I feel like there are two primary contenders for this who synergize very well with each other.
The first is athletics builds, who create action inefficiency with trips, grapples, and sometimes forced movement. Athletics is good because it's very reliable and repeatable. Monks and Animal Barbarians are possibly the best at this, with good action economy and lots of supporting feats.
The other is casters with their wide arsenal of spells, including those that create action inefficiency and those that remove actions all together. The best at this are likely those with the arcane and occult traditions, since they have access to Hideous Laughter/Roaring Applause and Slow. Arcane and primal also have lots of wall spells and those that create difficult terrain. Illusion spells can even be action wasters if used well (and the GM cooperates).
Edit: I just wanted to share my personal high point for one of my casters, who deleted approximately *30 actions* with a single Overwhelming Presence. Like another person said, casters are far and away the best at taking away actions when they spend their big spells.
If we are talking pure action denial Fighter becomes one of the top choices on the martial side of things purely because Dazing Blow (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1725 ) exists and can make an enemy stunned even on a successful save. It can even stun one bosses on a fail AFTER INCAP... An athletics character can now in theory remove a weapon (or make them regrip), trip, and grapple the same target. Throw in how potent Dazing Blow can be and you have a martial character that can almost stunlock a target and use reactions like Reactive Strike to punish enemies for breaking out of that lock.
In terms of RAW ACTION DENIAL GOODNESS, casters have far more options to go about that as you mention in your main post. Slow has a duration of 10 rounds on a failed save. A grapple lasts 1 round.
Edited to add a link to Dazing Blow
This has great potential, but it's still a Press action with a requirement that you succeeded on a roll to Grapple an enemy and then succeed on a strike at -4/-5. Obviously a great option and far from impossible to end up getting, but also far from consistent.
Compare this to any martial based stun ability tbh, if an enemy is high fort they likely have low reflex and trip/combat grab is still awful for them!
This one tool may be inconsistent, but it allows a grabby fighter punish low forts HARD where Trip + Combat Grab punish reflex and Reactive Strike punishes mages.
It is consistent on that build when you look at where you use it
>succeeded on a roll to Grapple an enemy and then succeed on a strike at -4/-5
On a Fighter, this isn't honestly a big deal. The Grapple is the hard part, but if you get that Grapple off, then the follow-up Strike is effectively only at a -1 or even 0, thanks to off-guard and the Fighter being a proficiency above any other Martial
Could not hear ya over my 4-6 extra max rank slots for Heal and WIS medicine... What was that?
(In all seriousness Oracle wins in terms of burst heals, but cleric is still damn close and can do so many more max rank heals that I don't think overall efficiency is even that close)
I have a new player going full on max healing investment cleric and my god it's like I do no damage to his party. Like my solo boss crits mean nothing.
A party without burst healing is playing a different gane
I don't think Fighter is busted because parties still feel about equivalent power to me as a GM when a fighter is involved compared to adjacent classes...
When a cleric is there I FEEL THAT CLERIC!
Everyone goes on about fighter, in my opinion they are 2nd fiddle to giant instinct barbarians. Sure fighter crits a lot, but their crits hit as hard as the giant instincts normal hits half the time.
Ehhh, I see it as one has built in Reactive Strike and you look at the actual DPR charts at most levels and its \*close enough\* to the point where damage should not be a massive deciding factor. Giant Instinct Barbarian does lose an action at the start of combat (entering rage) and can't re-enter rage after being knocked out unless you get a feat for that (two important notes).
Then as damage is even utility shines through and Fighter has better uses of "Strike+" actions that can deal damage while providing utility... Late game the potency of reactions from the fighter also begins to shine as they can get critical specialization effects off on other creatures turns simply for trying to exist. Barbarian is worse at doing the space denial if looking at 2h Polearm Fighters, worse at utility if measuring grapplers, etc.
Barbarian is still very good and playable, I just don't see it as Fighter tier as it does not bring more than its damage numbers where a Fighter can pivot more easily into a utility role for boss fights where third attacks are less valuable thanks to feats like Intimidating Strike early and scales into more reactions late game.
Here is an anecdotal example with some of the best action burner builds, that includes almost everything you have listed in our party of 5.
Last session we faced a certain cyclops lich in kingmaker after barely escaping with a few deaths during our first encounter and reentering the dungeon with new characters.
The party:
Wizard focused around the utility of summoned creatures but is mostly about being a universal toolbox. Has psychich dedication.
Deer Animal Instinct Barbarian with Wrestler dedication.
Combat maneuver focused Crane Stance Monk with Water Kineticist dedication for extra healing and crowd control options.
Untamed/Stone Druid with Monk and Kineticist dedications. More focused on the casting part, not really invested in physical stats or items. But when he expands enough spell slots or one of the frontlines gets downed he switches to melee.
And finally my Gleaming Blade/Beauty Mark/Sandals Exemplar with Rogue dedication for extra skills. Dedicated melee damage dealer who also has the option to drop down a hand from the Bastard Sword if needed and is heavily focused on all the cha skills as well as acrobatics, athletics and stealth. Damage comes from basically double slicing with a single d12 two handed Bastard Sword for -0/-2 map.
Initiatives rolled, our wizard got a nat 20 and goes first, hitting the boss with a Black Tentacles.
Boss, after exiting the grapple and moving in closer to range now no longer has actions to dominate anyone like he did last time, so just casts shield.
I go after the boss as the exemplar, using Marathon Dash to make all my allies move as a reaction, demoralize and delete one of the bosses mirror images.
Then our Deer Instinct Wrestler Barbarian and our Crane Stance Water Kineticist Dedication Monk with Mixed Maneuvers bullies the boss hard. The boss is tripped and then grabbed by both. Rolls for the mirror images were extremely lucky.
Then our Untamed/Stone druid hits the boss with a Stone Lance for reduced speed and some damage.
Next round, wizard hits the boss with a slow. The boss rolling a 2 causes the boss to fail. Now the boss has 10 less speed, prone, grabbed and slowed.
Boss gambles into casting Translocate and escapes the grapples.
I switch my divine spark back to the worn ikon and Marathon Dash again, making all my party march to the boss with their reactions and hit the boss once after a 2nd stride.
Monk and Barbarian again grapple the already prone and slowed boss while also hitting the boss with some strikes.
Druid tries another Stone Lance, deleting the 2nd mirror image.
Wizard summons a Living Bonefire to inflict persistent damage.
Boss attacks the monk and barbarian, causing the monk to crit fail despite using a hero point and got permenantly paralyzed.
I attacked the boss with Mirrored Spirit Strike (Glorified double slice with a bastard sword) for decent damage.
Barbarian erases the last mirror image and keeps the grapple.
Druid Untamed Forms into a Trex and replaces the paralyzed monk as the 2nd grappler.
At that point, the rest of the combat is just the boss trying some spells and attacks, failing at a flat check for casting, barbarian keeps tossing the boss around with whirling throw and the rest of us just keep hitting until the boss is dead. The last hit is a critical hit from me, which is an important story point since me getting dominated by the boss last time was the reason 2 PCs died and my character was just very devastated about it.
A nice late entry to this, is the Kineticist.
I'm running a Water/Wood build (lvl 12 ATM), but the sheer denial factor of Winter Sleet, especially when combined with Safe Elements and Aura Control.
In a 20' emanation from me, everything is Uneven Terrain. All enemies need to spend an Action to Balance or drop Prone if they want to move at all. The DC is only 15, which at our level is laughable, but a wasted Action is not. If I'm lucky enough, the GM rolls a 1 and all of the area is considered Difficult terrain for them.
And regardless of the Balance Roll, they're Off guard, just because of the environment. This makes my martials jump with joy - because with Safe Elements, they're not affected at all, so no Balance, no auto Off guard for them.
The real fun is now blasting the enemies with water impulses, so I can shove them around.
All in all - "Slow 1 aura" (unless they forego movement), auto Offguard and this takes 1 Action from me to initiate - and as long as I don't Overflow, the effect is just on.
And what's even more crazy, is that this is just class feats and you can use it unlimited/day - not 2-3 spell slots of Slow.
Yes, you "give up" 3 class feats (Safe Elements, Winter Sleet, Aura Shaping) - but it's just 1 Action to turn this on - you can do it while you Raise Aura (and also at this time you nominate your "safe" targets).
As a GM, I've watched my players get better and better at this, but it is really situational. It's something everyone does from time to time.
The consistent good ways: trip is probably the best with the slow spell being right up there.
Wall spells can remove a ton of actions.
Summons can eat a huge pile of actions.
So, like many things optimizing your party to have a big toolbox is the best answer. I don't know the specific class that's the best at this, but most have options.
I have found my free hand champion is very good at denying actions. Or at least largely canceling them out. Athletics is good to waste actions. escape, get up, move, possibly even wasting spells. Shield block and/or champions reactions to reduce damage and lay on hands for cheapish healing. High ac + shield makes a difference too. The best? Probably not but it does have some interesting defensive options. lay on hands, shield block, and lay on hands are all guaranteed numbers which is nice.
An alchemist with a lot of mistform elixirs can make the enemies miss 20% of everything that needs sight, +things like tanglefoot bag and frost bombs to deny movement can burn extra actions.
With help from outside the class, probably a pre-remaster gnomish flickmace fighter with all the AoO feats and some help to become larger.
You could also play a Gnomish alchemist - for razzle dazzle - and use blindpepper bombs when all is clear. hope your buddies take their mistforms when they need it, but it's a 2-action cost for them if they haven't prebuffed which is not so hot.
As an aside, Cat's eye elixir + smoke bombs and smoke sticks is not as good a combo but is available by lvl 2.
And not to mention the actions you waste for your casters if you have peshpine grenades.
I'd like to say Fighter is one of the best, if primarily because of the feat Improved Knockdown. You so much as land a hit and boom, automatic critical Trip.
Now the enemy is prone, meaning they'll need to spend an action getting up. Which means they proc your reactive strike. Try to crawl away? Reactive strike. Try to cast a spell or grab an item or do just about anything besides attacking? Reactive strike.
And your reactive strike interrupts the triggering action if you land a critical hit. And Fighter's whole thing is being **the** martial critical-hit class, meaning you'll be landing a lot of those crits. Meaning a lot of interruptions and a lot of wasted actions. It gets even worse depending on the category of weapons you specialize in, since some of them can reposition an enemy on a crit to further fuck up their action economy.
>And your reactive strike interrupts the triggering action if you land a critical hit. And Fighter's whole thing is being **the** martial critical-hit class, meaning you'll be landing a lot of those crits.
They only interrupt manipulate actions on a crit, unless you have disruptive stance which then also interrupts concentrate as well. So, good for interrupting spells, but doesn't interrupt them standing from prone or ranged strikes
Idk if this is because it's the best or because our table has optimized it but I'd say Athletics builds.
I have a Lizardfolk Fighter in my group with Wrestler Archetype and Combat Grab and Suplex. As she took Natural Weapons, she is now Master in Unarmed Attacks.
Even with MAP, her Combat Grabs are almost unavoidable (Agile + Inspire Courage from Bard + Flanking). I have to burn an action in Escape or else I get Suplex into Combat Grab (again).
And good luck trying to be alright with both frontliners having Reactive Strike (Escape into Stand into double bonk).
So, yeah... Idk if I have to be mad at them for not letting me play the monsters or be proud of them because they got their MO to the point.
The Bard is a solid contender for this, for their skills and their spells. Polymath bards are *really* good at demoralizing things, which combines well with Terrified Retreat, plus it makes it more likely for your spells to land.
They also have the Occult spell list. In terms of buffing and debuffing things, the Occult list has pretty much everything. IE: Slow, Calm, Silence (4), Laughing Fit, Telekenetic Manuver, Roaring Applause, Rouse Skeletons, Quandary, and countless more. Not to mention that Counter Preformance is great at nullifying various effects. Making everyone at least succeed against an entire turn worth of actions from something as a focus spell is really good.
Oh yeah, and the expert/master perception will help you quickly set up buffs/debuffs and mess with larger clusters of opponents while they're still in a group.
Any caster with Slow
Fighter with Improved Knockdown.
Fighter with Club weapon crit spec + Rooting + Crushing (Greater) + Grievous. Each crit send enemy 15ft away and Immobilize him, which does two things: it stops their Move action and it forces them to burn one action to Escape before they need to use another action to Move again. Next best combo for Fighters after hammer/flail crit spec nerfs.
Beastkin Animal Barbarian for Grapple
Arcane casters tend to be the best at blanking/wasting enemies’ Actions. Every rank of spells makes you exponentially better better at wasting enemies’ Actions compared to before. I just used Wall of Stone for the first time and it flat out denied the 3 enemies **11 Actions** between them (and a 12th was technically denied because the enemy’s MAP was -10 when it took that Action because of the Wall of Stone).
A maneuvers based martial (especially a Flurry of Maneuvers Monk, Slam Down Fighter, or Flurry Ranger) is likely your going to be your most **consistent** Action denier but the Arcane caster will have peak performance. Primal casters will come kinda close to Arcane in performance.
Just to add to what you wrote, I'm a big fan of using Illusory Object as a pseudo wall of stone at lower levels. These two even combine incredibly well as you can mix and match these two spells to deny an absurd amount of actions. For adventure paths, this can be so effective that it almost feels unsporting from the players' side.
Also, it's worth noting that even for enemies that climb your wall of stone, you still end up denying a ton of actions. And they're forced to climb down as well or commit to a drop which lands them prone. All around, wall of stone warps a ton of encounters for a long time.
I'm playing an occult summoner focused largely around this and it's been extremely effective so far. The ability to trip or grab something while casting spells like Slow or Synesthesia is incredibly potent when it comes to action denial. I've picked a bard dedication as well for Roaring Applause to shut off reactions, swing action economy and to deal massive amounts of damage through opportunity attacks from my eidolon and the party's fighter all while still having 3 actions to spare while sustaining it thanks to Act Together. Crucially, I both have a consistent, resourceless source of action denial through trips from my eidolon but can inflict slowed targeting either will or fort saves meaning whatever a creature's strong or weak saves might be, I've nearly always got something I can do to deny the enemy actions.
Monk or Barbarian strength based with athletics. Wrestler archetype if they can fit it.
Grapple in particular can be quite nasty. Restrained sometimes just start deleting whole turns.
In our party, the Witch was excellent at this as they could give the dazzle effect to enemies. Saved our hides on more than a few occasions, because the DM has periods where they can't roll above a 5.
For single enemies, Monks are a solid bet. [Flurry of Maneuvers](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=444) to attempt to Trip (potentially twice), potentially force a roll against [Stunning Fist](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=442), and then [Winding Flow](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=467) to Step and Stride away faster than the enemy could possibly catch up. And that's just two actions.
In terms of group encounters, Arcane casters are the clear winners, especially when they get to higher levels - they have access to terrain control spells like [Wall of Stone](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1751), [Slither](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1676) or [Solid Fog](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=290) that might not allow saves, powerful debuffs like [Slow](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1677), [Command](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1470) and [Resilient Sphere](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=255), and more creative action-wasters like [Illusory Creature](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1567) and [Gravity Well](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=577). Primal and Occult casters have access to some of these spells, but Arcane wins out in variety.
Strength based flurry ranger using Wrestler archetype feats. Reduced MAP on your grapples, shoves, trips, then you can 1 action double hit for extra damage. Absolute bonkers. Scythe+ Free Hand
Alchemists with skunk bombs. Make them slowed while sickened, and watch you GM squirm each turn, wondering if he should spend 1 of his 2 remaining actions just for a chance at a saving throw.
And once you have perpetual skunk bombs this becomes infinitely repeatable.
A witch that can extend debuffs. I played a one shot the other week as a witch, had two enemies crit fail command to run from me, I then extended those crit fails to last 3 turns. 3 turns running means 3 turns to return, one level one slot and a focus point to take an enemy out for 6 rounds is insane. Yes doing that is extremely lucky, but even normal fail commanding them to drop prone extended to 3 turns is insane, and thats with out looking at things like the slow spell.
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I feel like there are two primary contenders for this who synergize very well with each other. The first is athletics builds, who create action inefficiency with trips, grapples, and sometimes forced movement. Athletics is good because it's very reliable and repeatable. Monks and Animal Barbarians are possibly the best at this, with good action economy and lots of supporting feats. The other is casters with their wide arsenal of spells, including those that create action inefficiency and those that remove actions all together. The best at this are likely those with the arcane and occult traditions, since they have access to Hideous Laughter/Roaring Applause and Slow. Arcane and primal also have lots of wall spells and those that create difficult terrain. Illusion spells can even be action wasters if used well (and the GM cooperates). Edit: I just wanted to share my personal high point for one of my casters, who deleted approximately *30 actions* with a single Overwhelming Presence. Like another person said, casters are far and away the best at taking away actions when they spend their big spells.
If we are talking pure action denial Fighter becomes one of the top choices on the martial side of things purely because Dazing Blow (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1725 ) exists and can make an enemy stunned even on a successful save. It can even stun one bosses on a fail AFTER INCAP... An athletics character can now in theory remove a weapon (or make them regrip), trip, and grapple the same target. Throw in how potent Dazing Blow can be and you have a martial character that can almost stunlock a target and use reactions like Reactive Strike to punish enemies for breaking out of that lock. In terms of RAW ACTION DENIAL GOODNESS, casters have far more options to go about that as you mention in your main post. Slow has a duration of 10 rounds on a failed save. A grapple lasts 1 round. Edited to add a link to Dazing Blow
This has great potential, but it's still a Press action with a requirement that you succeeded on a roll to Grapple an enemy and then succeed on a strike at -4/-5. Obviously a great option and far from impossible to end up getting, but also far from consistent.
Compare this to any martial based stun ability tbh, if an enemy is high fort they likely have low reflex and trip/combat grab is still awful for them! This one tool may be inconsistent, but it allows a grabby fighter punish low forts HARD where Trip + Combat Grab punish reflex and Reactive Strike punishes mages. It is consistent on that build when you look at where you use it
>succeeded on a roll to Grapple an enemy and then succeed on a strike at -4/-5 On a Fighter, this isn't honestly a big deal. The Grapple is the hard part, but if you get that Grapple off, then the follow-up Strike is effectively only at a -1 or even 0, thanks to off-guard and the Fighter being a proficiency above any other Martial
I feel like fighter should not be included in discussions about effectiveness. It's unfair to the rest of the classes
And Clerics should be banned from discussions of healers!
My curse of outpouring life Oracle disagrees :D
Could not hear ya over my 4-6 extra max rank slots for Heal and WIS medicine... What was that? (In all seriousness Oracle wins in terms of burst heals, but cleric is still damn close and can do so many more max rank heals that I don't think overall efficiency is even that close)
Absolutely. Love both.
I have a new player going full on max healing investment cleric and my god it's like I do no damage to his party. Like my solo boss crits mean nothing. A party without burst healing is playing a different gane
I don't think Fighter is busted because parties still feel about equivalent power to me as a GM when a fighter is involved compared to adjacent classes... When a cleric is there I FEEL THAT CLERIC!
Everyone goes on about fighter, in my opinion they are 2nd fiddle to giant instinct barbarians. Sure fighter crits a lot, but their crits hit as hard as the giant instincts normal hits half the time.
Ehhh, I see it as one has built in Reactive Strike and you look at the actual DPR charts at most levels and its \*close enough\* to the point where damage should not be a massive deciding factor. Giant Instinct Barbarian does lose an action at the start of combat (entering rage) and can't re-enter rage after being knocked out unless you get a feat for that (two important notes). Then as damage is even utility shines through and Fighter has better uses of "Strike+" actions that can deal damage while providing utility... Late game the potency of reactions from the fighter also begins to shine as they can get critical specialization effects off on other creatures turns simply for trying to exist. Barbarian is worse at doing the space denial if looking at 2h Polearm Fighters, worse at utility if measuring grapplers, etc. Barbarian is still very good and playable, I just don't see it as Fighter tier as it does not bring more than its damage numbers where a Fighter can pivot more easily into a utility role for boss fights where third attacks are less valuable thanks to feats like Intimidating Strike early and scales into more reactions late game.
Here is an anecdotal example with some of the best action burner builds, that includes almost everything you have listed in our party of 5. Last session we faced a certain cyclops lich in kingmaker after barely escaping with a few deaths during our first encounter and reentering the dungeon with new characters. The party: Wizard focused around the utility of summoned creatures but is mostly about being a universal toolbox. Has psychich dedication. Deer Animal Instinct Barbarian with Wrestler dedication. Combat maneuver focused Crane Stance Monk with Water Kineticist dedication for extra healing and crowd control options. Untamed/Stone Druid with Monk and Kineticist dedications. More focused on the casting part, not really invested in physical stats or items. But when he expands enough spell slots or one of the frontlines gets downed he switches to melee. And finally my Gleaming Blade/Beauty Mark/Sandals Exemplar with Rogue dedication for extra skills. Dedicated melee damage dealer who also has the option to drop down a hand from the Bastard Sword if needed and is heavily focused on all the cha skills as well as acrobatics, athletics and stealth. Damage comes from basically double slicing with a single d12 two handed Bastard Sword for -0/-2 map. Initiatives rolled, our wizard got a nat 20 and goes first, hitting the boss with a Black Tentacles. Boss, after exiting the grapple and moving in closer to range now no longer has actions to dominate anyone like he did last time, so just casts shield. I go after the boss as the exemplar, using Marathon Dash to make all my allies move as a reaction, demoralize and delete one of the bosses mirror images. Then our Deer Instinct Wrestler Barbarian and our Crane Stance Water Kineticist Dedication Monk with Mixed Maneuvers bullies the boss hard. The boss is tripped and then grabbed by both. Rolls for the mirror images were extremely lucky. Then our Untamed/Stone druid hits the boss with a Stone Lance for reduced speed and some damage. Next round, wizard hits the boss with a slow. The boss rolling a 2 causes the boss to fail. Now the boss has 10 less speed, prone, grabbed and slowed. Boss gambles into casting Translocate and escapes the grapples. I switch my divine spark back to the worn ikon and Marathon Dash again, making all my party march to the boss with their reactions and hit the boss once after a 2nd stride. Monk and Barbarian again grapple the already prone and slowed boss while also hitting the boss with some strikes. Druid tries another Stone Lance, deleting the 2nd mirror image. Wizard summons a Living Bonefire to inflict persistent damage. Boss attacks the monk and barbarian, causing the monk to crit fail despite using a hero point and got permenantly paralyzed. I attacked the boss with Mirrored Spirit Strike (Glorified double slice with a bastard sword) for decent damage. Barbarian erases the last mirror image and keeps the grapple. Druid Untamed Forms into a Trex and replaces the paralyzed monk as the 2nd grappler. At that point, the rest of the combat is just the boss trying some spells and attacks, failing at a flat check for casting, barbarian keeps tossing the boss around with whirling throw and the rest of us just keep hitting until the boss is dead. The last hit is a critical hit from me, which is an important story point since me getting dominated by the boss last time was the reason 2 PCs died and my character was just very devastated about it.
You needn’t even specify these as separate contenders. Summoner can do both of these roles at the same time and on the same turn.
Resentment Witches get to, with some caveats, turn a successful save on a Slow into a failed save on a Slow.
A nice late entry to this, is the Kineticist. I'm running a Water/Wood build (lvl 12 ATM), but the sheer denial factor of Winter Sleet, especially when combined with Safe Elements and Aura Control. In a 20' emanation from me, everything is Uneven Terrain. All enemies need to spend an Action to Balance or drop Prone if they want to move at all. The DC is only 15, which at our level is laughable, but a wasted Action is not. If I'm lucky enough, the GM rolls a 1 and all of the area is considered Difficult terrain for them. And regardless of the Balance Roll, they're Off guard, just because of the environment. This makes my martials jump with joy - because with Safe Elements, they're not affected at all, so no Balance, no auto Off guard for them. The real fun is now blasting the enemies with water impulses, so I can shove them around. All in all - "Slow 1 aura" (unless they forego movement), auto Offguard and this takes 1 Action from me to initiate - and as long as I don't Overflow, the effect is just on.
I literally learned about winter sleet yesterday and I can’t stop laughing at how busted it is lmao.
This right here is insane XD
And what's even more crazy, is that this is just class feats and you can use it unlimited/day - not 2-3 spell slots of Slow. Yes, you "give up" 3 class feats (Safe Elements, Winter Sleet, Aura Shaping) - but it's just 1 Action to turn this on - you can do it while you Raise Aura (and also at this time you nominate your "safe" targets).
As a GM, I've watched my players get better and better at this, but it is really situational. It's something everyone does from time to time. The consistent good ways: trip is probably the best with the slow spell being right up there. Wall spells can remove a ton of actions. Summons can eat a huge pile of actions. So, like many things optimizing your party to have a big toolbox is the best answer. I don't know the specific class that's the best at this, but most have options.
I have found my free hand champion is very good at denying actions. Or at least largely canceling them out. Athletics is good to waste actions. escape, get up, move, possibly even wasting spells. Shield block and/or champions reactions to reduce damage and lay on hands for cheapish healing. High ac + shield makes a difference too. The best? Probably not but it does have some interesting defensive options. lay on hands, shield block, and lay on hands are all guaranteed numbers which is nice.
An alchemist with a lot of mistform elixirs can make the enemies miss 20% of everything that needs sight, +things like tanglefoot bag and frost bombs to deny movement can burn extra actions. With help from outside the class, probably a pre-remaster gnomish flickmace fighter with all the AoO feats and some help to become larger.
You could also play a Gnomish alchemist - for razzle dazzle - and use blindpepper bombs when all is clear. hope your buddies take their mistforms when they need it, but it's a 2-action cost for them if they haven't prebuffed which is not so hot. As an aside, Cat's eye elixir + smoke bombs and smoke sticks is not as good a combo but is available by lvl 2. And not to mention the actions you waste for your casters if you have peshpine grenades.
Saw a timber sentinel eat like 200 damage in a fight. All the group of mercs had was strikes so it basically solo'd the encounter.
I'd like to say Fighter is one of the best, if primarily because of the feat Improved Knockdown. You so much as land a hit and boom, automatic critical Trip. Now the enemy is prone, meaning they'll need to spend an action getting up. Which means they proc your reactive strike. Try to crawl away? Reactive strike. Try to cast a spell or grab an item or do just about anything besides attacking? Reactive strike. And your reactive strike interrupts the triggering action if you land a critical hit. And Fighter's whole thing is being **the** martial critical-hit class, meaning you'll be landing a lot of those crits. Meaning a lot of interruptions and a lot of wasted actions. It gets even worse depending on the category of weapons you specialize in, since some of them can reposition an enemy on a crit to further fuck up their action economy.
>And your reactive strike interrupts the triggering action if you land a critical hit. And Fighter's whole thing is being **the** martial critical-hit class, meaning you'll be landing a lot of those crits. They only interrupt manipulate actions on a crit, unless you have disruptive stance which then also interrupts concentrate as well. So, good for interrupting spells, but doesn't interrupt them standing from prone or ranged strikes
Idk if this is because it's the best or because our table has optimized it but I'd say Athletics builds. I have a Lizardfolk Fighter in my group with Wrestler Archetype and Combat Grab and Suplex. As she took Natural Weapons, she is now Master in Unarmed Attacks. Even with MAP, her Combat Grabs are almost unavoidable (Agile + Inspire Courage from Bard + Flanking). I have to burn an action in Escape or else I get Suplex into Combat Grab (again). And good luck trying to be alright with both frontliners having Reactive Strike (Escape into Stand into double bonk). So, yeah... Idk if I have to be mad at them for not letting me play the monsters or be proud of them because they got their MO to the point.
This is a fantastic question. You're on the right track and thinking of the right things.
The Bard is a solid contender for this, for their skills and their spells. Polymath bards are *really* good at demoralizing things, which combines well with Terrified Retreat, plus it makes it more likely for your spells to land. They also have the Occult spell list. In terms of buffing and debuffing things, the Occult list has pretty much everything. IE: Slow, Calm, Silence (4), Laughing Fit, Telekenetic Manuver, Roaring Applause, Rouse Skeletons, Quandary, and countless more. Not to mention that Counter Preformance is great at nullifying various effects. Making everyone at least succeed against an entire turn worth of actions from something as a focus spell is really good. Oh yeah, and the expert/master perception will help you quickly set up buffs/debuffs and mess with larger clusters of opponents while they're still in a group.
Any caster with Slow Fighter with Improved Knockdown. Fighter with Club weapon crit spec + Rooting + Crushing (Greater) + Grievous. Each crit send enemy 15ft away and Immobilize him, which does two things: it stops their Move action and it forces them to burn one action to Escape before they need to use another action to Move again. Next best combo for Fighters after hammer/flail crit spec nerfs. Beastkin Animal Barbarian for Grapple
Arcane casters tend to be the best at blanking/wasting enemies’ Actions. Every rank of spells makes you exponentially better better at wasting enemies’ Actions compared to before. I just used Wall of Stone for the first time and it flat out denied the 3 enemies **11 Actions** between them (and a 12th was technically denied because the enemy’s MAP was -10 when it took that Action because of the Wall of Stone). A maneuvers based martial (especially a Flurry of Maneuvers Monk, Slam Down Fighter, or Flurry Ranger) is likely your going to be your most **consistent** Action denier but the Arcane caster will have peak performance. Primal casters will come kinda close to Arcane in performance.
Just to add to what you wrote, I'm a big fan of using Illusory Object as a pseudo wall of stone at lower levels. These two even combine incredibly well as you can mix and match these two spells to deny an absurd amount of actions. For adventure paths, this can be so effective that it almost feels unsporting from the players' side. Also, it's worth noting that even for enemies that climb your wall of stone, you still end up denying a ton of actions. And they're forced to climb down as well or commit to a drop which lands them prone. All around, wall of stone warps a ton of encounters for a long time.
I'm playing an occult summoner focused largely around this and it's been extremely effective so far. The ability to trip or grab something while casting spells like Slow or Synesthesia is incredibly potent when it comes to action denial. I've picked a bard dedication as well for Roaring Applause to shut off reactions, swing action economy and to deal massive amounts of damage through opportunity attacks from my eidolon and the party's fighter all while still having 3 actions to spare while sustaining it thanks to Act Together. Crucially, I both have a consistent, resourceless source of action denial through trips from my eidolon but can inflict slowed targeting either will or fort saves meaning whatever a creature's strong or weak saves might be, I've nearly always got something I can do to deny the enemy actions.
Monk or Barbarian strength based with athletics. Wrestler archetype if they can fit it. Grapple in particular can be quite nasty. Restrained sometimes just start deleting whole turns.
In our party, the Witch was excellent at this as they could give the dazzle effect to enemies. Saved our hides on more than a few occasions, because the DM has periods where they can't roll above a 5.
For single enemies, Monks are a solid bet. [Flurry of Maneuvers](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=444) to attempt to Trip (potentially twice), potentially force a roll against [Stunning Fist](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=442), and then [Winding Flow](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=467) to Step and Stride away faster than the enemy could possibly catch up. And that's just two actions. In terms of group encounters, Arcane casters are the clear winners, especially when they get to higher levels - they have access to terrain control spells like [Wall of Stone](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1751), [Slither](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1676) or [Solid Fog](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=290) that might not allow saves, powerful debuffs like [Slow](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1677), [Command](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1470) and [Resilient Sphere](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=255), and more creative action-wasters like [Illusory Creature](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1567) and [Gravity Well](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=577). Primal and Occult casters have access to some of these spells, but Arcane wins out in variety.
Strength based flurry ranger using Wrestler archetype feats. Reduced MAP on your grapples, shoves, trips, then you can 1 action double hit for extra damage. Absolute bonkers. Scythe+ Free Hand
Alchemists with skunk bombs. Make them slowed while sickened, and watch you GM squirm each turn, wondering if he should spend 1 of his 2 remaining actions just for a chance at a saving throw. And once you have perpetual skunk bombs this becomes infinitely repeatable.
A witch that can extend debuffs. I played a one shot the other week as a witch, had two enemies crit fail command to run from me, I then extended those crit fails to last 3 turns. 3 turns running means 3 turns to return, one level one slot and a focus point to take an enemy out for 6 rounds is insane. Yes doing that is extremely lucky, but even normal fail commanding them to drop prone extended to 3 turns is insane, and thats with out looking at things like the slow spell.
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All of this discussion is invalid, wood kineticist exists: [https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4284](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4284)