Get Ready for 3-Action Game Night!

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Pathfinder 3-action game night

Pathfinder Second Edition promises to be easier to learn, faster to play, and to offer the deep character customization that we all love. Let’s prove it! Join us at OfficialPaizo on Twitch for "3-Action Game Night" this Friday on August 23rd from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. Pacific. We'll make four new characters, design fresh encounters, and play them - all in one session!

YOU get you to be involved in the process!

That's right, by joining us live on Twitch, you become the deciding factor in what we play, what we fight, and where we adventure. And it's only going to take you 3 actions!

Black one action symbol

YOU get to make the characters!

For two hours, live on Twitch, we will open the floor for you to vote on what characters our four Paizo co-workers will play. You design them, and whatever they are, we play them!

Black one action symbol

YOU get to pick the monsters!

Bust out your Bestiary and your imagination as we show you how easily Game Masters can create encounters. You will choose the creatures, location, theme, and a map. Then, Jason Bulmahn will take your choices and craft the adventuring session!

Black one action symbol

Now we play!

Watch as we sit down and play through the session that YOU created with some of our developers and designers! Who will they be? Will you make them completely outrageous characters? What optimizations have you discovered? Will they fight a sizeable dangerous foe, or perhaps an army? It's all on you!

Black reaction symbol

So be sure to join us for 3-Action Game Night on Friday, August 23rd, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. Pacific and help us Unleash Your Hero!

Payton Smith
Social Media Producer

More Paizo Blog.
Tags: Paizo Twitch Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Pathfinder Second Edition
51 to 95 of 95 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>

Unicore wrote:
PossibleCabbage wrote:
Unicore wrote:
What a hoot. Everyone was a lot of fun. The mutagenist Alchemist though seemed pretty far behind the rest of the characters. Goblin shark barbarian was brutal!
Chat was genuinely uncooperative with the alchemist, since I think the stat line was 12 Str, 14 Dex, 16 Con, 18 Int, 12 Wis, 8 Cha. Which is almost doable as a bomber, but the mutagenist would want to swap Con and Str there.

Dr. Heckle spent more time dying than making actions. I don't know if I'd believe that would have changed with a 16 STR and a 12 Con. The class seems to have no survivability and was greatly out shone by the shark barbarian.

Granted, those were tough encounters against high AC creatures all around, but I think a lot of people wanted to see how a mutagenist would perform at low levels, and the answer was: not well. Which is too bad because Cosmo did a great job giving it flavor.

The problem with mutagen spec alchemists at low levels is you need a good str and a good dex and max int and probably a good bit of con. And you can't do that and the benefits you get from the mutagens don't do much to bolster the lack.


Unicore wrote:
PossibleCabbage wrote:
Unicore wrote:
What a hoot. Everyone was a lot of fun. The mutagenist Alchemist though seemed pretty far behind the rest of the characters. Goblin shark barbarian was brutal!
Chat was genuinely uncooperative with the alchemist, since I think the stat line was 12 Str, 14 Dex, 16 Con, 18 Int, 12 Wis, 8 Cha. Which is almost doable as a bomber, but the mutagenist would want to swap Con and Str there.

Dr. Heckle spent more time dying than making actions. I don't know if I'd believe that would have changed with a 16 STR and a 12 Con. The class seems to have no survivability and was greatly out shone by the shark barbarian.

Granted, those were tough encounters against high AC creatures all around, but I think a lot of people wanted to see how a mutagenist would perform at low levels, and the answer was: not well. Which is too bad because Cosmo did a great job giving it flavor.

I think even if chat had been more cooperative to make a better character, with the way the dice were rolling it wouldn't have helped. I think almost every single attack managed to be something like a 4 on the dice.

Though I have to admit chat picking bestial mutagen and 12 Str was not a good combination together. Not to mention the particular setup would probably have wanted a voluntary flaw or a 16/16 setup, so it was even more unsuited for the way it was being run.

Liberty's Edge

3 people marked this as a favorite.

I'm watching this right now and yeah, Cosmo's actual attack stats (and AC) are terrible enough that I'm not at all sure him not doing well has anything to do with being an Alchemist or Mutagenist.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Hey I shouted for STR every chance I got for the mutagenist, but was outvoted.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

>_>

<_<

:3

Liberty's Edge

NielsenE wrote:
Hey I shouted for STR every chance I got for the mutagenist, but was outvoted.

Yeah, the concept was really hamstrung by the format, due to the combination of being a Dwarf and adding to Int at every stage. That's a max of Str 14, which is...not great. The 12 he wound up with is, of course, even worse.


It's kind of counterintuitive that Dwarves (and Gnomes) make poor Alchemists not because of their lack of an INT bonus (they can get one) but due to their lack of a Dex or Str bonus.

Liberty's Edge

PossibleCabbage wrote:
It's kind of counterintuitive that Dwarves (and Gnomes) make poor Alchemists not because of their lack of an INT bonus (they can get one) but due to their lack of a Dex or Str bonus.

They can do fine as bombers if they prioritize Dex over Int (getting 16s in both). A bomber can get by with Int 16, IMO.

This is much less true of Mutagenist.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Deadmanwalking wrote:
PossibleCabbage wrote:
It's kind of counterintuitive that Dwarves (and Gnomes) make poor Alchemists not because of their lack of an INT bonus (they can get one) but due to their lack of a Dex or Str bonus.

They can do fine as bombers if they prioritize Dex over Int (getting 16s in both). A bomber can get by with Int 16, IMO.

This is much less true of Mutagenist.

Risky to not max int out though because at low level you are already kinda limited on your ammunition and losing 2 bombs cuts your daily allotment to pretty dangerous levels. Honestly the way reagents work it really forces pretty much all alchemists to cap out int or they risk basically just running around like a peasant with a crossbow for large chunks of the day.


I feel like for an ancestry that gets no bonuses to Dex/Str or Int, an Alchemist should strongly consider taking an optional flaw in order to increase the attacking stat without having to drop Int. I don't think we had that opportunity during 3 action game night, but chat might not have used it with maximal efficacy.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Is it not disconcerting that the alchemist seems to have such an intense “right build” to be viable? I think chat acted the way many players would default assume a dwarf alchemist would be viable: max the primary stat, increase com and Dex as much as possible and spend the extra points on STR. Not every mutagen is focused on being a melee destroyer. Beastial mutagen was probably a wasted mistake, but there is no other class in the book where you can max out your primary stat and be an unfunctional character, regardless of how you allocate your other attributes.

And none of this discussion is focusing on how the decision to be a mutagenist gave the character a total of 2 formulas, of which only one was used, and only allowed for one successful attack on the most minion of minion monster in the adventure.

It sounds like the take away is that a mutagenist has to be built a very specific way and even if built that way, might have hit 2 times total out of 6 or 7 attacks instead of just once.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I still feel that at the moment, the "best" way to Alchemist is with poisoned darts with some bombs sprinkled in for elemental weaknesses, which is funny because it's not really any of the three supported research fields. I wish Poisoner was in and one of the non-bomber two was out.


Unicore wrote:

Is it not disconcerting that the alchemist seems to have such an intense “right build” to be viable? I think chat acted the way many players would default assume a dwarf alchemist would be viable: max the primary stat, increase com and Dex as much as possible and spend the extra points on STR. Not every mutagen is focused on being a melee destroyer. Beastial mutagen was probably a wasted mistake, but there is no other class in the book where you can max out your primary stat and be an unfunctional character, regardless of how you allocate your other attributes.

And none of this discussion is focusing on how the decision to be a mutagenist gave the character a total of 2 formulas, of which only one was used, and only allowed for one successful attack on the most minion of minion monster in the adventure.

It sounds like the take away is that a mutagenist has to be built a very specific way and even if built that way, might have hit 2 times total out of 6 or 7 attacks instead of just once.

One thing to note being a mutagenisit or any alchemist your specialty gives you 2 formula, you get 4 from alchemy and 2 you can chose. So you should always start with 8 formula. I missed that they only picked two if that was the case then that was not correct.

Sovereign Court

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

We are going live here in just a few minutes!

You can watch all the action RIGHT HERE

I just finished watching it, and man were the players having terrible luck on attacks while you had great luck. Looking forward to the next one! I'd love to try out that challenge you ended the game with...

Liberty's Edge

7 people marked this as a favorite.

Having watched the whole thing...I'm not sure Dr. Heckle's bad stats ever mattered beyond his damage being a tad low on the one attack he hit with. His attack rolls were almost all so low that a Str 16 Alchemist would also have failed them.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Deadmanwalking wrote:
Having watched the whole thing...I'm not sure Dr. Heckle's bad stats ever mattered beyond his damage being a tad low on the one attack he hit with. His attack rolls were almost all so low that a Str 16 Alchemist would also have failed them.

This is was my take away as well, but I feel like Cosmo in particular was particularly limited by the actions Dr. Heckle was able to take. In one fight, his character actually lasted the longest because of the high constitution, but having nothing better to do than attack 3 times with a jaws attack was rough. And then in the big fight, he tried his hardest to ready everything he possibly could to be able to spend all his actions attacking and yet was ranged out of bombs being effective and then had his most effective action of the day be to close into range to give Amanda flanking. But the first level Mutagenist, even with a 14 Dex and as many HP as possible, does not have any staying power in Melee combat, and does not have the proficiency nor the attributes to make attacking often a very good strategy against any equal level or above enemies.

Everything about the encounter was essentially crafted to expose these weaknesses of the Mutagenist Alchemist (like choosing higher level, melee focused monsters), but it doesn't seem like that big of a stretch to believe that those types of encounters will be fairly common and this example did nothing to inspire me to want to ever play an alchemist, much less a mutagenist.

Seeing as the alchemist is the most unique new class thing about the PF2, that seems like a shame.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I'm kinda skeptical about "higher level than party" monsters being the "common" type of encounters though <_<

But yeah, I haven't watched this stream yet, but sounds like the mutagenist had "fun" time.

Grand Lodge

The higher-level-than-party was a function of the format, since the primary antagonist type chosen by chat didn't have more appropriate options really. With that mind mind, the first 'obviously going to TPK' encounter was actually a choice I appreciated for story, it wasn't meant to be winnable in itself (these things will happen in stories and RL both) but to lead to the actual story where Jason COULD generate a more appropriate challenge. I appreciated the craft of it, myself. But I don't expect that to be TOO common in actual play.

Grand Archive

5 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

TBH, even a fighter would have done badly with Cosmo's rolls. And most attacks by Jason one-shot (and would have one-shot most 1st lvl characters, no matter which ancestry/class/CON score) the target... Except Cosmo that got some normal attacks and survived them well.
The two storms did almost nothing. The sorcerer did some bleed for like... 2 rounds (for a whooping total of... 2dmg). Both Alchemist fires were crit fails, one nat 1, and one so low it would have maybe hit an Ooze... maybe... So yeah. I would not base my understanding of the balance of the game on that single showing.

What I would base my understanding on though was that this was a chaotic game, in the worse situation for "optimizing" characters and group synergy, and with possibly the worse rolls I've ever seen, and it seemed to still be very fun for the players and the viewers. And really that's what important IMHO.


Did they give the mutagenist anything, or comment on the problem, perhaps saying they get nothing for now, but a fix is coming?

RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I thought PF2 was supposed to be a system where hunting for the perfect array of stats was not necessary. And as long as you don't dump your class stat you should be a viable character that contributes relatively well. Heckle stats are maybe not what I would choose, but should still be something that makes your PC a reasonable threat. It seems a lot of people are saying that at least for the alchemist, you real DO need to focus on every stat and every possible +1 or else the PC is borderline unplayable.

Liberty's Edge

Ramanujan wrote:
Did they give the mutagenist anything, or comment on the problem, perhaps saying they get nothing for now, but a fix is coming?

No. They listed the Extracts it grants and then moved on, possibly getting distracted. In fairness, this was consistent with what they did in other character creations, with them leaving anything that is automatic rather than chosen for the player to add to their sheet off-stream.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Grumpus wrote:
I thought PF2 was supposed to be a system where hunting for the perfect array of stats was not necessary. And as long as you don't dump your class stat you should be a viable character that contributes relatively well. Heckle stats are maybe not what I would choose, but should still be something that makes your PC a reasonable threat. It seems a lot of people are saying that at least for the alchemist, you real DO need to focus on every stat and every possible +1 or else the PC is borderline unplayable.

Some of us are saying that even with a "perfect" attribute build, the mutagenist looks borderline unplayable, especially at level 1.

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Grumpus wrote:
I thought PF2 was supposed to be a system where hunting for the perfect array of stats was not necessary. And as long as you don't dump your class stat you should be a viable character that contributes relatively well. Heckle stats are maybe not what I would choose, but should still be something that makes your PC a reasonable threat. It seems a lot of people are saying that at least for the alchemist, you real DO need to focus on every stat and every possible +1 or else the PC is borderline unplayable.

Not exactly. Alchemist is the one Class that doesn't ever attack directly with their Class Ability, so you need a good rating in an attack stat you will actually use. The same is true of casters who intend to use weapons (like, a Warpriest Cleric needs pretty good Str or Dex).

Dr. Heckle wound up with Str 12 and a lot of other stuff that only worked in melee.

As Unicore notes, Mutagenist also has other issues independent of this specific character's stats, though they had little to do with what went wrong in this adventure, IMO.

Silver Crusade

Elfteiroh wrote:

TBH, even a fighter would have done badly with Cosmo's rolls. And most attacks by Jason one-shot (and would have one-shot most 1st lvl characters, no matter which ancestry/class/CON score) the target... Except Cosmo that got some normal attacks and survived them well.

The two storms did almost nothing. The sorcerer did some bleed for like... 2 rounds (for a whooping total of... 2dmg). Both Alchemist fires were crit fails, one nat 1, and one so low it would have maybe hit an Ooze... maybe... So yeah. I would not base my understanding of the balance of the game on that single showing.

What I would base my understanding on though was that this was a chaotic game, in the worse situation for "optimizing" characters and group synergy, and with possibly the worse rolls I've ever seen, and it seemed to still be very fun for the players and the viewers. And really that's what important IMHO.

Yes, the Sorcerer and Druid weren't badly built at all. The Sorc had good spell, background and skill choices, and Luis played him well. Could not roll dice worth a damn, but here we are.

Mutagen alchemist is awful though. I know the dice were bad, but it would have to be powergamed to be any use at all. Twitch had sympathy for most of the players, but not Cosmo. Dwarven Weapons feat? Unused, and wouldnt have been any good anyway. A familiar? Useless, maybe better had he been able to craft, but useless (and irritating).

The Barbarian was straight-up good, so some things have not changed from PF1, 1st level Barbarians do the business.


Familiar is actually really useful for low level alchemists but mostly if you use their extra reagent. It gives you basically 2 extra items you can create per day. They used theirs for RP purposes though so while funny had no real game play role.


tbf, not a lot of options to pick as feats as a mutagenist in general.

and that's not only for level 1 feats, you have to HUNT to find feats usable for you.

hence you usually just multiclass more than half of your early feats if you want to do anything with him...

Alchemist feats before level 10-12, excluding bomber, are sad really.

No "actions" gained through them, no extra stuff on your main stuff, no combat options, even the very specific bonuses for the specific mutagens you can gain through feats are for the most part extremely niche (again, excluding 2 of them, bestial and juggernaut) AND they come online pretty late, with the earliest at level 8.

"you use alchemist class DC for your alchemist abilities, but not all. only for those made on the fly..." (normally baseline for all other classes and covers the entirety of their abilities) <-that affects 2 whole items in the book.

"you can actually use your base class abilities" <-you can't actually use alacrity without the potions expiring before you drink them if you don't pick enduring alchemy...

Combine Elixirs <- This one is actually cool! but it has the sliiiight drawback of literally costing 1/4th of your whole reagent pool when you get it to use it ONCE


4 people marked this as a favorite.
shroudb wrote:


Alchemist feats before level 10-12, excluding bomber, are sad really.

Even those Bomber feats are largely of the Kind Paizo wanted to move away from with 2e, that being math fixes. Every Bomber is expected to Grab Quick Bomb so you dont have terrible Action economy when bombing. Hell, your bombs damage does Not Even Scale by default with int. Instead you get 2 feats that first add int Instead of splash damage and the you get both. There is no choice involved, you better take both so you can keep up with higher level Fights.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

People keep saying chat sabotaged the alchemist but while it's certainly not an optimal building, pumping up what the game says is your primary stat and then investing in dex and con because you're gonna be in melee and don't want to die are not particularly unreasonable decisions either.

For me the idea that the the build is that easy to 'sabotage' in the first place, or that a player should ignore what the book says its primary stats are are both kind of indicative of design shortcomings to me.

Silver Crusade

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Squiggit wrote:

People keep saying chat sabotaged the alchemist but while it's certainly not an optimal building, pumping up what the game says is your primary stat and then investing in dex and con because you're gonna be in melee and don't want to die are not particularly unreasonable decisions either.

For me the idea that the the build is that easy to 'sabotage' in the first place, or that a player should ignore what the book says its primary stats are are both kind of indicative of design shortcomings to me.

That's the thing, I don't think chat sabotaged it. Now, they didn't play as nice as some - the Sailor background for Storm Druid fits very happily into such a build for example, and everyone had at least one thing that was unused or deliberately silly, the Chameleon bit for that Druid for example. So even though all three of the other PCs had fun or flavour parts, they were all mechanically quite good builds, they all worked. A goblin who thinks he's a shark... fine. Silly, but works quite well, a viable melee PC.

I'm in agreement with you essentially, Chat and Mark Seifter didn't sabotage him. I just don't know what the alchemist was for. He was... ok at fort saves?

But maybe that's ok too. PF1 Core had some trash like original Rogues and Monks, now they are both pretty good.


Hmm, that feels like it relates to some discussions around CHA>WIS for Warpriest / Cleric+Champion builds...
Sounds like people want at least "advice" on stat allocation for paths/doctrines/etc that diverge from normal,
although maybe clearest way to do so without extraneous narration is simply making at least an optional
route to apply the Class' stat bonus to path-appropriate stat like STR for mutagenicist or even CHA for warpriest.
in latter case, i could even see case for swapping key stat (for class DCs) to CHA,
although in case of alchemy it would be weird for alchemical effects using class DC to use STR, so probably not there...
but that still wouldn't preclude distinguishing class bonus to stat from key stat for class DC...
Either way, that puts it up front what is important stat to build around and definitely not to ignore.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

The sample mutagenist lists this "Prioritize Intelligence and Strength. Constitution helps you survive transformations and combat, and Wisdom helps keep your mind intact despite the warping."

Str 12 seems not fully along those lines.


Quandary wrote:

Hmm, that feels like it relates to some discussions around CHA>WIS for Warpriest / Cleric+Champion builds...

Sounds like people want at least "advice" on stat allocation for paths/doctrines/etc that diverge from normal,
although maybe clearest way to do so without extraneous narration is simply making at least an optional
route to apply the Class' stat bonus to path-appropriate stat like STR for mutagenicist or even CHA for warpriest.
in latter case, i could even see case for swapping key stat (for class DCs) to CHA,
although in case of alchemy it would be weird for alchemical effects using class DC to use STR, so probably not there...
but that still wouldn't preclude distinguishing class bonus to stat from key stat for class DC...
Either way, that puts it up front what is important stat to build around and definitely not to ignore.

tbf, a wisdom focused warpriest works just fine.

he's a more tanky cloistered cleric, he loses some late game DCs for some early game tankyness.

A mutagenist focused on Int... not sure what he's supposed to do, but certainly in combat he'll be suffering.


Smugmug wrote:


Every Bomber is expected to Grab Quick Bomb so you dont have terrible Action economy when bombing.

Why doesn't a bandolier work? Just because you expect to use more than 8-9 (one in your hand at the start) items in a fight? My understanding was that Quick Bomber was quite niche as opposed to mandatory. The reagents you make into items go in the bandolier, when lets you interact to draw as a free action as part of the action to use the item. Or is that just when using tools from a bandolier.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
vagrant-poet wrote:
Smugmug wrote:


Every Bomber is expected to Grab Quick Bomb so you dont have terrible Action economy when bombing.
Why doesn't a bandolier work? Just because you expect to use more than 8-9 (one in your hand at the start) items in a fight? My understanding was that Quick Bomber was quite niche as opposed to mandatory. The reagents you make into items go in the bandolier, when lets you interact to draw as a free action as part of the action to use the item. Or is that just when using tools from a bandolier.

Bandolier "free draw" is only for whole tool kits, not for other things you store inside.

Which is a bit nonsensical, but it is what it is.


vagrant-poet wrote:
Smugmug wrote:


Every Bomber is expected to Grab Quick Bomb so you dont have terrible Action economy when bombing.
Why doesn't a bandolier work? Just because you expect to use more than 8-9 (one in your hand at the start) items in a fight? My understanding was that Quick Bomber was quite niche as opposed to mandatory. The reagents you make into items go in the bandolier, when lets you interact to draw as a free action as part of the action to use the item. Or is that just when using tools from a bandolier.

The base rules already assume that you carry your bombs and elixirs in easy accessible pouches and bandoliers on your person. If you had them in your backpack you would first have to drop it and the interact to draw. So Yeah, bandoliers are the baseline expection.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Squiggit wrote:

People keep saying chat sabotaged the alchemist but while it's certainly not an optimal building, pumping up what the game says is your primary stat and then investing in dex and con because you're gonna be in melee and don't want to die are not particularly unreasonable decisions either.

For me the idea that the the build is that easy to 'sabotage' in the first place, or that a player should ignore what the book says its primary stats are are both kind of indicative of design shortcomings to me.

I very much agree with this. If 18 in your key stat is a "trap" or building the character wrong then there is something very broken with the class. The character in the stream had above average strength good dex great con plus maxed in the key stat. That should make a viable if maybe not a maximised character.

Honestly the build in the stream is even pretty logical. You have a light armored combatant that takes a negative to AC to use their combat ability. So pumping con and dex make logical sense. Dex to offset the loss from mutagen and con to survive some hits in combat and offset alchemists lower base HP. The strength + the bonus to hit from the mutagen effectively gave them a 14 str which should be viable.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

Has no one stopped to contemplate that this had nothing to do with the Class nor the ability scores and everything to do with He Who Must Be Blamed?


kaid wrote:
Squiggit wrote:

People keep saying chat sabotaged the alchemist but while it's certainly not an optimal building, pumping up what the game says is your primary stat and then investing in dex and con because you're gonna be in melee and don't want to die are not particularly unreasonable decisions either.

For me the idea that the the build is that easy to 'sabotage' in the first place, or that a player should ignore what the book says its primary stats are are both kind of indicative of design shortcomings to me.

I very much agree with this. If 18 in your key stat is a "trap" or building the character wrong then there is something very broken with the class. The character in the stream had above average strength good dex great con plus maxed in the key stat. That should make a viable if maybe not a maximised character.

Honestly the build in the stream is even pretty logical. You have a light armored combatant that takes a negative to AC to use their combat ability. So pumping con and dex make logical sense. Dex to offset the loss from mutagen and con to survive some hits in combat and offset alchemists lower base HP. The strength + the bonus to hit from the mutagen effectively gave them a 14 str which should be viable.

Let's not joke around and say that 12 is above average. 12 is "I didn't feel like not focusing on this".

That's like saying a 12 Wis cleric has above average in their key stat.


10 is average therefore 12 is by definition above average. With the plus you get from the mutagen it works effectively like a str of 14. Not great but it should not make you incapable of doing your job. The alternative is tank con and die faster or tank dex and die faster or tank int and not be able to do anything.

Mutagen spec alchemists just need too many stats at low level to really work very well. The spec in the stream should have at least had more survivability but given the way he was getting creamed anyway it probably would not have mattered.

Liberty's Edge

12 is, however, not sufficient for a primary attack stat. Frankly, neither is a 14. A Barbarian with Str 14 would not do much better than the Str 12 Mutagenist.

The only difference is how obvious that is, and even there it was pretty clear as things went along that Mark Seifter was pretty aware that this was a bad build...but it was built by vote, and the votes were less unified than those on some other characters.

Mutagenist has a lot of issues, but needing high amounts of their attack stat is an 'issue' common to all PF2 characters.


Deadmanwalking wrote:

12 is, however, not sufficient for a primary attack stat. Frankly, neither is a 14. A Barbarian with Str 14 would not do much better than the Str 12 Mutagenist.

The only difference is how obvious that is, and even there it was pretty clear as things went along that Mark Seifter was pretty aware that this was a bad build...but it was built by vote, and the votes were less unified.

Mutagenist has a lot of issues, but needing high amounts of their attack stat is an 'issue' common to all PF2 characters.

he's also the only character that doesn't has his attack stat as option for Primary.

Closest is warpriest, but even they can work if they don't focus Str and keep focusing their Primary Wis. A mutagenist simply, can't.


Deadmanwalking wrote:

12 is, however, not sufficient for a primary attack stat. Frankly, neither is a 14. A Barbarian with Str 14 would not do much better than the Str 12 Mutagenist.

The only difference is how obvious that is, and even there it was pretty clear as things went along that Mark Seifter was pretty aware that this was a bad build...but it was built by vote, and the votes were less unified than those on some other characters.

Mutagenist has a lot of issues, but needing high amounts of their attack stat is an 'issue' common to all PF2 characters.

Well, mutegenists need a high attack stat (strength) and good dex/con for survivability (only bad boys take armor proficiency feats; that is why the game does not support that option at higher levels) and then int to actually have a decent number of alchemical items and/or useful alchemical DCs.

The issue is certainly worse for alchemists than Barbarians. Also, you can make a pretty passable Str 14 Barbarian if you use a curve blade or dual wield rapiers (multiclassing fighter or ranger) or some other such shenanigans.

Liberty's Edge

Excaliburproxy wrote:
Well, mutegenists need a high attack stat (strength) and good dex/con for survivability (only bad boys take armor proficiency feats; that is why the game does not support that option at higher levels) and then int to actually have a decent number of alchemical items and/or useful alchemical DCs.

Oh, totally (though I'll note that it looks like Archetypes might make Armor Proficiency viable long term). But kaid was saying that a Str 12 build was reasonable. And it's just not.

Excaliburproxy wrote:
The issue is certainly worse for alchemists than Barbarians. Also, you can make a pretty passable Str 14 Barbarian if you use a curve blade or dual wield rapiers (multiclassing fighter or ranger) or some other such shenanigans.

My point was what you needed in an attack stat. Change your attack stat and what you need at 16+ changes...but a Str 14, Dex 14 Barbarian remains pretty terrible.


Deadmanwalking wrote:
Excaliburproxy wrote:
Well, mutegenists need a high attack stat (strength) and good dex/con for survivability (only bad boys take armor proficiency feats; that is why the game does not support that option at higher levels) and then int to actually have a decent number of alchemical items and/or useful alchemical DCs.

Oh, totally (though I'll note that it looks like Archetypes might make Armor Proficiency viable long term). But kaid was saying that a Str 12 build was reasonable. And it's just not.

Excaliburproxy wrote:
The issue is certainly worse for alchemists than Barbarians. Also, you can make a pretty passable Str 14 Barbarian if you use a curve blade or dual wield rapiers (multiclassing fighter or ranger) or some other such shenanigans.
My point was what you needed in an attack stat. Change your attack stat and what you need at 16+ changes...but a Str 14, Dex 14 Barbarian remains pretty terrible.

That makes more sense now that I am paying closer attention to context (cuz you pointed it out). That said, I take that latter point as a personal challenge. How about a gnome intimidate/distraction build? Essentially you only plan on making one attack a round then you get trained in deception/intimidate/performance, take all the intimidation feats, and use most of your actions. Eventually, you take the adopted ancestry feats to get goblin song (which chains nicely into demoralize). Learn dragon breath to damage fools for 1/2 damage even if they succeed their save (which is relatively easy). Get gnome weapon proficiency and attack of opportunity to occasionally get an extra attack at your full BAB from time to time.

Generally, your job is to be a tough body that hands out debuffs and then breaths fire on folks when he is done with that. When all else fails, he can aid another.

51 to 95 of 95 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Second Edition / General Discussion / Paizo Blog: Get Ready for 3-Action Game Night! All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.