u/AAABattery03 — reddlx

In a lot of discussions around conditions, I see people sort of think of them as a "linear" list: there's the "most bad for target" conditions, like Unconscious, Paralyzed, etc, and there's the "least bad for target" conditions like Fascinated and Doomed (assuming target is an NPC).

I think this way of evaluating conditions can be... misleading. Like everything in Pathfinder, conditions are multi-dimensional, and being powerful along one axis can be costed in many different ways along many different axes. In today's video, I analyze 3 conditions that I think people largely underrate because they are not all that "powerful" in a vacuum, but when you account for how easy they are to inflict they become some of the best conditions in the game! And then in the bonus round I cover what many flippantly call the "strongest" condition, and why it's secretly the weakest in a holistic evaluation.

Timestamps

00:00 Intro
00:59 Paid Promotion – Elderbrain’s Mindscape One-Shots
03:13 Evaluating conditions is multi-dimensional!
06:42 Condition #1 – Confused
12:47 Condition #2 – Immobilized
22:21 Condition #3 – Dazzled
33:05 BONUS ROUND
41:17 Outro

Boss fights get a lot of chatter online, both about their thematics and feel, and about the mechanics and tactics. I feel like the community doesn't talk about how complex boss fights are, as a whole, and tries to boil it down to just being +/- 1 boosts and damage. I think this oversimplification is a large reason for why people struggle with boss fights, even past the low level range where they are absurdly deadly.

So here is my (very verbose!) attempt at explaining what good anti-boss tactics look like. The biggest mistake people make when dealing with bosses is doing only some of these steps (like jumping straight to step 4, or doing step 1 and 4 but ignoring the rest), and that leads to swinginess, feelsbad, GM-babysitting, and TPKs.

^(Near the end of this video, I also get into the thematics and feel of boss fights, and try to explain why I think they're awesome. I have noticed a growing negativity towards boss fights in the years since I joined, with a loose consensus of "they are better than D&D 5E's boss fights, but D&D 4E and Draw Steel do it better" and I vehemently disagree, I think PF2E's boss fights are awesome and feel exactly what they should feel like! Hoping I can move the needle on that even just a little bit.)

Everything below is just useful links and timestamps!

In the video, I run out of info cards halfway through while referencing various other videos of my own. This list is the overflow of all the ones I lacked cards for.

Videos I reference but ran out of cards for:

Blasters Video (referenced at 0:56:51) --- link
Martials can cheerlead casters (referenced at 0:58:51) --- link
Daredevil After-Action-Report (referenced at 1:00:00) --- link

I talk about the "cinematic" nature of boss fights at 1:03:41 and reference some big fights in media for how I view them. Here's a link to those clips:

Timestamps

0:00:00 Intro
0:01:55 Paid Promotion – CrystalMaggie
0:02:29 Pathfinder 2E Boss Fight Infamy
0:07:52 WHY are boss fights swingy?
0:12:33 The Five Step Plan
0:16:34 Step 1 – Dominate the Action Economy
0:27:04 Step 2 – Address their Gimmicks
0:34:09 Step 3 – Weaken their Action Quality
0:43:13 Step 4 – Deal Reliable and/or Efficient Damage
0:47:54 Step 5 – React to the Situation
0:53:44 Spellcasters, Martials, and Boss Fights
1:00:55 Thematics and Feel of Boss Fights
1:05:52 Outro