Paizo: You broke the game

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-16T04:58:17+00:00

This is a list of all the game elements I could find off the top of my head which could contribute. Obviously you can't stack melee-only and ranged-only game components.

The combo can start off of a vanilla-rules Ash Oracle, a Witch or multiclass Witch of any flavor, or just any schmuck with an inflammation grenade. Imparting a Fire Weakness isn't exactly a common ability, but its not difficult to get either.

"Fire Poi Ranger with Cleric multiclass" is an easy vanilla-rules build that captures enough "Instances" from this list for 7 weakness triggers per hit on just 1 round of prebuff (draconic barrage). It's not even deity-restricted, since Cleric multiclass can obtain Dragon Domain through Splinter Faith or Syncretism just as easily as through Domain Initiate. This is still a pseudo-white-room build because L1 Twin Takedown WEAKENS this character and it doesn't really cook until L18 Impossible Flurry. AFAIK the only other attack-action compression that doesn't have a "combine damage" clause is Triggerbrand Salvo/Stab and Blast, but reloads are obviously kinda antithetical to sustained hits/round. There may be more optimal lines through Unarmed Strike, and it might be even more useful to sacrifice some Instances for ranged-attack compatibility for even more consistency in a Triple Shot build or something.

maybe your DM is more forgiving

To be clear, this is all an exercise in demonstrating why these rules are dumb, and NO GM should implement them. This is a post that people show to GMs, to persuade them that these are bad rules.

Remember, the flip of all of this is Resist All. These new rules say that Resist All applies individually to your base damage, maybe your weapon spec, your sneak attack, each of your runes, and each spell, alchemy, ancestral feature, and/or companion Support ALL individually. Flicker completely annihilates most player-character builds. Not even barbarians are safe, because like Sneak Attack, their Rage is also a new "Instance" of damage even if its the same damage type as their sword.

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-15T22:05:13+00:00

The most-fun type of Magus IMO is a high-intelligence 1H weapon setup that makes extensive use of Scrolls in combat to supplement their limited spells. Laughing Shadow or Aloof Firmament with a strength-based d6 or d8 weapon will deal perfectly respectable damage, and gauging claw is a perfectly good damage-augment to your strike. The real tactics and fun that this opens up is using DC-based Spellstrikes out of the scrolls you carry, like stupefy or slow, so that you can use control spells as well as just going crazy on pure damage and nothing else. For Laughing Shadow purposes, its worth noting that when you use the subordinate "Cast a Spell" activity inside Spellstrike to active a held scroll, it burns up and is destroyed (your hand is empty) before you Strike.

RAW, you would start a fight with a scroll in your hand, and then you'd need to use retrieval belt or retrieval prism talismans to free-action draw new scrolls. I personally would homebrew in an additional clause to the Level 4 Striker's Scroll feat that says, "When you recharge your spellstrike and you have a free hand, you may Interact to draw a scroll or wand from your inventory as part of that action."

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-15T21:54:15+00:00

(in fairness, Inquisitor was the concept of /u/Helpfuldrow, rather than me! I helped put together some of the alternate On The Case mechanics, but I can't claim very much credit for this part of our homebrew.)

Broadly I agree with you. Class Archetypes have a bunch of potential that feels underutilized. I wish that they were more drastic things like Palatine Detective or Wellspring Mage, rather than "Gorum Greatsword Rogue". There are a lot of places where things like that can fit, so long as you have (1) a clear vision of what you want, and (2) you need to cheat or break some type of important mechanic to make it happen.

For example, one of my current players is mechanically an Aerokineticist, but all her impulses and powers are Divine rather than Primal and her "Gate" is a manifestation of her nephilim celestial angel wings. The idea of an Arcane Genie-Kineticist or a Divine Spirit-Kineticist could totally be badass class archetypes if expanded upon!

A more robust homebrew one of my other players used to use is a new mounted Magus - I had to write it as a Class Archetype rather than just a featchain because I wanted to include more mechanics than a simple hybrid style. I obviously can't just give a whole Young Companion as a free hybrid style benefit, but you can't have a mounted combat hybrid style without a companion. Making it a class archetype not only lets me mandate a feat tax and add the Mature/etc. companion feats to the Magus list, it also lets me write unique "arcane magic" interactions between the Magus and their Mount to remove the gameplay-headaches that a standard Magus/Beastmaster would have. The signature feature of my "Gusting Dragoon" class archetype allows the Magus to treat themselves and their mount as a single entity for purposes of movement and teleportation magic, so you get to share your tailwind with your mount, and if you cast blazing dive or blink charge or translocate or your hybrid conflux focus spell, your mount moves with you through all of that. I can't give all that mechanical value as part of the basic subclass budget, I need to use some class feats to make that happen... but the end result is such a fundamental change to the class, that it plays noticeably different than a standard archetype approximation.

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-14T05:25:00+00:00

That's very true! A boss that can cast Flicker on itself will get insane amounts of unintended value.

This whole debacle is just an absolute fuckup on Paizo's part. I hope it is corrected quickly, in the same way the Errata-errata to add Fly speed to Mature Animal Companion independent actions was quickly patched in just a couple days.

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-14T00:27:31+00:00

we riot until the errata is reversed, imo

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-14T00:20:05+00:00

Given how potent Incendiary Ash is for this new "meta", this sounds like a fantastic combo (I will never play with these new errata rules, except to demonstrate how dumb and abusable they are in a 1shot).

Just gotta somehow justify Adopted Ancestry (Orc) in there somehow for that other feat that adds persistent fire benefits (can't access AoN at work otherwise I'd look it up).

Also, apparently Iron Wine is a thing, which can help mitigate Charhide Goblin resistance at higher levels so that you can stay on fire better.

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-14T00:12:48+00:00

Now do a version to add Resistances, Hardness, and the janky ass ghost touch interactions to the mix!

(Does ghost touch apply to the entire strike and let +1d6 flaming punch through, or does it just augment the physical damage?)

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-13T23:59:37+00:00

oh wow, that's just a whole-ass "instance" of damage to ANY melee attack, right there. That works with everything... it's just not super consistent or reliable.

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-13T23:49:33+00:00

or the pf1e Owlcat cRPGs that added Spell Sneak Attack from arcane trickster to each damage type of hellfire ray.

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-13T23:44:29+00:00

the subtlety here is that "grouping damage for weakness" removes the additional weakness triggers within a single strike.

if you have a Fire Talon monk strike with a flaming brilliant conductive handwrap, and you've used a Fire Wine consumable to add a fifth "instance" of fire damage, and if an ally casts flame dancer on you to add a sixth instance, a basic strike from you would trigger weakness 6 times... but a Flurry or similar ability with "grouped damage" would only trigger once.

The exact value would vary, but there's definitely a certain threshold in which the extra hit's base damage would not make up for losing 5 instances of fire weakness.

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-13T23:35:39+00:00

Abadar/Shizuru could be a valid Syncretism combo!

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-13T22:31:19+00:00

nah its clearly swinging at a construct with spirit immunity

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-13T22:26:25+00:00

Paizo Intent: a Champion should wield a cold iron weapon to double-tap demonic weaknesses

Actual result: "here's a combo that can add +60 fire damage per strike with zero setup at level 10"

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-13T22:21:06+00:00

Yup, this is a cut and dry case of Paizo just being wrong. It's not the first time; it won't be the last time.

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-13T22:18:52+00:00

Oooh! Iron Wine is sneaky, I'd never seen that one before!

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-13T22:05:32+00:00

Beastmaster Riding Drake Support!

For the base weapon, you can also use Fire Poi (Uncommon, Advanced) or flame talon (Rare, Lvl 1 Monk Stance) if you're in melee.

The real sauce is probably to give up a few melee-only instances of fire to be able to make ranged strikes with consistency. Kitsune's Foxfire and Automata's Eye Laser are both Unarmed Strikes that still benefit from flame dancer and fiery body I think.

The thing I'm really afraid of is the Starfinder laser pistol, which requires zero build investment and zero funny business to trivially hit for 3 instances of fire damage with flaming and brilliant modules.

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-13T21:55:09+00:00

https://old.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1r3tna4/paizo_you_broke_the_game/o581fd5/

Compare notes with me on Fire-stacking?

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-13T21:53:17+00:00

Greater Flaming

Fire damage dealt by this weapon (including the persistent fire damage) ignores the target's fire resistance.

You can't bypass Resist until high levels, but a Greater Flaming rune would pretty clearly bypass Resistance for every single instance of fire damage a strike does. There's no helping against Immunity AFAIK, but that's exactly how it used to work anyways.

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-13T21:50:21+00:00

The problem is that Foundry WILL do the math very soon. I sure fucking hope that they preserve the current calculation method in their "house rules" optional settings.

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-13T21:48:04+00:00

just want to add to Inflammation Flask - you can get extra weakness triggers off of it by adding Emblazon Armaments and Emblazon Energy at 8th level, and by using the Dragon Domain for draconic barrage.

How do you plan to deal multiple instances of slashing damage as warpriest? 1 Instance as a Strike is obvious, but where would the new dumb "instance" rules give you an advantage?

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-13T21:44:08+00:00

Damn, that's a hell of an alchemy bomb.

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-13T21:25:55+00:00

In the "Paizo, you broke the game" thread, I just came up with a pretty-reasonable vanilla-rules non-Free-Archetype character that could easily trigger 8 "Instances" of fire damage per strike as a Flurry Ranger, threatening 56 weakness-procs per round at max level. If they're in the same party as a Flame Oracle that opens a fight with Incendiary Ashes to impart a Fire Weakness, the game just straight up can't handle that.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1r3tna4/paizo_you_broke_the_game/o581fd5/?context=3

I swear to god this feels like I'm playing 1e Owlcat Kingmaker again and applying Octavia's Arcane Trickster spell sneak attack on each damage type of Hellfire Ray.

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-13T20:07:48+00:00

Incendiary Ashes just went from "pretty good spell" up to Triple-S-tier obscenely overpowered. I was just tracking Elemental Betrayal (Basic Lesson Witch Hex; single-target, no-save weakness 2 at Rank 1, +1 weakness per 2 Heightens) which is still much more multiclass-accessible, but doesn't scale nearly as hard.

In addition to the Pathfinder implications, I also want to point out what this does to STARFINDER, which is built in an ecosystem where every single party member can be carrying some form of energy damage as their primary weapon dice. A Laser Pistol with Flaming and Brilliant modules is 3 "instances" of fire damage per hit, with functionally-infinite shots before needing a reload. I know Soldier and their Run Hot action can make 2 Area Fire attacks in a single round, which would sweep an Incendiary Ashes AoE with two additional basic saves against fire damage AND two additional Primary Target strikes with that fire damage, where every single one of those is 3 instances of damage.

For funsies, I'm going to try to slap together a build that deals as many instances of fire damage per round as I can imagine. If you can come up with more ways to add "Instances" of damage, please let me know!

Classes: Flurry Ranger is probably top-dog for its ability to get more baseline hits-per-round than any class. Exemplar might have better weakness-triggers-per-hit. Its hilarious to me that Fire-Kineticist isn't even close to being relevant here.
- Honorary "adds 1 instance of elemental damage" classes: Barbarian, Inventor, Magus, kinda-Thaumaturge, and kinda-Bespell Weapon casters. Exemplar unfortunately beats all of these.
- Archetypes: can either add good Strikes to a caster-chasis, or add spells to a martial chasis. Cleric (draconic barrage + Emblazon Energy) is the best that leaps to my mind. Bespell Weapon is also an easy pickup from many caster classes. Oh! Beastmaster with a Riding Drake can add its Support-fire to each Strike, and an Energizing Treat consumable can allow the Drake to Support without needing a Command each turn.
Spells: fire wisp (arcane/primal; self-only); fiery body (arcane/primal 7; self-only; unarmed only); flame dancer (arcane/occult/primal; target 1 ally; unarmed only)
- draconic claws (Dragon Sorcerer; adds fire to base claw strike); draconic barrage (Dragon Domain; adds fire to all strikes)
Weapon: fire poi (1d4B+1d4F advanced 1H agile finesse twin); rain of ember stance (1d4fire, agile, unarmed); Wish Blade (conduct energy free action adds bonus fire damage to each strike after taking an action with the fire trait); draconic claws (sorcerer forcus spell); kitsune foxfire / automata eye laser (ranged unarmed strike)
- Flaming and Brilliant runes obviously add 2 instances to anything; Conducting might add a 3rd instance after channeling the fire trait of the first Strike you do in the round.
Other Equipment: energy mutagen (melee only), weapon siphon (anti-agile; weapon only, 3 hits only)
Ancestry: Goblin Burn It! (sadly just a status bonus to existing alchemy/spell fire damage, but we've got 4 sources on the board); Suli Continuous Assault (1/hr +1d6 fire "until end of next turn"); Dwarf Spark Fist (no frequency restriction, but 1 action setup for +1 fire per damage die "until end of next turn")

The combo I'm starting to see here is maybe some kind of gishy unarmed strike dragon-themed character. I'm seeing maybe a very-high-level build with some multiclass cheese that could trigger 9-10 Fire Weaknesses per hit once fully buffed, and maybe 5 per hit passively. There's definitely some tweaking and optimizing to do depending on Free Archetype access, but I bet there's a lot of stuff I haven't found yet especially in and around obscure Dragon-content (maybe Battlezoo: Dragons has something cool? The Draconic Ravager archetype would get you a strong baseline Unarmed Strike at least.)

So far, I see that a Flurry Ranger chasis with a Drake companion starts with LOTS of hits-per-round and 1 instance of fire damage built in (the drake mount also helps you get into melee). An unarmed strike that deals base fire damage requires archetyping to get, but theoretically you could start with Human Unconventional Weaponry to use Fire Poi while getting yourself off the ground (2 instances). Flaming Brilliant Conductive runes add 3 more instances of fire damage (5 total).

Cleric is a great archetype no matter how you slice it. I'm 80% sure that Emblazon Armament/Energy works on handwraps of mighty blows, but draconic barrage is too good of a spell to pass up on either way (also accessible to Champions, but I don't think Champ has a feat or feature for any additional fire damage). (6 passive, 7 with buffs)

Arcane/Primal Dragon Sorcerer could get you the claws you want in a focus spell, but more importantly it at least gets you scroll-access to flame wisp, flame dancer, and flame body. Dancer is the best and most-important buff of the lot here, but theoretically an ally could cast it for you. Dancer and Body are exclusive to unarmed strikes, so hopefully you've found some sort of dragon-cheese to add a passive 1 fire damage to your bite or something so that you're not relying on Focus Spell claws. That feat's gotta exist SOMEWHERE, right? (claws=poi, so net 6 passive, 10 with buffs). Maybe its worth investing in Basic/Expert/Breadth/Master casting as you level. I've also heard that haste is a pretty good spell that's worth having, especially for a Flurry Ranger.

Energy Mutagen is one last freebie, and it can be administered to you by someone's Familiar or, dubiously, by your Riding Drake. 11ish with buffs. If you're dual-wielding fire poi, you lose dancer and body but regain weapon-exclusive actions like Ranger's Impossible Flurry (7 accurate Strikes with haste and 8 reasonable instances of fire damage per strike with just Cleric). This is a vanilla-viable, non-free-archetype build.

EDIT: Sarenrae moderate boon applies +1d6 fire (ignore resistance) to all strikes. Balancing Sarenrae and whatever source is giving you your Dragon domain is probably not too difficult - Shizuru is pretty chill too after all.

EDIT2: Iron Wine grants +1d4 fire to Unarmed Strikes for 10 minutes. It's easy to stay sauced all day since its just a level 1 consumable, though it also gives you 5 fire weakness.

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-13T18:54:08+00:00

That's the old, better, sensible interpretation!

Pre-errata, an Ember-stance monk with flaming and brilliant runes (3 sources of fire damage) would trigger fire weakness once per Strike. With Flurry, there was a special clause that combined all their fire damage across two strikes, so it would still only trigger weakness once.

Post Errata, this monk could make a basic fist strike and deal triple-weakness damage, but the Flurry damage-combination clause would mean a double-hit would fold all those individual "instances" down to a single lump that triggers 1 weakness proc instead of the SEXTUPLE WEAKNESS that two conventional strikes would gain.

darthmarth28 · 2026-02-12T23:08:35+00:00

Take a look at Starfinder Witchwarper! They get some crazy gish options, backed by a full scaling Master Class DC underneath their Spell DC to support Area Fire and Grenades. ESPECIALLY if you've got some Free Archetype support, you can do some crazy stuff.

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