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Guide has been updated for the new tool, check it out You can compare the expected damage of different attack routines with different builds. There are a few examples routines to check out too. Is name "build comparison tool" better or worse than "expected damage tool"?
If they remove esoteric antithesis and lower the thaumaturge weapon damage they could put a lot more power in the implements.
Choose wand for an elemental/ranged/aoe/debuffing attack.
That way the implements you choose would make a variety of interesting builds and play styles. Making these options more powerful would make them more central to the play style of the character. Instead of the wand being a minor situational thing it could be a defining part of what your character does, and I think that would be a lot more interesting. To increase their power would mean removing find flaws and esoteric antithesis, but a similar ability could work very well as an implement option.
You can use the this to see how the thaumaturge compares in the tool
It's damage is quite high after it gets a weakness set up. Mess around with things for yourself :)
With the old tool not working I added 1-20 graphs to the new tool. Check it out here. Let me know how it could look better or be easier to use. I'm still not sure the best way to input things like rage damage/dangerous sorcery.
I made some charts showing how guns and gunslingers perform. You can make your own comparisons with the linked tool too.
Please don't have the summoner and Eidolon share MAP. That makes a summoner fighting with/mounted on their Eidolon a very bad idea. I think it would be a lot better if the Eidolon and summoner did not share skills. Maybe the summoner could apply some of their skill increases to the eidolon instead of themselves? I'd like the eidolon to be able to choose to emphasize athletics, or stealth, Arcana/Occultism/Nature/Religion on a casting focused eidolon, or something else without that being what the summoner is good at too. I don't like the summoner having evolution surge, especially as a default ability. It makes it so the eidolon is not consistent thematically, and it being default means it feels bad not using it. I think it would be good if there were incentives to not having the Eidolon always summoned. I think being able to summon the eidolon at range and have it make attacks that turn would make playing a summoner a lot more fun. I'd really like the summoner to be able to select a feat to support their eidolon concept at level 1. Concepts I would like to see supported:
Actions I would like to see:
Abilities I would like to see:
Eldritch shot has been added to the expected damage tool. The tool is here. For Eldritch shot you first have Eldritch shot, then the spell, then the strike. Like, Eldritch Shot + Telekinetic Projectile + Fighter Propulsive. This should let people see how a magus would fare with an Eldritch Shot like mechanic.
Eldritch shot has been added to the expected damage tool. The tool is here. For Eldritch shot you first have Eldritch shot, then the spell, then the strike. Like, Eldritch Shot + Telekinetic Projectile + Fighter Propulsive. This should let people see how a magus would fare with an Eldritch Shot like mechanic.
So the current implementation of striking spell is extra swingy and extra effective against weaker targets while being less effective against stronger targets because of the compounded rolls. A very simple change would be for the spell imbued in the weapon to go off against the target of the strike, hit or miss, with no critical conversion. That would be consistently effective against stronger and weaker targets, and the damage would be reliable rather than swingy. In contrast to the eldritch archer method, it is also is not too effective with true strike, like just adding the spell damage to the strike is. It also works with save spells instead of just spell attack spells, which is vastly less limiting. The benefit to imbuing the spell would be to get the magus synthesis effects, and a plus +X bonus could be added to the spell roll/DC to get the Magus dpr to the intended level. That bonus could vary with level/weapon item bonus, whatever would get the intended result. I think that fits really well as a spell strike. You cast the spell into, and through, the weapon. For example a miss can just mean their armor makes the hit a glancing blow, but the electricity from shocking grasp still goes through.
What do people think of getting rid of the summoners casting and having all the classes power in the eidolon. Functionally the summoner could shoot a bow or cast a cantrip with its weak proficiencies, and the eidolon would be the main character in combat. The summoner would have their basic proficiencies, ancestry and general feats, whatever they got from archetypes, and their skills. Outside of combat the summoner would be the main character and use skills (limit the eidolons skills), but in combat the eidolon would contribute the vast majority, like the reverse of a druid and it's animal companion. The eidolon could be a lot more powerful and complete with materials, and it would have room for interesting abilities. I think the eidolon should be able to take feats to get significant casting too. Actions in combat would be as interesting as a martial with an animal companion, and their would be more power budget to build the eidolons people want. Synthesist would be easy to make too.
The instructions for how to graph magus damage are in the guide linked above. Hopefully accurate information will help inform everyone. Please link any graphs/analysis you make below
I made some graphs comparing the expected damage of a magus using their spell slots to other casters. So some thoughts. Their damage is really nice at low levels (but spell slot damage spells aren't worth using over electric arc then). At level 5 when they get fireball they're really nice! They fall behind because of lagging proficiencies, but the don't go below 80% of the normal casters expected damage until level 19 (missing 10th level spells). Changing proficiency increases to 9 and 17 makes the graph look worse imo. MC casters get really close at level 18+.
The drawback of spell strike needing to hit and needing another role, in addition to limiting spell selection to single target offensive spells, makes using spell strike much worse than just casting a spell and attacking separately. Even with the benefit of a synthesis it is not worth using, a Magus does more damage striding and striking twice with a one handed weapon than using spell strike and slide with telekinetic projectile. So spell strike is not worth using. It could be removed and the Magus really wouldn't be worse off. Now a Magus doesn't have any reason to use a single one handed weapon, so they could just get their synthesis benefit when they cast a spell, with that change using telekinetic projectile slide and striking is pretty equal to striding and striking twice. It's a benefit when the Magus casts a spell slot spell, but that's just 4 times a day so I don't think it's too much to give them. The could get an eldritch Archer like spell strike from class feats or an archetype.
Double slice only dealing precision damage once makes it seem like it wouldn't be the best for rogues, but because of being able to choose which attack gets precision damage if you critical and the accuracy bonus on the second attack, double slice deals almost as much precision damage as attacking normally twice. Double slice isn't in my tool, but I calculated it by hand:
That's really good.
It's a really nice combo, if using ABP with no elemental damage runes you'll probably be out damaging the two handed weapon fighter.
Made a lot of changes in the tool, the guide isn't updated yet.
Electric arc is too good, it overshadows other cantrip options. If it only hit one target it would be fairly balanced with other cantrips and still unique in that it targets reflex, does half damage on a save, and does not contribute to multiple attack penalty. Here's a chart comparing it to other cantrips
Guide for using expected damage comparison grapher I made a guide for my tool for comparing expected damage of different attack routines. You can compare against different AC targets for levels 1 to 20, or against different ACs for a set level. Here's a link to the tool
I'm making a collection of guides and analysis for building pf2 characters. Here is the Google doc with everything There is some calculation of expected damage by level for various martial classes, animal companions, summons, and polymorphing. Currently working on the cleric and divine spell list guides. I will update this thread when I add something new.
So I made a document comparing the expected damage of a druid using polymorphing spells and wild shape. Take a look here: link to google doc
If for example a fighter joins a house of perfection at level 7, they would be unable to retrain their 2nd, 4th, or 6th level class feats take the student of perfection dedication feat because they were not a member of a house of perfection at level 2, 4, or 6. This is because of the text in the retraining section on page 481 "When retraining, you generally can’t make choices you couldn’t make when you selected the original
So you did not meet the prerequisite at levels 2, 4 or 6 because you were not a member of a house of perfection yet. This seems harsher than intended.
So it seems effect rates for casters and martials are pretty consistent across 1 to 20. So spell casters are not falling behind.
So obviously warpriests will do less damage than fighters, but by how much?
So against level-2 targets a warpriest does about 70% of a fighters damage until level 10, where from then on it does about 50% of a fighters damage. That's much better than I expected! Sheet comparing them is here
So I made some more charts comparing how damage scales as characters level. To do this I made a Fighter and calculated how much damage their full attack was expected to do against targets two levels lower, at their level, and themselves. They were assumed to get boosts from spells, items, and feats.
I made a document with a simple analysis of how animal companions fare as they level. Their contribution from striking once each round goes down considerable as they level. Please let me know if I missed anything.
What have we seen so far for the damage/healing of spells? Heal does 1d8 + 8 at first level
One of my favorite things in the Playtest was that getting a new Power also gave more Spell Points to use it. That gets rid of the problem seen in games like Pillars of Eternity 2, where it's usually best to just have one ability to use your resource pool on, and spend you other talent selections on passives. It also forces builds that lead to more fun when playing, because if you take a feat to increase your Spell Point pool so you can use your main power more, then you also get new options in game. But having the number of spell points granted based on the cost of the power doesn't seem nice. It makes expensive powers too expensive to use if you've mostly selected cheap powers and it makes selecting an expensive power just for more spell points a possibility. Those things kinda destroy some of the advantages of every power providing more spell points. Now there a 3 reasonable ways to balance Power power and Spell Point gain: Weak power: something not very powerful, but still a useful action
A Medium Power costs 1 Point, a Strong Power costs 2 Points, and each new Power you get grants 1 Point. I like this best, you don't have to worry about balancing what's a weak vs medium power, and and extra full power ability every two feats seems like a good amount of power scaling for a character to me. A Weak Power costs 1 Point, a Medium Power costs 2 Points, a Strong Power costs 3 Points, and each new power you get 1/2 Points. I feel like 1 point is too little, it's only half of a medium power, which is what I feel should be given. But 2 seems maybe a bit much, every 3 feats gives you 2 full power abilities, I still would like 2 a lot more than 1 though. Gaining extra pools:
Martial Abilities also using spell points: I feel like it would be best to include the possibility for things like Inspiration/Grit/Panache in this system by making it not just spells. Having it be the same system would prevent martial characters from getting too much out of a high mental ability score, and you would have to create a new system for limited use non-magical abilities. Name: Since it should be generalized for not just using powers/spells, and I don't think they want the name Power Points because of associations with Psionics, then what about "Ability Points" which can be used to use an Ability that is not necessarily a spell.
Concepts that are viable/possible that don't depend on power or things that should be level gated (teleport) should be possible from level 1. It is good to let players play the character they want to play from as now level as possible. Low levels are the most often played levels, level 1 is the most common level to start at. So if a concept is viable at higher levels, but not lower levels, that's a lot of waiting for a player to play the concept they want to play. For example: Someone wants to make a heavily armored Wizard, a very normal thing that has no conceptual reason in to be restricted to higher level. It's impossible at level 1, at level 2 it's possible with Paladin roleplay restrictions (that aren't related to the concept). At level 3 it's possible as a human with Fighter dedication (a more acceptable multiclass restriction), but not possible for a non-human, non-Fighter MC until level 11. But the Ability score increases make it very easy to have a dexterity score of 16 that makes heavy armor strictly worse than medium armor, which you could get just with the 4 boosts every 5 levels at level 10. Trading power now for power later is awful. Playing a character at level X doesn't mean it will be played at level Y to balance out, people switch characters. And a level is a very long time of playing, so a concept being weaker or stronger at a certain level has a very apparent effect that isn't balanced out by other levels. There are a lot of things that should start at level 1: Characters should be able to play a multiclass character from level 1. The relative distribution of ability scores defines what the character concept/is better worse at. That kind of thing should change with retraining, not leveling up. The balance between casters and martials should be the same across levels 1-20. Balancing at will vs limited use abilities is one thing, but having some classes be weaker at low levels in exchange for being stronger at high levels is not fun. Currently some spellcasters are relatively weaker compared to martials at low levels than they are at high levels. The relative effectiveness of various combat styles shouldn't change from level 1-20. Currently 2 handed damage does 1d12+4=10.5 / 1d8+4=8.5 = 23.5% more damage at level 1, but 6d12+7=46 / 6d8+7=34 = 35.3% more at level 20. And a high Dex character with no Str does 1d6=3.5 / 1d6+4=7.5 = 46.7% of a high Str character with the same weapon at level 1, but 6d6=21 / 6d6+7=28 = 75% at level 20. Also a shortbow user might do 1d6=3.5 / 1d12+4=10.5 = 33.3% of a 2 handed weapon user at level 1, but 6d6+2=23 / 6d12+7 = 50% at level 20. Those relative differences shouldn't change so much, how comparatively effective different concepts are shouldn't change so much with level. Some things obviously should change with level. Characters should be more powerful at higher level, their bonuses to hit and their damage should increase with their level. Some amount of their endurance, or amount of resources, should increase with level, but they should still have a meaningful amount for their concept starting from level 1.
It isn't important for players to participate in all major parts of the game: exploration, combat, and social encounters. So it's important that player characters are comparatively effective in all different parts of the game, so that they get to participate and not just wait. Currently all character classes (except Rogues) get about the same number of skill increases and skill feats. These skills and skill feats allow those characters to contribute to social interactions and exploration. But in addition to their skills, spellcasters also have access to spells that have a lot of narrative power like charm and teleport. So spell casters have more ways to contribute narratively than non-casters. That's a little unbalanced, I think it would be best if all characters could contribute a similar amount to all parts of play. Martial classes like the Fighter should get more skill increases and skill feats than spellcasting classes like the Wizard. This would give them more chances to contribute with their skills and skill feats, to compensate for the Wizard's spell's narrative power. This could be done by making all martial classes like the Rogue, with skill increases and skill feats every level. Or maybe by giving them an extra increase and feat every new tier (3, 7, and 15). By whatever means, they should have meaningfully more skills and skill feats than characters who cast spells.
So it's long been an RPG tradition that Wizards and other magic users start out very weak compared to fighters, but as they level up they get more powerful faster than the fighter. This is often called "Linear Fighter Quadratic Wizard". Do people like this and feel this is an important part of keeping Pathfinder Pathfinder? Personally I'd prefer if each level meant an equivalent level of power. That way if people wanted weaker casters compared martials at low levels, they could just have the magic users be lower level. Like having a level 1 Sorcerer with a level 3 Barbarian. And if they want magic users to be stronger at higher levels they could just have them be higher level. Like a level 10 Fighter with a level 14 Wizard. This way people could still have their changes in power between spell casters and martials while still keeping level as a good balance metric for determining somethings power. Currently the play test has difference in power scaling situation:
Now I can't say for certain how the difference in power between a Fighter and Wizard feels in play at each level, or if it is even unbalancing. Personally I feel low level casters are not fun, but high level casters are. Some solutions to this would be: Front load more class features:
All spell slots be max level, and reduce spell power scaling with spell level:
It would be nice if every class had reasons to care about every ability score. This would allow there to be meaningful trade offs when building a character, not just putting your highest number in your most important score. Currently some classes have more of a need for multiple high ability scores than others, a Rogue just needs Dexterity while a Cleric, Paladin, or Monk need a lot more. Making all classes have important uses for multiple/every ability score would balance this out. The current ability score generation system is too stingy at low levels and too generous at high levels. This makes it too hard to make a character that depends on multiple ability scores at low levels, and the tradeoffs being too small at high levels. I like my system, but other systems would work too as long as possible differences between ability scores remain consistent. I propose adding Archetypes that can be taken by any class at level 1, that give uses for each mental score to martial classes, and adding class features dependent on other mental scores to the spellcasting classes. Archetypes:
Medic:
Sensate:
Skilled fighter/Lore Warden:
Trapper:
Commander:
Dashing:
Dread:
Non-multiclass magic options:
Class Features:
Alchemist:
Barbarian:
Bard:
Cleric:
Druid:
Fighter:
Monk:
Paladin:
Ranger:
Rogue:
Sorcerer:
Wizard:
It takes about level*0.4 + 2.4 turns to take down an equal level foe, and level*0.275 + 0.6 turns to take down a level - 2 foe. That's for a character using a d12 weapon with 18 starting strength, ranger/barbarian proficiency and 2 Strikes every turn. This feels like it's changing too much, I know it's not accounting for increased capabilities and non proficiency class features, but those won't be enough for such extreme scaling.
So for skills especially, proficiency doesn't have as much impact as it should. A characters level in investment should be more than just +1. With +10 being a crit success/failure +2 seems appropriate, difference in level of proficiency has a 20% chance of making a difference on each roll. Adding a new rank in proficiency, Mythic, and you get a +8 difference between Trained and Mythic. This equals the current difference of trained and no item vs legendary with a +5 item = +8. This allows item bonuses to be removed from skills, making the differences between characters more about what they're invested in. This requires separating skills for things like attack bonus and saves. I feel like that's a good thing, they should work differently and allow more differentiation. A large gap in a skill is okay if every character has a similar amount of skills they're good in, and skills have similar amounts of narrative power. A large gap in combat stats is less nice.
Untrained: -2 or -4
At each odd level starting from level 1 you can increase one skill to Expert. Starting from level 7 you can increase a skill to Master. Starting from level 13 you can increase a skill to Legendary. Starting from level 19 you can increase a skill to Mythic. Expert at level 1 lets a character focus on something from level 1 and Mythic at level 19 lines up with 10th level spells. Increases in possible rank come every 6 levels, for a smooth increase. Also:
If you cast a spell at a level, it's power should be of that level. Take for example lightning bolt and chain lightning. Chain lightning has much better targeting, and they do comparable damage, there's no reason to use a 6th level or higher lightning bolt when you have chain lightning. Also fireball is just way better than burning hands in the same way. Spells like lightning bolt and burning hands need to have some advantage over those spells, or else why even have the option to cast them at the same level. Making them viable options at the levels you can cast them is a great way to increase caster options. You can still have more interesting effects/better targeting at higher levels, but casting the same spells with more power should be an option too. Damage spells should change how much damage they do per spell level based on how good their targeting So for example, you could have: 13 average damage per spell level: burning hands and lightning bolt
That way each spell is worth using. Some hit more targets, some do more damage to the targets they hit.
So currently polymorph spells replace your stats with different stats, and you get some unarmed strikes. Most of those strikes just do damage and are pretty similar to one another. Having each form have a special ability would make things much more fun and exciting. Wolf: gets good speed maybe scent and has Trip on its bite.
Currently cantrips and power scale with your highest level spells, which is half your level rounded up (except for 19th level spellcasters and 20th level ones without the feat for 10th level slots). Counteracting afflictions also rely on half level rounded up. They should add the keyword Tier to simplify and clarify things. Tier: A character, item, or effect's Tier is half its level rounded up. A spells Tier is equal to its level. A character uses cantrips and powers heightened to their Tier. Counteracting works depending on the effects Tier.
So I saw that the devs were thinking of Arcanist style casting for prepared casters, but decided against it because it would limit the sorcerer's niche. That gives the perfect opportunity to make the sorcerer a core spell point caster for people who want to make a spell caster but don't want to use spell slots. It fits with the theme of the sorcerer, and I feel like there would be a lot of people who would like that to be an option in core.
To find out anything more than the most basic info about the creature you're facing you need a critical success. pg. 338:
Should it really be that hard to find a monsters weakness? If you are level 12 and have a +5 modifier to the required ability score and are a master in the skill you'll have a +19 With update 1.4 that becomes a medium difficulty task. For level 12 that's 26. So you need to roll a 17 to get anything useful, a 20% chance for a very invested character. If you fail you can try again, but you need to get a 20. You are already spending an action, a 70% success rate sounds a lot more reasonable for a very invested character trying to find information like a monsters weakness. That's what it would be if you needed a success to find a weakness. A critical success could give more information, like multiple weaknesses/abilities. They seemed to design some creatures around having higher hp, but exploitable weakness. They should make it reasonable to find these weaknesses without metagaming.
I think this would be a nice idea for the barbarian. You wouldn't have to track which round you're on, and it gives a satisfying amount of control over the duration of rage while also making sense in character. Would this lead to too short and long duration rages? Currently fatigued is very powerful, making avoiding it very important. I think having Fatigued toned down to "you have a -1 conditional penalty to all rolls and DCs, if you spend 3 actions in a round this becomes a -2 conditional penalty." while Exhausted becomes the current Fatigued would make it a better trade off.
Some of the problems with the current system: It makes build that require multiple scores very hard at low levels, but easy at high levels. Making what style of character is viable dependent on what level you play. Making lots of characters feel very samey. With lots having 18 Dex, Wis, and Con as they level up. It forces odd ability scores, which don't do anything. This makes it so a character built to be a specific level won't use those ability scores boosts to make an odd stat as not to waste them, but if you want to increase them in the future you are forced to waste that boost for now.
Point buy has the problem of allowing characters to boost their main stats at the expense of stats they don't care about. I think a system that resulted in these ability score arrays would be more fun: 20 14 14 12 10 10 total bonus = +10 18 18 14 12 10 10 total bonus = +11
18 16 16 12 12 10 total bonus = +12
16 16 16 16 12 10 total bonus = +13
What system could generate these arrays, other than just selecting arrays?: Your Ancestry gives you two fixed boosts, two free boosts and one flaw, or three free boosts. No two boosts can be in the same ability score.
This gives a total bonus of +8, with a max of only one stat being 16, and ensures at least four stats have a bonus. Then you can use five boosts, but it costs two boosts to increase a stat from 16 to 18, or three boosts to increase a stat from 18 to 20. This system results in the ability score arrays listed above. It has the benefit of any class or race being able to get an 18 in the stat they most care about, but limits a score of 20 to only a class that boosts it and a race without that ability as a flaw. Having a score of 20 also comes with large drawbacks: you cannot have a secondary score of 18 or 16, and your total bonus is lower. *Terminology: a boost is a +2 bonus to an ability score, a flaw is a -2 penalty With this system there is no need to have ability scores increase as you level up, they already cover a large swath of different concepts, versatility enough to make meaningful build differences.
It's really unclear what you can do with the spell. Is it reasonable to ask:
Having a number of spell slots per spell level, with the power of a spell of a given level fixed, creates a lot of problems for balancing spellcasters. If you make a low level spell too powerful a high level spellcaster has too many resources, because the number of spell slots increases linearly. But if you make all low level spells weak than low level spell casters are way too weak. This makes it really hard to balance spellcasters and non-spellcasters across all levels. Issues with spell power by spell level: Individual spells being weak at low levels and strong at higher levels causes lots of problems for the balance of spellcasters in combat. This causes buffing/debuffing spellcasters to be comparatively weaker at low levels and stronger at higher levels compared to classes that rely on weapon attacks whose power level grows much less dramatically. All spells having the same DC causes this problem for spells that debuff. Those spells are made very weak at low levels and increase in power as they get higher in level. For example level 1 fear is very weak, level 3 fear and level 3 slow are alright and level 6 slow is strong. At low levels the spells are too weak and maybe not even worth their action, while at middle levels maybe the spell power is appropriate, and at higher levels the spells are disproportionately stronger than they were before. This causes spellcasters to be very weak at low levels and increase in power dramatically as the get high level spells and their low level spells become worth using, giving them large increases to power. Buffing spells exhibit these same problems, being far weaker at low level than high level. For example resist energy (the amount scales with level just to keep up with increased damage, but the increase in targets is a huge increase in power) and heroism. At low level very few of these spells are worth using, while at higher levels they can become powerful. Damage/healing spells do not have these problems, because a highest level slot is always required to do level appropriate damage/healing. Polymorph/summoning spells should not have these problems either, if they are appropriately balanced for their level is a different issue. Summon spells of your highest level should have a consistent difference in level between the level you cast it and the level of the creature summoned, this would keep the creature an appropriate power level if the building an encounter guidelines are correct. It is understandable for utility spells that primarily affect narrative power rather than combat effectiveness to increase dramatically in power, so those are fine. Many powers have this same problem. Suggestions on fix: This system of having a number of spell slots per spell level makes having appropriately powerful low level spells cause higher level casters to have too many appropriately powerful spell casts. Having spell slots per spell level seems too entrenched in tradition to change. This used to be mitigated by decreasing save DCs for lower level spells, spells with HD limits like color spray, and spells that depend on targets HP like power word spells. Having all spells use the same DC is very convenient, and those solutions don't affect buffing spells. A possible solution for this problem might be to have spells have different effects depending on the spells spell level and the level of the targets, like the old HD limits in sleep and color spray, but scaling with the level of the spell slot used to cast. So a level 3 slow could slow creatures of level 9 or lower, and a level 3 mass slow could slow multiple creatures of level 2 or lower (numbers could be whatever is appropriate for the effect). This would allow low level spells to be useful, but not give higher level casters too many options. This puts buffs/debuffs on the same level as damage spells and allows spellcaster power level to grow more in line with other classes. This would allow increases in the power of spell casters to be very easily controlled. Spells could increase their level of target affected faster than the level needed to cast them at that spell level. For example, mass fear 3 could affect targets up to level 7, and mass fear 4 could affect targets up to level 10. That increase in level affected would allow spell casters to use lower level slots for stronger effects in combat, at a controlled rate. Very weak spells would have a very high or no level limit, like fear 1 could affect targets up to level 20. Low number of spell slots and increased combat duration leads to lack of resources, especially at low levels: At low levels, spell casters have very few spells, most of which are very weak. At levels 1-4 they have 2-8 spell slots and probably 4 spell points. If they face 4 encounters in a day that take an average of 5 rounds, that's 20 rounds. Most powers will not help in combat, some will help a little, and some have reasonable effects for a use of a resource, but those are rare. If the powers and spells had strong enough effects that might be enough to contribute effectively. But if a spellcaster selects a spell like fear or resist energy, they probably won't contribute very much with those limited slots, and they pretty much are stuck with cantrips and less effective weapon use. Spell Heightening: Spell heightening options fall into two groups: increasing the effect to level appropriate values like for damage/healing spells, and providing new effects like for invisibility or slow. For the first group casting the spell at the highest level is required for it to be appropriately effective, so giving free heightening amounts to using lower level spells known for higher level spells. For the group of spells with new effects, heightening amounts to a new spell known. The two groups are very different, so spells that add new effects should be separated into multiple spells, in order to allow spell heightening be balanced for the group of spells that need to be near max level to be level appropriate. Powers: I thought spell points and powers were supposed to alleviate that disparity of resources between levels, by giving a pool of usable actions that stays consistent across level to pair with the linearly scaling amount of spell slots, but as is most powers do not serve that purpose because they are too weak to serve as contributing actions. Balancing them across all classes to be reasonable would help the reduce the disparity in power between low level and high level casters. Spell point pools also feel way too limited considering the length of combat in rounds, and expectations of a number of encounters in a day. What other solutions are there for this problem? I hope there's a more elegant way than level checks for every spell but it's hard to think of while keeping this system with a number of spell slots per spell level.
Proposed change: anyone can use dex to hit and damage with finesse weapons, but they take a -1 penalty to attack and damage rolls. The decrease to attack rolls makes this an effective penalty at all levels. This gives reason to have high strength, while letting Dex based characters contribute a reasonable amount at all levels. This works out the same as the agile property in pf1, but with the new critical system the penalty is more punishing. |
