Claudius16309's page

in the future, if you’re playing with a variant which adjusts the standard assumptions of the game, you should probably mention those.

It did not occur to me at the time of my original post, but you're right, I should have provided better information.

Why does everyone else feel so inferior is my next question? A Fighters DPR with a bonus archetype should be feeling pretty good alongside that, if not just hands down better.

I don't feel inferior. I do very good damge myself, in spite of the fact I developed a character around control (trips and shoves). More importantly to me, I perform my denial abilities very well. This post wasn't about dissatisfaction with my character, it was about a conversation we both had where he was concerned he was hurting game balance/experience for other players. I wanted to make sure we are playing correctly and that we were not missing a rule.

I also still want to understand how a Lvl 7 character on average is doing enough damage to kill on level opponents in a single turn to the point where they can drop a second opponent. What opponents are you all facing at level 7 that your son is killing with that kind of consistency?

I addressed this in the post you replied to. He does not take down on level foes in 1 round. It is mostly encounters with multiple lower level foes (though it did not occur to me until typing my previous reply that his best output was against lower level foes).

First off, thanks to everyone who has contributed to my post! Let me try to address some of the questions and comments regarding my post.

We are 7th level characters. We are using one of the variants from the Gamemaster Guide where we were each given a free archetype (and he selected rogue).

My original post was not clear enough. I can see where reading it, it may come off as hyperbole. Let me correct a misinterpretation (due to my own error).

He uses Twin Takedown every turn (why would he not?) so gets 4 attacks in a round at full attack bonus, -3, -4, -4.

My intention here was to state that he uses Twin Takedown every turn and that many times leads to 4 attacks in a round. I was not trying to say that he ALWAYS gets 4 attacks per round. He does, of course, lose actions when he has to Hunt Prey, or when he moves etc. This still leaves him with 2-3 attacks per turn.

My son and I were discussing this, and we are afraid that we nearly trivialize a lot of fights as he can usually take out or nearly a foe or 2 per turn.

This quote is quite clearly hyperbolic, though it was not my intention to mislead. I do not recall him taking down two foes in a round.

- What level is the character?

- What are the statistics of the Character?

- Do they spend actions using Command/Hunt Prey?

Level is 7, I know he has an 18 in Dex and an 18 in STR (the Dex may be 19). I do not know his other attributes.

He does use actions when using hunt prey. As for command, he does sometimes use commands, but usually he lets it act on its own (I do not know the mechanic, but I guess because of level it gets to use 1 action per turn if not commanded?)

The average DPR of this ranger, even if we say "all strikes hit" is nowhere close to dropping even ONE of these creatures (some have north of 170 HP and others have resistances) from full HP.

We are playing the Extinction Curse adventure path, and you are right about on level foes. It does take much more effort to take those down. However, there seem to be a lot of encounters with a small horde of lower level critters. I guess one thing I had not thought of until now was that much of his ripping through monsters is dealing with the lower level guys, though he does still hit very strongly against equal level foes. He does not come close to killing one of those alone.

Attack of Opportunity was a mistake on my part. He uses the Disrupt Prey ability, which seems in most ways to be about the same as Attack of Opportunity.

We've been playing 2nd Edition since playtest now, and I've come to wonder about the Ranger. One of our party members is a Goblin Ranger with the Hunter's Edge choice Flurry (played by my son). He is equipped with two goblin Dogslicers. This character seemingly does nearly game-breaking damage. The Dogslicers do d6 damage and are agile and backstabber. He is multi-classed into a rogue, so he does the 2d6+4(striking weapon) plus d6 sneak attack plus 1 for backstabber.

He uses Twin Takedown every turn (why would he not?) so gets 4 attacks in a round at full attack bonus, -3, -4, -4. He works well with my fighter and his own animal companion, so he very nearly always targets a flat-footed opponent (effectively lowering his negative from MAP by 2; ie attacks at +2, -1, -2, -2 over full attack bonus). Combine that with my fighter, who trips most turns, he gets opportunity attacks against a foe virtually every turn, for another full attack each turn.

This guy normally hits 3-4 turns per round (including the opportunity strike) and does 15 or more damage per strike. He crits like mad, so the damage is consistently higher.

My son and I were discussing this, and we are afraid that we nearly trivialize a lot of fights as he can usually take out or nearly a foe or 2 per turn.

I guess my questions are:

1) Are we playing this ranger correctly?
2) Is this guy outside the norm as far as damage goes?

In my party for age of ashes, we started off with a wizard, a sorcerer, a cleric and a barbarian. The barbarian decided to go two handed weapon and could really unleash a lot of damage...and end up on the floor by the second round of combat unless my cleric just camped on top of them casting 2 action heal every round. I was a harm cleric, and so it pretty much meant that I had to memorize all heal spells and then just unleash one nova a day when an enemy tried to rush me with 3 1 action harm spells.

The wizard player didn't work with our time slot very well, so we lost the wizard and picked up a newer Pathfinder player who built a rogue. The barbarian gave up the 2 handed weapon and picked up a shield, we adjusted my cleric (after Gods and Magic came out) to pick a different deity that provided the necessary domain for the flavor of the character and I got the heal font. We managed to stay alive a lot better, but my character still ended up being a heal bot 50 to 75% of all encounters, but atleast I got a bow and a companion (MCing into animal trainer has been so much fun. Getting constant speak with animals at 4th level has been incredibly fun and very useful. In PF 2, there is no "vermin" category so insects, worms and spiders are all animals but that is a side track.) so I usually have something interesting to do with my 3rd action, but a cleric in a party of melee martial characters is going to be healing most of the time in most encounters. If you don't have a ranged weapon, then you almost want to be able to cast a sustain spell with your first turn, so then you have something interesting to do with your 3rd action for the rest of the fight. Summons can be fun in that context, although at least half the time, you are just taking up an action or two from your enemies as they smash your summons. Which is a good thing, but it doesn't feel amazing in play.

The Barbarian died in a particularly notorious encounter that we went into without resting, so I was out of healing options, and the player is...

This is a great presentation of the problem you have been having. One question I would like to offer is "Is every player trained in medicine and have they taken the feat Battle Medicine?". My group participates in 2 games, one I run and a second game one of the other players runs. We have very good healing in our groups, but one thing that is understood is EVERYONE contributes to the healing in what ways they can. If you're on the front-lines and cannot waste an action on a Battle Heal, you're not doing the best you can to help your party, and your healer.

Also, if you have more than 1 melee character, make them spread the damage. If melee 1 is getting hammered hard, on his next turn he can spend 1 action to move away from the monsters. This forces them to choose between one of the other melee characters, or wasting a move to chase the wounded martial. Technically, this is damage mitigation, but also helps the healer. When the damage is spread among 3-4 characters, it allows the healer to do all of the healing AFTER combat.

Finally, our melees are trained to help the casters/healers in other ways. We use trips, intimidates etc., anything to deprive the monsters of actions, which FURTHER saves on in-combat healing.

You may already be doing all of this, but these are just a few things we have found to severely lessen the need for in-combat healing.

I like the fighter for Athletics and Intimidation. Personally, I prefer to emphasize athletics since it has a natural synergy with your primary statistic (Strength) anyway. I am currently playing a fighter with a reach weapon (guisarme) making opportunity attacks and athletics particularly dangerous. With a reach weapon, you control a huge portion of the battlefield, and when you trip, the thing you are fighting must spend a move action standing (provoking an attack of opportunity) and then a 2nd action to close with you. Using this method, you can steal 2 actions from an opponent each turn.

As for the 2nd player, I personally would recommend a class with some healing ability. The druid has fantastic healing, access to primal spells (my favorite magical realm), and if you like, can take a pet. The druid pets can be lethal. They don't take a lot of damage, but they can deal excellent damage, provide flanking, and have other static effects you can use.

Both characters should train in medicine for out of combat healing, and preferably also have the Battle Medicine feat.

OPWTFBBQ

Oversized portion what the frack barbeque? I'd eat there.

I have a question about the wording of the Staff Sweep level 6 ability from the Staff Acrobat dedication. An excerpt from the rule states "Roll an athletics check to Shove or Trip, and compare the result to the appropriate DCs of up two foes, each of whom must be within your reach and no more than 5 feet apart".

Does this mean the foes must be in adjacent squares, or does this mean the foes must have no more than one 5' square between them? If they must be in adjacent squares, why would they not phrase it that way?

Thanks for your help.

I trip, and intimidate as well, but do so selectively. If the monster is intelligent and capable of fighting strategically, then tripping would be a valid tactic. If the monster is a meathead brawler, I don't use trips, though I may have a BIG brute try to intimidate. I try not to overuse it, because it CAN be a very powerful ability, and can swing a fight against the PCs. On the other hand, it can also prevent fights from becoming stale and repetitive.

Claudius16309 wrote:

TheGentlemanDM wrote:

Golden Body grants them Fast Healing 20.

What is Golden Body? I cannot find it in the CRB or Lost Omens.

Golden Body is an uncommon 20th level feat unlocked from PF AP 150.

"You perfect your body, refining the flex of every muscle and the bend of every joint to maximum efficiency. Your unarmed Strikes gain the deadly d12 trait, and you have fast healing 20, causing you to regain 20 HP at the start of each of your turns provided you have at least 1 HP."

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1166

Thank you for the quick reply!

Golden Body grants them Fast Healing 20.

What is Golden Body? I cannot find it in the CRB or Lost Omens.

They didn't "nerf" anything. PF2 is a new game, it has new rules, comparing damage numbers to PF1 is just as fallacious as comparing them to 5e.

They're different systems based on different rules and gameplay assumptions, you can't directly compare numbers and gain any useful information because the damage is relative to the challenges/monsters of each game.

Thank you! I came here to say EXACTLY this.

Isn't a hex cantrip a...cantrip?

This is a brilliant write up! This is exactly what my group and I were hoping to do on our next scheduled game - have each player take one of the new classes. Kudos on a well documented description of the events.

How often does the positioning to make it work come up in natural play without literally shoving enemies into place ?

It's not something that will align itself every round, but with the increased ability to maneuver in combat offered by 2nd Edition (because fewer creatures have attacks of opportunity), you don't have "fabricate" situations to use this ability. And consider that the swashbuckler has even more movement options than most other characters with the additional speed granted by panache and the various tumble upgrades they can take (tumble behind for instance).

Fighters and monks are the only classes I can't think of great uses for it off the top of my head.

Fighters and Monks love it too.

Fighters - Stride, Strike, Strike, Raise Shield (and many more options).

Monks - Stride, Flurry, Trip, Stride (and many more options).

Haste lets you take that extra action you usually don't due to other limitations. Battle medicine, intimidate, drink a potion, sustain a spell (obviously for a multi-class), all while still doing a strike or 2 (or 3).

My hope would be to recreate the feeling of fighting a unique monster, rather than a PC of your own class (with pretty much the exact same moves), leading to the dull notion of "it's just a matter of who loses its hit points first".

Honestly, it seems to me SuperBidi's advice directly addressed this. I rather liked his suggestion of creating a "monster" with special effects and triggers over just building another monk.

My opinion only - Attack routines in PF2e show a lack of vision. With so many actions, especially for a mobile character like a Swashbuckler or a Monk, you will probably change your actions every single turn depending upon the circumstances. The 3 action economy, coupled with so many good actions you can make (including moving away and forcing your foe to spend an action closing with you) mean you shouuld NEVER have a set routine.

I may have overlooked it somewhere, but I did not see any notes indicating what size party the challenges In Age of Ashes are written for. I assume it's a 4-player party, but would love to know for certain.

I'll be running a 6-person party through, and would welcome any general advice as to how to easily increase the challenge of the various encounters. (I know, add more monsters...but I was hoping I had missed a section in the bestiary or core rule book that gave a little guidance as to how to increase the challenge without going overboard).

Thanks

I am registered to participate in 3 scenarios for Pathfinder 2 at Gencon this year, and I cannot seem to find enough information about them. Primarily, do I need to bring a developed character with me, or will pre-generated characters be provided? If I need to develop characters, does anyone know where I can find the rules and how to register them, if needed?

Thank you in advance for your help

Claudius16309