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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kenada" data-source="post: 8183855" data-attributes="member: 70468">No worries. I understand being upset at being accused of having “badwrongfun”. However, I’d like to note that I didn’t bring up specific tactics. My “and with that” was meant to follow up my previous post rather than someone else’s (if that’s the source of confusion). <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="🙂" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" title="Slightly smiling face    :slight_smile:" data-shortname=":slight_smile:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" />Based on this and your <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/pathfinder-beginner-box-review.677380/post-8183809" target="_blank">subsequent post</a>, it sounds like the BB didn’t do a good job of communicating how some things work. Looking at the wizard’s entry in the Hero’s Handbook, cantrips are mentioned as something of an afterthought. That’s not great. Since you can cast them an unlimited number of times, they’re meant to take the place of needing to use a weapon. I also agree that ray of frost is not very good. The go-to damage cantrip is <a href="http://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=97" target="_blank">electric arc</a>, but it’s not included in the BB. The damage is the same as ray of frost, but it attacks two targets (versus one) instead of having a chance of slowing the target (due to needing a crit). Electric arc also requires a basic saving throw, so you also deal at least half damage to the targets.There are a few ways to do gish characters in PF2. Unfortunately, none of them are in the BB. There’s the magus class in the upcoming Secrets of Magic book, but you can also multiclass fighter/wizard very easily. If you want to specialize in a particular weapon, you can take one of the style archetypes from the APG. Alternatively, if you want to be a martial who casts spells, you start as the appropriate martial class and then pick up the dedication for the casting class you want at 2nd level. You won’t go all the way up to 10th level spells, but you can still be a pretty decent caster. Of course, however, none of that’s in the BB. If you want to draw outside of the boxes it offers, there’s not a lot of help for that.You also mention playing a cleric. I that was also the cleric class from BB (vs. the core version)? That’s at least the warpriest, but the way the BB does character creation makes it harder to be good at it. In the core rules, you have more control over where to put your modifiers, so it’s easy to start with a +3 in Strength (for a +6 to hit in melee at 1st level). With the optional rule for voluntary flaws, you could even get a +4 if you really wanted it. None of that’s in the BB. Offering a combat-oriented cleric without being able to tweak your stats for it isn’t very friendly to new players. You’d have to pick human as your ancestry plus one of the backgrounds that offered Strength modifiers (deckhand or warrior). With the core rules, you could do that with basically whatever combination you wanted (because ancestry and background typically come with free boosts you can put anywhere else [like the extra +1 modifiers you get in the BB]).The rest is a more of an aside ….The Kyra pre-gen included in the BB is a little weird. Her <a href="https://paizo.com/products/btq01zt5?Community-Use-Package-PF2E-Iconics-Pregenerated-Characters" target="_blank">normal pregen</a> is written up as a <a href="http://2e.aonprd.com/Doctrines.aspx?ID=2" target="_blank">cloistered cleric</a>, but she’s using the warpriest stuff in the BB (because that’s the only option). Her stats are still similar to her cloistered version, which means her Strength modifier is pretty awful. It really should be a +2 or a +3 (for a +5 or a +6 to hit with her scimitar). I think the idea was to rebuild the standard iconic using the BB, but this is just not a very good example to new players of what stats you should want out of a warpriest. She’s not even wearing medium armor in the BB (even though it’s listed right there on page 20 under defenses). <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="🤷🏻‍♂️" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f937-1f3fb-2642.png" title="Man shrugging: light skin tone    :man_shrugging_tone1:" data-shortname=":man_shrugging_tone1:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" /> (I assume they went with warpriest instead of cloistered cleric so they could avoid having to introduce focus spells in the BB, but still ….)So, while I think they did a fairly decent job of stilling things down, there are some head-scratchers. Looking at how people would transition from the BB to the core rules, there are some big differences they’ll have to internalize. The first is that core PF2 uses ability scores not modifiers, and that matters once you start gaining boosts past 18 (because you only go one point at a time instead of two). Also, two characters built with the exact same options can end up with the core version’s being slightly better due to having more control over allocating boosts. The other is differences in terminology or aspects they just didn’t introduce. If you compare it to the 5e basic rules, the basic rules still used the same terminology even though they only offered one option.</blockquote>

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