Paizo, please send True Strike to the boneyard...

[Calliope5431]

Unicore wrote:

I will try to address the math around black dragon specifically tomorrow because it is a particularly interesting and challenging example. It is a level 11 creature with a low reflex save, high fort save and no weaknesses, but immunity to acid. Lightning spells that target reflex are a particularly good option when fighting one because reflex saves essentially are its weakness, although it is also not a difficult creature to trip though which is a really strong tactic against such a mobile and tenacious creature. And then moving Frye caster from level 9 (as per the original example) to level 11 enables picking chain lightning, probably the best reflex targeting spell in the game, but not yet give us polar ray, which is the best spell attack spell to compare it to.

So it is a particularly good creature to pick if your goal is to argue that chain lightning is better than disintegrate. Or reflex targeting spells are better than spell attack roll spells. It is a terrible target for disintegrate, as opposed to many other creatures, like a Gosreg (as another 11th level example).

Yeah absolutely, and my goal wasn't to cherry pick a creature or move the goal posts at all. I was just looking at a level appropriate target for chain lightning, since at high level that's the real competition - fireball's scaling is obsolete by level 9 (where cone of cold and its 12d6 damage come in, vs the 10d6 of a 5th level fireball), never mind chain lightning (which at level 6 is about 15d6 vs cone of cold's 14d6 out of a 6th).

I'm happy to discuss polar ray - but it's not really a better option once it comes online either, compared to volcanic eruption

Polar ray calculations:

Looking at the first 3 bestiaries only, the average AC for a level 15 monster is 37 (numbers which correspond, incidentally, to marmorras, maruts, and adult umbral dragons). The average reflex save bonus is +25. A caster's spell save DC is 10 + 15 level + 5 ability modifier +6 master proficiency = 36, and +26 to hit.

Polar ray plus true strike thus has a 10% chance of critting, 65% chance of hitting but not critting, and 35% miss chance. Drained unfortunately isn't doubled on a crit, giving expectation value of:

0.65*75 (45 damage plus draining 2 on a level 15 monster) + 0.1*120 = 60

Meanwhile, the best single target reflex save is volcanic eruption out of an 8th level slot, dealing 16d6 (56) on a basic save plus 4d6 (14) automatic damage. We have 5% odds of a critical failure, 45% chance of a non critical failure, 45% chance of a non critical success and a 5% chance of a critical success. However, the heat wave is auto damage and occurs regardless of saving throw result.

Thus expected damage is:

14 (automatic) + (0.05*112) + (0.45*56) + (0.45*28) = 57

Tl;Dr It's certainly very close! I agree polar ray wins out by 3 points, though I'll add the caveat that drained doesn't stack with itself and thus subsequent castings of polar ray on the same target have vastly diminished returns, while volcanic eruption can be used round after round (and because of clumsy penalizing reflex saves it actually makes targeting the same creature more damaging rather than less).

Also worth noting that volcanic eruption is a 2-action area spell (albeit a very small one!), while polar ray is once again a single target spell that (including true strike) takes 3 actions to cast. For many characters, that third action can very much tilt things in favor of volcanic eruption - for instance, by casting *elemental toss* (elemental sorcerer focus spell), *force bolt* (evocation wizard focus spell), *mystic beacon* (magic cleric domain spell), *hand of the apprentice* (universalist wizard focus spell, and ironically enough a spell attack roll), quickening a low level attack or buff spell, casting a 1-action low level magic missile, demoralizing to reduce saving throws, and so on. There's definitely an opportunity cost to true strike, action-wise.

[Eldritch Yodel]

I don't get the argument "casters don't need a buff, that's why we can't replace a power booster peopel find annoying (and also depending on your class you might have to jump through hoops to be able to access) with a less annoying power booster--which most people agree would actually be smaller power increase". I can see the argument that True Strike shouldn't be a thing either, but saying it is fine whilst replacing it with something else is weird.

Let's do some number crunching to figure out around how good of a bonus True Strike is equal to. First, lets say that your to hit in this cast is 12 before bonuses from True Strike or an item. Comparing the hit & crit chances we've gone from the 45% hit without True Strike to a 69.75% with, and a 5% crit chance to a 9.75%. Now, lets go and compare a +4 bonus at this level, increasing your hit chance from 12 to 10, this'd get you up from a 45% hit chance to a 65%, and a 5% crit chance to a 15%. In this case, the hit chance from the +4 item is 4.75% less, but the crit chance is 5.25% more. In this case, True Strike is actually pretty similar to a +4 item, just trading some crit chance for more consistency (and I should also bring up that if say, the to-hit prior to the bonus was for example 13, then they're pretty much identical).

This shows that, yeah, True Strike is actually by a fair bit a more significant bonus that a +2 for casters, so it could be argued that this is actually a nerf... if it wasn't for the fact that Primal and Divine casters existed. As those lists don't have native access to True Strike, they're by comparison their attack spells are greatly nerf'd. Plus, as well as this even if it was available to all casters, you're still in a situation where a particular 1st level spell is so amazing at helping your high level attack spells (consider: if a True Strike increased the effectiveness of a 9th level slot by 50%, it is effectively equal in power to 50% of a 9th level slot) that it's a must-pick and creating ivory tower design.

If you don't wanna remove True Strike's ability to help attack spells & replace it with item bonuses (I'd personally make the items at level 5 & 13 myself), then instead just give all casters a feature letting them expend a spell slot to make their next attack roll have adv--though I doubt that's wanted.

[Old_Man_Robot]

True Strike Dependency goes down with increased accuracy. If the goal is to lessen the importance and use of True Strike, the best way to do that is to make it so that caster accuracy is on par with martial accuracy. That way we'll see a natural shift in usage to mirror how its used by Martials now.

The overall problem is, as it currently stands, Spell Attacks lack access to a type of bonus which is considered mandatory at key levels of the game. Enemy AC scaling is predicated on assumed access to these bonuses. With some levels hurting much more than others.

Lacking access to this bonus means that Spell Attacks can never, under any circumstances, compete with martial accuracy. Even making full use of all available tactical bonuses and penalties, two same-level (post 2nd) PC's, engaged to attacking an enemies AC in their preferred role, have a hard disparity in their numbers (averaging out dice rolls, etc).

An additional wrinkle here is, when talking about Martial accuracy, we generally mean Master-scaling martials, not legendary. Even though all full casters scale to legendary in their Spell Attacks, they never meet martials which only scale to master.

There are a LOT of costs that come with being a caster. Even more-so if you are a prepared caster.

Cost of versatility is already paid for. Or, at least should be. If casters are paying for versatility via weaker, more vulnerable chassis, and accuracy, then some other part of the formula needs to be adjusted upwards. At least for prepared casters, whose choice to prepare a Spell Attack represents a significant cost to that versatility if said Spell Attack is going to be inherently less effective than their other options.

On versatility as a whole, I feel this thread is getting a bit tropey or falling into previous-edition-think.

The scope of options available for martial classes is pretty huge. Access to spellcasting in their own right is relatively cheap, but the amount of things which can be done with class and skill feats is pretty huge. Its pretty easy to build a Fighter who can target all 4 saves and deliver meaningful combat alternations by doing so. Its pretty easy to build a Fighter who can cast more True Strikes a day than a caster would. All martials having varying degrees of access to AoE and battlefield control options as part of their class and skill feats, without even going to Archetype and Items. Access to buffing and healing has been greatly democratised. And the table-level popularity of Free Archetypes means that in real-play, Martials have access to pretty robust magical versatility if they want it.

The overall determinator comes down to asymmetrical access to item bonuses to aid in the functioning of their core role.

Casters don't necessarily need access to item bonuses to Spell Attacks to gain parity with martials, but they do need something to push the end results upwards.

[Gobhaggo]

It's easiier to get master spellcasting then it is to get master weapon prof after all.

[Riddlyn]

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

True Strike Dependency goes down with increased accuracy. If the goal is to lessen the importance and use of True Strike, the best way to do that is to make it so that caster accuracy is on par with martial accuracy. That way we'll see a natural shift in usage to mirror how its used by Martials now.

The overall problem is, as it currently stands, Spell Attacks lack access to a type of bonus which is considered mandatory at key levels of the game. Enemy AC scaling is predicated on assumed access to these bonuses. With some levels hurting much more than others.

Lacking access to this bonus means that Spell Attacks can never, under any circumstances, compete with martial accuracy. Even making full use of all available tactical bonuses and penalties, two same-level (post 2nd) PC's, engaged to attacking an enemies AC in their preferred role, have a hard disparity in their numbers (averaging out dice rolls, etc).

An additional wrinkle here is, when talking about Martial accuracy, we generally mean Master-scaling martials, not legendary. Even though all full casters scale to legendary in their Spell Attacks, they never meet martials which only scale to master.

There are a LOT of costs that come with being a caster. Even more-so if you are a prepared caster.

Cost of versatility is already paid for. Or, at least should be. If casters are paying for versatility via weaker, more vulnerable chassis, and accuracy, then some other part of the formula needs to be adjusted upwards. At least for prepared casters, whose choice to prepare a Spell Attack represents a significant cost to that versatility if said Spell Attack is going to be inherently less effective than their other options.

On versatility as a whole, I feel this thread is getting a bit tropey or falling into previous-edition-think.

The scope of options available for martial classes is pretty huge. Access to spellcasting in their own right is relatively cheap, but the amount of things which can be done with class and skill feats is...

So you want casters to be able to match martial accuracy. But what about the other way around, can martials match casters? People love to say but martials can take an archetype and pick up utility spells as if that some how balances things and it doesn't. No matter what a martial does it won't compete with a caster in terms of accuracy or power. So if we close one gap does the other get closed and move the game closer to being homogeneous

[Old_Man_Robot]

For most spells martials care about / actual utility spells, your spell casting modifiers don't matter at all.

You can teleport, fly, find objects, scry, get hasted, jump through time, heal, speak every language, summon, be invisible, and true strike all with only the minimum requirements to enter whatever archetype granted you spellcasting. That is, assuming you are even archetyping at all, and not just using items to gain these effects.

And because its stat agnostic, they do in fact do these things as well as a caster in most cases.

These aren't commensurate asks when you apply even the smallest amount of nuance.

[Wizard of Ahhhs]

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

The overall problem is, as it currently stands, Spell Attacks lack access to a type of bonus which is considered mandatory at key levels of the game. Enemy AC scaling is predicated on assumed access to these bonuses. With some levels hurting much more than others.

^ This times 1000!

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

On versatility as a whole, I feel this thread is getting a bit tropey or falling into previous-edition-think.

Yep. I think there's an impression that because there's hundreds of different spells in the game that casters are somehow much more versatile than martials. I do think they are a little more versatile but probably like 20% more versatile and not 2000% more.

The reality is that you're almost always going to bring the same spells to each adventuring day - the odd niche spell for character flavor not withstanding.

Incapacitation spells are right out since about a third of the fights I've been in have been against monsters greater than party level. I would go so far as to say that Incapacitation spells are de-facto GM use only.

Cone spells look great on paper but are very difficult to pull off in practice.

Buffs are a bit of a toss up. Some of them like Stoneskin are pretty good, but frankly buffing is not a play style that I personally enjoy. I will do it when the need arises but its not why I chose to play a wizard.

A lot of the other spells look great on paper but are really just too situational.

In theory, a prepared caster could do the Gandalf thing - i.e. ride to the library of Gondor, research the enemy and then prepare the ideal spell list for the adventuring day. In practice, this opportunity very rarely presents itself.

Because I rarely know the audience we'll be playing for I almost always go for the greatest hits: Fear, Magic Missile, Slow, Fireball, and yes True Strike. In fact, Magic Missile is probably the one spell I rely on more than any other due to enemy AC and/or magical resistances.

I guess I'm getting a little off topic at this point, but I would honestly give up 75% of the spells in the CRB if the remaining 25% were good, dependable spells that were applicable for most encounters.

[Riddlyn]

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

For most spells martials care about / actual utility spells, your spell casting modifiers don't matter at all.

You can teleport, fly, find objects, scry, get hasted, jump through time, heal, speak every language, summon, be invisible, and true strike all with only the minimum requirements to enter whatever archetype granted you spellcasting. That is, assuming you are even archetyping at all, and not just using items to gain these effects.

And because its stat agnostic, they do in fact do these things as well as a caster in most cases.

These aren't commensurate asks when you apply even the smallest amount of nuance.

No they very much are. Because you are asking to have your cake and eat it too. See you want casters to match martials for accuracy and you think that's balanced because martials can pick up utility spells? That's not. What you are asking for is for casters to encroach on the one niche martials have while knowing no matter what a martial does it'll never deal the damage or have the same versatility as a caster. His spells will miss more and his spell dc won't be good. If you want to make that argument then you need to talk about martials and damaging spells not utility spells. You're making an apples to oranges comparison otherwise

[Unicore]

I will get to the math later today, but remember that the the value of spell attack roll spells over saving throw spells is in how much easier it is to get bonuses to attack and debuff AC than it is to do the same with saving throw spells.

Just using truestrike with spell attack roll spells and not also rebuffing is not better than saving throw spells, but playing tactically with spell attack roll spells and then using truestrike is already a way to put casters on level with martials. This is the situation where getting an additional item bonus tips the scales, not the time the player is just throwing out spells to see what will stick.

This is why I said earlier that actual play experience will change players perceptions here on whether there is a problem, and why you have two different sides arguing that the numbers prove them right. It is because the tactical situations players see at the table (are the players cooperating and playing tactically? Are encounters more of a scramble to see who can get the killing blow?) will largely inform players gut feelings about the accuracy situation.

That is issue 1. Issue 2, still tied to play experience, is whether players are looking for spell attack roll spells to be a default, every encounter, preferred option for casters, or another way to target a different defense when the tactical situation justifies it. Most of the people talking about the utility of spell casting in this conversation are talking about this tactical utility (plus the ability to target different weaknesses and bypass resistances) more than than just access to buffs or other utility spells.

[Old_Man_Robot]

Riddlyn wrote:

No they very much are. Because you are asking to have your cake and eat it too. See you want casters to match martials for accuracy and you think that's balanced because martials can pick up utility spells? That's not. What you are asking for is for casters to encroach on the one niche martials have while knowing no matter what a martial does it'll never deal the damage or have the same versatility as a caster. His spells will miss more and his spell dc won't be good. If you want to make that argument then you need to talk about martials and damaging spells not utility spells. You're making an apples to oranges comparison otherwise

I think you are a bit turned around on the issue.

The ask is that Spell Attack rolls scale as well as martials because martial scaling is the assumed default for enemy AC scaling per level. The only reason martials even entered into the discussion is because of this assumption in AC scaling.

The problem overall is that Spell Attack rolls underperform vs Save based spells because the bonus to hit is too far behind and the spells themselves lack the success degrees of Save based spells.

If you think the only way address this issue is for martials to have full casting benefits at the same potency as full casters without paying any of the other costs... I think you are having your own version of this conversation with yourself.

[Old_Man_Robot]

Unicore wrote:

Most of the people talking about the utility of spell casting in this conversation are talking about this tactical utility (plus the ability to target different weaknesses and bypass resistances) more than than just access to buffs or other utility spells.

If that's the case, then this is a simply absurd on its face, right?

A well built martial already can target multiple saves and bypass resistances. Most of the classes have several inherent ways to do this through their feats and or skill uses. They won't be as powerful as spells, but that's because these options are based on unlimited resources with potentially infinite uses.

If we are really having the conversation that martials need full and equal access to caster level tactical utility while having:

1) No resource spend
2) Infinite uses of these abilities
3) Higher overall saves, AC and HP

Then we've reached a point in this discussion which is just silly. What would even be the point of a caster class if none of the costs they pay are worth it?

The trade off is power, not functionality. Spells deal more damage, but you can only do so many of them a day and need careful use. Martial attacks deal less damage but can be used without limit. Casters are fragile and need to spend actions positioning themselves careful to use their abilities tactically, martials are much more robust.

If we aren't valuing actual utility spells, but more battlefield control options, then we are setting the bar much much higher than the value of the fix needed to adjust spell attacks.

[dmerceless]

We can and probably will disagree on an exact implementation, but I will say: from my experience in 3-and-something years with PF2 and many tables, it's clear as the sky in my mind that spell attacks need something.

I'm Brazillian. I play with many people with low to mid level English who don't even have access to the international PF2 community at large. Yet Spell Attacks have been pointed out as a problem/feeling bad by basically every single person who tried to use them. It's not a fabrication of said community. It's a thing that, as far as I'm concerned, has been affecting people in actual games since day 1 of release.

Unicore makes some valid points about system mastery and teamwork affecting how good spell attacks are a great deal, but ultimately I think either case is a problem. If spell attacks are bad, that's... well, bad. If spell attacks are good, but only when you're between the "top players" in the game, isn't that still as big of a problem?

A mechanic that governs most of the offensive cantrips, many bread and butter Focus Spells like Amped TKP or Fire Ray, and extremely iconic spells like Shocking Grasp and Disintegrate should not require a high degree of system mastery for base functionality. To simply have a decent chance of hitting. I think calling that a non-issue at this point is literally the original definition of an Ivory Tower: being so stuck up in our tall buildings of game knowledge and "intellectual" discussions that we dismiss the problems that don't affect us specifically.

[aobst128]

Most people seem to think the magus is beneath the curve while it essentially has martial accuracy spell attacks. Have we talked about that?

[Calliope5431]

Riddlyn wrote:

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

For most spells martials care about / actual utility spells, your spell casting modifiers don't matter at all.

You can teleport, fly, find objects, scry, get hasted, jump through time, heal, speak every language, summon, be invisible, and true strike all with only the minimum requirements to enter whatever archetype granted you spellcasting. That is, assuming you are even archetyping at all, and not just using items to gain these effects.

And because its stat agnostic, they do in fact do these things as well as a caster in most cases.

These aren't commensurate asks when you apply even the smallest amount of nuance.

No they very much are. Because you are asking to have your cake and eat it too. See you want casters to match martials for accuracy and you think that's balanced because martials can pick up utility spells? That's not. What you are asking for is for casters to encroach on the one niche martials have while knowing no matter what a martial does it'll never deal the damage or have the same versatility as a caster. His spells will miss more and his spell dc won't be good. If you want to make that argument then you need to talk about martials and damaging spells not utility spells. You're making an apples to oranges comparison otherwise

Martials have several niches beyond generic accuracy that wouldn't be taken away if casters got an item bonus to attacks like they did. Some of the most relevant ones:

1. Survivability in general, by getting more than 8 hp per level (and sorc/wiz/witch only get 6...), actually getting master armor proficiency, actually getting master save proficiency in more than one save. Rogues get resolve and improved evasion by the time wizards get their first (and only) master save proficiency. Fighters get two master save proficiencies before wizards/sorcerers/witches even pick up *one*.

2. Survivability in melee, by not provoking opp attacks when they attack, some of which straight auto disrupt if they hit (looking at you, pit fiend, balor, and lesser death) and not eating failure chances for attacking while grappled

3. Better accuracy than casters. Still. Because they *still* have better to-hit scaling natively even if casters got item bonuses to hit at the same levels (expert proficiency at 5 vs 7, master proficiency at 13 vs 15). In addition, martials can actually benefit from flanking, which casters really can't (see point #2 and the lack of melee spell attacks) while casters are eating cover penalties for shooting into melee.

4. Single Target Damage. I don't know why you think damage on casters is higher than martials, but it really isn't, and it still wouldn't be even if spell attack damage were on par with save spells. Because we know current martials comfortably outdamage save spells for single targets.

Have you ever seen a high level rogue? It's horrifying.

rogue math:

With 3 attacks per round at no multiple attack penalty (one from on-turn, one from opportune backstabber, one from preparation feat) plus the chance for another at -4/5 multiple attack penalty if you don't need to move, which they *will* be getting sneak attack on between gang up, debilitations, knocking prone and goodness knows what else, their damage is off the wall. Rough calculation says it's 4d6 (major striking on a rapier) + 3d6 (runes) + 4d6 (sneak attack) + 6 (dex mod) + 6 (greater weapon specialist) = 50 per hit. As a reminder, polar ray is doing 10d8+40 = 95 per hit against creature 20 that hasn't already been drained. Volcanic eruption out of an 8th is dealing 20d6 = 70. Even cataclysm, a 10th that's usable a max of twice per day, only deals 115. And the caster is burning high level slots and two or three actions to use those spells.

At level 19 they also paralyze lower level enemies for four rounds on every hit. Which honestly feels like the rogue is infringing more on the *caster's* niche rather than the other way around.

5. Sustainability. Casters run out of spells. Martials don't run out of attacks. Enough said.

So no, giving casters an item bonus to hit doesn't "encroach on the one niche martials have". They'll *still* be more accurate at level 5-6 and 13-14, they'll still have better saves, hp, and AC, they'll still never run out of attacks, and they'll still deal more single target damage than the wizard can dream of. And possibly have more control too.

I'm not even asking for casters to be on par with martials on most of these points. I'm asking for spell attack rolls to be a viable option compared to other spells casters get, because trap options are no fun.

[whew]

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

For most spells martials care about / actual utility spells, your spell casting modifiers don't matter at all.

By that logic, for most spells casters care about, spell attack modifier doesn't matter at all.

That's because, in both cases, people naturally avoid spells that won't work well for them.

[Temperans]

aobst128 wrote:

Most people seem to think the magus is beneath the curve while it essentially has martial accuracy spell attacks. Have we talked about that?

Magus has a bunch of issues:

* They provoke AoO from just doing their basic thing.
* They cannot really use metamagic.
* When they miss they still lose the spell, so most just spam cantrips.
* The design makes it so ranged magus just turrets enemies, making the whole gameplay bleh.
* It has few low level spells from a specific, and at most just 2 8th level and 2 9th level spells. Which feels horrible when the magus should have the ability to play as a self buffer.
* The feats are kind of meh.

Magus with produce flame deals 10d4+4d8 (~43) after spending 2-3 actions. A Rogue flanking deals 4d6+4d8 (~32) as a single action (~64 if two attacks hit) and it doesn't provoke. Rogue is the weakest martial and gets 10 bonus skill feats and more proficiency increases than other classes, compared to the Magus' 4 high level spell slots...

[Temperans]

whew wrote:

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

For most spells martials care about / actual utility spells, your spell casting modifiers don't matter at all.

By that logic, for most spells casters care about, spell attack modifier doesn't matter at all.

That's because, in both cases, people naturally avoid spells that won't work well for them.

Casters should be able to use spell attacks exactly because they get the proficiency. But they cant because the spells scale so badly.

[aobst128]

Temperans wrote:

aobst128 wrote:

Most people seem to think the magus is beneath the curve while it essentially has martial accuracy spell attacks. Have we talked about that?

Magus has a bunch of issues:

* They provoke AoO from just doing their basic thing.
* They cannot really use metamagic.
* When they miss they still lose the spell, so most just spam cantrips.
* The design makes it so ranged magus just turrets enemies, making the whole gameplay bleh.
* It has few low level spells from a specific, and at most just 2 8th level and 2 9th level spells. Which feels horrible when the magus should have the ability to play as a self buffer.
* The feats are kind of meh.

Magus with produce flame deals 10d4+4d8 (~43) after spending 2-3 actions. A Rogue flanking deals 4d6+4d8 (~32) as a single action (~64 if two attacks hit) and it doesn't provoke. Rogue is the weakest martial and gets 10 bonus skill feats and more proficiency increases than other classes, compared to the Magus' 4 high level spell slots...

My intention was to draw a parallel just about their accuracy specifically. If it's not game breaking with the magus, would it be for casters?

[Old_Man_Robot]

whew wrote:

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

For most spells martials care about / actual utility spells, your spell casting modifiers don't matter at all.

By that logic, for most spells casters care about, spell attack modifier doesn't matter at all.

That's because, in both cases, people naturally avoid spells that won't work well for them.

In addition to Temperans point, you've confused "People try to avoid using them because they scale poorly" with "literally does not matter".

One is a practical consideration reflective of player choice. The other is purely mechanic and it doesn't matter if a player has an amazing stat or a terrible one, as it doesn't reference your spell casting ability at all.

[Aristophanes]

I have been playing PF2 since the original playtest. Mostly PFS, interspersed with a couple of modules and the first two volumes of EC, and have just started AV. I have only played two full casters, Bard and Storm Druid.
I have read this entire thread, and both "sides" have made compelling arguments, so I am still squarely on the fence.

I guess what I want to know is what affect would a spell attack bonus item, lets say +1 at 5th level and +2 at 13th, have on the math, and would the increase of success make anyone playing a Martial "feel bad".
I mean, in all honesty, I have never felt bad if my attacks do less damage than my compatriots, and I do feel a tiny bit sad if I miss. But, if my position, or a spell I cast enables someone else to succeed, or even crit, I feel I've succeeded too.

[Temperans]

Aristophanes wrote:

I have been playing PF2 since the original playtest. Mostly PFS, interspersed with a couple of modules and the first two volumes of EC, and have just started AV. I have only played two full casters, Bard and Storm Druid.

I have read this entire thread, and both "sides" have made compelling arguments, so I am still squarely on the fence.

I guess what I want to know is what affect would a spell attack bonus item, lets say +1 at 5th level and +2 at 13th, have on the math, and would the increase of success make anyone playing a Martial "feel bad".
I mean, in all honesty, I have never felt bad if my attacks do less damage than my compatriots, and I do feel a tiny bit sad if I miss. But, if my position, or a spell I cast enables someone else to succeed, or even crit, I feel I've succeeded too.

Casters will have a better chance to hit with spell attack. Martials will have a better chance to hit with spell attack.

Martials will still be the best at damage, just casters wont be far behind while using a limited quantity effect.

[PossibleCabbage]

I mean, the long and short of it is that martials should be the best in some things in the game and casters should be the best in different things in the game.

The basic "we're the best at it" things for Martials are:
- Single target damage
- Adventuring Stamina (including defenses that reduce HP attrition).

So what should be the things that Casters are the best at assuming that they should not be in the same class as Martials in those two things?

[Easl]

I'm late to the party, but...

siegfriedliner wrote:

I am not sure I agree unless the enemies AC is high level +1 extreme or level +2 high onwards most martials will do more damage on average with two hits than a true strike plus strike.

Doing some math...for both agile and non-agile weapons the turnover point is at 50% chance to hit (i.e. AC bonus matches hit bonus). At lower or equal AC, striking twice is better. At higher ACs (i.e. chance to hit 45% or lower), striking once with True Strike is better.

So save it for the boss. :)

Maguses wanting to hit the villain's henchmen with their spellstrike, and other martials that want to use a 'One Massive Hit' style on low-AC enemies, may be an exception. If you really really need to land that one big hit, obviously you want to go with True Strike.

Also obviously, a shift to "item bonus for spells but no True Strike" would shaft the Magus (as well as other One Massive Hit style martial builds).

[Pieces-Kai]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I mean, the long and short of it is that martials should be the best in some things in the game and casters should be the best in different things in the game.

The basic "we're the best at it" things for Martials are:
- Single target damage
- Adventuring Stamina (including defenses that reduce HP attrition).

So what should be the things that Casters are the best at assuming that they should not be in the same class as Martials in those two things?

Both casters and martials benefit from being able to deal with HP Attrition more because of the way Treat Wounds once you get the feats people just end up handwaving the whole thing because of the tedium of it. Also people aren't asking for casters to be the kings of single target damage they just feel like missing more feels like s*** and hitting would be nice

[Easl]

Eldritch Yodel wrote:

I don't get the argument "casters don't need a buff, that's why we can't replace a power booster peopel find annoying (and also depending on your class you might have to jump through hoops to be able to access) with a less annoying power booster--which most people agree would actually be smaller power increase"...

Let's do some number crunching to figure out around how good of a bonus True Strike is equal to...

Lets. Calculating to hit chance, True Strike is...

Better than +1 unless chance to hit is 5%
Better than +2 unless chance to hit is 10% or lower
Better than +3 unless chance to hit is 15% or lower
Better than +4 unless chance to hit is 20% or lower
Better than +5 unless chance to hit is 25% or lower

That's as far as I took it. Also, I didn't calculate chance to crit for True Strike vs. Flat bonuses because crits have different effect based on the spell. Sometimes that will make a huge difference, other times it won't.

Quote:

This shows that, yeah, True Strike is actually by a fair bit a more significant bonus that a +2 for casters,

I think it's fair to say that, when it comes to just plain hitting your target, TS is "better by a fair bit" to ANY flat item bonus Paizo is likely to allow. 'Roll twice, take the best' is awesome almost all of the time.

Caveat 1: you're right about Primal and Divine casters.

Caveat 2: for spells where crits provide some direct boost to damage, the "flip point" at which the flat bonus becomes better might shift a bit in favor of flat bonuses.

[NECR0G1ANT]

Aristophanes wrote:

I guess what I want to know is what affect would a spell attack bonus item, lets say +1 at 5th level and +2 at 13th, have on the math, and would the increase of success make anyone playing a Martial "feel bad".

It would raise the optimization ceiling non-cantrip attack spells, although even that wouldn't make disintegrate better than chain lightening. It would also make cantrip attack spells more accurate, but that woukd be even less significant than the first effect.

[Calliope5431]

NECR0G1ANT wrote:

Aristophanes wrote:

I guess what I want to know is what affect would a spell attack bonus item, lets say +1 at 5th level and +2 at 13th, have on the math, and would the increase of success make anyone playing a Martial "feel bad".

It would raise the optimization ceiling non-cantrip attack spells, although even that wouldn't make disintegrate better than chain lightening. It would also make cantrip attack spells more accurate, but that woukd be even less significant than the first effect.

Yeah I ran the numbers on shadow signet for adult black dragon with spell penetration disintegrate and it came out to expectation 45 damage with true strike (vs chain lightning 44 expected damage on a single target). The difference was a reflex DC of 28 vs AC 31, which is actually the equivalent of a -3 penalty to AC (or just +3 to hit).

The issue being that chain lightning then bounces to 5 other people and your PC still feels sad, of course, but at least the single target spell isn't blatantly outdamaged by the multiple target one against a single target .

Likewise, it raised true strike + 2-action horizon thunder sphere damage to expectation value 53 (vs the 44 from chain lightning) with spell penetration vs adult black. So you actually do more damage with the single target spell than the multi target spell against a single target. Heresy, I know.

Without true strike the damage is still in the trash can, of course. But that's because attack roll spells have damage balanced like multi target spells despite, um, not being multi target. You need an effective +3 to hit for them to actually compete with save half spells against single targets, and +6 or so to make them actually meaningfully better in that sort of situation.

[The Raven Black]

AFAIK Martials do not deal damage when an opponent succeeds at a Reflex or Fortitude or even Will save. And they cannot use 2 actions to automatically deal force damage to several opponents or a single target as they prefer.

Should we go on with the list of all things casters actually do that martials cannot ?

[Old_Man_Robot]

The Raven Black wrote:

AFAIK Martials do not deal damage when an opponent succeeds at a Reflex or Fortitude or even Will save. And they cannot use 2 actions to automatically deal force damage to several opponents or a single target as they prefer.

The ask is not to do everything martials can. No one is asking for equal weapon usage, better armour, saves, HP, etc.

The ask is for one class of spell to not under perform against other spells because the game assumes access to item bonuses that said spells cannot get.

[Calliope5431]

The issue is an intra-caster one, yes. The only relevance martial PCs have to the discussion is whether they'd cry in a corner because casters are stomping all over their niche. Which they won't. Because the target numbers correspond to blaster basic save spells, which already exist and which nobody complains about.

Unless the argument being put forward is that chain lightning, spirit blast, and fireball need a nerfbat to make martials happy, which I don't think is the point you're going for, martials aren't really germane to the discussion.

[Martialmasters]

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

AFAIK Martials do not deal damage when an opponent succeeds at a Reflex or Fortitude or even Will save. And they cannot use 2 actions to automatically deal force damage to several opponents or a single target as they prefer.

The ask is not to do everything martials can. No one is asking for equal weapon usage, better armour, saves, HP, etc.

The ask is for one class of spell to not under perform against other spells because the game assumes access to item bonuses that said spells cannot get.

But it should still under perform to an optimized martial for single target damage

I've played many ttrpgs at this point and almost all of them aside from this one (I didn't play 4e DND) had the issue where someone with system mastery or knowledge of the games balance intricacies could tear apart the game at it's seams in comparison to the average player.

What I like about pf2e is this almost never happens.

I like that spell casters are kings of versatility and AOE. I like that martials are kings of single target. I like that casters and martials have their roles and those roles are protected from being stepped on.

The issue for me is the number of spell slots at low level. And the available spells available.

Why are the level one AOE options limited to 15 foot cones. And if they must be, why don't they become bigger later.

Went is magic weapon so ungodly strong at early levels as to make you feel dumb for not doing it every fight.

Why do we start with only 2 spell slots.

Cantrips are better than ever and I love it. But even with 5 I feel like I want more (personal problem maybe, I often take cantrip expansion)

But people also really under sell weapons with your casters. Either they could give one action lower damage versions of cantrips or people need to start using bows and crossbows.

None of this changes my absolute hatred for true strike

It's not fun to feel like that in order to consistently make your spell attack land you must

1: use a second finite resource
2: lock yourself into a 3 action routine, this really sucks because that means no, recall knowledge, face skill, interact action, anything.

[Old_Man_Robot]

The Raven Black wrote:

AFAIK Martials do not deal damage when an opponent succeeds at a Reflex or Fortitude or even Will save.

Also, while I take your general point here, it should be noted that Alchemists, Gunslingers, Inventors, Barbarians, and Monks do all have options for these. There might be more, but that’s off the top of my head. Don’t forget that anything which grants a basic save is half damage in a successful save.

Fighters and Thaumaturges also have means of forcing damage on failures, but they don’t target saves but instead are still concerned with AC. Also, Thaumaturges have an unlimited use, mini-True Strike, and no one really seems to mind that.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

The Raven Black wrote:

AFAIK Martials do not deal damage when an opponent succeeds at a Reflex or Fortitude or even Will save. And they cannot use 2 actions to automatically deal force damage to several opponents or a single target as they prefer.

Well, that's because Martials don't really target those things. Or if they do, they aren't really targeting them to deal damage. Trips, Grapples, Stunning Fist, etc. aren't damage-based save effects, meaning the complaint of them not doing damage on a success is practically pointless because these things also don't do damage on a failure either. (Trip technically does 1D6 on a critical, but not taking outliers as a baseline here.)

[QuidEst]

Good/Bad News, Depending On Your View: True Strike is gone!
Bad/Good News, Depending On Your View: Sure Strike sounds very similar!

[Darksol the Painbringer]

QuidEst wrote:

Good/Bad News, Depending On Your View: True Strike is gone!

Bad/Good News, Depending On Your View: Sure Strike sounds very similar!

As long as Sure Strike only applies to a Strike action/activity, I'm fine with it.

[Calliope5431]

I take back what I said about cone of cold being good damage. Looks like the remaster (preview just released) hit it with a nerfbat (howling blizzard is now 10d6 with a bit more targeting flexibility, meaning that fireball scaling is in fact the new standard). Ditto ignition.

But I'll note that thunderstrike scales at 1d12+1d4 = 9 damage per level.

[Unicore]

The new remaster document leaves a lot of questions for me, so I am going to bow out of doing any math analysis at this point in time because it might all be superseded in the very near future. Like are weaknesses and resistances being doubled down on in the remastery or will they appear with about the same frequency? Are spells that do 2 types of damage going to be more valuable moving forward? There are just too many question marks to really speculate without having the remastery books in hand. I definitely don't think I will try to half-implement any of these changes until I have all the core books, probably including the player core 2. I hope the psychic is not completely left in the dark (archive).

[Calliope5431]

Unicore wrote:

The new remaster document leaves a lot of questions for me, so I am going to bow out of doing any math analysis at this point in time because it might all be superseded in the very near future. Like are weaknesses and resistances being doubled down on in the remastery or will they appear with about the same frequency? Are spells that do 2 types of damage going to be more valuable moving forward? There are just too many question marks to really speculate without having the remastery books in hand. I definitely don't think I will try to half-implement any of these changes until I have all the core books, probably including the player core 2. I hope the psychic is not completely left in the dark (archive).

Plus we don't know what if any class features are changing. I agree, numbers will be up in the air for a while.

[Squiggit]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I mean, the long and short of it is that martials should be the best in some things in the game and casters should be the best in different things in the game.

To be honest, martial vs caster is largely irrelevant to this thread topic.

"Successfully performing your abilities" is neither a caster nor martial specific niche.

Martials only get brought up because they represent an already existing baseline. They aren't really relevant otherwise.

Sentiments like "Ray of Enfeeblement landing more reliably would make Fighters worse" are functionally gibberish. There's no internal logic there.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

Unicore wrote:

Like are weaknesses and resistances being doubled down on in the remastery or will they appear with about the same frequency? Are spells that do 2 types of damage going to be more valuable moving forward?

I'm not sure about that, we'd have to look at creature stat blocks to be certain, since short of OGL avoidance, I wouldn't expect much change in stat blocks.

But even if we take pre-Remaster creature stat blocks, being able to deal multiple types of damage is more advantageous than only being able to do fewer or even one, so it will obviously add to a spell's versatility/potency, even if people want to argue otherwise.

[Eldritch Yodel]

Easl wrote:

: Caveat 2: for spells where crits provide some direct boost to damage, the "flip point" at which the flat bonus becomes better might shift a bit in favor of flat bonuses.

I did actually originally account for the extra damage from crits, though I didn't put much emphasis on it in the original message because I felt it overcomplicated the whole thing (actually, in an earlier version I didn't do "hit & crit", but "non-crit hit and crit"). In a more expanded thing I counted every crit as two hits effect wise as I felt it was fairly accurate to what it does, and from most my checking it still pushed out ahead. If you're doing something where a crit does more than two hits worth of stuff, then then, yes, it might be pulling ahead. But yeah, given people are just asking for a +2, even accounting for mega crits, unless you're vs'ing some really powerful creatures, the swap of True Strike for +1/2 items is more a simplicity buff than any kind of power one whatsoever (as the 1st level spell slot is really not worth much power lol)

Thanks for the expanded math though! Quite nice.

[Tactical Drongo]

'Martials are King of single target damage'
I See the Point and I do agree

But I don't think it would be Bad If spellcasters single target spells, a limited recource, would out-dpr a martial, even by 2 Turns Worth of damage
A Martial would just do another turn like the last, the spellcaster has to think twice If He wants to use another one of His highest spell Slots

It is an Investment of a limited recource with a risk of wasting it, a risk that is substantially higher against the big enemies

For lower threat enemies ist would probably end Up being Overkill often, so you overspend your recource, but got something of it

In that vein I support casters getting spell attentiators of some Sort

That might digress from the core question about sure Strike but I think the discussion evolved enough at this Point anyWay

[3-Body Problem]

I'll never get why designers continue to make martial classes that lack utility and then nerf casters so they don't outshine them. There is no reason why a martial character couldn't be designed to get blatantly supernatural abilities past level 10. Things like a FF Dragoon-style leaps to melee flying foes, shrugging off magic effects better than other classes by sheer force of will, bending luck around them in ways that defy explanation. Just because you want a character that can swing a weapon and wear armor doesn't mean you should get stuck being a boring warrior who's stuck fighting with the same style of attacks you had at level 1.

[Temperans]

3-Body Problem wrote:

I'll never get why designers continue to make martial classes that lack utility and then nerf casters so they don't outshine them. There is no reason why a martial character couldn't be designed to get blatantly supernatural abilities past level 10. Things like a FF Dragoon-style leaps to melee flying foes, shrugging off magic effects better than other classes by sheer force of will, bending luck around them in ways that defy explanation. Just because you want a character that can swing a weapon and wear armor doesn't mean you should get stuck being a boring warrior who's stuck fighting with the same style of attacks you had at level 1.

Funny thing about that, in pathfinder Barbarians can transform into dragons, createe earthquakes, breath fire, etc. Monks can shoot blasts of energy, teleport, become immune to diseases, and do some incredibly wild things (look at the PF1 archetypes). Fighters can create weapons out of shadows, impart magic on their weapons, and do things that an IRL person could only dream off just because they are that good. Champions are literally powered by a god. Rangers also have stuff that no real person could easily do.

Pathfinder has magical/extraordinary martials, it always had them, they already can do a lot of utility things. But some people still feel the need to crush casters because "think of the martial's feelings". What about the caster's feelings, do those not matter?

[3-Body Problem]

Temperans wrote:

Funny thing about that, in pathfinder Barbarians can transform into dragons, createe earthquakes, breath fire, etc. Monks can shoot blasts of energy, teleport, become immune to diseases, and do some incredibly wild things (look at the PF1 archetypes). Fighters can create weapons out of shadows, impart magic on their weapons, and do things that an IRL person could only dream off just because they are that good. Champions are literally powered by a god. Rangers also have stuff that no real person could easily do.

Pathfinder has magical/extraordinary martials, it always had them, they already can do a lot of utility things. But some people still feel the need to crush casters because "think of the martial's feelings". What about the caster's feelings, do those not matter?

I think there's room to make them even less restricted. Like that fire-breathing Barbarian should be able to have a limited selection of spells they can mimic with their breath. Give martial classes more room to, in a limited way, mimic casters natively and it will feel less bad when things a caster does step on a martial class's toes.

[Temperans]

3-Body Problem wrote:

Temperans wrote:

Funny thing about that, in pathfinder Barbarians can transform into dragons, createe earthquakes, breath fire, etc. Monks can shoot blasts of energy, teleport, become immune to diseases, and do some incredibly wild things (look at the PF1 archetypes). Fighters can create weapons out of shadows, impart magic on their weapons, and do things that an IRL person could only dream off just because they are that good. Champions are literally powered by a god. Rangers also have stuff that no real person could easily do.

Pathfinder has magical/extraordinary martials, it always had them, they already can do a lot of utility things. But some people still feel the need to crush casters because "think of the martial's feelings". What about the caster's feelings, do those not matter?

I think there's room to make them even less restricted. Like that fire-breathing Barbarian should be able to have a limited selection of spells they can mimic with their breath. Give martial classes more room to, in a limited way, mimic casters natively and it will feel less bad when things a caster does step on a martial class's toes.

That's what the magus was supposed to be, the martial character that can use more magic. This is why I kept saying that wavecasting is bad. That's what the warpriest was supposed to be, which is why I hate that its just PF1 cleric but renamed. That is what ranger and champion were, but they remove the spells.

Martials can already get 8th level spells. They can already use all the magic items a caster can. What more do you want a martial to get before you can say "oh yeah sure casters can finally use their spells".

[Calliope5431]

Temperans wrote:

Pathfinder has magical/extraordinary martials, it always had them, they already can do a lot of utility things. But some people still feel the need to crush casters because "think of the martial's feelings". What about the caster's feelings, do those not matter?

My group has an in-joke whenever we see an outrageously overpowered spell in 5e. It goes something like "well, it's called wizards of the coast, not [insert non wizard class here] of the coast".

The point being that since 2000, when the 3e PHB came out, the wizard has been far and away the best class, oftentimes having single spells (summon monster, forcecage, polymorph) stronger than entire classes (why play a fighter if you can just summon one?).

Pathfinder 1e nerfed wizard a tiny, tiny bit (giving forcecage a save and hit points, making the polymorph line saner) but left much of the core power intact (for instance, stinking cloud still nauseated people for 1d4+1 rounds, just like it did in AD&D 1e in 1978).

Pathfinder 2e was a conscious step back from the "if you're not playing a wizard what are you even doing here?" vibe. That's why the incapacitation tag exists: to make it so that the wizard can't snap his fingers and end every fight round 1 with a save-or-die or save-or-suck. That's why casters have far fewer spell slots than in pf 1e.

I say this not to excuse the nerfbat (if one really is coming, I agree with Unicore that we need to wait for the full remaster before we make judgements about that) but to provide context. After two solid decades of hearing about how wizards are broken it can be hard to understand that you're actually overcorrecting.

[Temperans]

Calliope5431 wrote:

Temperans wrote:

Pathfinder has magical/extraordinary martials, it always had them, they already can do a lot of utility things. But some people still feel the need to crush casters because "think of the martial's feelings". What about the caster's feelings, do those not matter?

My group has an in-joke whenever we see an outrageously overpowered spell in 5e. It goes something like "well, it's called wizards of the coast, not [insert non wizard class here] of the coast".

The point being that since 2000, when the 3e PHB came out, the wizard has been far and away the best class, oftentimes having single spells (summon monster, forcecage, polymorph) stronger than entire classes (why play a fighter if you can just summon one?).

Pathfinder 1e nerfed wizard a tiny, tiny bit (giving forcecage a save and hit points, making the polymorph line saner) but left much of the core power intact (for instance, stinking cloud still nauseated people for 1d4+1 rounds, just like it did in AD&D 1e in 1978).

Pathfinder 2e was a conscious step back from the "if you're not playing a wizard what are you even doing here?" vibe. That's why the incapacitation tag exists: to make it so that the wizard can't snap his fingers and end every fight round 1 with a save-or-die or save-or-suck. That's why casters have far fewer spell slots than in pf 1e.

I say this not to excuse the nerfbat (if one really is coming, I agree with Unicore that we need to wait for the full remaster before we make judgements about that) but to provide context. After two solid decades of hearing about how wizards are broken it can be hard to understand that you're actually overcorrecting.

... I know that they are doing it because "wizards were OP before", you don't have to tell me that. I also think that reason is BS because its clear they went too far at specifically targetting the wizard and ignoring CoDzilla and Bard (who got buffed).

Also, what? Yeah sure DnD5e might have had issues, but this is Pathfinder 2e. How is "wizards are too strong in DnD5e" a reasonable reason for Pathfinder Wizard to get nerfed to oblivion? That is not even considering that in the last year of Pathfinder 1e martials and casters were pretty much even in terms of the crazy things they could do. Yeah some specific caster builds were still ahead, but by that same logic you had martials whose entire build was "let's make mages suffer".

Anyways, I understand what you are trying to say, but I highly disagree with you about it being a good reason. But I agree that they are clearly not seeing that they are over correcting. (Although my theory is that they just hate arcane casters)

[Calliope5431]

Temperans wrote:

... I know that they are doing it because "wizards were OP before", you don't have to tell me that. I also think that reason is BS because its clear they went too far at specifically targetting the wizard and ignoring CoDzilla and Bard (who got buffed).

Also, what? Yeah sure DnD5e might have had...

The 5e comment was merely to provide an amusing anecdote about the consistently high power of wizard from edition to edition - not a reflection on the pf 2e wizard. As a matter of fact, I agree with you that wizard is already sad in this edition and really doesn't need to get gutted even more.

I'd actually say they did a fine job hitting CoDzilla with a nerfbat. Like. Have you seen warpriest? Don't bring that horrible thing anywhere near melee combat. Actually, maybe don't bring it anywhere near any combat at all. And anyone who thinks cloistered cleric is going to replace the fighter or sorcerer has never seen a fighter or sorcerer in their life. A pile of fort save spells and healing does not CoDzilla make.

The bard issue is that it was frankly meh in 3.x and PF. Bardic performance was a mess and 2/3 casting made people unhappy. So they buffed the living hell out of it in pf 2e by giving it 1-10 casting and then also gave it focus cantrips so good that they dramatically change any encounter with them in it.

But that's a detour. No, I don't think a wizard nerf is justified (if one happens) and I will be right there with you holding a pitchfork if there is one.

[3-Body Problem]

Temperans wrote:

That's what the magus was supposed to be, the martial character that can use more magic.

The Magus has such an awful action economy and such limited spellcasting that they completely failed to capture the feeling that the class had in previous editions. As is I'd rather have an archetype version that grants focus spells that mimic spell strikes and bolt that onto another class.

Quote:

Martials can already get 8th level spells. They can already use all the magic items a caster can. What more do you want a martial to get before you can say "oh yeah sure casters can finally use their spells".

I'd be for baking it in. A lot of people just want to play a straight class and pretend that the epic stuff they're doing isn't casting a spell even if the effects end up being identical. Explicitly adding more cool flashy stuff to martial classes makes them less boring for people like myself to play and gives them a better sense of progression beyond number goes up style strike + crit specialization gameplay.