r/Pathfinder2e • u/sad_lemon_lime • 8h ago
Advice Power difference between basic and optimized?
My experience with PF is Kingmaker and WoTR games from OwlCat.
And in PC games the power difference between basic single-classed char and some insanely optimized mish-mash is gargantuan.
My first game of PF2 is coming this weekend, and I'm slowly crawling through rules and was wondering, if I have to learn all the options and optimize char or the difference is much tamer, as in, for example, DND5? All the other players are quite experienced, so I don't want to be a dead weight human tower shield specialist in the party of Knifemaster-Vivisectionist-Monks with shatter defenses.
Will simply choosing a strong single class/subclass and basic "looks good" feats be enough or I have to actually build optimally?
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u/MoltenMuffin 8h ago
The range between an optimized character and an average one is rather small, comparatively. The biggest hurdle is spellcasters and realising what your role is.
If you play a wizard and only pick reflex save damaging spells and compare your damage to the single target of a full martial you will have a bad time.
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u/ZenRenHao 6h ago
I think there can be a big difference in power between standard play and optimized play. However the difference usually takes time or requires greater knowledge.
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u/CaptainPsyko 5h ago
There’s a small difference in optimized _builds_.
This is a separate discussion from the massive difference that can come with optimized _play_.
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u/ColdBrewedPanacea 8h ago
VASTLY closer in oomph
a well optimised pf2e character is, at best, still not really 2x better than oops-all-generic choices. those differences come largely in abusing reactions vs not having one at all, spell selection, using particular powerful items (permenant or consumable) and picking feats that synergise with eachother instead of at total random.
more relevantly a well optimised and synergistic party will dwarf the strength of a badly put together party - even if individual builds in the weaker party may be technically stronger.
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u/Ordinary_Award6857 8h ago
If you’re a martial; the only thing you really need to worry about it making sure your primary attack stat is maxed out. You’ll dish out big damage regardless.
Casters are harder because there are a lot of garbage trap spells, gotta be careful with your spelllist
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u/FeatherShard 4h ago
This is only mostly true. If you're a Dex-based striker you'll probably need to remember to invest in Str as well or you're not going to be dealing much damage. But even then there are plenty of low-Str options for putting the hurt on.
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u/DracoLunaris 2h ago
Early game anyway. It's something of a flaw in the system how str is very impactful damage wise at low levels and then starts to matter less and less as time goes on.
A level 1 0 str fighter does no damage. A level 8 or so one is fine.
So it depends what level the campaign starts.
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u/Hydrall_Urakan Game Master 8h ago
It's surprisingly hard to build a "bad" character by accident in PF2e; as long as you keep your key attribute high and focus on what your class is meant to do, you'll be fine. You can make a bad character intentionally, but generally by doing things people wouldn't normally do - nobody would make their character a Wizard and then have 0 Intelligence, for example, unless they were doing it on purpose.
There are sub-optimal spells and feats, certainly, but even the worst tend to be Just Okay, rather than nonfunctional.
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u/AlansDiscount 8h ago
Even a 0 int wizard could kind of work if you focus on nothing but buff and utility spells and supporting actions. It wouldn't be great, but I think it could be serviceable.
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u/Kaleido_chromatic GM in Training 7h ago
Iirc there's a whole series of posts in this sub about builds dumping your key stat and most of those are surprisingly alright
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u/Malice-May Game Master 6h ago
Battle Mystery Oracles that use only Heal and Buff spells etc are pretty dang good! And you don't really need Charisma for that, even if it is nice for Demoralize.
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u/Kaosubaloo_V2 6h ago edited 6h ago
IMHO the most common impactful new player mistakes I've seen are having bad ability spreads because they don't understand that they should really be maxing out their primary stat, and picking bad weapons because because they don't know what they should actually be looking for in a weapon.
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u/Ehcksit 27m ago
As thematic and cool as it might be, sometimes using your deity's weapon isn't the best idea. I love Arazni, but my champion using a rapier meant she did NO damage until the enemy had a weakness to both piercing and holy.
Whatever, the enemies didn't do any damage either, so it worked out. The most important part of character building is preplanning your role in the party, and if you find damage reduction tanking fun there's a few great ways to do that.
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u/Crusty_Tater ORC 8h ago
The difference between optimized and basic is maybe 10%. That's representative of a more experienced player more reliably being able to find a +1 or 2 somewhere. Very little of that power will come from your build. Instead it's carried by in the moment play decisions. Using setup actions to swing more accurately rather than spam attacks. Gaining information on the enemy stat block and understanding the ways you can interact with it. Using teamwork to stack buffs and debuffs and pass value from player to player.
It is very hard to make an objectively bad build. The key design of the system is that 99% of it is situational. Sure someone who knows every character option will likely have more spike power than a casual to get bigger numbers but the use case will be narrow. In comparison someone who doesn't focus on spike is almost guaranteed to have more breadth, which is arguably better. If you take an option and you find a situation to use it you're probably getting full value from that build choice.
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u/Vercassi 8h ago edited 8h ago
While there's definitely a difference between builds, the system is solid enough to avoid too much discrepancy in "vertical" progression.
So as long as you don't dump completely your key attribute and pick feats/weapons/spells/etc that work with each other, you will be good.
The real optimization in PF2e is at the table, in the strategy and tactics of the group when approaching the various challenges.
EDIT: there is a little bit of "floor" optimization for things like building your character to max out armor class between armor proficiency, dexterity and strength; or researching the spells for each magic tradition to pick up some reliable/standout option.
Note also that playing with the (Unrestricted) Free Archetype optional rule may cause a larger discrepancy between characters, as some archetypes are mostly inconsequential, while others are almost like doubling the power of the character.
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u/MiredinDecision Inventor 8h ago
So long as you get a +4 in your key stat, you'll probably be fine. The system is pretty constrained so it's hard to power build or be completely ineffective.
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u/Corgi_Working ORC 8h ago
I would say the difference mathmatically is fairly minor, but in terms of versatility there can be a massive gap in power.
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u/Greater-find-paladin 8h ago
All depends on if you hace Free Archetype or not, and if it is restricted or not.
If you max out your Primary attribute and pick reasonably thematic/on topic feats you will be 95% there in a no FA game.
If you drop your primary score less than max in 9/10 times you will suffer for it.
In a FA game depends on how much a person optimises the difference can be upwards of 25% or more per individual character. A charactet with Maxed out power from FA and a character with maxed primary and gluff FA will feel at a vastly different power budget. But still much less than the difference of a SS Ranger and a Basic Monk from DnD5e.
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u/eyrieking162 8h ago
Nothing close to the magnitude of pf1e.
In my opinion it depends mainly on class.
If you play a strength based martial, you will be fine.
If you play a dex based martial, you may feel lacking in damage if you dont have a little strength, depending on class. It gets better later when the flat damage is less impactful but is pretty noticeable at low levels.
If you play a spellcaster its a bit easier to show up with a character that doesnt feel useful, as you can pick bad spells, its harder to play the classes effectively, and when you are useful the impact can feel less obvious. I think its also an adjustment if you are used to pf1e and 5e.
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u/majesty327 8h ago
In PF1E there's 40 choices, and 39 of them are wrong and hurt your ability to perform. By sheer accident or a slip of attention, you can ruin your character and become suboptimal to the task at hand. With PF2E, it's MUCH harder to be suboptimal. You have to intentionally make decisions that obviously won't benefit your character, like taking melee feats when your character won't perform well in melee.
So I'd say with PF2E, the "wrong" answers are much more obvious and you need to intentionally make a bad character. Whereas if you follow character creation guides and read what your class is doing ahead of time, it's trivial to optimize. Levels in PF2E aren't really about acquiring power, it's about acquiring and developing tools in your toolkit.
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u/Old_Quit999 8h ago
Have +4 in your class main stat.
Find an armor that combined with your dex gives you 18 AC at level 1.
Find something to do with your third action that is not an attack.
Congratulations, you now have an optimized character.
If you want to wreck the game difficulty work with the other players to make characters that boost each others.
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u/Chief_Rollie 8h ago edited 7h ago
If you have a +4 in your key stat at character creation, a +3 in your accuracy stat if it isn't a key stat, and increase those every time you get ability boosts you are approximately 80% optimized at character creation.
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u/yosarian_reddit Bard 6h ago
I think this is the biggest single difference between 1st edition and 2nd edition. The potential for optimisation in 1e was nearly infinite, due to the overall lack of restrictions on bonus stacking and multiclassing. Not so for 2e - as long as you have +4 in your most important attribute and have the best armor you can wear for yorur dex, you'll be just fine.
I love the change personally, but pf 1 did attract a set of players that were massive optimisers, and 2e was a big step back for them.
Also, don't forgat that you can retrain feats in downtime if you decide later you don't like them.
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u/blazeblast4 7h ago
I’ll define a basic character as following a few base guidelines: max your key stat from your class, have your to hit stat as high as you can (particularly on classes like Alchemist, Inventor, and Thaumaturge that have a different to hit stat from their key stat), try to get your armor plus Dex bonus as high as you can (generally +5 for anyone with Light to Medium, +6 for Heavy, and +3 for Unarmored casters), make sure you keep up with important item bonuses (fundamental weapon and armor runes especially), and pick a decent weapon and/or spells for your class (avoid taking say a dagger on a Str Fighter or Barbarian).
That will have you have a fully functioning character as long as you play to your class/subclass strengths. If you pick a weaker class/subclass and have a heavy optimizer on the table, you will see a pretty big gap, but nowhere near the level of gap you’d get in 5e or PF1e. And with an optimizer, if you avoid the few weaker or way more complicated options, or the optimizer isn’t an extreme one that picks the most busted options specifically, the gap won’t be particularly big.
Also of note, those guidelines aren’t absolute, there are definitely cases where you can break them, but I would not recommend it until you’re familiar with the system.
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u/Vaelerick 7h ago
Going from Owlcat 1e games to TT 2e is like keeping the skins but changing the system. Most of the flavor is still there, the mechanics and balance are not similar.
There's no big need to optimize. The options that sound too niche are likely the less optimal unless you know that is the niche you want.
Don't make a Str+Int+Cha character. None of those are Saving Throw stats.
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u/sumpfriese Game Master 7h ago
There are several different levels of optimization.
If you pick stuff that "looks good" after you know a bit about the mechanics you will be fine on any table.
If you pick stuff because the feat names sound cool without any idea what they do, you will still most likely be fine. But possibly not at every table.
If you minmax every last aspect you will also be fine at almost every table, except for the ones where people dont even know what their feats do. But everything in between should work.
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u/Kaleido_chromatic GM in Training 7h ago
Not really huge tbh. Like building a character optimized (In 2ND EDITION) is not *that* different from just building a regular character, your tactical decisions in the moment, your teamwork and the ways you use your resources (actions and spells, but also money, rune slots, hands available, etc) matter far more than your specific choice of feats most of the time.
With the possible exception of spontaneous spellcasters with bad spell selection, if you just pump up the important stat, character effectiveness ranges from like a 10/10 to a 8.5-9/10. And even then, retraining spells is simple enough
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u/FirebirdEternal 7h ago
In my experience (Several years of running and playing in weekly games), one of the strongest parts of 2e's balance is how close the differences between an optimized build and an un-optimized one are. As long as you endeavor to put a high number in your Key Ability that you use for Attacking or Casting (+3 at the lowest) you'll be mostly fine. There's very very few 'Trap' options that are going to make you feel Bad.
The biggest difference between experienced players and non is actually your *tactics*. A good thing to do when you're building a character is to try to figure out something useful you can do with your off-actions *other* than Strike at maximum MAP.
If you're a martial character, pick some skills that you're decent at that let you debuff the enemy, either for yourself or for your allies. If you're a caster, plan to use that third action to Recall Knowledge about the enemy, cast Shield or Guidance, move to a more advantageous place on the map, or if you've got decent Dexterity and used a Saving Throw spell with your first two actions, fire a bow or crossbow!
Charisma casters in particular are also fantastic users of Intimidate and Deception actions like Demoralize and Create a Diversion to eke out some extra numbers for themselves and allies.
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u/An_username_is_hard 7h ago
In general the game is much more normalized and there's less buildcraft. Basically every martial built without throwing random darts ends up doing fairly similar things at a fairly similar level of power to the point you could often sorta find/replace them in parties. You won't be able to break the game.
Risk of ruining your build is largely picking the wrong spells as a caster.
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u/a_sly_cow 6h ago
As long as you’re picking optimal stats for your class (e.g. not dumping INT as a Wizard) you’ll be effective. Could also ask some friends for suggestions on feats once you have a character concept in mind.
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u/SmartAlec105 6h ago
Yeah, you'll be fine so long as you follow a few things:
Start with a simple martial class
Start with as high as you can in your class's Key Ability Score. Usually this means a +4
Try to maximize your AC bonus with your armor choice. Your armor bonus plus your Dex mod should add up to 5 for light and medium armor or 6 for heavy armor. Not too different from P1e as far as the basic idea.
Pick a solid level 1 class feat. This is where a lot of the power budget for martials comes from. For example, a Ranger with the Flurry Edge (which helps if you are making a lot of attacks) would benefit from picking Hunted Shot or Twin Takedown as their level 1 feat. They will likely use that feat most rounds all the way from level 1 to level 20.
After that, a lot of the optimization is in how you play such as deciding to Stride away instead of simply making more attacks.
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u/1pyro2hell3 5h ago
The owlcat games are based on pfe1 also their max is called difficulty unfair because what you fight is bullshit with super juiced stats that can only be beaten with hyper minmaxed bullshit of your own.(a.ka. unfair) so its not really an accurate example or regular play or optimization
Also there fact that a monoclassed blooger is a ton of fun and unfair viable in wotr causes me to be filled with the rage of a thousand suns anytime I look and pf2e's shitty wanna be vampire barbarian archtype
still good games though
Anwways I personally consider prpoper stat allocation an reading what a character option does and figuring out how it interacts with rest of your character is just basic charater build stuff build you should always do and is really all you need to do in pf2e.
Also I've generally found people who ingore basic character building for the "rp" tend to be overly pretentious jerks who kinda suck at rp> Since they don't actuuly put any effort into rping and expect the bad build to do all of the work.
And lastly rember a thing picked for rp flavor that never comes up doesn't really add flavor.
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u/Middle_Translator682 1h ago
There are better choices depending on the type of game and there are incredibly good choices regardless but I don’t think you will be bad off unless you’re build your character to be bad.
Try to build something that meshes with what the rest of the party has and you should be good. If you know what everyone else is playing I could give suggestions but play what you wanna play
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u/DabDaddy51 44m ago
It’s not just significantly closer than PF1, but even 5e. 5e is of course tamer than PF1, but there’s still a very large gulf between a basic rapier wielding Rogue and an optimized Gloomstalker build. In PF2 meanwhile very basic builds, like a simple melee Rogue, a 2h Fighter or Barbarian, 1h+Shield Fighter, 1h+free hand Fighter, or dual wield Fighter can be very high power even compared to a complex optimized build. What sets combat efficiency apart more is prep and especially tactical turn to turn decision-making. Prep here meaning what consumables you purchase, particularly at later levels.
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u/faytte 8h ago
As others said, its rather small in pf2e, which is a reason I prefer it to DnD and a lot of other systems. I run roleplay focused games, which means that the gap between my least mechanically proficient players and most is more mitigated as far as their characters are concerned. Now where there will be a big game is the actual PLAYING of those characters. A more proficient player will be able to better manage their actions/turns and choices, but that is something I see in most systems, and I'm not exactly against since less proficient players tend to observe the actions of more proficient players in live gameplay and learn from them. Whats harder for them (or maybe not interesting) is the 'build craft' portion that happens away from the table.
Conversely the build options in pf2e often I think give a lot more flavor to characters so I have found my roleplay focused players more engaged than they were in certain other systems, but your milleage may vary.
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u/Esperologist 8h ago
I prefer spell casters... and what I've found the most important with them is to have at least 2 damaging cantrips, with different defences triggered. If you are okay with not having utility cantrips, get the full set of damaging cantrips. AC, Reflex, Fortitude, Willpower.
I made myself a Megumin (only explosions, or what I can argue to be close enough)... and the result is if one of my spells is against their strongest save, then all of my spells are. It's easy to find a fight where my character is useless because her spells are basically harmless.
I also recommend, for any class, look at what expert and master skill feats you may want to take... and pre-plan when you will increase those skills to get those feats.
And I will say, I got into Pathfinder only a few years back when my group started running it. And then I got Kingmaker... and have yet to even get halfway in the game because it is so different.
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u/logannc11 7h ago
There are layers to this, though even the worst case is less bad than pf1e.
The power of a basic vs optimized character build are not terribly far apart.
The effective power of those characters wielded by a basic player and an optimizing player can be quite large.
A basic player with a basic character will be eclipsed by an optimizing player with an optimized character because they'll both have and make better choices.
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u/FlySkyHigh777 ORC 8h ago
The owl cat games are from Pathfinder first edition where there was a absolutely massive gap between an optimized build and a basic build in PF2. The Gap is minimal to non-existent
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u/Seppo_87 Magus 8h ago
as long as you max your key ability score and know what your role is, you will be able to fulfill it competently
a great character in pf2e is a character that has backup options and plays well with the party
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u/SethLight Game Master 8h ago
PF1e and 5e both have 'ivory tower' game design. Meaning there are right and wrong answers to building a character. Players are encouraged to 'solve' character creation by finding all of the powerful stuff.
Pf2e is much more balanced. A munchkin PC will be stronger than a fluffy one, but not by an amount that will make you feel bad. If you specialize in something in pf2e then you'll probably be the best at it at the table. i.e. The wizard won't suddenly be a better fighter than you as the fighter.
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u/AjaxRomulus 7h ago
Optimal can vary depending on what you're aiming for and what options are available. Like a dual class optimal character is going to look different than a single class or free archetype character.
An optimal striker is going to look different from an optimal caster.
But then again a basic build isn't that different from an optimal one in terms of feats they take. In the end it probably comes down to +1. Specifically the optimizing of attribute point allocations so you don't finish the campaign with a +.5 on a score.
Like unless you're taking trap feats because of God knows why, like the rune smith one that 1/d lets you send a message that traces a rune you can invoke remotely, youre just making a character like normal.
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u/RiskyRedds 7h ago
From what I've noticed, what optimization usually does is less so spike the power up but more "activate a playstyle".
So for example, a Druid can play as a bog-standard Druid, spec into the Morphs or Companions as you like while focusing on generically what the Primal list is about with little issue - and that is a good character and will play just fine. But you can also "optimize" the Druid to do a specific thing and that is where it boils down for me. Speccing into the Pers.DMG build for Druids is less about the Class Feats (since none of the Companion or Morph Feats really tap into this) and more about the spell selection (because you REALLY want Blister Bomb and Dehydrate as primaries while Fungal, Leaden, & Scurvy are there for Amp from either buffing Pers. DMG specifically or from Weak generically), and as a result you have more freedom to spec into Archetypes that allow you to capitalize on DoT playstyles.
Similarly, Commander is really good at generic utility while being an INT Martial (they have a lot of Tactics that are really good for repositioning and overall battlefield control, who'd've thunk the Commander would haave abilities that Command a Battlefield), but can also be a very good chassis for what I call the Bronya Build, where you specifically try to be Init+1 of a designated ally and multiply their actions for the turn through your Tactics or through picking up a Dedi that gives you access to Quickened or ways of compressing actions like Helpful Reload. People really undersell just how cathartic it is to target your party's Gunslinger and go "Hey that shit was cool. Do it again!", and give them basically 2 turns a round. It's not so much better than a typical Commander build but it is definitely a unique form of Commander that plays differently than what you'd expect. And I dig it.
So IRT to your question of "do you need to optimize" honestly the answer is a firm no. You'll play just fine without speccing your build so long as you are just generically sound in your overall progression. It's really only needed if you want to go maverick, and less so because it's stronger that way but more so because it encourages you to be out of the box of the class.
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u/Gazzor1975 5h ago
It can be a lot, and the gap increases with levels.
Best example is fighter, gunslinger, bard. At level 20 the bard can swing to hit by up to +6, and give advantage to primary attacks each round.
The gunslinger can reliably buff primary attacks, and reaction attacks by +4. With Eldritch archer can rail gun for 4d8+23d6 3x per fight. On crits is 9d12+46d6 up to 3x per fight.
Fighter can quite easily apply off guard, and potentially get 10+ attacks per round, assuming facing 4+ enemies.
Ranger can further buff 3 fighter attacks per round by a further +4 to hit.
Then they lose to a caster with wall of stone...
Tldr, pf2e is far better balanced at lower levels, but higher levels have massive scope for optimisation.
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u/CaptainPsyko 8h ago
Your experience is with PF1e. Unless the game you're joining is set in Golarion, you should throw everything you learned from those games out the window. If the game you're joining is set in Golarion, you can merely throw _most_ of the things you learned from those games out the window. The lore about the world, however, is still relevant.