
Easl |
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In those fights where [an RK check] is needed or helpful, the DCs are often set way too high leading a high failure rate.
There's a much more obvious and natural solution to that, compared to "remove RKs from the game."
A universal skill action that doesn't actually affect the enemy in any measurable way should not be the basis for the quality of a class.
That's a different perspective from mine. I don't see RK as any more "universal" than Demoralize. The CHA characters will use that, nobody else. And if the INT characters are the main RK users, that's fine. That creates combat value for the stat, which is good, because most of the other stats have combat value.
And as far as I know, nobody is suggesting that 'making RK checks' is the basis for the quality of the Wizard or Witch class. But it is a single action they can take, that can benefit the party, in combat. IIRC there's a whole darn thread about how Wizards need single-action acctions for combat to compliment the 2a cost for most spells. Well, here's one.
But I agree, it's got to be useful. GMs making it not useful is probably one of the reasons Paizo released their guidance on it giving specific stat block information of use to the party in combat. So that they (the GMs) would stop doing that and instead let the PCs use it to learn info that helps them in that combat.
The reasons for this [CHA vs. INT] I've stated. That being RK is rolled once and it's pretty received the main benefit.
Good! That's a good fit for combat. One action to give the entire party access to an otherwise unknown weakness, for the rest of combat? You realize that's *better than* a move that has to be constantly employed to continue it's benefit, right?
If you all want to believe RK is better than the Charsima based debuff skills, have at it. I think the Charisma based skills are provably more valuable,
Is this Survivor, that the weakest combat ability gets voted off the island? A great CHA move can happily coexist with a more situational INT move. Given that it is unlikely the same character maxes out both, a party of different classes can have one character manage CHA supports and a different character manage INT supports. So ensuring the party has a good high score for both doesn't even compete in any single character's build.
What I do know is - and which I don't really think you can dispute - is that if you remove INT-based rolls from use in combat, then obviously INT becomes less combat useful. And so when you then insist that INT-based classes are not as good in combat, you should realize that some of that less-goodness derives from your choice to reduce or remove the impact of INT in combat.
Look, your best argument for your table decision to forego these checks was that your table finds them boring. You do you, and it sounds like that's the right decision for your group. But that's an arbitrary, table-based decision. A different table might make them less boring by lowering the difficulty, or bumping up the value of the information given. Or a different table may simply find them interesting. All of these are equally valid options. And at those tables, which give or find value in RK, the INT-based caster classes will have one more trick in their bag of tricks compared to INT-based casters in your game.

AestheticDialectic |

Deriven Firelion wrote:I think Golarion is a fantasy world that blends a lot of different eras and ideas, so you can focus on a particular area simulating a lot of different campaigns. You could do Old West or feudal or barbaric tribes or magic schools or demonic invasions. It's a very wide open place intentionally designed to be so. I don't compare it much to earth because the comparisons would depend on the area.
I see what's prompting this discussion. Golarion has tons of books about. You can tell by their NPC design that books, libraries, spread of knowledge, and advanced medicine and such are common in Golarion fueled by magic with technology to a lesser extent.
I don't think illiteracy is very common save in tribal areas of lower magic and technology. In civilized areas, easy to learn to read.
Yeah I agree. It's a fantasy setting with (almost jarringly) distinct regions. So expecting it to conform to real history is asking a lot.
But I don't think it's illiterate.
Really wish fantasy settings would ignore things involving production less. You book up a fantasy video game and often you don't even see farmland at all and if you do it's tiny, and there is an assumption everything worked off markets despite it being medieval/feudal

Deriven Firelion |
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Good! That's a good fit for combat. One action to give the entire party access to an otherwise unknown weakness, for the rest of combat? You realize that's *better than* a move that has to be constantly employed to continue it's benefit, right?
No, it isn't.
It's better to be able to use a 1 action move per target to do stuff like lower Will saves or frightened lowering AC, saves, attack rolls, and just about everything, especially in conjunction with say a Champion's Aura of Despair which keeps that frightened condition for the duration of the combat.
So you RK on some goblins, and find there is nothing worthwhile to exploit. Demoralize works against them.
That's what it comes down to. How often is something useful? How well can you exploit it? How often is it necessary? What types of feats do you have to build it up?
With Intimidate you can add in Intimidating Prowess, Terrified Retreat, Skeptic's Defense, Terrifying Resistance, and such. Not only do the Charisma skills have more useful skill actions that apply more often, they have better skill feats to do build them up.
RK and Charisma skill actions are not even comparable.
RK is situationally useful. I've found it's mostly useful for dealing with oozes or unusual monsters. Evil outsiders, the martial just buy a hole rune. It's good against all evil creatures and activates weaknesses. Like I explained above, well built martials rarely need your RK. They'd rather have your fear debuff to lower AC.
And this is an argument of intel-based casters versus charisma-based casters and why intel-based casters could use some boosting.
One of those reasons is Charisma and Wisdom are more valuable casting stats.
But the people who think this isn't true came up with the RK line of arguments as though that is unique to the wizard and as universally useful as Charisma based skills which are applicable far more often in and out of combat.
But some folks want to make claims that once countered, they dig in on RK like it's as good as Intimidate, Diplomacy, or Deception which have far more useful skill actions and feats combined to make them more valuable than intel-based skills.

Temperans |
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If you followed Recall Knowledge by the book it would be more useless than it already is.
I still don't get why people try to use that as a defense for how weak Wizards are. Its like someone saying that using a bicycle is comparable to a motorcycle in a race; No matter how much you cope the bicycle stands no chance.

AestheticDialectic |

The Raven Black wrote:In fairness, I've never seen anyone ever play RK by the rules.
I am also 100% convinced their assessment of the game can be safely ignored since it is based on games that do not actually play by the rules.
I believe by RAW RK is borderline useless, but it is getting a substantial fix in the remaster

AestheticDialectic |
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If you followed Recall Knowledge by the book it would be more useless than it already is.
I still don't get why people try to use that as a defense for how weak Wizards are. Its like someone saying that using a bicycle is comparable to a motorcycle in a race; No matter how much you cope the bicycle stands no chance.
Saying wizards are what a bike is to motorcycle is a deeply unserious statement

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Reminder that Golarion is not feudal era (1600s) but closer to Renaissance (1800s).
In addition to the (accurate) comments about the differing technological levels of development across the setting, these dates are truly wild ones to pick. I do agree that people tend to categorise the setting as more feudal than it really is because of typical fantasy aesthetics, and there's a lot of the Renaissance in the regions bordering the Inner Sea itself. But outside of very select locations, I definitely think the 1800s is much later than most of the inspiration for the Inner Sea.
Exact dates are impossible to arrive at concretely, but the Renaissance is generally considered to be at its height from around 1400-1600, with maybe a century on either side of that occasionally included depending on the exact definitions. The 1800s are long past the end of the Renaissance in any categorisation that I've seen. Feudalism started and ended at different periods across the world, but given the Mediterranean inspirations of the central Inner Sea region, I think it'd be fair to put a date for the replacement of feudalism with a mercantile/early capitalist by the 1500s. Certainly the 1600s is long past the height of feudalism in the Mediterranean.

Temperans |
Temperans wrote:Saying wizards are what a bike is to motorcycle is a deeply unserious statementIf you followed Recall Knowledge by the book it would be more useless than it already is.
I still don't get why people try to use that as a defense for how weak Wizards are. Its like someone saying that using a bicycle is comparable to a motorcycle in a race; No matter how much you cope the bicycle stands no chance.
1) It was mainly about comparing Recall Knowledge to other skills actions.
2) Its a hyperbolic simile. The exaggeration is to highlight how its clearly weaker than the other option(s).

Calliope5431 |
AestheticDialectic wrote:Temperans wrote:Saying wizards are what a bike is to motorcycle is a deeply unserious statementIf you followed Recall Knowledge by the book it would be more useless than it already is.
I still don't get why people try to use that as a defense for how weak Wizards are. Its like someone saying that using a bicycle is comparable to a motorcycle in a race; No matter how much you cope the bicycle stands no chance.
1) It was mainly about comparing Recall Knowledge to other skills actions.
2) Its a hyperbolic simile. The exaggeration is to highlight how its clearly weaker than the other option(s).
Out of curiosity. Which full caster classes do people see as strongest and weakest? Because I'd probably rank them like...
Bard >> Cleric > Sorcerer > Druid = Psychic = Wizard > Witch
I think we can all agree witch is at the bottom and bard is at the top, with cleric being top tier as well.
I know a lot of people like druid more than that but it's definitely not at the same tier as cleric and its stupid pile of healing. And having those two action focus spells is probably pretty similar to having the mountain of bonus slots possessed by a wizard (even more with spell blending).
Similarly the wizard doesn't have a pile of good feats but non-animal/non-wild shape druids have even fewer.

Easl |
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It's better to be able to use a 1 action move per target to do stuff like lower Will saves or frightened lowering AC, saves, attack rolls, and just about everything, especially in conjunction with say a Champion's Aura of Despair which keeps that frightened condition for the duration of the combat.
Often, yes. As you say, RK is situationally useful.
But you seem to be really stuck in this either/or comparison. That's white rooming a situation that never shows up. A party with multiple characters will use different PCs to do different skill checks. The +4 CHA Expert in Indimidation will use Demoralize, and the +4 INT Expert in Lore will use RK. No Wizard with a +0 CHA and Untrained in Intimidation is going to prefer trying the 1a Demoralize move, no matter how much better it is in success effect.
That's what it comes down to. How often is something useful? How well can you exploit it? How often is it necessary?
Sure. My understanding of your game is that it is not useful at your table because your players have deep knowledge of monster stat blocks, you are fine with them using this IC, and you play monsters by the book and don't modify those stat blocks very much. Is that correct? So at a table like yours, RK is not often useful. But as several other posters have noted, not all tables play like that. In particular, letting OOC knowledge be used IC is not something every group thinks is legit (and as an aside, as a GM I would tweak book-based monsters all the time, to keep the game more interesting. That's another table difference that swings RK the other way, to the 'more valuable' side) So your argument that RK is not useful is only as valid as your table's assumptions.
RK is situationally useful.
I agree! That's why, IMO, it makes no sense to eliminate it from the game. And that's why, IMO, INT-based characters should sometimes consider using it.
One of those reasons [to give INT casters a boost] is Charisma and Wisdom are more valuable casting stats.
I'm all for the remaster giving Witch and Wizard some love. Can't wait to see what Paizo comes up with. But I don't expect the Class changes to do anything in the way of INT-based combat effects, outside of spellcasting. The remaster giving RK more oomph is, IMO, the update that's going to do that. It creates more combat value for the stat without nerfing the positive value of any other stat. But for tables that simply eliminate RK from the game or allow PCs to use OOC stat block knowledge like yours, that remaster will not likely impact the very low value INT has in combat in your games.

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Temperans wrote:AestheticDialectic wrote:Temperans wrote:Saying wizards are what a bike is to motorcycle is a deeply unserious statementIf you followed Recall Knowledge by the book it would be more useless than it already is.
I still don't get why people try to use that as a defense for how weak Wizards are. Its like someone saying that using a bicycle is comparable to a motorcycle in a race; No matter how much you cope the bicycle stands no chance.
1) It was mainly about comparing Recall Knowledge to other skills actions.
2) Its a hyperbolic simile. The exaggeration is to highlight how its clearly weaker than the other option(s).
Out of curiosity. Which full caster classes do people see as strongest and weakest? Because I'd probably rank them like...
Bard >> Cleric > Sorcerer > Druid = Psychic = Wizard > Witch
I think we can all agree witch is at the bottom and bard is at the top, with cleric being top tier as well.
I know a lot of people like druid more than that but it's definitely not at the same tier as cleric and its stupid pile of healing. And having those two action focus spells is probably pretty similar to having the mountain of bonus slots possessed by a wizard (even more with spell blending).
Similarly the wizard doesn't have a pile of good feats but non-animal/non-wild shape druids have even fewer.
In my very personal point of view, and before Remaster, it would be Bard > Sorcerer = Psychic = Druid > Cleric > Wizard > Witch
I prefer Spontaneous to Prepared, I value Primal more than Divine and I consider healing to be useful but not powerful. I also feel Druidic orders' features are better than Cleric's domains. Hence my ratings.
That said, I have much fun playing a Witch in PFS...

Calliope5431 |
Calliope5431 wrote:Temperans wrote:AestheticDialectic wrote:Temperans wrote:Saying wizards are what a bike is to motorcycle is a deeply unserious statementIf you followed Recall Knowledge by the book it would be more useless than it already is.
I still don't get why people try to use that as a defense for how weak Wizards are. Its like someone saying that using a bicycle is comparable to a motorcycle in a race; No matter how much you cope the bicycle stands no chance.
1) It was mainly about comparing Recall Knowledge to other skills actions.
2) Its a hyperbolic simile. The exaggeration is to highlight how its clearly weaker than the other option(s).
Out of curiosity. Which full caster classes do people see as strongest and weakest? Because I'd probably rank them like...
Bard >> Cleric > Sorcerer > Druid = Psychic = Wizard > Witch
I think we can all agree witch is at the bottom and bard is at the top, with cleric being top tier as well.
I know a lot of people like druid more than that but it's definitely not at the same tier as cleric and its stupid pile of healing. And having those two action focus spells is probably pretty similar to having the mountain of bonus slots possessed by a wizard (even more with spell blending).
Similarly the wizard doesn't have a pile of good feats but non-animal/non-wild shape druids have even fewer.
In my very personal point of view, and before Remaster, it would be Bard > Sorcerer = Psychic = Druid > Cleric > Wizard > Witch
I prefer Spontaneous to Prepared, I value Primal more than Divine and I consider healing to be useful but not powerful. I also feel Druidic orders' features are better than Cleric's domains. Hence my ratings.
That said, I have much fun playing a Witch in PFS...
Okay, I take it back. I guess we all can't agree on cleric being top tier as well!
I do agree wizzie is towards the bottom though and sorcerer is near the top.

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Takes the DF makes on the topic of spellcasting or combat metas cannot be taken seriously or at face value, he has openly stated MANY times that he uses homebrew-modified 5eish spellcasting, downtime and that their group has already established a hardened meta that is rinse-repeat with mandatory spells and actions that their players do not or are not willing to deviate from. Add to that their group has zero compunctions with using OOC information that the player knows as a character with 10 int and who has zero lore skills and mix in a bit of above-average optimization and suddenly trying to speak with them on these topics is going to result in translation and understanding issues to say the least.
I'm not saying this to put on airs like I am in any way better than DF but merely to let everyone else here know that when you're talking about expectations and how things actually work that he isn't actually talking about the same thing you are, he is talking about the modified and unique way that he and his group plays the game so it's not even really apples to oranges here, it's apples to pinecones.

Calliope5431 |
Takes the DF makes on the topic of spellcasting or combat metas cannot be taken seriously or at face value, he has openly stated MANY times that he uses homebrew-modified 5eish spellcasting, downtime and that their group has already established a hardened meta that is rinse-repeat with mandatory spells and actions that their players do not or are not willing to deviate from.
I'm not saying this to put on airs like I am in any way better than DF but merely to let everyone else here know that when you're talking about expectations and how things actually work that he isn't actually talking about the same thing you are, he is talking about the modified and unique way that he and his group plays the game so it's not even really apples to oranges here, it's apples to pinecones.
I am totally borrowing the phrase "apples to pinecones". Thank you for that one.

Temperans |
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Takes the DF makes on the topic of spellcasting or combat metas cannot be taken seriously or at face value, he has openly stated MANY times that he uses homebrew-modified 5eish spellcasting, downtime and that their group has already established a hardened meta that is rinse-repeat with mandatory spells and actions that their players do not or are not willing to deviate from. Add to that their group has zero compunctions with using OOC information that the player knows as a character with 10 int and who has zero lore skills and mix in a bit of above-average optimization and suddenly trying to speak with them on these topics is going to result in translation and understanding issues to say the least.
I'm not saying this to put on airs like I am in any way better than DF but merely to let everyone else here know that when you're talking about expectations and how things actually work that he isn't actually talking about the same thing you are, he is talking about the modified and unique way that he and his group plays the game so it's not even really apples to oranges here, it's apples to pinecones.
Its also good to remember why he has those houserules.
He played the game straight, notated all the damage from level 1 to 20 for various classes, and came to the conclusion that prepared casting in this edition is bad.
If the spellcasting was not bad he wouldn'g have to use those houserules.

whew |
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DF's houserules and advice are good for campaigns with super-long adventuring days. But he hasn't been adding that qualification all along, so his endless repetition that wizards are "boring" just looks like unhinged wizard hate. I haven't counted, but it feels like he has more anti-wizard rant posts than everyone else combined.

GameDesignerDM |
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Themetricsystem wrote:Takes the DF makes on the topic of spellcasting or combat metas cannot be taken seriously or at face value, he has openly stated MANY times that he uses homebrew-modified 5eish spellcasting, downtime and that their group has already established a hardened meta that is rinse-repeat with mandatory spells and actions that their players do not or are not willing to deviate from. Add to that their group has zero compunctions with using OOC information that the player knows as a character with 10 int and who has zero lore skills and mix in a bit of above-average optimization and suddenly trying to speak with them on these topics is going to result in translation and understanding issues to say the least.
I'm not saying this to put on airs like I am in any way better than DF but merely to let everyone else here know that when you're talking about expectations and how things actually work that he isn't actually talking about the same thing you are, he is talking about the modified and unique way that he and his group plays the game so it's not even really apples to oranges here, it's apples to pinecones.
Its also good to remember why he has those houserules.
He played the game straight, notated all the damage from level 1 to 20 for various classes, and came to the conclusion that prepared casting in this edition is bad.
If the spellcasting was not bad he wouldn'g have to use those houserules.
It's still completely subjective, though. So it isn't any indicator of any measure of truism to the system.

Calliope5431 |
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DF's houserules and advice are good for campaigns with super-long adventuring days. But he hasn't been adding that qualification all along, so his endless repetition that wizards are "boring" just looks like unhinged wizard hate. I haven't counted, but it feels like he has more anti-wizard rant posts than everyone else combined.
Yeah I have no problem with how his group plays, and I'm happy they're having fun.
But certain things are more valuable in a 10 encounter workday than in one where there is one fight and the wizard's ideal combat rounds consist of:
Round 1: cataclysm + quickened 8th level chain lightning
Round 2: cataclysm + force bolt
Round 3: meteor swarm + force bolt
Round 4: everyone is dead, take a nap
Which is not to say that wizard wouldn't mind getting some boosts, just that things look rather different in that context.

Easl |
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Its also good to remember why he [DF] has those houserules.
He played the game straight, notated all the damage from level 1 to 20 for various classes, and came to the conclusion that prepared casting in this edition is bad.
If the spellcasting was not bad he wouldn'g have to use those houserules.
Allowing players with deep OOC knowledge of stat blocks to play their characters as if the characters have that knowledge is not "playing the game straight." It will have the obvious effect of reducing the value of in-game options and mechanics that are there to help the party identify weaknesses, identify good tactics, or tackle a wide range of encounters.
Personally I think focusing ttrpg sessions on bosskill encounters and including very few mob, non-combat, etc. encounters is also not really playing a ttrpg straight. As they are designed for "sandbox-style play" not "wargame miniature combat-style play" But that's a more contentious claim, I suppose. Certainly there is some crossover and I'm glad people *can* get satisfying warmage miniature-style tactical combat out of it. I just don't think that when we talk about class balance, that the devs were counting only those types of scenes.

Squiggit |
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Its also good to remember why he has those houserules.
He played the game straight, notated all the damage from level 1 to 20 for various classes, and came to the conclusion that prepared casting in this edition is bad.
If the spellcasting was not bad he wouldn'g have to use those houserules.
Sort of, but it's also important to remember that 'bad' is in the context of the very specific campaign style they play in, which deviates massively from almost every normal expectation about PF2 is played in a way that's very anti wizard.
Like I agree the wizard is a bit scuffed and has some boring options, but also when you've decided to massively nerf the wizard and make it several times worse than normal and then complain about it being bad, that makes it not always the most useful advice in a general sense.

Temperans |
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Pathfinder is a war game, its why it has so many rule and minutia and part of why it has been consistenly popular. You can run an RP game in any system don't even need a lot of rules for it. But Pathfinder is designed to focus on and allow combat. I think its weirder that some people are against playing the game for what it is: A combat simulator with a splash of RP and a heaping dose of worldbuilding.
Not worrying about recall knowledge and still finding prepared casters (specially wizard) to be worse speaks loudly about how bad that system is.
Seriously think about it. People are saying that Wizard is "good because of recall knowledge" but players with access to the information without the Recall Knowledge tax still find prepared to be worse. Adding the tax makes something that feels bad even worse.

Temperans |
Temperans wrote:Its also good to remember why he has those houserules.
He played the game straight, notated all the damage from level 1 to 20 for various classes, and came to the conclusion that prepared casting in this edition is bad.
If the spellcasting was not bad he wouldn'g have to use those houserules.
Sort of, but it's also important to remember that 'bad' is in the context of the very specific campaign style they play in, which deviates massively from almost every normal expectation about PF2 is played in a way that's very anti wizard.
Like I agree the wizard is a bit scuffed and has some boring options, but also when you've decided to massively nerf the wizard and make it several times worse than normal and then complain about it being bad, that makes it not always the most useful advice in a general sense.
From what I have seen that's now what their group did.
I don't see how not needing recall knowledge make the wizard worse when they are getting more info than they would have with recall knowledge. While 5e spellcasting (while I dislike it) is closer to spontaneous and thus less bad than PF2 prepared.

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Squiggit wrote:Temperans wrote:Its also good to remember why he has those houserules.
He played the game straight, notated all the damage from level 1 to 20 for various classes, and came to the conclusion that prepared casting in this edition is bad.
If the spellcasting was not bad he wouldn'g have to use those houserules.
Sort of, but it's also important to remember that 'bad' is in the context of the very specific campaign style they play in, which deviates massively from almost every normal expectation about PF2 is played in a way that's very anti wizard.
Like I agree the wizard is a bit scuffed and has some boring options, but also when you've decided to massively nerf the wizard and make it several times worse than normal and then complain about it being bad, that makes it not always the most useful advice in a general sense.
From what I have seen that's now what their group did.
I don't see how not needing recall knowledge make the wizard worse when they are getting more info than they would have with recall knowledge. While 5e spellcasting (while I dislike it) is closer to spontaneous and thus less bad than PF2 prepared.
It's because RK is not valuable in their game like it is in other games, or in the basic assumptions of the system.
Not needing recall knowledge gives it a value of zero.
The INT classes being better at RK, especially at low levels, has then a value of zero in their games. Whereas it has value in other games and in the assumed system.

MadamReshi |
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I think its weirder that some people are against playing the game for what it is: A combat simulator with a splash of RP and a heaping dose of worldbuilding.
Different people get different things out of a TTRPG.
Yes, a significant amount of focus on Pathfinder 2e is on the combat. But it's a flexible enough system that you could have skill challenges without combat and focus mostly on roleplay, diplomacy, and saving people rather than fighting something and still have a great time.
People just have a different way of playing and running things, so I think it's weird to say that people are 'against playing the game for what it is' when their concept of the game is different to yours and the system is very clearly designed to support that type of play. The subsystems available, including some for much more narrative based combat, along with the extensive skill and skill feat system, make that clear.

Cyder |
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Even if we take the ptemise RK is as good as Demoralise/Bon Mot it still doesn't explain the relatively low power and generally boring feats for wizard compared to say sotcerer. Doesn't cover why wizard focus spells are generally worse than sorcerer ones. Doesn't cover that wizards need a lot of conditions for prepared casting to be as good as spontaneous casting (conditions which aren't in APs generally as written) and then there is still a gold and access/learning time cost to have that advantage.
Generally if the power of wizards is knowledge then they need more that just high Int. Masterminds, Investigators both have high int and more skills for it. Wizards even have 1 less base skill before accointing for Int over most other classes. If knowledge was supposed to be there thing their would be more support for it in the chasis other than high int.
This thread has devolved into petty squabbles about RK being good or bad while ignoring that even if RK is situationally good Int doesn't cover nature or religion, doesn't grant free increases for knowledge skills so quickly lags behind.
The power of the wizard cannot be a mandatory high int stat, other classes can all choose to invest in int and lore skills, some have an easier time of it than the wuzard so that is not the power of the wizard.
The only thing the pf2e wizard really has is 'more spells slots' kind of as sorc gets as many and good focus spells and feats.
Balancing 1 class around tables having to make its style of play to make their abilities somewhat useful feels bad. Making others walk so the wizard can keep up is a bad design choice. APs as written generally do not support wizard style of play without a decent amount of GM fiat and other players waiting around.

Squiggit |
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From what I have seen that's now what their group did.I don't see how not needing recall knowledge make the wizard worse when they are getting more info than they would have with recall knowledge. While 5e spellcasting (while I dislike it) is closer to spontaneous and thus less bad than PF2 prepared.
Not needing recall knowledge is less relevant here than the part about having 20 encounters per day while judging a class that's entirely based around daily resources.
Per dev comments, a normal spellcaster is balanced around using roughly one top level slot per encounter, give or take a little (with the wizard getting a couple extra). Deriven's encounter scheme changes that one top level spell per five encounters, at a minimum (it was 20 or more after all).
In other words, he nerfed the wizard to be 20% as good as normal. It's no wonder then that he'd need to do a lot of extra work to make them playable.

Temperans |
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Temperans wrote:
From what I have seen that's now what their group did.I don't see how not needing recall knowledge make the wizard worse when they are getting more info than they would have with recall knowledge. While 5e spellcasting (while I dislike it) is closer to spontaneous and thus less bad than PF2 prepared.
Not needing recall knowledge is less relevant here than the part about having 20 encounters per day while judging a class that's entirely based around daily resources.
Per dev comments, a normal spellcaster is balanced around using roughly one top level slot per encounter, give or take a little (with the wizard getting a couple extra). Deriven's encounter scheme changes that one top level spell per five encounters, at a minimum (it was 20 or more after all).
In other words, he nerfed the wizard to be 20% as good as normal. It's no wonder then that he'd need to do a lot of extra work to make them playable.
All other casters that have less spell slots should then be suffering more since they only have 3 spells. But once again it comes back to those repeatable high power Focus Spells.
Make it so that Inspire Courage targeted only 1 character and costed a focus point, make it so the Primal Summons is an action instead of a free action, etc. Lets see if those classes are still "fun" when they have the same quality spells as the wizard.

Deriven Firelion |

Squiggit wrote:I believe by RAW RK is borderline useless, but it is getting a substantial fix in the remasterThe Raven Black wrote:In fairness, I've never seen anyone ever play RK by the rules.
I am also 100% convinced their assessment of the game can be safely ignored since it is based on games that do not actually play by the rules.
The funny thing I don't mention on here is I'm enormously nice when one of my players uses RK. I give them everything. Lowest save, weaknesses, idea of AC, if they have an AoO, possible special attacks.
I go out of my way to make RK feel useful because I want my players to feel RK is useful.
Sometimes it is. Sometimes they make that check and find out something they exploit and feel good because if someone invests in RK, you want them to feel great.
Game after game I find that the charisma skills come up more often and are useful more often, especially if you build them up.
For RK or research checks, you have those skills spread over a few characters at least. Given the number of people who roll, someone will likely make the check. Mostly it will be the specialist, but sometimes it will be some other character making a random good roll.
Whereas the charisma skills have more success due to being usable once per target and having feats that build them up or alter them to provide additional bonuses like Intimidating Prowess or Terrifying Resistance or Battle Cry or Group Coerce. It feels more impactful to build them up and use them in and out of combat.

Deriven Firelion |
4 people marked this as a favorite. |

Temperans wrote:
From what I have seen that's now what their group did.I don't see how not needing recall knowledge make the wizard worse when they are getting more info than they would have with recall knowledge. While 5e spellcasting (while I dislike it) is closer to spontaneous and thus less bad than PF2 prepared.
Not needing recall knowledge is less relevant here than the part about having 20 encounters per day while judging a class that's entirely based around daily resources.
Per dev comments, a normal spellcaster is balanced around using roughly one top level slot per encounter, give or take a little (with the wizard getting a couple extra). Deriven's encounter scheme changes that one top level spell per five encounters, at a minimum (it was 20 or more after all).
In other words, he nerfed the wizard to be 20% as good as normal. It's no wonder then that he'd need to do a lot of extra work to make them playable.
So a DM and group needs to cater to a class balanced around a handful of encounters a day when the rest of the party is not balanced based on this? This is considered good design? One class of the many has to prepare and rest, while the rest of the party is good to go all day?
It's not me forcing my party to go on 20 encounters a day. It's what they want to do. They only stop if they have to stop.
You need only think about this some to understand why it works this way:
1. Hit points are recoverable with Medicine over and over and over again. There is no limit on the amount of times you can get hit points back to full.
2. Martial class abilities are usable over and over and over again. They are very good at killing without the need of spellcaster assistance in most of the fights.
3. Casters with quality focus spells, weapon options, and quality class features can continue on all day as well providing sufficient combat supplementation to beat most encounters only using spell slots when needed for some special situation.
A druid still feels like they are contributing very effectively when dropping a Tempest Surge, shooting a bow, and using electric arc, then healing here and there as need or dropping an AoE spell or Entangle.
Sorc often feels the same way.
Which is why I believe a good focus spell is every bit as effective as a spell slot for an adventuring day. You don't need some big dog spells for the vast majority of encounters. So an endlessly useful quality focus spell helps you sustain doing something all day without having to concern yourself with preserving spell slots.
Pf2 is a different game than PF1. You don't change all these elements, then design one class to still operate with limited resources while you've given near unlimited resources to everyone else for healing, casting, and the like.
That's the kind of stuff some people insist over and over again is not different, but it is different and right there in the rules.
Martials can go all day if you can get their hit points back to full, especially so at higher level. They don't need to wait for spell slots.
It's why every single class should be designed with high quality focus abilities as that is what let's a caster keep up with martials while still feeling like a caster.
So no, I do not plan to try to force my players to stop destroying encounters because I'm trying to cater to a single class. If they want to keep going and have the capacity to do so, then they keep going.
There is no nerfing of the wizard class if they can't keep up. It's the designers that did not account for putting an ability like Medicine which can keep martials at near full hit points all day and then gave martials incredible killing power that is continually usable topped up by magic items, ancestry feats, and casting archetypes for those times when they have to deal with an obstacle like a flying creature or something invisible.
I'm glad some of the casters have worthwhile focus abilities allowing them to keep up without having to rely solely on spell slots.

Calliope5431 |
Squiggit wrote:Temperans wrote:
From what I have seen that's now what their group did.I don't see how not needing recall knowledge make the wizard worse when they are getting more info than they would have with recall knowledge. While 5e spellcasting (while I dislike it) is closer to spontaneous and thus less bad than PF2 prepared.
Not needing recall knowledge is less relevant here than the part about having 20 encounters per day while judging a class that's entirely based around daily resources.
Per dev comments, a normal spellcaster is balanced around using roughly one top level slot per encounter, give or take a little (with the wizard getting a couple extra). Deriven's encounter scheme changes that one top level spell per five encounters, at a minimum (it was 20 or more after all).
In other words, he nerfed the wizard to be 20% as good as normal. It's no wonder then that he'd need to do a lot of extra work to make them playable.
All other casters that have less spell slots should then be suffering more since they only have 3 spells. But once again it comes back to those repeatable high power Focus Spells.
Make it so that Inspire Courage targeted only 1 character and costed a focus point, make it so the Primal Summons is an action instead of a free action, etc. Lets see if those classes are still "fun" when they have the same quality spells as the wizard.
That's a result of Deriven's setup, note. Not the actual game design, which expects 3 encounters. Not criticizing his setup, but it is geared towards making casters without 2-action focus spells suffer. It may well be true wizard needs boosts for a setup with 10+ or 20+ encounters per day...but not for the one the devs assume, which is FIVE TIMES less punishing.
I would agree that Inspire Courage is...pretty excessive, though. It just is. But it shouldn't be the basis by which all other classes are judged, in my opinion.
So a DM and group needs to cater to a class balanced around a handful of encounters a day when the rest of the party is not balanced based on this? This is considered good design? One class of the many has to prepare and rest, while the rest of the party is good to go all day?It's not me forcing my party to go on 20 encounters a day. It's what they want to do. They only stop if they have to stop.
No, it's not (this is why kineticist is so beautiful, because it can ignore resource limits). But frankly a PF 1E wizard would suffer in a 20+ encounter workday, and that's a HORRIFYING thought given how many slots they had.
Myself, I would like to see more stuff designed like the psychic or the kineticist, so that the effectiveness of your class doesn't depend on whether you have 2 encounters per day or 20. But this was tried in 4E. People HATED IT.
I've heard it suggested many times before, on these boards and in person and all over the place. Every time it comes up, someone will inevitably roll up and say that it's destroying tabletop RPGs and that they hate it because it's not like AD&D/3.5/PF 1E/whatever, and that resource limits exist for a reason. People LIKE spell slots and per-day (rather than per-encounter) resources, and don't want to get rid of them, even if I think they're probably harmful for the reasons you've described.

Squiggit |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |

So a DM and group needs to cater to a class balanced around a handful of encounters a day when the rest of the party is not balanced based on this? This is considered good design? One class of the many has to prepare and rest, while the rest of the party is good to go all day?
I mean yeah, kind of. How classes feel in practice is based on the assumptions you make while running it.
Giving players near infinite time to take breaks but very rarely take long rests is going to negatively impact classes that rely on daily resources and feel great for classes that rely on short order resources.
Like point 1 of your list is full healing and refocusing between combat. There are decent reasons to run the game this way, but it's also obvious that enabling this is encouraging a certain playstyle, and if you didn't the balance would feel different still.
Or point 2. Martials are very good at killing... when equipped properly. There's an inherent assumption there, backed by the game's math, that your martials will be armed appropriately for their level... but if we're throwing other game assumptions out the window, it's worth pointing out you could throw this one out too (and create an environment where martials are much less useful and casters who don't need items much more).
Again not a criticism of the style of play, but it feels pretty obvious that changing up the game so much is going to have this knock on effect for everything else, which results in increasingly less generally applicable feedback and increasingly more issues related to those playstyle changes.

Deriven Firelion |
4 people marked this as a favorite. |

Takes the DF makes on the topic of spellcasting or combat metas cannot be taken seriously or at face value, he has openly stated MANY times that he uses homebrew-modified 5eish spellcasting, downtime and that their group has already established a hardened meta that is rinse-repeat with mandatory spells and actions that their players do not or are not willing to deviate from. Add to that their group has zero compunctions with using OOC information that the player knows as a character with 10 int and who has zero lore skills and mix in a bit of above-average optimization and suddenly trying to speak with them on these topics is going to result in translation and understanding issues to say the least.
I'm not saying this to put on airs like I am in any way better than DF but merely to let everyone else here know that when you're talking about expectations and how things actually work that he isn't actually talking about the same thing you are, he is talking about the modified and unique way that he and his group plays the game so it's not even really apples to oranges here, it's apples to pinecones.
This isn't true at all.
When I discuss the game, I discuss the base game. The modifications were made after analyzing the base game and finding aspects that needed correction.
Stop trying to undermine arguments made about the base game that are true and provable because you know I made modification to my game using house rules.
Because buddy, what you don't seem to be picking up on is why is the wizard still not working great when I gave them the most power up with the change?
1. I made wizards spontaneous casters who could heighten at will and change out their spells all the same class chassis.
2. I gave wizards the Spell Substitution thesis for free and still let them pick another thesis for fun.
3. I rewrote the focus spells of the wizard to make them work better with the play-style of the class.
4. I gave wands and staves item bonuses to spell attack rolls.
5. When a player rolls a RK check in my game, I give them a ton of information, practically everything just so them spending an action and making that roll feels like it was an impactful action.
So when you see me discussing this game on these forums, it's the base wizard because I amped the wizard up big time in my games. It's still not a popular class because the class feats and chassis are boring. And magic isn't as impactful as it once was.
Posters like yourself for whatever reasons completely ignore that I have heavily ramped up the wizard in my house rules and it's still not outperforming other classes.
And my focus on these forums is the base wizard because if I've done all this to ramp the wizard up so players want to play it and it's still not popular when it was once the most popular class for 3 editions of D&D and PF1, then I'm not sure what else I can do.
I can only imagine how bad the experience of wizard players are who are forced to run the class as it is written in the PF2 Core Rulebook. I know my experience was pretty lame. I've been pretty happy with most of their other caster classes from the Core.
I'm pretty happy with PF2. I had to write way more house rules for PF1 than I had for PF2 to make it work well.
So far the classes I've had to modify the most:
1. Wizard: I had to ramp this up. I could not let this class sit there and suck. It's still not popular, but it's better using my house rules than it is in the PF2 core.
2. Switched to 5E casting for all casters including the wizard. 5E being a combination of Vancian and Spontaneous.
3. Modified Panache generation for the Swash.
4. Gave Alchemical goggles a boost and probably going to boost bomb proficiency to master if it isn't done in the remaster.
So this idea that I'm talking about the wizard from the perspective of my house rules is a false attempt to undermine my arguments without first going, "Hey, this guy increased the power of wizards the most in his house game. Why is he still talking about them?"
Because I'm talking about the wizard in the PF2 core where they are sorely lacking and need a boost. I've done all I can with my house rules. But I feel the designers need to look at the way PF2 works and design the wizard to fit in the PF2 paradigm.
I've outlined some of this in terms of classes having a strong ability to sustain their abilities all day because they rely on quickly recoverable resources or resources that work all day. Classes built on the idea of limited resources are a bad idea in the PF2 paradigm.
The way they built PF2 is this game that allows nearly constant recovery and capacity to defeat enemies if the group so desires to continue on. It gets better and better as they level. Limited resources is not how PF2 was built save for the wizard with their weak focus spells, bad weapon choices, and reliance on spell slots that do run out.
Any review on wizard design should incorporate a way to make the wizard more sustainable in a way that still feels like a wizard.

Temperans |
The wizard starts to suffer way before the 20th encounter. Assuming each encounter is 3 rounds and you are expected to use 1 high level spell in each encounter that is just 4 encounters; 8 encounters if you use 2nd highest spell level. While everyone else doesn't really care.
Spell slots are in a bad spot. Wizards which rely the most in those is in a worst spot.
Its why witch feels so bad, it has neither the focus spells, not the 1 extra spell of the wizard. If the remaster fixes the witch, wizard will be the worst caster in this edition.

Deriven Firelion |

Temperans wrote:AestheticDialectic wrote:Temperans wrote:Saying wizards are what a bike is to motorcycle is a deeply unserious statementIf you followed Recall Knowledge by the book it would be more useless than it already is.
I still don't get why people try to use that as a defense for how weak Wizards are. Its like someone saying that using a bicycle is comparable to a motorcycle in a race; No matter how much you cope the bicycle stands no chance.
1) It was mainly about comparing Recall Knowledge to other skills actions.
2) Its a hyperbolic simile. The exaggeration is to highlight how its clearly weaker than the other option(s).
Out of curiosity. Which full caster classes do people see as strongest and weakest? Because I'd probably rank them like...
Bard >> Cleric > Sorcerer > Druid = Psychic = Wizard > Witch
I think we can all agree witch is at the bottom and bard is at the top, with cleric being top tier as well.
I know a lot of people like druid more than that but it's definitely not at the same tier as cleric and its stupid pile of healing. And having those two action focus spells is probably pretty similar to having the mountain of bonus slots possessed by a wizard (even more with spell blending).
Similarly the wizard doesn't have a pile of good feats but non-animal/non-wild shape druids have even fewer.
Depends on what I want to do.
Caster Support/healer: Bard > Cleric >> Occult Caster > Divine Caster > Arcane Caster
Caster Damage combined all sources: Druid/Psychic > Sorc Arcane/Primal > Arcane/Primal Caster > Divine Caster
I've heard cleric focused on Channel Smite can be nasty.
Caster Damage Magical: Psychic/Sorc Arcane/Primal > Arcane Primal Caster > Divine caster
I think PF2 is generic enough that anyone with Legendary casting can do fine using magic. So when picking a class, you pick the class with the most fun and/or effective options on the chassis and the more necessary or effective spell list for a given group composition.

Deriven Firelion |
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DF's houserules and advice are good for campaigns with super-long adventuring days. But he hasn't been adding that qualification all along, so his endless repetition that wizards are "boring" just looks like unhinged wizard hate. I haven't counted, but it feels like he has more anti-wizard rant posts than everyone else combined.
Anti-wizard?
I love the wizard. My favorite characters from eras past are wizards.
I want the wizard better. That is the goal of my posts: to encourage the designers to improve the wizard.
Do you think I would spend this much time on a class I don't like? No, I would not.
My goal is to improve the wizard.
Improve intel-based skills to make the wizard's main casting stat better.
Improve their class chassis.
Improve their feats.
I want a better wizard in the PF2 paradigm without reverting to the old overpowered wizard of PF1.
That is the goal of my posts. I am not posting because I hate the wizard. If that were the case, I'd play my druid or bard and say nothing.
At some point during PF2 I want to make a wizard and feel good about doing it and I don't feel that way right now.

Calliope5431 |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The wizard starts to suffer way before the 20th encounter. Assuming each encounter is 3 rounds and you are expected to use 1 high level spell in each encounter that is just 4 encounters; 8 encounters if you use 2nd highest spell level. While everyone else doesn't really care.
Spell slots are in a bad spot. Wizards which rely the most in those is in a worst spot.
Its why witch feels so bad, it has neither the focus spells, not the 1 extra spell of the wizard. If the remaster fixes the witch, wizard will be the worst caster in this edition.
The argument still doesn't really hold water though.
"Wizard sucks after 8 encounters" is saying "wizard sucks after we have them do three times as many encounters as they were supposed to".
It's not an issue with wizard, it's that the class (along with many other classes to be clear) isn't designed to do that setup. Like how martials aren't designed to function with no items and no automatic bonus progression.
I'm confident if I ran campaigns with no magic items the fighters would start to complain about the wizard being overpowered. Because my setup is stretching beyond what fighter is designed to do.

Deriven Firelion |

The wizard starts to suffer way before the 20th encounter. Assuming each encounter is 3 rounds and you are expected to use 1 high level spell in each encounter that is just 4 encounters; 8 encounters if you use 2nd highest spell level. While everyone else doesn't really care.
Spell slots are in a bad spot. Wizards which rely the most in those is in a worst spot.
Its why witch feels so bad, it has neither the focus spells, not the 1 extra spell of the wizard. If the remaster fixes the witch, wizard will be the worst caster in this edition.
20 encounters are rare anyway. That's just what I've seen done by my group in a big dungeon moving room by room ripping it apart.
Sometimes it's one encounter a day in Hexploration. Sometimes it's a few to several. It changes all the time.
But using the rules as written, martials and classes with good focus spells using Medicine can go a long time, practically endlessly, and this capacity to continue gets even better as they level.
I'm running a five person group. Dragon Barb, Fighter, Rogue, Psychic, and Oracle and they rarely need to stop for much. I have to design real hard encounters to push them to stop or slow down.
We all know how brutal the fighter is. The barbarian is the trip master setting up the fighter's AoO. Psychic uses that Forbid Action ability and shatter minds to add AoE in. Oracle uses a bow with Archer MC and heals as needed. Rogue does damage and rogue things.
Psychic operates off cantrips and focus points, so they can recover every time we have downtime.
Oracle is spontaneous with Sig spells, so they can heal a lot.
A group like this can go a long, long time without needing much rest.

Errenor |
The INT classes being better at RK, especially at low levels...
Could you kindly remember that half of the most important RK skills in the game are WIS when you are writing things like that, please? I'd be much obliged.
It really feels that the main RK skill is actually Religion a lot of the time.
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The Raven Black wrote:The INT classes being better at RK, especially at low levels...Could you kindly remember that half of the most important RK skills in the game are WIS when you are writing things like that, please? I'd be much obliged.
It really feels that the main RK skill is actually Religion a lot of the time.
Sorry about that. I always take Lores for my INT-based RK specialists who then get both their INT modifier and a -2 to DCs.
There is nothing similar for would-be WIS-based RK specialists BTW.
Not to mention it is easier to get Trained in relevant Lores (say, Undead and Fiends for Religion RK needs) when INT-based.
So, yes, INT-based classes being actually far better at RK at low levels is definitely a thing.

Darksol the Painbringer |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |

Temperans wrote:Its also good to remember why he [DF] has those houserules.
He played the game straight, notated all the damage from level 1 to 20 for various classes, and came to the conclusion that prepared casting in this edition is bad.
If the spellcasting was not bad he wouldn'g have to use those houserules.
Allowing players with deep OOC knowledge of stat blocks to play their characters as if the characters have that knowledge is not "playing the game straight." It will have the obvious effect of reducing the value of in-game options and mechanics that are there to help the party identify weaknesses, identify good tactics, or tackle a wide range of encounters.
Personally I think focusing ttrpg sessions on bosskill encounters and including very few mob, non-combat, etc. encounters is also not really playing a ttrpg straight. As they are designed for "sandbox-style play" not "wargame miniature combat-style play" But that's a more contentious claim, I suppose. Certainly there is some crossover and I'm glad people *can* get satisfying warmage miniature-style tactical combat out of it. I just don't think that when we talk about class balance, that the devs were counting only those types of scenes.
Characters with 22 Int need to be played like a 10 Int character and have zero knowledge of the enemy, or be forced to spend actions to be able to use their OoC knowledge? This would be like saying a Fighter can't swing a sword because the Wizard can't swing a sword. Just because every character has low Int doesn’t meant the Wizard has to be played like a low Int character.

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Easl wrote:Characters with 22 Int need to be played like a 10 Int character and have zero knowledge of the enemy, or be forced to spend actions to be able to use their OoC knowledge? This would be like saying a Fighter can't swing a sword because the Wizard can't swing a sword. Just because every character has low Int doesn’t meant the Wizard has to be played like a low Int character.Temperans wrote:Its also good to remember why he [DF] has those houserules.
He played the game straight, notated all the damage from level 1 to 20 for various classes, and came to the conclusion that prepared casting in this edition is bad.
If the spellcasting was not bad he wouldn'g have to use those houserules.
Allowing players with deep OOC knowledge of stat blocks to play their characters as if the characters have that knowledge is not "playing the game straight." It will have the obvious effect of reducing the value of in-game options and mechanics that are there to help the party identify weaknesses, identify good tactics, or tackle a wide range of encounters.
Personally I think focusing ttrpg sessions on bosskill encounters and including very few mob, non-combat, etc. encounters is also not really playing a ttrpg straight. As they are designed for "sandbox-style play" not "wargame miniature combat-style play" But that's a more contentious claim, I suppose. Certainly there is some crossover and I'm glad people *can* get satisfying warmage miniature-style tactical combat out of it. I just don't think that when we talk about class balance, that the devs were counting only those types of scenes.
The game assumes that players do not use OoC knowledge.
Character with 22 INT will be Trained in many skills and will have better chances at RK checks than 10 INT characters.
Simple facts of the game.
Why do people feel the need to bash posters that just describe how the game actually fonctions ?

Darksol the Painbringer |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:Easl wrote:Characters with 22 Int need to be played like a 10 Int character and have zero knowledge of the enemy, or be forced to spend actions to be able to use their OoC knowledge? This would be like saying a Fighter can't swing a sword because the Wizard can't swing a sword. Just because every character has low Int doesn’t meant the Wizard has to be played like a low Int character.Temperans wrote:Its also good to remember why he [DF] has those houserules.
He played the game straight, notated all the damage from level 1 to 20 for various classes, and came to the conclusion that prepared casting in this edition is bad.
If the spellcasting was not bad he wouldn'g have to use those houserules.
Allowing players with deep OOC knowledge of stat blocks to play their characters as if the characters have that knowledge is not "playing the game straight." It will have the obvious effect of reducing the value of in-game options and mechanics that are there to help the party identify weaknesses, identify good tactics, or tackle a wide range of encounters.
Personally I think focusing ttrpg sessions on bosskill encounters and including very few mob, non-combat, etc. encounters is also not really playing a ttrpg straight. As they are designed for "sandbox-style play" not "wargame miniature combat-style play" But that's a more contentious claim, I suppose. Certainly there is some crossover and I'm glad people *can* get satisfying warmage miniature-style tactical combat out of it. I just don't think that when we talk about class balance, that the devs were counting only those types of scenes.
The game assumes that players do not use OoC knowledge.
Character with 22 INT will be Trained in many skills and will have better chances at RK checks than 10 INT characters.
Simple facts of the game.
Why do people feel the need to bash posters that just describe how the game actually fonctions ?
Yes, because "Using water/cold against a fiery entity" or "Fiendish enemy is susceptible to Holy/Good damage" constitutes metagaming. No, a skilled Adventurer will either have come across the issue before and will have the knowledge in-hand, or will be able to make basic conclusions like the above without needing a check.
Also, being Trained doesn't matter in the higher levels short of getting through basic DCs (which can be handwaived via a Follow the Expert activity), and RK checks scale to the point that being merely Trained is more detrimental than simply not making a check at all.
The game doesn't assume you can't make basic conclusions. Imagine needing to make a RK check to wield a certain weapon, because wielding a weapon isn't a common feature for everyone involved. This is basically what is being proposed here.

Easl |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Pathfinder is a war game, its why it has so many rule and minutia and part of why it has been consistenly popular.
Almost all ttrpgs have detailed rules for combat. It's not because they are inteded to be primarily combat simulators, it's because loose-y goosy judgment calls that lead to character death tend to create arguments, bad feelings, and break up friendships. Social, investigative, exploration, trap, chase scenes etc. don't have 50 pages of rules behind each of them because they don't have much "if there's no clear rules-based outcome, the GM may decide you die even if you don't agree that's what happens" potential. It is the nature of the combat type scene that being rules-intensive is a good idea for them. That does not mean the game must be combat-focused.
I think its weirder that some people are against playing the game for what it is: A combat simulator with a splash of RP and a heaping dose of worldbuilding.
Yeah, we *really* disagree on that.
Which is fine, but this is probably why discussions about "is the wizard class balanced" never find any resolution. Because you are looking for classes that are balanced for pure combat simulation (and even more narrowly: combat simulation of party-vs-one-big-enemy), while many of us are looking for classes that are balanced for combat plus a wider variety of scenes. Before we could ever agree that a class is balanced, we would have to agree on "balanced for what". And for me personally, that 'what' is not limited to bosskill fights.I'll say it again: a ttrpg is no an mmorpg raid. That is not generally how they are designed. It's great that PF2E supports that style of play for the folks who play that way, but IMO if you are looking for that sort of focus out of every class, I predict that the dev's decisions will continue to disappoint you.

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The Raven Black wrote:Darksol the Painbringer wrote:Easl wrote:Characters with 22 Int need to be played like a 10 Int character and have zero knowledge of the enemy, or be forced to spend actions to be able to use their OoC knowledge? This would be like saying a Fighter can't swing a sword because the Wizard can't swing a sword. Just because every character has low Int doesn’t meant the Wizard has to be played like a low Int character.Temperans wrote:Its also good to remember why he [DF] has those houserules.
He played the game straight, notated all the damage from level 1 to 20 for various classes, and came to the conclusion that prepared casting in this edition is bad.
If the spellcasting was not bad he wouldn'g have to use those houserules.
Allowing players with deep OOC knowledge of stat blocks to play their characters as if the characters have that knowledge is not "playing the game straight." It will have the obvious effect of reducing the value of in-game options and mechanics that are there to help the party identify weaknesses, identify good tactics, or tackle a wide range of encounters.
Personally I think focusing ttrpg sessions on bosskill encounters and including very few mob, non-combat, etc. encounters is also not really playing a ttrpg straight. As they are designed for "sandbox-style play" not "wargame miniature combat-style play" But that's a more contentious claim, I suppose. Certainly there is some crossover and I'm glad people *can* get satisfying warmage miniature-style tactical combat out of it. I just don't think that when we talk about class balance, that the devs were counting only those types of scenes.
The game assumes that players do not use OoC knowledge.
Character with 22 INT will be Trained in many skills and will have better chances at RK checks than 10 INT characters.
Simple facts of the game.
Why do people feel the need to bash posters that just describe how the game actually fonctions ?
Yes, because "Using water/cold against a fiery entity" or "Fiendish enemy is susceptible to Holy/Good damage" constitutes metagaming. No, a skilled Adventurer will either have come across the issue before and will have the knowledge in-hand, or will be able to make basic conclusions like the above without needing a check.
Also, being Trained doesn't matter in the higher levels short of getting through basic DCs (which can be handwaived via a Follow the Expert activity), and RK checks scale to the point that being merely Trained is more detrimental than simply not making a check at all.
The game doesn't assume you can't make basic conclusions. Imagine needing to make a RK check to wield a certain weapon, because wielding a weapon isn't a common feature for everyone involved. This is basically what is being proposed here.
What you mention as metagaming is more IMO actual In Character knowledge of tales, rumors...
A PC can absolutely act on these and I do not think I ever said otherwise. In fact I think you can actually try and guess an opponent's weak save on such In Character common sense.
But maybe the tales and rumors and wild guesses are wrong.
Also it gives an unfair advantage to experienced players over new ones.
I find using OoC knowledge to bypass RK is akin to letting the player sweet-talk the NPC to bypass making a Diplomacy check.
And AFAIK we do not do that.

Darksol the Painbringer |
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Or it's just, you know, a mixture of common sense and regular exposure as a result of their adventuring. Basically, though, we are saying 22 Int characters have the common sense of a mindless ooze because the game is balanced assuming this.
Plenty of opportunities for enemies to have curveballs, like the Ice Devil being immune to both Cold and Fire, yes, but doesn't mean that characters can't make an assumption that Cold enemies probably don't like Fire, especially if they have a high Int score.
And I have had several AP interactions with NPCs who do not need a check if you provide proof of something or say just the right things. This has happened in the Age of Ashes AP we ran, and the Curse of the Crimson Throne AP we are running now. Saying it can't work that way is absurd when APs do it.

Temperans |
You misunderstand being a "war game" with it being "combat only". War is not just combat, its why you have all the other rules. Also when did I ever compared this to an MMORPG? The ones who want MMORPG playstyle are not usually the ones who want to play TTRPGs: Its why TTRPGs that play like MMOs usually don't work.
Also you do not need a 200 page book to handle combat, just look at Call of Cthulhu. You do need that many pages for a war game because it is a lot more complicated. I get it that a lot of people came from 5e that is very loosy goosy about the rules and is a lot more about just doing whatever. But Pathfinder is not that.
This game has multiple modes of play and I expect that a BALANCED game will have every aspect of it be BALANCED. So why are you assuming that I only care about combat? That's the real issue right there.
Here I am seeing an issue with the balance, and what do I get? People saying all I care about is combat. Its great that PF2 supports your playstyle where you can just do whatever. But IMO if you are looking to be able to build fun character regardless of where you want to focus on I predict the Devs will never deliver given how the remaster previews have been.

Temperans |
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Darksol the Painbringer wrote:...The Raven Black wrote:Darksol the Painbringer wrote:Easl wrote:Characters with 22 Int need to be played like a 10 Int character and have zero knowledge of the enemy, or be forced to spend actions to be able to use their OoC knowledge? This would be like saying a Fighter can't swing a sword because the Wizard can't swing a sword. Just because every character has low Int doesn’t meant the Wizard has to be played like a low Int character.Temperans wrote:Its also good to remember why he [DF] has those houserules.
He played the game straight, notated all the damage from level 1 to 20 for various classes, and came to the conclusion that prepared casting in this edition is bad.
If the spellcasting was not bad he wouldn'g have to use those houserules.
Allowing players with deep OOC knowledge of stat blocks to play their characters as if the characters have that knowledge is not "playing the game straight." It will have the obvious effect of reducing the value of in-game options and mechanics that are there to help the party identify weaknesses, identify good tactics, or tackle a wide range of encounters.
Personally I think focusing ttrpg sessions on bosskill encounters and including very few mob, non-combat, etc. encounters is also not really playing a ttrpg straight. As they are designed for "sandbox-style play" not "wargame miniature combat-style play" But that's a more contentious claim, I suppose. Certainly there is some crossover and I'm glad people *can* get satisfying warmage miniature-style tactical combat out of it. I just don't think that when we talk about class balance, that the devs were counting only those types of scenes.
The game assumes that players do not use OoC knowledge.
Character with 22 INT will be Trained in many skills and will have better chances at RK checks than 10 INT characters.
Simple facts of the game.
Why do people feel the need to bash posters that just describe how
System mastery by its very nature means the experienced players are better. You physically cannot escape that, specially with more complex games.
Not only that but you are saying that its okay for this 1 specific class that is not at all related to knowledge outside of high Int should be punished more than all other classes who don't require it.
By your argument freaking Bard should be absolutely aweful as they are the ones that really are the "knowledge class". But what do they have instead? 8 hp, light armor training, martial weapon training, and quite literally the best focus spells in the game. I call your arguments BS.