Balance issues (cantrips - spells - weapons)

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Thats what I meant in terms of damage versus effect. And for spells like Daze you could easily add e.g. clumsy 1 on a failure.

@Salamileg

Martial feats are based generally around adding options and synergies or improving action economy. So a martial character can grab a variety of feats and be useful in many situations, specially since many just say "strike" without any limit.

Caster feats in the other hand tend to deal with modifying spells for an action cost or spending actions to recover spells. So casting characters depend on their spells for being useful in different situations. But unlike martials who can choose to specialize, caster dont really have that option.

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@Unicorn

Barbarians do have the same problem as casters in that they need help to hit things. But the Barbarian gets to do a ton more damage, gets a ton more defenses, and their only limit is their HP. The Barbarian can miss for 4 turns and continue swing for the same damage; But the caster who uses all their highest level and misses cant use them anymore and has to use increasingly weaker spells.

Also of course everyone should need each other they are a party. I dont want casters to one shot enemies, which is why I would sooner increase to hit if I know damage would cause a problem.

Just to let people know how things stand

Electric arc (vs 2 targets) out damages a halberd fighters first attack, even with elemental damage runes at 8 and 15. Electric arc is doing about 80% of the fighters 2 action damage from 1 to 20 (75% with runes)

Telekinetic projectile out damages a halberd fighters second attack, even with elemental damage runes at 8 and 15. Tkp is doing about 40%+ of the fighters 2 action damage from 1 to 20 (about 38% with runes)

What percentages would you like to see to make it what you want for balance?

Considering that the best cantrip manages 80% when using the same number of actions. I feel that is a good start.

Butnan imporant diferentiation needs to be made for spell that target AC and Saves due to mechanics and effect on success. AC targeting spells might need to be above Save targeting spells, depending on what else the spell does.

Just to let people know how things stand

Electric arc (vs 2 targets) out damages a halberd fighters first attack, even with elemental damage runes at 8 and 15. Electric arc is doing about 80% of the fighters 2 action damage from 1 to 20 (75% with runes)

Telekinetic projectile out damages a halberd fighters second attack, even with elemental damage runes at 8 and 15. Tkp is doing about 40%+ of the fighters 2 action damage from 1 to 20 (about 38% with runes)

What percentages would you like to see to make it what you want for balance?

How do cantrips compare to a shortbow? It seems like a fairer comparison to compare ranged to ranged.

citricking wrote:

Just to let people know how things stand

Electric arc (vs 2 targets) out damages a halberd fighters first attack, even with elemental damage runes at 8 and 15. Electric arc is doing about 80% of the fighters 2 action damage from 1 to 20 (75% with runes)

Telekinetic projectile out damages a halberd fighters second attack, even with elemental damage runes at 8 and 15. Tkp is doing about 40%+ of the fighters 2 action damage from 1 to 20 (about 38% with runes)

What percentages would you like to see to make it what you want for balance?

How do cantrips compare to a shortbow? It seems like a fairer comparison to compare ranged to ranged.

Not on my computer anymore, you can compare with

Why do people continue to engage in these threads? Unless your response is "Yes Zapp, you're right." he will simply tell you that your post is irrelevant, regardless of any data or thought. This is an ongoing trend in every one of these threads.

Ravingdork wrote:

Why would anyone want to play a damage dealer when they could be a damage dealer AND manipulate reality?

Point of order: A spellcaster who's spending all of their spell slots trying to be a competitive damage dealer isn't also manipulating reality, because they've spent their resources focusing on dealing damage.

Quote:

That's much more awesome than the wizard simply hitting an "I win" button and thanking everyone else for coming out to watch the show.

Please stop beating up that poor man, there's hardly any straw left in him at this point.

You can say that, but in the case of a wizard, as long as they sleep the next day they can literally do both. Theres no universe where it makes sense to have a wizard have as high DPR as a barbarian from range while also having spells like invisibility and flying.

In my opinion, blast spells work fine. Due to the 4 levels of success, they have greatly improved uses compared to what it was in the past. In the past, a Fireball was awesome on big packs of enemies. But... big packs of enemies are rare.
Now, Fireball is also awesome on 2-3 targets as long as they have low Reflex saves. For example, a Fireball cast at level 5 on an Ogre Gluton (classical low Reflex saves enemy) will have 20% chance to crit for more than half of its hit points. If you manage to get 3 of them inside the radius, you have 50% chances to crit. It greatly imbalances the damage repartition amongst monsters, creating the same effect than a focus fire: martials just have to finish the low life victim.

So here's how I would buff the various cantrips:

Acid splash - Clarify that the splash damage is proper splash damage, and is applied on a miss. Persistent damage on a hit. Double regular (but not splash or persistent) damage on a crit.

Chill touch - Increase damage to d6. Enfeebled 1 for 1 round on a failed save, Enfeebled 2 on a critical fail.

Daze - Increase damage to d4/spell level. Unfortunately, Stun is way too powerful an effect to use as the normal effect on a cantrip, so that has to remain as a critical failure effect.

Disrupt undead - Enfeebled 1 on a failure, 2 on a critical failure.

Divine Lance - Increase damage to d6s.

Electric arc - Fine where it is. If you want to make it a little more exciting, remove the "1 or" from targets, so you need two targets to cast it.

Produce flame - Increase damage to d6s.

Ray of frost - 5 foot speed penalty on a hit, 10 foot on a crit.

Telekinetic projectile - Increase range to 60 ft. Specify that the attack counts as a magic weapon. Perhaps, at spell level 3+, add a rider on a crit akin to the critical specialization of an appropriate weapon group. I'm thinking Bow (nail target to a nearby surface) for piercing, Sling (Fort save or Stunned 1) for bludgeoning, and Knife (bleed 1d6) for slashing.

It's a decent list, personally I would do

Acid Splash 1d4 acid+1 persistent+2 splash, heighten(+2) for 1d4 acid, 1 persistent and 2 splash. Add splash trait.

I'm not the most sold on this one, but I want to keep the persistent and splash. The alternative is 1d4 acid + 1 splash, heighten (+1) for 1d4 acid and 1 splash.

Chill Touch Go all the way to d8s for damage for this melee cantrip. Drained +1 on a critical failure.

Daze Seems reasonable

Disrupt UndeadI just don't think this should exist at all personally. It's so narrow for a cantrip.

Divine Lance - Allow it to deal Force damage or one of your deity's alignments.

Electric Arc - Leave as is

Produce Flame - Depending on what you do with Acid Splash, you could give this a niche as the "persistent damage" cantrip. 1d6 fire + 2 persistent fire, heighten(+2) for 1d6 fire + 2 persistent

Ray of Frost - Seems like a reasonable change

Telekinetic Projectile - Seems like a reasonable change

Considering that the best cantrip manages 80% when using the same number of actions. I feel that is a good start.

Butnan imporant diferentiation needs to be made for spell that target AC and Saves due to mechanics and effect on success. AC targeting spells might need to be above Save targeting spells, depending on what else the spell does.

A champion is doing 70%, then all casters will out damage champions with cantrips. Is that what you want?

I don’t really expect spells that are currently published to undergo massive rewriting. Maybe small errata, like to make acid splash functional, but not a massive adjustment to every spells damage. The damage on spells was adjusted and then readjusted through the play test to the final rule set of PF2. The current damage levels reflect the developer’s carefully considered goals, not an arbitrary assignment.

happiness with that is a personal variance thing, but it is clearly not going to change wholesale. Instead, I think a better approach is to keep asking for something new. I don’t think the wizard is ever going to be the blast master because it seems like the sorcerer was given that niche, which is the same logic that prevents fighters from getting legendary armor, even though the heavy armor master as fighter was an old RPG trope.

I think an all day zapper like a kineticist is possible eventually to fill the roll of magical striker, but it certainly won’t be a spell slot caster.

The situational magical striker is a roll that could see some boosting, but it is unlikely to come through any kind of massive accuracy or damage boost. There is a discussion currently in progress in the rules thread about whether the quicksilver mutagen currently is capable of boosting ranged spell attacks and I think, even if it doesn’t, looking at mutagens, with a temporary boost that comes with a significant draw back is the most interesting way to let blaster casters juice their accuracy.

I think a good balance would be spells doing slightly more damage than a martial striking, cantrips do slightly less. I know casters also have utility, but martials also have tricks up their sleeves and can get spells through multiclassing anyway.

Temperans wrote:

Considering that the best cantrip manages 80% when using the same number of actions. I feel that is a good start.

Butnan imporant diferentiation needs to be made for spell that target AC and Saves due to mechanics and effect on success. AC targeting spells might need to be above Save targeting spells, depending on what else the spell does.

A champion is doing 70%, then all casters will out damage champions with cantrips. Is that what you want?

Yes you are right that Champions would deal less damage than Casters by 10%. But that is not a fault of the casters, but of the fact Champions are now "the best users of armor".

Paizo transformed the Paladin from being one of the best offensive classes, to a reaction based tank. The number 1 tool of Paladin damage went from + cha to AC & atk and + level to dmg until creature is dead, to +4/6 to damage for 1 turn. Aka Chsmpions are also in need of a boost (although small than casters).

Why is it so hard to simply say the following:

In PF2, spellcasters should leave the damage-dealing to the martials, at least at low levels. In this aspect, PF2 is unapologetically "pre-5E" in its approach to caster-martial balance.

In fact, if you get to retire a character mid-campaign and roll up a new one, play a martial during single-digit levels, and then switch to your Wizard character only during double-digit levels!

It's so hard to say because it isn't exactly true. An optimal party composition is one caster, in a support role, per 1.5 martial characters. The Druid, uniquely, provides the extra partial martial with their animal companion.

From levels 1-3, magic weapon on the martial + electric arc does more than having another martial would. Clerics, in particular, are the strongest class at these levels with their 3-4 extra heals per day. Druids can pull their weight with Shillelagh on themselves at these levels,

At level 4, the druid gets an adult animal companion using the level 2 and 4 feat expenditures if they aren't just animal order. At this level, the druid is rivaling the Fighter and Barbarian with melee output including the companion and their own attack and they have access to heal.

Starting at level 5+, the druid gets access to Fireball, heal, and the output from the animal companion.

Without knowing what else the low-level party has in it, I'd actually bring a Druid over anything else if I wanted to play the most powerful character I could. The druid is the most self-reliant class, especially with access to natural medicine, but it's only really the best class in a vacuum.

I'd actually say the most optimal low level party composition is Primary martial, Rogue/Ranger/High Perception scout, Druid/Champion/any half support half martial, Full Support Bard/Cleric. It's really just the pure casters of Sorcerer and Wizard that really want level 7 before contributing to their fullest.

(I realize I'm probably - hopefully - late to the party, so if there's an existing thread or three discussing these issues, feel free to link)

Getting more and more play experience, I must say, there are some balance issues that vex me and my group.

For example: cantrips. A caster is invariably weaker at making attacks, while having a competitive DC.

So why are cantrips that target only one creature and do nothing on a miss not significantly more lethal than Electric Arc, which targets two creatures and deals half damage on a miss/fail? (And why aren't there similar cantrips for other damage types?)

At first blush, it seems a cantrip with no special features (such as splash damage or incredible range) should do double damage if it targets only a single creature, and probably a third helping of damage if a miss does nothing. (A cantrip that requires close combat would probably not be overpowered even if its damage die was a d12!!)

Second, a spell like Fireball. 6d6 at fifth level is ~20 damage. That's only slightly better than what a good whack from a martial deals, given that the Striking rune is the first a player will save up to. Giant Instinct Barbarians aside, the 2d10+6 our Fighter deals with his reach Halberd is probably more representative. If he hits twice (or Power attack etc) that's more than a Fireball against that one target, and his chance of critting is higher too.

But he can do that every round of the day. Given six fights of three rounds each, that's eighteen rounds. The Wizard can do it three times.

In the round where the Barbarian critted twice she dealt over a hundred damage, which even an optimal Fireball will struggle to match.

I understand Paizo didn't follow in 5E's footsteps, but when not even Fireball can impress, and the caster keeps feeling significantly underpowered even at fifth level, we're definitely still in the old days where casters are simply brought along for their future potential, rather than being powerful in their own right during the levels...

For starters, you're comparing Fireball, an area of effect spell largely designed to affect multiple creatures, to a single target damaging effect; the big draw of Fireball is you're doing 20 points of damage to multiple creatures at the same time, something which martials can't reliably do until higher level, if at all. And even then, by that point you will have much stronger and more effective damaging spells.

Furthermore, spells do scale to a lesser extent than martials simply because they don't benefit from Item bonuses and have a reduced (but eventually caught-up) proficiency scaling, meaning they are much more effective against lower-level enemies.

Additionally, some enemies are more vulnerable to your attacks than to a martial's. Dragons, Elementals, Undead, Trolls...all kinds of enemies will suffer additional damage or be otherwise extremely affected by damage you as a spellcaster can inflict. While it's true that martials can utilize this effect as well, they are usually less obvious or require other things that may not be a factor into their build (such as weapon properties).

As an example I just had last night, as a 9th level spellcaster I did 37 points of damage to 3 lesser enemies with a Cone of Cold, totaling 111 damage in a single round. Pretty average roll there with assumed failures on the bad guys.

Unless our Fighter or Ranger friend are really lucky and roll maximum damage criticals with each attack, they can't reliably match that number. In fact, in that same fight, our Ranger only managed to deal 68 damage to the big bad in a single round, and that was only because they received an incredible +3 Inspire Heroics buff (otherwise only one weaker attack would have hit) thanks to our Bard's Nat 20 perform check. They could have done a lot more against a lower enemy, but that's only for one target, and it requires action investment prior to attacking to reach the highest amount of damage.

@Unicorn

Mutagens are horrible. Their cost are too high and their benefits too low. Using them unless you have the high level feats is literally more likely to kill your character then help you.

Abilities that give you a penalty need to be balanced very carefully because a price too high makes the ability worthless. Its the reason playtest Oracle was such a horrendous class. The fact you could literally die from using a minor ability was horrible, and did nothing to make playing the class more interesting.

Its also the same reason that Brute Vigilante and Oozemorph Shifter are regarded as the worst PF1 archetypes ever created. Their cost are so stupidly high that the only people using those are archetypes are doing meme build or NPCs. They are quite literally the definition of trap options, and the fact PF2 desided that cost just as high as those was fine as a main mechanic honestly shocked me when I saw them.

Lets also not forget that magic missile is an incredible spell for taking down very tough end bosses and will often obliterate the DPR of the rest of the party combined when facing creatures with an AC high enough to start requiring a 14 or 15 on the die for most martial's to hit. Without requiring anyone else in the party to set them up and potentially from 120ft away. 4 evokers with a load out of magic missiles is a very dangerous threat to solo monsters. Monsters who don't get that threatened by 4 martial characters.

Of course this is a rare situation, but the point being, for wizards in particular, that even single target damage spells can be incredibly effective, when they are the right tool for the encounter at hand.

The game assumes that, if you want to play a wizard, you want to play the strategic game of attempting to pick the right spells for the job each day, and that dedicating resources to being able to do that is a part of your build. Because of that, comparisons between the DPR of a given spell against a generic enemy, vs a martial character against a generic enemy will always, and should always, fail to impress.

Lets also not forget that magic missile is an incredible spell for taking down very tough end bosses and will often obliterate the DPR of the rest of the party combined when facing creatures with an AC high enough to start requiring a 14 or 15 on the die for most martial's to hit. Without requiring anyone else in the party to set them up and potentially from 120ft away. 4 evokers with a load out of magic missiles is a very dangerous threat to solo monsters. Monsters who don't get that threatened by 4 martial characters.

Magic Missile is an amazing spell, but I think you need to be fighting level+3 or level+4 before it really starts to overtake everything else. The damage per action is too low otherwise. That being said, it's a great tool for a wizard to have in their arsenal so they can prepare it when it's great and not prepare it when it's not.

Mutagens are horrible. Their cost are too high and their benefits too low. Using them unless you have the high level feats is literally more likely to kill your character then help you.

I agree in terms of GP cost, but in terms of reagent cost? Not really.

The drawback of mutagens is way overstated on these boards IMO. The best ones - Quicksilver and Energy - don't really have that much of a drawback (the worst drawback from Quicksilver is the -2 fort, the -2hp/level doesn't really mean that much, it gives you a huge speed boost so you don't get hit).

If you're talking about Serene, Cognitive, Bestial, yeah they have insane drawbacks. But you really don't want to use those anyway because they're just awful (Cognitive has a niche for out of combat stuff and might be a case where the minor version is the best because it has the shortest duration).

I agree in terms of GP cost, but in terms of reagent cost? Not really.

The drawback of mutagens is way overstated on these boards IMO. The best ones - Quicksilver and Energy - don't really have that much of a drawback

If you're talking about Serene, Cognitive, Bestial, yeah they have insane drawbacks.

Two out of Five is not exactly a glowing recommendation. Its like saying "shield rules aren't broken, look at Sturdy Shield! Its fine!"

Unicore wrote:

Mutagens are horrible. Their cost are too high and their benefits too low. Using them unless you have the high level feats is literally more likely to kill your character then help you.

I agree in terms of GP cost, but in terms of reagent cost? Not really.

The drawback of mutagens is way overstated on these boards IMO. The best ones - Quicksilver and Energy - don't really have that much of a drawback (the worst drawback from Quicksilver is the -2 fort, the -2hp/level doesn't really mean that much, it gives you a huge speed boost so you don't get hit).

If you're talking about Serene, Cognitive, Bestial, yeah they have insane drawbacks. But you really don't want to use those anyway because they're just awful (Cognitive has a niche for out of combat stuff and might be a case where the minor version is the best because it has the shortest duration).

This wasn't me. I think you were responding to Temperans.

Because of that, comparisons between the DPR of a given spell against a generic enemy, vs a martial character against a generic enemy will always, and should always, fail to impress.

So basically we're back to "People who want to play spellcasters this way deserve to suck."

It's weird. In other threads about other classes, when certain playstyles or builds underperform, there's always a push to try to figure out how to make it work or get Paizo to make changes to make it better.

Here it's celebrated righteously. The idea that you should not be allowed to play the character you want and instead should be compelled to play the "correct" version of the class is met with thunderous applause.

Unicore wrote:

Because of that, comparisons between the DPR of a given spell against a generic enemy, vs a martial character against a generic enemy will always, and should always, fail to impress.

So basically we're back to "People who want to play spellcasters this way deserve to suck."

It's weird. In other threads about other classes, when certain playstyles or builds underperform, there's always a push to try to figure out how to make it work or get Paizo to make changes to make it better.

Here it's celebrated righteously. The idea that you should not be allowed to play the character you want and instead should be compelled to play the "correct" version of the class is met with thunderous applause.

I truly am sorry if my response sounded like I was saying casters, or wizards specifically should suck at single target damage. That was not my intention. I have been saying that in PF2, classes are defined by niches and the wizard's niche in PF2 is not single target damage, which means that it does take work to make a wizard be good at it. Wizards can do many other things, and can even be good at single target damage, but it is situational and dependent upon them being able to match the the exact right spell load out to the situation they are about to enter. That play style is more complicated than many players are ready to jump into, and it definitely contributes to viewing wizards as "less good" but if being a blaster was your character goal, then you really should be considering sorcerer instead of wizard.

Which I get feels off if you had a blaster wizard in PF1, but PF2 is really into its class niches and generic blaster is just not a great fit for the wizard, nor is class niche getting in the way of previous character concepts limited to the blaster wizard..

This wasn't me. I think you were responding to Temperans.

Sorry about that, deleted the wrong quote bit.

Two out of Five is not exactly a glowing recommendation. Its like saying "shield rules aren't broken, look at Sturdy Shield! Its fine!"

Well there's Silvertongue (which is quite good actually) and Juggernaut (which IMO sucks but there's a niche for it). So 3.5/7 are decent, still not a glowing recommendation but 50% of your stuff being usable is actually pretty good.

So basically we're back to "People who want to play spellcasters this way deserve to suck."

It's weird. In other threads about other classes, when certain playstyles or builds underperform, there's always a push to try to figure out how to make it work or get Paizo to make changes to make it better.

Here it's celebrated righteously. The idea that you should not be allowed to play the character you want and instead should be compelled to play the "correct" version of the class is met with thunderous applause.

The problem is that people want blasters to do competitive damage with martials while also maintaining the flexibility to swap out to a debuff focus, buff focus or utility focus tomorrow, and that won't really be balanced.

So I'm going to ask this question: What are you prepared to give up to play a pure blaster? Are you prepared to give up everything except Evocation spells that deal damage?

@Unicorn I know that you arent against blasters, we just have slightly different ideas as to how much it should be a niche.

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@Exocist

Most people who want to play Blasters just want to learn every spell fitting a theme, and focus on preparing damage as their default set of spells: as opposed to a bunch of random buff/debuffs.

In either case you are saying that the Wizard should be punished for doing what its designed to do.

What if Fighters were punished for not using their chosen group and instead other groups were just expert. I mean the versatility needs to be punished no? Except you know, Evocation Wizards are meant to be masters at using damaging spells but "they can prepare nerf their damage".

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I was one of the person who said Arcane Schools not having penalties was bad for specialist wizards. So careful before saying I want them to do all.

Squiggins wrote:

So basically we're back to "People who want to play spellcasters this way deserve to suck."

It's weird. In other threads about other classes, when certain playstyles or builds underperform, there's always a push to try to figure out how to make it work or get Paizo to make changes to make it better.

Here it's celebrated righteously. The idea that you should not be allowed to play the character you want and instead should be compelled to play the "correct" version of the class is met with thunderous applause.

The problem is that people want blasters to do competitive damage with martials while also maintaining the flexibility to swap out to a debuff focus, buff focus or utility focus tomorrow, and that won't really be balanced.

So I'm going to ask this question: What are you prepared to give up to play a pure blaster? Are you prepared to give up everything except Evocation spells that deal damage?

I mean, is it really that much better than what Martials can do? Spellcasters being able to use Fear spells in place of Intimidation checks (or with Intimidation in a Sorcerer or Bard's case), Dimension Door versus being able to move so fast and so flexibly (through Leaps and such) to reach a destination instead, utilizing Spell Slots to do combat maneuvers that Martials who invest in it can basically be equal or better at and can do it all day...

I'm not saying there aren't things that Spellcasters can do that Martials can't, but those things are pretty iconic, like Magic Missiles and Invisibility. And the thing(s) we forget is Martials can do those things too if they invest in it; some just don't, won't, or can't (because they don't account for it in their build choices).

As for what they're willing to give up? Armor proficiencies, HP, solid Perception (AKA Initiative), Offensive Item/Weapon bonuses, Master+ Saving Throws with abilities like Evasion, Juggernaut, etc. And reduced main proficiency scaling aren't enough of a sacrifice for being able to just turn Invisible (which isn't as strong as it used to be), Mirror Images (nerfed to the ground big-time), Haste (useful and more for Martials than Spellcasters), and do a ton of damage with spells that can (and very easily will) harm allies if not done correctly? Which can be easily saved, resisted, or immunized if you aren't aware of the enemy's powers?

I really think people like blowing things out of proportion as to what benefits a spellcaster in 2e really have over a martial.

@Darksol the logic I see used is:

Casters can use Buff and Debuffs which makes martials super strong. So casters wanting to do damage is bad, because the martials wont get help and the caster will be better 2-4 times a day.

Ignoring all the bad stats, bad feats, lack of items, and overall sad state of casters. Getting more items to help spells and casters would be so nice.

Thank you but there are several areas which you skim a bit too fast.

"Cantrips are intended to be weaker" - yes, but that says nothing about how much weaker. Your statement makes the situation come across as much more "as intended" and much less problematic than the real situation: Electric Arc deals only half of a martial, and every other cantrip is just garbage (except when used in their optimal corner cases). For a game so obsessive about math and balance, it comes across as a real tangible failure. That is a problem I'd call in urgent need of errata.

Let's not exaggerate here. At 7th level, a Wizard using Telekinetic Projectile has a DPR of 12.6. One using Electric Arc on two targets has a DPR of 21. A Fighter with a bow has a DPR of 24.7 on two attacks (with Double Shot), and one with a greatsword has a DPR of 31.

Electric Arc deals almost full martial ranged damage (albeit to two targets), and even other cantrips are doing half that.

That's not great, but it's a meaningful slice of damage, and given greater power when they use spells, lower power when they don't is fair.

Now, do I think it should be this much lower for non-Electric Arc cantrips? No, I think Electric Arc is balanced about right. That said, I think an item adding to attack rolls on spells and possibly one adding damage to cantrips fix this without the need for errata.

At least at 5th level spells (with slots) are competitive with martial damage, but certainly not significantly better.

5th level is one of the worst levels for casters, since martial Expert Proficiency has kicked in, and the caster's hasn't yet. And even there, things like fireball are indeed significantly better if used properly.

And the notion that you should devote all four of your high level slots to Fireball is just boring. Plus, Fireball is always (in every D&D iteration) ahead of the curve compared to other spells. If that's the case in PF2 too, it doesn't look too good for casters of level 3, 7, and 9...

I in no way said you should take that many fireballs. You shouldn't. I was just using it as an example since you did. Using five different spells is way more math than I was gonna do for a discussion like this.

And saying that it's ahead of the curve on damage in factually false in PF2. As others note, Lightning Bolt does better damage than Fireball. Fireball does mediocre damage in a larger area than average. Making it ideal for large numbers of foes, but not 'ahead of the curve'.

You think you compare apples to apples when you compare martial and magic ranged, but really, you're not. That presupposes that you don't need to risk melee, which of course you do.

Instead you need to count melee as the default for martial damage. Then you ask the caster if she wants to use melee or ranged spell damage. She will invariably tell you "I'm good at a distance", which leads us to the real comparison that defines actual play: melee martials and ranged casters.

For instance, looking at just the models I'm sure a d12 damage die for a cantrip comes across as overpowered. But since it requires the caster to either move into melee and then stay there, or already be in melee and then move out, the benefit for taking such a huge risk (which for a caster is much greater than a martial) must be very very good. You simply don't do that as a Wizard just to deal +1 DPR per spell level.

Just glossing over this with a "they pay for that in risks taken" doesn't really work. SOMEONE must stand in melee - PF2 monsters are sufficiently mobile that the 5E strategy of denying melee bruisers their attacks isn't viable (at least not at low levels). Especially given official Adventure Paths, where combats nearly always start within charging distance.

So no, a Fighter entering melee doesn't pay a risk. He's taking up the melee slot someone else would have to take otherwise. As a party there's no extra risk here - as if melee combat was a choice you could avoid, as if melee combat needed to incentivize you with extra damage or you would simply say "no thanks".

Someone does need to be in melee, it's true, but it does not follow at all that therefore ranged should do equal damage to melee combat. That's not how it works among separate martial characters, and thus not how it should work for casters either.

It is assumed that some party members will engage in melee, and that those characters both need to spend actions moving among targets as well as taking greater risks, and thus they will deal more damage. That is true across the martial/caster divide.

Sure, that's no extra risk to the party, but personally, the melee characters take more hits and thus get to hit harder in return. That's fundamental to the way PF2's combat works and trying to change it for casters only is not gonna work out well.

Now, a d12 melee cantrip would indeed be reasonable as a further example of this, but it'd probably need to be a new cantrip, not one of the existing ones.

In summary: of course you want to wait for two or three (or five!) targets before you cast Fireball. The question is: why are you content with merely good when you're spending one out of three or four slots? Such limited resources should produce more than merely good! (And it still does not help casters at levels 1-4)

Fireball is more than good when you get into situations where it's good.

Say you're 5th level and fighting an Ogre Boss and four Ogre Warriors. That's an Extreme encounter, and is so for a reason (even at level-2, Ogres hit hard). With a single Fireball, your DPR vs. this encounter is something like 150. Now, that's obviously a pretty ideal encounter for fireball (or pretty ideal among actual risky encounters), but a DPR of 40-150 depending on who you're fighting is not too shabby.

If you wait for low Reflex enemies (which are not uncommon), your DPR may well be on par with the Fighter's or above per enemy. That's much more impressive than you're making it out to be.

I'm not saying this to exactly argue with you, Deadmanwalking.

It's more that I would have wished you to acknowledge this as more of a real fundamental problem. Your post comes off as "yes its an issue but not a huge deal".

It is a huge deal. Not just all those wasted cantrips.

We clearly disagree regarding what is a problem.

Cantrips other than Electric Arc are a problem, as are spells that require an attack roll. Spells requiring Saves are not a problem, they work fine and are effective.

5th level is one of the worst levels for casters, since martial Expert Proficiency has kicked in, and the caster's hasn't yet.

Honestly the staggered proficiency is one thing that really bugs me. It needlessly complicates the math when two people are targeting the same thing but their proficiencies scale at different rates, inevitably with how impactful +2s are in this game someone is going to feel bad and someone else is going to feel good.

I love PF2 but I really feel like, just in general, there are a lot of decisions surrounding proficiency that feel like a big miss.

Let's not exaggerate here. At 7th level, a Wizard using Telekinetic Projectile has a DPR of 12.6. One using Electric Arc on two targets has a DPR of 21. A Fighter with a bow has a DPR of 24.7 on two attacks (with Double Shot), and one with a greatsword has a DPR of 31.

Electric Arc deals almost full martial ranged damage (albeit to two targets), and even other cantrips are doing half that.

That's not great, but it's a meaningful slice of damage, and given greater power when they use spells, lower power when they don't is fair.

Now, do I think it should be this much lower for non-Electric Arc cantrips? No, I think Electric Arc is balanced about right. That said, I think an item adding to attack rolls on spells and possibly one adding damage to cantrips fix this without the need for errata.

I think Electric Arc is a little over the power of where cantrips should be. It's stronger than the double shot fighter versus particular targets, like Plate wearing enemies. If there are 2 plate wearing enemies, then electric arc is actually just as effective as any martial in that situation. If there are enough cantrips with similar power to electric arc but different situations that are good in, I think we'll see caster supremacy again this edition.

Now, the damage cantrips outside of Electric Arc are certainly under, but I think there's some middle ground. Electric Arc has the advantages of save based, ranged, and multiple targets; that's 2 advantages over any other damage cantrip. I want to see damage cantrips that are 1 advantage over the non-Electric Arc damage cantrips.

@Darksol the logic I see used is:

Casters can use Buff and Debuffs which makes martials super strong. So casters wanting to do damage is bad, because the martials wont get help and the caster will be better 2-4 times a day.

Ignoring all the bad stats, bad feats, lack of items, and overall sad state of casters. Getting more items to help spells and casters would be so nice.

I think a lot of us just think the failings of casters are being overstated.

I think the 4 spell per level casters are looking like B tier characters currently. I'm happy the game took that route with balancing; casters are going to naturally get stronger as the spell lists expand. I think they had to leave some power level to the side so that the game would age more gracefully. Alchemists, I think, are in a similar boat, but they are worse off because alchemy hasn't had as much thought put into it as spellcasting.

Clerics, the other full casters, would be under as well if Heal wasn't so pushed. I think we'll see them get more interesting over time as more spells release.

I don't think you're wrong to push for more power for casters. I do think that needs to happen at some point. I hope they take it at a slow pace so that they don't overshoot it; it's going to be really easy for them to overshoot as evidenced by all of the other editions of DnD(except 4th Ed) and Pathfinder.

Unicore wrote:

This wasn't me. I think you were responding to Temperans.

Sorry about that, deleted the wrong quote bit.

Draco18s wrote:

Two out of Five is not exactly a glowing recommendation. Its like saying "shield rules aren't broken, look at Sturdy Shield! Its fine!"

Well there's Silvertongue (which is quite good actually) and Juggernaut (which IMO sucks but there's a niche for it). So 3.5/7 are decent, still not a glowing recommendation but 50% of your stuff being usable is actually pretty good.

That's within statistical significance of how many shields are good.

Deadmanwalking wrote:

5th level is one of the worst levels for casters, since martial Expert Proficiency has kicked in, and the caster's hasn't yet.

Honestly the staggered proficiency is one thing that really bugs me. It needlessly complicates the math when two people are targeting the same thing but their proficiencies scale at different rates, inevitably with how impactful +2s are in this game someone is going to feel bad and someone else is going to feel good.

I love PF2 but I really feel like, just in general, there are a lot of decisions surrounding proficiency that feel like a big miss.

I'm also not a fan of the staggered proficiency changes between casters and martials. It artificially creates a feel bad experience at levels 5 and 6. It might do the same in the later valley, but I don't know if that's the case for sure because I haven't played through it.

Exocist wrote:

Unicore wrote:

This wasn't me. I think you were responding to Temperans.

Sorry about that, deleted the wrong quote bit.

Draco18s wrote:

Two out of Five is not exactly a glowing recommendation. Its like saying "shield rules aren't broken, look at Sturdy Shield! Its fine!"

Well there's Silvertongue (which is quite good actually) and Juggernaut (which IMO sucks but there's a niche for it). So 3.5/7 are decent, still not a glowing recommendation but 50% of your stuff being usable is actually pretty good.

That's within statistical significance of how many shields are good.

(Was something like 9 out of 17)

I don't think shield rules are broken in general. +2 AC is phenomenal without ever using Shield Block. Sturdy shields are there to use shield block.

The shields that have effects during a shield block that aren't sturdy shields are broken. It sucks that those shields suck.

This is outside the thread discussion, though, so I won't speak about that here again.

Everyone keeps talking about electric arc being OP

it also requires your squishy caster to be within 30 ft of enemy(s) vs something like ray of frost (120 ft)

im not saying the damage isn't a bit much but.. 30 ft is close range

Acid Splash, Divine Lance, Produce Flame and Telekinetic Projectile are also 30 feet.

Chill Touch is melee, even.

So while Ray of Frost has some valid use cases, I do think it's fair to sort of squint at Electric Arc vs those other spells.

TK has higher damage dice at least, but Chill Touch trades two targets and even less range for just a better crit effect, Produce Flame loses the miss-effect and two targets for a better crit effect, acid splash loses pretty much across the board and divine lance... exists.

We've talked enough about caster to-hit issues that I think it's clear that better crit effects aren't a great boon here.

I don't think shield rules are broken in general. +2 AC is phenomenal without ever using Shield Block. Sturdy shields are there to use shield block.

So. The first half of that is irrelevant to the point I was referring to, that Shield Block is broken (yes, I did generalize, but it was a specific issue I was referring to, and the fact that you were able to hone in on that issue and quibble about it means that my language was sufficient and that you are being pedantic for the sake of being pedantic).

The shields that have effects during a shield block that aren't sturdy shields are broken. It sucks that those shields suck.

So, you agree that the rules I was referring to are, in fact, a problem.

Acid Splash, Divine Lance, Produce Flame and Telekinetic Projectile are also 30 feet.

Chill Touch is melee, even.

So while Ray of Frost has some valid use cases, I do think it's fair to sort of squint at Electric Arc vs those other spells.

TK has higher damage dice at least, but Chill Touch trades two targets and even less range for just a better crit effect, Produce Flame loses the miss-effect and two targets for a better crit effect, acid splash loses pretty much across the board and divine lance... exists.

We've talked enough about caster to-hit issues that I think it's clear that better crit effects aren't a great boon here.

I really do get this sentiment, and I think that using two actions to cast a cantrip was supposed to be seen as a sub-optimal choice of actions for casters by design of the game. That is a big part of why I don't think items that just boost cantrip accuracy are a very good add on to the game, because I don't see how, by the ways spells are constructed, that a caster should be excited about investing gold and character resources into boosting their cantrips. At low levels players won't be having those items and by higher levels cantrips really should only be actions taken in later rounds when it seems like the rest of the party has a combat wrapped up, or you are pairing a cantrip with a sustain action to do something else more valuable. Or the cantrip does a specific kind of damage that is very useful to the situation at hand, in which case its usage fits into the "Wizards use the right spell for the job" situation where they usually shine and take the spot light.

In that regard, I think the developers did give a lot more weight to the critical effect, so that casters using cantrips have something they can get excited about happening, but it is an uncommon effect. I think electric arc is pretty much the only nod that was given to casters looking at cantrips as an every round kind of steady but unspectacular spell (no special critical effect).

The problem is that people want blasters to do competitive damage with martials while also maintaining the flexibility to swap out to a debuff focus, buff focus or utility focus tomorrow, and that won't really be balanced.

So I'm going to ask this question: What are you prepared to give up to play a pure blaster? Are you prepared to give up everything except Evocation spells that deal damage?

What would my primal sorcerer give up to we a better blaster? Would losing all buff/debuff effects and spells be enough (I want to play a blaster, not an inferior bard)? I could throw in restrictions on training in all Charisma-based skills if that's not enough. As a primal sorcerer, my character doesn't even get access to true strike or invisibility, and can only learn one of them using crossblooded evolution at 8th level (when the martials are all getting their cloaks of elvenkind).

In that regard, I think the developers did give a lot more weight to the critical effect, so that casters using cantrips have something they can get excited about happening, but it is an uncommon effect.

Hmm. I wonder if this is an unintended side effect of boosting proficiencies from the playtest.

In the playtest, proficiency gave you a bonus of 1 per proficiency level, but in the published rules this is increased to 2 per proficiency level. I think this was a good change overall, but it does make the "feelbad" levels where your proficiency is lagging behind feel worse. It also means that crits are much rarer for casters than martials. The playtest also had spell duelist's gloves and spell duelist's wand giving a bonus to melee and ranged spell attacks, respectively (I couldn't find anything boosting DCs though).

On the other hand, proficiency increases for casters came online much later in the playtest - at levels 12, 16, and 19. So who knows?

I mean, is it really that much better than what Martials can do?

Yeah, it can be.

My last PFS session I played a L4 druid. We knew what the final challenge was going to be (more or less) so I was able to nearly totally solve it by carefully picking the right level 2 spells.

In an Age of Ashes campaign, the cleric regularly casts Fear. Getting 5 enemies at once is kinda good for a level 3 spell (admittedly, Age of Ashes has several fights with groups containing lots of mooks).

A well placed fireball took out a bunch of mooks in the same Age of Ashes campaign. While it probably mathematically did not make a huge difference (they WERE mooks) it certainly FELT incredibly useful :-).

Casters no longer dominate every fight (Yay) but they can really, really shine every now and then and still contribute all the time.

Which is pretty much where I think they SHOULD be.

If you added to the damage they could do then they really need to give something more up. The armor, hit points can be gotten around fairly easily.

The problem is that right now they ARE well balanced. I totally agree that they're balanced around not being blasters. But that means that if you increase their ability as blasters they have to give up SOMETHING else.

What would my primal sorcerer give up to we a better blaster? Would losing all buff/debuff effects and spells be enough (I want to play a blaster, not an inferior bard)? I could throw in restrictions on training in all Charisma-based skills if that's not enough. As a primal sorcerer, my character doesn't even get access to true strike or invisibility, and can only learn one of them using crossblooded evolution at 8th level (when the martials are all getting their cloaks of elvenkind).

Yeah probably, if you want to lose all your buffs, debuffs, walls and healing then you can have amazing damage evocation.

How to do that? Give a class archetype with a dedication at 2 that gives all your spells +1 (maybe +2) damage per dice. There we go, your Elemental Sorcerer Fireballs at level 5 now deal 6d6+12 (maybe 18).

In return, you can only cast evocation spells with an elemental trait.

"Hooray" support casters can cast any spells they want. But offensive casters can only cast 1 type of spell.

Such a great thing.
/sarcasm.

****************
Would you say its fair that Fighters can not use any weapon that is not from their chosen group? I mean you are suggesting the caster has to lose access to 80%+ of their spell list for +1 damage per dice. And ignores the fact many elemental spells arent just "evocation".

Bluescale wrote:

What would my primal sorcerer give up to we a better blaster? Would losing all buff/debuff effects and spells be enough (I want to play a blaster, not an inferior bard)? I could throw in restrictions on training in all Charisma-based skills if that's not enough. As a primal sorcerer, my character doesn't even get access to true strike or invisibility, and can only learn one of them using crossblooded evolution at 8th level (when the martials are all getting their cloaks of elvenkind).

Yeah probably, if you want to lose all your buffs, debuffs, walls and healing then you can have amazing damage evocation.

How to do that? Give a class archetype with a dedication at 2 that gives all your spells +1 (maybe +2) damage per dice. There we go, your Elemental Sorcerer Fireballs at level 5 now deal 6d6+12 (maybe 18).

In return, you can only cast evocation spells with an elemental trait.

I'm not as worried about increasing the damage as about accuracy. It doesn't matter if I do 1000 points of damage on a hit if I can never hit anything. And that's the thing, when everyone talks about how sorcerers are better blasters, yes they have dangerous sorcery to increase damage, but your chances of success on a spell attack roll are the same as a wizard (or less for a majority of bloodlines, as they don't get true strike).

I'm not as worried about increasing the damage as about accuracy. It doesn't matter if I do 1000 points of damage on a hit if I can never hit anything. And that's the thing, when everyone talks about how sorcerers are better blasters, yes they have dangerous sorcery to increase damage, but your chances of success on a spell attack roll are the same as a wizard (or less for a majority of bloodlines, as they don't get true strike).

Unfortunately, as long as critical failure effects stay the way they are, this isn’t going to happen. Even something like Phantasmal Killer, a blast with a rider, ends combat on a critical failure (they don’t even need to die instantly, frightened 4+fleeing is enough). Boosting their DCs by 2 points boosts the chance of critical failure against level equal monsters from 5-10% (depending on if you target a strong or weak save) to 15-20%, which is IMO way too high of a chance to end combat off a single spell.

Would you say its fair that Fighters can not use any weapon that is not from their chosen group? I mean you are suggesting the caster has to lose access to 80%+ of their spell list for +1 damage per dice. And ignores the fact many elemental spells arent just "evocation".

To be honest, if fighters had untrained in every weapon group but their chosen one I don’t think anything would change. You’re only going to use your favoured weapon group anyway. Short of getting stripped of gear and needing to change weapons or some very specific scenarios, I think just one weapon group would cover 99% of gameplay.

Comparing caster spell groups to weapon groups isn’t exactly a correct comparison. Weapons just do damage and have some other minor differentials in traits. It’s not like you’re picking between swords for damage, hammers for debuffs and polearms for buffs. You’re picking between swords for damage (+ other damage types), hammers for damage (+shove/Trip) or polearms for damage (+reach).

The equivalent would be a caster who was expert DC and expert spell attack specifically with their choice of element evocation spells, and trained with all other evocations, scaling to legendary in their choice at 13 and legendary in all others at 19.

I've read the 54 new replies, so thank you for that.

What gets me the most is the people saying the current cantrip balance is deliberate (talking about the playtest).

That dismays me since it's so obvious 75% of existing cantrips are garbage that will go completely unused.

I have a really hard time wrapping my head around the fact that anybody could argue for the current balance between cantrips :(

---

As for the other discussions, my main takeaway is that casters should not expect to blast. They should do buff, debuff, heal and utility.

Maybe not my players' first priority, but at least it's good to be able to recalibrate one's expectations.

As for the debuffing game, we need to play more. At least so far, nobody has seen giving the BBEG a -1 as a worthwhile endeavor. That is, it's something people try to sell in here on the forums. We just don't see it - yet.

If you're used to setting off awesome explosions, I guess being told "you should expect to deal out -1's, and to be happy about it" is a real culture shock...

We'll see.

What gets me the most is the people saying the current cantrip balance is deliberate (talking about the playtest).

Wait, who said this? I didn't catch whoever it was, and I'm pretty sure they're factually wrong.

Cantrips changed a lot from the playtest, but most of them actually got powered up rather than down (at 20th, in the playtest, most cantrips did 4d6+7 at most, they now do 10d4+7), and even the removal of items to add to attacks was clearly mostly due to Proficiency becoming more relevant (though that hasn't worked out and I expect such items back in soon, probably in the APG).

Which is not to say that these changes were necessarily all for the good, and they likely didn't go far enough and were done unevenly, but there were a lot of them, and they were clearly intended to power cantrips up from the playtest.

Which means that the current balance cannot even be inferred to be intentional, since cantrips have changed a whole lot since the playtest.

As for the other discussions, my main takeaway is that casters should not expect to blast. They should do buff, debuff, heal and utility.

Maybe not my players' first priority, but at least it's good to be able to recalibrate one's expectations.

As for the debuffing game, we need to play more. At least so far, nobody has seen giving the BBEG a -1 as a worthwhile endeavor. That is, it's something people try to sell in here on the forums. We just don't see it - yet.

If you're used to setting off awesome explosions, I guess being told "you should expect to deal out -1's, and to be happy about it" is a real culture shock...

We'll see.

Being a wizard is about having a box of tools for the situation. Blasting is one such tool in their arsenal, and can be good against a lot of opponents if the party has no easy way to clear a crowd efficiently otherwise. A fighter or barbarian can cleave through them one at a time, but it would take a long while to do so. A wizard dropping an AoE should kill them all or put them to single hit range.

Regarding inflicting -1s - yeah it can feel a bit lame at points, especially at low levels where successful save = -1, failed save = -2 usually, but once you get to around 4th level spells you start getting more fun debuffs, and blasts with riders.

The reason I tend to recommend Universalist a lot is because Hand of the Apprentice is a very decent spell for single target damage (due to its interaction with potency runes) and means all you need is some True Strikes or a Staff of Divination (training in a Maul, Hooked Hammer, Katana or Greatpick would help, but a Staff is serviceable) to handle your entire single target damage side (against solo monsters when you can’t Debuff them any more or don’t need to/don’t want to spend slots). From there, I would suggest 1 blast for fort/ref/will in your top 2 levels of slot, and 1 Debuff for fort/ref/will as well. Use Drain Bonded Item to get them back if you need it again.

I think this spell list accomplishes combat pretty well at level 7 as an evocation specialist wizard:

Cantrip - Electric Arc, Shield, TK Projectile, Ray of Frost
1st - True Strike x2, Gust of Wind, Hydraulic Push.
2nd - Glitterdust, Spider Climb, Blur, Mirror Image.
3rd - Flaming Sphere, Magic Missile, Grim Tendrils, Fireball.
4th - Phantasmal Killer, Acid Arrow, Fireball.

Add a staff of divination on top of that for 4 more true striked cantrips a day.

Find out the enemy low saves and target them with your save based spells over the course of the adventuring day. If they don't have an obvious weak save, use one of the true striked attack roll spells or Magic Missile. Use the level 2 spells to save you from being killed: spider climb versus melee, blur versus ranged, mirror image versus elites.

Fireball is currently your best AOE, so I prepped it twice. Throw one when you see 3 or more enemies together that don't have high reflex saves.

Grim Tendrils is there to hit a caster(low fort saves) and his buddy since a line can almost always be manipulated to hit 2 enemies.