While I care a lot more about monstery classes I am still quite hopeful about the guardian class.
Combine them with archetypes and you can play an armored manticore lady who shields her allies with her wings while numbing foes with her stinger.
I think the design point tension is that in terms of game design, the druid should not be more powerful in combat than the fighter just because the druid turned into a T. Rex. We're talking about one character who invested their entire budget on "fighting" and another who took two feats and used a focus point, the latter should never obviate the former.
But in terms of selective realism, it feels like "turning into a T.Rex" should make you much more dangerous than the guy with the cool sword, even if the guy with the cool sword kills T.Rexes with it.
I disagree. PF2 has basically embraced the idea that high level fighters draw on mythological heros like Beowulf. Who once swam in armor for two weeks straight without stopping and slew a dozen sea serpents along the way. Also, unlike the Greek Demigods Beowulf didn't have any connection to a greater power he was just that badass.
Flexibility should come at a cost, but that can simply be a feat or feature tax, as with kineticist gates.
Something as simple as dropping a die size would work in many cases.
I disagree. PF2 has basically embraced the idea that high level fighters draw on mythological heros like Beowulf. Who once swam in armor for two weeks straight without stopping and slew a dozen sea serpents along the way. Also, unlike the Greek Demigods Beowulf didn't have any connection to a greater power he was just that badass.I think the design point tension is that in terms of game design, the druid should not be more powerful in combat than the fighter just because the druid turned into a T. Rex. We're talking about one character who invested their entire budget on "fighting" and another who took two feats and used a focus point, the latter should never obviate the former.
But in terms of selective realism, it feels like "turning into a T.Rex" should make you much more dangerous than the guy with the cool sword, even if the guy with the cool sword kills T.Rexes with it.
When you think about it, greek heroes sound as something made by a child playing superheroes with their friends. "MY hero is immortal unless you hit him in the heel" "Well, MY hero is really strong and is the son of another god. He even lifted the planet once".
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Given how weak martials are, they don't hit pretty good, let alone the shift spells. But then that's true of every class, this is the edition of you suck, do your huge pile of chores to mitigate that, better hope against hope that the target actually crit fails some saves,and you have no feats that boost you, only add more boring (I know, ymmv) options or take an archetype, if.you wamt to be even weaker. A Fighter with no feats is as likely to hit as often as a fully 'specialised' fighter... that's just pathetic.
... I don't think that the most accurate class in the game not needing to buy into mandatory feats in order to have the best attack bonus in the game is quite the take you seem to be implying. In fact, it would feel quite foolish to me for Paizo to fix the game math only to throw in a flat math booster that's too good not to take on every build. You can complain about boring Fifhter feats all you want, but maybe not in the same breath as complaining about the lack of even more boring stat stick feats.
I really wonder what your standard for strong is in this edition.
Nothing, I think. Says right there "this is the edition of you suck."
Sounds like a total character power thing. Like even though Fighters are relatively high up the food chain in PF2 you can't snap together the right combination of options to do hundreds of damage in a full attack and drop bosses on the first round like you could in PF1 (and I guess ostensibly not being able to do that is supposed to be a bad thing now).
Not round one, but I've seen a fighter down a +2 enemy in two rounds. He almost died, it was a crit fest that shocked everyone. We were level 12 at the time. So might be unlikely but is possible.
The idea that you should be able to spec into being even more of a crit monster beyond double slice or slam down tactical reflex builds is crazy.
I would love a martial or hybrid type sorcerer. Based on choosing a bloodline and drawing on that power to take on aspects of that ancestor. Slowly becoming more like a devil, dragon, fae, etc. Able to do melee while picking up some spells dependent on the ancestor type. Champion has the ability to become fiendish or celestial at level 18, I would love a class that does that by level 8 or 10 and then goes deeper into those themes.
Not round one, but I've seen a fighter down a +2 enemy in two rounds. He almost died, it was a crit fest that shocked everyone. We were level 12 at the time. So might be unlikely but is possible.
The idea that you should be able to spec into being even more of a crit monster beyond double slice or slam down tactical reflex builds is crazy.I would love a martial or hybrid type sorcerer. Based on choosing a bloodline and drawing on that power to take on aspects of that ancestor. Slowly becoming more like a devil, dragon, fae, etc. Able to do melee while picking up some spells dependent on the ancestor type. Champion has the ability to become fiendish or celestial at level 18, I would love a class that does that by level 8 or 10 and then goes deeper into those themes.
Dragon Barbarian with maybe some feats spent in Dragon Disciple gets something very close to the martial version of that, though it doesn't come with spellcasting (unless you also archetype into sorc) and doesn't offer fae/devil/etc options.
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hence ymmv. I want to be great at one thing, not terrible at 10Given how weak martials are, they don't hit pretty good, let alone the shift spells. But then that's true of every class, this is the edition of you suck, do your huge pile of chores to mitigate that, better hope against hope that the target actually crit fails some saves,and you have no feats that boost you, only add more boring (I know, ymmv) options or take an archetype, if.you wamt to be even weaker. A Fighter with no feats is as likely to hit as often as a fully 'specialised' fighter... that's just pathetic.... I don't think that the most accurate class in the game not needing to buy into mandatory feats in order to have the best attack bonus in the game is quite the take you seem to be implying. In fact, it would feel quite foolish to me for Paizo to fix the game math only to throw in a flat math booster that's too good not to take on every build. You can complain about boring Fifhter feats all you want, but maybe not in the same breath as complaining about the lack of even more boring stat stick feats.
If you want to be able to pour every build resource you have into being superlative at a single thing, then you want 3.x or possible 4e, and the kind of build you're interested in is the kind that CharOps its way into being literally game-breaking (not actually a good thing, if you like your game) and then has essentially no decisions to make at the table because you always want to push the "do the one thing that I do" button.
The closest you're going to get in PF2 to that is the starlit span magus with an archetype into psychic for Imaginary Weapon, who basically does nothing but spellstrike once per round on a single target for significant damage. You probably want to invest in scrolls of Sure Strike so that you can walk into every fight with your bow in one hand, your scroll in the other, cast sure strike, and then fire off spellstrike with whatever the strongest spell you intend to use that fight is. Then recharge/spellstrike every turn thereafter until the enemies are done falling over. It is, admittedly, one of the stronger builds out there, as long as no one disrupts its flow.
With that singular exception, though, that's not really how PF2 plays. PF2 is a game that digs more into the tactics side of things, where you can pretty reliably expect to have multiple options that you'll want to pick and choose between to deal with the situation at hand. It's pretty obviously been designed to call for more complicated tactics. If you're feeling weak playing PF2, it's probably because the "focus everything I have into this one strategy and iterate on it relentlessly" just doesn't work very well in this edition. It's a habit that pretty much everyone who's come here from a 3.x derivative has had to break.
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With sufficient condition stacking you can likely get a pretty good crit fest going with PF2E, given you can crit without rolling a 20.
By end game you should be able to improve your chances to hit by ~10. You just have to earn it by setting up as many bonuses and penalties in your favor as possible during combat instead of pushing a singular button.
That's the first time I hear people thinking that martials are weak in pf2, especially fighters.
Nah. It is possible to build a weak fighter. If you take a weapon with a lower damage dice - just because it has some cool sounding features. Plus a poor critical affect - like say a sword. Then a Fighter can be very disappointing. It is quite possible to come to the conclusion that other martials are just better as they do more damage.
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I really wonder what your standard for strong is in this edition.Nothing, I think. Says right there "this is the edition of you suck."
Sounds like a total character power thing. Like even though Fighters are relatively high up the food chain in PF2 you can't snap together the right combination of options to do hundreds of damage in a full attack and drop bosses on the first round like you could in PF1 (and I guess ostensibly not being able to do that is supposed to be a bad thing now).
Yup, that time when you absolutely destroy the boss is *chefs kiss*. Helly group still talks about the frog-o-lich a decade later (sorcerer landed a Polymorph on the BBEG, which then failed both saves) Vs forgetting the bosses name in a month or 2 if it's the standard multi round grind
But then I love 'if veterans were in horror movies'. Shame black rifle are a bunch of a-holes.
I have to admit, I just don't understand how one can be a PF1 veteran who really enjoys optimizing a character to be extremely good at one thing and then still have these sorts of events being memorable. One of my key issues with PF1 is that when one optimizes for something, you get so good at it that there's barely a point rolling dice. For this example (presuming Baleful Polymorph can target a lich, which IIRC it can't as an undead creature but I haven't played properly in years now), if you've just learnt Baleful Polymorph as a sorcerer (level 10) and you're going up against the CR 12 lich in the bestiary, they have a +6 Fort and +11 Will. Without cheese-y optimisation, just clearly intended stuff, you'll have a DC of 25 (10 + 5 spell level + 8 CHA (starting at 20, +4 headband, +1 at 4th and 8th) + 2 greater spell focus), which means the lich has a 90% chance of failing the save and becoming a frog, and then a 65% chance of losing its mind. 58.5% of the time you cast the spell against the lich, it's going to become a frog-o-lich. This isn't even one of those DCs where you go dual-blooded sorcerer and kitsune to bump up your Enchantment DCs to absurd lengths, or anything like that - it's just normal optimization. I can hardly remember any of the (many) moments I've had as a PF1 GM where an enemy was walked over like this because they're so common.
In comparison, the time in a PF2 campaign that the party accidentally got into a fight where ~450 XP of creatures were filtering in and the Druid cast Slow on the Dragon which rolled a 3 to get a Failure and lost one of its 3 actions for the rest of the combat? That's seared into my mind because it was very impactful, a big risk, and legitimately unlikely to get such a good effect (and definitely was the only reason they didn't TPK there). I just can't quite get my head around still being excited by these sorts of moments when they're so likely to happen.
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I wouldn't mind a dedicated martial healer class. Something like the Medic class from the PF1e Dreamscarred Path of War product. Someone who specializes in shields and combat healing abilities. It would be neat if they got special shield abilities. Also the Triage ability was pretty interesting.Investigator stares at you. Sure, no support for shields, but I'm not actually sure where the shields come from? Battlefield medics have always been lightly armoured with a free hand to use their medical kit as long as I've known. Besides, you can always grab a dedication
I was thinking the same thing tbh. Just play any martial with the medic archetype and you'll be ridiculously good at healing and at being a martial. As someone already suggested, a forensic medicine investigator with the Scalpel's Point feat would be very on-brand for said character, with a war razor as a weapon to even more on-brand with a medieval medic. Luckily in the next few months investigator changes in PC2 makes this even better.
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So I'm hearing A desire for a non-magic healing focused class. I'm just going to again suggest a "Balancer" class that focuses on manipulating the natural forces and flows in the body, whether you call them qi, chakra, humors, or what have you. You can bring them into balance to end afflictions, or restore vitality, or you can cause them to be out of balance to Inflict precision damage or afflictions.
Wisdom as the KAS.
I don't think Paizo wants to make a class built entirely around healing because that would be too close to the "healbot" trope and I doubt Paizo wants to make a class that only could fulfill a single trope or niche. The most healbot-y class in PF2e is the cleric, and even then a cleric can still do a ton of things that aren't healing. A martial healer could exist as a subclass of an already existing class (like the forensic medicine investigator) but not really as a class on its own (I also don't think the concept itself is deep enough to have a class built around it tbh).
Like why are we getting Guardian when Champion exists especially the Remastered one?
This is a question I'm asking myself too, specially after seeing the playtest guardian.
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Wisdom as KAS, specializing in applying Debuffs.
They are "non-magical" in the same way the Thaumaturge is non-magical. They don't cast spells to do this sort of stuff.
It's an idea. To be honest my main concept is a melee version of the Starfinder Bio-hacker.
Sounds like a Monk using their knowledge of anatomy to heal allies and debuff/harm opponents.
There isn't a class named "Balancer" in Starfinder.
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A healer pivots into debuff the same way one pivots into a blaster caster, or a melee combatant, or a debuffer. Class choices, and something to do because you can't heal EVERY turn. (I'm referencing the Cleric there)
So Monk's in PF2e DO NOT use wisdom. their KAS is strength or dexterity. So no, this is not comparable to a Monk. And I'm not wanting them to use focus spells (though allowing them as an option isn't out of the question) Or at least it will be no more similar to a Monk than a Thaumaturge is related to a fighter.
Why is it every time I suggest a class here, you all just tell me "just play a monk", despite the fact that the Monk doesn't do the MAIN THING I'm talking about for this class?
And as far as the SF2e comment goes
1: Biohacker is not being released with the playtest and no word on when it will be released
2: I said a melee version of it.
I wouldn't mind a dedicated martial healer class. Something like the Medic class from the PF1e Dreamscarred Path of War product. Someone who specializes in shields and combat healing abilities. It would be neat if they got special shield abilities. Also the Triage ability was pretty interesting.
You might take a look at Starfinder 2's envoy once it gets out of Field Test (soon). Through Desperate Times is a leadership style that gives a bit more juice to being a medic, and there's a few class skills about keeping your allies up and moving through raw encouragement and leadership alone. It's less "shield" and more "helping!" but you could dump a fair bit of your character into nonmagical healing that way and still be doing reasonably well.
If the Shield thing is really important to you, then you might consider taking a Guardian (once they get published in full - maybe about a year or a year and a half?) with a heavy focus in Medic. Probably more shield and less medic than you like, but it'll definitely have special shield abilities to to play with.
If you decide that "focused nonmagical healer" is the thing you really want to the exclusion of all else, and the shield is not so important to you, then I'd suggest a chirurgeon (alchemist path) with the medic archetype. Your class is all about handing out medicines, and your archetype is all about stitching people up and you absolutely can spend most of your focus on healing that way. Oh, and you've got a side-gig in performance-enhancing drugs, so that's cool. Admittedly, the remaster is coming out soon, and that'll be changing things, but you can be pretty confident that it won't change the core identity of the chirurgeon subclass.
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The concept of a healer balancing forces has nothing to do with a monk. Yes, in chinese stories they might be balancing (or imbalancing) qi, but in european stories, it would be balancing humors, in south east asian stories, balancing chakra, This has nothing to do with the monk class. Unlike the PF2e monk it would not be focused on dealing a ton of damage, nor on high defense. They would focus on healing and buffing/debuffing.
By your logic, why do we even need a monk class, hits things real good, that's the fighter class.
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The concept of a healer balancing forces has nothing to do with a monk. Yes, in chinese stories they might be balancing (or imbalancing) qi, but in european stories, it would be balancing humors, in south east asian stories, balancing chakra, This has nothing to do with the monk class. Unlike the PF2e monk it would not be focused on dealing a ton of damage, nor on high defense. They would focus on healing and buffing/debuffing.
By your logic, why do we even need a monk class, hits things real good, that's the fighter class.
You're not listening. They're not telling you that your idea is bad or wrong. They're telling you that, in this game, you're never going to get it. PF2 lets different classes own the space around them so that classes aren't too samey. You're asking for a class rather than an archetype, so that matters.
I read the thing that you describe, and I perceive it as one of two things. Either it's something that gets done in nonmagical ways over a period of time (hi, Medic!) or it's something that gets done in combat time, but has some sort of magical explanation. There are some similar abilities in fiction, but they're not making you happy either. If it gets done via potent prepared medicines, then that's alchemist (specifically, a chirurgeon). If you're looking for in-combat use of pressure points to do interesting things, then that's a monk.
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I'll put this a different way. Imagine that you have your class, exactly like you want it. They're in a fight. The big beefy fighter in front of them gets stabbed, and then gets burned, and then gets bitten, and is starting to feel a bit unhappy about his place in the world. You want to apply your class abilities to heal him up. What, exactly, are you doing? You're not just waving your hands and causing his humors to rebalance or whatever, because that's pretty obviously magical. So what is it that you are doing that isn't slapping a bandage on it (medic), applying an elixir (chirurgeon alchemist) or hitting pressure points (monk)? What is it that you're doing that makes at least some sense as something that might work in combat time?
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Which pressure points do Monk's hit to heal people... oh, right they don't heal people.
I don't know why you keep acting like using pressure points is some monk exclusive thing, or signature thing. That's something in your head-cannon.
Also, by that logic, no class should deal precision damage except Rogues. Good bye precision rangers, Investigators, and swashbucklers.
I am listening. So I will explain. When I say "non-magical" I mean the same way the Thaumaturge and the Kineticist are non magical. Not a caster. What they do is still clearly magical, though it is not traditional magic. They are not casting spells, but interacting with magic in a different way.
While I can see the similarities to the theming of the monk (if I squint) they occupy very different spaces narratively and mechanically.
So Monk's in PF2e DO NOT use wisdom. their KAS is strength or dexterity. So no, this is not comparable to a Monk. And I'm not wanting them to use focus spells (though allowing them as an option isn't out of the question) Or at least it will be no more similar to a Monk than a Thaumaturge is related to a fighter.
Okay. So let's say I want to play a martial class that specializes in the use of light weapons like daggers and is very skilled, but it isn't a rogue because I want this one to just use daggers and nothing else.
It aint going to happen, because 90% of what I described is a rogue, much like your suggesting that 90% is literally a monk too.
I am listening. So I will explain. When I say "non-magical" I mean the same way the Thaumaturge and the Kineticist are non magical. Not a caster. What they do is still clearly magical, though it is not traditional magic. They are not casting spells, but interacting with magic in a different way.
Okay. I think that this was the primary source of confusion. "Non-magical" and "non-caster" are not the same. We thought that when you said "non-magical", you meant "non-magical". I hope that you can understand how this would be confusing.
So to recapitulate, you are looking for a magical non-caster who is primarily a healer, with a secondary in buff/debuff. Presumably they'd be doing some damage, because everyone does some damage. The impression that I get, though, is that you don't want them on a martial chassis. It seems like, thematically, you'd really prefer lifedrain and vitality attacks and whatnot as a primary means of doing damage.
Now, kineticist does exist, and has some heals, but there's not enough of them to really have that be an area of specialty.
Sadly, while this is a sane and reasonable thing to ask for and want, I think you're not going to get it, and I think you're not going to get it because there simply isn't the demand. We have a variety of ways to be a caster primary healer. We have chirurgeon for the people who want to be noncaster primary healers. Kineticist healing won't let you really play as primarily a healer (at least, not after level 10 or so - the healing impulses are all focused on the earlier levels) but the people who want to play noncaster magic-wielders with a nice helping of noncaster magical healing can totally do that thing.
Basically, the niche you're asking for is very specific, which means that the demand is limited to those who want that thing specifically and not any of the other things that we already have. Worse yet, I don't think we're going to get it incidentally. I expect that we will get at least a few more magical noncaster classes in the future, and i expect that they'll have heals as well, but I expect that they'll have heals like the thaumaturge and kineticist have heals - available through their class features in a nontrivial way, but not enough to make it the primary focus of a build 1-20. "You can get some heals if you're willing to pay for them" has gotten a fair bit of positive feedback in the classes it's shown up in, and I don't really see a lot of interest in pushing past that.
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Okay, First off, self-accountability. Sanityfaerie and Shroudb, you're right. the way I used "non-Magical" was AT BEST confusing, if not just outright wrong. I did not express myself well.
Next: I recognize that nothing like this may ever exist, but it's a class I long for.
Exequiel, a martial class that specializes in studying and knowing ones enemies. Why do we have either the Thaumaturge or the Investigator, we have the Ranger.
And as for "No one wants that class" was anyone asking for the Inventor? The Thaumaterge? The Animist? the Exemplar? Is my idea likely to happen, no. but I can dream.
Design Manager
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And as for "No one wants that class" was anyone asking for the Inventor? The Thaumaterge? The Animist? the Exemplar?
(The answer to this is "yes"; those classes all had some element of addressing frequent requests in the way we felt was the best execution for PF2.)
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Not much I can say after that. I guess my idea is terrible.
I don't think so.
Sanityfaerie and shroudb make some reasonable and educated points about how likely a given concept is to be created as a 1pp class that goes in one of our books, but our books have a lot of significant requirements; our audience is many thousands of people who we are hoping to get to spend around $65 on a book, and we know we'll probably only ever get to make around 30ish classes in a given edition cycle.
But programs like Pathfinder Infinite exist because there are a lot of cool class concepts that many people will really enjoy that just don't fit inside our product and economic model. I've written tons of really popular 3pp classes that I love and which sold well for their market niche that would never get published by Paizo. That doesn't mean they're terrible classes or ideas, it just means that the audience for them was not the same audience being targeted by a Paizo hardcover.