MegaDombro wrote:Our group is thinking about trying Pathfinder 2.0. How can any system make combat more "meh" then 5th edition
DnD, with its absolute complete lack of combat options?
By making every action a pile of cross-referencing and hidden 'gotchas.'
For example, lets talk about the actions for spells. Which in this edition of 'everyone gets three actions,' means that most spells take two of those three actions, usually Verbal and Somatic. If you go into what they mean (p 302), you find out that:
Verbal actions have the 'concentrate' trait. Looking at that trait (p 630), it tells you the concentrate trait 'requires a degree of mental concentration and discipline.' The end. (exceedingly helpful, obviously, as all recursive definitions tend to be).
Jumping back to page 84, you'll find that barbarians can't use concentrate actions unless they also have the rage trait. So no verbal spells from multiclassing barbarians. But so far that seems to be the only effect of the trait.
Going back to the entry on verbal components and skipping forward a page (p 303), you find you must be able to speak, and in a 'strong voice,' making spells hard to conceal. (wizards [and...only wizards] get a small feat chain for this)
Somatic actions have the manipulate trait (p 633), mostly this triggers Attacks of Opportunity by whatever people (mostly fighters) or critters still have that. Unlike previous editions, you don't need a free hand, as long as you aren't restrained or otherwise unable to gesture freely. Which apparently specifically doesn't include having your hands full with a shield or both hands wrapped around a pole arm. Ok...
Material actions, on the other hand, also have the manipulate trait and specifically do require a free hand.
Focus spells are somehow different from Material while being almost exactly the same. You can either have a free hand or be holding the focus (which is useful, but poorly explained for druids and clerics with holly and mistletoe or a holy symbol respectively, which is referenced back in their class entries and the equipment chapter
Then we get the fun class based exceptions, which gets exceedingly stupid. These all require flipping through the book back to the respective class entries.
For sorcerers, they don't care about material components, and can replace them with an extra somatic action. (Are you confused yet by component and action being used interchangeably? Its really annoying in the book). This is a real somatic action, so doesn't require a free hand.
Wizards can take a first level feat, Eschew materials, which lets them replace material components with somatic components, but still for some reason requires a free hand to draw big sigils in the air.
At second level they can take Conceal spell which allows a stealth check to hide somatic components (regardless of whether or not they're drawing large sigils in the air).
At fourth levle they can take Silent Spell (after conceal spell), and use an action to negate the verbal action of a spell entirely, as long as the spell has at least one other non-verbal component. So a typical spell is two actions, Verbal and Somatic. A silent spell costs an action, but reduces the next spell to simply a somatic component (unless it has more actions). This would obliterate the concentrate trait, but Silent Spell itself has the concentrate trait. So action wise you're gaining nothing, but if you want to be sneaky or cast under a silence effect, it always works and basically costs nothing (beyond the feat).
Bards... bards make this all really, really stupid. Yes, even more stupid than all the rest.
Quoting seems best here:
You draw upon magic from esoteric knowledge. You can cast occult spells using the Cast a Spell activity, and you can supply material, somatic, and verbal components when casting spells (see Casting Spells on page 302). Because you’re a bard, you can usually play an instrument for spells requiring somatic or material components, as long as it takes at least one of your hands to do so. If you use an instrument, you don’t need a spell component pouch or another hand free. You can usually also play an instrument for spells requiring verbal components, instead of speaking.
Now. Apparently word of designers is even though you're replacing the verbal component, the 'play an instrument' action replacing verbal components still has the concentrate trait. That isn't in the book, but whatever. The big problem here is the hands issue, which dogs PF2 pretty hard.
See, changing your grip on an item requires a free action if you're taking a hand off the item, or a real action if you're putting your hand on an item. While the text above mentions 'at least one hand' while playing an instrument, ALL musical instruments in the equipment section requires two hands to use. This is a problem. If your bard wants to whip out a flute to cast a spell by playing an instrument, its going to take one action to draw out the flute (from your belt or wherever), another action to put a second hand on the flute so you can use it and then... well, you only have one action left for the round, so...if you want to cast anything complex, I guess it sucks to be you. Now since bards get decent weapons and wear armor, you may want to use weapons in a fight as well. Get used to juggling, and dropping things, as if you got a sword in one hand and an instrument in another you're going to have to use actions to change grips to get the instrument back to a usable state, and drop the weapon on the floor unless you want to use another action to put it away properly... and again be out of actions to cast spells with.
The upshot is while its nicely thematic for a bard to play music to cast spells, the rules make it completely impractical to do so. It's just strictly better to use standard Verbal, Somatic and Material components, because you can just do that, regardless of whether or not you're also holding a sword, and costs you zero extra actions at any point.
And unfortunately, the rules specify 'play an instrument.' You can't sing, chant, dance or whatever, even though those would seem perfectly valid approaches to getting in tune with your class and theme. Just screw you, that's why.
Circling back to druids and clerics, they mostly come out unscathed, though the material focus (holy symbol or mistletoe), does require a free hand (or holding the focus), so spells that require material components (replaced by the focus) are still a pain for weapon using clerics and druids. Though clerics have a level 2 feat tax (emblazon armament) that they can take to make a weapon or shield count as a holy symbol, at which point they don't have to juggle.
Also, good luck finding other things that affect the concentrate and manipulate traits. You've only got 640 pages to search (and also the bestiary). There may be nothing that comes up, or there might be something that utterly screws you. Who knows?
PF2: Cross reference edition. The only (faint) reprieve is the final book isn't quite as poorly organized as the playtest document, and also there is an online version. Though that still lacks a search function.
