Sorcerer Class Preview

I will note that I don’t think what we are talking about here (the 15 minute adventure day) is going to be a problem at my table. I’ll put the fear of god into a caster who wants to rest after two fights. If they blew their resources early without it being necessary then I am going to make sure they pay for it. Moreover as a player, I know that Pathfinder and other games designed around daily limits are not going to be any fun if I drop all my nukes in one fight based on meta knowledge (like: I know this GM isn’t going to want to make us fight multiple random encounters every day on this journey).

However, not every table is going to be populated by GMs like me or players like me or you, Morgan. Those are the tables that run the risk of their casters wanting to call it a day every half hour.

@Cabbage
I think this kind of thing is more of a problem past level 5/6 perhaps.

@Cabbage

I think this kind of thing is more of a problem past level 5/6 perhaps.

One of the things I felt was really important to fix in the new edition was "Casters were seriously unsatisfying to play at low levels" though. Even if those first 4 levels are fast, "you're going to suck for the first 4 levels" makes that particular character choice less appealing, particularly in light of all the 6 level casters who were good at stuff.

There is of course one simple solution. It's called "intelligent adversaries." This can even include the Goblin. But the most infamous is that of Tucker's Kobolds.

The thing about Tucker's Kobolds was they fought intelligently. They lured in the players and then struck with ambushes. They attacked in a way that wasting high-level spells was basically pointless and wouldn't do more than kill a handful of them. Now, that GM made them lethal... but what's important is this: they fought intelligently.

There are contrasting examples in the Rise of the Runelords AP and the Serpent's Skull AP - in Serpent's Skull you have telepathic snakemen in one area that even after an alarm is raised will wait for the PCs to reach them and get cut down piecemeal. In Runelords you have a situation where once the bad guys know you are there, they will send waves of giants and other targets to attack as soon as they reach you... resulting in one huge ongoing fight that usually will eventually break a party and cause a retreat.

The second is the far more realistic scenario and one far too few APs and modules go with. It can quickly overwhelm an adventuring group, even a 15th or 16th level group. But it is essentially what the enemy SHOULD be doing.

So. You have a group of enemies who have some sort of alarm set up. The moment the alarm is sounded - say because of the sounds of combat, an actual alarm being given, or even someone encountering dead bodies left by the PCs - then it makes sense for a patrol-in-force to be sent out to find and attack the party. If the PCs have squandered most of their resources and then suffer a counterattack which forces them to retreat further? Good! And then attack them again. And then again.

The players will soon learn they either have to fight intelligently or that they will end up facing retributive strikes. They will conserve resources and fight more intelligently. And that means the Adventure Paths need to be designed so the enemy isn't a bunch of turtles who exist only to be slaughtered.

I will note that I don’t think what we are talking about here (the 15 minute adventure day) is going to be a problem at my table. I’ll put the fear of god into a caster who wants to rest after two fights. If they blew their resources early without it being necessary then I am going to make sure they pay for it. Moreover as a player, I know that Pathfinder and other games designed around daily limits are not going to be any fun if I drop all my nukes in one fight based on meta knowledge (like: I know this GM isn’t going to want to make us fight multiple random encounters every day on this journey).

However, not every table is going to be populated by GMs like me or players like me or you, Morgan. Those are the tables that run the risk of their casters wanting to call it a day every half hour.

@Cabbage
I think this kind of thing is more of a problem past level 5/6 perhaps.

I just don't think the game can really control for those tables, is the thing. I mean, let's take that mindset to its inevitable conclusion. Your caster opens every fight with their highest level slot and then wants to sleep afterwards to get them back. The number of top level spell slots is actually pretty consistent between editions and the sorcerer gets them earlier now. Very little has changed for the most extreme version of the power napper.

Side note. My favorite 5e class is the warlock which is all about the naps. But they are their own beasts and short rests are different. But I'm constantly tickled by this image of the party fighter dragging a little red wagon with a sleepy demon caster in it.

In PF1 a party not being wiped out when retreating is GM's fiat at its finest. Because the combat rules make it more suicidal to withdraw than to keep on fighting even against obviously superior enemies

I hope PF2 helps with this

I essentially agree with you two (cabbage and Cap’n). However, I do think the smaller resource pool and the restructuring of spells to essentially make lower level spells less relevant does mean that the “15 minute adventure day” will come up more often. That does not mean INCREASED spell resources is the solution, though. I think either the game or the GM needs to either make clear how many encounters are expected to go on in an adventuring day so that players can make informed decisions about their resource use. I know that might rub some people the wrong way since it maybe does not make sense for people to have that information. Alternately, you could just make the whole game work off of encounter based resources or the DM can just systematically punish players who blow all of their resources in one or two fights (as I alluded to before).

I don't mind there being a guideline on the number of encounters/day, so long as it understood that it is a guideline, not a rule. as a player, I know that some of the skill comes from knowing when to go Nova and when to hold back; if all I can expect is 4 standard encounters/day it reduces the challenge. As a gm, half the fun is throwing a curve ball at the players to see how they fare. having the option of reducing encounters to 3/day or extending them to 5/day, and/or making some encounters easy and others hard is a necessary element of the game.

Except there was never supposed to be a guideline to a number of encounters per day. It was supposed to be numerous low cr encounters, a few nearly equal cr encounters, and then boss fights at much higher cr.

But then Wotc had a bunch of people complain about how "badly balanced" their encounters were in the first few modules and so they stopped doing that in their modules, but they, nor paizo after them, ever actually adjusted rules to focus on purely equal cr encounters, so basically, it was left to adjust the encounters to fit what was already there.

It's a difficult one. On the one hand, the trope is that the hero(es) overcomes a series of scaling encounters culminating in the BBEG, on the other there is nothing as boring as facing easy encounter after easy encounter.

It's a difficult one. On the one hand, the trope is that the hero(es) overcomes a series of scaling encounters culminating in the BBEG, on the other there is nothing as boring as facing easy encounter after easy encounter.

Lol! That is only true when playing a combat minis game, primarily because the combat itself is the focus.

But, in an rp, the combat is just a backdrop, not the focus.

Gavmania wrote:

It's a difficult one. On the one hand, the trope is that the hero(es) overcomes a series of scaling encounters culminating in the BBEG, on the other there is nothing as boring as facing easy encounter after easy encounter.

Lol! That is only true when playing a combat minis game, primarily because the combat itself is the focus.

But, in an rp, the combat is just a backdrop, not the focus.

In this edition, it's roughly a third of the entire game space.

And considering that a large majority of play time would end up being spent on combat makes this statement misleading.

Gavmania wrote:

It's a difficult one. On the one hand, the trope is that the hero(es) overcomes a series of scaling encounters culminating in the BBEG, on the other there is nothing as boring as facing easy encounter after easy encounter.

Lol! That is only true when playing a combat minis game, primarily because the combat itself is the focus.

But, in an rp, the combat is just a backdrop, not the focus.

At least in PF1, the combat mechanics dwarfed the RP mechanics. Like... By a lot. Pathfinder is a tactical minis game with some RP on top because the game mechanics are largely focused on combat.

Some of the stuff in PF2 that has been previewed around mechanizing ancestry and social encounters indicates that PF2 might be moving away from that paradigm, but it certainly doesn't seem to have changed focus entirely.

I don't want to repost my whole spiel on this but the 15 minute work day concern has very little to do with the size of the resource pool and everything to do with specific things which keep people from being able to rest whenever it is convenient.

Shrinking the resource pool makes it so that you can conceivably wear a party down without using a boring and impractical number of encounters. This is especially important if you have some class with finite resources to burn and other classes who don't but are supposed to have a.stronger baseline. This is part of why fighters being "all day" didn't mean much past a certain level. There were so many spell slots a caster rarely had to worry about running out.

This problem is overstated vastly. Yes their spells known are low, but they are the absolute masters of all spells they do know with flexible casting and metamagic, plus some subclass features.

Plus if you take ritual caster (Wizard, Druid, Cleric) you can more then double the spells you have access too.

Plus a twinned Firebolt Can trip is as good as a first level spell, better at higher levels then some 1st level spells.

Plus most Sorcerers using get some kind of, at will mobility enhancer from their subclass, at will teleporting or at will flight.

Sorcerers are also better at save or die and save or such spells then wizards (with the Shadow Sorcerer being the most powerful at those spells of all).

5e Sorcerers can be incredibly powerful, their one weakness is fewer spells known.

I think usually in a one on one fight with a wizard the sorcerer will win, depending on builds.

Gavmania wrote:

It's a difficult one. On the one hand, the trope is that the hero(es) overcomes a series of scaling encounters culminating in the BBEG, on the other there is nothing as boring as facing easy encounter after easy encounter.

Lol! That is only true when playing a combat minis game, primarily because the combat itself is the focus.

But, in an rp, the combat is just a backdrop, not the focus.

I mean, it's not like the two conflict. As a DM I think it's important for players to be having fun in character and with regards to the rules. I don't think every session should be combat, but I think it's important for it to actually tangibly feel fun in a way that a series of easy encounters doesn't really hit.

From the few times I've been a player, the most fun I've had is when the rules and character intersect, and the encounters and fights are ones that actually let me show off and think outside the box.

I have a couple of questions for the devs:

If I have the arcane evolutions feat, can I use spontaneous heighten on it?
If I could, that would be cool, but not too overpowered I think.

But if i have trick magic item, can I use any scroll with arcane evolutions?
If that's true, it seems overpowered. I can potentially get any spell chain from any spell list. That makes it way more powerful than any of the other evolutions, and potentially game breaking.

Captain Morgan wrote:

I don't want to repost my whole spiel on this but the 15 minute work day concern has very little to do with the size of the resource pool and everything to do with specific things which keep people from being able to rest whenever it is convenient.

Shrinking the resource pool makes it so that you can conceivably wear a party down without using a boring and impractical number of encounters. This is especially important if you have some class with finite resources to burn and other classes who don't but are supposed to have a.stronger baseline. This is part of why fighters being "all day" didn't mean much past a certain level. There were so many spell slots a caster rarely had to worry about running out.

This problem is overstated vastly. Yes their spells known are low, but they are the absolute masters of all spells they do know with flexible casting and metamagic, plus some subclass features.

Plus if you take ritual caster (Wizard, Druid, Cleric) you can more then double the spells you have access too.

Plus a twinned Firebolt Can trip is as good as a first level spell, better at higher levels then some 1st level spells.

Plus most Sorcerers using get some kind of, at will mobility enhancer from their subclass, at will teleporting or at will flight.

Sorcerers are also better at save or die and save or such spells then wizards (with the Shadow Sorcerer being the most powerful at those spells of all).

5e Sorcerers can be incredibly powerful, their one weakness is fewer spells known.

I think usually in a one on one fight with a wizard the sorcerer will win, depending on builds.

I think you quoted the wrong post there. Regardless, I don't disagree with a lot of what you are saying. IMO, the sorc suffers from having to little of everything, not just spells known. Metamagic is cool but they get too few of them to make them really fun to experiment with. Ritual caster helps, but is a feat tax for something other casters can do and the sorc has to worry about ASIs as much as anyone else. And I don't feel like the sorc has enough spell points to fuel what it does have.

The sorc probably does win one on one, but PvP is a bad metric for these games. The wizard, from my perspective, has superior utility, versatility, and stamina compared to the sorc. That means most parties would be better served by a wizard.

We have drifted pretty far off topic though, haha.

GM DarkLightHitomi wrote:

Gavmania wrote:

It's a difficult one. On the one hand, the trope is that the hero(es) overcomes a series of scaling encounters culminating in the BBEG, on the other there is nothing as boring as facing easy encounter after easy encounter.

Lol! That is only true when playing a combat minis game, primarily because the combat itself is the focus.

But, in an rp, the combat is just a backdrop, not the focus.

In this edition, it's roughly a third of the entire game space.

And considering that a large majority of play time would end up being spent on combat makes this statement misleading.

You are forgetting human nature.

If the point of the rules is to communicate, well, the consequences of miscommunication are a major part of determining how important it is to avoid miscommunication.

If a miscommunication has minor or no real consequences even on the narrative side of things, then it doesn't need a lot of tools for communicating accurately.

But once death is a possibility, then avoiding miscommunication becomes very important to maintaining fun.

If you feel like you died because of your own tactical error or bad luck, it does not really ruin the fun, and in fact, this is highly important to making winning feel awesome.

But if you died and you feel like it was caused by miscommunication, misunderstanding, or unfairness, then it will feel so bad that no amount of awesomeness elsewhere can make it acceptable. It is more bad than fun could ever be good.

Therefore, anytime character death is possible, the rules need to be such that it never feels like you died because of a misunderstanding between you and the gm. It is the stuff of fights and anger an hate. It can even be friendship ending stuff.

Thus, more detailed rules for communicating more accurately.

There are two additional factors to it as well. Scope, and agency.

Scope is refering to the focus on characters in the moment of choices and action. Resolving a fight without playing through the fight is changing the scope from where it is thd rest of the time. Makes it feel awkward to step back right when the tension is rising. It'd be like watching a an action film and skipping from the introduction to the epilogue. All the character growth and the moments thay really make us care happen in the action sequences.

Agency is the other part. If our lives are on the line, we want to knos we did everything we could to succeed, far more than winning a social encounter. Therefore we want enough detail to apply tactics.

Social encounters and other things can utilize tactics just as complex as combat, but, enacting those tactics does not require the same level of mechanical complexity (often because such tactics are spread out amongst many simpler tasks over a much longer period of time, or falls to word choice), and in the few cases it would be useful to have more complex social mevhanics, it would be impossible for a designer to forsee what is needed and woukd be useful without getting in the way for everytime else, thus there is a need to rely more on the gm for those cases instead of mechanics.

For all of these reasons, plus a few more I'm sure, it naturally means combat will have more mechanics, even when it is just a backdrop.

I found it!

An excellent example of combat being present yet being a backdrop to the focus,
Pepper and Carrot,
https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/article338/episode-13-the-pyjama-party

Also, a fun comic in it's own right.

Throughout, there is combat, and indeed the combat is a major element of the comic, yet clearly, the combat is not the focus, not the point of the comic.

This is the first thing in the Playtest I've seen that I really like. (I hate the idea of resonance points, and what was done to the alchemist, and the archetypes being based on feats). But back to the positives here: Sorcerer's having a choice of spell-list based on bloodline is fantastic. I'm really hoping Primal Fey bloodline means wild/chaos magic and not just Druid magic (although either way that's likely what I'll end up playing in the playtest since alchemist is out the door). I mean I'm still not thrilled with this everyone has less spells per day and no bonus spells for the casters when the first few levels are already a struggle for casters to begin with in first edition; but overall this is the first playtest thread to get me excited about the game.

BTW if we are unhooking Sorcerer's from Wizards maybe they should get a slightly better weapon list too. Like mechanic-wise I got why they were same before but the in-world logic never made sense. Wizard's need to spend all their time studying magic so they don't have time to practice swordplay but sorcerer's have magic in their blood, hence they are not spending time in a library all day thus no reason they can't take time to learn to use a short sword or hand-axe.

Primal magic, at present, is the Druid list. Unlike PF1, that includes a stronger blasting focus and at least some of the polymorph spells. I imagine fey bloodline spells and powers will round out the illusions, enchantments, and maybe a curse that one needs to play a fey-like character.

BTW if we are unhooking Sorcerer's from Wizards maybe they should get a slightly better weapon list too. Like mechanic-wise I got why they were same before but the in-world logic never made sense. Wizard's need to spend all their time studying magic so they don't have time to practice swordplay but sorcerer's have magic in their blood, hence they are not spending time in a library all day thus no reason they can't take time to learn to use a short sword or hand-axe.

Uh... Sorcerers and Wizards didn't have the same weapon list? Wizards had a very specific list, while Sorcerers had "Full Simple", which is pretty standard for "this is a class that doesn't revolve around using major weapons."

Primal magic, at present, is the Druid list. Unlike PF1, that includes a stronger blasting focus and at least some of the polymorph spells. I imagine fey bloodline spells and powers will round out the illusions, enchantments, and maybe a curse that one needs to play a fey-like character.

If that winds up being the case, Witches should DEFINETELY be primal. Nature spells+charms+curses+illusions is basically their spell list.

QuidEst wrote:

Primal magic, at present, is the Druid list. Unlike PF1, that includes a stronger blasting focus and at least some of the polymorph spells. I imagine fey bloodline spells and powers will round out the illusions, enchantments, and maybe a curse that one needs to play a fey-like character.

If that winds up being the case, Witches should DEFINETELY be primal. Nature spells+charms+curses+illusions is basically their spell list.

Seconded.

Although I *could* see different patrons giving different spell lists as for the sorcerer, and of course different hexes.

Ancestors, death and healing could give divine, animal, elements and other nature-themed primal, deception, ethereal and insanity occult...

Yeah, now that sorcerers have opened that particular bag, I can see the same.

Not sure we'll see that though. Bloodlines were already an integral part of being a sorcerer, while witch patrons were sort of on top and the real meat was your hexes. It could be done, after all see Shaman and Oracles, but it would be a bit of a change.

QuidEst wrote:

Primal magic, at present, is the Druid list. Unlike PF1, that includes a stronger blasting focus and at least some of the polymorph spells. I imagine fey bloodline spells and powers will round out the illusions, enchantments, and maybe a curse that one needs to play a fey-like character.

If that winds up being the case, Witches should DEFINETELY be primal. Nature spells+charms+curses+illusions is basically their spell list.

Nah, one bonus spell per level (chosen by the devs) won’t be enough to pad out the Primal list with enough mind affecting, illusions, and especially curses to look like the witch list. A fey Sorcerer can get by with just the core mind control and some illusion, but a Witch needs more.

AnimatedPaper wrote:

QuidEst wrote:

Primal magic, at present, is the Druid list. Unlike PF1, that includes a stronger blasting focus and at least some of the polymorph spells. I imagine fey bloodline spells and powers will round out the illusions, enchantments, and maybe a curse that one needs to play a fey-like character.

If that winds up being the case, Witches should DEFINETELY be primal. Nature spells+charms+curses+illusions is basically their spell list.

Nah, one bonus spell per level (chosen by the devs) won’t be enough to pad out the Primal list with enough mind affecting, illusions, and especially curses to look like the witch list. A fey Sorcerer can get by with just the core mind control and some illusion, but a Witch needs more.

That's true. Maybe something from Occult, something from Primal? Then healing from Divine... can we have hybrid spells list?

Also, Arcane is what now?

Or, they might be primarily 1 of these "essences" (right term?) but with a lot more hexes and extra powers from other lists to complement them.

... I feel like it's really too early to guess what the devs' approach will be...

Yeah, now that sorcerers have opened that particular bag, I can see the same.

Not sure we'll see that though. Bloodlines were already an integral part of being a sorcerer, while witch patrons were sort of on top and the real meat was your hexes. It could be done, after all see Shaman and Oracles, but it would be a bit of a change.

Change doesn't seem like a concept the devs are opposed to, considering sorcerers' bloodlines, shields, resonance, combos, goblins, alchemists, tiers of skill, removal of alignment restriction from monks and barbarians, removal of spells from rangers, removal of ki abilities from default monks...

But yeah, *too much* change might be... well, too much.

I feel like Occult, if actually the list Bard is using, has just about everything Witches need, since Bards are gonna have plenty of mental effects and curses and the like, and enough healing to get by.

I feel like Occult, if actually the list Bard is using, has just about everything Witches need, since Bards are gonna have plenty of mental effects and curses and the like, and enough healing to get by.

I don't know whether healing will be in the final occult list, but if there's some juxtaposition, sure!

They'd still lack polymorphs, though - those are pretty important to the witch's tropes imho. And I think arcane, if anything.

I feel like Occult, if actually the list Bard is using, has just about everything Witches need, since Bards are gonna have plenty of mental effects and curses and the like, and enough healing to get by.

You've said this before, but take a closer look at the PF1 witch's spell list. There's a lot of overlap with wizards and druids, but hardly any with bards (and what there is, usually also appears on one of the other major caster's lists). All of them are getting jumbled about of course, so how true that will remain in PF2 remains to be seen, but while you might play a witch using the bard's list, a lot of other witches are going to be hit hard by the lack of the Material essence.

I don't know whether healing will be in the final occult list, but if there's some juxtaposition, sure!

If Bards get Occult it is, since Mark Seifter has explicitly noted Bards being able to get healing spells.

They'd still lack polymorphs, though - those are pretty important to the witch's tropes imho. And I think arcane, if anything.

I agree this is a bit of a lack, but they can probably add some in with Patron, or just flat-out add them to the Witch's options.

And I suspect polymorph stuff falls under Material Essence and can thus be found on both the Arcane and Primal lists.

Deadmanwalking wrote:

I feel like Occult, if actually the list Bard is using, has just about everything Witches need, since Bards are gonna have plenty of mental effects and curses and the like, and enough healing to get by.

You've said this before, but take a closer look at the PF1 witch's spell list. There's a lot of overlap with wizards and druids, but hardly any with bards (and what there is, usually also appears on one of the other major caster's lists). All of them are getting jumbled about of course, so how true that will remain in PF2 remains to be seen, but while you might play a witch using the bard's list, a lot of other witches are going to be hit hard by the lack of the Material essence.

Both have the basic healing spell line (unique among arcane casters in PF1), both have a lot of enchantment and divination effects (many of them identical), and both are extremely poor at Evocation-type effects. Witches certainly have some more Abjuration and Transmutation effects, while Bards have more illusions, but the thematic similarities are pretty solid.

There are certainly differences, particularly when you get down to specific spells, but that was true of lots of Classes that will likely wind up with the same lists in PF1 now that lists have been pared down to 4, and Bard and witch have more thematic similarities in their list than most others, and I feel like that's probably the most important thing in determining who should get the same lists as each other.

Another possibility mentioned earlier is that Witch will go the Sorcerer route and pick a spell list based on Patron, which would work, but I personally consider that route a tad less likely. I do think it's more likely than the Witch getting any specific spell list other than Occult, though.

Roswynn wrote:

I don't know whether healing will be in the final occult list, but if there's some juxtaposition, sure!

If Bards get Occult it is, since Mark Seifter has explicitly noted Bards being able to get healing spells.

Roswynn wrote:

They'd still lack polymorphs, though - those are pretty important to the witch's tropes imho. And I think arcane, if anything.

I agree this is a bit of a lack, but they can probably add some in with Patron, or just flat-out add them to the Witch's options.

And I suspect polymorph stuff falls under Material Essence and can thus be found on both the Arcane and Primal lists.

Didn't know about that note by Mark, then either Occult has healing spells or bards are clearly not occult (personally I think the latter).

I agree, a patron or even just a class feature could solve the polymorph problem easily.

Listen, where can I find more about essences? I remember someone (probably you) talking about material, mental, spiritual and... something else, but I've looked around and can't find anything about them!

What do we know about the four essences? thread has probably been the most interesting, but they go into it a little on one of the blog posts as well.

@Deadman, I don't really agree that they share that close a thematic overlap (or that healing is all the unique; of the 5 arcane classes that don't share the wizard spell list (including alchemists), 4 heal to a certain degree and 3 get the full healing line). But I'll take your point regarding divination and charms. It's going to be a different witch that will have to opt into the fog spells and all the evocation blasting the base witch gets. Will they be strongly tied to nature or the first world at all then? By default, anyways, their patron can always be an eldest, I don't see that changing.

What do we know about the four essences? thread has probably been the most interesting, but they go into it a little on one of the blog posts as well.

Thank you kindly dear sir! *teleports to other thread*

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Roswynn wrote:

I don't know whether healing will be in the final occult list, but if there's some juxtaposition, sure!

If Bards get Occult it is, since Mark Seifter has explicitly noted Bards being able to get healing spells.

Roswynn wrote:

They'd still lack polymorphs, though - those are pretty important to the witch's tropes imho. And I think arcane, if anything.

I agree this is a bit of a lack, but they can probably add some in with Patron, or just flat-out add them to the Witch's options.

And I suspect polymorph stuff falls under Material Essence and can thus be found on both the Arcane and Primal lists.

Didn't know about that note by Mark, then either Occult has healing spells or bards are clearly not occult (personally I think the latter).

I agree, a patron or even just a class feature could solve the polymorph problem easily.

Listen, where can I find more about essences? I remember someone (probably you) talking about material, mental, spiritual and... something else, but I've looked around and can't find anything about them!

There are four spell lists in the playtest. This blog confirms those four lists. I’m assuming Bards can’t cast Fireball and/or turn into T-Rexes, so that leaves divine and occult. Unless Bards can’t cast Charm, that leaves occult.

Roswynn wrote:

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Roswynn wrote:

I don't know whether healing will be in the final occult list, but if there's some juxtaposition, sure!

If Bards get Occult it is, since Mark Seifter has explicitly noted Bards being able to get healing spells.

Roswynn wrote:

They'd still lack polymorphs, though - those are pretty important to the witch's tropes imho. And I think arcane, if anything.

I agree this is a bit of a lack, but they can probably add some in with Patron, or just flat-out add them to the Witch's options.

And I suspect polymorph stuff falls under Material Essence and can thus be found on both the Arcane and Primal lists.

Didn't know about that note by Mark, then either Occult has healing spells or bards are clearly not occult (personally I think the latter).

I agree, a patron or even just a class feature could solve the polymorph problem easily.

Listen, where can I find more about essences? I remember someone (probably you) talking about material, mental, spiritual and... something else, but I've looked around and can't find anything about them!

There are four spell lists in the playtest. This blog confirms those four lists. I’m assuming Bards can’t cast Fireball and/or turn into T-Rexes, so that leaves divine and occult. Unless Bards can’t cast Charm, that leaves occult.

All things considered, very likely.

... Unless they're without spells in this edition and it's all based on performances... now that'd be interesting. The occult spells list might be there just for aberrant bloodline sorcerers and future classes... in theory.

Anyways, given there are 4 spell lists *in the playtest*, witches could have a different spell list. But I could also see them as occult + features and hexes giving them polymorphs and other tricks.

All things considered, very likely.

... Unless they're without spells in this edition and it's all based on performances... now that'd be interesting. The occult spells list might be there just for aberrant bloodline sorcerers and future classes... in theory.

Anyways, given there are 4 spell lists *in the playtest*, witches could have a different spell list. But I could also see them as occult + features and hexes giving them polymorphs and other tricks.

I believe there have been references to Bards having spell slots (and maybe even spells known, making them definitely Spont Casters) though, so the idea of them being a spell-point caster is pretty much right out.

@Deadman, I don't really agree that they share that close a thematic overlap (or that healing is all the unique; of the 5 arcane classes that don't share the wizard spell list (including alchemists), 4 heal to a certain degree and 3 get the full healing line).

Alchemist isn't Arcane at all, and Summoners don't meaningfully heal (they get a few Eidolon-specific healing spells, but that's really not the same). That just leaves Witch and Bard.

But I'll take your point regarding divination and charms. It's going to be a different witch that will have to opt into the fog spells and all the evocation blasting the base witch gets.

They might or might not need to. I really don't know how that will work.

Will they be strongly tied to nature or the first world at all then? By default, anyways, their patron can always be an eldest, I don't see that changing.

True, but by default their Patron can be any God (Feiya's is strongly indicated to be Desna) rather than the Eldest being special. I really don't feel like they have any strong thematic tie to the Fey, and looking at them, none of the Class description or listed Archetypes seem to bear out that idea.

Roswynn wrote:

All things considered, very likely.

... Unless they're without spells in this edition and it's all based on performances... now that'd be interesting. The occult spells list might be there just for aberrant bloodline sorcerers and future classes... in theory.

Anyways, given there are 4 spell lists *in the playtest*, witches could have a different spell list. But I could also see them as occult + features and hexes giving them polymorphs and other tricks.

I believe there have been references to Bards having spell slots (and maybe even spells known, making them definitely Spont Casters) though, so the idea of them being a spell-point caster is pretty much right out.

This is correct. It's actually the same post as the Heal thing, since Mark was talking about how a Bard could be a healer if they invested some of their 'spells known'.

Another possibility mentioned earlier is that Witch will go the Sorcerer route and pick a spell list based on Patron, which would work, but I personally consider that route a tad less likely. I do think it's more likely than the Witch getting any specific spell list other than Occult, though.

Also possible that the Witch patron grants cross-list spells like how the sorc blood does and cleric deity spells can.

@Xenocrat: I think the common failure to apprehend that straight-forward reading of WBL you describe indicates need for Paizo to better explain it's substance and application. Too often WBL is conflated with "income stream" when income stream is but one factor (alongside wealth destruction/consumption) in arriving at WBL. Of course this is guideline that pre-supposes one may not be exactly at WBL at all times, but the game is balanced around idea that you are, on the average. Clarifying the role of consumables in this is one of areas that could be specified more IMHO, and the general expectation of % of WBL occupied by consumables should be based on what is most effective.

Just following up on this topic, I think a good part of better explaining WBL is explaining what happens when you're above/below WBL. What a GM is supposed to do in this situation isn't very clear IMHO (the clearest scenario is where WBL = CR adjustment, although that isn't spelled out in WBL section), although it isn't truly a matter of "supposed to do" but "this is the situation, how you handle it has consequences". Recognizing that sustained sub-WBL means higher threat of enemies is valuable for people who would like to do that. Recognizing that super-WBL means lower threat, like-wise. And it's fine if a GM/group want to fulfill some moralism re: wasteful expenditure, but eventually that gets old and they will prefer to move on to next chapter (restoring WBL). Even while they are spinning that morality tale, they may want to consider dialing back the APL+4 enemies.

WBL was never meant as anything but a guideline.

It is because of the Ironman principle. There us a difference between what Tony Stark can do and what Ironman can do.

The problem is, if you want even just a meterstick for how powerful a CR # shoukd be compared to a party of lvl X, you need to make an assumption about how much their equipment is adjusting their stats.

WBL is not the greatest nor only way to solve the issue, but it is okay at it and it makes sense given the heritage of gold=xp, and 3.0 was not trying to be something new, but rather tried to encode the old stuff into something more unified and flexible.

So it isn't and never was a case of "the party needs X gold" but rather of saying, "CR assumes the party has X gold, so if they have too little or too much, additional adjustment to expected difficulty will be needed."

Fun thing I noticed: Not only does the demon bloodline grant the divine sorcerer a bunch of spells from other lists, but a bunch of spells which look like they cover gaps in the divine list-- namely, blasting and battlefield control. This is pretty cool for keeping the sorcerer as a flexible character, and for a demon inspired character to be able to rain down hell fire.

I'm having some fun speculating what else we may see that follows this example. I like the idea that the bloodlines are this well crafted.

Draconic: Maybe some primal spells for shape-shifting? Not sure how heavy the arcane list already has this covered. But I'd think Primal and Divine probably have lots of options for making the dragon disciple style melee sorcerer.

Fey: Almost certainly some enchantment spells on here. Not sure if they will be more occult or arcane though.

Aberrant: While the mental side of Lovecraftian is represented in the Occult list, I'm guessing the actual physical manifestations will be arcane territory. Black tentacles, maybe some summoning or planar binding, I think that stuff is gonna be available to the occult sorcerer but not the bard.

Imperial: Almost certainly gonna get some of those occult bard spells for getting people to shut up and listen. What could be more imperious than that?

Angelic: Not really sure. Might follow a similar pattern to the demon, or it might focus more on inspirational prowess of the occult, or maybe even the shape-changing of the primal to grow wings.

Captain Morgan wrote:

Fey: Almost certainly some enchantment spells on here. Not sure if they will be more occult or arcane though.

That is what I am very interested in: Fey, love that 3rd Ed/PF1 got into it, butt not enough!

If you are interested in the fey folk, I would recommend the excellent Ironfang Invasion adventure path, which I have been running with great success. Books 2 and 5 in particular have big focuses on the fey.

For me, I often play a sorcerer that is a spontaneous wizard flavor-wise (cause I really hate prepared casting).

However, there is one sort of situation I really like, and that is representing a character's innate power, not self study, but power like in the movie Frozen, where she didn't choose the power and didn't have good control of it for a long time.

To be honest though, I'd rather drop the existing magic system and do something more like Spheres of Power instead.

I don't understand Paizo's reasoning regarding spell heightening: "Sorcerers have limited spells known, so we'll require them to burn a known spell slot for each level they want to cast it at, and give them this 2/day patch. Wizards have unlimited spells known, so we'll let them learn each spell just once at its lowest level, and freely let them prepare it in higher slots to get its heightened effects."

This is completely backwards. Sorcerers should be the ones able to learn once and manipulate it at will, and wizards should have to learn at each level because they can.

The only conclusion I get from this is that they really like paleovancian casting.

I don't understand Paizo's reasoning regarding spell heightening: "Sorcerers have limited spells known, so we'll require them to burn a known spell slot for each level they want to cast it at, and give them this 2/day patch. Wizards have unlimited spells known, so we'll let them learn each spell just once at its lowest level, and freely let them prepare it in higher slots to get its heightened effects."

This is completely backwards. Sorcerers should be the ones able to learn once and manipulate it at will, and wizards should have to learn at each level because they can.

The only conclusion I get from this is that they really like paleovancian casting.

The thread has gone over this multiple times, and the devs have said that they've fully understood how absurdly strong giving sorcerers such a boon would be, so they gave them a 2 day because giving them none would make them too weak, but all is too strong. And doing such a thing to wizard would absolutely destroy their viability, even compared to a sorcerer with no free heightening.

I don't understand Paizo's reasoning regarding spell heightening: "Sorcerers have limited spells known, so we'll require them to burn a known spell slot for each level they want to cast it at, and give them this 2/day patch. Wizards have unlimited spells known, so we'll let them learn each spell just once at its lowest level, and freely let them prepare it in higher slots to get its heightened effects."

This is completely backwards. Sorcerers should be the ones able to learn once and manipulate it at will, and wizards should have to learn at each level because they can.

The only conclusion I get from this is that they really like paleovancian casting.

What you have to remember is that both classes come with a bottleneck in their ability to cast spells freely; for wizards it is their spells prepared - it doesn't matter how many spells they know, it only matters how many they prepare (given some time, they can get round this, but in the heat of battle that's what they are stuck with).

houser2112 wrote:

I don't understand Paizo's reasoning regarding spell heightening: "Sorcerers have limited spells known, so we'll require them to burn a known spell slot for each level they want to cast it at, and give them this 2/day patch. Wizards have unlimited spells known, so we'll let them learn each spell just once at its lowest level, and freely let them prepare it in higher slots to get its heightened effects."

This is completely backwards. Sorcerers should be the ones able to learn once and manipulate it at will, and wizards should have to learn at each level because they can.

The only conclusion I get from this is that they really like paleovancian casting.

What you have to remember is that both classes come with a bottleneck in their ability to cast spells freely; for wizards it is their spells prepared - it doesn't matter how many spells they know, it only matters how many they prepare (given some time, they can get round this, but in the heat of battle that's what they are stuck with).

For the sorcerer, it is their spells known. Anything they know, they can cast (assuming they still have spell slots available, that is); anything they don't know, they can't (outside of scrolls). If you allow them to heighten everything freely, the number of spells known rises exponentially (3 at 1st, 6x 2nd, 9x3rd, 12x4th, etc; of course this assumes that they pick spells that are heightenable to each of the following levels, but you get the picture). Before long, they have access at any time to pretty much every spell there is of their level or lower and the bottleneck is gone.
So that's why the devs limited it. It's just too powerful and unbalances the sorcerer.
As is, the consensus among the devs is that they now think sorcerer is more powerful than wizard.

Someone who gets that! In 5e a lot of people complain about the low number of Sorcerer Spells, not realizing that for example casting Chromatic Orb in higher slots means their are effectly 9 different Chromatic Orb Spells and that is before you factor in energy type choice and metamagic. This is similar to spell heighting in PF 2e, except that not all casting classes use neovancian spontaneous casting in PF 2e, so sponteous spell heighting is more damaging to balance.