Ruzza's page

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.

Since it's come up in the thread, the Strength Witch thread is something I weighed in on and it's important that "intent" was what I addressed.

So I had a player using a "muscle witch," in the Premaster days in a game of The Slithering. It was wildly successful, though it may not be the exact sort of witch you're looking for. I don't have their build on hand, but they were an orc Curse witch who stayed just behind the champion swinging a meteor hammer and generally using a combination of Evil Eye, occult buffs, trips, and Cackles for action economy. It was amazingly devastating, but the champion on the team did also pick up Attack of Opportunity which made for nasty set 'em up, knock 'em down combos.

It seems that you're looking more for the brute force of damage dealing, which is not something I have experience with. I'm sure it could be done, but don't neglect the rest of your toolkit!

The poster was looking to use a necksplitter in melee combat, which is definitely more difficult to achieve if your intent is to compliment or use the witch's abilities. There are better classes to get the most of this concept. The concept is likely not going to be fulfilled and would hardly be called optimal, but it COULD feasibily be done, so long as expectations are managed.

It sounds like you're linking "intent" and "optimal play."

A witch who intends to be very good at Deception will be, at most, a single point behind a sorcerer who wants to be THE BEST at Deception. That's feasible. Not optimal.

A witch who intends to be THE BEST at Deception will be hampered only by their singular class ability boost missing, but can still be THE BEST within their group. A feasible concept.

Now, take that and expand it out and you are saying "I am willing to take the hit to a saving throw/the expense of other skills to achieve this." Feasible as a character, not optimal when viewed as a whole (if you see optimal builds are requiring maxed saving throws at every point).

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 mentioned new players only as a reference point to the reputation that we as a community have grown around our game. "Pathfinder is a game of optimal numbers," which it isn't. "Pathfinder is a game of illusory choices," which it isn't. "Pathfinder is too difficult because of the knowledge needed to make a feasible character," which it isn't. It's disheartening to see the same things tossed out in a thread specifically talking about the difference between "optimal" and "feasible."

I stress, we have to assume that players making characters understand the rules to the game they are playing. A spellcaster without spellcasting ability is not built to cast spells and I wouldn't assume that's their goal. If they state "I want to be great at spells and at melee," then you can say, you will have to make concessions.

That's something at least worth discussing with new players. In a home game I'm going to make accommodations regardless, but in more rigid settings I've seen people show up with characters like that, always go last, fail lots of saves, and then decide they'd rather just play a less hostile tabletop.

I have never said, "Don't make recommendations to your players, let them go in blind," but I do object to broadly saying "Feasible characters require X, Y, and Z." Even in my original post, I did say that I had a player who opposed my recommendations. We are assuming, in good faith, players that understand the rules to the game - new or not.

snip

I think the example of a character who purposely makes choices to make their character harder to play (a Charisma dumping, Strength maxing sorcerer) isn't what I was talking about. I mean, a character who can't cast their spells is likely not the character they want to play (if they are still choosing spells with save DCs). However, that's not to say the build is poor out of hand, just that it can't be used in the way.

If a player were making a character this way, I wouldn't assume they were going to play heavily invested in spells and had a concept that required those abilities. It is feasible, but not optimal. You even said as such and then veered into why it should aim towards "optimal" when that wasn't the point.

You can sus out 90% of feasible characters by just looking for a few key points:

See, I think I just disagree with this fundamentally - asking that players build in specific ways to be "feasible." This leaves us with a "Con, Dex, Wis, and KAS" cookie cutter that gets brought out at character creation and leaves little wiggle room for player input. It feels like a starting from mechanics and working backwards to a concept which clashes with what so many people come to the hobby for.

I run PFS and am a big advocate for PF2 and when I get new players (especially players coming from another popular game), then tend to say "I have been told that PF2 is very restrictive and I have to do X, Y, and Z." While this is good advice (keeping an eye on your defenses, having a plan for your actions, etc) it's an unnecessary barrier when the game functions just fine without checking these boxes.

These boards will also offer up a variety of answers that run the gamut based on their preferred playstyles. Like pH unbalanced I like to look at lesser-used builds or "weak" options and work them into full characters that utilize them to the best of their ability.

But there is a not insignificant portion of the forums that are looking to get the most out of every number and option, which certainly isn't a bad way to play! The language of "optimal/feasible/unplayable" should help to differentiate the goals of play here. Someone wanting a character that fits their concept (using the melee witch as an example) is likely not looking for "optimal" but rather "feasible." As we saw in the thread, it's certainly a feasible idea, even if they won't be "top of the game."

I would be hard pressed to find anything unplayable, even purposefully. I had a player show up to his first game of PF2 and did the opposite of everything I recommended for his first game. He made a catfolk wizard with the summoner dedication and leaned heavily into the fey spellcasting aspect of the eidolon while aiming to be a melee powerhouse with a scythe. His only spells prepared boiled down to Create Water and Shocking Grasp (which was snubbed in favor of Striking). It was a wildly underperforming character, but the player showed up to every session and all of the players had a great time.

Like, at the core of it, that's what so much of character builds come down to: will I have fun playing this with other people? If I derive joy from doing "the most" across the board, then I would lean towards optimized characters. But I feel like feasible and fun often gets forgotten when we talk about play.

EDIT: To add, that catfolk wizard played in an Abomination Vaults game and didn't even manage to die! There's another meta layer there of "difficulty decided by community" being altered between personal experience.

So I had a player using a "muscle witch," in the Premaster days in a game of The Slithering. It was wildly successful, though it may not be the exact sort of witch you're looking for. I don't have their build on hand, but they were an orc Curse witch who stayed just behind the champion swinging a meteor hammer and generally using a combination of Evil Eye, occult buffs, trips, and Cackles for action economy. It was amazingly devastating, but the champion on the team did also pick up Attack of Opportunity which made for nasty set 'em up, knock 'em down combos.

It seems that you're looking more for the brute force of damage dealing, which is not something I have experience with. I'm sure it could be done, but don't neglect the rest of your toolkit!

I'm trying to grasp the entire system, transitions between "modes" included, and I think that I learn better while actively trying the rules by myself, call it "learning by messing up", if you will.

I think that's a great idea and I don't think there would be anyone actively opposing it or anything! I'd love to answer as many questions as you may have.

About the scenes using creatures interacting with creatures instead of player characters and creatures, I think that it is more interesting this way, and, to use player characters I would have to actively build them, which is another problem in itself.

It's totally okay to do, but you just likely won't get the answer you're looking for with NPCs because the system isn't really designed to accomodate NPC stats in place of PC stats (like you can see with two dire wolves being a more difficult challenge for a single owlbear than an owlbear would be for the dire wolves). PCs are the presumed winners of encounters with the NPCs being out hapless casualties.

Now it's more complicated, but there are the free to use Pregenerated Character Sheets that can get you closer to what a sample combat would look like. I did mention that the Play-By-Post forums would be a good place to cut your teeth as well if you don't want all the math and decision making to be on your end (but I imagine that's a bit more of a commitment than you may be looking for). I, myself, run quite a number of Play-By-Post games and would be happy to throw up a mock combat thread to go through some things with you if you'd like, though!

Now, for the anwsers, so, if they were in Exploration Mode, wolf1 can't help wolf2 with its "Avoid Notice" test? In the action is explained that your check is both used to Avoid Notice and to Initiative.

So, I guess the conversation I would have at a table would go something like this:

Wolf 1 Player: I'd like to call out a warning to Wolf 2. Is that an Aid?

Well, what were you doing before the Owlbear spotted you?

Wolf 1 Player: I was sniffing the air for dangers.

Wolf 2 Player: And I was laying low, hunting.

Okay, since the Owlbear spotted you both, initiative would get rolled right now. You don't really have the space for an action and a reaction to do so, but since you were Scouting, you will both get the +1 circumstance to your initiative. Wolf 2, as you were Avoiding Notice, you also get to roll Stealth for initiative and will remain unnoticed or hidden depending.

Like, I think the issue would be that Aid (something you can definitely do in Exploration mode) is something that you set up to do and combat is really started quite quickly - typically just when one force notices the other.

Consider a band of thieves sneaking into a vault, each Avoiding Notice. They see a guard and now the GM has to determine if the guard has noticed them. The guard rolls Perception while the thieves all roll Stealth for Initiative and then the scene gets described. There isn't any room for the thieves to give each other a high-sign in terms of an Aid action. The term "Scout action" might be a bit of a misnomer as it's more of an "Alert" sort of action - ever ready and on-guard, ready to keep your party members on the balls of their feet.

So while I don't really see anything prohibiting an Aid action on an initiative check, I also don't see how it could be done in terms of action cost.

Let's take a look here! I'm not sure that a mock NPC vs NPC battle is going to be the best way to review/learn the rules as they function quite a bit differently than PCs (moreso than they did in PF1), but we can take a looksee.

By extrapolation on the rules for encounters for PCs, a Owlbear (Creature Level 4) should be a Severe encounter for the Dire Wolves.

I think this would be the first snag in terms of "yesssssss... but probably not?" That is to say that the Encounter Building guidlines take into account the PCs will have plenty more actions and abilities in combat that dial in the difficulty correctly. To better illustrate it, if you reversed the point of view and the player perspective was the Owlbear, the two Dire Wolves would be a beyond Extreme encounter.

In game terms, it will use the Aid action to assist the other Wolf in its Stealth check. Is that allowed for Initiative checks?

I don't believe that you can Aid Initiative. With the three modes of play (Downtime, Exploration, and Encounter), Initiative acts as the transition from Exploration to Encounter which makes it a tricky thing to prepare for. As in, if you are preparing for combat, you're likely entering Encounter mode and thus need Initiative. Thankfully, there is an easier solution for PC-facing actions, which is the Scout exploration activity.

So to keep everything you've done so far kosher, it's fairly easy to treat the wolves as each using the Exploration Activities Scout and Avoid Notice.

What is it that you're looking to work on, out of curiosity? I didn't want to interrupt what you're doing, but if you're looking for input or insight, there are plenty of knowledgable people on the forums. If you're looking to just test out a game, there are plenty of Play-By-Post games here on the Paizo site or on separate servers - and I'm sure there would be plenty of people ready and willing to run a slower paced game to help figure out rules questions. It also solves the "solitaire problem" of doing this alone.

Also chiming in with Staff Nexus is amazing (it's my go to for DPR wizards), but wanted to give feedback on the proposed homebrew thesis.

Magic Flow is insane. Putting aside the nitpick of "Spell DCs" as opposed to all DCs, you'd be giving wizards a MASSIVE swing in accuracy in a system that already accounts for that not being there. For the cost of two actions, you're bumping up your DCs by a whole proficiency by level 5 and going beyond some wild super mega legendary by level 20. To put it in perspective - this would be outclassing not just other spellcasting accuracy and reliability, but fighter accuracy with their one chosen weapon. This would be amazing reliability with (nearly) every spell.

At that point it goes from "an Arcane Thesis option" to "absolutely mandatory." That's not even getting into a save-less debuff that practically neuters any spellcaster. At two actions, it just feels like an unfun action tax, too. Like, it's powerful so it can't really be a free action or even one action, but to lose practically your whole turn at the start of every combat (because you will be using this in every combat) is just not a fun mechanic. Now, I personally oppose a Theory that is just "numbers but more," but there's a joke that my group has about Wizard Discourse.

"Everyone would swoon over the wizard if one Theory was just +1 to spell attack rolls and spell DCs."

Which, I mean, they would. It wouldn't be as engaging as the other theories, but people would get what they want - the wizard does spells, but HARDER. While Theories certainly help to differentiate wizard playstyles, they also give them interesting decision points that influence how a player uses that character. A staff nexus wizard may mix things up more with Sure Strike attack spells while spell blending wizards may go all in on ending fights as fast as possible with massive high level magic - they still have to choose what spells work best, how that playstyle feels to them, and what purpose they have for going that route. "Numbers but more" doesn't really have those decision points, it just "is bigger" which works for aby playstyle, which tends to leave the other Theories feeling... Lesser.

Now, if you love this idea, I would rework it - remove the upward scaling as that gets out of control immediately. I would even go so far as to remove the attack and DC buff. Instead think about what you want the goal to be. Want to dampen magic? Allow their spellcasting to bump saves vs magic. Want more accurate spells? Have their spellcasting inflict conditions (Reflex save spells add clumsy, Fort add drained, Will adds stupefied; needs work as those conditions are hardly equal). Want more damage? Limit how the wizard can add damage so they need to think of how to get there. It's a lot trickier to do, but you'll end up with a more satisfying and interesting result.

Would this be better served in Homebrew where it won't turn into yet another thread on wizard hate?

I'm just curious, as this is a more ambitious homebrew project than you may be envisioning - what about PF2 do you want to keep so badly that you would prefer to run this system over another?

It really sounds to me that what you're looking for is already covered much better in other systems whereas tinkering with some decidedly tight math can be an undertaking that may not get you the result you want (or leave a GM having to fudge a lot more tableside).

I have done something similar in the past, but not to this extent. I ran a level 0 game with the goal of making the world feel big and dangerous before the players advanced to level 1 and began to play "Pathfinder proper."

The thing is... it isn't fun? Like, I should say, there's an extra burden on the GM of not outright murdering the party with even a slightly too powerful encounter as well as still providing meaningful challenges that are interesting to interact with. After getting a walloping by a raven, my party - in the very least - felt quite demoralized, moreso when they lacked any of the tools to really interact with the fight beyond "Ready an action for one it comes close and really hope to hit."

Now, I would say there is room to make a homebrew system for it, but you would be better served, I feel, making an adventure that suits this style of play better. "Children slipping their bonds to rescue the adventurers," "Awakened animals navigating the dangers of the first time," or even "Freshly risen undead coming to terms with their existence." Presenting it as just low fantasy makes me feel like there's just not enough reason to justify doing all of that (unless, of course, you have a group that's greatly interested in the concept).

Along the same lines, there are plenty of trans characters throughout Paizo Adventures and APs, such as Anevia Tirablade from Wrath of the Righteous, Selozè from Strength of Thousands, and Il’setsya Wyrmtouched from Agents of Edgewatch.

I'm certain there are many, many more, but that's just a few quick ones that I remember.

I really love encounter design in Pathfinder 2e and could spend a lot of time talking about it. Unfortunately, I don't have that time at the moment! Rather than dotting the thread and coming back later, though, I did write a whole lot about adventure design (for low-levels) and that includes some encounter design talk - with more coming soon in the same vein!