What do we want Martial characters to be capable of?

[Crayon]

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

I want low level martials to be skilled, strong warriors, and high level martials to be gilgamesh, Beowulf, Hercules level. Low Anime level works great too, really some of the myths are right on par with anime anyway. I don't need them blowing up planets, but high street or mountain level would be great.

I also want them to be able to say "true power comes from within," and not have someone point out that they're covered in magic items. I want them to be able to rely on their own strength rather than magic items without signing their own death warrants.

I'd argue none of the characters you cite are above 6th or 7th level which I think is the larger problem with high level characters there just aren't any good stories to model them after. You either have them do the same stuff they were doing at low-level or you pull lame Beowulf stuff and sic them on the monster's grandmother for some reason...

My own preferred solution is to cap levels, but maybe revising the rate at which abilities are acquired would be better. Make level 20 analogous to the old level 10 in terms of character power?

[shroudb]

Kraynic wrote:

shroudb wrote:

The point of it being an ability is to give more power to the one having it, not to give him more headaches.

so, yeah, if your DM is a jerk that can't balance s~+@, then every ability is terrible.

so, in short:

Quote:

leadership: level 12 ability.
A small amount (about a village) of competant people follow your lead. This increases to a medium amount of people (the size of a city) at 15 and to a large (the size of a capital) at 18.

You can relegate tasks to them according to their expertise.

You can pick up 2 tasks out of *this list* at 12. At 15 you can pick 2 more and the list is expanded to *this*. At 18 you can pick 4 more and the list is expanded to *this*.

there you have it. If you picked "scouting"* from the list, your GM can't say "nah, they died" anymore than he can say to the cleric "nah, your god doesn't asnwer you, he's busy this time".

at 18, you're basically a King.

*"Scouting* (as well as the rest of the "tasks" can be something like this:
Scouting:
Time: 1 week. Duration: 1 month....

If you think being the leader of a village, city, or kingdom is all sunshine and rainbows, and everyone is falling all over themselves to follow your commands, and that they never have any problems that could affect you, you are welcome to that opinion. A DM using the fact that your followers are mortal (and can fail, starve, be killed, etc.) to give you headaches is just doing their job within the framework of the game.

Take your example of scouting. What happens when they meet a challenge that is higher than your CR-3? Do they all survive to come back and report? Does some number survive and get back and report? Do other scouts get to that area, find mangled corpses, retreat and report? You are saying that these scouts are immortal, and none of them die ever? Is there some magical force field that stops them from finding things higher than your CR-3?

If you, as a leader, treat your followers as expendable and continually send them...

ofc it's not simple, that's why it's given as an ability and not through your actions.

to put it simpler:
anyone, regardless his class, could become a king through RP, and have to deal with all that comes with it.

someone that gets it through an ability, gets some stuff automatically.

it's like why no one asks from the caster a teleport to perfectly describe where he goes and every tiny detail, and the caster doesn't get shunted to the astral plane because the forest he teleports had a dowpoor and the soil is now slightly different than what he remembers.

so, sure, people will die exploring/wahtever, and others will take their place. That's why the ability gives you a fluid number "village", "city", "capita;", and not 50/1000/10000.

You keep judging martials and casters on two different scales:

if there's a great deal with handwaving going on with the act of spellcasting, then there's equally big deal of handwaving with acts of mundane granted by abilities.

Else, I expect you also require your casters to keep a strict tab on material components and not handwave that a tiny pouch has all of them, tel;eport basically autofalling on everything except a pure white room (and that wshould only work sometimes), water messing their components, etcetcetc?

p.s.
on to your actual question about the bigger than cr-3 thing, it's simply not reported. Say it however you will, maybe all who fell on it died and that's the reason. The "game effect" is that it's not reported, not that you lose your ability.

[Lausth]

Spells are nerfed into the ground. Slots are limited. Durations are once per encounter. Now martials want to have world bending powers. I dont want players of martial characters to feel leftout but with all of the nerf bat going around here i dont know what to think of this.

Maybe in 2e we should keep the double standard. Since martials are already brought up.

[David Silver - Ponyfinder]

Are you alright? You sound hurt.

In what way were martials 'brought up' in narrative power?

[thejeff]

AndIMustMask wrote:

and they are EXACTLY the types of archetypical badass that people sit down, think up, and attempt to play in tabletop games. having those arbitrarily thrown out the window because they're "too magic" is a slap in the face. especially while playing merlin or gandalf is totally acceptable, playing a "legolas" ranger as he was in the movies (firing multitudes of arrows at extremely far and close distances WHILE executing superhuman acrobatic maneuvers WHILE looking damn pretty, all in a fairly low-level campaign) would in fact be "too anime" by most definitions i've seen around (since tolkein elves were hilariously overpowered, to the point of trivializing mortals' efforts in their presence).

As a side note, from a Tolkein fan, that really was just movie Legolas. Tolkein elves really weren't that hilariously overpowered - at least compared to mortal heroes.

Legolas didn't outshine Aragorn or even Gimli.
The mortal heroes of the First Age were impressive enough compared to their counterparts.

Movie Legolas would be decent mid-level Archer Fighter, I agree.

[Lausth]

I am hurt to be honest. Reading the crb for all day. Nerf bat hurts man. Sure they didnt get the nerative power but casters are brought down a lot. Now a wizard has to wait a long time to have that kind of power and mundanes want the same kind of abilities at the same time wizard gets them? I am not sure if i would let that fly in my table.

EDIT: Maybe i need more time to read and playtest.

[Bukaty Osterman]

i think that martials should begin like all others as a growing tree.

they start out with a variety of beginning racial, class skills and abilities as a foundation and then as they grow they have options to branch into this skill, and then later branch into another skill. each of the skills may or may not have further progression that bends their trunk that way and they wind up missing out on other options they didn't take. their choice. but each higher choice should increase in power. one fighter has become a master with chopping demon heads, another is a master of being resistant to magic.

this ends at 10th level, the olympic athlete of mortal ability. progressing more they begin to understand the world better and can warp it, change it, ignore it, or call on it, to do things that mere mortals cannot. such as; a barbarian can swat a spell with his axe and send it into the wall or even back at the caster (after making his save). the thief should be able to walk through walls at 11th level. ( she has mastered the art of killing, now this just makes her job a bit easier).

neanderthal would see us making fire with a bow...very high magic to them. but, we understand the world better so can make it do some things for us.

as the characters of all levels progress, they should be able to do more mythic tasks/feats/skills. AND these abilities should be tied to a stat of the character, more than one stat option maybe. the minimum required should allow for a negative modifier if the stat is low? still a usable skill/power, but with a colorful hitch in the operation.

spellcasters can move mountains with words. rogues should be able to move crowds with words too. not just ST. think of a creepy mob movie with the threat of muscle to back up his steely cold eyes.

many of the skill changes that made them avail to other classes took the specialty of that class and watered them down. multi-classing should be a very big deal. healing should be the realm of the cleric, with potions and items available to those without. but perhaps Res. should be a function of a roll; poor roll heals 1pt per potion die, and a good roll heals 8pts per potion die.

Perhaps, healing from a cleric should be more potent, as a potion might only use d6's?

i like the idea of a fighter doing Hulk-like leaps. or a rogue running across water. or a ranger rolling for survival for a party of 19 (his skill plus level plus attribute bonus).

jus sayin...skills and special abilities add something that is not the province of spellcasters but can do wonderous things.

[thflame]

shroudb wrote:

From the top of mind:

A) Intimidation needs to be Str based. Period.

A hulking fighter or barbarian should be more intimidating than a scrawny bard/sorc

What's more intimidating?

1) The fighter flexes his muscles and threatens to break your legs with his warhammer.

2) The wizard threatens to turn you into a newt so he can use your eyes as material components.

Neither.

I do have a "common sense" rule for NPCs in my campaigns, though.

Just because an intimidation check fails, doesn't mean you can't convince someone to do something.

The wise king has nerves of steel, but when the hulking barbarian cuts his elite champion in half in one swing, he agrees to bow to his demands, as he knows he will die if he doesn't. The king isn't "intimidated" but the barbarian still gets what he wants.

[AndIMustMask]

thejeff wrote:

AndIMustMask wrote:

and they are EXACTLY the types of archetypical badass that people sit down, think up, and attempt to play in tabletop games. having those arbitrarily thrown out the window because they're "too magic" is a slap in the face. especially while playing merlin or gandalf is totally acceptable, playing a "legolas" ranger as he was in the movies (firing multitudes of arrows at extremely far and close distances WHILE executing superhuman acrobatic maneuvers WHILE looking damn pretty, all in a fairly low-level campaign) would in fact be "too anime" by most definitions i've seen around (since tolkein elves were hilariously overpowered, to the point of trivializing mortals' efforts in their presence).

As a side note, from a Tolkein fan, that really was just movie Legolas. Tolkein elves really weren't that hilariously overpowered - at least compared to mortal heroes.

Legolas didn't outshine Aragorn or even Gimli.
The mortal heroes of the First Age were impressive enough compared to their counterparts.

Movie Legolas would be decent mid-level Archer Fighter, I agree.

we had a (rather humorous moment) where aragorn tapped into his years of rangering experience to track a pack of orcs (who were takking the hobbits to isengard), guessing their speed and relative number--and then legolas goes "oh yeah i can see them--good try, you we're pretty close, and their boss is wearing a red hat".

this was actually OMITTED in the movies. (legolas had a number of "you little s@@@" moments that never got the chance to make it in)

[PossibleCabbage]

I feel like the problem with the "well, the fighter can have a keep and an army" as an expression for the heights of power a martial can have is that this is meaningless without there being some mechanical reason that the fighter is better at acquiring castles and leading armies than anybody else.

Like from the playtest rulebook:

Barbarian: " you might ... recruit followers to become a warlord in your own right."

Fighter: "you might even build an organization or a stronghold of your own."

So how are these classes better at "building organizations and recruiting people" than a cleric or a wizard is?

[David Silver - Ponyfinder]

Martial: MY power is getting a bunch of less-able people to hang around.

Spellcaster: I can step through walls when I'm not skipping through dimensions.

Martial: Pfft, lame.

[PossibleCabbage]

Like it feels like a Sorcerer who maxes out social and tactical skills is going to be much better at recruiting people to her cause and leading armies come level 20 than a fighter who started with a 10 Cha and decided to be legendary in Athletics and Crafting.

[David Silver - Ponyfinder]

Let's keep this grounded, and with current nerfs. How about.... level... 5.

I picked that level without checking spells, which I will do now.

Alright, so you finish bopping a bad guy, good job, using what powers you have to win combat. We all have those, not interested how you did it, it's done.

You find out the king is going to be murdered, gasp! You set off to reach him as quickly as possible.

As a fighter: You can hustle to get there faster, hurry!
As a wizard or cleric or druid: You can do that too, but you also send a dream message (level 3 spell) to send a direct warning to the king and/or anyone else you may know that's close enough to act while you're hurrying over there.
As a bard/sorcerer with occult spells/druid: No horse around? No big deal, you summon one to get there faster, go go go!
If you can't make a horse, you can probably longstrider yourself for +10 feet all day long at this point easily.

Who has more options? This was done with 5'sh minutes of glancing at the spell lists. Narrative power, spellcasters have it, fighters don't. Both can win fights, but when the fight is over...

[Vidmaster7]

graystone wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

I don't think your realize how many times I just have to pass it over for my own sanity.

Great! Now hold on to that feeling for a moment and you have some idea how I'm seeing the new edition... :P

As to what I wrote... Barbarians can already DO that in pathfinder classic, Body Bludgeon... I'm not sure what's there that's blowing your mind. Care to elaborate?

Oh you know very well that it is not just PF2 things that I want to argue with you about. pretty much your whole entire forum life choices.

[Combat Monster]

"Damn, we just can't seem to put the Tarrasque down!"

The martial cracks his knuckles. The Tarrasque is then tossed/punched into orbit and will be a problem for the Dominion of the Black from this point forward.

[MerlinCross]

So back to banning casters and or their spells.

The more things change huh.

[magnuskn]

Yeah. It always seems to boil down to the same conversation.

Martial: I'm jelly of casters! They can do more stuff than me! Nerf nerf nerf!
Caster: Well, how about the developers give you more stuff you can do, instead of nerfing me?
Martials: NO! Anime! Anime BAD!

[Corwin Icewolf]

Crayon wrote:

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

I want low level martials to be skilled, strong warriors, and high level martials to be gilgamesh, Beowulf, Hercules level. Low Anime level works great too, really some of the myths are right on par with anime anyway. I don't need them blowing up planets, but high street or mountain level would be great.

I also want them to be able to say "true power comes from within," and not have someone point out that they're covered in magic items. I want them to be able to rely on their own strength rather than magic items without signing their own death warrants.

I'd argue none of the characters you cite are above 6th or 7th level which I think is the larger problem with high level characters there just aren't any good stories to model them after. You either have them do the same stuff they were doing at low-level or you pull lame Beowulf stuff and sic them on the monster's grandmother for some reason...

I mean, I guess Hercules could be a level 6 or 7 with a strength score of some scientific notationly high number. (It would have to be. He held the earth on his back so atlas could rest a minute in one of the myths.) And why wouldn't you sic them on the monsters grandmother if the monster's grandmother was a threat and they were willing?

[thejeff]

magnuskn wrote:

Yeah. It always seems to boil down to the same conversation.

Martial: I'm jelly of casters! They can do more stuff than me! Nerf nerf nerf!
Caster: Well, how about the developers give you more stuff you can do, instead of nerfing me?
Martials: NO! Anime! Anime BAD!

I don't think the lines are that clearly drawn.

Those arguments exist, but it's not clear it's the martial players yelling about anime and the casters suggesting boosting martials.

[magnuskn]

thejeff wrote:

magnuskn wrote:

Yeah. It always seems to boil down to the same conversation.

Martial: I'm jelly of casters! They can do more stuff than me! Nerf nerf nerf!
Caster: Well, how about the developers give you more stuff you can do, instead of nerfing me?
Martials: NO! Anime! Anime BAD!

I don't think the lines are that clearly drawn.

Those arguments exist, but it's not clear it's the martial players yelling about anime and the casters suggesting boosting martials.

At least from my side this has been the argument I've been getting out of the last weeks. I'm not sure there is a single fan of casters who has said that martials don't need buffs (although the nature of what those buffs should be is different between people), but there have been plenty of martials fans who want casters to be nerfed and who are vehemently against martials being buffed with abilities which are not strictly mundane in nature.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

I mean, I guess Hercules could be a level 6 or 7 with a strength score of some scientific notationly high number. (It would have to be. He held the earth on his back so atlas could rest a minute in one of the myths.)

Technically it was the vault of the heavens.

[David Silver - Ponyfinder]

magnuskn wrote:

thejeff wrote:

magnuskn wrote:

Yeah. It always seems to boil down to the same conversation.

Martial: I'm jelly of casters! They can do more stuff than me! Nerf nerf nerf!
Caster: Well, how about the developers give you more stuff you can do, instead of nerfing me?
Martials: NO! Anime! Anime BAD!

I don't think the lines are that clearly drawn.

Those arguments exist, but it's not clear it's the martial players yelling about anime and the casters suggesting boosting martials.

At least from my side this has been the argument I've been getting out of the last weeks. I'm not sure there is a single fan of casters who has said that martials don't need buffs (although the nature of what those buffs should be is different between people), but there have been plenty of martials fans who want casters to be nerfed and who are vehemently against martials being buffed with abilities which are not strictly mundane in nature.

I remain firmly in the 'give martials magic' camp. The entire world is magic. We wield magic no matter our class. Even the most superstitious barbarian is going to be crowned with magical items.

Can we stop pretending martials shouldn't have it? Their magic should reflect them properly, but this insistence on mundane techniques for martials baffles me.

[ereklich]

David Silver - Ponyfinder wrote:

graystone wrote:

What do we want Martial characters to be capable of?: I want them to start an 'anime' and get better from there. I could care less what is realistic. What I want is what would look awesome in a movie/show I was watching. 'move, swing sword, swing sword' isn't exactly nail biting, edge of your seat excitement. Now let me grab a goblin by the neck and beat another goblin to death with the still struggling first goblin and that's something I'd want to watch.

Yes, please. More of this.

I want to kick a door open not just as a means of entry but also a surprise ranged attack on something inside the room that I might not have even known was there until I kicked the door.

I want to sleep with my hand on my sword and bound to my feet in a flurry of attacks if an enemy comes near before they even notice I've spotted them.

I want to suddenly stop in the middle of a tunnel and crouch down, shield raising and my eyes set on a blank spot in space. I can hear it breathing/feel its energy/notice the ripple in the air/whatever.

I want to grab a portal that's disgorging demons and try to brute force it shut. A wizard or cleric is likely a better call for the job, but I'm there, and I'm doing it. It may take ten times the effort and three times as long, but I'm doing it, because I'm a badass martial who will win by his own hands.

Why can't we embrace this?

I gotta be honest, it sounds to me like you should be playing Exalted, not Pathfinder.

[Tarik Blackhands]

ereklich wrote:

David Silver - Ponyfinder wrote:

graystone wrote:

What do we want Martial characters to be capable of?: I want them to start an 'anime' and get better from there. I could care less what is realistic. What I want is what would look awesome in a movie/show I was watching. 'move, swing sword, swing sword' isn't exactly nail biting, edge of your seat excitement. Now let me grab a goblin by the neck and beat another goblin to death with the still struggling first goblin and that's something I'd want to watch.

Yes, please. More of this.

I want to kick a door open not just as a means of entry but also a surprise ranged attack on something inside the room that I might not have even known was there until I kicked the door.

I want to sleep with my hand on my sword and bound to my feet in a flurry of attacks if an enemy comes near before they even notice I've spotted them.

I want to suddenly stop in the middle of a tunnel and crouch down, shield raising and my eyes set on a blank spot in space. I can hear it breathing/feel its energy/notice the ripple in the air/whatever.

I want to grab a portal that's disgorging demons and try to brute force it shut. A wizard or cleric is likely a better call for the job, but I'm there, and I'm doing it. It may take ten times the effort and three times as long, but I'm doing it, because I'm a badass martial who will win by his own hands.

Why can't we embrace this?

I gotta be honest, it sounds to me like you should be playing Exalted, not Pathfinder.

Or Earthdawn, but conversely when the high water mark for PF casters is summoning natural disasters of varying sorts, rewriting reality, constructing your own demiplanes, etc it behooves the devs to either go Exalted/Earthdawn for the sword guys or bring the magic guys to the BMX Bandit levels. Nothing feels more rubbish than getting DR 5/- in heavy armor as a 19th level fighter when the wizard was making his own greater demiplanes 4 levels before. One of the two (or more likely both) need adjustment for equivalency unless you want a repeat of 3.x's paradigm which the devs have said they don't.

[Themetricsystem]

I want my level 20 Fighter to be able to swing his magical Greatsword and cut a hole in the fabric of reality on a Critical Hit.

I want my level 20 Rogue to be able to steal the clothes off a guard unnoticed.

I want my level 20 Barbarian to be able to rip a house off its foundations and throw it at the Silver Dragon 200 feet in the air.

I want my level 20 Ranger to be able to identify the home address of the shoemaker who crafted the shoes that the bandits who passed through the area 2 week ago wore.

I want my level 20 Monk to be able to write perfect calligraphy with his left hand while arm wrestling an Earth Elemental without sweating.

I want my level 20 Alchemist to be able to create philosopher stones to make himself an his entire party and family effectively immortal, never aging or getting ill.

[Crayon]

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

I mean, I guess Hercules could be a level 6 or 7 with a strength score of some scientific notationly high number. (It would have to be. He held the earth on his back so atlas could rest a minute in one of the myths.) And why wouldn't you sic them on the monsters grandmother if the monster's grandmother was a threat and they were willing?

It doesn't really matter as the crux of the story involves Heracles tricking Atlas (in aa not particularly clever or interesting way) and it works just as well with a decently sized rock.

For the Grendel-thing, maybe because it comes across as more comedic than heroic? Which can be fine if that's what you're going for, but otherwise is probably best avoided.

[Rules Artificer]

Kraynic wrote:

shroudb wrote:

The point of it being an ability is to give more power to the one having it, not to give him more headaches.

so, yeah, if your DM is a jerk that can't balance s~+@, then every ability is terrible.

so, in short:

Quote:

leadership: level 12 ability.
A small amount (about a village) of competant people follow your lead. This increases to a medium amount of people (the size of a city) at 15 and to a large (the size of a capital) at 18.

You can relegate tasks to them according to their expertise.

You can pick up 2 tasks out of *this list* at 12. At 15 you can pick 2 more and the list is expanded to *this*. At 18 you can pick 4 more and the list is expanded to *this*.

there you have it. If you picked "scouting"* from the list, your GM can't say "nah, they died" anymore than he can say to the cleric "nah, your god doesn't asnwer you, he's busy this time".

at 18, you're basically a King.

*"Scouting* (as well as the rest of the "tasks" can be something like this:
Scouting:
Time: 1 week. Duration: 1 month....

If you think being the leader of a village, city, or kingdom is all sunshine and rainbows, and everyone is falling all over themselves to follow your commands, and that they never have any problems that could affect you, you are welcome to that opinion. A DM using the fact that your followers are mortal (and can fail, starve, be killed, etc.) to give you headaches is just doing their job within the framework of the game.

Take your example of scouting. What happens when they meet a challenge that is higher than your CR-3? Do they all survive to come back and report? Does some number survive and get back and report? Do other scouts get to that area, find mangled corpses, retreat and report? You are saying that these scouts are immortal, and none of them die ever? Is there some magical force field that stops them from finding things higher than your CR-3?

If you, as a leader, treat your followers as expendable and continually send them...

Have their success be tied to your abilities to lead them. Maybe it's a skill check, or something similar to a skill check in that it scales with your abilities and you can invest into making it better (like how spellcasters do with magic).

This would follow 2E's usual 4-degree system. So on a success they all succeed and report back, on a failure some number survives to report the failed mission, and on a critical failure they're wiped out entirely and don't report back at all.

I see no reason why we can't use the existing robust game rules and mechanics for this purpose.

[don't wake baby]

My high level fighter should be like movie Thor, except better looking.

Martials and Casters seem pretty well balanced, assuming that the Martials have the correct magic items.

And that is the problem. You can’t always the right magic item and you don’t want the campaign littered with items. How about making the Martial character be the magic item?

At 5th level, a Martial character can spend a resonance point to add a damage die to all non-magic weapons for a minute. At 10th, two die and so on. For athletic/acrobatic skills, perhaps a resonance point to add a die to the check.

This helps get magic weapons that are magical just for the sake of balancing the game, which allows you to make magic items interesting and part of story.

The last thing to make things special is to have expert, master, and legendary skills to actually mean something. It seems to me that legendary should be more than 15% better than trained for both sides of the divide. What if legendary athletics meant you could scale a 30’ slick wall? Or legendary occult means that you can summon a specific obscure demon that is the only one who is able to help you overcome your current dilemma?

That is what I want. A Martial character who can be the magic. Legendary skills that are ... well ... legendary. And all classes should relevant, interesting, and able to advance the story.

[graystone]

Vidmaster7 wrote:

graystone wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

I don't think your realize how many times I just have to pass it over for my own sanity.

Great! Now hold on to that feeling for a moment and you have some idea how I'm seeing the new edition... :P

As to what I wrote... Barbarians can already DO that in pathfinder classic, Body Bludgeon... I'm not sure what's there that's blowing your mind. Care to elaborate?

Oh you know very well that it is not just PF2 things that I want to argue with you about. pretty much your whole entire forum life choices.

Now I feel special! I never knew I was so awesome that it alters your sanity. Well, I'm make sure to be on more often so you can get more of my posts! :)

Shaheer-El-Khatib wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

graystone wrote:

What do we want Martial characters to be capable of?: I want them to start an 'anime' and get better from there. I could care less what is realistic. What I want is what would look awesome in a movie/show I was watching. 'move, swing sword, swing sword' isn't exactly nail biting, edge of your seat excitement. Now let me grab a goblin by the neck and beat another goblin to death with the still struggling first goblin and that's something I'd want to watch.

I swear like 95% of what you say makes me want to argue with you. I don't think your realize how many times I just have to pass it over for my own sanity.

Welcome in the club.

Here is your member card.

You know, we can track you though the member cards... ;)

[Vidthulu]

graystone wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

graystone wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

I don't think your realize how many times I just have to pass it over for my own sanity.

Great! Now hold on to that feeling for a moment and you have some idea how I'm seeing the new edition... :P

As to what I wrote... Barbarians can already DO that in pathfinder classic, Body Bludgeon... I'm not sure what's there that's blowing your mind. Care to elaborate?

Oh you know very well that it is not just PF2 things that I want to argue with you about. pretty much your whole entire forum life choices.

Now I feel special! I never knew I was so awesome that it alters your sanity. Well, I'm make sure to be on more often so you can get more of my posts! :)

Shaheer-El-Khatib wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

graystone wrote:

What do we want Martial characters to be capable of?: I want them to start an 'anime' and get better from there. I could care less what is realistic. What I want is what would look awesome in a movie/show I was watching. 'move, swing sword, swing sword' isn't exactly nail biting, edge of your seat excitement. Now let me grab a goblin by the neck and beat another goblin to death with the still struggling first goblin and that's something I'd want to watch.

I swear like 95% of what you say makes me want to argue with you. I don't think your realize how many times I just have to pass it over for my own sanity.

Welcome in the club.

Here is your member card.

You know, we can track you though the member cards... ;)

Don't you threaten me with a good time!

[iNickedYerKnickers]

Lausth wrote:

What if fighter could forge magic weapons?

Can't anyone that is a Expert at crafting take Magical Crafting??

[RazarTuk]

Shaheer-El-Khatib wrote:

Right.

Bringing martial up to casters would be "Hey folks, remember how you can totally break the game with some classes ? You can do it with all classes now"

Not necessarily. Spheres of Power and Might brings everyone to around tiers 3-4 (except for the Incanter). And honestly, that's the sweet spot for optimization. Everyone can be good at their thing, and probably still be able to contribute than that thing isn't useful.

AndIMustMask wrote:

@OP: hey kid, see the mythology over there? *celtic/norse/arthurian/greek/japanese heroes wave in the distance* yeah, those ones. you can do that (eventually).

I wouldn't have thought to make that comparison, but it works. And come to think of it, I'm not actually sure how I'd build a lot of the figures you named in 1e.

[Captain Morgan]

Themetricsystem wrote:

I want my level 20 Fighter to be able to swing his magical Greatsword and cut a hole in the fabric of reality on a Critical Hit.

I want my level 20 Rogue to be able to steal the clothes off a guard unnoticed.

I want my level 20 Barbarian to be able to rip a house off its foundations and throw it at the Silver Dragon 200 feet in the air.

I want my level 20 Ranger to be able to identify the home address of the shoemaker who crafted the shoes that the bandits who passed through the area 2 week ago wore.

I want my level 20 Monk to be able to write perfect calligraphy with his left hand while arm wrestling an Earth Elemental without sweating.

I want my level 20 Alchemist to be able to create philosopher stones to make himself an his entire party and family effectively immortal, never aging or getting ill.

This all sounds groovy to me. And to be fair that's a little bit of that around right now-- 20th level barbarians can knock buildings down, rogues can steal the clothes off people, and Alchemists can make Philosopher's Stone. I'd be happy if we got more of it, and earlier on.

And I think that is really the crux of the matter. What we actually want is the ability to play as martials who get to do these things. 20th level doesn't really cut it in a world where most games start at level 1 and break up before they hit 20th.

On the opposite extreme, level 1 characters shouldn't be able to do this stuff. They need to grow into these powers, and there should be a tier of play for folks who prefer a more grounded game.

So the question becomes at what level do these options start to arise, and that's tricky to figure out. The proficiency system and level gated feats give a pretty good framework to build that upon, but figuring out when stuff comes online is tricky.

I think the closest example I've seen so far is the barbarian. Not to say the class is perfect, but it has some of its feats are really cool and come at a pleasantly early level. (I think it needs more feats to be able to really enjoy all of these, but let's just look at the feats in a vacuum.

Level 1-- Right out the gate, they can gain darkvision. Modest but nice.
Level 2-- Scent is a nice for building on the level 1 feat-- you can be wolverine at level 2. Cool. Oh, and while No Escape needs some tweaking to bring it more in line with AoO, it is no doubt cool to chase someone on their own turn and pretty terrifying.
Level 4-- Raging Athlete might not be the most optimal pick, but I gotta say gaining both a Climb and Swim speed strikes me much more appropriate for a 4th level feat than needing 2 legendary skill feats to do it.
Level 6-- Dragon's Breath and Giant Stature. Hell yeah. I am kind of shocked at Dragon's Breath coming online this early TBH, and not being limited to once or twice per day.
Level 8--Sudden Leap. Yeah, I'm down for my martials to start leaping 30-50 feet straight up now. I kind of think Felling Strike should become lumped into the same feat for Fighters and Barbarians, but this is still great.
Level 10-- This level doesn't really have anything appropriately exciting, most of it could have come earlier IMO.
Level 12-- While Spell Sunder feels like it could come earlier, Dragon Wings is dope, as is Titan's Stature. (The latter could maybe use more mechanical oomph, but becoming huge is metal AF even if it doesn't directly add damage.
Level 14-- Another dry level. Some of them are really good, but they aren't exciting for their level conceptually IMO.
Level 16-- Dragon Transformation. Hell yeah.
Level 18-- I feel like I should like Vicious Evisceration more than I do.
Level 20: Quaking Stomp, hell yeah. Feels like the odds of toppling buildings are a little too low but this is we should be here or higher by now.

Coming up with non-totem equivalents for Fighter and Ranger might be a little harder, but I think the Barbarian is still my favorite starting point in the playtest.