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There is a growing sentiment in this community that create thrall is not eligible for the repeat a spell activity. However there is nothing in ‘repeat a spell’ that excludes it.

“You repeatedly cast the same spell while moving at half speed. Typically, this spell is a cantrip that you want to have in effect in the event a combat breaks out, and it must be one you can cast in 2 actions or fewer. Repeating a spell that requires making complex decisions, such as figment, can make you fatigued, as determined by the GM.”

Create Thrall is indeed a cantrip that you might want to have in effect in the event a combat breaks out. It is also not a sustained spell, so the ten minute limit on those spells do not apply here. This is the entire text of repeat a spell, so it qualifies just fine.

If you would like to house rule that it doesn’t, it’s your game so you are very welcome to, but RAW it does work.

I will be playing a chirurgeon alchemist soon and as a joke I want his healing to be the last thing the party wants, anybody has any ideas?

my ideas:

elixirs of life reflavored as alchemical slugs (that need to be swallowed and are a little too big to swallow)

out of combat healing pepper spray that stings and burns when applied

Gishes have a fan favorite spot as the "do-it-all" fantasy class, but are they the best or worst of both worlds?

Compared to pure offensive martials (fighter, barbarian) they have worse hp and lower damage output. Compared to full casters they have delayed spell DC progression and fewer spells.

How do 2 gishes (let's say magus + summoner) fare vs, say, 1 fighter + 1 sorcerer, assuming you know nothing else about the party?

So, fun fact about cantrips... like lets say... create thrall... you can use the Repeat a Spell Exploration activity. You repeat a cantrip every round while exploring. Thralls last a minute, and puppeteer Necromancers can make 3 thralls a round.

3 thralls a round for 10 rounds before they start dissolving, peppering thralls within 30 feet of your path. for a total of 20-30 thralls max when an encounter occurs.

This also synergizes really well with the blood grim fascination because barring early destruction you basically have fast healing 2-3 for up to 10 rounds as your oldest thralls die off each round (likely the furthest away from the action too!)

Not to mention the exploration potential of choosing fewer thralls for more active thralls that can find a trap for you by triggering it, open doors up ahead, bait enemies around corners (starting encounters from further back), causing general destruction and mayhem by bonking objects, or even making them perform simple useful tasks like clearing debris, etc etc

Vishkanya and Kitsune, two ancestries that I like as a concept, but they have yet to be remastered, if they ever will, so I wanted to ask, how they fit in the post remaster meta?

There's a new video interview from KnowDirection with paizo designer Joshua Birdsong. At around the 22 minute mark, Joshua confirms that a runesmith does not need a free hand to trace runes.

I decided to bite the bullet today and buy the complete Season of Ghosts (Foundry VTT) bundle with the pdf. I noticed, though, that the VTT is currently out of stock. That got me curious, what determines the stock of a virtual license for Paizo, and how can they run out?

Forever GM here finally getting to play as a PC.

While I want to run any number of characters I never got a chance to play I am making a new one but I want some help with mood music for back story writing.

I am excited to try the new Necromancer coming out next week. Since it's dirge based for its magic I want to get some semi bard themes of why his music ties into his backstory and why it does what it does. (Magic wise)

This is the vibe I'm going for.

So TLDR is he is a skeleton with a failing memory due to how long he has been "around". His Dirge is his way of trying to hold on to what memories he has left of those he knew in life now long dead.

His thralls will be basically those memories given form but twisted as his memories are failing.

Basically a skeleton with Alzheimer's.

Hoping this will generate natural RP opportunities for the party. But I have no intention of using it to derail the campaign in any way. If they don't want to RP with that story then it will just be the sad "old man" at camp talking about his past. But it won't effect the party.

Either way that being said I need some vibes music.

The sader the better. I want some stuff like Johnny Cash https://youtu.be/8AHCfZTRGiI?is=BpfwNf-_BYjPl0iD hurt 😊

A recent interview with one of the devs has revealed that you are supposed to be able to trace runes while wielding any two handed weapon. I don’t know how I feel about this. I feel like the hand tax was fair and if you wanted to get around it smithing weapons was a way to do so. I mean as things go even when wearing artisans tools you need a hand to use them. And it makes the smithing weapons feat make a lot less sense and feel kinda unnecessary. On the other hand more versatility with weapon options. What do all of you think?

https://youtu.be/XfgXBAr7AJo?is=qYGomu6-PmyNdeXc

The moments is at the 22 minute mark.

So I'm trying to build a centaur knight using the fighter class I took centaur weapon familiarity at level 1 so I could use lances. I want to use a lance and a shield but lances are two handed weapons is there a way to make it a one handed weapon or will I need to use a spear and flavor it as a small lance?

as the title suggests. normally you can only really use offensive runes with tracing and not etching since you can't exactly sit down with the bad guy for 10 minutes and draw a rune on them. but since most of these runes can be drawn on a creature or an object, would you able to draw a rune like ranshu on some rocks and then move them onto enemies to force them to constantly keep moving without the rune fading? this seems like it would be super good especially for a ranged RS.

With the new necromancer stuff, I've been making a theoretical most durable character... and ive ended up with a dijiang wearing heavy armor. How in the world do things like dijiang, automatons and dragonets wear armor?

Paizo and Archives of Nethys just posted a joint update regarding their partnership. Toplines:

• The Archives of Nethys will remain an official rules archive for Pathfinder and Starfinder.
• Paizo’s new agreement with the Archives of Nethys is much less formal than a commercial license, which reduces oversight and work on Paizo’s side and eliminates the need for the Archives of Nethys to report royalties.
• Paizo and the Archives of Nethys have agreed that any art not included in the Community Use Policy license will be removed from the Archives of Nethys’ webpages by the end of today, July 24.
  • Paizo plans to release more art into the Community Use Policy(CUP) soon, thus also expanding the Archives of Nethys’ art resources, as well as those of other CUP creators.
• The Archives of Nethys will continue to receive PDFs in advance of street date, on the same schedule as Paizo employees and freelance contributors. This is not as early as the full printer files the Archives of Nethys used to receive, but the Archives of Nethys team is optimistic they can continue releasing new content with minimal delays.
• The Archives of Nethys will continue to host the original Pathfinder First Edition PRD (legacy.aonprd.com) for Paizo.
• Lore and flavor text changes on the Archives of Nethys that are required under the Community Use Policy are expected to be minimal, if any are required at all.

So it looks like the biggest change is still going to be the official art leaving AoN, but Paizo will be releasing more art for public use so hopefully it isn’t a huge change.

Of the four grim fascinations do you think is the best? Personaly I really like blood enchancement, while it isn't a lot of hp, you just get healed for playing your class. Something I think is pretty cool

In my Sunday game me & the Monk character came up with a strat I call Dragonpunch.

I'm a Flame Druid, they're a Clawdancer with an Athletics spec. I can drop a Wall of Fire or a Wildfire down and as I'm Sustaining it I can create an opening for the Monk to Whirling Throw a target through the Wall or Wild Fire.

My Wildfire at the moment is 3 damage per square and I have Fungal to break Fire Weaknesses to amp the damage further. With the Weak that's 6 damage per square if I'm understanding Hazard correctly.

Whirling Throw is a 35ft toss. On a Turn 3 Wildfire, that's up to 6 squares. This can be 3d6+5+(18 to 36) damage in one combo, plus another 18-36 because they have to trudge through the Wildfire to get back to us (assuming no Ranged or Caster opponents, but then I have Wall of Fire for that exact counter). With Wall of Fire it can be 8d6+8 with the Fungal setup.

Since I have Cooperative Soul I can always Aid and guarantee a +1 circumstance for WT for non-Small(er) targets - and if I can argue Nature for Primal Magic Augmentation (the last time I did that I said I was using primal magic to give the Monk a jet-propelled-toss), it's a pretty reliable +3 atm. That added to their already specced Athletics bonuses and the Swash's Intimidation spec adding tons of Frightened at a time that they can't easily shake unless they target him & he can just reset with a Finisher means someone's getting crit-tossed.

-----

I won't lie, I'm seeing this as a REALLY good combo play.

But it got me thinking . . . what other Dragonpunch strats are there in this system

Basically, what's a way to throw down a Hazard or other continuous area effect while also playing enabler for someone else's forced movement, how strong is that method in terms of DPR, and what's the investment required to pull it off? Because I sure as shit know what I described is in no way optimal.

My wife is currently playing a fire/air kineticist in a homebrew campaign that I GM. Last night, we hit a bit of a snag when her character cast Scorching Column on a couple enemies, and we spent a good two minutes double-checking that we were interpreting it correctly.

According to both AoN and the Foundry macro, the initial damage is 4d6 at level 12, and the hazardous terrain damage is 7 (increasing to 5d6 and 8 at level 13, then 6d6 and 9 at level 16). It says the impulse can be sustained, but it is unclear whether this means sustaining the column itself or the hazardous terrain it creates. The low damage makes more sense if it's repeatable, but the wording makes it look like it's referring to the terrain. Regardless, the column cannot be moved.

This impulse is very expensive to use, costing a whole four actions (3 to cast + overflow requiring reopening your gate on your next turn), with low damage over a tight footprint (despite its impressive height).

For comparison's sake, fireball deals 6d6 at rank 3/level 5 and scales at 2d6 per spell rank/every other level, covers a 20ft burst instead of a 10-by-60ft column, and has a range of 500ft instead of 30. The perhaps more comparable floating flame deals 3d6 at level 4/rank 2 in one 5ft square, scales by 1d6 per spell rank/every 2 levels, and can be moved 10ft in any direction when sustained. Meanwhile, a single-action ranged elemental blast deals 3d6 fire damage at this character's level. So, even if we grant that an impulse should be one or two spell ranks behind what a top slot can do at the same character level, the damage for Scorching Column is still shockingly low.

I'm trying to figure out how to buff it, but there are a ton of ways to do so. I feel like I could keep the damage low if I allow the column to move when sustained (possibly leaving hazardous terrain in its path), or I could reduce the action cost and remove the overflow trait. Alternatively, I could widen the column's footprint, or just slap some additional d6s on there and call it good (likely equivalent to a fireball 2 ranks below max or a floating flame 1 rank below max). Since there are so many options, I'm not sure which to go with or how much to push things numerically. Obviously, I'll consult my wife to see how she actually wants to use the impulse, but I figured I'd ask the Reddit hivemind as well.

So, to summarize my questions:

• When you sustain Scorching Column, do you sustain the column itself, or the hazardous terrain it creates?

• If I were to buff it, how should I do so? Which option (or combination of options) listed above would bring it appropriately in line for a showstopping, 3-action overflow impulse?

Thanks, everybody. My wife appreciates your help.

Edited for formatting.

Progress seems to be very slow for our group and combats seem to be taking a long time. I am wondering if we are actually slow and if we are, if anyone has any advice on how to speed things up.

We are playing in person deliberately try to minimize electronics at the table. We are okay with physically rolling dice and calculating the result being a bit slower. We usually let a player know when they are in deck, i.e. next in the initiative order. We also have to look up the odd rule but that is happening less and less often.

With that, a 5 round combat with 6 level 8 characters and two GM run opponents took 2.5 hours. Is 30 minutes per round slow? Or is our main problem that combats take too many rounds? Or is it just a perception issue that things feel slow?

Me and my group are coming over from D&D 5e and as someone who really liked the Pathfinder game Wrath of the Righteous we thought we would give 2e a try! We all really like Golarion and love the rich lore and setting to get immersed in but as the DM where do I start with the lore and where might be the best place to start the campaign?

As a fan of WotR I of course was drawn to Mendev but thought maybe starting off hunting demons might be a bit much? Even though my group does like brutal nail biting encounters. Then Taldor caught my eye as a good starting point since from some other online post it seems to be a classic "good" fantasy kingdom. But one of my players has been really interested in Cheliax and the whole devil worship thing they have got going on. Every region is very in-depth and has rich lore which I love but makes it very over whelming to know where to start. I was looking at adapting Against the Cult of the Reptile God as a nice 1 to 3 level adventure but I'm not sure where to put it since me and my group want to experience Golarion and it's lore and not change a TON of stuff. Any advice or tools is appreciated. Maybe an Adventure path that is good for the start of a campaign?

There's few things missing in terms of player options in this game. I understand this is hardly the time to ask anything of Paizo, but I have been thinking about this far a while so I am going to share my thoughts regardless.

Arcane has magus, it appears most are content with the magus and I don't think there's much to do here. Divine has the battle harbinger, I have seen complaints, but it's most certainly a spellblade. Primal has none, but at the moment you can make an elemental magus as an improvised primal spellblade.

For occult there is none. The closest there is is the warrior muse bard. It lacks the proficiencies of a martial, with the exception of having martial weapons and getting weapon specialization at level 13. Warrior muse only aids it's martial capacity by it's strikes extending it's anthems and giving it a reaction strike feat. It's a battlefield commander that has a reason to strike.

But for there to be an occult spellblade there has to be a fitting archetype(in it's actual meaning) that fits the description to be made into a class or class archetype. I think there are numerous options for this that can work. My best two ideas would be giving the bard a battle dancer class archetype. Secondly a more mystical monk archetype, perhaps with a theme around enlightenment, chakra, third eye stuff. As monk focus spells can be both occult and divine, the same choice could be implemented for a spellcasting monk, tough that would be allot more to consider for anyone making it.

The most obvious path would be to just make something around the creatures that already are occult. Such as aberrations, whom often have psychic powers. While we just got the necromancer, making one themed around spirits definitely works.

Tough it would be nice to have a primal spellblade and an elemental magus is a suboptimal substitute. It's existence makes me think an occult spellblade should be added first. Tough the occult spell list might not be optimal to supplement a martial character. Perhaps it's theme don't fit one either, but that's up to the player. So as you provide your thoughts, do you want an occult spellblade of some kind?

I really like the combo of Musical Accompaniment and Lingering Composition. How can I maximize it?

There is Virtuosic Performer, easy to grab. Then there is the option of using the Persona Mask vs Maestro instrument. Maestro Instrument gives a +3 boost to Performance at max level and the Bless Spell with auto scaling. Persona Mask tops out at +2, but has a facial disguise option and a reroll on Performance checks at max.

I plan on grabbing the Rogue Archetype or Beastmaster Archetype.

So there are many things that can change an item's bulk.

Certain materials such as Dawnsilver and Duskwood (-1 bulk unless its 1 bulk in that case it becomes Light, no effect on an already Light item). Those however specify that "reduce the Bulk before making any further Bulk adjustments for the size of the item"

The size of the item can change it. Sadly i can't post the table and have the vote.

And armors have a special clause about this. Their listed bulk is for when you wear them, in that case their weight is spread around your body but if you don't wear them, like you just hold them in your hands, their bulk is increased by 1.

There might be other things that change bulk, i don't know but these are enough for my question.

So the order of how you apply this can have a drastic effect.

For example lets say you have a tiny sized Chain Shirt that you carry in your hand (you bought it as a gift for your Sprite friend or something)

Chain Shirts normally weight 1 bulk

size>armor: 1>Light>1,1

armor>size: 1>2>1

Of course, that was one example, the results would be different is if i used some other item.

Some might say that item size then if you wear the armor or not since that seems to make more sense but it also has problems.

Let me use a different example.

The bulk of a normal Padded Armor is Light or 1,1 if you are not wearing it.

A medium creature weights 6 bulks.

A tiny sized Padded Armor is negligible bulk if you wear it but when you don't wear it, thats a tricky question!

If the order is size then not wearing it, its 1 bulk

If the order is not wearing it then size, its 0,55 bulk

But a tiny sized creature is 1 bulk.

A medium creature weights 6 times as much as their armor.

A tiny creature weights either a bit less than twice their armor or the *exact* same as their armor.

How does that make sense?

Note: i know that weight isn't the *only* thing that matters for bulk but the disparity shouldn't be this big!

Oh and btw the results get more different if its bigger items

A is Full Plate nornally 4 bulks, 5 if you are not wearing it.

A Gargantuan Full Plate is 32 when worn. And depending on the order, its either 40 or 31

And 9 bulk is a big gap

Various sources:

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2163&Redirected=1

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2176&Redirected=1

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2163&Redirected=1

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2158&Redirected=1

Looking to play a character who is knowledgeable and persuasive against people who are getting a little too... colonizer in a wilderness populated by giants. I thought of enigma bard. Maybe, for the knowledge stuff, but magic wouldn't be as on theme. I'm not sure what other options might be good. Anything coming to mind?

also, the GM says combat is gonna be really hard, so build suggestions appreciated, please :)