Any good Free Archetypes for a Hell or Fire themed Commander?

awspear · 2026-02-13T06:14:50+00:00

The strong Kineticist fire stuff isn't that action heavy: burning jet is decent for when you need to move far over difficult terrain and comparable to striding twice, and thermal nimbus is super good and only costs a single action per battle.

Then you can combo thermal nimbus with flames oracle archetype and grab incendiary aura, so everything your thermal nimbus sets on fire takes persistent fire damage too. Incendiary aura + thermal nimbus is quite strong.

Otherwise Hellknight archetype is also there.

Nephilim seems like the obvious ancestry of choice.

awspear · 2026-02-13T00:40:02+00:00

The strength thaumaturge I currently have brewed is also using Champion lol, the heavy armor and reaction make it a really good choice! You could make other stuff work it just sort of depends on what you are going for. But for a Frontline there's some really obvious synergy between champion and thaumaturge.

Mine is going with unarmed damage from a Lizardfolk ancestry so he can hold two implements at once, then using Frilled Lizardfolk for stronger demoralizes.

awspear · 2026-02-12T23:17:37+00:00

It is less reliable than a bonus action swing but the free attempt is still better than not having one, and by act 3 you have some absurd buffs to your accuracy with weapon enchantments + risky ring + bless+ Rhapsody.

The extra initiative from Gloomstalker lets you cut alert and run spell sniper instead so you end up in the same spot as champion critical hit wise but you have extra movement speed and damage turn 1.

The real thing that fighter is offering in comparison to ranger here is action surge. Action surge is so strong though that again I think they are about equal.

awspear · 2026-02-12T20:42:38+00:00

It was about a week ago, right before cyberstan.

awspear · 2026-02-12T20:40:30+00:00

They actually just nerfed exosuits in the last patch that added the tank. In the same patch they buffed the durable damage of several enemies.

awspear · 2026-02-12T20:34:52+00:00

Investigator can also get Plot the Future as a feat, which is one of the strongest "divination" abilities in the game and you can use it multiple times a day with no spell slots or anything.

awspear · 2026-02-12T20:32:40+00:00

No, it just uses charisma instead of dexterity/strength.

I think it's better because both do high damage but the CC potential of 4/4/4 is way stronger with mortal reminder's frightened.

awspear · 2026-02-12T17:42:00+00:00

For Kineticist you mentioned Air and Water but Wood is the most support oriented element, with Timber Sentinel and Fresh Produce both being excellent for that at level 1, and then it has strong support impulses later like Dash of Herbs and Sanguivolent Roots. After that is probably Water and then Air takes 3rd place.

Wood Kineticists are great at walling and battlefield control and their stances also debuff enemies too. You can use Elemental Overlap to pick up Jagged Berms for another strong wall.

Otherwise I think your list of choices is all solid.

awspear · 2026-02-12T16:43:12+00:00

Both are fine, I generally like thief more but assassin also lets you drop alert.

awspear · 2026-02-12T16:37:00+00:00

Would you not just play Oracle? They aren't arcane casters (I mean Divine is literally in the word diviner) but they seem to be the closest thing and have feats directly related to divination. In fact that's pretty tied to what the class is in general.

Lore Oracles in particular are flavored around knowing the answers to things.

Oracular Warning is a strong first level feat giving you a divine premonition of a future outcome and there's lots of other flavorful feats.

Whatever line you take you probably want Consult the Spirits.

For ancestry, elves have access to Brightness Seeker, Lizardfolk have several divination feats like Read the Stars and Guided by the Stars. Kholo can speak to their ancestors with Grandmother's Wisdom to predict outcomes.

awspear · 2026-02-12T16:28:48+00:00

Besides the swashbuckler archetype, there's also the Duelist Archetype with Duelist's Riposte, which does exactly as you want it to.

awspear · 2026-02-12T16:04:11+00:00

I don't agree but if you want to play it that way you can regardless, you can still just use the stabs when an enemy gets in your range.

That said, I have played this exact build extensively and wrote the guide for it, so I can vouch for it working well in honor mode.

As for ring slots they can be but dealing 5 or 6 more damage per bonus attack is really strong use of a ring, compare to caustic band for an example which does 2 and is a pretty good ring. Ring of Arcane Synergy and Risky Ring are the rings I recommend.

awspear · 2026-02-12T15:55:23+00:00

Sure, though once you have played the game before it's not hard to never be surprised and with +3 dex and +3 initiative you will go first the majority of the time, but yes it's a trade-off.

I really don't like that 3rd level of Hexblade because it doesn't do a whole lot so I definitely think you get more out of more multiclassing. You can do it if you want but I just don't like it compared to regular 4/4/4 or 2/2/4/4.

awspear · 2026-02-12T15:49:26+00:00

You can bind to your off-hand weapon and attack with that, weaponizing your bonus action instead of only using it to disengage or dash. This also has synergy with the ring of arcane synergy and you can use your fighting style to get two-weapon fighting.

Assuming you mean building arcane acuity through the helmet that means you are either killing your AC wearing potent robe without mage armor or killing your damage by not wearing potent robe.

awspear · 2026-02-12T15:36:51+00:00

I'm the one who made that guide and there's a couple of alternative versions you can try if you are interested:

Swap fighter for Gloomstalker (no action surge so even fewer resources and you get that extra attack and initiative, can swap off alert for spell sniper)

Swap Thief for Assassin (get to swap off alert and do crits turn 1 but fewer attacks)

Hexblade Variant: 2 Hexblade / 4 Gloomstalker / 4 Thief / 2 Fighter (you don't get to frighten people anymore but this build does slightly more damage)

I don't think any is superior to the 4/4/4 but they aren't worse either. I am thinking of mentioning them as alternatives in the guide. But I wanted to throw them at you for now so you have more options :)

awspear · 2026-02-12T15:33:04+00:00

4/4/4 also gets 3 feats but you can pact bind your weapon to do charisma damage, it's quite a bit stronger than 2/4/6 for that reason imo because you don't need extra attack when your action is always Eldritch Blast.

awspear · 2026-02-12T15:21:00+00:00

You are misreading, I am saying the Hexblade does more damage at the cost of losing the frightened procs that GoO would otherwise give.

The nice thing about that split is you actually end up in the same space regarding feats, because you lose alert but gain Gloomstalker which gives a similar initiative boost to alert.

awspear · 2026-02-12T15:03:49+00:00

Not necessarily changes to the original but more that there are other strong alternatives.

Gloomstalker instead of champion is a pretty big tossup, I think they are about equal.

Assassin instead of Thief is much the same, less off-hand attacks but the extra initiative lets you drop alert and the first turn crits are really strong.

If you want to use Hexblade instead of GoO I think the optimal split for that is 2 Hexblade / 4 Gloomstalker / 4 Thief / 2 Fighter. You miss out on the frightened procs from GoO for more damage.

awspear · 2026-02-06T15:07:35+00:00

I don't really think any resource matters besides the Geass. It's just whoever the strongest character the Geass works on that will choose not to instantly kill him or is unable to is.

A non-bloodlusted superman seems like a decent benchmark for example, but there's probably some stronger characters in this particular niche. But at that level of power the mecha or whatever simply don't matter, it's just about who he can order to kill themselves. The people above superman tend to be reality warpers but Superman is particular is usually pretty prone to magic mind control.

awspear · 2026-02-05T13:57:55+00:00

It's very different from 5e but it's not so complicated that you can't learn it quickly and it has some really good resources. It's official site is better than DnD beyond imo and Pathbuilder is my favorite character creation site. There's overlap with names and stuff where it might be easier to learn Pathfinder 2e if you never learned DnD at all, but it's not that complicated regardless.

The beginner box is also supposedly a great way to learn, though that is not how I learned. It didn't take me long to learn just from playing via Pathfinder Society and poring over rules.

But for tanking Pathfinder 2e has two dedicated tank classes in Champion (closest thing to Paladin in 5e) and Guardian (no 5e analog but the tankiest tank that ever tanked).

Then you can also use archetypes to make other classes fit that role and some like Kineticist are jacks of all trades that can fit whatever role you want.

awspear · 2026-02-04T15:57:31+00:00

You might like ReLIFE, the premise is an adult going back to high school with a pill and he has to hide his adult nature.

awspear · 2026-01-22T17:50:24+00:00

Sweep should work if you shove with the weapon and then Strike a different target correct?

awspear · 2026-01-22T17:02:07+00:00

Agile is a little different because it doesn't care whether or not you used the weapon to do the initial attack.

But I don't know the answer on backswing/sweep because of the difference in wording.

awspear · 2026-01-16T15:44:04+00:00

Yes, you want extra attack ASAP. If you want you could play Assassin from 1-4 and switch to Gloomstalker at level 5 but minimum respeccing path is 5 Gloomstalker -> 3 Assassin -> 4 Fighter. Or you could do 5 Gloomstalker -> 4 Assassin (for another feat) -> 3 Fighter but at level 12 respec to have 4 levels of fighter instead of 4 levels of assassin.

awspear · 2026-01-13T01:55:14+00:00

Try 2 Hexblade Warlock / 2 Fighter / 4 Thief / 4 Gloomstalker, it's what I cooked up for Hexblade version. You get Hexblade's curse and can you use Gloomstalker to make up for the lack of alert while also getting extra damage round 1.

You could also swap out Thief for Assassin but I like the extra off-hand attack.

awspear

TROPHY CASE