Top 5 BEGINNER Tips for COMBAT in Pathfinder 2e!

howdy my name is nonat and I'm in a really interesting position right now when it comes to Pathfinder 2E if you're not aware I spent the last few months on Hiatus from making videos regarding Pathfinder and it doesn't just end there I actually got so busy with my real life that I had to take a break from ttrpgs almost entirely so I didn't play Pathfinder for a shut up phone for a solid 2 to four months and then I got a comment just a few days ago before my return to making content on YouTube and it was a reaction to the beginner box of pf2 I'll put the comment here on screen if I can find it and it inspired me to make this video I've made plenty of videos talking about beginner tips for pf2 and differences between 2E and d and d 5e which I'll link in the description if you want to go check those videos out please do they're bangers but I realized I've never made a video giving beginner tips for combat in path finder 2E so that's exactly what we're going to do right here welcome to five beginner tips for combat in Pathfinder second edition if you find this video useful please do leave a like and a comment and send it to somebody you think could use the advice and if you'd like to support this Channel and get more of this content coming there is a link to my patreon in the description below all members of my patreon get their name on screen just like that there's only one tier $10 a month and it helps me out immensely ly thank you tip number one damage is high and hit points are not in this game a single crit or a couple lucky hits can drop a player character especially if they're not a high hit point High Armor class class that's a weird statement this is most apparent at early levels obviously when you have less than 20 hit points and that Goblin dealing 1d6 plus two damage rolls a Max damage crit and hits you for 16 but unlike a game like Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition this damage doesn't taper off high damage is everywhere from level one to level 20 let me paint a picture for you a level 15 Ranger will have roughly 190 is hit points depending on how you build them your ancestry your Constitution modifier Etc a level 15 monster like the adult gold dragon deals 3 D12 Plus 3d6 plus 15 on a single hit this normal Jaws attack deals an average of 33 damage on a normal hit with that average skyrocketing to 66 on a crit this dragon can also attack up to four times per turn with its draconic frenzy feature so by law of averages it's probably going to hit you at least twice with one of them possibly being a critical hit hit you're looking at a probability of about a 100 damage per turn and this is an equal level creature meaning a moderate encounter is fighting at least two of them this moderate encounter against two equal level enemies is putting out 200 damage per turn on average against your party and sure you have a party of four or five and so your total hit point pool is probably close to 800 to 1,000 hit points but that's still a lot of damage coming your way especially if those hits are criticals which is leading me right into tip number two armor class is everything well okay it's not everything but Armor class is more important than in any other system I have ever played and if you've been watching my channel for a while you know exactly what I'm going to say it's all because of the + 10us 10 critical hit system in Pathfinder 2E on a normal attack roll or a spell attack roll if you beat a target's armor class by 10 or more it's a critical hit even if the die did not show a 20 this is great for players cuz it means with enough of a bonus you might be critting on 18 17 sometimes even more if you're a fighter but let's look at that gold dragon example I just talked about the level 15 Ranger assuming they have appropriate gear is going to have about an armor class of 35 I'll put the math here here on screen so you can see exactly how I got that number so a monster needs to roll at least a 35 to hit this Ranger well that adult gold dragon an equal leveled opponent has a plus 30 to hit this means that Dragon normal hits the ranger on a five and critically hits the ranger on a 15 and remember it's attacking up to four times per turn and sure it has the multiple attack penalties so the second attack is going to be at plus 25 third one's going to be at about plus 20 unless it uses its agile attack which is only going to be at plus 22 but point is that Armor class is important if you're someone like a wizard and you don't have anything nearly as protective as the medium armor on the ranger chances are you're going to be looking at an armor class that's three to five points lower if you only have a 32 Armor class against this adult red dragon it's hitting you on a two and critically hitting you on a 12 with this Armor class in mind looking at the ranger example going back to the hit points you're looking at very likely a critical hit at least once and one or two normal hits out of its four attacks you're looking at about 130 damage coming your way in one round from one of these dragons remember if you're part of a fourman party you're probably fighting two of them for a moderate encounter not even difficult Armor class is so important and that's why things like taking cover or the BS rallying Anthem or any way to get even plus one armor class is so important in Pathfinder 2E I've been playing an Earth kineticist with armor and Earth as sort of the Frontline tank of the party and it's shocking to me when I'm playing because I get hit a lot I've got a crazy armor class my armor class is at least three points higher than everybody else on the team but I still get hit at least once per round if we're fighting an enemy of our level or higher and at first I felt a little cheated and a lot of people feel this way I'm sitting here thinking wow for being a tank I sure I'm getting hit a lot and it took a lot of sessions for me to wrap my head around the fact that I was getting hit because I was doing my job right if anybody else was taking those attacks they would probably be getting critically hit and remember that's twice as much damage so a lot of the times especially if a target's first attack with their full attack bonus normal hits you on the front line there's a high probability that same attack would have critically hit one of your Wizards or clerics or bards or other people who don't have leg day so in Pathfinder 2E keep this in mind Armor class is not about not getting hit it's about not getting crit and because of that you're going to get hit you're going to take damage which leads to tip number three healing is vital vital it's a life pun I'm hilarious because your front line is going to be taking a beating not necessarily a huge critical hit beating but a normal regular every round damaging beating having access to Healing is incredibly important but I don't want to say you need to bring a cleric along because you don't the basic heal spell seen right here is the single strongest form of healing in the game outside of some crazy level 20 class features for two actions you're going to restore 1d8 Plus 8 to any Target equal to your spell rank at level three this restores 2 d8 + 16 most of your max healths are only like 30 because of this Pathfinder 2E tends to work on a very swinging basis where as long as you can survive the hit you might get crit by that adult gold dragon for 66 damage but you know what your uh your cleric can do with an eighth level heal spell 8 d8 plus 64 in healing now as I said you don't need a cleric to do this obviously you can do it with a druid but you don't even necessarily need a dedicated healer you don't need someone whose only job is throwing out heal spells cuz you know some people might enjoy it but overall that's not that fun to be forced into that role luckily there's a lot of ways around this without wasting your own spell slots or if you're a spontaneous Caster you don't have to waste a place in your spell repertoire instead consider picking up a few Scrolls of heal or a wand of heal the heal spell is on the Divine and Primal spell list meaning half the spellcasters in the game can use the heal spell not all of them not every party is going to have a Divine or Primal Caster but if you do and you don't want them to necessarily have to take the heal spell pick up a wand that is a one per day blast of healing you can apply to any party member for two actions the heal spell is incredibly powerful I would wager to call it overpowered because of how insanely bursty its heal is there's plenty of other options like the soothe spell or potions but nothing comes close to the Raw hit point recovery of the heal spell so if you can find a way to work it into your party composition that someone can cast heal at least once per day as an emergency it's incredibly worth it but you're going to need healing of some kind if nobody in the party wants to play a character that can heal I'd honestly recommend GMS giving them some kind of maybe limited healing option whether it's a easily replenishable stock of potions or maybe bend the rules a little bit and let somebody have a wand that casts heal even if that character can't actually cast heal because playing pf2 without a steady source of reliable burst healing you're going to struggle it's possible but fights are going to be a lot more dangerous and they're going to be even more dangerous because of tip number four oh God enemies in pf2 have some nasty abilities either that inflict completely unique penalties and circumstances or just inflict some of the nasty statuses that this game has in fact the comment I mentioned earlier that inspired this video inspired this tip specifically they talked about how insane it felt that the pugwampi a level zero monster has this ability effectively it's an aura that whenever you enter it you need to make a will Saving throw roll it twice and take the worst result if you fail this saving throw then as long as you are in the Pug wampy Aura all checks you make attack rolls saving throws skill checks all of them are at disadvantage rolling twice taking the worst result on a level zero monster the comment mentioned that in a one versus one situation with the character they had crafted they had almost no chance of winning a level one character should be able to take on a level zero in a vacuum and that's a very important statement right there in in a vacuum let's talk about that for a bit a lot of things in this game seem incredibly powerful possibly overpowered possibly useless in a vacuum but Pathfinder 2E is never played in a vacuum there is no situation that it's an empty white room with you starting on one side a single enemy on the other and you walk up to each other and hit each other until you fall down unless your GM specifically designed that as like a gladiator fight or something that is not happening what is happening is tip number five you may not be able to see it but I'm sitting backwards on a chair just like you kids come there we go you know I thought this would look cooler on the video but it looks the exact same as when I stand normally I'm I'm standing on a chair you just can't see or maybe I'm just really tall Pathfinder 2E is a team game unless you've split the party something terrible you're not doing anything by yourself every action you take every move you make I'll be watching you it affects your party every point of damage you deal to the opponent is less damage your allies need to deal on their turn every condition you apply to an opponent increases the odds of your allies surviving and succeeding and what they want to do on their turn I want to use the Pug wampy as an example so this character we'll say they made a fighter I think they said a ranger or something but we'll say they made a fighter and that fighter is upfront fighting the pugwampi and because they failed their saving throw because they rolled with disadvantage it's incredibly likely because they failed all of their attack roles have disadvantage so they're only normal hitting instead of critting but in reality especially the second and third attack they're missing every single time they can maybe Land one hit per round on this thing and it can do the same dealing fairly equipped equalent damage back to the player and if you're in a party you're probably fighting two or three of these things they're level zero so if you have a party of level ones it's not weird to think you might be fighting four of these things so how are you supposed to win if all of your attack roles are at disadvantage and they're doing just as much damage back to you as you are to them if not more well keep this in mind the Pug wy's Aura only reaches I think 20 feet you know who's way farther than 20 feet away the ranger shooting arrows The Bard casting spells the wizard using electric Arc for the 14th time that session just because something seems incredibly unfair in a vacuum doesn't mean it's unfair in practice because there's so much more going on in this game than what your character is doing and what is being done to them it's very easy to look at a single class feature to look at a single spell to look at a magic item and say wow that's worthless because I don't get to do any damage because it doesn't make me any stronger and I absolutely had this issue for a long time I still do it occasionally and if you look at a lot of my older videos I complain about things that are actually really useful a lot because I was looking at them in a vacuum I was not looking at them in the grand scope of a team game if you're in a one versus one situation then something like the demoralize action doesn't seem that useful why would I foro one of my attacks that could hit and do damage just to inflict minus one to their armor class sure my third attack might not have a huge chance of hitting but at least it does damage while demoralize doesn't but think of it like this you demoralize and you make two attacks that turn maybe you only hit one of them but they were at least against an enemy with minus one Armor class because they're frightened from your demoralize action then the Rogue gets to attack three times maybe Landing their second attack specifically because the enemy's armor class was lowered by one and they're flanking with you your position matters that minus one matters maybe the enemy had an armor class of 23 they only roll a total of 20 well because they get minus one from demoralize and minus two from being off guard from flanking your Rogue now gets to hit and deal sneak attack damage after their turn maybe the wizard gets to take a pot shot with produced flame because they're bored of using electric Arc for the 19th time I don't even know if they're called that anymore if in the remaster they got renamed I'll put them on screen right now but do you know how hard it is to get a bonus to spell attack roles or to make an enemy lose Armor class against ranged attacks it's really hard ranged attacks are inherently less accurate than melee because they can't flank so while it seems like that minus one Armor class doesn't mean that much think again all of your allies benefit from that there's a lot of witch canant trips specifically that don't feel like they do a whole lot they might slow an enemy down by a little bit in their movement speed for one round but think about how your group can utilize your abilities it's really hard to keep everybody else in mind especially when you're just like by yourself creating a character or leveling up between sessions but try to think of the grand scope of the battlefield how many creatures you can affect and how many times your allies will get to capitalize on the penalty on those enemies or the bonus to them you might be able to provide and there is five tips to help up your beginner Pathfinder combat game let me know in the comments if you found these useful I'm sure a lot of you knew these I've talked about a few of them before in the past but I think they're worth rewording and REM mentioning especially with the remaster being as awesome as it is and hopefully a lot of new people trying out the game so that is it for me I hope you all enjoyed the video thank you to all of my patrons again for helping support this Channel and keeping this content coming it's because of you that I'm still here in the first place thank you all so much I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day until next time known at once God I missed saying that hell yeah

Channel: Nonat1s

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Keywords: Pathfinder, Pathfinder 2e, Pathfinder Second Edition, Pathfinder 2e APG, Nonat1s, Pathfinder 2e Nonat1s, Pathfinder 2e Level 1, Pathfinder 2e new features, Pathfinder 2e New Ancestries, How to play Pathfinder 2e, Pathfinder 2e session, Pathfinder 2e beginner's guide, Pathfinder 2e tips, Pathfinder 2e new player, 5e vs 2e, D&D vs pathfinder, D&D vs pathfinder 2e, Player Core 1, GM Core, Monster Core 1, Pathfinder 2e Combat, Top 5 beginner tips for combat in pathfinder 2e

Id: pyP1dI2Ewu8

Length: 18min 6sec (1086 seconds)

Published: Fri May 31 2024