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!

 

[Shasarak]

Ask and you shall receive.

I would also like a Pony.

 

[TwoSix]

Ask and you shall receive.

Full spellcasting occult spellcaster. Makes sense.

 

[Charlaquin]

I would also like a Pony.

 

[Aldarc]

I would also like a Pony.

Nah, that only works when I do it.

 

[Bromjunaar]

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.

Do you choose how much damage is done to the shield and how much is done to you, or does all go to the shield without the shield user getting any say in it?

 

[Charlaquin]

Do you choose how much damage is done to the shield and how much is done to you, or does all go to the shield without the shield user getting any say in it?

From the wording, it looks like as much damage as possible up to the shield's hardness goes to the shield and the remainder goes to you.

 

[Erdric Dragin]

Wow, even more complexity? Now we gotta remember when to "raise shields" for defense and need actions for it? What exactly is the benefit of NOT having a shield raised? A flat shield bonus already took into account a shield providing defense.

I don't understand this edition at all. Why do we need any of this again instead of fixing and enhancing what we already have? I can't wrap my head around it.

 

[Sunseeker]

From the wording, it looks like as much damage as possible up to the shield's hardness goes to the shield and the remainder goes to you.

I wonder if there's a way they could KISS it.

Lets say, a Shield has a Hardness 5. That means when it takes damage, it "absorbs" in sets of 5. Each time it takes 5 damage, that creates a "Dent" essentially reducing its hardness by 1. A shield with 5 hardness can take 5 "dents". So...

Raise your shield, it takes say 7 points. The Shield eats 5 and gains a dent. 2 damage rolls over to you. Your shields hardness is now 4.
Raise your shield later, lets say it takes 5 points. It eats 4, gains a dent, and 1 rolls over to you. Your shields hardness is now 3.
So on and so forth, each time taking less damage and allowing more (to use a MTG term) to Trample over to you.
Eventually the shield takes enough damage to break and becomes useless (except maybe as a blunt object for the party barbarian to beat someone to death with).
But the shield would have, in total, absorb 15 damage. About the same amount of HP as a level 1 character!
-Which IMO, does not seem unreasonable for the party defender.

Perhaps Fighters could have some kind of "Shield Mastery" feature, where their shield's Hardness increased equal to the Fighter's level, keeping shields relevant without needing "Super Shields of Incredible Defending +A Billion".

Not sure if PF2 is angling to include a loot grind.

 

[Charlaquin]

I wonder if there's a way they could KISS it.

Lets say, a Shield has a Hardness 5. That means when it takes damage, it "absorbs" in sets of 5. Each time it takes 5 damage, that creates a "Dent" essentially reducing its hardness by 1. A shield with 5 hardness can take 5 "dents". So...

Raise your shield, it takes say 7 points. The Shield eats 5 and gains a dent. 2 damage rolls over to you. Your shields hardness is now 4.
Raise your shield later, lets say it takes 5 points. It eats 4, gains a dent, and 1 rolls over to you. Your shields hardness is now 3.
So on and so forth, each time taking less damage and allowing more (to use a MTG term) to Trample over to you.
Eventually the shield takes enough damage to break and becomes useless (except maybe as a blunt object for the party barbarian to beat someone to death with).
But the shield would have, in total, absorb 15 damage. About the same amount of HP as a level 1 character!
-Which IMO, does not seem unreasonable for the party defender.

That seems far more complicated to me than the current system. You'd have to track maximum hardness, current hardness, maximum dents, and current dents, and the amount of damage a shield can absorb would be dependent on current hardness. As opposed to just having one fixed Hardness value that the shield takes a dent after absorbing.

 

[Sunseeker]

That seems far more complicated to me than the current system. You'd have to track maximum hardness, current hardness, maximum dents, and current dents, and the amount of damage a shield can absorb would be dependent on current hardness. As opposed to just having one fixed Hardness value that the shield takes a dent after absorbing.

Yeah, I was just kinda stream-of-consciousness writing there. Didn't really realize how complicated I made it until looking back at it.