Sorcerer Class Preview

I'm curious on why there isn't undercasting as an option for sorcs in addition to their spontaneous heightening. A sorc that knows heal 5, should be able to cast heal 3, and heal 1 without additional costs, whereas a sorc that knows heal 1 should need to pay a cost (one of their spontaneous heightening spell choices) to be able to cast heal 3, and heal 5.

Is there a reason undercasting doesn't seem to exist for them?

Largely to take pressure off your spell selection at higher levels. Rather than being encouraged to fill your high-level spell slots with versatile spells you might want to use lower-level slots for, you can fill a couple lower-level slots with spells you want to spontaneously heighten and pick the newest, hottest spells for your top-level slots. :)

Logan Bonner wrote:

Rek Rollington wrote:

I was concerned when I heard you needed to know a spell at a higher level to cast it there so spontaneous heightening is a relief. But what is the logic behind them not being able to do this all the time? Is it too much of an advantage over a wizard or does it present too many options to a player when selecting which spell to cast?

Those, with the latter slowing down play at the table immensely. Plus it really pushes you to choose spells that have heightening effects, distorting your spell selection too much. Also, spontaneous heightening can be really strong with certain spells, and we wanted you to have to pick and choose a couple to focus on at a time rather than having all that access always and outpacing prepared casters.

If spontaneous heightening were available to all spells for spontaneous casters, would have been good enough for prepared casters to function as Arcanists, that the spells prepared for the day can be cast as many times as slots are available?

I was just thinking this. Arcanist-style preparation would have helped solve this problem (and also it's just good and no I'm not going to let this go ever).

Quandary wrote:

I feel like part of calculus is not letting low-level Spells Known freely "upgrade" to high-level Spells Known, although I feel that concern isn't as strong as it seems at first glance, considering the Wizard is being allowed to gain spells and later freely Heighten them at no cost.

As the designer who was most in favor of give spontaneous casters free spont-heightening on everything early on, having then tested it out, I am willing to admit I was wrong. It's a combination of extreme load on the sorcerer's turn and the power of pinpoint targeting of the exact spell level you need. Like it's one thing to think "Yeah, the wizard could just prepare exactly an 5th level dispel magic, or a 7th level remove curse" but in reality, there's almost no chance the wizard prepared exactly that. Most likely he didn't prepare either of them at those levels or above. If you're lucky, maybe he prepared it almost at those levels (giving him some chance to help) or above those levels (so a sure thing, but only if he wastes a higher-level spell slot than necessary to solve the problem). The sorcerer always has exactly the minimum spell level you need to solve the problem with minimum effort, every time; this is something that might take some time playing around with it to see the full ramifications though. Now if you have the day to dispel the spell or remove the curse, the wizard can prep those spells tomorrow, sure, but the sorcerer can also change up her spontaneous heighten as well, so they both can handle it the next day.

Hmm.. I agree that this, like the wordcasting system, has almost too many choices for players who haven't set up everything in their mind before hand.

Let me get this straight in my head. If I take Dispel Magic at 3rd level as a 2nd level spell, and when I get to 5th level and get my 3rd level spell slots, to cast Dispel Magic as a third level spell I will have to:

• Select it as my spontaneous heightened spell at the beginning of the day, or
  
• replace my Dispel Magic level 2 with a Dispel Magic level 3, meaning I can no longer cast it at 2nd level, even with spontaneous heightening, or
  
• get Dispel Magic level 3 as one of my new spells known, meaning I have to waste to of my spells known slots on a single spell.

Quandary wrote:

I feel like part of calculus is not letting low-level Spells Known freely "upgrade" to high-level Spells Known, although I feel that concern isn't as strong as it seems at first glance, considering the Wizard is being allowed to gain spells and later freely Heighten them at no cost.

As the designer who was most in favor of give spontaneous casters free spont-heightening on everything early on, having then tested it out, I am willing to admit I was wrong. It's a combination of extreme load on the sorcerer's turn and the power of pinpoint targeting of the exact spell level you need. Like it's one thing to think "Yeah, the wizard could just prepare exactly an 5th level dispel magic, or a 7th level remove curse" but in reality, there's almost no chance the wizard prepared exactly that. Most likely he didn't prepare either of them at those levels or above. If you're lucky, maybe he prepared it almost at those levels (giving him some chance to help) or above those levels (so a sure thing, but only if he wastes a higher-level spell slot than necessary to solve the problem). The sorcerer always has exactly the minimum spell level you need to solve the problem with minimum effort, every time; this is something that might take some time playing around with it to see the full ramifications though. Now if you have the day to dispel the spell or remove the curse, the wizard can prep those spells tomorrow, sure, but the sorcerer can also change up her spontaneous heighten as well, so they both can handle it the next day.

Mark for what you say looks like free spontaneous heightening would have been the closer we have seen to 3.5 Psionics, I admit I'm quite biased here because Psionics is my preferred casting system, so I'm having a hard time understanding the reasons to not have free spontaneous heightening.

Roswynn wrote:

Danbala wrote:

doc roc wrote:

A ballsy move by Paizo thats for sure, and with the possibility of having a divine magical tradition, things are looking interesting for the Oracle....

Is Oracle now an arch-type for Sorcerer?

No: Archetypes are not class dependent, first and foremost.

In fairness, we'll probably see Class Dependent Archetypes at some point. But not in the playtest.

Roswynn wrote:

Secondly, if you want you can take a celestial bloodline sorcerer right now and call it an oracle, but later on, after the core books, we'll have extra products, with extra classes, and some of them will be the witch, the shaman, the *actual* oracle... and many others.

This is probably true, but something we have 100% certainty on.

It is likely that class-dependent archetypes will come up at some point, if nothing else because it is a possibility. But do you have some secret intel as per usual? ;)

No, of course I can't positively guarantee we'll have those classes later on, but I'd bet a large sum, DMW. Call it woman's intuition, or just a hunch, or simply the path of least resistance. But sure, I don't wanna trick people into thinking I have official info!

When I first heard about how Spontaneous casting works in the new edition, I hated it. My group convinced me to push it out of my mind until we saw how it works, because we might get plenty of spells on the heighten track outside of the "learn this spell at every level you want to cast it" so I waited. Well now that I've seen the mechanic... I still hate it. Two slots for your entire career (the change each day is nice... if a situation comes up... and you know about it in time to prepare... ugh, preparing as a spont caster, I play Spont because I'm bad at planning ahead like that... and you didn't already hit the issue I'm going to discuss in a moment) and they are part of your (it seems 3 per spell level, one of which is bloodline) spells known.

So let's see. You have two spaces for spells you can heighten. That's it, for your entire career. So... no one ever has three spells they might want to cast at multiple levels? At level 20 you might have as many as 28 spells known... 9 of those will be bloodline spells, 1 in this case is a 10th level spell, and if, Gods forbid, there's three you want to cast at multiple levels that's up to a possible 9 known being eaten right there, depending on the scaling of the spell and how much you expect to cast it. So much for being more flexible than the Wizard. Especially the Generalist wizard who gets 3 spells known per level, can change all of them every day, and can get a lot more casts if they play right.

I like a lot of this. I feel like spontaneous heightening should scale with level to some extent, because otherwise the ability seems to get comparably worse as you level. At level 3, you can pick 2 of your lets say 6 spells known and heighten them. That is 1/3 your repetoire excluding cantrips. Jump to level 7, you can pick two of your lets say 12 spells known. Now it is half as effective. And it just keeps getting worse. Maybe include feats to increase the number at least?

It really doesn't, because it applies to each level individually.

Say you pick a 1st and 3rd level spell to have free Heightening on at 11th level. You can now use those two spells as 4th, 5th, or 6th, effectively having 2 extra options for each of those levels (and one extra at 2nd and 3rd for the heightened 1st level one). That's actually 8 extra options, and could be 10 if you went with two 1st level spells.

At 3rd, you have 7 options + 2 additional ones from Heightened. At 11th, you have 23 options, +8-10 additional ones from Heightened. That's a boost to total options, not a loss of them.

Mark Seifter wrote:

Quandary wrote:

I feel like part of calculus is not letting low-level Spells Known freely "upgrade" to high-level Spells Known, although I feel that concern isn't as strong as it seems at first glance, considering the Wizard is being allowed to gain spells and later freely Heighten them at no cost.

As the designer who was most in favor of give spontaneous casters free spont-heightening on everything early on, having then tested it out, I am willing to admit I was wrong. It's a combination of extreme load on the sorcerer's turn and the power of pinpoint targeting of the exact spell level you need. Like it's one thing to think "Yeah, the wizard could just prepare exactly an 5th level dispel magic, or a 7th level remove curse" but in reality, there's almost no chance the wizard prepared exactly that. Most likely he didn't prepare either of them at those levels or above. If you're lucky, maybe he prepared it almost at those levels (giving him some chance to help) or above those levels (so a sure thing, but only if he wastes a higher-level spell slot than necessary to solve the problem). The sorcerer always has exactly the minimum spell level you need to solve the problem with minimum effort, every time; this is something that might take some time playing around with it to see the full ramifications though. Now if you have the day to dispel the spell or remove the curse, the wizard can prep those spells tomorrow, sure, but the sorcerer can also change up her spontaneous heighten as well, so they both can handle it the next day.

Mark for what you say looks like free spontaneous heightening would have been the closer we have seen to 3.5 Psionics, I admit I'm quite biased here because Psionics is my preferred casting system, so I'm having a hard time understanding the reasons to not have free spontaneous heightening.

Well, I've seen players who spend several minutes leafing through books because they don't know what the spell they just cast does. If someone can cast Beast Form II or Undead anatomy I but doesn't know the abilities each grants then they spend alot of time looking at the book while everyone else sits their patiently, or not so patiently depending on the person.

Hm. Well. I like what I see here- seriously, quite, quite cool- but the implication for Oracles down the line is troubling.

Granted this would force more design variance than "you pick a curse, you use divine spells, and can wear armor, but you're otherwise a sorcerer," but... I really like some of the flavor you can get off of an Oracle.

Blog sounds pretty nice.

Not sure how I feel about the spell list thing. It sounds amazing in theory and it might well be amazing in practice. However, looking at the spell lists in PF1, only the arcane spell list seems able to support a full caster. Pure caster druids, clerics or bard (the likely the "owner" of the occult list) always seemed lacking in comparison, especially if you're limited to core rules.

Take the ecclesitheurge. Very nice caster archetype, but due to him using the cleric spell list, he's lacking all the defensive spells that make a wizard survivable.

I'm very eager to see how the different spell lists will work out for a pure caster.

Not bad, I have really like every class preview so far - this one falls a bit flatter imo though.
Love the spell list idea, and the bloodlines are cool - but I'm yet unconvinced that losing the "spells per day" advantage over wizards is overly balanced out by anything else, when you consider the spells known requirement - what makes them "that" different?

1) I'm a bit confused I think.
I thought there was only 1 "heal" spell - that just is better depending on at what level you cast it -- so you don't have to learn/know a different healing spell at every spell level.
The description of heightening helping out not needing to learn new "heal" spells confuses me, or at least makes me think my understanding was wrong from previous spell blog.

2)
Also, if the spells per day are the same as the wizard, and the argument is "they should be better at magic items because they should have more resonance"...that logic seems a bit flimsy, unless the sorcerer specifically gets to somehow be better based on a class ability. Since anyone can have a highish CHA - just because it's a side effect of having it be their primary stat is a bit off.

Largely looks good (except spell points for non-spell powers, still) and the idea that charisma as a primary stat somehow 'makes up' for class limitations/shortfalls by providing extra resonance. The idea of a 'resonance tax' on charisma classes is pretty abhorrent.

Ditching the spell speedbump at 3rd level is obviously good though. That was never justified, even in 3.0.

While the access to different spell lists is interesting, I'm not particularly sold on it. The idea that all demon/angel bloods must use divine spells, all fey = druid casting, all dragons (and whatever imperial is) must use arcane and all squiggly beasts are occult just doesn't sit well. I'd rather leave spell list up to the player and focus on granted spells and bloodline powers.

Demonic blood looks.. eh. While the jaws are a clear improvement over the terrible claws of 1e, the bloodline as a whole feels all over the place and thematically rather dull.

Quandary wrote:

About Heighten, it does fundamentally seem strange for a Wizard to be able to arbitrarily choose any # of spells to Heighten each day (limited by spell slots), but a Sorceror can't. Perhaps a compromise would be allowing the Sorceror to be able to prepare-as-Heightened similar to a Wizard AND have limited spontaneous-Heighten ability on the side. I feel like part of calculus is not letting low-level Spells Known freely "upgrade" to high-level Spells Known, although I feel that concern isn't as strong as it seems at first glance, considering the Wizard is being allowed to gain spells and later freely Heighten them at no cost.

None of this would be a problem if they hadn't choose to overhaul the whole spellcasting system and replacing it with NASS (Non-Automatically Scaling Spellcasting). Not only did they put NASS in place but they even reduced the spells per day. So is double-nerf showdown on casters. And so the sorcerers would get a huge boost in this system if they were to be allowed to heighten at will or they get a huge drawback having to spend a spell known for each spell level version of the same spell they want, and Spontaneous Heighten is a shoddy tool for trying to fix this. But what irritates me a lot on top of all the problems these new subsystems cause is when a hear a phrase trying to sell them as a good thing. Like "now your cleric can choose which spell level he wants to cast his spell with!". I've always loved you, Paizo, but no, don't try to push this on me. State things plainly, "we are nerfing spellcasters", don't sugar-coat it.

It doesn't seem like they've nerfed casters overall. Some stuff got reduced, but others got improved.

For example spells do automatically scale, in their DCs and To-Hit modifiers. This is awesome, your Caster level actually helps your lower level spells remain relevant. While your Sleep might not get any deadlier against on level oponents, you'll at least be able to cast it and have them fail the save. This is a massive boost. I'll take less over all spells but all those spells being useful than more spells of which large swathes are useless.

And Cantrips auto scaling is huge. I don't see how you can ignore a Wizard being able to cast 3d10 damage all day every day at level 5 a nerf. This also prolongs the use of your more limited spell pool, because you don't need to blow spell slots to have an impact.

So no I don't think Spellcasters have been nerfed. They've be made less swingy.

It is likely that class-dependent archetypes will come up at some point, if nothing else because it is a possibility. But do you have some secret intel as per usual? ;)

Nothing definitive, no. Mark Seifter noted that there was design space for them and specified that they weren't going to be in the playtest because the people at Paizo 'knew they worked' (or words to that effect), which both make it seem quite likely in the long run, though.

No, of course I can't positively guarantee we'll have those classes later on, but I'd bet a large sum, DMW. Call it woman's intuition, or just a hunch, or simply the path of least resistance. But sure, I don't wanna trick people into thinking I have official info!

Sure, I agree it's likely, at least for those three Classes (I'm less certain that, say, Hunter is gonna get brought over). Just trying to help everyone achieve clarity and understanding. :)

As you level up, you learn new spells and can replace some of the spells you previously had with new ones. This lets you get rid of some spells that were great options when they were at your highest level but maybe aren't worth casting anymore.

I guess the big question is how often can you do this? Will you have enough to drop your sleep and color spray equivalents as well as your spells you want at a higher level?

To be fair, with the example given, I'm pretty sure primal magic is nature stuff. Like, Druidic stuff.

Personally I'd love to see the kineticist make a move over once things get rolling.

I think that would be a cool thing. Kineticists are clearly inspired, at least in part, by benders (á la Avatar: The Last Airbender), and the benders' powers have a spiritual origin even though they mostly aren't linked to particular spirits. That'd fit well with primal magic, at least on paper.

Quandary wrote:

About Heighten, it does fundamentally seem strange for a Wizard to be able to arbitrarily choose any # of spells to Heighten each day (limited by spell slots), but a Sorceror can't. I don't think focusing just on "max level" slots like has been done above gives justice to issue. Perhaps a compromise would be allowing the Sorceror to be able to prepare-as-Heightened similar to a Wizard AND have limited spontaneous-Heighten ability on the side.

I feel like part of calculus is not letting low-level Spells Known freely "upgrade" to high-level Spells Known, although I feel that concern isn't as strong as it seems at first glance, considering the Wizard is being allowed to gain spells and later freely Heighten them at no cost.

As the designer who was most in favor of give spontaneous casters free spont-heightening on everything early on, having then tested it out, I am willing to admit I was wrong. It's a combination of extreme load on the sorcerer's turn and the power of pinpoint targeting of the exact spell level you need. Like it's one thing to think "Yeah, the wizard could just prepare exactly an 5th level dispel magic, or a 7th level remove curse" but in reality, there's almost no chance the wizard prepared exactly that.

The [spontaneously Heightening?] sorcerer always has exactly the minimum spell level you need to solve the problem with minimum effort, every time;

Thanks for the insight, I can see how 'spontaneous Heighten of everything' could be inbalancing and overwhelming in gameplay. But I think allowing Sorcerors BOTH Prepared Heighten (aka choosing what spell level that will be cast as for the day) and Spontaneous Heighten works on both accounts. It's not overwhelming in gameplay because the Spontaneous Heighten still only applies to a few spells. And preparing Heighten for other spells has same sub-optimalities as a Wizard (Sorceror Prepared Heighten could be compared to 1e Arcanist, just for Heighten versions).

I like a lot of this. I feel like spontaneous heightening should scale with level to some extent, because otherwise the ability seems to get comparably worse as you level. At level 3, you can pick 2 of your lets say 6 spells known and heighten them. That is 1/3 your repetoire excluding cantrips. Jump to level 7, you can pick two of your lets say 12 spells known. Now it is half as effective. And it just keeps getting worse. Maybe include feats to increase the number at least?

Also, I was kinda hoping bloodline powers would all be customizable similar to how oracles pick revelations instead of all getting the same ones at the same levels (for a given mystery), though that is more a matter of personal taste than a flaw in the class.

Overall however, looks good. Maybe sorcerer will be worth picking over wizards for me in the new edition, a welcome change.

You seem to be looking at it from only one angle. The angle you are missing is that at 3rd level I have 6 spells known but 2 of the spells might be cast at either 1st or 2nd level possibly giving me 2 more spells to choose from. at 7th level 2 of those spell ,might now be able to cast at levels 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th now giving you a possible 6 more spells to choose from at different levels. If you choose your spells right it actually get better over time instead of getting worse.

Mark Seifter wrote:

Quandary wrote:

About Heighten, it does fundamentally seem strange for a Wizard to be able to arbitrarily choose any # of spells to Heighten each day (limited by spell slots), but a Sorceror can't. I don't think focusing just on "max level" slots like has been done above gives justice to issue. Perhaps a compromise would be allowing the Sorceror to be able to prepare-as-Heightened similar to a Wizard AND have limited spontaneous-Heighten ability on the side.

I feel like part of calculus is not letting low-level Spells Known freely "upgrade" to high-level Spells Known, although I feel that concern isn't as strong as it seems at first glance, considering the Wizard is being allowed to gain spells and later freely Heighten them at no cost.

As the designer who was most in favor of give spontaneous casters free spont-heightening on everything early on, having then tested it out, I am willing to admit I was wrong. It's a combination of extreme load on the sorcerer's turn and the power of pinpoint targeting of the exact spell level you need. Like it's one thing to think "Yeah, the wizard could just prepare exactly an 5th level dispel magic, or a 7th level remove curse" but in reality, there's almost no chance the wizard prepared exactly that.

The [spontaneously Heightening?] sorcerer always has exactly the minimum spell level you need to solve the problem with minimum effort, every time;

Thanks for the insight, I can see how 'spontaneous Heighten of everything' could be inbalancing and overwhelming in gameplay. But I think allowing Sorcerors BOTH Prepared Heighten and Spontaneous Heighten works on both accounts. It's not overwhelming in gameplay because the Spontaneous Heighten still only applies to a few spells. And preparing Heighten for other spells has same sub-optimalities as a Wizard (Sorceror Prepared Heighten could be compared to 1e Arcanist, just for Heighten versions).

Honestly, that would avoid both the analysis paralysis and the optimality, but it then adds an extra complication to sorcerer casting where sometimes you're locked into prepared spell slots (I think this is what you're suggesting, locking in certain slots to be a particular heightened spell?), which makes the sorcerer much more complicated to fully grok, even for people who wouldn't want to use that option. It seems like it would be a good thing for a feat so that not every sorcerer has to learn it (and maybe since you spend a feat, the feat might also give you an extra lower level spell slot each day that is only used to prepare heightened spells, or something).

The best thing is that Sorcerers get new levels of spells at the same time as Wizards. It was one of the biggest problems in APs, as the AP would assume you had access to the better progression in places. Woe be the Arcanist, Sorcerer or Oracle who tried to fill in.

I think it is interesting having the default spell list depend on Bloodline. I would like it if the bloodline spells were always heightened in a manner like Spontaneous Heightening, but that could easily lead to one bloodline being much more powerful than others.

I look forward to seeing how the balance between Sorcerer and Wizard plays out in practice.

Quandary wrote:

About Heighten, it does fundamentally seem strange for a Wizard to be able to arbitrarily choose any # of spells to Heighten each day (limited by spell slots), but a Sorceror can't. Perhaps a compromise would be allowing the Sorceror to be able to prepare-as-Heightened similar to a Wizard AND have limited spontaneous-Heighten ability on the side. I feel like part of calculus is not letting low-level Spells Known freely "upgrade" to high-level Spells Known, although I feel that concern isn't as strong as it seems at first glance, considering the Wizard is being allowed to gain spells and later freely Heighten them at no cost.

None of this would be a problem if they hadn't choose to overhaul the whole spellcasting system and replacing it with NASS (Non-Automatically Scaling Spellcasting). Not only did they put NASS in place but they even reduced the spells per day. So is double-nerf showdown on casters. And so the sorcerers would get a huge boost in this system if they were to be allowed to heighten at will or they get a huge drawback having to spend a spell known for each spell level version of the same spell they want, and Spontaneous Heighten is a shoddy tool for trying to fix this. But what irritates me a lot on top of all the problems these new subsystems cause is when a hear a phrase trying to sell them as a good thing. Like "now your cleric can choose which spell level he wants to cast his spell with!". I've always loved you, Paizo, but no, don't try to push this on me. State things plainly, "we are nerfing spellcasters", don't sugar-coat it.

Of course they are nerfing spellcasters. There has been huge discussions on the fact that Martials develop linearly while casters develop quadratically (actually its exponentially, but the point is there is a huge disparity between them). It's been the bane of GMs at high level for years (among other things). Most players who play a wizard have to down play them so as not to dominate the game, which is not the way it should be, so I welcome the Nerf; especially as they get a buff at lower levels and the new system makes them not so sucky in combat (though still not a patch on the martials).

doc roc wrote:

A ballsy move by Paizo thats for sure, and with the possibility of having a divine magical tradition, things are looking interesting for the Oracle....

Is Oracle now an arch-type for Sorcerer?

I mean, if they had plans for archetypes that dramatically changed the class applied to it, they probably would have mentioned it in the archetypes blog. Right now we don't even have archetypes which are specific to classes yet, let alone ones which add or change major features.

Since the oracle has so much flavor, it's probably better to do it as a class unto itself even if it has some mechanical overlap with the sorcerer. One presumes the Witch has some mechanical overlap with the Wizard, and the Witch was nearly in core alongside the Wizard.

Not bad, I have really like every class preview so far - this one falls a bit flatter imo though.

Love the spell list idea, and the bloodlines are cool - but I'm yet unconvinced that losing the "spells per day" advantage over wizards is overly balanced out by anything else, when you consider the spells known requirement - what makes them "that" different?

1) I'm a bit confused I think.
I thought there was only 1 "heal" spell - that just is better depending on at what level you cast it -- so you don't have to learn/know a different healing spell at every spell level.
The description of heightening helping out not needing to learn new "heal" spells confuses me, or at least makes me think my understanding was wrong from previous spell blog.

There is only one heal spell, but it does different things at different levels. A wizard can prepare heal (level 1),heal (level 2), or heal (level 3), or any combination of those spells in order to cast them in a day. Similarly, sorcerers have a repertoire of spells known. When they learn heal, they do so at a specific level (i.e. heal (level 1)).

It works out something like arcanist-style casting when you consider the two spontaneous heighten spells you choose per day. Even arcanists keeps their bread-and-butter spells prepared most days and only change out a few per level.

edduardco wrote:

Mark for what you say looks like free spontaneous heightening would have been the closer we have seen to 3.5 Psionics, I admit I'm quite biased here because Psionics is my preferred casting system, so I'm having a hard time understanding the reasons to not have free spontaneous heightening.

Well, I've seen players who spend several minutes leafing through books because they don't know what the spell they just cast does. If someone can cast Beast Form II or Undead anatomy I but doesn't know the abilities each grants then they spend alot of time looking at the book while everyone else sits their patiently, or not so patiently depending on the person.

Is unfair to expect that a player know by memory the full spell list, but I expect caster players to have their spells at hand, in a separate folder, cards, etc.

Aw, I don't like Seoni's new look. I always thought she looked cool.

I think it is interesting having the default spell list depend on Bloodline. I would like it if the bloodline spells were always heightened in a manner like Spontaneous Heightening, but that could easily lead to one bloodline being much more powerful than others.

Yeah, as you guessed. I proposed that one as well "These are your bloodline spells, so maybe you know them better and get those for free," but it created an issue where bloodlines that gave you key spont heighten spells were suddenly much more powerful, even if the other bloodline gave you extremely good spells that have one useful heighten and that you eventually do want to learn, like haste. When you add in matching the bloodline's flavor thematically, even if you know about this issue, there's pretty much no way to do it that doesn't unbalance some bloodlines other than by avoiding the strong key spont heighten spells altogether for every bloodline (because you simply won't be able to get them in all of them), which at point, if you're not putting in good spont heighten spells, it sort of defeats the purpose of giving you free spont heighten in the first place.

Roswynn wrote:

It is likely that class-dependent archetypes will come up at some point, if nothing else because it is a possibility. But do you have some secret intel as per usual? ;)

Nothing definitive, no. Mark Seifter noted that there was design space for them and specified that they weren't going to be in the playtest because the people at Paizo 'knew they worked' (or words to that effect), which both make it seem quite likely in the long run, though.

Roswynn wrote:

No, of course I can't positively guarantee we'll have those classes later on, but I'd bet a large sum, DMW. Call it woman's intuition, or just a hunch, or simply the path of least resistance. But sure, I don't wanna trick people into thinking I have official info!

Sure, I agree it's likely, at least for those three Classes (I'm less certain that, say, Hunter is gonna get brought over). Just trying to help everyone achieve clarity and understanding. :)

Well, of course, considering how people are getting tense regarding heighten spell and other features and related implications, you're absolutely right.

I also agree we won't see hunters again, at all, or at least anytime soon. Skalds and brawlers are probably a couple more classes no one will really clamor to have.

Actually, sure, let's not try to foretell the future without a good Harrow reading ;) I still have a strong feeling about what's gonna be a class and what will be an archetype, but I admit, I'm no divination specialist.

Lockewood wrote:

edduardco wrote:

Mark for what you say looks like free spontaneous heightening would have been the closer we have seen to 3.5 Psionics, I admit I'm quite biased here because Psionics is my preferred casting system, so I'm having a hard time understanding the reasons to not have free spontaneous heightening.

Well, I've seen players who spend several minutes leafing through books because they don't know what the spell they just cast does. If someone can cast Beast Form II or Undead anatomy I but doesn't know the abilities each grants then they spend alot of time looking at the book while everyone else sits their patiently, or not so patiently depending on the person.

Is unfair to expect that a player know by memory the full spell list, but I expect caster players to have their spells at hand, in a separate folder, cards, etc.

I don't believe they should be forced to memorize their spell list, though I do believe they should at least have a solid idea of what the spell does.

So is the Imperial bloodline approximately the same as the old Arcane bloodline?

It's kind of similar. Not all the spells or abilities match. It's also a little more specific thematically.

Well for the first time I'm interested in playing a sorcerer over a wizard - so that's cool.

Aw, I don't like Seoni's new look. I always thought she looked cool.

Aw, c'mon, she's cooler than ever! Have you checked her out on the Doomsday Dawn's cover by Setiawan Lie? She's just dreamy! ^___^

rooneg wrote:

So is the Imperial bloodline approximately the same as the old Arcane bloodline?

It's kind of similar. Not all the spells or abilities match. It's also a little more specific thematically.

Prodigy might be a good name for what was the arcane bloodline if you don't want to call it arcane. Just naturally very good at arcane magic, eighth son of and eight son sort of thing.

Let me get this straight in my head. If I take Dispel Magic at 3rd level as a 2nd level spell, and when I get to 5th level and get my 3rd level spell slots, to cast Dispel Magic as a third level spell I will have to:

• Select it as my spontaneous heightened spell at the beginning of the day, or
  
• replace my Dispel Magic level 2 with a Dispel Magic level 3, meaning I can no longer cast it at 2nd level, even with spontaneous heightening, or
  
• get Dispel Magic level 3 as one of my new spells known, meaning I have to waste to of my spells known slots on a single spell.

Seems Like a whole lot of rigmarole that Wizards don't have to deal with, in the name of keeping it simple. It doesn't seem too bad, but Spontaneous spellcasting, along with the Resonance system, both seem like they kinda missed the mark on elegant design.

Actually prepared casters have to deal with it too, they just do it on a daily basis but don't get option 1 (though they can take a feat that means they can prepare it with ten minutes notice).

Assuming Dispel Magic also comes in Dispel magic (1), you would do better to take that and use spontaneous heightening to automatically give you dispel magic (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), (9) and (if you have the feat) (10). At any time you can cast the relevant spell (provided you have the relevant spell slot), so you only need to use a spell slot sufficient to dispel the spell. The prepared caster would need to prepare 1 of each spell and then hope he has no need to use more than one of the same level to achieve the same effect. What's more you have only used one spells known slot at your lowest spell level to get it, so you can still have 2x2nd level spells known, 2x3rd level, etc.

edduardco wrote:

Lockewood wrote:

edduardco wrote:

Mark for what you say looks like free spontaneous heightening would have been the closer we have seen to 3.5 Psionics, I admit I'm quite biased here because Psionics is my preferred casting system, so I'm having a hard time understanding the reasons to not have free spontaneous heightening.

Well, I've seen players who spend several minutes leafing through books because they don't know what the spell they just cast does. If someone can cast Beast Form II or Undead anatomy I but doesn't know the abilities each grants then they spend alot of time looking at the book while everyone else sits their patiently, or not so patiently depending on the person.

Is unfair to expect that a player know by memory the full spell list, but I expect caster players to have their spells at hand, in a separate folder, cards, etc.

I don't believe they should be forced to memorize their spell list, though I do believe they should at least have a solid idea of what the spell does.

All I was saying, is if you play a spellcaster there is already a lot of decision making to do. If a blaster has to compare Fireball to Magic Missle III, Flaming Hands III, Shocking Grasp III, and Sound Burst II then they might be sitting there a while trying to figure out which one to use.
That is why Mr. Seifter is worried about decision paralysis.

Those kind of decisions and comparison should not be done in the middle battle to begin with, but during downtime, so in the heat of combat the caster cast the first spell that comes to mind, and taking time to think which spell would be best should take in game time.

edduardco wrote:

Lockewood wrote:

edduardco wrote:

Mark for what you say looks like free spontaneous heightening would have been the closer we have seen to 3.5 Psionics, I admit I'm quite biased here because Psionics is my preferred casting system, so I'm having a hard time understanding the reasons to not have free spontaneous heightening.

Well, I've seen players who spend several minutes leafing through books because they don't know what the spell they just cast does. If someone can cast Beast Form II or Undead anatomy I but doesn't know the abilities each grants then they spend alot of time looking at the book while everyone else sits their patiently, or not so patiently depending on the person.

Is unfair to expect that a player know by memory the full spell list, but I expect caster players to have their spells at hand, in a separate folder, cards, etc.

I don't believe they should be forced to memorize their spell list, though I do believe they should at least have a solid idea of what the spell does.

All I was saying, is if you play a spellcaster there is already a lot of decision making to do. If a blaster has to compare Fireball to Magic Missle III, Flaming Hands III, Shocking Grasp III, and Sound Burst II then they might be sitting there a while trying to figure out which one to use.
That is why Mr. Seifter is worried about decision paralysis.

That's a good example Lockewood, and it can get even tougher if not all of them are damage numbers, like maybe some are crowd control, some are terrain manipulation, etc.

While I am capable of rooting through all of those quickly and choosing my turn, and I'm pretty sure many of the people on this thread who don't understand what the issue might be in the same boat as me, we are in the vast minority here. If you can do that, you have mad skills in a way that makes you extremely special. A lot of times, commentary where we stress that something is a concern even if it doesn't seem that way to you doesn't do a good enough job of emphasizing that point. It's not "You are weird" or "You are wrong"; it's "You are awesome!" Some of you following these blogs the closest are the best of the best at certain tasks that really do give a lot of trouble to most players.

BretI wrote:

I think it is interesting having the default spell list depend on Bloodline. I would like it if the bloodline spells were always heightened in a manner like Spontaneous Heightening, but that could easily lead to one bloodline being much more powerful than others.

Yeah, as you guessed. I proposed that one as well "These are your bloodline spells, so maybe you know them better and get those for free," but it created an issue where bloodlines that gave you key spont heighten spells were suddenly much more powerful, even if the other bloodline gave you extremely good spells that have one useful heighten and that you eventually do want to learn, like haste. When you add in matching the bloodline's flavor thematically, even if you know about this issue, there's pretty much no way to do it that doesn't unbalance some bloodlines other than by avoiding the strong key spont heighten spells altogether for every bloodline (because you simply won't be able to get them in all of them), which at point, if you're not putting in good spont heighten spells, it sort of defeats the purpose of giving you free spont heighten in the first place.

Just out of curiosity what other ideas were proposed?

Quandary wrote:

I can see how 'spontaneous Heighten of everything' could be inbalancing and overwhelming in gameplay. But I think allowing Sorcerors BOTH Prepared Heighten and Spontaneous Heighten works on both accounts. It's not overwhelming in gameplay because the Spontaneous Heighten still only applies to a few spells. And preparing Heighten for other spells has same sub-optimalities as a Wizard (Sorceror Prepared Heighten could be compared to 1e Arcanist, just for Heighten versions).

Honestly, that would avoid both the analysis paralysis and the optimality, but it then adds an extra complication to sorcerer casting where sometimes you're locked into prepared spell slots (I think this is what you're suggesting, locking in certain slots to be a particular heightened spell?), which makes the sorcerer much more complicated to fully grok, even for people who wouldn't want to use that option. It seems like it would be a good thing for a feat so that not every sorcerer has to learn it (and maybe since you spend a feat, the feat might also give you an extra lower level spell slot each day that is only used to prepare heightened spells, or something).

I'm not talking about preparing SLOTS, but preparing what version of spell is referred to by it's Spell Known (which now defaults to it's lowest level). Like Arcanists prepare spells which then are spontaneously cast, a Sorceror preparing the spell level their Spell Known will function at for the day will still fully spontaneously cast that spell, so no slots are being locked. Since it doesn't change basic casting mechanism, I don't think this really creates confusion for players who chose to ignore it, the rules interaction solely happens at "Heighten Preparation" time.

The Wizard would still have certain advantage in being able to prep 3rd + 5th level Fireballs (and so on for all their spell slots), while Sorceror would have dedicate to one spell level version of Fireball for the day (outside of limited Spontaneous Heighten mechanic, or dedicated multiple Spells Known for different versions of Fireball).

Aside from this, I assume low level spells can always be cast with higher level slot, just without changed effect from Heighten?

EDIT: The "prepared slots for sorcerors" was well developed with 1e's Varisian (Tattoo) Sorceror IMHO (viewing the long-term fixed SLAs as prepared slots), and I could see role in game for something like that via Feat. I don't see that as especially related to what I'm suggesting though, which is still spontaneous casting.

Danbala wrote:

doc roc wrote:

A ballsy move by Paizo thats for sure, and with the possibility of having a divine magical tradition, things are looking interesting for the Oracle....

Is Oracle now an arch-type for Sorcerer?

I mean, if they had plans for archetypes that dramatically changed the class applied to it, they probably would have mentioned it in the archetypes blog. Right now we don't even have archetypes which are specific to classes yet, let alone ones which add or change major features.

Since the oracle has so much flavor, it's probably better to do it as a class unto itself even if it has some mechanical overlap with the sorcerer. One presumes the Witch has some mechanical overlap with the Wizard, and the Witch was nearly in core alongside the Wizard.

Exactly my point. Also paladins and clerics, there's some overlap, but paladins would've never been just a cleric archetype. So I'm confident the oracle will happen, and as a class, not an archetype.

Again, this is just conjecture, I don't claim to know the future. But if I were a betting woman, I'd know where to put my money.

Initial thoughts

*Bloodline = spell list. I love this, this is absolutely fantastic.

*Bloodline Powers. Personally I'm a little underwhelmed by the one's previewed. Is it flavorful? Absolutely, but how useful is it? Having a backup weapon would basically do most of what Glutton's Jaws do.

The real question is will Bloodline Powers + Spontaneous Casting be enough to mechanically keep the Sorcerer on par to other full casters like the Cleric or Wizard, with there greater spell versatility and own domain/school powers?

*Spontaneous Heightening. I understand why Paizo is afraid to let Sorcs heighten anything but there absolutely needs to be a way in the Core Rulebook to expand this. I mean some options will be a no brainer like Dispel Magic. Most players will gravitate to whats best in most encounters for day to day usage so I could easily see one or two very good spells reserving those Spontaneous Heightening slots, limiting experimentation and builds.

Secondly as we get expansion products keeping the Sorcerer so limited for their entire career is going to get more and more obvious as other spellcasters can more easily add new spells known to experiment with while Sorcs will still be in the mindset of whats the biggest bang for your buck on each spell level.

Mark Seifter wrote:

Quandary wrote:

I can see how 'spontaneous Heighten of everything' could be inbalancing and overwhelming in gameplay. But I think allowing Sorcerors BOTH Prepared Heighten and Spontaneous Heighten works on both accounts. It's not overwhelming in gameplay because the Spontaneous Heighten still only applies to a few spells. And preparing Heighten for other spells has same sub-optimalities as a Wizard (Sorceror Prepared Heighten could be compared to 1e Arcanist, just for Heighten versions).

Honestly, that would avoid both the analysis paralysis and the optimality, but it then adds an extra complication to sorcerer casting where sometimes you're locked into prepared spell slots (I think this is what you're suggesting, locking in certain slots to be a particular heightened spell?), which makes the sorcerer much more complicated to fully grok, even for people who wouldn't want to use that option. It seems like it would be a good thing for a feat so that not every sorcerer has to learn it (and maybe since you spend a feat, the feat might also give you an extra lower level spell slot each day that is only used to prepare heightened spells, or something).

I'm not talking about preparing SLOTS, but preparing what version of spell is referred to by it's Spell Known (which now defaults to it's lowest level). Like Arcanists prepare spells which then are spontaneously cast, a Sorceror preparing the spell level their Spell Known will function at for the day will still fully spontaneously cast that spell, so no slots are being locked. Since it doesn't change basic casting mechanism, I don't think this really creates confusion for players who chose to ignore it, the rules interaction solely happens at "Heighten Preparation" time.

The Wizard would still have certain advantage in being able to prep 3rd + 5th level Fireballs (and so on for all their spell slots), while Sorceror would have dedicate to one spell level version of Fireball for the day (outside of limited Spontaneous...

I'm not sure I fully understand how this would work. Do you care to run an example? Maybe a 10th level demonic sorcerer (you would have the bloodline spells plus 3 of each known 1st through 5th).

Logan Bonner wrote:

rooneg wrote:

So is the Imperial bloodline approximately the same as the old Arcane bloodline?

It's kind of similar. Not all the spells or abilities match. It's also a little more specific thematically.

Prodigy might be a good name for what was the arcane bloodline if you don't want to call it arcane. Just naturally very good at arcane magic, eighth son of and eight son sort of thing.

Such Sourcery.

Overall, it's very satisfying. Some thoughts rolling out below;

The Best
- Pick your own spell list with your bloodline
- Still spontaneous and Charisma based

The Flaw
- Cannot heighten any spell you know automatically, but only two per day
- Overwhelming Spell is a bit too weak for a supposed "blaster"

The Hope
- Occult spells get to use Thought and Emotion components (instant Psychic for core)
- Will get to know more spells than your number of total spell slots (5E failed spectacularly and ended up with a horrible incarnation of the class)

Lockewood wrote:

I don't believe they should be forced to memorize their spell list, though I do believe they should at least have a solid idea of what the spell does.

All I was saying, is if you play a spellcaster there is already a lot of decision making to do. If a blaster has to compare Fireball to Magic Missle III, Flaming Hands III, Shocking Grasp III, and Sound Burst II then they might be sitting there a while trying to figure out which one to use.
That is why Mr. Seifter is worried about decision paralysis.

That's a good example Lockewood, and it can get even tougher if not all of them are damage numbers, like maybe some are crowd control, some are terrain manipulation, etc.

While I am capable of rooting through all of those quickly and choosing my turn, and I'm pretty sure many of the people on this thread who don't understand what the issue might be in the same boat as me, we are in the vast minority here. If you can do that, you have mad skills in a way that makes you extremely special. A lot of times, commentary where we stress that something is a concern even if it doesn't seem that way to you doesn't do a good enough job of emphasizing that point. It's not "You are weird" or "You are wrong"; it's "You are awesome!" Some of you following these blogs the closest are the best of the best at certain tasks that really do give a lot of trouble to most players.

Did you guys consider turning sorcerers into pseudo prepared casters?

By that I mean giving Sorcerers the ability to prepare their known spells in different levels each day. Ex: I can swap my 3rd level heal and 5th level dispel overnight, without having to wait till the next level to change them.

Lockewood wrote:

edduardco wrote:

Lockewood wrote:

edduardco wrote:

Mark for what you say looks like free spontaneous heightening would have been the closer we have seen to 3.5 Psionics, I admit I'm quite biased here because Psionics is my preferred casting system, so I'm having a hard time understanding the reasons to not have free spontaneous heightening.

Well, I've seen players who spend several minutes leafing through books because they don't know what the spell they just cast does. If someone can cast Beast Form II or Undead anatomy I but doesn't know the abilities each grants then they spend alot of time looking at the book while everyone else sits their patiently, or not so patiently depending on the person.

Is unfair to expect that a player know by memory the full spell list, but I expect caster players to have their spells at hand, in a separate folder, cards, etc.

I don't believe they should be forced to memorize their spell list, though I do believe they should at least have a solid idea of what the spell does.

All I was saying, is if you play a spellcaster there is already a lot of decision making to do. If a blaster has to compare Fireball to Magic Missle III, Flaming Hands III, Shocking Grasp III, and Sound Burst II then they might be sitting there a while trying to figure out which one to use.
That is why Mr. Seifter is worried about decision paralysis.

Those kind of decisions and comparison should not be done in the middle battle to begin with, but during downtime, so in the heat of combat the caster cast the first spell that comes to mind, and taking time to think which spell would be best should take in game time.

I agree with you to an extent, if you haven't noticed I keep bringing up the wordcasting system as a comparison because you had to do exactly that.

That is why I would like if there was a way for the Sorcerer's ability to Heighten could grow as they level.(Or maybe through expenditure of feats) That way, the eccentric, mathematically inclined people like me can enjoy the full flexibility of the class, and the more casual fun loving people don't have to ask an expert to teach them how to play.

Decision paralysis can be a problem, I'm just hoping we can all do our best to help the developers get around said problem.
Good day!

Xoltes, the Dragonborn Fighter wrote:

Let me get this straight in my head. If I take Dispel Magic at 3rd level as a 2nd level spell, and when I get to 5th level and get my 3rd level spell slots, to cast Dispel Magic as a third level spell I will have to:

• Select it as my spontaneous heightened spell at the beginning of the day, or
  
• replace my Dispel Magic level 2 with a Dispel Magic level 3, meaning I can no longer cast it at 2nd level, even with spontaneous heightening, or
  
• get Dispel Magic level 3 as one of my new spells known, meaning I have to waste to of my spells known slots on a single spell.

Seems Like a whole lot of rigmarole that Wizards don't have to deal with, in the name of keeping it simple. It doesn't seem too bad, but Spontaneous spellcasting, along with the Resonance system, both seem like they kinda missed the mark on elegant design.

Actually prepared casters have to deal with it too, they just do it on a daily basis but don't get option 1 (though they can take a feat that means they can prepare it with ten minutes notice).

Assuming Dispel Magic also comes in Dispel magic (1), you would do better to take that and use spontaneous heightening to automatically give you dispel magic (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), (9) and (if you have the feat) (10). At any time you can cast the relevant spell (provided you have the relevant spell slot), so you only need to use a spell slot sufficient to dispel the spell. The prepared caster would need to prepare 1 of each spell and then hope he has no need to use more than one of the same level to achieve the same effect. What's more you have only used one spells known slot at your lowest spell level to get it, so you can still have 2x2nd level spells known, 2x3rd level, etc.

No, I get that. What I'm saying is that a Wizard knows Dispel Magic 2 - 10 simply by having it in their spell book, while a Sorcerer will either only know a single level of that spell, waste multiple of their precious spells known slots on it, or know that they might need to cast it at a higher level that day, meaning it's not really all that spontaneous.

Isn't kinda weird that there is a spontaneous feature that you must prepare at the beginning of the day, making it not spontaneous? If the sorcerer know that they'll have to cast that Dispel Magic at 6th level today, then so does the Wizard, and they can now prepare it also at 6th level.

This restriction also means that, by some strange twist of fate, Sorcerers cannot actually heighten their own spells, except by Spontaneous Heighten.

SUPER DISAPPOINTED!!!

So no cool special abilities or defenses related to your bloodline like DR/Energy Resistance(Resistance), immunities, AC bonuses, claws, wings, breath weapons, etc. It's everything I was afraid of them doing.

Very cool!

Its a bold design that i would have been scared to do in fear of highlighting contrasts between classes when you can pick up any spell list. I would be scared to make players always question whether playing a sorcerer would be better than a cleric, druid, or wizard.

More like "Glutton's Jaws" and less like "Diviner's Sight"
Some of the other class powers have seemed unexciting but Glutton's Jaws seems like its pretty cool and kind of useful (for certain types of pcs). I hope that other class features are more like Glutton's Jaws and less like the wizard's divination school - "Diviner's Sight" power.

Reiterate - Please more power options after playtest
Glutton Jaws is one of the cooler powers that has come out, but i will reiterate that I would like to have a choice of powers at each level. And i think i heard that they were going to add these after playtest.

Having a choice of at least 3 different powers for your bloodline at each level of Initial, Advanced, and Greater would be so nice and allow players flexibility in their sorcerer characters.

When there isn't any choice you have the problem of PF1 where you spend a lot of time trying to NOT pick up a horrible choice of 1 of your powers in the chain for your character (PF1 cleric domains were horrible because of this).

Cleric already supplanted as best channeler
Long live the new king: divine sorcerer with Divine Evolution.
(I think this may be gated behind a couple feats though).

SUPER DISAPPOINTED!!!

So no cool special abilities or defenses related to your bloodline like DR/Energy Resistance(Resistance), immunities, AC bonuses, claws, wings, breath weapons, etc. It's everything I was afraid of them doing.

*confused* Isn't that what Glutton's Jaws is?

Also Seoni's new look is horrible.