Temperans wrote:
It's even more spells if you end up using stuff like false life to keep yourself up. At this point I feel it's better to use the claws and then throw out bluff to keep opponents off of you by making it seem like glowy dagger is more deadly than it really is. Or, you know, pop it for that AC and resistance.
I didn't realize that 2-10 was better than 5-14. Or 7-16 from a raging barbarian. Or 6-20 from a precision ranger. Or 6-24 from a Power Attacking Fighter. By the way you have to spend an action for this 2-10 while the martial gets the 5-14 at the start unless they didn't have their weapon drawn already, something that's pretty rare in my experience and I'm in the AP where you need to sheath your weapon the most. "B-but, but the s-strength score"
The highest I can see someone reasonably expect push the damage of the claws early on is 3-11. Any further would leave you extremely vulnerable while in melee range or would sacrifice your casting ability too much. A focus point to just be able to deal 3-11 damage ain't worth it when you have cantrips dealing 5-8 (or 5-11) damage for free that you can use from range and run off your main stat. You get way more damage types too, and one of them hits two targets at once and runs off of saves instead of attack rolls. Gods I was calling the offense part of Dragon Claws a shiny dagger but now that I look at the practical math I'm afraid I have to downgrade it to a glowy dagger. This damage is embarrassing if it's struggling to compete with the cantrips.
I feel I should clarify something. I feel looking at a spell called Dragon Claws and expecting to be able to tear into people like a gatdang dragon with it is not an unreasonable expectation. Now what qualifies as that is subjective but I feel d4 + d6 with sorcerer weapon profs isn't gonna cut it. Cyouni's 2d6 on sorcerer spellcasting profs sounds better, especially since it gets more d6s faster. I don't think people would mind only getting one attack from it either, though I'm not the most offense oriented person so I might be off the mark.
Dragon Claws are still good past level 5. The problem is that it's not good in the way people want it to be. It's a one-action defensive spell with a shiny dagger you're free to use if you want. Most people don't want a shiny dagger on top of a defense boost when they see Dragon Claws, they want to tear into their opponents like a gatdang dragon.
Guntermench wrote: I'll be honest I don't think the fort saves thing matters all that much. They can easily get to Master late game with Canny Accumen, and while that's not as good as getting automatic crit success and happens later...it can happen. Canny Acumen only gives you master at level 17. That's 6 to 8 levels later than other classes get Master assuming your campaign even gets to that level. I wouldn't call these small gaps.
I'd like to throw something into the ring that I thought of recently. Casters have crappy fort saves. You know who loves fort saves? Paizo loves fort saves. A lot. A melee caster is gonna be subject to tons and tons of fort saves and I wouldn't be expecting them to do all that well against them. Form spells don't have a bonus to fort saves after all, nor do the crappy claw n' jaw focus spells. Even the mooks with fort saves are gonna be a problem for casters unless they pump con, and they're already working on a tight ability budget with str, dex, and [CASTING STAT] all crying for attention.
I'm pretty sure Thrash's purpose is not to be a main source of damage. It's a way to spend all the remaining actions doing some good chip damage after you have something grappled without needing to worry about your MAP. Personally I prefer Maintain, Thrash, Thrash over Strike, Thrash, Thrash, especially with Barbarian's AC issue. The less actions the boss gets the better.
Champion and Ranger the only classes that have the biggest, old features locked behind feats. Even then Champion still gets divine ally and lay on hands for free in addition to their new reactions. Ranger meanwhile has adopted Slayer's target mechanic. Fighter, Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Investigator, Monk, Oracle, Rogue, Sorcerer, Swashbuckler, Witch, and Wizard all get some if not all of their major, old features (or equivalents to those old features) without spending feats. Now granted some get more features for free than others but Sorcerer isn't spending a feat for a bloodline. Based on how Paizo has been doing things a 2E incarnation of Occultist getting read object without spending a feat is very likely. It's a big part of the class thematically and can be a big part of the class mechanically depending on the GM. That said I can easily see it having some feats to upgrade it.
Can you get your hands on a Gill Hook? It makes grapple mean if you can get a grip on an enemy that has less reach than you since they have to spend an action to escape, succeed, and step if they want to attack you. Plus it's got a nice damage die. The only catch is it's an uncommon, racial weapon so you have to ask your GM or grab adopted ancestry to get it.
thenobledrake wrote:
You're gonna need to get to rewording then because from your post a page back you seemed to be arguing that this is only a thing in big boss battles and that big boss battles are rare which is something I disagree with.
thenobledrake wrote:
I mean our table doesn't fall that much either, but that's only because we're running a redeemer shield champion, a heal font cleric, and a battle medicine specialist in the same party. Plus my ranger has a fair amount of heals on her too. Without the very high amount of damage reduction and recovery our party has we're all individually liable to get squished in as little as 2 rounds when a big fight comes around aside from the champion.
thenobledrake wrote:
I mean, have you seen Paizo APs? My table's been running through Agents of Edgewatch and big boss fights have been a pretty regular occurrence. Hell it's not unusual for us to have two big boss fights in a single day.
The thing is while no class gets deep features some of the features can lead into deep skill trees. Like the Barbarian instincts go in pretty different territories when you consider the feats each one unlocks. The big thing is that some of these are passives. If each bloodline offered a feat line that wasn't all focus spells I'd be more into 2's sorcerer.
thenobledrake wrote:
Nononono, using presented information is gamest because games like Ace Attorney and Danganronpa gamify stuff like that. Sorry, couldn't resist.
Alchemic_Genius wrote: As far as I'm concerned, the PCs are allowed to believe and react however they want to my NPCs, just like I'm free to control the info the players learn about my NPCs without rolls I'm pretty much of the same mind. Failing a sense motive check that I rolled in secret just means the PCs don't get any free hints, not that they have to take the NPC's every word as fact. There's a huge difference from reading the AP in advance and putting the dots together based on everything presented to you in character.
graystone wrote:
Not to mention that Oracle is a master at nabbing spells from other lists. You want both Fireball and Haste on a divine caster? It's pretty easy with Oracle.
Travelling Sasha wrote:
I'd rather have more information on deities without much info on them than archetypes dedicated to the inner sea gods tbh. Like, gimmie the scoop on Alglenweis or Chamidu. We have a lot of deities without even a description and while the edits and anathama can paint a picture it's not the clearest one.
Ravingdork wrote:
Thankfully Divine Access and archetypes that give out focus spells are both things. Splash in Blessed One dedication and bada bing, bada boom, you have a ton of Lay on Hands points to heal up the party with. Flavorful too. Even if you actually want to use your curse it gives you something to do with the spare focus points you may or may not have that doesn't put you further into your curse state.
Exocist wrote: That does mean they’re effectively taxed out of feats to get the spells they need though, and it’s contingent on having a deity with the right spell. Oracle's feat list is kiiiiinda lackluster so getting taxed out of feats isn't that big of a deal for the class unless there's some shiny archetype you want a lot of feats from or if you actually want one of the focus spells from your mystery. Now the deity part is an issue but if you can't find the spell you really, really want there's always Mysterious Repertoire which can get you a single spell of your choice onto your list. It is 14th level though so you will be waiting a while.
If the PCs are expected to take the die rolls and not pay attention to the roleplay evidence for believing an NPC's lie then the PCs get to just throw charisma checks at NPCs without roleplaying. It's only fair. To be clear I would not mind playing this way since I'm on the Autism Spectrum and have a fair amount of trouble with social stuff, I'm just warning y'all to the door you're opening up.
Worldbuilding is hard. Really bad word hard. I pretty much have 1/4th of a world to write and it's still stupid hard to do. I don't blame or shame anyone that uses Golarion for their games. I personally don't use Golarion because I have my own stories I wanna make that Golarion doesn't play nice with. I do however poach from its deity pool. The inner sea gods in particular are just perfect for general fantasy settings since they hit all the major notes you'd need.
Honestly the big 6 in PF1 aren't even the big 6. They're the big 3 or the big 4 for MAD characters. All you need is a magic weapon, a cloak of resistance, and the belt/headband to upgrade the stats you want. AC is extremely easy to dump in that system without shooting yourself in the foot once you get into magic item territory. Just get something to cancel crits and you're good. This goes double for GMs that heavily use natural attack monsters as bosses. You have to put yourself in debt to get the AC you need to have a 4 miss you unless you're a class that specializes in high AC like paladin. Can't even count on iteratives to give you a chance to evade the later attacks. Onto PF2 I don't mind the PCs needing magic items to keep up with the big nasty monsters they're fighting that much anymore. What I do mind is that the NPCs get such high numbers without magic items. Especially when it's normal stuff like a jailer or a bandit.
Karmagator wrote:
I'd rather have a book on outsiders in general. Fiends tend to get too much of the fun when it comes to that. Like, Demons and Devils get special treatment with individual bloodlines while the Celestials all have to share a single bloodline. Celestials should get the love as should the Aeons, Inevitables, Protiens, and the Elementals.
Remember that anathema applies to you, not your companions. Now if your companions break your anathema regularly you might wanna have a talk, but if they're breaking this anathema only in extreme situations, and for this anathama mindless undead attacking counts as an extreme situation, you should be okay.
Perpdepog wrote:
I want Non-Fighter Polearm users to have the same ability to get polearm goodies that Two Weapon Fighting, Non-Polearm Two Handed Fighting, Single Hand Fighting, Archery, Unarmed Combat, and Sword n' Board users all get by going into archetypes. All those fighting styles get a common archetype specific to them that all give fighter feats earlier and extra proficiencies that scale with you as you level up. Polearm users have none of that so they have to sub into Fighter to get those goodies, which means trying to grab Positioning Assault will have to wait until level 16 for instance. Plus Staff Acrobat takes until level 10 to give benefits not related to shove/trip and has a hefty 16 dex prereq. It doesn't even give you any extra proficiency like the other archetypes do.
So I know Fumeiyoshi is a god of envy among other things but I was wondering if he would ever form alliances with other deities. Particularly deities that are enemies of other deities that fall under "those who have good fortune they don't deserve" in his eyes. An Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend situation if you will. This assumes he's not stuck in that tomb and is aware of the deities in question of course.
I mean...Cleric doesn't take that much work to yank out the deity part from its mechanics either. Just have them pick a weapon, pick a skill, pick 3 spells (one at 1st level) and pick 4 domains. If all you want is mechanics and not flavor then godless cleric is not only operational but it's also optimal. Full control over your spells and weapon after all. You just don't see anyone advocating for it because it spits all over the thematics of the class. Champion is the same way, mechanically easy to tear out the deity. It's just finding an uncommon weapon you want, a skill, and some domains if you want to spend some feats for them. Thematically it's a different story. That power doesn't come from nowhere and it certainly ain't something a Sorcerer or Oracle can produce with how neutered their weirdness is in PF2.
Avenger wouldn't work for Inquisitor without so many lore and mechanical changes to make them into basically a different class. There's no divine connotation nor is there any hint that it's good at finding enemies of your faith by any means necessary and eliminating them. The closest things to a name change I can think of are Executioner and Extremest, but that also lacks the divine connotations so I wouldn't use it. Now if we turn it into an archetype or a subclass we can go with Divine Executioner since those don't need to be a single word unlike classes.
Aw3som3-117 wrote:
There's also the Knockdown feat which lets you spend 2 actions to strike and then make a trip attack with a 2 handed weapon even if it doesn't have the trip trait.
Forceful Trait
Attack Trait
Does this mean if you use an attack action, such as trip, with a forceful weapon that it counts for the bonus damage for that turn?
dirtypool wrote:
I treat the mechanics as a science in my world, it's a massive help for me wrapping my brain around the fantasy world and figuring out how this stuff really works. In PF1 this works out because everything follows those rules all the time. Even the monsters follow the rules to the letter. Feat every other hit die on odd numbers, BAB and Save system operates this way, all that stuff. There may be bonus feats and very high stats, but they're still operating under the same rules as the PCs and NPCs with PC classes aside from the first Hit Die not being full and not having any favored class bonuses. I can tell where the NPC with a class is getting extra HP/skill points from compared to a monster and thus rationalizing the difference is effortless. In PF2 a creature can get a free bonus with 0 explanation. Take the Jailer for instance. He has +4 strength and yet his club deals d6+8, his crossbow does d8+4, and throwing his club does d6+6. There's no listed area where he gets his bonus from. It sure as hell ain't from Weapon Specialization because he's level 3 and that's not till level 7 for martails. His math doesn't even add up legendary prof anyway, he's expert. There's no way this level 3 jerk has Greater Weapon Specialization. Oh, and there's the part where his weird, +4 bonus is halved for throwing the club but not shooting the crossbow for no discernible reason. The thrown quality doesn't have any text about cutting any bonus in half, strength or otherwise, it's just going from +4 to +2 with no explanation. It would be one thing if he had abilities the PCs couldn't get, in fact that's a neat idea and prevents options meant for NPCs mingling with options meant for PCs, but bonuses should be given a source. Also his HP is off. Accounting for the 8HP humans get he's gotten 37HP from 3 levels. And we know it's 3 levels because the math checks out with proficiency rules. This means he's getting 12 and 1/3 HP per level. Now I'm fine with levels giving weird HP values. Everything in PF1 gains an HP value with a hidden .5 attached to the end at each level. The problem is that the con bonus doesn't interact in any meaningful way. Either we're working with Barbarian hit points with the con score divided by 3 or we're working with fighter hitpoints with the con score multiplied by 2 and 1/3. If he had 1 less Hit Point and an extra point of con his HP would math out perfectly. What makes this worse is that a lot of other things math out perfectly. AC? Perfect match for trained prof. Saves? Expert in fort and ref and trained in will. Skills? Trained in diplomacy and expert in athletics and intimidate. Odd that there's two expert skills at level 3 but the math still checks out. Some rules are being followed to more or less the letter while others are being tossed into the wood chipper. This may be nothing for some DMs and even a boon for others, but for me it's a massive problem. Why are the monsters and NPCs following different rules than the party? Are we just operating with different internal power cores? Is everyone just making deals with devils/fae/celestials/dragons/gods/etc. on the side for hidden bonuses? Are they just hopped up on drugs? I don't care what the explanation is, I'll take they had a really good nap, just give me some reason. Now granted I'll figure out the in-universe reason for rulebreaking with time but for now it's an especially annoying box on a long list of "things I have to get organized in order to run my setting in PF2."
Unicore wrote: I think the disconnect people are having with the world is that PCs gain power in specific and predictable ways. NPCs have ways of following rules and formulas to determine power level, but they can also be arbitrarily set as needed for the world. Honestly one of the things that's been a bit of a hangup for me in setting my world to its PF2 era is how differently PCs and NPCs gain power. It's not like PF1 where I can make a PC and then just throw them into the game as an NPC. Since PCs and NPCs gain power differently I need to explain how they gain power differently and not just why the PCs gain power so much more quickly than the NPCs.
Nicolas Paradise wrote:
You get shield block for free, not aoo. You can get aoo for a feat without archetyping, but it's not free for champions. Also PF1 paladins weren't as MAD as you think. With divine grace adding cha to your saves and heavy armor you could get pretty low on dex and wis without endangering yourself. Int was handy if you wanted extra spells on your list but not necessary. For most paladins all they needed was str, cha, and con and they were set to wreck.
I personally find Champion codes a lot more clear cut, which I highly appreciate since breaking the code means I lose powers and abilities. I'm also glad that your alignment actually means something here. What I love the most however is that the good Champions are actually good at protecting people beyond just taking out big threats and sometimes parking their heavily armored rump in a chokepoint. Now they reduce damage to other people, and usually only other people, with their special reactions.
The-Magic-Sword wrote:
Probably my favorite part of building my worlds is looking at the mechanics of the system I'm using, going "this is canon" and then figuring out just what the hell that means for the world.
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