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So we just ignore this rules right?
"DAMAGING A HAZARD
Rather than trying to carefully disable a hazard, a character might just smash it. Damaging a mechanical trap or another physical hazard works like damaging objects: the hazard reduces the damage it takes by its Hardness. In most cases, hitting the hazard also triggers it, as explained in Attacking a Hazard below. If a hazard’s Hit Points are reduced to its Broken Threshold (BT) or lower, the hazard becomes broken and can’t be activated, though it can still be repaired. If it’s reduced to 0 HP, it’s destroyed and can’t be repaired. (See page 272 in Chapter 6 for more information on damaging objects.)Hazards’ AC, applicable saving throw modifiers, Hardness, HP, and BT are listed in their stat blocks. A hazard that doesn’t list one of these statistics can’t be affected by anything targeting that statistic. For example, a hazard that has HP but no BT can’t be broken, but can still be destroyed. Hazards are immune to anything an object is immune to unless specifically noted otherwise, and they can’t be targeted by anything that can’t target objects. Some hazards may have additional immunities, as well as resistances or weaknesses.
Attacking a Hazard
If someone hits a hazard—especially if it’s a mechanical trap—they usually trigger it, though you might determine otherwise in some cases. An attack that breaks the hazard might prevent it from triggering, depending on the circumstances. If the hazard has multiple parts, breaking one part might still trigger the trap. For example, if a trap has a trip wire in one location and launches an attack from another location, severing the trip wire could still trigger the attack. Destroying a trap in one blow almost never triggers it. These rules also apply to most damaging spells or other effects in addition to attacks.
You can't strike an object, though. Objects aren't creatures. Any strikes or abilities which refer to strikes (which use the rules for striking) are off limits here. And you can't use spells which strike creatures on objects unless the spell says you can under its Target section. I didn't have this problem in PF1, there were rules for this stuff that didn't contradict or go against other intended rules. In fact, there were rules for general combat usage of these sorts of things, via Sundering! Here, I have this problem, and there are plenty of objects I can't strike because there are no printed rules for it.
Here's another example: If a golem has me grabbed, I can strike it because it's a creature with AC, HP, saving throws, skills, etc. If a statue has me grabbed, I can't strike it because it's not a creature, and even if I somehow could (by some silly table-variance GM shenanigans), I don't know how I'm supposed to attack said statue when there might not be any relevant statistics of said statue, either because there are no stat blocks for it or the GM doesn't have hazard/object knowledge on-hand. Or it could be so damn durable that trying to damage or destroy said statue is practically impossible, which is a whole other issue we are running into with these hazards.
In either case, how am I, as a character, able to understand what can and can't affect these things? Recall Knowledge? Stupid high to-hit, DCs, and stealth checks would lead me to believe I'll most likely fail it, or I might not be able to do so to understand how to defeat it, depending on the type of trap we're dealing with here. A magical trap? Engineering Lore won't tell me anything other than "It's a magical trap, not a mechanical trap." Even then, it probably won't tell me anything useful other than "Herp derp thievery." It's bad design that not having a certain skill maximized at all levels will end up TPKing the party. Perception in PF1 did this, and I thought PF2 would absolve this sort of crap, but (as I predicted) all it did was change the meta to Thievery and Medicine.
You can look up the material the object you're attacking is made of to find the hardness/HP, so that's not an issue. Whether your GM chooses to use an Athletics check, have you straight up attack (either auto-hit terating hardness as the difficulty to damage, or picking a standard DC to use as the AC of the item), or comes up with another way to handle the situation is up to them.
If you want to argue that certain spells can or can't affect a certain object, take it up with your GM. If you try to argue that you can't smash a random object with a battleaxe, you maybe need to step back and remember that space is at a premium in books and there are many different people working on them, and not everything can be nitpicked down to that level. Isn't there a line right in the book that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is? Same principle, in reverse. If there really is confusion on something due to how the rules are worded, there's one person at your table that can answer that, or make a call until they can look at it further. And if you can't trust your own GM, you might be at the wrong table.
The only time something that literal should even be a discussion is in organized play, and even in that setting, I'm pretty sure if you tried to convince a group that you can't even attempt to swing a sword at a door, urn, unattended candle, or what have you, you'd be politely told that it's completely nonsensical to disallow that (at best).
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I would very much like to invite you (and anyone else who is interested) to participate in a discussion over here in my thread.
It's no use. They all want to have the last word about a side issue.
For what it's worth, I do NOT think it's appropriate to use a Weapon to Attack objects, they are simply put, not designed to harm objects. There is a reason why demolition specialists use tools that are specifically suited for the task.There is no sigificant difference between an axe designed for woodcutting and an axe designed for war, nor between the sledgehammer meant for breaking rocks and one meant for breaking bodies.
Ok, so I'm not sure if you're talking about in game, or in real life, but I can 100% say that in real life there is a massive difference between tools and weapons. Axes meant for chopping trees are significantly thicker and heavier than axes meant to be used in battle. Same goes for hammers. A weapon hammer will typically be lighter, have a smaller striking area, and often have a spike or other piercing blade opposite the blunt side.
Weapons are almost universally more fragile than tools, due to the fact that they have to be lighter to be wielded properly, as well as that making them advantageous in that they have superior armor penetration when they have a smaller striking area.
And in real life the versions of things built as tools are deadly if used as weapons, so the difference between a fireman's axe and a bearded axe is not something the human body can really tell upon impact.
On the human body there's definitely a less appreciable difference I agree, but against armor, or as pertaining to this particular line of reasoning, a door or other object, there absolutely is a significant difference. If you try to chop a tree of any appreciable size down with an axe made for combat, it will almost certainly break, and even if you are extremely careful and it doesn't, it will still be vastly less effective and efficient at the task.
On the human body there's definitely a less appreciable difference I agree, but against armor, or as pertaining to this particular line of reasoning, a door or other object, there absolutely is a significant difference. If you try to chop a tree of any appreciable size down with an axe made for combat, it will almost certainly break, and even if you are extremely careful and it doesn't, it will still be vastly less effective and efficient at the task.
Ok, I'll grant your points. Which leaves the question:
Which one is appropriate to deal damage to a stone statue currently crushing my friend?
I'd get the barbarian to rage and lift it. Destroying an object that's crushing someone usually will result in more crushing, rather than less.
And in real life the versions of things built as tools are deadly if used as weapons, so the difference between a fireman's axe and a bearded axe is not something the human body can really tell upon impact.On the human body there's definitely a less appreciable difference I agree, but against armor, or as pertaining to this particular line of reasoning, a door or other object, there absolutely is a significant difference. If you try to chop a tree of any appreciable size down with an axe made for combat, it will almost certainly break, and even if you are extremely careful and it doesn't, it will still be vastly less effective and efficient at the task.
This isn't true of all weapons though. A Club is essentially a baseball bat. It's equally good at smashing skulls and chests.
A Machete is both a weapon and a tool.
A Hatchet is both a weapon and a tool.
This isn't true of all weapons though. A Club is essentially a baseball bat. It's equally good at smashing skulls and chests.
A Machete is both a weapon and a tool.
A Hatchet is both a weapon and a tool.
I can see the club (though I'm not really sure what sort of tool it's supposed to be/emulate. A hammer I guess.), and the pickaxe is indeed one of the few tools that is nearly as effective a weapon as it is a tool. But a machete is only useful against thin to moderate vegetation and unarmored opponents, against a door or armor it isn't particularly effective. A hatchet is similar to an axe in that one made for combat is going to be lighter and slimmer than one made for cutting wood.
I'm not saying that one cannot find (rare) examples of weapons that are also effective tools, I'm saying that in the overwhelming majority of cases, a weapon is going to be either entirely ineffective or at least significantly less effective at a job than it's analogous tool would be.
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Ravingdork already pointed out that there is a thread for discussing damage to items specifically.
It has some relevance here, but only within the context of whether hazards are supposed to be treated like objects generally, or if they are explicitly something different. When I reread the rules, it seems clear that the answer is no, unless the hazard does not declare itself to be an object in the text, which most do.
Force open is not the single best worded activity for all things related to damaging hazards with physical attacks. Maybe it would be nice for their to be one additional action between force open, interact, and strike, specifically one not dependent upon an AC for determining damage to objects.
I'd get the barbarian to rage and lift it. Destroying an object that's crushing someone usually will result in more crushing, rather than less.
I'm sorry, I don't mean a statue that's fallen over. I mean a statue that has been constructed (as a hazard! not animated as a creature!) to grab and squeeze.
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You can look up the material the object you're attacking is made of to find the hardness/HP, so that's not an issue. Whether your GM chooses to use an Athletics check, have you straight up attack (either auto-hit terating hardness as the difficulty to damage, or picking a standard DC to use as the AC of the item), or comes up with another way to handle the situation is up to them.
If you want to argue that certain spells can or can't affect a certain object, take it up with your GM. If you try to argue that you can't smash a random object with a battleaxe, you maybe need to step back and remember that space is at a premium in books and there are many different people working on them, and not everything can be nitpicked down to that level. Isn't there a line right in the book that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is? Same principle, in reverse. If there really is confusion on something due to how the rules are worded, there's one person at your table that can answer that, or make a call until they can look at it further. And if you can't trust your own GM, you might be at the wrong table.
The only time something that literal should even be a discussion is in organized play, and even in that setting, I'm pretty sure if you tried to convince a group that you can't even attempt to swing a sword at a door, urn, unattended candle, or what have you, you'd be politely told that it's completely nonsensical to disallow that (at best).
What difference does that make if I can't actually strike it, though? There are plenty of objects in the game that don't have an AC. Statues, urns, doors, all without any AC for me to check my attack roll against. If there's no AC, how can I strike it? The rules state that if an object or hazard does not have those statistics listed, it cannot be affected in that manner. No Thievery DC? Can't be stopped with Thievery. No AC? Can't be struck. It's that simple.
Even in the original Core Rulebook in PF1, they had space to implement appropriate object rules, with even less pages! I have no doubts or questions as to how attacking objects worked in PF1, between sundering weapons or armor, or destroying a wooden treasure chest, there were precise rules for these acts. There aren't any in PF2 other than "Herp Derp Your GM will tell you about Method #192783 which he allows at his table, but this other GM will only allow Method #82756 at his table because he doesn't like Method #192783." The fact that, if I take two identical situations with objects or hazards, and put them at two different tables with two different GMs, that I may or may not be able to strike a hazard, poses a major problem in how games with Hazards or Objects playing a part of the story can or should be ran.
[In] what world would it make more sense to swing wildly at a door three times with attacks designed for attacking a living opponent than it would trying to find the weak point on the door and apply force directly to it?
I don't know about "swing wildly three times" but I've absolutely seen many times in media where they strike a bit of glass (or sometimes just go straight through the wood) on a door then reach through and open a locked door from the inside. Which honestly (IMO at least) feels more like a Strike than Force Open.
And of course sometimes you just want to take a measure from the Shining and let out your inner Johnny. If I was GM'ing I'd not only let them make the Strike, I might even let them get a Circumstance bonus on a follow-up Intimidate check on anyone on the other side of the door.
I don't know about "swing wildly three times" but I've absolutely seen many times in media where they strike a bit of glass (or sometimes just go straight through the wood) on a door then reach through and open a locked door from the inside. Which honestly (IMO at least) feels more like a Strike than Force Open.
Breaking a window in the door could totally be a Force Open on the window that breaks it. On the plain door, it could be like the example in the action: "Success: You break the door, window, container, or gate open, and the door, window, container, or gate gains the broken condition. If it’s especially sturdy, the GM might have it take damage but not be broken." You can damage a door and not break it, which could open a hole but still have the locked door hold. ;)
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It's probably a non-sequitur in the thread by this point, but the idea that rogues should never have a low Wisdom sucks. Low-wisdom rogues are probably one of the most common tropes in the fiction, and in the DNA of the game. "Here or lower the character can only be a thief" and all that.
I find it very odd that you, a person who is usually looking for the rules to be explicit, would come up with a ruling in which a door isn't broken but is also no longer functioning in its role as an obstacle.I don't know about "swing wildly three times" but I've absolutely seen many times in media where they strike a bit of glass (or sometimes just go straight through the wood) on a door then reach through and open a locked door from the inside. Which honestly (IMO at least) feels more like a Strike than Force Open.Breaking a window in the door could totally be a Force Open on the window that breaks it. On the plain door, it could be like the example in the action: "Success: You break the door, window, container, or gate open, and the door, window, container, or gate gains the broken condition. If it’s especially sturdy, the GM might have it take damage but not be broken." You can damage a door and not break it, which could open a hole but still have the locked door hold. ;)
As far as RAW are concerned, an item in the broken condition no longer performs its intended function. For a door that may mean it is just busted enough that the lock no longer catches and thus indeed no longer functions as an obstacle. This is different from the destroyed condition, where the door is presumable knocked out of its frame entirely, or even reduced to so much firewood.
Still, depending on circumstances, it could be possible to just create an opening in the door, large enough to reach through and unlock or otherwise open it, without preventing it from still being closed and locked for example.
Either way, the lack of definite rules on how to bash open a door other then with the Force Open action suggests that that is indeed the default option for forcing a door. And since an axe is not a crowbar, it just means you take that -2 on your Athletics check. Keeps things simple.
Although, instead of just having to keep rolling until you crit or something, it would appear to be a sensible house rule to let someone also roll weapon damage with each Force Open check, to simulate the gradual structural failing of the item being forced.
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It's probably a non-sequitur in the thread by this point, but the idea that rogues should never have a low Wisdom sucks. Low-wisdom rogues are probably one of the most common tropes in the fiction, and in the DNA of the game. "Here or lower the character can only be a thief" and all that.
I'd actually like to extend this to all characters period.
What does Wisdom as an attribute do for a character?
-Will Saves. Failing or Critically Failing these was very bad in PF1. They're just as bad if not worse in PF2. Some classes or combinations let players get away with a junk Wisdom modifier while having a decent Will Save. That being said, this is basically done away with in PF2, meaning you can't have low Wisdom characters anymore without putting this at risk.
-Medicine, Religion, Survival, and Nature checks. It doesn't seem like a bad spread, but Medicine is one of the required skills for every party to have, meaning if you want to be good at a skill that every party needs (and having multiples isn't bad at all), you'll need the highest Wisdom to not absolutely fail at the relevant checks which scale the more you invest into it. Survival, Religion, and Nature checks are also nice to have depending on if you fight a lot of undead, demons, animals, beasts, or are in an attrition-based game. And compared to obvious creatures like Elementals and Dragons, Undead and Animals/Beasts are much more varied in their information and abilities.
-Perception and Initiative. This is probably the biggest reason why Wisdom is so damn good now, since Perception is used by every character for every situation for finding traps, secret doors, and even determining if people are lying to you or not! (PF1 was less obvious about this, but PF2 is much more so, meaning it should be more obvious to players to not have this be bad.) Now that it also determines where you go in the combat round, with first round abilities now being much more significant than ever before due to how deadly some stuff can be (like these broken and stupid-powerful complex hazards)? Yes, dumping Wisdom can mean the difference between you going before or after a particularly nasty enemy or hazard in an encounter, and going after a particularly nasty enemy or hazard may easily mean your death.
Compared to:
-Strength's Athletics checks, carrying capacity, and melee to-hit/damage (pointless for Rogues and other spellcasters, especially since it can't be dumped and magic items make this much easier to deal with)
-Dexterity's Acrobatics/Thievery/Stealth and AC and Reflex Saves (the former skills aren't really necessary, and AC is capped by a MDB anyway. Reflex Saves are nice, but aren't anywhere near as strong a tipping point compared to Wisdom)
-Constitution's HP and Fortitude Saves (HP becomes pointless when you realize how hard some stuff hits you, and Fortitude Saves aren't anywhere near as deadly as Reflex or Will Saves these days)
-Intelligence's starting Trained Skills and various skill modifiers (Trained skills become worthless by 10th level, and since you can only focus on 3 skills to be good at at a given time, by the time you need to increase skill training the modifiers become such a small part of the bonus that it's no longer necessary to increase it compared to other attributes)
-Charisma's skills with Diplomacy/Intimidation/Deception/Performance (basically on par with Intelligence)
And it's no wonder that Wisdom is the power stat of this edition. Compared to what the other attributes do, Wisdom objectively does the most. It was arguably like this back in PF1, though there were some ways around it at least. Now, there aren't any, and probably never will be because power creep.
Back on topic, I'd like to point out that even a truly optimized trap finder will struggle against appropriate level traps, making those who aren't optimized absolutely screwed unless they are graced with a random Natural 20. Either way, it still means 95% of non-optimized trap finders will just trigger traps and get demolished.
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Wow. Except for Wisdom being the new power stat, I disagree with nearly all of that. It just hasn't been my experience with 2nd Edition at all.
Hit Points don't matter? Trained skills become worthless? You're totally undervaluing some pretty awesome and necessary things.
Still, depending on circumstances, it could be possible to just create an opening in the door, large enough to reach through and unlock or otherwise open it, without preventing it from still being closed and locked for example.An object that isn't Broken (the game state) but is not fully functional, which is what a locked door with a hole in it that you can reach through and open it anyway is, is not only not a thing explicitly allowed in the rules but also falls into territory of the "too good to be true" rule on page 444.
Damaged but not broken is there for the same reason that some locks require multiple successful actions to pick them - for making a harder to bypass obstacle by a means other than raising the DC so that how long the obstacle takes to bypass remains more predictable. Not for this kind of "it isn't working correctly, but it's not Broken" shenanigans.
I do not understand what you are trying to say. The rules on the 'Force Open' action explicitly allow just that:
"Success: You break the door, window, container, or gate open, and the door, window, container, or gate gains the broken condition. If it’s especially sturdy, the GM might have it take damage but not be broken."
It's right there, spelled out for you. And it gets better:
"Critical Success: You open the door, window, container, or gate and can avoid damaging it in the process.
Nothing about this being 'too good to be true' there.
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Wow. Except for Wisdom being the new power stat, I disagree with nearly all of that. It just hasn't been my experience with 2nd Edition at all.
Hit Points don't matter? Trained skills become worthless? You're totally undervaluing some pretty awesome and necessary things.
Yeah, this.
Wisdom probably is the best stat, by virtue of having a solid range of skills, a Save, and Perception, but Darksol, I'm pretty sure you're vastly undervaluing quite a lot of other things in your analysis.
Just for example, saying 'you don't need AC because of armor having the same max', but that's pretty much just false for more than half the Classes in the game (Alchemist, Bard, Cleric, Monk, Rogue, Sorcerer, and Wizard), who are stuck with Light Armor or worse (and can't readily get better armor due to the way Proficiency works). Some Monks, Rogues, and Clerics can manage not to need Dex as much, but by no means all (it's less than half of all of them, IMO).
And that's just one random example of you devaluing things that are, in fact, very valuable. To say nothing of you ignoring ranged attacks entirely...
Rogues can be absolutely fine, even at finding traps with a relatively low wisdom, because they get bonuses to almost everything that can make traps a problem for them and as the game goes on, it is very unlikely that having a low wisdom will be a difference of more than 10-15% success on their checks.
They get phenomenal progression on Perception.
The get evasion and fast progression on reflex saves (the most common trap save).
Trap finder is a great feat.
Starting with a 14 wisdom is really all you need to be the dedicated, focused Hazard solver character as a rogue. You really don't need to worry about boosting it past 18, so you can even start with a 10 and be fine, as long as you are willing to boost every 5 levels.
Rogues have a much bigger problem with Constitution and Fortitude saves than being good at detecting the traps and hazards. Because sometimes the party will run into higher level traps, and sometimes, in PF2, even dedicated characters are going to fail at their specializations.
Most characters in PF2 are not at great risk of getting flat out one-shoted by single attacks or effects unless they have tanked both their defenses and their constitution. Which is why CON is a little underrated by some players until the hit a creature/hazard that forces fortitude saves without requiring going through their AC.
I do not understand what you are trying to say. The rules on the 'Force Open' action explicitly allow just that:What I am trying to say is that this piece of text "If it’s especially sturdy, the GM might have it take damage but not be broken." means needing more than 1 successful Force Open action to get the door to be broken, and thus open, because of the bold part of the sentence.
The situation the other poster described in which the door had been damaged, but not broken, but also still effectively be broken because now it will open is not a valid reading of the text and is what I am saying would be "too good to be true."
So you mean, instead of assigning a higher DC for an obstacle, require multiple successes on Force Open checks to bypass it? That works too I guess. Certainly better then a frustratingly high or even impossible DC.
Still doesn't account for a critical success possibly bypassing the obstacle without damaging it at all, but that is for the GM to figure out.
It's probably a non-sequitur in the thread by this point, but the idea that rogues should never have a low Wisdom sucks. Low-wisdom rogues are probably one of the most common tropes in the fiction, and in the DNA of the game. "Here or lower the character can only be a thief" and all that.
You can have a low wisdom rogue (I define "low" here as 10 or less, and making the choice to stay 10 or less as you level). *I* wouldn't, but it's your choice. Trying to have a low wisdom trapfinder is also a choice, but probably one that will be better supported later on in the edition, when you can have Int to trapfinding or something. Many of us hope for something along those lines in the APG, possibly tied to the investigator class.
I do not understand what you are trying to say. The rules on the 'Force Open' action explicitly allow just that:What I am trying to say is that this piece of text "If it’s especially sturdy, the GM might have it take damage but not be broken." means needing more than 1 successful Force Open action to get the door to be broken, and thus open, because of the bold part of the sentence.
The situation the other poster described in which the door had been damaged, but not broken, but also still effectively be broken because now it will open is not a valid reading of the text and is what I am saying would be "too good to be true."
So you mean, instead of assigning a higher DC for an obstacle, require multiple successes on Force Open checks to bypass it? That works too I guess. Certainly better then a frustratingly high or even impossible DC.
Still doesn't account for a critical success possibly bypassing the obstacle without damaging it at all, but that is for the GM to figure out.
I could see it. Something like you hit the door in just the right place that it causes the latch to slip free. Or you strike ram a gate and rather than bending the gate out of the way you instead shift the dirt it's anchored in. The kind of stuff that takes either freak luck or exceptional skill (as is only appropriate for a Critical Hit, where you need either a nat 20 or to beat the DC by 10 after all).
EDIT: Less mechanical term, so no one argues you can't Strike a gate <.<
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Wow. Except for Wisdom being the new power stat, I disagree with nearly all of that. It just hasn't been my experience with 2nd Edition at all.
Hit Points don't matter? Trained skills become worthless? You're totally undervaluing some pretty awesome and necessary things.
It's a bit hyperbolic on its surface for brevity's sake, but let me explain it a bit more:
Hit Points isn't something that people can extremely focus on, and are more tied to class choice than attribute or player choice, since the biggest health source is going to be class HP per level than anything else. You can't even start with an 18 Constitution compared to other attributes that you can, and things like Toughness simply become standard by 7th level or so. On top of that, the lower level you are, the less that Constitution modifier matters, ironically enough. Partly because the modifier difference in HP isn't going to be that important, but also because there aren't PC-ending things at that level (besides maybe some broken encounter like an OP hazard or nasty boss fight).
Trained skills likewise lose value the higher level you get. Let's take Thievery as an example. By the time I'm 10th level facing 10th level hazards, being simply Trained in Thievery won't be enough to defeat or counteract them, and it's not a skill you can realistically use to aid more skilled people for more success, meaning being Trained in Thievery has stopped being useful, even if it was possible for me to use it for levels 1-7, for example. Similarly with Medicine, using a simply Trained version of Medicine won't work when you're higher level unless you want to waste hours at a time barely healing anything, and in several cases, you won't have that opportunity. The same can be said for a lot of other checks, like Deception or Intimidation against an enemy's Will DC, or Athletics against Fortitude or Reflex DCs, or Stealth against an enemy's Perception. Or even Perception against an enemy's Stealth, which there is a lot less control over! This is why most every class has a boost to a level of at least Expert, so they don't fall completely behind the expected math curve (but are still at a disadvantage compared to those of the higher proficiency). It might work with basic proficiencies they want the class to have, such as saves, AC, to-hit, class/spell DCs, etc. But there are plenty of options which don't ever get past Trained, or more accurately, won't be able to get past Trained (as in the former case it might be possible), and those are essentially the trap options I'm complaining about. Trained is only a standard pre-8th level. By 9th level, when Master proficiencies become commonplace, you can't afford Trained, or even Expert proficiencies in certain skills or attributes, the game (or more accurately the PCs) fall(s) apart at that point.
@Deadmanwalking: Other than proficiency tiers or gear set-ups (such as running shields), there isn't going to be much armor difference between a Rogue and a Fighter or Barbarian. Maybe between a Champion and a Wizard, sure, since Champions have increased proficiency, Heavy Armor (which gives an additional AC point), plus Shields with increased effects, but a lot of those differences come from something that isn't attribute related, which is where the issue stems from. A Rogue with Dexterity will have just as much AC as a Barbarian in Medium Armor and be only like one point behind a Fighter in Heavy Armor, since MDB accounts for any potential differences. Except the Rogue is going to be faster (though the Fighter or Barbarian can be comparatively Stealthy too).
As for ranged attacks, projectile weapons are the worst kinds of attacks to make compared to thrown weapons (better damage thanks to full bonus) and cantrips (better scaling, flexibility, and is something spellcasters can reliably do, which doesn't require Dexterity to function). There's not much benefit to a ranged weapon that a melee weapon doesn't already benefit from. Plus, with the way ranged attacks scale for monsters compared to PCs, it's a much better monster tactic than it is a PC tactic. It's better than no attacks, fine, but let's be honest here: the parity it has with comparable options is not good whatsoever.
On top of that, you got dead-end proficiency boosts which don't increase past a certain point no matter what, and most of those will be simply Trained. The dedication feats that give skills or weapon/armor proficiencies? Almost never get past trained unless you invest other things into it, and even some of those things don't even have that option to begin with. At best you can get Expert armor from Champion dedication (by 14th level where you get Expert proficiency from your base class stuff) or Expert weapons from Fighter dedication (again by 14th level, where you may already be getting Expert or Master from your class stuff to begin with). Maybe even Spellcasting as well, but that has its own problems, such as not matching DCs if they are the same tradition as your original spellcasting class, or not being good simply because they utilize lower DCs that appropriate enemies will proceed to laugh at. These are the kinds of things I'm talking about as being bad design, and when it comes to attributes? Wisdom still ticks the most important boxes compared to the other attributes, making it the most valuable attribute to put boosts into.
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It's a bit hyperbolic on its surface for brevity's sake, but let me explain it a bit more:
Hit Points isn't something that people can extremely focus on, and are more tied to class choice than attribute or player choice, since the biggest health source is going to be class HP per level than anything else. You can't even start with an 18 Constitution compared to other attributes that you can, and things like Toughness simply become standard by 7th level or so. On top of that, the lower level you are, the less that Constitution modifier matters, ironically enough. Partly because the modifier difference in HP isn't going to be that important, but also because there aren't PC-ending things at that level (besides maybe some broken encounter like an OP hazard or nasty boss fight).
HP still matter, but yes, Con to them is less relevant than in, say, PF1. Of course, Fort Saves remain important. Probably more important point-for-point than previous editions, honestly.
Trained skills likewise lose value the higher level you get. Let's take Thievery as an example. By the time I'm 10th level facing 10th level hazards, being simply Trained in Thievery won't be enough to defeat or counteract them, and it's not a skill you can realistically use to aid more skilled people for more success, meaning being Trained in Thievery has stopped being useful, even if it was possible for me to use it for levels 1-7, for example.
Hazards are hardly the only use for Thievery. There's picking locks, picking pockets, concealing things, really a host of uses. A high Dex character will be quite reasonably proficient at those even without higher Proficiency.
Also, Hazards are one of only two examples of Proficiency gating in the game (along with Medicine for HP), so this is more an argument for 'Being only Trained in Thievery and Medicine isn't worth it' than for additional Trained Skills being bad in general, even if you buy it.
Similarly with Medicine, using a simply Trained version of Medicine won't work when you're higher level unless you want to waste hours at a time barely healing anything, and in several cases, you won't have that opportunity.
Very specifically on Medicine you have something of a point, as I address above, but even there it remains useful for stabilizing dying people, and treating bleeding, disease, or poison. That's not nothing, depending on what you have in the way of condition removal.
The same can be said for a lot of other checks, like Deception or Intimidation against an enemy's Will DC, or Athletics against Fortitude or Reflex DCs, or Stealth against an enemy's Perception. Or even Perception against an enemy's Stealth, which there is a lot less control over!
Stealth can be fine if you have high Dex and maybe some sort of bonus. Not great, but fine. The others...those are combat uses, and you're right that they won't be ideal, but do you never use Skills outside combat? Because I assure you those skills have lots of non-combat uses that can make your character's life a lot easier, and even in combat, if paired with a good stat you can use them on minions and the like.
This is why most every class has a boost to a level of at least Expert, so they don't fall completely behind the expected math curve (but are still at a disadvantage compared to those of the higher proficiency). It might work with basic proficiencies they want the class to have, such as saves, AC, to-hit, class/spell DCs, etc. But there are plenty of options which don't ever get past Trained, or more accurately, won't be able to get past Trained (as in the former case it might be possible), and those are essentially the trap options I'm complaining about. Trained is only a standard pre-8th level. By 9th level, when Master proficiencies become commonplace, you can't afford Trained, or even Expert proficiencies in certain skills or attributes, the game (or more accurately the PCs) fall(s) apart at that point.
Not really. A Trained Skill and a starting stat of 14 boosted whenever possible result in needing a 10 to meet on-level DCs at 1st, going to 11 at 6th, hovers between 11 and 12 for a while thereafter and only hits 13 at 15th (and never goes above needing a 14). So you definitely fall behind a bit, but not nearly as fast, or by as much as you're implying here.
Is it good to be relying on those odds as the only person in your group with the Skill? No. Are you a solid backup for the other people in your party vastly increasing the odds of someone succeeding? Absolutely. The odds favor even two people with a 35% chance succeeding at something, and with three? You have better than a 70% chance to succeed. That means that, at 18th level, three people with Trained in a secondary stat and no items have better odds of success as a single person with a +3 item and Master in a secondary stat. And adding a backup with Trained one on top of someone actually good cuts failure odds immensely.
@Deadmanwalking: Other than proficiency tiers or gear set-ups (such as running shields), there isn't going to be much armor difference between a Rogue and a Fighter or Barbarian. Maybe between a Champion and a Wizard, sure, since Champions have increased proficiency, Heavy Armor (which gives an additional AC point), plus Shields with increased effects, but a lot of those differences come from something that isn't attribute related, which is where the issue stems from. A Rogue with Dexterity will have just as much AC as a Barbarian in Medium Armor and be only like one point behind a Fighter in Heavy Armor, since MDB accounts for any potential differences. Except the Rogue is going to be faster (though the Fighter or Barbarian can be comparatively Stealthy too).
Sure, but this is completely irrelevant to you listing AC as not a benefit of Dexterity. AC is absolutely a benefit of Dexterity...for anyone without Medium Armor Proficiency, which is 7/12 Classes in the game (three have options for ignoring Dex, bu that's probably still half the characters in the game).
So, that statement is half true at best.
As for ranged attacks, projectile weapons are the worst kinds of attacks to make compared to thrown weapons (better damage thanks to full bonus) and cantrips (better scaling, flexibility, and is something spellcasters can reliably do, which doesn't require Dexterity to function). There's not much benefit to a ranged weapon that a melee weapon doesn't already benefit from. Plus, with the way ranged attacks scale for monsters compared to PCs, it's a much better monster tactic than it is a PC tactic. It's better than no attacks, fine, but let's be honest here: the parity it has with comparable options is not good whatsoever.
Uh...thrown weapons still use Dex to hit, so I'm unclear how they're relevant to this discussion. And ranged weapons in a martial character's hands are fine. Sure, they don't add full Str, but that's a drop in the bucket of total damage, and while their damage isn't spectacular, it's way better than cantrips (okay, only somewhat better than Electric Arc...still better).
So no, this is pretty much flatly untrue, irrelevant, or both.
On top of that, you got dead-end proficiency boosts which don't increase past a certain point no matter what, and most of those will be simply Trained. The dedication feats that give skills or weapon/armor proficiencies? Almost never get past trained unless you invest other things into it, and even some of those things don't even have that option to begin with. At best you can get Expert armor from Champion dedication (by 14th level where you get Expert proficiency from your base class stuff) or Expert weapons from Fighter dedication (again by 14th level, where you may already be getting Expert or Master from your class stuff to begin with).
This is a reason Dex is good and needed for AC on many characters, not a reason it's bad. It results in, say, a Bard almost universally having to stick with Light Armor and thus Dex to AC. Which makes Dex a very important stat to them.
Maybe even Spellcasting as well, but that has its own problems, such as not matching DCs if they are the same tradition as your original spellcasting class, or not being good simply because they utilize lower DCs that appropriate enemies will proceed to laugh at. These are the kinds of things I'm talking about as being bad design, and when it comes to attributes? Wisdom still ticks the most important boxes compared to the other attributes, making it the most valuable attribute to put boosts into.
Wisdom is probably the best stat, yes. It's nowhere near as much better as Dex and Con as you're implying and even Int and Str aren't bad. Cha admittedly has issues, and needs help, but it's the exception rather than the rule.
Not really. A Trained Skill and a starting stat of 14 boosted whenever possible result in needing a 10 to meet on-level DCs at 1st, going to 11 at 6th, hovers between 11 and 12 for a while thereafter and only hits 13 at 15th (and never goes above needing a 14). So you definitely fall behind a bit, but not nearly as fast, or by as much as you're implying here.Is it good to be relying on those odds as the only person in your group with the Skill? No. Are you a solid backup for the other people in your party vastly increasing the odds of someone succeeding? Absolutely. The odds favor even two people with a 35% chance succeeding at something, and with three? You have better than a 70% chance to succeed. That means that, at 18th level, three people with Trained in a secondary stat and no items have better odds of success as a single person with a +3 item and Master in a secondary stat. And adding a backup with Trained one on top of someone actually good cuts failure odds immensely.
To add to this, you also have more ways to get bonuses to skills at higher levels. When the specialist finds an upgraded version of their signature skill item, they should probably be passing their old item on to a fellow party member trained in the skill. You also get higher bonuses from Follow the Expert, and characters can put low-level spell slots towards reinforcing skills. And then there are the bonuses that some characters can hand out with Inspire Competence and Mutagens.
You can potentially wind up with better odds than level 1 depending on how many of these boxes your party checks.
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@Deadmanwalking: The paradigm hasn't shifted much in terms of save priorities in PF1. In PF1, a failed Reflex Save hurts, a failed Fortitude Save can kill you on the spot, and a failed Will Save can kill your party on the spot. In PF2, adding the critical failure aspect to things, Reflex Saves are about as bad as Fortitude saves (if not worst due to their bursty nature), and Fortitude saves are largely for poisons and diseases (which hurt but you'll have time to deal with them compared to taking, say, 100 damage at 5th level from a BBEG's well-rolled 4th level Fireball). The worst Fortitude Saves I've come across so far have mostly been nasty overleveled Poisons, and that's simply because of ridiculous DCs with even more ridiculous damage and debuffs thrown in the mix. But those haven't outright killed anyone, whereas we've had several critically failed Reflex saves outright slay PCs on the spot. And Will saves effectively throwing certain players out of fights can still easily cause TPKs. That being said, my point was that Constitution is something that can at-best be passively invested in, and that's really all you need, because investing in more is a waste. 18 Constitution with Toughness and maybe other items or abilities granting HP won't save you from 1-shots that Constitution doesn't even affect, is ultimately my point, and even then that's not even possible to begin with.
Thievery uses are very limited outside of traps. The rules for pickpocketing/concealing things aren't very useful in a lot of situations as a base system, and even then the rules and feat investitures to make it better still require higher proficiencies, since the skill feats to make these things more viable is, surprise surprise, proficiency gated. Likewise, certain locks, if I'm not mistaken, likewise have highly increased DCs requiring multiple successes, and/or proficiency gates of their own. Sure, the same can be said for a lot of skill feats which are essential for a lot of builds or PC capabilities, yes, but the argument of "This is fine just as long as it's trained" falls apart when you come to the conclusion that a lot of things scale with you, or more accurately, the best of you. Very few things will have set or arbitrarily low DCs, and most of them are things like basic cliffsides to climb for a better vantage point, or a deadbeat town with very little wealth compared to what you possess.
There are other, better ways to do those things. There are consumables, there are magic items (Healer's Gloves is a great example here), there are feats and class abilities which all let you do those things. I feel pretty damn worthless investing in Medicine even though I mostly did it as a "just in case the healer goes splat" situation. It has rarely come up, and in all of those cases I've never had to get out the kit to do so.
With Stealth, 1 bad roll is all it takes for your whole plan to fall apart. And with even average investment, the odds of a bad roll are pretty damn high, considering how many rolls you'd have to make before whatever plan you want to perform springs into action. I know this because every time we've used abilities like Invisibility and Stealth to get the drop on enemies, we've failed, and that's with us simply being trained with average boosts to Dexterity. All because of a single bad roll from just one person. The fact that there is such a harsh degree of success required for those things to function (and with how easy it is to detect and point out invisible creatures in this edition), having lower proficiency and attributes in that is not affordable and unacceptable.
I've struggled with utilizing the Charisma skills in combat even with proper investment. Being Master Intimidation with feats like Intimidating Prowess to boost your chances while also having a respectable Charisma and maybe an item bonus (which sadly goes against Champion code), still proves difficult against a lot of enemies that I would most want the bonus on (such as a big bad whose AC and Saves are much higher than their mooks). The same can be argued with Deception and Diplomacy. And trying to utilize them to diffuse situations before they come up? Can't be realistically done until feats are sunk into them and proficiency gates are passed. Simply being Trained with average bonuses will not help you there. It might make basic enemies a little easier to hit, but unless you're not a close combat class, it won't matter much in the slightest, and you'll probably still have a decent chance to hit with your lower bonus attacks.
In each of those cases of level progression, the chances are not in your favor, and it only gets worse as you gain levels. You have a 30% chance by the endgame for your Trained skill to actually matter, whose chances vary based on which skill we're talking about. Even a 50% chance at 1st level is basically a coin flip, and that's with on-level challenges. Many people want (or at least can expect) higher level challenges to come their way, which means those odds skew even more, especially if they're attempting to do so against a particularly specialized creature or hazard. Case in point, the first hazard in AoA, even with an optimized character, will struggle over 70% of the time, and a not-so-optimized character will just be fishing for 20s in hopes of getting something that won't insta-gib them. And in a lot of cases, they might only get one shot with one character to solve the problem. Case in point, opening locks or stealing an object from a person's packs, or using Diplomacy to talk down an aggressive NPC. You won't realistically get 3 checks on each of those, you're getting one check, and it determines whether you can get more checks (which others can't help with) or you'll be engaging in combat. So the idea of "3 people = 3 checks with potential odds of success" only works in a favorable vacuum of no downsides for failure, in which case the complaint of "Not high enough bonuses or proficiencies" probably is irrelevant to begin with, and falls under the old Take 10/Take 20 rules in terms of hashing it out.
An 18 Dexterity Rogue will have the same constant AC as a 14 Dexterity Barbarian if they are using their appropriate armors (aside from Raging, of course). My point is that Dexterity doesn't help you with AC any more than the armor you're wearing helps with AC; they're so intrinsically tied to the same maximum modifier that it can really boil down to personal preference. It might help in other ways, such as maintaining your standard movement compared to Heavy Armor, but even that still has a cost (such as actually having less total AC, even if it's 1 point, as well as access to armor specializations,) and still means Dexterity is, by and large, irrelevant to the picture.
The only real benefit to ranged weapons is safety from up-close threats/loss prevention, or to be able to actually affect something because you can't do so up-close for some reason (like flight or there's a very big gap that you can't traverse). But that falls more on a "failure to be relevant in all situations" problem than anything. In the gap issue, it might be possible if you were better at your skills, such as having the relevant modifiers, movement, and skill feats available to cross it. In the flight issue, it's certainly possible for a party spellcaster to give their friendly melee martial the Fly spell to go up there and beat its face in. As for ranged weapons being better than cantrips, that's only true when there are multiples to be had. Two bow shots or two javelin throws will be about the same damage or weaker than Electric Arc, and one bow shot or javelin throw will be about the same or weaker than a Ray of Frost or Telekinetic Projectile. Bows and Javelins might have better range (aside from Ray of Frost), and may possess better to-hit in certain hands, but their damage won't match. 2D6+7 won't realistically match 5D6+4 on average rolling. Even 5D4+4 is slightly better on average.
Wisdom determines if you get to go first in combat or not and alter the flow of battle. It determines your ability to find treasure, secret doors, and traps and acquire them, utilize them, or avoid them, as appropriate. It determines if a certain roll will or will not result in a TPK regardless of everything else. It's used in a few skills that may (or may not) be handy, though one is at least required by every party in the game to be maximized at all times. And for certain classes, it's their primary attribute for a lot of their class features. I have no reason to not play anything other than Elven Clerics or Druids simply because of how important Movement Speed is for action economy and Wisdom is for basically everything else important in the game.
I'd be happy to discuss why underselling Charisma is a massive mistake (Or having only one character in a party who can reasonably attempt social skills is a big mistake in a role playing game and not a roll playing game), but it doesn't really feel relevant to the power of Hazards. If wisdom is already very important as a stat, it doesn't really seem to have any impact on whether Hazards are turned up to too high a difficulty level or not.
If generally you feel that your character is having to pick a class with wisdom as a primary stat, then hazards really have nothing to do with it, because a rogue with a wisdom of 14 is as good as a cleric or a druid who has maxed wisdom, at finding hazards, and will grow better at it much faster. 12 if they decide to spend a feat on it.
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That being said, my point was that Constitution is something that can at-best be passively invested in, and that's really all you need, because investing in more is a waste. 18 Constitution with Toughness and maybe other items or abilities granting HP won't save you from 1-shots that Constitution doesn't even affect, is ultimately my point, and even then that's not even possible to begin with.
Constitution isn't as good a stat as Wisdom, but again I think you're underselling how nice extra HP and Fort Saves are. They're certainly not as necessary as a high Will Save and Perception, but they're still very good.
Thievery uses are very limited outside of traps. The rules for pickpocketing/concealing things aren't very useful in a lot of situations as a base system, and even then the rules and feat investitures to make it better still require higher proficiencies, since the skill feats to make these things more viable is, surprise surprise, proficiency gated. Likewise, certain locks, if I'm not mistaken, likewise have highly increased DCs requiring multiple successes, and/or proficiency gates of their own. Sure, the same can be said for a lot of skill feats which are essential for a lot of builds or PC capabilities, yes, but the argument of "This is fine just as long as it's trained" falls apart when you come to the conclusion that a lot of things scale with you, or more accurately, the best of you. Very few things will have set or arbitrarily low DCs, and most of them are things like basic cliffsides to climb for a better vantage point, or a deadbeat town with very little wealth compared to what you possess.
Locks that require specific Proficiency levels are very rare. Some certainly require multiple successes...but that makes someone Trained take longer, not auto-fail or anything.
Also, all this is about on-level opposition. On-level opposition is absolutely worth considering, but being able to casually, say, steal things from generic level 5 castle guards without them noticing, or pick random locked doors on the street of a city, remains useful even when you're 15th level, and really doesn't work without the skill trained.
There are other, better ways to do those things. There are consumables, there are magic items (Healer's Gloves is a great example here), there are feats and class abilities which all let you do those things. I feel pretty damn worthless investing in Medicine even though I mostly did it as a "just in case the healer goes splat" situation. It has rarely come up, and in all of those cases I've never had to get out the kit to do so.
Medicine, like I said, is by far the worst skill to invest only Trained into. It's legitimately not a great choice. It's also only one Skill, though.
With Stealth, 1 bad roll is all it takes for your whole plan to fall apart. And with even average investment, the odds of a bad roll are pretty damn high, considering how many rolls you'd have to make before whatever plan you want to perform springs into action. I know this because every time we've used abilities like Invisibility and Stealth to get the drop on enemies, we've failed, and that's with us simply being trained with average boosts to Dexterity. All because of a single bad roll from just one person. The fact that there is such a harsh degree of success required for those things to function (and with how easy it is to detect and point out invisible creatures in this edition), having lower proficiency and attributes in that is not affordable and unacceptable.
This is what Quiet Allies is for. Notably, Quiet Allies uses only one roll, but everyone's starting bonuses, so either using Follow The Expert, or better yet being Trained in Stealth (which nets an extra +2, remember) is very relevant for the others taking advantage of the guy who has it.
I've struggled with utilizing the Charisma skills in combat even with proper investment. Being Master Intimidation with feats like Intimidating Prowess to boost your chances while also having a respectable Charisma and maybe an item bonus (which sadly goes against Champion code), still proves difficult against a lot of enemies that I would most want the bonus on (such as a big bad whose AC and Saves are much higher than their mooks). The same can be argued with Deception and Diplomacy.
The magic words you used there were 'in combat'. Yes, you usually need to be maxed (or close to it) to use such Skills in combat. I really and sincerely wasn't talking about combat, though, something I said explicitly.
And trying to utilize them to diffuse situations before they come up? Can't be realistically done until feats are sunk into them and proficiency gates are passed. Simply being Trained with average bonuses will not help you there. It might make basic enemies a little easier to hit, but unless you're not a close combat class, it won't matter much in the slightest, and you'll probably still have a decent chance to hit with your lower bonus attacks.
What? This whole paragraph makes zero sense to me unless you have basically no non-combat social interaction in your game. I mean, seriously, everyone in the party getting a chance to talk to somebody and get them on side is not a weird situation, and very readily allows multiple Diplomacy rolls.
If that's not the case in your game, first, I don't want to play in it (though to each their own), and second, obviously Skills you're never allowed to actually use aren't gonna be useful. That has nothing to do with what amount of Proficiency you have in them.
In each of those cases of level progression, the chances are not in your favor, and it only gets worse as you gain levels. You have a 30% chance by the endgame for your Trained skill to actually matter, whose chances vary based on which skill we're talking about. Even a 50% chance at 1st level is basically a coin flip, and that's with on-level challenges. Many people want (or at least can expect) higher level challenges to come their way, which means those odds skew even more, especially if they're attempting to do so against a particularly specialized creature or hazard.
35%, actually. And that's only for the last few levels. And yeah, you shouldn't be doing that against opponents specialized in that field, that is indeed stupid and pointless. But having something Trained on your sheet doesn't magically make you try and use it in circumstances where it's clearly stupid to do so.
It's an option you have, and one that you can, in an emergency, even look for ways to increase enough to be viable vs. such threats. You don't want to do it, but if you have to it's at least an option.
Case in point, the first hazard in AoA, even with an optimized character, will struggle over 70% of the time, and a not-so-optimized character will just be fishing for 20s in hopes of getting something that won't insta-gib them.
Hazards often involve Extreme DCs. Using them to measure how Skills work in general is a really bad policy, especially since the initial check to spot them is Perception rather than actually being a Skill Check.
And in a lot of cases, they might only get one shot with one character to solve the problem. Case in point, opening locks or stealing an object from a person's packs, or using Diplomacy to talk down an aggressive NPC. You won't realistically get 3 checks on each of those, you're getting one check, and it determines whether you can get more checks (which others can't help with) or you'll be engaging in combat. So the idea of "3 people = 3 checks with potential odds of success" only works in a favorable vacuum of no downsides for failure, in which case the complaint of "Not high enough bonuses or proficiencies" probably is irrelevant to begin with, and falls under the old Take 10/Take 20 rules in terms of hashing it out.
Naturally, some checks won't be able to be attempted multiple times, but many will. Basically all Knowledge checks outside combat, most Survival checks, Diplomacy checks against anyone not actively hostile and on the verge of attacking, opening locks when not under extraordinary time pressure, and a host of other options are all easy for the whole party to try, if they have the Skill. Knowledge and many Survival checks in particular, this sort of thing is really good for.
Can you always do so? No. Can you do so often enough to be useful? On many skills, yes you can.
An 18 Dexterity Rogue will have the same constant AC as a 14 Dexterity Barbarian if they are using their appropriate armors (aside from Raging, of course). My point is that Dexterity doesn't help you with AC any more than the armor you're wearing helps with AC; they're so intrinsically tied to the same maximum modifier that it can really boil down to personal preference. It might help in other ways, such as maintaining your standard movement compared to Heavy Armor, but even that still has a cost (such as actually having less total AC, even if it's 1 point, as well as access to armor specializations,) and still means Dexterity is, by and large, irrelevant to the picture.
You seem to be actively avoiding my point here. Yes, people who get Medium Armor need not invest in Dex for AC...but that's less than half the Classes in the game. More than half of PCs still absolutely need Dex for their AC. Ignoring this fact is just denying reality.
The only real benefit to ranged weapons is safety from up-close threats/loss prevention, or to be able to actually affect something because you can't do so up-close for some reason (like flight or there's a very big gap that you can't traverse). But that falls more on a "failure to be relevant in all situations" problem than anything.
Not being able to readily effect something up close is actually pretty common if dealing with close terrain, casters hiding behind melee types, or several other fairly common situations (including flight or enemies on the other side of a gap).
In the gap issue, it might be possible if you were better at your skills, such as having the relevant modifiers, movement, and skill feats available to cross it. In the flight issue, it's certainly possible for a party spellcaster to give their friendly melee martial the Fly spell to go up there and beat its face in.
Sure, but those all cost resources. Ranged characters can just do it, effort and resource free.
As for ranged weapons being better than cantrips, that's only true when there are multiples to be had. Two bow shots or two javelin throws will be about the same damage or weaker than Electric Arc, and one bow shot or javelin throw will be about the same or weaker than a Ray of Frost or Telekinetic Projectile. Bows and Javelins might have better range (aside from Ray of Frost), and may possess better to-hit in certain hands, but their damage won't match. 2D6+7 won't realistically match 5D6+4 on average rolling. Even 5D4+4 is slightly better on average.
This is true in the most technical sense, but utterly meaningless in practice. Two bow shots may be needed to be better than cantrips, sure, but two bow shots takes the same number of actions as a cantrip, so that's a completely pointless statement. You're effectively saying 'Ranged combat is only better than cantrips if you use a bow or have some specific advantage.' Which is true, but since everyone doing ranged combat has those things (very cheaply in the case of a bow), it's not a statement that actually means anything.
And with a bow they are better in terms of DPR, by a fair bit.
Wisdom determines if you get to go first in combat or not and alter the flow of battle.
Unless you're sneaking, sure.
It determines your ability to find treasure, secret doors, and traps and acquire them, utilize them, or avoid them, as appropriate. It determines if a certain roll will or will not result in a TPK regardless of everything else. It's used in a few skills that may (or may not) be handy, though one is at least required by every party in the game to be maximized at all times. And for certain classes, it's their primary attribute for a lot of their class features.
Wisdom is indeed probably the best stat in the game. Indeed, I don't think anyone ever said otherwise. We just disagreed with the ridiculous degree to which you claimed the other stats were bad and meaningless.
The complaint is not that you think Wisdom is great (it is), the complaint is that you don't seem to understand the ways in which the other stats are actually good as well.
I have no reason to not play anything other than Elven Clerics or Druids simply because of how important Movement Speed is for action economy and Wisdom is for basically everything else important in the game.
Yeah...I don't even know where to begin with the issues with this. I mean, Fighters or Barbarians will do miles more damage than either of these, Rogues will have miles better skills, Bards are better party buffers...really I could just go on for a while. Cleric and Druid are good Classes, and having Wisdom as a main stat is good for them, but a Rogue or Ranger with mediocre (say, 14 or so) Wisdom will do better than them at Perception (which is actually a lot of the awesomeness of Wisdom, when examined), and better at other stuff.
Movement is more of a relevant advantage, frankly, and even that is hardly necessary to be effective.
Age of Ashes actually has at least 1 section where the whole party is expected to roll diplomacy checks, or at least has the option to. There are some other big group skill challenges too.
And no, someone else can't roll. You don't get to say "I kick the door open" and it's actually the player whose character has the best Athletics that makes that roll, so you don't get to say "I ask the NPC for a favor" or something like that and get the player whose character actually didn't dump charisma and skip all the social skills to roll.
You mean, like stopping all role-play, let the bard do all the talking and only get to play once the GM calls for initiative?
Don't get me wrong, I fully agree that once it comes to mechanical benefits the player who actually is doing the talking should have the skill appropriate for the situation (as athletics for kicking in a door, which wizards seldom do), however I have seen too many "silent" players because of the reverse conclusion, aka "if the GM will have me roll a check at the end of this conversation I will most probably terribly fail, so I better stay silent all the time", which can leave many characters and gaming rounds very very bland.
Or at the very least, acknowledge that it's not the GM or the game that made their character with an 8 Charisma and no training in social skills not likely to get what they want out of all the talking they keep doing.
I agree that you should not let a however charming player silver-tongue his Charisma 8 Fighter through kings court.
However I do think that in a situation where the whole party is present and participating in a social encounter everybody should role-play as appropriate for their character and then one character is nominated for the final check with all other characters just making aid rolls in addition to any circumstance modifiers their role-play may have incurred instead of every character having to roll the check for himself.
So in kings court the diplomancy bard would be the group's face whereas at a (unfriendly) tribal meeting the intimidate barbarian could lead.
One of the reasons this thread exists is because the probability of a party discovering traps is more dependent upon the number of people the GM allows to make the perception check, than it is on whether the best character at finding them has a wisdom of 18 or 14.
Running complex encounters that boil down to a singular die roll is often a way to get players to undervalue the skills that are involved in them. As a GM, you don’t want every single thing the party does to take up as much time as elaborate combats, but your players will think combat related abilities are the only thing that matter if they only roll dice during combat.
A well designed social encounter can have beneficial activities with much more reasonable DCs than the primary goal DC for other characters with only trained skills to be able to contribute to.
Likewise, facing hazards by only letting the character in front make the roll to spot them is a good way to make the party feel like they either need one maximized trap finder, or else they will just set off every trap they come to.
One of the reasons this thread exists is because the probability of a party discovering traps is more dependent upon the number of people the GM allows to make the perception check, than it is on whether the best character at finding them has a wisdom of 18 or 14.
Running complex encounters that boil down to a singular die roll is often a way to get players to undervalue the skills that are involved in them. As a GM, you don’t want every single thing the party does to take up as much time as elaborate combats, but your players will think combat related abilities are the only thing that matter if they only roll dice during combat.
A well designed social encounter can have beneficial activities with much more reasonable DCs than the primary goal DC for other characters with only trained skills to be able to contribute to.
Likewise, facing hazards by only letting the character in front make the roll to spot them is a good way to make the party feel like they either need one maximized trap finder, or else they will just set off every trap they come to.
A couple of issues:
1) Everybody has Perception trained or better automatically. Not everbody has certain skills automatically. So even a level 20 char with wisdom 8 will have perception +21 or better but may still be stuck at diplomancy -1.
2) Even if you are allowed a Perception check to discover a trap you probably need a maximized trap disabler to deal with one because of proficiency gating.
3) Which comes back too what I stated above. Either let everybody roll to increase the probability that at least one character succeeds (works well with auto-trained Perception checks as noted) OR let only the specialist roll but on a (very) low DC to increase probability that they succeed.
Good social encounters will have multiple skills players can use to contribute to success. Good hazards do to.
Once the party detects the trap, is when party decision making and choice enter the picture. That is why traps often give you multiple choices beyond thievery to deal with them and creative players have been using 10ft poles and other problem solving skills for decades.
Against traps, high HP and defenses can even be one of the character builds that is good at "disarming" them, although it too is not with out risks, especially at high levels, due to crits.
The game could still probably use more help for GMs in designing and demonstrating fun social and hazard based encounters, but those are best done through supplemental media content rather than trying to cram that all in rule books.
Basically, Hazards as encounters are supposed to challenge the party, not an individual player in the party. The DCs are measured against having at least 2 or 3, but usually 4 people attempting checks.
Combat encounters get really challenging too if the rest of the party stands back and expects the fighter to handle everything themselves.
Basically, Hazards as encounters are supposed to challenge the party, not an individual player in the party. The DCs are measured against having at least 2 or 3, but usually 4 people attempting checks.
Hmmm... may threads seem to touch the same topic, namely DC, nontheless here my spoiler from another thread.
Our Ranger can't disarm, our Wizard can't counterspell, our Fighter can't hit and our Cleric knows nothing about religion.
I am playing Age of Ashes as a player, so I am avoiding spoilers for it, but thank you for using them.
In our limited experience with hazards, we have yet to encounter one that we didn't suspect we were walking into. Maybe we are in for a big surprise, but all of the hazards we've encountered thus far felt like they had a good reason for being there, and have helped our party develop better tactics and a sense of what we are up against.
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That Hazard you're referring to is level 8, it being really hard for a level 5 party is pretty much expected. Now, whether a level 8 Hazard should be included in that place in that adventure is another matter (I'm a little dubious on that myself), but that's very much an adventure design complaint rather than one about Hazards per se. I doubt fighting a level 8 monster would've gone much better.
And by my math, the odds of failing two 13+ rolls in a row are only 36%. So...not completely unexpected, but not the norm either. And +13 is not an optimal bonus at that level, either (that'd be +14 with an item, which significantly ups your odds of success, from 64% to almost 70%...speaking of which, Aid another would also result in a bonus like this, and probably be the optimal tactic).
To be fair, Detect magic can be a great clue in to the presences of higher level magical traps. A player that realizes that their is magic in the area, might be a good indicator that it is time for the whole party to consider changing up exploration activities.
If the party wants to hedge their bets that the magic means monsters or an eminent attack, then maybe they are better off scouting and avoiding notice, but it comes with the cost that they might get one shotted by a powerful hazard that could have been detected if the party focused on finding it. To me, this is a good problem for the game to have.