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Honestly the fighter is such a strong class you could almost just pick your feat choices at random and still have a character that functions well as long as you wield a weapon that matches your (also randomly selected) weapon group.
The bar for making an effective DPR machine is pretty low here.
Yes there is a lot of space in fighter builds as only a few of the feats are required and they just have more feats, but there are some necessary feats for your fighting style or you really aren't moving above the base damage. You might think your fighter is OK but it is not compared to what it could be.
I've seen a sword and board and a two-weapon fighter in play and the the two-hander fighter is really the only one that keeps up with the other powerful DPS classes like the rogue and barbarian.Then you aren't doing your two weapon fighter right.
The two handed fighter is doing around 25% more damage per hit, but the two weapon fighter is landing more hits because of the reduced MAP and because he can use quickened better.The Reactive Strikes at full BAB with a two-handed weapon really set them apart.
That's why it is hard for me to make any fighter other than a big 2-hander fighter. I have to force my mind to accept suboptimal damage to play a different class fantasy because any fighting style other than big two-hander really doesn't maximize the fighter's abilities.
Yep the extra zero MAP attacks are important, but you don't always get offered them, and when you do the other fighters get them as well - just at less damage per hit.
Gortle, you know me by this time. The Reactive Strikes are always going to happen or at least a great deal of the time. The character is built to activate them often taking the extra AoO at 10th level and working to activate both of them doing what gesalt recommends or taking Opportune Backstab by level 16 with gang up.
I found out a while ago that Opportune Backstab and Gang Up don't require sneak attack or a finesse or agile weapon. Works fine with a two-handed weapon.
So I started taking Rogue Archetype and picking up Gang Up and Opportune backstab with my 2-hander fighters.
I often set up the Trip fighter using Smash Down now? Then pick up the extra AOO at 10th. Then Gang up At 12th. Then Opportune Backstab at 16th.
It creates an often double AoO opportunity. One activated by a hit from your ally and one from standing up.
Which is why when I calculate my damage, I do so with Reactive Strike as I know I will eventually bring this combination online.
It's very hard for a two-weapon or any other build to match it in effectiveness and damage.
I really just need to turn off the optimizer mentality and enjoy the different fighting style, but it's so hard to do.
Maybe you will point out something I'm missing, but near as I can tell Gang up and Opportune Backstab are available to any class willing to invest in the archetype and spend the higher level feats.
That's why it is hard for me to make any fighter other than a big 2-hander fighter. I have to force my mind to accept suboptimal damage to play a different class fantasy because any fighting style other than big two-hander really doesn't maximize the fighter's abilities.Well, the build I gave you outdamages 2-hander Fighter easily and strongly changes the fantasy. Well, there's the issue of it being available only at level 16 but you always tell me you play high levels.
Your concept is more of the Wolverine Concept. It does do great damage and is interesting. It doesn't fit the two-weapon fighting class fantasy I'm looking to do.
I do have it in mind. I do want to try it at some point. Maybe make a Catfolk or Beastkin and do the Wolverine type of class fantasy.
On a side note. One of the problems I saw with the Double Slice fighter was when they missed that second attack and used Reactive Strikes, their damage really dropped off compared to the two-hander fighter. If you hit twice with the Two-hander fighter or got even one Reactive Strike, you outdamaged the two-weapon fighter by quite a bit.
Also flanking and buffs were more potent on a two-hander fighter than a two-weapon.
Crits also did substantially more damage on the two-hander fighter for anything other than a pick or something with fatal and using an agile weapon really weakens your damage even if you hit if you don't crit. A d4 light pick is way weaker than a 1d12 two-hander. It really doesn't outdamage the two-hander trip fighter in real play.
It may look good on a theoretical damage modeling tool, but in real play recording damage by battle the two-hander fighter beats is handily. Two-weapon is especially bad if you get unlucky on the second attack or just fail to crit that often.
The two-weapon fighting flurry ranger if going against a marked target with sufficient hit points for every swing to count outdamaged a two-weapon fighter recording damage in real play using two agile weapons with Rogue Archetype and Sneak Attack.
I'm not sure how they would do with two falcatas.
Gortle, you know me by this time. The Reactive Strikes are always going to happen or at least a great deal of the time. The character is built to activate them often taking the extra AoO at 10th level and working to activate both of them doing what gesalt recommends or taking Opportune Backstab by level 16 with gang
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You are talking about extreme level 16+ which I don't play at much, and really not that many people do. Just now and then. I'm well aware of the uses of Opportune Backstab at that level and its been in some of my fighter builds for years.
But remember Combat Reflexes is restricted to Reactive Strike so you are only getting one Opportune Backstab and if you take that only one Reactive Strike. The other feats that provide extra reactions are all limited by class or specific reaction as well.
Plus when you have Opportune Backstab you will still only get it a percentage of times in combat - maybe 70%. Sometimes you won't have an adjacent ally and sometimes they won't hit, or worse they will kill what you wanted to.
Yes Gangup is strong. I am very disappointed that they strengthened it in the remaster. Optimal builds take it if their allies don't already have it.
Stay Down (not Smash Down) is a reaction so if you use it you are giving up on a hit. Plus it further emphasises my point that sometimes the enemy will just stay on the ground and fight you from there. I mean you have your off guard modifier anyway, why give you a free attack?
Yes at high level a optimal two handed fighter will get the equivalent value of 2 attacks in their turn and a portion of 2 out of their turn. Yes they do 25% more damage per hit.
But the two weapon fighter will probably be making 5 attacks (with some penalties) in their turn and 1-2 out of their turn. Because their 3 actions will have 4 attacks in them, and they will be quickened for a 5th. But the two handed fighter gets much less value out of that quickened attack.
Hunt Prey is not the Ranger problem as they have compression actions based on it (Twin Takedown and Hunted Shot). Reducing the number of times you have to Hunt Prey is just giving them more third actions, so nothing interesting. The problem is that the Edges are not competitive enough against the Fighter +2 or the Barbarian Rage damage.
Yes the biggest problem is that in higher levels the number of enemies with some kind of physical resistance increases. This could be problematic for a martial that depends from dealing multiple attacks like the flurry ranger.
If the GM want to compensate the encounter in order to prevent don't harm the rangers probably is more effective to switch or make changes in enemies that can have some resistance. Curiously this doesn't includes Shield Block enemies once that they even having a great DR they usually can only use it vs only one attack.
Gortle, you know me by this time. The Reactive Strikes are always going to happen or at least a great deal of the time. The character is built to activate them often taking the extra AoO at 10th level and working to activate both of them doing what gesalt recommends or taking Opportune Backstab by level 16 with gang
...You are talking about extreme level 16+ which I don't play at much, and really not that many people do. Just now and then. I'm well aware of the uses of Opportune Backstab at that level and its been in some of my fighter builds for years.
But remember Combat Reflexes is restricted to Reactive Strike so you are only getting one Opportune Backstab and if you take that only one Reactive Strike. The other feats that provide extra reactions are all limited by class or specific reaction as well.
Plus when you have Opportune Backstab you will still only get it a percentage of times in combat - maybe 70%. Sometimes you won't have an adjacent ally and sometimes they won't hit, or worse they will kill what you wanted to.
Yes Gangup is strong. I am very disappointed that they strengthened it in the remaster. Optimal builds take it if their allies don't already have it.
Stay Down (not Smash Down) is a reaction so if you use it you are giving up on a hit. Plus it further emphasises my point that sometimes the enemy will just stay on the ground and fight you from there. I mean you have your off guard modifier anyway, why give you a free attack?
Yes at high level a optimal two handed fighter will get the equivalent value of 2 attacks in their turn and a portion of 2 out of their turn. Yes they do 25% more damage per hit.
But the two weapon fighter will probably be making 5 attacks (with some penalties) in their turn and 1-2 out of their turn. Because their 3 actions will have 4 attacks in them, and they will be quickened for a 5th. But the two handed fighter gets much less value out of that quickened attack.
As a GM I can attest that RS-focused tactics are devastating and super-effective.
And I have a table with 3 melee marcias and all 3 have RS (2 barbarians and a fighter) and 2 of them use reach weapons. And I can say that it is very difficult not to trigger their RS when they are actively tripping or putting the enemy in a situation where their movement is very restricted. It's practically RS every round, or I practically have to give up on my monsters standing up or moving, which would mean leaving them in even more disadvantageous situations.
So I agree with Deriven Firelion, the impact of MAPless reactions is really significant on a character's DPR.
Gortle, you know me by this time. The Reactive Strikes are always going to happen or at least a great deal of the time. The character is built to activate them often taking the extra AoO at 10th level and working to activate both of them doing what gesalt recommends or taking Opportune Backstab by level 16 with gang
...You are talking about extreme level 16+ which I don't play at much, and really not that many people do. Just now and then. I'm well aware of the uses of Opportune Backstab at that level and its been in some of my fighter builds for years.
But remember Combat Reflexes is restricted to Reactive Strike so you are only getting one Opportune Backstab and if you take that only one Reactive Strike. The other feats that provide extra reactions are all limited by class or specific reaction as well.
Plus when you have Opportune Backstab you will still only get it a percentage of times in combat - maybe 70%. Sometimes you won't have an adjacent ally and sometimes they won't hit, or worse they will kill what you wanted to.
Yes Gangup is strong. I am very disappointed that they strengthened it in the remaster. Optimal builds take it if their allies don't already have it.
Stay Down (not Smash Down) is a reaction so if you use it you are giving up on a hit. Plus it further emphasises my point that sometimes the enemy will just stay on the ground and fight you from there. I mean you have your off guard modifier anyway, why give you a free attack?
Yes at high level a optimal two handed fighter will get the equivalent value of 2 attacks in their turn and a portion of 2 out of their turn. Yes they do 25% more damage per hit.
But the two weapon fighter will probably be making 5 attacks (with some penalties) in their turn and 1-2 out of their turn. Because their 3 actions will have 4 attacks in them, and they will be quickened for a 5th. But the two handed fighter gets much less value out of that quickened attack.
With two-handed fighter I use whatever the new Knockdown is. I have real trouble moving away from using trip on my two-handed fighters it's so effective. The action calculus is so bad once you a trip a creature and so many creatures have bad Reflex and you can build athletics much higher than weapon attacks.
Trip is one of the easiest combat maneuvers to land. Knocks the target down giving them a minus to attack if they choose to do melee that stacks with all other debuffs and prevents them from moving until they stand. Offguard to range and melee attacks. Activates Reactive Strike if they stand. Good feat support eliminating the MAP for using it.
It's so good with the two-handed reaction fighter, barb, and monk builds I use.
Which is why I don't like it as a DM and feel as a player it causes decision issues because you have to make this decision to be less effective to use other options.
That's really the problem I have right now. I want to play a two-weapon fighter because it looks cool in my mind's eye. I have to make a conscious choice to be inferior to do this because Paizo built two-weapon fighting and every combat maneuver other than trip as an obviously and measurably inferior option.
It's very hard for me to accept using an inferior option for achieving victory because I enjoy both looking a certain way and being highly effective. It puts two elements of fun I measure during character creation at odds.
I have to decide to use the concept and accept the inferior option, which hopefully won't prove so inferior as to be irritating. I won't really know until I use it as theorycrafting only goes so far in considering how the option will work in real play.
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The -10 is a big deal too and I want to use two falcatas. It's not just two-weapon fighting. I want a two-weapon fighter using falcatas. I think the ranger would like do that better.
I played a flurry ranger with rogue archetype with an animal companion to set up flanking using two goblin slicers. This build was quite a brutal damage dealing build. It did so much damage that I often had blow through using our usual focus fire tactics. 3 to 4 fairly low MAP attacks a round can be quite nasty.
I calculated this against the fighter two-weapon fighter and as levels rose with Side By Side animal companion with a free action to stride to move into place to set up the flank, the agile weapon ranger outperformed the fighter. The Ranger's niche seems to be two-weapon fighting.
The fighter is optimized for big weapons with other weapons being an option, but a measurably inferior option though an archery control build can be decent once you get the Slow 1 shot, though it can often lower your DPR.
Most of this is measured in real play as I found estimates using theorycrafting have trouble taking into account tactical play and movement in the damage equation, especially reactive strikes which the fighter excels at. The two big reaction classes are the champion and fighter as they both are able to build up the necessary number of reactions easily to build around reaction tactics.
I may have to switch to a ranger as I know the ranger can use two falcatas the best to do what I want to do.
So I agree with Deriven Firelion, the impact of MAPless reactions is really significant on a character's DPR
So do I.
The point I am making in not that MAPless reactions are bad or trip is bad, just that more lower MAP attacks is another way amd it is very competitive on total damage output. I reject any notion that trip is the one true way to build a fighter.
And I have a table with 3 melee marcias and all 3 have RS (2 barbarians and a fighter) and 2 of them use reach weapons. And I can say that it is very difficult not to trigger their RS when they are actively tripping or putting the enemy in a situation where their movement is very restricted. It's practically RS every round, or I practically have to give up on my monsters standing up or moving, which would mean leaving them in even more disadvantageous situations.
So if the monsters refuse to give you RS opportunites they are at -2 to attack. and your party losess 6 zero MAP attacks ie over half your attack value. The monsters are going to be off guard anyway. That seems pretty clearly in the monsters favour not to trigger.
I agree with Gortle, there's a level where Reactive Strike becomes nearly ubiquitous so enemies shouldn't trigger it if they can avoid to. Especially if they are next to many PCs.
Get a psychic with Message amp to blow three focus points in one round handing out extra strikes.
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I agree with Gortle, there's a level where Reactive Strike becomes nearly ubiquitous so enemies shouldn't trigger it if they can avoid to. Especially if they are next to many PCs.
How do you calculate a Tripped target not standing up? Do you have them attack on the ground with the -2 penalty? Or do you say give them all Kip Up as a skill feat to account for the trip tactic?
Being tripped is very much a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario. It is the only combat maneuver that operates in this fashion usable with a two-handed big dice weapon.
So I agree with Deriven Firelion, the impact of MAPless reactions is really significant on a character's DPRSo do I.
The point I am making in not that MAPless reactions are bad or trip is bad, just that more lower MAP attacks is another way amd it is very competitive on total damage output. I reject any notion that trip is the one true way to build a fighter.
Depends on what you mean by the "one true way." Can you win without trip? Yeah. You can. Plenty of fights don't even bother with trip.
Is trip a super optimal choice for a fighter that offers the most superior option for fighter play? Yes. It is clearly the best option for the fighter and barb. Monk can play a few ways, but the monk is the most versatile martial in the game whose damage isn't maximized with reactive strikes or big hits. Trip monk build is good, but not so good as to overshadow everything else.
Rogue I don't even bother with trip. They already have a great reaction strike and sneak attack does a lot of damage.
The two-handed fighter is measurably better than any other fighter build. It's a little sad to me as I like to play different types of fighters. But it is hard to make them shine when the two-hander trip fighter is the main big dog fighter competitive damage dealer.
The rest are behind the curve if you have any other high damage builds in the group. The fighter offers so little other than a really high hit roll. So it feels often pointless to play a fighter if you aren't going for a big crit build. It's their shining build.
A lot of folks talk up the fighter. It's a super boring class. It's not fun to build. It's feats often have qualifiers like a free hand or wielding two weapons and the one weapon group requirement that make optimal play limited.
Whereas a class like a monk or a rogue has much more wide open play. Lots of skills and feats that allow a more open fighting style with lots more to do in and out of combat.
The two-handed fighter is measurably better than any other fighter build.
No it is not. You are baking in unrealistic assumptions in your calculations.
Your builds is providing eqivalent of say 2 MAP less attacks in your turn and then maybe 2 MAP less attacks out of you turn at say a 75% chance of triggering.The flurry buils in providing 5 attack in turn (2 at no map, 1 at -3 say 70% of no MAP , 2 at -6 say 50% of no MAP) and 2 attacks out of turn at maybe 50% chance of triggering. I'll spot you 25% extra damage in your attacks.
Those numbers are very close. The difference is well within the uncertainty of my eyeballed numbers.
The two-handed fighter is measurably better than any other fighter build.No it is not. You are baking in unrealistic assumptions in your calculations.
Your builds is providing eqivalent of say 2 MAP less attacks in your turn and then maybe 2 MAP less attacks out of you turn at say a 75% chance of triggering.
The flurry buils in providing 5 attack in turn (2 at no map, 1 at -3 say 70% of no MAP , 2 at -6 say 50% of no MAP) and 2 attacks out of turn at maybe 50% chance of triggering. I'll spot you 25% extra damage in your attacks.Those numbers are very close. The difference is well within the uncertainty of my eyeballed numbers.
Yes. It is. There are a variety of reasons I've already field tested.
Two-hander better with Reactive Strike.
Better with Sudden Charge. Sudden Charge is a great opening feat and also allows target switching with multiple forms of movement.
Better feat support with feats like Knockdown and the Improved Knockdown.
Better action economy as Double Slice requires two actions every round to maximize.
Better crit damage.
Focusing on Double Slice hit chance really does not maximize the fighter at all. The best way to leverage the fighter is critical hits with a big die weapon and activating Reactive Strikes or another reaction.
Double Slice two-weapon builds do not play to the strengths of the fighter in real play. They only time they look comparable is when someone focuses solely on Double Slice versus two-attacks with a two-handed weapon which is not how the fighter maximizes damage.
I even had one player play a two-weapon fighter picking up dual weapon warrior to try to use Flensing Slice which looked good on paper. He found out Flensing Slice is extremely hard to use because it has so many points of failure from simply having to use an action to move to missing on one of the attacks.
I'm not going to keep belaboring the point. I've looked at this and specced it out, if I want to use dual falcatas the ranger is the superior option. Two-weapon fighters not using an agile weapon are notably inferior to two-weapon rangers and measurably inferior to a two-hander fighter.
Thanks for the discussion. I do want to try the Wolverine build at some point. That looks interesting.
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What I don't understand is why does your GM doesn't nerf Trip? If my party is always using the same strategy to the point of even making it an issue for the players themselves, it's quite obvious that a nerf has to be done. Especially when you have no issue with houserules.
Shove and other pushback effects might be an overlooked help against teams that rely on trip.
If a monster holds their turn till after their ally shoves a fighter pc away it would help.
Depending on how shove is handled when being shoved into a square occupied by another pc it could expose a weakness to the hallway lineup attempting to bottleneck the monsters and trip them as they come.
It didnt seem perfectly clear to me from the forced movement section and moving through a creatures space section but if a pc is shoved into another pc it seems the gm needs to decide how to deal with forced movement into or through another creatures space.
Example
A) forced movement from the monster using shove put the pc in a space they cannot occupy as there is another pc there and the monster strides as part of the shove into the space the pc used to be in making that a space the pc cannot occupy. Where does the pc end up? Couod they end up prone? Or could the second pc end up moved and possibly prone?
This use of shove sounds like its actually pretty strong if it results in a pc on the ground.
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Against Strength-based martials, Trip is in general a much easier solution. When everyone is on the ground, it's like no one is.
Right fort dc. And the creature would need to actually have athletics and be good at it.
i also think it would help in balancing trip to treat tripping creatures larger than the PC similar to a complex lock. Players can work together to trip a larger creature but all the successes have to be done in the same round and a crit would be treated as two successes.
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What I don't understand is why does your GM doesn't nerf Trip? If my party is always using the same strategy to the point of even making it an issue for the players themselves, it's quite obvious that a nerf has to be done. Especially when you have no issue with houserules.
Houserule idea (inspired from “Grab an edge”) - “Catch your balance”: You/enemies/npc can use a reaction to avoid falling prone if you are adjacent to a wall/door/pillar/table or similar stable structure to catch your balance.
Perhaps an Acrobatics check:Crit succes: cant be trippede until start of your next turn.
Succes: avoid trip/falling prone.
Failure: fall prone
What I don't understand is why does your GM doesn't nerf Trip? If my party is always using the same strategy to the point of even making it an issue for the players themselves, it's quite obvious that a nerf has to be done. Especially when you have no issue with houserules.
We play with multiple GMs. Three of us rotate. To nerf trip, we have to agree as a group.
I'm the only one that doesn't like it stylistically. So for a change to happen, which is why for trip I'd prefer Paizo handle it. Then no arguments at my table.
Our house rules are mostly for casting or rules that create irritation that no one really remembers anyway like the hand switching rule for two-handed weapons. That really pissed off my players as they felt it was just an unnecessary annoyance. So we just got rid of it for players and monsters, which is how we tend to balance PF2 rules. If the players can do it, so can the monsters.
But in the case of trip, it's more a single big creature problem versus a group. Trip isn't bad against mooks, but it's not as necessary. Against a single big creature where you have to four to give characters with 3 actions each and one PC is tripping and one is hitting it with slow, and this tactic is just used over and over again, it trivializes the encounter.
I can't get rid of slow and trip. It's hard to get rid of one without the other because Trip is like the martial version of slow or synesthesia so I'd be taking away one of their best tools if I got the group to agree to it.
It's not one of those things the needed number in the group would vote for.
Aid ?i also think it would help in balancing trip to treat tripping creatures larger than the PC similar to a complex lock. Players can work together to trip a larger creature but all the successes have to be done in the same round and a crit would be treated as two successes.
When using this house rule If aid makes the difference between a success and a crit for the trip then that crit trip would be two successes toward tripling the larger creature (its basically just borrowing from lockpick rules for complex locks to represent a creature that's harder to bring to the ground). That would give the characters who are good enough to meet the aid DC but not good enough to meet the fort DC of the larger creature a way to help the trip get through.
The game designers/module writters can't respond to tactics which dominate one group. They must aim their balance at relatively new players or the game won't grow in popularity. It is up to the GM to respond. Things a GM can consider doing:
1) Add more enemies. Just because the encounter balancing rules are good and work well, doesn't mean that you shouldn't adjust encounters if your group manages to break things. It is far better response to patch a hole in a game rather than reject a game over a gap.
2) Adjust the enemies by making sure they have level appropriate skills and perhaps some skill feats. Just because your level 15 monster doesn't have Acrobatics listed doesn't mean that it should go down to a simple Balance check. Really all monsters should be trained in Athletics, Acrobatics, Perception, and one of Survival or Society.
3) Add appropriate countermeasures. If you find Slow is dominating your game add in Potions of Quickness / Electromuscular Stimulator consumables to most of your bosses.
4) Adjust the rules - say add +4 bonus reflex versus trip is you have been tripped before in an encounter, add +2 for having 4 or more legs, add +2 for larger size. Always force a check and not have creatures tripped automatically. Things like that....
5) Change the monsters. Make some immune/resistant to trip. At the moment I think it is only incorporeal that are immune.
What I don't understand is why does your GM doesn't nerf Trip? If my party is always using the same strategy to the point of even making it an issue for the players themselves, it's quite obvious that a nerf has to be done. Especially when you have no issue with houserules.Houserule idea (inspired from “Grab an edge”) - “Catch your balance”: You/enemies/npc can use a reaction to avoid falling prone if you are adjacent to a wall/door/pillar/table or similar stable structure to catch your balance.
Perhaps an Acrobatics check:
Crit succes: cant be trippede until start of your next turn.
Succes: avoid trip/falling prone.
Failure: fall prone
Not a bad house rule.
I usually give high level monsters and NPCs Kip Up or the equivalent of Legendary Nimble Crawl. Not all of them, but key NPCs or monsters. Given the effectiveness of Trip, I figure almost every creature would learn to get up without provoking.
I also give casters Time Jump.
Combat Maneuvers are a bit of an outlier for effectiveness. They have items to get them a full item bonus, can all be built up to Legendary, and focus on a max stat with an Apex item as well as feat support that often provides circumstance bonuses and go off saves which can be targeted at a lower DC than AC a lot of the time.
Trip is the best combat maneuver. So optimized group tactics greatly favor it as Trip is the best combat maneuver. Shove and Grapple can be effective too and built around, but neither is as good as trip for all it does.
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Fighter with Unexpected Sharpshooter.