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<blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 8081776" data-attributes="member: 12731"><p>In our experience, monsters are just as likely, if not even more likely, to crit fail against a weapons attack. (Meaning the attack scoring a crit success, of course).</p><p></p><p>Double damage is nice, yes, but the spell damage isn't all that great to begin with.</p><p></p><p>So yes, dealing 100 damage to a group of foes is impressive. But so is dealing 100 damage on a critical weapon hit.</p><p></p><p>And as I've been saying repeatedly, the fundamental balancing assumption of Pathfinder 2, that doing 100 hp to four creatures is just as valuable as doing 100 hp to one creature, is just not correct.</p><p></p><p>In fact, dealing a 90 hp or 80 hp or even 75 hp critical to just the right creature is probably better on average than dealing a total of 100 damage to four creatures.</p><p></p><p>Every other edition of D&D values single-target damage higher than area damage. By that I mean that area spells deal lots of damage compared to the damage of a martial. Yes, even in 5th Edition. No, this doesn't mean casters are brokenly powerful in that game, or that they would be in PF2 - since both these games address LFQW in many other ways.</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">you have no real control over who takes what damage when casting an area spell. Which monster that takes double (or no) damage is largely up to chance.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">dealing 25 hp to four monsters, each with 80 hp, does not directly contribute to the main goal of every combat - reducing the incoming damage (to zero)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">dealing 100 hp to one out of four monsters, each with 80 hp, makes a whopping 25% contribution to that main goal.</li> </ul><p></p><p>Sure, after the area spell, the martials can target those enemies that looked like they fared the worst. Reducing a monster from 80 to 55 hp is always of value.</p><p></p><p>But the point remains - if Pathfinder 2 had valued multi-target damage lower than single-target damage, and if Paizo had come up with a more elegant and surgical alternative to Incapacitation, we would likely not be having this "spellcasters feel woefully underpowered" discussion.</p><p></p><p>For the purposes of this thread, I remain unconvinced the addition of 40 damage to a group of four monsters with Weakness Whatever 10 each at level 5 to 10 is unbalancing. And remember, the number of encounters in official APs where this makes a difference is vanishingly small. After all, it's only when an encounter is harder than Moderate we really care about Wizards stealing the thunder. But the number of Severe encounters where the heroes face more than two creatures that share the same significant special materials weakness just is vanishingly small.</p><p></p><p>Because that's your objection, right? The unbalancing, I mean. That you don't want casters to reign supreme like in D&D of the year 2000. I strongly agree with this goal. I just don't see how this comes anywhere near that situation... and instead, it appears to me I'm more solving a problem (mitigating weak caster damage) than creating one!</p><p></p><p>Cheers,</p><p>Zapp</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="CapnZapp, post: 8081776, member: 12731"] In our experience, monsters are just as likely, if not even more likely, to crit fail against a weapons attack. (Meaning the attack scoring a crit success, of course). Double damage is nice, yes, but the spell damage isn't all that great to begin with. So yes, dealing 100 damage to a group of foes is impressive. But so is dealing 100 damage on a critical weapon hit. And as I've been saying repeatedly, the fundamental balancing assumption of Pathfinder 2, that doing 100 hp to four creatures is just as valuable as doing 100 hp to one creature, is just not correct. In fact, dealing a 90 hp or 80 hp or even 75 hp critical to just the right creature is probably better on average than dealing a total of 100 damage to four creatures. Every other edition of D&D values single-target damage higher than area damage. By that I mean that area spells deal lots of damage compared to the damage of a martial. Yes, even in 5th Edition. No, this doesn't mean casters are brokenly powerful in that game, or that they would be in PF2 - since both these games address LFQW in many other ways. [LIST] [*]you have no real control over who takes what damage when casting an area spell. Which monster that takes double (or no) damage is largely up to chance. [*]dealing 25 hp to four monsters, each with 80 hp, does not directly contribute to the main goal of every combat - reducing the incoming damage (to zero) [*]dealing 100 hp to one out of four monsters, each with 80 hp, makes a whopping 25% contribution to that main goal. [/LIST] Sure, after the area spell, the martials can target those enemies that looked like they fared the worst. Reducing a monster from 80 to 55 hp is always of value. But the point remains - if Pathfinder 2 had valued multi-target damage lower than single-target damage, and if Paizo had come up with a more elegant and surgical alternative to Incapacitation, we would likely not be having this "spellcasters feel woefully underpowered" discussion. For the purposes of this thread, I remain unconvinced the addition of 40 damage to a group of four monsters with Weakness Whatever 10 each at level 5 to 10 is unbalancing. And remember, the number of encounters in official APs where this makes a difference is vanishingly small. After all, it's only when an encounter is harder than Moderate we really care about Wizards stealing the thunder. But the number of Severe encounters where the heroes face more than two creatures that share the same significant special materials weakness just is vanishingly small. Because that's your objection, right? The unbalancing, I mean. That you don't want casters to reign supreme like in D&D of the year 2000. I strongly agree with this goal. I just don't see how this comes anywhere near that situation... and instead, it appears to me I'm more solving a problem (mitigating weak caster damage) than creating one! Cheers, Zapp [/QUOTE]
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