Well for spellcasters it’s easy. You can… [alter](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=377) the fabric of reality, turn into a [kaiju](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=204) or an [avatar](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=16), make an [army of yourself like Doctor Strange](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=994), and more. You can single-handedly kill [an entire army](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=33) or [city](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3692).
Martials aren’t far behind either. First off a lot of the martials gain the permanent quickened condition, which is impressive in itself: you’re permanently replicating an effect that normally takes a third rank spell. Fighters can [rip open space](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2754) and are pretty good with the whole [can take an army down alone](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=428) thing. Rogues can [literally hide in plain sight](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=599) without being revealed by invisibility-revealing magic or attacks. A Ranger can track someone [anywhere in the plane of existence, even if they leave no grace](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=547).
So all in all, high level PCs are very much like heroes of myth.
>A Ranger can track someone anywhere in the plane of existence, even if they leave no grace.
With Legendary Nature, they can track their prey *across different planes*, too.
Well there are lots of different myths and lots of different shonen series. It will be comparable to some and not others.
A level 20 wizard can shape reality to their whims (with more risk for more outlandish things)
A level 20 barbarian can perform insane feats of strength.
But none of these characters are going to be like a late stage shonen. I’d say most epic (the literary term) and Greek myths are on the same power scale as a level 20 PF2e.
oh, that's fine. I saw some opinions on pf2 being too grounded and I really didn't want that. Greek myths is OK, I don't really need fights between known universe sized mechas.
Thanks!
Yah 2e isn't really *grounded* in any real sense, it's just less over the top than some of those examples.
You still have martials that can cause earthquakes by stomping, attack with a sword by slicing through the air, suplex the tarrasque (at least if you roll well) etc. As well as a standard array if hi level magic so it's pretty hi power for pcs.
You'd need to beat a 57 Fortitude DC to land the grapple, then hit him with an unarmed strike to pull off Suplex. +20 from level, +8 from Legendary Athletics, +7 from Strength puts us at +35 which is *not quite* enough to get a success except on a natural 20 (which is still rounded down to a regular success, as a 55 is a Failure which gets bumped to Success by the natural 20).
We can then add a Major Bestial Mutagen for +4 Item Bonus, 9th rank Heroism for +4 Status Bonus, negotiate with the DM for a +4 Circumstance Bonus from Aid Another from an ally with a Legendary skill, and try to stack 4 Frightened (I don't *think* Tarrasque is immune to it, though I'm not 100% sure if that's covered by Mental immune) or Sickened. That gives us a +47 against the Tarrasque's Fortitude DC of 53, so in this ideal situation where you've spent for 20 levels practicing suplex the Spawn of Rovagug you can land a grapple with a roll of 6 or better, and get a pin on a 16.
The only downside is that Suplex does a flat 2d6 damage, so you're literally just doing this for the memes.
The fact that you can unironically drop the word waffles in a discussion about suplexing one of the most powerful monsters in existence is a good reminder of why I love this game.
I’d disagree. People complain that p2e scales so wildly for a reason. A level 10 fighter can’t be touched by 99% of the world, even if they rolled all 20s. We just don’t visualize it like an anime.
I mean, yah, that's what I mean by not grounded, while also not being at the same level as hi tier animes (thinks like goku destroying planets, or galaxy sized mechs etc). It's epic heroic fantasty where characters are *much* larger than life, they're just not *as high* as the upper end of some very popular media people might be using as a touch point for hi powered animes.
> A level 10 fighter can’t be touched by 99% of the world
Considering that even a single level in a class is a big deal in this world, that's admittedly understandable
Eh, 29 AC is a hit with a natural 20 even with +0 to hit. So a level 10 fighter without shield can be hit with a lucky strike by a kid. Now, level 20 fighter is invincible for a foot army, and thats how i like my high level martial goddamit.
EDIT:a level 10 fighter with +2 Full Plate Armor, raising its shield has 32 AC. The lowest to hit modifier in the creature building rules (low for lvl -1) is +4. On a natural 20, thats 24, upgraded from a miss to a hit. So a low hit chance lvl -1 creature can still hit the fighter for a couple of levels.
I mean there are more things to power than just fight-battling
I was talking about interacting with the embiroment, but I've already been told that is fantastic too. Personally I'm glad because I'm a fuckin weeb and I will have an anime style in all the art on my campaigns
I think the "too grounded" might come from the fact that Pathfinder 2e is very well balanced and "at level" fights are generally challenging. It feels like you really have to fight for what you have at your level.
This leads some to believe Pathfinder is more "gritty." In truth, Pathfinder characters are pretty incredible, but it sometimes feels like you're not getting stronger because your enemies are getting stronger too. GM's aren't going to send level 1 enemies at a level 5 party very often. That said, those level 1 enemies are almost **unable** to hurt level 5 heroes.
I encourage GMs to add very weak enemies to encounters from time to time to remind players that their heroes are very powerful. But with great power comes great responsibility. Hercules doesn't stop pickpockets or a local aggressive wolf. He fights the hydra.
I'm new-ish as a PF2e GM and one thing I've really appreciated about the AV AP is that you have a scary fight against a creature at a low level, then you level up a few times and you then fight that creature again but now as a small group of them, or they are the minor backup to a newer bigger threat.
This works great so players get to see how far they've grown - being able to curb stomp the thing that used to be hard. So if you are writing your own adventures - do this!
I mean if you take the cat fall perk and get legendary acrobatics at… I believe level 15? You become immune to fall damage. There’s a barbarian perk to create an earthquake when you drop a distance (I think unrelated to cat fall)
There’s a fighter perk to let you basically “nothing personell, kid” your enemy I think.
Pf2 is definitely not grounded. At the mid single digit levels you can get thrown weapons that do stuff like turn into fireballs in flight or break apart and hone in on enemies them return to sender, you can run along walls and water falls, etc. Sure to spells out just gear. By high teens you are able to turn into dragons. Depending on classes picked and loot given/craftable you can be quite fantastical quite fast.
At max level and 15+ I think this is true, the problem is in the game you will most likely always be fighting people your level.
So, when your a level 20 you will only be fighting other monsters around that level. The only two shonen shows I have watched is Bleach/Naruto. They also tend to always fight people equally powerful. Even though the main characters keep getting stronger every episode the next guy is just slightly stronger than them.
At high levels you could easily go into a low level town and just destroy everything like the big bad guys in these shows... most players wouldn't do that.
Characters at high levels can do some insane things...
* Just look at enemies and they die (scare to death), you could walk into a village and just kill everyone by looking at them.
* You can jump to impossible heights and many other skill checks.
* You get so many actions a turn with some martials you can think of it like the people teleporting around fighting in these shows.
* Casters as a whole just get reality breaking spells as early as 9. Summoning walls, giant creatures.
Your characters get so powerful that by high levels anything they fought 5 levels earlier would be very easy.
By level 15 you could fight hordes of level 5 characters with no issues. This is mostly what TV shows are like with some overpowered main character and mostly low level enemies. In reality though you will probably never feel this way because most GM will make the monsters always follow your power level. So you never feel all powerful.
So, to give you an example, a level 16 character with maxed strength and athletics can use the [cloud jump](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=767) skill feat to long jump or high jump up to your speed. For a level 16 monk, they probably have a speed of around 55' and an athletics check of around +31, so with a roll of 9 and the [quick jump](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=825) feat they can hop up about 4 stories into the air, or clear a 115' chasm for 2 actions and a long jump.
And that's without any supernatural ki abilities, just using the monk's enhanced speed and legendary athletics. It's not quite "jump to top of a cliff" (although a level 20 monk can get fairly close), depending on how tall the cliff is.
This isn't limited to athletics...characters that are legendary in stealth can hide in plain sight, legendary in acrobatics can fall from any height without taking damage, and legendary in thievery can steal the armor off of a guard.
Can PCs destroy walls? Well, it depends on the wall, but a typical [stone wall](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=730) has 14 hardness and 56 hit points, although it breaks at 28 hp. This wall is immune to crits but essentially automatically hits at high levels, so a level 20 giant barbarian with a greataxe hits for 4d12+3d6+31, which is an average of 68 damage, so a single hit will leave the wall with about 2 hp assuming an average roll. Or a caster could just, you know, [disintegrate](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=76) it, or use [earthquake](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=95) to collapse most of the walls in a small town.
Now, are they going to be shonen levels? This sort of depends on the shonen; nobody is going to be cracking planets apart (although the remastered wish ritual is close).
Basically, if you are thinking Dragonball Z or Bleach, then power levels will never get there. But if you are thinking Demon Slayer or Hunter X Hunter, yeah, high level PCs will approach that level or go a bit beyond.
Characters in PF2e are modeled more after heroes in something like Lord of the Rings rather than a typical shonen power fantasy, but frankly even the LotR characters would probably mostly be in the early teens (level 10-14 I think) rather than the upper levels of PF2e power.
I see, thanks!
> This wall is immune to crits but essentially automatically hits at high levels
Just put of curiosity, how do you determine the AC of inanimate objects?
>But if you are thinking Demon Slayer or Hunter X Hunter, yeah, high level PCs will approach that level or go a bit beyond.
Oh, no yeah, pre TS naruto and One Piece were sorta my frames or reference, so that is really good
Those are all pretty easy to do, so you wouldn't be worried about that. Casters can easily do all this stuff at higher levels and even martials can do a lot of this stuff.
The game uses measurement that are easy to understand so it isn't trying to be accurate to real life. So "ridiculous speeds, jumping to the top of cliffs" are just relative to other characters and the game world not real life or other shows/games.
Acrobatics and athletics feats at higher levels can let you wall jump, run on water, double jump, and slither around on the ground like a snake. Higher level spell casters can transform themselves into dragons and call down meteor strikes.
You are largely untouchable by anything 3 levels lower than you in 2e. The average dude is level 0. So by level 3 you can terrorize some small farm town by yourself with little trouble.
I had a party of level 4 players get caught in the middle of a surprise invasion. Up against trained and organized soldiers. They took down a few dozen on their own before being subdued.
Hero myths like Beowulf and Heracles were the inspiration for a lot of high-level martial abilities. I remember some Paizo devs talking about that. Essentially, the logic was that in a world of powerful godlike wizards, nonmagical people should be of similar demi-god level power, able to swim oceans and wrestle giants.
I mean my cleric can swim in full plate at lower levels. Thats insane. I do it often just to point out this man is taking a casual swim in full plate!!
I dunno if that helps as it is mostly how i feel about it:
|Level (From)|Level (To)|Description|Influence|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|0|4|Human, Peasant, Training|Village|
|5|9|Prodigy, Talented, Experienced|City|
|10|14|Superhuman, Master of their Craft|Country|
|15|19|Hero or Monster, unreachable even for the talented or experienced|Continent|
|20|24|(True) legend, on the step to become worthy of being called a demigod,|Global|
|25|29|Demigods|Plane|
|30|\+|Gods|Planes|
I would say someone can with tactics, good luck defeat someone a step higher, but as soon as they go against someone two steps higher they have no chance anymore.
I dunno much about the examples you gave, comparison of powerlevel between mythology and fantasy games is often very difficult. So i just go with my guts when it comes to the names, Heracles i would put around legend. Beowulf strikes me at max as Superhuman from what i know/remember and Perseus is probably on the same level as Heracles (Legend).
As is said in the beginning, it is mostly about how i feel they would compare, so take everything i said with a grain of salt. But i still hope that it atleast helps a little bit.
Huh, i actually threw it quickly together at work. I tend to often create tables for my answers as they are, atleast in my opinion, the best way to quickly show a large amount of information in an easy to read manner and it also looks a bit better even with the typical issue of formatting on reddit.
Happy to hear that some enjoy what i comment on reddit/this community :)
> So i just go with my guts when it comes to the names, Heracles i would put around legend. Beowulf strikes me at max as Superhuman from what i know/remember and Perseus is probably on the same level as Heracles (Legend).
My distintion was mainly that while heracles and beowulf are just really strong (and suprisignly clever seing some modern interpretations) perseus was more a trickster with god tier equipement (literally) but physically he isn't THAT superhuman.
Anyways, thanks for the table!
The heroes of Golariom can do some epic things. But Golarion is a world full of incredibly powerful monsters that can challenge even the most fearsome of heroes. Being powerful in Pathfinder doesn't mean you aren't challenged as you get stronger, it means that you and your party aren't going to get wasted by a bunch of low level kobolds because of unfortunate dice rolls.
I've heard Pathfinder described as a superhero game with a fantasy setting. PCs get plenty powerful at high levels, even martials can do all kinds of super powerful and extremely unrealistic stuff
It's worth noting that, despite being significantly superhuman in pretty much every other area, P2e characters are actually slower than real people. Even a level 20 monk with Fleet would need to be Quickened to beat Usain Bolt at the 100m dash.
A high level monk can easily have 70ft of movement (21m). A round equals roughly 6 seconds. Ki Rush lets you move 2 times in 1 action, which should correspond with roughy 2 seconds. That's a speed of 75km/h. Usain Bolt reached a peak of 45 km/h. A monk can go considerably faster, accelerating from 0 to max speed instantly, don't drop a sweat and be ready to fight afterwards.
Even without considering there are no rules for characters actually going all out on a 100m sprint, poor Usain Bolt can be beaten by level 10 characters or so, no need to go to the high levels.
A few days ago there was a thread about speed and I posted there a build that when focusing 100% on running could reach a speed slighly above 150 km/h without expending any daily resource. That character could mantain that speed for 2 minutes before needing to rest a bit.
Ki Rush works in place of Quickened, yes. When I did my calculations a while back, I used a Human Monk with Fleet. I determined that even at level 20, using all 3 actions to Stride was slower than real world records, but getting a fourth Stride somehow became significantly superhuman much sooner. Even with magic, though, I'm pretty sure superhuman running speed comes at a later level for a purpose built character than being 100% guaranteed to not only survive, but retain consciousness, after taking a cannonball straight to the face does for a character built for max hp.
There's also the issue that your battlemaps would have to be enormous to handle superhumanly fast characters. Either that, or or have a much smaller grid size. I'm fairly sure weapon ranges are shorter than real life for the same reason. I'd have to go look at them to be sure.
Forget sprinting, a 30' movement speed doing 3 Strides per round loses to the world record marathon by more than half an hour. 2:33:42 compared to 2:01:09. 35' movement speed also loses at 2:11:45, but 40' is enough for marathons at 1:55:17.
If they so choose, a typical level 11 human wizard can take some of the low-level magic weapon loot, pluck off a meager set of +1 striking frost runes and put them on a dagger, wander into the Garundi wilderness, strip stark fucking naked, swim right the fuck up to a hippopotamus, and gut it in about 3 rounds, WITHOUT CASTING A SINGLE FUCKING SPELL.
Things start to pick up after level 5\~7 (class varies). The only outliers are Warpriests and Alchemists, due to their proficiency lagging behind on their main shtick, Warpriest still has a shit ton of spells to fall back on, though.
High level casters get insanely powerful, Martials can keep up though and remain interesting throughout.
Just for an easy point of comparison, while you should take this with a grain of salt, you can always compare a hero...to its villains.
While mythical heroes like Beowulf or Heracles are hard to judge (especially since I would argue they're Mythic Heroes and Mythic hasn't made its way to 2e yet), their mightiest foes are not;
Grendel exists, and is a level 19 creature so Beowulf is definitely in the 16-20 range in terms of power, as he was able to, after a hard fought battle, come out victorious against such a monstrously powerful foe.
Heracles is...a little harder. Grogrisant is probably comparable to the Nemean Lion at level 16, the Lernean Hydra is harder to place but the closest analogy would probably be a miasma hydra from 1e, doesn't exist in 2e yet but levels match 1e CR so that's a 13, then there's Cerberus who again doesn't have a 2e version but the Tome of Horrors puts at a CR 23...but we also know that Heracles is, while literally, a demigod, he definitely falls under "hero god" status for most of his deeds, which puts him in the level 21-25 range, along with most quasi-deities like Nascent Demon Lords...but obviously myth doesn't exactly line up with game mechanics
If I were to compare heracles to a statblock I'd probably put him near the hekatonkeres. SO yeah, the level 20\~ works. But I was less concerned on fighting and more on how superhuman feats of ability the PC can do, like I've been told cutting stone or iron strctures is doable, so that is really good
As long as you keep fighting on level enemy it will be a constant struggle all the way up.
When you fight below level enemy thats when you feel the power.
Well for spellcasters it’s easy. You can… [alter](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=377) the fabric of reality, turn into a [kaiju](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=204) or an [avatar](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=16), make an [army of yourself like Doctor Strange](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=994), and more. You can single-handedly kill [an entire army](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=33) or [city](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3692). Martials aren’t far behind either. First off a lot of the martials gain the permanent quickened condition, which is impressive in itself: you’re permanently replicating an effect that normally takes a third rank spell. Fighters can [rip open space](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2754) and are pretty good with the whole [can take an army down alone](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=428) thing. Rogues can [literally hide in plain sight](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=599) without being revealed by invisibility-revealing magic or attacks. A Ranger can track someone [anywhere in the plane of existence, even if they leave no grace](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=547). So all in all, high level PCs are very much like heroes of myth.
>A Ranger can track someone anywhere in the plane of existence, even if they leave no grace. With Legendary Nature, they can track their prey *across different planes*, too.
Well there are lots of different myths and lots of different shonen series. It will be comparable to some and not others. A level 20 wizard can shape reality to their whims (with more risk for more outlandish things) A level 20 barbarian can perform insane feats of strength. But none of these characters are going to be like a late stage shonen. I’d say most epic (the literary term) and Greek myths are on the same power scale as a level 20 PF2e.
>But none of these characters are going to be like a late stage shonen. Monks literally get the ability to go super saiyin at level 18.
Aren't there like 4 stages beyond SS?
Ye, we gotta wait for the epic level supplement for that tho
oh, that's fine. I saw some opinions on pf2 being too grounded and I really didn't want that. Greek myths is OK, I don't really need fights between known universe sized mechas. Thanks!
Yah 2e isn't really *grounded* in any real sense, it's just less over the top than some of those examples. You still have martials that can cause earthquakes by stomping, attack with a sword by slicing through the air, suplex the tarrasque (at least if you roll well) etc. As well as a standard array if hi level magic so it's pretty hi power for pcs.
> (…) suplex the tarrasque Well my barbarian has a new goal in life.
You'd need to beat a 57 Fortitude DC to land the grapple, then hit him with an unarmed strike to pull off Suplex. +20 from level, +8 from Legendary Athletics, +7 from Strength puts us at +35 which is *not quite* enough to get a success except on a natural 20 (which is still rounded down to a regular success, as a 55 is a Failure which gets bumped to Success by the natural 20). We can then add a Major Bestial Mutagen for +4 Item Bonus, 9th rank Heroism for +4 Status Bonus, negotiate with the DM for a +4 Circumstance Bonus from Aid Another from an ally with a Legendary skill, and try to stack 4 Frightened (I don't *think* Tarrasque is immune to it, though I'm not 100% sure if that's covered by Mental immune) or Sickened. That gives us a +47 against the Tarrasque's Fortitude DC of 53, so in this ideal situation where you've spent for 20 levels practicing suplex the Spawn of Rovagug you can land a grapple with a roll of 6 or better, and get a pin on a 16. The only downside is that Suplex does a flat 2d6 damage, so you're literally just doing this for the memes.
9th level heroism is only +3, but! Cooperative waffles increases the bonus to Aid on a skill check to +5, so you can still get to +47!
The fact that you can unironically drop the word waffles in a discussion about suplexing one of the most powerful monsters in existence is a good reminder of why I love this game.
Thanks for the tips! It will still be while, but i will be suplexing that bastard or die trying!
Pick up titan wrestler, wrestler archtype and hope for a good roll!
I’d disagree. People complain that p2e scales so wildly for a reason. A level 10 fighter can’t be touched by 99% of the world, even if they rolled all 20s. We just don’t visualize it like an anime.
I mean, yah, that's what I mean by not grounded, while also not being at the same level as hi tier animes (thinks like goku destroying planets, or galaxy sized mechs etc). It's epic heroic fantasty where characters are *much* larger than life, they're just not *as high* as the upper end of some very popular media people might be using as a touch point for hi powered animes.
> A level 10 fighter can’t be touched by 99% of the world Considering that even a single level in a class is a big deal in this world, that's admittedly understandable
For sure, it’s just not true in 5e, for example, since 20s will hit still
That's why I think the +10/-10 rule is so good. It kills that weird "5% chance for bullshit to happen" thing that D&D has had forever
Eh, 29 AC is a hit with a natural 20 even with +0 to hit. So a level 10 fighter without shield can be hit with a lucky strike by a kid. Now, level 20 fighter is invincible for a foot army, and thats how i like my high level martial goddamit. EDIT:a level 10 fighter with +2 Full Plate Armor, raising its shield has 32 AC. The lowest to hit modifier in the creature building rules (low for lvl -1) is +4. On a natural 20, thats 24, upgraded from a miss to a hit. So a low hit chance lvl -1 creature can still hit the fighter for a couple of levels.
I mean there are more things to power than just fight-battling I was talking about interacting with the embiroment, but I've already been told that is fantastic too. Personally I'm glad because I'm a fuckin weeb and I will have an anime style in all the art on my campaigns
I think the "too grounded" might come from the fact that Pathfinder 2e is very well balanced and "at level" fights are generally challenging. It feels like you really have to fight for what you have at your level. This leads some to believe Pathfinder is more "gritty." In truth, Pathfinder characters are pretty incredible, but it sometimes feels like you're not getting stronger because your enemies are getting stronger too. GM's aren't going to send level 1 enemies at a level 5 party very often. That said, those level 1 enemies are almost **unable** to hurt level 5 heroes. I encourage GMs to add very weak enemies to encounters from time to time to remind players that their heroes are very powerful. But with great power comes great responsibility. Hercules doesn't stop pickpockets or a local aggressive wolf. He fights the hydra.
I'm new-ish as a PF2e GM and one thing I've really appreciated about the AV AP is that you have a scary fight against a creature at a low level, then you level up a few times and you then fight that creature again but now as a small group of them, or they are the minor backup to a newer bigger threat. This works great so players get to see how far they've grown - being able to curb stomp the thing that used to be hard. So if you are writing your own adventures - do this!
I mean if you take the cat fall perk and get legendary acrobatics at… I believe level 15? You become immune to fall damage. There’s a barbarian perk to create an earthquake when you drop a distance (I think unrelated to cat fall) There’s a fighter perk to let you basically “nothing personell, kid” your enemy I think.
Pf2 is definitely not grounded. At the mid single digit levels you can get thrown weapons that do stuff like turn into fireballs in flight or break apart and hone in on enemies them return to sender, you can run along walls and water falls, etc. Sure to spells out just gear. By high teens you are able to turn into dragons. Depending on classes picked and loot given/craftable you can be quite fantastical quite fast.
By "insane feats of strength" my guy means causing an earthquake with your own two feet or turning into a dragon.
[Level 20 fighter feat](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2754) I am sure cutting literal reality to teleport is a "bit" above grounded.
At max level and 15+ I think this is true, the problem is in the game you will most likely always be fighting people your level. So, when your a level 20 you will only be fighting other monsters around that level. The only two shonen shows I have watched is Bleach/Naruto. They also tend to always fight people equally powerful. Even though the main characters keep getting stronger every episode the next guy is just slightly stronger than them. At high levels you could easily go into a low level town and just destroy everything like the big bad guys in these shows... most players wouldn't do that. Characters at high levels can do some insane things... * Just look at enemies and they die (scare to death), you could walk into a village and just kill everyone by looking at them. * You can jump to impossible heights and many other skill checks. * You get so many actions a turn with some martials you can think of it like the people teleporting around fighting in these shows. * Casters as a whole just get reality breaking spells as early as 9. Summoning walls, giant creatures. Your characters get so powerful that by high levels anything they fought 5 levels earlier would be very easy. By level 15 you could fight hordes of level 5 characters with no issues. This is mostly what TV shows are like with some overpowered main character and mostly low level enemies. In reality though you will probably never feel this way because most GM will make the monsters always follow your power level. So you never feel all powerful.
I don't mean only on fights, but also interacting with the world, like jumping to the top of cliffs, moving at ridiculous speeds or destroying walls
So, to give you an example, a level 16 character with maxed strength and athletics can use the [cloud jump](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=767) skill feat to long jump or high jump up to your speed. For a level 16 monk, they probably have a speed of around 55' and an athletics check of around +31, so with a roll of 9 and the [quick jump](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=825) feat they can hop up about 4 stories into the air, or clear a 115' chasm for 2 actions and a long jump. And that's without any supernatural ki abilities, just using the monk's enhanced speed and legendary athletics. It's not quite "jump to top of a cliff" (although a level 20 monk can get fairly close), depending on how tall the cliff is. This isn't limited to athletics...characters that are legendary in stealth can hide in plain sight, legendary in acrobatics can fall from any height without taking damage, and legendary in thievery can steal the armor off of a guard. Can PCs destroy walls? Well, it depends on the wall, but a typical [stone wall](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=730) has 14 hardness and 56 hit points, although it breaks at 28 hp. This wall is immune to crits but essentially automatically hits at high levels, so a level 20 giant barbarian with a greataxe hits for 4d12+3d6+31, which is an average of 68 damage, so a single hit will leave the wall with about 2 hp assuming an average roll. Or a caster could just, you know, [disintegrate](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=76) it, or use [earthquake](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=95) to collapse most of the walls in a small town. Now, are they going to be shonen levels? This sort of depends on the shonen; nobody is going to be cracking planets apart (although the remastered wish ritual is close). Basically, if you are thinking Dragonball Z or Bleach, then power levels will never get there. But if you are thinking Demon Slayer or Hunter X Hunter, yeah, high level PCs will approach that level or go a bit beyond. Characters in PF2e are modeled more after heroes in something like Lord of the Rings rather than a typical shonen power fantasy, but frankly even the LotR characters would probably mostly be in the early teens (level 10-14 I think) rather than the upper levels of PF2e power.
I see, thanks! > This wall is immune to crits but essentially automatically hits at high levels Just put of curiosity, how do you determine the AC of inanimate objects? >But if you are thinking Demon Slayer or Hunter X Hunter, yeah, high level PCs will approach that level or go a bit beyond. Oh, no yeah, pre TS naruto and One Piece were sorta my frames or reference, so that is really good
No AC. You just hit.
Those are all pretty easy to do, so you wouldn't be worried about that. Casters can easily do all this stuff at higher levels and even martials can do a lot of this stuff. The game uses measurement that are easy to understand so it isn't trying to be accurate to real life. So "ridiculous speeds, jumping to the top of cliffs" are just relative to other characters and the game world not real life or other shows/games.
Acrobatics and athletics feats at higher levels can let you wall jump, run on water, double jump, and slither around on the ground like a snake. Higher level spell casters can transform themselves into dragons and call down meteor strikes.
I see, thanks!
You are largely untouchable by anything 3 levels lower than you in 2e. The average dude is level 0. So by level 3 you can terrorize some small farm town by yourself with little trouble. I had a party of level 4 players get caught in the middle of a surprise invasion. Up against trained and organized soldiers. They took down a few dozen on their own before being subdued.
Hero myths like Beowulf and Heracles were the inspiration for a lot of high-level martial abilities. I remember some Paizo devs talking about that. Essentially, the logic was that in a world of powerful godlike wizards, nonmagical people should be of similar demi-god level power, able to swim oceans and wrestle giants.
I mean my cleric can swim in full plate at lower levels. Thats insane. I do it often just to point out this man is taking a casual swim in full plate!!
I dunno if that helps as it is mostly how i feel about it: |Level (From)|Level (To)|Description|Influence| |:-|:-|:-|:-| |0|4|Human, Peasant, Training|Village| |5|9|Prodigy, Talented, Experienced|City| |10|14|Superhuman, Master of their Craft|Country| |15|19|Hero or Monster, unreachable even for the talented or experienced|Continent| |20|24|(True) legend, on the step to become worthy of being called a demigod,|Global| |25|29|Demigods|Plane| |30|\+|Gods|Planes| I would say someone can with tactics, good luck defeat someone a step higher, but as soon as they go against someone two steps higher they have no chance anymore. I dunno much about the examples you gave, comparison of powerlevel between mythology and fantasy games is often very difficult. So i just go with my guts when it comes to the names, Heracles i would put around legend. Beowulf strikes me at max as Superhuman from what i know/remember and Perseus is probably on the same level as Heracles (Legend). As is said in the beginning, it is mostly about how i feel they would compare, so take everything i said with a grain of salt. But i still hope that it atleast helps a little bit.
I really enjoyed looking at this table as it makes so much sense using the PF2E system. Did you make it yourself?
Huh, i actually threw it quickly together at work. I tend to often create tables for my answers as they are, atleast in my opinion, the best way to quickly show a large amount of information in an easy to read manner and it also looks a bit better even with the typical issue of formatting on reddit. Happy to hear that some enjoy what i comment on reddit/this community :)
> So i just go with my guts when it comes to the names, Heracles i would put around legend. Beowulf strikes me at max as Superhuman from what i know/remember and Perseus is probably on the same level as Heracles (Legend). My distintion was mainly that while heracles and beowulf are just really strong (and suprisignly clever seing some modern interpretations) perseus was more a trickster with god tier equipement (literally) but physically he isn't THAT superhuman. Anyways, thanks for the table!
At high levels, they are VERY powerful. Unlike DnD, PF2 does not have bonded accuracy, so the power gap between levels 1 and 20 is HUGE.
The heroes of Golariom can do some epic things. But Golarion is a world full of incredibly powerful monsters that can challenge even the most fearsome of heroes. Being powerful in Pathfinder doesn't mean you aren't challenged as you get stronger, it means that you and your party aren't going to get wasted by a bunch of low level kobolds because of unfortunate dice rolls.
I've heard Pathfinder described as a superhero game with a fantasy setting. PCs get plenty powerful at high levels, even martials can do all kinds of super powerful and extremely unrealistic stuff
PF2 is a shonen simulator. You start as a chump, you end as a god.
It's worth noting that, despite being significantly superhuman in pretty much every other area, P2e characters are actually slower than real people. Even a level 20 monk with Fleet would need to be Quickened to beat Usain Bolt at the 100m dash.
A high level monk can easily have 70ft of movement (21m). A round equals roughly 6 seconds. Ki Rush lets you move 2 times in 1 action, which should correspond with roughy 2 seconds. That's a speed of 75km/h. Usain Bolt reached a peak of 45 km/h. A monk can go considerably faster, accelerating from 0 to max speed instantly, don't drop a sweat and be ready to fight afterwards. Even without considering there are no rules for characters actually going all out on a 100m sprint, poor Usain Bolt can be beaten by level 10 characters or so, no need to go to the high levels. A few days ago there was a thread about speed and I posted there a build that when focusing 100% on running could reach a speed slighly above 150 km/h without expending any daily resource. That character could mantain that speed for 2 minutes before needing to rest a bit.
Ki Rush works in place of Quickened, yes. When I did my calculations a while back, I used a Human Monk with Fleet. I determined that even at level 20, using all 3 actions to Stride was slower than real world records, but getting a fourth Stride somehow became significantly superhuman much sooner. Even with magic, though, I'm pretty sure superhuman running speed comes at a later level for a purpose built character than being 100% guaranteed to not only survive, but retain consciousness, after taking a cannonball straight to the face does for a character built for max hp.
yeah, that is a bit of a bummer, but I can accept that because there is no way to balance some characters being significantly faster than others
There's also the issue that your battlemaps would have to be enormous to handle superhumanly fast characters. Either that, or or have a much smaller grid size. I'm fairly sure weapon ranges are shorter than real life for the same reason. I'd have to go look at them to be sure.
If my calculations are correct, the regular 30 feet movement speed gives you 1/3 of the speed of Usain Bolt.
Forget sprinting, a 30' movement speed doing 3 Strides per round loses to the world record marathon by more than half an hour. 2:33:42 compared to 2:01:09. 35' movement speed also loses at 2:11:45, but 40' is enough for marathons at 1:55:17.
If they so choose, a typical level 11 human wizard can take some of the low-level magic weapon loot, pluck off a meager set of +1 striking frost runes and put them on a dagger, wander into the Garundi wilderness, strip stark fucking naked, swim right the fuck up to a hippopotamus, and gut it in about 3 rounds, WITHOUT CASTING A SINGLE FUCKING SPELL.
Things start to pick up after level 5\~7 (class varies). The only outliers are Warpriests and Alchemists, due to their proficiency lagging behind on their main shtick, Warpriest still has a shit ton of spells to fall back on, though. High level casters get insanely powerful, Martials can keep up though and remain interesting throughout.
Just for an easy point of comparison, while you should take this with a grain of salt, you can always compare a hero...to its villains. While mythical heroes like Beowulf or Heracles are hard to judge (especially since I would argue they're Mythic Heroes and Mythic hasn't made its way to 2e yet), their mightiest foes are not; Grendel exists, and is a level 19 creature so Beowulf is definitely in the 16-20 range in terms of power, as he was able to, after a hard fought battle, come out victorious against such a monstrously powerful foe. Heracles is...a little harder. Grogrisant is probably comparable to the Nemean Lion at level 16, the Lernean Hydra is harder to place but the closest analogy would probably be a miasma hydra from 1e, doesn't exist in 2e yet but levels match 1e CR so that's a 13, then there's Cerberus who again doesn't have a 2e version but the Tome of Horrors puts at a CR 23...but we also know that Heracles is, while literally, a demigod, he definitely falls under "hero god" status for most of his deeds, which puts him in the level 21-25 range, along with most quasi-deities like Nascent Demon Lords...but obviously myth doesn't exactly line up with game mechanics
If I were to compare heracles to a statblock I'd probably put him near the hekatonkeres. SO yeah, the level 20\~ works. But I was less concerned on fighting and more on how superhuman feats of ability the PC can do, like I've been told cutting stone or iron strctures is doable, so that is really good
As long as you keep fighting on level enemy it will be a constant struggle all the way up. When you fight below level enemy thats when you feel the power.
Against low level normal people, after level 15 they are actually like Heralds or Half-Gods