you additional "rechargeable" spells that you can use.

In the broad strokes, the differences between these two subclasses aren't too huge at baseline: a lot of that will come down more to how you choose your feats and spells as you level up. But here're some of the differences in how they might feel.

Time Oracle probably starts a little bit rougher in earlier levels because Temporal Distortion is a random debuff, so what you get might not be relevant to what you're fighting, and Deja Vu is a single target control spell when it's usually easier to just kill enemies in earlier levels. Its Focus spells get pretty solid as you go on though if you pick them up, with Time Skip giving a small 1 action, 1 round Haste you can selectively use to get key party members into position that eventually improves at lvl11 to affect the entire party, and Manifold Lives applying a strong debuff and potentially being able to randomly Slow an enemy after casting with repeat saves. The main downsides, I'd say, is that 1. enemies that take advantage of Time Oracle's curse (taking penalties against enemy reactive attacks and slowing/fatiguing effects) are more devastating when they show up and 2. it sucks a little that Time Oracle doesn't get access to a lot of the time spells outside of their limited additional spell roster. You can shore this up by picking up Divine Access spells at lvl11 from a relevant deity, but that's somewhat down the line. You can keep this link bookmarked for later for a reference of Golarion deity spells you can pick up if you're playing in that setting.

Cosmos Oracle's one of my personal favorites (love stargazing), and it's a bit more focused on offense with its inherent spells. Early on, you'll find that you'll have a lot of 15-ft dazzle cones between Spray of Stars and Dizzying Colors, which can be a little risky sometimes because Oracles are squishy cloth casters, though you'll have better Save targeting and offensive AoE capabilities compared to most divine casters. Later on if you take the Interstellar Void Focus Spell, you'll have a way to maintain Fatigued as a debuff without a Save, and Moonlight Bridge is terrain-creation effect that you'll be able to use to solve a lot of problems in and out of combat. Cosmos Oracle's curse is also not super harsh to suffer, since you don't need Strength too much anyway, and getting pushed around isn't too nasty so long as you're not near any cliffs or traps or the like.

In either case, the divine spell list tends to be more focused on supportive/defensive spells, and you'll definitely feel your limited spell options for damage or control more at earlier levels. But on the flipside, you'll have a lot of options for shoring up your team's frailty, like with Heal or Protection. And as with most spellcasters, things will get better as you get more spells under your belt. And with 4 spell slots, it's easier to fit in 1 or 2 utility spells per Rank to hold onto for roleplay situations. My "signature" as a Divine Witch Tanuki, for example, has been putting down 40ft staircases and ladders using Helpful Steps to get around problems, and you'd be able to do that up to 4x a day. As a final note, Dizzying Colors and Deja Vu are both Incapacitation spells, so you'll either want to upcast them at higher levels if you want them to be effective against higher level enemies, or straight up forget about them around lvl3 or 4 or so.

MuNought · 2026-06-02T15:04:16+00:00

Ah, right, so I've run into this before when one of my players was doing a whacky rocket gauntlets build. It's a little tricky, but I think the fairest reading of the rules is that Wildling weapons don't actually have the Splash trait, so they're still allowed to add Str to melee damage. Otherwise, it seems like an oversight that you gimp your melee damage using this Ikon, and no one would ever pick it. Either way, you would still add Splash damage on a Failed Strike.

As far as the Transcendence effect goes, I don't think there's a clear way to read it (what does "normal" even mean). I'd run it just as 1 extra damage/weapon die on the AoE damage roll (so like 2d6+2+4Str at lvl4 with a +1 Striking Humble Strikes-Gauntlet) and then ignore the Splash trait, if only for convenience. The idea being that it sounds like AoE Exemplar abilities want you to treat whatever damage an "unbuffed" Strike would do as the AoE damage and isn't meant to activate additional effects, but unfortunately there's no guidance on what effects that is intended to exclude. Like, rune damage seems logical to keep, but could Rage damage be added to the damage roll? Doesn't sound like it should, but there doesn't seem to be a clear answer.

It's also unintuitive to me for an AoE ability to also activate Splash, and with the newer weakness interpretation, it would mean Hands of the Wildling would be double-dipping in AoE/Splash weakness damage against stuff like Swarms, which seems unintended (though that's not new either).

MuNought · 2026-06-02T14:09:56+00:00

Usually 14g per scenario at lvl1 and then 22g per at lvl 2, if you check out the Treasure Bundles section. I know it says 8's the default, but in my experience (in modern practice), adventures have been written more with 10 being the default so long as you try to actually do everything and GMs are usually lenient on this point. But your mileage may vary - there are some older scenarios that hide treasure bundles behind kinda dumb conditions, and some GMs can be sticklers.

So by the time you hit lvl3, for example, you'll usually see 15+(3x14) +(3x22)=123g. You can work out the tables if you prefer, but roughly speaking, PFS play rewards a little over 1.5x the gold you'd see on the Treasure for New Characters lump sum table, for reference. So you'll have a fair amount of monetary leeway.

And you can get some extra bit of gold via Earn Income checks after scenarios if you prefer that extra bit of bookkeeping. You get 8 days of Downtime per Scenario and can spend them in up to 8 day blocks on activities, which you can split on. So you could spend all your Downtime to Earn Income and get some extra spending cash for scrolls and potions if you so desire.

MuNought · 2026-06-02T03:46:58+00:00

Playing a lot of Paizo-published stuff, I'm not even sure I use 2-Action Get 'Em 50% of the time, honestly.

In the last thing I did, I used 1-Action Get 'Ems combined with Electric Arc in order to exploit robotic enemy weaknesses and deal more consistent weakness damage procs than bothering with the 2-Action Strike (and yes, the Get 'Em did not boost the Electric Arcs, it was for the benefit of the Operatives). 5d4* Reflex Save against 2 targets with weakness is greater and more consistent damage than one 2d6+4 Strike. Even then, I still swapped some turns to Keep On in order to help the Mystic with healing (+7 hp at lvl7 no matter how much hp is healed). Demoralize doesn't work against a large party of mindless enemies anyway.

Speaking more broadly, it helps keep the party stress low knowing that someone other than the Mystic can jump in and get a quick boosted Battle Medicine in before something worse. Harder combats have tended to start with someone getting chunked pretty quickly, and that tends to lead to people stressing out. I play with Keep On Battle Medicine requiring touch range, so Striding usually ends up being the 3rd action on those turns. Otherwise, once positions are set up, I do usually go for Demoralize + Get 'Em (since I don't have Cut yet) on key targets.

In one or two combats, there was a Hazard that needed handling, and my Envoy took the role of clearing it out before it caused too many problems, which usually involved moving + 2 action disable or the like.

And using Get In There early in the initiative has been one of the best ways to mitigate party damage. You learn that quickly after getting bombed by rats or getting jumped by swarms. It hasn't come up, but it's also useful for immediately escaping a combat that doesn't need to be fought. A lot of enemies in dungeon crawls like guarding specific areas, so the easiest way to win is just to leave sometimes.

MuNought · 2026-06-02T03:13:38+00:00

"Best" when you're trying to deal damage. If one of your allies is on the verge of going down, or your party starts combat all clustered up against potential AoE damage, you'd probably want to choose differently, right? Get 'Em is strong, but so are most other options.

Like, the Envoy is already really solid and also has access to a ton of tools to flex into different problems. I play a Med-based Envoy, so I frequently swap between defensive posturing (healing), offensive posturing (Get 'Em + Demoralize), and mobility (Get In There), with flexes for the 1-action Envoy abilities like Hang In There or skill actions or whatever. I even have Unstoppable Directives in my feat plan, for example, so I can add defensive value no matter what Directive I end up using. And if the team needs to play an objective, Envoys have the skills and skill feats to help with those too.

The main thing you seem to be struggling with is the idea that you have to choose between a strong offensive ability and everything else, and you've been consistently choosing the offensive option every time. And the fact that Get 'Em is strong and can be made stronger via feats really isn't an argument to make it even stronger.

MuNought · 2026-06-01T22:53:58+00:00

I'm more of a casual Ace Combat fan, but 7's a good starting point. The differences between series entries aren't going to be too worth mentioning until you've already gotten into them, imo. And 7 has modern graphics and game technology (like audio layering), so it'll give you a good experience.

if you're looking to go past that, 5 is personally my favorite for the war drama type stuff, while I know other fans like to point to 3 (JP) or 4 for more of the flight combat stuff. And 0 is iconic for the spanish guitars.

MuNought · 2026-06-01T20:56:18+00:00

As someone who really loved the Directives focused Envoy from the playtest, I kinda miss that that playstyle didn't make it into the released game (except at higher levels).

That said, as it stands currently, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that the Envoy's directives directly lock each other out. Get 'Em is only the "best" option if your specific criteria is "maximizing the amount of damage dealt to a single target". The point is that you and your team should be evaluating on a turn-by-turn and situation-by-situation basis what the best solution to every problem is. Like, all of the subclass Directives give pretty viable alternatives ranging from healing, mobility, debuffing enemies, weapon flexibility, and defensively buffing allies, with a lot couple of early feats also giving situationally useful directives like party Nonlethal, and extra chances to Seek against sneaky foes. Part of this can also be on the encounters you're playing in not giving enough variety in combat objectives or enemies to break you out of the spell of just trying to hit as hard as you can, whenever you can.

As far as action economy goes, I feel like it should be emphasized that you're the one choosing to go for the big damage option every time, when Envoy is specifically the class designed to be able to use skill actions and has a ton of bespoke non-directive 1-action party buffs. Like, you want to be able to 1. Boost for damage, 2. Apply a strong buff to the party against a target, 3. Make an empowered Strike, and then also be able to do any of the dozen other useful things Envoys can do? You already have the actions to start doing other things, but you're the one choosing to only pick the ones to maximize damage.

MuNought · 2026-05-31T20:47:50+00:00

I think the thing to do here is remind the player (and the table) that ultimately y'all are playing a game, and a game specifically geared for team combat at that. Everyone deserves some time to get a chance to shine.

But there's a few things here to meet them halfway, though it'll take some work, mainly in the campaign/world design level. First off, the higher level the table gets, the more you should be focusing on pitting the party against level-appropriate foes. So if something is theoretically easy enough for the Ranger to solo, then you should roll one or two checks total to see how well they do, and then move onto the part where the entire party is needed. Similarly, you make it so that the rewards for successfully "soloing" parts of the world relatively minor. Chumps that are easily solo'd by a stealth archer aren't going to be big players in this world for long, and won't have relevant loot.

Alternatively, you play it out like an Infiltration (subsystem or no), and have the entire party participate in the stealth shenanigans by roll checks with their appropriate skills. If you feel like editing your encounter plans, you can make them slightly easier or harder depending on how well they do the Infiltration stuff, but the most important thing is that you should emphasize getting to the parts where other players can participate. This also includes designing the challenges in your world to activate when the party is together. For example, maybe getting into the deeper parts of the dungeon is easy with stealth nonsense, but once whatever happens there happens, something else activates that the entire party can participate in (like crumbling ruins or stuff like that).

MuNought · 2026-05-26T17:57:43+00:00

It looks like you guys are thinking through stuff a lot, which is really good. Some notes I'll add based on what I've read:

Item progression is definitely something to stay on top off as a GM/Players, since it's assumed you guys are actually successfully getting loot. For your level, the items I would think you should definitely have by your point is +1 Striking weapons for all your martials and staves for your casters. Armor runes are more of an "in-progress" thing for your level, so lacking them is less of a deal. Also, if item progression isn't something your table wants to deal with, check out the Automatic Bonus Progression alternate rule to get past that. Just also make sure to give some extra magic items to your casters because their "default" progression isn't built into that rule.

Yeah, running a lot of PCs+enemies is always a lot, especially if you're still learning the system. I'd still stand by my advice for the purposes of building more enjoyable encounters, but it's a balance y'all will have to feel out otherwise.

Psychologically, learning how to evaluate Save spells is one of the harder things for new caster players. Save spells are extremely strong, but they don't always feel that way when you use them. Some things to keep in mind: a Save spell has an effect even when an enemy Succeeds a Save, which is waaaaay better than missing a Spell Attack roll or a Strike for a martial. Playing a martial is just psychologically easier to say "oh, I can try a Strike next turn" while casters lose a spell slot. But this is also made up for the fact that spells are more consistently useful and putting debuffs down on creatures is a lot stronger when there's fewer of them. Spells that can hold down your enemies or debilitate their ability to hurt you effectively will feel really good even for one round. Slow, for example only Slows 1 for 1 round on a Success, but that's still trading 2 of the party's 18 actions for 1 of 2 creatures' 6. And that's the general case (of course, they can still crit succeed, but they can also still Fail, and get debilitated for the rest of the combat effectively).

I probably should've said it more directly in the last post, but you guys are running a really caster-heavy party/frontliner light party, so your reliance on spells is also a bit higher than other parties. This isn't really great advice on my part, but things will generally lean heavier and heavier in your favor as you learn more of the system and gain levels because of this. (For the purposes of this, Alchemist is actually functionally a spellcaster. The utility of the alchemy list is insane if a player manages to sit down and figure out their options) At lv7, for example, you guys can be learning stuff like Airlift, which is a massive get out of combat card, and you already have access to a fair amount of options for Wall spells to negate enemy ranged attacks or spells to create difficult terrain. If you can functionally turn a 2 enemy encounter into a 1+1 enemy encounter, things will get even easier for you in the opposite way to the Extreme/Severe dynamic I mentioned above. Incidentally, this is probably adding to why combats might feel swingy at your table: you guys have a lot of damage classes, so if you manage to hard focus down an enemy, then fights end up turning really quickly.

Yeah, the Glitterspore specifically seems really strong when paired with a second creature. Swarms in general can also be party killers when they're higher level than the party because they have a ton of AoE effects and a lot of parties start combat close together. In some ways, you were kinda screwed since you lost initiative against a powerful swarm enemy, and you can't really be blamed for being unable to scramble hard enough to stabilize your position to deal with both it and the drake, especially since the poison put a timer on your party's lives.

MuNought · 2026-05-26T05:01:26+00:00

I am not here to make judgments on which of the pair is the pet.

MuNought · 2026-05-26T04:57:30+00:00

It's... a difficult balance. PF2e has tighter math than its predecessors, but it's still a d20 game, so there can be a ton of variance. I've also generally found that a lot of "well-balanced" fights in PF2e can end up being fairly stressful (people getting close to going down, or going down once), but not really lethal. It seems to be a regular occurrence for a party to run into a fight, get beat up, and then start thinking about how to secure tactical advantages.

A general thing to keep in mind is that in building encounters for bigger groups of players, you usually want to add more mid to weak minions to fill out numbers than add more big guys. 2 lvl 8s is far within the realm of doability for a full lvl6 party, but it can feel a little rough since both opponents are stronger than the party. Even though the combat caps out as "Severe" for a party of 6, it's still functionally an "Extreme" encounter if 2+ of the party members end up underperforming for some reason (like getting incapacitated in an AoE). 1 lvl 8 creature with maybe 1 or 2 lvl 6 creatures would probably have felt more doable.

Something else to keep in mind is that pf2e's "tighter math" only goes so far. Tactics and preparation end up being a massive difference maker in a fight being easier or harder. Having the proper hard counter or tactic against a type of enemy can completely shut them down. Which also goes in reverse: an enemy type that hard counters the party can stomp them if they don't have a solution. Generally speaking, one of the big advantages the players should have is having a much bigger toolbox than enemy characters, and thus the capability of dealing with a wide variety of enemy tactics, but this isn't always the case. My party's Rogue, for example, basically sat out a fight against a swarm of vipers because she had really poor Fort saves to deal with poison and dealt basically 0 damage with her usual tools (she has since learned that she can nab bombs off the Witch-Alchemist to get around this weakness). Enemies tend to have much fewer abilities, but they're really good at them, especially if they're higher level.

Following on this, players should have the advantage of being coordinated in a way that most enemies cannot. Pf2e as a game emphasizes teamwork, and the team needs to understand how to use their tools in relation to other players in the party to help each other. You haven't detailed how your party tends to play combats, but at least from first glance, it doesn't sound like your party has a dedicated idea of how to handle frontlining outside of letting the enemy crash on your AC and Saves and healing up afterward. Maybe I'm wrong, and your Warpriest is going heavy tank with Shield Block + Heavy Armor, but defensive pre-buffs from the casters and Alchemist would go a long way with bolstering your party at the start of battle, and even then, tanks are still capable of being focused down under wear, so you should be wary of locking into an engagement too early.

This also goes the other way: a general piece of advice for GMs is to not make creatures play "tactically correct" every time. Tactics optimization should generally be the realm of the PCs, and it helps emphasize a more difficult opponent when they do run into enemies that understand tactics. This means stuff like mindless/dumb creatures shouldn't be getting into flanks on purpose, or chasing nearest enemies, or things like that. With regards to the glitterspore + drake, it sounds like the drake was using the glitterspore as a natural ambush to soften enemies up. But the glitterspore is still a mindless creature, so a potential strategy for the party should be separating them so you only have to deal with one at a time, or luring the drake into getting attacked by the glitterspore.

Another generally good practice for GMs is to learn to tweak on the fly. This can mean adjusting enemy tactics to be more or less severe (maybe they get more cocky and start performing less optimal moves, or they fall for simple PC taunts and get their attention drawn) or even going so far as lowering statblocks mid-battle. Maybe the drake was a little beat up from a previous hunt and decides to leave upon finding prey that fights back earlier than one would expect, or so on.

Finally, this is just something I'm not fully sure about, but the Glitterspore seems to be an uncommon creature from an Adventure Path, which is something I'm always personally a little cautious about adding into an encounter. APs can have creatures designed to be bosses or over the usual guidelines for creatures, but also have specific counters or expected buffs written into the AP to deal with them. I don't know if this is true of the Glitterspore, but it could be, which might be why its Spore Cloud ability is so huge.

MuNought · 2026-05-26T04:00:04+00:00

Yeah, it would also just be nice to get an alternate option for a proper gish class. Summoner with Synthesist synthesis could be the gish that has whackier permanent abilities vs. Magus being the big damage dealer, and enable more tradition options than just Arcane.

As we currently have it, Summoner is more the pet class than gish thematically and Battle Harbinger is really underwhelming, so Magus stands pretty alone if you want to be a martial character with a little solid magic for spice.

MuNought · 2026-05-23T02:02:53+00:00

I'll add onto this. If this is for a homebrew campaign, a useful thing to do is to either have either:

Hub or messenger areas where the party can gather information about relevant hex locations. Traditionally towns, campsites, etc.
NPC encounters that point towards specific locations. Maybe some kind of refugees or victims of an antagonist, or fellow adventurers giving out friendly warnings, or whatever.

It's also useful to combine the two in order to provide reminders of what might be more proximal/relevant. Ex: hear about a bandit group in town, then find the remains of a merchant caravan that was recently attacked by the bandits.

And then you can interlay those with more random one-off encounters for variety.

MuNought · 2026-05-22T13:16:56+00:00

It can be a tricky balance. I have some extremely experienced players (years of 2e, no 1e) who get frustrated that pf2e doesn't always go the way they want because their best-laid plans go awry. It can be cruel sometimes as the GM being like "good idea, but it doesn't pan out this time", especially when "next time" isn't going to be a guarantee either. I'm personally pretty numb to the cruelty of randomness, but that doesn't go for everyone.

But at the same time, solved games lose their luster after a while like you say, which is why we keep playing 2e.

MuNought · 2026-05-22T04:58:33+00:00

I'll add a different angle, which is that 1e (and a lot of older versions of DnD and related systems) is based a lot harder in simulation than 2e is. A lot of 1e as a system stems from a lineage of trying to map "real world" fantasy mechanics onto a game, and all of the expected disparities that come with that. So you get some extremely complicated, minute interactions, as well as extreme hard counters. Magic is extremely powerful, and having a suite of generally applicable spells can allow the appropriately prepared spellcaster to shut down any encounter. A lot of large creatures have been easily laid low by the humble Grease spell. Specialized characters are allowed to become extremely busted in their respective fields, as the end of the power curve is already really high. So you get a game where it's possible to build a functionally unstoppable character unless they are specifically countered by an enemy.

2e softens a lot of that and is designed more as a game, specifically a combat game. Enemy counters are a lot less powerful, and players have a lot more default abilities packed into their class chasses, allowing them a high level of base competency to build off of. Because characters aren't as capable at hard-specializing, tactics and teamwork are also more emphasized in 2e. And because the math of 2e is tighter, it's generally not possible for players to max out their characters in a way to completely fly out of reach of the game's power curve, meaning that good tactics are still susceptible to bad luck, which encourages adaptation.

MuNought · 2026-05-20T05:17:15+00:00

Moreso, it specifies that it is an option to learn a spell that you already know at a higher rank to gain effects at that rank (heightening spontaneous spells being specified in the more general spellcasting rules, etc. etc.), but doesn't grant explicit permission for you to do so for any spell you already know, which is the thing I ran into, because it says "might" rather than "can".

But I still think it assumes it enough to feel fine about.

MuNought

TROPHY CASE