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Already mentioned house rules.
Doesn't change character choices in combat can be objectively measured performance.
I can walk into any person's game barring house rules and outperform bya good measure anyone that makes subjectively driven performance choices. I can do this at any table. So can anyone who measures this game objectively for performance.
Anyone who even mildly tries knows the best spells to take, the best weapons to use, the best builds. They know these will outperform weaker builds across tables regardless of subjective feelings on what you value.
I always wonder why some are so resistant this idea of objectively measurable performance. They confuse it with personal choice. It has nothing to do with that. It as simple knowing slow and synesthesia will be the best choice in the vast majority of situations for debuffing and achieving maximum combat power within a group.
All this stuff in these games is based on measurable math. If you want to choose inferior options, you can do it. If you have fun having doing it, then have at it.
But don't pretend that someone showing at your table who understands how to make a powerful character in PF2 is somehow using "impossible to measure" magic to objectively figure out the best options in combat. That's just bunk.
This game has best options options for performance. They are measurable and do not change from table to table absent house rules or some specific variable which makes some other choice more valuable, which is also measurable.
I say nothing about what is and what is not objectively measurable. Some classes and builds are understrength. That's true. In particular, some classes are straight-up understrength, some require specific builds to function well (builds that, in some cases, may not yet have been discovered) and some, in particular, require very specific kinds of player skill to use most effectively, and if you, as the player, do not have those particular skills, they will be understrength in your hands.
I do not fault your general vague premises.
I fault the certainty with which you assert your personal conclusions. I think your issue is here:
Why do you keep telling me stuff that isn't true?
Combat is a measurable, objective way to measure performance. The rules are consistent from table to table barring house rules.
Which means, I can measure whether or not you made a good decision valuing AoE damage versus a single target debuff spell by the effect on performance in the group.
- "Combat is a measurable, objective way to measure performance" Speaking as someone who once thought he wanted to major in Philosophy, I'm not even going to start to engage with whether or not this statement is correct or not. It is both. It is a festering hole of semantic arguments waiting to happen. You seem to put a lot of emotional importance in this statement, and it's exactly the sort of thing that can mean different things coming out than it did going in. I don't think this was in any way intentional on your part, but it basically has a motte and bailey baked right into it, and it's really easy to use statements like that (entirely unintentionally) as a way of convincing yourself of things that are not true.
- "The rules are consistent from table to table barring house rules"
This is... mostly true. There's also GM interpretations, and there are certain rules that are still vague enough that they require GM interpretations. Still, for our purposes, this is functionally true. It's true enough.
- "Which means, I can measure whether or not you made a good decision valuing AoE damage versus a single target debuff spell by the effect on performance in the group."
This is absolutely straight-up false. It's just not true. "performance in the group" is (by default) performance at one table, with one party, under one GM. Even when it goes a little broader than that - say, an extended local subculture of people who wander in and out of groups over the course of multiple campaigns, swapping between GMs, you still see some pretty strong tendencies arise.
I mean, you even called out your most obvious counterexample. How important is AOE damage vs single-target? Well, at bare minimum, it depends on how many enemies you tend to fight, and how closely packed they tend to be, doesn't it? If you're regularly getting into fights with level+2 and level+3 enemies, then that's most of the budget of the encounter in one or two targets. At that point, focusing on area effect damage is kind of pointless, isn't it? Whether or not a given spell has incapacitation on it is a big deal, and finding spells that have decent effects even on a successful save starts to look pretty important. If your average enemy is level-2, though, with occasional at-level monsters set up as elites leading the pack, then suddenly "incapacitation" doesn't matter at all, and area effect starts looking pretty good... especially if you do a lot of your fighting in enclosed areas.
So no. You can't accurately measure whether or not someone else's priorities are correct by testing it out at your own table, with your own group. You'd have to somehow test it out at their table, with their group.
I say nothing about what is and what is not objectively measurable. Some classes and builds are understrength. That's true. In particular, some classes are straight-up understrength, some require specific builds to function well (builds that, in some cases, may not yet have been discovered) and some, in particular, require very specific kinds of player skill to use most effectively, and if you, as the player, do not have those particular skills, they will be...Already mentioned house rules.
Doesn't change character choices in combat can be objectively measured performance.
I can walk into any person's game barring house rules and outperform bya good measure anyone that makes subjectively driven performance choices. I can do this at any table. So can anyone who measures this game objectively for performance.
Anyone who even mildly tries knows the best spells to take, the best weapons to use, the best builds. They know these will outperform weaker builds across tables regardless of subjective feelings on what you value.
I always wonder why some are so resistant this idea of objectively measurable performance. They confuse it with personal choice. It has nothing to do with that. It as simple knowing slow and synesthesia will be the best choice in the vast majority of situations for debuffing and achieving maximum combat power within a group.
All this stuff in these games is based on measurable math. If you want to choose inferior options, you can do it. If you have fun having doing it, then have at it.
But don't pretend that someone showing at your table who understands how to make a powerful character in PF2 is somehow using "impossible to measure" magic to objectively figure out the best options in combat. That's just bunk.
This game has best options options for performance. They are measurable and do not change from table to table absent house rules or some specific variable which makes some other choice more valuable, which is also measurable.
I put no emotional importance in the statement. I merely like to debate. I find it strange that people who are likely intelligent find it so hard to accept and believe that PF2, a ruleset for a game, would have objectively measurable performance metrics.
This means I can walk into anyone's game on these boards using the common ruleset and create a character that will perform at a high level. I can explain why I can do this using the available ruleset. Why some choices are better than others. Why certain objectively measured choices are superior in combat. I can do this for any game at any table using the PF2 ruleset after sufficient time using the ruleset. I can do this as long as there is not some confounding variable that alters the ruleset like house rules or a focused campaign on something like undead which would elevate some other choice.
What is subjective is some of you don't like to play this way. That doesn't change in any way the objective analysis of superior and inferior options.
The AoE example is not an either or statement. You take AoE as well as other options. Valuing AoE over something else is not even a consideration when you can have a high performing AoE option with other options.
Pretty much that yeah.
Look, it's not like the MATH is even that good of a metric. "Mathematically superior"...at what, pray tell? I can be "mathematically superior" to another PC in terms of damage all I want, but who cares? I've got a fighter who can white-room deal a few hundred points of damage per round in melee, but that means NOTHING if the monsters cheerfully lock me behind a wall of force with no save and watch me waste my actions to get out. Or if they're flying 100 feet above my head and I can't reach them on a triple move. Or if they disjoin my sword. I've watched all of these things happen, and all that pretty white room math falls to pieces when they do.
It's not like people are arguing "oh you should play a wizard with +0 Int if you want, it doesn't make any difference, it's all about how you feel about the character." People are pushing back on the idea that you can "just know" if a character is any good by sitting in your armchair crunching numbers. Certain things, like not having +0 Int as a wizard, are knowable. But others are not.
That's not what they're arguing. They are arguing against the idea that PF2 performance is objectively measurable. It is. I've done it for PF2 and other games for years.
Some refer to it as optimization, power gaming, or a variety of other names. It is possible to do in PF2 and every other version of D&D, PF1, or RPGs I've ever played.
Some take offense at this play-style and attack it. Happens all the time on these forums. I'm used to it at this point.
I'll let the designers know when some classes or options aren't so good because I wouldn't mind seeing them improved. So I'll keep doing what I'm doing and if I have to take some shots from forum posters that don't like the performance-based play-style, so be it. Not going to change how I go about things.
I think my viewpoint is more helpful than most because it at least gives the designers something to action using some kind of understandable mechanic, data, or mathematical modeling.
Combat is a measurable, objective way to measure performance
Ok, fine, let's consider this premise. So if I give you a detailed description of a combat you can "objectively measure" it, right?
I think it'd help me get a better grasp about what you call "objective measure of combat performance".white room math
Whiteroom math... If you manage to disprove math, I'm all ears.
Math is objective. If Citricking's tool says a first level Fighter deals X average damage with a Strike against a first level opponent with high AC it is pure objective truth. It's what you do with math that can be whiteroomey not math itself.
Whiteroom math... If you manage to disprove math, I'm all ears.
Math is objective. If Citricking's tool says a first level Fighter deals X average damage with a Strike against a first level opponent with high AC it is pure objective truth. It's what you do with math that can be whiteroomey not math itself.
White room math is fine. Just list your assumptions when you do.
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That's not what they're arguing. They are arguing against the idea that PF2 performance is objectively measurable. It is. I've done it for PF2 and other games for years.
Some refer to it as optimization, power gaming, or a variety of other names. It is possible to do in PF2 and every other version of D&D, PF1, or RPGs I've ever played.
Some take offense at this play-style and attack it. Happens all the time on these forums. I'm used to it at this point.
I'll let the designers know when some classes or options aren't so good because I wouldn't mind seeing them improved. So I'll keep doing what I'm doing and if I have to take some shots from forum posters that don't like the performance-based play-style, so be it. Not going to change how I go about things.
I think my viewpoint is more helpful than most because it at least gives the designers something to action using some kind of understandable mechanic, data, or mathematical modeling.
As one of the people who has disagreed with you about this before quite a few times, I do not think you're representing the most common reason people disagree with you on this. It is obviously possible to objectively measure the relative performance of different options in a game like PF2, and it would be absurd to say otherwise. The +1 STR fighter is less effective with a greatsword than the +4 STR fighter.
The reason you get push back when talking about this is because an individual person's ability to measure this is limited to the tables they're involved with, and that means that the data gathered is inevitably biased by the playstyles of the tables involved. There are objective differences in performance that can be determined mathematically - but that is only true if you're doing the exact same thing but with worse stats. For any other comparison, it is circumstantial, and those circumstances change across tables. You cannot objectively say what choices will outperform others without knowing the circumstances in which these actions will be performed, and yet you do so constantly.
What one can do is make assumptions about what the circumstances in someone's table will look like - sometimes reasonable, sometimes not. Giving build advice on the assumption that you'll be routinely facing 20 level-4 enemies is probably unhelpful, and so we tend to formulate thoughts on the game abased on our understanding of what ranges of circumstances a 'normal' table experiences. But not only can we not know that, not even Paizo can - nobody has the data available for that to be determined accurately. So when you say that you can objectively measure performance in PF2, you can - for the tables you play at. You say you could bring this experience to other tables and out-perform them, but that cannot be universally true, because some play in very different ways to you. My argument is not that PF2 performance cannot be measured objectively, it is that your objective measurements cannot be generalized to apply to all groups regardless of context, because that's how statistics work.
For a straightforward example - AoE damage becomes better the more characters are able to perform it. One might view AoE as a 'use it once a day when a few enemies bunch up' sort of thing to avoid splitting damage, but at a theoretical table where everyone could do good AoE damage, that would change. For a stranger example, I've just finished up my Ironfang Invasion campaign converted to PF2. Because of a series of decisions that they made as players and choices I made as GM, they ended up very far outside of their comfort zone for the last ~10 sessions, functionally skipping from the beginning of book 3 to the end of book 6. They started in the area at level 9 when it's assumed to be for level 17 PCs. This meant they were consistently completely outgunned by just about every threat in the area, and completely removed their ability to rely on combat as a conflict resolution mechanic in almost all circumstances (I did feel bad about initially to be honest, but everyone involved really enjoyed how it all ended up happening). Combat situations were much more about how to safely extricate the party from a fight, how to minimize damage taken, how to keep people alive, and how to take advantage of the few weaknesses of those they faced. The relative balance of different actions were completely different, and there's no way that someone would normally build for this situation when making a PC; despite that, for a full quarter of the campaign, the optimal tactical and character-building decisions were completely different from anything you would have picked based on game experiences that didn't have this sort of circumstances coming up.
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But even without going to crazy ends like Arcaian, the simple notion of "combat efficiency" is very hard to define. Between 2 people, you'll have a very different definition.
For example, my simplest definition for "combat efficiency" is "chances of TPK and character death". The lower the higher the combat efficiency.
So between one group who manages to survive each and every encounter and another one who got PC deaths the second one will be worse to me despite any other numerical values: the second group may deal more damage, deal with most fights as if they were roadbumps, if they die more they are worse, period.
From this definition, I value some specific kind of abilities. The ability to increase one's contribution when crap hits the fan is for example one I value a lot. And it's clearly advantaging casters over martials. I also value reliability a lot, that's why I consider Summoner a tier S class and tend to disregard Rogue.
But that's directly due to my definition of "combat efficiency". Someone else may consider that "combat efficiency" has to be measured through cumulated damage. And that would put martials forward and casters would be seen as inefficient.
"Objective combat efficiency" is an oxymoron as combat efficiency is a subjective notion.
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Whoa. How'd that happen?
Given that, they looked through the fey-infested castle that had been used as the Ironfang's HQ to try and triangulate where the obelisk in the forest was from the movement information they have - the relative time taken to travel from each of the 3 forts used to do so. I though it made sense, and I'm the sort of GM who is very happy to run with ideas that take the party off the rail for a while. I decided it would be more interesting if there was ongoing contact through the obelisks back to the Onyx Vault, and so they could triangulate the rough location.
The plan was to give them an opportunity to find out more about how the teleportation worked. I had the Ironfang Legion send out scouts to check why they hadn't received contact for a few days, and the party ran into one, who was allowed to escape by the party's fighter. This meant they knew that the Ironfang forces in the Fangwood had fallen, and were going to get rid of the obelisk. At this point I'd made a few decisions that weren't in the book, but felt fitting; this next one is the one that most contradicts the written content of the book, I think. I couldn't quite remember how reversing the obelisks worked in the book, and the party was intrigued by the possibility that these scouts meant there was still an active portal. I gave them some difficult checks to navigate through the forest to the exact spot of the portal, and they did really well - like multiple nat 20s in the ~3-4 checks needed levels of good.
As they navigated so efficiently, I decided that they got to the portal as a ritual was being performed to return it to the disconnected state - from my perspective, once you've put up the possibility that the speed at which they reach the obelisk is important, you really should follow through with that if they manage to do it. I made the fight a Severe one with the guards for the ritual, but if you added in the creatures performing the ritual themselves, it was Extreme+. As the fight went on, it became obvious that they weren't winning the fight quickly enough to investigate the portal before it went down. As it started to collapse, the cavalier fighter decided that he wanted to know what was through the other side more than he wanted to have a possibility of an exit; he charged into the portal while the fight was still going. The rest of the party felt it better not to split the party, and everyone's last turn before the portal collapsed was heading through it. I have to admit, this group throws me for a lot of unexpected loops while GMing, but I hadn't thought they'd do this one.
So yeah, I followed the book 6 as written there - between the gate collapsing behind them and the ley lines being interfered with, they don't end up in the Onyx Citadel, but instead in arrive in the grassland nearby, and are taken in by the pech of Stonehome who explain what has been happening in the vault. With the only way back to Golarion that they know of for-sure being in the Citadel (which they are certain they can't sneak into safely), they decide to try and get allies in the vault itself - but I've already written too much here, I think. The tl;dr there involves pit fiends, immortal ichors, ancient xiomorn knowledge, and culminates in their interfering with a ritual to try and prevent a pit fiend achieving apotheosis.
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What's funny, thanks to all this subjectivity, is that multiple players can, at the same table, feel like they are the MVPs.
As people tend to build characters by basing themselves on what they consider "efficient", their characters generally score high in their own subjective vision of efficiency. So the feeling of being a first class contributor to the adventure is very common.
Sometimes, subjectivity is good.
...
Absolutely wild to me that this thread would come back to life after a response to a post from three months ago. And it still remains the same. A quarter of a year and so much has changed for me personally, but the constant nature of DF-posting shall forever remain.
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I put no emotional importance in the statement. I merely like to debate. I find it strange that people who are likely intelligent find it so hard to accept and believe that PF2, a ruleset for a game, would have objectively measurable performance metrics.
This means I can walk into anyone's game on these boards using the common ruleset and create a character that will perform at a high level. I can explain why I can do this using the available ruleset. Why some choices are better than others. Why certain objectively measured choices are superior in combat. I can do this for any game at any table using the PF2 ruleset after sufficient time using the ruleset. I can do this as long as there is not some confounding variable that alters the ruleset like house rules or a focused campaign on something like undead which would elevate some other choice.
What is subjective is some of you don't like to play this way. That doesn't change in any way the objective analysis of superior and inferior options.
The AoE example is not an either or statement. You take AoE as well as other options. Valuing AoE over something else is not even a consideration when you can have a high performing AoE option with other options.
Sir, at this point you are largely just restating your position, and not really engaging with the core of the argument that I made.