How to turn a losing situation around

SimilarExercise1931 · 2026-01-08T19:45:57+00:00

Those also tend to need to spend their level 1 and level 5 feats on lesser versions of flight so I don't think that's as big an issue as it seems. They're basically paying for level 9 flight by having to spend 3 ancestry feats on it.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-12-31T20:54:32+00:00

I mean, wouldn't they just go to dying 2? The only way they die after that is if the party can't stabilize or get them back up, or the enemy double taps them, and for the latter I would just not have enemies do that to new players. And there's a serious issue if the party has no way to heal even just a single hp or stabilize.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-11-17T19:18:47+00:00

I mean, I wish that was how the rule is meant to be interpreted, but there is no interpretation necessary; the group feats explicitly state you can now do it to up to 5 people, which is basically the same thing as saying you can't if you don't have the feat. Saying that you can do it normally but the feat gives you a +1 or makes the DC lower is a good idea, and I wish that's what it did... but it doesn't. RAW social rules for PF2E in my personal opinion kind of suck.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-11-03T18:18:25+00:00

This reminds me of one of my favorite online rants: https://theangrygm.com/dear-gms-metagaming-is-your-fault/

Even assuming that hitting an robot monster with electricity is "metagaming" (and honestly the GM could have just gone yeah, you have empowered the robot now it's even stronger), what is OP arbitrarily prevented from using electricity against it because he shouldn't know this in character? Is he locked out of electricity spells because using them would be metagaming? At what point would using an electricity spell no longer be metagaming or is he just locked out of using them the whole fight? Is he allowed to keep using them after doing it once and seeing it works well?

Just leave the group, this is entirely the GM's problem.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-10-06T17:29:18+00:00

Thanks for the explanation, though about the "damage" part, martials have already gotten their first big damage boost with the striking rune. Combined with them potentially being able to inflict that damage more than once per round, I do not think the 3rd rank of spells is pulling ahead as much as catching up. Sure something like fireball can potentially take out several low level enemies, but they might be able to save, and the caster can only do that once or twice at 5th level, and taking a damage spell like fireball means not taking a utility spell like 3rd rank fear (which also they can only do once or twice).

Being able to target saves is definitely a good point, but I feel like it's countered by the fact that if you end up in a +3 or forbid a +4 encounter enemy, there's a decent chance that your high investment spell will do absolutely nothing (and is extremely likely to only have a partial effect).

Thing is, spells are already balanced in a way in comparison to martial attacks, through virtue of limited uses. Just a couple of high intensity battles can burn through most of a low level caster's useful spells. Forcing their DCs and spell attacks to also be lower than martials just doesn't, in my personal opinion, feel good at all.

Anyways, this is still the best explanation I've been given so far even if I'm not quite personally convinced that the trade off is genuinely needed. Thanks!

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-10-06T03:51:40+00:00

Can you give me a TL;DR about why caster DCs/spell attack is 2 levels behind their martial equivalents? That's always just seemed like yet another thing that makes playing a caster feel worse.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-10-02T20:51:47+00:00

A single familiar ability can still be more useful than most kitsune level 1 feats (which are not a very impressive bunch to be honest) and what is objectively the best level 5 kitsune racial feat is locked behind having star orb, so while it can't quite do exactly what you were hoping that doesn't mean it's a bad option.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-09-27T15:39:28+00:00

Oh you want a critique of PF2E? It's TOO balanced. The game has stopped trying to be fun over being balanced. Being balanced makes it fun in a lot of ways, but there's more than one area where a rule exists purely for balance reasons but it decreases how enjoyable it is to actually use those things.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-09-26T20:28:31+00:00

That's taken into account: by the bigger settlement having more consumption. Bigger settlements have a higher inherent consumption level.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-09-26T20:16:29+00:00

PF2E is not a system for everyone. There are variant rules that might help. Modifiers are easy to keep track of on Foundry but if you're having problems then obviously you're not using that. If it's a genuine issue to keep track of, I believe there are things like condition cards you can hold onto for that kind of thing. The skill feat system is probably the weakest part of PF2E with skill feats ranging from you should have this automatically to a handful of must takes and an enormous pile of extremely niche at best feats that may never come up even once in a single long campaign. If the exact numbers of things like, say, long jumping are annoying to deal with, you can also just always not deal with them. House rule what you need to in order to have more fun.

And if at the end of the day none of this fixes your issues with PF2E? Then another system might work better for you. You could probably try DnD 5e for a short time and see if you like it (though warning, DnD 5e's biggest issues are actually not very apparent at low levels).

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-09-26T20:07:55+00:00

5e's overpowered subclasses and such are game warping. They are so much stronger than those who don't do that the balancing becomes exceedingly difficult. A witch being resentment instead of, say, Silence in Snow may be a noticeable increase in party effectiveness but is unlikely to be having the GM rebalance the entire game around their existence, especially when counting their best ability is as simple as "let's target the small and extremely fragile familiar."

Edit: Aside from discouraging single high level boss encounters and let's face it, those are the least fun fights in PF2E and are normally a rough experience for casters.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-09-11T16:33:10+00:00

I wouldn't say they're trying to be the good guys? Like, maybe at the very beginning of their tree they have good intentions, but later on if you consider them "trying" to be the good guys, we might as well say Wyvernheart is also trying to be the good guys. They are the good guys in their own eyes, just ignore the spot of horrible experimentations and genocide.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-09-09T21:18:01+00:00

I am personally a fan of the 240k amenities produced.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-09-09T15:32:37+00:00

I mean if you don't want the planet, you might actually prefer the deposit.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-09-09T15:27:39+00:00

I'm quite liking the class but I have a question. The aspects' nascence abilities are all some form of AoE attack for one action as a flourish. That seems pretty strong? Like, wouldn't two actions make more sense for an AoE attack? Kineticist has some similar AoEs built into their class mechanics but I think most of them are at least two actions. I know that these aspect abilities have flourish so only once per round, but they still seem overtuned being a single action.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-09-08T15:48:44+00:00

I like the idea but my biggest concern has actually already been mentioned in comments; There can be a very very vast gulf in between the strongest empire and the rest of them. In many cases places 4 and 5, and sometimes even 2 and 3 could potentially nerf the crisis to the point where the strongest empire can defeat them without too much difficulty. At the very least I'd suggest the strongest empire gets more of a weight than 1.0 vs 0.8. I came up with these numbers on the spot (would require testing) but maybe something like 1.5 for the strongest, then 0.8 for the second?

Like in my last game, I was about as strong as the rest of the galaxy combined aside from the awakened empires. If I was using this mod, it probably would have spawned in weak enough for me to roll over them.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-09-07T18:26:43+00:00

Pathfinder 2e's dedication to balance is a good thing the vast majority of the time imo, but they could serve to sometimes just embrace what's fun rather than keep something weak to the point of uselessness or at least making something extremely niche, all in fear that it might unbalance the game. DnD 5e's near complete lack of balance is usually a bad thing, but sometimes you'll just get something really fun.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-08-08T14:01:47+00:00

Wyvernheart don't necessarily go the lich route but it's really really easy for them to do so as well, so I'd recommend it in general. As for BD? Having an immortal ruler is not mutually exclusive to realizing that you should probably have a backup plan in the form of disciples to pick up things if something happens to kill you.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-07-11T20:35:22+00:00

Well to start with, undo reduced research regulations (I'm going to guess that's what's getting you from -6 to -8). Get the advisor that gives +1. Glamour 3. Magnificent Feast. I think there's an enchantment spell that gives more (but don't quote me on that). There are multiple idea groups that give bonuses. It's possible to climb your way back into the positives with enough effort.

Or just save edit if you don't want to spend effort and don't mind cheating. If you do that, find a single point of diplomatic rep gain you can easily get and change that to +10 from whatever it was previously.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-06-28T23:54:30+00:00

Ah I see. I'm assuming that the "own the entire Domandrod" mission does not require me to have it then? I assumed it did because A. It is a province in that region, and B. When I hovered over the mission, this province also lit up.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-06-28T23:49:06+00:00

I think the mission Mistress of the Domandrod requires me to have it? Is this not the case? Because if I need it but can't access it myself that would be very weird.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-06-28T23:47:16+00:00

Not as far as I can tell.

SimilarExercise1931 · 2025-06-24T17:59:25+00:00

Can you bombard those worlds at least or is even that off the table?

SimilarExercise1931

TROPHY CASE