cloa513's page

The point of having some activities cost two actions is to make "you cannot do this twice in a round" elegant.

So I don't see how "casting a spell leaves you with one action left to do whatever" is against the philosophy.

To gain benefit from power attack, you have to attack with a big weapon and attack once before using power attack, you can't have the flexibility to choose to attack again after using power attack.

The point of having some activities cost two actions is to make "you cannot do this twice in a round" elegant.

So I don't see how "casting a spell leaves you with one action left to do whatever" is against the philosophy.

There is other ways of doing that and it is restrictive. You could have one normal attack for one action for one extra dice and forbid it being used more than once a round.

The way I see Pathfinder 2 with its basic 3 action economy is that its philosophy is that combat for characters is meant to have choices/flexibility yet it has multiple features that go against that philosophy- feats such as power attack, point blank that only gain if you commit to attacking (or lock one round in doing a stance) for three or two rounds. Also spell slots go against that philosophy that commits to using three actions or you "waste" a slot. What is the complete list of features that go that way and how legitimate that it should be fixed by homebrew?

cloa513 wrote:

Assuming you are far from the enemies, do you want be early on initiative to act first or want to be later to respond to enemies or other fellow team members?

I think it's almost never bad to have high initiative, because you can Delay to lower it if that would be better. Winning initiative gives you all the options of not winning, and more.

That said, I don't think it's equally valuable for every PC. As in, for some characters it's so good that it's worth investing heavily in, whereas for other PCs it's less so.

A bard for example that wins initiative can Inspire Courage or use a Dirge of Doom before others get to act and that's really helpful. Basically anyone casting buffs or debuffs, or using Recall Knowledge to find out important stuff like "don't use electric arc on that ooze that looks like it has weak Reflex, you'll split it".

Someone who's mostly expecting to "stand and receive" doesn't get quite as much out of it. Likewise, a rogue who's counting on flanking probably wants to wait until after some other people take positions anyway. Although their Surprise Attack class feature can help bridge that particular gap.

That is why I didn't say high initiative roll.

cloa513 wrote:

Assuming you are far from the enemies, do you want be early on initiative to act first or want to be later to respond to enemies or other fellow team members?

I think it comes down to the party order and your class.

For example, as a blaster I'd like to be high in initiative, to blast before my melee charge.

Same goes for a champion.
I'd like to get my reaction asap, so I'd try to have high modifiers.

In adjunct, another thing to consider is the environment. Being on an urban settlement ( houses, streets, etc,) might probably mean that you can reach out your enemies with a single stride action, while if you were into the wilderness you would probably require more speed ( then would be up to you whether to wait for your enemies to come or to charge them. For example, facing casters or archers would be different than fighting barbarians).

High initiative party with a battle oracle shines in terms of possibilities.

For clarification, your character does he want to first in initiative?

Assuming you are far from the enemies, do you want be early on initiative to act first or want to be later to respond to enemies or other fellow team members?

How would you build a scout which a person who gathers information about potential opponents without engaging them? One direction is a rogue with seeking to gain master in perception and stealth and the general feats to support identify monster (assume GM sets enough range of types to use all relevant general skills). How would you do using a progression by level?