Did Pathfinder 2E Over-Nerf Casters Compared to D&D? (And who won Martials vs. Casters?)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 มิ.ย. 2024
- Pathfinder 2nd Edition tackles the "Linear Fighters, Quadratic Wizards" problem that has long plagued D&D and Pathfinder, by making significant changes to how casters work in this system. Did they go too far? And who won our Martials vs. Casters event?
Full playlist of videos of the COMPLETE event:
• "Martials v. Casters: ...
See the CHARACTERS and the GAUNTLET RULES at: docs.google.com/document/d/1I...
Also see Team Martials co-captain Swingripper's written summary of the Martials vs. Casters event! / strategy_rundown_of_th...
0:00 Introduction
0:14 History of Martial/Caster balance in D&D/Pathfinder
2:11 Core PF2e Design Decisions weakening casters
7:17 Summary & Highlights from the Martials vs. Casters event!
15:17 Why did Team X win?
18:35 What we've learned
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"Who is the winner of the martials vs. casters? The dragon."
As it should be.
It's even more true and cool when he refer the dragon as a full team, a good party would fight as one, helping each other, making the equivalent of a dragon.
@@nicolasvillasecaali7662 That's another great way to put it. This isn't some people's preferred playstyle, but facing a solo boss creature in PF2e you truly feel like you're overcoming a more-powerful foe. It forces the players to combine their efforts to get in those hits. You really feel like you are individual underdogs who are Voltroning your way to beat a superior foe in PF2e. When you get in a hit (or even better - crit!) BECAUSE an ally gave you a +1 or +2 advantage, few feelings are better!
D&D has 5th Edition. Pathfinder has the High-Five Edition. ^_^
Conclusion: the most balanced version would be one where everyone is just a dragon but with different flavors.
Can't wait for the release of Pathfinder My Little P̶o̶n̶y̶ Dragon Edition.
Battlezoo is bringing that out.
@@ollywright I'm intrigued! I'm getting the Bestiary but will check out the monster ability stealing stuff as well.
i thought Hasbro /wizards had the rights to my little pony would like a automation /transformers campaign but they need more ancestry feats for more diverse forms.
Try the Epyllion ttrpg. Literally my little pony dragon edition and fun as hell. Easy to learn too.
There is an old 2e campaign world designed around the party of dragons idea forget the name and do not have the time to look it up
Just off the top of my head for Casters vs Martials:
Caster Proficiency is consistently about 2 levels below martials.
Martials get magical bonuses to AC and Attack, but casters don't get magical bonuses to spell DC or spell attack.
Most spell attacks at a given level take 2 actions to cast, but often only do damage worthy of 1 attack from a martial of the same level (this isn't 100% consistent and doesn't account for AoEs).
Most debuff effects rely on a critical failure to get the same effect. Couple this with traits like Incapacitation and the fact that enemy saves will directly scale with their level. The results is that debuffs are most useful against the creatures that need them applied the least.
Enemy saves are almost always more than 10 lower than their ACs, and I've often noticed that all saves are within +/- 6 of each other, closer than in 1E.
Fewer spell slots overall for casters vs more attacks at lower levels for martials.
Summoning spells and control spells (like Bind Undead) scale in creature level to the spell level. This fails when getting much higher than lvl 7 or 8. At level 9, I can cast 5th level spells, meaning summon 1 lvl 5 creature or control 1 lvl 5 undead. How much threat is a lvl 5 creature in a lvl 9 encounter? This only gets worse at higher levels.
At the same time, the higher level spells that really broke the game are still their. High level casters can still teleport between planes, transform into huge monsters, literally cast Wish (every tradition has their own version of it now, I think), become completely invulnerable, raise the dead, instakill, morph into powerful combat forms, etc.
I really feel like Paizo didn't OVER-nerf casters, they just nerfed them at the wrong point. I'm playing a lot of 1E right now, and casters aren't completely broken even around 7th or 9th level, and still very much depend on martials to get the job done. Yet I feel like 2E casters level 11 or higher are still powerful compared to martials if played right, even while they feel less reliable due to the lower DCs and attack bonuses.
All that being said, I haven't actually played much 2E, I'm just looking at the numbers and running comparisons in my head.
Having had a year or so of playing casters:
These are all pretty much the issues with casters. My to-hit is generally 2-4 lower than martials, and monster saves tend to be within 10 of my DC, meaning that while martials can throw the same attack again and again until it works, I'd better hope the monster rolls badly the one time I cast a debuff.
Everything else makes sense as a way to bring down the power curve of casters; the limited spells per day, minimized flexibility mid-battle, and pulling down the power of the spells all kind of needed to happen... but only if the casters remained within parity of martials for reliability.
As was shown several times in this video alone, Every. Plus 1. Matters. And martials just get more of them.
At one of my table's more recent big brawls:
Without the champion, the back line would have been overrun by clockwork soldiers.
Without the investigator, the most powerful enemy (a mi-go wizard) would have spent almost the entire fight casting from perfect safety, and the bard would probably have died.
Without the bard, the party would have missed a lot more than it did, and at least one of the others would have died for sure if he wasn't consistently debuffing the opposing wizard.
Without the Magus (and judicious use of the Counterspell reaction from his wizard archetype), the party would have taken two Cones of Cold to the face.
Every class, every party member, contributes to the party. The team is what matters.
Excellent video, and I couldn't agree more.
While I broadly like the "optimize the party as opposed to the character" concept, when combined with a strong martial/caster disparity (either way) leads to "half the party are main characters, the other half are the supporting cast"
I think Pathfinder 2E intends casters to be supporting cast.
While I agree in 5e it's the opposite casters are so much vastly stronger. Like a hex blade and the wizard melee one are objectively better then a fighter. Or a party of casters were able to clear most encounters before it can get into range
The problem I always run into when playing a prepared caster like a druid is that I dont know what the day will bring. I dont know what spells will be helpful to have. I always, without fail, come up to some adventuring challenge that a spell could help with, if only it were prepared. Hard to convince a party to waste a day so I can change spells.
As a DM I blame the DM on that. I always give hints to my players as what to expect, and, if they make the correct preparations before going on a quest, they tend to do pretty well. I mean, there are always the surprises, but they only work as an exception, not a norm.
Default 1e rules is you can leave spell slots unprepared and empty, if you do during the day you can spend 10 min/ spell level to prepare a spell in that slot. This means that if something comes up and you know a spell that would be good and have the time to prepare a spell you can do it. I would recommend using that mechanic for prepared casters in 2e.
This is also a function of spell slots. If you have more spell slots to fill, you're more comfortable filling one or two with situational spells.
I wonder if there could be a moment at the start of the say where a player could ask the GM questions about the day, maybe even do some rolls to see what they could predict. Even use some divination if they have some while preparing their spells for the day to better have an idea of what will happen
@@JessieShadowhold What has always been done is players doing proper investigations during the adventure. Say the players are going off to do things they could be using libraries, locals, rumors, or scouting to learn what might be coming ahead. The idea is giving player agency to learn in game what they may encounter. It is something for years my various play groups would do (both when we were players or DM). We would in character actually investigate and scout to use the various tools we have at our disposal.
We've known since 3.5 that what made pure spell-casting classes more powerful was their range of options and versatility. Indeed, that's what made them so strong in 3.5.
Hence 2006's Tome of Battle. 2 years prior to 4th ed it introduced "martial maneuvers" for martial classes that allowed for a depth and width of options similar to what spell-casters enjoyed. The three martial classes introduced in the book were the Crusader (a paladin analogue), the Warblade (a fighter analogue) and the Swordsage (a monk analogue).
According to people a WotC, Tome of Battle was inspired by the then-in-development 4th edition DnD.
I think the high water mark for "caster power was not in 3/3.5/pathfinder but 2e. Why because a lot of the spells are basically the same fire ball, magic missile ect except when they were stronger, stone skin for instance blocked a number of attacks as in all the damage from said attack not a certain amount of it. And then there is the hit points well first off monsters do not have idk a con score a maxed out dragon has less than 150 hp multiple attacks are bit less of a thing and it takes a 15 con just to get on the +1 hp/lv board and then there is that last hit dice at 9 or 10 depending on class where after that well you were rolling a d10 for hp and adding con if any now you just get 3 . . . just 3 no con mod.
@@benjamingasaway9882 There were a lot of save or suck, save or lose and save or die effects available to casters as well - and spread out across multiple spell levels as well.
Chromatic Orb was a 1st level spell that at a caster level of 9 could require a save or die from the affected creature.
Spellcasters are SUPPOSED to be powerful.
@@steakdriven Absolutely, but so martials.
@@Parker8752 but not supposed to have the exact same power level. There Does not need to be balance between classes.
Another important point in the design of Pathfinder 2e is that Casters don't get item bonuses to Spells like Martials are expected to get to their attack rolls through levels.
Indeed. But at the same time, it's easy to see why now. If they're always trying to aim for the weakest save, AC included, they don't need the bonus as much as non-casters. And the fact that all casters who are trying to directly mess with enemies have legendary proficiency, means that they do pretty well most often.
Good point, I should've included it. It HAS been a design decision as Paizo has explicitly rejected this oft-suggested idea from players.
@@Ogrimmygrimgrim They don't get legendary until level 19 though, which few parties ever make it to. Fighters get legendary weapon attacks at 13 and in fact are consistently way above spell caster proficiency for almost all levels.
@@robdoole9969 to be fair, fighters are kind of the most extreme example to compare to. No one's able to keep up with them! (Besides gunslingers)
@@robdoole9969 fighters are above everyone in weapon proficiency, that's what makes them fighters
I take issue with this test. Martials have ranged options available to them, and I'd saythe martial team not having a balanced range/melee setup has skewed the results.
Objection, you do not need to use the balance action to stand-up from prone on ice as the prone condition says the only move actions you can use are crawl and stand up (balance is a move action). The martials could stand up, but if they wanted to move they'd have to use the Balance action.
The CRB says that ice is "uneven ground." The rules for uneven ground seem deliberately unspecific as to when you have to roll Acrobatics: "Uneven ground is an area unsteady enough that you need to Balance (see Acrobatics) or risk falling prone and possibly injuring yourself, depending on the specifics of the uneven ground." The Balance action says "move across" uneven ground, but that doesn't preclude other actions outside of it. (Just as Make an Impression doesn't preclude trying to influence more than 1 target.)
So it's not necessarily violating a rule to require a Balance check in this situation. Rubble might not require an Acrobatics check to stand up, but ice arguably does. Still, what you say is a fair argument and could've made this event less swung toward the dragon!
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Your reply elides the fact that prone is explicit about what move actions are allowed. You are inventing out of whole cloth a necessity to balance to stand. All of balance's text indicates it is used when not prone and are standing on uneven ground.
I don't agree with effectively forcing a magical damage class into a circumstance support, what if there's already a magical support class that is meant for circumstantial events and keep a spell slinger a spell slinger
The experiment was for 4th level characters. It would be more interesting to do it at level 10 or even higher. In DnD the casters are much more overpowered at high levels than at levels 1-4.
I think a higher level version of this would be awesome!
I had short intermission game in between my main game where we did lv20 for about 3 sessions. The casters far outshone the martial classes. The lv20 hunter usually couldn't get within range. The Druid napalmed the field and turned into a dragon. The wizard could haste and then deliver devastating abilities. I felt bad for the martial classes.
Is anyone else feeling like (just like a lawyer), this doesn't answer the question, just why we shouldn't be asking it?
There are some funky issues, though; like at level 5 and 6, when spell attack rolls are suddenly garbage until level 7. Or any other time the casters are lagging behind in attack bonus; sure they got the save spells, but spell attacks never catch up really.
Stuff like that, reinforced by other factors, I'm among those who feel casters are not quite done right. Otherwise, I agree.
I'm not inviting debate; just stating a viewpoint.
The situations felt caster favorable. Most, we’re ranged combats. Not fair for melee team.
@@saltysourdough forced or not they might have intentionally skewed the result, using a flying monster with ranged attacks in that area is specially rigged to make martial pcs look weaker
The casters never really outshone the martials in the rooms leading up to the final battle.
As for the final PvP, distance didn't favor ranged attacks beyond Round 1/2. What changed things was ability to cast a spell (Wind Wall) that could *negate* the Martials' ranged attack(s).
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG DId the martials not have the opportunity to just hide behind natural cover to wait for the spell duration to end? Like some rocks or trees?
i feel like in 2e, using spells that afflict effects feels bad because it there is just a high chance of it effectively doing nothing. The limiting of a lot of effects (and this isnt just for casters) to 1 minute increments also feels annoying as it limits not just the combat effects of a caster but the utility of one as well
I disagree.
Unlike in PF1 and D&D
You very often get decent effects even if the ennemy suceeed the save as long as he doesn't get a crit sucess, and some spells are broken if the boss happen to fail against them (like synethesia that turns all your fighters into crit machines who crit on a 12 if the boss happen to fail against it)
And that's not even talking about the buff spells like Haste that never fails and are always good to have.
After playing and running a ton of PF2e in the year after it released, I wrote a couple essays on why casters in general (and Wizards in particular) just aren't fun to me in PF2. It boils down to "they were nerfed too many different ways at once". Some of those ways are obvious, like spell slot counts being chopped nearly in half (after accounting for the various bonus slots and other boosts in PF1), the Incapacitation trait erasing the value of SoLs, strictly capped DCs, long durations nuked, bonus types cut down to a single type used by the vast majority of spells, homogenized and reduced effects of many conditions, and mid-day preparation murdered in a back alley.
However, some are less obvious consequences of other nerfs intersecting. For example, with spell slot counts greatly reduced and mid-day preparation dead, the opportunity cost of choosing a spell with niche use is vastly higher than before. This basically evicerates the "utility caster" concept instead of just weakening it. Another example, the much lower slot counts mean you can't actually load up spells to effectively target all four defenses (3 saves and AC). Even if you know what an enemy's weak defense is (good luck with that, by the way), chances are good that you either don't have an offensive spell for that defense or if you do it's a lower level and less effective one. And thanks to single-target offensive spells being little better than a Fighter just swinging away for a round, this adds up to casters generally being effective at clearing weak enemies but ineffective against dangerous foes and bosses. Which just feels bad as a player.
@@aeonise A few other things i would add:
2e Witch and Wizard cant actually specialize in anything mechanically. you have schools as a wizard but that basically just means you get some focus spells. Playing an evocation wizard in 2e doesn't make your evocation spells any better than other schools of magic. In 1e, you have a greater ability to make casters that specialize in particular fields while losing effectiveness in others.
Part of the overall problem with 2e and why I'm personally not a huge fan of it is that everything feels very homogenized. you have strict caps on numbers everywhere. in a manner of speaking, its not just that casters have been nerfed, player characters as a whole have been nerfed. A lot of the unique features of many classes feel a lot like different ways of doing the same things with different flavor text.
@@naproupi Those spells aren't even good lmao. They are so undertuned that if the enemy succeeds the save, they don't do much. It's an action and resources wasted.
@@kori9779 You're describing 5e and pf1 spells when if the ennemy suceeded the spell was 100% wasted
Save or suck spells that either the ennemy suceed and you waste a turn or the ennemy failed and the fight ended were stupid and ruining the fun of players and dms at high level.
PF2 has a lot less of those, and the conditions on a sucess are still good enough to bring someting to the table.
Take Synesthesia, if the ennemy fail the impact is huge, but even if they suceed they still get one turn where they have an harder time hitting you and all your martials can suddenly hit on a 6-9 and crit on a 16-19.
Those spells aren't game ender, they require synergy with your team and still provides value if the ennemy suceed, I don't see how that's not a step up.
Only thing I dislike is how the incapacitation trait removed save or suck spam from player to boss but still 100% allow save or suck spam from boss to player which is still a stupid mechanic I think.
My impression after having playing quite a lot of different classes is that any class can play a role in a team, but for some classes it is easier to create a bad character.
For example the Cleric, in my opinion, is very easy to build "useful": you just need some Heal spells, wether it comes from your font or not.
Same goes for the Fighter: unless your purposedly picked a meme weapon (like fighting with only a gauntlet) you are going to deal damage.
Meanwhile, you can totally make an unplayable Witch if you took random spells and cantrips on, let's say, the occult spell list. There could be some niche cases where you will be glad you have this Approximate cantrip to instantly count the number of items, or Breadcrumbs for... when you are too lazy to cast several Sigil I guess ; but if on any encounter your only contribution is spamming Daze for an average of 3 damages a round, then you are simply not doing enough for the group.
Fundamentally, Casters should have the advantage in Utility and Mass Combat, but Fighters should have the advantage in any non-magical scenario. On the last Branch, the Experts like Bards, Rogues and such should have the advantage in Courtly or Social encounters
I would enjoy seeing another round through the gauntlet where you take the members from each team and send them through the same gauntlet with the classic 4 of a Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric and get their take on how different it felt to face the same challenges with a balanced composition of types.
It is funny in our group it is not martial vs caster but fighter and now gunslinger versus everyone else. The inherit +2 minimum to hit bonus versus everyone else makes them the focus of to hit buffing since they will critical a lot more than anyone else. So it skews the party focus to them instead of any of the other martials.
I noticed that none of the martials in this story were rangers, archers, or healer paladins. Sounds like only fighters (maybe dipping into barbarian), because they are just OP compared to any other martial that it isn't even worth considering them.
Indeed, that's one of my biggest problem with pf2, that +2 to hit doesn't look like much, but once you realise it is also a +2 to crit, and you can have weapons with the fatal or deadly trait, suddenly it becomes way too strong.
And it's not particularly hard to figure out or creative to use, you just stack buff, if possible debuff ennemie's ac and then watch the fighter multiclassed cleric of gorum get in a true strike on their warpike so they roll twice and crit on a 12 for more than their current hp pool of damages x)
To be fair, I feel part of the reason for the “stupid question” of martials vs casters is that in other editions you CAN get by with only casters, at least at medium-high level. A full cleric party in 5e is likely to be able to manage most challenges, as could a well built party of druid-wizard-bard-warlock.
While in pathfinder 2e everyone has a specific role to play in the group, but that shift in focus makes things feel odd to those used to either 5e or PF1 e where a caster could kill a god with a bucket of rats
>kill a god with a bucket of rats
xD
They overdid the caster nerf. Before casters where mosnter level power and marcial a kid whit a stick. Now marcial are overpowerd monsters and casters kids whit magic sticks. It's still not well ballanced, just the otherway arround, and no, eletric arc DOES NOT make up for that.
Here is an idea...would if it was a contest between two teams one team has 3 casters and 1 martial and the other team has 3 martials and 1 caster. This bring both groups to a more balanced team while having some focus on one type.
I mean... We already know what balanced parties can do and look like and this event took MONTHS to actually get scheduled and played to completion... Not saying it won't be done 100% but we believe the question has been beat to death at this point.
You can absolutely make a balanced party with a 3 to 1 ratio and I don't think anyone will argue that point
@@SwingRipper I definitely think there was too much "planning and simulations" to this event. Instead of giving both teams information, just throw them into encounters. Pick a set of encounters from a random module so that it'd be balanced to what Paizo expects a party of that level to face.
I feel like they were trying too much to balance the encounters to the strengths of both parties, when really it should be balanced to "what would be considered a regular encounter".
I love the final take of how in 2E the aim is to optimise the party rather than the character
It is one of the main reasons I vastly prefer this edition to 1E where I had to deal with players trying to optimise all the time and tread on the toes of their party members and it lead to some internal griping.
As a player in 2E some of our synergy is great. Have a combat manoeuvre focused swashbuckler and my rogue with a spear and opportune backstab (and preparation to sometimes give extra reaction). The swashbuckler runs in a basically pins a caster to ground making spells impossible and the rest of us beat it up. As part of attempts to grapple and trip I get to attack. And that is just synergy of 2 - let alone a full party
Awesome video. That's a fascinating test you ran.
Thanks, that was illuminating! I love how this system makes the party win by synergies between different classes. The strongest is a well built party that has both casters and martials. No one overshadows the other.
They do though right? I mean you buff the fighter and debuff the monster, and the fighter becomes a glorious gore covered hero, while you are eating a sammich and reading your texts. If my fighter can chop a head off an enemy, I want my caster to be equally capable of blowing the head off an enemy. The fighter certainly seems to overshadow the caster in that sense.
@@JohnLentSelflessHero The martial cannot, however, rewrite someone's mind, puppeteer people, change how reality is perceived, unironically curse someone or cause weather calamities. That sounds epic.
@@goncalocarneiro3043 i admit I have not played PF2 enough to see how those features were brought over. Certainly in 5e D&D, those kinds of things are very possible for casters, but mechanically, the way most adventures work, they don't focus on things like that. The "evil NPC" casters might be causing weather calamities, creating massive illusions to terrify people, puppeteer kinds etc. But the nature of the slot based system in 5e and the way the adventures are written discourages PCs from taking those kinds of spells except for a few of the most egregiously unbalanced ones (Mass Suggestion, Im looking at you).
@@JohnLentSelflessHero In PF2 most spellcasters have access to "Focus Spells", which use Focus Points. Those are usually your strongest "signature" spells and you can cast them once per combat basically, since there's an action to Refocus, which restores 1 focus point if you have none. Those give you a net, on top of cantrips. On the topic of being "cool", a second level spell lets you make someone starve for a week, giving them exhaustion, starvation (duh) and ticks away their max HP on top. That's cool, no? There's a first level spell that makes an enemy repeat their next turn twice, or become stupefied if they can't. That's cool.
@@goncalocarneiro3043 "starve for a week" is exactly the kind spell that is useless in a typical game session. Likewise, a "delaying" spell that an enemy can opt of is not actually effective compared to just removing him-her from the battlefield with damage.
In game design, you need to take a step back and think about how most people will play that part of the game, and most of the time, its just a tactical sim like Warhammer 40K. You don't need 30 different conditions and complicated rule interactions to have an evenly balanced and enjoyable tactical combat experience.
Like, combats in most RPGs like this could be replaced with like Magic the Gathering style cards where you just whack at each other with a small set of rules (and that is very much the only strength of 4e).
Effects that alter people or environments over days are simply not valuable in most PF or D&D games - they are "action" style RPGs, not storytelling ones.
The whole event has been awesome, and this is a really nice way to sum it up!
Think I'd have been more interested if you took the two parties through the same dungeon, and compare how the 2 teams did, think that would be a better comparison tool. But thanks for the continued efforts none the less :)
Going from 5e to pf2e, I hate how casters work. I like 5e having you allowed to just upcast.
Great video! i've always broke it down in my head to 5e is great for casual players since in a party, you realy only need 1 person to know what they are doing to succeed. everyone can focus on themselves and it will all sorta work out even if their build is unoptimized. Where pathfinder 2e is more gamey in the sense that you really need good team synergy and more people need to know what they are doing since one party member can't just hard carry a run. everyone needs to pitch in!
Love the (new?) background image, Ronald.
I wonder how this would have changed if both parties were composed of characters they had actually played before, so that there would be no hyperoptimization around PVP combat
I have no idea why a pvp contest would actually answer the question, anyhow. Its a fun event, but it doesn't nothing for this question for me.
Coming from D&D, it's the flexible casting that chafes for me. I find myself memorizing all combat spells. I miss having the ability to be flexible so I can bring utility, as well as a variety of damage types. It's not about less or more powerful, it's about being flexible enough to react to what you see rather than try to anticipate what the DM is going to do. It's about fun, not power.
Agreed, there's so much flexibility with the rest of PF 2e that looking at prepared spellcasting mechanics looks unnecessarily restrictive, especially when anticipating something big coming up in-game, like a boss fight or a hard dungeon crawl. It's not always down to a lack of preparedness, either, it just feels restrictive to have resources go to waste when they are needed most simply because a spell that seemed like it would come in handy just wasn't needed, while a different (already prepared, simply used) spell of the same level could have made all the difference. Some people enjoy that level of planning and careful thought, and that's perfectly okay, but it shouldn't mean that anyone who finds that to be stressful should just 'play a different class' because wizard just isn't for them or druid isn't for them etc... It's a role-playing game, and with the 3-Action balance and spell slots in play, home-ruling for more flexible casting shouldn't do too much to hurt the balance of play, so long as everyone is on board at the table, after all, you are still limited to whatever you've studied or meditated on in the morning, and you do still only have a certain amount of 'mana', the only difference is that if you end up needing to rely on a couple spells more than anticipated, you can do so.
@@Bookluver29 Gotta disagree with you there. Changing prepared casting in PF2 opens a whole can of worms. Several feats become completely useless, Sorcerers become useless as they are basically just wizards with less spells, less spell slots and no heightened spells now. Prepared casters also become way to powerful as they have way too many spell slots now (prepared casters are balanced towards some spell slots going to waste).
If you feel unable to prepare spells, then there's a chance, you're playing pathfinder wrong. The game expects you to do some research before you enter a dungeon. Ask locals, visit a library or do recall knowledge checks. Then you can prepare roughly for the kind of encounters you are about to see. Your DM should encourage this style of play. Another aspect that many DnD players seem to completely ignore are scrolls. Make scrolls of your more situational spells so that you don't have to keep them prepared all the time. That way you'll have them when you need them. There's also feats that let you swap out a spell slot over the course of 10 minutes.
in short, prepared casters are about being prepared. If you don't want to do that, then you're playing the wrong class. I mean, you wouldn't play a fighter if you want to sling around spells all day. So, why does everyone expect to be able to play prepared casters if they don't want to prepare?
The problem with prepared casters isn't only that it restricts the caster themselves. It restricts the GM too. If you want to run a red dragon, hoo wee oh boy do you better have some way of foreshadowing it. You can't just randomly surprise your party by having the BBEG have a red dragon as a pet, otherwise your Wizard who's prepared half his spellslots with fire spells is going to be weeping.
Oh? You prepared for this? Your Wizard doesn't usually prepare damage spells, so it's fine? What are you going to do if they decide that Scorching Ray sounds fun, actually, and they want to switch things up a little since the boss fight's coming up? Punish them for trying new things by chucking the red dragon at them? Throw away your prep and change it to a green dragon instead? Slyly advise them to not pick fire spells through some other contrivance?
So, for spontaneous casters, as I understand it, you can't cast heighten versions of spells unless you know the spell at the heightened level, but you are able to cast the spell in any of its lower level versions below the level you know the spell at. So for example, knowing Magic Missle at 3rd level will still allow you to spontaneously cast a 1st level Magic Missle.
For prepared casters, they are limited to the spells they prepare in each spell slot they have, but they can prepare the same spell in multiple slots.
That is correct! However the spontaneous casters can also pick a signature spell when they gain a new spell level that they can then cast with ANY of their slots!
@@spider0804 "Signature Spells Level 3
You’ve learned to cast some of your spells more flexibly. For each spell level you have access to, choose one spell of that level to be a signature spell. You don’t need to learn heightened versions of signature spells separately; instead, you can heighten these spells freely. If you’ve learned a signature spell at a higher level than its minimum, you can also cast all its lower-level versions without learning those separately. If you swap out a signature spell, you can choose a replacement signature spell of the same spell level at which you learned the previous spell. You can also retrain specifically to change a signature spell to a different spell of that level without swapping any spells; this takes as much time as retraining a spell normally does."
**cough**
@@spider0804 No, that's literally from the Sorcerer, level 3 class feature, and it was already there last year. You should have just read on.
>u want to have both martials and casters in your party
Who do u want to have MORE of in the party?
Yes, they did. They should have made non-casters better instead of nerfing casters.
They did both. The mechanics make non-casters incredibly more effective while the nerfs make casters pure support characters who must work together in tandem to support the fighter while taking a break from darning the fighter's socks and making her or him sandwiches.
What level was your test? We've been playing through one of the 2e adventure paths over the last couple years and are now at level 13 and the weaknesses in casters seem to be exacerbated at higher levels. It feels like the gap comes from the lack of items that give bonuses to ranged magical attack or spell DC. Generally the attack bonuses and DCs on casters is a "rank" behind the martial equivalent /and/ don't have magic bonuses to bolster them. Against monsters a couple levels higher than the party they are most useful in "casting fighter at the monster" rather than direct attack themselves. It feels pretty lame for the casters.
The test was at Level 4. There's been a good bit of discussion about casters' attack bonuses feeling lower than martials. I've seen a number of points raised:
1. Casters are able to target any save DC in addition to AC. With Recall Knowledge they can leverage 5 or greater point swing (more than a +3 potency rune)
2. Casters can cast spells that have an effect on a "failure"
3. Casters generally have more versatility in what they can do overall, including target energy weaknesses and controlling the battlefield.
4. Casters shine in AOE damage versus low-level enemies.
This experiment highlighted some of these strengths.
And it also showed that the martials and casters needed each other. Each fulfills a "role" within the party. If the caster players don't like this style of play, maybe they can go Magus or Summoner, which lets them do some direct single-target damage with a high attack bonus?
I have a homebrew rule that casters get a single +1 item to spell atks and DCs at 13th level. That is the biggest gap between proficiencies.
And at lvl 20 that means that both standard martials weapons and standard casters spells end up with the same bonus.
That's rough. I've been told that things get getter for the casters at higher level, but it seems that they're not.
High level casters are getting access to a lot of absolutely debilitating debuffs that slap ass even if the enemy succeeds their save. (Synesthesia may be the most obvious example, but it's far from the only one), as well as AoE versions of incapacitation spells to deal with groups of enemies below the party level. In my experience casters can absolutely wipe the floor at higher levels as a result.
@@FelineElaj In my experience casters tend to eclipse martials in combat by the late midgame/lategame, though not nearly as severely as they do in 5e or Pathfinder 1E (see comment above for an explanation why this might be the case). This is a pretty common sentiment among other people I've spoken to who have a lot of experimence with the system, though not everyone will have the same experience obviously. It's possible dahob's party is using strategies that don't work so well with casters, or that the people I've played with favor strategies that work better with casters than martials.
Re: the event, I think a better test would just be to test a standard fighter against a monster at a given level and a wizard against the same monster, and do that at like 4 different levels. Then measure how many rounds the combat takes.
Did the martials occur to make an alchemist? Because it is not a caster and can heal and target weaknesses
I checked the rules. Alchemist wasn't allowed. I haven't watched the entire video, I think it is just because they don't neatly fit as either caster or martial.
Not a fan of the incapacitation trait
I get the point in the name of balance, but for me it's like the legendary resistances in D&D 5e, aka a way for powerful individual to "cheat" the established system so they can't get unlucky and beaten too easily...and that always feels more like a video game mechanic based on the fact that the DM doesn't want their boss to lose fast than a rp mechanic based on the logic of how magic works in this univers.
I really would've preffered that they get rid of the save or suck spells altogether because now what usually ends up happening is "Players can use those spells on ennemies they woudl've mos tlikely beaten easily anyway, but bosses can use them on players to kill them on a unlucky roll at any point" which doesn't sound fair to me.
I think it is very much in flavor for fantasy settings that more powerful creatures are harder to defeat. For damaging spells, or damage in general, they have more hit-points. For incapacitang spells, they are better able to just shrug off the effect either reducing or ignoring the magic.
Adding level into the proficiency calculation for everything you do already HEAVILY limited the level range of what you're fighting.
it allows a dm to win an encounter without killing the party so long as he creates some sort of fix for the incapacitation.
Balance = Making the game less fun.
@@steakdriven "Balance = Making the game less fun" late on the wagon but I don't agree at all, this is a stupid maxim. I certainly wouldn't play D&D if a moondruid could shapeshift into a T-Rex in lvl 1 and go like this for an entire day, I also wouldn't play D&D if a mage got to cast every known spell at will and so on. Balance IS important and IS necessary. Otherwise go play storyteller, there are no rules to hinder you there.
Why does "control the fundamental forces of the universe" beat out "hit things with stick?!"
Casters at high level have always been powerful. It makes up for low level suck. And most games don't get to high level.
The fundamental problem I have with the 2E and 5E magic rules is called spell slots. I don't like that spells succeed automatically. In my ideal RPG, casting spells requires you to roll dice, just like fighters need dice to smash things. to establish balance between fighters and spell casters, I think of risk management. Spell casters play with the foundations of reality and while they could cast spells as often as they wanted, the system should be designed so that they didn't want to, as failure could have drastic consequences.
The only thing I think is over the top is the incapacitation rule. The system is so tight it's not needed. The lack of single action spell options also hurt
There are some single action spells, but yeah not many.
I understand. But think of it the other way - how would it feel if Level 1 NPC casters could incapacitate Level 5 party members? I think it's an overall positive.
Imagine you are a 4 man level 11 party and there are 12 7th level caster enemies (a severe encounter)
They all use confusion causing your martials to fight on their side due to one bad die roll of which they had 4 chances to fail each and polymorphed the wizard.
That would pretty much be a TPK a lot of the time and the party just needs to roll low on 1/4 of the saves.
Incap is where it needs to be to prevent abuses of the system and keep balance across both sides of the GM screen
@@SwingRipper in your extreme example none of the characters have the resolve trait. Also the get a shake chance at eot. Meanwhile if the wizard gets a spell off the group likely gets fried by chain lightning. Yes the dm can set up BS but, the spells themselves are usually only encounter ending on crit fails which is very unlikely attacking someone at +4 lvls. Trying to play a mentalist right now is a disappointment and, imo Inc spells are terrible to specialize in because, when it really matters they don't pull their weight.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I think incapacitation trait should just compare character levels. Having all your incapacitation spells need to be heightened to max to be remotely useful is extremely lame and even worse how am I supposed to know what level an enemy is when targeting such spells? I think these spells are nerfed to the point of being not worth using at all honestly.
Love the video but IMO the music is a bit distracting and makes it difficult to follow. IMO the music should be more background appropriate: quieter, flatter and subtler. The choice of music here reminds me too much of the overhead pan from LotR while Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas are running across Rohan chasing Pippin and Merry which I don't think is the feeling you are going for.
Ah, thanks for the feedback. I wanted a dramatic opening but probably should have toned it down for the explainy majority of the vid.
Just a question did you count alchemist as a caster here? Because it sounded that way
For that expirement alchemist was allowed for both sides but magus and summoner were banned for both sides
You're the first rules lawyer I would actually like having in my game. ;)
If armor worked like armor it wouldn't be an issue. Since most spellcasters -- especially arcane -- cannot wear armor the advantage of martial vs spellcaster is very simple: Martial gets to wear armor, and if they get hit they don't die. If casters get hit they die... or get hurt a lot more. Biggest issue I have with all versions of D&D (and Pathfinder). You can give someone a sword, and ask them to hit someone in full armor, and unless the person with the sword knows how to defeat the armor all they are going to do is blunt the sword.
My best casters have all been support builds with a few evocation spells. So field manipulation, buffs, and area control. Not glass cannons.
Also I hate the nerf to haste. It is my favorite spell to abuse.
What about idea of non-balanced team (heavy martial or spellcasting party)? Is it playable if players choose this variant of team or in PF2 they bounded by need of all mechanics that they can reach?
(Sorry for poor English :с )
Depends on the GM imo. If the GM balances the enemies based on the non-balanced party, than I don't think this will be much of a problem.
However, if the GM makes enemies to counter the parties weaknesses, than that can definitely be a problem.
I think both are viable. I've GMed perhaps a dozen parties in PF2 by now, and I've seen parties strongly leaning in one direction do alright. I actually DID see a mostly-martials team suffer when they didn't have much in-combat healing. However, martials CAN become excellent in-combat healers in PF2, so that has more to do with how they failed to account for their weaknesses as a group. (Underscoring again the main point in the video of optimizing the party in PF2.)
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG To jump on this, I've run pure martial parties, and it's doable as long as the martials change tactics and character strategy a bit. With the presence of casters martials can afford to be a bit more aggressive since spells can make them stronger and the enemy weaker, but with no casters the only real buffs are Raise a Shield and Take Cover and the only real debuffs are athletics maneuvers and demoralize. Without casters, we found that the maneuvers in particular were vital, and basically everyone needed to be able to use shields or something similar (i.e. +AC weapon feats). And medicine + battle medicine was basically mandatory, as was buying and using potions.
But when played more defensively with a focus on synergizing athletics and intimidation, a pure martial party is actually pretty strong, as long as there is a variety of builds (and at least one ranged specialist). We found it was a bit less reliable than a mixed party as it could be fairly swingy...if the martials rolled high, encounters would often be over incredibly fast, and if they rolled low (or were fighting something resistant to martial attacks) and the GM rolled high they could very quickly start dropping and get into TPK territory. Casters add a lot of stability and reliability.
We did try an all caster one shot but found it ran out of resources too fast. A lot of spells really boost martial damage and martials have "unlimited" attacks, and cantrips aren't strong enough to really take advantage of buffs or debuffs to get that strong synergy. As such, a large number of the casters had to load up on and regularly use damage spells, and while the first 2-3 encounters were pretty easy they'd be out of gas way faster than in a mixed party. It was absolutely viable but it didn't feel as strong to us as the mixed party, and having all casters with fairly low HP and defenses was pretty scary any time tough enemies managed to reach the PCs.
Our basic conclusion is that mixed parties, especially the 2-caster and 2-martial combos, are generally going to be the "strongest" (or at least most reliable) cooperative style. But there's so much variance and so many scenarios where different ratios and class compositions would be better it's really hard to say...I've seen parties with 3 casters and 1 martial do amazing and parties with 3 martials and 1 caster do the same. It's more about the actual synergy between the classes and the players as "caster" and "martial" are pretty wide categories and the balance is close enough it doesn't make a massive difference to how well a party does. Really, the "worst" parties are probably just 4 of the same class with very similar builds, especially if those are specialist builds (i.e. 4 fighters or 4 wizards would probably be tough), mainly because it's very hard to create synergy with so little variance in specialty.
Late answer; Based on my own experiences with the game, I think pure martials are more or less viable at low levels, but fall apart at higher levels unless you start getting really resourceful with magic item item use and using feats to cover up party weaknesses.
Conversely, I think full caster parties will really struggle early on depending on which casters you bring in. For instance, I think a full party of wizards would just die horribly but if you mix in Animal Druids and Summoners their chances start looking a lot better. By the midgame, I think full caster parties are almost as viable as mixed parties. In the very late game, I would probably take a full caster party over a mixed party.
In Pathfinder 1 E I would give the party about 4 encounters per game day. It really wasn't hard to find reasons they would not want to put things off for a day. (You need to rescue so and so before sundown when the ritual takes place, etc.)
This made the caster keep his spells reserved. he needed to prepare spells that could help in social encounters as well as combat. He would usually have a high reliance on wands to keep up attacks, and scrolls would have those spells that didn't get used often (saving a spell slot).
The four encounters threatened being spell burnt, but that was avoided with planning and some magic items like wands.
Meanwhile the fighter was just hanging out without issue. Sure he had less hp points at the end of the day, but he was always able to swing a sword.
Pathfinder 2Eseems to need less encounters per day to be a challenge for the caster.
I don't know what levels you were playing at in PF1, but things got to a point in Level 17+ in my groups that an oracle (with 6+ NINTH level spell slots) really didn't have much of a resource management issue. Yeah, so one of the other considerations behind nerfing casters in PF2e was part of a larger plan to tone down the power and importance of burnable daily resources. Hence in PF2e classes having focus spells, and scalable cantrips. It means that you can start challenging the party from bump, and not have to wait for 6+ encounters to pass, 5e being the prime example where, past a certain point, you have to go through several combats before the party starts to feel any real challenge.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG That makes a lot of sense with what I am seeing so far. I am still new to 2E and am still adjusting how I run the game to get the best experience from the system.
Do you have a playlist for this Martials vs Casters? I can only find the rematch on his channel.
Casters have fewer spell slots, average saving throws mean a caster has about a 50% chance of the spell having full effect (against an opponents weakest saving throw), and spells that require an attack roll are less likely to hit as there is no way to increase the accuracy of them. Incapacitation means that spells are almost useless against "boss" mobs. Casters essentially get fewer actions per round due to action economy. There is no question that casters have been massively nerfed. The role of casters now appears to be to buff melees, but even buffs look weak to me. When you have a 5th level fighter with +16 to hit and your caster can burn a once daily resource to grant +1 to hit (for one round), this is something like a 3% bonus. Pathfinder monsters also have such huge too hit bonuses that penalties to their to hit appear pointless, not to mention that they are pretty unlikely to fail a saving throw. I think the real question becomes "is everyone having fun?" and I think the answer is "when there are tons of threads, videos, posts, discussions, about whether or not casters are underpowered it suggests that people are not in fact having so much fun playing casters." The other issue is that the game is intended to have people work as a team. What team role do you enjoy? Being the hero? Or giving tiny buffs to the hero with hopes that all your tiny buffs will add up and make melee's more effective? Even the example given relies on casters using scrolls, crafting skills, clever planning, etc. so that they haven't used many resources by the time of the "PVP" encounter. Also, this isn't a PVP game so the entire exercise is kind of pointless. Players don't fight each other---they work together to overcome challenges.
Amazing content!!!
The problem is that they turned the casters into support and this is not a competitive game not a lot of people enjoy playing the heal bitch or being the buff machine accentuating the heroics deeds of the mighty warrior.
Also they suck at buffing. From experiencing 2e your buffs almost never matter and you would have been much more useful if you were another fighter. Buff casters in 2e pathfinder are basically an personified version of D&D5e's truestrike spell.
@@robinheinemann1740 Are you exclusively talking about buffing, or about buffing and debuffing? Because debuffing affects the battle quite heavily and is really fun.
@@XMaster340 How fun it is is really subjective of course, people who act like PR for path finder usually just assert it but is very hard to take that as an argument.
But the casters are objectively worse that the fighters in 2e and in general the whole things seems balanced like an MMORPG something that should be obvious is a bad idea since DND 4e.
I can still remember being a caster meant you had to go into a deadly dungeon in your pyjama and one single memorised spell....
I find divine casters seem to get it especially rough and just from a moment to moment experiential perspective, I have a very rough time going into this system since it seems often when looking at spells that individual spells are nerfed hard from previous versions seemingly just for the sake of it and it hurts spell variety quite a lot in the early levels. Most divine spells at level one and two are pretty lackluster apart from magic weapon and basic healing (not saying they're useless, but there's a big 'oomph' disparity), which doesn't feel good as a place for classes that were previously very diverse to be. And really that's sort of my opinion on PF2e (divine, I played a wizard and that seemed fine) casters. They're probably balanced... fine. But I think what I'm concerned about is if they feel fun in practice while getting nickel and dimed to bring them into line.
Exactly, how much fun people are having playing the game is more important than what is more balanced
Yes. Yes they did. I say this confidently because a party of martials can get by. A party of casters dies quickly
Did you play D&D 4th Edition? Did you like it? I really liked that edition. I understand it moved away from classic D&D but I loved the system of ability uses (per day, per scene, etc) and certain mechanics. I loved for example the taunt mechanic for tanks.
I don't have much experience with 4e, but I want to! I started GMing during early PF1e, when there was a Great Schism between the 2 Worlds. Ironically enough, my positive experience with PF2E, hearing how it was explicitly borrowed the best parts of 4e, and hearing from people who have played both 4e and PF2e that 4e did combat better, makes me want to try it!
Not sure if I like the idea of per-encounter and per-day martial abilities, but I think I would enjoy the tactical aspect of its combat.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG In case you ever do try 4e more, WotC did come out with alternate versions of many martial classes "Essentials", that instead had stances that changed how their basic attacks worked and x/encounter adrenaline surges to make their attacks hit harder without seeming like "martial spells".
@@kevinbarnard355 Over at my discord I'll see if we can organize a game from a veteran 4e DM to demo the game for us. Tho I do think we'd stick with AEDU/original 4e unless the community thinks Essentials was a strict upgrade. Want to go with what the 4e community has a consensus is the semi-official 'ideal' experience. I hear that includes later monsters and not Monster Manual 1, for example.
That all made 4e feel and play WAY too much like a videogame. 3.5 and PF1e had a lot more flexibility than that and the lack of complexity really hurt 4e and to a lesser extent, 5e.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG As a note, the idea of not automatically scaling spell damage was in 3E, in the Psionics Handbook, among other (later) sources, prior to 4E.
I see no reason to compare Martial vs Caster in PvP fight, because it is about Player vs DM / Paizo adventure encounter. And being caster even at 14th level in fight with strong enemy. It so frustrating, when your spell DC is almost equal as save bonuses, and spell attack is too low about 4-6 behind martials, who can hit and deal damage even higher. But you have versatility to get into weaknesses or weak saves. And you have limited resources, little bit less armor, weaker saves and initiative
The answer here seems to me that "When prepared, casters are both more versatile, defensive and power than melee characters."
I get there is more nuance but come one. Is this not the EXACT expected outcome?
Was any penalty given for performing slower in certain challenges, or dying faster?
A more Fair competition would be running a set of standard modules and simply seeing sudden all magic oranole Marshall group does better, and that could be even compared against a mixed group
What would be a simple way to make casters more powerful in 2E if you wanted to? Add a bonus to spellcasting DC/spell attack rolls?
The way it's currently set up is tied with the greater ease for GMs to balance encounters. I've seen it suggested to give casters one more spell slot per spell level which doesn't seem game breaking. Giving them the equivalent of "automatic bonus progression" for their DCs is another. However, it does mean skewing things more toward the casters if their players are playing optimally. Remember that martials don't have "success on a failure" effects as casters do, or the casters' ability to target a creature's weakest defense. Or perhaps you WANT a "higher level casters are stronger" arc in your story. If your group is okay with the changes then that's the only answer you need.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPGSo you're casters know that stats of each monster and can use that meta knowledge to keep up with fighters? I don't give out my monters stats, so they don't start the fight knowing what their best spell is for each one. So they often times waste a spell or two figuring it out. Just another reason to never play PF2.
@@whitemagus2000 I mean, if your an adventuring party going after a specific creature, the logical thing to do would be to at least research lore on the creature. Or you could just let casters, I don't know do arcane, religion, history or nature checks to figure it out
@@whitemagus2000 It's called using the "Recall Knowledge" action.
@@whitemagus2000 No, that's not what he means. He simply means that casters have access to spells that can target a variety of saves and elemental damage types, whereas martials typically do not. Even with a magical weapon, a martial is limited to dealing one type of damage, whereas a caster could cast fireball/lightning bolt/cloudkill/polymorph/dominate monster, etc as needed. So casters can "target a creature's weakest defense" (even if they have to figure it out) compared to, say, a barbarian with a great axe.
So one thing Im going to disagree with, you said in conclusions, that you dont optimize character you optimize party, but in my experience most players arent willing to put aside Ego to that degree to change characters or sync up builds.
That would mean that your players aren't willing to optimize, not that optimization doesn't come from party composition.
The takeaway is alchemist need a buff 💪💪💪💪
What's that song at the end of the video?
What fun! I don't support the casters vs martials mentality. I do however adore power fantasy where casters can bend reality and destroy foes while martials can blender targets. Seeing the dragon made me excited to GM and run monsters.
Once you have the later splatbooks that give martials their goodies, PF1E martials are actually well-balanced with casters in combat. They are significantly more specialized, but are exceedingly proficient within that specialty and have enough options to get around their problems. In a team-based game that kind of specialization is not a problem, and a lot of people do prefer a more straightforward combat playstyle anyways. While it's true that you'd probably have a harder time getting away with a party of 4 Fighters than a party of 4 Wizards (not at all surprised with the outcome of your event), you will rarely see that and the GM can compensate for such an unusual party composition. The real question is whether the Fighter can contribute as an equal to the Wizard, and at least in combat he definitely can.
The issue with caster/martial disparity is when we step off the battlefield, into a situation where violence is not the solution. Once you do that, many PF1E martials are little more than glorified commoners, and in most cases a grand total of zero of your class features will be helpful to the situation. This doesn't mean you can't contribute, it just means your class is offering you nothing in these aspects of the game. Casters, on the other hand, will often have a useful utility spell for any given situation. And when it comes to magical items, casters get cheap scrolls and wands for an even bigger toolkit at a more cost-effective price. Focusing on combat misses where the actual discrepancy is.
I'd just allow prepared casters to use 5e rules. It wont break the game.
I love in this video he's in the chamber of table top law
i hate that a wizard loses the prepared spell when he uses it and have basicly to prepare like the same spell several times a day :/
I'm still kinda bummed about how undertuned a lot of utility spells feel in PF2e. They don't solve problems; they merely lend a hand or open up some options. While well-deserved in many cases, and balanced against non-casters, it often feels like the spells don't live up to their name.
Take Zone of Truth for example - in 5e, it does precisely what it says on the tin, which, yes, invalidates anyone else investing in Insight. However, it also creates an interesting "magical rule" for the setting: the only one who can verify whether someone is affected by ZoT is the caster themselves, so _their_ motives and agendas are put under a microscope. Can they be trusted? Are they impartial? Would they have a vested interest in the witness incriminating themselves? Who can verify that? Maybe they should be put under ZoT. But then, whoever interrogates them under ZoT is now under scrutiny. Whom would a legal system trust with this power?
In PF2e, you don't know whether the interviewee failed their save or not, so anything they tell you is just as suspect. It's a Zone of Slightly More Likely Honesty.
I can understand where you're coming from. The counter, though, is trivializing the importance of skills. What use is a Legendary Thief at Level 15, when 1st level Unlock spell can open things automatically? Or having a legendary Perception to sense a lie from a high-level Investigator? It shares the spotlight with non-casters, which in my book is a net positive.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG You miss the point. Spells can only be cast a limited number of times per day unlike skills. You bring out Zone of Truth when you want to be CERTAIN of the truth.
Making apologies or excuses for weak magic doesn't cut it.
@@simonfernandes6809 That argument would make sense in an unusual campaign where the party has to be certain of the truth several times a day, then the caster doesn't make the skills superfluous. In the usual campaign, however, the limitation on castings to solve utility/skill problems is not a factor.
going into dnd 5e a while back. I did a ton of homebrewing for the non caster of the group with my kids
i thought i had overpowered the Fighter way to much, with all the extra scaling I gave it (fighting styles scaling with proficiency etc)
but already at lvl 2 and 3 i see the complete ludicrousness of casters, we don't run bonkers multiclass casters either.
i could literally let the fighter use his combat maneuvers all day long without a resource (i did homerule it to 1 maneuver per action) and it wouldn't matter. the sorcerer casting web then using thunderwave to push them back into the web set the tone for the entire boss encounter and pretty much let them pick off targets one by one.
so having "balanced" classes is very important to me as a DM i don't want to have to tailor every encounter specifically in such a way that the fighter doesn't fall behind.
it feels inorganic and forced.
inspire courage is a math enhancer for the whole party... +1 to hit and damage
Who won in the martial vs caster debate? The gish ofc
I don't think the classes have to be 100% balanced as long as everyone can find their role and use within the party.
The optimal is if a mixed party is stronger than both a 100% martial party and a 100% caster party.
P.S. It could be interesting to run the same event in 5e.
i dont think it would be interesting in 5e the casters should win this every time (if you dont allow mixed martials like subclasses with spells or feats with spells)
@@klauskeller6380 Hopefully they party works together and wins as a group.
This is 100% correct. The best way to measure how well done a character is is by seeing how fun they are to play. For me, the fun of a caster is having SOO many options at any given time. Do I want to do a lot of damage, or do I want to make all the enemies suck and super vulnerable, or do I want to make my allies feel like gods, or do I want to completely shut down that flanking group that's threatening us with a pincer maneuver.
Looking at 2E and just running numbers in my head (haven't played a lot), I feel like casters will often be spending a MUCH more limited resource to more often just fail to really do much of anything to anyone. Having a lot of options but knowing that most of them won't do squat isn't fun for me.
My standing caveat on this is what I mentioned above. I haven't had a chance to actually PLAY much, so this is just looking at numbers. Feel free to correct me.
@@colinsmith1495 sounds like you want to play solo rpg's where you can be the strongest human in the universe. in multiplayer games what is fun for you will be bad experiences for others.
@@klauskeller6380 Seriously.
Players like this want to be able to do everything, and do it better than classes specialized in those things. There's no way to play with other people and have that work.
If a class has a ton of options that overlap other classes niches - those options need to be strictly weaker than the class specific options, or they need to be significantly more expensive. It's "Jack of all trades, master of none".
I'd really love to see a system with way more specialized casters - something along the lines of picking a specialty school and then having to stay within that school. You want to channel raw power and throw a ball of fire? Great - but that means you don't have the finesse to handle magically undoing a lock.
The casters won with a absurd thingamabob strategy that involved exploiting the environment around them, avoiding direct contact. Like casters should do.
What a great system
The martials however poorly utilized the terrain so that's a wash, also terrain is absolutely out of the control of the player. Wide open rooms are wide open rooms, narrow windy tunnels are narrow windy tunnels.
"To make a given spell like fireball and magic missile more powerful, one has to use a more powerful resource" - and that's TERRIBLE.
In my experience every conclusion you have drawn from this experiment is also something that is true in 5e. Maybe it's true to a lesser extent in 5e... I don't know, not enough experience in PF2e. But these are all things I have experienced and heard from 5e optimizers before.
This is a GREAT video, and I'm gonna have to show this to my players.
They will totally appreciate you choosing the 1 video where the casters prevailed and not the OTHER video where the casters got plastered to tell them that they are having fun wrong.
Go with a Windsor knot next time, classic style and keeps the tie from distracting. Great upload and good points.
So I have played very little of Dnd, and of pathfinder (though I’m in a 2e game now).
It was honestly so sad how many dnd stories I read about the rogue wanting to something sneaky, but then the wizard broke out a spell that negated it. Or a read a story where a DM put in flying enemies, hoping the spellcaster would make the martials fly to do damage, but nope, they cast it on themselves and the martials were stuck on the group unable to do anything.
One thing I love about pathfinder 2e is that martials have actual options. In my one dnd game I was a barbarian, and now that I know about 2e, I kind of hate the dnd barbarian. So many flavorful options, and I can have at least more dimension than just “I move, I hit it”.
I’m a bard now in 2e (many reasons, partially because I wanted the opposite experience of my dnd game where I felt useless outside of combat). Only at level 2, and it is frustrating having so few spells, and I am paranoid that I’m going to accidentally waste a spell (fortunately dm is nice and will say if something just flat-out ain’t gonna work) or that it just won’t really matter. I do envy our ranger’s frequent critting. Do with the spellcasting proficiency scaled with martials a bit more, or maybe at low levels you start with a few extra slots (scrolls have helped somewhat). That said, I appreciate that martials are not useless in 2e, and are good at what they’re supposed to be good at. And that skills have more value.
I’m sure it does improve at later levels, when there’s more slots. I think early levels are just hard.
Tell your dm you dont want to be level 2 for several months, life is precious, you dont get it back.
PF2E scales well to 20, shoot for the stars man.
Spells get pretty crazy as they go, and your paranoia will fade as you get more slots.
The occult list was a blast on my bard which was a halfling with cooperative nature from adopted ancestry, and maestro bard.
I regularly gave people +7 to hit with inspire heroics and helpful halfling.
To make people pretty much auto crit is an amazing thing.
I love the test you guys did, and the analysis even better! Super interesting
the test was horribly biased
It really seems like the 2 are more balanced than in 5E, and measuring their strength with PVP is still very weird and very different to any actual campaign.
Best lesson I heard from this video was "This is a stupid debate."
great movie! thx.
They need to figure out the parties roles, eg casters should be good at taking out a large number of lower level enemies whilst fighter should be good at 1v1 against tough enemies so casters aim to keep the weak enemies off the fighter and give them boosts and provide utility like investigating magic etc. Fighters can branch into 1v1ers and tanks, rogues utility and backstabbing.
I think that limits options far too much. The 1v1 wizard or the fighter who takes on the whole bar are both tropes that are common in fiction that players would likely want to play on the table top. Deliberately restricting this seems like a major lost opportunity.
@@TonkarzOfSolSystem pathfinder seems to have gone with thousands of feats to achieve that. It's almost easier to just make distinct classes which is kind of what dnd has done. Eg fighter can be broken down further to tank/glass cannon subclasses that have unique abilities eg glass cannon is good at disabling and doing mass damage, tank has high defenses which counter and let's them fight off crowds etc
Caster's are great at taking out a group of irrelevant mobs like 6 levels lower than the party.
We just had this talk, but our group find it a problem when we add a new player who is not a team player and trying to be the star. What would be really halpfull is more content telling and showing how to work as sniping duo without the archetype.
Have you seen my Tactics videos yet? That was an early focus of this channel.
This is so awesome!
Naturally, he didn't bother elaborating on the simulation where the Martials won, that would be fair!
I'm playing a Lvl3 Bard and having a blast (full buff/debuff, no damage). Coming from 5e I will admit I don't have much experience playing yet.
I was sad when I first heard that in pf2 gish are weaker than pure martials. That casters are not that good at dps but the more I play/learn and the more I find that untrue.
In the video, SwingRipper says that the strat "casters playing martials" falls after lvl5 and I don't see why it would ?
The Caster team won facing the Martials "best stats", their accuracy, by boosting their ac and I'm not sure why this would not work later in the game ? When you are higher level it means you have more spells to burn through. Using Blur, Mirror Image or a 4th lvl Invisibility greatly upgrade your resilience. In some combat a simple fly means you're taking 0 hits.
You for sure have less hit point but to me healing seems like a great source of damage mitigation. (used 2 lvl2 Sooth last night to heal 4d10 + 24 total. My Swashy went from down to full in 2 turns) Many caster can have access to Heal. When you have lots of low lvl spell slots to burn (such as a higher level caster) Heal seems like a great usage of a third action to regain 1/2/3d8 per turn.
If you add to that Summons, great sustained spells and "form spells" (such as "Fey Form" and the like) you only really need to "strike" once per turn, when you have no map. Given all the ways you can enhance a strike, even this might be devastating.
Oh and we cannot forget items. It's true Martials get Item bonus to attacks, but Casters get Wands and Staves that gives more spell / more diverse spell. Get a staff with True Strike ; hell, make it yourself ; And spell WILL hit.
Finally, Class/Subclass matters. Wizards, Witch and Sorcerers are not the same in melee than Bards, Druids and Oracles.
I'll end my rent here. I definitely agree with the video, Casters and Martials are balanced and need each other. I love playing my full range, no damage Bard.
All I'm saying is, next campaign, I'm playing a full damage, self healing Battle Oracle, and it will be glorious !
Gishes are absolutely fine in pf2 even if you are not playing a magus or an explicit gish class!
The weapon part does fall off after level 5 but the whole caster tank thing really does not fall off until around level 17 when most martials get master armor imo
Since mages can keep up in armor proficiency by using things like sentinel or champion archetype, they can compensate for less HP via healing, and they end up not needing to deal with MAP as much.
A gish can attack and then cast a two action offensive spell thus saturating three damage actions but not needing to deal with MAP. Yea their weapon attack will be at -2 compared to pure martials but that is significantly less than the -5 of a normal multiattack penalty!
A gish is not a master of either trade, a pure caster who invested feats into other things will have more resources or versatility and a pure martial will be better at weapon damage but the ability *to do both* and avoid MAP while getting a lot of the power of a weapon is still VERY POTENT
@@SwingRipper Agreed with everything. It's silly, regarding a gish character, I thought so much about "what to do of your 3rd action" that I did not realize that, that could be a strike :O
@@SwingRipper About the weapon thing, do you think that a combination of True Strike and flat-footed would carry over level 5 ? If you have a grappler in your team for exemple or anything else that makes enemies reliably flat-footed.
Oh but then, no 2 actions cast I guess.
But still 1 action to command a summon / animal companion.
Now I wanna play a Gish :D !
I got to play a Battle Oracle(Barb Dedication) in a game recently, and while it didn't last long (Only played from lvls 1-3) It was very fun. not sure how well it would stack up to normal martials or if it would still work at later levels though. our only non-caster was a healing focused Investigator.
Nice video, sadly I am trying to get a group to enjoy PF2. One of the player loves PF1, Every time he plays he seems to state how underwhelming casting spells is for PF2... So far he has even gotten lucky blinding/stunning multiple enemies with color spray and he still felt it was weak.
Sadly I have a feeling that the game is going to end with him wanting to quit or switch systems. I let him know he has caused his allies to hit/crit quite often along and enemies to miss but that doesn't help.
I really feel like PF2 has some of the best balance allowing every character to shine and contribute to a group. There are just so many fun mechanics to use with every character.
Just might not be very him, unfortunately, if pointing out the impact he's having isn't working so far. If he wants to direct damage and have big moments he might want to go martial. But if that isn't enough he may be looking to have big overpowering SOLO moments but the game is decidedly designed not to allow for that to a great extent. I've found that there are some banger spells starting at 6th level (spell level, so 11th level character), Chain Lightning is satisfying, but that's a ways away.
One thing about casters is that they shine with AOEs against lower level enemies, so once the party is Level 3 having Level -1 monsters can show where casters really excel at annihilating enemies.
So get past level 5, accelerate the leveling, the system is amazing for spellcasters in my experience.
Your friend still DOES something if the enemy succeeds on their save if the spell is from a slot.
Once you have many slots you are doing something every round.
Stop being stuck at level 2 for months and enjoy the mid tier.
Give him a huge army of -2 or even -3 mooks to blast with AoE spells. He'll feel useful then.
actually i would say the balance is the problem. everything is super balanced yes, but because of that, a lot of the differences end up being very superficial in a way. like most martials tend to have ways to do things very similar to other martial classes in effect. when it comes to magic classes, the unique mechanics are heavily stripped down compared to 1e, to the point where something like, say, wizard and an arcane witch, may as well be the same class with slight differences.
@@saoliath5000 Um, wizard and arcane witch are *very* different, and play very differently. The only similarity is that they are int-based and share a spell list, but nearly every one of their class features is otherwise different. Wizards get more spells (4/level instead of 3/level) and are outright better at casting and casting for longer, but have very little else. Witches have special cantrips in their hexes that heavily define their play style. A witch can't afford to cast as many spells as a wizard because they don't have them, so they will spend many turns using focus spells and hexes instead, whereas wizard focus spells are generally weak and/or situational (and wizards are the only casters to never get their third focus point regen, and get the second regen at 14 instead of 12). Wizards are actually unique in that specialist wizards have more spells than any other class in the game, including sorcerers, at the cost of fewer other class features.
If you superficially glance at the class features page they may appear similar, but in actual gameplay a rune witch and a wizard are not going to be taking the same types of actions on any given turn. And if you are trying to play a witch like a wizard or vice versa you probably are going to have a rough time.
its impressive the kind of leap in power they made with casters while still making it pretty well-balanced. and imo, its way more fun, because there will rarely be a case where your entire turn goes to waste because of a succeeded saving throw or a failed attack, unlike dnd 5e. casting feels more impactful despite the nerfs, just by letting fails have a minor effect instead of an outright denial
Which software are they playing in?
Foundry VTT. I have a couple videos on my channel going into my setup
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Thank you for the quick response! :) I'll check them out too
To be fair, I just feel like drakeheart mutagen is just wayy too OP. Every +1 is important, so when it gives the caster a +4...
You leave alchemist alone we will give up our drake the moment martials take a -4 to all attack rolls and normal casters have -3/4 to save dcs and attack rolls x.x
@@THEdeadlynightshade1646 Alchemists are fine, but as this event showed the ability to replace one with a bag of gold swung things out of alignment. No need to make them with reagents or quick alchemy if your party Wizard can buy a half-dozen and have champion level AC.
@@jakem4648 that's kind of the issue Melee alchemists need this to function as melee alchemist if you're worried about the wizard doing this how about make a restriction no spell casting while under the influence rather than nurfing a class that has been routinely set as one of the lower ends of the spectrum in literally every tier list I've seen or are lowered to that once someone informs them that double Brew doesn't work with perpetual infusions
Glad i came across this. Ive dabbled a bit in both pathfinder editions, lots of 5e(cause you can find a game in about 3 minutes) and while i like a lot of how magic is handled in 2e i will die on my hill that preparing by slot is flat out bad game design. Doesnt make sense thematically, and is such a creativity blackhole its insane. Ill keep saying what I've been saying, take 5e's magic system and 2e's martials and let em have a baby. Splice both editions character creation and thats the game i want to play.
A PF2E video that finally helped me see another side of this debate. Thank you! I do have some other questions though:
1) How would you suggest avoiding the issue my family has at the table of trying to list and remember all this stuff during play?
2) How do you feel about, or would you fix, crafting RAW to make it more enjoyable and unique?
3) Do you utilize any of the "alternative" rules in the GMG for young players to compensate for a little bit of lack of feat uniqueness/redundancy in leveling?
4) Do you feel PF2E is Character-Centric (maybe even team-character-centric) over Player-Centric? If so, in what ways and how could this be adjusted and such?
Thank you very much! 👊
1) First off, are you at Level 1? If so, then the Reference Cards for basic actions that come with the Beginner Box are great for listing the fundamentals every character can do. I would then sit down with each character and have them write down (maybe this isn't good for everyone - but it's a great way to force someone to 'absorb' what they're learning) their possible combos they can do on a given round, and go through the mental process of why they would do A as opposed to B or C. Then in the course of play guiding them through the process of considering their choices. Start with a small set of theoretical possible turns (2 or 3?) before branching out further.
2) An expectations shift is in order first - PF2e is tightly balanced so as to not make crafting a way to "cheat" around the pricing system. You will not find easy ways to get things more cheaply in PF2e. The main benefit of crafting in PF2e is to gain access to items that a town or city's marketplace doesn't make available to players. As for making money via Crafting, the system is designed so that other players who aren't Crafting can still Earn Income, and the income gain is the same rate. A GM might consider removing the 4-day minimum where no $ is earned, to make it feel more equal, so long as the players don't abuse it. So I feel the practical benefit is for there to be a dedicated crafter who is able to provide the party what they need at the mid- to high levels. The advantage of crafting in PF2e is that even that LEVEL 20 item only takes 4 days to craft.
3) I don't, because my young (11-14 y/o) players are usually self-selecting and not troubled by the rules load. However for those who are, I just guide them and remind them of stuff. The No Skill Feats variant (with a caveat needed for Medicine feats, since those are essential - or alternatively adopting the Stamina variant), and the Level 0 variant are good "on ramps" for players who want to learn the system gradually.
4) Need to know more what you mean. Do you mean that your character is your sheet and its abilities, as opposed to what the Player can come up with in terms of creative actions and ideas? This is on the GM - nothing should prevent creative ideas from the Players. The fact that more things are defined for the GM should be seen as assistance to adjudicating creative ideas instead of as shackles. A common misconception is that a feat (e.g. Group Impression) means PCs without that feat CANNOT do X Thing. They can still attempt it at a penalty though, and the original action (Make an Impression) was already telling you to influence ONE creature anyway.
Print off a character sheet and write your bonuses on it, there is no need to remember anything.
Print off or buy the box of condition cards and place the cards on your character when affected by them.
The best way to nerf casters is to leak Jeremy Crawford's browsing history.
I've always argued that the problem with straight marshall characters is not that they are under powered but that they are boring to play tactically. A spell casters has numerous options in any given round as to what they want to do. Marshell characters on the other hand generally have one "good" option, i attack with my sword,ax,spear, bow...ect every round. This gets boring as a fighter after a while. And when you see the the casters doing more interesting and more impactful things. One gm i played with fixed this by say that fighter typs were fighter types and allowed them to from 1st lvl know how to fight. You could grappel, disarm, feint, fight unarmed, and a few other things without penalties. You could then take feats to become really good at certain things if you wanted too. He also gave marshell characters an extra 10 ft of movement to represent them being just physically in better physical shape. It wasn't perfect but it actually made fighters more interesting to play on a tactical level.
Spellcasters in Pathfinder 2E are far more boring to play. Do I buff the fighter so his +16 to attack becomes +17 to attack for 1 round? Or do I try to nerf the opponent so it's +26 to attack becomes +25 to attack for 1 round if it fails it's save, which it will do maybe 40% of the time?