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But why are the vast majority of posts going on here where someone with a valid concern about a mechanic is trying to pin it as a fact that this mechanic is set in stone and will forever be non replaceable?... they'd have to rewrite the whole book to get me to play it. I think it's awful, almost all of it awful. And they aren't going to do that, so....
They're going to rewrite book. Take the multi-classing for example.
Multiclass archetypes are one of the more experimental parts of the Pathfinder Playtest. So much so that there are only four of them in the book, one for cleric, one for fighter, one for rogue, and one for wizard.It continues on with feat examples, and then adds this at the end:
Well, that about covers the rules for multiclassing in the Pathfinder Playtest. If these archetypes work, you can expect to see one for each class in the final version of the game, giving you the flexibility to build characters that draw on more than one class to make their concept click. We hope you'll give these a try during the playtest and let us know what you think!They openly said that it was experimental, hence why there's only 4, and that there isn't a whole to them. If you seriously believe that the PF2 CRB will only include these 4 and nothing else, and they will be exactly as written, it makes me wonder how someone can act so naive. So when they finish up with key phrases as "in the playtest" and "if they work", they're openly asking for if they work, do they not work, and if they don't work, what could make them work. I've already seen great commentary involved about how the multi-classing can be improved, even with ideas that completely re-write it. I can't wait for Gen Con to be over because I'm eagerly awaiting how they respond to us.
Your response of "they aren't going to do that" significantly implies that you're ignoring that the lack...
unless they plan on releasing an updated playtest book for people to actually playtest those additions before the CRB containing them is released, we'll get several more multiclass options that are set in stone immediately (because it's the official release and paizo wont want to void all those initial CRB sales to actually fix their work at that point), and no amount of broken-ness and player complaint/numerical evidence will affect that at that point, it'll just be more of "they'll patch it in the next book (which will introduce it's own problems that they'll patch in the book after that and on and on and 3e is announced after a few years)".
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The nature of complaints I see popping up a lot here boil down to "This class can't do whatever I want it to do." I mean, seriously? That's kind of the entire point of a class-based system. Different classes play differently. One of my biggest complaints of PF1 was that it got to the point where I felt like my class wasn't actually doing enough to distinguish my character. They had a couple unique gimmicks, sure, but a witch I made didn't feel fundamentally distinct enough from an Enchanter or a Fey Sorcerer. When someone comes out and says "I want X class to be able to do whatever I want," I have to wonder to myself why they're even playing Pathfinder instead of a system that uses build points to create characters, or maybe an STG.This is such a blatant misinterpretation of people's arguments that I can only assume it is willful and in bad faith.
Please, go make a light armor fighter. Or a ranger with a two hander. Or a rogue with a spear.
These are not "I want to do whatever I want" requests. These are "why does a master of weapons and armor not get any bonuses to 2/3 of the armor choices as options when that used to be a thing they could do?" Or "why can I not take a general combat feat to use a two hander better?" Or "why can I not sneak attack with a weapon that has been used in sneak attacks for all of history?"
These are basic, basic things. SO MANY complaints would be resolved if there were just more general feats, and class feats were used specifically for things that make a class special and unique (animal companions, channeling energy, etc.).
Alright, maybe I sounded a little cranky in my initial post, but this is more or less what I'm talking about. With most of these examples, I guess I just don't see why I see why they need to be there. From my perspective, this edition seems to push each class towards a certain set of playstyles, but I don't see that as a bad thing. I don't think every class should be able to be played in any way, because it cheapens what makes them distinct. I would argue that a lightly armored fighter could be re-imagined as a rogue or a ranger. I think saying that "spears can't sneak attack" is an extremely nitpicky thing to complain about, because what is it you really want to do? Do you want to do a lot of damage while using a spear? There are other classes that can do that. I would argue that most of the frustation here is just being married to the idea of your class being called "rogue." I'm going into this looking at it in terms of "what class works best for the concept I want" rather than "which concepts can I do with this class."
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The nature of complaints I see popping up a lot here boil down to "This class can't do whatever I want it to do." I mean, seriously? That's kind of the entire point of a class-based system. Different classes play differently. One of my biggest complaints of PF1 was that it got to the point where I felt like my class wasn't actually doing enough to distinguish my character. They had a couple unique gimmicks, sure, but a witch I made didn't feel fundamentally distinct enough from an Enchanter or a Fey Sorcerer. When someone comes out and says "I want X class to be able to do whatever I want," I have to wonder to myself why they're even playing Pathfinder instead of a system that uses build points to create characters, or maybe an STG.
What. Like what? This speaks to such a deep level of ignorance on the mechanics of PF1, and you're the one in here calling other people "Trumpian?" Really?
Like I mean witch vs enchanter okay. I mean witch is the base class alternate to the wizard, but even then: Different spell list, completely different ability track with features like prehensile hair, all of which motivates different synergies. I mean you CAN build a witch to operate similarly to a wizard, but that's really on you, and even then, it will never be the same because you have an entire different ability track. So sure, you've got options to do similar things to some of the classes adjacent to your own, buy if you're trying to build a witch like another class, then I'd suggest that perhaps distinguishing yourself as a witch isn't what you actually want to do.
Is your complaint that there were too many options? Because it sounds less like you're concerned with having a class distinguish itself (they do that absolutely fine) and more like you want classes to run along strict lines without branches or close relatives. Like you're here saying the witch isn't distinct enough from one set of options that a class which it's built to be an alternative to has, when it's pretty blatantly as distinct from that class as it can be while still being in the same family. That's an argument less about class distinction and more about having no periphery options to the core classes.
Edit: For the record though, that being what you want, you're going to be disappointed in the end, 'cause all those adjacent classes and options will come along eventually. Unless the edition is wildly unsuccessful, but I don't think anyone is hoping for that.
unless they plan on releasing an updated playtest book for people to actually playtest those additions before the CRB containing them is released, we'll get several more multiclass options that are set in stone immediately (because it's the official release and paizo wont want to void all those initial CRB sales to actually fix their work at that point), and no amount of broken-ness and player complaint/numerical evidence will affect that at that point, it'll just be more of "they'll patch it in the next book (which will introduce it's own problems that they'll patch in the book after that and on and on and 3e is announced after a few years)".
So are you saying that you are seriously in the believe that with absolute, 100% undeniable this is absolute positive fact that can not and will not ever be challenged because it is 100% undeniable fact that in the course of the next year before their targeted release date (which they have said that they are fully willing to push back if needed by the way), will not and never will add and release new packets and various errata that adds to, changes, or full out replaces specific or various mechanics, to include those that have a heavier emphasis over other mechanics?
And yes, that entire paragraph is practically a run on sentence, I realize this. Punctuation and grammar weren't exactly my forte in school.
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Alright, maybe I sounded a little cranky in my initial post, but this is more or less what I'm talking about. With most of these examples, I guess I just don't see why I see why they need to be there. From my perspective, this edition seems to push each class towards a certain set of playstyles, but I don't see that as a bad thing. I don't think every class should be able to be played in any way, because it cheapens what makes them distinct. I would argue that a lightly armored fighter could be re-imagined as a rogue or a ranger. I think saying that "spears can't sneak attack" is an extremely nitpicky thing to complain about, because what is it you really want to do? Do you want to do a lot of damage while using a spear? There are other classes that can do that. I would argue that most of the frustation here is just being married to the idea of your class being called "rogue." I'm going into this looking at it in terms of "what class works best for the concept I want" rather than "which concepts can I do with this class."
There's more to character concept and class than what fighting style and armor types your use. People who play tabletop RPGs want to make their own unique character concepts and not just remake the same cookie-cutter defaults that you see in any MMO.
If your character's thing is that he's an awesome swordsman and is neither at home in the wilderness and big on hunting or prone to sneaking and stealing things than making them as a ranger or rogue isn't going to work out. Fighter has feats suited to a duelist fighting style, but going for a swashbuckler feel doesn't work with that heavy armor. Rangers don't have access to the feat you need to make longbows practical, so if you do want to be wilderness-oriented and skillful but aren't into crossbows or dual-wielding, you're stuck. What weapon they use doesn't define a ranger, being a wilderness warrior does. If you want to be a guile hero who steals stuff and disarms booby-traps and has lots of different skills and manipulates situations to take people by surprise, then should you have to use finesse weapons? Sure, they synergize well with having a high DEX for certain skills, but that's not the only way to be a rogue. What if you'd rather use an ancestry weapon, or your deity's weapon, or a sap to avoid needless killing? What if your rogue wasn't a criminal but a cop who favored his truncheon?
The iconics are cool and all, but we shouldn't have to build our characters to be just like them. We should be able to build our own characters.
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unless they plan on releasing an updated playtest book for people to actually playtest those additions before the CRB containing them is released, we'll get several more multiclass options that are set in stone immediately (because it's the official release and paizo wont want to void all those initial CRB sales to actually fix their work at that point), and no amount of broken-ness and player complaint/numerical evidence will affect that at that point, it'll just be more of "they'll patch it in the next book (which will introduce it's own problems that they'll patch in the book after that and on and on and 3e is announced after a few years)".So are you saying that you are seriously in the believe that with absolute, 100% undeniable this is absolute positive fact that can not and will not ever be challenged because it is 100% undeniable fact that in the course of the next year before their targeted release date (which they have said that they are fully willing to push back if needed by the way), will not and never will add and release new packets and various errata that adds to, changes, or full out replaces specific or various mechanics, to include those that have a heavier emphasis over other mechanics?
And yes, that entire paragraph is practically a run on sentence, I realize this. Punctuation and grammar weren't exactly my forte in school.
Wait wait wait, I'm having trouble understanding you Kyle. However this might be a wording issue.
AndIMustMask seems worried that things won't get fixed during playtest, partially things they work on while the playtest is still ongoing(See the multiclass options). So they seem worried that, during the playtest, we won't get to test say... Alchemist Dedication. Or maybe Barbarian Dedication.
These options that get developed while the playtest is ongoing might not go through it. If not released to the public for playtest events and data gathering, when's the next time they can do so? When they put out the next PDF/Splat book. Now they could just release an errata on their site too but announcing a patch of some kind at the same time as a book I think would get more attention. I'm just spitballing here.
To me this seems a decent worry to have(Maybe not end of the world/game but decent) as depending on how much work they might need to patch certian things, they're going to need time to do so.
I don't want to start the debate about it again so for or against, it took them what 2-3 patches to "Fix" Crane style.
Is your complaint that there were too many options? Because it sounds less like you're concerned with having a class distinguish itself (they do that absolutely fine) and more like you want classes to run along strict lines without branches or close relatives. Like you're here saying the witch isn't distinct enough from one set of options that a class which it's built to be an alternative to has, when it's pretty blatantly as distinct from that class as it can be while still being in the same family. That's an argument less about class distinction and more about having no periphery options to the core classes.
Didn't see this until after my post. I think what he's talking about is along the same lines as what confuses me. This mentality that seems to be floating that this book is the hard set in stone forever rules. The playtest right does seem very limiting in what we're able to do. The fighter is geared more towards heavy armor. It doesn't just straight up tell the player "No, you can't play anything other than a fighter that wears heavy armor" because we're not seeing those type of options yet. He has a point in saying that a light armored fighter seems more like a ranger or a rogue. But that's only due to what we have in front of us at this time. Does the witch deserve it's own class? Thematically and mechanically yes, it does. I won't contest that. But it's safe to guess that the witch class isn't going to be in the PF2 CRB. But the options to try and make a wizard have that witch feel in the playtest isn't quite there because those aren't quite options that we haven't been given. Does that make sense at all?
Alright, maybe I sounded a little cranky in my initial post, but this is more or less what I'm talking about. With most of these examples, I guess I just don't see why I see why they need to be there. From my perspective, this edition seems to push each class towards a certain set of playstyles, but I don't see that as a bad thing. I don't think every class should be able to be played in any way, because it cheapens what makes them distinct. I would argue that a lightly armored fighter could be re-imagined as a rogue or a ranger. I think saying that "spears can't sneak attack" is an extremely nitpicky thing to complain about, because what is it you really want to do? Do you want to do a lot of damage while using a spear? There are other classes that can do that. I would argue that most of the frustation here is just being married to the idea of your class being called "rogue." I'm going into this looking at it in terms of "what class works best for the concept I want" rather than "which concepts can I do with this class."There's more to character concept and class than what fighting style and armor types your use. People who play tabletop RPGs want to make their own unique character concepts and not just remake the same cookie-cutter defaults that you see in any MMO.
If your character's thing is that he's an awesome swordsman and is neither at home in the wilderness and big on hunting or prone to sneaking and stealing things than making them as a ranger or rogue isn't going to work out. Fighter has feats suited to a duelist fighting style, but going for a swashbuckler feel doesn't work with that heavy armor. Rangers don't have access to the feat you need to make longbows practical, so if you do want to be wilderness-oriented and skillful but aren't into crossbows or dual-wielding, you're stuck. What weapon they use doesn't define a ranger, being a wilderness warrior does. If you want to be a guile hero who steals stuff and disarms booby-traps and has lots of different...
Alright, I can see where you're coming from, and I can't say I disagree with it. I don't think every character should be a cookie cutter, but I also was starting to feel like PF1 started offering so much versatility that my character's class became less relevant as the game marched on. From eyeballing it (been working a lot this weekend so I won't have time to really dig in and absorb this thing till Monday), it looks each weapon has become much more statistically distinct, which I like, but I wonder whether that would create balance issues for opening sneak attack to each weapon from the get go? But yeah, I guess I can see how maybe a class feat (or multiclass feat?) should be able to give it to other weapons.
What is it about the bow so that makes it so unappealing (classes and feats are the last thing I'm reading in great detail - trying to figure out the moving parts of this thing before I look at how each class interacts with them)? When I look at the stats compared to the crossbow, it seems like the bow is set up to do a lot more.
One thing I will say, though, is that this is the only edition besides 4th where I would actually consider making a fighter right out of the gate. They get unique stuff more than just stat boosts, and I feel like the really stand out as the premier weapon masters, and it seems like multiclassing into fighter would open up a lot of options for more martially oriented characters. That being said, it shouldn't be a requirement for every character who wants to use a weapon. Maybe a few of their low level abilities should just be general feats?
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So are you saying that you are seriously in the believe that with absolute, 100% undeniable this is absolute positive fact that can not and will not ever be challenged because it is 100% undeniable fact that in the course of the next year before their targeted release date (which they have said that they are fully willing to push back if needed by the way), will not and never will add and release new packets and various errata that adds to, changes, or full out replaces specific or various mechanics, to include those that have a heavier emphasis over other mechanics?
Wait wait wait, I'm having trouble understanding you Kyle. However this might be a wording issue.
AndIMustMask seems worried that things won't get fixed during playtest, partially things they work on while the playtest is still ongoing(See the multiclass options). So they seem worried that, during the playtest, we won't get to test say... Alchemist Dedication. Or maybe Barbarian Dedication.
These options that get developed while the playtest is ongoing might not go through it. If not released to the public for playtest events and data gathering, when's the next time they can do so? When they put out the next PDF/Splat book. Now they could just release an errata on their site too but announcing a patch of some kind at the same time as a book I think would get more attention. I'm just spitballing here.
To me this seems a decent worry to have(Maybe not end of the world/game but decent) as depending on how much work they might need to patch certian things, they're going to need time to do so.
I don't want to start the debate about it again so for or against, it took them what 2-3 patches to "Fix" Crane style.
Man I'm all over the place right now lol. I won't deny the possibility that we won't be able to see something like Alchemist Dedication until full release. I hope that we'll get chance to before though as they change or redesign multiclassing, but there is that possibility. But to make the assumption that we will never see it because we've got this one massive pile of rule book so therefore we can't have anything else to look at, secret secret secret... I'm sorry, that mentality is extremely naive. How can a play test actually be effective if we can't test the changes being made? And that's what I'm getting at with what MultiTask is saying. His concerns of having things not changed is very real. This new deal with Ancestry seems pretty set. It's a concept that they do seem to be planted fairly firm on going with. But that doesn't mean the way these feats are done, or how the traits are done. And his comment makes it really sound like because Ancestries are being a hard set mechanic, then the feats we have in the play test are not going to change, they never will change, and if they somehow do change, we won't be allowed to try it because that would mean they would have to reprint the entire rule book.
The great thing that we're getting out of this play test is that we've got a good deal of time to work with it. Have you seen the timelines for the Doomsday feed back? It's fast, it's actually really quick. That means they're looking to change things. They're actively looking for what we feels doesn't work so that it can be changed. It's a very strong impression that they want to get us changes that aren't in some book two years down the road, they want to get us changes for us to try out, rip apart, and dissect. If they weren't willing to do that, why even run a play test? Seriously, what is the point of running a play test in which you put out so much information in one move if you didn't want it ripped apart and dissected?
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unless they plan on releasing an updated playtest book for people to actually playtest those additions before the CRB containing them is released, we'll get several more multiclass options that are set in stone immediately (because it's the official release and paizo wont want to void all those initial CRB sales to actually fix their work at that point), and no amount of broken-ness and player complaint/numerical evidence will affect that at that point, it'll just be more of "they'll patch it in the next book (which will introduce it's own problems that they'll patch in the book after that and on and on and 3e is announced after a few years)".So are you saying that you are seriously in the believe that with absolute, 100% undeniable this is absolute positive fact that can not and will not ever be challenged because it is 100% undeniable fact that in the course of the next year before their targeted release date (which they have said that they are fully willing to push back if needed by the way), will not and never will add and release new packets and various errata that adds to, changes, or full out replaces specific or various mechanics, to include those that have a heavier emphasis over other mechanics?
And yes, that entire paragraph is practically a run on sentence, I realize this. Punctuation and grammar weren't exactly my forte in school.
i mean, we went an entire edition of that behavior (whoops it's in print now we totally cant change it!), which led to complaints on the monk and rogue (and the fighter bieng generally underpowered) being fundamentally broken for a large chunk of a decade. and then attempting to introduce means to patch those issues, only for their internal pass before print to then over-limit those new options into an equal level of non-functionality (uses per day, extremely specific circumstances, massive penalties, or all of the above).
So yes, I am completely sure that paizo will continue their tradition--though i would love nothing more than for them to prove me wrong and not only be receptive to criticism that they may not like, but to be transparent with their process and involve playtesting more closely every step of the way. I just don't see it happening realistically.Also, I'm not going to dock you points for run-ons, as I deal in those almost exclusively myself!
I'll agree that there will be at some point a book that comes out that does make a change from what's been the result of a few or multiple years of public release. There's been several systems that do that. In some cases those changes actually spark new editions of that system. It's unavoidable in this day and age. In no way am I trying to argue that.
It's the mentality of what we have now, right here, in our faces right now at this very moment is what the 100% final product is going to be. What you're reading at this exact moment is going to be the exact same thing you're going to read when final product is released. If you take a look at the Playtest page on the main site, scroll down a little bit and it says "Currently Playtesting: Part 1, The Lost Star" and the date they have there between August 2 to the 26. That's a little over 3 weeks to test getting an adventure prepped with the new mechanics, creating a level 1 character with the new mechanics, and playing level 1 characters with the new mechanics. Three weeks. Do you really believe that between August 26th to let's say next year at Gen Con (a good target goal to set if everything goes well) when the official PF2 comes out, we're never going to get an update of changes made with no way of testing those changes over the course of 10 months? That is what I'm getting at. That's the mentality I'm trying to question here. There's so much "I've lost that, I can't do this, this isn't possible, they didn't say this so it must mean..." going around right now that it's just unbelievable. I just seriously don't get how this is a straight up legitimate thought process during a play test period that whatever we say is going to be ignored and thrown away.
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Feats that were general feats in PF1 and are now locked behind a steep feat tax by being class feats are the most limiting option of all.
We've all always hated feat tax, so introducing a new way to do it is pretty frustrating.
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Your response of "they aren't going to do that" significantly implies that you're ignoring that the lack...I'm sure they'll change bits of it, but they aren't realistically going to nuke the entire site from orbit and start over.
Even if they perhaps should. I'm sure a suitable nuke can be found in the starship weapons table in Starfinder even.
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lright, I can see where you're coming from, and I can't say I disagree with it. I don't think every character should be a cookie cutter, but I also was starting to feel like PF1 started offering so much versatility that my character's class became less relevant as the game marched on. From eyeballing it (been working a lot this weekend so I won't have time to really dig in and absorb this thing till Monday), it looks each weapon has become much more statistically distinct, which I like, but I wonder whether that would create balance issues for opening sneak attack to each weapon from the get go? But yeah, I guess I can see how maybe a class feat (or multiclass feat?) should be able to give it to other weapons.
What is it about the bow so that makes it so unappealing (classes and feats are the last thing I'm reading in great detail - trying to figure out the moving parts of this thing before I look at how each class interacts with them)? When I look at the stats compared to the crossbow, it seems like the bow is set up to do a lot more.
OK on the Front of Bows the problems are a follows: 1 the Volley special quality means if you fire a bow within the bracket listed distance, 50 feet on longbow, you take a -2 penalty on attack rolls the same as you do if you fire outside it's initial range increment, Crossbows son't have the volley property, and 2 composite bows now only add half your strength modifier.
So unless you can guarantee you're firing between 50 and 99 feet a crossbow will be more accurate than a longbow and has a larger damage dice, not to mention the fact ranger's early feats benefit a crossbowman and not an archer.
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Not going to lie didnt read all of this, but here is the thing yes ranger does look like they skimmed over bows which sucks amd I do hope they add more bow options in their final product (thats why we are playtesting). Seond, I agree with Martinaj with his assesment on how in PF1 it does feel like my class can be overshadowed. In that we see how PF2 is really pushing the whole class difference amd making sure the ranger is different then the fighter. I know someone wanted to make a spear rogue I can totally see that and I dont know why the spear isn't finesse but if you aren't opposed you totally could do a halfling with the Filcher Fork weapon. Both sides do have valid arguments but overall in my opinion as a new edition it is interesting and I enjoy the change.
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My sincere hope is that the playtest is deliberately encouraging each class to be built into one of several clearly distinct bins, not because the actual game is going to be like that, but simply to test things like "how does a crossbow ranger do compared to a greatsword barbarian compared to an archer fighter compared to a twf fighter compared to a monk who punches people."
In forcing people to color inside the lines and making a given combat strategy the exclusive province of the one class who is best equipped to do it, we can get mathematical numbers for things like "bows are too strong compared to crossbows, dex-based combat styles are better than str ones, etc." which can be used to tune those mechanics.
Hopefully, then, once the actual rulebook comes out we'll once again be able to make a decent archer out of a huge number of classes.
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My sincere hope is that the playtest is deliberately encouraging each class to be built into one of several clearly distinct bins, not because the actual game is going to be like that, but simply to test things like "how does a crossbow ranger do compared to a greatsword barbarian compared to an archer fighter compared to a twf fighter compared to a monk who punches people."
If it was, it should have been publicly advertised as such prior to the playest.
As it wasn't, the ensuing rage about cookie-cutter classes is entirely justified.
I don't see how it's fair to compare PF2's 1st playtest document to the finished Core Rulebook of PF1 that was the product of a year of feedback, playtesting, and expansion. There was a ton of revision and expansion of options between that first alpha (which was extremely bare) and the eventual final product.
The dev team can't exactly spend time to develop the whole gamut of options at this stage -- their first public playtest document -- since they know they might go back to revise/scrap systems and ideas as a result of playtest feedback. I would be more critical if they HAD decided to go whole hog and complete all their lists of fighting styles, bloodlines, etc. without FIRST taking the opportunity to get feedback on the overall changes they were making to the system.
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I think it would be hard to look at the system and not notice right off that your choice is whether you want to be able to fill in your two types of bonuses or not.
"How will I get my circumstance bonus and how will I get my conditional bonus."
It really is boring. And with so few bonus types you need to be much more careful avoiding duplicates.
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My sincere hope is that the playtest is deliberately encouraging each class to be built into one of several clearly distinct bins, not because the actual game is going to be like that, but simply to test things like "how does a crossbow ranger do compared to a greatsword barbarian compared to an archer fighter compared to a twf fighter compared to a monk who punches people."If it was, it should have been publicly advertised as such prior to the playest.
As it wasn't, the ensuing rage about cookie-cutter classes is entirely justified.
Well, they are already on record as saying that they broke ties when the devs didn't agree on how to do something by going with whatever the most radical departure was. So they knew ahead of time certain things were going to be unpopular, but didn't bother to let us know what those things were.
So frankly I don't think they need to publicly advertise anything in terms of what the playtest data is going to be used for; telling us what they plan on doing with feedback would surely skew the data.
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What is it about the bow so that makes it so unappealing (classes and feats are the last thing I'm reading in great detail - trying to figure out the moving parts of this thing before I look at how each class interacts with them)? When I look at the stats compared to the crossbow, it seems like the bow is set up to do a lot more.
The longbow has the Volley trait that gives it a penalty when shooting at ranges of less than 50 feet, which is where most combat is probably going to take place. The fighter can take the Point Blank Shot stance feat to negate that penalty. The ranger, despite traditionally being very archery-oriented, cannot.
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What is it about the bow so that makes it so unappealing (classes and feats are the last thing I'm reading in great detail - trying to figure out the moving parts of this thing before I look at how each class interacts with them)? When I look at the stats compared to the crossbow, it seems like the bow is set up to do a lot more.The longbow has the Volley trait that gives it a penalty when shooting at ranges of less than 50 feet, which is where most combat is probably going to take place. The fighter can take the Point Blank Shot stance feat to negate that penalty. The ranger, despite traditionally being very archery-oriented, cannot.
So instead of having to take Point B lank Shot- Precise Shot you now have to take Fighter Dedication - Point Blank Shot and we have the same "if you want to use bow you must take these tax feats just to negate horrific penalties" feats required.
Only that then also locks you out of any other archetype or multiclass and requires you to used two class feats instead of general feats.
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OK on the Front of Bows the problems are a follows: 1 the Volley special quality means if you fire a bow within the bracket listed distance, 50 feet on longbow, you take a -2 penalty on attack rolls the same as you do if you fire outside it's initial range increment, Crossbows son't have the volley property, and 2 composite bows now only add half your strength modifier.
So unless you can guarantee you're firing between 50 and 99 feet a crossbow will be more accurate than a longbow and has a larger damage dice, not to mention the fact ranger's early feats benefit a crossbowman and not an archer.
Let's assume two first level fighters with DEX 18 and STR 16. One of them has a longbow, the other has a heavy crossbow. Both have + 6 to hit (expert, lvl, Dex). They are targeting a common lvl 1 creature they are fighting. Let's pick the first lvl 1 creature we find in the Doomsday Dawn, a Goblin Pyro.
The crossbow fighter adds +2 damage from point blank. The Longbow user can't do that, because Pointblank offset the volley bonus but don't give damage to volley weapons.
Crossbow hits on 7+. So he crits on 17+. That's 18/20 x 7.5 average damage, or 6.75, including crits.
Longbow is a bit trickier, because of Deadly property. A longbow fighter hits with 7+, doing 14/20 x 4.5 on regular hits, plus 4/20 x 10 aditional damage on crits. That's 2 aditional damage, or 6.5 total damage for the first shot. But wait, the longbow can shoot again, while the crossbow is reloading. He hits with 12+ on the second action, crit with 20. So he adds 9/20 x 4.5 + 1/20 x 10, or 2.05 damage on the second shot, plus 0.5 crit. The third shot he can hit with 17+, doing 4/20 x 4.5 and 1/20 x 10 from crit, for a total of another 1.4 average damage.
While in volley range, using a longbow (not a composite longbow, a regular one), a fighter with a longbow outdamages a fighter with a crossbow by 10.45 vs 6.75.
At lvl 2, the longbow fighter buys a composite longbow, and things get ugly for the crossbow user.
Now, there are feats, magic item properties and other stuff, like party buffs, that might influence this. And yes, it's true that the gap between bow and crossbow has been reduced in this edition. But the longbow is still the king of the hill in ranged combat.
I think people understimate the effectiveness of Deadly.
The problem, then, it's not the bow vs the crossbow. Is the lack of bow feats for the ranger class. That's easy to solve, I'm pretty sure they'll add more stuff to each class before the final release
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On that subject, I just realized that there are two weapon groups that fighters can't effectively use: crossbows and thrown weapons. A lot of the fighter's ranged combat feats don't work with a weapon that needs reloading (and there's no Rapid Reload), and they don't get access to Quick Draw.
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Okay here's my opinion for a few of the "problems" people have brought up in this thread.
1. Rangers aren't as good as Fighters using bows cause fighters get more feats
So let's look at the Rangers hunt ability. That ability is very good in general and excellent for bows. Your extra attacks get a discount no matter what range they are and you IGNORE the penalties from the second range increment. That's 120ft with a shortbow, 200ft with a longbow and not to mention 240ft with a Crossbow. Sniper much?
Okay but the Fighter gets Point Blank Shot right? It negates the volley penalty of a longbow but doesn't make it easier for you to hit like the Hunt ability. Well you get +2 damage if it doesn't have volley and that's substantial right? And the Ranger only gets a bonus to damage with the crossbow with his feat. BUT with point blank it's only within the first range increment. So while yes the fighter gets a possible +2 damage it's only with Shortbow, at 60ft, or 120ft with a crossbow. Which we just explained the ranger gets lower penalties, +wis damage AND shoots from 240ft away. The Ranger 2nd level feat of Favored Aim ignores concealed and screened and reduced the bonuses from cover by 2. Oh and if they don't have any of those conditions? Gain +2 to hit. So now they can at second level with 18 dex and a longbow hit a target from 200ft away with 3 attacks going with +8/+4/+0. AND considering the lowered movement speeds for pretty much everyone that means it'll take much longer to get to the Ranger to strike back.
Okay well what about double shot and triple shot? Well let's look. A Ranger gets +11/+7/+3 at 4th level the Fighter gets +7/+7 against 1 target and then a +4 for the third shot. Again while yes the Fighter may get a small amount of extra damage from Point Blank Shot it's not life changing. And the ranger is still hitting from twice distance. I know that may not always come up but it's an important factor to consider.
And even after all that if the Ranger REALLY wants those feats they can always just take Fighter Dedication and gain them that way.
2. Make a two handed ranger.
Ummm why can't you? Cause Fighters get power attack? Well once again if you REALLY want it you can just take Fighter Dedication and you can get it at 4th level. Considering Power Attack works waaaay different from last edition it's not the end all for damage with a two handed weapon. Now everybody who's using a Two Handed weapon is just damage +str (I haven't seen anything for 1 1/2 str but I may have missed it). The only thing that Fighters get are some nifty little tricks, like doing more damage on 1 attack by sacrificing another or being able to shove people around. While the Ranger can still use his Hunt ability with his two hander as well as gaining Weapon Mastery just like the Fighter.
3. Make a Light Armor Fighter
Okay I'll have to give in for this one. BUT it seems like a serious thing is missing because it seems NO ONE gets Expert let alone Master Training in Light Armor. Was it forgotten entirely? Cause even the Fighter only gets Expert Proficiency in Medium armor and that's at lvl 17. I honestly believe that can't be right. It must be some sort of mistake.
4. Rogue can't sneak attack with every weapon.
While granted yes this was something you could do in P1E it was stupid. The only way a rogues sneak attack makes sense is if they are pinpointing where to hit a target for maximum damage. Put a quarter on the floor and see how many times you can hit it holding a Spear. Not that many I would assume. Now do it with a knife or shortsword. I bet it would be much easier cause the weapon is smaller and easier to control thus making precision hitting a viable option.
Remember this is a totally new system. Not 3.80. Things are different now.
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For a playtest I would think offering two options for character builds, like a crossbow and archer ranger/fighter would have been appropriate. THe cookie cutterness and having to make a character that they want me to make is what is disturbing.
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I don't expect PF2 to have all the options PF1 had. I do expect that it would have options on par with what the PF1 core book had. More importantly, tho, I expect that after all the hype about Skill Feats and Legendary abilities, that they would actually be something cool, not things that we could already do without a feat or at much lower levels in PF1.
If they're really trying to address the caster/martial disparity, then the martials need cooler stuff. And more skills.
You know what was super cool in PF1? Advanced Weapon and Advanced Armor Training. It elevated the fighter to contending for my favorite class in the system. Something like that would be cool to see in PF2.
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On that subject, I just realized that there are two weapon groups that fighters can't effectively use: crossbows and thrown weapons. A lot of the fighter's ranged combat feats don't work with a weapon that needs reloading (and there's no Rapid Reload), and they don't get access to Quick Draw.
I haven't tried it but with the 3 action system just how behind would a Fighter be trying to use those?
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4. Rogue can't sneak attack with every weapon.
While granted yes this was something you could do in P1E it was stupid. The only way a rogues sneak attack makes sense is if they are pinpointing where to hit a target for maximum damage. Put a quarter on the floor and see how many times you can hit it holding a Spear. Not that many I would assume. Now do it with a knife or shortsword. I bet it would be much easier cause the weapon is smaller and easier to control thus making precision hitting a viable option.
Right, now try to hit a vital spot on an elephant with a knife then try a spear. At a certain point you'll realize you want a hafted blade about 5 feet long, heavily weighted at the blade, and curved in order to cut the creature's tendons as it will be easier to disable weight bearing limbs on a large creature than navigate their torso to their lungs or penetrate their skull.
The point is, if we're using real life to determine what a "rogue" should be using, then we need a variety of weapons for specific creatures in order to strike vital areas of the creature. A knife wouldn't be on that list. A knife's value is in it being small and light and thus easy to conceal and carry. But nobody is taking a knife to put a wounded horse out of their misery. Even if you're killing a person in their sleep, you probably want a claw hammer instead. You either want something heavy and blunt to shatter a skull, heavy and sharp to sever a tendon, or sharp and long enough to puncture both lungs. Oh, and you'll want to be strong as hell.
All that said, I wouldn't be against rogue feats available to expand the sorts of weapons you can use for sneak attacking, and restricting rogue initially to weapons only suited for fighting humans.
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Rameth, try casting a spell to let you levitate to beat the elevator...
the point you are making is moot. Applying real world to fantasy does not always workl.
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On that subject, I just realized that there are two weapon groups that fighters can't effectively use: crossbows and thrown weapons. A lot of the fighter's ranged combat feats don't work with a weapon that needs reloading (and there's no Rapid Reload), and they don't get access to Quick Draw.I haven't tried it but with the 3 action system just how behind would a Fighter be trying to use those?
Well, with a Heavy Crossbow, you would be making one attack a round, period. Two actions to reload, one to fire, and that's the only thing you do that round. The Crossbow Ace feat to add damage to the crossbow attack is ranger-only, so your damage is going to be pretty low. The Running Reload feat to let you move and reload in one action is ranger and rogue only.
With a light crossbow or thrown weapon, you need one action to reload or draw a new weapon, so you can manage 1.5 attacks a round if you do nothing else. Quick Draw is, again, ranger and rogue only. Because I guess no fighter ever needed to get their weapon out in a hurry?
I don't get this. I counted the feats available in both core rule books. And while there is overlap in the effects of some of them, PF2 has over 660 feats compared to 178 in PF1.
Did you also count all the rage powers, rogue tricks, etc.? Because all of those things are called "feats" now.
660 feats divided by 12 classes comes out to about 50 per class. (Less when you subtract the general, ancestry and skill feats.) In PF1, all of those 178 feats were available to everyone (except Weapon Specialization), in addition to the selectable class features.
The issue is not the number of feats but how many each character has access to, and that basic combat feats are restricted by class now. At a lot of levels, a particular class only has two feats to choose from.
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660 feats divided by 12 classes comes out to about 50 per class. (Less when you subtract the general, ancestry and skill feats.) In PF1, all of those 178 feats were available to everyone (except Weapon Specialization), in addition to the selectable class features.
The issue is not the number of feats but how many each character has access to, and that basic combat feats are restricted by class now. At a lot of levels, a particular class only has two feats to choose from.
Don't forget that PF2 made Skill Points also just Feats, so if we are counting feats we have to count each available point in each available Skill from PF1 as a separate feat, right?
Since a Skil Feat gives you +1 to a Skill, which is what a Skill point used to do.
Even Fighters and other 2+Int skills classes had far more "feats" available if Skill Points are just transliterated as feats.
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1. Rangers aren't as good as Fighters using bows cause fighters get more feats
So let's look at the Rangers hunt ability. That ability is very good in general and excellent for bows. Your extra attacks get a discount no matter what range they are and you IGNORE the penalties from the second range increment. That's 120ft with a shortbow, 200ft with a longbow and not to mention 240ft with a Crossbow. Sniper much?
Okay but the Fighter gets Point Blank Shot right? It negates the volley penalty of a longbow but doesn't make it easier for you to hit like the Hunt ability. Well you get +2 damage if it doesn't have volley and that's substantial right? And the Ranger only gets a bonus to damage with the crossbow with his feat. BUT with point blank it's only within the first range increment. So while yes the fighter gets a possible +2 damage it's only with Shortbow, at 60ft, or 120ft with a crossbow. Which we just explained the ranger gets lower penalties, +wis damage AND shoots from 240ft away.
Ranged combat doesn't happen at those ranges in most Pathfinder game. Think more like 0 - 100 feet and you have a more realistic idea at which ranges combat occurs most of the times. This is because of few wilderness encounters, compared to city, dungeon and in-door encounters.
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Okay here's my opinion for a few of the "problems" people have brought up in this thread.
1. Rangers aren't as good as Fighters using bows cause fighters get more feats
So let's look at the Rangers hunt ability. That ability is very good in general and excellent for bows. Your extra attacks get a discount no matter what range they are and you IGNORE the penalties from the second range increment. That's 120ft with a shortbow, 200ft with a longbow and not to mention 240ft with a Crossbow. Sniper much?
Okay but the Fighter gets Point Blank Shot right? It negates the volley penalty of a longbow but doesn't make it easier for you to hit like the Hunt ability. Well you get +2 damage if it doesn't have volley and that's substantial right? And the Ranger only gets a bonus to damage with the crossbow with his feat. BUT with point blank it's only within the first range increment. So while yes the fighter gets a possible +2 damage it's only with Shortbow, at 60ft, or 120ft with a crossbow. Which we just explained the ranger gets lower penalties, +wis damage AND shoots from 240ft away. The Ranger 2nd level feat of Favored Aim ignores concealed and screened and reduced the bonuses from cover by 2. Oh and if they don't have any of those conditions? Gain +2 to hit. So now they can at second level with 18 dex and a longbow hit a target from 200ft away with 3 attacks going with +8/+4/+0. AND considering the lowered movement speeds for pretty much everyone that means it'll take much longer to get to the Ranger to strike back.
Okay well what about double shot and triple shot? Well let's look. A Ranger gets +11/+7/+3 at 4th level the Fighter gets +7/+7 against 1 target and then a +4 for the third shot. Again while yes the Fighter may get a small amount of extra damage from Point Blank Shot it's not life changing. And the ranger is still hitting from twice distance. I know that may not always come up but it's an important factor to consider.
And even after all that if the Ranger REALLY wants those feats they can...
1. fighters do NOT get more feats, not anymore. they have the same class feat and general feat numbers as most everyone else (barring rogue). they have more feats centered around ranged combat... because the devs moved those previously general feats into class-specific territory.
the hunt ability requires the party be ambushing an enemy to reduce it's opportunity cost compared to simply alpha striking instead (especially with an agile weapon, that's even helpfully mentioned alongside hunt target's stuff as well).| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So much wrong with Rameths comparison of the fighter and ranger. C bows have reload times, 2 for heavy and 1 for light. I didn’t see any feats that bring the reload times down, I could be wrong. Also the favored aim feat that gives a ranger +2 to targets not concealed or screened takes 2 actions. So round 1 you get 1 attack since one action to hunt the target and 2 actions to favored aim. Next round you have to take 2 actions to reload a heavy and 1 for a light.
I was mostly comparing bow fighters to bow rangers. I did overlook the reload times and the two action for Favored Aim but that wasn't my point. Their point was it wasn't viable and I proved them wrong. If the ranger goes crossbow they have crossbow ace which allows them to add 1/2 wis and increase the damage die by one step. So that's d8 for handcrossbows, d10 for light, and d12 for heavy. That's serious sniping potential plus they still have favored aim. If they're a regular bow user they have just 1 less attack when using favored aim but you also have Stalker's Shot which when your hunting target fails to seek you you just get an extra attack at -2. So they get Hunt (flat reduces minuses) , favored aim (gives +2 to attack) and stalkers shot (possible extra attack if you're being your sneakiest). Tons of plenty viable options.
BUT my point is that both characters, or any character can use whatever they want because of Dedication Feats. Yes they have to wait but that's not all that bad.
The thing that a lot of people seem to be missing is that most of the combat feats that have been turned into class feats are still accessible because of the Dedication feat or they don't even work the same way as last edition. Because the numbers don't work the same way your bow using fighter will only be slightly better then the rogue which was how it was in P1E anyway.
Right, now try to hit a vital spot on an elephant with a knife then try a spear. At a certain point you'll realize you want a hafted blade about 5 feet long, heavily weighted at the blade, and curved in order to cut the creature's tendons as it will be easier to disable weight bearing limbs on a large creature than navigate their torso to their lungs or penetrate their skull.
The point is, if we're using real life to determine what a "rogue" should be using, then we need a variety of weapons for specific creatures in order to strike vital areas of the creature. A knife wouldn't be on that list. A knife's value is in it being small and light and thus easy to conceal and carry. But nobody is taking a knife to put a wounded horse out of their misery. Even if you're killing a person in their sleep, you probably want a claw hammer instead. You either want something heavy and blunt to shatter a skull, heavy and sharp to sever a tendon, or sharp and long enough to puncture both lungs. Oh, and you'll want to be strong as hell.
All that said, I wouldn't be against rogue feats available to expand the sorts of weapons you can use for sneak attacking, and restricting rogue initially to weapons only suited for fighting humans.
That what kind of what I was getting too. The ability itself doesn't make sense so why would people be upset cause you can't do everything with it. Just let it be for now. I'm sure rogues will be able to use spears in the future. Look at the Dedication Feats and the Archetypes. The possibilities are endless.
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Don't forget that PF2 made Skill Points also just Feats, so if we are counting feats we have to count each available point in each available Skill from PF1 as a separate feat, right?Since a Skil Feat gives you +1 to a Skill, which is what a Skill point used to do.
Even Fighters and other 2+Int skills classes had far more "feats" available if Skill Points are just transliterated as feats.
Gonna disagree there. The Skill Feats aren't equivalent to Skill Points. If you're gonna say that, you might as well say that every character is getting 17 free skill points every level because they get +1 to every skill.
The better Skill Feats (i.e. Quick Sneak, Foil Senses) are basically doing the same job as Rogue Talents, Ninja Tricks, Slayer Talents, etc. So I think those are equivalent, which is why I said you needed to count the Rogue Talents to know how many Feats there were in the PF1 CRB.
...the worse Skill Feats are just letting you do things you could already do just by being trained with the skill in PF1.
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BUT my point is that both characters, or any character can use whatever they want because of Dedication Feats. Yes they have to wait but that's not all that bad.
"Your archer ranger can be just as good as an archer fighter if you would just pretend to be a fighter too" isn't exactly a great argument. One would hope something as iconic as an archer ranger would be able to be a perfectly functional archer in-class rather than having to multiclass. (Which, for the record, I have no idea how good or bad an archer ranger is, I've not built one let alone tested one, I just heavily dislike that particular argument.)
BUT my point is that both characters, or any character can use whatever they want because of Dedication Feats. Yes they have to wait but that's not all that bad."Your archer ranger can be just as good as an archer fighter if you would just pretend to be a fighter too" isn't exactly a great argument. One would hope something as iconic as an archer ranger would be able to be a perfectly functional archer in-class rather than having to multiclass. (Which, for the record, I have no idea how good or bad an archer ranger is, I've not built one let alone tested one, I just heavily dislike that particular argument.)
I would say that you're looking at it through the old D&D 3.5 P1E lens. You saying that you can't Archer as good as a Fighter unless you mutliclass is trying compare what mutliclass means in the old edition and what it means in the new edition.
Take point blank shot for example. It doesn't do exactly what it did in the old edition. It's very specific and not just a flat bonus. Rapid shot doesn't really exist any more considering you just get 3 attacks every level and I haven't seen much other than high level. Two weapon fighting isn't a thing any more either as far as I can tell. The Class Feats just let you do these things DIFFERENTLY not disallowing you to do it at all. Plus you can still get this feats anyway.
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BUT my point is that both characters, or any character can use whatever they want because of Dedication Feats. Yes they have to wait but that's not all that bad."Your archer ranger can be just as good as an archer fighter if you would just pretend to be a fighter too" isn't exactly a great argument. One would hope something as iconic as an archer ranger would be able to be a perfectly functional archer in-class rather than having to multiclass. (Which, for the record, I have no idea how good or bad an archer ranger is, I've not built one let alone tested one, I just heavily dislike that particular argument.)I would say that you're looking at it through the old D&D 3.5 P1E lens. You saying that you can't Archer as good as a Fighter unless you mutliclass is trying compare what mutliclass means in the old edition and what it means in the new edition.
Take point blank shot for example. It doesn't do exactly what it did in the old edition. It's very specific and not just a flat bonus. Rapid shot doesn't really exist any more considering you just get 3 attacks every level and I haven't seen much other than high level. Two weapon fighting isn't a thing any more either as far as I can tell. The Class Feats just let you do these things DIFFERENTLY not disallowing you to do it at all. Plus you can still get this feats anyway.
Forget the specifics.
Archer Ranger HAS to be an effective, straight out of the box, intuitive to build option in core.
Not having Archer & Two Weapon Fighting options for Ranger would be the equivalent of Wizard not having spells or Cleric being incapable of healing.
When the game takes the core classes too far away from what they are it suffers (4th ed).
You can have any additional classes that do any thing you want, and you can have as many MORE options for Rangers as you want, but they HAVE to be able to be effective archers, and it shouldn't take a multiclass archetype for them to do so, it should be the easiest build to figure out-- the class description should basically outline it for you like it did in every previous edition.
BUT my point is that both characters, or any character can use whatever they want because of Dedication Feats. Yes they have to wait but that's not all that bad."Your archer ranger can be just as good as an archer fighter if you would just pretend to be a fighter too" isn't exactly a great argument. One would hope something as iconic as an archer ranger would be able to be a perfectly functional archer in-class rather than having to multiclass. (Which, for the record, I have no idea how good or bad an archer ranger is, I've not built one let alone tested one, I just heavily dislike that particular argument.)I would say that you're looking at it through the old D&D 3.5 P1E lens. You saying that you can't Archer as good as a Fighter unless you mutliclass is trying compare what mutliclass means in the old edition and what it means in the new edition.
Take point blank shot for example. It doesn't do exactly what it did in the old edition. It's very specific and not just a flat bonus. Rapid shot doesn't really exist any more considering you just get 3 attacks every level and I haven't seen much other than high level. Two weapon fighting isn't a thing any more either as far as I can tell. The Class Feats just let you do these things DIFFERENTLY not disallowing you to do it at all. Plus you can still get this feats anyway.
Forget the specifics.
Archer Ranger HAS to be an effective, straight out of the box, intuitive to build option in core.
Not having Archer & Two Weapon Fighting options for Ranger would be the equivalent of Wizard not having spells or Cleric being incapable of healing.
When the game takes the core classes too far away from what they are it suffers (4th ed).
You can have any additional classes that do any thing you want, and you can have as many MORE options for Rangers as you want, but they HAVE to be able to be effective archers, and it shouldn't take a multiclass archetype for them to do...
Which my argument is it can. Looking at Ranger and Fighter archer builds they both look almost the same. Make the characters and compare them instead of saying they don't work because the Fighters get one more feat or whatever. The feats don't work the same as before so a lot of those arguments don't make sense in the new edition.
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mechanics clashing with the expected theme or iconic people who inspired the class certainly does create a good amount of distaste as I see it:
-rangers who aren't good with bows,
-rogues not being able to actually sneak attack someone while sneaking (without a goblin racial feat, of all things!) and cant dual-wield without multiclassing (spending 2-3+ precious feats),
-lightly-armored fighters getting the shaft (despite fighters now hoarding almost all the old general combat style feats as class-locked ones now, they're somehow even LESS flexible in build variety now)
-paladins who can't smite enemies or protect their friends (and are in fact actively incentivised to NOT protect them, so they can retributive strike off them getting hit, as well as it taking an entire wasted turn to heal an ally due to clunky "manipulate" taking one's hand off/on their weapon idiocy, after which they're likely to just get hit again)
-barbarians who can only rage in fits and spurts and cant power attack (it's really just a worse vital strike at this point, but hey) without multiclassing
-slings, bows, and crossbows all being plagued by some stripe of un-mitigatable action economy woes (goodbye legolas!)
-characters in general who cant use things like throwing weapons, spears, etc
-heavily armored characters in particular and armored characters in general being needlessly punished by their armor, and unable to mitigate them.
warning: rant.
...BUT my point is that both characters, or any character can use whatever they want because of Dedication Feats. Yes they have to wait but that's not all that bad."Your archer ranger can be just as good as an archer fighter if you would just pretend to be a fighter too" isn't exactly a great argument. One would hope something as iconic as an archer ranger would be able to be a perfectly functional archer in-class rather than having to multiclass. (Which, for the record, I have no idea how good or bad an archer ranger is, I've not built one let alone tested one, I just heavily dislike that particular argument.)I would say that you're looking at it through the old D&D 3.5 P1E lens. You saying that you can't Archer as good as a Fighter unless you mutliclass is trying compare what mutliclass means in the old edition and what it means in the new edition.
Take point blank shot for example. It doesn't do exactly what it did in the old edition. It's very specific and not just a flat bonus. Rapid shot doesn't really exist any more considering you just get 3 attacks every level and I haven't seen much other than high level. Two weapon fighting isn't a thing any more either as far as I can tell. The Class Feats just let you do these things DIFFERENTLY not disallowing you to do it at all. Plus you can still get this feats anyway.
Forget the specifics.
Archer Ranger HAS to be an effective, straight out of the box, intuitive to build option in core.
Not having Archer & Two Weapon Fighting options for Ranger would be the equivalent of Wizard not having spells or Cleric being incapable of healing.
When the game takes the core classes too far away from what they are it suffers (4th ed).
You can have any additional classes that do any thing you want, and you can have as many MORE options for Rangers as you want, but they HAVE to be able to be effective archers, and it shouldn't take a
IF they are the same though, what's the bleeding point in having Fighter and Ranger.
Just make Rangther the class and get it over with. Or maybe Fighnger
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For me it's not that they're generic, it's that they aren't exciting (boring). Beyond that it indulges the biggest sin of Pathfinder 1: requiring Feats for things that should be basic rules. I have a hard time getting excited when 1/4 of the Feats (and more of the skill Feats) should be basic rules.
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For me it's not that they're generic, it's that they aren't exciting (boring). Beyond that it indulges the biggest sin of Pathfinder 1: requiring Feats for things that should be basic rules. I have a hard time getting excited when 1/4 of the Feats (and more of the skill Feats) should be basic rules.
so many things that were basic actions that anyone could do or that anyone could build into (several skill feats come to mind for the former, and the latter is exemplified by the fighter having sucked all the combat-oriented feats into their class-specific barrier) are now walled off behind ridiculous restrictions or are completely inaccessible to some characters/builds altogether.
along with lowering the skill ceiling, it leaves those options remaining feeling very bland or arbitrarily limiting, especially with the wide selection of feats and class abilities being simple numerical increases, rather than giving unique or thought-provoking options for a character design (see: PF1e's rage powers for barbarians--many were strong in their own ways, were flavorful, meaningfully added to the class without being needlessly limited to X/day or a too-small pool of points, and were often a tough choice between for a character, all while remaining decently balanced).to harp on fighter just a teeeeny bit more, their design is particularly uninspired to me: with "bravery" being intensely hard to make use of for very little benefit (requiring a successful save on your weakest save, then giving you a bonus for a short duration against the same type of effect, when the freebie critical success if you DO pass is supposed to make you resist those same things entirely already for the same duration or longer) and "battlefield surveyor", a core class ability for fighters, being a WORSE version of the "incredible initiative" general feat).
with the devs apparently "solving" their lack of niche or options outside of combat by simply having them take most of the options away from others and keep them for themselves, rather than adding more interesting things that make a fighter stand out as a fun choice (unchained actually had a few fighter-specific feats that would have been great to see here instead of stealing existing general feats, like the "strike from the air" feat line)... and then giving them nothing outside of combat anyway.
a world where everyone wants to be the fighter (cool!) because nobody else is allowed to use most combat feats without being one isn't much of a fun world at all.
IF they are the same though, what's the bleeding point in having Fighter and Ranger.
Just make Rangther the class and get it over with. Or maybe Fighnger
Because of ALL the other stuff the classes get? The Companion for Rangers, the ability to use more than one type of weapon or fighting style for the Fighter. Numerous other little quirks that each class gets.
Again my point is that the people arguing that the options aren't there seem to be either not looking or just nitpicking certain things that "Aren't the way they used to be". Which a lot of times seem to not even WORK they way they used to so of course they wouldn't be there. Different edition, different rules.