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So I really like playing Pathfinder, but there are a massive amounts of problems with the system. I'm really excited for Pathfinder 2 as an update, so I'm really hoping the dev team gets PF2 right.
As are we all.
The most powerful abilities in pathfinder usually revolve around a couple of key concepts:
1. Action Ecnomy2. Controlling Space
Even from level 1, this is readily apparent. A wizard walks up to some goblins and functionally kills them all with a color spray, but a fighter has to hack and risk injury one at a time. A levels 10+, it becomes absurd. A wizard can throw save or die fireball with dazing spell, and be protected from attacks with emergency force sphere. Or if you want to win immediately, you can cheat out a geas with limited wish, maybe without even paying with blood money!
This is probably fair.
I understand that combos are going to exist that are powerful, and because of Paizo's business of releasing books monthly, it's going to be hard to keep control of everything. It's the same problem MTG has, they print so many cards that infinite combos sneak through all the time. I really want to want to stress that right now Pathfinder is (I know this is thrown around a lot for minor balance issues but it is really true here) broken as written. Anzyr has what a high level wizard looks like in one of his posts and it is use the rules of Pathfinder as written, and pretty much as intended.
Okay...I don't agree with all of that, but more importantly what does it have to do with PF2?
Spells like limited wish and wish that let you cheat out very long cast time spells are too good. I am kind of horrified that there will be a 10th level of spells because of how crazy the 7 8 and 9 spells already are.
They moved wish and Miracle and any other 'overly powerful' 9th level spells there, so 10th level spells actually power down 9th level ones.
Metamagic is too powerful in Pathfinder currently. Quicken is incredible action economy and Dazing spell turns you in a save or die machine.
Metamagic now makes your magic cost an extra action. no sign of Quicken or Dazing yet.
Many status effects are essentially a save or die. If you nauseate someone, they are basically dead because they only have move actions. Stunned is the same thing, blind for many creatures makes them worthless, exhausted is brutal, dazed might as well be dead. The powerful status effects are functionally the same as having your character just be dead. Please be careful!
Good news! Save or Lose effects have mostly been weakened so you need to fail the save by 10 or more for the really bad stuff to kick in. They also, however, mostly have some small effect on a successful save unless you beat the DC by 10
If you put an ability on an outsider, such as wish, that also means you are giving it to wizards. If you leave planar binding in the game, any time you print an outsider you are giving wizards access to a new body with spells. If you give the outsider a spell above their caster level, like wish, you are letting wizards get wish a lot earlier in the game than generally intended.
We have no idea how this will work yet.
There is a lot of minutiae about why spells are too good so I tried to cut it down a bit. I did a re balance on my own for my games but I am worried for PF2. I'm not even getting into the issue wizards have with class identity and flavor. If you have an questions you can ask me and I can get into a bit more. Hopefully all these issues are addressed in PF2 and I can feel happy picking a wizard!
Hopefully! It sounds like the addition of critical successes and failures on spells (the above mentioned failing by 10 or succeeding by 10) has fixed a lot of the issues with SOD spells specifically, and that was always the core problem, IMO.
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"A wizard walks up to some goblins and functionally kills them all with a color spray, but a fighter has to hack and risk injury one at a time."
Eh, that can happen a few times a day... if the spell is prepared.
A fighter can hack and be protected by armor all day.
A rogue can skill and poison every fight.
A caster has to hold a few spells and decide when to cast them.
I really am on the opposite side of the fence. From my perspective as a GM, stick-carrying, cloth-wearing casters are easily dealt with. They are powerful for a moment or two, but then fade quickly as the rogues and fighters carry the battles for the majority of the day.
I'm thinking about the game as an imaginative story experience. Others are seeing this as a min/max number crunching exercise. I suspect that is where the rift on casters starts to widen.
I am hoping the casters have a way to contribute more consistently incident to incident.
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I do NOT agree that making like, wish or miracle 10th level solves the problem. It just pushes the problem to a later level. Let's say wish is the only broken spell in PF2, but you get it at level 19 or whatever. It just breaks the last 2 levels instead of last 4. That's technically an improvement but is it really solving the problem with wish??
Sorta? Most campaigns are over before 19. We also don't really know what the new Wish will do. But I think it is important to Paizo that there be a top tier where things get really bananas, if not for practical play then for world building reasons. The Runelords and the Whispering Tyrant are examples of what a 20th level character can conceivably achieve.
My main problem is it is hard to imagine martials EVER getting anything on that level. I wish they would-- gimme some One Punch Man level athletic feats. But if magic has gotta get leave the mundane in the dust eventually, level 19 isn't a terrible time to do it. I care more that that magic isn't eclipsing the mundane as early as level 5, or 8, or whenever people find quadratic casters get too nuts.
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Sorta? Most campaigns are over before 19. We also don't really know what the new Wish will do. But I think it is important to Paizo that there be a top tier where things get really bananas, if not for practical play then for world building reasons. The Runelords and the Whispering Tyrant are examples of what a 20th level character can conceivably achieve.
As an extension of this sort of thought, what I really want to see is for an AP or adventure or whatever have "The Evil Warlord" be a viable endgame BBEG on (most of) his own merits over your standard outsiders or more typically "The Evil Wizard."
Well, I am pretty sure the Ironfang Legion has that going on, but I haven't actually played until book 6.
To be fair, most 20th level wizards have some magical macguffin they are utilizing to complete their diabolical plan, too. Actually, they often use an army as well... I guess they can hold leadership more through raw personal power over charisma and tactical acumen, but the end result looks pretty similar.
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Or they just need to add some good GMing advice to deal with players trying to use 6th level spells to get 9th level effects, and other such abuses. I've never had a player even try to use planar binding to get wishes because they know how badly they would get screwed by the arrangement. That spell isn't meant to be something handwaved as just happening, casting it should be an event with repercussions every time. If I wanted to be particularly mean I could have the efreet show up and explain that it's been a good decade for wish granting, and he'll be happy to add your request onto the end of his already prenegotiated contracts. Expect your wish to be granted in approximately 317 years plus a few months, after he's taken care of all his other obligations. Force him to bump you in line? Sure, just make a few thousand high level spellcasters scattered around the multiverse mad at you. That will end well. Besides, you're lucky you got him, all his friends are even more booked.
While this example is a bit player-hostile and silly, the point is that most truly "broken" spell combos in PF1e are easily controlled at the GM level if you know how. Blood money? Only exists in the two places in RotR it's listed. Simulacrum? Monsters can't have abilities inappropriate to their new HD, and the caster must make a knowledge check to know all the properties of a monster they want to copy. Create demiplane? Actually read the spell description nd the description of planar traits and realize that a lot of supposed tricks with the spell don't work.
I'll admit there are a few places in PF1e that need some issues addressed - geas should really let you resist and suffer the consequences, for example.
Edit: I want to add that if your PC caster is putting together this big ritual that will bring him ultimate power...what happens when NPC wizards do that? PCs show up to bust up the ritual and prevent it from happening. It's totally genre appropriate to have a high-level NPC party show up right in the middle of the PC casting planar binding with the intent to prevent its completion at all costs.
I meant viable in the sense of their actual performance in the final battle more than being able to story-fu their way into carrying an adventure (anyone can do that really with proper use of will and artifacts as you said). I haven't read Ironfang, but barring a whole lot of shenanigans I have real doubts the L20 martial BBEG ends up being a credible challenge compared to I dunno, her L18 wizard/dragon/demon vizier or whatever that's tagging along for the last fight.[
Sorta? Most campaigns are over before 19. We also don't really know what the new Wish will do. But I think it is important to Paizo that there be a top tier where things get really bananas, if not for practical play then for world building reasons. The Runelords and the Whispering Tyrant are examples of what a 20th level character can conceivably achieve.
As an extension of this sort of thought, what I really want to see is for an AP or adventure or whatever have "The Evil Warlord" be a viable endgame BBEG on (most of) his own merits over your standard outsiders or more typically "The Evil Wizard."
Well, I am pretty sure the Ironfang Legion has that going on, but I haven't actually played until book 6.
** spoiler omitted **
To be fair, most 20th level wizards have some magical macguffin they are utilizing to complete their diabolical plan, too. Actually, they often use an army as well... I guess they can hold leadership more through raw personal power over charisma and tactical acumen, but the end result looks pretty similar.
It depends on how much unique stuff they give to him. I don't have Ironfang, but in Giantslayer the BBEG is kind of a soldier too, just one with magic artifacts and a dragon mount.