Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder 2e: Actual Play Experience

[Gorgon Zee]

It is a shame Paizo overcorrected their wizards. Martials are now lightyears more fun than the casters in PF2.

Speak for yourself, elf-wizard. I quite like my second level orc cleric casting magic weapon, charging into the attack and then raging and casting truestrike for an excellent chance of 2d12+6 damage. I'll heal ppl three times a day with my font, and then I have my 2 focus points to boost athletics with so I can zoom around faster than the monk and kill athletics checks. With seven cantrips I can distract enemies with ghost sound and do all kinds of shenanigans in explore mode, as well as finding and detecting magic.

 

[Xenonnonex]

Speak for yourself, elf-wizard. I quite like my second level orc cleric casting magic weapon, charging into the attack and then raging and casting truestrike for an excellent chance of 2d12+6 damage. I'll heal ppl three times a day with my font, and then I have my 2 focus points to boost athletics with so I can zoom around faster than the monk and kill athletics checks. With seven cantrips I can distract enemies with ghost sound and do all kinds of shenanigans in explore mode, as well as finding and detecting magic.

Bold of you to assume.
The problem here is that your not playing a higher level caster. Merely a low level gutter cleric. And you are playing it as a martial wannabe. So congrats I guess.

 

[Arnwolf666]

Yes, introducing brand new rpgers to Fate is a breeze, but entrenched D&D players often struggle to get their minds around it.

I have seen a few posts elsewhere that have noted brand new players aren't struggling with PF2 at all. But need more examples.

Oh god yes. It took me forever to wrap my head around fate. But it was well worth learning. As an older player it was like learning to walk again.

 

[Arnwolf666]

Bold of you to assume.
The problem here is that your not playing a higher level caster. Merely a low level gutter cleric. And you are playing it as a martial wannabe. So congrats I guess.

It’s all about dpr too many.

 

[Kaodi]

A "martial wannabe" cleric is the best kind of "healbot" imaginable. And you can do some builds that really pump this up too. Like, say, a goblin cleric... You only need Wis if your plan is to use spells that require checks. If you do not, well, might as well dump Wis and thrown everything into other stats.

Agobllo
male charhide goblin farmhand warpriest cleric of Sarenrae 1, lawful good
str 16 dex 14 con 12 int 10 wis 10 cha 16 (str 20 dex 18 con 18 int 12 wis 18 cha 20 at lvl 20)
feats
ancestral - goblin scuttle
background - assurance/athletics
class - shield block (emblazon armament, healing hands, selective energy, channeled succor, replenishment of war, shared replenishment, fast channel, eternal blessing, resurrectionist, maker of miracles)
skills
trained - athletics, crafting, diplomacy, farming lore, medicine, religion
prepared
0 - detect magic, guidance, light, shield, stabilize
1 - heal x 6
gear - hide armour, steel shield, shield boss, scimitar, dagger, javelin x 3

 

[Celtavian]

My experience so far as DM and player. We're on the second module of Age of Ashes. The strangest thing about PF2E is that it reads like crap, but is fun to play. You read the abilities and think this is weak or boring. Then you find yourself using it in combat and finding it useful and interesting to describe.

1. Action System: This is the star of the show. The action system makes the entire game feel more fluid and immersive. It makes it easier to adjudicate actions as a DM because I can decide how many actions something takes to do rather than say you can't do that with a move or free action.

2. Monsters: Monsters are more interesting and challenging. So far up to level 7 they scale better than in PF1. You can put a lot of damage pressure on a group with a group of monsters. You need a decent healer to survive. I'm surprised how dangerous the game can be. I like reaction-based attacks and actions that are effective and dangerous. Makes it seem more immersive when a monster reacts to an attack or player action in a unique fashion.

3. Skills: Skills are more interesting and can be effective. They are easier to adjudicate within the action system. I like that they tightened them up. It takes more work to figure out skills as part of your character concept. But you can at least build an incredible scholar, acrobat, thief, or sneaky guy and have a very effective character that is almost magical with skill.

One thing I am not so sure about right now are casters and magic. Magic is very watered down. So far playing a wizard has been incredibly boring. I had to switch to Bard. Even the bard mostly harmonizes a couple of composition cantrips as his most effective actions supporting the party. Spells as lackluster and too easy to save against. The damage too low unless heightened. Low level spells are fairly useless even if you heighten them. You very much don't feel very powerful or effective.

A few examples. I used a heightened 2 grim tendrils for 4d4 damage. The enemies saved. Did like 7 damage to three creatures. Pretty worthless feeling to blow a 2nd level spell and basically do cantrip damage and less than the martials. I summoned an elemental mephit and that creature couldn't hit the AC of the main enemy and it easily saved against his abilities. It felt incredibly ineffective. Spells seems very underpowered with stacked up limitations like the incapacitate trait and damage being fairly low for receiving a save.

The wizard. The actual wizard powers are extremely underwhelming. The powers are not worth using. For the most part the wizard is a very underwhelming class. Feels like the rogue or fighter in 3E. Maybe that is what the designers wanted to do: make was once the most powerful arcane caster into an also ran and barely needed class that not many would want to play. If that was their goal, mission success. Wizard is pretty lame now. A druid or even sorcerer would be more fun. I couldn't even find an interesting spell strategy for the wizard as they don't really have one in their abilities.

Bard is a good support class so far. Vastly superior in effectiveness and entertainment than the wizard.

So far the game is fun. We will continue playing to see how it scales. Damage is more modest, but combats equally exciting. You have a lot more tools for telling a story using the mechanics.

 

[Arnwolf666]

There is so much wizard hate these days. It’s magic should shine above all others because they are should be more focused on it. The cleric is focused on his god. The sorcerer just born with it. The bard concerned with the lore and traditions of his people. The warlock is clueless fool making pacts with entities for power for whatever reason. But the wizard, that is what they spend every waking moment of their life trying to master. Wizards are to magic what fighters should be to combat.

 

[Celtavian]

There is so much wizard hate these days. It’s magic should shine above all others because they are should be more focused on it. The cleric is focused on his god. The sorcerer just born with it. The bard concerned with the lore and traditions of his people. The warlock is clueless fool making pacts with entities for power for whatever reason. But the wizard, that is what they spend every waking moment of their life trying to master. Wizards are to magic what fighters should be to combat.

They can change out their spells far easier than any other class. It's just the magic itself is underwhelming with heightening being necessary. It makes it so your lower level spell slots are fairly useless. They won't even do as much damage as cantrips given cantrips automatically scale. So lower level spell slots as you level basically may be useful for true strike. Low level attack spells in those slots will not outperform cantrips. Low level counteract spells will be mostly useless. Low level incapacitate spells will also be similarly useless. So you suddenly have this issue that you mainly just have effective spell slots for maybe the levels you are currently at.

They went too far limiting magic and made spell slots even more limited than they look. A 12th level wizard may have good spell slots for 4,5, and 6 level spells, but not 4th and lower. So you suddenly you end up with only 9 useful spell slots and your cantrips. The class abilities don't make up for that. The wizard is really only master of spell selection with limited useful slots and nothing else save perhaps intel-based skills.

 

[Retreater]

Luckily I trust Paizo to release more options for the wizard to keep it fresh. Not like 5e hanging on to bad core rulebook classes (cough* ranger* cough).

 

[Campbell]

I do not have any higher level experience yet, but shouldn't control effects that do not incapacitate, buffs and debuffs stay good especially because they use your full Spell DC? Given how tight the math is they should stay more relevant as levels rise. Ray of Enfeeblement, Goblin Pox, Fear, and Command should be as useful against at level enemies as they were at first level. A 12th level Wizard can use a 3rd level spell slot to cast Fear against 5 enemies. That seems pretty useful to me. Also it seems like there are some spells like Ant Haul, Alarm, Gust of Wind, and Fleet Step that are not really worth the slot at level, but should see use at higher levels.

There's also been some talk on Paizo forums of using True Strike with powerful spell attacks like Disintegrate.