I think it's the simplest and clearest solution which you mention yourself: It is a very flattened dome.
I personally don't know enough about architecture and structural integrity to say for certain if such a structure is even capable of existing or being supported, but I know there are plenty of materials on Golarion that don't exist in our world. The existence of a flat, wide gently-curving coral dome colloquially referred to as a "hemisphere" still seems much easier to swallow than the explicit RAW mechanics of how spells that generate electricity function underwater, as far as general suspension of disbelief goes.
I imagine if you really wanted to cover your bases, you could include periodic supports for the dome throughout the city...but I've never GM'd for a group of players that would question the ability of this structure to exist in the first place.
...Why does it feel like this thread has become more about the Magus than the Psychic?
If there's a fruit stand in business selling oranges and someone wants to discuss why that fruit stand is doing so much business, it will naturally lead to a discussion of the clientele when it turns out that there's a huge scurvy problem in the city's population, and the only other vendor selling oranges is charging way too much for smaller pieces of fruit.
I'm not convinced the underlying math at low levels is problematic. I suspect that perception stems far more from the imbalances found in some of the earlier adventure path modules, which are known to have been calibrated poorly as the rules were still being written at the time.
The lack of an HP buffer combined with the most rapid period of numerical scaling in the game objectively make combats against higher level enemies more lethal. You are correct that the early modules are balanced poorly, but part of that is just that the encounter-building guidelines are not functional at low level. A single APL+2 enemy feels more like a severe (or rarely extreme) threat at those levels. APL+3 is a nightmare.
I also, personally, think the encounter-building guidelines have a hard time hitting "engaging, but not lethal" at low levels. My experience is that there's barely any daylight between "snoozefest" and "people are getting crit to the ground frequently" if you follow the encounter builder, especially with the lack of APL-3 or APL-4 enemies to fluff out encounters.
I can vouch for this, I dont really think the math underneath it is problematic but its rather obvious this game is balanced around the usage of resources to decrease encounter difficulty, And it really is levels 1-3 where you absolutely don't have these resources while the math itself remains the tightest where a single point actually makes a whole lotta difference.
It of course makes sense that any of the options, choices, or resources that one would use to have a greater degree of control are unavailable at the earliest levels, both to enforce a sense of progression and to reduce complexity of decision-making for brand new player or for players that prefer to ease into understanding mechanical complexity. Having to consider many different actions from access to feats, or having a supply of situational consumables would not be well-suited to the earliest levels, and would mean an increased overhead in starting out the game.
Since the party doesn't have these things (they either can't at all in the case of feats or generally don't have the resources in the case of items or spells), though, it doesn't make sense that there isn't a greater accounting for this in the balance of the game. That is to say, there is (generally) no particular reason from a narrative storytelling perspective nor from a mechanically satisfying game-feel perspective that combat at the earliest levels should be especially deadly. If anything, this would feel more satisfying in many campaigns if it escalated rather than de-escalated. To achieve this, there should likely be special provisions in encounter building and the underlying logic at low levels or adjustments to expected accuracy and damage from enemies that operate at those level ranges to account for this that just are not present in the current state of the game. There would obviously be ripple effects to these changes (if 4th Level creatures were weakened to a degree that they could be suitable as extreme encounters against parties of brand new characters, this would make them worse as level -2 fodder against 6th Level parties who are practically existing in a different universe from 1st Level characters), so it isn't as simple as just suggesting a blanket change and being done with it.
For experienced players, a solution could simply be to avoid playing at those levels at all...but then this returns to the original topic at hand. There are many different reasons why new players and/or GMs may not want to begin at a level above 1, and even if they were willing to they would need to be exposed to the notion in the first place to even consider it. The game really does a less than ideal job easing in new players.
2. A Shifters Wild Shape functions like the spell Beast Shape. Beast Shape is a polymorph spell which means it does not actually change your type. You assume the shape of an animal but are still considered a humanoid for purpose of which spells affect you. So, spells like animal growth do not work on the shifter even when he is in animal form, but enlarge person will work. If you make enlarge person permanent it will still be functional when you change to an animal, because your type is still humanoid.
This is not quite correct. As you say, Shifter's Wild Shape is a polymorph effect and so would fall under this clause:
Quote:
You can only be affected by one polymorph spell at a time. If a new polymorph spell is cast on you (or you activate a polymorph effect, such as wild shape), you can decide whether or not to allow it to affect you, taking the place of the old spell. In addition, other spells that change your size have no effect on you while you are under the effects of a polymorph spell.
Essentially, using Enlarge Person on a Shifter who is in Wild Shape would end Wild Shape if they allowed it to affect themselves. If permanency was then cast on the Enlarge Person effect (in their non-Wild Shape form) using Wild Shape (and choosing to have it provide its normal benefits) would dismiss the Enlarge Person, which would end and not return despite being permanent.
I do understand where you're coming from based on the substance of my posts, but it would be more accurate to characterize my thesis statement as, "The difference in power between a character making optimal use of the increased ability scores from pureblooded Azlanti vs. the power of any given core race is significantly lower than the difference in power created organically by simply playing the game 'normally' due to circumstances that are generally considered acceptable despite creating far greater disparity."
You could argue that, "No one is asking for this comparison," but I feel like advice under the circumstances is best characterized by further trying to give an impression of the degree of the unfair advantage, which is going to result in subjective interpretation and disagreement, but should also be possible to reach a range of general consensus over given time and debate.
If one envisions two 1st Level characters who are otherwise identical, and then one of them is given a single CL 1 Potion of Cure Light Wounds, there is no debate that one of those characters has an objective advantage over the other, but I doubt many people would spend a great deal of time trying to convince others that this difference will be impactful or meaningful over the course of each character's adventuring career, given that the item will long be forgotten before reaching 3rd Level.
This difference is obviously much more substantial than that; I am not trying to characterize the difference in power between a CRB race and Azlanti as being that minor. I am saying, though, that I think allowing two different players to bring a Barbarian and a Wizard into the same party is already far more egregious mark against intra-party balance than any that will be caused by the existence of one or more Azlanti. There simply is not that much to optimize about the bonuses provided by the Azlanti as hard as one tries.
If I think about characters who would gain the most benefit from being Azlanti, using the racial bonus to its utmost, in general my mind goes to certain Monk setups, frontline Clerics and Druids, and frontline Shamans (or Spirit Guide Oracles) that want to make use of their Charisma-based (Wisdom-based) features (especially Lore as a Wandering Spirit). Certainly, Cleric, Druid, Shaman, and Spirit Guide Oracle are not classes/archetypes in need of any help, though assuming the option is one that it offered to players across the board, Azlanti will still provide the greatest comparative benefit to a martial over a caster (even though most casters would still be quite happy to take the option), since martials are almost invariably dependent on finding ways to nurture a greater spread of higher ability scores (the same logic and circumstances under which it can be shown that reducing Point Buy has a lower impact on most full casters than the impact on most martials).
A strong, well-built character already has a mechanism for obtaining a racial boost to the ability scores that they care the most about simply by selecting the race that will boost those ability scores. By extending that logic, you could compare it to the value of a mechanic that already exists; spending gold to buy belts and headbands. Everyone will prioritize their single most important physical and/or mental ability score first (obviously). Eventually, with enormous amounts of gold available in middle and high levels, players may go about seeking out belts and headbands that also apply to their less relevant ability scores (especially with boosting saving throws in mind), but many times these will still get neglected even when both the gold and the item(s) are present and available simply because they're comparatively a very inefficient way to spend wealth until very late. If it was so desirable to obtain these increases to less used ability scores, I would expect Belts and Headbands of Physical/Mental Perfection to be far more popular pieces of equipment than what experience shows me people value them at. You can literally see the degree and comparative value/urgency players place on upgrading secondary ability scores through this same lens.
Compared to the next best racial option for a particular build, Azlanti sacrifice all other racial abilities for a +2 racial ability score bonus to the four or five less valued ability scores (from the creating player's perspective). This is definitely still desirable from a power optimization standpoint, but it isn't going to split the game apart mechanically. It really depends on how important maintaining intra-party parity is to the GM and to the table in the first place...but if it was really that important, I would say that a table that cares deeply should be examining many other assumptions of the game first, and would likely possess the analysis skills required to draw their own subjective conclusions. At that point, it would be far easier to choose a different game system altogether that actually values parity.
They're just different degrees of overpowered. (Ab)use and knowledge of Pathfinder 1e mechanics is a continuum. The ability score bonuses to Azlanti will, in many cases, allow the creation of more effective characters, especially in scenarios where players either aren't aware of certain optimization methods, or aren't using them.
Allowing a player to create a pureblood Azlanti character over a core race will be much less impactful than allowing or not allowing things that are already much more prevalent and accepted at a wide variety of tables, like allowing vs. not allowing Stinking Cloud, Teleport, Phantasmal Web, Grease, Emergency Force Sphere, and any number of other "modest" powerful spells and abilities that don't completely deconstruct the world like a painter Wizard, but are far more significant than a character gaining an extra hit point per level and being 5% more likely to make their saving throws and most skill checks.
Saying that how powerful something comes down to the experience of the players goes for anything. Using that as a justification for something not being overpowered not really a valid defense. Any character run by a player with good system mastery and tactics will always be more powerful than any character run by a rank beginner.
Even a S.A.D. class will benefit from the +2 across the board. The +2 bonus to all stats helps minimize the negatives of dumping other stats. Assuming a 20 point buy for an Oracle. I max out CHA at 20 (including +2 for being human), put 14 into DEX, 16 into CON and dump STR, INT and WIS to 7. If I am a pureblood Azlanti my CHA stays the same, my DEX and CON are now higher, and I have 9 for all other Stats. All my saves went up by 1, as did my AC. I get an extra HP and skill point per level. All my skills except CHA based skills get a +1 bonus including skills that I don’t have points in. My chance to hit and damage goes up by 1. The increase in my chance to hit also includes spells that require an attack roll. My carrying capacity has also increased. My initiative goes up by 1. My CMD is increased by 2.
This is disregarding the fact that system mastery can literally directly interact with how valuable investment into more than one ability score is. If you're playing the Oracle you mentioned, you could be getting CHA to all mind-affecting Will saves and replacing your Dexterity to AC. If you're willing to take a 2 level dip into Paladin as has become quite popular, you could instead be getting CHA to all saves (though would still, of course, benefit from the additional boost of Azlanti since it isn't like Divine Grace replaces the base ability score bonus). When there are so many ways to apply boosts in one ability score (especially Charisma) to other things, the value of being able to obtain a small bonus to everything becomes less significant, relatively speaking.
Attempts to compress the value of having a +2 in all ability scores by comparing that to the cost in feats to obtain them are useful, but doing so without the acknowledgement that all feats are not (and created nowhere near) equal will lead to strange conclusions. Dodge and Toughness, last I checked, were not topping many people's lists of the strongest feats to take. You can stack up every benefit provided by being Azlanti for a Wizard to a +1 to the DC of Stinking Cloud, and it wouldn't be insane to argue that Spell Focus is better than the lot of it (also enabling faster access to Augment Summoning if you're taking conjuration like in the example I just provided).
What is the value of having the final piece of your build come online two levels sooner than it otherwise would have? Is that better or worse than a handful of miscellaneous defensive and utility bonuses? The answers to these questions will vary, but the bottom line is that any given character is already specialized at being good at what is most important to them. This is not to downplay the value of getting all the benefits of the Azlanti boost. I think they're crazy, and would certainly pounce at the chance if a GM told me that this was a viable options at character creation. There is no build that won't gain some amount of benefit from receiving the racial ability score boosts of Azlanti, but there are certainly cases where they will be largely insignificant or poorly-weighted against alternatives.
As a general rule, I don't actually think they're that much stronger. A lot of this is going to come down to the experience of the player building the Azlanti character, and whether or not they're trying to get as much as they can out of those bonuses.
If you imagine a party of all Humans consisting of a Fighter, Cleric, and Wizard, converting them all to Azlanti would have an uneven impact on their functionality. The Fighter and the Cleric would improve more than the Wizard. The Fighter is already inundated with bonus feats, so they won't miss the feat they would have gotten from being Human nearly as much, while they also have the greatest spread of ability score dependencies. The Wizard, comparatively, gains extremely little from the Strength boost (none of them particularly care about Charisma as even the benefits to the Cleric are relatively minor, so that's a wash).
Additionally, one of the most common optimization tactics is finding ways to shift as many thing as possible onto one ability score. For someone using this kind of build, having a small bonus to all ability scores will generally be much less useful in the long run than having an extra feat and an extra skill rank per level (or any of the alternate features those can be traded away for).
Still, if you try to assess this by any direct measure of equivalency, the Azlanti will always appear more powerful on paper. I also believe this is indeed how things will usually pan out in practice — most people aren't playing at tables that optimize to the degree that a bonus to all ability scores would be useless or bad. If you gave me the option to freely make the choice and I was choosing based on what would contribute more power to my character, I'd take the Azlanti far more often than not.
I've played with many rolled ability score methods over the years. Never run using them myself, but I've certainly played using them. Sometimes, they work out fine. Sometimes, you get weird anomalies. Rather often, when talking about the issues of rolled ability scores, people will bring up the time that they or someone they cared about at a table rolled very poorly, and then suffered for months or years because of rolls in that moment (or alternatively, became detached from the character and just tried to get them killed as quickly as possible so they could roll again and do better because they were so far on the low end of variance). I do think those are good reasons not to, but I think that the other extreme can be just as bad.
I played with 4d6 drop lowest once, and ended up with absurd ability scores. 18, 18, 17, 17, 16, 15 (or the equivalent of a 77 Point Buy). Sure, it was unlikely, but it happened. I never felt good about it, though. No one else at the table had rolled poorly, but for that entire campaign, every other character ended up feeling like a side character to my character at times. None of the suggested rules that allow someone who rolls particularly poorly to redo their rolls would have prevented this (indeed, the very table this happened at was using such rules). Why is this ever a desirable outcome?
(And if the answer to that is to add a rule that prevents ability scores from being too high, why not just use a system that always results in fairly normalized ability scores like Point Buy?)
As Azothath said, if everyone at the table is fine with having different ability scores anyway and it's an environment where you're friendly with each other and trust each other, just let everyone pick what their ability scores are. People will have the freedom to have whatever strengths or weaknesses they choose.
Alternatively, if you want them rolled to just not have the spreads of numbers showing up everywhere, you could have people do Point Buy and randomly add or subtract 1d3-1 from every ability score at random to introduce noise and shake things up a bit, while never ending up at the extreme high or low end.
When any of us play a wizard do you try to set up your daily casting based on the same spell set up you would expect to cast as a sorcerer?
Just to jump ahead so you know where my head is at, I am thinking this is kind of why anyone who looks at the sorcerer would just say its flat out better. I mean it is flat out stronger at damage per spell, has many rider effects on casting certain spells. It is stronger when casting the same thing.
In Deriven's case he feels hes found the best spells and doesnt need more than the 30 or so spells throughout a 1-20 play through.
I can see why that would get boring quick too with no special class features to change things up from just casting those 30 or so spells.
And really all the schools play almost exactly the same. Focus spells are not strong enough to differentiate playstyle. Curriculum seems to be a thing people are just trying to avoid and compensate for rather than lean into anyway from this threads comments. There is no interaction between curriculum chosen and thesis chosen. The more spells different wizards collect the more the similar they become.
So really if a wizard is weak aside from focus spells and a limited 4th slot it comes down to spells. Ive said it before. If spell diversity is not actually powerful then spells then are the problem with the wizard who essentially branches out to casting more of a variety of them then anyone else and whose best class feature is one extra cast per day.
I'm in agreement with Deriven on this point. I simply do not believe that there is a wide enough variability in spells for the ability of the Wizard to prepare situation-specific spells to actually matter in a meaningful way. This relates back to the point that has been brought up many times about "silver bullet" spells being weak or essentially not existing (in the way they do in other systems) within PF2e. Slow is a reliable sledgehammer that never gets old and even works with reasonable efficacy against the types of targets who should be the worst possible target choices for it. Its existence pushes out so many potential competing debuff options that any minor benefit they could provide is rendered barely worth the effort. Even though the Wizard has the freedom to prepare these more specific options, even with advance scouting knowledge it is unlikely that their grasp of the situation is so extensive and their knowledge so ironclad that it is worth committing to an option that does not really provide much additional power.
If there were, for example, a spell called "Mangle Aboleth" and it was a non-incapacitation spell that had no effect if it didn't target an aboleth but provided significantly more powerful effects compared to other spells of its level in both damage and debuffs, that would certainly allow one to make a reasonable argument that a Wizard could, unequivocally, have a distinct advantage over Sorcerers in some situations (such as knowing they will need to fight many aboleths the following day). No Sorcerer would ever take this spell, but a Wizard could gleefully add it to their ever-growing spellbook and prepare multiple uses of it when it's useful. If enough spells like this existed, the Wizard could then operate in a situation where they could genuinely use their foreknowledge to a meaningful advantage. The problem is that spells that work this way really just don't exist any more. I'm not making the argument that they should be brought back, but I am saying that this is a design change that explicitly weakens prepared casting, especially a prepared caster that doesn't even gain access to every spell on their list for free.
Phrased a different way, to return to your example from much earlier about preparing for a hag in a swamp versus an ogre in the mountains, the issue is that having that degree of information still does not provide enough knowledge to make meaningfully different decisions when preparing for combat. Since the generic logic remains the same, the Sorcerer is always better off in this situation. If you knew every single enemy you were going to be fighting against, and had reliable information on their saving throws, and you knew that there was no chance that the enemies you were going to be fighting would change or prepare differently, you would have enough information to potentially eliminate all spells targeting a specific saving throw if you're sure that won't show up as an optimal target...but you still might prep Slow anyway even if you're sure nothing has a low Fort save just because it's that useful.
If there is a way in which a Wizard maintains some significant benefit over an Arcane Sorcerer, it's in taking on the job of maintaining utilities and infrastructure in a country over many years. As the savvy Sorcerer player would point out, though, the Sorcerer can certainly retrain their spells known to deal with this situation as well. They would be worse off if they were suddenly caught in an ambush or assassination attempt with their spells less optimized for combat, though...but the Wizard probably wouldn't be any better off, since they're not likely to have advance warning about such an attack either.
Alternate counterpoint: This spell is most similar to a version of Good Hope that lasts for a single encounter (being round/level instead of minute/level) and doesn't affect saving throws (except against fear, to which it gives a large bonus). Good Hope is of the same spell level, though it is of course a Bard-exclusive spell and a high water mark for buff power for a spell of this level, outclassing Heroism in all ways except duration.
They are of the same spell level. Compare things within the same class.
School enchantment (compulsion) [emotion, mind-affecting]; Level bard 3, skald 3
Yes. This is why my post references Good Hope as the absolute top of the line benchmark; it essentially a stronger than natural option as a 3rd-level buff spell, which Bards gain access to at L7. It would be concerning for any 3rd-level buff spell (of any class) to place above this upon examination, so there are no issues aside from establishing the maximum value from a 3rd-level spell slot used to buff.
I also compare Heroism to alternative 3rd-level options available to other classes. On par with duration is Haste, a spell that buffs multiple targets simultaneously (though even if it applied the buff at the same rate, the effect of Haste is stronger). Exceeding the statistical benefits of Contagious Zeal is Heroism, a spell which provides an equivalent morale bonus to a more desirable set of rolls, and lasts for 10 minutes/level. It can only target a single creature, but due to its duration, it has a casting time in battle of "no actions" when used to pre-buff. You could use Contagious Zeal, spending 1 standard action (at a premium, as the earliest actions in battle are the most important and getting up Contagious Zeal early is essential to its function) in each of 4 fights (I am treating this behavior from my perspective, the most favorable case for Contagious Zeal, and not adding on the suggested action cost per additional target to spread), or you could use Heroism 4 times to provide its benefits to 4 party members, spending zero actions in battle to apply the buff and likely sustaining them through many fights. Depending on the table playstyle, this could last an entire dungeon. In a worst-case scenario, it could theoretically fail to provide any benefit (if the party encounters nothing, because the buffs were cast too early or the party takes a very long time moving between locations), though that does not match my personal experiences nor a majority of those I've seen expressed as to how dungeon exploration typically goes, especially in published modules and APs.
Additionally, I provided the cases of Hallucinogenic Smoke and Blessing of Fervor as spells that mimic more desirable effects one spell level higher on "weaker" spell lists. Air Walk vs. Fly is another such comparison. None of these spells are identical, but they occupy many of the same tactical niches. A spell that requires 1 standard action to begin and 1 move action (at a rate of no more than once per round) to affect each additional party member is no longer competing for an alternative tactical niche to Heroism. It is simply too much worse to warrant consideration.
Man, that's a lot, your characters will always look the same with such a list.
Personally:
- Maxed attack skill.
- If possible, maxed KAS (if not the attack skill).
- No save left behind when increasing attributes every 5 levels (if I have Bulwark I don't increase Dexterity).
- Some out of combat abilities, in general skills.
- In general, high Charisma or Intelligence.
- In general, a weird uncommon build that no one else is playing.
That was my point, it's too much for one character, these are the things I try to put into a character, mechanically. Basically it's impossible to have them all in one character. Nor would it be good if you could. (Not sure I was clear on that point)
I like your priority list. Clean and efficient.
I hadn't actually written up a list before now, but I realized as I was reading your list that I actually have a seemingly similar structure and goals when designing a PF2e character.
Regarding Ability Scores:
-Max KAS or relevant offensive ability score
-Ideal ability scores for L1 AC (varied based on armor type)
-Increases to all saving throw ability scores at every ability score increase from leveling (disregarding Dexterity in the case of heavy armor)
Regarding Actions:
-At least one reliable reaction
-At least two reliable third actions
Regarding Access to Important Solutions:
-Access to a ranged attack option
-Access to a non-magical attack option
-Access to a non-weapon attack option
-Access to flight (can be solved via items)
-Access to methods of fighting invisible opponents (can be solved via items)
Regarding Arbitrary Things I Like to Take on Many Characters:
-A way to reach 3 Focus Points and do something useful with them
-Legendary Acrobatics (for Kip Up and Legendary Cat Fall)
-Some combination of "the good" General Feats
---Toughness
---Diehard
---Fast Recovery
---Fleet
---Canny Acumen
---Shield Block
---Incredible Initiative
---Ancestral Paragon
---Numb to Death
---Incredible Scout
---Incredible Investiture
-Healing options
---Battle Medicine
---Lay on Hands
Looking at the spell description it says once per round the target can select one other creature to gain the bonus as well.
The description does not say that the target can grant the bonus, it says one other creature gains the bonus. To me this indicates it does not require any effort from the target for it to happen. If that is the case it would not require any sort of action to spread. The name of the spell is Contagious Zeal, which kind of reinforces the idea that this is something that just happens. This is how I would have it, but there does not seem to be any clear RAW interpretation.
I disagree with the idea that it is spreading for free makes it more powerful. The spell only affects a single target in the first round, and only adds one beneficiary per round after that. That makes it less powerful than most group buffs. Haste for example will affect the same number of targets but affects all of them in the first round. With Contagious Zeal it takes a lot longer to affect the full number of targets. For example, a 5th level caster casting Haste will affect 5 targets for 5 rounds, which means 25 rounds of effect. Compare that to Contagious Zeal and that spell only get 15 rounds of effect.
Counterargument: Haste is limited to a 30ì sphere. A way smaller area than that covered by "Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)" plus your movement. And it allows you to target creatures that were invalid targets at the start of the spell (like a stealthed or invisible friend).
"The name of the spell is Contagious Zeal, which kind of reinforces the idea that this is something that just happens." Following that idea, it would "happen" to the nearest valid target, not someone you choose.
I think we can only agree that we will disagree on how it works. Too little information in the spell.
Azothath has a good argument about retargeting a spell and the only relevant rule citation.
Alternate counterpoint: This spell is most similar to a version of Good Hope that lasts for a single encounter (being round/level instead of minute/level) and doesn't affect saving throws (except against fear, to which it gives a large bonus). Good Hope is of the same spell level, though it is of course a Bard-exclusive spell and a high water mark for buff power for a spell of this level, outclassing Heroism in all ways except duration. Contagious Zeal is a way to get an AoE morale bonus across multiple party members for attacks and weapon damage, but it affects the party gradually. Having a buff come online rounds late can be the same as not receiving it at all; the delayed activation period for Contagious Zeal is already an incredible penalty to its use.
We can agree to disagree on how it works, but I have a hard time seeing the spell as ever being worth casting if spreading it is ever more than a free action. It is a more universally-available way to access party-wide morale bonuses, except that it lasts for a single fight and takes a long time to affect the entire party. I believe that is more than balanced as-is against other best in slot options (like Haste and Heroism). If you have a four member party, you can eventually just use 4 slots to grant a very similar benefit to all party members (including universally buffed saving throws) using Heroism for 10 minutes/level. Contagious Zeal could do this instead for four fights per day, but at the additional expense of activating very slowly. If you were required to use a standard (or even a move) action to spread it each turn, it wouldn't even succeed in the small number of niche cases that favor it. If the party has a Cleric or Warpriest and lacks a Wizard, Sorcerer, or Bard, then Contagious Zeal might be the best option to fill in that gap even if it does a worse job at it, much like using Blessing of Fervor in lieu of Haste or Hallucinogenic Smoke in lieu of Stinking Cloud.
I have really only been keeping up on reading the responses in this forum, and to be honest....
It feels like a lot of y'all would hate on someone playing a game like Breath of Wild differently to how the creators of the game intended it to be played.
Where's the room for creativity? Isn't this supposed to be a role-playing game and not a "let's see what stats we can put together to best beat the boss" game?
The main reason I come to Pathfinder, to TTRPGs in general, is for the collective and collaborative storytelling aspect. The rules, combat, and dice are just there to help that. If I wanted to play something that was so rigid in how you could do things regarding the rules, then I might as well go play a video game. Heck, the adventure path I mentioned that I was going to run has been made into a video game (and one of my new players has actually played it before, but that's neither here nor there).
Someone brought up the eight pillars of fun, and several other people brought up how they like to have fun at their tables. I'm not going to tell people how they should have fun when attempting to roll weirdly shaped pieces of plastic with numbers on them onto a table while playing adult make-believe.
This thread is completely full of people assuming what I said or what player B or D said, or what was intended by anyone involved, and there's a saying about what happens when you assume. Perhaps I (or Robo) didn't give you enough context for you to understand fully what was going on. Perhaps we didn't feel that context was needed to grasp the situation, and perhaps it may be because nothing else was happening in the situation.
Anyway, I thought I might leave my thoughts here. I'm gonna refrain from saying more as I'm starting to get a little heated about a random conversation online which doesn't really have any bearing on my life.
Reading this just continues to make me think that the unique characteristics and benefits that Pathfinder 2e presents vs. other tabletop roleplaying games aren't well-suited to you or your table. I don't think that's a terrible thing if it's true, and I don't know that it's true for a fact. I hope that you and your players end up having a blast playing whatever you choose, and if you have that blast playing PF2e, I think that's great. Realistically, though, I think that Pathfinder 2e is heavily gamified when compared/contrasted with many other d20 games. One of the main draws of the game for many is considered to be how much less effort it requires to GM when adhering closely to the rules, because such an emphasis was placed on maintaining very tight game balance while providing a variety of options for each character. You don't need to use PF2e this way if it doesn't suit your tastes; you can do anything with it that pleases you. It's your table, after all. But there may be systems that will provide what you want with fewer alterations or adjustments to suit tastes.
It makes me curious what elements of Pathfinder 2e specifically drew you to the system over other comparable options.
In Pathfinder 1e, when people were discussing martial-caster disparity, it was common for knowledgeable players to say things like, "Mundane combat isn't the main issue. Of course martials are great at taking attacks and dealing damage. (Though you often need casters to deal with specialist invisible/flying/arrow-repelling enemies.) It's everything else that's the real problem. Out of combat, a Fighter is no better than a commoner, while casters can solve every problem with flight, scrying, teleportation, divining the future, mind control, protection from energy, neutralising poison, raising the dead, triggering traps with summoned monsters, breathing underwater, dispelling magic, creating walls, turning invisible, turning into animals, etc."
I don't see many people saying things like that any more. Do people find these issues largely go away with PF2 (due to fewer overpowered spells, modern adventure design, etc.), or does PF2's combat balance make combat ability feel more important in comparison?
It's a combination of many different factors, though the crux of it is that they combine to eliminate that disparity.
The first is that access to these features is possible in a way that simply did not exist in PF1e. There's a Human Ancestry feat that grants access to Fly. Any martial can sacrifice 4 class feats and dip their toes into a caster archetype to gain essential utility if they need to. Imagine the implications if a PF1e Fighter could have done this, how much it would have closed the buff and utility gap! Half-Elves can take an Ancestry feat for Haste...if you decide it's even worth taking — and that's the second part of this.
Many of the things previously valued are simply not available or not available in a meaningfully powerful or reliable form to anyone. Flight is still extremely important, but for most of a character's career, long-term versions of it simply don't exist whether you're a caster or not, which goes a long way toward closing the gap between the benefit of gaining it from, say, a consumable/magic item, or being able to cast it yourself. Across the board, the utility of relying on consumables is comparatively higher, since caster level scaling isn't a factor, either. If a PF1e character did make use of a consumable to replicate utility, it would still be inferior to what the caster could produce — that's generally not so here. Effects that are still powerful often have harsher limits placed upon them, and are in effect simply "not allowed" to break the game in ways they used to. Invisibility is great, but it will never work against a major opponent it isn't "supposed" to work against, because they will always have access to the appropriate level of See the Unseen to counter it. This is obviously also true of every single Incapacitate effect (which also includes most forms of mind control).
Teleport is Uncommon by default. I don't really see it getting banned/prohibited, but it still can't be assumed available in any game by default. In games where it is allowed, it is still absurdly powerful; incomparably so. And yet, Teleport is a spell level higher than it previously was, takes 100x as long to cast (making it impossible to use as a "get out of jail free" card), and travels 11% of its previous maximum distance at the time you gained access to it in PF1e two levels earlier.
Not all traps can be dealt with via summoned monsters due to an altered approach to trap design. Even if they can, the decreased value of summon spells across the board makes them undesirable to use for that purpose since they're immensely less flexible.
Read Omens, the PF2e counterpart to the spell Divination, is Uncommon just like Teleport. Commune is an Uncommon ritual that replaces both Commune and Contact Other Plane. If permitted, it is now capable of failure (in contrast to PF1e Commune) and allows fewer questions.
It isn't that anything/everything in utility is bad, but the truly noteworthy outliers have been hammered down almost universally. For those that have not, access is now immensely easier. The entire landscape is different.
He started off as a Goblin Gunslinger. I was never planning to take more than 5 levels in Gunslinger from the beginning, but I honestly didn't know where the character or build were going at the time the campaign started. I had taken the Called trait and worked with the GM to be clear that I didn't necessarily want it to represent a divine voice, just that he heard something that caused him to occasionally get distracted right before he would catastrophically miss a crucial shot.
The GM ended up playing it straight, though, which led into four levels of Warpriest, which was probably optimal. At that point, he was already well ahead of most of the party's power curve, and had (due to events within the campaign) just gained the ability to read via divine intervention, so he took to reading voraciously and I wanted to represent that mechanically with two classes that used books as part of their class features, so I picked up the first level of Wizard and Alchemist. He more or less became a holy crusader at that point, so instead of continuing Warpriest, I started down Paladin because I wanted his divine abilities to have a tighter restriction on them than they did previously, and represent a closer bond. He had absolutely terrible Charisma, though, so I went Tortured Crusader. I put a second level into Grenadier because I wanted his alchemical abilities to have a bit more mechanical representation and I wanted the second level archetype features, then the rest into Paladin.
I suppose, since it's a viewpoint I haven't seen anyone else specifically express yet here, I'd also point out (as a GM who actively encourages players to simply play whatever they want and not worry about gaps in composition, and am willing to deal with the consequences of that) that PF2e is not a game that caters well to player B's positions or desires. In essence, while players have learned much better what exactly works and doesn't, PF2e was created with a "meta" in mind from the very beginning by the creators of the game. While it (theoretically) gives limitless freedom while coloring within these lines, there are fundamental assumptions about the system and play within it that groups are expected to abide by. The fact that the math of the game was tightened to a high degree also means that there are specific factors that are generally assumed to be true in establishing difficulty and making the game work.
Getting fundamental runes off-curve will cause the encounter-building rules to not operate properly, breaking one of the features that many people find highly-desirable about the system.
Not maximizing Key Ability Score (in the vast majority of cases) will be a significant mistake that will affect difficulty.
Not having a source of consistent healing to use between encounters (not necessarily in-combat healing) will generally be a bigger problem than a lot of other gaps, which is why any character can fill this role with Medicine.
To a lesser extent, being a skill generalist (taking many skills up to Trained instead of focusing on advancing three skills to Expert, Master, and Legendary that don't overlap with other party members) will make things harder.
None of these factors are absolutely required, and you can break every rule I listed and still have fun, but it will require either increasingly favorable variance, an acceptance of a very deadly game, or additional work on the part of the GM to account for the "soft rules" being broken. I just think that from the ground up, PF2e is not designed with a philosophy or mentality that support the kind of experience player B seems to be describing as desirable. Still, I could be misreading the situation. There are different "degrees" of following or adhering to a meta, and I'm not privy to the exact details of the discussion; just trying to throw out a set of thoughts that may have been a blind spot.
If the PCs fail to achieve victory (or get pushed into a situation where one of them dies in a way that they can't save them), then you intend to impose a penalty and then make them redo the fight they just "failed."
Like, let's say the party repeatedly wipes/dies, so you keep imposing penalties. Now they're in a state where you either need to make the fight easy enough to win (showing that the penalties you imposed mean nothing and were as arbitrary as they appear to be), or you can just end the campaign (and if you wanted to do that, you ostensibly wouldn't be running it in the first place).
Well, my idea works in a different way: PCs are sitting in a prison on an interrogation and discuss their past to regain lost memories step by step. For players it looks like a normal game (“I go there, I do this, I say that…”), but if some PC dies, PCs jump from their memories to a reality and guards put penalty on a PC in a prison. So, these penalties won’t make battles more complicated, they would affect PCs after the end of an interrogation (at the very end of a campaign). This way, PC can’t die during walkthrough, but they would always be afraid to meet really tough penalty.
It’s like in TV show True detective – two retired cops are giving interview about their service, the whole plot is their story, but at the very end interview ends and then real action goes.
Sorry, if my previous post caused misunderstanding of some sort.
Nah, don't worry about it. The confusion was on my part, anyway. With this explanation of the exact mechanism and the thought process behind it, I can say that I can get way more behind this. I think that I'd enjoy playing in such a campaign, but it does have one major stumbling block that I'm seeing now. In a sense, it's not that bad of a problem, but if you normally allow your players enough freedom to "get into trouble" and make their own decisions, this often means that they can get into situations with no possible good outcome. From the way you describe it, I get the feeling that this isn't a normal situation in the group you play in, but my point is, whatever point you rewind them to after they fail and the interrogation progresses, you need to make sure that you give them enough room to make reasonable choices to get out of their current situation. You don't necessarily need tightly-balanced encounters, but for example, if they accidentally awaken a sleeping ancient dragon at 3rd Level, restarting the fight isn't going to be enough to help them; you'd obviously need to wind back to before they ever woke it up (or before they made a social faux pas, if it wasn't planning to attack them, etc.).
Personally, I don't agree with the mentality of the players at your table, and I think it's fairly unlikely I'd derive much deep enjoyment out of GMing for them, but just because I don't share that philosophy doesn't mean they're playing wrong. It isn't something I like or encourage, but it isn't expressly my job as a GM to tell other people the "proper" way to enjoy the game. Maybe you will try, and you will be effective, and everyone will be better for it (if no one even attempts to change course, it can never happen, right?), but it could also end up in a disaster in which you are trying to provide an experience they just aren't interested in. I can say that with your additional explanation, though, I'd personally be up for it as a player. I think it sounds fun, and the mentality you're describing at the end of your post is exactly how I prefer to GM — but I also acknowledge that every table forms a unique group of players, and every unique group of players needs a slightly (or significantly) different touch from the GM to bring out the best possible sessions.
Editing in an afterthought as I reread my post: I know I suggested it before, but I still think the best way to accomplish this goal is to talk through this with your players and open up a discussion about what you think is valuable in the game, and why you think the way they presently go about things isn't ideal. You aren't particularly likely to change anyone's mind by "punishing" what you consider to be the wrong approach to tabletop roleplaying. But you could instead choose to explain your perspective and why you think that a change of course would do everyone good and help establish stakes and meaning in the story. Players at my tables will run away from 20-30% of all the combats they get into (and generally favor avoiding combat whenever possible), but they understand I don't pull punches and they savor that. If someone doesn't agree with or like that kind of game, though, they're just going to think you're ruining their (and possibly everyone's) fun for no reason. There are games of all kinds of difficulties in the world because there are people who like to experience all ranges of opposition, from the extremely easy and simple to the ruthless and cruel with permanent consequences.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I see a fairly straightforward reading of this. It's probably vague enough to leave room for disagreement, but putting it in the clearest terms I can, it is active when you're standing on earth, dirt, mud, or rock connected to the contiguous chunk of rock that makes up the bulk of planet/plane's crust (which would still be true inside a cave). It also works if you're standing on or in a stone building or structure.
Boat: No.
Inn's Second Story of an Inn with Wooden Floorboards: No. (it also wouldn't work on the first story if the inn had wooden floorboards, but would work on any floor of an inn with stone floors and walls)
Mounted: Might get some variable responses on this, but I would say the RAW is definitely no, and the RAI is probably not (but harder to tell).
Airborne: No.
Waterborne: No. (unless you are walking on the bottom of a lake, for example)
Minor interferences probably shouldn't impact this, like grass or carpeting.
I do think that the ability is much weaker than Divine Grace (which is competing for strongest class features) and would likely give a player a compensatory advantage for going with this archetype (depending on the rest of the party composition and optimization of the specific table), but that's neither here nor there.
So to restate your intended "loss" mechanic in a different way:
If the PCs fail to achieve victory (or get pushed into a situation where one of them dies in a way that they can't save them), then you intend to impose a penalty and then make them redo the fight they just "failed."
This seems like a bad recipe. If the battle is relatively even, then it is, of course, possible that even if you impose a penalty on the PCs, they'll still be able to achieve victory due to a combination of dice variance and foreknowledge of the fight, but is redoing the same fight (and with less power as a "punishment") actually enjoyable in any way?
This goes against both my instinct and my mentality as a GM. The punishment for losing a fight (regardless of whether that's a TPK, a single character death, failing to protect something, or any other number of complex objectives) should generally be that the fight is lost. You are still removing consequences from the equation. Like, let's say the party repeatedly wipes/dies, so you keep imposing penalties. Now they're in a state where you either need to make the fight easy enough to win (showing that the penalties you imposed mean nothing and were as arbitrary as they appear to be), or you can just end the campaign (and if you wanted to do that, you ostensibly wouldn't be running it in the first place).
It feels like you're intentionally setting yourself up for a players vs. GM scenario, the kind of thing you should never be trying to do. If you're telling a story like this (especially where the outcome is that the party must reach a predetermined outcome that you decided), then it's extremely important to have the mental and emotional buy-in of everyone else at the table. No amount of "logical failsafes" are going to protect you from players wanting to be disruptive to that goal if the players don't like it and don't want to work toward it.
Having made those critiques, every table is different, and it isn't like I personally know your table. Many GMs make unlikely campaign gambits succeed...but I personally see parts of your setup as being inadvisable, or would at least recommend rethinking how they're presented. The amnesia introduction doesn't feel like a bad hook, but the specific implementation of trying to "force" them to return to that point feels very bad to me. If I were trying to run a scenario exactly like this (though I think I probably wouldn't), I'd tell the players straight up that in order to make this campaign work, they need to be willing to "complete the story" and connect the beginning to the end, and get a feel for what everyone thinks of that idea, and if they have any concerns. If everyone is having fun, then it's a successful campaign at the end of the day.
I'd been gradually evaluating the class since I saw this topic a few days ago as I went over it with a fine-toothed comb, but the long and short of it is that I agree that the class is extremely powerful. I don't know that I agree that it's necessarily so powerful that it should never see play. There are things you can do with just the CRB (let alone all 1st-party Pathfinder 1e materials) that are arguably stronger than a "fair" build of Runecaster, but those would be considered abusive builds at most tables. An "honest" Runecaster is going to be much stronger than any other 6th-level caster played "honestly" from 1st-party materials. It's still going to have a lower optimization ceiling than things like Exploiter Wizard or Spirit Guide Oracle using ideal spells, but I don't consider those to be the normal standards of balance most tables are aiming for.
The problem is that Runecaster is a modular class where nearly everything is overtuned. Not only are individual options not balanced against the normal scale of power for a class talent gained every other level, but the combinations of many different options need to be taken into account. The power of Runes, again, is all over the place, ranging from barely worth setting up to equivalent to a Hero Point each time they're activated.
Logos is a bizarre feature that starts off looking like it gives you a partial spell progression for utility options, then starts adding in Explosive Runes and Symbol spells with material components measured in the thousands of gold (that the Runecaster doesn't need to spend because they're SLAs) that they can spam repeatedly.
Even things like the class skills give me reason to raise my eyebrows at them. Why does a WIS-based class focused on obscure runic lore gain three out of four of the major social skills and every Knowledge as a class skill? What could the reason possibly be for giving Knowledge (Local) to this class? What points to the idea that they should be good at Diplomacy, Bluff, or even Sense Motive? These are more minor issues than the more serious problems with the class, but they point to how widespread the design issues are.
It's an interesting concept, but the nuts and bolts of what's actually on the table here are very strange. Personally, I'd sooner redesign the entire concept as a brand new class if I wanted to provide something like this for a player at my table than try to make this class work.
Category Newly Risen God
Areas of Concern Storytelling, Lovers who abandon all others, Acquisition of wealth and affluence
Edicts Be true to your own desires even when doing so harms others, become an inspiration and a muse to those you favor, manipulate people other than your lover to your advantage
Anathema Betray or cheat on your lover, perform a deliberate beneficial act for those you dislike without receiving adequate compensation, tell a tale or story for a purpose other than to share its beauty
Sanctification Can be Unholy
Domains Passion, Confidence, Trickery, Wealth
Alternate Domains Family (effects only work on yourself or your lover), Freedom (effects only work on yourself or your lover)
Cleric Spells 1st: Mindlink, 5th: Illusory Scene, 8th: Dream Council Divine Ability Intelligence or Charisma
Divine Font Heal or Harm
Divine Skill Performance
Favored Weapon Pick
Aside from what Cyouni said, I can confirm that most of what you heard/were told is accurate, but specifically the part about how the adventure concludes is not. While the Heroes of Undarin was created with the intent of killing the party, it explicitly does not require the entire party to die, and even has an adventure conclusion text box written to be read aloud if there's at least one surviving party member. The likelihood of this occurring would be incredibly low, though.
It wouldn't have made for a very good test if it assumed the conclusion. While the adventure was heavily stacked to wipe the party, the whole point of the mass testing was to see how much force would push the party beyond the breaking point (both the minimum, and on average) with a large enough group of testers to get back meaningful results. Therefore, it also needed to handle the test case that Paizo had vastly underestimated what a party could handle, and that they would need to tune things up in the future if large amounts of people reported success.
With the clarification on the spell's behavior, I also think it's appropriate as a 5th-level spell, though some of its parameters are a bit more severe than necessary. If the carriage will respond to a command like, "Take us to El Dorado!" and actually begin moving toward a legendary and unknown destination, it is in some ways actually functioning like a lesser version of Find the Path...though Teleport also has that functionality, so I agree with you that it seems like it's in the right position. It is certainly safer and more reliable as a means of transit than Teleport, and often the name of the legendary city in stories is just inaccurate, which causes the carriage to fail completely...though such names are right often enough to make it an interesting spell.
I agree with shortening the casting time (no more than 10 minutes, and honestly 1 standard action would be fine), and I like both of Melkiador's suggestions for the addition of amenities and environmental protections. At the very least, putting an Endure Elements on everyone inside means that whether the carriage is traveling through a frozen wasteland or a desert, everyone inside will be reasonably comfortable.
What happens if the caster directs the carriage to take them to a specific, real, valid location that they've never been to (and consequently can't be absolutely certain is even a real location)?
It doesn't seem to provide a ton of benefits over Phantom Steed, essentially functioning similarly to a "Mass Phantom Steed" with the exception of providing little to no potential benefit in combat. Teleport is a 5th-level spell. Assuming that it can't do things like confirm that unknown locations exist (which is more the domain of something like Find the Path as a 6th-level spell), this spell seems fine and potentially one spell level too high.
I agree with most of your argument, but there is a point I want to correct:
LunarVale wrote:
It's true that Slow also denies them the 5 ft. step in that situation
Taking a 5' step isn't an action so Slow doesn't affect it (unless it reduces your base movement to 5' or less).
You are absolutely correct.
Pathfinder wrote:
You can only take a 5-foot-step if your movement isn't hampered by difficult terrain or darkness.
So many other instances that reduce movement either do so by explicitly creating difficult terrain, or directly state that a 5 ft. step is impossible (as in the case of Solid Fog), but there is no such restriction on Slow. It does feel against the established pattern as I can't think of another situation where one's movement is impaired and they can 5 ft. step outside of the entangled condition, but yeah, no arguments here from a rules interpretation. Honestly, that's a pretty heavy weakness for Slow.
As a reader and interpreter of rules, I can only come to the same conclusion as others have: Played to the letter, this spell affects only you and leaves your mount stranded.
As a GM, there is no world in which I would ever actually run the spell that way, as I fundamentally believe that spells are meant to serve useful purposes. The most common reason to have any investment in frequently charging is to do so with a mount and lance. Getting a reposition after a charge in exchange for a fourth level spell slot does not seem like too much obtained for the price; someone invested in charging needs a variety of feats to optimize their strategy not including anything they want for defense or utility, and most classes that have a mount and good BAB find 4th-level spell slots to be not particularly abundant (and those that have access to this spell don't have much in the way of access to bonus feats). Even if it were too strong (which I don't think it is), it could be abused only rarely.
All that said, if this is for PFS I can only advise that you not take it. While you would surely encounter some generous GMs, at best you'll get heavy table variance. At worst, the rules interpretation is pretty cut and dry even if unfortunate.
Pound for pound, there is no better statistical buff in the game relative to the resource expended to obtain it. The raw damage contribution of Haste in a party with multiple martials is insane. The fact that it can also reduce damage with higher AC and Reflex saves is fantastic, as well as enabling tactical options that would otherwise have been impossible with the increased movement makes it peerless as a numerical buff.
This is a specific disagreement, but in my opinion SLOW has a greater statistical impact than Haste.
There is no doubt that Haste is an unbelievably good spell. If it were a 4th level spell we would still cast it every combat. If it were a 5th level spell it would still be high on people's list of spells to cast. This spell approximately doubles the effectiveness of the entire party, increasing damage output, movement speed and defences of the entire party all from a single standard action.
However Slow effectively does the same thing. Action economy isn't just about increasing your own actions, it's about increasing your actions in relation to your enemies' actions. The attack penalty and AC penalty give the same numerical benefit of Haste, and halving enemy movement speed gives the same general benefit as Haste [ooc[(increasing your movement speed compared to theirs)[/ooc], but the 1 extra attack from Haste doesn't come close to comparing to reducing enemies to 1 attack per round. Sure low level enemies might only have 1 attack, but those enemies aren't usually the real threats. Against any enemy that matters reducing them to 1 attack per round is effectively nerfing them into incompetence. But the real thing that makes this spell better than Haste is that it benefits casters just as much as martials. Haste gives your martials better action economy compared to enemies, but Slow gives the martials and the casters better action economy.
Now I will wager...
So I'd first clarify by saying that much as you acknowledge the value and power of Haste, I without a doubt acknowledge the value and power of Slow. However, I don't think it comes close to beating out the power of Haste. A lot of this is likely down to different assumptions being made about one might expect in an "average" campaign, because there are obviously situations where Slow absolutely shines, but I still think there are a number of considerations that push Haste over. There's no objective argument that can be made, here, so I want to try and highlight the assumptions I'm making and why I'm making them that lead me to the conclusion that Haste is better (and Slow doesn't make the top ten for me at all).
The top reason, for me, is situational knowledge. Haste, as a buff, has many parties it isn't good in. A charge-based Cavalier, a Kineticist, a Wizard, and an Ecclesitheurge Cleric probably do not derive a ton of value from Haste in comparison to a Fighter, an archer Occultist, an archer Bard, and a Molthuuni Arsenal Chaplain Warpriest. But the Wizard in the first party doesn't need to over-index their Haste investment. They know that Haste is predominantly providing "just" the movement bonus, AC bonus, and Reflex save bonus, and that the extra attack is almost always getting wasted. If they use a slot for Haste, there's no confusion about what benefits it's providing. Likewise, the Bard in the second party has no confusion that Haste is always going to be a major buff in every fight it's dropped down. The 30 ft. span limitation can also be a massive factor if you're not fighting in cramped rooms constantly, but this is something that you can choose to control when buffing; the Haste caster simply needs to let their allies know their intent in advance, and you can be assured that unless people start taking heavy AoE damage round one, everyone will still be grouped up for Haste (or knowingly choose to give it up for that encounter).
Alternatively, there are simply situations that Slow isn't very good in -- namely, it's really bad against the most dangerous opponents: Casters. Casting opponents usually have good-to-excellent Will saves, but even excluding that factor, hitting a caster with Slow means that they can still cast a normal and Quickened spell. Their primary routine hasn't been disrupted at all. It's true that Slow also denies them the 5 ft. step in that situation (along with the AC and Reflex penalty), but Quickened spells don't provoke by default, and as levels escalate, the chance of failing to cast defensively (even on a really high level spell) approaches zero. Aside from that, even against opponents that Slow is effective against, and even if the saving throw is assumed to be a non-factor, you have no assurances on how the enemy will be grouped, and certainly can't force them to position themselves in a way that favors optimal efficiency with the spell.
I also disagree with the interpretation of the scaling argument. You're obviously correct in that the raw addition of one extra attack is most impactful at the level Haste comes online and diminishes afterward, but the extra attacks gained from later levels on martial characters aren't capable of being compared to Haste on a 1:1 scale; the iteratives are obviously less accurate. This then partially comes down to how optimized the parties in question are. I consider it "normal" for anyone expecting to full-round to have a 90%-95% chance of hitting on their first attack. In theory, you can optimize up to having a 95% even down to third and fourth iteratives with heavy buff-stacking, but I don't consider that normal, and my baseline expectation is that third attacks will have right around a 50% chance of hitting a meaningfully dangerous opponent (obviously, some will have higher or lower ACs, but that's my mental "average"). If that degree of optimization is more normal at the tables you play at, then Haste will scale as you describe. Otherwise, the addition of a highly accurate attack (and that little extra boost to all attacks) is going to still have a high impact even going into the latter parts of the campaign.
With Slow, it's the same -- denying iteratives with Slow does have higher value later on in campaigns (especially if it's an opponent who was trying to get into position to hit a low-AC party member), but you're still denying them their bad/inaccurate attacks. Of course, the Slow condition is much worse than that since they will need to spend their sole action repositioning if the party used tactics effectively, and will also provoke from anyone they are in melee with if do want or need to reposition. Slow is fantastic -- but I actually think the opponents it's best against are early natural attackers. Right when Slow comes online, animals with three or four natural attacks, especially primary natural attacks, are absolutely horrifying and can down someone in a single round if the dice are with them. These types of opponents overall tend to become less scary as the campaign progresses and an increasing percentage of the party gets an increasing quantity of tools to negate their options or make fools of them.
And that brings me to my second point on the matter of scaling, and my third argument as to why I value Haste much more highly -- both enemies and the party naturally scale in a direction that leads away from raw damage and toward magic. Even though Slow appears to scale better over time on paper, the opponents it's neutralizing are the ones the party tends to fear less and less. At 17th level, would I rather prepare a spell that will help the party in an encounter against four CR 13 natural attack focused opponents, or four 13th Level Wizards? Which one do I think is more likely to show up and actually be encountered? For me, the answer to the second question is the Wizards, but I realize that's obviously going to have both a lot of individual campaign and table variance. In general, my expectation is that as overall party power level escalates and high levels are reached, the types of opponents that they will both encounter and fear will generally turn away from those that Slow is effective against and toward those that Slow is ineffective against. I do buy the argument that in these high-level fights, when you do fight the party that Slow is effective against, it absolutely demolishes them (which in turns saves everyone resources). I have never been arguing that Slow is a bad spell (since it's a brilliant and powerful spell), just that it doesn't hold up to Haste in my evaluation.
With those thoughts, assumptions, and explanations in place, I view Haste and Slow as being strongest at exactly the same time (immediately upon acquiring them), and both gradually decreasing over time. One of them allows complete knowledge about its usefulness and never fails, the other can fail (via save) and might be target-inefficient (due to positioning). But it's true that I would much rather have Slow in my back pocket than, say, Stinking Cloud in the situations where Slow is strong, since such enemies are far more likely to have a good Fortitude saving throw than a good Will saving throw. Obviously, the best arcane strategy is to have a good variety of the best spells; we just seem to be of different minds on where we place our evaluation of what has the biggest impact (which is tough to do and means comparing apples to oranges from the start).
When I think about the answer to the question, "What are the best arcane spells?" the first thing that occurs to me is that establishing meaningful criteria is going to be paramount to make any sense of the ensuing list. Most of the most powerful spells are in the upper levels if not 100% consisting of 9th-level spells, but in terms of practical use-cases, if all the good spells were 9th-level, no one would think that arcane magic was particularly good. With that said, I feel like a proper evaluation of what makes arcane power meaningful needs to take into account the value of a spell not simply at 17th or 20th character level, but the value of the spell for the entire time a character is in use. If a spell is so strong that it is still valuable even at 20th character level, so much the better, but it is even more important if it was a game-changer at 5th character level, 6th character level, etc.
As such, the resulting list I present is skewed heavily toward the spells that come online early and stay strong for the caster's entire career. I have also excluded a couple of Bard/Skald spells that would have made the list, but felt out-of-place ranked among a primarily Wizard set.
Honorable Mention: Color Spray
While it doesn't quite make the cut for my pick of the top ten arcane spells in all of Pathfinder, Color Spray is a very worthy contender. Capable of wiping out encounters on its own at Level 1 or Level 2, even at Level 20 a Wizard could still ostensibly find a use for this gem. With DCs scaled high enough, an AoE stun on a failed save is still a great use for a standard action against weaker opponents when conserving resources. Of course, the flaws with Color Spray are readily apparent -- short range, and the inability to affect creatures immune to mind-affecting effects. These are major issues, but the spell is so good at such a wide level range that it nearly makes the cut despite those problems.
Honorable Mention: Wall of Stone
Wall of Stone isn't the most durable wall an arcane caster can create, but its ability to take on literally any shape is what makes this spell such a force to be reckoned with. Such a wide variety of problems can be solved with the sudden creation of a permanent chunk of stone in the shape of the caster's choosing that it's hard to find weaknesses here; the biggest problem with Wall of Stone is that it's a 5th-level spell, but it's just so versatile that it barely makes the cut despite that and continues to be useful for the rest of any Wizard's career that chooses to prepare it.
10th: Invisibility
This one is more GM-dependent. I've seen tables where this spell is practically useless, but unless one is living in a world where people with permanent See Invisibility or True Seeing are commonplace, this spell splits scenarios wide open. A large part of the power of Invisibility is that it comes online at 2nd-level. Obviously, this spell has very little combat value by the end of one's career in an adventuring party, but the problems that this spell solves, it utterly obliterates.
9th: Mirror Image
Another 2nd-level spell foiled by True Seeing, Mirror Image is the biggest crux behind a Wizard's ability to mock non-magical attempts to protect one from harm. Why bother with AC when you can conveniently ignore it and not get hit anyway? It doesn't help that the types of opponents one most wants to be protected from with Mirror Image are exactly the ones that are least likely to possess the hard counter to it. If "clever" counterplay to your strategy is forcing your opponent to deliberately close their eyes and spend an extra feat to still come up short-handed, one could call your defense strategy overwhelmingly successful.
8th: Dispel Magic
Detractors from this spell are quick to point out that it does indeed have a very real chance of failure, but no other single spell can come close to being able to solve as many problems as Dispel Magic. While it does require an investment of feats, you can greatly improve your odds of success by spending two feats -- considering most of the worst problems you would ever want to solve can be solved with Dispel Magic, it feels like an easy investment to me. Even without, you still have a decent chance of success as long as you're not fighting casters 5+ levels higher. In that sense, it continues to become more useful as you level up, as it's simply more likely that anything you want to dispel will have been created by a weaker caster.
7th: Haste
Pound for pound, there is no better statistical buff in the game relative to the resource expended to obtain it. The raw damage contribution of Haste in a party with multiple martials is insane. The fact that it can also reduce damage with higher AC and Reflex saves is fantastic, as well as enabling tactical options that would otherwise have been impossible with the increased movement makes it peerless as a numerical buff.
6th: Stinking Cloud
Like Color Spray, there are enemies immune to poison, and Stinking Cloud isn't effective against them. Thankfully, there are fewer opponents immune to poison than there are opponents immune to mind-affecting, and Stinking Cloud's benefits over the lower-leveled crowd control don't stop there. While the vision effect can be a hindrance when used poorly, the capability of disrupting a fight and splitting an enemy party is astounding. A single casting of this spell can end entire encounters for all intents and purposes.
5th: Silent Image
Convey thoughts to creatures that don't even have a language. Remove any doubt as to whether or not you're talking about the same figure in a brown cloak. Make a wall. Show nothing but empty space where others wait in ambush. Silent Image isn't as powerful as Minor Image or Major Image (or other spells down that spell line), but that's because it's the weakest of the bunch and can already solve innumerable problems. The benefits of the spell are indeed foiled by True Seeing, but its versatility extends far beyond the limits of Invisibility or Color Spray.
4th: Fly
Haste may be the strongest numerical buff when compared to the resources expended to gain it, but the ability to move in three dimensions instead of two is greater still, making this the most valuable arcane buff spell by my reckoning. Ignore terrain. Take unexpected entrances. Make a mockery of any opponent without a ranged attack as strong as their melee option. This spell absolutely devastates any situation not specifically set up to take it into account.
3rd: Emergency Force Sphere
Why counter an enemy spell when you can break line of effect as an immediate action? Emergency Force Sphere casually beats any 9th-level spell that actually needs to be targeted or maintain line of effect to its target by the time of resolution. It also does an excellent job averting raw physical harm for a brief period of time, but the spell's benefits shine far greater against supernatural forces than they do against melee weaponry (which can actually break the sphere in fairly short order as martials scale in power). This spell has been banned at a majority of tables I've played at, and I think the games have been better for it...
2nd: Blood Money
...But the number of times I've seen Emergency Force Sphere banned can't hold a candle to my pick for the second spot, Blood Money. Destroy economies. Attain limitless power. This is a signature spell of a specific figure for a reason, and any situation where a caster is allowed a reasonable amount of time to use it will quickly grow out of control.
1st: Teleport
Yet strangely, in first place is a spell I rarely see banned. I don't ban it. Yet people are certainly aware of its power to disrupt campaigns. Launch a surprise attack on the enemy leader. Escape with your companions. Stop two catastrophic events on opposite sides of a continent (or start them!). It may not become available until 5th-level spells, but Teleport is without peer in the ability to change and influence the events of a world. As such, I can only place it at the top of the list.
I don't, because I don't feel like there's a need to. I don't orchestrate or force story elements nor to I overtly set things up to be explicitly dramatic in presentation or telling. I don't do campaigns with a "final boss" or a "big bad evil guy," because it isn't up to me to determine who the party will view as an ally, an antagonist, or just an element of the world that's acceptable to exist and carry on.
I focus on scenarios instead, and make sure that people are bringing in characters who will have a stake in said situation. It's important to me that the characters will want to engage in some way with the ongoing events, and I have a responsibility as a GM to let them know what types of events they'll be encountering and caution some concepts/backstories while encouraging others. But once that stage of creation is done, I believe in letting things unfold as they will.
Certainly, my campaigns have "villainous" people in them from time to time, but I simply play them as they are, with their own motivations and reasons for acting (whether those are normal and understandable or alien/borderline incomprehensible due to literally being inhuman monstrosities with unrelatable thoughts). Again, it's up to the party to decide if these entities are an acceptable part of the world or not (and also determine how they'll approach dealing with them regardless of how they feel).
I like the organic storytelling approach. Without a BBEG though, how do you get to a climax within your campaigns? I can see letting the BBEG develop based upon whom the PC's fixate on, but don't you still need someone/thing to provide the antagonist, the conflict, for your party?
Again, this is ultimately up to the party to determine. I focus on playing the characters and situations as they are. The party will create their own "monsters," so to speak, based on the situation. This does require more care, thought, and planning into the situation so that there will be an enticing scenario no matter who the party decides to air or who the party decides to fight, though it's something I've certainly gotten better at over time doing so.
Example of a scenario:
Rediscovery of an ancient trans-continental teleportation system has led to a series of swift conquests by the nation that discovered it. Much of humanity has now been violently (but successfully) united under a single banner, with talk in the air of turning the eye of conquest toward the lands controlled by longer-lived races. With the potential for an even more catastrophic war on the horizon between humanity and a united front of elves and dwarves, the campaign begins with the party being members of a mercenary company with members of mixed heritage whose leader is torn on whose side to take in the current situation.
From here, the party can truly decide to do as they like. They could wait for a conclusion to be reached and stay with the company. They could disband and strike off on their own (before or after a verdict) and form their own smaller company. They could influence the outcome of the decision in favor of the one they prefer. They could seek out a way to overthrow the current leader and make the entire company their own. They could try to play both sides against the middle as spies, working against both factions intermittently and hoping not to get caught. They could opt to investigate each more closely, trying to establish relationships with leaders on either side before they commit to a decision.
Regardless of what path they choose, the conflict is going to escalate. In the face of potential disaster, both major factions in the war will begin to make sacrifices in the name of loss. These decisions are different, and will surely have different weight to different people. One might accept the decisions of a particular general as a necessary evil in times of war, but find another choice inexcusable. Both sides have hard-willed leaders at the top who will not back down. One of these could be the final encounter...but they don't need to be.
Maybe the party actually assassinates the leader of the human forces, hoping to end the war of aggression by bringing in the more mild-mannered prince as the new king. This works! However, the prince has different plans in mind for the portal network that, once discovered, lead to fears that it might destabilize the entire plane in the vicinity of the continent -- this actually leads to the war shifting to one of aggression from the elves! The party would then need to decide to aid the elves, or decide that humanity doesn't deserve this fate -- the prince's desires are born out of a hope to improve many lives, and the elves can't prove they won't work; just that he could fail.
Every single action the party takes leads to its natural consequences. As they grow stronger, they will be capable of leaving a greater footprint on the world, and dealing with larger threats. This will also very likely lead to others looking to them with hopes, and having those burdens placed on their shoulders. Whether they choose to bear them or shrug them off is up to the party, but conflict will naturally escalate in a well-built scenario. What the final confrontation will be is impossible for me to say at the outset of a campaign I'm running, though I could certainly give four or five solid guesses. I might have an idea of who the party will face based on their ideals, or where the battle might take place based on what I know about ongoing events, but nothing is writ in stone. The outcome ultimately leads to the intersection of three factors:
-The final escalation of all the ongoing events
-The party's personal ideals and beliefs; what they will give their all to fight for (since this is what they use to establish who their real enemies are)
-The consequences and fallout of previous major events and decisions (their final opponent can't already be dead, of course, and others who might have stood in their way might opt for a different course based on past actions)
I don't, because I don't feel like there's a need to. I don't orchestrate or force story elements nor to I overtly set things up to be explicitly dramatic in presentation or telling. I don't do campaigns with a "final boss" or a "big bad evil guy," because it isn't up to me to determine who the party will view as an ally, an antagonist, or just an element of the world that's acceptable to exist and carry on.
I focus on scenarios instead, and make sure that people are bringing in characters who will have a stake in said situation. It's important to me that the characters will want to engage in some way with the ongoing events, and I have a responsibility as a GM to let them know what types of events they'll be encountering and caution some concepts/backstories while encouraging others. But once that stage of creation is done, I believe in letting things unfold as they will.
Certainly, my campaigns have "villainous" people in them from time to time, but I simply play them as they are, with their own motivations and reasons for acting (whether those are normal and understandable or alien/borderline incomprehensible due to literally being inhuman monstrosities with unrelatable thoughts). Again, it's up to the party to decide if these entities are an acceptable part of the world or not (and also determine how they'll approach dealing with them regardless of how they feel).
The only people I've seen dabble in it tend to be at the intersection of "extremely knowledgeable about all system rules and mechanics" and "...but I still want to focus on making a concept come to life even if the mechanics involved end up fairly bad."
You know, I'd have expected the opposite - new(ish) players who haven't gotten out of the "I have this character idea that I absolutely must do without even the slightest deviation in flavor or classes" phase. You know, the type of player to use weird multiclassing to grab a tiny thing you could've gotten with a trait, and uses prestige classes (especially Eldritch Knight and Dragon Disciple), and usually only uses CRB classes (because of the class names - "I want my character to be good at fighting, so I must have Fighter levels!").
I'd expect players with ample system mastery to be able to find option for virtually every character concept that don't leave ASF chance.
I think a lot of this has to do with player mentality, table norms, and assumptions. I do think there is some truth to the notion that newer players can come into the hobby somewhat "starry-eyed," not feeling bound by expectations that veterans of years or decades take as incontrovertible truth, but I think that's just one type of player. The aspects of the game that appeal to someone on a fundamental level generally aren't going to change. Someone who wants to play tabletop because they're excited to engage in roleplay and considers mechanics a secondary appeal may gradually get better with their mechanics over time, but it would take an event beyond the game (as in, a personal change) to push them into a position where they would start prioritizing mechanics. On the opposite side of that same coin, I would say the vast majority of new Pathfinder players I've encountered have enough mechanical care and gumption to take one glance at ASF, see that it represents a chance at not actually using their standard action, and immediately conclude that it's a mechanic for suckers. They could just as easily have rewritten the rules to say, "Any of these things that give any percent chance of arcane spell failure cause 100% of all arcane spells to fail" in the eyes of these players, because any arcane caster they play will always maintain a 0% ASF chance forever -- which is also norm for most people. And that brings me to my second point:
Most groups and tables assume you'll just stick with an ASF of 0%. Even if you're more roleplay-focused, you do still need to make a number of mechanical choices. I find that rather than making the awful multiclass builds that are stereotypically attributed to these players, they're perfectly happy to request the advice of one or more of a group's rule or build experts to create a character that will function well with the types of abilities they want them to possess, and then devote their own brainpower to worrying about the character's story, past, and development. They generally have no issue with someone explaining to them, "You'll actually get more of what you're looking for if you splash a level of a different class than you had in mind and change one of your archetypes instead of those two Fighter levels." Naturally, groups that don't have or encourage this kind of cooperative dynamic may be more likely to have players who flounder if mechanics aren't their thing. It can also depend on the pride and mentality of the individual.
On a less broad level and speaking from my personal experience, I've played at a lot of different tables with wildly different groups of people. I've played at no-nonsense tables that demand high optimization every step of the way...but I've also played at tables with TWF characters getting STR to damage with 10 STR and no damage add-ons like Sneak Attack. I've seen a Magus who used Spell Combat as their full-round action about 10% of the time it was the best choice. When I'm at a table with these kinds of groups, I am going to pace my character's strength to a degree appropriate to what the table finds fun and fitting -- not bring in a Wizard specialized in Stinking Cloud and/or Phantasmal Web. That means that unless optimization is the name of the game, there's a lot more room to work with in character concepts. When the accepted standard is an 8th-level martial character dealing less damage than any modestly mechanics-focused player could with a 1st-level greatsword Fighter, it's perfectly okay to take that 5% or even 10% ASF, or build a Gunslinger that misfires on 1-3. I've even brought out multiple of those "awful" unoptimized multiclass builds and played them myself, still accidentally outshining other party members just by making the mechanical pieces fit together better even if the class combination is purely worse than going all of one or the other.
There's another side to this as well, which is that you talk about all the methods one can use to get out of ASF for a character concept. This is a much more table-dependent point and will probably apply to a considerably smaller portion of players, but I've played at plenty of tables where there are very fundamental differences between using arcane and divine magic from world lore perspectives. Things that can affect how the rest of the world and even allies perceive a person. Things that can limit or change choices and options available, like differences in the ability to research custom spells based on house rules. These circumstances will obviously vary so greatly that it's impossible to make any blanket arguments about them, but it's still worth considering that there may be more mechanically relevant reasons based on table variation to accept some ASF once in a blue moon than are readily apparent in the direct rules of the game.
EDIT: Adding on to my thoughts at the end of the third paragraph, I'd go as far as to say that milking the most power possible out of dysfunctional builds has actually become a hobby of mine. Just building a bad character isn't mechanically engaging. Character building is fundamentally like a puzzle to me. But accepting a limitation like distributing equal character levels in three classes for an entire character's career, when all three can't be martial -- that's a proper challenge. Sometimes I still overshoot my mark like I mentioned, but it's a way to engage with Pathfinder's build mechanics at a level I can sink my teeth into while not bowling over anyone enjoying the game at their own pace.
Bullet Point Version:
-There are different kinds of new players; I personally find the type of person who makes poor build choices for the sake of concepts represents a minority of them
-I've found it to be an almost universal norm to have and maintain 0% ASF, which is propagated as a school of thought beyond individual tables
-Players who aren't mechanics-focused, regardless of whether they're new or not, will generally be happy to accept advice from others if offered which leads to them quickly removing any ASF they might have considered
-Tables have huge optimization variance, making potentially self-crippling mechanics viable or even interesting depending on the group
-The existence of potentially deep houserules or world lore can still present situations where taking ASF is more meaningful or viable than it first appears, but this can't really be assessed except to note that there can be cases where it applies
I have played, been in a party with, and GM'd for characters with an ASF chance. With that said...in my experience (extensive, but still anecdotal at the end of the day), ASF is exceedingly rare. The only people I've seen dabble in it tend to be at the intersection of "extremely knowledgeable about all system rules and mechanics" and "...but I still want to focus on making a concept come to life even if the mechanics involved end up fairly bad."
If you're an arcane caster, you are almost guaranteed to have access to much better ways to protect yourself than AC, so even if you're getting a substantial amount of AC by combining the feat line with low ASF armor/equipment to reduce the amount to an acceptable value, it's almost never going to be the best solution. The only times you would do it are just because you like the concept, or if the arcane aspect of the character is very low-impact and it's not going to make or break your day if one of your 1st-level spells fails.
To clarify in more succinct terms:
1. Exceedingly rarely, but not unheard of.
2. Always. If you're running ASF, you either have no idea what you're doing (and will likely quickly correct it after someone points it out) or you tend to know exactly what you're doing, as far as my personal experience.
I don't like being told what to do. Period. I absolutely want the wiggle room to be selfish and cruel. I want the illusion of choice.
Also, I feel playing a Paladin is a commitment to a cause... that mindset is exhausting, even to roleplay. If I cannot do the concept justice, I won't even bother. Gotta be in the right mood to take on that role.
For as little as I care about religion, there's something about the Paladin class I madly respect. And I refuse to half-@$$ it just for some stupid mechanical reason like Smite or Divine Grace. There is a certain part of that unwaivering devotion that is intriguing, it is awe inspiring. Paladins are supposed to be these bastions of hope and goodness.
Me, personally, I am not that convicted in anything. I am fickle and wishy-washy by comparison, and there's that part of me that looks up to the steadfast nature of the Paladin. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I played a Paladin poorly. The concept, itself, deserves reverence in my opinion... and that is a lot of baggage to bring to a fantasy game. I refuse to be that last little glimmer of hope that flickers out in the darkness...
Seeing a Paladin fall should be terrifying and sad for everyone involved. You should feel betrayed and disappointed. It should be emotionally crushing to even witness. The infallible has fallen, everything you held dear is a lie, you should be mad that the Paladin tricked you into thinking they would do right at the end. You should feel like your best friend just revealed they are someone else entirely. The world should suddenly seem big and scary because things you held as fact became fiction before your eyes.
I don't think I am explaining myself correctly, so I am going to just stop.
I feel like I see fully eye-to-eye with you about 2% of the time, but that was an absolutely magnificent way to phrase those thoughts. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this post.
For myself, I like Paladins a great deal, though I don't view them in quite the same way. I do see them as the embodiment of ideals, but I have always house-ruled that Paladins are the highest calling of divine warriors to a particular deity, and must match the alignment of the deity they serve (which can be of any alignment). They can be of any alignment, and receive slightly different class features depending on what faith they serve. A Paladin, to me, is akin to a warrior-philosopher. They may uphold very different ideals, but a Paladin, above all, represents more than the fate of a single soul. They are as beacons. They might be beacons of righteousness and goodness, or they might embody the most terrifying fates imaginable given form through the mortal will to carry them out, but the presence of a Paladin is something that should always affect those around them.
1. Diviner Haunted Heroes Handbook Pact Wizard. High initiative control.
2. Exploiter Wizard into Bloatmage. Still control focused like the Diviner, with a bit less initiative optimization. You can get essentially every desirable Exploit early, so you already have what you came for before you move into Bloatmage. Bloatmage is essentially pure gain and additional daily resources.
3. Druid. Melee focus. Absolute powerhouse below 12th level; still functions incredibly well as a full caster in higher levels.
4. Naga Aspirant Druid. Casting focus. So powerful that I'm honestly still tempted to make both Druids Naga Aspirants, but the composition is overall in need of a bit more melee and mid-level power, so I'll leave it as-is.
5. Cleric of Sarenrae VMC Life Oracle into Soul Warden, with Charisma as the primary stat (but Wisdom secondary, obviously). This is a build I've played before with incredible results. Even with absolutely no undead around, Soul Warden still feels fantastic. Absolutely insane number of channels, which can also be shunted into channel foci and distributed to the party, as well as 10+ uses of Heal/day as the prestige class capstone completely outside of spellcasting progression.
6. Evangelist Cleric. Inspire Courage reach build with Flagbearer and Banner of the Ancient Kings. It was a tough choice between this and a second bard down below, but the additional power of another full caster ultimately just outweighs it in my opinion, especially with one Bard already. If the Inspire Courage optimization didn't prevent an archery build, I might have been inclined to double up on Bard, but Cleric feels stronger here.
7. Spirit Guide Battle Oracle. Archery focus. Going to be picking up all the divine buffs that need to be spammed as well as status removal. Extreme flexibility with Wandering Spirit.
8. Sacred Shield Paladin. Focus on selflessness to absord damage and effects for the party to tie into Bastion of Good with Paladin's Sacrifice and eventually Sacrificial Oath.
9. Medium. Filling holes, often taking care of skills with Trickster (though the Bard will cover a lot of ground), capable of selecting spells flexibly, can function as another martial if needed with Champion. A lot of the random utility the class builds up over time is great for solving unusual problems, too.
10. Archivist Bard. Archery focus. Even if it's only against a single enemy type at a time, insight to everyone's attack, AC, and saving throws is incredible in big parties.
Obviously, more detailed builds and individual characteristics would take a lot more time. Every time I look, I'm also constantly tempted to cut the Spirit Guide Oracle for a Witch (especially since the Medium would still be there to fill random spell utility holes), but despite the added options hexes would fill for the party as a whole, the Evangelist + Naturalist combo benefits from more people who are already good at attacking with weapons, so I chose to lean into that more instead.
A group of ten NPCs...to accomplish what exactly? To function as a unit? If to function as a unit, what kind of tasks are they accomplishing? Are they a combat swat team? Infiltration? Should they be versatile to different sets of tasks?
Occultist, hands down. I never get tired of coming up with new Occultist builds, and they perform so differently depending on the build order that even if you end up heading in a similar direction long-term, they can feel like a completely different class because of how different they are in the interim. They do suffer from really needing to burn a standard action at the start of most battles to unleash their full strength, but two thirds casting, occult skill unlocks, and the suite of other utility features they bring to the table more than makes up for it in my eyes.
Compare to the Monster Creation guidelines and you have roughly an answer. Ideally as a DM, you're tweaking encounters to your party's general level of skill. Our goal as DMs are to present challenges but not so ludicrous that the players can't win. I guess a thing to remember is that the players are supposed to win. Or rather, the players should generally be favored to win. Circumstances might change that a bit, maybe bad decisions might put them in a disadvantageous position and bring that favor more closely to the 50/50. A truly disastrous string of actions may favor their own doom.
The simple answer as to why you don't do this is...The DM will always win any kind of possible arms race. No ifs ands or buts. The party dies? The game is probably over. Very very few campaigns can simply pick back up with a new party. A dead party jars players from actually being immersed in what's going on if they need to roll up new characters every book.
Just my 2 cp.
I'd also add to this (and in response to Mark Hoover's post directly above), while there is certainly an artistry to optimization and build creation, these aren't steps you're required to go through as a GM nor is there any particular benefit to doing so. You are already choosing the level and available resources of the opponents in question. You are choosing their special abilities and templates. You don't need to have created a hyper-optimized character if you want an entity to deal damage in a certain range -- you could simply put something there that does that damage with a low-optimization setup that requires significantly less work, if that's how strong the opponent is supposed to be.
My own mentality with the design of NPCs is always driven by simulationism. Even if I think it's likely that a particular character will become an opponent of the party, I don't design them as a "villain" in the first place, but rather give them the abilities appropriate to them for who they are in the world and setting. I love the granularity Pathfinder provides for fleshing out characters and adding small elements of depth, and make extensive use of them when creating elements of the world...but not for the sake of optimization.
Spending extensive effort to create an elaborate build for maximum potential at a specific level is a great deal more work when you could have simply changed some ability scores around and put in something 3 levels higher. You are already choosing what level best approximates the strength of opponent the party is fighting. I feel like there is a mentality that if it's possible to create a build that does X, Y, or Z at a particular level, that makes it "fair" for that level. An exercise in justifying the challenges they present. But it's well-established that CR is an extremely flawed system in the best of cases, and outright nonsense at worst. From the players' side of the table in the midst of combat, the difficulty that went into creating the build of their opponents means nothing -- only the challenges they present, regardless of whether they're reasonable or unreasonable.
Since the capabilities of a party at any given level will vary greatly (as has been demonstrated by showing contrasting builds at specific levels in this topic already), how dangerous a certain encounter is will always be relative to the party facing them. This is one of those areas where you simply need to learn the thresholds and strengths of the party in question, ideally erring on the conservative side for the reasons Scavion mentioned before you get a really good grasp on them. Experience helps, but even that can still be imperfect since player tactics and expertise can still mean more than how good their build is.
Edit: Also something I see rarely mentioned, though encounter more often at the table, is the concept of enemies with poor tactics. These could be a result of personal philosophies, grudges, or biases, but the point being that an enemy that should be far too powerful may be prone to making poor decisions -- not in a misguided effort to "go easy" on the PCs, but in the interests of being true to their character. This can be a tricky thing to present, but it again shows that difficulty is an intricate spectrum, since an opponent may not always bring the full destructive potential they have to bear. Just another thing muddying the waters of what kind of "challenge" is appropriate to a given party.
I believe others have more than adequately covered what does and doesn't make sense from a perspective of following Torag's code and the general code for all Paladins, but I would add an approach from a different angle as a direct address to the original question:
"A Paladin behaves however they choose to behave."
Paladins have codes, and there are consequences for breaking them. At least every code involves an amount of interpretation (this thread alone already has different interpretations of the tenet of Torag's code that permits deception under specific circumstances). However, the Paladin can ultimately choose to do whatever they want. It is then up to the GM to decide whether there are consequences for it.
It's also worth noting that this problem can be on either an in-character or out-of-character level. A character could have a history of treading a thin line, and decisions that seem tenuous may make sense. This issue exists in-character, and is something that could naturally and reasonably be played out, especially if they've been vocal about their status. If a character is instead presented as being an ideal Paladin of their deity, but then proceeds to incessantly break their deity's code, it is difficult to believe that such a person could or would ever have been chosen as a Paladin in the first place; this is then fundamentally an out-of-character issue and should ideally be resolved as such.
I use a lot of optional and homebrew systems, many of which directly add power, and have been doing so and tweaking them for many years now, going back well into 3.5e and 3e. Honestly, my take on this proposed system here is...I think it adds a significantly lower power boost than the Elephant in the Room feat tax rules (which I've generally seen as being fairly popular), but that's only true for PCs that benefit from Elephant in the Room in the first place. Providing this kind of blanket benefit will provide value not only to the classes that need it most, but also to the classes that need it least. As others have said, allowing things like Alertness or Skill Focus could be considered massive buffs to every full caster.
Personally, I don't use Elephant in the Room. I do use feat tax alleviation rules, but I also use my own curated list of free feats, removed dependencies, and bonuses. In some cases my rules provide more value than Elephant in the Room, and in others they provide less. I am very hands-on when it comes to additional power I allow to enter the game, because I understand how unstable it can make things, and generally have a good feel for what will tip the scales, and how much it will tip them by. I could imagine using a system like this, even gaining the feats at the suggested progression, but it would -- above all else -- require a carefully-curated feat list to make it shine and function. I wouldn't use the feat list you propose, and would trim it considerably.
However, the wants and needs of every table are different -- you know your players best. If you think the system is sound and will add fun, I don't think anything here will shift it so much that it breaks much beyond social checks. How much of a problem that is really depends on the table. I tracked all the PC rolls throughout an entire campaign in one game I ran from start to finish, and the most common PC roll was Sense Motive -- that's compared against all rolls, including attacks. I've had players choose to take Skill Focus in both Bluff and Perform [Dance] on the same character in a campaign that didn't provide any bonus feats. On the other hand, characters in my setting treat a result of 50 in Perform [Dance] with the level of reverence I really feel it deserves, so it wasn't like it was a dead investment -- the party used Perform [Dance] to gain favor, circumvent encounters, provide distractions, and many other things. If you treat most or all skills/magical item crafting/etc. as things of little significance, then there's no problem with giving vast access to them. If your goal is instead to encourage players to value them more...this may or may not work. Even if you serve them the options on a silver platter, the players still need to use them, and that requires a shift in mentality that may require more than some added feat options in the house rules.
An evil, intelligent axe that loves jazz and takes control of a random person at night. It has minor illusion powers and can disguise itself as a trombone (not a slide trombone). It can't actually play or be played, but it can mimic the sound of a trombone using its Sound Mimicry special ability (as a creature special ability) by making a Bluff check against a listener's Sense Motive. It possesses a reasonably impressive knowledge of jazz and trombone songs.
Also, for no apparent reason... it can Deflect Arrows.
And it gains a +2 to attacks and damage unless within 60 feet of an audible source of jazz music (of at least Perform DC 15 in quality).
More often it’s Round 1 start singing, round 2 continue singing, round 3 continue singing, round 4 conclude that the fight is almost over, so stop singing but allow the song to linger.
Yes, but that's very far from the "triple your rounds" that people love to say, it's +33% to +66% rounds. Which actually makes it worse than Extra Performance at 1st and 2nd level.
And it's spending recources to help only in situations where the fight is already pretty much over. That's the biggest issue - the feat doesn't help in tough fights.
I would say that continuing to benefit from performance after using a Finale spell counts as "helping in tough fights." This allows you to, in "easy" fights, use the "stutter song" option where you start and then immediately stop the next round, but in "hard" fights you use your rounds inefficiently (which means choosing to use your action economy efficiently. This does make the assumption that you at least have Saving Finale available to make use of Lingering Performance, which requires a piece of your build outside of Lingering Performance to be committed to it, but I have yet to play a Bard that I did not think Saving Finale felt good on. Note that this gain actively increases in difficult fights the farther on you are, too -- long after you've crossed the threshold of having more rounds than you'll ever need, you can still benefit from Lingering Performance, because the opportunity cost of using Saving Finale (and losing Inspire Courage) keeps increasing, especially in builds committed to Inspire Courage that are using Flagbearer and Banner.
Let’s examine how this would play out. At 1st -4th level you use a standard action on round 1 to start inspire courage. All you allies get a +1 to attack and damage as well as to saves vs fear. Round 2 you let inspire courage end to trigger lingering performance so you get to act in round 2 and round 3 and the performance continues. The performance ends at the end of your round 3. Round 4 starts and when your initiative comes up you use a standard action to restart inspire courage. Anyone who goes between the time you go on 3 till your turn on 4 does not get the benefits of your performance.
I don't think I've ever played at a table that has parsed Lingering Performance this way.
Lingering Performance wrote:
The bonuses and penalties from your bardic performance continue for 2 rounds after you cease performing. Any other requirement, such as range or specific conditions, must still be met for the effect to continue. If you begin a new bardic performance during this time, the effects of the previous performance immediately cease.
Lingering Performance states that it lasts for 2 rounds after you cease performing. You're stopping your performance, in the example you give, at the start of your turn on round 2 -- the stopping point for the benefits of the performance would logically be at the start of your turn on round 4. I've never seen anyone else argue that people don't receive the benefit after the end of your turn on round 3.
Is this not the normal interpretation of Lingering Performance, or are my tables the odd ones out?
Community-Minded is also similar in allowing Morale bonuses to stick around 2 extra rounds. Though it is more effective on a Skald whose Inspired Rage also comes with penalties, which won't stick around with Community-minded but will with Lingering Performance.
Though it's also worth keeping in mind that most of the buffs a Bard provides via performance aren't morale -- the attack and damage bonus of Inspire Courage are both competence.
I hadn't actually seen that feat before, though. That's incredible for Skalds.
I would say, more than anything else, it depends on the nature of the campaign and the style of the GM. How needed Lingering Performance is depends foremost on how many rounds of combat you'll generally need to support in any given day. After that, it depends on how much weight is given to the combat when it occurs. If a Bard with 16 Charisma already has enough rounds of performance to get through any day, they obviously don't need Lingering Performance. If combat is easy or isn't high-stakes, running out of rounds or not using rounds against easier encounters also lifts the burden.
In most cases, I would say that Lingering Performance provides so much additional availability that even in the most taxing of circumstances the notion of running out of rounds (without spending them in other ways) borders on the absurd except in the most extreme of combat marathons without rest. You'll continue to have rounds available long after any caster has burned themselves out and makes a plea that they can no longer carry on unless the stakes are truly unbearable.
So the questions you should focus on first to answer the question here are: Do you know the campaign you'd be using this character in, and do you have a good feeling for the amount of combat that will occur between rests?
Even for a GM that intends to run something like 30-40 rounds of combat per day, though, I wouldn't put Lingering Performance higher than a 7 for being needed for resource management. Sensible decisions on when to use your rounds mean that you realistically don't need a round of performance to correspond to every round of combat in a day. It would be nice, but not necessary.
If you fight for somewhere in the 10-20 round range, then I'd drop it to a 2.
But even in cases where you don't fight for many rounds per day and usually have more than enough, I find that Lingering Performance is still very nice to have from a convenience standpoint. It also provides benefits well outside of just having better resource management, which is what my previous evaluations were based on. All of the "Finale" spells improve considerably with Lingering Performance.
Bear in mind that with split hex at 11th, spell hex at 13th or vice versa, the split spell hex needs to compete with spells up to 7th level. Split hex + shadow trap is up against stiff competition. I'm not sure it can compete with mass debilitating pain, mass peacebond, rime spell + ice spears, etc.
And I think that the wording as given may allow for it to be a major hex but does not require it. As such cutting spell hex a break seems quite fair.
This is the balance scenario I was attempting to emphasize in my first post with the allusion to Slumber.
With that said, you can have this up and running without doing anything fancy by 11th level, not 13th. At 10th level you can take Split Hex (as your 10th level Witch hex), and at 11th level you can take Spell Hex as your feat. I don't think the argument gets much stronger comparing Split Hex on a 1st-level spell to using a standard to cast Split Hex on any decent normal hex or a 6th-level spell, but it's still a slightly different comparison.
I believe the RAW is ambiguous, but most strongly supports the gained SLA being a normal hex and not a major hex. There is nothing that prevents a major hex from giving you an ability that is not a major hex, though that's obviously atypical. The sentence that grants the ability explicitly goes out of its way to make the distinction between a hex and a major hex earlier in it.
I believe RAI is muddy enough to favor either side. Every other major hex is a major hex. There's no precedent I can think of for a hex that doesn't behave like that, but it's also not unreasonable to think that a 10th-level ability granting an auto-heightened 1st-level spell might be on par with the strength of a hex and not a major hex (like, for example, being compared to a hex that can put a creature to sleep that auto-scales; I feel like there's a hex that does that...).
Regardless of the ambiguities, I personally don't think there's a tremendous amount of harm in allowing it (at least no moreso than the shenanigans that can be accomplished by a full caster without restraint or restrictions). I would personally rule to let a player use it, though that's obviously not useful if strict RAW answer is necessary.
"The situation's turning dire/
we can't succeed with ease/
we might not last for six more seconds/
so could you slow down for a bit, please?"
Paralyze
"I really wish you'd just hold still/
sudden movements leave me quite ill/
so by my power this day you'll rue/
I'll stand still four seconds, you stand two."
Sleep
"I'd be so happy if you'd just pass out/
your deepest rest I would foment/
I hoped this incantation would bore you to slumber/
but weren't you at least distracted a moment?"
Just to clarify, all skills can be used but trained skills gain a +3 bonus in any class?
Dredging up 3.5/PF1 rules, I think it already had trained vs. untrained actions. So if you don't have any skill ranks in a skill you can only do the untrained actions.
Also be aware of the trap option of only putting a few ranks in a skill. One point will let you do the trained-only actions of the skill, but it won't give you enough of a bonus to be relevant at higher levels. When the DC is 38, a +6 bonus won't mean much.
What is the difference between trained and untrained actions?
If a character is untrained in Knowledge Arcana and puts a skill point in it then the total points would be int+1=total bonus, right?
It looks like I was remembering slightly wrong. The skills themselves are either trained only or not.
Knowledge including Knowledge(arcana) is trained only. So there are no actions that you can use without any training at all. You will need to put at least one rank in it in order to use the skill at all.
For comparison Acrobatics is not trained only. So you can use any of the actions untrained. Not that this will work for anything other than level 1 or 2 tasks.
And the +3 'class skill' bonus is only applied once.
So for example:
+3 (INT bonus)
+1 (ranks at level 1)
+3 (class skill bonus)
for a total of +7
or
+2 (INT bonus)
+6 (ranks at level 6)
+0 (class skill bonus for non-class skill)
for a total of +8
And of course modified further by additional feats, spells, or equipment.
Nitpicking slightly, but this isn't 100% correct. Some skills do still have trained and untrained uses in Pathfinder, though they're fairly narrow in application. If you scroll down to the section on Knowledge where it explicitly writes out the response to whether or not it can be used untrained, the text notes that you can succeed at untrained Knowledge checks as long as the DC is 10 or lower. This is primarily used, in my experience, to simulate "common sense" types of situations (most people may not have a rank in Knowledge (Nobility), but most people could probably tell you the family name of the neighboring territory's duke, which could be around DC 3 for someone living there).
Survival also explicitly calls out differences between trained and untrained. Untrained users of the skill can follow tracks up to DC 10, but not higher. Additionally, anyone trained in the skill is always aware of true north (which is a bit strange given that Know Direction is a cantrip/orison, but it is part of the rules text).
I have never done this, nor am I greatly interested in playing in campaigns where this kind of thing is prevalent, but I also don't want to make it sound like I'm implying that it's intrinsically wrong. Different people are looking for different experiences, after all. As a GM, I want to bring the world to life and make the experience as organic and immersive as possible, and I try to seek out the same type of experiences when I'm a player. With that said, I've seen it more than a couple times from the player side.
To answer the actual question posed, though -- I think the best way to deliver "the quest" is...don't. Don't do it. There is no "the quest." Or at least, there doesn't need to be. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be goals in the campaign, whether it's a broad overarching task or simply a set of things the party has set up as their present goals, but there's no need to frame it in a game-like sense. At the end of the day, the players are calling the shots and making the decisions. I am handling everything else.
To frame it another way, if there is any "quest" in a game I am running, then it's one that's been delivered by organic dialogue anyway. Someone has, as a real person with real wants/needs/goals within the setting, either asked, told, or commanded the party to do something. And they can do it, refuse, or inquire further at their own discretion, as well as reap the consequences of those choices, both good and ill.
