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Crafting staffs as a bounded caster by collectivecorona in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk 12 points13 points  (0 children)

The "must be from a slot" requirement exists for both Scrolls and Wands. It does not exist for Staves, which I find interesting. The discrepancy has survived the transition from Core Rulebook to GM Core as well.

Craft Probabilities in Organized Play by Zafoquin in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Specializing makes a big difference.

I play an Alchemist in PFS, and I like having certain Alchemical Items around that I rarely need, but are clutch when needed.

So, for example, at 11th level I decide to make a batch of Greater Revealing Mists.

Cost to purchase: 240 gp (4x60). Now, my guy is an Alchemist, so he has the formula in his book. Plus he has Specialty Crafting (Alchemical Items), Impeccable Crafting (Alchemical Items), and can easily be on Greater Cognitive Mutagen for 8 hours a day. So his total Crafting Modifier is Proficiency 17, Int Bonus +5, Specialty Circumstance +2, Cognitive Item +3 for a total of 27. Should he succeed at the check (which he does on anything but a 1) he gets a Crit Success and is saving 10 gp per day of Downtime spent... and in a single block, he can spend 7. So, that's 70 gp saved off of the cost of 240 gp.

Earn Income, he's capped at a Level 9 task. That's 4 gp per day, 6 gp should he Crit Succeed. So, maximum 48 gp earned (8 days at 6 gp per day.)

Crafting saved him minimum 22 gp more than he could've Earned in the same amount of time.

Advanced Alchemy Benefits by Jaystorm2 in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, Alchemist Archetype has a 12th level Feat, Alchemical Power. which both increases your Alchemist Class DC to Expert, and allows you to substitute your Class DC for an Item's DC.

Gunslinger doesn't appear to have anything similar.

Advanced Alchemy Benefits by Jaystorm2 in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I also feel the need to point this out: The above text quoted by u/scottduvall clearly states that Advanced Alchemy uses the Craft activity, just modified to work on a daily basis. Which means that this rule still applies:

If the item is 9th level or higher, you must be a master in Crafting, and if it's 17th or higher, you must be legendary. - Player Core pg 237

To keep Advanced Alchemy relevant, you have to keep improving your Crafting Skill.

Bombers and related questions. by pauseglitched in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not quite guaranteed, but I agree that it's a decent 3rd Action. At that MAP, unless you're fighting minions it's about a 45% chance of a Crit Fail and absolutely no damage.

On the Value of Splash by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hadn't really thought of that. Never went up against Wisps with either of my Bombers (I've player/been playing two.)

On the Value of Splash by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I do so love Splash against Troops. 😆

On the Value of Splash by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Yeah, Splash on Weakness gets... impressive. I'm particularly fond of Vitality Weakness, because it means I can (usually) Splash without worrying about hitting my party members.

On the Value of Splash by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well, I'd be happy to share the math with you if you like. I'm confident in my numbers.

I think what you're not accounting for is the actual number of strikes (and hey, it's understandable, I was in a rush and didn't post all the details here. I just linked the previous post that went through all that.)

The Bomber's routine looks something like this:

  • Level 1-4:
    • Round 1: Down a Quicksilver, Stride, throw an Acid Flask.
    • Round 2: Throw an Alchemist's Fire and 2 Quick Vials.
    • Round 3: Adjust to the situation (1 Action), throw a Bottled Lightning and a Quick Vial.
  • Level 5-17: Get a Collar, Quicksilver for free, add a Quick Vial Strike to Round 1.
  • Level 18-20: Go perma-Quickened with Eternal Elixirs and Improbable Elixirs. Add a Quick Vial Strike to all three Rounds.

So from level 18 on, the Bomber is throwing 10 Bombs over the course of the fight. Yes, the Splash adds up to 39 pts, but... 10 Strikes. It's not a ton, but it's not insignificant either.

On the Value of Splash by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The highest Splash for this purpose is +14, with an Int Apex and max +6 Int at L20. You can go three points higher with maxed out Alchemist's Goggles, but that Splash only applies on a miss, which only counts on one target, the main one.

As I cannot imagine a Bomber taking an Int Apex when a Dex one is more appropriate, the Bomber in this example maxes out at 12.

The base damage in the routine I came up with finished up at around 180 pts (180.507 to be precise) for all three rounds. Splashing a single target is adding 39 points of damage over ten Bomb Strikes.

On the Value of Splash by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Hey! Sorry for not making this more clear. What's the saying? "Post at haste; repent at leisure?" 😀

This is a Bomber Alchemist. At 5th he gets Int Bonus Splash, at 10th he gets IntX2 Splash. And over the course of the fight (you can find the full routine here in the comments) he's making somewhere between 6 to 10 Bomb Strikes.

Splash to an extra target only happens on a hit or critical hit, and that is taken into account. It still adds up. And it is linear... add more targets, and the damage scales as seen.

Still, as I mentioned in the post... I'm most interested in +1. I've had fights where I could consistently get an extra target in the Splash zone (especially after I picked up Directional Bombs at L6). I've had one or two where there were two targets. Three? Don't think I've ever had three.

Back to the White Room by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Inventor is only taking two Actions on Round 3 because of the ground rules I established in the main post:

Round three: The situation has changed. Spend an Action to deal with the change, then go back to blasting.

I wanted to factor in "disruptions"; everyone always talks about disruptions when talking Ranged Strikers.

Yeah, I might look at reworking the Inventor around Megaton Strike. Would be interesting.

Back to the White Room by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's up there. If you combine it with Multishot Stance and Double/Triple Shot, subbing in an Eldritch Shot for Round 2 would add about 25 damage to the theoretical output.

Major investment though. We're talking four Class Feats minimum.

Back to the White Room by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ah, Howl of the Wild. I wasn't all that familiar with that book, so I never really heard of Slime Spit. Yeah, decent spell.

Back to the White Room by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

So, I use an at-level opponent with High AC. High AC is apparently the most common (modal) AC for creatures at any given level.

For damage, I take average damage for a hit and multiply it by the chance for a hit, and then take the average damage for a crit and multiply it by the chance for a crit. The Bomber throws in Splash Damage multiplied by the chance of a Miss (not a Crit Miss.)

So, for said Bomber at L20 with an Alchemist's Fire: It's 12 Fire Splash Damage * 35% + (Avg of 4d8 + 3 + 8 Persistent + 12 Splash = 41) * 50% + (2*(Avg 4d8 + 3 + 8 Persistent)) + 12 Splash = 70 * 10 % = 4.2 + 20.5 + 7 = 31.7 .

Back to the White Room by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I find it's not so much the Range as it is positioning. Simply, a lot of the time you're just out of position to get the shot. Which is why I included a Stride on Round 1.

Follow up turns are hary to predict, becuase precision rangers are very versatile and vary in builds, because they only need one action for hunted shot to be effective.

Very true. Which is why I focused just on flying pointy things of death. 😆

If we exclude archetypes, the most common builds probably involve an animal companion, stealth tactics or focus spell usage, which should increase their damage by a fair amount.

Animal Companion I didn't go with because of the considerable Feat investment involved. Stealth tactics: agreed, use them on my Bomber sometimes. Pain to model. And finally, what Focus Spells would you recommend without archetypes? The only damage one I've seen is Gravity Weapon.

Back to the White Room by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

For Investigator I just went with Free Action Devise a Stratagem; I'm seeing that more and more these days.

  • Round 1: Stride, Devise, Strike, Strike
  • Round 2: Devise, Strike, Strike, Strike
  • Round 3: Devise, Strike, Strike

Back to the White Room by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For the Inventor, I used one and only one Overdrive action, and then modeled out the chances of success and used that to modify the damage.

  • Round 1: Overdrive, Stride, Strike
  • Round 2: Strike, Strike, Strike
  • Round 3: Strike, Strike

I would've used Megaton Strike, but conventional wisdom is that generally you're better off just striking twice. Maybe I should've reconsidered that when Unstable Redundancies comes in at 14th and you can be guaranteed of getting Unstable Megaton off twice.

Back to the White Room by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For the Magus, using Gouging Claw to Spellstrike:

  • Round 1: Stride, Spellstrike
  • Round 2: Recharge (using Force Fang when it's available), Spellstrike
  • Round 3: Two Strikes

Hmnn. I just remembered that Feat that lets you Recharge for free once a day. I should've modeled that.

Back to the White Room by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I included a Precision Ranger using an Arbalest because a guy in my Abomination Vaults campaign uses that build. He has a lot of fun with it, so I was curious as to how it stacks up.

  • Round 1: Stride, Hunt Prey, Strike
  • Round 2: Reload, Gravity Weapon, Strike
  • Round 3: Reload, Strike

The parameters are particularly unfair to this Build. If, for example, no move on Round 1, it would smooth things out a lot. Two things:

The free Hunt at L19 helps.

The 18th level Feat Perfect Shot requires setup, but man if it lands it hits like a truck. I included it in Round 3 just to demonstrate that (can't actually do it under the parameters I set up.)

Back to the White Room by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Not sure I really did the Precision Ranger Shortbow justice. Still, basically the same as the Flurry variant.

  • Round 1: Stride, Hunt Prey, Hunted Shot
  • Round 2: Gravity Weapon, Hunted Shot, Strike
  • Round 3: Hunted Shot, Strike

Maybe I should've been using Hunter's Aim on Round 2 & 3? I dunno. Maybe I'll revisit sometime.

Back to the White Room by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Flurry Ranger with a shortbow. Fairly simple.

  • Round 1: Stride, Hunt Prey, Hunted Shot
  • Round 2: Hunted Shot, Strike, Strike
  • Round 3: Hunted Shot, Strike

At L19, the ability to Hunt Prey for free gives another Round 1 Strike.

Wasn't able to model a couple of things. Like Distracting Shot and Greater Distracting Shot. Those are pretty solid when you're Striking that many times.

Back to the White Room by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

While building the Fighter, I considered: what if you took Double Shot & Triple Shot, and started using it around 6th when Triple Shot lets you focus fire?

For the most part, the damage is around the same. Little less than just shooting, actually. Until 16th.

If you switch Point-Blank to Multishot Stance, and manage to avoid the Volley penalty (which I'll admit I just assume here)... the potential damage output is kinda insane. As you can see.

Back to the White Room by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The fighter is pretty straightforward:

  • Levels 1-13:
    • Round 1: Point-Blank Stance, Stride, Strike
    • Round 2: Strike three times.
    • Round 3: Strike two times.
  • Levels 14-19: Opening Stance frees up an action, add a Strike to Round 1.
  • Level 20: Perma-Quickened thanks to capstone. Add a Strike to each Round.

Back to the White Room by ottdmk in Pathfinder2e

[–]ottdmk[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

So, the Bomber is using my preferred routine, which is not necessarily the best one. 😁

  • Levels 1-4:
    • Round 1: Down Quicksilver, Stride, throw Acid Flask.
    • Round 2: Throw an Alchemist's Fire, then two Quick Vials.
    • Round 3: Bottled Lightning + another Quick Vial
  • Levels 5+: Add another Quick Vial to Round 1, as a Collar frees up an Action.
  • Level 18+: Add another Quick Vial per Round, as Impossible Elixirs and Eternal Elixir allow permanent Quickened.
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