Wizard Class Preview

Monday, May 21, 2018

With Paizocon getting underway in just a few days, we wanted to round out our previews by looking at the final class that you will be able to play at the show. So, without further delay, it's time to look at the wizard!

Wizard Features

If you are building a wizard, everything starts with your key ability, Intelligence. Having a high Intelligence gives you a boost to the DCs of your spells, and it gives you more skill choices at 1st level.

At 1st level, you begin play with a spellbook containing 10 cantrips and eight 1st-level spells, giving you a wide variety of spells to draw upon when you prepare your magic each morning. Starting out, you can prepare four cantrips and two 1st-level spells each day. In addition, you also select your arcane school at 1st level, which grants you one extra spell slot of each level that you can use only to prepare a spell from your chosen school. You can compare this to the cleric, who doesn't get extra spell slots, but instead gets a narrow ability to cast extra heal or harm spells. Your school also grants you a school power that you can cast using a pool of Spell Points. Take a look at the nifty power you can pick up from choosing divination as your school. (Remember, that [[A]] code you see indicates that this is an action, and it will be a snazzy icon in the final rulebook!)

DIVINER'S SIGHT

Concentrate, Divination, Fortune

Casting [[A]] Verbal Casting

Range 30 feet; Targets one willing living creature

Duration end of your next turn or until dismissed

You glimpse into the target's future. Roll a d20. When the target attempts a Perception check, saving throw, or skill check, it can use the number you rolled instead of rolling, and the spell is dismissed. Casting it again dismisses any active diviner's sight.

Even if you don't roll so great, it might still help avoid a critical failure on a vital saving throw.

You can forgo selecting an arcane school, instead choosing to be a universalist. This grants you a bonus wizard feat and extra uses of your arcane focus.

Speaking of which, all wizards gain the ability to place some of their power into a designated item called an arcane focus. You can drain the power from that focus once per day to cast any one spell that you have already cast without spending another spell slot. Universalists get to use this ability once for each level of spell that they can cast!

As a wizard goes up in level, they gain more spells that they can cast (either one extra spell of their highest level, or two of a new level) and their proficiency at spellcasting also increases. They start as trained, but rise to the rank of legendary at 19th level.

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Wizard Feats

Wizards have never had too many class features to choose from to help distinguish them from one another, so when it came time to design feats for the wizard, it was a clear opportunity to add some variety to the class.

Lets start out with a few classic concepts. At 1st level, you can pick up a feat that allows you to spend your reaction to counterspell any spell someone else casts as long as you currently have that spell prepared. If that isn't to your taste, you can take a wizard feat to recruit a familiar instead. Every day, you can select a pair of abilities to give this loyal companion, some of which grant you boons as well. At high levels, your familiar can even grant you an additional spell slot, as long as it is 3 levels lower than the highest-level spell you can cast. At 8th level you can select from a series of feats that enhance the power of your arcane school, increasing your pool of Spell Points and granting you an extra spell you can cast using that pool. One of my favorites is the necromantic power called life siphon, which lets you draw some of the magic from a non-cantrip necromancy spell you cast to regain 1d8 Hit Points per level of the spell.

Not surprisingly, the wizard also has a lot of feats to choose from that modify the spells that you cast. While many of these metamagic feats will be familiar to veterans of the game, allowing you to extend the reach or widen the area of a spell, for example, others are new. Conceal Spell lets you add an action to a spell as you cast it to hide the fact that you are casting. Focus Conservation is an action you can add to any spell that you cast by draining your arcane focus, and it lets you drain your arcane focus again the next round, casting another spell as long as it is 2 levels lower than the spell you just cast. Better still, you can keep using this feat as long as you have lower-level spells to cast. For example, if you start out draining your focus to cast cone of cold (a 5th-level spell dealing a wicked 11d6 cold damage to all your enemies), you could follow it up next round with a fireball. If you use the feat again, you could drain focus again on the following round, casting any 1st-level spell you had already cast.

As a wizard rises to the highest levels of power, their feats grant them more and more options when determining how to best utilize their spells. Effortless Concentration gives you a free action at the start of each round to concentrate on a spell you have cast, freeing you up to use all 3 actions normally. Superior Focus gives you another use of your arcane focus. Quick Preparation lets you swap out spells you have already prepared in just 10 minutes. At 20th level, you can pick Spell Combination, which lets you combine two spells into one terrifying attack that you can unleash on one unfortunate foe.

Spells

One of the biggest ways you can customize your wizard is in your spell selection, so it's probably worth looking at a few signature wizard spells to see how they work. Let's start with one of the most iconic spells of them all.

MAGIC MISSILE SPELL 1

Evocation, Force

Casting [[A]] Verbal Casting or more

Range 120 feet; Targets one creature

You send a dart of force streaking toward a creature that you can see. It automatically hits and deals 1d4+1 force damage. When Casting this Spell, you can increase the casting by a Material Casting action, a Somatic Casting action, or both. For each component you add, increase the number of missiles you shoot by one. You choose the target for each missile individually.

Heightened (+2) You shoot one additional missile with each action you spend.

Magic missile shows off a couple of interesting options in the wizard's arsenal. Casting a spell can be done in a number of ways using a variable number of actions. While most of the time this is through metamagic feats, it can also come from the spell itself. Adding casting actions to magic missile gives you more missiles to throw. In addition, a wide variety of spells can be prepared using a higher-level spell slot, giving you a better effect without having to refer to an entirely different spell. (You can find out more about that in the All About Spells blog.) That means you can prepare magic missile as a 9th-level spell and spend three actions casting it for 15 missiles!

Another important aspect of picking spells for your wizard is to balance what saving throws they allow and what effects you can get depending on the results of the save. For that, let's take a look at a spell that might instantly kill a foe.

PHANTASMAL KILLER SPELL 4

Death, Emotion, Fear, Illusion, Mental

Casting [[A]] Somatic Casting, [[A]] Verbal Casting

Range 120 feet; Targets one living creature

You create a phantasmal image of the most fearsome creature imaginable to the target. Only the spell's target can see the killer, though you can see the vague shape of the illusion as it races forth to attack. The effect of the killer is based on the outcome of the target's Will saving throw.

Success The target is frightened 1.

Critical Success The target is unaffected.

Failure The target takes 8d6 mental damage and is frightened 2.

Critical Failure The target is so afraid it might instantly die. It must attempt a Fortitude saving throw; if the target fails, it is reduced to 0 Hit Points and dies. On a successful Fortitude save, the target still takes 12d6 mental damage, is fleeing until the end of its next turn, and is frightened 4.

Heightened (+1) The damage on a failure increases by 2d6 and on a critical failure by 3d6.

This spell is perfect for removing a lower-level foe from a fight, but it has the chance of greatly hampering a higher-level foe as well. The frightened condition reduces by 1 each turn, but it applies a penalty to almost all of your checks and rolls until it does. You will find interesting choices like these throughout the arcane spell list. While most will be familiar to a Pathfinder veteran, there are a lot of new spells to explore as well, from grim tendril to chromatic wall, so your wizard will be ready for anything.

Well, that wraps up our look at the wizard. If you want to give this class (or the alchemist, cleric, fighter, paladin, or rogue) a try, make sure to stop by PaizoCon (this weekend), the UK Games Expo (early June), or Origins (mid-June), as we'll be running demos during all three conventions!

Jason Bulmahn
Director of Game Design

Note: Due to PaizoCon, there will not be a Pathfinder Playtest Blog on Friday, May 25th or Monday, May 28th.

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Tags: Ezren Pathfinder Playtest Wayne Reynolds Wizards
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Charon Onozuka wrote:
Diego Rossi wrote:
Charon Onozuka wrote:
TeCoolMage wrote:
At first I read the part about school powers and thought there was a list you can choose from until I noticed it said "take a look at the nifty power you can pick up" which was pretty disappointing. Still, I'm really hoping PF 2e will be more flexible with its wizards than 5e.

After reading this, I realized that there isn't really a mention about how many school powers we might have access to, other than saying there is a series of feats that can be taken after 8th level (though I thought the goal of PF2 was to get away from feat chains?).

Based on the cleric domains, there will be higher level abilities, but they will cost a feat.

That's part of my concern actually. In PF1, wizard schools and cleric domains got 1-2 abilities at first level and then one advanced ability around levels 6-8. In the cleric post, the language on domains seemed to imply that there was only a single advanced power for each domain, similar to PF1.

My concern isn't that the advanced abilities will cost a class feat. My concern is that each school will only have 2-3 unique abilities associated with it, which makes the decision to specialize in one school over another less impactful and interesting.

They've mentioned that the limited domain upgrade options in the CRB are due mostly to the recurring bugbear of the dreaded Page Count. They are already planning to greatly expand domain feat options in a future book, which I imagine will probably be one of the earliest books, like a PF2 APG. So if each school is likewise limited to only a few options in the CRB, that will probably be addressed at the same time.

Speaking of: I would love a CRB-sized Advanced Players Guide, and would happily pay $60+ for that.


BluLion wrote:
I am Gumby wrote:

It is interesting how much weaker they are making the wizards at higher levels. There is a CMD myth. I think we should make the martial types as weak as casters at lower levels.

let's see, they can only make 3 attacks per day with their weapon, then they become fatigued and can only do 1d3 dam (no STR mod) after that. That will level the playing field.

I like playing casters and I get that some people like playing martials. The CMD is a myth. Most of my significant opponents have SR. casting blasting spells is a last resort for me. I have done it and it is usually ineffective.

Helping the martials always works.

In PF1, Some of the stronger spells don't even give opportunities for saves, or ignore spell resistance, heck, even Black Tentacles doesn't target saves at all, but combat maneuver defense (plus it scales pretty strongly too, and a +4 bonus due to tentacle size).

CMD isn't just about combat ability either, but out-of-combat utility as well. Say you have a rogue who is skilled at picking locks, sneaking around, and talking his way around problems. However, a lot of skills are outperformed by magic. Picking locks can be accomplished by a knock without the need of a skill check, same can be said invisibility(or something cheaper, like camouflage) and stealth. Even charm person (or a dominate spell) can take care of social problems without much investment aside from a spellslot. Escape and mobility wise, a wizard is way better, with tricks like fly, teleport, dimension door, and so on. Although I don't think iconic spells like flight and invisibility should be removed, a wizard is a better rogue than the rogue is, and that is on top of being able to swap out all of your spells every morning for more offense or different utility, such as wall creation for building town defenses. With scroll and wand creation and the like, you don't even need to commit spell slots for some of these.

While druids and clerics don't have as vast a spell pool as a...

I think a lot of this issue is meant to be solved by making higher level skill feats and class abilities that are especially extraordinary.

That said: I now wonder what is stopping a wizard from having extraordinary spell abilities and extraordinary skill abilities (as compared to say a fighter).


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Excaliburproxy wrote:

I think a lot of this issue is meant to be solved by making higher level skill feats and class abilities that are especially extraordinary.

That said: I now wonder what is stopping a wizard from having extraordinary spell abilities and extraordinary skill abilities (as compared to say a fighter).

Logically, casters would benefit from the new skill system too. But I am hoping that even the leanest martial class gets more skills, and also advances more skills faster to the highest tiers, than any caster. There's never been any good reason for Fighters etc to have so few skill points. Sure, give Rogues and Rangers etc more skill points than anyone else, but even a Fighter should have more skill points than a Bard, because they need that to stay relevant in the narrative when compared with the versatility and utility of spellcasting.


Fuzzypaws wrote:
Charon Onozuka wrote:
Diego Rossi wrote:
Charon Onozuka wrote:
TeCoolMage wrote:
At first I read the part about school powers and thought there was a list you can choose from until I noticed it said "take a look at the nifty power you can pick up" which was pretty disappointing. Still, I'm really hoping PF 2e will be more flexible with its wizards than 5e.

After reading this, I realized that there isn't really a mention about how many school powers we might have access to, other than saying there is a series of feats that can be taken after 8th level (though I thought the goal of PF2 was to get away from feat chains?).

Based on the cleric domains, there will be higher level abilities, but they will cost a feat.

That's part of my concern actually. In PF1, wizard schools and cleric domains got 1-2 abilities at first level and then one advanced ability around levels 6-8. In the cleric post, the language on domains seemed to imply that there was only a single advanced power for each domain, similar to PF1.

My concern isn't that the advanced abilities will cost a class feat. My concern is that each school will only have 2-3 unique abilities associated with it, which makes the decision to specialize in one school over another less impactful and interesting.

They've mentioned that the limited domain upgrade options in the CRB are due mostly to the recurring bugbear of the dreaded Page Count. They are already planning to greatly expand domain feat options in a future book, which I imagine will probably be one of the earliest books, like a PF2 APG. So if each school is likewise limited to only a few options in the CRB, that will probably be addressed at the same time.

Speaking of: I would love a CRB-sized Advanced Players Guide, and would happily pay $60+ for that.

If they could break it into 2 books, not the D&D triumvirate, maybe?


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Weather Report wrote:
Fuzzypaws wrote:

They've mentioned that the limited domain upgrade options in the CRB are due mostly to the recurring bugbear of the dreaded Page Count. They are already planning to greatly expand domain feat options in a future book, which I imagine will probably be one of the earliest books, like a PF2 APG. So if each school is likewise limited to only a few options in the CRB, that will probably be addressed at the same time.

Speaking of: I would love a CRB-sized Advanced Players Guide, and would happily pay $60+ for that.

If they could break it into 2 books, not the D&D triumvirate, maybe?

I'd actually be okay with them pulling the GM stuff out of the CRB but leaving the CRB page count the same to give more player options, then combining the GM stuff with the first bestiary. Especially since it sounds like the first bestiary will itself be CRB sized, and even combining the Bestiary 1 and Bestiary 2 would leave more open pages for GM stuff.

That also flows fairly naturally with the monster creation system being reserved for the first bestiary; it would just be another aspect of "GM stuff." And there might be some room to pull in cool stuff from Ultimate Campaign and Gamemastery Guide as well.

Failing this though, if the CRB plan remains largely the same and the first bestiary is just monster stuff, I could do with four CRB sized books in the first year or two: the actual CRB, a CRB sized bestiary, a CRB sized APG (that also includes Ultimate Combat), and a CRB sized combination of the Gamemastery Guide, Ultimate Campaign, Ultimate Intrigue and so on.

Liberty's Edge

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Fuzzypaws wrote:
Logically, casters would benefit from the new skill system too. But I am hoping that even the leanest martial class gets more skills, and also advances more skills faster to the highest tiers, than any caster. There's never been any good reason for Fighters etc to have so few skill points. Sure, give Rogues and Rangers etc more skill points than anyone else, but even a Fighter should have more skill points than a Bard, because they need that to stay relevant in the narrative when compared with the versatility and utility of spellcasting.

If nothing else, duplicating the kind of versatility most PF1 casters could manage now costs Skill Feats in its own right (one for Rituals, one for Magic Item Creation, and probably others). That ought to keep them from being 'as skilled as Fighters' to some degree.

Beyond that, we'll just have to see. I'm not worried about Rogues (who get doubled Skill Feats), but I admit that I am slightly concerned for Fighters.


BluLion wrote:
And meanwhile, many "pure" martials are there just for dishing damage the tanking, but not much else, especially not outside of combat. It is possible for these martials to take a controller kind of role, and although maneuvers aren't limited in resources, you have to commit really heavily to that play-style those, and most classes can't switch out feats like a prepared spell-caster can swap spells, and those maneuvers often scale worse than spells.

This and 10x this. Combat Maneuvers generally suck for PC martials, except for Trip and Grapple in the right circumstances. What's more, most of them are single target, in which case you're usually better off just killing the target, assuming the type of Maneuver you've heavily invested in is even applicable to the given target i.e. you can't sunder tentacles.

Caster's don't have this problem. If one type of control doesn't work, you've got others. If you haven't prepared anything, you can fall back on a wand or a scroll. There is no wondrous item of Bullrush for Fighters. Worse, application of oils/potions chew up an action for attacking and 2e isn't changing that.

Something has to give on casters. Access to additional schools of magic should do something like reduce the highest spell level for all your spells, by 2 and the total spells for each level by 1.

My only disagreement is I don't want to see more skills dolled out and beefed up. Everyone should not be brought up efficacy and agency of full casters. Nobody should have it that good.


Fuzzypaws wrote:
There's never been any good reason for Fighters etc to have so few skill points.

There is. A PF1 Fighter can have a lot more skills and class skills by investing but a handful fo the 11 character feats they get. This still leaves them with 10 "bonus feats" devoted just to fighting, on top of class abilities.

If someone playing a PF1 Fighter wanted more skills, they can get them. It jus comes with a permanent trade-off. The fact that casters don't have to make this trade-off is a problem with casters, and something I'm hoping 2e fixes. Though I'm not going to hold my breadth.


N N 959 wrote:
BluLion wrote:
And meanwhile, many "pure" martials are there just for dishing damage the tanking, but not much else, especially not outside of combat. It is possible for these martials to take a controller kind of role, and although maneuvers aren't limited in resources, you have to commit really heavily to that play-style those, and most classes can't switch out feats like a prepared spell-caster can swap spells, and those maneuvers often scale worse than spells.
This and 10x this. Combat Maneuvers generally suck for PC martials, except for Trip and Grapple in the right circumstances. What's more, most of them are single target, in which case you're usually better off just killing the target, assuming the type if Maneuver you've heavily invested in is even applicable to the given target i.e. you can't sunder tentacles.

Maneuvers could be immediately made far more useful than PF1 if they were able to deal damage out the gate without heavy feat investment. Even if that was reserved to a critical hit effect by default, where beating the maneuver DC by 10 allowed you to do your attack damage on top of the maneuver, that would at least be something. Then a feat would let you do damage on any successful application of that maneuver and let you get the full weapon crit damage on a crit.


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Fuzzypaws wrote:
N N 959 wrote:
BluLion wrote:
And meanwhile, many "pure" martials are there just for dishing damage the tanking, but not much else, especially not outside of combat. It is possible for these martials to take a controller kind of role, and although maneuvers aren't limited in resources, you have to commit really heavily to that play-style those, and most classes can't switch out feats like a prepared spell-caster can swap spells, and those maneuvers often scale worse than spells.
This and 10x this. Combat Maneuvers generally suck for PC martials, except for Trip and Grapple in the right circumstances. What's more, most of them are single target, in which case you're usually better off just killing the target, assuming the type if Maneuver you've heavily invested in is even applicable to the given target i.e. you can't sunder tentacles.
Maneuvers could be immediately made far more useful than PF1 if they were able to deal damage out the gate without heavy feat investment. Even if that was reserved to a critical hit effect by default, where beating the maneuver DC by 10 allowed you to do your attack damage on top of the maneuver, that would at least be something. Then a feat would let you do damage on any successful application of that maneuver and let you get the full weapon crit damage on a crit.

I am very curious about how the "trip" trait on scythes works w.r.t. this. I am kind of guessing/hoping that you get free trip attempts if you crit with such weapons. I could see unarmed strikes getting free grapples similarly (which the monk could probably trade for just more punches). It remains to be seen!


Fuzzypaws wrote:


Maneuvers could be immediately made far more useful than PF1 if they were able to deal damage out the gate without heavy feat investment. Even if that was reserved to a critical hit effect by default, where beating the maneuver DC by 10 allowed you to do your attack damage on top of the maneuver, that would at least be something. Then a feat would let you do damage on any successful application of that maneuver and let you get the full weapon crit damage on a crit.

Not really the way you solve the problem imo.

1) You're not making CM more useful, you're making them do damage, which isn't making the actual thing you're doing which is not-damage any better;

2) The whole point of the maneuver is to induce a substantive decision, do I forgo doing damage to do this other thing which has a higher value/pay-off. That answer is almost never when it comes to single-targets. When the end goal is to kill the NPCs, maneuvers are pointless in the face of doing more damage;

3) One reason why casters get benefit from CM-effect spells is because battle field control spells are generally cheaper than damage spells. Web/Glitterdust is lower level than Fireball. Plus, many spells that control often have secondary effects. Add to the fact that a caster doesn't have to invest in an AoO prevention feat prior to using said control and it becomes more unfair at each stage of the analysis.

If you want to make CM's more useful for martials, give them a martial-only feat that lets them use a CM for free, with no AoO and without using up an Action. THEN, it would make sense to use them. But then you're not forcing the player to make a decision, you're undermining the tactical depth.


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One thing that hasn't been discussed is the 20th level feat decision. They mention Spell Combination here, which sounds like a big double hit on a tough foe (maybe it allows double 9th level spells, maybe it adds a DC boost to both, who knows), but my understanding is that this and the other 20th level feats are going to compete with a feat to choose the ability to cast one 10th level spell a day. I really wonder how much of a choice that is.


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I am Gumby wrote:
let's see, they can only make 3 attacks per day with their weapon, then they become fatigued and can only do 1d3 dam (no STR mod) after that. That will level the playing field.

Sure. But we need to make each attack an auto-win for the encounter if they succeed on their attack roll. You know, just to level the playing field. Then as they go up in levels their auto-win attacks become more and more versatile (getting non-combat uses that can just shortcut to the end of an entire adventure, if not the entire adventure path) while their fatigued attacks start dealing considerable damage as well.

If we're interested in leveling the playing field that is.


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John Lynch 106 wrote:
I am Gumby wrote:
let's see, they can only make 3 attacks per day with their weapon, then they become fatigued and can only do 1d3 dam (no STR mod) after that. That will level the playing field.

Sure. But we need to make each attack an auto-win for the encounter if they succeed on their attack roll. You know, just to level the playing field. Then as they go up in levels their auto-win attacks become more and more versatile (getting non-combat uses that can just shortcut to the end of an entire adventure, if not the entire adventure path) while their fatigued attacks start dealing considerable damage as well.

If we're interested in leveling the playing field that is.

They also need an attack that teleport them across the country, for example.

Liberty's Edge

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Stone Dog wrote:

PF1 Wizards have a maximum of four spells per level per day before ability modifiers and they had to work up to that four.

PF2 wizards have four spells per level per day without any bonus for ability score, but also cantrips, rituals, and powers to take up the slack and they seem to get all four spells per day as soon as they get their new spell level.

They are only missing out on a scant few slots per level that they probably don't even need anymore.

I'm the first one to say that people should be free to criticize and offer alternatives to any preview we might not care for, but from where I'm standing I'll take a PF2 wizard over a PF1 wizard until the PDF drops and proves me wrong.

A PF1 wizard for each level of spells receive a maximum of 4 spell slot +1 specialization slot + the intelligence modifier (at least 1 spell as it is a SAD class) for a total of 6+ spells of each level. Low level spells are useful.

A PF2 wizard receive 3 spell slots +1 specialization slot. 4 cantrips. Spell slot more than 2-3 levels below the maximum level available seem to lose most of their utility.

PF2 wizard lose a lot of versatility. From what we see the will have 8 spells and 4 cantrips that are really usable and maybe another 4 that are reasonably useful. The others seem to be only consolation prizes that will be used to say "I am casting a spell" while waiting for the damage dealers to finish the enemies.

That don't seem much fun.


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If having 4-8 spell slots to complement your repetitive, at will, reusable combat option seems unfun and boring for PF2 wizards, think aboutPF1 martials, which have none and are bound to their repetitive, at will, reausable combat options forever.


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Let's not turn this intt a "who has it worse" contest. -w-

That said: I still think 4 to 9 "good" spell slots plus spell point powers plus at will cantrips plus a sack of okay low level spells is a fine selection of options.

Grand Archive

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Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Diego Rossi wrote:
Stone Dog wrote:

PF1 Wizards have a maximum of four spells per level per day before ability modifiers and they had to work up to that four.

PF2 wizards have four spells per level per day without any bonus for ability score, but also cantrips, rituals, and powers to take up the slack and they seem to get all four spells per day as soon as they get their new spell level.

They are only missing out on a scant few slots per level that they probably don't even need anymore.

I'm the first one to say that people should be free to criticize and offer alternatives to any preview we might not care for, but from where I'm standing I'll take a PF2 wizard over a PF1 wizard until the PDF drops and proves me wrong.

A PF1 wizard for each level of spells receive a maximum of 4 spell slot +1 specialization slot + the intelligence modifier (at least 1 spell as it is a SAD class) for a total of 6+ spells of each level. Low level spells are useful.

A PF2 wizard receive 3 spell slots +1 specialization slot. 4 cantrips. Spell slot more than 2-3 levels below the maximum level available seem to lose most of their utility.

PF2 wizard lose a lot of versatility. From what we see the will have 8 spells and 4 cantrips that are really usable and maybe another 4 that are reasonably useful. The others seem to be only consolation prizes that will be used to say "I am casting a spell" while waiting for the damage dealers to finish the enemies.

That don't seem much fun.

I'm pretty sure the low-level slots will still have useful spells, like Charm. Now the DC scale auto with levels... Controls/utility spells could actually be very useful in low-level slots.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Judging from Phantasmal Killer, it looks like a lot of old "control spells" are going to deal damage and apply a minor effect on a fail, which means that the controller caster is going to have a really rough time with "boss" fights, where the enemy has much better saves. Damage on a successful save spells will be somewhat useful for these fights, but probably less so than heightened magic missile, even outside of other defenses. I am interested to see how spells like black tentacles or grim tendril work. How many spells are there going to be that don't offer saving throws and what are they going to do? Against high level caster enemies, the wizard might not have better options than counterspelling.

I don't think any of this is bad, and I am excited to get the playtest document and see what is possible, but it seems like a mistake right now to assume that spells are going to mostly work the same as they did before, when the format of them has pretty radically changed.


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Elfteiroh wrote:
Diego Rossi wrote:
Stone Dog wrote:

PF1 Wizards have a maximum of four spells per level per day before ability modifiers and they had to work up to that four.

PF2 wizards have four spells per level per day without any bonus for ability score, but also cantrips, rituals, and powers to take up the slack and they seem to get all four spells per day as soon as they get their new spell level.

They are only missing out on a scant few slots per level that they probably don't even need anymore.

I'm the first one to say that people should be free to criticize and offer alternatives to any preview we might not care for, but from where I'm standing I'll take a PF2 wizard over a PF1 wizard until the PDF drops and proves me wrong.

A PF1 wizard for each level of spells receive a maximum of 4 spell slot +1 specialization slot + the intelligence modifier (at least 1 spell as it is a SAD class) for a total of 6+ spells of each level. Low level spells are useful.

A PF2 wizard receive 3 spell slots +1 specialization slot. 4 cantrips. Spell slot more than 2-3 levels below the maximum level available seem to lose most of their utility.

PF2 wizard lose a lot of versatility. From what we see the will have 8 spells and 4 cantrips that are really usable and maybe another 4 that are reasonably useful. The others seem to be only consolation prizes that will be used to say "I am casting a spell" while waiting for the damage dealers to finish the enemies.

That don't seem much fun.

I'm pretty sure the low-level slots will still have useful spells, like Charm. Now the DC scale auto with levels... Controls/utility spells could actually be very useful in low-level slots.

PF1 spells at lvl 1 that would be better in PF2 (assuming they stay the same, or similar), are things like Charm, Color Spray, Snow Ball, Ear Piercing Scream, Ray of Enfeeblement, Touch of Blindness or Snapdragon Fireworks. Depending on how they handle the issue of autoscaling and hard-cap limits, spells like Scare, hypnotism or Sleep would get better too.

Liberty's Edge

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BluLion wrote:
I am Gumby wrote:

It is interesting how much weaker they are making the wizards at higher levels. There is a CMD myth. I think we should make the martial types as weak as casters at lower levels.

let's see, they can only make 3 attacks per day with their weapon, then they become fatigued and can only do 1d3 dam (no STR mod) after that. That will level the playing field.

I like playing casters and I get that some people like playing martials. The CMD is a myth. Most of my significant opponents have SR. casting blasting spells is a last resort for me. I have done it and it is usually ineffective.

Helping the martials always works.

In PF1, Some of the stronger spells don't even give opportunities for saves, or ignore spell resistance, heck, even Black Tentacles doesn't target saves at all, but combat maneuver defense (plus it scales pretty strongly too, and a +4 bonus due to tentacle size).

CMD isn't just about combat ability either, but out-of-combat utility as well. Say you have a rogue who is skilled at picking locks, sneaking around, and talking his way around problems. However, a lot of skills are outperformed by magic. Picking locks can be accomplished by a knock without the need of a skill check, same can be said invisibility(or something cheaper, like camouflage) and stealth. Even charm person (or a dominate spell) can take care of social problems without much investment aside from a spellslot. Escape and mobility wise, a wizard is way better, with tricks like fly, teleport, dimension door, and so on. Although I don't think iconic spells like flight and invisibility should be removed, a wizard is a better rogue than the rogue is, and that is on top of being able to swap out all of your spells every morning for more offense or different utility, such as wall creation for building town defenses. With scroll and wand creation and the like, you don't even need to commit spell slots for some of these.

While druids and clerics don't have as vast a spell pool as a...

When people write this kind of posts I question if they ever read the spells.

"black tentacles scale pretty strongly": It say "the tentacles use your caster level as their base attack bonus and receive a +4 bonus due to their Strength and a +1 size bonus". That mean that they attack as a fighter of the character level with +5 strength. Good when you get them, but it fall back pretty fast as characters get deflection, dodge and miscellaneous bonuses to the CMD, plus dex and str modifiers.

"Picking locks can be accomplished by a knock without the need of a skill check," Sure, you instead make a caster level check with a +10. If the rogue has dex 18, 1 skill point level and masterwork thieves tools his check is 1 point lower (it is a class skill) and the rogue can repeat the check any number of times and take 20. Using a wand is self defeating for the wizard as it has a fixed CL of 3. A level 5 rogue will already be better.

Invisibility: true, beside the short duration.

Charm person: are you aware that spells have manifestations, so using them in a social situation is a bad idea?

It is fun how your wizard always get the needed spells. Schrodinger much?


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Diego Rossi wrote:
"black tentacles scale pretty strongly": It say "the tentacles use your caster level as their base attack bonus and receive a +4 bonus due to their Strength and a +1 size bonus". That mean that they attack as a fighter of the character level with +5 strength.

That would be true when a 20 STR fighter could grapple everyone in a 20 feet radious at 200 feet range, create a zone of difficult terrain, and mantain those succesful grapples without getting the grappled condition himself and being able to do some other things in the following turns instead of spending a standard action to mantain the grapple.

Until then, just comparing the bonus is not a fair comparison at all.

Liberty's Edge

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Unicore wrote:
Judging from Phantasmal Killer, it looks like a lot of old "control spells" are going to deal damage and apply a minor effect on a fail, which means that the controller caster is going to have a really rough time with "boss" fights, where the enemy has much better saves.

Phantasmal Killer is actually really bad evidence for this. It was always a Save Or Die/Damage spell, never a control spell. It's a damage spell that had control added to it (as well as extra damage most times) rather than a control spell that got damage added.

It's possible you're correct (though I personally doubt it), but Phantasmal Killer is not evidence for this theory at all.

Liberty's Edge

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gustavo iglesias wrote:
If having 4-8 spell slots to complement your repetitive, at will, reusable combat option seems unfun and boring for PF2 wizards, think aboutPF1 martials, which have none and are bound to their repetitive, at will, reausable combat options forever.

Sure, the "cure" for boring, repetitive weapons attacks is to limit the other options to boring, repetitive, always the same, spells.

Reducing the options surely increase the fun.

Liberty's Edge

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Elfteiroh wrote:
Diego Rossi wrote:
Stone Dog wrote:

PF1 Wizards have a maximum of four spells per level per day before ability modifiers and they had to work up to that four.

PF2 wizards have four spells per level per day without any bonus for ability score, but also cantrips, rituals, and powers to take up the slack and they seem to get all four spells per day as soon as they get their new spell level.

They are only missing out on a scant few slots per level that they probably don't even need anymore.

I'm the first one to say that people should be free to criticize and offer alternatives to any preview we might not care for, but from where I'm standing I'll take a PF2 wizard over a PF1 wizard until the PDF drops and proves me wrong.

A PF1 wizard for each level of spells receive a maximum of 4 spell slot +1 specialization slot + the intelligence modifier (at least 1 spell as it is a SAD class) for a total of 6+ spells of each level. Low level spells are useful.

A PF2 wizard receive 3 spell slots +1 specialization slot. 4 cantrips. Spell slot more than 2-3 levels below the maximum level available seem to lose most of their utility.

PF2 wizard lose a lot of versatility. From what we see the will have 8 spells and 4 cantrips that are really usable and maybe another 4 that are reasonably useful. The others seem to be only consolation prizes that will be used to say "I am casting a spell" while waiting for the damage dealers to finish the enemies.

That don't seem much fun.

I'm pretty sure the low-level slots will still have useful spells, like Charm. Now the DC scale auto with levels... Controls/utility spells could actually be very useful in low-level slots.

I will be very surprised if in PF2 Charm or Dominate spells don't get a CR limit that increase heightening them. That would defeat most of the reasons for the free heightening. For sure we know that they will get a save each round unless you fail critically.


Phantasmal killer is as much a control spell as Finger of death is. It has always been a save or dead spell with a small amount of damage if you pass the save. They are increasing the damage and lowering the chance to insta-kill, which raises the floor and lowers the ceiling of the spell. That seems to be a common design goal in PF2, to reduce the situations where a wizard takes over the whole party, while simultanously reduce the situations where a wizard does literally nothing because the other guy succeeded his roll.


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Diego Rossi wrote:

Sure, the "cure" for boring, repetitive weapons attacks is to limit the other options to boring, repetitive, always the same, spells.

Reducing the options surely increase the fun.

It certainly can::

1) Fewer options requires more creative problem solving;

2) Fewer options means more cooperative problem solving;

3) Fewer options reduces player load;

4) Fewer options generally means faster play and less time spent trying to decide on which opportunities to choose;

5) Fewer options that reduce the agency of one PC means other PCs are given options to shine.

I'm in a Tier PFS tier 10-11 scenario playing a martial right now, and the casters are flat out owning it. I think I got to hit something...once. What's more, We've got Scholar/Cyphermage whose skill checks are averaging in the 40's.

Let me ask you Diego, you're doing a Tier 10-11 scenario and you've already got two full casters. You've got a choice of adding any other type of full casters or two martials, both with system mastery. You're real life depends on completing the scenario successfully, who do you choose?

No need to answer, just think about it.

Now let me ask you, based on what we know so far, do you think that's going to change for 2e? Again, don't answer.


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Diego Rossi wrote:
gustavo iglesias wrote:
If having 4-8 spell slots to complement your repetitive, at will, reusable combat option seems unfun and boring for PF2 wizards, think aboutPF1 martials, which have none and are bound to their repetitive, at will, reausable combat options forever.

Sure, the "cure" for boring, repetitive weapons attacks is to limit the other options to boring, repetitive, always the same, spells.

Reducing the options surely increase the fun.

Nope, the "cure" is to even the field, by giving martials a few better options besides auto-attack, while keeping wizards in check by reducing a bit their huge plethora of options. Which they still have. A wizard will still have options like Mage Armor, Unseen Servant, Detect Secret Doors, Identify, Protection from Evil, Disguise Self, Enlarge Person, Liberating Command or Expeditious Retreat for his lvl 1 spells, or Mirror Image, Invisibility, Resist Energy, Fog Cloud, Glitterdust, Web, Detect Thought or Create Pit for his 2nd level spells. So he still have fun, viable options to use those spell slots whatever his level is. That means at lvl 12 he'll have like 20 things to do, besides his auto-attack and his 4 max-level "encounter-solving" spells.

Color me unconcerned.

Yes, it's less than in PF1. That's a feature, not a bug.

Liberty's Edge

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Diego Rossi wrote:
I will be very surprised if in PF2 Charm or Dominate spells don't get a CR limit that increase heightening them. That would defeat most of the reasons for the free heightening. For sure we know that they will get a save each round unless you fail critically.

They've pretty specifically said they aren't doing level limits like this in PF2 for precisely this reason.

So I guess you'll be surprised.

The every round saves thing is true for Dominate, but may not be for Charm, we just don't know and Charm is a very different effect.


The theory is that low level spells have a smaller effect, but it works just as often.

Example given was how Color Spray no longer destroyed the encounter at low levels (which is what happens when someone is stunned for 3d4 rounds), and instead apply a debuff (like blind) but said debuff can be effective at higher levels because the DC scales properly.

Charm might be something like that, giving just out of combat "control", and a debuff while in combat.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Deadmanwalking wrote:


Phantasmal Killer is actually really bad evidence for this. It was always a Save Or Die/Damage spell, never a control spell. It's a damage spell that had control added to it (as well as extra damage most times) rather than a control spell that got damage added.

It's possible you're correct (though I personally doubt it), but Phantasmal Killer is not evidence for this theory at all.

I agree that phantasmal killer is a rough spell to evaluate control spells off of, especially since it always required two saves and was an unusual spell, but I think it is going to be the case that bosses will be difficult to get a fail on and nearly impossible to get to crit fail. We haven’t seen much of anything out of buffs except as spell point powers, so we don’t really know if utility buff casting is going to be nearly as useful an option for wizards. I hope we get some good information from folks play testing the wizard this weekend.


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It'd be pretty surprising if Wizards suddenly sucked at using buff spells in PF2 considering that was one of their best options in PF1.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I also hope to see issues of line of sight and effect clearly spelled out somewhere in the magic section because text like “you must be able to see your target” in the spell description don’t tell me if I need a line of effect or not and there are a lot of ways to be able to see a target in 120ft and not have a line of effect. This isn’t a make or break deal with a playtest, but it would be nice to help clear these issues up in a more direct and intuitive way than they were in PF1. Also it makes sense from a balance perspective, but i’d Like to know why a magic missile can only target a creature, but weather that creature is living or dead or a construct doesn’t matter. Blasting things out of someone’s hand should obviously require some kind of check, but I can’t even target a door right in front of me?


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Unicore wrote:
I also hope to see issues of line of sight and effect clearly spelled out somewhere in the magic section because text like “you must be able to see your target” in the spell description don’t tell me if I need a line of effect or not and there are a lot of ways to be able to see a target in 120ft and not have a line of effect. This isn’t a make or break deal with a playtest, but it would be nice to help clear these issues up in a more direct and intuitive way than they were in PF1. Also it makes sense from a balance perspective, but i’d Like to know why a magic missile can only target a creature, but weather that creature is living or dead or a construct doesn’t matter. Blasting things out of someone’s hand should obviously require some kind of check, but I can’t even target a door right in front of me?

I also want really well defined line of effect rules.


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From the plain language it looks like specialists can’t prepare an extra cantrip, but that would be a nice addition if they could. Depending on the balance between them and generalists it might be a smart change.

The Exchange

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Very underwhelmed by the wizard preview. Sad to see magic missile and cone of cold nerfed for damage. Magic missile, a once iconic spell now won't be used after 3rd level except for some rare circumstances. Very said and discouraging

The Exchange

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Arachnofiend wrote:
It'd be pretty surprising if Wizards suddenly sucked at using buff spells in PF2 considering that was one of their best options in PF1.

I wouldn't be. If blast spells are an indication, wizards are being nerfed pretty hard for no good reason

The Exchange

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gustavo iglesias wrote:
Elfteiroh wrote:
Diego Rossi wrote:
Stone Dog wrote:

PF1 Wizards have a maximum of four spells per level per day before ability modifiers and they had to work up to that four.

PF2 wizards have four spells per level per day without any bonus for ability score, but also cantrips, rituals, and powers to take up the slack and they seem to get all four spells per day as soon as they get their new spell level.

They are only missing out on a scant few slots per level that they probably don't even need anymore.

I'm the first one to say that people should be free to criticize and offer alternatives to any preview we might not care for, but from where I'm standing I'll take a PF2 wizard over a PF1 wizard until the PDF drops and proves me wrong.

A PF1 wizard for each level of spells receive a maximum of 4 spell slot +1 specialization slot + the intelligence modifier (at least 1 spell as it is a SAD class) for a total of 6+ spells of each level. Low level spells are useful.

A PF2 wizard receive 3 spell slots +1 specialization slot. 4 cantrips. Spell slot more than 2-3 levels below the maximum level available seem to lose most of their utility.

PF2 wizard lose a lot of versatility. From what we see the will have 8 spells and 4 cantrips that are really usable and maybe another 4 that are reasonably useful. The others seem to be only consolation prizes that will be used to say "I am casting a spell" while waiting for the damage dealers to finish the enemies.

That don't seem much fun.

I'm pretty sure the low-level slots will still have useful spells, like Charm. Now the DC scale auto with levels... Controls/utility spells could actually be very useful in low-level slots.
PF1 spells at lvl 1 that would be better in PF2 (assuming they stay the same, or similar), are things like Charm, Color Spray, Snow Ball, Ear Piercing Scream, Ray of Enfeeblement, Touch of Blindness or Snapdragon Fireworks. Depending on how they handle the issue of autoscaling and...

You cannot make that assumption because blast spells like magic missile and cone of cold have been previewed and are worse than their PF1 equivalents.

The Exchange

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Fuzzypaws wrote:
Excaliburproxy wrote:

I think a lot of this issue is meant to be solved by making higher level skill feats and class abilities that are especially extraordinary.

That said: I now wonder what is stopping a wizard from having extraordinary spell abilities and extraordinary skill abilities (as compared to say a fighter).

Logically, casters would benefit from the new skill system too. But I am hoping that even the leanest martial class gets more skills, and also advances more skills faster to the highest tiers, than any caster. There's never been any good reason for Fighters etc to have so few skill points. Sure, give Rogues and Rangers etc more skill points than anyone else, but even a Fighter should have more skill points than a Bard, because they need that to stay relevant in the narrative when compared with the versatility and utility of spellcasting.

No, a fighter should not have more skill points than a bard. The whole concept of a bard is extreme versatility. A jack of all trades. Fighters are extreme combat engines. The only way to balance them out is to make them poor in out of combat situations. Now if you say that a bard cannot reach legendary proficiency in as many skills I would be fine with that but there is no way a caster with genius intelligence should barely be equal to an average intelligence martial character for balance or relevance reasons. Intelligence has to count for something in this game.

Liberty's Edge

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My math is also probably lowballing spell damage a little, since it assumes zero Feats to add to it, and I'd be shocked if there's not at least one Class Feat for Wizard or Sorcerer that adds something to spell damage.

Liberty's Edge

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Deadmanwalking wrote:
Diego Rossi wrote:
I will be very surprised if in PF2 Charm or Dominate spells don't get a CR limit that increase heightening them. That would defeat most of the reasons for the free heightening. For sure we know that they will get a save each round unless you fail critically.

They've pretty specifically said they aren't doing level limits like this in PF2 for precisely this reason.

So I guess you'll be surprised.

The every round saves thing is true for Dominate, but may not be for Charm, we just don't know and Charm is a very different effect.

Citation please, as the only Dev post I have seen seem to hint that spells like color spray will get to affct higher level targets by being heightened.

I was wrong. But dammit, why searching color spray on Mark post didn't find this? I had to check the whole thread.

Mark Seifter wrote:
Dominik D wrote:

so since u only talked about hightening spells.

what about other metamagic? is it still a thing?

It's different from heightened and fits best in another blog.

As to individual spells, we'll reveal more over time. Since you mentioned pattern spells, they no longer have a Hit Dice limit or the like, which is an extremely good thing for all the patterns except color spray (seriously, I never prepared them in PF1 but they are cool in PF2), since most of them had limits that were quite low. But of course we said in the other blog that we were going to cut down on save or lose (especially at 1st level spells), so color spray serves more of a debuff role most of the time. On the other hand, it does so handsomely for a 1st-level spell, so your foes in the cone should expect to at least suffer a round of miss chances unless they are very lucky. Grease is pretty much grease, though in total it's probably going to be easier to trip most targets with it and harder to take away a weapon-using PC/NPC's only weapon and essentially auto-win.


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Talek & Luna wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote:
It'd be pretty surprising if Wizards suddenly sucked at using buff spells in PF2 considering that was one of their best options in PF1.
I wouldn't be. If blast spells are an indication, wizards are being nerfed pretty hard for no good reason

apart from them making most other classes irrelevant at high end you mean?

Liberty's Edge

Diego Rossi wrote:
Citation please, as the only Dev post I have seen seem to hint that spells like color spray will get to affct higher level targets by being heightened.

This post says nothing about Heightening, or it being necessary to do so in order to have the spell work on high level foes, and specifically talks about the removal of HD limits.

It does technically only talk about the removal of such limits for Pattern spells, but I'd remain deeply surprised if they remove them there only to add them to something like Charm spells.

Edit: Ninja'd by Diego himself. Yeah, that thing was impossible to find, man. I have no idea why.


Fuzzypaws wrote:

They've mentioned that the limited domain upgrade options in the CRB are due mostly to the recurring bugbear of the dreaded Page Count. They are already planning to greatly expand domain feat options in a future book, which I imagine will probably be one of the earliest books, like a PF2 APG. So if each school is likewise limited to only a few options in the CRB, that will probably be addressed at the same time.

Speaking of: I would love a CRB-sized Advanced Players Guide, and would happily pay $60+ for that.

I can get behind that. The APG played a major role in expanding the system. And as I've seen mentioned by some Paizo staff, it's where Pathfinder Became Pathfinder. So giving it the treatment of a second core-book makes a lot of sense. It would also help get some of the classes and other options that people will miss from PF1 out relatively quickly. Although I'd prefer not too quickly, because then it couldn't be properly tested. Maybe make the new UltraAPG the Gencon 2020 release. And have a playtest of the classes starting a few months after the release of PF2 so people have time to settle into it before tackling the new classes.

Liberty's Edge

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Deadmanwalking wrote:
My math is also probably lowballing spell damage a little, since it assumes zero Feats to add to it, and I'd be shocked if there's not at least one Class Feat for Wizard or Sorcerer that adds something to spell damage.

Your math assume that there are no damage enhancing feats for martials, so it useful when comparing the two.

Liberty's Edge

Diego Rossi wrote:
Your math assume that there are no damage enhancing feats for martials, so it useful when comparing the two.

This is true, and one of several reasons I did the analysis in the first place, I'm just noting that the DPR for spells (and for melee combat as well, for that matter) is probably lower than it will be in the final accounting.


N N 959 wrote:
Diego Rossi wrote:

Sure, the "cure" for boring, repetitive weapons attacks is to limit the other options to boring, repetitive, always the same, spells.

Reducing the options surely increase the fun.

It certainly can::

1) Fewer options requires more creative problem solving;

2) Fewer options means more cooperative problem solving;

3) Fewer options reduces player load;

4) Fewer options generally means faster play and less time spent trying to decide on which opportunities to choose;

5) Fewer options that reduce the agency of one PC means other PCs are given options to shine.

I'm in a Tier PFS tier 10-11 scenario playing a martial right now, and the casters are flat out owning it. I think I got to hit something...once. What's more, We've got Scholar/Cyphermage whose skill checks are averaging in the 40's.

Let me ask you Diego, you're doing a Tier 10-11 scenario and you've already got two full casters. You've got a choice of adding any other type of full casters or two martials, both with system mastery. You're real life depends on completing the scenario successfully, who do you choose?

No need to answer, just think about it.

Now let me ask you, based on what we know so far, do you think that's going to change for 2e? Again, don't answer.

I'll answer...

It can be a problem. Yes.

I have been the level 10 Paladin with 4 Casters and a Kineticist also level 10-11.

Yes. It sucked for me.

I was slower, 20 ft movement (I hate heavy armor sometimes) I couldn't keep up damage-wise with the Wizard or Kineticist. I had the lowest AC (when I wasn't smiting) and I couldn't use the main skill I have, as I was outshined by the Bard.

It... Wasn't fun...

I resorted to my backup role as healer.

I got to make 1 full attack the entire session. I got to make 3 attacks total.

I do think a solution to this is cutting down on the number of spells per day the characters have access to.

Another solution is, as they have done, limited the skill spread.

(A level 10 trained character with a +5 stat vs a level 10 master with a +6 stat is only a difference of +15 vs +17 which is MUCH better than Pathfinder 1e)

A third solution is to help limit the penalties to Martials (no more 20ft movement for heavy armor!)

Liberty's Edge

Deadmanwalking wrote:
Diego Rossi wrote:
Citation please, as the only Dev post I have seen seem to hint that spells like color spray will get to affct higher level targets by being heightened.

This post says nothing about Heightening, or it being necessary to do so in order to have the spell work on high level foes, and specifically talks about the removal of HD limits.

It does technically only talk about the removal of such limits for Pattern spells, but I'd remain deeply surprised if they remove them there only to add them to something like Charm spells.

Edit: Ninja'd by Diego himself. Yeah, that thing was impossible to find, man. I have no idea why.

If we get correctly how it work, I feel that it is even worse. Control spellcasters power still increase at the quadratic level for free while blasting damage increase less than linearly.

To explain what I mean:

- Hypothetical damage dealing 1st level spell deal 2d10 and add 2d10 on acritical hit. When the wizard level increase his bonus to hit increase, so the chance of a critical hit increase. He move from 2d10 to 4d10 of damage against weak foes and stay at 2d10 against same level foes. The damage rapidly become irrelevant against same level foes.

- Hypothetical Charm person slightly increase the target reaction on a successful save (based on control spell will get some effect even on a normal save), with a fail he is your best friend and get a save every minute, with a critical failure making him always agree with you for the whole day. The Dc of the spell constantly increase, so the chances of affecting a same level target stay (more or less) on par and the effect on lower level targets increase for the whole life of the character.

Control wizard win on blaster wizard by a wide margin unless most of the blasting spells have riders effects.

Liberty's Edge

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HWalsh wrote:
N N 959 wrote:
Diego Rossi wrote:

Sure, the "cure" for boring, repetitive weapons attacks is to limit the other options to boring, repetitive, always the same, spells.

Reducing the options surely increase the fun.

It certainly can::

1) Fewer options requires more creative problem solving;

2) Fewer options means more cooperative problem solving;

3) Fewer options reduces player load;

4) Fewer options generally means faster play and less time spent trying to decide on which opportunities to choose;

5) Fewer options that reduce the agency of one PC means other PCs are given options to shine.

I'm in a Tier PFS tier 10-11 scenario playing a martial right now, and the casters are flat out owning it. I think I got to hit something...once. What's more, We've got Scholar/Cyphermage whose skill checks are averaging in the 40's.

Let me ask you Diego, you're doing a Tier 10-11 scenario and you've already got two full casters. You've got a choice of adding any other type of full casters or two martials, both with system mastery. You're real life depends on completing the scenario successfully, who do you choose?

No need to answer, just think about it.

Now let me ask you, based on what we know so far, do you think that's going to change for 2e? Again, don't answer.

I'll answer...

It can be a problem. Yes.

I have been the level 10 Paladin with 4 Casters and a Kineticist also level 10-11.

Yes. It sucked for me.

I was slower, 20 ft movement (I hate heavy armor sometimes) I couldn't keep up damage-wise with the Wizard or Kineticist. I had the lowest AC (when I wasn't smiting) and I couldn't use the main skill I have, as I was outshined by the Bard.

It... Wasn't fun...

I resorted to my backup role as healer.

I got to make 1 full attack the entire session. I got to make 3 attacks total.

I do think a solution to this is cutting down on the number of spells per day the characters have access to.

Another solution is, as they have done,...

Being with 5 archers would have changed something for you? Or you would have still been the guy with 20' movement that never get a full attack?

Your problem isn't the spells, it is that you need a full attack and can't do it when moving.

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