Low Level Spellcasters STRUGGLE in Pathfinder 2e

this video does not have a script this video doesn't really have a whole lot of preparation going into it aside from my personal experience and this video might not end up being very long we'll find out howdy my name is nonat and last week i played a level 2 cloistered cleric in a one shot and boy did i feel useless spell casters in pathfinder 2e might be one of the hottest topic discussed by the players are they too powerful are they not powerful enough a lot of people would air on the ladder this is due in no small part to their spell attack roles not scaling nearly as fast as physical attack roles for things like fighters and barbarians and a lot of spell dc's being useless against a lot of monsters due to monsters having incredibly high bonuses to saving throws but that's not what we're going to talk about here today that's all been talked about before i just had this interesting experience playing the one shot don't get me wrong the one shot was fun there was plenty of role play there was plenty of skill checks that was all not a problem but in combat holy cow at level two did i have zero options let's dive into this and talk more about oh god not you again i'm the blacksmith yes i know did you know that this video is sponsored by world anvil yeah i was about to get to it and that world anvil is one of the most powerful campaign organizers on the internet and can can you finish the ad for me talking like this hurts my voice world anvil is an incredibly powerful tool that you should be using to organize your campaigns and making your life as a gm easier if you're unaware world anvil is a powerful tool that you as a gm can use to organize not only your campaign but also your individual sessions not only can your players log into their own characters and trade things between their inventory but there are so many different tools at your disposal to organize things like calendars and encounters and each individual session and what you're going to be doing with them not to mention their brand new whiteboard feature which allows you to draw whatever you want on a shared white space which is just so useful if you use the link in the description below and enter code no nat 1 at checkout you will get 12 months of premium membership for the price of 8. give or take a few days because it's like 30 or something it's an amazing deal and if you have been struggling to keep your notes together or you just pretend like you're going to remember everything like me do yourself a favor use world anvil and get everything you need to know in one easy to access place thank you to world anvil for sponsoring this video now let's talk about low level spell casters i played a dwarven cloistered cleric at level 2 and i happened to pick a domain that wasn't super useful in combat i picked the truth domain and their focus spell effectively allows you to say something and everyone around you knows that you are telling the truth to the best of your knowledge it doesn't necessarily mean it's a true statement just that your character thinks it's true it's honestly a really cool spell and i got to use it once or twice i really like it but that limits my abilities in combat in combat i'm limited to you know moving my weapon which i had a 10 strength score so i wasn't exactly gonna be doing much attacking my five can trips and my three spell slots four spell slots if you count my divine font giving me one extra slot because of my 12 charisma i was a dwarf so i had to put two boosts into charisma just to get that plus one for that extra spell slot some clerics if they can get that 16 charisma get to start with three free spell slots just for healing which is awesome but i unfortunately did not this meant that in any individual encounter which luckily there was only one encounter per day i had four spell slots and five cantrips that sounds like plenty but you know you take away that three of my cantrips are things like light and message and that kind of thing so i only have about one or two options for combat two of my spell slots are heel spells one slot is for magic weapon and the other slot is for bless yes i know i signed up to be a support bot and that's exactly what i did the combat started i cast a magic weapon before we engaged my first turn was casting bless and then after that if no one had taken any damage my options were honestly pretty limited my only two offensive cantrips were daze and divine lance divine lance was tough unless i knew the alignment of my opponent and a lot of these enemies were like animals or like an ogre and i think they tend to be more neutral and i was worried to waste an action to find out so most of the time i would go for days and they'd either succeed and take two damage or fail and take 4. there's nothing inherently wrong with this but days in and of itself is not the most exciting cantrip in the world and the ability to mix it up would be nice and i did once i did cast a divine lance against a warg which happened to be evil so that worked out pretty well and was a really cool feeling but after that there wasn't much for me to do and this is definitely more of an issue specifically with divine spell casters than others like arcane occult and primal they have a little bit more diverse options when it comes to combat spells divine casters especially clerics who might need to take a few heal spells are very limited in fact their spell list is even less combat focused which makes sense clerics and healers of the divine orders are more focused on keeping people safe purifying waters conjuring food all that kind of support thing and that's totally fine but it led to a really unfortunate encounter for me nothing bad we won in fact we did really well all things considered but once i magic weapon and once i blessed days days days days days days days days days the reason i say other spellcasters don't suffer from this at low levels is because even if you look at their cantrips they've got a lot more options primal and arcane both have access to produce flame electric arc and ray of frost and acid splash i'm looking up now not to mention puff of poison what's scatter screens like can't trip too god so is spout divine and occult however have way less options when it comes to offensive cam trips they have days they have haunting hymn chill touch and if you're divine divine lance this sounds like a lot but a lot of these are either situational or weirdly hard to justify for example my character jorv was a lawful good cleric he would not be casting chill touch he would not use that dirty necromantic magic and haunting him once again felt a little bit wrong for him to be using nothing about his character was tuned into spirits of any kind so he didn't really feel right using it i guess you could say i could have flavored it otherwise but it still felt very ghost-like so this means i had days and divine lance and if divine lance didn't work or i didn't know their alignment it meant days and sure i could have taken some spell slots of some offensive spells but i wanted to buff my party members and as far as spell slots are concerned i didn't really have an issue i buffed my allies i cast bless to buff them and myself and it was great but after a while days just wasn't worth it not to say it's a bad cam trip it just felt bad to daze and then have a third action to do lord knows what i could move 20 feet i'm a dwarf uh i could try to take cover from something but there was no ranged attack so it didn't really matter there was not a lot of options for me to do aside from one time moving into flanking position to give my ally flat-footed on the creature really kind of cool but otherwise i felt like at least as a level 2 cloistered cleric my turns were very limited which is something i don't say a lot for pathfinder 2e pathfinder 2e usually gives you loads of options a lot of different things you can do on your turn including skill options but unfortunately i just didn't happen to have any deception or intimidation or athletics to do anything with that so yes a lot of this does come down to the way i built my character without having the forethought of what to do after i had buffed my party members and this would be alleviated at higher levels once i get access to more spell slots better spells and more options that's great but what i think is that after level one once you've used your cantrips a few times if all your spell slots are for support or role player situational events that gameplay is going to get really redundant i don't think i would have enjoyed playing this cleric for another few sessions after that to reach level 3. i think if it's in a campaign where you're reaching levels one to five in like the first ten sessions i think you would be fine constantly upgrading and getting new things but if i was playing him in a long form campaign where each level tends to be like three to five sessions at least at least combat would get very redundant very fast and the reason i don't think this is a problem for something like a martial class because i can already tell people are in the comments gonna be typing oh all fighters and and rangers and barbarians do is hit things that's the same thing there's more to those first off they get feats that augment those attacks in different situations but also they get to roll the dice they get to make an attack role maybe they'll critically hit it feels really bad with days specifically that i don't get to roll anything i cast days my gm rolls the saving throw and then they just take the damage i think even if days had a d4 attached to it maybe i wouldn't be making this video i don't know maybe i'm rambling for the sake of rambling because i like to hear my own voice who knows at this point but i do want to talk about that third action after i cast days or magic weapon or bless for that matter that third action always felt empty and i know this holds true for a lot of people playing spellcasters in pathfinder 2e unless you have the quickened once a day metamagic or some crazy good one action spell at higher levels you can't do much with the one action unless you have intimidation or deception it's unfortunate and about a year ago i defended this game against exactly this complaint but the more i've played the more i see spellcasters say i cast this spell and then i don't do anything else they don't have a one action spell to cast there's no cover to move behind they're already 60 plus feet away from the threat what are they gonna do it's at this point in the video i would like to say this is a tiny concern that affects a small percentage of players and in no way is bad for the system or calling pf2 bad in talking about this but i do think it's worth talking about what do you do with that third action as a spellcaster whether you're a wizard who just shot out an acid arrow or a cleric who used a two action heel what do you do now if you're arcane or a cult maybe you cast shield that's a great super popular one but primal and divine don't have that option sure you've got guidance i guess but what if there's no one close enough or you just don't want to use guidance because it's fine i guess i could have cast a message to tell my fighter a joke in the middle of combat i don't know that's my thought that third action's really awkward for specific characters and maybe i should have built my character around it but it just feels bad to be a supporting character but i can't use that third action to do anything to support other than moving into flanking position and putting myself in immediate danger sorry if you were hoping this video would lead to some kind of like fix or here's what you can do about it or whatever whatever whatever i don't really have anything for it i just wanted to ramble and sometimes i just like doing that so thank you for listening if you enjoyed it leave a like and subscribe and let me know down in the comments what you like to do with your third action maybe you add some homebrew maybe you change the rules a little bit i would love to hear what you do with that awkward spellcaster third action maybe that's what i'll title this video the awkward spellcaster third action beautiful thank you to world anvil for sponsoring this video and if you haven't already click the other link in the description to sign up for the sinclairs library kickstarter we go live may 3rd and i'm incredibly excited thank you so very much for watching i hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and until next time no net ones

Channel: Nonat1s

Views: 15,797

Keywords: Pathfinder, Pathfinder 2e, Pathfinder Second Edition, Advanced Player's Guide, Pathfinder 2e APG, Nonat1s, Pathfinder 2e Nonat1s, Pathfinder 2e Level 1, Pathfinder 2e new features, Pathfinder 2e New Ancestries, Pathfinder 2e Gamemastery Guide, pathfinder 2e action economy, pathfinder 2e third action, 2e spellcasters third action, low level spellcasters in pathfinder 2e, nonat1s third action, nonat1s spellcasters struggle, the awkward third action

Id: tL72e45zu2E

Length: 13min 3sec (783 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 27 2022