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The witch I GM for has had her fair share of heroics, primarily with Slow and Lightning Bolt. Slow singlehandedly won them an encounter, and she really enjoys being the party's primary blaster.
I guess it also depends on your view of what heroic is. The cleric I GM for absolutely loves throwing around fat heals every which way.
Hi y'all,
My primary gaming group plays PF1. We love it for many reasons but, like many others, we don't love the action economy system and some of the imbalances that have developed over time with the many splat books. Since PF2's release, I have had the opportunity to play as a PC in a total of approximately a dozen sessions with a separate side group (level 1 and level 10 scenarios from Plaguestone and AoA). I've also DM'd a 5th level homebrew scenario with that same group to get a feel for what it's like on the other side of the screen. In general, I am very happy with many aspects of the new system, especially the action economy, the critical hit/spell result system, PC build-flexibility, and ease of teaching/learning the rules. I could see my main group converting to PF2 for these reasons and others.
Having said that...
Something about all of these sessions has felt 'off' and I only today figured out what it was: none of the spellcasters have had moments when they felt 'heroic'. That is, unlike the martial PCs who have their fair share of critical hits that do excellent damage and sometimes finish of the Baddie or change the tide of the battle in a single Strike, the spellcasters (especially wizards and clerics) simply haven't had any such sudden impacts. Yes, the spellcasters have done some different, creative, interesting things but overall, they seem to be seem to be moderate damage, 'support', or 'cool, I gave the Baddie a status 1 thingy'. In general, spellcasters have felt like adventurers, not heroes. I think the Critical Failure effects of spell DCs has the makings of the possibility of feeling more heroic but we never had that happen in any of the sessions.
So I wanted to hear from the broader, more experienced PF2 community about their opinion/experience. Am I missing something about spellcasters? Have our spellcasters simply had bad luck with rolls in comparison to the martials? Do I need to define being heroic as something very different for martials and...
To be fair, it can boil down to preparedness and those "just-in-case" moments.
I've saved lives as a Wizard thanks to having a pair of Healer's Gloves equipped. I've also stopped enemies from escaping via See Invisibility, and was able to scout an enemy encampment from a safe distance via Prying Eye. Utilizing certain spells that are effective against enemies, or are just universally useful (like Magic Missiles) are going to probably be the best ways for a spellcaster to be the "Hero."
That being said, I do agree that spellcasters needing to, more often than not, require the bad guys to roll horribly, to be cool and effective, gives the illusory detractment of heroism.
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As others pointed out, like the question of what constitutes fun in a game, what constitutes a heroic experience will wildly vary from group to group. For most people heroics might include succeeding on something that was most likely to fail but was risked anyway, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat or largely contributing to the group effort, ideally single-handedly.
Having said so here my own personal experience. Our group is consisting of a a dwarven axe and shield fighter, a half-elf Spirit Barbarian using a Maul, a human precision Ranger with a vicious hunting dog, a gnome Universalist Wizard and a human Warpriest of Sarenrae. We are currently in the midst of volume 2 of the Age of Ashes campaign, our party level is 7 and I am playing the Warpriest.
Going through my impression of the characters and their heroics, rating from A to F:
a) The Barbarian is the latest addition to our group, joining at the start of volume 2 when our party Rogue left due to personal reasons. He is fully covering his job as the party heavy hitter, zooming across the battlefield and dealing out spectacular regular, and even more spectacular critical hits. Heroic rating so far: a more than solid B.
b) The Ranger alternates in between bow, guisarme and/or commanding his dog and already had several opportunities to shine, rollling crits when needed most and/or hitting with special ammunition when it really mattered. Being able to switch in between ranged and melee character as the setting demands is quite epic. Heroic rating so far: a clear A.
c) The Fighter is the "silent killer" of our group. Though not dealing spectacular damage like the Barbarian oh boy does he hit. In retrospect I think that most of our weapon damage was done by our Fighter in a slow but steady wins the race fashion. Is somewhat held back by his lack of mobility and ranged options. Heroic rating so far: a B trending towards A.
d) The Wizard is probably the best roleplayer in our group and the groups go-to character when is comes to knowledge skills, crafting and identifying magic, however when it comes to heroics has done very poor so far. The reason for this is a mix of wrong spell selection, wrong spell preparation, extremely conservative casting even in 1 encounter per day situations and our GM rolling really, really good on spell saves. Had one situation to shine so far when he produced a scroll out of nowhere and reversed a situation that probably made my overextended Warpriests day. Nontheless I would rate his heroic performance so far only as a D with tendencies to F even as he also is the one that gets knocked out more than the other characters.
e) Lastly my Warpriest. Build as a pure support character from the very start already had his moments of glory, usually when there is nobody to heal, no condition to remove, no buff or debuff to apply and when switching to damage dealing. Most respected character within the group because everybody knows that I will have their back at any time and can also up my game if I need to. More of a workhorse character like the fighter he is missing the means (to-hit respectively spell DC) to really shine on a regular basis. Heroic Rating: A solid C with tendencies towards B.
So from what I have seen during our low level adventures so far, casters indeed seem to have it a little harder to have their personal heroic moment, however please note that those moments are far from being impossible or even improbable.
Also note that PF2 as a whole is a lot less single character "heroic" than PF1 was. Ending the BBG with a big spell or attack and a one-liner like in a movie is almost impossible. PF2 is a lot more gritty than its predecessor was, so think of the transition of before Christopher Nolan Batman and after. Nonetheless you can be heroic as a group if you mind that in PF2 every victory is probably payed in blood, sweat and tears.
Building on what's already been said:
Teamwork is incredibly important in PF2. And the GM can really help this (and help casters feel more useful) by emphasizing when a bonus or penalty from another player made the difference. My group does this very purposely - the fighter just barely crits instead of hitting, we praise the bard for the status bonus that pushed that roll over the edge to crit. Or a monster's turn comes up and the wizard put Slow on him, as GM I say "Well, let's see, he can't use this power because it takes 3 actions, I guess he'll..."
Another thing to consider is whether you're facing mostly above-PC-level foes, or just below-PC-level. It makes a huge difference, especially for the wizard. Age of Ashes has a LOT of fights against foes that are one to three levels higher than the PCs, and the wizard in our group would get pretty frustrated. When we had fights against same-level or just-below-PC-level foes, the wizard got to do some true heroics. (I've heard that Extinction Curse balances this better in that regard.)
PF2 really rewards planning and intelligence-gathering, but this falls into an area that's mostly under control of the GM. Set up a situation where the wizard can use Prying Eye to scout a location, then have the PCs go in the next day to clean the place out, already knowing most of what's going on there - it makes the players feel really powerful. I try to be extra-generous on what PCs can learn from knowledge rolls (when encountering new monsters) and what they can learn from researching a place or a group of foes before they go to confront them, and it makes a world of difference in how my group feels about the way the game plays.
As for healing, my group has two PCs capable of in-combat healing (cleric and bard), so they can split that responsibility and still get to do cool stuff of their own, most of the time. As a GM, hand out extra healing potions and elixirs of life every so often, so the melee types can take care of themselves when they need to. And be generous with between-encounter time to rest (any time there's not an obvious rush), so Treat Wounds can be available most of the time.
I've had a few heroic moments at higher level, not much at lower level. Low level casters feel pretty terrible. If you get some bad saving throw rolls on an AoE spell, you can really hammer.
My bard blew off his wand of vampiric exsangination and the main BBEG rolled a 1 critically failing, I did 104 damage to her along a few hundred damage spread among her henchmen. Then had a nice big pool of 52 temporary hit points that gave me a nice buffer.
I had the same happen with a phantasmal calamity against a group of mooks. Stunned the crap out of a few of them.
My bard has really turned the tide of battle with Inspire Heroics combined with Dirge of Doom or Inspire Defense along with haste here or there.
You get more heroic as a caster as you rise in level. But it is sure tough getting there for sure. Martials tend to do tons of damage almost from level 1. Whereas casters build slow until they get to start landing some big AoE hits and effects.
It takes some time and some lucky or unlucky rolls.
Jumping from low level to high level as a caster can be a little tricky because you don't really get to feel out your spell list and see how your different level spells can work together. It can be easy to end up just picking some random spells that sound cool, but that you haven't learned how to get them best to stick yet, and pass up some spells that are better than they look on paper. I think if you keep playing you'll start to get a better feel for your wizard.
Personally, I've been pretty impressed with spell casters early on. At level 1, they don't have much I suppose, but cantrips can do better damage than a short bow and magic missile is really nice for clinching wins in tough fights. By third level, things like Invisibility come into play which redefine how certain issues are approached, and Dispel Magic just straight up one shots certain encounters.
By level 5, fireball and lightning bolt let you start really blowing stuff up. We just finished Age of Ashes book 2, and while the martials did tons of damage, I think the draconic sorcerer had the biggest impact between shutting down hazards and wiping out creatures. I'd call him the clear MVP, but the Ranger did a really good job of scouting and providing intel to let those spells be applied well.
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Darksol,
The examples you cite seem in line with the types of things our spellcasters were doing.
"That being said, I do agree that spellcasters needing to, more often than not, require the bad guys to roll horribly, to be cool and effective gives the illusory detractment of heroism."
Your phrasing, "illusory detractment', seems to imply you feel linking heroism in any way to the critical failure results for spells is not a great idea? I'm not sure I disagree but I wanted to make sure I was understanding your sentence properly.
And a lot of times those things are more important than people realize. Similarly, have had some effects backfire on us, so it requires careful planning and application.
Pretty much. In short, because the player isn't rolling for the critical and instead the bad guy is rolling for failure, it creates and focuses on the impression that the bad guy screwed up instead of the player being awesome.
Compare a Fighter. He rolls an 18 with ridiculous to-hit, meaning he critically hits the bad guy for some crazy damage with his D12 Power Attack. This can be combined with using Felling Strike to bring a bad guy to the ground. Or using Sudden Leap to traverse an almost impassable obstacle to beat the enemy's face in.
What does a Wizard do? "I cast magic missiles because anything else I got is junk, and I'm basically hoping the Fighters can hit on a 15+ with their first attack." While important, it sounds boring. "I cast Cone of Cold on the Red Dragon and hope he critically fails his reflex save so I can beat his face in." Again, not very heroic because, while this is a solid tactic, the Red Dragon may very well have protections in place (like Resist Energy), he may have good Reflex Saves, or he may just roll good and trounce what could be an awesome move and turn it into "Meh, whatever."
Yes, martials have bad rolls, but the difference is that the success/failure hinges on the bad guy's rolls and not the player's rolls, which creates the negative diatribe that spellcasters face compared to martials.
I've had a few heroic moments at higher level, not much at lower level. Low level casters feel pretty terrible. If you get some bad saving throw rolls on an AoE spell, you can really hammer.
My bard blew off his wand of vampiric exsangination and the main BBEG rolled a 1 critically failing, I did 104 damage to her along a few hundred damage spread among her henchmen. Then had a nice big pool of 52 temporary hit points that gave me a nice buffer.
I had the same happen with a phantasmal calamity against a group of mooks. Stunned the crap out of a few of them.
My bard has really turned the tide of battle with Inspire Heroics combined with Dirge of Doom or Inspire Defense along with haste here or there.
You get more heroic as a caster as you rise in level. But it is sure tough getting there for sure. Martials tend to do tons of damage almost from level 1. Whereas casters build slow until they get to start landing some big AoE hits and effects.
It takes some time and some lucky or unlucky rolls.
Thanks for the reply and highlights. Obviously, the massive damage scenario is always a blast (pun intended!) but the versatility of the bard seems intriguing.
You're experience of becoming more heroic at higher levels gives me hope because my experience with the 10th level wizard didn't go so well, lol. I don't think I've played enough to have a pool of experiences where the Baddie rolled a 1 on my spell and I got watch it get whooped a little.
I also recommend remembering the following which when I first played a caster I was thinking more like PF1 than PF2:
1. Conditions: Frightened, Clumsy, and Sickness all reduce all DCs and checks including AC, saving throws, attack rolls, and the like. So when you hit someone with frightened 2 or clumsy 2 or something, their AC drops by 2 making them easier to crit and hit as well as lowering their saving throws.
2. Not many things can see through invisibility, so a 4th level invis is actually a really good defense for you.
3. Read the little details of a spell. A spell like illusory foe let's you set up flanks and deal moderate damage for a single action sustain. Remember unless the spell specifies you can sustain a spell multiple time per round.
It's good to use some kind of sustain damage spell mixed with a combination of cantrips and attack spells.
4. Reducing action spells are pretty nice. Don't forget you can cast haste on yourself. It doesn't make you cast a 2nd spell, but it allows you to remain more mobile while casting. And if you have a weapon like a bow you can always take a shot while casting with the haste action.
It's very important in PF2 that you start adjusting how you think about spell value and what is useful versus PF1 or even 5E. There are subtle casting tactics that are highly effective in PF2 that were just ok in PF1.
And if your wizard dies, I recommend trying a druid. They are a good class with a lot of action economy and variation. You can build a real nice blaster as a druid.
Regarding your experience with your cleric: How often do you find yourself camped next to the fighters and healing every round? I ask because a) that is often the life of a cleric in PF1 and b) that was the experience in a number of the PF2 scenarios we ran (to be fair, we were running a lot more combat encounters than we were role-playing and story scenarios due to running these sort of 'one shots' vs a campaign.)
First of all let me dive a little into a part of the game mechanics, especially when it comes to damage and healing.
In PF2 there are a couple of ways to deal with incomming damage.
1) Mitigation
1.1) Mitigation by tactical gameplay
That is if an enemy is not in reach or does not have the actions available to deal damage. A BBG that is prone, slowed and out of reach will probably have a hard time dealing damage to you on his turn. Needs to be minded by every member of the party to be fully effective, i.e. everone needs to do his part.
1.2) Mitigation by static defenses
Static defenses like AC and saves only get you so far. In PF2 you will get hit by spells and atttacks. Alot. However your static defenses mostly determine how often and how hard you will get hit. Static defenses hugely rely on character build, equipment and buffs.
1.3) Mitigation by spells or abilities
Spells like Blur, Obscuring Mist or feats like Champion's Reaction or Shield Block can help to further reduce incomming damage.
2) Healing
The easiest one. If you get more healing than damage then obviously you are going to pull through.
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Having said all this having a Cleric in your party and managing damage via 2) is probably the most convenient but not the only way of managing incomming damage.
There are enough groups out there without a Cleric who do entirely fine just by contentrating their effords on 1). Playing the tactical game, managing you build and having allies like a Champion greatly help withering incomming damage.
Finally comming back to your original question: Yes, especially in difficult battles I spend a lot of time spamming Heal at our martials, however this often is the case because they know that if in doubt I will be spamming Heal on them. So instead of concentrating on mitigation by e.g. super tactical gameplay they often do take risks or conduct other shenanigans. So part of the reason I do spam Heal alot is that I can spam Heal alot. In a party without a Cleric they would need to play entirely different or easily risk TPK.
Apart from that I want to add that @Liegance gave you a good example of how an offensive and melee orientated Warpriest might look like. My Warpriest build however is a defensive orientated caster Warpriest, which means that I did not entirely dump Wisdom, as I am still operating on spells mostly, not melee, and I need that Wisdom to boost the DC's of all my buffs and attack spells and to help me counteract all sorts of ailments that might afflict my party. My concept was to create a tough as nails support Cleric and after comparing options - Cloistered Cleric with Champion dedication or Warpriest - I decided to roll with the later.
IMO, it's not as much a Spellcasters aren't "Heroic" as much as no one is in PF2e? The game is more constrained and stable in general, it's just abit more noticable with casters because a lot of things that were big and impactful got moved into crit failures so you can see the things that you could be doing but basically never will, while with martials you don't have it shoved in your face.
I will say heroic feels like the wrong word for what is being discussed though.
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Do people really never experience critical failures/success with their spell casting? Our sorcerer seemed to land one at least once a session, but she was never very conservative with her spells, so maybe she just got the numbers on her side.
Do people really never experience critical failures/success with their spell casting? Our sorcerer seemed to land one at least once a session, but she was never very conservative with her spells, so maybe she just got the numbers on her side.
Yes this is a numbers game, which is one of the reasons I am quite confident that our Wizard will be able to shine eventually.
Our current experience about critical failures is more like this: Fireballing 3 on-level enemies with moderate to weak reflex saves, two of which are fresh and one is near death because he already got hit by other attacks. Near dead one critically fails and gets obliterated instead of just being plain dead. One of the fresh ones makes his save for half damage, the other one critically saves for no damage.
Interestingly, all the accounts of "I had my fair share of heroic moments" in this thread are comming from either sorcerers (or people that have sorcerers in their party) or bards (or people that have bards in their party) both of which are spontaneus casters who - if need be - can easily phish for failure effects. For example, just spam Slow on the BBG until it sticks.
Also, when talking about great boss spells, lets not forget Hideous Laughter.
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Okay, I'll bite. I'm playing a cloistered cleric of Cernunnos in Age of Ashes. It's swell.
I'm a gnome, I can talk to animals, I have a longbow, I have social skills and I have magic. I managed to keep up with the fighter in an epic hot-pepper eating contest (Deception helped cover several diiiifficult fortitude checks). Talking to animals defused several potential fights, and set a dino loose on our enemies later on.
But you wanna know about how magic makes me feel heroic? Well there's the obvious use of Heal to keep the rest of the party in the fight if they faceplant, or if they're getting to the point where they may retreat. But while useful, that's not the most special thing in the world.
Last session we played what would technically be a triple-Severe encounter because there was a monster we absolutely didn't want to fight in melee, but kiting it triggered some more encounters. So we ended up doing three fights simultaneously. In terrain that was supposed to make it grueling for us (deep bog). However, I'd said Nope and given the whole party water walk. We managed to win the fight without ever getting in major danger because we had all the mobility.
We had a wizard in the party who consistently managed to suppress magical traps long enough that they couldn't bother us in combat. Nice, when all the maps are conveniently drawn so that just being in the encounter puts you in range of the hazard.
Sometimes I have the wrong spells prepared, or I'm saving up a spell for a monster I'm worried will pop up later. But it feels really good when a demon pops up and you can say Haha! I have searing light and holy cascade at the ready!
It's also hilarious when an enemy comes in to try to attack the squishies in the back and you can pull out the vampiric touches - would you like to make a donation?
Cernunnos gives me lightning bolt, and sometimes an encounter just opens up with a perfect line of enemies. Other times I have crisis of faith or vampiric touch or searing light or holy cascade or divine wrath. And sometimes it's easiest to just tell the fighter to go air walk and take care of business.
Prepared casting means I have to guess what answers I'm gonna need, but when I guess right and I have all the right answers, it feels really good.
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Yeah, I play a level 5 goblin Cloistered Cleric of Ketephys. I took the animal trainer archetype and I have way too many things I can do every action. I have a longbow that is a decent ranged attack once a round. I have an animal companion (hyena reskinned as a goblin dog) that is more effective at attacking up close than I am. I can talk to animals at all times, turn invisible, see through the eyes of animals, and unleash endless amounts of healing. Also I have a pack of goblin dogs that I have trained enough to be able to ride for excellent overland mobility. I have 10 Trained skills and 2 Expert skills (nature and diplomacy) If my longbow could be a shortbow, I would feel nearly unstoppable, but I am a cloistered cleric after all, so I shouldn't be able to do everything. At level 5, I have not been feeling the hurt of "bad" proficiencies at all, but everyone assures me that is coming, but really my character is the best scout and information gatherer by far because of the talking to animals and being able to see through their eyes, and being able to do all of that and heal all day, and my character feels heroic all the time. Magic is awesome.
Do people really never experience critical failures/success with their spell casting? Our sorcerer seemed to land one at least once a session, but she was never very conservative with her spells, so maybe she just got the numbers on her side.
As a primary GM, I note these more than the players do in some ways - I'm in a position to note the trends, and observe how things go over time.
And I see significant numbers of times where things go the players way, and spells deal explosive loads of damage or utterly cripple a target. Even incapacitation spells which are cast hoping for an effect from the failure > success range of results occassionally land a critical failure, and the failure results of these spells tend to be catastrophic for the sorts of foes that are "beyond" your top level slots with incap traits.
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@Liegence: I would say that there are adjacent concepts at work.
On the one hand you have taking big risks, making a stand, staying when it looks safer to leave, doing the long shot roll etc.; on the other hand you have taking actions with big effects, like a spell that changes the combat dynamic, a critical hit taking out a monster and so forth.
Those things aren't the same, but it tends to be especially sweet when they go hand in hand. I think we feel especially heroic if we take a risk making another attack at long odds and low HP, and get a crit that kills the monster just before it can kill us.
Definition game, I guess. Heroic could mean that. It could also mean legendary/godlike. Superman isn't heroic like you said usually because he can just fly around the world and turn back time erasing any of his consequences. But he's powerful, epic.
One thing PF1 was very good at was making you fight very easy monsters but stating it was tough ones. Like when the party obliterates a level +3 monster that had actually no chance at all. Was it a level +3 monster or a level -2 monster disguised as a level +3 monster?
But in PF2, when people speak of just reducing the difficulty to get PF1 feeling, players are not happy because they know these are level -2 monsters. What should have been just a question of difficulty setting becomes an issue because of player knowledge.
But, anyway, Paizo should release Mythic rules, giving so much power you can obliterate level +3 monsters with ease. So people can feel epic :D
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I like feeling powerful and independent.
I think this statement hits on another of my early feelings about the game; it feels like it's built intentionally towards teamwork or the tighter numbers system naturally encourages/demands more teamwork. Is this true? I'm not judging this as good or bad, I'm just wondering (I actually might prefer this in a way, not sure). If it is the case, then having a PC that feels more powerful and independent will depend more on the campaign design than the pure PC design.
It is absolutely the case that PF 2 is designed for team play over independance. If you're idea of being heroic is being independant, then it's going to be a struggle to make that work.
That said, there are options.
First, higher levels bring resources and options that help here. While the math remains kind of static, your ability to influence the game world does not.
Second, certain classes support this better than others. Fighters especially work well as a centerpoint around which a group can function. Champions also can function somewhat independantly, as they bring all their mitigation and healing inside their own kit. A Champion with a Speed season can easily choose to hold a flank against a comparable enemy and win on his own.
But in general, it's worth keeping in mind that being independent is never optimal. Team play will always win out in PF2.
I’m pretty sure CR was assigned considering 15 point buy, non-optimal gearing etc.
That's assuming a neutral party behind design. CR was as related to Resources spent as actual difficulty, meaning GMs could easily make monsters and NPC's whose CR was utterly unrelated to their actual difficulty.
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Corwin Icewolf, absolutely no offense to your preferred play style, but I can't even imagine a game where a solo character can be built with the basic rules and do everything they need to survive as an adventurer, and still have a game that presents a fun challenge for a group of players building characters by those same rules. The solo hero feels a lot more like the prevue of a video game than a collaborative role playing game.