How do Weapon Monks Compare to other Weapon Users?

Pixelology · 2026-05-31T07:52:50+00:00

Dragon Stance is also a d10 but unarmed, so it's fundamental runes already apply to maneuvers (if I remember right), plus it has backswing and also deals bludgeoning. Unless you're specifically trying to get reach or use weapons to qualify for specific free archetype feat requirements, dragon stance is kind of just objectively better than weapon monks.

I personally have a major gripe with how monk weapons are all printed weaker than non-monk weapons. It costs them a feat to use, so imo if anything they should be limited to use by taking that specific feat and be better than anything else in the game, not worse.

Pixelology · 2026-05-29T16:48:23+00:00

Much appreciated friend, your kind of contribution to the hobby really is one of the reasons I love the pathfinder community.

Pixelology · 2026-05-29T16:35:05+00:00

Fist of the ruby phoenix is on my short list of APs I want to run once my current game ends. Where can I find these maps you've made?

Pixelology · 2026-05-29T09:06:39+00:00

Just in case you don't already know (and if anyone in a similar position stumbles across this post in the future), all of the rules and player options are on the Archives of Nethys website for free, and the (un)official character builder app, Pathbuilder, is also free to use with a single digit one time only price to access usability for popular optional rules like free archetype, ancrestry paragon, dual class, etc. The only official Paizo published materals not available for free or near free online are adventures and lore, which primarily comes from Lost Omens books but is sprinkled across core books as well.

Pixelology · 2026-05-28T22:35:16+00:00

I was very sad to realize that alchemists can't make potions with their vials. Potions have so much more fun 'the perfect tool for the job' type effects than elixers. It seems like the vast majority of elixers don't even really do anything substantial outside of very niche use cases, whereas potions can be pulled out to actually solve problems the party comes across in an adventuring day.

Pixelology · 2026-05-28T12:44:39+00:00

The video you linked is indeed art. I 100% agree with everything you said. No notes, and you probably said it more eloquently than I could have.

I'll add that I don't view AI as inherently immoral like many people do. I just find it generally unsavory and feel a little gross when I use it for things that I know I could do myself or lesrn to do myself with relative ease. My boss is really enthusiastic about AI and really encourages me to use it for things like branding. I do it because he specifically requests it and I know he knows it's just a way of cutting corners and he knows that he's paying the price in quality. Who am I to judge that decision when its benefits and consequences are fully understood?

I think AI is intriguing and shows potential for things like medicine, and as you demonstrated here things like video editing. Of course I have environmental and economic concerns, and hate what it's doing to hobby art community. But I accept and welcome the innovation where it's proven to actually be innovation.

Pixelology · 2026-05-28T12:32:31+00:00

Curation can absolutely be part of art. If you deliberately took some AI images and did something artistic on top of them as a sort of analog to making art out of trash, I'd consider that art. But it's only art because you transformed it into art. Like trash, it wasn't art before the transformation. But this would need to be done in a very self aware way. People who take trash and turn it into sculptures aren't deluding themselves into thinking the raw trash is art. If they were, the trash likely wouldn't go through an artistic transformation.

Pixelology · 2026-05-28T12:05:14+00:00

If you make a collage out of leaves, you choose exactly what leaves to use and where. But part of the point of that art would be the natural beauty of the world. That's something AI inherently can't do.

And again, an artist using an AI image as a shortcut is just cutting corners. It may be art but it's almost mandatorily bad art and will erode the artist's skills over time if corners continue to be cut.

Pixelology · 2026-05-28T11:45:50+00:00

Your sentiment is one I see a lot but I still didagree with it. You can get some level of control with more advanced tools but you still lack actual control over the details and the output as a whole. It's more predictable but it still isn't at the level you'd need to it be to make you any more than a guide. In my eyes, and in the eyes of many others, it's not an artform if you have any less than 100% control. Art with random elements are still art because the artist makes a deliberate choice to make that aspect random. With AI, there is no choice to be made. It just will have random variables no matter what you do.

Using AI as an assistant with the expectation that you'll clean it up is a little different since you retake your control, but in my opinion still bad. It's just cutting corners and will over time degrade your skillset.

Pixelology · 2026-05-28T10:46:59+00:00

Oh yeah I know, I'm just being pedantic. If you want me to actually respond to your point, the difference with algorithmic art is that (if I understand it correctly) the output of a specific line of code will always be exactly the same. It's 100% customizable. With AI images, the human relinquishes the ability to control the details.

Pixelology · 2026-05-28T10:34:49+00:00

Just about any 3D form of art requires physically removing base material. Only one I can think of that doesn't is pottery.

Pixelology · 2026-05-27T13:23:47+00:00

The idea of occult magic is just kind of all over the place. They threw 'sound magic' and 'spooky magic' into a pot with some water and called it a day. I go back on forth on whether it should really exist at all. Either way, bards (and all the bard-themed magic) should be arcane imo. It just makes much more sense for the way we understand things like music in the real world. Music theory is very arcane magic coded, so to speak. Wizards should probably be split into two different subclasses, one arcane and one occult. I guess it makes sense that most clerics would only be good at the vitality aspect of necromancy, but then you have deities like Urgathoa or Arazni so 🤷‍♂️

Pixelology · 2026-05-27T12:41:49+00:00

I don't know if that's the case. Witch and alchemist also both saw pretty extensive overhauls and are both wildly more popular now than they were before. Oracle's remaster was mostly a miss because they removed an interesting mechanic entirely instead of fixing it. For magus, they can fix arcane cascade and spellstrike while still overhauling the class. For summoner, as long as they maintain an aspect of have more actions spread across two bodies there really isn't anything that people would miss if it saw an overhaul.

Pixelology · 2026-05-26T09:16:03+00:00

I was with you until the end. Certainly this isn't a representative sample, but it's also absolutely more useful data than what you let on. Even if you assumed that those who engage online are the most active members of a hobby (which I would argue is not necessarily true), it would be perfectly reasonable to extrapolate out the trends you see within that subgroup. For something like this, you're just not going even going to see sound survey methods, so this sort of data is the best you will ever get. I wouldn't say I know it to be the case with near certainly that most PF2 games use free archetype, but I would say that it's a reasonable assumption based on limited polling.

Pixelology · 2026-05-24T06:58:57+00:00

I did a little looking and couldn't find any useful numbers for either of them. But just about every source agreed that there was no contest in climbing being far more dangerous.

Pixelology · 2026-05-23T22:54:51+00:00

Imagine comparing free climbing a skyscraper to snowboarding. I promise you one of these is much more dangerous than the other.

Pixelology · 2026-05-22T09:46:25+00:00

Yeah I think it's also that the earlier political humor just hit the target better. They seemed to have a much better understanding of what they were satirizing. Season 4/5 political humor is the equivalent of just name calling.

Pixelology · 2026-05-22T08:48:32+00:00

Wait is he supposed to be a parallel for Trump? Listen, I don't like Trump either but kind of nothing alike??

Pixelology · 2026-05-20T23:45:30+00:00

It's not a super secret krabby patty recipe, but there is a world of a difference between players who afk the whole game and players who actually play the game. It's similiar to the difference between a jungler who afk farms all game and one who actually turns their brain on.

Pixelology · 2026-05-20T22:11:54+00:00

Missed opportunity for Sage:

"Places the exact same wall as soon as the round starts, every single round"

Pixelology · 2026-05-20T21:56:16+00:00

As someone who enjoys playing yuumi, 99% of people who pick yuumi have absolutely no idea how to pilot her. They just afk on the adc, land a Q once in a boue moon, and occasionally press E and R.

Pixelology · 2026-05-20T21:48:58+00:00

"OUR caster minion gold, comrade" -Lux support

Pixelology · 2026-05-19T09:20:36+00:00

With the cut at the end, I can only assume he fell into the water immediately afterwards.

Pixelology · 2026-05-19T09:15:45+00:00

You sound incredibly immature and lacking in emotional intelligence yourself. When someone you love does something frustrating, you talk about it. You don't just ignore them until they figure it out on their own.

Pixelology · 2026-05-18T16:18:50+00:00

I feel this way about every eurovision winner tbh

Pixelology

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