@ Sorry? I said I was late to video because I just found the channel but enjoyed the video. I don’t understand how I was being negative?

@@neurolancer81 ahhhh i'm so sorry! I thought you meant my video was months late. Please forgive me!!!

It’s alright buddy. I can see how my comment can sound in a different context. I really needed a good bard video and this was it. I liked it.

@@neurolancer81 I appreciate it! I want to apologize again for automatically assuming the worst from your response; that's a bad habit that I have to work on!

I appreciate the comment! It can be tricky to find efficacy, but knowledge is your friend. If you can figure out what you will be fighting, you can prepare the necessary spells moving forward (e.g. Fire and Electricity vs a Forest Troll) in order to target weaknesses and lowest saves. Of course, the additional challenge in actually HAVING those spells in your spellbook is another challenge in and of itself. I would make sure that I would have a wide array of spells and not focus too much into damage - maybe just 2 cantrips (or 3 if you took Cantrip Expansion) should be dedicated to those, with one or two damage spells in your highest spell slot that are of a different type than your cantrips. Finally, having access to actions that don't require spells, such as Recall Knowledge and Aid, can be very effective for a Wizard.

Damn, I must've rushed past the music part of the edit. I might re-upload once I recover from Covid. Glad you enjoyed it!

Yes! I've been running my campaign at the moment so that's where all of my Pathfinder 2E spoons have been going but I can tell you that my copy of PC2 just arrived yesterday!

Ask and ye shall receive lol

That would make a great idea for a video!

It's not primarily a striker! It simply has witch's armaments to further debuff enemies - it should only be used if the opportunity presents itself, not as its go-to (also I would really be remiss to NOT include it considering how cool it is; I also...might've been running low on ideas at that point LOL). Thanks for the comment!

@@comatthew6 Oh thanks for sharing! That actually makes Wild Witch’s Armament, specifically the Living Hair effect, make much more sense now! Edit: Now that I think about it, that’s how I play my Wilding Steward. Using Iron Jaws so I can hold a shield and a staff/item, Wilding Word/Sympathetic Strike since they create a synergistic loop, and Interposing Earth as a defense if I can’t raise my shield. The addition of Wild Witch’s Armament for Iron Jaws makes sense now (even if it’s a low of success). With low INT/high STR, I went for an Athletics debuffer/healer/summoner/field controller, but I usually didn’t have the actions for healing if I wanted to do anything else. Hidebound makes it easier for me to protect my party while I’m locking down enemies (and is a pretty strong protection for myself). Thanks!

@toodleselnoodos6738 I was *this* close to suggesting a strength build for that witch but I couldn't bring myself to do it in good faith. Happy adventuring!

+2

As God wills it

Oh, thanks for the comment! I was going for more of a military-style sort of deal (e.g. Britain's tank doctrine during WWII...) rather than a faith-sort of thing.

@@comatthew6 ah, that makes sense. Idk, the connection somehow wasn’t that clear for me. But either way, nor dogma nor creed are necessary religious, I thought about them more like “following a set of ideas or morals”. Maybe in this context “conviction” would be good? Protocol doesn’t suit with fantasy theme for me 🤔

@KajtekBeary you are more than welcome to have your opinions, but I, the author, like Protocol the most. If you don't, then don't buy the product.

Thank you so much for the kind words!

@@comatthew6 Ok mate, i did run the Ironclad through a new released System Tool of Lazarus Dark (called BCS). And your Ironclad is in 99.9% Power Budget from a purely Slot Cost perspective. So again, really well done! I just have an little question. I compared Interpose to the Selfish Shield Ability of Desecrator Champions. Why didn't you include a 2 Baseline DR and a potential Scaling with Con later on? That would be like the Icing on the cake :D (That being said, the Selfish Shield by itself is much weaker than Retributive Strike in der First Place, so much wiggle room for you to give it a bit more oomph anyways)

@@anthonyjohncalabria6106 I ran it through BCS as well, and I'm glad we came to similar conclusions! The reason why I was a bit hesitant with its resistance gain is that the Ironclad's power comes from within, not from a deity, so it felt kinda weird from that perspective.

@@comatthew6 ah i see! Well i mean, the Champion has a lot of features that make use of his Charisma and a lot of flexibility in terms of what kind of Champion you want to play. I would argue that the Ironclad could be a bit more powerfull in some features bcs. he is pretty much hyper specialized. While a Champion can go full on offensive with anti undead/fiend stuff and such, or go for the Steed Ally to have basically a divine Rangeresque Class. But i can understand that you are hesitant, since people are super conservative and would probably wave the OP Flag as soon as they see something a bit stronger, even though it would in context not break anything ^^

All good! I figured that if you only had issues with 2 of the feats, you must be very content with the rest of the class!

I don't have the chance to respond to this appropriately until tomorrow, but I am acknowledging your concern.

So I've taken some time to consider this feat, and I will say that yes, this feat is straight-up better than anything that has preceded it. However, I do not believe that this feat is overpowered, and I am not officially going to make any changes to the document. Here's why: Aid is not a strong maneuver in Pathfinder 2E. Inquisitor is also not an Intelligence-based class, so getting the critical success is not guaranteed. Additionally, this ability is really not going to get as much use as one might think. Realistically, it will be a 3rd action, as considering movement, self-buffing, Judgment, and striking, one will probably not even have any time to use this ability at all until round 3. Consider the average combat for a Holy Tactician at level 4: Turn 1: Cast Judgment, Cast Expose Weakness (Free), Cast Bless Turn 2: Stride, Strike, Strike/Tactical Aid/Shield Turn 3: Strike/Stride into flank, Strike, Tactical Aid Of course, your mileage may vary with this, but I think this is a fair assessment of how a battle will pan out for an Inquisitor. One has to consider that every action given to Tactically Aid, you remove an action that could be used to strike. And considering average combats do not last longer than 4-5 rounds anyway, this effect will probably not gain much traction until the combat is winding down anyway. Additionally, as one's spells improve, the more one would be inclined to cast those. I think spending all 3 of your actions to aid is perfectly fine, considering you didn't make any strikes. That being said, here is my proposition, if you still believe the feat is too strong: remove the ability to make this a multiple-action activity. Introduce a new feat at 12th level, Master Tactician, which allows you to make this a 2- or 3-action activity with the extra reactions. I would keep the Legendary in Society tied to the 4th level feat, as it mirrors Inspire Competence.

@@comatthew6 I understand where you're coming from but real fast like that to address your points: 1-Aid is a weak activity: Aid provides a circumstance bonus to attack rolls. Circumstance bonuses to hit are very rare, and it can scale up to +4, meaning this is the single highest circumstance bonus one can have to attack in the entire game, giving your front liners up to 20% more chance to hit and crit, and stacking with heroism and inspire courage. It is a VERY good action. It gets less good when you have reaction options, but for casters and support characters, there's a reason why most builds suggest a 3 feat dip into Swashy on the paizo boards for charisma casters. (To get one for all, which is still much weaker than tactical aid) 2-Aid isn't a guaranteed crit: No... but eventually yes. And also it being a static DC it does not matter that the Inquisitor does not have high int, eventually it will auto crit or mostly auto crit. And since with this feat it almost can't fail well.... As for the proposed fix, definitely works, its just that for me the base class should err on the side of caution so that people who want to bonify it can, and not the other way around. As written, when compared to rest of literature, this feat is strictly much better and thus unbalanced.

@@AlastarTehMaster When I was writing this, I had completely forgotten that Aid scales to +4. In my mind, it capped at +2.

I'll take the time to consider both the case of Rogue into Inquisitor and Inquisitor into Rogue. Let's start with Rogue into Inquisitor. In order for a Rogue to gain access to this feat, they'd need to spend 3 feats to get here and be level 8 (and have 14 Wis, but this is w/e). Additionally, this only gives them the benefits of Sneak attack for 2 actions -- Instant Opening gives 5 (not including Haste). Yes, they can do this every round once getting into Melee, but exactly the same can be accomplished by flanking, feinting, or taking Tumble Behind at 1. Gang Up is also present at 6, so Rogues don't even need to flank to get Sneak Attack. This only helps in the case that a Rogue has 0 teammates in melee to help them, OR are using a ranged build. Considering this, I would be open to the idea of changing this feat to read "melee only", but to be completely honest, Rogues have no shortage of ways to get an enemy flat-footed by 8th level. Now, let's consider Inquisitor into Rogue. This only requires 2 feats (and 14 Dex, w/e) to do, and will come online by level 6. However, again, one can gain the benefits of Sneak Attack by flanking or feinting. Of course, Inquisitors do not have access to Tumble Behind, nor do they have special incentive to invest into Deception, but the fact of the matter is that unless you consider the longbow's damage of 2d8 (base damage+striking rune) +1d6 (SA) +2 (Judgment) +1 (Composite) ~ 15.5 (assuming this is at level 6 when this comes online) to be OP (I certainly don't), starting on turn 2 after setting up both Judgment and Solo Maneuvers. Finally, Finesse weapons cap at 1d8 damage, so you aren't getting any more damage. A Finesse Weapon would deal: 2d8 (9) + 1d6 (3.5) = 12.5 vs. a Greatsword, which is 2d12 (13). Of course, there are more numbers to play around with here, but they should either be the same (Judgment) or in favor of the Strength build (no dex to damage). On a separate note, I don't think an extra 1/2 damage from Backstabber makes this class OP, and only the Fighting Fan and War Razor are favored weapons of any deity (and they're both martial, so they don't get a damage buff). These are both martial and have a d4 damage dice. Only the Dogslicer has a 1d6, and it isn't the favored weapon of any deity. A 1d6 weapon dealing an extra 1 damage is more or less irrelevant, in my opinion. Finally, I want to thank you for taking the time to respond to this feat, and I'll further consider examining this. If you own the document, would you mind testing this out in actual play to see if your hypothesis is correct? If this character is out DPR-ing true martials, I would certainly be giving this feat higher priority.

@@comatthew6 Thanks for the answer. I do understand where you're coming from but the fact that rogues have other options for FF don't change how better this feat is compared to other similar feats. Your damage calculations are on point. A good fix, like you say, would probly be to make this melee only.

@@comatthew6 On a side note, considering an automaton inquisitor of Nethys or Zon Kuton for upcoming Blood Lord campaign !

I want to! I think I have the Cleric ready to go; just need to launch the audio.

@@comatthew6 nice! I find your primers really concise and informative.

Every archetype? I meeeean, I cooouuuuld

Absolutely! Martials: Expected damage is pretty simple, I ran a bunch of numbers at every level to determine average damage output, and compared them to each other. On a consistent basis, Fighter slightly outpaces Barbarian, which slightly outpaces the Rogue, which outpaces everything else, really (I ended up docking Rogue to 8 because only Thief reaches these damage outputs). On Mobility, Monk gets a 10 because they innately gain +30 MS over their career, while Swashbuckler gains a similar benefit (but while only in Panache). Other movement types, like Flying, also come into play, but because they arrive so late, it doesn't make much of a difference. Durability was pretty straightforward, mostly based off of proficiency and also innate Shield Block. In-Combat utility is much harder to quantify, as MAPS usually results in "how often does the scenario appear, and when it does appear, how useful is the ability?" Champion's Reaction comes up basically every fight, and does a LOT of work when it happens. That + LOH is why I gave the Champion a 10. Action Economy is basically "how many times can I screw the rules in 1 round?" Finally, OOC utility is based on class features + abilities that give good OOC performance.

Casters: I did a lot of remodeling with the overall system. You can check out the changes here -- t.ly/z0yt -- Basically, many of these categories were basically the same, and didn't really say much about the classes' abilities. So, I only kept Spells/Day and Durability. I then had the next 3 categories being Support (Buffing, Healing), Control (Area Control, Debuffing), Blasting (Damage), and Versatility/Utility ("Everything Else", which includes being able to pick your own Tradition, as well as out of combat utility such as movement options, teleportation, scrying, etc.). Hope this helped!

Right. Ruffians can make up this split with more strength, but are then becoming even more MAD. Scoundrels' benefit is feinting, but you will not always need to feint in order to proc sneak attack (just flank). Scoundrels certainly provide more of a support role than thieves and ruffians, and my initial analysis of the ruffian was incorrect. Being able to apply critical specialization so early on can be very helpful.

I think these came out after I made this video :(

@@comatthew6 The Wild Winds didn't (it's a high level stance, 8th level to be precise, but is in the main book) - but the others indeed are. I shouldn't have mentioned them, I guess. My apologies.

@@alarkhar No need to apologize at all! I must have omitted Wild Winds because I just don't like it XD

Thanks for the comment! I realize that my initial observation of the Sorcerer was incorrect! Having extra spells per day is immense, and after playing one, I am now a firm believer in the power of the Sorcerer. I recently had a surgery so I've been recovering from that; I also do not have the time to finish the other videos (though I am very much trying to squeeze it in).

@@comatthew6 I've dealt with surgery and complications myself, so I wish you the best along with a speedy recovery.

gottem

It's a step down, for sure. But, they still have access to the deepest Spell Tradition in the game, have the most spells per day out of any class, and are blessed by Nethys himself and are granted the most powerful cantrip - Electric Arc.

Perhaps less powerful, but I like the flavor from the choice in arcane tradition/school and arcane thesis. Can make some interesting builds.

@@daric_ I agree on the arcane thesis. This is a neat addition to the wizard class.

@@comatthew6 yes, Electric Arc is truly godsend. Don't know about the "deepest" tradition, though. Primal and Occult traditions took so much from the Arcane that the Arcane has lost its uniqueness, to my mind. As for the quantity of spells, it does not translate to quality, necessarily. Wizard is still my favourite class in all of gaming, and always will be. Maybe that's why the nerf bat hurts so bad.

In Pathfinder 1, it was a restriction. Pathfinder 2 lifts it.

I am attempting to stay as objective as possible when making these guides. 1) I believe that any character can be RP'd flavorfully, and as such, I avoid that discussion entirely. 2) Lack of Anathema is hardly a selling point, as you often have to go out of your way (and break character) to commit such an act (see my Druid video). Also, only 4 classes even have anathema to begin with (Barbarian, Champion, Cleric, Druid), so that still leaves 7 without them as well. 3) I still think the Sorcerer is a fantastic class, but this guide compares them from a power standpoint, and the Sorcerer is not as powerful when compared to the other casters.

Thank you so much! I'm going to keep at it, but don't have very much time at the moment :)

Also holy shit those triple kills with the bombs, just beautiful.

Hey, thanks so much for leaving a comment! The Ancestry Feat "Elf Atavism" for Half-Elves sadly cannot be used to take the Ancient Elf bonus (as stated by PFS regulations) but if your GM allowed you to take it, nice! Additionally, there are 2 feats (Ancestry - Nimble Elf and General - Fleet) that can further improve your movement speed! Good luck out there!

@@comatthew6 i'm using an app called pathbuilder....i updated it recently and it didnt complain about it.gotta check that out. i'm fairly strict when it comes to the spirit of the rules....

@@sabin97 Yes, I'm very familiar with that app . "Per my discussions with the folks who worked on the mechanics in question, it's not a GM interpretation. Where elf atavism says "You typically can’t select a heritage that depends on or improves an elven feature you don’t have", this should be interpreted as a RAW restriction preventing half-elves, who don't have elven lifespans, from taking the Ancient Elf heritage." -- Michael Sayre, Organized Play Developer.

@@comatthew6 hmm.....i had to look up the book and read carefully but i think it makes sense for a half-elf to have that ancestry feat. long life(which is an extremely subjective term) is something half-elves do have. not nearly as long as elves, but significantly longer than humans, around 150 years. according to the description of elves: "Elves reach physical adulthood around the age of 20, though they aren’t considered to be fully emotionally mature by other elves until closer to the passing of their first century, once they’ve experienced more, held several occupations, and outlived a generation of shorter-lived people. A typical elf can live to around 600 years old." so at age 100 elves have held several occupations. is it reasonable to assume several is most likely more than 3? assuming they start an occupation after age 20, and that by age 100 they've had 4+ occupations in 80 years, that would mean a new occupation about every 20 years or so. it would be reasonable for a half-elf to be around 40-60 when joining a party. and to have held 1-2 occupations prior to the current occupation.

@@sabin97 still, it is up to interpretation, and 150 years at maximum is hardly "ancient" for an elf. And even still, that would be at the end of a Half-Elf's life. A Half Elf would begin their maturity right after a human (around 20-25 or so compared to a Human's 18), so I also disagree with the points you arise. In any case, I would never allow this combination in my game and agree with the organized play dev. However, that should not stop you from doing so in your game, provided your GM allows it