Have you seen the new cloudkill spell? If not, then what are we talking about here?No, I have not seen cloudkill. It's an iconic spell that I expect to return, and it has had the power to outright kill weak enemies. Killing a 5th level enemy on a critically failed save is, if anything, a very conservative estimation of its power. If it's worse then that... well, honestly it wouldn't be cloudkill anymore.
Maybe it is a cloud that steps up your dying condition on a failed save? It will certainly kill you eventually and may kill you automatically if you are already at dying 3. I dunno.
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Mark, the calculation for the axe murderer above are approximately correct?
Diego flee from the discussion as it is 1.48 AM from him and going to bed at 3 AM for the third night in a row isn't good.
;-)
I haven't read everything in this thread recently, but I can't find to what you're referring on any of the last three pages. The calculations of damage for the spells vs redcaps seem roughly accurate though.
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I haven't read everything in this thread recently, but I can't find to what you're referring on any of the last three pages. The calculations of damage for the spells vs redcaps seem roughly accurate though.Mark, the calculation for the axe murderer above are approximately correct?
Diego flee from the discussion as it is 1.48 AM from him and going to bed at 3 AM for the third night in a row isn't good.
;-)
Just above the first post you made yesterday.
Here it is:
....
The level 3 fireball will not drop anyone even with the higher DC. Cone of cold will drop 20% of the targeted redcaps. You are really arguing that they will be so kind that they will place 5 of them in the AoE of a cone of cold?
If that is the argument, a fighter with a cold iron battelaxe will attack (with a sweep bonus) a second redcap every time he get a critical hit as they will be so nice to be placed in a row in front of him.
Fighter 9+5 str + 2 master +2 weapon = 18 against AC 20. 45% of his hit are critical. 2d12+14 damage = 27. It depend on how good is that swing bonus that Bonner cited, but even without it he has a 9% change of dealing 2 critics with 2 attacks on the primary redcap and try 2 additional attacks (dealing 1d12+14 if he hit with a normal hit) on the second.
Pretty good for an area attack that can be repeated "forever" if the enemies are so kind as moving in a line formation.
Second post:
Even without the sweep bonus to hit, he get a 20% chance of dealing 2 critical to two adjacent redcaps with his first action.
And then a 50% chance of delivering a a hit and 15% of a critical on the second attack.
And he still has a third attack with a 40% chance of dealing a hit.
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I have calculated the damage of a critical of a 9th level fighter as:
1d12 dice x2 +5 strength +5 cold iron +2 mastery level +2 axe bonus for a total of 2d12+14.
To it as +18, so he hit a redcap with a 2+ and get a critical on a 12+.
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Yeah, there's a fair amount that's off in the melee analysis in a variety of steps, in both directions. The one thing in the underestimate direction is that it's missing one of the 1d12s for a +2 weapon, so if the fighter happened to have a top weapon with the right special material basically an anti-fey/demon AoE specialist fighter based on the weapon, the damage would be a bit higher after correcting some other errors that increased the damage; but there's other overestimates in the action economy.
If the wizard is casting cone of cold into a crowd of 6 of these redcaps that are also all adjacent for the fighter, he's looking at probably 1-2 kills (much more likely 1), 3 of them very very low, and the remaining 1-2 within range of a greataxe hit to kill.
Add a second wizard doing the same, and the fight is over before it begins (if the wizard uses his wizard feats, he can definitely win the fight on the first round by himself, but the price for the victory may not be worth it other than the bragging rights of soloing a relatively lower-threat but still nontrivial encounter meant for a party of four PCs before anyone else could act).
Instead add a fighter, and he can pretty much mow down those remaining 4-5 redcaps at that point, likely killing 2 to 3 of them (maybe 1 or 4 if luck swings one way or the other) on the first round alone after moving in.
The fighter going it alone is also going to have to move in on the first turn, but is likely to get a kill with his two attacks. Two kills is not out of the question, though the chances are almost entirely based on the fighter being focused on axes, the AoE fighting style, and finding the redcaps adjacent. The chance of two kills is slightly better than the cone of cold has of two kills, but it's much swingier, since it relies so much on critting with that first attack, it actually means that not getting the first crit not only puts two kills out of reach but also raises the chances of getting no kills at all (since there's a non-trivial chance of missing with the second attack).
Add a second fighter and you take roughly the same amount, since the first fighter is not very likely to leave one injured. It'll take between 2 and 3 rounds for the fighters to finish the fight (their kill rate goes up if they don't have to move, so 2 rounds is more likely if the redcaps don't wise up and use their third action to Step back and break up clumps), during which as greataxe fighters with no shields, they'll probably take some significant lumps. Given the way scythes are, something could bad could definitely happen during that time as well.
A Wizard 10 that doesn't have fireball memorized? That's odd. A Wizard 10 that doesn't have fireball in his spell book? Unthinkable.
I could not disagree more strongly. Even just by opposition school, I'd conservatively estimate that one in three wizards oppose evocation, and those wizards aren't going to know fireball. Even among those who don't oppose evocation, it's more of a niche spell and will not necessarily be known and will rarely be prepared. It's not a go-to spell by any definition.
Without the support of feats or class features the fireball spell is a niche option. That niche is defined by its excellent targeting parameters, being nearly unrivaled for range and area of effect. In long-range engagements, or against very large numbers of tightly-clustered enemies, fireballs can excel. For close-quarters melees featuring a relatively small number of enemies that are typical of adventuring? Not so much.
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A Wizard 10 that doesn't have fireball memorized? That's odd. A Wizard 10 that doesn't have fireball in his spell book? Unthinkable.I could not disagree more strongly. Even just by opposition school, I'd conservatively estimate that one in three wizards oppose evocation, and those wizards aren't going to know fireball. Even among those who don't oppose evocation, it's more of a niche spell and will not necessarily be known and will rarely be prepared. It's not a go-to spell by any definition.
Without the support of feats or class features the fireball spell is a niche option. That niche is defined by its excellent targeting parameters, being nearly unrivaled for range and area of effect. In long-range engagements, or against very large numbers of tightly-clustered enemies, fireballs can excel. For close-quarters melees featuring a relatively small number of enemies that are typical of adventuring? Not so much.
Just to support Dasrak with some anecdotical evidence.
My fifteen magus has used fireball maybe 4 times in his career and he has spell recall and improved spell recall, so if he wants he can get it on the fly.He has used dragon breath something like 10-12 times, and he has got it way more recently.
A cone that starts from your position and hit the targets near you generally is way more useful than a spell that hit a spherical area at long range.
Average damage for a PF1 CL10 fireball is 35, with a good chance of appropriate level opponents saving for half damage.
Haste is so much better for party DPS that it doesn't even compare.
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Intensify isn't "the problem", it is part of the problem, together with plenty of metamagics and other abilities (included Wayang Spell Hunter).
So basicly blaster Sorc/Wizard days are over?
Yep. They rather fell off the boat when 3.0 D&D went with HP bloat. Since every single edition since has made that worse (including this one given race bonus HP and always max HP as well as con bonuses), 'blaster' has been in really poor shape for multiple decades now.
PC health doesn't matter in the "how good a blaster" is equation. These aren't PvP games afterall. It is opposition HP that matters (well that and the blaster damage and the effectiveness of non damage options) and apparently that is being remedied in PF2E somewhat (according to devs.) Using PC rules you can make a Level appropriate enemy, which means PC health is a good rough guideline for acceptable opposition health. While PC health is increased in PF2E, it is still less than the average monster health inflation of later levels in PF1E.
The current evidence for monsters is that they'll be staying about the same as their PF1 counterparts. Of the two statblocks we've seen, one explicitly had an unusually high HP total (so it's not a good example) while the other was almost exactly in line with PF1 guidelines. So while PC's and NPC's with PC levels will almost certainly be seeing bloat, monsters don't look to be changing substantially in this regard, although there may be a few exceptional outliers like that ogre.
So basicly blaster Sorc/Wizard days are over?Yep. They rather fell off the boat when 3.0 D&D went with HP bloat. Since every single edition since has made that worse (including this one given race bonus HP and always max HP as well as con bonuses), 'blaster' has been in really poor shape for multiple decades now.Blaster has been in poor shape since then, but all the other variants have gotten more powerful.
It's not actually a bad thing to have casters not best at everything.
I don't think "all" the other variants actually got more powerful.
There are 8 schools of magic, and most of them are still only ever played for a slim handful of spells or abilities (Divination anyone? Only for the initiative bonus!)
So basicly blaster Sorc/Wizard days are over?Yep. They rather fell off the boat when 3.0 D&D went with HP bloat. Since every single edition since has made that worse (including this one given race bonus HP and always max HP as well as con bonuses), 'blaster' has been in really poor shape for multiple decades now.Blaster has been in poor shape since then, but all the other variants have gotten more powerful.
It's not actually a bad thing to have casters not best at everything.
I don't think "all" the other variants actually got more powerful.
There are 8 schools of magic, and most of them are still only ever played for a slim handful of spells or abilities (Divination anyone? Only for the initiative bonus!)
Schools don't translate directly to styles.
But fair enough: Blasting got proportionally weaker. Buffing, control and other support option got better. Probably summoning as well (definitely strong pet options for some classes).
Summoning might have gotten stronger, but due to such a hardline stance I keep seeing of bans/restrictions against it, I don't expect to see too much of that in PF2.
Summoning might have gotten stronger, but due to such a hardline stance I keep seeing of bans/restrictions against it, I don't expect to see too much of that in PF2.So basicly blaster Sorc/Wizard days are over?Yep. They rather fell off the boat when 3.0 D&D went with HP bloat. Since every single edition since has made that worse (including this one given race bonus HP and always max HP as well as con bonuses), 'blaster' has been in really poor shape for multiple decades now.Blaster has been in poor shape since then, but all the other variants have gotten more powerful.
It's not actually a bad thing to have casters not best at everything.
I don't think "all" the other variants actually got more powerful.
There are 8 schools of magic, and most of them are still only ever played for a slim handful of spells or abilities (Divination anyone? Only for the initiative bonus!)
Schools don't translate directly to styles.
But fair enough: Blasting got proportionally weaker. Buffing, control and other support option got better. Probably summoning as well (definitely strong pet options for some classes).
I think the new minion rules are more or less what the doctor ordered for summoning in PF2. When you have a "minion", you have to use an action to compel them to take two actions. Animal companions are gonna be balanced around this as well.
I don't think summoning actually got stronger in PF outside of the Summoner's Eidelon and Palanr Ally or Gate. Summon Monster x has never kept up even when specialized for.
Enchantment, illusion, and necromancy except Animate Dead all got downgrades as well.
It's really only Transmutation control and the Animate Dead spell itself that are seriously upgraded in 3.x or PF1.
Summoning might have gotten stronger, but due to such a hardline stance I keep seeing of bans/restrictions against it, I don't expect to see too much of that in PF2.
I actually expect to see it more in PF2e. If summons work like animal companions, i.e. one action to command the creature, which gives it two actions, essentially an action advantage of 1 action, at the cost of the creature probably not being as powerful as a PC, then I don't see many GMs putting as heavy bans/restrictions on it.
Additionally, in 1e, because casting summon spells took 1 round, a smart enemy could just attack you and cause you to lose the spell. Unless summon spells follow a different pattern than other 2e combat spells, this likely won't be the case for summon spells in 2e, so it's not as punishing to use.
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PC health doesn't matter in the "how good a blaster" is equation. These aren't PvP games afterall. It is opposition HP that matters (well that and the blaster damage and the effectiveness of non damage options) and apparently that is being remedied in PF2E somewhat (according to devs.) Using PC rules you can make a Level appropriate enemy, which means PC health is a good rough guideline for acceptable opposition health. While PC health is increased in PF2E, it is still less than the average monster health inflation of later levels in PF1E.The current evidence for monsters is that they'll be staying about the same as their PF1 counterparts. Of the two statblocks we've seen, one explicitly had an unusually high HP total (so it's not a good example) while the other was almost exactly in line with PF1 guidelines. So while PC's and NPC's with PC levels will almost certainly be seeing bloat, monsters don't look to be changing substantially in this regard, although there may be a few exceptional outliers like that ogre.
Zombie and skeleton too have more hp, so the anecdotical evidence say that monsters have more hp than PF1.
There are 8 schools of magic, and most of them are still only ever played for a slim handful of spells or abilities (Divination anyone? Only for the initiative bonus!)
Divination is pretty terrible for spells, but "can always act in the surprise round even if you fail to make a Perception roll to notice a foe" and "bonus on initiative checks equal to 1/2 your wizard level" are extremely strong bonuses.
Regular wizard:
The red dragon ambushes you, catching you completely off guard! He breathes fire on you in the surprise round, then beats you on initiative and full attacks before you can do a thing.
Divination wizard:
The red dragon ambushes you, catching you completely off guard! Nevertheless, you can act in the surprise round, and you get a 26 for your initiative roll, so you make the entire party fire resistant / teleport everyone to safety / create a wall of force before the dragon can do anything at all.
Divination was handled well in Pathfinder, giving it powerful school abilities to compensate for its less than stellar spell list. This could have basically solved the school inequality problem if the principle had been applied to all 8 schools, but aside from divination there seems to be no correlation between the quality of an arcane school's powers and its spells.
Yes, I don't dislike the way they tricked people into playing diviners necessarily in PF1, but it's worth noting that it is in fact a trick and that little care to balance the schools was really given.
For abjuration they didn't even give out a trick.
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Zombie and skeleton too have more hp, so the anecdotical evidence say that monsters have more hp than PF1.PC health doesn't matter in the "how good a blaster" is equation. These aren't PvP games afterall. It is opposition HP that matters (well that and the blaster damage and the effectiveness of non damage options) and apparently that is being remedied in PF2E somewhat (according to devs.) Using PC rules you can make a Level appropriate enemy, which means PC health is a good rough guideline for acceptable opposition health. While PC health is increased in PF2E, it is still less than the average monster health inflation of later levels in PF1E.The current evidence for monsters is that they'll be staying about the same as their PF1 counterparts. Of the two statblocks we've seen, one explicitly had an unusually high HP total (so it's not a good example) while the other was almost exactly in line with PF1 guidelines. So while PC's and NPC's with PC levels will almost certainly be seeing bloat, monsters don't look to be changing substantially in this regard, although there may be a few exceptional outliers like that ogre.
Lower level monsters, yes, but higher level monsters like the Grim Reaper have been shown to have significantly fewer hp, and I believe it's been previously stated that monster hit points will not scale as aggressively as they do in the current edition. Which would be perfectly in line with what we know. PCs start out with more hit points, so it would track that monsters would as well, but monsters not needing twice as many HD as PCs to be effective would mean that that curve would gradually flatten and eventually fall beneath the current edition's numbers.
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For abjuration they didn't even give out a trick.
Yeah, it's Conjuration of all schools that got a sick trick, with its teleportation subschool. Enchantment especially got the short shift, and didn't get any help in the APG either. A touch attack charm person spell with 1/2 round per level duration? That's just... bad.
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There are 8 schools of magic, and most of them are still only ever played for a slim handful of spells or abilities (Divination anyone? Only for the initiative bonus!)Divination is pretty terrible for spells, but "can always act in the surprise round even if you fail to make a Perception roll to notice a foe" and "bonus on initiative checks equal to 1/2 your wizard level" are extremely strong bonuses.
Regular wizard:
The red dragon ambushes you, catching you completely off guard! He breathes fire on you in the surprise round, then beats you on initiative and full attacks before you can do a thing.Divination wizard:
The red dragon ambushes you, catching you completely off guard! Nevertheless, you can act in the surprise round, and you get a 26 for your initiative roll, so you make the entire party fire resistant / teleport everyone to safety / create a wall of force before the dragon can do anything at all.
Just to point it out: you can't touch the entire party during a surprise rounde, so you can't teleport all of them, nor cast resist energy, communal on all of them (both spells require you to touch all the targets).
It can seem nitpicking, but this kind of error with the rules is a part of the "wizard are omnipotent" argument.
There are 8 schools of magic, and most of them are still only ever played for a slim handful of spells or abilities (Divination anyone? Only for the initiative bonus!)Divination is pretty terrible for spells, but "can always act in the surprise round even if you fail to make a Perception roll to notice a foe" and "bonus on initiative checks equal to 1/2 your wizard level" are extremely strong bonuses.
Regular wizard:
The red dragon ambushes you, catching you completely off guard! He breathes fire on you in the surprise round, then beats you on initiative and full attacks before you can do a thing.Divination wizard:
The red dragon ambushes you, catching you completely off guard! Nevertheless, you can act in the surprise round, and you get a 26 for your initiative roll, so you make the entire party fire resistant / teleport everyone to safety / create a wall of force before the dragon can do anything at all.Just to point it out: you can't touch the entire party during a surprise rounde, so you can't teleport all of them, nor cast resist energy, communal on all of them (both spells require you to touch all the targets).
It can seem nitpicking, but this kind of error with the rules is a part of the "wizard are omnipotent" argument.
If they're all clse enough to you, yes you can.
"Some touch spells allow you to touch multiple targets. You can touch up to 6 willing targets as part of the casting, but all targets of the spell must be touched in the same round that you finish casting the spell."
So if they're all adjacent to you, no problem. And you can cast one of the spells and 5 foot step in the surprise round to touch other people. So if they're close enough it's perfectly doable, otherwise no.
Touching up to 6 people while casting is listed as a full round action.There are 8 schools of magic, and most of them are still only ever played for a slim handful of spells or abilities (Divination anyone? Only for the initiative bonus!)Divination is pretty terrible for spells, but "can always act in the surprise round even if you fail to make a Perception roll to notice a foe" and "bonus on initiative checks equal to 1/2 your wizard level" are extremely strong bonuses.
Regular wizard:
The red dragon ambushes you, catching you completely off guard! He breathes fire on you in the surprise round, then beats you on initiative and full attacks before you can do a thing.Divination wizard:
The red dragon ambushes you, catching you completely off guard! Nevertheless, you can act in the surprise round, and you get a 26 for your initiative roll, so you make the entire party fire resistant / teleport everyone to safety / create a wall of force before the dragon can do anything at all.Just to point it out: you can't touch the entire party during a surprise rounde, so you can't teleport all of them, nor cast resist energy, communal on all of them (both spells require you to touch all the targets).
It can seem nitpicking, but this kind of error with the rules is a part of the "wizard are omnipotent" argument.
If they're all clse enough to you, yes you can.
"Some touch spells allow you to touch multiple targets. You can touch up to 6 willing targets as part of the casting, but all targets of the spell must be touched in the same round that you finish casting the spell."
So if they're all adjacent to you, no problem. And you can cast one of the spells and 5 foot step in the surprise round to touch other people. So if they're close enough it's perfectly doable, otherwise no.
Only if the spell allows you to touch multiple creatures over multiple rounds, per the Touch range description:
You must touch a creature or object to affect it. A touch spell that deals damage can score a critical hit just as a weapon can. A touch spell threatens a critical hit on a natural roll of 20 and deals double damage on a successful critical hit. Some touch spells allow you to touch multiple targets. You can touch up to 6 willing targets as part of the casting, but all targets of the spell must be touched in the same round that you finish casting the spell. If the spell allows you to touch targets over multiple rounds, touching 6 creatures is a full-round action.
However, to do that you'd need to hold the charge over multiple rounds, but "Holding the Charge" states:
Some touch spells allow you to touch multiple targets as part of the spell. You can’t hold the charge of such a spell; you must touch all targets of the spell in the same round that you finish casting the spell.
So with Teleport and CPE, you have to touch all your targets immediately after casting it, since you can't hold the charge. But since you can't hold the charge, you can't touch people over multiple rounds. Therefore the second clause doesn't apply and it's not a full round action, so you can touch up to 6 people while casting the spell, IE a standard action.