We've just finished our 10th game (10ish?) of Pathfinder 2E, and from what I've seen, casters and martials both are only one crit away from getting dropped.
We'd have had a TPK in every session yet if not for Hero Points.
Players are all starting to double down on investing in the Medicine skill, related skill feats, and healing spells and items now.
Is it different for others? How do you manage?
We've played Ages of Ashes 1, the first part of Extinction Curse 1, and the Absalom Initiation. It gets better at higher levels, right?
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Is it different for others? How do you manage?
I'm running two PbPs through Hellknight Hill. One group has just hit 2nd level, and the other hasn't quite yet. Out of both groups, I've had one PC drop to 0 hp once, and that was when I combined three rooms of the dungeon into one extended encounter so they didn't have time to Treat Wounds in between.
Both my parties have 5 PCs, so there's that. And I've made sure that low-Int enemies don't make smart tactical choices in combat.
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At 1st level, one crit away from a boss monster, maybe. But even that that seems exaggerated.
I've GM'd every PFS2 scenarios, chapters 1-3 of AoA, Fall of Plaguestone, and Chapter 1 of Extinction curse. Have about 110 tables of credit as a GM as PFS counts things. I think I've had 5 near tpks. (3 of which where in Fall of Plaguestone). No actual TPKs, no character deaths (some very, very close calls -- out of hero points on their dying three recovery roll). I've played about 1/2 the PFS scenarios as well.
Almost every party has had at least 1, if not two characters with medicine and feat investment, not on the default party healer. So yes making sure your party, has a healing and backup healing is important. If you're playing society and not have the luxury of preplanning the party, it becomes even more important to have a plan for healing. If your character has no innate healing (spells, skills, feats), I personally feel you should spend a bit on consumables (not counting the pathfinder training/schools items) as your contingency. I like to keep two on-level healing potions, one on-level antivenom & antiplague, if I'm not investing in character options.
I've played in the same level ranges you have (GMed levels 1-5 and played levels 1-4) and find that it heavily depends on how strong the group is tactically.
The group I GM for is a Dragon Barbarian, a Cloistered Cleric, a Diabolic Sorcerer, and an Arcane Witch. This party is like a well oiled machine, they click together really well and are great at combat. The barbarian might go down once in a typical combat, but the only times they've come close to TPK were when the dice were heavily in my favor.
The party I play in is a Liberator (me), Tiger Monk, Occult Witch, and Leaf Druid. We just beat the first major dungeon of Extinction Curse and nearly every single room was a struggle for us. We make a lot of tactical errors (like me and the monk going too far apart) and the spellcasters struggle a bit with slot conservation and knowing what to prep.
Funny enough, these two parties are the same group. For whatever reason we just have a harder time with our classes in the latter game (the monk player is really starting to get her class though).
Depends on party comp, how well they invest in mitigation effects and such.
At level 5 vs a cyclops. Let's take an hypothetical mid range hp with 8 hp racial, 8 hp class and 2 hp con. That is a total of 58 at level 5. The cyclops does 10 min, 15.5 ave, 21 max. Double those values on a crit. Give that PC temp hitpoints and or resistance and they aren't even squriming on a crit.
At level 10 vs a cyclops, same setup. 108hp. 15min, 26 ave, 37 max, double all those on a crit.
Now compare it to a barbarian dwarf with toughness animal totem and some feats at level 10. 190hp base, 7 resistance to piercing and slashing, and have 4 temporary hp per round for a single action without relying on anyone else. Although you could takt it further with a sturdy shield and shield block which will give you around 4 blocks a combat and let you resist an extra 13 hp per strike at level 10.
Bringing the giant's effective damage down to.
4 min, 15 ave, 26 max. Lower with a shield. Lower with allies like a champion around.
Don't get me wrong, the example above is more to show you how middle of the road the character mentioned before is and that it is nothing special even though it can take a crit.
Some creatures will crit you down of course, especially higher level ones. But it isn't the standard expectation.
At 1st level, one crit away from a boss monster, maybe. But even that that seems exaggerated.
Can confirm that a water mephit (early encounter in Extinction Curse) can insta kill (massive damage) a PC with a crit. Granted, it was a bard, but still very doable.
That said, I think you and Salamileg have it right. A lot depends on tactics and good decisions. The medicine skill is a must have for a party (preferably on multiple characters to be safe) and at least one PC (again preferably more) should have Battle Medicine. Now, an argument could be made that if these are essentially mandatory in parties then there is perhaps an issue, but that's a different argument. I will say also that I was surprised at how cheap potions were. That's something that needs to be remembered by the party too.
The big thing I've noticed is that things can go sideways in a hurry and the tactics are definitely different than in PF1. Try not to think in terms of PF1 as that will get you in trouble. Reach weapons are huge. Especially if you have an AoO. Not all monsters get AoOs either.
There's a definite learning curve. Our group in Extinction Curse (very early on) is made up of PF1 vets, but we've really had to adjust our thinking. In the first day alone, the group experienced: 1 insta death (poor bard), 1 character turned to stone, two characters knocked out in one fight, 1 character almost knocked out by snakes (requiring the use of both 1st level spells to stay upright), and 1 character at 1 HP. Certainly there has been some bad luck in there, but some of it was also bad tactics. Make sure you are making use of things like Demoralize and combat maneuvers. Don't just stand there next to the enemy, step away and make him use an action to get to you. In particular, if you have two melee characters, if both step away, they should be able to do so in such a way that it will only be able to attack one PC even if it knocks one out. Try to heal up to full between fights, etc.
<numbers>
Oh sure, from full health you don't go unconscious from a single crit. But remember that crits happen more often when you're below full than when you're at full, and those numbers show that a single crit is about half your total.
<numbers>Oh sure, from full health you don't go unconscious from a single crit. But remember that crits happen more often when you're below full than when you're at full, and those numbers show that a single crit is about half your total.
Yes, numbers that as i said. Don't include mitigation and aren't high health pool characters. The whole point was to show that even a "not for frontlines" character can swallow a bad crit.
The averages when coupled with mitigation options are fine. Or at least have been consistently in the campaign, short mid level game and multiple oneshots I have run.
(They are also against even level threats. Which isn't going to be your bread and butter)
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We'd have had a TPK in every session yet if not for Hero Points.
Hero Points are an important part of the rules system. IF you're trying to play without using Hero Points, then you're handicapping your team. Paizo is writing encounters assuming Hero Points are available and being given out and used at the frequencies they suggest in the rules books.
The only class I've seen that is hard to bring down so far is the Champion.
Everyone is a glass cannon levels 1-4 or 5 except shield users generally.
It's a mix from 5 to about 11 to 13.
After 13 it is not easy to bring people down, especially a Champion. Not sure if things will change in a tier or so, but after level 13 my AoA party is really not getting beat up much. They are starting to bring the hammer on things. Solo monsters are much easier too.
It depends on your level, class and build. Almost any class besides a shield user with a high AC is a glass cannon if they get focused on by something even moderately tough. If you have a champion with Divine Reflexes, life changes for your group.
It gets better at higher levels, right?
Yes. During the first couple/few levels, you're always one hit plus one crit - roughly - from going down. And once one character is down, the action economy starts to spiral out of control. You're down one character's contribution, and you may lose additional actions from a healer doing their thing.
Once you hit around 5th, that starts to fade away, and you can survive a few hits and a crit. By 7th it's quite reasonable.
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The only class I've seen that is hard to bring down so far is the Champion.
Everyone is a glass cannon levels 1-4 or 5 except shield users generally.
It's a mix from 5 to about 11 to 13.
After 13 it is not easy to bring people down, especially a Champion. Not sure if things will change in a tier or so, but after level 13 my AoA party is really not getting beat up much. They are starting to bring the hammer on things. Solo monsters are much easier too.
It depends on your level, class and build. Almost any class besides a shield user with a high AC is a glass cannon if they get focused on by something even moderately tough. If you have a champion with Divine Reflexes, life changes for your group.
Just wishing to nuance this a bit. Getting a Champion will enhance the durability of your team. But a Champion on their own are not at their best and can indeed be taken down.
If you need to beat a Champion, you need to keep them separate from their party.
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Definitely invest in medicine and associated feats. Combat Medic is as important as a combat healer in PF2 IMO.
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We've just finished our 10th game (10ish?) of Pathfinder 2E, and from what I've seen, casters and martials both are only one crit away from getting dropped.
We'd have had a TPK in every session yet if not for Hero Points.
Players are all starting to double down on investing in the Medicine skill, related skill feats, and healing spells and items now.
Is it different for others? How do you manage?
We've played Ages of Ashes 1, the first part of Extinction Curse 1, and the Absalom Initiation. It gets better at higher levels, right?
That has not been my experience. But my gaming groups are very tactical and work hard on the mechanical aspects of character building.
But because damage scales up and criticals are a big part of the game, higher level characters always feel vulnerable when they are against threats that are at their level or above.
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We'd have had a TPK in every session yet if not for Hero Points.Hero Points are an important part of the rules system. IF you're trying to play without using Hero Points, then you're handicapping your team.
While true the rules around how to get hero points are weak and feel glued on. They are VERY easy for players and GMs to forget and the default way to give them out is wishy-washy.
Combine with the fact that unused points expire regardless of how long your session was and it just Feels Bad.
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That has not been my experience. But my gaming groups are very tactical and work hard on the mechanical aspects of character building.We've just finished our 10th game (10ish?) of Pathfinder 2E, and from what I've seen, casters and martials both are only one crit away from getting dropped.
We'd have had a TPK in every session yet if not for Hero Points.
Players are all starting to double down on investing in the Medicine skill, related skill feats, and healing spells and items now.
Is it different for others? How do you manage? ...
Likewise, four of my playes have a boardgaming hobby and are tactical masterminds. The fifth is smart and learns from the others. They went off the map last month, so I improvised a hobgoblin garrison that on paper was twice as strong as them. They won while enjoying the challenge. That battle was the first time any of the PCs was knocked unconscious. That single knockout took place after 3/4 of the garrison, including its leader, was dead, but it did convince the party to hide in the forest and heal for an hour. Then they returned and chased down the fleeing remaining soldiers. (Sigh, Pathfinder is not designed for long chases.)
Pathfinder 2nd Edition is even more tactical than Pathfinder 1st Edition. My players are supercharged by their love of teamwork, tactics, and battlefield control! For example, the ranger became a snare specialist at 4th level and the party now uses tactical retreats to lure enemies into the snares. When the party fought a barbarian who had deny advantage to prevent sneak attack via flanking, the ranger tripped him to enable the two rogues to sneak attack again.
They had an advantage in Trail of the Hunted that the module often gave only one encounter per day, so they started those fully healed. But they immediately adapted to Treat Wounds and Lay on Hands during ten-minute breaks for serial encounters. The champion serves a crafter god, Grandmother Spider, so she can refocus while repairing her shield. The druid has Battle Medicine, but has not used it in combat yet.
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Playing All of Plaguestone with a party of five, and Hallod dropped three of us before the archer cleric and the wizard put him down. It was really just the wizard, because the cleric was scrambling all over trying to stabilize the rest of us. We haven't gotten that close with any of the other battles, but I can see how they could become close things with a few bad rolls.
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Playing All of Plaguestone with a party of five, and Hallod dropped three of us before the archer cleric and the wizard put him down. It was really just the wizard, because the cleric was scrambling all over trying to stabilize the rest of us. We haven't gotten that close with any of the other battles, but I can see how they could become close things with a few bad rolls.
That matches my group's party of six experience. And our GM wasn't adding additional enemies due to large party either.
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We've just finished our 10th game (10ish?) of Pathfinder 2E, and from what I've seen, casters and martials both are only one crit away from getting dropped.
We'd have had a TPK in every session yet if not for Hero Points.
Players are all starting to double down on investing in the Medicine skill, related skill feats, and healing spells and items now.
Is it different for others? How do you manage?
We've played Ages of Ashes 1, the first part of Extinction Curse 1, and the Absalom Initiation. It gets better at higher levels, right?
This sounds abnormal to me. I haven't played Extinction Curse, but in Absalom Initiation I know there's one hazard that's a bit poorly written which causes a lot of GMs to think it should apply to the whole party, when in fact it only applies to the first PC to trigger it. That makes a world of difference. In Age of Ashes, in the first book the fighter, rogue and wizard dropped a few times each (the wizard mainly when he stepped next to an enemy and his Shocking Grasp didn't kill the enemy). In the second book, we're nearly at the end and the rogue has dropped once, after running all the way into a building to sneak attack the last enemy in the back of it that was still flat-footed. And then got ganged up on by multiple barbarians.
I think only the wizard got one-shot a couple of times, the rest were all multiple hits, usually when a PC left himself too exposed. Looking back, it was often a case of "yeah maybe I shouldn't have run far away from the healer when we trigger multiple encounters".
Players picking up Medicine - well duh! Didn't anyone have Medicine before? Were you starting encounters not fully healed? The difficulty of most encounters is based on the assumption a party is going in there with full focus and HP. That's precisely why Plaguestone is so unusually deadly: it breaks that assumption multiple times.
But all the players picking up Medicine? It allows more people to use Battle Medicine on each other, but out of combat, Treat Wounds makes someone immune to [i]everyone's[/i[ Treat Wounds for the cooldown period.
I think what you need to do is figure out why you're taking so much damage. Are you often exposed to monsters getting to do their ideal action routine? One of the deadliest things is to be a greedy player, doing one more attack (at low odds) instead of stepping back.
Since monster to-hit and AC are high compared to PC to-hit and AC, trading one of your lower-odds attacks for a move, to deny the monster a lower-odds attack because it has to follow you, is a good deal.
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At 1st level, one crit away from a boss monster, maybe. But even that that seems exaggerated.
Can confirm that a water mephit (early encounter in Extinction Curse) can insta kill (massive damage) a PC with a crit. Granted, it was a bard, but still very doable.
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How is that possible? The minimum amount of HP a Level 1 Bard should be able to have is 13, if you assume a Con mod of -1 and an Elf Ancestry. 8-1+6 is 13.
That means that in order to insta-kill a PC from massive damage, you would have to take 26 damage in one hit. With the claw attack, a Water Mephit could at maximum do 14 damage on a crit, and with their breath weapon an absolute maximum of 24, 2 short to be able to insta-kill via massive damage.
Regardless, to address the original post
I've been playing at level 15 for a bit now (we've been playing since level 1, but not with these characters specifically due to time warping shenanigans and we've been at these high levels for a couple months), using an Animal Instinct Barbarian with a Cleric multiclass archetype. He's admittedly a bit stronger than your average character would be as we rolled for our stats and I got decently high, but it shouldn't be too crazy, as my average starting stats were only a little bit higher that the standard.
I feel almost un-killable. We have an Elemental Sorcerer and Alchemist in the back rows and a Monk fighting up front with me, and I have not once been brought down to zero in the entire time I've been playing him. We just recently brought down an Ancient Green Dragon.
I've got around 300 HP, and after a long, protracted fight where the Green Dragon was playing keep-away and letting these mind-altering pollen cloud flowers he was cultivating mess with us along with the occasional use of his Breath Weapon, we got him down. The lowest health I ever got to in the fight was 70ish.
I was so comfortable in my survivability that I was using the fight as an excuse to try and do a thematic character thing where I was intentionally eating the mind-altering flowers to try and enter a trance and speak to my God.
Now, that admittedly is a poor example, because with Legendary Fort saves, I was basically taking no poison damage from the Dragon's breath weapon and had been easily shaking off the flower-pollen before I decided to chow down on them, but the Dragon's claw and bite attacks were only taking off 1/10th roughly of my health per hit and were missing frequently enough that I was confidant I could survive going several rounds 1v1 against this thing that was two levels higher than me if I needed to.
You get very, VERY survivable at later levels, if you're a class that's built for it.
Currently running a party of 5 through EC book 2 chapter 1-2, and it's been pretty rough lately. We've had 2-3 people go down at least once a session for the past 3 sessions. Part of that might have to do with the loot the adventure has given. There hasn't been a lot of magic armor, so their ACs are a few points below where they really should be. A few of yall are saying it gets better at level 7, so I guess we'll see how next level goes.
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Apart from our GM being prone to playing our adversaries a little too clever (tactical attack rats anyone?) and subconsciously minding player abilities - especially AoO - there were 2 to 3 times when the party should have been TPK'ed.
After one player left the group due to time constraints the next fight that really should have been a wipe was the Greater Barghest. We stumbled into the area without much info what to expect, and after a transformation cut scene immediately started in melee and AoO range. Our wizard went down early (but not permanently) and our sword and board fighter went down multiple times. Finally got "rescued" due to the distraction provided by Renali.
Some observations from our group (my cleric is the group healer and only source for healing apart from potions).
1) Combat is very swingy both for NPC's and PC's alike. A couple of good rolls and you deal big damage, a couple of good enemy rolls and you will receive big damage. Coupled with the 2-action version of the heal spell, which is very powerful, this often leads to HP totals going all over the place from initiative count to initiative count.
2) Chained encounters or "boss" fights seem to have the biggest potential for downing players and risking TPK.
3) Tankiness by AC alone isn't (in the sense of avoiding attacks entirely). In PF2 you mostly tank with HP (better armor helps with mitigation of HP loss course), so availability of in combat healing is very convenient. Though not everyone being equally hard or soft a target you can usually forget most stand and fight scenarios.
However this does not mean that everyone is a glass cannon either. For example in our group of 5 the only character that I would register as such is our Gnome Wizard, simply due to having lower AC, HP and saves compared to the rest of the group. Our hardest target is probably our Dwarven sword and board Fighter as should be appropriate for a mostly defensive build. The rest is somewhere in between, however I would not classify our Barbarian, Ranger or even my Warpriest as easy pushovers. One contributing factor for sure is moderate to high CON + class HP = higher HP totals = less likely to get downed by a series of normal or one lucky attack until the next Heal kicks in.
@Vali: probably by critting with the Acid Arrow, which would do 6d6 damage for a maximum of 36.
3d8 => 6d8 => max. 48, which can possibly oneshot anything apart from a properly build barbarian (10 ancestry + 12 class + 3 con).
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@Vali: probably by critting with the Acid Arrow, which would do 6d6 damage for a maximum of 36.3d8 => 6d8 => max. 48, which can possibly oneshot anything apart from a properly build barbarian (10 ancestry + 12 class + 3 con).
You're right. That's a once per day shot at pure murder.
I wouldn't call that "properly built" so much as "maximized for HP". You shouldn't have to play a Con 16 dwarf to be considered a proper barbarian. Con 12-14 human ought to cut it.
I'm not a fan of the massive damage rule. It's one of those weird rules that can kill people by sheer chance at level 1, and thereafter is almost impossible. I consider it just as bad as 1E's "draw weapon on the move if you have BAB+1" which basically boiled down to "everyone can do this except some classes at level 1". The "just learning this game" level shouldn't be teaching you about bad things that become obsolete one level later.
** spoiler omitted **
Another thing for people to remember is that if you want to heal up fast you can heal up fast in PF2e. Everyone should carry an easily accessible healing potion or two as it doesn't outright end your turn now, having access to single action healing options like healing gloves, a wand or battle medicine can also be huge. And simply casting a two action heal will heal for a lot even if you aren't a class that can boost it.
Don't forget the value of Temporary hitpoints and get yourself some resistances if you expect to be hit frequently.
Oh and movement speed. Having mobility or extra actions for movement can be the best thing for defense, whether it is breaking LoE or simply giving access to cover or take cover options. I keep seeing people casting it on martials and talking about the extra -10 attack it tends to give them vs the power of that extra stride.
@Vali: probably by critting with the Acid Arrow, which would do 6d6 damage for a maximum of 36.
Yup, totally missed that on the list of things the Water Mephit could do.
That Acid Arrow was the first time one of my players went down. It was pretty brutal.
I wouldn't call that "properly built" so much as "maximized for HP". You shouldn't have to play a Con 16 dwarf to be considered a proper barbarian. Con 12-14 human ought to cut it.
Well yes, of course I meant properly built for maximum HP. And afaik unbreakable Goblin can have 10 ancestry HP too, so the "be immune to death by massive damage by an uber lucky Acid Arrow critical at level 1" is not limited to Dwarf alone.
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The things is that much about being a glass cannon can happen before the actual fight and is heavily GM dependent. Which is not to say that characters can not be glass cannons within the fight itself, however many problems can easily arise (or not arise) on how the fight is set up by your GM.
Do you have information on your enemy available before the fight? If you know that you will be fighting that big bad spiders in the next room potions of anti-venom applied preemptively might come in handy. If those spiders went unnoticed and drop from the ceiling while you are in the room things might look a lot different.
Are you aware of the strengths and weaknesses of your enemies? If you know that they use a single damage type quite alot perhaps the Resistance spell will be of great help.
Are you fighting a couple of melee heavy monsters inside a tiny cavern or some ranged enemies on an open field?
How are those monsters positioned in relation to your groups "frontline" when figures are placed?
Etc etc.
@The Gleeful Grognard
In AoA, we barely ever drop. It seems like a very easy AP.
The EC game I'm running on the other hand, seems to have been written by an extreme sadist. Every single person in the party drops at least once virtually every Encounter, and the AP is not setup to offer any kind of relief between Encounters.
Putting a Level 2 party up against a Level 4 Swarm that inflicts a damaging Poison on every Action is just cruel.
To a degree, I've not seen anyone with on-point AC and a Raised Shield be particularly squishy in general. They tend to be hittable, but hard to critical and they tend to "go down" in hitpoints predictably, generally slower than healing and mitigation actions can be brought to bear to keep them standing.
A Champion with a Raised Shield is a downright daunting prospect to threaten - they get into the territory of being hit less often than missed, and if its a Sturdy Shield they can soften the blows that do connect to where its pretty trivial for them to heal through incoming damage.
A Fighter should be pretty close behind that, and a tanky monk about the same.
For most others - so long as AC is kept relevant, their hitpoints become a resource that gives them a couple blows before they fall unconscious. If they're not protected, they can go down pretty easily which puts the onus on the party to learn how PF2's damage mitigation strategies work.
Because of how healing works, all that really matters is being on your feet until the end of the fight - and that hasn't been terribly difficult for any of the three party comps I've been familiar with. Its pretty shocking when someone ends up unconscious.
Extinction Curse counterpoint: My current group has had most encounters only do damage to 1 character through a combination of their planning and a bit of dice luck, and only once has a character been unconscious and that was because they didn't get any HP back from one encounter to the next. Admittedly they are only partway through chapter 2 so far... and we're likely to have some rough times proceeding forward because we're currently on a month-long hiatus so people will be a little rusty.
As for the swarm and it's poison... there's 2 not particularly hard to pass saves to fail both of before the poison kicks in. That hardly seems "cruel" to me. And since my party happens to have 2 characters with burning hands prepared it's likely to not be much of a challenge to take out the one swarm.
A maxed out Fort Save at Level 2 is +9. The DC is 21. That's less than a 50% chance of Success. I'm not sure how that's a "not particularly hard Save".
The Reflex Save for the initial Damage is also less than 50%.
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A maxed out Fort Save at Level 2 is +9. The DC is 21. That's less than a 50% chance of Success. I'm not sure how that's a "not particularly hard Save".
The Reflex Save for the initial Damage is also less than 50%.
It's a "not particularly hard Save" because the game establishes the normal range of difficulty in such a way that a 2nd level character could be looking at DC more in the 24-27 range since a level 4 enemy is not the highest level enemy they could face, nor is a 21 DC the highest that a level 4 enemy could have.
And since you brought up "less than 50%" in a way that suggest you believe that to be bad odds, I would point out that the odds of a character failing their reflex save and then also failing their fortitude save and thus the creature actually getting them affected by the poison are more than likely less than 50%
Let's use the worst case from my own party as an example: Reflex +4, Fortitude +8. 80% chance he fails the Reflex save and has to make the Fortitude save, but only a 60% chance he fails the Fortitude save, so the overall chance of 48% that the poison affects him.
2-3 times per turn. Not to mention that the character is probably already down from the 18-27 average Damage that he already took just from the Attacks.
Couple that with the fact that the party had no AoE or Splash damage, and that the previous encounter had already left them with below max HP, even after Treating Wounds.
That's the biggest problem with EC. None of the encounters by themselves would be deadly, but the first 2 Chapters especially have encounter after encounter after encounter, with no time for an 8 hour rest in between.
The first Chapter alone has 3 Low, 7 Moderate, and 1 Severe encounters back to back.
Unless you tell the party ahead of time "hey, you're going to have 11 fights in a row with no rest, so don't use any limited use abilities until the 5th or 6th fight", any party is screwed. Even then, unless you add a time bending 8 hour rest in there, it's gonna be a bad time.
Compare that to AoA, where you can rest pretty much any time you feel like it. Heck, the hexploration portion forces you to have no more than 1 encounter per day. It's basically a lazy jog.
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Why does it sound like you all are getting GMs who only go after the tank?
I mean I remember one person said they run low Int creatures less strategically. But from the discussions on that Strategy is a mix of Int and Wisdom.
I am not saying all of your experiences are bad. But I am curious how much of it comes down to how the GM runs things.
(Ex: Its very easy to hit and kill the casters, which are often the healers.)
Parties should use good positioning, and squishier characters (like casters) can often operate from range.
Bad guys using 1-2 actions to get to the non-frontline characters aren't using those actions to cause harm either.
The best defense for squishy characters is, and always has been, making sure you are in a position that is "inconvenient" to be attacked in. Its a strategy that requires finesse for sure, but if a GM starts lusting for caster blood, then it becomes a valid strategy to drain actions by making them work for it.
Which is beside the fact that classes like Champions can straight neuter incoming damage against party members, and Fighters/AOO users can use the opportunity to end the fight quicker through increased damage.
Not every creature is a melee creature.
I mean, aren't the majority?
But, in the interest of addressing that concern...
Actual ranged attackers have to deal with concerns like cover, which massively effects incoming ranged damage. Like, more than shields in many cases.
Spellcasters are equally threatening to everyone, but spellcasters are action intensive and therefore extremely subject to action denial, and status effects that modify their DCs or cause them to gain failure chances.
Breath Weapons are such are almost explicitly positioning challenges.
It's definitely true that not every creature is a melee creature. And true that not every encounters will start with enemies in only one direction. And true that not every area has existing chokepoints that can be used to hold enemies at bay.
Sturdy front line characters that are actively working to protect squished allies can still definitely accomplish it pretty well in a lot of circumstances, though. Simultaneous exceptions to every viable strategy aren't going to be found that often, unless you sit down as a GM with the intent of constructing them deliberately.
Monsters only attacking the champion isn't the only way they help survivability. The champion reactions, which end up being useful against a lot of enemies when the party minds their positioning (especially since most enemies the party encounters will have no reason to know about those reactions and their precise position requirements in advance), are no joke.
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Why does it sound like you all are getting GMs who only go after the tank?
I mean I remember one person said they run low Int creatures less strategically. But from the discussions on that Strategy is a mix of Int and Wisdom.
I am not saying all of your experiences are bad. But I am curious how much of it comes down to how the GM runs things.
(Ex: Its very easy to hit and kill the casters, which are often the healers.)
As a player of healers in PvP MMORPG's since the dawn of PvP MMORPG's I find it an established fact that the good healer is the alive healer, not the one that puts out more healing or can heal longer.
Minding this I always build my healers as hard to take down as possible in addition to trying to use supreme positioning. If you are easy to threaten or kill as the party healer and the opposition can do so effortlessly you failed your job.
Do not neglect CON at character creation, take feats like Toughness and Canny Acumen (Reflex for Cleric), and multiclass into Champion for maximum static defenses (HP, saves, AC). Will this mean that you might be weaker on the offense? Most certainly. But it also means that you can at least hold your own, greatly reliefing your martials from having to baby-sit you constantly.
If they do come for you nonetheless you make them suffer, because it is usually them who need to waste actions while you can just concentrate on defense with your unthreatend damage dealers causing havoc. Last time my GM tried to go for my Warpriest I just healed the damage the monster caused, raised my shield, smiled and said to my team: "Free flanking at my position". And oh boy, a Maul using Barbarian attacking at +3/-2 due to flanking and Bless can dish out some serious damage.
Disclaimer: Do not use your static defenses as your only means of protection. A good defense relies at least as much on spell usage and superior positioning. However if your static defenses are good to begin with that is a very good start.
EC has been pretty rough so far. But that party is entirely new to the system and one of them built a sorcerer with 10 dex and con.
Converted Ironfang Invasion hasn't been especially rough. A few climatic boss battles were harrowing, but ultimately fine. We had a fight with an APL+3 boss which mostly consisted of the Champion desperately healing himself and his mount in a midair battle, but it gave the ranged characters room to unload on the thing and win the day and no one actually dropped. The cleric would have critically failed a Finger of Death save and died, but we realized the Oracle's Dazzling Flash had given the cleric concealment, and it turned the spell into a miss.
Age of Ashes... My party has been low on healing and damage mitigation, so someone gets knocked into the red but not out pretty often. When they have been able to plan for encounters thanks to good scouting, they tend to roll things pretty easily.
There is only so much that strategy can do.
I hear this all the time in regards to Xcom2. People complain about how big of an impact random chance has and how 98% shots miss and they need to reload all the time.
Yet I have done ironman runs of it with only 1-2 soldier deaths (ironman is where there is no saving and reloading, it saves after every action and if you die that is it.
Planning for things that can go wrong, having escape options, knowing how to protect those who need to be protected when they need protecting and how to properly ration AND USE limited resources (people who hoard or only get abilities that provide static always on benefits tend to hurt themselves with their conservative approach imo).
Luck or unexpected scenarios can bite you in the backside, but in reality how many campaigns have the players being without agency or direction?
The skull shooting beam after beam will really mess up an unprepared team or anyone who just sits in the room and lets it do it. But it is unlikely to do so becauss any one even remotely paying attention will just move back into the room from before and either bring the fight to them or harry the foes from where they can take "take cover" actions by the door.
A simple tactic that dramatically changes the fight and can be done without any character specific abilities at all.