Tales of the Valiant is sure following WotC"s lead....
As someone who has never looked at PF2e seriously, can anyone describe how Paizo handles high-level martials? Do they fly and toss mountains?
They did a couple things to narrow the gap but at high levels full casters are still ahead, but not as much.
1) surprisingly they nerfed casters. so that helps. there are very few spells that permanently and reliably turn a hard encounter into an easy one. For example, Wizards are among the weaker lower level casters I think. AoE are ok damage, single target not so much. Control spells are weaker but useful. Buff and debuffs help a lot but are not as flashy. Utility is still there but Pf2e still does traditional Vanican for Wizards so less flexibility. Higher levels Wizards get better and probably surpass martials as some lower level spells are still useful and now you have the slots, more powerful utility, more access to stuff to use creatively, etc.
2) Pf2e is pretty much an encounters based system even if they don't admit it so I think that helps.
3) Fighters interact with the 3 action economy better. You can spend you actions on whatever so Fighters can move, attack, something. Or attack attack something. Whereas spells are still mostly 2 actions so the Wizard must often spend their something on Move. The somethings are actually worth it -- The Fighter can get good at Intimidate for instance and a check can inflict a penalty that is similar to spells.
4) High level skill feats can do some cool stuff. Intimidate can scare to death weak monsters, etc. They could have gone further with this. Not many are really all that mythic. So lost opportunity there but there are some. Edit: actually maybe I'm wrong on this as haven't gotten a chance to play high level. Looks like there are a few high level fighter abilities that allow you to do things like reflect spells, sever space in between you and melee attack at range (from a very specific campaign but still), etc. Still not that many I can see but the design space seems to be there.
5) crit threshold is a big deal and Fighters are +2 to hit ahead in attack from any other class which is a big deal in pF2e. Fighters are better at single target damage than spellcasters. So I guess they are actually somewhat better at fighting.
6) there is more reliance on teamwork in the game. The default difficulty is pretty tough and assumes buffing and debuffing to make spells work better and get crits etc. So feels like less of spotlight on that combat "defining spell". Spells do very useful stuff but they contribute not necc. dominate. Occasional a monster does "crit fail" a spell and get completely taken out but it's rare if it's a boss or henchman type. They redefined saves into 4 tiers and many spells have a weaker but still useful effect on a save. Tougher monsters often save and you still get this effect, but it takes teamwork and luck to get a fail or crit fail on a tougher monster.
So, no I don't think high level PF2e feel significantly more mythic but I do think they have a better niche in the game as tough single target damage dealers that are harder to replicate by other classes. With a smattering of better support abilities like the Intimidate feat chain.
