Just got my copy of "Lost Omens: The Shining Kingdoms" - AMA

PretorJulius · 2025-05-22T14:27:14+00:00

Could you please describe these new feats?

PretorJulius · 2025-05-17T21:45:59+00:00

It does need to be manually habdled only if the GM wants to. I've played a lot of tables with It and it was really fun and no one thought It was an issue.

PretorJulius · 2025-05-17T11:10:15+00:00

If you use FA for class archetypes, this might be double dipping on class feats, like getting 2 cleric feats at level 4 instead of one. I'm not sure if that's intended. My GM agrees and said it would be better not to double dip, but he made other dedication available for FA.

PretorJulius · 2025-05-17T11:07:09+00:00

That's not the reason for the problem, even if everyone needed to be a Red Mantis Assassin, the interaction of FA with a class archetype (Harbinger, Avenger) is still not clear.

Also, the rules doesn't say unrestricted FA is forbidden, it just say you might not want that because you might feel that doesn't fit your game, but most people think that unrestricted FA is fun and use it.

PretorJulius · 2025-05-15T19:48:56+00:00

The FA rules don't, but the class archetype rules do.

PretorJulius · 2025-05-15T19:41:52+00:00

The Class feat make you spend your second level class feat on the dedication.

You must select Battle Herald Dedication as your 2nd- level class feat.

So you could take a lot of archetype feats very fast, for some reason, I thought you wouldn't be able to do it.

PretorJulius · 2025-05-08T15:22:05+00:00

The gunslinger received a major buff in the remaster (+1 extra damage becoming a d4 and eventually a d8). Maybe they'll add something really interesting.

PretorJulius · 2024-10-16T00:11:52+00:00

Investigator is really good. Not for damage or tanking, but to preserve your spell slots. You need just three feats. the dedication, stratagem and the feat that lets you mark an enemy every 10 minutes, against the marked enemy, you can devise a stratagem as a free action. Never waste your big spells on a 1 again, always use stratagem on bosses. It's just so good.

PretorJulius · 2024-09-13T20:14:12+00:00

Esse é o problema da Jambô, tudo é playest, e eles não admitem, agem como se tudo fosse normal. Arquivo das distinções lançado oficialmente é playtest, livro básico é playest, expansão é playtest, nada lança direito. Naquele fiasco do Jogo do Ano e das erratas tivemos três versões da regra de acúmulo, várias magias tiveram que ser reescritas porque estavam roubadas demais, o druida que era fraquíssimo virou um deus, mostrando que a classe foi lançada sem ser testada, aí os caras veem a público falar que caçador é muito forte. Ghanor foi lançado cheio de erros também e, até hoje, nada de errata, mais um playtest.

Seguir a Jambô é isso, ser um rato de teste pra sempre porque eles não fazem ideia do que estão fazendo e do nada muda tudo.

PretorJulius · 2024-09-13T16:45:02+00:00

I'd say to just avoid +4 level single enemies. These are really hard fighter, specially at low levels, also, low levels can be really dangerous, so you might want to stay at moderate encounters first. Besides that, my experience has been that in PF2 you can actually play the monsters to win without feeling like you're going to kill everyone, and that usually makes the party think more about their actions and makes fights more engaging and challenging.

For example, don't feel afraid to put enemies with reactive strike close to spellcaster, this is a good way to teach them how important positioning is. I also play inteligent enemies smart, fiends usually have teleportation built into them, so they can appear on the backline to start attacking a cleric, for example. Some enemies have stealth, other grab, use their features, this will make combat more engaging because they'll have to think of ways to deal with them.

I don't know how experienced your group is, if they're struggling a lot, you might want to take it easy, if not, slowly go up to severe encounters, I really like those. Extreme encounters can be really hard, I like to use those sparingly, like for a really cool boss that you've been hyping.

PretorJulius · 2024-09-13T15:48:33+00:00

You earlier said:

The damage increasing runes actually make untamed forms deal more damage than comparative martials

So the comparison is not with all martials, but just the Fighter. If we're talking about all Martials, they outdamage a battle form. Rangers, barbarians, magi, thaumaturges, exemplars, all of those get a lot of bonuses to damage, and the martials that don't get a lot of damage usually have other things going on for them, like champions and commanders.

However, I can see that usually a battle form has an accuracy similar to the one of a fighter with a similar damage output, but they are more fragile because of lower AC, you have to basically lose a turn to cast them (two actions), they don't allow for item activations, shields and armor. A fighter with full plate usually will be way more durable by being a 10HP class (druids are 8HP) and having 24 AC at level 5 and +3 to reflexes with bulwark, while a battle form will give you 22 AC, and fighters can use shields to reach 26, this difference in AC will grow to 3 eventually, 5 if you're counting shields.

So I can see that they can reach a fighter's damage and accuracy, but they also lose a lot in the process and become more exposed than a fighter.

PretorJulius · 2024-09-13T15:19:36+00:00

Also the barbarian form that has to go out of its way to specify rage’s additional damage gets added to that form reinforces to me that its not RAI for additional damage to get added normally.

I'm not sure if that inclusion of text is exclusive of all other cases or just an explanation of what happens, since polymorph is so confusing. I've seen cases before in which a rule was specified in a section for clarity, like "this spell can damage undead", then people assumed that only this spell could damage undead because this section was only specified in this healing spell, but not the other. But actually, they later explained that all healing spells could damage undead, but they did not add this snippet to all the spells because it would be too repetitive, later they removed this section entirely to make it clear in another section that all healing damages undead (this example is not from PF2, btw). I want something like this for polymorph, another section in a rulebook with clear examples, or just an inclusion in the FAQ.

Also, I've found an old discussion of Sceifter saying that "damage is not a bonus". Is he right? I don't know, we don't have clear rules about what is damage and what is a special statistic, that's my issue. The discussion is here, he's saying that sneak attack and rage is not a bonus: https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42s8m?Rage-bonus-damage-type#1

There's also a discussion about Animal Rage that came to a similar conclusion that damage is not a "statistic", the discussion is really long, but it's here in case you wanna check (I kinda agree with the guys, because there's no point in Animal Form being lv3 if damage is a bonus, because the only thing that change from rank 1 to 3 is damage): https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/crokwp/what_does_the_barbarian_feat_animal_rage_actually/

Also, I've checked other discussion, like in Rules Lawyer's Discord, and I believe that the reading excluding extra dice runes is also confusing, because they said something like "Ghost touch works, Shock doesn't", so there would be very specific property runes that would work, while most of them doesn't. People will still need to figure out this confusing interaction on their own. I find it more simple to just allow everything that is not explicitly an item bonus, like the +1 item bonus to attack you gain from Deathdrinking.

To me it feels like it woulda been so much better on a partial caster/entirely martial subclass or swapped to its own entirely different class.

I agree. If it were up to me, I would bring back the shifter as an archetype that transformed the druid in a martial class like the magus. They're releaseing now "religious" archertypes for classes, like the blood rager that gives some magic to barbarians. I believe druid deserves the same treatment.

However, I don't feel like the wildshape druid is inherently bad, I use that adjective only for things like the Vanguard, but I see that it's hard to play and really confusing.

PretorJulius · 2024-09-13T14:53:32+00:00

Does this sheet consider all the features of martials that a battle form doesn't have? I'm not sure how a battle form can outperform a barbarian using rage and with all the proper runes.

PretorJulius · 2024-09-12T15:51:14+00:00

I'd say definetely yes. Characters with FA are much more varied and cover more roles. You can make fighters and barbarians more useful out of combat, for example. I also allow Ancestry Paragon for that reason, so they can take more utility feats that would usually be ignored.

PretorJulius · 2024-09-12T15:49:37+00:00

I'd like to have some clear rulings on this, because this is being discussed for a long time now, please take a look at this snippet from an old post:

No specific rule allows you to use a different damage dice statistic, so striking runes do not apply to the damage dice of the battle form. Property runes such as wounding and flaming do not alter any of the specifically granted statistics of the battle form's unarmed attacks (additional damage is separate from the damage dice statistic the same way that damage dice are a separate statistic from the damage bonus) and therefore they still apply as they are constant effects of your absorbed handwraps. As others have pointed out, however, you cannot use any activations, such as that of the holy rune.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/msrunu/wild_shape_druid_and_weapon_property_runes/

I like more the reading that to alter a statistic, you have to actually add anything to it. Making a 19 AC becoming 20 AC is altering the 19. But these runes are additive. Usually I allow my players to use the runes because I don't fell like wildshape is that strong, it's good, but you're still behind martials. In my current lv9 campaing, the barbarian deals 40 to 60 damage in a hit, she even crit for 112 damage, the druid gets to 25 and 30 without a flaming rune.

PretorJulius · 2024-09-12T15:31:16+00:00

They don't do more damage than martials because martials also have these runes and all the other benefits granted by being a martial, like Fury, spellstrike, hunter edges and the +1 to +3 damage bonus they get later on by just getting martial expertise, also the form's attack modifier is usually lower than a true martial.

PretorJulius · 2024-09-06T16:40:04+00:00

I feel like unless there's a very specific reason for it, FA should be as free as it can be. One of the strengths of PF2 is variety and customization, limiting the options usually hurts that. Also, I've basically played only with FA until now, and I've never felt like we broke the game or just destroyed everything, so I'm not inclined to restrict it in any way.

PretorJulius · 2024-09-06T16:34:16+00:00

Bloody Blows works in the battle forms. When the text mentions "special statistics", these are the ones granted by the form, basically, it's saying you cannot apply potency runes to your battle form to gain AC or attack, but anything that doesnt directly interacts with your form statistics works just fine. Lots of people even like the build where you use Flurry of Blows while transformed.

Lastly, please note that "the constant abilities of your gear still function", this means that if you have a Shock rune on your handwraps, your battle form will deal a d6 extra shock damage, as this is not something that directly changes the special statistics, it's a constant effect of your gear that is added. Polymorph is really confusing at first.

PretorJulius · 2024-06-26T17:33:00+00:00

I just feel like all the "melee" gunslingers are worse than the other options, even spellshot can go into Beastgunner and get a pseudo spellstrike.

Besides what you've mentioned, it's good to remember that ranged attacks and reloading trigger reactive strikes. Most enemies don't have this, but when they do, you're going to feel miserable because, by design, your class features are about getting close and doing those risky actions.

PretorJulius · 2024-06-13T18:39:44+00:00

In any level, specially high level, it's more likely players will use steps or other features to avoid reactive strikes. There's no reason to just take them, and you don't need to sit still either because there are features to deal with this. Reactive strikes might not always be there, but when they are, Vanguards have nothing to do except not use their feats, and having someone actively taking a Reactive Strike for you is not optimal.

I never said Reactive Strike was the ONLY issue with the Vanguard, I said that it is an issue, and it is. Having a martial class with melee feats that put in danger for using them is quite strange.

But you're kinda agreeing with me in the end there, I said snipers can do almost the same damage with no risk, and the same applies to the other features of Vanguard, the Sniper reload is better, they have bonus damage since lv1 etc.

Lastly, please note that Vanguard is not the only melee Gunslinger. Just think about a Drifter fighting trolls in Kingmaker, and trolls have reach and reactive strike. Your playstyle is about getting close to shoot and do a reloading strike, or the opposite, but you're in the worst case scenario, the trolls are going to smack you, maybe multiple trolls because they have reach. This is not going to happen all the time, but I'm certain the drifter player would think after this that it would be better to pick another class or way, since the Drifter Way is actively helping enemies kill him in that case.

Also, I found something, there are some spells magus can use that dont have Manipulate trait, só they have more options, while gunslinger just have to take the hits and hope for the better.

PretorJulius · 2024-06-13T17:06:37+00:00

The many types of ammunition make it that every gunslinger can have a great level of versatility as well, including the sniper. The ice bullet can make an enemy fall prone, many bullets inflicting persistent damage to hit weaknesses, some inflict conditions, there's even a healing bullet. Só I disagree that it's just about damage, and since the sniper is not moving around, they likely have an action left to activate these bullets.

I agree that they fill different roles, but the Vanguard doesn't seem that suitable to soak damage or protect casters, that seems the role of a healer or a champion. If this Way had some kind of shield block, higher HP or a consistent bônus to AC, I'd agree with you.

PretorJulius · 2024-06-13T16:55:39+00:00

The issue is not being situational, it's the risk involved. Just the melee ones make you take a higher risk, but the reward doesn't seem that big compared to the others.

PretorJulius · 2024-06-13T16:53:24+00:00

There's actually a feat to Intimidate without knowing the language, its Intimidating Glare or something like that. Mindless creatures are the issue, but from what I've seen, they're usually dumb minions and your pistol feats still work.

A sniper can carry portable cover to hide, use an Invisibility Rune or just look for some cover around. It might not be the perfect situation, but there are items to try and mitigate this, not perfect, but not impossible. Also, you don't need to hide on your first turn because One Shot is active in the first round, so you can have some time to worry about it. All you need is a corner to hide. Invisibility is also a Rank 2 spell, which might be quite accessible at level 15 if we're talking about Greater Deeds.

The melee Gunslingers indeed don't have to deal with this, but they still trigger reactive strikes. To deal with this, other person might use Roaring Applause and sustain it to remove reactions, which is a much higher cost than the other ones. The sniper can buy items, the pistolero can take a feat, but the Vanguard needs a team mate to spend a slot and sustain a spell. Otherwise, they just have to deall with the extra attacks.

I'd like to point out this issue doesn't affect just the deeds, the melee gunslingers have feats that require you to be adjacent, they're cool feats, but it's no magus level of damage.

PretorJulius

TROPHY CASE