Pathfinder 2 Character Sheet #3: Valeros, Human Fighter

It's another day, and you know what that means? It's time for the third of our six reveals of the Pathfinder 2nd Edition pregenerated playtest characters, courtesy the awesome folks over at Paizo. Today it's the turn of Valeros, the human fighter. A little more straightforward than the previous alchemist and cleric sheets, in this one you can see the shield mechanics which have been mentioned a few times over the past months.

Here are Paizo's Mark Seifter's thoughts on Valeros -- "So right away from his sketch, you can see something’s different: Valeros has sheathed his shortsword for now and is using his longsword alongside a shield. Of these iconics, Valeros is the king of reactions, the special action you can take when it is not your turn, usually in response to other actions. He has three different possible reactions, Attack of Opportunity to punish enemies when he’s in their face, Reactive Shield to Raise a Shield for AC when he didn’t have enough actions to do so, and Shield Block to prevent damage when he did have enough actions to Raise his Shield. Combine that with the powerful two-action activity Sudden Charge, which allows him to Stride twice his Speed and then attack, and Valeros is a force to be reckoned with on any battlefield, striking down weaker enemies, harrying stronger enemies, and difficult to fell."

On Monday, it'll be time to take a look at Seelah, the human paladin!

 

[mellored]

You don't win a battle by running around. Attacks are inherently worth more than movement because it's the attacks that end a battle. So the PF2 method isn't much different than Full Attacks from 3e/PF1 which similarly discouraged movement.

Except it is, because each action is independent, and caped at 3.

You have +6 to-hit vs 17AC. So your first attack is 50% (45?). That's something you want to take, as you say, damage wins.

The second attack is at -4/5. So only 25% chance to hit, half the damage as the first action.

The third attack is with a -8/10 penalty. Unless your facing a bunch of low level creatures, that's almost always going to miss. So nearly any other action will be more valuable.

So you would very likely attack once, move once, and the last action is an interesting trade off. 100% more move vs 50% more damage vs raising a shield.


*This assumes they keep the AC and attack bonus scaling equal. The other thing 3e has was attack scaled faster, scaling offense a lot.

 

[Charlaquin]

Except it is, because each action is independent, and caped at 3.

You have +6 to-hit vs 17AC. So your first attack is 50% (45?). That's something you want to take, as you say, damage wins.

The second attack is at -4/5. So only 25% chance to hit, half the damage as the first action.

The third attack is with a -8/10 penalty. Unless your facing a bunch of low level creatures, that's almost always going to miss. So nearly any other action will be more valuable.

So you would very likely attack once, move once, and the last action is an interesting trade off. 100% more move vs 50% more damage vs raising a shield.

That’s also assuming only the basic options. Feats will give you even more ways to use your actions. For instance, Valeros can spend two actions to double-move and Attack, and his third to either attack again, raise his shield, or move even further. There’s plenty of incentive to stay mobile.

 

[mellored]

Anyone know out how shield block is supposed to work?

 

[Charlaquin]

Anyone know out how shield block is supposed to work?

Yup. You need to have raised your shield since the start of your last turn to use it. If you have, you can use your Reaction in response to being hit by an attack to reduce the damage from the triggering attack by an amount equal to the shield’s hardness, and the shield takes that much damage instead.

The rest is reminder text about how damage to objects works. If an object takes damage equal to or greater than its hardness in a single hit, it takes a “dent” (essentially a point of structure damage), or two dents if the damage wasvequal to or greater than twice its hardness. An object can take a certain number of dents before breaking (essentially its structure). If an object that has reached its maximum number of dents would take another dent, it becomes “broken”. It’s not entirely clear what the specific effects of being broken are, but presumably you just can’t use it until you get it repaired. If an object would take a dent while broken, it is destroyed and can no longer be repaired.

Valeros’s shield has 5 hardness and can take 1 dent before breaking.

 

[mellored]

Yup. You need to have raised your shield since the start of your last turn to use it. If you have, you can use your Reaction in response to being hit by an attack to reduce the damage from the triggering attack by an amount equal to the shield’s hardness, and the shield takes that much damage instead.

so if you block 4 damage, then block 4 damage, then block 4 damage = shield took 12 damage as is now broken?

Or if your hit by 9 damage, and block 5, but the hardness is 5 so the shield takes no damage?

Is it possible for the shield block more than 10 damage at once?

 

[Charlaquin]

so if you block 4 damage, then block 4 damage, then block 4 damage = shield took 12 damage as is now broken?

No, I don’t think so. I believe if you block 4 damage, the shield does not take a dent, because 4 is not equal to or greater than the shield’s hardness. If you then block 4 damage again next round, the shield still does not take a dent because 4 is still not equal to or greater than its hardness. Think of hardness like damage reduction for objects.

Or if your hit by 9 damage, and block 5, but the hardness is 5 so the shield takes no damage?

No, if you are hit by 9 damage, the shield blocks 5 of it, which is equal to or greater than its hardness, but not equal to or greater than twice its hardness so it takes one dent and is not broken (but if you block another 5+ damage attack with it next round, it will would take a second dent and break). You take the remaining 4 damage.

Is it possible for the shield block more than 10 damage at once?

I don’t think it’s possible for the shield to block more than 5 damage at once, since the shield block reaction only blocks damage equal to the shield’s hardness. But if someone attacks the shield in an attempt to break it and the attack deals 10 or more damage at once, then it would take two dents, which would break it.

 

[mellored]

So...

1-4 = completly blocked, no dent.
5+ = block 5 damage and take a dent.

Seems a bit odd...

 

[Charlaquin]

So...

1-4 = completly blocked, no dent.
5+ = block 5 damage and take a dent.

Seems a bit odd...

More odd than a skeleton (which has resistance 5 to piercing and slashing)?

1-5 = completely resisted, no HP loss.
6+ = resisted 5 damage and lose the remainder in HP.

I mean... this is pretty much the same way object damage worked in PF1, it’s just that dents are a bit more abstract than structure.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

So...

1-4 = completly blocked, no dent.
5+ = block 5 damage and take a dent.

Seems a bit odd...

Seems sensible to me. (Shrug)

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I'm thrown by the term "Open", having played several games where the term is used to mean "open as in open-ended, with fewer timing restrictions than normal" rather than "open as in opening move, with more timing restrictions than normal". I'd pick another word with less potentially confusing ambiguity. Netrunner used "Priority" for the same effect. At the very least, "Opener" would be clearer on which meaning is intended.