Ruzza's page

Whew, little late on this update, but April is in the bag and it was quite the month of encounters. As promised, I went with a different idea in April and made a month of Proficiency Without Level encounters! This necessitated a small setting to place things in, of which I've made a quick and dirty introduction to.

What sorts of encounters await you? A murder investigation with a shapeshifting suspect! Once the PCs track the killer down, they'll have to contend with the murderer's partners-in-crime. A little too cloak and dagger? Perhaps a nighttime assault on sleeping civilians lead by sekmin infiltrators and their anaconda watchdog? We've got dungeons, too! As the PCs navigate the resting place of a Spawn of Rovagug, they'll have contend with a horde lich who seeks to stymie their advance.

And, as always, much more within! The encounters continue and we're well past the first 100 days. I look forward to seeing what else comes of this project!

I live overseas where Pathfinder and most roleplaying games are quite hard to come by. I was essentially living in a little bubble and dreamed of times gone by with TTRPGs, never wanting to try and teach PF1e to a new group of players (in a foreign language no less). By sheer coincidence I happened to take a trip back to America when the PF2e playtest was starting and happened to pick up a physical copy to peruse - y'know casually.

I fell in love with a system that gave me a lot of the character building options of PF1, but mechanics that encouraged the use of the full suite of tools at your disposal. In PF1, I could make some gimmicky characters around forgotten bits of rules, but PF2 felt like everything in the toolkit was viable and encouraged. It was exactly what I'd been looking for from PF1 (and often tried to force in - "Come on, guys. My character is SO good at Aiding, it's a good build!")

I've now been running PF2 since the playtest and truly love what the system has done.

That's March in the bag! Like last month, I went with a bit of a longer project, this time creating a series of wave encounters within a siege set for a group of 5th level PCs.

Of course, that's not all! I put together a battle on the rooftops with a Daggermark assassin-mage (Moderate 8), a tricksie imp playing as a talking dog offering wishes (Low 2), and even a quest to snatch a phoenix feather while scaling the side of a volcano (Low 17)!

Next month, I'll be trying something a little different and might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it comes out. It's something I've kicked around in my head for awhile, so I hope that the community likes it!

Something important that I often see groups who come into PF2 neglect is penalties being applied correctly. I’ve had groups that would frighten or sicken a target, but still have trouble hitting it when it turned out that the GM wasn’t applying the penalty to the target’s AC (or their spell DCs). Don’t forget that AC is a Difficulty Class, too!

Beyond that APL+1 or APL +2 opponents do tend to edge out the party in terms of mechanical numbers, but that tends to be overcome on the tactics side of things. Playing against a creature’s strengths doesn’t benefit the party - like standing in melee range with a more powerful opponent or remaining out in the open against an archer. To steal a quote from myself…

Against level 1 PCs, an ogre warrior can actually be an amazing encounter. Its got low Perception, meaning it's quite easy to Hide and Sneak around (heck, an entire party could Avoid Notice and skip the encounter entirely). Its Reflex and Will are lagging, making them susceptible to being Tripped and Demoralized. However, the ogre's damage output is insane and can easily take out a PC without doing anything special. This means a group that's paying attention would need to actively keep the ogre from getting to them through movement and debuffs. This will also quickly dissuade groups from the "tank and spank" strategy as even a shield-focused champion is going to eventually take a crit that blows through their shield and sends them to dying. All this while the massive HP pool of the ogre keeps them up a bit longer to acts as their combat teacher (and that 17 AC prevents any non-20 crits unless the PCs actually start inflicting conditions on it).

I can’t be certain, but my guess is that there are some tactical expectations that aren’t being met or that some numbers are being forgotten. Both pretty common problems, actually!

To expand on this, as a GM who returns to older material often (as many of us do), I don't think it's much more on our plate to go over that quickly during a session zero. "This game is set in a the Mwangi Expanse and a large variety of students come into the school. I would push you towards these ancestries, while these might feel a bit out of place. Likewise, there will be plenty of emphasis on magic, so classes like the gunslinger may not get the feeling they're going for."

Personally, I would dissuade the use of Anatomy Lore in that way. Instead, I would apply it more towards investigative and forensics work ("The killer was intelligent, it aimed towards vital areas."). If I were to use it as a Recall Knowledge, it would be specifically for creatures with anatomies that are strange or unusual, like proteans or jah-tohls - things that have distinct anatomical features that feature heavily into their design.

Otherwise, you have a skill that you can use to the exclusion of all others and that ends up being unfun design.

In my limited experience, having the wizard do no damage over two rounds of mid tier spells (4th and 5th) is a huge morale hit.

I have to ask, what level are your PCs and what level did you all start playing at? I understand that PF2e has a learning curve, but it's also one that gets a lot trickier to explain and understand if your experiences are at levels that most groups don't even get to play in. You've mentioned white dragon encounters, frost giants, and now 4th and 5th level spells and it sounds like your group is quite high level.

We played Thursday and I started by listing out other options, as @Ruzza had, such as Hide, Sneak, Feint, Recall Knowledge, and other skill uses. One of the things that can be bad about having a lot of actions defined is looking for them instead of saying what their character will do. We talked about that as well. Bob World Builder had a good video on this, which is almost anathema to PF? He says to Be Direct. Don't ask how strong the rope is but instead say you want to tie it to the leg of the ogre and bring them down like an AT-AT in Empire. He does suggest the GM have an open mind as well, unless the players ideas are out of tone for what the group is doing. The bad part of this is the player having a good idea but by the rules, it's too many actions for one round. Not sure what to do in that case.

This is where system knowledge from both sides of the screen will come in handy, and I appreciate that you're keeping an open mind. If something ends up being "too many actions" then as a GM it can be very important to ask the players "What's your goal with doing that?" I've had players break down their turns into strange monstrosities when it could be solved much more easily. "I want to jump onto the table. One action! Then I leap over the head of the first opponent to avoid his Reactive Strike. Ooh, that would be two actions, huh? But I want to Feint the other guy and Strike him. That would be... five actions."

"What's your goal?"

"I guess my goal is to hit that guy without being hit, but I still want my Sneak Attack damage." To which I can say, you may have to make some sacrifices with your turn. You can always Long Jump over the opponent, sure, but you won't get that Feint before you Strike. You could play more risky and possibly get hit with the Reactive Strike to be able to Stride there, Feint, and Strike.

And once players grasp more of the rules and dig in deeper, these become less of issues at the table. Really, you typically only need one other person who has a bit more game knowledge at the table to help offer up some ideas (so long as they don't turn into the quarterback issuing orders). It sounds a lot like your players have looked at PF2 as "a game we know, but with slightly different rules" rather than "a quite dramatically different ruleset" and they haven't dug too deep into the Player Core/Core Rulebook. And it sounds like you're coming at this from a general game design theory standpoint, but aren't really connecting with the much more specific design elements at play here.

This can be tough in Pathfinder when so much is defined. I find that's good; rules over rulings, but it can feel restrictive.

This is a sentiment that gots tossed around a lot, which I understand when you look at a book full of rules and feats and see them all as exceptions or unknowns that you have to study, when it really isn't like that. At the end of the day, the game is always going to be "set a DC, roll to beat the DC," and the rules just make that easier. I'm not sure what sorts of things your group is asking to do, but generally most actions can be answered with an "Hmm, okay, give me a (skill) check," even if that's not entirely correct by the rules. I had a group set up a trap once where they tied a rope to a rickety joist in an crumbling building and stated they were going to "bring the house down" as soon as the enemy crept into the room. And just as in every edition of every TTRPG, I stared with dumbfounded shock for a moment before saying, "Okay, give me an Athletics check to see if this plan works." As always, the Level-based DCs chart and Simple DCs are your friend.

And something that really draws a lot of people to PF2e is that there are rules for that super cool thing they want to do. If that aspect feels like it's restraining your gameplay, you might be thinking too much about it or it could be a tough sticking point.

Dragons, high level planar creatures, liches, and other similar creatures should have options on the player's turns. I want Freezing Blood to be once per turn, not round as an action. I want other dragon's to have a similar ability. I would be fine if some of them don't start until the creature is bloodied. I want a lich power that instead of counterspell, they can take control of any targeted spells with an Arcana check. Something that shows their high INT. (Are there liches for divine and the other magic types? I would like that as well!) I'm surprised that dragons don't have a damaging aura. Something like Armor of Flames but no save and only damage, not persistent damage. I see these abilities as easily overcome with Resist Energy if they don't have items that give resistance.

Feel free to go wild with homebrew, there is literally no one stopping you. However, as someone who writes a lot of homebrew monsters, items, hazards, spells, and more... don't.

Yet.

Don't do it yet. Like I said, you're looking at this from a general game design perspective when PF2 does come from a different perspective. Already looking at what you're proposing and it's a sort of meshing of 4e and 5e ideas which are very much their own separate games. It's a bit like saying, "I really enjoy the pepporoni on pizza, so that might work out great on this chocolate sundae." And hey, it might work and be a unique taste that your group really digs, but if you're really digging into the design of the game I would sit down with the GM Core and go over encounter and monster design. Use the Combat Threats section and design some encounters in Low, Moderate, and Severe for your party. See how differently a Severe encounter versus a solo PL+3 opponent feels versus a Severe encounter with three PL creatures. Make a Low encounter that still forces the players to think strategically, even when their opponents are a PL-1 mook and its two PL-3 lackeys. Look up a rule you don't understand a put it in a game so you get to understand it better. (Worked with me and Stealth mechanics, and now my players know when it's time to start Seeking,)

To echo Errenor somewhat, you are still learning the system from the sounds of it, but it sounds like you're trying to force a square peg into a round hole. It doesn't matter that a PL+2 dragon doesn't feel like it deals a lot of damage - that's a Moderate encounter. Shift that dragon up a level (either by rebuilding it or adding the elite template) and suddenly the players are critically failing those saves more often and you'll see that the damage is where it needs to be.

Another month down and another 28 encounters finished up! I went off-script and made a short dungeon out of level 1 encounters just so that anyone could pick up what I'm doing and take it to a table right away (and because sometimes it's just fun designing little dungeons. Speaking of level 1, though - I happened to roll up an Extreme 1 encounter which I'm usually pretty against! After some fineagling with story, however, I did come up with something pretty satisfying.

But if you're looking for more high level encounters, I ended up making quite a bit! A battle against the armies of Hell (Severe 20), the defense of a number of Irorian monks from quelaunt invaders (Low 17), and even a particularly nasty trap within a sekmin fortress (Moderate 15).

The Master List and Google Drive remain unchanged and slowly fill up by the day! As always, if anyone has any sort of encounter they would like to see - let me know! It's always good to have an idea to build off of when my own start to dry up.

So speaking on tactics and the mechanics of PF2...

As several said, looking at tactical options and some of them don't make sense. With Off Guard via Flanking, and Flanking only coming from being opposite each other (I think there are exceptions to this by creature or feat), I think it's insane that a player would move their character to the other side of a creature. Yet the system seems to "demand" it to get that bonus. The rogue has done this a lot, because it "makes sense" for their abilities, but it also left them open to being flanked themselves.

I wouldn't say that the system "demands" the bonuses, but it does make higher-level encounters more manageable (and survivable) for PCs. That is to say, if your group is having fun and enjoying the mechanics that they are engaging with then there really isn't anything you need to change up. However, neglecting buffs and debuffs can make Severe and Extreme encounters slogs that can drag the pace of the game down. It's also important to note that flanking is good but, like every option in PF2, it has its drawbacks so players should consider their actions before committing to them.

For example, if I'm a rogue, I would obviously want an off-guard opponent and aim to get that whenever possible. A fellow melee martial makes that easy with flanking. However, maybe my opponents could just as easily flank me or my ally, making that an unattractive option. Or maybe we just don't want to end adjacent to this powerful creature! I have other options - each coming with their own drawbacks. I could Hide and Strike with ranged attacks. I could Sneak up and get my sneak attack that way. I could Feint before Striking. I could even Create A Diversion. Hey, I could even talk my fighter friend into specializing in swords or flails or just have a martial who loves to Trip an opponent. All of these provide ways to get what I want - some are selfish, but expose no other allies to danger. Others require more teamplay. Some are great for groups of enemies, while others require me to find cover or have outside assistance. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, really. Not every option will be perfect in every situation, which is why PF2 characters are encouraged to have a wide array of skills and abilities instead of hyper-focusing down one avenue. If the single strategy you employ is somehow made difficult, you need to be able to adapt.

On top of those issues, action economy and using actions "well" is definitely a thing with my players. They don't like Ready an Action costs two actions. (side question, can a caster never Ready an Action to cast a spell due to that? That's how I have been playing it but it really penalizes the casters.) I do agree that Delay needs to delay their entire turn, so glad it can only be done at the start of their turn, but my players don't like that. They want to delay during their turn because if they would get the rest of their actions later, it's better than Ready. I think non damaging actions having the Attack trait limits options as well. This could be my players not having success with Trip and not using it that much, if at all. They understand they have cost their opponent an action to stand up but their low success rate means they would rather attack to do damage, especially since it's about the same bonus.

First up, no you can't Ready a two-action spell (but you could Ready a single-action spell - like jump or even heal). I can understand casters feeling limited by this, but I have a funny example of why it's pretty necessary. I had spellcaster player who also hated the rule and petitioned against it. I tried out a session or two with his homebrew suggestion and before I knew it, he was shutting down the encounters with easy rank 1 spells. He could effectively double his range and turned spells like grease, hydraulic push, and tangle vine into full turn enders. It trivialized encounters. It's been discussed before and it's almost universally agreed to be a poor idea in terms of game design.

Now, when it comes to the Ready and Delay actions, like flanking, they are not universally the best choice at all times. Again, PF2 does not have a "winning strategy" - it has strategies that should be used to succeed. For instance, I very rarely have to Ready actions in your average combat. However, in situations where I can't effect things typically - like, say, fighting a quickling who can Stride 100 feet, Strike, and Stride away - then having a Readied action to put myself in a position where I can effect things is key. The same goes for Delay - though I would argue I use this more frequently because I might be playing a character who wants more set-up. Let's say I'm a hasted flurry ranger who happens to have a flaming rune on my blades. I might Delay so that my group can impose a fire weakness and Shove the enemy into range so that I can get the most out of my turn (inspired by true events). But that's an extreme example - PCs can even just Delay so that the bard can toss up a courageous anthem before Demoralizing the opponent, already swinging the math at least 2 points in their favor (or an increased 10% chance to hit/crit).

On the topic of players not engaging with these mechanics, they might not have a reason to. I'm not sure what level you're playing at, but you already pointed out that you could have played a dragon in such a way as to harass the group who had no recourse, but didn't (to keep the game fun). But they do have the ability to engage with the dragon, they just either didn't consider those actions, considered such a thing impossible, or assumed you would allow them to perform "their routines" as normal. I would say that one of the strengths of PF2 is forcing PCs out of their comfort zone and having them still be able to contribute meaningfully by playing smarter. "We're losing on action economy" stifles design here because if there's only one way your PC wants to approach an encounter, then there's very little need to engage with any of the other systems within the game. "This attack will fail, so I would rather attempt to deal damage - i.e. Death is the best condition" has been stated numerous times since the release and it's a big hurdle for those coming from PF1 or other systems. Death is the final condition, but it's not all that great if you can't actually get there. The +10/-10 crit system showcases just how important it is to focus on accuracy more than raw damage. Getting that -1 AC on an opponent from a whiffed fear spell can be the difference between a 10 damage hit and a 20 damage hit followed up by another 8 point hit. Athletics maneuvers are fantastic, but they still need to be used tactically. When I watch PFS players attempt to Grapple high Fortitude giants or Trip high Reflex skeletons, I always feel a little taken aback. I understand wanting to "do what my build excels at," but if the chance of failure is high, it does feel like a waste. Another reason why players give a lot of praise to the Recall Knowledge action.

Aid is also seen as a bad option or at least they don't use it often. I don't like how it's defined at all. Maybe it shouldn't be used in combat? If the DC scales, and they are already finding it tough to hit the opponent, they don't want to risk the penalty, even if it requires a critical failure. If it doesn't scale, I suppose it's a question of what the player thinks is the best use of their character's reaction. I guess in my mind, Aid has to scale with the difficulty of the task, or it should be a flat modifier they can give rather than rolled. I'm spending too much time thinking about Aid as I write this. There is something about it I don't like but can't quite figure out what.

The Aid DC doesn't really scale - it's nearly always 15. You can certainly make it scale up, but then players lose incentive to actually use it. It's also an action that is situational (again, like everything) and often forgotten. When I have players looking at their sheet with an action left and not wanting to make a -5 MAP attack, I tend to suggest setting up an Aid. It's typically a +1 bonus to an attack or skill, but at higher levels this is a +2. I mean, consider that you're bumping someone's proficency up a level, which is a massive boost. If that isn't a good visual, it's giving someone another 2 levels of accuracy at the cost of an action and a reaction. Again, something that doesn't look effective on paper, but is dramatically more useful when you think about it. "I could spend my last action on low-odds of accomplishing something, move away to get into a better position, or give my ally a bonus 10% chance to crit."

At the end of the day, if your group is enjoying the game without going deeper into the mechanics that make encounters more tactical and less luck-based, then... mission accomplished. Fun is the goal. But if players (yourself included) are left feeling like your choices don't matter, then you need to look at what choices you can make. As a GM, we can incentivize diversifying choices through our own encounter design. Against level 1 PCs, an ogre warrior can actually be an amazing encounter. Its got low Perception, meaning it's quite easy to Hide and Sneak around (heck, an entire party could Avoid Notice and skip the encounter entirely). Its Reflex and Will are lagging, making them susceptible to being Tripped and Demoralized. However, the ogre's damage output is insane and can easily take out a PC without doing anything special. This means a group that's paying attention would need to actively keep the ogre from getting to them through movement and debuffs. This will also quickly dissuade groups from the "tank and spank" strategy as even a shield-focused champion is going to eventually take a crit that blows through their shield and sends them to dying. All this while the massive HP pool of the ogre keeps them up a bit longer to acts as their combat teacher (and that 17 AC prevents any non-20 crits unless the PCs actually start inflicting conditions on it).

Actually, the more I think about it, a Moderate 1 encounter versus a single ogre warrior is a pretty good explanation of PF2 design in a nutshell. This is an easy fight that will absolutely kick the ass of a group who doesn't play tactically. Showcase even a bit of strategy and it suddenly becomes a cakewalk.

Ruzza wrote:

The math is tight, but both monsters and PCs can adjust that through their various actions. If it feels like everything comes down to a die roll, I would encourage you to look at more tactical options and how to design with those in mind.

Can you expand on what you think of as the tactical options? Are you talking about dragon as solo? Are you talking about within dragon as solo? (And yes there is no concept of solo monsters in PF2.)

"Tactical options" is a very vague term from me because it covers such a broad range of possibilities. I'll focus in more on what I said about die rolls feeling more important (which they are, of course, but coming from other editions, that's something I over emphasized as a knee-jerk reaction to the math).

First, I'm okay with calling things "solo" monsters because while there is no classification for them, they certainly exist. The GM Core even calls it out in the Combat Threats section. A solo monster is technically any monster that faces off against the group solo (typically a PL+2 or PL+3 creature), but what we really want is a creature that functions unsupported and can make for an interesting and deadly encounter on their own. And that's where the math feels like it comes down to luck - i.e. With a PL+3 creature having an AC that can only be hit on a roll of a 14 or higher or something akin to that, why wouldn't it just be a numbers game of how often we can roll to get above that 14?

As a player, I can alter those numbers through circumstance and status buffs and penalties. The most obvious of these are inflicting off-guard through flanking (unadvised when facing off against a creature that can spend its turn ripping apart anyone adjacent to them), making it frightened (not as reliable to do without magic or abilities), or getting it prone in some way. On the extreme end of things, you could swing the odds up to 8 points in your favor, but more realistically, you should aim for a 2 to 3 point swing on average. This means rolling scoring a hit with an 11 or 12 becomes more likely - more so if the effect lasts longer than a turn.

But that's just the raw numbers of hitting something. More importantly is actually considering what your actions do in an encounter. A solo creature like a white dragon can rip apart an adjacent opponent with a Draconic Frenzy before lifting off to fly away. Why should PCs let that happen? Players can also impact how effective an opponent is by simply moving away from enemies or positioning in ways that make attacking them beneficial to the group in the long run. I'm actually going to point at one of everyone's favorite actions in the game and ask people to consider what it does. Shield Block. Shield Block is good! But, after running PFS for years, I can't tell you the number of times I've seen it used inappropriately. Standing next to a solo opponent and that Shield Block comes up and... I suppose you might have prevented a critical! But it's just as likely that a PC could have moved into a better position to force the creature to spend actions moving and potentially put it in harm's way.

To say nothing of players stacking up their turns effectively using the Delay and Ready actions! Nothing like running around a corner to Ready an action to Trip an opponent who comes around the corner only to have your entire Delayed party leap out of the shadows!

This ended up being longer than I intended, and I was going to talk about how tactical thinking should look from the GM's side, but I think I can sum it up more easily. As a GM, it enhances the experience of everyone involved if you build encounters with these considerations in mind. Give PCs cover to Hide behind when the monsters have ranged attacks. Throw in difficult terrain that can be bypassed by carefully Balancing over a fallen tree. Add in areas of darkness so that PCs (or monsters) can exploit it to catch opponents off-guard. Play with line of sight to keep combat fluid.

I hope that doesn't sound preachy, but what I hope my core message should be is "The dice matter, but tactics matter more."

Let me phrase this another way. Are there game mechanics to bring down a flyer other than Trip? Called Shot? Damage to wings? I'm willing to allow my players to use a ranged weapon to inflict a status that stops a flyer from flying until they fix it. I'm wondering if it already exists.

As Maxim D'Ahmagge mentioned, there are a few ways to ground fliers through class feats. But I would call that an unsatisfactory answer because the follow up question will always be "What if they don't have that feat?" So more accurately, is there a general action that PCs have access to to bring down fliers?

The best answer here is that fliers can actually be brought down in a multitude of ways, it's just that it requires a little doing. Importantly, Fly has the Move trait, and if you can't Move, you can't fly. This means that any action that grabs or restrains a flier will cause them to fall if they do not escape the condition by the end of their turn. This includes Grappling, plenty of spells, and the occasional item. Heck, even a well-placed shot from a bow with the critical specialization can restrain an opponent (but not for long).

Also, while it's a bit of a cop-out answer, I have always enjoyed putting my melee characters into positions that forced fliers to engage with me in only one direction, such as in a cavern entrance, before Readying attacks to bring them low. But I also haven't seen too many players go in this direction because it feels like a bad trade off of action economy. However, after watching several PFS players spend their turns waiting rather than pulling out ranged weapons or moving into more advantageous positions, I would be willing to admit that it can be tricky to consider alternative tactical options in the moment.

It doesn't require the Trip trait. All it needs is a non-finesse two-handed weapon.

EDIT: Weapon in two hands. That does change things a little.

Just an addon. The idea is not only Breath and Fly. But Breath fly then Fly (going down), Strike, Fly (going up)... with only if the players have move reactions or ranged weapons/spells the dragon lands and fight them on land.

I should say that I consider this a non-issue as the Ready action does fine work here - even if PCs are just prepping Strikes and don't have access to Titan Wrestler. It's also a pretty awful trade-off in terms of action economy that we go back to "the PCs are given plenty of time to form countermeasures - even if that's just running and hiding." Three actions to hit once versus the party's - at worst - two actions to Strike once. That's assuming there's truly no one with any ranged capabilities.

Mainly, a medium, or small, sized creature being able to trip a dragon to bring them down! Again, that's the trade off for a fun game and so something I have to work to overcome in my mind.

That's definitely your perogative, but I would say that grappling or tripping larger creatures was possible in older editions, just difficult. Now in PF2, you do require a skill feat to be able to do so.

Something I'd like to add, as someone with a similar background spread across multiple decades and multiple systems, is to approach game design from a different angle. There are many in-grained habits that we as GMs have accumulated over various games, and trying to replicate them can slow a game down. Your example of multiple PL+2 giants (I'm assuming multiple) with the PCs having a PL-2 dragon ally is a good example - the dragon wouldn't be able to effect the giants with much at all with the level difference and the PCs are left with an (at least) Severe encounter in which a dragon occasionally comes to take a hit or two before going down.

That is to say, there are design sensibilities, but if you create encounters that don't showcase them or work counter to them, you may take away an impression of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. The math is tight, but both monsters and PCs can adjust that through their various actions. If it feels like everything comes down to a die roll, I would encourage you to look at more tactical options and how to design with those in mind.

Alright, I couldn't help myself re:Dragon talk. I've been making a ton of encounters lately and this idea got stuck in my head: Could a dragon just Fly and use its Breath Weapon only for an entire encounter?

So I sat down and made an encounter, not to show that a dragon could do that, but rather to show how both the dragon and the PCs are better off for that not being the optimal playstyle and how that happens mechanically.

Ooh, I love encounter design talk. Well, it’s monster design, but what we’re really looking at is how encounters involving dragons should be designed. Like you have correctly said, Pathfinder doesn’t have “solo monsters” in the sense of having a specific classification for them. However, nearly anything can function as a solo encounter - it’s just really a matter of it would make an interesting solo encounter. There’s nothing inherently fun about fighting an ogre who just spends the entire combat Striking and nothing else - they lack a lot of the interesting abilities to make such a big encounter actually worthwhile.

Dragons are, of course, interesting. While the topic at hand seems to be the white dragon, I do want to note that they’re from the “Premaster” days of chromatic dragons and we do have a nice new slew of dragons that are quite different from the color family and have stronger niches. But let’s stick with the white dragon to keep things simple - it’s not like they’re obsolete now!

Let’s start with encounter difficulty. You went with a Party Level + 2 (PL+2) creature versus your party, which makes this a Moderate encounter - difficult, but definitely doable. I would say that you get into the territory of “someone might go down here” in the Severe category of difficulty. This would mean a PL+3 solo creature - though that comes with a caveat that your players should have a good handle on the rules and their characters because the numbers are not skewed in their favor (even though the action economy is). They should be ready to buff up, debuff, and think tactically to overcome the opponent.

Which brings me to flight. I love flying enemies, even when I’m on the player side of the GM screen. However, this is where encounter design comes into play. If your group is walking through a flat plain with nothing around it, what can they do about a flying enemy who harasses them from afar? Why doesn’t the dragon just stay in the sky waiting for its Breath Weapon to recharge and blasting them while they run - especially if the group has no recourse (such as a ranged martial or spellcaster). That is a valid strategy and as a GM, I would run a creature that way, but I would never design an encounter that way.

A PL+3 creature is already a difficult challenge for a group, so I would give the group chances to solve the puzzle that is the dragon. Give them terrain to Hide + Take Cover behind. Give them chances to Climb up trees, ledges, crumbling masonry, whathaveyou and Ready actions to Leap onto the dragon as it gets close. Heck, have the encounter take place near an old ballista they can operate or even scatter a few nonmagical longbows on the ground.

I can be a bit of a brutal GM from time to time, and believe that if you’re at the level to fight dragon, you should have options for taking care of aerial enemies. That doesn’t mean, however, that I can’t provide the group with (less optimal) options.

But players can also use the system to their advantage as well! As an example, I was playing a level one Sparkling Targe magus in a PFS game against a number of flying opponents who would swoop down, attack me, and Fly away. I had no ranged options and was a sitting duck. When my turn came around, I ran away before Readying an action to Trip an enemy when they attempted to leave a space adjacent to me. The group, who Delayed, would then rush in to deal with the downed enemy.

I would 100% play dragons as the cunning, intelligent creatures they are - even the dumb ol’ bestial white dragon, that overgrown labrador - but I would also expect my players to showcase their talents and cunning as well, making certain that I don’t stack the deck against them.

Like I said, who wants to have an encounter against a boring opponent? Or the inverse, who wants to play as the boring PC who doesn’t have to think about the encounter?

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs5u49g?EncounterADay-2025

Check out Ruzza’s encounter a day thread. Its pretty neat.

Thanks for the shoutout! These have been fun putting together and are still coming out every day!

Edit: I want to add that I try to make sure that each encounter is more than just "creatures in a room," and give GMs some interesting ways to approach how the encounters play.

It's 2025 and I thought I'd try out a bit of a fun challenge for myself for the new year. Ive always enjoyed sitting down and putting things together for Pathfinder - conversions, homebrew, and adventure, but to be entirely honest, my time is stretched thin as a dad with two kids, full time job, running four PF groups, and being there for my family. So I decided to take what I love and turn it into a bite-sized challenge: one encounter a day!

The goal here is create one encounter (of a random level and difficulty) every single day for 2025, and it's been going well so far! I've put together a battle versus a very addled and confused dragon, a snipers' roost of hyrngar, and even an airship battle. Of course, that's just the start as we've had thirty-one days of encounters in January and more coming in February.

There's a link to the Google Drive collection here as well as the "Master List" of encounters created so far here. I hope that there's something here for everyone and that you can find something to pick up and use in your games, even if it's just an idea that you'd prefer to rewrite into something better and well-written ...more suited to your tastes!

And if anyone has any encounters they'd like to toss in, I'd love to make something like a "Community Folder" of encounters to share as well!

Yeah, I think I'm siding with the thread when the topic shifts from "here's a great way to deal damage" to "here is an optimal way to deal damage (and why you shouldn't do X)". It's tough when you run a game, especially in Organized Play, and someone tells another player that they made their character wrong because it's not good enough. The recent thread on Fury Barbarians is a pretty good example of that. I recently had a new player join a group of mine and say "I wanted to play a sorcerer, but I read that spellcasting was bad for damage, so I decided on a fighter instead." It was a little disheartening.

Super Zero wrote:

You can do pvp single encounters (like an arena game--I've done that), but I can't see how anything else would be possible. They'd have to be entirely separate games for everything but that one encounter. With pbp games especially, the passage of time is going to diverge wildly between the two campaigns.

Just wanting to read a pbp where the “monster” side was truly playing to survive.

Thought it would be interesting and a more pure “realistic” pbp

While certainly not fitting into your criteria, my Play-By-Post server does regularly save all of our completed games as PDFs and I think our GMs do a good job of playing monsters realistically.

Here's one of our games from way back in 2022 - spoilers for PFS Year of Shattered Sanctuaries.

Phew, that sounds like one heck of a project if someone has undertaken it.

I primarily run Play-By-Post games and while a similar idea has crossed my mind, the logistics get pretty messy pretty quickly. In these sorts of games, roleplay tends to go fast and furious without players needing to worry about turns or permission, but slows down dramatically when it comes to round-by-round encounters. Across five players, this isn't terribly bad with one player handling the bulk of the encounter math, but I imagine the logjam gets much worse with nine or more.

There's also the issue of how involved saving throws, adjudicating rules, map placement, and the like could get. When running these long form games, there's definitely times of "oh, we need to retcon that - I wasn't aware things worked that way," which can be tough in a slow format, but lessened when the impact is typically limited to the GM's creatures. Having that happen with to other players could be another thing altogether.

Sorry! I don't mean to come off as a negative Nancy, but it seems like a very simple idea at first that is surprisingly more difficult than it looks. I really wish you the best in finding this!

Thank you Charon. My group uses this sheet a lot and it's great to see it is being updated still.

Wanted to also add on that this is both my favorite sheet and that we have an entire server that runs off of Charon's sheet and it's so good to see it still going strong.

That's actually a great question.I feel like you somewhat have to push players to invest into the subsystem. My knee-jerk response is to say item bonus, but the case for circumstance is more compelling just because it would apply more and we want to encourage the PCs to use their base.

As someone who makes a lot of NPC stat blocks (and made a ton more in PF1), building out an NPC like a monster is so very much more freeing. Like...

But there is a weird niche use that's in between, where I might want to make a loyal NPC companion, say a traveling chef that levels up with the party, perhaps a few levels behind, or even a few levels ahead.

This is just an NPC that I stat out like a monster. I can even have some fun with it and give them an ability like "[Reaction] I've Eaten You Before! Trigger: An ally within 30 feet uses a Recall Knowledge check on an animal you have cooked with. Effect: Roll Cooking Lore to Aid the check."

Like, I can't remember the last time I've built an NPC using PC rules because I have never, ever needed the multitude of options that a PC has on an NPC. To make an NPC stand out, I've only ever needed one or two abilities to sell their personality along with a handful of skills. This is something that's already handled beautifully in the system. I can't really imagine there would be dedicated page space for "a class that PCs should not use" because that's fairly antithetical to how PF2 has been designed.

I wrote a few too many words about some of my experiences in the past and a rough outline of how this could take shape. I have the doc set so that anyone can comment, and would love to see more ideas!

(Also I wrote this hours ago and I think it's funny that both you and I considered Irrisen having a problem with nobility).

LINK

You've pretty much described the plot of Lodge of the Living God (which takes place in Razmiran), so if you haven't checked that out, I'd give it a read through! To summarize, PFS agents are asked to establish diplomatic relations with Razmiran and build a lodge near one of their small communities (complete with suspicious NPCs you have to win over).

There are twists to the adventure and, overall, it's a fantastic idea, but one that feels constrained by Organized Play more than anything. At the table, a lot of the adventure felt like making repeated Crafting checks with little rising tension. So something like this would be a great idea to revisit, take the framework of, and write to pace better.

I've run the scenario a few times and it's given me a few opinions on how I would expand this out if you don't mind me tossing up an outline sketch sometime after work/dad-time.

Well alright then, it sounds like a great idea then! I don't know about how you set things up when you plot out adventures, but if you need to spitball ideas, I'd love to contribute!

It's all really good, honestly - you just have to make sure that all of these systems work to the benefit of the game and the story. When I did this (once for Abomination Vaults and then another small attempt for Strength of Thousands), my players all went "Hey, this is neat!" and then... well, they went ahead with the story because that part of the game didn't really hold their interest or I couldn't really tie it close enough to the story we were telling.

It was like offering up a side dish to a meal that they already enjoyed. "Hey, this is great, thank you for it, but I'm already really digging this main course."

I mean, there are - you know your group best. But I wouldn't consider that a large enough portion to change or alter how much of the game handles PCs and NPCs.

A sort of campaign where the PCs act as the heroic owners and defenders of a trading post? Build up a community, undertake work to defend it, slowly unravel the plot of a rival group (Aspis Consortium, perhaps?), all while making trade deals and negotiating with powerful forces.

I mean, I could totally get behind something like that.

Yeah, I suppose I personally don't like the "Look I've built this NPC using the same rules as all of you!" especially in the case of Lady Aldori. My players don't want their limited play time spent watching me show off by having my NPCs fight other NPCs. I describe the action, but keep the spotlight on my players.

Thinking more on it, such a system would probably end up firmly in the realm of Downtime and revolve around that system.

• Allowing you to create facilities that make Retraining easier/faster.
  
• Creates opportunities to Earn Income using alternative skills.
  
• Speedier or less costly or perhaps more reliable Learn A Spell activities.
  
• Even facilities that could impact your starting attitudes to NPCs who are brought to the location.
  

I think this could be a fantastic subsystem, but one that likely has its place in a very specific type of game. I actually would love to take another stab at something like this using a lot of lessons I've learned over the years (I think my previous attempt was when Abomination Vaults came out). I think the best way to get the idea off the ground, though, is to introduce a type of game or setting where this is desired.

We actually have a few systems like that, though they could certainly stand with being fleshed out more. Lodge of the Living God in Season 1 PFS is perhaps a great (if egregiously unfun) example of this as is the fortress mechanics of Age of Ashes.

I've done some of my own with homebrew, but something concrete could take shape with some effort.

So after talking about effective characters for far longer than is actually necessary, I thought it'd be fun to hear what sort of "terrible, awful, no good" builds that we've got out there. You don't necessarily have to have played these characters, but it would be nice if you could tell us a bit about how they work so we get an idea.

To get the ball rolling, I've pretty much always been a wizard fan and have played around with so many numerous wizards at this point that I have practically abandoned any reasonable way to approach the class, so here is my "muscle wizard."

Ancestry: Hold-Scarred Orc

We're going to want hit points and that Diehard feat. Part of this build is going down, but not staying down. We can grab up ancestry feats like Orc Ferocity, Defy Death, and Undying Ferocity to just stay in the fight as well as survive when our terrible plan goes sideways.

Class: Wizard

I really like the wizard when viewing them as a massive toolbox of tricks. Since the release of the game, one of my favorite tricks has always been Jump and plenty of ways to hamper enemy movement. Especially if they're lacking spell saves! Because...

We're not really using our Intelligence.

We're grabbing up Strength to 16, maxing out that Athletics at every turn and dumping Intelligence to the wayside. Who needs opponents to fail saves? We're just going to use spells that work regardless! This means throwing up walls, creating difficult terrain, and buffing ourselves (or even those smaller, less-strong people that sometimes join us for adventures).

We go with Staff Nexus so that we can churn those higher level spell slots into batteries for our "jump stick" (or, I suppose you can consider it a staff overflowing with charges used for jumping around). We grab up the Mauler Dedication so that we can eventually get Slam Down so that we have an option to heroically jump into battle and knock an enemy prone to protect our incredibly squishy armor-covered champion. Until level 4, of course, we can just keep a hand free so that we can play around with all sorts of little Athletic shenanigans as we utilize our mobility to outfox our opponents.

Generally, this is a character that works best with a group that wants someone to control the battlefield, but may need that bit of magical assistance as well. Being able to change the rules to the encounter and then break those very rules the next is really quite fun and - with the right group - can actually trivialize certain opponents.

Just make sure to keep an extra trick or two up your sleeves to deal with flyers (or as we call them - cheaters).

I think it's a test that could be run, in theory, but realistically it's not something worth the effort to test. The best use of this idea would be to think of the toughest tables and GMs you've experienced and ask yourself if your build would thrive in that environment. In practical terms this means that different players will find different things viable as a PFS only player will have a very different experience than a player who plays hard APs with a killer GM.

So like I said, it really just means it's not something that I can see as measurable. "Can this character survive a killer GM?" I mean, the answer is always going to be yes and no. I've killed optimized characters and have survived killer GMs. I've also had games where there was never going to be a chance - with a GM handing unwitting players cursed items to start and stranding them in a land where no one speaks the same language. We're veering into the realm of "video game simulationism" where we are trying to measure an incredibly subjective game. Even with the most objective boundaries, there are such an abundance of variables that it becomes untenable.

As for what I'd find "unplayable" that would be anything with AC or saves more than two points below max, that is the same threshold behind on attacks or saving throws, or a build that does the same thing as another build but worse. This means that I'd be unlikely to play a Wizard, Oracle, Investigator, Alchemist, Swashbuckler, Gunslinger, or Inventor as I don't see their flavor upside or mechanical texture as doing enough to offset bring worse than other classes the broadly fill their sane niche.

This to me was more interesting because it skews away from "feasible" to "optimal," but it sounds like - to you - unoptimized play is unplayable. I mean, we all have class preferences (I don't really vibe with the class fantasy of inventor, personally), but calling them personally unplayable for mechanical reasons is sort of the thing that I was bringing up earlier.

Having set requirements for a character ends up feeling very limiting. It's not a problem on a personal level, but it's disheartening to see happen at a community level.

I mean, a definition like that gets really weird then, right? We have to figure out what the "least favorable AP by class" would be while ruling out home games. And then it varies on a GM by GM basis. It also means that characters who ARE considered optimal shouldn't be failing this test as well. Then we have a variable of what their party is doing and... like, I see what you're trying to say, but it doesn't click for me as something you can just measure and judge.

Obviously things like "a merfolk barbarian in Strength of Thousands" wouldn't exactly be feasible in that setting, but even then the game allows for such characters to work and be effective. What do you see as a character that isn't feasible?

EDIT: Follow up question, do you see there being a build that you just wouldn't allow at your tables because it underperforms? I mean this as a player or a GM.

The issue is that your definition is so broad that short of games that let you literally cripple or kill your character in chargen, you could say anything is 'feasible' so long as it's buildable.

You may be misunderstanding me - while I do think it's truly difficult to make an unplayable build in PF2, you certainly could in the 3.X/PF1 days even if it was a solid idea. Dumb ideas like "a character with a 1 level dip in everything" were unplayable. Characters built to grab up grab up "social prestige classes" couldn't function outside of specific campaigns. I mean, there's even the debate of a pure martial being playable in PF1 if you have even a halfway decent spellcaster negating your existence (not something I agree with necessarily).

I say that to illustrate where I am coming from. If I have a concept, it's most likely going to work in PF2. Will it be optimal? Probably not. Will it be feasible? Probably!

So your qualifier for "feasible build" involves player skill and expectation. To put it more succinctly, your definition of "feasible" looks like:

"A build that works without requiring a higher level of knowledge of the game's systems."

I don't think that's a bad definition, especially if you want to involve a more nebulous sort of measurement like "player skill." But I do wonder if it rules out entire classes like the wizard or alchemist.

I also don't know that we've explored "not feasible" within this thread as the OP has created five categories (which have mostly gotten ignored, if we're being honest): Optimal, High Performing, Feasible, Low Performing, and Unplayable. Going by the inclusion of player skill into the equation, it seems like what you woul see as "not feasible" would be a build that can work with a deeper understanding of the game.

We may just never agree on these things as my definition removes the actual player understanding of the rules. What you call a "not feasible build" could be "feasible" to me because the math and rules of the game allow it to.

I mean the thing is "an Intelligence-based barbarian who does Recall Knowledge checks" is not an unplayable build. It's not optimal, but I would call it feasible. It can be done amd a player who wants that can have a lot of fun. A barbarian who wants to be the best at Recall Knowledge may have to adjust their expectations away from "optimal" to "feasible."

A player who is making these choices with no goal or intention is a separate problem from the build. I don't know what you'd want to talk about. We can just lambast players for not reading the rules, but is that really fruitful? What do you want this line of thinking to move into?

So is the problem with the build or the player? And what are we discussing here?

Wizard however can be low performing with spell selection having so much range.

I wouldn't disagree with this, but it's also - thankfully - easier to change without dealing with Downtime and Retraining. Wizards have the benefit of being able to have a low performing spell list one day and change it out after a night of rest. Sorcerers and other spontaneous casters will have to stick with those spell selections until they have the Downtime to Retrain. Depending on the GM/game, this could be a bit trickier.

Frankly speaking if you play to your class and feat choices it's hard to be unfeasible, hence why it's frustrating to be told 'but what if they player knows what they're doing' because in PF2e that's good enough. So long as your martial picks a weapon usable with their feats and features and don't +0 their to hit they'll be fine.

I haven't been trying to pull a "gotcha" with anything I've said. Like, if we are starting from a position of someone who doesn't know the rules of the game then the problem isn't the build, but the player so that's a different topic, right?

We could spend pages upon pages talking about poor performing builds, but if it turns out that it was just a player who randomly assigned every choice and never learned the rules of the game that they play X number of hours a month, then what is even the discussion? Like... don't do that, I guess.

I even stated on the first page:

I would be hard pressed to find anything unplayable, even purposefully.

And while you reiterate that you're saying that statline ensures a feasible character 90% of the time, I'd like to reiterate that I disagree in that it seems, to me, to be an overstatement. I also have not said that I would ever change a game to accommodate a lower performing character, though I have often on these forums encouraged GMs to adapt their games to help their player concepts shine (like providing Linguists a chance to Decipher and translate or characters heavily-invested in Survival to handle environmental Hazards and track enemies).

I've already given my definition of "feasible" to be a character who accomplishes what they set out to do. The scenario you've given doesn't fall into that - a player with no goal or idea. I see two situations in which a player like this would arrive at my table:

1) This is a player in a home game, in which case, their character concept would come out in session 0 and we can work together to guide that closer to what they want.

2) This is a player who has shown up to a PFS game and I could provide advice as to getting their concept closer to what they want after the game and then talk about how that can function within the Organized Play rules.

But I keep going back to saying that we should stop using clueless players who are scattershotting ability scores without any reference. The game as a whole assumes that the players know the rules and if we aren't assuming that either than we're just creating effigies to mock. If a wizard player dumps Int in favor of Cha, why would we assume they don't know what they're doing? Knowing nothing other than their choices, the idea that "they are wrong" comes from this idea that characters have to fit certain criteria to be "feasible" and rejects the idea that a player has made these choices with intent.

It just keeps looping back to "Sure, it could be feasible, but I know a better (optimal) way to play because of these criteria."

I'm speaking from what I have seen in numerous online and real space games. I'm not saying that this is "every member of the community says this," but because you are not seeing this does not mean that it isn't an actual thing. Our experiences, separate as they are, do not negate one another.

Here's the rules for Non-Combat Level as a point of reference, but I feel like it doesn't really paint the picture too well without more concrete examples.

It really boils down to "NPCs and PCs have different roles in both the story and gameplay," and trying to move one into the realm of the other is something that has already been done or the system really won't support.

Like a PC who wants to "take NPC levels" (i.e. improving on non-adventuring skills) already has those options through skill feats, archetypes, various Lores, and even just good ol' roleplaying. They can improve on these skills to become amazing at them, too, and they should very likely come into play in the game. It would be rather unfortunate to play as a master Linguist only to never use the ability, but that's a bit on the GM to accommodate.

Likewise, an NPC who wants to be statted out like a PC can be done, but they'll run into the artificial game limitations that PCs run into that keep the game balanced. This means that to have a legendary smith, that NPC should be at least level 15, which makes for very odd verisimilitude when trying to justify why these incredibly powerful NPCs are just doing small forms of labor around the world. So the rules allow for NPCs to act as they are intended to in a game setting - challenges or allies with their own level appropriate skills that are measured apart from the trappings of player-choices.

This whole conversation loops back around to why I find the "you require X, Y, and Z to be feasible" to be uninteresting. It shuts down character concepts before they can even begin. That's not to say that others can't play that way, but when it becomes holy writ it's frustrating.

A witch with the Dandy archetype and a high Charisma is a fully-functional and feasible character. It's not even on some low scale of "can't do anything it sets out to do." But because that CON/DEX/WIS lags, it's called a liability because "the math is so tight," which is an accurate statement, but is not the whole picture.

These little catechisms get circulated around the community until it goes from "Yeah, you might take a bit more damage from a nasty save," to "This character cannot function because they will be dead." It negates player agency and choice and also makes a game that we love look like a pile of incredibly difficult math. As someone who regularly gets new players into games, the reputation that Pathfinder is one wrong number away from impossible is frustrating to have to surmount, especially when it leads to confirmation bias after poor play or poor luck.

To me, this is just saying "you should be happy with having to invest way more to match a different character that isn't investing nearly as much, and you only match them before they bump their proficiency."

Before this gets lost in the weeds, the concept isn't "the best at Deception," it's "a witch who is the best at Deception." If a player tells me they want to play a witch who is really good at Deception, I would assume they would want the witch part of their concept more than "incredibly deceptive."

And you are potentially comparing against a character who isn't there. Like, if you have two people in the party angling to be the face character and one happens to be a Charisma-based class, well, yeah - maybe there should be a discussion at the table. But a player who wants to play a witch and sees a role needing to be filled ("Wait, we don't have anyone with Deception? Yeah, I can play in that space.") doesn't mean that they aren't feasible or that they should play something else to fill some optimized criteria.

If it's objectively quantifiable, how do you define "optimal" and "feasible"? Because we can see in this thread that making such nebulous terms something that people can agree on is quite difficult.

I have always seen "optimal" as the best choice in a set of actions. This means an optimal character would have the "correct" ability scores, feats, skills, and defenses within a given concept.

I see "feasible" as a concept that can contribute effectively to the game. A feasible character does what it sets out to do - be it a fighter with face skills, a gun-slinging monk, or a melee witch. Concessions could have been made to make the all around play experience smoother, but it works.

And not that it's been mentioned much, but I see "unplayable" as a character that can't do anything it sets out to do effectively. A wizard who wants to use illusions, but dumped Int and focused on Str (a poor understanding of the rules), a cleric who wants to shoot guns as well as the gunslinger (should likely be steered towards a gunslinger with a cleric or medic dedication depending on how they want to accomplish their concept), or a character that can just do everything (expectations are out of line with how the game functions).

I mean, these sort of exist already in that they are firmly in the realm of the GM. We don't stat out NPCs like this, instead giving them levels and the occasional skill that exist to help ground their role in the story. This means that the old days of "level 15 expert" are gone to be replaced with "Greg, innkeeper 15; Society +28, Local Town Lore +28."

I mean, the thing is, PF2 has moved away from "dipping into talent" - there isn't anything like grabbing a level or two of something (not that it anyone dipped NPC classes in PF1 or 3.5, to the best of my knowledge). It just doesn't mesh with the system. You'd be proposing a class that exists only on the player side that specifically acts as an NPC, which function on different rules. Instead, however, we have skill boosts to explain PC growth in skilled areas as well as dedications like "Wandering Chef," "Dandy," or "Linguist."

I'm just not sure what NPC classes would bring to the table that wouldn't be able to be replicated by just an actual PC or a dedication, all the while fitting into the gameplay of PF2.

Are we talking past each other? Because I have not said "every character is going to be some level of optimal," but rather that with effort near everything can be feasible. I have also asserted that saying "you require X, Y, and Z to be effective" is something that I disagree with.

I have not said "players should pick anything with zero guidance and zero understanding of the rules." The GM is there as an arbiter of the game and the rules themselves act as a way to help players achieve the vision of their character. Saying "you can't just make any character and call it a day" implies either:

A) The player does not understand the rules - i.e. I want to make a spellcasting fighter who can fight as well as he casts spells.

B) There is no GM to guide players in their decision-making - i.e. I want to make a mastermind rogue focused on social intrigue in a game revolving around wilderness survival.

I don't think that we can measure "doesn't feel amazing to play," but I also don't think we can accurately measure optimal and feasible. In my mind, nearly any character can be feasible with the right play and the right group. But my idea of fun focuses on the story aspect of the game, which includes character death, so my fun may not be equivalent to another poster's. So when it comes to "this character satisfies me when I sit down to play them," I feel like that's quite separate from "is a feasible character."

In a previous comment, I brought up a character that I would never, ever in my life ever want to play. I think that most people would not be satisfied playing that character and any GM would be encouraged to give that player a full rebuild. It worked at doing the thing it wanted to do, which was provide a good experience for the player who could still contribute not only to the story and exploration, but to encounters as well. It was a feasible character, but to me - personally - it was unplayable because I would not be satisfied playing that character.

Ruzza wrote:

A player who intends to make a character in such a way is assumed to understand the cost. Otherwise, we aren't talking about feasible characters, but players who don't understand the game.

I feel like that's a big thing to assume or handwave, especially when you yourself mention that some players you encounter have a bad impression of Pathfinder specifically because of that gap. Clearly a huge part of the problem is a gap in understanding. So no we really shouldn't assume that, because high system mastery players making weird builds on purpose is a very very small subset of people this discussion is relevant for.

Maybe I should rephrase:

"If we're going to have a discussion about feasible characters - we should assume a baseline of knowledge or else we're just going to boil points down to system mastery."

A player who does not know the rules of the game are players that will face hurdles regardless of their character.