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Interesting, because I've seen the opposite, personally.
Interesting. Outside a few specific caster builds, I rarely see people go for a 20 in standard PB. A lot of guides even advise against it, because it's such a huge investment. 18 and even 16 are a lot more popular, while a starting 14 would wreck you in Pf2.
I do occasionally see starting 16s, but mostly on a few niche spellcaster builds or classes with a main stat they don't use as an engine. In general it's much rarer from my experience than starting 18s in PF1.
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If I could get +4 to an ability as a feat I'd get it on every character, every build (even if they didn't need it). At that point it would feel more like a tax than a feat.Stat improvements... Okay, that one I can see with a caveat: Can't be used to improve a stat beyond what normal increases would allow and price should not scale with the improvement, but what stat value someone is trying to achieve. Shoring up a glaring weakness? Affordable. Trying to push a secondary stat to the same level as your primary? Not so much...I think an item to try to push up a secondary/tertiary stat could actually be kinda cool. PF2's attribute system encourages you to kinda silo your stats to some extent, so some way to say... throw some extra investment in some other attribute that might provide some extra benefit could be a neat way to let... I dunno, an Inventor slightly improve their Charisma so they can feel less bad about investing in Diplomacy.
Maybe a tiered magic item that gives you a bonus but has a cap, +2 to X but no higher than say, 14... with a greater version that lets you go to 16.
Building off of this, some players do feel that PF2E's general feats are a little underwhelming, and that's a resource every character has access to.
What about something like this, a sort of Canny Acumen for ability scores:
Diverse Training (Feat 11)
Choose one ability score. You gain +4 to this ability, to a maximum of 16.
If that score is limited to a 16 would you still do so? It is only +2 to the modifier, the same benefit as a 1-step proficiency boost, a lot like Canny Acumen. Keep in mind it only raises an ability you'd be leaving at 12 or lower without it, or at 14 if you're happy with getting just a +1.
I would expect that to be useful for some builds, but not all, though if the range of "must have" general feats were expanded, that would be good for build diversity, since more...
I would build every character with a 12 that I'm ok with being 16 and never touch it so as to spend those ability boosts elsewhere safe in the knowledge that that ability will eventually be 16. I would never leave free ability boosts like that on the table. Of course, I can only speak for myself.
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I think mythic set of rules could go along way toward having over the top characters.
I have always framed d20 games as fantasy sup hero games. Can start humble beginnings and grow into epic heroes. I did kind of house rule to where not everyone is capable of leveling beyond 3rd level which are elite soldiers. Only those touched by gods can go beyond 3rd level. Kinda like Dan Machi. Pathfinder society identifies the divine touched and largest organization of such beings. Say around 200, 000 south beings not including monsters. Pathfinder society sends Devine touched out to deal with monsters that normal people cannot. Characters can have allot of lower level encounters that can make them feel powerful based on how PF2 scales.
I think casters are just fine. Still best utility and healers. No longer the best at everything. That is fine with me. It is ok to have party think hard about not having Champion, Fighter, or Barbarian in the party. AD&D to Pathfinder 1e required casters in the Party.
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And no, casters are not fine at all. A lot of people (including me) need more (and more reliable) roles for them than utility and healers.
In your opinion casters are not fine. They provided their opinion, and you stated yours as though it was fact, which it is very much not.
Try not to do that. And also try not to appeal to data you do not have (how many is a lot of people? cite your source).
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And no, casters are not fine at all. A lot of people (including me) need more (and more reliable) roles for them than utility and healers.
Casters are really not what they were, which is a fact.
But limiting them to utility and healing is wrong. They have most of their past roles, there is just a few things that don't work anymore (mostly Summoning).
And no, casters are not fine at all. A lot of people (including me) need more (and more reliable) roles for them than utility and healers.Casters are really not what they were, which is a fact.
But limiting them to utility and healing is wrong. They have most of their past roles, there is just a few things that don't work anymore (mostly Summoning).
Casters work fine as long as you stick to buffs, debuffs, control and healing...once you get to levels 5~7. They are mostly dead weight before that point though.
If anything about casters isn't fine, it's their absolutely horrendous early game and their weak chassis.
I already had many doubts about casters in PF2 specially due they are no more such demigods from 1e/3.5 due they have less spellslots and specially due their damage spells no longer improves with their level.
This make many old players think that casters are restricted to healers and utility. But this is because they are now a way more complicated class.
For example 2e casters tends to be more effective as debuffers due how the spell DC works based in caster level and no more in spellslot level. But due incapacitant traits the caster player has to search good spells option that aren't incapacitant and give some interesting effect to use in their low level spellslots.
As Damage Dealers they will never be so strong as 1e/3.5 casters was and probably never will so effective as damage focused martial class are by design but still way more versatile. Many times able to easily change their damage type to take an advantage over opponent weakness or to circumvent their resistances, also have spells that are able to debuff and damage at same time.
But if you want to do a caster focused in DD will probably have to do a Spell Blending Wizard with a good staff or a Tempest/Wildfire Druid to use your focus spells to do mostly attacks or do another abilities combination to allow you to cast you top level damage spells in good qty.
But in the end to be an efficient caster usually are way more complicated than is to be a good martial.
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But if you want to do a caster focused in DD will probably have to do a Spell Blending Wizard with a good staff or a Tempest/Wildfire Druid to use your focus spells to do mostly attacks or do another abilities combination to allow you to cast you top level damage spells in good qty.
A gobbo flame druid with Burn It! can do some reasonably respectable damage with that Wildfire spell early on, especially if you have any allies with forced move to push foes into it and/or can keep backing up.
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But if you want to do a caster focused in DD will probably have to do a Spell Blending Wizard with a good staff or a Tempest/Wildfire Druid to use your focus spells to do mostly attacks or do another abilities combination to allow you to cast you top level damage spells in good qty.A gobbo flame druid with Burn It! can do some reasonably respectable damage with that Wildfire spell early on, especially if you have any allies with forced move to push foes into it and/or can keep backing up.
This becomes even better latter when have Combustion + Fiery Body with Burn It!. Combustions +1 additional dice + half spell level + 1 in persistence damage, same for Produce Flame attacks.
But notice that to do this good amount of damage a player has to search and find Fiery Body in the spell lists and notice that it improves the fire spell damage, so combo it with SoM druid focus spell and a goblin feat. While a Fighter can such good damage just using a good magic weapon for this level. That's why I said that do a spellcaster is more a question of complexity.
But if you want to do a caster focused in DD will probably have to do a Spell Blending Wizard with a good staff or a Tempest/Wildfire Druid to use your focus spells to do mostly attacks or do another abilities combination to allow you to cast you top level damage spells in good qty.A gobbo flame druid with Burn It! can do some reasonably respectable damage with that Wildfire spell early on, especially if you have any allies with forced move to push foes into it and/or can keep backing up.This becomes even better latter when have Combustion + Fiery Body with Burn It!. Combustions +1 additional dice + half spell level + 1 in persistence damage, same for Produce Flame attacks.
But notice that to do this good amount of damage a player has to search and find Fiery Body in the spell lists and notice that it improves the fire spell damage, so combo it with SoM druid focus spell and a goblin feat. While a Fighter can such good damage just using a good magic weapon for this level. That's why I said that do a spellcaster is more a question of complexity.
Ooooooo gonna save this one
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But if you want to do a caster focused in DD will probably have to do a Spell Blending Wizard with a good staff or a Tempest/Wildfire Druid to use your focus spells to do mostly attacks or do another abilities combination to allow you to cast you top level damage spells in good qty.A gobbo flame druid with Burn It! can do some reasonably respectable damage with that Wildfire spell early on, especially if you have any allies with forced move to push foes into it and/or can keep backing up.This becomes even better latter when have Combustion + Fiery Body with Burn It!. Combustions +1 additional dice + half spell level + 1 in persistence damage, same for Produce Flame attacks.
But notice that to do this good amount of damage a player has to search and find Fiery Body in the spell lists and notice that it improves the fire spell damage, so combo it with SoM druid focus spell and a goblin feat. While a Fighter can such good damage just using a good magic weapon for this level. That's why I said that do a spellcaster is more a question of complexity.
Martials are designed to easily attack single opponents and target AC.
Casters are designed to easily attack several opponents and target AC or saves.
I easily see how it is complex to build a caster that aims to be good at attacking single opponents.
Likewise, it is also complex to build a Martial that aims to be good at attacking several opponents and targeting AC or saves.
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Martials are designed to easily attack single opponents and target AC.
Casters are designed to easily attack several opponents and target AC or saves.
I easily see how it is complex to build a caster that aims to be good at attacking single opponents.
Likewise, it is also complex to build a Martial that aims to be good at attacking several opponents and targeting AC or saves.
Are you trying to say that full-casters are *not*, by and large, more complicated than martials? It seems pretty obvious that they are.
- They straight-up have more build decisions. By default, martials are picking feats. By default, casters are picking feats and spells.
- In any given round, they generally have more options to choose from. Martials are a lot more flexible round-to-round than they were in 3.x, and that's great, but picking which spell to cast adds a huge number of options to consider, and thus complexity.
- They have more things to keep track of. Martials generally target AC, with the significant majority of their attacks. Casters by default should be looking to be able to target all four, or at least three of the four. Casters are running off of daily resources, and thus must keep under consideration how likely they are to need X spell *next* fight. the fact that such a large fraction of their effectiveness is tied up in limited-use burst power means that they also have to juggle whether it's better to blow the spell now (when it will be most effective) or wait and try to save it, knowing that a spell thrown later in the fight is generally less useful.
- They generally have more sorts of effects that they an throw. Spell attacks tend to come with an effect or two, and are usually in a form of elemental damage. Martials are not. Martials who are throwing around effects are generally throwing around the same one or two or three effects every fight - they're an intimidate build, or a grapple build, or whatever. Casters who are throwing around effects tend to have a fairly wide range to choose from. All of this adds to the complexity of the character.
I easily see how it is complex to build a caster that aims to be good at attacking single opponents.
Likewise, it is also complex to build a Martial that aims to be good at attacking several opponents and targeting AC or saves.
I'm not sure complex is the right word. In both case, the issue is more a matter of limited options and some of the solutions being high level.
Building a whirlwind strike barbarian isn't hard, it's just something you can't do until level 14.
I easily see how it is complex to build a caster that aims to be good at attacking single opponents.
Likewise, it is also complex to build a Martial that aims to be good at attacking several opponents and targeting AC or saves.
I'm not sure complex is the right word. In both case, the issue is more a matter of limited options and some of the solutions being high level.
Building a whirlwind strike barbarian isn't hard, it's just something you can't do until level 14.
Especially if you also want to be a Dragon while doing it. Before lv. 16, only with Dragon Disciple + Free Archetype.
Of course, a Fighter MCing Wizard gets a 6th level spell slot at lv. 16 too.
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When I say that caster is more complex to do than martials is more like:
- Is hard do a bad martial build. Their main chassis grants they will be good except if you take a magus or a swashbucker that's requires more study to work well.
- Is easier to do a bad caster because have many important options to check and combine, depending of your spells choices (including focus) your build cannot do neighter what you want they do efficiently and be worse to do what you don't planned.
Of course I'm disregarding bad stat choices because they can break any char.
Besides the Inventor, there are no valid multi target martials. Their multi target abilities are either very limited (Swipe, Penetrating Finisher) or high level (Whirlwind Attack). And even when you consider Whirlwind Attack, at the level you get it it's just weak. Hard to set up, rather small area (compared to the spell you get at that level) and small damage (a Chain Lightning outdamages easily a Whirlwind attack). The only advantage is that it costs nearly no resources.
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The various ranged multishot abilities say otherwise. Those start out very early with double shot at level 4, then triple shot at level 6.
You do realize that Double Shot does less damage than 2 Strikes? It's just a useless feat.
Cleave is plain bad. And very limited.Unbalancing Sweep doesn't deal damage.
The Ranger has a level 18 feat to target multiple enemies in an area but that's all as far as I remember.
I forgot Dragon's Breath, but it's still very limited as it can be used once every hour (half damage is mediocre damage).
Honestly, nothing that competes with a Fireball or with the Inventor area of effect abilities.
I haven't yet come across a situation where player area damage has been all that big a deal. Against large extreme or TPK hordes regular control and incapacitate control tend to have better outcomes than AoE damage especially in the earlier stages of the game where weaker enemies still trend toward high reflex instead of fort or will.
Inventor's AoE potential is certainly better than other martials with dragon barbarian being the only one really in contention. Inventor is the clear winner of course between being usable every 10 minutes vs every hour, scaling their class DC faster by 2 levels compared to the barbarian and higher damage dice. The 8 hp and unstable damage risk is about even with barbarian's natural frailty even with 12 hp.
That said, even for full casters, AoE blasting is a questionable proposition. For the inventor, with their DC proficiency a full step below the casters its a real question as to if it's worth doing. Especially at the cost of being at -1 to regular offense for half the game.
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The various ranged multishot abilities say otherwise. Those start out very early with double shot at level 4, then triple shot at level 6.
You do realize that Double Shot does less damage than 2 Strikes? It's just a useless feat.
Cleave is plain bad. And very limited.
Unbalancing Sweep doesn't deal damage.
The Ranger has a level 18 feat to target multiple enemies in an area but that's all as far as I remember.I forgot Dragon's Breath, but it's still very limited as it can be used once every hour (half damage is mediocre damage).
Honestly, nothing that competes with a Fireball or with the Inventor area of effect abilities.
Double Shot does not interact with damage in any way. It's also very obviously different from just making two strikes given it does not apply MAP.
You said that there was no multitarget, but there clearly are multitarget. Whether you like those feats or not is a different matter.
As for double shot, that is 2 shots at -2 vs 2 shots at -0 and -5 respectively. Point-blank shot with a non-volley weapon and now you have 2 shots at -0.
PBS is damage, that's still at -2.
And even then, that's still comparing, say, two shots of 2d8+7 (avg 16) at level 7 to the 4d4+4 (avg 14) of electric arc or scatter scree.
The various ranged multishot abilities say otherwise. Those start out very early with double shot at level 4, then triple shot at level 6.
You do realize that Double Shot does less damage than 2 Strikes? It's just a useless feat.
Cleave is plain bad. And very limited.
Unbalancing Sweep doesn't deal damage.
The Ranger has a level 18 feat to target multiple enemies in an area but that's all as far as I remember.I forgot Dragon's Breath, but it's still very limited as it can be used once every hour (half damage is mediocre damage).
Honestly, nothing that competes with a Fireball or with the Inventor area of effect abilities.
You said that there was no multitarget, but there clearly are multitarget. Whether you like those feats or not is a different matter.
As for double shot, that is 2 shots at -2 vs 2 shots at -0 and -5 respectively. Point-blank shot with a non-volley weapon and now you have 2 shots at -0.
As you can see, you do more damage by making 2 Strikes against 2 targets than a Double Shot.
Also, I said there was no valid multitarget attacks. Double Shot is not a valid multitarget attack, it's just a prerequisite for Triple Shot.
I haven't yet come across a situation where player area damage has been all that big a deal.
I have been through many such situations.
On the other hand, I haven't been in a situation where control has been a big deal.In my opinion, it depends on builds and parties.
You do realize that the numbers are practically the same even if Double Slice is giving -1/-2 damage on average it also has a great chance to crit on the second attack. Which makes players feel much better about it.
No, it's the opposite. The reason why 2 Strikes deal more damage than Double Shot is because of the bow Deadly bonus and the higher chances of critical. Double Shot has higher chances to hit but lower chances to crit.
Also as you stated, its a pre-req to Triple Shot which is a level 6 feat and a valid "multitarget" feat.
Triple Shot is a single target ability.
Also as you stated, its a pre-req to Triple Shot which is a level 6 feat and a valid "multitarget" feat.Triple Shot is a single target ability.
Triple Shot's text very deliberately uses the word "can" to allow you to use it on a singular target, but it's not required at all. Just like how you "can" use an additional action to make 3 Strikes instead of 2. You can definitely still target multiple targets with it.
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Oh, good gods, are we back to the "casters are only good for buffs" thing again? I'll be sure to tell our sorcerer player who's been making area damage spells useful for 19 levels now.I always thought people got enjoyment from fighting a single high level enemy, does anyone actually enjoy killing weak mooks?
The most common complaint and piece of advice on the forums is don't rely too much on level +2 or +3 single bosses, so... No? A single high level enemy seems to be the most demoralizing thing to fight. Where as lower level enemies you crit on can be much better for folks going for the power fantasy.
But I think the important thing is variety. Encounters should run a range of difficultly (total XP budget) and enemy quantity. Too much of any one thing gets stale.
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Oh, good gods, are we back to the "casters are only good for buffs" thing again? I'll be sure to tell our sorcerer player who's been making area damage spells useful for 19 levels now.I always thought people got enjoyment from fighting a single high level enemy, does anyone actually enjoy killing weak mooks?
In PF2, you enjoy surviving a fight, even one against mooks.
And a 3 enemies' encounter is better than a single bad guy. The latter is innately far scarier in PF2.
Alas, many GMs and writers prefer encounters with a low number of opponents, sometimes even a single one, because it gives the GM less units to manage.
But doing so is actually a disservice to PF2's design.
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As a GM: Single enemy fights suck. I get to do only 3 actions worth of stuff and half the time one action is burnt from something the players did. Then if I do down someone it's almost always because of a lucky hit rather than tactics, so the player doesn't feel outplayed they feel unlucky.
Single bosses are overrated. My absolute favorite boss fights have two strongish enemies that can do stuff like flanking.
