Pathfinder 2E I think I am giving up on PF2ER

Incenjucar · Jun 16, 2024

Worst case scenario a champion gets to use their reaction round after round and act with impunity, giving their allies whatever bonuses and doing damage as they will.

For example, the Paladin's reaction:
Trigger: Enemy damages ally within 15 feet of you.
Effect: Ally gains resistance the triggering damage equal to 2 + your level, and you can make a melee strike against the enemy if they're in reach.

Later in your career, your Smite lets you add Cha persistent damage. Your Exalt lets EVERY ALLY within 15 feet use a melee strike at -5. If your party has even a modest amount of melee competency that's usually going to be an additional free hit, and can be potentially absurd if your party is melee-heavy.

Retreater · Jun 16, 2024

grankless said:
Champion is easily one of the best three classes in the game. The reaction massively reduces incoming damage to your allies, which enemies will recognize they are being punished for not attacking you and thus attack you. It's a defender class, not a striker. If the defensive powerhouse class had the same offensive capabilities as a rogue or fgighter, something would be very wrong.

Stop gauging the entire quality of a class based on how fast it kills an enemy. This isn't 1e.

Oh, I'm not ranking it wholly by damage output. I'm a guy who has been running 4e D&D for the past 6 months, so I'm very aware of roles in combat. And the champion is a very subpar defender.
Why? He gives few compelling reasons to go after him. He is simply not a priority target
1) He isn't threatening as a source of damage.
2) His AC is high, so you're unlikely to hit/crit him.
3) He doesn't have the ability to mark enemies or compel them to attack him.
4) His reactions are "ho-hum" - most enemies will take a little damage if it means taking down a priority target.
5) His reaction is good against one enemy attacking one ally - he can't defend everyone.
6) Many times he can't even reach the enemy that's doing the attacking.
There is a reason that the Champion regularly comes up on bottom tier lists. There is a reason the class has been delayed to Player Core 2 (and that's because Paizo realizes it needs a LOT of work).

Thomas Shey · Jun 16, 2024

Retreater said:
You don't have the accuracy of the fighter. You don't deal the extra damage of the rogue, barbarian, ranger, or thaumaturge.

Which means less and less over time, as a bigger and bigger part of your damage comes from the weapon. In addition, you have additional tools against some opponents at least the first three of these do not have in terms of Words. The accuracy is balanced out with your better AC (I'm entirely clear on what the difference was because my wife was playing a fighter/rogue at the same time, and it was frankly almost invisible. My AC advantage was slightly more visible, but not dramatically so).

Retreater said:
Your damage output is roughly equal to the cleric, right? But even the cleric is a better target because she has spells and a lower defense.
Why would any enemy stay and fight a champion? It has the highest defense while being one the lowest threats in the game.

Because they have to disengage and you're still perfectly capable of tripping them when they try, which operates largely independent of your class since you can still have plenty enough Athletics to make it work. Further, if they ignore you, you follow them and keep leaving them with a set of bad choices, at least as a Redeemer.

It comes down to the fact they can certainly ignore you, if they don't mind constantly taking your reaction power. I've yet to see a monster that found that exactly attractive.

Retreater said:
Its feats also stink - because of alignment restrictions - you can only take the ones that match your alignment. (At least currently since Players Core 2 isn't out yet.)

I never found that much of an impediment.

I mean, seriously, man, did you see one in play over an extended period? Because I'm telling you flat out that I played one up to 20 and he held up his end perfectly fine. He wasn't quite as reliable a damage doer as the figher/rogue, but the gap wasn't so large as to be overwhelming.

Thomas Shey · Jun 16, 2024

grankless said:
Champion is easily one of the best three classes in the game. The reaction massively reduces incoming damage to your allies, which enemies will recognize they are being punished for not attacking you and thus attack you. It's a defender class, not a striker. If the defensive powerhouse class had the same offensive capabilities as a rogue or fgighter, something would be very wrong.

Stop gauging the entire quality of a class based on how fast it kills an enemy. This isn't 1e.

To be clear, I played a Redeemer, so I can't say to what degree my experience matches a Paladin or a Liberator, but you statements certainly match my experience.

Thomas Shey · Jun 16, 2024

Retreater said:
Oh, I'm not ranking it wholly by damage output. I'm a guy who has been running 4e D&D for the past 6 months, so I'm very aware of roles in combat. And the champion is a very subpar defender.
Why? He gives few compelling reasons to go after him. He is simply not a priority target
1) He isn't threatening as a source of damage.

A Redeemer isn't annoying because of his damage. Its because he's boosting the effective defense of anyone in melee with the same opponent, or with smaller opponents, anyone nearby. And with additional feats over time, other penalties to the attacker.

Retreater said:
2) His AC is high, so you're unlikely to hit/crit him.
3) He doesn't have the ability to mark enemies or compel them to attack him.

He just has the ability to make their life hell if they ignore him.

Retreater said:
4) His reactions are "ho-hum" - most enemies will take a little damage if it means taking down a priority target.

Taking conditions though? Potentially on top of doing significantly less damage? I think you've not seen a Redeemer.

Retreater said:
5) His reaction is good against one enemy attacking one ally - he can't defend everyone.

That's why you engage with the best target out there with a partner.

Retreater said:
6) Many times he can't even reach the enemy that's doing the attacking.

Not in my experience. I had it happen a couple of times, but that's because I lost the thread and engaged with an opponent I shouldn't have.

Retreater said:
There is a reason that the Champion regularly comes up on bottom tier lists. There is a reason the class has been delayed to Player Core 2 (and that's because Paizo realizes it needs a LOT of work).

In which case I'll be blunt: at least regarding the Redeemer, the people producing those lists are wrong.

Incenjucar · Jun 16, 2024

Defenders aren't specifically intended to be hit, they're there to ruin the efficiency of enemy offense. A defender that is never targeted but still prevents enemy attacks from hitting their allies either through deflection, ablation, or by causing massive damage is doing just fine.

Velderan · Jun 16, 2024

Incenjucar said:
Defenders aren't specifically intended to be hit, they're there to ruin the efficiency of enemy offense. A defender that is never targeted but still prevents enemy attacks from hitting their allies either through deflection, ablation, or by causing massive damage is doing just fine.

And that’s what my experience has been. Our barbarian and champion are typically the ones getting targeted because they are on the frontline. The champion gets targeted less, but his abilities help the barbarian either get hit less or reduce the damage he takes when he does get hit.

Probably worth mentioning we are playing a dungeoncrawl with tighter areas so it’s easier for them to decide which PCs get exposed to melee but the champion also helps the backline players with their saving throws when they’re facing something with an AoE attack.

As far as damage output, the barbarian and magus tend to do more but the champion is comparable to the summoner (who also brings more to the group than just damage output). Idk.. saying the champion is bad seems like a pretty bad take from my 1 campaign that has gone from 1-8 1/2 so far.

SpellObjectEnthusiast · Jun 17, 2024

MerricB said:
PF2 may be a bit more fiddly than 3.5E (there are a lot of things going on, esp. with conditions and action selection), but I didn't think it was that slow. But for newer players, especially at low levels, it probably is slower.

From my experience - PF2 combats are consistently faster than 3.X or 5e combats. The average length of encounters also only slightly increases as the party levels up - we were running level 12 combats without issue and in comparable amounts of time as when the party was low level.

Thomas Shey · Jun 17, 2024

SpellObjectEnthusiast said:
From my experience - PF2 combats are consistently faster than 3.X or 5e combats. The average length of encounters also only slightly increases as the party levels up - we were running level 12 combats without issue and in comparable amounts of time as when the party was low level.

You can get a situation where if people are not fully on their game higher level ones take longer because over time PF2e characters can accumulate more and more genuinely useful options because of feat accumulation (since many feats are basically selectable class features, and as such sometimes quite meaty).

Staffan · Jun 17, 2024

Thomas Shey said:
You can get a situation where if people are not fully on their game higher level ones take longer because over time PF2e characters can accumulate more and more genuinely useful options because of feat accumulation (since many feats are basically selectable class features, and as such sometimes quite meaty).

I think this aspect of it is different depending on whether you played your way to mid/high level or whether you started there. If you start at level, say, 11, you're going to have a lot of options to deal with all at once. But if you "earned" your level 11, you will have started out with few options, learning how those work and what situations they work in, and then gradually integrating more and more tools in your kit.

Pathfinder 2E I think I am giving up on PF2ER

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