CapnZapp
Legend
Likely "50% of one character's damage output, distributed over five people"? Half a person = 50%
Pathfinder 2E Martials > Casters
CapnZapp
Legend
If you means spells, I'd say he casts Sudden Bolt and Magic Missile, with the occasional Fireball. Most of the time, though, he coasts by on Electric Arc (as does the Cleric).
And Fireball is only really useful because I tired of never seeing any massed foes in the campaign. On three occasions so far I have replaced encounters with five or less foes with encounters featuring one or two dozen foes. (Basically replacing level 5-8 trogs with squads of the Bestiary xulgaths that are level 1-3)
CapnZapp
Legend
I don't know - you tell me
(He's the most experienced D&Der of us all, so it's not that I think he's making suboptimal choices. In fact, if it was anyone else I probably wouldn't have started this very thread! Still, there might be PF2-specific things we haven't discovered just yet, and as I keep saying, we hope things will improve as we're headed for double-digit levels)
Campbell
Relaxed Intensity
What follows is based on larger play groups (6-7 players). I have seen Wizards and other spell casters being pretty effective, but not really as single target damage dealers. In general even if you are a "specialist" you want to embrace your entire spell list. You want to be a wizard and not an evoker. Also evokers are area damage dealers not single targer. Hopefully down the line we will see options for a more focused magical damage dealer.
Kaodi
Hero
Hmmm... maybe there is no way for that wizard (I assume he is an evoker, so has Force Bolt too) without a reload 0 ranged weapon. As for magic missiles, I have not been able to see it much is practice, but I kinda get the sense that its main use is for guaranteed damage, not good damage per se. It is irrelevant "how much" damage you do to an opponent if you can make sure he gets dead right now. Should be a good spell for removing foes with low hp from the fight, though that might just be a consequence of playing on roll20 with health bars.
CapnZapp
Legend
You do realize you need to explain what you mean by being a wizard and not an evoker, right?
(=What specific non-Evocation spells are you recommending?)I can easily see area spells getting better as the number of players (and therefore monsters) increase.
In fact, my group is five players. However, EC is so difficult as written I seldom follow the guidelines for boosting encounter XP budgets. Meaning, I mostly run encounters as written, meaning in turn that there has not been a single RAW instance where a Fireball has been truly worthwhile so far (in 8 levels!).
What I mean by this is: the typical encounter in EC is against three monsters. But let's take four instead. Problem is, spending your round to deal ~21 damage to each of them is decidedly unimpressive (when you can only do it a very small number of times a day, not if you could do it at-will) - that simply isn't going to bring any one of them down. (Not to mention that half of them will make their save and take only half damage).
Sure, in that particular round the Wizard is dealing 60 damage (20+20+10+10) which is more than any martial. But the damage is unfocused, and not likely to make a real difference.
Making a difference is when a monster is killed sooner than otherwise. But 60 points of damage distributed semi-randomly across the four opponents is just not impressive. It's not worth walking around frail and afraid when your big moment is "slightly better than the martial's average". The party is simply better off retiring that caster and replacing him with another martial. (In our party, a Thief racket Rogue, for example).
Not when save or dies have been incapacitated, when you seldom can bypass challenges/hazards using spells anymore, and buffs and debuffs are utilitarian at best.
As I said, what remains is working together with the very effective martials (and their sole progress meter is "damage dealt"), and what remains here is area spells.
And even that only truly impresses when the GM (me) switches out two Spinesnappers for, say, two squads of six Warriors and their Leader (replacing two level 5 trogs for 14 level 1-3 trogs). Since a fireball here wipes out the Warriors almost entirely and leaves the Leader severely burnt, the Wizard is finally doing what parties throughout the history of D&D have brought them along to do: doing something no martial can do.
PS. Our Wizard chose to be an Universalist or whatever its called. That is, he is not an Evoker.
CapnZapp
Legend
Sure, if you play with the luxury of always knowing how much hp monsters have left.
But even in the general case (I assume most ttrpgers play with "hidden" monster statuses; in my group I've adopted the 4E term "bloodied" so you can always tell when a friend or foe is below or above half max hp, but not more detailed than that) my Wizard player has found that Magic Missile is competitive, simply because its damage is guaranteed.
In 5E, where you have at least 60% success rate (to hit, or for the monster to fail its save) and often 75% this isn't especially noteworthy.
But in PF2, where it seems BBEGs can easily leave you with only a 40% or even 25% success rate, the actual DPR of Magic Missile is enough for our Wizard to keep preparing it (and in high-level slots too).
Why? Because even more valuable than the DPR is that you can count on the damage being delivered. It is often very valuable to take down an enemy this round rather than the next, and against monsters higher level than you, there seldom exists an attack (magical or physical) with even 50% success rate of delivering the goods. You can easily have a dangerous monster with only a little hp left, where it is intensely frustrating to see attack after attack failing, and then having the monster do its painful attack routine when it still is alive on its turn.
Except Magic Missile, which offers not 60%, and not 75%, but 100% success rate. Again, the damage itself might not be earth-shattering, but the Wizard is doing something no martial can do: guaranteed damage.
Kaodi
Hero
Yes, I certainly appreciate that. My cleric has a Ring of the Ram and even with that sometimes I find myself asking "Do I use the ring and almost certainly get at least some damage that might finish this guy off or do I shoot a bunch with my bow and hope something hits and then rolls well?" Of course we are level 9 now and the Ring damage is probably only going to work on mooks and squishy casters, especially since I just got a Frost Rune on my bow. Sadly the one time I beautifully got to punch someone off a ledge with it they managed to grab an edge and save themselves a 50' foot fall.
GrahamWills
Hero
CapnZapp accurately corrected my mis-statement (thanks!) -- here's a longer version
You are correct that I was unclear as to what the percentage was a base off, and the natural reading of my note make it untrue. Here's a better part of statements statement:
- Increasing damage by 10% for each person increases total damage by 10% of the total
- Increasing damage by 10% for each person increases total damage by 50% of the damage output by the average member
Just so I don't fail horribly again, I'll use absolute numbers for an example:
5 combatants do damage each round, averaging 80, 90, 100, 110 and 120 point for damage
Inspire competent boosts each of them by 10% to 88, 99, 110, 121, 132
So the added value of inspire competence averages is 8+9+10+11+12 = 50
This is 10% of the total damage, and 50% of the average combatant's damage.
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So one action by the bard does 50 points damage, whereas each action by the combatants does an average of 33 points damage.
