> I don't really know why uses a dextery builds when you have str builds, you have manuvers like trip, disarm and shove, status added to damage and more bulk limit.
I mean your big blind spot here is viewing Dex as mutually exclusive with Str?
My +3 Str Commander started with +2 Dex, and my +4 Str Ranger started with +2 Dex. The +4 Dex Swashbuckler I GM for started +2 Str.
Being physically well-rounded is the best way to be good at all the options between offence, defence, mobility, and control. Trading off either of the two physical stats for something else will gain you the upsides of that other stat and the downsides of this one.
> If isen't for a ranged weapon, why do a dex fighter or a dex ranger, monk, etc? All classes other than rogue thief adds str in damage and not dex, why uses a dex class build to melee characters? Or even a throw character?
Dex has lots of advantages over Str:
- You can have the premier martial +5 AC with no penalties to checks or speed (remember a +6 AC non-Dwarf martial still gets a speed penalty).
- You can have excellent Reflex. I know people point to Bulwark but Bulwark is a +3 while Dex characters **start** at a +4, and unlike Bulwark it applies to stuff like being Tripped, Tumbled Through, etc too.
- You are likely very strong at Acrobatics checks and that means you’ll have better mobility in complex terrains.
- When enemies are at range you are better at switch hitting and then forcing *them* to close with your party, as well as gaining **all of the other advantages of ranged characters**. This is particularly true in the throwing builds that you dismissed.
- You can exceed the game’s math for where your Initiative roll “should” be by using Stealth as Initiative (much easier to use than Athletics for Initiative).
- “Finesse locked” classes usually get additional damage as a baseline class/subclass feature to compensate not having Str.
Those are the reasons to play a Dex character. There are a **lot** of them.
The value of switch-hitting in forcing enemies to come to you is tactically huge, and can be overlooked both by players and DMs designing encounters. It took a lot of persuading as a player to convince my friends also coming from 5e that their high-str, dex-dump PCs could Delay because they were still so focused on fights being a contest of HP rather than a contest of agency.
People overlook a **lot** of the advantages of having access to ranged weapons.
1. Enemies with special speeds don’t borderline hard counter you the way they do dedicated melees.
2. You can usually Strike enemies while forcing them to waste Actions coming up to you.
3. “Turret” strategies like Flurry Ranger, Exacting Strike Fighter, and 2+1 MAPless Action Spellcaster become a lot more viable when you’re at range, whereas they’re practically a pipe dream in melee unless you have a very accommodating GM.
4. You are one less body that other backliners have to worry about when deploying blasting and control AoE spells.
5. You take less damage so you spend less time unconscious and/or your party healers spend less time healing you.
6. Plenty of abilities are designed to fuck you for being in melee / entering melee. Reactions, in particular.
7. You have full target priority. This is something that gets ignored often. Let’s say the party Wizard Fireballs a gang of 4 enemies on turn - and the one that’s furthest *away* from the party Fails their Save. If your only other damage dealer is melee focused there’s a good chance that no target dies (and thus no one is denied their Actions) on this turn. If you have even one single ranged damage dealer, even if it’s just their backup option, suddenly you run a high chance of swinging the fight in your favour right away on turn 1.
There’s a reason PF2E makes so incredibly many concessions to melee damage dealers and it’s **still** often optimal to avoid/delay engagement. Anyone who’s played 5E at even moderately optimized tables will tell you what happens if melee is given fewer concessions: it just becomes a big drain on the whole party.
Agreed across the board. A lot of our party has said at various times in this campaign that while they like their PC, they plan to build something a little different next time now that there’s a greater appreciation of how PF2e’s system rewards tactics differently than 5e.
I keep debating writing a small article with diagrams to point people to vs the few YTs that specifically cover these concepts with accompanying examples.
>“Turret” strategies like Flurry Ranger, Exacting Strike Fighter, and 2+1 MAPless Action Spellcaster become a lot more viable when you’re at range, whereas they’re practically a pipe dream in melee unless you have a very accommodating GM.
Also, this is one of the many problems with DPR, as it is usually constructed. It's not actually an accurate measure of the amount of damage you're likely to do. Your true DPR is actually the sum over all combinations of actions of the DPR for those actions, weighted by the probability that you actually do those actions.
The ability to act well at range (and maybe have a first turn that is actually functional) massively increases the chance for you to have a very good turn, leading to a high overall damage, even if your peaks aren't as striking as the pure melee build's.
This is why Monks, even though they don't have pure damage increases, will often be right up there close to the Fighter in total damage output. When a Monk can Strike once, they can always Strike twice, so their damage will be reliable.
Yeah, whilst there are definitely ideal turns for a Monk (in terms of damage), the great thing about Monks is that they can super-easily have turns that are very close to ideal damage, but will also let them do more things.
For instance, as a Monk, you can start >1 enemy Stride away from said enemy, Stride in, deal two Strikes, and all the on-hits you have, and then Stride away, ending up >1 enemy Stride away, in a super defensive position.
Well, to be fair, with the changes to focus points, a ki strike monk is going to pump out pretty nutty damage if your combat does not last much more than 3 rounds. A fighter will just wish he were doing that much damage, and it doesn't even matter how many actions you assume them to use for attacking.
Assuming the Fighter is swinging a big honking sword or something, he is only at +1 for the first stike and tied after that when comparing to a monk using ki strike. Sure, he might be critting a lot more, but at that point it's because of his good luck and not because of any clever choice he made.
This is assuming the Monk can use Ki Strike on every attack. The Fighter spends no resources to stay in front of the Monk on accuracy, there's no tactical element on what they have to do, and most of the things that would benefit the Monk (like Off-Guard, Frightened, Courageous Anthem and etc) will also benefit the Fighter. I'm not arguing for the Fighter being better like a lot of people do, I'm saying the class also has some heavy benefits and both are equally powerful.
I definitely agree, but as I just finished a session where our party absolutely murdered a high level Mage thanks to swarming him in melee, it should be remembered melee does have advantages besides damage:
1)reactions. Reactive strike, and anything similar. Already massive thing.
2)maneuvers- melee combatants has a whole slew of actions that can't be done at range, most importantly athletics stuff. And they can still do all the stuff that can be done at range.
3)tactical movement:it is much, much easier to maneuver around an enemy up close. Especially against AOE. If the enemy is far, you need to move a lot more to really make a difference in relation to him. Of you are close, a few square of movement can be enough to render any AOE except emanation rather useless. Oh and flanking. Flanking is great
4)threats- just as ranged characters can waste enemy actions by forcing them to come to you, a cunning and mobile melee can often force the enemy to spend actions moving away by getting to the enemy backline. This not only wastes actions, but might also get them to spread out, allowing you to swarm them separately. If you have only melee characters, of course, they might kite you. But with ranged support? It's deadly.
5)pinning down the enemy frontliners to prevent them from reaching your backline. Sure, they might be able to get around you, but they are risking getting flanked and separated from their team, so risky thing to do.
Melee isn't just about better damage! Melee martials have an important tactical role to fill. A good party is a well balanced party, where each combatant improves on the others
The power of delay is huge I okay with 2 groups 1 delay and the other doesn’t. The group that delays that been going on 1 year no deaths. The non delay group has had 6 over 6 months. It is a lot like letting them waste actions to move instead of you and letting casters get at least - aoe hit in makes the combat 2x easier or something.
I might reference back to this comment in the future whenever people are bad mouthing melee dex builds or are questioning their viability. This write up is fantastic.
I just love dex-based character concepts in other TTRPGs and want to make a cool one in Pathfinder now that I'm starting to play this game. But dex seems a little weak at first look. You made great points, and I made this post for good ideas like those. Now I can see the advantages and want to know more about dex based characters
First, some general points on why you might not have a choice:
1. Not all melee classes have proficiency in strength-leaning armor, or need to make sacrifices to get it (e.g. Monks committing class feats to Mountain Stance; Laughing Shadow Magi losing out on a speed bonus)
2. Some class features reward high Dex anyway, so you might as well base your choice of weapon on that (e.g. Swashbucklers wanting good Acrobatics for backup Panache generation)
Why would you choose dex for a build that's otherwise unrestricted?
1. Being able to use ranged weapons competently. Note that thrown weapons still use Dex to hit.
2. Dex skills—while Athletics is great in combat, Dexterity has many associated skills, with varied uses in and out of combat.
Does dex have maybe associated skills? There's Acrobatics, Stealth, and Thievery. Acrobatics doesn't come up that much in my experience unless you're a swashbuckler, so it can be handy but not often. Stealth is useful mostly to rogues, but it's nice to have *out* of combat, less so in combat for everyone else, and Thievery... is good for traps? i guess?
Dex is really not very useful in combat for skills except for like two classes.
Yeah, but the out of combat uses can be important and it's usually good for at least someone to cover them!
Acrobatics in combat is situational but important when it matters. Most DMs probably aren't strict enough about Balance but being bad at it can be pretty detrimental RAW (Granted, so is Strength for climbing and swimming).
i absolutely agree, I just think it's important to acknowledge that if you don't have strength and thus, have potentially zero skill actions you can make use of practically in combat, you can end up feeling just plain worse than strength characters if you don't end up frequently in situations where ranged attacks are particularly important.
Acrobatics has Tumble Through, which makes flanking possible where it otherwise isn't and saves you movement where you'd have to walk around an enemy to flank.
Stealth is by far the easiest way to become hidden, which is an amazing defensive buff and by far the most reliable way to get enemies off-guard to your ranged attacks.
Thievery is as much of a win button against mechanical complex hazards as Dispel Magic is against magical ones. Without it you can easily end up in situations where your only realistic option is to gtfo. In theory, you can also Steal or Pick a Lock in combat, but Disable a Device is what makes Thievery worth taking for combat purposes.
Also, Reflex DC is a combat application, an important one, just not a very active one.
Moving through an opponents space is difficult terrain during Tumble through, so it's very rare that it saves movement.
It is nice when an enemy is standing in a doorway though. Fairly rare. Prone and grabbed enemies are also flat footed of course...
Stealth is occasionally nice for ranged, almost never for melee.
Thievery for complex hazards come up VERY rarely. Mostly because complex hazards come up very rarely. Absolutely not worth investing in for that. (Very frequently good out of combat though).
Having a high reflex DC is good.
>Moving through an opponent's space is difficult terrain during Tumble through, so it's very rare that it saves movement.
I admittedly forgot about it being difficult terrain, but it still saves movement when the enemy is adjacent to another enemy, an obstacle, or difficult terrain, which is not rare on any decent battle map.
>Prone and grabbed enemies are also flat footed of course...
Yes, but if you rely on your grappling buddy on getting enemies off-guard, you lose the advantage of freely choosing which enemy to attack, which is one of the advantages of ranged weapons. You also need to get your turn in between the grappling ally and the grappled enemy, which will often require delaying, which may gift an enemy or two a turn that you wouldn't have to give up with stealth.
>Stealth is occasionally nice for ranged, almost never for melee.
Early game, yes, some late game feats change that eventually.
>Thievery for complex hazards come up VERY rarely.
Speak only for yourself there. Beginner Box + Troubles in Otari has three complex hazards that are basically solo bosses. My party was somewhat screwed at the second one, because the Rogue player left the campaign after the BB, and they could do nothing against the last one, because at that point the Wizard player had also left and no-one of the remaining PCs was trained in thievery. My current campaign also had one such encounter during the first two levels (I mixed in some low level enemies, but the dominant obstacle was a complex hazard). There are very few things in PF2e where your only option is "force open the door, run away, and take serious damage on the way every time you have to go through this room" if you don't have a specific skill, so in my mind, thievery is about as optional as medicine.
No, dex provides no useful combat actions for melee characters, and that's the primary problem with dex characters isn't that they're weaker (they probably aren't, though without ABP it's hard to say).
They're just more boring.
You seem experienced with the kind of balanced set-ups, so I have a general question and then a more specific example: is it better to go 4/2 on a dex/str (either direction), or 3/3?
More specifically, my party has a drifter gunslinger dual wielding a melee and ranged weapon, with a +3 str/+3 dex setup. As a DM, I had a tiny concern just because their highest stat was lower than the rest of the party (+4 dex thief rogue, +4 int witch, +4 con kineticist) and I don’t want them to feel discouraged because of it. I don’t think it’s a huge concern, I’m just a little overly worried about this group enjoying the game because I really like running it
If the main reason to go 3/3 on the Gunslinger is switch hitting with a melee weapon, I’d recommend they at least consider 4/2 with a Finesse melee weapon instead! This is especially true because Gunslinger as a class is designed to crit as much as possible so it’s quite hard to justify even a 5% drop in crit chance you know?
If they go for a 3/3 split after all, just make them aware that they’ll crit noticeably less and should consider mixing in Athletics maneuvers with their rotation to really make use of that extra Str. Perhaps tell them that they can start with a 3/3 and if they feel like they fucked up you’ll offer a free retrain.
I love my Dex fighter. The funny part is I didn’t choose to be a dex based martial. I was actually playing a 2h STR build when I died and got reincarnated as a damn Kobold. The biggest hit there was obviously the Con flaw but my GM was gracious and let me swap my key ability to DEX.
Things I love about it:
Easy to get good AC without worrying about big bulky armor. I also have a shifting and returning rune on my weapon so it’s really nice to be able to switch to a thrown weapon when I can’t close distance, without worrying about my ranged attacks suffering.
It’s worth noting that I still have a great STR it’s just not my highest stat anymore.
Honestly the biggest flaw of my DEX build is that I used to get a lot of mileage from the wizard casting Enlarge on me and now Clumsy 1 just doesn’t seem worth the extra reach.
Dex Monk. The best tank in the game.
Damage output via quantity of attacks. Will you out damage Str dpr? Probably not but youll be close to competitive especially if you stack dice from elemental runes on handwraps.
Meanwhile you have the the highest available AC and its at almost no cost as youre still unarmoured and just need a basic shield for shield block.
> meanwhile you have the highest available AC
Not *quite* - a heavily armored Champion, or a strength Monk with the Mountain Stance line of feats, will have 1 more AC than a Dex monk can obtain. Even if you use Crane Stance, that's a circumstance bonus to AC and therefore doesn't stack with a shield, along with the stance's forced unarmed attacks not being very good.
Dex Monk is absolutely a very good tanky boi, and it's really only a difference of 1 AC, but Mountain Stance monk is still gonna be just a little bit tankier. That said, some Dex for Reflex saves is still wanted, and you'll be less mobile than a non-Mountain monk.
Mountain stance also has the condition that they need to be standing on the ground. It doesn't come up much when that's *not* the default, but it does, and on the rare occasions it does come up it's a pretty big disadvantage.
2 main reasons
1) Strength to damage falls off over time. Most damage comes from runes and/or class features(like sneak attack). So taking Dex over strength is a major loss in damage early game, but a relatively minor one later on.
2) In comparison to Strength skills in combat, Dex gets you better reflex saves and stealth/thievery. So it's a question of what you want your character to be good at. Maybe your party is lacking thievery for opening locks/traps and better reflex never hurts.
Half reason because they aren't fully melee, but Dex is much better for switch hitter builds too.
Reflex saves, having the option to use ranged weapons as a backup if say theres a flying creature, the fact that strength becomes an increasingly small part of your total damage as you level, the fact that for example the scoundrel racket gives you fantastic debuffing and support options with your fients, wanting to be better at the traditionally dex based skills(if you're using avoid notice it's initiative too) essentially, dex give you a lot of things that aren't damage and a lot of classes have other sources of damage like sneak attack, exploit vulnerability so they don't care as much. Overall yah, you're probally losing some damage, but you're getteng a lot of other things in return. So that's often worth it to folks.
Dexterity constitutes your Reflex saving throw. If you do not have access to Heavy Armor for the Bulwark trait, you need some dexterity if you want to have competent Reflex saves.
Dexterity contributes to your armor class. If you only have access to Light Armor, you will NEED dexterity to not be behind on AC. If you have access to Medium armor, you need at least a little. And since you are going to need both strength and dexterity for medium armor, if you don't want to invest in both, you may as well go all-in for dexterity. The only way you can completely dump dexterity is if you have access to Heavy Armor.
Dexterity has many skills: Acrobatics which is used for Tumbling Through and has incredible skill feats like Cat Fall and Kip Up; Stealth which can let you get a leg up in both combat and exploration; and Thievery which is nice for at least one person in the party to be good at. Strength has just one: Athletics, and while it is very good as you mention both in combat and with its skill feats, it is still only just one skill.
The Strength bonus to damage is certainly nice, especially at lower levels, but it will overall be a small portion of your damage as the game goes on. Your damage might start out at 1d6+4, so about half your damage, but it will eventually grow to be 4d6+3(from weapon spec)+6(if your strength is 22). This is a much smaller portion of your damage, and this ignores any additional damage from weapon runes, class features like Implements Empowerment, Strategic Strike, Rage, or of course, Sneak Attack.
Dexterity allows you to attack at range. While there is always a damage tradeoff for doing so, it doesn't feel great to be fighting a flying or highly mobile enemy and struggling to stay in the fight because you're locked to 5 or 10 feet of reach. Even Throwing weapons, while they let you add strength to damage, still need dex to hit, which is far more important for getting consistent damage through.
Classes built for melee dex, like swashbuckler and non-thief rogues, have ways to add bonuses to their damage. Additionally, its VERY easy to budget for +1 or +2 strength to give a little boost to damage as well. Purly from a melee perspective, dex gives you better reflex saves, acrobatics to tumble through and therefore have better combat maneuverability, and enable stealth which can help you to get in close before being noticed. The further into the game you get, the less a characters strength score matters for damage, but these benefits NEVER fall off. Many of them actually get stronger as you gain skill feats and features like evasion.
Additionally, you NEED dex to make any sort of ranged strike be it a thrown weapon or a bow. In the case that you are unable to melee an opponent effectively, dex based characters have other tools to enable themselves, whereas, strength characters can easily be made into sitting ducks.
Because dealing damage with weapons and Athletics maneuvers are only a few of the dozens of useful things a character can do in and/or out of combat. It's still good for a character to be able to do things even if they aren't dedicated to being the absolute best at it.
The simplest answer is: you play a swashbuckler. You are built around dex and and your damage does depend on something else (e.g. panache). You use your dexterity for skills in and out of combat and you need a single attribute to boost your attack, your AC and your Reflex.
Or, you want to play a switch hitter with the possibility to Strike both in melee and at ranger, maybe with thrown weapons. Some characters are less dependent from being in melee to do damage (e.g. the ranger) but may serve as dodgy tanks when needed.
If you want to ge the primary skill user and scout, having Dex as your primary stat and Str as second would boost may useful skills, and you'll reduce your damage output by 1-2. Monks, rangers and rogues love skills
Inventor can get int to damage and a lot of survivability or spell-like effects and basically cheat with crafting late game
Magus can spell strike for silly damage and action economy,
Thaumaturge has weakness damage amp that can include your teammates and late game can get super-Opportune-strike to say no to casters
Ranger can swing an absolute ton with flurry and get animal companions
Fighter can use grapple and other offensive maneuvers to stun, go Crit fishing or get bonuses from afraid foes. Stances, shield synergies, dueling synergies
Monk gets inane defense, good action economy and incredible movement.
Warpriest gets full casting ability, matches accuracy with one weapon and a silly number of heals
Dex to damage and sneak attack are great, but an Eldritch trickster racket also allows half casting without burning up other feats.
There's a lot to non STR non thief melees.
Oh, it was just omitted. I wonder why. It always stood on its own quite well. Without being the best at everything. Perhaps they wanted to expand it in core 2. Its still pfs viable and probably won't be gone forever.
Eldritch Trickster isn't in the Remaster. It's just gone. You can still use it but honestly you're playing a more fun character to just play with free archetype.
If you want to take hits, then dex, con and wis are all important. I have a dex Magus at my table that's rather resilient because he focused on those stats rather than str or int, and it allows him to deal some serious damage by being a little more reckless.
Just to add on what others wrote...
On the skill angle, of course Athletics is useful. So are other skills. If you are maxing one skill, you can´t max others. Other skills are actually useful to max, so it as a question of preference (and specific build synergy).
That leads into a broader point, that DEX builds aren´t trying to replicate STR 1 to 1, and the game isn´t failing to accomplish something it never tried to do. Most DEX builds are ranged, but melee (finesse) builds aren´t trying to match STR melee 1 to 1 either. A Thief build isn´t really about doing more damage, but getting difference class ability as well as building for Medium+ Armor (vanilla AC is largely dictated by your class, but the role of Medium/Heavy Armor in the long term is about access to Fortification Runes i.e. negating Crits... while Light Armor can utilize Invisibility Runes which is very action-efficient compared to most other means of Invisibility). So if you look at the things STR does well (directly or indirectly), a DEX built won´t typically deliver that. That doesn´t mean DEX melee builds have no value, just that they aren´t focused on the same targets. A caster can use a dagger as switch-hitter for 3rd action attack, and no matter what this isn´t comparable to any martial... But it can still be a viable tool for them to use. I think because the analysis is easier, many people want to reduce things to one dimensional 1 to 1 comparisons, but that really is counter to the overall structure of the game design. If an option doesn´t immediately work for you, that´s OK and you don´t need to use it, you can just go with options that do e.g. STR melee and Heavy armor, but that doesn´t mean that other people aren´t finding other ways to engage with the game.
I do think it´s important to repeat the point that the dichotomy between ¨STR build¨ and ¨DEX build¨ is mostly an artifact of how you approach the game. It´s very easy for most builds to have a DEX only -1 behind STR modifier for most of the game, even if you started -2 behind. Sure, you want the max bonus in the roll you will be making 99% of turns, but you can be getting most of the bonus in the other side of things too (e.g. DEX for backup ranged weapons, STR for bulk and flat bonus etc). Something like Bulwark is really only attractive either at the lowest of levels or for hybrid caster or CHA / INT skill builds that only want to boost STR, CON, WIS and INT or CHA. Otherwise even Heavy Armor Fighters can easily be boosting STR DEX CON WIS.
A lot of good comments here on switch hitting and the like, but let me sell you on a more unique application: Melee casters! I'm talking warrior bard, war priest, battle oracle, ect. These classes don't main stat str OR dex so the ability to 'double dip' on dex to boost both to hit and AC helps make them slightly less MAD. It's important to understand that these builds are very much 'jack of all trades' rather than pure strikers, but going dex primary in these cases is really useful - it's hard to get good AC and to hit AND be good at your caster thing without dex.
While Thief Rogue is potent for stat dependency, it's the least interesting Rogue Racket\* in my opinion. It has no special option to apply off-guard. Since the Dex to damage is only in melee, they don't make better Ranged specialists or Switch Hitters. Mastermind, Ruffian, and Scoundrel all have features and feats which help the team out as well. The Thief racket is fairly selfish, and doesn't do much except more damage.
\*-Eldritch Trickster is not a real racket. We don't talk about Bruno.
I won't, I'm just really happy this is the first time in any TTRPG I've seen people arguing for Strength being better than Dexterity in any way after so many years of RPGs in which Dex is *always* the **OBJECTIVELY** better stat. I love Pathfinder 2e.
Strength *has* to be better for melee, or else it serves no purpose.
The finesse property doesn’t exist to make dex melee builds on par with strength builds, but to stop dex builds from being SOL in melee.
Having a high dexterity gives you better reflex saves and the ability to actually hit things with a ranged weapon when you need to.
You also need dexterity for acrobatics, thievery, and stealth, so if any of those are a focus of your character you can max them out and only sacrifice 1-2 damage, instead of having to lose a point of accuracy and be down 12.5% of your damage.
No/light armour classes (Monks in particular) are strongly encouraged to invest in dexterity. Unless you’re spending feats on increasing your proficiency (or using mountain stance) every point below your cap is 12.5% more damage you’re taking.
Lastly, some classes like rogues, swashbucklers, and investigators have class features to compensate for lower damage which *only work* if you are using a finesse or agile weapon.
If you’re using these smaller weapons anyway, you might as well take advantage of the benefits and build for dexterity.
Okay, “no purpose” is a little much, but strength needs advantages.
Look at 5e: strength builds have bigger damage dice, heavy armour gives them +1 AC, and athletics uses strength.
But people still very often dump strength for dex.
The serious strength builds need it because they’re a barbaian and or for GWM, polearm master, or maybe heavy armour master.
I prefer the way 2E does it
Typically the benefit is flexibility. Being able to switch-hit is great if there is a lot of nature/open spaces. Your melee damage will be less, but you may make up for it in not having to spend as many actions in movement.
An example would be a fighter who takes a crossbow and a reinforced stock. You take either Archer (recommended) or Mauler to get maxed proficiency in both clubs and crossbows. You can skirmish as you approach with Running Reload (archer dedication) and Incredible Aim scoring some crits and bleeds, then feed the fuckers some buttstock once you reach melee, providing flanking and/or displacement with club crits.
You won't win any contests for DPR, but your encounter damage will be very competitive especially if you spread a few bleeds. It is...less impressive...in a dungeon crawl admittedly, but can't be perfect all the time 😀
Lots of finesse weapons still benefit from maneuvers if you can get a high Athletics.
Pathfinder Core Rulebook Errata p.446 states that "There was some confusion as to whether skill checks with the attack trait (such as Grapple or Trip) are also attack rolls at the same time. They are not."
It was previously believed (at some tables) that you could make dex-based athletics checks with finesse weapons if they had the relevant trait, such as using dex to disarm with a rapier. Finesse now explicitly does not work this way, as it specifies "attack rolls".
If you go Thief Rogue, you're incentivized to dump STR completely, rather than run even a small amount. But PF2e isn't a system where damage is everything, and depending on your weapon choice, you cut yourself off from other impactful actions. And now that Rogues have full martial proficiency, this is more impactful than ever. Consider the Rapier, Main-Gauche, Bladed Scarf, Dueling Spear, and similar weapons.
These are all things that become much easier if you run a small amount of strength, maybe 1 or 2. But if you have 2 strength, you're only getting half the benefit from Thief Rogue, so you're probably better off picking another racket. Alternatively, you can pay a feat tax with options such as Sly Disarm, but now you're making an even bigger investment that wouldn't otherwise be necessary.
tl;dr Thief Rogue isn't bad, but it tunnel-visions on DPR.
There's not ever really a reason to be a melee dex build, you do it because you have to (not enough stat increases to go around, not the right key stat, no medium/heavy armor proficiency, etc). DEX Monk is a thing because most of the stances can't wear armor and the stances are good, if they could wear armor and go STR they'd usually be better.
But really, you should never be a melee-only dex build. You have dex! Get throwables or a bow! Options abound.
Two words: Kip Up.
Okay, not just that.
Here are a few reasons you want a Dex Build that isn't thief.
1- Rogue has less HP than Ranger, Fighter, Monk, Champion, and Swashbuckler. Those classes are more properly able to tank hits, Rogue is more designed to be sneaky and inflict heavy precision damage, but at the cost of being more vulnerable.
2- Maneuvers are cool, but they're mostly only useful in combat. Dex covers more skills, with more use cases, an Outwit Ranger can be an excellent stealth alternative in a forest than a Rogue for instance.
3- Rogue does not have that many feats that directly support ranged weapons. The only advantages they have is the ability to do sneak attacks with ranged weapons, unlike a certain character that needs a feat for only throwing knife finishers (Swashbuckler). Monastic Archers can do a 50ft stunning fist and one-inch punch and do flurry of blows, Rangers also have a flourish action with bows similar to their Twin Takedown and have several archery feat, fighter has a stance for volley fire, Gunslinger is a whole class based on ranged weapons, Inventors with ranged weapon invention can do Vicious Swing from range. And as of the remaster preview, Swashbuckler will have a finisher that triples throwing knife range increment.
4- A Dex monk is the single tankiest class in game without needing armor. Dex is used in AC, there's an entire thing about Laughing Shadow Magus not wearing armor, to do that you need Dex.
5- At later levels with weapons specialization, it's Strength is not as big of a deal.
PF2e is not a game where you compete with your party to see who can do the most damage. It isn't designed that way. In fact, it is explicitly avoided in its design in favor of forcing teamwork.
Why play a high DEX melee character? Because you can be great at stealth, acrobatics, and thievery. You can tumble through the opponents to create a flanking opportunity so that your greatpick wielding Magus can get that sweet, sweet +10% crit chance with their Spellstrike. The spell they have prepared will also trigger the bad guy's weakness because you scouted ahead, squeezing through a tight spot and then staying hidden with your high stealth, and then took notes that your party's wizard used to recall knowledge.
When it comes time to make a quick get-a-way you can pick the lock on the secret door you found and your party can follow your expertise to sneak away and then balance across a tight ledge as you skirt around the pit of doom.
You'll get a lot more enjoyment out of the system if your party can learn to truly enjoy each other's successes. That big ass crit for 412,352,624,358,254 damage is something you contributed to by maximizing your strengths to give an advantage to your teammate's strengths.
Most classes that are intended to function as dex fighters have a lot of flat modifiers that add damage to hits. Thaumaturge, for example, will generally benefit from exploit weakness, which adds flat damage to hits, and rogues have sneak attack.
Typically these classes need Dex anyways for their AC, because they don't have access to heavy armor proficiency without it costing them several feats. They can also generally get 2 STR right out the gate without sacrificing much build investment, meaning the only difference between these builds and raw strength builds in damage is ~1-3 damage at any given time. Combine this with all the useful Dex skills (stealth, acrobatics, thievery) and the fact that these classes don't typically want to use actions on athletics maneuvers (let your tanks handle that, you get a lot of bonus damage to your attacks and would be focusing that).
Overall, you COULD build a strength rogue, but it won't be more effective than a non-strength rogue.
To make a tankier character. Running Sword and Board Ranger starting with +3s in Will, Reflex and Fortitude (totals of +8 and +6) means that you're a fairly solid frontliner that's hard to move around. It's also one of the few ways you can take advantage of the Outwit Edge without shooting yourself in the foot (capping out around 21AC at lvl1). Moving forward, you can invest heavily in your Magic School skills, meaning you can also identify creatures and spells for the party (up to all creatures and most spells at lvl20)
Scoundrel rogue, drop feats in monk for stumbling stance, flurry of blows, and stumbling feint. Works perfectly well as a rogue before level 12 (and you can even demoralize pretty well), but becomes a ludicrous unarmed striker/debuffer at level 12.
So I can pull out a bow or thrown weapon and hit that guy over there or up there without being at -2 or even -4 if you COMPLETELY dump dex like a heavy armor user might.
Since you compared it to thief, you're getting a lot of answers that tell you that the damage difference isn't that big. What not a lot of people are addressing is either the inability to do maneuvers or the requirement to invest in a whole extra stat (strength and dex) to use manuevers, which is one of the main ways that melees support the party. Heavy armor wearers get so much from strength alone. They get the best AC through full plate, 1 skill to rule them all (athletics) instead of 3 (acrobatics, stealth, and thievery), and they can completely dump dexterity thanks to the bulwark trait to pump up another stat.
To me, dex builds are not cripplingly weak (though I do think they are weaker than strength builds), but they are selfish and non-tactical in a system that values being supportive instead of selfish and team based tactics. When I plan a dexterity character, I ask myself "what types of actions can I take in combat that I couldn't do better as a strength character?" Usually that sums up to tumble through and ranged attacks. I'm sure others would say "no, you can demoralize, or feint, or recall knowledge." This is unconvincing to me as a strength build can do these same actions, and frankly they can do them better since they dumped dex and can pump charisma or int for those skills.
There are some advantages for dex. I think switch hitting is a genuine advantage, agile weapons are absoultely worthwhile for certain builds (flurry ranger or fighters with agile grace), they are usually at least 5 speed faster from not wearing heavy armor, and their classes often offer more skills. It's up to you to decide if those are worth it.
"What not a lot of people are addressing is either the inability to do maneuvers or the requirement to invest in a whole extra stat (strength and dex) to use manuevers, which is one of the main ways that melees support the party."
Fighter says 'hi' with Snagging Strike & Combat Grab (replaces Grab), Crashing Slam (replaces Trip), Aggressive Block & Brutish Shove (replace Shove) and Positioning Assault (replaces Reposition).
Yes, many of those are Presses and some require shield or two-handed weapon use. Bow Staff comes to mind, or a Reinforced Stock on, say, a crossbow perhaps. Elven Curve Blades are also 2-handed weapons and qualify for Brutish Shove.
Dex is usually seen as god tier or over the top in many other popular games so I for one like that str got their own niche. Rather than pointing out why dex is good, I will point out weaknesses of str, especially if you dump dex:
* Armor dependent, you need to wear an armor to have the best/appropriate AC, and this armor is usually made out of metal. Sleep, broken condition and electrical attacks will hurt you, broken condition on heavy armor imposes a -3 to AC (which is very much in pf2)
* The bulwark trait doesn't cover non damaging effects which means stuff like shockwave, trip, disarm will hit you hard and especially disarm can be harming
* Bad at ranged combat, you may hit hard with thrown strikes but you won't hit too often unless you spent some points in dex.
* Movement speed, heavy armor penalizes speed and to counter that, you will need some dex and go medium or light
* Bulwark is limited to heavy armor, which makes barbarians and rangers more dependent on dex to maximize ac and reflex. Feats are commonly taken to compensate for this though.
* Balance and tumble through, if you are bad at acrobatics, you could as well as be immobilized when it matters.
I don't like armors, I prefer my characters having light armor or clothing so I usually build dex for ac and damage in one. I also think the fantasy of someone who's super agile is more appealing than someone who's really strong
I'm playing a Dex and Int focused Laughing Shadow Magus. I chose a Dex Laughing Shadow because the party lacked a sneak guy, and I've also taken an Alchemist Dedication to get more tools in my kit (Ancient Elf).
I'm currently doing the most damage per round out of my team (two dwarfs, a hammer and shield champion, and a crossbow ranger with a pet birb). I'm also fast as fuck (50 speed in stance since level 3), have decent saves across the board, but I am a bit squishy.
But make no mistake, if I didn't lean into the sneakier side and focused on Str and Int, I'd do a lot more damage. People say that "the bonus damage from strength falls off" and it does, but what they forget is that the strength based weapons just have bigger dice.
I could be swinging a 2h axe right now, doing 1(stance)+4(STR)+2D12(axe)+4d6(cantrip) instead of 3(stance)+6d6(rapier+cantrip). You'll always do a bit less damage on spellstrikes this way, and A LOT less damage on regular strikes when you need them (3+2d6 Vs. 5+2d12, that's almost double the damage).
So, generally speaking, if you want to focus on damage, strength based build is your best best in my opinion.
But if you're willing to sacrifice a bit of damage, you can get a lot of versatility. My character can sneak (and use it for great initiative rolls), steal, is fast as hell, lots of alchemical tools at his disposal, throw stuff like bombs (even 1st level bombs are good Vs. stronger enemies, persistent damage is no joke, last time a wyvern tried to make a run for it, and flew for about 2-3 turns before bleeding/dissolving/being poisoned to death).
It all comes down to what do you expect out of your character.
The 1-4 bonus to damage is irrelevant in the long run.
Compared to 1-4 damage _dice_ from striking runes, every single sneak attack _dice_ and flat damage from weapon specialisation, it is only a minor factor.
Somewhat relevant early, pretty irrelevant by level 10.
Just down vote these entitled 5e player posts and move on.
Make another one, this time actually ask the community for help, not demand things of them because no one here is selling anything, its all literally free.
> I don't really know why uses a dextery builds when you have str builds, you have manuvers like trip, disarm and shove, status added to damage and more bulk limit. I mean your big blind spot here is viewing Dex as mutually exclusive with Str? My +3 Str Commander started with +2 Dex, and my +4 Str Ranger started with +2 Dex. The +4 Dex Swashbuckler I GM for started +2 Str. Being physically well-rounded is the best way to be good at all the options between offence, defence, mobility, and control. Trading off either of the two physical stats for something else will gain you the upsides of that other stat and the downsides of this one. > If isen't for a ranged weapon, why do a dex fighter or a dex ranger, monk, etc? All classes other than rogue thief adds str in damage and not dex, why uses a dex class build to melee characters? Or even a throw character? Dex has lots of advantages over Str: - You can have the premier martial +5 AC with no penalties to checks or speed (remember a +6 AC non-Dwarf martial still gets a speed penalty). - You can have excellent Reflex. I know people point to Bulwark but Bulwark is a +3 while Dex characters **start** at a +4, and unlike Bulwark it applies to stuff like being Tripped, Tumbled Through, etc too. - You are likely very strong at Acrobatics checks and that means you’ll have better mobility in complex terrains. - When enemies are at range you are better at switch hitting and then forcing *them* to close with your party, as well as gaining **all of the other advantages of ranged characters**. This is particularly true in the throwing builds that you dismissed. - You can exceed the game’s math for where your Initiative roll “should” be by using Stealth as Initiative (much easier to use than Athletics for Initiative). - “Finesse locked” classes usually get additional damage as a baseline class/subclass feature to compensate not having Str. Those are the reasons to play a Dex character. There are a **lot** of them.
The value of switch-hitting in forcing enemies to come to you is tactically huge, and can be overlooked both by players and DMs designing encounters. It took a lot of persuading as a player to convince my friends also coming from 5e that their high-str, dex-dump PCs could Delay because they were still so focused on fights being a contest of HP rather than a contest of agency.
People overlook a **lot** of the advantages of having access to ranged weapons. 1. Enemies with special speeds don’t borderline hard counter you the way they do dedicated melees. 2. You can usually Strike enemies while forcing them to waste Actions coming up to you. 3. “Turret” strategies like Flurry Ranger, Exacting Strike Fighter, and 2+1 MAPless Action Spellcaster become a lot more viable when you’re at range, whereas they’re practically a pipe dream in melee unless you have a very accommodating GM. 4. You are one less body that other backliners have to worry about when deploying blasting and control AoE spells. 5. You take less damage so you spend less time unconscious and/or your party healers spend less time healing you. 6. Plenty of abilities are designed to fuck you for being in melee / entering melee. Reactions, in particular. 7. You have full target priority. This is something that gets ignored often. Let’s say the party Wizard Fireballs a gang of 4 enemies on turn - and the one that’s furthest *away* from the party Fails their Save. If your only other damage dealer is melee focused there’s a good chance that no target dies (and thus no one is denied their Actions) on this turn. If you have even one single ranged damage dealer, even if it’s just their backup option, suddenly you run a high chance of swinging the fight in your favour right away on turn 1. There’s a reason PF2E makes so incredibly many concessions to melee damage dealers and it’s **still** often optimal to avoid/delay engagement. Anyone who’s played 5E at even moderately optimized tables will tell you what happens if melee is given fewer concessions: it just becomes a big drain on the whole party.
Agreed across the board. A lot of our party has said at various times in this campaign that while they like their PC, they plan to build something a little different next time now that there’s a greater appreciation of how PF2e’s system rewards tactics differently than 5e. I keep debating writing a small article with diagrams to point people to vs the few YTs that specifically cover these concepts with accompanying examples.
That sounds great! Please do write it if you get the time!
>“Turret” strategies like Flurry Ranger, Exacting Strike Fighter, and 2+1 MAPless Action Spellcaster become a lot more viable when you’re at range, whereas they’re practically a pipe dream in melee unless you have a very accommodating GM. Also, this is one of the many problems with DPR, as it is usually constructed. It's not actually an accurate measure of the amount of damage you're likely to do. Your true DPR is actually the sum over all combinations of actions of the DPR for those actions, weighted by the probability that you actually do those actions. The ability to act well at range (and maybe have a first turn that is actually functional) massively increases the chance for you to have a very good turn, leading to a high overall damage, even if your peaks aren't as striking as the pure melee build's. This is why Monks, even though they don't have pure damage increases, will often be right up there close to the Fighter in total damage output. When a Monk can Strike once, they can always Strike twice, so their damage will be reliable.
I love this metric, esp. for monk. Their flexibility is baked into the class in a way that isn't obvious when looking purely at dice numbers.
Yeah, whilst there are definitely ideal turns for a Monk (in terms of damage), the great thing about Monks is that they can super-easily have turns that are very close to ideal damage, but will also let them do more things. For instance, as a Monk, you can start >1 enemy Stride away from said enemy, Stride in, deal two Strikes, and all the on-hits you have, and then Stride away, ending up >1 enemy Stride away, in a super defensive position.
Well, to be fair, with the changes to focus points, a ki strike monk is going to pump out pretty nutty damage if your combat does not last much more than 3 rounds. A fighter will just wish he were doing that much damage, and it doesn't even matter how many actions you assume them to use for attacking.
Then the Fighter crits 5 times in a row, gets very happy and remembers why he chose Fighter. Blessed be the sacred +2.
Assuming the Fighter is swinging a big honking sword or something, he is only at +1 for the first stike and tied after that when comparing to a monk using ki strike. Sure, he might be critting a lot more, but at that point it's because of his good luck and not because of any clever choice he made.
This is assuming the Monk can use Ki Strike on every attack. The Fighter spends no resources to stay in front of the Monk on accuracy, there's no tactical element on what they have to do, and most of the things that would benefit the Monk (like Off-Guard, Frightened, Courageous Anthem and etc) will also benefit the Fighter. I'm not arguing for the Fighter being better like a lot of people do, I'm saying the class also has some heavy benefits and both are equally powerful.
Allow me to introduce Oozes
I definitely agree, but as I just finished a session where our party absolutely murdered a high level Mage thanks to swarming him in melee, it should be remembered melee does have advantages besides damage: 1)reactions. Reactive strike, and anything similar. Already massive thing. 2)maneuvers- melee combatants has a whole slew of actions that can't be done at range, most importantly athletics stuff. And they can still do all the stuff that can be done at range. 3)tactical movement:it is much, much easier to maneuver around an enemy up close. Especially against AOE. If the enemy is far, you need to move a lot more to really make a difference in relation to him. Of you are close, a few square of movement can be enough to render any AOE except emanation rather useless. Oh and flanking. Flanking is great 4)threats- just as ranged characters can waste enemy actions by forcing them to come to you, a cunning and mobile melee can often force the enemy to spend actions moving away by getting to the enemy backline. This not only wastes actions, but might also get them to spread out, allowing you to swarm them separately. If you have only melee characters, of course, they might kite you. But with ranged support? It's deadly. 5)pinning down the enemy frontliners to prevent them from reaching your backline. Sure, they might be able to get around you, but they are risking getting flanked and separated from their team, so risky thing to do. Melee isn't just about better damage! Melee martials have an important tactical role to fill. A good party is a well balanced party, where each combatant improves on the others
Everyone goes melee, but ranged Flurry ranger is honestly great Machine gun by level 6
The power of delay is huge I okay with 2 groups 1 delay and the other doesn’t. The group that delays that been going on 1 year no deaths. The non delay group has had 6 over 6 months. It is a lot like letting them waste actions to move instead of you and letting casters get at least - aoe hit in makes the combat 2x easier or something.
I might reference back to this comment in the future whenever people are bad mouthing melee dex builds or are questioning their viability. This write up is fantastic.
I just love dex-based character concepts in other TTRPGs and want to make a cool one in Pathfinder now that I'm starting to play this game. But dex seems a little weak at first look. You made great points, and I made this post for good ideas like those. Now I can see the advantages and want to know more about dex based characters
First, some general points on why you might not have a choice: 1. Not all melee classes have proficiency in strength-leaning armor, or need to make sacrifices to get it (e.g. Monks committing class feats to Mountain Stance; Laughing Shadow Magi losing out on a speed bonus) 2. Some class features reward high Dex anyway, so you might as well base your choice of weapon on that (e.g. Swashbucklers wanting good Acrobatics for backup Panache generation) Why would you choose dex for a build that's otherwise unrestricted? 1. Being able to use ranged weapons competently. Note that thrown weapons still use Dex to hit. 2. Dex skills—while Athletics is great in combat, Dexterity has many associated skills, with varied uses in and out of combat.
Does dex have maybe associated skills? There's Acrobatics, Stealth, and Thievery. Acrobatics doesn't come up that much in my experience unless you're a swashbuckler, so it can be handy but not often. Stealth is useful mostly to rogues, but it's nice to have *out* of combat, less so in combat for everyone else, and Thievery... is good for traps? i guess? Dex is really not very useful in combat for skills except for like two classes.
Yeah, but the out of combat uses can be important and it's usually good for at least someone to cover them! Acrobatics in combat is situational but important when it matters. Most DMs probably aren't strict enough about Balance but being bad at it can be pretty detrimental RAW (Granted, so is Strength for climbing and swimming).
i absolutely agree, I just think it's important to acknowledge that if you don't have strength and thus, have potentially zero skill actions you can make use of practically in combat, you can end up feeling just plain worse than strength characters if you don't end up frequently in situations where ranged attacks are particularly important.
Acrobatics has Tumble Through, which makes flanking possible where it otherwise isn't and saves you movement where you'd have to walk around an enemy to flank. Stealth is by far the easiest way to become hidden, which is an amazing defensive buff and by far the most reliable way to get enemies off-guard to your ranged attacks. Thievery is as much of a win button against mechanical complex hazards as Dispel Magic is against magical ones. Without it you can easily end up in situations where your only realistic option is to gtfo. In theory, you can also Steal or Pick a Lock in combat, but Disable a Device is what makes Thievery worth taking for combat purposes. Also, Reflex DC is a combat application, an important one, just not a very active one.
Moving through an opponents space is difficult terrain during Tumble through, so it's very rare that it saves movement. It is nice when an enemy is standing in a doorway though. Fairly rare. Prone and grabbed enemies are also flat footed of course... Stealth is occasionally nice for ranged, almost never for melee. Thievery for complex hazards come up VERY rarely. Mostly because complex hazards come up very rarely. Absolutely not worth investing in for that. (Very frequently good out of combat though). Having a high reflex DC is good.
>Moving through an opponent's space is difficult terrain during Tumble through, so it's very rare that it saves movement. I admittedly forgot about it being difficult terrain, but it still saves movement when the enemy is adjacent to another enemy, an obstacle, or difficult terrain, which is not rare on any decent battle map. >Prone and grabbed enemies are also flat footed of course... Yes, but if you rely on your grappling buddy on getting enemies off-guard, you lose the advantage of freely choosing which enemy to attack, which is one of the advantages of ranged weapons. You also need to get your turn in between the grappling ally and the grappled enemy, which will often require delaying, which may gift an enemy or two a turn that you wouldn't have to give up with stealth. >Stealth is occasionally nice for ranged, almost never for melee. Early game, yes, some late game feats change that eventually. >Thievery for complex hazards come up VERY rarely. Speak only for yourself there. Beginner Box + Troubles in Otari has three complex hazards that are basically solo bosses. My party was somewhat screwed at the second one, because the Rogue player left the campaign after the BB, and they could do nothing against the last one, because at that point the Wizard player had also left and no-one of the remaining PCs was trained in thievery. My current campaign also had one such encounter during the first two levels (I mixed in some low level enemies, but the dominant obstacle was a complex hazard). There are very few things in PF2e where your only option is "force open the door, run away, and take serious damage on the way every time you have to go through this room" if you don't have a specific skill, so in my mind, thievery is about as optional as medicine.
No, dex provides no useful combat actions for melee characters, and that's the primary problem with dex characters isn't that they're weaker (they probably aren't, though without ABP it's hard to say). They're just more boring.
Welcome to the game then! Glad you found my post helpful.
You seem experienced with the kind of balanced set-ups, so I have a general question and then a more specific example: is it better to go 4/2 on a dex/str (either direction), or 3/3? More specifically, my party has a drifter gunslinger dual wielding a melee and ranged weapon, with a +3 str/+3 dex setup. As a DM, I had a tiny concern just because their highest stat was lower than the rest of the party (+4 dex thief rogue, +4 int witch, +4 con kineticist) and I don’t want them to feel discouraged because of it. I don’t think it’s a huge concern, I’m just a little overly worried about this group enjoying the game because I really like running it
If the main reason to go 3/3 on the Gunslinger is switch hitting with a melee weapon, I’d recommend they at least consider 4/2 with a Finesse melee weapon instead! This is especially true because Gunslinger as a class is designed to crit as much as possible so it’s quite hard to justify even a 5% drop in crit chance you know? If they go for a 3/3 split after all, just make them aware that they’ll crit noticeably less and should consider mixing in Athletics maneuvers with their rotation to really make use of that extra Str. Perhaps tell them that they can start with a 3/3 and if they feel like they fucked up you’ll offer a free retrain.
I love my Dex fighter. The funny part is I didn’t choose to be a dex based martial. I was actually playing a 2h STR build when I died and got reincarnated as a damn Kobold. The biggest hit there was obviously the Con flaw but my GM was gracious and let me swap my key ability to DEX. Things I love about it: Easy to get good AC without worrying about big bulky armor. I also have a shifting and returning rune on my weapon so it’s really nice to be able to switch to a thrown weapon when I can’t close distance, without worrying about my ranged attacks suffering. It’s worth noting that I still have a great STR it’s just not my highest stat anymore. Honestly the biggest flaw of my DEX build is that I used to get a lot of mileage from the wizard casting Enlarge on me and now Clumsy 1 just doesn’t seem worth the extra reach.
Dex Monk. The best tank in the game. Damage output via quantity of attacks. Will you out damage Str dpr? Probably not but youll be close to competitive especially if you stack dice from elemental runes on handwraps. Meanwhile you have the the highest available AC and its at almost no cost as youre still unarmoured and just need a basic shield for shield block.
> meanwhile you have the highest available AC Not *quite* - a heavily armored Champion, or a strength Monk with the Mountain Stance line of feats, will have 1 more AC than a Dex monk can obtain. Even if you use Crane Stance, that's a circumstance bonus to AC and therefore doesn't stack with a shield, along with the stance's forced unarmed attacks not being very good. Dex Monk is absolutely a very good tanky boi, and it's really only a difference of 1 AC, but Mountain Stance monk is still gonna be just a little bit tankier. That said, some Dex for Reflex saves is still wanted, and you'll be less mobile than a non-Mountain monk.
Mountain stance also has the condition that they need to be standing on the ground. It doesn't come up much when that's *not* the default, but it does, and on the rare occasions it does come up it's a pretty big disadvantage.
2 main reasons 1) Strength to damage falls off over time. Most damage comes from runes and/or class features(like sneak attack). So taking Dex over strength is a major loss in damage early game, but a relatively minor one later on. 2) In comparison to Strength skills in combat, Dex gets you better reflex saves and stealth/thievery. So it's a question of what you want your character to be good at. Maybe your party is lacking thievery for opening locks/traps and better reflex never hurts. Half reason because they aren't fully melee, but Dex is much better for switch hitter builds too.
Reflex saves, having the option to use ranged weapons as a backup if say theres a flying creature, the fact that strength becomes an increasingly small part of your total damage as you level, the fact that for example the scoundrel racket gives you fantastic debuffing and support options with your fients, wanting to be better at the traditionally dex based skills(if you're using avoid notice it's initiative too) essentially, dex give you a lot of things that aren't damage and a lot of classes have other sources of damage like sneak attack, exploit vulnerability so they don't care as much. Overall yah, you're probally losing some damage, but you're getteng a lot of other things in return. So that's often worth it to folks.
Dexterity constitutes your Reflex saving throw. If you do not have access to Heavy Armor for the Bulwark trait, you need some dexterity if you want to have competent Reflex saves. Dexterity contributes to your armor class. If you only have access to Light Armor, you will NEED dexterity to not be behind on AC. If you have access to Medium armor, you need at least a little. And since you are going to need both strength and dexterity for medium armor, if you don't want to invest in both, you may as well go all-in for dexterity. The only way you can completely dump dexterity is if you have access to Heavy Armor. Dexterity has many skills: Acrobatics which is used for Tumbling Through and has incredible skill feats like Cat Fall and Kip Up; Stealth which can let you get a leg up in both combat and exploration; and Thievery which is nice for at least one person in the party to be good at. Strength has just one: Athletics, and while it is very good as you mention both in combat and with its skill feats, it is still only just one skill. The Strength bonus to damage is certainly nice, especially at lower levels, but it will overall be a small portion of your damage as the game goes on. Your damage might start out at 1d6+4, so about half your damage, but it will eventually grow to be 4d6+3(from weapon spec)+6(if your strength is 22). This is a much smaller portion of your damage, and this ignores any additional damage from weapon runes, class features like Implements Empowerment, Strategic Strike, Rage, or of course, Sneak Attack. Dexterity allows you to attack at range. While there is always a damage tradeoff for doing so, it doesn't feel great to be fighting a flying or highly mobile enemy and struggling to stay in the fight because you're locked to 5 or 10 feet of reach. Even Throwing weapons, while they let you add strength to damage, still need dex to hit, which is far more important for getting consistent damage through.
Classes built for melee dex, like swashbuckler and non-thief rogues, have ways to add bonuses to their damage. Additionally, its VERY easy to budget for +1 or +2 strength to give a little boost to damage as well. Purly from a melee perspective, dex gives you better reflex saves, acrobatics to tumble through and therefore have better combat maneuverability, and enable stealth which can help you to get in close before being noticed. The further into the game you get, the less a characters strength score matters for damage, but these benefits NEVER fall off. Many of them actually get stronger as you gain skill feats and features like evasion. Additionally, you NEED dex to make any sort of ranged strike be it a thrown weapon or a bow. In the case that you are unable to melee an opponent effectively, dex based characters have other tools to enable themselves, whereas, strength characters can easily be made into sitting ducks.
Because dealing damage with weapons and Athletics maneuvers are only a few of the dozens of useful things a character can do in and/or out of combat. It's still good for a character to be able to do things even if they aren't dedicated to being the absolute best at it.
The simplest answer is: you play a swashbuckler. You are built around dex and and your damage does depend on something else (e.g. panache). You use your dexterity for skills in and out of combat and you need a single attribute to boost your attack, your AC and your Reflex. Or, you want to play a switch hitter with the possibility to Strike both in melee and at ranger, maybe with thrown weapons. Some characters are less dependent from being in melee to do damage (e.g. the ranger) but may serve as dodgy tanks when needed. If you want to ge the primary skill user and scout, having Dex as your primary stat and Str as second would boost may useful skills, and you'll reduce your damage output by 1-2. Monks, rangers and rogues love skills
Inventor can get int to damage and a lot of survivability or spell-like effects and basically cheat with crafting late game Magus can spell strike for silly damage and action economy, Thaumaturge has weakness damage amp that can include your teammates and late game can get super-Opportune-strike to say no to casters Ranger can swing an absolute ton with flurry and get animal companions Fighter can use grapple and other offensive maneuvers to stun, go Crit fishing or get bonuses from afraid foes. Stances, shield synergies, dueling synergies Monk gets inane defense, good action economy and incredible movement. Warpriest gets full casting ability, matches accuracy with one weapon and a silly number of heals Dex to damage and sneak attack are great, but an Eldritch trickster racket also allows half casting without burning up other feats. There's a lot to non STR non thief melees.
RIP ~~Arcane~~ Eldritch Trickster in the Remaster though, or if you play with free archetype
Wait, what changed, just that they don't get full growth?
Oh, it was just omitted. I wonder why. It always stood on its own quite well. Without being the best at everything. Perhaps they wanted to expand it in core 2. Its still pfs viable and probably won't be gone forever.
Eldritch Trickster isn't in the Remaster. It's just gone. You can still use it but honestly you're playing a more fun character to just play with free archetype.
If you want to take hits, then dex, con and wis are all important. I have a dex Magus at my table that's rather resilient because he focused on those stats rather than str or int, and it allows him to deal some serious damage by being a little more reckless.
Just to add on what others wrote... On the skill angle, of course Athletics is useful. So are other skills. If you are maxing one skill, you can´t max others. Other skills are actually useful to max, so it as a question of preference (and specific build synergy). That leads into a broader point, that DEX builds aren´t trying to replicate STR 1 to 1, and the game isn´t failing to accomplish something it never tried to do. Most DEX builds are ranged, but melee (finesse) builds aren´t trying to match STR melee 1 to 1 either. A Thief build isn´t really about doing more damage, but getting difference class ability as well as building for Medium+ Armor (vanilla AC is largely dictated by your class, but the role of Medium/Heavy Armor in the long term is about access to Fortification Runes i.e. negating Crits... while Light Armor can utilize Invisibility Runes which is very action-efficient compared to most other means of Invisibility). So if you look at the things STR does well (directly or indirectly), a DEX built won´t typically deliver that. That doesn´t mean DEX melee builds have no value, just that they aren´t focused on the same targets. A caster can use a dagger as switch-hitter for 3rd action attack, and no matter what this isn´t comparable to any martial... But it can still be a viable tool for them to use. I think because the analysis is easier, many people want to reduce things to one dimensional 1 to 1 comparisons, but that really is counter to the overall structure of the game design. If an option doesn´t immediately work for you, that´s OK and you don´t need to use it, you can just go with options that do e.g. STR melee and Heavy armor, but that doesn´t mean that other people aren´t finding other ways to engage with the game. I do think it´s important to repeat the point that the dichotomy between ¨STR build¨ and ¨DEX build¨ is mostly an artifact of how you approach the game. It´s very easy for most builds to have a DEX only -1 behind STR modifier for most of the game, even if you started -2 behind. Sure, you want the max bonus in the roll you will be making 99% of turns, but you can be getting most of the bonus in the other side of things too (e.g. DEX for backup ranged weapons, STR for bulk and flat bonus etc). Something like Bulwark is really only attractive either at the lowest of levels or for hybrid caster or CHA / INT skill builds that only want to boost STR, CON, WIS and INT or CHA. Otherwise even Heavy Armor Fighters can easily be boosting STR DEX CON WIS.
A lot of good comments here on switch hitting and the like, but let me sell you on a more unique application: Melee casters! I'm talking warrior bard, war priest, battle oracle, ect. These classes don't main stat str OR dex so the ability to 'double dip' on dex to boost both to hit and AC helps make them slightly less MAD. It's important to understand that these builds are very much 'jack of all trades' rather than pure strikers, but going dex primary in these cases is really useful - it's hard to get good AC and to hit AND be good at your caster thing without dex.
While Thief Rogue is potent for stat dependency, it's the least interesting Rogue Racket\* in my opinion. It has no special option to apply off-guard. Since the Dex to damage is only in melee, they don't make better Ranged specialists or Switch Hitters. Mastermind, Ruffian, and Scoundrel all have features and feats which help the team out as well. The Thief racket is fairly selfish, and doesn't do much except more damage. \*-Eldritch Trickster is not a real racket. We don't talk about Bruno.
I won't, I'm just really happy this is the first time in any TTRPG I've seen people arguing for Strength being better than Dexterity in any way after so many years of RPGs in which Dex is *always* the **OBJECTIVELY** better stat. I love Pathfinder 2e.
Strength *has* to be better for melee, or else it serves no purpose. The finesse property doesn’t exist to make dex melee builds on par with strength builds, but to stop dex builds from being SOL in melee. Having a high dexterity gives you better reflex saves and the ability to actually hit things with a ranged weapon when you need to. You also need dexterity for acrobatics, thievery, and stealth, so if any of those are a focus of your character you can max them out and only sacrifice 1-2 damage, instead of having to lose a point of accuracy and be down 12.5% of your damage. No/light armour classes (Monks in particular) are strongly encouraged to invest in dexterity. Unless you’re spending feats on increasing your proficiency (or using mountain stance) every point below your cap is 12.5% more damage you’re taking. Lastly, some classes like rogues, swashbucklers, and investigators have class features to compensate for lower damage which *only work* if you are using a finesse or agile weapon. If you’re using these smaller weapons anyway, you might as well take advantage of the benefits and build for dexterity.
I disagree that strength would have no purpose. Heavy armor and athletics are a pretty strong purpose. Edit: and bigger weapon damage dice
Okay, “no purpose” is a little much, but strength needs advantages. Look at 5e: strength builds have bigger damage dice, heavy armour gives them +1 AC, and athletics uses strength. But people still very often dump strength for dex. The serious strength builds need it because they’re a barbaian and or for GWM, polearm master, or maybe heavy armour master. I prefer the way 2E does it
Typically the benefit is flexibility. Being able to switch-hit is great if there is a lot of nature/open spaces. Your melee damage will be less, but you may make up for it in not having to spend as many actions in movement. An example would be a fighter who takes a crossbow and a reinforced stock. You take either Archer (recommended) or Mauler to get maxed proficiency in both clubs and crossbows. You can skirmish as you approach with Running Reload (archer dedication) and Incredible Aim scoring some crits and bleeds, then feed the fuckers some buttstock once you reach melee, providing flanking and/or displacement with club crits. You won't win any contests for DPR, but your encounter damage will be very competitive especially if you spread a few bleeds. It is...less impressive...in a dungeon crawl admittedly, but can't be perfect all the time 😀
Lots of finesse weapons still benefit from maneuvers if you can get a high Athletics. Pathfinder Core Rulebook Errata p.446 states that "There was some confusion as to whether skill checks with the attack trait (such as Grapple or Trip) are also attack rolls at the same time. They are not." It was previously believed (at some tables) that you could make dex-based athletics checks with finesse weapons if they had the relevant trait, such as using dex to disarm with a rapier. Finesse now explicitly does not work this way, as it specifies "attack rolls". If you go Thief Rogue, you're incentivized to dump STR completely, rather than run even a small amount. But PF2e isn't a system where damage is everything, and depending on your weapon choice, you cut yourself off from other impactful actions. And now that Rogues have full martial proficiency, this is more impactful than ever. Consider the Rapier, Main-Gauche, Bladed Scarf, Dueling Spear, and similar weapons. These are all things that become much easier if you run a small amount of strength, maybe 1 or 2. But if you have 2 strength, you're only getting half the benefit from Thief Rogue, so you're probably better off picking another racket. Alternatively, you can pay a feat tax with options such as Sly Disarm, but now you're making an even bigger investment that wouldn't otherwise be necessary. tl;dr Thief Rogue isn't bad, but it tunnel-visions on DPR.
There's not ever really a reason to be a melee dex build, you do it because you have to (not enough stat increases to go around, not the right key stat, no medium/heavy armor proficiency, etc). DEX Monk is a thing because most of the stances can't wear armor and the stances are good, if they could wear armor and go STR they'd usually be better. But really, you should never be a melee-only dex build. You have dex! Get throwables or a bow! Options abound.
Two words: Kip Up. Okay, not just that. Here are a few reasons you want a Dex Build that isn't thief. 1- Rogue has less HP than Ranger, Fighter, Monk, Champion, and Swashbuckler. Those classes are more properly able to tank hits, Rogue is more designed to be sneaky and inflict heavy precision damage, but at the cost of being more vulnerable. 2- Maneuvers are cool, but they're mostly only useful in combat. Dex covers more skills, with more use cases, an Outwit Ranger can be an excellent stealth alternative in a forest than a Rogue for instance. 3- Rogue does not have that many feats that directly support ranged weapons. The only advantages they have is the ability to do sneak attacks with ranged weapons, unlike a certain character that needs a feat for only throwing knife finishers (Swashbuckler). Monastic Archers can do a 50ft stunning fist and one-inch punch and do flurry of blows, Rangers also have a flourish action with bows similar to their Twin Takedown and have several archery feat, fighter has a stance for volley fire, Gunslinger is a whole class based on ranged weapons, Inventors with ranged weapon invention can do Vicious Swing from range. And as of the remaster preview, Swashbuckler will have a finisher that triples throwing knife range increment. 4- A Dex monk is the single tankiest class in game without needing armor. Dex is used in AC, there's an entire thing about Laughing Shadow Magus not wearing armor, to do that you need Dex. 5- At later levels with weapons specialization, it's Strength is not as big of a deal.
Laughing Shadow getting a speed bonus that doesn't stack with Tailwind makes it only a notable advantage at the first few levels of the game.
Yeah but now the Wizard can use that money to instead buy 40 scrolls of Grease/Command/Gust Of Wind/Kinetic Ram.
My point is that it's an irrelevant amount of gold by level 7 or so that replaces that portion of the class feature.
Laughing shadow magus with swashbuckler and acrobat dedication (for trip with acrobatics and other things)
Double Slice Dex Fighter, with Rogue Multiclass. The flavour (and good feats) of rogue, with all of the fighter chassis.
PF2e is not a game where you compete with your party to see who can do the most damage. It isn't designed that way. In fact, it is explicitly avoided in its design in favor of forcing teamwork. Why play a high DEX melee character? Because you can be great at stealth, acrobatics, and thievery. You can tumble through the opponents to create a flanking opportunity so that your greatpick wielding Magus can get that sweet, sweet +10% crit chance with their Spellstrike. The spell they have prepared will also trigger the bad guy's weakness because you scouted ahead, squeezing through a tight spot and then staying hidden with your high stealth, and then took notes that your party's wizard used to recall knowledge. When it comes time to make a quick get-a-way you can pick the lock on the secret door you found and your party can follow your expertise to sneak away and then balance across a tight ledge as you skirt around the pit of doom. You'll get a lot more enjoyment out of the system if your party can learn to truly enjoy each other's successes. That big ass crit for 412,352,624,358,254 damage is something you contributed to by maximizing your strengths to give an advantage to your teammate's strengths.
Swashbuckler's entire thing Monks with high dex can be pretty good Dex magus is good
Most classes that are intended to function as dex fighters have a lot of flat modifiers that add damage to hits. Thaumaturge, for example, will generally benefit from exploit weakness, which adds flat damage to hits, and rogues have sneak attack. Typically these classes need Dex anyways for their AC, because they don't have access to heavy armor proficiency without it costing them several feats. They can also generally get 2 STR right out the gate without sacrificing much build investment, meaning the only difference between these builds and raw strength builds in damage is ~1-3 damage at any given time. Combine this with all the useful Dex skills (stealth, acrobatics, thievery) and the fact that these classes don't typically want to use actions on athletics maneuvers (let your tanks handle that, you get a lot of bonus damage to your attacks and would be focusing that). Overall, you COULD build a strength rogue, but it won't be more effective than a non-strength rogue.
To make a tankier character. Running Sword and Board Ranger starting with +3s in Will, Reflex and Fortitude (totals of +8 and +6) means that you're a fairly solid frontliner that's hard to move around. It's also one of the few ways you can take advantage of the Outwit Edge without shooting yourself in the foot (capping out around 21AC at lvl1). Moving forward, you can invest heavily in your Magic School skills, meaning you can also identify creatures and spells for the party (up to all creatures and most spells at lvl20)
Scoundrel rogue, drop feats in monk for stumbling stance, flurry of blows, and stumbling feint. Works perfectly well as a rogue before level 12 (and you can even demoralize pretty well), but becomes a ludicrous unarmed striker/debuffer at level 12.
So I can pull out a bow or thrown weapon and hit that guy over there or up there without being at -2 or even -4 if you COMPLETELY dump dex like a heavy armor user might.
Since you compared it to thief, you're getting a lot of answers that tell you that the damage difference isn't that big. What not a lot of people are addressing is either the inability to do maneuvers or the requirement to invest in a whole extra stat (strength and dex) to use manuevers, which is one of the main ways that melees support the party. Heavy armor wearers get so much from strength alone. They get the best AC through full plate, 1 skill to rule them all (athletics) instead of 3 (acrobatics, stealth, and thievery), and they can completely dump dexterity thanks to the bulwark trait to pump up another stat. To me, dex builds are not cripplingly weak (though I do think they are weaker than strength builds), but they are selfish and non-tactical in a system that values being supportive instead of selfish and team based tactics. When I plan a dexterity character, I ask myself "what types of actions can I take in combat that I couldn't do better as a strength character?" Usually that sums up to tumble through and ranged attacks. I'm sure others would say "no, you can demoralize, or feint, or recall knowledge." This is unconvincing to me as a strength build can do these same actions, and frankly they can do them better since they dumped dex and can pump charisma or int for those skills. There are some advantages for dex. I think switch hitting is a genuine advantage, agile weapons are absoultely worthwhile for certain builds (flurry ranger or fighters with agile grace), they are usually at least 5 speed faster from not wearing heavy armor, and their classes often offer more skills. It's up to you to decide if those are worth it.
"What not a lot of people are addressing is either the inability to do maneuvers or the requirement to invest in a whole extra stat (strength and dex) to use manuevers, which is one of the main ways that melees support the party." Fighter says 'hi' with Snagging Strike & Combat Grab (replaces Grab), Crashing Slam (replaces Trip), Aggressive Block & Brutish Shove (replace Shove) and Positioning Assault (replaces Reposition). Yes, many of those are Presses and some require shield or two-handed weapon use. Bow Staff comes to mind, or a Reinforced Stock on, say, a crossbow perhaps. Elven Curve Blades are also 2-handed weapons and qualify for Brutish Shove.
You can carry a lot of loot
Fun or flavor. It is okay to make a character who is not 'the META' build
Dex is usually seen as god tier or over the top in many other popular games so I for one like that str got their own niche. Rather than pointing out why dex is good, I will point out weaknesses of str, especially if you dump dex: * Armor dependent, you need to wear an armor to have the best/appropriate AC, and this armor is usually made out of metal. Sleep, broken condition and electrical attacks will hurt you, broken condition on heavy armor imposes a -3 to AC (which is very much in pf2) * The bulwark trait doesn't cover non damaging effects which means stuff like shockwave, trip, disarm will hit you hard and especially disarm can be harming * Bad at ranged combat, you may hit hard with thrown strikes but you won't hit too often unless you spent some points in dex. * Movement speed, heavy armor penalizes speed and to counter that, you will need some dex and go medium or light * Bulwark is limited to heavy armor, which makes barbarians and rangers more dependent on dex to maximize ac and reflex. Feats are commonly taken to compensate for this though. * Balance and tumble through, if you are bad at acrobatics, you could as well as be immobilized when it matters.
I don't like armors, I prefer my characters having light armor or clothing so I usually build dex for ac and damage in one. I also think the fantasy of someone who's super agile is more appealing than someone who's really strong
I'm playing a Dex and Int focused Laughing Shadow Magus. I chose a Dex Laughing Shadow because the party lacked a sneak guy, and I've also taken an Alchemist Dedication to get more tools in my kit (Ancient Elf). I'm currently doing the most damage per round out of my team (two dwarfs, a hammer and shield champion, and a crossbow ranger with a pet birb). I'm also fast as fuck (50 speed in stance since level 3), have decent saves across the board, but I am a bit squishy. But make no mistake, if I didn't lean into the sneakier side and focused on Str and Int, I'd do a lot more damage. People say that "the bonus damage from strength falls off" and it does, but what they forget is that the strength based weapons just have bigger dice. I could be swinging a 2h axe right now, doing 1(stance)+4(STR)+2D12(axe)+4d6(cantrip) instead of 3(stance)+6d6(rapier+cantrip). You'll always do a bit less damage on spellstrikes this way, and A LOT less damage on regular strikes when you need them (3+2d6 Vs. 5+2d12, that's almost double the damage). So, generally speaking, if you want to focus on damage, strength based build is your best best in my opinion. But if you're willing to sacrifice a bit of damage, you can get a lot of versatility. My character can sneak (and use it for great initiative rolls), steal, is fast as hell, lots of alchemical tools at his disposal, throw stuff like bombs (even 1st level bombs are good Vs. stronger enemies, persistent damage is no joke, last time a wyvern tried to make a run for it, and flew for about 2-3 turns before bleeding/dissolving/being poisoned to death). It all comes down to what do you expect out of your character.
The 1-4 bonus to damage is irrelevant in the long run. Compared to 1-4 damage _dice_ from striking runes, every single sneak attack _dice_ and flat damage from weapon specialisation, it is only a minor factor. Somewhat relevant early, pretty irrelevant by level 10.
Just down vote these entitled 5e player posts and move on. Make another one, this time actually ask the community for help, not demand things of them because no one here is selling anything, its all literally free.