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Raising a shield as an action increases in value significantly the more 1st attack actions a character is going to take in a round. Playing the 2 hander fighter slam down fighter before, I got myself in the most trouble when I ended up drawing attacks from 4 or 5 enemies after absolutely wrecking one the first round.
The problem with trying to define “typical campaign” in PF2 is that it is hard to even point to a single campaign/Adventure path and suggest it represents a normalized experience. Optimization that ignores the sources of variance in campaigns is rightfully questioned.
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I'm not an experience GM - or player, for that matter; the first experience I had was D&D 5E in 2020 - but my playgroup (outside of myself) is very experienced with RPGs. In this case, that experience comes with knowledge of how to "optimize" (but maybe not to the extent that some here have indicated) their character builds. And they have done so. When I tried running Stolen Fate, the encounters were all trivial for them. Ridiculously so.
Personally, that drives me nuts. For me (warning: personal opinion) the game is about a collaborative story. "Solving" the best character build isn't what I want - so I freely take liberties with my dice rolls to make it more challenging. I'm not shooting for TPKs or anything, but I don't want every encounter to be a shallow speed bump.
This week I ran a PFS scenario (#2-13 A Gilded Test) for a party of three level 4 characters and two level 3 characters. Rolling all dice in the open, each combat was edge-of-your-seat "are we going to win this?" That was my favorite GM experience, and every player responded very positively. I think the challenge of the encounters, rather than the "challenge" of optimizing characters, was the best part of the game.
So as far as I'm personally concerned, the best way to build a character is a mix between what is powerful and what is thematic. I ironically just built a fighter and it's fun to role play something different from what I "always" play. I've made some non-optimal choices simply to delve more into the character rather than the metagame, and I couldn't be happier.
So is the fighter relatively less powerful than other classes in a certain level range? All I can say is that I don't know (or really want to know) if that's true, or if I'm even on track to be pushing the limits on power (I'm definitely not, I'm sure, even if I tried).
Ultimately, I firmly believe the answer to the question posed in this thread is "maybe" or, better yet, "your results may vary." To everything there is a season.
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I think that you guys pay WAAAY too much attention to such things (those who do that).
Oh absolutely. In actual play there's a lot of variance, but that doesn't strike me as an argument for the status quo being good.
I put too much attention on it because I think it's a needless and not good design choice that can create mild pain points for no discernible benefit.
Like, yeah, it's not the most significant thing but "It's only a little bit bad" isn't an argument for it being good.
Yes, it happens. It's also an inevitable consequence of discrete steps in statistics' improvement and that classes are supposed to be somewhat balanced and not equivalent at the same time.
It's not 'inevitable' though. Paizo could just as easily say "Champions are supposed to have better AC" and simply make that true across the board.
Again, like the fighter. Its to-hit bonus progresses at the same rate as everyone else's, so it's always better by the same amount.
About the OP question.
The fighter does get a lot of power on the front end but that power never goes away or becomes irrelevant. It just stays there the whole game keeping the fighter a powerful character the team will rely on for damage.
Other classes do start to get better at thier specialties later in the game but that never makes them better characters. It only makes them better at what they do best, while the fighter started out best at what they do and stay best at what they do the whole game.
So I would not characterize them as losing power after level 10. They start out strong and stay strong while others have to develop their specialties as they level.
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The thing with the slamdown build, or any trip build for that matter, is that it's only "monstrous" if the whole party builds for it.
DV takes it for granted that in a party there will be multiple reactive strikes available, because that's how his party is usually built.
But inserting as an example this type of character in my campaign, that we currently have a "swash, fire kineticist, bard, divine sorc" won't be the "objectively better option" that he presents.
Instead something like a shield using fighter, or a grappler, will, party wise, perform better.
Similarly, due to the theme of their campaign, most of the battles are against multiple lesser foes rather than single bosses. While bosses do exist here and there, someone capable of wide damage will fare better than someone specialising in simply knocking down one for. (Plus, it also makes the Swash actually quite powerful)
That's why it's impossible to say "this X build is superior to all other builds". The balance points of several feats and features are close enough that campaign differences easily skewer the balance from one to the other.
This is not the case. I've explained why it is best for the fighter. What other classes do is unimportant for this build.
I build trip fighters because it is the best fighter build for damage by a good margin.
It is fighters who benefit from Reactive Strike the most. They optimize around being to obtain two Reactive Strikes. So the fighter wants as many ways to active No MAP reactive strike.
Trip is the best way to activate Reactive Strike, which I explained some. Grapple doesn't activate Reactive Strike because breaking a grapple doesn't activate reactive strike. Shove doesn't activate reactive strike because forced movement doesn't activate reactive strike. Standing up activates Reactive Strike and if the target chooses not to stand up it suffers an extreme penalty so that is also a bad, bad option. If a target is tripped it has -2 to hit and is off-guard to everyone meaning the other martials, casters, bow users, everyone. So tripping leads to a very bad choice of stand up and take a hit or be weak to the hits of everyone else. Standing up is actually the better option the majority of the time.
Then you build up reaction options. I stated above I usually MC into Champion or Rogue for Champion's Reaction Paladin or Opportune Backstab at higher level with gang up since these feats are superior to higher level fighter feats.
This combination leads to an opening cycle of Trip target, strike target off-guard when tripped, target stands up Reactive Strike, target is hit by enemy opportune backstab or if target strikes another party member Champion's reaction target.
If fighting mooks, you may switch to something multitarget like Whirlwind Strike. Single target is for the trip, multitarget a Whirlwind Strike in range.
Then adapt as needed.
Party composition isn't particularly important to the build. What is important to the build is building off the strengths of the fighter: Reactive Strike and the +2 to hit leading to increased crits.
The thing with the slamdown build, or any trip build for that matter, is that it's only "monstrous" if the whole party builds for it.
DV takes it for granted that in a party there will be multiple reactive strikes available, because that's how his party is usually built.
But inserting as an example this type of character in my campaign, that we currently have a "swash, fire kineticist, bard, divine sorc" won't be the "objectively better option" that he presents.
Instead something like a shield using fighter, or a grappler, will, party wise, perform better.
Similarly, due to the theme of their campaign, most of the battles are against multiple lesser foes rather than single bosses. While bosses do exist here and there, someone capable of wide damage will fare better than someone specialising in simply knocking down one for. (Plus, it also makes the Swash actually quite powerful)
That's why it's impossible to say "this X build is superior to all other builds". The balance points of several feats and features are close enough that campaign differences easily skewer the balance from one to the other.
This is not the case. I've explained why it is best for the fighter. What other classes do is unimportant for this build.
I build trip fighters because it is the best fighter build for damage by a good margin.
It is fighters who benefit from Reactive Strike the most. They optimize around being to obtain two Reactive Strikes. So the fighter wants as many ways to active No MAP reactive strike.
Trip is the best way to activate Reactive Strike, which I explained some. Grapple doesn't activate Reactive Strike because breaking a grapple doesn't activate reactive strike. Shove doesn't activate reactive strike because forced movement doesn't activate reactive strike. Standing up activates Reactive Strike and if the target chooses not to stand up it suffers an extreme penalty so that is also a bad, bad option. If a target is tripped it has -2 to hit and is off-guard to...
Shove doesnt get enough love
Shove does a few things (Boring map design if shove doesnt ever help)It breaks up flanking when doing it between the turns of the shoved creature and other flanking creature.
It can force the use of a stride to get back taking one action away that would have otherwise been used to do something offensive.
it is actually a limited stride action if you want it to be. (great if you were going to step that direction this turn anyway)
Shove can move foes into squares they really dont want to be in. Like off cliffs, into traps, narrow surfaces, or uneven terrain (where they will become offguard and any strike will force a balance check or become prone).
Even more situationally a critical disarm followed by a shove and moving into that space can keep a foe from their weapon (would be a cool moment if you can make this happen).
Also considered what happens when one pc is shoved into another. rules allow for nothing to happen here if a pc is an object(forced movement rules) or unwilling simple shuts down the movement(moving through another creature's space rules) but also have room for consequences with one pc ending up prone in the next space. It will depend on the GM I think.
For decades, the advice has been that if a GM lets you sit down at a table with a character whose abilities are rendered useless or near-useless by their campaign design, it's their fault for not informing you. That is VERY true in an all-ooze campaign. This is "good faith."Where you're messing up the argument is that no one is talking about the GM looking at what the player has built and countering that build on purpose or not being upfront and accurate about what sort of campaign they are running.
The rest of us are not arguing that a GM should counter player builds; we are arguing that builds are variable in their effectiveness depending on campaign particulars.
It's you and deriven that are, for some reason, equating "an undead-slaying character works better in an undead-focused campaign and worse in a campaign that has few undead show up" with undead-slaying options being less optimal than other options and trying to frame any GM running an undead-themed campaign as "unusual" or deliberately impairing a character.
How many campaigns have you actually sat in where most encounters consisted of a single creature, specifically one that invalidates certain tactical approaches? I bet it's none. This is "unusual."My own personal experience, which isn't actually "none" by the way - I've personally participated in campaigns that have only used undead, demons, devils, wizards, and "beasts" (that one meaning vermin, animals, and magical beasts as were the designations at the time) as antagonists - is irrelevant to the discussion because we are not talking about what any particular GM has chosen to do, we are talking about what the game presents as equally valid options to all readers, past, present, and future.
I find the argument of "no book definitions of readily understood terms" to be disingenuous and hostile.The disingenuous thing going on here is the continual pretense that the claim of a "usual campaign"...
Campaign optimization is different from class optimization.
Class optimization builds on the strengths of a class.
Campaign optimizations builds based on the campaign information provided by the GM.
As I stated above in an all ooze campaign, I wouldn't even play a martial given the information I know about oozes.
Both types of optimization are different and based on different evidence and data.
...The thing with the slamdown build, or any trip build for that matter, is that it's only "monstrous" if the whole party builds for it.
DV takes it for granted that in a party there will be multiple reactive strikes available, because that's how his party is usually built.
But inserting as an example this type of character in my campaign, that we currently have a "swash, fire kineticist, bard, divine sorc" won't be the "objectively better option" that he presents.
Instead something like a shield using fighter, or a grappler, will, party wise, perform better.
Similarly, due to the theme of their campaign, most of the battles are against multiple lesser foes rather than single bosses. While bosses do exist here and there, someone capable of wide damage will fare better than someone specialising in simply knocking down one for. (Plus, it also makes the Swash actually quite powerful)
That's why it's impossible to say "this X build is superior to all other builds". The balance points of several feats and features are close enough that campaign differences easily skewer the balance from one to the other.
This is not the case. I've explained why it is best for the fighter. What other classes do is unimportant for this build.
I build trip fighters because it is the best fighter build for damage by a good margin.
It is fighters who benefit from Reactive Strike the most. They optimize around being to obtain two Reactive Strikes. So the fighter wants as many ways to active No MAP reactive strike.
Trip is the best way to activate Reactive Strike, which I explained some. Grapple doesn't activate Reactive Strike because breaking a grapple doesn't activate reactive strike. Shove doesn't activate reactive strike because forced movement doesn't activate reactive strike. Standing up activates Reactive Strike and if the target chooses not to stand up it suffers an extreme penalty so that is also a bad, bad option. If a target is tripped it has
I've tried a couple of shove builds. They aren't that good. Shove is best used when you need to push into a room and create space for the rest of your group to position and enter. The problem with shove if employing a reach weapon is you often shove them out of range of your weapon and if you follow, you will break formation or your frontline. Even if the attacker moves back into range attacking you provoking a Reactive Strike, it doesn't penalize them to strike, provide off-guard, or give them a penalty to hit. Whereas trip requires they both stand up and move if using a reach weapon to trip.
I once made a monk with mixed maneuver who would trip them and kick the target away forcing them to stand up and move closer if they didn't have reach. I didn't like the flow of the build as shoving a target away often took it out of range of the rest of the PCs and broke your formation to have to move to attack it.
I consider Shove more of a situational maneuver. If you have maxed Athletics and Strength, easy to use Shove when you need it. It's not worth building around as it disrupts the ability of your other melee PCs to attack even if it looks cool to toss someone around the battlefield.
In these discussion, optimal means optimal. Sub-optimal doesn't mean bad. It means less than optimal. Plenty of viable, fun builds besides trip builds. I tend to try to optimize every class I build for a particular thing. Fighters tend to optimize best around big two-handed weapons or archery builds
Since I play the game to very high level, I optimize based on high level options that I expect to see. That is why the two-weapon ranger is the better two-weapon fighter with flurry. I expect to use Impossible Flurry and see the level 17 Hunter's Edge. So that calculates into my optimal build options. When I spec a two-weapon fighter, you're probably fine going either way as a ranger or a fighter, though the ranger still has better action economy with two-weapon fighting.
What is optimal can often depend on what level you expect to play to. If you play to lower level, optimization is almost a moot point as the power feats or builds for certain classes are much higher level.
When you change the default assumptions of how a game is played...The default assumption does not allow for designation of some campaigns as "normal" and others as "unusual".
They are all just as much whatever the GM decided to set up.
Campaign optimization is different from class optimization.Yeah, in that the former is a real and meaningful thing and the latter is at best a fool's errand because how well any given option available to a class performs depends upon campaign particulars - like how effective Slam Down will be depending on how high the AC and Reflex DC of your enemies are going to be.
The very fact that you wouldn't even play a martial in a particular campaign shows that you acknowledge the extreme case that results from this reality. That you can't see that there is a less extreme case in which a martial is still a high-performing option, perhaps even still the highest-performing option, but that favors a different feat over Slam Down is a Dunning-Kruger-esque blind spot.
Optimal and viable are two different things. There are plenty of viable builds that will make a person that doesn't run numbers feel fine. Very few players take the time to collect data across fights and multiple campaigns in real play and compare it by class and build.
Regardless of what you want to believe, class optimization works and works very, very well. It is an empirically driven process that very much leads to high performance play.
It's one of those things that doesn't matter what the other person believes because the numbers will support the hypothesis including why there is no real way to be optimal in every situation all the time, so you're primarily going for optimal the majority of the time.
You can continue to insist it isn't possible as much as you want and it will not change that it does work and it is the preferred play-style of some players. Continuing to make unsupported claims that optimization is not possible is the fool's errand because it doesn't change what is optimal and it makes you seem like you haven't spent much time analyzing rule mechanics and comparing them.
If that's not your cup of tea, then continue to play the game the way you enjoy.
And I think we're done. I've more than answered how to build the best fighter for optimal play for a melee fighter. The other option is archery with Eldritch Shot and Debilitating Shot. Other options are viable, but will underperform the trip build or the archery build.
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When you change the default assumptions of how a game is played...The default assumption does not allow for designation of some campaigns as "normal" and others as "unusual".
They are all just as much whatever the GM decided to set up.
Most APs don't include a lot of guidelines on what you shouldn't play based on the contents of the adventure, because they're intended to be picked up and played by any group of players with any PCs. They don't generally have a theme of monsters with a common mechanic that disadvantages certain builds through encounter after encounter, let alone a whole AP.
This is the DEFAULT mode of play.
Creating a themed campaign with a unified mechanic to punish certain modes of play is uncommon. Unusual. Against the norm. And if you haven't talked to your players about what to expect before they sit down, you're not very nice.
Have you ever played any games hosted on a server, where the game's parameters could be configured at the server? There tends to be a default option, where everything works as expected and every available option is valid. Most people tend to play on those settings. If you make tweaks so that some things don't work as expected, then that is an uncommon configuration. Unusual.
...Campaign optimization is different from class optimization.Yeah, in that the former is a real and meaningful thing and the latter is at best a fool's errand because how well any given option available to a class performs depends upon campaign particulars - like how effective Slam Down will be depending on how high the AC and Reflex DC of your enemies are going to be.
The very fact that you wouldn't even play a martial in a particular campaign shows that you acknowledge the extreme case that results from this reality. That you can't see that there is a less extreme case in which a martial is still a high-performing option, perhaps even still the
I would not play a martial in an ooze campaign unless I was pushed into playing martial. Then it would be like a magus with a blunt weapon using imaginary weapon with blunt damage.
We have a general strategy for killing oozes depending on terrain. Most of our martials carry a back up weapon or a shifting rune to shift to blunt attacks for oozes.
Our preferred method is to have one martial split them apart into smaller pieces, then we AoE them so long as we can set up in an area where the split oozes do not overwhelm. That is also ooze dependent as there are many different types of oozes.
Ooze campaign would not be great for the trip build even if the oozes were trippable. A fighter wouldn't be great either as their greatest strength is their plus 2 to hit and oozes are generally immune to crit completely rendering oozes immune to the best ability of the fighter.
Oozes have low AC and crit immunity making the fighter a very suboptimal choice against oozes as all its strengths are rendered obsolete. It's not quite as bad as golem magic immunity or immunity to precision damage, but pretty close.
Against oozes you want raw damage or magic, so a barbarian would be preferable or a magus of some kind with big single hits of variable damage type. Casters generally perform well against oozes.
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Most APs don't include a lot of guidelines on what you shouldn't play based on the contents of the adventure, because they're intended to be picked up and played by any group of players with any PCs. They don't generally have a theme of monsters with a common mechanic that disadvantages certain builds through encounter after encounter, let alone a whole AP.
Every AP has a Players Guide, which details the overall theme of the AP, and suggests particular ancestries, classes, archetypes, and builds which will work well with the AP. It will also tell you some things that would be *terrible* to choose.
The quality of the advice is variable -- overall pretty good, but every PG generally has at least one piece of bad advice. And they usually won't point out options that are only kind-of-bad, just the ones that will be outright terrible.
But there is absolutely contextual guidance out there that players are assumed to have when they build their characters for an AP.
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Just to be clear, Deriven said the Slam Down build is optimal the majority of the time against a common spread of enemies. There are very few enemies immune to trip. Trip works against corporeal fliers, giants, dragons, corporeal undead, and just about everything. Reflex is a weak save for a wide spread of creatures and often even a high Reflex save isn't higher than AC and Trip can be build so high as it doesn't matter much anyway. Everyone can have a fighter's accuracy when tripping because everyone can have legendary in Athletics, maxed strength, and obtain items to boost athletics. This is the beauty of trip.
If you're playing in a campaign with lots of incorporeal creatures, then the slam down build isn't likely to be optimal, though a two-hander fighter may still be very good. I can't be sure as I would probably play a magus with imaginary weapon in an incorporeal campaign due to Imaginary weapon having the force tag making it great against incorporeal undead.
I've used my trip builds or seen a trip build in Age of Ashes, Extinction Curse, Agents of Edgewatch, Kingmaker, and Abomination Vaults. It has worked the majority of the time in every single one of them.
Off the top of my head, what is immune to trip. Incorporeal creatures. Swarms are immune to prone. Maybe a few creatures here and there. Kip up defeats trip which I often give to high level NPCs since all my players build to pick up kip up, which looks really goofy in the mind's eye but why wouldn't you do it given how easy it is. Every single character whether the heavy armored fighter or the robed mage can do Kip Up like a champ. Super goofy. I can't say I love it, but I'm not going to stop a player from taking what is best given PCs getting tripped is as a big a pain as it is to a monster.
Given the large percentage of creatures trip works against, it would be an exceptionally rare campaign where a Slam Down build was not effective and would take some pretty extreme DM manipulation to make it so across an entire campaign.
Regardless of what you want to believe, class optimization works and works very, very well. It is an empirically driven process that very much leads to high performance play.Regardless of what you want to believe, there is no way to determine the performance of a particular build other than to put it up against variables that are campaign dependent.
How often does trip succeed? Depends on the campaign.
How will an opponent respond to being tripped? Depends on the campaign
How often will you face each type of enemy that you face? Depends on the campaign.Yet you arrive at both the conclusion that "most of the time" is measurable and supports your claim and the absolutely obnoxious attitude that you are empirically correct and everyone else is actually not even interest in optimization.
And you triple-down on the obnoxious superior attitude by being dismissive and derisive towards everyone else with your "that's not your cup of tea" sort of statements that show you won't even entertain the idea that someone else could be optimization-interested and still think you are wrong because you pretend you don't need to know the campaign the character will be in to know what will be the optimal choices to make for it.
How often does trip succeed? It works against about 90 percent plus of enemies and can be built as accurate as a fighter's hit chance including feats to make it MAPless. It succeeds a huge percentage of the time regardless of campaign.
The fighter's class strengths do not change based on campaign. The fighter gets a +2 to hit above everyone else and crits easier. You are always seeking the weapon to provide the most damage on a critical hit and always seeking to activate your Reactive Strike and expand your reaction options to combine with Reactive Strike.
This does not change by campaign. It is based entirely on the fighter chassis and the mechanics of the game.
You can run the numbers to see that a large damage die with some kind of rider like deadly or fatal leads to the highest critical damage numbers as well as the highest average damage numbers for regular hits.
You will see that trip is the best way to activate Reactive Strike for combat maneuver builds, though reach builds can be somewhat ok as well though at high level many monsters have reach themselves, often beyond what a player can obtain leaving trip still as your viable reactive strike option.
Given the fighter only as the ability to expand Reactive Strike, you want to expand the options with their base reaction into Champion's Reaction or Opportune Backstab combined with Reactive Strike to operate with multiple triggers.
Do not believe people like The Noble Drake who do not take the time to understand the underlying strengths of a class chassis which do not change based on campaign specifics.
The fighter itself may not be an optimal class for a given campaign if that campaign works against their class strengths. That doesn't change what the fighter's class strengths are which is a high hit roll leading to more crits which means maximizing critical hits is paramount and the ability to have more reactions for reactive Strike and other reaction based abilities which provide No MAP strikes leading to more crits.
Class optimization based on the strengths of a given class do not change based on campaign specifics. Campaign specifics would merely force you into suboptimal choices or avoiding particular classes in that type of campaign entirely.
Are you the guy who argued endless about the Signet Ring breaking the game? I should look that up as that turned out about as true as this optimization line of reasoning.
I mean, even if you use a Slam Down build, it doesn't have to be a two-hander build. If your party has a, say, sniper gunslinger, I think it's more optimal to be a shield and trip build who focuses on locking down enemies nearby and giving the gunslinger easy crits rather than doing, say, 30% of the health of the monster (instead of 10% off your d6 weapon), only for the gunslinger to do 90%.
I usually do shield trip builds with the monk. With barbs and fighters two-handed weapons are better because Crash Down does the two-hander dice instead of the d6 for the damage. So you get a 1d10 or 1d12 for the critical trip effect. If using a barbarian, it's 1d10 or 1d12 plus Strength with the feat that gives strength damage to trip. Brutal Bully is that feat. Great for a trip or any combat maneuver build.
Furious Bully is the +2 circumstance bonus to combat maneuvers.
A barb with Crash Down, Brutal Bully, and Furious Bully is a brutal combat maneuver machine. It's first trip will do strike damage plus 1d10 or 1d12 plus strength. Then your reactive strike when they stand up or Opportune Backstab hit at higher level. Not quite as good at reactive strike as the fighter, but better at the pure maneuver builds.
And by the way oozes are NOT at all immune to Trip and prone :)Technically, yes. Though I don't think I've ever seen a GM who allowed it, and the Swimming rules do say you're immune to prone so it's entirely possible it's a weird oversight.
It's reminiscent of Ye Olde 3.x Positive Energy Plane. Where technically, undead healed just fine from it and gained arbitrarily many bonus hit points from it because they didn't have Con scores and therefore couldn't explode.
Some rules-as-written stuff gets tossed so frequently people remember the houserules more than they do the actual rules.
I allow tripping of oozes. Nothing says you can't. I figure they are knocked off kilter.
If your doing level ten then add tactical reflexes. Two extra attacks with a polearm, one when they stand and second when they get closer to hit you or cast. Problems with enemy reach? Get a dedication and grab enlarge and heightened enlarge scrolls to fix that problem. Large+polearm+lunging stance=20 foot reach, able to handle up to huge enemies.
Which means what? That we can make statements and be accurate if they take the form of "this option will be optimal within situations such as this" like "slam down is optimal against enemies susceptible to trip and without significant resistance to the type of damage your weapon does or higher reflex DCs."...Having played most of the 2e AP's and a couple of custom campaigns, sorry, no, tripping has always proven to be the overall top go-to tactic. Characters who had it in their bag of tricks, whatever the class, never regretted it. Fighters just synergize insanely well with trip.
Of course their will be fights where it will be useless, but I have not ever played a campaign where such fights were common.
Wouldn't mind though, imho tripping is too easy and powerful.
This I agree with. Some folks like Gortle think it is fine.
Personally, I think the tripping god maneuver is goofy. I use it only because it is so good which I didn't even believe at first until some optimizers on this board broke it down.
In PF1 I used to play fliers couldn't really be tripped because they just fly in three dimensions. But apparently in PF2 they have to stand up or right themselves first before the fly regardless of how they fly, so it makes trip work against fliers to knock them out of the air eating up the use of Arrest a Fall reaction or take damage and be prone.
Even super huge creatures like giants and dragons can be tripped and often have low reflex saves, which further makes trip goofy since such creatures would normally be far more stable.
I think I even made a thread calling trip too powerful, but quite a few didn't agree with me.
If something is good, I'm going to use it.
At some point, I would prefer they made trip less good. I don't like it when they funnel so much power into a single maneuver and strategy. It makes other strategies feel bad.
If your doing level ten then add tactical reflexes. Two extra attacks with a polearm, one when they stand and second when they get closer to hit you or cast. Problems with enemy reach? Get a dedication and grab enlarge and heightened enlarge scrolls to fix that problem. Large+polearm+lunging stance=20 foot reach, able to handle up to huge enemies.
Not worth the effort when I can just pick up Champion' Reaction or Opportune Riposte while also doing the reach thing with Enlarge if they stand up anyway. Shove is not a great maneuver in most circumstances and affects MAP, so I'd prefer to use trip to open and use reach or movement when it comes up.
...the majority of the time...That's what makes you wrong.
There is no way to establish which scenarios are more frequent than others because there is no guidance presence in the game that says which enemies the GM should choose to use most often.
The math is a variable, and you're making an error by using a set value that you made up. To illustrate, let's talk about "average reflex DC";
How is average reflex DC calculated in order to know the average success chance of a trip attempt? Do we look at the creature building guidelines to see what the values are for a reflex modifier at various levels on the chart? If we do, our math is inherently flawed because the game makes no guarantee that the selection of enemies actually faced will result in that exact value.
Do we instead look at all existing creature stat blocks and find an average by adding together all the values and dividing by the number of creatures? If we do, our math is inherently flawed again because there are not actually any guarantees the game makes that we will face a non-weighted random distribution of any available creature the the selection of enemies actually faced may result in a different average.
So what does that leave? Using the set of creatures that the GM has actually selected to use in the campaign, weighting their values to match how often the GM is going to use them. That's the only way to get an actually accurate number - but it's also something we can't completely know going into building a character because the GM probably only has a general theme to share and isn't actually running the numbers for every creature across any particular level of their specific campaign.
Which means what? That we can make statements and be accurate if they take the form of "this option will be optimal within situations such as this" like "slam down is optimal against enemies susceptible to trip and without significant resistance to the type of damage your weapon does or higher reflex DCs."...
How is that Shadow Signet ring doing? Perhaps you should make a thread on how all the math I showed you proving it would not break the game was somehow "wrong." Thus we should have a bunch of threads about the shadow signet ring completely fixing spell attack roll spells and leading all those casters to give up their save spells because I don't know how to use math to show how something works in a game.
I didn't agree with on that Shadow Signet and we're never going to agree on trip as I know it is the optimal option 90 percent plus of the time if not higher. I use it all the time and will continue to do so on multiple types of martials including fighters.
There isn't a single thing you can say or do to change my mind as I know it works and would walk into nearly any game that wasn't going out of its way to make every encounter with something that couldn't be tripped or crit like oozes which render martials weak regardless of the martial.
So go sell what you're selling to someone else who plays this game based on what they want to believe versus how the mechanics work.
If your doing level ten then add tactical reflexes. Two extra attacks with a polearm, one when they stand and second when they get closer to hit you or cast. Problems with enemy reach? Get a dedication and grab enlarge and heightened enlarge scrolls to fix that problem. Large+polearm+lunging stance=20 foot reach, able to handle up to huge enemies.Not worth the effort when I can just pick up Champion' Reaction or Opportune Riposte while also doing the reach thing with Enlarge if they stand up anyway. Shove is not a great maneuver in most circumstances and affects MAP, so I'd prefer to use trip to open and use reach or movement when it comes up.
Shove is good when terrain matters and GMs come into play very heavily here to decide when difficult terrain qualifies as an uneven surface.
Little good natured ranting here but
Having varied terrain on the battle maps is needed for tactical play to have variations and let different foes take advantage of their natural abilities that let them survive until the party arrived. If all the fights take place in similar doorways then the same tactics are going to be used over and over.
If the party opens a "door" and finds they are at a lower elevation with foes at a higher platform and cover staying at the door is going to get the party killed.
If the path to the door is narrow with a drop on either side no one will want the fight to happen right there with the party balancing to move.
If the party opens the door to find nothing. It can require them to actually enter the room and do search checks to find that preditorial foe with good stealth lurking and waiting for an opening.
I went on a bit on just encounter circumstances in general but back to shove; it is only as good as the battle maps let it be. But if maps are done well shove will have a place and players will look for opportunities to set it up.
If your doing level ten then add tactical reflexes. Two extra attacks with a polearm, one when they stand and second when they get closer to hit you or cast. Problems with enemy reach? Get a dedication and grab enlarge and heightened enlarge scrolls to fix that problem. Large+polearm+lunging stance=20 foot reach, able to handle up to huge enemies.Not worth the effort when I can just pick up Champion' Reaction or Opportune Riposte while also doing the reach thing with Enlarge if they stand up anyway. Shove is not a great maneuver in most circumstances and affects MAP, so I'd prefer to use trip to open and use reach or movement when it comes up.Shove is good when terrain matters and GMs come into play very heavily here to decide when difficult terrain qualifies as an uneven surface.
Little good natured ranting here but
Having varied terrain on the battle maps is needed for tactical play to have variations and let different foes take advantage of their natural abilities that let them survive until the party arrived. If all the fights take place in similar doorways then the same tactics are going to be used over and over.
If the party opens a "door" and finds they are at a lower elevation with foes at a higher platform and cover staying at the door is going to get the party killed.
If the path to the door is narrow with a drop on either side no one will want the fight to happen right there with the party balancing to move.
If the party opens the door to find nothing. It can require them to actually enter the room and do search checks to find that preditorial foe with good stealth lurking and waiting for an opening.I went on a bit on just encounter circumstances in general but back to shove; it is only as good as the battle maps let it be. But if maps are done well shove will have a place and players will look for opportunities to set it up.
Shove is always an option for someone with maximized Athletics and a high strength with items.
Even if you take the feats to build up Trip as your primary strategy, having a maxed athletics will allow you to shove or grapple or disarm when needed. It is always useful to max athletics as a martial.
Trip is a primary strategy, but not the only strategy. If you have some terrain to use or want to push into a room someone is trying to keep you out of shove becomes a way to do that. I have used shove for these things more than a few times.
It is worth investing feats into shove? I tried it early and did not find it a very good strategy when I was testing reach shove builds. Just not very party friendly and didn't provide much of an advantage even to the shove user.
Terrain can make it more useful or if you have some kineticist using a damaging effect due to movement.
I didn't mention shove so I have no idea what you are talking about.
Champions reaction and opportune repost are only useful when a team mate is near you and when the enemy tries to triple attack you, while tactical reflexes and lunging stance are just go up and beat them down.
There is no way to establish which scenarios are more frequent than others because there is no guidance presence in the game that says which enemies the GM should choose to use most often.
How do you reconcile this assertion with the reality that people don't actually seem to have nearly as much trouble discussing assumptions, baselines, or norms as you seem to suggest they should? Discussions about 'normal' activity or 'typical campaigns' happen across the internet not just in Pathfinder spaces, but for every TTRPG big enough to have dedicated communities. And very few people seem to have the difficulty you do there.
While technically true that a GM can do anything at any time and therefore you can make no assumptions, that doesn't seem to be something that really holds up in practice. You yourself accidentally allude to this, when you point out that random distributions and global averages aren't helpful because certain monsters might be used more often than others.
Regarding "tripping oozes" you can make exactly all the same arguments regarding swimming.
Well, minus arguably the most important part, that one of them is an established rule and the other isn't. I feel like that's a pretty significant one, especially when it's being used to discuss game balance and action efficiency.
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Wouldn't mind though, imho tripping is too easy and powerful.This I agree with. Some folks like Gortle think it is fine.
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If something is good, I'm going to use it.
At some point, I would prefer they made trip less good. I don't like it when they funnel so much power into a single maneuver and strategy. It makes other strategies feel bad.
I agree that tripping is powerful. I just don't think it breaks the game. As I think other strategies are viable. Tripping used to have some limits. There should be some monsters that are impossible to trip or to knock prone. But for some reason you can trip oozes and molds. Tripping a spider should be very hard, but it is not. Personally I would like to house rule that any creature with more than 4 legs gets a +4 to their reflex DC versus anything that trips, and creatures with no limbs are immune to the prone condition.
I didn't mention shove so I have no idea what you are talking about.
Champions reaction and opportune repost are only useful when a team mate is near you and when the enemy tries to triple attack you, while tactical reflexes and lunging stance are just go up and beat them down.
What were you responding to? I'm not sure.
Yeah. Reach weapon can be good hit a tripped target when it stands and moves to you.
I find at higher my reactions are usually provoked by Champion's Reaction or Opportune Riposte with the fighter when I pick those up. Teammates are always hitting someone. Reach weapon does help with being able to reach more targets, though they generally max at d10 because reach is so valuable.
im not running oozes that can be tripped.
Prone doesn't mean anything to a glob on the ground.