folly

for some time, a romantic era dwelt

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aw gosh dang i wrote an lmj essay for the first time in months and totally forgot that yesterday was Thursday. never could get the hang of them! but the good thing is there's another one around the corner in a week's time



fwankie
@fwankie

not to "D&D 4e was good actually" again but it was basically the only version of either D&D or Pathfinder that had significant variety in what non-casters could do in terms of crowd control, buffing, healing, etc.
classes like Warlord had cool and interesting abilities that in other editions you only see on like paladin and inquisitor abilities in PF or as cleric spells, classes where you're explicitly favoured by the gods to be able to do that, rather than your character just being a really good commander & tactician on their own merits. For some reason teamwork has to be magic in most cases?



folly
@folly

i am no expert in such things, but isn't pf2e the spiritual successor and general improvement on 4e? the investigator has its stratagems (and Clue In), the Inventor and Alchemist can both craft things to heal or buff, or debuff with things like Tamper, Medicine + Battle Medicine on its own or + the Medic archetype can let you be an off-healer or literally be the main healer (you can even take Godless Healing if you reject divinity entirely!), the Marshal archetype is available to every martial class if you want to do Warlord-y things, and non-casters have access a lot of pets (companions or familiars) that let you roleplay the "I stand back and tactically command the battlefield" if you want to. Swashbuckler et al lean heavy on being able to flexibly debuff enemies as a non-caster, and even things like Rangers, who might be half-casters elsewhere, are by default non-casters who have tons of utility (you have to opt-in to the casting). I think in this dichotomy you might call Thaumaturges "casters", but they’re a martial class with a huge variety of buffs (amulet or regalia or tome), heals (chalice), or debuffs (bell, weapon, tome, also every implement) depending on which implement you pick. Fighters have some of the best and most reliable crowd control in the game from level 1!


fwankie
@fwankie

Marshall is fun, but you do have to take it as an archetype and there's no class equivalent, so weirdly you can't be a good commander and a hell knight or dragon discipline or pick up some spells (until like level 8+) and similar things.
and yeah, thaumaturges, inventors and alchemists aren't casters, but they're basically magic which doesn't have the same vibe to it as warlord, marshal, rogue, etc to me
and PF2e's crowd control options for martials as the same as D&D3e's unfortunately: trip, and things that are worse or more situational than tripping
PF1e had some options for making rangers a non-caster with teamwork based buffs too that were interesting, but just not really supported well by the mechanics.


folly
@folly

i would have to disagree with this! the Fighter having exclusive access to Reactive Strike, default level one not even as a feat you have to select, is kind of a big deal for crowd control in a world where most creatures don't have it. all you have to do is get up close to any enemy caster and you can interrupt their spells (and by starting at expert, a thing only fighters get, you have a much higher chance of doing so). even if we discount inventor-alchemist-thaumaturge as effectively casters, and remove archetypes entirely (which Marshal is specifically only available to martial classes but sure), Investigators have Shared Stratagem, Clue In, ways to Recall Knowledge for free (this is a buff/debuff in a system where most things have some kind of resistance/weakness worth knowing), and Forensic Medicine as a way to serve as your party's Healer, no magic required. If "oh but they use intelligence so they're basically a caster", we can look at Monks with the ability to remove actions entirely by applying stunned (even at range across the battlefield, if that's what you want to do!) or Stand Still. if monks are too mystical to count, we can look at Swashbucklers with Bon Mot, Dirty Trick, Demoralize, or even Fascinating Performance as ways to use different charisma-based skills to apply different debuffs (and gain panache in the process), each with mechanical paths you can go down if you want to specialize. It's not just Trips! If using flashy charisma is too much like a caster, Rangers can take the Outwit hunter's edge at level 1 to help with debuffs, stealth, demoralize, and recall knowledge—you can even order your animal companion to specifically take advantage of these if you want to have that tactical Warlord feel! If even having positive stats in cha int or wis is too much like a caster, we're still in luck—try a Remorseless Lash + Intimidating Strike build on either a Barbarian or a Fighter, and you can consistently apply frightened as a debuff even with 0 charisma! maybe I'm misunderstanding this point, but these are all things non-casters can do to setup/buff/debuff/heal by level 2 before adding magic or gear or anything else, yeah?