I think there are a lot of reasons that melee feels favored in PF2 compared to ranged that are much better to address than simply not making classes with melee features or synergies in SF2:

- The damage difference between ranged and melee being too big in the early game. While it eventually goes down to like 15-20%, having no stat mod to damage can be as much as a fifty percent damage loss in the first few levels, when people are having their first experiences with the game

- Short ranges on most spells

- AP maps being too small for range to make a difference

- Many melee creatures having such high speeds that they can reach you in one Stride no matter what

- Melee characters having a better reaction game overall (I see they're already addressing this some with Envoy)

- Etc.

Some initial thoughts:

I really like the overall design here. Cool skill monkey stuff, cool subclasses, and lots of strong, flavorful feats. Directives look like a fun mechanic, so do the reactions, and I'm in love with Lead By Example. Great way to make a space Warlord!

I do have a few worries, though.

- The core of this Envoy seems a little anemic when compared to other classes. Chassis is nothing unusual, good enough for a Rogue-adjacent, but as a class with no spellcasting and no other combat features that aren't feats, Directive + Lead should have the power budget of a Rogue's Sneak Attack or a Fighter/Operative's improved weapon proficiency. It doesn't quite feel like it does right now — Get'em is overall a bit worse than a Bard's Inspire Courage or a Mystic's life pool, and they both have full casting on top of those features.

- Staying on a similar lane than point #1, if the class's power is going to come so much from feats, you guys have to be very careful so a class with a stronger defining feature can't cherry pick Envoy's best feats from multiclassing and have the best of both worlds. This is doubly true in this case since their feats are purely utility-based and don't rely on their Class DC or any other statistic, meaning they're as effective for a dabbler as they are for the real class.

- The Charisma key feels a bit out of place right now, mechanically. It makes sense flavor-wise, but almost everything the class does with Charisma is optional, to the point where the Cha key feels more like a restriction than a feature. I'd definitely go 18 Dex 16 Cha here if I could instead of the opposite.

- Having the option to be Int-based and smart instead of Cha-based and charismatic is a must IMO.

- I don't like Get'em being a -1 circ penalty to AC instead of a +1 circ bonus to attack at all. Even if flanking is a lot rarer, having your core feature be redundant with one of the game's main conditions is kinda feelsbad.

I really hope there's some missing piece, something that for some reason the marketing team didn't mention when hyping up the class, but as of now, I'm pretty sad at what the future seems to have for Wizards. While everyone else is getting buffs and QoL changes, including some of the strongest classes in the game like Bards and Clerics, the Wizard seems left with only a few changes that we might spend eons discussing if they're negative or neutral, but are absolutely not positive in terms of power level.

I am a bit peeved about them getting Master in spells. During the Magus playtest it was a huge deal for the Magus to be Master/Master in attacks and spells without them losing out on versatility. I hope that with errata or a Remastered Advanced Player Core that Magus and summoner get a bit of a tune up to reflect this.

Um... was it? Both Champion and Monk have had that since the first CRB. I think some people were pissed because Magus didn't have it better than Master/Master, but that was kind of it.

Hi everyone! I ran a short adventure with my usual playgroup to test both of the new classes: Animist and Exemplar. I thought it would be cool to share how that went and how the players felt about those two in actual play, so here it is!

This post is not an in-depth analysis of the classes. I intend to do that at a later time. Having the "field experience" to inform it first is very important, and that's what this one is about.

The Adventure

I decided to run this playtest for 8th-level characters, as I think the mid levels better represent how a class is supposed to feel like. It has also been stated by Paizo that this is a level they usually get little feedback about.

The PCs were a group of 5, between famed heroes and people who just happened to be oddly powerful for their circumstances. One night, they all had a shared dream of an angelic being clamoring for their help. The hammer of a demigod, Ur, which fell onto the earth ages ago on top of a mountain, was being corrupted by some sort of evil cult. That, in turn, corrupted the land around it and its inhabitants. She needed their help to cleanse and recover the hammer. As they accepted the mission, they were teleported together to the base of said mountain — the Mountain of Myths.

Convenient, perhaps, but this is a playtest after all. I only needed as much story as it took to justify their quest.

The adventure was more combat-focused, consisting of three encounters varying between Moderate and Severe. There were also a couple of places where the characters could get advantages with preparation and use of skills and utility magic. In some cases they did, in others not so much, but we'll get to that in a bit.

The Party

For some additional context, I'll give a short description of each character, and do the same for the players who piloted them and their backgrounds and likes.

Filomena is a Sprite Animist, who wanted to protect nature and the land from the corruption that was spreading. She's a Channeler, and built for a more classic caster-y feel, also taking some Leap-based feats (Powerful Leap) and items (Boots of Bounding) to take more advantage of Sustaining Dance. Her player has been playing PF2 for about three years, but has no TTRPG experience prior to that. She's a caster main for flavor reasons, and although blasting is her favorite part of casting, she has played all sorts of them by this point.

Han is a Human Exemplar, who accepted the quest mostly as a challenge to herself. She went the Str/Dex route with a Noble Branch Longspear, Palisade Bangles and Scar of the Survivor. She also took Hurl at the Horizon and Fighter MC for Rebounding Toss. Her epithets were Mournful and Peerless Under Heaven. Han's player is somewhat new to PF2, but has played D&D and especially Vampire the Masquerade before. He also has a background in tactical videogames, and tends to enjoy making more well-rounded characters who can adapt to situations.

Kyavan is our other Human Exemplar, who found this adventure a convenient way to run away from a loan shark he got in trouble with. Not all heroes have noble goals, after all. He opted into medium armor with a general feat, so he could leave Dex a bit lower and put more points into Con and Wis. Kyavan had a Longsword Gleaming Blade, Victor's Wreath and Gaze as Sharp as Steel, with Radiant and Whose Cry is Thunder as his epithets. He specced into Duelist for things such as Duelist's Challenge and Dueling Parry. His player has been playing 2e for a while, and comes from 5e before that. He tends to play "strikers" or "DPS" in pretty much every game, TTRPG or otherwise.

Krod is an Orc Fighter, who just thought climbing up a mountain and beating cultists sounded fun. He wielded a Greataxe for unga bunga big damage, though also had feats like Swipe and Lunge for a little more versatility in his bunga, and specced into Charisma/Intimidation for debuffing. He served as an interesting foil to see how Exemplar compares in terms of damage and utility to the "top dog" as many would say. Krod's player is the most experienced with PF2 in the group, though he is a funny guy. He always play very simple characters who beat things up, but does so in a more tactical manner.

Aeris is a Human Air Sorceress, and the last member of the group. Like Han, she saw this as mostly a way to challenge herself, but worried a bit more about the whole corruption issue in a personal way. As an Elemental Sorceress, her main thing was blasting, though she did take a variety of spells anyway and that became very relevant across the adventure. She also took Rogue MC for You're Next and Dread Striker. Her player is the newest one to PF2, though he is someone we jokingly call "game genius", because he tends to learn these things very fast. I don't play with him long enough to know his exact preferences.

Character Creation

I'll skip Aeris and Krod for this part, since everyone knows how creating a Sorcerer and a Fighter is like.

The process of building the two Exemplars was great overall. Both players were going crazy about just how many cool options the class has. They also both came up with at least two or three different builds in little time and had trouble choosing between them. Han's player also commented that it was really interesting how the ikons and epithets lend themselves to building a story.

In terms of negatives on character building, both players pointed out to the same thing as the main issue: the ikons don't seem very well balanced with each other right now. Han originally wanted to take Eye-Catching Spot, as it fit her flavor better, but it seemed so bad compared to the other options (and simply a worse version of Palisade Bangles on a different slot) that she ended up switching it out.

The lack of an unarmed option, and the incredibly disproportionate amount of weapon feats compared to the other two types were also mentioned as issues. I know some of these have already been addressed by the devs. As one last thing, Kyavan's player felt like the lack of medium armor proficiency forced him to pick that proficiency up elsewhere, and that it was weird as a whole that the class doesn't have it. I definitely sympathize with that feeling.

As for Filomena, the process was considerably clunkier. Animist is also very cool, and she loved the Vessel Spells and how good the feats were compared to moster casters', but oh boy, is this class dense. Between the hybrid casting method and muddy subclasses without a clear direction, it took almost an hour of reading, re-reading and explaining just to stick in her mind how the base mechanics of the class work and how she should build to get what she wanted out of the character. And then she also had to choose multiple apparitions. After all that, she ended up going with Imposter in Hidden Places, Steward of Stone and Fire and Guardian of Groves and Gardens as her three default ones, with Steward as her main.

First Encounter

As our heroes woke up from their dream, brought together to the base of that odd mountain, they took a couple of minutes to talk to each other and figure things out. Of course, being a newly-formed RPG party, that ended in goofy bantering, with a highlight to Krod's extremely swaggy Clockwork Heels. Who doesn't love an Orc in wheeled shoes? But they did have a mission after all, and so the group moved on to the trail up the mountain.

It didn't take long before signs of the corruption started showing. Right on the entrance of the trail, two giants awaited — their eyes completely darkened and dripping with a black ooze. That wasn't a good sign. The party didn't have much time to think before they attacked, and so our first encounter began. A Frost Giant, and a corrputed, weakened version of a Cloud Giant, whose stats and abilities I brought down to level 8 using the monster creation guidelines. This totaled 100 XP - a Moderate encounter for a 5-person 8th level party.

Our heroes did not have a good start. The Frost Giant won initiative, and proceeded to critically hit Krod and Kyavan with his swipe attack, rolling an 18. I also rolled high on damage, and that took more than half their HP. Aeris lined up both giants for a 4th level Bolt, which did some damage to the Frost Giant, but the Cloud one, fittingly, rolled a nat 20 and critically succeeded. Kyavan used his Mirrored Spirit Strike, but rolled a 1 and a 2. Han tried to attack... another natural 1. And then the Cloud Giant critically hit her with a 19 on Wind Strike for almost 90% of her health. I couldn't make this s*+* up if I tried. This was probably the worst initial sequence I've ever ran to a group.

Luckily — if a little late — things started getting better. Han started the fight with Palisade Bangles up, which made the -8 unarmed attack from the giant miss her by 1. This stopped her from being knocked to zero. Krod repositioned and used Power Attack on the Frost Giant, finding out he wasn't very fond of the Flaming rune on his axe.

And then she came. An AC-130 bomber in Pixie form. Filomena activated Channeler's Stance and threw 2 Earth's Biles against the giant, which caused 2 instances of damage + persistent against his fire weakness. A round, some more brawling and a bunch of Sustaining Dances later (including one who tanked an AoO that probably would have downed Han), Krod and her had basically melted the level+1 giant while the others dealt with Cloudy. Not before he tried to reposition and successfully immobilized the Orc with his cold breath, but Lunge gave Krod just enough reach to finish him off.

Han was struggling to survive, and the 15 feet throw range on her spear helped her action economy a ton in this situation. She healed with Scar, which in turn dazzled the Cloud Giant. She managed to get one Strike in because of an earlier Demoralize from Krod, and that was pretty much the only one she hit. Better than poor Kyavan, who didn't even get that luxury, Victor's Wreath or not. I think his highest roll in the whole encounter was a 5, and even his utility like the +1 aura and the re-save against an effect, which he used on Krod to try and help him escape the ice, didn't manage to make a difference. Ouch.

Aeris missed an Elemental Toss, but switching to the Will spell Phantasmal Killer made a big difference, as the enemy failed and took a bunch of damage + increased her frightened condition to 2. With how much the Exemplars were goofing around thanks to poor rolls, the giant switched her attention to the casters. She attacked Aeris from a mile away with her Ranseur, and guess what? Natural 20. Another crit, an 18 on the dazzled check, and another party member with single digit HP. She also kicked Filomena a bunch with her agile attacks, but the sturdyness of Animist + dropping two Biles to Heal herself near the end helped her stay healthier than her peers.

From there, it was more Strikes and Earth's Bile + cantrips until the second foe eventually fell. In the end, no one went down, but the fight was a little demoralizing and way harder than it should. Of course, a combination of players rolling this poorly and the GM rolling this well is an anomaly. I think the players also struggled a bit with the size of the creatures + their huge reach, which made their usual "flank and spank" tactics a little harder to pull off. If anything, the fact that Han still managed to be useful and even clutch in some situations with such bad rolls attests to the power of Exemplar's utility.

Second Encounter

After some trouble with the giants, the group needed to recover. There's no need to go into detail here, but I will say that the out-of-combat healing ability of both Animist and Exemplar (if taking Garden/Scar) is absolutely crazy.

The journey continues. As the trail went on, the group started to noticed why the place is called Mountain of Myths. The normal laws of nature don't quite apply there. The mountain is a lot bigger than it seemed from afar, and there are many different biomes at different levels of it. They pushed through it all, though, until they heard a worrying sound. Voices. Distorted chanting...?

Still at a safe distance, they investigated, and found two humanoids: a hooded man in dark-red clothes, and a woman with snake hair and a bow. The man's face was not visible, but the Medusa also had those terrifying black eyes, and they said something about "finishing the ritual" while walking around the entrance of a cave. More bad news, but this time the party wouldn't let them be the first to attack.

Using the spells granted by her Imposter spirit, Filomena made herself and Han invisible with a 2nd and 3rd level slot, and the two put themselves in advantageous positions: Filomena took some higher ground, and Han successfully sneaked so that the mage cultist would be in her reach. The less stealthy party members stood a little further away and, with some Delay tech, Aeris started the fight with Revealing Light. Or as we like to call it, "The Flashbang".

The party also had a little surprise coming for them, though. As soon as the fight broken, two minotaurs came down from the upper level of the mountain. One of them blocked the passage of the group's non-invisible warriors, while the other tried to flank the Sorceress who stayed behind. Final setup: one Elite Medusa, two Elite Minotaurs, and a Demonologist. Technically a 100 XP Moderate encounter as well, but with three Elite creatures and disadvantageous terrain, it was realistically somewhere between Moderate and Severe.

The Demonologist passed the save against Aeris' spell, while the Medusa, despite her high Reflex, rolled very low and failed. Both dazzled, one for 2 rounds, the other for a minute. The Demonologist tried to Fireball Aeris, Kyavan and Krod, but they all rolled very well, and the mage end up taking more damage from invisible Han's Reactive Strike than he actually dealt with the spell. Now this was a much better start for our heroes.

Filomena used her higher ground to, once again, activate her stance and start blasting away with Earth's Bile. Targets were too spread out for the small AoE, so she decided to focus the Minotaur blocking the path, and it was very much worth it. A failure and a critical failure on the saves, and a good chunk of damage. Han saw this and decided to focus fire on the same foe, which resulted in him being almost dead after a Strike and the Strike, Breathe, Rend transcendence.

The Medusa shot Kyavan and hit him, but the second attack missed thanks to his wise decision to start with Gaze as Sharp as Steel as his active ikon. He failed the roll against poison, but re-rolled it into a success with a hero point. When it came to his turn, he sadly had to spend the whole thing Striding to where Han and Filomena were and Shifting Immanance, because his initial positioning was not very helpful. The Exemplar's lack of mobility proved to be a distinct downside in this situation. Krod, being the good Fighter he is, almost one-shot the other minotaur with a Power Attack crit, and only didn't kill him because the second attack missed, even with Furious Focus.

Round two, the party is doing very well and the bulldozing continues. Aeris kills one minotaur and damages the Demonologist with an Airball, and then uses You're Next to Demoralize as a reaction and finish the other minotaur with an Elemental Toss. They did do some damage to the party before dying, but it was almost negligible. Filomena continues her explosive rampage with an Earth's Bile into a 4th level Explosive Earth spell, finishing the Demonologist off. Han is very thankful for Aeris' previous "flashbang", as it turned the Medusa's critical hit with a deadly bow into a miss, with a roll of 2 on the flat check. She did, however, make Han slowed with her Petrifying Gaze. Krod Sudden Charged in to dish out some extra damage.

Kyavan arrives with a Mirrored Spirit Strike on the Medusa, and finally, thanks to all the gods, gets a nat 20 on the first attack. He did miss the second one, but that crit did about 70 damage between weapon damage, spirit damage and Whose Cry is Thunder. Han approached and missed all her attacks the previous turn, but simply positioning well proved to very important here. After some more kaboom damage from Filomena and a Phantasmal Killer from Aeris, Han left the Medusa half-dead with a Reactive Strike as she tried to reposition, and finished her off in her own turn with a basic Strike. Her original plans were more complex than that, but being slowed as an Exemplar really hurts.

This encounter was supposed to be harder than the first, but through better tactics, preparation, and dice that weren't absolutely atrocious, it ended up being much easier. I think the players also started "getting" the new classes a little better at this point.

With what seemed like the night coming — it was hard to tell in that eerie place — they went into the cave to rest, finishing the day.

Third Encounter

During their rest, Filomena thought about changing some of her apparitions, but ended up not doing so. In her words, swapping a whole list of spells for another whole list of spells mid-game felt like so much trouble, even compared to normal prepared casting, that it wasn't worth it. So that put aside, they continued onwards to finish their adventure.

As the group finally reached their destination, the view was quite bleak. A dark atmosphere, and the Hammer of Ur was spreading that black ooze through the cracks of the place it once landed. Standing next to it, a single humanoid creature with a grim mask and blood-red robes. The air around them smelled like death. The party knew what to do, but by now they had learned it wouldn't be so simple.

Filomena, with her absurdly high Perception modifier thanks to Medium's Awareness, tried to look for what else was wrong about that place. She rolled poorly and failed by one. But as the rest of the group tried to engage what seemed like their final foe, they quickly found that out anyway. Five shadowy undead creatures, consumed by or perhaps even made of that corrupted liquid, sprouted from the ground, and thus our final encounter began.

The vampire cultist boss was a custom-ish 10th level creature, built by applying the weak template to a Provincial Jiang-Shi, swapping their Reflex and Fortitude saves, then increasing their speed and HP a little but reducing their physical resistance and cutting on some immunities, spell slots and changing some spells. The shadow undead mooks were reflavored Withereds. Totaling 155 XP, this was a severe encounter for their group, within a tiny margin of error.

Kyavan went first, and started things off with a bang by sending an air slash imbued with lightning and thunder towards the vampire. That was the description of his Judgement From Clear Skies. The physical resistance reduced the base damage a little, but it was still a very good hit, and he then swapped to Victor's Wreath. Aeris Thunderstriked the boss, but they ended up passing the save and it was not very effective. The other three tried to start clearing some of the minions with basic Strikes and a Channeler's Stance + Fireball from Filomena, which damaged a lot of them but didn't quite finish them off yet.

On the vampire's turn, Synaptic Pulse was cast, with the whole party except for Filomena being in the area. This was the moment where Exemplar's early Master in Will made a huge difference: both Han and Kyavan rolled a success turned into a crit, and were unaffected. Aeris and Krod failed, getting stunned 2. The minions had really bad initiative and acted all together in the end, using their Surge ability and flanking to dish out some sneak attack damage. Kyavan only took one hit, but Han and Aeris each lost about a third of their health.

Kyavan striked some more and tried to use his Victor's Wreath transcendance to free Aeris from her stun, but she failed again, as the DC of 30 was very high. The sorceress had to spend her only action moving away from the enemies and out of flanking. Filomena, as expected, started her airstrike bombing by Sustaining Dance one Earth's Bile to reposition and casting two more, almost killing two of the minions. Han tried to use Rebounding Toss but failed the first attack, losing the action. She did hit a spear throw with her third action, though, almost killing another creature. Krod used his trustworthy Lunge to reach the boss and hit him for a decent chunk of damage.

This was the moment where the players regretted not focus firing. The cultist boss used a 3 action Harm, damaging all of them and healing almost every creature on the opposing team, since by this point everyone was bunched up. The withereds kept slashing, but their onslaught slowed down at this point because most of them had their Surge on cooldown.

Round 3 comes, and what was starting to look like a potential problem quickly swung again to the players' favor. Filomena chunked some of the mooks back with her Biles, and it was enough for Krog to kill two of them with a critically hit greataxe Swipe. He then moved to a better position to set up flanking for his buddies. Han killed another withered with some Strikes and Strike, Breathe, Rend, and Aeris damaged more of them and the boss with an Airball and Elemental Toss. Kyavan used Sever Four Butterfly Wings, which sounded cool on paper but wasn't super effective in practice, as with two hits followed by a miss it ended up splitting his damage and wasting actions more than helping. After everything, they managed to cut their enemies down from six to only two.

With their meat shields almost completely gone, the vampire started getting a little desperate. They went on to cast Repelling Blast, trying to damage the three melees of the group and push them away, with moderate success. Han, however, critically failed, and had already used all her hero points before. She was sent flying, knocked prone and had single digit HP left. The problem is, the remaining withered also had the exact same fate. I don't even remembered who finished that one off, but it was basically a non-threat at this point.

The nuisances were dealt with, and now it was time to focus on the main threat. Kyavan and Krod were flanking the boss, and chunked them significantly with a Power Attack and a Mirrored Spirit Strike (turning the damage into spirit was great to pierce the physical resistance here). Han had to simply get up, move and heal herself with Scar, but that by itself dazzled the boss with no saving throw, which frustrated any remaining plans I had of using melee attacks and Drain Qi. Filomena switched to single target blasts now, and if the dazzled and flanking weren't enough, Aeris threw a Reach + Slow on the vampire, who failed the save. This was the moment where I basically threw the towel.

From there, it was basically mopping up a boss that had been turned into barely a threat. They tried to use Vampiric Exsanguination and 2 action Harm in later turns to keep themselves "alive" as long as possible, but at this point it barely mattered. Kyavan went down, but Filomena put him back up with a 2 action Heal, and from there it was throwing everything they had at a meatbag until it eventually died. Funnily, the sprite got the last hit with Explosive Earth again.

Ending

With the hard part of their journey complete, the only thing left was to cleanse the hammer and retrieve it. Except... neither was exactly possible. The weapon was the size of a small building, and the corruption was already too entrenched in it. The celestial woman from the dream sent them a final message, grievingly telling them that the Hammer of Ur, the last remnant of her late son, had to be destroyed. She asked the casters in the group to mark it with her holy brand, allowing her to do the job herself.

As the group fled the mountain with divine help, an enourmous golden arrow came from the sky and crashed against the hammer, causing what could be described as a celestial nuke. That did stop the corruption, however, and as they floated back to the base of the mountain, they could see the plants and creatures of that land going back to normal. Quite a beautiful view.

With a bittersweet ending but a feeling of victory, our playtest was over.

Thoughts and Comments

In this last section, I'll gather and share comments and considerations my players had about the classes in the post-game. These aren't organized in any particular order:

- Everyone seemed to agree that the overall power of Exemplar's abilities seemed about right, at least if you pick the good options. Neither of the two Exemplars could quite compete with the Fighter in pure damage, but they did that well enough even with below-average rolls, and they had a good amount of utility for a fully martial class.

- Discussing the power level of Animist was a bit hard. Some players expressed that Earth's Bile + Sustaining Dance spam with Leap investment resulted in too much damage and mobility for a full caster to have without even spending slots. However, that seems to be an outlier build for the class, and we're not quite sure about how the others would fare.

- Filomena's player enjoyed the Animist overall, but felt like it was too complex to read, understand and actually use all it has to offer. The table overall agreed that they would feel the same if they were the ones playing the class. Swapping your spell list in a 10 minute rest in big chunks like that and with all of them being sigs is a bit impractical without a lot of setup (like printing cards of your apparitions, making multiple Foundry sheets or something similar).

- When asked about it in more detail, she said she would prefer if the class was, or at least had an option to be, more focused. Cuting on the versatility of crazy spellcasting methods, infinite signature spells and swapping half your spell list extremely fast to be better at a certain set of things depending on what apparition she wanted to focus.

- Filomena's player felt like spamming vessel spells was very effective, but not very fun. After casting one, she felt too pressured to keep the sustain going for the entire encounter unless something really bad happened. This ended in her actual slotted spells being a little underused. Sustaining Dance was quite overcentralizing on her build, but the action economy would have been super clunky without it.

- Both Exemplar players commented that the class felt good to play and flowed well until the moment you're stuck in an ikon that has a situational transcendence. Choosing between a dead action (Shift) and a virtually-dead action (using a transcendence that does nothing in the moment) isn't the best feeling. Having one of your three base ikons have a niche special action felt like a bit of a trap, and currently a lot of them do.

- Repeating some of what was said in the Character Creation part, both Exemplars felt like internal balance between options within the class is what needs the most work right now. A lot of focus is put on weapons as well, and all the rest seems a bit undersupported.

- Both Exemplars liked the idea of having optional focus spells, but did not like that those were pulled from Cleric Domains. They'd prefer if the class had its own martial-inclined focus spells, like a Monk.

- Both Exemplars felt like the class' action econony made it very hard to use skill actions, or any other actions that aren't the class' abilities.

- Kyavan's player restated his desire for medium armor as a base thing in the class, citing how some classic Exemplars like King Arthur used medium or even heavy armor, on top of mechanical concerns.

- Kyavan's player said the whole ikon shifting thing works, but both from a thematical and a character building standpoint, he'd like to have the option of building a simpler Exemplar who has a single ikon that's iconic to them (no pun intended) and focus on that only.

- Kyavan's player said Gaze as Sharp as Steel has a glaring issue right now. It doesn't give you Reactive Strike often enough that you feel comfortable skipping the feat, but if you do have the feat, the transcendence is completely useless.

- Han's player was particularly fond of Palisade Bangles, as giving all your allies an AC bonus that stacks with shields is rare, unique and feels particularly on-theme. The transcendance, however, only being able to pull a target towards you and with a Fortitude save, ended up being too situational. She only used it once, unsuccessfully.

- Han's player thought Peerless Under Heaven had an extremely cool flavor but was a little underpowered. Simply getting crit spec as a 7th level feature felt weak compared to Whose Cry is Thunder, and the active was too much of a risk for too little a reward.

- Han's player felt like Scar of the Survivor was considerably stronger than other body ikons.

- As a last note, to address narrative concerns I've seen some having: no one in our group felt like Exemplar was particularly inclined to causing "main character syndrome". Some players expressed the class doesn't even feel like it needs to be Rare.

@SuperBidi Flurry of Blows combines both Strikes for resistances and weaknesses, which means it only adds your Exploit damage once, even if you hit with both attacks. Not sure if you've taken that into account?

In either case, my point still stands that it will not beat a Fighter or Rogue using their multiple, easily-triggering reaction Strikes to their advantage, having better action economy and better synergy with special Strikes and archetypes.

I firmly disagree with the premise here. For ages, CRB classes were clearly the strongest, and post-CRB classes had to jump through more hoops, invest more character resources, and succeed at more rolls just to compete with their peers at their baseline.

Thaumaturge is simply at the same power level as CRB classes, not above. They pay for all their versatility and relatively good damage with tight action economy, being considerably MAD and having only okay defenses.

You're talking about these classes' cheese builds breaking the game, but you're comparing them to Core classes at their baseline. Compare whatever you did with Thaum to a Polearm Fighter abusing Combat Reflexes, or a Rogue with Preparation + Opportune Backstab, and you'll see that the ceiling is far from being broken.

I don't think the issue is in the core design here, but in how underwhelming some of the non-weapon options and their Transcendences are.

Ideally, you should be pressing one "cool button" almost every round, with the tradeoff that you can't always use the same one. However, Thousand-League Sandals, Skin as Hard as Horn and Scar of the Survivor are the only non-weapon ikons with Transcendances you can reliably use and feel good about using.

With the correct build, you should almost never be manually switching, but it's not hard to build yourself into a trap where both your Body and Worn ikon are super situational (or straight up bad) and you have to manually put your spark on weapon to access the good one again.

I will say, I don't dislike a lot of these changes.

Thunderburst is different from Shocking Grasp, but a pretty good blast.

Entangling Flora is one people are overlooking. It doesn't require plants anymore, becoming an amazing area control spell.

Howling Blizzard, even with the reduced damage, gets a huge area or both ground and air difficult terrain, and two great area shapes that you can switch between. I think that's worth it.

But then there are the Wizard changes. Just... what the hell, man? Wizard was already battered, shredded, whipped, set on fire and exploded from previous editions, and unless we're reeeally missing something, this is another nerf? The super limited list makes your bonus slots worth so much less. From all the possible realities, including just making Wizard a real 4-caster, this is probably the worst one.

We can and probably will disagree on an exact implementation, but I will say: from my experience in 3-and-something years with PF2 and many tables, it's clear as the sky in my mind that spell attacks need something.

I'm Brazillian. I play with many people with low to mid level English who don't even have access to the international PF2 community at large. Yet Spell Attacks have been pointed out as a problem/feeling bad by basically every single person who tried to use them. It's not a fabrication of said community. It's a thing that, as far as I'm concerned, has been affecting people in actual games since day 1 of release.

Unicore makes some valid points about system mastery and teamwork affecting how good spell attacks are a great deal, but ultimately I think either case is a problem. If spell attacks are bad, that's... well, bad. If spell attacks are good, but only when you're between the "top players" in the game, isn't that still as big of a problem?

A mechanic that governs most of the offensive cantrips, many bread and butter Focus Spells like Amped TKP or Fire Ray, and extremely iconic spells like Shocking Grasp and Disintegrate should not require a high degree of system mastery for base functionality. To simply have a decent chance of hitting. I think calling that a non-issue at this point is literally the original definition of an Ivory Tower: being so stuck up in our tall buildings of game knowledge and "intellectual" discussions that we dismiss the problems that don't affect us specifically.

Overall I prefer things the way they are on release, in terms of acquiring elements. It is cool to wield all elements earlier on, but if the class had that as an easy option, it would have to be balanced around being able to cherry pick from all 6 elements with little investment. And... well, we all know what happens when you balance a class against some huge versatility tax that half the people don't even want to use :x.

I think anyone wanting a caster to match martials at DPR is going to be disappointed, because the cost for that is stuff like wave casting. That's just how PF2 splits the balance.

That's why I said "mage-flavored character" and not "caster". It doesn't have to be a caster. I mean, sure, some people want actual casters to be able to do that, but that's not a realistic compromise. What a lot of other people want, however, is just waving hands and throwing energy at people and watching them die. Nothing more, nothing less.

We're more than 3 years into the game and that's still not an option, which I find sad because it's absolutely not outside the realm of possibility, in terms of mechanical balance. Magus is almost that, except it puts weapons or punches into the mix, which kinda ruins it if you're looking for that sweet pure mage flavor.

I think the discourse around Kineticist and DPR goes much deeper than the class itself. In fact it's barely even about Kineticist. As long as we don't have a mage-flavored character that can be a dedicated damage dealer in the same way a Barbarian or Magus can, there will be a decently large group unhappy about it.

It's such a big and extremely popular fantasy. Just in the playgroup I run to there are two or three people like that.

I just hope Kineticist has some build, any build, that can do very strong, constant damage. Even if it's to the sacrifice of literally everything else.

Like, I love the idea of being a controller Air Kineticist or a support-y Wood Kineticist just as much as the next guy, but ultimately these are things that actual spellcasters can already do. Meanwhile none of them can say "screw all that, I wanna point at things and make them explode" and focus entirely on damage to be actually competitive with martials.

It's totally fair that full casters with their lists of 600 spells with a million different effects can't dish out as much as martials. But that doesn't mean that every character focused on waving hands and throwing colored balls of magic should be shoehorned into utility first, damage second.

Just adding to the crowd here. I don't think a class should rely on reflavoring to enjoy all of their potential without breaking their most basic flavor.

I love that shield Monks are an option, but them being the one obvious choice is kinda boring — like most "one obviois choices" tend to be — and also runs against the normal current for the class's flavor.

Either add something that competes with shields defensively as said above, or give them some kind of reward for having both hands free. Maybe +1 damage/die with unarmed attacks.

It should be reasonable that there are some fights where you want to keep panache until the finisher would likely actually finish something. You just need to be able to *get* Panache when you're fighting a boss type enemy.

I agree you should be able to get Panache more easily against bosses, but I disagree with the first statement. Mostly because the current benefits for keeping Panache are extremely mild. They don't even compensate for your weaker weapons and lack of main stat to damage, let alone actually make you do good damage, and give you Speed when you need it the least (usually after already having approached an enemy). If they want to make "sometimes you have to keep Panache, sometimes you spend it for a Finisher" an interesting gameplay loop, they have to start by making not spamming Finishers actually worth your while.

I do hope Swashbuckler gets a good revision as well. The class has a lot of awkward points, and honestly depends on having 8-10 levels under their belt to start performing with any consistency, and on a single overpowered feat (Bleeding Finisher) to do decent damage. They're novel and interesting, but not in the best place right now.

Monk has access to a very good reaction attack. Stand Still. It is different than AoO, and isn’t great against casters, but it works against people trying to step away.

Wait, why would it? Step says it prevents reactions that trigger on leaving a square or using a move action, which Stand Still is. "Such as Attacks of Opportunity" is just an example.

(...) But the fix to this I think is to try to show how someone who gets Monk feats from the levels 12-20 slot (the ones you can't get from MCing) is a better unarmed fighter than anyone else.

The thing is... are they, really? I love Monk, it's one of my favorite classes, but looking at their high level feats, I don't see anything that changes the fact that a Fighter with an unarmed Stance, Flurry, stuff like Combat Grab and Dazing Blow, Combat Reflexes and maybe another unarmed feat or two can easily compete with, if not outdo, a Monk in unarmed combat. Sure, a Monk is more mobile and has better defenses, but in terms of punchy-punchyness? Yeah the comparison kinda looks pretty good for the Fighter.

magnuskn wrote:

I mean... Monks, even Unchained Monks, also never could reach the to-hit accuracy of a Fighter in 1E, either, due to a lack of Weapon Training, Greater Weapon Focus and Gloves of Dueling. Just saying.

That's kind of the trick. Getting legendary proficiency scaling in weapons is the equivalent of getting Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, and Improved Critical (entire weapon group / all weapons) as free bonus feats in PF1.

The monk is already a better unarmed warrior than the fighter, it just doesn't do it by using an advanced accuracy progression and instead uses a technique progression.

I think there might be a serious problem of presentation in using a basic system mechanic like proficiency as a core class feature. If anything, the fact that we're three years into the game and people still constantly ask for Legendary unarmed on Monks shows that. It might be obvious for people who are deeper into the game's design that Legendary progression is the equivalent of your Rage or Sneak Attack, but it's really not in a first or even second glance.

It doesn't help that, in pretty much every other place in the game, "Higher Proficiency = Better At X Thing" is true, and that spellcasters follow a completely different progression for their spells where Legendary is the assumed rather than the "extra". Combine that with how absurdly important accuracy is in this game, and that Monk's core feature is stealable with 2 feats at level 10, and... well, I can at least understand why this is seen as an issue and probably will be until the heat death of the game.

Speaking of druids, I'd like some feat that allow you to make better use of the "terrain spells", that create some persistent zone of effect that doesn't necessarily cause damage, like entangle, shifting sands and the like. Or just, more of these spells in general. To me, they're the quintessential druid spells along with the polymorph effects, but while they're here, you can't really "specialize" in them in any measure.

Being able to specialize in certain kinds of magic, in general, is something that the game really needs right now. Every caster being a variation of uber-generalist gets stale fast, and in my experience doesn't even align with how most people actually want to play them.

I'm super fine with the changes, as long as School Slots are axed in favor of making Wizard a real 4-slot caster. If the restricted slots are kept, and now you can only choose between one or two spells to prepare there per level, that's a pretty significant stealth-nerf to Wizard, and oh boy, the class really doesn't deserve that.

What we really need is a hero who can somehow make those few pages Logan held up readable. I love what we've seen of water and would love to get more info. Just the names of the metal impulses we can see sound amazing.

I tried. Really hard. But the source quality is quite low, and combined with the bad lighting and lack of camera focus, neither an AI or my Photoshop skills were able to improve it all that much. All I was able to read is that:

- Elemental Blast is 1-2 actions, Con to hit. Michael said on Discord that the 2 action version adds Con to damage. Blasts also add Strength to damage with a clause I was not able to read. I believe it's on melee blasts.

- Water, Wood, Metal and Earth Blasts are all 1d8 damage, 30ft range. Air is 1d6 damage, 60ft range. I believe Fire is 1d8 damage, 60ft range, but that one was a little harder to read.

- Water blast does bludgeoning or cold by default. Earth is bludgeoning or piercing. Fire is... fire. Wood is slashing or piercing. Metal and Air I believe are both bludgeoning or slashing, but these were harder to read.

- Blasts gain a damage die every 4 (character) levels.

- There's a Fire impulse, Flying Flame, which is 2 actions, not Overflow, and has some sort of damage scaling every 2 (character) levels. Combined with what we know from Winter's Clutch, I expect every element to have a level 1 basic damage impulse without Overflow, as your "combat cantrip".

Uh, does it though? Finesse Fighters and Champions are rarely played and actively considered bad by most estimates. Investigators have a reputation for being one of the worst combat classes in the game and despite having combat mechanics that literally require finesse weapons to wield, can perform as well or better by just playing Strength instead. Inventors, Thaumaturges, and Rangers are a bit more neutral, but are still going to almost always be better off with a ranged or strength-based build.

Which pretty much leaves the Monk as the only class that will regularly go both ways, and that's primarily because its armor proficiency and weapon access give it unique incentives to value Dex.

That's aggressively not 'fine' at all. Having the only classes that regularly build finesse be classes that are mechanically compelled to or have special incentives to encourage it, while everyone else stays as far away as possible, does not really speak to a healthy mechanic.

Quote:

Like the thing we see again and again that "adding your ability modifier to damage" is a thing that really only matters at low level.

This is true, but it also matters a lot at low levels, and generally speaking more people are engaging with that content than with higher level content.

I think it's a fair argument that investments in strength as a damage resource feels less and less valuable as you level up... but nerfing rogues for no reason doesn't do anything to fix that.

Yeah, finesse martials pretty much have all the disadvantages of being ranged with none of the advantages. 9 out of 10 times you're just left asking why you're not using a bow or going full Strength instead.

Thief Rogue and Dex Monk are the only finesse martials I've seen played in my groups in the last 2 years or so, and that says something. Thief Rogue has Dex to damage, and Dex Monk straight up has more AC for most levels.

Personally, I would advocate removing "dex-to-damage" from the Thief entirely and giving it something else. Every other finesse class has shown that this is not actually necessary, so it probably doesn't need to be in the game.

If by "every other finesse class" you mean Swashbuckler, the class that's constantly nagged on for doing bad damage compared to almost any other martial, yeah... I'd rather not. Plus it would make Ruffian the best racket by a mile, and kill a lot of character concepts that involve being physically weak, but highly deadly by agility alone.

I think Swashbuckler suffers from two main issues:

One of them is their scaling. Not that they scale poorly — quite the opposite, actually. Their early game is kinda awful, with everything working against you. Success rates on skills are quite low, which means getting Panache is a huge struggle. You don't get Dex to damage and can't really put higher than a 12 in Str if you're not a Gymnast, which doesn't matter that much later on, but is a big deal at low levels. And you also haven't unlocked feats that make staying and Panache better (Derring-Do), nor feats that make your finishers stronger and more competitive with other classes just... basic Striking (Bleeding Finisher, Perfect Finisher). As you level, especially at around level 8 to 10, all these issues become moot, but while a character having to start this weak and getting strong later is okay in a MOBA, where a game lasts 40 minutes, it's not so much in a TTRPG, where a campaign can last 2 years.

The second issue is the balance between staying in vs spending Panache. The passive damage bonus from Panache is, let's face it, pitiful (doesn't even compensate for your weaker weapons and usual lack of Strength), and as people previously said, the Speed and skill bonuses tend to apply when you don't need them anymore. I know a lot of people say "spamming finishers is bad, stop doing it", but seriously, a Swashbuckler that doesn't spam Bleeding Finishers and whatnot, outside of specific builds like Derring-Do Grappler, is just a slightly tankier but overall much worse Rogue.

My two biggest questions are:

1 - How will their accuracy progression scale, exactly? Blasts will use Con and be "more like cantrips", but will they follow the same 7/15/19 progression with no items as spell attacks? That would be pretty disappointing, given that a big chunk of the community thinks spell attack accuracy is NOT okay. And I really hope they get boosted to Legendary Class DC, cause even full casters with full progression can struggle with targeting the super high saves monsters tend to have, let alone a 9/17 class that has a hard time targeting one of the three saves (Will).

2 - How is Paizo looking to achieve a balance between Kineticist and Spellcasters? With everything on Kineticist being at-will, it's worrying that they might pay such a high tax for it that they're just "spellcasters, but worse" on short adventuring days.

There's not really any reason wizards should be better at skills than other classes, whereas clerics being good at Will saves is an obvious flavor choice for them.

I think the problem is that when you establish Intelligence as "the skill stat", but then you give Int classes less base skills so they're just equal to everyone else... well, aren't you kinda killing half the point of being good at Int? It's like if they gave Wisdom classes bad Perception and Will progressions so they're not too good at it.

We won. Per Erik Mona on the Roll for Combat Pathfinder Remaster Youtube stream, Rogues are getting martial weapons and Wizards simple. Just wanted to say that.

I agree that the game is overly concerned with what a Monk can and can't wield for no good reason. Yes, Flurry is a powerful feature like Michael said, but the Monk already pays a lot for it, and like others said, Flurrying with a Greatsword requires using two hands instead of zero and isn't really that much better than Dragon Stance.

The only thing I could see breaking if you allowed any melee weapon is not Monk, but things like Fighter + Monk + Heaven's Thunder + Flurry at level 10+. But if that's the issue, those things should be adjusted (Monk MC probably shouldn't even get Flurry in the first place) instead of pigeonholing the Monk into using specific weapons.

I'd rather see a neutral Champion, instead of being a Champion of neutrality, being a cause that ditches alignment-based tenets to focus entirely on your deity. So I can be a Champion of Gozreh that's just about protecting nature, for example.

There is a reasonable middle ground that could be achieved. Summoning at-level monsters is clearly too much, but I think if it was always a level-2 creature like it is for 1st and 2nd level Summon spells, that would have been reasonable. Instead, it downscales all the way to level-4 creatures for Heightened (4th) and higher. That is too much on the sucky side.

Can't you prove the wizard is worthwhile without adding rules in?

Well, as dissatisfied as I might be with the current state of casters, Spell Blending Wizard getting 6 (5+Bond) top level slots is certainly worth something. That's 50% more than Sorcerers and double what other casters get. PF2 has a lot of spell types that only work well while in a max level slot, and in my experience that by itself already gives Wizards some interesting niches.

If anything, I think the Wizard's biggest sin is not being weak, but being boring. Their focus spells suck, school specialists aren't specialists at all, and Intelligence has a lot less interesting uses than other stats, so "I have a ton of my strongest slots" really is everything they have going for them. Good potential power, but not very inspired IMO.

Notably, rarity is not a balancing mechanic, Sudden Bolt is not uncommon because it outpaces other options, its uncommon because all AP content is uncommon. Sudden Bolt does more damage because Sudden Bolt is single target, but its the same actual damage as Lightning Bolt which is an AOE a level above it, and with a much longer range.

I do wish we had more single target basic save damage spells though, maybe Rage of Elements could provide them-- Magic Missile could use more competition in the single target space.

Oh, the two things weren't meant to be necessarily related. There's many reasons things can be Uncommon, including just being AP content in general. AP content also happens to be often less balanced, and there's people who think Sudden Bolt isn't a balanced spell, hence the "broken AP content" comment. Not that I agree. Like I said, I'd love to see 20 new Sudden Bolts with different damage types, spell levels and targeted saves.

Fighters have an exceptionally strong chassis, with good saves, heavy armor, AOO... legendary in attack rolls is just the Fighter's special damage bonus, and as good as it is the Fighter would not be particularly impressive if you left it with only the accuracy. Focus spells are a pretty fundamental part of how casters work and the wizard being stuck with a lot of bad ones is a huge deal.

On the other hand Wizards have a lot of legacy weaknesses in their chassis that don't really make sense in balance with the other casters. Arbitrarily low AC with no armor and no way to mitigate that, bad saves (why are wizards not legendary in will exactly?), not even simple weapon proficiency.

Those are fair points, but all but the last one also apply to Sorcerers, which Deriven seems to consider a good class.

Also, I should add: I saw a lot of mentions of Sudden Bolt in this thread, regarding proof that casters can do good single target damage.

Sudden Bolt is an outlier. It's a Uncommon spell that's not allowed in PFS and considered by many to be "broken AP content". The amount of damage Sudden Bolt does above the average 2d6/level AoE of its level is ridiculous. Like, 90-ish percent more. Most other single target spells only gain a small amount of damage compared to standard progression.

If we had a Sudden Bolt equivalent for every spell level, at Common rarity, I'm sure 90% of the complaints about caster damage would evaporate. Sadly, I don't see Paizo doing that, as much as I think it's a perfectly fine spell.

For me, improving the wizard should be a priority for Paizo. Improving the druid or the bard would make already great classes way too good.

I find it jarring, almost paradoxical, that you think spellcasting in PF2 is in a perfectly fine place, but also think Wizard is a bad class. The Wizard is literally the casteriest of casters: you get more slots than everyone else (4/level for specialist + 1 of any level with Drain), more ways of changing how those slots work (up to 6 top level and 5 top level - 1 with Blending, for example), and that's your whole class. If you think this is weak, doesn't that mean slotted spellcasting by itself is not that strong and it needs strong supplemental features like Divine Font or Compositions to really be worth it? Unlike, for example, a Fighter, where adding more martial to your martial made for a top tier class?

I don't even agree the Wizard is a weak caster, by the way. I'm just adding two and two.

Complaints about attack roll spells? Math clearly showing a Legendary caster ends with a +35 attack roll versus a martial with a +3 weapon getting a +36 attack roll. The fighter alone gets up to +38 and it is almost universally agreed fighter accuracy is one of the most powerful abilities in the game.

Sorry but this is such a big "technically the truth". Yeah, casters end at +35 while martials end up at +36. You just forgot to mention that casters only get Legendary at level nineteen, while staying equal or behind martials for the other 18 levels. They don't get Legendary progression, they get a progression 2 levels slower than baseline martial proficiency with a random Legendary bump tacked on at almost max level and no item bonuses throughout.

If you go down by just two levels on your comparison, to 18, a caster has spell DC 40 / +30 to hit while a martial has +33, and it gets even worse than that at levels where martial proficiency is ahead.

What casters get at level 5 (level 3 spells) is the tier of really game changing spells. Fireball/lightning bolt, slow, haste, heroism, invisibility sphere: this has a long tradition in D&D of being the difference maker in terms of what spells can do now. The gap between level 2 spells and level 3 spells is bigger than the gap between level 3 and level 4.

I think that letting this old secret of spell levels Cary through to 2e, and using that to justify holding off on the spell boost was probably the logic in decision making, even if many players, and especially new players won’t see it right away. The advantage is keeping most of the traditional level spells at their traditional level. Notice level 5 spells are a bigger gap again over level 4 too.

I understand the reasoning behind it - it makes sense in theory. In practice, though, I think the base success rates for casters are already bad enough that having monsters get two save bumps before you get your proficiency bump feels really bad. They get a +2 jump from 3 to 4, another from 5 to 6, and you're still there with your +1/level, 22 spell DC when monsters of your level have +14 to a Moderate save (not even High).

Thaumaturge is one of the only post-CRB classes that actually compares well (not extremely favorable, just about the same) to CRB classes. It's not overpowered, it's some of the other expansion classes like Witch, Investigator and Inventor who didn't get as much love as what came before them.

Please come back to me when you've played a blaster caster from 1-14.

I've literally seen it played in front of me and it's been absolutely fine.

Oh, and it was on staff nexus.

I've seen (more than one) and it was not fine. Now what? God, this position of "anyone who disagrees with me clearly hasn't actually played the game" is so annoying.

To be entirely fair, PF1 wasn't narrow for caster because caster would still work perfectly fine if they decided to forego 90% of their available spells and cast the same flavorfull bunch again and again. They'd be less than optimal to be sure, but less than optimal was still really good compared to martial, once they were past level 5 or so.

I think it's what made that edition feel so great to play for so many people despite the glaring caster/martial unbalance, most people just weren't playing optimal caster, but flavorfull ones, unknowingly taking sort of "self nerfs" that actually made caster seems balanced compared to martial, because optimal caster were just so far above all.

PF2 have fixed the level of optimal casters, but it seems to have done so at the cost of those flavorfull ones. I think most people who play caster actually want to play a specialized caster, not one that can cast every spells under the sun, which is why this debate come up again and again, as new player picking an enchanter wizard want to cast enchantment spells 90% of the time, which just don't work in PF2. An enchanter wizard here is just 10% more focussed on enchantment than in other school, and must diversify to be as effective as a martial.

Yeah, I feel that way too. Paizo was so hellbent on making the "Batman Wizard/God Wizard" not absurdly OP anymore (which is a noble goal) that they balanced the entire mechanic of spellcasting around them, not giving nearly as much care to the experience of people who don't want to do that. Which, outside optimization boards, is very likely the majority.

Another thing I haven't seen mentioned here is how absurdly better Investigator is with ranged weapons compared to melee. Their action economy is extremely tight, their core feature extensively benefits from the possibility of re-targeting, and their MADness doesn't really alow you to invest in Strength properly, meaning melee and ranged builds do basically the same damage, except ranged is much better at everything else (including using some of those super strong Magical Ammunition options from TV). Melee Investigator is screwed from so many sides at once that I'd almost call it one of the few trap options in the game.

And the core fantasy of the class seems to be "discombobulate". Rapiers and sword canes are probably their two classic weapons, flavor-wise. So bows being such a better option feels pretty bad.

All the damaging spells in the game got boosted significantly during the play test. They did that instead of adjusting accuracy, largely because accuracy can be situationally modified through tactics enough as is to make the effective damage (and debuffing ability) of spells to have very high nova potentials.

You know they literally reversed that change, right? 1.6 Burning Hands did 3d6 damage, Fireball did 8d6, etc. Then they were brought back to the initial version on release for... whatever reason. Only cantrips and focus spells got actually improved, damage-wise, and probably because their damage in the Playtest was pitiful (Fire Ray was 1d6/level, lol).

I think it is not addressed directly.

This is an issue of expectations, not objective metrics. It is about 'feels'. Which is, at the end of the day, not really worthy of extensive conversation. It is true that a person 'feels'. It is true that not everyone 'feels' the same. So where to go with conversation from there?

This is a game, not a law class. A game is about having fun, and feels can be just as important, if not more, than whatever "objective" metrics. Yes, going in circles saying "I like this", "I don't like this" is not very productive, but if a considerable number of people are not being able to have fun with characters whose fantasy they enjoy, it's important to discuss what the hell can be done about it. Is it making a caster class that can dedicate themselves more to one specific mechanic? Some Class Archetypes? Just printing better blasting spells for all levels?

Saying "this is not a problem for me so it's not a problem at all" is even less productive than any circular discussions.

Even the designers said this has nothing to do with power budget or balance, and was just for tradition's sake. As shown above. The lengths some go and the mental gymnastics they do to play devil's advocate and justify whatever design is currently in the game is, honestly, impressive. I wish I had that amount of dedication on my professional career.

I don’t think it matters much, and is fine to house rule however you want, and agree that class based weapon traits probably would have been a good idea. I agree that the plan from core rule book to APG changed and that the witch getting simple and the investigator getting martial make previous design decisions strange.

However, I think 3 weapon groups is too few categories for class definition around weapons. I get that many classes work around this by mentioning specific traits, and that kinda works ok, but I personally prefer that rogues not fit so squarely in the “martial character” hole that the can just pick up any weapon a fighter or a ranger can use and use it just fine. I like smaller groups of weapons that are specific to specific classes, with archetypes as the way different classes breach that. Even though I agree that the implantation in PF2 of this idea feels under developed and possibly abandoned at this point.

The problem with this approach is... who decides what weapon is or isn't appropriate for a specific class? You? Some designer catering to their own preferences? Any answer to this question will inevitably be wrong for a large number of people. I don't think this really works. Giving people all simple or all martial and letting them decide what fits their character concept is much better for all parties involved, except people who get bothered when someone else plays a vision of a class that they don't share.

Are you folks forgetting about Martial Ranged Weapons?

This change all on its own would relegate the existing Rogue Ranged Weapon options to the trash. Sure, not everyone plays a Ranged Rogue but those who do will swiftly find themselves upgrading at LEAST 1 Weapon Damage Die per attack the moment they can get to the front of the line of suspiciously dressed strangers are the strangely busy local ye olde Weapon Shoppe.

I'm also a bit confused with what you're talking about. Shortbow / Composite Shortbow is pretty much regarded as the best ranged weapon in the game everywhere. The Gakgung is a sidegrade that might be mildly better for some Rogue builds, but it's like, 0,01% better.

Some things need a compromise. This is not one of those things. Seriously, just make the change. Investigator, the even less combat focused Rogue, has proficiency in all martial weapons. I think any argument for why Rogue shouldn't get them that doesn't boil down to "because I don't want them to and everyone needs to be forced to play my way" died the day that class got released.

Yeah I'd say one of the biggest issues with Swashbuckler is that the balance between staying in Panache vs spending Panache is... not very good. The passive damage bonus from Panache is so tiny. It barely compensates for the d6 weapons you're using. And the speed boost is... okay, but given how most Panache earners are either melee or have a 30 foot range, it's not useful all that often.

Derring-Do is pretty nice, but at that point you're level 10, which not only takes a while but that's 2 levels after Bleeding Finisher, which widens the gap even more.