What class would end up making the best party across a variety of different combat encounters?
A Cleric party seems like the go to answer.
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Last time, Summoner was rated pretty highly. Maybe some new classes and some new adjustments have changed that though.
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I would choose druid myself.
I've often thought a four person Alchemist party, with each Research Field, would be quite strong. Probably not the strongest, but quite strong.
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I think an all-Thaumaturge party could be good at all social checks, good at all knowledge checks, have enough healing, and wouldn't be a slouch in combat.
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I don’t think there is a class that wouldn’t work
I don’t think there is a class that wouldn’t work
I don't think so. Not unless the DM softballs the encounters. I think a of classes would die early and a lot.
I don't think the summoner would as well as people think with the separate hit point pool and never being able to avoid attack. They move very slow too.
I think the four of a single class would be pretty limited to clerics and druids because of the crazy healing and being able to focus your stats very effectively on the key 4 as well as better starting armor choices and good starting feats.
Maybe four bards could do it.
I think four melees would be real, real rough, especially short range class abilities without much casting.
The tough classes are those that are relatively restricted in their role.
So the 6HP casters would need to find some defensive tricks to stay alive - probably some blocking animal companions via best master.
Barbarian is tightly focused on rage/melee and their ranged and casting options are limited - for now anyway - I hear new options are coming.
The playtest Guardian as written is just too defensive, and has glaring gaps in its abilities. But lets see what the designers do with that.
The playtest Commanders abilities would just overlap too much. Two Commanders might work but four?
Aside from that I think they all could work barring the GM deliberately targeting the Kineticists rules problems or overusing precision immunity for the classes dependant on that.
I mean, it is a pretty contextless hypothetical situation. Is it for an AP? Starting at level 1? With no variant rules? Are we talking pure combat simulator encounter gauntlets? Very few APs start off on much of a timer. There aren’t even that many level 1 to 20 APs to even consider. Casters would have at least as tough a time with pthe first day of extinction curse as an all martial party. Most the rest can be taken one or two encounters at a time with hours to days between them if necessary. It doesn’t take “softball GMing” to not collapse encounters on each other and force a pace that isn’t called for in the adventure.
As long as one player has the medicine skill trained and the other martials spend gold on healing options, I think any party will be fine. A bunch of champions or barbarians could be trouble with non combat encounters if they aren’t careful with their skills, but with planning I think any party could work
No class without the heal spell could survive in any campaign my group runs. This I know with 100 percent certainty. The heal spell is the most used spell in every single campaign we run from level 1 on up. It never loses its usefulness and is used every single level many, many times.
So this does lack context. In my opinion, no group unless the DM is very kind running encounters can survive without a healthy use of the heal spell across all levels. On top of spells to counter invis and fly until items and feats make up for that.
But nothing in our campaign makes up for the 2 action heal spell. It's an absolutely must to be able to cast this spell a lot or the group will likely wipe.
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My party of 2 Kineticists, a wizard and an alchemist going through a curse of the crimson throne conversion has never cast a heal spell, and we play hardball with collapsing encounters and enemies moving around to ambush. There are many ways to heal or avoid needing to heal in PF2. Heal is a good spell, but it can slow encounters down when it becomes to much of a focus.
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I don’t disagree about parties of all wizards or sorcerers or druids being viable for most campaigns. But I do think a party of all rogues, rangers or fighters could be just as viable with planning and a willingness to spend a lot of wealth on consumables, and an ability to switch hit effectively. There would be some tough levels where gold would lag for the most up-to-date runes, but the hitting power would be high enough to compensate. Rogues might have to be extra creative or careful in campaigns with a lot of precision immunity.
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No class without the heal spell could survive in any campaign my group runs. This I know with 100 percent certainty. The heal spell is the most used spell in every single campaign we run from level 1 on up. It never loses its usefulness and is used every single level many, many times.
So this does lack context. In my opinion, no group unless the DM is very kind running encounters can survive without a healthy use of the heal spell across all levels. On top of spells to counter invis and fly until items and feats make up for that.
But nothing in our campaign makes up for the 2 action heal spell. It's an absolutely must to be able to cast this spell a lot or the group will likely wipe.
If all you need are 2 action spells, you can make it pretty far with Trick Magic Item.
I was making guardians in foundry to test.
1 hander with a shield
two weapons with dual weapon fighter
two handed weapon
medium armor with thrown weapon and shield
Then I thought about 4 fighters throwing off the crit curve and 4 clerics covering so many more bases or 4 witches or sorcerers hitting all four traditions.
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No class without the heal spell could survive in any campaign my group runs. This I know with 100 percent certainty. The heal spell is the most used spell in every single campaign we run from level 1 on up. It never loses its usefulness and is used every single level many, many times.
So this does lack context. In my opinion, no group unless the DM is very kind running encounters can survive without a healthy use of the heal spell across all levels. On top of spells to counter invis and fly until items and feats make up for that.
But nothing in our campaign makes up for the 2 action heal spell. It's an absolutely must to be able to cast this spell a lot or the group will likely wipe.
This probably says more about the way your group plays than anything else. I don't mean to appear rude but you keep making such strong statements. I won't disagree with you that Heal is the best in combat healing but:
1) Any class can get Heal if they want. Spell DC is mostly irrelevant. Multiclass into a divine or primal caster and take a a few of the spellcasting feats, then take on a grimoire and a staff with Heal. Or just take a sack of Heal scrolls as an adjuct to whatever other healing they have.
2) There are also other healing options. Here is a brief list
Soothe works well and is 75% as effective as Heal. Battle Medicine and Healing Potions are single action compared to Heal, and are about half as effective. There is a lot more besides.
My groups often run without a dedicated healer. Currently my party has a Rogue with Battle Medicine, and a Primal Sorcerer who tends to cast Heal out of his second top slots as required. Plus an Inventor, Barbarian, and a Thaumaturge. They used a lot of healing consumables last session.
My party of 2 Kineticists, a wizard and an alchemist going through a curse of the crimson throne conversion has never cast a heal spell, and we play hardball with collapsing encounters and enemies moving around to ambush. There are many ways to heal or avoid needing to heal in PF2. Heal is a good spell, but it can slow encounters down when it becomes to much of a focus.
I don't know what you consider hardball, but we have never run any campaign without the heal spell because it is not possible with how hard we run encounters. Our encounters are so difficult, the chances of you going down in a fight is high if you make mistakes or don't have heal available.
We have not found any class but one that can cast a 2 action heal capable of surviving the hammer my group brings down on groups.
We do not use the threat rules for PF2 or any system for the matter.
So for my group, you have access to the 2 action heal in plentiful supply or your group will die many times with your main tanks or frontliners dropping followed by the rest of the group like dominoes.
This has happened even when we have the two action heal available and just mistakes in engagement are made.
I imagine in a normal PF2 game, maybe any class can do it. But not in our games.
No class without the heal spell could survive in any campaign my group runs. This I know with 100 percent certainty. The heal spell is the most used spell in every single campaign we run from level 1 on up. It never loses its usefulness and is used every single level many, many times.
So this does lack context. In my opinion, no group unless the DM is very kind running encounters can survive without a healthy use of the heal spell across all levels. On top of spells to counter invis and fly until items and feats make up for that.
But nothing in our campaign makes up for the 2 action heal spell. It's an absolutely must to be able to cast this spell a lot or the group will likely wipe.
This probably says more about the way your group plays than anything else. I don't mean to appear rude but you keep making such strong statements. I won't disagree with you that Heal is the best in combat healing but:
1) Any class can get Heal if they want. Spell DC is mostly irrelevant. Multiclass into a divine or primal caster and take a a few of the spellcasting feats, then take on a grimoire and a staff with Heal. Or just take a sack of Heal scrolls as an adjuct to whatever other healing they have.
2) There are also other healing options. Here is a brief list
Soothe works well and is 75% as effective as Heal. Battle Medicine and Healing Potions are single action compared to Heal, and are about half as effective. There is a lot more besides.My groups often run without a dedicated healer. Currently my party has a Rogue with Battle Medicine, and a Primal Sorcerer who tends to cast Heal out of his second top slots as required. Plus an Inventor, Barbarian, and a Thaumaturge. They used a lot of healing consumables last session.
Yes. It must be the way we play. We don't run with a dedicated healer meaning a cleric maxed out to heal. That is what we consider a dedicated healer.
We usually like 2 casters with the heal spell available in case the first one goes down.
I know with 100% certainty in our games, the 2 action heal is a must spell as any time we have tried to run without it, it's been nonstop wipes even with good play.
If all you need are 2 action spells, you can make it pretty far with Trick Magic Item.No class without the heal spell could survive in any campaign my group runs. This I know with 100 percent certainty. The heal spell is the most used spell in every single campaign we run from level 1 on up. It never loses its usefulness and is used every single level many, many times.
So this does lack context. In my opinion, no group unless the DM is very kind running encounters can survive without a healthy use of the heal spell across all levels. On top of spells to counter invis and fly until items and feats make up for that.
But nothing in our campaign makes up for the 2 action heal spell. It's an absolutely must to be able to cast this spell a lot or the group will likely wipe.
In my experience, you can't plan for critical hits from powerful enemies or groups. One powerful monster or group of monsters focus firing on a target can take them out in practically one round. If that happens, you are losing the action battle which creates a domino effect on the rest of the group. Drawing a scroll and casting a 2 action heal from a magic item is not as efficient as having a caster or two with one available as needed.
The DM focus fires on a visible target until they are dead or another target seems wiser. There is only minor spreading of damage as the enemy knows the best way to take out the opponent given how things are built is to destroy a target focusing all their offensive fire power on a single target until they are down.
Heal allows you to survive spikes and stop people from dropping pre-emptively.
I imagine others can play with I guess any class. In our campaigns, that would just lead to wipes and likely a campaign end. Even with the heal spell, we have had a few wipes and had to redo the encounter if we don't want the campaign to end and determine the group made a correctible error that can change the outcome or the DM over-tuned the encounter.
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4 Guardians wont survive in anyones game.
All Champions would have plenty of healing and have so many defensive options every turn that they can mitigate tons of physical damage. It's offensively not great, but in a battle of attrition preventing damage is more effective than healing it over the long term.
All Fighters would have so much offense that very few things would live long enough to actually take them out. Downtime recovery may take a while depending on how good their medic is (and if one or two of them have Scare to Death you can keep enemies debuffed just fine without a caster).
I didn't see those two get much mention but they're definitely capable of it.
Druid, Monk, Cleric, Summoner, and Thhaumaturge, and Kineticist should all be able to do it as well. Ditto with Rogue and Investigator, though at this point defensive options are getting thin (but wow would you absolutely crush any skill challenge).
There's probably only a few classes where it can't work at all, and those are going to be the squishier casters. Wizard and Sorcerer for example just lack the physical defenses and against anything with Reactive Strike will be in deep trouble real fast.
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I honestly don't understand why people think the Heal SPell is a requirement/make it a requirement. All you're doing is forcing one player to be less creative by telling them by playing a Divine/Primal caster.
However I think Examplars could also do well is a 1 class game. They can heal and do a lot but they are rare.
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My party of 2 Kineticists, a wizard and an alchemist going through a curse of the crimson throne conversion has never cast a heal spell, and we play hardball with collapsing encounters and enemies moving around to ambush. There are many ways to heal or avoid needing to heal in PF2. Heal is a good spell, but it can slow encounters down when it becomes to much of a focus.I don't know what you consider hardball, but we have never run any campaign without the heal spell because it is not possible with how hard we run encounters. Our encounters are so difficult, the chances of you going down in a fight is high if you make mistakes or don't have heal available.
We have not found any class but one that can cast a 2 action heal capable of surviving the hammer my group brings down on groups.
We do not use the threat rules for PF2 or any system for the matter.
So for my group, you have access to the 2 action heal in plentiful supply or your group will die many times with your main tanks or frontliners dropping followed by the rest of the group like dominoes.
This has happened even when we have the two action heal available and just mistakes in engagement are made.
I imagine in a normal PF2 game, maybe any class can do it. But not in our games.
Not defining what encounter difficulty looks like makes this an entirely impossible exercise. Like, my table plays with encounters that collapse onto each other frequently and we have even faced one one 340xp dungeon as one massive encounter at level 4, surviving with 2 out of 4 of us at dying 3 with minimal hit points, but without being able to talk about threat levels there is very little that can be said about the expected game difficulty used to measure whether a party of Wizards or Fighters or Investigators is viable. Insisting that heal is an essential spell for all parties, when (for thinking about a level 4 - way past extreme 340xp encounter) it is pretty reasonable for a party that only has access to rank 2 spells could be sitting on 4 Moderate healing potions that heal 3d8+10 instead of 2d8+16 (and twice that of lesser potions), but still casting Rank 2 offensive spells in an encounter space begging for AoEs, instead of just sitting on spell slots to heal martials while fighting 14 total enemies over 7 rounds doesn't tactically add up to me.
That isn't saying that your group doesn't find heal to be a great way to deal with difficult encounters, but is it as great when it is having to be used on squishier casters with lower ACs, worse saves, Less HP, and less stopping power against powerful melee enemies? For druids, every heal spell is one less spell slot spell. Clerics will have a good pool of them and can have decent AC as well, but that will limit the number of them that are dishing out good damage with things like channel smite against anything but undead or possibly fiends. Sorcerers casting heal when needed isn't as resource detrimental, but they lack the slots to have a lot of offensive options available to them and at low levels that can mean having trouble finishing encounters too.
Again, all of these are groups that any party could say, "hey lets all be X" and a GM could very easily tailor a campaign to be very challenging, but play to the strengths of the party, or the GM could do the opposite and invalidate player choices until the campaign became an impossible slog. So I think the GM is fundamentally set up to be the arbiter of what is and isn't possible as far as this goes, unless a set of agreed upon variables like "pick a specific AP, level range, variant rules, and general approach to running encounters" was established in advance.
The GM core guidance on a basic, core rules only campaign using more recent APs would probably be doable by any set of classes.
What class would end up making the best party across a variety of different combat encounters?
A Cleric party seems like the go to answer.
Clerics have the best survivability, but I think a Bard party would be better, since they can build anything, and you can basically have all songs up at all times. One casts Courageous Anthem, one casts Dirge of Doom, one casts Inspired Defense, and the other can either supplement any of these as they need, or take one of the other unorthodox songs to boost the party even more. Literally, you'll have +2 to defenses at all times, and +2 to attacks and damage effects at all times. It's almost like Fighter level accuracy with Champion-level defenses in the mid-levels, and it evens out to Martial-level defenses and accuracy at the end-game.
They can also cast healing spells, have access to the most powerful buff, debuff, control, and utility spells in the game, and are more effective than most spellcasters in terms of martial capability thanks to their songs, and can handle most any social encounter by themselves as a party. Oh, and their ability to earn income during downtime will be stellar thanks to Performance being level-based and not setting-based.
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In my experience, you can't plan for critical hits from powerful enemies or groups. One powerful monster or group of monsters focus firing on a target can take them out in practically one round. If that happens, you are losing the action battle which creates a domino effect on the rest of the group. Drawing a scroll and casting a 2 action heal from a magic item is not as efficient as having a caster or two with one available as needed.If all you need are 2 action spells, you can make it pretty far with Trick Magic Item.No class without the heal spell could survive in any campaign my group runs. This I know with 100 percent certainty. The heal spell is the most used spell in every single campaign we run from level 1 on up. It never loses its usefulness and is used every single level many, many times.
So this does lack context. In my opinion, no group unless the DM is very kind running encounters can survive without a healthy use of the heal spell across all levels. On top of spells to counter invis and fly until items and feats make up for that.
But nothing in our campaign makes up for the 2 action heal spell. It's an absolutely must to be able to cast this spell a lot or the group will likely wipe.
Ah, then sounds like max upgraded Faith Tattoo should be standard equipment. If everyone has one, might sub for a caster.
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My first thought is Rogue. I think they overall have the strongest, most flexible chassis of any PF2 class, and I have used Rogue to build just about every party role.
Second thought is Monk. Not quite as flexible as Rogue, but their defense and mobility are impressive. I'm old school in that I always have "survive, run away, and retool" in my list of options, and I think with a Monk team you should always be able to count on doing that.
Then I go to Cleric. The biggest issue here is possible deity incompatibility, everything else should be doable.
After that, I don't think there's much difference in how they would work...with an asterisk for PC2 Oracle, which has the potential to again become top of the flexible chassis list like it was in PF1.
Not defining what encounter difficulty looks like makes this an entirely impossible exercise. Like, my table plays with encounters that collapse onto each other frequently and we have even faced one one 340xp dungeon as one massive encounter at level 4, surviving with 2 out of 4 of us at dying 3 with minimal hit points, but without being able to talk about threat levels there is very little that can be said about the expected game difficulty used to measure whether a party of Wizards or Fighters or Investigators is viable. Insisting that heal is an essential spell for all parties, when (for thinking about a level 4 - way past extreme 340xp encounter) it is pretty reasonable for a party that...My party of 2 Kineticists, a wizard and an alchemist going through a curse of the crimson throne conversion has never cast a heal spell, and we play hardball with collapsing encounters and enemies moving around to ambush. There are many ways to heal or avoid needing to heal in PF2. Heal is a good spell, but it can slow encounters down when it becomes to much of a focus.I don't know what you consider hardball, but we have never run any campaign without the heal spell because it is not possible with how hard we run encounters. Our encounters are so difficult, the chances of you going down in a fight is high if you make mistakes or don't have heal available.
We have not found any class but one that can cast a 2 action heal capable of surviving the hammer my group brings down on groups.
We do not use the threat rules for PF2 or any system for the matter.
So for my group, you have access to the 2 action heal in plentiful supply or your group will die many times with your main tanks or frontliners dropping followed by the rest of the group like dominoes.
This has happened even when we have the two action heal available and just mistakes in engagement are made.
I imagine in a normal PF2 game, maybe any class can do it. But not in our games.
My criteria is a standard AP run by a GM playing the enemies intelligently not using recommended tactics or spell lists, but setting the enemies up as though they had made intelligent choices to achieve their goals and want to kill the PCs. I don't see a group of PCs surviving without the heal spell across 20 levels in this scenario. All it will take is one series of very bad rolls against some very dangerous abilities and the campaign will end.
I just like a hard game. I haven't found the encounter difficulties worthwhile to use. Over the years, we've had four DMs and only one would likely run a game without the heal spell and be ok.
The other three DMs we could not do it. Heal is vital for survival. Now we can and have run with one heal caster and one soothe caster. Soothe can be ok at the early levels, but when you are getting hammered by three sunbursts in one encounter or focused fired by multiple ranged attackers or the boss mob has some crazy hit roll critting on a 6 or better or something, you have to be able to pump the hit points through it.
I don't see how many groups survive across 20 levels without heal. I'd have to see that to believe it and see if the DM is running what I consider hardball.
When is say hardball, I mean the following:
1. Focus firing targets including going after soft targets if they can.
2. Hitting the person on the ground if the do get back back to kill them so they don't get back up.
3. Attacking from ranged if a caster or something like a dragon using their mobility to stay out of range of melee and hit the party with AOE.
4. Using the deadliest possible spells including adjusting NPC spell lists from often weak choices to strong choices like a PC would pick.
5. Collapsing encounters and the such like you are using.
6. Really trying to win in major encounters and kill the PCs like they hate them.
7. If you are a 30 year plus DM like using threat rules just hasn't been helpful. We know what each party member can do and we set the enemy numbers up to challenge what the party can do for major encounters.
A severe threat by calculating threat numbers is meaningless if they have some weakness the PCs can exploit and destroy them like they are some moderate or low threat encounter isn't useful in encounter design.
If your group can run without a heal caster, I guess enjoy it. Mine cannot meaning only druids and clerics could likely run with four of the same classes across 20 levels without getting wiped.
The six hit point caster defenses are too low to survive to focus firing and heavy duty AoE saves. The martials lack the casting power to deal with enough threats that caster enemies would put on them. So it would have to be some kind of hybrid.
Maybe summoners could do it, but always having to take hits would be rough. Depends on how they built.
Maybe bards could do it with multiple soothes and all they get on the class.
But pure martials and 6 hit point casters would have real problems and die a lot and probably very early in our campaigns.
My first thought is Rogue. I think they overall have the strongest, most flexible chassis of any PF2 class, and I have used Rogue to build just about every party role.
Second thought is Monk. Not quite as flexible as Rogue, but their defense and mobility are impressive. I'm old school in that I always have "survive, run away, and retool" in my list of options, and I think with a Monk team you should always be able to count on doing that.
Then I go to Cleric. The biggest issue here is possible deity incompatibility, everything else should be doable.
After that, I don't think there's much difference in how they would work...with an asterisk for PC2 Oracle, which has the potential to again become top of the flexible chassis list like it was in PF1.
I forgot about Oracle. They might be able to do it. Those damage resistance builds can be pretty tough. I played a Cosmos Oracle with a shield and they were quite hard to bring down.
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Well, I'm showing my biases here, but... kineticist. First, it's enormously flexible as a class. You can build something that looks mostly like a tank (Earth/Metal or Earth/Wood). You can build a decent damage-dealer (Fire primary). You can build a pretty solid healer. Even better, there are a lot of combo maneuvers that do great with a kineticist on both sides - the "hazardous terrain plus push" technique in particular.
Now, kineticist healing doesn't stack well (the cooldowns are per power on target, which means that multiple kineticists with the same healing impulse start getting real redundant, real fast), and they really don't like giving up their own feats, which is going to mean that the party is a lot more solid if it can FA for other healing options, but even so it's not *bad* at healing.
...though, of course, if you're playing PFS this is a terrible idea. In general in an all-kineticist party, you're going to want to sidestep skills in a lot of cases by using utility impulses. In PFS, the straight-up "can you roll skill X and hit DC Y" is suddenly a lot more important, and your ability to think up creative new ways to apply your impulses instead really isn't.
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Well, I'm showing my biases here, but... kineticist. First, it's enormously flexible as a class. You can build something that looks mostly like a tank (Earth/Metal or Earth/Wood). You can build a decent damage-dealer (Fire primary). You can build a pretty solid healer. Even better, there are a lot of combo maneuvers that do great with a kineticist on both sides - the "hazardous terrain plus push" technique in particular.
Now, kineticist healing doesn't stack well (the cooldowns are per power on target, which means that multiple kineticists with the same healing impulse start getting real redundant, real fast), and they really don't like giving up their own feats, which is going to mean that the party is a lot more solid if it can FA for other healing options, but even so it's not *bad* at healing.
...though, of course, if you're playing PFS this is a terrible idea. In general in an all-kineticist party, you're going to want to sidestep skills in a lot of cases by using utility impulses. In PFS, the straight-up "can you roll skill X and hit DC Y" is suddenly a lot more important, and your ability to think up creative new ways to apply your impulses instead really isn't.
With the addition of elemental traits to a whole lot of spells in Rage of the elements and in the Remaster, Kinetic activation would allow for 4 Kineticists to do tons of healing, utility spell casting, and even offensive spell casting with their tons of gold that they don't really need to spend on anything else. It is a massively under considered/utilized feat...probably because so many Kineticists are going back to grab level 1 impulse feats because they are so shiny.
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With the addition of elemental traits to a whole lot of spells in Rage of the elements and in the Remaster, Kinetic activation would allow for 4 Kineticists to do tons of healing, utility spell casting, and even offensive spell casting with their tons of gold that they don't really need to spend on anything else. It is a massively under considered/utilized feat...probably because so many Kineticists are going back to grab level 1 impulse feats because they are so shiny.Apologies for the off-topic aside, but I don't really see any good in-combat heals amongst the spells a kineticist can access through Kinetic Activation. Maybe Shock to the System at Rank 7, but that's it. Did I miss something obvious?
Having said that, utility yes.
...a GM could very easily tailor a campaign to be very challenging, but play to the strengths of the party...I would see this as one key to having fun with an "all one class" campaign...and a reason why any class could work, if the players and GM decide that's an idea they really want to explore. An all-rogue "heist" driven campaign. An all-investigator set of murder mysteries. And so on. Deriven's comments may be valid for the way his group plays, but its much more of a 'tune the characters to the fixed way we campaign' style of play, rather than 'tune the campaign to the characters the players selected' style. Doing the latter could make any group of 'all one thing' fun and viable.
One other thought on the main subject: OAD seems to be doing pretty well with their all-gunslinger assault on Abomination Vaults. Which seems to be a counterexample to the "you must always have a healer" assertion and adds another class to the single-class-party consideration list.
FWIW I see Timber Sentinel as excellent proactive in-combat healing.
Yeah, I guess not traditional healing, but a lot of damage mitigating abilities
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FWIW I see Timber Sentinel as excellent proactive in-combat healing.
Timber Sentinel is ridiculous. I'm GMing with a Kineticist player right now and that thing stops obscene amounts of damage when you have things like mindless enemies that don't know whats going on or how to deal with it. Considering its effectively a heightened spell that the Kineticist can cast an infinite number of times a day, it's wild that has no limitation or Overflow.
It's better at guarding than the Guardian class. :P
I don’t think there is a class that wouldn’t work
pre-remaster alchemist. No matter how many of them you bring, they're still broken. ;)
As for the best option if only 1 class is allowed and you have absolutely no idea what kind of campaign it will be - kineticist. Provided you find out in session 0 what kind of game it will be as Kineticists are not very dynamic after session 0.
If it's a blind campaign and I have no idea what will occur until we get to session 1 or later - I'd be hard pressed between a party of Wizards or Clerics. The solution to a given problem is probably on the spell list somewhere and the choice would be based on squinting at the GM and trying to guess how much healing we'll need in combat. If I was not sure - I'd say a party of post-remaster Witches because we could get 1 of each magic type.
I don’t think there is a class that wouldn’t workpre-remaster alchemist. No matter how many of them you bring, they're still broken. ;)
As for the best option if only 1 class is allowed and you have absolutely no idea what kind of campaign it will be - kineticist. Provided you find out in session 0 what kind of game it will be as Kineticists are not very dynamic after session 0.
If it's a blind campaign and I have no idea what will occur until we get to session 1 or later - I'd be hard pressed between a party of Wizards or Clerics. The solution to a given problem is probably on the spell list somewhere and the choice would be based on squinting at the GM and trying to guess how much healing we'll need in combat. If I was not sure - I'd say a party of post-remaster Witches because we could get 1 of each magic type.
4 Alchemists might need to abuse some stuff well beyond intended rules, but I think Alch would have a much better chance than Investigator.
Alch team would likely have 2/4 go Bomber w/ all the splash Feats (the splash Feats are actually too good, enough so that splash AoE itself is getting/has been nerfed to success and up). 1 Chiurgeon to get Heal from Witch & Medic (& Dr's Visitation) for more burst healing, and 1 Tox for prep Skunk Bombs that scale with DC. They would likely need to abuse the Fast Healing auto-rez from Soothing and clear wounds after most fights, but they have a lot of access to Resistance and even THP. Item relay familiars can hand-off items even when following RaW. The Bombers would likely be feeding the healing elixirs due to Quick Bomber and MAP.
There's just so many opportunities for Alch shenanigans. Even things like the 4 of them suddenly deciding to all climb a wall and fight that way, because 3/4 foes lacked a *good ranged attack. The ability to snyc formula books and know they can all instantly pivot to do something whacky does carry some potency that would be missing in a mixed class team.
Rarity access is also a big sticking point. Alchs more than most are affected by it, with a number of Rare items that are obviously upgrades.
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Investigators, meanwhile... yikes. They are basically just their archetypes. SStrike doing precision damage is *rough*.
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I don’t think there is a class that wouldn’t workpre-remaster alchemist. No matter how many of them you bring, they're still broken. ;)
The class is scuffed but ironically I think alchemist isn't too bad. They aren't super strong on their own but they cover so much ground it's very easy to hit all your bases.
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My tier list for a level 1-20 AP, ordered by Tier and inside tiers:
Tier S:
Summoner: As the most versatile class in the game, the Summoner gets the first position without a second thought. On top of it, they can cover all traditions and have high scores in all abilities to cover easily all skills. Hands down the winner. Still, be careful for AoE attacks at level 5-9 and the party will lack mobility at level 1-3.
Druid: The class is extremely versatile. Having access to ACs at level 1 is also very important as ACs will be the frontline of full spellcaster parties. I still consider the Summoner better as a full Druid party will have issues at low level due to the overall weakness of magic at this moment (and no Wild Shape at level 1-2).
Tier A:
Magus: The full Magus party lacks defensive abilities but has godly firepower to compensate. And obviously the versatility of hybrid classes. Still, low levels will be a bit hard before the Starlit Span backline goes online and the overall randomness of Maguses can lead to unexpected TPKs.
Inventor: The Inventor is very reliable accross all levels. Full martials at low level, when martials are king, with strong AoE damage at high level, when magic is king. And a bit of versatility with the choice of Innovation. Not the strongest class out there but the party should be solid.
Thaumaturge: Full martials party have issues at high level when magic is king but amongst martials the Thaumaturge is the most versatile one. Skills, protection, healing, it covers a bit of everything. This party should be quite efficient.
Tier B:
Fighter/Ranger: These classes are quite solid and can be built for melee and ranged damage alike. Fighter is still much better than Ranger.
Monk: The class is quite solid for a martial but unlike the 2 previous classes the Monk will struggle even more with skills and doesn't pack a lot of punch.
Kineticist: Whatever people say, the Kineticist is first and foremost a ranged AoE martial. The class has extremely few versatility. But at least the multiple elements allow for quite some synergy among the 4 party members.
Oracle: The class has quite some build choice, with even martial options in the mix. Low levels should be hard before Divine Access and good spells come online, also a bit of issues with skills. But overall an ok party.
Tier C:
Barbarian/Champion: These 2 classes can only operate at melee range. Spellcasters should wreck through them. And they lack skills and Barbarians have very limited access to magic. It just doesn't work well. Expect a TPK every now and then (but very easy fights against pure melee opponents).
Alchemist: A full Alchemist party will be very versatile and well built... but the overall weakness of the class and the lack of synergy between Alchemists will prevent them to be higher than tier C. If the GM gives all PCs an extra level then the full Alchemist party goes up a lot.
Cleric: Full support parties don't work very well without anyone to support. This party ability to outheal any damage they can take still allows them to survive for some time but a strong lack of firepower will turn every fight into a slug fest. A standard 3-to-5-fight adventuring day will be beyond their league as they should get out of spells after a couple of fights.
Tier D:
Gunslinger: The class has a niche role as its main role. You can build a bit of versatility into it but still it stays a ranged martial first and foremost.
Rogue/Swashbuckler/Investigator: These 3 classes rely on circumstances for their damage output and will be screwed during 20% of their fights due to Precision Resistance/Immunity, high mobility (against Flanking and Tumble Through), etc... Also, Rogue and Investigator can't take a beating but have hard time using an AC for protection, too. Expect a TPK every 3 levels.
Bard: A full support party doesn't work well without anyone to support. Either you bring Animal Companions to have a frontline and your action economy gets crazy or you don't and you have just a bunch of victims hardly able to survive any fight. Also, the full Bard party critically lacks firepower, even more than the full Cleric party.
Sorcerer/Wizard/Witch/Psychic: 6 hp per level, no armor, low saves, these classes can't stand a fight. Even with a good frontline of Animal Companions they will get wiped every time the enemy decides to focus on the backline squishies.
Tier E:
No tier E. PF2 allows you to build nearly any party and make it work. Sure, some parties are better than others but every party will have a chance to finish the AP in good conditions.
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Cleric can get heavy armor. Has 16 heals amongst them at 1st level. Can build cloistered support or war priest weapon hammer.
I've played a warpriest with a greatsword. You don't need max wisdom. You can focus on strength and leave wisdom just ok for buffing.
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Cleric can get heavy armor. Has 16 heals amongst them at 1st level. Can build cloistered support or war priest weapon hammer.
I've played a warpriest with a greatsword. You don't need max wisdom. You can focus on strength and leave wisdom just ok for buffing.
Yeah, the only thing they lack is damage. Without damage, no fight won. And an ability like Regeneration cancels every damage a full Cleric party can deal easily. So, yeah, 16 Heals that you will throw out the window to just win a Moderate encounter.
Yeah, the only thing they lack is damage. Without damage, no fight won. And an ability like Regeneration cancels every damage a full Cleric party can deal easily. So, yeah, 16 Heals that you will throw out the window to just win a Moderate encounter.Cleric can get heavy armor. Has 16 heals amongst them at 1st level. Can build cloistered support or war priest weapon hammer.
I've played a warpriest with a greatsword. You don't need max wisdom. You can focus on strength and leave wisdom just ok for buffing.
Why do you think this?
One cleric sword and board.
Two clerics greatswords
one cleric a bow.
Greatsword clerics focus on strength. Emblazon weapon. Emblazon energy.
Do a war cleric with Cry of Destruction.
Eventually sword and board multiclasses into champion. Maybe have them all multiclass into champion.
Then use something like Adapted Cantrip or the adept for elf to pick up electric arc for multiple electric arcs.
Pretty easy to build the cleric brutal.
Why do you think this?
One cleric sword and board.
Two clerics greatswords
one cleric a bow.
So you end up with 4 subpar martials with excellent healing abilities. So I think tier C is fitting: this party is nowhere close to strong.