Player Core Preview: The Wizard, Remastered

WWHsmackdown wrote:

It wasn't held off for PC2, which leads me to believe these wizard mechanics have a sizeable audience of satisfied players (it's not being held off like the alchemist who was postponed for purely mechanical reasons). I just have my fingers crossed that PF3 (if and when that happens) doesn't have any four slot casters bc it seems like four slots eats a lot of budget.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't held off for a later book because it's one of the four classic main classes.

And I refuse to believe that there is any class that wouldn't greatly benefit from more development time.

If I'm remembering right, one of the devs explained why wizard was in PC1. Part of it was being part of the original four classes, and another was that the wizard is the representative of the arcane tradition, just as cleric is for divine, druid for primal, and bard for occult, with the witch being the pick-a-list caster to show off that aspect of the system, and because they'd been working on witch.

Calliope5431 wrote:

The larger point I was making, which has been, I admit, thoroughly lost in this discussion...is that Sorshen is not a blithering idiot. And that it seems somewhat presumptuous to call a level 27 archwizard who no one except Xanderghul has EVER surpassed in magical learning, power, or understanding a sad has-been who just doesn't understand how magic really works.

From what I read, it didn't really seem like anyone was making the accusation that Sorshen is a blithering idiot. This was set off by a comment about how young apprentices are going to roll their eyes at her definitive list of what is and is not Enchantment magic, when from their perspective Enchantment isn't a set category with specific spells objectively in or out of it. Some illusions might be enchantment magic to them, and heroism might not. The implication there, at least to me, is that they're just different ways of looking at the world, not that Sorshen is incorrect.

Sorshen undoubtedly made a tremendous amount of breakthroughs in the fields in which she has specialised her...

Well, Sorshen is actually the complete opposite of a blithering idiot, since it's stated in her character entry for the sixth volume of Return of the Runelords that she will, in time, retrain as a universalist wizard. Clearly, she saw the Remaster coming and knew what the best wizard type would be. :p

I don't see a big issue with schools. They put in the game the unified magical theory school which gives you one less spell per day but more flexibility and an extra feat. And if you don't like that option, you can always take spell blending and blend away all your school slots.

I disagree that Unified Theory has more flexibility. Or at least I would have strongly disagreed pre-master. For the remastered Wizard, Unified might in fact be the most flexible - which is kinda the whole point of the discussion around spell schools.

And "just take spell blending" is not a satisfying solution. That's like saying the Mastermind Rogue being bad isn't an issues because you can always play a thief.

Of course Universal is the most flexible? It always should have been?

The schools are different and take some looking at, for sure. I am trying to build a 1 to 20 wizard for each school, using only player options available in the player core 1. I think I am going to avoid even any MC archery ping just to deep dive the wizard feats because they are different from the pre-remaster, in a good way. It will take me an untold amount of time because I am newly parenting a unifoal at the moment, but the results of the Ars Grammatica build were interesting.

Both the staff nexus and spell blending theses give you ways out of “dead” spell school slots if you really feel you have them. Even a regular staff does the same. But if you build a wizard around the vision of the school, you can get some pretty interesting results. There some head scratcher spells on some of the school lists, but they are few and far between in the large scheme of things. The schools do what they say they do, some of the schools just feel particularly novel to the game (and even to Golarion) and don’t match up with old wizard ideas at all, so you can’t really replicate any of the old schools particularly well. Which seems like a natural point of frustration for people wanting their evokers, necromancers, illusionists, and conjurers. They just aren’t here anymore.

I think that is probably a good thing in the long run, but it is new and different. 2 things people don’t always love together.

As a passionate wizard player, I am fine with the remaster wizard.

While the school spells are limited, such limitations only really affect pfs. If your GM won't make spell allowances to your school, that is a GM problem, not a system problem.

I'm sorry but this pair of statements feels fundamentally contradictory to me.

Is the system fine or do you need a GM to homebrew you solutions to the problems with the status quo? It seems strange to argue that things are fine as they are because your GM might choose to completely discard the existing rules.

Beyond that, is someone really a bad GM for not wanting to alter existing class features to your taste? While I think it's a good skill to be able to make adjustments to the game for your players, it doesn't seem unreasonable for a GM (especially if they're new, inexperienced, or just busy) to not necessarily be interested in doing that. It doesn't seem really fair to throw shade at someone who's hesitating on changing up your class features for you.

nicholas storm wrote:

I don't see a big issue with schools. They put in the game the unified magical theory school which gives you one less spell per day but more flexibility and an extra feat. And if you don't like that option, you can always take spell blending and blend away all your school slots.

I disagree that Unified Theory has more flexibility. Or at least I would have strongly disagreed pre-master. For the remastered Wizard, Unified might in fact be the most flexible - which is kinda the whole point of the discussion around spell schools.

And "just take spell blending" is not a satisfying solution. That's like saying the Mastermind Rogue being bad isn't an issues because you can always play a thief.

Well, you can always play a thief.

But more seriously, perfect balance is never going to happen. Just look at Resentment witch compared to Silence Under Snow witch. One of these things can extend slow and other debuffs almost indefinitely for an off-action cost. The other...gets to create some difficult terrain? For a turn? I say this as an enormous fan of the winter witch concept, but it's pretty bad.

I'd love to see mastermind get a boost. Or wizard schools. But I'm playing a level 15 battle magic build right now, converted from an evocation specialist pre-remaster, and it's not NOTABLY different. I just fill my up-level slots with chain lightning, energy aegis, and falling stars, like I probably would have anyway. Losing out on wall of force in the specialist school slot hurts, but I can always prepare that in my normal slots anyway. And it's not like I wasn't going to use chain lightning and falling stars.

Honestly what hurts more is the change to staves. The Staff of Evocation was awesome because it had wall of force and chain lightning and the Staff of Elemental Power doesn't have wall of force. It removes a lot of the versatility of the stick. At least it has wall of ice? I'm somewhat sad about Elemental Tempest vanishing too, but the replacement isn't bad.

P.S. Yes I know I can use pre-remaster content. The GM in this particular campaign disagrees, however.

I think that is probably a good thing in the long run, but it is new and different. 2 things people don’t always love together.

This is unfairly diminishing the problems people have. It's not just people being scared of change, it's people taking issue with the mechanics themselves.

... Honestly it feels a little silly even to just dismiss it as an issue of things being different, because fundamentally not much actually changed.

One of the most disappointing things about the remastered wizard is that Paizo touted them as a class receiving significant changes... but schools are still just schools, they're just smaller.

The wizard in my current PF2 game didn't become a wholly new character thanks to the Remater... one of his focus spells (that he doesn't even use tbh) got switched around and he lost access to a handful of spells in his fourth slots. That's not an earthshattering change in mechanics that requires everyone to fundamentally rethink their character. It's next to nothing.

All the talk about people needing time to recalibrate their understanding of the class is just a silly sentiment when so little has actually changed.

The consistent popularity of the wizard as a class (as reported to us by Michael Sayre) in PF2 would seem to imply that the "issues wizards have been having since pf2e was released" might not be as massive, or as shared as some players are imagining them to be.

I am not saying that people don't have a right to not like the class, or to collaborate with others to homebrew solutions to issues that those players have with the class, and if they are popular enough, they would probably gain traction...but using incredibly hostile language to repeated denigrate people who just disagree with you, and are having fun with the class as it is, is not fostering a positive, friendly community.

It is ok to take a moment before responding to a post that makes you upset and considering whether it is breaking the rules of community engagement, and should be flagged, or if there are points that you feel like you want to come back and discuss constructively after letting the initial anger and hostility settle.

I would like to see those metrics myself. Because the wizard went from the most popular class in my group to a "don't touch it, it's bad" class.

Given we're a performance based group as so many have hammered me about over and over again, that means the wizard is underperforming other class options even with the generous caster modifications I've made to try to boost them.

I would still like to see why it's popular myself and if there is a performance component to that popularity. A class can be popular and still be a poor performer.

Even on this forum I have seen people who like the wizard, but also accept that it's a poor performer compared to other casters. They just like the play-style and the class concept.

Since I'm more interested in the wizard performing well, I want measurable performance improvements. Some we did get like simple weapon proficiency and a consolidation of focus spells. I still don't understand why the designers thing Augment Summoning[/] equivalent should be an additional action requiring a second round to bring online making summon spells slower to bring online given their 3 action casting. I'd love to hear why the designers consider something very simple like making [i]Augment Summoning a free action cast as part of casting a summon spell a problem.

Why is that the case? Why work so hard to make the focus spells of the wizard inferior? I don't get some of the design choices or the reasoning behind them.

It's like they wanted to push everyone into the universalist wizard line and put the other curricula in for those few that want to play a themed wizard that isn't very well developed. That is how it feels since all the best feats and the best focus spells are Unified Theory even in the Remaster.

Would it be productive for the community to figure out lists of other spells that probably should be part of each school? Would this resource be of use to people?

Like the Player Core 1 only lists spells that are in that book as part of the various Wizard schools, and there are lots of other books and some of those spells probably belong in things like "Battle Magic" and "Mentalism."

Much will depend on number of encounters per day, but a battle wizard throwing 3 force bolts an encounter on top of top 2 rank spell slots is going to be at the top end of spell caster damage, especially against high level, high AC opponents.

Much will depend on number of encounters per day, but a battle wizard throwing 3 force bolts an encounter on top of top 2 rank spell slots is going to be at the top end of spell caster damage, especially against high level, high AC opponents.

Yeah I'm playing this PC in Agents of Edgewatch right now. Which involves (at one point) a speedblitz through around 8-9 encounters with no sleeping allowed.

Haven't run out of rank 6+ slots yet (at level 15), and while I am using Staff Nexus there's a TON of damage output even though I have things like 6th rank slow, wall of force, and 8th rank paralyze prepared as well.

I'm also using your "buy a pile of scrolls" trick, Unicore, so thanks for that! I haven't really had cause to use many of them yet, though. Between Drain Bonded Item, Superior Bond, Staff Nexus, and Scroll Savant I just have so many slots.

People who think the new schools open up any new interesting concepts just had no imagination in the past, because aside from 1 focus spell, everything that is possible now has always been possible in the past. I don't have to await all the new potential spell schools, because I can always make my own. Will the GM allow them is another question though. Which brings us back to the Universalist, who simply can chose whatever spells he wants and doesn't have to pick a specific thesis to fix his problems. Normal staves don't solve any slot problem, because you won't use your first rank slot to power the stave in the first place.

The new schools are just really bad, because they simply don't match the game, which they have been put into and force the players to work around them instead of with them. There's also an added amount of book keeping for no benefit whatsoever.

A very similar concept of magic schools actually appears in another beloved fantasy RPG of mine called "The Dark Eye" and has been implemented there for a very long time now (multiple editions actually, with very different sets of rules). In that game the concept works perfectly fine, but the the whole magic system is also completely different with an MP system and without spell ranks. There is much less scaling in general and even when levels still existed in older editions, LV20 characters weren't even close to being comparable to LV20 DnD/PF Characters.

Over there a caster's proficiency is different with each spell and while you can "max out" any spell you learn, improving school spells is easier and "cheaper". Also spells don't really have power levels, can be modified and stay relevant throughout a character's career. In that game the schools provide fluff that actually improves the game. And even then there's always the option of having had another wizard as a teacher (basically the custom school equivalent) without any mechanical drawbacks whatsoever.

That is why I wrote PF2E should incentivize players to want to keep and use the school spells instead of forcing them to find ways around them. "Yea I went to the School of Battlemagic, but those spells are trash, so I'm blending them away/feeding them to my staff" is not an engaging system, both gameplay wise and from a narrative point.

I think the new schools match the game just fine.

Unicore wrote:

Much will depend on number of encounters per day, but a battle wizard throwing 3 force bolts an encounter on top of top 2 rank spell slots is going to be at the top end of spell caster damage, especially against high level, high AC opponents.

Yeah I'm playing this PC in Agents of Edgewatch right now. Which involves (at one point) a speedblitz through around 8-9 encounters with no sleeping allowed.

Haven't run out of rank 6+ slots yet (at level 15), and while I am using Staff Nexus there's a TON of damage output even though I have things like 6th rank slow, wall of force, and 8th rank paralyze prepared as well.

I'm also using your "buy a pile of scrolls" trick, Unicore, so thanks for that! I haven't really had cause to use many of them yet, though. Between Drain Bonded Item, Superior Bond, Staff Nexus, and Scroll Savant I just have so many slots.

I did the same with a sorcerer in the same module. And the sorc could heal on top of it.

The scroll "trick" works with every caster to extend their casting, which is why being the "most spell slot" caster isn't a big deal when magic items do the same thing.

Focus spells also extend casting. Consuming Darkness was a very nice spell in that module in those encounters.

Calliope5431 wrote:

Unicore wrote:

Much will depend on number of encounters per day, but a battle wizard throwing 3 force bolts an encounter on top of top 2 rank spell slots is going to be at the top end of spell caster damage, especially against high level, high AC opponents.

Yeah I'm playing this PC in Agents of Edgewatch right now. Which involves (at one point) a speedblitz through around 8-9 encounters with no sleeping allowed.

Haven't run out of rank 6+ slots yet (at level 15), and while I am using Staff Nexus there's a TON of damage output even though I have things like 6th rank slow, wall of force, and 8th rank paralyze prepared as well.

I'm also using your "buy a pile of scrolls" trick, Unicore, so thanks for that! I haven't really had cause to use many of them yet, though. Between Drain Bonded Item, Superior Bond, Staff Nexus, and Scroll Savant I just have so many slots.

I did the same with a sorcerer in the same module. And the sorc could heal on top of it.

The scroll "trick" works with every caster to extend their casting, which is why being the "most spell slot" caster isn't a big deal when magic items do the same thing.

Focus spells also extend casting. Consuming Darkness was a very nice spell in that module in those encounters.

This is not a competition...

But so can my wizard, actually. You can get basically the exact same benefit from a few multiclass feats and an item or two. And still have vastly more top-level slots than a sorcerer. It's quite nice.

Not that healing actually matters when you have a pile of chain lightnings, roaring applause, paralyzes, and walls of force. As I think you said in another thread: healing only matters if the monsters live long enough to deal damage. Which they emphatically do not in Edgewatch. Especially not with the spell loadout the wizard has access to.

While the school spells are limited, such limitations only really affect pfs. If your GM won't make spell allowances to your school, that is a GM problem, not a system problem.

Going from the smallest schools which have 50+ spells to a list of 20 is a significant change.

Leaving it to the GM is not a good solution. We buy books because we want an impartial 3rd party determination of what is fair and balanced. I mean you can literally home brew everything and never come back to a published rules set. We don't want that we want a common experience we can talk about.

Leaving it to the GM is not a good solution.

I disagree completely. It is a fine solution.

Also, I'll add, how fantastically insignificant allowing a spell be a part of a school list is. I mean, the unified theory school is the best example of the point.

Also, also, how many complaints are still liable to be leveled regardless of the effort by paizo to put together more spells for schools.

"What do you mean Dispel Magic isn't on the Battle Magic list! Obviously it should be!"

Instead, they just gave an example and said, go for it. I, as a player and GM, have the mental capacity to put 2 and 2 together. Or even, dare I say it, improvise..

Would Dispel Magic make sense as an Ars Grammatica? Yes (it is also in the book as such). But what about as a Battle Magic school spell? Certainly. Boundary? Maybe not. Mentalism? An argument could certainly be made.

While I kind of understand where the argument comes from, it just seems like a weirdly trivial problem to complain about.

We buy books because we want an impartial 3rd party determination of what is fair and balanced.

Speak for yourself. I buy books because I don't want to have to make an entire ttprg system on my own. Is it perfect? No. Is it usable? Incredibly so. Is it balanced? More than many of the other 20+ ttrpg systems I've played.

And lastly, on the school spell list issue, I predict that even pfs will have a 'house rule' on this before long. And if they can do it...

it just seems like a weirdly trivial problem to complain about.

It is just one factor in many. That you think it is trivial means that it needs to be raised. I want the game to get better.

If I have to ask a GM to change things or pick particular options to remove the limitations of a key design (schools) that is a failure of the design.

If even the most avid supporters are proposing those options or talking about adding spells to schools or other ways to work around them that is a failure of design.

Good design doesn't require GM intervention.

Good design doesn't have players making choices to erase the mechanics of the option.

Good design excites players about the mechanical possibilities to support their narrative.

There are lots of examples of this in other classes in PF2e but wizard, like pre remaster witch isn't quite where it needs to be. Its functional but its not good.

Popularity of class not a measure of success on its own. Many people play wizard because the love the fantasy of the wizard not because its mechanically a good class. I have no idea how Paizo determines the success of a class but I have never seen any surveys or other customer engagement about them go out. If its PFS numbers... thst is only a very small part of the picture and without follow on questions they cannot know why people are playing a wizard.

Stats like that without qualitative information or something else are meaningless on their own as they tell you only that many people are playing a wuzard. not why people are playing, not whether they are finding it satisfying (or not) nor whether they are playing a lot of games with wizards. It could be create and try to make it work and give is a s&!% only for it to be a disappointing experience once we get to where most pfs game levles stop.

Good design can only limit GM intervention, not prevent it entirely.

Gortle wrote:

Leaving it to the GM is not a good solution.

I disagree completely. It is a fine solution.

Then just don't have the list in the first place. If the entire point of it is to just be expanded by a player talking with their GM legitimately just get rid of the mechanic and make them a normal 4 slot caster to make the class actually consistent at most tables.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Calliope5431 wrote:

Unicore wrote:

Much will depend on number of encounters per day, but a battle wizard throwing 3 force bolts an encounter on top of top 2 rank spell slots is going to be at the top end of spell caster damage, especially against high level, high AC opponents.

Yeah I'm playing this PC in Agents of Edgewatch right now. Which involves (at one point) a speedblitz through around 8-9 encounters with no sleeping allowed.

Haven't run out of rank 6+ slots yet (at level 15), and while I am using Staff Nexus there's a TON of damage output even though I have things like 6th rank slow, wall of force, and 8th rank paralyze prepared as well.

I'm also using your "buy a pile of scrolls" trick, Unicore, so thanks for that! I haven't really had cause to use many of them yet, though. Between Drain Bonded Item, Superior Bond, Staff Nexus, and Scroll Savant I just have so many slots.

I did the same with a sorcerer in the same module. And the sorc could heal on top of it.

The scroll "trick" works with every caster to extend their casting, which is why being the "most spell slot" caster isn't a big deal when magic items do the same thing.

Focus spells also extend casting. Consuming Darkness was a very nice spell in that module in those encounters.

This is not a competition...

But so can my wizard, actually. You can get basically the exact same benefit from a few multiclass feats and an item or two. And still have vastly more top-level slots than a sorcerer. It's quite nice.

Not that healing actually matters when you have a pile of chain lightnings, roaring applause, paralyzes, and walls of force. As I think you said in another thread: healing only matters if the monsters live long enough to deal damage. Which they emphatically do not in Edgewatch. Especially not with the spell loadout the wizard has access to.

You don't have vastly more top spell slots to the sorcerer. Not sure where you're coming up with that, especially taking into account scrolls which are basically additional spell slots and your top spell slots are locked in whereas the sorcs are more flexible.

So looking at your post, I'm assuming your a School of Battle Magic wizard with Staff Nexus thesis level 15.

This means you have 3 prepared slots and a school slot with a Battle Magic spell, then one use of Arcane Bond at the highest level.

Then I'm assuming you have a staff with a level 6 evocation spell of some kind. You're sacking at least a level 4 and a level 3 or 2 slot for additional charges. So that would give you 6 plus 2 spells sacked for charges assuming you're not using your top 2 levels to sack spells. So 13 total charges in your staff for 2 additional top level evocation spells.

So that would give you: 3 plus 1 plus 1 plus 2 for 7 total top level slots.

A sorcerer with the same staff would have 4 plus 1 for 5 slots.

Your wizard has 2 uses of Force Missile from class per 10 minute rest.

The shadow sorc has 3 uses of Consuming Darkness or Steal Shadow per 10 minutes. Consuming Darkness is a nasty AoE spell that is sustainable. Better damage than a level 5 force missile for certain that hits only enemies and slows movement.

I would say that probably looks fairly even for damage dealing. The sig spells make the sorc more flexible a caster in combat. I think the damage output looks somewhat similar depending on the number of targets that the Consuming Darkness hits.

I could see a level 15 wizard holding their own at that level. Staff nexus looks not too bad for a School of battle Magic wizard.

I used to hate Force Bolt until I started using it on the Magus. I can see its value now, though its value is higher on a magus given the Conflux recharge ability and the larger number of focus points.

Your wizard build don't look too bad. At level 15 you probably have a healer or don't need it quite as much as at lower level.

Leomund "Leo" Velinznrarikovich wrote:

Gortle wrote:

Leaving it to the GM is not a good solution.

I disagree completely. It is a fine solution.

Then just don't have the list in the first place. If the entire point of it is to just be expanded by a player talking with their GM legitimately just get rid of the mechanic and make them a normal 4 slot caster to make the class actually consistent at most tables.

That would have been an easy and satisfying solution that would have further separated them from the OGL wizard.

I don't plan to be too hard on players with that extra slot for a Curriculum. If a player asks if they can add a spell that feels like it fits to their school list, I plan to say yes. If they are a member of the school of Battle Magic and they want to add a blaster spell or battlefield control spells to their level slots, just let them.

Maybe PFS will be harder about it, but if you're playing a home game and the spell fits the theme of the Curriculum, let them have it on their school list for that slot.

MEATSHED wrote:

Leomund "Leo" Velinznrarikovich wrote:

Gortle wrote:

Leaving it to the GM is not a good solution.

I disagree completely. It is a fine solution.

Then just don't have the list in the first place. If the entire point of it is to just be expanded by a player talking with their GM legitimately just get rid of the mechanic and make them a normal 4 slot caster to make the class actually consistent at most tables.

That would have been an easy and satisfying solution that would have further separated them from the OGL wizard.

I don't plan to be too hard on players with that extra slot for a Curriculum. If a player asks if they can add a spell that feels like it fits to their school list, I plan to say yes. If they are a member of the school of Battle Magic and they want to add a blaster spell or battlefield control spells to their level slots, just let them.

Maybe PFS will be harder about it, but if you're playing a home game and the spell fits the theme of the Curriculum, let them have it on their school list for that slot.

This is my take as well frankly. I will be very lenient here and I think most people will be. I'll take arguments such as "wall of stone makes sense for battle magic also because it provides cover or provides control of opponents" or what have you. A good argument is enough for me to let just about anything fit into any school

Good design can only limit GM intervention, not prevent it entirely.

Difference between 'limit' and 'require.'

Nothing limits GM intervention other than self restraint or a lack of need by game or players.

I don't talk about preventing GM intervention, I talk about removing the need for it. These are very different things.

You will always need to intervene as a GM in some way. Even if that is to say 'no, you can't add those spells'.

You will always need to intervene as a GM in some way. Even if that is to say 'no, you can't add those spells'.

... is... is this really your argument? That a GM saying no to something justifies bad design?

Its also not intervention as you are not intervening/providing an intevention merely saying use the options as written, you are not intervening to change things.

Point is people are already talking about how to remove school slots or impact of poor spell choices set to them without relying on fickle GM intervention.

The new schools look like they decided which focus spells to keep and then decided to try to build a narrative around them without fixing core issues. School of the boundary in particular males little to no narrative sense. It looks like a way to blend Augment Summoning with Dread Aura so is a hodge podge of things that don't quite fit together forced into a concept.

Augment summoning still wasn't fixed to ne a reaction or freeaction with the trigger being casting a summoning spell.

Schools could have been so much more. They could have included non arcane spells, they could have actually spent the time to make good new thematic focus spells for identifiable themes. Basically not try to rearrange what was there to work but given them the care and attention they deserved.

There is a not a single good design reason not to have a school spell at each rank that remains useful/relevant when cast at the rank you get it. School of Battle Magics school spells are eclipsed by cantrips by rank 3.

Requiring GM permission to have amother spell rather than explicitly allowing a player to always pick a spell that is within them as part of the process or just doing the job properly and making sure school spells in thst rank can be relevant for more than 2 or 3 levels isn't a big ask.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

MEATSHED wrote:

Leomund "Leo" Velinznrarikovich wrote:

Gortle wrote:

Leaving it to the GM is not a good solution.

I disagree completely. It is a fine solution.

Then just don't have the list in the first place. If the entire point of it is to just be expanded by a player talking with their GM legitimately just get rid of the mechanic and make them a normal 4 slot caster to make the class actually consistent at most tables.

That would have been an easy and satisfying solution that would have further separated them from the OGL wizard.

I don't plan to be too hard on players with that extra slot for a Curriculum. If a player asks if they can add a spell that feels like it fits to their school list, I plan to say yes. If they are a member of the school of Battle Magic and they want to add a blaster spell or battlefield control spells to their level slots, just let them.

Maybe PFS will be harder about it, but if you're playing a home game and the spell fits the theme of the Curriculum, let them have it on their school list for that slot.

This is my take as well frankly. I will be very lenient here and I think most people will be. I'll take arguments such as "wall of stone makes sense for battle magic also because it provides cover or provides control of opponents" or what have you. A good argument is enough for me to let just about anything fit into any school

In fact, there is this point too. If you can argue with the GM to replace spells by saying that those spells also make sense for your curriculum, you can basically put any spell in any curriculum by molding your argument so that it makes a modicum of sense and if your GM is lenient the enough he will simply accept. Which creates another problem, which is the fact that the curriculum loses meaning! Basically it will just become a set of focus spell selections and a way to gain an extra maximum rank spell.

In practice, this only makes this new school system, which is already bad, even worse. Because you have a whole set of "sub-classes" that would become practically irrelevant.

In fact, there is this point too. If you can argue with the GM to replace spells by saying that those spells also make sense for your curriculum, you can basically put any spell in any curriculum by molding your argument so that it makes a modicum of sense and if your GM is lenient the enough he will simply accept. Which creates another problem, which is the fact that the curriculum loses meaning! Basically it will just become a set of focus spell selections and a way to gain an extra maximum rank spell.

In practice, this only makes this new school system, which is already bad, even worse. Because you have a whole set of "sub-classes" that would become practically irrelevant.

Eh, I'd disagree there. Mentalism, for example, has a really strong and clear theme. It's pretty clear what kind of spells it covers, and that doesn't include Fireball.

Let's suppose you, for some reason, are set on rendering the lists meaningless, and come up with an argument that makes a modicum of sense for swapping in Fireball. You're probably coming up with an interesting character- maybe a flashy stage magician mixing illusions with real magical pyrotechnics. The act itself has value, and you end up with something more interesting than just "wizard with a fireball", which is a very generic concept.

The shadow sorc has 3 uses of Consuming Darkness or Steal Shadow per 10 minutes. Consuming Darkness is a nasty AoE spell that is sustainable. Better damage than a level 5 force missile for certain that hits only enemies and slows movement.

At level 15 force bolt is rank 7, so it is 4d4+4 of automatic damage for one action, you don’t waste a round getting it set up, and your range with it it is 3 times greater. All of that adds up to a lot more consistent damage without trying to stay within 10ft of your opponents. I am guessing high level Agents of Edgewatch is still against a lot more humanoid enemies than in other campaigns, but sustaining a 10ft emanation and keeping foes in it feels like your character is either moving a lot, or getting attacked a lot?

The nice thing about force bolt is that you can also have a bunch of rank 5 force barrage spells memorized so you can still be using all three actions to attack with spells, every round, for a very long time, even when the enemy is more than 30ft away. It is only 3.5 less dpr. Significant, but 10.5 to 14 added DPR for a third action is incredibly expensive for a caster to equal with a weapon attack, featwise and money wise. If the wizard has picked up dangerous sorcerery those rank 5 force barrages are probably hitting for 15.5 damage, as a 3rd action attack.

Eh, I'd disagree there. Mentalism, for example, has a really strong and clear theme. It's pretty clear what kind of spells it covers, and that doesn't include Fireball.

One more reason to criticize this mechanic of "talk to GM if you want to switch your curriculum's spells to other that make sense for this curriculum" (not exactly with these words but with this meaning) that some curriculum will be way more flexible than others.

While as you said mentalism have a more narrow definition of what spells you can use, the battle and even engineering curriculums are way more wide. You can easily argument that Wall of Stone, Invisibility and Fly make sense for battle tactics or that Fireballs make sense for demolition while in mentalist you are basically restricted to mental and illusion effects.

That's why I the end I will still say "please choose universalist instead os begin a discussion about what spells are valid to change or not".

Deriven Firelion wrote:

The shadow sorc has 3 uses of Consuming Darkness or Steal Shadow per 10 minutes. Consuming Darkness is a nasty AoE spell that is sustainable. Better damage than a level 5 force missile for certain that hits only enemies and slows movement.

At level 15 force bolt is rank 7, so it is 4d4+4 of automatic damage for one action, you don’t waste a round getting it set up, and your range with it it is 3 times greater. All of that adds up to a lot more consistent damage without trying to stay within 10ft of your opponents. I am guessing high level Agents of Edgewatch is still against a lot more humanoid enemies than in other campaigns, but sustaining a 10ft emanation and keeping foes in it feels like your character is either moving a lot, or getting attacked a lot?

The nice thing about force bolt is that you can also have a bunch of rank 5 force barrage spells memorized so you can still be using all three actions to attack with spells, every round, for a very long time, even when the enemy is more than 30ft away. It is only 3.5 less dpr. Significant, but 10.5 to 14 added DPR for a third action is incredibly expensive for a caster to equal with a weapon attack, featwise and money wise. If the wizard has picked up dangerous sorcerery those rank 5 force barrages are probably hitting for 15.5 damage, as a 3rd action attack.

You don't have to stay within 10 feet. It keeps expanding. And it is an aura that only hits enemies doing damage and affecting movement. It's an absolutely brutal focus spell. It is better than force bolt, not in every situation, but in mook battles it is absolutely brutal. I've used it a bunch.

I read Shadow Sorcerer and went, "Wow. This is a brutal focus spell." It gets even more brutal when you get Effortless Concentration.

I used to cast 4th level invis and walk amongst the enemy for my own amusement. I watched the damage add up and the mooks movement get hampered. I imagine this would be a truly frightening display of power.

They should have made force missile longer range. My Force Fang which does as much damage as Force Missile works within a 100 feet on my Starlit Span Magus and recharges my spellstrike.

I also have Striker's Scroll and craft scrolls to put on my bow for one extra spell a battle. Starlit Span magus does some nutty damage.

I would not be surprised if they got a bit of a nerf in Player Core 2. They outclass every other archer in the game by a huge number. It's like a night and day difference. I wouldn't be surprised if they were one of the highest single target and overall damage dealers in the game. I feel bad for rangers and any other archer after playing a Starlift Span magus. It makes you feel a bit dirty that such a powerful and brutal option exists in PF2. It has to be on the top of the damage dealing tier with a maul fighter or a rogue or giant barbarian.

QuidEst wrote:

Eh, I'd disagree there. Mentalism, for example, has a really strong and clear theme. It's pretty clear what kind of spells it covers, and that doesn't include Fireball.

One more reason to criticize this mechanic of "talk to GM if you want to switch your curriculum's spells to other that make sense for this curriculum" (not exactly with these words but with this meaning) that some curriculum will be way more flexible than others.

While as you said mentalism have a more narrow definition of what spells you can use, the battle and even engineering curriculums are way more wide. You can easily argument that Wall of Stone, Invisibility and Fly make sense for battle tactics or that Fireballs make sense for demolition while in mentalist you are basically restricted to mental and illusion effects.

That's why I the end I will still say "please choose universalist instead os begin a discussion about what spells are valid to change or not".

I don't see much of a reason to play anything other than a universalist myself as it is.

Now that you have Simple Weapon proficiency and get Hand of the Apprentice for free and that advanced Universalist spell is bonkers (even though I wish it were longer range).

Just trick out a big ass two-handed weapon, cast your big dog save spell, and throw your big weapon at something. Do crazy damage.

Spell Blending Universalist is probably going to be a power combo for the wizard in PF2. I wish they had made Spell Substitution a free part of the class so I wouldn't have to buy that to use my spell versatility in real time. It would have been the equivalent of signature spells for spontaneous classes. Then you can take a fun thesis like Spell Blending.

Stack them top level slots. Get your big tricked out weapon. And go to town with Arcane Bond. That's my plan when next I make a wizard.

Even that advanced focus spell letting you cast some other creature's arcane spell is going to be pretty brutal when it works. You just cast a level 6 arcane chain lightning? Thanks buddy. Here you go, Reaction hammer.

The Unified Theory wizard looks like the no brainer damage hammer of the wizard now. If you want to grab force bolt, just take that feat. Or better yet grab some sorcerer MC levels and get a good focus spell with Caster proficiency based on your casting proficiency.

For all the focus on the curriculum, wizards got an upgrade from a handful of quality of life changes everyone gets. It really benefits the wizard quite a bit letting them poach other focus spells and get better weapons for Hand of the Apprentice.

It will be interesting to see when/if magus, summoner, psychic and thaumaturge ever get brought over to the remastered. It will be at least 2 years at this point.

The battle mage is more single target blaster than your shadow sorcerer for sure. It is the thing that everyone keeps saying casters can’t do in PF2. By level 12, you are having to decide whether to keep spamming force bolts, or if your party is coordinated to exploit forceable energy to tear a single target apart. The remaster, with the boosts to many spells has the damage dealing, single target blaster in much better shape than before, but people are complaining about how to fill 1 rank one spell slot. It is still good at multi target damage, because all casters are, but it is only using spell slots to do it. You are more of a fan of using focus spells and weapons than spell slots and scrolls, so it makes a lot of sense to prefer other casters than the wizard.

I have always said that the Wizard never needed a lot to be a great class, but for some reason, some people in the community feel the need to drive every conversation to such an extreme that it makes the whole thing look ridiculous.

The Wizard has always had problems on two levels
1) Thematic Execution
2) Quality of Life features

On Thematic Execution, the Wizard has never really been a Wizard in any true sense for this edition. The Wizard is better categorised as Spell Slot Man, because that is all the Wizard really cares about.

PF2 launched with a unique and specifically codied Knowledge system. The Wizard spent its first 4 years of editon having zero class interactions with this mechanic, even though their entire theme is presented around knowledge and study. Even now, with the introduction of the revamped Knowledge is Power, Wizards still only have a single feat which cares about Recall Knowledge, and it only works on a critical success.

This intersects with the fact that the Wizard is on lowest skill progression track, and, somewhat nonsensically, starts with the fewest trained skills, even amoung other Int-based prepared casters.

A lot of lip service is paid to academics, but mechanically, the Wizard is actually one of the least knowledge based classes in the game.

Given that the knowledge aspect of the Wizard is intended to intersect with their varied spell selection so that they can pick the right tool for the job, they lack in their ability to pick that said Right Tool.

This could have been fixed in the remaster in a number of ways, but was instead not really addressed in a meaningful way. So I think there is a strong argument that the Wizard needs an actual academic component to their actual play which is meaningful and rewarding.

The new school system is, in a way, actually quite regressive. Previously you picked a very broad category of magic, and you were free to theme your Wizard in any way you liked, with as much or as little reference to that theme as you felt like.

The new school system, but having a much narrower focus, forces a much more centralised adherence to that theme. This could be fine, in general, if it didn't force 25% of your spell slots to come from a very narrow list, but I'll talk about that more later. However by forcing a mechanical narrowing of the Wizard, it forces the school themes in a way that is detrimental to how a Wizard could have been played before.

I mentioned previously in this thread that my Blood Lords Wizard just doesn't really work anymore. At least not in the same way. I either keep my theme and abandon a large amount of mechanical effectiveness, or I drop a large part of my theme to fit what I can actually do. Its somewhat of a lose-lose situation there.

The new school system also doesn't actually gain us anything. I could have always themed my evocation Wizard to be from a school which was focused around battle magic. Battle Magic seems to be large on the blow-stuff up aspect, and light on the battle field control elements, which, to my mind, would make more sense for "Battle Magic". Battle Magic has mist, and that's really it. Why doesn't it have things like Heroism, group movement spells, more tactical wall options. Stuff that would be good in group support, and not be such an analog to evocation?

My biological themed necromancer would now be a School of the Boundry, I guess. Perhaps Protean Form with some tweaks? Either way, it doesn't matter, because unless they happen to print a school which just happens to fit what I had before, I'd now just be selecting an option to pick one, working around it, rather than with it. Which isn't a great feeling.

On Quality of Life features, for some reason the Wizard has had the lowest, often uniquely, QoL of any class.

Only class to lack simple weapons prof, missing a trained skill, only class with focus spells to not have 3 natively, etc.

Thankfully some of these have been changed/fixed, but others have been introduced in their place.

The new curriculum spell slot change is, frankly, horrible. Its a strong nerf to the Wizards headline mechanical feature, reducing versatility while introducing a totally new problem in the form of "dead slots", where the value of the spells you can inherently prepare in those slots lose value over time that they no longer serve to be a useful resource. This is the first time, at least to my knowledge, where Paizo have made a class mechanic in PF2 that actively gets worse as you level up.

The extent and impact of the dead slot problem varies between schools, this is true, but overall its a problem that simply didn't exist prior. It now forces players and GM's to homebrew a solution to allow those slots to remain relevant, or you use one of the thesis options that allows you to trade the slot away. Its just not a well thoguth out or implemented mechanic. There is a version of it that could work, but, as written in the Player Core, players and GM's HAVE to come up with some sort of action in order for the Wizard not to lose effectiveness as they level up.

The new school system does have potential, however Paizo chose not to show us this potential in the player core, so the jury is out on what the system could one-day be. Adding new, strong, useful, focus spells and spells outside the arcane list would be good ways to expand the system. Providing unique schools based on specific, actual, famous schools in the lore could also be a way to make this underwhelming mechanic very interesting. But we will have to wait and see what happens.

That said, no matter what they do, the dead slot problem will remain regardless of school expansion, unless they specifically add options to each school overtime. But, even this will still result in less versatility than was previously there. So its a nerf on multiple aspects of the class.

Why the popularity of the Wizard prevents it from getting buffs, but not cutting nerfs, is prehaps something we can hope for future developer insight on.

Further, in general I think also all prepared casters should have Spell Substitution as a core feature, to contrast with Signature Spells. But that's my personal hill to die on. I feel that prepared casting can be too much of a crapshoot in the adventuring day not to have a universal pressure valve for preparation mistakes.

So, all in all, the Wizard still as its Thematic Execution problems and still has some of its old Quality of Life features but with new ones on top.

None of this would take a lot of work to resolve either.

1) Add some low level feats which give Wizards meaningful and helpful interaction with the Recall knowledge mechanic, maybe a thesis option. Give them back a skill at starting (thought this should have been coupled with schools, and given Universalist Additional Lore)

2) Decouple spell slot from curriculum spells. Perhaps make it so that you can always spend 10 minutes to Spell Sub out a spell slot to be one of your curriculum spells, to emphasis your familiarity with those spells without forcing them on you.

I do think all prepared casters getting Spell Substitution equivalent would be nice. It would be the perfect version of Signature Spells for prepared casters. So they can take used slots that might be filled with a useless spell for the situation and fill it with a more useful spell trading time for versatility.

Given spell slots are already limited, prepared casters should have a way to leverage them to best use. Spell Substitution is the perfect way to accommodate that within the ruleset.

Good call Old Man Robot.

I don't see how it would break the wizard to give them some intel-based skill ups similar to a Swashbuckler in frequency. I don't think you're asking for rogue skill ups, but it would be nice to see the wizard get some kind of skill ups for knowledge based skill or do like an Acrobat Dedication automatically boosting Arcane to Legendary. Love to see that for Druid and Cleric too for nature and religion considering they would study those consistently throughout their career.

You are more of a fan of using focus spells and weapons than spell slots and scrolls, so it makes a lot of sense to prefer other casters than the wizard.

It's not a matter of being a fan of something. Focus spells are almost free (especially if you have good ones in class) and weapons cost money once (plus upgrades if you want, yes). Slots are limited per day and scrolls cost per cast.

Would it be crazy to allow a wizard to have a healing font type of ability that used their school spells instead of heal spells?

Maybe give them 3 general spell slots per spell rank, then tack on "school font" spell slots equal to their highest spell rank. (For example, a 1st-level wizard would have a single 1st-rank school slot, but an 11th-level wizard would have six 6th-rank school slots.)

That way their specialty spells will always be a significant and frequent aspect of their character (no dead or ineffective slots). A battle wizard could blast for much longer, a civics wizard might divide and conquer with more walls, and a protean misfit could have extended mutations.

Even less desirable spells would look much more attractive if they were heightened.
I'm sure it would need some additional balancing restrictions to keep it in line with other classes, but I think it would go a long way towards making the school choices more meaningful.

Calliope5431 wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Calliope5431 wrote:

Unicore wrote:

Much will depend on number of encounters per day, but a battle wizard throwing 3 force bolts an encounter on top of top 2 rank spell slots is going to be at the top end of spell caster damage, especially against high level, high AC opponents.

Yeah I'm playing this PC in Agents of Edgewatch right now. Which involves (at one point) a speedblitz through around 8-9 encounters with no sleeping allowed.

Haven't run out of rank 6+ slots yet (at level 15), and while I am using Staff Nexus there's a TON of damage output even though I have things like 6th rank slow, wall of force, and 8th rank paralyze prepared as well.

I'm also using your "buy a pile of scrolls" trick, Unicore, so thanks for that! I haven't really had cause to use many of them yet, though. Between Drain Bonded Item, Superior Bond, Staff Nexus, and Scroll Savant I just have so many slots.

I did the same with a sorcerer in the same module. And the sorc could heal on top of it.

The scroll "trick" works with every caster to extend their casting, which is why being the "most spell slot" caster isn't a big deal when magic items do the same thing.

Focus spells also extend casting. Consuming Darkness was a very nice spell in that module in those encounters.

This is not a competition...

But so can my wizard, actually. You can get basically the exact same benefit from a few multiclass feats and an item or two. And still have vastly more top-level slots than a sorcerer. It's quite nice.

Not that healing actually matters when you have a pile of chain lightnings, roaring applause, paralyzes, and walls of force. As I think you said in another thread: healing only matters if the monsters live long enough to deal damage. Which they emphatically do not in Edgewatch. Especially not with the spell loadout the wizard has access to.

You don't have vastly more top...

There are a few other slots too, actually.

Scroll savant gives another 6th and another 5th (and another 4th technically)

Superior bond gives another 6th.

So looking at things the wizard has an extra 8th and four extra 6ths (two from staff nexus and another from superior bond and another from scroll savant).

Anyway, my point was that wizard is playable in a very grindy AP.

No idea if elementalist is more playable though since it can pick up the elemental focus spells people say are so good for druids.

Anyway, my point was that wizard is playable in a very grindy AP.

Playable is a very low bar in this edition. Cantrips mean every caster is playable all day long.

Its quality thats the question, which is why focus spells matter.

Every caster has a method to juice out either extra slots, or effects which are roughly equal to a slot. Wizard focus options are either not overly good or not combat focused, because they get more overall slots.

Since daily slots don't replenish between encounters, the Wizards qualitative-playability has a much lower floor that other casters.

Which, I guess, is the intended trade off.

Why, for instance, the Sorcerer doesn't have this trade off in many cases, is something I've never particularly understood.

YuriP wrote:

QuidEst wrote:

Eh, I'd disagree there. Mentalism, for example, has a really strong and clear theme. It's pretty clear what kind of spells it covers, and that doesn't include Fireball.

One more reason to criticize this mechanic of "talk to GM if you want to switch your curriculum's spells to other that make sense for this curriculum" (not exactly with these words but with this meaning) that some curriculum will be way more flexible than others.

While as you said mentalism have a more narrow definition of what spells you can use, the battle and even engineering curriculums are way more wide. You can easily argument that Wall of Stone, Invisibility and Fly make sense for battle tactics or that Fireballs make sense for demolition while in mentalist you are basically restricted to mental and illusion effects.

That's why I the end I will still say "please choose universalist instead os begin a discussion about what spells are valid to change or not".

I don't see much of a reason to play anything other than a universalist myself as it is.

Now that you have Simple Weapon proficiency and get Hand of the Apprentice for free and that advanced Universalist spell is bonkers (even though I wish it were longer range).

Just trick out a big ass two-handed weapon, cast your big dog save spell, and throw your big weapon at something. Do crazy damage.

Spell Blending Universalist is probably going to be a power combo for the wizard in PF2. I wish they had made Spell Substitution a free part of the class so I wouldn't have to buy that to use my spell versatility in real time. It would have been the equivalent of signature spells for spontaneous classes. Then you can take a fun thesis like Spell Blending.

Stack them top level slots. Get your big tricked out weapon. And go to town with Arcane Bond. That's my plan when next I make a wizard.

Even that advanced focus spell letting you cast some other creature's arcane spell is going to be pretty brutal when it works. You just...

You are the first person I’ve found who doesn’t find the advanced universalist focus spell garbage.

Maybe your use of the term “reaction hammer” is the issue. The reaction and focus point only lets you get access to the spell for your next round. You still have to use your own actions and expend your own spell slot to use it.

It’s anithetical to basic focus spell design as something you could want to do every fight to preserve resources. Here you will rarely be able to use it all and you have to expend a slot anyway.

I also find spell blending on universalist appalling. Horrible loss of flexibility leaving behind in your lower rank slots a single spell you can cast twice vs two slots you can double prepare or separately prepare as you see fit.

Calliope5431 wrote:

Anyway, my point was that wizard is playable in a very grindy AP.

Playable is a very low bar in this edition. Cantrips mean every caster is playable all day long.

Its quality thats the question, which is why focus spells matter.

Every caster has a method to juice out either extra slots, or effects which are roughly equal to a slot. Wizard focus options are either not overly good or not combat focused, because they get more overall slots.

Since daily slots don't replenish between encounters, the Wizards qualitative-playability has a much lower floor that other casters.

Which, I guess, is the intended trade off.

Why, for instance, the Sorcerer doesn't have this trade off in many cases, is something I've never particularly understood.

In fairness, getting an extra +5 high level slots per day is roughly equal to an extra high level slot per encounter. And since focus spell damage maxes out at well below chain lightning or falling stars it's not a bad trade.

2 action focus spells just aren't that good at damage past level 12 or so because they scale at or below fireball damage, whereas cone of cold, chain lightning and falling stars have a much better baseline. In addition it's hard to run out of slots at that point anyway so the focus spells are almost superfluous

Deriven Firelion wrote:

YuriP wrote:

QuidEst wrote:

Eh, I'd disagree there. Mentalism, for example, has a really strong and clear theme. It's pretty clear what kind of spells it covers, and that doesn't include Fireball.

One more reason to criticize this mechanic of "talk to GM if you want to switch your curriculum's spells to other that make sense for this curriculum" (not exactly with these words but with this meaning) that some curriculum will be way more flexible than others.

While as you said mentalism have a more narrow definition of what spells you can use, the battle and even engineering curriculums are way more wide. You can easily argument that Wall of Stone, Invisibility and Fly make sense for battle tactics or that Fireballs make sense for demolition while in mentalist you are basically restricted to mental and illusion effects.

That's why I the end I will still say "please choose universalist instead os begin a discussion about what spells are valid to change or not".

I don't see much of a reason to play anything other than a universalist myself as it is.

Now that you have Simple Weapon proficiency and get Hand of the Apprentice for free and that advanced Universalist spell is bonkers (even though I wish it were longer range).

Just trick out a big ass two-handed weapon, cast your big dog save spell, and throw your big weapon at something. Do crazy damage.

Spell Blending Universalist is probably going to be a power combo for the wizard in PF2. I wish they had made Spell Substitution a free part of the class so I wouldn't have to buy that to use my spell versatility in real time. It would have been the equivalent of signature spells for spontaneous classes. Then you can take a fun thesis like Spell Blending.

Stack them top level slots. Get your big tricked out weapon. And go to town with Arcane Bond. That's my plan when next I make a wizard.

Even that advanced focus spell letting you cast some other creature's arcane spell is going to be

...

I don't have the Remaster yet. I guess I must have read that wrong.

What do you prefer for Universalist? People talk up the top level spell slots when discussing wizards as their main advantage. What are you doing with your thesis?

I imagine I'll throw my weapon a bunch.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Calliope5431 wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Calliope5431 wrote:

Unicore wrote:

Much will depend on number of encounters per day, but a battle wizard throwing 3 force bolts an encounter on top of top 2 rank spell slots is going to be at the top end of spell caster damage, especially against high level, high AC opponents.

Yeah I'm playing this PC in Agents of Edgewatch right now. Which involves (at one point) a speedblitz through around 8-9 encounters with no sleeping allowed.

Haven't run out of rank 6+ slots yet (at level 15), and while I am using Staff Nexus there's a TON of damage output even though I have things like 6th rank slow, wall of force, and 8th rank paralyze prepared as well.

I'm also using your "buy a pile of scrolls" trick, Unicore, so thanks for that! I haven't really had cause to use many of them yet, though. Between Drain Bonded Item, Superior Bond, Staff Nexus, and Scroll Savant I just have so many slots.

I did the same with a sorcerer in the same module. And the sorc could heal on top of it.

The scroll "trick" works with every caster to extend their casting, which is why being the "most spell slot" caster isn't a big deal when magic items do the same thing.

Focus spells also extend casting. Consuming Darkness was a very nice spell in that module in those encounters.

This is not a competition...

But so can my wizard, actually. You can get basically the exact same benefit from a few multiclass feats and an item or two. And still have vastly more top-level slots than a sorcerer. It's quite nice.

Not that healing actually matters when you have a pile of chain lightnings, roaring applause, paralyzes, and walls of force. As I think you said in another thread: healing only matters if the monsters live long enough to deal damage. Which they emphatically do not in Edgewatch. Especially not with the spell loadout the wizard has access to.

...

I find Signature Spells and flexible casting casting more useful myself than locked in prepared extra slots.

Like Unicore stated, it's pretty easy to obtain scrolls or other magic items even as a sorcerer. Or just rely on other class members for things that some on here see the wizard doing. We almost always have a rogue and Athletics and Thievery solve a lot of issues that some like to use wizard versatility for.

I do think all prepared casters getting Spell Substitution equivalent would be nice. It would be the perfect version of Signature Spells for prepared casters. So they can take used slots that might be filled with a useless spell for the situation and fill it with a more useful spell trading time for versatility.

I don't know if I agree with the idea of Spell Substitution for all prepared/vancian casters because the clerics and druids already have the advantage to know all common spells of their tradition and have strong chassis while wizards and witches strongly depends from money and how the adventure develops to give some extra spells and their chassis are way more weak. So for the last 2 classes I agree that it will be a good addition to compensate their prepared spells limitations and to help to justify their chassis weakness.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I do think all prepared casters getting Spell Substitution equivalent would be nice. It would be the perfect version of Signature Spells for prepared casters. So they can take used slots that might be filled with a useless spell for the situation and fill it with a more useful spell trading time for versatility.

I don't know if I agree with the idea of Spell Substitution for all prepared/vancian casters because the clerics and druids already have the advantage to know all common spells of their tradition and have strong chassis while wizards and witches strongly depends from money and how the adventure develops to give some extra spells and their chassis are way more weak. So for the last 2 classes I agree that it will be a good addition to compensate their prepared spells limitations and to help to justify their chassis weakness.

Witch looks pretty brutal to me now. Maybe in play, I won't see it. But on paper, witch is looking to have some superstar builds.

I still think Unified Theory wizard looks pretty crazy. Stack some archetypes, toss your weapon, waste stuff.

We'll see if they can keep up with a druid.

And cleric has the divine list. Their versatility likely mostly be used for condition removal and buffing. Sure, their chassis is good, but fairly narrow.

I guess I'll look at how holy and unholy damage works now. If their blast spells picked up a huge upgrade doing damage to everyone, then maybe they need nothing.

I'd still see the ability to change spells as a quality of life upgrade for all prepared casters to match spontaneous caster signature spells.

Druid might get the biggest advantage, but maybe not since their focus spells are so high quality they use those a lot regardless of spell slots.

Even you have to admit that Spell Substitution is not the most fun thesis as a wizard to buy a class feature you basically had in PF1 as part of the class chassis. The wizard having all this great spell versatility it can't access in real game time when the spontaneous casters are picking from their repertoire slots and getting signature spells for heightening makes that spell versatility less valuable in actual play. It let's the wizard choose a more fun thesis, while not giving up access to spell versatility in a reasonable time for when the rogue or someone scouts ahead and let's them know that another spell would be much better. Then the wizard can change in real time making scouting more useful rather than scouting, waiting a day for each room or something like that.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I do think all prepared casters getting Spell Substitution equivalent would be nice. It would be the perfect version of Signature Spells for prepared casters. So they can take used slots that might be filled with a useless spell for the situation and fill it with a more useful spell trading time for versatility.

I don't know if I agree with the idea of Spell Substitution for all prepared/vancian casters because the clerics and druids already have the advantage to know all common spells of their tradition and have strong chassis while wizards and witches strongly depends from money and how the adventure develops to give some extra spells and their chassis are way more weak. So for the last 2 classes I agree that it will be a good addition to compensate their prepared spells limitations and to help to justify their chassis weakness.

I had forgotten that aspects of Clerics actually. I'm tempted to say it was fine when the divine list was firmly the weaskes list, but if the divine list is going to continue to be elevated, it probably needs to go.

Its hard to jive that a "selling point" of the Wizard school change was they got a handful of free spells known, when other prepared casters get the entire common list for free out the gate. A handful of uncommon spells for free isn't actually a good trade there at all.

YuriP wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I do think all prepared casters getting Spell Substitution equivalent would be nice. It would be the perfect version of Signature Spells for prepared casters. So they can take used slots that might be filled with a useless spell for the situation and fill it with a more useful spell trading time for versatility.

I don't know if I agree with the idea of Spell Substitution for all prepared/vancian casters because the clerics and druids already have the advantage to know all common spells of their tradition and have strong chassis while wizards and witches strongly depends from money and how the adventure develops to give some extra spells and their chassis are way more weak. So for the last 2 classes I agree that it will be a good addition to compensate their prepared spells limitations and to help to justify their chassis weakness.

Witch looks pretty brutal to me now. Maybe in play, I won't see it. But on paper, witch is looking to have some superstar builds.

I still think Unified Theory wizard looks pretty crazy. Stack some archetypes, toss your weapon, waste stuff.

We'll see if they can keep up with a druid.

And cleric has the divine list. Their versatility likely mostly be used for condition removal and buffing. Sure, their chassis is good, but fairly narrow.

I guess I'll look at how holy and unholy damage works now. If their blast spells picked up a huge upgrade doing damage to everyone, then maybe they need nothing.

I'd still see the ability to change spells as a quality of life upgrade for all prepared casters to match spontaneous caster signature spells.

Druid might get the biggest advantage, but maybe not since their focus spells are so high quality they use those a lot regardless of spell slots.

Even you have to admit that Spell Substitution is not the most fun thesis as a wizard to buy a class feature you basically had in PF1 as part of the class chassis. The wizard having all this great spell versatility it can't...

Yeah I honestly cannot wait to try out witch and unified theory.

Witch in particular looks nightmarish with Stitch Familiar and Patron's Claim. I'm thinking about combining it with Lesson of the Frozen Queen for blasting and control all the live long day.

I had a tough time choosing between the Ars Grammatica and Boundary schools for my slime wizard going into the Abomination Vaults. I landed on Boundary to lean into the spooky themes of the mega-dungeon and I am looking forward to summoning some rats to protect my frail lil' slime body.