PATHFINDER 2ND EDITION BEGINNER'S GUIDE: WEAPONS! (Feat. Basics4gamers)

howdy my name is nonat and today i'll be going over the basics of weapons in pathfinder 2nd edition the most common action in a combat encounter is the strike action and most of the time these strikes will be made with a weapon depending on the weapon you're wielding the strike can change in a multitude of ways so many ways in fact that i won't be able to cover it alone here to assist in my explanation today is basics for gamers along with helping me in this video i helped him in creating a companion video if you go check out his channel you'll find a video covering everything about armor in pathfinder 2e he also has a multitude of videos covering so many obscure topics in the system like the details of stealth and perception definitely go check him out also i'd like to point out that we're specifically going over the properties of weapons themselves not the rules of attack rolls if you'd like to see attack rolls and damage explained in depth check out basics for gamer's video right in the corner to start off all weapons are classified into one of three categories simple martial and advanced weapons your character class will determine your starting proficiency usually spellcasters only begin proficient in simple weapons and martial classes begin proficient with simple and martial weapons the only class that begins trained and advanced weapons is fighters weapons will also be classified as either common or uncommon uncommon weapons are unavailable at character creation unless you have a feat or ability that specifically grants you access to them this mainly applies to ancestry's specific weaponry which i'll be covering later the first aspect of a weapon that will likely draw your eye is the damage die every weapon comes with either a d4 d6 d8 d10 or a d12 damage dice and that determines the dice you roll when dealing damage with that weapon every weapon also deals a specific type of damage either slashing piercing or bludgeoning at their core these all function the same way but certain creatures may have resistances or weaknesses to these types of damage such as a skeleton's resistance to slashing and piercing but lack of resistance to bludgeoning damage ranged weapons function the same way however they have two additional elements to look at range and reload range isn't quite as simple as it seems what you see here is the weapon's range increment if an enemy is within that increment the weapon works as normal but when attacking an enemy beyond that increment the attack starts to take penalties for every range incremental way that an enemy is the attacker takes a -2 penalty to hit so if an enemy is 300 feet away and an attack is made with a long bow the attacker would take a -4 penalty as the longbow has a range increment of 100 feet the reload value on a ranged weapon represents the number of actions it takes to prepare the weapon for use again for example after firing a heavy crossbow the user must spend two actions reloading it in order to attack with it again each weapon will also require one or two hands to wield it some like the katana can be wielded in either one or two hands and its damage die changes depending on how it's used next to the number of hands you'll see that each weapon falls into a weapon group weapon groups are a way for the game to classify similar weapons as being like one another for example lance's spears and tridents are all long piercing weapons so they're grouped together in the spear group these groupings mean nothing on their own but some feats and other abilities make reference to them for example fighter weapon mastery lets you increase your proficiency rank when using one specific weapon group rather than for all simple weapons or all martial weapons after all if you are really good with daggers then odds are you'll be pretty good with clan daggers too technically they're different weapons but they belong to the same weapon group the other major benefit of weapon groups is that each group has a special effect that can be applied to critical hits known as its critical specialization when a character scores a critical hit with a weapon and has access to that weapon's critical specialization they may choose to add that critical specialization effect to the normal results of a critical hit such as double damage or they can choose not to add that critical specialization effect all weapons within the same group have the same critical specialization effect so all clubs whether they be light maces or saps or bow staffs all grant the option of knocking an enemy back up to 10 feet in addition to dealing double damage on a critical hit but the first point to always remember about critical specialization effects is that they do not occur unless you have an ability or effect that specifically says they do for example the second level monk feat brawling focus grants access to critical specialization effects in the brawling group so if a monk without this feat scores a critical hit they only deal double damage but if a monk has this feat and scores a critical hit with an unarmed fist attack they deal double damage and may choose to also inflict the target with the slowed one condition unless they pass a fortitude save the final aspect of weapons we'll touch on is weapon traits listed on the far right of the weapons table you can see all of the traits that each weapon has these traits can either be bonuses or penalties and each has its own unique effect there are almost two full pages of weapon traits so i won't be going over all of them in depth here but i will cover a few weapons so you have an idea of how they work looking at the short sword it has the agile finesse and versatile s traits an agile weapon only suffers from a -4 multiple attack penalty on the second attack instead of the normal -5 and only -8 for the third attack finesse allows the user to use their dexterity modifier instead of strength as their bonus to hit and versatile s means the user can choose to deal slashing damage instead of the normal short swords piercing the great axe contains the sweep trait meaning the user gains a plus one to hit their target if they already attacked a different target that same turn and like i said some of these traits are penalties such as the longbow's volley 30 feet this effect causes longbow attacks on targets within 30 feet to take a -2 penalty finally there's a special kind of weapon trait that doesn't have an official name but i refer to them as ancestry traits traits such as dwarf elf or goblin are only found on uncommon weapons and specifically relate to the weapon familiarity feats from those ancestries so the dog slicer being an uncommon goblin weapon can only be purchased and used at character creation if the character has the goblin weapon familiarity ancestry feat and that's about it obviously there's dozens more traits and weapon groups to go over but you can find all of that info right in your core rulebook i enjoy the diversity and difference each weapon receives thanks to these traits it allows players to look at more than just the damage die when picking a weapon for their character i want to give a huge thanks to basics for gamers for helping out with this video there's a link in the description to his companion video covering armor as well as his channel definitely go check him out it was a ton of fun putting this all together if you like what you saw consider subscribing and ring the bell to know exactly when the next video goes up i'd like to give a shout out to troy hughes paul rand quid thulu and the rest of my fantastic patrons there are links in the description to my patreon our community discord as well as my twitter i hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day and until next time no nat ones

Channel: Nonat1s

Views: 11,710

Keywords: pathfinder, 2e, 2nd, edition, guide, Pathfinder 2e, Pathfinder 2e Basics, Easy to Follow, Pathfinder 2nd Edition, Pathfinder Second Edition, Paizo, Pathfinder Beginner's Guide, Pathfinder 2e tutorial, Pathfinder 2e Weapons, Pathfinder Weapons, Pathfinder 2e Weapon Traits, 2e Weapon Traits, Pathfinder Weapon Groups, Basics4gamers, Pathfinder 2e Crit Specialization, Pathfinder 2e Basics4gamers, Pathfinder 2e Ranged Weapons

Id: 7J9riwbrP3M

Length: 8min 35sec (515 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 02 2020