That is rubbish it is obvious in the rules that martials have better saving throws.
With the General Feat, they end with the following:
Martials: Legendary, Master, Master
Casters: Master, Master, Expert
So martials usually have a two point advantage in two saves and equal in another. Fighters end with Master, Master, Master.
Then it comes down to where you put your ability boosts and item, which is why having a high value casting stat like Wisdom is so nice. Regardless, most casters are going to focus on their Con or Dex since they don't have to spend time on Str much.
So you are assuming than none of the martials have ranged attacks, and they all stand in a group? This is silly.
Nothing was stated as such. We usually build with at least one ranged martial every party. We have found that if you are not dedicated ranged martial, you're usually not that great.
Casters have vastly superior ranged capabilities for dealing damage.
Even a simple spell like wind wall renders most bow users ineffective.
As far as how far apart martials stand, well, they lose either way. If they stand too far apart, they can get piece mealed and lose the advantage of flanking and reaction based attacks. And casters with high level spells can hit immense burst damage cones or the like to smash from afar.
PF2 high level blast or long range attack spells are often built for long range and hit very large areas. So how far apart are you planning to stand?
You keep making these statements that something is silly because you maybe don't study spells and tactics as closely. That's fine. If you have some spell capable of hitting from 500 feet in a 30 or 40 foot burst, why stand in a few moves from martial range visibly waiting to get hit? Because the game breaks if you don't? That's your argument?
So you are assuming than none of the martials have ranged attacks, and they all stand in a group? This is silly.I am not sure I am following this... are you suggesting, as an alternative to fight casters, for melee combatant to draw their ranged weapon and attack with that?
It would be more effective to run onto the casters, forbidding them to AOE each others ( for example 2 combatants on a single spellcaster ), in order to force them not to aoe but to blast a single target, rather than stay at range with several malus:
- way less damage ( ranged weapons do way less damage compared to melee weapons )
- less hit chance ( unless dex based builds, which are not pretty common in melee )
- fighting with a worse weapon ( you will obviously prioritize your melee weapon/s. the ranged weapon will be way behind ).
- no AoO ( casters will send you a fireball to thank you )
Anyway, regardless the situation, in my experience is not rare to see full melee parties ( 3melee + healer ). It's harder to see a party without a healer.
Especially in premade adventures, where spaces are narrow and you can reach any enemy with little effort ( 1 or 2 strides ). In a non premade adventure which also includes several maps in open spaces ( as well as many flying creatures ), it might be a huge deal ( but I suppose the DM will advise the group before the beginning of the adventure ).
Well, if that is the case, then I encourage the OP to take the advice of those with experience playing all martial groups.
Our usual group is 3 martials and 2 casters both capable of combat healing in emergencies with one to two medicine practitioners. We have found this to be the optimal party composition for dealing with a wide variety of the problems you might encounter during regular play.
It's a nice change from PF1 where our standard party composition was one dedicated healer, a dedicated arcane caster, and two to three martials or hybrids. Our party could not survive the encounters we created without a dedicated healer and arcane caster in PF1. We tried a few times, but as soon as we ran into well made enemy casters it was a painful experience requiring a reconfiguration of the party.
I am not sure I am following this... are you suggesting, as an alternative to fight casters, for melee combatant to draw their ranged weapon and attack with that?
So you are assuming than none of the martials have ranged attacks, and they all stand in a group? This is silly.
No just if there are no casters who are primarily ranged characters in the party, then of the 4 PCs probably 2 of them should have good ranged attacks. It is required for simple concentration of fire purposes in typical general dungeon adventures. The actions they save from movement can give them better offensive power.
Regardless very few PCs should have no reasonable ranged options by the time they reach level 10. By that point every one can have one. why? Because there are occasionally situations where you cannot close to melee.
It would be more effective to run onto the casters, forbidding them to AOE each others
It often is. But Derivon is talking about a campaign where ranged attacks are essential because he has extreme range encounters.
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To be fair, with elves running around with 50-60ft speed (maybe even flying with the tattoo or even faster if monk), you kinda need extreme range since you can easily close distances. Drakeheart surge from the free action mutagen collar into sudden charge or ki rush is more than enough to cover most battlefields or chase down fast fliers who tried to hit and run.
That said, any moron can TPK a party in 2e by playing the prebuffed higher level caster with access to player-banned spells in a space so large they can't be detected before they've dumped multiple nigh-unsavable nukes or save-or-lose/die into the party. That's not particularly impressive by any measure. Please find me a scenario where the flying, mind-blanked, dissapearanced, wizards in an open space who can probably still incapacitate you with 7th level slots or the remaining 8th level slots (if not 9th or 10th) lose.
To be fair, with elves running around with 50-60ft speed (maybe even flying with the tattoo or even faster if monk), you kinda need extreme range since you can easily close distances. Drakeheart surge from the free action mutagen collar into sudden charge or ki rush is more than enough to cover most battlefields or chase down fast fliers who tried to hit and run.
That said, any moron can TPK a party in 2e by playing the prebuffed higher level caster with access to player-banned spells in a space so large they can't be detected before they've dumped multiple nigh-unsavable nukes or save-or-lose/die into the party. That's not particularly impressive by any measure. Please find me a scenario where the flying, mind-blanked, dissapearanced, wizards in an open space who can probably still incapacitate you with 7th level slots or the remaining 8th level slots (if not 9th or 10th) lose.
What spells are player-banned? We don't have player banned spells.
There are plenty of ways they lose against an intelligent party who understands how to set up a counter to what they're doing. It's all assault and counter assault. Players learn how to handle things as they experience them.
PF2 is a game close enough to PF1 you understand how the counter game works. PF1 was a game of move and counter-move where the DM has to know how to counter PC tactics to make the game challenging and vice versa for the players to adjust when countered to win. PF2 is the same with different math that once you figure it out, you can build and manage encounters setting their difficulty point where you want it.
Caster support allows more options to counter what the DM is doing to challenge your party.
An all martial party would have more trouble adapting to counter something if the DM sets up an encounter with casters in an advantageous position as occurs here and there in adventures.
It even cuts the other way if a DM uses all martial encounters against a PC party with sufficient caster support where they're easily sealing off the battle area with walls splitting attacking groups and have combat healing that erases martial damage with a single cast.
We have had a plethora of issues dealing with powerful, mobile ranged combatants that required caster support to win. If we did not have the caster support to win, it would have gone badly. It's not all the time, but often enough not having sufficient ability to deal with the tactics being used was going to lead to a TPK. It occurred more often at the higher levels once monsters and groups accessed abilities that made them harder to ecounter.
That's why my rough estimate is you should be relatively fine in the level 5 to 11 range with an all martial group. 1 to 4 no one is fine and everyone is one critical hit or critical save fail away from dying. Once you get past level 12 or so and you're dealing with lvl 7 and higher spells on a standard basis where invis and flight is trivial, it becomes more dangerous not to have caster support.
It depends on how your DM/GM runs things.