Edge93's page

BellyBeard wrote:

I disagree. This allows for Nature to do something for treating wounds, but I don't think it should be as good as investing in Medicine. Otherwise you end up with something strictly better.

It's not strictly better. You can't Treat Disease or Treat Poison (or do forensics) with Nature even with Natural Medicine.

It's still close enough in most cases. Being able to identify animals and primal magic, plus anything else nature does, is probably almost always better than the other medicine functions.

Or maybe my games just don't use enough poison and disease.

Maybe if it allowed you to take Treat Wounds feats as if your rank in Medicine were one lower than in Nature? Perhaps that could make for a meaningful choice.

I was gonna say just going to Expert in Medicine for the feats isn't a huge deal, as it's really the Master and Legendary upgrades that are most valuable, but I also GM with skill ups every level so my outlook may be skewed. ^^;

Oh yeah, Elementals aren't flipping immune to crits anymore! That one took some BIG getting used to.

Re: Hideous Laughter, frick yeah on killing reactions. Against some foes that's worth sustaining even for just that success effect. And then if you get Effortless Concentration...

I think my favourite thing so far about Pathfinder 2 is that nearly every time there's a post with someone pointing out some rules issue they think they discovered, it's just that either didn't read it correctly or they decided to interpret the written rules in as obtuse a manner as possible. It shows how great a job the design team did, that the vast majority of "mistakes" are actually non-issues.

Right? XD

Aaron Tysen wrote:

Hmmm... as I understand the rules, if you're sneaking in exploration mode, you don't roll. The guards have to check vs. your Stealth DC.

Either way, I'd roll as few dice as possible, to avoid rolling to failure, which was the OP's concern.

I believe this is correct. At the very least Sneak has the secret tag, which means the rolls are done by the GM. In which case I believe the roll is the perception of the enemy vs the stealth DC of the PC.

In fact, all the actions of stealth have the secret tag meaning the player should never be rolling it (I think).

I don't have my book at hand, might I ask where this assumption is coming from? Usually with skills the initator/one doing the action is the one who rolls against the DC of the other party. That's part of the whole point of skill DCs, so the Rogue only has to make one Stealth attempt and apply it to all the foes' flat numbers (essentially if he beats the most on he beats all, if not then some or all notice based on the numbers) instead of having every foe get a shot against the Rogue, making it very likely at least one person is gonna get a high roll.

Not from PF1 to PF2 but Playtest to CRB, AoO only disrupts spells on a crit now without a certain stance.

Not so much from PF1 to PF2, but I've missed a lot of little changes from PT to CRB. Like how AoOs only disrupt Manipulate actions on a crit unless you have the Disruptive stance.

Barnabas Eckleworth III wrote:

As a GM in PF1, I was horrified when one of the players in my group was reading off his spell list and named the spell Blood Money.

He never asked me. It had never come up in the campaign. He had seen it listed on hero lab and thought it looked "pretty cool" so he selected it.
No, no, no, sir. This is not how we do things.
So I like the default rule of not selecting things unless they're common. Saves me hassle down the road.

If you didn't specify sourcebooks, that is how it's done. Like, what?

Edge93, it's obvious you have a very different experience with these games than me, and your way sounds awful to me. Finding the broken stuff on things that bypass encounters is so much fun - even more when a martial finds a way to do it instead of a cleric doing meditation to prep the perfect divine spell or a Wizard grabbing a scroll they just happened to scribe. Don't bring entitlement into this, because frankly you sound like you're in that camp.

Temperans, you're absolutely right - that's a communication issue. I GM way more than I play, and the amount of bellyaching from other GMs is always surprising to me. We're running a cooperative game with agency, not a rail shooter, and we aren't writing a book.

And then when the GM has to spend freaking hours trying to make opponents that can survive whatever BS the players have access to (while trying to not cross over to the fine line where you've overtuned and players are dropping like flies) because every encounter is ROFLstomped by OP characters, you're going to have a hard time convincing me that it's a good thing to just have free access to whatever without needing to communicate with or check with your GM. Breaking encounters can be cool on occasion, but it's a flipping nightmare when it's the norm, especially on the GM (who, again, you seem to think should be the one to have to put in the work to pick up the pieces after the players do what they want. Which is why your statements sound dangerously close to entitled.)

It's not like players have to have broken tools to influence the game. My best campaign by far has been the one I have going on where the players have changed the story several times in ways I didn't expect. And how did they do it? Not by pointing at splatbooks and insisting they get certain abilities because they're there. They did it by actually participating in the story and making an effort to apply themselves.

Isnt that just a problem of poor communication between the player and GM? I mean you the GM should: 1) Realize players wont follow your plans; 2) You need to check whether players have changed their sheets and how; 3) The GM is all powerful, you can make and do literally what ever you want, all a player has is whatever the books or you give them.

So yeah empowered players was one of the main selling points of PF1. And it has nothing to do with empowering GMs or preparing spells so let's get back on topic.

I can see a system where you have say 9/10 circles to mark which are the useful heightened versions. That way it's a visual representation of which spells are best where. Also taking note of a "default set" so that you only have to worry when you want to prep something different.

I like how all three of those points are adding more work onto the GM, the one who already does the most work by far at least 99% of the time, rather than putting any extra effort or responsibility on the players. Kinda highlighting my problem with this outlook here.

I've been running a game which has a Dwarf Wild Druid, starting at 1st and now at 15th (using Playtest rules until 10th or 11th though). It's gone quite well, his accuracy for on-level forms always feels respectably high, and if it isn't as high as his own accuracy (usually because it's a lower level form) he can use his own with a +2 status bonus because that's a handy perk of wild shape, and a caster putting effort into Str with a +2 status bonus is an appreciable accuracy value.

Damage seems pretty good too, higher than his normal damage though maybe not quite on martial level, but good still. And some forms have pretty cool added abilities too.

That said, he used Wild Shape primarily for scouting in the first few levels because he only had pest form, but I think the full CRB made animal form come online earlier.

His AC is -maybe- occasionally a point or two lowered with certain forms at certain levels IIRC, but in practice it hasn't caused any serious issues and it isn't always even in the case. Again I think it was a matter of using slightly lower level forms (also forms scale AC somewhat with level even if they don't have a specific heighten, so that's great).

Franz Lunzer wrote:

Including the restriction "this book" isn't ambiguous, it is very simple and clear, and has to be a clear intention of the designers.

The spells from other books will be available, with your GM's permission, or through other options in those books, I'd bet.

Paizo intended to empower GM's in this edition, and I like that.
** spoiler omitted **

I still don't get people like you, empowered players was the best thing about 1e. The main selling point for me.

Yeah, us silly GMs who don't like having hours of planning and prep result in anticlimax because a player stumbled upon a broken combo in some splatbook and didn't think they should have to consult the GM about it, or even some spell or ability that isn't straight broken but just shuts down specific situations or scenarios. XP

That's about the only kind of player empowerment you can't get while also empowering the GMs. And that's not empowerment, that's entitlement.

Yeah, I relate to the hard choice. Makes you realize pretty quick just how much you can actually live with that 2d6 less damage on a blast spell so you can prepare a shiny new spell in the highest slot, lol. XD

And of course the lower number of top slots actually means that lower level spells come out more often, which makes things like lower level counteracting spells more viable too, which makes preparing them in a lower slot an option/trade-off and not just a bad idea.

I don't have time to check almost 400 posts, so sorry if this is covered:

Storm Giants have two mistakes:

One, their skills include Sense Motive. Maybe this is a holdover from before Perception changes, or more likely maybe it's meant to be Society or something?

Two, their Rock accuracy is listed as +37. Given their Greatsword and Fist are +28 and +27 respectively, I think the intended number is clear here but it bears mentioning.

All disarm really needs to be a reasonable choice in a variety of situations is the ability to land a nastier debuff or more impressive effect on a (non-critical) success. That's the sort of thing feats are for. Something like "flat-footed" or "do damage".

You know, in general more skill feats for combat maneuvers could be fun. Then again, Athletics already has great feats and we want to avoid over-focusing on combat with skill feats. Maybe class feats is tge better space, or even an archetype.

So, a little personal anecdotal info on why I personally think disarming on a crit makes sense.

I'm a fairly strong dude. Mid-20s, 6' 2", 240 lbs. Okay, not as much of that is muscle as I'd like but three years of karate at a fairly traditional school and some pretty physical jobs have left me fairly strong.

And yet in mock swordfights I find it actually quite difficult to disarm my 12 year old brother if he's paying attention. When he's actually gripping his weapon and not just loosely holding it it's quite difficult to knock away. I'm not particularly schooled in swordfighting but I've tried rudimentary binds, hitting near the hilt to jar his grip, hitting so the force goes towards his thumb when his grip is weakest, just hitting really hard, and combinations thereof. Not much of it is effective, and I'm twice the boy's age and significantly heftier.

Granted a trained swordfighter would be -much- more skilled at it, but if basic knowledge on break grips combined with major size and strength advantage doesnt make it easy I don't think it's as easy as some people think. XD

And of course the game isn't all realistic, but sometimes a dose of realism matters when someone says x should or shouldn't be.

Oh, and to tap on the conparison to trip or grapple, I can EASILY drop him to the ground or get him in a hold. It's not even a contest. So, yeah, those happen on a Success for me IRL but disarm needs a crit IRL. XD

Edge93 wrote:

That said, I'd be down for a normal success on Disarm causing a MINOR penalty (minor because consider that successful disarm is roughly equivalent to successful Demoralize but the enemy doesn't become immune to it, and so Disarm should absolutely NOT provide an effect as good or better than successful Demoralize. Especially since crit disarm is way better than crit Demoralize.).

But that's something the other thread acknowledged as well, so my point still stands.

And when you think about how bad an idea most of the knee-jerk ideas to "fix" disarm actually are, the more you realize that maybe, just maybe, the Paizo devs with years of experience actually know what they're doing. XP

Your comparison between the effects of a successful disarm and a successful demoralize are a bit off from each other. A success on disarm gives a bonus to further disarm attempts and penalties to actions using that weapon. This will matter, if they have a chance to take a reaction with that weapon before their turn, or there are multiple disarm attempts going on.

A character who is frightened has a penalty to all checks (including saves) and DCs (including AC).

The frightened effects are ones that are far more likely to be relevant before they wear off.

EDIT: Circumstance bonuses do not stack, so multiple characters cannot build up a heavy bonus to disarm with multiple successes.

Apologies, a misphrasing on my part. I meant to say that a successful disarm and Demoralize were roughly equivalent in terms of how likely they are to land. You're absolutely right that successful Demoralize is a stronger effect than successful disarm. Which is absolutely how I think it should be for the mentioned reasons that Demoralize is once per target only and crit disarm is way better than crit Demoralize.

As an aside, I think it's underestimated how often skill checks versus saves seem to crit versus attacks versus AC. Combat maneuvers and Demoralize crit surprisingly often.

That said, I'd be down for a normal success on Disarm causing a MINOR penalty (minor because consider that successful disarm is roughly equivalent to successful Demoralize but the enemy doesn't become immune to it, and so Disarm should absolutely NOT provide an effect as good or better than successful Demoralize. Especially since crit disarm is way better than crit Demoralize.).

But that's something the other thread acknowledged as well, so my point still stands.

And when you think about how bad an idea most of the knee-jerk ideas to "fix" disarm actually are, the more you realize that maybe, just maybe, the Paizo devs with years of experience actually know what they're doing. XP

I feel like it's worth noting that none of that accounts for class feats. Fighters get some excellent tricks, not the least of which is Certain Strike. Clerics get great feats too but mostly not straight combat enhancers. Just saying, class feats add a world of variance. Also if someone gives the Fighter Heroism, watch out. You can give the high-proficiency Fighter Heroism but you can't give the Heroism Cleric high proficiency, in actual play that matters.

Also Fighter getting Evasion eventually and getting Master Fort before Cleric is nothing to sneeze at. Anti-fear is great too as Frightened is one of the more effective debuffs in the game.

Also I didn't see if the damage difference was addressed. Weapon Specialization on Cleric vs greater weapon spec on Fighter is a 6 point damage difference. That's not factoring feats that add damage or debuffs for fighter, and again lets not underestimate the accuracy difference.

In addition to True Strike, 1-action Magic Missile isn't the worst thing if you need a quick guaranteed tap against an enemy who's near death.

Also if you're Hasted or already in melee using True Strike to augment a 2-action attack like Power Attack or Swipe can be really good, frontloading to capitalize on the True Strike effect. Swipe with a Battleaxe or other Sweep weapon gets even better. Add the axe crit specialization effect and eventually a Grievous Rune and you can have some sweet cleaving attacks.

Actions are only a part of Encounter Mode. That stuff doesn't translate to out-of-combat functionality.

Arachnofiend wrote:

I think you kinda have to think outside the box - Fighters already make good duelists without the dedication, so you'd want to take these feats with classes that struggle at fulfilling that concept like the Champion or Barbarian.

I did build out an Aldori Duelist using a Scoundrel Rogue as the base - it did work fairly nicely for that. I went Human for Unconventional Weaponry to get proficiency, and I chose the Rostland Partisan background for flavor. I was going to try a Ranger next, although a Champion might be a good choice, too.

I'm not sure I personally like the flavor of a raging duelist with the instincts we have right now, but maybe if we get an "Urban Barbarian" type instinct, I'll warm up to the idea.

Hmm, a Dragon Instinct Duelist actually sounds kinda interesting. You could really go in on the duelist ego stereotype with the Dragon Anathema if I remember it right.

Handsome warriors never lose battles. XD

AKA Colette would never allow it to work because that might actually involve some roleplay. XP

No, it's actually more difficult. Only a few classes have access to Attacks of Opportunity (though anybody can in theory access it via fighter dedication) and while it allows you to hit an enemy while he casts a spell, to acually interrupt (now called "disrupt") the spellcasting, you're AoO must be a Crit. If you're a fighter, you can learn a special stance that makes disrupting casters easier.

Um... Holy cow. I was ready to say something because this sounded very, very wrong, but then I actually looked at the rules and holy crap, so it is. That's a HUGE change from the Playtest, surprised I haven't seen it mentioned before. A little annoyed I didn't notice myself, that actually would have made a recent boss fight my party faced go a bit differently as the minions had their buffs disrupted at least once by AoO (thinking back I think it was actually only once though, the rest were Counterspells).

That does make Steady Spellcasting a lot more situational though, dang. Unless monsters tend to have more disruptive reactions.

Rek Rollington wrote:

you can only recover 1 by refocusing during the day until you pick up the Lvl 12 feat Inspirational Focus.

If they start as a gnome bard, they can take a familiar at 1st and use the Master Ability Familiar Focus to regain a point 1/day. That's enough to at least use 2 focus in 2 fights.

Huh, that just made me realize how much more useful those 1/day focus abilities are than they initially seem.

If you look in the Spells section of the rulebook you'll find that every spell lists its action cost. Typically spells are 2 actions, some are 1 or 3. A few also require an action every round to maintain once cast, as explained in the Spells section.

Generally you can cast a spell and Strike in the same turn if you're already in range to Strike the enemy (this is a typical combo for Battlemage characters) or if you are Quickened from a Haste spell or other source (letting you cast a spell, move in, and then strike).

Be warned though, casting does provoke Attack of Opportunity and similar reactions if the spell has a Somatic or Material component, but most creatures don't have such reactions so casting in melee is often safe.

No.

It's also worth keeping in mind that the players don't know the exact stats of the foes they're facing. Adding Attack of Opportunity to a creature is a great and easy way to model a bodyguard type or defensive type foe, but you don't even have to do that. Since the players don't know the stats, they won't know if something can attack them with an opportunity until they take the risk, and in many cases, players won't risk that.

Conversely, with myself GMing and with my party, both players and monsters will often take the risk until it's known, since those abilities are rare. Which is really nice because it makes AoO more of a surprise trick since it's rarer, and that means it actually gets used.

I can attest to the Gish synergy too. My parties tend to have multiple gishes and they love them some Haste.

That said, Heroism is great too since they're behind Martials in accuracy.

But, you know, por que los nuevos dos?

Captain Morgan wrote:

breithauptclan wrote:

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

themostbrutal wrote:

Is everyone suggesting that you only receive the extra 1d6 damage for a single attack on your turn because you want to be casting a spell every round? I would not use the ability like that. If I was playing a gish I would make a weapon attack then cast a two action spell. The next turn I would use bespell weapon and make 3 attacks with +1d6 damage.

The requirement says your last action must have been to cast a non cantrip spell. It doesn't say it has to be on that turn. The spell also says the enhancement lasts until the end of the turn so would add to all 3 attacks.

Thats... very interesting actually, its an unintuitive reading, but as far as I can tell it's actually correct unless there's some general rule that limits your last action last turn off from the current turn.

Would that break using a reaction in between?

Depends on the rule lawyer making the argument. A reaction could be considered to be a sub-type of action. Or action, free action, and reaction could all be considered as sibling types - so when the rule says 'your last action' it would ignore free actions and reactions that have been used since then.

I'd certainly not count reactions and free actions as actions for purposes of "your last action." But I'm still skeptical you can carry them over between turns. I dunno.

Taking a look at free actions in general, they seem to have either a ‘Trigger’ or specify when you’re suppose to use them during a turn. Divine Weapon works very similarly and uses a Trigger, and with how Free Actions tend to work in general, i’d say the wording for Bespell Weapon was meant to say ‘Trigger’ rather than ‘Requirement’. Even with the current wording it seems to suggest the ability is meant to work as a kicker effect after casting a spell.

Allowing this feat to be used on the next turn like that would be like allowing Spellcasting actions to be done on different turns, or for you to use the action for a Metamagic on one turn and cast the spell modified by it on the next.

It's also blatantly min-maxy but that's another discussion.

And using "turns are an abstraction" as an argument as someone did doesn't really work when it's a feat that lasts until the end of a turn. You can't use turn abstraction to justify cheesing the rules and then ignore it where it would be inconvenient. If we tried to use the turns as an abstraction argument on tge whole situation then Bespell Weapon would end 1 action after the triggering spell if it was a 2 action cast, 2 actions after if it was a 1 action cast, and immediately if it was a 3 action cast, which would prevent cheesing it for an entire turn anyway. XD

Edge93 wrote:

shroudb wrote:

blade of justice seems interesting for a two-handed paladin. 2 extra dices and persistent, is about 2d12+ 4 persistent (so around +12) for the cost of an extra action. On paper it looks good. Just not sure with how action starved a champion is if you'll be able to use it frequently.

Quick note on this, unless I misunderstand something it's a bit stronger than that. 2d12 averages 13, so assuming one proc of persistent it's an average of +17 damage for one action if you're using a d12 weapon, more if there's multiple procs on the persistent.

the "+12 average" was just referring to the +4 persistent, since on average it takes 3 ticks before it gets removed if the opponent does nothing (and what can you do against "holy? wash yourself in miasma?)

Ahh, I see. I thought it was including the dice too.

Yeah, Blade of Justice is pretty strong in theory.

Good thing too, that'd be pretty busted.

Rysky wrote:

Thinking they can beat them is an assumption, not metagaming.

Actually having access to the enemies’ statistics and thus knowing what they need to roll is, but that’s a completely different issue.

Well the rules are there and they are not especially obscure or hidden, so you might as well use them, no probs.

Nonetheless I find it a bit cheesy that you can use your 3rd action for an semi-automatic trip (as long as you can figure what enemies are brutes and which ones you can possibly trip easily), while a corresponding attack would be at an -8 to -10 penalty.

"as long as you can figure what enemies are brutes and which ones you can possibly trip easily"

Why would targeting a foe's weakness if you figure it out or think you have be a bad thing?

And complaining about using a form of trip that doesn't suffer MAP (but, its worth noting, is a significantly weaker trip attempt than what you would do on your first attack) is kinda like complaining about casting a spell or raising a shield instead of doing a second or third attack because the spell/shield raise isn't suffering a penalty.

I rather appreciate how a level x class y vs class z just isn't a hands-down winner either way. There's so much that actually matters that can make it go either way. And at-the-table actions and choices matter enough that you typically can't definitively call the winner before you even sit down for the fight.

Yeah, I think a free +1d6 damage for the rest of the turn every single time you cast a spell is very underestimated. And as has been said, scaling it would easily become a mess.

Imagine if this scaled, a Rogue multiclassing caster with this feat casting Invisibility and landing a Sneak Attack for their respectable weapon damage plus multiple sneak attack dice plus multiple dice from this feat. Just for starters.

That is correct. It has been one of the absolute best changes to the combat system in practice.

In a Discord chat it was pointed out to me that Drow Rogue as the same feat but it worded very different. It triggers on a hit and allows the NPC to raise their AC (as a reaction) to make the hit either not a hit or not a critical hit retroactively. This gives me a hint at intent I think and I am also not going to let an NPC version of an ability be better then a PC one so at this moment I am going to be letting my player know what the attack is so they can decide as needed unless someone shows me some clear and cut rule some where that I shouldn't.

The clear cut rule is the trigger for the reaction, as mentioned before. There's no ambiguity. The Drow ability is a different thing despite the same name, and has different effect probably to make things a tad simpler for the GM.

Really, all told, if you have enough Str and have medium armor proficiency there's kinda no reason to use light armor over medium, rather than vice versa. Heavy is a little more trade-off with its +1 AC but -5 speed, though if you have effective use of heavy armor you probably also have armor specialization which is better on heavy armor than medium. And light armor doesn't even have specialization.

Also some runes are only for certain armors, like shadow only being light IIRC and fortification only being medium/heavy.

I feel like maybe the runestone should be like just +1/2d6, if it's based on the spell die size it's way better for d10/12 spells.

Yeah, I'll definitely take doing ~1/2 sword damage in exchange for not having the massive miss chance from MAP and for the near-guarantee of doing 1/4 sword damage even if they make the save (and consider that them making the save is roughly analogous to you missing a strike [which does nothing], if a tad more likely when MAP isn't involved).

TL;DR as a third "attack" it's certainly better, and it's perhaps competitive even as a second attack depending on the foe.

Having read part of this thread, I think a much more fitting title, and one that highlights the improvements of the PF2 skill system over PF1 would be "Skills: The die matters".

AnimatedPaper wrote:

Mathmuse wrote:

In PF1, the difference between Dex 16 and Dex 10 is the same value 3, so I guess that that isn't the complaint. In PF1 the difference between 1st-level trained in a class skill and untrained is 4 rather than 3, but that is not much to complain about. Maybe he was comparing 3rd level, where the difference is from skill ranks and class skills in PF1 can be 6, but at the same level in PF2 the...

He clarified in an additional post that he misses the other ways of boosting a skill besides attribute and skill ranks, such as Skill Focus, Racial skill bonus, size bonus, and so forth. Those three alone would have added +11 to the goblin rouge's stealth check, parking his total bonus somewhere around +18 to the Alchemist's +1 (assuming 16 dex on the rogue and 10 on the alchemist) so I can definetely see his point if that was something you enjoyed.

I think I prefer PF2's way of things. A +18 at level 1 seems less than ideal to my tastes.

I see that my reading comprehension is poor this morning.

I miss the size modifier myself, though I understand dropping different weapon sizes--that was a lot of detail for little reward. A +1 size modifier for Small size to AC and to Stealth for Sneaking and to Athletics for Climbing and a -1 size modifier for damage in weapon and unarmed attacks would be flavorful. Right now, Small and Medium feel too similar.

Dropping numerical feats such as Skill Focus was a deliberate design choice in PF2. One of the biggest problems of PF1 was the ability to stack those feats, to get, as AnimatedPaper said, +18 at level 1. By dropping those feats, the developers hoped to reduce min-maxed character design and encourage flavorful character design that favors roleplaying.

So, just a random addition to this, you could get even a little worse than this in PF1. Goblins for some unholy reason have a +4 racial bonus to stealth IN ADDITION TO their +4 size bonus and they have a +4 racial to Dex. So if you have Stealth as a class skill, take Skill Focus Stealth, and put a 16 base in Dex you end up with a +20 at level 1. +21 if you put 18 base into Stealth.

Also there's the Monk feat that makes all your unarmed attacks forceful. XD

So yeah, I don't think it's a huge deal since Monks already have access to it.

Wow. Is it just me or did the sorcerer class go from being one of the more versatile spellcasting classes of 1st Edition to one of the most restricted spellcasting classes of 2nd Edition?

I think it's just you.

Charlesfire wrote:

The alchemist already got expert in unarmed strike with the mutagenist path. It just means that the mutagenist path lost a feature...

I am given them medium armor instead.

See how they works out.

You know, that's not a bad idea. I like it.

I also go with the flip-off approach for visual (let's be honest, the description hands it to you), and I figure there's a "yo momma" joke involved in auditory. XD

Yeah, for all casters their first level feat or feat-equivalent is covered by a class choice (Sorcerer bloodline, Cleric doctrine, Wizard school, Druid order, Bard Muse).

An interesting note, if you had a party of two characters and upped their levels by 2 you'd have a CR-equivalent to a party of four at the initial level. That said, it might not work in practice as APs tend to throw in below-level enemies and having your levels up could potentially make those encounters less than trivial even with the enemy numbers advantage.

I liked the two turn idea someone had though.

For my current games, I've been houseruling that Wizards have sort of Arcanist-style casting (they prepare the number of spells they normally would but then can cast spontaneously from them instead of having to pick exactly how many uses of each spell) and also allowing not spontaneous Heightening but rather Undercasting. So say they prepare Lightning Bolt at level 6, they can cast it from any slot down to 3 but can't go the other way.

To balance it spontaneous casters have been given full spontaneous Heightening. So it results in Sorcerers have by far the most options for their best spell slots while prepared casters also have pumped versatility.

And it's worked quite well in my games. Casters haven't felt like they are overshadowing Martials and the prepared caster and spontaneous casters have seemed balanced against each other.

That said, I don't know if I'll use this houserule in future games. The base system is simpler and my houserules sometimes cause things to take a little longer in combat than they need to.

To add an additional note on this, touch Harm doesn't even involve an attack roll anymore. The target makes a saving throw against it instead. Which is usually good because they're almost certain to take at least half damage and great because multiple attack penalty is not involved.

To the OP, this has probably been said more than once but Ranger with Druid Multiclass Archetype is probably the closest to PF1 Ranger as Primal spell list seems the closest to Ranger spells (since many of them were Druid spells anyway) and they are Wis-based, which fits with typical stat focus for Rangers.

For switch-hitting, as long as you invest in keeping both a melee weapon and a bow up to snuff you can do it pretty well, Quick Draw is definitely important. I personally like the Flurry Edge, and it can give a nice contrast between your bow and melee weapon. Your bow can get more attacks (assuming you take the Hunted Shot feat) while the melee weapon, assuming you picked an Agile weapon like a Shortsword, suffers barely any Multiple Attack Penalty for repeated strikes.

Another idea, depending on exactly how you like to switch-hit, you could get a heavy crossbow and the crossbow ace feat to bump it to d12s for damage. Shoot off an opening attack with that then run in and switch to your blade.

And never use the Elite adjustment if a solo boss is Level+4, because that highly risks pushing the math too far for even a party of 5 to handle. For such a fight I'd add either two level-2 mooks or four level-4 mooks to compensate for the added player.