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Oh very recent Extra Creditz video about The Fun and The Optimal.
PF2 very clearly has an "optimal solution" on how to approach combat: debuff everything with everything. If you aren't doing it, you're obviously not playing with system mastery.
The thing is, that's not always the fun strategy.
Right, you want to to propagate Rage effects throughout a tower of creatures. That's... actually kind of interesting. Beast Totem chain grants Pounce and 2 Claw attacks, substantially improving the combat prospects of all creatures in the tower.
But yes. [You can do this].
[An] Awakened Cat Barbarian riding a Gnome Barbarian riding an Orc Barbarian/Warchanter with war Drums riding a Minotaur Barbarian riding a Huge-Ass War-Mammoth is essentially 90% of the point of playing Dungeons and Dragons.
This would never work in PF2, despite how fun it sounds.
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Oh very recent Extra Creditz video about The Fun and The Optimal.
PF2 very clearly has an "optimal solution" on how to approach combat: debuff everything with everything. If you aren't doing it, you're obviously not playing with system mastery.
The thing is, that's not always the fun strategy.
Right, you want to to propagate Rage effects throughout a tower of creatures. That's... actually kind of interesting. Beast Totem chain grants Pounce and 2 Claw attacks, substantially improving the combat prospects of all creatures in the tower.
But yes. [You can do this].
[An] Awakened Cat Barbarian riding a Gnome Barbarian riding an Orc Barbarian/Warchanter with war Drums riding a Minotaur Barbarian riding a Huge-Ass War-Mammoth is essentially 90% of the point of playing Dungeons and Dragons.
This would never work in PF2, despite how fun it sounds.
Absurd abuses of rules applied in ways they were never intended has never been fun for me except as conceptual exercises. I dont need a group or a GM to do that - if I'm at a table with other people, its because I want to participate in a group social activity.
And while I've tried to demonstrate that it is possible to push the numbers to where you never miss by playing "optimally", acting like thats necessary to play the game and succeed is a gross overstatement.
In reality, going all in on those strategies is a useful counter for individual higher level foes you have trouble hitting. For most encounters you have a ton of freedom to pursue them in a less numerically advantage way. You just have to be willing to deal with the horror of failing rolls a significant portion of the time (but still not the majority of the time, in most casea).
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Oh very recent Extra Creditz video about The Fun and The Optimal.
PF2 very clearly has an "optimal solution" on how to approach combat: debuff everything with everything. If you aren't doing it, you're obviously not playing with system mastery.
The thing is, that's not always the fun strategy.
Right, you want to to propagate Rage effects throughout a tower of creatures. That's... actually kind of interesting. Beast Totem chain grants Pounce and 2 Claw attacks, substantially improving the combat prospects of all creatures in the tower.
But yes. [You can do this].
[An] Awakened Cat Barbarian riding a Gnome Barbarian riding an Orc Barbarian/Warchanter with war Drums riding a Minotaur Barbarian riding a Huge-Ass War-Mammoth is essentially 90% of the point of playing Dungeons and Dragons.
This would never work in PF2, despite how fun it sounds.
PF2 is balanced around a significant level of challenge. If it wasn't built around that, it would be hard to create the same level of challenging experience. For example, if your totem stack example was in the game, a GM that was trying to run a significantly challenging game might have to ban it or else create balanced mechanics for it. I will note that the reverse is not true. A GM can add something like the totem stack into PF2 with a few house rules. Since the goal of such a silly concept isn't balance, it won't be hard to get it functional for your game.
Honestly, if the consistent challenge is a problem, just reduce enemy DCs and bonuses until it feels right for a simple approach. Add in new abilities that are above the curve for a more complicated approach.
I think there is something to be said for diversity of methods to succeed in a game. I think the path to being successful is somewhat narrow right now. I don't think that's an inherent problem with the system, though. A greater depth of ways to succeed will be coming with more time in the system.
Edit: We haven't even seen the APG yet.
And while I've tried to demonstrate that it is possible to push the numbers to where you never miss by playing "optimally", acting like thats necessary to play the game and succeed is a gross overstatement.
...Except when you have a streak (possibly lasting all session or even multiple sessions, or equivalent through other mediums of gameplay) where you can't even manage to roll an 8, let alone an 11+, in which case yes, stacking every possible buff and debuff does become necessary to succeed, at least for while that streak is going. Maybe not for low-level mooks, if you're lucky enough to run into any during that streak, but definitely for any kind of boss enemy. And that's the one downside about basing a massive chunk of the game around pure chance, luck is a fickle mistress.
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And while I've tried to demonstrate that it is possible to push the numbers to where you never miss by playing "optimally", acting like thats necessary to play the game and succeed is a gross overstatement....Except when you have a streak (possibly lasting all session or even multiple sessions, or equivalent through other mediums of gameplay) where you can't even manage to roll an 8, let alone an 11+, in which case yes, stacking every possible buff and debuff does become necessary to succeed, at least for while that streak is going. Maybe not for low-level mooks, if you're lucky enough to run into any during that streak, but definitely for any kind of boss enemy. And that's the one downside about basing a massive chunk of the game around pure chance, luck is a fickle mistress.
Improbable dice roll streaks aren't really something you can account for when designing the game. While you can fail a series of coin flips indefinitely, you really shouldn't.
I've been there, I've seen it, but ultimately its just unfortunate.
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PF2 removed power gaming from the game. Anyone who prefers power gaming will not enjoy PF2. It works very hard to make optimizing and power gaming nearly impossible.
I think this really, really overstates it. You can very much power game in PF2. If it does anything, it makes it more work to come up with a character that is really worthless (but not impossible), but any game that has better and worse choices (and no, I don't buy that you can't make some useful analysis of that) will allow power gaming. And that's pretty much always going to be true in an exception based system.
(Now, some avenues for easy and really synergistically done powergaming have been hosed down--the fact feats are split into three piles, for example, means its hard to pile up the really sexy and interactive cases together as quickly for example--but that just makes it a matter of degree.)
It may overstate it, but it is mostly true. PF2 has made the game challenging at all levels. It is far, far more difficult to power game comparatively to PF1 and even 5E. The aggregate measures taken to reign in power have been highly effective.
But power gaming in the form of getting multiple stackable effects does [exist].
Yep, it absolutely does! :D
Case in point:
It also just occurred to me that, between Yiankun's energy resistance, Toughness feat, regeneration, shattering gem, and stoneskin spells, she can quickly become one tough cookie! She could even have two spells up in the first round of combat if she wanted.
Example 1: Yiankun opens up combat by casting regenerate and shattering gem (4th), causing the earth to not only rise up and protect her, but also to reform her body when she takes damage. Next, a level appropriate enemy makes a ranged Strike against her and crits for 64 cold damage. With a little luck, shattering gem blocks 20 damage and explodes in the enemy's face, dealing 4d8 damage to the foe (if he's close enough). Her damage is further reduced by 15, due to her major ring of fire resistance. On her turn, she regenerates 15 more damage. She is left only with 14 damage remaining which, if she can get some breathing room, will be healed on her following turn. Had she used a higher level spell slot for shattering gem, she could have easily negated all of the damage from the start.
Example 2: Yiankun faces an especially dangerous brute, and so opens up combat by casting regenerate and shattering gem (9th). On round 2, she goes again, casting stoneskin (8th) upon herself. A bruiser with extreme damage attacks (GMG p.65) slips past the martial characters in the front line and makes a melee Strike against her, getting a critical hit for 100 slashing damage! With a little luck, shattering gem blocks 45 of that damage and explodes in the enemy's face, dealing 9d8 slashing damage. The damage is further reduced by 15, due to her stoneskin spell. On her turn, she regenerates 15 more damage. She is left only with 25 damage remaining, which will be healed in 2 rounds.
"My dice never seem to roll as expected" is a very complex thing that borders on the mythological. From entire sessions in VTT to people who can be given a die loaded to land on 20 and still manage to roll a 1. Long streaks of rolling low/high are incredible to see, and incredibly sad to be on the wrong end of. Circumstantial bonuses/penalties do help.
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Ravingdork. Even the combo that has been talked about here ( Flank + Heroism + Fear/Demoralize + Aid) before qualifies. There is a thread of about abusing the initiative and end conditions of Bard performances to get the benefit of Inspire Defense and Courage. There are threads on how to optimize attack of opportunity. Etc.
The only power gaming that is gone is the: let me get every single bonus for this thing. Which I don't see many people actually want.
So that is another way to control expectations. By how much you inform, encourage, and aid players in performing those weird combos. (Which was a fun part of PF1)
Well, terms like powergaming are quite new and may see local variations but for me the term is pejorative and means "optimization to the point of disruption". Optimizing your character and get 5% better is not powergaming to me as it won't disrupt the story, the balance between players and these sort of things. I start considering powergaming when it gets to such crazy level that you overshadow the other players or that you eliminate opposition without any feeling of challenge.
SuperBidi I agree with your definition.
But I have seen many times that people see any sort of number optimization as the sole and worst form of power gaming. Hence all the frequent, "people who don't like PF2 just want to power game". People say PF2 removed power gaming because they removed bonus stacking, which was one part of power gaming. But arguably the worst part was the second, strange interactions from rule elements, which is what allowed silliness like "lets ride one on top of the other".
PF2 is known to have a lot of strange interactions like: Taking a hit to save your shield, figuring out how control water works, trying to understand what a minion can do outside of combat, etc.
Well, someone's optimization is someone else's powergaming. I don't see these things as disruptive but I understand someone may be annoyed. At least it's way less disruptive than the stacking barbarians example.
Anyway, I find funny that in this thread Krispy shows us how buffing and debuffing are paramount, on another thread Deriven raises the question that in combat healing is a necessity and at the same time I've seen numerous threads about martials being way better than casters. If I was drawing a conclusion, it would be that the most efficient party is the one bringing the maximum diversity on the table.
I think the answer for "my dice never seem to roll as expected" is to make sure you don't have janky biased dice - float test them, replace them if needed, use a dice tower, or something to do with the dice since they are the thing not operating as expected - rather than lobby for rules that somehow still function as intended even if the dice you roll are even less predictable than standard-functioning dice.
Personally, I pretty much never even use physical dice. Roll20, dice rolling chat bots, random.org, etc etc, my dice are all digital. I'm just unlucky.
Even besides luck though, there's also the circumstances of the thing you do build to be good at... just not actually coming up much. Like my high-mobility Elf in a game (or at least section of a game) where most of the fights are in cramped little rooms. In a game where most of your choice is more what you can do than how well you can do it, it really sucks if the things you can do aren't actually doable. And while yes in a custom campaign the GM can of course build things to fit whatever his players' builds are, not everyone does (or even can do) custom campaigns, and APs are popular for a reason.
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Power gaming will always be a thing, be cause power gaming is a matter of focusing on some goal usually to the exclusion of other things.
Power gaming in the form of stackable bonuses doesn't exist in PF2. But power gaming in the form of getting multiple stackable effects does.
The simplest being Fighter with a bard dip for Inspired Courage, and the Animal Training archetype. There a character that can Demoralize, Inspire Courage, and Flank by himself.
And that still only makes it so you can take on an appropriate boss challenge and doesn't make you do substantially more damage than someone else. Not to mention an enemy mob could take out your animal very quickly getting rid of your flank. So once again the rules make attempts at power gaming have a much lesser effect than previous editions. It's very easy to annihilate animal companions.
It's very easy to annihilate animal companions.
It is in fact so easy that our ranger rarely uses his animal companion in combat. Negative powergaming at its finest.
It's very easy to annihilate animal companions.It is in fact so easy that our ranger rarely uses his animal companion in combat. Negative powergaming at its finest.
I've seen this put at least one player off.
In our 1st ed Jade Regent game his hunter loves hitting things with a greataxe, casting snowball and having his snow leopard pounce on things. Prior to that in Skull and Shackles his druid liked casting snowball and having his sabre tooth tiger pounce on things. He's hardly what I'd call a powergamer unless putting your highest stat roll in strength and taking power attack counts as min-maxing.
One week when the ref can't make it we try a pick-up game of 2nd ed. No one is surprised to see a ranger with a big cat appear on the table. First round of first battle one of the regular mook brigands crits it and decks it. Cat dies very shortly after. It would be an understatement to say the player was less than impressed.
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If I was drawing a conclusion, it would be that the most efficient party is the one bringing the maximum diversity on the table.
That's certainly the conclusion I've come to thus far - you no longer have powerful characters nearly as much as you have powerful parties.
A "powerful" party needs someone to provide support through buffs and debuffs, someone to manage incoming damage, enough presence to manage positioning on the battlefield, and someone to deliver damage to the enemy. And you need to distribute all of those across enough characters such that you have the actions to make all of that work.
As well, you have options for each of those things.
"Buffs and debuffs" are available to a variety of classes through several forms and means, whether its via Athletics, Intimidate or Magic. Not every party is going to have access to the full range here, but you don't really need to push this ALL the way - just far enough to make things successful in your favor.
Managing incoming damage can be accomplished, so far in my experience, either through mitigation via 'tanky' characters or by healing from someone focused on providing that to the party.
Battlefield manipulation and control is where you're talking about flanking, and preventing your opponent from flanking you. A lot of this is positioning, and using things like AOO's and knockdown/trip to keep your enemies where you want them without overexposing yourself.
Once you've got everything put together, you need someone who's going to actually make enemies go away. I've seen good damage come from martials and from spellcasters, with each excelling in different situations but both being fully valid for taking care of this role - and because of the nature of things, generally you can swap into this mode on demand if needed, and everyone can participate when appropriate.
Finally, because there's a LOT to do, no one or two characters can really carry all of the above. Its got to be a team effort.
I don't see working out how to do the above with your party as powergaming - that's collaborative problem solving and group Gameplay.
And in addition to that, there's the Skill Game where your party will want to be diverse in its skills to make sure that you can cover as large a range as possible with developed skills for high tier skill challenges, and still have people with backup skills for cases when numbers of checks are important, and to support and backup the primary skill users.
Diversity and Group Play is critical for 'power gaming' 2E...
It is in fact so easy that our ranger rarely uses his animal companion in combat. Negative powergaming at its finest.
Or a player needs to use the animal for different activities than sending him in thinking his two actions are some kind of method to do a lot of extra damage. I learned the send animal companion in like an extra martial is not the best way to use an animal companion. I've used it instead to kill a runner, attempt a disarm, and for its support function while making sure I have full aggression in my direction before doing so.
The player in my group getting his animal killed was acting like his animal companion was some tricked out PF1 pet with items just sending him against main level enemies to do damage. Or some warcraft hunter where his pet would hold aggro while he unloaded with this bow. I find that that is not the best way to use an animal companion, especially at low level.
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Another thing I love about PF2 is that spending your personal power build to try to get all of the bonuses for yourself doesn't usually make your character more powerful than a character that focuses on figuring out how to give those bonuses to everyone else in the party.
The Fighter/Bard/Animal Trainer example is a minimum level 10 character with at least 4 class feats dedicated to giving themselves bonuses that many parties will be capable of giving out by level 1. As much as it has become a cliche to say that every bonus in PF2 matters, it is also true that action efficiency is the ultimate premium in party effectiveness, and there are almost always 2 or 3 different ways to get the same bonuses, some of them much easier for one character than another. Trying to get all of them yourself usually takes up actions, and unless you are sharing the love (which granted, the inspire courage is shared, but you aren't getting that status bonus to level 8 and by then a divine or occult caster probably has heroism, which, while a limited resource, gives 10 minutes of status bonuses for 1 action cost or can use bless to give to give it in a controlled area, only spending actions on increasing that area if needed. Or you could have a bard in the party who gives your fighter inspired courage and forbidding ward, while you have 4 more class feats that could be used to give your character so many different combat styles that I couldn't even pretend to know which of them is the obvious "best build."
Which isn't to say that someone couldn't play as the fighter/bard/animal trainer and be a useful contributing party member, it is just not really a more powerful of a build than any pure fighter build.
That is why I think PF1 to PF2 converts who are really into the character building mini-game should talk to their GMs about trying out the GMG dual class option. PF2 is not a video game where you only unlock achievements by playing the game on X difficulty mode. If you have more fun playing it a variant way than the adventure writer of a particular AP, talk to your GM about that. Especially if the whole party is feeling down on the mechanical side of AP, but enjoying the story or general encounter design. And if you are not enjoying the story or the encounter design, then it is still important to talk to the GM about that and either consider trying something different or seeing if they are willing to add more elements that will appeal to your group.
I had to do that with one of my groups right as we were getting to the half way point of the first AP I was running for them in PF2, a converted PF1 AP. I had sank hours into modifying it to work in PF2 and to give personal tie ins to each character's developing back story, but after 6 sessions (our sessions are short 2 hour blocks), it was clear that the serious and survival horror tone of the AP wasn't what the players wanted at all. They wanted light and goofy. So we switched to Extinction Curse and all of them are having 10x as much fun. It wasn't the AP that I wanted to run at all, but when I realized it was the right fit for the players I really wanted to play with, it made it all work out brilliantly. That is more of the narrative example than the purely mechanical, but if my players had reacted badly to mechanical aspect of the AP I had been converting, which was being run at brutal difficulty, then I would have been better off changing that too, because the end goal is to play a game with a group of people and have fun doing so (I was throwing 2 level 3 monsters and a level 2 monster at a party of five level 1 characters, and they were loving the challenge of it, as long as they could crack jokes about it).
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No more playing 2 characters at the same time, one with spells and one with decent martial abilities, both with their full number of actions.
I actually count it as a positive. YMMV.
What I love about PF2 is that moving across the battlefield is now quite feasible and that staying still while dishing out attacks is not the only way to fight anymore. More variety in actions and getting results from innovative tactics make combat far more engaging IMO.
Isn't that an issue of going from a higher level to level 1 than anything else? I mean most level one companions in PF1 could go down to a crit as well.
As for the Cat dying, unless there was persistant damage involved, or the GM just targeted the downed animal, why couldn't the druid just save it?
For the first part yes, but crits are far more likely on the animal companion here, which is what happened - rolled something like a 16, no confirmation roll.
It wasn't like he was sending it to tank a dangerous boss or anything - just moved it towards one of four goons that were attacking unarmed townsfolk.
To answer the second question he was a ranger, not a druid.
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Well, terms like powergaming are quite new and may see local variations...
I agree with your take almost entirely, what I don’t quite understand is how a term that has been in popular usage for over twenty years can be considered new. We used it in MUDs and MUSHs and UseNets in the 90’s and it still meant mostly what it did today. We were using it in D&D related forums prior to the launch of 3.0 and it grew in usage throughout the early 00’s.
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For the first part yes, but crits are far more likely on the animal companion here, which is what happened - rolled something like a 16, no confirmation roll.
It wasn't like he was sending it to tank a dangerous boss or anything - just moved it towards one of four goons that were attacking unarmed townsfolk.
Whoah, this sounds deeply wrong. A 1st level Cat should have AC 16 or 17 while one of multiple foes at 1st level should have a +6 or +7 to hit. If you're fighting four enemies with better to-hit than that and can do 11+ damage on a crit, you're lucky it wasn't a PC that died, and even then 1st level enemies max out at +9 to hit, so still not a crit on a 16 barring real weirdness. With a mere 11 HP a crit will usually take it out, but the odds of that aren't nearly as bad as you're implying.
To answer the second question he was a ranger, not a druid.
Did he not have Medicine? This seems like what First Aid is for.
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For the first part yes, but crits are far more likely on the animal companion here, which is what happened - rolled something like a 16, no confirmation roll.
It wasn't like he was sending it to tank a dangerous boss or anything - just moved it towards one of four goons that were attacking unarmed townsfolk.
Whoah, this sounds deeply wrong. A 1st level Cat should have AC 16 or 17 while one of multiple foes at 1st level should have a +6 or +7 to hit. If you're fighting four enemies with better to-hit than that and can do 11+ damage on a crit, you're lucky it wasn't a PC that died, and even then 1st level enemies max out at +9 to hit, so still not a crit on a 16 barring real weirdness. With a mere 11 HP a crit will usually take it out, but the odds of that aren't nearly as bad as you're implying.
To answer the second question he was a ranger, not a druid.Did he not have Medicine? This seems like what First Aid is for.
OK, maybe it was a roll of 17 or 18 and if he did have medicine he didn't get over there in time to use it.
Maybe he was unlucky, maybe he should have stopped fighting the guy next to him and walked over to do first aid, maybe he should have had more system mastery...
But the point being pets came across as so much more fragile the player who loved having a pet was very much put off.
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OK, maybe it was a roll of 17 or 18 and if he did have medicine he didn't get over there in time to use it.
Even a 17 or 18 isn't very likely unless that was a seriously hardcore encounter (ie: one with level 1 foes or higher, something which is probably best defined as a 'boss' at that level and expected to be scarier).
As I said, when fighting level 0 or less opponents with enough damage to take out an Animal Companion on a crit, we're talking +7 to-hit at most (technically, the badger is an exeption at +8 and 1d8 damage...this encounter did not involve a badger). AC 16 is the Animal Companion's minimum. +7 to hit and AC 16 is a crit on 19.
Maybe he was unlucky, maybe he should have stopped fighting the guy next to him and walked over to do first aid, maybe he should have had more system mastery...
Well, clearly he was unlucky, and especially on a first character in a new system, that really sucks. I feel for the guy. But I'm trying to diagnose what happened, because your description does not sound like an interaction that the rules generally lead to.
But the point being pets came across as so much more fragile the player who loved having a pet was very much put off.
The thing is, in PF1, without barding, a 1st level Big Cat animal companion has 11 HP and AC 14.
In PF2, without barding, a 1st level Cat animal companion has 11 HP and AC 16.
Enemy attacks are not that much higher in PF2 than PF1. They're certainly higher, but not by that much.
Barding makes more of a difference in PF1 (being +2 rather than +1 at 1st level), but that's a 'system mastery' difference.
Now, the animal companion is certainly more likely to get crit in PF2, it's true (both from 'boss monster' types, and just due to no confirmation rolls needed), and the death and dying rules are a bit harsher...but this is not as big a change as all that, and your story makes me suspect that either the dice were just against him (which can happen in any game), or something actually got done wrong in terms of rules (did someone forget the +3 from Trained in AC?)
Now, at higher levels, animal companions are actually a lot more fragile than they were in PF1, though they obviously do get more durable with level like everyone and everything else, but at 1st? They're just not that much easier to kill.
OK, maybe it was a roll of 17 or 18 and if he did have medicine he didn't get over there in time to use it.Even a 17 or 18 isn't very likely unless that was a seriously hardcore encounter (ie: one with level 1 foes or higher, something which is probably best defined as a 'boss' at that level and expected to be scarier).
As I said, when fighting level 0 or less opponents with enough damage to take out an Animal Companion on a crit, we're talking +7 to-hit at most (technically, the badger is an exeption at +8 and 1d8 damage...this encounter did not involve a badger). AC 16 is the Animal Compnion's minimum. +7 to hit and AC 16 is a crit on 19.
Maybe he was unlucky, maybe he should have stopped fighting the guy next to him and walked over to do first aid, maybe he should have had more system mastery...Well, clearly he was unlucky, and especially on a first character in a new system, that really sucks. I feel for the guy. But I'm trying to diagnose what happened, because your description does not sound like an interaction that the rules generally lead to.
But the point being pets came across as so much more fragile the player who loved having a pet was very much put off.The thing is, in PF1, without barding, a 1st level Big Cat animal companion has 11 HP and AC 14.
In PF2, without barding, a 1st level Cat animal companion has 11 HP and AC 16.
Enemy attacks are not that much higher in PF2 than PF1. They're certainly higher, but not by that much.
Barding makes more of a difference in PF1 (being +2 rather than +1 at 1st level), but that's a 'system mastery' difference.
Now, the animal companion is certainly more likely to get crit in PF2, it's true (both from 'boss monster' types, and just due to no confirmation rolls needed), and the death and dying rules are a bit harsher...but this is not as big a change as all that, and your story makes me suspect that either the dice were just against him (which...
I'm not even sure they are easier to kill at all for low levels. Unless you're dealing with persistent damage or enemies attacking downed allies (which were dangers in PF1 as well) then a pet is going to get at least one full round unconscious that you can respond to heal it, and usually more than one. I suppose at level 1 massive damage is a threat, but you could be one shot below your con in PF1 as well.
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I'm not even sure they are easier to kill at all for low levels. Unless you're dealing with persistent damage or enemies attacking downed allies (which were dangers in PF1 as well) then a pet is going to get at least one full round unconscious that you can respond to heal it, and usually more than one. I suppose at level 1 massive damage is a threat, but you could be one shot below your con in PF1 as well.
You can generally bleed out in fewer rounds in PF2, so a low healing group or one that doesn't use said healing on the downed companion a death can happen quicker, but aside from that I'm mostly inclined to agree, yes.
Young animal companions aren't designed to do much. You can use them for their support benefit, flanking, or to defend themselves in very safe positions, but they don't really become active combatants until they are adults. At that point, animal companions should be treated a lot like a caster class that has tuned up their attributes for combat.
I think animal companions are quite a strong use of feats. I like them with Rangers, Druids, and Champions for different reasons.
Well, terms like powergaming are quite new and may see local variations...I agree with your take almost entirely, what I don’t quite understand is how a term that has been in popular usage for over twenty years can be considered new. We used it in MUDs and MUSHs and UseNets in the 90’s and it still meant mostly what it did today. We were using it in D&D related forums prior to the launch of 3.0 and it grew in usage throughout the early 00’s.
I'm cautious on these forums as you have people from multiple countries. English words are very often misused in my language so I don't want to make a mistake on a term.
With real english words, you can consider the dictionnary to be RAW. But with game terms, you may have local variations or even variations between medias.|
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As someone who has been relatively vocal about PF2 difficulty: my beef is mainly with skills at higher levels, where expected DCs outpace the expected skill bonuses for those skills you don't keep investing in (and you only get enough skill increases to increase two skills until 11th level, at which point you get a third, assuming you specialize). For combat stuff, the assumptions about what bonuses you have are more hard-coded into the game which means they work better.
This isn't really all that bad if you keep raising the Stat the Skill is based on and pick up an item of some sort.
DCs go up by 12 between 1st and 10th, Proficiency in something that stays Trained goes up by 9, Ability scores mostly go up by 2 if you're investing in them, and by 10th +1 Skill items are actually cheap and easy. That matches the increase.
Now, that does involve caring about the skill to some degree, but does not involve actually investing Skill Ranks into it, and is thus more widely available. Indeed, all but one of it comes automatically just by caring about the stat.
10th to 20th, DCs rise another 13 points, and stats probably only go up by 1, but you get 10 from level and cheap below level Items can go up another 1. That's a 12 point increase and not quite keeping up, but it's pretty close.
So, yeah, 25 point DC increase in 19 levels, Proficiency automatically rises 19, stats can easily rise 3, and cheap items can net you another 2. You can't do that on every Skill, but you can do it on more than the three you can max out with Skill Ranks.
This does, unfortunately, mean you need to grab some items to actually keep up on Trained skills you don't invest Ranks in, but it still seems worth noting that such keeping up is in a better situation than you seem to be implying.
Another option, of course, is to not max out your Skill Ranks, but spread some around. Beyond Expert they tend to increase odds of success rather than keeping up with the treadmill, so a broad-based character can easily remain equally good at many different Skills, just without excelling at quite as many. You probably want to max at least one Skill, but spreading the rest around is a valid build choice.
As someone who has been relatively vocal about PF2 difficulty: my beef is mainly with skills at higher levels, where expected DCs outpace the expected skill bonuses for those skills you don't keep investing in (and you only get enough skill increases to increase two skills until 11th level, at which point you get a third, assuming you specialize). For combat stuff, the assumptions about what bonuses you have are more hard-coded into the game which means they work better.This isn't really all that bad if you keep raising the Stat the Skill is based on and pick up an item of some sort.
DCs go up by 12 between 1st and 10th, Proficiency in something that stays Trained goes up by 9, Ability scores mostly go up by 2 if you're investing in them, and by 10th +1 Skill items are actually cheap and easy. That matches the increase.
Now, that does involve caring about the skill to some degree, but does not involve actually investing Skill Ranks into it, and is thus more widely available. Indeed, all but one of it comes automatically just by caring about the stat.
10th to 20th, DCs rise another 13 points, and stats probably only go up by 1, but you get 10 from level and cheap below level Items can go up another 1. That's a 12 point increase and not quite keeping up, but it's pretty close.
So, yeah, 25 point DC increase in 19 levels, Proficiency automatically rises 19, stats can easily rise 3, and cheap items can net you another 2. You can't do that on every Skill, but you can do it on more than the three you can max out with Skill Ranks.
This does, unfortunately, mean you need to grab some items to actually keep up on Trained skills you don't invest Ranks in, but it still seems worth noting that such keeping up is in a better situation than you seem to be implying.
Another option, of course, is to not max out your Skill Ranks, but spread some around. Beyond Expert they tend to increase odds of success rather than keeping up with the treadmill, so a broad-based...
There's also a lot more bonus sources you can tap at high levels. Follow the Expert, Auto Crit Aid checks, buff spells from low level slots, Mutagens, circumstance bonuses from skill feats... There are a lot of things beyond skill increases you can do to buff a skill.
Staffan, you're speaking of someone who doesn't invest anything into skills. If you take into account that, by level 10, you should be trained in more skills (you can gain skill training very easily and even sometimes involuntarily), you are a bit worse but you dabbles in more things.
And as Deadmanwalking is showing, you'll fall by 1 or 2 points behind the curve, which is not nothing, but you are far from being unable to face level relevant challenges. Especially considering the incredible expansion of your tools (spells, items, skill feats).
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If we take any character ( even a bard, since you mentioned that class ), there is no need to max out any skill, if not to add flavor to your class.
I tend to disagree with that.
For a Bard, if you have Bardic Lore, you will want to go to Legendary in Occultism. And if you have Inspire Heroics or Lingering Composition, you really want to be Legendary in Performance, too.Even outside that, getting to Legendary in your skills gives you a few bonuses that you won't have if you go to Expert:
- Some checks are proficiency gated. They are rare, but if you are not Legendary, you just don't roll the check.
- The best skill feats ask for high proficiency levels. Unless you want a very specific set of low level skill feats, you'll increase your proficiency to get access to the best skill feats.
I've thought about making an expert in everything Ranger, and then I realized that I would have only a few useful skill feats and no good choices beyond level 6. So I've gone back to 3 skills to Legendary, as it's kind of strongly pushed by the design of the game.
Staying Expert is like taking a Dedication: You have access to most of the feats, just not the best ones.
I'd love synergy feats. Things like:
Good cop bad cop
Requirements: Expert in Diplomacy, Expert in Intimidation
Your methods of coercion mix bullying and seduction. If you score a success on a check to coerce someone, his attitude toward you increases by one step.
Stockholm Syndrom
Requirements: Good cop bad cop, Expert in Diplomacy, Expert in Intimidation, Expert in Thievery
You like to use manacles and bonds when you coerce someone. If you take a day to coerce someone, his attitude toward you increases by two steps in case of success and three steps in case of critical success.
Characters certainly become less competent at the breadth of on level skills as they level up. I think that's natural. Giving Low-Level characters some breathing room to determine which skills they want to pursue is helpful for character building in play. Narratively, it's easier to become minimally proficient in a skill and relatively harder to become a specialized expert, master, or legend.
Some of the best character features are locked between high proficiency tiers. That does, in some way, price characters into leveling certain skills. The bard example is a good one since it's often priced into taking performance and sometimes occult as high as they can. To help mitigate this, the bard gets access to Virtuoso muse to use it's performance skill for other tasks.
Additional Lore can also be taken to get another maxed out skill. Rogue Dedication is yet another option to get more skill proficiency. There are options.