Also, since I saw him typing (hi @Rando!), our GM may have other perspectives on things. There are more hard rules in Pf2e than 5e, but less than Pf1e, and there is still a lot of room for GM rulings even before getting into houserule changes.
I did a (very) brief review in Fantasy Grounds of range and movement calculation on a grid and it appears to match the math as outlined in the Core Rulebook though I’m not 100% sure. Regardless, we’ll be using the FG math to do calculations for distances and movement.
We are using circular tokens, but the grid in game is (obviously) square. When those circular tokens are placed on the combat tracker in FG as well as on an image/map with a grid, they are given a coloured background indicating their status compared to the party, i.e. friendlies get a green background, neutrals are yellow, and hostiles are red. The coloured background behind the token fits all of the squares behind the token, i.e. a medium creature takes up an entire 5’ square, while a large creature takes up 2x2 squares (10’) and a huge creature takes up 3x3 squares (15’), etc.
In contradiction to the rules as outlined in the Core Rulebook, we’ll be using those coloured background squares to do our math with, then:
- Reach is determined by placing a larger square on top of the coloured background of the appropriate horizontal/vertical dimension. This means that reach will hit further on diagonals compared to the core rules. i.e. a medium creature token fits in a 5’ square, if they had 5’ reach we’d place a 3x3 square pointer* on top of said token to determine what they can hit. Any other token background adjacent to that 3x3 square is hittable.
- Range will be determined by measuring the distance between the closest “corners” of the two backgrounds (or squares if determining range to a non-token) in question.
- FG has the ability add pointers in the game on all maps/images in the shape of arrows (which we’ll use to measure distances), squares, circles, and cones
For example:
Here we have Rocky and Alys engaged with 4 huge (3x3 or 15’ size) elephants. (Alys’ token is offset improperly from the grid so we can read the range on the arrow pointer correctly.)
- Pretending Alys is using a reach weapon (the pink square), according to our rules Alys can hit both elephant A and B in melee.
- Alys’ range to Elephant D is 35’ as indicated by the pink arrow pointer.
- As has been pointed out to me via PM, Rocky’s circle is actually smaller according to the core rules than indicated in the picture. He can not hit either Elephant C or D. In our rules he could.
Area effect spells, (i.e. bursts, cones, and lines - please don’t use “line” spells!) will use the built in circular and cone pointers of FG per normal. We’ll have to eyeball and adjudicate who is hit/affected by those on a case-by-case basis.
Converting between polar and Cartesian coordinates is always phun ™!
And shoot… I should have shown an example of reach on one of the elephants showing how damn f’ng big a square centered on them goes. But you get the idea. Our reach is going to be waaaay bigger than the core rules reach. This is for ease of play/math.
As for character development stuff I’m not getting involved! 
If the character option you want is available in the modules we have access to:
- Core Rulebook
- AoA Players Guide
- Lost Omens World Guide
- Lost Omens Character Guide (ancestry feats only)
then it’s fair game.
The only caveat being obviously evil shit is verboten; your characters are supposed to be the heroes of the adventure path.
I’l have the server up tonight around 6:00 EDT and I’ll be in Discord as well. Oh and ignore the image and explanation on reach and range above. Overly confusing. I’ll explain/show tonight what I mean in FG/Discord.
I believe my build is done and ready to. Also think my character is all good to go in Fantasy Grounds for Thursday. Trying to think of anything I missed and pretty sure it is all set up.
I’ll just put this here to document my plans at this point: newsheet2(1).pdf (1.0 MB)
New background writeup:
“Shine”, being a verb in the Taldan common tongue, is almost certainly not the real name of this young woman of Nidalese descent.
She is slight of build, and wears form fitting armor perfect for sneaking about with a hood to protect her from the elements. Her skin is ashen gray, and her short, almost boyish dark hair frames a face with high cheekbones and piercing black irises. Some might say she is attractive. Even so, her presence can be decidedly unsettling, as she bears the marks of Zon Kuthon’s favored.
Not too long ago, apparently guided by recurring dreams of a purple butterfly, she left Nidal and has travelled to Breachill to aid a cleric of Desna. Whether her story is real or made up is anyone’s guess. Only the bonds forged among comrades in battle will reveal the truth.
Here are some of the sorts of things she might say depending on the circumstances:
These high and mighty hell knights are pretty pleased with themselves. Too bad I nicked their keys while they were busy guzzling boiling water.
The Harrow Cards can’t tell your future. You’re future is up to you. The cards open a window to your soul, so you can see yourself for who you are and what you need to do. Here, let me show you!
Desna has brought me here to aid her followers in any way I can.
Sometimes when I sleep, I can hear the midnight lord whispering to me. I can feel his icy fingers around my throat. Will he never let me go?
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So I’ve been replaying Thursday night’s session in my head a bit and one thing that’s occurred to me is that I should’ve been hiding. Given that there were benches everywhere feel like it would’ve made sense.
Also, it occurs to me that at some point, I will want to use some crafted poisons. I believe there is a specialty crafting feat needed for that? @Cortillaen, will you be taking that feat? If not, I will need to pick up crafting myself and drop something else… maybe nature… not sure.
On that note, @Rando, since I haven’t used any of my skills yet, would you be opposed to me swapping out one of my current skills for crafting?
Poisons are Alchemical items, so they need the Alchemical Crafting feat. I wasn’t planning on taking that one since it doesn’t offer access to many items that seem worth the feat tax; when potions and scrolls cover most of the same space. I can probably work it in, though.
Some considerations around crafting poisons:
- The cost of using poisons regularly is significant. Check out the costs at https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?Category=6&Subcategory=9. Those are each for a single dose. I think they’re best in the 5-10 range where they have some good effects but before the prices start getting crazy.
- Crafting items doesn’t make them cost less unless you can put a lot of time into it and the GM works with you a bit. The way crafting works, you spend 4 days and 50% of the cost of the item, then make a Crafting check. If you succeed, you can either A) pay the other 50% of the cost, or B) spend additional time reducing the cost at the same rate as doing the Earn Income action. For B, you use your Crafting check result and your level on this table: https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=23 Someone could instead just Earn Income for the full time (the Crafter gets nothing for those first 4 days) and come out ahead simply buying the item if they can get a task of their level. And the Crafter also has to buy or acquire the recipe, which is 10% the cost of the item.
- You can craft consumables like poisons in batches of up to 4, but it always takes 4 days minimum to craft.
- Poisons are (without exception as far as I know) good for only one use per dose: one shot with a ranged weapon (hit or miss), or one hit with a melee weapon (a miss doesn’t waste the poison, but a critical miss does).
- You can only put poisons with the Injury trait on weapons. Other delivery methods include Ingested and Inhaled.
- Many poisons have the Incapacitation trait. The tl;dr of that is they basically don’t work on bosses. Longer explanation: Any creature with a level higher than the poison’s (for spells, it’s “higher than twice the spell level”) treats their saves against it as one step better than what they actually rolled. Considering Fortitude saves tend to be pretty decent to begin with and bosses will have a +1-4 bonus from their higher level, this means they will usually get a critical success around 60-75% of the time, a failure only 5% of the time, and a success the rest of the time.
- Many poisons are Uncommon or worse rarity, so they require GM approval and special circumstances to get the formula for them.
- The Alchemist is really the one best able to use poisons consistently since they can poof a bunch of them into existence every day for free. The Alchemist archetype can also do this, but you end up with poisons roughly 5 levels behind, which means DCs 5-7 behind. Rogues can really benefit from a friendly full Alchemist in the party.
I’m not saying don’t use them, but it probably makes more sense to use them very sparingly and just rely on purchasing them when needed. If you’re sure you want to use them regularly, I can drop one of the extra lores I was going to pick up and grab Alchemical Crafting instead.
@Rando - Crafting is something that requires some consideration on your part since the rules leave it all up in the air. The CRB offers 2 pieces of contradictory guidance: 1) the two examples of Earn Income on page 237, where both examples give the player Earn Income tasks way above their level; and 2) the Earn Income section of the downtime GMing rules on page 504-505, which says the highest-level task available for Earn Income is usually the same as the level of the settlement the PC is in (usually 0–1 for a village, 2–4 for a town, 5–7 for a city, and 8-10 for a metropolis or capital). One other data point is that PFS (Pathfinder Society organized play rules) pegs Earn Income at character level -2.
In any case, Crafting always uses the character’s level for the task level. So if other characters regularly have opportunities to Earn Income at their character level or higher, the Crafter gets screwed because they are stuck wasting 4 days every time, buying a recipe, and earning at a fixed level. And this is on top of the Crafter needing to invest 1/3 of their skill increases (for non-Rogues) and multiple skill feats (2-4, usually). My personal take is that the PFS guidelines look good to give Crafters a reasonable return on the substantial investment Crafting takes.
I was thinking of alchemical crafting as way to generate the occasional poison to boost damage for key fights but if the rules don’t really support it very well then maybe its not worth it. Still seems like it would be fun though plus we might also benefit from a few potions more generally.
Good point on earn income. I don’t have a way for Shine to do that currently. Technically I do have shadow plane lore, but its hard to imagine many customers for that 
I think the earliest I can fit Alchemical Crafting in is 6th level. I have to take Quick Repair for my shield at 2nd and Magical Crafting for runes and everything else at 4th first. I also put together a chart of all the Injury poisons currently available to give a better idea of what’s really available for poisoning weapons: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WkeoGA-QDwWJOAthk19-q0QQ4xi895qGyoyydcOwwZg/edit?usp=sharing I’m assuming you’ve read the Afflictions section on pages 457-458 so the stages and max duration make sense.
It’s up to you whether you think poisons are going to be worth it. It looks like Lethargy Poison is the only one that suffers from the Incapacitation trait, but if any creature makes it’s initial save against a poison, the poison does nothing. I just scanned through creatures of level 5 and level 10, averaged the Fortitude saves of each group, and compared them to the best poison available at a level 2 below that (so level 3 for the 5s and 8 for the 10s) to simulate using a poison on a moderate boss creature (bosses being party level +1-4):
- For using a lv3 poison on a lv5 boss, you will have a DC19 save, and the creatures of that level average +12.6 on their Fort saves. This means they will be unaffected on an initial saving roll of 6 or better. There are also 4 different creatures (of 26; I didn’t count their saves into the average) at this level that are immune to poison, mostly undead and elementals.
- For using a lv8 poison on a lv10 boss, you will have a DC26 save, and the creatures of that level average +20.6 on their Fort saves. This means they will be unaffected on an initial saving roll of 5 or better. There are also 2 different creatures (of 23) at this level that are immune to poison and 2 more that have resistance to poison damage.
- Naturally, using poisons on creatures of your own level or lower will have better odds of success, but it looks like the creature will have to be at party level -2 or -3 for a poison of our level to have roughly even odds of affecting them.
- Also note that these are just averages of Fort saves, including creatures you should know will have high Fort saves and therefore know not to try poisons on. For example, if you’re using a poison on a Troll, you get about what you deserve.
Saves appear to range about ±5 around the average, mostly sticking within 3.
There are also Contact poisons, which just require a touch, but they all have Onset periods of 1 minute, so they’re useless in combat. Inhaled poisons might be useful in combat, depending on how Rando rules they can be used. They have Onset periods of only 1 round, so if you can throw a vial and have it shatter and release the poison, it could affect someone in combat. Ingested poisons have obvious issues in combat and also typically have Onset periods of 10min.
One other thing to consider is the time cost in making poisons: I’ll have a lot of other things to craft (runes, magic items, scrolls/wands, etc), and each batch of one type of poison still incurs that 4-day tax (unless @Rando wants to be a benevolent GM and change that >_>). The 4-day tax on a single consumable is why I won’t be making very many scrolls. It’s pretty stupid in my opinion; consumables should have just been 1 day for the initial crafting period.
I noticed someone else (or is it?) looking at the same issue on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/dxfe3z/building_a_ranged_poisoner_character/
Hehe, that wasn’t me! Though I did (to me eternal regret and shame) post this bundle of self pity: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/dwzzw5/rogues_what_are_they_good_for/
Apologies in advance, I was pretty discouraged when I wrote that.
Looks like I got some more advice on rogue builds so that’s good at least. Pretty much my entire character concept rests on stealth being a workable game mechanic so I guess we’ll see how that pans out.
As for the poison, I’m just trying to think of other ways to make my character useful and/or fun to play.
I can absolutely say Rogues are fun to play (to me, at least), though that is based on mine focusing on melee. Sadly, ranged Rogues just aren’t well supported right now, though we’ll see if that changes as more things are released (maybe one of the upcoming 56 new archetypes in the APG will help XD). In any case, Rogues can have solid damage once they get a consistent source of Flat-Footed online, and they can afford to pick up so many different skill feats. If you get in melee with Gang Up later, you will almost certainly out-damage everyone in the party since we don’t have a Fighter or Barbarian to compete with you. For ranged, maybe talk with Rando about tweaking the rules to apply some of the melee-focused stuff to range as well (maybe skipping the Thief’s Dex-to-damage so there is still a cost for being at range) or making ranged copies of some of the melee-only feats? I can’t see it breaking anything since you’ll be using the same stats .
Also note that the mephit was a lv1 creature (assuming it’s the same kind Wizards can summon), meaning it was roughly an even match for any one of us. Typically, on-level enemies will have better raw AC, saves, and attack bonuses than we do, under the expectation that we use class features and tactics to even the odds. They’re intended to be elite minions or even low-grade minibosses.
As for stealth, these rules are, in my opinion, the best we’ve ever seen in a game like this. They allow some inventive tricks as you level, and hopefully the APand our GM will provide opportunities for you to shine with it. Also, don’t judge by the first few levels. Rogues start off kinda slow but pick up a lot of really neat stuff as they level.
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My big take away from last Thursday, do not take that encounter as a good example of how you can expect your characters to perform. It was one singular crappy encounter (which isn’t quit done yet…) that doesn’t really tell us very much.
If anyone is interested in making changes to their character, however, now is the time do it. Actually, I would suggest waiting until after this coming Thursday when we get into the adventure proper, then we can do some “real” encounter both combat and social and you can see how the game really plays with your characters. If you don’t like something after that, then go ahead and change it/character.
I honestly haven’t looked at the downtime stuff yet since I figured I’d have time before that became a thing, i.e. the end of the module. But, of course that stuff is going to affect your character builds so I’ll take a look and get back to y’all Thursday.
One thing I do know, I don’t want to make any changes to any rules in the game as currently written. Part of this campaign is to genuinely get a feel for how Pathfinder (2.0) performs without having to house rule stuff. I’m not making any changes to the modules/adventure path either, as you can tell from the stupid fire encounter…
In any event, I’ll put the server up early on Thursday.
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@Rando we have a session this week, right? Are we going to skip next week?
Yes we’re on for tomorrow, is there something going on I don’t know about?
Next week… is that American Thanksgiving?