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With the DND thing, this forum and others outside of paizo website, has had a lot of players coming in with a mindset I had eventually, mostly, walked away from
Making the objectively best, strongest mechanical choice in my character building.
Essentially feeling that if I didn't make the optimal choice, I'm making a mistake.
Now pf2e has what you could debate as optimal choices. Starting with an 18 in your main stat being the low hanging fruit example.
But what I ended up loving about pf2e, was the fact that the difference between someone trying to build optimally and someone using to build for the picture they have in their head. Was that the power difference is either minimal or not there at all. To paraphrase the DND deep dive clip "I've walked into a toy store and all the toys are free*
This eventually lead me to, knowing that the difference is minimal, start making characters that are often less about optimization and more about what I can, optimization of theme. I say this because I don't know a better term.
Like I could take my giant instinct barbarian with druid dedication (actually took no spells) and take monk dedication later. Get flurry of blows. I'd have an objectively stronger combat character. (He was using a giant boe staff verdant weapon already)
But then I would not feel I'm playing the barbarian mountain man of my imagination.
Then I go build a giant instinct barbarian monk dedication because it was still a cool idea it just didn't fit with my other idea lol
To me optimal means best, the best choice, period. Every other choice is inferior.
When I played 5e that was clear, easy, broken synergy was easy to find and quick to learn. If you knew as much or more than your DM good luck to them. It wasn't in bad faith, I just enjoy exploring the boundaries of systems, and I was labeled a power gamer and a munchkin for it. I had gotten several things permanently nerfed at tables simply because I knew how to use them. Invalidating other players was not my intent but it was almost hard not to do at times
But maybe others view the term optimization differently? Hence I am here to ask, what does optimization mean to you all?
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I optimize my characters for what they are meant to be. That role might not be the optimized choice for the class or ancestry, but if I feel like building a Kobold melee bard, then that's what I will build and try to optimize. Even if the game doesn't want me to.
I optimize my characters for what they are meant to be. That role might not be the optimized choice for the class or ancestry, but if I feel like building a Kobold melee bard, then that's what I will build and try to optimize. Even if the game doesn't want me to.
I never a friend that's building a melee bard he's pretty excited for it
He's been playing a witch for 1.5 years now. He knows the game. He still thinks it will be effective.
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I use metrics to determine what being "good at" means. It allows me to then judge how my character will perform. From that moment on, I may either voluntarily reduce its efficiency or optimize it more to get to a level of efficiency I consider optimal: Where my character is good at what it should be good at without overstepping on other character's toes. As I very often lean towards strange builds and weak options, I need to optimize my builds more than I need to reduce their efficiency.
So, optimization is for me a build phase where I increase my character efficiency up to a specific level that I deem acceptable.
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I always optimize for fun and entertainment. Which is why I struggled to enjoy D&D 3.5 back when that was what was available. I'm capable of doing mathematical analysis of ideal performance metrics, but I don't find it to be all that entertaining. I certainly don't think that a story is all that enjoyable if there is no option of setbacks and failures.
But that is also why I have so much fun with PF2. These odd, strange, and mechanically non-ideal characters are still really fun to play.
I never a friend that's building a melee bard he's pretty excited for it
He's been playing a witch for 1.5 years now. He knows the game. He still thinks it will be effective.
Currently playing Age of Ashes with a Fervor Witch with a whip, 12 STR, and expert proficiency in athletics that follows the brawlers into melee range to use Trip or Aid as 3rd action abilities. Can confirm.
I use metrics to determine what being "good at" means. It allows me to then judge how my character will perform. From that moment on, I may either voluntarily reduce its efficiency or optimize it more to get to a level of efficiency I consider optimal: Where my character is good at what it should be good at without overstepping on other character's toes. As I very often lean towards strange builds and weak options, I need to optimize my builds more than I need to reduce their efficiency.
So, optimization is for me a build phase where I increase my character efficiency up to a specific level that I deem acceptable.
Very engineering like.
Given my history, when I hear optimize repeatedly I kinda get bad vibes, definitely a me issue I'll admit. Then I start looking at the things mentioned and see all the things it can't do or if it's a white room build that is unstable in actual play.
Then I feel like a jerk and just want to shut up>>
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I would love it if, for me, optimization would be "optimizing for fun". Unfortunately, it is usually more like a minimum bar that my brain will accept, rather than something that improves my experience. Meaning, if a character isn't set up to have a certain degree of effectiveness, my brain will flood with alternatives I could be playing right now that would be so much better. That isn't a great experience and seriously limits what I can play. Thankfully, the bar isn't impossibly high and especially aesthetics play a major role in countering that. For example, if something looks or sounds extremely cool, a loss in effectiveness is ok and vice versa. The maul is strictly better, but a greatsword just has that flair, you know? In contrast, I'll never play a character that dual-wields daggers, pickaxes or uses a flickmace.
A negative example I regret to this day is the investigator. I love so much about that class, especially the whole "just as planned" vibe that DaS gives off. Now, shortly after the APG came out, we allowed some character changes. Coming from the open-hand fighter, you can guess that the comparative combat effectiveness wasn't great and that really ruined my fun. After a brief stint as a gunslinger (don't ask, you have to playtest somehow and that part of the campaign was a wild ride), stuff happened. So my character who, as a person, didn't really change with those switches, made a radical switch himself. You know what is really fun and definitely a good idea? Selling your soul to an archdevil in exchange for power! In this case, both narratively and mechanically - he became a Tyrant. Now my brain was really happy, because that subclass is absurd and the narrative possibilities are very fun - and are paying off now, after about 2 years :D. I have not regretted that switch, but I would have loved it if I hadn't felt forced to make it :/
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I always optimize for fun and entertainment. Which is why I struggled to enjoy D&D 3.5 back when that was what was available. I'm capable of doing mathematical analysis of ideal performance metrics, but I don't find it to be all that entertaining. I certainly don't think that a story is all that enjoyable if there is no option of setbacks and failures.
But that is also why I have so much fun with PF2. These odd, strange, and mechanically non-ideal characters are still really fun to play.
I find this strange, personally. 3.5/pf1 had such a wide gulf between useless and staggeringly powerful that you could build plenty of weird or middling stuff and still hit good baselines of power.
Pf2 has its own baseline expectation that you will eventually fight severe and extreme threats. As such, that's where I place my "acceptable baseline" for optimizing. Anything less, I feel, is just me arbitrarily making things harder for everyone. Acceptable and a fun challenge in a single player game, forbidden in a group setting.
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For myself, I consider true optimization to mean not doing it in a vacuum. You need to take your teammates into account, as well the campaign you're playing in and the enemies you're likely to fight. it also means having a back up option in case your main thing doesn't work.
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I find this strange, personally. 3.5/pf1 had such a wide gulf between useless and staggeringly powerful that you could build plenty of weird or middling stuff and still hit good baselines of power.
Playing weird and middling along side a couple of staggeringly powerful isn't very much fun. Neither is playing weird and middling when the GM is expecting staggeringly powerful and designs encounters based on that expectation.
Also, I kept falling into a lot of the trap options in 3.5 like only having the Players Handbook options, building a 50/50 multiclass of Druid and Ranger, or putting max ranks in cross class skills (PF1 did at least partially fix that last one). So my characters tended more towards the useless side of things.
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My goal is rarely "be the most damaging ever".
* P.S. A lot of my issues with PF2 comes from how hard it works to stop weird builds while hyper supporting others. Like why is it that I have to be a goblin/kobold to be a good flame oracle?
Hold up. Something doesn't seem like it matches.
Why do you need to be a Goblin or Kobold to be a good Flame Oracle?
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One thing I dislike about pf2e is how difficult it is to create truly unique builds for the sake of story.
A lot of the builds appear to be pretty set in stone as they are the standard builds. I almost never hear about non giant barbarians, for example.
No one raves about warpriests. Etc.
Paizos chassis made them non viable concepts.
That is something I have to disagree with. The amount of stuff you have to work with allows you to create most stuff and still fall within the margins that are acceptable by the game's balance. Even the warpriest is perfectly viable. The "no non-giant barbarian" thing is certainly not my experience, either ^^. For example, the Animal Barb still does good damage and is much, much more tanky in return, as my group found out when they tried to kill one.
Yes, a lot of builds have fairly obvious feats to take, simply because that is the feat that is supposed to deliver the "main" fantasy. But nothing there is set in stone, which probably best exemplified by the fighter. Sure, the various weapon choices have fairly clear feat paths, but after level 6+, you'll see a lot of variety. At level 10, the choice becomes really hard.
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Yeah, I also disagree with Verzen. There are far more playable builds in PF2 than there was in PF1. You can play nearly anything and end up in the expected level of efficiency. You may not end up with the best build out there, but the best build out there shines by rarely more than 10% better, which is very far from problematic.
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Yeah, I thought something was off with the argument.
Basically it comes down to saying, 'I can't build a fun character since I can only choose the most powerful combinations of options'.
Like Karmagator said, that is a 'you' problem rather than a design or rules problem. Don't blame Paizo for your obsessive need to chase down that last 1/2 point per spell level and 1 persistent point of fire damage. A Catfolk Flame Oracle sounds like a perfectly reasonable character to me.
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I optimise so I don't have to fear for my life whenever the encounter XP hit three digits.
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Spirit instinct barbarians are absolute destroyers of the undead, especially incorporeal undead. I see more spirit instinct barbarians than I do giant instinct barbarians, probably because MOAR damage is only good up to a certain point, especially when that damage is physical, compared to "do a different, or more flexible damage type."
I have played over a dozen different characters since the start of PF2 and only found 1 that has really consistently not done what I expected them to do, which was my gun-toting investigator in an outlaws of Alkenstar campaign.
My sub-par goblin cloister cleric of Ketephys (with a 16 starting wisdom), who use a Longbow (terrible weapon for a cleric, if you are more than 30ft from your party, you are in a bad position), and specializes in the darkness domain (a very poorly valued domain), is the only character who has survived from the beginning of a Age of Ashes campaign through to book 4 and has become the center of the entire party's strategic planning. Being good at stealth is difficult in PF2, but when you can do it well, it is a huge advantage. Shadowdancer is a great archetype. The ability to lay down lots of greater darkness, hide in concealment and steal enemies' darkvision has made mince meat out of some very powerful combatants.
I have played several high charisma wizards and I honestly have a hard time imagining not having at least a 12 starting charisma for a wizard, because so many of the classes best feats and spells build upon charisma skills instead of replacing them. A wizard who cannot tell a lie is such a bad idea, that it would actually become a really fun counter-type to build a character around.
I have played an Elven fighter with a 16 starting strength and he was a total powerhouse. He considered himself an archeologist, not a warrior, it is just the artifacts that he was trying to study always seemed to involve more fighting than his academic colleagues. Apparently trying to study Xulgath history and culture is a difficult field of study.
Overall, I think there are many common assumptions about what "optimizing" means in PF2 that ignore a much more core principle of PF2 game design than "maximize your numbers," which is that "flexibility will usually trump specialization over an entire campaign." Trying to do the same thing over and over again for 20 levels will get your character killed in PF2. I think this was true in PF1 too, except that trying to do more than 1 thing well was much, much more difficult and so it usually fell on the GM or undertuned adventure writing to make sure that overspecialized characters with glaring weaknesses were not destroyed instantly by the first boss caster the party encountered.
Even the most basic of basic character ideas "Maul fighter," "healer cleric," "Lying wizard," "Stabby Rogue" end up being much more than just one thing in PF2 because you have silos of feats that force your character concept to be more than a cardboard cut out.
Saying you have to be a kobold or a goblin to be a good fire oracle is ignoring doing anything but persistent damage with your fire oracle. It also ignores how different a kobold fire oracle and a goblin oracle end up being in play, despite so many similarities between the ancestries, and how much other ancestry feats that might help keep enemies close or give you extra feats or features lead to very different, but very viable options for a fire oracle.
It is possible to build yourself into a trap character in PF2. I think it is most likely to happen at higher levels when you are piecing together a bunch of pieces that you don't get to experience in play before combining, and realizing that they don't work together the way that you had hoped...whereas if you are playing that character over time, when you are picking your abilities up as you use them, it usually becomes very clear, very quickly if your idea about how something was going to work is not how your GM sees it, or if you missed something like quick draw not really working well with Gunner's Bandolier.
Some of the most talked about trap options though (like picking up a weapon or armor proficiency with a general feat) don't really happen in campaign play because the whole party sees the issue coming long before it actually becomes a problem. It will work fine for enough time to really start thinking through whether this is an ability you are relying on heavily for low levels, or if it is an ability you want to be a character focus moving forward. Retraining is an expected part of the PF2 experience, especially in longer campaigns, but also in PFS. GMs that don't let players retrain options that are not working for their character concept feel like the exception rather than the norm. If you are a level 11 wizard who has never invested in Dex and has been trying to play a tanky armor wizard with only general proficiencies in Armor, you have probably realized this build requires more investment to work 7 levels ago, or else your entire party is secretly enjoying watching you fail. The difference between getting Expert armor proficiency and Trained is just not going to be the factor that suddenly killed your character idea that you have been happily playing for maybe 100 sessions. Realizing that maybe armor isn't the best way to keep a high level wizard alive, who has access to spells like blur and mirror image and false life, and battle forms, and fireshield/shattering gem other retaliatory spells, is something that happens with play experience.
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I have seen many kinds of optimization. Classic optimization is building the strongest individual character possible, where strongest usually means most effective on combat but sometimes the player wants to optimize other roles, too, such as scouting. My players love to optimize for teamwork, where their choices of feats and features focused on working well in the team rather than working well alone. That was more effective than individual optimization, even in D&D 3.5 and PF1. PF2 nerfed individual optimization, but teamwork optimization still works at full power.
However, both those kinds could not optimize beyond me. I am the Game Master, and whenever the player characters were stronger, I simply made the challenges stronger, too. The only optimization that can surpass the GM is building the character for narrative, a character that can make the campaign story their own. Such a character inspires the GM to set aside their own narrative and improvise, because the character's story is better than the intended story.
And that is what keeps me GMing. I love the stories.
Back to individual optimization. As a GM I love the optimization guides of each class (2nd Edition Guide to the Guides!). I often need to build a NPC of a certain ancestry, class, and level to fulfill a narrative purpose in my campaign. Though I use Paizo adventure paths, I deviate from them often and have to invent new encounters for the altered campaign. A badly build NPC will affect the narrative by seeming incompetent or out of place. The guides tell me which abilities give certain results so that I can optimize the NPC for serving their purpose in the story. I guess I optimize for narrative, too.
I optimise so I don't have to fear for my life whenever the encounter XP hit three digits.
If the party cannot handle Severe-threat encounters (120 xp budget), then the GM should not throw Severe-threat encounters at them. If the party can handle those characters, but one particular party member routinely takes excessive damage, then the players should improve their tactics to be more fair to that party member.
I’m an engineer so optimization means taking a lot of constraints and having a few things you want to get the best values in. When there are more than one factor, you need to have some way to weigh the relative merit between them.
It requires some sort of metrics so you can measure how successful you are.
In terms of RPGs, often the optimization would be in terms of damage per time unit, healing capability, ability to inflict conditions on the enemy, ability to improve the performance of others in the party, or crowd control.
The easiest to measure is damage output, which is why so many people often go there.
Healing also tends to be relatively easy to measure.
The rest generally are much more difficult to measure in any quantitative sense. How do you compare a Bard using their Inspire Competence against a half-elf rogue with Cooperative Nature, Inspire Imatation and is expert in a large number of skills? That was a rhetorical question, the framework would get pretty complicated and I have doubts it would be a worthwhile effort.
The problem is that you are playing a game as a recreational activity, it should be fun. Preferably fun for everyone at the table. The thing is people have different ideas of what is fun and I am doubtful that it is possible to come up with any objective and fair measure for fun. It is much too subjective.
It is very easy to get so hung up on the things you can measure and optimize that you can forget that at the end of the day the objective is to have fun.
Giant barbarians are popular, but I've seen plenty of others. And the clumsy penalty makes them kind of subpar unless you play hyper tactical with reach, which is not the vibe people usually want from a barbarian.
Meanwhile, I've seen War Priests flourish. One just dealt 90 damage in one crit over the weekend, one shotting a Void Glutton.
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PF2 optimization means teamwork.
Party synergy & battlemat tactics can make good PCs better than great PCs playing independently. This is partly because the gulf between them is so much less than other RPGs, but also because PF2 rewards helping others more than powering up oneself. This is one reason Bards w/ their Compositions contribute so much.
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PF2 optimization means teamwork.
Party synergy & battlemat tactics can make good PCs better than great PCs playing independently. This is partly because the gulf between them is so much less than other RPGs, but also because PF2 rewards helping others more than powering up oneself. This is one reason Bards w/ their Compositions contribute so much.
I sometimes feel that party optimization is used as a red herring to divert from character optimization. Character optimization is important in PF2. Great PCs will absolutely do better than good PCs. Both party and character optimization are important.
From my experience, I also feel that the most important part of party synergy is not to enable others but to avoid to disable them. The Barbarian who charges enemies 60ft. away from the party at round 1, the Fighter who takes the only Flanking position when they play just before the Rogue, the Rogue who puts themselves in the middle of the pack of enemies to get Flanking when there's a Fireball Sorcerer in the party, all these things do far more at reducing the party efficiency than any kind of positive synergy. Positive synergy doesn't ask for much synergy, the buffer buffs, the healer heals, the tank tanks, nothing hard in doing that and no real need of coordination.
Overall, I think there are many common assumptions about what "optimizing" means in PF2 that ignore a much more core principle of PF2 game design than "maximize your numbers," which is that "flexibility will usually trump specialization over an entire campaign."
I want to add more nuance to that. There are some positions that must be filled by specialized character. The main one being the frontline martial who brings and takes the heat. If your "main frontliner" is not optimized enough, the party lacks staying power and brutal DPR.
A properly built party brings both specialized and versatile characters. You need characters able to handle a lot of unexpected situations, who will in general be either casters or skill monkeys. But there's no need to have an entire party full of such characters as in general 2 of them are enough to cover all you need to cover. And you also need a couple of characters that are very strong at what they do during combat so you can build a party strategy around their strengths.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Spirit instinct Barbarians...
Spirit instinct also gets Spirit's Wrath, which in combination with Awesome Blow must have given me one of the most fun experieces I've had fighting in 2nd ED. It is quite effective too. The character in question was a smith that forged and shoot things like frying pans or cuttlery at 120ft on the fly with his hammer as an anti-air weapon.
As for the topic at hand, to me optimization in a ttrpg environment just means doing as much as possible to reinforce a certain aspect of the game, may that be a desired outcome (most damage posible, attacking from furthest away), reinforcement of a certain group of mechanics ("how can I build the best sword and shield character at swording and shielding") or reinforcement of theme ("how can I best represent this character concept I have in mind").
As for party optimization, I agree with SuperBidi here. I think we as a community tend to use the term as if individual optimization didn't matter, and that's not the case. It is just an additional layer that applies to all outcome, mechanics and theme optimization.
Most of the time I prefer either the second or the latter, but going for the first can also be fun from time to time, specially for one shots.
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To my group? We generally do party optimization first to ensure we cover the bases for healing, buffing, and the like.
Then we optimize the individual character to do at least their basic role while still having fun playing the character.
You want a character to do their schtick well and then do some things you enjoy doing that make you like the character.
To my group? We generally do party optimization first to ensure we cover the bases for healing, buffing, and the like.
Then we optimize the individual character to do at least their basic role while still having fun playing the character.
You want a character to do their schtick well and then do some things you enjoy doing that make you like the character.
This is generally different from my groups.
There are a couple people who will pick up a skill they they think is important if nobody else has taken it.
But generally the consensus is "play what you want and we will figure it out or die"
Our main front liner was a magus at one point. Then a rogue.
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To me, optimization has multiple facets, and I try to hit them all:
-Role Optimization: here, I aim to make my character fulfill the function I wanted them to do, to the best of their ability; so like if I'm making them an illusionist support caster, I'm going to try and give them the best damn illusions and support spells I can, etc. Most of the time, I pick one big thing to define my kit and two or three other things; so like in my example; I might make illusions the main thing, with secondary focuses in debuffing and being a face
-Fun optimization: if the character isn't fun to play, then why do it? To me; fun means having a lot of different ways to solve problems; so I tend to gravitate to casters and skill focused classes. To others, fun might be getting lots of crits or rolling fistfuls of dice, etc. Because of this, I usually build my characters to have more skills than normal, and have the ability to make good use of consumables
-Mode Optimization: combining the above two points; I feel that every character in your average pathfinder game should have at least one solidly defined role in all modes of play. I've had players that "optimized" so hard for combat that they completely eschewed exploration and downtime mode, and often find themselves struggling to figure out what to do since they never put any thought into their roles in these modes. Not only will you be bored in these modes if you dont think of a role (not fun), you are also not contributing to advancing the story (not optimal).
-Adaptability Optimization: while above I said you should have a small list of things you excel at, you should have a contingency plan for when that thing doesn't work in the current situation. For example, my illusionist can't do much against enemies that cant see with their illusions; so for cases like this, I also keep spells like ice storm and the like; or in cases where I cant charm people, I can offer support to other exploration tactics or use my knowledge in exploration mode
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To my group? We generally do party optimization first to ensure we cover the bases for healing, buffing, and the like.
Then we optimize the individual character to do at least their basic role while still having fun playing the character.
You want a character to do their schtick well and then do some things you enjoy doing that make you like the character.
This is generally different from my groups.
There are a couple people who will pick up a skill they they think is important if nobody else has taken it.
But generally the consensus is "play what you want and we will figure it out or die"
Our main front liner was a magus at one point. Then a rogue.
A rogue or magus as a frontliner? I can't imagine that went well. Rogues get torn up by monsters. I've had two rogues die from playing frontline guy. Even now one guy keeps running into battle with this rogue and getting hammered. AC advancement on a rogue is so slow. Magus isn't much better, but at least you have some spells to help and can wear heavier armor if you build for it.
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To me, optimization means being able to take the idea for a character and build it to the maximum possible effect. Given that I tend to like nonstandard characters, I often feel like Pathfinder 2 is fighting me on this. The system fights against concept-first character building by making the cost to bring a concept online too steep and by being highly restrictive in where it hands out action efficiency boosts. We see these issues a lot with any build that wishes to use firearms or when alchemists don't see their consumable items used in combat.
An example of a character that isn't well supported by Pathfinder 2 would be an attempt to create Deku from My Hero Academia. It seems like the build should be obvious, start with Monk and add in a bit of Barbarian archetype to show him letting loose but that falls apart when examined closely. The Monk is a defensive class and one of its key features is making a flurry of attacks, but that isn't how Deku fights. He's a mobile striker who wants to land single devastating strikes after examining an enemy's weakness.
So does Monk/Investigator fit better? Not really because while you get the theme of analysis you don't get anything to represent the idea of his risk versus reward ability to increase his power at the cost of taking additional damage. There's also the issue that Monk doesn't gain anything from 14 intelligence and that investigator even as a base class tends to do better working from range.
To take an even more abstract view with characters more grounded in PF2's typical power level, there isn't even a way to build an effective Def Jam-style brawler that uses unarmed attacks, improvised weapons, the emotions of the crowd, and dramatic finishing strikes. You could try to mash Monk and Swashbuckler together but ultimately you're going to be left feeling unsatisfied with the result because the system simple isn't designed for this kind of top-down character design.
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A rogue or magus as a frontliner? I can't imagine that went well. Rogues get torn up by monsters. I've had two rogues die from playing frontline guy. Even now one guy keeps running into battle with this rogue and getting hammered. AC advancement on a rogue is so slow. Magus isn't much better, but at least you have some spells to help and can wear heavier armor if you build for it.
Rogues aren't a defender but they are not bad. Yes you need to take precautions. For AC advancement they are only down on a Ranger for levels 11 and 12. That is minor. Use nimble dodge early. Consider a shield. But most importantly a Rogue should not be in the front line by themselves. If the Rogue wins initiative charges in, the monsters then pile on, then the rest of the party moves - I'm sensing a problem with how they are played not a problem with the class.
Optimization is about fulfilling my role in the party reasonably well and developing cool strategies that fit my character concept. I mainly measure it against the amount of exp my character's presence adds to the encounter building guidelines. A viable character is better to have than not have (and therefore have fewer/weaker enemies) and a strong character is defined by outrunning that standard by as much as possible.
AC advancement on a rogue is so slow.
?? The difference between fast and slow AC advancement is 2 levels per, the other 16 out of 20 you're on the same proficiency track as everyone other than the champion and monk. Raise a Shield and you have better AC than a fighter with a two-hander.
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One thing I dislike about pf2e is how difficult it is to create truly unique builds for the sake of story.
A lot of the builds appear to be pretty set in stone as they are the standard builds. I almost never hear about non giant barbarians, for example.
No one raves about warpriests. Etc.
Paizos chassis made them non viable concepts.
They are viable. More viable than PF2. They aren't optimal.
There were way more non-viable concepts in PF1 than PF2. You're stating this like everyone played every concept in PF1, when they did not.
You can make a fine war priest in PF2 if feel like it. It so happens that like PF1 there are better ways to accomplish the same goal.
If I want to make a war priest, I make a cloistered cleric with a war god. Then I pick the armored archetype.
Or I make a fighter and take cleric archetype.
I prefer those combinations for war priest. Same as I would not make a straight cleric in PF1 to be a war priest.
PF2 has way more options for making a character like you want to make and have it be effective than other editions as far as appearance goes.
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A rogue or magus as a frontliner? I can't imagine that went well. Rogues get torn up by monsters. I've had two rogues die from playing frontline guy. Even now one guy keeps running into battle with this rogue and getting hammered. AC advancement on a rogue is so slow. Magus isn't much better, but at least you have some spells to help and can wear heavier armor if you build for it.Rogues aren't a defender but they are not bad. Yes you need to take precautions. For AC advancement they are only down on a Ranger for levels 11 and 12. That is minor. Use nimble dodge early. Consider a shield. But most importantly a Rogue should not be in the front line by themselves. If the Rogue wins initiative charges in, the monsters then pile on, then the rest of the party moves - I'm sensing a problem with how they are played not a problem with the class.
They are bad from what I've seen. Low AC, lower hit points, bad Fortitude save for drain, poison, and disease. Just not a great class to use as a front liner. You're looking to die a lot.
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AC advancement on a rogue is so slow.?? The difference between fast and slow AC advancement is 2 levels per, the other 16 out of 20 you're on the same proficiency track as everyone other than the champion and monk. Raise a Shield and you have better AC than a fighter with a two-hander.
AC is not everything with a front liner. My experience is they die a lot in the front line.
Lots of fort saves for auras, poisons, drain, and the like attacks and they have a weak fort save.
AC is lower for a lot levels. No heavy armor. Don't have good shield feats.
Lower hit points out of the gate.
Need another melee to set up their sneak attack primary damage dealer, so you don't really want them alone fighting creatures to start with.
Rogue is built to be a secondary melee, not a front liner. Not sure why anyone is trying to pretend otherwise. Everything about them makes them a bad main melee for a group.
It's not like I didn't try this out. I did. I died or got hammered a lot. The barbarian is hammered for having 1 less AC when raging and that is with 12 hit points per level. Giant barbarian is hammered for two less AC with more hit points. Rogue is a barbarian for most levels with lower hit points and a damaging ability that requires some other melee be present to maximize its power.
Front line rogue is just a bad idea that I have seen be a bad idea in play multiple times. They aren't built for it offensively or defensively.
They are bad from what I've seen. Low AC, lower hit points, bad Fortitude save for drain, poison, and disease. Just not a great class to use as a front liner. You're looking to die a lot.
I'm suspecting that you have a different meaning of frontliner than Gortle and I do.
To me, a frontline capable character is one that can dance around in melee range with enemies to at least some degree.
A backline character is one that has too low of AC and HP to handle that - they would get crit and downed after more than two attacks in a single round. Some spellcaster builds do this, but others are frontline capable.
And a defensive or tank character is one that can handle the frontline for longer periods of time, especially if they are able to protect other characters in the process. There are very few classes and characters that can do this.
So no, a Rogue is not a defensive powerhouse or tank. But they can handle the frontline and melee well enough. A lot of spellcaster builds fall into that category too.
One thing I dislike about pf2e is how difficult it is to create truly unique builds for the sake of story.
A lot of the builds appear to be pretty set in stone as they are the standard builds. I almost never hear about non giant barbarians, for example.
No one raves about warpriests. Etc.
Paizos chassis made them non viable concepts.
They are viable. More viable than PF2. They aren't optimal.
There were way more non-viable concepts in PF1 than PF2. You're stating this like everyone played every concept in PF1, when they did not.
You can make a fine war priest in PF2 if feel like it. It so happens that like PF1 there are better ways to accomplish the same goal.
If I want to make a war priest, I make a cloistered cleric with a war god. Then I pick the armored archetype.
Or I make a fighter and take cleric archetype.
I prefer those combinations for war priest. Same as I would not make a straight cleric in PF1 to be a war priest.
PF2 has way more options for making a character like you want to make and have it be effective than other editions as far as appearance goes.
People keep trashing the War Priest in PF2. I get it, you are giving away some of your offensive spellcasting capability, but you have options that don't use that and it is viable. Especially before level 12 which is where most people still play.
Yeah, the PF2 war priest is a full casting martial for more than half the game. There are two rough accuracy levels for martial attacking at 5 and 6, but you still get third level spells there and are a better Gish than a magus if the plan is to cast support spells and not attack spells.
By level 13, when most martials go up in proficiency again, you have picked up level 7 spells with 3 slots of everything lower, and you still have the full font. Cloistered clerics don’t get the spell proficiency boost until level 15. The difference between the two doctrines is not so mechanically large. The war priest is very, very front loaded for a PF2 class and is probably the much better tradition cleric role for most newer players than a cloistered cleric with no armor, and really abysmal weapon proficiency progression. The cloistered cleric is a full casting caster with a decent HP progression.
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They are bad from what I've seen. Low AC, lower hit points, bad Fortitude save for drain, poison, and disease. Just not a great class to use as a front liner. You're looking to die a lot.I'm suspecting that you have a different meaning of frontliner than Gortle and I do.
To me, a frontline capable character is one that can dance around in melee range with enemies to at least some degree.
A backline character is one that has too low of AC and HP to handle that - they would get crit and downed after more than two attacks in a single round. Some spellcaster builds do this, but others are frontline capable.
And a defensive or tank character is one that can handle the frontline for longer periods of time, especially if they are able to protect other characters in the process. There are very few classes and characters that can do this.
So no, a Rogue is not a defensive powerhouse or tank. But they can handle the frontline and melee well enough. A lot of spellcaster builds fall into that category too.
Frontline melee is the tank. Secondary melee is a rogue.
When I say frontline I mean the guy heading in first. Rogues are a natural melee class, but the main tank/frontline guy they are not.
Every time I have tried to play a rogue without another stronger frontline melee or played them running in first, they have been face-planted multiple times. The weak fort saves, low hit points, and low AC just lead to a bad time going in to melee first.
Frontline to me means first in the door and able to stand as the wall drawing aggro between the casters and the secondary melee/martials.
"To make a warpriest don't build a warpriest".
Yeah, I still have no idea how they managed to make that one so poorly when PF1 Warpriest was one of the most unique classes. They shpupd had just called it crusader cleric, which was already a thing.
Some players have made war priests they like with Channel Smite that have done fine. To me it's not fun, but I don't like clerics. I didn't like clerics in PF1.I don't like them in PF2. It's not because they are weak. They aren't that fun because I don't enjoy the entire idea of a cleric.
Some people that like clerics make them play well just fine in PF1 and PF2.
When I say frontline I mean the guy heading in first. Rogues are a natural melee class, but the main tank/frontline guy they are not.
Every time I have tried to play a rogue without another stronger frontline melee or played them running in first, they have been face-planted multiple times. The weak fort saves, low hit points, and low AC just lead to a bad time going in to melee first.
Frontline to me means first in the door and able to stand as the wall drawing aggro between the casters and the secondary melee/martials.
Now that, I would agree with. Rogue is not a doorbuster. Rogue gameplay shouldn't involve stride to enemy/enemies, attack as many times as possible, then stand there and soak up all the retaliation that they dish back. That won't end well.
Though to be fair, there are very few classes and builds that can deal with that for very long.