Some thoughts on 2nd Ed.


Pathfinder Second Edition General Discussion

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Scarab Sages

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Well, I’ve been playing 2nd ed on and off since it came out, and I finally have a character at level 7, and I’m coming to a conclusion. And it’s a bit of a problem for me.

So I built a melee bard. Kind of a generalist, runs around in plate mail thanks to champion dedication, can heal, and can also attack if he needs to. Now, I’m not stupid, I know I’m not going to outmatch a champion in terms of defense or a fighter in terms of offense, but man, it’s becoming apparent I can’t do anything.

In a game this week against a boss I found that he could crit me on a 15+ (eve with +1 plate and shield active) whereas even on my primary attack with bard song and flanking could only crit him on a nat 20.

My bard, with champion feats, is only ever going to get expert in plate mail and weapons, whereas enemies get up to the equivalent of master. Just made me realize that eventually my bard, heck ANY bard would just be reduced to throwing out soothes and singing, because if they wade into combat they will miss and get crit into oblivion.

I mean, is there a reason to play anything other than a fighter (for offense) or monk/champion (for defense)? Are Warpriests any use bast like, level 10? Just seems like the game wants to punish hybrid builds.

I dunno, maybe I am over-reacting. Like I said, I’m not asking for my bard to out-martial a fighter. But I would expect like, a Warpriest, Druid and a bard all working together to be able to have the same martial power as a single fighter, but it doesn’t look like that is even possible. Am I off base?


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To be fair, you're going against a boss. Bosses are going to have Fighter+ level to-hit and damage, with Champion+ level AC, and solid saves across the board (though some will still be weak enough to target with pass-effect spells). Spellcasters struggle greatly against bosses because, in PF2, they are more mook-clearers than boss-killers.

As for whether there is a point, consider that a Bard is primarily a caster in this edition, compared to last edition where they could actually be strong in melee if built correctly. You won't have Barbarian or Ranger ACs or to-hits because you got crazy buff abilities and spellcasting. They don't. They can't grant Inspire Courage and Haste like you can. They can't debuff enemies like you can. They might get Intimidate or Feinting or Flanking, but they can't match you whatsoever. Bard buffs are the strongest thing in the game because they swing the math in your favor. No other class can do that the way a Bard can.

Also, you might want to reconsider the Champion dedication and go Sentinel instead, as it automatically increases your proficiency to Expert with Heavy Armor at an earlier level, without feat investment. Unless you have feats in Champion you want besides the armor proficiency, or prefer the flavor, of course. (Man, they need to rebalance some of the dedication feats when the class feats are often worse than these archetype ones.)


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The Bard at that lvl with heavy armor only loss in AC agaist the Champion that just got expert at lvl 7. Monk don't have enough Dex to surpass at that lvl yet (19 dex if you began with 18).

And it will have the same AC as everyone else until lvl 19 where Martials get master in armor. (well except lvl 11 and 12 that only Fighter and Ranger get expert before everyone else for some reason).


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Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

A champion at level 7 is probably only 2 points higher AC than you, so you being crit on a 15, still means they're being crit on a 13. and any other frontline martial is also probably being crit on a 15. Sounds like it was probably a Severe/Extreme boss encounter.

Now your to-hit will start to lag martials very noticeably by level 7. They will all have expert (fighter will have master), you're still at trained. So you're -2 from the martials, -4 from the fighter, and probably another -1 or -2 from ability scores.

If you want to hit things, especially bosses, with melee attacks, you really need to start out as a martial -- that is their niche after all. Even martials struggle against bosses and need the party buffs to do well -- you need double those and there's only so many you can stack, which is why even a buffing/debuffing party will struggle with no martial in a to-hit contest against bosses.

I don't think the game punished hybrids, but hybrid do need to be more tactical in how they approach combats -- you can probably preserve spells and help on-level/multiple enemy fights go quickly my melee-ing it up, but when punching-up you need to play to your strength -- your song and spells.


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VampByDay wrote:
In a game this week against a boss I found that he could crit me on a 15+ (eve with +1 plate and shield active) whereas even on my primary attack with bard song and flanking could only crit him on a nat 20.

Am I crazy, but this seems normal? "Boss" type encounters (Level + 2/3) out of the box have the odds stacked way against the party. You lower the odds of being crit and increase your own through buffs, debuffs, and battlefield control. You can't go it rogue anymore, as you really need to rely on your team. Bard song and flanking are good! But this doesn't exactly paint the whole picture of your attacks. Bosses aren't really going to be crit outside of natural 20s, reducing their swinginess and letting them have more time to survive (especially on character versus 4).

Scarab Sages

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Since bards are only trained in light armor, sentinel only gets them medium armor proficiency. Champion gets you medium and heavy, and a level 11 champion dedication feat gives you expert in heavy. And Bards only get up to expert anyway. I was going to go sentinel with my warpriest but they have the same problem. They only get up to expert. Seems to me that a WARpriest should be able to at least fight in combat, not be stuck as the healbot past level 7.

Listen, I like singing and helping the party out, but I’d also like the ability to crit on a 19 if I’m singing and flanking, or have the ability to stand for more than a round in melee in my full plate armor. All I’m saying.


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NielsenE wrote:
If you want to hit things, especially bosses, with melee attacks, you really need to start out as a martial -- that is their niche after all. Even martials struggle against bosses and need the party buffs to do well -- you need double those and there's only so many you can stack, which is why even a buffing/debuffing party will struggle with no martial in a to-hit contest against bosses.

This is something I'd like to agree to and develop as well. Class chassis is huge in PF2. The bard chassis is a spellcaster first, with all that brings (full spell access that eventually scales up to legendary). A bard with champion dedication gets a smattering more armor and some great reactions. On the other hand, a champion with bard dedication gives up a lot of that spellcasting to give you more martial access. You would have martial accuracy along with champion armor proficency.

I'm not sure what your concept is for the character, but in looking for a heavy-armor wearing melee-bard, why not switch the perspective and go with champion with bard dedication?


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
VampByDay wrote:

Since bards are only trained in light armor, sentinel only gets them medium armor proficiency. Champion gets you medium and heavy, and a level 11 champion dedication feat gives you expert in heavy. And Bards only get up to expert anyway. I was going to go sentinel with my warpriest but they have the same problem. They only get up to expert. Seems to me that a WARpriest should be able to at least fight in combat, not be stuck as the healbot past level 7.

Listen, I like singing and helping the party out, but I’d also like the ability to crit on a 19 if I’m singing and flanking, or have the ability to stand for more than a round in melee in my full plate armor. All I’m saying.

Use your spells and skills to help you, especially against bosses. If you think your only good spell is soothe, you should examine your list again. If your party has turned you into the party healer, so that your spells and skills are all going to that, and you wanted to be the party healer, the party buffer, AND a front line Melee character, you are probably over reaching on trying to do everything. Melee combat is really not a great idea for casters in PF2, especially not ones trying to double as the party healer, unless you are going to be a warpriest, and even then you are probably not going to want to rush out and be the front line all the time.


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Lvl 7 characters, if it was a boss then probably was a lvl 10 creature that was against (or 11 if the GM wanted 50% of TPK).

The average AC of a creature at that lvl is 30, the max hit chance that a non-fighter martial will have will be +16 at that lvl, so it needs to roll 14 to hit, or in the case of flatfooted +1 status bonus would need 11 to hit, so even full martials would not crit in a 19 against that target.

Now target of your lvl would have 25AC on average, a Bard trained in weapons would have +14 at point, hitting normally on a 11 and if the enemy flatfooted and you singing drop the roll to 8 and crit to 18.


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true hybrids are only enabled by the dual class variant imo rn, secrets of magic hopefully changes that satisfyingly.

You can't tune down the spellcasting progression to gain, martial progression instead.
Not even free archetype makes up for that, it just makes your character more versatile.

In terms of multiclassing it's like you always hit 20 in your mainclass but can trade a handful of class features for a ~5-7 lvl dip into another class.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Yeah, hybrids are kind of frustrating to make because Accuracy is such a huge wall in PF2 and there's no real way to address that no matter how much you specialize.

Sort of feel like it was a huge design mistake to make that the lynchpin of balance but w/e here we are.


Squiggit wrote:

Yeah, hybrids are kind of frustrating to make because Accuracy is such a huge wall in PF2 and there's no real way to address that no matter how much you specialize.

Sort of feel like it was a huge design mistake to make that the lynchpin of balance but w/e here we are.

I think this can be alleviated if variant rules become common place. Would require nerfing dual class probably since they get double class feats but giving each player a choice between free archetype dual class (w/ no or reduced extra feats), relics, ancestry paragon, etc. if they add more.

Vanilla 2e still would have its place in being easier to get into too or when you want to run a simpler game.


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Yes 2e punishes you via scaling issues as you level of you don't stay in your classes obvious box.

And people can get salty and defend the game from me if they want. I love this game. But I also call it like I see it.

My suggestion is next time you make a bard or any caster, you cast.


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VampByDay wrote:

Since bards are only trained in light armor, sentinel only gets them medium armor proficiency. Champion gets you medium and heavy, and a level 11 champion dedication feat gives you expert in heavy. And Bards only get up to expert anyway. I was going to go sentinel with my warpriest but they have the same problem. They only get up to expert. Seems to me that a WARpriest should be able to at least fight in combat, not be stuck as the healbot past level 7.

Listen, I like singing and helping the party out, but I’d also like the ability to crit on a 19 if I’m singing and flanking, or have the ability to stand for more than a round in melee in my full plate armor. All I’m saying.

To be fair, the Warpriest proficiencies need some rebalancing, especially with the Magus playtest pushing that to the limit quite a bit. If they're expected to be capable melee combatants, they need Master in at least their deity weapon as well as Expert/Master armor by 19th. After all, a Magus is, why isn't a Warpriest, especially when they have a worse spell list?

That's true on the Sentinel point, but if you're running high Dexterity, going into Heavy Armor is a trap no matter how you build for it. Heavy Armor gives more AC at the cost of reducing effectiveness at Dexterity-based skill checks as well as Reflex Saves (though this is shored up via Full Plate Bulwark, and further still with the right Sentinel feats). If you better built for it, it could've helped. But at the endgame, Trained is the "might as well roll a 20" or "well below my pay grade but still requires a check" tier, Expert is the "bare essentials" tier, Master is the "standard" tier, and Legendary is the "better than average" tier. Even if you built for it, you'd only be slightly behind a Barbarian or Ranger or even Rogue type (1 AC point difference).

I will say that Bards do have better proficiencies than, say, Sorcerers and Wizards and (Cloistered) Clerics, who get barely anything in the way of armor or weapons, and their scaling is identical. Except, they don't get the cool Inspire Courage buffs that make you better than them at all times, pretty much.


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For me the math is too tight in the game. What makes it worse, the default character creation rules makes it too easy to get an optimum stat build. We get characters that can get suite of 16s or primary 18 right at level 1, which in turn encourages the DM to stat up their opponents if he/she wants to make it a typical 50/50 fight.

At the moment, im trying to encourage more conservative character starting stats either using the old 15 14 13 etc stat block or just straight 3d6 stat rolls to curtail the modifiers, same when i use the character creation for the enemies. As for monster opponents, i try to stat or gear em in a more logical manner where possible to curb the almost auto-crit boss level enemies have.

The side effect of the tight math is that any new classes (ie: magus and summoner, hehe) tend to be very underwhelming at least during playtest in the name of balance or role preservation for other classes. Frankly, if it costs the fun factor of the game or new products, I say balance be damned. But thats just me.


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Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
VampByDay wrote:

Since bards are only trained in light armor, sentinel only gets them medium armor proficiency. Champion gets you medium and heavy, and a level 11 champion dedication feat gives you expert in heavy. And Bards only get up to expert anyway. I was going to go sentinel with my warpriest but they have the same problem. They only get up to expert. Seems to me that a WARpriest should be able to at least fight in combat, not be stuck as the healbot past level 7.

Listen, I like singing and helping the party out, but I’d also like the ability to crit on a 19 if I’m singing and flanking, or have the ability to stand for more than a round in melee in my full plate armor. All I’m saying.

To be fair, the Warpriest proficiencies need some rebalancing, especially with the Magus playtest pushing that to the limit quite a bit. If they're expected to be capable melee combatants, they need Master in at least their deity weapon as well as Expert/Master armor by 19th. After all, a Magus is, why isn't a Warpriest, especially when they have a worse spell list?

That's true on the Sentinel point, but if you're running high Dexterity, going into Heavy Armor is a trap no matter how you build for it. Heavy Armor gives more AC at the cost of reducing effectiveness at Dexterity-based skill checks as well as Reflex Saves (though this is shored up via Full Plate Bulwark, and further still with the right Sentinel feats). If you better built for it, it could've helped. But at the endgame, Trained is the "might as well roll a 20" or "well below my pay grade but still requires a check" tier, Expert is the "bare essentials" tier, Master is the "standard" tier, and Legendary is the "better than average" tier. Even if you built for it, you'd only be slightly behind a Barbarian or Ranger or even Rogue type (1 AC point difference).

I will say that Bards do have better proficiencies than, say, Sorcerers and Wizards and (Cloistered) Clerics, who get barely anything in the way of armor or weapons, and their...

The War Priest gets regular casting (3 slots per level and 10th level spells) and Divine Font for free high level spells. I don't see how it can get master in weapons and armor without losing more casting. Magus only gets 4 slots and never gets 10th level spells.


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Squiggit wrote:

Yeah, hybrids are kind of frustrating to make because Accuracy is such a huge wall in PF2 and there's no real way to address that no matter how much you specialize.

Sort of feel like it was a huge design mistake to make that the lynchpin of balance but w/e here we are.

It works very well for the core rules, but it seems like it makes it really hard to get out of the boxes the core rules have set up. In retrospect, it might have been the result of playtest feedback — originally, proficiency was +1 per rank instead of +2, but playtesters wanted higher proficiencies to matter more.

I think there may have been some over-tuning going on in conjunction with that. What I think playtesters meant was "We want Masters and Legends to be significantly better than someone who's just Trained at medium/high levels, and +2/+3 doesn't feel like a significant improvement", but what we got was more like "Trained is now significantly worse than the expected Master at medium/high levels, just like you asked for."


I disagree that you are fishing for 20's at higher levels with trained, at least if you follow Paizo's design with APs. DC 25-30 is the standard for level 14 in the latest AP for instance. Sometimes you are, especially if you choose not to buff yourself (and at later levels you should have LOTS of options for this, either through feats, spells, permanent items or other consumable resources) but being trained is not a throw away unless your GM starts only using level DC instead of simple DC with adjustments.

(I am not counting perception in this btw, as it isn't a skill anymore)

When it comes to the final few levels, yeah that will happen to a degree, but even then you have a huge number of ways to boost skill checks by that level.

Anything that is expected to be used reliably in combat will require investment. But trained is still useful/functional outside of combat and for more than crit fishing with skill rolls.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
The Gleeful Grognard wrote:


Anything that is expected to be used reliably in combat will require investment.

Yeah, but the catch-22 here is that for hybrid characters in combat, no amount of investment exists to address that accuracy gap.

Now, obviously that gap exists for a reason and it's part of the game's balance so there's nothing to be done about it, but it's definitely frustrating, especially if you feel you're pouring a lot of resources into that part of your build.


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Squiggit wrote:
The Gleeful Grognard wrote:


Anything that is expected to be used reliably in combat will require investment.

Yeah, but the catch-22 here is that for hybrid characters in combat, no amount of investment exists to address that accuracy gap.

Now, obviously that gap exists for a reason and it's part of the game's balance so there's nothing to be done about it, but it's definitely frustrating, especially if you feel you're pouring a lot of resources into that part of your build.

I'm previous editions this is called a trap option.


fanatic66 wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
VampByDay wrote:

Since bards are only trained in light armor, sentinel only gets them medium armor proficiency. Champion gets you medium and heavy, and a level 11 champion dedication feat gives you expert in heavy. And Bards only get up to expert anyway. I was going to go sentinel with my warpriest but they have the same problem. They only get up to expert. Seems to me that a WARpriest should be able to at least fight in combat, not be stuck as the healbot past level 7.

Listen, I like singing and helping the party out, but I’d also like the ability to crit on a 19 if I’m singing and flanking, or have the ability to stand for more than a round in melee in my full plate armor. All I’m saying.

To be fair, the Warpriest proficiencies need some rebalancing, especially with the Magus playtest pushing that to the limit quite a bit. If they're expected to be capable melee combatants, they need Master in at least their deity weapon as well as Expert/Master armor by 19th. After all, a Magus is, why isn't a Warpriest, especially when they have a worse spell list?

That's true on the Sentinel point, but if you're running high Dexterity, going into Heavy Armor is a trap no matter how you build for it. Heavy Armor gives more AC at the cost of reducing effectiveness at Dexterity-based skill checks as well as Reflex Saves (though this is shored up via Full Plate Bulwark, and further still with the right Sentinel feats). If you better built for it, it could've helped. But at the endgame, Trained is the "might as well roll a 20" or "well below my pay grade but still requires a check" tier, Expert is the "bare essentials" tier, Master is the "standard" tier, and Legendary is the "better than average" tier. Even if you built for it, you'd only be slightly behind a Barbarian or Ranger or even Rogue type (1 AC point difference).

I will say that Bards do have better proficiencies than, say, Sorcerers and Wizards and (Cloistered) Clerics, who get barely anything

...

They get the same spellcasting proficiency scaling though, with Magus getting the better spell list and armor/weapon proficiencies. A Cleric getting a Font plus simplified resolution mechanics helps, but the Magus is still in playtest mode. When it gets released, I imagine it will be just as simple as the Warpriest.

I also suspect that the Magus getting 4 spell slots period won't be applied when they are published; at least, without updating other rules interactions. Most notably, staves, and making multiclassing less attractive of an option as a result of their reduced spell slots.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Ehhhh... my suggestion is to not hyper fixate on bosses. The game is designed to have lots of lower level and at-level encounters, which a bard or warpriest can certainly contribute to using weapons.

Conserving spells by helping against less dangerous melee foes then switching to supporting the dedicated martials against bosses seems exactly where I want the balance to be.

If you were just as effective as a martial against bosses, martials might as well pack it in and go home.

Liberty's Edge

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There is no such thing as a hybrid character in the game currently if you mean a 50/50 martial/caster. Maybe the Magus will be the first such character.

A Caster is always a Caster. Multiclassing in Martial will provide some ability with martial combat but it will not make you the equivalent of a Martial class.

If you want to fight like a Martial and have some magical ability, then you need to start with a Martial class and MC in Caster.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
WatersLethe wrote:
Ehhhh... my suggestion is to not hyper fixate on bosses.

I think it's less about hyper-fixating and more that it feels absolutely terrible to invest a huge amount of your resources into making something a major part of your character's identity and against any strong enemy your best choice is to not bother.

Quote:
If you were just as effective as a martial against bosses, martials might as well pack it in and go home.

Right, which is kind of where PF2's a bit broken as a game, because that gap is both necessary and crippling for a whole bunch of builds, but PF2 characters have so few inherent class features there's really nothing else those characters have going for them.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I don't think the resources split/versus gain is a problem with PF2. Afterall if you went Bard 5/Fighter 2 or Paladin 2 you would have an accuracy and defensiveness malus when compared to a Fighter 7 or Paladin 7 in PF1. The problem is in PF1 the creature math was so utterly terrible you wouldn't notice. You notice now, because a Lvl 9 monster is actually scary to any level 7 character, regardless of how the resource investment is split.

Having the perception of "I want to be as good as a fighter against higher level oponents (the fighters wheel house) whilst still having a whole other classes core benefits" just isn't going to fly. It didn't fly in PF1 either, but characters were so strong in that game that it didn't matter.


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Squiggit wrote:
WatersLethe wrote:
Ehhhh... my suggestion is to not hyper fixate on bosses.
I think it's less about hyper-fixating and more that it feels absolutely terrible to invest a huge amount of your resources into making something a major part of your character's identity and against any strong enemy your best choice is to not bother.

This is, I think, a perception issue, particularly for people coming in from PF1.

In PF2, there is one thing that makes up a "huge part of your character's identity" (well, mechanically at least), and that is your class. Everything else is "what flavor do you want to add to that?"

Multi-classing and other archetypes trades out some of your in-class flavor for out-of-class flavor, but it doesn't change your mechanical core identity. My character is an 8th level sorcerer multi-classed to rogue, with three out of my four class feats going that way, but I'm still very much a sorcerer. I'm just a sorcerer in light armor with a few more skills. But when I fight, I rely on spells, not sneak attack.

Your class is what determines your strengths. Archetypes can shore up weaknesses, but not past your actual strengths. Multi-classing as a fighter gets you Trained in simple and martial weapons, and in order to get Expert you need the 12th level archetype feat. Even wizards get Expert in the regular wizard weapons at level 11, so multi-classing as a fighter only expands their weapon selection, it doesn't actually make them better at fighting. Same thing with armor for a MC champion — the armor expert feat comes online at level 14, one level after even the worst armor classes (again, wizards and sorcerers) become experts in their "native" armor.


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Yeah not seeing much of an issue here. It wouldn’t be fair to be as strong in fighting as a martial but have the full casting power of a bard. PF1 balances this (poorly) with their archetyping system where you could trade out enough class features to make it work, but it led to a very unbalanced game where tons of archetypes were useless and a handful were ungodly broken and overpowered.

Archetypes are now mostly about getting more options, not about increasing power level. This has the pro of making sure all builds at the table are functional but has the con? (Depending on your POV I guess) that you cant just make a build good at everything since you found a loophole. It’s basically like everyone has variant multiclassing from PF1 where you just basically get some reduced class features and feats from your non base clsss but lose feats from your main class.


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Definitely with the folks who are saying that the OP's character concept would have been executed better as Champion multiclassing into Bard. Seems OP wants to fight in melee more than cast.

It is a strange quirk between PF1 and 2 that sometimes the best way to execute a PF1 concept is to flip the concept... but we can’t expect PF2 to be the same.

In PF1 your stats were king. You could make a decent melee caster by just giving it 18 STR and a few choice feats. Not so in PF2 as proficiency is just as important as stats. bUT I think this is a good thing. My PF1 Oracle fought just as well as a Barbarian, plus was every bit the party healer as a Cleric. That is overpowered, and deep down we all know it. PF2 addresses that problem with proficiency. You need to make sacrifices if you want to do two different things, and choose which one you want to be better at.

So now you have full bard, full champion, and two different ways to blend them (champ with bard, or bard with champ) and all 4 are good, but all 4 are different, and you have to play to the strengths of what you chose to do.

Otherwise... I mean it’s clearly a player mistake to build a straight up wizard and play it like a fighter right? It’s not quite that clear cut with a bard/champion, but still... can’t expect the character you built to play like something other than what you built.


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Undraxis wrote:
For me the math is too tight in the game. What makes it worse, the default character creation rules makes it too easy to get an optimum stat build. We get characters that can get suite of 16s or primary 18 right at level 1, which in turn encourages the DM to stat up their opponents if he/she wants to make it a typical 50/50 fight.

A 50/50 fight should not be typical. That's an Extreme encounter, which the encounter building guidelines don't recommend using at all unless the party is fully rested, the players are very skilled at the game, or it's the final encounter of the campaign.

The parties I GM for all started with 16's and 18's and I haven't felt the need to optimize things against the party to challenge them.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

The only extreme fights that have really felt like 50/50 encounters at my table have been against higher level solo monster fights. I regularly throw 300 xp or more of monsters at my party, even by level 3 or 4, using one or two equal level monsters or even one +1 level monster and then quite a few level -2 monsters, often times having them arrive in waves, and usually one or two party members will fall in the encounter, but it rarely feels like it is threatening a full TPK.

When I do throw big solos at the party, like a level 6 hydra against a party of 4 level 3 characters, it is usually in a context where the party knows they are out matched and going to need to be fighting for their lives, often giving them environmental resources to be able to back out of the fight, sometimes making escape against a powerful enemy the point of the encounter.

When my party does try aggressive tactics against obviously powerful creatures, like casters trying to rush in to attack in melee, I will be pretty brutal at having the solo monster drop that caster quickly, but choices should have consequences and you can't be heroic if there is no real risk of failure. A character who has a memorable death can be just as important a part of the adventure as the ones who survive.


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Salamileg wrote:
Undraxis wrote:
For me the math is too tight in the game. What makes it worse, the default character creation rules makes it too easy to get an optimum stat build. We get characters that can get suite of 16s or primary 18 right at level 1, which in turn encourages the DM to stat up their opponents if he/she wants to make it a typical 50/50 fight.

A 50/50 fight should not be typical. That's an Extreme encounter, which the encounter building guidelines don't recommend using at all unless the party is fully rested, the players are very skilled at the game, or it's the final encounter of the campaign.

The parties I GM for all started with 16's and 18's and I haven't felt the need to optimize things against the party to challenge them.

Thats why i said typical 50/50 fight not a typical fight. My point is the gm has to ramp up to compensate for the atypical player stats compared to the older editions. Rember the days when 12 to 14 was good enough, 16 was wow, and 18 was 'did anyone see you roll that'.

But the math is so tight that a +2 proficiency difference can mean one player hits often but the rest miss 90% or more of the time (being extreme here). Side Note: Probably why I wouldnt mind the magus getting master proficiency in both martial and spells early even if it flies against balance just for the sake if making the class fun.

Edit Addendum: Atm it feels like the game is balanced around the players requiring 18s in thier stats when it should be balanced on them having strait 10s. Its very telling especially when you look at the forum discussions on class playtests.


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Why should the game be balanced around players having stats worse than commoners? Even a level 0 farmer has a +3 strength mod. The game is about above average people facing difficult challenges.

The GM doesn't have to ramp up anything, because the system has already done all the balancing for me. I can just follow the encounter building guidelines and be fine, and I've never intentionally thrown an extreme encounter at my players.


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VampByDay wrote:


In a game this week against a boss I found that he could crit me on a 15+ (eve with +1 plate and shield active) whereas even on my primary attack with bard song and flanking could only crit him on a nat 20.

I dunno, maybe I am over-reacting. Like I said, I’m not asking for my bard to out-martial a fighter. But I would expect like, a Warpriest, Druid and a bard all working together to be able to have the same martial power as a single fighter, but it doesn’t look like that is even possible. Am I off base?

My DEX Monk with MAX AC for my level with no shield (using shields in a monk is simply not cool) and I was also crit on 15+ a few times. All boss-level encounters are like that, they built the system so that higher level monsters are huge threat both in offense and defense. We had several boss-level fights with the enemy landing one critical hit per round, some times more. This is the system. I'm not personally fond of the way this thing is set up because I far enjoyed more battles against several enemies where everyone could use their stuff and have a reasonable change to make it work, but it is what it is. Short of creating a "Boss" template and significantly altering the action economy and dynamic of the game, there isn't much to do but to have such one sided battles.

This wasn't your Bard. Every character is facing such odds against higher level enemies. Why do you think so many of us advocate for better alchemists, magus, summoners, etc? Because in these fights, the classes need to be strong or they will be useless. After the second fight against higher leveled enemies, our alchemist player was outright furious and frustrated with our GM (Not that it was his fault), there were several of them where she rolled 15+ and couldn't hit(fully optimized Bomber Alchemist) and was getting crit left and right, several of those fights the alchemist didn't land a single hit with several critical failures (None a nat 1), which made even the terrible consolation prize of 5 damage on a miss non-existent. Now imagine spending one of your four slots of the day on a Striking Spell only to have it miss after you rolled well or even landing your attack but the enemy almost assuredly making the save and nullifying your spell? That's why things need to be less feast or famine and more reliable and useful.

You feel your choices weight when everyone else is getting Master on things, now THAT'S when things will feel rough, because it seems like the game is designed at higher levels around Master Numbers, with Legendary characters excelling (some enemies will be legendary in some aspects like AC or saves, though). That's why it hurts for classes that end things on Expert at higher levels.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Staffan Johansson wrote:
This is, I think, a perception issue, particularly for people coming in from PF1.

It's certainly not a perception issue for people trying to build these kinds of characters and having the system shut them down.

Quote:
In PF2, there is one thing that makes up a "huge part of your character's identity" (well, mechanically at least), and that is your class. Everything else is "what flavor do you want to add to that?"

I can't disagree with anything you've said in your post, but you're also basically just restating the problem some people have. PF2 very much does not want you coloring outside the lines and for someone with an esoteric or slightly nonstandard character concept, that can really suck.

Salamileg wrote:
Why should the game be balanced around players having stats worse than commoners? Even a level 0 farmer has a +3 strength mod. The game is about above average people facing difficult challenges.

While I agree here, I think the person you're replying to does have a point about PF2's expectations: It's generally a lot harder to build a genuinely terrible character in PF2 than in PF1, but that comes with the caveat that there are some basic and very firm expectations about how you do things like distribute your stats. Deviate from those expectations and you'll have a bad time.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Pf2 does solo monsters right for the first time in a long time of playing D&D. If they are level +3 or Level +4, they are nearly insurmountable opponents, or at least ones that the party has to be prepared for, be tactically competent, and be ready to throw everything at. Interestingly, this is almost exactly opposite the dynamic of PF1, where an extreme encounter against 1 enemy was not nearly as dangerous as an extreme encounter against a horde of enemies (unless you had a caster with a strong AOE game).

Every class has to change its tactics against a higher level solo monster, even fighters and barbarians.

At higher levels, the party has way more options for throwing the book at them with bonuses, debuffs and battlefield control options, so facing higher level opposition does get easier at higher levels, but a lot of monsters also have ways of turning the tables, so you don't want to get overly cocky about it.

Even so, higher level solo monster fights really are atypical encounters. They tend to be memorable, and they tend to be very dangerous, so bad luck can kill you and even average luck can kill you if you are caught off guard.

There is an unfortunate habit of 1st level characters tending to face off against higher level monsters because there just aren't many lower level ones yet, so player's tend to start building expectations around facing higher level foes, but that dynamic does change by level 3 or 4 even. I think we will see the lessons of this reflected over into published adventures more and more as well.

Liberty's Edge

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Squiggit wrote:
Staffan Johansson wrote:
This is, I think, a perception issue, particularly for people coming in from PF1.

It's certainly not a perception issue for people trying to build these kinds of characters and having the system shut them down.

Quote:
In PF2, there is one thing that makes up a "huge part of your character's identity" (well, mechanically at least), and that is your class. Everything else is "what flavor do you want to add to that?"

I can't disagree with anything you've said in your post, but you're also basically just restating the problem some people have. PF2 very much does not want you coloring outside the lines and for someone with an esoteric or slightly nonstandard character concept, that can really suck.

Salamileg wrote:
Why should the game be balanced around players having stats worse than commoners? Even a level 0 farmer has a +3 strength mod. The game is about above average people facing difficult challenges.

While I agree here, I think the person you're replying to does have a point about PF2's expectations: It's generally a lot harder to build a genuinely terrible character in PF2 than in PF1, but that comes with the caveat that there are some basic and very firm expectations about how you do things like distribute your stats. Deviate from those expectations and you'll have a bad time.

I think the really important expectation is Sword or Spells. And here, if you deviate from this expectation (ie play a Caster like a Martial or vice versa), then you'll indeed have a bad time.

Other expectations, such as stats repartition, have impact but not that much. Well, obviously, if you dump your casting or attack stat, you can expect pain, but that was true (even truer IMO) in PF1 too.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I will say, you are underestimating how hard bosses are supposed to feel (my players have learned to debuff heavily)

I think you might be playing your character wrong as well-- you aren't supposed to spam melee strikes on your full caster who dabbles in melee, your proficiency was built for a "Cast and Swing" or "Swing and Cast" dynamic, where if you're already in melee, you're supposed to cast a buff/heal/saving throw spell for two actions and then swing with your third, at full accuracy (where you have a better chance to hit than a full martial's default second strike, since you're only at -2/-3 vs. their full attack accuracy) even if you miss, you've still cast a spell that turn.

Inspire Courage is also especially good for you, because it gives you (and everyone else in your party) a +1, flanking is obviously good because it reduces enemy AC. Frightened is good for the same reason.

Your specific action economy can get a little weird because of composition cantrips, but depending on the circumstance (are you moved up? is your weapon already out?):

You can inspire courage and swing twice (probably don't do this against bosses who haven't been heavily debuffed, you to-hit isn't really designed for the second strike to be good normally.)

You can cast a two action spell and Inspire Courage

You can Inspire Courage - Demoralize (Charisma is your primary stat after all) - Swing Once, as this would give you a shot at frightening the creature to make it easier to hit for everyone.

You could Inspire Courage - Shield Spell/Raise Shield - Swing Once, this would help you a little against a bosses big blows

You could Inspire Courage - Swing Once - Move Away, this could help you even more against a bosses blows as it would have to waste actions to get to you, careful of if it has AoO.

You could Inspire Courage - True Strike- Swing Once, this would give you a significant shot of hitting even a boss on top of your inspire courage, and first level slots for True Strike become cheaper as you level, plus unlike the Warpriest its on your list by default.

Remember-- even if you feel personally a little lower impact, all of these plans involve supporting your party, and making the boss easier to hit/crit for everyone else, which is a very significant contribution. Any hit that wouldn't have hit, or crit, without your Inspire/Demoralize is basically part of your real impact on the encounter. Plus, you'll always be enabling a flanking partner, which can be very good depending on your group composition.


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The irony here is that you're expressing frustration with what are essentially the three best full casters in the game...

If you expect your Bard to be as good as a fighter in combat, your expectations are too high. It would be completely imbalanced for a full caster to be a martial equivalent - and I know that's the case b/c I played PF1.

The other problem here is that you are probably facing threats too high. Fighting a boss should be like once a story arc, and by the very rules of the game it should be an encounter that you are not only fully prepared for, but that you know is a boss encounter and are encouraged to throw everything you have at the enemy. The average combat in PF2 is a number of enemies equivalent to the party at CR -2.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
The Raven Black wrote:
Well, obviously, if you dump your casting or attack stat, you can expect pain, but that was true (even truer IMO) in PF1 too.

Sort of disagree here. PF1's math was loose enough that you could pretty easily get away with a lower-than-maximum primary stat and find another way to pad your numbers.

The point buy system even sort of encouraged that by giving you so many extra points by knocking down your main stat. To the point where maximizing your mainstat wasn't even necessarily a good idea if your character wasn't on the SAD side of things.
Obviously just anecdotal, but barring Wizards and Sorcerers, I saw a lot more starting 18s and even 16s than 20s, while in PF2 I don't think I've ever had someone show up with a character that voluntarily drops their combat stat (though that has meant a few people with starting 16s, mostly Alchemists/Warpriests/Eidolons).

Obviously that loose math comes with other downsides, like making encounter balance a lot more difficult and creating wider optimization gaps, but it had some advantages too.


VampByDay wrote:
Since bards are only trained in light armor, sentinel only gets them medium armor proficiency. Champion gets you medium and heavy, and a level 11 champion dedication feat gives you expert in heavy. And Bards only get up to expert anyway.

Investing a general feat in Armor Proficiency would allow the Bard to pick up Sentinel for heavy armor that saves you the Lv 14 proficiency bump feat (which I hate) in Champion. On the other hand, Champion could net you the excellent Champion's Reaction and renewable Lay On Hands, so as all things in this game it depends on what you value most. (Heavy Armor is +6 AC rather than +5, so there's still a benefit to it that keep you above typical casters and helps offset your eventual lower proficiency.)

If your experience is mainly fighting at-level or above encounters, please tell your GM to reread encounter rules and tone it the heck down. Your experience isn't far removed from everyone else at this level, you just have the equivalent of a martial's second attack (assuming your attack stat is decent and your weapon enchantment has kept up), which is less viable in the most difficult fights.

If you would like your main option to be martial combat rather than spellcasting in the most difficult encounters, please request a rebuild to Champion (or another martial of your choice) with Bard dedication. The archetype offers the base Inspire Courage at next level, and as a supportive action it's just as useful on a martial.

Hopefully someday Paizo figures out how to encourage hybrid characters being more fun/possible in this game. Dual-classing is a somewhat more powerful variant rule than most which helps with this cause to some extent.


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You chose to be a bard with a little bit of martial, when it seems like what you wanted was a martial with a little bit of bard.

There is no way in PF2 for you to build a full caster with champion lvl martial AC, which is the best in the game. It is a feature of the champion class and that class alone.

If you're working against the major features of a class hoping to min-max some martial bard, then you are in the wrong game. PF2 does not allow it.

If you want a high AC defense, then you play a champion or a monk. If you want to be able to do some bard things, you add that MC to monk or champion.

That's how it works. There's no arguing around it or anything of the kind. That is the game.

If you want it different while playing PF2, you house rule it.

So no, you don't have to play a fighter or a monk. You play a monk or a champion for the highest possible AC. You play a fighter for the highest possible attack roll. Then you modify with MCs on those base chassis to work some kind of multiclass.

But in PF2 what is extremely definite is you do not get to obtain anywhere near the full features of a base class while also MCing. If that is your expectation, this is clearly not the game for you.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
The-Magic-Sword wrote:

I will say, you are underestimating how hard bosses are supposed to feel (my players have learned to debuff heavily)

I think you might be playing your character wrong as well-- you aren't supposed to spam melee strikes on your full caster who dabbles in melee, your proficiency was built for a "Cast and Swing" or "Swing and Cast" dynamic, where if you're already in melee, you're supposed to cast a buff/heal/saving throw spell for two actions and then swing with your third, at full accuracy (where you have a better chance to hit than a full martial's default second strike, since you're only at -2/-3 vs. their full attack accuracy) even if you miss, you've still cast a spell that turn.

Inspire Courage is also especially good for you, because it gives you (and everyone else in your party) a +1, flanking is obviously good because it reduces enemy AC. Frightened is good for the same reason.

Your specific action economy can get a little weird because of composition cantrips, but depending on the circumstance (are you moved up? is your weapon already out?):

You can inspire courage and swing twice (probably don't do this against bosses who haven't been heavily debuffed, you to-hit isn't really designed for the second strike to be good normally.)

You can cast a two action spell and Inspire Courage

You can Inspire Courage - Demoralize (Charisma is your primary stat after all) - Swing Once, as this would give you a shot at frightening the creature to make it easier to hit for everyone.

You could Inspire Courage - Shield Spell/Raise Shield - Swing Once, this would help you a little against a bosses big blows

You could Inspire Courage - Swing Once - Move Away, this could help you even more against a bosses blows as it would have to waste actions to get to you, careful of if it has AoO.

You could Inspire Courage - True Strike- Swing Once, this would give you a significant shot of hitting even a boss on top of your inspire courage, and first level slots for True Strike become cheaper as you...

This is definitely a good way to approach this kind of character. One thing that probably isn't helping the OP's perception is that doing these things doesn't let them catch up with the fighter-- because these things actively benefit the fighter as well. But that's good! If you demoralize an enemy, inspire Courage, and flank, you've shifted the math by +4 in your favor and +4 in the fighter's favor as well. If you're looking at that and saying "there's no way to compete with fighters" you're going to feel sad. If you instead think "look at all the damage that fighter is dealing because of me" you'll feel better.

At higher levels you can use heightened heroism to close that proficiency gap some, but you'll still be well suited to helping your entire team by debuffing that enemy. Even now, you can buff yourself with heroism and use Dirge of Doom instead of Inspire Courage. Dirge is amazing.


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I love how everyone is just jumping to (you are playing the class wrong)

If he is from dnd or pf1e, he wasn't playing the class wrong, also maybe I am mistaken but I don't recall ever seeing any parts of the crb mentioning this paradigm shift either.

So if you are not familiar with 2e it's incredibly common to make this mistake and build what amounts to a trap character. Especially since they don't seem to be a trap at level 1 but it becomes painfully apparent as you level.

To the people suggesting reworks for his character. Kudo's to you.

On some level its unfortunate that this is an issue. It is ultimately for the sake of balance, Wich I agree with the focus on balance. But I do hope they introduce dedications eventually, that take away from your main class to give you a little more in another aspect of play. But time will tell.

ATM it's simply very very easy to build non standard characters that essentially become trap's as your level unless you give up on your original concept and cater to what the game system is pushing you towards.

Even warpriest experience this, level 1 they are great. But higher level you lose that martial feel and are forced to play more like a basic caster. Except your no longer as good because you have invested aspects of your class into something that didn't carry over well to higher levels.

I do appreciate the alternative stat rule where everyone gets 2 free boosts instead of racially specific modifiers. Helps for a level or 2. But eventually your a d8 caster with sub par armor, hp, and to hit bonuses. And there is nothing you can do as a player to overcome that other than making a different character

It exists for a reason and overall I generally agree with it. But it can suck sometimes.

As a DM I have to let people know when they might be entering into a trap option and tell them I'll let them change out of it for free if they agree with me after playing with it. Worst feeling is having a cool concept and having all the parts that should make it work but it didn't because your proficiencies were in the wrong place.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

As a GM, I also agree that it can be really important to be flexible with your players and if someone isn't having fun, to help them figure out why/ allow them to retrain even pretty central elements to their character if it will result in everyone having more fun. If you thought being a bard was going to allow you to buff and heal your party and still leave you a functional martial especially if you are only using your spells for healing and buffing, maybe consider retraining into a champion with a Bard MC? By level 8 you will have inspire courage again and be much more capable of tanking up front, healing, and still fighting like a martial.


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I think this is a place where Bard becoming a primary caster throws people used to other D&D variations off. Along, of course, with the usual thing that PF2e has generally razored casters back to an overall better balance with martials (which people often see as nerfing the former, but its not going to easy to convince people is that they're just used to overpowered casters) and as referenced, PF2e doesn't much do true fighter/mages (you're either a fighter with some mage or a mage with some fighter, but they're not going to be symmetrical).


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Yeah it's also a case of system mastery. Just because you played what would be considered unbalanced especially on a comparative level, some players might have never experienced it exactly because of the decisions they made with abilities and spells.


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Martialmasters wrote:

I love how everyone is just jumping to (you are playing the class wrong)

One thing is play the class the way you want and another very differently is thinking that something is bad or subpar when they're comparing their builds against the best aspects of other classes. Thinking something is bad because you lack perspective and knowledge is exactly the kind of thing that put off veteran players from new system, they analyze everything with their preconceived notions of what's good, bad and how things are supposed to work based on knowledge that may or may not apply.

Having someone point out the strengths of such a character based on the current framework is very different than saying that someone is playing the character wrong. Last time I've seen such a thing was on a reddit thread claiming that the Alchemist wasn't bad, people just didn't know how to play the class, that thread's idea was playing the alchemist as glorified item dispenser.

Having the proper perspective and context is paramount to evaluate a character, that's why some feats don't look that good or interesting on paper but in combat are amazing (Warden's Boon, for example).

Liberty's Edge

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Flanking alone (or, if you can't rely on that, Dirge of Doom and Rogue Multiclass for Dread Striker) gets you to the same to-hit bonus as a martial without flanking has. That's perfectly serviceable vs. most foes, including some bosses.

I mean, at 10th level that's what, +19 to hit vs. AC 31 (or +18 vs. AC 30 with Dirge of Doom) even vs. a boss two levels higher? That's not bad at all in absolute terms even if it is worse than a martial would have, and you still give bonuses to other characters and have full spellcasting.

I think that's very workable, really. You don't want to be taking three attacks, but Move - Inspire - Attack or Inspire - Cast - Attack with the use of Haste is a very viable attack routine.


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Just wanted to repeat something that was said above that bears repeating: unlike in 1st edition, bards are full casters now. A bard isn't a "jack of all trades" like they were in PF1, where they mixed fighting with 6-level spellcasting. They are now full casters with 10 levels of spellcasting.

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