cloa513's page

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.