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My group is gearing up to try pathfinder 2e. For the most part, people are reserved. I've generally been the one most excited but I think I've run into something that has pretty well taken the wind out of my sails so I'm wanting to make sure I understand all of this correctly.
First point - Modifiers are much more impactful in PF2e. A -2 is a pretty big deal. A -4 or a -6 would be enormous. If I'm wrong on this, please correct me.
So the DC of a spell is Spellcasting Ability Modifier + Level + Proficiency Rank + Other Bonuses + Penalties.
Spells: the Ability Modifier is determined by your class. For characters without a spellcasting class feature (mundanes) they have a Class DC that is calculated in the same way, almost always based on the stat that is most likely to be their highest.
The problem I see comes with Innate and Focus spells - the methods mundanes can use to get some magical flavor.
Innate Spells: Almost always use Charisma as the ability score (not a problem for half the spellcasting classes), and starts at Trained (+2), but goes up with your spellcasting proficiency if you have some.
Focus Spells: Seems to default to Charisma generally, but there are exceptions (ranger's Warden Spells). Focus spells have a tradition, and usually grant proficiency in their focus spell type.
Okay, so the part that confuses me.
Let's say I am playing a bard.
-Spells: My highest DC
-Innate: My highest DC (scaling off my spellcasting proficiency and my charisma)
-Focus: My highest DC if the tradition is Occult.[/list]
My bard doesn't have to pick up feats that increase her Occult Spellcasting Proficiency - she already has that. She also happens to be a charisma caster.
If I'm playing a swashbuckler and I want to pick up the same archetypes/ancestry feats as my bard did. My Charisma is high, but it's not my highest.
-Spells: None.
-Innate: I have no spellcasting proficiency, so it runs off my charisma. At start, my DC is 1 behind my bard (I prioritized Dexterity because Swashbuckler). At level 7 I'm 3 behind my Bard. At level 15, I'm a whopping 5 behind her.
-Focus: Same situation as Innate.
There may be feats that can help my situation such as with the Shadowdancer, but there also might not be. Depends on the source of the ability.
If I'm playing a Barbarian, picking up the same archetypes/ancestries as my bard. My Charisma is probably middling at best. Let's say it's a 12. I wanted to play an ugly, temperamental type character. Hard to love, but has a heart of gold type.
-Spells: None.
-Innate: I have no spellcasting proficiency, and it runs on my charisma. So at level 1, I'm 4 DC behind my Bard. At level 7, I'm 6 behind and at 15 I'm 8 behind.
-Focus: Same situation as Innate for the most part.
Sure, I could have put more of a focus on Charisma, but I didn't want to play a charismatic character.
When a -2 is such a huge modifier to an attack roll or a DC, being 5 behind seems...kinda like telling me just not to do that? Definitely not in a boss fight.
This seems like a very strange design decision. I understand why multiclass casters are always 2 DC behind the actual class. A -2 is enough to secure that the best bard is, well, a bard. That makes sense. But why the decision to make ancestry spells, feat-gained cantrips and archetype spells all weaker for non-spellcasters and especially the uncharismatic characters?
So what is the reasoning behind this design decision? Has Paizo spoken on it?
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No. They haven't spoken of it. And pretty much like you said, it makes taking those feats useless unless it is an individual buff spell that doesn't rely on a DC to affect an enemy. You would never take any spell that remained at the Trained proficiency using a statistic you aren't good in against enemies.
Then again innate ancestry spells in PF1 that attacked other creatures weren't good either unless they synergized well with your spellcasting statistic.
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My guess is a lack of proficiency value in regards to scale, because it's not just spells, but weapon choices and expected values.
Consider that anyone using an Advanced weapon by 5th level is at least 2 behind their expected values compared to someone using a Martial weapon. That Advanced weapon better be giving a lot of power in other ways to justify it being at a -2 (or more) to hit, a significant penalty.
Also consider that spells have a reduced scaling compared to martials, since spells gain their proficiency boosts far later, and enemy ACs will be generally weaker (and easier to hit) than Saving Throws, since unlike martials, Spells still have effects on a Success made by the enemy.
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It's because if it worked the other way then the threads whining about casters being unable to feat into master weapon proficiency would be even more overbearing.
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It's because if it worked the other way then the threads whining about casters being unable to feat into master weapon proficiency would be even more overbearing.
To be fair, they can't hardly feat into Expert half the time, either, and that's a problem.
Even if they did, Expert weapons in the late game is such a poor investment, it's just as bad as Master Class/Spell DCs.
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Because a Barbarian shouldn't be as good as a spellcaster as a Bard? Maybe if you want your PC to be good at spells you should put points in Cha?
Seriously, these are gravy spells. High flavor but not mechanically superior or more than situationally useful. Most of the innate/ancestry spells also aren't offensive/attack spells but rather buffs or utility.
It's also the trade off for multiclassing in 2e.
In Pathfinder1, if you wanted to cast spells as a barbarian you had to multiclass. But that means your barbarian levels were way behind or you just had a couple of first level spell with a very low caster level.
In Pathfinder2, my barbarian can have Master spellcasting proficiency and 7th level spells but still be a full Barbarian. The only thing that makes me behind a wizard in DC is no Legendary spellcasting and 2 Intelligence (if I build right). That seems like a pretty good deal to me.
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Innate spells are not mean to be primary attack tools, often they are more utility spells.
As for focus, they scale off the casting stat of their respective class, unless said otherwise.
So yes, a Monk would have his ki-spells (which can be occult or divine, chosen at the start)scale of his wisdom, and a champion would have his focus spell scale of his charisma.
A wizard would have them scale of his intelligence, same as a witch, so would someone getting their focus spells through multiclassing.
Yes, the swashbuckler will be a worse caster than a sorcerer, it is by design.
Some martials are a bit better at that (Monk and Champion and I think that Ranger progresses in Primal automatically if he gets his focus spells now) because they have innate progression through their focus spells, making them a bit better without having to invest all the way through "Master Spellcasting Dedication" if they just want a few low to mid level spells.
But as said before, you're a swashbuckler first.
Just like the sorcerer multiclassing into swashbuckler would be pretty bad at it without investing a lot of feats, so will you (and usually a martial gets more out of caster multiclass and quicker than the opposite)
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The power of a caster multiclass is in the utility spells in my experience. No need to worry about spell DC there!
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Because a Barbarian shouldn't be as good as a spellcaster as a Bard? Maybe if you want your PC to be good at spells you should put points in Cha?
Seriously, these are gravy spells. High flavor but not mechanically superior or more than situationally useful. Most of the innate/ancestry spells also aren't offensive/attack spells but rather buffs or utility.
It's also the trade off for multiclassing in 2e.
In Pathfinder1, if you wanted to cast spells as a barbarian you had to multiclass. But that means your barbarian levels were way behind or you just had a couple of first level spell with a very low caster level.
In Pathfinder2, my barbarian can have Master spellcasting proficiency and 7th level spells but still be a full Barbarian. The only thing that makes me behind a wizard in DC is no Legendary spellcasting and 2 Intelligence (if I build right). That seems like a pretty good deal to me.
I've been hearing variations on that explanation for going on two decades now. And there are cases where I buy it - but not in a game that is supposed to be about having a really cool character creation process where I can make a character that is mostly unique to me, and where the mechanics of the game system reinforce that.
There are far too many examples of heroes from fiction who are mostly mundane with a little bit of magical talent from one source or another, but who are able to use that magical talent to accomplish goals reliably - not often always, but reliably.
But when I can't (or have to use more resources to) make a rogue shadowdancer who can effectively fight alongside his shadow double, or a dragon instinct barbarian dragon disciple can't use his breath weapon? That strikes me as wrong. It sucks that my Runescarred Monk isn't good at using his runescars because he didn't go to the fine school of grandpa had sex with a dragon. Not just logically wrong - that's case by case, character by character - but wrong from the perspective of trying to let everyone at the table feel good playing the character that makes sense to them and the other people at the table.
If I spend a feat on an ability available to everyone, and you spend a feat on the same ability, it doesn't make the game better if I now have to invest two additional feats trying to keep up with you when using the exact same ability.
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Maybe you should look at the dual class rules then.
You seem to be looking for characters more powerful than base characters.
Also your barbarian is still a barbarian, your monk still a monk.
They are better at being that, if you want them to be better at magic, make it something they worked for their whole life. A sorcerer does train their magic to get more powerful, otherwise a level 1 sorcerer would be as strong as a level 20.
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The honest answer is that Paizo is afraid of letting magic be good because a lot of people hated the 3.x/PF1 casters versus martial dynamic. As such, full casters are limited and narrow in their effectiveness, until high levels, and thus anybody who wants just a little bit of magic has to be even weaker than that. So any partial caster had better be taking those spells for pure flavor or to cherry-pick buffs that their caster friends aren't casting on them.
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At first level a martial character can spend an ancestry feat and some stat resources to have magic be a decent secondary attack option. Casters can do the same to have a decent martial option. One ancestry feat is about 20 to 30 % of your build options.
At higher levels, if you spent about 30 of your character options on keeping up, you will still have about the same level of decent back up option. Your primary thing will have stayed better than it. That is the games intentional design, but the dual class option absolutely exists for tables that want more character freedom with less concern for balance or class niche.
PF2 has both options, you just have to decide how you want to play it as a table.
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It's because if it worked the other way then the threads whining about casters being unable to feat into master weapon proficiency would be even more overbearing.To be fair, they can't hardly feat into Expert half the time, either, and that's a problem.
Even if they did, Expert weapons in the late game is such a poor investment, it's just as bad as Master Class/Spell DCs.
It's very easy to feat into expert by 13th level. That is fine given you are a primarily a caster.
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Or because even a fireball at 2 less than optimal DC is still a great thing for an otherwise melee single target martial to be able to whip out several times a day.
A -2 isn't exactly insignificant. Plus they're behind on spell levels too... and it's usually not "several times a day" either. It's once from their top-level spell slot, lower-level slots have their damage drag even further.
A level 6 Fighter MC Wizard using their sole second-level slot to cast acid arrow hits level +1 enemy on a 15 for 13.5 average + 1d6 persistent. Swinging a sword one time does comparable damage, more accurately, and with better action economy... and if something happens you can do it again literally as long as you want.
It's, frankly, not great. Especially when you consider utility option for those spell slots instead, which don't have the multiple layers of diminishing returns Blasts do.
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Acid arrow is a terrible spell for a fighter MC though. The point of fireball is that it targets saving throws and affects an area.
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It's very easy to feat into expert by 13th level. That is fine given you are a primarily a caster.It's because if it worked the other way then the threads whining about casters being unable to feat into master weapon proficiency would be even more overbearing.To be fair, they can't hardly feat into Expert half the time, either, and that's a problem.
Even if they did, Expert weapons in the late game is such a poor investment, it's just as bad as Master Class/Spell DCs.
For a spellcaster, it's about as useful as having the bad spell DCs via multiclassing. Even if they could, most of their proficiencies are garbage unless they take feats which reduce martial to simple weapons or outright grant proficiency to the weapons they need.
Even for a Rogue wanting specialty Martial weapons, needing to burn a General feat for Trained at 3rd to instantly bump up to Master rank by 13th via an Ancestry feat is quite jarring given that the rules require that character to suffer a -2 to hit just to use the specialty "Martial" weapon.
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Generally when grabbing innate spells or dedication spells, you are a little more particular about what makes the cut. Something thats accuracy scales off of your weaker stat likely isn't the go-to, though things like buffs and spells that have effects of a save will be powerful. A fireball being able to hit a large number of opponents and damaging them (mostly) regardless of their save gives a martial more options in combat. A thing that martials generally don't need more of is single-target damage, especially when many of their chassises are already built with that in mind.
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A +2 advantage on saves (or attacks for that matter) vs. a level-appropriate enemy who can be crit translates to about a +1/3 damage.
IMO, that's a lot.
Of course, an opening Fireball vs. a crowd (on top of what your blaster(s) might be doing) will reap fruitful dividends even doing less damage, but it'll also cost you other options in other types of battles (and you won't necessarily have more slots if crowds are frequent). Perhaps Swipe or Quick Reversal might have been better for crowd control over time, yet then again magic items can broaden your casting options and you might swap out that AoE to address specific needs. And so the discussion goes with no obvious winner which IMO is a good thing.
For triggering Weaknesses, overcoming an immunity/resistance to your weapon, or stopping Regeneration, the ability to do an energy attack (especially while your hands are full) can also be worthwhile.
And I do like me some Cantrips. :)
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This is pretty much exactly the thing that PF2 manages to pull off well, in my opinion: Allowing a character to pick up options that can be siutationally quite useful without overshadowing the rest of their options or stepping on the toes of the rest of their team. A fighter with a pocket fireball is going to be helpful, but not always. A fighter with Swipe is going to be helpful, but not always. Even a wizard with a bow is going to be helpful, but again... not always.
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This is pretty much exactly the thing that PF2 manages to pull off well, in my opinion: Allowing a character to pick up options that can be siutationally quite useful without overshadowing the rest of their options or stepping on the toes of the rest of their team. A fighter with a pocket fireball is going to be helpful, but not always. A fighter with Swipe is going to be helpful, but not always. Even a wizard with a bow is going to be helpful, but again... not always.
On the other hand. A fighter who puts lots of feats into Archery can reasonably expect to use their bow and archery enhancements in every or nearly every encounter. A fighter who puts lots of feats into beast master dedication for an animal companion can reasonably expect their animal companion to be something they can leverage in most fights.
If someone invests a lot of resources into making something a major part of their character concept, it should feel like it. Not like a back pocket trick for special occasions... and for the most part, PF2 succeeds in that regard.
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The power of a caster multiclass is in the utility spells in my experience. No need to worry about spell DC there!
Magic Missile gets around all these problems DC is just not relevant.
And items can give MC casters a lot more spells per day as well, including higher level spells than the MC caster can cast from a spell slot. Not cheaply, but scrolls stay pretty reasonable.
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On the other hand. A fighter who puts lots of feats into Archery can reasonably expect to use their bow and archery enhancements in every or nearly every encounter. A fighter who puts lots of feats into beast master dedication for an animal companion can reasonably expect their animal companion to be something they can leverage in most fights.
I mean, is that true? How many archery feats are you using in every encounter? How many do you need? A fighter grabbing every single feat that would help with archery isn't getting a numerical bonus to their attacks, but rather letting them do something that they normally could't.
Let's say we have Point Blank Shot, Assisting Shot, Double Shot, Triple Shot, Incredible Aim, and Debilitating Shot. For a level 10 fighter specializing in archery, we would agree that these are some good feats, right? But we also only have three actions a round.
So we might spend a round getting into Point Blank Shot stance, getting a Strike in, then tossing out an Assisting Shot (assuming you've got an ally who can take advantage of that bonus). You may then want to stand still and fire Triple Shots all day long. Then you have Debilitating Shot and Incredible Aim in your back pocket for tougher enemies or enemies hiding from you.
It's absolutely a white room situation (How often are you going to be able to sit still and fire Triple Shot? When is it not feasible to drop into stance? What do I do against an enemy with piercing resistance? What if my foe has a higher AC and those Triple Shots aren't going to land?) and still has room for options that are helpful, but not always.
By a similar token, a fighter with several wizard dedication feats will have that same level of options, if not applied differently. So, let's see... Combat Assessment, Wizard Dedication, Basic Wizard Spellcasting, Basic Arcana (grab whatever you like here, really), Arane Breadth, Advanced Arcana, that seems overly gishy, but so did our archer seem overly archer-y.
The two fighters can fire their bows just as well as each other. The archer fighter happens to be able to have more tricks they can do with their bow. The wizard-fighter may not be able to Triple Shot or get a +2 damage bonus with shortbows (within 30 ft), but they give that up for being able to throw out a fireball at 120 foot range, apply frightened (you can even keep this as your 3rd level spell and tag a bunch of foes with it), or even turn invisible. Not being able to do these at-will doesn't negate the potency of them, but is really just part and parcel of spellcasting.
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At first level a martial character can spend an ancestry feat and some stat resources to have magic be a decent secondary attack option. Casters can do the same to have a decent martial option. One ancestry feat is about 20 to 30 % of your build options.
While true casters can pick up a weapon proficiency lack defences and hitpoints to make this feasible in anything other than a ranged weapon. Picking up a ranged attack cantrip as a back up option is a far more feasible and decent option.
At higher levels, if you spent about 30 of your character options on keeping up, you will still have about the same level of decent back up option. Your primary thing will have stayed better than it. That is the games intentional design, but the dual class option absolutely exists for tables that want more character freedom with less concern for balance or class niche.
Just a note martial with back up spells is far more feasible and workable that a caster picking up martial abilities. Master casting is quite good for martials to pick up AoEs for packs of mooks or some really good utility of spells like true strike when you really need it. For casters there is not much which is really going to improve your martial ability. Expert is ok for maybe 1 attack per round and you will need to invest a lot of your gold in the weapon. Again its basically suicide to be near melee so ranged options are best so it works better if you go martial with a little bit of magic than the other way around. Casters trying to melee is basically a trap option that will never be effective unless the rest of your team has lots of way to protect you from retaliation.
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I think Paizo realized this flaw in their system, and they actually are finding ways to work around it. The Tengu Feather Fan feats from the Lost Omens Ancestry Guide offer a good way for martial characters to have some offensive magic in their back pocket.
So the DC of a spell is Spellcasting Ability Modifier + Level + Proficiency Rank + Other Bonuses + Penalties.
+10
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You could pretty easily scale multiclass and ancestry casting spell attacks/DCs to legendary and it wouldn't cause any issues (in my opinion). The balancing factor of these spells is still that they are extremely limited both in terms of number of slots, and level of spell. All it would do is open up options, and most of the time those options still wouldn't be great - lower stat is one issue, but also lessened effect. Your Fireball as a martial is still doing 4d6 less than the caster's, and you can only do it once a day.
We should be incentivizing those differences, not relegating every MC caster to just evergreen utility spells.
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You could pretty easily scale multiclass and ancestry casting spell attacks/DCs to legendary and it wouldn't cause any issues (in my opinion). The balancing factor of these spells is still that they are extremely limited both in terms of number of slots, and level of spell. All it would do is open up options, and most of the time those options still wouldn't be great - lower stat is one issue, but also lessened effect. Your Fireball as a martial is still doing 4d6 less than the caster's, and you can only do it once a day.
We should be incentivizing those differences, not relegating every MC caster to just evergreen utility spells.
If there is only 1 fight a day, it doesn't matter much wether you can cast fireball once or three times.
Besides, Focus spells level is not limited for MC caster, so you'd end up with Martial being just as powerful with them than a caster for whom it is supposed to be a main feature.
If you give free proficiency scaling to innate spells and caster MC, how do you buff martial MC and ancestry weapon proficiency so the casters get something too?
You could pretty easily scale multiclass and ancestry casting spell attacks/DCs to legendary and it wouldn't cause any issues (in my opinion). The balancing factor of these spells is still that they are extremely limited both in terms of number of slots, and level of spell. All it would do is open up options, and most of the time those options still wouldn't be great - lower stat is one issue, but also lessened effect. Your Fireball as a martial is still doing 4d6 less than the caster's, and you can only do it once a day.
We should be incentivizing those differences, not relegating every MC caster to just evergreen utility spells.
If there is only 1 fight a day, it doesn't matter much wether you can cast fireball once or three times.
Besides, Focus spells level is not limited for MC caster, so you'd end up with Martial being just as powerful with them than a caster for whom it is supposed to be a main feature.
If you give free proficiency scaling to innate spells and caster MC, how do you buff martial MC and ancestry weapon proficiency so the casters get something too?
Because Pathfinder was always designed to only ever have one combat per day? That's a pretty weak argument considering multiple spell uses means repeated effective tactics to end the encounter faster, and there are rules for mid-adventure-day healing and restoring of Focus spells. If that was the intent, we'd have no reason for those rules. Just make everyone back to max between every encounter. Problem solved, no need to waste word space for rules nobody's gonna use.
But really, the problem is that the game demands higher spell DC scaling than attack roll scaling to have the same amount of effectiveness because Spells still do something on a success (or more accurately, a spell failure). When Master in Weapons is the equivalent to Legendary in Spell DCs, there is a scaling problem, when we want to consider that those built for it should be +2 more than those not built for it, leaving Expert weapons and Master Spell DCs the reduced standard.
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Most of the caster multiclasses in my tables either opt for utility spells, buffs, or save spells that have a success effects, and they are consistently pretty good. You need to be more conscientious about targeting weak saves, but a fireball against a cluster if mooks is still gonna hurt, a slow on a boss will still hurt, illusory object still burns an action to disbelieve, etc. Consistently, they wind up being some of the most impactful characters because they have a combination of having flexibility while still having a very powerful and consistent weapon strike to fall back on
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You could pretty easily scale multiclass and ancestry casting spell attacks/DCs to legendary and it wouldn't cause any issues (in my opinion). The balancing factor of these spells is still that they are extremely limited both in terms of number of slots, and level of spell. All it would do is open up options, and most of the time those options still wouldn't be great - lower stat is one issue, but also lessened effect. Your Fireball as a martial is still doing 4d6 less than the caster's, and you can only do it once a day.
We should be incentivizing those differences, not relegating every MC caster to just evergreen utility spells.
I have to agree with Exocist here. I think the lowered DC just makes for less character diversity, all because they're afraid of something that wouldn't happen in the first place. If spellcaster MCs overshadowing actual spellcasters were an actual issue, it would already be one, because many very powerful spells don't use your DC or require a roll at all. All this restriction does is make so caster MCs only have about 1/3 of the list to choose from, that they can use with full effectiveness, while offensive spells are left out in the dust. I don't see why a Fighter/Abjurer should be more powerful than a Fighter/Enchanter or Fighter/Evoker (talking about general playstyles here, not the actual Wizard schools).
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The DCs for MC casters are not that far behind full casters, it is usually equal to proficiency or 1 behind, and they can cast spells from items with no restriction. If you really want to gish as a martial with a caster MC and you buy items like staves, scrolls and spell casting items, you are going to be 1 to 3 points behind. At level 20, the difference between targeting a High defense and a moderate defense is 4.
People have some strange ideas about what viability means in PF2. Yes a +1 is significant, but if the trade off for 1 +1 is the ability to target a defense that is 2 or more points lower then it is still a net gain.
You don't "win" PF2 combats by having the best bonuses, that is a 3.x mindset. You win combats in PF2 by creating and exploiting enemy weaknesses.
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Tbh, the edge of a spellcaster's proficiency is being able to target the second best save amd have a chance to hit as good as the MC caster targeting the weakest save. Which isn't bad given the fighter/wizard is also really heckin good with weapons, too.
As far as the enchanter being worse than the abjurer though... you can use bon mot, a -2 to will saves is practically the same as a proficiency boost. It's okay for specialists to be slightly better at their shtick than a dabbler
Because a MC caster doesn't have the raw numbers of a pure caster, you have to play smarter to capitalize on it.
For example, very basic, you don't have has much of a chance to hit with a spell. But you're much better at tripping opponent to make them flatfooted to your attack spell, which even out somewhat.
A rogue with a MCD caster is one of the best character to have invisibility cast on himself, for obvious reasons.
The DCs for MC casters are not that far behind full casters, it is usually equal to proficiency or 1 behind, and they can cast spells from items with no restriction. If you really want to gish as a martial with a caster MC and you buy items like staves, scrolls and spell casting items, you are going to be 1 to 3 points behind. At level 20, the difference between targeting a High defense and a moderate defense is 4.
People have some strange ideas about what viability means in PF2. Yes a +1 is significant, but if the trade off for 1 +1 is the ability to target a defense that is 2 or more points lower then it is still a net gain.
You don't "win" PF2 combats by having the best bonuses, that is a 3.x mindset. You win combats in PF2 by creating and exploiting enemy weaknesses.
Shouldn't martial classes already have abilities that target different saves via intimidate, trip, grapple, shove, etc.? If they don't have these things, or if it is overly difficult for most classes to target all 3 savesm I'd rather give them a non-magical way to accomplish these goals. If these saves are already easy targets then spell casting doesn't cover new ground and doing it at a minus is just a bad deal.
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A rogue with a MCD caster is one of the best character to have invisibility cast on himself, for obvious reasons.
Yes, a Rogue who casts Invisibility on themselves is amazing. Greater Invisibility is pretty much busted for martials. Self-casting 2nd level Longstrider is amazing; self-casting Heroism before a long string of combats is amazing; yada yada yada. My question is: why do these spells get to be so good—as good as a full caster's version, spell access nonwithstanding—but offensive spells arbitrarily don't?
Shouldn't martial classes already have abilities that target different saves via intimidate, trip, grapple, shove, etc.? If they don't have these things, or if it is overly difficult for most classes to target all 3 savesm I'd rather give them a non-magical way to accomplish these goals. If these saves are already easy targets then spell casting doesn't cover new ground and doing it at a minus is just a bad deal.The DCs for MC casters are not that far behind full casters, it is usually equal to proficiency or 1 behind, and they can cast spells from items with no restriction. If you really want to gish as a martial with a caster MC and you buy items like staves, scrolls and spell casting items, you are going to be 1 to 3 points behind. At level 20, the difference between targeting a High defense and a moderate defense is 4.
People have some strange ideas about what viability means in PF2. Yes a +1 is significant, but if the trade off for 1 +1 is the ability to target a defense that is 2 or more points lower then it is still a net gain.
You don't "win" PF2 combats by having the best bonuses, that is a 3.x mindset. You win combats in PF2 by creating and exploiting enemy weaknesses.
Except when a martial targets these saves (unless you crit a trip or invest feats) you can't get anything better than a -2 to a certain statistic or two for 1 round, whereas spells can cause things like stunned/slowed, damage, a statistic effected for more than 1 round. Martials targeting saves makes them expedite them killing the target with big sword, an MC gish can target a save to directly kill the thing, or expedite killing it for him AND his buddies.
Except when a martial targets these saves (unless you crit a trip or invest feats) you can't get anything better than a -2 to a certain statistic or two for 1 round, whereas spells can cause things like stunned/slowed, damage, a statistic effected for more than 1 round. Martials targeting saves makes them expedite them killing the target with big sword, an MC gish can target a save to directly kill the thing, or expedite killing it for him AND his buddies.
So you're saying we need to let martial characters do more with the systems they already interact with.... I mean, why shouldn't a warrior of legend be able to trip people so that they're slowed even after getting up, or shove somebody in such a way that they leave them flat-footed, or grapple somebody so forcefully that it leaves them enervated? Let martial classes do cool things so that spells can be cool again.
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Why can't every class get Legendary proficiency in everything?! Why can't I overshadow every other player at the table with my supermunchkin build anymore?!
OP asked what the design philosophy was. The answer is, they're not that bad if you put resources in it, but they shouldn't overshadow the class with the native ability.
I get that some people don't like the decision, but there it is.
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Its weird that spellcasters lost so much to barely get legendary casting at level 19 (except warpriest poor soul). While being unable to ever get master in weapons in any way. But here is this thread asking for martials to get legendary in spells. Or even master in spells by spending less feats.
And why? "Martial's can't hit well with offensive spells". So casters can't hit well with those spells or weapons, but martials should?
If you want to increase the proficiency of martials with spells. Increase the proficiency of casters with weapons. Maybe also throw in actual defenses for casters, as a bonus.
Whatever other disagreements we have I can at least respect that you're arguing in good faith here rather than being exactly the sort of person I was referring to upthread
Martials should not be able to get their spell DC's equal to a caster's. There's plenty of things you can do with spells that do not require top of the line DC's, consider building your character better rather than just demanding you have the best possible stats in everything.
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Its weird that spellcasters lost so much to barely get legendary casting at level 19 (except warpriest poor soul). While being unable to ever get master in weapons in any way. But here is this thread asking for martials to get legendary in spells. Or even master in spells by spending less feats.
And why? "Martial's can't hit well with offensive spells". So casters can't hit well with those spells or weapons, but martials should?
If you want to increase the proficiency of martials with spells. Increase the proficiency of casters with weapons. Maybe also throw in actual defenses for casters, as a bonus.
I can definitely get behind all that to be honest. I think PF2 makes investing in certain things outside of your class (mainly anything that isn't a Skill or plain utility with no additional rolls required) way too hard and unrewarding.
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original post asking why a bard will benefit more from ancestry feats/archetype feats that grant spells.
The primary reason why is because extra cantrips and even some low level spells are less of a “whole new thing” the character can do, and more of an expansion of what the character can already do. Any character tagging on a whole new thing to their character is going to have limits on what it offers, especially without significant investment. The bard is investing a lot in being good with occult magic as a default.
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There's plenty of things you can do with spells that do not require top of the line DC's
Well yeah, that's exactly why it's kind of frustrating for some people, because there are these alternative builds that are so much obviously more effective in general and it would be nice if this type of build got some better support so it could feel as good to use too.
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There's plenty of things you can do with spells that do not require top of the line DC'sWell yeah, that's exactly why it's kind of frustrating for some people, because there are these alternative builds that are so much obviously more effective in general and it would be nice if this type of build got some better support so it could feel as good to use too.
Yeah, this is the main issue. It's not "why is my Fighter always bad at casting spells no matter what I do", more of "why can my Fighter be awesome with magic if I choose the Correct Playstyle™, but not the playstyle I actually like?".
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Voicing what kind of characters you want to be able to play is great, it is how developers know what kind of material to develop. The magus very much will be a class that can cast offensively, and integrate that into martial power. There is also the whole dual class option for players that want more flexibility at the expense of game balance.