GâtFromKI wrote:tussock wrote:Cheers, Gat. p178, missed that. But nah, that -10 is great once you can hit with it, and the Bard cantrip is better.
The bard cantrip takes one action and gives it to another character.
At best, it's a "meh OK" ability. There are time where character B may make a better usage of his actions than character A, so transfering one action from character A to character B may prove useful. But if it's always the best use of the action of character A, he should probably play as character B to have useful actions in the first place.
Even as a buffbot bard who can't do anything useful by himself, the cantrip isn't very useful since it prevents the use of Inspire courage.
And now, the punchline: the cantrip costs a feat.
So no, no one uses the cantrip because no one takes the feat. The bard spend too many feat multiclassing as a fighter to get good armor and survive the optimization hell of Path 2 to spend useless feat.
OK, so you're arguing from a rationalist perspective, about how things seem like they should work, which is a thing, but have you seen the results of concentrated buffs?
The return on moving up the RNG is very steep, and it can be
steeper the more bonuses you get, especially for Fighters who have feats to power up the hit rate on their later attacks.
Each character trying to boost their own 2nd and 3rd attack starts from lower chance to hit and less damage than the pure melee classes,
and they respond less strongly to bonuses on those later attacks.
So when the Bard uses a feat to give the Fighter a 4th attack, or an extra move to keep his 3rd, you can easily be putting out three times as many hits, at more damage per hit, with that action, compared to trying to be a shitty multiclass Fighter.
The classes seem to have spells and feats that suit their shtick. Stop thinking of the Bard as a crappy fighter, stop building him that way, he's there to inspire greatness in others, and there's at least a couple ways he can do that very well.
... Because Path 2 is an optimization hell. If you're lagging 1 point behind the max value you can can in AC or save or anything, you die quickly on a lucky critical.
No. The monster attacks just aren't doing enough damage. PCs have heaps of HPs, they're going to survive a crit and a few hits on top, from everything, and even if they go down on a streak of hits it's hero point time, no one dies.
PF2 is about contributing to a bonus stack for as many different things as players will be trying to achieve. There's probably a good one for fear effects, I suspect there's a bunch of grabby-wrestly stuff that is fairly OP, but I can't be arsed solving for it.
Every monster of level N has a higher to hit than a fighter of same level. If the monster is able to hit you on a 9+, it means he's making twice more critical than if he needs a 10+. So the strictly minimum AC you want is (10 + to hit bonus of an optimized fighter of your level + 1 or 2 or 3) - and even then, a level N+1 or N+2 monster will quickly crit you to death.
You'd think so. But again, math. The average Fighter vs the Average solo, it's a coin flip as to if using a shield or d12 weapon is better. But if you get bonuses to hit from other characters, the RNG multiplies your damage output very steeply and then the monster is dead before it can even possibly kill you on perfect dice, so the shield is rubbish. Also DR 5 once per fight is not good after like 2nd level.
You think taking crits is bad, but it's irrelevant. Failing to Voltron is bad, because then the monsters live long enough for that to matter.
#Maralith
And she's a trivial encounter. Of course the party will kill her - when 4 character are beating the shit out of an equal level . But I don't know where's you've seen it's possible to hit on a 3+ in Path 2 - an optimized fighter needs a 9+ to hit anything of his level that doesn't have any notable defense, how can it become a 3+ for everyone in your mind?
No one else matters, in a Fight they are boosting the Fighter (or whoever else is the big damage focus). They use their first attack and it hits or it doesn't, over a couple rounds that adds whatever it adds, often helps a bit. Then support the actual damage dealer.
Circumstance penalty to AC, almost always -2 AC. Flanking, whatever. -4 AC is helpless, but if they are that helps dig through the bloat too.
Conditional bonus to attack. Heroism gives +2 (+3 if desperate). Bless +1 is trivial, Inspire Courage +1 if you forgot Bless.
Circumstance bonus to attack. Assist action. Whoever has the worst damage output finishes the Voltron by giving the Fighter another +2 to attacks.
You are now hitting on a 3+ as a primary combatant, and your damage output with a big weapon is much bigger than anything else the game can put out, when you consider your allies usually still have a primary attack to add.
Optional: Conditional penalty to AC, from Sluggish. Synesthesia is the go-to at Sluggish 3 and still works 1 round on a successful save. Lots of things drop Sluggish 1 or 2, including Bombs or a Fighter feat if no one else is doing it. So can hit on a 2+/5+/10+ if you want, it's there, and it does lots and lots and lots of d12s damage.
... I'm not finished.
Yeah, so you're missing the possible buffs that PCs can add up and the monsters can't, which also tend to turn off all the monster's special attacks and spells, and you're missing just how steep the response to bonuses is.
PF2 is not about each character doing the same thing. They specialise in their own thing, and everyone else adds bonuses to it so the critical fails go away and the critical success come online. Big stacks are available by combining penalties to foes and bonuses to allies, and a character that just gives such bonuses to the party instead of attacks is a fine choice in life.
I don't think I've found the only good stack, but I found a big one, so it works extra well, and it's interesting because it takes teamwork, positioning, and the monsters can at least potentially (if not reliably) do things to disrupt the Voltron.
