| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, not being able to use one of the only weaknesses those creatures have seems rough.
|
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, not being able to use one of the only weaknesses those creatures have seems rough.Yeah it's not a spoiler to say that blood lords is set in Geb, an undead nation where positive damage is illegal.
There's also the issue of being encouraged in the player guide to play as evil PCs with undead thematics (undead bloodline sorcerer and evil champions are listed as good options for instance) in a country that is evil with lots and lots of undead.
Evil damage and negative damage bounce off most of the monsters. It's painful.
It is far from the first time that Player's Guide advice is more about fitting the theme than about mechanical optimisation.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It is far from the first time that Player's Guide advice is more about fitting the theme than about mechanical optimisation.Yeah, not being able to use one of the only weaknesses those creatures have seems rough.Yeah it's not a spoiler to say that blood lords is set in Geb, an undead nation where positive damage is illegal.
There's also the issue of being encouraged in the player guide to play as evil PCs with undead thematics (undead bloodline sorcerer and evil champions are listed as good options for instance) in a country that is evil with lots and lots of undead.
Evil damage and negative damage bounce off most of the monsters. It's painful.
Yes. Yes this is true lol
It certainly is amusingly terrible for optimization in Blood Lords, however. In that playing anything recommended is objectively the worst thing you could do from a mechanical perspective. Normally the Player's Guide just doesn't give good mechanical advice rather than dispensing actively harmful recommendations. Not that I'm complaining, it's just extremely funny.
Though the remaster does fix the "evil damage" issue via spirit damage, which I'm very grateful for!
Spirit damage is honestly the greatest change in the remaster imo. Champions and clerics just shot so much higher now that their thematic damages are just always on
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Spirit damage is honestly the greatest change in the remaster imo. Champions and clerics just shot so much higher now that their thematic damages are just always onIt is far from the first time that Player's Guide advice is more about fitting the theme than about mechanical optimisation.Yeah, not being able to use one of the only weaknesses those creatures have seems rough.Yeah it's not a spoiler to say that blood lords is set in Geb, an undead nation where positive damage is illegal.
There's also the issue of being encouraged in the player guide to play as evil PCs with undead thematics (undead bloodline sorcerer and evil champions are listed as good options for instance) in a country that is evil with lots and lots of undead.
Evil damage and negative damage bounce off most of the monsters. It's painful.
Yes. Yes this is true lol
It certainly is amusingly terrible for optimization in Blood Lords, however. In that playing anything recommended is objectively the worst thing you could do from a mechanical perspective. Normally the Player's Guide just doesn't give good mechanical advice rather than dispensing actively harmful recommendations. Not that I'm complaining, it's just extremely funny.
Though the remaster does fix the "evil damage" issue via spirit damage, which I'm very grateful for!
Me, I'm just happy that it solves the Divine Lance as Detect Alignment exploit.
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.
I'd rather see them upgrade flurry of blows for the monk myself.
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...
It's not the same as Debilitating Shot.
Trip does a variety of highly useful things:
1. Stops the target from moving even with flight. They have to stand up or right themselves even if flying or swimming or any form of movement.
2. Flat-foots them to everyone regardless of flanking or range.
3. Reduces their hit chance.
4. If they stand up to eliminate these penalties, they activate reaction based movement attacks.
5. Works in conjunction with other abilities like Debilitating Shot or slow to further reduce effectiveness.
Improved Knockdown, trip, or anything that prones a target is as powerful as players believe it is. Anyone who has seen this in action knows Trip is the god maneuver of PF2.
The fighter takes best advantage of the reaction attacks provoked by standing up and also gets a huge advantage by hitting a target flat-footed due to being prone. So they put themselves in a win-win situation and the enemy in a lose-lose situation.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Whirlwind Attack/swipe on 2 or more enemies, lava leap (raise shield , leap, area effect explosion), double slice (on enemies with resistance), synesthesia, level 6 slow etcAre 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.
Just to add to this, the barbarian is equally good at improved knockdown as the fighter and better at knocking people prone or using combat maneuvers. You can build a really vicious martial control barbarian that still does a lot of damage.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Fighter was garbage for more than twenty years - can they just have a crumb of power? Please??Except they weren't if you actually looked at the builds people used in Pathfinder.
Fighter has been the most basic, but also the most reliable damage dealer. Every time I have seen people say that fighter was weak its because they ignored Advanced Weapon & Armor Training, all the X mastery feats, and the fact that a Fighter could get all the utility feats they wanted, and still have feats left over for combat feats.
Too bad you did not write a guide to the PF1 Fighter to share those insights. It would have been extremely useful to all who felt the PF1 Fighter was bottom of the barrel. And there was a huge lot of them.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Too bad you did not write a guide to the PF1 Fighter to share those insights. It would have been extremely useful to all who felt the PF1 Fighter was bottom of the barrel. And there was a huge lot of them.Fighter was garbage for more than twenty years - can they just have a crumb of power? Please??Except they weren't if you actually looked at the builds people used in Pathfinder.
Fighter has been the most basic, but also the most reliable damage dealer. Every time I have seen people say that fighter was weak its because they ignored Advanced Weapon & Armor Training, all the X mastery feats, and the fact that a Fighter could get all the utility feats they wanted, and still have feats left over for combat feats.
Nobody thought Fighter was the worst class in PF1. That honor went to the release version of the Rogue with the release Monk not being overly far behind.
My view of the martial classes I have experience playing or running as a DM and tracking effectiveness:
This has been more or less my experience, although I think Deriven rates the Investigator too highly.
I'd rather see them upgrade flurry of blows for the monk myself.
I have a hard time figuring out how they could buff FoB, tbh. Maybe with a damage rider or something only available for monks (extra spirit damage if you hit both maybe?).
Just to add to this, the barbarian is equally good at improved knockdown as the fighter and better at knocking people prone or using combat maneuvers. You can build a really vicious martial control barbarian that still does a lot of damage.
For real, I'm playing a lvl 16 barb and Awesome Blow is just ridiculous. No MAP Trip and Shove is nuts and it can even be used at range.
|
|
Nobody thought Fighter was the worst class in PF1. That honor went to the release version of the Rogue with the release Monk not being overly far behind.Too bad you did not write a guide to the PF1 Fighter to share those insights. It would have been extremely useful to all who felt the PF1 Fighter was bottom of the barrel. And there was a huge lot of them.Fighter was garbage for more than twenty years - can they just have a crumb of power? Please??Except they weren't if you actually looked at the builds people used in Pathfinder.
Fighter has been the most basic, but also the most reliable damage dealer. Every time I have seen people say that fighter was weak its because they ignored Advanced Weapon & Armor Training, all the X mastery feats, and the fact that a Fighter could get all the utility feats they wanted, and still have feats left over for combat feats.
Many people considered Fighter a bad class in PF1 and hoped it would get better in PF2. And it did.
Granted, PF1 Fighter was not alone in this and both Rogue and Monk were indeed also classes that people hoped would be better in PF2.
PF1 fighter was a good dip class, but not great for a single class. I rarely played any single class all the way up in PF1. I dipped around a lot when playing a martial.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
PF1 Fighter got the Most Improved With Splatbooks award. No other individual class got multiple entire books dedicated to making its class features more compelling. By the end of PF1's life cycle it had legitimate arguments vs. Barbarian and company but at the start? Much closer to the Monk and Rogue than the tier 3's of the game... and it spent a long time there. The gap between the CRB and the Weapon Master's Handbook was six years.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
PF1 Fighter got the Most Improved With Splatbooks award. No other individual class got multiple entire books dedicated to making its class features more compelling. By the end of PF1's life cycle it had legitimate arguments vs. Barbarian and company but at the start? Much closer to the Monk and Rogue than the tier 3's of the game... and it spent a long time there. The gap between the CRB and the Weapon Master's Handbook was six years.
I would argue that there was never anything stopping you from jamming the least problematic bits of D&D 3.5 back into PF1 to fix issues with weaker classes. If you only wanted to use pure PF1 that was more of an issue but also a self-inflicted one.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Are fighters too strong?" No.
Next question.
Fighter was garbage for more than twenty years - can they just have a crumb of power? Please??Except they weren't if you actually looked at the builds people used in Pathfinder.
Sorry, I didn't properly convey my sentiment: The fighter was garbage compared to full casters.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The fighter may be balanced, but I feel like it's missing unique class features to differenciate it from other martial classes.
Some will be quick to defend the Legendary proficiencies, but... what else?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The fighter may be balanced, but I feel like it's missing unique class features to differenciate it from other martial classes.
Some will be quick to defend the Legendary proficiencies, but... what else?
What if we yoinked the advanced weapon and armor training straight out of pf1 and slapped it directly on the pf2 fighter?
Okay well. Maybe not Wholesale. I'm being very slightly hyperbolic. But I really liked things like warrior spirit, abundant tactics or focused weapon. Now, a lot of the advanced trainings would either not work, are already just feats, or would easily just become new feats in pf2, but I feel that's where the fighter's identity is/would be. A lot of feats about fighting styles that you stuff together to come up with your own thing (Or whatever it is you saw on the S+ tier of the latest tier list you saw, that also works)
Bravery is a major unique point - Fighter is the only class that gets to upgrade successes to critical successes for all three saves. It is also the only class that gets bonus swappable class feats.The fighter may be balanced, but I feel like it's missing unique class features to differenciate it from other martial classes.
Some will be quick to defend the Legendary proficiencies, but... what else?
Bravery only works against fear effects.
A fighter gets no Legendary save.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
In paizos words
"No need to mess with perfection"
Fighter is fine and is not being changed in pf2e
|
|
The fighter may be balanced, but I feel like it's missing unique class features to differenciate it from other martial classes.
Some will be quick to defend the Legendary proficiencies, but... what else?
Their unique features are:
* Legendary proficiency
* Accelerated weapon proficiency
* 2-3 bonus class feats you can change daily without retraining.
* The most useless class archetype, while also having the best time taking other archetypes.
* The most action efficient class feats.You could add all the weapon training, armor training, armor weapon mastery, armor mastery, item mastery, and class archetypes. But then what are you going to give to all the other classes that went from mid to straight up just bad if you gave fighter more than they already have?
Do you mean that the Fighter MC Dedication is the most useless MC archetype ?
It gives AoO at level 4.
And access to the Fighter feats.
Definitely not a bad archetype.
In paizos words
"No need to mess with perfection"
Fighter is fine and is not being changed in pf2e
I... just wish it would receive focus spells that mimic maneuvers...
My weapon's damage die times (my level divided by 4) equals the fighter's equivalent of the cleric's Fire Ray... or the Swashbuckler's Lethal Finisher.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
The fighter may be balanced, but I feel like it's missing unique class features to differenciate it from other martial classes.
Some will be quick to defend the Legendary proficiencies, but... what else?
Part of the point of the fighter is to not have unique class features. It is a Tabula Rasa that is mechanically flexible enough to focus on almost any style of martial combat, and lacks any flavor which might clash with your own vision. It is the vanilla ice cream of classes. Some people like it on its own, but it also the best base to build a Sunday off of... where things like the barbarian are more like Chocolate Cookie Dough you eat straight out of the pint container.
Yes, I know that Bravery only works against fear effects. That's still much more than any other class gets on their 'weak' save. IME, the master to legendary upgrades are much less valuable than the expert to master upgrades because crit fails are much less common than successes and players will generally reserve hero points to reroll crit fails anyway. Master - Master - half Master is a significantly better save profile than Expert - Master - Legendary.Bravery is a major unique point - Fighter is the only class that gets to upgrade successes to critical successes for all three saves. It is also the only class that gets bonus swappable class feats.The fighter may be balanced, but I feel like it's missing unique class features to differenciate it from other martial classes.
Some will be quick to defend the Legendary proficiencies, but... what else?
Bravery only works against fear effects.
A fighter gets no Legendary save.
The Legendary Upgrades are very good, especially for Fort and Reflex saves. Not sure why you think they are not. Poison, drained, and a variety of other Fort damage effects are terrible. Legendary Reflex is definitely helpful given the damage reflex save effects do and how high the DCs get. Taking half damage even on a failure and 2 points better chance for success is pretty helpful in PF2.
The save argument isn't very good.
I'm glad fighters have bravery. I remember I had a player in PF1 that quit his fire after a series of failed fear and will saves. He was so tired of being scared all the time and always getting held that he quit the fighter and never played it again other than as a dip for weapon spec. That was terrible in PF1.
The fighter may be balanced, but I feel like it's missing unique class features to differenciate it from other martial classes.
Some will be quick to defend the Legendary proficiencies, but... what else?
AoO at level 1. Exclusive access to Bravery as pointed out above also counts, it's powerful enough to build around it if you really wanna and fear effects get pretty common in the bestiary as you go up in levels.
Besides learning the most feats compared to any other class, it also has one of the biggest and least restrictive feat lists in the game, whereas things like the Champion or Kineticist are pretty restricted by their Cause or Impulse selection. It literally has over double the amount of feats as Magus, for example.
Seriously, the Fighter list is LOADED, you get so many options for each level and a good chunk of them are really high quality too. If there's a specialized fighting maneuver you can think of, chances are the Fighter can get access to it in some way.
That's where I believe a considerable part of their class identity lies besides simply being the best at hitting things: feat selection and customization.
I think maybe we should give all martials legendary proficiency, and to compensate we'll give fighters a new Mythic proficiency (+10)
That's where I believe a considerable part of their class identity lies besides simply being the best at hitting things: feat selection and customization.
If a fighter's identiy is "having none", I don't call this an improvement...
What's the fighter's equivalent of a barbarian's rage, a monk's ki powers, a magus's spell, a ranger's edge, a rogue's sneak attack and rackets, a gunslinger's way, a swashbuckler's style or a champion's cause?
In theory the Fighter is the Martial Counterpart of Wizard.
They are potentialy versatile, flexible and do what there name suggest fight. (Pls no Wizard Martial discussion, we have other threads for that)
But there flavor is more selfmade in nature.
Maybe this fighter is a Weapon Master from distant land or noble knight or squire of local lord.
In theory the Fighter is the Martial Counterpart of Wizard.
They are potentialy versatile, flexible and do what there name suggest fight. (Pls no Wizard Martial discussion, we have other threads for that)
Even then, you can specialize your spell list as you see fit, in addition of feats.
But there flavor is more selfmade in nature.
Maybe this fighter is a Weapon Master from distant land or noble knight or squire of local lord.
The issue here is that you have a "brainless meathead" adventuring...
A knight or squire would be better as a champion or with the cavalier archetype.
At this point, the fighter would be better off with "having an archetype for free"...
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
That's where I believe a considerable part of their class identity lies besides simply being the best at hitting things: feat selection and customization.If a fighter's identiy is "having none", I don't call this an improvement...
I think this may be an issue of perspective. You say it has none, when the class is purposefully designed as a blank slate so you can do whatever you want with it.
If a player sits down to build a Fighter, looks at all the implements the game gives them and still comes out thinking "wow, I see no reason to play this besides the higher weapon proficiency", then... I guess they don't have to? The other classes are still there, but I don't think it's bad that the game puts the onus on the player to bring their unique spin to this one.What's the fighter's equivalent of a barbarian's rage, a monk's ki powers, a magus's spell, a ranger's edge, a rogue's sneak attack and rackets, a gunslinger's way, a swashbuckler's style or a champion's cause?
I think that's a bit reductionist. Why would every class one specific action they need to use at least once every combat to define its mechanical niche? More to the point and if you're arguing mechanics, is access to Attack of Opportunity since level 1 not flavorful enough? You could level the same complaint to Monks despite Stances being a shared thing between them and Fighters. What about actions with the Press trait? Almost anyone can poach something like Combat Grab from dedications, but the Fighter is still gonna be best at it on account of the "must be under MAP" rule taking their higher accuracy into consideration.
|
|
That's where I believe a considerable part of their class identity lies besides simply being the best at hitting things: feat selection and customization.If a fighter's identiy is "having none", I don't call this an improvement...
What's the fighter's equivalent of a barbarian's rage, a monk's ki powers, a magus's spell, a ranger's edge, a rogue's sneak attack and rackets, a gunslinger's way, a swashbuckler's style or a champion's cause?
AoO for free from the start, early Legendary in a weapon group, fighting style feats, better proficiency at advanced weapons ...
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
That's where I believe a considerable part of their class identity lies besides simply being the best at hitting things: feat selection and customization.If a fighter's identiy is "having none", I don't call this an improvement...
What's the fighter's equivalent of a barbarian's rage, a monk's ki powers, a magus's spell, a ranger's edge, a rogue's sneak attack and rackets, a gunslinger's way, a swashbuckler's style or a champion's cause?
First of all, you just cited a bunch of wildly different things as though they were all comparable to each other. Secondly, a fighter's schtick is being literally the pinnacle of skill with a chosen group of weapons. That's an incredibly enticing flavor hook. If you want to build a samurai who worlds a katana better than anyone else, you go fighter. If you want to play the tourny sweeping jouster? Fighter.
Thirdly, the simplicity of the fighter is it's great strength. It doesn't need gimmicks or conditional mechanics. It just works. It also just works for a variety of character concepts. Fighters and monks not getting predefined class paths like instincts or rackets was a deliberate design choice by Paizo so the characters could be built more flexibly.