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There’s also an issue that the “game” is constantly changing. If you spend a few sessions fighting undead then you may modify your choices for undead, but then suddenly you’re fighting a bunch of plants and your undead choices aren’t working very well, then you hear that fey are coming up, but surprise it’s undead again. That’s why a “theory” wizard is often complained about. You are limited in how much you can prepare for the unknown, because the unknown is so wide and keeps getting wider as the levels increase.

We may want to specify what we mean by “offensive” too, as both damage and negative status effects count as offensive.

Damage is damage. It gives you a number to call out, which will end or not end an enemy depending on what point you are in the combat. Damage usually feels like you are doing “something”

Debuffs are immediate but hard to judge without a lot of complicated statistics. Some people can’t appreciate the value of something that is so hard to credit in the moment. But this hobby does attract a lot of statisticians who can appreciate the benefits.

Control spells tend to be very binary. They either work and end that enemy threat immediately or don’t work and are wasted. The feel of these can vary dramatically just based on how lucky you are. There are also almost no universal control options, for instance a surprising amount of enemies are immune to paralysis and a well known number of creatures are immune to mind effecting. So, control focused builds have days where they can’t contribute much helpful control.

Lastly, spell resistance or immunity can make most spells not work. That’s why spells that ignore spell resistance are so valued, but those often have their own weaknesses. Some days the caster just has to rely on his martial friends, and that’s ok. This is a team game. It’s fine if your character happens to not be the standout for a few sessions.

Yes, to the point, for all different campaigns, what is the range of effectiveness of a caster on offense when they dedicate their midrange to high range resources to fight.

Do they speed the combat by a quarter, cut it in half? What is everyone’s range of experiences?

There are just too many variables to answer that question.

But I can’t imagine how the caster could make combat worse, unless they are indiscriminately hitting allies with AoE

hmmm, I'm gonna use a spoiler as it's more general Advice

Northern Spotted Owl and I run wizards a bit differently. There are many paths to success.
** spoiler omitted **

While you are “right”, you also make assumptions that may not be true in every game. You don’t always have access to enough spells to add to your spellbook. And you don’t always have enough gold or downtime to have a lot of what you suggest either. I’ve played “starved” wizards before and it’s tough.

That’s really too complex to calculate, without being given a hyper specific example. A lot of the strongest controls have enemy types they simply don’t work against, but are binary in effect when they do work. Damage-wise, casters do good damage, but they mostly stand out in area of effect damage, as martials have a general advantage in single target damage.

What's "optimal" will depend a bit on your party size and composition. If you're a party of three with one member being non-damage focused, your bard's damage will matter a lot more. If you're a party of 6+ with some big blenders, your bard's damage will be inconsequential.

If you want to have more to do outside of buffing, you should consider the skald. If you want to be a halfling or gnome while doing this, then use Desna's divine fighting technique to get charisma to your attack and damage with starknives. If you want all your allies to benefit without affecting their spellcasting, then use the spell warrior archetype. You may instead consider the court poet if using charisma for attack and damage, but that is unlikely to benefit your teammates much.

We’ve listed some fairly accurate martial options and really any of them could be fun to play. But I have to wonder if accuracy is even still your main goal. It sounds like your boss fight was a bit of a fluke. You may want to consider if you’d like a second option other than damage for niche creatures like this. For instance, grappling isn’t great as a primary strategy in combat, but it can be a great secondary option when your damage isn’t getting through.

It looks like you are limited to only enhancing ranged weapons. I’m sure you will still have fun playing Gambit though.

Just for fun let’s take an evil one and make it good.

Demonic (Horror Realms pg. 14): Your heart is cursed with the pull of the Abyss. You cannot cast spells with the good or lawful descriptors, nor can you summon good or lawful creatures. Good and lawful creatures instinctively distrust you, and you take a –4 penalty on all Diplomacy checks against such creatures. You gain a +2 bonus on all Bluff and Intimidate checks. Diplomacy is not a class skill for you, but Bluff or Intimidate (choose one) is. At 5th level, you gain a +4 bonus to all saving throws against fear effects. At 10th level, you gain immunity to poison. At 15th level, any weapon you wield is treated as chaotic and evil for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction.

Converts to

Archonic: Your soul is pulled to higher pursuits. You cannot cast spells with the evil or chaotic descriptors, nor can you summon evil or chaotic creatures. You feel uncomfortable deceiving anyone and take a –4 penalty on all checks to deceive, such as Bluff and Sleight of Hand. You gain a +2 bonus on all Diplomacy and Heal checks. At 5th level, you gain a +4 bonus to all saving throws against poison. At 10th level, you gain immunity to petrification. At 15th level, any weapon you wield is treated as lawful and good for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction.

The great thing about aiding with a whip is that it requires no additional investment. You could choose to invest in archery or finesse fighting if that sounds fun, but the whip-aider can just focus on improving their performances or spells

A lot of people default to thinking of “androids” in fiction as being mechanical humanoids, but these are synthetic type of androids. They have synthetic digestive systems that process food for their synthetic bodies. They have synthetic lungs that breathe oxygen into their synthetic circulatory systems. They basically have the anatomy of a human but with every system and organ being synthetic.

Improved mythic grapple could come up a lot. Creatures try to grapple you fairly often with their grab ability.

It “makes sense” that a size change would affect movement speed, but the specifics would be really complicated. In the end, we take the simple answer of “no change” and explain it as “magic”

I still think cantrips should do more damage. Instead of 1d3 to 1d6, it would be 1d6 to 1d10. Also wish all spells(and SP/SU abilities) that do HP damage or heal HP damage would get the casting stat mod added to damage done/healed.

I get wanting that, but you also have to understand that the cantrips had already been infinitely buffed, as they used to have the same kinds of limit per day as all other spells.

I think people are being a little extremist here. Sure alignment is baked into the game but it’s hardly the linchpin the whole experience is based around.

And for as baked in as alignment is, law and chaos have never been meaningfully defined. You can literally do anything and explain it away as being lawful, neutral or chaotic. It’s a pretty worthless axis of alignment.

At the least, house ruling away class alignment restrictions is a pretty easy thing.

Removing alignment from mechanics is individually not very hard but it’s a lot of small cases. How does smite work? How does protection from evil work? Etc.

Still a better fit than Findeladlara, the chaotic good god of tradition, community and racism.

I think the PCs are more like pulp heroes than modern day super heroes.

It’s worth it if you have fun. Sorcerer with a bloodline to increase your damage is most popular for blasters. You can still fit in some ok utility spells like haste and fly to go along with your blasts.

What do you feel is "missing" from Pathfinder 2nd Edition?

I most miss class and race identity. 2E made everything too modular. And there's a certain charm to having the "default fighter" or the "default elf" to compare other things to, when evaluating options.

Battle Dancer loses shield proficiency. That isn't a huge loss, but an odd choice for a shield based character. You could use feats or dips to get it back. I personally don't like dips because it slows down your progression for other class abilities

A monk applies his full Strength bonus to his damage rolls for all successful attacks made with flurry of blows, whether the attacks are made with an off-hand or with a weapon wielded in both hands.

The servant cannot attack in any way

Attacks: Some spell descriptions refer to attacking. All offensive combat actions, even those that don't damage opponents, are considered attacks. Attempts to channel energy count as attacks if it would harm any creatures in the area. All spells that opponents resist with saving throws, that deal damage, or that otherwise harm or hamper subjects are attacks. Spells that summon monsters or other allies are not attacks because the spells themselves don't harm anyone.

At most, a servant may be able to apply the vial of poison to some object, but they could never directly apply it to a creature

Being shapeless doesn't really matter much here, but not being an object does.

Applying Poison

One dose of poison smeared on a weapon or some other object affects just a single target. A poisoned weapon or object retains its poison until the weapon scores a hit or the object is touched (unless the poison is wiped off before a target comes in contact with it).

The servant touching the applied poison causes the poison to not be retained, and thus lost.

This is similar to the question of if you allow higher level characters to start with items they crafted themselves, getting that discount to their wealth by level.

I don’t think there is an official answer, so you just have to check with the GM.

It’s a niche ability but that prestige class gets pretty good class abilities every level while also giving you full casting progression. It’s also under constant protection from evil, so it could take on a lot mind control effects and not be bothered.

If the paladin is using Smite Evil on the target, he does not get the bonus to hit because you cannot add CHA to hit twice.

Those do stack, because the bonus from Bladed Dash is a circumstance bonus and the bonus from Smite Evil is untyped.

My best advice is to not use such a tiny axe. Instead of a dwarf axe, use a regular battle axe.

I don’t think everyone got this joke.

You can partly experience 3/4 BAB sorcerer with a dragon disciple build. Prestigious spellcaster can make up for the lost spell levels. I don’t feel like the extra BAB makes that huge of a difference. Spellcasting is so strong that you will always put all of your resources into it. So baring very generous or lucky rolling methods, you won’t be needing the extra BAB very often. The extra hp is nice though.

Witch spellcasting loses some versatility, but the hexes are mostly scaling spells. So they lose versatility in one place to gain it in another. And the spells you are “missing” can be made up for by the patron. The swine hex really rounds them out at level 8. Between slumber and swine, few enemies remain a threat.

I would pick Arcanist. They have plenty of flexibility for casting spells and the quick study exploit all but seals the deal. Their downside is them needing a 2nd ability score, charisma, for some of their abilities.

Thankfully, most of those abilities are optional and among the less powerful options. About the only thing you really "need" charisma for is your limit of Consume Spells per day. And unless you are playing some specific archetypes, you would rarely want to do that anyway.

So, you can dump Charisma to 7 with many powerful builds, but you are limiting yourself away from some other options.

Note that the "same source" is a bit vague. Generally, it's assumed to mean that multiple castings of the exact same spell or effect can't benefit you more than once. But there is an FAQ that made it a little more vague:

https://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9sgk

Do ability modifiers from the same ability stack? For instance, can you add the same ability bonus on the same roll twice using two different effects that each add that same ability modifier?

No. An ability bonus, such as "Strength bonus", is considered to be the same source for the purpose of bonuses from the same source not stacking. However, you can still add, for instance “a deflection bonus equal to your Charisma modifier” and your Charisma modifier. For this purpose, however, the paladin's untyped "bonus equal to her Charisma bonus (if any) on all saving throws" from divine grace is considered to be the same as "Charisma bonus (if any)", and the same would be true for any other untyped "bonus equal to her [ability score] bonus" constructions.

Certainly performing a swift in place of a move action is potentially broken. Take the case of two Quickened spells as a swift and a move, then a normal spell as a standard. Definitely not intended.

A spell with a casting time of 1 swift action doesn't count against your normal limit of one spell per round. However, you may cast such a spell only once per round

It depends on what I am trying to get out of it.

Versatility: Arcanist can quickly swap to any spell in his spellbook with Quick Study. He's the "Shrodinger's Wizard" made reality.

Blaster: Sorcerer has the damage buffs and the spells per day, while still being able to know some good utility spells on the side.

Debuffer: Witch can hex all adventuring day long and has spells to supplement where the hexes don't cover.

Wizard: A good all-rounder. Personally, I'd rather be arcanist most of the time, but the wizard multiclasses better.

Psion: I don't see an appeal in this one. It feels like a worse version of the sorcerer.

You clearly spent a lot of time on this, but these feel like straight upgrades to an already popular and powerful class. This kind of power creep isn't in the spirit of "Unchained". The rogue got buffs in unchained because the rogue was widely believed to be behind so many other classes in what it was supposed to do. The sorcerer had no such problems.

This also throws off the surprisingly good balance the sorcerer has with wizard and arcanist. You'd need to buff them like this too to keep pace and then you are just in an ever escalating circle of buffing.

A few APs give bonus feats as you progress through the story. They are pulled from sublists of feats though.

Multiplying Damage: Sometimes you multiply damage by some factor, such as on a critical hit. Roll the damage (with all modifiers) multiple times and total the results.

Note: When you multiply damage more than once, each multiplier works off the original, unmultiplied damage. So if you are asked to double the damage twice, the end result is three times the normal damage.

Exception: Extra damage dice over and above a weapon's normal damage are never multiplied.

Exception: Precision damage (such as from a rogue's sneak attack class feature) and additional damage dice from special weapon abilities (such as flaming) are not multiplied when you score a critical hit.

Those are the general exceptions. Specific abilities will sometimes also specify this limitation for their bonuses.

Divine Favor doesn't fit one of those exceptions, so would be multiplied by default.

Before you do any of that, audit the Player's Eidolon.

Good general advice, though it sounds like the summoner isn’t the one standing out in this situation.

Another option is heal tanking. It’s maybe the most effective way to fulfill the tank role in Pathfinder, but it also thematically doesn’t feel like what you imagine a tank to be. Basically, you use something like the life oracle to make attacking anyone else in your party meaningless. Dumb enemies will attack whoever is closest and smart enemies will want to kill the “healer”. Your own survival will be up to your shield, medium armor and own healing.

Swapping a standard for a swift seems completely reasonable, so I wouldn't call it "rules cheese". It's probably just an oversight that we can't already do that. When swifts were first cooked up they were pretty minor convenience things, and there weren't many actions that used it.

But has anyone listed anything even close to overpowered they could do by losing their standard action to get a second swift?

The core rule book wasn’t written as legalistically as we have become used to. I’m pretty sure if this got an FAQ, the paladin could target himself as if he were an ally, so a standard action.

I'm pretty sure there are no official rules for this. There are abilities and spells that can let you know some of their attributes, but I don't know of anything to determine hit dice.

At best, you may be able to tell who the leader(s) of a group are, and then assume the others are lower level.

Nethys comes to mind. He seemingly achieved the power of a god under his own power.

Similar to the issue of being reactive, I think part of the problem may be with support downtimes. Especially in the early levels, a support can find themselves with no optimal actions to take during a round of combat. After a couple of rounds you have already activated your abilities and spells that are worth expending for that combat. Sometimes a healer will heal during this time, but if everything went well, even that isn't always necessary. And you are left with a weak attack or cantrip to fill your time. This becomes less of an issue with later levels when you have a lot more spells per adventuring day. Different people fill this combat downtime in different ways. The weak attack is most common, but you may also try something like the aid another action.

There really isn't a default right or wrong amount of min-maxing in my opinion, which is why I asked about your specific preference. If the rest of your party is bringing enough damage and you just want to match them in addition to support, then I'm not sure there is a good way to help you, without getting quite min-maxy.

In my experience, most tables are very happy to have a person who likes to play "healer", as many people prefer the class fantasy of standing out by dealing damage or strong controls. And people don't expect their healer to be bringing the damage, except for maybe when undead are involved.

Have you tried playing a witch? They are very support focused, while having a more active than reactive playstyle. It may be the reactive nature of support that you are not enjoying. And while they can do some damage, that's not what they are good at, so it's not expected of them.

It is a strange absence, but take the dwarf warrior NPC and give him power attack. It would be about like that.

The warrior poet is close to this but with naginata and glaives.
https://aonprd.com/ArchetypeDisplay.aspx?FixedName=Samurai%20Warrior%20Poet

There is a spell, Serren's Swift Girding. I guess you could use the activation rules to apply that to a suit of armor.

From the first reply

Mythic takes the regular rocket tag issue of Pathfinder and magnifies it.

Mythic doesn’t do much to create new problems but it makes the existing problems more noticeable.

Give them an empty spellbook and have them scribe the highest level spell they have prepared into it.

Probably a matter of taste, but reincarnating infinitely seems way more interesting than simply never dying. Though either could drive you crazy if you aren’t suited to it. A bit of a spoiler, but there is an old manga about that concept called Immortal Rain where you have both types of immortality

The attack cantrips don't scale well, but they are a decent something to do when you are very low level.

If you are worried about trying it for the first time, I'd recommend the Arcanist class instead. It has mostly the same flavor and is more forgiving about its daily spell selection, so much less spell selection anxiety. It also has an archetype called occultist that can allow you to summon lots of helpful monsters at low level, if you are worried about low level contributions.

Another alternative to wizard is Magus who is also a decent melee fighter, but it plays a lot differently than wizard, so may not interest you.