Ranishe's page

The issues that I've seen is that a Bomber alchemist can really burn through all of their prepared bombs in the day and then they're resolved back to shooting a crossbow. Which is what they tried to get away from in the first place.

Bomber alchemists do get unlimited (lower level) bombs at level 7, but that feels late.

A level 5 bomber alchemist also can pre-prep 27 bombs if that's all they prep. I've made it a point for myself in my next session to see exactly how many bombs my alchemist throws in a day compared to what he preps.

Post level 7 Quick alchemy + sticky bomb + calculated splash + a regular acid flask you made in the morning should be a solid amount of persistent damage that can all be applied in 1 turn. Increases again at 8 when you get the inproved calculated splash and 11 when you get item level 11 regular bombs.

My alchemist is frustrated that his damage using a daily resource is so minute (1d8 + 2 + 2 fire flask as a pyro goblin vs 1d12 + 8 raging dragon barbarian), and he doesn't get cantripesque bombs until 7. Bosses having high AC also makes attempting to use those resources feel wasteful. Add that life elixers are 1d6 vs the 1d10+4 of soothe and he doesn't feel he has much purpose.

Lightning Raven wrote:

My post supports that the difference is too small. Since you don't roll an infinite number of times, then you need to take into account dice variance, which makes the +1 not relevant

Someone want to do the math to determine how many d20 rolls it would take for a 95% chance of more damage with an 18 Str compared to a 16 Str? I'm sure it isn't infinite.

Assuming that there is a meaningful difference between a success and critical success and that the str 18 char would critical succeed on a 19 at worst, 29 str related rolls for a 95% chance of at least one result being different between the two characters.

Just in combat, assuming a char makes 2 attacks per round, 4 round combats, that's 4 combats to have a 95% chance that str 18 char did at least one attack noticeably better (obviously not counting damage rolls, and that could be a crit on a target with 1 hp left which isn'tactually meaningful).

I actually kind of like that, only some players will try to use skills with their best stats and could probably come up with a good argument to use just about any stat for some skill checks, and it would be up to the GM to say "no, reasoning doesn't work on these guys, not right now" which would lead to a lot of table variation, arguments, and strife. So it sounds good, but I'd have to say "no" because of the above.

I have three separate responses to this:

A) it's not the player's choice what kind of check they roll, any more so than a player can say "i want to athletics the door down." They can say they want to scare someone into helping them by looming over them, but the players do not say "I'm going to roll a str based intimidate check."

B) the above wouldn't stop a player from trying to make use of skills they're good at, but isn't that kinda encouraged? Shouldn't a character act in ways consistent with what they're good at? Shouldn't a logician try to reason their way through a problem? And then whether or not any given approach is applicable is up to the gm.

C) you cannot rules the GM out of the game. They are the final arbiter on everything, and there will always be situations where the gm makes a decision on what can and cannot work, and what the chances of each are.

Another option is to do what 5e tried to do: divorce skills from attributes. Everything becomes an attribute check, and skill proficiency is applied if appropriate. Unfortunately there aren't too many easy examples to grab of this, and ot doesn't work quite as well with the uteml system.

The jist of it is that any action a player attempts is based on an attribute. If they have training in a skill that would aid them, it can be applied. So, for example, swimming against a strong current would be a strength check, and a character trained in athletics could apply that bonus to the check. Swimming over a long distance would be a constitution check for being based on stamina, but a character trained in athletics could still add athletics if trained in it as it still applies.

Similarly, if you try to menace someone with your phisique, threatening harm, that'd be a strength check (against will), and a character trained in intimidation could add that skill bonus. This also opens up the option that 5e didn't take which is to divorce social skills from charisma. There's no reason one couldn't try to reason with someone (int), or charm or otherwise coerce them (charisma) into a favorable course of action, but all those could add diplomacy.

Charisma and wisdom being what they are makes it harder too. Making them more concrete attributes instead would help that along, but that's a different issue.

Level 10 Paladin vs. Level 4 Rogue?

Rogue: +4 Proficiency, +4 from DEX, Expert in Stealth (+1) = +9

Paladin: +10 Proficiency, +0 to +1 from DEX, untrained in Stealth (-4), Armour Check Penalty from +2 Full-Plate (-3) = +4.

I think you need a lvl 15 Paladin to beat a lvl 4 Rogue (assuming it obtains a +3 Full-Plate).

And even without the armor check penalty, the Paladin is STILL worse than the rogue 6 levels lower.

It says this counts as two attacks when calculating your multiple attack penalty. So for that attack I'd take a -5 to attack?

This is the mistaken part. The attack is made at your current MAP (so, if your first attack in the round, at -0). It counts as 2 attacks for determining future attacks (so your next attack would be at -10, aka 2x-5).

I'd recommend sudden charge as the extra die of damage from power attack does not make up for the loss of a second attack...ever really. Things that improve action economy (2 moves + strike for the cost of 1 move + strike) are always fantastic.

Throw me in as another vote against the barbarian rage change. I get the theme of it, but it's fiddly, easily forgotten, and not very impactful until it kills a party because the barbarian's rage ended a round early.

Also, I'll agree that strength monks still seem like a trap (though I'm playing one currently). Dex is required for AC, which I'm not terribly opposed to, just something to be aware of.

Also also, do ki strike and ki rush have their spell point costs listed? Cause I'm not seeing them.

Also also also, just to clarify, ki strike and ki rush do NOT give you extra spell points if you take both, correct?

problem is then you're not giving a player the appropriate DC as per the DC chart

Well, obviously, the same way that you don't keep throwing an ever increasing apl party at a cr2 encounter. That chart is there to answer the gm asking: "I have a level 4 party. I want to craft a skill encounter that is difficult to overcome. What number should i target such that that is the case?" What that thing actually ends up being, the system doesnt care, but i believe it provides a few narrative examples (stormy seas and all that). The point isn't to prescribe what the party encounters at any given point, it's a tool to help a gm make encounters / challenges that are of a desired difficulty. It's no different than the cr tables in pf1, or spending experience for the same purpose.

Also, though not really material, i wanted to point out that proficiencies as is with the larger spread you sugges, a level 20 rogue or barbarian would hit a level 20 paladin on like a 19 with their first attack, and are crit fishing after that.

+Level and Proficiencies served as a means to quell that apparent disparity (since Martials are more inclined to rely on numerical bonuses compared to Spellcasters, who don't need to rely on if they have enough bonuses to hit a target more often than not). Removing it now just brings back more of the same frustrating PF1 playstyle that most people hated, and the dumb thing is people don't realize that. Proficiencies by themselves aren't enough to solve that issue, no matter what sort of crazy options you tag onto that.

I disagree. At least, in so far as you could remove +1 to level and give everyone infinite skill points, and mess with saves and dcs a bit to be at a similar place to now, while not technically being +level to everything. No i think the main draw of +level is that it contains the math while unifying a character's strength around its level. +level means the difference between legendary and untrained is smaller (-5 to +9 or so, not counting items, relative to level, rather than -2 to +60 or whatever people could stack). This also makes the chart above work. If the range of any given character's ability on a given skill can range by 30odd points, you can't have a standard for how hard a task is at a given level. Which means a gm just kind of has to guess at a dc.

Inflated DCs are a problem. You have this bloated chart, that you basically HAVE to reference or memorize, when it could be so much simpler. For example, 5e DC table: very easy DC 5, easy DC 10, medium DC 15, hard DC 20, very hard DC 25, nearly impossible DC 30. That's it. That's all you need to know from level 1 to level 20. Pretty elegant.

As a DM you need to justify increasingly massive DC numbers just to have a challenge. This then becomes a wash, because as you increase the DCs, everyone's skills also increase, so really it's just similar odds with bigger numbers. Treadmill effect.

That's because 5e has bounded accuracy. The difference in bonus to a roll between a level 1 character and a level 20 character in that system is 4 to a given check, + or - a few. A DC25 check at level 1 is nearly impossible, and only has about a 30% chance of success at level 20 (barring, for example, item bonuses). Do you feel that you get more powerful as a character in that system?

Re: the treadmill, the game is always a treadmill. Or it's static. Or it's ever easier. Pick one:
- Treadmill: As the party faces challenges and gets stronger, they're (in general) put up against even stronger challenges that match them.
- Static: As the party faces challenges, they grow stronger, though only marginally. Their challenges, not needing to rise much to meet their new power, stay more or less the same forever.
- Easier: As the party faces challenges and gets stronger, they're put up against...the same challenges. The stronger party starts to walk over everything they're faced with with minimal effort.

I'm not going to say any are right or wrong, but I know which one I'd most prefer to play.

While I like the fact that a level 20 demigod will not face any problems when trying to cross a calm river, I'm wary about the fact that designing skill challenges for high level groups could be a very hard task. What kind of situation you have to imagine to justify a level 14 swim check? What more should you add to make it a level 18 one? How many of those challenges can you design before you run out of ideas?

Did you not already have to do this? In pf1 if you wanted a skill challenge for swim, did you not have it at least in some way relative to the party's level? Or did swim DC never go up above 10 because no one ever put ranks into it, so any more difficult swim related task would be impossible for everyone? Or did it not go up, but the party invested in swim in some way, so they automatically passed any swim checks they came upon, but at that point is it even a skill challenge that needs the numbers at all?

We already had +Level to saves, BAB, spell DCs (sorta), the skills you focused in, etc.

Quoting for emphasis. It's now just normalized across everything so you don't have to play a game where one person passes any level appropriate challenge of a skill automatically while no one else has a chance at the roll.

Nightwhisper wrote:

DCs per level of the challenge. The text next to the DCs specifically calls out not just scaling check difficulty because the PCs gained a level, and if you decided that something was a given level, it stays that level unless something happens.

10-2 is not a "set DC by the level of the party" it's a "set DC by level of the opposition" and old assumptions about CR matching or exceeding the level of party are no longer valid.

Which brings up something that doesn't seem to be discussed as much. What is a "level appropriate challenge"? That is, you have a character of level 5. If they put all their character resources into a thing, what should they need to roll to beat a "level 5 challenge" of that thing? If they put as few resources (or as many negatives) into that thing, what should be the odds of succeeding a "level 5 challenge"? And, should the requisite die roll for each of those situations change from level 1 to level 20?

Here's a thought re: level to everything. I wonder if the part of its merit is that, without it, character's options for level appropriate situations goes down with level.

Take a "level 1" fortress invasion. There's a little moat that you could swim through, or you could try to sneak (or bribe) your way past the door guard. Or climb up the small cliff on the back. All sound reasonable? At level 1, the difference between any player on any of these challenges is going to be something like 5 points, because that's how attributes work.

Now, take a "level 10" fortress invasion. This is a well defended camp. A moat with magically enchanted tumultous waters filled with aggressive creatures. A well paid (or well controlled) door guard with scouts on the front walls. A massive cliff, in places trapped, on the back. Using pf1 as an example system, the difference in ability for a party member to tackle any given challenge is going to be something like 20 points. So, you write off the moat, because no one took swim because why would you? If the wizard doesn't have fly, you write off the back wall because only the rogue took climb. The rogue is also the only one with stealth, so no one else is sneaking past the guard. So you're left with "get the diplomancer to diplomance his way in."

With level to everything, all of those options are available, with varying chances of success. The party can actually decide what route they want to take in, instead of having more and more doors close for any given challenge as they level.

Another vote for removing touch AC, and letting casters just use casting mod to attack rolls for rays & the like. Fewer numbers, and keeps modifiers between spell attacks and spell "attacks" (like fireball) more consistent. Increasing caster proficiency slightly earlier (at least to expert) would be nice (though please not at the expense of class feats) as well.

Also I feel like rays are rather weak compared to aoe spells. The damage increase on single target doesn't feel like it makes up for the fact that a "fail" for a ray is 0 damage while a "fail" for an aoe spell is half damage. When a target passes a save against a fireball, I'm a bit disappointed, but have at least done something. When I miss a ray, it feels terrible as I blew a daily resource & 2 actions for no gain.

heighten spell Metamagic Feat

Where?

And Metamagicians shortcut doesn't subtract a somatic casting action from a spell. It lets you add metamagic (eg widen spell) without costing an extra somatic action.

A player of mine also is looking for a warlock in 2e. More ability to specialise and liberally use a field of magic at the expense of "well i can change my playstyle and contributions every day because spellbook".

I'm also of the opinion to at least change to arcanist style prepared casting (is that the same as 5e prepared casters?). But futher investigation of daily resources and how to best handle them in a way that feels fun seems necessary.

This would then exacerbate the issue of martials being innately better at multiclassing due to having more class feats to spend.

Don't all classes gain the same number of class feats? The exception being many classes get one of their level 1 feats based on some other selection (eg. Druid order), but you can't multiclass with level 1 feats anyway. Sorcerers were updated to get class feats the same as other classes so as to not be forced into developing their bloodline for those who didn't want to, though honestly they could probably just get the bloodline improvements for free, rather than having to spend class feats on them since at first glance sorcerers seem the weakest of the bunch.

Edit: Just reviewed, I did not realize that Expert / Master spellcaster stole the spot of a class feat. That seems odd considering Legendary spellcaster does not....

It may not be appropriate, but I've come to consider classes that don't get bonus spells to be 2/3 casters: Bard, druid, and cleric. Full casters are those that innately get 4 spells per level rather than 3.

Level 6 casters or riot

I do miss bladed dash....however are there hybrid classes that can't be accomplished in theme through multiclassing as pointed out above? Even the more limited number / level of spells can be handled by how many caster feats you take. Magus as a concept has a bit of a problem in not many spells are 1 action, so move-cast-strike is hard outside of, say, truestrike. Also doesn't come online until level 4 which feels a bit late for me, but, eh. I suppose bards also went up from level 6 casting to 9, but they still have strong emphasis on their performance party buff.

It is feasible. Many systems do already, though the only one I know of is GURPS (which I've also not played). You get the advantage of being able to customize your character to the fullest, but the disadvantage of being relatively unapproachable. Similar to Pathfinder 1, imagine gaining a level where you can select a feat, and you trawl through the list of 1000 options. Classes provide a good framework to make interacting with the system easier. You select your class at first level, and have a limited selection of feats that go along with that class's character every other level.

The Once and Future Kai wrote:

Ckorik wrote:

I suppose it'd work as a concept when you gain levels - but you need 18 in your prime stat to survive the first few levels.

Please elaborate? I've had a couple of players field non-offensive casters* with 16s in their primary stats and they've been fine in low level playtest sessions.

*Fey Sorcerer focused on Utility and Summoning. Bard focused on Utility and Buffs.

The quote was you could do fine with a 12 in your prime stat - I tried it - it was very underwhelming.

A sorcerer with bless and 16 dex or str is looking at only a +1 to hit behind a fighter, or even with other martial classes. They're also then handing that +1 out to the party. And as you pointed out, a +1 is pretty effective.

Easier for a bard to pull off though with inspire courage. Lower cost, better effect. They can also do that without maxed charisma. Missing the extra spell points is a shame too, but at later levels (as a druid or cleric at least) you can get a pile from feats.

I'm a fan of removing dailies. They've already done so for stunning fist & rage, with different tradeoffs as balance (2 actions for 1 attack and fatigue respectively). Especially because of this problem:

Want to use magic to Fly past the obstacle? You can, but it'll cost you combat ability later.

Is the party going to be in combat "later" (without opportunity to rest)? And how hard will that combat be? Will fly in that combat be a slight bonus or absolutely necessary? Or is fly in a slot that a more combat oriented spell could be cast from? Will lacking that slot actually be a limit, or does the caster have enout other spells that there wasn't really a loss by casting fly now?

Daily resources ask the party to make decisions based on information they (probably) don't have. You could argue for scouting with the rogue or using scry, but that also eats up table time, potentially a lot of it. And you don't know if scouting will be a useful use of time or if you can brute force your way through the encounters.

If a player is making a decision without relevant information, it's not a meaningful decision. It's a guess.

Power attack adds a single die (or 2 at fighter 10). A level 7 character critting with a +1 greatsword with power attack would hit for 6d12 + 2xSTR.

1 die for weapon, 1 die for +1, and 1 die for power attack. I'm also not sure where you're getting str x 4 from...

My biggest issue with the treadmill in PF 2nd Ed is not that it is visible...it is that it is really not adjustable. As a GM and a player in PF 1st ed I can make it slower...or faster...etc. and still make the game challenging and fun.

Is there anything in pf2e's rules that takes this away from you as a gm?

Ediwir wrote:

IMHO if companions had a tiny bit better survivability at the first couple of levels - and if the Ranger had something like "If you do not Command your animal companion, it can still take one action to Stride or Strike against the target you're Hunting", things would be a lot better.

Its not perfect but an animal companion focused ranger could multiclass into Druid and get that particular ability

you don't gain any other abilities from your choice of order

That's debatable, and still 3 feats to get if it does work.

Dire Ursus wrote:

I've seen a lot of people state "lingering composition" is a good example of how the treadmill is bad. But I disagree entirely. Lingering Composition is something that shouldn't be a static level, because then it becomes unbalanced

Why?

Why would lingering becomes unbalanced? Other metamagic feats don't require a roll: there's no roll involved with widen spell, there's no roll involved with quickened casting. Are those feat unbalanced?

No, they take extra actions, which are a percentage of your effectiveness. Taking an action for metamagic instead of a strike at level 1 is losing 1d8 or so damage (longbow). Taking an action for metamagic at level 10 is losing 3d8 or so damage (+2 longbow).

Lingering scales basically the same way, being a percentage increase because of more flexible action economy (not requiring an action on your next turn). Whether its effect is worth a spell point for a possibility of not working is a different question.

And then you can balance the game around that; eg, a failure in Stealth could just trigger a warning for team monster (they heard something, but they're not sure it's a PC) while a crit success could allow to remove a warning. Legendary Rogue Boy could never fail, and still be on the same RNG as anyone...

I feel like this should fall under "what is a level appropriate challenge"? Should an optimized character auto-succeed on a level appropriate challenge? Of what difficulty? What does that mean for non-optimized characters? How much does that optimization cost? Can one character reasonably be "optimized" in 2 fields? 3? 5? I sense that with such a system you end up where characters attempt what they're good at and auto-succeed, and never attempt what they're not good at. You can force them into those unspecialized areas (no one can swim, and you're all dumped in the ocean), but what does that feel like from a player stand point if your only options are ones that can't reliably succeed? And if an option is available that is of their specialty, are the other options actually options assuming there's not an added cost?

Bit of a hijack, but how do injury poisons actually work if you don't have the rogue Poison Weapon feat? Injury poisons say they have a 3 action Operate Activation activity, so I presume it's effectively a full round to apply the poison to a weapon, but then how long does the poison last? And how does poison work with ammunition? Can I poison a bunch of throwing stars / knives and just have poisoned weapons ready for whenever a fight breaks out? How does that work with arrows?

Now, when I see bards playing (of which I've seen 3 now) I notice that the DCs for their performances always go up, no matter whether they're using a lower level class feat or not.

Considering that things like inspire heroics is always a percentage increase in effectiveness...how should this be handled otherwise? If the dc did not scale, bards would end up reliably providing greater and greater percent effectiveness increases as the game progressed. I can see this being a problem when that means scaling the effect such that a party with a bard is 50 - 60% more powerful than the one without.

Instead of making Hunt Target a more universally applicable ability regardless of combat style choice, the combat styles you get access to is specially tailored for the class and forces it or nothing else to be functional at the table, hence my statement that I cannot customize my character

I still don't quite understand this. Are you saying that the ranger combat styles are so effective in their synergy with hunt target that a ranger would be (relatively) ineffectively built if not making use of them? Is that different from the ranger's combat styles in 1e other than the fact that we have 3 to work with in 2e vs however many in 1e?

I don't think I'm wrong when I say that the +/-10 crit system is meant to be a game mechanic tailored to the fighter class specifically, with the intention being that fighters have the most access to it and thus fighters are the only class in the game who gain access to the critical specialization effects of more than one weapon group (or single weapon in certain classes).

I expect it's rather as others surmise: a way to handle save or die spells more reasonably. It allows something like sleep to potentially be encounter ending on a target, but not be all or nothing like comperable spells in 1e. In addition we also have more spells that have an effect on failure, leading to spells having near certainty of accomplishing at least something.

In the archetype document, Basic Sorcerer Spellcasting says it requires Bard Dedication. In addition, Wizard Dedication still says it requires you be trained in Arcana while other archetypes do not have such a skill prerequisite.

I see these as the three big issues right now:

1) Multiclassing is straight up better than 2nd level feats
Right now this isn't at critical levels, since we don't have many dedication options available. Many classes simply don't have any dedication options that work for them. However, for classes that do have "natural fits" so to speak, dedication is all but mandatory on any serious build. This is most obvious for Wizard and Sorcerer, and is so acute in their case that it actually makes most Wizards and Sorcerers play almost the same. If you aren't multiclassing fighter, you're seriously gimping your character. Right now people are kinda sleeping on wizard dedication because 16 int is an onerous prerequisite, but I think once sorcerer dedication comes around (16 cha is very doable for many classes) people are going to wake up to just how crazy multiclassing for Magical Striker really is.

Just to be clear, you're going to spend 3 class feats to get (up to) an extra d12 of damage. Now when you get it running at level 8 and only have a +1 weapon, thats a pretty sizable increase. But, you can't use it, because you can't cast anything beyond a cantrip (unless you're doing this as a bard / druid / cleric, but then you're only wielding a d8 weapon at best without further investment). So 4 feats so you can get up to 3 spells per day, which are probably all truestrike because truestrike magical striker is hillarious. 4 class feats for (up to) 3 empowered attacks per day (more with a wand or set of scrolls) just doesn't sound like great value to me, especially when it doesn't come online until level 8 at the earliest.

I'm also not sold on needing fighter dedication. Or rather, I expect it'd be less tempting if cantrips were more effective so that casters didnt feel like they were just a worse version of a shortbow. Without armor proficiency from the dedication or a general feat, you'd be lagging behind optimized ac by like 3 (-2 dex + armor and -1 shield). Which is not nothing, but it's basically a question of if it's worth a class feat for +2 ac. Maybe, but i think that's more I'm not a fan of most feats available to casters at the moment.

Druid, Cleric - bring more versatile options to the table than the sorcerer or wizard while doing as much casting as the people who supposedly do nothing but studiously attempt to harness their inner power or struggle to learn other things because they're so focused on their spellbooks

Not counting channel energy which i find a bit powerful of a feature, sorcerers / wizards have 33% more spells per day than druids / clerics (4 of each level in contrast to 3). Is that sufficiently more? Maybe not. But wizards / sorcerers are slinging the most spells.

Also keep in mind that full casters got short-changed by the implementation of the 3-action/reaction system.

This I'm also quite disappointed by, especially since metamagic costs extra actions to apply. I'd like more flexibility in spellcaster turns. More spells that only cost 1 action, and more cc / buff / debuff cantrips like Daze.

Horrid scaling DCs, many spells where you need to land a critical failure to even matter, short duration to utility spells, summon monster that is barely functional... together are enough to make me lose any interest in this edition.

Hoping the devs do give some thought when it comes to rebalancing this magic system.

On the other hand, many spells have an effect on failure. Paralyze compared to Hold Monster, for example. If the target passes its save vs Hold Monster, nothing has happened. If the target passes its save against Paralyze, they're slowed for a round. Basically, spells are currently guaranteed to do at least something, but don't have encounter ending effects unless on a critical success, which I think is overall much healthier for the game.

On a different subject, I had a thought recently: Damage spells really should scale with caster level rather than spell slot. I believe this because non-damage spells (buffs & debuffs) scale without requiring higher spell slots. For example, at level 1 the spell Bless represents something along the lines of a 10% damage increase for the party so long as you can keep it up. If the party averages 30odd damage per round normally, that's about 3 points of damage per round. Magic missile, by contrast if cast will all actions, averages 7.5 at level 1. Over the life of bless, it's an expected 30 damage (ideal & unlikely scenario I know). So less upfront damage, more efficiency.

At level 10, the level 1 spell Bless still represents something along the lines of a 10% damage increase. Since the party is now all wielding +2 magic weapons, they're looking at something like 60 damage per round, where bless is now 6 damage per round, and 60 over its life, compared to the (still) 7.5 of magic missile.

Basically, why have one category of spells that scale in power with character level, and another that don't?

it's also incredibly galling that the previously everpresent "take ten" mechanic (even with limitations) now requires a feat, and that using a skill for certain previously universal uses is now gated behind arbitrary proficiencies, and these are somehow supposed tob e taken as a positive.

Does it? I thought the idea was that assurance lets you "take 10" (or 20 or 30) on a check. Previous take 10 & take 20 rules were effectively telling the gm "if there's no consequence for failure, don't roll 40 times until the party eventually succeeds." Previously take 10 only worked if not distracted or in danger. Assurance can be used at any time.

I'm assuming those numbers are double slice vs 2 swings of a 2 hander. Also worth noting in those number examples, the larger weapon is more impactful in situations where a character only has 1 action with which to make an attack.

The range on this spell could be 30 feet and it would feel the same.

In most APs and modules, there are precious little opportunities to fire on foes that are more than 30-40 feet away from you.

Just take a look at the Lost Star. There's no single encounter that's not designed to be played in a 20 ft. square.

When such rare situations happen, enemies are also generally moving towards you during their round, which cuts distance in half.
In years of playing Pathfinder, I don't think I've ever seen a Fighter having to spend two full rounds moving to get up to a foe.

I'm probably bound to see it happen at some point but this is certainly not going to reflect how an encounter goes for about 90% of the time.

There's a reason archers in 1.0 went for the feats and options to have their ranged attacks not provoke attacks of opportunity in the first place.
And that's because, most of the time, foes are right there in your place and not standing 120 feet away from you without moving.

I'll agree with that. In that case, shocking grasp would be a more fair comparison. With the same numbers, compared to a great sword, that's looking at 17.6 damage (spell) vs 20.4 (sword), not accounting for the extra riders on shocking grasp and assuming equal AC & TAC, which is more disappointing for having spent 2 spell slots to come out behind.

At 7th level, I can spend one of my four 1st level spell slots on True Strike and another one of my three 4th level spell slots on hightened Acid Arrow.

Assuming I had 50% chance to hit in the first place and what you're saying about True Strike is true, basically increasing my chances to hit by about 25%, then the average damage of Acid Arrow in a given round is 15.
Here's the math:
0.75 (hit chance with True Strike) * [2d8 (base damage) + 4 (max INT modifier) + 2d6 (persistent damage)] = 0.75*20 = 15

This against a single target.

Meanwhile, a Fighter with a +1 two-handed greatsword just hit the mob with rather similar accuracy (because they're already master in their chosen weapon) and can deal as much as 17 damage on one hit (2d12+4 STR modifier).
They get to attack up to 3 times a round.

Well, in fairness, what actually happens is you throw our your acid arrow, and the fighter spends a full round moving 60 feet. Then you through out another acid arrow, and the fighter spends another full round moving 60 feet. Then you throw out a 3rd acid arrow and the greatsword fighter can finally start hitting things.

If you're going to use a spell with 120ft range, compare it to a longbow fighter, who's looking at an expected 13.2 damage with 18 str, 18 dex and a +1 composite longbow doing a full round attack ((2 + 9) * (.65 + .4 + .15). Doubleshot improves the dpr but against different targets. This is also assuming the foe has equal AC & TAC (usually AC is higher) and that hitting TAC without truestrike is at a 50% chance (effective +5 from truestrike for 75% vs an effective + 3 from item + master in weapon for 65%). If you're a sorcerer with dangerous sorcery your expected damage goes up by 3 to 18. This...doesn't seem terribly unreasonable to me.

I don't think most 1st level wizards will expend half their spells on AC.

A bit late, but worth pointing out that wizards with a school at level 1 have 4 level 1 spells per day (2 + 1 from school + 1 from arcane focus). Still may not want to spend that slot on a cast of mage armor, but less of a cost if you do.

Note that spell DC is based on the caster's primary stat, which will be probably higher than Strength/Dexterity which is used to calculate attack rolls.

But by contrast, note that TAC is lower than regular AC to improve the odds that a spell attack lands.

I think more important is that save based spells usually have an effect even if the target passes the save, while attacks do not have an effect if they miss. So a save spell is more likely than a touch spell to do something, but less likely to have full effect.

I find the low number of skills especially disappointing since Druids have less spellcasting than other major casters and get almost nothing back for that. At level 1, druids have 2 level 1 spells per day. Sorcerers have 3, wizards with a school have 4. All of them have a power that can be cast with a spell pool, and wizards and sorcerers have more skills they're trained in. So...

Clerics, with the same casting as druids, have 5 skills to 4, and have channel energy that translates to 3+cha extra of their highest spell slot per day. Druids feel kinda shafted all around to me at the moment. They do have their extra feat synergies based on their order, but, what do you want at level 1: 2-3 extra spells, or 1 extra hp on your animal companion? Plus, putting all the power in those feats means a druid is naturally less effective than counterpart classes unless they take a specific set of feats, losing a lot of power if you try to build a druid outside of that assumption.

Ranishe wrote:

Well, it's actually more reliable than demoralize, though it costs 2 actions instead of 1. Plus, a level 1 spell that would cause fleeing to any target with any reliability would be absurd, because that works regardless of target, unless you restrict it like daze in first edition.

Fear has the same reliability as Demoralize, they both go against the target's Will save. The only difference is Fear does 1 Frightened more. Both cause the opponent to flee on a crit fail.

But a Barbarian can do this action 3 times per round for FREE, a spellcaster can only do 1 once per round and 3 times per day.

For a spell to be weaker than a skill (2 actions vs 1) and only better by Frightened 1, and the Barbarian can do it 3 times per round for FREE, it's not good. Yes it's level 1 but with limited spell slots, all your spells need to count.

Fear (the spell) also works if the target passes their save. So, assuming a crit fail on a 1, a crit pass on a 20, and a pass on an 11...Fear (spell) is almost guaranteed to have some effect vs demoralize which has a 50% chance of being a wasted action.

This LIMITED 1st level spell is just as good as Demoralize, a skill any Barbarian can do every 3rd action.

But the fact that most spells are too weak is a subject for another post.

No, when it comes to damage, martials are in a good state. Most of the martial classes need tweaks, but damage is not the problem.

Well, it's actually more reliable than demoralize, though it costs 2 actions instead of 1. Plus, a level 1 spell that would cause fleeing to any target with any reliability would be absurd, because that works regardless of target, unless you restrict it like daze in first edition.

I've not played outside of level 1 yet, but martial effectiveness seems fine when accounting for conditional bonuses / penalties. I know that there's talk of higher level foes having stats a bit above where they're supposed to be, which if adjusted will make at least first attacks a little more reliable. The fighter & ranger have ways to improve their reliability as well: Double slice letting you get 2 attacks at 0 MAP and hunt target improving the reliability of later attacks for example. Barbarians & rogues are less accurate, but also deal more damage through rage & sneak attack.

Jason S wrote:

thorin001 wrote:

Right now the biggest disparity between martials and casters is that martials run very big risk of completely wasting their turns whereas casters have a much smaller risk.

Hi. I've actually play tested at levels 5 and 10 and I can tell you, martials do a LOT more damage on average than casters at these levels.

Agreed. My 1st level sorcerer managed to do 12 damage in the entirety of Chapter 1 of Doomsday Dawn. My 4th level not-a-cleric did 12 damage in a single cast of Electric Arc (despite still being the base level spell, no heightening!) and despite that the Martials are still out-damaging me (I mean, sure, 90% of my spell slots are going into Healing, but when I have spent spells on damage, the results have been pretty lackluster).

I'm wondering if, at higher levels, actual damage spells will feel more effective. At level 1 they run the problem of, dealing 5 damage to multiple targets with 6 max health feels horrible when a long sword wielding martial is looking at instant-killing such a target from max health on an average hit. In effect, the damage the caster dealt without killing the target was meaningless. I'm not too shaken about martials outdamaging a cantrip though. However it is frustrating that cantrips are slightly less effective than using a bow as a caster until you get the expert->legendary training in spell rolls, especially since damage cantrips are also lower range with less flexible action economy.

I'm actually planning basically the same build, except as a rogue multiclass wizard. Magical striker doesn't come online until level 8, and you have very few casts until around level 12 (and no rogue feats except for level 1 until level 14), but, not counting spellstrike ammunition, i think this has the highest potential single shot damage. Towards the end of the build you'll have something like 10 truestrikes per day which should be sufficient for targetting scary enemies.

Starting as a rogue means you'll have an extra +1 to +2 to hit over the wizard (unless you take fighter dedication for the weapon expertise). You have up to 4d6 sneak attack (doubled on a crit, which your crit chance vs flat footed with true strike i expect to be at least around 40%). Basically you trade the versatility of extra spell casts for extra skill training and higher potential single target damage. Level 20 with a +5 flaming, shocking, frost longbow is something like 130 damage on average (assuming crit + sneak attack) with an upper bound of double that, which should be plenty to one shot at least squishy characters.

On the other end of things, I am disappointed with cantrips. Even autoscaling, they do less damage than a bow for double the action cost and half the range. It's frustrating that casters, if they don't want to use spell slots, are better off as archers.

Milo v3 wrote:

Snowlilly wrote:

Yes, tell the person playing the pacifist healer they don't get XP.

See how long if takes the rest of the group to find a new DM.

Or they can realise that they are partially responsible for violence they directly help occur....

It sound like an interesting moral conflict to roleplay.

...no it doesn't*, it sounds like cognitive dissonance. Like, the character is by definition not a pacifist, and continuously and deliberately makes the choice to continue to not be a pacifist (except by, perhaps, a very technical interpretation). A character whose entire time spent on screen is lamenting the things they actively choose to do...makes no sense. It's like someone training to be a wizard, preparing spells every day, and saying "magic is a tool of the weak, and such people must be scourged."

*okay sure, fine, you're allowed to have fun with whatever character you like, but "quirky" and "deep" don't necessarily go hand in hand.

Jader7777 wrote:

- Have weapon focus and weapon specialization apply to weapon groups, not just single weapons.

Would this really be that useful? outside of campaigns where weapons are randomly generated switching between weapons of the same group doesn't seem like that much of an advantage.

My thought is no, it wouldn't be, so why not have it? It isn't something one would build around, but in cases with random loot (or foe appropriate loot) it increases a martial's versatility without it being an increase in power, which is something the fighter especially desperately needs. You no longer feel shafted when the world keeps giving you weapons that aren't exactly the one you've been taking feats for.

Chess Pwn wrote:

This I feel had the closest feel to your build.

A lot of the fundamental choices I made on that posted build were for flavor/character.

And this is the (a) fundamental problem with the system. One should not need to compromise their in game effectiveness in the name of "flavor." So no, the Oread is not a dual-scimitar Qadiran warrior, but don't you think it's reasonable that your warrior should be of comparable power to another, regardless of flavor?

("Power" in this sense does not mean "same numbers and abilities")

Voss wrote:

Well, that's another problem. I have no idea what a 'fighter' is supposed to feel like.

The wonderful thing about fighters, they have the versatility to feel like just about anything.

All those feats can make for incredibly diverse builds and play styles.

The concept of a "build your own class" class has no purpose in a class based system. Otherwise the fighter becomes the background of "everything we haven't made a specialist class for yet". A class needs a characterful niche to fill, and the more classes you create the more specialized each niche must be. This is going to be a problem with most core (so to speak) classes, as they represent larger tropes that future classes take pieces off of (hunter vs ranger for example). Of course, the core wizard is "I have everything" while the core fighter is "I choose a subset from everything".

Ryan Freire wrote:

Gloves of dueling makes weapon training +6, focused weapon makes the scythe a 2d8 rather than 2d4 Beyond that im not sure.

Not difficult to get a 40 strength without things like eldritch heritage -> orc bloodline or profane bonuses.

Impact weapon property = Large Weapon (3d8 dmg)

Gloves of Dueling

Warrior Spirit = Bane (total enhance bonus = +7, +2d6 that is not multiplied)

x2 strength multiplier for single attacks with the two-handed fighter.

Martial Focus

Assuming 40str (I expect 20 base, 4 from levels, 6 enhancement, 5 from wish, and another 5 from....something), and the rest of the math, that's another....125 or so damage? That puts you at around 410. Enlarge person probably gets you another handful as well.

I don't expect you get 2x str multiplier as it says "attack action or charge" which your autocrit attack is neither.

@Voss: I agree about character progression. I feel, overall, it takes too long for classes to feel like themselves, especially for the fighter.

Auto-crit with a x5 weapon while benefitting from things like Greater Power Attack.

Simple math has me coming up with 300ish, but I'm bound to be missing things.

5 from scythe
24 from greater power attack
4 from weapon training
4 from weapon specializations
5 from +5 weapon
15 from 30 str

...what am I missing? Even an extra 10 on top of that from "other sources" is only 335.

Still, this is a separate problem I have with Pathfinder: the absurd number inflation. How can one balance between two fighters when one outs out 350 damage a round, and another puts out, on average, say 100? And that's within the single class, not looking at the quite literal infinite damage some casters can do.

Vital strike is SO CLOSE but so far.

But, imagine that vital strike could be used in combination with spring attack (or similar). And imagine that it scaled naturally (and devastating strike did as well) rather than requiring a feat tree. And imagine double slice was something like "can swing with both weapons as a standard action" that could be used with other single attack routines (such as spring attack). And now you're looking at a fighting style that sacrifices damage for mobility, and actually feels mobile (and gains benefits for it, because foes that rely on full attacks lose damage if they're not similarly built).

What's frustrating is that it's a feature of the system that literally only impacts martials, and the removal of it would do a lot to improve martials in general. It'd make Magi stupid powerful though... maybe you still have to spend a full round if you wanna Spell Combat?

I'm actually curious about this. On the one hand I dislike the overall hit to "power" that reliance on full attacks is. However, without it, I don't see a way to differentiate a mobile martial character vs a non-mobile one, other than movement speed.

For example, take the concept of a character that uses spring attack regularly (or bladed dash to equivalent effect). The idea being the character moves in, strikes, and moves out of reprisal range as one move. If pounce or equivalent features are regularly available, such a character becomes impossible to build. Every martial would be "run up and full attack" in varying flavors.

I think that preserving the options for different fighting styles (such as one focused on spring attack) is wise, and if "move and full attack" becomes widely available....I don't see a way to do that...does anyone else?

Rysky wrote:

Nitro~Nina wrote:

In the case of healing, my preferred system would have magic be an easy quick-fix mid-combat, but would pale in comparison to actual hard work and trained medicine over a longer period of time.

This is all just opinion, and please consider it before taking offence right out of the gate. I mean to provoke thought, not anger.

How would you accomplish this, aside from giving magical healing adverse effects?

Well, you could have magic healing leave scars (just a roleplaying mechanic, not mechanical). (Fast healing is faster regular healing so gets around this and leave none)

But it would make those who regularly get magic healing get covered in scars.

You could also remove magical healing as a whole. Instead have all forms of "magical healing" take the form of temporary hit points that can't put you above max hp.

It is an attack, just like a fireball...

...you make a reflex save to avoid damage. That's not an 'attack', so DR doesn't apply.

Wait, is something that's "reflex for half damage" an attack or not? Because you've said it both ways.