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I am building a Catfolk clawdancer swashbuckler gymnist that benefits greatly from grappling, so this video will help a lot!

Untamed druid. Invest in athletics intimidation and nature(herbalist/medicine). Intimidating prowess remove -4 so you can demoralize grapple and hit, or grapple fail , hit and trip/shove in lets say bear form. Equipment fuses in the form so remove the requirement for free hand, that other classes maybe struggle with if they have weapons in both hands

Kineticists with Water or Earth can be suprisingly good at grapples. They can give themself a status bonus to Athletics by picking the right gate junction.

Crazy how many times i got back to this video and chcecked somethinkit. Would you be so awsome and remake at least the graphs or the whole video with all the new clases? If not would you be so kind and share the Data in excel or somethink so i dont have to start from scratch when i would do the graphs my self. Pretty please?

Clinging Shadows stance is great, but RAW you aren’t allowed to take it unless you’ve already taken a first level Ki spell feat. For non-human characters, that’s a significant cost.

PF2 is so irredeemably fucking garbage it boggles the mind. It has no cause to exist.

What I don't understand is why your dex bonus is added to AC. Instead of a dex cap, why not have you roll a dex save to avoid the attack, with heavier armor giving negative modifiers to said dex save. So when you attack, both attacker and target roll, comparing your save to their attack. If the attack is lower than your save, it misses, and if it's higher than your save, it hits. Instead of AC, you'd instead have a hardness threshold that works like the hardness threshold for objects and shields. This would not only make the combat feel more engaging since both sides are rolling, but then we could also give weapons circumstance bonuses based on factors like range. Actually, I think all checks against a living creature should have both sides roll dice. It feels more immersive that way.

So, what will be better to start with 16 Fort 12 Dex or 12 Fort 16 Dex for a caster? What about light armor proficiency and and toughness?

Really liked your info, solid analysis. As mentioned above, Assurance in Athletics has it’s applications. Outtakes at the end was a nice touch.

quite miss this channel. hoping the creator is safe and well

Thank you very much for sharing this video with us. Was great to see al the information organized in a single place.

Hi, this was really fascinating! I was surprised to see con and dex work out roughly even, I really expected dex, with its improvement to AC and hence reduction in crits, combined with reflex saves which are so common for AOE damage to come out on top! I'd love to hear more about the workings!

awesome stuff

Ac can be gotten by putting on armour, so can a bonus to Ref save. Hp cannot be added. Con is also adding fortitude save. Con is much stronger, hands and feet down. That is why there Are No con based skills

very helpful video. I am aware that it’s a mite outdated, but particularly lining up all of the sources of bonuses for athletics and penalties to fortitude was really helpful. I want to put together a spreadsheet or other organized comparison of all of the classes for grappling

Last video 1 year ago 😢

Did you take a break? The rework is here ... something to talk about! :)

Please keep making more of these videos! I love seeing breakdowns like this and the '+1' video. Great work, good sir.

Late to the party, but just wanted to say that this video kicks butt. Definitely going to share it with my players.

one could use the Adopted Ancestry - Kobold to get that weapon?

I'd like to see the same analysis on the latest classes released and if there's anything new or interesting with them that you pick up on

surprised to not see any of the wrestler archetype stuff mentioned

The problem however, is when you are a caster, and your entire contribution falls flat at a net 60-80% (assuming you buff for +2 and debuff for -2)

Daamge

I think the main issues are with the spell list. It's just bad. All the support spells are circumstantial, making that one feat a MUST take. All the damage spells are alignment-based. 80% of the domain spells are bad and/or boring. Very little to work with to play an offensive playstyle for EITHER doctrine, forcing you to take archetypes

I don't know if you are still doing content or not, but with the pathfinder remastered project announcement, would you considered doing a video of things you feel could change. With you math videos and deep analysis maybe you could offer a more informed take on what things are lacking where.

Oh, now I get it why they say fighters are OP.

I think the one way Rogues could become competent at grapples would be through a rules change I think kinda should be there anyways: Flat-footed should reduce Saving Throw DCs by -2 against activities with the Attack Trait. Basically if flat-footed, the trip, grapple, and disarm traits can become easier. Rogues can sometimes get more options to gain a combat advantage, so could be fun.

Considering Casters can get not just the options but raw power through magic, many of which can also be defensive, it feels fair to me. The only thing I would want tweaked is that I think there should be more general feats like uncanny acumen that allow casters to invest in lagging behind less, just in case you want to play a gishy type

I think this video came before the updates to Heritage list, but Dhampir with Fangs feat can grapple with their fangs. Giving them the benefits of not needing a free hand and you can use any medium ancestry.

These are definitely some interesting points, but I still definitely think that the cleric has unexplored design space remaining, giving new directions for expression rather than power. Warpriest has shown not just altered proficiency growth rates, but features and feats provided. There is so much to play with there. Different feats, features, proficiencies, spell slots, and so on.

TY for the video, as a newcomer to PF2E I appreciate the breakdown. I'm glad I finally found a D&D/D&Dadjacent game with solid/tight math! D&D5E was 'supposed' to be that game but it soon became apparent in it's lifecycle the math was anything but 'tight', big disappointment.

I think for most mental disabilities, there doesn't *need* to be any mechanical representation. What difference does it make in a world of swords and sorcery whether the Fighter spells words weirdly, or the Wizard had to spend an extra five years learning the basics of their craft because the information just didn't stick? Maybe the Barbarian has to plan out their journeys and their Rage is an expression of their anxiety at the disruption of their ideal day, or the Cleric needs to organise their tools in a very specific way, but this would just be a part of their daily preparations, wouldn't it? Hell, if a player were to go out of their way to roleplay their character as having an extreme degree of organisation, I'd want to reward that effort by giving them a slight bonus on appropriate checks, like noticing that someone stole an object from them. They've put in extra work just for the sake of more deeply exploring who their character is and making them memorable, and I'm sure they'd likewise remember the time the GM picked up on the roleplay they were putting in and rewarded them for it. Now, there are more severe mental issues than the things I've mentioned of course, like somebody with extreme autism, but I think that ultimately it comes down to a matter of roleplay. If the campaign is about wilderness explorers who spend a long time away from civilisation, then unless the table is overall happy to work with it, then a character whose issues are so severe they're incapable of caring for themselves probably shouldn't be played. But vice versa, there doesn't really need to be any mechanical things put in place if the other players and their characters are willing and able to care for someone. Like, maybe this character's non-verbal and can't care for themselves in day-to-day life, but are a wellspring of divine magic who has moments of lucidity in times of need. Outside of combat, it's just explained as the other characters guiding them along and helping them eat and bathe and whatnot, and in combat they suddenly snap into the moment and start blessing people and bringing down holy lightning, only to withdraw back into themselves once the danger's passed. Mechanically, maybe the player opts not to roll skill checks for certain things outside of combat (maybe if the party needs to climb a cliff, the party fashions a sling to carry them up instead), and maybe other times they come into focus for a short while to offer sage insight before losing focus. Depending on how it's handled at the table this could either be a really boring character, or a really interesting one to have along.

hit points; I play a vine leshy green order druid on lvl 1 I have 19HP (8 ancestry, 8 class and 3 con) Armor Class: I have 16 armor + 2 with shield (1 leather armor, 2 dex) Saving throws: 6fort, 4 reflex, 9 will (expert in will, +4wis) and yet I still got down as the only one from the group like 2-3 times in Age of Ashes xD we are lvl 5, items are in a range of ok we got before +1 armor or I think most of our group, hard to tell, if you can only see your own chara sheet stats wise: 1str, 3dex, 3con, 0int, 4wis and 1cha, so saving throws are mostly balanced even xD armor class is 22 defensiv feats: leshy superstition (reaction +1 circumstance bonus for spells and magic effects) goodberry at lvl 3 (3 berries each 1d6+4hp) herbalist dedication - poultice preparation (advanced alchemy for healing items + preparing them as poultice, who works as an aid for persistend dmg of fire, acid or bleed and immedial flat check for it) leshy familiar secret (if purifing air counts for that, giving +2 circumstance bonuns at smelling saving throws and the breathing) and weapon of choice: spear or a javeline, still unsure what I pick what I wanted to add: energy aegis is almost the same as from the druid primal aegis. as it gives a bonus to all the same dmg, except for sonic and force, but it scales with wisdom, so it could be like +5 or even +6 (with artifact even +7) and that is even for your whole party (aura of 30ft) and not only a single person

Actually, I think impulse control was meant to at least help to make quadrepaligic ( I don't know how to spell it) characters a bit more viable, I've had this concept of making a quadrepaligic bard using the maistro's chair with impulse control.

Another factor is that eventually the ac arms race vs monsters heavily favors high level monsters with their huge to hit modifier that you're basically just trying to avoid a crit rather than expecting to avoid the attack. In that scenario hp and other mitigating features like shield block or damage resistance are more important.

a problem what I have with warpriest is: it feels like a middle ground cloister is full caster warpriest can go in melee or tank, but still can cast quite good what is missing a more (melee) combat focus cleric, like a inquisitor or so. maybe he is just master too, but he would get more focus on dmg with features similiar to other classes or maybe siwtch things up: master in weapon, but expert in spells I'm not an expert in game design, I'm not even trained in that so idk how it should look like

Wouldn't a lizardfolk actually be really good late game given they can actually be large with a feat which means they can grapple huge creatures

Fantastic video; I found your content recently and it's really good.

Great video, but I actually disagree with your main point. At our table we are using clerics+ homebrew and it is superior to base cleric basically in every way, despite having 3 doctrines.

Here's the realistic take: Disabled people DIE trying to be adventurers.

You got your very first math wrong which leads me to question the credibility of the rest? A roll of 10-20 on a d20 is a chance to hit of 55%, not 50%.

I think you missed barreling charge with the barbarian. It is really useful to get in to the backline to grab enemy casters.

Great info

Math makes my brain hurt. I'm curious how the mat works with things like deadly and fatal. Specifically, taking critical likelihood into account are you better with a d8 or a d6 (deadly d8)

I made a Nagaji Grappler Monk Swimming Clinging Shadows to pull down and drown grappled foes, leveled up to 12. It's fashioned after the way Crocodiles don't actually bite their foes to death, but grapple-bite them and then drag them underwater and thrash around. The opener combo of Stance Savant, At low level, Cheezeofages is right, Assurance (athletics) is great for Athletics without MAP, but at level 7, retrain Assurance Athletics to Underwater Marauder. Then at 8, to enable Clinging Shadows, retrain Gorilla Stance to Ki Strike or Ki Rush. Replace Fey Influence: Faun sometime by level 15 when it no longer does anything for you, or negotiate with your DM for some better Fey Influence effects, because Rule of Cool. Tell them it's racist to only have Western European "Enchanted Forest" types of fey creatures, and tell them all about Qasim, the King of Crocodiles from India. Or those crocs in tutus in Fantasia.

what happened to this channel? see the last vid was a year ago. great content

Hellknight with chain order have some of the greatest features for grappling builds. Especially the greater benefit, which turnes failed escape check into critically failed. This basically forces enemies to use their first attack to escape, because otherwise they might fail the check and stuck grappled. For casters this is pure hell.

This is a very dishonest way of looking at the math, most of that difference is coming from how the crits works and not the actual difference besides a 17% of difference over how many encounters? since in PF your chance of crit go down after the first attack to basically DnD levels at best how many rounds had to play out in order to matter? I am sorry but assuming that you give that +1 somehow in every attack over every round of combat to the same character an extra critical hit during the day at the cost of many actions does not seem very impactful to me, my biggest problem with PF 2e is that they seem to balance the whole thing like a MMORPG almost feels 4e-ish.

You missed Heroism as a super easy status buff to athletics