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The thing about saving throws with spells is that there's four outcomes, and you're going to get something you want on three of the four. It's only in the case that your target critically succeeds- they either rolled a 20 or beat the DC by 10.
It basically works like:
Crit Fail: Double Damage
Fail: Normal Damage
Success: Half Damage
Crit Success: No Damage.
This is different from what Martials get in that Martials have the same 4 potential outcomes, but they get nothing for half of them.
So like Color Spray, for example gives the target Stunned and Blinded on a crit fail, stunned on a regular fail, dazzled on a success, and no effect on a crit success. Dazzled isn't as good as stunned, but it's still plenty useful. Since the spell is AoE you might get a range of outcomes.
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This... is not accurate to my experience. If you are level 4, a level 6 foe would very a boss level challenge for your entire party. The encounter math doesn't remotely demand you fight higher level monsters exclusively. You should mostly be fighting lower level opponents. If you're level 4, a group of four level 2's would make for a modest encounter.
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To go point by point to start:
"...how worthless casters are except as buffers and utility."
Even if you discount their various means of dealing great damage, your player has forgotten debuffing, which is mind bogglingly effective.
"...every single time you will be fighting monsters with higher saving DC's.... So anything the party fights will have a higher level"
Your player doesn't understand that you WILL fight enemies ranging from APL-4 to APL+4, with anything APL+2 or above being generally reserved for boss fights (less common). Generally, a fight should tend toward having a number of enemies close to the number of party members. Also, even higher level boss enemies frequently have one or more bad defenses, significantly increasing the likelihood of landing that spell.
"So, is he right? Just how bad is the situation for casters?"
No, they are not correct. The situation is not bad at all. After taking into account teamwork, debuffing, wise spell selection, commonness of APL-2 to APL enemies, and real-world experience, casters end up being very, VERY good. Even if you just want to deal damage, they still end up performing well outside of white-room analyses.
My advice would be to ignore your player, they have fallen for some older caster myths that are continually debunked.
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The thing about levels in Pathfinder 2e is that they are calibrated so that a party fighting an equal number of same-level opponents should have a 50/50 chance of winning (after all, if they party fought their magical duplicates with the same stats and gear what would their chances be?)
So fighting an opponent 2-3 levels higher than you is a "Severe or extreme threat boss" not a normal encounter. You should need different tactics for different kinds of encounters. A fireball will be hellaciously effective against a bunch of Party Level -2 enemies, but against a lone Party Level +2 opponent "denying them actions" is much more effective than doing damage (this is the same reason that Martials tend to play hit and run against bosses too.)
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He's right...ish.
So in PF2 there are different difficulties for encounters. As such the 'level' of the encounter can range from PC level +4 (extreme) to PC level -2 (easy). What comprises each difficulty can also vary from 1 creature to many. If only 1 creature is making up the difficulty it's power will be respective to the challenge level. So a single creature of extreme difficulty will be...extremely difficult. That is what he was pointing out. However, that is not necessarily the only way that the game plays. There's more to PF2 than he seems to be telling.
Now, to further edify his point, casters in PF2 are less powerful than PF1 or the D&D iterations. This catches many people off guard. There seems to be an ingrained assumptive feel for how casters play, which is not how they feel in PF2. They have been brought in line with martials. The simple way of putting it is that an at level enemy is statistically likely (60ish%) to succeed on their save against a PC spell. This was built for the sake of enemies not just getting hosed whenever a spellcaster casts a spell.
Even more edifying to his telling, this has an effect with the crit mechanics. Succeeding the DC +10 is a crit success causing the spell to have no effect. Yet again, I'm sure that you can understand how this can cause feels bad. However, I would point out that martials have always had the opportunity to experience the feels bad of their turn having no effect. Now, in PF2, the spellcasters get to experience such as well. I would posit that they just aren't used to it.
Edit: This is coming from a player who regularly plays spellcasters in just about every system I play.
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Since every single time you will be fighting monsters with higher saving DC's.
Wow. From the very first sentence I already distrust what this person is saying.
This sounds like someone who has played PF1 for years and transitioned to PF2 without any adjustments to their fundamental tactics and encounter balance. So they are still either creating or playing homebrew encounters where 'weak mook' enemies are at CR +2.
Now, I could be wrong about that. But that is what the message posted feels like.
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What I can say is that I have been playing a Witch through Age of Ashes and haven't felt that I have been unable to contribute meaningfully to combat. Neither has the Druid that is also in the party.
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What I can say is that I have been playing a Witch through Age of Ashes and haven't felt that I have been unable to contribute meaningfully to combat. Neither has the Druid that is also in the party.
Second this as a Witch playing through a Hell's Rebels conversion. It's generally considered the weakest spellcasting class, and yet I am having a total blast with it, feeling impactful both in and out of combat.
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In my experience, no
Issue is some adventure paths, especially the early ones, do create this impression. I kinda wish they would redo this old AP's.
Also if you are level 4 your spell DC should be 20 for most casters
An abrikandilu demon, level 4. Has these saves
Fort: 15
Reflex: 9
Will: 7
Ac: 19
So they need to roll
5 to save vs fort works
11 to save vs reflex
13 vs will
Most spells have an effect on successful save.
So he can only critically save vs fort spells on something lower than a 20 on the roll
Your spell attack is +9, so you can hit their ac on a roll as low as 10 on the die
Obviously this is all before buffs or debuffs.
An optimal monk at this level has a +10 to hit vs ac and class DC for ki spells is likely lower or they will be doing pretty anemic damage at this level. My monk DC at this level is 17 but it could be 18 or 19 at the cost of damage.
Spell casters cantrips at lower level are also pretty amazing. Where a bow is doing likely 1d6, maybe 1d6+1 for compound bow. Telekinetic projectile is doing 1d6+4 pick your physical damage type.
Electric arc is 1d4+4 to two targets and half on save.
Random level 6 creature has
22ac,10fort,14 reflex, 16 will.
I think casters are fine, the issue is at low level they don't have the slots to support spell slot blasting. But cantrips help bridge this a ton imo
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I think the biggest issue is your player's base assumption that the party should be regularly fighting an enemy that is above their level. That would typically be a boss fight scenario.
A good encounter composition usually has roughly similar number of enemies as players.
So a 4 player party encounter a moderate threat. That's an 80 XP encounter.
A single enemy of party level +2 makes up that entire encounter, and can be a moderate or severe boss threat.
Instead, what you should probably encounter is 2 enemies of party level-2 (20 XP each) and one enemy of party level (40 XP).
The first encounter against a single enemy will be tough, whether your martial or caster because of the enemy having superior numbers. But the party has superior action economy and simply needs to wisely cause the enemy to waste their actions so they can't do what they want. You're still going to have a tough time, but smart play can mitigate it some.
The second encounter should be more common, but as you can see the enemies are going to be at your level or below. They're not going to have as much a numerical edge and your caster will be fine.
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This is a complex question. I haven't seen one of these threads for a while. When I started PF2, I felt the same way about casters. They seemed terrible compared to PF1. Now that I've played PF2 for a while, I've found casters are still king but the power curve is a slower build up and less wide a gap between caster and martial than before.
First, PF2 is meant to be played from 1st to 20th or at least fairly high level. It's a much more balanced game, so it's much easier to obtain the higher levels and still have a viable game without the DM ripping the hair out to challenge the party.
Second, it depends on the caster and what you want or expect to do. If you want to play a pure caster doing casting damage only, you can do that but you're gimping yourself. At low level it's very easy to build a caster that uses a weapon, so combining a weapon with casting damage spells boosts your damage and makes your caster more effective as well as providing a third action option.
Many PF1 folks are used to casters being completely ineffective at weapon attacks, but PF2 casters can be easily built to use a weapon moderately effective, especially at lower level. So taking something like an Archer Archetype or some kind of racial weapon feat makes your caster do more damage at lower level with a weapon attack and a spell attack combined.
Third, it very much depends on the caster. I've found druids to be the highest damage caster in the game if you build them in a versatile fashion using weapons, spells, and focus spells. Bard is an excellent caster as well doing damage and buffing. Other casters can vary depending on what you pick for options. One thing I will make clear is Wizards are no longer top dogs. You can build a decent wizard, but power is more even even amongst the casters. It will all come down to how good are your feats and options and what do you want to do.
Fourth, saving throws scale. There are four levels of saves. One think you learn is look closely at a spell. Some spells can have a nasty effect even on a success. So the opponent could make their save and still get hammered because fights are short and even one round of impact can change a fight.
Also as saves rise, some saves are weaker than others. AC is almost always set pretty high, but you can have saves that vary immensely allowing a caster to attack a weak save with a powerful spell effect. Make sure you are taking advantage of this.
Fifth, casters are mook destroyers. Whereas your martials have to spend their rounds swinging endlessly and moving to kill mooks. You have lots of long range AoE spells that can sweep the mooks off the field while they spend their time just trying to get to you.
Don't let DMs and martials force you into short-range combat. They want to do that because they need to be up close to kill. Depending on the situation, you can nuke groups from afar and let them waste their actions moving to you. Use this to your advantage, especially for big bag of hit point mooks that are wasting everyone's time.
Sixth, walls are still good. Debuffing and buffing are still good. There are some brutal spell combinations that can wreck a creature, even a boss.
Seventh, sometimes bosses are bosses and you have to operate as a group to win. If you are too accustomed to playing PF1 where the wizard with all his built up spell DCs and feats can end most encounters alone, well, that isn't happening in PF2. PF2 is meant for fights to be hard and for groups to work together to beat bosses and hard encounters. No Mr. Caster Guy ending the fight alone and smiling at everyone else with a smug air of superiority. You have to support the group and put your work in like everyone else to win.
To answer the question more simply, casters and martials are balanced, much better than PF1. It make the game more fun for everyone. No one is standing above the other and everyone gets to participate and add something to the battle. No more casters as gods and martials hoping to land a few blows before the enemies are neutered. Now it's casters and martials working together to beat some tough boss.
Because what never seems to mentioned in these threads is the martial would die if not supported by the casters. Casters aren't supporting because martials are better than them, casters are supporting because if they don't the entire group dies, martials and casters alike because PF2 requires groups work together to win the tough fights.
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All good, hope you have fun!
So, I am debating on pivoting to PF2E, after the whole OGL debacle. I have a player with some familiarity with PF2E who is talking about how worthless casters are except as buffers and utility.
Now, I understand that there is a discussion on how effective casters are, but my impression was that while casters are weak on single target damage, that they provide in enough other areas as to have their value.
However, he sent this message to me, and it made me question just how bleak the situation may be:
"Since every single time you will be fighting monsters with higher saving DC's. Levels are important since you get to add that into your saving throws and attacks. So anything the party fights will have a higher level.
The issue with Pathfinder is that, AoE effects, in PF2e you can take dodge entirely both damage and effects.
Unless 5e where even if they succeed they take half damage, PF2e has the mechanic that you can succeed and take zero damage.So let's say, you are a spellcaster and you have a DC of 19 at level 4, the CR calculator would suggest you have to fight something at level 6.
Their DC saves are from +12 to +16. To beat your DC's. They need to roll 7 from their lowest and 3 for their highest.
The max DC you get as a caster is a 50, the max monsters saving throw they can get is a 47."So, is he right? Just how bad is the situation for casters?
Sounds like your player is highly inexperienced, especially in higher level play, and much prefers the Scry and Fry tactics and 15 minute adventuring days of old. Looking at his response, he says that levels are important, and they are, and that anything the party fights will be of a higher level, which is false. Levels are meant to be more congruent here compared to PF1 or 3.5 or 5E, where PC optimization meant trivialization of Boss level encounters, or bounded accuracy limiting what you can do for optimization. They also have the rules for Success and Failure regarding saves incorrect, as only some spells do nothing on a Success, and others will still have a partial effect if the enemy Succeeds on the saving throw. Furthermore, he's assuming APL+2 enemies are the standard, when APL+0 or APL-1 enemies will be far, far more common, which reduces the expected saving throw threshold, which means DCs won't succeed as often. He's also wrong about the Max Save DC for a spellcasting PC being 50, when the math equates to [10 Base + 20 Level + 8 Proficiency + 7 Modifier =] 45, assuming no other bonuses or penalties applying, and an enemy with a +47 Saving throw modifier is a creature that is an APL+5 threat, targeting its strongest save, which is the dumbest thing to do as a spellcaster anyway. Meanwhile, that same monster has two other Save modifiers of +39 and +37, both of which are far easier to target and have infinitely higher chances of Failures (and a chance to Critically Fail). This doesn't factor in other things, but it is what it is.
Having played a Wizard from 1-20 in a notoriously difficult AP, I have had plenty of fights where not using the right spell(s) at the right time(s) would have easily resulted in a TPK. Whether it's Slow or Maze on the bad guys, Mass Haste for the party, etc. Granted, a Wizard will play and operate different from a Cleric or Sorcerer, but a Caster is a Caster, and each one excels at their own things, and I never once sat there and said "The Fighter is casting spells better than me!" Sure, we didn't have a MCD spellcasting character in the group, not making it much competition, but a lot of their feats and abilities didn't make me unable to do things like Teleport, for example.
Now, I'm not going to say that it was a flawless experience or that it was completely immaculate, or that your player is riddled with unacceptable mistakes. There were levels where I felt like I got shafted in progression or benefits, and there were levels where I felt like a God (19th and 20th especially). There were encounters that I absolutely trounced them within the first action(s) of combat, and there were encounters that I could have easily lost if not for the dice being in my favor. But as far as being a Wizard was concerned, I never once sat there and said "This character isn't a Wizard, this character sucks!" And just as well, for the Martials, I imagine it was largely the same for them too, such as when they were relegated to bows against flying enemies. It's matter of give-and-take and dealing with wonky proficiency progression, not to mention knowing your enemies and what works best on them, and preparing to exploit their apparent weaknesses. And a little dice in your favor, of course. An enemy rolling a Nat 20 on your save is like the Fighter rolling a Nat 1 on his first attack (or two); both are equally devastating.
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However, he sent this message to me, and it made me question just how bleak the situation may be:
"Since every single time you will be fighting monsters with higher saving DC's. Levels are important since you get to add that into your saving throws and attacks. So anything the party fights will have a higher level.
So this is probably one of the root problems.
You aren't supposed to be constantly fighting L+2 enemies. In fact, you aren't supposed to always be fighting encounters of the same difficulty range. And when you fight an encounter of a particular difficulty, sometimes that encounter is built out of a bunch of enemies of middling levels, and sometimes it's a single strong monster. Or for a really hard encounter a strong monster with some minions.
Now one big weakness the game does have, is that at low and mid levels, L+3 solo bosses are just crazy. The encounter building system doesn't say you shouldn't do it, but - you shouldn't do it.
The reason for this is that the difference in numbers, between the monster's better defenses than yours, and its better attack than yours, seems to go faster and faster with each level difference.
The issue with Pathfinder is that, AoE effects, in PF2e you can take dodge entirely both damage and effects.
Unless 5e where even if they succeed they take half damage, PF2e has the mechanic that you can succeed and take zero damage.So let's say, you are a spellcaster and you have a DC of 19 at level 4, the CR calculator would suggest you have to fight something at level 6.
Their DC saves are from +12 to +16. To beat your DC's. They need to roll 7 from their lowest and 3 for their highest.
Well your DC at level 4 would be 20, not 19. Saving throws of level 6 monster range from about +11 to +17. So the numbers shake out a little better if you go for the weak save and not for the strong one.
But the basic premise is the problem: that you're "always" fighting L+2 enemies. That's just not true.
A single L+2 enemy is a moderate encounter. So is two L+0 enemies. Or four L-2 enemies.
Level 4 also happens to be a bad level for casters. At level 5 you start to get your serious area damage spells (fireball etc), at level 4 those are juuuust out of reach but the martial characters are trying out their Striking runes on their weapons. It's really one of the worst levels to measure how casters are doing.
That's also a thing: the game design likes to sometimes let one class get something early, then another. It's not a smooth line going up; in between some levels a particular class might get a much bigger jump. Martials get a big jump in numbers at level 5, while casters start to get much better spells. At level 7 the casters catch up numerically but also get even better spells.
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i think casters have a few issues, they arent underpowered per say, but they certainly will feel that way due to how they are balanced, casters are designed to succeed less than martial, but get value out of their failures (ignoring crit failures). when facing an at or above level enemy you will usually be banking on them succeeding on their roll and if they fail it, that's a lovely surprise. and this is all balanced out well from a "contribution towards overcoming the encounter" point of view, but, in my experience, it is very disheartening from a player point of view to be told that the enemy beat your check over and over and over again, sure you where effective but you are a master wizard man arent your spells supposed to like... work reliably?
Summary:
Casters are considerably worse at damage for anything outside of clearing mooks. In which case they greatly speed up something that may otherwise get skipped anyways: Take a few rounds at high expense, as opposed to martials increbly cheap but take a minute or two.
Casters are still good at support, granted you take a spell that is actually worth it when you prepare/chose them.
If you hate playing support characters you will likely hate playing casters in PF2 because of how demoralizing the math is for damage spells. However, if you love playing support characters you will like playing casters because they have a lot of ways to provide support.
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The biggest thing to keep in mind is that you should always expect for enemies to get a success. If you manage to get enemies that get a failure or somehow by sheer luck a critical failure, be happy because those are the cherry on top. Doing otherwise will only make you hate the game.
* P.S. The general concensus is that a PC spending 2 actions on a spell to make an enemy lose 1 action or reaction for 1 round is good.
This really depends. I consider the druid the most powerful damage dealer in the game. If they focus on it, they can do a lot of single target damage as well at higher level.
At level 16 or so with Effortless Concentration, you can maintain a damaging sustain spell, blast, and toss in a weapon shot which all together adds up to quite a nasty little damage combo.
If you want to make a nasty damage caster, you can. But it may kill everyone else unless you still have healing.
And Spell Blending mega-disintegrate is an absolutely brutal damage spell. Nothing a martial does will touch a mega-disintegrate often cast with true strike.
You can't assume you can't build a damage caster when you can. My druid at level 16 was often the highest damage dealer in the group. But she had to heal the party or they would have died. She was easily the most useful and potent character in the group keeping people alive with healing, hammering things for damage with spells, and adding a little damage with weapons.
Even now we're playing a dual class game. I'm playing a druid-monk wild shape druid, she is easily the most versatile and awe-inspiring character in the group.
Casters can do stuff like help flank in three dimensions with flying summons which becomes more common at higher level.
Separate battlefields with walls.
Repair harsh conditions like stupefied or doomed with a few restoration spells.
Smash a group of enemies at range when you scout first, see a group of enemies guarding a point, caster turns invis, and flies up then starts nuking from a few hundred feat away until they are mostly dead or all the way dead. Encounter easily defeated.
Casters have new abilities from spells every day. Martials have new feats once level or maybe a day with combat flexibility. Caster spells are far more versatile than martial feats.
Martials hit things and do damage, maybe do some ability like trip. Casters are not so limited, yet can still build to trip or something like that as well.
i think casters have a few issues, they arent underpowered per say, but they certainly will feel that way due to how they are balanced, casters are designed to succeed less than martial, but get value out of their failures (ignoring crit failures). when facing an at or above level enemy you will usually be banking on them succeeding on their roll and if they fail it, that's a lovely surprise. and this is all balanced out well from a "contribution towards overcoming the encounter" point of view, but, in my experience, it is very disheartening from a player point of view to be told that the enemy beat your check over and over and over again, sure you where effective but you are a master wizard man arent your spells supposed to like... work reliably?
Not if they end encounters immediately and no one has any fun. That was PF1. PF2 very much designed to avoid this outcome and force wizards to engage with the group.
You have plenty of spells that help the party or severely limit the encounters, but none of those encounter ender spells do they want to "work reliably" against bosses. That is by design.
I know I often spend my time using slow on bosses even at higher level and that pretty much finishes the boss the majority the time. Taking one of their actions per round for a 3rd level slot is an easy trade off as it severely, severely hamstrings them.
In PF1 I'd slow them or hold monster, then they would get coup de grased by a summoned creature or a martial and I won the fight alone. They don't want that in PF2. I agree with them having been a PF1 DM for ages. Most anticlimatic lame ending to fights was watching wizards absolutely render the majority of enemies useless where the fight was pointless in PF1.
That's why I when I hear PF1 players claiming this doesn't happen, I just think of them as not really knowing how to maximize that system. I built so many caster characters to render PF1 a cake walk and had to design so many outside the rule countermeasures to combat casters ruining PF1 encounters that I know how casters made that game trivial.
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i think casters have a few issues, they arent underpowered per say, but they certainly will feel that way due to how they are balanced, casters are designed to succeed less than martial, but get value out of their failures (ignoring crit failures). when facing an at or above level enemy you will usually be banking on them succeeding on their roll and if they fail it, that's a lovely surprise. and this is all balanced out well from a "contribution towards overcoming the encounter" point of view, but, in my experience, it is very disheartening from a player point of view to be told that the enemy beat your check over and over and over again, sure you where effective but you are a master wizard man arent your spells supposed to like... work reliably?Not if they end encounters immediately and no one has any fun. That was PF1. PF2 very much designed to avoid this outcome and force wizards to engage with the group.
You have plenty of spells that help the party or severely limit the encounters, but none of those encounter ender spells do they want to "work reliably" against bosses. That is by design.
I know I often spend my time using slow on bosses even at higher level and that pretty much finishes the boss the majority the time. Taking one of their actions per round for a 3rd level slot is an easy trade off as it severely, severely hamstrings them.
In PF1 I'd slow them or hold monster, then they would get coup de grased by a summoned creature or a martial and I won the fight alone. They don't want that in PF2. I agree with them having been a PF1 DM for ages. Most anticlimatic lame ending to fights was watching wizards absolutely render the majority of enemies useless where the fight was pointless in PF1.
That's why I when I hear PF1 players claiming this doesn't happen, I just think of them as not really knowing how to maximize that system. I built so many caster characters to render PF1 a cake walk and had to design so many outside the rule countermeasures to...
my comment had nothing to do with ending the encounter and everything to do with the expected outcome of a save spell is the foe succeeding just feels bad, it feels like your spells are failing because the enemies are beating your check. the fact that when you are faced with a boss none of your spells will basically ever "work" feels awful, no matter how effective the a successful save against a slow spell is at neutering the boss, its a psychology/framing issue, not a balance issue.
...i think casters have a few issues, they arent underpowered per say, but they certainly will feel that way due to how they are balanced, casters are designed to succeed less than martial, but get value out of their failures (ignoring crit failures). when facing an at or above level enemy you will usually be banking on them succeeding on their roll and if they fail it, that's a lovely surprise. and this is all balanced out well from a "contribution towards overcoming the encounter" point of view, but, in my experience, it is very disheartening from a player point of view to be told that the enemy beat your check over and over and over again, sure you where effective but you are a master wizard man arent your spells supposed to like... work reliably?Not if they end encounters immediately and no one has any fun. That was PF1. PF2 very much designed to avoid this outcome and force wizards to engage with the group.
You have plenty of spells that help the party or severely limit the encounters, but none of those encounter ender spells do they want to "work reliably" against bosses. That is by design.
I know I often spend my time using slow on bosses even at higher level and that pretty much finishes the boss the majority the time. Taking one of their actions per round for a 3rd level slot is an easy trade off as it severely, severely hamstrings them.
In PF1 I'd slow them or hold monster, then they would get coup de grased by a summoned creature or a martial and I won the fight alone. They don't want that in PF2. I agree with them having been a PF1 DM for ages. Most anticlimatic lame ending to fights was watching wizards absolutely render the majority of enemies useless where the fight was pointless in PF1.
That's why I when I hear PF1 players claiming this doesn't happen, I just think of them as not really knowing how to maximize that system. I built so many caster characters to render PF1 a cake walk and had to design so many
Oh ok.
What are you casting? I've gotten use to one round of slow or one round of synesthesia against bosses followed up with a true target. It feels very effective to me at this point.
It did take some getting used to.
What spells are you using that fail all the time?
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Even at level one a caster can out damage a martial quite consistently. There is a lot of enemies with resistances to physical damage, or weaknesses to emery damage types that many casters can hit more easily than martials for many levels if the game. But even at level 1, a group of 4 wizards with nothing but magic missile memorized probably have a better chance of defeating most level +3 monsters than a party of 4 fighters.
PF2 is probably about on par with PF1 on how good a pure damage caster is vs a pure damage martial. High level martials in PF2 are unlikely to hit as often and as hard as PF1 pure damage high level martials against enemies that are several levels higher than them without the support of the rest of the party.
The biggest difference in damage casters between PF1 and PF2 is that PF2 casters can’t just memorize the exact same spell across all levels of play and specialize in casting modified versions of just that one spell and expect to be able to over power any enemy. PF2 casters have to use the right spell for the encounter they are facing, wether that is to do damage, debuff, or often even to usefully buff their Allie’s (although that last one in less true than debuffing, and especially less true than for damage dealing).
Even spells that everyone raves about in PF2, like slow, will sometimes come up flat against enemies with really high fortitude saves (something that can happen a fair bit). Casting in PF2 is more dynamic and situational than past versions of the game and that means in can be easier to accomplish great success, but also easier to accomplish more complete failure with your casting. Casters in PF2 probably require more support from the GM and the rest of the party than they did in PF1 in getting a sense of what kind of encounters are coming up in the near future. Pressing ahead when the casters are not prepared can feel deceptively ok in PF2 because party healing isn’t tied to casting and cantrip casting can be effective against many encounters. But when the party stumbles into a boss fight with exhausted casters it is a very dangerous situation for everyone.
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The biggest difference in damage casters between PF1 and PF2 is that PF2 casters can’t just memorize the exact same spell across all levels of play and specialize in casting modified versions of just that one spell and expect to be able to over power any enemy. PF2 casters have to use the right spell for the encounter they are facing, wether that is to do damage, debuff, or often even to usefully buff their Allie’s
This is my personal biggest bugbear with pf2e honestly, though its more a "me problem" than the issue I've seen from my players that I mentioned above; Every caster has to play like a toolbox wizard with a big box of magic bullets, you cannot specialize or build thematic spell lists or casting styles. you need to have spells for multiple saves, ideally, of multiple damage types, they need some spells that have good effects on a save and ally-facing spells for when foes have saves too high, they should ideally have some utility spells as well. that's great for anyone who wants to play a toolbox but for anyone who has a specialized character concept, the master illusionist, the wind druid, the flame mage, the necromancer witch, the system doesn't really offer anything because the only way such characters can be effective is by bastardizing their spell selection to the point that it no longer has anything to do with your character concept
I have had an absolute blast with the illusionist wizard. At low levels, every wizard is banking on cantrips in combat encounters and those are the hodgepodge grab bag of everything g for any arcane, primal or even occult caster. But I memorized almost exclusively illusion spells in my spell slots and was casting my focus spell often so I felt very much like an illusionist and had a blast spinning webs of deceit.
I feel like the necromancer is in the same boat, except relies on a worse save (fort) for too many of their spells. Still having half your spells in your school still feels very thematic and wizardly, since wizards are prepared casters who are supposed to change things up.
Single element Damage casters, especially sorcerers can fall into some traps if they just try to fill every slot with just damage spells if their element and don’t try to get a little flexible with their theme.
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My cleric, built purely for healing, in Strength of Thousands has been out performing the martials in damage in nearly every fight.
The biggest difference in damage casters between PF1 and PF2 is that PF2 casters can’t just memorize the exact same spell across all levels of play and specialize in casting modified versions of just that one spell and expect to be able to over power any enemy. PF2 casters have to use the right spell for the encounter they are facing, wether that is to do damage, debuff, or often even to usefully buff their Allie’sThis is my personal biggest bugbear with pf2e honestly, though its more a "me problem" than the issue I've seen from my players that I mentioned above; Every caster has to play like a toolbox wizard with a big box of magic bullets, you cannot specialize or build thematic spell lists or casting styles. you need to have spells for multiple saves, ideally, of multiple damage types, they need some spells that have good effects on a save and ally-facing spells for when foes have saves too high, they should ideally have some utility spells as well. that's great for anyone who wants to play a toolbox but for anyone who has a specialized character concept, the master illusionist, the wind druid, the flame mage, the necromancer witch, the system doesn't really offer anything because the only way such characters can be effective is by bastardizing their spell selection to the point that it no longer has anything to do with your character concept
You can't do it with one class now. I think you can still do thematic casters.
I play a storm druid I constructed as a living force of destruction. I've been able to do that pretty well with the druid.
If I were doing a flame destroyer, I'd probably do an elemental sorcerer or a flame or ash oracle.
I made a shadow sorcerer who is all kinds of shadowy death that is pretty fun.
It won't be as powerful as PF1, but you can make your caster appear as you want them to appear. I've had fun trying to emulate different concepts.
Necromancer is a tough one. The wizard necromancer spells are weak and undead sorcerer or bone oracle not super great. It might be a little easier now with undead companions. It's still not very effective.
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New players coming to PF2 will raise the old debates.
We've been there, and the general consensus is that casters are fine. They just no more play like before. I mostly play casters (blasters/healers in general) and I have a lot of fun. And I haven't seen many martials able to deal as much damage as my Sorcerer.
...The biggest difference in damage casters between PF1 and PF2 is that PF2 casters can’t just memorize the exact same spell across all levels of play and specialize in casting modified versions of just that one spell and expect to be able to over power any enemy. PF2 casters have to use the right spell for the encounter they are facing, wether that is to do damage, debuff, or often even to usefully buff their Allie’sThis is my personal biggest bugbear with pf2e honestly, though its more a "me problem" than the issue I've seen from my players that I mentioned above; Every caster has to play like a toolbox wizard with a big box of magic bullets, you cannot specialize or build thematic spell lists or casting styles. you need to have spells for multiple saves, ideally, of multiple damage types, they need some spells that have good effects on a save and ally-facing spells for when foes have saves too high, they should ideally have some utility spells as well. that's great for anyone who wants to play a toolbox but for anyone who has a specialized character concept, the master illusionist, the wind druid, the flame mage, the necromancer witch, the system doesn't really offer anything because the only way such characters can be effective is by bastardizing their spell selection to the point that it no longer has anything to do with your character conceptYou can't do it with one class now. I think you can still do thematic casters.
I play a storm druid I constructed as a living force of destruction. I've been able to do that pretty well with the druid.
If I were doing a flame destroyer, I'd probably do an elemental sorcerer or a flame or ash oracle.
I made a shadow sorcerer who is all kinds of shadowy death that is pretty fun.
It won't be as powerful as PF1, but you can make your caster appear as you want them to appear. I've had fun trying to emulate different concepts.
Necromancer is a tough one. The wizard
Felt bad in PF1 too. Never was a game where you can do everything with one class. A blaster wizard or sorcerer in PF1 was limited in other areas. It's always a trade off.
My point is you can do it in PF2 with different classes. In PF1 sorcerer or wizard (mostly sorcerer due to bloodlines), now you do you can do it with a druid, sorcerer, or perhaps a specialized oracle. I would say that is more options, not less.
Wizard isn't a great blaster. They didn't design evocation wizard focus spells very well for the way an evocation wizard would operate at range.
New players coming to PF2 will raise the old debates.
We've been there, and the general consensus is that casters are fine. They just no more play like before. I mostly play casters (blasters/healers in general) and I have a lot of fun. And I haven't seen many martials able to deal as much damage as my Sorcerer.
What kind of sorcerer? What is your damage combo?
I made a shadow sorcerer. Once you get that advanced shadow spell and effortless concentration, you are one scary force of pain on enemies. I love that third shadow sorcerer focus spell. Slows enemies down while doing damage and I turn invisible and walk amongst them.
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New players coming to PF2 will raise the old debates.
We've been there, and the general consensus is that casters are fine. They just no more play like before. I mostly play casters (blasters/healers in general) and I have a lot of fun. And I haven't seen many martials able to deal as much damage as my Sorcerer.
What kind of sorcerer? What is your damage combo?
I made a shadow sorcerer. Once you get that advanced shadow spell and effortless concentration, you are one scary force of pain on enemies. I love that third shadow sorcerer focus spell. Slows enemies down while doing damage and I turn invisible and walk amongst them.
Angelic Sorcerer of Sarenrae. Dangerous Sorcery, obviously. At low level, I have Fireball and True Striked Searing Light (I grabbed True Strike through Ancestry feats). At higher level I move towards Chain Lightning as my bread and butter spell. At very high level (I played Night of the Grey Death with it) I had fun meteoring the BBEG.
At very low level, I was more of a healer than a blaster. But once I got to level 7, I've found damage to be high and consistent.
Even single target casters can do well, it is circumstantial and they do want to be targeting saves... but it does come at a cost and it won't be as reliable.
Level 7 fighter and a level 7 sorcerer attack a fire giant (a level 10, aka +3 enemy).
Firegiant: 35AC, +16 REF
Fighter: +18 to hit, 2d12+7 damage, assuming target is flatfooted, 9 average damage across two attacks
Sorcerer: DC25, Sudden Bolt 4th: 27.55 average damage, Chilling Spray 4th: 28 average damage (thanks to weakness, 10.5 average without). Then there are riders on failure and critical failure.
It doesn't have to be targeting a weakness either, avoiding a resistance or immunity is just as valuable.
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My group is level 16. Coming toward the end of a year & 1/2 long game.
Our party's wizard is a generalist. In all the big fights, they would have wiped without him.
He puts enemies in a resilient sphere to buy time. He turns into an earth elemental to come up behind foes. He puts up illusions that he can see and cast from. He banishes extraplanar creatures. He puts them in mazes.
Casts fly on the barbarian to send him after airborn enemies. Teleports. Plane shifts. And, yes, throws fireballs.
Arcane casters can change the makeup of the entire battlefield.
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I have played a Cleric (AoA) and a Wizard (EC).
Both felt engaging, entertaining, and both definitely turned the tide of battle from potential TPK to we win many times throughout 20 levels.
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While I mostly agree with everybody, I think people may be overstating things a little.
In my experience just about ANY well built adventure fitting character (not twinked out, just well built) who uses decent team work tactics with his group (the tactics including deciding who will fit any missing roles) will contribute an approximately equal amount to the success of the group.
Some just do so in a flashier way than others :-).
For example, I think just about everybody would agree that the bard is a great contributor. But unless you're paying attention you won't notice all the crits that his +1 to hit and debuffs from intimidation and synthesesia spells cause to happen. It APPEARS that it is the barbarian who is doing all the damage but the bard knows better :-).
I most definitely include casters in that list. They absolutely rock. But I don't think that there the MVP any more often than the rogue is, or the fighter, or the barbarian, etc. With a couple of outliers player skill and luck mean more than character build.
Over the course of a campaign EVERY character should absolutely rock and be MVP from time to time. And, unfortunately, pretty much suck from time to time when either the dice or the situation conspire against them.
One other thing to keep in mind is that casters, more than most characters, benefit from knowledge (either advance knowledge of what they'll face tomorrow or immediate knowledge of what resistances/weaknesses a particular enemy has) and the circumstances of an encounter (range, terrain, etc). And GMs and campaigns differ immensely in how easy it is to obtain that knowledge. I think that is one of the main factors in why casters seem to vary greatly in power in one anecdote as compared to another.
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Casters are a controversial issue in PF2 due to the difference in the ways they were designed to operate in the game and what players, especially those coming from other systems, expect from them.
I like to say that spellcasters are like magic toolboxes without instruction manuals and that's why most inexperienced players don't know how to use them and often end up hating them for it.
The point is that many people see the concept of the "glass cannon", that is the caster who is defensively fragile, but offensively is very strong, stronger than any martial and still comes with the benefit of causing area attacks and take advantage of weaknesses.
But in PF2 none of that is true, neither are the spellcasters necessarily fragile (warpriests, battle oracles and druids are there to demonstrate this), nor are they a nuke!
They even have AoE elemental spells with high damage, but it's no better than a martial's damage and usually requires your best spell slots which limits you to a few uses per day (2-6 uses depending on build) which turns out to be quite frustrating for characters who expect every caster to be a nuker.
Instead the spellcasters are much more efficient with a complex mix of different spells for different situations, which often requires a lot of creativity on the part of the player, a good tactical analysis of the situation and a great team spirit.
A big mistake I see people make, for example, is players saving their best spell slots to use against powerful opponents, but most of the time these same spell slots are much more efficient at clearing mooks while inferior spell slots tend to be quite useful. when facing a single big boss.
E.g. If you are a 5th level arcane sorcerer, instead of saving your spellslots to throw fireballs at opponents that will deal no more than 6d6 (avg 21) damage to just a single target at the cost of one of your best spellslots, while your barbarian ally is right there dealing 2d12+4+4 (same avg 21) on every hit he lands without spending a single resource. Instead use this same fireball on that group of 6 enemies that came in the previous room, this will probably kill them or leave them seriously weakened just waiting to be finished off by their allies, and against the boss you can use that 2nd level spell Warrior's Regret to make the boss take 1d8 for each of your ally it attacks or have to go a whole round without attacking to stop taking that damage, or maybe sustain a Flaming Sphere for every turn to try to deal 3d6 (10.5 avg) of fire damage every round while you next turn cast Goblin Pox (1st level) to give -1 to everything on it and force it to lose a reguiding action to stop this effect, or if your ally is a fighter instead of a barbarian, use Command (1st level) to make the boss lose 2 actions to be prone and then get up and fire an Attack of Opportunity, thus giving him "indirect damage".
There are many other ways to use spellcasters and many different types of spellcasters that are good, but require creative and efficient use of their skills which requires a lot of preparation and experience from the player to be effective.
That said, it's not like everything is perfect and the fault really lies with the player not knowing how to play the caster well. In practice, there is no clarity on how to use these complex characters in the game, in addition, these characters who have limited daily resources are extremely subject to how the adventure and encounters unfold.
For example, an adventure where most encounters occur during hexploration and players tend to only have 1 or 2 encounters a day is much less stressful on spellslot-dependent casters' resources than adventures where you need to traverse a DG with 9 encounters in a single day. Or creating a cleric who specializes in alignment damage spells and then discovering that much of the adventure will take place in the wilds and most of your encounters will be against animals, are examples of how an adventure can be extremely harmful to spellcasters, while on the other hand, most martials don't experience these problems and don't worry about the adventure or the GM creating situations that are unfavorable to them.
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But I don't think that there the MVP any more often than the rogue is, or the fighter, or the barbarian, etc. With a couple of outliers player skill and luck mean more than character build.
That's just it, though. In my experience casters *have* been punching above their weight. Even after the mega-nerf from PF1 to PF2 they're still on average, over the course of a campaign, having an above average impact on the success of the group in a variety of situations.
So it's extra irksome when people pull up dated, white-room, half-baked theories about how casters are weak and it's impossible to do X, Y, or Z with them, and meanwhile my real-world experience with them shows the exact opposite.
But I don't think that there the MVP any more often than the rogue is, or the fighter, or the barbarian, etc. With a couple of outliers player skill and luck mean more than character build.That's just it, though. In my experience casters *have* been punching above their weight. Even after the mega-nerf from PF1 to PF2 they're still on average, over the course of a campaign, having an above average impact on the success of the group in a variety of situations.
So it's extra irksome when people pull up dated, white-room, half-baked theories about how casters are weak and it's impossible to do X, Y, or Z with them, and meanwhile my real-world experience with them shows the exact opposite.
To be fair though, I think players can run PF2 Martials into the dirt very easily too when they approach the game with tactics that don't work well in PF2. Spending actions moving towards danger is generally a bad way to play PF2, whether you are a martial or a caster. It can be mitigated, and there can be advantages for taking what seems like the bad idea if you are prepared for it. But it is just as easy to play a brash martial who brings the whole party down by hitting maybe once or twice in a whole encounter and otherwise soaking up tons of other player actions in trying to keep that character from dying as it is to waste time targeting high saving throws/defenses/resistances with a caster. People seem much quicker to recognize that player mistakes with martial characters are a player/table expectation for tactical play issue, while assuming the system is broken when the same thing happens with casters.
And none of this is to call anyone out on "Badwrongfun." As a GM, it is really easy to make casters feel awesome, to make single damage type blasters work out just fine, and to give the party enough foreshadowing to make a lot of the decision points much less stressful or costly to the whole party to get wrong. Just like you can have monsters not focus fire to chop down the barbarian who sudden charges 50ft away from the rest of the party, hits once impressively, but not enough to finish anyone off, and then misses with their second attack, leaving themselves surrounded by enemies with no party support.
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Just like you can have monsters not focus fire to chop down the barbarian who sudden charges 50ft away from the rest of the party, hits once impressively, but not enough to finish anyone off, and then misses with their second attack, leaving themselves surrounded by enemies with no party support.
That is exactly what happened for 10 levels in our AoA game.
Our Barbarian was a slow learner! My cleric had to take away his Shield Other to prove a point.
I gave it to our melee rogue for a full Book...lol.
They learned to stay within 30' to 60' of me, but it took a while to pry all those PF1e tactics away!
My Wizard (EC) found that the best spell against bosses is Hideous Laughter!
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Just like you can have monsters not focus fire to chop down the barbarian who sudden charges 50ft away from the rest of the party, hits once impressively, but not enough to finish anyone off, and then misses with their second attack, leaving themselves surrounded by enemies with no party support.
That is exactly what happened for 10 levels in our AoA game.
Our Barbarian was a slow learner! My cleric had to take away his Shield Other to prove a point.
I gave it to our melee rogue for a full Book...lol.They learned to stay within 30' to 60' of me, but it took a while to pry all those PF1e tactics away!
My Wizard (EC) found that the best spell against bosses is Hideous Laughter!
To be fair this isn't even a PF1 tactic outside of pounce, which can in fact one shot enemies in that system.
Also hideous laughter is one of the standout debuff spells because it has a useful effect on a success (negating reactions). Which is why debuffers are good but blasters do worse. 1 spell to negate reactions is good, but 1 spell to do less damage than a martial is bad.
PF1 caster didn't do great single target damage. Martials did way more single target damage. But PF1 casters didn't need single target damage because some spells killed you or turn the fight into nothing. So not sure why this matters as it was a factor in PF1.
And certain casters do excellent single target damage, which I found out playing a druid. I still recall the first time I dropped a tempest surge on some creature and they critically failed, took like 80 or 90 damage at level 7 or 9 then my animal companion hammered him too for a nice easy 100 plus point round.
Casters have enormously damaging rounds that martials can't touch. It's against "mooks", but mooks aren't weak in PF2. They have a lot of hit points and do a lot of damage, so the faster you can mow them down the less healing and resources you need.
At higher level mook fights last a while and are often more brutal than the boss fights because of the number of attacks. When you are crushing them fast from range, it helps a ton.
Focus firing a single target boss isn't that tough a lot of the time. Fighting a group of mooks with a mini-boss is often the toughest fight you'll have. So hammering what we refer to as "mooks" isn't like hammering minions or some weak creature in PF2 where your AC is built so high they do nothing. It's dangerous and helps a ton to wipe the mooks out.
You learn this when you play more and watch mooks wreck PCs.
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I mostly play casters, but I have seem most of the martial move up to the enemy, stand there and full attack until someone drops.
That is what I mean as PF1e tactics.
That does not work in PF2e. My cleric wept often that initial AP switch over to PF2e.
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Yeah "mook" is disingenuous description for most enemies on the battlefield. Even party level -2 enemies are mathematical enough of a threat that you can't ignore them. Being able to ignore them was usually a key part of a mook, you would only worry about killing them if they were physically obstructing you from getting where you wanted to go.
In PF2, that's simply not how things work.
But being able to use an AOE spell on them with a decent chance of failing or crit failing can see them much more quickly removed from the field.
I mostly play casters, but I have seem most of the martial move up to the enemy, stand there and full attack until someone drops.
That is what I mean as PF1e tactics.
That does not work in PF2e. My cleric wept often that initial AP switch over to PF2e.
Yeah, I did that during my first play through of PF2. I walked away angry and jaded about the game because I had learned tactics in PF1 that got me killed, multiple times, in PF2 and hadn't been open to looking at the system holistically. I wanted to be powerful on my own, as you could in PF1. And this game doesn't work that.
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Everyone else has covered it pretty well but I will chime in just to say that if a PF2 GM is constantly throwing encounters at the party that features creatures that are ABOVE the level of the party then they are almost certainly just a sadist who is trying to rack up kills against player characters instead of running a "fair" game, one who has a fixation on only using "boss fight" encounters, or is someone operating on assumptions created from playing other RPG systems that don't have a well balanced Party vs. Creature Level dynamic and is doing so thinking that's the only way to even come close to challenging a group.
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But I don't think that there the MVP any more often than the rogue is, or the fighter, or the barbarian, etc. With a couple of outliers player skill and luck mean more than character build.That's just it, though. In my experience casters *have* been punching above their weight. Even after the mega-nerf from PF1 to PF2 they're still on average, over the course of a campaign, having an above average impact on the success of the group in a variety of situations.
That is not my experience. I think martials and casters have about the same average impact.
I say that as somebody who plays casters and martials and hybrids and have GMed martials, caters and hybrids
What I have seen is martials are dominant first five levels or so.
It's about even for 6 to 11 to 13.
13 to 20 casters start to pull ahead as martials once again get stuck doing the same thing they were doing the entire time while casters are doing lots of other stuff.
Monk is a bit of an exception as you can build them in a lot of different ways. Monk is almost like a caster martial with versatile builds that can focus on something other than bringing the hammer.
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Everyone else has covered it pretty well but I will chime in just to say that if a PF2 GM is constantly throwing encounters at the party that features creatures that are ABOVE the level of the party then they are almost certainly just a sadist who is trying to rack up kills against player characters instead of running a "fair" game, one who has a fixation on only using "boss fight" encounters, or is someone operating on assumptions created from playing other RPG systems that don't have a well balanced Party vs. Creature Level dynamic and is doing so thinking that's the only way to even come close to challenging a group.
If like to see some more boss options that aren't just level based. Solo monster or dual monster encounters tend to happen a lot as they are just easier and faster to run. I'm after other options than just a few extra levels.
If like to see some more boss options that aren't just level based. Solo monster or dual monster encounters tend to happen a lot as they are just easier and faster to run. I'm after other options than just a few extra levels.Everyone else has covered it pretty well but I will chime in just to say that if a PF2 GM is constantly throwing encounters at the party that features creatures that are ABOVE the level of the party then they are almost certainly just a sadist who is trying to rack up kills against player characters instead of running a "fair" game, one who has a fixation on only using "boss fight" encounters, or is someone operating on assumptions created from playing other RPG systems that don't have a well balanced Party vs. Creature Level dynamic and is doing so thinking that's the only way to even come close to challenging a group.
I'm not sure what you had in mind, but I'd probably decide on what XP budget I wanted. For a boss level encounter I'd probably set it as either an 80 or 120 XP budget. I might go with 120 XP with one creature of party level, and one creature of party level+1. This technically leaves a bit in the XP budget. So what do you do? Well spend it on terrain, traps, or other effects. If you build actual hidden traps they would need to be factored into the XP budget differently, but if you build it more like obvious terrain that needs to be avoided or bad things happen then I think you don't. Add it some walls or other stuff that your bad guys have ways of dealing with that can hamper the party if they don't. Now you have an interesting encounter that is just about the enemies you're trying to hit.
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I've made an extensive post about this on Reddit, but I think the main issue with casters is that they seem to be balanced around a perfect scenario. The game is so hellbent on making sure a caster played to its maximum (prepping the right spells for the situation, debuffing saves, always targeting the right ones, Recalling Knowledge, exploiting monster weaknesses, knowing when to use blasts vs normal control vs incap spells, etc.) doesn't explode the game, that it makes the experience for anyone not doing all those things feel pretty underwhelming.
IMO the #1 culprit are monster saves. Or rather, how caster DCs scale compared to them. Targeting a low save doesn't feel like a reward, but rather something you have to always do to achieve basic competence. Otherwise the chance of your spells sticking is not great, to say the least. And yeah, "effects on a success", but constantly whiffing things and getting a compensation prize just doesn't feel good.
Meanwhile a martial can just flank, maybe give a debuff or two if it's a boss monster, and perform mighty fine.