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Yeah next thing you know they are gonna be letting barbarians cast Enlarge as a 1 action unlimited effect.
. Although Funny enough a Giant Barbarian who also picks up improved knockdown, can use it from a much safer distance.
The fighter can archetype more easily than that Barbian can and, as a hypothetical, grab some spellcasting to enlarge themselves for any fight it matters in, and do what the Barbarian is doing at +2 to hit. That is the issue with the Fighter.
They can easily encroach on other roles while their +2 to hit and great base armor and saves are un-poachable.
Also I would say doing damage is a perfectly fine trade off for being in melee range and thus more vulnerable to damage than a caster who casts slow.
So you'd be fine with a melee cantrip that unlocks at level 10 and allows a caster to make a touch attack that knocks a foe down and deals close to weapon damage to them?
A level after a fighter can gety get improved Knockdown a, Wizard canuse Slow to slow up to 6 targets each up, each up to a minute in length potentially, and potentially slowed 2, and they don't have to keep spending actions to keep the person slowed.
When does this ever work as a better option than just killing the mooks without spending spell slots?
A prone target can in theory still use their actions for something else beyond standing up, standing is usually the right call but the fact they can do something else is still significant because sometimes they might have a better option.
Then you've made them all but stationary and given them a penalty to attack and AC instead. That's still really good.
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We could take a look at trade off. Any other martial get some of more skilled (Ranger or Rogue at different degrees), Focus spells (Champion), etc.
So you get a Fighter if you want to fight, fight and fight. Then it lacks many other things.
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I do not really get why people go from "let's boost the underclasses" to "let's nerf the top classes".
There is always going to be top classes. Currently they are Fighter and Bard.
Maybe the post-Remastered top classes will be different.
But TBT the ceiling is so low in PF2 that I have never seen a huge difference between the efficiency of parties with a Fighter and/or Bard and parties that do not have such luminaries. And I say this after playing almost exclusively PFS on a weekly basis for 3 years.
For those who want the Fighter nerfed, you will get something in Remastered since, AFAIK, automatic trip/grapple/shove will be a thing of the past.
If they can just nerf Synesthesia somewhat, the Bard will be likewise taken down just a little bit.
All will be well.
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The game has different kinds of encounters. Not just severe encounters vs. bosses.
It's weird your only point of "balance" is, can everyone perform equally good to a fighter in this one specific circumstance the fighter is designed to be good at.
How often does the climax of an adventure end against a horde of 6 - 10 mooks and not a level +2 - +4 single enemy encounter? Being good at cleaning up the trash mobs on the way to the boss room just isn't as fun as being the best at taking the fight to the boss.
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How often does the climax of an adventure end against a horde of 6 - 10 mooks and not a level +2 - +4 single enemy encounter? Being good at cleaning up the trash mobs on the way to the boss room just isn't as fun as being the best at taking the fight to the boss.The game has different kinds of encounters. Not just severe encounters vs. bosses.
It's weird your only point of "balance" is, can everyone perform equally good to a fighter in this one specific circumstance the fighter is designed to be good at.
That is like your opinion.
Not universal law.
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I do not really get why people go from "let's boost the underclasses" to "let's nerf the top classes".
We go there because Paizo has already shown that they aren't buffing the Wizard - who really needs it now that the Witch is getting cleaned up - might as well ask for nerfs if the reasonably asked for buffs aren't coming.
Maybe the post-Remastered top classes will be different.
For those who want the Fighter nerfed, you will get something in Remastered since, AFAIK, automatic trip/grapple/shove will be a thing of the past.
If they can just nerf Synesthesia somewhat, the Bard will be likewise taken down just a little bit.
Prove that any of this is actually in the works.
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Yeah next thing you know they are gonna be letting barbarians cast Enlarge as a 1 action unlimited effect.
. Although Funny enough a Giant Barbarian who also picks up improved knockdown, can use it from a much safer distance.The fighter can archetype more easily than that Barbarian can and, as a hypothetical, grab some spellcasting to enlarge themselves for any fight it matters in, and do what the Barbarian is doing at +2 to hit. That is the issue with the Fighter.
They can easily encroach on other roles while their +2 to hit and great base armor and saves are un-poachable.
Also I would say doing damage is a perfectly fine trade off for being in melee range and thus more vulnerable to damage than a caster who casts slow.So you'd be fine with a melee cantrip that unlocks at level 10 and allows a caster to make a touch attack that knocks a foe down and deals close to weapon damage to them?
A level after a fighter can gety get improved Knockdown a, Wizard canuse Slow to slow up to 6 targets each up, each up to a minute in length potentially, and potentially slowed 2, and they don't have to keep spending actions to keep the person slowed.When does this ever work as a better option than just killing the mooks without spending spell slots?
A prone target can in theory still use their actions for something else beyond standing up, standing is usually the right call but the fact they can do something else is still significant because sometimes they might have a better option.Then you've made them all but stationary and given them a penalty to attack and AC instead. That's still really good.
My point was that Barbarians already have an in class way of going Enlarge. It was a comment on how other Martials actually *can* replicate spells in specific situations, It had nothing to do with archetypes.
I mean the thing is Casters get the versatility of spell-casting, so having an at will ability like that on them might be a bit much buuuuut. what you described doesn't sound to out there compared to some of the more powerful class-exclusive cantrips like the Psychic stuff. So I would have to see the theoretical class that is capable of such a thing.
I've seen hordes be a threat. The idea that they don't matter can just be swept through is a really strange one to me. You seem to really only value severe fights against higher level enemies and dismiss any other type of combat encounter. Which I've still seen fighters struggle with because the dice still actually matters in actual play.
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Unfun play experiences are generally being in a party playing another martial class whem their is a fighter in the party and the stakes are high.
Hard and severe encounters are the ones that matter. Hordes of weaker opponents are less a threat than thwy are time consuming and generally easily defeated with some basic tactics that any martial can excel at with a minor amount of support but hard and severe enemies get to be the domain of the fighter with other classes mostly relegated to enabling the fighter.
Got a heroism buff, its better on the fighter than any other martial.
PF2 has tight math, is balanced around accurracy more than pretty much anything else and life or death situations, rhe most important in an published AP or adventure. Non combat scenarios are set backs if you fail and the game is designed that failing at one of those doesn't prevent the story moving forward.
PF2 is a combat centred came almost all feats and definitely the ones rated high are to support or improve combat chances. Same with spells. No one cares whether you used a knock spell, picked the lock 9r kicked down the door. Everyone cares about how well you contribute to combat.
I am suggesting fighters math be brought back in line with the rest of the martials and top modifiers in thw game. They havebaccess to plenry of good combat feats that can chamge combat without the +2. They can make a negative play experience because buffs are better spent on them (mathd shows this) than on any other class.
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My view of the martial classes I have experience playing or running as a DM and tracking effectiveness:Yeah I'd make more or less the same list. I'd add in Thaumaturge at the top tier though. It overcomes a lot of pain points from other classes.
* They hit nearly as hard as a barbarian with about the same relative fragility. But they end up with more skill support.
* They do the one handed vibe much more easily than the swashbuckler. Compared to Panache, bosses with high DCs are not so likely to prevent you from getting Exploit Weakness going, since you still get some on a failure.
* They work particularly well against single enemies (Exploit Weakness), but if you have to fight a bag of mixed nuts you still have Implement's Empowerment. Compared to Hunt Prey that gives you more choice on whether you really really need to set up new targets all the time.
I'd also rate champions in top tier. As long as they have someone else to work together with in the front line they prevent a lot of damage while weakening enemies. Offense is middling but the efficient staying power is huge.
So yeah, pretty crowded top tier, which I think shows the health of the game.
I forgot Champions Top Tier.
I don't have experience with Thaumaturges, so I can't speak on them too much. I hear they are good though.
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Unfun play experiences are generally being in a party playing another martial class whem their is a fighter in the party and the stakes are high.
Hard and severe encounters are the ones that matter. Hordes of weaker opponents are less a threat than thwy are time consuming and generally easily defeated with some basic tactics that any martial can excel at with a minor amount of support but hard and severe enemies get to be the domain of the fighter with other classes mostly relegated to enabling the fighter.
Got a heroism buff, its better on the fighter than any other martial.
PF2 has tight math, is balanced around accurracy more than pretty much anything else and life or death situations, rhe most important in an published AP or adventure. Non combat scenarios are set backs if you fail and the game is designed that failing at one of those doesn't prevent the story moving forward.
PF2 is a combat centred came almost all feats and definitely the ones rated high are to support or improve combat chances. Same with spells. No one cares whether you used a knock spell, picked the lock 9r kicked down the door. Everyone cares about how well you contribute to combat.
I am suggesting fighters math be brought back in line with the rest of the martials and top modifiers in thw game. They havebaccess to plenry of good combat feats that can chamge combat without the +2. They can make a negative play experience because buffs are better spent on them (mathd shows this) than on any other class.
As someone who actually has both a Barbarian and Fighter in the same party, my Barbarian hasn't said anything about feeling bad/worse than the Fighter, if anything they work together quite well as the front line badasses. But I'll admit that's anecdotal, based on my experiences. I imagine you've experienced games where the Fighter has massively outshone and made the other martials feel like dirt?
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I have to disagree. PF2 is not designed for any of that, is a set of tools and rules to makes you play with a baseline system. But you play with your own style.
I often see that people just seem to ignore the skills, focusing in combat maths and arguing that all the other stuff is just following a narrative.
Well, that is just a way to play, as previously mentioned in another thread, what seems nice or not usually is associated really to how each one plays.
That style is running on rails over a narrative applying the characters abilities in encounters.
There are many others, but another one is like a pure RPG, this is, you play everything and everything matters. If you fail at a non-combat scenario could be the end of your adventure in extreme cases, and in others could make the players to have to look for another way for advancing. You don't follow a written rails, but you are the ones writing the story instead. Here the skills are the core, as you have to travel and survive, explore, find things, convince people, getting information from an ancient text, etc. And if you don't, then have to improvise looking for new info, hiring people, or simply advancing without an useful knowledge.
When everything matters, you notice that being better in one thing at the cost of sacrificing others is not an issue. Then you have to look at the whole, when a character is clearly more or less useful in general or is not good even at its tasks. Also have to look for possible exploits that unbalance the game, but again looking at the whole not at something specific.
In the Fighter I see someone specialized in combat, but later how good it is when traveling, or finding traps, or at stealth?
If we compare with the Champion, this one get better Reaction, so is better at fights side-by-side, and Focus spells, while the Fighter has nothing to do at Refocus.
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Unfun play experiences are generally being in a party playing another martial class whem their is a fighter in the party and the stakes are high.
Hard and severe encounters are the ones that matter. Hordes of weaker opponents are less a threat than thwy are time consuming and generally easily defeated with some basic tactics that any martial can excel at with a minor amount of support but hard and severe enemies get to be the domain of the fighter with other classes mostly relegated to enabling the fighter.
Got a heroism buff, its better on the fighter than any other martial.
PF2 has tight math, is balanced around accurracy more than pretty much anything else and life or death situations, rhe most important in an published AP or adventure. Non combat scenarios are set backs if you fail and the game is designed that failing at one of those doesn't prevent the story moving forward.
PF2 is a combat centred came almost all feats and definitely the ones rated high are to support or improve combat chances. Same with spells. No one cares whether you used a knock spell, picked the lock 9r kicked down the door. Everyone cares about how well you contribute to combat.
I am suggesting fighters math be brought back in line with the rest of the martials and top modifiers in thw game. They havebaccess to plenry of good combat feats that can chamge combat without the +2. They can make a negative play experience because buffs are better spent on them (mathd shows this) than on any other class.
I do not experience this. My players do not either. Fighters are good, but they don't overshadow other well built martials. They move kind of slow too from target to target. They generally hit one target until dead.
I did have one player that felt this way with a Giant Barbarian in the group. The giant barbarian would just absolute destroy what it hit if it crit and got on a roll hitting. Then when they could set up quickly with Mighty Rage immediately turning into Titan Size with huge reach, they would start brutalizing things with the AoO. They had a ton of hit points. When they Whirlwind Attack, it was just brutal.
The giant barbarian started off a bit painful getting taken down easily at low level. At high level once they had enough hit points to take a beating, they were ripping things apart.
One small side bonus of being big is it was very hard to swallow them or grapple them very well or engulf them. When it comes to punching through walls or hardness, fighter isn't even in the same balpark as giant barbarian. They blast through halls and hardness.
You're way overselling the fighter. They're pretty limited in what they do. If you like that thing, then you feel cool. If you want to play a far more diverse character, rogues and monks tend to be more fun. If you want more versatile offensive abilities, barbarians can be fun.
The magus critical hits blow a fighter away. The whole class is based on crit fishing. When you do land those crits, they are just brutal.
Fighter's cool. All it really has going for it is the Legendary Proficiency as its standout ability. It's only so fun to have your ability be, "I hit stuff real good."
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Unfun play experiences are generally being in a party playing another martial class whem their is a fighter in the party and the stakes are high.
Hasn't been my experience. I've played most of PFS and played Age of Ashes and Agents of Edgewatch in parties where I'm not the fighter, and I haven't been miserable.
In Age of Ashes the fighter was sorta middling optimized sword and shield build that was the bulwark enemies would crash against, while the rogue ripped them apart with massive damage and the monk would hunt down any enemies that tried to maneuver. I archer-clericked in the background and laid down area effects to suppress crowds so they became easy targets for them.
In Agents of Edgewatch I played magus alongside the fighter. Although I started as Starlit I multiclassed into monk for flurry, while the fighter picked up paladin for the reaction. He'd be busy pinning down casters with disruptive stance and combat grab (which is seriously mean) while I kept the mooks from swarming to the casters. He'd do more damage per single hit usually, but I was much better at triggering any possible weakness to anything enemies might have, moving ridiculously fast and attacking five times per round. It really felt pretty balanced between us two. The swashbuckler on the other hand was really struggling.
Hard and severe encounters are the ones that matter. Hordes of weaker opponents are less a threat than thwy are time consuming and generally easily defeated with some basic tactics that any martial can excel at with a minor amount of support but hard and severe enemies get to be the domain of the fighter with other classes mostly relegated to enabling the fighter.
Thing is, mooks still benefit from PF2 monster design which gives them high to-hit compared to PCs of that level. So even mooks can still hit and flank. And it gets really rough when they all start spamming area effects at higher levels. Compared to PF1, I'm actually finding that mopping up the mooks first can be better than focus firing on the boss.
Got a heroism buff, its better on the fighter than any other martial.
It actually isn't, the opposite in fact. The fighter doesn't get all that much out of a bit of extra accuracy. If you compare increasing a fighter's to hit to other increasing that of other martials:
* Fighters and barbarians Strike roughly equally as often, but when the barbarian hits, the damage is higher. So boosting accuracy is better for the barbarian. Same with rogues and thaumaturges.* Fighters hit for almost the same damage as monks or rangers, but those attack more often. A boost to accuracy on every strike will end up boosting more strikes with those classes.
I am suggesting fighters math be brought back in line with the rest of the martials and top modifiers in thw game. They havebaccess to plenry of good combat feats that can chamge combat without the +2. They can make a negative play experience because buffs are better spent on them (mathd shows this) than on any other class.
I don't agree that the math shows that, because you haven't actually shown that and I've given an argument why the opposite is true.
Most of fighter feats rely on hitting enemies, and without the high accuracy wouldn't actually work all that well.
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How often does the climax of an adventure end against a horde of 6 - 10 mooks and not a level +2 - +4 single enemy encounter? Being good at cleaning up the trash mobs on the way to the boss room just isn't as fun as being the best at taking the fight to the boss.The game has different kinds of encounters. Not just severe encounters vs. bosses.
It's weird your only point of "balance" is, can everyone perform equally good to a fighter in this one specific circumstance the fighter is designed to be good at.
I got a zinger in this bag somewhere about the kind of person who is entirely focused on the climax while entirely ignoring the foreplay.
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For those who want to nerf the Fighter, have you played one for a few scenarios / adventures ?What does that have to do with knowing that the math says something is too good? You can do balance passes even for classes you don't play with pure math and by looking at how people who do play them build them.
No, you really can't. Then you're just nerfing based on jealousy.
We can see that most top end Fighter builds gravitate towards Maul and Knockdown and use archetypes to patch any weakness.
I haven't actually seen that happen, either in PFS or APs. I see a lot more diversity in fighter builds than that.
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As a matter of "does fighter make other martials feel bad" I think that depends on the martial we are talking about.
CRB martials and Thaumaturge can do things differently and well enough that the fighter being too good doesn't feel like they are missing out.
But the remaining martials do feel a lot of pain. Largely because their methods to get power are so unreliable and/or underwhelming.
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As for buff vs debuff. I generally prefer buffing if possible power creep be damned. If it means that the game plays better for everyone a bit of power creep is worth it. Nerfs I generally prefer when either buffing everything to match would require too many changes, or when its established that there is a set limit and certain classes clearly pass that limit.
In this case when you argue to buff classes to match Fighter (Bard for casters) people push back because "it would break the game". Thus the only remaining option is to nerf Fighter (& Bard) so they match the supposed cap.
The "remaining Martials" (Gunslinger, Inventor, Investigator and Swashbuckler if I am not mistaken) issues are not with the power level of the Fighter though, but with the power level of their own class compared to the rest of the martials.
Best IMO would be to boost these just a little, but let's remember that we will always have a top Martial, no matter what class it is.
And the risk that has to be very carefully taken into account with buffing classes is not matching the Fighter or the Bard. It is going beyond that into a new higher level of power. Where in due time people playing non-buffed classes would ask to be also brought to this power level.
And thus does the cycle of power creep begins.
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The "problem" with Fighters is that they can't really have a bad day.
Their chasis ensures a level of performance and effectiveness in their desired role which is always-on, has no cost and requires no thought or setup.
Take two identical sets of attack rolls for an entire adventuring day, give one set to any other melee martial and the other to a Fighter, and the Fighter will perform better.
This has the benefit of allowing the Fighter than branch out more than other classes with archetyping as well. Because so much of their fundamental power comes from their chasis, exchanging class feats out is a great option. Doubly so if they are playing FA.
I have a Hobgoblin Fighter in my Stolen Fates game. He attacks with the best of them, can target every save with impactful abilties, is an AoE based fear-damaging engine who can control the battlefield really well, and has bard casting for fun and profit.
I never felt like I compromised my Fighter to get any of this, I just kept building into their strengths and ended up with a powerhouse.
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The "problem" with Fighters is that they can't really have a bad day.
Their chasis ensures a level of performance and effectiveness in their desired role which is always-on, has no cost and requires no thought or setup.
Take two identical sets of attack rolls for an entire adventuring day, give one set to any other melee martial and the other to a Fighter, and the Fighter will perform better.
This has the benefit of allowing the Fighter than branch out more than other classes with archetyping as well. Because so much of their fundamental power comes from their chasis, exchanging class feats out is a great option. Doubly so if they are playing FA.
I have a Hobgoblin Fighter in my Stolen Fates game. He attacks with the best of them, can target every save with impactful abilties, is an AoE based fear-damaging engine who can control the battlefield really well, and has bard casting for fun and profit.
I never felt like I compromised my Fighter to get any of this, I just kept building into their strengths and ended up with a powerhouse.
I never have a bad day with my druid or rogue. I have had such a good experience playing a druid. Druids do so much in a group. I have never had an easier time playing a PF2 class than playing the druid. To me they seem like the most effectively versatile class in the game and I mostly use focus spells to accomplish this. Wild Shape has to be the most effectively versatile focus spell in the game with near endless uses.
Main class I've had bad days with is the feast or famine Magus. That class can have bad days since so much of what it does is loaded into that one big hit a round.
I've had some bad days with the low level barbarian, but they grow out of it to become an absolutely brutal monster destroying machine.
I still have to say I have the most fun playing druids. That class is so effortlessly useful across so many aspects of the game across all levels. You can switch it up as you go for a change of pace. I don't' know who designed the druid for PF2, but they are the closest thing to the new wizard I have played in PF2.
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I think Fighters are very good at looking strong, in that they maximize most of the stuff that makes you feel good in combat -- they hit often, they crit often, most of the things they do involve an attack roll, and so they feel supremely good at what they're meant to do. At first glance, it's very easy to assume they're the strongest class around, especially when looking at a class on paper in a white room where combat is the only thing that matters. With a bit of play experience, though, I think a few factors become apparent:
So really, the Fighter in practice I feel is a balanced class: they're without a doubt the best at what they specialize in, but their specialty is fairly narrow. This is why people comparing caster damage to that of the Fighter always irks me: behind that comparison, there's usually this sense of aggrieved entitlement where the person genuinely feels like the most versatile classes in the game should also be the best at everything, including when it comes to outputting single-target damage on par with the Fighter. This is also why the Fighter is used as the main point of comparison, rather than the average martial with only up to master weapon proficiency: it's not just about equalling the single-target damage of martial classes in general, it's about matching, sometimes exceeding the single-target damage of the one class that is specifically designed to output as much single-target damage as the game will allow.
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It does give me a warm smile that the flagged "optimized damage" class that has the munchkins falling over themselves lest they miss out on any ounce of dpr is also the blandest milquetoast class as far as flavor and evocative mechanics go. Everything as it should be
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Are fighters too strong?
No, they're strong at exactly what they're meant to be strong at. Lets please look at lifting up the martials that need help before looking to knock down the ones that are working as intended.
I don't even like fighter, too basic for my taste, but there's inherently nothing wrong with it.
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Yeah next thing you know they are gonna be letting barbarians cast Enlarge as a 1 action unlimited effect.
. Although Funny enough a Giant Barbarian who also picks up improved knockdown, can use it from a much safer distance.The fighter can archetype more easily than that Barbian can and, as a hypothetical, grab some spellcasting to enlarge themselves for any fight it matters in, and do what the Barbarian is doing at +2 to hit. That is the issue with the Fighter.
They can easily encroach on other roles while their +2 to hit and great base armor and saves are un-poachable.
Also I would say doing damage is a perfectly fine trade off for being in melee range and thus more vulnerable to damage than a caster who casts slow.So you'd be fine with a melee cantrip that unlocks at level 10 and allows a caster to make a touch attack that knocks a foe down and deals close to weapon damage to them?
A level after a fighter can gety get improved Knockdown a, Wizard canuse Slow to slow up to 6 targets each up, each up to a minute in length potentially, and potentially slowed 2, and they don't have to keep spending actions to keep the person slowed.When does this ever work as a better option than just killing the mooks without spending spell slots?
A prone target can in theory still use their actions for something else beyond standing up, standing is usually the right call but the fact they can do something else is still significant because sometimes they might have a better option.Then you've made them all but stationary and given them a penalty to attack and AC instead. That's still really good.
Touch attacks don't exist in PF2.
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I personally consider that the issue with the Fighter is not the +2 to attack, which is balanced actually. The real issues are:
- How easy it is to grab some signature moves from other classes: Rage, Flurry of Blows, Champion's Reaction. The result being that the Fighter can grab the good stuff while no one can grab the Fighter's schtick. It's definitely not fair (and not limited to the Fighter, Flurry of Blows is a base of many broken builds).
- The Fighter has slightly too many class features. Bravery instead of basic Expert Will, Armor Specialization for no obvious reason, 2 extra feats, Master Perception, etc...
In my opinion, the base chassis should be slightly nerfed. Reducing Perception to Expert, removing the benefit of Bravery against Fear and Armor Specialization would be enough to put it on par with everything else: Super strong at their main thing but rather weak next to that. And I'm pretty sure Fighter players wouldn't care.
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I agree with Calliope: Players are so focused on dealing with bosses that they get TPKed by other combat setups that they consider "impossible to prepare for" because they can't expect a non-boss fight to be tough...
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Is that a fighter problem though, or an archetype problem?
It can be read both ways: Giving a Fighter Dedication feat at level 10 giving a +1 to hit (+2 would be too good) would instantly cancel the superiority.
Also, flurry comes in at level 10. So it's availability and impact on the game is going to vary widely by table and campaign, from 'the campaign will end before you get it" to 'you can start with it.'
From my experience, players focus around level 10 to determine a build efficiency. Being strong before level 5 is nice but not really important and post level 15 game is so high level that most tables won't reach it.
The last levels you'll play are the most important. For example, if you play up to level 15 and your character was weak from level 1 to 10 and strong afterwards, the overall feeling you'll have is that your character was strong. It's a classical bias to remember the end more. As such people build their characters around the end game (the expected end game as most 1-20 campaigns don't reach the end) in general.
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Fighter was garbage for more than twenty years - can they just have a crumb of power? Please??
and not limited to the Fighter, Flurry of Blows is a base of many broken builds.
I hope Paizo deletes it from the multiclass pool in the remaster tbh. Highly unlikely though.
For example, it is a bit hard without FA, but you can build a Tengu/Halfling/Goblin Fighter with Ancestral Weaponry for Shortsword/Dogslicer use and get to use both FoB and Heaven's Thunder on a martial with a +2 innate bonus to hit and -3/-6 MAP. Only tested it in random combats some time ago, but it is a bit messed up.
As for the Fighter in general, I would say it is fine. Someone has to be the top dog, and I would take Fighter and Bard in this system over Wizards, Clerics and Druids in 1E any day of the week.
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Are you really going to sit here and use an anecdote to excuse the disgusting mess that is an Improve Knockdown Fighter? Show me any single action in the game as efficient as a Fighter knocking a boss flat on their back while dealing damage.I think the fighters power is a bit exaggerated. Most other martials get riders to damage of some kind that make their attacks hit harder, fighters lack that in exchange for the accuracy, an accuracy that is still affected by the dice rolls.
White room testing has its value but so does actual play, and from personal experience I've had combats or whole sessions where the fighters accuracy boost did not save it from bad rolls. This is a major outlier, but I do recall the time my level 5 fighter wiffed their entire turn and their friendly neighborhood paladin crit 3 times in a row.
The developers also feel as if fighters are qoeking as intended.
You're not asking for something particularly hard and I know Fighter feats well, so I'll level here.
I find the obsession with Improved Knockdown strange when it's in the same class as Debilitating Shot (also a level 10 feat) which similarly offers no save, but can be used at range, has no prerequisites and, most of all, even stacks with prone because they're different conditions! There's several ways of making enemies prone, not so much for Slowed on martial characters.There are cases where a monster might be better off biting the bullet and staying prone, taking that -2 to attacks in order to not lose an important action. This could be a legitimate consideration if they're already flat-footed from a different effect (like the sword specialization effect, which contrary to popular belief isn't always strictly inferior to that of flails and hammers), or if your party is loaded with reactions that trigger on movement. Both of these instances are perfectly fine with me, as they incentivize (and reward) teamwork.
Debilitating Shot has none of these things to consider, you can just fire and forget. If they end up prone by other means then it's incredibly easy to disengage away from the monster's attack range, effectively neutering two actions and making them unable to do anything meaningful with their last remaining one.
Of course, fixating on the numbers only tells you none of this; playing the game does as it was pointed out by others, in the sense that it helps put all these considerations into perspective.
If you think Fighters are OP but bring up Improved Knockdown instead of Debilitating Shot (which I do think is pretty stupid power-wise, but also a rare outlier), then... well, it doesn't necessarily dismantle your argument that Fighters are overpowered. But it does take serious credence away from these bold, heavy-handed claims you're making.
And this is just one feat, from the same class, at the same level range! I could go on and bring up Wolf Drag, which can be gotten 4 levels earlier, gives your attack Fatal d12, is not a Flourish and gives you a benefit on top of the prerequisite feat (a Stance), rather than replacing the prerequisite outright like Improved Knockdown does, meaning that in practice you get one feat less compared to the Wolf Drag user. So pretty much strictly superior in almost every way, as I'd be hard-pressed to think a simple +2 in Fighter's favor is worth all of that and more.
Admittedly, I don't know the feat lists of other classes very well so there may be other things that give Improved Knockdown a run for its money, but hopefully this illustrates that it's not the be-all end-all god feat some claim it to be.
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IMO the strongest point of the Fighter is getting AoO for free from the start.
But then, I play mostly PFS, so abilities I use from the get go are more valuable to me than things I get at 6th level or later.
And 10th level is such a pipe dream I never plan around it.
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I think it would have depend on the type of keneticist. Some elements have decent AOE options. Wood has area denial with wooden palisade and potentially with the composite jagged berms. They have another decent one, but I think it would not have helped you. Sanguivolent RootsSo fairly often, I'd say. Especially in more recent modules. Also, I wouldn't say that "cleaning up the trash mobs" isn't as fun or as necessary. Our party got TPK'd in Blood Lords when:
** spoiler omitted ** "...All we had was a flurry ranger, a fighter, a kineticist, and a harm cleric. Someone capable of dealing with "trash mobs" like a blaster wizard would have saved us."
Unfortunately, jagged berms is an awful idea against wraiths (they resist each instance of damage separately) and wooden palisade...well, wraiths. Incorporeal.
And yeah Sanguivolent Roots is illegal in Geb because positive damage. It's sort of excruciating. That AP has some very weird issues.
Either way, the relevant kineticist (my PC, actually) was a fire kineticist chucking blazing wave and lava leap . Which was resisted 10 (and in the case of lava leap, resist 10 twice). Likewise, thermal nimbus pretty much bounced right off. Deals 6 damage + 6 from weakness against resist 10 all for 2 damage a round.
(there's also the issue of the wraiths materializing around the party in a way that is very very difficult to AoE, but that's something a wizard could solve with chain lightning or the like)
Some spoilers might be useful here.