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MAD = Multiple Ability Dependent
My point is that, except for alchemist, there are no classes that depend on multiple abilities to function.
Yes, there are builds within classes that utilize other abilities to function. But, the classes themselves do not depend on multiple abilities.
As for dex, con, and wis; yes, they are very useful to have. But a class' function does not depend on it.
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As for dex, con, and wis; yes, they are very useful to have. But a class' function does not depend on it.
Then go play a character with 10 CON, WIS and DEX for all of its career and tell us how it goes.
Words mean what people want them to mean. I'm telling you what everyone is meaning when talking about MAD characters in this system. If the terminology altogether is correctly used or if we should not use a term that despite the easy to draw parallels with previous editions stopped making sense the moment we stepped into this subforum is another matter completely.
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Since you get to level up 4 ability scores at once, there's no problem with a class really wanting to invest in 4 different ability scores.
If a class strongly wants 5 then that is a bit of an issue. So I suspect the issue is that people don't want to invest less in one of the save-stats.
I wonder if anybody who has a problem with the swashbuckler or others has looked into the Alternate Ability Scores variant in the GMG and whether that assuages anything. Specifically, STR and CON are combined into one stat; Dex is split into two stats- Agility which is Reflex, AC, Acrobatics, and Stealth and Dexterity which is Finesse, Ranged, Thievery, and is added to damage if DEX>STR; then Will is moved from WIS to CHA.
I wonder if anybody who has a problem with the swashbuckler or others has looked into the Alternate Ability Scores variant in the GMG and whether that assuages anything. Specifically, STR and CON are combined into one stat; Dex is split into two stats- Agility which is Reflex, AC, Acrobatics, and Stealth and Dexterity which is Finesse, Ranged, Thievery, and is added to damage if DEX>STR; then Will is moved from WIS to CHA.
Yes and they are even worse. STR is busted while INT remains the same. Not a fan.
Could have worked for me if it STR was it is in the variant, DEX and AGI were merged into 1 and the 3 mental stats were another single stat (obviously with half the ability increases and maybe some math changes for the saves and HP expectations).
For a Pf2.5 of sorts I would much rather see Paizo exploring the "no-stats" approach they were thinking about before playtest.
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Since you get to level up 4 ability scores at once, there's no problem with a class really wanting to invest in 4 different ability scores.
I think even with 4 it can be a bit of a nuisance. Not that it's impossible per se but there's a mechanical disincentive that pushes people away, to some degree, from experimenting with their stats. I see a lot more variety, for instance, in Druid statlines than I do in Wizard statlines, just because of the perceived opportunity costs that come with sacrificing your main stat or one of your saves for something else that doesn't exist with the Druid. The wizard has to give something up if they want Charisma or Strength that the druid doesn't, which can feel punitive, especially since it's unclear that this dichotomy actually serves any balance purpose.
Of course, it gets compounded even worse for someone looking at 5-stats like a Strength Magus/Inventor ... and it was a repeated complaint how difficult it was to find a satisfying stat spread for the playtest Thaumaturge for the same reason.
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It is ok to have one or even two of Dex, Wis or Con left low (10 to 14) for an entire adventuring career, but it will be character and party dependent.
I have a horrifically unoptimized Barbarian MC witch with a 10 Dex and a 10 Con, a 14 INT, WIS and 12 CHA, but we have a paladin champion and a bard in the party so there is a lot of buffing and debuffing as well as plenty of healing. I don't rush into fights and just sit on top of enemies unless we really want my character to draw fire for retaliatory purposes, but she hits like you would expect a Barbarian to, and she does some heavy lifting with detecting magic and item identification.
There are important roles to cover in a party and sometimes prioritizing every character having maximized defenses all the time, even when it is incredibly rare for that character to come underfire, ends up wasting more resources than it is worth.
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As for dex, con, and wis; yes, they are very useful to have. But a class' function does not depend on it.Then go play a character with 10 CON, WIS and DEX for all of its career and tell us how it goes.
Words mean what people want them to mean. I'm telling you what everyone is meaning when talking about MAD characters in this system. If the terminology altogether is correctly used or if we should not use a term that despite the easy to draw parallels with previous editions stopped making sense the moment we stepped into this subforum is another matter completely.
I totally would. Except it would be tougher, given that at the last set of stat boosts at character creation, at level 5, at level 10, at level 15, and at level 20 you get 4 ability boosts that you can't stack. You listed 3 stats which only leaves 3 more stats to focus.
My overarching point is that I think an optimized mindset has skewed the view on the subject. The defensive stats are not necessary for a character to function. Therefore it is an incorrect premise to say that they fall into the category of 'ability dependent'.
Might be off-topic, but it is it a bad idea to not boost all three of CON, WIS and DEX when leveling up, or is it okay to have one weaker save?
If it is a bad idea, that does reinforce in my head that perhaps Pathfinder 2e should have used the 4e save system to consolidate how saves work.
You don't have to put every increase into them, but same as to hit, every +1 into a save also means a +1 to get you out of a crit failure, so skipping 1 or 2 boost from 1 to 20 is ok, but leaving a single save stat at 10 will make your life harder than it should as you level up.
In my experience, saves are also more important for melee characters than ranged in general.
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If you gave a Swashbuckler Dex to damage, you'd heavily disincentivize use of a finisher at low levels.Would it really? We're talking about 1-2 points of damage over a normal swashbuckler. If you're right I think that speaks more to how finishers are balanced at low levels than anything else.In my experience, with how important Cha is to most Swashbucklers (excepting Gymnast, the general exception), it's closer to 3-4 points.
I also am pretty on record with Dex to damage being a problem in general, to be fair.
Why not? 5e DnD does it and there is nothing wrong with that system.Last I checked, that's almost universally agreed to be a problem with the system.
But for the answer, why then would you use melee Dex weapons when ranged is objectively superior? And then the same is true of one-handed Str weapons.
So let's say you have a character with 18 Str and 10 Dex vs one with the reverse. A Dex character, on average, would sacrifice 1 damage (and good Athletics) for 4 higher Ref and the actual ability to use ranged weapons. Meanwhile, as soon as the Str character leaves melee range, they're basically useless.
I don't think that's remotely even in what the two example characters trade.
4 Ref? It’s 1 if you’re comparing to Bulwark
The str character gets
- 1 extra damage per damage dice
- +1 AC
- -5 speed (very easy to negate with itemisation)
The dex character gets
- +1 ref
- Ref applies to non damaging effects (a minority of ref effects)
- Ability to use ranged weapons which is heavily punished by how the game works due to the cost of runes
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Might be off-topic, but it is it a bad idea to not boost all three of CON, WIS and DEX when leveling up, or is it okay to have one weaker save?
If it is a bad idea, that does reinforce in my head that perhaps Pathfinder 2e should have used the 4e save system to consolidate how saves work.
Depends on your base save proficiency and base hp.
Play a Ruffian Rogue? You get mad Reflex saves so don’t invest in Dex.
Play a Ranger? You can do with lower CON given high Fort and good HP pool.
Play a low WIS Monk? No worries as long as you use Path to Perfection on Will Saves.
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I see where I'm getting slipped up. See, I was under the impression that some of the game exists outside of combat. But, it appears that I was mistaken. I think I'm playing the game wrong.
As per usual, most of the rules pertain to combat. Most of the interaction you’ll have in any published adventure is combat related. Failing a non-combat X usually doesn’t lead to death, but (critically) failing in combat does.
And saying that charisma/intelligence have more out of combat uses than the other 4 stats hence they “deserve” to be worse in combat isn’t true either. Charisma and Intelligence have specific out of combat uses - every stat including Con does. Do they have more? Maybe, depends on your game. But I can expect every game of PF2e will probably have a decent amount of combat - so I can expect some sort of guaranteed value from investing in 3 saves + main stat. The value of investing in charisma on a wizard, increasing the likelihood I will die… is questionable. Entirely on the GM to make that investment useful - which is something I don’t like relying on for multiple reasons.
Out of combat is also barely discussed in here because it varies a lot from table to table, so no point talking about it mechanically.
We are also literally talking about being less punished in combat for taking the more out of combat focused stats, so what is your point exactly?
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There's also the fact that combat is much more of a numbers game than out of combat. You can solve almost any out of combat situation with smart thinking and one person in the party being good at a relevant skill or two. If you crit fail Fortitude saves on a natural 5 on a melee character, though... I don't think there's much you can do other than praying.
Plus I don't really see why this discussion is relevant here anyway? Strength characters in full plate can do damage, be decent to good in all saves and still have a "utility stat". Nowadays 80% of my characters are Strength/Charisma martials because... honestly they can do so much. You even get a bonus to an already strong combat skill by having high Strength and Intimidating Prowess.
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There's also the fact that combat is much more of a numbers game than out of combat. You can solve almost any out of combat situation with smart thinking and one person in the party being good at a relevant skill or two. If you crit fail Fortitude saves on a natural 5 on a melee character, though... I don't think there's much you can do other than praying.
Plus I don't really see why this discussion is relevant here anyway? Strength characters in full plate can do damage, be decent to good in all saves and still have a "utility stat". Nowadays 80% of my characters are Strength/Charisma martials because... honestly they can do so much. You even get a bonus to an already strong combat skill by having high Strength and Intimidating Prowess.
It's because people are still on the mind set that Str is useless and only for damage and carrying capacity. When Paizo has been very active in trying to reward having high Str.
Heck they straight up removed dex to combat manuevers by forcing them to be skill checks. So now you have to spend multiple feats to even try doing that. But you think they will mention that? Nah it would destroy their argument that Str is useless without a monopoly on damage.
(Which btw all monopolies are inherently bad, as they by nature force everything to cost more. Which we see with you needing a feat for every combat manuever you want to use with a different stat.)
TBF Paizo didn't remove the ability for dex to apply to combat maneuvers it was never supposed to in the first place. It was always a skill check never an attack roll and was being played incorrectly.
I see where I'm getting slipped up. See, I was under the impression that some of the game exists outside of combat. But, it appears that I was mistaken. I think I'm playing the game wrong.
You don't need balance for out of combat. Most of that is done with role-playing. I often don't even use rolls if the role-playing is done well like the old days.
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TBF Paizo didn't remove the ability for dex to apply to combat maneuvers it was never supposed to in the first place. It was always a skill check never an attack roll and was being played incorrectly.They did remove it since it was possible to do it. Then they decided you couldn't.
There was no problem balance wise, but they still felt the need to remove it to justify forcing you to get feats for it.
That's not actually true. The reason people thought you could (there wasn't actually anything that let you) was because in the playtest, a designer said that he'd let you do that. This was both a) in the playtest, and b) not actually an official statement.
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Is Con's monopoly on Hit Points bad?
What about Wisdom's monopoly on perception?
Or Intelligence's monopoly on # of trained skills?
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I see where I'm getting slipped up. See, I was under the impression that some of the game exists outside of combat. But, it appears that I was mistaken. I think I'm playing the game wrong.You don't need balance for out of combat. Most of that is done with role-playing. I often don't even use rolls if the role-playing is done well like the old days.
See, whether or not you don’t feel it is needed for balance for out of combat is irrelevant if the designers did/do feel that it is needed.
Sure but by playing like that you’re devaluing non combat stats. Which reinforces this behaviour that you should take primary stat and then dex/con/wis, which will feel punishing to people whose main stat isn’t one of the 3 save stats. Turns out if you remove a lot of the usage of int and cha (and much of that is out of combat) then you’re going to make those stats not really good to take. If someone in my game does out of combat stuff the rp matters ofc but so does the skills they use (general plus skill feats) and so does their actual rolls.
Anyway they gave you four stat increases and I agree that having non str to dmg not be common because it forces decisions on which stat to take. If you want that extra dmg you should have a trade off on what you give up, whether that be saves or non combat utility.
The stats should have value in combat because role-playing is role-playing as in you want the players to think and take on a role, not rely on a roll for role-playing. If they do come up with something clever out of combat, then I want that work to regardless of the rolls.
That being said the other stats are strong combat stats for other classes. That is not a concern.
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Cha and Int are mostly out of combat for classes who don’t have it as their primary casting stat.
Ehm... No?
Besides, what's the point of this new discussion? In which way saying that the Swashbuckler needs more damage early on and that save stats are important to not die has anything to do with saying that out of combat stuff is not important. Stop saying other people are saying this or what, stop taking things out of context and specially, stop paying attention to Leomund which at this point I'm pretty sure is just trolling.
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Does that logic carry the other way? If they do something clever in combat do you just ignore the roll and give it to them? Because that’s the only way it’s even close to being fair. The way you adjudicate things at your table is not the norm for PF2 and it’s no surprise it makes int and cha worthless stats.
The game is made with the idea that it tries to balance the stats against each other. Dex and Wis are still powerful but not the all powerful stats they were in 1. Cha and Int are mostly out of combat for classes who don’t have it as their primary casting stat. Even the main in combat use of Int is another thing that is very DM dependent in recall knowledge. When you devalue those two stats it just makes it very easy to get everything you want in your four stat ups. Having easy to find stat to damage devalues that even more and pretty much makes stat allocation pointless.
I don't believe that to be the case. I think D&D and games built off the system are built heavily for combat. No class is balanced around out of combat capabilities comparatively as that would make them ineffective or far less effective for the vast majority of games not tailor made to focus on out of combat ability.
D&D started off very much as a war game that added in role-playing elements. They've always been mostly regarded as up to the DM unless it's something tangible like a Thievery check for a lock or some activity requiring some degree of skill.
But as far as progressing an adventure, the role-play parts have been left up to the DM with some rolling involved. But the reality has always been you are never as a DM going to end an adventure because someone didn't roll well enough to figure out a clue or not find a secret door and now they can't go on and you have to pack up and leave, session over.
That's just the reality of these types of games which is why balance should never be done based on out of combat ability as such things can be handwaved by the DM depending on how difficult a DM wants to make advancing in the module.
For myself, I handwave travel whether it is a teleport spell or having to track down horses. I don't care if it is a 6 intel fighter, I let them talk to the necessary people to progress the plot whether or not they have built for out of combat ability because I have no interest in not allowing the party to progress through the module.
So far as fair goes, that word has no meaning in these games to me. All I care about is if the combat rules are balanced to make the combat encounters challenging and every character can contribute during combat encounters. The rest of the stuff I can roleplay as a DM and allow the players to figure out a workaround whether it is bashing a door down, picking the lock, bribing a guard to let them in, using a magic item, or whatever other way they dream up to progress through an adventure.
But for combat the rolls and abilities decide who wins. I need that balanced within the party, amongst the enemies, and with each individual class to have the illusion of a challenge that everyone can contribute to in an effective and exciting manner.
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Cha and Int are mostly out of combat for classes who don’t have it as their primary casting stat.Ehm... No?
Besides, what's the point of this new discussion? In which way saying that the Swashbuckler needs more damage early on and that save stats are important to not die has anything to do with saying that out of combat stuff is not important. Stop saying other people are saying this or what, stop taking things out of context and specially, stop paying attention to Leomund which at this point I'm pretty sure is just trolling.
The swashbuckler at level 1 gets a bonus of +2 to damage when they have penache. In addition to the +2, if they connect with their finisher they get +2d6 instead of the +2. Plus if they miss with their finisher they still do damage.
So...why do they need even more damage from a stat? It seems to me that they already have extra damage built in.
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The swashbuckler at level 1 gets a bonus of +2 to damage when they have penache. In addition to the +2, if they connect with their finisher they get +2d6 instead of the +2. Plus if they miss with their finisher they still do damage.So...why do they need even more damage from a stat? It seems to me that they already have extra damage built in.
The math on this has already been done. Assuming a 100% chance to gain panache in one action you're doing slightly more damage than a champion attacking twice with your finisher. Since your panache success chance is significantly less than 100% (especially early), what you have in practice is a class that has lower dpr than a champion with none of the benefits a champion has. Dex to damage would at least allow you to stay in panache early and have something resembling reliability.
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Why not play a Thief Rogue then ?
That is the problem.
Talking about tradeoffs and build paths is all fine and pretty, but if the easiest answer to something is "play Y thing instead of X to do the same thing but with half the downsides", there's something clearly wrong with X. Unless you wanna advocate for nerfing Full Plate or Thief Rogue, which I don't think anyone would.
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Why not play a Thief Rogue then ?That is the problem.
Talking about tradeoffs and build paths is all fine and pretty, but if the easiest answer to something is "play Y thing instead of X to do the same thing but with half the downsides", there's something clearly wrong with X. Unless you wanna advocate for nerfing Full Plate or Thief Rogue, which I don't think anyone would.
Not at all.
I mean if you want DEX to damage, then Thief Rogue gets you this.
If Swashbuckler is really so bad for your character concept, just choose another Class (ie bundle of mechanics) that fits better.
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I prefer dex-to-damage was the exclusive province of the thief rogue. To turn the argument on its head, if other people could get dex-to-damage easily, why would you bother playing a Thief Rogue?
I personally think the tradeoff between the two is actually fairly close when you look at things other than damage.
The Rogue deals more average damage, has an easier time setting it up, and is better at skills.
The Swashbuckler is significantly tankier, much more mobile, and has a higher damage ceiling and floor.
I don't think we can mandate "X class should do as much damage as Y class" as a point of comparison, since we know that Giant Barbs and Melee Fighters are the kings of damage but the Champion class is still very useful.
The point of comparison I think is interesting about the Swashbuckler is the Swash vs. the Ranger.
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TBH, I would rather remove the Thief Rogue from the game than extend Dex-To-Damage any further than it is.
Things like Precise strike, hunted target, or the inventor's overdrive ability are just more interesting than "you can use a different number in any context at all."
Having the Thief Rogue be the only person anywhere with dex-to-damage means it's conveniently easy to just excise the whole thing from the game.
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All options are good, they are just not equal. I don't think it is necessary for them to be.Why not play a Thief Rogue then ?That is the problem.
Talking about tradeoffs and build paths is all fine and pretty, but if the easiest answer to something is "play Y thing instead of X to do the same thing but with half the downsides", there's something clearly wrong with X. Unless you wanna advocate for nerfing Full Plate or Thief Rogue, which I don't think anyone would.
Not at all.
I mean if you want DEX to damage, then Thief Rogue gets you this.
If Swashbuckler is really so bad for your character concept, just choose another Class (ie bundle of mechanics) that fits better.
This is an asinine take.
The whole point of the argument is that all options should be good and that X thing falls behind. Saying "just play Y thing if X thing doesn't work" is not only unhelpful (as the alternative is already known), but altogether unconstructive.
Especially when it's one aspect of one entirely different class that has been shown to be non-problematic.
This is the same argument that people used to complain about the Tome of Battle in 3.x. "If you wanted to play a character who is given many options, just play a caster!"
The math on this has already been done. Assuming a 100% chance to gain panache in one action you're doing slightly more damage than a champion attacking twice with your finisher. Since your panache success chance is significantly less than 100% (especially early), what you have in practice is a class that has lower dpr than a champion with none of the benefits a champion has. Dex to damage would at least allow you to stay in panache early and have something resembling reliability.
The swashbuckler at level 1 gets a bonus of +2 to damage when they have penache. In addition to the +2, if they connect with their finisher they get +2d6 instead of the +2. Plus if they miss with their finisher they still do damage.So...why do they need even more damage from a stat? It seems to me that they already have extra damage built in.
Yeah, I went back and looked at your math and noticed that you neglected to use the gymnast swashbuckler, nor a 16 str swashbuckler for your calculations. Did you intentionally skew the parameters?
EDIT: I also noticed that you used a d6 instead of a d8 for the swash's weapon.
Yeah, I went back and looked at your math and noticed that you neglected to use the gymnast swashbuckler, nor a 16 str swashbuckler for your calculations. Did you intentionally skew the parameters?
EDIT: I also noticed that you used a d6 instead of a d8 for the swash's weapon.
Ok, instead of the reach spear we'll use spiked chain and 16 str. That brings average damage from 8 to 9 assuming a 50% hit rate. Now let's assume a generous 70% panache generation rate and watch that 9 become a 6.3 or an 8.2 if you try again and spend a second action trying to generate panache (3 actions total). See what I mean about your damage being absolutely miserable if we account for panache chance?
With 18 dex, 16 str and 14 con (if you dumped int and cha to 8), the Thief with 16 con has a better fort save and is only 1hp/lvl behind and also has a better will save with dumped str and int/cha. If you didn't dump your stats, you're equal on hp and are 2 behind on fort.
With gymnast, if you land the trip, the flatfooted will help offset the MAP and set up your allies which is good though your damage goes even lower. If you miss the trip, you may as well not even exist.
All of this is exacerbated vs upper level enemies obviously.
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Yeah, I went back and looked at your math and noticed that you neglected to use the gymnast swashbuckler, nor a 16 str swashbuckler for your calculations. Did you intentionally skew the parameters?
EDIT: I also noticed that you used a d6 instead of a d8 for the swash's weapon.
Ok, instead of the reach spear we'll use spiked chain and 16 str. That brings average damage from 8 to 9 assuming a 50% hit rate. Now let's assume a generous 70% panache generation rate and watch that 9 become a 6.3 or an 8.2 if you try again and spend a second action trying to generate panache (3 actions total). See what I mean about your damage being absolutely miserable if we account for panache chance?
With 18 dex, 16 str and 14 con (if you dumped int and cha to 8), the Thief with 16 con has a better fort save and is only 1hp/lvl behind and also has a better will save with dumped str and int/cha. If you didn't dump your stats, you're equal on hp and are 2 behind on fort.
With gymnast, if you land the trip, the flatfooted will help offset the MAP and set up your allies which is good though your damage goes even lower. If you miss the trip, you may as well not even exist.
All of this is exacerbated vs upper level enemies obviously.
I do see what you mean about panache. But that is an issue with the mechanics of how the panache works, not what ability they get to damage.
The swashbuckler class gives the option to do more or less damage. Just like rogue, fighter, barbarian, etc... You get to choose what is more important when building your character and make "trade-offs", just like every other class.
The designers designed the panache system they way that they did. During that process they decided that (unlike PF1) swashbucklers would not get dex to damage. If you disagree with that design choice I highly encourage you to implement dex to damage in your home games. Play the game the way that will be fun for you.