So very often, these types of questions remain fully mired in the realm of naked mechanics, but I find it helpful to imagine what’s actually happening in the fiction. The mechanics are there to aid the fiction at the table, after all. So, what’s taking place during Stay Down!? How is the creature keeping the target down? To me, this has real “stomp” energy, where the user is putting their foot on the target’s back, or dropping a knee on them, or something, while yelling at them to stay down. The target tries to get up, but is forced back down to the ground before they can really move – after all, if the prone creature can get up into a plank position, or up onto their hands and knees, it becomes significantly harder to force them back into a prone position. That is to say, it happens very early. Reactive Strike, on the other hand, is about looking for openings to strike, where the target has let their guard slip (or abandoned it altogether). This is why it applies when the target is trying to stand – it’s very hard to defend yourself from a determined attacker when you’re transitioning from lying prone to getting into almost any other position. But when the first creature uses Stay Down, they are functionally putting themselves between the target and anyone else who might want to strike. An ally might not want to take the chance in this situation, particularly since the fiction is not “attacking someone who’s being held down”, but “attacking at the same time that your ally is getting in the way”. Topple Foe, on the other hand, is entirely about taking advantage of a distracted or staggered target and trying to sweep or tackle them to the ground. And unlike Stay Down! and Reactive Strike in the first example, it doesn’t even have the same mechanical trigger as the reaction you’re trying to pair it with. This is just a pure tag team shine spot.

That’s a great observation about how the Rogue’s Key Ability interacts with Pathbuilder. It’s good to see fixes coming through, even if there are still a few quirks like the Rogue DC defaulting to Dexterity. Updates like this really help improve the overall experience. I also recently noticed improvements in other tools I use, like the YCC365 Plus app update, which shows how small adjustments can make a big difference for users.

Trailguide

You can’t take a feat multiple times, unless it states so in the “Special” section of the feat description, which Adopted Ancestry does not. So, this is just a bug in Pathbuilder.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/35472904

The head of the Pathfinder Society is a group of 10 individuals called the Decimverate. Below them are the heads of local lodges called Venture-Captains who call Pathfinders to go adventuring.

Game Guide

Trailblazer?

Path Master / Path Maker are probably the most spot on here, though it is missing some spice … how about Journey Master, just to phonetically spite wotc lol JM

Venture-Captain seems like the obvious one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ-u5JRijFY Narrative Declaration runs several Pathfinder 2e-based Actual Plays, most notably its flagship show Rotgrind. This is an animation of a scene from one of their episodes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j25U6F9t0w SBG talks about why so many people get cranky about the Wizard, and how assumptions about what makes for good and bad adventure design impact players’ perception of Prepared Casters in PF2e. Spoiler: The big factor is whether people actually prepare for their encounters or not, and whether they’re even given the opportunity to do so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOLNLAXakY4 A good and fairly short discussion on new player expectations when it comes to slotted full casters, and class baselines.

hell yeah thank you. Still getting this wrong sometimes. I’m a GM and my players aren’t huge rule nerds so the bureaucratic burden falls on me more often than not

probably boils down to having 14" laptop screen *looks shiftily at my 12.9 inch iPad*

There are a lot of tradeoffs there. I agree with the resitances but its not like they get the strike and the move. Its resistances plus an extra effect and the guardian can get reactive strike. Granted that means the champions reaction is essentially two things were as the guardian has to use an action and a reaction to get a similar level of effect. I will have to mull this but its starting to make me thing guardian with champion archetype.

One of the things that people new to the system kind of trip over – in multiple areas of the game, but Stealth is one of the most common ones – is that the rules make sense from the perspective of someone actually doing the thing. They’re not simulating the process by any means, but they’re much, much closer to trying to (or at least look like they’re trying to) than people seem prepared for. Or that people pick up on on first reading. So many of the rules are written in a deeply systematized way, and if you’re not used to discussing or building systems, it can all seem really wordy and complex. It all really just boils down to a few questions, though (hence the flow charts): Is there anything obstructing the view between Creature A and Creature B that would make it a little bit difficult to discern where the other character’s edges are? If so, the other creature is Concealed. Is there anything making it so that one creature cannot see the other? e.g. did Creature B duck behind a fully opaque wall and are they standing away from the edge? Then they’re Hidden. If Creature B is standing right at the edge of the wall, you should assume they are still visible, in part. This just gives them cover. The ‘Hide’ action represents making an effort to be fully occulted by cover. If Creature A loses sight of Creature B (e.g. they ducked deep behind a wall, or they took cover and hid) and then Creature B moves stealthily, then Creature A no longer knows where Creature B is. Creature A now no longer able to detect Creature B. Picture yourself in a little wooded glade. Unbeknownst to you, I’m approaching in an attempt to ambush you. You hear something in the woods, but you can’t see what it is, and you can’t tell exactly where it was. That means I’m Undetected. If you were to enter the woods and catch a glimpse of me as I duck behind a tree, that would mean you know where I am. If you can see parts of me poking out from behind hte tree, I’ve lost all stealth, but if you can’t see me, I am Hidden. From there, if I successfully sneak away from the tree without you noticing, you no longer know where I am, and I’m Undetected once more. On the other hand, if I slip from the tree to behind a bush, where you can see me through the leaves, I’m now Concealed.

Mostly my characters have been wolves, bandits, and vampires, or shopkeepers, town guards, and political leaders.

Which version of Pathfinder? 1e and 2e are pretty different. In 2e, Fireball is on the Arcane and Primal spell lists, so it’s accessible to Elemental, Fey, Genie, Imperial, Nymph, and various Draconic sorcerers (Adamantine, Fortune, Horned, and Mirage). See the sorcerer bloodlines here. I can’t speak to 1e.

If I could choose, I’d probably pick elf for the reasons you listed, and sorcerer because blowing stuff up is cool.