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Could always try using 3-action economy from unchained.I'd be interested in knowing how it will work, Deriven. If the assets of PF2 will be made more obvious when going back to PF1.The one thing all the players are already talking about missing reading the PF1 rules is the 3 action system. They still prefer that over the locked in PF1 action system.
Maybe if I get some experience in both systems, I can blend some of these ideas.
That one completely screws over swift action reliant classes.
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There's one or two "correct" ways to build a party and play the game and doing otherwise is just an exercise in frustration.There's a thousand ways to build a party, I'm running... counting... 6 games of pf2e and i've closed 2 campaigns already. all of our parties were 5-6 PC parties, and most of the players outside of me do not do party optimisation.
And it just works!
I wonder if having 5-6 PCs is key here? Four PCs versus published adventure material might feel weak compared to other systems. Having a couple more PCs means there's likely to be enough natural synergy, enough, buffing and debuffing of enemies, to make most parties feel effective.
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I wonder if having 5-6 PCs is key here? Four PCs versus published adventure material might feel weak compared to other systems. Having a couple more PCs means there's likely to be enough natural synergy, enough, buffing and debuffing of enemies, to make most parties feel effective.There's one or two "correct" ways to build a party and play the game and doing otherwise is just an exercise in frustration.There's a thousand ways to build a party, I'm running... counting... 6 games of pf2e and i've closed 2 campaigns already. all of our parties were 5-6 PC parties, and most of the players outside of me do not do party optimisation.
And it just works!
I tend to agree. I think the game plays better with 5 characters. With only 4, you have issues covering every skills unless you have a Rogue or Investigator. And if one player wants to play, say, a bow ranger, you are kind of screwed to balance a party around it without ending with either a lack of frontline or a lack of casters. With 5 players, you can have 2 casters, 2 frontliners and 1 fifth wheel which is the best balance in my opinion.
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I wonder if having 5-6 PCs is key here? Four PCs versus published adventure material might feel weak compared to other systems. Having a couple more PCs means there's likely to be enough natural synergy, enough, buffing and debuffing of enemies, to make most parties feel effective.
Yes and no. Five player teams are a lot more flexible in terms of what they can accomodate, but I think "bad" four man comps are being overstated in just how bad they actually are.
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Tldr - I feel the game should be easier with the option to ramp up difficulty instead of the other way around. The players who don't want complexity should be catered to before the ones who do - the people who want challenge can make it for themselves easier than newbs who might get turned off if they have to do a bunch of research to tweak the game and such
There is something to this that I can only offer personal/anecdotal experience on, for what it's worth.
Former iterations of the game created an expectation that 'system mastery' will allow you to outperform other players. In PF2, this is not really possible. Just want to hit things with other things? Take a Fighter, get +2 to to-hit, how easy is that!
Barbarians are just slightly more complicated, Rage away and go to town. Rogues' sneak attacks need to be set up, but with some experience, it is fairly easy to do regularly. Still screwed by immunity to precision damage though.
Are a Barbarian or a Rogue a better fighter then the Fighter? Hardly, but they are not supposed to be.
And on the other end, we have fiddly classes like the Magus or Swashbuckler. You need to learn how they work. And what is your reward? Do you get to out-fight the Fighter? Still no. You get to play a fiddly class. That is your reward. No more, no less.
In other words, the game design does no longer reward system mastery with (much) more power. For some people, that is the turn-off.
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In other words, the game design does no longer reward system mastery with (much) more power. For some people, that is the turn-off.
PF2's bound accuracy is both a boon and a bane and for sure a deciding factor if people like or dislike the game. In a way people (including me) expect that they will be better in any hobby or game that they sink enough time in. In an RPG this most likely is related to time to learn all the rules for setting up and time to learn all the potential strategies when it comes to the board itself.
Given PF2's bound accuracy and d20-always-matters maxime however this means that a total newcommer playing a pre-gen Fighter moving about the board with just enough common sense while having his dice run hot is very likely to outperform your meticulously crafted and masterfully played flavour-of-the-month-base-class/flavour-of-the-month-archtype character that happens to have a streak of unlucky rolls. PF2 simply just does not allow (player) skill to mitigate luck in a magnitude that most other games do.
This is a boon for game designers and GM who do not have to worry about the game balance being invalidated by (untested &) wierd class/feat interactions or stacking of bonusses as well as for new players who dont have to worry about the meta as much, however this easily might be a bane for experienced players to which after a couple of games the whole game simply boils down to luck >>> skill (very simplified last statement, but I think you get the idea).
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Just because system mastery is a party effort that requires tactical knowledge in tandem with build knowledge doesn't mean that it doesn't greatly reward parties that have it and use it.
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That one completely screws over swift action reliant classes.Not really, but okay.
It depends. It works for inquisitors, because now they can start a judgment and activate bane in the same turn. The magus, on the other hand, is totally hosed. There's also the issue of monsters that have a single really powerful natural attack that now they can use several times a turn instead of only once.
Edit: Ah, jeez, I completely forgot about the swashbuckler and stuff like menacing swordplay. Intimidating is already 1 action! You'd pretty much have to make it a free action once per round for it do be useful at all, and from then on you're just stacking on more house rules to make other things work properly.
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Not really, but okay.
It absolutely does. Quicken spell loses a lot of its utility, by not being able to be cast on the move when you are casting a standard action spell at the same time. The action economy for classes like the Swashbuckler and the Inquisitor noticeably worsens with the three action system from Pathfinder Unchained.
Not really, but okay.It absolutely does. Quicken spell loses a lot of its utility, by not being able to be cast on the move when you are casting a standard action spell at the same time. The action economy for classes like the Swashbuckler and the Inquisitor noticeably worsens with the three action system from Pathfinder Unchained.
IMO, the action system as it was attempted to put onto PF1 was bad. There was way too much stuff that broke if you implemented it, or rather I should say got significantly less powerful. And perhaps that was the intention. But the source of the issue is that the system simply wasn't designed with the 3 action system in mind.
If you compare to PF2, where the 3 action system was the default idea it works much better because all classes have been designed to work with it.
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The complexity of character classes is not to reward system mastery with power. It is to let us play fun characters. The reward is having our characters succeed in heroically being themselves.
The character classes are based on stories. The alchemist and inventor are steampunk mad scientists, where the alchemist is the chemist and the inventor is the gadgeteer. The barbarian is the Viking berserker. The bard and the swashbuckler are theatrical, with the bard from musicals and the swashbuckler from action films. The champion is the chivalrous holy knight. The cleric and druid are the devoted servants of faith, brave and magical from piety. The fighter, gunslinger, and monk are noble warriors, who trained for mastery at arms, each from a different milieu. The investigator is the consulting detective based on Sherlock Holmes. The story of the magus came out of Dungeons & Dragons itself, the gish wizard who could both fight and cast spells. The oracle, sorcerer, and witch are the chosen of mysterious powers. The ranger is the wilderness expert, based on American fur trappers and Middle Earth's Aragorn. The rogue is the daring thief. The summoner is the Pokemon trainer, the child who found a magical friend. The wizard is the practitioner of magical spells, based on Merlin and astrologers.
Fighters are easier to play than swashbucklers because the fighters have plain, efficient combat built into their story while the swashbucklers have flamboyant performance built into theirs. A wizard is supposed to have studied a hundred spells, and this means that the player of a wizard has to read dozens of spell descriptions to play a wizard. The complexity is an unfortunate side effect of playing characters with complex styles.
The Paizo developers tried to remove the power advantage from system mastery from Pathfinder 2nd Edition, and they largely succeeded. In the process, they removed the story of the powerful hero who needs no friends, like Conan the Barbarian and Witcher Geralt of Rivia. They nerfed powergaming but did not nerf teamwork, so victory requires a team.
Maybe Paizo will restore the power fantasy many years down the line with Pathfinder 3rd Edition. But rewarding system mastery with power does not need to be restored.
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I wonder if having 5-6 PCs is key here? Four PCs versus published adventure material might feel weak compared to other systems. Having a couple more PCs means there's likely to be enough natural synergy, enough, buffing and debuffing of enemies, to make most parties feel effective.There's one or two "correct" ways to build a party and play the game and doing otherwise is just an exercise in frustration.There's a thousand ways to build a party, I'm running... counting... 6 games of pf2e and i've closed 2 campaigns already. all of our parties were 5-6 PC parties, and most of the players outside of me do not do party optimisation.
And it just works!
I've been running a party of three through Extinction Curse for three modules, with no adjustments, and they've done quite well for the most part.
Maybe Paizo will restore the power fantasy many years down the line with Pathfinder 3rd Edition. But rewarding system mastery with power does not need to be restored.
Solo power fantasy is still possible if you adjust for two levels or so.
The complexity of character classes is not to reward system mastery with power. It is to let us play fun characters. The reward is having our characters succeed in heroically being themselves.
But that was definitely how it worked in PF1.
I agree that shouldn't necessarily be the case, but if you got used to it from PF1 it's kind of a rude awakening in PF2.
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After mulling things over for a day or three, I think that there are two different and conflicting meanings for the word hero.
One is the anime/superhero meaning - the character that can take on gargantuan challenges, often completely or nearly alone.
The other is the courageous/story hero - the character that has to overcome failures, who faces their fears, and has to rely on help from others to finally be able to succeed.
PF2 definitely trends towards the second meaning - courageous heroes. And for a multi-player, cooperative, storytelling game - that is probably not a bad thing.
So yeah, if you are expecting an anime hero and are instead getting a courageous hero I can understand why you feel that you aren't getting what you expect.
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One is the anime/superhero meaning - the character that can take on gargantuan challenges, often completely or nearly alone.
I think it is a little reductive to refer to this as the "anime/superhero" mindset. It could just as easily apply to myth-heroes who were both independently powerful and also frequently traveled in the company of other heroic individuals.
Not commenting on the inherent value of one position or another. Just think it is important to frame things well so comments don't come off dismissive.
After mulling things over for a day or three, I think that there are two different and conflicting meanings for the word hero.
One is the anime/superhero meaning - the character that can take on gargantuan challenges, often completely or nearly alone.
The other is the courageous/story hero - the character that has to overcome failures, who faces their fears, and has to rely on help from others to finally be able to succeed.
PF2 definitely trends towards the second meaning - courageous heroes. And for a multi-player, cooperative, storytelling game - that is probably not a bad thing.
So yeah, if you are expecting an anime hero and are instead getting a courageous hero I can understand why you feel that you aren't getting what you expect.
I think the challenge is, PF1 definitely gave us the first one. And after a decade of playing that way, it's a mistake to go into PF2 expecting the game to have that similar feel.
I honestly believe veteran players have it far worse when moving to PF2 because of all the expectations you have going in.
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About the feeling of weakness, I remember 3rd edition, which was my very first dungeons and dragons edition, and how I struggled in the beginning, finding the game super hard.
It was mostly due to my absolute lack of system mastery, but I think for a new player PF1 base difficulty is as high as PF2's. I even think it's actually easier as you can very quickly understand the game and perform ok when it took me ages to get accustomed to 3rd edition way of playing (way of building character should I say).
As far as system mastery goes, 2e is easier to get a handle on, but requires the whole table to have to get real use out of it.
3.5 and 1e were harder to build mastery for from scratch or with limited books but there are a million different guides that remove that learning curve.
One is the anime/superhero meaning - the character that can take on gargantuan challenges, often completely or nearly alone.I think it is a little reductive to refer to this as the "anime/superhero" mindset. It could just as easily apply to myth-heroes who were both independently powerful and also frequently traveled in the company of other heroic individuals.
Not commenting on the inherent value of one position or another. Just think it is important to frame things well so comments don't come off dismissive.
Well, I'm hoping to get the point across without causing offense. But I also didn't want to list every possible synonym for the two broad categories. The list would be too long and would still not be exhaustive.
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After mulling things over for a day or three, I think that there are two different and conflicting meanings for the word hero.
One is the anime/superhero meaning - the character that can take on gargantuan challenges, often completely or nearly alone.
The other is the courageous/story hero - the character that has to overcome failures, who faces their fears, and has to rely on help from others to finally be able to succeed.
PF2 definitely trends towards the second meaning - courageous heroes. And for a multi-player, cooperative, storytelling game - that is probably not a bad thing.
So yeah, if you are expecting an anime hero and are instead getting a courageous hero I can understand why you feel that you aren't getting what you expect.
The dictionary says that the special-strength hero is also the meaning of hero in classic mythology, such as the stories of Hercules. A third meaning of hero is the protagonist of the story.
Nevertheless, I always expect a hero to have some courage and compassion. Thus, I try to give a feeling of danger in my encounter design, even in Low-threat encounters, so that the player characters can demonstrate courage.
I think the challenge is, PF1 definitely gave us the first one. And after a decade of playing that way, it's a mistake to go into PF2 expecting the game to have that similar feel.
I honestly believe veteran players have it far worse when moving to PF2 because of all the expectations you have going in.
Pathfinder 1st Edition gave the option of special-strength heroes, but my players chose to not take it. They preferred roleplaying, the roleplaying led to teamwork, and the teamwork led to victory without selecting the most powerful builds. Since I liked to challenge them in encounters, whenever their PCs became more powerful through teamwork, builds, or gear, I automatically increased the difficulty of the encounters. They realized that builds optimized for power did not result in easier victories, and so they optimized enough to properly play at level and used the rest of the options for fun.
I spent a few comments arguing in PF1 discussions that teamwork builds were more powerful than individually optimized builds. Since both techniques worked, this was important only for people who disliked optimized builds.
My players smoothly transitioned from PF1 to PF2 without changing their style. In early 2020 some people posted in these forums about Moderate-threat enemies regularly defeating their characters in PF2. I had to wonder why my players' characters had no trouble. The answer was the tactical teamwork.
This particular thread, "So in 2E, is it normal to just feel... really weak?" is a refinement about the difference between PF1 and PF2. Players have learned to win in PF2, but some miss the feeling of victory through special strength. Those people were left behind by the design change. This thread has persuaded me that the missing feeling is a loss for the Pathfinder system, but returning the feeling without returning the imbalance will be a monumental design challenge.
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I think a few different issues are being conflated here in a way that muddies the conversation a bit.
There's what the OP is talking about, enemies that seem way better than them all the time turning every fight into an uphill battle... that's mostly an issue of encounter design and expectations. PF2 has things that trend that way compared to other systems, but it's mostly just a matter of how an encounter is designed. I've been watching some friends of mine play Giantslayer, which makes it pretty clear that bad encounters with sketchy math are not a unique thing to PF2.
There's how much a game rewards synergy/build mastery/etc. The gap between an average fighter and an amazingly built one... clearly much larger in PF1 than PF2, while PF2 puts more emphasis on building a good team and working together well instead.
There's the tone of the game: mythic, epic heroes contrasted with grittier stories... which is mostly just a taste thing and I don't think many people were really talking about it until just recently.
Then there's the base level of success for the game and how much variance there is. I think this is the trickiest one because people a lot of times confuse complaints about this with one of the above problems... but the complaint is more just about baseline randomness and specialization than any of the above.
... Which I think is what some people miss. These different things are only tangentially related. Hard/Bad encounters put more pressure on players to master the system or have good teamwork, but one doesn't require the other. Mythic games can still feel difficult and reward/not reward system mastery as much as you want... and there are plenty of hard, low variance games and easy, high variance games.
Just feel like that's worth talking about because sometimes it feels like people talk past each other by addressing different concepts entirely.
I think the challenge is, PF1 definitely gave us the first one. And after a decade of playing that way, it's a mistake to go into PF2 expecting the game to have that similar feel.
I honestly believe veteran players have it far worse when moving to PF2 because of all the expectations you have going in.
Pathfinder 1st Edition gave the option of special-strength heroes, but my players chose to not take it. They preferred roleplaying, the roleplaying led to teamwork, and the teamwork led to victory without selecting the most powerful builds. Since I liked to challenge them in encounters, whenever their PCs became more powerful through teamwork, builds, or gear, I automatically increased the difficulty of the encounters. They realized that builds optimized for power did not result in easier victories, and so they optimized enough to properly play at level and used the rest of the options for fun.
I spent a few comments arguing in PF1 discussions that teamwork builds were more powerful than individually optimized builds. Since both techniques worked, this was important only for people who disliked optimized builds.
My players smoothly transitioned from PF1 to PF2 without changing their style. In early 2020 some people posted in these forums about Moderate-threat enemies regularly defeating their characters in PF2. I had to wonder why my players' characters had no trouble. The answer was the tactical teamwork.
This particular thread, "So in 2E, is it normal to just feel... really weak?" is a refinement about the difference between PF1 and PF2. Players have learned to win in PF2, but some miss the feeling of victory through special strength. Those people were left behind by the design change.
To be honest, I agree with what you're saying I just think that this type of game play would be considered uncommon amongst a plurality of PF1 players.
I think most people, myself included, preferred to design their characters the way they wanted and not necessarily designing to work coherently as a group.
If your players truly did work as a coherent group, then I expect moving to PF2 has been a breeze compared to someone like myself that wanted to play it the same way I played PF1. And being rudely awakened when my character was mostly ineffective, as were the rest of the team because we didn't realize the importance of buffing and debuffing as a 3rd action.
This thread has persuaded me that the missing feeling is a loss for the Pathfinder system, but returning the feeling without returning the imbalance will be a monumental design challenge.
To be honest I think it's impossible. I think you would have to remove the capabilities to buff and debuff (to keep the balance), which would remove the too much from the system to keep it functional.
I simply don't think it's possible to accommodate special-heroic characters as well as heroic-as-a-team characters because if you mix them they will break the character curve.
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I simply don't think it's possible to accommodate special-heroic characters as well as heroic-as-a-team characters because if you mix them they will break the character curve.
Yeah, that is my thought on it too. It would be hard enough to have one game engine able to support both types of characters separately in different campaigns. Trying to have one rule set and balance guidelines that can handle both types of characters in the same campaign would be effectively impossible. It would be like trying to balance minmaxed PF1 characters and casual-built PF1 characters in the same campaign.
Which is why I felt it was useful to the conversation to bring it up.
My only issue with many enemies is that several appear to be strong martials AND strong casters at the same time.
Seems unfair. (But in practice doesn't actually cause that many problems.)
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Are you really going to argue that a game being complicated for the sake of being complicated is good and anyone that opposes it is a power gamer?
You are literally responding to a person saying, "the base difficulty should be based around a slightly below average player" due to most people not wanting to think too hard for a game. So you respond, "the system doesn't reward mastery despite being incredibly fiddly to play more than half the classes". Congrats you are arguing that half or more of the classes are just hamster wheels and players should just like it.
Do you know the only time that games increase the difficulty while keeping the same result? Single player games that are giving the player a challenge, or multiplayer games that pit you agains each other. Very few of those games start you off at above average difficulty and those that do are built to reward system mastery (ex: chess).
'Ivory Tower' game design, trap options, gating... all toxic things for a game that is supposed to be played together instead of against one another, things that the PF2 devs tried to get rid of.
Some people like to play in 'easy' mode, some people prefer 'hard' mode. But in other editions, these people could not peacefully coexist at the same table.
Edit: Also what Mathmuse said about classes based on story archetypes. That.
In PF2, they can, with caveats. But the price is that, yes, if you want to 'challenge yourself', you do it by playing something with more complicated mechanics, and no, you don't get to lord it over the 'filthy casuals'.
Because at the end of the day, for all its mechanical glory and combat focus, Pathfinder is still very much a role-playing game. And if anything, enabling both the simple and complex classes to contribute roughly equally (martials still don't get to rewrite reality like casters, but whatever) to both the co-operative storytelling and tactical combat parts of the game, and thus both experienced and inexperienced players to play together at the same table, is an amazing achievement.
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Enabling both simple and complex classes to give the exact result just makes the people playing the complex classes feel bad.
I mean if you don't like a class you don't have to play it.
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Enabling both simple and complex classes to give the exact result just makes the people playing the complex classes feel bad.
Having simple and complex classes giving different results just makes the people playing the simple classes feel bad.
This is a never ending conversation on balance, one that many games had. How much do you have to reward complexity?
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Having simple and complex classes giving different results just makes the people playing the simple classes feel bad.
This is a never ending conversation on balance, one that many games had. How much do you have to reward complexity?
And it will continue to be discussed because everyone likes something difference (even if they are very similar). Personally, for my own tastes if it takes more work it should be at least slightly more rewarding. Not much just enough to feel that all the work was justified. But I can understand someone not liking that, just don't call it ivory tower because that's not what that is.
I agree, but there are certain concepts that are hard locked into some classes. It doesn't seem fair to me for people wanting to play those concepts to be stuck unable to play it because the class is too complex. (If they dislike the class for other reasons that's a different matter.)
I mean if you don't like a class you don't have to play it.
Can we have examples on that last point ? It would help me understand it better.
In combat, simple and complex characters are pretty close. Under certain circumstances, the complex character may eke out a few percentage points more here and there but usually not enough to matter significantly.
Out of combat, the complex character rules.
For example, the great axe power attacking fighter is simple as it comes. Move and power attack, power attack then move, or maybe use a skill and power attack. For the wizard or alchemist, they need to jump through a lot of hoops to even come close to the same power level in combat.
Out of combat, the fighter only has a couple of good skills ( usually athletics and maybe one or two others) to contribute, while the wizard or alchemist has many more tools at their disposal.
So yes, if all you care about is combat go simple. You will hit the power ceiling easier and more consistently.
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I mean, you can play solo Conan in PF2e. Give him 4 or 5 levels and you will have the feeling you are looking for: you get hit, but it's just scratches that you can mostly ignore; and enemies fall like flies under your mighty blows. Unless your adventure straight up requires having some specific skill or magic in order to progress, you are mostly fine, easily beating the DCs of the things you are trained in, and just forcing your way through the others.
And let's not forget that even Conan doesn't always win easily. That would make for a boring story.
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One thing I don't see people considering very often is that while complexity to build a character of a certain class isn't exactly a downside (it's all solved pre-game and you can always just netbuild), complexity on playing a class is. The more moving parts your gameplan has, the more points where it can fail or fall apart exist.
If you take a look at the Magus, for example, not only does it have a ton of things you have to keep in mind and execute perfectly for it to be good (spell slots, spellstrike cooldowns, empty Recharge vs confluxes, when to enter Cascade, etc.), but it's also extremely vulnerable to disruption. Got tripped on that turn where you had to pull off an important Stride + Spellstrike? Good grief. Actually failed a save against Slow? At least crying is a free action cause that's most of what you'll be doing.
If you balance more complex classes in a way that their theoretical ceiling is the same as other classes, but it's 10 times harder to get close to that ceiling, the class will just be straight up worse for anyone but the most tactically gifted players.
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One thing I don't see people considering very often is that while complexity to build a character of a certain class isn't exactly a downside (it's all solved pre-game and you can always just netbuild), complexity on playing a class is. The more moving parts your gameplan has, the more points where it can fail or fall apart exist.
If you take a look at the Magus, for example, not only does it have a ton of things you have to keep in mind and execute perfectly for it to be good (spell slots, spellstrike cooldowns, empty Recharge vs confluxes, when to enter Cascade, etc.), but it's also extremely vulnerable to disruption. Got tripped on that turn where you had to pull off an important Stride + Spellstrike? Good grief. Actually failed a save against Slow? At least crying is a free action cause that's most of what you'll be doing.
If you balance more complex classes in a way that their theoretical ceiling is the same as other classes, but it's 10 times harder to get close to that ceiling, the class will just be straight up worse for anyone but the most tactically gifted players.
Well arguably more complex classes have higher ceilings than basic classes.
Finishers ARE hard to place and some creatures are immune to precision, but when you land one you DO get a lot of damage dice (which can then become really potent with things like impaling finisher, dual throw or bleeding finisher).
Eidolons don't have a higher ceiling but with the mix of flex spell list and evolution surge they're incredible flexible, able to adapt to any battlefield. Their damage output, while not ''the best'' because of no d10/d12 option is pretty high.
Inventors are similar to barbarians in damage output, with the added bonus of being to switch hit pretty decently from range to melee, and having nifty AoE's inbuilt in the class and gadget variety, as well as some support. They kind of blend barbarian and ranger support feel well.
Magus do TONS of damage when they spellstrike, but they can't spellstrike every round. If you did a side by side comparison of a magus wailing on a dummy every round without striding and a fighter doing the same, the magus would probably come out on top. But it's hella tricky to pull through! Probably need to coordinate with your team to make it happen though. (in our Extinction curse game that's basically what I do with my fighter, I have a hammer, a crushing rune, and good athletics, my goal is to crit people so they fall prone, clumsy and enfeebled, and that enables the staff magus to explode them, because they now have -3 AC and he often gets +2 to hit from the maestro bard)
Gunslingers... Look I don't like guns as they are now and that's the main issue. If guns were better gunslingers would be fine. As is though, a sniper that starts a fight in a bush or a smokescreen is going to do some pretty good damage. I ran the chart and it compared favorably to an archer fighter because of the fatal d12 trait as well as kickback and the innate +1 to damage.
In an empty room with only static ennemies to hit the base classes are simpler and will output more.
In every day adventuring with various battlefields, various degrees of intelligence on what you're going to face, and various amounts of time, with ennemies that can have a vast array of powers, the more ''complex'' classes, if played well, can sometimes outperform the basics by a very wide margin.
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I actually rather like the magus as a case of complexity that gets rewarded, without blowing balance out of the water.
It's definitely not as straightforward as a fighter, and you don't do more damage on a normal attack either. But you've got a wider reach of elemental damage types to use to get to weaknesses, and a choice of mobility-enhancing spells, and a lot of other tricks. Just... don't build one based on the premise that you're always doing spellstrike. The class description even says so;
Combining your Abilities
As a magus, you have multiple special actions and abilities that can be used in combination with your spells. You can enter your Arcane Cascade stance with either Spellstrike or a normally cast spell, so it could be in your best interest to cast a spell to buff yourself at the beginning of a fight and enter Arcane Cascade, rather than going for an early Spellstrike. You can usually stay in Arcane Cascade for a long time, though if you find out an enemy has a weakness to a certain damage type, such as fire, you might want to refresh your stance with a fire spell to take advantage of the bonus damage. It's often worth it to cast your conflux spells and make a Strike either on a turn where you can't make a Spellstrike, or as the last action on your turn after a Spellstrike. Sometimes, it might be worth it to cast a conflux spell even if you think you'll miss, because it can still recharge your Spellstrike for your next turn. Since a lot can ride on your Spellstrike, which uses your multiple attack penalty, it's much better if used as the first attack of the turn!
For me the big reward of playing a magus is that every turn can be different, as I consider whether to go for lots of attacks (flurry of blows), a heavy attack (true strike/disintegrate starlit span ranged spellstrike), moving around to get a new tactical angle (jump or time jump), or maybe dropping a wall of force to reshape the battlefield, a chain lightning to take out a few wounded mooks, or a haste on the fighter because I actually need him to do more work, or...
And yeah, I get it wrong sometimes. Sometimes in hindsight I think "oh, these nasty monsters actually had weak Fort saves, I could have dropped level 6 Slow on them instead, that would have changed the whole fight". But even if I'm not playing a 100% perfect game, I'm still doing okay and having fun.
I agree, but there are certain concepts that are hard locked into some classes. It doesn't seem fair to me for people wanting to play those concepts to be stuck unable to play it because the class is too complex. (If they dislike the class for other reasons that's a different matter.)
Why isn't it fair?
I like complex classes and get quickly bored with simple classes. I don't see why my tastes should be disregarded.There are simple classes and complex classes, so everyone can have fun.
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In every day adventuring with various battlefields, various degrees of intelligence on what you're going to face, and various amounts of time, with ennemies that can have a vast array of powers, the more ''complex'' classes, if played well, can sometimes outperform the basics by a very wide margin.
In my experience it's the exact opposite though. Complex classes work the best in white room scenarios because disruption, general roadbumps to your gameplan and just not executing on said plan perfectly because humans are flawed are all non-factors. In real scenarios they're very volatile though, and can be easily shut down by a multitude of factors, while the more basic classes are as consistent as rocks.
While the Swashbuckler is struggling to get Panache vs a single boss or losing 60% of their damage against oozes, the Fighter is hitting. While the Magus is getting the entire flow of their combat disrupted by getting stunned 1 at the wrong time, the Fighter is hitting. Etc. etc.
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In every day adventuring with various battlefields, various degrees of intelligence on what you're going to face, and various amounts of time, with ennemies that can have a vast array of powers, the more ''complex'' classes, if played well, can sometimes outperform the basics by a very wide margin.In my experience it's the exact opposite though. Complex classes work the best in white room scenarios because disruption, general roadbumps to your gameplan and just not executing on said plan perfectly because humans are flawed are all non-factors. In real scenarios they're very volatile though, and can be easily shut down by a multitude of factors, while the more basic classes are as consistent as rocks.
While the Swashbuckler is struggling to get Panache vs a single boss or losing 60% of their damage against oozes, the Fighter is hitting. While the Magus is getting the entire flow of their combat disrupted by getting stunned 1 at the wrong time, the Fighter is hitting. Etc. etc.
I think the issue here is how we define the complexity of the class. These classes that we've labeled ''complex'' aren't complex in their optimal rotation. You can pretty much always figure out an optimal rotation in a white room, and in those optimal rotations they do perform above the benchmark.
They are complex because they have variety that requires system mastery to overcome and understand.
The swashbuckler loses their precision damage to oozes yes... but oozes aren't immune to persistent damage or bleed. Bleeding finisher will definitely work on them and do a bunch of damage, because you will most likely crit on it, doing double your precise strike damage in persistent bleed. They're also laughably easy to get panache on with tumble through, and you can use the bonus to skills from panache to do things to them that will enable your party (leading dance, trip, shove, etc. ) Being a martial trained stat with key ability dex you also are great at throwing bombs, which are, once again, great against oozes because you will often crit with them and deal double the persistent damage. And since the guidelines on treasure require a lot of consumables, you often have bombs just lying around.
But if you consider the swashbuckler as a class that ONLY does panache+strike+finisher then yes, you will feel like you underperform with your complex class... because you are not grasping the options that this complexity gives you.
The magus' ideal rotation of spellstrike+recharge DOES get disrupted by slowed 1 or stunned 1... but so does everyone else. Fighters and barbs can just stride and strike once, but so can you and you're not going to be that much behind. You ALSO have the option of sitting your ass in place and casting a REGULAR disintegrate rather than a spellstrike one, casting shield+arcane cascade to enable yourself a better follow up round, repositioning with a 2 action spell like blazing dive or blitz charge.
It's not your IDEAL rotation, but its still potent, varied and fun. I go back once again to my extinction curse game where I play a fighter alongside a magus. Being a dwarf fighter I'm much less mobile than the elven staff magus is, so when I get stunned or slowed it really disrupts my usual rotation of stride+strike+brutish shove, especially if the ennemy has moved away from me. He gets much less affected by the same effect through having superior base speed but also superior spell options to reposition.
I really feel that those who say that the complex classes under perform versus base classes should try playing them, and then try playing them with less of a tunnel vision mindset of ''this is my rotation and anything not my rotation is crap''.
After all, isn't that what system mastery really is ? Our ability to adapt and overcome through clever application of the various options and preparations we've built into our character in order to face a variety of situations?
I didn't say your taste should be disregarded. I said you should be rewarded (even if slightly) for actually making good use of a complex class.I agree, but there are certain concepts that are hard locked into some classes. It doesn't seem fair to me for people wanting to play those concepts to be stuck unable to play it because the class is too complex. (If they dislike the class for other reasons that's a different matter.)Why isn't it fair?
I like complex classes and get quickly bored with simple classes. I don't see why my tastes should be disregarded.There are simple classes and complex classes, so everyone can have fun.
I wasn't answering to that part, as I understand your point of view (and don't have much of an opinion on it).
But to the part saying that it isn't fair to you that people get unable to play some concepts because they are too complex. But being unable to play some concepts because they are too simple is not much better.I think it's better to have different levels of complexity depending on classes so everyone can find the ones they like. There are 20 classes, I don't think you need to love all of them.
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Sorry but there's a lot of things there that are just... flat out incorrect I think?
- Oozes are immune to critical hits. The rules for critical hit immunity state they're unaffected by any doubling of damage the crit would cause, and that includes persistent.
- The Magus is considerably behind in damage when it's just basic Striking, compared to a Fighter or Barbarian. Both of these classes have a "striker feature", let's call it that, in +2 to hit and Rage. Magus doesn't have anything that significantly improves their basic Strikes, unless you can hit a weakness with cascade (and even then, at 10+ it's very easy for martials to trigger weaknesses with elemental runes).
- Fighter and Barbarian both have Sudden Charge as a 1st level feat option. Sudden Charge gets completely around many situations where those classes would be at action economy deficits (enemies that are far, difficult terrain, etc).
- You suggested casting Disintegrate raw, without spellstrike, but the math on spell attacks is awful even for casters, let alone a class with lower casting proficiency and that can't key their casting stat.
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I think it's better to have different levels of complexity depending on classes so everyone can find the ones they like. There are 20 classes, I don't think you need to love all of them.
This is something that, to me, while it makes sense on a surface level, starts falling apart a bit when you consided the role of classes in the game. A class isn't just a fun little kit of abilities, it also sells a concept. A theme, flavor, etc. When it happens that someone really enjoys a concept, but the gameplay is either too complex or too simple for their tastes, you have a frustrated player. It doesn't matter that there are 19 other classes in the game if the fantasy they want to fulfill the most isn't being satisfied.
Heck, this is what happens very often with casters. Tons of people just want to wave their hands and make things explode, but every single caster comes with a huge baggage of subsystems and a swiss army knife of tools, which frustrates them not only because of the unwanted complexity but also because they're paying power budget for things they didn't want, and thus the blasting itself is weaker.
I don't think every class should be simple, but maybe the concept of opt-in complexity could be applied more often. Instead of making complex classes and simple classes, make classes where you can choose between simple builds and complex builds. I mean, it works very well for Fighter, for example: an unga-bunga two-handed Fighter who mostly takes passive or evergreen feats is a very valid character, but so is a Wrestler Fighter that takes the likes of Combat Grab, Dazing Blow, Whirling Throw, Suplex, Piledriver, etc., and ends up with like 300 different combo options and basically plays like the TTRPG version of a fighting game character.
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I think it's better to have different levels of complexity depending on classes so everyone can find the ones they like. There are 20 classes, I don't think you need to love all of them.This is something that, to me, while it makes sense on a surface level, starts falling apart a bit when you consided the role of classes in the game. A class isn't just a fun little kit of abilities, it also sells a concept. A theme, flavor, etc. When it happens that someone really enjoys a concept, but the gameplay is either too complex or too simple for their tastes, you have a frustrated player. It doesn't matter that there are 19 other classes in the game if the fantasy they want to fulfill the most isn't being satisfied.
That is why I think it is good that the CRB classes are generally the most straightforward and also the most effective.
If your character concept is a dashing derring-do skirmisher, sure Swashbuckler may be the initial thought. But if Swashbuckler is too complex of a class and you find that you don't like the mechanics that it offers, perhaps a DEX-based Fighter or a Rogue would be better suited.
If you don't like Witch, play a Bard or Sorcerer or Wizard.
A Gunslinger character could also be handled by a Fighter or Ranger class.
It may not work in all cases for all characters. But in general most character concepts can be handled reasonably well by the core classes, archetypes, and flavor.
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The fighter is a perfectly example. The simple build just strikes, the complex build is able to strike and apply other effects above and beyond striking.
But then you have swashbuckler that gets shut down because they couldn't move, and if they fail to move they are also punished because they attempted to move. They must also repeat the attempt after every time they do they finisher, so its a repeated chance of failure. The reward is effectively the same damage they would had gotten if they attacked 2 times as a fighter.
You have melee magus that gets shut down by needing to move, by AoO from casting, by multiple conditions that either lower to hit or lower the number of action. The only reward being "maybe if they fight the right enemy and have the right spell prepared and they hit, maybe they trigger weakness". Again a fighter doing 2 strikes deals the same damage at no risk.
You have alchemist which is one of the most complicated classes. The reward is that your allies can spend 1 action to suffer some condition and gain +1 to a stat. That requires that you spend actions making the thing, then spend actions giving it to the ally, then the ally needs to decide to use it. The item is also a straight negative if the ally already is getting an item bonus of the same size from literally any source.
All casters require that they know what creatures are being targeted, that they have the right spell for that specific creature, that they are not interrupted by said creature or something else, and the creature is still more likely than not to succeed or even critically succeed. That is if the creature is not immune in the first place. Then there is the fact that 80% of people straigth up ignore actual use case when talking about casters and jump straight to white room where the caster somehow has everything perfect, and even then they tend to fall behind to classes just doing 2 strikes.
OK. So...
Not really disagreeing with your statements of fact. I'm just not sure what your conclusion is.
Do you expect us to want to instead go back to a game design where some classes are much more powerful in certain specific circumstances or with certain build options selected? Where you don't just build whatever character concept you want and end up with a viable character - you instead go online and hope to find a system expert who has already navigated the build for you so that you can just shoehorn your character concept on top of that?
Yeah, that doesn't sound very good to me. And it probably is not representative of what you have in mind. So before I get called out for strawman logic, I'll point out that what I am asking is for you to let me know what you actually want instead of the current state of things.