heyyon's page

PFS is a great place to join up and regularly play the game, without scheduling concerns. It's also a great setting to get to know new people or a new gaming shop.

But mostly... it's a great place to audition for your next invite to a home game.

Sure, damage is important. But DPR comparisons put me to sleep, and my general impression is that DPR discussions don't take into account so many other factors. It's "white room" analysis.

I've been around these forums and other discussion venues for over ten years, since mid-way through the PF1 era, and can't say I've seen "selfish" oriented remarks. Perhaps if you tried to rearticulate what problem you see, more folks could engage with it.

One thing that I've really grown to love about this edition, and I say this as a number crunching optimizer in PF1e, is just how little the DPR charts mean a got damn thing. Combat is so fluid and buffing/debuffing is so critical that setting up silly wombo-combos for big damage numbers is almost not worth it. Teamwork, as it turns out, provides better results than a "me me me" character.

To that end, I kinda agree with OP. However, I dunno if I have ever seen a table that viewed a damage dealer as "selfish." They're necessary in a game that relies on setting HP to 0. Personally, I urge players at my tables to have a set up move (a buff, a debuff, something) and a finisher (a big hard hitting ability) in their rotation.

I try to vary this a lot as a GM.

Most of the time, I will try to give something believable. Bluff a key attack ability, a resistance, or a high save that might match the monster.

Sometimes, I will just go for a laugh with the off one... esp when it's a lower-than-party-level monster.

I think the key is just reading the monster before hand and having some idea of what the monster would do. This'll guide you on all the things you might wanna do. Make it a laugh, make it an easy-to-solve puzzle, make it a good bluff.

Just feel out your table. Is it sluggish and they need a pick up? Maybe give them a laugh. Are they power gaming? Bluff hard. Are they really into story and lore? Maybe give the DK haver a lie and let another player sort it out.

TL;DR - there's no one good answer to what to do with this feat. It *really* is GM fiat and feel. Just know your group and solve errything with the question 'What's the most fun right now?'

Cheers!

Culinary Arts. I will not explain further.

I have one of these Paladins in a game of Age of Ashes I am running. He's an absolute beast. From the GM chair, it really is a case of damned if I do, damned if I don't.

When I try to hit others, the Paladin is so much of a beatstick that one extra attack a round at full MAP just brings stuff down so fast. Additionally, the damage reduction effect of his ability has kept players alive by just expanding their HP pools so many times now.

When I try to hit him, his AC and HP are so high that I can't burn him down in time to win fights. I *could* spend all my actions to have the baddies blow him up, but like... they'd just get eaten up by the other characters right quick.

What I would recommend doing, tho, is set aside some misconceptions of PF2e from what you know of PF1e. It's a totally different creature now. +2 AC over someone else is HUGE. Same with +2 to hit. It's massive. Having the highest AC in the game will absolutely keep you alive and make you effective in combat.

If every PC was equipped with some method of laying down a healing effect, you will still need a Cleric. AoA is punishing amounts of damage, at times. If this is your group's first foray into APs for PF2e, the Cleric can also buff out a LOT of mistakes in play. Highly, highly recommended.

The enemy consists of intelligent human bandits. The party's fighter charges forward with a +2 greater striking flaming longsword, and during the battle the bandits succeed at knocking out the fighter.

When you gain the Unconscious condition in this game, you drop everything you're holding.

Shouldn't a bandit pick up the weapon?

Tactically this seems like the right thing to do. But I see a problem with how this interacts with another rule:

When you fall unconscious, your initiative changes to just before the effect that knocked you out. This more often than not results in a delay before you can act again.

This rule allows the party to aid you in recovering, but it also delays when you can pick up your dropped weapons. So it feels like having an enemy pick up your weapon was something the designers didn't account for. And it feels especially bad if you couldn't rescue your weapon simply because your initiative was delayed.

What do others think about this?

Ha! Yes, knock them out, but don't have some random bandit just try to slash at your heroes. He knows he's gonna lose that fight. Dude's been trying to scrape together a living as a highwayman. He gets a few thousand in gold dropped into his lap. Homie is bolting with that. Run away. Scatter. All the bandits can make their way to the hideout while your group's Fighter comes to.

Where the game has constant advancement and Ability Boosts and magic items and increases that are cancelled out by equivalent boosts to the monsters. So you're just advancing and advancing and advancing but not really getting any better. It's masturbatory increasing numbers just for the sake of bigger numbers. The illusion of progress and improvement.

It's a hamster wheel.

If your argument is just "monsters get stronger too," what's the point of any sort of RPG-related game? This "it's a hamster wheel" argument applies to literally every RPG game ever created.

Man, I hated the end of Final Fantasy, I was level 90+, but so where the toughest bosses! And, don't get me started on WoW-Classic; was fun for a bit, but when I got to 60, all the bosses in Molten Core were 62! What's with that!? It's just a hamster wheel!

The point that was raised in the playtest wasn't that monsters got more powerful and so your character didn't improve. It was that the delta between a monster's DC and your character's best and worst abilities was staying exactly the same. If I built a Fighter, I didn't really get better at hitting things over time. I'd hit a Dire Rat on an 11 at level 1, and I'd hit a Pit Fiend on an 11 at level 20. Or something like that (don't parse the numbers for accuracy, they're totally wrong and made up for illustrative purposes). What players wanted instead was to hit a Dire Rat on an 11 at level 1, but to hit the Pit Fiend on an 7 at level 20. They wanted to see the die roll break points change.

And, really, they do. Fact of the matter is that your campaigns will naturally show off how your characters are getting more powerful. Fighting the same type of creature multiple times over the course of levels may feel a bit repetitive, but it's a trope from many, many RPGs. You fight a skeleton, singularly, at level 1. Then you fight 3 of them in a group at level 2. And by level 5, you fight a necromancer with a small group of them, who summons more and more during the fight. Using the same skeletons held the story together, but it also let you see just how much easier it was to get over the DR or to make contact with them over time. What was a formidable fight early on becomes a mere speed bump. In PF2e, this is represented by level being included in proficiencies. At level 1, you might've needed a 13 to hit this skeleton, but 4 levels later, you need only an 8... maybe even lower. And now, you're getting 15 or 20% crit rate on them! And you've got a pair of new class feats to make the fight easier! Or spells, 3rd level spells blow them up much easier than 1st.

This treadmill argument doesn't hold water. It's just grognard nonsense.

Another real problem I see with AP design/GMs struggling to figure out how to use effectively, is giving PCs enough down time between things the story expects them to do right away. Crafting takes 4 days. Retraining takes 7 or more. Even purchasing new items can take days and require access to large cities. Players need down time to come much more frequently than 1 break every 4 or so levels. PFS spaces this out really well. A player is likely to have almost a month of down time per level. In games where the down time is going to be rushed, GMs need to shower PCs with consumables that are too cheap and useful to hoard.

For sure, the APs could start to denote where things are time sensitive and where they are not. We would have to ask the design team their justifications, but my guess is that it will match what they've said about many of the APs: "These are suggested structures, but at the end of the day, it's up to the GM to modify this where needed."

Y'alls... The Proverbs of Hell are all intentionally flawed. They sound really great at first blush, but break down under closer scrutiny. Like Cabbage said, the crow is smarter... which is why the boastful eagle ought give up that time to learn its ways, rather than refusing to hear any new information that might change his view of himself.

(Read through most of the posts here, but not all.)

I run five PF2 groups. For two of them, the feeling of slog was mixed with the sense that the game was becoming frustrating/too hard. In Age of Ashes, the party went through 3 effective TPKs after having an effective TPK in Book One. I have moved the encounter levels down by 1, and it's been going fine.

I think that there is some conflating the issue of "there are too many fights" with "there are too many difficult fights" that calls for some GM adjustment.

I don't attribute the difficulty to players being bad at tactics necessarily. Tactics definitely help, but sometimes there are subpar party compositions, or a combo of abilities that don't mesh well with countering a given monster.

Whether PF2 was tuned to be "too hard"... well, you can't really make a level of difficulty that works for all tables, and what is more for the universe of diversity that is variable characters in a game as complex as PF2. One shouldn't need feel they have to be slavish to the source material if it's not jelling with a group.

My groups also had issues with Book 1 of Age of Ashes. I don't think it was the AP or the encounter design, though. Trying not to give spoilers here... but... The first three chapters don't really push the party in any way. You can do the same shenanigans as PF1e and it's just fine. Wanna tank mobs as a Barbarian? Cool, go take hits, s'all good! Wanna all break apart and solo fire? Awesome! Do it! It works! Then... chapter 3 opens with a fight that, if you do not answer it correctly, and down mobs efficiently will kill players. The infamous fight against a certain fellow just a couple fights later is also vicious if you do not play to your strengths (specifically if you don't debuff him at all).

Frankly, the opening book of AoA has some TPK potential because players coming up from PF1e don't do the things necessary to surviving in PF2e. I have a table of all players new to TTRPGs, and they breezed through those fights, specifically by focus firing and thinking about positioning and order of approach or order of attacks. Why have the Monk do Flurry before the Fighter lays down Intimidating Strike? They also seemed more willing to use spells that the older edition's players ignored. A great example is Befuddle. Our older edition upgrading Wizard saw this spell and balked because it only lasted 1 round. The new-to-gaming Wizard said "woah! Clumsy 2 sounds awful. If the Barbarian hits after me, he's gonna crit!" And, once, against the infamous fight named above... it worked out that way.

Greg.Everham wrote:

Rysky wrote:

That's not contradictory at all. Logan specifically said they wanted to move away from crit-fishing and are going to be buffing the abilities.

"If they buff it it's a nova" that's asinine logic. "I can't use this all the time" does not a nova make.

Again, we don't know the limits that would be put on it.

I did not say "If they buff it, it's a nova." This is a strawman argument.

Greg.Everham wrote:

Adjusting the ability to have a cooldown would mean you should also give it more punch... which is a nova ability.

Your exact words.

Greg.Everham wrote:

Let me maybe explain with different words, such that my intent is more clear.

An ability that you can always use must be weaker than an ability you have a limit on. Think of Cantrips (always have them) Vs spell slot (limited usage). And, yes, you can add a cooldown option, focus spells, that sits somewhere between the two.

If Striking Spell slides from being an ability you always have access to into something you have limited access to, while also giving it a better punch when you do use it, this is necessarily a nova ability. It is something you will use for explosive effect and then either not have anymore for an adventuring day or have to wait through the cooldown.

Whether or not the crit fishing aspect is removed, a burst ability that offers only limited access is driving players to treat it as a nova. You will use it in the moments where you need that burst, rather than making it a part of your every-round rotation. The only thing that is in really in question is small burst (Striking Spell as a Focus ability) or large burst (Striking Spell 1/day).

You're right that we don't quite know the specifics yet, but we do know what the general effect will be.

If the idea was to move it off of being such a nova ability, then Striking Spell on cantrips should have better effect (at least, better than simply swinging a sword multiple times). This would invite the player to use the

...

Firstly, my "exact words" don't suggest the thing you're claiming. Please, stop with this now. I gave you the grace of doubling back to explain it more deeply to clear up any confusion.

Moving the ability to be a punchier, but more limited ability is making it into a more nova-type ability. Moving it in the exact opposite direction, less punchy and more available, is what was stated the direction for Striking Spell would be.

The activation of Rage has a cooldown; the effect is basically always on. Weird example that doesn't illustrate the point you're trying to make and is an apple to the orange we're discussing.

That's not contradictory at all. Logan specifically said they wanted to move away from crit-fishing and are going to be buffing the abilities.

"If they buff it it's a nova" that's asinine logic. "I can't use this all the time" does not a nova make.

Again, we don't know the limits that would be put on it.

I did not say "If they buff it, it's a nova." This is a strawman argument.

Let me maybe explain with different words, such that my intent is more clear.

An ability that you can always use must be weaker than an ability you have a limit on. Think of Cantrips (always have them) Vs spell slot (limited usage). And, yes, you can add a cooldown option, focus spells, that sits somewhere between the two.

If Striking Spell slides from being an ability you always have access to into something you have limited access to, while also giving it a better punch when you do use it, this is necessarily a nova ability. It is something you will use for explosive effect and then either not have anymore for an adventuring day or have to wait through the cooldown.

Whether or not the crit fishing aspect is removed, a burst ability that offers only limited access is driving players to treat it as a nova. You will use it in the moments where you need that burst, rather than making it a part of your every-round rotation. The only thing that is in really in question is small burst (Striking Spell as a Focus ability) or large burst (Striking Spell 1/day).

You're right that we don't quite know the specifics yet, but we do know what the general effect will be.

If the idea was to move it off of being such a nova ability, then Striking Spell on cantrips should have better effect (at least, better than simply swinging a sword multiple times). This would invite the player to use the Striking Spell feature as the normal rotation. As it was printed, the action economy simply sunk Striking Spell as being in your normal rotation. It was a 5 or even 6 action ability over two turns; one to crank start the Magus and one more to deliver the spell.

Greg.Everham wrote:

Logan is talking himself in circles on the Magus. It's clear that they have no clear idea of what they want to do or even a general direction that they want to go.

Two quotes highlight just how awful this problem is:
"We’re also going away from using a special benefit that relies on a critical hit, as that led to the ability feeling too random and giving too strong an incentive to load up on true strike and put all your eggs in one basket."

"Some changes might require Striking Spell to no longer be at-will, so using it is a more impactful moment rather than repetitive."

The thing you activate 1/day in a critical moment is a nova ability. If you want to reduce the will to go nova, you make the thing more valuable in the normal routine the class will perform. That is, you make Striking Spell more attractive to use with cantrips, not your incredibly limited spell slots.

And wasn't the whole "no abilities with limits per day" thing a key component of PF2e design philosophy? What happened to that mandate?

Specializing in crit fishing and having a heavy limited use ability are not the same thing.

The first statement is Logan wanting to break a perceived meta, the second is changing a function of the class, those don't contradict each other.

Also "no longer at-will" does not automatically translate into x/day, it could merely have a coolddown or restriction.

Anything that limits the usage of Striking Spell would push players to use it for nova. Adjusting the ability to have a cooldown would mean you should also give it more punch... which is a nova ability.

It's contradictory no matter how you try to dice it up.

I don't think it's intentionally so, but I'm not sure if that isn't worse.

Logan is talking himself in circles on the Magus. It's clear that they have no clear idea of what they want to do or even a general direction that they want to go.

Two quotes highlight just how awful this problem is:
"We’re also going away from using a special benefit that relies on a critical hit, as that led to the ability feeling too random and giving too strong an incentive to load up on true strike and put all your eggs in one basket."

"Some changes might require Striking Spell to no longer be at-will, so using it is a more impactful moment rather than repetitive."

The thing you activate 1/day in a critical moment is a nova ability. If you want to reduce the will to go nova, you make the thing more valuable in the normal routine the class will perform. That is, you make Striking Spell more attractive to use with cantrips, not your incredibly limited spell slots.

And wasn't the whole "no abilities with limits per day" thing a key component of PF2e design philosophy? What happened to that mandate?

One, having 16 DEX/STR doesn't make you ineffective in combat...

And therein lies one of the major problems of the game system that will be entirely inescapable going forward: It was balanced around the assumption of an 18 in your key stat at level 1 and advancing it fully as you level. Because of this "split" builds with 16s get punished harshly. That 5% hit difference didn't matter so much in a game where your attack would well outpace most monster's defenses,* but it sure does matter in a game that keeps the math tightly bound. Balancing the game just a little lower and allowing characters to skate just slightly ahead (or simply widening the bandwidth some) would have allowed for greater player creativity within the system.

*To be clear, the way players could break the numbers in PF1e was heinous and completely a problem. As typical with Paizo, overcorrection is their middle name.

To be fair, the posts you guys are looking for is what the post-playtest stream will be for, but the playtest doesn't even end for a little under a week. Then they need to finish collating the data, and then they can get back to us, while I'm sure they're working on it, I wouldn't be surprised if they were intentionally *not* settling on solutions yet as they see how everything shook out for real. These things take a lot of time, and they might even have to demo a bunch of solutions internally before they're ready to tell us anything.

This is the way.

That said, with how awful these classes are, I'd like to see a 2nd round of playtesting opened up. Afterall, a bad game delayed is eventually good, while a bad game released on time is bad forever.

It has a major action economy issue, but now I'm really starting to feel like using actual spells with it is relatively clunky, I'd prefer a suite of tailored focus spells that are 'Striking Spells' to the Striking Spell feature we have, coupled with an oracle style focus progression.

Making it work like Eldritch Shot, e.g. the attack roll of the attack and the attack roll of the spell are the same roll, would probably be a good middle ground if the playerbase wouldn't like the focus Magus approach.

Magus needs a suite of 1-action spells that specifically call for a melee spell attack. It would clear up the action economy issues, while giving the "pure" spellcasters relatively nothing. These can be the Magus bread-and-butter "attacks." Some could do added damage, others apply debuffs, others can even buff, and I'm sure there's more imaginative uses, too. This spell-style could also be reason to get rid of the reduced spell slot thing that many dislike. If they're good enough, each spell level would see the Magus prepping one or even two of them. All around, this let's the Magus feel magical and do the whole "blending of swordplay and magic" while also not intruding on anyone's territory or seeing those other classes want to take Magus' bread and butter from them.

Logan Bonner wrote:

I think the main thing is that the class was set up to allow for more variety in the spell effects you're putting out by allowing more spells, but folks on this forum are more interested in dealing damage.

What non-damage spells is the Magus set up for using? Most of them are save spells, which aren't particularly better with Spell Strike unless you are consistently critting (which you aren't against threats worth using a rare spell slot on), and you have worse save DCs than an actual caster 90% of the time. They are certainly capable of channeling more than damage spells through their weapons, but not mechanically encouraged to do so.

Most PF2 players have seen the benefit of debuffs and they are a much bigger part of the game for a lot of parties than they were in PF1, but as designed the Magus is positioned to be one of the classes benefiting from them, not setting them up. "Folks on this forum" are playing it focused on damage because that's what the current design encourages.

Yeah, I'm legitimately confused about what Logan has said the design team imagined the Magus to be. What part of "You get 4 spells a day" makes you think there's going to be a variety in what the Magus does? How was the Magus ever supposed to overcome serious accuracy issues AND serious action economy issues?

And yeah, the rather dismissive "folks on the forum" stuff just screams "You're playing MY game wrong." Wanna know what needs improvement? That mindset.

1. Reduce action economy requirements of Striking Spell to allow for Magus to have choice in which actions it might use in a round.
2. Remove the "wind up" round in which a Magus will have no impact on the combat in order to begin acting the following round.
3. Improve DPR overall for the Magus to match other characters dedicated to dealing damage.

Addendum:
4. Remove arbitrary restrictions from the class that bespeak both a fear of and a dislike of player creativity.

I find issue with the claim and perception that if you use spell strike every turn your rounds are boring. You have 5 cantrips as well as 4 spell slots, more if you take martial caster and cantrip expansion. That's not including any magical equipment to get more spells.

That's a lot of options. The fact that the strike portion also combines with other strike actions shoot's they up when higher.

If spell strike was like bard inspire courage or summoner boost eidolon. I'd agree your are doing the same thing every turn and it's boring.

But when I played the Magus with slide casting. I stocked up on every useful offensive or utility cantrip I could think of along with finding more ways to get my spell strikes more times per day.

Using spell strike almost every turn I rarely had a similar round.

Spot on with the idea that Striking Spell as a conduit for a variety of options is not going to get stale. When we consider that Magus will often be trying to match cantrip spells to weaknesses of monsters, akin to how an Alchemist operates, it's a pretty fun turn to take. Move and Striking Spell a cantrip that you hope matches up... or maybe you Recall Knowledge to get some type of beat on what damage type to use.

Alas, all of this is a sort of moot argument. Striking Spell is a 3-action (or more) package and simply won't allow for it. Until the design is changed, that analogy above to a crank-started truck is accurate. While every other player at the table is doing stuff on round 1, the Magus player will spend the first round of every combat eating their snacks and mumbling out "Recall Knowledge, Striking Spell, hold the charge" and losing interest in the fight until their name is called again. If you want to talk about taking "similar rounds" on repeat, that's the one to worry about.

"But you have to use tactics for it to work!" isn't PF2.

"It works smoothly and well and tactics make it better!" is PF2.

This should go on a wall mural within the Paizo offices. It's an absolutely wonderful encapsulation of the target to aim for regarding a class's effectiveness.

Regarding the Magus, we're firmly in the former and this is why the class is shoddy.

My hard line is that if I'm any kind of martial and I can't hit 18ac at level 1. I home brew it or don't use it.

That's a pretty reasonable thing. The game is built assuming you have certain benchmarks; the classes should meet those benchmarks. Penalizing Strength Magi in their AC is going to absolutely ruin them, esp since the class is based around a 2-round cycle that assumes you stand adjacent to something.

Well I would argue that the Synthesis for Slide is pretty much a "do it every round" kind of ability.

But regardless, giving them abilities that they are not supposed to be using every round that only have the restriction of "once per round" gives the illusion that it should be used, well, every round.

And if you allow, and outright encourage the use of an ability every round (which you are, because two abilities are essentially weighted on the same thing), then some of the blame for "wanting" to use them every round falls on the design itself.

Like if you put a big sign on a door that says "you can open this and might get a present" but then you find out you're only supposed to open the door on Christmas, that's pretty misleading, no?

So the door either needs to be worth opening more often, maybe with smaller gifts, or it needs to have more circumstances that limit it so that it's only opened on Christmas.

I get that it's maybe not a power/balance issue directly, because it is in fact a choice, but considering how making the "wrong" choice is actually more prevalent than the "right" choice is the problem.

Basically, if you used it every round, which the ability allows you to do, you'd be having an "ineffective turn" more often than an "effective" turn by the current design. And that's probably not a good thing.

Fishing for crits and holding back your ability for special, desperate scenarios are two polar opposite playstyles. If I am supposed to be crit fishing, I want to be spamming my ability early and often, every round, to maximize the number of crits I can get. If I am holding it back for the best rounds to nova, I don't want it going off 10% of the time; I want it every. damn. time. Otherwise, why did I hold it back for so long?

So, if they were to make it a 2 action activity to Cast+Strike, then either the Strike would be at -5 or the spell would be at -5, which would be much more terrible.

Gonna hang my entire response on your phrasing. "Much more terrible."

Based on the early responses in this thread, it seems like no option within this is appealing or good.

Greg.Everham wrote:

GM OfAnything wrote:

The action costs seem to be tuned just about right. There is no one set "routine" to fall into. Your battle plan will depend on the state of the field and which options you have. Action Economy seems to be in a good place for Striking Spell.

3 actions makes it virtually impossible to use Striking Spell.

PF2e is no where near as static a battlefield as PF1e; moving away from a mean looking enemy or moving to a soft target is something most monsters will be doing. The magus simply cannot expect a target to stand still for a full round to be hit with a Striking Spell.

If the expectation is that the magus must set up one turn and "nova" on the next, there had better be a bigger boom at the end than ignoring MAP on one attack. So far, this magus has given up 3 actions last round without affecting the battlefield. Now, they're going to have to spend another action to move back to a target and then an action to finally Strike and maybe deliver the spell.

It's just bad. Very, very, very bad.

Why are we talking about this as if 2/3 of the fighting styles don't alleviate this issue?

Because 1/3 of the class options are now made completely worthless and there cannot be any new growth from this class with future expansion to this content.

Additionally, making a choice for your class that is essentially "Which way do we get back to the start" kinda feels bad from the jump.

If the necessity is that Striking Spell takes 2 actions to be viable in terms of round-by-round action economy, search for a way to balance it on that edge. Creating a deficit, only to have some parts of the class give it back makes for upset players looking at what feels like (and is) a very underwhelming class.

The action costs seem to be tuned just about right. There is no one set "routine" to fall into. Your battle plan will depend on the state of the field and which options you have. Action Economy seems to be in a good place for Striking Spell.

3 actions makes it virtually impossible to use Striking Spell.

PF2e is no where near as static a battlefield as PF1e; moving away from a mean looking enemy or moving to a soft target is something most monsters will be doing. The magus simply cannot expect a target to stand still for a full round to be hit with a Striking Spell.

If the expectation is that the magus must set up one turn and "nova" on the next, there had better be a bigger boom at the end than ignoring MAP on one attack. So far, this magus has given up 3 actions last round without affecting the battlefield. Now, they're going to have to spend another action to move back to a target and then an action to finally Strike and maybe deliver the spell.

It's just bad. Very, very, very bad.

silversarcasm wrote:

To be clear, the praise heaped on the cops here is exactly the kind of thing I desperately want agents of edgewatch to not promote. The police began as slave catchers and strike breakers and exact to protect capital, the harm they inflict is built into the system, this is not a matter of a few guys ruining it for everyone. The amount of positive coverage and portrayal the police get obscures this.

For the record, I'd disagree with this whole post in several major ways, but that's almost immaterial.

The important question is, do you want all police officers to believe that they're authoritarian thugs only there to protect rich people?

Because the police as an organization aren't going away. They're just not. Our entire current social system assumes government actors being around to enforce the laws and trying to get rid of that at this point is not productive. We can change a lot of things, but this one is pretty obviously staying.

But if all media featuring police has them as tyrants and bullies, guess who's going to apply for jobs in the police. So, given that police, as a concept, aren't going away we need to convince people going into the police that accountability and justice are more important than strong arm tactics, and to empower police who already believe those things. We need to make the police better. And one step in doing that is having fiction modeling the behavior that we actually want to see in our police officers.

Now, many current pieces of police fiction do this badly, or at least imperfectly, but that just means we need better police related fiction, not that we need to never have a cop as a protagonist again.

One quick counterpoint... Yes, the police departments can be terminated. Presently, the Minneapolis City Council is exploring the method to dissolve the police department and replace it with a series of community groups capable of handling the process of law enforcement while also meeting the needs of those communities it serves.

Ventnor wrote:

Syries wrote:

Xenocrat wrote:

A Wizard who combines Eschew Materials, Conceal Spell, and Silent spell plus Shrink Item to hide his spellbook. Never gives away that he's casting spells if he can help it, and if caught pretends he's a sorcerer. His friends wonder why he always spends a full hour and ten minutes in the garderobe in the mornings, though.

To be fair the sorcerer also has to spend an hour prepping in the mornings.

Which is SUPER WEIRD to me, I might add.

How they spend that hour differs depending on the Sorcerer, of course. A dragon sorcerer has got to count out and polish all her coins, an aberrant sorcerer has to do some light stretches so that his tentacular limbs don't get cramps, an undead sorcerer has to listen to their entire Linkin' Park playlist so that they can be properly edgy... you know how it is.

LOL I'd say it's a straight hour of staring in the mirror...

It's an hour of repeating "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me."

From an educational perspective, the best way to teach is to allow for exploration of concept and support growth through questioning. These things go hand in hand. You asked about marching order; how have you supported your young/new players in gaining an understanding of what's tactically good?

Let's say your players are about to walk into an Orc warren, ready to fight. You could ask "Who's in the front?" And then fire arrows right away. What did your players learn? What did you guide them to think about? If you pause a second and say "What's good about the Champion going up front? What's bad about it?" your players might consider the value of the "tank" going in front. "Are there other players who can go in front? What could be a different approach to entering the cave?" Maybe they come up with a Stealth-y character going in first, because they can scout ahead.

Just because there's only one physical space to explore doesn't mean that there's only one chance to think about the encounter. Run the first encounter through, then reflect on it. "What went right in that fight? What went wrong? What else could have happened? What other things could we have done?"

The key is to always ask questions that are open ended and have answers that would need justifications. Yes/No questions are awful, because they don't need much thought. "Was it good that the Wizard took four arrows to the face?" Nope, it wasn't; but I learned nothing about how to prevent that or what to do instead. The same is true of objectively and definitely answered questions. "Who took four arrows to the face?" The Wizard, but why are we asking that? Ask things that can spark debate, discussion, and further exploration. Maybe you could play back the whole encounter multiple times, using different strategies. "[Not-the-Wizard] suggested that we let the Rogue use Stealth to scout ahead, let's play that out and we can see how it runs differently!" If you go that route, let players try to predict how it might play out differently and then see if their predictions were right afterward.

Just remember throughout, that their knowledge and understanding of battle tactics needs to be built by them in their own terms. Forcing ideas onto them, or arguing with them over what is good and bad, isn't going to get them there. You certainly have learned an understanding of these concepts, but transferring that to them is mostly impossible. The best you can do is creating an area where they have materials to work with (characters, maps, encounters, dice) and a framework to discuss their experimentation.

Polearm Ranger, because why not?

Flurry for -3/-6 MAP
Glaive for the Forceful property
Lvl 1 Monster Hunter
Lvl 2 Quick Draw is good for action economy, multiclass is acceptable here.
Lvl 4 Disrupt Prey, this is what we want, free action AoO and Polearm extend your range.
Lvl 6 Skirmish Strike so you can always be on the maximum reach range, if the foe try to run, disrupt prey, if it try to get closer, disrupt prey.
Lvl 8 Monster Warden
Lvl 10 Master Monster Hunter
Lvl 12 Double Prey, now you can Disrupt Prey two enemies.

That's it, you only really need three feats for this build, Disrupt Prey, Skirmish Strike and Double Prey the rest is free and could be used for animal companion or multiclass feats.

Same build... but replace the "gotta take something here" feats like Quick Draw, Monster Warden, etc with Barbarian Dedication, Instinct Ability (Giant), and Giant's Stature. Now you've got a 15' reach MAP-abusing monster who can Disrupt Prey from quite a distance out.

When I first read through the PF2 book, I was disappointed in the same way you are. It felt difficult to play around and make Wizard's that hit stuff with greatswords or Bard tanks or "Bloodragers." There just wasn't enough in the book to power all these cool ideas. Why can't I two-weapon fight awesomely with my Barbarian!

What I decided to do was go back to PF1, core rulebook only, and try the same stuff. Could I make a TWF Barbarian? Could I get my Wizard to be the best melee DPR in his party? Could I make a Con-Charisma Bard tank that excelled at his job?

The answer is no. I could make a Barbarian that hit really hard with a greatsword or falchion or great axe, but not sword and board so much and definitely not two weapons. All the great feats for it were in later books. And all the great tricks to get TWF were too. And the Unchained Barbarian had the big damage and accuracy bonuses! My melee Wizard? He was aight, but nothing special. Sure, he had good strength, the stat-buff spells, Mirror Image, but the really cool tricks came later, there weren't traits, there weren't archetypes to swap out abilities.

The message here is that while we did have a robust game library and a collective system mastery with it, that was not always so. At some point, in the beginning stages, we had limited tools to work with when crafting our characters. If something isn't there yet, don't sweat it. There's going to be a decade of options coming.

Greg.Everham wrote:

Blave wrote:

ChibiNyan wrote:

This is why I was shocked they never got Master proficiency on weapons. Up until like lvl 10-11 they do keep up really well in attack/defense, but after that they just stop getting any proficiencies and become garbage at melee. Then you'll wish you were a Cloistered Cleric.

Well, they can get Eternal Blessing at 16 which is a permanent +1 to attack. It's not as good as master proficiency and doesn't stack with most buffs of course, but at the very least it provides a bonus without costing any resources.

Righteous Might (6th level, 8th level) and Avatar (10th level) both set your attack value, to +21/+28 and +33 respectively. They're comparable, I think, to other classes that get Master proficiency. If that was the intended route for Warpriests to go, though, there needs to be 7th and 9th level options.

Using these spells has an interesting side effect. Other classes pursue their stat that is tied to accuracy, while the Warpriest would care only so far as to get to 18 Str. Up until they have 6th level spells, they'd want to bump that stat as high as they could. Once they get Righteous Might, they're casting that, or the better versions of it, to begin any encounter in order to establish their combat prowess. Since their value is set by the spell that they cast, they're free to ignore that stat bump and chase other stats. People above were discussing the value of Channel Smite and it's reasonable to build toward maximizing that at some point in the warpriest's career.

I would say those aren't very good ideas. 6th righteous might doesn't increase your to hit bonus, 8th does by 2 for 1 level only, and 10th by 1 for 1 level. Those spells unfortunately aren't very good.

Channel smite also wastes heals.

Yeah, looking deeper into the numbers shows you actually REDUCE your attack bonus with Righteous Might, making me wonder wtf that spell is supposed to do. The 8th level Heightening bumps it up by 1, but only for a level. And the 10th level spell doesn't do much either.

It's all just really bad... Why do these spells exist at all, except for a build that doesn't hit things until 12th level, then suddenly decides "You know what, I DO want to be a front line melee combatant."

Alternative solution to these builds, and one which I am using with one of my favorite all-time characters...

Wait for the Bloodrager class. I know, I know, it's not one of the classes named to be in the Advanced Player's Guide for July 2020. Yes, it may take TWO years to get that class out. S@%@, it may never come. But you know what will? Ways to "cheat" into some spellcasting or whatever other feats. Or prestige classes that might mimic what you wanna do with that character. Both Magus and Bloodrager haven't been announced yet, but they're very well-liked classes; they're going to be represented in PF2 at some point.

You sound like you've done errything right with your characters so far. Who cares about numerical optimization? At the end of the day, it's how much you, the player, enjoyed playing those characters. If you liked them well enough to build out the first, then a wife, then a child... you done did the thing the right way.

And how long did it take you to get all three characters rolled out? To play them through? A few years, right? Why try to jam all that character building into the instant that PF2 releases? You get a rare chance to play the growth of your characters all over again. Take the slow road, man. It's about the ride, not the destination.

I'm prone to calling Natural Ambition a top tier ancestry feat, as well.

Looking at 1st level class feats, I don't find many classes that wouldn't want to double up. Alchemist bombers want Far Lobber and Quick Bomber. Barbarians are going to be likely to take Sudden Charge, but Raging Intimidation is also very strong, giving the Barb a much-needed 3rd action. Champion has to choose between the 1st tier Domain or buffing their reaction; why make that choice? Clerics are, like Barbarians likely to take a certain 1st level feat, this time Healing Hands. But, like Champs, they might also want a Domain spell. Fighter has a series of feats that all open up the combat style a character will be, but Exacting Strike and Sudden Charge are both waiting there to complement them. Monk will open with their stance, but that leaves off Ki Rush and Ki Strike off the build. Ranger will take either Twin Takedown for 2-Weapon Fighting or Hunted Shot for Bows, but Monster Hunter is great for opening round damage and Animal Companions are always welcomed. Sorcs are likely to take Dangerous Sorcery to buff their blasting. Wizards could load up on 1st level feats by complementing their thesis. Both spell casters would love to add a Familiar or another Metamagic or one of their other 1st level feats.

All in all, I can only find a limited number of classes that'd not want an extra 1st level feat. Bard, Druid, and Rogue seem to have limited options. Bard and Druid also get gifted the feat for their Muse/Order and can take the feat of their choice immediately. They've got no use for a THIRD 1st level class feat.

That said, we should consider the future with regards to Natural Ambition. If more class feats are printed for existing classes (and we can assume that there will be), then Natural Ambition can only get more powerful and important.

A final point would be that growth in PF2 isn't vertical, but horizontal. That is, build concepts don't have to really struggle to get more powerful as you level; that just happens. Instead, builds get more capabilities as they level and grow. This means that equipping an extra potential action is pretty significant.

Greg.Everham wrote:

I've been kicking around a Barbarian w/ MC Bard. The build aims to be a buff bot and a tank-ish character. Shield Block is taken as a General Feat, but it's not a spam tactic per se. Grab the Barbarian Intimidation feat at 1; be Human and take an extra 1st level feat for Moment of Clarity. Get Bard MC and then Bard spell casting at 2 and 4. Take Bless 1/day. At 8, Shared Rage and at 10 Inspire Courage. From then on, your turn is basically an action to Demoralize, an action to Inspire, and then one attack. With the potential to swing the whole party's hit chance by 10%, you're a walking problem for a baddy.

The idea is far from optimized, though... and I suspect that Bard w/ MC Fighter/Champ might do this shtick better (but without the massive damage bonus from Share Rage).

For your instrument, I suggest you take a tamburin or a kazoo. Imagine how glorious you'd be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCP0NbqTKfw

Magnificent.

Greg.Everham wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

oholoko wrote:

Draco18s wrote:

Ediwir wrote:

The progression of Hardness over level (when using the sturdy shields and upgrading regularly) follows damage increase with the same proportion

What? No they don't. At least, not based on what I was looking at. Care to explain?

I can agree with that. I mean shields absorve a lot of damage but 18 late game is much less than 4 early game...

Ediwir's right, with maybe a smidge of an outlier around 1st level (where a lot of things are a bit special due to being the very beginning of the game), the top sturdy shield can block around half an on-level critter's hit (sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less).

But the cool thing is, even without the maximum progession, you can get extremely increased durability over time with a shield build. For simplicity of the situation, consider a level 18 fighter with ~300 HP, taking damage roughly 40 per hit, twice per round, with a regenerate active to regen 20 per round. Keeping it easy to handle, we have the low-hardness-but-eminently-reusable invulnerable shield (13 hardness) and Quick Shield Block. Without the shield block, the fighter can last 5 rounds before finally falling (net 60 damage per round x 5 = 300). With it, she lasts 9. Not too shabby. Of course, most fights don't last 9 rounds, but it's still a cool durability stat.

"Follows scaling damage progression" sounds a lot like "isn't getting better at what they do."

No, it does get better. A shield block on an enemy of lower level or of less damaging capability will be much more effective compared to a higher level or more damaging enemy.

You just should likewise expect creature/enemy damage to similarly scale to compensate.

Just standing there with whatever AC your armor gives you is enough Vs lower level opponents. Wasting an action on your turn to raise a shield just seems worthless Vs mooks.

oholoko wrote:

Draco18s wrote:

Ediwir wrote:

The progression of Hardness over level (when using the sturdy shields and upgrading regularly) follows damage increase with the same proportion

What? No they don't. At least, not based on what I was looking at. Care to explain?

I can agree with that. I mean shields absorve a lot of damage but 18 late game is much less than 4 early game...

Ediwir's right, with maybe a smidge of an outlier around 1st level (where a lot of things are a bit special due to being the very beginning of the game), the top sturdy shield can block around half an on-level critter's hit (sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less).

But the cool thing is, even without the maximum progession, you can get extremely increased durability over time with a shield build. For simplicity of the situation, consider a level 18 fighter with ~300 HP, taking damage roughly 40 per hit, twice per round, with a regenerate active to regen 20 per round. Keeping it easy to handle, we have the low-hardness-but-eminently-reusable invulnerable shield (13 hardness) and Quick Shield Block. Without the shield block, the fighter can last 5 rounds before finally falling (net 60 damage per round x 5 = 300). With it, she lasts 9. Not too shabby. Of course, most fights don't last 9 rounds, but it's still a cool durability stat.

"Follows scaling damage progression" sounds a lot like "isn't getting better at what they do."

Create Pit. Just drop it down a big hole and calmly solve it in the next few rounds while it struggles to do anything more than climb up high enough to take more falling damage.

Can I abuse magic items by having a ring on all ten fingers?

This one keeps getting brought up, how unlimited rings would automatically break the game. I'm going to try it right now with a mindset of being reasonable, not having unlimited resources.

You're not wrong in so far as *right now* there's not a ring that if stacked up 10 times would break the game. However, it does limit design space for future rings or other items to be designed. The counter to this line of logic, though, is that the design team has already prevented this by having only 2 types of bonuses that do not stack. That future-problem shall remain ignored for now, and the whole "10 rings" argument really does fall apart. Gold, as it has always been, is a severe limiter.

Greg.Everham wrote:

Gold cost has always been the most effective way of limiting the power of magical items. Body slot designations are also a great way to do it. There was never a reason to reinvent the wheel with PF2.

Personally I just like the simplicity of 10 items you can be invested in rather than using body slots, but for a lot of tables it might boil down to one and the same.

I do however think a limit is needed to not let any item simply be valued as benefit/gold alone, but rather come with an opportunity cost as well. Otherwise stacking tons of low-cost high value items would always be used. Like getting 5 different rings of lesser resistance before upgrading one to a standard version.

"Low cost, high value." You mean priced incorrectly.

There are already checks against that cheese. Bonuses don't stack. Opportunity costs exist in the form of how an item is activated. There's all this work put into making Resonance not suck, when the simple fact was that it was unnecessary.

Gold cost has always been the most effective way of limiting the power of magical items. Body slot designations are also a great way to do it. There was never a reason to reinvent the wheel with PF2.

Lets look at the actions the skill allows you to take: PALM AN OBJECT, STEAL AN OBJECT, DISABLE A DEVICE, PICK A LOCK... So take an item unnoticed, take an item from a person without notice, bypass a trap and open a lock. SO shoplifting, pick pocketing and breaking and entering... My vote is to keep the name as/is. The name doesn't matter as it's a meta issue: only the DM and player hear the name, the paladin never has to hear the name. IMO the bigger issue is why is your paladin is learning to pick pockets and snatch items unseen and not the skill name. If you can rationalize IN CHARACTER why you pick up thieving skills, it should be no problem for the actual player to rationalize a skills name.

It's kinda funny that Houdini or Ricky Jay used all those same skills to entertain, and police use all those same skills to enforce the law... but, sure, let's just call them all thieves. OP has a damn'd good point that the collection of things put under the skill have wider berth than just "stealing stuff."

IRL people get taunted into doing silly things and it is not all that uncommom, these are intelligent people.

Exactly this. If the argument against a "taunt" mechanic is that "Well, thinking people don't make mistakes," I dunno what to tell you. If that's your view, Bluff shouldn't exist either cause "intelligent opponent" will see your ruse. Like, sure, it's easier to get my dog with some sleight of hand trick like pretending to throw a baseball, but illusionists have existed for millennia and fooled even the fastest eyes.

There's really nothing wrong with an ability that says "If you fail this save, your next turn is spent trying your best to kill me."

The tight math in short just made all of us go the hell with it lets all roll for everything it doesn’t matter anyway.

In short we never felt awesome at best we felt mediocre at worst we would of rather played as monsters or NPC’s since they aren’t trash.

These two sentences are exactly the feeling of PF2. You never really feel "great" at the thing you do. The character that is "trained" and the character that has "master" rank feel about even. 60% Vs 50% chance of success both feel like you're rolling dice to check on outcome, so the investment isn't effective. If you specialize, but only push that 10%, you're better off spreading wide. You'll still need to spend resources on failure because that's coming up an awful lot.

Helmic wrote:

The idea of tanking, then, isn't necessarily to soak up damage, but to rather f+#$ with your enemy's target prioritization such that they're missing more often or dealing ineffective damage. All Fighters have the unique Attack of Opportunity, which makes them "sticky" in that the enemy has to basically burn an action just to get away safely. If a Fighter, starting out near their allies Sudden Charges into an enemy in the first round, that enemy will have to burn one action to Step and then two actions to reach the Fighter's allies in melee, preventing it from dealing damage. That's not even a dedicated tanking build, that's just something Fighters do to prevent damage, they force enemies to waste an action if they want to switch targets.

Paladins notably have exclusive access to Retributive Strike, which is again just a form of blackmail tanking. It doesn't make your character any tougher, but instead so long your ally and the enemy are both within 15 feet of you you instead just automatically give your ally resistance to all damage. They get tanky, and then you might also be able to hit the enemy if you happen to be within reach. If you're the the GM controlling an intelligent enemy, you're going to catch on really quick that attacking anyone but the Paladin is going to be a waste of time, the Paladin is now the squishiest target even though their AC is sky high. Blade of Justice combined with extra Shield Block Reactions combined with turning every Shield Block additionally into a Retributive Strike can threaten to straight up kill many enemies daring to ignore the paladin. It's a pretty powerful bargaining chip, but paladins have to stay close to those they want to protect rather than rush in alone like fighters would prefer.

And to an extent, Retributive Strike is a cool idea for that. It just feels lackluster because your ability to "draw aggro" is dependent on having other people with you. Contrast with the Sentinel from Spheres of Power. A challenged enemy gets a...

This seems to be the key thing. Retributive Strike is a reactive method that is more of a "Gotcha!" for enemies than it is an active strategy to employ. What most defensively minded players are wanting from their "tank" is an active method of aggro-draw. Even if I have to spend actions on my turn to create that disincentive to attack my allies, that's better than Retributive Strike could ever hope to be. "Tank" character concepts should be designed around being able to do minimal offense (all abilities are attacks with really low damage output), while using actions to both actively mitigate incoming damage (Raise a Shield, though this method needs tuning as it's too weak to be significant) and actively drawing the aggression of enemies (through creating a disincentive to attack elsewhere). To its credit, 4E had this concept done pretty well.

Do monsters really need the generic "Skills: +x" in the bestiary?

It feels like we could just print the skills it is willing/able to use and just not have it roll anything else ever. If a GM is interested in having a marilith cook a soufflé or have a sewer ooze play the harpsichord, they can just work backwards and figure out the modifier.

If the argument is that PCs gain in skills by way of adventuring, what is the argument for +1/level for monsters? I get it that it's to maintain the rule of "neither auto-fail nor auto-success" but it does leave a rather comical issue with regards to Performace (and some other skill uses).

Part of the problem is that TWF no longer gives extra attacks. A greatsword doing 2d6/strike was balanced against a longsword and a shortsword doing 1d8+1d6 together, but at a -2 penalty.

It's worth noting that because of the Multi-Attack Penalty, those two-weapon Rangers with their daggers are putting down lots of contact that the greatsword swinging Barbarians can't. Reducing MAP with agile weapons or a Ranger's class feats can lead to positive outcomes. It's not necessarily about what you do it one HIT, but one ROUND. Consider that two-weapon specialists can have a much higher hit chance on their 2nd and 3rd attacks in a round and that will have an effect on the final damage per round math.

This whole thread is a great argument for things that people have called for in other threads.

When one feat dictates what other feats you'll take, there's no "tree" effect. Right now, with so few feats, it feels like you're choosing a sub-path within your class and most of your future feats are "locked in."

A great example is, as the OP says, the Fighter's feat "tree." At level 1, you can choose Combat Grab (for 1h and an open hand), Double Slice (for 2-weapon), Point Blank Shot (for ranged), Reactive Shield (for sword and board), or Furious Focus/Power Attack (for big weapons). Sudden Charge is available if you want mobility as your focus. As you level up, you'll choose feats at each level that match.

What's missing is the issue. If I choose to be a sword and board style Fighter, are there multiple ways to build that concept out? Not really. At 1st level, Reactive Shield is prohibitively good over Sudden Charge. At 2nd level, you've got to take Aggressive Shield, making it so that your shield block can either prevent more damage or give you a no-roll debuff against larger enemies (which is huge). 4th level is a choice, huzzah! But then we're back to mandated feats. Shield Warden at 6th level, Quick Shield Block at 8th, Mirror Shield at 10th, Shield Paragon at 12th, Reflexive Shield at 14th, Improved Reflexive Shield at 16th. Only at 6th level, there's a second shield option in Shielded Stride, but with AoO not being on every enemy, and mobility not really being the shield-fighter's shtick, this seems weak.

What would need to happen, and most likely will happen with future releases of splat books, is that if I choose 'sword and board' as a fighting style, there ought to be multiple possible builds and a slew of quality and usable shield-related feats at every level. It may be even more worthwhile to make many of these feats into options you select at 1st level and are granted them as you level through Fighter, then have open class feat slots to augment your build. As in, Quick Shield Block is something that a fighting style choice requires, so just give it to the character, but let the player choose between other viable feats at 8th level.

They went a little too far with it. They just needed to get hid of the Dmg die reduction and kept everything else, maybe making somethings worse in the process to offset the dmg buff.

The multiplicative bonus was too much. That is, that each size gave 1.5x bonus, which when taken to extremes caused trivializing levels of damage. The solution is well within hand in this system though. Push upward toward 1d12, then simply add a +2 dmg bonus to the "die." I put quote there because the +2 dmg would be multiplied by runes. Done and done, you've got large size being fun and it won't blow the game open.