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A level 2 Fighter can be built to (with several of these abilities requiring an extra action) drag enemies as part of a strike, make an enemy frightened as part of a strike, grab an enemy as part of a strike, spend an additional action to hit two creatures with one thrown weapon, use the Aid action using a ranged weapon, or make a Recall Knowledge check as part of a strike, among other things. All fun and effective things that martials can do that aren't directly related to single target damage.
While casters definitely get more choice and power when it comes to effects like these, they don't get the same opportunities to vary their turns by mixing and matching their abilities.
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Not to mention casters are far better at playing with the action economy of enemies than martials by leaps and bounds.
No one shifts the game more than casters at higher level. No martial can even touch caster tactical options or ability to boost a party's chance of victory.
If you give casters action economy boosters to add to the action economy boosters they already have, why even play a martial?
Even last night the witch with the bard MC cast synesthesia on the big worm while the ranger stuck a couple of arrows in with distracting shot, together they reduced its AC by 5 which set up the barbarian to critical hit it with his big pick. Perfect team set up, but the caster added a 4 point shift while the ranger added a flat-footed condition and some damage.
This is after the druid cast fire body to fly around the battlefield and dropped a fireball to wear them down on top a witch phantasmal calamity. Guess who did more damage in that battle?
Final hit on one of the creatures was a critical fail 109 point tempest surge that blew the creature apart. The druid also cast several heals to keep party members up.
Yet the martials have more tactical options? Not even close to seeing this. What a caster can do with two actions at higher level in terms of tactical variability is leaps and bounds more than a martial.
I get it. I used to think this way when I was watchin the monk flurry and Hunted Shot ranger for those first 5 to 7 levels feeling like I was getting the shaft as a caster (except the druid and bard of course). But as those levels climbed, martials seem kind of boring and tactically limited again.
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I do think that if you are considering "Cast a spell" to be a monotonous activity, then being a full caster, and especially a wizard or a sorcerer might not be for you. "Cast a spell" by level 5 is over 10 different things you could be doing for most casters and only gets more interesting and exciting as you keep leveling up.
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I definitely agree with you Unicore, but I still think casters should get some feats that allow them to play with their own action economy, even in limited ways.
Sorcerer can pretty much do everything a martial can doYou're going to have to explain this one to me...
Well as early as level 1 a sorcerer can attack and use any skill just like a Martial while having the option to cast a spell.
Once characters are 5+ they start to differentiate more.
Martials feats that "add actions" are mostly just flourishes as far as I am aware. Most the other feats just give interesting options.
Even if you do just cast a spell every round you get 1 action a round. There are plenty of ways for characters to get more (haste/mount etc...)
I admit in my opinion Charisma characters by default are probably more fun in this regard. Intellect characters get recall knowledge I guess, but that just doesn't feel as satisfying as demoralize/bon mot to me.
Overall I just can't see how people say "casters don't use the 3 actions economy". If you compare it to 5e/PF1 it is much better except I do admit recall knowledge costing an action feels kind of bad. I feel casters turns are quite varied overall.
Maybe it is just my group but pretty much no one even wants to attempt recalling knowledge during combat.
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I play martials and casters. The biggest fun of playing a martial is getting a big damage critical hit usually on a single target. So I'm not getting what martials do that makes them interact better.@Deriven: I can tell that we have very different playstyles. For me, the “biggest fun of playing a martial” is not “getting a big damage hit usually on a single target”. As someone that plays wing in Football/Soccer, and is a lifelong support person in my community, my Fighters (and almost exclusively I play martials, occasionally 3/4 casters in PF1) are not the hulking brute wailing on the enemy. You could say that that is a waste of investment or impairs the party makeup etc etc. I would respectfully disagree. And so, being able to interact with the action economy is key to doing much more than expressing the most damage. Movement. Flanking. Tactical approach. Sure, my goal is still to neutralise the enemy, but I want all the options in which to do it, with my allies, who may or may not require assistance, aid, etc.
I think that for me, casters would be the same. I’m going to get bored quick if all my sorceror does is sling spells, AoE or not. And it is my perception, misplaced or not, that the action economy is vital to that narrative agency. I do take the point though that casters might use spells rather than feats to “jink” the action economy, but that seems like it might be situational, even moreso than choosing the right feats.
I hope I’m making some sense.
What do you mean? Casters are not just slinging spells. YOu can do way more tactically as a caster than as a martial.
You can use illusory creature to flank.
You can divide a battlefield with a wall spell.
You can create difficult terrain and create a natural obstacle that does damage for martials with move abilities to shove enemies into.
I don't get what you're talking about. A martial might get an ability like Intimidating Strike or Shield Knockback,...
For me, it isn't so much the effect that can make casters feel stale, but the resources. You expend a slot and two actions, and create an effect. Sometimes you use 3 actions, or 1, but usually 2. The effects you create are quite varied, and if that is what you prefer then casters work well for you. But if managing your character's resources to create a less varied effect is more interesting, then martials works work better.
Casters feats mostly engage with the effect, while a lot more Martial feats are geared towards using your 3 actions to create different combinations of a much smaller pool of effects. There's exceptions like quicken spell, or feats that hand out focus spells, but generally that's how the class feats fall.
Part of what made the Magus interesting to me despite my general dislike of casters is that they, right from level 1, do mess with the action economy without fully compromising the variation of effects the arcane spell list is capable of, and continue to do so as you get more class feats. That there are fewer spell slots to keep track of is a welcome bonus from my point of view.
A level 2 Fighter can be built to (with several of these abilities requiring an extra action) drag enemies as part of a strike, make an enemy frightened as part of a strike, grab an enemy as part of a strike, spend an additional action to hit two creatures with one thrown weapon, use the Aid action using a ranged weapon, or make a Recall Knowledge check as part of a strike, among other things. All fun and effective things that martials can do that aren't directly related to single target damage.
While casters definitely get more choice and power when it comes to effects like these, they don't get the same opportunities to vary their turns by mixing and matching their abilities.
What do you mean? Intimidating Strike is 2 actions to hit and fear one target. Dragging Strike has the press trait which means it has to be done with a MAP penalty meaning 2nd strike or later.
And as far as Combat Assessment, you can do them one time and the Fighter usually doesn't have the skills for Recall Knowledge. I figured that particular feat was for Multiclass Fighter Wizards.
Snagging Strike is nice, helps even casters hit easier.
Still doesn't change that Snagging Strike is completely unnecessary if flanking.
Spells have more riders as they rise in level. So still not seeing how the fighter does more interesting things as they level.
I picked up a wand of smoldering fireballs for the druid. It hits a bunch of targets and if they fail, they're on fire.
We fought some creatures in this cave. They erected a wall of force. It was not easy for our martials to bash through it. But the druid wild shaped into a huge earth elemental and pounded her way through it. The only reason she spent her time pounding through it was so the other PC could get in to fight. She could have just burrowed underneath the wall and got into the room.
Martials don't have comparable abilities. I'm not sure it would be very cool to give casters action economy boosters, while they have capabilities far more varied and powerful than martials.
Martials are better than PF1. They can do more varied things. They truly are the masters of single target damage in this edition. But casters still have spells that mirror what martials do with feats and often on a larger scale as well as abilities that martials can't even think about doing.
I won't complain if they add in some interesting low level things to do. But I'm not going to say most of the caster classes need it other than the wizard, who has super boring feats.
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I do think that if you are considering "Cast a spell" to be a monotonous activity, then being a full caster, and especially a wizard or a sorcerer might not be for you. "Cast a spell" by level 5 is over 10 different things you could be doing for most casters and only gets more interesting and exciting as you keep leveling up.
Yes, absolutely agree. This probably speaks more to my lack of experience with casters, and framing my perception through a feat/ability interaction than a spell interaction.
Which may be why Deriven doesn’t see the difference in approach to action economy in the same way
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That's why I argued the poster is privileging terminology over concept; there's virtually nothing conceptually that requires a warpriest to be the sub-class called that, because there's nothing specifically distinct about that sub-class.
Just a different way of looking at the game I suppose. For my part, I'm a bit perplexed by the idea that you wouldn't call a warpriest a warpriest, or a fighter a fighter. If the terms have no meaning in-setting, why bother to file the serial numbers off at all? If they do have meaning, which I feel is the case given some of the setting material, then accuracy is important to me.
I'm struggling to think of a time when I would refer to my character as something other than what I was actually playing. Closest I suppose would be how I played my playtest summoner; I made a psuedo-shifter using Synthesis and referred to him as a "Weredrake".
Mechanical chassis are just that. My hobgoblin druid is, and thinks of himself as a “scout”, attached to a warband with spellcasting capabilities trained into him.
My PF1 8th level samurai (yojimbo) was a Kellid “Horselord”, exiled from her clan for transgressions that were not hers.
My sylph inquisitor (suit seeker) is a Harrow devotee, and has no inkling that he is supposed to hunt monsters or flay enemies of his “faith” nor burn them at any stake.
In PF1 my warforged fighter/warpriest considered himself a “bodyguard”. Then again, he had 8 Wisdom and couldn’t cast spells. Hmm.
So, from my playing, class is for this side of the 4th wall, and concept is the other. A wizard OR cleric might be thought of as a “witch” if they acted like one, and a witch might be labeled an “eldritch sorceror” by the inhabitants of their village. I’m entirely with Thomas5251212 on this, and I’m pretty sure this conversation has been had many times on these forums.
Some folk cleave to a “in-world” definition that class fits concept, and that’s fine. My preference is for mechanics, and the chassis they hand from are just that, and need not have any bearing on their conduct or how they are perceived.
That's why I argued the poster is privileging terminology over concept; there's virtually nothing conceptually that requires a warpriest to be the sub-class called that, because there's nothing specifically distinct about that sub-class.Just a different way of looking at the game I suppose. For my part, I'm a bit perplexed by the idea that you wouldn't call a warpriest a warpriest, or a fighter a fighter. If the terms have no meaning in-setting, why bother to file the serial numbers off at all? If they do have meaning, which I feel is the case given some of the setting material, then accuracy is important to me.
I'm struggling to think of a time when I would refer to my character as something other than what I was actually playing. Closest I suppose would be how I played my playtest summoner; I made a psuedo-shifter using Synthesis and referred to him as a "Weredrake".
In game, every player wouldn't call themselves a fighter. Fighter is a class with a lot of archetypes. A knight. A Spartan. A twin-weapon fighter. A big two-hander warrior. They don't all call themselves fighter in game. They're likely part of some fighting tradition with a name.
Wizards could be the same.
I tend to think of the classes as fantasy archetypes you use to build different types of characters.
I imagine part of why casters got less ways to vary their actions beyond selecting a spell is choice paralysis. Spells already give casters way more things they can do in a turn and that leads to their turns often taking longer.
I imagine part of why casters got less ways to vary their actions beyond selecting a spell is choice paralysis. Spells already give casters way more things they can do in a turn and that leads to their turns often taking longer.
Wasn't this reason given specifically and explicitly by a dev somewhere as to why Spontaneous Casters (Sorcerers/Bards) have Signature Spells, instead of of the ability to Heighten anything freely?
That if they could freely cast any spell they knew at any level, they ran into situations during play when they felt obligated to "run the numbers" for every option, and ended up spending way more time to take a turn with no corresponding increase in fun
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That's why I argued the poster is privileging terminology over concept; there's virtually nothing conceptually that requires a warpriest to be the sub-class called that, because there's nothing specifically distinct about that sub-class.Just a different way of looking at the game I suppose. For my part, I'm a bit perplexed by the idea that you wouldn't call a warpriest a warpriest, or a fighter a fighter. If the terms have no meaning in-setting, why bother to file the serial numbers off at all? If they do have meaning, which I feel is the case given some of the setting material, then accuracy is important to me.
I'm struggling to think of a time when I would refer to my character as something other than what I was actually playing. Closest I suppose would be how I played my playtest summoner; I made a psuedo-shifter using Synthesis and referred to him as a "Weredrake".
In game, every player wouldn't call themselves a fighter. Fighter is a class with a lot of archetypes. A knight. A Spartan. A twin-weapon fighter. A big two-hander warrior. They don't all call themselves fighter in game. They're likely part of some fighting tradition with a name.
Wizards could be the same.
I tend to think of the classes as fantasy archetypes you use to build different types of characters.
I'm in agreement with Deriven here.
It does seem rather silly when you think about it. Putting too much emphasis on the in-game terminology and letting it affect the in-world concept, that is.
We can't call a fighter+cleric a warpriest because warpriest already exists? Am I not allowed to call myself an Archer unless I take the Archer dedication, despite being a fighter that uses a bow most of the time? Or I can't call myself a thief unless I go rogue with thief racket, despite focusing on the thievery skill and acting like a thief in-character.
It seems like a rather restrictive way to keep things in little boxes, something I personally dislike.
Also, weren't wizards like that in PF1, being referred to by their style? NPC wizards, at least, tended to be called by their specialization, like Enchanter, Evoker, and Necromancer. Not just wizard.
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We can't call a fighter+cleric a warpriest because warpriest already exists? Am I not allowed to call myself an Archer unless I take the Archer dedication, despite being a fighter that uses a bow most of the time? Or I can't call myself a thief unless I go rogue with thief racket, despite focusing on the thievery skill and acting like a thief in-character.
It seems like a rather restrictive way to keep things in little boxes,...
Who said you can't? I said I wouldn't. Fairly big difference there.
And yes, it is restrictive. I'm okay with that.
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I imagine part of why casters got less ways to vary their actions beyond selecting a spell is choice paralysis. Spells already give casters way more things they can do in a turn and that leads to their turns often taking longer.
I agree with that. In my opinion, the devs added the action economy enhancers specifically for martials to increase their tactical depth but don't use it too much on casters as they are already complex enough. Actually, I think it's still more complex to play a caster than a martial and I often see caster players thinking for a minute before acting but this happens quite rarely to martial players.
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We can't call a fighter+cleric a warpriest because warpriest already exists? Am I not allowed to call myself an Archer unless I take the Archer dedication, despite being a fighter that uses a bow most of the time? Or I can't call myself a thief unless I go rogue with thief racket, despite focusing on the thievery skill and acting like a thief in-character.
It seems like a rather restrictive way to keep things in little boxes,...
Who said you can't? I said I wouldn't. Fairly big difference there.
And yes, it is restrictive. I'm okay with that.
Perhaps "can't" was the incorrect word, I apologize.
It's restrictive and silly to me that people are doing that. If you call anyone with a bow an archer, even if they didn't take the dedication called archer, then you can call a guy that has martial and divine abilities a warpriest if you so choose to do so.
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Getting a bit lost in the weeds, so this will be my last comment on this, but part of what I'm saying is that I can't imagine calling a character an Archer or a Warpriest and not be talking about a particular sack of mechanics.
I 100% agree that a class or subclass name is only referring to a general suite of abilities and has no particular relationship to what the character might call themselves in game, but for myself, I don't see what I would gain from using a term that refers to a particular suite of abilities for a character when my character does not in fact have that suite. I could call a character an archer when they are not an archer...but why? What does that gain me? Why not just call them a bow specialist if that's what they are? Why, in fact, call the character anything at all? In what context is calling a character an archer valuable, whether they have a particular archetype or not?
Edit: An exception to this would be the archetypes that are also faction affiliations. Those I can see why you'd call a character, say, a Pathfinder Spellmaster without actually having the dedication. But otherwise, I don't really see it.
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Getting a bit lost in the weeds, so this will be my last comment on this, but part of what I'm saying is that I can't imagine calling a character an Archer or a Warpriest and not be talking about a particular sack of mechanics.
I mean, this is definitely a personal level choice though. Theres nothing "wrong" with in-setting/in-character referring to my Angel-Summoner as a priest or Cleric, and its not even a terribly inaccurate description of the characters background, role, and abilities.
Much like theres a whole range of professions that have the title "engineer" in their name in the real world, I expect you see a lot of variance in what qualifies in setting as a professional fighter, barbarian, or wizard - and those titles would have only a casual relationship with rhe associated mechanical class.
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Getting a bit lost in the weeds, so this will be my last comment on this, but part of what I'm saying is that I can't imagine calling a character an Archer or a Warpriest and not be talking about a particular sack of mechanics.I mean, this is definitely a personal level choice though. Theres nothing "wrong" with in-setting/in-character referring to my Angel-Summoner as a priest or Cleric, and its not even a terribly inaccurate description of the characters background, role, and abilities.
Never said it wasn't a personal choice.
Which is why I'm slightly bemused that so many are interpreting my own personal preferences and choices as me telling them what they can and can't do, while they at the same time imply that I am playing the game wrong if I don't make the same choices as them.
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Getting a bit lost in the weeds, so this will be my last comment on this, but part of what I'm saying is that I can't imagine calling a character an Archer or a Warpriest and not be talking about a particular sack of mechanics.I mean, this is definitely a personal level choice though. Theres nothing "wrong" with in-setting/in-character referring to my Angel-Summoner as a priest or Cleric, and its not even a terribly inaccurate description of the characters background, role, and abilities.Never said it wasn't a personal choice.
Which is why I'm slightly bemused that so many are interpreting my own personal preferences and choices as me telling them what they can and can't do, while they at the same time imply that I am playing the game wrong if I don't make the same choices as them.
You 100% can't tell me what to do.
But I also just can't understand the reasoning for the restrictive titles you and martial have. It only makes sense to keep it restrictive when talking about your class mechanics, but in-world no matter what your class is you're an archer, or warpriest, or...whatever else, as long as you made the concept and call yourself as such.
Basically, I don't understand, kind of want to understand, but am mostly confused.
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Getting a bit lost in the weeds, so this will be my last comment on this, but part of what I'm saying is that I can't imagine calling a character an Archer or a Warpriest and not be talking about a particular sack of mechanics.I mean, this is definitely a personal level choice though. Theres nothing "wrong" with in-setting/in-character referring to my Angel-Summoner as a priest or Cleric, and its not even a terribly inaccurate description of the characters background, role, and abilities.Never said it wasn't a personal choice.
Which is why I'm slightly bemused that so many are interpreting my own personal preferences and choices as me telling them what they can and can't do, while they at the same time imply that I am playing the game wrong if I don't make the same choices as them.
I think the confusion is that you keep acknowledging that it's solely a personal choice but keep arguing against it when you're unlikely to sway anyone involved and all parties seem to realize that. I might be totally wrong-- it's just my read of things.
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I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I was trying to explain my position because people kept asking and saying they didn't understand it.
Edit: I apologize if I come off as harsh here. I did not intend to be.
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I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I was trying to explain my position because people kept asking and saying they didn't understand it.
Edit: I apologize if I come off as harsh here. I did not intend to be.
Oh, no, I didn't read you as harsh at all.
I just fail to understand your stance despite my efforts. More my fault than anything, I guess.
I should let the thread get back on topic.
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I think part of it might come down to how much identity we attach to a certain suite of mechanics.
There are, for instance, many ways to build someone who has both martial and magical skills in both PF1 and PF2, but I've never heard someone call a PF1 Inquisitor or a PF2 Fighter/Sorcerer (etc.) a Magus and I feel like if I did I'd probably get some comments to that effect on the forums, even though both of them fit the description of being able to combine spellcasting with martial combat to some degree or another.
So it doesn't seem unreasonable to extend that logic outward, for certain perspectives.
For me, at least, the Fighter/Cleric build being discussed simply utterly fails to appropriately fit the Warpriest brief, until maybe level 12 or so (and even then still not very well) because it simply lacks the sort of magical longevity, depth or synergy that I expect from how that concept's been codified for me.
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I'll tell you frankly I don't understand how that's even relevant to my statement. D&D from day one had things that used arcane magic that weren't the PC thing called a magic-user, things that used divine magic that were not "clerics" and normalish-combatant focused characters that were not the thing called "fighting-men". These were were very much terms of art for how those PC classes worked.Maybe for you and your games this has been true. It has not for me and mine.Well, that's your choice but I have to say its a position hard to understand from the outside. It seems to reify a set of game mechanical structures that for the most (there are a small number of exceptions) part have never had in-setting existence since the start of D&D.I'm flatly against this. Personally.
I don't see what that has to do with invalidating the existence of a class by removing it's title. In other words. I don't see what this has to do with making a turtle named warpriest
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Getting a bit lost in the weeds, so this will be my last comment on this, but part of what I'm saying is that I can't imagine calling a character an Archer or a Warpriest and not be talking about a particular sack of mechanics.I mean, this is definitely a personal level choice though. Theres nothing "wrong" with in-setting/in-character referring to my Angel-Summoner as a priest or Cleric, and its not even a terribly inaccurate description of the characters background, role, and abilities.
Much like theres a whole range of professions that have the title "engineer" in their name in the real world, I expect you see a lot of variance in what qualifies in setting as a professional fighter, barbarian, or wizard - and those titles would have only a casual relationship with rhe associated mechanical class.
Exactly. When I made a Synthesis who summoned an eidolon that looked like a suit of armor, my summoner looked at himself like a warrior with a powerful magic item that he used to defeat his enemies. I made him look like Michael Shannon in Superman as General Zod with that black suit of armor. It was awesome.
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I think part of it might come down to how much identity we attach to a certain suite of mechanics.
There are, for instance, many ways to build someone who has both martial and magical skills in both PF1 and PF2, but I've never heard someone call a PF1 Inquisitor or a PF2 Fighter/Sorcerer (etc.) a Magus and I feel like if I did I'd probably get some comments to that effect on the forums, even though both of them fit the description of being able to combine spellcasting with martial combat to some degree or another.
So it doesn't seem unreasonable to extend that logic outward, for certain perspectives.
For me, at least, the Fighter/Cleric build being discussed simply utterly fails to appropriately fit the Warpriest brief, until maybe level 12 or so (and even then still not very well) because it simply lacks the sort of magical longevity, depth or synergy that I expect from how that concept's been codified for me.
A war priest is not just a class. In the history of D&D every cleric was a war priest meaning a priest that went to war. It's why they had armor and weapon proficiencies along with spells.
When I made an Inquisitor I made a character who was a judge in game. He did not call himself an Inquisitor. He was part of a tribe who had a tradition of God powered judges who used their powers to mete out justice, settle disputes, and protect the tribe. That was their role. Their title in game was not Inquisitor.
In game the abilities of an Inquisitor could fit a variety of roles including war priest meaning a warrior priest. Classes are fantasy archetypes. GISH classes are fantasy archetypes that may blend things a little more with each element. It doesn't mean they are more warpriesty than a cleric built to use weapons or a fighter who is a multiclass cleric.
Which is why the idea you can't play a concept is a false one. You can't play a particular mechanical option, but that isn't a concept. That's a set of specific mechanics you want to use. It's a different idea.
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Which is why the idea you can't play a concept is a false one. You can't play a particular mechanical option, but that isn't a concept. That's a set of specific mechanics you want to use. It's a different idea.
This suggests that mechanics and concepts are wholly divorced from each other, which isn't even remotely true.
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The mechanics is what makes up the concept.
If I wanted to play something without regards to the mechanics I would not be playing pathfinder.
No, concepts are inherently (by definition) a mental construct. They are literally, by definition, abstract.
Mechanics are the opposite. They're strict, rigid, and independent of the concepts attached to them.
There's nothing stopping anyone from taking a concept and attaching it to any legal and reasonable mechanics they like.
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Martials in PF1 are not 100% worse, that is something spouted by people who cant see eveything martials can do. Usually because they are too busy comparing them to Casters.Yes a martial is a 100% worse in PF1 to a well built wizard, druid or cleric. There is no debate at all to this.
I do not agree with this. play pathfinder 10 years. and fighters and barbarians blew up for encounters and caused more headaches than any caster. This is not to say that casters when built properly werent also broken.
there were quite a few classes in PF1 that when built properly overwhelm the game. Casters have been nerfed, but martials were also nerfed a great deal.
The issue i think is that vancian magic does not fit well into PF2 game system.
I think when the promised non vancian system of magic gets released in mysteries of magic, people will like wizards a lot better.
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Which is why the idea you can't play a concept is a false one. You can't play a particular mechanical option, but that isn't a concept. That's a set of specific mechanics you want to use. It's a different idea.This suggests that mechanics and concepts are wholly divorced from each other, which isn't even remotely true.
It is absolutely true. Which is why you can make so many concepts in PF 1 by mixing classes. So what is a monk 4/fighter 10/paladin 6 in PF1?
You can make a lot of different ideas in PF1 and PF2 mixing and matching things. You can name the concept whatever you want.
You could even if you so felt like make a priest of Nethys who considers himself a wizard whose intellectual pursuits were the understanding of how prayers allow the use of magic.
Concepts and mechanics can be completely divorced. You could make a rogue who considered himself a warrior or fighter in game.
There is really no limit to a concept. The mechanics are secondary to the concept.
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Mechanics are the skeletons of a concept.
You can have a concept be what ever you want. But you need mechanics to express that concept.
No, they are not. The concept of a war priest existed long before the war priest ever existed as a class. The only reason you even know about a war priest as a class is because late in the game Paizo made a war priest class.
No one was looking at CODZilla clerics as anything other than very capable at making war with spells making them powerful enough to compete as a warrior. If someone focused on that calling themselves a warpriest, you would have never known the difference.
You want certain mechanics. That's it. Mechanics that came far later in the PF game cycle, years later.
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I mean, let's say that the term 'Warpriest' as such is in fact exclusive to that specific Class and Subclass.
Why does that matter? My point, regarding 'you can play any concept' was not 'you can label any character whatever you want', it was 'you can create a character in PF2 who can have most sets of capabilities'.
So yeah, maybe your Champion/Multiclass Cleric doesn't get to call themselves a Warpriest (personally, I think they could get away with it, but let's say they can't for this example)...they're still a potent, competent, martial combatant with divine spellcasting. Which is the character concept desired that Warpriest doesn't quite fulfill, right?
So why does anyone care in the least that they don't get to call themselves a Warpriest?
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Martials in PF1 are not 100% worse, that is something spouted by people who cant see eveything martials can do. Usually because they are too busy comparing them to Casters.Yes a martial is a 100% worse in PF1 to a well built wizard, druid or cleric. There is no debate at all to this.I do not agree with this. play pathfinder 10 years. and fighters and barbarians blew up for encounters and caused more headaches than any caster. This is not to say that casters when built properly werent also broken.
there were quite a few classes in PF1 that when built properly overwhelm the game. Casters have been nerfed, but martials were also nerfed a great deal.
The issue i think is that vancian magic does not fit well into PF2 game system.
I think when the promised non vancian system of magic gets released in mysteries of magic, people will like wizards a lot better.
I totally agree. When I GMed a campaign of PF1, the party Barbarian was by FAR the most difficult. The Wizard was nothing compared to him. He once did well over 300 points of damage in the 1st round of combat, killing the Ancient Dragon that was the big final party boss of the adventure before most other party members even got to their initiative!!
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I totally agree. When I GMed a campaign of PF1, the party Barbarian was by FAR the most difficult. The Wizard was nothing compared to him. He once did well over 300 points of damage in the 1st round of combat, killing the Ancient Dragon that was the big final party boss of the adventure before most other party members even got to their initiative!!
This sort of benchmark isn't particularly telling. I made a 1E witch that ended any encounter with only one or two significant foes instantly, repeatedly. Win initiative, ask badguy to make two extremely difficult saves or lose instantly. Or worse, switch sides.
I eventually walked the character off a metaphorical cliff by letting her get snuck attack and killed (which I could have avoided, easily) because it was so oppressive to the GM and the party.
In normal play, spellcasters were far more likely to be dominant in parties and create unfun situations. If you wanted to go powergaming, yeah, you could break Barbarians - but that wasn't exactly a typical situation.
Broken casters was an omnipresent situation, because for the most part all you had to do to break them was cast spells. If you wanted to get really deadly, you could apply metamagic - by rods even, if you didn't want to waste the feats or pay extra spell levels.
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For a warpriest to be defined as A Cleric With Warpriest Doctrine, you also have to accept that an archer can only ever be A Character With Archer Archetype, and not just some guy with a bow.
I totally agree. When I GMed a campaign of PF1, the party Barbarian was by FAR the most difficult. The Wizard was nothing compared to him. He once did well over 300 points of damage in the 1st round of combat, killing the Ancient Dragon that was the big final party boss of the adventure before most other party members even got to their initiative!!This sort of benchmark isn't particularly telling. I made a 1E witch that ended any encounter with only one or two significant foes instantly, repeatedly. Win initiative, ask badguy to make two extremely difficult saves or lose instantly. Or worse, switch sides.
I eventually walked the character off a metaphorical cliff by letting her get snuck attack and killed (which I could have avoided, easily) because it was so oppressive to the GM and the party.
In normal play, spellcasters were far more likely to be dominant in parties and create unfun situations. If you wanted to go powergaming, yeah, you could break Barbarians - but that wasn't exactly a typical situation.
Broken casters was an omnipresent situation, because for the most part all you had to do to break them was cast spells. If you wanted to get really deadly, you could apply metamagic - by rods even, if you didn't want to waste the feats or pay extra spell levels.
Side note, I also had a 17th level witch that could average that amount of damage in a 7th level slot 3/day. As a side note, she could also do 150 damage to a single target with her SLA, 3/day. Oh, and she also had all her other slots that my GM would usually agree were far more problematic.
Yes, martials are far more likely to have been the cause of problems, if problems were specifically known as single-target damage. Casters were far more likely to cause a ton of other problems, which also might include damage.
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So what is a monk 4/fighter 10/paladin 6 in PF1?
Not a wizard. Not an adherent of Rovagug either.
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So what is a monk 4/fighter 10/paladin 6 in PF1?Not a wizard. Not an adherent of Rovagug either.
Not a summoner or a witch either...
A wizard, a bright-eyed young scholar, embittered by the injustices of society and their personal tragedies, studying with less and less fervor and more and more of the horrid whispers of the rough beast as their only company, degraded for so long that they eventually fall prey to its madness, their arcane aptitude perverted into the foulest of divine magic, their crazed mind bearing only a casual grasp on their supernaturally empowered body, on a mission to trigger the end of society as Rovagug's chosen?
Heck yeah! If my PF GM ever runs an evil campaign I will absolutely try something like that: a wizard empowered by Rovagug and now a terror up close, with old magical tricks and a dangerous eye to greater potential for destruction. I'm sure there's some room in the twisted arcane magic and potentially unknown patron for witchy flavor, and items, feats or spells I could use to fill in gaps and get some summoning+dark followers in. :3
To that end, Fighter with a bunch of unarmed-friendly attacks (Snagging Strike and/or Dragging Strike, Combat Grab, Knockdown) fits well for keeping her feeling varied and mobile, especially Dragging, and Acrobat's Tumbling Strike is great for this too! Or she could be a Monk with Tiger Stance, taking big steppies and going for extra mobility, Tiger Slash for the big heck-off kicks capoeira is good at, Crushing Grab flavored as the thorns on her vines, or Stumbling Stance for some erratic and unpredictable flat-footed generation, maybe even a bit of Rogue for later Skirmish Strike. Items or boons might help with Verdant Grappler flavor, too! But, the point is that the obviously labeled mechanic of Battledancer is only one route to the concept, and in my harpy's case didn't suit her as well as a Monk or Fighter would. ~w~
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I totally agree. When I GMed a campaign of PF1, the party Barbarian was by FAR the most difficult. The Wizard was nothing compared to him. He once did well over 300 points of damage in the 1st round of combat, killing the Ancient Dragon that was the big final party boss of the adventure before most other party members even got to their initiative!!Martials in PF1 are not 100% worse, that is something spouted by people who cant see eveything martials can do. Usually because they are too busy comparing them to Casters.Yes a martial is a 100% worse in PF1 to a well built wizard, druid or cleric. There is no debate at all to this.I do not agree with this. play pathfinder 10 years. and fighters and barbarians blew up for encounters and caused more headaches than any caster. This is not to say that casters when built properly werent also broken.
there were quite a few classes in PF1 that when built properly overwhelm the game. Casters have been nerfed, but martials were also nerfed a great deal.
The issue i think is that vancian magic does not fit well into PF2 game system.
I think when the promised non vancian system of magic gets released in mysteries of magic, people will like wizards a lot better.
This is true. I had to give big monsters I wanted to last for a big fight 1000s of hit points to stand up to martial damage. Martial damage was nuts with crits and such.
Casters were far more powerful because they could make an encounter trivial with save or suck or save or do nothing spells. But as far as damage goes, martials could do more damage.
So what is a monk 4/fighter 10/paladin 6 in PF1?Not a wizard. Not an adherent of Rovagug either.
So what are they? C'mon guy, what are they?
I could give you a laundry list of multiclass combinations made to build certain concepts. Anyone who knows how to min-max knows why 4 levels of fighter was very good for rounding out a +15 BAB class concept.
Don't like the fact that PF1 multiclassing pretty much destroys the entire mechanics as concept argument?
Min-maxers multiclassed alot. Single class martials were not great in PF1, not even warpriest. Even when I made an Inquisitor and I wanted him to be good at fighting, 4 levels of fighter I took or another +20 BAB class to get that fourth attack only BAB classes had without haste and such.
Min-maxing for martials and GISHes was huge. Sometimes to max out saves, sometimes BAB, and sometimes AC.
Main classes that didn't min-max were the full 9 level casters as that was harder to justify giving up those high level spells.