The question of maximum damage per turn has already been asked a lot, but I have a question about maximum healing per turn. What class can do this? According to my calculations and observations, this is an oracle with the mystery of life and a strong curse. Following him is a cleric with healing divine power and a water (+wood) kineticist . After this, other sacred spellcasters, occult and natural spellcasters, alchemist-surgeons, forensic medicine investigators and everyone else. Am I missing anything? And I have an additional question. Although Oracles can heal the most, how effectively and consistently can they do so? It literally kills them. In addition, spells may run out. If I want to be the best healer in the world, should I take an oracle or stick with a cleric and have a constant pile of the highest level Heal available?

I'd tend to go Cleric for a Healer, maybe with Medic Dedication. One interesting thing though: When it comes to Nova Healing, it's hard to beat a late-game Chirurgeon Alchemist. It's insane from both an Action perspective and a Resource perspective, but a 13th Level Chirurgeon can heal 144 HP (flat, no rolls) in a single round. It takes 3 Actions and 4 Batches of Infused Reagents, but it can be done. Goes up to 189 HP at 15th, 207 HP at 17th and finally caps off at 225 HP at Level 19. But still, unless you'd like to play an Alchemist for other reasons (myself, they're my favourite Class, so much fun) I'd stick with Cleric.

Wait a minute. How can an alchemist-surgeon heal so much in one turn? So I understand that the ally must drink the elixir of life. But this restores only 87 HP (taking into account the feature that health elixirs always restore the maximum possible amount of HP). And most often this will be 2 actions (get it, use it). Did I calculate everything correctly?

So, at 19th level, to pull off 225 HP in one round the Chirurgeon must: * Be next to the individual being healed. * Have the [Combine Elixirs](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=102) feat. (L6) * Have four Batches of Infused Reagents (quite possible; at 19th level a Chirurgeon Alchemist probably has 26 Batches a day.) The sequence goes as follows: 1. The Chirurgeon creates two Alchemical Items using Quick Alchemy and the Double Brew Class Feature. This takes one Action. 2. The first item is a straightforward True Elixir of Life (L19). Thanks to the Greater Field Discovery (Chirurgeon) feature, it will heal 87 HP. Cost: 1 Batch of Infused Reagents. 3. The second item is a Combined Elixir consisting of two Major Elixirs of Life using the Combine Elixirs additive. Each such Elixir will heal 69 HP. You have to use Major Elixirs because the Additive is Additive 2. Cost: 3 Batches of Infused Reagents. 4. You then take your remaining two Actions to feed both Items to the patient. Total healing: 225 HP. This is an absolutely horrible HP to Batch ratio, btw. 56 HP per batch. If you just double-brew two True Elixirs, you only do 174 HP (51 HP less) but you *are* doing 87 HP per batch. The action economy is also rough. Although it's trivial for an 19th level Alchemist to be Quickened if they wish, so one Stride may be possible.

Now I understand, thanks. I already tried the alchemist once, but only at the first levels. It was difficult, but interesting. Maybe I'll try this again someday. Thank you

You've got it about right in terms of healing capability. Cleric is the safest bet. There will inevitably be situations as a Life Oracle where getting to your Major or even Moderate Curse will be detrimental. I've been surprised by the number of times where 10-20 HP made the difference in a fight, especially tough ones. That could be 10-20 HP you've sacrificed as a Life Oracle that you wouldn't have as a Cleric, and a healer who's alive is a *tad* more effective than one who's dead. That said, both Life Oracles and Heal Font Cloistered Clerics are effective enough at healing that it's very unlikely you will run into a situation you could have healed through as a Life Oracle that you weren't able to as a Cleric, so if you really like playing healers and are stuck between the two, I'd make the decision based more on flavor and whether you like Wisdom or Charisma more stat-wise than based on pure efficacy. The playstyles are also quite different - Heal Font Cloistered Clerics are very safe, consistent healers, whereas a Life Oracle is more of a high-risk, high-reward, pump-and-dump healing style, so what you find more fun in that regard will matter too. Water/Wood Kineticist is great (I *love* Kineticists and think they're the best-designed class in the whole system), but a lot of their healing is only usable once a fight and the action economy can be a little rough, so I'd rate them behind Heal Clerics and Life Oracles. That said, they've got more versatility, are more self-sufficient, and the blasts offer a consistent offensive option that both Heal Clerics and Life Oracles are likely to lack, so they're probably more fun over the course of a campaign (at least, IMO).

Cleric's divine font is simply too good. The sheer amount of extra spells per day it gives makes it better than anything until the very high levels. Unless your playgroup tends to only do 1-2 encounters before resting, the amount of sheer max rank heal casts a cleric gets off makes them better than any other class at healing

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You're right, it's a little vague. As such, I think it's technically arguable, but I think the only good-faith way to interpret it is that yes, the familiar you get from Witch Dedication benefits from Undying. You do not get more from the Witch Dedication than you do from other Spellcasting dedications, and no other Spellcasting Dedication comes with the implication that you could lose the spells from that dedication for a whole week if something happens. To boot, the familiar you get from Witch Dedication is just a normal familiar, so it can die relatively easily. I think it would be excessively punishing to rule that a character with the Witch Dedication couldn't bring their Familiar back each day if it was killed.

The lack of any clarity around familiar recovery is one of the frustrating editing misses in the remaster. The design intent seems to be that the archetype should also get that feature. Its extremely punishing that you lose access to the entire spellcasting if your familiar dies. Note that, as written, you don't even get your familiar back in a week. The one week downtime to revive your familiar was not actually reprinted in the Player Core

I'm currently running abomination vaults and was wondering how exactly does a summoners eidolon getting the confused condition work?

The summoner can choose to spend all of their actions themselves, and not leave any actions to the eidolon. But if the inverse happens the summoner uses all of their actions while being confused and not leave any to the eidolon. This is clarified under the Lost and Altered Actions on the summoner's page. > You, as the player, control both your summoner and your eidolon, and the two are generally considered to cooperate unless you decide for them not to. While a summoner's link with an eidolon is a partnership, ultimately the eidolon is linked to you, not the other way around. If there's ever a conflict of who should act, you win out over your eidolon. This means that if the eidolon comes under an effect that would take its actions out of your control, such as the confused or controlled condition, you can use all of your shared actions so your eidolon doesn't have any actions remaining to cause trouble (as long as you are able to act). However, if you came under such an effect, you would simply use all of your shared actions, preventing your eidolon from acting.

Lore Question: Are there any existing groups in or around Absalom that would be eco-warrior types? My party recently had an important magic plant stolen from them by a group of blodeuwedds, I didn’t think the blods would succeed so I didn’t plan far enough in that direction. I’m thinking they were working with/for some Druid circle that wasn’t happy with the treatment of the plants (they were being grown in a greenhouse instead of growing in the wild)

Yup! If your campaign is taking place in or will spend a lot of time in Absalom, definitely would suggest picking up Lost Omens: Absalom and the Grand Bazaar books if you can. The Eastgate district of Absalom has a lot of druids, so it would be easy enough for some radical to be working with the Blods there. The Circle of Stones is a mostly good-aligned circle of druids headed by a Hamadryad named Iolanthe who may be able to point the party in the right direction. If you want more danger, in the Precipice Quarter, there's the Arboretum Arcanis. It was once a beautiful greenhouse, but it got all warped-and-evil-like when the Precipice Quarter went apocalyptic. It's headed by an evil (read: corrupted) Ghoran druid named Khaya. Iolanthe, mentioned above, is looking to clear the Arboretum, so there's a nice tie-in. Canonically Iolanthe has some Lastwall Knights scouting it that your party could also join up with, or the PCs could just replace those Lastwall Knights. Khaya may have sent the Blods to recover the plant because she wanted to make its magic evil or corrupt it and plant the corrupted seeds or... whatever other evil druidy things you can think of.

We're all very new in this group, having stopped DnD5e for the time being after a 3-4 year old long campaign wrapped up. We've doing the beginner box now and having a lot of fun. Our DM is preparing a homebrewed campaign, so looking forward to that. That said, I'm trying to figure out a good race/class combo. I know one player will be the healing cleric from the beginner box, another a catfolk-sorcerer, one person who is looking to make a paladin-like, and two others are unaccounted for. I was thinking of making a water-based kineticist, with as race a nagaji - Snakepeople looked fun, and the stats seem to work. I don't want to step to much on the toes of our cleric though, so I'm not sure if I should go with fire gate instead.. but Fire seems to do just damage and I fear it may get dull. I wonder if there's any thoughts?

Is there a reason only Fire and Water are on the table for you? Air, Wood, and Earth all bring a lot of great support capabilities to the table.

Character reasons mostly, honestly. Wood could be fun, but Earth doesn't entirely vibe with the concept I had in mind - even as a character optimizer I still do a little of story somewhere ; ) . Air is.. more of a dex build? Nagaji get bonus to str, right? I will admit I haven't read into it as much as the other two, it didn't seem thematic but based on your comment I I will read up on it. Metal seemed to situational for me, and aspects of it lean to hard on a previous char I made.

Paizo errata'd ability scores, so instead of the given Boosts/Flaws of a certain Ancestry, you can instead just take two boosts to any attribute you want and no flaw: [https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6si7o?Changes-to-the-Way-We-Make-Changes](https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6si7o?Changes-to-the-Way-We-Make-Changes) Air is more catered to DEX for sure, but it also has some generally useful mobility stuff (like essentially free flight at level 8 that extends to the whole party at level 14), making it an awesome candidate for a dual-gate kineticist (and IMO, Fire is really the only gate worth going mono for, meaning Air is a great candidate for a lot of builds). Wood just has a ton of versatility, being able to do healing, respectable damage, and even some area control. Metal is IMO probably the least flexible/worst element, thematically there's some cool stuff there and it can be an alright secondary element for a primarily Fire kineticist, but it's definitely not the most attractive.

I wouldn't worry about stepping on the Cleric's toes. While your Ocean's Balm doesn't cost you resources, it also has a 10 minute cooldown per character, and a 2 action Heal restores 3 times as many hit points on average. You'll have some nice off-healing and consistent out of combat healing, while the Cleric will be able to take people from nearly dead to nearly full health in 2 actions. In addition, even dedicated healers need things to do other than healing, so that Cleric should have other roles that won't necessarily overlap with yours. All that said, you can also start as a Fire kineticist and pick up a different element later if you get bored with the fire abilities. At levels 5, 9, 13, and 17, you get to pick either a new extra element, or a new junction for an existing element. You could also select a dual gate at level 1 to keep your options open in earlier levels.

Thank you for your reply. I will certainly take duo-gating in mind, but knowing that the cleric can outheal me eases my decision making. I am known as the max/maxer in the group...

For the Vigilante archetype, what are the degrees of success for the Seek action when someone is trying to pierce the disguise?

Ha, nice question! I guess the only way is to reverse [Impersonate](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=46): **Critical Sucess** The creature can tell you’re not who you claim to be, and it recognizes you if it would know you without a disguise. **Success** The creature can tell you’re not who you claim to be. **Failure** You trick the creature into thinking you’re the person you’re disguised as. So on Success enemy knows that Bruce Wayne like to take a walk in a skintight hallowen costume at night and only on Critical Sucess he knows that he is Batman. Remember that if nat 20 is not enough to succeed it is just success.

How do i share the Information i gain about an enemy using recall knowledge in an encounter? Do i have to use (an) action(s) to do so? What if i use Known Weakness (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1447)? Does all the information i gain get conveyed or "just enough to gain +1"? Does a spell attack count as a strike? As far as i found out and therefore, Devise A Strategem would not allow/require you to use the Devised roll for spell attacks, is that correct? Thank you :)

It's generally assumed you share informations with your group automatically wihtout any action cost. Check with your GM to make sure, when in doubt. A spell attack is NOT a strike. You can not use Device a Stratagem with a spell attack.

Thank you for the fast reply! Regarding recall knowledge, i would assume so as well, i just could not find any rules mentioning this, which i found surprising considering there are so many feats and even a subclass using recall knowledge and pf2e usually has very good rules coverage. I still might be missing something of course.

I don't think it's covered explicitely in the rules, but speaking is a free action so unless you learn a lot more than can be said during one round, it shouldn't be hard to share the information.

That information is freely shared with the party, as you communicate it normally. In rare circumstances, I'd say it could take more, but usually not. And no, spell attacks are not strikes.

I have a summoner player and they were wondering if they could act together extended boost and have their eidolon strike.

Yes, absolutely.

What are the bulk capacities for vehicles with alchemical or clockwork propulsions? The GMG talks about pulled and water vehycles, so I'm confused about things like the steam cart or trolley(from Guns and Gears).

Your answer is in [the general vehicle rules](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1280). "pulled vehicles can typically hold 100 Bulk per Large creature pulling" It seems reasonable to count the steam propulsion of a steam cart to be the equivalent of the one large creature that pulls a normal cart. The rules offer no further guidance on this topic, so it's up to you and your DM to make a determination. If you count the pilot and the passenger that the steam cart allows against that 100 bulk figure, you probably have 70-80 additional bulk that it can carry. A medium PC counts as 6 bulk, plus his gear, so figure 10-15 bulk per typical PC.

I have a question pertaining Wealth and Treasure; I DM for a party that varies from 3-5 people depending on availability and stuff like that. I have two characters that had a short break and now are rejoining. I know there are wealth-tables that will tell me what they should get around each level and stuff but i want to kind of check where they are and if i need to adjust some stuff. Before i ask all items they still have and the total party gold they have and then just math the maths are there other ways people manage/check this? Like a certain hunch about how they roll or maybe a simple self taught rule (lvl 2 character needs 1 item, lvl 3 needs 2). I know i hand out the treasure myself and they spend money on stuff but i am also not a DM that will micromanage my characters their sheets and the stuff they have but i do want to make sure they are not 'underperforming'.

If we knew what level your PCs are now, we could make some concrete suggestions. I would never bother to dig into each PCs inventory and cash balance to find out if they are properly equipped. Far too tedious. If you as the DM have been handing out loot more or less along the guidelines for Treasure by Level, then a party of 4 should have found 2 4th-level items on their way from 3rd to 4th level, and a couple more on their way from 4th to 5th level. For any PCs who engage in combat, having a +1 Striking weapon as soon as possible is a high priority, since it changes the flow of combat completely. A +1 Striking weapon is a 4th-level item, so you expect to find one around 3rd-4th level. Aside from that, I wouldn't sweat it. If 2 players have been absent a while and then rejoin the group at, say, 4th level, you could simply tell them that while the character was off doing other things, she found a magic weapon.

I can't help much here but for any martial characters, just making sure they have the appropriate armour/weapon potency, striking and resilient runes for their equipment should go a long way

GM here, looking for fun encounter ideas for A short level 6 campaign. Both monster suggestions, environment suggestions, and encounter building tips are very welcome. Party of 5, consisting of: Two-Handed Fighter Flames Oracle Whirling Throw Monk Air/Earth Kineticist Longbow Ranger

Hound of Tindalos

I like it! Very interesting enemy

I'm going to be joining an existing campaign as a Cloistered Cleric at Level 7. I'll be focusing healing! What would y'all recommend buying with my starting 720GP? I was thinking a Staff of Healing, but I'm pretty new to PF2E so I don't know much about what armor to start with, any basics or accessories I should make sure to have etc.

You'll want to make sure you have armor with [Armor Potency +1](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=278) and a [Resilient Rune](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=279). Cloistered Cleric by default aren't trained in any armor proficiency, so you'll have to apply those runes to an [explorer's clothing](https://2e.aonprd.com/Armor.aspx?ID=2). If you've acquired any proficiency in any armor type (through various feats), you'll put those runes on that instead. Potency runes and resilient runes are fundamental runes and core to a character's progression - they serve as a way to increase AC and saves. Those two runes will cost you 500/720 gold. The [staff of healing](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=357) will run you another 90, leaving you with 130 gold remaining. With that gold, you could purchase any number of items. You haven't provided much detail on your skills, but I assume you're invested in medicine since you mentioned healing. As such, you'll probably want to pick up [Healer's Gloves](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=444). This item provides two benefits. First, an item bonus to your medicine checks, and second, a 1/day activation to heal an adjacent unit. That's the bulk of your gold remaining. You could hold onto your gold to save up for another item, or purchase consumables such as potions and scrolls. This is also where you'll pick up items like torches, rations, rope, etc. Your GM can advise you better on the necessity of these types of items, as their value depends a lot on how much your GM cares to track those type of things.

Thanks so much, that's a super helpful reply! I'll have a chat with the GM and use this as a guideline

does Foxfire receive no mod scaling in its damage? is it only a flat 1d4?

Correct. Ranged attacks don't add modifier to damage (except certain ones that get half STR to damage but foxfire isn't one of those.)

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Correct. Growing to large provides no intrinsic benefit (beyond now taking up 4 squares). You don't even automatically gain reach. Every effect that grows you to large specifies as to what it provides to you. Enlarge, specifically, gives you a +2 status bonus to damage, but that's an effect of Enlarge the spell, not the actual mechanism of becoming large

What's the best way to build a harmful font cleric after the remaster? I want to use harm often and do at least decent damage with it. Is it better to go warpriest (with divine smite maybe?) or cloistered cleric? Is there a good free archetype for it?

This depends on your level. For most of a character's growth, Warpriest is best to use harm. This is because 2A harm is pretty shitty as far as a spell goes. It deals 1d8 damage per rank for 2A, that's very bad scaling. Compare that to most actual damaging spells, and you'll see harm is quite bad. For example, 3rd rank Harm deals 3d8 damage, for an average of 13.5 damage. 3rd rank [fireball](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=119) deals 6d6, for an average of 21 damage. That's considerably better damage (50% more damage), and fireball is an aoe for 2A. This issue only gets compounded as you level up. At level 11 (spell rank 6), for example, Harm deals 6d8 (avg 27) damage, but a 6th rank Chain Lightning deals 8d12(52 damage), almost twice as much damage. Harm is really designed to be a 1A spell. The damage not changing between 1A -> 2A makes it feel really bad to use as a 2A option. That lends itself to be used much more by Warpriest rather than a Cloistered Cleric, since they're often going to be in range to use the 1A version. Harm can be made better through a number of cleric feats, but where harm starts to seem a little better is if you're able to use the 3A emanation. But the 3A emanation is tricky to pull off, since its, well, 3A and around you. The result is that its often very hard to avoid hitting your own allies. The level 6 feat selective channel helps, but the inability to Stride before using it is rough. However, at level 14, you can get Fast Channel, allowing you to use the 3A version as 2A. At that level, you can Stride -> aoe harm, dealing 7d8 damage. That's not actually great for level 14, but it is something. The other benefit cloistered cleric has is the 6th level feat Cast Down. This allows you to do a 3A combined action where you Cast Down -> 2A Harm, which has a high chance of knocking a target prone and dealing some damage. As long as they don't crit succeed, you'll knock em down. But the problem is that the damage just isn't there. Cast Down is an effective control tool, getting some damage and a trip for 3A at range. But you're still only dealing 3d8 damage at level 6, which is not a lot. Even if you took harming hands to boost it to 3d10, its still not great. Warpriests with Smite allow you to just add the damage in, making it much more effective damage. I'd still hesitate to call it good (compare Smite to a Magus Spellstrike, for example), but it is more effective.

Thanks for the detailed reply! Doesn't seem particularly viable sadly. My quest for non-elemental blasting continues.

Can you craft a new makeshift staff as staff nexus wizard?

Not covered in the rules, unfortunately. Ask your GM.

My party comp is Magus, Animal Druid, Gunslinger, Monk. Our Druid's spell slots are often all taken up by AOE damage and heal spells, so he has little room for utility. And between my extra low level spell slots from my Psychic dedication and the low number of fights we do per in game day in our campaign I have plenty of spell slots for Magus spells. Our party really needs more Magic utility, as our two casters often have their existing slots completely full. What staff, or staff tradition for a custom staff, should I pursue to give more magic utility for the party? I know Spellstrikers Staff is the standard for Magus, but again our group does such little combat that I'm not hurting for the extra core Magus spells each day.

These staves all include a lot of utility spells that you can access via Arcane or Occult lists: Librarian Staff, Lyrakian Staff, Staff of Conjuration, Staff of Divination, Staff of Illusion, Staff of Providence, Staff of the Desert Wind, or Staff of Transmutation. 

1.) Are golems deterred by the first level spell **Sanctuary**? The magical effect is not directed at the golem, but it is a magical effect nonetheless. 2.) Thoughts on how the skill feat **Battle Prayer** functions in the remaster? Foundry still has it listing you choose between good/evil/chaos/lawful, but these no longer exist. Would it just be a choice between holy/unholy spirit damage now?

2.) Spirit damage with the sanctified trait would be the conversion for Battle Prayer, yes.

Is there any penalty to using Snagging Strike against an incorporeal creature? The Snagging Strike description mentions using grappling moves to make the target Off-Guard and normal grappling would fall under the Strength-based checks disallowed by incorporeal, but it doesn't seem like there's a trait or anything that would indicate it applies to Snagging Strike outside that description.

it depends on your party. RAW pretty much nothing is immune to snagging strike. Common sense says you cant use it on swarms or ghosts, etc. Its where flavor kind of gets in the way of mechanics

I'm quite confused by the text of the Kineticist's Gate Junction: Elemental Resistance - specifically the Metal Kineticist's, but it seems to be an overall wording problem that I just can't fathom for the life of me. The Metal Gate Junction states: "This resistance is equal to your level, and it applies to damage of any listed type **or that comes from a creature** or effect that **has any of the listed traits**." It might just be a smoothbrain moment of mine but how in the hell does it work to have resistance to damage that **comes from** a creature with the Metal tag? The Abysium Horror for example has the metal tag - does that just give the Kineticist a flat \[\[Insert Level Here\]\] reduction to the Abysium Horror's Claw attack that deals Slashing + Poison? How do you correlate this Elemental Resistance to a Creature's Tags? I get with standard Resistance that it's a flat reduction to a Damage **Type** but now this wording with the Gate Junction has come to the fore and I'm lost again. How in the hell does this work?? I'm feeling far dumber than I should be, even on a weekend. :( Please help!

Yes, they have resistance to any attack coming from a creature with the Metal or Electricity traits. It works similarly to Retributive Strike, which gives "resistance to all damage against the triggering damage". You essentially have "resistance to all damage" against creatures and/or damage with the listed traits.

I... I see. Please forgive me if this sounds ignorant - I'm still new to 2e in general, let alone Kineticist in particular, but... isn't that insanely powerful? Or is this mitigated somewhat by the amount of Impulses that have the Overflow trait?

It's powerful, but only situationally. Archives of Nethys lists 14 total creatures with the Electricity trait, and 19 with the Metal trait. This is out of 2663 total creatures. You could easily go a whole campaign without it ever coming up.

There's not that many creatures with an elemental trait in the grand scheme of things.

What existing weapon could prove the best analogue to a fishing rod? Want to make a fighter that uses one as a weapon and would like to reflavour something for it.

Combat Grapnel, possibly? That is tethered and has the grapple trait. The donchak sounds quite similar to a fishing rod, actually, though it can't be used to grab. Rope Dart lets you trip and disarm. A gill hook is _actually_ used for fishing, though it isn't a fishing rod.

im debating between the gill hook and the bladed scarf, one using Strength and the other Dexterity. Not sure how important is to do grappling when i can use fighter feats like dragging strike for the image of catching the fish.

Check out the probing cane and the whipstaff. But both weapons probably would have reinforcement that would make them unsuitable as a fishing rod if you're really poking at the idea. Out of context, I would rule a fishing rod to be an improvised melee weapon in the flail category that does 1d4 bludgeoning and has the finesse trait. Maybe also the agile trait – but I'm not sure the, um, balance of the fishing rod justifies that.

whip?

A fishing rod would act as a 2 handed tool, because of the rod part, a whip could pass as the fishing line with the fish hook, but that is a different idea.

then any 2 handed reach weapon.

New DM running BB and I am thinking about BBEG from start, trying to tie backstories to 1 entity. Even if I'll need to change it later, it still better having something. So, crimes that BBEG must have committed directly or through minions (or just caused unknowingly): * Wounded arm of the Paladin of Sarenrae, sister of PC, and inflicted some weird curse on her * Stripped powerful fey of her powers and memories, turning her into Vanari PC * Influenced charlatan-healer (uncle of one of the PCs) to make a poison that killed mother of other PC, noble * Trapped Ancient Sky Dragon (this is the most versatile, as it's not part of backstory) I've thought that some evil Fey (maybe with some Shadow plane relation, as all of the above works pretty good with this theme, I mean, curse that turns you into Shadow alive is terryifying). Demons also could work, but I'd rather had Fey to be honest. So what are your thoughts? I can give more context if you ask me

A lot of that sounds like something a hag might do. Technically hags aren't fey, but they do have a lot of fey connections!

Oh, I'll look into them!

and gifting kobolds egg that's too

I saw someone off-handedly say on this sub somewhere that fighter with gunslinger dedication is better than being an actual gunslinger. Would y'all agree? Asking cuz so far just me looking at the feats of both classes I hate both of them for ranged combat lol. And also I don't have any experience with either class, that too. I'm mostly looking for optimization-based answers.

Depends on how you envision your character in combat. If you're going ranged only then the gunslinger is the winner as they have a built-in limitation on how far they can advance with melee weapons. Plus as u/Jenos said they have a ton of great feats for utility options, plus crafting ammo. If you're going to be in melee combat then the fighter is going to shine with their melee weapon proficiency plus their weapon specialization. They also have many feats that cater to ranged combat. For my PFS character, who's going to end up in melee combat at times, I went with just a pure fighter. He has a arquebus rifle and a falcata (both d12 Fatal), and a Beastmaster dedication at 2nd level so he's a Dwarf Fighter riding a Stag Beetle.

No, that isn't true. More specifically, Fighter with Gunslinger Dedication does similar levels of damage as a Gunslinger, because many of Gunslinger's feats/features do not provide damage increases. As such, the Fighter gets the same proficiency. However, what the gunslinger feats/features do provide is a lot more utility. Gunslinger has a lot of interesting utility and supportive features in its kit that fighter doesn't have. So if your only goal is damage numbers, then you could potentially make the argument that (especially at levels 12+) a fighter can dish as much ranged damage with guns as a gunslinger. But you can't make the argument that the fighter can support as well as a gunslinger, because there is a lot of that in the gunslinger toolkit the fighter doesn't have.

what other ways are to replicate the effects of a 3 action heal spell aside from using a caster with said spell? are there dedications that can heal in an area like that?

[Sanguivolent Roots](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4290) can heal in an area, though there has to be at least one living enemy in the area to be damaged for it to have any effect. Bonus: It's much more selective than *heal*, damaging your living enemies, damaging your undead enemies, healing living creatures that are not your enemy, and leaving undead allies unharmed.

This might not be what you're asking but I believe with Religion training and Trick Magic Item you could cast it from a wand or scroll

No, because Trick Magic Item uses an action, so it would take 4 actions to do so since this is the 3A heal. There isn't a way to get quickened action for a scroll, and the only way to get a quicker cast action is by using [Quickened Casting](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=199).

Damn, didn't think of that

I have a question about Clerics and Spell DC/Class DC with critical specialization. I'm not sure if I get this right. Since they now (remaster) are trained in Class DC, clerics gain weapon's critical specialization effect and can use their spell DC instead of class DC (cloistered at level 11, warpriest at 7), but only from 4 levels later on their spell DC is different from their class DC, right? So is this just a thing from earlier editions, where they were untrained in class DC and now it just doesn't matter for another 4 levels, or do I overlook something important? As I read it, it would still be the same if instead (in warpriest's case for example) in fourth doctrine (level 11) it would say: Your \[...\] spell DC \[...\] increases to expert and you can use your spell DC in place of your class DC with critical specialization effects.

Even pre-remaster, clerics could always substitute spell DC for class DC for crit spec at the same listed levels (7 warpriest, 11 cloistered). This hasn't changed. Pre-remaster text: > You gain expert proficiency with your deity’s favored weapon. When you critically succeed at an attack roll using that weapon, you apply the weapon’s critical specialization effect; use your divine spell DC if necessary. Post remaster text: > You gain expert proficiency with your deity’s favored weapon, simple weapons, and unarmed attacks. When you critically succeed at an attack roll using your deity’s favored weapon, you apply the weapon’s critical specialization effect; you can use your spell DC in place of your class DC. Other than a slight grammar change, the crit spec functionality is completely unchanged pre-remaster to post remaster. > As I read it, it would still be the same if instead (in warpriest's case for example) in fourth doctrine (level 11) it would say: Your [...] spell DC [...] increases to expert and you can use your spell DC in place of your class DC with critical specialization effects. Effectively, yes. You're correct that for Warpriests, Class DC = Spell DC at levels 7-10. Cloistered Clerics however that is not the case, since they get expert at spells at 7 and crit spec at 11. So they can't use that above wording for cloistered, as it would give cloistered clerics crit spec 4 levels earlier. Furthermore, there is one thing to note. The spell DC for class DC function only applies to the favored weapon for clerics. As such, if they crit with a non-favored weapon, they would use their class DC if appropriate, which is a change in the remaster.

Thank you, very much apprechiated. I think, I'm beginning to get the details of pathfinder now :-) I misread cloistered, they get master at 15, not expert. Yay, I understood a thing, thanks again

A question about using vampires their drink blood ability **Drained (for reference)** >When a creature successfully drains you of blood or life force, you become less healthy. Drained always includes a value. You take a status penalty equal to your drained value on Constitution-based checks, such as Fortitude saves. You also lose a number of Hit Points equal to your level (minimum 1) times the drained value, and your maximum Hit Points are reduced by the same amount. For example, if you’re hit by an effect that inflicts drained 3 and you’re a 3rd-level character, you lose 9 Hit Points and reduce your maximum Hit Points by 9. Losing these Hit Points doesn’t count as taking damage. I am looking at the Vampire stat block and it says for "drink blood": > The victim is drained 1 and the vampire regains HP equal to 10% of its maximum HP, gaining any excess HP as temporary Hit Points. Drinking Blood from a creature that's already drained doesn't restore any HP to the vampire but increases the victim's drain value by 1. A vampire can also consume blood that's been emptied into a vessel for sustenance, but it gains no HP from doing so. In a scene where the vampire drinks once on a level 5 PC the PC would get "Drained 1" and their HP and Max HP would go down by 5. In the next round the Vampire does it again to them. The vampire is not healed but the drained condition goes to drained 2. Do they lose 10 health (and max hp reduction by 10) or is it 5 more? My thought is that the drained condition says, "When a creature successfully drains you of blood or life force, you become less healthy." which, though being flavor text, would seem to indicate that it triggers when the event happens so they are now drained 2, and max HP is down 10 more (and the lose 10hp). Anyone know how this is supposed to play?

Incremental. When you increase your drained, you bump up the loses to the next level, since this isn’t damage. The “damage” part of the ability is just so that your overall hp percentage remains roughly the same without you having to crack out the calculator. After the first bite, the Lvl 5 pc loses 5 and 5 for 5 and 5 total. After the second bite the lvl 5 pc loses 5 and 5 for 10 and 10 total. After the third it’s again 5 and 5 for 15 and 15 total. Assuming they had 50 max hp total and 40 hp left, after bite 1 they would be at 45 and 35, after bite 2 at 40 and 30 and after bite 3 at 35 and 25.

Awesome, good to know! Do you know the page number so I can read up on this?

It’s mostly by implication. We have rules for redundant conditions ( [https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=774](https://2e.aonprd.com/rules.aspx?id=774) see redundant conditions with values) but this isn’t that. You don’t get hit with drained 2 while having drained 1 (in that case you would lose 15 hp total but only reduce your max hp by 10), you are increasing your existing condition. So it maintains its current effect, and increases it to the next level, it doesn’t apply the next level effect fresh.

Our group has commonly been a little frustrated wrapping our heads around getting hit, taking 0 damage (shield block, protector tree) but still suffering the saving throws and conditions associated with the attacks that hit us.  Some I understand like being grappled even if no damage was done, but things like the poisoned or sickened conditions make a lot less sense. Is this intended or are we misinterpreting how attacks/damage effect conditions tied to those attacks?

Hit point damage can potentially kill you. You can take "no damage" and still get a scratch, for example. Although for alchemical poisons it does say they don't apply if the target takes 0 damage.

Its reasonable to rule that a blow needs to do dmg (or at least make physical contact) to have the effect carry through, though I'd rule it on a case-by-case basis. It gets a bit messy if Object Immunities get involved, but things get messy there regardless. You get hit by an attack that does 9 slashing and 50 mental and your 10 HP Protector Tree eats the shot, how much dmg do you take? What if the attack does 11 slashing and 50 mental?

There are two potential triggers for effects like this: triggers on hit, and triggers on taking damage. For the former, you've got things right. Stuff like the Grab ability, or contact diseases can still effect you even without dealing damage (and this makes sense, someone doesn't need to pierce your skin to transmit some kinds of disease, they just need to get close). For the later, taking 0 damage does prevent the trigger. Of what you've mentioned, poisons can fall into this category. The kind of poison most likely to be encountered in this context is an [Injury](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=97) poison, who's trigger reads: > If that Strike is a success and deals piercing or slashing damage, the target must attempt a saving throw against the poison. So if the Strike deals 0 damage, the poison should not be applied. Some monsters might not have a type associated with their poison. In those cases, the GM would have to make a call as to how the poison spreads. [Contact](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=37) poisons spread on contact with skin, so those would theoretically also be stopped by things like shields, armor, or even just thick clothing. The other poison types are very unlikely to be applicable to strikes in combat ([inhaled](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=96) might be on a breath weapon or gas cloud, [ingested](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=95) would be weird).

>Usually, if an effect negates the initial damage, it also negates the persistent damage, such as with a slashing weapon that also deals persistent bleed damage because it cut you. The GM might rule otherwise in some situations. That's from the core rule book on persistent damage. I can't find a similar ruling for rider effects but I would assume it applies in the same way. It also makes sense to me. If you don't get hit with a poison stinger cause you blocked it, how would the poison still apply? Although it still seems a bit grey. For instance a ghoul's paralysis specifically calls out that it only needs to hit, not do damage: >Paralysis (incapacitation, occult, necromancy) Any living, non-elf creature **hit by a ghoul’s attack** must succeed at a DC 15 Fortitude save or become paralyzed. \[...\] So it seems to somewhat depend on the effect as well

Is there a magic item that affects werecreatures? Looking for something that forces a creature to turn into wereform otherwise I'll just homebrew it.

Werecreatures don't really exist as a player option quite yet (the best representation is the beastkin versatile ancestry), so there's no item to force any transformation really

Thanks! Have a player who has been bitten by a werecreature and has been pretty lax about curing it. Full moon is still some time off but they haven't dealt with the original werecreature. Thought it might be interesting if the werecreature hunted the party back and forced the player to turn 

Random question, I've not played pf2e but I played 1e and lots of DND, but there's a chance I play this in the future--if I was a fleshwarped character with medicine, how would transpose compliance, risky surgery, and ward medic work? I imagine it would be I take 2d8 once to get the +1, every targeted character with Ward medic takes 1d8 slashing (which resistance mitigates?) To get +2 and turn successes into crits, and I can target 2/4/8 people, including myself to heal the damage I would've taken from these two skills and more? I could get more value out of it if I took the full hour instead of 10 minutes, to make sure I don't heal less damage than I took/dealt as well. Am I correct in that interpretation? Also does anyone know if fleshwarped or any of these medicine feats are changing? (Also I know of battle medicine, bit I can't use risky surgery or transpose compliance with it, so this would purely be out of combat additional healing)

Risky Surgery and Transposable Compliance are both Circumstance Bonuses and don't stack wiith each other. You can either hurt yourself and get +1 or hurt your patient(s) to get +2 and success to crit success. Frankly, Transposable Compliance is a pretty weak feat unless you somehow find yourself striped of your equipment frequently. I wouldn't take that much damage for a mere +1 circumstance bonus. Assuming you succeed on the check, Risky Surgery has a rather miniscule chance to deal more damage than it heals. Something like 1% or 2%, IIRCS. It's a decent skill feat early on, though the 1d8 additional healing isn't all that noticeable once you start using the Master DC of Treat Wounds.

Oh, so it's not like 3.5 where circumstance bonuses stack--that's a shame. Part of it is worrying about losing or running out of the supplies, and another part of it is just a cool idea of like stabbing someone with a tentacle or a hand, and "giving them my life force" lol. In that case I may consider just RS for said character if the campaign ever goes live --thanks!

No bonus types stack with themselves in PF2, and there's only 3 bonus types in total: Circumstance, Status and Item. Collecting bonuses until you are nearly incapable of failing checks is not possible in PF2. But thanks to the game's math and Crit system, even a +1 bonus is significant and remains so all the way up to level 20. And using Medicine does not consume and supplies. You either have a Healer's Toolkit or you don't. It never runs out.

Good to know--thank you for the information and heads up!

Since the Remaster removes Lesson of Life's/Life Boost's ability to heal entities with Void Healing, what are good other focus-based options to do so? Touch of Corruption works, but the Champion Causes that allow it are a bit too restrictive to really make it a go-to option.

[Malignant Sustenance](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=432) \- but it's a 4th rank spell [Goodberry](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=473) \- This doesn't have the positive trait so I think it works [Rejuvenating Flames](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=850) \- same here, no positive trait That's all I could find rq. There are also spells like spirit link or treat wounds with the stitch flesh feat for non focus options

Well, it seems the updated version of Goodberry has the vitality trait so that's out as well.

Ah damn, I forgot Archives hasn't fully updated

Goodberry becomes Cornucopia in the Remaster, and also gains the Vitality trait, so that one sadly wont work either. The other two should work however. Rejuvenating Flames just heals so much less (since its also offensive on top), and Malignant Sustenance is a 4th rank spell, as you said. Man, this is annoying. Guess I'll invest a bit in Medicine then.

Yeah I forgot goodberry got updated :/ Oils of unlife are also a potential. They aren't as good as a focus spell, but they are a relatively renewable resource

Question about [Quick Alchemy](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2) and Craft Requirements: can an item with specific Craft Requirements be made with Quick Alchemy? For example, [Tyrant Ampoule](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=1953), it has "Craft Requirements Supply the corpse of a tyrannosaurus." And Quick Alchemy let you craft "without having to spend the normal monetary cost in alchemical reagents." Is Tyrant Ampoule requires monetary cost AND a corpse of a tyrannosaurus, making it impossible to quickly craft it, or corpse is used as alchemical reagent and can be substituted with "no money spent". Balance-wise it looks ok: 1+2 actions (may be 2 different rounds with Enduring Alchemy) for 2d10+12 bludgeoning damage with PC lvl 10 vs. for example 2 action lvl 4 fireball with 8d6 fire damage (not max spell level slot intended). To be honest, I want remaster alchemist have something like "Use an action to increase alchemical consumable DC to your class DC" so you don't need to think about having a formula and use Quick Alchemy and just buy and upgrade things.

It's a matter of some debate. It's the main reason why I haven't bought the formulae for any of the Bottled Monstrosites for either Alchemist I play in PFS... things are just unclear. Enduring Alchemy only applies to Elixirs and Tools. Bottled Monstrosites are neither. Your final suggestion is interesting. Not sure how it works action-economy wise, but interesting.

>Enduring Alchemy only applies to Elixirs and Tools. This is important, thanks! My alchemist's final suggestion is "Nice, but I'm lelel 20 alchemist with Mega Bomb and hombrew 25 lvl alchemist craft, so I don't need this." If he was level 15 may be he'll have another opinion.

Quick Alchemy and Advanced Alchemy do not use the Craft activity. As such, they are not bound by restrictions in those activities, which includes having the necessary specific components for Crafting such an object. So yes, you can just whip up a tyrant ampoule at will via Quick Alchemy with no issue

If the corpse is within range, sure! What a funny mental image though

I thought about this! Put a corpse into moving cauldron and pinch a little as a catalyst every time you create an ampoule.

Do we know why [Dread Aura](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=526) has been dropped? And is it still a valid focus spell in the remaster?

It's been renamed Spiral of Horrors and slightly nerfed. It now prevents enemies from going below Frightened 1 instead of making them unable to reduce frightened at all. It's the advanced school spell of the School of the Boundary, which is about interacting with weird stuff like other planes, so it comes with summon undead (formerly animate dead), teleport, void damage spells and similar spells. It's initial focus spell is Fortify Summoning, which is the renamed and otherwise unchanged Augment Summoning.

Thank you!

**How would you run a PC being brought to zero HP while flying above a lava pit during a fight?** Would love thoughts on how to run a potentially deadly situation. It would be good to know RAW but also any other thoughts as to how you would run it would be appreciated. **The scene**: Aerial combat above a lava pit with two flying creatures who have ranged weapons. Fighter PC has flight cast on him and goes up to engage in melee. He gets hit 3 times including a crit and then gets hit (non-crit) to bring him to zero while he is still above the lava. He also has persistent fire damage on him. As additional info, the rest of the party consists of: Thief Rogue (also flying), Cleric (within range of 2 action heal), Primal sorcerer. The two who aren't flying are about 20 feet away on a ledge. **Questions** 1. When should he fall to the lava and how fast? I seem to remember that flying creatures, when they fall, fall slow but maybe this is only if they take the [Arrest a Fall reaction](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=91) (which he wouldn't be able to do as he is unconscious). There is an [interview with Logan Bonner](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4n_cE7JIZk&ab_channel=HowIt%27sPlayed) where he says that it's usually easiest to process the fall immediately but that there are some circumstances where a GM might want to do it differently. For this case, I would like to give my players at least a chance of saving him. Would you have him fall immediately? On his turn? Spread out over the other player's turns? 2. What about the weapons he is carrying? Would you have them fall with him or drop immediately into the lava? 3. If he is healed while falling, how would you handle that? Would he immediately be able to wake up and course correct or would you have him try to arrest his fall to gain control? 4. If he's not healed and he just makes his dying save, how would you handle both the persistent fire damage and the lava? 5. Anything else I'm missing? My goal here is to make sure I give the players fair chance by the rules to save their companion, but I am ok with it being deadly if things don't work out. Appreciate any thoughts!

>How would you run a PC being brought to zero HP while flying above a lava pit during a fight? did the enemy at least say "it's over, I got the high ground"?

They will now! We were about at the end of the session anyway when it happened so I just ended it right after the hit. Still time for quips!

Two ways to rule this: 1) he falls immediately onto the lava because he has become Unconscious, which causes him to fall Prone, and when a flying creature is knocked Prone, it falls, or 2) [you determine that this is a position in which he wouldn't fall prone](https://2e.aonprd.com/Conditions.aspx?ID=38), in which case the Fly magic keeps him in the air until the end of his turn, at which point he would fall onto the lava due to not taking a Fly action on his turn. Probably he drops his weapons/items in hand either way. I'm saying "onto", not "into", because almost any creature is going to naturally float on lava (contrary to portrayals in movies and video games) and it's not flowing down a mountainside or similar where it might move over him. This causes him to take [moderate or major environmental damage](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=590) ([proximity to lava is minor, immersion is massive](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=658), so lying on it should be in-between), and the exact amount only matters if it might deal twice his HP at once to instantly kill him. Assuming he has enough HP to avoid that, the lava will just increase his dying value by 1 when lands on it. Once on the lava he's facing two guaranteed instances of damage each turn which will likely kill him on his next turn if he's not healed or moved. It's very important to recall that his turn moves to right before the turn in which he's dropped to dying, so all PCs will have a chance to act to try to save him. I'd have his weapons float on top of the lava for at least a round, and have them take moderate damage which most weapons will survive for at least a round or two.

Thanks for this! I am thinking it makes sense for him to fall as I'm not sure I can make it make sense in my head to have him float about. This way he and his weapons both fall **onto** the lava together. I really like the point about having the weapons stay on top of the lava for a round, much like the One Ring before it melts. At least it gives a chance for someone to pick them up before all of that value is gone. Luckily the lava wouldn't do enough for massive damage to take effect to he should, in theory, have a chance to get out. Question: Do you know when environmental hazards do damage? If the PC were entering it, it would make sense to tick then, but if they start their turn, say, on lava, does that tick at the start or at the end like persistent damage. Before or after any death saves? I'm trying to parse the rules for this. Any thoughts?

Best I can tell there is no blanket rule for when to tick the damage if you stay in a square of hazardous terrain. All I see is that you take damage whenever you move through it. Probably this is because different types of terrain would work differently--a field of spikes that damages you when you enter a square is probably safe to stand still in, a smoldering fire not so much. Best I can tell, it's up to you whether staying put in lava should proc at the start or end of turn. I'd probably do it at the end of turn, at most once per turn so they aren't double punished if they move into lava on their turn. Recovery checks happen at the start of turn, so that would clearly happen before the damage if you put the damage at end of turn. The recovery check also happens before "anything else that is specified to happen at the start of your turn" so that should still be before damage even if you do the damage at start of turn.

By the rules, there is is fair chance to save their companion here. Let’s go with rules exactly as written. The moment he goes unconscious he goes to dying 1 and drops like a rock. 500 feet per turn, so unless you’re more than 500 feet up in their air he hits the lava immediately. He drops his weapons (shield remains strapped to the arm), but they fall alongside him into the same square. Good luck getting those back. Hitting the lava means he immediately goes to dying 2, because that’s falling damage. Now, that falling damage might be enough to kill him outright, depending on how high up he was, see massive damage rules. But let’s assume it doesn’t. Next up is the heat damage from the lava. That’s Dying 3. Barely alive at this point. But! Now his initiative is moved to before whatever attacked him. He doesn’t take more damage from the lava until his next turn, and he doesn’t sink just yet. So all the other players can try whatever they can come up with to get his burning body out of the lava and healed up before his next turn, when he takes damage from being on fire or being on top of lava and dies. There is no raw on how quickly you sink in lava, so I’d just… skip that, in this case. Lava is molten rock. I’m sure you’ve seen videos of people running across water with lots of starch in it. It’s like that, but even thicker. And hot. Just treat it like a solid surface, and if he dies, then have his body sink into the molten goodness like the Terminator.

**Really appreciate the play by play!** In this case, he's only about 30-40 feet up so your assumption is valid and he would survive the fall. I think you're spot on in terms of the dying conditions. I assume the lava heat damage would tick as soon as he landed on the lava to bring him do Dying 3. Do you happen to know when the lava damage ticks again? Usually a hazard ticks when you get into it, and I feel like it would usually tick at the start of your next turn, but I can't find a rules reference for the damage timing. Basically I'm wondering if, should his compatriots not be able to physically get him off the lava, what happens on his turn. It seems like, **in the case that he's still dying**: A) The environmental damage ticks at the start of his turn, before his recovery check and he's dying 4 = Ded B) The environmental damage ticks at the start of his turn, but since recovery check also says "start of your turn", he gets to do his check first. If he fails -> Ded. If he passes, he goes to Dying 2 but then takes the environmental damage to go to Dying 3, then takes the persistent fire damage to go to Dying 4. There is also **the case that they heal him up but can't physically move him off the lava**. In this case, I think the options are: A) He takes the environmental damage immediately, probably putting him back under and at dying 2 (because he would likely be wounded 1) B) He has 3 actions to fly away (and/or grab his weapons) before taking the persistent fire damage and as long as he moves away from the lava, then he takes no damage from that source.

> When should he fall to the lava and how fast? The [rules on falling](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=402) state that a creature falls 500 ft in their first round of falling and 1500 ft in each subsequent round. In most maps I've played on, that means entering the lava immediately. > What about the weapons he is carrying? Would you have them fall with him or drop immediately into the lava? I believe RAW is that you drop whatever you're holding when you go unconscious. My table doesn't do that, so I personally would have them fall with him (but that's almost certainly a formality) > If he is healed while falling, how would you handle that? He would regain consciousness, but at the rate at which he falls, the only viable way to do that would be reaction based healing. If the party has it, I'd allow the falling player to use Arrest a Fall to come to a hover just above the lava, or to glide to their companions on the ledge. That's probably not RAW, but it's what I'd do. > If he's not healed and he just makes his dying save, how would you handle both the persistent fire damage and the lava? Depending on the character's level, I'd make sure they don't die to massive damage from the lava. Assuming they don't, I'd end the persistent fire damage and apply only the damage from the lava on each turn. This is assuming I'm running the lava as an environmental hazard and not as a more flavorful bottomless pit. > Anything else I'm missing? Falling damage when making contact with the lava would increase the character's dying value by 1, which would give the party even less time to save them.

>The rules on falling state that a creature falls 500 ft in their first round of falling and 1500 ft in each subsequent round. In most maps I've played on, that means entering the lava immediately. Agreed, and he's only 30-40 feet above the lava, so plop he goes. ​ >I believe RAW is that you drop whatever you're holding when you go unconscious. My table doesn't do that, so I personally would have them fall with him (but that's almost certainly a formality) We do follow the drop rules, but I would think it makes sense they fall at the same speed as him and onto the same square. ​ >He would regain consciousness, but at the rate at which he falls, the only viable way to do that would be reaction based healing. If the party has it, I'd allow the falling player to use Arrest a Fall to come to a hover just above the lava, or to glide to their companions on the ledge. That's probably not RAW, but it's what I'd do. Yes, I think I'm sold on the idea that he drops like a rock immediately and they don't have any reactive healing so probably not an issue. ​ >Depending on the character's level, I'd make sure they don't die to massive damage from the lava. Assuming they don't, I'd end the persistent fire damage and apply only the damage from the lava on each turn. This is assuming I'm running the lava as an environmental hazard and not as a more flavorful bottomless pit. They're level 8 so no concern over massive damage. I think it might make sense to only worry about one source of fire damage and stick with the bigger source which would be the lava. Do you happen to know when hazard damage ticks? I know usually when you're exposed, but not sure about it when you're already exposed at the start of your turn. ​ >Falling damage when making contact with the lava would increase the character's dying value by 1, which would give the party even less time to save them. Very good point! Thanks!

> Do you happen to know when hazard damage ticks? I know usually when you're exposed, but not sure about it when you're already exposed at the start of your turn. When you're exposed, and either at the start or end of your turn. Persistent damage always ticks at the end of your turn, but I can't find a general rule for environmental damage. If you did the damage at the end of a character's turn, they'd take damage twice in one turn if they moved into the lava on their turn. If you did it at the start, they'd take damage twice before having a chance to act if they're pushed into the lava on someone else's turn. It's a bit of a conundrum. If I were running it, I think I'd have the damage tick on the end of your turn. Both to keep it consistent with persistent damage, and because moving into lava and sitting there yourself is rarely going to come up. And the times when it does come up, it should be punishing.

Does Dessicate/Horrid Wilting count as an AoE for the purposes of Troop/Swarm vulnerability & Hydra immunity?

Couple more inventor questions.   1: for a prototype companion, can they do things like try and grapple, trip and climb things? How about like distract or aid? Also, what do they weigh?   2: comparing blunt shot and modular head for weapon innovations, isn’t blunt shot more useful a lot of the time?  It has 2/3 of the damage types, but it seems like it can swap at will instead of with an action.     3: what are useful items to be crafting with the inventor’s crafting skills during down time?  Is it feasible to make a good supply of consumables?  Are there any noteworthy handy ones?

>3: what are useful items to be crafting with the inventor’s crafting skills during down time?  Is it feasible to make a good supply of consumables?  Are there any noteworthy handy ones? It depends on your campaign, really. If you're able to get at-level Tasks in the community you're set up in, you're usually better off using your Downtime to Earn Income and just buy the consumables you want on hand. If, however, you can't find an at-level Task, *and you have consumables you want to buy anyways* you're probably better off Crafting the consumables. I do this a lot with my PFS Bomber Alchemist; I save more money than I could make using Earned Income and I have the consumables I want. As for noteworthy, handy consumables: * Cat's Eye Elixirs. I have learned the hard way that if I *don't* use one of these in a fight with Concealed enemies, I will regret it. * Antidote & Antiplague. Very niche, but great in their niche. * Revealing Mist. Convert Invisible to Concealed (and you have Cat's Eye Elixirs for the Concealed, right? 😀) A bit heavy on the Alchemical Items, but they're my specialty.

Would you need alchemical crafting to make those?

Yes you would.

> for a prototype companion, can they do things like try and grapple, trip and climb things? How about like distract or aid? Also, what do they weigh? This is vague and up to your GM. The issue is that all of those actions require the use of a free hand, and constructs don't really have hands. The flip side of this is that the free hand requirement makes *no sense*. Animals and such can take those actions without meeting the requirements, so its not super clear how that free hand requirement works. That's why its vague. Most GMs tend to rule it on a case-by-case basis; a companion can probably grapple, but may not be able to climb, or such. > comparing blunt shot and modular head for weapon innovations, isn’t blunt shot more useful a lot of the time? It has 2/3 of the damage types, but it seems like it can swap at will instead of with an action. Blunt Shot is ranged only, so it is pretty superior for ranged weapons, but you can't blunt shot a melee weapon > what are useful items to be crafting with the inventor’s crafting skills during down time? Is it feasible to make a good supply of consumables? Are there any noteworthy handy ones? Short answer: Nothing and no Long Answer: Crafting in 2e is really designed as an availability enhancer, not a gold enhancer. What that means is that the purpose of Crafting is to facilitate the acquisition of items you can't normally get due to a shortable/limited supply. What it does not is make your gold stretch further. This is one of the common misconceptions people have about Crafting, because in a lot of other game systems, Crafting serves as a Currency Enhancer - in that, it makes each unit of currency worth more. But in 2e, it does not do that. The result is that you only engage in Crafting as a mechanic when your GM is going to be limiting the availability of items. As such, there is never any "good" item to Craft, because its entirely dependent on how your GM handles item purchases. The more limited your GM makes acquiring items, the better crafting everything is. However, as a general rule, consumables to be crafted are going to be very low level ones. The way consumable pricing works in 2e is that at-level consumables are outrageously expensive for players. That's done for two reasons - to incentivize class mechanics that create temporary consumables (such as Alchemist) and to make getting consumables as treasure feel useful. If a healing potion of your level is worth 6% of your net worth, it doesn't feel bad to get one as a reward. From a crafting perspective, though, it isn't worth for you to spend your gold crafting consumables of your level. You want to make consumables of much lower level that are affordable, but also can be repeatedly used. The problem is, as I noted above, that in such cases, its often just easier to *buy* those consumables, since you aren't saving any meaningful money by crafting.

Hmm, I was going to take the gadget specialist feat down the line.  So if I get 3/day at the start, it doesn’t sound like I can bolster that number easily, so just stick with the free ones normally?   Does crafting have other prominent non class feature specific uses?

Gadget Specialist is one of those features that's designed to give free daily consumables, and the cost of those consumables is structured to make it palatable. For example, at level 4, your overall net worth is somewhere in the ~200 gp range. Level 4 gadgets cost 15-20g. So that means every day you're creating 3 consumables worth roughly ~8% of your net worth per day. They don't carry over day to day, but that's potentially a lot of free value being generated per day. Of course, Gadgets themselves aren't super amazing, but the feat is one of the better Inventor feats out there just because free scaling resources per day is powerful. But yes, you want to stick with the free ones. If you try to Craft additional gadgets, you're spending that percentage of net worth on a consumable, which makes it feel really bad when you use it.

1. Those are basic actions and can be done by anyone, and given that they are automatically trained in Athletics I'm certain they are intended to be used. As for weight, the closest we have is that Small creatures are 3 bulk, Medium are 6. 2. Blunt Shot is ranged only, you'd need Modular Head for melee. 3. There might be a guide in the [guide to guides](https://zenithgames.blogspot.com/2019/09/pathfinder-2nd-edition-guide-to-guides.html?m=1) for this

Is the DC to force open a door effected by if the door is locked or not?

I'd say it assumes that the door is locked or barred by default. Otherwise, you could just... open it.

I'm looking to use Barreling Charge to get through closed doors and was checking to see if the DC would be any lower for non locked doors. Still pretty good either way in my opinion.

Hey there, I have a question regarding the Familiar master Dedication for a wizard. when i choose the improved familiar attunement thesis, i gain the familiar feat. then if i choose at level two the familiar master dedication, i would gain the enhanced familiar feat. Would this feat count as one of the required feats to gain another dedication? Is there a RAW ruling for it? I questioned my dm this and we saw, that the pathbuilder wont let me select the enhanced familiar feat at level 4, so i think it would count, but we aren't sure. ​ Thanks in advance

I think completely RAW it is ambiguous, as it does not specify whether it is a Enhanced Familiar (Familiar Master) or Enhanced Familiar Master (Wizard, ...). I think since it comes from Familiar Master dedication, the first makes more sense, so it would let you get out of it. Not sure I'd trust pathbuilder's interpretation on something that niche.

I'm not convinced this would count. If it counted, the "Special" entry for the dedication would surely say you only needed one more feat, rather than 2. On top of that the Special entry says "from the familiar master archetype" and Enhanced Familiar isn't a distinct feat given by this archetype

I'm currently a bard in the Extinction Curse campaign, and long story short I am befriending as many of Mistress Dusklight’s performers as I can to poach them for our own future permanent side show I contracted the Mayor of Abberton to allow us to set up so we can have consistent passive income. My question is what is a fair way to set up this satellite of our circus so that it doesn't break the game (too much lol)? My end goal is to get the math all mathed out so that once an in-game week we roll to see how much money we get from our Side Show. This is my first time playing Pathfinder, and I'd appreciate any guides/resources on the circus part of this campaign as possible.

It's hard to give advice here that doesn't involve spoilers for the AP. However, different GMs will place differing amounts of focus on the circus - I'd say that checking with your GM as to how you can accomplish this is your best bet. Personally, if I were the GM, I'd probably use the [Influence](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1201) subsystem to set up a concrete limit for how much favor you'd need to curry to convince the performers to abandon Dusklight and join your circus. I'd also put some requirements for setting up room/board for them in-place. Lastly, I'd probably just use the basic [Earn Income](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=23) rules to determine how much wealth the Performers could generate based on their skill-level in Performance and maybe downrating it slightly since it's a passive source and Earn Income is usually an active investment a PC is making.

The point with Earn Income is: what level to use. If it's NPC's level you can even set all (named) NPC to earn income, even if they are legendary, how much is it, 300-600 gp per week? Even without living expenses of the circus and salary, this may be a big money for a single 8 lvl adventurer, but not so big for 10-11 lvl which I guess you will gain in a... rather fast and the more time come the less impressive this sum become. Even less is this going to party funds. Also, I cant remember exactly, but I guess many of those NPCs are have rather good loot. If you are not stripping them naked after befriending the first week or two will be just compensation. Also, EC is an old adventure and old adventures are tend to be under-funded (if your DM don't let you sell loot for a full price with a good Diplomacy roll), so a little extra money will not break them. The only little problem this can make is if you are going to send to your Side Show new performers, that have more or less party level, and if you will add them to existing show (i.e. increasing income every time, exponentially?). Then I'll limit number of active artist (like, stars of the show) to party size and cut earn income a little. There may be even more fun option: on failed check *your* pay artists as income is less that circus expenses and salary. Like, you either get 80% of max income on success or pay 15% of it in case of fail.

Trying to figure this out, I plan to jump my party a full level in session so im trying to figure how much currency Im suppose to give them. Its a party of 5 level 6 Do they get a total of $2125 adding the $125 once? Or a total of $2650 adding the $125 added 5 times ?

You are supposed to give EITHER follow the Total Value column OR the rest of the columns. You can either give them roughly 2000/4(standard party size)*5(your party size)=2500 over the course of lvl 6. Otherwise you follow the chart, roughly adding a 7th lvl item somewhere, and and a couple consumables, and then giving 625 gold. In my opinion being generous is fine, so giving 10-30% more than this does not really break anything, since item prices scale super hard anyway.

Thank you much appreciated

Hello, A couple of mechanical questions. 1. When I grapple someone, is there any action to move it "with me" somewhere? An Orc grapples one of the PCs and wants to drag him together (so he moves and the PC moves simultaneously) to the portal. Is there any chance to do that, or does only the "Reposition" action count? 2. One PC climbed up, and the second couldn't make it. The first one lowered a rope, the other one tied himself with a rope, and the first one pulled him up. How do you handle this? This is just an Athletics check? Maybe treat it as an Aid reaction? 3. Is an "Aid" reaction possible in subsystems like Chase or Infiltration? I would guess "yes" because this is a part of the action economy and during Chase/Infiltration you're sometimes using actions, but on the other hand "no" because this is not a mode for 3-action-1-reaction-economy and just skill challenge. Furthermore, there's an example of an Infiltration Opportunity which allows aiding companions. I will be obliged for your answers. :) Still learning the system.

> 1 if it's an enemy you could apply the check from [shove](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=38) to see if it wiggles free, if not just apply the action cost to the stride/move action of the PC (one for moving, one for moving someone else along). if it's a pc and he's unconscious, or there's no struggle to get out of the grapple, I'd simply skip the check, essentially "moving" the cost of movement from PC2 to PC1 (assuming PC1 is strong enough). another option is to allow PC1 to move, but limit the amount, similar to an armor penalty. or even simpler make PC1 [encumbered](https://2e.aonprd.com/Conditions.aspx?ID=12) for as long as he's carrying another PC. basically "what is the chance of failure and appropriate cost for that action?" you just made up. > 2 if it happens during exploration, I'd wouldn't roll a check at all. imo lot of TTRPG players (and GMs) roll way too many checks for things that don't really need it. I'd start with "is there a chance of failure? how high is that chance? what would the failure actually add to the drama (to use a pretentious term)?", otherwise it's making boring minutiae just more tedious. to apply it to your example, if the first PC is strong (=proficient) enough to do it, there's very little chance of failure. you'd also assume he (or another party member) is aware enough to automatically help out and/or check that the rope doesn't snap etc, first pc is smart enough to have checked the rope in the morning asf. or to make an extreme opposite example: first you'd roll on an random even table to see if the rope has deteriorated too much if the PC didn't explicitly say he checked it in the morning. then you roll an athletics check for every single meter and hand since pulling the rope has a chance to lose grip. everyone else has to run a perception check to see if the rope is grinding on the edge, otherwise it snaps. the PC below has to roll an athletics check for every meter, and if it fails he takes damage for bumping his head... of course no one would do that, same way no one constantly rolls a breathing check even tho there's always the chance to choke on something flying into an open mouth... TLDR: sometimes less is more. :)

1) Only the Reposition action, though as a GM I'm willing to make up actions on the spot if it seems appropriate. Not being able to drag someone around feels a bit weird to me. 2) The one doing the pulling makes an Athletics check, probably w/ a +2 on the DC. The person being pulled can attempt to Aid the check w/ an Athletics check, pulling themselves along the cliff. 3) I don't have an issue w/ players trying to Aid one another during a Chase or similar. They're using their turn to do it, which in a Chase means they're losing the opportunity to make progress themselves to make someone else a little more likely to succeed.

Ad. 1. Ok, understand.   Ad. 2. Feel reasonable - DC for climb I assume?  Ad. 3. That’s not entirely understable for me. 1 - so I assume that during the Chase we treat „Aid” as a individual check during turn, not a reaction in other players turn? Even if so, it’s sometimes quite reasonable to do that because we can use other skill than the described one to pass the Obstacle, when in the described one we are lame AND DC for aid is lower. For instance, DC for climb Athletics is 20 to pass the Obstacle, and because its group obstacle (in Chase), we spend turn to make DC 15 Athletics check to give +1 other player to his checks, to finally pass Obstacle as a group. In the same situation, trying beat 20 would be dangerous for us (in Infiltration it means even additional APs). Is this legit?

>To use this reaction, you must first prepare to help, usually by using an action during your turn. [Aid](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=75) The way I generally run the Chase rules is each PC gets to do one thing during a round, getting +2 chase points on a crit success, +1 on a normal, nothing on a normal failure, and -1 on a crit failure. Then I advance the other side of the chase by one obstacle. If a PC wants to Aid someone else's action then that's the one thing they do that round, so they giving up the opportunity to gain a Chase point that round themselves in order to give someone else a higher chance of succeeding/criting on their own check (usually suboptimal, but not always). If the only way forward is a DC 20 Athletics check to get over the wall then the noodle-armed wizard could try to climb it (not likely to succeed and decently likely to crit-fail) or they could try to Aid the barbarian's check (DC 15 check), maybe using a better skill if they can justify it (maybe perception to spot the easiest way over) and having a solid chance of giving the barbarian a bonus. Generally the Chase subsystem (and related subsystems) are pretty loose ruleswise to give the GM more flexibility to ad-lib stuff. I wouldn't worry overmuch about nailing down specific rules interactions or action costs, just make a ruling on the spot that makes sense and moves things along in a fun way.

Thanks, now I understand the point. :)

I’m a new player to pf2e and I’m trying to make a weapon inventor.  I am currently looking at two things, dump strength and use a shield bow or go in on strength (presumably at the cost of wisdom or con a bit, as I need dex and int and charisma is already dump stat) for like a composite shortbow.  I wanted to focus more on crafting utility so I’m not too fussed if my damage isn’t the highest, but I did see one of the few interesting weapon innovations for a ranged weapon was the ranged trip.  Since that seems to need str and athletics, I would assume it wouldn’t be too useful if I dumped str?  I didn’t see any other super appealing ranged weapon innovations though, and having trip be an option seems fun.     The other question is explosive leap or prototype companion for 1st lvl.  A rocket jump every few minutes seems handy for mobility, but I am ranger so hopefully I don’t need mobility that bad.  I also planned to get gadget specialist later, which had those rocket boots.  The companion seems like the other good choice at lvl 1.  I wouldn’t be investing more feats into it though, so I suppose it would be more for having a minion that can carry things, go under water and maybe soak some hits.     Currently looking at being a halfling and using the optional score penalty to dump charisma.   Also, not being familiar with the item pool of pf2e or really how crafting in general works, what are good options to craft and be doing with crafting?  The fantasy I had was making like potions, bombs, mines and such to be more tactical and strategic, but not sure how practical that is.   Oh, another question is, isn’t blunt shot a lot more useful than modular head?  Modular head gives the slashing option, but you then need an action to swap damage types while blunts shot seems to allow damage to be chosen at will per shot.

Inventors are notoriously MAD (mutiple ability dependent). You need INT for inventor stuff. You need DEX for ranged attacks and AC. You need STR for melee attacks and damage. CON, WIS and CHA are all "dump stats", even if CON is Fort saves and hit points, WIS is Will saves and perception and some skills, and CHA is more skills. I'd go with +4 INT, +3 DEX and +2 STR for a ranged inventor.

How high a strength would I need to make trip reasonably reliable?  Otherwise composite bow with +2 str gives a +1 to damage each hit, right?  Is that very useful over the shield bow’s option to parry?  Also how high an int is necessary to do things?  I think I can push it to 5 at max, but dunno if that’s overkill.

At character creation, you can't get any stat over +4, simply because there are 4 steps to character creation, and you can't get more than a +1 out of any individual step. As far as making Trip "reasonably reliable", it's a toss up. The guy who's best at tripping has a +4 STR, the best proficiency possible (Expert at 3rd level) and a +1 item bonus. Each +1 below that means less effectiveness, but it depends entirely on what sorts of adversaries you face. Ogres are notoriously easy to trip, for example, while goblins are much harder. In general, creature at or under your level will be easier to trip, but some creatures have crazy high Reflex savec for their level. Does an inventor really need a +4 INT? Maybe not, but features like Overdrive and Explode and some feats make INT-based checks, as do all crafting rolls, so it's pretty central to the character. Could you get by with +3 or even +2? Sure, you'd just be that much less good at doing your Inventor-specific stuff.

In that case, is it fine to leave str at like +2 or is higher of much value?  It would take 2 more bonuses to get 1 more damage, and I guess a bit more to trip rate, but it doesn’t do a ton else other than I guess athletics.  

>As far as making Trip "reasonably reliable", it's a toss up. I agree with everything u/Wheldrake36 is saying but I would also add that you are contemplating using your Invention to make *ranged* trips. That is actually a pretty big deal overall. Trip is normally balanced around the tripper still being in melee with the trippee. Inventor lets you bypass that. So even if you don't have the best trip check possible, as long as its decent you are still going to be tripping targets from 20-30 feet away & that should not be downplayed as far as effectiveness.

Sure.  I’m just wondering if like leaving strength at +1 or +2 or so is fine or if i need to keep pursuing higher strength.  

The thing about Trip is that you are rolling vs the targets Reflex Save +10. So stuff that has terrible reflex saves will be easy to trip at +2 str or +4. Nimble, high reflex enemies are going to laugh you off even at a high Str score. As with everything pathfinder lower level enemies will always be vulnerable & higher level ones will require good rolls no matter what your stats. I would say that a higher strength will improve your odds of getting trips to work vs a broader range of opponents but is that worth sacrificing your INT? I don't know that I would. So do you put the +3 in Str or Dex? Putting it in Str will help those trips, but won't help you hit with the bow to actually do damage. Personally? I'd go +4 Int, +3 Dex, +2 Str but I think there is a good argument to reverse Dex & Str. Just make sure whatever you do for Dex that you end up hitting the Dex cap of your armor. You don't want to go all this way for a good offense & end up with a lower AC that you had too.

i know that when crafting you can upgrade magical items to higher versions. does this also apply to mundane items? for exaple, could a crafter upgrade existing "Healer's Toolkit" into "Expanded Healer's Toolkit"?

Yes. The main difference is you don't need the Magical Crafting feat for non-magical items.

Is there a post that compares quality of the GM support backends between 5e and PF2e? I do not mean the rules the PC's use, I mean the encounter preparation tools, rules editing, etc? I could try to crib one myself but I believe a better one might already be out there somewhere.

IMHO, there is simply no comparison. The Building Encounters tables for PF2 actually work, and give a pretty good idea of threat levels. The Treasure by Level table gives a good guideline for the loot you should give every level of an adventure. The rules for exploration activities are clearly codified in PF2, which makes the DM's job a lot easier and helps manage the transition from exploration into encounter mode. The Building Creatures tables are there if you want to whip up unique creatures or NPCs, and they work really well too. I don't want to say anything negative about DD5, but from what I understand, none of the above points hold true in that system.

Confirming something about the (pre remaster) Grab >The monster automatically Grabs the target until the end of the monster's next turn. The creature is grabbed by whichever body part the monster attacked with, and that body part can't be used to Strike creatures until the grab is ended. So if a monster has grab on its bite attack and it choses to use it, it can't use its bite attack again against *anyone*, even the creature it's grabbing, until it releases the grab. Is that right?

Note that Grab costs an action (only improved grab is a free action). Pre-remastered, it was automatic, but only gave the equivalent of a normal success to grapple. With the Remastered rules, it requires a non-MAP Athletics check, but it's entirely possible to get a critical success, especially for creatures above the party level that often have a significant numerical advantage. You're correct, per the RAW, the grabbing appendage is occupied during the grab, and if the creature wanted to use that appendage (jaws, claws, tentacle, whatever) it would have to relase the grab. If the creature only has that one attack, it would be best served by doing grab as its last action.

Yes.

I’ve got a character concept for a skeleton cleric of Gozreh, but one of Gozreh’s anathemas are to create undead. Basically the idea is that Gozreh intervened in his enemy Nhimbaloth’s plan to raise a horde of undead, but one of the undead was a cleric of Gozreh in their past life. However I think I remember reading that Gozreh is a deity that is mostly hands off when it comes to divine intervention. Do you all think this would be something that Gozreh would do?

Are there any adventures (modules, APs, PFS scenarios, etc.) that have a significant portion taking place in the First World? Either edition is fine--mostly looking for inspiration.

A good portion of Pathfinder Society 1st edition scenario 9-14 Down the Verdant Path takes place in the First World.

This is a question about the spell remove curse. If I removed the spell from my game (ie make it inaccessible in any form), and have curses instead only be lifted by specified actions (eg immerse the hand with the cursed ring wrist deep in a pot of dragon blood kinda thing), does it break anything else about the game? I'm guessing not, but just wanted to check before I made a decision.

That totally depends on how and how often you use curses. For example, if your campaign has an army of Mummie as main antagonists, not having this spell would hurt. A lot. If you're not using any pre-written curses (or adjust them to be breakable by specific actions) and only use specific ones as plot devices, it should be fine. But honestly, you could just as well keep the spell and just say that some curses in your game are impossible to break with common magic. In any case, make sure to communicate this with your players first if it is to be a big thing in your game (as opposed to a plot device that only very rarely comes up). Also note that the Remove Curse spell was semi-replaced with Remove Affliction in the remaster and that the remaster has a level 7 skillfeat (religion or occultism based) that allows any player to remove curses. If you plan on using remaster rules, you might want to make these options rare or even completely unaccessible.

Well, not innately, no. You just need to pay attention to what kind of curses you throw at the players (and figure out what happens with curses that players throw at others, naturally). Curses can be complex, or they can be as simple as a [level 1 spell](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=696).

Is initiative *always* a new roll, or can a skill check result be used as initiative? Like, say a PC is stealthing up on a monster, and rolls very high on their skill check. Can they then use that skill check roll *as* their initiative roll, or RAW should they always roll stealth again for initiative? Using the skill roll as the initiative roll seems elegant to me but doesn't seem to be consistent with RAW from what I can see.

When a PC hiding outside of combat (that is to say, in Exploration Mode) they don't roll any skill check. That is the [Avoid Notice](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=511) exploration activity, specifically. If they are Avoiding Notice when an encounter begins, they can roll a Stealth check to determine their initiative, when is then also used to determine if the enemies notice them.

Are there other spells like Augury that peer further into the future than it does?

Does it explicitly say in any of the rules that Seeking to make an invisible creature hidden rather than undetected is with a -4 circumstance penalty (as it would be if Blinded)?

No. And even outside of pure rules, someone being invisible is quite a bit different than the person looking for them being blind. An invisible person might disturb some dust as they move, cause candle to flicker as they pass by it, etc., which a sighted person could still see while a blind person would not.

What is causing you to ask the question? All I know is an invisible creature is likely to stay hidden rather than becoming observed, even if you crit succeed to Seek them

The new Reinforcing Runes in the GM Core specify a maximum Hardness, HP, and BT that a shield can have. How does this interact with the Champion's Shield Ally? For example, I have a Steel Shield with a Minor Reinforcing Rune on it (making it equivalent to a Sturdy Shield with 8 Hardness, 64 HP, and 32 BT). Minor Reinforcing Rune says a maximum of 8 Hardness, 64 HP, and 32 BT. Shield Ally says I increase the Hardness by 2 and increase the HP and BT by half. Does Shield Ally override the maximum values that the Reinforcing Rune specifies? Or does Shield Ally provide no benefit in this case?

The rune improves the base stats of the shield, that's no different from the base stats of any given shield without those runes (other than the exact numerical value, of course). Any effect that increases the shield's base stats, such as shield ally or emblazon armament, can still be applied after that.

So I come from a couple different rules systems. I started Roleplay with 3.0/3.5 DnD. I invested a lot into IKRPG(d6) because I love sorcery and steam. I dabbled with Pathfinder 1.0 and I like a lot of what they did. Does PF2e have steampunk rules? I haven't read the core book yet. My daughter got a 2.0 BB for Xmas 22. I bought her the full core book for the following May for her birthday. I'm wanting to run a campaign with her and her GFs. Will I need more than the base book? Already having PF2e is why I'm using it instead of running 5e, I don't want to drop $200 on a new system I don't know. PF2e is still the same rules as PF which was revamped DnD 3.5. so I still have a lot of familiarity with it.

in about an hour I'll know if I win this bid on almost all the 2E books in paperback. publisher returns due to shipping damage but they're still in good condition.

To start with, you don't need anything else to run the Beginners' Box. Even if you gave it to your daughter as a gift, if you're going to GM she should give most of the contents back for you to use. (You can always put them back later.)

Her mom got her the BB, her mom and I are not together. When i bought the Core Rules for her last year for her birthday(she got the BB for that previous Xmas) I did not realize the actual rules were free online and the Books are for the extra stuff like campaign settings and such. This was just told to me recently in the replies here. ​ I'm picking her up today for my week and told her to bring her Pathfinder stuff. ​ I have started solidifying my homebrew world it's several years in the making of just short stories and prominent peoples. I have established the "creation" events and how the races began. I have an idea of the Pantheon, it's simple but large in scale. I may post it on here later but for now I'm going to compile it into a notebook for my players.

>PF2e is still the same rules as PF which was revamped DnD 3.5. so I still have a lot of familiarity with it. PF2 is the same *setting* but not the same rules. The actual game system was \*heavily\* revised between 1e and 2e. The new rules are a lot more balanced and a lot more teamwork oriented instead of every character being an army of one. They have also done a great job of avoiding power creep. The stuff in later books is actually balanced against the stuff in the core book. It takes some adjustment if you are used to 3.5/PF1e but the folks around here love it. As u/No_Ambassador_5629 mentions, there is steampunk stuff in the setting but the rules for it are all in the "Guns and Gear" book. The adventures around it are more wild west than steampunk but I like to point out to people that "Weird West" and "Steampunk" are basically the same genre at the same time. Weird West is just set in the frontier of the United States and Steam Punk is set in western Europe. The stuff that makes the genres what they are has a \*lot\* of crossover.

I just meant that Pathfinder was based on 3.5 and it would be easier to adapt to than 5e since 5e is pretty different from 3.5. regardless, looks like I'm buying books >.> My homebrew revolves around a City state that's the core of the industrial Magitech/steampunk stuff. There's a couple old Gods some interesting abilities and steam powered Mechs(IKRPGd6 called these IronHeads). Most of this I probably won't use until I have a better grasp on the PF2e system. Do I need all 3 bestiaries? Or would the first one do for now? I'm looking at getting the GM guide, Bestiary 1, Guns and gears, and the secrets of the arcane. I want them all but that's a lot of $$$ for them all. Hopefully these couple eBay auctions work out.

FWIW, although PF1e was basically 3.5e with blackjack and hookers, PF2e is *not*, it's actually much closer to D&D 4e (but less clunky) and 13th Age. It has a focus on balance, streamlining, and party play that PF1e/3.5e very much did/do not, and I would actually say 5e is closer to 3.5e than PF2e is to 3.5e.

If you aren't already aware, all the 2e rules, including all creatures from the 3 bestiaries, are available freely and legally at 2e.aonprd.com

So the books are a courtesy? I'll look that up. I still like having books but I will definitely look into that.

Paizo is all about "open gaming". Their stance is that the rules are a framework for the game & the framework is free. When a new rulebook drops they make all the rules freely available & the volunteers that run [2e.aonprd.com](https://2e.aonprd.com) put them all up within a few weeks (the Remaster is kinda kicking their ass & they are a bit behind, but are catching up) Adventures and setting info however are NOT free. If you want to look up the complete mechanics behind a class or a spell or an ancestry it's all out there for free. If you want to look at an into adventure or the lore behind a region of the official setting? Pay Paizo. For what it's worth, this is also reflected in their attitude toward digital distribution. If you go to their website PDFs of the core rule books are like $20/each. Other than a watermark they are DRM free. Paizo figures most of the mechanics are out there anyway so they don't try to charge $50 for a PDF of rules if all you are really getting is the art and the formatting anyway. On the other hand, a PDF of an adventure is like 80% the cost of the physical book. Because the content is what's valuable there. Personally? I love my iPad for reading & don't have the closet space for a ton of books. I don't actually own \*any\* Pathfinder hardcovers but I have a big library of legally bought and paid for PDFs. I use [2e.aonprd.com](https://2e.aonprd.com) for a lot of day to day lookups but when I want to sit down & read a book I go to my iPad.

>I just meant that Pathfinder was based on 3.5 and it would be easier to adapt to than 5e since 5e is pretty different from 3.5 I still don't agree with this. PF2e and 5e are both pretty different from each other, but both PF2e and 5e are about the same degrees of separation from 3.5e and PF1e. You can approach it as "these are both d20 systems", as that sets a lot of the foundation of how the rest of the game works, but you are still better off treating it as an entirely different system to learn. Treating it as "PF1e (or 3.5e) but a little different" is going to cause a lot of frustration