Blue_frog's page

I think it really dépends where you come from, what yo’re usually playing and what your expectations are.

If you play a lot of casters and like the fact that you have dozens of spells to juggle with, the kineticist might feel bland.

If you play a lot of melee and like your high accuracy, big crit bursts, the kineticist might feel a bit uneerwheing.

If you like skill monkeys and OOC skill uses, the kineticist might feel too limited.

If you like healing and buffing, it falls short as well.

But another way to view it is you get more options and AOE than martials and more toughness/staying power than casters. You can deal great damage while also being tanky and having utility to boot.

I only play casters so I grew bored of my kineticists pretty fast but they were all incredibly powerful.

OrochiFuror wrote:

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

Don’t listen to anyone else!

You need to take both the Folklorist and Campfire Chronicler dedications.

Spend all actions, every round, everyday, Offering Stories, Spinning Tales, and blasting out the Anthems.

Peak Bard activity.

Ugh, this guy. He doesn't shut up. What happened to the bard that just quipped about stuff or the one that slept with the dragon?

It started as a joke, but now I like the idea of a neurodivergent Bard whose barding methodology is info dumping constantly.

I have a bard who "helps" his teammates by giving them caustic advices through a bored demeanor.

- Now come on, use your sword better. Stickin' them with the pointy end shouldn't be THAT hard.
- If it were me, I would use this spell differently. Like, maybe aim at the target ?
- You want to trip the guy ? First try to lower your center of gravity. But then, who am I to judge ?

Everybody hates him (but loves his buffs). It's perfect.

I was specifically not comparing myself to an actual dedicated ranged martial, as thats a fight that I am willing to lose for the benefits of AoE. However, losing a fight against any random martial picking up a Composite Longbow, and being beaten on ranged damage is quite sad. I would expect a Gunslinger to out damage in terms of pure ranged damage. I certainly wouldn't have expected the Fighter who isn't focused on bows to beat me in ranged DPS, when they already beat me in melee as well.

However I agree. Armor In Earth is very nice and Lava Leap is very cool as well.

Our Fighter literally has more health than me lol. Not by a lot, but stilL. Whilst being CON based has its upsides (Such as the nice health pool), but its also neutered by the fact that 1) It has no skills. 2) I need to be in the thick of things to actually contribute. So its less of a bonus and more of a mandate. And with the 8+CON, its not any higher than a martial putting points into CON.

Whilst guranteed damage is good, guranteed (As long as its not resisted at all) 4 damage is not a whole lot. And considering I have to be face tanking the boss, I don't think thats quite good enough. But yes, it does get way better the more enemies I have in my Aura. I think getting 4 enemies is pushing it a bit, especially before level 10, but it could technically happen. And 2 or 3 is fairly reasonable.

And about the things I *can* get access to later, it is going to be WAY later and not really a reasonable part of my kit, as I need to get the Fire Impulse Junction to keep up. So the earliest I can get a branching Element is 13, and frankly, thats if we even ever get there.

There's a few interesting things here.

First of all, like someone said, you're talking about one of the few levels where Kineticist proficiency is below martials. That's levels 5,6, 13 and 14 so 4 levels out of 20.

So unless you're in this level range, your melee fighter has the same proficiency as you do and probably doesn't have runes slotted on his bow - he also doesn't have point blank shot since he's a melee specialist. Your kineticist will easily outdps him (btw, since we're talking about runes, not needing to buy striking runes is a huge boon when your budget is tight !).

And that's not counting the fact that he has to drop his weapon or interact to sheathe, then interact again (or quick draw) to get his bow, then do the same all over again if someone engages him in melee.

Meanwhile, the kineticist can blast at range and/or hit at melee distance and even get free reach and/or use AOE spells, and burn his enemies to a crisp with no sweat (no pun intended). No other class can switch hit as well as a kineticist.

I also see a lot of people sweating (again ^^) because of fire-resistant or fire-immune monsters. And that's a pain, that's true. But here's the thing: thermal nimbus can EITHER deal frost or cold, and you can use your d8 earth impulse just fine. So the only thing you lose against fire-immune opponents is your aura weakness - but sometimes they get a weakness to cold and that's a net gain.

Its ranged damage is, frankly, nothing impressive. My 2 action Earth Kinetic Blast with Weapon Infusion does 2d8+2+4 at +12 to hit with a range of 50 feet. Where as any Dex based Martial switching to a secondary weapon Composite Longbow does 2d8+2 at +14 with a range of 100 feet. For 1 action!

Fine, maybe its just the Kinetic Blast thats a bit bad, I'm sure the impulses will at least be pretty good. Buuut to actually use most of these impulses effectively and deal solid damage, I need to be right in the enemies' faces. Then at least their damage will probably competitive with that of a melee martial right ? As I have more things that I am juggling at once right ? Oh, no ? Oh okay.

So, I need to hit way more enemies to actually get close to the damage of, say, a Fighter. I need enemies to be within 10 feet of me at all times to make use of my Aura Junction and Thermal Nimbus so I need to not use Overflow impulses, and to also hit them with Flying Flame which has a fairly short reach. And obviously, against Bosses I am fairly useless.

The thing is, your ranged blast is just something in your arsenal, something you can do ALMOST as good as a dedicated ranged martial, while just being a dilettante. As a fire/earth kineticist who wants to deal damage, you're not ranged, my friend - you're a melee fighter. And getting almost ranged-martial DPS AT RANGE while being a MELEE fighter is awesome, wouldn't you agree ?

Now let's see what happens if you properly embrace your earth/fire melee side.

Through armor in earth, you have the highest AC of the party (tied with other plate users) AND armor specialization (noone, even the champion, has it so early) which means you have, starting at lvl 3, resistance 2 to slashing. Your HP should be quite good as well since you have +4 in CON, putting you on par with most partials and higher than some (hello rogue, thaumaturge, warpriest...). And you have lava leap for action compression (move + damage + raise shield). So yeah, don't hesitate to get personal, fire/earth is a very in-your-face playstyle.

With a starting 16 STR (becoming 18 at lvl 5) you now deal a respectable 2d8+6 damage with one action, 2d8+10 with two actions... +4 unavoidable damage on every opponent.

Those 4 unavoidable damage (which next level will become 6) are what makes you so fearsome.
- A boss with +2 level will be very hard to hit... but not by you, who'll slowly turn him into ash with no save and no attack roll - that's very aggravating for the DM.
- A horde of minions demultiply its power, so that if you manage to get 4 opponents in your aura, you get 16 (soon to be 24) unavoidable damage EVERY F*CKIN ROUND.

So basically, you're incredibly useful against a boss AND you're incredibly useful against hordes. And that's not even counting impulses like flying flame - if you have 3 actions to spare, you can hit AND burst without MAP.

And if they're too far away, you can still blast while other martials have to sheathe their weapon, get a bow and start plinking away.

And that's without counting all the utility impulses you can get later (through those gates or other gates) like healing, flying, burrowing, spike skin, invisibility, haste...

Don't underestimate fire/earth kineticist, it's tough, resilient and powerful.

The weakness of thaumaturge isn’t only action economy, it’s manipulate action - that makes the class borderline useless in fights with AOOs.

So getting spells you can fling at a distance when you get into this situation is a godsend.

I’d say Captivator, though it’s legacy.

From Amp entry:

« The singular focus required to amp a psi cantrip means that unless otherwise noted, you can apply only one amp to a given psi cantrip, and you can't apply both an amp and a metamagic ability to a cantrip at the same time. »

Hello,

I've read time and again that psychic are pretty good at DPS (among other things) and I wanted to give it a try in an upcoming game, where we already have a good frontline and heals/buffs, to change from my beloved sorcerers.

The problem is, I'm getting stuck on Pathbuilder, and I cannot fathom how it might work ingame.

From what I gather (and the guides I've read), the two highest DPS conscious minds would be The Oscillating Wave (obviously) and the Silent Whisper (less obviously), with the Tangible Dream as a melee alternative.

But they all seem to have huge drawbacks and I don't understand how they're supposed to be played.

1) Oscillating Wave

It has awesome blasting spells, including Fireball and Howling Blizzard, and even gets support damage from entropic wheel. This would allow me to really lay the hurt on opponents during the unleash phase and maybe get the highest AOE game achievable in the game (by dipping Oracle).

...but
- You have no fuel in the tank. You get 1 or 2 top slots and that's it, nothing more. I thought psychics were supposed to rely on their amped cantrips a lot, but the Oscillating Wave got shafted there (at least damage-wise). Ignition requiring an attack roll makes it a hard pass - and even so, its amped version is barely better than Fire Ray, unless you're willing to go melee. Frostbite got buffed good in the remaster by now requiring a save, and the rider is good, but it's low damage even amped. Your unique cantrips don't deal damage until level 10 (where it's ok to aim but nothing to write about damage-wise).
- Waiting until turn 2 to unleash actually reduces the value of big AOEs like fireball since your opponents will probably be in melee by this time. I would have rated much higher spells like Blazing Bolt (despite the attack roll), divine wrath or the like.

So, although it looks like the best blaster on paper with incredible spike damage, it seems cumbersome and very inefficient to play, especially on long days.

2) Silent Whisper

Now we're talking: you get a great blasting focus spell at level 6. When amped, it's 1d10/level on a big friendly cone. With a little bit of positioning, this means your unleash psyche will probably deal huge damage to all opponents at once (60 feet cone is HUGE). Stupefied is just icing on the fat, fat cake. And it's a focus spell, so you can use it a lot without spending your strained resources. 4th level amped message is also a godsend if you have a big hairy friend. So yeah, looks we have a winner here.

...except it's a mental spell, so you're SoL on mindless opponents - and there are a lot of them. And the Silent Whisper spell list is incredibly s!!#ty, both from a blasting and utility point of view. They're all already on your occult list and, sure, it's good to get heroism for free, but that's about it.

3) Tangible Dream

I don't want to play this character melee so it's out, but I thought about it anyway. Imaginary weapon is a great spell when you're a magus, not so much when you have d6 hp and no armor. Even with an amped shield, it's suicide to go melee unless your DM is really lenient. Astral Rain amped could be a good third action but as such it won't benefit from psyche unleashed. There are a couple good spells on the list but it's not enough to save this conscious mind for me.

So there you go, it's the first time I'm stumped and really don't know how to make this class work. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, maybe psychic isn't built for damage, but I'd love to have some advice from those who actually successfully played a psychic.

Am I wrong in my assessment ? How did you do it ? Are you satisfied with the mechanical results ?

Thanks a lot, it's driving me crazy, I've built basically all classes with a degree of success but this one totally eludes me ^^

The problem ofc being that

a)the fort and hp penalty basically gives you caster defences (1 good save, 2 bad, 6 hp) on a martial character.

Casters universally have weaker defenses because they have higher impact spells.

An alchemist specifically doesn't have caster strength in his elixirs due to quantity.

So, you end up with the negatives of a caster without his positives.

And ofc,

B) a simple Heroism, that you can have from lvl 5, and by lvl 12 is in the throwaway slots, gives the same bonus to attacks, the same bonus to Ref, the same bonus on your skills, +1 Fort (a massive +3 difference between Quicksilver), and +1 Will, without hitting you for 20% of your HP.

Well, that's true but:

A) Like the above poster said, if you're using Quicksilver, you're probably ranged (bombers love Quicksilver, although being precise with a bomb is not THAT big of a DPS increase). If you're a melee alchemist, apart from some very specific dex builds that make you jump through hoops, you'll probably get a different mutagen.

B) Mutagens give item bonus, so you can BOTH get mutagen and heroism bonus.

I've spent a lot of time on these forums arguing how the wizard was underpowered, especially in comparison to the sorcerer, but this errata is still ok with me (that's actually how we played it anyway).

The Runelord mechanics in themselves help solve many of the wizard problems. I wanted arcane thesis to be given freely, that's almost the case - you get part spell substitution, part spell blending, part staff nexus (arguably MUCH BETTER staff nexus, which is pretty easy since it was one of, if not THE weakest thesis).

But this came at too great a cost. By virtue of spells being bad, anathema being too restrictive or wording being too unclear, there are very few "useful" sins (Wrath is ok if you want to blast I guess, while still inferior to sorcerer). Again, I'm talking from a mechanics perspective - RP-wise, you can play whatever you want.

So I'm all for removing the charges stacking, BUT it should come with a boost of some sins, in order to make them playable.

It's interesting that people clamor for DEX over CON or the opposite, while nobody talks about WIS.

CON and DEX are the more defensive choices, raising your HP pool and your summoner's AC respectively. But WIS is your perception (arguably one of the most rolled stat in the game), your will save (arguably the most dangerous save to fail) and, unless you're rolling with another method, your initiative.

Initiative is golden on a summoner, as with most casters. Playing before your opponent allows you to hammer them with a big spell, or buff yourself/your martials, or go out of the way, or trip a big baddie.

From MY experience (which I guess is as valid or invalid as all the other ones), acting first and moving the summoner away from action while using the eidolon to tank has prevented more hits on me than any dex investment. And winning initiative by 1 or 2 points happen as often as getting crit by 1 or 2 points.

Since the new book doesn't give much to the wizard apart from an archetype - that namely competes with other archetypes - I'm still trying to find a way to "fix" the wizard.

Most people here agree that one of the most "wizardy" thing you have in PF2e is the spell substitution thesis, and that it should be given to all wizards (and replaced by something else to choose).

So I was wondering if, instead of this "you take 10 minutes to swap a spell" thing, we could change it to a focus spell that all wizards would get. Something like this:

Thy knowledge shalt not falter

Focus 1
1 action
Prerequisite: You must have your spellbook in your hand

You turn the pages of your grimoire and find the exact spell you need for the situation that arose. You can swap one of your spells for any spell of the same level in your spellbook, but you must cast it this round or lose it.

It gives the thesis a use inside combat, where all those "silver bullet" spells could shine. Like the wizard flavor text says, this would allow you to cast revealing light if someone is invisible or fly if you need it, or an extra fireball if need be - at the cost of a focus point and an action.

Outside of combat, it doesn't change much from the thesis - you can swap quicker, but you need to refocus later, so it's a small buff (but you're caught with your pants down if someone attacks during your refocus).

I don't think it's particularly powerful since this can already be achieved with scrolls for the most part, but it would at least give back the wizard his identity as a problem solver.

To refocus on the summoner thread, action economy makes protector tree more of a menace than most other classes.

You can move (both if you took the mandatory feat), strike with martial accuracy, and cast protector tree.

Unless you plan on casting a spell from a slot, its almost always the better play and that makes it boring both for the DM and the player. I was sctually relieved when he asked me to change my archetype.

I believe most groups coordinate to an extend, but the amount of coordination very much depends on:
- How knowledgeable people are with the game
- How tactic-savvy people are
- How strategic people want to be

As for summoner 101:

Because of how act together works, you and your eidolon cannot both use 2-actions stuff at the same time. So there are two kinds of summoners, those with loaded guns and those who dig - wait, that's not it. I mean: there are two kinds of summoners: those who emphasize melee and those who emphasize casting.

- Dragon and Beast (and to an extend elemental) are considered "melee" eidolons because they have worthwile 2-action feats. You can (and should) throw a couple spells here or there but the brunt of your efficiency will come from letting your eidolon go wild. Boost eidolon is useful there when you don't cast, and things like Intimidate (summoner) + Boost Eidolon (summoner) + Draconic Frenzy (eidolon) is a great turn. So is Intimidate (or BE) + Breath Weapon + Strike.

- Most other eidolons are considered "summoners" in that the summoner is the one who'll usually take two actions from act together and cast a spell or a cantrip, while the eidolon is here to strike and trip. A basic turn might be Electric arc (summoner) + Trip (eidolon) + strike (eidolon).

- Dragon is often considered the best melee eidolon. Plant is often considered the best summoner eidolon. Of course, YMMV and it also depends on what spell list you'd like to get.

Once you understand that, summoner is a pretty easy class to play, even for a beginner BUT it leads more than other classes to long turns when you're not used to it. Since you have two bodies on the map and a lot of things to do (including how you divide your actions), beginners will probably take a lot of time (and sometimes need to be corrected on small mistakes like using Tandem Move during Act Together). If you're a beginner and want to play a summoner, please, PLEASE think about what you want to do BEFORE your turn comes. It's important for every character, but even more so for a summoner, so you don't waste 10mn thinking about your every option ^^

YuriP wrote:

That's the fun and interesting part. You are not your own ally but your eidolon is, so you can apply effects that usually are forbidden to be self applied to your eidolon.

Okay, next Summoner I play I'm gonna free archetype into wood kineticist so I can protector tree myself...

I did that on a current campaign, the DM was so disgusted that he asked me to switch my FA.

You can play both as two parts of a dynamic duo if that fits your RP but as they say in the summoner’s description, even if they’re friends or feel like equals, the summoner is still the master and the eidolon the slave. So when the eidolon is controlled, the summoner can still be just fine - while if the summoner is controlled, he can force the eidolon to do whatever he wants. So it’s a partnership, true enough, but one is still on top.

Well noted I forget to put in always hit. I will fix and update the graph.

Fixed graph.
Now Barbarian and Fire Kineticist damage are more in pair each other. Except when Ignite the Sun enters and basically doubles the avg damage.

The fixes was:

I have to made Ignite the Sun manually once that calculator doesn't includes it so I forget to put it as basic save. The old graph it was working like a spell attack. Now it's a basic save.

Thermal Nimbus now adds damage always.

I had added both Flying Flame and Ignite the Sun fire weakness inside the main math that was a basic save. Now I put it in a separated damage instance that triggers in success or worse save.

Perfect, thanks !

It's true that this kind of damage pertains to one specific kind of kineticist, but there always was some unspoken agreement in dps: martials were kings of single target, while casters were kings of AOE. Being able to do as much single target than one of the best martials, while also being able to dish out a lot of AOE damage, while being freakishly tanky through CON primary and good defensive impulses, while still having some utility, is pretty impressive in itself.

My question is with all of the restrictions on the Summoner and Eidolon (same health pool, limit on actions, limit of spells) how is it any better than a normal full caster with an Animal Companion. Please bear in mind I haven't run a Summoner but I have been in groups with them but again I fail to see a huge benefit overall.

Biggest benefit is act together - it allows the summoner to be a gish, different than the magus but much more flexible.

Your turn can basically be move (both of you if you get tandem move), eidolon hit, summoner cast. Which is much better than what other gishes can do since:
1) You can both move, cast and hit
2) As a summoner, you're usually out of harm's way which means you don't care about AOOs like other gishes do.

As for your eidolon, it has martial progression and can benefit from runes and apex bonuses, which means that it's much more accurate.

At level 14, where your animal companion is at the peak of its power, it can get +6 dex and expert proficiency, so +24. In comparison, the eidolon has +5 str and master proficiency and +2 rune for +27. A +3 difference in PF2E is a HUGE thing. And the gap only widens from there.

At level 20, your AC still has 6 dex and expert proficiency, so +30.
Your eidolon, meanwhile, now has 7 str, master proficiency and a +3 rune, which is +36.

It also benefits from your skills, so it can be legendary in athletism for instance, or legendary in intimidation, whereas an animal companion won't ever get more than expert in a couple skills.

And that's not counting the fact that your eidolon could be huge, and fly, and explode, and might have reach, or draconic frenzy, or can cast spells, and many other reasons it's better than an animal companion (which is good in itself, don't get me wrong, but nowhere near an eidolon ^^).

I’m a bit surprised as to how our results differ. What did I miss in my projection ? Or were the expectations of 30 AC and 20 réflexes too far off ?

Edit : oh, I see, I missed the fire rune on the weapon.
Edit2: Thermal nimbus should be a 100% hit, not a spell roll or did I misunderstand your data ? That is a huge différence.

Well, I kinda did the maths a bit earlier that showed that be it one action, two actions or three actions, the fire kineticist outdps a giant barbarian on single target (and of course way more on multitarget).

That’s not too shabby.

The problem is that it locks you into one specific element and one specific playstyle as it needs a stance and an aura junction to be effective.

It's the worst class in terms of skills and outside skills it doesn't have much outside mobility enhancers. From my experience, a couple Kineticists in a PFS party and you're doomed to fail most skill challenges. Experience will differ from table to table and how the GM handle skills, so useless is an overstatement. But it's not far from the proper adjective to describe the Kineticist outside combat.

Well, yes and no.

Of course, most builds will be hard-pressed to invest heavily in CHA, but the bonus to intimidation from fire can fill the gap and if you really want to build for it, you'll eventually become the most threatening guy in the game.

It'll be easier for earth, where you'll probably invest in STR anyway and so will easily get the highest athletics in the game.

Same for air and stealth.

Of course, a lot of people don't take skill junction because there's so many juicy things to get before - but if you want, you can be the best in those few skills.

Well, fire certainly is the best for straight DPR. The air/earth build, L10, using EB + Lightning Dash averages 33 single target damage (3d8+6 then 4d12+6, using your "50% average + 5% double" formula). But it's got far more survival/defensive value. You're not stuck standing up close to a boss, it also lets you reposition yourself 40 feet straight line + (half move any direction) feet away, and prevents reactive strike while it does it. As well as keeping you in constant concealment.

Wait, I'm sorry if I wasn't clear, but I totally agree with you. I was just expanding on your answer and confirming that a kineticist can be very competitive against a martial.

Fire deals more damage, air has more utility - that's as should be ^^

You pretty much described all casters. All martials were the same as well pursuing the number feats first.

Metamagic feats made some pretty interesting builds.

I didn't find PF1 wizards boring myself. I thought the schools were good, metamagic good, and the feat selections felt impactful.

Yeah, that's my point: all casters had bland features, BECAUSE it was offset by incredible spells that could be combined into awesome things. You felt useful, you felt powerful, and everybody was looking at you for answers when things were rough.

I remember a game where my wizard was all out of spells when a friend fell from a cliff to a certain death. I jumped after him, reached him and shouted "strangle me !". He did, and the contingency I set on "whenever I'm grappled, cast dimension door" put us to safety. Ten years later, we still talk about this epic moment.

In PF2E, spells have been seriously toned down (although they got an effect on a successful save as a trade-off), buffs have been butchered and save DCs are pretty much the same for everyone (which is why ancestral memories is so powerful).

So, in PF1 spells were awesome and features were bland. Now that spells are bland, features need to be awesome.

This isn't quite accurate IMO; D&D 1e and AD&D's Magic-User/Wizard were not only extremely limited -- once you cast a spell in 1e, that spell was gone forever -- the editions' other classes could do amazing stuff of their own like hold fortresses and raise armies. Your spells were terrifyingly powerful, but you could be cut down at any moment and your allies were formidable in their own right. It's only with the advent of D&D 3e, and specifically Monte Cook's ivory tower design and personal brand of spellcaster supremacism, that casters started to leave non-casters entirely in the dust, a problem every system descended from that edition struggles with to this day. A lot of the arguments for what a spellcaster feels like or should feel like, especially relative to the rest of the party, come from D&D 3.5e and Pathfinder 1e in online tabletop discussion, and in most other kinds of games, including video games, that kind of caster supremacism isn't really present in that same way.

I admit I'm not familiar with D&D1, so I'll take your word for it.

I started with ADD where the wizard already had the power fantasy of being incredibly fragile, incredibly weak at low levels, and incredibly powerful at higher levels with spells like wish, time stop, imprisonment and the like. These rulesets have been known to a lot of players thanks to BG and BG2, where wizards (and especially sorcerers - already - since a lot of spells were taken out of the game) ruled supreme.

At the same time, a lot of other TTRPGs of the 80s leaned into this fantasy of the wizard starting weak and ending up incredibly strong. Take Warhammer 2nd edition, for instance, where a wizard apprentice cannot do much except protect himself from the rain (that was a true spell) but could end up burning enemies to a crisp with fireballs or creating entire armies out of thin air through illusion. Take Rolemaster, aka the Needlessly Complicated Nerdy System, where magic was so powerful at higher levels it could derail an entire game. Take Stormbringer, the game based on Moorcock's books, where sorcerers could annihilate opponents through gory rituals. Take Runequest, Dragonquest (though it could backfire quite often). There were even games built around being an all-powerful wizard, like Ars Magica or (with a twist) Mage from WoD.

Actually, the only game I played where wizards weren't the top dog was Shadowrun (and even so, they were pretty competitive ^^).

So this idea of the wizard starting weak then trivializing games and fights didn't originate from 3.5 and PF1 but was already in the DNA of TTRPGs right from the start.

What do you mean by the wizard was bland?

1. Wizard schools provided a 1st level ability, 8th level, and usually a powerful 20th level ability.

2. They received bonus feats with metamagic and crafting when those feats were powerful.

3. Feats like Spell Specialization and Spell Perfection allowed for very well developed spell strategies.

I felt like building a wizard in PF1 was an involved process that was a lot of fun. I rarely saw Universalists played because the schools were compelling and fun with abilities that felt appropriate, had progression, and enhanced the school specialization.

Wizard was bland because its schools and feats were bland. When you built a wizard, you usually went with all the DC-augmenting feats like spell focus and greater, spell specialization and metamagic feats, maybe augment conjuration and its feat line, but none of them had any flavor nor allowed you to change what your wizard was doing, it was only numerical.

"I get +1 to my DC."
"I can heighten my spell"
"I can empower my spell".
"My spell's numerical variables are 2 higher than normal"

So if we look at it honestly, nothing was particularly exciting, new or original. What was great was the spells, and the power that came with it. You could specialize hard in some spells, and the game rewarded you for it.

As for universalists, most players I know did indeed choose a school, not because schools were great - but because it gave them 1 more spell of every level, and that's something you couldn't pass up. You gimped yourself pretty hard being an universalist, even if you had no opposition school.

Right there, with all these people arguing around Tolkien lore, is why the wizard image is probably embedded in so many players imagination. In most media, wizards - or those who wield supernatural powers, however you want to call them - are a cut above the rest. Be it Gandalf or Saruman, or Force users in Star Wars, or the Witch in Narnia, or - like someone said - Elric of Melnibone, it's the sorcery that sets them apart (well, that and Stormbringer but still, Elric is a potent alchemist and sorcerer in his own right). In DnD's own lore, Raistlin Majere comes to mind. And let's not talk about Harry Potter ^^

The first iterations of DnD tried to do the wizard figure justice, by making them incredibly weak at the beginning and unbearably powerful at the end - so that the other members of the group ended as mere sidekicks or guardians (like Raistlin's brother). But in the interest of balance and fairness, it got nerfed a lot, up to DnD 4th edition where all classes were deemed equal. People hated it and said it was too MMO to their liking, but still some sort of balance had been achieved.

The Pathfinder Wizard didn't come from DD4 but DD3.5, hence the power he still wielded in PF1. In PF2, he didn't get a nerf but more of a rehaul. He got significantly stronger at lower levels, a bit weaker at higher levels, and both DD5 and PF2 stopped the ludicrous buff-stacking that plagued DD3.5 and PF1. DD5 did this with the concentration mechanism, while PF2 simply removed most buffs or nerfed their duration or efficiency.

The wizard in PF1 was not especially more interesting than in PF2. It was actually very bland, with less features and feats, but people didn't complain about it because it was POWERFUL. And a lot of people like powerful characters, either because it fulfills their power fantasies, or because they want to be effective in their group (like the famous GodWizard from Treantmonk).

Now that the wizard is nowhere near as powerful as he used to be, designers have to replace this lack of power with flavor. Take the remastered witch, for instance. Except for resentment (and even so), it's still pretty weak - but it oozes flavor, and has very unique mechanisms that make it attractive. In the opposite direction, we have the oracle, who got hugely buffed (apart from Battle - press F to pay respect - and life/ancestors), but lost a lot of its flavor.

So I guess that's why there are so many threads and discussions about the wizard: it's lacking both in power - in comparison to other casters - and in flavor.

Compare to the sorcerer (I know, I know, I keep doing that ^^). It's mechanically more powerful, but also has more flavor and more specific mechanism. When you cast some spells, your own blood thrums and gives you bonuses that range from mostly useless to borderline broken. If you're a dragon sorcerer, you can breathe fire and fly; if you're a genie sorcerer, you can create illusions and warp wishes; if you're a nymph sorcerer, you can blind people with your beauty or use nature to punish them; if you're a hag sorcerer, you can frighten or even control them. If you're an aberrant sorcerer, you can grow tentacles and move your heart around in your body.

That's the kind of flavor that makes people smile. I know people who play hag sorcerers or aberrant sorcerers despite them having crappy spell lists, just because it's fun and a fresh experience.

Compare that to the current wizard, where you can choose a thesis (two out or five are good and actually give you a specific mechanism) and a school (that gives you basically nothing - the focus spells are mostly bad and bland).

- Hey, I'll be playing a Harrow Sorcerer, I'll be able to rewrite possibilities and destroy a target's future ! What about you ?
- Oh, err, I'll be playing a Battle wizard, I'll blend my slots so I have more of them and I can cast Force Bolt, go me.

The kineticist single target attacks are very bad as you level.

If you have AOE, then you do ok. If you're doing a single target boss, you are pretty terrible.

They could probably use a single target attack better than their blasts.

It's been a long time since I played my kineticist but I don't remember it being that bad.

As fire/earth you can afford to be in melee so as a lvl 10 Kineticist:
- Your attacks deal 3d8 + 4 (str) + 5 (thermal nimbus weakness)
- You can chain with floating flame for 5d8+5
- The boss will automatically take 10 extra damage every round.

Of course, if it's fire immune or fire resistant you're hosed (even if you can actually use extract element) but on a regular boss the damage is not too shabby, especially considering you have ok accuracy on your blast, you have 1/2 damage on a failure on floating flame and you have automatic damage to boot. It's probably nowhere near what a barbarian or fighter could output, but it's nothing to be ashamed of.

I played an earth/fire kineticist up to lvl 12. It was great, good damage, great tanking abilities, great auras, good mobility and some utility.

The thing is, I got bored and I don’t know why. My turns were mostly the same but then so are a martial’s. So I don’t know what killed it for me but despite being pretty powerful, I found it bland.

In general, I think D&D 5e is a cautionary tale of how easy it can be for one class to eat another class's lunch, or even everyone else's, if you're not careful with your balancing. 5e's Wizard has a better spell list than the Sorcerer's, often the same moment-to-moment flexibility as the Sorcerer on top of better day-to-day flexibility, more spell output than the Sorcerer, and can access the Sorcerer's niche much more easily than the reverse, which among other factors makes the Sorcerer more attractive for multiclassing than as a full class (a bit like the Psychic right now in PF2e, incidentally). Whatever direction gets chosen to improve the Wizard in PF2e, it needs to make sure that other classes still outshine the Wizard on their own respective specialties, even if the Wizard would in turn get to outshine them on their intended strengths.

That's very interesting.

Even in PF2E, some classes have easily poachable features: the oracle arguably gets his best cursebound feats at level 1, which means that anyone can get Foretell Harm, Whispers of Weakness or Oracular Warning (or even Nudge the Scale) and use it as well as an oracle until much higher level. And even then, getting over cursebound 2 isn't something you'll do every fight.

It's a bit of the same with kineticist - although you don't get free elemental blast progression and all gates goodies, you can still grasp a good level 1 impulse (say, Timber sentinel, Four Winds, Armor in Earth, Ocean's Balm).

It's even worse with psychic, like you said.

So, whatever the wizard gets, it shouldn't be poachable. Incidentally, when you skim through the advice/optimization forum, very few people advise to take wizard as a multiclass, even with free archetype. Apart from roleplaying needs, even INT classes will be better served by a witch multiclass. This in itself speaks volumes about how the wizard might need a little buff.

Me and a friend were chatting about this thread and about wizards in general in this system, and he offhandedly said:

"If a level 19 wizard had every single wizard class feat and every single arcane spell that exists in their spellbook, they would barely be any stronger than a wizard who took no feats at all and had the normal number of spells"

I argued against it at first, but the more I thought about it the more true it seemed. That's pretty sad

There ARE some great wizard feats, they're just few and far between.

Convincing Illusion, Bond conservation (for universalist utility), Clever Counterspell, Second Detonation Array, Scroll Adept... are all good choices and would make your first wizard much stronger than the second one.

But yeah, apart from the hyperbole, wizard feats need to be totally revamped ^^

Stock reply that dnd5 sorcs are abysmal, punished with pitiful number of spells for absolutely nothing, metamagic doesn't nearly compensate for all that and awfully limited, and wizard is crazily better at everything. Which is understandable when spellcasting is the same for prepared and spontaneous, only spontaneous can change every day, so wizards prepare more spells everyday than sorcs know at all. And this hasn't changed in their remaster as far as I saw.

It was one of the largest reasons why I switched to pf2. Even though I dislike prepared spellcasting in pf2 too with all the things designers invented to sweeten the pill for wizards (like bonded item). Still better.

Is the sorcerer that bad ? Like I said, I'm not knowledgeable about DD5 but in my memory the sorcerer had a few tricks up his sleeve (like being the only caster able to double haste, or double fly, and being able to deal the most damage through twin disintegrate or quickened spell). It was nowhere near as flexible as a wizard but was good at what it was doing.

But I'll take your word for it since I didn't play much.

Anyway, I'm not advocating for the PF2E wizard to be the same as the DD5 one (although I like the way they prep their spell, I already suggested it earlier in the thread and most people were against it, so there). But there certainly is a bigger difference between a sorcerer and a wizard in DD5 that there is in PF2E (multiclassing notwithstanding like Teridax said) - and the schools actually ENHANCE the way you play instead of just restricting what kind of spells you get in your 4th slot.

Maybe the Runelord will be the answer to my prayers, since it'll probably be hyperfocused on some type of spells in exchange for some kind of boon - but then if it's good, it'll feel mandatory and that's a bad thing in itself as well.

I cannot help but think this is one of the things PF2E messed up while DD5 got it right.

Don't get me wrong, to me PF2E is the vastly superior system and is better in almost everything. But in DD5, casters are all meaningfully different, both in flavor and mechanics.

- The sorcerer has a very narrow spell list (a typical lvl 20 sorcerer knows around 15 spells TOTAL) but has unique metamagic powers to make those few spells more powerful than anyone else's.

- Bards are very strong but their spell list has little to no blasts and is heavily geared towards buffing and debuffing. Lore bards can give hefty penalties to saves IIRC.

- Warlocks have a lot of edgelord flavor and get their slots back on a short rest. Depending on table variance, they have the biggest number of high level slots, but they're even more specialized than the sorcerer.

- The wizard has the biggest spell list, can use rituals to keep his slots, can regain slots once on a short rest, and can specialize in a magic school to get unique bonuses. A diviner can manipulate dice rolls, an evoker deals more damage, an abjurer is great at protecting his party... Also, the vancian system has been highly revamped to make them much better.

(Disclaimer: It's been a veeeery long time since I played DD5 so I might have gotten some things wrong).

So, yeah, when someone wants to play a caster, they have a meaningful choice to make, both in flavor and mechanics. Some classes are better than others, but they're still different enough that it doesn't really matter.

I wish there were the same differences in PF2E, so that a sorcerer is not a spontaneous wizard or the wizard a prepared sorcerer.

Also, if there were real differences, all this talk (that I'm totally guilty of) of comparing the raw power of the classes wouldn't need to happen. I strongly believe, like a lot of posters, that the sorcerer is straight up better than the wizard in a fighting situation - but that's because they have almost the same mechanics and so it's easy to do a side-by-side comparison and find the wizard lacking. If the differences were bigger, there would be no need for such a picture. For instance, the witch familiar mechanics are specific enough that they can allow for fun builds despite a weak chassis.

Blue_frog wrote:

How about a fourth one, making "research spell" either a downtime activity or some kind of earn income thing ?

Like, if a wizard has a couple days of downtime, he could add a spell for free in his spellbook. Or if his camping activity is "research spell", he could get one for free every four camps, or something like this.

Ughm... surprise!

Magical Shorthand reduces the cost but, according to the data given by Witch of Miracles, it's still significant if you want to have a good spellbook.

I'm proposing to get spells for free on a regular basis.

Edit: I appreciate the link, because I didn't know you could do it as an earn income already.

Regarding learning spells: I think one of the issues there is the clash of expectations, where players expect their studious Wizard to be able to pick up lots of scrolls and spellbooks on the field, but that entire aspect of the class's roleplaying is up to the GM or the AP. Although learning low-level spells from scrolls is trivially cheap, that too is only a benefit that comes about at higher levels, and isn't the most exciting compared to learning a brand-new top-rank spell. The brew I linked proposes a system to help collection-based classes add more spells or formulas to their repository, but I think there are generally three ways you could go about this, depending on taste:

I like those ideas.

How about a fourth one, making "research spell" either a downtime activity or some kind of earn income thing ?

Like, if a wizard has a couple days of downtime, he could add a spell for free in his spellbook. Or if his camping activity is "research spell", he could get one for free every four camps, or something like this.

The arcane list has silver bullet spells. If you know you'll have to fight underwater and then climb a big flat wall, you have silver bullets to handle these cases. You don't have silver bullets for monsters but you have some for other situations.

But...
I personally prefer Scrolls. If I have a Scroll of Water Breathing, I can use it for the underwater fight even if I was not aware of it. And if I'm aware there'll be an underwater fight, then I just Learn the Spell (a couple hours) and prepare it the next morning.

Scrolls, Scrolls, Scrolls. 60% of my equipment is in Scrolls with my casters, because they beat the competition hands down.

Exactly: silver bullet spells are mostly utility, not combat-oriented. And I'm like you, carrying a whole library on my sorcerer's back ^^

But good utility isn't enough to help prepared casters because:
1) Utility usually isn't as constrained by timing as a fight, so it doesn't matter if you need to rummage through your stuff to find the right scroll
2) Utility usually is a one-time thing. You need water breathing to go through this obstacle (and maybe to go back), but unless you're playing Skulls & Shackles, you probably won't need it more than once or twice.
3) Utility often uses a lower level slot.

These three reasons make it so mostly everything can be covered by a scroll, a staff or a wand. The only thing that would be harder to replace is combat spells, because 1) timing matters, 2) you might need to use it more than once and 3) you usually use a top slot.

Which is why I think that specific combat scrolls would go a long way towards making the wizard (and prepared casters as a whole) more desirable.

But then, following what Witch of Miracles said, the price of learning a spell should be significantly reduced for the wizard in order to take advantage of it.

Good job with the numbers.
That's why I nearly never learn spells. Even one spell per level is rather ridiculous and still reduces your overall money by a significant amount.

Outside Spell Substitution Wizard, I find there's no real need to learn spells. Most of the time, you prepare the exact same spells every morning.

It would be great if there were more "silver bullet" spells like you have on the divine list against fiends and undeads, but the arcane list is lacking a lot of those. You can find a couple spells more effective against plants or lycanthrops but that's about it.

Currently, even if the wizard knows 100% that he'll face two constructs, a babau and an arcane dragon in this cave, it doesn't give him any advantage over a sorcerer because there are no specific spells that would help him, apart from the obvious ones like Resist Energy that are usually in a spell repertoire anyway.

If there were more spells tailored to specific challenges, maybe that would help make the wizard more versatile.

Like a spell that would work especially well on a slime, or a golem, or a dragon.

Slime Mold
You point your finger and the target ooze makes a fortitude save:
Success: The ooze is slowed 1 for a round as its fluids thicken.
Failure: The ooze becomes thicker and can be critted for a round
Critical Failure: Same as failure, but for a minute

Construct Bane
You utter a word of power, trying to pry apart the powerful spells that animate your opponent. Target construct makes a will save, even if it's immune to magic, as you directly attack its fundation.
Success: The integrity of the contruct is shaking. Despite being immune to magic/mental, it becomes confused for its first action.
Failure: The construct loses its magic immunity for 3 rounds
Critical Failure: Same as failure, but for a minute

I don't know how powerful that would be and that's beside the point, it can be adjusted later. The point is that no spontaneous caster will ever take something like "construct bane" in its spell repertoire, since it's much too narrow. But a wizard who knows he'll visit a mage tower and has high chances to encounter constructs would slot it - and actually make a difference.

Buying lower level spells and heightening them is far more realistic, and you can (unsurprisingly) buy a ton more of them without breaking the bank. A genuinely absurd amount more, even. I knew this was true before, but seeing the numbers laid out was enlightening. It's literally cheaper to buy one spell of every rank at least 2 below your maximum every level than it is to buy a single on-curve spell every other level.

Thanks for doing this research !

How did you decide the price of getting a new spell ? Did you take the cost of the Learn a Spell activity, or did you add the price of a scroll and the cost of learning a spell ?

In some cases, DMs will allow the caster to learn a spell from a mentor (or another player), which significantly reduces the cost - although, of course, you cannot always count on it, and there's a lot of table variance.

This is why I keep saying that the sorcerer can stack up on low level scrolls to emulate a lot of spells he won't have. My high level sorcerers literally carry dozens of scrolls so as to always have on-demand water breathing, tongues or see invisibility - because the cost is negligible after a time, while your top slots are much more valuable.

I do think PFS scenarios work very well for wizards. You tend to get a lot of knowledge about what is coming up, tons of down time, free scrolls you can use to get new spells, and a lot of opportunity to use spells out of combat.

There’s also the fact that PFS encounters are easy by design so that any kind of group can succeed, and are usually limited to one or two fights. That’s the kind of setup where casters (wizards included) thrive.

Here are some of the reasons many have repeated throughout this thread that I actually think are constructive criticisms.

That's a good sum up of the points brought up in the thread, and it would be great if they would be adressed.

Being one of those who "argued till they were blue in the face that wizard is bad because imperial sorcerer is better", I felt the need to draw this comparison to show people who don't think the wizard has problems that there currently is a discrepancy.

But I probably went too far and apologize for that.

What the wizard really needs is some individuality and identity, outside of "I know the most arcane spells!" which just isn't a mechanically satisfying niche in this system.

Well, it *could* be if new books, like the one coming up next, would give us spells of different styles and not yet another variation of fireball - but lightning this time, and in a cone.

I'm not sure what kind of spells Paizo could come up with to freshen up the experience, but every spell that suddenly feels useful and not redundant is a huge boon to a prepared spellcaster like the wizard.

seriously though, thats a lot of spells not being used at all if theres only like 36 in the game that are actually good.

That's actually a very good question, and probably the crux of the problem.

If there were hundreds of great spells to choose from, the wizard would have a distinct advantage over the sorcerer and other spontaneous casters. But sadly, it's not the case, for numerous reasons.

1) Useless spells

Some spells are borderline useless or easily replaced by mondane means. Breadcrumbs/Glowing Trail come to mind. Just carry some chalk. Or Eternal flame.

2) Redundant spells

A lot of spells are designed to do the same thing. They have sometimes small differences but they're close enough to be functionally the same. Take water walk and lotus walk, or Message rune and Embed message, or Nothing up my sleeve/Imaginary lockbox/Bottomless Stomach/Time pocket, and so many others.

3) Spells that aren't useful after the first few levels

Mystic armor, Runic Body, Runic Weapon...
Although they're upgraded in the remaster, they're much less useful later on.

4) Spells that have to be heightened

All incapacitation spells and most damage spells come to mind. As a level 11 caster, you won't take any damaging spell or incapacitation spell in your 3rd level slots, for instance, which reduces very significantly the number of spells you can choose from.

5) Spells that are replaced by better versions

Burning hands is a worse version of fireball (same damage, same type, worse targetting). Exploding earth scales very badly.

6) Spells that only work in a specific setting

Sanguine Mist is only useful if your friends and minions are undead.

7) Spells that are specific to another caster

Summoner's precaution and most animal companion/summoner spells.

8) Spells that are better on an NPC than a PC

Daydreamer's curse/Dull ambition/outcast's curse/savant's curse and most curses, actually. Diseases and most poisons as well.

9) Spells that compete for your reaction

There are some great spells that use your reaction, for instance Wooden Double, Blood Vendetta and Interposing Earth, but taking all of them might be a waste since you can only use one per turn.

10) Redundancy

Even if there are hundreds of combat spells, you don't need them all. After all, unless you're using quickened casting, you can only cast one spell per round.

When we talk about a good combat spell list, we ideally need the following:
- Sources of elemental damage for weaknesses (fire, electricity, acid, cold, maybe vitality/void).
- A couple AOE spells (damage and debuff) (howling blizzard...)
- Some way to deal with many mobs when your friends are already in the fray (Blazing bolt, mass slow, tempest of shades...)
- Single target damage and debuffs (force barrage, true target...)
- Friendly buffs (mass haste, foresight, mountain resilience...)
- Some reactions (shadow siphon, wooden double...)

So there are literally hundreds of ways to fry your enemies, but you only need a few of them at a time.

TLDR: Among the thousands of spells, there are indeed only a handful that are really useful in a fighting situation, thus mostly erasing the advantage the prepared caster SHOULD have. The problem is, new splat books won't help since new spells mostly are more of the same. Either they'll be better (in which case they'll replace the old ones) or they'll be worse (in which case they won't have an impact).

That's cool, spontaneous casters have their advantages. As it should be. Spontaneous still can't completely change their repitiore day-to-day. As a prepared casters I can just decide to be a whole different guy tomorrow and it rocks. Spontaneous casters have encounter to encounter flexibility but are rigid otherwise. That encounter to encounter flexibility is very good and cool, it's not always better though. There is also something disingenuous about framing it as 45 spells known. Wizards can and will be able to fill each of their slots with a different spell. 4x9+1 is already 37, and 43 with cantrips, 44 with their starting focus spell even if their starting focus spell isn't fantastic. Split slot at 6 can bring us to 45 even, and scroll adept brings it to 47. You can get the second focus spell going to 48. Need I go on? It's clearly not a meaningful way to talk about either class and involves framing that doesn't really get at the core strengths or weaknesses

You can change your spellbook day to day, but why would you if you already have most useful spells in your repertoire ?

Deriven brought the sheer number of spontaneous spells you get because it makes its limitation moot. If, hypothetically, a sorcerer could only know 15 spells from all levels, he would be forced to overspecialize and would lack a lot of staple effects.

But with so many spells to play with, a sorcerer can have AOE spells for all situations (cramped or not, Will or Fort or Ref...), single target spells and boss killers, and still have room for common buff spells like fly or haste, or debuff spells like slow or fear, while having a staff that gives him see invisibility and tongues, and a couple scrolls for his other needs.

Also, you cannot compare a spell repertoire with a spellbook. A wizard can indeed slot a different spell in each of his slots, but he'll probably be way less effective than if he doubled down on some golden spells.

Let's take a level 6 imperial sorcerer with a basic spell list. Since you took Arcane Evolution at level 4, you have an extra signature spell so long as you don't change your list.

1 - Force Barrage*, Gust of Wind, Befuddle, Illusory object
2 - Dispel Magic*, Invisibility, Blazing Bolt*, Acid Grip
3 - Haste, Slow, Cave Fangs, Fear*

So in a fighting situation, you can:
- Use a rank 3 Force Barrage or a slow on a solo boss.
- Use Cave Fangs in an AOE
- Use Blazing Bolt against multiple targets that are already engaging your friends
- Buff your friends with haste or invisibility
- Dispel magic at max rank.
- Have spells against will, reflex, fortitude and AC
- Have acid, fire, force (and electricity with cantrip) options.

Meanwhile, the wizard *could* slot the exact same spells (except that he can't because he has to account for his school). Let's do just that and since we're comparing combat potential, let's give him the battle school.

1 - Force barrage, Gust of Wind, Befuddle, Illusory object
2 - Resist energy, Invisibility, Dispel Magic, Acid Grip
3 - Fireball, haste, slow, force barrage

Doesn't look that far apart, right ? Except that it's much less flexible.
- Your dispel cannot heighten
- If you need two invisibilities you're SoL (because DBI only works on your top slots as a specialist).
- If you need two fireballs and two slows, you're SoL

And of course, that's still with less damage and less chance to land a debuff (although -1 is not that big a deal so far).

So either you keep being as generalist as possible - but then you have much less staying power in a fight. Or you overspecialize by slotting two fireballs or three force barrages - but then you have much less flexibility.

Please note I'm only talking about battle efficiency here, utility is yet another topic.

Unless you're still stuck in that same cramped white room, falling stars is exceptionally easy to aim. It has huge range, and you can call down four of them, which lets you cover a far greater area than fireball.

That's exactly the problem, mind you. A greater area is not always a boon but can be a drawback when it's friendly fire. I did a lot of Paizo's AP and there are precious few finale books (because you have to be 17+ to use it) where you can actually cast it.

Unless you're going first (which as a wizard with low perception you probably won't), a 40 feet burst is way too much. That's why it's considered to be an ok-spell, but certainly not a great one for a lvl 9 slot.

9 extra damage at 17th level is not going to break the bank. After those four slots are gone, the Wizard will also significantly outperform the Sorcerer, because sorcerous potency doesn't let you cast falling stars with lower-rank slots.

9 extra damage over 82 is more than 10% more. Not that bad.

Isn't one of your biggest complaints that preparing any individual spell and overly relying on it means you get screwed over? Because I can easily see this over-reliance on eclipse burst going very wrong if you go up against an undead or cold-resistant enemy (or both). Either you can rely on the same spell all the time, in which case the rigidity of spell preparation isn't as bad as you say, or you can't, in which case you can't rely on a single spell to do all the work unless it specifically lets you dance around resistance and immunity, like falling stars. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

What over-reliance ? I can cast 17 different spells with my slots, eclipse burst is only one of them. I still can use chain lightning or dehydrate or phantasmal calamity to target whichever save is the lowest - or hell, even quandary or disappearance or true target or vampiric exsanguination or wall of stone or shadow siphon.

Meanwhile, you slotted Falling Stars, making it effectively a dud if you find yourself in melee.

I would also reiterate a point from earlier: if spending slots is meaningful attrition for encounter balance over the day, the Sorcerer has much less meaningful attrition than a wizard. The sorcerer has fewer top rank slots, but the sorcerer doesn't lose spell choice until they're out of slots—something I consider much more important. Without spellsub, the wizard only has all their spells loaded for as long as they don't use DBI. Without spellsub, you can only cast a spell as many times as you have it slotted+1. And so on. It's much easier to run out of helpful spells on Wizard, despite the higher effective spellslot count—after all, effectively targeting defenses means slotting spells that can do so, and it also means you'll almost always have spells slotted that are duds for a given encounter.

Why, thank you ^^

I mean, if we're talking about Spell Blending, then your Wizard with the above would have literally double the Sorcerer's ninth-rank spell slots.

3 slots + 1 from specialization + 1 from spell blending + 1 from DBI makes 6, which is 2 more than the sorcerer's 4, not "literally double".

Also, your example is a bit disingenous since we're comparing spells one level apart, not 6 levels apart. Of course, fireball won't hold its own in a lvl 8 slot - but, for instance, Eclipse Burst will.

Falling stars is a spell that's really hard to aim. Great to level armies, less great in a regular AP. So, your wizard casts it for some reason and deals an average of 82 damage with one of his 6 top slots.

Either the sorcerer goes all out and outdamages you with one of his 4 top slots - which, you know, is a good thing because more damage right now is often better than maybe more damage later.

Or he shrugs, and casts Eclipse Burst with an 8th slot - dealing an average of 80 damage. Granted, you don't choose your energy type, but you blind on crit fail which is still something.

But I agree that, the higher your level, the more your power grows. Level 6 spells are a perfect example of a power shift: you get powerhouses like Mass Slow or Chain Lightning while level 5 had great spells, but nothing as effective.

Quandary (and some Power Words) is a spell without a save and it's a great spell by itself. But unless you plan on casting only quandary from now on, you'll eventually find yourself in a situation where you'll cast a save spell (like this mass slow we talked about) and the -3 the sorcerer gets at high level on the opponent's save is worth a top slot any time of the day.

A Wizard who could output all of this power in and out of combat would eat the Sorcerer's lunch even without a +9/10 to their spell damage rolls, and given how the Sorcerer's already a strong class, I sincerely don't believe the goal here should be to achieve a multiple of that class's power.

I don't understand what you're saying here.

If that's the case, well at least we agree on the discrepancy between both classes.

I also think that at this point, the argument about spell preparation being "crippling" is kinda hokey: sure, you can technically prepare nothing but bad spells into your spell slots, but there comes a point where that stops being due to bad luck and becomes a skill issue. A low-level Wizard who doesn't yet know fully how the game works might be blameless when they stumble upon a cinder rat that's immune to ignition, noxious vapors, and sleep, but when you have literal dozens of spell slots to play with, it becomes trivially easy to vary your damage...

Nobody said anything about having ONLY bad spells in your spell slots - but sometimes, you do have A COUPLE spells that aren't a perfect fit for the situation. You'd really like another AOE spell but you spent all those you had on your top slots and are stuck with a single target slow and a fly spell. If merely one of your slots during the day (two if spell blending) feels less useful than it should, then your whole advantage is canceled.

I appreciate that you think it's all down to preparation, scouting and being clever, but you cannot tell me that those situations don't happen - they do, even with the perfect spell list.

No matter which way you slice it, this is nine extra spell slots of your three highest ranks. We can complain about spell preparation all we want; a Wizard that can cast nearly double the amount of top-rank slots as a Sorcerer while also having the benefits of an arcane thesis on top is going to be stronger than a Sorcerer, and by a lot. Unless you're completely bungling your spell preparation at higher levels, you will be able to prepare useful spells into your top-rank slots, and that is enough for such a benefit to be far too strong.

Well, I know we don't agree on this but at least the discussion is more civil now.

It's true that a spellblending specialized wizard will have two more top slots than a sorcerer. I wrote a guide about the spellblending wizard back in the days, and I emphasized how much of a boon that was. I made the exact same point you're making now.

But "back in the days", the wizard could pilfer dangerous sorcery through multiclass, and ancestral memories gave a RK bonus instead of helping land a spell.

If we're talking numbers, most damage spells have a +2D6/level progression (average +7 damage/lvl). This means that starting at lvl 7, a sorcerer casting a level 4 spell and a lvl 3 spell will deal on average the exact same damage as a wizard casting TWO level 4 spells. And the discrepancy only grows from there: at level 15, my level 7 slots are now as powerful as your level 8 ones when it comes to damage. And if I add foretell harm or explosion of power in the mix, the sorcerer can actually cast spells two levels down and still be as powerful as the wizard.

So the wizard is left with debuff spells that are undoubtedly powerful (looking at you, mass slow) but not always useful and even there the imperial sorcerer can lock down someone more easily.

So it's not that spellblending isn't strong - it is - but it has been indirectly nerfed now that you cannot deal as much damage, while the sorcerer has been hugely buffed. Some people might call for a sorcerer nerf, I'd much rather have a wizard buff.

Also, like I said in my previous post, the lack of flexibility in a turn-by-turn basis can be crippling, even with a great spell list. If after a few fights the only thing you have left as a top slot is a fireball and the opponents are meleeing with your party, you might as well not have it.

Well, I know we don't all agree on this but even with some kind of divination mechanism that would allow the wizard to tailor your spell list to the challenges that lay ahead, he would still perform more poorly than a spontaneous spellcaster, just because flexibility on the spot is more important than flexibility on a daily basis when we're talking about fighting.

As for utility, sure, it can be useful to slot specific spells in a given day, even though it doesn't come up that often in our games and scrolls can usually cover the most niche application.

But even if your DM lets you map a whole dungeon and you know for a certainty what you'll face, it won't help you that much.

For instance, being able to switch between AOEs and single target spells at will depending on the way the opponents position themsleves will always be better than slotting an hypothetic silver bullet spell that hardly exists in PF2E (maybe against lycanthrops ?).

So the changes to the wizard should make him more powerful in a fight, not more efficient in OOC activities.

Blue_frog wrote:

So the spontaneous caster and the prepared caster actually need the same level of system mastery to operate at full steam

Sort of disagree. The limited, fixed repertoire definitely adds a layer of decision making to the sorcerer, but an important thing is that you're only making those decisions at level up, and you can choose to lean on more evergreen options in order to reduce overhead and remain broadly useful.

The prepared caster on the other hand is making that judgement call every single day, and not just in terms of which spells but in quantity as well. That adds a lot of extra work to any given adventuring day, and a sorcerer never has to worry about having too few or too many fireballs like a wizard does.

It's problematic enough that some less experienced players I've had eventually just give up and play their wizards like s@!!ty sorcerers and just stop changing their loadout, especially if a daily transition happens mid session and they're worried about making everyone wait.

Oh, I totally agree that the wizard needs to make that call every day, which is why I said it added some book keeping and judgement calls.

But the system mastery you need doesn't change: in both cases, you'll be more effective if you know which spells are best in which situation, and what you should take.

I gave these example a few posts ago, but everybody in the forums will tell you that Slow is a staple and that you should take it. But in a melee-heavy group, maybe roaring applause would be more effective. They'll tell you that lvl 3 fear is awesome and that's true, but it lacks some steam if you have a bard who wants to use dirge. And so on, and so forth.

The issue is that a sorcerer with average spells will come out ahead of the non-spell substitution wizard with average spells at the end of the day because as resources dwindle, the wizard becomes really restricted in what they can do and no high rank sorcerer spell slot is useless in an encounter, while a depleted wizard might very well be out of good options with those top slots. And this is a situation fairly common in the hardest part of APs, where a severe or extreme encounter might be sitting after a string of 3 or 4 moderate or less encounters, so it really feels noticeable at the moment where it matters the most. Even the spell substitution wizard can end up in a bind, even if they generally know what kind of threat is ahead but don’t have 10 minutes between finding out at triggering the encounter. That is why I think some feat/feature or focus spell that let wizards switch a spell slot with something in their book would really be the best way to solve the general malaise players seem to have around the Wizard having to have perfect preparation to play effectively. You’d still have to know what spells are in your book, but if it was fairly limited (by day, by action cost, by focus point/etc) then it would prevent the “I have absolutely no spell to help in this encounter.” Which I think is the experience that can be most detracting for Wizard players.

I totally agree.

The problem is that a wizard is very bad at reacting to the unexpected, when it should be the opposite. If you slotted combat spells and suddenly find yourself in an infiltration situation because the opposition is too dangerous, or if you expected trolls and took fire spells but suddenly meet a Brimorak, you'll find some slots become dead weight.

So either you try to slot as many different spells as possible in your daily list, but then you don't have the same firepower as a spontaneous caster - or you use the prepared spellcaster strength and tailor the list everyday to specialize in some action - but then you're SoL when things don't go as planned. And even with some recall knowledge checks, even with scouting eye, even with careful planning, things will inevitably go south one day.

Which is why I'd love for the wizard to have some kind of easy "on the fly" adjustment to his playlist, like the lvl 18 feat I was talking about.

No they don't have to have anywhere near as much knowledge of spells. A sorcerer player can easily go on a forum and ask what spells should I get to be a good sorcerer. People will give them a list and thats all they need to know. it will work.

They'll certainly work, but they won't be as effective as someone who actually knows what he's doing.

I still love the wizard as my favorite class in PF2, but being the full time childcare provider for an infant turned toddler, who doesn't let me sleep, or play in games with even 50% of my old ability to focus has illuminated some aspects of the class for me.

Haha, I know that feeling ^^

1. It should have traded places with the sorcerer so people don't think of the wizard as the basic "entry" caster, like the cleric or the bard are. This is because especially at the mid to high level, the wizard is class that requires a lot of mental bandwidth, organization and game knowledge to play well. There is a logic to that that I personally like, but what other class puts as much burden on the player to be good at the things that make the class function effectively? Minimally this should remove the wizard from the "basic caster" conversation.

It has been said a lot and a lot of people think that somehow, a wizard is hard to play but that its mastery is worth it because of a higher ceiling.

I don't think it's the case in comparison to other casters. You might think being a prepared caster is harder because you have to know all spells by heart and you have a lot of bookkeeping. I agree about the bookkeeping, but someone playing a spontaneous caster has to have the same system mastery to choose their list. In order to tailor their small spell repertoire and get the best bang for their bucks, they HAVE to know every spell as well, and have to make tough choices. Is Cave Fangs better than Fireball considering I have a lot of ranged friends ? Is rousing applause better than slow since my martials all have AOOs ? Is fear worth it even if our bard uses dirge of doom ? What should I take for scouting purpose, scouting eye or spy's mark ?

So the spontaneous caster and the prepared caster actually need the same level of system mastery to operate at full steam, and a sorcerer who doesn't know the spells very well and takes only the staple will probably suffer and find himself short for options. The fact that the prepared caster can change his spell selection daily adds a layer of complexity to the process, but not to the thinking involved.

A wizard who wants to be at peak efficiency has to know what every spell does - but then so does a sorcerer.