Kyle_TheBuilder's page

magnuskn wrote:

SuperBidi wrote:

Just less organized parties compared to Deriven's (we have quite many conversations together and he seems to play always with the same bunch of players who have their specific way of playing, this is rather uncommon).

It is? Most people I know who RP have their "standard" groups, where only every few years someone new enters or someone leaves.

I don't consider Deriven's group a standard group. Not everyone considers tactics so highly when playing TTRPGs.

I play in groups that play together since ages, still I don't consider them as organized as Deriven's one.

I don't know. I play with same folks for years now (and some new ones) and at some point everyone start to play tactically as, like, I don't know, people get experience and want to perform instead of behaving for years like they have no idea that TTRPG grid-bases combat is basically a tactical board game. I had people that really didn't have grasp on tactics but they just picked it up from other players. Sure they were few that run solo into room as Wizard "becasue that's what my character would do" cliche, but they just died and stopped playing when they realized it's not Skyrim.

I don't even think what Deriven describes is some high-end coordinated tactics.. Like stay close to Champion because he can give you damage reduction and smack enemy that hurt you? Like you'd have to be really special to not realize that standing in correct range from him is good idea. Or not trying to stand 60ft from your Medic who has Doctors visiation.

YuriP wrote:

This whole weirdness stems from how shield block was originally designed and what it ended up becoming.

During the PF2 playtest the original design of the objects, including the shields, somewhat resembled the mechanics of dying.
The objects had their hardness value like today, but instead of having HPs, whenever the hardness value was exceeded they received Dents, a condition unique to objects and the dents of all objects obeyed the same pattern, the first dent did not it did nothing, it just got marked, the "second" dent broke the object, while a "third" dent destroyed the object.
Also, just like dying, crits deal 2 dents in a single attack.

This exact mechanic was applied to shields, when the character blocked with it and the damage went beyond hardness, the shield suffered 1 dent, if it blocked again and went beyond hardness it received the 2nd dent and broke. And finally, if the shield was already on the verge of breaking (1 dent) and the character suffers a critical hit and still chooses to block it, it will automatically go to the 3rd dent and be destroyed.

The sturdy shield was developed at the same time, the difference between it and the normal shield was that it could hold 1 tooth more and had greater hardness.

However, this mechanic did not work or was not well accepted, and in the interval between the 2nd playtest and the final version, the objects returned to HP, but received the BT, probably to not need to rewrite all the part related to broken objects .

And that's where the whole weird part of the shields started. Magic shields, which like any regular shield, lasted 1-2 attacks, now lasted even less due to still being based on normal shields.
At the same time, the sturdy shield that should just have a higher hardness and therefore only block a little more damage and once more, is actually much better than any shield, as now they have a value in HP depending on from the amount of damage it took, it was able to easily last and withstand far more attacks

...

As much as I like PF2e mechanics overall, I will be first to say that Shield rules as whole are big failure. They tried too hard to make overcomplicated mechanics, they overshot and then they had too little time and way too many things already in rules (like hardness, broken thresholds etc.) to redo Shields from scratch. And we ended up with Frankeinstein of shield mechanics we have no with Sturdy Shields we can't get rid off.

Shields should have been just tools without any stats for blocking, HP/BT, nothing. Just Raise for AC and feats that would allow you to use Shield Block with greater damage reduction effect. For example Shield Block feat should give you entry "you can block X Points of damage when you use Shield Block" and then every other shield feat you take (Reactive, Reflexive, Warden, Quick Block, Aggresive Block etc) increase that amount by X (how much is unknown, would have to been calculated from scratch. Simillar to how feats increase your weapon damage dice number, damage bonus, how focus spells increase focus points, how feats decrease MAP etc. You invest in being shield martial: you get better at blocking, that's not hard concept to grasp.

And in the end nothing would be missed. You'd able to use any shield you want/get and throw to trash bin whole HP/BT mechanic, becasue as harsh as I sound here, I think that's the place of those two stats for Shields and Sturdy Shields (meaning all shields shoulds scale like Sturdy ones).

Thank you all so far for giving all your opinion. I will add few cents from me:

1. I do not like that there are Sturdy Shields. Period. It's wierd design decision, seemed last last-minute hotfix to hot-garbage shields were before it was applied. All shields should (depending on their level) scale just like a Sturdy Shield do. I know they add some runes for that in Remaster but that again just looks like desperate patching a mechanic that was (in my personal opinion) a failed experiement. The whole Shield Block, Raise, HP, BT is overcompliated. More moving mechanisms: more chance of something will break.

2. The fact that first Sturdy Shield is level 4 is something I don't like. The first one should be level 2 becasue level 4 in some scenarios (like 1-10 campaigns) is actuall very late. Of course GM can throw him one earlier (I know I would) but I just think the gap on level 2-4 is too big as Steel Shield becomes wet noodle

3. The BT mechanic didn't make any sense for me. Ever. I can't wrap my head around why it does exist even. Why not just have HP and simplify it. HP 0 = shield broken and you can't use it to Raise/Block. I don't see a reason for HP and BT to even exists aprat from desperately trying to make Crafting do something... Same is why shields do even get destroyed? Our weapons don't get destroyed, runes don't wear out, armor (aprt from very very situational scenarios that I never see anyway) don't get destroyed, wear magic items don't get destroyed. Yet shields, even magical, do... why?

Overall I find them lackluster myself, taking free-hand, with overcomplicated mechanics attached to them, requiring quite a feat investement and don't do much in return. I mean, they feel good when you block all those attacks, but I would rather just have some self-heal/Amp shield as damage mitigation and still have free-hand/two-handed. At least that's how I see it after looking at people feedback and general thoughts everywhere.

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

You can just Stride, Raise Shield/Heaven's Thunder, Flurry instead.

The best defense is a good "not being there."

Why wouldn't you Stride, Flurry, Stride away instead?

Because that's not a good tactic unless every single party member would do the same and that's also hardly optimal considering lost of action for damage, trips, flanking and reactions setup. If you have one other martial in party, then doing that you are playing selfish becasue:

1. You are leaving him alone there to get all the hits since you run away. And you have high HP, high AC, reaction that makes enemies not want to move away from you. Now you left other martial and squishies to get the heat becasue you run away. Focus damage is best tactic not only for players, but also for monsters. Now everyone will pile on other martial.
2. You are stripping your martial buddies of potential flanking bonus since you run away instead of flanking. You are great for providing that since you are mobile. So they should run to front of enemy becasue you have enough movement to run around and give flank
3. You are opening slot for enemies to flank your buddies instead from all sides.
4. If it's for example Champion you denied him a trigger for his reactions as his co-frontliner.
5. You are not trying to trigger other reactions, including yours. If you did instead Stride, Raise Shield, Flurry of Manvouers: Trip->Strike then on enemy turn since you and other martial are next to enemy you would both get trigger for Stand Still plus Attack of Opportunity.
6. If combat map is small you gained nothing apart from not playing with team as enemies will stride to you anyway and now nor you, not your other martial are flanking and you are outside for example Champion reaction or Fighter AoO.
7. If you Stride enough far away using your superior Speed, enemies will just target all the squishies you left behind since they are closer/slower and there is no martial next to them with Stand Still/AoO to prevent them from moving.

The only time where I can see this tactic for Monk as optimal if you are "3rd one" martial in party (for example there is Fighter + Barbarian) and they are flanking enemy, either tripping or grappling him and you are just getting in, doing your damage on flat-footed enemy and getting out. But if you have Stand Still and you coordinate you could all three of you trigger 3x additional 0 MAP reaction attacks on same enemy this turn.

There are situations where something like that might be good idea, but generally you should coordinate with your team to try to flank, setup reactions for everyone and use your reactions. Not play outside of your frontline. Also as one of three "beefiest" melees you should be there to split damage done to frontline, not pile it on others. You are not squishy.

Even Rogue wants to be close enough so he can get Opportunate Backstab reaction. That's 0 MAP additional damage. One of the main things of playing frontline is to try to coordinate for reactions.

Deriven was skeptical of looking at three action attacking so I am running math for 1, 2 and 3 actions that can be spent attacking. Here is the math on 2 actions which could be spent attacking:

2 action Dragon stance options (8th level vs AC 27)
1" punch - 13.5
Ki strike flurry + 1 full map regular unarmed strike - 25.56 (25.51 with a backswing tail lash instead)
Regular flurry +1 full map strike - 19.1432
Dragon Roar then Ki Flurry - 27.11425 (29.88375 if target already frightened)
Estimate: Dragon Roar then regular flurry is probably around 19.53ish if not already frightened and 21.3ish if already frightened)

Note that the Dragon Roar is worth doing even if the enemy is already frightened, because then you get the damage bonus even without risk of failing to intimidate so the damage of a Dragon Roar vs an already frightened enemy is higher.

2 actions to attack is where the monk falls off hard. I ran out of time to do the regular Dragon Roar and Flurry so the last one is an estimate based on the difference between regular flurry and Ki Flurry, but the critical shift is going to matter a lot here so the estimate is rough.

The difference between a flurry and a flurry with an extra attack is about 10% more damage. Roaring with the 2nd action is twice as effective if you can ki strike your flurry, or 3 times as effective if the target is already frightened. My math here is actually off because I just realized that I didn't add in the possibility of critically succeeding on the roar and dropping the enemy to frightened 2. There are an obscene amount of moving pieces with this calculation so I am not sure exactly what that would change but I am guessing it would probably boost Dragon roar and flurry up to about 29 and DR+F vs already frightened 1 enemy up to 30.5.

2 action 1 inch punch is a terrible choice comparatively. I probably won't get to the 3 action attack cycle until later tonight or tomorrow. Deriven did say that he doesn't like 3 action attack cycle white room math because it is...

I will just math you the issue with Monk and Fighter (and other martials) being able to loot Monk at level 10.

Free Archetype.

Monk level 12: Archetype into Heavenseeker for +6 dmg per Strike and into Rogue for extra 1d6 precision per Strike. Handwraps of Mighy Blows of Greater Striking +2 using Dragon Stance (3d10). We go with level 12 instead of 10 so we give monk advantage with Stance Savant here so he can still Heaven's Thunder for +6 boost for both Sequences. His second graph is for Stumbling Stace so we get Agile and backstabber. Enemy if flat-footed.

Stats are 20 STR (no property Runes for both)

1st Sequence: Stride, Heaven's Thunder, Ki Strike
2nd Sequence (2nd turn): Ki Strike, Strike, Strike with Stumbling Stance

VS

Fighter level 12: Archetype into Monk at level 6, taking Stumbling Stance and WoB/Ki Rush at level 8, Multitalented Rogue at level 9. Level 10 Agile Grace and Flurry. Level 12 Sneak Attacker and Ki Strike. Handwraps of Mighy Blows of Greater Striking +2 using Stumbling (3d8). Enemy is flat-footed

1st Sequence: Stance, Stride, Ki Strike
2nd Sequence (2nd turn): Ki Strike, Strike, Strike with Stumbling Stance

Here is graph vs enemies on levels 12-15 (for the sake of showing graduation) level +0. 1st Sequences: https://imgur.com/aYJ91RV

Here is graph with added 2nd Sequence, same enemies as above: https://imgur.com/1nGE9L8

Here is graph vs enemies on levels 12-15, Level +2: https://imgur.com/GAoPIAM

So the point is that: Accuracy is the king of damage. MAP reduction is the king of PF2e. Agile Stance also allows for taking advantage of backstabber and Sneak Attacker. Fighter can literally become a better monk at levels 10+ thanks to him having +2 accuracy in Unarmed and Having access to Agile Grace at level 10. Mind you I don't count here that he can get two Attacks of Opportunity on top of that, Heavy Armor Master, Bravery, and if you build him correctly for that level 10 transition (by using Martial Artist for example) you can easy double weapon proficiency (Group + Unarmed) before taking Monk. Hell, you could not do that and go for Monastic Weaponry.

Now this is only when Fighter feels so. He can still get more DPR by going Double Slice, AG, Flurry route with dual Picks/Falcatas etc, but the point is: Fighter looting Monk of Flurry + having Legenadry in Unarmed + having Agile Grace on top is basically killing monk.

And that's without even mentioning a superior defensive action economy version of Fighter with Monastic Weapon + Flurry + Stance Savant and Paragon Guard Stance having Perma Raised Tower Shield, being able to out-action economy Monk at levels 12+ as Fighter will be able to Take Cover, Flurry/Ki Strike, Attack/Stride/Whatver with 3 actions while Monk forever will be locked into Raise Shield, Take Cover, Flurry/Ki Strike if he would like to maximize AC + still doing his thing.

I could also show you here graph of Deer Animal Wrestler Barbarian taking Monk and his Flurry alone and using D12 reach unarmed attack combined with Furious Grab, Tharsh etc. and he would also out action-economy Monk at levels 10+ with his superior damage dice and flat bonuses and (Funny enough) you can take Heaven's Thunder on top of that on Deer Animal Barbarian before level 10 for another +6 flat damage bonus for him. I don't really feel as making another graph but I think you can see how Brabarian with unarmed D12 + Rage + STR + Weapon Specialization + Heaven's Thunder + reach etc. can out monk monk in unarmed combat. Elf Thief Rogue with Monastic Weaponry + Ancestral Weaponry + Flurry can become a Sneak Attack machine at level 10 with Elf Branch Spear on top of his excellent class chasis. With Free Archetype that's not big price for double Sneak Attacks for 1 action with Reach Finnease Deadly weapon and ability to Ki Strike on top.

To sum up issues/possible solutions:

1. Monk dedication should not give access to Flurry. Period. I have no idea who thought giving basically THE CLASS FEATURE to other classes is good idea.
2. Monk should get access to upgrades to Flurry to decrease his MAP/increase damage/number of attacks, anything at levels 10-18
3. Monk should either get access to Legendary unarmed or Legendary Unarmored as choice or be given access to Agile Grace at level ~12-14.

I'll probably be doing this math in sections but I did the 8th level monk with Dragon Stance doing 1 action of attacking, so I will share it here now. I may get to 2 action and then 3 action later today. I built a new monk who's focus is attacking, not casting to give the cleanest results. I will add in 1" punch for the 2 action and 3 action comparisons. The character also has ki strike so these will be added into the comparison as well. For kicks, to test out the hypothesis of the OP, I have also added in a boosted attack proficiency for comparison. At level 8, I am assuming no damaging runes, just +1 striking.

This is against a level 8 creature Average AC of 27, with no buffing or debuffing: It does factor in backswing.

8th level 1 action flurry is 16.5432
8th level 1 action ki strike flurry is 22.96
(8th level 1 action flurry shifted up a proficiency is 21.5475)

feel free to compare to one action of your favorite other martial. Also, 2 focus points is pretty easy to have by level 8 so in the remastered game, this would be 2x an encounter single action damage for ki strike.

Excuse me, but what is that? Nobody asked for 1 action vs 1 action, as we all here said that this scenario: Flurry vs other martials 1 action is the main advantage Monk has over other martials.

You said above that your Dragon monk does 3 action offense on levels 6-10 using One-Inch-Punch into Flurry. That's the math I want to see becasue I litereally told you that you take away from monk using that his action economy advantage.

Now you want to compare 1 action for 1 action, which is the thing we said: Monk advantage, until on level 10 other martials can steal it from monk on top of their own advantages.

I have no idea what math you want to make here as it's obvious that two Strikes are always better than 1 Strike so obviously Monk doing 1 action Flurry (two Strikes) will be on chart statistically better than other martials doing 1 action Strike. That's like asking if two apples will be more than one apple.

I have no idea what made you suddenly go with this one as nobody here ever denied that 1-9 level Monk 1 action economy is superior to other martials. I am starting to abosolutely getting lost in arguments you are trying to make as they make no sense.

Are we comparing 1 action vs 1 action now? 3 action vs 3 action? Or DPR vs DPR which is Damage Per Turn (per turn, not per action), meaning a statisticaly fair comparsion here is (for DPR) a Flurry vs 2 actions of other martials unless you want to tell me what other offesive stuff your Monk is doing with his other 2 actions.

One inch punch combines well with flurry. It doesn’t have the Map issues of power attack and it scales at higher level. A monk in close is one inch punching and making 2 additional attacks. It is much better than making 4 attacks, the last 2 being a -10 or -8.

What? No, that is just incorrect. There is absolutely ZERO mathematical evidence that this is good strategy. OIS into Flurry would still put your 3rd attack at -10 or -8 MAP.

The only class that can really make 3+ attacks at those levels are Flurry Rangers with Agile weapons as that brings their 3rd and 4th attack to -4 MAP. But that's their whole class mechanic. And even then: they miss fairy regulary.

But attacking with -8 is just nonsense when it comes to your last action. That's just gamble. That's not viable strategy for effctive usage of your last action. You would be much better statistically to use Raise Shield there, Step, Aid etc. anything but attacking with -8 MAP.

Also again, using OIS->Flurry is 3 full actions for just pure offense. Why at this point not play Doube Slice Fighter/Giant Barbarian, Flurry Ranger etc. I don't see advantage here.

The big damage boosting feat for the monk is one inch punch. With a D10 damage die it is very strong, especially at the highest levels where it scales well and you get perfected form. One inch punch is the mega hit 1 attack feat that power attack isn’t. Doing a 2 action one inch punch with a follow up flurry is pretty solid, especially as 1 inch punch is only one attack with no added map for getting extra dice.

Being a hybrid caster does require some buy in. Inspired by Michael Sayre, I have been playing a dex 10 dragon monk who started with a 18 STR, 14 WIS and 14 CHA. At early levels, it was all kiting attacks that hit hard enough to make enemies move around to me, letting them make 1 attack, which would usually hit, but trigger our party champion’s reaction reliably every round. We also had a cleric, so it was healing in abundance. By level 5 your spell DC/attack is 1 behind a full caster, but at most you have a focus spell that cares about this. Level 7 you fall to 3 behind,but you still don’t really have many spells for it to matter yet. Level 9 you are back to 1 behind and you stay 1 behind at level 10 when you spell casting stat goes to 18 but the dedicated caster goes to 20. As now you actually have some spell slots and are getting enough gold to buy more spell casting options without interfering with your fundamental runes. At level 15 you are back to 3 behind again (of a full caster only, not a summoner or a magus or a war priest), but 2 levels later you are back to 1 behind. At 19 and 20 you are back to -3/-4 with apex items. If you go with a 16 starting casting stat, then level 15 is only a -2 and level 19 is only a -2, but 20 is a -3 to 4. So very much if the game you are probably around -2 compared to a full caster. The thing is, when facing a solo monster, you don’t try to beat them by casting offensive spells at them. You are a martial first. You are using spells to cover your defenses, boost the damage of your strikes, and buff yourself. If the enemy has a high AC and a low save though,...

Sorry, but math doesn't support what you are saying. One inch punch at level 6 is just PA that gives option for 3 action for additional dice. Everybody who do math in PF2e knows that 2 strikes > PA and that with 3 actions Exacting Strike > PA->Strike. Same with Double Slice > PA etc. By simple statistic if you spend all 3 action on single attack, if that miss you deal ZERO damage. That puts that tactic on average way lower than Stuff like Double Slice, Twin Takedown, Exacting Strike or just attacking twice, especially with buffs, striking/elemental runes, flat damage bonuses and debuffs (PA scales worse the more debuffs and buffs/flat damage bonuses you have becaue of MAP compensation and multiple seperate damage riders). I can run you math with full charts vs various enemy level range/AC to show you that. One-Inch Punch makes you do 2 or 3 action offensive stuff as Monk. So why play monk at this point?

If what you want to do is to spend 2-3 actions to do melee offensive stuff, you do what other martials do but worse. Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue and Ranger will outdamage at level 6 OIS and will out damage it at level 10. Why play monk if you don't use it's superior Flurry action economy. That's like playing Champion and not using their reaction or playing Ranger and not using their Hunter's Prey.

At level 18 OIS looks better. But that only confirms what I am saying. Monks have HUGE hole from level 10-18. They pretty much stop scalling. And on level 1-9 they are not even ahead becasue Stances don't compensate enough vs other martials.

Also You "hybrid caster" monk has 10 DEX? So unless you are using Mountain Stance you are 5 AC behind? And if you use Mountain Stance, till level 12 in first turn of combat you are very very vulnerable and I don't think party would appreciate wanna be caster martial who runs with horrible AC and has to hide behind them before first turn starts so they don't get crit to death on lowest perception martial in game before they get their first turn.

I mean, I understand that for you it's fun concept, fun build to make caster Monk but at this point... why not just play caster? You will never be as effective as caster and you will suck hard as martial doing what you are doing. Monk casting stuff is not something that gives him any real edge over other martials. If martial would want to be caster, he would play caster. Hell, if I want to make hybrid martial caster I would roll Magus for that.

That's the problem with monk. They don't do anything exceptional at some point. At level 1-9 their best selling pointis action economy with Flurry and ability to get Agile 1d8 attacks. This gives them enough to keep them relevant with other martials. However, that's it. Monks needs something, especially at levels 10+. Feat upgrade to Flurry, damage upgrade to Flurry, MAP upgrade to Flurry and Flurry of Manouvers etc.

If adding in casting archetypes is part of the class, than the monk can pick up a casing archetype like bard, which works out pretty well for them because they can spare an action or two a round very easily.

I didn’t mention the rogue specifically because the sheer number of skills and skill feats available to them keep them from over specializing. They can often take all the skill feats they want to use and still have many extra.

Not every class can be built to be the best melee combatant in a 25 by 25 ft room. In my example, mobility was only one out of several other things a monk can do. The maneuver monk can be quite strong. Paizo gave monks a ton of feats built around pushing enemies though and I think players generally write that off as a tactic right away. Prevailing tactics I continue to see from mid level to high level are knock an enemy over, swarm them and dog pile them with attacks and reactions that trigger when they try to stand up. I think it is ok for fighter and rogue to be the best martials for exploiting this particular tactic. I don’t think making every martial have a built around participating in that kind of thing is necessary, although the monk can participate in it pretty well. Just not by taking 3 to four actions to make as many attacks as possible.

I think you are certain to be disappointed with the monk if you look at the flurry of blows ability and think that the purpose of that class ability is to be able to make an extra attack at a -8 penalty every round.

First of all: I don't understand your casting archetype argument you keep repeating in all threads. Nothing makes monk a good caster. They don't get Legendary DC, they get slower DC progression, they can't allow themselves to fully invest and maximize either WIS or CHA without dumping CON, STR or DEX. We know that even full casting players feel 50/50 at higher levels (especially vs level +2/3 enemies) when it comes to their Save spells and they have luxury to target weakest saves at that point with different effects and many slots.

Sorry, but I do not see how monk having above average casting progression is his strong side or how he can archetype into casting archetype, with Painfully slow slot progression and that's somehow great. He has to sacrefice taking anything that would boost his main job as martial for that. Meaning if the archetype into worse side of his kit (casting vs striking): he didn't how Heaven Seeker for HT, he didn't go Rogue for Sneak Attacker, he didn't go Champion for reaction etc.

Mobility stuff I already commented on and here in other threads many had simillar experience: martial mobility is overrated, official APs (and most do play those) don't support it and there many easy ways for martials to get high Speed using magic items/ancestry feats.

As far as Manouvers go, yes manouver monk can be quite strong. But so can other martials.

Free-hand Fighter is absolutely brutal lockdown machine with Combat Grab and Knockdown, also getting Dueling Parry for +2 AC (which still allows him to be main frontliner) and Dual-Handed Assault for 1d12 attacks with Bastard Sword for example without need to break Dueling Parry or any other free-hand feat effects. Warhammer Fighter with Combat Grab is brutal lockdown and damage machine that can frequently waste min. 2 enemy action or suffer perma prone condition debuff. Falcata free-hand Fighter can still use Knockdown and Combat Grab while having that Fatal d12 one-handed weapon Strikes. Giant Barbarian with Gill Hook and Giant Stature can lock enemies down with Grapple, support that with Furious Bully, Tharsh etc with 15ft range while delivering much higher damage and having +2 cricumstance bonus to Athletic checks (and they get Furiosu Grab at higher levels). Deer Animal Barbarian grappler with d12 unarmed reach attacks (hi there Monk) at level 7 also can lockenemies down (with Expert Unarmored and +5 armor AC bonus from Animal Skin). The Monk with Stand Still and Flurry of Manouvers (using unarmed or Temple Sword for trip trait) can do Trip->MAP strike->Stand Still combo. It is an effective strategy. However, if that's what you want to do, Knockdown Fighter just does it better becasue I will take 2 actions without MAP (Strike + Trip) over 1 action with -4/5 MAP on class that is -2 accuracy behind me anyway. I have the same issue with Wolf Drag. It's great. I love this feat. However, if what you want to do is spending 2 actions for Strike+guarantee Trip to trigger your Stand still... you just play Knockdown/Improved Knockdown Fighter at this point becasue you stop using your main advantage that is Flurry. Mixed Manouver Monk can do Trip->Grapple, that's great, but Fighter can do Trip->Combat Grapple which has same chance on tripped enemy to land but will also deal damage on top. 2 actions again. The strength of Monk is their 1 action for 2 economy. Everytime you build monk to use 2 actions for martial stuff, you do what other martial do but less effective.

Also nobody said anything about doing -8 extra attacks every turn? I don't see anything like that. The main focus on every martial should be: trying to deliver 2 Strikes where possible and trying to setup an athletic manouver like trip/grapple etc. without (if possible) sacreficing damage output.

But I don't want to be all negative becasue Monk up to level 10 is good fronliner that can combine tanking with control:

STR 18/DEX 16 Human Monk taking Rush, Ki Strike, WoB at level 4 with Flurry of Manouvers at level 6, FA into Fighter for AoO at level 4 and Reactive Shield at level 6, using Tower Shield first and Fortress Shield from level 7 makes a very tanky fronline tank:

1. Easy +3 AC either by Raise or using reaction if actions were tight (especially on turn 1 if using Stances and not Temple Sword)
2. Up to +4 AC if next turns can just stand next to enemy and spend all 3 actions
3. 1 action for Trip->Strike, to fish for AoO trigger.
4. Best self healing thanks to 3 Focus Points and Wholness of Body, becasue WoB doesn't provoke AoO from enemies unlike Lay on Hands so you can Raise, Heal, Flurry or Heal, Heal, Flurry and Reactive Shield for +3 AC.
5. Taking Heavenseeker later and Rogue for more damage boosts as we have actions to use Heaven's Thunder.

Up to level 9 I think this is one of best frontline tanks/controllers you can make. High AC, 2 great reactions, 3x self heal per combat, still doing 2 strikes per turn (either from Flurry or FoM->AoO)

However, I still belive you would be better with free-hand Fighter instead with Medic/Blessed One/Champion, as you would tank less, but you would definitely hit more and trip better. That second strike in Flurry of manouvers will be frustrating on misses. I don't like how the only damage increase option for monk is Ki Strike, which 1 focus point per 2d6 extra damage up (if -4/5 MAP strike hits) until... level 9!!! +1 bonus is even worse. If it was circumstance it would be much better. It just doesn't blend with Bless, Inspire Courage, Heroism, Inspire Martial in party. Feels like a waste. WoB is their best Ki Spell on level 1-10. 1 FP to maybe get 2d6 more damage, in many cases just 1d6 becasue you will miss that second attack just feels... bad.

Sadly it all crumbles for Monk at level 10 and up. There is just nothing there anymore till like level 18 and at level 10 everybody who wants to monk, can monk better. But don't even need that Flurry. It's just option for them to take it.

There is also a GMing issue going on if players are choosing abilities designed to run up walls and across water but most encounters are happening in small quarters. GMs need to be aware of the abilities their players are choosing and whether the game they are running is good for those abilities or not. But that is outside of the scope of things the monk class should offer as feats.

Even if GM makes more stuff like that just so Monk has any usage from CLASS FEATS (I can't stress this enough, this cost class feats!) that player spend on very situational usage, that still will be way more situational than encounters without those gimmicks becasue 3 or 4 other players won't use them. Also if only Monk can do that, that will often lead to Monk being seperated from rest of the party and spreading out in PF2e is a big no no.

So even in your example where GM would place more situations for those feats to shine, they would still be situational, not regular because he has other players in party, not only wanna-be-spider-man Monk.

And again, those were class feats. That means player will be worse in majority of combat situations anyway, even with such GM, than if he took a generally-always-good combat feats like WoB, FoM, MM, Wolf Drag etc.

Personally, I'm not sure monks should get a damage booster at all. They already have better defenses than other martials and better mobility as well, though feats like Sudden Charge and Sudden Leap can help offset that gap. The class which functions closet to the monk defensively is champion, and they get no consistent damage boost. For mobility, the closest are the Swashbuckler (limited by panache generation, worse weapons, and finisher loops) and the Summoner (who burns an action every round just to deal two handed damage.)

Range and mobility are qualities the community undervalues in my opinion-- and Paizo seems to share that opinion based on their design decisions. If you don't care about those things and want to be legendary at unarmed combat, you can play a fighter with the monk or martial artist archetype. It is similar to how if don't want to cast spells as a significant party of combat but want to smash things with a big hammer instead of casting spells, you should play a champion or magus instead of a war priest or Sorcerer.

Side note: the auto correct on my phone picks and chooses which classes it wants to capitalize seemingly at random.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I think they should get Legendary Unarmed proficiency myself. Fact is Legendary Unarmored proficiency is one point higher than Heavy Armor master proficiency. Legendary Unarmed proficiency would probably just make the monk a slightly better damage dealer given they don't have the heavy damage boosters of other classes.

I'd take that moderate damage booster.

Fighters don't have damage boosters either, and people call them the best damage dealing class in the game. Accuracy IS damage with PF2.

If it feels bad that flurry can be poached, monks should get something else unique that can't be. (I mean, they can already with various class feats and metal strikes, but something else too.)

Yes, accuracy is damage too but that doesn't mean that Fighters get only their proficiecny and that's it. Fighters get damage boost from their feats. Dual-Handed Assault with free-hand build is damage boost (going from 1d8 to 1d12+circumstance bonus), Double Slice is damage boost (-2 to 0 on second attack is damage boost due to accuracy as you said, but Double Slice is exclusive to Fighters and DWW and it doesn't blend with Monk at all), Certain Strike is damage boost (even at -10 as 3rd attack that's boost), Brutal Finish is damage boost, Combat Reflex is damage boost (double AoO per turn), Agile Grace is damage boost, Dual Weapon Flurry is damage boost and so on. So while Fighter doesn't get flat bonus like Barbarian, they get damage boosts from feats.

Also Monk mobility is in my opinion a little overrated and misleading argument for Monks. Barbarians get +10 Speed in Rage. Any martial for low price can do Trick Magic Item + Trained in Arcana and Wand of Longstrider (2) to get +10 Status Speed for 8h per day and it allows to save class feats. Sudden Charge gives you 3 actions for 2. A Fighter doing Sudden Charge -> Strike is spending 3 actions for double Movement (let's say 20+Fleet+Longstrider) so 70ft (could be easy 80ft with Nimble Elf, Unburdened Iron, Nimble Hooves, Swift etc. from Heritage) Speed and attacking Twice. Monk can Stride twice and use Flurry or he can use Ki Rush but here is the catch: there goes the Focus Point, so no Ki Strike/Wholeness of Body. Sudden Charge is free (and its losing Open in Remaster).

Also at level 15 most STR martials have Legendary in Athletics which means Cloud Jump which suddenly becomes better mobility option that Striding at this point anyway.

Mobility is viable argument but it's not that big of a deal. I mean if anyone played official APs: we know big open areas are rarity.

The fact is that as long as Fighters get stuff like Paragon/Dueling Dance stances that allow them to get constant benefit of something that cost action (which monks can't do becasue they need to enter their stances so even pouching Dueling Dance from Duelist is not solution) and stealing Flurry on top is just another pile of issues.

Monks already have Legendary 'unarmored defense' so giving them Legendary Weapon Proficiency would probably be a bit much, even if it is only with Unarmed attacks.

Traditionally, Monks have only had a 3/4 or 2/3 attack bonus progression in these games.

As I suggested in my other post: you could give Monk at level 17 a choice: either Unarmored Legendary or Unarmed Legendary. Not both. Having an option is better than not having an option.

Quote:

but also a reason from devs: why Fighter is more proficient in unarmed than Monk?

Do you mean a reason besides the monk going to Legendary in their defense (when most martials cap at Master in both offensive and defensive proficiency)?

And yet Champions also get Legendary so Monk is not a exceptional sacred cow here, like Fighter is. So I don't see anything against monk getting Legendary in unarmed.

Hell, you could just give Monks a choice at level 17: "You either mastered your defenses or your offenses. Choose to either become Legendary in unarmed defenses or in Unarmed weapons"*. Which would also present interesting choice.

You will no more being flat-footed but off-guard.
Attack of Opportunity now will be Reactive Strike.
Illusion still a trait with rules.
Positive damage/energy is now Vitality damage/energy, negative damage/energy is now Void damage/energy.
Saves are now Defense.

lol, I honestly didn't expect those to be license things... like "positive" and "negative" is hardly WoTC creation, those are common terms... Saves also. "Attack of Opportunity" I get, it's specific term. Also how "flat-footed" is an license issue where that is litereally medical name of "having a condition in which the foot has an arch that is lower than usual."

Seems little over the top to change those.

ki monk need to have their spell dc base on str or dex

cleric ki blast have 4 higher dc than monk

that just doesn't look good for monk

Even though Monk doesn't have much DC Ki Spells, I agree 100%. I wish I could make Monk that uses Ki Blast becasue I think it's awesome but the terrible DC makes me skip it every time.

The Raven Black wrote:

The above made me slightly worried for Monks who do not use Ki powers. It now sounds like a suboptimal built whereas it was a perfectly usable version previously.

Supposing that the only change will be what we already know, then that is exactly what would happen, yes. At least the suboptimal part. The offense from Ki Strike and the sustain from Wholeness of Body at the very least are incredible tools to pass up.

On the other hand, non-ki monks are exactly as usable as before. As far as we know their effectiveness in combat should be identical to before, which is to say pretty decent by popular perception. All that changes is our perception of them, as we are presented with something that seems (and probably is) more effective. With the changes coming this late in the game, I think this will cushion the perception shift a lot.

But at the end of the day, yes, it sounds like ki monks will be objectively more optimal. It'll be interesting to see what steps, if any, Paizo will take to limit that shift. Because we can be absolutely sure that they see those problems as well.

Besides, lets also be honest. "More optimal" in PF2e term is very little difference. Reach Fighter/Champion is definitely more optimal than greataxe Fighter/Dandy but it's not like PF1e, DnD 3.5/5e. It's like 10-20% difference at most. So such things as what is absolutely the most optimal only will matter to powergamers like me who sit with excel weeks before campaign and make tons of builds for their upcoming character and squeeze every % of advantage they can get.

For majority of players a small difference like that won't be a reason to play or not play certain build/class/style. Hell, it's even hardly for me becasue PF2e is so balanced as I sometimes choose some options becasue I like them, not becasue they are mechanically stronger (which is new to me in RPGs). All thanks to excelent math behind system.

Besides even by sheer law of statistics, even if differences are small, something must be at top and something must be at bottom with everything else in between. But if difference between top and bottom is small, then apart from extreme competetive players: it doesn't matter for most.

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

The above made me slightly worried for Monks who do not use Ki powers. It now sounds like a suboptimal built whereas it was a perfectly usable version previously.

Well, before taking Ki Feats was suboptimal as you had only 1 FP so it was much better to take feats that work always. It's like saying that you are worried about clerics who won't use their Deities Domain spells. I mean, part of chosing classes with Focus Spells is to use them. Monk was designed around Ki Spells and in my opinion the FP rules before remaster were countering the whole PF2e Monk design.

However, I also disagree with you. A Bo Staff Monk just going for Flurry, Stand Still, Flurry of Manouvers and only Ki Rush/Abundant Step for extra mobility is perfectly fine build for skirmisher.

However, if you want to make "in-your-face" striker monk then Ki Strike, Sacred Ki, WoB and Perfect Strike from Student (combined with Sky and Heaven Stance) is perfect for maximizing your striking damage with Ki Strikes (or tankiness with WoB) but you sacrefice control as you are unable to take feats like Flurry of Manouvers/Mixed Manouvers or Stand Still.

So in my opinion it's better now as Ki builds are finally viable due to fact that average combat in PF2e is 3-4 rounds. Before that you were better to not take Ki Spells and focus on mundane combat feats.

One of the goals for the PF2 Monk in the playtest was to make non-mystical (ie, no Ki-power) Monk a perfectly fine choice.

Ki-powers were designed from the start to be an option and not a requirement.

So, completely different from Cleric, or even Champion.

And I said above, a non-mystical Monk is pefectly fine, you have tons of great feats you have to chose between when you level up Monk. You can't have everything. Stand Still, Mixed Manouvers, Flurry of Manouvers, Stunning Fist, Wolf Drag/Tiger Slash etc. are all great non-Ki feats and you can't have them all and at the same time have Ki Rush, Ki Strike, Sacred Ki/Elemental Fist, Abundant Step and Wholness of Body with Wind Initiate as ki-range option as backup.

You have to pick your poison. Monk has so many good feats now that Ki is viable that it makes me want to play 3 monks in 3 different campaigns now, while before a Ki Strike Monk wouldn't even cross my mind.

Non-mystical Monk is as good as it was. He wasn't nerfed or anything. It's Ki-Monk that's finally good becasue before there was no point in doing Ki focused Monk with pathethic 1 FP/combat. But with 3? That's great now.

The above made me slightly worried for Monks who do not use Ki powers. It now sounds like a suboptimal built whereas it was a perfectly usable version previously.

Well, before taking Ki Feats was suboptimal as you had only 1 FP so it was much better to take feats that work always. It's like saying that you are worried about clerics who won't use their Deities Domain spells. I mean, part of chosing classes with Focus Spells is to use them. Monk was designed around Ki Spells and in my opinion the FP rules before remaster were countering the whole PF2e Monk design.

However, I also disagree with you. A Bo Staff Monk just going for Flurry, Stand Still, Flurry of Manouvers and only Ki Rush/Abundant Step for extra mobility is perfectly fine build for skirmisher. Combine with Tiger Stance for longer Steps or with Tangled Forest for extra control.

However, if you want to make "in-your-face" striker monk then Ki Strike, Sacred Ki/Elementa Fist or Stand Still (dependig on campaign), WoB and Ki Rush from Student (combined with Sky and Heaven Stance and Heaven's Thunder) is perfect for maximizing your striking damage with Ki Strikes (or tankiness with WoB) but you sacrefice control as you are unable to take feats like Flurry of Manouvers/Mixed Manouvers or Stand Still. Not much usage of reaction here as opposed to above so you have to find something for yourself (like Champion reaction for example etc.)

Or combine both for some mixes. A lot of options now.

So in my opinion it's better now as Ki builds are finally viable due to fact that average combat in PF2e is 3-4 rounds. Before that you were better to not take Ki Spells and focus on mundane combat feats. Now you have more options to mix and match Ki spells focus vs manouver focus. A Wolf Drag monk for example won't have much usage of Ki Strikes, but can have of Ki Rush, Abundant Step and WoB.

I absolutely love this change and we jump onto it as soon as we heard it will be new RAW in Remaster so no point waiting :).

Immidietly we saw great improvement on lower levels, mostly 1-6 where certain more focus classes/casters got well-needed boost to their core features or just flexibility in general. Mainly:

1. Monk. Being able to have 3xFP/Ki Strikes at level ~4 means they really can Ki Strike almost every round and feats like Elemental Fist and Sacred Ki became much better as they are able to trigger enemy weakness multiple times per combat and giving themselves +1 status bonus to hit. It also opens up combinations of using Ki Strike and still having FPs for WoB, Ki Rush or Student of Perfection Ki Spells etc. Also let's be honest: monk being albe to Ki Strike once/combat was lame as hell...

2. Champion and Monk. This really makes them more "tank" oriented at lower levels than Fighter, having 3x/combat LoH or WoB allows them to really stay there at front line and reduce the pressure of casters to keep them alive.

3. Casters in general, some more than others. Storm Druid being able to toss 3x/combat Tempest Surge is such an awesome blasting option now. Our druid immidietly felt much stronger when it comes to blasting with D12 reflex Focus Spell that can deliver Clumsy 2 on enemy, which encourage teamwork aspect and combos and also decreased the pressure of having Synesthesia being spammed on bosses. Elemental Toss, same, great option for just 1 action etc. Generally casters now have pretty much "resource free" options to use in combt apart from their Cantrips and it's great.

4. Utility. Anything from Heal Animal to Domain Spells like Enduring Might, Veil of Confidence, Perfected Mind, Protector's Sacrifice, Adapt Self etc. has more usage now.

All of that becasue players no longer will clinch to their single FP every combat for "best option" or "most emergency option" and instead they will feel like they can play more with their Focus Spells and have fun to them in combat, isntead of using same over and over again becasue it's best value for that single FP.

The little downsides:

1. Psychic and Champion dedications just got stronger and they were already top 2 archetypes for optimizing builds. Whole main Psychic class feature of having 2 FP recharge will need to be reworked as it's no longer unique thing.

2. We will get little more power creep from Free Archetype. Fighters/Rogues for example will be able to easy get with right Archetypes chosen 3 Focus Points and great Focus Spells by level ~8 which will already boost their powerful chasis. It won't break anything, but still, worth mentioning.

3. Bards got even stronger now being able to do 3x Inspire Heroics per combat as soon as level 8 or easy switching from Lingering to Inspire (or any other way around) since they have enough FPs for that.

And I will opposing what was said here: if not for prone crit spec on hammer/flails... I couldn't care less about crit spec in game as a mechanic. To be fair, without hammer/flails crits they could remove crit spec mechanic and nobody would notice. 1d6 bleeding? Moving creature 5ft from you? Clumsy 1 where even at low-mid levels you can easy stack frightened 1+, clumsy 2+ etc. on enemy (and it doesn't stack with frightened so it rarely gets value) and greater Crushing Rune can already do better than this? Flat-footed when you have bazillions ways to make enemies flat-footed again so this spec is useless half the time when you crit? Litte extra damage on crit from pick spec? Yeah, it's okish but only becasue it's good with grevious rune and pretty much only Fighters care about Picks. Slow 1/Stunned 1 with save so not only RNG for crit first but then RNG for save, and it's Fort on top which is usually the highest save so it means it does nothing to stronger enemies 8/10 times on top of having to crit first? Hammer/Flails seem too strong becasue other crit specs are way too weak to make difference in combat. When someone at our table crit with hammer/flail it has impact, it does something, it can turn the tide, it matters, it creates something (like AoA trigger), it removes enemy action. Rest of the weapons? Please.

I would rather make all other crit spec better. Give Spears Clumsy 2 on crit, give Polearms for example ignoring 5 resistance to physical damage on crits etc. Give crit specs something good becasue once hammer/flails are nerfed I will probably just forget I even have crit spec on weapon becasue they are wet noodles.

I fully expect that they will add save to hammer/flails in Remaster, which will mean with their already lower damage dice (which was becasue they had such good crit spec) everyone will just switch to Guisarme 24h.

bugleyman wrote:

breithauptclan wrote:

I would be willing to call the Remaster project "Pathfinder 2.5" only as long as we acknowledge that we are currently running "Pathfinder 2.4" since we are on the 4th printing right now.

Except the remaster is specifically more than just errata (see: alignment), but also less than a new edition. I don't think it is terribly helpful to treat it as either.

The thing is that the alignment replacement isn't mechanically any bigger than some of the other errata changes.

Sure it feels like it because it seems like it is a major change to how players think about and conceptualize their characters.

But mechanically it isn't going to change all that much. Alignment is baked into the system enough that every character had to have one written down. But it isn't all that much of a core component of the character mechanically. The only things that require a character to have an alignment are a few spells, a few items, aligned damage, and a couple of class's class features.

After the replacement of alignment, we are still going to have characters who have a moral code, an attitude towards government, and an approach towards organization. It just won't be distilled into a two character code.

Some other things that are in the errata documents that I feel are at least as big of a mechanical impact on all characters as the replacement of alignment:

** spoiler omitted **...

To add to that, too many people expect some drastic "remade from scratch" approach to class changes. While mostly they will be minimal. Champion pretty much only gets "cosmetic" changes to Causes/Mechanics that were using old alignment so their options are more open now. Barbarians will get changes to Dragon Instinct becasue of new Tradition Dragons so it has to be included there.

I fully expect Alchemist to just finally get a better proficiency progression in their bombs etc.

We get rid of some monsters/monster names for license sake and rename of some core stuff for same reason. We are not even getting "balance pass" on spells becasue come on, who will know balance pass thounsands spells.

Aligment change is for convinience, rest is mostly for license reasons + erratas and some minor changes (like Wizard getting T in simple weapons).

I think some people will be dissapointed expecting full mechanic overhaul or drastic changes to class balance or core mechanics. It's just minor stuff to "clear up" PF2e for future.

The Elven Branch spear, also a martial weapon, was already a d6 reach weapon option. An elf character, half elf, or adopted character could pick up elven weapon familiarity to be proficient with the elven branched spear (as though it were a simple weapon), before this change was even implemented.

So changing the rogue to be proficient with all martial weapons really just means you don't have to be a elf or raised by elves to get a finesse reach weapon, which is overall a good thing IMO.

A fair point, I will admit, I didn't think about this example.

In other words, I agree this will probably change game play a little, but towards things PF2 wants to be encouraging anyway. Rogues losing all their bonus damage when fighting incorporeal creatures and most oozes is a big enough problem for the class to have a lot of issues trying to pass fighters or barbarians

While I hear that a lot, the statistics are not confirming it as enough problem for Rogues to balance their huge damage bonus with martial weapons now: out of what 1500 monsters or more only 83 creatures are immune to precision damage (things like Oozes and Skeletons)and only 11 creatures are resistant but most of those are resistant to everything.

It's really insignificant amount.

It seems like this is a change that is about as much of a lore shift as it is about any balance concern. It seems like all the legacy lore restrictions tied to past versions of DnD got the boot.

I don’t know about anyone else that wasn’t in favor of the changes from a purely game balance perspective, but it is a much easier pill to swallow seeing that it is wrapped into a larger, necessary framework of moving the game away from DnD legacy lore. I think this change will end up making each of these classes look pretty different from their legacy peers, but that is now a necessarily good thing for the sake of protecting the game.

I agree with getting rid of problematic legacy restrictions but I don't agree with doing it just for the sake of moving away from DnD while foresaking a delicate balance that PF2e got in first place. Also Rogues will now be too good martials for all the skills they get in addition to that. You can't have cake and eat cake in my opinion.

The damage rules. Please be clear about what and instance of damage is. Consider a critical strike from a flaming sword. There is slashing damage, additional fire damage, and persistent fire damage. How does that interact with a Champions reaction that does resist all? Is it one two or three instances? Is a shield block with item hardness different? There are similar concerns with multiple weaknesses.

As for as Hardness go Devs were clear in rules clarifications:

https://paizo.com/pathfinder/faq

So from Pathfinder Core Rulebook Clarifications (4th Printing):

"Pages 266 (Clarification): Can I use Shield Block if I take physical damage that didn't come from an attack?

Shield Block can only be used against physical damage from attacks, since non-attack effects can't trigger the Shield Block. For instance, if you walk over a square of hazardous terrain that deals piercing damage to you, having your shield raised doesn't help you, nor does it help if you need to make a Reflex save against a spell that deals bludgeoning damage. Some abilities let you use Shield Block with other triggers, as seen in the shield spell and the fighter's Reflexive Shield feat, but these exceptions are noted. Also note the 4th printing errata to spellguard shield (page 588) allows it to apply in this way."

As far as Champion Reaction the presistant damage: you don't Resist presistant damage as you don't receive persistent damage the moment attack with it hits you. As per Persistent Damage condition in Rulebook: "Instead of taking persistent damage immediately, you take it at the end of each of your turns as long as you have the condition, rolling any damage dice anew each time" . Chamption reaction says you receive resistance only "against the triggering damage". Persistant Damage is not triggering damage as ally doesn't receive it when he gets hit, only at the end of his turn.

So Champion Reaction works on your example of "critical strike from a flaming sword" very simple and very clear in my opinion: you reduce seperately slashing damage and fire damage from it, but not persistant damage as persistant damage you receive at end if your turn. When it comes to Resistance rules are clear:

1. Roll Damage (crit strike from flaming sword)
2. Damage type (X from slashing, X from fire)
3. Apply Resistance (Champion Reaction says "The ally gains resistance to all damage" so 2+ Chamption level from X Slashing and 2+ Chamption level from X fire damage
4. Whats left hits your Hit Points or you can Shield Block remainning physical damage (in this case X slashing)

I think it's all quite clear.

Isn't fire damage energy damage? So Shield Block wouldn't block it.

Where does it say that it doesn't block energy damage? Shield Block only mention "physical attack" which is not the same as "physical damage". It means physical attack like melee or range, not spells, mental, AoE etc.

This is further confirmed in Item Damage rules: "An item can be broken or destroyed if it takes enough damage. Every item has a Hardness value. Each time an item takes damage, reduce any damage the item takes by its Hardness"

I don't see anything to "fix". Finally casters are not one-man-armies and need to hide behind martials to do their stuff to promote teamwork. Single target damage and mobility is martial cake in this edition and I really love it. Casters have utiltity spells, heal spells, summon spells, debuffs, buffs, crap ton of AoE damage spells/disable spells etc. Yes, I am well aware that most of those AoE spells are really effective on enemies same/-1/+1 level but that's also good in my book. The stronger single enemy there is: the more martials shine, the more lower level enemies are and more problem sloving/utility is required: the more casters shine. In the end they all meet somwhere in the middle via teamwork, using manouvers, buffs, debuffs, reactions, positioning, feats etc. to cover each other and support each other.

Seriously, it's a breath of fresh air after playing AD&D, D&D for so many years (didn't play PF1E but played 3.5 and 5e) to finally see casters being tonned down.

Also if you want to make casters stronger at your table: just do it if that's what your players want. But don't expect any official changes from Paizo as they were clear in their intent and reasoning behind their decisions why runes/proficiences work like they work for casters. The whole math behind system was built with that in mind, so they won't now mess up the whole nice balance they got just becasue some people want to be God-Wizards again.

TL:DR houserule that (e.g. give casters potency runes if you have to), but Paizo won't reinvent whole wheel after years now.

GM OfAnything wrote:

Hardness and Resist: All work differently. That is why they are different things. If they acted the same, they would be the same.

And they explain what is different about them. But in no way do they make any distinction to how they react to different types of damage other than they reduce damage by their number. Damage has different types and different types of damage apply to that number separately. There is nothing written in hardness to indicate otherwise.

As I explained in my post above yours btw. they have clear distinctions in wording when to comes to damage and reduction. "Types of damage" only shows in Resistance rules, definition and wording. Hardness and Item Damage doesn't use any wording talking about different type of damages being apply seperately, only Resistance rules clearly say about seperate damage application. I gave quotes from rules as examples.

There is no RAW behind your position either, Kyle.

What I'm saying is I believe RAI applies to Hardness acting like Resistance. I think they intended it to work like resistance.

I have tested shields to high level. Shield Block is pretty worthless if it doesn't work like Resistance.

This idea that you only need the feat to use it is a false one. I explained all that was needed to make Shield Block work like you and Humblegamer are claiming. I'll post it again since you are vastly underselling how Shield Block works in real play:

1. The creature/s keeps attacking you. It has to keep choosing you as the target for its attacks or Shield Block is useless unless you invest even more feats and position next to allies. So a person investing heavily in shield blocking but isn't a champion can't block an ally as well as a Champion? Why not?

2. The creature would have to do multiple types of damage, which is also rare. If it does one type of damage, it's going to chew your shield up.

3. You would have to forego all other reaction abilities.

4. You have to invest in the right shield feats.

5. You have to pay a portion of your magic items into a quality shield with high hardness.

6. Then you have to use one action a round to raise the shield, further reducing your damage and abilities to do other actions.

Probably even more limitations to Shield Block to block a single attack per round, maybe two if you get a second reaction. Somehow this seems overpowered?

My game experience in play with shields says otherwise.

How do you counter Shield block?

1. Don't attack the shield user. Shield Block rendered completely inert.

2. Attack the Shield user with multiple other attackers. Not enough reactions to block all attacks.

Easy to bypass Shield Block. So those few times when it does prove useful, I prefer to run Hardness where Shield Block is a great ability for those rare times it does get used.

But I think all the examples you made are fine and I don't think there is anything wrong with them if shield hardness does not act like resistance. It's not that I didn't read your examples but my reaction to them is "yeah, and that's fine". Pretty much what you see as downside I see as part of balance of shields and I think it's all good.

You say there is no position in RAW behind me saying that Hardness should not act like Resistance, but there is a difference between "I can do what rules say I can do" and "if it doesn't say I can't do it, I can do it". In my opinion you are pushing the latter here. Besides, just from logic perspective: if Hardness was meant to work 1:1 as Resistance, why would they call it "Hardness" then, instead of saying that Shield has Resistance? If it was meant to work exactly the same, it would be way easier for rules to use same definition, right?

Resistance rules say: "If you have resistance to a type of damage, each time you take that type of damage, you reduce the amount of damage you take by the listed amount" and "It’s possible to have resistance to all damage. When an effect deals damage of multiple types and you have resistance to all damage, apply the resistance to each type of damage separately"

But Hardness says: "Whenever a shield takes damage, the amount of damage it takes is reduced by this amount" . Alo Item Damage says: "Every item has a Hardness value. Each time an item takes damage, reduce any damage the item takes by its Hardness"

Resistance cleary says uses key wording here like "type of damage", "that type of damage", "apply the resistance to each type of damage separetely"

In case of Hardness it's just "takes damage" and "amount of damage" and "reducy any damage". It doesn't break it to types etc. It also doesn't say anything about applying the hardness to each type of damage. It's just damage here, "any damage", instead of "each type of damage" (or any separately applications) like in Resistance. There is clear difference here.

If RAI was as you are saying, wouldn't it be easier for Paizo to just call Hardness Resistance or at least use same language as in case of Resistance?

We will have to agree to disagree here Deriven, which is fine, but I really don't see that there was even an intention to make them both work the same way. The wording and definitions are clearly different and so was intention in my opinion reading rules I quoted.

Yes. Champion's Reaction is to protect the party. Then you can avoid the Champion's Reaction by attacking the Champion. So he uses Shield Block to protect himself. Why should it be weaker than the Champion's Reaction?

Champion is built to be a tank. So should be able to block damage on an ally and on himself equally well, so the opportunity cost of attacking the Champion or his ally is roughly equal.

I've seen this in play. It isn't a balance problem at all. In fact, doing hardness the way you want to do really starts to hurt at higher level when damage stacking from multiple sources is quite high. One critical hit and your shield is all done. Then you lose its protection in all ways.

I have no idea why you don't want a shield block to be as spectacular as a Champion's Reaction.

You're flat out wrong about the number of times a Champion can block per battle. I've seen the shield block in action. Your party has a lot of attacks coming at the entire party spread across you and your allies. You have multiple reactions you might use. So you using a Shield block every time would require the following:

1. The creature/s keeps attacking you. Rare as shield users are hard targets with lower damage, so enemies tend to target softer targets dealing more damage.

2. The creature would have to do multiple types of damage, which is also rare. If it does one type of damage, it's going to chew your shield up.

3. You would have to forego all other reaction abilities.

4. You have to invest in the right shield feats.

5. You have to pay a portion of your magic items into a quality shield with high hardness.

6. Then you have to use one action a round to raise the shield, further reducing your damage and abilities to do other actions.

All of this investment and you think shield block is only for small hits? Still not sure why you think this.

I disagree and I think what you said is exactly the point: that class feature should be stronger than shield that anyone can use with just one general feat: Shield Block. It wouldn't make sense in my opinion why shield block should be as good as Champion Reaction. That doesn't make sense. Fighter can take Shield Warden and protect others with Shield Block and I like that it's not as strong as Champion Reaction, otherwise it takes away from Champion class feature.

You said: "So should be able to block damage on an ally and on himself equally well, so the opportunity cost of attacking the Champion or his ally is roughly equal." But that's only your desire to buff tankiness of Champion (and in my opinion he doesn't need any) and houserulling that hardness is like resistance. It's fine, but again there is nothing RAW to confirm it. You also asked "I have no idea why you don't want a shield block to be as spectacular as a Champion's Reaction" It's not about him wanting it or not. Rules does not in any way say that Hardness = Resistance as again, they would then just make shields have Resistance. If you want to make shields stronger at your table that's fine but don't try to say it like there RAW behind it, becasue there is none.

Shield is balanced also around fact that it's easy to repair, it's easy to pick Shield Block general feat by any class, everyone can buy Shield, have multiple of them, there is Shield Warden feat plus easy aquisition of shields. All of that is balanced by making Hardness not working as Resistance by design. It's a matter of system balance and in my opinion that's the reason why Paizo made Hardness instead of slapping Resistance on Shields. Becasue then everyone can run with pocket self version of Champion Reaction RESISTANCE, so what would be the point of Champion Reaction if anyone can have it's own without even taking dedication?

In my opinion it's your houserule that makes Champion Reaction less spectacular becasue you try to make mere basic Shield Block work in same way as iconic class feature.

Anyone can houserule as they see fit so if you prefer to play with your houserule to hardness, all power to you and I hope you have fun playing with it. But what I said above are in my opinion the reasons why Hardness is seperate from Resistance, shouldn't be treat as such and you are making them way too good when I don't think shields need any buffs especially with all feats they get and Bastion archetype on top. As far as I read rules regarding them couple of times today after discussion here about it: RAW Hardness and Resistnace are seperate instances of damage reduction (for good reason).

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Karmagator wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Karmagator wrote:

Gortle wrote:

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

Becasue resistance 5 would not give PA any advantage.

Not at all. Resistance 5 from a physical shield, shield cantrip or champions reaction - almost totally negates the 3d6 added to everything in this analysis for additional damage runes. Each damage type goes through resistance separately. In such a case it could count 4 times.

Physical shields and the shield cantrip only offer Hardness, which is simply subtracted from the total amount of damage, not each individual damage type. The only thing that works as you describe is resistance against all damage, such as from some champion's reactions. Which is rare on monsters. It's basically only incorporeal creatures and then a whole load of nothing with a few examples here and there.

This is up for debate and could use clarification. I run hardness like resistance all myself for shields and monsters.

Is it really up for debate?

Quote:

"Each time an item takes damage, reduce any damage the item takes by its Hardness." (item damage)

"Your shield prevents you from taking an amount of damage up to the shield’s Hardness." (shield Block)

That is clear - when you take damage, you reduce the entire result by the Hardness value. It's one instance of damage, not several. The rules for all-res are also only under resistances. Hardness is not resistance (even if the result is essentially the same) and most certainly not resistance against all damage, which is also why it has a different name. I don't see any basis for treating Hardness like all-res.

Yes. It is up for debate. Each type of damage is an instance of damage. That's why we track it separately to reduce by various resistances because they are unique instances of damage. A damage rune does 1d6 damage of a certain type.

Sadly yes. The Damage...

We are getting here in little of houserulling here. Cleary every damage type should be counted seperately vs resistnaces. However Hardness is not Resistance. RAW it just gets full damage of every damage type riding on attack as sum and substract that value from Hardness. If Shield instead had "resistance", then I would agree, but Hardness is not Resistance and it does not function as such RAW. Hardness is Hardness. Resistance is Resistance.

I run hardness like resistance all myself for shields and monsters.

That's just houserule at this point. If Hardness was supposed to work like Resistance, they would just say Shields have Resistance (all damage) instead of creating Hardness. There is nothing in rules saying Hardness should work like Resistance.

That Reddit analysis doesn't take into consideration shields and resistances and the last paragraph assumes they are rare, which is not true. Starting from lvl 10 the number of creatures with some kind of physical resistance increases a lot. Also many APs have NPCs that uses shield block or that has physical resistance or can cast stoneskin.

The game isn't just bare numbers and simulations. There are situations where PA is better and others where other actions or activities is better.

Same person on reddit said that there is way too many variations to calculate so someone will always find something to say "actually" but please let me know the % of monsters (if you know) that have high physical resistance. Becasue resistance 5 would not give PA any advantage. 10/15 would be minimum to MAYBE start moving the DPR line, especially once haste and any kind of further bonuses come in play vs Exacting Strike patterns. Also please consider the amount of attacks you do at higher level. PA is only one per turn. To close a gap in DPR in later calculations in that analysis vs Exacting Strike the resistance would have to be really significant as PA is behind in number of attacks and each attack also carries 3x damage runes and flat damage bonuses that will bypass that physical resistance and add up with more Strikes. It's all numbers. If PA does +3d12 damage, that's is on average 18.5 damage. However Extra Strike carries 3d6 damage from runes and another flat damage bonus which can be easy +29 for example. Each Strike carries full 4d12 for example on top of that. So resistance for PA to make big DPR difference with just additional 3d12 would have to be really high considering extra strike would carry way more damage riders at higher levels.

I believe only 5% of monsters had physical resitance in Bestiary 1. Also If I remember correctly, a lot could be bypasses by silversheen.

You may be right, but without hard numbers how many enemies have physcial resitance of min 10 across all monsters, you may also be wrong.

It's simillar to argument that I heard here that "Aid and first Strike bonuses would make PA much better" and that reddit analysis shows very accurately that this is not really the case.

Again, I believe you may be right, but numbers would have more weight behind it.

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

(as my graphs showed)

I am not looking at your graphs. I do not believe that they have accounted for all of the various complexities of usage scenarios that Power Attack is suited for.

I respect all different opinions in this thread but "believe" has nothing to do with math. If you think my calculations are wrong/incorrect I am always happy to be proven wrong by better calculations. If you think you can do math better then please do, I am open to be proven wrong by arguments. "Believe" is not an argument and "various complexities" is empty argumement as it means nothing. Besides saying in once sentence "I didn't look at your graph" and "your graph must be wrong" is really disrespectful to discussion participants. If you think you can show different conclusion using your own calculations: I will be happy to see them.

Many people here made some good arguments, like for example attacking hazard that I didn't consider before. However, that's an argument and I can stand behind them.

Those other feats are so strong because they are trying to bring weaker fighting styles up to par with two handed weapons.

That's why I think personally that Swipe could be great feat for 2 handed with slight errata to wording from "adjacent to the other" to just " within your melee reach".

"Focus Fire" is the most valid tactic in TTRPGs and PF2e is no difference due to action economy. So better Swipe wouldn't touch Double Slice single target DPR or debuff/utility of free-hand Snagging, Combat Grab, Dazzling Blow etc. but would give 2 handed a niche as baseline which is multi enemy hits (which even makes sense with wide strikes of two handed weapons).

That's just my opinion of course, but I think it would work well. If there is only one enemy (boss) then dual/free-hand etc. have advantage of better single target Strike feat upgrades but if there is fight with multiple enemies, Swipe would make 2 handed at least do something others can't do.

But no one needs to attack 100 times in order to take down the enemy that they are currently facing.

It's not about attacking 100 times, I never said that. It's about statistic so I took 100 simulated "turns" for easier statistic calculation for average outcome. It was to simulate when you have either 2 actions or you have 3 actions available and all you want to do is deal damage, either be PA vs 2 Strikes or by Furious Focus PA vs Strike, Exacting Strike, Strike. It's to shown what is more beneficial from math standpoint on average to 2 handed character. Meaning: if you play campaign, doesn't matter if level 1-10 or 1-20 or 10-20: on average Power Attack or Furious Focus Power Attack nets you worse result. I never said you attack 100 times, just that I simulated 100 turns where you have either 2 or 3 actions for full offense, which in whole campaign seemed like good statistical base. Result would be same for 50, but it was easier to for me to calculate with 100.

NECR0G1ANT wrote:

I think Power Attack just allows fighter PCs to better punch through an enemy's resistances. It works as intended, so no need for errata.

Yep. That's where the math more than balances or vs. Hardness, though also when using True Strike (et al).

As for "defining feat", I think that's a false premise. Maybe Paizo meant Exacting Strike to be better for 2HWs, or Sudden Charge. Or maybe big-die weapons (especially in the hands of a Fighter) already set the topmost bar for damage. Plus most every feat already favors them (if not somewhat obviously meant to enable another style).

With AoOs, the single Strike from Haste (or Sudden Charge, etc.), and the way Striking Runes work, why would anyone ever use anything other than a single, big weapon? Well, because Paizo included feats which reward those weapon styles so they become competitive. If anything big-die weapons have the freedom from a "defining feat" rather than an unfulfilled need.

Similar w/ Ranger, where a big-die weapon doesn't have a great Hunt Prey action (as someone complained recently). True I guess unless one counts Disrupt Prey (which disrupts more types of actions than similar Reactions). And then there's Quick Draw, Skirmish Strike, and any other feat which grants one Strike. Or Haste, a Marshal's "To Battle", et al.
Or the fact again that a big weapon defaults to being among the strongest options so requires no help.

Math barely balances vs resistances too, especially vs those that can be bypasses by silver. But even without that, most resistances aren't high enough to make any big swing in numbers for PA. Those few that are high enough: yes, you are correct but is that worth 2 feats vs 1 that will be useful way more and net on average way better results? That's also a question.

But your other points are very good. I can see where you are coming from. I just wish that 2 handed had this iconic move to pull or attack that you know.. only really makes sense on 2 handed weapon, like Double Slice on dual or Snagging/THA on free-hand. I just feel that while highly effective, it's very bland with feats for it (2 handed builds I mean). It just lacks... a feats that are tailored for it and overall just always good to pick. PA could have been that, but it's not.

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

Yet Power Attack, which I assume was supposed to be THE feat for 2 handed builds,

I would think Brutish Shove and Knockdown.

Though those are available at level 2 and level 4 respectively instead of level 1, two-hand wielders are a bit ahead of the curve on offense power to begin with.

I agree that Knockdown and Imp. Knockdown are great on 2 handed Fighter. Brutish Shove I am not fan due to size restriction and needing to waste another feat slot to make up for that. However, getting back to Knockdown: free-hand Fighter can also use it with any 1 handed trip weapon and with Improved Knockdown he can use it with reach 1 handed weapons. So while I agree it's good feat for 2 handed Fighter, it's also good feat for free-hand Fighter. Also with shield augmentations it's also good feat for S&S Fighter. Hardly "style defining" in my humble opinion.

Mathematically it's worse than striking twice. Mathematically with 3 actions it's always worse than using Exacting Strike. Even vs high AC enemies with Furious Focus it still just matches Exacting Strike mathematically with 3 Actions available for only striking. Even Press feats like Brutal Finish/Certain Strike actually (statistically) helps more Strike-> Exacting Strike as if you miss Exacting Strike you can go for Brutal Finish and if you hit with Exacting Strike you can go for Certain Strike (or for 3rd Strike even).

Every other Fighter fighting style has it's "style defining" feat that is baseline of attacking: dual wielding has Double Slice, free-hand has Snagging Strike/Dual-Handed Assault, Sword and Shield has obviously tons of shield feats. Yet Power Attack, which I assume was supposed to be THE feat for 2 handed builds, mathematically fails to be that. Unless it's Exacting Strike that was supposed to be THE feat for 2 handed builds.

Anyway, I am just surprised that Paizo didn't think that PA needs a little bit of love. It should be a more viable way to use your 2 actions than Striking twice and mathematically that's never the case, unlike Double Slice which is always better than Striking twice and Snagging Strike or Dual-Handed Assault are direct upgrades to Strike action for free-hand builds. And while I understand argument "feats are situational": many feats are not and are direct upgrades to mechanics, like feats I mentioned here and many more.

I guess after so many years there no hope for errata for PA, but maybe we will get in future some defining feat for 2 handed characters. I love PF2e but I also love 2 handed weapons and it makes me sad that PA is so bad.

This is literally the meme of you had us in the first half.

Starting on point two your whole thing is literal nonsense. Just because someone wants to play a damage caster does not mean that they are selfish. Just like someone wanting to play a utility character doesn't mean they don't want to be the main character.

This doesn't even have to do with superhero but straight up just how the stories of great wizards are. No one everyone wants to play the guy who is just following around big guy to make sure he gets where he needs to be. Some people want to play the person who uses a rocket launcher and flamethrower to solve problems (blaster casters).

Finally, damage has always been measured in total party effort. The idea that it wasn't is insane. What PF2 did was make it so the numbers range with a +/-2 instead of +/-10 making things a lot less swingy. The reason why casters aren't allowed to deal damage has nothing to do with "hogging combat monster", its entirely because people like you incorrectly assume that a caster dealing good damage 3-5 times a day somehow is "being a damage hog". All while ignoring that people in other editions complain about support casters invalidating combat, not damage casters.

Everyone are free to have their own opinion. As someone who came from 5e where everyone is one-man-army and teamwork is non-existential (as well as playing support/healer is non-existencial) - my group really like the fact that support is so strong in this game. It is more fun for us. We like to play MMOs/Co-Op video games where one of us is tank, one is DPS, one is support/healer etc. and we like that. So I wrote from our own point of view (that's why I wrote "my take") where we like that casters are no top damage dealers and their damage is ok, but not awesome and instead you have to look at other ways to contribute which is supporting. They can still do great damage on low level enemies thanks to AOE so I don't think it's really problem. But they are not "I can do everything best" full casters like in 5e.

Believe or not, but all depends on individual experienec. We had so far way more fun with casting buffs and debuffs so martials can destroy crippled enemies than we had in 5e where everyone was just doing his own damage to kill enemy without any feeling of "we did this becasue we combo with each other for great outcome".

So I won't disagree with you, but we really like that casters really have to think if going for damage is worth over doing some support stuff in combat which can lend better result for team. Makes you feel like professional adventure coordinated team, not bunch of individuals running together. Each to his own.

@dmercless, I am a little surprised to hear that the folks you have played with all find martials as a whole to be a fun and rewarding experience, as that does feel counter to my experience. People LOVE the fighter. They build a lot of rogues and rangers, only for them to get killed trying to live on the front line. The same with the Barbarian really. Players generally have fun with the class until they start finding themselves on the ground 2 rounds into any fight, and then the character dies or they feel like they have to make sure someone is playing a champion to protect the other martials, even if they don’t really want to play a champion. Champion and fighter end up in tons of parties, but a lot of the other martials die off, or get retired because the tactics of kiting and switch hitting are hard to dial in as a team.

But that's the learning curve. I am new to PF2e but I needed only one read of rules + some general reddit/forum tips to immideitly understand that standing in one place and trying to just Strike stuff is one-way-fast ticket to being dead for martials. Especially on lower levels

Kiting, positioning, utilizing reach, using CCs like knockdowns, wasting enemy actions and working together with your team to cast on you buffs, debuff enemies, slow them down etc. is how you survive as martial.

I think too many people build Flurry Ranger or Double Slice Fighters, go in there, spam attack for "maximum DPR" and then die. But that's the learning curve, right? Once you get that, playing as martial is great.

I myself just played short 1-3 adventure with our team before "big campaign" as reach Fighter and I had no issue staying alive as long as I was utilizing my movement, reach and trip on my Guirsame and my party was working with me on control battlefield and keeping me nice and shiny. I really like that in PF2e. Nobody is solo superman here. You need teamwork and battlefield control from everyone.

Well, here's the catch. This is my experience playing a caster. The experiences of almost everyone else I played with, in multiple tables, have been from moderately different to completely opposite of that. They're not forum-dwelling, spreadsheet-making ubernerds like I am. Just people who enjoy the hobby and want to play a fun character. Many even like tactical games, just not to this level.

That's where the crux of my issue is. I often feel like casters in this game are so focused on being balanced for people like me, like many of us here in the forums, to be honest, that it forgets everyone else exists. I don't want to have fun figuring puzzle pieces to the detriment of everyone else who feels forced to do the same thing just to feel half-decent about their character

With all due respect, I sympathize with your desire to make everything great for new players, but that is exactly what made 5e for example so unbalanced: the approach of "casters should just be awesome so new players can just pick it up, slot fireball and feel great". And that's where God Wizards come to be. But even in 5e you still need to solve "puzzles" to not pick trap and bad spells and slot "God Wizard" spells like Shield, Web, Hypnotic Pattern, Fireball, Phantasma Force, Polymorph etc. Even in 5e a player who doesn't invest ANY time into researching his spells and spell list will make very very useless caster. It's just it's much easier to make OP caster there.

The part where you have to learn what spells to use, how to use them, what spells synergize with you party members, when to recall knowledge to get enemies weak saves, prepare spell list that is good and realize that sometimes you have to put your "kaboom" in your pocket and cast that Enlarge + Heroism on your martial and contribute way more in some fights where enemy is too strong for "direct spell spam from safe spot from behind my martials doing same damage as them" tactic, which is not PF2e tactic.

The part of being caster in tactical systems like that are puzzles. If someone doesn't like them, then maybe they should play ligher magic systems where it's much easier to be good at being good caster. There is learning curve and high skill celling in PF2e when it comes to being great caster. But in my opinion: that's part of the fun of playing caster. You don't pick full caster to have "easy time" unless you follow some online guide. At least that's how it always been, especially with Vancian system.

So, I am debating on pivoting to PF2E, after the whole OGL debacle. I have a player with some familiarity with PF2E who is talking about how worthless casters are except as buffers and utility.

Now, I understand that there is a discussion on how effective casters are, but my impression was that while casters are weak on single target damage, that they provide in enough other areas as to have their value.

However, he sent this message to me, and it made me question just how bleak the situation may be:

"Since every single time you will be fighting monsters with higher saving DC's. Levels are important since you get to add that into your saving throws and attacks. So anything the party fights will have a higher level.

The issue with Pathfinder is that, AoE effects, in PF2e you can take dodge entirely both damage and effects.
Unless 5e where even if they succeed they take half damage, PF2e has the mechanic that you can succeed and take zero damage.

So let's say, you are a spellcaster and you have a DC of 19 at level 4, the CR calculator would suggest you have to fight something at level 6.
Their DC saves are from +12 to +16. To beat your DC's. They need to roll 7 from their lowest and 3 for their highest.
The max DC you get as a caster is a 50, the max monsters saving throw they can get is a 47."

So, is he right? Just how bad is the situation for casters?

Casters are in very good spot. FINALLY. It took so many editions of D&D, 1e Pathfinder, 5e and finally PF2e took the right step and made casters balanced vs martials. That's my opinion.

Martials are kings of damage in this game and single target CC. And that is great. This is basically design philosophy of PF2e casters:

Casters have utilities like creating stuff, moving stuff, summon creatures/stuff, make things out of air, read thoughts, become invisible, teleport, go through walls, heal, harm, buff, debuff, single target control, crowd control, mobility, affecting terrain properties, polymorphing, dispel magic, counterspell, protection spells, ilusions, multiple elemental damage sources etc.

So what they did take away from casters: dealing high damage (especially single target), dealing damage reliably and make sure their control/disabling spells have high risk (slot + enemy high saves), high reward (you basically shut down enemies). Now you are PART OF THE TEAM. Not one man army. Feel like you need that rest of the party now, no?

You can't have everything on caster anymore lol. They are still kings of utility, force multipliers on battlefield and utility out of combat and have biggest single turn impact if they cast the right spell (Slow for example can make hard encounter easy just like that. Or hightened Heroism on Fighter. Or Maze. Or Fear). But fail risk is greater and so they need to look into supporting allies more often as being part of the team, not "I don't need party, I can do everything" like previously.

But they don't have damage capabilities of Martials or their single target resource-free CC abilities. And that is great.

FA already can give them higher AC via dedications like Champion etc.

Honestly I am so glad that finally casters are balanced. Of course no RPG system is perfect and it's not perfect balance but it's the best balance I have seen so far in TRPG when it comes to martials vs casters.

So yeah, casters are fine.

I didn't notice anyone mention a big caveat to min maxing

Your will maybe be 10-20 percent better at the thing then someone who doesn't

That person who doesn't is also likely to have more options than you

Min-maxing and optimizing are two different things: by min-maxing you maximize only one thing (lets say damage) and sacrefice others. By optimizing you try to to be as good as possible in couple things (for example damage + CC + social etc.) if build/system allows while at the same time you try to cover any weakness the build can have. Basically you try to have as little "min" as possible (or zero in best scenario) for enemies to exploit. While in just min-maxing you don't care as long as "max" side is at full power (basically one-trick pony).

Though obviously optimizing is way harder as it requires way bigger system knowledge.