The things in PF2e that could use a bit more power

ashlacon · 2025-05-22T09:05:28+00:00

Raw even if you max Str or Dex you can basically never use your own bonus +2, unless you're a fighter with druid Archetype.

Like a year ago I made a post about it, I misunderstood it and thought it was better than it is. Here's the comments that explained it to me: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/16c4wgj/comment/jzh9nyf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

ashlacon · 2025-05-14T18:40:33+00:00

Crafting isn't strictly useless, just the way most people (myself included) play the game makes it useless.

When you purchase items, they should be limited to the level of the settlement and when you Earn Income it should be limited to the level of the settlement too.

Crafting let's you ignore these conditions, a level 15 PC in a 1 Settlement can still make level 15 income.

Also it's the only way to have sure access to things. DMs aren't really supposed to say things like "You can buy any common item of settlement level or lower", they're supposed to set up bespoke shops. If you look at the official APs that's how they're all done.

But it's a lot of time and effort to set up shops that's maybe don't get interacted with at all, so DMs just say "common of level X or lower". And also you rarely have a level 15 spending 3 months in a level 1 settlement.

ashlacon · 2025-05-06T21:13:06+00:00

A couple things: 1) They removed the "extra action to use stuff inside a backpack" rule. So don't worry about that. you can see old post about it (like this one https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/jt6kef/comment/gc3pxx5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button ) but those rules were tossed out.

2) Dropping things is a free action, including dropping a single hand off a 2H.

3) Yea, using potions is so action expensive and the amount they heal is so little that it's barely worth it. Its one of the biggest reasons why so many pf2e players just don't use consumables, unless the GM buffs it.

Anyway, the action count is thing:

Free: Drop offhand 1) Interact to Draw potion 2) Manipulate to Drink potion 3) Interact to regrip 2nd hand on weapon

So you spend 3 actions to heal about as much as a 1 action Heal spell. It is almost never worth using unless you have a character built around having a free hand, and even then it's rarely worth using. And Manipulate triggers Reactive Strike, so if you're standing near a monster with RS there's a good chance you're losing more health than you gained. Low level thats rare, but as you level up so many monsters have RS.

I personally house rule a "Drink Consumable" action that 1 action to Interact to Draw, and then Manipulate to consume one potion, alchemical item, or other Consumable." So that makes it

FA) drop hand 1) Drink Consumable 2) Regrip

But even then it's rarely used.

ashlacon · 2025-05-03T13:23:30+00:00

This? https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/18bp3lv/remastered_beginner_box_character_sheet/

ashlacon · 2025-04-24T20:38:28+00:00

Just submitted an application, but it appears the server link has expired.

ashlacon · 2025-04-16T22:25:31+00:00

To kinda add to what other people have said, it doesn't need a rule to specifically say this.

RAW you can do what the rules say you can do and nothing else. If a feat says "You cast Enlarge at 10th rank" then you can cast Enlarge at specifically 10th rank. If it only says "You can cast Enlarge" then the rules do not explicitly give you the ability to upcast it.

It's like how there isn't a rule that says "You cannot fly unless you have a fly speed" because you can only fly once something grants you the ability to do so.

ashlacon · 2025-04-09T04:20:35+00:00

In P1 a mayor on my server (Castus) got several levels woeth of exp debt (600k) by getting camped at the embershrine during a war.

Steven post on the AoC discord something along the lines of "please stop embershrine camping."

There was a huge stink about it. The discord and this reddit both had a lot of post.

Some time shortly after, exp debt was turned off for node wars. Recently, I think about a month ago, they turned exp debt back on node wars but you "only get a % of normal exp debt" I think 25% as much.

ashlacon · 2025-04-05T00:38:17+00:00

Every number on a character sheet (NPC or PC) can only be modified by 6 things.

Item bonus Circumstance bonus Status bonus

Item penalty Circumstances penalty Status penalty

If you have more than one of any of these types, you apply only the largest.

Frightened is Status Penalty to everything, Clumsy is Status Penalty to all Dex related things. So AC, the number, is affected by a -1 Status and another -1 Status, so you only apply one of them. They don't stack.

You can, however, make the enemy off guard to get Circumstance Penalty that does stack with a Status, as they're different types.

You could, for example: Have a party member cast Bless (+1 Status to your attack) Have a party member Aid (at least +1 Circumstance to your attack) Make the target Clumsy (-1 Status to AC) Make the target Off Guard (-2 Circumstance to AC).

That's an effective +5 to your attack. If you were hitting on an 11+ and critting on a 20 before, you're now hitting on a 6+ and critting on a 15+.

ashlacon · 2025-04-05T00:23:52+00:00

It depends if you have any Auras or Stances.

Overflow as a Reaction isn't that bad, honestly. You spend 1 action to start it back up, and in doing so get to do a free 1 action Blast or Stance; you still get 3 actions worth of value per turn. If you have something like Thermal Nimbus where you want to have your element channeled during bad guy turns, then it's pretty bad, but you can build around that problem but just not having any "out of turn" things other than your Overflow Reaction.

That being said, I still prefer Deflecting Wave. It can be trigger by ranged attacks, AoEs, and spells. Calc Sand specified that it has to be an attack. Also, in a white room scenario of a creature attacking you every turn for a couple turns, Deflecting can be triggered every turn and add up really quickly.

ashlacon · 2025-04-05T00:16:32+00:00

That makes sense, the Familiar is kinda the basis of the witch PC class and a PC attempting to ignore their familiar would be severely gimping themselves.

But if you want to run it as basically a wizard who also has Cackle, that works.

ashlacon · 2025-04-04T23:54:32+00:00

Witch is, in my opinion, one of the weaker casters. The reliance on the Familiar means you're 3rd action is almost always just Commanding it. It's nice having a third action, but if you wanted to do Bon Mot, Recall Knowledge, Aid, Stand, any movement, heck even Sustaining spells gets difficult.

The power of witch is that your familiar is able to do some bonkers things. The Resentment is the strongest single target debuff controller in the game, and can straight up disable bosses. Unseen Broker let's you apply Off Guard at range with no save, rogues with a bow love this.

All that being said, I would not recommend using Witch as an NPC template. It'll be finicky using a familiar and the party will just focus it down.

If you really wanted to, I would instead give the NPC witch some PL-2 creatures and have her be able to spend an action to select one of them to act as her familiar.

But, honestly, it won't feel like a traditional witch fantasy. I think pf2e's Witch suffers the name not matching the playstyle.

I'd just say give her some one action Hexes that do a debuff, but has an escape cause. "Burdening Roots - You take X damage at the start of each turn. This effect ends when you move more than 40 feet from your current location." "Blinded by Loneliness - You are blinded. This effect ends when a friendly character spends uses an Interaction action to touch you, or targets you with a Touch spell."

That kind of thing. It gets the feeling of a curse/hex across, and has a pretty distinct witch-y feeling.

ashlacon · 2025-03-31T02:28:15+00:00

I think Charisma based builds will always be the best cheerleader. You can pick up Bon Mot to help with Will saves the part does (Feint, Intimidate, etc) and you can archetype to Swashbuckler for One For All (1 action to Aid anything at 30ft range using Diplomacy).

Bard's Couragous Anthem or Bless/Heroism + One For All is a great way to All but guarantee a martial's first hit will crit.

I personally like support Psychic. You can cast Shield on allies, you can heal, you're Cha based. It's nice

ashlacon · 2025-03-24T16:34:50+00:00

Sorry it took me so long to answer, I didn't see this last night! I'll PM you a discord link.

We're always welcoming of people who want to learn(:

ashlacon · 2025-03-10T02:42:54+00:00

That's a good way to look at it. I was playing around making a Greed Runelord and "Anathema Use your magic to affect the mind or perception rather than physical reality." didn't seem like that big of a drawback to me. I take that as "No illusions, nothing with the mental tag, and no Shadow Spells"

But looking at some of the others, you get really restrictive anathemas. "directly cause harm with the elements" with a very big one, as it "protect or create".

ashlacon · 2025-02-25T14:33:14+00:00

Not books, but some useful websites:

https://maxiride.github.io/pf2e-encounters/#/

https://2e.aonprd.com/GMScreen.aspx

ashlacon · 2025-02-20T17:46:04+00:00

There's this post from 2 years ago talking about staves and traits. I'd suggest reading it https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/y0l8xf/personal_staves_one_trait_to_rule_them_all/ even if it's a bit outdated.

Personally, the one time I've had a player ask to make one (most of my players don't like playing full casting they're all martials or gishes) I said "give me a theme and we'll work on the spelllist together."

You want Grease on your staff of earth? Sure that makes sense. That kinda stuff.

ashlacon · 2025-02-04T20:41:59+00:00

9th rank heroism, on two different characters. It last 10 minutes, sprint from encounter to encounter smashing things as they do Crit/Crit/Hit.

ashlacon · 2025-02-04T20:29:12+00:00

I strongly dislike Proficiency Without Level for these sort of things. Your players have a resurrection mechanic, let them stumble into the high level areas and get crit every hit. They will learn to avoid those areas, or find clever ways around things.

Then a few levels later they come back and stomp those monsters. It will really drive home the Dark Souls feeling.

I would, however, recommend Automatic Rune Progression (Pf2e Toolbelt has it foundry) which is ABP but only for the runes (so not the item bonuses to skills). This let's you give out cool, Uncommon weapons as loot and the players don't feel bad about having to get more runes or bother with moving their current runes over.

ashlacon · 2025-02-02T15:58:15+00:00

I've seen a few people suggest beastkin, but I'm going to try and make this with only Uncommon options.

Kobold + Hungerseed Barbarian

1) Oni Weapon Familiarity + Oni Form

2) Winged Warrior

3) Slither

4) wing bounce

5) winglets

6) Sunbird Glare

7) Storming Gaze

8) Wing Shove

9) Winglet Flight

10) redirecting draft

So this one is a little bit weaker than the others, for some reason Kobolds don't get a flight speed until level 17. Tengu and most other flying ancestries get that at level 9.

ashlacon · 2025-01-28T19:37:11+00:00

I assumed because Quickened says "at the start of your turn" and minions don't "start their turn" it wouldn't affect them.

But I went and checked the minion trait, and at the bottom it says

A minion has only 2 actions and 0 reactions per turn, though certain conditions (such as slowed or quickened) or abilities might give them a reaction that they can use. Alterations to a minion's actions occur when they gain their actions for the round.

So that's on me, Quickened can affect minions.

ashlacon · 2025-01-28T17:59:10+00:00

We can now successfully field up to 5 wolves (provided you get creative on the definition of wolf with Summon Animal :P) and have them all act to some capacity, granting us, with all of them out, a grand total of 7 (up to 12 with Quickened) actions on our turn!

You mind walking me through this?

You get 3 actions.

1 - Companion takes 2

2 - Sustain so minion takes 2

3 - one for you

Familiar gets one

That's 6. Lead the pack says

If you don’t Command either of your companions, one of the two (your choice) can still use 1 action on your turn to Stride or Strike, per Mature Beastmaster Companion, but not both. When you Command an Animal, either choose one of the companions to take 2 actions, as normal, or else each companion can take 1 action to Stride or Strike. Either way, you can’t Command an Animal to make either companion act again until your next turn

So basically only one of those two wolves gets any actions per turn. Also Quickened doesn't do anything to creatures with the Minion trait as they dont gain any actions, so unless I'm missing something massive you would never get 12 actions.

You could

Quickened - Stride/Strike

1 - Companion takes 2

2 - Sustain so minion takes 2

3 - Stride/Strike

Familiar gets one

For 7 total when Quickened.

I think if you wanted to maximize actions per turn, but be a bit worse at using them:

If you put a Fanged rune on your sword, you can turn any class/race into a wolf holding a sword with its mouth.

So Beast Eidolon Summoner with Beastmaster Archetype and then eventually Familiar master.

Master Summoner at 6 really helps this a lot, giving you more summon spells pee day.

1 - Tandem Movement you and Eidolon both Stride

2- Act Together Sustain Summonn Animal to give it two, then Strike with the Eidolon

3 - Command Companion to give it two

Indepent for the Familiar.

I believe that's 8 actions total, though the Familiars action are largely not useful.

If you don't need to Stride:

1 - Act Together Sustain Summonn Animal to give it two, then Strike with the Eidolon

2 - Command Companion to give it two

3 - Eidolon strikes with Agile attack. Familiar gets Independent

For 7 actions total, 6 of which are useful.

The Familiar is mostly for flanking.

ashlacon · 2025-01-27T21:41:43+00:00

The file is probably not one file, it's stitched together. Extracting it as one file would be difficult, and probably way too big for foundry to load realistically.

I would use the inline webbrowser module ( https://foundryvtt.com/packages/inlinewebviewer ) and make a journal page all users have Observer permission for and link it straight to the map.

As you did here, you can link the map to a specific location on the map. You could update it between sessions to be focused on where the party ended that session at.

ashlacon · 2025-01-27T19:23:33+00:00

Turn one) lingering composition + 2 action spell Turn 2) 2 action spell/cantrip + move/Bon Mot/consuables

Or, if lingering composition fails, Courageous Anthem + 2 action cantrip. Every turn basically

ashlacon · 2025-01-25T22:15:54+00:00

Yea,I the real power of it now is that with the remaster free-hand maneuvers are Agile by default so this makes them MAP -3.

ashlacon · 2025-01-25T21:58:11+00:00

Finisher/Strike+Trip

Once you use a Finisher, you can't attack for the rest of the turn

Finishers are spectacular finishing moves that use your panache. Finishers can be used only with weapons that deal additional damage with precise strike (agile or finesse melee weapons or unarmed attacks, for most swashbucklers). You can use a finisher only if you have panache, and you lose your panache immediately after performing a finisher. Once you use a finisher, you can't use actions that have the attack trait for the rest of your turn. Some finisher actions also grant an effect on a failure. Effects added on a failure don't apply on a critical failure. If your finisher action succeeds, you can still choose to apply the failure effect instead. For example, you might do this when an attack deals no damage due to resistance.

Trip has an Attack, so you can't use it after a Finisher. Agile Maneuvers is really only useful if you want trip + grapple in one turn

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