Fighter Class Preview

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

Folks,

I just want to come out and ask everyone in this heated debate to take a step back and breathe. We are all here to make a better game, and while your passion is commendable, please endeavor to prevent it from governing your actions.

As for the issues at hand, we have been working hard to shift some balances around a bit. Making an attack more accurate over the levels of play, while adding some variability and scaling to damage. This gives us more "levers" for design, and will result in a better play experience. The math of the old system, and the way some feats interacted with it caused serious balance issues over the life of the system. We hope to have corrected them, but only a full playtest will give us any indication as to whether or not we have succeeded. We hope you will hold off on judgement until then.

the fact that casters were far to powerful in comparison to non casters caused issues, PA was the one feat that stayed even vaguely competitive, and with these nerfs to...every single thing a fighter does I am not hopeful PA was a bare minimum of scalability and power, not an egregious outlier, a decent if slightly underpowered base line to show how feats should be built in fact. We have yet to see anything that means an intelligent enemy doesn't just flat ignore martials to deal with the actual threats. Lets compare: add a shield to a save and do some damage...or wipe someones mind and take over, create demiplanes, teleport anywhere in the multiverse, freeze time, or throw parts of a star at people...yea not seeing how any of this makes fighters relevant at all.

You have no idea how spells are going to work or what a fighter is going to be capable of so why don't you take a breath.

how is "casters are more powerful than non casters" a fact? everyone is very specialized in what they are doing and what they are doing is simply not the same.
also: how the hell is that a competition? I was under the impression the members of the group were working together not against each others

Since you haven’t seen ‘Zeus’ yet in this equation...

how is "casters are more powerful than non casters" a fact? everyone is very specialized in what they are doing and what they are doing is simply not the same.

also: how the hell is that a competition? I was under the impression the members of the group were working together not against each others

'casters being more powerful than non-casters' always has been a fact, their is a window up till around lvl 6 when non-casters have the edge, then maybe until 8th noncasters and casters are on a semi even playing field, then casters run away with it. It's a competition in that if a player is sat at the table feeling useless (against monsters played intelligently) that is a major issue, if a single spell can replace other classes (Summon Monster being the common example) that is an issue.

The thematic problem (not unique to PF, it comes from ADnD and has stuck, is that martials end up as Conan when they need to be aiming at Ares, the casters are performing miracles and doing decent impressions of gods, while martials...hit things slightly harder. (My favourite prestige class from 3.0 actually tried to address this, the Planar Champion, added boat loads of utility and versatility to martials), this preview seems to make it worse, not better, especially be reducing actions for using a shield...I mean raising your shield takes as much effort as the example of casting magic missile...erm wut? By the maths nerfing power attack etc except in edge cases(which should have been a decent guide to the minimum power of a feat, not the maximum, the issue was other choices being bad, not PA being good), by at 14th level (14th! this is supposed to be as good as getting 7th level spells!) allowing shield bonus to saves against some attacks..yea.

how is "casters are more powerful than non casters" a fact? everyone is very specialized in what they are doing and what they are doing is simply not the same.

also: how the hell is that a competition? I was under the impression the members of the group were working together not against each others

Well maybe it is my impression, but from what i remember those caster/martial disparity threads have always reeked of competion, hell it is as if the party was about the jump at each others throats at all times and thus the martials are always afraid they wont be able to cut in half the wizard.

Honestly, half the time it is as if the wizard didnt cast buffs or other spells to help the party instead of himself.

Ofc, not everyone is those threads are like that, just saying from my memory there is no small amount of those who are. Which probably is what makes their games have said problems to begin with.

Your still basing all your arguments on a tiny sliver of information. you ever hear the parabol about the three blind men trying to describe an elephant?

For all you know weapon base damage increases at higher levels or their are other feats that increase weapon dice or some other effect that you have no idea of and PA will add 8d6 to damage with the right feat choices. magic missle does 1d4? heck maybe thats all it does Also I'm pretty sure they said most spells will take 2 action not to mention its a limited resource. Also with the perceived improvement of spells it takes away a lot of the original C/M disparity BS which Frankly I've never had demonstrated in my games in the first place.

(as far as C/MD goes)Certain play styles cause those problems. Plus its generally a Non-combat issue from what most of the threads seem to say. It comes from the fact spells in pf1 copy and do a better job of doing what skills do.

Your still basing all your arguments on a tiny sliver of information. you ever hear the parabol about the three blind men trying to describe an elephant?

For all you know weapon base damage increases at higher levels or their are other feats that increase weapon dice or some other effect that you have no idea of and PA will add 8d6 to damage with the right feat choices. magic missle does 1d4? heck maybe thats all it does Also I'm pretty sure they said most spells will take 2 action not to mention its a limited resource. Also with the perceived improvement of spells it takes away a lot of the original C/M disparity BS which Frankly I've never had demonstrated in my games in the first place.

(as far as C/MD goes)Certain play styles cause those problems. Plus its generally a Non-combat issue from what most of the threads seem to say. It comes from the fact spells in pf1 copy and do a better job of doing what skills do.

Well, I have come across the disparity, and it's not fun, you either end up with the caster(s) not doing their best so everyone else competes, or the martials feeling that they don't have much to offer, or the GM having to make the opponents act in as frankly unintelligent and ignoring the main threat to panel beat the pile of plate armour. Outside of combat, some non-casters do ok, Fighters don't but skill monkeys do alright.

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Your still basing all your arguments on a tiny sliver of information. you ever hear the parabol about the three blind men trying to describe an elephant?

For all you know weapon base damage increases at higher levels or their are other feats that increase weapon dice or some other effect that you have no idea of and PA will add 8d6 to damage with the right feat choices. magic missle does 1d4? heck maybe thats all it does Also I'm pretty sure they said most spells will take 2 action not to mention its a limited resource. Also with the perceived improvement of spells it takes away a lot of the original C/M disparity BS which Frankly I've never had demonstrated in my games in the first place.

(as far as C/MD goes)Certain play styles cause those problems. Plus its generally a Non-combat issue from what most of the threads seem to say. It comes from the fact spells in pf1 copy and do a better job of doing what skills do.

Well, I have come across the disparity, and it's not fun, you either end up with the caster(s) not doing their best so everyone else competes, or the martials feeling that they don't have much to offer, or the GM having to make the opponents act in as frankly unintelligent and ignoring the main threat to panel beat the pile of plate armour. Outside of combat, some non-casters do ok, Fighters don't but skill monkeys do alright.

And your just assuming Paizo who has had to hear these complaints for years and Probably primary reason for writing PF2 is going to keep it the same because of one feat?

Rob Godfrey wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Your still basing all your arguments on a tiny sliver of information. you ever hear the parabol about the three blind men trying to describe an elephant?

For all you know weapon base damage increases at higher levels or their are other feats that increase weapon dice or some other effect that you have no idea of and PA will add 8d6 to damage with the right feat choices. magic missle does 1d4? heck maybe thats all it does Also I'm pretty sure they said most spells will take 2 action not to mention its a limited resource. Also with the perceived improvement of spells it takes away a lot of the original C/M disparity BS which Frankly I've never had demonstrated in my games in the first place.

(as far as C/MD goes)Certain play styles cause those problems. Plus its generally a Non-combat issue from what most of the threads seem to say. It comes from the fact spells in pf1 copy and do a better job of doing what skills do.

Well, I have come across the disparity, and it's not fun, you either end up with the caster(s) not doing their best so everyone else competes, or the martials feeling that they don't have much to offer, or the GM having to make the opponents act in as frankly unintelligent and ignoring the main threat to panel beat the pile of plate armour. Outside of combat, some non-casters do ok, Fighters don't but skill monkeys do alright.

And your just assuming Paizo who has had to hear these complaints for years and Probably primary reason for writing PF2 is going to keep it the same because of one feat?

No, I am assuming that they are not going to fix it, because for years they have said that it is working as intended, and these feats feed directly into 'if you don't want to suck play a caster' world view, and it's more than a single feat' it's omg shields are to good lets make them take an action every round to benefit' 'PA is to good lets turn it into the strictly worse Vital Strike'

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Rob Godfrey wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Your still basing all your arguments on a tiny sliver of information. you ever hear the parabol about the three blind men trying to describe an elephant?

For all you know weapon base damage increases at higher levels or their are other feats that increase weapon dice or some other effect that you have no idea of and PA will add 8d6 to damage with the right feat choices. magic missle does 1d4? heck maybe thats all it does Also I'm pretty sure they said most spells will take 2 action not to mention its a limited resource. Also with the perceived improvement of spells it takes away a lot of the original C/M disparity BS which Frankly I've never had demonstrated in my games in the first place.

(as far as C/MD goes)Certain play styles cause those problems. Plus its generally a Non-combat issue from what most of the threads seem to say. It comes from the fact spells in pf1 copy and do a better job of doing what skills do.

Well, I have come across the disparity, and it's not fun, you either end up with the caster(s) not doing their best so everyone else competes, or the martials feeling that they don't have much to offer, or the GM having to make the opponents act in as frankly unintelligent and ignoring the main threat to panel beat the pile of plate armour. Outside of combat, some non-casters do ok, Fighters don't but skill monkeys do alright.

And your just assuming Paizo who has had to hear these complaints for years and Probably primary reason for writing PF2 is going to keep it the same because of one feat?

No, I am assuming that they are not going to fix it, because for years they have said that it is working as intended, and these feats feed directly into 'if you don't want to suck play a caster' world view.

well then I guess your going to move on to playing something else (that you can look on less pessimistically) then?

Rob Godfrey wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Rob Godfrey wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Your still basing all your arguments on a tiny sliver of information. you ever hear the parabol about the three blind men trying to describe an elephant?

For all you know weapon base damage increases at higher levels or their are other feats that increase weapon dice or some other effect that you have no idea of and PA will add 8d6 to damage with the right feat choices. magic missle does 1d4? heck maybe thats all it does Also I'm pretty sure they said most spells will take 2 action not to mention its a limited resource. Also with the perceived improvement of spells it takes away a lot of the original C/M disparity BS which Frankly I've never had demonstrated in my games in the first place.

(as far as C/MD goes)Certain play styles cause those problems. Plus its generally a Non-combat issue from what most of the threads seem to say. It comes from the fact spells in pf1 copy and do a better job of doing what skills do.

Well, I have come across the disparity, and it's not fun, you either end up with the caster(s) not doing their best so everyone else competes, or the martials feeling that they don't have much to offer, or the GM having to make the opponents act in as frankly unintelligent and ignoring the main threat to panel beat the pile of plate armour. Outside of combat, some non-casters do ok, Fighters don't but skill monkeys do alright.

And your just assuming Paizo who has had to hear these complaints for years and Probably primary reason for writing PF2 is going to keep it the same because of one feat?

No, I am assuming that they are not going to fix it, because for years they have said that it is working as intended, and these feats feed directly into 'if you don't want to suck play a caster' world view.

well then I guess your going to move on to playing something else (that you can look on less pessimistically) then?

If that was a realistic option I would, but PF and 5e are far and away the biggest games in town, to the extent of even on Roll20 finding a game that isn't them is very unlikely, unless you can be awake at completely random times due to timezone issues

Hythlodeus wrote:

how is "casters are more powerful than non casters" a fact? everyone is very specialized in what they are doing and what they are doing is simply not the same.

also: how the hell is that a competition? I was under the impression the members of the group were working together not against each others

'casters being more powerful than non-casters' always has been a fact

sounds more like an opinion to me

Rob Godfrey wrote:

Hythlodeus wrote:

how is "casters are more powerful than non casters" a fact? everyone is very specialized in what they are doing and what they are doing is simply not the same.

also: how the hell is that a competition? I was under the impression the members of the group were working together not against each others

'casters being more powerful than non-casters' always has been a fact

sounds more like an opinion to me

because power attacking (which is the only decent feat pretty much) compares so well with Create Demiplane right?

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Rob Godfrey wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Rob Godfrey wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Your still basing all your arguments on a tiny sliver of information. you ever hear the parabol about the three blind men trying to describe an elephant?

For all you know weapon base damage increases at higher levels or their are other feats that increase weapon dice or some other effect that you have no idea of and PA will add 8d6 to damage with the right feat choices. magic missle does 1d4? heck maybe thats all it does Also I'm pretty sure they said most spells will take 2 action not to mention its a limited resource. Also with the perceived improvement of spells it takes away a lot of the original C/M disparity BS which Frankly I've never had demonstrated in my games in the first place.

(as far as C/MD goes)Certain play styles cause those problems. Plus its generally a Non-combat issue from what most of the threads seem to say. It comes from the fact spells in pf1 copy and do a better job of doing what skills do.

Well, I have come across the disparity, and it's not fun, you either end up with the caster(s) not doing their best so everyone else competes, or the martials feeling that they don't have much to offer, or the GM having to make the opponents act in as frankly unintelligent and ignoring the main threat to panel beat the pile of plate armour. Outside of combat, some non-casters do ok, Fighters don't but skill monkeys do alright.

And your just assuming Paizo who has had to hear these complaints for years and Probably primary reason for writing PF2 is going to keep it the same because of one feat?

No, I am assuming that they are not going to fix it, because for years they have said that it is working as intended, and these feats feed directly into 'if you don't want to suck play a caster' world view.

well then I guess your going to move on to playing something else (that you can look on less pessimistically) then?

If that was a...

Sounds like your trapped in the situation no matter what you do so I would say make the best of it instead of stressing out about it.

...

I am hoping that by kicking up enough of a fuss this gets fixed, either by removing all spells above third level, or buffing martials in a meaningful way,apart from that...well I have given up hobbies before. Actually the third option is have Paizo admit they hate martial classes and remove them entirely, that could work.

so everyone else competes,

again, why is it a competition? does the GM hand out a prize or something? at the end of the campaign, will one character be crowned MVP? you're in the same f***ing team, there's no need to compete

Hythlodeus wrote:

Rob Godfrey wrote:

Hythlodeus wrote:

how is "casters are more powerful than non casters" a fact? everyone is very specialized in what they are doing and what they are doing is simply not the same.

also: how the hell is that a competition? I was under the impression the members of the group were working together not against each others

'casters being more powerful than non-casters' always has been a fact

sounds more like an opinion to me

because power attacking (which is the only decent feat pretty much) compares so well with Create Demiplane right?

you are aware this isn't a caster/ martial disparity thread those post have no place here. Their is already plenty of them to go and debate it at. Assuming PF2 Is going to be the same is blatant speculation. Frankly I think the proof that they are changing it is already apparent with thee new embrace of skills. Clearly you don't but thats fine just don't cloud up the thread with all the negativity unless it is based on something more concrete.

Vidmaster7 wrote:

...

I am hoping that by kicking up enough of a fuss this gets fixed, either by removing all spells above third level, or buffing martials in a meaningful way,apart from that...well I have given up hobbies before. Actually the third option is have Paizo admit they hate martial classes and remove them entirely, that could work.

Well I strongly oppose almost everything you just said. I also feel that what your hoping for is extremely unlikely to happen. to the point Where I feel your wasting your own time. In fact your views from statements like "Paizo admit they hate martial classes" seem like your out of touch with pathfinders roots and developers to the point where I can't even take you seriously. So I'm going to have to stop talking with you about this issue Cause I believe our view points are so drastically different that we will not find any common ground at all. I would wish you good luck but frankly I don't want your envisionment of pathfinder to come true. Thats not a game I would play.

(just in case if you weren't thinking this then Go you! way to be awesome!)
Also before you say something like: Oh so you want martial's to be useless or something such as that such a response would be childish as your just saying it to be inflammatory and It would imply that your not even trying to understand anyone else's perspective.

Rob Godfrey wrote:

so everyone else competes,

again, why is it a competition? does the GM hand out a prize or something? at the end of the campaign, will one character be crowned MVP? you're in the same f***ing team, there's no need to compete

Hang on, if the GM is having to adjust the game because a character is mechanically worse than another it is a flaw, yes it can be compensated for, but that's more work, yes it can be made not to matter, but so in theory could someone playing an npc class, this is a discussion about mechanics, and issuing a pre-broken system to be fixed by houserules, or making monsters act stupid is a design decision, one that makes more work, more headaches, and frankly less fun gameplay. It is a competition, the party vs the encounter, and both sides should be played as intelligently as RP dictates, if that means ignoring a player because his characters class is not the main threat, then intelligent monsters should do that, to not do it, is like deliberately playing chess badly to 'let the other guy win' it's frankly patronizing, a challenge should be that, a challenge, it should not be obvious that one character is flat out better than another, if both are well built and well played.

Rob Godfrey wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

...

I am hoping that by kicking up enough of a fuss this gets fixed, either by removing all spells above third level, or buffing martials in a meaningful way,apart from that...well I have given up hobbies before. Actually the third option is have Paizo admit they hate martial classes and remove them entirely, that could work.

Well I strongly oppose almost everything you just said. I also feel that what your hoping for is extremely unlikely to happen. to the point Where I feel your wasting your own time. In fact your views from statements like "Paizo admit they hate martial classes" seem like your out of touch with pathfinders roots and developers to the point where I can't even take you seriously. So I'm going to have to stop talking with you about this issue Cause I believe our view points are so drastically different that we will not find any common ground at all. I would wish you good luck but frankly I don't want your envisionment of pathfinder to come true. Thats not a game I would play.

(just in case if you weren't thinking this then Go you! way to be awesome!)
Also before you say something like: Oh so you want martial's to be useless or something such as that such a response would be childish as your just saying it to be inflammatory and It would imply that your not even trying to understand anyone else's perspective.

Well I am actually hoping for the meaningful buff option...this is most definitely not it tho. I think that high level characters being reality shredding demigods is fine, it works, but currently only casters play that game, I want everyone to get their feet under that table, but if THIS is what fighters are to get..then no, they still aren't playing in the same sand box. It's that old Trope: Linear Warriors Quadratic Wizards.

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Rob Godfrey wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

...

I am hoping that by kicking up enough of a fuss this gets fixed, either by removing all spells above third level, or buffing martials in a meaningful way,apart from that...well I have given up hobbies before. Actually the third option is have Paizo admit they hate martial classes and remove them entirely, that could work.

Well I strongly oppose almost everything you just said. I also feel that what your hoping for is extremely unlikely to happen. to the point Where I feel your wasting your own time. In fact your views from statements like "Paizo admit they hate martial classes" seem like your out of touch with pathfinders roots and developers to the point where I can't even take you seriously. So I'm going to have to stop talking with you about this issue Cause I believe our view points are so drastically different that we will not find any common ground at all. I would wish you good luck but frankly I don't want your envisionment of pathfinder to come true. Thats not a game I would play.

(just in case if you weren't thinking this then Go you! way to be awesome!)
Also before you say something like: Oh so you want martial's to be useless or something such as that such a response would be childish as your just saying it to be inflammatory and It would imply that your not even trying to understand anyone else's perspective.

Well I am actually hoping for the meaningful buff option...this is most definitely not it tho. I think that high level characters being reality shredding demigods is fine, it works, but currently only casters play that game, I want everyone to get their feet under that table, but if THIS is what fighters are to get..then no, they still aren't playing in the same sand box.

And you got all of that by the one feat revealed PA eh? Which I think is probably a general feat and not even one of their class feats (I could be wrong but I don't think its a fighter class feat. but a general)

Look you've already decided your opinion haven't you? aren't we just wasting time here? You looked at it and decided long before anything that you weren't going to like it and its going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

this sounds more like a problem of less than ideal tactics and not everyone playing to the strengths of their characters, as far as I can deduce.
how would you describe a typical encounter, where you thing the problem you assume is so evident, usually shows up? what are your tanks doing? what are the spellcasters doing? are the tank characters doing their job of keeping the enemies out of reach of the squishy spellcaster? is the buffer helping them before or during the encounter? I think I need more input to analyze what is going wrong here

this sounds more like a problem of less than ideal tactics and not everyone playing to the strengths of their characters, as far as I can deduce.

how would you describe a typical encounter, where you thing the problem you assume is so evident, usually shows up? what are your tanks doing? what are the spellcasters doing? are the tank characters doing their job of keeping the enemies out of reach of the squishy spellcaster? is the buffer helping them before or during the encounter? I think I need more input to analyze what is going wrong here

Honestly probably best to take it to another thread.

And you got all of that by the one feat revealed PA eh? Which I think is probably a general feat and not even one of their class feats (I could be wrong but I don't think its a...

Actually the class features in general...come on a slight buff to saves at lvl 14? Having to give up actions or mobility to 'raise a shield' every turn? PA certainly feeds in, simply because it is a general nerf (edge cases aside) to the only feat that actually scaled ok, a feat that was a semi-working example to build on, if that was declared to powerful..then it could (and given the class features looks likely to) be an indication of a serious issue.

Hythlodeus wrote:

this sounds more like a problem of less than ideal tactics and not everyone playing to the strengths of their characters, as far as I can deduce.

how would you describe a typical encounter, where you thing the problem you assume is so evident, usually shows up? what are your tanks doing? what are the spellcasters doing? are the tank characters doing their job of keeping the enemies out of reach of the squishy spellcaster? is the buffer helping them before or during the encounter? I think I need more input to analyze what is going wrong here

Honestly probably best to take it to another thread.

probably, but if it helps to ease his worries, it helps

Vidmaster7 wrote:

And you got all of that by the one feat revealed PA eh? Which I think is probably a general feat and not even one of their class feats (I could be wrong but I don't think its a...

Actually the class features in general...come on a slight buff to saves at lvl 14? Having to give up actions or mobility to 'raise a shield' every turn? PA certainly feeds in, simply because it is a general nerf (edge cases aside) to the only feat that actually scaled ok, a feat that was a semi-working example to build on, if that was declared to powerful..then it could (and given the class features looks likely to) be an indication of a serious issue.

fighters could have abilities that let them use other abilities without costing an action liek raising a shielf its possible don't know yet or... spell casters could be nerfed... have you seen resonance. Its practically a direct nerf to spell casters no more hoarding wands so you never run out of spells.

you are aware this isn't a caster/ martial disparity thread those post have no place here.

It's a thread about the Fighter preview. Saying that the 14th level ability they get isn't impressive is perfectly reasonable. However not having any 14th level caster feats to compare it to does mean it's hard to say whether the Fighter is going to have the amount of usefulness desired by its boosters or its detractors.

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Hythlodeus wrote:

this sounds more like a problem of less than ideal tactics and not everyone playing to the strengths of their characters, as far as I can deduce.

how would you describe a typical encounter, where you thing the problem you assume is so evident, usually shows up? what are your tanks doing? what are the spellcasters doing? are the tank characters doing their job of keeping the enemies out of reach of the squishy spellcaster? is the buffer helping them before or during the encounter? I think I need more input to analyze what is going wrong here

Honestly probably best to take it to another thread.

probably, but if it helps to ease his worries, it helps

As soon as the 'monsters' get decent mobility, the 'tanks' get ignored, (paladin smite/PA combos aside, and they only increase the window of threat a few levels) they are to slow and to low a threat to make ignoring the caster based 'save or sucks' worth it, IF you can get into a narrow tunnel where moving past (via flight, dimension door, teleport, however) is not a valid choice, then yes, tanks can do their task of being a beat stick, however, in a situation with space, either the casters stand next to the tanks (who get ignored, as the pay off of hitting/save or sucking a caster is far greater, or even worse get hit with a will based save or suck and become a threat to the party) and get hit, or they use their own mobility to take turn to the fight into a ranged game, edge cases include Magus and War Priests who can mix it up, but they make it plain that they are a better choice for the melee beat stick/tank role respectively than a pure martial, as the baked in spell utility allows them to be self sustaining and self buffing to an extent that makes them less reliant on the pure casters who frankly have better options than buffing martials, including summoning a creature and buffing that instead.

Vidmaster7 wrote:

you are aware this isn't a caster/ martial disparity thread those post have no place here.

It's a thread about the Fighter preview. Saying that the 14th level ability they get isn't impressive is perfectly reasonable. However not having any 14th level caster feats to compare it to does mean it's hard to say whether the Fighter is going to have the amount of usefulness desired by its boosters or its detractors.

Yes but C/MD is a 1st edition PF thing we don't know its a PF2 its being assumed that it is. The arguements being made are useing PF1 which isn't what this thread is for.

Hythlodeus wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Hythlodeus wrote:

this sounds more like a problem of less than ideal tactics and not everyone playing to the strengths of their characters, as far as I can deduce.

how would you describe a typical encounter, where you thing the problem you assume is so evident, usually shows up? what are your tanks doing? what are the spellcasters doing? are the tank characters doing their job of keeping the enemies out of reach of the squishy spellcaster? is the buffer helping them before or during the encounter? I think I need more input to analyze what is going wrong here

Honestly probably best to take it to another thread.

probably, but if it helps to ease his worries, it helps

As soon as the 'monsters' get decent mobility, the 'tanks' get ignored, (paladin smite/PA combos aside, and they only increase the window of threat a few levels) they are to slow and to low a threat to make ignoring the caster based 'save or sucks' worth it, IF you can get into a narrow tunnel where moving past (via flight, dimension door, teleport, however) is not a valid choice, then yes, tanks can do their task of being a beat stick, however, in a situation with space, either the casters stand next to the tanks (who get ignored, as the pay off of hitting/save or sucking a caster is far greater, or even worse get hit with a will based save or suck and become a threat to the party) and get hit, or they use their own mobility to take turn to the fight into a ranged game, edge cases include Magus and War Priests who can mix it up, but they make it plain that they are a better choice for the melee beat stick/tank role respectively than a pure martial, as the baked in spell utility allows them to be self sustaining and self buffing to an extent that makes them less reliant on the pure casters who frankly have better options than buffing martials, including summoning a creature and buffing that instead.

A summoned monster is not anywhere near as good as a martial of the same level not even close. I don't know why the martials you play with suck but a half decent martial can kill a summoned monster at their level with ease.

It’s especially nowhere near the buffed martial you could have had with the same time and spell expenditure.

wait, why is the caster standing next to the martials and why are the buffers buffing the summoned monster which is not as effective as buffing the martials?

Bluenose wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

you are aware this isn't a caster/ martial disparity thread those post have no place here.

It's a thread about the Fighter preview. Saying that the 14th level ability they get isn't impressive is perfectly reasonable. However not having any 14th level caster feats to compare it to does mean it's hard to say whether the Fighter is going to have the amount of usefulness desired by its boosters or its detractors.

Yes but C/MD is a 1st edition PF thing we don't know its a PF2 its being assumed that it is. The arguements being made are useing PF1 which isn't what this thread is for.

This thread is for the preview, given that this is a second edition (And as far as we know not a complete do over, given comments about backward compatibility that seems fair) assuming that this is the attempt to 'fix' the fighter seems fair and reasonable, and it frankly doesn't seem to.

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Bluenose wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

you are aware this isn't a caster/ martial disparity thread those post have no place here.

It's a thread about the Fighter preview. Saying that the 14th level ability they get isn't impressive is perfectly reasonable. However not having any 14th level caster feats to compare it to does mean it's hard to say whether the Fighter is going to have the amount of usefulness desired by its boosters or its detractors.

Yes but C/MD is a 1st edition PF thing we don't know its a PF2 its being assumed that it is. The arguements being made are useing PF1 which isn't what this thread is for.

This thread is for the preview, given that this is a second edition (And as far as we know not a complete do over, given comments about backward compatibility that seems fair) assuming that this is the attempt to 'fix' the fighter seems fair and reasonable, and it frankly doesn't seem to.

Well we will know for sure if the conversation is still here tomorrow.

A summoned monster is not anywhere near as good as a martial of the same level not even close. I don't know why the martials you play with suck but a half decent martial can kill a summoned monster at their level with ease.

The summoned monster doesn't need to compete with the martial. It needs to be good enough to defeat the hostile monsters. In a cooperative game it doesn't matter how good the Fighter is at fighting as long as the fighting gets done somehow, with summoned monsters being reasonably efficient at doing that. And they're cheaper to keep around or replace than a Fighter, while sometimes also having other useful features that the Fighter can't match.

Vidmaster7 wrote:

A summoned monster is not anywhere near as good as a martial of the same level not even close. I don't know why the martials you play with suck but a half decent martial can kill a summoned monster at their level with ease.

The summoned monster doesn't need to compete with the martial. It needs to be good enough to defeat the hostile monsters. In a cooperative game it doesn't matter how good the Fighter is at fighting as long as the fighting gets done somehow, with summoned monsters being reasonably efficient at doing that. And they're cheaper to keep around or replace than a Fighter, while sometimes also having other useful features that the Fighter can't match.

Yeah I'm sure the Cr 13 is going to do a lot of good against a CR 18

wait, why is the caster standing next to the martials and why are the buffers buffing the summoned monster which is not as effective as buffing the martials?

Standing next to to martials is the only way to get the monster to come to them (they are being not-idiots, and going for the casters, standing next to the 'tank' is the only way to drag them in range), buffing for instance a Babau kicks the hell out of buffing a lvl 9 fighter, or an Eeinyes vs a lvl 11? Yea sorry, Erinyes wins. Especially when we are talking about credible meat shield summons with at will spells, baked in teleports, permanent true seeing, flight etc etc, a pure summoner runs away laughing on the power curve, even the Unchained version. OFc, you can argue that 'summon more' or 'attack bbeg with save or sucks' beats buffing them, and you may have a point their.

so, uh, your frontliners WAIT until the monsters come to THEM?

Bluenose wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

A summoned monster is not anywhere near as good as a martial of the same level not even close. I don't know why the martials you play with suck but a half decent martial can kill a summoned monster at their level with ease.

The summoned monster doesn't need to compete with the martial. It needs to be good enough to defeat the hostile monsters. In a cooperative game it doesn't matter how good the Fighter is at fighting as long as the fighting gets done somehow, with summoned monsters being reasonably efficient at doing that. And they're cheaper to keep around or replace than a Fighter, while sometimes also having other useful features that the Fighter can't match.

Yeah I'm sure the Cr 13 is going to do a lot of good against a CR 18

CR 13..so Ghaele Azata:https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/azata/gh aele Yes, yes that thing DOES own a fighter hollow in utility, in power, in it's ability to ignore all DR, in having a permanent holy aura, it's casting makes it a decent back up heal bot...wow.

Hythlodeus wrote:

wait, why is the caster standing next to the martials and why are the buffers buffing the summoned monster which is not as effective as buffing the martials?

Standing next to to martials is the only way to get the monster to come to them (they are being not-idiots, and going for the casters, standing next to the 'tank' is the only way to drag them in range), buffing for instance a Babau kicks the hell out of buffing a lvl 9 fighter, or an Eeinyes vs a lvl 11? Yea sorry, Erinyes wins. Especially when we are talking about credible meat shield summons with at will spells, baked in teleports, permanent true seeing, flight etc etc, a pure summoner runs away laughing on the power curve, even the Unchained version. OFc, you can argue that 'summon more' or 'attack bbeg with save or sucks' beats buffing them, and you may have a point their.

Do your non-intelligent monsters do that too?

cr 8 versus cr 11 if that works out in the cr 8's favor then that is a flaw with the CRs. the eyrines 94 hp could easily be dealt with a single attack round by a 11th level fighter.

save or suck hey guess what sometimes they save if you burn 3 spells before they fail then the fighter could probably of put them down faster. plus spell resistance and immunities. a well built fighter able to full attack should kill about anything of his cr in two rounds.

so, uh, your frontliners WAIT until the monsters come to THEM?

when the monsters are more mobile, and most are, then the only time you GET into melee is when you engineer the monster coming to you.

Rob Godfrey wrote:

Hythlodeus wrote:

wait, why is the caster standing next to the martials and why are the buffers buffing the summoned monster which is not as effective as buffing the martials?

Standing next to to martials is the only way to get the monster to come to them (they are being not-idiots, and going for the casters, standing next to the 'tank' is the only way to drag them in range), buffing for instance a Babau kicks the hell out of buffing a lvl 9 fighter, or an Eeinyes vs a lvl 11? Yea sorry, Erinyes wins. Especially when we are talking about credible meat shield summons with at will spells, baked in teleports, permanent true seeing, flight etc etc, a pure summoner runs away laughing on the power curve, even the Unchained version. OFc, you can argue that 'summon more' or 'attack bbeg with save or sucks' beats buffing them, and you may have a point their.

Do your non-intelligent monsters do that too?

cr 8 versus cr 11 if that works out in the cr 8's favor then that is a flaw with the CRs. the eyrines 94 hp could easily be dealt with a single attack round by a 11th level fighter.

save or suck hey guess what sometimes they save if you burn 3 spells before they fail then the fighter could probably of put them down faster. plus spell resistance and immunities. a well built fighter able to full attack should kill about anything of his cr in two rounds.

anything that is stupid enough to stand still to be full attacked does deserve to die, yes, if you can engineer a situation where it has to, well done. (not being sarcastic, it is hell hard to get monsters to stay still) EDIT: Also non-intelligent monsters are bags of hp, and not particularly interesting fights (usually) more like the perfect theoretical training dummy for the hitty guys to well...hit. It's when you get smarts and mobility things get interesting, and having doing damage while being slow moving being your concept starts to fall apart.

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Bluenose wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

A summoned monster is not anywhere near as good as a martial of the same level not even close. I don't know why the martials you play with suck but a half decent martial can kill a summoned monster at their level with ease.

The summoned monster doesn't need to compete with the martial. It needs to be good enough to defeat the hostile monsters. In a cooperative game it doesn't matter how good the Fighter is at fighting as long as the fighting gets done somehow, with summoned monsters being reasonably efficient at doing that. And they're cheaper to keep around or replace than a Fighter, while sometimes also having other useful features that the Fighter can't match.

Yeah I'm sure the Cr 13 is going to do a lot of good against a CR 18

CR 13..so Ghaele Azata:https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/azata/gh aele Yes, yes that thing DOES own a fighter hollow in utility, in power, in it's ability to ignore all DR, in having a permanent holy aura, it's casting makes it a decent back up heal bot...wow.

Oh did we change gears? I thought we were talking about combat? I thought the idea was for your cr 13 to single handedly beat the cr 18. well then did you consider that a PC might have magic items? like at all? In your mind is the Fighter fresh out of the box with no gear? no wonder hes losing.

This is a curious obsession, even in PF 1e a fighter can easily solo his CR that is meant to fight an entire party. Meanwhile at high levels the enemies saves and resistances and varied immunities means the most efficient way to win is not direct spells or summons, but buffing the martial. It yields the highest survival chance and least wasted spells.

An intelligent wizard player would know this and use his spells smartly. This assumes equal competence from all players and is a lot more solid than any white void theorycraft.

I don't know how you got trapped into arguing against this when you should be arguing about their narrative power difference.

Also, the shield raise was a one action and done, even before combat, in the podcast, not repeated actions. Did this get changed?

Rob Godfrey wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Bluenose wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

A summoned monster is not anywhere near as good as a martial of the same level not even close. I don't know why the martials you play with suck but a half decent martial can kill a summoned monster at their level with ease.

The summoned monster doesn't need to compete with the martial. It needs to be good enough to defeat the hostile monsters. In a cooperative game it doesn't matter how good the Fighter is at fighting as long as the fighting gets done somehow, with summoned monsters being reasonably efficient at doing that. And they're cheaper to keep around or replace than a Fighter, while sometimes also having other useful features that the Fighter can't match.

Yeah I'm sure the Cr 13 is going to do a lot of good against a CR 18

CR 13..so Ghaele Azata:https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/azata/gh aele Yes, yes that thing DOES own a fighter hollow in utility, in power, in it's ability to ignore all DR, in having a permanent holy aura, it's casting makes it a decent back up heal bot...wow.

Oh did we change gears? I thought we were talking about combat? I thought the idea was for your cr 13 to single handedly beat the cr 18. well then did you consider that a PC might have magic items? like at all? In your mind is the Fighter fresh out of the box with no gear? no wonder hes losing.

we are talking about combat yes, and their are no magic items that do not require a UMD check that a fighter could have that compete with that ability list.

This is a curious obsession, even in PF 1e a fighter can easily solo his CR that is meant to fight an entire party. Meanwhile at high levels the enemies saves and resistances and varied immunities means the most efficient way to win is not direct spells or summons, but buffing the martial. It yields the highest survival chance and least wasted spells.

An intelligent wizard player would know this and use his spells smartly. This assumes equal competence from all players and is a lot more solid than any white void theorycraft.

I don't know how you got trapped into arguing against this when you should be arguing about their narrative power difference.

Also, the shield raise was a one action and done, even before combat, in the podcast, not repeated actions. Did this get changed?

Now as far as narrative power goes that is ground I will give. I think that is why PF2 is really amping up the skills!

This is a curious obsession, even in PF 1e a fighter can easily solo his CR that is meant to fight an entire party. Meanwhile at high levels the enemies saves and resistances and varied immunities means the most efficient way to win is not direct spells or summons, but buffing the martial. It yields the highest survival chance and least wasted spells.

An intelligent wizard player would know this and use his spells smartly. This assumes equal competence from all players and is a lot more solid than any white void theorycraft.

I don't know how you got trapped into arguing against this when you should be arguing about their narrative power difference.

Also, the shield raise was a one action and done, even before combat, in the podcast, not repeated actions. Did this get changed?

IF the monster is stupid enough to stay still for full attacks, then you are correct (Well maybe some possible summons look like damn good returns on investment), I have yet to encounter a game were high level martials didn't feel like the spare wheel, past about 8th (it varies sometimes as late as 11th) another caster would bring more utility, more power, and more use to the game, especially as summons come into their own, and start being mini fighter/casters all on their own, or casters can flat out turn themselves into decent melee combatants. ON raising shields: in this thread the impression was given it was every round, it's pure mobility at the low end and havign a target that jumps around like freking Night Crawler at the high end.

so, just to understand that, you're saying your group is not trying to control where the fighting tankes place and keep the monsters away from the squishys but stand in line and wait for the monsters to come to them, because the monsters mobilty is to high? they are not blocking the way, they are not slowing the monster down, they just enter the room and wait? (and then also not get buffed but have to watch how those resources go to a summoned monster that's way beyond their power level)

look, I'm not telling you how to run your encounters, because you do your thing and all power to you, but...this looks really like a problem with the party's tactics than with the mechanics of the game

Now that said, is static damage fun? Sure, I know what I'm going to do and don't even need worry about dice. But what's the point of a dice game without dice? I've never been a fan of so many stupid static bonuses that my actual weapon attack doesn't matter besides, "Is it a 2h weapon?".

It would be fairly easy to take the die roll out of the damage if you wanted. Say minimum damage when you hit their AC, average damage when you rolled over it. Roll over it by 1 or more and you do full damage and STRx2. A natural 20 is double damage and STRx2.

Alydos wrote:

This is a curious obsession, even in PF 1e a fighter can easily solo his CR that is meant to fight an entire party. Meanwhile at high levels the enemies saves and resistances and varied immunities means the most efficient way to win is not direct spells or summons, but buffing the martial. It yields the highest survival chance and least wasted spells.

An intelligent wizard player would know this and use his spells smartly. This assumes equal competence from all players and is a lot more solid than any white void theorycraft.

I don't know how you got trapped into arguing against this when you should be arguing about their narrative power difference.

Also, the shield raise was a one action and done, even before combat, in the podcast, not repeated actions. Did this get changed?

IF the monster is stupid enough to stay still for full attacks, then you are correct (Well maybe some possible summons look like damn good returns on investment), I have yet to encounter a game were high level martials didn't feel like the spare wheel, past about 8th (it varies sometimes as late as 11th) another caster would bring more utility, more power, and more use to the game, especially as summons come into their own, and start being mini fighter/casters all on their own, or casters can flat out turn themselves into decent melee combatants. ON raising shields: in this thread the impression was given it was every round.

Full attacking is nice, but hardly required for any of the best built characters. It's also trivially easy to get with magic items or wizard buffing.

Certainly even the most optimal summons will not end a fight as quickly as the fighter. Their problem is all the out of combat abilities they give.

The level range you give of 8-11 is actually the exact same one I use, but not for combat. Those are the levels when the versatility of exploration and role-play bypasses for casters have incomparably outstripped the spotlight of a martial being only best at combat.

The three different phases of play in disunity.