In games like Magic the Gathering, you’re building your decks less around cool singular abilities, creatures and spells, and more about orchestrating a moment of critical mass where you can overwhelm and guarantee victory. Pathfinder 2e has some similarity to this kind of building, where the idea is less to make a situation where every time you X, Y happens, which triggers Z procs, and more to stack bonuses and penalties to artificially create critical successes for your team, then figuring out which ability or spell to best make use of that setup. For example, the ideal combat set-up against a boss fight on a balcony might be Heroism 9 on the fighter from the cleric, Synesthesia on the enemy from the bard, a Gust of Wind from the wizard to inflict prone, all culminating in a Brutish Shove off the ledge from the fighter.

However, the big appeal for TTRPGs for me is that not everything you can do needs to touch combat like in a traditional RPG video game. I’m particularly interested in strategies that help you traverse environments, interacting with people you wouldn’t ordinarily be able to get a word in edgewise with, and bypass dangerous encounters entirely.

In this vein, I think Protector Tree and Shape Wood are a great couple of spells for any primalist to learn and prepare on the regular. Protector Tree creates a really nice damage mitigation tool in combat, but it also sprouts a permanent (unworked) medium sized tree! That’s only kind of neat, but becomes a valuable resource when paired with the Shape Wood spell, which just so happens to require a bunch of unworked wood to be useful! Now, so long as you have both of these spells in equal measure, you can fabricate wooden items that you ordinarily wouldn’t be able to bring with you on adventures for dirt cheap. Ladders, steps, platforms, wheels, axles - you’ve basically got a low-tech Garry’s mod at your disposal! If you need a cart to move massive loot, a few casts and some basic assembly and a Form-Retention’d Wildshape will get that Mithril Door from the dungeon back to town.

Are there any spells, items, or abilities you’ve found useful when used together like this? I’d be eager to hear them!