u/AAABattery03

Saving Throws are a BIT of a controversial topic in the Pathfinder community! How much investment do you REALLY need? Is it as bad as some optimizers say? Is it as easy as some other folks say? Let's find out!

If you are short on time, watching from 31:26 onwards is where I present about 15 minutes of actual advice on how to assign various Saves, how to build characters to have diversity without sacrificing your Saves too hard, etc.

Timestamps

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:09 Saving Throw Optimization
• 6:00 Math Setup
• 11:44 Zero Attribute Charts
• 15:51 Analyzing the Data
• 22:21 Mathing a “Recipe”
• 26:47 Recipe Charts
• 31:26 My Recipe
• 37:44 Ref vs Fort vs Will
• 43:15 Saves and Freedom
• 48:54 Are Saves poorly designed?
• 51:09 Outro

In my opinion, way too much optimization advice in the PF2E community is risk-averse, to the point that I think it can lead to actively suboptimal builds! Let's dig into why, and talk about how I prefer to optimize my characters.

I will probably build on this idea with mathematical analyses in future videos. First thing that comes to mind is looking at saving throw progression.

Timestamps

• 0:00:00 Intro
• 0:02:22 Paid Promotion
• 0:04:46 Risk Averse Optimization
• 0:08:50 Misstep 1 - Winmore
• 0:14:22 Misstep 2 - Generic vs Situational
• 0:21:06 Misstep 3 - Playing to your Outs
• 0:28:10 Why is Risk Aversion bad?
• 0:32:28 Risk AWARE Optimization
• 0:35:26 Case Study - Exemplar Dedication
• 0:43:42 Step 1 - Making a Plan A
• 0:48:42 Step 2 - Filling in Gaps
• 0:54:03 Step 3 - Rising to the Ceiling
• 1:00:48 Think of your Party
• 1:05:15 Outro

Today's video is me and 4 other Pathfinder 2E creators showing off some of the awesome new stuff in Impossible Magic! Hope y'all enjoy this, and I apologize if the editing/audio is not the best, this is new territory for me and a very busy time of the year.

The final encounter, by the way, has a fantastic showcase on why debuffing Spellstrikes are so good when you're not just in a damage race. I still used plenty of damage-dealing Spellstrikes in this session, I just always left my options open for non-damaging, controlling/debuffing effects and it really paid off.

The creators in the one-shot are:

• ‪@ProfessorProficiency‬ GMing
• ‪@ThrabenU_Gaming‬ playing a Commander w/ Living Nexus Archetype
• ‪@time2dice‬ playing Runesmith
• ‪@TeamPlayerGaming‬ playing a Necromancer
• Myself, playing an Unfurling Brocade Magus w/ Wizard Archetype

Art credits:

• My Magus's art was made by my close friend! His instagram is here, send him some love: marmosetmarmalade
• Map art used by Prof is from here: https://www.czepeku.com/
• The remaining 3 players' arts all came from token dumps from various sources that are verifiably not genAI.

Timestamps

• 0:00:00 Intro
• 0:06:46 Encounter 1
• 1:12:55 Encounter 2 (Handwaved)
• 1:22:33 Encounter 3
• 2:57:17 Discussion

Magus discussion has always been a bit of a circle. A lot of folks approach this discourse from the perspective that spamming Spellstrikes for Attack spells is the way to go, and anything short of that makes you a bad damage dealer and isn't worth trying.

Today I do a needlessly deep dive into this assumption and, notably, question if Amped Imaginary Weapon (pre-errata) was ever a strict upgrade to your damage as people saw it as. Once we move past the centralizing assumptions about Spellstrike, I discuss how I would build a Magus to be a versatile, flexible, and powerful gish that isn't just spamming a 2-Action spike damage tool.

ANNOUNCEMENT: At the end of this video I announce a collaboration with other PF2E creators. The other creators participating are:

• ‪@ProfessorProficiency‬
• ‪@ThrabenU_Gaming‬
• ‪@time2dice‬
• ‪@TeamPlayerGaming‬
• ‪@20SidedVentures‬

Timestamps

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:19 PAID PROMOTION Crystal Maggie
• 2:21 Magus Discourse
• 9:28 Starlit Math Setup
• 18:13 Starlit Span TTK Chart
• 21:58 Inexorable Math Setup
• 25:19 Inexorable Iron TTK Chart
• 26:40 TTK Analysis
• 33:28 What IS the Magus?
• 37:02 Magus and Spike Damage
• 43:42 Outside of Spike Damage
• 51:45 Remastered Magus
• 56:17 ANNOUNCEMENT
• 57:52 Outro

Today's video is my long-awaited spells deep dive, for Impossible Magic. I went through EVERY spell, so you don't have to! Here's my highlights reel.

Full disclosure: this video is long. Please feel free to just click through and skip through to whatever sections you want, so you can get to the spells you care about.

Order Impossible Magic here, on Paizo's website: https://store.paizo.com/pathfinder-impossible-magic/

Timestamps

• 0:00:00 Intro
• 0:01:31 Universal Changes
• 0:05:43 Attack Spells
• 0:13:52 Blasting Spells
• 0:20:15 High-Rank Blasting Spells
• 0:29:38 Gish Spells
• 0:34:10 The most broken spell?
• 0:37:54 High Rank Gish Spells
• 0:43:00 Debuffing Spells
• 0:49:30 Blister Bomb sidegrades
• 0:53:20 Control Spells
• 1:00:06 High Rank Control Spells
• 1:06:49 The most cinematic spell ever
• 1:11:23 Buffed Spell Reprints
• 1:16:26 Silver Bullet Spells
• 1:21:05 The new best 10th-rank spell?
• 1:23:07 New Healing Playstyles?
• 1:31:39 Familiars, Companions, Eidolons
• 1:37:04 High Rank Familiar Nonsense
• 1:41:06 Incarnate Spells
• 1:48:04 Outro

Today we will be analyzing Pathfinder 2E's most unique and most interesting class: the Investigator. Folks often misunderstand this class, comparing it to the Rogue due to their superficially similar damage rotations and structurally similar "skill monkey" class chassis. I think a deeper look is warranted, particularly into the Investigator's role as a **spike**damage dealer, while acknowleding that Sneak Attack is more continuous damage.

My take sort of lines up with the common intuition about how Devise a Strategem is great with Spellstrike (which I know many folks already agree with!) but I feel it extends *beyond* that specific combination, since Strategic Strike itself provides some pretty good spike damage. And I think this conversation is very worth having, since I have seen a lot of people acknowledge Archetyping *into* Investigator as a spike damage option, but actually being a base class Investigator and picking up additional spikes from other Archetypes or items is much better for that role.

Keen Recollection is also a bit of a somewhat controversial topic, one I get into near the end of this video. I have a suggestion for GMs on how it should be ruled, and I back that suggestion up with what I believe to be convincing math.

Timestamps

• 0:00:00 Intro and Welcome
• 0:02:05 Video Intro
• 0:02:57 Devise a Strategem
• 0:07:58 Hypothetical: Strategic Strike
• 0:10:28 Strategic Strike vs Vicious Swing
• 0:14:16 **Actual** Strategic Strike
• 0:19:22 Maximizing High Rolls
• 0:29:06 Minimizing Low Rolls
• 0:39:44 Free Action Table Variance
• 0:44:54 Keen Recollection
• 0:56:12 Keen Recollection Math
• 1:03:53 Summary
• 1:05:45 Outro

Hear me out, I am not trying to be a contrarian here, I just legitimately think we underrate Vicious Swing, and spike damage as a whole (more on the second part later).

There's a tendency to give spike damage a pretty shallow, DPR-focused analysis, which makes a lot of folks dismiss Vicious Swing as just being bad. And even folks who go on level deeper only view it as a typically bad option that becomes decent against Resistances specifically, and not much else.

But I think there's more to it than that, and I am largely building off this post by Michael Sayre that talks about how DPR can miss a lot of details. My claim is this: spike damage having a lower DPR than continuous damage is what makes them equally good... provided you use it judiciously! Spike damaging having an equal DPR actually makes it strictly superior and a near-mandatory buildaround (see: D&D 5E's Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter Feats).

This video is mostly just a very long mathematical and qualitative analysis going about "proving" my claim, by going deeper than a normal DPR analysis lets you go (while still incorporating a DPR-like metric into our analysis because it is useful!).

The final portion of the video is a little peek into the future, where I will build on this analysis to evaluate other spike damage options in the game. Spellstrike, Megaton Strike, Swashbuckler/Investigator gameplay loops, etc.

If you are short on time, consider pause-skipping through the video, where you look at each set up section, and the chart that comes right after, since those are the basis of all of my analysis. If you disagree with me and point to something specific about my analyses you think I got wrong, I will be happy to discuss more!

Also, disclaimer: Vicious Swing being "good" does not mean I believe you can spam it every single turn. That is actually pretty terrible performance (and my level 1-20 chart shows how terrible it is post level 3). I am saying Vicious Swing is good when used judiciously, and that judicious use goes well beyond "use it when Resistance, otherwise it's bad", that's all!

Timestamps

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:34 Hypothetical Idealized Damage
• 5:06 Idealized Damage Chart
• 7:37 Idealized Damage Lessons
• 15:38 Vicious Swing Specifics
• 18:42 Math Setup
• 31:04 Vicious Swing Level 1 to 20 Damage
• 36:21 “Realized” DPR
• 38:34 Vicious Swing Level 11 Snapshot
• 43:22 Analysis and Discussion
• 51:32 Other Spike Damage
• 55:28 Outro

I teased the Magus changes in a video yesterday. You can see the huge number of Reddit discussions, as well as the video itself here: https://reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1upwnoa/impossible_magic_magus_changes_preview/

I wanted to make this post because I realized that I misread and mis-evaluated the two new subclasses. Figured I should correct myself here because my video is much more positive about it than I am now:

Volatile Spark (Firearm subclass):

Unfortunately this subclass has the issue of Arcane Cascade doing very nearly nothing for them. Reloading Cascade is an incredibly situational option, given that Cascade gives them no benefit at all except spell resistance.

Someone on a Discord discussion pointed out to me that this subclass probably functions fine with a Repeating firearm, which is true. But you almost certainly don’t want to be playing a Reload firearm with this subclass, because your Action economy will suck.

Unfortunately I have no idea what a “good” build with this subclass even looks like. I’m hoping Paizo just made a typo somewhere and erratas it.

Twofold Tine (dual-wielding subclass)

I have no idea how I misread this: the Arcane Cascade boosted damage is till end of this turn, not next. This significantly worsens its usability, since it means your boosted Arcane Cascade doesn’t benefit you at all on turns where your Spellstrike unless you have very lucky positioning and sequencing at all.

I think this subclass is still fine but, oddly enough, it’s fine for very different reasons than a typical dual wielder. Most dual wielders in PF2E focus on one of two things:

• Very high damage, like Double Slice Fighter.
• Interesting combinations of traits that enable Athletics, like a gauntlet + weapon Flurry Ranger.

A Twofold Tine Magus occupies neither niche perfectly. If you want melee damage, you want Laughing Shadow or Inexorable Iron. If you want Athletics and control, you want Twisting Tree or Unfurling Brocade.

Your niche is having a pair of really different weapons available. Something like having a high damage 1-hander combined with an offhand whip, or being able to carry a staff in one hand and a weapon in the other while still using both (and not relying on Fused Staff*). I think there’s something here, it’ll just take some build effort to get there.

I am actually getting sold on the whip dual wielding build because the damage boost says “until the end of your turn”. This means that Reactive Strike with a whip can set up your higher damage turns at least semi-consistently! So during your own turn you alternate between Spellstrike spike damage turns and/or Trip turns, and use your off-turn whip Strike to make yourself deal more damage. Who would’ve guessed that Trip + Rractive Strike is good smh.

* Fused Staff has been improved by the way. You now simply count as fully wielding the staff when it’s fused to your weapons: you can use every activation, every passive, and cast spells without them needing to be Spellstrikes. So Fused Staff is fantastic on Magus now, and not needing it is also fantastic on Twofold Tine and Twisting Tree Maguses since there are so many good Magus Feats now.

This is not a drill, Paizo was kind enough to send me a PDF of just the Magus, ahead of time. The changes are big. The video title is genuinely not clickbait, the Magus might be the single most changed class in the Remaster*. If you are short on time, the 01:09 section is what you need to watch, and maybe the two new subclasses at the end!

Disclaimer: I know nothing about the Summoner, or any other class in this book. My sneak preview contained exactly the Magus and its focus spells, and nothing else, so I have nothing else to share. Anything I say about anything else is speculation, and nothing more!

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:09 The Biggest Change
• 06:05 Arcane Cascade
• 09:16 Spellstrike Changes
• 12:43 Arcane Cascade Feats
• 15:02 Notable Feats
• 24:43 New Subclass Volatile Spark
• 30:15 New Subclass Twofold Tine
• 36:27 Outro

In my opinion, "every +1 matters" has gone too damn far with heavy armour! I think heavy armour is very good, but people overrate it to the point of almost viewing it as a strict upgrade over medium armour. Let's analyze why, and (towards the end of the video) deconstruct the larger point behind it, about why people keep overrating passive, small numbers boosts.

If you are short on time, 16:46 is the important section to watch about heavy armour specifically, and 48:42 is where I address the larger community perception of "always-on" bonuses being flawed.

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:48 Paid Promotion - Elderbrain Mindscape One-Shots
• 03:27 Heavy Armour Baseline
• 10:10 Movement isn't a line
• 14:36 Movement as “Reachability”
• 16:46 Tactical Advantages of High Reachability
• 27:08 Common Counterarguments
• 35:33 Bulwark
• 44:27 Is Heavy Armour… Bad?
• 48:42 The “Always-On” Fallacy
• 59:02 Outro

Buckle in for a long video folks, this video is going to be me transitioning to talking a lot more about martials on my channel.

Generally speaking, martial optimization discourse in Pathfinder 2E encourages us to do what many of us call "Strike-maxing". And it can be both fun (if you enjoy it) and effective (if you are getting the right coverage from your party members)... but it's not all there is to martials in Pathfinder 2E. Martials can be very diverse if you build right and play right. And I know a big part of this is personal bias, but I much prefer seeing a martial who is built to be diverse than one who centralizes on one thing (usually damage), even when thinking purely from an optimization standpoint. So I'm hoping I encourage at least some of y'all to look past the very linear, centralizing ways of building martials that get discussed in online discourse!

And calling out the disclaimer at 0:12:23 in this text too: there's nothing wrong with personally enjoying the playstyle, I just think we don't discuss the alternatives nearly as much as we should, and I think you should always discuss with your party and be willing to compromise if your linear build is burdening any of them for some reason.

If you are short on time, you can skip a lot of the "discourse discussion" portions of the video and go straight into 0:21:17, but honestly a lot of the context before that sets up the tone for what the video is about.

Timestamps

• 0:00:00 Intro
• 0:01:24 Martial Optimization Discourse
• 0:08:33 Circular Argument
• 0:12:23 DISCLAIMER: It’s OKAY to enjoy linear martials!
• 0:16:02 Martials’ Fundamental Strengths
• 0:21:17 The Biggest Mistake in Martial Optimization
• 0:27:28 Itemization
• 0:37:20 Skill Feats
• 0:46:29 Class Feats
• 1:01:07 Archetypes
• 1:10:43 At the Table Tactics
• 1:17:52 Out of Combat Utility
• 1:26:34 Outro

Not much to say on today's video folks, but I hope you enjoy the content all the same! I promise that martial-focused series is coming, it's very much in the pipeline, I am just all over the place.

Remember that buying books (especially PDFs and modules directly bought from Paizo store) is a great way to support Paizo!

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:23 Boarding Combat
• 07:57 Sailing Combat
• 13:25 Items Highlight
• 17:58 Feats Highlight
• 26:35 Spells Highlight
• 31:48 NPC Highlight
• 34:30 Outro

Today's video is a bit of a strange one. It is not my usual Pathfinder optimization content, but more of a design musing. It started off when I got inspired by a Treantmonk Wizard (5.5E) video, where he repeatedly talks about how no one except a Wizard is really ever using utility spells in that game.

It led me down the question of why I see Pathfinder 2E utility spells get so much use, while still being "weaker" than their 5E/5.5E counterparts... and that led me down this rabbit hole of analysis. Hope y'all like some of the points I raise in this video! If you are short on time, please just skip ahead to The Verdict where I draw conclusions from all the points I raised earlier.

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:46 Paid Promotion - Crystal Maggie
• 04:21 A Chat about Utility
• 08:40 Analyzing their Power
• 14:40 Spell Slots / Spells Known
• 22:47 Ritual Spells vs Spell Scrolls
• 29:47 The Wizard and Utility
• 33:44 The Verdict: Theoretical vs Practical
• 38:48 Conclusion
• 39:43 Outro