My players have become fond of an NPC and are trying to train them up as a sort of member of the party.

So far I've been kinda fudging their stats, but I'd like to come up with something more concrete. I've got the D&D 5e book Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, but unfortunately that's a super slim set of rules that mostly focuses on "at this level, they get this specific ability", so doesn't provide a lot of help in translating to Pathfinder.

Does anyone know some good variant or homebrew rules for giving the party a Sidekick in PF2? Or alternatively, have any advice?

I have very mixed feelings on secret checks. One the one hand, they make a lot of sense, they seem like they really help roleplay and being in character, and they generate suspense and uncertainty.

On the other hand, I like rolling my pretty math rocks. I'm a minor dice goblin, and my expensive RNGs demand to be rolled!

Which is fine, I'm the GM at my table, but if I were on the other side of the screen, I think it'd drive me a little crazy.

I also know that they're a controversial topic more generally, and some players have really, really strong negative reactions to them.

So, how do you feel? Does your table use them? If not, why not? If so, how do they feel? Do you have anyone at the table with very strong feelings about them? If so, how have they articulated those feelings?

I recently came across Mortals and Portals and was instantly hooked. I just caught up to where they are (save for today's new episode), and it's left me with a bit of gap.

So, what else is good? I'm currently also caught up with Rotgrind and Rotgoon, which have been really good, and are better demonstrations of PF2 game systems.

So, what's good? What's everybody ~~stealing ideas from~~ listening to?

My friends and I have been playing DnD 5e for a few years now, but now I’ve decided to start GMing PathFinder 2e. We’ve played through most of the Beginner Box, and now I want to continue with my own homebrew content. As part of my world, I want to introduce a fighter “subclass” (probably the wrong terminology for PathFinder). What I want is a tribe of warriors who fight without armor (starting at level 2 or 3), and to compensate for the lower AC they get magical tattoos which increase their AC. It will also be possible (when you advance in levels) to choose to add other tattoos with other magical effects.

So my question is: Is this what archetypes are for? Because I don’t think “subclasses” are a thing in PathFinder? Or how would I go about this?

(Posts for both GMs and players in online games to come later.)

My group is playing Abomination Vaults, and on the second level there is a room with an undead Minotaur Skeleton Warrior. The book specifically states that it never leaves the room it's in.

My group quickly figures this out and would simply have everybody ready an attack, one PC would open the door, triggering everybody else's reaction, and would then close it again.

After doing this about 10 times they finally took down the skeleton despite it having resistance to most of their attacks, with none of them taking any damage.

This is a somewhat inexperienced group that doesn't usually do strategy things, so I was happy to see them plan and execute.

Anyway what's the weirdest way your group beat a supposedly challenging enemy?

So, over on the subreddit there's a post that caught me off guard. I'm not experienced enough with the game to know the ins-and-outs of all of classes, so when someone posted asking about Ruffian Rogues and Picks.

From the comments, this appears to be a Thing of Great Contention within the Pathfinder space (or, at least within that Pathfinder space; I find r/Pathfinder2e to be a rather... idiosyncratic place, personally).

The long and short of it is that Picks have the Fatal d10 trait, but Ruffian specifies:

You can deal sneak attack damage with any weapon, not just the weapons listed in the sneak attack class feature. This benefit doesn't apply to a simple weapon with a damage die greater than d8 or a martial or advanced weapon with a damage die greater than d6. (Apply any abilities that alter the damage die size first.)

(Emphasis mine.)

A lot of words have been published over how the Ruffian doesn't lose Sneak Attack on a critical hit, but this seems pretty straight forward from the text here that it does. Weird and stupid, and something I'd never personally enforce, but clear and straight forward nonetheless.

This is the updated wording from Player Core 1, no less, and Ruffian's text was updated in the remaster, so there was an opportunity to reword or clarify that was not taken, so I'm not sure what others are reading from this that I'm not.

How do you interpret this situation? How would you judge it at your table?

(Posts for GMs and for online play to come later.)

I'm playing a Pathfinder 2e conversion of the 5e campaign Curse of Strahd, and I'm currently prepping a session where I expect my players to seriously encounter Strahd himself for the first time. The problem is, the converted versions of him I'm finding are, unsurprisingly, specced out for facing him in the endgame. They're level 14 or level 15 or higher. My players are level 5.

In D&D this is no problem. He would outclass them in damage and HP, but he wouldn't be critting literally every single time. They'd feel outclassed, but not be under threat of a completely unavoidable TPK.

If I were using proficiency without level, this would be no problem for the same reason. But I gather that this is not an especially popular variant rule, compared to other variants like ABP and Free Archetype. So how do people playing without this variant typically present players with the big bad earlier on in the campaign?

The publishers of Nightfell, a horror/grimdark setting for 5e, made a post on Reddit announcing their kickstarter for a PF2e port.

The setting looks interesting, and it's well reviewed on DTRPG. It's also received ongoing support since release. So, I'm a little excited about established 5e 3PPs dipping their toes in the PF2 waters, rather than just slapping a new name on the 5e mechanics and launching "their own" system.

It kind of feels like the game is approaching a critical population limit, where 3rd party support will be more common, and projects supporting both systems will become much more normal.

Kickstarter link https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grimmoonstudio/nightfell-a-grimdark-fantasy-setting-for-pathfinder?result=project&term=nightfell

I really liked her review of the MC. My copy just arrived yesterday, but it was prep night so I didn't get a chance to flip through it yet. The reviews of the changes have generally been quite positive, though.

I can't wait for everything to show up on pf2easy.

Phantasmal Web is a 5th-level illusion spell that creates an illusory web full of spiders that torment those who believe they're held within it, rendering them extra helpless, and has to be one of the meanest crowd-control spells, at mid-level at least.

Some choice phrases from the description:

Those who fail to disbelieve the phantasmal web are treated as if in a web spell, but must also make a Fortitude save at the beginning of each turn or become nauseated for that round by the phantasmal spiders.

Targets cannot escape the phantasmal web by moving, even by teleportation. Freedom of movement allows unobstructed movement but does not negate the concealment or nausea effects.

Targets of the spell perceive everyone else around them to be engulfed in webs and swarming spiders ...

I can seriously see someone fireballing their own position to try to kill the spiders.

In other words, what’s an official rule or interaction between different rules in Pathfinder 2e that you think is dumb?

A while back, when buying equipment for a new character, I figured out that I was trying to solve the same problems over and over again. I decided to put together basic sets of equipment that should allow almost any character to be well-equipped with the basics at first or second level, with a minimum of effort.

Today, I present these kits to you. Each kit gives both a gold and a weight total (for both Medium and Small creatures), and suggestions for how to use or modify the kit to suit your character. They include both a basic for-everyone kit as well as an extremely stripped-down version of the same, advice for distributing heavy gear, and suggestions for additional equipment to purchase as more money comes in.

I hope they're useful to you.

This is a guide to achieving durable total concealment in combat. Durable in this case means that the concealment does not end or degrade the moment you attack your opponent.

It was written years ago to answer a question about sneak attacking at range, and so it is mostly written from that perspective, but I have made some slight alterations since then and it could also be useful for other purposes.

Categories

There are four practical ways to become concealed from an opponent in combat in such a way as it will not wear off the moment you make an attack. They are as follows: Blind your target, utilise darkness, utilise obscuring conditions such as fog or smoke, or finally becoming invisible.

Blindness

Several spells can blind your opponents, including the 1st-level spell touch of blindess and the classic glitterdust. As a bonus, convincing a friendly mage to go this route should be pretty easy, since blinding your opponents is a great debuff anyway.

The dirty trick combat manoeuvre can apply blindness for a round. A familiar with the prankster archetype should be able to pull this off, though a friendly melee fighter can also build for it. Greater Dirty Trick is important here to make the blind last more than one round, and Quick Dirty Trick lets them do it in place of one of their normal melee attacks. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to reliably perform dirty tricks at range, so if you prefer to attack at range you will be relying on the melee combatants to do this for you.

Darkness

If your opponent doesn't have darkvision, but you do, a simple darkness spell (or other way to turn out the lights) will grant you total concealment. This is unreliable since so many of your opponents will likely have darkvision, but the night blindness spell can turn this off.

If you can get the "See in Darkness" ability, you can use deeper darkness to disable regular darkvision, which will work for almost all opponents apart from devils. Ways to get See in Darkness include the advanced rogue talent by the same name, getting a Rod of Shadows, or playing a tiefling and taking Fiend Sight twice.

Wielding a rod of shadows could be tricky. You could use a one-handed weapon or get an extra arm to hold it in. If you fight in melee, you could also use the spellsword spell, which has a good duration.

Obscuring Conditions

Very few creatures can see through effects like obscuring mist, so if you can get some way to see through such effects yourself, you can gain very effective concealment.

If you're playing an Ifrit, you can take the Firesight racial feat to be able to see through smoke, then find some way to fill the fight with smoke, such as using a smokestick, either on its own or as an alchemical power component for an obscuring mist spell.

Ashen path cast on you will allow you to see through not only magical smoke but also magical fog and mist and similar obscuring effects, while a Goz Mask will work for even nonmagical obscuring conditions. Other ways to see through obscurement include the Murksight witch hex and the Water Sight revelation of the Waves mystery.

Obscuring mist is the obvious way to create obscuring conditions here, but you could also get a Saltspray Ring (GM permitting, it is from an Adventure Path) and have as much mist as you want, and it follows you.

Invisibility

A very obvious option is to use greater invisibility, although that only lasts a very short duration.

If you play a ninja, the vanishing trick ninja trick will let you get one sneak attack as a swift action, and later invisible blade will extend it to the whole fight, letting you get full attacks with sneak attack on every hit.

An Amulet of the Blooded can get you Fey bloodline powers as a 9th level sorcerer, including the ability to use greater invisibility for 9 rounds per day. The action to do this is unclear; since it isn't stated, RAW it's a standard action, but based on the comparable Illusion Wizard school power, I believe it should be a swift action.

I was looking over an old character I've been saving for when our table revisits 1e. He's a medium, one of the less immediately powerful classes that operates around a very limited resource, but gaining extreme day-to-day flexibility. I like the class because it can access and flourish in all arenas of play, whether that's combat, downtime, or exploration. They can even access 6th level spells from wizard, druid, and cleric, in addition to getting a spicy Wish capstone.

When a medium hits 5 Influence by using one of his many, many influence accruing abilities, he becomes an NPC under the GM's control. Now, that sounds really bad, mostly because it is. But most GM's are... probably not going to want to fully pilot a full PC in addition to everything else, especially not one so complicated as a medium. For some tables, that's enough to just soft-ban the class, but others might find some balance between player & gm control to keep it going. That's not really the point of the post, however.

The medium doesn't have a cap for their influence points - they just become an NPC at 5 or more. If your teammates included a pretty good face to influence the NPC to tag along for the rest of the day, there isn't really anything stopping the NPC Medium from just... using all of the influence abilities at every opportunity.

You can only Spirit Surge once per round, but there are a few other abilities of note. A trickster NPC can steal the buffs from any and everyone. Marshall NPCs can Decisive Strike twice per turn to give your team an extra attack and an extra standard action every turn. Archmage NPCs could just use Arcane Surge to cast free arcane spells of up to 6th level every single turn forever. Legendary spirits have some tricks too, and are likely much easier to bargain with than a new spirit each time. Cyricas can provide AoE Freedom of Movement to your whole team all day long. Stavian can double up on AoE healing or deprive enemies of heals going their way. Darolnyr can swift action teleport you and give the free spellcasts from archmage.

This is likely in no way practical information, I just thought it's an interesting blindspot on all the medium discussion posts I've seen.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/20504393

I couldn't find a good character sheet that's fully customizable without digging into complex formulas and reference tables, so I made my own. Feel free to use it or give feedback.

You're in combat, you've attacked twice, or cast a two-action spell. Now what do you do?

Give me your favourite niche builds, or options that you turn to with regularity regardless of character.

Hey all, recently it was brought up that pathfinder.social seems to be down, and for some time. So I went ahead and created a local community for all your pathfinder needs.

For now, this is a catchall for pathfinder, both 1e and 2e, if the need arises, we can always create another community to split, but I don't think it's that important right now.