If you do, what's been your experience. If not, why not?
For me nearly every (but not every) caster I make has either a 16 strength or dexterity at level 1.
I pick a weapon, sometimes grabbing a dedication (Archer being a favorite) where I invest money into runes.
I often take feats such as bespell weapon or divine weapon.
I do this and it feels good. I enjoy being able to, when not needing to do something else, to fire a spell slot or save cantrip into a weapon strike. With potency runes, and no attack penalty, I feel I can hit often enough that it feels effective and worthwhile.
Why do I do this? Because I like maximizing my action impacts, and a action to use the meta magic *draw scroll* isn't exciting to me. I'll do it, but only in the most dire of scenarios.
Staves I use largely for ooc utility.
I feel I contribute to the group and to a battle more by doing this than by choosing not to
Generally, yes.
I have a level 1 Lore Oracle that doesn't currently have a weapon - just a couple of primal cantrips to use for damage.
For my Fervor Witch I have gotten quite a bit of use out of Warrior Android heritage letting me use Bows, Bombs, and a whip (which is usually used for trip rather than damage). This character has gone from level 1 up to level 7 now. It has felt pretty good.
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I used to do it regularly with almost all my casters but now I do it much less often.
I just found that lately I rarely actually bothered with the weapon. Most of the time I was using a third action to use a skill or move or raise a shield or something.
Now I'm more likely to get myself plate proficiency somehow and pretty much ignore BOTH Dex and Str and concentrate on the mental skills.
A caster strike is generally about on par with a martials second attack. It's definitely useful but hardly essential.
I enjoyed my weapon using casters but I seem to have mostly scratched that itch and moved on.
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Depends on the character.
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It just comes down to class fantasy for me, like if I'm playing a psychic or a sorcerer it's to just cast spells, if I wanted to hit things with a sword as well as cast spells I'd be playing a magus or warpriest
My first experiences with casters in PF2 was without weapons.
My first spellcaster build was a Gnome Cosmic Oracle focused in healing (I liked the idea of get damage reduction) and I used a shield. For attack I get some elemental cantrips like EA and Ray of Frost for long range. It was a good healer and a bad any other thing including damage dealer. Was fun because it worked pretty well as a healer.
My second spell caster was to use cantrips and a companion (was a gnome druid) but didn't endure too long. The companion efficient was good as I imagined it was more fragile than I though and not too effective as damage dealer. Also during initial levels (first 4) the attack cantrips was bit frustrating that used too much actions and miss pretty frequently with the exception of EA that rapidly becomes my main cantrip. I used Tempest Surge as main offensive spell but being able to only do 1 per encounter to a single target makes it bit bad specially when I rolled a bad dice and the monster get a success in a save.
My 3rd build was a Goblin Elemental Sorcerer focused in damage using fireballs and blood magic. The idea was to build it around fire from a safe distance so I didn't take weapons but the first level experience was terrible my damage efficiency was very low so after I cry to my GM to it allow me to remake the character I switch to Elf to get Short Bows and basically I started to shot arrows + EA. The experience wasn't so bad than also not the best the damage efficiency was bellow then all martials the only real fun I get with this character was to sometime cast a Goblin Pox in some opponents and see the GM confused if he was to use an action or keep the -1. But in general I save the slots to healing spells.
After level 5 when I fireballs but this was obviously unsustainable with many encounters per day so I begun to save it only when I get a good concentration of opponents. I also tried to invest into a Staff of Fire but it wasn't good so I back to bow.
My build only become interesting after level 12 when I got Bloodline Focus and I was able to cast Elemental Blasts (yes this focus spell have same name of main kineticist impulse) per encounter this diminished my spell slot consumption a lot and starting from lvl 13 I begin to use Fiery Body to get one-action produce flame and abandoned my bow.
In general my experience was that weapons are even more useful than staves but just as a patch while you don't reach the mid-levels and starts to use fiery body or a sustainable spell.
Also the efficiency of use weapons with non-clerics/druids isn't obvious. Me and my players when I begin to GM usually don't get one to complete their actions because the first impression is that the cantrips will do the jobs and only after notice that attack cantrips aren't enought and that you can combine well EA with an Strike is where you notice that worth to invest in weapons with casters at last until you get enought spell rank and slots to use your 3rd action with a spell.
I use them. Mostly bows.
I like building up a weapon even as a caster. I like to build up dexterity on my casters with my ability bonuses. For me the stat priority is main stat, con, dex, wisdom.
I find it very intuitive to build up a bow weapon for a caster. I find it keeps my damage competitive and adds to my options.
At higher level depending on the character or fight, I may switch to a wand or staff to expand casting only using the bow in a fight requiring less casting.
I always like to have the weapon option available.
Now I'm more likely to get myself plate proficiency somehow and pretty much ignore BOTH Dex and Str and concentrate on the mental skills.How do you ignore Str with plate? I can't even really ignore Str with druid and medium armor: don't have weight limits and don't want penalties, so have to wear light and a bad one at that. With plate penalties would be crippling.
On topic, my chars always have them, but almost never use: hands are almost always full past first few levels, modifiers and damage are too low, and there are a lot of other things to spend actions on. Exceptions are things like magic immune enemies, of course.
Ant haul wand and optional lifting belt should do it. Speed penalties aren't as bad for casters as they are for martials either so you can get away with not hitting the 50-60 speed cap for non-monks.
On topic, a bow is nice until one for all to get a crit aid becomes reliable.
I think the only "caster" character I had that didn't carry "something that could be used as a weapon" most of the time was my Summoner, who could basically use the eidolon as "a melee weapon".
Even if I was going to leave one action with the summoner and the remainder with the eidolon, "boost/reinforce eidolon" seemed like better options than "attack with a weapon."
In my seven-member party, the druid and the sorcerer do not use weapons. When they are not casting from the spell slots or focus pools, then their cantrips seem to be enough.
The monk, ranger, and thief-racket rogue are martial characers, though the monk uses unarmed atttacks rather than weapon attacks.
The champion is a weird build. She joined at 3rd level and requested a velociraptor as her Steed Ally. The champion herself specialized in defense and protection of others, and the velocirapter provided the offense. She has to act more conventionally at high levels after her Strength was boosted but the stats of the velociraptor did not keep up.
The magical trickster rogue with sorcerer archetype is the weapon-using caster. His favorite attack is combining the Telekinetic Projectile cantrip with sneak attack damage, but whenever the fight gets tough, he manifests Dragon Claws and makes flaming claw Strikes with sneak attack damage. He used a shortbow at 1st level before the Sorcerer Dedication.
Even on "pure" caster builds, I don't mind packing a crossbow and sling for the rare occasion, at least at low levels. Sometimes I have a third action left and at low levels that can clinch a kill for you.
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Now I'm more likely to get myself plate proficiency somehow and pretty much ignore BOTH Dex and Str and concentrate on the mental skills.How do you ignore Str with plate? .
Longstrider wand and fleet and maybe boots puts me at speed 30 or 35 or even 40 if ancestry allows. That is usually sufficient for a character that WANTS to stay out of melee. I have lots of negatives to all sorts of things I don't use :-).
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Usually no.
My Bard MC Oracle (Battle) should, but he prefers Spiritual Weapon. Also, I built him from the start to be a completely magical fellow, not relying on weapons or shield, because I enjoyed the aesthetics. And it frees his hands for other uses.
Same for my Witch (Baba Yaga) who prefers to rely on his animated object to fight for him.
I prefer my casters to use their spells to contribute in combat.
Obviously my Starlit Span Magus uses a weapon : her faithful bow that carries the wrath of Ragathiel to her foes (MC Cleric) using her spells, including Divine Lance and Disrupt Undead, to provide the appropriate type of damage.
All of mine have weapons.
I really think the more interesting question is which casters have weapons that have full fundamental runes and how quickly. I find that the priority for upgrading the weapons depends heavily on the type of caster you are running.
At first level (assuming the character has a decent Dexterity or Strength) there is very little reason to not carry some sort of weapon. The attack modifiers and damage potential are still close enough that you have a reasonable chance of hitting and the cost quickly becomes negligible.
Getting the +1 item potency rune on the weapon can interfere with getting some of the support stuff that some casters look for. I will generally prioritize a Hat of the Magi, Pendant of the Occult or Healer’s Gloves over the rune for many classes.
For Summoners, Magus and Warpriests I generally prioritize the fundamental weapon runes as highly as I would for a primary combatant. The priority might be just slightly lower on the Warpriest depending on the deity’s favored weapon.
I have cloistered clerics and wizards that have never gone past the first rune with any weapon. My feeling is another scroll has a better chance of affecting the course of battle than an upgraded weapon.
I am still trying to figure out where the balance point is for my animal druid and one of my bards. Most bards prioritize other things above the weapon runes.
In my experience it is generally around 7th level that the usefulness of weapons really starts dropping off for the classes that only have trained proficiency with their weapons. Your attack bonus is likely 3 or more behind the other classes making your chances of hitting low. Your primary action will usually be a spell and if it has the Attack trait forget trying to land a hit after that with a weapon. There are better uses of your actions than that.
I haven’t got much experience with double digit level characters, but expect the divide to become much wider. I have to wonder how the draconic sorcerer keeps their Dragon Claws focus spell relevant.
At least as a backup option, yes. Depending on the character concept, I might want to lean into weapon use a bit more (racial weapon training/expertise, Bespell Weapon, Channel Smite, Divine Weapon, etc.) even with a non-magi/non-summoner.
At higher level, investing in fundamental and possibly property runes on a staff is also a good idea (again, as a backup option). Proficiency scaling for casters typically cause them to fall even farther behind martials with weapon use, so it becomes less useful the higher the PCs level.
I've used a heavy crossbow on my Sorcerer at low level, it gave me a nice third action even if very far from any martial attack. But I stopped using it when I had to rune it as the cost is high for a negligible bonus.
Most of my casters have low Strength and average Dexterity, making the use of a weapon a rather weak idea.
