There are currently 22 character classes in Pathfinder Second Edition, with a 23rd on the way later this year or next. If we say the "standard" party is four, there are 7315 possible party compositions now (not allowing duplicate classes) and 8855 with 23 classes. If you allow duplication (Ron the Rules Lawyer put together a party of four Thaumaturges, for example) you get 12650 parties with 22 classes and 14950 with 23 classes.
Whew! That's a *lot* of possible parties! But how many of them are actually viable? Four Thaumaturges seemed to work. I doubt four Sorcerers, or four Wizards, or four Monks would work.
Someone recently posted that the "standard" party composition is (combatant, skill monkey, blaster, healer). If we use this model, the question is which classes fit into which of the four categories?
Combatant: Barbarian, Champion, Cleric(?), Druid, Fighter, Gunslinger, Magus(?), Monk, Ranger, Rogue, Summoner, Swashbuckler, Thaumaturge
Skill Monkey: Investigator, Rogue, Thaumaturge(?)
Blaster: Kineticist, Psychic, Sorcerer, Thaumaturge(?)
Healer: Bard, Champion, Cleric, Druid, Thaumaturge
The question marks are because I'm not sure that class really fits in the category.
Unassigned at this point are Alchemist, Inventor, Oracle, Witch, and Wizard. Where should we put these?
The "traditional" party, I suppose, is Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric. Wizard's not that great as a blaster, though, is it?
Using the composition model above, btw, reduces the number of possible parties to 780.
Anyway, how many viable compositions do you think there are, and what are your favorites? Any other comments would be appreciated too.
I note that if you add a fifth party member, with 22 classes and no duplication you get 26344 possibilities, nearly four times as many as with four members. Mind boggling! :-)
I note that if you add a fifth party member, with 22 classes and no duplication you get 26344 possibilities, nearly four times as many as with four members. Mind boggling! :-)
I don't know how you get this number but the 5th character should multiply the number of possibilities by 18 (22 classes - 4 already taken by the other characters).
Otherwise, I think most parties are viable in PF2. 4 Sorcerers, Wizards or Monks should work. There are so many possibilities with Archetypes and such that it should be viable (but far from optimal, on that point we agree).
My math is getting a little rusty but I think it comes down to if you believe Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric is a different combination from Wizard, Rogue, Cleric, Fighter. Any Mathemagicians in the audience willing to help us out?
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I don't think that 'blaster' is necessarily a part of the standard group; it's rather 'magical support', which typically includes blasting.
Also, with how strong out-of-combat healing is in PF2E, having a 'healer' role is probably unnecessary.
But the main problem with splitting classes into categories is that many of them can fill multiple roles. A rogue is a skill monkey, but also a pretty good damage dealer; a magus is both combatant and magical support/blaster; and in any case, dedications allow characters to cover additional roles.
Combinations, with or without replacement. The formula without replacement is C(n, r)= n!/(r!*(n-r)!)=22!/(4!*18!). With replacement, it's CR(n,r)=(n+r-1)!/(r!*(n-1)!)=25!/(4!*21!). n! is the product of all the integers from 1 to n. See Calculator Soup
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My math is getting a little rusty but I think it comes down to if you believe Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric is a different combination from Wizard, Rogue, Cleric, Fighter. Any Mathemagicians in the audience willing to help us out?
I can't think of a scenario where changing the order of character sheets in the pile is going to be a meaningfully different combination of characters.
So the count should be made using nCr.
So 22 classes, 4 player party, no duplicate classes = 22C4 = 7315 combinations
22 classes, 5 player party, no duplicate classes = 22C5 = 26334 combinations.
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As for categorizing classes, that is a bit of a problem since some classes can fill more than one of those roles.
Edit: Lots of ninjas here.
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I note that if you add a fifth party member, with 22 classes and no duplication you get 26344 possibilities, nearly four times as many as with four members. Mind boggling! :-)I don't know how you get this number but the 5th character should multiply the number of possibilities by 18 (22 classes - 4 already taken by the other characters).
Ed Reppert has the combinatorial mathematics correct. While we do have 18 possibilities to add a distinct class E to a party that has A, B, C, and D, we would get the same five-member composition if we added D to A, B, C, and E, or added C to A, B, D, and E, or added B to A, C, D, and E, or added A to B, C, D, and E. Thus, after multiplying by 18 we have to divide by 5 since each composition appears 5 times. 7315*18/5 = 26,334.
Otherwise, I think most parties are viable in PF2. 4 Sorcerers, Wizards or Monks should work. There are so many possibilities with Archetypes and such that it should be viable (but far from optimal, on that point we agree).
The 2nd-level party in my PF2-converted Ironfang Invasion campaign was a ranger, a druid, and two rogues. In Session Zero I had told the players that they would be sheltering and protecting refugee villagers in the Fangwood Forest, so they had selected classes good at woodcraft, i.e., self-sufficient away from town with good Nature, Stealth, and Survival skills). The gnome rogue had the high-Dexterity Thief racket and the halfling rogue had the high-Charisma Scoundrel racket and had just taken Sorcerer Multiclass Dedication.
I remember when they were scouting ahead with the gnome rogue player missing, and encountered undead, PF1 Bloody Skeletons that I ported as
NE MEDIUM SKELETON UNDEAD
Perception +7; darkvision
Languages Common, Necril
Skills Acrobatics +7, Athletics +7, Intimidation +6
Str +4, Dex +4, Con +1, Int –1, Wis +2, Cha +1
Items
AC 16 ; Fort +6, Ref +9, Will +6
HP 15, negative healing, fast healing 1; Immunities death effects, disease, paralyzed, poison, unconscious; Resistances cold 5, electricity 5, fire 5
Attack of Opportunity [reaction]
Speed 25 feet
Melee [one-action] claw +9 (agile), Damage 1d6+4 slashing
Due to the missing player, I dropped the number of undead from four to three, a Severe-Threat Encounter. This is the kind of creature where the party would want two frontline melee characters protecting the more vulnerable ranged characters. Instead, they had a ranger and two spellcasters and a front line is not particularly solid outdoors.
The three skinless undead split up one to each PC. The ranger could handle one on one fine, but the druid tried Electric Arc on two skinless undead and discovered their electricity resistance. That ruled out the stormborn druid's Tempest Surge focus spell that dealt electricity damage, and I forgot which spells she had in her 1st-level spell slots. She took more damage, and had to spend a round running away to heal herself with Battle Medicine. The rogue/sorcerer managed by Stepping away and casting Telekinetic Projective, but when the situation looked desperate, Stepped behind some cover, hid, pulled out a dagger, and took down his skinless undead next turn with a sneak attack. Then the tide turned and they finished off the other two undead.
Since the party could handle a Severe Threat with the wrong set of opponents, I don't feel that a solid party composition is necessary. My players have demonstrated repeatedly that creativity in tactics, such as finding a way to sneak attack a one-on-one opponent, wins more battles than relying on a PC's most powerful tactic.
However, some party compositions allow a greater variety of tactics, so they enable more creativity. I don't think it depends as much on classes as much as it depends on how the players build those classes. The two rogues in my party deliberately went in different directions: the gnome rogue was a sniper and the halfling rogue was a magical trickster.
Ed Reppert has the combinatorial mathematics correct.I note that if you add a fifth party member, with 22 classes and no duplication you get 26344 possibilities, nearly four times as many as with four members. Mind boggling! :-)I don't know how you get this number but the 5th character should multiply the number of possibilities by 18 (22 classes - 4 already taken by the other characters).
I think they are off by 10, but that seems a bit trivial to pick on.
My bad on the math :)
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I think this question doesn't have a clear and universally true answer. Even within the system, people play wildly different games. What is "viable" in a game that is heavily focused on combat isn't the same as in one that heavily focuses on RP and non-violent solutions. Those are just two examples of possible ways to play.
If we take the "grab bag" approach many APs have, then I don't think there are too many non-viable party compositions. As long as you have someone who can talk to people reasonably well, someone who can keep the enemies away from others and someone who can make those enemies go away, you are pretty much good. What I would put into the "not viable" category is a full caster party, because the moment combat gets into the severe encounter range - and I mean an actual severe encounter not 20 mooks - you are always just one or two unlucky rolls away from a TPK. You can do it, but the risk is just excessive.
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I disagree with the basic premises, being reminded of the ol' "I thought you were a Rogue?" "I'm not that kind of Rogue." (or Cleric, etc.) Where the Rogue lacks Thievery or the Cleric focuses on Harm & blasting.
I'm also reminded of all those "We get TPKed all the time" threads where they have filled these roles, yet (predictably) have forgotten what I'd call the more important role of defender, protector, tank, what-have-you that can weather the onslaught. Not all combatants fill that role well, excelling more with skirmisher tactics, yet many could if built for it (often w/ Archetype aid).
Yet, as mentioned above, no role is necessary if the party understands which holes to patch or circumvent. Which is to say, I don't need a skill monkey if all the key skills get covered (Diplomacy, Thievery, Medicine, some Recall Knowledge ones, etc.) A lot of parties do well without dedicated healers, often settling for out-of-combat w/ maybe some healing for emergencies. And duplication of classes hardly matters; a party of Monks would totally be awesome...if they covered all their bases (which that class can easily do), or maybe leaned into their strengths by kiting when they could.
In PFS, I avoid telling other players my class because it so often has misled them as to what my PCs do (and I kind of build multifaceted PCs anyway because it's PFS). I'm more set back by another PCs having the same personality as mine than the same role or class. :-) (Actually that depends on how well they riff off each other.)
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I'm also reminded of all those "We get TPKed all the time" threads where they have filled these roles, yet (predictably) have forgotten what I'd call the more important role of defender, protector, tank, what-have-you that can weather the onslaught. Not all combatants fill that role well, excelling more with skirmisher tactics, yet many could if built for it (often w/ Archetype aid).
That's a good breakdown, but I myself view it from a step further away because I am the GM designing the encounters. I don't think, "Does the party have a defender?" instead, I think, "Can the party defend themselves from a monster that deals massive damage in one blow?" Some parties did have one PCs built to handle massive blows--Shield Block is good for this in PF2. Other parties had two PCs who could take one massive blow and still be standing with a few hit points, and then the party quickly rearranged themselves to let the injured person retreat to safety, either to take up ranged attacks or--as with a battle oracle--to heal themselves. Teamwork could make up for the lack of the appropriate specialist.
Party composition is both about the individuals and about the team as defined by teamwork. Can the party handle a flying monster, an incorporeal monster, or a regenerating monster? Can it climb a wall or cross a river? Can it talk its way past hostile guards or befriend a potential ally? If not, I give them teaching encounters where they can practice against an easy target and learn how to correct their weak spot.
Actually, shield block is not really good for blocking massive hits.
You say that as though there is something better that is generally accessible. So do tell.
The only thing I can think of that might be better would be Champion reaction or Thaumaturge Amulet reaction. And those aren't generally accessible.
Those would be better because they often have a bit higher of damage reduction, are able to block multiple damage types at once, and can be used on damage that requires saves instead of only physical damage that targets AC. But both have some downsides too. Champion reaction isn't usable against ranged enemies or to protect yourself, Thaumaturge Amulet reaction you only get to block damage from one creature at a time (depending on feats taken and GM rulings of how the feat wording changes the Exploit Vulnerability target), and neither can be used on distant allies.
I think it would be a good (and fun) exercise to propose a combination of classes that you feel wouldn't be viable, and for everyone else to give a set of builds for those classes that would make a viable group.
As Mathmuse has suggested, I don't think "viability" is easy to nail down, though, so we'd likely have to think up some reasonable approximation.
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Actually, shield block is not really good for blocking massive hits.You say that as though there is something better that is generally accessible. So do tell.
I think the clearer thing to say is: shield block is really good against middling hits.
Suppose you've got a lesser sturdy shield (hardness 10, 80HP). And the big monster walks up to you and crits you for 50 damage. You could shield block that, but then your shield is broken. And the monster still has another action to go. You'd lose the AC from the broken shield, too.
If you swallow the crit and then the monster hits again but only has a hit, and then you shield block, it might be only 25 damage, your shield takes 15, and you can still do that two more times before the shield is broken.
Meanwhile, you've taken the same amount of damage (50 + 25 - 10).
So in a longer fight, it's really nice if you can use shield block to shave a bit of damage off each smaller hit, rather than use it for the big ones.
Of course, sometimes you just have to take the big hit on the shield because getting knocked out is worse.
PF2 allows for different party compositions than previous editions given its modular nature.
Multiple roles/abilities can be filled by a single character or class, sometimes stacking roles/abilities in a party.
We tend to build parties around abilities and off the top of my head we like the following in our usual five person party:
1. 2 Martial melee combatants
2. 2 hybrid casters usually with healing
3. Ranged martial with a bow (we don't like firearms in our fantasy, so we generally don't allow them).
The above basic composition then gets categorized into abilities:
1. Tanky martial with good AC, saves, and hit points who can take a hit or so while standing in battle.
2. Damage martial.
3. Combat healer
4. Medic with maxed skill and feats per the game's expectations.
5. Utility caster to deal with invis, flight, and unusual situations.
6. Blaster or caster damage dealer
7. Thievery skill and high perception for traps and such.
8. Scout, usually at least a few, for intel.
9. Face man for social interaction skill checks.
10. Combat Maneuver martial for trip. Desirable, but not required.
This is more how we break down a party as we want a group to be able to handle the wide variety of situations they will be placed in.
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I also don't think the recipe for viable group is really all that strict.
I think there are a LOT of roles you can have in the party, far more than there are PCs. Some of them the party won't have. Some PCs will cover more than one role. Some roles "stack", if you have more PCs with that role it's strong. Some don't stack, having more PCs is redundant and provides very little benefit.
The only two roles that I really wouldn't want to play without are:
Out of combat healer
This isn't your whole role, it's something you can do in several ways with just part of your build budget. But someone in the party has to do it otherwise the whole party will be in trouble.
Melee front row
The focus here isn't on doing damage but on blocking monsters from casually going after whoever strikes their fancy. If there's no front row then the entire back row constantly has to run away from monsters and that's dangerous and a huge action sink. If one monster can force three wizards to spend actions running, it's winning the action economy war.
I don't really like the idea of "skill monkey" as a role, because I feel that choices in ability scores make it so that no single character is going to cover all the skills anyway. Skill monkey is a vague concept and I think more useful is to think about:
- Geek: the one who does technical and lore stuff, like Craft, Arcana, Occultism, sometimes also Thievery.
- Face: mainly Charisma driven and talks to NPCs
- Wise'un: Wisdom oriented, probably picks up Medicine, Nature, Religion, and does some Perception work on the side. Tends to go well with religousy classes who can make a claim to some kind of spiritual authority/
- Muscle Dude(tte): you kinda get this one cheap just by having Athletics but that's pretty useful. Fortitude comes in handy too since you often have to save vs getting tired of digging/lifting stuff or whatever other test of endurance you have to go through.
- Speedster: probably has athletics, stealth, maybe acrobatics. But focus is perhaps more on having movement abilities like a climb speed or just overall high speed. These are the ones that you send out to run around the battlefield to put macguffins on poles while the rest of the party keeps enemies busy, or to chase down fleeing enemies before they can warn others or take away your loot. Some kind of trip or grab ability is pretty nice.
Some classes have a bias towards one of these, like wizards leaning to the geek role or monks as speedsters. Most classes can cover one or two, while rogues and investigators can do three-ish. But nobody's gonna rule them all on one character (unless the GM and other players set the bar really low).
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Party composition is both about the individuals and about the team as defined by teamwork.
Can't disagree with that.
Actually, shield block is not really good for blocking massive hits.
On the other hand, it's pretty solid to deal with the average damage.
I could be wrong. At 3rd level a shield-wielding goblin champion joined the party and she has used shield block effectively as a defender. However, I have been providing her with above-level sturdy steel shields in loot because that is the only treasure she likes, so I have a biased view of how effective sturdy steel shields are.
She has been using a greater sturdy steel shield, item 13, since 12th level and did not upgrade to a major sturdy steel shield, item 16, until last week's game session at 18th level.
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Imo, a lot of people look at party comp like an rpg video game by breaking it up into stuff like "skill guy", "blaster guy", "sneaky guy", etc, and it's completely the wrong approach.
In pf 2e, every class is amazing at three skills as long as you focus all your boosts on them; with inventor at 4, and rogue and investigator being amazing at 5. You shouldn't have one "skill monkey", everyone should be using skills. You dont need special class features to make skill helpful; hell, the main skill boosting features rogue and investigator is more skill feats, which everyone has access to. You do want to be good at differnet skills though, and make sure to train stuff like athletics, acrobatics, and stealth at some point in your career so you can follow the expert tasks that require these skills
Healing is another commonly cited one, but anyone can use medicine, and theres plenty of options for items to get those emergency heals off. In my playtest of the game, nobody was a cleric or had healing magic; all the healing was done via medicine checks and potions, and the group did fine.
Basically any combination of classes is a perfectly viable group as long as the party plays to it's abilities and coordinates to cover weaknesses. The campaign I'm playing in atm has no tanks, so we all use our speed, hit and run tactics, and terrain to avoid getting hit, and we rarely have issues; most of the time, we don't even have issues with people going down since between my elixirs of life, the swashbuckler's blessed one dedication, and the oracle's battle medicine and heal spells, we manage our damage pretty well. Heck, blasting is mostly me just showering the battlefield in Expanded Splash bombs two times a turn and the while party not caring because we bought backfire mantles, and the swashbuckler and rogue beat up whoever is a target of opportunity
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Take damage, deal damage, make dealing damage easier. These are the three things somebody in the party needs to be able to do as their Primary Thing, and pretty much every class can fill two of them and several can fill all three. Stuff like skill coverage for medicine and stealth is the next step down from figuring out these basic roles.
But nobody's gonna rule them all on one character (unless the GM and other players set the bar really low).
Summoner can really fill so many roles...
But anyway, you point the important part: Unless the GM sets the bar really low.
Speaking of viability is impossible if you don't set a specific difficulty. If you play an extremely challenging game then very few parties are going to be viable. But "extremely challenging" doesn't tell anything about the kind of challenges. Even if you consider pure combat challenges, between a GM who designs extremely complicated combats with a lot of environment effects and a GM who just throws enemies at the party the challenge won't be the same at all and the viable parties will differ greatly.
Defining what is a "viable" party is, in my opinion, impossible. You'll see a lot of very different points of view on the question. For example, I consider that viability comes with adaptability: If the party can't handle some challenges then it's not viable. But I can see other players considering that viability is pure combat effectiveness as out of combat challenges are not really threatening. 2 very different definitions of viability that will lead to different viable parties.
And we see it here as everyone is bringing different definitions for the important roles characters must fill.
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It's funny, because I was thinking about you when speaking about focusing only on combat efficiency.
I've been in such groups (PFS puts you in very different kind of unbalanced parties) where no one was able to roll a Diplomacy check or get any knowledge about what we was going on. PFS adventures are very railroady, so we got to the end. But it was obviously a complete failure. Not because we "lost" (whatever that means), but because no one had any kind of fun as we were doing things without understanding why. We felt absolutely powerless.
Definitely not a viable group by my definition.
4 Sorcerers, Wizards <...> should work.They won't. 4 fighters - easily. 4 standard casters - no. Combination of highly limited resources with very high action cost and very weak defence and survivability is a disaster. You probably could make it a little better by preparing and building for this situation, but I don't believe it would help very much.
4 casters with short bow + cantrip electric arc is a reasonable sustained damage output. Every caster class can do this from level 1 with Adapted Cantrip.
Or casters can raise a normal shield and be tougher if they want. No proficiency is required.From level 2 casters can have animals companions to stand in front. It is not ideal but it does work.
4 Sorcerers, Wizards <...> should work.They won't. 4 fighters - easily. 4 standard casters - no. Combination of highly limited resources with very high action cost and very weak defence and survivability is a disaster. You probably could make it a little better by preparing and building for this situation, but I don't believe it would help very much.
The Rules Lawyer did a casters vs martials thing where a party of all casters and a party of all martials squared off in the same prewritten adventure that ended in them fighting each other.
The casters won. Ronald attributed it to the casters playing smarter, but that also goes to show that playing smart DOES actually help
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The Rules Lawyer did a casters vs martials thing where a party of all casters and a party of all martials squared off in the same prewritten adventure that ended in them fighting each other.
The casters won. Ronald attributed it to the casters playing smarter, but that also goes to show that playing smart DOES actually help
I'm not surprised. Casters are more versatile, martials are easier to "handle". And when Errenor speaks about 4 Fighters being an "easily viable party", I think martial players don't realize how they are dependent on support. A single Poltergeist eats the "easily viable" party of 4 Fighters as they have hard time inflicting just a dozen points of damage when in the same situation 4 Wizards should have no issue dealing with it despite being a very challenging party to build.
Fighter is definitely a strong class, but it's by far not a perfect class that can handle anything without breaking a sweat.
4 Sorcerers, Wizards <...> should work.They won't. 4 fighters - easily. 4 standard casters - no. Combination of highly limited resources with very high action cost and very weak defence and survivability is a disaster. You probably could make it a little better by preparing and building for this situation, but I don't believe it would help very much.
4 druids would have no problem in my opinion.
4 clerics too would be fine too.
4 wizards or non-healer casters, dead meat.
Most healer casters can sustain as a group. I think they would last longer against more types of encounters than a group of fighters relying on archetype healing or battle medicine.
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4 druids would have no problem in my opinion.
4 clerics too would be fine too.Druids aren't 'standard casters'. And clerics at least have 8 hp, though I don't believe that would help them much, they would have better healing, but probably worse damage, and bare healing only postpones the inevitable. If come of them were warpriests? Anyway, clerics already aren't 'standard'.
By 'standard' I meant (6) hp, saves and (absent) proficiences. So wizards, sorcs and witches.
Wizards and Witches are definitely super challenging for a party. Sorcerers, in my opinion, should do fine with their ability to choose a tradition and as such cover all of them and the fact that it's easier for them to grab Champion Dedication for those who will, inevitably, have to tank. Also, the class is better overall.
Witches can also pick a tradition.
I think if any group can survive to level 2, archetypes start opening up quite a lot of options. A full wizard group sounds like the hardest to make go the distance, but I bet it's way more doable than people are assuming.
Druids are definitely "standard casters"; they don't break the mold of full casters in any way in 2e. 8 hp isn't actually uncommon for casters; in fact, there's more crb full casters with 8 hp (bard, cleric, druid) than there are with 6 hp (sorcerer, wizard). In fact, 6 hp seems to be reserved for 4 slot/spell level (sorc, and wizard), or otherwise can get way more spellcasting "juice" that is normally assumed in 2e (psychic via 2 focus point recharge at level 1 and unleash psyche that turns cantrips into almost on level blasts, or witches with a lot of early access focus spells), and 8 is actually the assumed baseline for magically empowered classes.
That also said, any class level 2 or higher can have in combat healing via blessed one, so like, while I'm sure that all wizard party would have more troubles than most single class parties, nothing says they cant all be blessed ones and one or two having battle medicine for good measure and just really play up area control to slow down meleers while they dispatch ranged foes
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By 'standard' I meant (6) hp, saves and (absent) proficiences. So wizards, sorcs and witches.
Those aren't the standard.
Wizard and Sorcerer are the two 4-slot casters. Witch is just piled in there with them having 6 HP and no armor because lol.
That is three classes.
There are 4 classes of 3-slot casters: Bard, Cleric, Druid, and Oracle.
Then there are the 2 hybrid bounded caster classes of Magus and Summoner.
So 3 out of 9 classes does not a 'standard' make. Or even 3 out of 7 if not counting the hybrid spellcasters. If anything is going to be the 'standard' spellcaster, it would be the 3-slot casters like Druid and Oracle.
Edit: Oh, and Psychic. Not sure where they would fit in there either, but it doesn't really change the math too much. Other than maybe making it that 4 out of 10 classes (the 3-slot casters) doesn't really create much of a 'standard' either.
Actually, shield block is not really good for blocking massive hits.You say that as though there is something better that is generally accessible. So do tell.
No, definitely, that wasn't my point.
I meant to say that given a 4/5 rounds fight, being able to block 10 damages each turn is way better than having the shield destroyed because you decided to block a critical hit.
Obviously, if the critical hit would knock you down, you might consider to do so, rather than going down and being healed back ( but that's not the standard situation ).
I had made my point badly myself when I said that that Shield Block is good for defending against a monster that deals massive damage in one blow. Shield Block defends against the monster, not against its mightiest blow.
As I read the rules--and I am a bit doubtful about this because it seems weird--the defender with Shield Block gets to see the total damage rolled before deciding to block.
Shield Block Feat 1
General
Source Core Rulebook pg. 266 4.0
Trigger While you have your shield raised, you would take damage from a physical attack.
You snap your shield in place to ward off a blow. Your shield prevents you from taking an amount of damage up to the shield’s Hardness. You and the shield each take any remaining damage, possibly breaking or destroying the shield.
Thus, I have seen the goblin champion choose to take full damage from a shield-destroying blow rather than lose her shield. She would save the shield for later, both for the AC bonus and to absorb damage from the next blow that would not wreck her shield. And she is currently a legendary crafter who can repair her shield in one action via Quick Repair, which might be why she is no longer so concerned about not having the very best sturdy steel shield appropriate for her level.
A massive-damage monster has to be balanced by being a glass cannon that the party can take down in two rounds. The defender does not have to take more than four hits from it. If the non-critical hits can have their damage reduced by shield blocking, then the defender can afford to absorb one critical hit.
And for the greater discussion about party composition, I chose Shield Block as an example because no single class has a monopoly on Shield Block. It is a general feat that any character can take at 3rd level. It would be a bad choice for a character cannot regularly carry a shield, such as a greataxe-wielding barbarian or a gunslinger who need both hands to reload. And it is a better choice for a character who will make use of a shield to raise their AC for defense, rather than characters who rely on staying away from opponents.
A massive-damage monster has to be balanced by being a glass cannon that the party can take down in two rounds.
Is this rule in the CRB? :-)
Side note: I hate the way this software handles quotes of long posts. :-(
A massive-damage monster has to be balanced by being a glass cannon that the party can take down in two rounds.Is this rule in the CRB? :-)
Nah, it is advice from the Gamemastery Guide.
Push and Pull
When it comes to statistics, a creature should be balanced overall. That means if you’re giving a creature an extreme statistic, it should have some low or terrible statistics to compensate. For example, if you were making a creature extremely hard to hit by giving it an extreme AC, you’d likely give it lower saving throws or low HP. If a creature is great at spellcasting, it might need several low statistics to be a balanced challenge. There’s no perfect system for making these decisions. If you’ve made a creature that has four high stats and nothing low, or vice-versa, take another look. A creature’s strengths and weaknesses change the PCs’ strategies for dealing with it, and that’s what makes playing the game fun!
Essentially, it is about the tight math of encounter balance, Core Rulebook, Game Mastering chapter, Building Encounters, pages 488-489. If I build a 10th-level creature to challenge the party, then it should be as easy to defeat as the other 10th-level creatures. If it is harder to defeat, then it is really an 11th-level creature. If it is easier to defeat, then it is a 9th-level creature. Thus, if I build a monster that consistently deals twice as much damage per turn as most other monsters of its level, then it ought to last half as many turns as those other monsters so that its total damage is appropriate for that level.
I presume that the Paizo developers who wrote the Bestiaries had the same concern about designing creatures as level-appropriate challenges.
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I presume that the Paizo developers who wrote the Bestiaries had the same concern about designing creatures as level-appropriate challenges.
As with the first published APs, I would expect that the first bestiary has outliers that break the expectations - creatures that are indeed much more challenging than their printed level would indicate.
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4 druids would have no problem in my opinion.
4 clerics too would be fine too.Druids aren't 'standard casters'. And clerics at least have 8 hp, though I don't believe that would help them much, they would have better healing, but probably worse damage, and bare healing only postpones the inevitable. If some of them were warpriests? Anyway, clerics already aren't 'standard'.
By 'standard' I meant (6) hp, saves and (absent) proficiences. So wizards, sorcs and witches.
And when Errenor speaks about 4 Fighters being an "easily viable party", I think martial players don't realize how they are dependent on support. A single Poltergeist eats the "easily viable" party of 4 Fighters as they have hard time inflicting just a dozen points of damage when in the same situation 4 Wizards should have no issue dealing with it despite being a very challenging party to build.I won't get into whiteboarding much (because I did try 4 wizards and it was atrocious, and also don't know the specifics with Rules Lawyer, and people post basically irrelevant things to the point), but that's such a bad example. This Poltergeist definitely would eat exactly wizards, because they would have the same or worse problems with it as fighters, but are terribly frail at the same time. It has resistance to all damage, energy won't help. So unless all of them somehow would fill their slots with Magic Missile and have their slots by the time of encounter, they would struggle. Meanwhile for at least half of fighters or even more of them having ghost touch runes and/or Ghost Charges in this situation would be self-evident.
Be nice if you said the "6 hit point" casters. Then I would have agreed and moved on.
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Someone recently posted that the "standard" party composition is (combatant, skill monkey, blaster, healer). If we use this model
It is an important question to know what your character is going to do in combat so you can plan and build for it. But characters fill multiple roles so that is a poor model to describe it.
the question is which classes fit into which of the four categories?
The answer is its complex. It is up to you. There are many different ways of building each class. Skills are not fundamentally limited by class nor is magic or combat healing. For sure casters are weaker in direct combat, but given they know they have to fill a role they can equip train and buff themselves to do that much better than you would normally expect for a typical member of a class. Yes a fighter is much better in melee than a wizard, but the wizard can survive a couple of rounds if he knows he has to. There are some innovative ways to fight.
More later when I have more time.