Some spells have always felt like they are in the wrong category to me. In particular, healing being conjuration instead of necromancy given the following feels off.
Necromancy spells manipulate the power of death, unlife, and the life force.
As such, I wish the whole Healing subschool would fall under Necromancy. Given the Golarion tie in for 2E, go ahead and say that the life force is always moved instead of simply made out of thin air. Divine casters draw from their deity’s essence while arcane draws from the land, another creature, etc.
Similarly, Creation should probably go under Evocation given its description.
In effect, an evocation draws upon magic to create something out of nothing.
So forth and so on...
IIRC from the blog posts, Healing spells are now Necromancy.
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Healing spells are indeed officially Necromancy now. Fear spells are also Enchantment. Acid Splash (and thus probably other 'conjured damage' spells) are also Evocation now rather than Conjuration. Other changes may be in the offing as well.
I don't think I personally buy the 'Creation should be Evocation' thing, though.
Creation should remain under conjuration.
But I'm glad to see the damaging conjuration spells instead fall under evocation (really the difference between conjuration and evocation has never been particularly clear to me, it's always seemed like basically the same thing except for how long the thing lasts).
Mechanically the main difference was spell resistance, but I always hated using conjuration damaging spells to get around that.
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It's probably, at least in part, a balancing thing. In pf1, certain schools were more powerful than others because they contained so many of the must-have spells, while others had none. By spreading the spells around, the schools become more balanced.
Speaking of Spell Resistance - I haven't seen it mentioned in any blog posts and I really hope I won't see it in PF2 at all.
Speaking of Spell Resistance - I haven't seen it mentioned in any blog posts and I really hope I won't see it in PF2 at all.
We saw a really high-CR creature of the sort that would normally have spell resistance. It seemed to instead have a really small bonus on saves vs. magic (I think +1).
I feel like the 4 tiers of success covers the balance need for spell resistance in a much more interesting way. Spells only tend to shut things down with exceptional rolls. In PF1, this was beating spell resistance AND the target failing the save. Now it is just the target critically failing the save.
This also means we only need one roll rather than running a second roll with an easy to forget calculation, and conjuration spells are no longer even better than they already were in a vacuum. And of course, spells will still do SOMETHING even if they don't completely shut the target down.
I feel like the 4 tiers of success covers the balance need for spell resistance in a much more interesting way. Spells only tend to shut things down with exceptional rolls. In PF1, this was beating spell resistance AND the target failing the save. Now it is just the target critically failing the save.
This also means we only need one roll rather than running a second roll with an easy to forget calculation, and conjuration spells are no longer even better than they already were in a vacuum. And of course, spells will still do SOMETHING even if they don't completely shut the target down.
well except you botch your attack or the enemy crits its resistance - but the chance for nothing is a whole lot less
There's also the fact that none of the spells we've seen so far have made mention of spell resistance, which is also strong evidence that it's gone. I'm not sure how I feel about it being gone; it was a very punishing system towards certain kinds of casters, since a vast range of spells were completely shut down by it, but on the other hand it was interesting and flavorful to cast spells that didn't directly target a foe to get around this defense.
As far as the schools go, I think Paizo is aware of the imbalance between them. Giving Enchantment and Evocation more toys is definitely a step forward, but it will also be necessary not to reflexively put spells into Transmutation. The Transmutation school ended up being very bloated in PF1 since it was treated as a catch-all for new spells.
Regarding other spells that could get a school change, I've always felt that the Fly spell would fit better as evocation. The fly spell is applying a force to the object, and force effects are the domain of evocation.
There was, somewhere, a series of variant fly spells written up by school, with the motive force generated by something appropriate to the school. Abjuration, Divination and Enchantment I don't recall having any version of fly, but the other schools did: Conjuration (several sets of smaller planar-themed wings temporarily conjured onto the character), Evocation (enhanced levitation - I think), Illusion (wings of shadow), Necromancy (large rotting wings graft onto your shoulders temporarily) and Transmutation (standard).
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As a veteran of AD&D... I would be okay with slaughtering the "schools of magic" sacred cow. Do we really still need such a kludgy system of categorization purely for legacy reasons?
I not saying that Conjurers, Diviners, Illusionists and Necromancers and the like don't have a place in PF2, but do we really need Abjurers to still be their own thing? Or for evocation spells to be distinct from their conjuration or transmutation cousins because... reasons?
As a veteran of AD&D... I would be okay with slaughtering the "schools of magic" sacred cow. Do we really still need such a kludgy system of categorization purely for legacy reasons?
I not saying that Conjurers, Diviners, Illusionists and Necromancers and the like don't have a place in PF2, but do we really need Abjurers to still be their own thing? Or for evocation spells to be distinct from their conjuration or transmutation cousins because... reasons?
It's not just (at least AD&D) legacy reasons. With the exception of divination, the schools were made to map to the 7 sins, which ties it directly to Golarion. I don't have any problem with getting rid of at least some of the schools, but it would have some lore implications.
Removing the mechanical concept of 'necromancy' and 'abjuration' spells doesn't obviate lore based on the concept of theme-based categorizations in-world.
Maybe the runelords were just crazy god-mages who obsessed with specific spells and tied them to their prefered symbology for aesthetic reasons.
That way other cultures and settings can have their own theme-based lists without stepping around a legacy system.
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Schools are to the wizard/sorcerer what weapons and armor are to the fighter. It is what gives the class some depth so that a sorcerer or wizard can be better at some things than others and also to flesh out the roleplaying opportunities.
Wizards who raise the dead, wizards who make things blow up, wizards who turn people into frogs... all traditional roles. If you drop the classes, then you drop the ability to allow the Necromancer to be better at necromancy than the Transmuter or the Evoker to be better at evocation spells than the Illusionist.
The good side is that you can design exactly the sort of wizard you want without worrying about not being as good at something as another. The bad side is that you are ONLY as good at something as all the rest of the wizards of your level. I can see arguments both ways but by leaving in schools you give the ability for a wizard to specialize without forcing them to, since they can be a generalist wizard instead.
Boojum