Sorcerer Class Preview

So, as much as I do like all of this, I do have concerns with the examples listed specifically in the blog.

Primarily, you've got a spontaneous primary caster (squishy edition) with what is traditionally thought of as the buff spell list that gets a bite attack. Now, I could see ways of making this interesting, but the fact they likely won't have much in the way of armor gives me a bit of pause unless there's something I'm missing in all of this.

Are the squishies less squishy in order to make the melee caster work alongside their bite attack? If so, this works well. If not, I still have some concerns about the play of it.

I realize that there's no arcane spell penalty on armor, but at first level I'm more scared of them getting bit than them doing the biting.

Also Seoni's new look is horrible.

Apart from the drawing itself being incomplete, she looks identical to her PF1 version to me. What's changed?

Maybe bloodline spells could be automatically Heightenable in that way.

BretI wrote:

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.

So, as much as I do like all of this, I do have concerns with the examples listed specifically in the blog.

Primarily, you've got a spontaneous primary caster (squishy edition) with what is traditionally thought of as the buff spell list that gets a bite attack. Now, I could see ways of making this interesting, but the fact they likely won't have much in the way of armor gives me a bit of pause unless there's something I'm missing in all of this.

Are the squishies less squishy in order to make the melee caster work alongside their bite attack? If so, this works well. If not, I still have some concerns about the play of it.

I realize that there's no arcane spell penalty on armor, but at first level I'm more scared of them getting bit than them doing the biting.

So HP will always be a problem for Sorcerers, but they won't suffer from the BAB problems that 1e sorcerers have. We also know Rogue gets Dexterity to Damage, so there *may* be a way to get that as a Sorcerer as well (I'm guessing there is, as that's *probably* something that will be made generally available). Assuming this much is true, and combining it with Mage Armor (possibly heightenable?) and the Shield Spell, Sorcerers can probably can have a comparable AC, and be able to do some damage with their bite. But we'll see. I'm hoping melee builds for Sorcerer won't be out of the realm of possibility in 2e.

Dragon78 wrote:

Also Seoni's new look is horrible.

Apart from the drawing itself being incomplete, she looks identical to her PF1 version to me. What's changed?

It's more of an actual dress and less of a "piece of fabric with a neck slit and a belt." She's at far less risk of a wardrobe malfunction now.

Gregg Reece wrote:

So, as much as I do like all of this, I do have concerns with the examples listed specifically in the blog.

Primarily, you've got a spontaneous primary caster (squishy edition) with what is traditionally thought of as the buff spell list that gets a bite attack. Now, I could see ways of making this interesting, but the fact they likely won't have much in the way of armor gives me a bit of pause unless there's something I'm missing in all of this.

Are the squishies less squishy in order to make the melee caster work alongside their bite attack? If so, this works well. If not, I still have some concerns about the play of it.

I realize that there's no arcane spell penalty on armor, but at first level I'm more scared of them getting bit than them doing the biting.

So HP will always be a problem for Sorcerers, but they won't suffer from the BAB problems that 1e sorcerers have. We also know Rogue gets Dexterity to Damage, so there *may* be a way to get that as a Sorcerer as well (I'm guessing there is, as that's *probably* something that will be made generally available). Assuming this much is true, and combining it with Mage Armor (possibly heightenable?) and the Shield Spell, Sorcerers can probably can have a comparable AC, and be able to do some damage with their bite. But we'll see. I'm hoping melee builds for Sorcerer won't be out of the realm of possibility in 2e.

See, Mage armor and Shield are what give me pause. Those are traditionally arcane spells. Demonic bloodline Sorcerers use the divine spell-list. Which means they wouldn't necessarily have access to those spells.

I'm curious about what this Imperial bloodline is and what it gives. I've thought some possibilities, all of them awesome. I guess I'll see at the playtest ^^

Crayon wrote:

Dragon78 wrote:

Also Seoni's new look is horrible.

Apart from the drawing itself being incomplete, she looks identical to her PF1 version to me. What's changed?

It's more of an actual dress and less of a "piece of fabric with a neck slit and a belt." She's at far less risk of a wardrobe malfunction now.

It's an awesome drawing, and I'm a big fan of black-and-white (or something close like this) drawings :)

So... Wow. I really like this. Just from the blog teaser, I can see several different design directions I would be interested in playing... Resonance and the action economy had me questioning things, but I'm definitely interested in the new Sorcerer. Very nicely done!

Apart from the drawing itself being incomplete, she looks identical to her PF1 version to me. What's changed?

She looks less confident to me. I could just be associating being scantily clad with confidence in your own appearance, as well as the placement of her lack of clothes and her sheer presence showing her to be the master of her own sexuality.

See, Mage armor and Shield are what give me pause. Those are traditionally arcane spells. Demonic bloodline Sorcerers use the divine spell-list. Which means they wouldn't necessarily have access to those spells.

Instead they will have Shield of Faith or maybe Barkskin.

There are likely to be protective spells on each of the lists. I think how that changes the balance will be fascinating to see. There are likely to be a few problems, but I expect the obvious ones will be quickly found and relatively easy to correct.

I do have some worries about any bloodlines they add that don’t go through the playtest.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I sorta suspect that the possibility of a sorcerer healbot is there to satisfy the desire people had to play a Cleric that gave up all that armor and weapons stuff clerics get in order to be better at spellcasting.

Also, this saves us from having to specifically bar certain inappropriate choices from any "Cloistered Cleric" style archetypes. Like a Gorumite who doesn't know how to use weapons or armor or a Toragite who eschews the fruits of the forge just doesn't fit.

I don't really see it as fulfilling that role. It doesn't specifically worship "appropriate" Cloistered Cleric deities, and doesn't specifically bar worshipping "inappropriate" deities. This isn't "Cleric" centered mechanic, it's covering Primal/Occult just as much. What I see it as fulfilling is "blood of X" in other words the original Pathfinder Sorceror concept. Which was undermined by 90% of their powers (spell list) being the exact same.

Well, if you're an Angelic-bloodline Sorcerer who worships Gorum, you're getting your magic powers because one of your distant grandparents was an angel, whereas if you're a Cleric of Gorum you get your powers from being one of Gorum's chosen without any need for special blood. A Sorcerer who happens to worship one deity or another really isn't different than a fighter who does the same- gods don't generally say "Don't worship me."

Whether said sorcerer can reconcile their faith with their general ineptitude with greatswords is for the player to RP, not for the mechanics to prevent.

What I mean by fulfilling the role is that there's little need for a "martially inept" cleric archetype now.

worldhopper wrote:

Crayon wrote:

Dragon78 wrote:

Also Seoni's new look is horrible.

Apart from the drawing itself being incomplete, she looks identical to her PF1 version to me. What's changed?

It's more of an actual dress and less of a "piece of fabric with a neck slit and a belt." She's at far less risk of a wardrobe malfunction now.

It's an awesome drawing, and I'm a big fan of black-and-white (or something close like this) drawings :)

It is also just a better drawing, yes. She looks significantly more proportionate now (I always thought her original art looked oddly serpentine), and she's got a more assertive stance. Overall just a lot more like an adventurer, and someone I'd actually feel comfortable playing.

Stone Dog wrote:

Maybe bloodline spells could be automatically Heightenable in that way.

This was discussed...

Gotcha, thanks for the reminder.

tivadar27 wrote:

Gregg Reece wrote:

So, as much as I do like all of this, I do have concerns with the examples listed specifically in the blog.

Primarily, you've got a spontaneous primary caster (squishy edition) with what is traditionally thought of as the buff spell list that gets a bite attack. Now, I could see ways of making this interesting, but the fact they likely won't have much in the way of armor gives me a bit of pause unless there's something I'm missing in all of this.

Are the squishies less squishy in order to make the melee caster work alongside their bite attack? If so, this works well. If not, I still have some concerns about the play of it.

I realize that there's no arcane spell penalty on armor, but at first level I'm more scared of them getting bit than them doing the biting.

So HP will always be a problem for Sorcerers, but they won't suffer from the BAB problems that 1e sorcerers have. We also know Rogue gets Dexterity to Damage, so there *may* be a way to get that as a Sorcerer as well (I'm guessing there is, as that's *probably* something that will be made generally available). Assuming this much is true, and combining it with Mage Armor (possibly heightenable?) and the Shield Spell, Sorcerers can probably can have a comparable AC, and be able to do some damage with their bite. But we'll see. I'm hoping melee builds for Sorcerer won't be out of the realm of possibility in 2e.

See, Mage armor and Shield are what give me pause. Those are traditionally arcane spells. Demonic bloodline Sorcerers use the divine spell-list. Which means they wouldn't necessarily have access to those spells.

This is a totally fair point... It's going to be a shift thinking of Sorcerers casting divine! You're probably right that the power isn't that useful for a pure sorcerer. Still, the Draconic bloodline power in 1e was probably *less* useful than this will be, so in a side-by-side comparison, not so bad. It does give you a way to respond to enemies who get up in your face, which isn't the worst thing in the world. I'm assuming you'll be pretty good at hitting them, just not being able to take damage.

Well, if you're an Angelic-bloodline Sorcerer who worships Gorum, you're getting your magic powers because one of your distant grandparents was an angel, whereas if you're a Cleric of Gorum you get your powers from being one of Gorum's chosen without any need for special blood. A Sorcerer who happens to worship one deity or another really isn't different than a fighter who does the same- gods don't generally say "Don't worship me."

And an angelic sorcerer could very well be a mistheist who thinks all gods are superpowered jerks and only prey on mortals, and be of a "Fallen Angel" heritage.

Lots of digital ink has been spilled on the Spontaneous Heighten thing, so I won't say much on that, only that I think if you're stuck on 2 (immutable, at least for the day), spells to heighten, chosen at the beginning of the day, I'll be disappointed. Also that Spontaneous Heighten was listed in the "Sorcerer Features" is some type of joke, because it's very much the inverse of a feature to me.

But without that, I do really like the new sorcerer. I'm a bit worried though, that Bloodlines might be a bit limiting. Now, I love the fact that all spell lists are Sorcererable now, but it does worry me that if it's tied to bloodlines, we lose the ability to have stuff like Oracles of Flame or the like. I'd be a little more open to it, if you got, say the choice of two for each bloodline, but that probably doesn't work for some bloodlines. Not a huge deal, but I suspect that the bloodlines which grant spell lists will be hewing closer to the usual suspects, which I'm a bit disappointed by, since I like the off-brand bloodlines/mysteries/psychic disciplines/whatever-the-imaginary-druid-equivalent-would-get-were-it-not-c rying-for-never-having-been-created-yes-I'm-still-bitter.

Crayon wrote:

Apart from the drawing itself being incomplete, she looks identical to her PF1 version to me. What's changed?

She looks less confident to me. I could just be associating being scantily clad with confidence in your own appearance, as well as the placement of her lack of clothes and her sheer presence showing her to be the master of her own sexuality.

I don’t share the same assumption that near-nudity equals confidence. While I do like women to own their sexuality, I also like it when adventurers are dressed in clothes that allow them to adventure. Her garments are still a bit unwieldy to me — long enough to trip upon — but at least she won’t fall out of her outfit in the middle of battle.

Bailey Allen wrote:

Quandary wrote:

Bailey Allen wrote:

The Gold Sovereign wrote:

The only thing I'm not liking so far is that Spontaneous Heightening has nothing spontaneous in it. Two spells per day, and not two spells chosen at the start of the day. That would solve it to me.

Sorcerers are meant to be spontaneous, to have magic in their blood, so choosing the spells they want to heighten in the heat of the battle, as their blood is running wild, is far more thematically appropriate and mechanically enjoyable.

-Some other stuff was said-

But anyways, here is other compromise:

Two spells designated as "Spontaneously Heighten-able" but you can change those two spells AT ANY TIME by spending a full round or 1 minute or whatever.
So it is not necessarily only two spells for the entire day, but at same time your choice at any given moment are still limited to 2 spells.

Hey, that's actually a pretty elegant solution. Making it so it can't be redirected without cost, but you still have that option available. Maybe throw in a spell-point cost as well so you have to be sure you want to commit to changing it.

Unfortunately I'm guessing that's abusable. Let's say I'm a Sorcerer who knows both Inflict, Cure, and Summon. I probably walk around before battle with Inflict and Summon, then after battle I can swap into Cure to heal up the party and swap back...

I don't mind the two-spell limit, overall. I did like the idea of choosing spell already known levels for your spells daily, but others don't like the idea of any "prepared" aspects for sorcerers, which is fine.

However, I will say, that if I need to potentially keep re-learning my spells to have the highest two levels, for example, of any given spell, it better be *real* easy to retrain these...

If it cost spell points, you could only do that a few times per day and it would cut into the resource you use for your other, more flexible abilities (which is the beauty of the spell point system). Also that would use twice as much points and time (switching to one then switching back).

I agree that the impact that all this will have on the class is very much dependent on how often you get a retrain, and I very much hope it is better than PF1's one per every two levels.

tivadar27 wrote:

Though I do worry that rolling all(?) of the spontaneous casters into a single class is a bit of overgrouping and doesn't give them as much room to make their possible feats more niche.

It's not really all the spontaneous spellcasters. It's a broadening of the sorcerer, but doesn't preclude other spontaneous casters from coming along later and this isn't the only spontaneous caster in the book.

Heh, so as y'all obsess over the mechanics of spontaneous casting I'm over here wondering whether the other spontaneous caster is the Bard or the Druid. Or both?

You're probably right that the [Glutton's Jaws] power isn't that useful for a pure sorcerer. Still, the Draconic bloodline power in 1e was probably *less* useful than this will be, so in a side-by-side comparison, not so bad. It does give you a way to respond to enemies who get up in your face, which isn't the worst thing in the world. I'm assuming you'll be pretty good at hitting them, just not being able to take damage.

It gives 1d4-5d4 temp HPs with *each* Bite attack you make over 1 minute duration, which can easily amount to vastly more than Vampiric Touch ever did (albeit these won't stack). Simply interspersing those with your regular business is good way to counter fact you are "squishy", those Temp HPs being a nice buffer enabling you to "take damage" without worry. Although being Divine caster they won't lack for healing options regardless, this is still a convenient/efficient one. Probably great for finishing off fallen but not-yet-dead enemies while negating need for healing.

EDIT: If you can manage to get an AoO type Reaction somehow, those "Temp HP in a Can" Bite attacks don't even need to impede your normal actions AT ALL.

Barathos wrote:

Crayon wrote:

Apart from the drawing itself being incomplete, she looks identical to her PF1 version to me. What's changed?

She looks less confident to me. I could just be associating being scantily clad with confidence in your own appearance, as well as the placement of her lack of clothes and her sheer presence showing her to be the master of her own sexuality.

I don’t share the same assumption that near-nudity equals confidence. While I do like women to own their sexuality, I also like it when adventurers are dressed in clothes that allow them to adventure. Her garments are still a bit unwieldy to me — long enough to trip upon — but at least she won’t fall out of her outfit in the middle of battle.

I'd only been thinking in terms of her costume and equipment, but looking at her face in the illustration, I wouldn't say that she looks any more or less confident - to me she has the same slightly annoyed/angry expression she sports in the PF1 core just, perhaps, a bit better drawn

Logan Bonner wrote:

tivadar27 wrote:

Though I do worry that rolling all(?) of the spontaneous casters into a single class is a bit of overgrouping and doesn't give them as much room to make their possible feats more niche.

It's not really all the spontaneous spellcasters. It's a broadening of the sorcerer, but doesn't preclude other spontaneous casters from coming along later and this isn't the only spontaneous caster in the book.

Heh, so as y'all obsess over the mechanics of spontaneous casting I'm over here wondering whether the other spontaneous caster is the Bard or the Druid. Or both?

Both, yet only one: Bard and Druid have been merged into the Hippie class, a spontaneous caster who grooves on flower power and music and, ah, "herbalism." :-P

OzzyKP wrote:

Logan Bonner wrote:

tivadar27 wrote:

Though I do worry that rolling all(?) of the spontaneous casters into a single class is a bit of overgrouping and doesn't give them as much room to make their possible feats more niche.

It's not really all the spontaneous spellcasters. It's a broadening of the sorcerer, but doesn't preclude other spontaneous casters from coming along later and this isn't the only spontaneous caster in the book.

Heh, so as y'all obsess over the mechanics of spontaneous casting I'm over here wondering whether the other spontaneous caster is the Bard or the Druid. Or both?

Both, yet only one: Bard and Druid have been merged into the Hippie class, a spontaneous caster who grooves on flower power and music and, ah, "herbalism." :-P

Oooh, they never did make a Druid-Bard hybrid class.

Add me to the list of people that doesn't like the current spontaneous heightening ability.

5e allows you to automatically heighten any spell to whatever level you want and it doesn't cause problems there, why should it here?

Also, you solve analysis paralysis with an in character solution:

You don't have time to decide what the best course of action is. You're fighting for you life.

A player that pulls out a calculator to decide what the best spell to cast at a given time gets his turn skipped.

If you don't want to have to deal with analysis paralysis, then don't play a caster.

As it stands, a Wizard could theoretically learn 9 spells where a Sorcerer only learns one. Once the wizard has picked a spell, he knows every level of that spell. The sorcerer has to either label that spell as one of his two heighten-able spells for the day, or learn it for every level he wants to cast it at.

That aside, I've never been much of a fan of bloodlines, to be honest. I'm hoping that all of the bloodline abilities that make you grow teeth/claws/wings/etc. are class feats that I can skip. I want to be a gifted individual, not a freak of nature, and I don't want to have to pick a bland bloodline just to get those mechanics.

Why can't I be a draconic sorcerer with no claws, wings, and scales? Who says my bloodline must manifest in becoming a half dragon freak?

Now, I love the fact that all spell lists are Sorcererable now, but it does worry me that if it's tied to bloodlines, we lose the ability to have stuff like Oracles of Flame or the like.

The designers have said in this thread that Oracle is not merged with Sorcerer ^^

Spell lists please!

Tholomyes wrote:

Now, I love the fact that all spell lists are Sorcererable now, but it does worry me that if it's tied to bloodlines, we lose the ability to have stuff like Oracles of Flame or the like.

The designers have said in this thread that Oracle is not merged with Sorcerer ^^

Druid-Bard hybrid confirmed...

I don’t share the same assumption that near-nudity equals confidence. While I do like women to own their sexuality, I also like it when adventurers are dressed in clothes that allow them to adventure. Her garments are still a bit unwieldy to me — long enough to trip upon — but at least she won’t fall out of her outfit in the middle of battle.

Fair enough. I'd rather have a confidence-based power fantasy than worry about how trip-prone an outfit would be in reallife.

It's not the lack of clothes itself, but her obvious confidence in that state. Compare the strut and posture of PF1 Seoni to the slumped defeatest posture of the artwork above, her face says "I'm waiting in line at the DMV and someone just farted. All I can do is give them a sour look. I'm powerless to otherwise act."

I don’t share the same assumption that near-nudity equals confidence.

Poor Conan

Everything in this preview looks very promising and positive exept that one thing at the end. Primal evolution is extremely underwhelming, once per day seems on the surface to be too limited. I can see this effectively grants you an extra spell per day over your normal allowance but i suspect the once per day limitation will see this as one of those rarely ever chosen options, that was certainly my experience in the first edition. Wasnt the point of resonance to be rid of these “per day” things? There still seems to be a lot of those about.

Will be very interested to read the actual playtest feedback on the sorcerer, i think it may be a popular class simply due to the variation in choosing your spell list.

I will say for those complaining about the down turning in spells know for the sorcerer remember this. Many spells got turned into rituals for PF2. Rituals anyone with the right skills can use.

When looked at it this way, sorcerers just got a huge buff compared to there first edition counter parts.With rituals the amount of quote on quote spells they know will be huge. Also if rituals cost resonance guess who is going to have tons of it, sorcerer's.

Hmm wrote:

I don’t share the same assumption that near-nudity equals confidence.

Poor Conan

Oh, for God's sake, they can't please everyone.

I almost forgot Sorcerers can use staves too, and they sort of rock for a sorcerer now! No wonder she's been carrying that damn thing for ten years.

By investing in a staff (say the Staff of Healing) you gain the ability to use its Charges to cast the spell(s) it contains (Heal in this case) using any level of spell slot you have a number of times in total equal to your highest level spell slot. As a Sorcerer, you can more easily 'afford' to keep a staff or two than a cleric or wizard can... effectively converting RP into extra Spontaneous Heightening (and Spells Known) slots on a daily basis. So it's not like the sky is falling in on the sorcerer...

However I still want them to be able to also undercast any spell they know by default (and have the option to 'upgrade & replace' a limited number of spells every other level). So you use only have to 'spend' one 9th level spell known to be able cast Magic Missile as a 1st through 9th level spell, or an 8th level spell known to cast it as a 1st through 8th level spell, etc. I am okay with Sorcerers knowing almost fifty different spells at 20th level (which they can undercast at various levels) rather than being limited to a scant half-dozen such spells.

if it have a bestiary pf2 ?

I liked the idea that all spells can be heightened for the sorcerer. If that doesn't work perhaps allowing spell level +1. So a sorcerer can cast a spell with more power behind it.

if it have a bestiary pf2 ?

The Pathfinder Playtest will have a pdf only bestiary. I am sure when the actual second edition comes out in 2019 there will be a bestiary. Not sure what that has to do with the sorcerer though...

@Mark (or someone else), can we still use a level 3 spell slot to cast a level 2 spell? (without heightening it)

Clarification needed:
It seems strange that downcasting isn't a thing. If my PC has "Flight 3", the PF1 Fly spell, and want to cast "Flight 1", the PF1 Feather Fall spell, it seems the PC should be able to.
Now this might mean burning a 3rd level slot (since that's where the spell is keyed into) or it could mean burning a 1st level slot (since a higher level "spells known" slot being used was payment enough).
Or is it simply impossible (outside of having both known or using the 2 spell choices/day power)?

Also, Mark, it sounds like you've seen Summon Monster in action, and I was wondering how it fared.

Thanks.

ETA: And I like when the alternate bloodline powers were available in PF1, so a draconic didn't feel forced into acquiring melee prowess (a waste for many builds). I'd like that here too, so if I have a demon-themed sorcerer, I'm not obliged to enable the bite to work or be wasted.
Thanks again.

BretI wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

Quandary wrote:

Ninja in the Rye wrote:

I still don't understand what they're getting to compensate for having no more spells per day than a wizard though.

I can't help you there, that seems like key issue. Curious how Paizo views the issue.

The ability to cast at the same rate as the wizard seems to me like a much better thing to have than the ability to cast an extra spell of each of my weakest spell levels (in PF1, specialists have 5+ in their lower slots and sorcerers have 6+, but sorcerers don't have the highest slot at all half the time, and even when they get it, they are not ahead). Or to put it another way, if you gave me an option in PF2, for wizard or sorcerer alike, to not get access to a new spell level at odd levels in exchange for a bonus spell per day of all but my top level of spells, I would not take that deal.

So unless you would take that deal, this is another gain for the sorcerer over its PF1 counterpart.

That fails to take into account the ‘lost spell slots’ that my Wizards would have as they failed to anticipate exactly how many of each spell they needed.

The Wizard not only has to choose which spells, but how many of each they get. If you never used one of them, it was a wasted slot. By default, you didn’t have a way to spontaneously use that slot for one of the other spells you memorized. That was the schtick of the Arcanist.

I think I don't understand you here. I'm comparing the PF2 sorcerer to the PF1 sorcerer, so I don't think it is relevant to take into account which slots the wizard wastes due to poor guessing during prep (which I agree with you). Were you replying to the same post I was rather than mine? Or perhaps I misunderstand.

My concern, which Quandry was responding to, wasn't intended as a comp between the PF1 and 2 Sorcerers, rather the difference between the Playtest Wizard and the Playtest Sorcerer.

If the Sorc and Wiz have the same number of spells per day, then the Wizard still seems to have a huge advantage in terms of flexibility over the Sorcerer, even if the Sorcerer no longer has their spell levels delayed. I'm just wondering what edge a sorcerer has to offset the wizard's flexibility.

Now, I love the sorc class. I'd even go so far as to say that it's my favorite class. My first PF character was a sorcerer, and I’ve frequently played the class since then. 1e Sorc certainly had some significant issues, such as underwhelming bloodlines, things like blood arcanist all but obsoleting the non-archetyped class, the general uselessness of Charisma outside of your casting, and reduced spell progression. I’m glad to see that the last two issues at least have been fixed(not that I’m much of a fan of resonance, but that’s rather off topic).

That all being said, I'd have to agree with many of the previous criticisms. Saying that the reduced spell slots is in exchange for getting a proper spell progression honestly seems like a rather poor argument to me, when equal spell progression should have been a given to begin with(wizards never needed the extra leg up of faster progression there, and sorcs never needed the drawback of slower progression). Furthermore, having to constantly retrain the same spell in higher slots just seems… painful, and clunky. Especially if we assume that 2e goes down the route of 1e where you can only retrain a single spell every odd level after level 4(Really, anything less than being able to retrain multiple spells per level seem like a killer here). Sure, you got your spontaneous heightening, but that’s only twice a day, and has to be chosen in advance. Odds are, both of those slots will have to be locked down into the same two all-important spells like Dispel Magic, which you will always want heightened.

Furthermore, I must admit that I’m rather disappointed by the Glutton’s Jaws bloodline power showcased here. It seems like a repeat of many of the largely useless level 1 bloodline powers that plagued 1e sorcerers(really, what is anyone supposed to do with a pair of claw attacks when you’ve got a d6 HD and no armor?) Of course, Glutton’s Jaws at least scale and grant you some temporary hit points, but the fact remains that no sorcerer in their right minds would be engaging in melee, certainly not at level 1. Even if 2e’s higher hit points help sorcerers out, you still have no armor worth speaking of. There’s a reason why 1e never really saw any effective melee sorcerers, outside of significant multiclassing, to the point where the majority of your levels are probably not even sorc anymore. I’d certainly hope that powers like Glutton’s Jaws, unusable to the vast majority of sorcerer builds, are not going to be the standard this time around.

Now, for all I know, there’s all manner of unmentioned class feats and features that fix these issues. But, just going off the preview, it looks like sorcerer gets to keep its status as “Crappy Wizard.”

I don’t share the same assumption that near-nudity equals confidence.

The reverse can sometimes be true.

Hmm wrote:

I don’t share the same assumption that near-nudity equals confidence. While I do like women to own their sexuality, I also like it when adventurers are dressed in clothes that allow them to adventure. Her garments are still a bit unwieldy to me — long enough to trip upon — but at least she won’t fall out of her outfit in the middle of battle.

Fair enough. I'd rather have a confidence-based power fantasy than worry about how trip-prone an outfit would be in reallife.

It's not the lack of clothes itself, but her obvious confidence in that state. Compare the strut and posture of PF1 Seoni to the slumped defeatest posture of the artwork above, her face says "I'm waiting in line at the DMV and someone just farted. All I can do is give them a sour look. I'm powerless to otherwise act."

Funny, because at least 2 women in this thread have pointed out it sure didn't feel like a power fantasy. [insert that Shortpacked! false equivalence comic here.]

Also, 1e Seoni looked like she was about to fall on her dang face.

Hmm wrote:

I don’t share the same assumption that near-nudity equals confidence. While I do like women to own their sexuality, I also like it when adventurers are dressed in clothes that allow them to adventure. Her garments are still a bit unwieldy to me — long enough to trip upon — but at least she won’t fall out of her outfit in the middle of battle.

Fair enough. I'd rather have a confidence-based power fantasy than worry about how trip-prone an outfit would be in reallife.

It's not the lack of clothes itself, but her obvious confidence in that state. Compare the strut and posture of PF1 Seoni to the slumped defeatest posture of the artwork above, her face says "I'm waiting in line at the DMV and someone just farted. All I can do is give them a sour look. I'm powerless to otherwise act."

I agree, she seems terribly apathetic. Her leg position would normally lead to a really defined contrapposto, but instead her shoulders are equally slumped meaning she's bent sideways at the spine rather than the hips. Putting the staff on the same side as the raised hip sort of kills the energy of the subject, the raised hip should be on the strong side. I've nothing against inorganic positions, but if they aren't done to accentuate a line of action, then it just looks like an error or edit. Wasn't she an elf or something before? I honestly don't remember. Her clothes don't seem very distinct. I remember she had tattoos, but I'm not sure what on this picture is tattooed skin and what is clothing. The discussion about how much she's wearing seems a bit silly even if it was easy to determine how much she is in fact wearing. I doubt Paizo is going to decide to rigidly enforce one specific level of sexiness in all its NPCs, or change a character's concept of self drastically enough that it would transform their fashion.

I'll take off the design hat though, I doubt they want feedback on something like this.

Wellspring magic sounds great, it's the sort of thing I'd like to see at lower levels so that it's part of the class rather than a 20th level ability most people won't get to play with. I know you want to save cool abilities for capstones, but they probably aught to be less transformational. Hopefully there's lower level versions of this feat that are locked to lower level spells.

The one power we're shone is the type I always avoided. It would be nice to see a more casting focused bloodline power.

I like the varied spell list thing. Being able to pick another class's spell list on your sorcerer makes them a good option for my players who hate prepared casting. Hopefully they can make a nice hybrid by taking sorcerer as their base class then grabbing other caster's abilities through feats. It's hard to judge exactly what means though, since we only have rough ideas of the spell lists.

Overall I like it. The sorcerer didn't really appeal to me in PF1 due to it seeming sort of dull with some less than useful bloodline abilities. Hopefully sorcerer isn't losing fans in it's new appeal to me.

Seoni's look in that picture seems like precisely the look one would give if someone were explaining to them "you know, your old outfit was better".

So kudos to the artist.

Cool: Sorcerer having access to the four spell lists, depending on choice of bloodline. It's really neat that a spontaneous Divine caster is offered right from the get-go.
Spontaneous Heightening: Seems like something Sorcerers should have all the time, but if Mark says he thought so too until play testing convinced him otherwise, I believe it.
Art: I like it.
Questions I still have: Can sorcerers gain familiars? Do Bards now cast off the Occult list? (Ok, sure that last one wasn't really on topic just yet...)

ore. I suppose you could say they killed the "Wizards Rule and Fighters Drool" sacred cow from PF1, but then they basically raised it to "Sorcerers Rule and Wizards Drool," so I suppose they reanimated it as a unhallowed zombie cow. Frightening, really.

Huh? Sorcerer isn't any better than Wizard. Heck, absent Feats, a specialist has one more of their highest level spell every day than a Sorcerer and can select their spells daily as well.

Sorcerer as a Class is more flexible, but that matters little for any individual Sorcerer.

But hey, I can just be an Angelic Sorcerer, take the Divine Evolution feat, and be a Cleric Healbot+, since I can Spontaneously Heighten Heal and (presumably) Cure, thereby removing any condition and healing any amount of hit points I can, have a Channeling Heal battery as back up, with Legendary Medicine as yet another backup, and then of course Resonance as needed. Congratulations, I heal better than a Cleric ever can! The irony!

If you want to give up Domains and weapon and armor Proficiencies for extra Healing you certainly can, yes. I don't think that's ironic, or even a real problem.

Logan Bonner wrote:

tivadar27 wrote:

Though I do worry that rolling all(?) of the spontaneous casters into a single class is a bit of overgrouping and doesn't give them as much room to make their possible feats more niche.

It's not really all the spontaneous spellcasters. It's a broadening of the sorcerer, but doesn't preclude other spontaneous casters from coming along later and this isn't the only spontaneous caster in the book.

Heh, so as y'all obsess over the mechanics of spontaneous casting I'm over here wondering whether the other spontaneous caster is the Bard or the Druid. Or both?

It's Bard. There've been clear and definitive mentions indicating Bard as Spontaneous and Druid as Prepared.

Oof, I hate some of this new news. Literally everyone I know who read the previous blogs read that a wizard could learn a spell once and prepare it at higher levels.

I am constantly fighting people on 2e in my local groups. I really really want to switch to it, and my number one selling point was "I am sure Paizo has learned and things will be less ambiguous. It will be easier to read."

Low and behold a blog preview is already proving me wrong on a major mechanic.... I just feel tired all of a sudden. People are rebelling against this left and right, and I may have just lost my chance to playtest with my local groups.

I know the playtest is to catch stuff like this, but it just feels like a huge blow. I need to go to bed.

Funny, because at least 2 women in this thread have pointed out it sure didn't feel like a power fantasy. [insert that Shortpacked! false equivalence comic here.]

Also, 1e Seoni looked like she was about to fall on her dang face.

You and everyone else are entitled to express their opinions. Being a woman doesn't make you any more able to confirm or dispute a character's confidence providing a type of power, which could be used in a fantasy context, this is in no way limited to feminine characters (see Schwarzenegger's depiction of Conan, David Bowie every day, or Dan Avidan in NSP music videos).

Near any character would look like they would fall on their face in a still image depiction of a point in their walking cycle. A strut is preferable to a poor posture, especially on a high Cha character.

The depictions of a premade character are of no consequence in tabletop RPGs, as anyone can make a character that looks anyway they like, including like old iconics, new iconics or your own character.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

I suppose you could say they killed the "Wizards Rule and Fighters Drool" sacred cow from PF1, but then they basically raised it to "Sorcerers Rule and Wizards Drool," so I suppose they reanimated it as a unhallowed zombie cow. Frightening, really.

Huh? Sorcerer isn't any better than Wizard. Heck, absent Feats, a specialist has one more of their highest level spell every day than a Sorcerer and can select their spells daily as well.

Sorcerer as a Class is more flexible, but that matters little for any individual Sorcerer.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

But hey, I can just be an Angelic Sorcerer, take the Divine Evolution feat, and be a Cleric Healbot+, since I can Spontaneously Heighten Heal and (presumably) Cure, thereby removing any condition and healing any amount of hit points I can, have a Channeling Heal battery as back up, with Legendary Medicine as yet another backup, and then of course Resonance as needed. Congratulations, I heal better than a Cleric ever can! The irony!

If you want to give up Domains and weapon and armor Proficiencies for extra Healing you certainly can, yes. I don't think that's ironic, or even a real problem.

Okay. How much Resonance does that 10 Charisma Wizard have? Not much? Oops, guess that potion/wand/staff/whatever didn't really work on you, better luck on your next character, buddy. Even despite that, Sorcerers being flexible means you can have a party full of Sorcerers doing completely different roles and it will be perfectly viable. Whereas a party of Wizards is still the same lame can of worms it was in PF1.

Domains are meh, and Bloodline Powers are an apt comparison. Armor Proficiencies might be an issue if you're trying to be a frontliner, but Sorcerer healers don't need to if they don't want to. Which can basically be "Never." As for weapons, you're now cutting into your healing ability for utilizing weapons; bad healing battery, bad!

I will say one thing they get that Clerics don't, and that's effectively full Spontaneous Cure Spells.

Paradozen wrote:

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.

I hadn't considered that, looking at it too one-dimensionally. Thanks, that does make it seem better.

Spontaneous Heightening still feels a bit underwhelming overall though. Each spell being 5 different variations of itself for heightenable spells that scale 5 times is nice, but it does still bother me a bit that it is stuck at 2 spells/day at all levels.

But enough with beating that horse. An interesting note, we have prepared divine casters, prepared arcane casters, I assume druid is a prepared primal caster, if bards managed to be a prepared occult caster we would have a prepared and spontaneous caster for all of the spell lists. Which intrigues me, though I doubt bards will be prepared (even though I could see it making sense personally).

Finally, I'll add to the crowd that likes Seoni's new look. Much prefer covering the organ-filled stomachs for adventurers, as opposed to leaving it open.