I've been getting requests to do similar deep dives on other classes. First, check out my classes covering new releases of classes from Fall 2021 forward, which include combat demonstrations! Second, what other class do you think needs a treatment, and why? I am most interested in things that compare it to D&D and mechanics that are innovative or important in and of themselves. (I can't make any promises though, as I have a long queue of other video ideas to do!
How about a video for gishes? There's many options, and having them together to let people understand where on the scale they may be in terms of might over magic could be useful. Though gishes as a whole sounds more like a video series on it's own than something one could reasonably do in one sitting... With that in mind maybe more advanced classes like the alchemist one you did could use their own video going over them? Thaumaturge or psychic also look rather hefty at first glance. Regardless thank you for the videos, they've all been very informative!
I don't know if this would fit your purposes, but it would be great to have an Investigator deep dive. It's a pretty challenging class and few good guides exist. Not much to compare it to in 5e other than Inquisitive or maybe Mastermind, but it would be a favorable contrast for PF2!
I would probably look at the most popular classes in 5e and compare them to the thematic equivalent in PF2. Off the top of my head those would be: 1. Moon Druid (focus on wildshape), 2. Battlemaster Fighter (focus on action surge and maneuvers), 3. Ancients Paladin (focus on aura and smite), 4. Divination Wizard (focus on Portent and save or suck spells), 5. Lore Bard (focus on Magical Secrets, Inspiration and the interaction of the Bardic Instrument with Hypnotic Pattern). Alternatively, comparing archetypes to multiclassing would be a really informative thing - the differences being so extreme. 1-3 levels of a different class in 5e results in a pretty wild DPR (or healing or movement) swing if you were to graph it, while in PF2, adding an archetype does almost nothing in terms of that chart.
I think that rogues need a good comparison and breakdown. I feel like they were weakened a bit since their sneak attack is actually much lower than in 1e, but is that the case or am I just not seeing the way it's better?
@@Rune_tide you must remember that skills now give benefits in combat as well, and the rogue is able to use all of the strong combat skills with their double skill increases and feats.
Also with the DnD refugee shock of "oh no, too many feats!" They expect feat listings to be spread over tons of hard to access books. Paizo being cool and allowing wikis to have full feat listings and path builder making everything accessable makes a huge difference from the messy experience in 3.5 trying to find an optimal feat.
As a newbie to ttrpgs and a magic martial enjoyer this made my ears perk up. Currently trying to build the anime swordsman of my dreams in DnD but the system keeps telling me no.
Another point of comparison: Pathfinder adds further restrictions on certain combat hand mechanics, which - while making players a bit weaker overall - really helps keep different fighters feel distinct. In DND5E everyone can always e.g. trip/shove/climb and everyone can draw/stow a weapon for free each turn. In PF2E, not having a free hand is a big cost - it slows you down when you need to take any such action that isn't supported by your weapon traits. The demo combat from your Part 2 video showed a lot of cases actions were lost by an enemy (releasing/grabbing shield to shove) or by a PC (to climb or feed a potion) - where if the action was taken by a different PC, it would have been more efficient. Without these differences, and without the plentiful physical damage type weaknesses/resistances that PF2E has, DND5E martials don't really "feel" much difference between weapons - melee weapon choice mostly boils down to "d12", "d10 reach", "d8 + shield", and "dual wielding" - and therefore, don't feel much difference between fighters.
5e simplifies weapon choice even more than that actually. If you are a ranged weapon user, it's hand crossbow period end of story no need for any weapon at all ever. If you are a melee striker, it's one of the Polearm Master options that benefits from Great Weapon Master (glaive, halberd, pike which are all mechanically identical and don't need to exist as separate weapons). If you are a rogue its rapier or shortsword only (depending on the 2 weapon choice you select). If you are anyone else its a staff or a long sword period. There are over 240 different weapons to choose from in PF2. In 5e, there pretty much need only be 6. But if "martials don't feel different" to you in 5e, I find that pretty surprising. An eldritch knight (a meh gish class), a battlemaster (arguably best overall class in game) and a champion (who no one ever plays) are all very different. The ancients paladin, battlemaster and barbarian may both have the same feat tree, but one basically gets hit all the time relying on damage reduction, while the other 2 never get hit relying on high armor class and battlefield control, and the paladin relies on NOVA damage to remove targets from the board instead of encounter refreshing powers of the battlemaster. The rogues and monks meanwhile are skirmishers, relying on stealth and stunning respectively to avoid staying in base to base combat. The complaint I have about the uselessness of hammers, flails, shortbows, etc. in DnD (which is basically, if they are not as good as the other choices why even have them in the book) is 100 fold more evident in PF2 where its basically "pick or literally any other weapon will do". If there is no functional feat tree that puts a specific weapon or class of weapons in a powerful niche, then just dont bother writing in those weapons. The fix in DnD would be something as simple as writing feats for "whips", "hammers", "traditional cleric weapons" etc. that would make them as interesting as the Crossbow Expert and Great Weapon Master options. Doing that in PF2 would require like... 200 more feats. Awful.
Last night in our weekly PFS game, we had a massive fight with a bunch of undead (Zombie Troop, 2 mummies and a giant zombie of some kind). The fighter in our group (who thankfully has some specialization against undead) made what would have been a tough (possibly killer!) fight into something that seemed far more trivial.
It is not an arena match, unfortunately! (I thought it better to give an overview of what you can see thru Level 20) But if you want to see higher level action with a Fighter, I have: -my "Level 20 fight" video (although the fighter is "simple" for a Level 20 fighter) -my "Tactics in a BRUTAL Boss Fight"" video which is a Level 5 party
I'm running Hellknight Hill for my group, and they just got to act 4 of the first book. We have a Fighter (sword and board), Barbarian (using a reach weapon), inventor (pet), magus (archery), and an NPC cleric (party mascot). The group got to the part under the keep with the undead and those wights were a nightmare! But the martials managed to hold the line well enough, and our fighter actually broke her shield in combat with them before everyone retreated. But the combat felt great because of the number of options the players had to approach it by, even if it was hard.
Hey, guess what. You convinced me to buy the Core rulebook! I'm going to dive deeper into some of your videos, as well as try and explore everything more thoroughly. One thing that I have noticed about the 2E rules is that every character can be much more versatile. This is what I want to see from my players when I get around to running games again. It is, in fact, what they will need to take advantage of for the home-brew campaign that I have in mind. Your videos have helped me see the light! Thank you!
I saw someone "criticise" pf2e on reddit by saying what boiled down to "there are so many choices and they're all good". A balanced choice is actually easier than an imbalanced one. Knowing that in 5e, some feats are straight-up better than others gives anxiety to make the right choice. In PF2, I've seen plenty of options being ultimately just as good (in their own way). That's good game design.
I know it not a point in this video but something I liked in the previous part was the dying rule. In 5e there's no consequences to go down, you either roll death saves with a 55% chance to save or just have someone give you at least 1 point of healing and you're back like nothing happened, creating what I've heard called yoyoing. But in PF 2nd that's not the case and you want to be sure to actually go down as little as possible. Some homebrews have tried to mimic this by keeping the failed death saves or giving points of exhaustion, but I feel due to low amounts of healing to damage dealt it's a bit harder to do.
I really enjoy the presentation of your content. The delivery, while not seamless and polished like a ~performance~, lends itself to the same informative candidness as a professor giving an engaging lecture, which makes it easier for me to absorb.
Oh, I didn’t know you did an all caster. Think we could see one one day? I personally like your “One Class Team” showcases. It really showed the variety in a classand their builds. Something I thought would be interesting: Witch is regarded one of the weakest classes of PF2e. Since the class also requires a lot of system mastery, I feel like it could be a great class to showcase different systems in PF2e also. So, how would a coven of 5 Witches and their (specific) familiars fare? Edit: Just experimented making up 5 (lvl 1) witches. It’s actually kinda fun with what you can do with an understanding of spells and familiars. For example, Rune Patron’s Discern Secret hex is interesting if you have a lower INT witch or if you don’t have the right Lore skill. From a mechanical perspective, it can be a free Lore RK check or +1-4 INT that your character doesn’t have. Or a high CHA Goblin Witch who has a familiar with Accompanist and Threat Display. Accompanist’s +1c bonus means you’re an 18 CHA Goblin Song player. Also, having a high CHA means Threat Display giving you a free Intimidating Glare at lvl 1. An Orc Arcane witch that tanks INT can get buffs from other witches’ third actions (such as Stoke the Heart and Forbidding Ward). The lower INT means they can focus on slotting important utility and buff spells. Additionally, Magic Missile doesn’t give an F about INT mod! I was limiting myself to APG/CRB and it’s been quite interesting to say the least. This’ll only work from lvl 1-4 as lvl 5 expects the martial proficiency boost, but also a spell meta change with the 3rd level spells unlocked.
Honestly my only gripe with PF2E Fighters is that I wish they more Focus Spell like abilities in core. D&D4E had simply awesome Encounter and Daily Powers, and D&D5E Action Surge simply feels awesome while being very easy to learn. The reason for that is that in some tables and stories that don’t follow the convention of 3-5 combats per game day, their spectacle and bursty options are smaller.
It's a thin line to tread, as some would say that 5e's approach is too much like 4e making martials into "martial casters." I can see what you mean though. Have you seen higher level PF2e play? Because in my experience feats get more grandiose and martials get their cool moments. Feats like Friendly Toss and Felling Strike being 2 examples. Also, PF2 *generally* makes it so that you can have 1-2 combats in a day and 6-8 combats in a day, and both approaches have the fights feel tense/on a knife's edge. So daily attrition isn't as much of a thing in PF2.
Blades in the Dark (my favorite system) is very different in a lot of ways, but the way that it keeps options from becoming limiting is very similar to how it sounds like PF2 handled martials. Special abilities can let you do cool things, but they tend to either not affect the same spheres or require creativity to affect the same spheres. The only immediately obvious synergy is a special armor ability that lets you push yourself once for no stress coupled with an ability that gives you a buff when you push yourself, and that only really improves the effectiveness of the on-push ability by about 25%.
This crap is exactly what I’ve been thinking about Martials! You gotta make them feel faster and more consistent than spellcasters. This three action system is genius!
I believe that as of the last couple weeks, this situation is changing, judging by Paizo completely selling out of hardcover core rulebooks after the WOTC fiasco. : )
seems like pathfinder 2e does a good job of having the mechanics guide the narrative. the players play the "Game" and an interesting combat narrative develops as a result of decisions that were driven by an attempt by players to optimize their actions mechanically. I think anyone who plays dnd 5e and who resonate with the idea that "fighter is boring" would probably have more fun with pathfinder 2e. dnd 5e just doesn't work if you let mechanics dictate your decision making. its is neither deep nor balanced mechanically. but if you allow the narrative to guide your decision making and then translate your narrative decisions to mechanics, you will find that dnd 5e shines at making it fast and easy to translate a narrative into mechanics, because there is little mechanical variety and anything outside the domain of specific feature descriptions can just become advantage or disadvantage.
Nice overview with this series. I don't know PF2 fighters well, so it's nice to see them in action. What would be wrong with giving martials mundane but mechanically spell-like abilities, though? It would be much easier to balance classes if they all used the same framework. Mechanics exist to allow people to play out certain archetypes and tropes with their own characters, so what does it matter if both magic and mundane abilities use the same mechanical framework? It's just a tool to realize your character. Personally I think it would be very cool if I could learn a collection of discrete moves. Very Wheel of Time.
It is easier to balance classes with the same framework, but it's not necessarily desirable. This was a criticism of the design of 4e. And there's a general feeling among PF2 players that PF2 has successfully balanced martials with casters. Discrete moves still exist here. They just don't have limited uses per day like 4e and 5e martial powers.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Ok, sure, but the reception of 4e was so reactionary that most common criticisms of it are not actually based on material flaws of the system. Is there a concrete reason people don't want martials to use the same mechanical framework as casters? It comes off like people perceive the 'spell' framework as 'not feeling like a martial' solely because it has been associated with casters for so long rather than because it has concrete consequences that don't jive with martial concepts. That perception could make it an undesirable design from a market perspective, but it wouldn't amount to a real criticism.
@@vesperburjoski8993 One reason is the idea that it's harder to accept that a fighter can only, say, Dual Strike with 2 weapons once a day or once an hour, compared to a spellcaster having limited spell energy. You might not agree with that choice, but for some it is a valid criticism. I wouldn't dismiss it as not "real." And again, if you manage to make classes balanced while feeling different from each other mechanically, why not do it?
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Yeah, that definitely makes more sense to me. The reason I would want to make the framework more universal is a) to simplify the game and b) to facilitate universal feats. If mundane and magical 'spells' were about the same per level, then in theory you could make feats open to any class as part of your design. Like, say, 'Once per turn one power of your choice costs one action less,' and that could be open to both martials and casters. But, I just prefer to make things simpler and more universal.
@@vesperburjoski8993 I actually prefer the feel of unlimited "per day" martial actions for fighters. Classes that use wholly different mechanics don't just feel different, but they actually are roleplay differently too. EDIT: Also, variety prevents classes from becoming homogenous.
First of all, I'm not on the 5e bandwagon especially after branching out to other systems that have taught me what a well oil machine looks like and play as I'm rather appalled by 5e "rules" if someone were to read and actually gather something out of the hair mess that is the dm guide for dnd5e. The readers can gather a vague idea that 5e martials were meant to be somewhat balanced around 4-6 "medium"/"hard" encounters(building encounters is a joke in 5e) with short rests(1-3) that let them recoup hp by their big class hit dice...... Yet not a lot of folks play that way; instead the play style found in 5e most of the time is 1-2 encounters,that let casters burn thru their resources without any drawbacks.... Making dnd5e martials longevity (hit dice,high ac,short rest refresh abilities) ummmmm quite meaningless.. and casters/half casters (pali,arti) are seen supreme!!
I think, you are completely missing the point of the "illusion of choice" criticism. You have shown 5 fighters that are completely different from each other. Yes. However, each of them is still incentivized to do the same thing each turn with their third action because of the way they are built. For one fighter, demoralize is a good choice. For another, raise shield is a good choice, and so on and so on. Same thing on almost all turns. Things like grab edge are very circumstantial. The fighter, I played was actually trying to make use of all the different options you mention, but couldn't. I was going for a Skald character concept. Meaning something like a educated, charismatic Viking warrior, who will sword and board but considers himself a poet to record their sagas for posterity, while also being educated in the stories of old. Even while building the character i ran into problems because I had to diversify my attributes so much between STR (16), CON (14), INT (14) and CHA (14) that he became inefficient at everything. My expectation was, that my -1 to attack rolls compared to STR 18 would be insignificant in the long run. However, more important than that was that my demoralize action hardly ever worked because CHA 14 just didn't cut it. Other party members demoralized better than my character. (It started feeling like a waste of an action for me to try it, letting my party down because with raise shield I might have protected myself better). Also in plate armor with sword and board, I was really slow. In combat, I would spend two actions to move into position, leaving me the option to strike, or to raise shield on turn 1. (or to try a doomed attempt of demoralizing) On subsequent turns, I usually tried striking twice if I was still in position. Often, though, I would have to move again. Over the course of my time with that character (lvl 1-7), it became increasingly frustrating how weak the character felt compared to the rest of the party and to my 5e fighters. In my party, the ranger hit more consistently and for more damage. The witch demoralized better and the mage recalled knowledge better, so what they wanted me to do is soak up damage. So, I had leather armor in mind if even that, to be mobile on the battlefield but they wanted me to be their damage sponge and make use of my heavy armor proficiency. But now, I was slow (STR 16 in plate) And still fragile (CON 14). I was more of a hindrance than help to them. Because of my attribute distribution, my saving throws were sort of weak, too, So my stats were often decreased through status effects. Compared to 5e, my fighter felt weak in more than one aspect: because the shield bonus to AC only applied when I used an action for it I often couldn't do that because I had to move into position, or with reactive shield, I would lose my attack of opportunity. In 5e, I could be tanky, while moving and still have the chance to do an attack of opportunity. The movement aspect was the most frustrating compared to 5e. Because in 5e, I can split my movement any way I want during my turn in combat. At lvl 5, I could move 10 feet, attack, move another 10 feet and attack and still have a bonus action (with varying degrees of usefulness) In PF2e, I would stride, strike and stride. No second attack or anything else. Using two of my three actions striding to move between targets feels so powerless compared to 5e. Overall, I felt like my PF2e fighter can attempt things from a larger pool of options than my 5e fighter, but can achieve a lot less than his 5e counterpart in every round of combat. And in my PF2e party, he could achieve less than any of my party members, because I had fallen into the trap of trying to give him too many options when building him. In summary, my fighter felt weak. Not boring, though, because he had many options. Most of them were frustrating, however. I did not find my choices interesting, just limiting.
I think your main mistake was dumping your main stat. Without homebrews and other options of this kind you could easily dump int to 12 and go 18 str. 14 cha intimidation is actually not bad, you just need to focus on creatures with weak will save DC. Later you can raise your cha and get intimidating prowess. About AoO and reactive shield. Reactive shield triggers when enemy HIT you, so you can see would +2 to AC change the result and decide use it or not. If it would change the result, I would advise to use against any damaging enemy. AoO is mainly useful for reach builds, because they could consistently make enemies work around them (spend actions on steps, or keep actions to make attacks, but take a hit to the face). For sword and board AoO are just tool to punish enemies who try to run from you to your teammates, you are not expected to do them every turn. And 14 con is enough, max con before level 5 is 16 and con isn't nearly as important as your main stat. Also if you want to make generalist character you might consider power overwhelming and free archetype optional rules.
4th edition D&D went a long wat toward balancing all classes but so many people poopoo'd it that we got 5th edition with the caster martial gap again. Pathfinder is a good system.
I find it odd that you need a free hand to shove... wouldn't using a shield be just as effect, even more effective, as it's a large piece of wood? All the character needed to do was to hit with the shield to push them back a step. Sure, still requires an action, but it shouldn't require to drop the shield (which is a bad idea as shields are typically strapped to the arm too, requiring interact actions to release it).
You can apply a Shield Augmentation adjustment to your shield, to give it two traits from disarm, nonlethal, shove, thrown 10 feet, trip, or Versatile S. Only costs 8 sp, so you can easily afford it directly off your starting gold. Now this does conflict with applying a Shield Boss or Shield Spikes, but it means you can choose between putting traits on your shield and diversifying your options, or increasing the damage of your shield bash if you rely on that with say a sword and board Double Slice build.
@@Alaaen , Oh. That item is from the Grand Bazar book, which I don't have. That's why I wasn't aware of it. Still seems silly to need an item to give a shield the shove trait. But, that's probably answered with @Phoenix Trinity's response... Paizo attempt at balancing items.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I think this argument isn't very good. You can create balanced systems with much better verisimilitude. Paizo mainly tried to keep it simple and make characters have less options.
Yeah, I couldn't tell what was what either, lol. Here is a link to where I found the image where it is discussed, if that helps: forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?453487-The-problem-of-5-10
Ok, simple question: How do I make a fighter that is laser focused on hitting harder? Power Attack is a trap, and worse than hitting twice, and all other options are not extra damage. I have no interest in trips, or flourishes or conditions..I want to hit really damn hard, and have feats that make that better. DnD lets me do that, PF1e let me do that, how does PF2 let me do that?
power attack isnt a trap, a second attack suffers a -5 to hit so it has lesser chance of hitting and critting, with power attack if you crit you deal a massive amount of damage and youre more likely to crit on it because it has no multiple attack penalty, also in pathfinder 2e you cant really make your attack bonus or damage directly better, character progression is vertical rather than horizontal, if you want to crit a lot id reccomend picking up intimidation and using demoralize and then flanking the target
@@anonimcz5381PA is mathematically worse than striking twice, smarter people than me have done the maths, even against targets with high ac and damage resistance attacking twice is a better option. As to demoralise: I said do damage, not waste effort on the massively boring conditions loop, a system that cripples fun, and I would rather not take an action than engage with it, it brings nothing worth having to the game.
Hard disagree. Only 4th Ed fixed fighters. Casters are more mechanically interesting and have more utility. Martial’s are so boring to play. It sucks, because I really wanted to roleplay a martial, but they are too boring in Pathfinder.
That's the Impression I'm getting, playing a fighter in a PF2e campaign (level 4 by this point). Seems to me that as a martial in PF2e, you make choices when you level up and put your gear together, and then just go through the same motions with minor adjustments to accommodate for different battlefields and enemies. Martials that are built differently may play more distinctly differemt in comparison to each other, but what we need is variety in gameplay between different tactical situations with the same character, not variety in gameplay between different characters of the same class. In practice, this PF2e fighter doesn't feel like much of a change from playing a martial in D&D5e.
At first I got kinda disappointed with barbarian because he lacks the big resistances from the rage and the temporary hit points that comes with rage in this system aren't that much. Also, the rage makes you take -1 to your AC. BUT! Then I realized that the rage is unlimited per day and your damage... Oh boy... You have at least +6 to your damage at level 1 using the weakest (at dealing damage) subclass (+4str and +2 rage). It can go to +10 damage at level 1 and the rage damage is add on top of any other damage boost you might have. Also, you have a shit ton of HP and the feats make a lot of cool stuff, either making you more mobile, more resistant or even giving you new cool mechanics to use while raging. About the monk, is more complicated. They have really good saves, 10 hit points per level (like the fighter) can have top tier AC without the penalty in the speed from heavy armor (and they also gain more speed, because monk) and flurry of blows is an action you can take once every turn to make 2 attacks for 1 action. BUT! You need str to deal damage, dex to have AC, Con to have HP and if you do that, you won't have that many skills. Pahtfinder is way more generous with stats, but not THAT much. You have stances to help (like the mountain stance that let's you just hard-dump dex and get the highest AC you can have while hitting really hard), but you will always need to decide what you want to focus. Also, in combat, if you are not playing with a str monk, your damage won't be that high. But monks have really good action economy, like, top tier action economy, so much that sometimes I find people asking for help because they don't know what to do with that 3º action. So, yeah, you need to play smart with the monk, use your skills (grapple monk is really popular) and actions to help your group. Don't get me wrong, you certainly will deal damage (specially against enemies that don't have super high AC), but you can't exactly compete against the fighter or barbarian.
@@canhaoambulante9329 barbarians are just fighters but more damage, in 5e they have their clear identity with resistance to damage. In pathfinder you just "I rage, I attack" but you literally dont get shit as temp hp is worthless, sure the damage is nice, but for some reason you gain qadownside for using your power?
There are 2 similar looking versions of this chart. Here is the page that hosted the specific one I selected, where it is discussed: forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?453487-The-problem-of-5-10
I still find myself doing the same things over and over as a champion, whereas the casters in my party can always grab different spells or have more skills/ higher social stats, and they tend to most of the talking, and doing outside of combat even when magic isn't required. I just feel kinda boring in comparison, at first I was having a blast, and I still dearly love my character, but Idk, I feel dumb. When we need some heeling I have lay on hands, but that's the most out of combat utility I have. I'm also a pack mule, but we never have that much to carry. Maybe it's just a me problem, but my group does put a lot of emphasis on mechanics and I feel a bit stale. I don't want to outright change my character, we already had a player change classes from ranger -> druid because he felt like he was doing the same thing all the time.
Sounds like you're asking for 5e advice. Your DM should let you respec imo. But yeah, even another martial class will perhaps not be as satisfying I think as a martial in PF2e. If you're okay with a martial/caster hybrid in 5e you can work on that, but if you *really* want to go hard into the ass-kicking martial fantasy you will come up against that problem of doing the same thing every turn.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Nope, Liberator Champion in a Frozen Flame campaign. We have a thaumaturge(bell), a psychic (distant grasp), a druid (tempest), and me the champion. The AP is very combat focused, but I also think that our group is also very combat focused. I've been working with my DM to look through the items and found an modification for my champion's shield so soon I should be able to use athletics in combat, and not just demoralize and strike every other turn. As we enter the greater hexcrawl next session, I think things will start to be more open for player choice, as the early part of the AP is fairly restrictive.
uh thats kuz you choose a champion, they're built to be crit machines. They're t'he bor'ing' fighter play eldritch knight or battle master, or RUne knight they have so much they can do Champion is the only fighter that just attacks hoping for crits with their 18 crit range
Your last example on the advantages of teamwork over each player dealing damage on their own almost feels like it is made in bad faith. You are comparing the damage dealt by two players with 3 actions (1 for the strike and 2 for the cantrip) vs the damage dealt by 3 players with 5 actions (1 for the stride to flank, 1 for the song, 2 for magic weapon and 1 for the strike) and 1 spell slot. Don't get me wrong, I love some good teamwork, but each scenario used different amounts of resources. It's natural for them to have different outcomes.
The two examples were only to illustrate the point that casters and martials are greater than the sum of their parts in PF2e, that they "shine more brightly" when working in tandem, which they do. And this point is not susceptible to simple identical comparisons because the 2 scenarios are inherently different. Saying Example 2 used more actions is also reductive: the bard using Inspire Courage to all allies within 60 feet was probably a better use of that 1 action than doing a 3rd Strike at -10. The caster's Magic Weapon spell on the fighter will last 10 rounds. The wizard flanking the skeleton also benefited from flanking if they decided to attack.
I also don't think that it is fun to be the character who "sets up the fighter to do better" most of the time. The idea that my entire roll is buffing or debuffing is frankly boring. That said, when you do this in 5e, you get a lot more "bang for your buck" from working together. If your wizard succeeds at holding an enemy with Hold Person (and the timing is done correctly) the entire rest of the party gets to score a critical on that target. Synergies in 5e work this way all over the place. Guidance, Bless, Aid, Polymorph (on an ally), Haste, Heroes Feast and on and on. When a caster works with a weapon user in 5e you get very large outsized benefits. In PF2 you get benefits but they are pretty narrow (effectively one strike more worth of output or 1/12th the output of the party per round). Fights end in more or less the same number of rounds.
I actually find this role really cool. People like playing support, but you are talking like the "guy who sets the fighter" is a role someone must take and that is not true at all
@@canhaoambulante9329 "generating flat-footed" is definitely a major (pretty much required) tactic in PF2. It need not be ALL your character does, but i have never seen any experienced table that didnt dedicate resources to this. Much the like "feat tax' in DnD, generating flatfooted is an "action tax" in PF2.
@@canhaoambulante9329 i assume that is sarcasm, but because moving isnt "free" as it is in 5e, there is in fact an action tax to move into melee. I tried for months unsuccessfully to lobby my regular game group to move the burden of this tax to the monsters (forcing them to spend the action to close with us, instead of us wasting actions to close with them) but it was like herding cats. So with sadness in my heart, I accepted that we would always pay that action tax. But merely "moving into melee" is not always enough to generate flatfooted, which is why there are something like 5 dozen different ways to generate it in PF2.
@@JohnLentSelflessHero oh no! I need to use an action to move to the enemy to attack! THE COST IS SOOOOO BIG! And there's more than one way to generate flat footed and I don't need to make the same thing every single turn??? Completely unplayable.
Though pf2e makes martials great overall, i really don't like how paizo make weapon styles. Irl two-handers are not slow and clunky heavy hitters. It really bothers me that i cannot make fencer who parries attacks with bastard sword in two hands. For some reasons beyound my comprehension parry is free hand thing, which is VERY immersion breaking and bad in terms of gameplay, because one-handed swordmaster expected to be versatile due to having free hand, but in reality he would be thrown out of parrying with grapples, drinking potions and thing like this. And why is dualwielding is weaker at parrying than one-handed? In terms of balance it isn't necessary at all. Fighter with one-handed bastard sword deals better damage than hypothetical two-handed fencer with one attack already. Which is like most common turn stride-attack-parry. And even with two attacks it is close. And you can go for animal barbarian or monk with dragon stance and grab yourself a shield to be damaging like two-hander, defensive like a shieldbearer (which is much better than a parry and not only because of block, reactive shield also great tool to boost action economy) and still have a free hand for athletics. Or you can go with shield+one hander with double slice on any other barbarian, which is also very good build, very close to two-hander in damage, but much better defensively.
i get the boring part in 5e but anyone who thinks fighters are weak in it are stupid. On avg turn per turn they're one of if not best dmg dealer in game not including if you multi class a couple lvls of pally for huge dmg or barb for huge defense. Sure they can be boring but their dmg if made right is insane.
The martial solutions of PF2e are probably one of PF2es biggest issues/screw ups. First of all, martials were not made more powerful so much as casters were made dramatically weaker, which isn't a problem so much as a point of clarity. People like to focus on the martials are competent part and assume that's due to martials getting stronger when the reality is it's pretty much casters getting nerfed hard. Martials did get more utility, which was good, but the cost effectiveness of the variance also given to them is questionable. While what one does every turn may change some, different encounters largely end up playing out in similar ways. This is less true of casters, but were talking about martials here. And while this is also true of 5e, 5e doesn't ask its users to invest in nearly as many feats and abilities, hence the inefficiency. For all the extra choice you have, you end up repeating the same strategies across many encounters. Not what we want to see for all that extra investment in options. The big problem however is the heavy use of dissociated mechanics. For that reason alone the solutions given to martials are rather detestable and it's likely the main reason why the vast majority of original 3.x players still haven't moved to PF2e. Theory suggests that dissociated mechanics are bad for rule heavier ttrpg systems like PF2e and the high rejection rates in both 4e and PF2e seem to perhaps suggest this as well. I agree with PF2es approach to the disparity problem, nerf casters. I very much disagree however with making martials so dissociated. PF2e martials are a good example of 1 step forward, 2 steps back.
@@canhaoambulante9329 And 4e sold quite well too despite that most of the preexisting fanbase never picked it up. When you actually look into the number of people from the 3.x community that switched over to PF2e, it seems quite low.
@@TheAnimeAtheist cool? Pathfinder 2e already outselled pf1e and has it's own fanbase. People like the changes and are playing the game. The changes are good and just because some people don't like it, doesn't mean that Paizo made a mistake introducing them
@@canhaoambulante9329 The point is that the old player base has largely rejected the game. So no people don't like the changes by in large. As I said before, some of the changes are good, some are bad. Just because people play the game and have fun doesn't mean that game doesn't have shortcomings and real issues.
There is a lot flexibility here, but I have to wonder what the point is. Like a +2 to AC when you are already a high AC character in terms of hit probability X damage roll is minimal. What you lose on accuracy you make up for with a larger die size. The "tight math" makes it not meaningful - it is an illusion of choice. If there is no outcome determinative difference based on your choices, then there is no reason to choose one over another other than flavor. And flavor does not require rules at all - just a good narrator.
Why even pretend you wanna play a role playing GAME if “rules get in the way”? 5e’s game philosophy (do whatever, you’re the GM) is lazy, dumb, and antithetical to DND being a GAME.
@@nelsongalan1417 is that supposed to responsive to my comment? I love rules. Rules are great. Just dont make them traps. If there is no meaningful difference in outcomes then dont have a rule for it. If there is a rule for something, it should be consequential. To make my point clear, imagine an ability in PF2 that does "2d6 bleed" damage in addition to your normal effects. 2d6 is mathematically the same as 7. Depending on what tier you are at, an extra 7 damage in round 2, and then in round 3, and then in round 4 is... meaningless. The creature you hit is likely still on the board the same number of rounds, and likely dealing the same amount of damage to you over the course of the fight as it would have if you didnt deal the bleed damage. And of course, there is also no meaningful difference between "2d6 bleed" and just giving a character 3 extra damage per attack action (a simpler and cleaner way of doing the same thing without adding another rule).
@@JohnLentSelflessHero No offense, but that last take is really terrible. When discussing balance in a game with more freedom of movement you have to consider the action economy of all units against others. This isn't a white room 5e scenario where everyone just stands in place and bashes each other until one side is dead. You also have to consider the tiers of success system in PF2E that dictates 10 under is a critical failure, 10 over is a critical success. Giving players an extra 3 damage on their strikes is not at all equivalent to 2d6 bleed damage unless you're just standing there hacking away at a wall. By having a 2d6 bleed this frees you up to use other actions outside of striking and still getting your damage. This allows you to run over to the other side of the room and grapple the spellcaster while still getting bleed damage on the first target. You can bleed, trip, and then run. Forcing the enemy to spend valuable actions just to get up again and run at you all while taking the bleed damage while you're at a safe distance. If you sit there and spam attacks, you're going to miss most of them unless the enemy had been debuffed heavily before hand or you're a build that specializes in attacking multiple times. Finally, and kind of a personal take from me, I think more damage types and more damage variety is a good thing. When everyone builds to just do damage, but that damage type doesn't really matter, it feels boring. Resistances and weaknesses are much more common in PF2E and you really feel your builds strengths and weaknesses shine through on certain encounters. Having to get creative with overcoming your characters flaws is way more interesting than stomping every fight because nothing resists your magic sword.
@@rpgbouncer9961 again, depending on the tier (and the ability I had in mind comes online at level 14) 7 damage itself is meaningless. It doesn't "free up" anything. An adult forest dragon (level 14) has 290hp. That is 1/41 of its hit points. The encounter will take the same amount of real life time whether that dragon is bleeding or not bleeding. The way critical math works (at least on the hit point side, not counting other riders) is that you add a percentage of your average damage based on how likely you are to crit (typically like 5-20% depending on your build). 1/5th of strikes worth of extra damage is also not going to reduce the time your encounter takes. the result will be largely the same. In 5e, the result of a crit for characters who care is WAY more than that. Since you can create conditions to reliably crit regardless of dice roll (paralysis), and you can add a lot of dice with different builds (sneak attack dice, smite dice), you go from something like 1d8+8 on a normal strike (for a top tier character) aka 13 damage to 20d6+2d8+5 aka 84. That is enough to reduce time of the encounter by a third. Big deal. Worth having a ruleset for.
@@rpgbouncer9961 that said, i tend to agree re: magic sword. If magic swords were VERY rare (like LotR or Elric rare) such that it was an epic months long quest just to get one, then sure, let that sword hurt werewolves, ghosts, vampires etc. alike. But given that magic swords are a basic item that everyone expects to have by like level 4 or 5, it does feel lame that they ignore everything. I liked the idea of needing silver to hurt a werewolf - it felt cool thematically. Water against the fire elemental. Lightning powering up the shambling mound. Golems being almost immune to everything. Mithril, admantine, silver and cold iron are all basically pointless now in dnd and that makes me sad. They should all be cool.
It is pure bullshit that you don't need to read every single feat to not make an effective Fighter. You can get away with that in other classes, not Fighter.
I've been getting requests to do similar deep dives on other classes. First, check out my classes covering new releases of classes from Fall 2021 forward, which include combat demonstrations!
Second, what other class do you think needs a treatment, and why? I am most interested in things that compare it to D&D and mechanics that are innovative or important in and of themselves. (I can't make any promises though, as I have a long queue of other video ideas to do!
How about a video for gishes? There's many options, and having them together to let people understand where on the scale they may be in terms of might over magic could be useful. Though gishes as a whole sounds more like a video series on it's own than something one could reasonably do in one sitting... With that in mind maybe more advanced classes like the alchemist one you did could use their own video going over them? Thaumaturge or psychic also look rather hefty at first glance. Regardless thank you for the videos, they've all been very informative!
I don't know if this would fit your purposes, but it would be great to have an Investigator deep dive. It's a pretty challenging class and few good guides exist. Not much to compare it to in 5e other than Inquisitive or maybe Mastermind, but it would be a favorable contrast for PF2!
I would probably look at the most popular classes in 5e and compare them to the thematic equivalent in PF2. Off the top of my head those would be:
1. Moon Druid (focus on wildshape), 2. Battlemaster Fighter (focus on action surge and maneuvers), 3. Ancients Paladin (focus on aura and smite), 4. Divination Wizard (focus on Portent and save or suck spells), 5. Lore Bard (focus on Magical Secrets, Inspiration and the interaction of the Bardic Instrument with Hypnotic Pattern).
Alternatively, comparing archetypes to multiclassing would be a really informative thing - the differences being so extreme. 1-3 levels of a different class in 5e results in a pretty wild DPR (or healing or movement) swing if you were to graph it, while in PF2, adding an archetype does almost nothing in terms of that chart.
I think that rogues need a good comparison and breakdown. I feel like they were weakened a bit since their sneak attack is actually much lower than in 1e, but is that the case or am I just not seeing the way it's better?
@@Rune_tide you must remember that skills now give benefits in combat as well, and the rogue is able to use all of the strong combat skills with their double skill increases and feats.
Also with the DnD refugee shock of "oh no, too many feats!"
They expect feat listings to be spread over tons of hard to access books.
Paizo being cool and allowing wikis to have full feat listings and path builder making everything accessable makes a huge difference from the messy experience in 3.5 trying to find an optimal feat.
Tried playing martial in pathfinder2e after d&d5e. It felt like playing Dragon's Dogma after Skyrim.
Amen to that. Fighting a dragon in Dragon's Dogma is way more satisfying than fighting one in Skyrim.
As a newbie to ttrpgs and a magic martial enjoyer this made my ears perk up. Currently trying to build the anime swordsman of my dreams in DnD but the system keeps telling me no.
Another point of comparison: Pathfinder adds further restrictions on certain combat hand mechanics, which - while making players a bit weaker overall - really helps keep different fighters feel distinct. In DND5E everyone can always e.g. trip/shove/climb and everyone can draw/stow a weapon for free each turn. In PF2E, not having a free hand is a big cost - it slows you down when you need to take any such action that isn't supported by your weapon traits. The demo combat from your Part 2 video showed a lot of cases actions were lost by an enemy (releasing/grabbing shield to shove) or by a PC (to climb or feed a potion) - where if the action was taken by a different PC, it would have been more efficient.
Without these differences, and without the plentiful physical damage type weaknesses/resistances that PF2E has, DND5E martials don't really "feel" much difference between weapons - melee weapon choice mostly boils down to "d12", "d10 reach", "d8 + shield", and "dual wielding" - and therefore, don't feel much difference between fighters.
5e simplifies weapon choice even more than that actually. If you are a ranged weapon user, it's hand crossbow period end of story no need for any weapon at all ever. If you are a melee striker, it's one of the Polearm Master options that benefits from Great Weapon Master (glaive, halberd, pike which are all mechanically identical and don't need to exist as separate weapons). If you are a rogue its rapier or shortsword only (depending on the 2 weapon choice you select). If you are anyone else its a staff or a long sword period. There are over 240 different weapons to choose from in PF2. In 5e, there pretty much need only be 6.
But if "martials don't feel different" to you in 5e, I find that pretty surprising. An eldritch knight (a meh gish class), a battlemaster (arguably best overall class in game) and a champion (who no one ever plays) are all very different. The ancients paladin, battlemaster and barbarian may both have the same feat tree, but one basically gets hit all the time relying on damage reduction, while the other 2 never get hit relying on high armor class and battlefield control, and the paladin relies on NOVA damage to remove targets from the board instead of encounter refreshing powers of the battlemaster. The rogues and monks meanwhile are skirmishers, relying on stealth and stunning respectively to avoid staying in base to base combat.
The complaint I have about the uselessness of hammers, flails, shortbows, etc. in DnD (which is basically, if they are not as good as the other choices why even have them in the book) is 100 fold more evident in PF2 where its basically "pick or literally any other weapon will do". If there is no functional feat tree that puts a specific weapon or class of weapons in a powerful niche, then just dont bother writing in those weapons. The fix in DnD would be something as simple as writing feats for "whips", "hammers", "traditional cleric weapons" etc. that would make them as interesting as the Crossbow Expert and Great Weapon Master options. Doing that in PF2 would require like... 200 more feats. Awful.
Last night in our weekly PFS game, we had a massive fight with a bunch of undead (Zombie Troop, 2 mummies and a giant zombie of some kind). The fighter in our group (who thankfully has some specialization against undead) made what would have been a tough (possibly killer!) fight into something that seemed far more trivial.
Can't wait for the higher level arena match! that being said, great video!
It is not an arena match, unfortunately! (I thought it better to give an overview of what you can see thru Level 20)
But if you want to see higher level action with a Fighter, I have:
-my "Level 20 fight" video (although the fighter is "simple" for a Level 20 fighter)
-my "Tactics in a BRUTAL Boss Fight"" video which is a Level 5 party
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG i ve seen those two when they came out :) no problem i just love fighters, pf2e and people making pf2e content!
I'm running Hellknight Hill for my group, and they just got to act 4 of the first book. We have a Fighter (sword and board), Barbarian (using a reach weapon), inventor (pet), magus (archery), and an NPC cleric (party mascot). The group got to the part under the keep with the undead and those wights were a nightmare! But the martials managed to hold the line well enough, and our fighter actually broke her shield in combat with them before everyone retreated. But the combat felt great because of the number of options the players had to approach it by, even if it was hard.
Hey, guess what. You convinced me to buy the Core rulebook! I'm going to dive deeper into some of your videos, as well as try and explore everything more thoroughly.
One thing that I have noticed about the 2E rules is that every character can be much more versatile. This is what I want to see from my players when I get around to running games again. It is, in fact, what they will need to take advantage of for the home-brew campaign that I have in mind.
Your videos have helped me see the light! Thank you!
AWWSUM! Thank you for sharing! We have a channel on my Discord for people starting PF2 to share stories and get advice. Pay us a visit!
I saw someone "criticise" pf2e on reddit by saying what boiled down to "there are so many choices and they're all good".
A balanced choice is actually easier than an imbalanced one. Knowing that in 5e, some feats are straight-up better than others gives anxiety to make the right choice.
In PF2, I've seen plenty of options being ultimately just as good (in their own way).
That's good game design.
I know it not a point in this video but something I liked in the previous part was the dying rule. In 5e there's no consequences to go down, you either roll death saves with a 55% chance to save or just have someone give you at least 1 point of healing and you're back like nothing happened, creating what I've heard called yoyoing. But in PF 2nd that's not the case and you want to be sure to actually go down as little as possible. Some homebrews have tried to mimic this by keeping the failed death saves or giving points of exhaustion, but I feel due to low amounts of healing to damage dealt it's a bit harder to do.
I do plan on focusing on this mechanic as a video in the near future hopefully!
I really enjoy the presentation of your content. The delivery, while not seamless and polished like a ~performance~, lends itself to the same informative candidness as a professor giving an engaging lecture, which makes it easier for me to absorb.
Thanks! I never thought of myself as RUclipsr "type" and appreciate your comment!
Oh, I didn’t know you did an all caster. Think we could see one one day?
I personally like your “One Class Team” showcases. It really showed the variety in a classand their builds.
Something I thought would be interesting: Witch is regarded one of the weakest classes of PF2e. Since the class also requires a lot of system mastery, I feel like it could be a great class to showcase different systems in PF2e also.
So, how would a coven of 5 Witches and their (specific) familiars fare?
Edit: Just experimented making up 5 (lvl 1) witches. It’s actually kinda fun with what you can do with an understanding of spells and familiars. For example, Rune Patron’s Discern Secret hex is interesting if you have a lower INT witch or if you don’t have the right Lore skill. From a mechanical perspective, it can be a free Lore RK check or +1-4 INT that your character doesn’t have.
Or a high CHA Goblin Witch who has a familiar with Accompanist and Threat Display. Accompanist’s +1c bonus means you’re an 18 CHA Goblin Song player. Also, having a high CHA means Threat Display giving you a free Intimidating Glare at lvl 1.
An Orc Arcane witch that tanks INT can get buffs from other witches’ third actions (such as Stoke the Heart and Forbidding Ward). The lower INT means they can focus on slotting important utility and buff spells. Additionally, Magic Missile doesn’t give an F about INT mod!
I was limiting myself to APG/CRB and it’s been quite interesting to say the least. This’ll only work from lvl 1-4 as lvl 5 expects the martial proficiency boost, but also a spell meta change with the 3rd level spells unlocked.
I think Oracle is the worst class in Pathfinder 2e because a Divine Sorcerer is both easier and usually more effective as far as I know.
love that you chuckle every time when you say "whip them" lol
I can't help it!
Honestly my only gripe with PF2E Fighters is that I wish they more Focus Spell like abilities in core. D&D4E had simply awesome Encounter and Daily Powers, and D&D5E Action Surge simply feels awesome while being very easy to learn.
The reason for that is that in some tables and stories that don’t follow the convention of 3-5 combats per game day, their spectacle and bursty options are smaller.
It's a thin line to tread, as some would say that 5e's approach is too much like 4e making martials into "martial casters." I can see what you mean though. Have you seen higher level PF2e play? Because in my experience feats get more grandiose and martials get their cool moments. Feats like Friendly Toss and Felling Strike being 2 examples.
Also, PF2 *generally* makes it so that you can have 1-2 combats in a day and 6-8 combats in a day, and both approaches have the fights feel tense/on a knife's edge. So daily attrition isn't as much of a thing in PF2.
Blades in the Dark (my favorite system) is very different in a lot of ways, but the way that it keeps options from becoming limiting is very similar to how it sounds like PF2 handled martials. Special abilities can let you do cool things, but they tend to either not affect the same spheres or require creativity to affect the same spheres. The only immediately obvious synergy is a special armor ability that lets you push yourself once for no stress coupled with an ability that gives you a buff when you push yourself, and that only really improves the effectiveness of the on-push ability by about 25%.
This crap is exactly what I’ve been thinking about Martials! You gotta make them feel faster and more consistent than spellcasters. This three action system is genius!
This series is an amazing game design deep dive.
I actually I'd love to play Pathfinder 2 but almost everyone is playing DnD 5 :(
I believe that as of the last couple weeks, this situation is changing, judging by Paizo completely selling out of hardcover core rulebooks after the WOTC fiasco. : )
seems like pathfinder 2e does a good job of having the mechanics guide the narrative. the players play the "Game" and an interesting combat narrative develops as a result of decisions that were driven by an attempt by players to optimize their actions mechanically.
I think anyone who plays dnd 5e and who resonate with the idea that "fighter is boring" would probably have more fun with pathfinder 2e. dnd 5e just doesn't work if you let mechanics dictate your decision making. its is neither deep nor balanced mechanically. but if you allow the narrative to guide your decision making and then translate your narrative decisions to mechanics, you will find that dnd 5e shines at making it fast and easy to translate a narrative into mechanics, because there is little mechanical variety and anything outside the domain of specific feature descriptions can just become advantage or disadvantage.
Absolutely brilliant
Nice overview with this series. I don't know PF2 fighters well, so it's nice to see them in action.
What would be wrong with giving martials mundane but mechanically spell-like abilities, though? It would be much easier to balance classes if they all used the same framework. Mechanics exist to allow people to play out certain archetypes and tropes with their own characters, so what does it matter if both magic and mundane abilities use the same mechanical framework? It's just a tool to realize your character. Personally I think it would be very cool if I could learn a collection of discrete moves. Very Wheel of Time.
It is easier to balance classes with the same framework, but it's not necessarily desirable. This was a criticism of the design of 4e. And there's a general feeling among PF2 players that PF2 has successfully balanced martials with casters.
Discrete moves still exist here. They just don't have limited uses per day like 4e and 5e martial powers.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Ok, sure, but the reception of 4e was so reactionary that most common criticisms of it are not actually based on material flaws of the system. Is there a concrete reason people don't want martials to use the same mechanical framework as casters? It comes off like people perceive the 'spell' framework as 'not feeling like a martial' solely because it has been associated with casters for so long rather than because it has concrete consequences that don't jive with martial concepts. That perception could make it an undesirable design from a market perspective, but it wouldn't amount to a real criticism.
@@vesperburjoski8993 One reason is the idea that it's harder to accept that a fighter can only, say, Dual Strike with 2 weapons once a day or once an hour, compared to a spellcaster having limited spell energy. You might not agree with that choice, but for some it is a valid criticism. I wouldn't dismiss it as not "real."
And again, if you manage to make classes balanced while feeling different from each other mechanically, why not do it?
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Yeah, that definitely makes more sense to me. The reason I would want to make the framework more universal is a) to simplify the game and b) to facilitate universal feats. If mundane and magical 'spells' were about the same per level, then in theory you could make feats open to any class as part of your design. Like, say, 'Once per turn one power of your choice costs one action less,' and that could be open to both martials and casters. But, I just prefer to make things simpler and more universal.
@@vesperburjoski8993 I actually prefer the feel of unlimited "per day" martial actions for fighters. Classes that use wholly different mechanics don't just feel different, but they actually are roleplay differently too.
EDIT: Also, variety prevents classes from becoming homogenous.
First of all, I'm not on the 5e bandwagon especially after branching out to other systems that have taught me what a well oil machine looks like and play as I'm rather appalled by 5e "rules"
if someone were to read and actually gather something out of the hair mess that is the dm guide for dnd5e. The readers can gather a vague idea that 5e martials were meant to be somewhat balanced around 4-6 "medium"/"hard" encounters(building encounters is a joke in 5e) with short rests(1-3) that let them recoup hp by their big class hit dice...... Yet not a lot of folks play that way; instead the play style found in 5e most of the time is 1-2 encounters,that let casters burn thru their resources without any drawbacks.... Making dnd5e martials longevity (hit dice,high ac,short rest refresh abilities) ummmmm quite meaningless.. and casters/half casters (pali,arti) are seen supreme!!
Loved this. Thanks!
Do two hits from double-slice trigger the weakness to slashing twice, if both weapons are slashing?
Just once
Just another fantastic video!
I think, you are completely missing the point of the "illusion of choice" criticism. You have shown 5 fighters that are completely different from each other. Yes. However, each of them is still incentivized to do the same thing each turn with their third action because of the way they are built. For one fighter, demoralize is a good choice. For another, raise shield is a good choice, and so on and so on. Same thing on almost all turns. Things like grab edge are very circumstantial.
The fighter, I played was actually trying to make use of all the different options you mention, but couldn't. I was going for a Skald character concept. Meaning something like a educated, charismatic Viking warrior, who will sword and board but considers himself a poet to record their sagas for posterity, while also being educated in the stories of old. Even while building the character i ran into problems because I had to diversify my attributes so much between STR (16), CON (14), INT (14) and CHA (14) that he became inefficient at everything. My expectation was, that my -1 to attack rolls compared to STR 18 would be insignificant in the long run. However, more important than that was that my demoralize action hardly ever worked because CHA 14 just didn't cut it. Other party members demoralized better than my character. (It started feeling like a waste of an action for me to try it, letting my party down because with raise shield I might have protected myself better). Also in plate armor with sword and board, I was really slow. In combat, I would spend two actions to move into position, leaving me the option to strike, or to raise shield on turn 1. (or to try a doomed attempt of demoralizing) On subsequent turns, I usually tried striking twice if I was still in position. Often, though, I would have to move again.
Over the course of my time with that character (lvl 1-7), it became increasingly frustrating how weak the character felt compared to the rest of the party and to my 5e fighters. In my party, the ranger hit more consistently and for more damage. The witch demoralized better and the mage recalled knowledge better, so what they wanted me to do is soak up damage. So, I had leather armor in mind if even that, to be mobile on the battlefield but they wanted me to be their damage sponge and make use of my heavy armor proficiency. But now, I was slow (STR 16 in plate) And still fragile (CON 14). I was more of a hindrance than help to them. Because of my attribute distribution, my saving throws were sort of weak, too, So my stats were often decreased through status effects.
Compared to 5e, my fighter felt weak in more than one aspect: because the shield bonus to AC only applied when I used an action for it I often couldn't do that because I had to move into position, or with reactive shield, I would lose my attack of opportunity. In 5e, I could be tanky, while moving and still have the chance to do an attack of opportunity. The movement aspect was the most frustrating compared to 5e. Because in 5e, I can split my movement any way I want during my turn in combat. At lvl 5, I could move 10 feet, attack, move another 10 feet and attack and still have a bonus action (with varying degrees of usefulness) In PF2e, I would stride, strike and stride. No second attack or anything else. Using two of my three actions striding to move between targets feels so powerless compared to 5e.
Overall, I felt like my PF2e fighter can attempt things from a larger pool of options than my 5e fighter, but can achieve a lot less than his 5e counterpart in every round of combat. And in my PF2e party, he could achieve less than any of my party members, because I had fallen into the trap of trying to give him too many options when building him. In summary, my fighter felt weak. Not boring, though, because he had many options. Most of them were frustrating, however. I did not find my choices interesting, just limiting.
I think your main mistake was dumping your main stat. Without homebrews and other options of this kind you could easily dump int to 12 and go 18 str. 14 cha intimidation is actually not bad, you just need to focus on creatures with weak will save DC. Later you can raise your cha and get intimidating prowess. About AoO and reactive shield. Reactive shield triggers when enemy HIT you, so you can see would +2 to AC change the result and decide use it or not. If it would change the result, I would advise to use against any damaging enemy. AoO is mainly useful for reach builds, because they could consistently make enemies work around them (spend actions on steps, or keep actions to make attacks, but take a hit to the face). For sword and board AoO are just tool to punish enemies who try to run from you to your teammates, you are not expected to do them every turn. And 14 con is enough, max con before level 5 is 16 and con isn't nearly as important as your main stat. Also if you want to make generalist character you might consider power overwhelming and free archetype optional rules.
4th edition D&D went a long wat toward balancing all classes but so many people poopoo'd it that we got 5th edition with the caster martial gap again. Pathfinder is a good system.
I find it odd that you need a free hand to shove... wouldn't using a shield be just as effect, even more effective, as it's a large piece of wood? All the character needed to do was to hit with the shield to push them back a step. Sure, still requires an action, but it shouldn't require to drop the shield (which is a bad idea as shields are typically strapped to the arm too, requiring interact actions to release it).
You can apply a Shield Augmentation adjustment to your shield, to give it two traits from disarm, nonlethal, shove, thrown 10 feet, trip, or Versatile S. Only costs 8 sp, so you can easily afford it directly off your starting gold. Now this does conflict with applying a Shield Boss or Shield Spikes, but it means you can choose between putting traits on your shield and diversifying your options, or increasing the damage of your shield bash if you rely on that with say a sword and board Double Slice build.
@@Alaaen ,
Oh. That item is from the Grand Bazar book, which I don't have. That's why I wasn't aware of it.
Still seems silly to need an item to give a shield the shove trait. But, that's probably answered with @Phoenix Trinity's response... Paizo attempt at balancing items.
@@aralornwolf3140 Yeah, I think balance is overriding verisimilitude here. Trade-offs and all.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I think this argument isn't very good. You can create balanced systems with much better verisimilitude. Paizo mainly tried to keep it simple and make characters have less options.
That DPR chart is incredibly frustrating. I can't tell what is what because all of those colors run together.
Yeah, I couldn't tell what was what either, lol. Here is a link to where I found the image where it is discussed, if that helps: forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?453487-The-problem-of-5-10
Can you post the sheets of these builds?
How many parts can we reach?
Ok, simple question: How do I make a fighter that is laser focused on hitting harder? Power Attack is a trap, and worse than hitting twice, and all other options are not extra damage. I have no interest in trips, or flourishes or conditions..I want to hit really damn hard, and have feats that make that better. DnD lets me do that, PF1e let me do that, how does PF2 let me do that?
power attack isnt a trap, a second attack suffers a -5 to hit so it has lesser chance of hitting and critting, with power attack if you crit you deal a massive amount of damage and youre more likely to crit on it because it has no multiple attack penalty, also in pathfinder 2e you cant really make your attack bonus or damage directly better, character progression is vertical rather than horizontal, if you want to crit a lot id reccomend picking up intimidation and using demoralize and then flanking the target
Alternatively, go barbarian
@@anonimcz5381PA is mathematically worse than striking twice, smarter people than me have done the maths, even against targets with high ac and damage resistance attacking twice is a better option.
As to demoralise: I said do damage, not waste effort on the massively boring conditions loop, a system that cripples fun, and I would rather not take an action than engage with it, it brings nothing worth having to the game.
Hard disagree. Only 4th Ed fixed fighters. Casters are more mechanically interesting and have more utility. Martial’s are so boring to play. It sucks, because I really wanted to roleplay a martial, but they are too boring in Pathfinder.
That's the Impression I'm getting, playing a fighter in a PF2e campaign (level 4 by this point). Seems to me that as a martial in PF2e, you make choices when you level up and put your gear together, and then just go through the same motions with minor adjustments to accommodate for different battlefields and enemies. Martials that are built differently may play more distinctly differemt in comparison to each other, but what we need is variety in gameplay between different tactical situations with the same character, not variety in gameplay between different characters of the same class.
In practice, this PF2e fighter doesn't feel like much of a change from playing a martial in D&D5e.
Would you say PF2 has treated barbarians and monks as kindly as the fighter? They have a lot of flavor but are very disappointing to play in 5e.
At first I got kinda disappointed with barbarian because he lacks the big resistances from the rage and the temporary hit points that comes with rage in this system aren't that much. Also, the rage makes you take -1 to your AC.
BUT! Then I realized that the rage is unlimited per day and your damage... Oh boy... You have at least +6 to your damage at level 1 using the weakest (at dealing damage) subclass (+4str and +2 rage). It can go to +10 damage at level 1 and the rage damage is add on top of any other damage boost you might have. Also, you have a shit ton of HP and the feats make a lot of cool stuff, either making you more mobile, more resistant or even giving you new cool mechanics to use while raging.
About the monk, is more complicated. They have really good saves, 10 hit points per level (like the fighter) can have top tier AC without the penalty in the speed from heavy armor (and they also gain more speed, because monk) and flurry of blows is an action you can take once every turn to make 2 attacks for 1 action. BUT! You need str to deal damage, dex to have AC, Con to have HP and if you do that, you won't have that many skills. Pahtfinder is way more generous with stats, but not THAT much. You have stances to help (like the mountain stance that let's you just hard-dump dex and get the highest AC you can have while hitting really hard), but you will always need to decide what you want to focus. Also, in combat, if you are not playing with a str monk, your damage won't be that high. But monks have really good action economy, like, top tier action economy, so much that sometimes I find people asking for help because they don't know what to do with that 3º action. So, yeah, you need to play smart with the monk, use your skills (grapple monk is really popular) and actions to help your group. Don't get me wrong, you certainly will deal damage (specially against enemies that don't have super high AC), but you can't exactly compete against the fighter or barbarian.
@@canhaoambulante9329 barbarians are just fighters but more damage, in 5e they have their clear identity with resistance to damage. In pathfinder you just "I rage, I attack" but you literally dont get shit as temp hp is worthless, sure the damage is nice, but for some reason you gain qadownside for using your power?
Where can I find the chart at 1:34?
I found it just by googling "DPR chart dnd" and it comes up
There are 2 similar looking versions of this chart. Here is the page that hosted the specific one I selected, where it is discussed: forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?453487-The-problem-of-5-10
5e fighters are not boring especially if your casters are proper buffing team players
I still find myself doing the same things over and over as a champion, whereas the casters in my party can always grab different spells or have more skills/ higher social stats, and they tend to most of the talking, and doing outside of combat even when magic isn't required. I just feel kinda boring in comparison, at first I was having a blast, and I still dearly love my character, but Idk, I feel dumb. When we need some heeling I have lay on hands, but that's the most out of combat utility I have. I'm also a pack mule, but we never have that much to carry. Maybe it's just a me problem, but my group does put a lot of emphasis on mechanics and I feel a bit stale. I don't want to outright change my character, we already had a player change classes from ranger -> druid because he felt like he was doing the same thing all the time.
Sounds like you're asking for 5e advice. Your DM should let you respec imo.
But yeah, even another martial class will perhaps not be as satisfying I think as a martial in PF2e. If you're okay with a martial/caster hybrid in 5e you can work on that, but if you *really* want to go hard into the ass-kicking martial fantasy you will come up against that problem of doing the same thing every turn.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Nope, Liberator Champion in a Frozen Flame campaign. We have a thaumaturge(bell), a psychic (distant grasp), a druid (tempest), and me the champion. The AP is very combat focused, but I also think that our group is also very combat focused. I've been working with my DM to look through the items and found an modification for my champion's shield so soon I should be able to use athletics in combat, and not just demoralize and strike every other turn. As we enter the greater hexcrawl next session, I think things will start to be more open for player choice, as the early part of the AP is fairly restrictive.
uh thats kuz you choose a champion, they're built to be crit machines. They're t'he bor'ing' fighter play eldritch knight or battle master, or RUne knight they have so much they can do Champion is the only fighter that just attacks hoping for crits with their 18 crit range
Your last example on the advantages of teamwork over each player dealing damage on their own almost feels like it is made in bad faith.
You are comparing the damage dealt by two players with 3 actions (1 for the strike and 2 for the cantrip) vs the damage dealt by 3 players with 5 actions (1 for the stride to flank, 1 for the song, 2 for magic weapon and 1 for the strike) and 1 spell slot.
Don't get me wrong, I love some good teamwork, but each scenario used different amounts of resources. It's natural for them to have different outcomes.
The two examples were only to illustrate the point that casters and martials are greater than the sum of their parts in PF2e, that they "shine more brightly" when working in tandem, which they do. And this point is not susceptible to simple identical comparisons because the 2 scenarios are inherently different.
Saying Example 2 used more actions is also reductive: the bard using Inspire Courage to all allies within 60 feet was probably a better use of that 1 action than doing a 3rd Strike at -10. The caster's Magic Weapon spell on the fighter will last 10 rounds. The wizard flanking the skeleton also benefited from flanking if they decided to attack.
I also don't think that it is fun to be the character who "sets up the fighter to do better" most of the time. The idea that my entire roll is buffing or debuffing is frankly boring. That said, when you do this in 5e, you get a lot more "bang for your buck" from working together. If your wizard succeeds at holding an enemy with Hold Person (and the timing is done correctly) the entire rest of the party gets to score a critical on that target. Synergies in 5e work this way all over the place. Guidance, Bless, Aid, Polymorph (on an ally), Haste, Heroes Feast and on and on. When a caster works with a weapon user in 5e you get very large outsized benefits. In PF2 you get benefits but they are pretty narrow (effectively one strike more worth of output or 1/12th the output of the party per round). Fights end in more or less the same number of rounds.
I actually find this role really cool. People like playing support, but you are talking like the "guy who sets the fighter" is a role someone must take and that is not true at all
@@canhaoambulante9329 "generating flat-footed" is definitely a major (pretty much required) tactic in PF2. It need not be ALL your character does, but i have never seen any experienced table that didnt dedicate resources to this. Much the like "feat tax' in DnD, generating flatfooted is an "action tax" in PF2.
@@JohnLentSelflessHero yeah, the BIG action tax of moving into meele
@@canhaoambulante9329 i assume that is sarcasm, but because moving isnt "free" as it is in 5e, there is in fact an action tax to move into melee. I tried for months unsuccessfully to lobby my regular game group to move the burden of this tax to the monsters (forcing them to spend the action to close with us, instead of us wasting actions to close with them) but it was like herding cats. So with sadness in my heart, I accepted that we would always pay that action tax. But merely "moving into melee" is not always enough to generate flatfooted, which is why there are something like 5 dozen different ways to generate it in PF2.
@@JohnLentSelflessHero oh no! I need to use an action to move to the enemy to attack! THE COST IS SOOOOO BIG! And there's more than one way to generate flat footed and I don't need to make the same thing every single turn??? Completely unplayable.
Though pf2e makes martials great overall, i really don't like how paizo make weapon styles. Irl two-handers are not slow and clunky heavy hitters. It really bothers me that i cannot make fencer who parries attacks with bastard sword in two hands. For some reasons beyound my comprehension parry is free hand thing, which is VERY immersion breaking and bad in terms of gameplay, because one-handed swordmaster expected to be versatile due to having free hand, but in reality he would be thrown out of parrying with grapples, drinking potions and thing like this. And why is dualwielding is weaker at parrying than one-handed? In terms of balance it isn't necessary at all. Fighter with one-handed bastard sword deals better damage than hypothetical two-handed fencer with one attack already. Which is like most common turn stride-attack-parry. And even with two attacks it is close. And you can go for animal barbarian or monk with dragon stance and grab yourself a shield to be damaging like two-hander, defensive like a shieldbearer (which is much better than a parry and not only because of block, reactive shield also great tool to boost action economy) and still have a free hand for athletics. Or you can go with shield+one hander with double slice on any other barbarian, which is also very good build, very close to two-hander in damage, but much better defensively.
Are you on reddit?
Yes, as u/the-rules-lawyer
Not boring and not weak... okay... Are they as cool as 4e martials?
i get the boring part in 5e but anyone who thinks fighters are weak in it are stupid. On avg turn per turn they're one of if not best dmg dealer in game not including if you multi class a couple lvls of pally for huge dmg or barb for huge defense. Sure they can be boring but their dmg if made right is insane.
The martial solutions of PF2e are probably one of PF2es biggest issues/screw ups. First of all, martials were not made more powerful so much as casters were made dramatically weaker, which isn't a problem so much as a point of clarity. People like to focus on the martials are competent part and assume that's due to martials getting stronger when the reality is it's pretty much casters getting nerfed hard. Martials did get more utility, which was good, but the cost effectiveness of the variance also given to them is questionable. While what one does every turn may change some, different encounters largely end up playing out in similar ways. This is less true of casters, but were talking about martials here. And while this is also true of 5e, 5e doesn't ask its users to invest in nearly as many feats and abilities, hence the inefficiency. For all the extra choice you have, you end up repeating the same strategies across many encounters. Not what we want to see for all that extra investment in options. The big problem however is the heavy use of dissociated mechanics. For that reason alone the solutions given to martials are rather detestable and it's likely the main reason why the vast majority of original 3.x players still haven't moved to PF2e. Theory suggests that dissociated mechanics are bad for rule heavier ttrpg systems like PF2e and the high rejection rates in both 4e and PF2e seem to perhaps suggest this as well. I agree with PF2es approach to the disparity problem, nerf casters. I very much disagree however with making martials so dissociated. PF2e martials are a good example of 1 step forward, 2 steps back.
High rejection of pathfinder 2e? Paizo themselves said that pf2e outselled every other of their products.
@@canhaoambulante9329 And 4e sold quite well too despite that most of the preexisting fanbase never picked it up. When you actually look into the number of people from the 3.x community that switched over to PF2e, it seems quite low.
@@TheAnimeAtheist cool? Pathfinder 2e already outselled pf1e and has it's own fanbase. People like the changes and are playing the game. The changes are good and just because some people don't like it, doesn't mean that Paizo made a mistake introducing them
@@canhaoambulante9329 The point is that the old player base has largely rejected the game. So no people don't like the changes by in large. As I said before, some of the changes are good, some are bad. Just because people play the game and have fun doesn't mean that game doesn't have shortcomings and real issues.
There is a lot flexibility here, but I have to wonder what the point is. Like a +2 to AC when you are already a high AC character in terms of hit probability X damage roll is minimal. What you lose on accuracy you make up for with a larger die size. The "tight math" makes it not meaningful - it is an illusion of choice. If there is no outcome determinative difference based on your choices, then there is no reason to choose one over another other than flavor. And flavor does not require rules at all - just a good narrator.
Why even pretend you wanna play a role playing GAME if “rules get in the way”? 5e’s game philosophy (do whatever, you’re the GM) is lazy, dumb, and antithetical to DND being a GAME.
@@nelsongalan1417 is that supposed to responsive to my comment? I love rules. Rules are great. Just dont make them traps. If there is no meaningful difference in outcomes then dont have a rule for it. If there is a rule for something, it should be consequential. To make my point clear, imagine an ability in PF2 that does "2d6 bleed" damage in addition to your normal effects. 2d6 is mathematically the same as 7. Depending on what tier you are at, an extra 7 damage in round 2, and then in round 3, and then in round 4 is... meaningless. The creature you hit is likely still on the board the same number of rounds, and likely dealing the same amount of damage to you over the course of the fight as it would have if you didnt deal the bleed damage. And of course, there is also no meaningful difference between "2d6 bleed" and just giving a character 3 extra damage per attack action (a simpler and cleaner way of doing the same thing without adding another rule).
@@JohnLentSelflessHero No offense, but that last take is really terrible. When discussing balance in a game with more freedom of movement you have to consider the action economy of all units against others. This isn't a white room 5e scenario where everyone just stands in place and bashes each other until one side is dead. You also have to consider the tiers of success system in PF2E that dictates 10 under is a critical failure, 10 over is a critical success. Giving players an extra 3 damage on their strikes is not at all equivalent to 2d6 bleed damage unless you're just standing there hacking away at a wall. By having a 2d6 bleed this frees you up to use other actions outside of striking and still getting your damage. This allows you to run over to the other side of the room and grapple the spellcaster while still getting bleed damage on the first target. You can bleed, trip, and then run. Forcing the enemy to spend valuable actions just to get up again and run at you all while taking the bleed damage while you're at a safe distance. If you sit there and spam attacks, you're going to miss most of them unless the enemy had been debuffed heavily before hand or you're a build that specializes in attacking multiple times. Finally, and kind of a personal take from me, I think more damage types and more damage variety is a good thing. When everyone builds to just do damage, but that damage type doesn't really matter, it feels boring. Resistances and weaknesses are much more common in PF2E and you really feel your builds strengths and weaknesses shine through on certain encounters. Having to get creative with overcoming your characters flaws is way more interesting than stomping every fight because nothing resists your magic sword.
@@rpgbouncer9961 again, depending on the tier (and the ability I had in mind comes online at level 14) 7 damage itself is meaningless. It doesn't "free up" anything. An adult forest dragon (level 14) has 290hp. That is 1/41 of its hit points. The encounter will take the same amount of real life time whether that dragon is bleeding or not bleeding. The way critical math works (at least on the hit point side, not counting other riders) is that you add a percentage of your average damage based on how likely you are to crit (typically like 5-20% depending on your build). 1/5th of strikes worth of extra damage is also not going to reduce the time your encounter takes. the result will be largely the same.
In 5e, the result of a crit for characters who care is WAY more than that. Since you can create conditions to reliably crit regardless of dice roll (paralysis), and you can add a lot of dice with different builds (sneak attack dice, smite dice), you go from something like 1d8+8 on a normal strike (for a top tier character) aka 13 damage to 20d6+2d8+5 aka 84. That is enough to reduce time of the encounter by a third. Big deal. Worth having a ruleset for.
@@rpgbouncer9961 that said, i tend to agree re: magic sword. If magic swords were VERY rare (like LotR or Elric rare) such that it was an epic months long quest just to get one, then sure, let that sword hurt werewolves, ghosts, vampires etc. alike. But given that magic swords are a basic item that everyone expects to have by like level 4 or 5, it does feel lame that they ignore everything. I liked the idea of needing silver to hurt a werewolf - it felt cool thematically. Water against the fire elemental. Lightning powering up the shambling mound. Golems being almost immune to everything. Mithril, admantine, silver and cold iron are all basically pointless now in dnd and that makes me sad. They should all be cool.
It is pure bullshit that you don't need to read every single feat to not make an effective Fighter. You can get away with that in other classes, not Fighter.