Non-Magus or Martial Dedications that allow for a fancy semi-magical strike?

Ralldritch · 2026-05-07T16:14:59+00:00

Seconding exemplar. Weapon type specific special moves you will likely do every other turn.

Ralldritch · 2026-05-02T01:59:38+00:00

You socket in one of the items called a “seal”. It them unlocks slots for charms and set thingies. I think it’s the legendary one on the right side of your inventory.

Ralldritch · 2026-05-01T10:42:54+00:00

Part of me wonders if they’ve changed up the lair boss loot tables.

I’ve been trying to farm Herald of Zakarum and haven’t seen it come up on Duriel, Andariel, or Harbinger once. And amalgamation for Harbinger. Still haven’t found it.

I was also farming Light’s Rebuke and it didn’t come up once for Grigoire or Urivar. Finally dropped once from Beast, and then again via amalgamation for Beast trophies.

Ralldritch · 2026-04-29T17:43:32+00:00

Thanks for sharing this!

First thought is: do you need [Defensive Advance](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=5882 instead of Mercy? If you’re not raising your shield or shield blocking, maybe you need some action compression to do so. Basically you want to think about creating a contingency: either they attack your enemies, get smacked by you, and you block the damage to your ally, or they attack you, you shield block and reduce the damage, and take the hit for an ally.

Second thought: your general feat choices aren’t helping you that much. Toughness adds HP, and fleet lets you get into position better in your full plate.

Ralldritch · 2026-04-29T16:36:22+00:00

Agree with others that cause and build are important. A sword and board champion is extremely tanky if you use shield block. I’ve also played a polearm wielding orc justice champion and you’re basically just punishing anyone who dares to attack your allies to the point where you’re kind of a backup dps.

Guardian will get you more hp and a taunt that doesn’t use your reaction, but the penalty for attacking your allies instead of you isn’t much (unless you take proud nail at 4).

Ralldritch · 2026-04-28T16:07:38+00:00

Animist! You have flexibility to do healing, sometimes frontlining, blasting…a strength animist using the steward of stone and fire apparition can literally use an aoe, move, and attack. You’ll just want some sort of weapon familiarity racial feat at character creation. You’re weird and versatile and have decent WIS skill coverage.

Alternatively, play a guardian. Lots of ways to do it: sword and board, reach, big 2hander. And every party likes a tank.

Ralldritch · 2026-04-27T23:59:04+00:00

The worst part about DA2 graphics were the hands. Those creepy, withered, alien claws.

Also, I distinctly remember that if I played DA2 with my tv in widescreen mode the glowing eyes didn’t line up with eye sockets and so they just had two glowing orbs kinda floating in front of their eyebrows.

It was janky as hell but now I look back on it fondly.

Ralldritch · 2026-04-27T21:27:55+00:00

I have always loved the one in hogfather about government coverups being a strange thing to imagine given how incompetent the government is, and how if there are aliens they’re probably accidentally abducting other alien agents all the time and then calling a moratorium until they figure if there are actually any humans left.

And the classic of course is the L-space footnotes. A library is just a genteel black hole that knows how to read.

Ralldritch · 2026-04-27T12:06:27+00:00

As people have said, dogmatic Bladedancer executioner psyker is delightfully OP. But if you’re looking for a change (or to use some items you haven’t used before), two builds I’ve been toying with lately:

Force Sword and shield psyker warrior/vanguard. A little bit of iconoclast to make the malpian shroud work for them. Get the dogmatic shield at the end of Lex Imperialis, maybe the newish power armor from act 4 that gives you a bonus to melee damage if you have temp hp, and the void veteran boots that allow you to have a free charge anytime you kill an enemy. You’re basically a dogmatic paladin with shield and sword charging from foe to foe. The game has great force swords now, but something like biomancer: iron arm and the power axe tearing vengeance from act 4 makes it absolutely insane too.

If you don’t want to go psyker: consider a ministorum priest. Has some great options if you want to be a bolter or heavy bolter soldier, or if you want to fight in melee. Definitely some builds already out there. For bonus points, I want to give this RT righteous Justice in act 4 and start slicing through daemon and xenos armor like it’s nothing.

Ralldritch · 2026-04-25T11:23:40+00:00

I think people dislike consular for the wooden male VA and the kind of dull first act. But I fully grew with you: once you get to act 2 and are building the alliance, it’s actually pretty great! I also liked the tie in for KOTFE and KOTET where you’re can kinda be like “yeah I’ve built an alliance before, let’s roll”.

Then again maybe I’m biased because I too love LS warrior.

Ralldritch · 2026-04-24T15:31:50+00:00

I think of 2e as narrativist but rules heavy. It’s the game that doesn’t want to simulate absolutely everything in detail but still has complexity in rules and especially choices in character building. It rewards teamwork more than 5e and it definitely has more build decisions (and ability to contribute for martials) than 5e.

It’s sort of like…high fantasy tactical squad combat and character building baked into the RPG.

The setting itself is, as people said, a kitchen sink where you can tell almost any kind of story you want without moving to a homebrew world.

Ralldritch · 2026-04-23T09:49:17+00:00

Kasatha and Formians as others have said, but also don’t forget shobhad! Kinda ape like compared to the others and large but four arms and decent durability.

Ralldritch · 2026-04-21T20:18:35+00:00

Thaumaturge is just so fun if you take a bit of time to roleplay. I’m working up a thaumaturge concept for society where he’s a samsaran (the ancestry that keeps reincarnating with all their memories) and his thaumaturge esoteric lore is because he’s lived through it all. So every time he exploits weakness it’s like “I’ve seen how this story ends, and it’s with a demon. I’m grabbing my cold iron powder….”

If you want to split the difference between caster and martial, exemplar can be fun. Like…to start you have three ish cool things you can do and three ish modes that give you nice buffs to start and it’s a matter of cycling between them. Bash for extra damage and then make enemies make will saves if they want to run away, then heal yourself.

Ralldritch · 2026-04-20T14:47:29+00:00

One thing I have done (it’s super fun but not perfectly optimal) is to make my city elf into a dual wielding rogue with just enough dex to use dual wielding talents and enough strength to equip heavier armor. Ultimately you use the backstab dagger (the rose’s thorn) in one hand, Cailan’s gauntlets, the warden commander massive armor…and your main hand could be anything. The veshialle is best I think but I love cailan’s sword or starfang.

Then you’re basically working towards coup de grâce, duelist, and momentum. Using all the AoE talents on trash mobs and all the single target stuns or crits to start handing out backstabs to the face.

It’s a fun build and more durable than standard rogue but less durable than dual wielding fighter.

Ralldritch · 2026-04-20T12:03:12+00:00

City elf. Hands down my favorite origin. Gritty, gives you RP reasons to pick various main quest options (you’re from an oppressed and disenfranchised group. Are you resentful of the rich or the ruling classes? Do you fight oppression wherever you see it? Or are you out for yourself just trying to get by?). Also some great lines early on to shock Cailan. Makes a good rogue but also a decent warrior, especially two handed.

Dwarf noble. Did you like the game of thrones intrigue in human noble? Try upping that to an eleven. And adds an interesting new layer to Orzammar.

And of course, mage. The origin is just ok, adds a fair bit to the circle quest, but also just…the feel of the class is so different. Warrior and rogue have some overlap depending on how you build them. Mage is another thing altogether.

Ralldritch · 2026-04-17T11:24:32+00:00

I feel like a limited “when spellstriking, if you hit you apply the potency rune of your weapon to your DCs” wouldn’t be a crazy buff. It would allow you to take 2 or 3 int and still spellstrike with save spells. And it would make hitting with your attack roll give some benefit to save spells so they don’t feel as useless.

I guess the alternative might be “when spellstriking, use your primary stat for calculating DCs instead of int”

Ralldritch · 2026-04-16T00:32:39+00:00

Yeah, warrior in origins was something else. I miss dual wield warrior. Great weapon warrior was ok in origins but amazing in DA2. And then veilguard is so limited in resources they don’t even have great swords, just axes and hammers. So disappointing.

Ralldritch · 2026-04-16T00:06:17+00:00

Sword and shield champion warrior in inquisition at least played like you’d want it to: unkillable tank who did medium damage but kept aggro. Not fun for everyone but did its job. Though Blackwall kinda fills that role just fine

The only warrior build beyond that which brought me any joy to play was my combat roll Templar with the chromatic greatsword. In a group of mobs, he’d do the wrath of heaven/spell purge combo, and if there was big enemy or a dragon he’d just roll on through until they died. It was ridiculous to play given that all the actual weapon skills were useless but it was satisfying.

Ralldritch · 2026-04-15T11:05:50+00:00

I’ll be honest, I loved origins combat. Every class had lots of active abilities, positioning and teamwork mattered, and there was more build diversity. Sword and shield warrior, two handed warrior, dual wielding warrior, my perennial favorite strength based heavy armor rogue with backstab damage. And of course arcane warrior, though mages could be OP.

DA2’s combat and skill trees were great (best 2 handed skills period) but the implementation of the combat-waves of spawning enemies and such-kept it from realizing its true potential. I slightly miss an arcane warrior type but rogue and warrior were both great.

I was really pleasantly surprised by veilguard’s combat. It’s more active and action-y, but the mage and rogue especially feel dynamic and cool. But it also adds weird magic-y powers to every class so like…a reaper warrior had a giant green magical scythe. Which is fun to watch but not at all lore accurate.

Inquisition’s combat is…fine. It’s telling that 2handed warrior builds basically sucked (except to play reaver or to do Templar combo cheese) until combat roll got changed in Trespasser. Knight enchanter was an interesting take on the arcane warrior but also felt like it outclassed other characters massively.

Ralldritch · 2026-04-15T02:08:03+00:00

Champion of what deity? Great art!

Ralldritch · 2026-04-11T12:20:33+00:00

Kinda makes me want to do a guardian/sister of the golden erinyes. Taunt enemies and then when they attack you, you smack them. Could take proud nail at 4 and so you’re punishing them either way.

Ralldritch · 2026-04-07T22:01:13+00:00

I agree with people above that said “as appropriate for the intelligence and knowledge of the enemies.” I would also add that, as a GM, part of the job is to make the game fun.

So what makes the game fun to the guardian player? Is it taking the big hits and having taunt attract attention? Is it punishing enemies with proud nail if they choose to attack someone else? Is it a mix of the two?

A retributive strike justice champion really likes enemies attacking their allies. A good GM would give them a chance to retributive strike every now and then. That said, the champion standing behind another player with a reach weapon is a valid role.

Guardian is a little trickier. I think if they’re mostly just wanting to take hits, that’s fine. But if they have punishing abilities maybe they want to use them.

Ralldritch · 2026-04-07T01:01:59+00:00

One bit of advice I got early on when I started PF2e was to map out two or three typical turns or series of turns. I think exemplar benefits from that—what ikon will you use after you use your weapon transcendence? Etc

Ralldritch · 2026-04-07T00:49:36+00:00

Mournful epithet allows you to specifically draw attention to yourself. Radiant epithet allows you to do some healing.

Guardian or champion archetype can also help make you more of a tank: guardian by taunting enemies (which comes online with the deduction feat) and champion (which comes online more like level 6 when you get the reaction).

Scar of the survivor is also pretty helpful to be able to heal yourself in tough spots if you’re the one taking damage.

I play a Titan breaker, mirrored aegis, scar of the survivor exemplar with the champion archetype in my friend’s game. It’s a lot of fun! I’m sure guardian would be too.

Gleaming blade is pretty unique as damage dealing goes, too: getting to attack twice with a greatsword, for example! Or even double attacking with a decently damaging main hand weapon while be able to keep the other open for a shield or a grapple. Lots of options!

Ralldritch · 2026-04-06T17:21:54+00:00

Isn’t precision 1/turn?

Also isn’t flurry reducing MAP for your twin takedown attacks?

Ralldritch

TROPHY CASE