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When you have cantrips and slotted spells to spellstrike with and still be a top tier damage dealer I don't really see a need for focus spells to spellstrike with as well. Within the chassis itself focus spells aren't used for spellstriking they are a way to recharge spellstrike that is fun and thematic for the class. Limiting spellstrike to cantrips and ranked spells, as well as finding another way to make starlit span not so much better than other archers and easier than a melee magus would be a good startAgain, nerfing every Magus because Starlit Span is too good is madness.
The problem is that Spellstriking with slot spells is often simply not viable, as you don't have enough to do it with any kind of frequency. And even if you do use it several times, that's all your good slots for the day, heavily restricting what is supposed to be versatile. That's also why the feats that rely on this are not worth the cost - you simply don't use them often enough to matter and for those couple of uses per day, they are not impactful enough.
And if you just use cantrips, you have a very limited selection with a set ceiling, no good way to up the ante. It's alright, but not exactly interesting or exciting after a few times.
Focus spell Spellstrikes are the perfect solution to that problem and actually allow you to do interesting stuff with your spell slots.
My stance is IW on the magus is problematic across the board, but is especially egregious on Starlit Span
The Dragons in your games are mammals? HUH...
It's cool, birds are reptiles after all
Monk sweeping the leg of a giant and it goes down kinda really looks weird, that's why I felt the Corgi example brings it into perspective.It's the onus on the player to narrate how the implausible thing a character is mechanically entitled to do works. It doesn't have to be a straight "I hold my foot out and they trip over it" since indeed most martial arts trips are about using the momentum of your opponent against them.
Selectrive realism is potentially a serious problem in a game like this when people don't bat their eyes at implausible things like "I cast fireball" or "I can retrieve an arrow, knock it, draw, aim, and fire three times in six seconds" but are bothered by things like "crossbows fire half as fast as bows, that's too fast" or "you can jump real high."
Like Titan Wrestler, at legendary athletics being able to trip things much, much bigger than you isn't really weirder than "Cat fall at legendary acrobatics lets you survive falls from orbit" or "legendary medic lets you cure blindness" or "scare to death with legendary intimidation lets you do what the feat is called" or "legendary thief lets you steal the pants someone is wearing". Doing things which are absolutely unrealistic, but cool, is the province of what "legendary" means. You're level 15 by the time you get legendary skills, so you're already in Heracles/Gilgamesh territory.
Like it's easy enough to justify tripping big things with a "vulcan nerve pinch"/"pressure point to disrupt chakras" thing, it doesn't necessarily need to be super cinematic.
This isn't really the issue with trip.
It's that trip is so good as to make it the alpha maneuver of all fighting. No one is worried about grappling because trip is better. Disarm is far inferior to trip. Shove far inferior to trip.
Trip is the alpha fighting maneuver that guarantees a win if you can trip a creature.
Fireball is just a fireball. Other spells do as much damage or more. Scare to Death got a nice nerf it needed because it was way out of hand. Stealing the pants off something with Legendary Thief takes rounds or minutes.
For me it's not that you can trip these enormous creatures, it's the ease and effectiveness compared to all other options available.
I've been playing for 3 years or more of PF2 now. Trip is still the god maneuver. You have a trip martial in your group and you're going to trivialize fights.
I'm testing a new trip martial in this up and coming campaign. A kusarigama wielding monk with Mixed Maneuver who should be able to trip two targets with reach for 2 actions, then flurry on them. Should be interesting.
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So you're spending two focus points in one round, then going lower resources for the rest of the fight? I mean yeah that's a good strategy, but I'm not sure if it pulls ahead of force fang every turn for three turns-- at least some of the time it falls behind because you only have one or two chances for the big IW spellstrike to land (depending on how you ration the hypothetical remaining point), so if it misses the next one that might hit is smaller because no point-- though, for something like an extra point from gnome font, it certainly picks up to just do both.I think the average DPR of not missing with force fang alongside a diff cantrip is being underestimated, imaginary weapon spellstrike into a cold recharge loses a lot of efficacy when it misses, and that's especially a consideration against higher level targets you most want to chip at.I often use Force Fang with imaginary weapon in many fights. Sometimes you want to hit and add that damage against very tough, high AC creatures. Force Fang is nice if you want to recharge, move to set up in a new position, and still fire a regular arrow.
Folks seem to be acting like Imaginary Weapon has to be used every round to compete for damage. It doesn't. It's still the best option for every strategy of the magus.
It's a flat out better attack cantrip in nearly every way for every strategy used by the magus whether they have to move or not or are using an amp or a force fang or a true strike.
It's never bad unless you can activate a weakness with another cantrip. It's the best option 90 percent plus of the time no matter what you are doing.
There is a reason I don't use white room math or strategy in these discussions: real play usually goes differently than the white room material.
You don't play this game alone. You're in a group. The other group members are doing things like damage or debuffing or controlling. So you're using your...
Nothing about what I said is white room, I'm not sure what part of it depends on your group not doing debuffing, control, or focus fire.
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With Trip against huge creatures or bigger it really shouldn't work. They should put some amount of realism into the effect. If you want to trip a huge giant you need to work at it with either multiple rounds of working on those legs or multiple characters or by doing some kinda clever ATAT tether thing.I disagree. Tripping a huge creature is no more ridiculous than inflicting meaningful damage with a short sword that would be too small for the monster to use as a tooth pick. Or even just punching it to death as a monk. If you can harm a creature in melee, I don't get why applying a little leverage to it is a bridge too far.
It is fair play though for a GM to say they are applying circumstance bonuses and penalties. If you think tripping certain creature body types (eg centipedes) should be hard, or big size differences should matter more, then the game empowers you to do so.
...So you're spending two focus points in one round, then going lower resources for the rest of the fight? I mean yeah that's a good strategy, but I'm not sure if it pulls ahead of force fang every turn for three turns-- at least some of the time it falls behind because you only have one or two chances for the big IW spellstrike to land (depending on how you ration the hypothetical remaining point), so if it misses the next one that might hit is smaller because no point-- though, for something like an extra point from gnome font, it certainly picks up to just do both.I think the average DPR of not missing with force fang alongside a diff cantrip is being underestimated, imaginary weapon spellstrike into a cold recharge loses a lot of efficacy when it misses, and that's especially a consideration against higher level targets you most want to chip at.I often use Force Fang with imaginary weapon in many fights. Sometimes you want to hit and add that damage against very tough, high AC creatures. Force Fang is nice if you want to recharge, move to set up in a new position, and still fire a regular arrow.
Folks seem to be acting like Imaginary Weapon has to be used every round to compete for damage. It doesn't. It's still the best option for every strategy of the magus.
It's a flat out better attack cantrip in nearly every way for every strategy used by the magus whether they have to move or not or are using an amp or a force fang or a true strike.
It's never bad unless you can activate a weakness with another cantrip. It's the best option 90 percent plus of the time no matter what you are doing.
There is a reason I don't use white room math or strategy in these discussions: real play usually goes differently than the white room material.
You don't play this game alone. You're in a group. The other group members are doing things like damage or debuffing
Use of Force Fang versus amped imaginary weapon is based on surrounding circumstances during play. So there isn't much of a way for me to rate these choices versus each other. It's an intuitive choice during play. Whether or not one or the other would be "better" in terms of doing damage is dependent on play circumstances.
So I'm not sure how I answer your original question of the difference between using force fang 3 times versus mixing it up. It really depends.
My statement about white room wasn't just your post, but the entire idea of measuring DPR for certain actions absent knowing what kind of group your in or what you're fighting or the conditions of the fight. One way of using something is not always the best option because someone can show it to be so on paper or in the white room.
When it comes to the magus, the IW magus is so good because IW just takes an already great class ability and ramps it up to well beyond what anything else can do. Folks seem to be building these comparisons of IW against two-handed trip reaction build damage or giant two-hander barbarian damage.
But how does IW magus do against a ranger precision archer or a fighter archer? How well does it compare to a regular starlit span archer using Ignition or telekinetic projectile?
I know some are indicating it is about on par with the new gouging claw taking into account bleed damage. Gouging claw is also a melee cantrip. So maybe the designers are empowering melee cantrips to account for them provoking AOOs and requiring melee range opening themselves up to melee attacks and other bad things in the range. So melee cantrips should maybe not work with Starlit Span magus as operating at a 100 foot range breaks the damage norms for ranged spellstriking.
Part of me doesn't want to bring this up because I like using it and it's one of the few overpowered options in PF2. But the DM in me can't help it as it seems to lead to vastly inferior archery options for every other class that feel bad.
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The Dragons in your games are mammals? HUH...
I have to reply to this a second time because I've cracked the code:
Dragons have BAT WINGS
They have distinctly mammalian horns much like a goat or ram
Some have HAIR
Dragons are WINGED CARNIVOROUS PANGOLINS
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The Dragons in your games are mammals? HUH...I have to reply to this a second time because I've cracked the code:
Dragons have BAT WINGS
They have distinctly mammalian horns much like a goat or ram
Some have HAIR
Dragons are WINGED CARNIVOROUS PANGOLINS
Wins the internet.
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The Dragons in your games are mammals? HUH...
Since I don't believe it's defined in game terms anywhere, they're whatever we need them to be.
(Certain depictions of the infamous Smaug from The Hobbit cost certainly had hair.)
This is the strangest turn in a conversation I think I read. Dragons can indeed be whatever you want them too be but to be fair dragons are the humans of the creature world, being able to make all those half-dragons! A
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Reading much about actions like grapple or trip, but both have the same requirement: “Your target isn't more than one size larger than you.”
This makes Enlarge spell much better if you use that tactic.
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On the topic of titan wrestler thing, I just assume you're like OG Kratos and just really damn strong to the point you can lift and throw a dragon
It would be more credible with the condition “if you can grab”, I think about it like the typical brute pulling a chain to avoid the big dragon to move away. But if your hand cannot grab any part of the target to make the catch…
The use of tools should be required, the abstraction sometimes is excessive.
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If a wizard can stop time, throw people into extradimensional prisons and turn themselves into a dragon, a fighter can suplex a dragon. It's only fair. Fighters are like Superman or Kratos
gif of Kratos throwing some big f**koff creature into a building
I can't think of what to search to show a Superman equivalent, but you have all seen it
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It would be more credible with the condition “if you can grab”, I think about it like the typical brute pulling a chain to avoid the big dragon to move away. But if your hand cannot grab any part of the target to make the catch…
The use of tools should be required, the abstraction sometimes is excessive.
Meh, I disagree. I'm sure you can invent something. The alternative is the "guy at the gym" fallacy where the fighter is bogged down to within human limits but the wizard goes "lol but magic", and nobody wants that.
It's like asking how Gaston (in the original Beauty and the Beast) can essentially juggle refrigerators without all of his joints snapping. He's a literal cartoon, people! You can relax.
Yeah, at Legendary levels we're getting into anime/superhero levels. While many will veer toward cosmic/Dragonball terms (which intentionally break the curve much like One Punch Man), there are less cosmic ones like Demon Hunter or Inuyasha where "normal" humans can achieve legendary feats, often including tossing much larger/stronger enemies, leaping far higher than human joints & bones could handle, etc. Several kung fu/cultivator movies demonstrate this scope of fantasy in internally plausible ways; through mental focus, breath, hitting certain nerves, timing a tip perfectly, etc. Which is to say, legendary PCs aren't necessarily exerting legendary strength, but could be hitting the Achilles tendon so the beast spasms and crumples or slips right when it's adjusting its balance.
For those that balk, that's simply the nature of high fantasy extrapolated out to 20th level. Those wanting a Conan-level fantasy that's kinda barely possible, they'll have to cap levels or redesign the game...and as pointed out above, that'll favor the magic classes that laugh at such real-world constraints, meaning all the game would need reconstruction. Not an endeavor I'd envy.
...So you're spending two focus points in one round, then going lower resources for the rest of the fight? I mean yeah that's a good strategy, but I'm not sure if it pulls ahead of force fang every turn for three turns-- at least some of the time it falls behind because you only have one or two chances for the big IW spellstrike to land (depending on how you ration the hypothetical remaining point), so if it misses the next one that might hit is smaller because no point-- though, for something like an extra point from gnome font, it certainly picks up to just do both.I think the average DPR of not missing with force fang alongside a diff cantrip is being underestimated, imaginary weapon spellstrike into a cold recharge loses a lot of efficacy when it misses, and that's especially a consideration against higher level targets you most want to chip at.I often use Force Fang with imaginary weapon in many fights. Sometimes you want to hit and add that damage against very tough, high AC creatures. Force Fang is nice if you want to recharge, move to set up in a new position, and still fire a regular arrow.
Folks seem to be acting like Imaginary Weapon has to be used every round to compete for damage. It doesn't. It's still the best option for every strategy of the magus.
It's a flat out better attack cantrip in nearly every way for every strategy used by the magus whether they have to move or not or are using an amp or a force fang or a true strike.
It's never bad unless you can activate a weakness with another cantrip. It's the best option 90 percent plus of the time no matter what you are doing.
There is a reason I don't use white room math or strategy in these discussions: real play usually goes differently than the white room material.
You don't play this game alone. You're in a group. The other group members are
Sure, but I'm probing you to find out whether you have specific circumstances in mind for this example, or if you're invoking "White Room vs. Real Play" as a trope to obfuscate it's utility, which is something we see a lot of in the discourse. But in the abstract the factors we're thinking of could easily go the other way.
When it comes to this example, my reading is that its largely on par with other optimized options-- a properly kitted archer fighter or flurry ranger or whatever, or an aggressive Sorcerer. Making it one of the best builds in PF2e, but not outside the realm of everything else. The one exception might be the use case of two targets + spell swipe, but even then I'm not sure it outdoes an optimized fireball over time.
A lot of that for the other physical ranged is that its competing with multiple instances of bonus damage being applied on other builds for the same effort, and what it gains from stacking on a single hit (so the second can't miss) it loses on that single hit missing. Like, in practice its a few d8s, going up against the higher hit/crit chance, and the multiplication of damage runes and other riders from multiple attacks, as the average performance over a couple of rounds.
Battle Circumstances will tend to favor the other archer, because they only need two actions or so to put out the damage and can more conveniently reposition, throw demoralize or something else around, or pop another feature-- Animal Companions, or Advanced Targeting System come to mind.
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It would be more credible with the condition “if you can grab”, I think about it like the typical brute pulling a chain to avoid the big dragon to move away. But if your hand cannot grab any part of the target to make the catch…
The use of tools should be required, the abstraction sometimes is excessive.
Meh, I disagree. I'm sure you can invent something. The alternative is the "guy at the gym" fallacy where the fighter is bogged down to within human limits but the wizard goes "lol but magic", and nobody wants that.
It's like asking how Gaston (in the original Beauty and the Beast) can essentially juggle refrigerators without all of his joints snapping. He's a literal cartoon, people! You can relax.
Yes, but for me a good role-playing is not a cartoon. There are many things that ruins the experience but that’s another story. And magic is not related is something totally apart, but that’s another of another story.
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I agree with Dark_Schneider. When the game boundaries feel closer to realism with in game features like magic even having rules for its own existence the game is more immersive and for me entertaining.
I don't have fun playing a game like with cartoon physics.
Rounds taking only 6 seconds is cartoon physics. In real life the fastest rate of fire that an Arbalest is capable of is 2 shots / minute. IMO, if you want a more realistic simulationist set of boundaries then you have to start by pegging the length of rounds in combat to 30 seconds.
So I suppose the most OP thing from my perspective is that you can shoot a musket or an arbalest 10 times in a minute. That's alot (not sure how aiming is even possible). To say nothing of melee combat.
Agree. That is another established habit in modern games that cannot understand, to save the world in 5 minutes.
In other older systems rounds was 10 seconds, and you usually only could attack once (and only attack if want to use all your bonus), o cast a spell taking multiple rounds.Those “epic” battles against powerful bosses enclosed in 1 minute…damn you cannot imagine how I’d like real epic long battles against huge monsters, having to think your tactics and taking advantage of anything around you.
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Isn't it the case that these heroes get these heroic feats of strength through magic? You being legendary in athletics is in some way supernatural within this supernatural world. I don't see this as cartoonish, I see this as the natural conclusion of how impressive a fighter would need to be in a world with wizards
Ok. If the community is ok with the power of trip, then I guess it's just me. I think it's too strong myself, but I like using it so I won't worry too much if they keep it the same.
Ok. If the community is ok with the power of trip, then I guess it's just me. I think it's too strong myself, but I like using it so I won't worry too much if they keep it the same.
No no, Trip is obviously "too good" / far better than comparable options.
It's just in that common situation of being grandfathered into being "normal."
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Be careful not to ever equivocate "community is ok with" and "is a balanced bit of game design."
Especially with the context of the new remastered Disarm, Trip is just nuts.
IMO, it's an often unsaid bugbear lurking beneath the "martials OP, plz buff casters" discussions.
Reducing defenses is amazing in a boss-heavy game like pf2e. So is limiting the enemy's possible actions. The only thing better is stealing actions. Sending someone prone does all three. For a single action, on a basic success.
As genuinely good as Bon Mot is, putting it in comparison to Trip just further reinforces that observation. And Bon Mot is a *Feat* that must be taken as a part of a PC's budget.
Honestly, thinking about Trip being turned into a Feat also just highlights that small insanity.
Giving a class a MAP action skill check to send an enemy prone would be seen as a crazy powerful Feat.
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Ok. If the community is ok with the power of trip, then I guess it's just me. I think it's too strong myself, but I like using it so I won't worry too much if they keep it the same.
Trip needs to be a viable optional combat tactic that is useful sometimes instead of Strike. There are a lot of people who never bother with it - they just flank instead.
I think it is about right.
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They didn't modify trip in the Remaster other than to get rid of auto-trip for crits with mauls and flails or with the Knockdown ability. So they must think it is set about right.
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Trip needs to be a viable optional combat tactic that is useful sometimes instead of Strike. There are a lot of people who never bother with it - they just flank instead.
I think it is about right.
I didn't bother with it for a while. Then I made a Maul trip build and now I feel like any optimal group should have a trip specialist. Trip is so powerful. It's flank for range or spell casters as well as melee. It takes an action to stand up. It's a debuff if they don't stand up. It sets off reaction attacks if they do stand up.
Grapple isn't even as good given Escape for some reason is not a move or manipulate action and doesn't set off AoOs. It doesn't even really slow attacking much. It does immobilize.
I've decided to try a monk with Mixed Maneuver who will trip and grapple a target. The grapple will immobilize the target preventing them from standing up since immobilize prevents move actions until you escape. So a trip with a grapple should eat two actions to get back on your feat.
Unless I'm reading it wrong. The biggest problem will be Fort is a harder roll to make than against Reflex, so the grapple may fail more often than the trip in most fights.
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I don't have fun playing a game like with cartoon physics.
I mean, cartoon physics is a matter of perspective isn't it?
Like take a level 20 fighter who is naked and standing in a field blindfolded with their hands behind their back. This person has an AC of about 40, a level one commoner with 18 dex and a crossbow literally cannot hit them even from point blank range (even a raw 20 is a critical failure, so it gets upgraded to a regular failure.) If they were somehow able to hit the fighter with a crossbow bolt, they would need to repeat this feat roughly 67 times in order to bring them down- the naked fighter with 50 crossbow bolts stuck in them is feeling fine.
Any way you slice it- this is silly. If this level of silliness doesn't amuse you, then you don't hang a lampshade on it. After the entire army of level 1 commoners fails to miss the fighter with 100% of their shots, they're probably going to execute a tactical retreat.
Anyway you slice it, very high level people are superhuman by design. If this bothers you, simply don't play at those levels- there are plenty of APs that stop at 10th level (where the crossbow brigade can still at least hit you.)
Since we're all shouting our preferences to the void, I rather like pineapple on my pizza, and cartoon physics.
I am not worried about cartoon physics. This is a game where someone chants some words and destroys small towns.
I just don't care for the whack a mole alpha combat tactic that trip encourages. Be nice if the other combat tactics were more on par or trip modified to be a little less good.
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Don't get me wrong, my statements are not about balance, I just assume it is part of fantasy that martial heroes can grapple with giant lizards winged carnivorous pangolins
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Grapple isn't even as good given Escape for some reason is not a move or manipulate action and doesn't set off AoOs. It doesn't even really slow attacking much. It does immobilize.
Escape has the Attack trait so using it gives a MAP penalty. +5 to hit is worth something.
Grapple works fine. I really like it on a tough martial to a) pin down enemies so they can't focus fire on your less martial allies and b) setting up off guard even for ranged and spell attacks. Captain America build works well providing you have some form of striker in your party.
I don't have fun playing a game like with cartoon physics.I mean, cartoon physics is a matter of perspective isn't it?
Like take a level 20 fighter who is naked and standing in a field blindfolded with their hands behind their back. This person has an AC of about 40, a level one commoner with 18 dex and a crossbow literally cannot hit them even from point blank range (even a raw 20 is a critical failure, so it gets upgraded to a regular failure.) If they were somehow able to hit the fighter with a crossbow bolt, they would need to repeat this feat roughly 67 times in order to bring them down- the naked fighter with 50 crossbow bolts stuck in them is feeling fine.
Any way you slice it- this is silly. If this level of silliness doesn't amuse you, then you don't hang a lampshade on it. After the entire army of level 1 commoners fails to miss the fighter with 100% of their shots, they're probably going to execute a tactical retreat.
Anyway you slice it, very high level people are superhuman by design. If this bothers you, simply don't play at those levels- there are plenty of APs that stop at 10th level (where the crossbow brigade can still at least hit you.)
Lol thats true.
I don't have fun playing a game like with cartoon physics.I mean, cartoon physics is a matter of perspective isn't it?
Like take a level 20 fighter who is naked and standing in a field blindfolded with their hands behind their back. This person has an AC of about 40, a level one commoner with 18 dex and a crossbow literally cannot hit them even from point blank range (even a raw 20 is a critical failure, so it gets upgraded to a regular failure.) If they were somehow able to hit the fighter with a crossbow bolt, they would need to repeat this feat roughly 67 times in order to bring them down- the naked fighter with 50 crossbow bolts stuck in them is feeling fine.
Any way you slice it- this is silly. If this level of silliness doesn't amuse you, then you don't hang a lampshade on it. After the entire army of level 1 commoners fails to miss the fighter with 100% of their shots, they're probably going to execute a tactical retreat.
Anyway you slice it, very high level people are superhuman by design. If this bothers you, simply don't play at those levels- there are plenty of APs that stop at 10th level (where the crossbow brigade can still at least hit you.)
Exactly, for that PWL. As maybe (not sure) mentioned earlier, this game has so many things that sounds stupid to me using its core rules, with GMG helping a lot to make it a more serious (so playable to me) game. But the core one has so many things that looks like "cheap?", video game, or simple tabletop game, that meh.
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It would be more credible with the condition “if you can grab”, I think about it like the typical brute pulling a chain to avoid the big dragon to move away. But if your hand cannot grab any part of the target to make the catch…
The use of tools should be required, the abstraction sometimes is excessive.
Meh, I disagree. I'm sure you can invent something. The alternative is the "guy at the gym" fallacy where the fighter is bogged down to within human limits but the wizard goes "lol but magic", and nobody wants that.
It's like asking how Gaston (in the original Beauty and the Beast) can essentially juggle refrigerators without all of his joints snapping. He's a literal cartoon, people! You can relax.
Very very very VERY much this. If my wizard can summon comets to rain down from the heavens then my fighter can suplex a dragon; The game should have everyone be either mundane or supernatural/magical. Seeing as how I like high fantasy, I want the latter.
Ok. If the community is ok with the power of trip, then I guess it's just me. I think it's too strong myself, but I like using it so I won't worry too much if they keep it the same.No no, Trip is obviously "too good" / far better than comparable options.
It's just in that common situation of being grandfathered into being "normal."
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Be careful not to ever equivocate "community is ok with" and "is a balanced bit of game design."
Especially with the context of the new remastered Disarm, Trip is just nuts.
IMO, it's an often unsaid bugbear lurking beneath the "martials OP, plz buff casters" discussions.
Reducing defenses is amazing in a boss-heavy game like pf2e. So is limiting the enemy's possible actions. The only thing better is stealing actions. Sending someone prone does all three. For a single action, on a basic success.
As genuinely good as Bon Mot is, putting it in comparison to Trip just further reinforces that observation. And Bon Mot is a *Feat* that must be taken as a part of a PC's budget.
Honestly, thinking about Trip being turned into a Feat also just highlights that small insanity.
Giving a class a MAP action skill check to send an enemy prone would be seen as a crazy powerful Feat.
If Trip is OP, so what about the Grab and new Disarm?
Trip is an attack action (gives and suffer MAP) that in case of success put the target prone making it off-guard and -2 to attacks and if it doesn't have Kip Up requires a non-check move action to out of it.
The off-guard part is good but its something that you can get easily in other ways without put your MAP in the line with same action cost. The -2 to attacks is also good but doesn't effect target actions/activities vs saves so its less useful vs spellcasters or monsters with breath weapons or any other damage source that doesn't depend from attack checks.
What's make Trip "so good" its not the Trip itself but the reactions that trigger with move actions like attack of oportunityreactive strike when the target chooses to use an action to Stand but this is more about how these reactions works than something directly related to Trip action.
At same time Grab is an anti-spell caster maneuver. Works similar to trip but instead of give -2 to attacks its gives DC 5 flat check to 99% of spellcastings and similar manipulate actions. 20% of chance of failure is a pretty strong debuff to those who casts specially using daily limited resources. Also to get out from Grab you need not only to use an action but to do a check to Escape, so get out of this condition its not guaranteed and uses your MAP but those who are grabbing you also need to "sustain" the grab every round or you will be released.
And finally new Disarm, that is most meh of the 3 main athletic maneuvers because requires that your target have a weapon and only gives -2 to target attacks and now in remaster also requires an manipulate action to recover (making it trigger many reactions) yet it can be more interesting if your target is already off-guard due other reasons because its critical success gives you a chance to really give an permanent big debuff to target (you can steal its weapon) and works vs biggest targets without need an extra feat.
I also don't think that the comparison with Bon Mot is a good comparison. First because Bon Mot is not an attack so it doesn't suffer from MAP also because its basically useful just for mental spellcasters (usually occult ones like bard) once that if you don't do anything agains target Will or is trying to Hide its basically useless to you. And finally IMO requires a feat is more like Bon Mot problem than anything else once there are many other actions like Demoralize and Feint thats doesn't requires a Feat.
What makes all these debuff maneuvers so good and its not limited to just them but to almost every debuff in the game is that they works fantastically well in team work and thats where's they shine and could be considered a bit OP.
Heck. The peasant can't hit them when they're unconscious lying unmoving on the ground. They can also apparently dodge bombs while naked and unconscious too.
This is made for a balance reason to prevent the old OP tactic of make targets to sleep and then insta kill each of them calmly.
You always can interpret the success/critical success saves like a failure from caster/attacker than like the target that moved itself unconsciously. The saves are more like an inverted way to check if you hit (making target roll instead of attacker) specially usefull to speed up AoE checks because you roll the effect just once. The abstraction of an AC and a Save are pretty similar its the resulto of conjunction of target dodge abilities vs attacker ability.
As GM many times during situations where I consider that the target is defenseless and that my players aren't exploiting the game nor risking to break my story I improve the success grade or allow auto-hit or even insta kill. IMO these are situational case that can be governed by GM easily.
snipIf Trip is OP, so what about the Grab and new Disarm?
Trip is an attack action (gives and suffer MAP) that in case of success put the target prone making it off-guard and -2 to attacks and if it doesn't have Kip Up requires a non-check move action to out of it.
The off-guard part is good but its something that you can get easily in other ways without put your MAP in the line with same action cost. The -2 to attacks is also good but doesn't effect target actions/activities vs saves so its less useful vs spellcasters or monsters with breath weapons or any other damage source that doesn't depend from attack checks.
What's make Trip "so good" its not the Trip itself but the reactions that trigger with move actions like attack of oportunityreactive strike when the target chooses to use an action to Stand but this is more about how these reactions works than something directly related to Trip action.[...]
I also don't think that the comparison with Bon Mot is a good comparison. First because Bon Mot is not an attack so it doesn't suffer from MAP also because its basically useful just for mental spellcasters (usually occult ones like bard) once that if you don't do anything agains target Will or is trying to Hide its basically useless to you. And finally IMO requires a feat is more like Bon Mot problem than anything else once there are many other actions like Demoralize and Feint thats doesn't requires a Feat.
The issue, as always, is the cost vs reward.
Cost of Trip is the combat attack 1 attack action, and the PC building of Ath + STR.
Grab, Bon Mot, Disarm, ect can all be used as other "waypoints" to see what they cost and what they reward.
but first:
You're lying on the ground. You are flat-footed and take a –2 circumstance penalty to attack rolls. The only move actions you can use while you're prone are Crawl and Stand. Standing up ends the prone condition. You can Take Cover while prone to hunker down and gain greater cover against ranged attacks, even if you don't have an object to get behind, gaining a +4 circumstance bonus to AC against ranged attacks (but you remain flat-footed).
If you would be knocked prone while you're Climbing or Flying, you fall (see Falling for the rules on falling). You can't be knocked prone when Swimming.
might as well:
You're held in place by another creature, giving you the flat-footed and immobilized conditions. If you attempt a manipulate action while grabbed, you must succeed at a DC 5 flat check or it is lost; roll the check after spending the action, but before any effects are applied
+ restrained's "can only attack or manipulate to escape/force open"
+ Grab requires an ongoing investment to hold on, while Trip is one-and-done
Both have the *exact* same build cost, same up-front combat cost, and target different saves. Yet the rewards are that wildly different.
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When someone gets grabbed, and they need to think about if they should attempt to escape, that's actually more points in the "Trip too good" camp, lol.
How many times have you genuinely seen someone/thing choose to stay prone, and for how long? Even though standing up is guaranteed, and all manipulate actions provoke. That's a huge area of insight.
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Another bugbear of Paizo's design is just how much of the game seems constructed around PC party VS 1 monster encounters.
IMO, these are a balance nightmare that should be not-so-gradually reduced into being quite rare.
Party size x 3 = action pool. When you've got 4 PCs VS 1 monster, it's 12 actions vs 3.
THIS is the #1 reason why Trip, and all other action stealers, are so problematic. The PCs are investing 1 MAP action into a trip attempt, and even when the odds are <50% of success, if you've got an invested PC, you'd be crazy to NOT take that gamble.
There's also the problem of monsters, *especially* those created for solo fights, having multi-action routines, even 3-action ones. Stealing actions is a big, big deal, and Slow is yet another one of those "obviously too good" things that's grandfathered into being normal.
Monsters can often deal with being grabbed, or choose to ignore a successful Bon Mot. They do not stay prone.
(Irrelevant anecdote: literally last night had a party member get the 5% crit fail Slow vs a solo foe fight. Was supposed to be Extreme, and it did knock my PC dying in a single turn. But, yeah, that single fail essentially won the fight. Even a reg fail would have completely crippled the monster.)
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A lot of fuss is made over concepts relating to "suspension of disbelief" with regards to these various aspects, but the concept is dubious and likely doesn't exist and assumes an outdated humanistic way of viewing the mind which has been slowly deconstructed by science. Like yes complain about verisimilitude or whatever, but that's not really how the believability of fiction works. We believe (in some form or fashion) first and then expend special effort to disbelieve. So when someone is "taken out of" something they've expended effort to consciously disbelieve. When people form a party covering roles to fill, no one is disbelieving the circumstances until you point out the absurdity and then they expend effort deconstructing the situation. People don't get confronted with unreality and disbelieve it immediately. That isn't how the mind works, fiction could not function if suspension of disbelief was a thing
We can go through every aspect of all games and label them as "video game-y", artificial, cartoonish, whatever. Down to the most simulationist of games. Real life doesn't exist in turns, what are actions anyways? How on earth do people cast spells! Why can I roll dice to see if the immediately deadly thing kills me or not? You ever think about how nonsensical saves are as a concept? They were designed to make the game more playable way back when they were adopted from wargaming into d&d. You can roll saves against poison or venom but there is no save in real life, you get an antidote, get your stomach pumped or you die if the poison is lethal. How about hit points? The excuse is they don't literally represent wounds, but even then it's a silly abstraction. Nobody by default thinks of these things, they by default buy into the fiction until they expend the mental effort to disbelieve the fiction. What we are really seeing is people looking for a reason to avoid buying into the fiction because of aesthetic representation. I however am down for our Herculean heroes suplexing dragons who operate on a turn based system described with really small increments of time using abstracted action points, who can flex really hard to make poison come out of them and I buy it, I buy into the fiction, it is believable and fun because I don't waste my energy trying to disbelieve it
Trip needs to be a viable optional combat tactic that is useful sometimes instead of Strike. There are a lot of people who never bother with it - they just flank instead.
I think it is about right.
Trip definitely is viable. As a baseline, disregarding party composition and enemy numbers. It is a 1 for 1, at least, since enemies won't have Kip Up.
Now, considering party composition and enemy type, it can be your best choice over strike, in lots of circumstances. Parties with multiple Reactive Strikes (and similar) reactions, teammates that normally don't benefit from flanking (Ranged options and spells) and all the player options that take advantage of the off-guard condition.
Against single or a small number of strong enemies, Trip as your first action might be your best option if your teammates are in a position to attack before the enemy's turn (delay might be great tactic for that). Since you might not be attacking at 0 MAP to use TRIP, but you will be helping everyone else on the turn, regardless of flanking (having fought a Gelugon as a boss encounter, this has never been more apparent for me, they're nasty as bosses).
How many times have you genuinely seen someone/thing choose to stay prone, and for how long? Even though standing up is guaranteed, and all manipulate actions provoke. That's a huge area of insight.
Basically everytime that my players Trip some spellcasting monster. For examplo. My players like to Trip and/or Grab anything. They in AoA they tried to Trip a Night Hag and instead of Stand I cast 3-action Magic Missiles on the player that Trip her. After this they switch their strategy to Grab. :P
As I said. Trip is a good martial debuff for melees uses against monsters but costs your MAP (your next Strike will be -5), don't really worth if the target is already flat-footed and basically is really useful for teamwork or to try to trigger an AoO.
Many players choose to not use it due the MAP, other simply don't like it, others think that keep their MAP to use some stronger attack (SpellStrike for example) is better. The same happens to other skill combat actions, I already saw Rogues Fainting, players grabbing monsters that casts or try to run. The only thing that I still don't saw yet (because pre-remaster is terrible) is try to disarm.
Trip needs to be a viable optional combat tactic that is useful sometimes instead of Strike. There are a lot of people who never bother with it - they just flank instead.
I think it is about right.
Trip definitely is viable. As a baseline, disregarding party composition and enemy numbers. It is a 1 for 1, at least, since enemies won't have Kip Up.
Now, considering party composition and enemy type, it can be your best choice over strike, in lots of circumstances. Parties with multiple Reactive Strikes (and similar) reactions, teammates that normally don't benefit from flanking (Ranged options and spells) and all the player options that take advantage of the off-guard condition.
Against single or a small number of strong enemies, Trip as your first action might be your best option if your teammates are in a position to attack before the enemy's turn (delay might be great tactic for that). Since you might not be attacking at 0 MAP to use TRIP, but you will be helping everyone else on the turn, regardless of flanking (having fought a Gelugon as a boss encounter, this has never been more apparent for me, they're nasty as bosses).
That's the point. IMO Trip is much more a teamwork tactic than something OP.
If there's something "OP", this thing is the teamwork in PF2.
In practice the teamwork is what really makes big changes in most encounters. I saw players destroying a Severe encounter due their good team work and other players suffering from same encounter due the lack of teamwork.
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A lot of fuss is made over concepts relating to "suspension of disbelief" with regards to these various aspects, but the concept is dubious and likely doesn't exist and assumes an outdated humanistic way of viewing the mind which has been slowly deconstructed by science. Like yes complain about verisimilitude or whatever, but that's not really how the believability of fiction works. We believe (in some form or fashion) first and then expend special effort to disbelieve. So when someone is "taken out of" something they've expended effort to consciously disbelieve. When people form a party covering roles to fill, no one is disbelieving the circumstances until you point out the absurdity and then they expend effort deconstructing the situation. People don't get confronted with unreality and disbelieve it immediately. That isn't how the mind works, fiction could not function if suspension of disbelief was a thing
We can go through every aspect of all games and label them as "video game-y", artificial, cartoonish, whatever. Down to the most simulationist of games. Real life doesn't exist in turns, what are actions anyways? How on earth do people cast spells! Why can I roll dice to see if the immediately deadly thing kills me or not? You ever think about how nonsensical saves are as a concept? They were designed to make the game more playable way back when they were adopted from wargaming into d&d. You can roll saves against poison or venom but there is no save in real life, you get an antidote, get your stomach pumped or you die if the poison is lethal. How about hit points? The excuse is they don't literally represent wounds, but even then it's a silly abstraction. Nobody by default thinks of these things, they by default buy into the fiction until they expend the mental effort to disbelieve the fiction. What we are really seeing is people looking for a reason to avoid buying into the fiction because of aesthetic representation. I however am down for our Herculean heroes suplexing dragons who operate on a turn...
Actually i do think of these things though. Magic is so structured in these games too. They have rules, you accept them as part of how the game world works. The rules of magic are so engrained that when we see high level magic used we automatically assume the thing that did it is high level. We do that from an out of character metagaming standpoint too. We have to suspend disbelief if that high level spell came out of a level 0 villager for story reasons, we start to look for reasons we can think of, is there some kind of relic involved? Is this villager actually not a level 0 npc? We don't just accept it when something is out of place even in a fantasy setting, because we have expectation even for that setting.
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They have rules, you accept them as part of how the game world works.
This feels a little hollow when we trace this back to a complaint specifically about rejecting the rules of the setting for being insufficiently realistic (regarding grappling/tripping/etc).
Monk sweeping the leg of a giant and it goes down kinda really looks weird, that's why I felt the Corgi example brings it into perspective.It's the onus on the player to narrate how the implausible thing a character is mechanically entitled to do works. It doesn't have to be a straight "I hold my foot out and they trip over it" since indeed most martial arts trips are about using the momentum of your opponent against them.
Selectrive realism is potentially a serious problem in a game like this when people don't bat their eyes at implausible things like "I cast fireball" or "I can retrieve an arrow, knock it, draw, aim, and fire three times in six seconds" but are bothered by things like "crossbows fire half as fast as bows, that's too fast" or "you can jump real high."
Like Titan Wrestler, at legendary athletics being able to trip things much, much bigger than you isn't really weirder than "Cat fall at legendary acrobatics lets you survive falls from orbit" or "legendary medic lets you cure blindness" or "scare to death with legendary intimidation lets you do what the feat is called" or "legendary thief lets you steal the pants someone is wearing". Doing things which are absolutely unrealistic, but cool, is the province of what "legendary" means. You're level 15 by the time you get legendary skills, so you're already in Heracles/Gilgamesh territory.
Like it's easy enough to justify tripping big things with a "vulcan nerve pinch"/"pressure point to disrupt chakras" thing, it doesn't necessarily need to be super cinematic.
This isn't really the issue with trip.
It's that trip is so good as to make it the alpha maneuver of all fighting. No one is worried about grappling because trip is better. Disarm is far inferior to trip. Shove far inferior to trip.
Trip is the alpha fighting maneuver that guarantees a win if you can trip a creature.
Fireball is just a fireball. Other spells do as much damage or more. Scare to Death...
It may not be your issue with trip, but it is an issue other people have and which is being discussed in the post you quoted. Issues are subjective like that.
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True, but I don't think that's really the point being made. The fact that magic has rules doesn't mean that the game is "realistic".
For instance. In real life ALL slashing and piercing damage imposes bleed. Make all the arguments you want about hit points being an abstract concept, but, uh, in pathfinder there is literally no way for anyone to cut you with a sword and make you bleed. There's no long term consequences to getting stabbed unless the stab wound knocks you out. Death by blood loss? Nope. Slowly staggering around for half an hour before collapsing? Not a thing. Infection? Gangrene? Nope, everyone sterilizes their weapons unless otherwise specifically called out.
The game works on a cartoon logic because that's how the rules have to go. And because too much "realism" (roll vs tetanus after every single fight!) would make the players extremely angry.
Yes the argument is two fold, nobody wants realism and tlj don't need any certain degree of realism to buy in. Action movies have dirt on the lens, specifically calling out that you are watching a movie and there is a camera here, and yet it doesn't kick people out of the experience, it is even expected and accepted as part of the reality of the fiction