All About Spells

What does this mean, ( dying value can't exceed 3) in the Regeneration Spell block:

"While it has regeneration, the target can't die from damage and its dying value can't exceed 3."

Dying 4 is dead. A character with regeneration cannot die while their regeneration is active. The wording does seem a bit redundant, but is probably written to account for effects (bleed maybe?) that increase dying value without dealing damage.

Diego Rossi wrote:

CLARIFY FROM THE START IF SPELLS AND ABILITIES HAVE SOME FORM OF MANIFESTATION AND IF IT IS VISIBLE, AUDIBLE OR PERCEIVED IN SOME OTHER WAY

Sorry for shouting that, but I think it is important. It change the balance about having access to mind affecting magic.

Personally I am in favor of easily perceptible manifestations that point to the spellcaster, with costly (in term of actions, prerequisites or chance of success) abilities that allow a caster to remove the manifestation, or to make it appear to generate from a different location.

- * - * -

I suppose that now all spellcasters work like the arcanist for spell know/prepared?

- * - * -

Please, be careful with the spell point and related abilities. Having people that go nova in the first two encounters and then ask the party to rest for the whole day is something I (and most if not all of my friends) really dislike.

I have no idea what you mean. The three spell components are self-explanatory: Verbal, Somatic, and Material.

Verbal= speech
Somatic= hand movements
Material= use of material

If you take actions to remove verbal and somatic from a spell that includes all 3, the caster still has to use a material component, which means handling it in some fashion. Likely to be seen unless they've got a good sleight of hand, etc. or nobody is paying attention.

Roughly circa the release of Occult Adventures, and thus the advent of casters whose spells naturally lacked visible components, Paizo issued a clarification through FAQs that both Psychic spells and 'normal' magic which had been metamagiced to remove components nonetheless still had visible 'manifestations' which meant that any onlooker could recognize that a spell was being cast, and make a Spellcraft check to identify it as appropriate. The intention was to avoid empowering psychic casters with an ability to hide their castings which required sigificant investment for arcane/divine casters, but in the process it made various 'subtle' spells exceedingly difficult to pull off. That's what's being referred to.

I don't think I'm giving away more than I did in the blog by saying, the Spell Points would be instead of tracking "10 uses of bit of luck, 2 uses of tugging strands, 1 use of deflection aura, and 14 rounds of aura of protection." You'd just have Spell Points and use them to cast those four spells.

Okay, so the spell points are really only for spells, and they're a shared pool among all spell gained as not-SLAs. That does make the name «spell point» a bit more appropriate.

So will non-spell abilities like Rage, Panache, Ki etc. not be subsumed into the same mechanic? Or will there be a martial equivalent of spell points used for those things?

Will all such abilities now be spells proper, or can you still have things like a Mystery's Revelation that uses spell points but does not correspond to a spell?

Dragon78 wrote:

So there are only four spell lists correct?

So that would be cleric, druid, wizard/sorcerer, and maybe bard?

It could be that, or it could be as someone way upthread (and now also TriOmegaZero ninjaing me right above) suggested, that as "arcane" is made of "material and mental" magic, and "divine" is "vital and spiritual" magic, then the lists might be material/mental/spiritual/vital.

That could also be taking the description waaaaaaaaaaay out of context...

You're right, of course, that this is speculative. But I would love for it to be true.

One of the most unsatisfying features of the PF1 spell lists, for me, has been a lack of understanding for why certain spells appeared on certain spell lists and not others. And that leads to the feeling that it's more or less an arbitrary assignment.

It would be much cooler to have a crisp, intelligible story to tell for why these classes can cast these spells, and not these other spells. And the material/mental/spiritual/vital designation would provide such a story.

Mark Seifter wrote:

I don't think I'm giving away more than I did in the blog by saying, the Spell Points would be instead of tracking "10 uses of bit of luck, 2 uses of tugging strands, 1 use of deflection aura, and 14 rounds of aura of protection." You'd just have Spell Points and use them to cast those four spells.

So will non-spell abilities like Rage, Panache, Ki etc. not be subsumed into the same mechanic? Or will there be a martial equivalent of spell points used for those things?

Like Stamina, for instance?

I find myself joining others who have expressed worries about higher level trumping with spell effects. It is very common to fight a spell caster who is two or more levels higher than the group.

I am curious as to if spell casters will need to take proficiency with things like Melee Touch Attacks or (if they exist) Ranged Touch Attacks. I look forward to exactly what is now made into a proficiency. Will different schools have proficiency ratings so that you could do a more specialized Elemental Magic mage or Enchantment mage just off how they allocated their proficiencies in magic?

Being able to link essences with AND or OR would solve the problem of having class-exclusive or multi-class spells. Protection from Evil could be «Spirit 1 or Mental 1», allowing both Clerics and Wizards to cast it at 1st level, whereas Shillelagh could be «Vital 1 and Material 1», requiring a 1st level Druid (or higher-level Ranger?). Maybe a Wizard could even gain proficiency with Vital 1 through a feat, allowing them to pick up Shillelagh but not higher-level Druid spells.

Hells, you could even have Druids advance in Material less quickly than in Vital so they'd pick up Fireball later than Wizards... hmmm.

(That said, though, I'm hoping Shillelagh will be a Druid cantrip like in 5e so it can be used as a reliable mainstay combat option.)

Catharsis wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

I don't think I'm giving away more than I did in the blog by saying, the Spell Points would be instead of tracking "10 uses of bit of luck, 2 uses of tugging strands, 1 use of deflection aura, and 14 rounds of aura of protection." You'd just have Spell Points and use them to cast those four spells.

So will non-spell abilities like Rage, Panache, Ki etc. not be subsumed into the same mechanic? Or will there be a martial equivalent of spell points used for those things?

Like Stamina, for instance?

I'd be okay for flavor reasons if martial abilities were grouped into a separate pool like Stamina, even if for simplification / unification reasons I'd prefer it all be the same pool. As long as they work basically the same, it won't be too much more for players to remember.

Mark Seifter wrote:

I don't think I'm giving away more than I did in the blog by saying, the Spell Points would be instead of tracking "10 uses of bit of luck, 2 uses of tugging strands, 1 use of deflection aura, and 14 rounds of aura of protection." You'd just have Spell Points and use them to cast those four spells.

Okay, so the spell points are really only for spells, and they're a shared pool among all spell gained as not-SLAs. That does make the name «spell point» a bit more appropriate.

So will non-spell abilities like Rage, Panache, Ki etc. not be subsumed into the same mechanic? Or will there be a martial equivalent of spell points used for those things?

Will all such abilities now be spells proper, or can you still have things like a Mystery's Revelation that uses spell points but does not correspond to a spell?

The way I'm reading around Mark's coyness with this is that Rage, Panache abilities, Ki Powers, etc ARE spells. They just might not appear on a spell list, but mechanically, they are 'spells', and follow the rules as such - except they use spell points, instead of spell slots. I'm thinking any 'complex' activity like these are going to end up being 'spells' on paper.

To be honest, I'm completely okay with this if that IS the case - but the question about how the spell point pool is sized, especially regarding multiclassed characters, will be very important to know and discuss.

DeathQuaker wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

A lot of different and good points here. Here's some responses with bullet points. Breaking out pieces of quotes to respond would just make the post look big and confusing.

*We're not particularly constraining spells to a certain size, but our goal is to make them simpler to understand while preserving (or sometimes increasing) functionality. If that allows them to fit on memory aids like you say, so much the better! That said, some spells are going to reference other spells, much fewer thanks to heightening, but some. For instance, it's not really fair to say that cloudkill is merely a heightened version of obscuring mist; it's its own spell with some crossover mechanics.

*If you play classes like cleric (which admittedly you might not), you still have to keep track of "I have 10 uses of bit of luck, 2 uses of tugging strands, 1 use of deflection aura, and 14 rounds of aura of protection" for instance. (incidentally, for those reading alon, who can tell me all the specs of my example PF1 cleric based on only this information?)

*You might have to send us cookies. Paizo's address is on the contact us page ;)

Simplifying is good! I'll take it.

Well, I might be exaggerating a a little on the counting thing, I do track bardic rounds of performance an awful lot lately. If the spell points actually simplifies tracking existing abilities/effects, that may well work fine for me. I just don't want a lot more to track on TOP of the kind of stuff you list (protection domain, luck domain/fate subdomain), or have weird recovery circumstances to remember.

I will ready the chocolate chips and dried cherries and watch carefully. :)

I don't think I'm giving away more than I did in the blog by saying, the Spell Points would be instead of tracking "10 uses of bit of luck, 2 uses of tugging strands, 1 use of deflection aura, and 14 rounds of aura of protection." You'd just have Spell Points and use them to cast those four spells.

Mark,

Twofold question:

1) would this be a single pool for all of the items to draw from?

2) how does that work for multiclassing? Is it being taken into account that a level 1 cleric / level 1 bard would not get double the spell points?

Mark, how does that work for multiclassing? Is it being taken into account that a level 1 cleric / level 1 bard would not get double the spell points?

How does it work in PF1 if you multiclass monk and ninja?

If the target takes acid or fire damage, its regeneration deactivates until after the end of its next turn.

Is there any particular reason a spell version of regeneration with a limited duration has the same vulnerabilities as a troll with the same feature permanently?

It just seems weird that it has those vulnerabilities when it has always only been symptomatic of lore regarding trolls, since other creatures with an identical ability had different vulnerabilities.

Tallow wrote:

Mark, how does that work for multiclassing? Is it being taken into account that a level 1 cleric / level 1 bard would not get double the spell points?

How does it work in PF1 if you multiclass monk and ninja?

That really Resonates with me.

How does it work in PF1 if you multiclass monk and ninja?

If the ninja possesses levels in another class that grants points to a ki pool, ninja levels stack with the levels of that class to determine the total number of ki points in the combined pool, but only one ability score modifier is added to the total. The choice of which score to use is made when the second class ability is gained, and once made, the choice is set. The ninja can now use ki points from this pool to power the abilities of every class she possesses that grants a ki pool.

Simple and straight-forward. I like it.

The Ninja analogy assumes all spell-point powers work with the same pool scaling and share the same (lack of) regeneration method. For instance, having something like a Hungry Ghost Monk regenerate spell points could wreak havoc on another class' balancing if that class assumes spell points don't regenerate. Same with the Swashbuckler's regenerating Panache points (which I liked a lot).

The most burning question remains, though: Do martials get spell points, something similar but separate, or nothing of the sort?

(In any case, I'm still in favor of renaming the spell points so as not to confuse them too much with spell slots. Power points seems like a natural choice.)

Regeneration wrote:

If the target takes acid or fire damage, its regeneration deactivates until after the end of its next turn.

Is there any particular reason a spell version of regeneration with a limited duration has the same vulnerabilities as a troll with the same feature permanently?

It just seems weird that it has those vulnerabilities when it has always only been symptomatic of lore regarding trolls, since other creatures with an identical ability had different vulnerabilities.

No need to shout.

Because the spell is based on troll regeneration?
Because the dying rules put them above 0 every round and so the spell needs a weakness to avoid requiring a minute of attention to keep somebody down for a minute?
Because combining it with elemental defensive abjurations is kind of interesting interesting preparation?
Because it’s iconic?

Why aren't Spell Points and Resonance one and the same? It would be one less thing to keep track of. *shrug*

It may sound really stupid, but why aren't Spell Points and Resonance one and the same? It would be one less thing to keep track of.

If they were, getting a good limited-use item would invalidate your class features by competing for the same resources. It would make balance difficult, and either make charisma too important or remove charisma’s new toy.

It may sound really stupid, but why aren't Spell Points and Resonance one and the same? It would be one less thing to keep track of.

Because Resonance is supposed to be a hard limit and this conflation would allow for a cheap way to circumvent it.

Why aren't Spell Points and Resonance one and the same? It would be one less thing to keep track of. *shrug*

Because otherwise how would casters be able to be on par with fighters ability to raise their shield and gain <shield bonus> to reflex saves at 14th level?

Tallow wrote:

Mark, how does that work for multiclassing? Is it being taken into account that a level 1 cleric / level 1 bard would not get double the spell points?

How does it work in PF1 if you multiclass monk and ninja?

As far as I know you get two different pools of Ki that work separately for each class?

So stacking class levels. That works. So my example would act like a 2nd level cleric or 2nd level bard for number of points in the pool to use for all abilities across both classes?

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Regeneration wrote:

If the target takes acid or fire damage, its regeneration deactivates until after the end of its next turn.

Is there any particular reason a spell version of regeneration with a limited duration has the same vulnerabilities as a troll with the same feature permanently?

It just seems weird that it has those vulnerabilities when it has always only been symptomatic of lore regarding trolls, since other creatures with an identical ability had different vulnerabilities.

No need to shout.

Because the spell is based on troll regeneration?
Because the dying rules put them above 0 every round and so the spell needs a weakness to avoid requiring a minute of attention to keep somebody down for a minute?
Because combining it with elemental defensive abjurations is kind of interesting interesting preparation?
Because it’s iconic?

It's not shouting until the caps lock comes on.

There are other creatures with regeneration in Golarion lore, limiting it to Trolls because they're the most common and iconic creature with that ability is an arbitrary thing to put on a spell that isn't supposed to be influenced by creature features.

That argument holds no water because it is still a spell, which means abilities that dispel or remove such magic is still an effective way to defeat such foes and circumvent such abilities.

As for that, not really. Casting Protection from Energy and Resist Energy (which I hope they consolidate into one spell) is probably staple at the levels that Regeneration comes into play, so it's about as interesting as outsiders having Spell Resistance, DR, Immunities, and so on.

Roughly circa the release of Occult Adventures, and thus the advent of casters whose spells naturally lacked visible components, Paizo issued a clarification through FAQs that both Psychic spells and 'normal' magic which had been metamagiced to remove components nonetheless still had visible 'manifestations' which meant that any onlooker could recognize that a spell was being cast, and make a Spellcraft check to identify it as appropriate. The intention was to avoid empowering psychic casters with an ability to hide their castings which required sigificant investment for arcane/divine casters, but...

This *really*, *really* needs to be addressed, especially when it comes to spells written and intended for trickery, intrigue, heists and other shenanigans.

An example from another gaming system: From Earthdawn I particularly remember an illusion spell that was short-durationed, immovable, and explicitly started with a "wave of bright color sweeping over the room". Made it absolutely impossible to use it for any form of deceit - which one would assume was the main purpose of illusions.

So, Detect Magic aside, do illusion spells in PF2 have visual manifestations (like that Earthdawn wave of color) that reveal them to be illusions?

QuidEst wrote:

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Regeneration wrote:

If the target takes acid or fire damage, its regeneration deactivates until after the end of its next turn.

Is there any particular reason a spell version of regeneration with a limited duration has the same vulnerabilities as a troll with the same feature permanently?

It just seems weird that it has those vulnerabilities when it has always only been symptomatic of lore regarding trolls, since other creatures with an identical ability had different vulnerabilities.

No need to shout.

Because the spell is based on troll regeneration?
Because the dying rules put them above 0 every round and so the spell needs a weakness to avoid requiring a minute of attention to keep somebody down for a minute?
Because combining it with elemental defensive abjurations is kind of interesting interesting preparation?
Because it’s iconic?

It's not shouting until the caps lock comes on.

There are other creatures with regeneration in Golarion lore, limiting it to Trolls because they're the most common and iconic creature with that ability is an arbitrary thing to put on a spell that isn't supposed to be influenced by creature features.

That argument holds no water because it is still a spell, which means abilities that dispel or remove such magic is still an effective way to defeat such foes and circumvent such abilities.

As for that, not really. Casting Protection from Energy and Resist Energy (which I hope they consolidate into one spell) is probably staple at the levels that Regeneration comes into play, so it's about as interesting as outsiders having Spell Resistance, DR, Immunities, and so on.

That’s fair, sorry.

I can’t think of many creatures with it- a couple evil outsider varieties (whose weaknesses are aligned and would not be a good fit), hydras (?), trolls, and the tarrasque (beyond what spells should probably emulate). I don’t know why the spell shouldn’t be influenced by creatures, though. The terrasque is the only thing with regeneration that can’t be bypassed, I believe. Why would a spell (however briefly) grant that?

I think my argument still holds water. It gives a preparation/martial option. Alchemist is good at dealing with it now, for instance.

Eh, I dunno. My characters don’t usually have spectrum resistances/immunities at high levels. But I think it’s more interesting than there being no loophole to interact with.

I like spell points as a resource that can limit a number of different class abilities. It creates a sort of interesting balance situation where you get decreasing marginal returns on class abilities that that are all keyed to that same resource (as opposed to essentially "constant returns" if each new ability had its own per day use).

But Mark! Allow me to guess a future controversy: why aren't resonance and spell points the same resource analogous to how resolve works in Starfinder?

I can guess a couple answers:
1. You don't want item use resources to compete with spell use resources.
2. You want to generate analogous (or at least competing) mechanics for non-spellcasters.
3. This would probably require that a lot of classes change the keyed stat w/ resonance (which is kind of a debuff to cha that maybe you don't want in 2e).
4. Spell points and resonance points are just separately themed at a conceptual level (though I think "resonance feels kinda magic-y to me no matter what).
5 [later edit] You want spell points and resonance to scale in radically different ways.

For point 1, you could maybe consolidate the mechanics by having a system with a % chance to consume resonance built into casting classes'abilities (both for using class abilities and for equipping and using magic items). [later edit] On point 5, you could just adjust "resonance use chance", to be very different. I know this kind of solution might introduce a potentially-unwanted (or wanted) level of randomness to your daily resource management.

Still, I think a lot of people who want a more streamlined system are going to call foul on this kind of stuff.

*You might have to send us cookies. Paizo's address is on the contact us page ;)

Don't tempt us. I sent a bottle of whiskey to the customer service department this past Friday. I figured they needed it.

tivadar27 wrote:

EDIT: It also jives with the awkward "Spell 5" wording in the previewed contents.

In the layout we expect for the playtest CRB, we've standardized the way that the statblocks look for things like feats, spells, etc so that if you learn how to read one of them, you know how to read them all (they have different entries in them, of course, but the way you can find the information is extremely parallel). A book like this one where everything is in its own chapter probably is fine without telling you that something is a spell, but if you have a player companion type book where a feat is right after a spell that's right after a magic item, it'll be useful to see what sort of rules element something is at a glance by having that information prominent.

Believe me, this is greatly appreciated. Clarity of rules is, as a longtime veteran of certain dice pool-based Storytelling games, quite welcome. Above all else save maybe for the rules themselves being good, the rules information being laid out in a clean, concise manner without unnecessary cruft or ambiguity is a bigtime plus.

Mark Seifter wrote:

*You might have to send us cookies. Paizo's address is on the contact us page ;)

Don't tempt us. I sent a bottle of whiskey to the customer service department this past Friday. I figured they needed it.

That is awesome! They might not need it, but they do deserve it.

You're a hero.

Eliminating critical failures alone for Resistant creatures would emulate the "this thing shrugs off magic" without making them overpowered.

There's nothing inherently overpowered about spell resistance. All you have to do is compensate for it by either increasing a monster's CR or decreasing their stats in some other way to decrease their power level to compensate for the SR.

Having SR means that spellcasters are rewarded for knowing an array of spells that have to take into account whether or not they're facing creatures with SR. It also allows some weaker high level spells that auto-bypass SR to exist and give them a design space to shine in.

In the layout we expect for the playtest CRB, we've standardized the way that the statblocks look for things like feats, spells, etc so that if you learn how to read one of them, you know how to read them all (they have different entries in them, of course, but the way you can find the information is extremely parallel).

I'm really not finding much comfort in this and based on how much we've seen keywords/traits/descriptors appear on the mechanics that have been shown, I'm expecting all powers (regardless whether we call them class feats, ancestry feats or spells they're sound more and more like they're extremely equivalent of each other) will have an assortment of keywords that are included in each entry.

Which leads into a point I've been asking about. For those who think school should be elevated to it's own position in the statblock: You are presuming that school is included as something important as opposed to the Healing keyword or the Positive keyword. If Paizo isn't elevating school to it's own spot it could quite possibly indicate that school isn't particularly important to a spell and is just another keyword. In that case it makes sense not to separate it.

Maybe instead of everything have a black bar, maybe you could have spells be a blue bar and at-will feats and cantrips be a green bar. That way it's immediately obvious which are spells/abilities limited to one use per day and which are abilities that can be reused without limit. Oooh! And magic items could have yellow bars making the difference even easier! I'm sure that presentation won't raise any flags for anyone.

Ninja Ki Pool wrote:

If the ninja possesses levels in another class that grants points to a ki pool, ninja levels stack with the levels of that class to determine the total number of ki points in the combined pool, but only one ability score modifier is added to the total. The choice of which score to use is made when the second class ability is gained, and once made, the choice is set. The ninja can now use ki points from this pool to power the abilities of every class she possesses that grants a ki pool.

Simple and straight-forward. I like it.

Here's a question: How will it work for multiclassed monks and clerics? Can we look at PF1e and assume it will work in a similar fashion as say a swashbuckler/monk?

nogoodscallywag wrote:

What does this mean, ( dying value can't exceed 3) in the Regeneration Spell block:

"While it has regeneration, the target can't die from damage and its dying value can't exceed 3."

Dying 4 is dead. A character with regeneration cannot die while their regeneration is active. The wording does seem a bit redundant, but is probably written to account for effects (bleed maybe?) that increase dying value without dealing damage.

Probably so you don't auto-die at the end of the spell's duration...

KingOfAnything wrote:

nogoodscallywag wrote:

What does this mean, ( dying value can't exceed 3) in the Regeneration Spell block:

"While it has regeneration, the target can't die from damage and its dying value can't exceed 3."

Dying 4 is dead. A character with regeneration cannot die while their regeneration is active. The wording does seem a bit redundant, but is probably written to account for effects (bleed maybe?) that increase dying value without dealing damage.

Probably so you don't auto-die at the end of the spell's duration...

Also so that you don't auto-die getting hit by fire/acid. It'll turn it off for a turn, but then someone also needs to finish you before you regenerate again...

Well you have to give Mark credit his article was so good it cut out all the peripheral arguments and the arguments literally went Directly to semantics. That's some efficiency mark! well done!

It's curious that this article has been received with such praise, given the fact that "essences" and other stuff is a clear deviation from 3.X DnD and those changes often find controversy in the forum.

It's curious that this article has been received with such praise, given the fact that "essences" and other stuff is a clear deviation from 3.X DnD and those changes often find controversy in the forum.

At this point essences appear to be flavour and explain from an in-game/design point of view who gets what spells and why. Once we see the spell lists, if it truly is frankenstein spell lists that each class mashes together we'll possibly see significantly different feedback about "complexity" and "classes losing iconic spells".

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Well you have to give Mark credit his article was so good it cut out all the peripheral arguments and the arguments literally went Directly to semantics. That's some efficiency mark! well done!

It's curious that this article has been received with such praise, given the fact that "essences" and other stuff is a clear deviation from 3.X DnD and those changes often find controversy in the forum.

I mean, give *some* credit to us gamers, we can identify a cool upgrade to a system that makes it more intuitive. And I don't think this changes the underlying spell options overly much if things are done this way.

Mathota wrote:

“All about magic” but no meantion of psychic magic... hopefully it makes it into the new core. All in all I’m feeling really excited for 2E, it looks like they are doing a good job of taking all of their obscure rules and mechanics introduced in auxiliary books and making them into something coherent and workable.

Psychic magic is not in the new core. This has been stated previously. Though obviously "mental" magic is a thing, and Psychic's may use that if they are introduced later.

Well, assuming Thought and Emotion components would be a thing for Psychic Magic down the line, they're a thing it'd be nice to see in the CRB, if nothing else.

Deranged Stabby-Man wrote:

So are we CERTAIN the the whole Material, Mental, Vital, Spiritual thing is actually a thing, or is it entirely conjecture?

I'm pretty sure it's just wild conjecture that people are running with at this point. None of the devs have said anything about it and the blog post doesn't imply that to me.

It's an interesting idea, and one that Mark hasn't said isn't correct... yet ;)

I'm pretty sure that by the 536th time of you insisting to act out the Sailor Moon-style sequence of casting detect magic your table will kindly ask you to tone it down a little.

Second time - maybe the first, depending on actor.

The blog post also incorrectly cites that in PF1 you had to learn all previous analogous spells to get the new one.

If you mean the reference in the Heightened Casting section, I think that's intended to refer to chains like Summon Monster X, where most of the versions say "Works like Summon Monster X-1, but with this difference."

In other words, that the player needs to understand the spells in the chain, not that the character needs to know the spells in the chain.

Through all of the last campaign I ran, I kept running into the same problem over and over again: trying to explain to my players (who are playing the campaign online and do not actually own the rules as far as I know) that "Spell level" and "Caster level" are not the same thing.

Your problem here seems to be people who a, apparently haven't bought the rules; b, haven't spent the time to read up their classes on d20PFSRD; yet c, still expect to play a caster class.

At the very least, they should need to read their class on one of the free resources provided - then you can just refer them to the handy table there which tells them when they get which level of spells.

You shouldn't be having to spoon-feed these people, just because you're playing an online game. Some reading is required to play PF, and if you can't be bothered to do the reading, how the heck do you expect to play a character who uses magic? Sheesh...

Keep the three types of levels as nomenclature - there's only so much hand-holding you should do if people can't be bothered to read the basics of the game they're playing (as they apply to their character).

*dons his "Proud Traditionalist" hat*

While these statblocks aren't actually using the final presentation with graphic design elements for the final book (in part because we're not 100% sure about all of those yet!), the school is grouped with all of the other traits that aren't schools because they all are aspects of the spell (traits, even!) that might be something you have to quickly locate because a special ability says "You get a bonus against death effects" or "Whenever you are the target of a necromancy spell" or things like that. In our most current layout, the traits aren't in a row like you see here but instead in a little box that makes all of them easy to find so you can quickly scan for that.

Does that make any sense? It'll be easier to explain when you can see it, I imagine.

Quick suggestion - start the row/box with the school, then follow with the other traits in alphabetical order.

Using the three previewed spells as examples, that gives:
HEAL: Necromancy; Healing, Positive
REGENERATE: Necromancy; Healing
VAMPIRIC EXSANGUINATION: Necromancy; Death, Negative

Makes it a quick scan for the school, and keeps the rest of the traits in an easy-to-follow order.

(NB: Upon continuing to read the thread, I'm nowhere near the first to suggest this, but I'm keeping this here to show support for the idea.)

So why not work and change another tradition? This one has a valid reason for changing. Spell Circles (I do like "Tiers" better but it does sound better if used in an in-universe term... basically both terms are valid in eye eyes as a replacement) would help reduce the confusion of new (and some older!) players. It is understandable and logical.

Alternatively, why change things for the sake of changing it? Especially when it sounds like the people you're changing it to satisfy are mostly those who aren't spending money on - or even reading! - your product, if we follow your previous example...

And none of the people I've played with since the 80's have had any problem comprehending it (which has to be at least 30+ different people). Including some who weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. So much for anecdotal "evidence" for how confusing it is.

I believe the appropriate phrase is "The plural of anecdotal evidence is not data."

QuidEst wrote:

*basks in the new information*

I wonder if Prestidigitation gets any heighten effects.

A third level Prestidigitaion gets rid of 99.9 percent of all germs.

I wonder what level we need to kill of 99.99% of all known germs... ;)

I have had people have this argument with me every single time they level up. You have to understand. Not everyone is a hardcore gamer. And Paizo wants to draw in the more casual gamers as well.

I'm sorry, but this is getting silly - you're a hardcore gamer if you read the rules of the game you're playing? After all, you need to reference the game material to level up - including that handy table which tells you what features you get each level...

I have no idea what you mean. The three spell components are self-explanatory: Verbal, Somatic, and Material.

Verbal= speech
Somatic= hand movements
Material= use of material

If you take actions to remove verbal and somatic from a spell that includes all 3, the caster still has to use a material component, which means handling it in some fashion. Likely to be seen unless they've got a good sleight of hand, etc. or nobody is paying attention.

I believe it is to do with the element described in Ultimate Intrigue where all magic use has some form of sparkly bits (or whatever) that draw people's attention, regardless of Still Spell, Silent Spell or Eschew Materials (or even being Invisible, IIRC).

As with the Psychic casting components, having these spelled out in Core saves arguments later ;)

It would be cool to have example names that in world wizard schools use for spell levels. Circles, secrets, rune,....

Not a bad halfway house option - those who want to stick to RAW can use spell levels, while those who have players who get confused by this can use an appropriate term for the type of character.

gustavo iglesias wrote:

It's curious that this article has been received with such praise, given the fact that "essences" and other stuff is a clear deviation from 3.X DnD and those changes often find controversy in the forum.

At this point essences appear to be flavour and explain from an in-game/design point of view who gets what spells and why. Once we see the spell lists, if it truly is frankenstein spell lists that each class mashes together we'll possibly see significantly different feedback about "complexity" and "classes losing iconic spells".

If we DO get Frankenstein lists... honestly I'd laugh at any cries of increased complexity, because it's AS simplistic if not more so than assign spells by essentially lots. No need to remember or look up a list of what spells a character can learn, no need to have an ever increasing list of classes under the spell name that tells you what classes can learn the spell. The only ones to remember are the spells that become exceptions, such as domain or bloodline spells. Wizard are material/mental? Dominate is a mental spell, I'll pick that up. Druids get produce flame but not fireball? Why was that ever the case? Is fire not natural enough when it's a ball that explodes on landing? Oh, druids are material/vital so they get tons of life type spells, and stuff like fireball and enlarge self? Cool beans.

And when it comes to iconic spells going missing? Well, if a particular spell happens to be a poor fit for the Frankenstein spell list scenario, it could always take a new form as a class feat for the class it's most iconic for.

The 4 lists themselves could have a lot of depth and easily cover all of the spells that the classes traditionally had, though maybe one here or there that might fall out, though hopefully not in a drastic way.

Material -all traditional transmutation spells save maybe haste and a few others can fall into this category, evocations with the occasional odd exception, conjuration would fit well here, traditional wizardry necromancy spells could very well fit here with their destructive power, though a few like false life may be lost.
Mental - divination, enchantment and illusion very clearly have a home in this essence, and the bulk of abjuration will probably fall here, as well as the drops from materials transmutation spells and evocation
Vital- Necromancy, transmutation, enchantment and evocation(perhaps) with the be major types of schools that would find spells in this category, mostly pertaining to healing, death, and various buffing and debuff ingredients type abilities
Spirtual- Conjuration hands down had a home here with summoning various planar servants and allies or "spiritual" weapons and guardians, evocation may very well have spells here as well, there may be couple of illusions or enchantments, and the source of divination magic for the cleric side of the table

One thing I'd like to ask... why is regeneration Necromancy? It's not playing directly with your life force (which is especially obvious since it doesn't have the positive or negative tags), so it seems to make more sense as a transmutation spell: it's directly changing how your physiology works, which is definitely transmutation.

@dysartes, I've read the Pathfinder Core Rulebook a dozen times or more. Now, sometimes I get rules wrong because I also had read 3.5 and 3.0 a dozen times each but... I still know a lot of the rules without needing to look them up, or know where to look them up at the very least.

Of course the thing is, I'm a GM. So maybe it's expected of me to do this. None of my online players own the rulebook. My tabletop group differs but even they don't know the rules significantly. And that's the thing: Other people have stated they also have folk who get confused at spell level vs. caster level vs. character level. New players also have this problem.

It's a simple fix. Changing this doesn't hurt anyone. It doesn't alter the rules. It doesn't change what your caster can do. All it does is alter one word so that people who haven't been playing for years can look at the rules and not be confused why their 3rd level character is limited to 2nd level spells - because it'll be Second Tier spells instead.

Outside of "tradition" is there an actual problem as to changing Spell Level to Spell Tier?

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@John Lynch 106 - Never said it did. What I said was that by eliminating one extra frequently-forgotten die roll in exchange for improved saving throws would help allow these abilities to be used more often.

For instance, my final game for Rise of the Runelords had mildly-Mythic players vs. an upgraded Karzoug with Six Mythic Tiers and Mythic Spellcasting. He cast Mythic Wish: I wish my opponents' Mythic abilities stopped working. One player had a 9-level Spell Reflection up. The Wish bounced off of her and hit Karzoug who promptly failed his Save (it was a thing of beauty) and erased his own Mythic ability. But I forgot to roll for his Magic Resistance. Magic attacks against his dragon also forgot to account for magic resistance.

Now, I handwaved away Karzoug's failure for Magic Resistance as the magic originated from Karzoug but that was still an instance where Karzoug should have had a chance to avoid losing his Mythic ability (which he ended up needing seeing the group used Nap Stack to catch him unawares and having used up several spells in previous confrontations including one 9th level spell when he decided to try and kill the party Cleric when she got too close to him before the final confrontation). But a 2nd Ed. Pathfinder version of SR could have him just not be susceptible to a Critical Spell Failure instead of needing to roll separately for each spell.

It reduces the amount of work I, as the GM, need to do. Seeing one combat that lasted maybe five rounds lasted for two game sessions... we need to make things simpler, especially for high level play.

One thing I'd like to ask... why is regeneration Necromancy? It's not playing directly with your life force (which is especially obvious since it doesn't have the positive or negative tags), so it seems to make more sense as a transmutation spell: it's directly changing how your physiology works, which is definitely transmutation.

I'd argue because 1.) it helps maintain the notion that all healing spells are under the same category, because dividing all the primary healing spells into different schools of magic seems like more division than it's really worth, especially since Regenerate in P1e was Conjuration (Healing) instead of Conjuration (Healing, Creation), and 2.) it is altering your life force, in such a way that your body can rapidly shrug off wounds and otherwise help you directly avoid death.

One thing I'd like to ask... why is regeneration Necromancy? It's not playing directly with your life force (which is especially obvious since it doesn't have the positive or negative tags), so it seems to make more sense as a transmutation spell: it's directly changing how your physiology works, which is definitely transmutation.

Is it transmuting your physiology or magically mimicking troll physiology by conjuring flesh to replace what you've lost?

The fact that it prevents death while it is active makes it fit into necromancy enough for me. Yay immortality!

If it were altering your life force, though, it would have the positive or negative tag, and also it probably wouldn't care about fire or acid. Flavor-wise, the spell is pretty clearly changing your physiology to mimic that of a troll, hence transmutation being a better fit for the school.

No worries, Shadrayl! And yeah, if you cast this into a room full of a bunch of mooks (who aren't all barbarians or something), chances are somebody's going to critically fail. If not, well, you can be a horrible person to a hireling if you want to be creatively evil like some have suggested in the comments ;)

I'm not evil, just misunderstood.

I was talking about burning a level 1 spell slot to summon a CR 1/4 minion with a +0 will save.

But, if people want too, they can toss a bag of rats in the room first.

Personally, I thing the regeneration spell might be the perfect example of a spell that could actually exist in two separate school 'tags'.

Interesting to see Alter Reality listed, I don't think Wish will be renamed so what is Alter Reality?

In 1E, Alter Reality was just a renamed Limited Wish for illusionists. Since Wish is now a 10th level spell, maybe this is just a renamed Limited Wish like in 1E?

If we DO get Frankenstein lists... honestly I'd laugh at any cries of increased complexity, because it's AS simplistic if not more so than assign spells by essentially lots. No need to remember or look up a list of what spells a character can learn, no need to have an ever increasing list of classes under the spell name that tells you what classes can learn the spell. The only ones to remember are the spells that become exceptions, such as domain or bloodline spells. Wizard are material/mental? Dominate is a mental spell, I'll pick that up. Druids get produce flame but not fireball? Why was that ever the case? Is fire not natural enough when it's a ball that explodes on landing? Oh, druids are material/vital so they get tons of life type spells, and stuff like fireball and enlarge self? Cool beans.

I still have to look up a list of spells to see what I want to learn or prepare for the day. Although instead of looking for spells that are "Wizard" or "Cleric" I have to remember I'm a "mental/material" or "vital/mental" caster (or is that vital/material?). That is an increase in complexity unless the spells are extremely intuitive as to which spell list they're placed in.

And when it comes to iconic spells going missing? Well, if a particular spell happens to be a poor fit for the Frankenstein spell list scenario, it could always take a new form as a class feat for the class it's most iconic for.

I see you'd already identified haste and false life. Haste in particular is not an iconic wizard spell, but it is an important wizard spell that helps them contribute to the party's performance. I wouldn't want a special exception made for it, but losing it would be significant. Also I disagree on where you placed summon monster. Which is a problem if we're wanting to be able to create the same type of characters in the new system.

Overall I think the frankenstein method does introduce more complexity than it saves and I don't think it's going to be intuitive where spells belong. But we'll wait and see what the spell lists actually look like.

@John Lynch 106 - Never said it did. What I said was that by eliminating one extra frequently-forgotten die roll in exchange for improved saving throws would help allow these abilities to be used more often.

But you've removed the distinction between spells that do and don't allow SR with minimal benefit. Your classification of SR being "frequently forgotten" doesn't lineup with my own experiences. I very rarely see SR forgotten (maybe about as often as someone forgets to power attack with a monster/Paizo written NPC). What you see as an oft-forgotten rule that does nothing but increase the complexity of the game I see as an easily remembered rule that helps provide tactical complexity to a class that is already quite powerful.

Basically we both have fundamentally different experiences. Your championing changes that will make your casual group's experience better while I'm championing changes that will keep my diehard group's experience the same or better.

Seeing one combat that lasted maybe five rounds lasted for two game sessions... we need to make things simpler, especially for high level play.

I disagree because I have never had a 5 round combat go for two sessions. The different variables between your experiences and mine are potentially:

I was talking about burning a level 1 spell slot to summon a CR 1/4 minion with a +0 will save.

But, if people want too, they can toss a bag of rats in the room first.

Wow. This takes me back to 2009 where warlocks were constantly trying to curse bystanders or birds flying around to get their temps.

Actually, amusingly enough the only use of Mythic was by one character for Improved Invisibility, done before the Mythic Wish. Pretty much everything else was non-Mythic attacks. Now, there *were* five people and the Planetar... and I added two more Storm Giants to help Karzoug. But even so... high level fights take forever. Part of it was the Sorceress would take a significant amount of time deciding what spell to use, utilize her Swift Action, Standard Action, Move Action, and so forth, and despite not being a hardcore gamer was quite tactical and her actions were playing chess using Pathfinder. She eliminated more than her share of Boss Encounters - in fact, there were several end-bosses that she just shut down and made ineffective. (Sadly she wasn't there for the second half of the final game. I ran her character instead and used her somewhat effectively dispelling Domination on Storm Giants rather than have someone else run her and probably end things early with something like Rain of Arrows.)

However, this is a problem with high-level play. One high-level fight takes hours to run compared to low-level fights that are over in half an hour. A good part of this is all the added options - hell, that Sorceress player? Wants to play a Swashbuckler for the next campaign partly because of having far fewer options. (Seeing I'm thinking of holding off until 2nd Edition's Playtest at least is running, she might need to run an Archetype instead.)

Oh, and I did away with Leadership after half a year of dealing with the two Cohorts. I gave the players new Feats and let the Cohorts exist as roleplaying NPCs who just kept camp for the party, but the Cohorts definitely caused problems, especially with a group that already consisted of five characters.

If I ever allow Cohorts again, they'll be noncombatants only. But then, I'm not sure if Paizo will include Cohorts for Pathfinder 2 so it might be a moot point.

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As for SR being frequently forgotten? First, this is with high-level play. When the Monster's list of Special Abilities is a dozen or more slots for a Hero Labs tab and it's not obvious if something has Spell Resistance or not, it gets forgotten. I'm trying to keep the game running as quickly as I can.

Now, next time I run a campaign I'll be altering things. I'll not be tracking buffs on Hero Labs and I'll require my group to keep tab of their own buffs from now on. Not going through all those selections on Hero Labs will save me a ton of time. Having my own players keep track of the math will as well. (Also, player sheets can be put on Roll20 and that also will help both the players and myself.)

But this doesn't lessen my own experiences leading up to this. When players have a lot more options, gameplay slows down. When monsters have a lot more options, gameplay slows down even further, and the GM has to juggle more balls and something like SR can slip through the cracks.

Given casters are having their power diminish somewhat so it's a more even distribution of power over levels and time... altering one of the big No Sell points against wizards seems a wise choice as well. And having SR go from all-or-nothing to just "diminished effect" seems like an effective way of going about this. :)

Pretty much everything else was non-Mythic attacks. Now, there *were* five people and the Planetar... and I added two more Storm Giants to help Karzoug. But even so... high level fights take forever.

However, this is a problem with high-level play. One high-level fight takes hours to run

To be honest it sounds like a table problem and not a game problem. Because I can categorically say outside of extenuating circumstances high level fights don't take hours to run. This key point is a big reason I play Pathfinder and not Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition. So I have experienced combats which last hours. Just not in Pathfinder.

Now if sufficient tables share your group's problem with really long fights at high level then it is definitely something that needs to be addressed. But until Paizo come out and say they have data demonstrating this and so they have taken steps to do so or will take steps to do so, I'm not inclined to think anything needs changing to address it.

She eliminated more than her share of Boss Encounters - in fact, there were several end-bosses that she just shut down and made ineffective.

How long did the encounters she shut down take? Still 2 game sessions for 5 rounds? Or an 2 hours for 1 round?

Being a tactical player is great, unless of course being tactical involves taking excessive amounts of time to decide what to do. Also I suspect PF2e won't fix that problem but will exacerbate it. Martials appear to be getting a wide array of actions they can do beyond a simple full attack. This means the player of the sorcerer will still have the same decision-making issues (as she searches for the optimal solution every turn) with any class rather than only spellcasters.

As for SR being frequently forgotten? First, this is with high-level play. When the Monster's list of Special Abilities is a dozen or more slots for a Hero Labs tab and it's not obvious if something has Spell Resistance or not, it gets forgotten.

Again this seems like a table problem or a potential problem with the tools being used. This has come up extremely infrequently because it's quite clear in the stat block and it's what you check for before rolling the save. However we don't use Hero Lab but instead use physical pieces of paper or physical books.

Given casters are having their power diminish somewhat so it's a more even distribution of power over levels and time... altering one of the big No Sell points against wizards seems a wise choice as well. And having SR go from all-or-nothing to just "diminished effect" seems like an effective way of going about this. :)

As I said, it is diminishing choices for PCs and removing a tactical element from the game. Your experience tells you that this is a worthwhile cost for what is gained. Mine says something very different.

Finally as a sidenote: In my opinion (based on my own experience) electronic character builders are a crutch that encourages players to not learn the rules for their characters or understand the game they're playing. I've had it happen to me. The issues you're raising as "needlessly complicated" only demonstrate that further.

Pieces of paper and pencils ensure players understand the rules to a much greater degree and I have only seen "substandard"* players become better players by removing electronic character builders. I've also played with some really dumb players as well who struggled to understand even basic concepts of the game they were playing. Removing the electronic character builder helped them understand the game much better than any amount of running their character for them did. This isn't a Pathfinder phenomenon either. This is a tabletop RPG phenomenon that carries across various different styles of RPG rulesets.

*By this I mean players who have limited understanding of the rules and/or their characters