The Prestige

Tanking isn't a good fit for PF2 on a mechanical level. You don't want a mechanic that encourages focus firing anyone in the party as the best defense is spreading the damage around between the all about equally resilient targets. If there was a tool for keeping enemy attention in place, you'd still need something to boost player resilience or recovery rate in order to take more of the party's damage.

An ideal way to create a tank in the current mechanical environment is to have the "tank" absorb a portion of the damage delivered to the party so that the only target that takes full damage is the tank. In order to keep the tank available as a target, the absorption effect could only work on turns where the tank has made a melee attack, or is threatening a target. Paladin has a few things like this, paladin's sacrifice and shieldwarden, but being restricted to one reaction per round allows them to be bypassed through persistence alone without modifying enemy tactics.

Unfortunately, even with all that, a paladin doesn't have the relative resilience to support this.

Pathfinder/D&D has never really supported the fantasy of "my defense is impenetrable, enemies will break upon my armor like waves crashing on the rocks" anyway. No matter how much you have invested in defense it's not going to take that many hits to drop you. Especially tanky builds in PF1 were predicated on particular interactions of mechanics which we don't have access to anymore (double life oracles, oradins, water dancer monks who add their CHA to their AC multiple times over, etc.)

I mean, the toughest character one can put on paper in PF2 is something like a Dwarf Barbarian Gray Maiden, who at level 15 with 20 CON, three toughness analogous feats, and Master Heavy Armor Proficiency will have something like 28 AC and 300 HP. A Wizard at that level can plausibly have something 24 AC and 150 HP with minimal investment. We just don't see a huge difference between the defensive acumen of "someone who puts everything into it" and "someone who puts only a bit into it" except in terms of HP, and "I have huge HP" is kind of the worst defense since healing you gets expensive.

I just remembered one thing I wish the Magic survey had been asking about: Instead of how well the spell lists fit the theme of their magical traditions, I think it would be more interesting to ask whether the spell lists have well-defined, unique themes.

... And my answer would be, not very much. This is because the lists have too much overlap, in my opinion.

For example, there is no cantrip that's unique to one list. Well over half belong to at least 3 lists. Then when it comes to spells, it's a little better, but still the overlap is large. A small minority of level 1 or 2 spells are unique to their list, more than half belong to 2 lists, and about a third belong to 3 lists or more. This improves a bit at higher levels, but if I add everything up, I find (assuming I got my Excel math right) just 21% of all spells belonging on one list, 56% on 2 lists, 17% on 3 lists and 7% on all 4. The arcane list is particularly limited in that regard: just 8 spells in all are uniquely arcane (shrink item, disintegrate, contingency, spell turning, the 3 power words, and wish).

This is why the feeling of differentiation between the spell lists is somewhat weak.

Well, sort of. It honestly seemed intentional to me. The druid list is the traditional cleric bits, plus the classic unique druid spells and then wizard spells added in to round it out. Occult is just a flat blend of the bad wizard and priest spells, a few outliers and a couple random extras, none of which have anything much to do with bards.

None of the lists have much of a theme beyond 'classic D&D spells plus some random stuff.'

Personally I don't think the 'occult' list justifies its existence at all, and the druid list needs to back away from just being bulked out by stealing wizard spells.

And cleric needs some spells added back so it doesn't feel like a hollow shell.

Pathfinder/D&D has never really supported the fantasy of "my defense is impenetrable, enemies will break upon my armor like waves crashing on the rocks" anyway. No matter how much you have invested in defense it's not going to take that many hits to drop you. Especially tanky builds in PF1 were predicated on particular interactions of mechanics which we don't have access to anymore (double life oracles, oradins, water dancer monks who add their CHA to their AC multiple times over, etc.)

I mean, the toughest character one can put on paper in PF2 is something like a Dwarf Barbarian Gray Maiden, who at level 15 with 20 CON, three toughness analogous feats, and Master Heavy Armor Proficiency will have something like 28 AC and 300 HP. A Wizard at that level can plausibly have something 24 AC and 150 HP with minimal investment. We just don't see a huge difference between the defensive acumen of "someone who puts everything into it" and "someone who puts only a bit into it" except in terms of HP, and "I have huge HP" is kind of the worst defense since healing you gets expensive.

On the upside that theoretical swol boi gets 75 HP off of a Treat Wounds check, or 120 on a crit success. XD

I mean, the toughest character one can put on paper in PF2 is something like a Dwarf Barbarian Gray Maiden, who at level 15 with 20 CON, three toughness analogous feats, and Master Heavy Armor Proficiency will have something like 28 AC and 300 HP. A Wizard at that level can plausibly have something 24 AC and 150 HP with minimal investment.

Those numbers seem low to me, given that at 15th lvl, an unarmored character with Dex 10 has AC 25 (10 base + 15 proficiency).

We just don't see a huge difference between the defensive acumen of "someone who puts everything into it" and "someone who puts only a bit into it" except in terms of HP, and "I have huge HP" is kind of the worst defense since healing you gets expensive.

I think this is a good thing and hope its true. It doesn't quite fit my experience so far. Sure, a wizard CAN have a decent AC, but its a pretty big investment and wizards around here tend to prioritize other things - "If they can hit the fighter at all, they will hit me no matter what I put into my defenses, so I might as well not put anything into defenses".

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I mean, the toughest character one can put on paper in PF2 is something like a Dwarf Barbarian Gray Maiden, who at level 15 with 20 CON, three toughness analogous feats, and Master Heavy Armor Proficiency will have something like 28 AC and 300 HP. A Wizard at that level can plausibly have something 24 AC and 150 HP with minimal investment.

Those numbers seem low to me, given that at 15th lvl, an unarmored character with Dex 10 has AC 25 (10 base + 15 proficiency).

Oh right, I forgot to add the base 10. So it should be 38 and 34.

Pathfinder/D&D has never really supported the fantasy of "my defense is impenetrable, enemies will break upon my armor like waves crashing on the rocks" anyway. No matter how much you have invested in defense it's not going to take that many hits to drop you. Especially tanky builds in PF1 were predicated on particular interactions of mechanics which we don't have access to anymore (double life oracles, oradins, water dancer monks who add their CHA to their AC multiple times over, etc.)

I have heard of PF1 monk builds that were nearly untouchable. However, the monk also had no offense, so the enemies quickly realized that they ought to take out the damage-dealing party members first, and then defeat the monk at their leisure.

Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons do have a tradition of a tough front line of fighter and cleric that protects a squishier back line of wizard and ranged rogue. Perhaps the two frontliners are standing shoulder to shoulder in a 10-foot wide hallway. Perhaps the wizard laid down a obstale, such as Grease. Perhaps the back line is more than 30 feet behind the front line and the opponents don't want to waste a turn in nothing but movement while being hit by an attack of opportunity. Perhaps only the wizard started in the back line, because the rogue had rushed ahead during the surprise round and then retreated the next turn. It was a fairly adaptable system. Ambushes by opponents were designed to nullify this defensive structure by closing on from the side and surrounding the rogue and wizard in melee.

However, the front line is old school. Many newer Pathfinder 1st Edition classes, such as alchemist, magus, and martial/caster hybrids, could use magical effects yet also fare well in melee. The party in my Iron Gods campaign had many of these classes (magus, skald, fighter/investigator, gunslinger/rogue, and bloodrager) and used mobile skirmishing rather than a front line.

Pathfinder 2nd Edition does not appear to support the front line well. Atacks of opportunity now mostly a fighter's tactic, the casters have better defenses, and everyone can hit in the first attack in melee. However, the players who built ranged characters want to use that ranged offense. Thus, my wife's barbarian character was using roleplaying to try to distract the monster from the ranged characters.

As to how to write a Taunt stunt, I acknowledge that this is very hard to do well. 4E gave the taunted creature a -2 penalty to attack anyone but the taunter - plus riders specific to each class. This worked so-so, honestly The riders were more important than the penalty, and -2 was not enough to motivate monsters to attack a fighter, the AC difference was much larger than that. But in PF2, AC differences are small (if you pay the Dexterity tax) and a -2 penalty is more significant. But I'd prefer some other system that was less artificial. Perhaps attacks of opportunity against a taunted opponent should be a free action, or a reaction if you normally cannot do an AoO? That would be a Warning rather than a Taunt, and would naturally key to Intimidate, not Diplomacy.

Pathfinder 2nd Edition offers a better way to force a counterattack than a loss of control like with PF1 Antagonize or a -2 penalty like with D&D 4th Edition.

For my baseline, Pathfinder 2nd Edition seems to view taunting as a demoralization effect:

[[A]] DEMORALIZE
Auditory, Concentrate, Emotion, Lingual, Mental
With a sudden shout, a well-timed taunt, or a cutting put-down, you can shake an enemy’s resolve. Choose a creature within 30 feet of you who you sense or see and who can sense or see you. Attempt an Intimidation check against that target’s Will DC. If the target does not understand the language you are speaking, you’re not speaking a language, or they can’t hear you, you take a –4 circumstance penalty to the check and demoralize loses the lingual trait.
Success The target becomes frightened 1.
Critical Success The target becomes frightened 2 and is fleeing until the end of its next turn.
Critical Failure You can’t attempt to demoralize the target again for 10 minutes.

Frightened
You’re gripped by fear and struggle to control your nerves. The frightened condition always includes a value. You take a conditional penalty equal to this value to your checks and saving throws. Unless specified otherwise, at the end of each of your turns, the value of your frightened condition decreases by 1.

I am confused why Demoralize has the concentration trait, preventing a raging barbarian from intimidating an opponent. However, an Intimidation check for taunting does seem appropriate.

[[A]] ANTAGONIZE (homebrew)
Auditory, Emotion, Lingual, Mental
You deliberately anger an opponent so that they lose focus on the larger battle. Choose a creature within 30 feet of you who you sense or see and who can sense or see you. Attempt an Intimidation check against that target’s Will DC. If the target does not understand the language you are speaking, you’re not speaking a language, or they can’t hear you, you take a –4 circumstance penalty to the check and demoralize loses the lingual trait.
Success One of the target's actions on its next turn must interact with you hostilely, such as a Strike against you or a Demoralize against you or a Casting a Spell that would harm you. The creature may give up an action (become slowed 1) to prevent this.
Critical Success The creature is instead slowed 1.
Critical Failure You can’t attempt to antagonize the target again for 10 minutes.

[[A]] ANTAGONIZING STRIKE (homebrew) Barbarian Feat 4
Prerequisites trained in Intimidation
Barbarian, Rage, Emotion, Mental
You make a Strike. If it hits, you may may make an Intimidation check against that target’s Will DC to Antagonize that opponent. You do not need to speak a language the target understands and the Anatagonize lose the auditory and lingual traits.

My group uses a front line with a warrior in it, but this is an offensive position, not a defensive one. Few enemies can stand toe-to-toe with a well supported offensive warrior. If you kill the enemy's front quick, remaining enemies are unlikely to try and move around the warrior against your own squishies - the warrior is the more immediate threat. The rear hero ranks need to keep the front warrior going, frequently using buffs and remedies.

This seems to work well in PF2 so far We're on Sombrefell hall and have done one of the PFS scenarios, this might not work at higher levels, we'll see.

ANTAGONIZING STRIKE

I like this implementation, but for purely gamist reasons, I'd prefer if more skills were involved. Which is a bit odd, since i loathe much of the increased gameism in PF2. Aw well, consistency was never my strong suit.

Pathfinder/D&D has never really supported the fantasy of "my defense is impenetrable, enemies will break upon my armor like waves crashing on the rocks" anyway. No matter how much you have invested in defense it's not going to take that many hits to drop you. Especially tanky builds in PF1 were predicated on particular interactions of mechanics which we don't have access to anymore (double life oracles, oradins, water dancer monks who add their CHA to their AC multiple times over, etc.)

*nods*

Armor doesn't win fights, weapons do. Investing in armor makes you a bit safer, but it doesn't do much to help others or stop your opponents.

Apparently Hit Points and DPR are what is most valued by players, not AC and To hit.

Apparently Hit Points and DPR are what is most valued by players, not AC and To hit.

to-hit DIRECTLY IMPACTS DPR, and can in fact be more valuable than more damage, especially when increasing in level and enemy defenses skyrocket even further (your DPR is 0 if you can't hit the enemy).

I'd say AC takes a backseat in the endgame as most enemies tend to have powerful magics or completely devastating abilities or rider effects that require huge saves (with the penalty more often than not being death, effectively).

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Apparently Hit Points and DPR are what is most valued by players, not AC and To hit.

to-hit DIRECTLY IMPACTS DPR,

I know, no need to scream, just something I read recently, that in the end, people like their characters to have lots of HP and deal lots of damage, over really high AC and To hit. Maybe that is why 5th Ed is doing so well.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Pathfinder/D&D has never really supported the fantasy of "my defense is impenetrable, enemies will break upon my armor like waves crashing on the rocks" anyway. No matter how much you have invested in defense it's not going to take that many hits to drop you. Especially tanky builds in PF1 were predicated on particular interactions of mechanics which we don't have access to anymore (double life oracles, oradins, water dancer monks who add their CHA to their AC multiple times over, etc.)

*nods*

Armor doesn't win fights, weapons do. Investing in armor makes you a bit safer, but it doesn't do much to help others or stop your opponents.

Also killing enemies faster makes you much safer

Rysky wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Pathfinder/D&D has never really supported the fantasy of "my defense is impenetrable, enemies will break upon my armor like waves crashing on the rocks" anyway. No matter how much you have invested in defense it's not going to take that many hits to drop you. Especially tanky builds in PF1 were predicated on particular interactions of mechanics which we don't have access to anymore (double life oracles, oradins, water dancer monks who add their CHA to their AC multiple times over, etc.)

*nods*

Armor doesn't win fights, weapons do. Investing in armor makes you a bit safer, but it doesn't do much to help others or stop your opponents.

Also killing enemies faster makes you much safer

Yep, the best condition to impose on a monster is, dead.

Armor doesn't win fights, weapons do. Investing in armor makes you a bit safer, but it doesn't do much to help others or stop your opponents.

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Apparently Hit Points and DPR are what is most valued by players, not AC and To hit.

to-hit DIRECTLY IMPACTS DPR, and can in fact be more valuable than more damage, especially when increasing in level and enemy defenses skyrocket even further (your DPR is 0 if you can't hit the enemy).

I'd say AC takes a backseat in the endgame as most enemies tend to have powerful magics or completely devastating abilities or rider effects that require huge saves (with the penalty more often than not being death, effectively).

The players have solid mathematical reasons for a preference for offense.

Imagine two possible feats that a fighter character to take. Improved Offense feat lets the fighter deal 50% more damage, so that a battle that takes 3 rounds would take 2 rounds instead. Improved Defense feat reduces the damage taken by the fighter by 33%, so that in a 3-round battle he would take as much damage as he would ordinarily take in a 2-round battle. At first glance, these feats are balanced against each other: the fighter wins both scenarios with exactly the same amount of damage.

But Improved Defense takes more time. Time is a cost. On the third round, the Improved Defense fighter would be stuck in his initial battle, but the Improved Offense fighter could move on to battle another foe, say the one that is beating on the cleric. The Improved Offense fighter would end up more damaged, since he starts a second fight, but he will have accomplished more, saving the cleric.

I have no idea why a player would prefer HP over AC. Both are defense, but high AC requires less healing afterwards. Healing is a cost, too.

I have no idea why a player would prefer HP over AC.

I do. In 3rd Ed/PF1, AC does not scale, you have to invest a lot to bump it, and many monsters have good to hit, so if you're going to get smacked, regardless, may as well have more hit points, so you can take the inevitable hits.

I have no idea why a player would prefer HP over AC. Both are defense, but high AC requires less healing afterwards. Healing is a cost, too.

Because it is more satisfying to trade mighty blows, to inflict or endure huge amounts of damage, than to never be hit.

Also you feel more active, more alive, more at risk and succeeding, if only because it takes two rolls to determine the outcome (hit and damage) rather than a single boring hit/miss

EDIT - also what Vic said

Mathmuse wrote:

I have no idea why a player would prefer HP over AC. Both are defense, but high AC requires less healing afterwards. Healing is a cost, too.

Because it is more satisfying to trade mighty blows, to inflict or endure huge amounts of damage, than to never be hit.

Also you feel more active, more alive, more at risk and succeeding, if only because it takes two rolls to determine the outcome (hit and damage) rather than a single boring hit/miss

EDIT - also what Vic said

Total, also, someone made a good analogy with the computer/video game life-bar; people do not like their's going down much, when hit, but very much like the enemy's going way down, when they hit.

I have no idea why a player would prefer HP over AC. Both are defense, but high AC requires less healing afterwards. Healing is a cost, too.

For damage sources that bypass AC.

Mathmuse wrote:

I have no idea why a player would prefer HP over AC. Both are defense, but high AC requires less healing afterwards. Healing is a cost, too.

For damage sources that bypass AC.

Ha, crikey, and that, of course, one of the most obvious (I am thinking to myself "duh, why didn't I think of that one..."), thank you (AC means squat, to many spells and all breath weapons, etc).

It's also a basic primal thing in animals, they want to shred others the most, while getting shredded the least, apparently, pound/kilo-for-pound/kilo, the wolverine is one of the most aggressive, toughest (fur doesn't freeze), and powerful animals for its size (a grisly has to be really peckish to mess with one, doesn't want to lose a paw, or get one maimed).

"The great tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact." Thomas Huxley, 1870.

I just did the number crunching on HP versus AC. The beautiful hypotheses are not necessary. Hit point boosts are simply a better bargain.

Consider a 4th-level ranger with Con 13 and Dex 13 in Pathfinder 1st Edition. With d10 hit dice, he likely has 32 hit points. If he applies his 4th-level ability score boot to Constitution, he would gain 4 more hp, a 12.5% improvement. If he applies the ability score improvement to Dexterity, his AC would go up by 1. Assuming that his foes hit him about 50% of the time, that would be an 11% improvement. However, he most cares about the deadly opponents who hit him 75% of the time. +1 AC would be only an 7% improvement against them. Call that an average of 9%. A 12.5% improvement in hp is better than a 9% improvement in AC.

Of course, the ranger would take the Dexterity improvement because it would also improve his archery, but this could have instead been a contest between the Toughness feat and the Dodge feat. I biased this contest in favor of AC and it still lost. Someone with lower hp would love the 4 hp even more, but someone with lower AC would gain less benefit from +1 to AC.

"The great tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact." Thomas Huxley, 1870.

I just did the number crunching on HP versus AC. The beautiful hypotheses are not necessary. Hit point boosts are simply a better bargain.

So this would be a 180' on your previous stance?

Mathmuse wrote:

"The great tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact." Thomas Huxley, 1870.

I just did the number crunching on HP versus AC. The beautiful hypotheses are not necessary. Hit point boosts are simply a better bargain.

So this would be a 180' on your previous stance?

My previous stance was, "I have no idea."

My current stance is, "The hp boost is a better bargain."

I now have an idea. The idea is not necessarily correct, because usually these matters have more nuance than I see at first glance. Threfore, expect more twists and turns from me.

My secret agenda is that I think Pathfinder 2nd Edition gives out too many hit points, especially to the monsters. But few hit points would make "+1 hp per level" hit point boosts relatively better. Maybe we need bigger damage dice instead.

My secret agenda is that I think Pathfinder 2nd Edition gives out too many hit points, especially to the monsters. But few hit points would make "+1 hp per level" hit point boosts relatively better. Maybe we need bigger damage dice instead.

Ha, double secret agenda?

Yes, they could cut down on hit points, and thus your DPR being dependant on +X weapons.

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Mathmuse wrote:

"The great tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact." Thomas Huxley, 1870.

I just did the number crunching on HP versus AC. The beautiful hypotheses are not necessary. Hit point boosts are simply a better bargain.

So this would be a 180' on your previous stance?

My previous stance was, "I have no idea."

My current stance is, "The hp boost is a better bargain."

I now have an idea.

Right on, you seem to know your maths, more than I, so it's cool this conversation got you to investigate/crunch.

Pathfinder/D&D has never really supported the fantasy of "my defense is impenetrable, enemies will break upon my armor like waves crashing on the rocks" anyway. No matter how much you have invested in defense it's not going to take that many hits to drop you. Especially tanky builds in PF1 were predicated on particular interactions of mechanics which we don't have access to anymore (double life oracles, oradins, water dancer monks who add their CHA to their AC multiple times over, etc.)

I mean, the toughest character one can put on paper in PF2 is something like a Dwarf Barbarian Gray Maiden, who at level 15 with 20 CON, three toughness analogous feats, and Master Heavy Armor Proficiency will have something like 28 AC and 300 HP. A Wizard at that level can plausibly have something 24 AC and 150 HP with minimal investment. We just don't see a huge difference between the defensive acumen of "someone who puts everything into it" and "someone who puts only a bit into it" except in terms of HP, and "I have huge HP" is kind of the worst defense since healing you gets expensive.

4 ac is close to 80% extra EHP (50% chance to be hit dropped to 30%), add in another 60+ hp from shield, and your base double health, and suddenly one is 400% more durable than the other.

being able to take 4x the punishment is by no means a small difference.

4 ac is close to 80% extra EHP (50% chance to be hit dropped to 30%), add in another 60+ hp from shield, and your base double health, and suddenly one is 400% more durable than the other.

being able to take 4x the punishment is by no means a small difference.

High AC also synergizes well with healing, since it means each heal goes further.

shroudb wrote:

4 ac is close to 80% extra EHP (50% chance to be hit dropped to 30%), add in another 60+ hp from shield, and your base double health, and suddenly one is 400% more durable than the other.

being able to take 4x the punishment is by no means a small difference.

High AC also synergizes well with healing, since it means each heal goes further.

How does that reckon?

Dasrak wrote:

shroudb wrote:

4 ac is close to 80% extra EHP (50% chance to be hit dropped to 30%), add in another 60+ hp from shield, and your base double health, and suddenly one is 400% more durable than the other.

being able to take 4x the punishment is by no means a small difference.

High AC also synergizes well with healing, since it means each heal goes further.

How does that reckon?

the bigger question is:

is it out yet?

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Dasrak wrote:

shroudb wrote:

4 ac is close to 80% extra EHP (50% chance to be hit dropped to 30%), add in another 60+ hp from shield, and your base double health, and suddenly one is 400% more durable than the other.

being able to take 4x the punishment is by no means a small difference.

High AC also synergizes well with healing, since it means each heal goes further.

How does that reckon?

the bigger question is:

is it out yet?

Obviously not, but, when the day comes, my son, there will be a reckoning.

The Once and Future Kai wrote:

Mathmuse wrote:

I have no idea why a player would prefer HP over AC. Both are defense, but high AC requires less healing afterwards. Healing is a cost, too.

For damage sources that bypass AC.

Ha, crikey, and that, of course, one of the most obvious (I am thinking to myself "duh, why didn't I think of that one..."), thank you (AC means squat, to many spells and all breath weapons, etc).

Just to add an extra 2-cents onto this, in PF1e even effects that didn't completely ignore AC, could still render AC boosts nearly useless. For instance, most of the remaining offensive spells target Touch AC (as do guns, and a slew of martial abilities), which in that edition completely ignored your Armor and Natural Armor, 2 of the biggest ways to boost your AC. This is going to hurt, especially anyone in Heavy Armor, which typically had (and still has, though it's less major now) pitiful Max Dex. And then the dex-heavy builds had to deal with Flat-Footed, which negated their big boosts of Dexterity and Dodge bonuses. And sometimes there were even combos where you could wind up targeting Flat-Footed Touch AC, which if not at 10, is probably going to be within a few points of it with very few and far between exceptions.

On that subject though, these are similar reasons why players might not care so much about attack bonus coming in. In PF1e, with the lack of scaling of AC and the insane scaling to Attacks, it wasn't hard to get your attack to the point where you could pretty much always hit your first attack on a 2. At that point any further scaling was a waste of course, and even long before that was considered excessive. And of course, if you were one of those that did target Touch regularly (mages or gunslingers) then depending on the campaign you had even less reason to care. It's a well known fact that a lot of higher-level monsters have Touch AC that gets more pitiful as time goes on, particularly the bigger ones. A well-known example in my group is high-level dragons, where their Touch AC is literally 0, only miss-able because of the natural 1 auto-miss feature. If you know you'll be fighting mostly stuff like that, why would you care about your to-hit?

How does that reckon?

Let's suppose you heal for 20 damage and enemy has a 50% chance to hit you and a 10% chance to crit you for 10/20 damage respectively per turn (let's keep it down to one attack just to keep the math simple). This averages 7 damage per round, so to keep your ally's HP stable you need to heal once every 3 rounds. Now let's suppose AC is 2 points higher such that the monster has a 45% chance to hit and 5% chance to crit; now that DPR is 5.5 damage, meaning to keep HP stable you only need to heal once every 4 rounds.

Vic Ferrari wrote:

The Once and Future Kai wrote:

Mathmuse wrote:

I have no idea why a player would prefer HP over AC. Both are defense, but high AC requires less healing afterwards. Healing is a cost, too.

For damage sources that bypass AC.

Ha, crikey, and that, of course, one of the most obvious (I am thinking to myself "duh, why didn't I think of that one..."), thank you (AC means squat, to many spells and all breath weapons, etc).

Just to add an extra 2-cents onto this, in PF1e even effects that didn't completely ignore AC, could still render AC boosts nearly useless. For instance, most of the remaining offensive spells target Touch AC (as do guns, and a slew of martial abilities), which in that edition completely ignored your Armor and Natural Armor, 2 of the biggest ways to boost your AC. This is going to hurt, especially anyone in Heavy Armor, which typically had (and still has, though it's less major now) pitiful Max Dex. And then the dex-heavy builds had to deal with Flat-Footed, which negated their big boosts of Dexterity and Dodge bonuses. And sometimes there were even combos where you could wind up targeting Flat-Footed Touch AC, which if not at 10, is probably going to be within a few points of it with very few and far between exceptions.

On that subject though, these are similar reasons why players might not care so much about attack bonus coming in. In PF1e, with the lack of scaling of AC and the insane scaling to Attacks, it wasn't hard to get your attack to the point where you could pretty much always hit your first attack on a 2. At that point any further scaling was a waste of course, and even long before that was considered excessive. And of course, if you were one of those that did target Touch regularly (mages or gunslingers) then depending on the campaign you had even less reason to care. It's a well known fact that a lot of higher-level monsters have Touch AC that gets more pitiful as time goes on, particularly the bigger ones. A...

Totally dig the post, and another reason why I dislike TAC (in 3rd Ed/PF1, and the Playtest).

The players have solid mathematical reasons for a preference for offense...

In PF2 they do - you can never become hit proof in PF2. In PF1 AC was king as you could become hit proof to almost everything.

Assuming that his foes hit him about 50% of the time...

And this is the reason - in PF1, very few monsters would hit 50% of the time past level 7 or so.

And I think this is an improvement from PF1 to PF2. AC was too good in PF1.

@Mathmuse, I'm not arguing with you, I'm just pointing a magnifying glass at the things I see as central in your argument.

Just to add an extra 2-cents onto this, in PF1e even effects that didn't completely ignore AC, could still render AC boosts nearly useless.

While this is true, these effects are pretty rare. In a recent mummy's mask campaign, I had two frontline warriors in the group - an (almost) regular fighter, and a (variant) duelist. The fighter had slightly better AC but a lot worse touch AC - and that only came up a few times during the entire adventure path.

I haven't been able to do the magic survey as it seems aimed squarely at people who've played PF2 from 1-20 already, but I am seeing problems with low level casting.

The obvious issue is cantrips - my players kind of ignored them at first level as just bringing a crossbow seemed more effective. Their really cool spells, those level 1 spells, they got so few that it felt like they were just a shittier fighter most of the time. That wasn't very fun, and it's a problem I remember having in PF1 a lot.

For higher levels, I remember PF1 being a complete nightmares in terms of balance, and I don't think PF2 has done enough to really elevate martials outside of combat. Martials need to get things that spellcasters do not get in order to be balanced with them at high levels. If skill feats are meant to be the mundane alternatives to utility spells at high levels, then martials either need to get way more skill feats or casters need to be utterly useless with skills. It can't just be the Rogue that gets more skills if skills are meant to be what balances out martials and casters, because as it is casters benefit from both skills and spells.

Your typical Wizard is going to be trained in 9 skills, your typical Fighter is going to have 5-6 skills and they don't get spells. They both get the same number of skill increases and feats. The Wizard ends up being more skilled and can choose spells that let them completely resolve problems without even risking a die roll, unlike with a lot of skill feats. Even the casters that don't scale off Int get at least as many trained skills, skill increases, and skill feats as a Fighter, often just one less than a class like a Ranger who thematically should be way more worldly than a Cleric or Sorcerer.

And it still takes an absurd amount of investment to get even a taste of what casters could do with much lower level spells. It takes the use of three whole skill increases in Acrobatics on top of the initial training and then investment in the Cat Fall feat to replicate the level 1 Feather Fall spell - and again, nothing stops casters from making the same investment if they felt like they didn't feel like having Feather Fall prepared.

I think restricting a portion of full caster's skills to Lore skills and/or replacing some of their skill increases and/or skill feats with the ability to prepare an additional utility spell or ritual would help make room for martial characters to be actually desirable for out of combat utility, rather than just tolerated.