Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
As the title says. Iam asking due to a player of mine who plays a sorcerer and dipped into fighter to use a bow instead of magic for 90% of the encounters. He told me he felt dansgewise ubderpowered compared to bows then i myself started calcing
If i take first level. Lets say chars have 18 in strength/int/cha. The mundane guy uses a bastard sword
And lets say we use avg damagr each disregarding crits.
This means then mundane at first level:
Lvl 1: 8 damage per turn thus 24 total
High level with a +5 sword and 3 damage peoperties:
6d8+3d6+7 for attribute. Thus: 40 damage per action so a total of 120
The caster:
Level 1: Endless resource: 1d4 thus 2
Burning hands (strongest spell i found) 3d6 thus 9
High level i took meteor shower and csme at sround 100 damage
One can argue about them being aoe there. Still though single target wise i disnt see anything stronger
Meaning the spell damage to a single target can be almost 1/3 to 70%
Of what mundanes can do (without using up one of their four daily uses)
So as thr title says. Is there anything iam overlooking or are damage spells just not worth the time to learn them any longer?
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
To add to lvl 1 if a magic user casts magic weapon on the weapon it does increase the mundanes damage to 12 per hit thus 36 dor all 3actions combined
You are assuming that weapons have 100% accuracy even on third attacks.
Which Caster class has only a 1d4 cantrip? Cantrips can easily deal up to 2d6 damage at level 1.
Magic will never beat martial in single target damage. But even with damage spells, magic can do things many martial characters can't do without specific equipment/feats. Like exploiting elemental weakness (which from what I can tell is more common than Physical/Material weakness) or dealing force damage against incorporeal enemies.
The martial is also less likely to connect with 3 attacks while the caster will always get his spells off (ignoring saves/resistances since martials have to deal with similar problems).
The 1st level spells with the highest damage potential are Shocking Grasp and Grim Tendrils, btw. If you just go with single-target damage, Magic Missile (3 actions) deals the same damage as burning hands but is more reliable (guearanteed hit without save).
That being said, while individual spells aren't too bad damage-wise, it all falls apart quickly when you have too few spells due to being low level and/or having too many encounters per day. Your fallback options (cantrips) are a "better-than-nothing"-deal at best and even your powers are pretty limited, not to mention useless in many cases. The martial character can just go on and on until his HP run out, which can also happen to the caster.
Spells in general are too weak right now. I hope Paizo manages to fix this for the final release.
I think it's worth adding that the 1.5 update increase to a lot of spell damages makes damage spells in your second and third highest spell slots MUCH more viable than before. MAYBE even fourth-highest if it's something real strong like Cone of Cold or Disintegrate. Helps with the per-day issue a fair bit.
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Meant d6 not d4. Miswrote there. And yepp i went with a 100% hit
@blave that is then what i asked the dieect damage iant really worth it only special spells like charm. Magic weapon,... and aoe vs more than 2 monsters is then wortg the slots.
KageNoRyu wrote: @blave that is then what i asked the dieect damage iant really worth it only special spells like charm. Magic weapon,... and aoe vs more than 2 monsters is then wortg the slots. Well with most non-damaging spells being as nerfed as they are (compared to PF1), I don't know if going mostly with stuff like charm is really gonna do you any good. Damage spells at least can always be used. If you're willing/going to multiclass, using a weapon instead of blast spells would allow you to memorize more non-damage spells.
I'm playing an Evoker in a homebrew campaign right now. I avoid using weapons specifically to test the viability of a pure non-martial caster.
My best spell at the first levels was definite Magic Weapon on the Paladin's sword, which is kinda sad. That being said, I did use spells like Grim Tendrils, Magic Missile and Acid Arrow to good and sometimes even great effect.
But those spells were quite literally hit-or-miss, having their effects greatly reduced or negated depending on the dice. Missing a sword swing doesn't really cost the Paladin anything. Having a limited-per-day ability like a spell completely negated by a roll, doesn't feel good.
So I guess the answer to your question would be
Feasible and playable: Yes
Optimal: Nope
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
My player is using a draconicnsorcerer and his statement was that he can do more damage with the bow and more reliable than with his spells.
(He has 18 dex btw and dipped into fighter for the proficiency. Before that he used a hand crossbow for the aame reason. Now a longbow)
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KageNoRyu wrote: Meant d6 not d4. Miswrote there. And yepp i went with a 100% hit
@blave that is then what i asked the dieect damage iant really worth it only special spells like charm. Magic weapon,... and aoe vs more than 2 monsters is then wortg the slots.
A) you're using the wrong spell numbers. Damage spells has been updated, as an example, burning hands is 4d6
B) actual full round damage of a weapon is around 1 strike damage, not 3...
A 3rd attack as an example usually only hits on a 20, a 2nd attack only 1/4 and the 1st attack only 1/2.
Including criticals, that gives around 1.05x base damage for a fighter who has the best attack modifier.
C) all crossbows bar none are a damage loss compared to a cantrip. Bow is around 10% increase but costs both a feat and your most high level magic item just to keep up (which could have been a staff for extra spells/day and extra spells known).
Now:
1st and 2nd level are a bit rough. Sorc can still output around 2-3 rounds of damage with a burning hands (hitting at least 2 targets is kinda easy due to mobility)
But afterwards things starting looking up.
Flaming sphere being 4d6/round with a single action every round for a whole combat.
Dangerous sorcery for extra damage at 4
Fireball at 5 and etc are excellent.
A note on bows:
Actual dpr increase for a bow vs a cantrip is just around 10% and it costs both a feat and your best magical item each and every upgrade.
Grabbing a staff instead is not only about doubling spells known for a sorc, but also a few "free" spells/day.
To compare, our blaster sorc at 6 now outdamages almost everyone in an aoe situation, and can hold his ground vs single target as well.
He can keep up for around 5 encounters per day before he runs dry.
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Interesring do you use magic weapons there for the other chars?
As for 1 at level and crossbows. The pkayer usually hits with 2 attacks (around 60-70% of the time)
And yeppfor rhe damage only had memorized
The pre change values
KageNoRyu wrote: Interesring do you use magic weapons there for the other chars? Sure. Why wouldn't I do that? It's a tactic reserved for Hard/Boss fights but I'm not using a weapon myself and giving the Paladin a +1 weapon will probably deal more damage in longer fights than anything else I could do with the spell slot.
It becomes an even better buff if you have a character with a d12 weapon, which my party lacks.
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KageNoRyu wrote: Interesring do you use magic weapons there for the other chars?
As for 1 at level and crossbows. The pkayer usually hits with 2 attacks (around 60-70% of the time)
And yeppfor rhe damage only had memorized
The pre change values
At level 1 a sorc with a crossbow should only have 16 dex and a total attack mod of +4
He's firing on average 3 bolts per 2 rounds (fire, load, fire followed by load fire load) with a total attack mod of +4/-1/+4 for 1d8 damage
Using a cantrip he's attacking at +4 for 1d8 per round vs touch with only 2 actions/round. So he can also move each round unlike with xbow that he has to be still.
With a xbows Vs an AC of 14 that means that he hits on a 10/15/10 and he crits on a 20
That gives him (0.6+0.35+0.6)*4.5= 6.9 damage with a crossbow
The cantrip hits vs touch AC of 12 so it hits on a 8 and crits on a 18
That gives him (0.8+0.8)*4.5 = 7.2
Meaning, on average, cantrip deals more damage than a xbow and offers a free move each round.
Even at level 5,where the spell slinger sorc would have a staff of evocation for 1 free 3rd level spell or 1 2nd and 1 1st plus a few more spells known and the xbow wielder would have a +1 xbow it comes down to:
18dex,+1 xbow, level 5 so attack mod of +10 for 2d8 (9)
18dex, level 5, attacks AC on average 2 less for 1d8+4 (8.5)
Same actions: 2 actions for cantrip. 2 actions for load and strike
Cantrip has higher attack (1 higher due to targeting touch which is usually 2 lower)
About the same damage (8.5 vs 9)
Basically, xbows are always worse than cantrips.
Bows pull a bit ahead due to their action economy. But due to higher base damage of cantrips (xd8+stat vs (x+1)d6) and higher attack (again due to touch) it never gets extreme.
Just 10% for both a feat and a high level magic item is fair imo.
shroudb wrote: At level 1 a sorc with a crossbow should only have 16 dex and a total attack mod of +4
He's firing on average 3 bolts per 2 rounds (fire, load, fire followed by load fire load) with a total attack mod of +4/-1/+4 for 1d6 damage
Crossbow deals 1d8, which closes the gap a bit.
But yeah, cantrips do their job pretty well at levels 1-2. They fall of at level 3-4, but so do Crossbows unless you invest into ae expert/magic which is not really worth it.
Blave wrote: shroudb wrote: At level 1 a sorc with a crossbow should only have 16 dex and a total attack mod of +4
He's firing on average 3 bolts per 2 rounds (fire, load, fire followed by load fire load) with a total attack mod of +4/-1/+4 for 1d6 damage
Crossbow deals 1d8, which closes the gap a bit.
But yeah, cantrips do their job pretty well at levels 1-2. They fall of at level 3-4, but so do Crossbows unless you invest into ae expert/magic which is not really worth it. Yup, brainfart on my part, fixed my numbers.
Cantrip is still better damage and better action economy
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
shroudb wrote: Blave wrote: shroudb wrote: At level 1 a sorc with a crossbow should only have 16 dex and a total attack mod of +4
He's firing on average 3 bolts per 2 rounds (fire, load, fire followed by load fire load) with a total attack mod of +4/-1/+4 for 1d6 damage
Crossbow deals 1d8, which closes the gap a bit.
But yeah, cantrips do their job pretty well at levels 1-2. They fall of at level 3-4, but so do Crossbows unless you invest into ae expert/magic which is not really worth it. Yup, brainfart on my part, fixed my numbers.
Cantrip is still better damage and better action economy hand crossbows deal 1d6 and have no reload time. They are like bows thus can be fired 3x every round
KageNoRyu wrote: shroudb wrote: Blave wrote: shroudb wrote: At level 1 a sorc with a crossbow should only have 16 dex and a total attack mod of +4
He's firing on average 3 bolts per 2 rounds (fire, load, fire followed by load fire load) with a total attack mod of +4/-1/+4 for 1d6 damage
Crossbow deals 1d8, which closes the gap a bit.
But yeah, cantrips do their job pretty well at levels 1-2. They fall of at level 3-4, but so do Crossbows unless you invest into ae expert/magic which is not really worth it. Yup, brainfart on my part, fixed my numbers.
Cantrip is still better damage and better action economy hand crossbows deal 1d6 and have no reload time. They are like bows thus can be fired 3x every round Hand xbows have reload 1 like normal xbows.
They are just 1 handed (but still require 2 hands to load)
Where did you see that they have 0 reload?
Edit:
Basically, it's simple.
Since both take 2 actions,
and cantrips will always have both better attack (their item bonus is 1 behind but they target touch (+2 on average) AND get up to legendary proficiency as opposed to trained (or expert with a level 14! class feat)
And better damage across the board (-0.5 damage from 5 to 9 but gets up to +2.5 damage by end levels)
Xbows can't be better than cantrips no matter what.
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
My fault hand crossbows have reliad 2 (hmmm overlooked that so far will have to adjust there next game). Bows though have reliad 0 thus can be fired 3x per turn
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KageNoRyu wrote: My fault hand crossbows have reliad 2 (hmmm overlooked that so far will have to adjust there next game). Bows though have reliad 0 thus can be fired 3x per turn And that translates to just a 10% - 15% increase in damage for both a feat and a magic item (which is more spells/day basically).
(a +1 bow hitting on a 10 and a 15 for 2d6 (7) and crit on a 20 for 3d6 vs a ray of frost hitting on a 9 (and critting on a 19) for 1d8+4(8.5))*
So that's OK.
That's an option. But it isn't inherently that far apart that makes a pure evokes "bad".
*math breakdown is like this:
Hit on a 10 means 50% of 7 and 5% of 17.5
Hit on a 15 means 25% of 7 and 5% of 17.5
So,0.75*7+0.1*17.5 = 7 damage per round for the bow
Hit on a 9 means 50% of 8.5 and 10% of 17
So 5.95 damage for the cantrip
7/6 is around 1.16
On the flip side, using a lesser staff of evocation, would mean a free acid arrow (2d8+6 +1d6 persistent) per day and 5 or so more spells known (since you can cast all of the spells in the staff by using your own slots and 1 RP which you would have around 6 or so free at this level)
Later on, like level 10 instead of using your 2 hands for a bow, you can hold a spell dueling wand and a staff of evocation, for both a +1 to all your touch attacks as well as free 2 acid arrows and 1 10d6+4 fireball per day.
The issue with spells isn’t damage yes that got nerfed, however the real issue is saving throws throughout the playtest my group all agreed that you should always decide if a spell was worth taking if the target passed, the reason because monsters have stupidly high saving throws I don’t care how much they increase damage on spells if it’s doing half damage 80% of the time then I may as well have taken buffs or healing.
The short version play cleric.
Tezmick wrote: The issue with spells isn’t damage yes that got nerfed, however the real issue is saving throws throughout the playtest my group all agreed that you should always decide if a spell was worth taking if the target passed, the reason because monsters have stupidly high saving throws I don’t care how much they increase damage on spells if it’s doing half damage 80% of the time then I may as well have taken buffs or healing.
The short version play cleric.
Right. When I was prepping my blaster Druid for the last part of doomsday dawn, I worked out the average damage for each of my spells, assumed they would make the save for half damage, then compared those. And dipped two feats in Imperious Sorcerer so I could spend my third action boosting the DC.
In actual play, the barbarian was only hitting once per turn, others only hit if lucky, and I was by far the main damage dealer with my multi-target spells.
Tezmick wrote: The issue with spells isn’t damage yes that got nerfed, however the real issue is saving throws throughout the playtest my group all agreed that you should always decide if a spell was worth taking if the target passed, the reason because monsters have stupidly high saving throws I don’t care how much they increase damage on spells if it’s doing half damage 80% of the time then I may as well have taken buffs or healing.
The short version play cleric.
Ref saves aren't that bad off actually. It's the Fort saves that are terrible.
Plus, even on a save, 95% of the ref spells still do half damage.
I don't have the numbers for the bestiary in front of me, but my anecdotal experience is most rounds martial characters will hit with only 1 attack. Making 3 attacks in a round is something you do only if you don't have a better action to take with your 3rd, although hopefully you do.
I've had several rounds of no successful attacks, with the success rate for my first attack being around 50-60%, which places the second attack at about 30-40%.
Assuming 3 successful attacks and comparing to that is a really bad way to do it.
Cantrips will be behind in damage, but honestly not too much when you account for the fact that martial characters will rarely hit more than once.
shroudb wrote: Tezmick wrote: The issue with spells isn’t damage yes that got nerfed, however the real issue is saving throws throughout the playtest my group all agreed that you should always decide if a spell was worth taking if the target passed, the reason because monsters have stupidly high saving throws I don’t care how much they increase damage on spells if it’s doing half damage 80% of the time then I may as well have taken buffs or healing.
The short version play cleric.
Ref saves aren't that bad off actually. It's the Fort saves that are terrible.
Plus, even on a save, 95% of the ref spells still do half damage.
Indeed, for Reflex I'd put the success rate I've seen on DD monsters at below 50% for any enemy not above level. Which is better than my players usually get against PF1 foes I make.
TBH, with the spell damage update I feel like PF2 blasting is better than PF1. The damage of spells in your two highest spell slots exceeds or at least equals their PF1 analogs, in a system where the damage standard (For martials at least) is -lowered-. So compared to physical attacks I think blasting is much better off than in PF1. But that may just be my experience as a GM, where the foes I make tend to end up with rather high saves. It's why I also adore so many debuff spells actually doing a thing on a successful save.
Of course this is putting aside things like certain exploit/splatbook stuff in PF1 (Crossblood Draconic/Orc Sorcerer with Blood Havoc dealing 1d6+3/CL Fireballs anyone?) and some crazy metamagic stuff (Metamagic feats found some balance by their DC reduction but Metamagic Rods could get pretty broken.)
Claxon wrote: I don't have the numbers for the bestiary in front of me, but my anecdotal experience is most rounds martial characters will hit with only 1 attack. Making 3 attacks in a round is something you do only if you don't have a better action to take with your 3rd, although hopefully you do.
I've had several rounds of no successful attacks, with the success rate for my first attack being around 50-60%, which places the second attack at about 30-40%.
Assuming 3 successful attacks and comparing to that is a really bad way to do it.
Cantrips will be behind in damage, but honestly not too much when you account for the fact that martial characters will rarely hit more than once.
Very true. Plus Electric Arc is all kinds of hype. 2 targets, decent damage, targets Reflex which often seems to be the worst save on a monster. This is especially nice because unlike weapon attacks or touch cantrips this is almost guaranteed to do at least half damage.
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