Bandw2's page

on page 452 of your CRB, where it explains how damage types are used.

Hbitte wrote:

SuperBidi wrote:

Of course, we are speaking in a vacuum. Situation is more important in PF2 than it was in PF1. But it's important in my opinion to sell tactical movements, especially to beginners who may think it's not the role of their character to provide buff/debuff, or who may think that a +2 to hit is negligeable.

By the way, I use your charts of average DPR to assess some moves on my characters. So thanks for having made them ;)

It is not their role.

IT SHOULD NOT BE CASTER'S ROLE TO BE BUFFER OR DEBUFFER. Unless he wants to.

If the only way the caster can be efficient is as a support, it is undoubtedly weak and without any flexibility.

Disagree. As martials are largely incapable of mirroring a caster and vice versa. Therefore having roles to both is not explicitly a bad thing provided there he some variation within.

A martial cannot equal a caster in utility or buffing or debuffs or buffs or AOE damage capability. A martial can perform limited aspects of certain things on a smaller or more strict scale such as combat maneuvers for debuffs or limited feat tax AOE options but still cannot reach the equivalency of a caster. Given the above. What is their shortcomings? When compared. Single Target damage? Struggle vs strong single Target? Though you still can use a spell that has a failure effect and still contribute and damage options are still a thing as well

Biggest issues with casters are players trying to compare to 1e. And action economy interaction.

they're just not as fun to play as martials who get new ways to attack as they level.

they have worse DCs and to-hit in general compared to martials and so they have to lean into the failure effects, which isn't fun. oh yeah, i get to do pity damage.

skills provide, in general just as much an impact on combat as spells, and against lower level enemies you can guarantee they work instead of having to still rely on rolls for a more or less equal effect.

I don't in general think it should be the best case scenario for a wizard to grapple or trip an adjacent foe(their chance to-hit will stay relevant if they use a traited weapon).

not to mention their spell DPR and debuffing only stays relevant in their highest slots.

basically casters seem relegated to more or less mostly just give yourself and allies 1-2 extra to-hit or AC or reduce it by the same amount on enemies(while also using actions occasionally to reduce the number of actions enemy's have), and if you feel like a gambler, you can use other spells, that could potentially do something really cool, if your enemy rolls really badly.

if you in general have no problem with only ever moving numbers up or down, then this probably seems fine, but if you want to actually make choices in combat, the action economy and how spells are designed (more or less just choose what save to target, or buff allies with no roll) make most of those choices mostly only flavor and constrained.

I don't see having a lot of bonus spells based on your patron being a thing if you can also pick your spell list. If you have a Winter Patron and that gives you Primal then that already gives you all the cold spells so getting Cone of Cold and Eclipse Burst as bonus spells is useless.

from my understanding, people who put forward this option have your spell list based on your lesson, and bonus spells based on patron, or vice versa. so you take an occult lesson and a cold patron if that's what you want, or a primal lesson and a curses patron.

Hedge Witches (healing witches), Scarred Witch Doctors, Pact Witches, etc. are all archetypes of Witch; They are not new classes. To use "should they make this archetypes into classes" as an argument against single spell list is a blatant strawman. Of course they shouldn't be seperate classes, that's why no one every suggested it to happen, and why I and a few others talked about Class Archetypes.

mmm, no it's not. strawmen are making a fake position to knock it down. making a position and defending it, can never be a strawman.

in fact, you could potentially be making a "no true scottsman" fallacy here, by trying to argue that they aren't really potentially witch class material. this is more likely a semantical difference however, and isn't a the above fallacy, as it depends on the definition of witch, which hasn't been hammered down by even paizo yet.

you could have also been making an appeal to tradition fallacy, just because something was done some way before has no indication on it's own how it should be done now.

Bandw2 wrote:

Bluenose wrote:

Bandw2 wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

It's sort of interesting to me how there aren't similar complaints about how much worse archery is relative to other options compared to PF1.

Since archery was the king of DPR strategies in PF1, since not only could you get a full attack off wherever, but you could get a lot of shots off in a given round with pretty good accuracy, and stack up a lot of static bonuses.

But now static damage bonuses are gone for the most part, nobody gets more than 3 attacks off, and the -10 attack isn't that valuable so you're no longer at a severe advantage compared to "run up and whack them" as a combat strategy.

Archery had a similar damping down to spellcasting, but doesn't seem nearly as controversial.

like, with what my theory is, that people aren't actually complaining about being weak, but being boring or static, this isn't a surprise.

Propose a solution that makes the Wizard more interesting without also making them more powerful. I'm sure the people complaining about casters being underpowered will take it up enthusiastically.

that not the point >_>

Maybe not, but your suggestion that people aren't complaining about being weak but being boring or static seems pretty conclusively disproved by all the proposals to make playing wizards fun again by giving them more power.

right because people playing them think they're not as powerful, but they're really just less fun.

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You said being super powerful had nothing to do with being a deity, so why are demigods not just listed as weak deities then? Looking at the list of demigods, calling them Planar Deities would have worked fine too - it's not like other groups of deities don't have a modifier before the term. Yet instead, they get a completely different classification and even have things like Inner Sea Gods describing demigods as, "Somewhere between gods and mortals stand demigods: semidivine creatures with enormous power and obscure agendas." If demigods are "between gods & mortals," that would imply that they are part of neither - which would make them not deities... who still can grant divine magic.

I'm confused by your confusion.

Full deities/gods do not have statblocks.

You can be a super powerful being and not be a deity (the Tarrasque).

Demigods/lesser deities (like Treerazer) is a deity because they can grant divine magic. They can also be killed.

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So again, if granting divine magic is what makes you a deity - then why are these mythic characters only "like a deity" rather than being a (weak) PC deity?

Because that's just being pedantic?

DnD uses/used tiering of deities (lesser, intermediate, grater/ a number ranking), that's not something Paizo wanted to copy.

i have to agree, this seems overly pedantic.

the Empyreal lords and the archdukes of hell can all grant spells, and are deities, but they're also demigods.

there are countless countless beings that can grant spells if you view the wider universe beyond golarion.

inner sea gods and the book of the damned have a ton of information on deities that aren't the big crazy ones most people worship.

i had an interesting thought.

what if witches could choose their list but always cast as an occult caster... they use occult casting spell for everything.

It's cool that some spells have a failure effect, it's a nice that your spell is not completely wasted, but consolation prizes are not very "feel good". When you cast a spell you want it to at least get the "regular" effect. I realize the optimal strat versus bosses is "pick spells expecting they'll succed on the save, but not crit save", it doesn't feel super fun to me.

A martial class that had -2 to hit over the regular ones but got half damage on every miss would probably be effective, but not exciting. It would add up if they can do it infinitely!

yeah this whole, you're worse at applying effects so get a pity effect just isn't fun compared to actually being able to apply effects only on a success.

I'd rather only apply on a success and have a decent time of doing it over, this.

I think a lot of gamers view a 65% chance that your action doesn't have a result as "a complete waste of time"

I mean, I've seen arguments on this very forum that treat a similar chance of reduced effect - rather than no effect at all - as if it were unbearable.

considering the original topic was for a GM to paralyze a player(because npc stat blocks aren't made super well), i don't think you're arguing for what you think you are.

it was a 35% chance a player would be paralyzed for a long time. generally i don't think abilities like that should have high DCs when used on players.

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meaning my lower level slots turn into what feels like mostly dead space or last choice options.

This is one I have to disagree with. DCs scaling automatically has made low level slots vastly more usable than in PF1, where they were pretty much just fodder for whatever random quality of life spell you felt like by midgame.

before, DC didn't scale but the spell still did more. a 3rd level fireball, while lower saves had higher damage, meaning your cap went up, even if it was rarer unless you heightened it.

now, a 3rd level fireball has a good DC but is guaranteed to do very small damage.

with incap trait being a thing, a lot of things that would only need a good DC are still required to fight over your highest slots.

imo, the real change, is casters are less fun to play than martials now.

they just do less(generally 2-1 actions in a round) and everything they do has a feeling of mediocrity.

martials get to do a lot more in a turn and have more options on what to do.

while casters have a slew of spells to choose from, they tend to do a lot of the same thing just from a different angle. (ah yes, 3d6 damage but do i target fort or reflex?)

so like casters get effects on a fail, but martials can choose to do damage and an effect only on success(like grapple or demoralize), but casters don't have that option.

they just feel really boxed in, while martials are a bowl of spaghetti seeping out of the bowl.

it's like they got the ability to do things on a fail, in exchange for being able to do a lot with their turn.

i know the other day , i said i felt like i prefered playing pf1e and got shouted at like i was trying to say 2e was bad. it was strange.

I could actually see Occultist being pick-a-list, depending on what items they dive into.

(I'd also like them and the Arcanist to be renamed, if they stay Occult and Arcane respectively)

oh they could make them a full caster that has access to all spells of a school instead of a tradition. where they get to pick a school like every 6 levels.

they'd probably still cast spells as occult though.

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

Occult and Primal is a good compromise

So interestingly, I think this dichotomy could be exceptional cool if paired with an opposition type class or say other two spell list classes. In the prepared space I could easily see a primal and divine, a arcane and occult, and an occult and divine.

Possibly shaman, arcanist, inquisitor? Hmmmm.

there's already Halcyon casting, god i already remember how to spell it now.

which is a mixture of arcane and primal, would be neat if they got a full class.

This was more relevant in the Divine list thread. But

Something people may find interesting. Raksashas which are fiends/devils cast occult magic. I discovered this while looking through the bestiary for what cast occult stuff.

Also poltergeist undead cast occult too.

Sporkedup wrote:

For sure. From that perspective, would you have been asking for a binary choice between occult and primal, or would you have felt a bit of blending would have better served both the class and the concept?

Because it stands, the witch is not filling either of the prepared niches. It's not a prepared occult and it's not a prepared any, as it's leaving divine out in the lurch.

I think if they moved away from the witch theme, leaned heavier on the patrons and a true list-pick, that wouldn't be a bad class at all. Separate the traditional folklore witch, keep the name, but expand more by focusing on the patron relationship and effect. That's a totally viable class to me. But I think it would lose out on the hex/curse portion--what dragon is going to grant you a bunch of twitchy hexes instead of grand arcane magic?

That's a tougher question to answer.

I'd like to find a way to make everyone happy, because that's just the type of thing I hope for despite it being somewhat unrealistic at times.

I do think the legacy of the witch from PF1 needs to be considered in some aspect, so to that extent, it can't just be "dumped" down to a pick-a-list class as the focal point.

And personally, if Pick-a-list was the focal point of the class itself, I would have to see it as the Arcanist, since their themes seem to jive with that better as master of all magic (though the name is then grossly unfitting).

It's just too hard to see with Patrons/Hexes/Familiars/Lessons in their current state. At least for me.

Spring boarding off of this, imo, arcane has the best witch spell selection, with good necromancy, enchantment and polymorph spells.

Like they have charm and baleful polymorph and can curse people, I don't think that list should be excluded either.

I'd prefer they added all lists before limiting it to occult.

Bandw2 wrote:

it really feels like an up hill battle to specialize. i don't particularly enjoy that kind of battle.

I think one of the design goals has been outright stated as "moving away from hyper-specialized characters." It's not an uphill battle because the system isn't working, it's an uphill battle because you aren't supposed to approach it that way.

which isn't what i said, i said, i don't prefer it because of it over 1e. that's all.

Bandw2 wrote:

like each melee class as an example, feels all even, except at the one thing their class ability alters.(fighter has better accuracy, barbarian, better damage, and ranger better reliability/adaptability)

Bandw2 wrote:

2. the chill touch thing is CRB... <_> a wizard -> chill touch -> any polymorph spell(i mean technically the polymorph spell needs a bestiary), or even just punching someone. you can always deliver touch spell attacks as part of a natural attack or unarmed strike if the spell hasn't discharged yet.

How did you go from melee classes (specifically calling out fighter, barbarian and ranger) "feel all even" to explaining what wizards could/can do? That's some major goalpost-moving there.

that's because i'm currently playing a wizard. also i meant all classes feel really even, and merely showcased some of the classes with little differences. the differentest in my opinion, are bard and alchemist. the rest all rely heavily on the same mechanics and attack assumptions, it's why people complain casters don't have accuracy items on spells because rolling against AC while 1-3 behind means a lot in this system.

Considering that outside of rogues folks can only get 3 non lore skills to legendary, the game cant assume specific levels for a skills rank. On top of that there is around a 4pt variability for related attribute, a 1-3 pt variability for equipment and a massive variability in skill feats. Overall at the lowest levels there may be a spread of over 10 and at the highest levels a spread of over 15.

sure and if you look at DCs by level, in the game master section, the DC for a level 1 roll is 15 (difference of 14) and 20 is 40 (difference of 20)

if you don't put any ability adjustments in there, then it stays on par with skill increases. basically, compare a character with the ability to boost charisma to a character who isn't capable, and that's fine, but they're both still at expected ranges, for themselves. like i don't think a comparison of a fighter and a sorcerer both trying to be good at deception is a good comparison. instead compare either a fighter who isn't focusing on deception with one, or the sorcerer with himself likewise. you end up with ranks and possibly a 1-3 item bonus, with maybe spells for a bonus all over the place.

and yes, i know you can also boost charisma, but if you don't really plan on using charisma for anything but deception you're left out, so over the course of play it's a wash. everything else you do isn't a wash, but it's so hard to get those little bonuses out there.

it really feels like an up hill battle to specialize. i don't particularly enjoy that kind of battle.

Bandw2 wrote:

Malk_Content wrote:

I mean the gap between heavy investment in something and a bit of investment in something is smaller, but you absolutely be amazing at any skill. I mean ultimately the same was true in PF1 but the gap was bigger. Outside of specific class features, everyone had the same maximal cap on any given skill.

It also means that you as a non caster who has invested in lying isn't completely invalidated by a cheap scroll by level 5.

i mean, it's as simple as there being expected levels where you'll have access to expert, master and legendary for skills.

I don't know what you mean. You're saying that because you can't put all your skill increases into one skill, PF2e is more restrictive? Or are you saying that because you don't get skill increases every level, that it's restrictive? I'm having a hard time seeing how this differs much from PF1e.

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it's less what actions you perform and what effects you can apply to those actions. like using chilltouch to deliver strength damage through unarmed attacks, just as a really obscure thing i did in a battle.

So your problem is that PF2e doesn't have the mountains of splatbooks required to enable obscure combos?

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mind you i'm also a big fan of spheres of power and might, which takes a ton of emphasis off of full attacks. (you can for instance, choose to trade AC for temp HP each turn you do it, trip as a move action, attack twice as a standard action if using 2 weapons, can cause people to bleed and apply conditions for as long as they bleed, all in one turn at level like 6 or so on the right classes... and that's just how i'd imagine to play an armorless dual axe wielding barbarian in the system.)

For the most part, that sounds like a normal turn for a Pf2e character.

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I'm currently playing in 1e a divination wizard with a focus on transmutation and summoning (not in-combat summoning, like summoning devils and elementals to perform tasks for me and the party).

in

...

1. it's more like, the game knows full well when most people will get a skill increase and is balance around that, and that it's the only reliable way to increase your skill bonus.

2. the chill touch thing is CRB... <_> a wizard -> chill touch -> any polymorph spell(i mean technically the polymorph spell needs a bestiary), or even just punching someone. you can always deliver touch spell attacks as part of a natural attack or unarmed strike if the spell hasn't discharged yet.

3. doesn't for me, spheres of might boosted melee up to caster level instead of 2e nerfing casters down to non-casters. that's not a bad thing mind you, just noting i do play with a playset that fixes a lot of martial class's issues in 1e.

4. i can't poison them, that's for sure. I don't do much damage per attack and so i rely on doing multiple attacks or using strong poisons. (i'm level 11 and i can do a 1d4 con 1d4 str poison with cure: 3, the creature is from bestiary 6 i think) Also most divination spells are uncommon, i'm using arcane eye and scrying to get us all information before hand.

most of the splat books are for spells, and i actually clear everything i get with my GM beforehand. besides ultimate magic and occult adventures I think i could lose most of these spells.

A divine class whose signature ability is an explosive belt... No, thanks.

thank god, someone else understands why i don't think hail mary should be a thing.

I mean the gap between heavy investment in something and a bit of investment in something is smaller, but you absolutely be amazing at any skill. I mean ultimately the same was true in PF1 but the gap was bigger. Outside of specific class features, everyone had the same maximal cap on any given skill.

It also means that you as a non caster who has invested in lying isn't completely invalidated by a cheap scroll by level 5.

i mean, it's as simple as there being expected levels where you'll have access to expert, master and legendary for skills.

the most interesting skill interaction i've seen so far is the Iruxi's ability to change their scale color to match an environment to get a +2 to stealth.

Moreover I'm completely baffled how pf1's combat could be more varied than pf2? Pf1 is all about full round attacks or spells. Theres way more tactical options in pf2

it's less what actions you perform and what effects you can apply to those actions. like using chilltouch to deliver strength damage through unarmed attacks, just as a really obscure thing i did in a battle.

mind you, i've cooled off to the idea of the increased mobility in 2e, sure you get to do more in 1 turn, and AoO aren't a thing as much, but it makes most battles kind of flat, where movement feels less calculated(but makes it much easier to run from a mindscape), you either can flank or can't. in 1e, you might try to avoid AoO with acrobatics and get behind an enemy and now they're trapped.

mind you i'm also a big fan of spheres of power and might, which takes a ton of emphasis off of full attacks. (you can for instance, choose to trade AC for temp HP each turn you do it, trip as a move action, attack twice as a standard action if using 2 weapons, can cause people to bleed and apply conditions for as long as they bleed, all in one turn at level like 6 or so on the right classes... and that's just how i'd imagine to play an armorless dual axe wielding barbarian in the system.)

I'm currently playing in 1e a divination wizard with a focus on transmutation and summoning (not in-combat summoning, like summoning devils and elementals to perform tasks for me and the party).

in combat he transforms into forms with very strong poisons and uses true strike to try to poison key targets.

Another wizard in my party, is only really good at casting fireball, but has also brought a ton of utility spells to the table. same class but really different.

just saying i think i prefer playing 1e, i don't think 2e is a worse game. I may come off as trying really hard to prove 1e is better here, but i'm just showing some of the reasons i prefer 1e.

like i said, i can still GM for 2e and several of my player's seem to be happy playing it. i'll probably even play as a player eventually.

I'm of two minds on pathfinder2e.

on one hand i find it MUCH easier to GM for. a lot of the garbage rules that were more complicated than needed have been removed, and there are very easy rules to make almost anything very quickly.

however, after my initial excitement of seeing how things are different from 1e, i've become less excited about actually playing it personally. Classes all have the felling they've been set up to end up doing about the same but in a slightly different way. like each melee class as an example, feels all even, except at the one thing their class ability alters.(fighter has better accuracy, barbarian, better damage, and ranger better reliability/adaptability)

it's a fun game, but in that it's easy and quick to play, and nothing is likely to upset the gameplay. like besides being a charisma class, it's hard to make a character good at lying, at least more than anyone else can be. glibness is a +4 from a +20(it was favorite spell ;-;)

idk, it's a fun game, but i think i'd prefer to play 1e as a player.

since the first character i ever hope to play in pf2e is a primal list witch with the mwangi group archetype that gives you a mask familiar, i'd say i'd really hope it doesn't get locked into 1 list since i know i won't be able to play for a while.

casters just aren't as fun compared to martials. a martial moves a specific location and gets a concrete benefit. a caster spends 2 actions to get a vague notion of whats going to happen to the opponent.

the cleric in my game has been doing most of their damage with daze, considering most of their encounters so far have ended up through their own navigation, ended on level+1 enemies, the damage and effects haven't been great.

he's the party's healer, is a cloistered cleric and finds little to do until someone takes damage.

he has fun, but noticeably less so in combat compared to dealing with out of combat stuff.

with the change from proactive to reactive combat (targeting saves instead of boosting magic you know you'll use) i've seen a hit to people trying to maintain a theme. like the harm cleric mentioned above, and my group's cleric who wants to focus on non-violent options(you can't buff your sanctuary's ability to protect you without doing something to enemies).

not to mention prepared casters targeting saves gets harder and harder the later in the day it gets.

Cole Deschain wrote:

Lyz Liddell wrote:

We don't have a final mechanic for this, but it's clear that the unconscious option isn't working, so it's right out! Our design conversations are ongoing about what mechanic we want to put in its place.

Might I suggest that doing a Hail Mary shuts off the oracle's spellcasting for a set period?

Like, they draw on their conduit too much and burn it out for a while.

That way, the price is stiff (your spellcaster can't cast spells until they have time to recover), but the player can still have their character do stuff in the context of the game.

Just make sure that the hail mary is a proper hail mary. If we're working on the power at a price angle I want a huge desperation option at the cost of my spellcasting. As of now there's not really a good hail mary in the revelation spells I can find.

i strongly disagree, a hail mary is only a hail mary if you're unsure if you'll benefit.

mind you none of the life focus spells are worth it at all, but say a fire mystery oracle can do 2d6 damage per spell level to multiple enemies, which might be able to kill the big bad or enough of the minions or make a difference.

life oracle should have a focus spell that gives people fast healing and other ways of healing without specific effort on the oracle's part, otherwise their abilities will almost always go wasted.

Saedar wrote:

Cha/Int Swashbuckler: Phoenix Wright.

Man, panache would have been really cool on the Investigator (renamed to Inspiration).

I've had this thought tooooooo many times when thinking of how if fix the investigator.

Kind of disagree. Divine and Occult are the 2 spell lists that make the most sense thematically for witches. There are loads of witch tropes in media and lore about making deals with devils and demons for power.

sure, but at the same time those same witches getting power from demons don't tend to be what you'd call generically divine spells.

i went and looked through the divine spell lists of all the devils.

only 1 devil, the erinys, which are former angels, cast spells that are unique to the divine spell list, and most casts spells that aren't on the divine spell list at all.

no wait, pit demons have a few as well, but most of their spells aren't normally divine spells.

like i've said, i wouldn't really have an issue with them getting a divine tradition using another list, but the divine list itself is really not witchy.

Mechanical Differences

Mechanically, the two differ significantly:

- Witches get Hexes, Clerics get Divine Font

- Witches get Familiars, Clerics have domains

- Witches do not get Doctrine Benefits, Clerics have Doctrine and Anathema

- Witches prepare spells that they have to learn and use INT, Clerics are granted their entire list to prepare from and use Wisdom

- Witches can choose a spell list, Clerics cannot

- Clerics have better HP scaling than Witches and typically faster progression of Fortitude saves

i may or may not get to the rest later as i'm currently really tired.

firstly we're comparing a divine witch to a cleric, not any other witch. so...

it's more accurate to say witches get hexes and clerics get domain spells, which are both just choices of specific focus spells. also, doctrine aside, a cloistered cleric is more or less what i'd compare to a witch, a warpriest is a thing that exists, but it's a subclass of cleric and isn't that mechanically similar.

to be clear i'm not saying every cleric is every witch, but a cloistered cleric is exceptionally like a divine witch.

so the + for witches is a familiar that's super charged, and + for cleric is better HP, and have the entire divine list at any time, but have to deal with anathema.

neither of those i feel dramatically change gameplay.

i however, don't really think this justifies not having a witch, i just think it's not really as true as you make it out to be.

also, unrelated summon fiend and the like is a REALLY bad spell for witches imo. planar binding makes much more sense which is a ritual.

Regarding "4. The problem started when someone said they wanted a devil as a patron...", the problem started when the Sorcerers spell list was determined by the creature type. Combined with Summon X spells being distributed between the lists.

As soon as Sorcerer with Devil blood became Divine casters and Summon Fiends was set as Divine only, the entire theme of "Devil-Bound witch who may or may not Summons Fiends was placed in limbo".

***************
You also mention Divine magic is granted by Deities.

But those same deities are listed as potential Witch patrons, compare them to the list of Demigods.

As for why a Witch and not a Cleric? Remember that gods dont work on the same scale as humans. It might very well be that what they dont always need a devout follower name dropping them every where constantly. And if the patron can really grant any list, then I can some patrons deliberately granting a different list to fool the Witch into their plans (so many mind games).

There is a lot of potential for a divine witch lore wise.

right, so it's more or less, if a deities is granting divine magic, they're probably a cleric. sorcerers probably cast divine magic in the same way undead and outsiders do, and they're all heavily associated with gods, so it's likely their power source.

and thus a witch casting divine spells is a cleric.

Sorry, saying "trait keyword" still had me a bit confused.

… what's with the hang up with keywords?

like really, wouldn't the keywords just be called lessons or hexes?

whats with all this double speak?

Fire is probably the worst off of the three mysteries but its curse at least has direct offensive and defensive benefits.

Listen, people just aren't thinking of how to properly utilize being on fire

I will try to give a more thorough response once I’m able, but I did read all of your points and thank you for the thorough and cited response :)

it took so long, and undead really make everything confusing.

okay, my belief is that
1. divine magic is sourced from divinities
2. Witches are given power from their patrons.
3. there is little to no benefit to a god or divine being creating a witch with a divine spell list over a cleric, or a witch of another list. (due to anathema/loyalty, or the other lists coming with non-normal utilities)
4. at least 90% of patrons that would give a divine list by players would be divinities.
thus
there is a contradiction in, in general, allowing for a divine list. that imo, would be narratively cleaner or nicer to do without.

I have a few presuppositions before continuing.
1. Mechanics and clear writing are more important for the book, and thus when mechanics are involved, they are not entirely accurate to the lore.
2. The intent of the writing is more correctly lore than as written.
as these are suppositions I'm not interested in arguing these points, you may or may not consider them to be true, but personally i'd find debating them boring. just assume that whenever i'm making a point, i hold these to be true. if you think these make the arguing to wishywashy, well, we're arguing over the finer details of a fictional lore, for a TTRPG.

1. divine magic is sourced from divinities. (note: not spell, magic)
this more or less, means that all divine magic must come from a god or be influenced by a god. I make a distinction between spells and magic as to overcome any difficulties that involve spells being on multiple lists or borrowed onto a list via a class ability such as bloodlines.

"Your deity bestows on you the power to cast divine spells."(CRBpg118)

clear as day, a cleric at the least is bestowed their power, this of course is the prima example, and thus I expect no objections.

"Your deity’s power grants you special divine spells called devotion spells"(CRB108)

the champions focus spells seem to definitely be divinely empowered.

###

next sorcerers, something that's somewhat controversial.

"Angelic: Holy grace bestows divine spells upon you.
Demonic: A sinful corruption gives you divine spells.
Diabolic: A bond with devils gives you divine spells...
...Undead: The touch of death gives you divine spells."(CRB192)

that last one is sure to swivel some heads, Urgothoa was of course the first undead(google urgothoa), a mortal turned divine. All supernatural vampire abilities have the divine trait(Bes318) as well as all of the undead i looked at(Bes349), but as far as i can tell vampires originate from the shadow plane('Blood of the Night'pg4-5), this is honestly a mess. I'm not sure if this is a gray area due to switching to pathfinder2e.

2e seems to have everything relating to undead be everything but primal, but all undead abilities with the spell type traits have divine added to them and not others. So do all undead gain their abilities in thanks to Urgothoa, or perhaps whatever power once turned her undead. At the very least all undead are in some way connected to Urgothoa.

honestly i think this whole undead thing has thrown everything out the window. "The Grim Reaper is the unflinching personification of death. Silent as the grave and as inevitable as time itself, this legendary being hunts down and finishes creatures that have evaded death for far too long. Sometimes the Grim Reaper comes without warning, while at others it comes to finish the work that other creatures could not. The Grim Reaper serves no god, fiend, or aeon. It is both despised and feared by psychopomps and celestials, but few—if any—dare to stand in its way."(Bes196)

and it casts divine spells. so either the Grim Reaper is itself a god, a divine force, or i have to change divine magic to also be everything relating to gods and undead. which lets face it, that isn't a very good rule. (i'm very interested now to discuss how undead tie into this whole divinity thing)

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"though arcane sorcerers study the secrets of their blood to unlock the power within themselves"
"Divine sorcerers can use the blood of their celestial or fiendish ancestors as a divine conduit"
"occult sorcerers strive to understand the mysterious power in their blood"
"primal sorcerers call upon their fey or beast blood to harness the same natural energies"(CRB299)

out of all of these, divine seems the least... well, 'the power is in me' of all the bloods. occult and arcane speak directly of power in the blood, and primal however seems to also be portrayed as faith and to it's credit also talks about your blood not being used directly.

as for looking into how outsiders casts spells? I can't find anything on it, just they all have divine lists and tend to be associated with specific deities. probably will need a book specifically tied to it. I've read portions of the book of the damned and inner sea gods, but i don't recall anything specifically on that, and since the tenuous relationship of being a pf1e book, I won't go looking.

###

"Ki Spells:... When you first gain a ki spell, decide whether your ki spells are divine spells or occult spells. You become trained in spell attacks and spell DCs of that tradition."(CRB 157)

this with what Ki is generally considered to be outside of pathfinder, and the 4 essences (CRB300) this places the essences Mind, Spirit and Life. I believe it uses the divine and occult traditions not due to their relevance to other types of magic, but because of the essences at play here. all 3 can easily be considered, and the only traditions not included are the 2 that include matter. it's not hard to see the symbolism.

basically, i think ki spells can be mechanically divine spells, but have no real connection to other forms of divine casting.

2. i'm pretty sure this is clear.
"You weren’t born with the power to cast spells, nor have you spent years in devotion to tomes or specific entities unlocking mystical secrets. Your power instead comes through an unknown being that has chosen you as its vessel to carry forth some equally unstated plan in the world... it grants you spells and other magical powers through a familiar, which serves as a conduit for its power"(PZO2105pg35)

Intelligence is used, and interestingly enough a witch can prepare from another familiar. (PZO2105pg36) this seems to mean that witches have a consistent method among themselves of preparing spells, at least among traditions. this likely means that the methods are empiral in some way and do not know who is using the magic to cast a spell.

3.
given 1 and 2, the ways in which someone gains power is exceedingly similar, except you no longer need a divine focus and instead have a familiar. there isn't much tactical benefit, nor reasonable approach to use a witch that can't also be done with a more loyal cleric. Clerics have anathema and thus can lose their powers on the moment of betrayal. you can keep your eyes of a cleric, but your witch may even be giving spells out to other people.

4. i mean i can't prove this one, only give anecdotal evidence of everyone posting in favor of divine lists on this forum. this whole debacle i think started because someone said they wanted a devil as their patron, and thought they couldn't even though the patron section explicitly lists archfiends as possible patrons.

Thusly

Because of the above and the inverse of 1. (non-divinities cannot give out divine spells) being especially problematic, I don't think witches having a divine tradition is very narrative or lore friendly.

that's more or less my reasoning on a lot of issues. at least in my reading i learned that the inverse of archdukes of hell are Empyreal lords.

Not in theology or religious studies, no. Non-theistic simply involves a lack of concern, atheism is active rejection. This is a common misconception in the west outside of academia due to lack of non-theistic religions sharing a portion of the cultural spot light.

no that's just a gross over exaggeration by most theists. theism has to do with the belief in god, you can either believe something or not believe something. in relation to theism, you either believe a god exists or do not. there isn't a middle ground with beliefs, maybe fervor.

I come from an epistemological heavy background though, and so you maybe referring to a Jargon from a different field, and thus we just differ merely due to what is useful in our philosophical circles.

needless to say, what I meant by the first comment was that religious practices without gods from the east likely shouldn't be portrayed as universally occult in nature.

Okay, I don't have the book with me, but I'll spend the time transcribing it when I do later today.

Bandw2 wrote:

I do believe champions cast Divine spells though... It's not a focus thing.

From the Core Rulebook:

Quote:

When you first gain a ki spell, decide whether your ki spells are divine spells or occult spells.

It's clear as crystal. Ki Spells are Divine Spells.

Sure, but they can also be occult. Reading into background of spells in the spell section and what ki actually represents. It's clear Divine or occult is an analog for spirit spells.

Imo, of course

You can say what you want about monks and how weird it is, but the argument that divine power is restricted from being learned and that it is only provided by deities is completely debunked by those facts of the lore.

If you want to call monk an exception, or monk spells, do so, but then I’ll just say “why not the witch?”

The “lore” defense in the above regard is no longer a valid argument for the witch not to get a divine list.

It doesn’t have to be ki for a witch, ki just demonstrates how the divine only paradigm is not restricted and that another method to learn and harness divine power is possible.

And that’s true because that’s exactly what the monk ki spells and ki strike say.

Tbc, I don't believe they ARE Divine spells in the strictest sense. They use the same proficiency, but aren't technically "Divine spells" in the sense we've been discussing. They are basically spirit essence spells.

To be perfectly clear, 100% they don't have access to a Divine list.

Draco18s wrote:

Henro wrote:

What if different lessons had traits, and your choice of patron gave you a list of traits you could learn lessons from?

That is literally what I suggested last night ~11 hours ago and was immediately pooh-poohed for either locking you into choices too much, to generating too many keywords (uh, people, HOW many domains are there for clerics?).

Must have missed the comment - thread is getting pretty big.

The benefit of trait-patrons is that it would be super easy to homebrew new patrons. You don’t need to wait for Paizo to make “the elemental cabal”, just make your own.

And then my gm thinks I'm minmaxing. The whole point of witches is patrons teaching outside their normal bonds anyway...

Bandw2 wrote:

yeah, guys we're not supposed to in general try to do a hail mary, i don't think mechanics for each curse are warranted. it's supposed to be a thing, that maybe you can do maybe because it'd be cool. not something the oracle is expected to do once per dungeon.

I'd like to read about the Oracle/Monk that managed a final ki blast to drop the boss and save the party.

The hail mary is not something that is going to happen for most oracles, but I think it should be absolutely possible for some niche builds.

Yes, but not something they should make some special overclock ability for each curse.

Bandw2 wrote:

i thought of something that kind of exemplifies why i don't think limiting the witch to themes is needed.

to me, it's more or less a Sorcerer with say, the elemental fire bloodline, getting spells that don't have the fire descriptor as spells known.

it's not exactly that crazy of a deal to be allowed to break thematic boundaries.

I wouldn’t want Witches to be limited to their Themes either, but in fact similar to how Sorcerer’s Bloodlines work.

They get extra stuff associated with their Theme/Patron (Winter getting some cold spells automatically maybe certain hexes) but aren’t locked into them and solely them.

sure but people were talking about getting like a patron and that restricting what lessons you can take.

I like how it is i can take a ice lesson and then a fire lesson next if they're written.

basically i can't work for a cabal of elementals or what not unless paizo would explicitly write it out.

yeah, guys we're not supposed to in general try to do a hail mary, i don't think mechanics for each curse are warranted. it's supposed to be a thing, that maybe you can do maybe because it'd be cool. not something the oracle is expected to do once per dungeon.

Vlorax wrote:

There's nothing wrong with Giant Instinct and Titan Mauler no matter how many times people complain and post homebrew trying to "fix" it.

I beg to differ, that's why I'm pointing out the issues. Hard-coding a Signature ability to a Negative. Show me were that's done elsewhere in the rules? Do Paladins have some negative to there special AoO?, Wizards get a penalty to casting spells?

yes, if they use it to kill a random peasant they lose all their class abilities...

on the sorc and monk thing, i guess it was a different thread.

socerers use their blood as a conduit, they still don't cast the magic themselves.

Monks being divine or occult is probably because Ki is technichally your spirit and thus could be technically either. Also it was probably to keep from calling eastern atheistic religious traditions universally occult.

This may have been stated but just to make sure

PF2 Witch playtest wrote:

...but it grants you spells and other magical

powers through a familiar, which serves as a conduit
for its power.
A patron might be a deity working outside their
official hierarchy,...

I remember a lot of discussions about how a deity could just send a cleric or just make a cleric. But here is the witch playtest itself saying a deity could be the patron of a witch.

In which case the reason for not getting divine magic cant be "oh it's not being granted by a deity".

it's more like, if you're going to grant someone divine spells, you might as well just hook them up the normal way, and this also means they can't suddenly betray you and keep all their magic.

if they need to be super covert they'd not use divine magic, and hence why the witch exists as possible with deity patrons.

To hopefully illustrate this better, if I was playing a Witch and had a character sheet that had a page solely for listing my Patron and I left it completely blank, so that neither me nor my GM nor my fellow players knew anything about my Patron or if I even had one, it would change absolutely nothing.

It goes beyond mechanics, as is Patrons have zero presence.

right, some campaigns, your patron won't ever be nailed down or interact in any meaningful way, some cmapaigns your GM will decide what your Patron is and bring it up later, with you not knowing what kind of deal you got into, and some campaigns you explicitly signed a contract with a fey lord, with the intent to eventually open a portal to the feywild.

you can only have all 3 of these under this system.

I mean I’d probably just play it as if each lesson was from a different patron then.

But I’d still like patrons to matter at least a little bit.

it's explicitly mentions your patron might be a group of entities.

As Draco18s point out, the Lessons say they’re from your Patron, but they’re not actually linked to anything, Patron or otherwise.

You can play a Witch with absolutely 0% design or thought about your Patron and it changes absolutely nothing, because your Patron does nothing. The Lessons are you, not your Patron.

would we be having this issue if the lessons abilities weren't separate and did the exact same thing but were just under the patron section?

I don't think we would.

I think this is mostly just a reaction to reading the patron section and seeing nothing mechanical in it.

man a lot of people don't seem to realize that pathfinder has large sized weapon do no additional benefit and, except for a giant instinct barbarian, have double the bulk. it's written off as the weapon being too unwieldy to provide more benefit over a sword designed for your size.

I would prefer a "blaze of glory" where you could sacrifice a big bunch of hit points to supernova. That seems like a good gimmick for an oracle (and a champion if there needed to be a martial version).

i cast... SELF DESTRUCT!

That sentence I quoted does not change the requirements on Refocus. According to the literal wording of the restriction on the Refocus spell, an oracle without a focus pool cannot use Refocus to reduce the severity of a curse because he or she doesn't have a focus pool and has not spent 1 Focus Point.

while i do think they could put something in there about changing the requirement of refocus, i do think this is ultimately not worth writing out. it's abundantly clear from the text that they "can" do it, as it explicitly says they can. since the rules were written in full knowledge of the current refocus rules, it can be assumed this is specific overriding general.