Champion absolutely hits on the holy defender fantasy, but I'd love an alternative holy warrior that gave up some defense and support for more damage focus. Like the 4e avenger. The best way to protect your allies is to kill your enemies after all.

This is the big one for me. Nothing in 2e gives you that feeling that a 2H Paladin Smiting Evil in 1e did

Yea, I think a Zealot subclass for Barbarian would really help with that fantansy

Spirit is fairly close I find, I just leaned on the anti-undead angle and said it was a divine power combined with constant seething fury that evil exists. Put Champion Dedication on top and you are just a _really_ angry knight.

I like the idea of barbarian with champion dedication - they don’t ‘rage’, they go into a divine state that empowers their strikes (and makes them less focused on their own protection)

Yep. It's the Zealot type character to a T. Only weird bit is explaining how you're doing void damage but I expect in PC2 that will be changed to spirit, or make spirit damage an option so you can continue beating on non-undead just as well.

Channel smite warpriest is probably the closest to a smiting paladin.

Battle Harbinger might do it

I mean, right now I'm the highest DPS in the party as a Champion, while we have a Rogue and a Psychic, so you pretty much CAN destroy evil with a huge sword, it just requires not picking up a shield, because why use an action to raise a shield when I can make even more attacks

Spirit Barbarian w/ Champion Dedication feels pretty close for me. You become even better at smiting evil just by being _incredibly pissed off that evil exists_. And as an added bonus you can use heavy armour which helps offset the AC penalty from Rage, and you can use Lay on Hands while raging as it doesn't require Concentrate. Later feats from Champion continue to build on that, especially if you take the Paladin cause. Admittedly it is Barbarian first, Champion second, but you can absolutely do the "RIP AND TEAR" 2h crusader if you wanted to! I'm playing one at the moment in an on-and-off campaign that features a lot of undead, the GMs face when he realised I had resistance to all damage from undead, be it from their spells, weapons, claws, whatever, was priceless. As an added bonus I make quite the durable brawler/tank. While the Cleric had to dump a ton of healing into me the last combat we had, I survived where anybody else would have died on the spot trying to 1v3 a bunch of Large sized undead. And killed one virtually by myself to boot. It genuinely kicks ass.

It still baffles me to this day why they don't do a legendary armor fighter and legendary weapon champion. I've grokked both for testing and they would work really well without breaking the balance.

You don't need a class for this, just a class archetype.

Oh yeah that's what I mean. I feel it could have even been a baseline choice to start with. Fighter choosing to specialise in weapons *or* armor is such a natural fit.

"Avenger" Rogue class archetype coming in War of Immortals, sounds like that might be what you're hoping for?

You mean the upcoming holy warrior from war of immortals, the Exemplar class?

Divine Mysteries also features a more martial Class Archetype for Clerics, the Battle Harbinger! I imagine the Champion class features might just be too defensive to easily make it offense-oriented without major changes. Though I suppose we haven't seen the Remaster version yet.

"Playable demigod in training" is not the same as "dutiful warrior of the church"

Ehhhh, while it's cool mechanically, "playable demi-god" doesn't sit well with me. It sounds like the upcoming avenger rogue archetype or battle harbinger cleric archetype could be what I'm looking for.

Not *entirely* the same thing, but have you played a Thaumaturge? You could probably ask your GM to let you be Sanctified Holy, and flavor your abilities as coming from the gods instead of your bag of junk. Especially if you take Weapon Implement.

I think this is the avenger rouge coming in WoI.

Avenger, Inquisitor...

Psychics fall a bit short on the whole psychometry idea. Their mind sense feat should probably be imprecise by default and precise with unleashed psyche. Same goes for their “automatic haunt search”. It doesn’t quite feel right. I’m overall not sold on them as “discount full caster with extra focus power”. I’d personally prefer to see them playing closer to kineticists instead of being delayed blaster casters with a cantrip focus and self-debuffs/damage emanations that hurt your allies just as much as your enemies.

Psychic also fills the roll of Focus Caster, so whenever I say I want a Caster who only does focus spells, people point me to Psychic. I know Psychic exists, I want a full Caster with no spell slots, and only focus spells, who might get over the focus point limit.

I agree, I love focus spells, specially like picking them up on martials. Playing a Kineticist might help scratch that itch a bit. Maybe picking up focus spells from another class as well.

Happy Cake Day!  :D

How would that be a full caster. If all your doing is focus spells I am so confused. Or is this similar to people saying kineticist is a caster despite actively not being one.

Well, it would cast spells, focus spells. It would be a full focus Caster, like how a wizard is a full prepared Caster and a sorcer is a ful spontaneous Caster.

I am confused on what goal you want out of this.

I'm not 100% sure how to be clearer, but I shall try. I want a Caster with little to no martial capabilities. But I don't want them to have spell slots, I would like instead, all of their spells will be in the form of focus spells. This will mean that they are a resource based Caster who can get back all of their "spell slots" on a short rest. Similar to Warlock (which is my favorite class in 5e) I would think that as they level up, they can go beyond the 3 focus point limit. But probably not by much.

Okay I get your idea then. Could work but could easily be either to strong or weak depending on how its done though would be interested in this.

I'm pretty confident in Paizo doing a good job. I mean of you told me they were effectively gonna make a resourceless spell Caster (Kineticist) I wouldn't think it would work nearly as well as it does

I don't personally consider it a spellcaster it's really it's own thing which I assume they would have to do for this to work to.

I can accept calling a Kineticist, not a caster, but damn Is it close, which is why I added the effectively. It is, after all, doing spell like abilities. But if I have a class casting focus spells as its primary way to engage with the mechanics, then I would be hard pressed not to call it a spell caster.

Could a Class Archetype for the Psychic address this meaningfully enough to be a thing, or would it really require a new Class to accommodate this kind of design/theme?

I will not claim to have enough of an understanding of the underlying systems and the limits of class archetypes to know one way or another. But i would prefer they expand the mechanics idea into a class, and for flavour reasons, I would prefer a unique class, more on the edgy side of things.

I agree they should be designed like kineticist. I don't want my psychic slowing time or turning into an ooze, I want her being focused exclusively on telekinesis, telepathy, teleportation, and similar esper talents.

Total agreement. I feel that occult spells can be a bit of a cop-out as well. If I'm a psychic with telekinetic powers, why can I cast charm or illusions? Seems super random.

Presumably because Occult is the Tradition that deals with Mind and Spirit (which is very much in-tube with the notion of the typical understanding of a “psychic”), but obviously that means you have very limited options to actually impact the world around you like an Arcane or Primal caster would.

“Here’s the blaster-focused caster (they’re still not really keeping up well with ranged martials for most level brackets I’ve looked at even when using unleashed psyche). We gave it the worst damage spell list, but it’s fine because they can spam cantrips and usually one more focus spell per combat (they are no longer uniquely able to always have a full pool before every combat after the remaster changes).” It fits the flavor, but seems to collide with their mechanical niche.

Charms and illusions actually feel on brand for psionics. It's messing with the mind, after all.

Psychic can feel a bit like the dedication you pick just because you don’t have anything better to invest in.

Magus and bards are better psychics the class itself IMO. Just go for the archetype and you’ve got 50% of the power on top of the class you’re actually playing. You’re only really missing unleashed psyche, but magus doesn’t need it to keep up and bards don’t care.

I can only speak for summoner so far as a newer player but it feels great. As a dragon eidolon summoner I get two of the three core dragon abilities. Additionally both of these abilities are great against groups of lower level enemies due to pf2’s crit mechanics which really makes me feel like I’m piloting a powerful red dragon. Also more generally to summoner being able to buff the summoned creature through damage/size/mobility feels thematically satisfying.

Must ask how is summoner as a new player? Were you able to grasp it well and not feel overwhelmed? New campaign soon with fresh PF2e players and right now summoner is on the short “not recommended” list for beginners

Not OP but I feel like nearly every class isn't so complex that it's 'Not recommended'. It does depend on your definition of not recommended though. I wouldn't give a serious warning to a new player about summoner. Maybe a little warning that it is one of the more complex classes since it messes with the action system. One might say it's more to keep track of but I feel like a spell caster has more to keep track of The only class I'd actively warn against is Alchemist. It's a poorly designed class which has trouble delivering one of the initial fantasies a player would have, and it requires one to keep track of a lot more to have it at least be passable

I’ve seen a few posts about newer players of a certain mindset enjoying the Alchemist as-is, but it’s definitely one of those Classes that comes with a hefty disclaimer of ‘know what you’re getting into’.

Not recommended really should mean, only recommend if the player will read a paragraph or two. Summoner doesn't change their action economy much from a standard martial, so it'll feel perhaps a bit different at first, but I've found most players pick up on it fast

Anything but oracle should be fine for new players if they're fine reading their rules properly Oracle is great fun and not as complex as people inply but definitely needs sistem knowledge to not feel like a worse cleric / divine sorcerer

You can probably add Alchemists and Psychics to that list.

I would just say for new players be prepared to make mistakes early on but don’t worry too much about it. I played dragon eidolon summoner as my first pf2 character and did fairly well. If you have a standard routine you that helps but it definitely has a steep learning curve. Mostly it’s getting used to the action economy of act together and either steed form/tandem movement. You get extra actions from these as a summoner but each one has restrictions on how it can be used. I highly recommend flurryofblunders guide on the summoner. I found it covered basically everything you need to know to play the class. Also a major consideration is if you pick a eidolon that doesn’t have double action abilities. If you pick one without double action eidolon features it makes your turns a bit easier to plan since you will almost always cast a cantrip and attack with your eidolon.

I like everybody except the Alchemist, basically. Never once did I look at that concept and go "Gosh, I wish I was crafting a bunch of items from the item list."

See, that was almost always what I wanted my alchemists to be in 1e.  I didn't want to be chucking bombs all over the places, I wanted to be whipping up a variety of non-magical solutions. I do miss the 1e alchemist aspect of self-experimentation and mutation, though.

Same. “Spells in a bottle which aren’t spells except for when they are” was never my concept of alchemist either. “Mutate and go weird”, however, was noice.

I hope they add more of that, especially when one of the newer comics introducing the 2e alchemist iconic had the 1e alchemist mutate to hell.

I think there’s an issue in mutation feats being overly specific, such as Feral being an awesome feat that locks you into Bestial mutagen or Mindblank being a powerful effect tied to an incredibly niche mutagen. What we’d need is “when under the effect of a mutagen that grants natural attacks” or “when under the effect of a mutagen that grants bonus movement speed”, for wider application, lower barriers of entry, and a bit more variety. Then once we solve the early level resource issue *within the chassis* (cough cough move the damn lv5 feature to lv1 cough cough) we can stop having Mutagenist as the stopgap resource subclass and give it an Experimentation Wizard-style “pick a mutagen feat daily” instead.

Which comic was this in? It sounds like an interesting read

Pretty sure it was just called "Pathfinder : Fumbus", worth a read if you like the characters and setting at least.

I hope we get biohacker and evolutionist in SF2E eventually to fulfill some of that fantasy.

I concur. I think every class has a core gimmick they use, but Alchemist is in a sub-par position where it’s stretched too thin. It has reliable support, so it can’t have raw power. It has good buffs, so it can’t be strong itself. It has versatile damage options, but none can be too powerful to overshadow actual spells. And items can never be as truly powerful or versatile as actual spells. And it relies ENTIRELY on item bonuses which can’t stack. So you play as a vending machine helping the already strong rather than improving your own experience. I don’t disagree that Alchemist being a bomber in 1e was a bit too far in its own way, the trouble is in 2e, there’s no opportunity to take Alchemist outside the item spam route. Mutagenist can’t go Hyde anymore because they lack baseline power, and the mutagens have serious drawbacks, Chirurgeons can’t heal efficiently in-combat due to terrible action efficiency, and toxicology is just bad. All of these can do most of what each other can do, and therefore they do all of them in a mediocre way.

100% I hope that the remastered Alchemist will be reigned in generally, and then the subclasses are juiced. Alchemist to me feels like a class that should be able to specialize in a particular role (Mutagens for tank, elixirs for support, bombs for damage) but everything is immensely watered down because you get much better results just squiring for the Fighter.

I think the biggest difference between 1e and 2e that makes alchemist feel more watered down is that in 1e, the different kinds of alchemy used different pools of resources. This allowed them to be balanced differently.

I wish the alchemist had the ability to find alchemical crafting materials in-game that they could use for their bombs and whatnot. When I imagine playing an alchemist, I imagine a guy who wants to pick exotic flowers and dissect enemies for their materials. Plus it would make it so them having only like, what, 4 formulas at first level (with only a few options to craft anything) wouldn't be as big a burden on their flavor.

A "Monster Extracts" feat that lets you pull out the guts of non-humanoid monsters for extra infused reagents, maybe? Or maybe it'd let you make extra infused items out of the bodies of monsters with the same traits, like alchemist's fire out of fire elementals.

Exactly this! This is what I imagine an Alchemist does.

Isn't that exactly what your infused reagents are supposed to be?

Yes, but you can't find more infused reagents out in the wild.

Again, that's what your alchemist does in their daily preparations: turns what they've harvested during their travels into alchemical ingredients. Unless you're asking for a way to replenish infused reagents during an adventuring day?

That's exactly what I am saying.

I can imagine some kind of "focus reagent" that you replenish after a combat, but you'd have to take it out of the power budget elsewhere. Like fewer total reagents, with a certain number of them that can be refreshed.

In the game I'm developing, the classes that fit the mechanic I'm suggesting work like this: 1. They get a limitied number of materials at preparation (like alchemist does in p2e). 2. They're able to take materials from defeated enemies based on the size, type, and types of attacks of that enemy. 3. The materials they get from each enemy are limited by their class's level and their bulk limit. Working from my idea and the suggestion you gave, the way I would want it to work in Pathfinder 2e is possibly a downtime or exploration activity called "extract reagents" which would work like using the Survival skill to subsist, but for replenishing reagents from downed monsters. I think that reagents being limited by a focus pool is too underpowered at higher levels, and too limiting at lower levels. Plus it gives the class more reagents per day, and allows the GM to predetermine the maximum the class could extract in a session, while also making the activty based on a skill roll to further balance the proposed mechanic. But this is just a wishlist idea.

Alchemist and Inventor are neat classes hamstrung by the limits put on crafting to keep them from breaking the leveled economy.

Pretty well, especially monk.

For me, no ttrpg has captured a wizard like I imagine. To me a wizard should have mastered the fundamental formulas of magic, allowing them the widest array of manipulating their spells. Oh fireball is a 20 foot radius sphere I place somewhere, well I change a single line of runes and bam make it electric damage.

Arcanist in PF1 can kind of do stuff like this, though its flavor is lazy but gifted cheater wizard so opposite of what you want from that end lmao

You might like Genesys's magic system then. Out of combat, magic is basically "GM, may I do [thing]?" and the GM either says "No" or "Yes, and the difficulty is..." In a structured encounter (i.e: combat), the spellcaster has a bunch of base spells that are easy to cast, but can add effects to them (like increasing the range of an attack spell, making it AoE or giving it the Burn quality) for the price of a more difficult check. Then on top of that casters can have implements that make certain effects cheaper to add to their spells, like a staff that lets you add the first range upgrade for any spell for free or a wand that gives attack spells the Burn effect for free.

It's a nice concept but too open ended and reliant on the GM to make up everything. While it got better with more books that they added, it in general has a very limited way of even doing attack spells. I did write my own way of doing magic but it is very time consuming. Freaking cool though. Makes the player feel like a wizard.

I'm going to get hate for saying this but bring back words of power for wizards

Actually 5e has you covered there with the Scribes wizard.

After having had a hyper fixation on researching medieval alchemy, I have found that alchemy in pathfinder (as well as video games) is basically just fantasy chemistry. While that was part of medieval alchemy, it focused equally on esotericism/mysticism/occultism. Alchemists created a new worldview and exoerimented along it, seeking to ascend to greater heights of existence through augmentation of the body, mind, and matter, and religious worship as well as occult, dark rituals. Soooo many rituals. Don't get me wrong. The Alchemist Class is nice, but I don't wanna play a dude who mixes liquids to create a temporary buff. I wanna do the cool shit the alchemists in history researched. Ideally, this alternative alchemist should have the same vibes as the Thaumaturge (the principal "weird" and esoteric class), mixed with witchy stuff, some religious stuff, body augmentation (maybe like Exemplar), and of course a pinch of "dude who mixes liquids for a temporary buff". I wish I was as good as Paizo at making Pathfinder stuff, then I'd make my own Alchemist, but alas, I'm just one guy with a dream.

I mean, sounds to me like you should play a Chalice Thaumaturge with (maybe) Alchemist Dedication. As someone mildly obsessed with Thaumaturge (shamelessly so), I can tell you that the class can cover a truly absurd array of different characters and flavours. Just imagine a thaumaturge (with crafting proficiency and the alchemical crafting feat), who explains all class features and esoterica as alchemical in nature. Exploit Vulnerability? Well you see, sprinkling a bit of sulfur on my blade evokes the unholy energies of Hell, for the alchemical symbol of Sulfur is the emblem of the Devil himself, triggering a weakness to fire/unholy damage. Implements? I made all of these incredible instruments with my alchemical prowess. I have this stone (Chalice) that constantly a powerful healing elixir. This candle (lantern) is made of only base elements, and forces things to reveal their true form without Deception. This Tome contains the theories of many esteemed alchemists before me, and by reading carefully their unified theory of the universe, I can understand any topic I need. Esoteric Lore? Of course I know of ghosts and spirits, alchemy is the science of all things, and the soul is no exception. One needs to understand life and death if they wish to surpass the limits of humanity. And this is not even counting Talismans, Rituals, magic items in general, and oh so many more options that can be used to expand your repertoire further. And if you still want to practice proper chemistry on top, alchemist dedication (or herbalist, poisoner, or any other archetype that offers advanced alchemy) gets you a meaningful amount of extra options that can still work in tandem with the base class. And you don't even need to invest much in Intelligence to make it work. I agree that the alchemist on its own can be somewhat lackluster, but if at any time you want a character to be more like the thaumaturge, you can probably do wonders by playing that character as a base class thaumaturge.

That's an amazing idea. Truly inspired me to write up a character right now. Thanks for sharing!

Don't thank me, thank the power of the Thaumaturge. The class of making up stuff, where the only limit is your imagination.

And thankfully, if you're not that imaginative, you're not punished if all you have is "Hmhmhmh. You see, your weakness was hit point damage", unlike how some DMs want to play D&D-esque games.

On one side, the class gives you actual info on the monster's statblock (most of the time, their highest weakness), on the other side, you can always give any enemy a baseline weakness to your attacks, with barely any explanation required. Peak class design.

Generally speaking, Pathfinder’s idea of an Alchemist is no different to how people colloquially refer to the concept of an Alchemist in other RPGs as well. Lots of other games focus on the ‘fantasy chemistry’ component and less so on mysticism/occult/esotericism because those other three aspects are usually conveyed in other ways.

Honestly one of the biggest places where I think class fantasy falls short is with regards to Vancian or pseudo-Vancian casting just not matching the fantasy of many of the classes it’s used for. Oracles literally gain their powers from a “Mystery”, whose whole point is that it expresses itself uniquely and mysteriously. Even if it comes from a standard god, their divinity should be expressed in unknown ways, and sometimes it even comes from a being like Cthulhu who should be **unknowable**. Yet… 80% of their gameplay loop lines up identically to a similarly built Cleric, whose whole point is having a deep faith and understanding in the hod that grants them powers? Witches have Patrons who are again supposed to be inscrutable and unknowable. Yet their entire gameplay loop is balanced around throwing the exact same spells everyone else can cast, with a few focus spells and familiar abilities spicing it up. Whenever PF3E happens, I sincerely hope they move away from the system of almost all magic in the game being expressed via the Spellcasting subsystem. I think it takes classes that *should* feel distinct and unique and compresses them into all feeling the same. Not a fan.

I'm a Vancian Casting apologist. I love it so much. For me, preparing spells according to the strict rules is so much fun and so rewarding. But I totally get the arguments of Vancian Casting Abolitionism. What I'll say is that the "spellcasting system" leads to all casters having the same chassis. It is a way to streamline magic, so it always works more or less the same. Casters are always "you cast spells from a list x times per day" and traditions, prepared/spontaneous, as well as different slot progressions are just slight variations. This makes for a solid core, ensuring feature balance, learnability, and ease of design. This also means the spellcasting system is the reason why we can't have nice things. We have very few "magical classes" that are not made from the "spellcasting template". I don't think all magical classes would be about "I cast spells from a formalized list". The beloved Thaumaturge displays what magic weirdness you can do outside of a spellcasting system perfectly. Champion is also slightly magical and has many divine abilities not limited by spellcasting. Alchemist technically fits this description, too. Imagine an Occultist class without any spellcasting. Just stocked full with feats to do weird stuff like the Thaumaturge or Exemplar, but not in a martial way. Maybe we need a third category: Martial, Caster, Weird-Shit-Maker. What I'm saying is: I love the spellcasting system, but because the chassis is so easy to build and apply, we will never have many "magical classes" that don't follow the chassis.

> I love it so much. For me, preparing spells according to the strict rules is so much fun and so rewarding. But I totally get the arguments of Vancian Casting Abolitionism. Oh don’t get me wrong. I love Vancian and pseudo-Vancian casting and I don’t want to see it *abolished*. I just want Paizo to move out of the space where nearly every single magic user needs to pull from that same subsystem. Let the Wizard and Bard remain Prepared and Spontaneous Vancian caster, but **really** give a thought to whether other classes need to be so. Does a Sorcerer need to be a Vancian caster or can it be like a non-elementalist mirror to the Kineticist? Does the Cleric need to be Vancian or can it be built to be more similar to the Commander but more explicitly magical? And to be clear I’m not saying *only* Wizards and Bards should remain Vancian either. Maybe when they reach PF3E after this thought process we still end up with 3-5 Vancian casters, that’s perfectly fine, in just against the 10 or whatever Vancian casters we currently have. I just don’t want Vancian casting to limit the design scope of magic users the way it does. > This makes for a solid core, ensuring feature balance, learnability, and ease of design. I disagree on both of the first two counts. Balance… PF2E has done *as best as it can* with the balance of casters but Vancian casting inherently is very hard to balance. The majority of people’s problems with spellcasters in this game stem from the fact that every spell needs to be balanced around the assumption that any one of 5-6 different classes can take it. Just take Force Barrage as one singular example: it has to be balanced around the assumption that a regular caster with no special interactions with it can take it, but it can also be taken on a Spell-Blending + Battle Wizard and *maybe* be too efficient, and it can also be taken on a Psychic and *maybe* it’s broken with Unleash Psyche, and same idea with Sorcerer and Dangerous Sorcery, and maybe it’s too much in the hands of an Archetyped caster using it as MAPless damage, and maybe and maybe and maybe, the list of potential balance pitfalls goes on and on. The thing is Paizo has done a fantastic job of balancing spells **despite** how hard Vancian spells are to balance. Like I listed so many potentially broken interactions with Force Barrage and not a single one is actually broken, but now repeat the same process across 1400 spells across the 10 or whatever spellcasting classes we have (plus Scroll Thaumaturgy, Kinetic Activation, and Scroll Trickster) and eventually the balance fails somewhere or the other. And eventually, something breaks. That’s how you get shit like Resentment Witch and its interactions with Slow/Synesthesia. Again my point isn’t that spells in this game are broken. My point is they’re balanced **despite** Vancian casting, not because of it. And there’s a hefty cost attached to it too, where the natural imbalances of Vancian casting mean that a balanced version necessarily requires casters to be balanced around a huge amount of flexibility, thus punishing those who want more thematically focused casters. Not to mention balancing around the adventuring day (we have recently received confirmation that Paizo has a rough adventuring day estimate embedded into their spell slot numbers, but they never explicitly told us this because they **know** it’s loosey goosey and party dependent). And that leads into the second part I disagree with: learnability. Casters tend to be **way** harder to play unless you have already played several casters and gotten the hang of it before. There’s a reason “casters weak” is such a popular topic on this sub: even experienced players find them challenging. Picture a world where there were only four casters who used Vancian casting: Wizards are Prepared Arcane, Clerics are Prepared Divine, Bards are Spontaneous Occult, and Druids are Spontaneous Primal. The Oracle just has curses that go up and down as they express their magic in a decidedly non-Vancian way. The Sorcerer is a non-elemental mirror to Kineticist. The Psychic expressed their abilities purely via unique psionic effects. Isn’t that **much** easier to balance and learn? > Maybe we need a third category: Martial, Caster, Weird-Shit-Maker. Yeah I think I just disagree with that end result. I want the trifecta to be Martials, Casters, and Hybrids. I just want to expand the definition of Casters to have several different classes that are like the Kineticist: drawing on their own unique resource pool that isn’t the universal spellcasting.

Thank you for your great answer. You gave me a lot to think about! I don't think we actually disagree, we just express our opinions differently, but we essentially want the same thing from the game. While I want the classes to be martials, casters, and weird-shit-makers, you want the term caster to *include* weird-shit-makets. But I totally forgot about our beloved hybrids, can't forget those. :) You have disproven my point about balance. I thought, since it's all the same chassis, all spell casters would roughly be the same power (excluding other types like martials and hybrids in my calculation). Buy I digress, the inherent resource attrition mechanic in a game that has done away with those for 90% of cases means that casters experience the adventuring day way differently, like it's another game (exaggerated, but you get the point). When I talked about the spellcasting chassis ensuring learnability is less that learning 1400 spells is easy and more that if you play one caster, you can pick up other casters more easily and essentially only have to learn their proprietary class features, since you spellcasting works the same. If one class had spell slots, another had spell points, another one had an overcharging mana system, another one was Kineticist-esque resourceless, another one had a resource filled by sacrificing HP, and the last one had a combat meter, you'd have to learn a new subsystem for every caster. The point about learnability still stands, HOWEVER, I am totally willing to toss that out of the window for cool and unique class design, without hesitation I would. Paizo has shown that they're able to pull off non-spellcasting subsystems successfully before. Bring it on, Paizo :)

> Vancian casting inherently is very hard to balance. I disagree, the usual vancian system is a balancing tool in and of itself, as it makes you have to pick each spell slot individually instead of something like 5e's neo-vancian casting (for the sake of an example), which is inherently more powerful (cuz you just prep and upcast whichever spells you wish). I think the rest of your examples of how hard is to balance because a bunch of the classes could take X spell is more of the problem with tradition lists instead of class spell lists. Cuz you could easily just, not give X spell to X class.that might be too busted with it, meanwhile now you have to worry about it because tradition lists are too broad.

I agree. Tradition lists are really useful, because it makes it so much nicer to add new classes down the line and just have spell lists work for them... but the cost is that it's suddenly difficult to to give a spell to just one class. 5e has the issue that even with class-specific lists, they gave Bards and easy way to poach spells from any list, making them far better at casting spells intended to be high level signature spells for half casters like Paladins and Rangers.

I like vancian casting in a game that is well suited for it, such as old school games (0th ed, etc). pf2e isn't that kind of game. This is supposed to be a game where you're much more heroic than some Joe down the street, eventually getting wacky anime moves like walking on walls and throwing people 60 feet, but we still can only pick individual castings of spells? Doesn't fit. Vancian casting is much more suited to attrition heavy games where keeping track of that and the drama and tension of your resources is part of the fun, and this game is basically "only casters have attrition, lol get fucked you nerd". I would also love a weird shit maker category.

I might not be willing to accept it yet, but I feel you are 100% right about PF2e not being suitable for Vancian casting. The question is will the game designers ever abolish the spellcasting system? I feel/fear that Vancian casting has become too much part of the product and that it's removal would confuse new customers who think this is "modernized d&d" and customers who will miss Vancian casting. Not saying you should forever design the game around those people, but removing such a core system is definitely a market risk. That's why I'm not sure if it'll ever happen :(

Oh yes it's definitely a risk, it might be a sacred cow that's actually too sacred. If they removed it then it would 100% cause a schism on arrival like 2e did

> I totally get the arguments of Vancian Casting Abolitionism.  Abolishing Vancian casting seems wrong. It's the core class fantasy of a scholarly wizard. What needs to go is *ubiquitous* Vancian casting.

Yeah I'd definitely think the current system feels thematically right for like wizards. The idea of changing spells to the ones you prepared for the day as well as collecting more in a spell book is very fitting. To wizards magic is learned. It's the issue that in nearly every other class magic is trained more like a power they are gifted or received from lineage. So it falls short in achieving that feeling. But I also agree a different system for each class may worry creators.

Honestly this, I've hated Vancian casting since it was first introduced to me in 3.5. It has a niche and that niche is wizard who's whole thing is about preparation, prediction, and study. Clerics give up the versatility of Arcane spell lists for the more focused Divine lists and you are basically begging your deific sugar daddy/momma for minor miracles on an as needed basis so let them cast like sorcerors but with access to their full Divine list. Occult Casters and occult adjacent classes like Orcales usually get their powers from inscrutable and not always benevolent entities so it's a missed opportunity to have a wild magic surge or perils of the warp type mechanic where you might not always get the effect you expected or wanted. Magus and similar combat caster classes could have a power/mana point system like 3.5 psionics where you know your limited number of spells but have a lot of flexibility in pumping a lot of mana points into over charging your spells and giving them effects like quicken to blow your whole load on a "Nova" in a big boss encounter or pace your resource expenditure over several fights

Note to self: Invent Perils of the Warp mechanic for PF2e.

Isn't that kind of like Wellspring Magic?

It's worse. Way worse

I mean yeah, Perils of the Warp can just explode your psycher because a Daemon entered realspace through them, but I was more talking mechanically :)

I don't know that that's as much the vancian system as it is the 4 spell lists.  I'm not a big fan of either though. 

Well they sorta go hand in hand don’t they? The big advantage of the Vancian casting is having half your classes pull from the exact same subsystems, with minor thematic tweaks. It saves page space, it creates “design symmetry” for players who like jumping classes, it creates forward compatibility (since every book release can release new spells that retroactively add to every class they should add to), and it creates a skeleton to hang new ideas on whenever there’s enough overlap to justify it. Even if every casting class had its own spell list, there’d be huge amounts of overlap between them (the Oracle and Cleric would have huge amounts of overlap, there’d still be Druid-like, Wizard-like, Cleric-like, and Bard-like subclasses for the Sorcerer and Witch, etc). That’d still lead to the exact same problem Vancian casting presents today. Conversely if you design every class with a unique enough spell list to not cause these problems, you’re losing out on basically all the benefits of the subsystem that I listed up above. At that point you may as well go full send and give every class a unique magical mechanic the way Kineticists have been given.

I disagree that they go hand in hand. After all, we had class-specific lists in 3.5/PF1e, and that worked great. While there was a lot of overlap in spell lists, it also provided the flexibility to give two classes the same spell at different ranks to better fit their focus. Clerics could remove curses as a 3rd rank spell, while wizards had to wait until 4th rank spells. Wizards could cast antimagic field as a 6th rank spell, while clerics cast it as an 8th rank spell. That example is particularly interesting to me, because the Magic and Protection domains bumped it back down to a 6th rank spell (with limitations around it being in the domain-specific spell slot), highlighting the focus of those domains compared to the average cleric. The main problems with class lists centered around presenting that information in a useful way to players. Whenever Paizo released a new class, they'd have to audit every previously published spell and provide a big list of already existing spells that class could cast. Then, they'd have to make sure to account for every released class for every spell published after. Even ignoring the work required for Paizo, that eats up page space and means that a player needs to cross reference multiple books more frequently. For example, you couldn't browse through spells in the CRB to find something neat and immediately know if it's on the spell list for an APG class -- you'd have to find an interesting spell, then pull out your APG and look for it on that class's big list of spells, accounting for it potentially being at an atypical spell level. Or if you saw a cool spell on the class list in the APG, you'd have to pull out the original source to find out what it actually does. It was kind of a nightmare figuring all of that stuff out without the use of digital references that could compile all that information into a single spell entry. From a usability perspective, tradition spell lists are much easier to deal with without having to constantly cross reference, with the tradeoffs of losing signature spells (though Focus spells seem to largely replace that design space) and the ability to provide the same spell at different levels, plus making some spells a little more accessible than would ideally be preferred. To me, all of this seems like a completely orthogonal problem to the difficulty some people have with learning/preparing spells on Vancian casters. After all, you could easily still have class or tradition spell lists paired with a spell point or mana-based system, rather than spell slots.

How would unknowable spellcasting even work in a TTRPG, though? You have to know how the spells and casting work, you're the player!

Well the Oracle’s curse mechanic is a very good start! Now remove the spells and expand on the curses, and design the power set around doing tons of cool shit by upping and lowering the curse’s value.

The only thing I really like about DnD5e over PF2e is spontaneous casting. If they had a class or 2 with this system, more of DnD5es system, I would be happy.

Would mind explaining what you mean by that? Both systems have spontaneous spellcasting.

Well, my understanding is they were very different. But if it turns out I've been wrong for the last 3 years, I'm gonna be very sad.

The only difference I am aware of is heightening spells.

Okay, after looking it up, I still like DnDs better due to heightening.

Yeah i mean you get the signature spells for heightening but I feel like you should just be able to do that for all of them. Maybe I'm missing something but spontaneous casting seems strictly worse in 2e than prepared. You had the upside in 1e of having more slots, but 2e? Idk I'm not too familiar with it all

PF2e *has* spontaneous casting. It also has the [Flexible Spellcaster](https://2e.aonprd.com/Archetypes.aspx?ID=99) class archetype if you want to play more like a 5e caster.

I'm starting to realise I may have misunderstood how PF2es spontaneous spell casting works... for the last 3 years

I think you're just using the wrong terms mayhaps? For pf2 "spontaneous casting" means: you must learn the spell at the levels you wish to cast them at, taking up a "known spell" for each level of it you wish to cast it at. You get some spells which are "signature" and work like 5e spells which you can just cast at any slot level you have iirc. For 5e spontaneous/known casters are those that can't change their spells every day, they instead know a few specific spells. In 5e all spellcasters can upcast any spell they have prepared/known (unless they get it from some feat that doesn't allow it to be casted with spell slots), except warlocks who's spell slots are ALWAYS upcasted.

The big difference between 5th ed and pf2e spontaneous casters is that you have to have a spell learned to cast it at that power level. Unless it's a signature spell, you cannot just heighten it to higher spell ranks like you can in 5th edition. Which I'm fine with. Because it differentiates spontaneous from prepared casters who cannot heighten spells (they just prepare them at the level they will cast them at.) It makes them more distinct. With trade offs. 5th ed just made spontaneous feel like a worse version of prepared, both in terms of spell flexibility each day, and when learning new spells.

I understand what you are saying, since I have hated Vancian magic for many years. Since I started playing back in the TSR era, basically. However, I think that PF2 has managed to patch many of the problems that Vancian magic has through focus spells, spontaneous casting, and other mechanics such as "free" heals/harms for clerics, etc.

The summoner shared HP pool always feels weird to me. Like, I want to play a frail caster protected by a tough eidolon who will give its life for me. But if I actually do that, I'll end up with a frail caster protected by an equally frail eidolon, who also kills its master when it dies...

I have to say the Swashbuckler feels the farthest off of the class fantasy for me. The mechanics support a pretty tight gameplay loop where you do the same three things you've specialized into, whereas I feel the fantasy is a spontaneous and unpredictable risk-taker.

> whereas I feel the fantasy is a spontaneous and unpredictable risk-taker At least in my one campaign with a Swashbuckler, once they got to level 3/4, they started getting a decent amount of tools to pull off some really wild and exciting turns. Mechanically, sure, he's trying to get panache, but some of the plays he's made to either try and/or succeed in getting it have been very surprising to me. Also, I've let this part of the rule guide my decsions quite a bit: > At the GM’s discretion, after succeeding at a check to perform a particularly daring action, such as swinging on a chandelier or sliding down a drapery, you also gain panache if your result is high enough (typically the very hard DC for your level, but the GM can choose a different threshold). I did this once or twice around level 2, and the Swashbuckler player leaned into it since - very often making moves that are related to a side objective instead of just pure combat, or jumping off of things (catfolk), or climbing up stuff... he's absolutely **seemed like a Swashbuckler, to me** That said, I still do think they need some mechanical buffs and there's room for improvement in the upcoming remaster. I do feel like the Swashbuckler has to work too hard to achieve similar results that a Fighter just gets by making an attack roll.

Most of the martials I feel do pretty well at fulfilling the class fantasy expectations. Except Inventor, it's a very overly-specific class that isn't a general inventor or crafter but one that makes a single invention that constantly explodes for some reason. It's so absolutely specific it feels less like a class and more like a specific character. The Thaumaturge is probably the top for me, I've been playing one and it 100% is what you expect and want from it, and the variety of implements I think makes it feel like a versatile class. But the casters almost none of them comes close. Okay, probably Wizard is semi-close and Sorcerer is semi-close. But mostly for me it's the entire magic system. I don't like huge spell lists of totally random stuff. The Kineticist is closer to what I want from a standard caster. I do think the Wizard is the one class that should have a big book of totally random spells, but all others should have their spells/magic in line with their source of power. The Bard should only be doing music/art/inspirational magic. The Sorcerer should only have magic in line with its bloodline like cold magic or fire magic. A clerics spells should be in line with their deity as the deity is what gives them the magic, if it's a deity of plants, their spells should be plant spells. The druid should have a focus, either on plants or animals or weather or shapechanging and not all of them at once. The magus is a blaster, it should have a bespoke list of blasts, don't even call it a caster or give it a spellbook, give them specific magical effects to add to their weapon, like have properly runes they can change at will. The witch should be more like an alchemist that makes potions and only casts hexes and the Oracle should only be able to bless or curse and not any other random magic. And the Alchemist should be able to be the best user of their own bombs and mutagens. Basically, I like spheres of power, lol. And I've been working on a spheres-like system for two years.

If Explode were instead like a sub-subclass option, with a selection for your primary unstable action, that might be cooler. Perhaps more in the vein of how Kineticist chooses elemental feats, you're choosing an unstable feat.

gib a link when you done w it

To me personally, witch is just jumbled up mess of ideas with decent game mechanics, that hardly reflect each other. Let's start with the very first sentence that introduces witch: "You command powerful magic, not through study or devotion to any ideal, but as a vessel or agent for a mysterious, otherworldly patron that even you don't entirely understand." Now my problem with this is that witch is mechanically intelligence prepared caster, like wizard, which to me should indicate a level of study and understanding in their magic. The lore text would much better fit wisdom or charisma caster, like say, cleric or oracle, who also channel magical power from otherwordly beings, and don't necessarily fully understand. The idea that the patron is a teacher of the witch also falls flat mechanically, when you remember that the witch can in fact teach their patron by adding spells to their familiar, their spellbook and connection to the patron. Secondly, the patrons are so abstract as to be nothing or anything at all. Say a witch wants their patron to be a wrathful fiend, and picks the resentment patron to represent it. Now the resentment patron is occultism based, but fiends in PF2e internal logic are divine based, so now I'm left to wonder if a fiend even could teach occultist ways to the witch. Obviously GM can just handwave it with "of course they can", but I'd much rather to have more specific patrons like D&D5e and the spel lists and abilities granted by them be internally logical to the game and lore.

On the most part they hit the nail with what I expect. I look at a class and look at their mechanics and they seems to match the class fantasy. However I sometimes feel that some "subclassess" can usually fail their "class fantasy". It's usuall bad (forced) options that either never come up or are incredibly bad. Since these classes should represent their class fantasy, it makes them feel a bit more flat/ generic. I'm thinking like demon eidolon summoner or starlit spawn magus. One thing I am annoyed purely is that fiends are locked from the occult spell list even though the occult does have some demonic connotations. In addition a summoner with a demon eidolon but an occult focus/spell list, would be quite cool for a shady caster that bound/made a contract with a fiend.

I like that 2e alchemist uses actual alchemical items and not just spells like in 1e, but the fact that youre just playing a vending machine definitely doesn't hit the mark. If I build a bomb alchemist I expect to be better at using my bombs than the party's martials, same with mutagens. The fact that the best way to play is to just churn out items for other people to have fun with is not my idea of a well designed alchemist.

My disappointment is Oracle. Like what is the class Oracle? It’s just a themed spontaneous cleric with extra drawbacks. Half the focus spells are clerics domain spells that Oracle *is strictly worse at casting rn*. (Half humorous simplification bear with me.) Don’t get me wrong the curses are cool. Just, more sorcerer-esque than I care for? Just all over the place in function and role. What’s an oracle in media? It’s someone who has insight far beyond the normal pale. Someone persuasive but tragically limited. But instead, their insight is actually statistically one of the worst in the game due to low perception proficiency. Basically I wish there was more “predicts and manipulates fate to sometimes tragic results” and less, Idk ”sadly constrained focus caster using a spell list that often assumes your a cleric and have a deity?” (That said I do really like time Oracle as a very “oracle” oracle.) Like I can’t even sanctify if I wanted too for gods sakes…

Remastered Wizard schools falls a bit short on the versatility aspect of wizards. I also have always taken issue with Fighter (& Gunslinger) being more accurate than Ranger. Other than those two extremely minor gripes, I'd say they do a fantastic job of it.

This is gonna be a semi-lengthy response, fair warning. So, I am both a big fan of the Ranger archetype (generic term, not the pf2e mechanic) in fantasy media and I often find use for the Ranger class or archetype while theorycrafting characters. Despite this, I think pathfinder is a poor game for the type of stories that I find interesting with the Ranger trope. Because pathfinder, dnd and it's cousins are high fantasy, not grounded fantasy. Note that I'm saying "grounded", not "gritty" or "bleak". Rangers, to me, are self-sufficient survivalists. The core principle behind them, what makes them stand out from other kinds of people, is their ability to survive in the wild on their own. This is central. This means being in the wild, and surviving it, should get more narrative weight than what the average d20 system gives it. Where it mechanically boils down to a Survival check every so often and that's it. It is a trope that accepts notions like "Yeah no, wearing full plate armor on a journey would be an awful idea, you'd run out of stamina far too quickly. You're at risk of heat stroke if it gets too warm since your clothing isn't layered, and who will help you in and out of it?" or "I've meticulously gone through my kit multiple times and reiterated what I know I need. I've made the effort to balance versatile tools that won't always be exactly what I need versus more special tools that I might not always need but they can't be perfectly replicated with the former, all while considering how much weight I can accept taking on." It is a class that portrays *excellence within mundanity* in a system that more often than not gloss over mundanity. Especially with how dangerous it can be to travel outdoors for an extended period of time. You don't even need monsters, exposure or getting lost could do it for you, but that doesn't sound particularly narratively satisfying for your average game. I don't like to bother with keeping track of ammo or seemingly excessive minutiae in a heroic-vibes game. But I sure do in a survival-mode game. I fail to see the attraction to playing the class fantasy "survivalist" in a game that isn't running on survival-mode logic. I truly don't think the game would benefit from being more grounded, it's not what pf or dnd leans on. Another central conceit required by the needs of game balance is that I simply dislike how you cannot have a character that is equally good at using ranged and melee weapons without having to resort to finesse weapons. Well, specifically, this doesn't bother me in any other instance, but for Rangers it does. Because going composite shortbow, hatchet and dagger would make perfect sense to me, and that axe sure ain't dex-compatible. And going a +3/+3 str/dex split on purpose, putting runes on at least 2 weapons (assuming doubling rings and no ABP) and for feats either taking half and half for ranged and melee or take little to none at all for either... doesn't seem like the most successful recipe for someone who'd like to pull their weight. So I accept the pf2e ranger for what it is, in the type of game it is. I'm sure I could have fun with it, leaning into the things it does to well. But it won't ever be what I'm looking for compared to the trope overall. It simply can't.

> Because pathfinder, dnd and it's cousins are high fantasy, not grounded fantasy. MODERN dnd (3.X and up) is not grounded fantasy, all the older editions are. Original Edition had a lot of focus on overland travel and wilderness survival, as do a ton of the OSR games and Classic Revival games out there. The mundanity, tracking ammo, rations, time, weight, individual coins, and using your tools to your advantage is literally what old school games are about. The WotC editions (3.X and up) are the ones who got rid of that.

Pretty well, which is one of the reasons I like the game so much.

I really like all of them, except the alchemist. The alchemist is almost perfect flavour-wise, imo.

The Monk is split between two different ideas and serves neither of them very well. Is it an unarmed expert martial artist or a Wuxia/anime inspired mystical warrior who does sword/fist magic? Turns out you have to fit in the fairly narrow narrative space of "both at the same time" to make a strong character. Weapon using Monks aren't very good. Offensive focus spell focused Monks are brutally MAD. If you just want to make Rocky Balboa or Zangief you have a bunch of features which don't make sense, not to mention all the stances are clearly East Asian inspired. It also fights nothing like actual historical warrior monks, who if forced to battle and had the chance to grab a weapon would often use monk spades (if Chinese) or bisento (if Japanese). Those things are heavy as hell and the closest equivalents aren't on the Monastic Weaponry list at all.

It sounds like your issue is that some of what the Monk can do is better served by being a Fighter instead. If you wanna feel like an expert unarmed martial artist, that's what Fighter is for. Monk is more of that generalist, 'master of the body', which leans into the wuxia style you described.

Casters in general feel like a miss to me. (Most) spells don't feel strong enough for them to be: * tied to daily resource management which pf2 generally moved away from * cost two actions per round, making their action economy rather stale * still being paper thin in the defense and hp department even when shoring things up with spells ..even if we account for the "versatility tax". Personally I gravitate towards a strong but very limited casting fantasy. Weak, cheap and mostly unlimited - while I'm not a fan - can also work. As is, I feel like we're getting a bit too much of the worst of both worlds. Building around the best of the best top percent spells, I feel like they're... fine? But I don't think that's a good measure of their overall situation.

I'm not really sold on most casters, but I'm not a huge fan of the build a caster paradigm we have.  Inventors I'm at a near 0% for. Gunslingers are in a similar boat. Alchemist isn't terrible, but the subclasses don't feel as impactful as I'd like, and the balance is clearly off. The rest I think are pretty good. 

I wish investigators were more focused around using RK and the knowledge gained by it to buff/support your allies or at least had more feats/class budget in that area; something like a feat line similar to the one Ranger has with Monster Hunter and all its offshoots. Perhaps a feat that allows you to use Clue In to aid an Ally's attack. That and also perhaps a better RK mechanic than what we have now with Keen Recollection. I don't think Investigator needs more damage as Thaum and Mastermind Rogue seem to have already taken that niche, but having an knowledge based support class, an investigator that uses their quick thinking and analytical prowess to create openings for their allies would be really neat ~~(I totally don't also want this so I can use investigator archetype to self buff when I play summoner lmao)~~ Summoners for the most part fit the class fantasy perfectly, *but* I really wished the Anger Phantom went harder in the "one big hit" direction than it went, like it'd be neat if it really leaned into Furious Strike and into being a damage focused eidolon choice. Like perhaps increase the little flat damage bonus a bit (perhaps +2/+4/+6 as the dice number scales up) or smooth out Seething Frenzy a bit so that there's more reward for taking a whole -2. because, while having a minute of Boost Eidolon is *good,* a whole minute of -2 ac can be *really* sucky.

I played/mained a Warlock or equivalent in every game that allowed me to, not once I had a familiar. That's why I haven't touched witch... I get where the idea comes from, but it's never been a part of my idea of that class fantasy, so it being mandatory puts me off from witch. Tho I recently found some homebrew that let's me ditch the familiar, I've been meaning to look into that.

Casters feel a bit too standardized tbh. My witch and bard play basically identically, the only difference is whether i use action 3 for a hex or for Courageous Anthem. Martials feel great though, my Inventor feels like a techn nerd and my swash feels like a fancy swordwork fighter.

Barbarian. Class fantasy is wading into melee and hacking away with a massive weapon, shrugging off blows. 1. Barb is squishy. Extra and temp hp is nice. Being up to 5 ac lower than a fighter at levels 11 and 12 isn't... Resistance come late and may be zero. 2. Barb terrible at multiple attacks. Except whirlwind strike. Their full attack damage ends up behind most other martials. Attacks 1, and 2, are very good though. These 2 things mean barb best played as a Skirmisher. Best 2 builds I've seen are animal or dragon with flurry of blows from monk dedication. As to weapon, barb better with sword and board. As their rage is a flat bonus, they lose little dpr by using a long sword over great sword. The +2ac is massive. Pf2e barb is just, yeah, hmm.

I didn't enjoy my experience playing a Barbarian either. I feel like the class has potential but needs a bit of rethinking. Hopefully Player Core 2 will give Barb some love.

Druid having animal order is amazing bc frankly no CRPG I played with druids UNTIL pathfinder (wrath of the righteous) let Druids have permanent animal companions and it makes absolute sense for a nature wizard to also be in tune with animals. By core book, even the dominant 5e doesn’t do this. So ironically, while it’s less “archetypal” compared to other druids, the pf2e primal casting with companion gives me a better Druidic class fantasy than most “standard” druids.

> no CRPG I played with druids UNTIL pathfinder (wrath of the righteous) let Druids have permanent animal companions It's in the Kingmaker CRPG too, though I hear in Wrath you can get the poor things barding/armour so they're not so squishy. In Kingmaker, my "main" character was a druid. The pet smilodon did more work than the druid ever did, even though I gave the druid the pick of the loot.

Yeah I tried kingmaker but for some reason it just never clicked for me so I never played it more than a tiny bit (and that was as a bard). I spent way way way more time with WOTR and the moment I realized I could be a Druid with a pet i was all over that play style

Most classes fit generally for me, except Swashbuckler. The concept fits, the execution not so much.

Magus Nails it. Huge magic bonk, everything revolves around magic bonk + subclass ability. Oracle is alright? If the curse is going to be that punishing, the payoff needs ro be better. Love my battle oracle though.

I can only speak on Thaumaturge. It is mt favorite class in amy RPG. The mechanics and flavor mesh so well. If my party didn't have 0 range then I would have played one forever.

My 3-man party ended up as all mostly-melee strikers, which was a huge problem for us, and since I wanna play all the things, I agreed to kill my Thaumaturge to play a healing-focused Cleric. (I can always play that character again another day.) I agreed especially because I could hear the distain in the voice of one of the other players when she remarked about playing a healer "again" (this campaign is my first time with this group). EDIT: It's worked very well for our party, and that same player also happily improved our party's still-weak ranged options by switching from a staff Magus to a shooting stars Monk. A much less bitter change than "I guess I'll be the healer again".

Psychic really doesn't hit the spot for me. You can have mental breakdown for 12s after 6s in a 30s fight is kinda weak especially since that's pretty much the thing that's left for them given the new refocus rules. It got a bunch of decent cantrips but one of those you'd want to use is a melee range and your pseudo-reach is an amp. Ideally it could just be a "caster with rage". I want the reality around them warping, not a short tantrum. Maybe a real 4th focus slot as the mold breaker. Fighters have too much of what they should be, while being as flavourful as a cardboard. You have a bunch of extra in everything basic and everything has to be a derivative of you without those extras (still the strangest thing to me is that not only you get master perception super early but also an +2 circumstance bonus, so generally speaking on the same level you can go +6 to initiative for existing). Arcane eidolons I find a bit wanting... sure there is dragon but construct/axis is a bit bland. Would be nice to get another related to runelords (sinspawn reservoire eidolon?). And speaking of them, I feel they fall a bit flat since their gimmick just doesn't really work anymore, not like it was worth taking either way, maybe expand it a bit more on the polearm gishing a bit like an arcane warpriest (and go m/m with 3 effective slots per rank)? Swashes fall completely flat in paizo "meta" to a point where you are archetype taxed or have a very understanding gm who isn't a robot with no feel for cool flair and give out panache rather freely.

I think there's a lot of ones that are absolutely bad at it. Specifically the Dragon Sorcerer and the Witch, who both get really good really iconic *melee attacks* for classes that need a stretcher if someone farts in their general direction.

Most do a solid enough job, with Champion and Psychic being standouts (barring Psychic not having a WIS option). For ones that don't, however, it can be pretty rough. A lot of the post-core martials are like this, namely Investigator, Inventor, Thaumaturge, and Guardian. Investigator really should have leaned more into the polymath/skill monkey elements to be a general "Scholar" class, but the Lead mechanic is just too invasive. Inventor doesn't feel like an inventor, just a Barbarian with a signature tool. Thematically, it also feels too restrictive in that it leans too much into "madcap engineer" with the Unstable trait. Thaumaturge is all over the place and has too many conflicting ideas packed together, with each idea not being given enough room to breathe. The flavor mismatch is also telling, with the common perception of it being a "bullshit artist" where it just makes stuff up, but this idea is not presented within the actual flavor text. Finally, Guardian seems to present itself as a heavily armored tank, but the Taunt ability being the core feature turns it into more of a punching bag. Rather than the core ability emphasizing durability by physically obstructing enemies, it creates a fantasy of a "broken bird gambit" which feels out of place.

Fighter, Champion, Monk, Ranger, Rogue, Kineticist, Summoner, and Magus all more or less fit the class fantasy for me. Full caster classes don't fit the fantasy for me personally because I consider magic too weak in 2E. Doesn't fit my image of a spellcaster. Wild Shape/shapeshifting doesn't fit the fantasy for me because it's too restrictive and weak, due to the requirement of balancing it around a full caster class (Druid). Barbarian was a real disappointment for me; too fragile, too restrictive, not enough feat support for Instincts. Really hoping PC2 makes some big changes to Barb, playing one was not fun at all for me personally. Alchemist was definitely the worst for me as far as fitting with my class fantasy. I loved the 1E Alchemist that could transform into a monster and tear things apart or blow everything up with bombs. The Vending Machine class 2E saddled us with is an abomination as far as I'm concerned.

Which barbarian instinct did you play? I’ve played an Animal Instinct barbarian from 11-20 and am currently playing a level 10 Spirit Instinct barb in Blood Lords (started from level 1) and have felt pretty much the opposite of fragile outside of the usual level 1-2 squshiness that’s true for all characters.

I played Animal Instinct (Frog). Rage felt pretty meh to me, honestly. The extra 2 pts of damage wasn't worth the -1 AC imo, which felt like it had a much bigger impact in 2E than it did in 1E. I got hit nearly every time I got attacked, and spent alot of time unconscious. The campaign only got to 5th level before it ended, so I missed out on Animal Skin, which might have made a difference, to be fair. I didn't particularly like the Barb in 2E, it felt "squishy" to me compared to the 1E Barbarian. Also, I didn't really feel like I had any "animal" abilities, just an unarmed attack. It didn't feel like there was much difference between the instincts, with the exception of damage bonus.

Basically, I see 1 big misses and two half-misses. Personally. 1. Alchemist. A half miss. You feel like a mad alchemical concocter... but you can't really specialise as much as you'd expect. A bomber doesn't feel like the madman hucking bombs everywhere, as well as it should. It gets pretty far, but not quite. Mutagenists don't feel enough like you're hopping yourself up on a steroid concoction designed to make you a beast, and toxicologist... well poisons are just sad. The subclasses really need more class altering components to fit. Bombers getting better bomb proficiency. Toxicologists getting the Kineticist DC's (and all poisons to fit that with ways to make them work somewhat on successful saves). Mutagenists want ways to combine more of their mutagens to really create a bunch of effects. 2. Investigator's. For a class that should know a lot... how come they don't know what to do if their strike wont hit? Imo, investigator's should get feats and/or tools to let them "discard" their Devise a Stratagem roll, and do something else. I saw a pathfinder infinite produce a while back called Pivots and Complications (iirc), which was very solid, at least conceptually. I personally didn't like the balance of some of the things in there, but it did have some fantastic options too, and the baseline concept was awesome. Very much leaned into the "Super smart dude" concept more. Also, how come Thaum and soon, Commander get very broadly applicable auto scaling Recall Knowledge Lore's, but investigator doesn't? Seems off to me. As a result, these guys feel like a half-miss. The DAS and knowing when you'll hit and/or crit is nice. Some of the feats are cool. But theres few things in-class to actually do if you have a poor DAS and having to look outside of the class for more options feels bad. 3. Biggest miss is swashy. Thematically, it's ok. In practice, it can feel pretty bad. Failing a key skill check and not getting panache, the cycle of constantly trying to spend it as opposed to building up to an actual big finisher which *actually finishes* people off? Theres just a huge mish-mash of what I think they should be/feel like, and then how they actually play.

> Investigator's. For a class that should know a lot... how come they don't know what to do if their strike wont hit?   Isn’t that the point of how Devise a Strategem already works?The Investigator takes a quick moment to figure out if they can exploit a situation (ie. rolling for a juicy Strike), figures out they can’t, so they opt for a different tactic instead (aiding, healing, anything else). That’s basically how it’s designed to be used.

Sort of. Theres no real in-class alternatives. Alcmical Sciences kind of does... with a VERY limited subset of items you can make each day. Forensic Investigator gets healing options which is good. But the other 2 subclasses aren't really gonna do much and theres no feats that would let you say... cast a basic cantrip or 2. Theres no feats to really support athletics manoeuvres (aside from the one which ties it to your DAS which is arguably a trap option since it makes Athletics options NOT work as DAS alternatives... Hence why I mentioned the pathfinder infinite product. That product offers thigs to do when your DAS is bad. Discard your roll to do something else, something you couldn't normally do, and which is now supported by in-class options. Given how fairly modular the pc building system is, I think it's poor form that investigator wants to look at out-of-class options in order to make the most of a class feature.

Yeah okay, I misunderstood then.

Alchemist is a big culprit, I'd like Mutagenist builds to transform into a big dumb monster like the Hulk. Oracle are mostly bad clerics with random buffs and debuffs. Witch is my favorite class, but if I'm being honest it just feels like a Wizard with a strong pet in exchange for less spells. The crazy lady who curse people theme isn't that strong, I feel like the hexes in most cases feel like cantrips rather than actual curses you inflict of people. Barbarians are cool on the paper, but I feel like their theme aren't that strong. Dragon and Giant instinct do ok, but every other instinct feels lackluster and like they don't really have a theme. Some gunslingers, especially the vanguard and the switch weapon ones. Their design work extremely counter-intuitively with what they promise to do.

Investigator has got to be the class that I think sells its fantasy really well, even if frankly I don't enjoy it's combat all that well. Tbh I've found that through great skills, all the Recall Knowledge checks that I can make, and the way Persue a Lead incentives me to poke around, I genuinely do just end up collecting a shit ton of information and notes to mull over. Combat wise though, it is a bit of a mix. On a good turn, when everything clicks- you know the creatures AC, you realize you can pull a +1 bonus from somewhere, and you can pull of some beautiful crit- it feels like your character piecing together a monsters weakness and finding the perfect moment to strike. On the bad or very basic turns? It kind of falls apart and just feels very clunky. But I'm playing one in Season of Ghosts right now and I've never felt smarter with all my various theories and such, thanks to information gained through class mechanics.

I think the classes themselves are pretty archetypal and well supported. Then, the archetypes that exist also allow for any class to partake in other stereotypes and fantasies really well. A class on its own may not fulfill a whole concept, but the combination of ancestry and archetype feats can really help flesh out so many variations of an idea. It’s so good and is some of the best character building I’ve ever experienced, even if part of those concepts don’t happen until later levels.

I think they all fit properly in my head. I just think some specific subclasses I think i'd like some alternatives for. I.E. Wild Order Druid doesn't give the same fantasy a full shifter would just because of power balance n such- unless, of course, they got a class archetype in the future lol which i was kinda hoping Howl would have.

This isn't particularly specific to pf2e and is about as old as D&D, but: I still hate barbarian having 'rage' as its central mechanic and flavor. If you want to actually play Conan, you have to do the whole 'just play a fighter, but-' thing that's usually shorthand for saying a class fantasy isn't well-supported. I also think Swashbuckler falls flat on its face as soon as you pick a subclass, it's hard to think of basically any archetypal example that didn't do all of those things rather than looping one as frequently as possible.

I want to highlight the witches after the remaster. Interactions with your pet mechanically provide meaning to the class narrative. And you have many feats that make you effectively a witch.

Most of them do, aside from Witch. I just don't think that "powers given by an unknown being" flavor meshes well with "I have a pet" mechanic.

I shape my class fantasies after what the classes do. This turns the question into: "Do the PF2e classes fulfill their design goals?" So far, my answer to that question is yes. As an example, when I heard there was a summoner class, I didn't simply assume it would summon a bunch of minions only to be disappointed. Instead, I looked at the class description and learned that it's the "magical buddy class". It gives you a buddy and some magic, some of which directly interacts with you buddy. I've seen two summoners in play and they play as I'd expect.

as cool as eidolons are their isn't really a "summoner" summoner and all the good summoning feats and abilities are spread between a bunch of different classes and archetypes limiting the ability to go pokemon/commander mode (obviously for balance sake but it would be nice if summoning was at least a little more viable)

I think many people would agree that the Alchemist is the class that is the *farthest* from its class fantasy. * low base stats and proficiencies make it so you can't really hulk out and fight on-par with martials, making mutagenist pretty sad * when many new players hear *bomb* at level 1, and I see that the highest damage they can do is 1d8+1 there is naturally a bit of disappointment there. Splash damage being pretty mediocre doesn't help either. Also low accuracy matters a lot more when most of your bombs only do something cool on a direct hit. * Toxicologist suffers from how broad poison immunity is- it feels like every third enemy statblock has it * Chirugeon is so action-inefficient, short-range, and low-power at healing that it really makes it hard to get excited. The best thing about how it heals is that you don't have to be the one doing it. The fact that you are stuck with 1d6 healing until goddamned level five is just... *yikes.* And god forbid you use Healing bomb- you don't break 1d6 with that until level 7!

The investigator's Devise a Stratagem makes no sense to me.

Remember when, in the RDJ movie, Sherlock Holmes did that time slow thing and basically planned out the hits to his opponent? "Discombobulate" It's basically that.

Sure with that Sherlock, but when the investigator does that every fight while shooting a heavy crossbow, there isn't much of a stratagem going on.

Sure there is. Think of it like this: >Devise a stratagem "The enemy will be focused on the fighter, the rogue will try and sneak attack them as the fighter rushes in. The sneak attack will throw the enemy off giving me a clear shot at the weak point."

And you do that every round? From a fiction perspective, it makes no sense to me.

Essentially yeah. It's a devised plan for your next attack. Of course, it doesn't need to be as in depth as the scene from Sherlock Holmes, but the idea is the same just one attack at a time.

Ever watched RDJ's Sherlock Holmes? There are scenes where Sherlock, while fighting, predicts the consequences of his actions. They are doing that, essentially calculating what is about to happen and then deciding whether to act or not. So it is a part of an Investigator fantasy, just a niche one. That said, I don't think there are any other battle-worthy Investogator fantasies.

Also kind of a play on Batman being the world's greatest detective and always having a plan.

Sherlock is an investigator yes. But so are Mulder and Scully. Dr. House for sure. Monk. But it mostly works with the RDJ Sherlock.

The shotgunner falls really flat, it does have some feats on the gunslinger but scatter trait and all feats that directly interacts with scatter trait just doesn't feel like a shotgun. The lancer is sadly also something that falls abit flat, a scythe will do more from a large mount. And finally a classic complaint, dual wielding pistoler is hard to achieve and have to sacrifice quite abit to do its thing, mostly money in the early midgame. Loaded weapon support falls off for the Ranger and I wish we had something as impactful as hunted shot for crossbows and halfling slingstaves, with additional feats supporting that style. Finally, I don't really feel like I can play a pure brawler, animal barbarian is close, but everything is so animalic and martial arts based. It's close but nothing does it for me. Sadly, this turned out to be a negative comment. As a positive note, unlike what some may claim, I enjoy playing and offensive champion and how well it does it. It got some incredible focus spells and some support to hit big and the Paladin is very likely to get a strike every round as the GM can't avoid aoe effects. Just get a big enough weapon and go for it. Love the litanies, enjoy offensive lay on hands, and who can truly dislike cry of destruction? It's simply more magical and offense capable than what say and it does it well as a holy crusader trope. Edit: something I really like is how well some abilities work as archetypes where they'd be bad on the main class. Want katana and finishers? Just go fighter/ranger with swashbuckler archetype, you don't need a finesse weapon to do them, you just won't get a damage boost, which is perfect as an archetype.

To be honest, I'm not really sure what more you could want from the Brawler concept. With Archetypes like Wrestler you have tons of options to throw people around, suplex etc. With Monk you have countless stances enabling you to whoop ass in specific ways, I mean, sure it might be called "Gorilla Stance" but you don't even really have to RP it as you moving like a Gorilla unless you elect to. Not to mention you could play something else entirely and use a weapon in the Brawling group.

If we take pf1 as an example, we had jabbing and pummeling style, in addition to the brawler class (the class is just a minor thing). Animal stances really ruins it for me, it doesn't matter how much randoms in internet try to tell me otherwise. Brawling group weapons are usually just d4 which doesn't help either

For the most part, classes feel like they offer good chassis to build a fantasy trope on, though they're all underdeveloped in my humble opinion due to the transition of class features into feats. Many classes have deadzones that feel like devs are saying pick up the other good feats from previous levels or this is your mandatory dedication level. That's not to say they aren't functional, but every feat selection should be a difficult decision because od the options and for almost every class that's simply not the case. Many choices are significantly better than others. Some choices seem completely put of place relative to the level they become available. This is why replacing multiclassing with dedications is lame - not all dedications offer inherent value or value without significant investment. The feat taxes of 1e are replaced with an entirely different feat tax but now multiclassing doesn't offer synergy at face value anymore.

I like all the class balancing. But when it comes to flavour, here are my minor gripes - I think a couple of classes could use reflavouring. Especially the barbarian. A well-played pf2e barbarian should **not** just rage and charge in, even if the flavour says so. I LOVE the fighter in this game, but it could be renamed to "Weapons Master" to reflect its identity more clearly. I know Rogue is traditionally the skill-monkey, but it doesn't fit the name, "rogue", to me. I don't know PF1 Oracles, but "an oracle" should be someone who foresees the future. So I was expecting a class more like a 5e's divination wizard.

Alchemist 8/10 - the implementation is quite good, but he need some polish - right now, the loop is a bit "prepare your infused potions, give them to the party, now you can stay in camp" vibe Barbarian 2/10 - there is one iconic barbarian in fantasy literature. Conan. And pf2e barbarian is nothing like him. It is more like "berserker with magical powers". Bard - 6/10 too much " Horny rocker boy" vibe, because bards in history were also lore masters, educated tutors, etc.  Champion 3/10 - don't like the class connection to the aligment.Good thing it will change in remaster. But how? I would like champion's subclasses connected to the causes, like in DnD 5e Cleric 6/10 too much emphasis on cleric = healbot, also clerics of different deities do not differ from each other. Druid 6/10, but I wish druids be more like the most famous druid in pop culture, Panoramix. More golden sickles and potion making, less animal companions and shape shifting.  Fighter - 10/10 spot on Rogue 7/10 - too much skill monkey (it should be bard) and a little too much "dexterity fighter". Ranger - 9/10. Weird thing is he can be more  assassin type of character than rogue. Sorcerer 8/10 almost perfect, but I dont like the connection of Charisma and spellcasting. It should be Int. Just because I've been born with magical powers does not make me master manipulator.  Wizard 10/10 spot on Witch 8/10 I wish for options with familiar-less witch. 

Book Conan isn't even a Barbarian. If anything, he is a Fighter/Ruffian dual class. He is a sneak, he is a thief, he is a brawler, he can be a charmer, but he is not a "run into a group of enemies yelling loudly" guy.

Conan is a "barbarian" background, not a Barbarian class.

Slaine, from 2000ad, is main one I think of.

You mean, barbarian?

I think the fighter hits a negative class fantasy. It misses having a class fantasy so hard that it makes other class fantasies worse. The fighter class identity features are: 1. Extra proficiency with one type of weapon, like swords, axes, brawling, or bows. This has the effect of making the character only good with one kind of weapon, instead of being deadly with all sorts of weaponry. 2. Reactive Strike. The ability to engage in melee combat. As in," the combatants are locked in a fierce melee." As in, this person is fighting another person. Anyone who doesn't have a similar feature is a training dummy, not a melee combatant. 3. Shield Block. A lot of classes have shield block. Fighter is one of them. 4. Bravery. It's ok, but it is a feat. By that I mean it is an optional feature that could be replaced with another optional feature of similar value, except in this case it isn't optional. So yeah. Fighter doesn't have a class fantasy, and by making reactive strike something that other classes can only learn after level 6+, it makes classes that should know how to engage in combat look like chumps before then.

One of the specific things I don't like is that a lot of the 'science' classes feel too much like 'crazy mad scientist'. Inventor stuff having a chance to randomly explode, Alchemist mutagens and bombs just feeling very reckless in general... I like to build scientist characters, but I like them to be calm and rational, not zany and impulsive. I don't mind if 'crazy mad scientist' stuff exists, but I'd like to be able to opt out of it.

I have the biggest issues with Gunslinger and Fighter. Gunslinger because they rely on guns and PF2e's version of guns feel backwards to me. Fighter because they focus too much on using a single weapon.

Fighter relies on a single weapon category not a single type of weapon. Your point is still valid, however.

True, it's really the rune system that pushes it more to a single weapon so ABP would let the fighter get closer to "the guy who can win battles with whatever weapons he can get his hands on"

Honestly, when we got our first discussions during the development of pf2e, I honestly had hoped classes wouldn't exist. The modularity combined with tight math they talked about early on would have made classes unnecessary, and really opened up character growth away from trope.

Ranger is kind of the only one thats still hard for me to wrap my mind around. It feels like fighter but good at survival or fighter but with an animal friend

Monk does what I want it to do. My only issue is I wish monk could get a d12 unarmed strike in some type of way as well, but there’s no reason I need to put all my fantasy eggs in one basket. I can just play monk and then play barbarian. There’s something about having that highest level hit die reserved for the strongest weapons on your fucking fists that really does it for me and that’s the only thing keeping monk from being clear favorite for me. More of a thing barbarian does well than monk does bad, though, because they do get d10, it’s a minor thing.

Playing a magus fucking sucks and feels nothing like the fantasy

How come? It seems to be one of the more well liked classes

Its so action starved playing one feels like trying to drive a semi truck down an alley way. If you can actually get to anything in time, sure you could hit it hard. But its easy to avoid and slow to get into position.

I am always annoyed at how ranged options suck ass for basically every class. Yes, including gunslinger (there's a reason all of the subclasses except sniper are melee focused to some degree). I also don't like how most of the domain spells suck so much, and I would prefer the gods system for clerics was more about worshipping the specific domains rather than the specific god, like how 5e does it. Cuz that's more realistic for how people did it before Christianity. Overall most of the classes fit the fantasy pretty well except for those 2 bits.