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The problem I have with the "just use an attack cantrip" as an option for an investigator who rolled badly on their strategic strike is that there isn't an option to get those in the class. Sure, you can get cantrips from some ancestries, but not every ancestry gets cantrip access and the tools to make a class work should come with the class.
Like Rogues get "Minor Magic" as a level 2 feat, but Investigators don't and this might be an oversight.
All it takes is for an Investigator to get cantrips is the Archtype feat for Wizard, which is a 2nd level feat, as per the Rogue above.
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I believe the point is that you can toss out a bad roll, which no other class can do.
Against non-pursuit targets, spending an action to toss out a roll and spending an action to miss aren't really significantly different, except that the rogue can try again and the investigator can't.
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I believe the point is that you can toss out a bad roll, which no other class can do.Against non-pursuit targets, spending an action to toss out a roll and spending an action to miss aren't really significantly different, except that the rogue can try again and the investigator can't.
Sure they are. The rogue gets MAP while the investigator doesn't.
The advantage the rogue gets is they can potentially apply sneak attack to the other target while the investigator can't, but MAP is still MAP.
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Sure they are. The rogue gets MAP while the investigator doesn't.The advantage the rogue gets is they can potentially apply sneak attack to the other target while the investigator can't, but MAP is still MAP.
The to-hit and damage loss actually ends up not leaving you significantly ahead with your MAPless second strike.
And that's even assuming a second strike is on the table. If you're fighting a boss or can't easily reach another enemy you simply can't attack unless you burn through two actions... and then you have MAP and your underwhelming non-strategic strikes (or more likely doing something else from an also underwhelming list of options).
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.....but the math is the absolute LAST thing in the game that would be broken. It was made with the help of a computer science major.
Apparently not one that understood variability or probability in general.
The underlying math is foundationally flawed.For example, the discrete probability distribution is off - badly.
Off as in [yes, the following is anecdotal, yet I dare you to to the full math or run a simulator hundreds of thousands of times and then you’ll know] more character death and TPKs in the past three years than in the decades before that.
All but all via the RNG, not poor player choices or the like.
This is a problem which I doubt will ever be addressed (because it’s so inherent and, well, foundational - it requires not some ‘remodeling’ but a complete removal of the structure, in its entirety, so there is nothing left, then rebuilt starting with pouring concrete; ok, that was some hyperbole yet only a modicum exaggerated).
That said, I do agree second edition is ‘more stable’ at high level play than first edition.
But that’s a rather low bar given how unstable PF1e was at teen levels.
PF2e has some very nice aspects. But also has some major flaws (one of which is the developers refusing to answer questions of what they meant when they wrote a rule).
More so than PF1e? Maybe, maybe not. Opinions vary.
But mostly it’s jus not traditional Pathfinder, aka the game that took & kept the 3.5 torch alive, it’s different. Not better, not worse, jus different.
And for what’s it’s worth, I loved Paizo because they saved 3.5 - yet then sometime later decided this really did belong in the trash bin which is where they [wrongly, so very very wrongly] tossed it. And when Paizo did that, the good will I had for them they also tossed in the trash heap.
After which I view them based solely on their achievements, without a savior nostalgia lens.
Which, sadly, are as lacking as their math in PF2e.
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I'm confused of whats up with poster who has multiple Aliases that are variants of statements of "not Gortle" but anyway, ye make it kinda sound like ye dislike Pathfinder 2e's math because you have nostalgia classes for PF1e and 2e isn't 1e?
(that and I'm sure you have statistics and proof there are more tpks in pf2e than in "decades past")
But yeah, all games have variety of "good or bad rng can ruin good tactics", but its not particularly feature of 2e math from my experience of running homebrew 1-20. Its feature of encounter design :p
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And for what’s it’s worth, I loved Paizo because they saved 3.5 - yet then sometime later decided this really did belong in the trash bin which is where they [wrongly, so very very wrongly] tossed it. And when Paizo did that, the good will I had for them they also tossed in the trash heap.
After which I view them based solely on their achievements, without a savior nostalgia lens.
Which, sadly, are as lacking as their math in PF2e.
I think this is a misrepresentation of what happened. Pf1e sales dropped. The players were the ones who put 3.5 back in the trash. Paizo had to do something to avoid going out of business.
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I think this is a misrepresentation of what happened. Pf1e sales dropped. The players were the ones who put 3.5 back in the trash. Paizo had to do something to avoid going out of business.
Because the system was becoming bloated. Another revision more in the style of 3.5 -> PF1E would have been welcomed by people like me, who are now not buying PF2E products.
The math is broken in the game.
I am curious what levels you've played through before reaching this conclusion. Or is this all white room theorizing?
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While they could have tweaked 1e math, I don't think you could have fixed more inherent problems in 1e with just tweaking though.
That and I don't like idea of "let's reset edition every ten year with minor changes just so there is less content to confuse people"
Well, now we got a new edition with big changes which put a good number of older fans, who went to Paizo because they wanted to continue playing an actively supported 3E-like system, out of buying new stuff from them. Of course it also got new players to support the system, too.
But 2E also is starting to get into the bloat problem, as far as I can see. Paizo certainly isn't releasing any less stuff than under 1E, which some people seemed to think would be the case when 2E was new.
While they could have tweaked 1e math, I don't think you could have fixed more inherent problems in 1e with just tweaking though.
That and I don't like idea of "let's reset edition every ten year with minor changes just so there is less content to confuse people"
Well, now we got a new edition with big changes which put a good number of older fans, who went to Paizo because they wanted to continue playing an actively supported 3E-like system, out of buying new stuff from them. Of course it also got new players to support the system, too.
But 2E also is starting to get into the bloat problem, as far as I can see. Paizo certainly isn't releasing any less stuff than under 1E, which some people seemed to think would be the case when 2E was new.
@magnuskn: Check out this post by breithauptclan that addresses some of the design paradigms that might be preventing some of that bloat…
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I think this is a misrepresentation of what happened. Pf1e sales dropped. The players were the ones who put 3.5 back in the trash. Paizo had to do something to avoid going out of business.Because the system was becoming bloated. Another revision more in the style of 3.5 -> PF1E would have been welcomed by people like me, who are now not buying PF2E products.
on the other hand, I never was a customer of pf1e. Pf2e brought me to pathfinder. It is not enough to satisfy current customers, a business needs to be always adding new customers.
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As someone who has played in half a hundred games and hosted over a hundred more, I say unto you: The math is perfectly fine.
I'd even go so far as to say that, in the context of the systems built around it, it is better than all that has come before.
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@magnuskn: Check out this post by breithauptclan that addresses some of the design paradigms that might be preventing some of that bloat…
I'm not sure how the post addresses the issue of bloat in any form. Bloat happens by new options (classes, feat, magic items, etc.) being released constantly, until newer players are overwhelmed by the amount of rules available and often perceived as necessary to fully enjoy the system. I myself am starting to play Anno 1800, a city building PC game with a ton of DLC, so I can currently relate very well to the feeling.
Paizo has already released eight new classes in the last about four years, is about to release its ninth and presumably also released a ton of feats, spells and new game systems to boot. I am not saying the system is bloated yet, but the fond wishes of some people during the playtest that Paizo would slow down on their systemic expansion with 2E seem to not have borne themselves out.
I stand corrected on that account, then.
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The biggest problem of bloated game design is when you constantly get new options that are just better than the very similar options that came before. Well, Power Creep and decision paralysis are the two primary issues.
Archetypes, spells and items are the three areas of PF2 where these risks are a potential threat to game balance. Class design and feat siloing heavily work to avoid letting “bloat” result in power creep and decision paralysis. The developers have pretty intentionally and publicly committed to the core rule book as presenting the ceiling for power levels in class design and item design. Additional content always looks to go sideways, broadening options, but not trying to fix math hierarchies in the game. It is why we have multiple errata for the alchemist and not just new mutagens or elixirs that just give higher bonuses than what came before.
It is why we didn’t get an item that gave flat bonuses to spell attack roll spells, but an item that gives casters some flexibility on what defense to target on enemies with spell attack roll spells: new options always require trade offs and investments from players.
Some players will argue that options like amped guidance is an upgrade to core rule book options like the bard’s inspire courage, but it is always with caveats that make such claims situational at best, and very likely future errata potential if they prove to shift the balance away from the core rule book.
Knowing that new options should not flatly exceed the power balance options (unless you are looking to offer custom, special options for your specific campaign) of the core rule book helps me make decisions as a GM all the time.
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Sure they are. The rogue gets MAP while the investigator doesn't.The advantage the rogue gets is they can potentially apply sneak attack to the other target while the investigator can't, but MAP is still MAP.
The to-hit and damage loss actually ends up not leaving you significantly ahead with your MAPless second strike.
And that's even assuming a second strike is on the table. If you're fighting a boss or can't easily reach another enemy you simply can't attack unless you burn through two actions... and then you have MAP and your underwhelming non-strategic strikes (or more likely doing something else from an also underwhelming list of options).
I think the mark of a good investigator build is if you can work in some options that aren't underwhelming.
Also, there are potentially other advantages in informing your roll, because you can spend other actions to adjust your to hit odds. Moving to avoid cover, flanking, feinting, hiding, creating a diversion, and demoralize are all options that can adjust your odds. If you know your target's armor class (which is pretty easy to figure out) you know whether it is worth spending those actions to shift the math.
A rogue can do all those same actions, but it is very frustrating to line up the perfect shot and then miss anyway. By comparison, it is very satisfying to manipulate the math to turn a miss into a hit.
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Mutagenist, warpriest, Bomber, Shape-shifting Druid, warrior muse, any pew pew spellcasters that just want to see things blow up, etc are just bad and aren't played much by vets of pf2e because they don't deliver on the fantasy.
I've played half of those for years. Perhaps you should restrict your commentary just to things you're familiar with.
Contributor
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As someone who has played in half a hundred games and hosted over a hundred more, I say unto you: The math is perfectly fine.
I'd even go so far as to say that, in the context of the systems built around it, it is better than all that has come before.
Hear, hear!
There are some things that I dislike about PF2 (I wish it was easier to aid people at low levels, and I wish it was easier to have mixed-level groups in Organized Play when people come in at different levels), but overall the math is a thing of beauty.
Note, my experience is less than Ravingdork's. I'm only at 72 games GMed in PF2, and maybe forty or so as a player. But man, the math is great. It makes GMing so much easier than it was in PF1. High level play is easier to handle because the math holds up. In PF1 to challenge your players, you needed to go to extreme lengths to add hazards and penalties to even hit them. In PF2, level-appropriate challenges are exactly what they say they are.
In PF1, a high level fight could take hours. In PF2 the battles are so much faster. There's greater battlefield mobility over all.
In PF1, we could only get planar scions that were human, because the designers could not balance the power curve of aasimar / tiefling plus random ancestries. In PF2, we get to mix and match versatile heritages with every ancestry without significantly upping the power curve, because everyone gets the same number of ancestry feats. This allows all sorts of amazing character concepts without getting crazy.
The modularity of the system, allowing you to customize with different archetypes to create different character concepts is also great. I love that spell casters can multi-class a bit without falling behind the spellcasting levels of their peers.
It's a beautifully built system.
Hmm
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I could nitpick this thread to death (some of the OP's premises are plain wrong and others are personal preference) but I'll instead summarize it like this:
PF1 was a fun game but its math was absolutely broken, and the only reason it worked for us was because of herculean effort on my (the GM) part. Lamenting things that "worked" there not working in PF2 almost always boils down to missing overpowered options and fundamentally busted system math that let you get away with more, while ignoring all the negatives of that paradigm including the new players who had to deal with just plain sucking because they didn't have system mastery.
PF2's math is highly functional, and has allowed me to drop new players in with very little effort or guidance. It has been a joy to GM and play, and many of the character concepts some people complain "don't work" actually work just fine, but not in the same broken manner as PF1.
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I really wanted to like the investigator, but I think my biggest issue with the class is devise a stratagem being a fortune effect. Not being able to use hero points to land your big prepared attack. Otherwise, I think my negative play experience boiled down to firearms being a bad weapon for them, since they end up action starved in most combats.
Out of combat the class was great.
I very strongly agree, and cannot repeat enough that the truly miraculous game balance of PF2 over other games is fully experienced by the GM, more than the players. Creatures that punch above or below their level tend to do so by 1 level maximum, instead of by 4, making encounters much easier to design and feel good about.
Written APs tend to use a few too many level +3 monsters that don’t actually fit in to the narrative in important ways or have motivations that don’t force them into almost immediate combat with the party, but as a player I have come to accept that as a quirk that keeps characters feeling very mortal, rather than a real problem.
I do worry about the wave of new players coming to the game, used to spending a fair bit of money on custom art/minis and thinking that the game expects the same characters to finish an AP that started it. I think there are a lot of players who get frustrated by the game because of its lethality to characters when run as a meat grinder by GMs. This is a very easy dial to adjust as a GM, but there is a weird culture of players saying they like the feel of potential lethality of the game, but getting really upset in practice when their characters die. How to handle character death and bringing new characters into the story without killing the plot line are important session 0 conversations.
@magnuskn: Check out this post by breithauptclan that addresses some of the design paradigms that might be preventing some of that bloat…
I don't think that PF2 add bloat as PF1 I don't agree that simply add more options means add more bloat. To be a bloat strongly depends of how and what things are added than their quantity.
For example, I don't think that new classes means more bloat due how PF2 designers take advantage of the current rules. Most class mechanics works around the current existing resources mechanics, everything add is a thing that change how other things works (like rage increases strike dmgs for barbarians) or consumes more actions (like power strikes) or consumes a focus point (like psychic amps) or consumes a spellslot. This include a critic that I hear sometimes about psychic being in practice spellcasters. They changed how they cast (don't need verbal components) received the AMP mechanics that's basically put a focus spell inside a cantrip but still basically the default spellcaster mechanic preventing the players and GMs to need to learn a completely new set of rules to play. So it's easy for players and GMs to understand how to use the new class while the minor changes still made it unique when compared to other classes.
That said, yes, still there's some bloat that is constantly being added to the game that are ancestries feats and items.
The currently new rules of ancestry stats enforces the need to a min/max player to basically read all available ancestries to search what combination of feats and heritages better fit the projected build.
Also happen to items, a min/max player need to check all available itens to analise what will be necessary to improve the build.
That said even theses bloat points have some limits. In PF2 we don't have some overpowered things like Divine Metamagic that can work like a game changer. So it's not like someone that don't research all options will be noticeable weaker than a player that completely dominate the system like happen in PF1/3.5 and even in D&D 5e. Yet there's still some pearls that may help to mitigate some classes weakness like for exemple Elemental Wrath that prevents a magus to loose it's spellstrikes against an AoO opponent or Adapted Cantrip that allow psychics to have access to EA and use it with the psychic spells benefits like unleash bonus without need to use a class feat for it.
The main currently bloat still the items. There's a great number of uninteresting itens available that are subpar or too situational that are useless outside some flavor situation. Also the currently low price difference between consumable and permanent itens makes many consumable itens works like simply sellable things to many players. Yet this still way less than we had in PF1/3.5.
So I don't expect that PF2 becomes soo bloated as PF1/3.5 due these reasons soo early. But sometimes I think that paizo designers may think better when add a new feat or item to prevent it to become a forgettable thing.
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Yeah, no, no amount of further houseruling 3.5 in form of PF 1.675 would address the underlying issues of Ivory Tower game design and rewarding system mastery while punishing the lack of it. You can put more makeup on a donkey, but it still will be a donkey.
It was a fun game if your idea of fun was running some obscene DPR Shikigami Style build and smirking as your fellow party members ran any hopeless "sword and broad fighter with Toughness, Skill Focus and Nimble Moves" PCs and watching as the math-challenged GM desperately tried to balance encounters to make sure we both have the equal amount of fun.
Which, in the end, would always prove impossible.
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Honestly, the thing I miss the most from pathfinder 1e as a GM is monsters with player level. Taking a troll, who's scary at low level but a chump at higher level, and giving him some fighter level was a great way to have "exceptionnal" foes from all kind of sentient species that get outclassed quickly. It was especially good to make them "unique", in a way a simple advanced template just can't do.
I've only been a player in 2e so far, but from what I've learn there is no way of customizing monsters like that, appart from building a new one altogether.
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Honestly, the thing I miss the most from pathfinder 1e as a GM is monsters with player level. Taking a troll, who's scary at low level but a chump at higher level, and giving him some fighter level was a great way to have "exceptionnal" foes from all kind of sentient species that get outclassed quickly. It was especially good to make them "unique", in a way a simple advanced template just can't do.
I've only been a player in 2e so far, but from what I've learn there is no way of customizing monsters like that, appart from building a new one altogether.
Familiarity with the system will allow you to do that pretty easily. You wouldn't believe how much can change by adding a class ability to a monster. Giving an attack of opportunity to a creature that the party "knows" doesn't have it can be a shock, and implies a whole lot going on behind the scenes. Where did this guy get the martial training? Why is it a cut above the others?
The "easy" way to do this sort of thing is to give the Elite adjustment and something along the lines of AoO, spells, sneak attack, devise a stratagem, or inspire courage.
The "hard" way is to start with a PC build and add the most important species features on top.
I've done both, with more confidence than I had in PF1, due to the math being more transparent.
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I feel like some of the complaints about the math not working here come from people expecting to have their unnmodified bonuses stack up one-to-one against an equal level monster's/NPC's corresponding DCs and vice versa. When I hear someone saying that you can run RNG simulations to prove this, this is the only conclusion I can draw.
Your raw numbers are intentionally behind those of enemies. What you get instead is a plethora of options to improve your numbers and try to worsen those of enemies (buffs, flanking, debuffs). Or to specifically target weakpoints in the enemy's stats (by going after a weak saving throw instead of AC for example).
NPC and creature stat blocks don't have nearly as vast an array of options to deal with you so they get the raw numbers advantage instead, from proficiency bonuses to hit points.
The creature creation guidelines in the GMG actually state this in plain english.
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Otherwise, I think my negative play experience boiled down to firearms being a bad weapon for them, since they end up action starved in most combats.
This can be pretty easily solved with Unexpected Sharpshooter or Gunslinger Archetype; both of which get Risky Reload; allowing you to load and shoot in one action. The misfire on a miss isnt a big deal since you know if you'll hit or not. For US, rolling bad on DaS just means doing accidental shot on someone else or using a versatile vial or something, and you get some nice defensive reactions. Gunslinger Dedication gives access to stuff like alchemical shot; which really hurts when you have a built in power that makes it easy to avoid the downside, action compressing reloads like the pistolero load that lets you demoralize and load, or running reload, and helpful reactions like fake out.
So you can make an investigator that's not actions starved that uses guns, and pretty decently at that; you just wont be gunslinger levels of good with them (which is okay; you have plenty of other cool stuff they cant do)
Sooo...you don't actually love PF2E?You can love a system and still be critical of it.
For example.
If my SO had a drinking problem, I could still love her and be like, "But this drinking issue is a problem.."
This is true. But what if your significant other had a drinking problem, and while you were talking about her drinking problem, you listed 51 other things that bug you about her.
And the example above about needing an 8 to hit (which isn't bad to me...), that's not counting debuffs which folks should absolutely be doing. Making creatures frightened, sickened, etc, is huge.
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One of the claims I find most ludicrous is that casters were better martials at fighting in PF1. They weren't. One high level dispel, goodbye martial ability.
Casters are far more viable with a martial attack than they were in PF1 sans massive, dispellable buffs.
Summoning is far worse. But it was too good in PF1. It is now too bad in PF2. Summoning needs some fixing.
As far as dead options go, there were so many dead options in PF1 that it far exceeds PF2. Book after book of dead options in PF1. My group used to buy a book and hope to find one or two things to use.
Investigator was bad in PF1. It's bad in PF2. It's a niche class meant for specific campaigns.
The math is bad in PF2? That's laughable. The math was far, far, far worse in PF1. Many times worse. When players can build characters with a 0 failure rate other than roll a 1 and do enough damage to obliterate dragons in a single round, the math is far more broken than PF2 could ever be.
PF2 has issues. My players bring them up. But it's still far better than PF1. Much easier to run for DMs while still offering a lot of customization for character builds to players. The kind of customization a game like this should have primarily focused on what something looks like rather than the best option for breaking the game.
I don't know if players realize this, but the DM can kill you whenever they feel like it. They can make encounters you can't beat and obliterate you no matter what you build or do. So the unspoken agreement is the DM won't do this. Because of this unspoken agreement the game should allow a DM to have as easy a time as possible running the game, not be some game system where players can build characters that can destroy the challenges available to a DM to use against them. Because once that point is reached, the DM has to start experimenting to find where the challenge point should be. That basically means the DM is writing the game rules and experimenting during play just to try to find a challenging scenario for the players. That is when the math has truly broken and the DM no longer has a viable ruleset to use to challenge the players in the game.
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That basically means the DM is writing the game rules and experimenting during play just to try to find a challenging scenario for the players.
Or experimenting outside of play. I can't count the number of times I've had to run mock battles against myself to test out if I had hit the mark with an encounter I designed in PF1.
It was so much work to make the game satisfying.
I feel like the only real criteria for deciding "the math is broken" is when the numbers for "how often trained/expert/master/legendary succeeds at a given task are out of line with expectations."
Generally I find that people generally do not like how often they fail, which might be a consequence of how rarely an optimized PF1 character failed at their thing. PF1 also trained you that you avoid failure by stacking every math bonus you can find, and in PF2 those only ever come from proficiency and stats and you have limited control over those.
I would suggest for your own games to balance combats around "a warpriest or battle oracle is comfortable in melee combat given sensible tactics and teamwork" and everything else should work out from there. As the GM- you do have the opportunity to tune the opposition, after all.
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Investigator was bad in PF1. It's bad in PF2. It's a niche class meant for specific campaigns.
Just as an aside, the Investigator (with one level of Inspired Blade Swashbuckler and Urban Bloodrager) is by far the most powerful character of the 1E CotCT campaign I am running and has been for its entirety, now going well into 15th level. It's not a bad class in combat by any means.
Honestly, the thing I miss the most from pathfinder 1e as a GM is monsters with player level. Taking a troll, who's scary at low level but a chump at higher level, and giving him some fighter level was a great way to have "exceptionnal" foes from all kind of sentient species that get outclassed quickly. It was especially good to make them "unique", in a way a simple advanced template just can't do.
I've only been a player in 2e so far, but from what I've learn there is no way of customizing monsters like that, appart from building a new one altogether.
PF2 actually makes this way easier because it doesn't pretend any combination of class levels will be equal CR to any other combination of classes levels with the same total. A troll with one level each in fighter, cleric, and wizard will be worse than a troll with three levels in barbarian.
PF2 tells you the target values a monster should have with any given role. To make a troll fighter, you just adjust the troll stats upward to your desired level and add a couple fighter feats. You also put it in full plate and give it a great axe, but you don't change the final math based on the equipment.
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One of the claims I find most ludicrous is that casters were better martials at fighting in PF1. They weren't. One high level dispel, goodbye martial ability.
Dispels were relatively rare, still needed a check to succeed, and could easily be undone with a simple recasting.
I myself played a 15th-level wizard with a base attack bonus of +26. Casters being better martials in 1st Edition, at least at higher levels, was not ludicrous, but emphatically, undeniably true.
Summoning is far worse. But it was too good in PF1. It is now too bad in PF2. Summoning needs some fixing.
Summoning in 2e is much reduced than 1e, but is not as bad as people make it out to be. I see it used very successfully more often than not. When I do see it fail, it's usually due to bad teamwork or strategy than it is the fact that a summoning spell was used.
As far as dead options go, there were so many dead options in PF1 that it far exceeds PF2. Book after book of dead options in PF1. My group used to buy a book and hope to find one or two things to use.
Ugh. Us too.
The math is bad in PF2? That's laughable. The math was far, far, far worse in PF1. Many times worse. When players can build characters with a 0 failure rate other than roll a 1 and do enough damage to obliterate dragons in a single round, the math is far more broken than PF2 could ever be.
2e's math isn't just better than 1e's math, it's a damned masterpiece all on its own.
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more character death and TPKs in the past three years than in the decades before that.
That is going to MASSIVELY depend on the GM and players.
In PF1, especially at levels above say 10 or so, the game has the potential of becoming incredibly unbalanced. If you've got decent system mastery you'll be trivially able to come up with characters that can absolutely ROTFLSTOMP the published APs, modules, etc.
Then a good GM can come along and make things challenging again.
At high enough levels of system mastery on both sides it becomes something of an arms race with a knifes edge between trivial and TPK. Its called rocket tag for a reason.
Or there are far more relaxed games where some kind of formal or informal treaty makes the game far less potent.
Basically, in PF1 there is NOTHING approximating a "standard" game. Even playing through what is ostensibly the same AP different groups will have wildly different experiences.
And, for the record, my anecdotal evidence is the opposite of yours. More TPKs and WAY more character deaths in PF1 than in PF2.
One of the claims I find most ludicrous is that casters were better martials at fighting in PF1. They weren't. One high level dispel, goodbye martial ability.Dispels were relatively rare, still needed a check to succeed, and could easily be undone with a simple recasting.
I myself played a 15th-level wizard with a base attack bonus of +26. Casters being better martials in 1st Edition, at least at higher levels, was not ludicrous, but
I'd wager that you can probably make a PF1 martial so broken a caster couldn't catch up. But you could also very easily unintentionally build a worse martial than your wizard with a martial class. And the wizard would still have all the spells and versatility.
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I want to love PF2E. But I just can't.
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I think arguments about PF1's overpowered builds are good to talk about, but they were always overstated as a problem. After all, a GM can always ask a player to tone it down, or specialize encounters against those strengths. Are those solutions perfect? Heck no! It was a problem, but not nearly as big a problem as the opposite.
Like Captain Morgan said, PF1 made it ridiculously easy to stumble into a bad build. Even with a decent understanding of the system! Sometimes an archetype is really cool but really bad, and no amount of system mastery can elevate it beyond "look, just don't take it". Hi, Sandman. PF1's skill floor was way higher than even the theorycrafting critics were really able to realize, assuming you wanted to do anything beyond stock archetypes--and even then, Core-only fighter could be a genuinely miserable experience.
A lot of people defend PF1 with, "once you house rule it right and curate the right content, it works". It can for experienced players and an experienced GM, yeah, and that's a valid way to play. It works fine.
As long as you're willing to do all the system's math for it.
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I think arguments about PF1's overpowered builds are good to talk about, but they were always overstated as a problem. After all, a GM can always ask a player to tone it down, or specialize encounters against those strengths. Are those solutions perfect? Heck no! It was a problem, but not nearly as big a problem as the opposite.
Like Captain Morgan said, PF1 made it ridiculously easy to stumble into a bad build. Even with a decent understanding of the system! Sometimes an archetype is really cool but really bad, and no amount of system mastery can elevate it beyond "look, just don't take it".
Hi, Sandman.PF1's skill floor was way higher than even the theorycrafting critics were really able to realize, assuming you wanted to do anything beyond stock archetypes--and even then, Core-only fighter could be a genuinely miserable experience.A lot of people defend PF1 with, "once you house rule it right and curate the right content, it works". It can for experienced players and an experienced GM, yeah, and that's a valid way to play. It works fine.
As long as you're willing to do all the system's math for it.
I would also say that PF1E(and to an extent 3.x) was unique in that this was the first time that the disposable income wars involved the internet and pirated materials. I had to deal with players wanting to use feats from books I had never heard of that I could find for review only if I went to a dodgy website. I also had at least one player edit a site that was being used for the game so that a feat worked the way he wanted it to do.