Player Core Preview: The Wizard, Remastered

Honestly, the thing that I'm most curious about regarding Wizards is if the "School of Unified Theory" mentioned in other previews will function the same as the prior "Universalist" school, IE that you don't gain the bonus spell slot per rank to prepare certain spells into, but instead you get to use Arcane Bond to recast a spell at each spell rank, instead of just 1/day.

My forthcoming Wizard was planned as a Universalist, so it'd be nice to know if that's going to be radically different in the Remaster, especially since my group's GM is going to enforce the Remastered versions of ALL affected classes once we start playing PF again next summer.

This doesn't really excite me for wizard changes and feels... like a nerf still.

The academic part of the wizard feels like themed window dressing with no mechanics to help it. Give me feats/mechanics that use knowledge checks that give a mechanical bonus. Right now RK is usually a waste for anyone that has played the game for a while as they know or can guess the moderate or weak save, the probably have some inkling of a weakness (assuming they guessed right at the start of the day and picked a corresponding spell). Let my RK checks change the energy type of a spell on the fly to target the weakness.

Give me something that rewards me using the only real academic check (RK) in the game. Calling something a thesis but then it being a bonus feat (metamagic thesis) does not make it academic. Calling a limited number of themed spells a curriculum does not make it more academic than bloodline spells.

Window dressing is ok but its flavour I can add or change and doesn't make int anymore a good stat. Only having Trained level skill at higher levels is inadequate for the DCs in prewritten adventures. Either change it so expert is the highest check required with Master and Legendary just being a better chance of crit or give bonus skill increases for higher int.

Secondary detonation array is weak for level 14 given how much support and how many circumstance it needs for it to be either effective area denial or extra damage. I think it could be a level 2 or 4 feat since bonus damage is dependent on spell rank - this could be a good boost to rank 1 and 2 area damage spells which right now are not worth casting - this would make them an interesting choice at this level. At level 14 its not that much of a consideration. d6 damage for an action a round later at level 1 if the enemy moves into that space or doesn't move out is not overpowered but it would feel good to have. Wizards in particular need that right out of the gate. Its still 2 feats for any other caster to pick up.

Part of the problem with caster feats in general, the halfway decent/interesting ones come online too late. Most caster feats feel way too situational or come online too late to help casters where they need it most at low levels.

This doesn't really excite me for wizard changes and feels... like a nerf still.

The academic part of the wizard feels like themed window dressing with no mechanics to help it. Give me feats/mechanics that use knowledge checks that give a mechanical bonus. Right now RK is usually a waste for anyone that has played the game for a while as they know or can guess the moderate or weak save, the probably have some inkling of a weakness (assuming they guessed right at the start of the day and picked a corresponding spell). Let my RK checks change the energy type of a spell on the fly to target the weakness.

Give me something that rewards me using the only real academic check (RK) in the game. Calling something a thesis but then it being a bonus feat (metamagic thesis) does not make it academic. Calling a limited number of themed spells a curriculum does not make it more academic than bloodline spells.

Window dressing is ok but its flavour I can add or change and doesn't make int anymore a good stat. Only having Trained level skill at higher levels is inadequate for the DCs in prewritten adventures. Either change it so expert is the highest check required with Master and Legendary just being a better chance of crit or give bonus skill increases for higher int.

Secondary detonation array is weak for level 14 given how much support and how many circumstance it needs for it to be either effective area denial or extra damage. I think it could be a level 2 or 4 feat since bonus damage is dependent on spell rank - this could be a good boost to rank 1 and 2 area damage spells which right now are not worth casting - this would make them an interesting choice at this level. At level 14 its not that much of a consideration. d6 damage for an action a round later at level 1 if the enemy moves into that space or doesn't move out is not overpowered but it would feel good to have. Wizards in particular need that right out of the gate. Its still 2 feats for any other caster to pick up.

Part of the problem with...

Bruh, you're literally getting a feat that gives you a +1 to attacks, ac, and saving throws against a creature when you crit succeed a recall knowledge check.

How on earth is this worth a level 14 feat. Not exactly building hype with this.

I get more excited about the remaster with every revelation. I can't wait to see how all of these changes interact with each other.

As an educator with almost 3 master's and a doctorate, as well as a fan of the Dragonlance Wizards of High Sorcery, I like this emphasis on the curriculum

How on earth is this worth a level 14 feat. Not exactly building hype with this.

1 action for a rank level x d6 damage that can be done at range an unlimited amount of times. I think 14 is about right. At least they didn't make it level 16 competing against the obvious effortless concentration choice.

I think the feat looks interesting myself. This is also not bad if you combine it with Trip. Let's say your martial trips the target in the burst area, then it has multiple choices to make with actions. Get up and move out of the area using 2 actions to move or use one action to stand up and attack or get blown up.

It's situationally useful. Not bad for a 1 action feat. I'd prefer it be a free feat for some battle magic type of school, but we'll see what it all looks like.

Bruh, you're literally getting a feat that gives you a +1 to attacks, ac, and saving throws against a creature when you crit succeed a recall knowledge check.

Crit success is a very high bar to meet for a +1. Especially when some of the most common creatures in the game use Wisdom for their associated skill check. Not to mention to cover all knowledge skills or even the int based ones a wizard needs to use all of their skill increases for the checks to stay relevant (Arcane, Crafting, Society). Hardly amazing or really worth it. Crit fishing on knowledge checks, especially on enemies you need the +1 most on is a 1 once or maybe twice in a campaign relevance.

Navarp wrote:

MrVauxs wrote:

Can't wait for the Magaambyan School of Magic!

I came in to say exactly the same thing.

Also, is just just a Magaambyam School, or (being the best magic school on the planet) do the Rain-Scribes have their own school that is fundamentally different from the Tempest-Sun Mages that is different from the Uzunjati, etc.

Needless to say, the HYPE is real.

They have an archetype, actually!

https://2e.aonprd.com/Archetypes.aspx?ID=29

I don't see them abandoning the archetype. The archetype covers all potential students. OTOH... theorycrafting can be fun, and there's no harm in speculating.

If I were to do a Magaambyan Wizard School, I would make it a class archetype because the spellcasting would basically be a take on Animist spellcasting. The Apparition spells would be replaced by Halcyon spells. Every time you gain a spell rank, you would get an additional two Halcyon spells for your spellbook. You'd be eligble for Magaambyan Attendant and Halcyon Speaker feats once you reached appropriate levels.

I don't really know how people what is level a feat as unique as this one is, but this one definitely doesn't feel like a 6-8 range to me. It feels pretty clearly better than Detonating Spell, for example. At low levels, it would basically either increase your damage by 50% (2d6 per rank is the norm for quite a long time) or require the enemy(s) to burn an action which your allies can shut down or punish in various ways. That honestly feels a little busted. I imagine it kicks in a later level because damage scaling has increased enough by then to not make this a mandatory feat.

Also, depending on how we interpret "within the spell's area" there are already a bunch of cantrips which could trigger this.

I wonder if curriculum slots can be used with heightened versions of lower level curriculum spells

Poit wrote:

Quote:

One of the most commonly requested expansions for any class is additional major paths to build your characters along, but because the wizard schools already had all eight schools of magic that could ever exist in the setting (plus universalist), we could never increase the number of wizard schools or explore more interesting options beyond those preset themes.

I don't understand this. The existence of the eight schools of magic (and the arcane schools corresponding to those) wasn't preventing anyone from creating new arcane schools.

Evoker wizards and Battle Magic wizards can and will coexist, since pre-remaster content will still be selectable once the remaster comes out. Why couldn't the School of Civic Wizardry exist before the "traditional" eight arcane schools became out-of-print?

It's not necessarily the idea of an Evoker and a Battle magic wizard couldn't exist, it was the way in which schools of magic functioned.

Since Schools of Magic as written pre re-master were not only sub-classes but a way of categorizing every single type of spell in the game any future School would have to do 1 of 3 things.

1) have a huge amount of spells added just to support it so that it could feel relatively balanced compared to the older schools.

2) have a much smaller pool of spells

3) be radically different than the other subclasses.

Since they were removing the schools partially for ogl reasons anyways this also let them create the new schools.

Schools of magic are (soon to be were) a way of categorizing every spell in the game, and eight of the nine pre-remaster arcane schools are focused on using those schools of magic. By removing the OGL from the game, Paizo can no longer use the schools of magic, and therefore can no longer print the arcane schools corresponding to those schools of magic.

Even without removing the old arcane schools from print, stuff like the School of Civic Wizardry is an interesting addition to the game, since it's a mixture of spells from different schools of magic. Even though the spell list for the School of Civic Wizardry is smaller than the pre-remaster arcane schools, the unique combination of spells is something none of the old schools can duplicate, so some players would still select it.

Again, pre-remaster content will still be usable once the remaster comes out. If the new arcane schools are a little stronger or weaker than the old ones, then.. fine? Not all character options are equally powerful.

But looking back at the entirety of Pathfinder's existence, Paizo has never waited for content to fall out-of-print before publishing new content that is a little stronger or weaker than the old content. So I just don't understand why they had to wait until they stopped printing the old arcane schools before they could write new ones.

As someone who has never once wanted to play a d20 Wizard, the shift to more evocative Schools over the OGL offerings (and the thought of Lost Omens-specific ones - don’t think I’ve forgotten the “ghosts and magic” Ustalavic School pitch!) has me finally considering it. There’s really fun flavor space there.

I am more than a little puzzled about the excitement over the new spell schools. The elevator pitch is good, obviously - highly thematic, put your character in the world - but all they really are is a list of spells that you have to prepare every day. Personally I feel any plans to play a wizard are going to simply stall out whenever I see a school spell on the list that I don't want to use.

I understand that the old ones had to go for reasons that are unrelated to game design, but I really do not see how the new ones are a better design. They could be, but with the way they're structured in the remaster they aren't.

I sort of agree with Arachnofiend. I love the idea of themed schools, but from what we've seen they don't offer enough comparatively.

The list of spells is fairly small, and while learning them all automatically is nice it doesn't bring a lot of high concept value.

... I feel like the new schools would be a lot more appealing if they came with a couple of real class features that helped cement your school identity better.

I'm more interested in the feats and focus spells myself.

Spell lists and spell slots just aren't enough any more. Not enough high impact magic for them to be. So feats and focus spells that provide casting endurance and interesting things to do make classes more fun.

I sort of agree with Arachnofiend. I love the idea of themed schools, but from what we've seen they don't offer enough comparatively.

The list of spells is fairly small, and while learning them all automatically is nice it doesn't bring a lot of high concept value.

... I feel like the new schools would be a lot more appealing if they came with a couple of real class features that helped cement your school identity better.

I’d be happier with them if they did a really small, but flavourful thing, such as also granting a thematic trained skill per school.

It’s always bugged me that the Wizard has 1 less trained skilled at base than any other class (bar Magus, who has inherited the trait). Schools seemed like a natural place to correct this and to add a bit more flavour to the schools themselves.

Yeah, the new schools have to be smaller than the old schools because they don't hook on to spell traits like the old ones did. It's better to invest more of the Wizard's class budget in "the Thesis, the feats, and the basic chassis" than "the arcane school".

I'm more interested in the feats and focus spells myself.

Spell lists and spell slots just aren't enough any more. Not enough high impact magic for them to be. So feats and focus spells that provide casting endurance and interesting things to do make classes more fun.

I agree, and I don't think the remaster Wizard is looking good in this regard. We know that thesis will be largely unchanged and with the new schools being a downgrade mechanically, that leaves Focus Spells and Feats to potentially improve the Wizard.

Focus Spells: It seems like the Wizard is still the only caster focus user class that absolutely can't get a second focus point before level 8 and can never go to three focus points (barring archetypes, of course). Most of their focus spells are also one-action, which is great for action economy, but limits their power and turns them into filler you usually want to use alongside your "real" spells, instead of replacing them like you can do with something like Tempest Surge. So nothing that really helps your casting endurance.

Feats: We already mostly know what Knowledge is Power does and with Secondary Detonation Array revealed, the number of unknown feats is down to two, I believe: Explosive Arrival and Spell Protection Array. No matter how good those two end up being, they won't redeem the whole class. So let's hope many of the old feats have gotten some serious upgrades.

With this approach the Wizard can cover multiple casters from other games, i.e. the School of Mentalism.

An interesting feat could be mix 2 spell slots to work as a greater level one, i.e. using 2 3rd level slots to cast a 3rd level prepared or lower (for Flexible spellcasters) spell as 6th level.

I'm not sure what to say that I haven't already said in a dozen voluminous threads started since we were first teased the idea of new wizard schools about four months ago. I confess, for me it's not that the lack of growth in wizard schools was ever my top problem, but rather the fact that none of those class paths seemed to have much interesting to say about who the wizard was outside of "person who casts one of the 8 schools of magic". Most favourably, the same fix also solved my own pet problem with Wizards. I feel like I might be able to finally enjoy one of my old favourite classes again.

I will grant I would have liked to see a bit more of that. I have no real objections to the curricula for bonus slots being reduced to 1-3 per level, recent wizard threads have got me wistful for some proper Nerd Mage esoterica uncovering niche secrets of magic through arcane inquiry. On the other hand, if the character of the feat presented here is indicative, I may be happy yet.

Like if I can't find at least one spell at each level that I'd like to prepare from my curriculum, maybe I'll just not play that particular school. It might not be my style. Or maybe I'll just use the regulation 3 slots that every other caster is bound by and take the L with my situationally useful bonus spell, if I want the theme badly enough, which if you've heard me gush about Civic Wizardry specificially before, you know I kind of do (though casting walls and earthquakes and GPS all seem more than sufficiently fun, at least on paper right now).

The curriculum theme is not a new idea. Has anyone here heard of "The Dark Eye"?

How are Wizards going to be handled, who did not go to a college, but had a private Teacher or Mentor?

How about Hedge Wizards?

Are Tian Xa Wizards expected to have visited the same colleges as Inner Sea Wizards?

How are Wizards going to be handled, who did not go to a college, but had a private Teacher or Mentor?

How about Hedge Wizards?

Are Tian Xa Wizards expected to have visited the same colleges as Inner Sea Wizards?

From the Arcane School sction of Player Core as previewed during the GenCon remaster panel:

"Your arcane school is where is where you devoted yourself to the study of spellcraft. Whether you learned in the storied halls of a formal institution, vian an apprenticeship with an archmage, or taught yourself from secondhand tomes, your arcane school indelibly set the curriculum and direction of your magic."

Most of the schools also list one or two examples of schools where the curriculum is taught. But that's not meant as an extensice list, just examples. So a Wizard from Tian Xia might not visit the same school as one from Andoran, but they might still use the same curriculum.

So, bottom line, the "schools" in PF2 are rules elements with some lore examples, as opposed to The Dark Eye's actual schools, which combine Lore and rules.

The new “core” schools are archetypal, not specific.

“This is what all schools that focus on X will mostly teach, and you and your GM can work together to figure out specific differences.”

I imagine, in time, will be get Rare tagged school options, which are specific places. These would have new focus spells and curriculum spells different from anything else. Hopefully these would be more powerful than the more archetypal variants.

For example, Magaambya would have one such rare tagged school. Because it’s a specific place you went to, so example limitations would apply, etc. It could do something nifty like sprinkle some select Primal spells into the curriculum slot, and maybe have focus spells which synergistic with the Magaambyan archetypes we have.

I agree that working with your GM to make your own curriculum of spells is the best way to approach the new state of the Wizard.

I agree that working with your GM to make your own curriculum of spells is the best way to approach the new state of the Wizard.

TBT it's far better than being stuck with one of the old 8 schools.

The new “core” schools are archetypal, not specific.

“This is what all schools that focus on X will mostly teach, and you and your GM can work together to figure out specific differences.”

I imagine, in time, will be get Rare tagged school options, which are specific places. These would have new focus spells and curriculum spells different from anything else. Hopefully these would be more powerful than the more archetypal variants.

For example, Magaambya would have one such rare tagged school. Because it’s a specific place you went to, so example limitations would apply, etc. It could do something nifty like sprinkle some select Primal spells into the curriculum slot, and maybe have focus spells which synergistic with the Magaambyan archetypes we have.

Rarity should not be a gate to power.

Quote:

One of the most commonly requested expansions for any class is additional major paths to build your characters along, but because the wizard schools already had all eight schools of magic that could ever exist in the setting (plus universalist), we could never increase the number of wizard schools or explore more interesting options beyond those preset themes.

I don't understand this. The existence of the eight schools of magic (and the arcane schools corresponding to those) wasn't preventing anyone from creating new arcane schools.

Evoker wizards and Battle Magic wizards can and will coexist, since pre-remaster content will still be selectable once the remaster comes out. Why couldn't the School of Civic Wizardry exist before the "traditional" eight arcane schools became out-of-print?

Because it would have been a system in addition to the 8 spell schools and not a replacement.

A Civic Wizard would still have been also an evoker or an enchanter or an universalist. And then what you got from being a Civic Wizard would have to be balanced by a loss elsewhere.

Like the Runelord class archetype that not many people seem to like.

Yeah, the new schools have to be smaller than the old schools because they don't hook on to spell traits like the old ones did. It's better to invest more of the Wizard's class budget in "the Thesis, the feats, and the basic chassis" than "the arcane school".

The funny thing is that for the most part they aren't. Most of the old schools only had one or two options available for most of your career as a wizard.

I wonder if there will be one Thassilonian school, or if we will eventually get seven of them, maybe specifically tied with the seven deadly sins.

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

The new “core” schools are archetypal, not specific.

“This is what all schools that focus on X will mostly teach, and you and your GM can work together to figure out specific differences.”

I imagine, in time, will be get Rare tagged school options, which are specific places. These would have new focus spells and curriculum spells different from anything else. Hopefully these would be more powerful than the more archetypal variants.

For example, Magaambya would have one such rare tagged school. Because it’s a specific place you went to, so example limitations would apply, etc. It could do something nifty like sprinkle some select Primal spells into the curriculum slot, and maybe have focus spells which synergistic with the Magaambyan archetypes we have.

Rarity should not be a gate to power.

Wasn’t meant to be!

I was just thinking of how the Baba Yaga witch patron is treated compared to other patrons.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Yeah, the new schools have to be smaller than the old schools because they don't hook on to spell traits like the old ones did. It's better to invest more of the Wizard's class budget in "the Thesis, the feats, and the basic chassis" than "the arcane school".

The funny thing is that for the most part they aren't. Most of the old schools only had one or two options available for most of your career as a wizard.

That's kind of true, depending on what school and level you look at. But only if you don't look past the Core Rule Book.

One of the Wizard's strengths was getting better with each new book released since his school slots became more versatile over time, similar to how Clerics and Druids often learn a few dozen new spells with each new release.

The new Curriculums are fixed, barring GM intervention. That's a quite significant downside, especially this late into the Edition.

Megistone wrote:

I agree that working with your GM to make your own curriculum of spells is the best way to approach the new state of the Wizard.

TBT it's far better than being stuck with one of the old 8 schools.

Old schools were so vast (and you knew what they had when you selected one), and discussing such little things as singular spells with a GM could be problematic for both parties (PF2 thankfully is not really a game where everyone needs to construct all characters with GMs). So no, not at all.

can't wait to see the remastered witch preview

The Raven Black wrote:

Megistone wrote:

I agree that working with your GM to make your own curriculum of spells is the best way to approach the new state of the Wizard.

TBT it's far better than being stuck with one of the old 8 schools.

Old schools were so vast (and you knew what they had when you selected one), and discussing such little things as singular spells with a GM could be problematic for both parties (PF2 thankfully is not really a game where everyone needs to construct all characters with GMs). So no, not at all.

"I want to make a fire-themed Wizard, so here is a list of spells that have to do with fire and that I would like to have as my curriculum."

Now, it's true that not all spells are equal; 'official' schools may take this into account and be more or less balanced against each other, while a custom school may end up a bit stronger. But we are talking about a single slot per level used to prepare a spell that may be somewhat better than another - a spell that the Wizard could memorize in their other three slots anyway - compared to the current situation where the choice is made over an entire 1/8 of the Arcane spell list. I really don't think that even a completely unthemed, pick-the-best list would cause any balance problems.

I'm a little disappointed by Paizo's continual focus on blaster casters and their lack of acknowledgement that they've absolutely destroyed control casters in 2e. All control spells in 2e have been reduced to the point of irrelevancy because what was their success level in 1e has been moved to critical success in 2e. This is a huge problem when compounded by spellcaster progression lagging behind save progression for on level enemies and being substantially behind higher level enemies.

Slow (1e) - targets multiple creatures, staggers them so they can only take 1 standard action, and provides a penalty to attack and defense

Slow (2e) - targets 1 creature, save failure removes 1 action, which is irrelevant to enemies because a third attack will always miss and monsters don't usually have a good third action

Aqueous Orb (1e) - cannot get free without successful Reflex save, deals damage while in sphere and provides penalty that makes Reflex saves harder; can move 30 feet, so can reasonably get to an enemy in a turn

Aqueous Orb (2e) - can get free with a trivial check (any strength based creature will have at least a +9 to Athletics at level 5), imposes no penalty to make getting out harder, deals zero damage, can only move 10 feet per sustain so would take enough actions that you can't cast anything else in order to get to another enemy

I could go on and on.

I'm a little disappointed by Paizo's continual focus on blaster casters and their lack of acknowledgement that they've absolutely destroyed control casters in 2e. All control spells in 2e have been reduced to the point of irrelevancy because what was their success level in 1e has been moved to critical success in 2e. This is a huge problem when compounded by spellcaster progression lagging behind save progression for on level enemies and being substantially behind higher level enemies.

Slow (1e) - targets multiple creatures, staggers them so they can only take 1 standard action, and provides a penalty to attack and defense

Slow (2e) - targets 1 creature, save failure removes 1 action, which is irrelevant to enemies because a third attack will always miss and monsters don't usually have a good third action

Aqueous Orb (1e) - cannot get free without successful Reflex save, deals damage while in sphere and provides penalty that makes Reflex saves harder; can move 30 feet, so can reasonably get to an enemy in a turn

Aqueous Orb (2e) - can get free with a trivial check (any strength based creature will have at least a +9 to Athletics at level 5), imposes no penalty to make getting out harder, deals zero damage, can only move 10 feet per sustain so would take enough actions that you can't cast anything else in order to get to another enemy

I could go on and on.

Slow is widely regarded as one of the best spells in this game. Denying an action on a boss even if they succeed the save is huge, particularly because you pair it with moving away from the eneny denying a second or third action. A slow spell can take away a whole turn from a particularly threatening encounter, but also you can up cast it to 6th rank to affect 10 creatures

Btw a martial at level 5 will likely have +13 but you're forgetting that escaping has the attack trait imposing the multiple attack penalty and uses an action. So you deny an action with the escape, remove their best attack for the round and by likely moving them also potentially deny an additional action by making them walk over to someone. This sounds like a pretty good spell to me

Oh and suffocating, which the spell causes, does do damage

I am a little confused as to why the old schools could not be kept and just moved to the background while introducing new school types based on actual schools.
The way it is stated that and says "but because the wizard schools already had all eight schools of magic that could ever exist in the setting (plus universalist), we could never increase the number of wizard schools or explore more interesting options beyond those preset themes."
So no one creative person at Paizo could just add "schools" based on a specific training or style of casting?

Unless the 8 schools are going away because of OGL and not lack or creativity; but if that is the case I wish they would just tell us that.

Unless the 8 schools are going away because of OGL and not lack or creativity; but if that is the case I wish they would just tell us that.

That is the reason quoted, yes.

it was also a class that interacts very heavily with one of the larger changes we’re making in the Remaster, which is the removal of the eight schools of magic that were deeply tied to rules we were using via the OGL.

On the one hand, mechanics aside, I love the direction of this change. It solidifies the wizard’s flavor and opens up a lot of space for new schools.

At the same time, decades of RPG experience/expectations make me sad to see the “schools” go as a classification system. I don’t see why we couldn’t have a School of Civic Wizardry that leans heavily on conjuration, abjuration, and transmutation magic. If the names or the structure are the issue, that seems like something that could be prime for remastering anyways. I suppose there’s a separate question about what value the classifications added and their accuracy, but I still will be a bit sad to see that aspect of the traditional schools go.

Grumpus wrote:

Did they ever clarify if your "next action" can be the first action of the following round, or if it has to be in the same round?

They did. It has to be the same round. Source is the How It's Played YouTube channel and one of their Ask a Designer videos.

---------------

Anyone else note that the new spell doesn't say the spell has to come from a spellslot? If you find a cantrip that fulfills all requirements, you could use it to lay down the detonation array. It's probably save to assume the 5ft burst has to fit within the spell's area (even though the feat could be clearer about that), so the only current cantrips that would work are haunting hymn and spout (when used on water).

Timber as well, I think!

I want to see the other Focus spells!

Slow (2e) - targets 1 creature, save failure removes 1 action, which is irrelevant to enemies because a third attack will always miss and monsters don't usually have a good third action

It's extremely relevant to bosses with two or three action special attack routines or spellcasters who can no longer step out of a threatened space before casting. Three action abilities are dead, two action abilities are dead if they have to move to get into range.

Control spells are often regarded as stronger than blasting in PF2, and Slow in particular is one of the best. The Resentment Witch Patron is going to make it even better.

I'm a little disappointed by Paizo's continual focus on blaster casters and their lack of acknowledgement that they've absolutely destroyed control casters in 2e.

I mean, control and debuffing is generally the best way to play a Wizard. Blasting gets brought up because blasting outside certain specific spells and circumstances has a bad reputation, whereas Slow is one of the best spells in the game.

I feel like your comparison to 1e is especially off base though because like... yeah. Stuff's worse than it was in 1e. Literally everyone in the game is worse than 1e, that's on purpose. 1e wizards were horribly designed.

My GF is currently playing a feather boa draped high society half-elf enchanter who acts as an information broker and hooboy has she been a LIFE SAVER for our party! The only twist is my Paladin has literally had to be her knight in shinning armor on two occasions (aka rescuing her when our foes have actually managed to kidnap her...but not before she manages to cook a few of them with a well placed lightning bolt spell ^_~).

In short, Wizards are FUN TO PLAY and I cannot wait to see what Paizo has in store for us! :D

dreamersglass wrote:

I'm a little disappointed by Paizo's continual focus on blaster casters and their lack of acknowledgement that they've absolutely destroyed control casters in 2e.

I mean, control and debuffing is generally the best way to play a Wizard. Blasting gets brought up because blasting outside certain specific spells and circumstances has a bad reputation, whereas Slow is one of the best spells in the game.

I feel like your comparison to 1e is especially off base though because like... yeah. Stuff's worse than it was in 1e. Literally everyone in the game is worse than 1e, that's on purpose. 1e wizards were horribly designed.

Only one that is better is Bard, but I am going to stop there to avoid derailing.

Do you have any news on how the Runelords will be handled. Both the archetype and the lore. I understand that talking about stuff before its ready can be misleading but some info on stuff like if they will still be sin based and if/how that will link in to the magic they cast now that we assumedly won't have the X sin = Y school.

When it comes to the feat, I only wish it was a bit lower level so I could use it on my telekinetic rend focused Psychic. A Wizard multiclassed/free archetyped with psychic could make slightly inefficient use of telekinetic rend with this feat but not the other way around. But I think it's still a good feat.

Do you have any news on how the Runelords will be handled. Both the archetype and the lore. I understand that talking about stuff before its ready can be misleading but some info on stuff like if they will still be sin based and if/how that will link in to the magic they cast now that we assumedly won't have the X sin = Y school.

So far the info we have leans towards sins getting their own curriculums, although I don't think anything has been officially confirmed yet.