If the wizard only needs 1 action to cast

[Tholomyes]

angeila avalon wrote:

The current caster can only cast a spell once a round, Spellcasting has been overly nerfed, the number is less than pf1e, reducing the cast time does not destroy the game, and the fighter's powerful 3 movements can use the grap to control and then 2 attacks. This brings only a sense of discrimination to the wizard players.

Forgive me for my bad English, thanks for reading

I don't see it as discrimination against wizard players, but simply a recognition of the fact that spells are, by far, more powerful in combat than any individual attack, especially given the fact that the second or third attacks in a round, by martials come with significant penalties. Maybe I could accept that spells are a little undertuned now, but I don't think it's by so much that PF2e discourages casters any more than 1e's caster power discouraged martials. IMO, there's a balance that's hard to reach, and 1e is on one side of it and 2e is on another. And while I think I prefer 2e's position on the spectrum, recognition of the difficulty of balancing spells vs martial abilities is necessary in looking at any system such as this. Certainly 1e wasn't my ideal tuning for this, but it was still a system I could have fun in.

[Elleth]

I quite like the current action by component system, and I definitely don't think most spells should be one action.
That said, there are already a small number of one action spells, I just think there need to be a bit more. Hypercognition, Shield, Bardic compositions, touch-Heal, and touch-Harm are all reasonably fun IMO.

[PossibleCabbage]

While spellcasters may have been hit a bit hard with the nerfbat, "it's not possible to cast more than one spell in a round" is not part of that. Consider how expensive casting 2 spells in a single round was in PF1- it was either a 4-level adjustment metamagic or a metamagic rod costing 35,000/75,500/170,000 gold usable 3 times per day.

[thenobledrake]

Spellcasters can cast two spells in a round pretty regularly. I've already seen it plenty of times in my play test sessions.

Usually, it's combining an attack spell and shield, or casting a spell and using a power (which is basically a spell in every way except name, and is even cast by using "spell" points), and I expect I'll see plenty of true strike added to spells that require attack rolls.

All without any added metamagic or magic item expense.

You can even get a wizard at 20th level that can do a once per day cast 4 spells in a turn (with the quickened casting and spell combination feats).

[Ninja in the Rye]

The classes that have magic are still more powerful than the classes that don't.

[Ilina Aniri]

i'd make cantrips 1 action. but i'd stop right there, mostly because cantrips don't have the static bonuses a strong fighter will be packing on a magic weapon and also don't have as much of an attack bonus because fewer casters put as many points in dexterity as they do in their prime stat, because you can't put weapon properties on a spell, and because you can't become legendary with attack spells.

[Corwin Icewolf]

Yeah, making every spell one action would be going way too far, having a few more of the weaker spells be only one action would be fantastic.

[Igor Horvat]

Ilina Aniri wrote:

i'd make cantrips 1 action. but i'd stop right there, mostly because cantrips don't have the static bonuses a strong fighter will be packing on a magic weapon and also don't have as much of an attack bonus because fewer casters put as many points in dexterity as they do in their prime stat, because you can't put weapon properties on a spell, and because you can't become legendary with attack spells.

This, with majority that would have somatic action only.

To give casters more oportunity to be stealty

[Pramxnim]

Igor Horvat wrote:

Ilina Aniri wrote:

i'd make cantrips 1 action. but i'd stop right there, mostly because cantrips don't have the static bonuses a strong fighter will be packing on a magic weapon and also don't have as much of an attack bonus because fewer casters put as many points in dexterity as they do in their prime stat, because you can't put weapon properties on a spell, and because you can't become legendary with attack spells.

This, with majority that would have somatic action only.

To give casters more oportunity to be stealty

Also, would allow a Barbarian to sling cantrips because Somatic Casting doesn’t have the concentrate trait and can be used while Raging

[The Once and Future Kai]

I'd rather tweak the success rates and increase spell slots. I think the action cost is fair in most cases (there are some exceptions on a spell by spell basis).

[Aristophanes]

I'd like offensive cantrips to have a scaling optionL:
1 action-1dx damage
2 actions- 1dx+mod damage
3 actions- 1dx+mod damage + condition.
MAP applies.
Obviously, everything scaling as they go up in level.

[gwynfrid]

It may be that spells have been tuned down a little too far, but then I'd like the fix to be tuning them back up a bit, rather than changing the number of actions. To begin with, if spells are weak and fail, casting two of them simply means you're going to fail twice as often. Also, it would entice casters to go nova, and make the regular adventuring day even shorter as a result.

That said, I'd like more spells to follow the heal & magic missile template of having different effects depending on number of actions spent to cast. This is a very cool mechanic. The game could also do with a few more new spells that take an action or a reaction to cast.

[Zamfield]

I totally agree that from an action economy standpoint, a spell that succeeds can often greatly out perform a pair of melee/ranged strikes.

The problem is it makes mages extremely boring when they don't succeed or you want to concentrate the next round and cast a new spell.

More spells should have flexibility, like a single action minor base result with the option to add one action for improved effect/target/focus. Without this, the spell caster is practically immobilized in combat where battlefield control is mostly gone and all the interesting parts come from combining actions and movement in new ways. Lots of single action spells could be circumstantially useful, but only after a meta magic effect was applied, which would bring the number of actions back up to 2, but also allow for moving out of harms way as well.

With so many 2-3 action spells, you can't do neat things like combining action and movement into an activity the way the martial classes can. And really that is about the only saving grace of the the 3 action economy.

Interesting abilities like

Quote:

"Flashy spell": activity (2 actions), cast a single action spell and then make a sneak check. Your magical casting emanations are bright enough to temporarily blind any creature looking at them, you have cover and may roll to sneak away at half your movement.

Quote:

"Drive by Slapping": activity (3 actions), cast a single action spell of range touch, you gain a +1 circumstance bonus on your melee touch attack roll and stride up to your movement speed. Regardless of whether the attack succeeds, you can them make another stride immediately after.

just don't can't participate in the action economy because spell casting is always an activity that sucks up most of your round.

[Corwin Icewolf]

How about more spells that work like heal and have a stronger effect the more actions you use to cast them?

[Rysky]

That sounds fun. Doesn't magic missile work like that?

[Corwin Icewolf]

Huh. It does. I forgot about that.

[oholoko]

Rysky wrote:

That sounds fun. Doesn't magic missile work like that?

I don't know if it's just me... But i love Magic Missile, heal, harm... I want more oh yeah you can cast this version, or this one. You got a spare action you might want to expend it on that version.

[Tridus]

oholoko wrote:

Rysky wrote:

That sounds fun. Doesn't magic missile work like that?

I don't know if it's just me... But i love Magic Missile, heal, harm... I want more oh yeah you can cast this version, or this one. You got a spare action you might want to exend it on that version.

It's not just you. Heal and Magic Missile are great with how they play with the action economy. You can do meaningful things even if you have to do something else in a round, but you can do really big stuff if you can stand and focus entirely on casting it.

Healing Hands is fun for the same reason: if I can find a way to swing the action I can get more oomph out of the resource I'm expending.

More spells need to play with the action economy that way.

On the balance in general, I think it skews the wrong way too far now. Outside of Heal and Faerie Fire on the invisible thing, most of my spells in Sombrefell Hill didn't feel like they were all that impactful. The Paladins never ran out of ability to hit it for good damage, though.

[Elleth]

oholoko wrote:

Rysky wrote:

That sounds fun. Doesn't magic missile work like that?

I don't know if it's just me... But i love Magic Missile, heal, harm... I want more oh yeah you can cast this version, or this one. You got a spare action you might want to expend it on that version.

I feel like it's maybe one of those more out there things they're testing out, and I really hope the feedback comes back as a resounding "yes please, flex spells are great".

That said, I am mildly worried if they'll be able to, with the page count.

[ErichAD]

The three flex spells are pretty cool, more like that would be nice. There are probably a few more spells that should be one action, like telekinetic projectile, but for the most part 2 actions is fine. With how few spells you get, chewing through them even faster just isn't going to help the spell caster feel better, just fail faster.

[breithauptclan]

Variable action options for spells would be cool.

I think that spells in this version are a bit less powerful than people are expecting because every spellcaster has decent martial capability too. They have the same attack bonus progression as a Fighter. Martial classes can get higher proficiency - which adds a few points extra to the attack roll. Martial classes also get better armor proficiency - which spellcasters can buy with a general feat.

[Tridus]

breithauptclan wrote:

Variable action options for spells would be cool.

I think that spells in this version are a bit less powerful than people are expecting because every spellcaster has decent martial capability too. They have the same attack bonus progression as a Fighter. Martial classes can get higher proficiency - which adds a few points extra to the attack roll. Martial classes also get better armor proficiency - which spellcasters can buy with a general feat.

Honestly, I didn't sign up to play a spellcaster to actually play a weaker Fighter that also has some spells.

If that's the balancing going on there, I'd be a lot happier if they threw it out the window, gave me back some of my magic, and took away the weapon skill I didn't especially want and am not that good at anyway (those few +s add up to a huge difference in play, especially since casters probably aren't capping out STR).

[Edge93]

angeila avalon wrote:

Ninja in the Rye wrote:

The classes that have magic are still more powerful than the classes that don't.

cast a spell need more fun in playtest，one spell have 45% to failure is unfair ，because fighter can fight with weapon deal damage，caster only have deal Minor damage with less Influence spells，do you want caster to use weapon ？ok，if you want，i think is not fun。

Most spells have at least some effect on a successful save, meaning usually your spell has a 90-95% chance to do SOMETHING useful, which is a big advantage over weapon attacks which are usually 50-65% unless the enemy is debuffed and are all-or-nothing. Even with multiple attacks a round spells are more consistent because of the multiple attack penalty.

[breithauptclan]

Tridus wrote:

Honestly, I didn't sign up to play a spellcaster to actually play a weaker Fighter that also has some spells.

If that's the balancing going on there, I'd be a lot happier if they threw it out the window, gave me back some of my magic, and took away the weapon skill I didn't especially want and am not that good at anyway (those few +s add up to a huge difference in play, especially since casters probably aren't capping out STR).

Yeah. Wizard feels more like Magus, Druid is like the old spellcasting Ranger, Cleric is like a Paladin.

Personally, I think it is rather cool. Spellcaster characters don't feel useless if the run out of spells - less useful certainly, but still able to contribute. Ideally that should extend out the adventuring day. Spellcasters can ration out their spells more since they can save them up for something more meaningful and use regular physical attacks when all they are really wanting to do is damage.

However, this is also a noticeable and significant change from previous iterations of the game. I can certainly see why people such as yourself would find it jarring and less than wanted.

[Edge93]

angeila avalon wrote:

Edge93 wrote:

angeila avalon wrote:

Ninja in the Rye wrote:

The classes that have magic are still more powerful than the classes that don't.

cast a spell need more fun in playtest，one spell have 45% to failure is unfair ，because fighter can fight with weapon deal damage，caster only have deal Minor damage with less Influence spells，do you want caster to use weapon ？ok，if you want，i think is not fun。

Most spells have at least some effect on a successful save, meaning usually your spell has a 90-95% chance to do SOMETHING useful, which is a big advantage over weapon attacks which are usually 50-65% unless the enemy is debuffed and are all-or-nothing. Even with multiple attacks a round spells are more consistent because of the multiple attack penalty.

your think spell has a 90-95% chance to do SOMETHING useful, is wrong

，If you use a weapon to attack a 40hp goblin, you deal 60 damage (such as my barbarian), your enemies are 100% weakened, but use a spell, such as ab-2, ac-2, Your enemy is weakened by 20%, which is unfair

In 2.0 you aren't going to be having a Barbarian do an average of 60 damage on a normal hit until at or almost 20th level, and even then that's above average damage, by then you shouldn't be fighting anything with less than 150 HP so that doesn't even make sense. Not to mention that a Barbarian's attacks will only be hitting 55-60% of the time. On the other hand a level 9 Fireball from a Wizard will do an average of 63 damage if the enemy fails their save (at least half of the time) and average 31 if they succeed (most of the rest of the time).

So Attack spells still do better damage than a single weapon attack and is much more consistent. Also attack spells usually hit multiple foes. I'm not seeing the part here that's unfair to casters.

[Edge93]

breithauptclan wrote:

Tridus wrote:

Honestly, I didn't sign up to play a spellcaster to actually play a weaker Fighter that also has some spells.

If that's the balancing going on there, I'd be a lot happier if they threw it out the window, gave me back some of my magic, and took away the weapon skill I didn't especially want and am not that good at anyway (those few +s add up to a huge difference in play, especially since casters probably aren't capping out STR).

Yeah. Wizard feels more like Magus, Druid is like the old spellcasting Ranger, Cleric is like a Paladin.

Personally, I think it is rather cool. Spellcaster characters don't feel useless if the run out of spells - less useful certainly, but still able to contribute. Ideally that should extend out the adventuring day. Spellcasters can ration out their spells more since they can save them up for something more meaningful and use regular physical attacks when all they are really wanting to do is damage.

However, this is also a noticeable and significant change from previous iterations of the game. I can certainly see why people such as yourself would find it jarring and less than wanted.

Yeah, this is fairly accurate. And the new Cantrips mean casters can contribute without daily resources even without weapons, though it's arguable that speccing for weapons will be stronger than cantrips.

[Edge93]

angeila avalon wrote:

breithauptclan wrote:

Tridus wrote:

Honestly, I didn't sign up to play a spellcaster to actually play a weaker Fighter that also has some spells.

If that's the balancing going on there, I'd be a lot happier if they threw it out the window, gave me back some of my magic, and took away the weapon skill I didn't especially want and am not that good at anyway (those few +s add up to a huge difference in play, especially since casters probably aren't capping out STR).

Yeah. Wizard feels more like Magus, Druid is like the old spellcasting Ranger, Cleric is like a Paladin.

Personally, I think it is rather cool. Spellcaster characters don't feel useless if the run out of spells - less useful certainly, but still able to contribute. Ideally that should extend out the adventuring day. Spellcasters can ration out their spells more since they can save them up for something more meaningful and use regular physical attacks when all they are really wanting to do is damage.

However, this is also a noticeable and significant change from previous iterations of the game. I can certainly see why people such as yourself would find it jarring and less than wanted.

This is to let the player feel that everyone is a clone, and the battle becomes extremely monotonous.

You know, I've run 4 chapters of Doomsday Dawn and haven't yet had a battle that we would call monotonous. My players have played a great mix of Martial and caster classes (only classes that haven't even played yet are Fighter, Monk, and Wizard, those are all being played next chapter), and every character has felt different and unique from each other in how they handled battle, and my players have used the new strategic options and action economy to do a variety of things over the course of different rounds in a lot of battles, making it feel anything but monotonous, even in battles that have taken a whopping 5 rounds, something that pretty much never happens with us in PF1.

[Tridus]

breithauptclan wrote:

Yeah. Wizard feels more like Magus, Druid is like the old spellcasting Ranger, Cleric is like a Paladin.

Personally, I think it is rather cool. Spellcaster characters don't feel useless if the run out of spells - less useful certainly, but still able to contribute. Ideally that should extend out the adventuring day. Spellcasters can ration out their spells more since they can save them up for something more meaningful and use regular physical attacks when all they are really wanting to do is damage.

However, this is also a noticeable and significant change from previous iterations of the game. I can certainly see why people such as yourself would find it jarring and less than wanted.

It's definitely a preference thing, yeah. The direction isn't wrong per-se, it just doesn't give the feel I want out of a caster. I'm glad it works for other people.

It did feel okay on my Sombrefell Hill Cleric, but that was because of Channel giving me an extra pool of 7 Heals (by far the most effective spell I have). Without that I'd have burned out of resources long before the end and spent multiple encounters doing nothing except trying to be a melee fighter or spamming Disrupt Undead mindlessly, neither of which are very satisfying.

[MagicSN]

angeila avalon wrote:

The current caster can only cast a spell once a round, Spellcasting has been overly nerfed, the number is less than pf1e, reducing the cast time does not destroy the game, and the fighter's powerful 3 movements can use the grap to control and then 2 attacks. This brings only a sense of discrimination to the wizard players.

Forgive me for my bad English, thanks for reading

I reply to this from an unusual perspective - that of someone who up to now did not play Pathfinder, but D&D 5e.

In D&D 5e it IS possible to do what you ask for, for Pathfinder 2, there is a caster (Sorcerer) who can cast two spells per round. And it caused the WORST powergaming-nonsense possible, with Sorcerers casting like MGs.

I really really like the rule that casting a spell in PF2 takes 2 actions.

I personally would say though they should go the "full way". Multiattack penalties should apply to ALL attacks in that round, not only the 2nd/3rd attack. Multiattack should not be the default action to do, but only to be done situatively (as I mentioned I played 5e, where some classes have multiattack and some not and it causes the WORST balance-issues at all).

If I actually get my group convinced to switch to Pathfinder 2, I'll definitely include a houserule that multiattack penalties will apply to ALL attacks of that character in that round.

Generally it's one of the rules I like about PF2, that it limits multiattack/multicasting. Makes combat faster and avoids balance issues (have been there, have seen this, greetings from a 5e player and GM ^^).

MagicSN

[Edge93]

MagicSN wrote:

angeila avalon wrote:

The current caster can only cast a spell once a round, Spellcasting has been overly nerfed, the number is less than pf1e, reducing the cast time does not destroy the game, and the fighter's powerful 3 movements can use the grap to control and then 2 attacks. This brings only a sense of discrimination to the wizard players.

Forgive me for my bad English, thanks for reading

I reply to this from an unusual perspective - that of someone who up to now did not play Pathfinder, but D&D 5e.

In D&D 5e it IS possible to do what you ask for, for Pathfinder 2, there is a caster (Sorcerer) who can cast two spells per round. And it caused the WORST powergaming-nonsense possible, with Sorcerers casting like MGs.

I really really like the rule that casting a spell in PF2 takes 2 actions.

I personally would say though they should go the "full way". Multiattack penalties should apply to ALL attacks in that round, not only the 2nd/3rd attack. Multiattack should not be the default action to do, but only to be done situatively (as I mentioned I played 5e, where some classes have multiattack and some not and it causes the WORST balance-issues at all).

If I actually get my group convinced to switch to Pathfinder 2, I'll definitely include a houserule that multiattack penalties will apply to ALL attacks of that character in that round.

Generally it's one of the rules I like about PF2, that it limits multiattack/multicasting. Makes combat faster and avoids balance issues (have been there, have seen this, greetings from a 5e player and GM ^^).

MagicSN

I'm unclear, are you saying the multiple attack penalty should apply on attacks past the 3rd if you're able to make more than 3 or that if you attack multiple times in a round then all attacks should take a penalty, including the first?

I ask because the first is actually the case, all attacks 3rd and Lester take the huge -10 penalty. Also there's a pair of Fighter feats that do the second, Double Shot and Triple Shot. They let you spend two actions to make two shots with a -2 on both or three with a -4 on all respectively.

Just curious because I'm not sure which way you meant. And I hear you on the 5e multicast nonsense. The only 5e campaign I've played I played a Wild Magic Sorcerer (this wasn't done with any Powergame intent, I actually liked the look of Wizard better but Wild Magic just for my character concept to a T.) and I was honestly very much a spotlight character. There was one other character in the party, a Fighter, who often showed out in the party as well but my character just seemed to somehow always find a way to do something ridiculous, deliberately or not.

Though 5e does have a decent balancer in that if you cast a spell as a bonus action like with Quicken Spell you can only cast a Cantrip with your action. But 5e Cantrips are mad good much like PF2 Cantrips and the GM had a tendency to allow things that were cool but ended up really OP (like letting me turn my broken blade from my background into a magic sword I could wield at 30 feet using Mage Hand with my Cha mod to attack and damage, PLUS being able to pull something akin to PF1 Magus Spellstrike!) which just spiraled it more out of control.

And even in PF1 it gets crazy. That Quicken Rod may be pricey but it will mess stuff UP. A lot of the Metamagic rods in general just always seemed broken to me but that might be my fault for running high wealth campaigns where they're affordable. XD

Also don't even get me STARTED on Psionics with Hustle Power and Quicken Power. You could cast (manifest, whatever) THREE TIMES in a round and by the level you get these you've got enough Power Points to do it a fair few times! Also possibly my fault because I tend to run days with fewer and harder fights over more and easier fights. An approach that I will likely change in PF2 since I don't have to scrape an tweak NEARLY as much to get a good challenge out of on-level and even below-level monsters.

[Edge93]

angeila avalon wrote:

Edge93 wrote:

angeila avalon wrote:

Edge93 wrote:

angeila avalon wrote:

Ninja in the Rye wrote:

The classes that have magic are still more powerful than the classes that don't.

cast a spell need more fun in playtest，one spell have 45% to failure is unfair ，because fighter can fight with weapon deal damage，caster only have deal Minor damage with less Influence spells，do you want caster to use weapon ？ok，if you want，i think is not fun。

Most spells have at least some effect on a successful save, meaning usually your spell has a 90-95% chance to do SOMETHING useful, which is a big advantage over weapon attacks which are usually 50-65% unless the enemy is debuffed and are all-or-nothing. Even with multiple attacks a round spells are more consistent because of the multiple attack penalty.

your think spell has a 90-95% chance to do SOMETHING useful, is wrong

，If you use a weapon to attack a 40hp goblin, you deal 60 damage (such as my barbarian), your enemies are 100% weakened, but use a spell, such as ab-2, ac-2, Your enemy is weakened by 20%, which is unfair

In 2.0 you aren't going to be having a Barbarian do an average of 60 damage on a normal hit until at or almost 20th level, and even then that's above average damage, by then you shouldn't be fighting anything with less than 150 HP so that doesn't even make sense. Not to mention that a Barbarian's attacks will only be hitting 55-60% of the time. On the other hand a level 9 Fireball from a Wizard will do an average of 63 damage if the enemy fails their save (at least half of the time) and average 31 if they succeed (most of the rest of the time).

So Attack spells still do better damage than a single weapon attack and is much more consistent. Also attack spells usually hit multiple foes. I'm not seeing the part here that's unfair to casters.

1. This is a metaphor. Battle control wizard with the player who caused the damage, when my wizard player is surprised by a 30-point damage...

Again, your examples aren't even close to correct. The Wizard should be surprised at that because there's no way a Barbarian should be dealing 2d12+9 damage (even then 30 damage is a really lucky high roll), the max even with Rage is 1d12+6 or 7, much less. Unless your mentioned attack was a critical in which are your GM made a mistake because oozes are immune to criticals. And yeah cantrips don't do a lot of damage at first level, but neither do ranged attacks which is what they are comparable to. Cantrips at first level are actually pretty comparable to a Longbow or shortbow attack, they're weaker than Melee attacks because they have other perks, including being a touch more accurate or reliable if you have good Dex (or use Electric Arc)

But looking at the numbers you keep throwing around in your examples either you're inflating Martial capabilities and downplaying casters to make your point sound more right or your group really needs to take a look at the rules again because the math is way off.

[Shinigami02]

Edge93 wrote:

angeila avalon wrote:

SNIP

Again, your examples aren't even close to correct. The Wizard should be surprised at that because there's no way a Barbarian should be dealing 2d12+9 damage (even then 30 damage is a really lucky high roll), the max even with Rage is 1d12+6 or 7, much less. Unless your mentioned attack was a critical in which are your GM made a mistake because oozes are immune to criticals. And yeah cantrips don't do a lot of damage at first level, but neither do ranged attacks which is what they are comparable to. Cantrips at first level are actually pretty comparable to a Longbow or shortbow attack, they're weaker than Melee attacks because they have other perks, including being a touch more accurate or reliable if you have good Dex (or use Electric Arc)

But looking at the numbers you keep throwing around in your examples either you're inflating Martial capabilities and downplaying casters to make your point sound more right or your group really needs to take a look at the rules again because the math is way off.

Looking at the original post, there's nothing saying the 2d12+9 was one hit, and against an AC 5 opponent landing two hits isn't hard. Having an odd damage modifier is curious, but otherwise that would work out.

Also, it is worth noting it is possible to have a +4 bonus from Rage (for a total possible +8 damage modifier) at level 1 as a Giant Totem Barbarian. Probably doesn't apply here, but worth noting.

[Edge93]

Shinigami02 wrote:

Edge93 wrote:

angeila avalon wrote:

SNIP

Again, your examples aren't even close to correct. The Wizard should be surprised at that because there's no way a Barbarian should be dealing 2d12+9 damage (even then 30 damage is a really lucky high roll), the max even with Rage is 1d12+6 or 7, much less. Unless your mentioned attack was a critical in which are your GM made a mistake because oozes are immune to criticals. And yeah cantrips don't do a lot of damage at first level, but neither do ranged attacks which is what they are comparable to. Cantrips at first level are actually pretty comparable to a Longbow or shortbow attack, they're weaker than Melee attacks because they have other perks, including being a touch more accurate or reliable if you have good Dex (or use Electric Arc)

But looking at the numbers you keep throwing around in your examples either you're inflating Martial capabilities and downplaying casters to make your point sound more right or your group really needs to take a look at the rules again because the math is way off.

Looking at the original post, there's nothing saying the 2d12+9 was one hit, and against an AC 5 opponent landing two hits isn't hard. Having an odd damage modifier is curious, but otherwise that would work out.

Also, it is worth noting it is possible to have a +4 bonus from Rage (for a total possible +8 damage modifier) at level 1 as a Giant Totem Barbarian. Probably doesn't apply here, but worth noting.

This is true, I hadn't considered that. Thanks.