SuperBidi's page

To me a "random death" is one where there is nothing/little a player could do to control it. So the random crit putting you a dying 2 at level 1 that results in death...that's a random death.

I really wonder what's the actual occurrence of this so called "random crit [...] that results in death". I've seen it once and in my opinion it had more to do with a broken monster (extreme damage, extreme attack bonus and persistent damage) and setup (the monster literally appeared next to us with all its actions) than something that should happen normally. All the other deaths I have experienced have been the conclusion of a large number of hits, even at low level.

PF2 is not a deadly game. Even if going down to a crit at low level happens it very rarely ends up with a death or TPK, at least not without a lot of bad luck (on top of the crit) or bad decisions.

Could you free archetype (or just archetype) into wizard, witch, or sorcerer, take Reach Spell at L4, then go to town with your 3a, 30' ranged two-target striking amped IW? It's not great range, but it's out of melee.

You can't metamagic amp cantrips. So, nope :)

Which is werid, given that that made the remaster Oracle so much more powerful but lost a lot of its uniqueness.

My gut feeling is that those interested purely by optimization will go for a Sorcerer and then grab the good Oracle stuff through a Dedication. I think you reach higher power through this method (and also you choose your tradition).

My reason for calling this out as "a problem" is because of that observation of GMs working to erase that lethality via all means available to them, including incredibly obvious foe lobotomies.

You should really question your confirmation bia because your whole post is conspiracy theory 101.

I've played roughly 300 sessions (2/3rd played, 1/3rd GMed), got 1 character killed and killed 5 as a GM. If you consider 3 to 5 sessions per level, it means getting killed once every 20 levels roughly. That's not what I'd call "lethal".

Nothing in ghostly carrier's description would suggest that. It aught to work with multiple targets

"When you Cast a Spell that has a range of touch, you can have the carrier move within range, deliver the spell to a creature there, and return to you."

It works only on one target (even if the spell can have multiple targets, you just use the carrier for a single one of them).

...

Farmhand states: "With a strong back and an understanding of seasonal cycles, you tilled the land and tended crops. Your farm could have been razed by invaders, you could have lost the family tying you to the land, or you might have simply tired of the drudgery, but at some point you became an adventurer."

Considering that level 1 is the beginning of your adventuring career, it's very much written that peasant with a greatsword is a proper description for a level 1 character.

Most of the common backgrounds consider that you got a simple life and decided to go adventuring after that (which doesn't mean that it has to be the case for all characters, you can be a gladiator or a bounty hunter, just that it's a common occurrence).

And if you look at level 1 humanoids, a lot of them are just commoners: Barkeep, Acolyte, Local Herbalist, etc...

Level 1 is not the level supposed to represent a "well-trained combatant with field experience". Also, I'm not stating that the low hit points at level 1 is "good", just that in my opinion it embodies the "peasant with a greatsword" fantasy well, fantasy that is very much written in the book. So I understand it.

I have no point of view on the original question besides the fact that it is way above my league.

If you dislike the changes and don't play in PFS: Why not just ignore them?

Unfortunately, my Oracles were PFS characters.

Also, even outside PFS some GMs use PFS rulings (I know I do).

The psychic is an extremely disappointing class in play. It reads nice on paper, but it lacks much punch in play other than a bit at the early levels.

The focus point system isn't very good unless the DM is going to ensure a sufficient rest between every fight. Even then, many of the abilities are too weak, too situational, or downright useless.

While I overall agree, it's not really answering OPs question. And I think the Silent Whisper Psychic is a nasty damage dealer. At least this one does good damage.

One could argue that the lethality of low-level play is intended to contribute to the feel of lower level play, but I don't think we see that reflected in the stories produced by paizo - few of the APs I've run or prepped seem like they want you to feel like you're a peasant thrown into an incredibly dangerous situation, about to die at any moment. They mostly feel to me like pretty classic heroic fantasy, starting at a pretty good power level

You need to wait for level 2 to get your Full Plate or even sometimes your weapon (some firearms are really expensive). That's peasant's concerns.

Feelings being what they are we have all the right in the world to disagree. But I do think the feeling of playing a peasant with a greatsword is there.
I've played games where you start at a "pretty good power level" and it's not at all the same feeling: You start with all your equipment, you have most of your powers, you don't wait for higher levels for your build to go online, etc...

The only Psychic build with good DPR is the Silent Whisper one. And you have an entire spell list for fights against mental immune enemies (7.5% of the creature base, you won't face that many of them unless you play the Slithering).

Oscillating Wave has a big issue as its main damaging spells, namely Fireball and Howling Blizzard, have to be used during round 1 and as such don't benefit from any of your damage enhancement abilities (Unleash Psyche and Entropic Wheel). It leads to a kind of lose-lose gameplay where you either target a lot of creatures or deal a lot of damage to each of them but never both simultaneously.

I agree that Tangible Dream is suicidal. You need a very specific build to get the most out of it (and especially an extremely tanky build).

Any tangible dream psychic that wants to use imaginary weapon is not going to do melee. It's going to use ghostly carrier for it which turns it into a 120 foot ranged spell that hits 2 targets. As long as you can keep the ghostly carrier alive anyways

The Ghostly Carrier can only target a single creature. If you want to target 2 creatures you need one of them to be at melee range from your Psychic. Still, it's certainly the safest way to play a Tangible Dream Psychic.

You're presenting it as if people that were playing the class [...] are innately more important than any people that counted problems as significant enough to talk them out of playing the class despite their interest in it.

Of course they are. It's basic respect.

Stripping PCs of their gear will have a different effect depending on their classes, with the end result being a significant imbalance. I'd not do that personally from a mechanical point of view.

For players such as myself who were playing Oracle characters that were spellcaster types of characters roughly equivalent to a Divine tradition Sorcerer, the Remaster changes were mostly good - sometimes really good.

I was playing spellcaster Oracles, namely a Life Oracle and a Tempest Oracle. The Life Oracle lost its healing abilities and became the worst healer among all Mysteries. While the Tempest Oracle lost all its flavor, which was important to me.

Also, it's not just about being broken, it's about trading a mechanically interesting class with a bland and boring one. I already have a divine Sorcerer (my main character), getting 2 new ones is not what I wanted for my Oracles.

You're basically arguing semantics here.

When other people say "handled" they are talking about the same things you are when you say "can be annoying". The difference is not that you know how things were and the people that don't agree with you don't know, it's that you think the situation we're all accurately aware of was fine and other people don't.

There doesn't have to be some insurmountable level of difficulty in making an oracle work well in order for someone to be unhappy with the feeling that oracle takes extra effort and, because it'd be unbalanced otherwise, doesn't really get extra cool stuff compared to "I could just play a sorcerer" or "I could just play a cleric."

Sorry, but I don't get what you're trying to convey.

It looks like you are disagreeing with me while also agreeing with me and ultimately I'm lost.

Regardless, That was one of my experiences, with the final outcome being that the oracle died a preventable death because of his curse as none of the others could heal him from a nasty source of persistent damage. Something that could've been prevented with better communication or preparation for such a moment, Something that the oracle himself handled with stride as a player. The same could not be said for a few others at the table.

Sad experience. But you can be healed while unconscious as a Life Oracle, just not above 1 hp (but then the Oracle can heal themselves). So I feel it has more to do with a player who played badly than with the Oracle itself.

But I'm talking about someone playing a premaster life-oracle in a group without non-magical incombat healing or otherwise being overly hindered by Ash's Concealment/difficult terrain aura.

Having played a Life Oracle in PFS I can state by experience that it had no impact on the parties tactics.

However just as SuperBidi said, It absolutely feels like a brand new class .

For me it's the core of the grudge: A lot of characters became incompatible with the new class. When you change a class, you can't just throw characters with the bathwater, at least not without experiencing a significant backlash by those who played these characters.

We learn to love these little things...

A GM shouldn't have to learn that the system doesn't work the same at low levels as it does at high levels.

Again, why?

The fact that low, mid and high level experience is different is in my opinion a conscious design choice. At low level, you really have the feeling of playing a peasant with a greatsword considering how fights are fast, deadly and random. I think it's the expected low level experience.

I'm in a game with my kid right now. Guess what approach we're using.

You haven't understood my previous post. Difficulty is not related to learning curve: If you increase or decrease the game difficulty you don't change the learning curve.

Tiers of play being different is the default rather than the exception in TTRPGs.

That. So common that there isn't even a sidebar.

Games with consistency between the early game and the end game don't give at all the feeling of playing a peasant who rises to godhood. It's just all samey (I don't say it's bad, just that it's not Pathfinder at all).

Slowly and explicitly introducing new mechanics (and I'm putting emphasis on explicitly for a reason) is a time-honored way of teaching complex games.

But I don't expect the adventure to do that. The beginner box, why not. But most importantly the GM. I personally don't GM beginners the same way I GM experienced players: I help them more, give them advice in real time, I sometimes remove some punishing mechanics (like critical failures on Trip/Grapple) to encourage them using the abilities, and so on.

Having low level adventures structure in such a way that they always spend time teaching concepts will feel like playing the same tutorial all over again: An awful experience for experienced players.

an oracle rolled up to a group not built to handle them

What does that mean? What has to be "handled" when an Oracle walks into a bar... sorry, group?

But I dont think its entirely unfounded to say that people that would never touch the oracle is now willing to do so.

I fully agree with you on that. The remaster and preremaster Oracle are so different they don't target the same players. It's actually a brand new class.

How much time does it take, and how much does it cost to copy a spellbook? I can't find any rules on it. I can find rules for learning new spells, but not copying spells. I want to know how to make a backup spellbook in case I lose my primary spellbook. Pathfinder 1e had rules on it.

Nothing.

Grimoires use a 1-minute ritual to copy your entire spellbook within them. It gives a good idea of how easy and cheap it is to copy an entire spellbook. If you really want some rules to support your spellbook copy, just grab a low level Grimoire (the cheapest one costs 90 gold coins) and you're set. 90 gp

So a GM actually understand the level of challenge they're sending to the players.

You mean that the GM has less things to learn. Because it's a question of experience, not something you can't control ever.

I also think there's a bit of exaggeration. Level +2 solo bosses are not that deadly at level 1, I've been through many such encounters without any character death. The only ones that are really deadly are level +3 solo bosses which are qualified as "Severe- or extreme-threat boss" and I'm not sure I've ever faced one at level 1.

From a simple search on the Internet it looks like we learn faster when we are challenged. I don't know if it's true or not (Google is not omniscient) but I know for sure it applies to me.

So challenging first levels may actually be a very conscious choice to quickly get beginners up to par and avoid massive discrepancies in game mastery between players.

I know a lot of games who adopt this difficulty curve, with challenging early game, easy mid game and very hard end game.

But the victims here are the people that fell in love with the old oracle, not the oracle class itself

That's a very weird statement.

The old oracle had quite a bit of friction that made it a problem if the group couldnt handle it. And I personally dreaded the sight of an oracle at public tables.

Is it an overstatement? Because your experience is nowhere close to mine. I've had much more issues with Barbarians and Paladins than with Oracles.

Instead it seems like more people are actually playing an enjoying oracles

I don't say it's wrong, but I think it's unfounded and also doesn't change the fact that those who played preremaster Oracles have a real reason to feel screwed.

It's better to have a game with consistent challenges

Why?

You've got some folks saying make L1 encounters survivable without knowing all the tactics (i.e. allows for incremental learning).

There's factually no link between incremental learning curve and L1 survivability. You are reaching a conclusion based on a ton of untold assumptions.

You are an adult with strong experience in board and ttrp games. As I said before, you probably think this level's about you. But it isn't. It's about my kid's junior high role playing club, which has a massive 40+ kid membership and organizes 8-10 tables of low-level play every Wednesday. Those are Paizo's 2030 customers, the people who will buy their content long after you and I stop. As a direct competitor to that other game PF2E is, yes, going after the "played once, or haven't yet played but interested" market. Not just folks like you or I with decades of experience and a 'seen it, done that' equilibrium towards tpks. Paizo does make lots of content for us. But not 100% of it. Having the early level content to be for folks like that club rather than folks like you or I simply makes a lot of sense. At least, to me.

But not necessarily to Paizo. We need to get information about their marketing goals, which population they target and such.

Neither Ford nor Mercedes sell bikes and still they manage to sell their cars.

If Paizo really wants to design the game to teach itself, it needs to make a VTT module with pregen characters that plays like a choose-your-own-adventure novel. Extremely on rails, but with choice at certain branching paths, simple AI scripts for the enemies, and full rules automation. Anything less can be failed by a new GM very easily.

What you're describing is a tutorial. And tutorials can't explain more than the basics of a game. PF2 is too complex to be taught that way. To learn PF2 you need to play it.

I dont even want to call oracles victims, I think they are just better outright in pretty much every single way.

There have been long discussions about that. Those who love the preremaster Oracle loathe the new one and vice versa.

I also have 2 Oracle victims but I'll speak about my Barbarian:

Czav is... well, was, a Dhampir from Ustalav. He spent his youth bullied because of his blood, mostly by divine servants who were seeing in him an undead abomination. It fueled his rage, rage he fully embraced once he reached Rahadoum and called it home. After decades fighting divine casters and developing specific anti-divine abilities (Superstition Barbarian) he decided to become a Pathfinder. He realized that his anti-divine abilities were actually effective against all traditions of magic and he became a mix of clericide, witch hunter and mage slayer.

Unfortunately, the new Superstition Barbarian is just an idiot who's frightened by magic and can't even accept to wield it while my character was actually extremely knowledgeable about magic with even some magic abilities (Arcane Sense feat to be able to Detect Magic as it's rather useful for a mage slayer). Overall, the new Superstition Barbarian is different enough that my character stopped making much sense.

I may speak later of my Oracles. I've been able to turn one into an Animist, I find that the Animist embodies quite well what the preremaster Oracle was. But for the other one... well, it's currently in retirement.

There's just been a couple hundred posts with one set of folks suggesting that some adjustment be made to early levels to reduce single-bad-roll character death likelihood, but not necessarily objecting or saying anything about later level play. The above split is thus, IMO, a very inapt description of the discussion going on here, since neither side of this debate fits either of your two categories.

I was only answering the previous post. I've just skimed through the discussion and I don't think it's really interesting.

"Teaching", as it's the core of the discussion, is a complex job. I'd quote Wikipedia: "Small effects or lack of statistically significant effects have been found when evaluating many teaching methods rigorously with randomized controlled trials."

So the answer to the original (implied) question is certainly that there's no way to do a good or bad job at teaching new players how to play.

There's nothing inherently bad with different difficulties. Some like it hard, some like it easy, everyone has fun. It seems good to me.

I find there are 2 kinds of players/GMs when it comes to difficulty: Those who consider that character death should always be on the table and those who consider that character death should only happen for a reason. And in general they can't play together without a lot of frustration on one side or the other.

Side note: I also have the feeling from reading here and on Reddit that Reddit users are less about crunch, optimization and difficulty than the official forum users. But I may be wrong about that, I know more this community than the Reddit one.

Again, the gameplay experience is a completely different thing than the actual under the hood math. Player skill growth can easily outpace dev expectation and the cranking of the "math difficulty" to provide the perception of easy.

I remember of Bard's Tales where all encounters were fully random, with low level groups having a 20-30% chance of gaining a fight because of that. That was literal reverse difficulty curve. And it's been, at that time, a great hit.

Now, I don't advocate for reverse difficulty curve as that's ridiculous. But many games have exceptionally hard moments during low levels, a tendency to get rather easy at mid levels and then a tough endgame experience. Which is PF2 difficulty curve and why I'm not surprised it is that way.

They really, really, do not. It may feel that way to noobies, especially those new to the genre, but games with actual in-the-math reverse difficulty curves are absurdly rare because of how much of a fun-killer they can be.

That's not my experience.

I agree with RPG-Geek, the low level experience in PF2 can nearly be considered a feature.

You are supposed to play inexperienced adventurers at level 1, not heroes. The high casualty rate and how swingy it is actually convey rather well this feeling.

I have played games where right at level 1 characters can feel fully fleshed out and effective and I must admit it doesn't carry the charm of carefully levelling your wannabee hero.

SuperBidi wrote:

Early APs/adventures made the error of featuring tough early game but it's now over. As a GM, you should focus on a nice and fast early game, keeping the tough things for later.

Can you name a bunch of low level APs that you think get the balance right? Witch mentioned Season of Ghosts, so that's one I guess.

I have unfortunately played more early APs and adventures than later ones. But I clearly remember Plaguestone to be an absolute grind fest (we got 4 deaths in 3 levels :D). Age of Ashes has really tough moments at rather early level, Extinction Curse book 1 is also awful. I've found Abomination Vaults to still be tough but more balanced between levels (it's overall rather tough). Lately, I've played Sky King's Tomb and the early levels are trivial with more difficulty once you get to book 2.

I have a better vision of PFS as I've played nearly all adventures and this trend is very clear in its case: Earlier adventures are sometimes deadly when later ones are nearly all easy.

Noticing that there's a HUGE crack in the system's math where 75% of the game has a peculiar High fantasy feel and the other 25% has a weird ass half old school half modern d20 system feel (read feel as: ratio between health and damage) Is not a personal opinion, Is a fact that we're Building an argument onto.

It's not 25% of the game.

At level 1, a level +2 enemy does twice more damage than an at level enemy.
At level 2, a level +2 enemy does slightly more than 50% extra damage than an at level enemy.
At level 3, a level +2 enemy does 1/3rd extra damage compared to an at level enemy.

Level 3 is also an important moment as healing roughly doubles in effectiveness at that level. So while healing at level 1 and 2 may feel lackluster compared to the damage taken, it gives much more survivability at level 3.

Level 1 (especially) and 2 (slightly) are hard to play. It's not just about hp/damage ratio but also because a lot of builds lack an important item or feat (Paladins in medium armor have ridiculous AC, the first general feat at level 3 unlocks many builds, same goes for the first archetype feat at level 4, casters have a very steep progression at low levels, etc...). So I quite like that fights are so fast, as a lot of characters are not fleshed out enough to give nice sensations to those who like the tactical side of the game.

Early APs/adventures made the error of featuring tough early game but it's now over. As a GM, you should focus on a nice and fast early game, keeping the tough things for later.

I personally consider that a PC going down is expected on any non trivial fight. I start worrying (as a player but also as a GM) when 2 PCs are on the ground.

I play in general in 5 or 6 PC parties. In 4-(wo)man parties, one PC down is still rather common but 2 is much more dire.

From my experience, healing on casters is rare.

Being attacked as a caster happens mostly in 3 cases:
- Surprise attack: An unforeseen attack targets the caster but then the party reposition themselves and the caster can safely get to the backline. The goal in that case is just to survive the round it takes for you to escape the nasty situation.
- The frontline is crumbling: The enemies are hitting hard and your martials start to get down, leaving gaps in the frontline that enemies start to exploit. And in that case, the healing (if there's any left) tends to favor the martials so they can get back on their feet and resume their defensive tasks.
- Everyone's hit: Enemies use AoE attacks that target the entire party. In that case, healing is needed on everyone. It's the case where casters may receive healing, especially if they fail their saves more than anyone else. But it's mostly a high level thing, so there's no need to take it into consideration right away.

Which priority is better for ‘survivability’?

Overall, they are extremely close. AC is better at level 1 (because the Ancestry hp bonus makes hp less interesting) but goes down very quickly until at some point Constitution becomes more interesting.

For Reflex saves, hps are actually more interesting than Dexterity, as the HP gain is significantly higher than the bonus to the save (a +1 to Reflex is 7% reduction of damage, when a +1 hp per level is higher than that on everything but a Barbarian).

So the question boils down to: What level do you intend to play?

If you want the best low level experience, then Dexterity is the safest bet. But if you expect to reach at least level 5 and potentially level 10 then Constitution will be more interesting.

Well that's not exactly the sense I got from your prior comments this. The new comment amounts to: don't waste time in combat on healing that could be done out-of-combat.

Not at all.

I've seen enough fights turning deadly because someone decided to heal a downed PC that I know it's in general a bad tactic. But it looks like I made an error: It's not a beginner mistake, it's just a common mistake. People blame the dice, the monsters or the downed PC player actions without getting to the original mistake because it happened 3 rounds earlier: The healing.

I'll just highlight how easy it is for those questions to be a yes.

If you heal a downed PC, they are on the ground with low hit points and at a position where they can take quite some damage (as they took quite some damage already). If they go down again they reach Dying 2 (at least) and are now at actual risk of dying. Considering that they certainly haven't acted enough to get your 2 actions back, you are now in real trouble.

So, the question boils down to: Has this encounter real risks of ending with a PC death? If yes, then raise the downed PC. If not, they please don't, not everyone likes to die during a Moderate encounter because an idiot Battle Medicined you and the dice then decided to hate you.

Moderate encounters being way more common than deadly ones, raising downed PCs is in general a very bad idea.

As a player, I've already refused healing, especially low healing like potions, Battle Medicine or Soothe (with a maxed out 2-action Heal, my chances of going down again are rather low).

Unless you are 1 single turn from ending the threat yourself, spending 2A to heal a downed PC is the better move in like 90+% of scenarios.

You need 2 rounds to get back the actions you lost, not 1. Considering you're taking a great risk by healing the PC (they're Wounded 1 with low hit points and now at actual risk of dying) and also a potential waste of resources (free healing is rare), it's a strategy to keep for extreme cases.

It's much more effective to heal before they go down. Healing downed PC is a beginner mistake.

Math's constructed scenario is a good example to demonstrate how this specific low HP issue creates a death spiral, where all the party's actions and choices change in response to a PC dropping; no longer being spent to win the fight, but are instead spent to prevent dying.

Classic beginner mistake. I generally play healers, I don't heal downed PCs. And when I go down I refuse being healed unless there's no real danger left.

But it has nothing to do with low HPs, I see the same mistake being done at every level.

I agree with Deriven that the Champion doesn't age very well. I was not aware of Expand Aura, it solves part of the issue but I agree it sounds like a tax feat (considering the very small number of those in PF2 I won't scream). The other problem the Champion faces at high level is that it's an AC tank, when it comes to save-based effects it's rather weak. And at high level, the danger comes more often than not from save-based effects.

Still, it's a nice and solid class, a solid martial. But it's not a crazy damage dealer like the OP says.

Sounds like you just don't like rascal but that's no reason to exclude it from the guide.

Let's not jump to such conclusions ;)

I'm fine having a debate about Rascal. I'm still not finding a reason to play one from a mechanical point of view.

Also, as I state in "Swashbuckler Styles" chapter: Styles are rather unimpactful. Unless you use a specific combo you can go for whatever Style you want. That's why I don't speak much about Styles, it's not just Rascal, it's also Wit and Fencer and I provide a single Battledancer build (which is more of an oddity).

a strength/int build doesn't utilize das the best either compared to dex/int since tumble through is your go to when you roll well (but not too well) you're not considering the versatility in panache choices here

Tumble Through doesn't do anything in and by itself, it's only useful when you need to move and build Panache simultaneously. So I disagree on it being the "go to", it should be the "run away from".

But I agree you will always need it. Now, as you are aiming for a failure, the only thing you need is to update your Acrobatics item bonus and your Acrobatic proficiency every now and then and you should be fine when it comes to building Panache with Tumble Through. No need for high Dexterity.

I play a Dual Dagger Justice Champion in Age of Ashes alongside a Shield of Reckoning Justice Champion.

In terms of damage, the Shield of Reckoning Justice Champion is ridiculous. He makes one attack per round in general (having to Raise their Shield to get their juicy reactions), considering that his reactions are not triggered that often (especially Shield of Reckoning, adjacency is hard to get at level 10).

As I can throw my daggers I trigger more free attacks from Ranged Reprisal and still don't get it every round, far from it.

A Shield of Reckoning Champion is in the extreme low end in terms of damage. Also, reactions are very far from a given, the only ones that can be triggered consistently are those akin to Opportune Backstab or Topple Foe.

As a side note: Despite its rarity, Shield of Reckoning is massive when it triggers. And the Shield of Reckoning Justice Champion is an absolute tank, there's no doubt about that. But it's nowhere close to an average damage dealer.

I've added a build around Devise a Stratagem, it's actually a good reason to choose Intelligence as secondary attribute. Thanks for the idea.

But I'm sorry: It's no solution for Rascal.
First, if I want to benefit the most from Dastardly Dash I'd go for a Gymnast, both because Trip is significantly better than Dirty Trick but also because the Exemplary Finisher is excellent. And because we are dealing with unconventional builds, going Strength/Intelligence is not an issue by itself.
And otherwise, there's Tumble Behind which gives a similar bonus to Dirty Trick but with a full Stride, earlier access and without affecting MAP. It's hard to sell Dastardly Dash against Tumble Behind.

I understand that sometimes a player wants to play a specific kind of character even if it's weaker but jumping through hoops just to get the feeling you're playing a Rascal doesn't feel like a solution. I've added a note to encourage GMs to remove the Attack Trait from Dirty Trick if one of their players want to play a Rascal. I think it's a better solution overall, houserule is not an insult :)

I've always loved the Swashbuckler class and even released the first Swashbuckler guide back in the days. But I was a bit annoyed by the Remaster and the brand new Bravado trait and decided to let others provide updated guides. I was doubly wrong.

First, after a thorough reading of the remaster Swashbuckler I can safely say it's awesome, in a completely different way than it used to be, but it's awesome (and also balanced, it's now a competitive martial in my opinion).

Also, I've looked at the available content when it comes to remastered guides and they haven't grasped what I consider the essence of the remaster Swashbuckler.

So here's my Remaster Swashbuckler optimization guide

I've called it an "optimization guide" so I can avoid all questions about what a Swashbuckler should look like.

Also, as the difference in effectiveness between optimized and non-optimized is rather low in Pathfinder 2, you can build a satisfying Swashbuckler without following these guidelines. So don't be pissed if you disagree with me.

And finally I haven't described every Swashbuckler feat, mostly because of a lack of time to do so. I may do it in the future, depending on this guide's reception.

Is the fighter an external force that can make a check versus immobilized? Or is the wizard the force and therefore not external because it's the wizard's action?

I'd use the Wizard check vs the monster Athletics DC and as such it's certainly a failure due to the check.

You now need an Athletics check to Grab.

Fortitude DC is in case there's nothing else that makes sense, but it's rather exceptional.

** spoiler omitted **...

Most of your post shows how table-dependent experiences are. Bottled Night is obviously forbidden around most tables and jumping on enemies more than the other way around is also 100% table-dependent (it happens less than 20% of the time around my tables).

I personally think your experience strongly impacts your vision. Which doesn't mean that it's "wrong", experience is experience, but I wonder what would be your point of view if your GM was forbidding all Uncommon and Rare items, especially those coming from dubious sources, and if enemies were attacking the PCs more often than not. I'm sure it'd change a lot of things and I don't think you'd consider your character OP anymore.

In the original question, I don't get the distinction being made. Dirty Trick also is an attack just like Trip. So neither should be possible to Ready in that scenario

You are right...

Well, then my question is pointless :D
But it raised an enlightening discussion, at least for me.