NotDavis's page

See, that is kind of my issue though. It is less DPS, and way less sturdy. The longsword fighter you are describing is in heavy armor (which they give up nothing to get) has more hp a level, and isn't triggering reactions. It is just a much better melee combatant, and doesn't have a restrictive action econ. It also has quick shield block etc, it is very very sturdy.

This is why I put the caveat degree matters when undershooting. On average, Inventor (and the rest of the post-APG classes) is a little bit worse than Fighter damage-wise, but not by much. But that’s only the middle point* of a wide spread of outcomes based on player tactics, enemy composition, and even dice rolls. On both paper and in play, I think these small undershoots are fine because they still generate plenty of situations where the undershoot-er is shining. To put it more succinctly, that’s a small enough difference that who moves second and can benefit from flat-footed is more important. It’s also in the range of other core classes, notably Ranger, which I think is a good spot to be balance wise.

When undershooting becomes problematic, IMHO, is when it’s so far below the benchmark that it feels like you’re never the MVP, no matter how hard you try. And I really think the only classes that fits are Alchemist, Investigator, and Swashbuckler. And even then, I do heavily caveat all of those because they do have interesting features, I just don’t feel they make up for the loss of damage. Swash I would even say has fine damage, it just compares poorly to Rogue.

One other thing I have noticed is that newer classes tend to be less front-loaded. The CRB classes tend to get their stronger features first and have stronger lower-level damage that peters out, whereas the newer classes tend to have poor early damage that scales up, as well as strong features in the mid- and late-level slots.

I don’t think that’s a balance issue, per se, but I do think it becomes a factor if games are more skewed towards lower levels, which I do think tends to be the case.

My understanding (I could be wrong forgive me) is that melee inventor has pretty poor damage in a fragile package. I think ranged inventor is better off (once again, post core classes REALLY want to be ranged)

Gunslinger seems like more of a support/damage than pure dpr.

“Good” and “bad” damage are subjective, and it depends on what yardstick you use for “good”. I like to use “Fighter with a Longsword” as the benchmark to normalize against. By this measure, Inventor seems to be in an excellent spot, damage wise. It’s on-average 5-15% behind the benchmark, but it’s a lopsided distribution where 1-4 and 20 are further behind, whereas 5-15 are really close. That seems like a fair deal to me for an off-stat martial with some focus-spell-like gimmicks.

“Fragile” likewise is another yardstick, but I think Inventor is fine. It’s only 1 hp/level off the base martial, and you get Shield Block. Armor Inventor gets you heavy armor, armor specialization, and a variety of resistances if durability is concerned.

I don’t have a strong opinion on ranged vs melee, but I think Inventor does both fairly well. I don’t think one is particularly better than the other. If anything, I think the melee builds are a little bit better because there’s more options for them, but they’re about the same on the yardstick measures. Guns seem really bad, though. Maybe someone has some experience with that, but Inventor seems to be firmly in the bow camp to me.

Gunslinger I think is Way dependent. Sniper goes toe-to-toe with longbow builds and can actually take pole position with some of their gimmicks. (Ghost Shot is disgusting). The others fall off from there. I don’t know if I would the others as support, but you are trading damage for other stuff and I think that’s a judgement call by person. Pistol builds do have some decent damage between Paired Shot and Pistolero’s Challenge. I wasn’t as impressed with sword-and-pistol and scattergun builds, but I guess some people like them.

If GnG classes were the model for future classes, I would be very happy. They don’t have anything as good as the highest damage Fighter and Barbarian builds, but they compare nicely against the rest of the pack, which I think is fair. To use another F1 analogy, they’re solid midfield players, which I think is extremely healthy.

Overall, I think damage-wise, everything is in a very good spot. The newer classes tend to err on the lower side of the yardstick, but not by much. There seems to be a healthy ecosystem of builds in the “Tiger Monk to Precision Ranger” range, which is roughly -5% to +10% in my math. I think that’s really incredible for a TTRPG with 13 martial classes with over 4x that many subclass options. The only ones I think may deserve a tune-up are Investigator* and Swashbuckler, but I think that’s more an issue of Thief breaking the rules and setting a high bar for Dex builds. Swash is a way better choice than other Dex melee builds, but it compares really poorly against Thief**, IMHO.

*A huge caveat with Investigator is how permissive your GM is with cases. I think 2 cases is enough that it’s very easy to have an enemy each fight you can DAS for free against, but that’s GM-dependent. On top of that, DAS works very well with 2-3 action attacks if you have multiple valid targets, but none of those are available built-in with the class.

** Caveat on Rogue builds in general is that I think it’s trivially easy to flank to get flat-footed, particularly because I tend to assume melee martials are moving once a round. Once you get into assuming they need to use a skill to get flat-footed, Rogues fall back to earth.

TL;DR: I think the not-APG martials are healthy in terms of damage, ranging from slightly less to on-par and getting a good amount of stuff in exchange for the damage they give up. The APG classes need some more help, but part of that may be because Thief sets the bar too high.

I think the degree matters a lot here. While nothing released since has come close to the peaks of options like Dirge of Doom, I think that’s fine. Some options in the CRB are over-tuned, in my opinion. Staying under those is fine - it means the game is avoiding power creep. Lots of stuff post-release has landed on that mark, in my opinion.

I think both Secrets of Magic classes and both Guns and Gears classes are in the sweet spot of being close enough in power to the CRB classes to not feel outshined, while having enough unique tricks to make them shine in their moment. The whiteroom math also suggests that it isn’t just perception - the two full martials in G&G compare well to your base classes on DPR*.

The APG classes are bit further behind. I think Witch, Swashbuckler, and Investigator stack up pretty poorly against their closest counterparts, both in-play and on-paper. They have some unique mechanics and a good theme, but playing one does feel like you’re giving up effectiveness for fun - something I don’t feel applies to the other 4 new classes.

Oracle, I think, is between the two categories by Mystery. Some feel mechanically good, some others need a lot of help (Lore).

*I will put a caveat on Gunslinger that two-handed and dual-wield range builds seem good, but the Ways seem to be misaligned with what equipment and feats were printed. Single-hand pistol, sword-and-pistol, and ranged-in-melee seem worse, but I haven’t looked too hard into it.

There’s nothing specific for Witch, but there is a new specific familiar in Shadowcasting section that is basically Witch-exclusive unless you’re playing Free Archetype. The new occult spells and backgrounds are also quite good, IMHO. Lots of stuff that’s thematically appropriate and fun to use. My favorite is a spell that lets you temporarily train your familiar in a lore skill.

NotDavis wrote:

Unsure if it is worthy of errata, but the Occult Librarian background gives Academia Lore and not Library Lore. I don’t think there’s that much difference between the two, but it seemed kind of funny to me that the first background with “Librarian” in the name doesn’t get Library Lore.

As someone who has made multiple attempts at becoming a professional librarian, I kind of like that. Libraries are about knowledge (Academia) and how to organize it properly. Academia Lore fits that perfectly, and has been established previously elsewhere in the game. If Library Lore did exist, I feel it would either step on the toes of Academia Lore too much, or be borderline useless.

"Why yes, I can name every library in the Inner Sea. Would you like to hear about the different organizational systems they use too?" XD

Library Lore actually does exist. It’s one of the common lore subcategories listed in the Core Rulebook. The Spell Seeker (Pathfinder Society Guide) and Bibliophile (Abomination Vaults Player’s Guide) both give it. The PFS organized play campaign also gives Library Lore as a bonus lore for the Scrolls and Generalist trainings. It also appears a couple times in the Gamemastery guide: the Librarian stat block has both Library Lore and Academia Lore with separate bonuses, and the research subsystem suggests using Library or Academic lore for some challenges, with the same DC listed for both in the example.

It’s obviously a minor detail, but it’s one of those things that just feels weird.

Unsure if it is worthy of errata, but the Occult Librarian background gives Academia Lore and not Library Lore. I don’t think there’s that much difference between the two, but it seemed kind of funny to me that the first background with “Librarian” in the name doesn’t get Library Lore.

Making Basic Lesson a level 1 feature and keeping Greater and Major Lesson as feats would seem to be in-line with other classes that get their Level 1 focus spell for free and need to take feats for the higher level ones. I think there is also an argument to be made that making all 3 a core feature isn’t completely unprecedented: Oracle gets the focus point recovery feats baked in, but those are necessary to be able to advance their curse to the stage they unlock at the same time.

One other thing I noticed is that the focus spell hexes are presumably occupying a large share of the Witch’s power budget. There’s been a lot of discussion about Hex Cantrips and Familiar features that were added going from playtest to release, but most of the non-cantrip hexes also got some hefty buffs, and some of the new ones like Needle of Vengeance are very good. As others have noted, quality of focus spells seems to be a variable in class balance. If that is the case, a chunk of the Witch class balance is locked behind a Level 2 feat.

Regardless of intentions, Basic Lesson does feel very feat tax-y. I actually like many of the low-level Witch feats, but I can’t imagine taking them over Basic Lesson. I don’t find Greater or Major Lesson as tax-y because they are more of a horizontal upgrade rather than vertical once you have Basic Lesson.