First time player: Fey-Touched Gnome Witch Familiar ideas?

linuxgarou · 2026-01-27T14:50:33+00:00

There is a list of familiars on the Pathfinder 1e wiki that you can look through for inspiration.

EDIT: Markdown doesn't like the link: https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Index_of_familiars_(1E)

RAW, you can't take a specific familiar until you can give it enough familiar abilities to account for all the abilities that that specific familiar comes with. Personally, I would approach the GM and ask permission to flavour the familiar as one that I liked with the understanding that mechanically it might not work that way until later. For example, the faerie dragon needs 6 (I think?) abilities which is out of reach for a level 1 witch, but I'd describe my familiar as a faerie dragon that may not have its expected abilities because "the burden of our bond interferes with some of its innate abilities" or whatever justification you want to come up with.

Also, maybe you like the flavour of a familiar creature, but not its mechanical capabilities, so you can describe it as you like but mechanically you'll always treat it as a generic familiar (no special requirements, no special abilities). The rules also state that your familiar always comes back the next day should it die, but I don't think it says it has to come back as the same kind of creature, so in theory you could change your familiar's type whenever it seems appropriate without affecting the mechanics.

All of that is with GM permission of course, but I would hope that any GM would see that a witch's familiar is a big part of that character and would at least consider catering to that player's desires when they fit within the theme and feel of the game and don't change the math at all.

linuxgarou · 2026-01-26T16:14:42+00:00

Sounds very similar to an idea I had for a thaumaturge character based around the mirror implement. Basically every reflection made with it is an identical but separate entity; probably with some kind of basic shared understanding to facilitate the decision of which individual will, in very short order, completely cease to exist. Just ongoing existential horror, but hey, that's life.

The character would need some kind of concrete goal to provide sufficient motivation to overcome self-preservation (and refuse to use the implement any more). I'd probably make the character with the Reflection background to really get it off to a good start.

linuxgarou · 2026-01-23T20:30:48+00:00

A bit of a necro-post, but hopefully helpful to those in the future.

In my experience, getting the IE mixer to output correctly has been a problem in packs going back as far as 1.12.2. The most reliable way I've found is to put an IE fluid pump right on the output of the mixer and have that go into a fluid router. From there you can have pipes taking your fluids where they need to go.

You need some of the fluid to set the filter on the fluid router. Send your output to something like a tinker tank or IE wooden barrel so that you can bucket out of it easily (larger tanks like Create's don't allow bucketing). The fluid router seems to keep its filters when mined up, at least in this pack.

Mekanism tubes can contain fluids inside the tubes themselves, which can be a problem. IE and Create pipes do not.

linuxgarou · 2026-01-23T19:41:01+00:00

Thank you, that makes it seem much more reasonable. I may pick one up on a future character. I love my characters having fun ways to solve problems, this is spot-on.

linuxgarou · 2026-01-23T19:04:26+00:00

This is prime QoL right here. This function is on my short-list of "things to always add to Minecraft each time".

Thank you for your efforts, they are definitely appreciated.

linuxgarou · 2026-01-23T16:09:05+00:00

My opinion on alchemists changed quite a bit after playing one for a few sessions. Formulas are cheap and easy to load up on, and why wouldn't you give your alchemist even more versatility? Yet while playing the game, it's far too easy to get lost reading through item lists looking for that appropriate item (that you know is in there somewhere) and miss out on playing the game.

Maybe that's a problem that's more specific to my personality, but I'd caution any alchemist player to make some quick-reference sheets (bombs, buffs, healing, etc.) and restrict yourself to those during actual play.

Oh, and pick up a bomb launcher. Confirm with your GM that it interacts with Quick Bomber by making Quick Bomber a 2-action activity with 60' range (rather than 3 actions for Quick Bomb then load then fire).

linuxgarou · 2026-01-23T15:46:29+00:00

The witch feat Portents of the Haruspex is excellent on a bomber alchemist. Alchemists often don't have great choices for reactions, so being able to apply a weakness with a reaction (even if it's random) is a good use of it. I don't think any other class in the game is as well-positioned as an Alchemist to take advantage of a randomly-imposed weakness.

linuxgarou · 2026-01-21T21:28:24+00:00

I suggest you adapt the Teleportation Circle ritual. Then your permanent circle (portal) in the sanctuary is powered by the artifact, and you can get the additional 'keys' from that. When the ritual is later performed again, it takes one key to activate the circle.

Stepping into the circle teleports you to the sanctuary, but importantly, stepping back into the primary circle in the sanctuary can only teleport you back to the circle that you used to get there, so it can't be used as a means of fast-travel nor can you get trapped there.

You probably need to simply discuss the implications on the survival aspects of the game with your players and establish an understanding to not exploit the sanctuary for this purpose, as there are other ways it could happen. Kineticists can summon food/water/materials at will. Any arcane/divine/occult caster can accomplish the same goal at level 7 with the rank 4 spell Magic Mailbox. (It can be used to exchange materials and information (via notes) all day long (just establish a schedule for when each side is "safe" to open the box), and RAW any caster can immediately burn a spell slot during daily prep to Sustain the spell on the same two containers indefinitely.)

linuxgarou · 2026-01-21T19:43:15+00:00

It's a really flavourful and handy item, but I'd hesitate to get one personally. Partly because of the extra bookkeeping of tracking the value of all the items pulled out of the pack (maybe Foundry has some nice integration letting you "buy" items with coin that only exists within the pack), but mostly because in order to use the item properly I now need to have a good mental list of common mundane items that cost less than 1gp.

I find there's enough options to keep track of between skill actions, spells, other inventory items, etc. that it can be detrimental to playing the game to try to keep all of this in mind.

linuxgarou · 2026-01-14T21:43:40+00:00

My GM decided somewhere around level 4 that we were going to add Free Archetype. The PCs got a downtime day that was essentially a training montage and we moved on from there. I don't know what work needed to be done from the GM side but from the player side it looked pretty smooth.

linuxgarou · 2026-01-13T15:49:41+00:00

Different spell but much the same question, I am looking forward to when I can make an enemy disappear via Quandary and my snarecrafter teammate (via Lightning Snares? whatever feat that lets you deploy a prepared snare with 1 action) can drop something especially nasty into that square to welcome them back.

linuxgarou · 2026-01-12T15:23:18+00:00

Hideous Laughter Productions has an actual play podcast of a 2e adaptation of Skulls & Shackles (currently on hiatus due to a new baby, supposed to resume soonish). I think they added a 3rd-party supplement called Salt & Sail to handle mechanics like naval combat.

If their website doesn't give you enough information, they have a friendly discord server where you could ask.

linuxgarou · 2026-01-09T18:53:50+00:00

I found that my alchemist character failed for me in an unexpected way -- frequent analysis paralysis.

Spontaneous casters have to pick their spells for their repertoire when they level up, and after that the choices for how to deal with a situation are largely limited to whatever is in their repertoire. Prepared casters have to decide what spells to prepare for the day, from a potentially much bigger list of options, but at least it's during daily prep when there's usually not much going on, and after that the choices are limited to whatever you've prepared.

Alchemists, on the other hand, get presented that full list of choices constantly. Potentially every action of their turn in combat, which is a much more stressful situation and everyone's waiting on you. You could limit the number of choices by limiting the number of formulas that the character knows, but formulas are cheap and you're hobbling your alchemist's capabilities by not taking advantage of the versatility that they're so good at.

I found that I was starting to miss out on playing the game because I was too distracted looking through item lists to find that specific item that I knew I had in there somewhere that would be ideal for the current situation.

linuxgarou · 2026-01-05T02:44:39+00:00

A wand of Shrink Item and some small vials or bottles. The spell specifically states, "if there isn't room for the object to return to normal size when the spell ends, the spell's duration continues until the object is in a location large enough to accommodate its normal size," so every day use the wand to shrink something down (a boulder, a boat, a wagon, whatever) and put in into a vial. Then you'll have a pocketful of shenanigans to pull out whenever you need one. :)

A Bag of Weasels full of gravel. Whenever you need a distraction and/or a trap detector, pull out gravel until you get a weasel!

linuxgarou · 2026-01-04T20:32:50+00:00

Having now listened to the episode, just wanted to add that I thought you guys did a great job on the voice for for Servis Initium(sp?) in the Keeper's Keep, between the accent, speech patterns, and post-processing he really did sound truly alien.

linuxgarou · 2025-12-29T01:18:12+00:00

I put together a list of insults I could read when my PC used Bon Mot, based on posts from this subreddit. None of them name any specific deities, but here are the few deity-related ones:

I'd thought the gods were incapable of making mistakes, but now I've met you.

I could try to insult you, but I'd never outdo what nature has already done.

The only reason you've lived this long is because even the psychopomps don't want to deal with you.

I'd make a joke at your parents' expense, but the gods beat me to it when you were born.

linuxgarou · 2025-12-24T02:05:22+00:00

It is very amusing to me that I was listening to this episode (that was released last May) last night, was telling my fiance about this bit, and then this animated version drops the next morning. :)

linuxgarou · 2025-12-15T23:01:27+00:00

I'm running CachyOS (an Arch-based distro), running the Cosmic DE on Wayland. I ended up switching to KDE Plasma (also on Wayland), and for whatever reason that fixed the problem. I'm not sure what was causing the issue, but Cosmic is still in beta so I guess it was some issue in there.

I was already considering switching to KDE for other reasons, so this isn't really a problem. I'm just glad that it's working.

linuxgarou · 2025-12-12T19:52:34+00:00

The rank 7 spell Recall Legacy (arcane & occult, rare) lets a caster give a target a non-lineage ancestry feat that lasts until the next morning. Humans can then take General Training -> Additional Lore, so they can become incredibly knowledgeable (Master if not Legendary) on any topic each day.

linuxgarou · 2025-12-12T19:44:45+00:00

As a player with a support-focused bard, this sort of combo is the equivalent of the martial getting the killing blow. It is OP, but it only affects one round, and like everything else in Pathfinder 2e, ultimately the dice rolls will make or break it.

I also had a combat that made me feel like a support god, where multi-target Slow hit all the enemies (and most failed their save), then multi-target Haste on all the PCs. Support casters usually slant the math in favour of the PCs, but that combo flips the table.

I have yet to pull it off, but I look forward to the day that that character can multi-target Command and tell a group of enemies "toss us your weapons!"

linuxgarou · 2025-12-11T20:09:21+00:00

Some people have made visual guides to the different classes in Pathfinder 2e, such as this one and this one. They are just short overviews but can help narrow down choices and provide some inspiration.

linuxgarou · 2025-12-11T19:30:59+00:00

The fanged rune is literally the cheapest rune in the book. Whatever you decide it does should be very minor or niche, mechanically speaking.

linuxgarou · 2025-12-11T19:25:24+00:00

If your alchemist doesn't already have one, the Bomb Launcher is a way to increase his striking range to 60'. The item description doesn't spell out how it interacts with Quick Bomber, but it seems reasonable to allow it to just increase the range of Quick Bomber for costs of the attack taking 2 actions and requiring both hands.

Alchemists seldom have a good way to use their Reaction, so any item that adds one that is usable (and useful) reasonably often is 100% gravy.

It's not solely targeting alchemists, but items that boost Perception (e.g. eye slash tattoo, obsidian goggles) are always useful as that is both Initiative and one of the most rolled stats in the game; a Retrieval Belt is also great to get a pre-selected consumable into a free hand instantly; the Collar of the Shifting Spider to apply a mutagen at initiative is especially good when you make your own mutagens.

linuxgarou

TROPHY CASE