The problem with archetypes

[smrtgmp]

If I start wizard, and archetype into fighter, and spend every single feat on fighter feats, I will never be as good with a weapon as someone who started as a fighter and spent every single feat on other archetypes.

Feat investment should matter more than a 1st level choice.

[ExOichoThrow]

Being a wizard/fighter means you have full spell progression and semi decent martial capability. Why on earth should you ever be as good as a fighter with full spell progression and the biget spell list?

[PawnJJ]

Your problem isn't with archetypes. It's with the fact that Pathfinder is a class based system.

[Seisho]

I agree there should be more possibilities to rais your prophiciency

but if you want to be good at hitting people, you should start with a class that is good at hitting people and not with a class that professionally sparkles

[thenobledrake]

Wanting to be as good at the part of the class you care about as a full-class character of that type while still being a different class too is the most basic kind of wanting something that is too good to be true.

There'd be no point to playing a single-classed character if you could get all the best stuff from multiple classes instead.

Also, it's not quite just "a 1st level choice" - yes, you did just choose once, but you weren't choosing one thing. You chose the entire list of class features, and that list of features happens to be equivalent to the number of class feats you get to choose to spend on archetypes if you want to plus a few extra - counting up wizard features that aren't the things every class gets (ancestry feats, skill feats, general feats, and ability boosts) the wizard class has 24 features (16 if you decide to count Arcane Spellcasting but not also count each additional level of spells as it's own feat-value item).

Compare that to the 10 wizard feats you get that you could spend on archetypes, and it should be clear why you aren't as much a fighter as you are a wizard nor as much of a fighter as someone gets to be should they choose the option that gets them like ~15 fighter things and 11 things they can choose "more fighter" or "another class" with.

[DrakoVongola1]

That's not a bug, it's a feature. why would anyone ever play a Fighter if they can get full Fighter proficiency AND full 10th level magic just through multiclassing?

[Reticent]

Really, if you at some point in your character's career find that you've abandoned spell casting to smack things around with simple tools, just ask your GM for permission to rebuild your character as a Fighter with a few spell casting feats.

Not everything that can happen with a character in a campaign needs to be covered by an explicit rule.

[pauljathome]

thenobledrake wrote:

Wanting to be as good at the part of the class you care about as a full-class character of that type while still being a different class too is the most basic kind of wanting something that is too good to be true.

I'll start by stating that I basically agree with you, and the OP wants far, far too much.

But you're overstating things. Depending on what you want from a class it currently IS possible to be as good (or nearly) as the full class character, at least for some levels.

For example, a ftr multiclassed into druid is a better wild shaper than a druid for quite a few levels. If all you want from a monk is flurry of blows or all you want from a bard is inspire courage then at high enough levels you can get that. The beastmaster let's any class be competitive with a druid for a pet. Etc.

Now, wanting to combine full spell casting with full martial power, or with full sneak attack, etc IS way too much. With a few exceptions (witch and hex springing to mind) I think Paizo has generally done an excellent job of deciding what can be picked up by archetypes and what can't. Your original class decision completely dominates your build and the game is the better because of it.

[Saedar]

If you want to be two full classes, the Dual Class variant is there. Knock yourself out.

[QuidEst]

We're getting Magus, for all your "being good at Fighter and Wizard" needs.

[Martialmasters]

I agree and along agree with you op.

Yes it would be nice is you could make an effective Gish in this edition.

Being able to voluntarily reduce your spell casting while buffing your martial prowess is a nuance I actually enjoyed with multicassing in DND 5e.

I could go bladesinger wizard and voluntarily cut off my maximum spell level progression and instead of arcane trickster rogue gaining greater martial prowess and gaining more low level spell options at the expense of the power and utility of higher level spells.

You can't do that in 2e currently Wich is annoying.

I miss half casters.

[Reticent]

Caster based gishes can't advance their proficiency with archetypes, but they can stack feats that let them avoid MAP on attack actions. It's accuracy by other means.

[gnoams]

I agree, class based games are not my favorite style of rpg. Given the choice, I play something like hero system or wod. The problem is inherent in any class based game. To play a character other than one the designers wrote, you would have to write your own class.

[Mathmuse]

My daughter teased that I am a compulsive multiclasser. In one D&D game beside her I played a cleric 10/wizard 1/arcane archer 2. In a Iron Kingdoms game, I had a cleric 6/rogue 2/ranger 2. I was aiming for Exemplar prestige class, but the game ended before I reached it. My 1st Pathfinder character in a demo game never leveled up, but my 2nd Pathfinder character was a ranger 5/monk 3. I retired him when I took over as GM, but he made a cameo appearance and had added wizard to his classes.

Gamemastering did not stop my multiclassing habit. In the Jade Regent adventure path, I replaced Ameiko Kaijitsu (aristocrat 1/bard 3/rogue 1) with her half-sister Amaya. I built her as expert 1/fighter 1, because that made her a good martial-support NPC party member who would not steal the spotlight. When the cleric left the party (the player's wife birthed their first child), Amaya multiclassed to oracle to become the new party healer.

I told my daughter that Val Baine, NPC bloodrager party member in my Iron Gods campaign, kept to a single class for all 17 levels. She asked, "And how many archetypes does she have?" Val had two PF1 archetypes, one which I homebrewed to make Val an effective assistant to all the PCs and enhance their glory rather than hers. My wife wanted to play a dwarven gadgeteer in that campaign, and Pathfinder lacks that class, so we cobbled the character concept together via Gunslinger with the gnomish Experimental Gunsmith archetype, multiclassing two rogue levels, and a lot of technologist feats.

Now in Pathfinder 2nd Edition, the Gamemastery Guide provides advice on how I can homebrew creatures from scratch, mixing and matching abilities as appropriate for the creature concept and challenge level. In contrast, PF2 removed the mix-and-match of class levels and ability-replacing archetypes from the player characters. The Advanced Player's Guide would have been the perfect place to restore the ability-replacing archetypes. Instead, it introduced a few new specializations, such as Superstition Instinct for barbarian and Mastermind Racket for rogue, and more non-multiclass feat-based archetypes.

In my PF2 Ironfang Invasion campaign, a rogue multiclassed to sorcerer and a druid multiclassed to cleric. The rogue gained significant roleplaying from his new abilities, using Produce Flame and Telekinetic Projectiles as his primary attacks. The druid seemed mostly unchanged, though the player said the druid had more Heal spells from it. He has roleplayed the additional Green Faith edicts and anathema well.

I have seen players multiclass their characters to represent a new course in the characters life, such as the barbarian Sven multiclassing to cleric after the death of his sister. The archetype multiclassing prevents that, the character is stuck on the original course. The glassblower/fighter Amaya could never have become the party healer guided by her ancestors and destined to become an empress. Well, in FP1 I once let a player rebuild his magus as an arcanist with a magus-like archetype at higher levels, so I can let my players' characters change by being rebuilt from the ground up.

[The-Magic-Sword]

Reticent wrote:

Caster based gishes can't advance their proficiency with archetypes, but they can stack feats that let them avoid MAP on attack actions. It's accuracy by other means.

This is a good point in general and its really key to understanding gishes in Pathfinder 2e.

Whenever anyone attacks, by default your first strike is at full bonus, your second strike is at -5, and your third attack is at -10, that applies to every class in the game.

Now when the best you get is expert, you are at -2, -3 if you can't flex your class stat away from mental (or just don't want to.)

Where this gets interesting, is that even when you're a full rank of proficiency behind, your first strike is still more likely to hit than a martial's second strike if the martial isn't Double Slicing or some such.

So the real situation is, you basically just don't want to melee strike more often than once per turn as a gish, the pattern was probably intended to be for you to drop a big saving throw spell, and then take a single swing as a third action. If its worth it to make that second swing after a first strike for a martial, taking your first swing is surely worth it for you.

But of course that's a caster gish, in other words, that's the choice you make when you explicitly want to focus on spellcasting, when you want to be a fighter with a little magic... you start with a martial and build out some spellcasting, and it plays a similarly reduced role in your build.

See the Magus Playtest next month for something probably designed to be a little more even split.

[smrtgmp]

I never claimed you should have everything that both classes get in full. I’m saying that 20 levels of feat investment should have more of an impact. It also strikes me as odd that multiclassing into fighter never makes me any better with my weapons. It just gives me access to more weapons.

A fighter/wizard can eventually increase their spell proficiency to master.

A wizard/fighter can never increase their weapon proficiency beyond that provided by the base class.

The discrepancy between the two is my problem.

[Squiggit]

PF2 is a lot of fun in a lot of ways, but it's really bad at letting you color outside the lines as it were.

But a lot of people seem to really enjoy that as evidenced by the responses so it is what it is.

[Reticent]

I don't think any of us have a problem with coloring outside the lines. It's just that the options are already pretty flexible, and getting better with the magus up shortly.

[PawnJJ]

smrtgmp wrote:

A fighter/wizard can eventually increase their spell proficiency to master.

A wizard/fighter can never increase their weapon proficiency beyond that provided by the base class.

The discrepancy between the two is my problem.

A Martial/Caster can eventually get their spell proficiency to one tier less a base caster.

A Caster/Martial will eventually get their weapon proficiency to one tier less than a martial (besides Fighter)

[Blave]

Not this again. Didn't we cover this topic like 20 times already...?

Anyway...

smrtgmp wrote:

It also strikes me as odd that multiclassing into fighter never makes me any better with my weapons. It just gives me access to more weapons.

It gives you access to martial weapons, which are objective better than simple weapons.

Quote:

A fighter/wizard can eventually increase their spell proficiency to master.

A wizard/fighter can never increase their weapon proficiency beyond that provided by the base class.

A Wizard/Fighter can gain up to a +3 item bonus to his weapon rolls. Not to mention that it's SIGNIFICANTLY easier to hit better with a weapon (buffs, flanking etc.) than to improve your odds at an enemy failing a save. That's why the caster dedications have to go to Master.

Also, you're talking about the fighter, who is all about hitting stuff reliably. Look at all other Marital classes who don't go past Master in weapons. Why would I ever want to play a ranger if I could get the same weapon proficiency AND 10th level spell if I go Wizard>Fighter?

[smrtgmp]

Yes, I’m talking about fighter, who is supposed to be able to hit stuff reliably. Yet the fighter archetype doesn’t increase your ability to hit reliably.

[Arakasius]

Because like Blave said why play a barbarian or ranger if you can get master to hit and have level ten spell casting? It’s not hard to see why they don’t give increased accuracy.

That being said I think there will eventually be class archetypes of clerics and wizards that do give master weapon accuracy but that will likely come with a downgrade in their casting prof as well as likely losing spells per level and capping at an earlier level of spells.

[PawnJJ]

smrtgmp wrote:

Yes, I’m talking about fighter, who is supposed to be able to hit stuff reliably. Yet the fighter archetype doesn’t increase your ability to hit reliably.

If we waved a magic wand and made you level 10 slot Wish spell a reality.

Then we'd have posts in this forum titled:

The Problem with Archetypes

If someone starts wizard and puts a couple feats in fighter archetype then he will hit just as well as my ranger/barbarian does.

Archetypes shouldn't invalidate my whole class

[Arakasius]

Aka the PF1 Wizard problem. Anyway it will be interesting to see if they do make magus a master to hit. Since it’s been said they’re going to be level nine caster I don’t think that will happen. They’ll probably balance them out with status/conditional bonuses and MAP effeciency. Or something like “+2 status bonus to attack on a turn when you cast a spell”.

[Salamileg]

Arakasius wrote:

Aka the PF1 Wizard problem. Anyway it will be interesting to see if they do make magus a master to hit. Since it’s been said they’re going to be level nine caster I don’t think that will happen. They’ll probably balance them out with status/conditional bonuses and MAP effeciency. Or something like “+2 status bonus to attack on a turn when you cast a spell”.

Level 9 caster, but only 2 slots per level. With that limitation I could see a master/master Magus, with master casting probably not coming until very high levels.

[Squiggit]

PawnJJ wrote:

Archetypes shouldn't invalidate my whole class

Don't think anyone said they should.

Frankly though, if there's no grey area between "you suck at this no matter how many feats you invest" and "completely invalidates my class" and those are the only two options, it sounds like there's something fundamentally broken that Paizo should try to fix.

[Arakasius]

Regular casters only get 3 anyway, so I don’t think losing one spell a level is enough really. Compare them to Warpriest for example. If that was what happened I would guess both master proficiencies would come in very late.

Basically you need to look at other master martials and see what happens if they take 5 spell caster feats and compare that to what a master/master Magus would look like. Just thinking of it I don’t think there is any way that balances out because the Magus has more spells still than the martial who blew 5 feats and still has their feats to increase their character. Thus I’m not expecting Magus to be master with weapons since they aren’t giving up enough.

[Arakasius]

Squiggit wrote:

PawnJJ wrote:

Archetypes shouldn't invalidate my whole class

Don't think anyone said they should.

Frankly though, if there's no grey area between "you suck at this no matter how many feats you invest" and "completely invalidates my class" and those are the only two options, it sounds like there's something fundamentally broken that Paizo should try to fix.

Yet that is what it is and ten years of pf1 showed how many classes wizards invalidated with their magic. Anyway I think there is a lack of proof on this “you suck at this” that’s being presented here. Yes casters get stuck at expert but they get 9th level spells. That is the balance. A martial can get some spells but to get to the higher ones it takes roughly half their class feats.

I agree with the argument there is a lack of path for a caster who is a good martial but has less casting ability. There is that for martials who can use half their feats for magic and get to it, but there is no path for someone who starts as a caster because so far there has been no level 4 or level 6 casters, just focus users. Regardless of the path the power level should end up at the same spot, but if level nine casters could get master weapon prof that would completely invalidate all the other martial users who cap at master themselves. Hence it’s not happening.

[Sporkedup]

Squiggit wrote:

PawnJJ wrote:

Archetypes shouldn't invalidate my whole class

Don't think anyone said they should.

Frankly though, if there's no grey area between "you suck at this no matter how many feats you invest" and "completely invalidates my class" and those are the only two options, it sounds like there's something fundamentally broken that Paizo should try to fix.

Since little in this game operates on these extremes, I think we're better off than you think.

Expert in weapons attacks, especially with some item investment, is the baseline, not bad.

But maybe that's just me.

[Temperans]

PF2 has problems meeting the half way point because they designed it that way.

The 4 (5 counting untrained) proficiency system has no middle ground. for someone that is okay but not the best. Then the fact that martial proficiency is capped at Master means there is very little that can help differentiate. Add in the fact that the +/-10 crit system demands everything be super tight makes it even harder to support differentiation.

In the end, its not one thing that causes the system to have problems, but the combination of everything.

[The Raven Black]

PF2 is far better than PF1 at providing viable multiclass. It pretty much excels at it.

PF1 is far better than PF2 at simulating a diverging career path like the one the OP described. PF2 just cannot give you this.

If you want your character to have good martial abilities and some spellcasting, you have to build a martial multiclassing in caster. Which means you could not start your adventuring career as a caster. And the formal rules for retraining will not help you either.

As previously mentioned, the best is to ask the GM for a rebuild.

For example, retrain all your Class A feats to multiclass in your new Class B, rebuild your PC as Class B with all your Class feats in Class A multiclass feats, then retrain those into Class B feats as desired.

Not though that you just cannot reach the 50/50 point this way either, as mentioned above.

The coming Magus playtest will be the first time PF2 gets the 50/50 kind of character.

[Staffan Johansson]

Temperans wrote:

The 4 (5 counting untrained) proficiency system has no middle ground. for someone that is okay but not the best. Then the fact that martial proficiency is capped at Master means there is very little that can help differentiate.

If you're the best at hitting things, you're a fighter and eventually end up Legendary in all weapons, and are Master with all and Legendary with a subset from level 13.

If you're pretty good but not the best, you're one of the other martial classes and hit Master at 13th level.

If you're so-so with weapons, you max out at Expert.

That said, martial excellence is not solely a matter of proficiency. Different classes also get class feats that make them better at different things. Fighters are generally the ones with the most in term of fighting techniques, rogues have a lot of dirty fighting and mobility, and so on. The magus could get master weapon proficiency but not much in the way of feat support for pure fighting, but that's risky. They could get that sort of stuff from an archetype instead.

[Exocist]

Magus could prob get master/master without too much issue, if it lacks a damage steroid like every non-fighter martial does (Ranger with hunter’s edge, barbarian rage, investigator studied strike, swash panache, rogue sneak attack) or a higher tier of armour proficiency (monk, champion).

Master weapons is actually the baseline starting at level 14 - it’s very apparent when checking to hit bonus against AC guidelines that there is a drop in hit chance at level 12 and 14 (by 5% each). If you do not get master weapons, this is never made up.

That being said, I think Magus would still have to lose a number of things relative to a fullcaster for it to be balanced around fullcaster options. 2 slots/level, slower casting progression (somewhere between full and MC), slower proficiency progression with casting (Expert 9, master 17 e.g.) are all examples of things it could trade out for better weapon use.

[Arakasius]

There is a risk to making one class the best chassis for proficiencies. You get the balance wrong and then magus will become the clear best choice for non fighter martials. Unless they truly gut the class of innate features it’s hard to see them doing that, especially when things can be picked up from archetyping into other classes. I would expect them to want to give the class more abilities and such to do things with at the expense of proficiencies that likely match the Warpriest.

[Vidmaster7]

I think the way to go is to give them a bunch of unique class feats that seamlessly combine magic and martial say like a teleporting strike, Or a blow that fireballs adjacent enemies. Which I suppose most of that is simply spell strike but Paizo has some creative guys im sure they could think of other cool things like that.

[Draco18s]

Mathmuse wrote:

My daughter teased that I am a compulsive multiclasser. In one D&D game beside her I played a cleric 10/wizard 1/arcane archer 2. In a Iron Kingdoms game, I had a cleric 6/rogue 2/ranger 2. I was aiming for Exemplar prestige class, but the game ended before I reached it. My 1st Pathfinder character in a demo game never leveled up, but my 2nd Pathfinder character was a ranger 5/monk 3. I retired him when I took over as GM, but he made a cameo appearance and had added wizard to his classes.

Oh please. I have someone in my group who's fewest number of classes for any character he's built above, oh, about 8th level has been four. I once saw him build a character with SIX different classes. We teased him about it a couple weeks ago, too.

[Temperans]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

Temperans wrote:

The 4 (5 counting untrained) proficiency system has no middle ground. for someone that is okay but not the best. Then the fact that martial proficiency is capped at Master means there is very little that can help differentiate.

If you're the best at hitting things, you're a fighter and eventually end up Legendary in all weapons, and are Master with all and Legendary with a subset from level 13.

If you're pretty good but not the best, you're one of the other martial classes and hit Master at 13th level.

If you're so-so with weapons, you max out at Expert.

That said, martial excellence is not solely a matter of proficiency. Different classes also get class feats that make them better at different things. Fighters are generally the ones with the most in term of fighting techniques, rogues have a lot of dirty fighting and mobility, and so on. The magus could get master weapon proficiency but not much in the way of feat support for pure fighting, but that's risky. They could get that sort of stuff from an archetype instead.

Staffan, Martial excellence is entirely based on Proficiency and action economy. They have the best proficiencies along with all the action economy fixers, all at decent levels.

And yes for martial Legendary is the best, Master is okay, and Expert is bad. But guess what? It works the same way for casters. Yet martials are able to get Master spellcasting, but it is physically impossible for casters to get Master in martial things.

***********************************

So I guess one of the problem is that the minimum caster being a Master not an Expert? Which might be fixed by adding spellcasting boosters and lowering the spellcasting progression?

Another thing to think over in my free time.

[PawnJJ]

Temperans wrote:

And yes for martial Legendary is the best, Master is okay, and Expert is bad. But guess what? It works the same way for casters. Yet martials are able to get Master spellcasting, but it is physically impossible for casters to get Master in martial things.

Except it doesn't work the same way. Every caster gets Legendary spellcasting. Legendary is baseline for casters.

Only one martial gets Legendary weapons. Master is baseline for martials.

That's why Caster/Martial gives Tier-1 weapon proficiency and Martial/Caster also gives Tier-1 caster proficiency

[Azurespark]

PawnJJ wrote:

Temperans wrote:

And yes for martial Legendary is the best, Master is okay, and Expert is bad. But guess what? It works the same way for casters. Yet martials are able to get Master spellcasting, but it is physically impossible for casters to get Master in martial things.

Except it doesn't work the same way. Every caster gets Legendary spellcasting. Legendary is baseline for casters.

Only one martial gets Legendary weapons. Master is baseline for martials.

That's why Caster/Martial gives Tier-1 weapon proficiency and Martial/Caster also gives Tier-1 caster proficiency

Is the alchemist the only martial that doesn't get master weapon proficiency? Did we ever get a reason why?

[Exocist]

Azurespark wrote:

PawnJJ wrote:

Temperans wrote:

And yes for martial Legendary is the best, Master is okay, and Expert is bad. But guess what? It works the same way for casters. Yet martials are able to get Master spellcasting, but it is physically impossible for casters to get Master in martial things.

Except it doesn't work the same way. Every caster gets Legendary spellcasting. Legendary is baseline for casters.

Only one martial gets Legendary weapons. Master is baseline for martials.

That's why Caster/Martial gives Tier-1 weapon proficiency and Martial/Caster also gives Tier-1 caster proficiency

Is the alchemist the only martial that doesn't get master weapon proficiency? Did we ever get a reason why?

They can get a (basically) permanent item bonus that is one higher than the bonus everyone else gets starting at level 11 and deal some AoE damage even on a miss.

Alchemist numbers aren’t actually that bad starting at level 8-11ish (exact level debatable) for bombers.

Also obligatory they’re a support character, not a damage dealer. They’re capable of doing many things that martials cant’t do, or do much worse than them.

[Leomund "Leo" Velinznrarikovich]

I feel like some people are missing the fact that on the martial side, you get magic weapons that give bonuses to-hit. Casters don't get that. It is only proficiency for them. I encourage you to consider the bonus difference at each level of casting and martial proficiencies and include the bonus from fundamental runes.

[Blave]

I'm actually wondering how someone can claim taking 10 fighter feats doesn't improve your chance to hit.

Exacting strike, double slice, double and triple shot, agile grace, blind fight are all available via fighter dedication and each one of them increases your chance to hit. And that's even ignoring the various maneuver feats like combat grab that make your target flat-footed and thus easier to hit.

Even stuff like power attack makes you better at hitting. Not by increasing your chance to hit but by making your best attack hit harder.

If you take 10 figter feats and don't improve your combat abilities significantly over a pure wizard, you might want to re-evaluate your feat selection.

I mean, it is also possible to get 10 wizard dedication feats without ever getting more spells than 2 cantrips. But that doesn't mean the dedication sucks.

It's also often overlooked in these discussions that the caster dedications require you to be legendary in their tradition's skill if ypu want all spell slots. That is a very significant investment for any character (except maybe rogues).

[CorvusMask]

Mathmuse wrote:

My daughter teased that I am a compulsive multiclasser. In one D&D game beside her I played a cleric 10/wizard 1/arcane archer 2. In a Iron Kingdoms game, I had a cleric 6/rogue 2/ranger 2. I was aiming for Exemplar prestige class, but the game ended before I reached it. My 1st Pathfinder character in a demo game never leveled up, but my 2nd Pathfinder character was a ranger 5/monk 3. I retired him when I took over as GM, but he made a cameo appearance and had added wizard to his classes.

Gamemastering did not stop my multiclassing habit. In the Jade Regent adventure path, I replaced Ameiko Kaijitsu (aristocrat 1/bard 3/rogue 1) with her half-sister Amaya. I built her as expert 1/fighter 1, because that made her a good martial-support NPC party member who would not steal the spotlight. When the cleric left the party (the player's wife birthed their first child), Amaya multiclassed to oracle to become the new party healer.

I told my daughter that Val Baine, NPC bloodrager party member in my Iron Gods campaign, kept to a single class for all 17 levels. She asked, "And how many archetypes does she have?" Val had two PF1 archetypes, one which I homebrewed to make Val an effective assistant to all the PCs and enhance their glory rather than hers. My wife wanted to play a dwarven gadgeteer in that campaign, and Pathfinder lacks that class, so we cobbled the character concept together via Gunslinger with the gnomish Experimental Gunsmith archetype, multiclassing two rogue levels, and a lot of technologist feats.

Now in Pathfinder 2nd Edition, the Gamemastery Guide provides advice on how I can homebrew creatures from scratch, mixing and matching abilities as...

Besides my confusion of Val becoming bloodrager instead of alchemist, I just want to say that as someone who is way more used to seeing characters like "I took one level in lore oracle, but my oracle isn't actually oracle, they completely ignore that class except for initiative bonus" that I'm not really sold on by glory of mix and match.

Like, I don't really think its case of you not being "able" to tell those stories with different type of multiclassing, just that you are telling them in different manner :p

[PossibleCabbage]

Leomund "Leo" Velinznrarikovich wrote:

I feel like some people are missing the fact that on the martial side, you get magic weapons that give bonuses to-hit. Casters don't get that. It is only proficiency for them. I encourage you to consider the bonus difference at each level of casting and martial proficiencies and include the bonus from fundamental runes.

Sure, martials get item bonuses to accuracy that casters don't.

But casters can have an effect on 3 out of the 4 possible outcomes of a spell, whereas martials generally only get an effect on 2 of the 4.

This asymmetry seems deliberate and defining.

[Djinn71]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Leomund "Leo" Velinznrarikovich wrote:

I feel like some people are missing the fact that on the martial side, you get magic weapons that give bonuses to-hit. Casters don't get that. It is only proficiency for them. I encourage you to consider the bonus difference at each level of casting and martial proficiencies and include the bonus from fundamental runes.

Sure, martials get item bonuses to accuracy that casters don't.

But casters can have an effect on 3 out of the 4 possible outcomes of a spell, whereas martials generally only get an effect on 2 of the 4.

This asymmetry seems deliberate and defining.

Don't most attack roll spells only apply on a hit? If this is the balancing factor behind Casters being behind in spellcasting proficiency for 2 levels and not getting item bonuses, then shouldn't they be able to get an item bonus to spell attacks and get their spell attack proficiency two levels earlier than their DCs?

Why did Paizo even bother to make spell attack proficiency separate from spell DC proficiency if they were just going to ignore it? Seems like a wasted opportunity.

[Zapp]

Squiggit wrote:

PawnJJ wrote:

Archetypes shouldn't invalidate my whole class

Don't think anyone said they should.

Frankly though, if there's no grey area between "you suck at this no matter how many feats you invest" and "completely invalidates my class" and those are the only two options, it sounds like there's something fundamentally broken that Paizo should try to fix.

But if the difference between completely invalidating an entire class and not, I'd look up the word "hyperbole" in the dictionary... ;)

I mean if the only reason I'm playing a Barbarian instead of a caster with level 10 spells is my +2 to hit, something about this discussion is unfathomable to me...

[Zapp]

Djinn71 wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Leomund "Leo" Velinznrarikovich wrote:

I feel like some people are missing the fact that on the martial side, you get magic weapons that give bonuses to-hit. Casters don't get that. It is only proficiency for them. I encourage you to consider the bonus difference at each level of casting and martial proficiencies and include the bonus from fundamental runes.

Sure, martials get item bonuses to accuracy that casters don't.

But casters can have an effect on 3 out of the 4 possible outcomes of a spell, whereas martials generally only get an effect on 2 of the 4.

This asymmetry seems deliberate and defining.

Don't most attack roll spells only apply on a hit? If this is the balancing factor behind Casters being behind in spellcasting proficiency for 2 levels and not getting item bonuses, then shouldn't they be able to get an item bonus to spell attacks and get their spell attack proficiency two levels earlier than their DCs?

Why did Paizo even bother to make spell attack proficiency separate from spell DC proficiency if they were just going to ignore it? Seems like a wasted opportunity.

At least for cantrips the takeaway is that Paizo forgot entirely that Electric Arc deals half damage on a "miss" while the others deal zero damage on a miss...

So all this talk about a carefully calibrated game doesn't sound entirely plausible to me...

[Luke Styer]

smrtgmp wrote:

I’m saying that 20 levels of feat investment should have more of an impact.

That may not be “‘more of an impact” so much as “a different impact.” A Fighter Archetype feat that boosts weapon proficiency might accomplish what you’re after, and there may be a way to pull that off that isn’t too good.

That said, I don’t know off hand how to write such a feat. For one thing A feat might not interact elegantly with the way classes increase weapon proficiencies. For another, i doubt such a feat could be as broad as you seem to be looking for and not be too good. I’d imagine that, at best, it would affect all simple weapons, all simple and martial of a given weapon group, or a single advanced weapon. Finally, it would probably need to increase whatever proficiencies it hits once, so some classes might need to either take it multiple times or a second feat might be necessary.

So something at least close to what you’re looking for may be possible, but would be a job of work to design.

[thenobledrake]

Zapp wrote:

So all this talk about a carefully calibrated game doesn't sound entirely plausible to me...

Yeah, because the calibration being to a different goal than what you expect is completely implausible.

[shroudb]

Exocist wrote:

Azurespark wrote:

PawnJJ wrote:

Temperans wrote:

And yes for martial Legendary is the best, Master is okay, and Expert is bad. But guess what? It works the same way for casters. Yet martials are able to get Master spellcasting, but it is physically impossible for casters to get Master in martial things.

Except it doesn't work the same way. Every caster gets Legendary spellcasting. Legendary is baseline for casters.

Only one martial gets Legendary weapons. Master is baseline for martials.

That's why Caster/Martial gives Tier-1 weapon proficiency and Martial/Caster also gives Tier-1 caster proficiency

Is the alchemist the only martial that doesn't get master weapon proficiency? Did we ever get a reason why?

They can get a (basically) permanent item bonus that is one higher than the bonus everyone else gets starting at level 11 and deal some AoE damage even on a miss.

Alchemist numbers aren’t actually that bad starting at level 8-11ish (exact level debatable) for bombers.

Also obligatory they’re a support character, not a damage dealer. They’re capable of doing many things that martials cant’t do, or do much worse than them.

that actually does nothing for the discrepancy of the lesser proficiency since the extra +1 from the mutagen is used to counterweight the -1 they get from not being able to start with 18 in their attack stat.

in short: alchemists are almost always universally -2 compared to everyone else.

which is a core issue.

i don't understand why if investigator can use his Int for Attck rolls, alchemist can't. And i hope that this is something that the (long overdue) alchemist erratta is going to address.