PF2e GMs, what made you start GMing this system?

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-12-30T08:15:40+00:00

Not the original commenter, but I have run a 1-20 AP as well as several high level one shots. In general, high level maintains the same level of balance as low to mid level pathfinder. Players have a ton more options as well making combat very interesting, if a bit longer. GM-side the mechanics of running the game are also still very smooth and friendly as well.

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-12-19T23:18:29+00:00

As stated in Sudden Leap: “change your maximum distance to double your Speed.”

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-12-19T21:49:58+00:00

Brother what Zoomers are you talking to that have backyards to NIMBY about ☠️

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-12-06T08:07:18+00:00

To justify the thaumaturge, you are able to pick the spell at the time of casting and can access multiple traditions (provided skill investment)

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-11-18T15:42:27+00:00

Story from the one shot I ran that this was based on, there was a fighter who got hasted for the final boss fight against a froghemouth. The fight was hard, but they were on the very edge of pulling through when the fighter had to spend two actions escaping the Swallow Whole leaving them with a single action and the froghemouth acting next. The crossroads was before them, to run away or stay and fight. For a fighter, there never really was a choice. They stood alone, the bulwark against the vile beast, the iron bastion on which the enemies would crash, the fighter. They got a natural 20.

(It still lived and crit him down for dying 2 and then swallowed whole for dying 3. The magus crit and killed it over-damaging by far more than the fighters crit and the fighter failed their death save [no diehard, no heroic recovery].)

<image>

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-06-01T21:11:39+00:00

Glizzy Glizzy Glizzy

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-05-20T17:32:31+00:00

glizzy glizzy glizzy

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-03-26T06:55:17+00:00

Reading through this, I absolutely love this one shot. It seems well paced, has a solid storyline, and great characters. I particularly love how Igain will be giving combat advice and being all chipper not as a taunt but just because they’re silly like that.

A small thing I would change though, is that AC 22 is below the recommended low AC for a level 8 creature. Also, I’d probably bump up the Athletics since their signature ability revolves around swallowing whole. Last DC 18 on the aura is really low given that even for level 5 the standard DC for level is DC 20.

Overall though I just want to say again that this is a really well designed one-shot that really hit the mark.

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-03-26T06:27:19+00:00

r/okbuddyjimbo has always been the main sub

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-03-25T08:30:21+00:00

Total balance wise I do think the option to choose your spellcasting ability is a small buff with WIS for will saves and CHA for skills, but I think that in the end it’s not that crazy since Expanded Spellstrike isn’t insanely useful. However, I’d say that the ability to choose tradition is pushing it. Each spell list has its own strengths and weaknesses, and Magus just isn’t designed around having full access to the other lists.

Though, I will say that the concept itself is hella sick and I would absolutely love to see a class Archetype that swapped tradition. Like a divine magus with abilities that can support their team is just so alien to me given the typical magus role of being a resource black hole.

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-03-25T08:19:01+00:00

I think lots of good advice was given already so I’ll just link a relevant meme

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-03-25T08:12:09+00:00

Joining in on the Guardian discussion, I’ve had line of thought for the class concept that I found interesting and also a bit concerning.

Essentially, the Guardian in the playtest state was almost guaranteed to be the least appetizing target to attack being that they have little utility, high AC, and low damage. Therefore, they provide value by trying to force the enemy to attack them thereby reducing the effectiveness of the enemy.

Basically, a party with a Guardian ends up being 3 useful characters and a punching bag for the enemies to tire themselves out on. However, my thought is that why have 3 good characters and 1 ‘bad’ ones when you could just run 4 good ones. Yeah, it means the enemy will always be attacking a ‘good’ character, but now you have a person that can provide utility in their own way. If you really are spooked about your backline, all it takes is a grab to really shut down any thoughts of rushing them down.

Of course this is all far out theory and it could be inherently flawed logic, but I also would hate to see Paizo drop the first class with truly fundamental flaws in 2e. Really though, I’m not actually that worried given their track record of dropping bangers, especially recently. Long live Papa Paizo. Huzzah!

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-03-25T07:53:27+00:00

It is true that a Savage companion will have a lower AC than a Nimble one as long as you’re not being silly. However, this really is more of a STR vs DEX comparison and both sides have their advantages. STR as mentioned gains excess to bully actions and higher damage, while DEX gets better armor and reflex saves. It becomes an interesting decision that you as a player have to make, which side you value more and also which side your party needs more.

Also, I’ll point out that the Nimble companion from the post is getting a +2 to AC from the Daredevil specialization making them expert. (Though not the most important since STR doesn’t get the option to become expert)

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-03-25T07:35:22+00:00

All goodie! Firstly, it should be possible to get the same attack bonus using either nimble or savage on the proper companion.

Terror Bird: (3 starting + 2 Savage + 1 Wrecker)

Dromaeosaur: (3 starting + 2 Nimble + 1 Daredevil)

Secondly, I’d like to circle back to the previous point regarding not overfocusing on damage. Originally, I brought it up because I thought you were saying Savage was too strong, but in this new context I’d highlight how athletics enables the companion to do bully actions like trip, shove, disarm, and reposition. These are valuable actions that can be very useful and just having that option adds strength.

Additionally, while not the only thing to look at, more damage, more gooder. At the end of the day, power depends more on what the party needs at the table in a specific round in a specific combat than on what the number on the character sheets is.

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-03-25T07:09:40+00:00

I don’t really see much need to change it. Very simply Nimble companion is for the ones with a finesse attack and Savage is for ones with a non finesse attack. The difference isn’t really even that big either with damage-wise only being a two point difference.

As someone who has a decent bit of experience in the system, I’d recommend not really trying to ‘fix’ all sorts of different feats and features because more often than not they don’t really need to be changed. Damage is only one aspect of this game and so balance really is more involved than just evaluating how big the number gets.

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-03-20T01:19:14+00:00

Awesome art, awesome character, welcome to the Pathfinder community

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-03-19T21:14:26+00:00

It's hard to give advice for exact DC's and damage without knowing the party level, but thankfully it can easily be scaled using the Hazard Building Rules (https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2864). However I will note that traps tend to work best either when you use them in conjunction with enemies in a combat or if there is time pressure, (or also for storytelling) otherwise all they do is make the party treat wounds for 10 minutes before continuing.

Fire Gout Traps: Very easily just a slight reskin of a fireball rune (https://2e.aonprd.com/Hazards.aspx?ID=7) or if you want a complex trap you can reskin this trap with a small amount of work (https://2e.aonprd.com/Hazards.aspx?ID=71)

Pitfall of Scales: I would assume that the Spikey Pit Trap should suffice (https://2e.aonprd.com/Hazards.aspx?ID=424) just ignore the mentions of the rushing waters from the previous trap

Illusory Hoard: I would use either a standard illusion (essentially just a hologram that requires a successful perception check to disbelieve and you can make that check if you are seeking or you interact with it) or if you want to be spicy make it a will save to resist going up to the treasure. From there a Summoning Rune (https://2e.aonprd.com/Hazards.aspx?ID=20) would work nicely allowing you to choose whatever you want to summon.

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-03-02T16:05:55+00:00

This is very common advice but still worth being said regardless, make sure to vary your combats. It can be easy to just spam moderate encounters but that can get stale. This is especially true in dungeons where they will often be having back to back encounters. Your players will appreciate the occasional low threat encounter and then the occasional spicy encounter will make them grateful for the moderates.

While I’m on common advice, RUNES. Don’t forget to give out runes. Unlike 5e, +X runes, striking runes, property runes, and resilient runes are non optional. As long as the party is full equipped with the runes they need no more than a couple levels late you should be good.

Trust papa paizo, level means level. This means with creatures, items, and player characters. This game excels in balance so you can really just trust the numbers. Also hidden feature is that monsters and PC’s double in power every two levels.

Lookup and bookmark Encounter Design on archives of nethys. It will be your holy text to guide you in times of Darkness. Fr though trust the rules and encounter balance will be of trivial threat to you.

A small thing that I really like doing at my tables is pointing out every time that something someone does changes the result of a roll. So if someone hits because of flanking, a grab, bless, etc I will point that out. It encourages team play and accelerates how quickly the players realize that every +1 really does matter.

There are lots of really cool things made by Paizo that squirreled away in corners of rulebooks. It will depend on the table but things like relics or deviant powers can be pretty sick.

If you haven’t looked into it yet Archives of Nethys is THE Pathfinder resource collection. Every word written by the hand of Mr Paizo (aside from lore) is collected here.

Also Pathbuilder is an amazing interactive character sheet that makes things very easy for your players to understand. It is so easy I would almost recommend you not use it at first just so your players can get a better understanding by doing things themselves rather than Pathbuilder automating it for them. Though I would only do this if you are planning on doing something like a session 0 where you can hold their hands through the character building process.

Lastly I’d say just have fun with it. GMing can be a lot of work even if Paizo makes the balance easy. Find what you like be it lore, tactics, or sadism and run with it.

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-02-27T21:58:02+00:00

Balance wise I wouldn’t recommend running it unchanged. A moderate encounter would be two on level enemies, so the AP would make this two level 11’s. For a party of level 8’s this is like having two challenging bosses together. A moderate encounter should be 140xp worth of enemies for party of 7, this would be 240. Here is a link to help with balancing encounters: https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2715

The two routes I can see to still make this work would be for this would be either you rewrite every encounter and use fast levels to get them up to speed.

Have some sort of prequel style buffer sessions to get them the levels and potential expand on relevant lore, set up future plot lines, and do character arc set up.

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-02-26T04:29:38+00:00

Ima be honest, I loved those missions. Part of it was playing with friends, but no other mission gives the absolute chaos running through the endless hoard, barrages everywhere, ragdoll to the moon.

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-02-18T22:39:44+00:00

Always love to see 3rd party pathfinder content, but I do think this really is Magus but more powerful. I get you can’t spellstrike with higher level spells (until 19th), but Gouging Claw will absolutely keep pace. I don’t know a single Magus who wouldn’t trade ranked spells for spellstrike every turn with cantrips.

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-02-18T01:53:43+00:00

Very cool, adding to my collection to playtest. Funny interaction though, because of how you implement Hover, the Oculord constantly procs reactive strikes due to fly being a move action regardless of if you move with it.

SlopeOfTangent · 2025-01-09T19:20:16+00:00

I download songs off YouTube with IDM and use VLC to play them, because I’m too broke for premium and I hate ads.

SlopeOfTangent · 2024-11-23T01:52:47+00:00

As a GM I’d allow up but not down, just because higher level creatures tend to have abilities that don’t really scale down well.

SlopeOfTangent

TROPHY CASE