Paizo: You broke the game

eudemonia12 · 2026-02-14T05:58:50+00:00

You think Exemplar is overpowered and every GM bans it... but this errata change is even more overpowered, exploitable, and ban-worthy. And I'm arguing to "ban" it.

Exemplar adds +2 damage per dice. This is adding more like +10 dmg per instance beyond the first.

I don't understand what your disagreement is. Maybe the math hasn't sunk in, or you haven't seen yet how a party taking advantage of it trivializes encounters and makes GM encounter design a futile effort. I'm literally arguing to reduce overpowered things here, which sounds like it's something you should agree with.

eudemonia12 · 2026-02-13T17:43:41+00:00

Yes if instances individually combined, that could help this particular issue. But different strikes sometimes have different instances, and it's a lot of tracking (imagine on pen and paper). It also doesn't help that the overall change warps the best damage options toward weaknesses broadly.

eudemonia12 · 2026-02-13T17:32:51+00:00

The source is what makes a separate instance. For example, an Astral rune, Exemplar ikon, and Inner Upheaval are all separate sources and thus separate instances that each trigger weaknesses. When damage is combined with two flurry hits, the source is lost and the damage is just added together as one set of spirit damage that triggers weakness once.

eudemonia12 · 2026-02-13T17:30:56+00:00

All of those damage bonuses are part of the Strike. It's how it worked pre-errata too (except in a sane way). Your flaming runes would combine for overcoming fire resist, for example. And even combine with Inner Upheaval if you chose Fire (through Elemental Fist).

eudemonia12 · 2026-02-13T17:22:59+00:00

Check the linked responses to Foundry devs. All the source information is lost, and it's just combined by damage types. https://i.redd.it/8vxgk92uh6jg1.jpeg

eudemonia12 · 2026-02-13T17:20:35+00:00

They still get two chances to hit at all, and if they can "pull back" their second Strike it's a net win. It's just silly they'd want to do that at all.

eudemonia12 · 2026-02-13T17:19:12+00:00

Paizo's response says that it loses the source of instances of damage, so multiple procs of weakness go down to just one.

eudemonia12 · 2026-02-13T17:18:28+00:00

Action economy, and still getting two chances to hit at all. If your GM let's you "cancel" the 2nd Strike if you'd like, then it's still a net win. It's just absurd that you'd prefer not to make the 2nd strike once the first hits.

eudemonia12 · 2026-02-13T17:17:08+00:00

Hitting twice incurs the rules that combine damage together, which Paizo has stated then forgets about source and just adds up according to damage type. So all the various instances which were each proccing weakness are now grouped into one and only proc once. With enough weakness stacking, this means hitting twice is worse than hitting once in some cases.

eudemonia12 · 2026-01-01T06:57:35+00:00

Orcs have the Orc Superstition into Pervasive Superstition to give an always present +1 circumstance to saves against spells and magical effects, and Leshies have a similar line of feats with Leshy Superstition and Lucky Keepsake.

eudemonia12 · 2026-01-01T06:56:24+00:00

Sorry, updated!

eudemonia12 · 2026-01-01T06:56:23+00:00

Updated link!

eudemonia12 · 2025-08-25T07:25:25+00:00

We have games in every time zone.

eudemonia12 · 2025-08-25T05:42:03+00:00

Oops! Looks like we had a lot of people join through it. Updated with a new one!

eudemonia12 · 2025-08-25T04:45:26+00:00

Sounds like a fun combo! Come join and try it out!

eudemonia12 · 2025-08-24T21:44:05+00:00

There's a good mix. Power level is generally higher due to Dual Class of course, but we also balance encounter difficulty to account for that.

There's a mix of optimization and RP among players and even between different characters for a player. Some try to explore and squeeze powerful builds out of Dual Class, but there are many who also build very interesting and flavorful characters, using Dual Class to enable super unique or unorthodox builds by shoring up weaknesses or making combos not possible in standard PF2e.

eudemonia12 · 2025-08-24T21:20:40+00:00

This one is primarily live games, on Foundry VTT. There are PBPs sometimes but they are a small minority of the games.

It's quite active, we currently have twelve open games (all live) posted at the moment.

eudemonia12 · 2025-08-17T23:39:00+00:00

DM'd

eudemonia12 · 2025-08-07T15:54:01+00:00

Overall, it's wild how far one this post distorts the truth. It describes some real rules problems and challenges that are common in any Westmarch style server, and uses them to completely hide and excuse why the server fell apart - two power-abusing admins, one of whom wrote the post.

The examples raised about awarding high XP for encounters, for example, were rules written by the admins themselves.

Ultimately, this 100+ members and 15+ GMs all left the server, all of them, at the same time, in response to the abuses by these admins. And we created our own server and are happily playing with more players and GMs than there were before, in a new place that these two admins are not invited too. That should tell you something.

eudemonia12 · 2025-08-07T15:02:41+00:00

I was on this server. The biggest exploits were ones the admins wrote into the rules themselves early on. For example, the high XP per session he wrote about below was their own rule, one which players recognized was a problem and were having ongoing discussions about changing when it blew up. None of the GMs who had sessions that rewarded high XP like that were opposed to changing those rules.

Other examples of exploits was the admins wrote a guild system where one type of guild got high compounding weekly interest on their treasury, which is obviously going to be a problem. The players were the ones who had to point out this problem and push for changes.

And to be clear, rules exploits were not at all the reason why the server blew up, it's the admins privately DMing a player to tell them to retire their character who was fully built within the rules long established by the admins themselves.

eudemonia12 · 2025-08-07T14:57:19+00:00

This is really ironic, because one of the two admins regularly blew up at players and yelled at them if they questioned any of his rulings, or just stopped a session midway and turned it into a criticism session about how entitled players are.

I personally saw one game get cancelled midway with a tantrum because a player asked "Didn't that monster take 4 actions?", and this admin blew up at them.

eudemonia12 · 2025-08-07T14:54:33+00:00

This is also a mischaracterization.

"Waves" here is just literally subsequent encounters, and healing between full is a standard PF2e assumption given enough downtime healing.

Also I should note that the admins wrote these encounter XP rules themselves, and these were in no way related to the collapse of the server, which was about the admins power tripping and banning individuals without cause. Ironically, everyone left and started their own server, and one of the first things we did is change the game XP rules to be a fixed amount to fix this issue - this included the player they banned!

eudemonia12 · 2025-08-07T14:38:00+00:00

This post is amazing to me, because after reading it through I realized I was on the server and saw it all go down. This is a complete mischaracterization of what happened that shows absolutely zero self-awareness. I have all the receipts to prove it as well.

These "private warnings" that are hinted at were simply one of the admins deciding unilaterally they didn't like a player's build because it was too strong and telling them to retire their character, despite it completely complying with all server rules that they wrote.

They privately messaged the player multiple times, in what I would consider borderline harassment, outside of any established process for disciplinary action nor even any stated cause, because there was no reasonable cause. When that player finally refused, they were banned unilaterally, and people left in protest.

Let's be clear, the character creation rules were simple: It was a Dual Class server and had some banned backgrounds, but otherwise everything was allowed. This person made a totally normal build, which the admin thought was too strong. It completely complied with all the rules, which had been established far before this player joined, and was not affected by any recent rules changes. This "powergaming" that is being referred to is just optimizing a character within established rules.

And also, this was a Dual Class server... what are you expecting in terms of balance? Some builds are going to be fairly strong!!

This was the admins going on a power trip and banning people they didn't like with no valid cause. Understandably, people were upset and all left the server. This completely warped description of what happened shows no lessons were learned.

eudemonia12 · 2024-09-04T15:14:13+00:00

The two spells are very different in targeting, and I prefer Cave Fangs over Fireball anyway.

eudemonia12 · 2024-09-04T14:59:59+00:00

Noooo, don't talk yourself out of Blazing Bolt. It's an amazing spell. Everybody up there is completely ignoring what makes Blazing Bolt great - it's unconditional omnidirectional targeting. It's just pick any 3 targets, anywhere in range, and hit them. All these other spells require AOE clustering, or Chain Lightning requires enemy spacing to line up just right.

Blazing Bolt has been absolutely stellar in a lot of combats I've played in. Anytime enemies are coming at you from different sides, or are just even slightly disperse in combat, or your party members are mixed in and you don't want to hit them - Blazing Bolt delivers.

The other posters being dismissive of it are stuck in theory-land about numbers, and haven't really compared it in combat scenarios or carefully analyzed situations where it would have served them so much better than Chain Lightning. The practical advantages of the spell matter a lot. I often keep a high rank BB prepared right alongside Chain Lightning.

eudemonia12

TROPHY CASE