Darksol the Painbringer's page

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Unicore wrote:

No one is saying the “college” you attend couldn’t be the local eccentric wizard who lives in a tower and has a library.

But those books came from somewhere. The knowledge has been built up and passed down by scholars contributing their own research. That is all these schools require.

"Crazy mad wizard guy in a tower" is not the same as a school, nor is it enough to justify being able to learn spells from a school of magic; I'd have a hard time justifying that compared to "I'm genetically related to arcane beings and draw upon that power," or "I worship the guy who literally invented arcane magic and he gives me power because of it."

Another problem is that this turns into a "I learned everything from this book, because if it's not written down by some arbitrary resource, I can't figure it out for myself," which is just bad design.

None of your conjecture here is based on anything but bad will towards a change you don’t like. The word “school” is applied to very many things that are not formal institutions. There 100% can still be wizards in places where formal colleges of magic don’t exist, but there will be a tradition of how that magic gets passed along. That is all your school has to be as a wizard.

That's a disingenuous statement. My conjecture is based on the fact that I find the scope of the Wizard class' altered existence too focused in its application and feels more like a PF1 Prestige class or a PF2 Regional Archetype than a core class.

And honestly, that's basically my point: A formal institution shouldn't be required to learn how to cast spells, but the flavor of the class implies that not only is it required, but it's also the only way.

I mean, in a fantasy setting how do you expect people to learn to be Blacksmiths, or Cabinetmakers, or Bakers? They worked as apprentices to people who had mastered the craft and eventually learned enough to go out on their own. I don't see any reason that Wizards couldn't or shouldn't work the same way.

And though "the guy with the tower in the woods with an extensive library" is probably not a school of magic unto himself, he probably learned from, or his master probably learned from, or someone up the line probably learned from a curriculum at a more established institution.

So it's not like "you learned magic at war magic college" so much as "you learned from a Wizard who learned magic at war magic college".

I mean, even if you found a book in an abandoned home and taught yourself magic that way, it's entirely possible that the book was published by "War Magic College Press". Complete autodidact Wizards have to be pretty rare since, like, it was a big deal when Jatembe did it.

The big difference is that is 1 on 1 direct training with actual practice, whereas the other one is more of a classroom paradigm, where the professors parrots out information and you write it down to remember and then maybe try out on your own later as homework; they are significantly different, to the point that they are barely even in the same concept.

But that's ultimately the problem: The only source for arcane magic, whether directly or indirectly, is from a collegiate institution publication. There is no individual researching, there's no ancient text from some abandoned ruins; it's all college-affiliated, which hurts flavor options significantly in my opinion, especially since not all Wizards are college attendees or graduates.

I'd need to refresh myself on who Jatembe is; the name sounds familiar, but I could easily be misremembering it, but technically that would probably have to be retconned, since it's apparently impossible to be self-taught or self-learned as a Wizard with the current paradigm.

No one is saying the “college” you attend couldn’t be the local eccentric wizard who lives in a tower and has a library.

But those books came from somewhere. The knowledge has been built up and passed down by scholars contributing their own research. That is all these schools require.

"Crazy mad wizard guy in a tower" is not the same as a school, nor is it enough to justify being able to learn spells from a school of magic; I'd have a hard time justifying that compared to "I'm genetically related to arcane beings and draw upon that power," or "I worship the guy who literally invented arcane magic and he gives me power because of it."

Another problem is that this turns into a "I learned everything from this book, because if it's not written down by some arbitrary resource, I can't figure it out for myself," which is just bad design.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Given that Strength of Thousands is probably the only thing in 2E that has been established with having substantiative lore behind spellcasting academies, it seems the popularity of that AP is going to be the norm for Wizards going forward, which again, I don't much care for, since not all Wizards are mere attendees or graduates from "Ye Olde Magicke College."

Well, the Magaambya is canonically the oldest, largest, and most prestigious magic college on Golarion so if we start asserting there is its like all over, then that sort of undermines the lore.

But Wizard magic was always supposed to be the sort of magic you learned the way people learn Calculus or Quantum Electrodynamics. There are certainly people who read a book and learn it that way, but they're rare or people who already have a considerable theoretical basis from prior education.

Probably the most common way is "practicing wizards take apprentices because they need people for household tasks."

Having spellcasting academies are fine. I can accept that certain regions treat magic as so prevalent and prestigious that it can be common enough for spellcasting professors to work and train upcoming attendees. I can't accept that it's the only way for people to learn Arcane magic, though, and as it stands, that's what the current Wizard lore is extrapolating, which is that the only way Arcane magic can be learned is from that.

As for "it's rare, so the idea that people are self-taught isn't really a valid story to tell" kind of goes out the window when we consider that the PCs are expressly considered to be those rare special "snowflake" types, and it invalidates the concept of people being able to teach people when it was never inherently learned by someone. Unless the lore established that Nethys invented Arcane magic and taught the first inhabitants of Golarion how to cast Arcane magic.

I would expect NPCs to function that way, but I'm pretty sure most players don't want to play a PC that is a glorified "Ye Olde Magicke Secretary."

I mean the PF2 wizard already added in the concept that your character has developed and written a thesis within the field of arcane magical knowledge by the time they are level 1. The academic study stuff was already written into the class from the start of the edition. This is only doubling down on the direction the class was already being taken in.

This had no mechanical impact on a character though, and could basically be handwaved away. You didn't really have to make a character who wrote a thesis and used it as a means of preparing spells. Making it now have mechanical weight means you can't handwave it to tell the story you want; it's hard-baked into the class that now you must be a character that has come from a college and wrote a thesis which determines the basis of your spellcasting. You can't be self-taught, you can't be taught from a specific master, etc.

I love magic having "in-world" fundamental mechanics, having a sciency feel to it. However, I've felt for a long time that the existing spell schools were poorly defined and really should have been overhauled into a much more robust set of categories based on what spells fundamentally are affecting. These changes instead go the entirely opposite direction to what I'd prefer - quite frustrating! In-world schools that teach buckets of spells just does nothing for me thematically (all wizards I've played in the past were either self-taught or studied under an individual mentor).

I'm particularly concerned that the new schools will significantly limit your "school" slot. Since the school lists can't be easily expanded as future books come out, you can be stuck with unimpressive or disliked options for your school slot. Sorcerer already has this problem with their bloodlines, where bad spells are taking up space in your repertoire. It'd be worse with wizards if your school slot is locked in to accept one of these spells.

Given that Strength of Thousands is probably the only thing in 2E that has been established with having substantiative lore behind spellcasting academies, it seems the popularity of that AP is going to be the norm for Wizards going forward, which again, I don't much care for, since not all Wizards are mere attendees or graduates from "Ye Olde Magicke College."

I also don't know how these colleges just let these Wizards go out into the world unprepared and unattending within their listed curriculum; don't they have classes that they have to teach them with which? Where's Necromancy 101? Even if there is an explanation, it limits the concept to being "I'm still a wizard in training," unless we want to say that a Wizard character is considered a graduate, in which case it's still a forced roleplay hook, because maybe some people want to roleplay the "amateur Wizard growing up to be a true master" type of character, or some other, more self-sufficient character.

It's also hard to say how their new slots will work from the current implementation. I think they should simply be a straight 4 slot class and not have to prepare spells with certain schools if they don't want to, since they are changing how schools work to the point that it's at-best a vestigial restriction.

That makes a bit of sense. But then why would the death state state that you are reduced to 0 HP, when you then instantly turn into a corpse object with >0 HP. That feels weird to me.

I am not saying this wouldn't be cheesy or OP or that it should be allowed, I am talking strictly RAW.

"When you die, you are reduced to 0 Hit Points if you had a different amount, and you can’t be brought above 0 Hit Points as long as you remain dead"

You die with more than 0 HP "You don't get reduced to 0 HP", and then the death state reduces you to 0 HP. That's separate from eachother.
Instantly slain
Dies -> Reduced to 0 HP
Becomes a corpse with X HP

The only thing I can assume is the case is that it is referring to your HP as a creature, not as your HP as an object, and that it is at best a general rule.

The Petrified condition states that as an object, your current HP reflects your object HP, and that when it hits 0, you're considered destroyed (AKA dead). This serves as a specific case where creature HP and object HP are synonymous with themselves, whereas otherwise it is not, and it also serves to demonstrate that objects don't follow the Dying rules.

But the instant death rules (regardless of Death trait being present or not) do state that you bypass the 0 HP/Dying rules and instantly receive the Dead condition, so it's specific trumps general, regardless of what this general rule is telling us.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

kekssideoflife wrote:

What makes you think you BECOME the corpse?

I can't even this question right now.

This isn't a game where dead creatures like humanoids or animals whisk away into dust or flash into nothingness after stabbing them with a sword like in Legend of Zelda or whatever PG-13 RPG game you want to insert as an example, so saying that a dead creature doesn't become a corpse when you kill them is absurd.

I would accept that argument for summoned creatures (since they are merely simulacra made via magical energy), probably even extraplanar creatures, just as an example, but those are expressly different both mechanically and in-lore; stabbing a regular human in the face with a regular sword and not expecting them to be dead and consequently turn into a corpse is absurd even for this game where fire-breathing dragons and magic and divine power are an expected norm.

I didn't say that you don't leave a corpse. But you definitely do not become an object. How you missed that is beyond me to be honest.

IF you become an object as you claim, then tell me how Resurrect would work on you RAW? Since it only targets dead creatures.

I didn't miss it, because your argument is basically saying what I expressed prior. And it's simple transitive property rules. Creature becomes corpse, a corpse is an object, therefore, creature becomes object. It's the same logic behind petrification, and it's not much different besides the whole "turn to stone" thing, but that has its own specifics there.

Consequently, dead creature is just a specific type of object. Resurrect wouldn't work if you targeted a mug or a plate because it's not a dead creature, but it would work if you targeted a corpse (or even as you say, a steak, since a steak is just a part of a creature's corpse).

Point is, bringing up the whole "0 HP" thing as a means to cheese a specific rules system doesn't work with the premise that objects have HP too, and if a dead creature (which is an object) defaults to 0 HP, then it defaults to being a destroyed object, which just doesn't make sense as a blanket statement given that not all corpses of dead creatures are destroyed objects. If the idea is that the corpse is an object, which has HP, plus a break threshold equal to half of the maximum HP, then it can't just default to 0 HP and trigger effects which require 0 HP.

What makes you think you BECOME the corpse?

I can't even this question right now.

This isn't a game where dead creatures like humanoids or animals whisk away into dust or flash into nothingness after stabbing them with a sword like in Legend of Zelda or whatever PG-13 RPG game you want to insert as an example, so saying that a dead creature doesn't become a corpse when you kill them is absurd.

I would accept that argument for summoned creatures (since they are merely simulacra made via magical energy), probably even extraplanar creatures, just as an example, but those are expressly different both mechanically and in-lore; stabbing a regular human in the face with a regular sword and not expecting them to be dead and consequently turn into a corpse is absurd even for this game where fire-breathing dragons and magic and divine power are an expected norm.

Or they could not. It sounds like we will see this strategy of moving towards debatable metaphysics play out in rage of elements too. Different places don’t really believe in different elemental planes or don’t comceptualize them as planes. We really don’t need formal categories of spells. Even traditions are fairly fluid now for most classes so I think we have a good chance of seeing that with schools of magic too.

I don't think regional beliefs count as mechanical fact. If there was a region that didn't believe in deities (i.e. a region that practices the Laws of Mortality), does that mean deities aren't real in the game world?

Otherwise, I would agree with this if there weren't effects that are handled differently solely based on those factors. Wall of Force ignores Teleportation effects, for example. There is a creature that literally eats Evocation magic as another example. Both of these I have seen in actual play.

The fact that those exist means that either A. those categories have meaning and should be reinforced (even if forcibly changed) to maintain their effects, or B. those problematic options also need to be changed in order to accommodate the new changes. In my opinion, there are a lot more issues from B that can slip through the cracks than A, meaning A is the easier/quicker fix for Paizo to implement.

Well, they aren't contradictory anymore, so there's that, at least.

The thing is, if we really wanted objective, scientific schools, we'd probably need fewer of them. The difference between Evocation, Conjuration and Abjuration was confused at best. Evocation is for elements and energies, except when you conjure those elements and energies. Wall of Force is an evocation spell, because you're controlling force energy, but shield is abjuration, because you're using it to protect someone, but fire shield is evocation, because, because, because, and so on and so on.

I'm referencing 3.5's spell categorizations here, by the way.

Well, they have already categorized the Elemental spell list, so as far as I'm concerned, half of the effort is already done by Paizo; the other half is just them following through with it for the other spells, and then categorizing them as schools of magic.

QuidEst wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Excuse me, Harry Potter is a discount Anchor Root.

I don't understand.

Anchor Root is a very popular character from the Strength of Thousands campaign. She has a twitter now.

We also need to divorce ourselves from the idea that Harry Potter was particularly original or influential in the whole genre of "young people go to school to learn magic" since like Wizard of Earthsea was 1963, and even She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named admits she was influenced by "The Worst Witch" which was first published in 1974. Hell, even Wheel of Time beat HP to the punch with the whole "youths at magic school" idea and that's one of 90,000 separate plot threads.

It was certainly super popular, but not actually the best example of anything.

Original, no. Influential, absolutely. This is like saying Pathfinder isn't influential because it's just based on D&D (which was based on a war game, but I don't know how solid the basis for that claim is). Point is, being a derivative work doesn't mean it's not influential, and saying it's not demonstrates a misunderstanding of causality and also undermines the entire work that Paizo is attempting to do here with its inclusion angle.

Popularity isn't always about being the best, either. Plenty of popular things are actually relatively bad for you to do, but people do it anyway due to things like peer pressure.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

All Wizards are currently discount Harry Potters until they clarify it in the setting, and my character is now no different than that by proxy.

So you have chosen to assert a headcanon, explicitly for the purpose of being upset about it?

I mean to each their own I guess but I feel like that's a pretty wild way to approach making characters.

To be clear, that is what the OP has stated is what is going on with the class:

One of the most interesting and exciting changes that the remastery is introducing (by necessity) is the elimination of what I will call the old-schools of magic, replacing them with actual "schools of magic," meaning that your school of magic as a wizard is the actual school you attended to learn your wizardry and it will determine your starting spells in your spell book and possibly some additional elements of the class, probably along the lines of focus spells, if focus spells are still a part of the class at all anymore.

So, if that's not what is actually happening, then it's misleading, which I highly doubt is the case. And if it is actually what was said on the panel, then it's not an assertion, it's cold hard fact that a Wizard has to have learned their magic from a spellcasting school; especially considering the Strength of Thousands AP being all about the PCs being students at a spellcasting school.

Your character isn't invalidated, though. "School of X" doesn't have to be a literal school. See: the school of life, the school of hard knocks, schools of thought, etc. In this case, your character self-taught using notes from the school of protean form, which is what fleshwarping falls under. It's like saying that patrons becoming more evocatively mysterious invalidates a Witch who knows who their patron is- it was always a little off of the class's directly presented fantasy, but remains just as valid now as before.

We don't really know how that works. At the very least, an equivalent to universalist is still kicking around.

Wizards' advanced focus spells have some bangers. High-level illusionists can spend all day invisible without touching their spell slots, necromancers get healing in the arcane list as a spell rider, diviners get one action Clairvoyance with six times the duration, extendable to all day. Witch has two common greater hexes that have to be taken two levels greater, and they're both worse than any of those. I get complaining about the intro focus spells, absolutely, but the 8th level focus spells are generally really good.

... Huh? The whole point is that spells and Wizard subclasses aren't going to be tied to eight schools anymore? And I really don't see why they'd replace thesis when this pretty clearly replaces the schools of magic subclass part of Wizard. Sorry, just not following this paragraph.

The difference is that the rules there point out that it doesn't have to be handled that way. Unless the revision also points this out, I will accept the interpretation of "You must come from a Ye Olde Magick School of Hogwarts" as being the only existing option to being a Wizard, not unlike "Paladin" being the only existing Cause to the Champion class in the playtest, because another one doesn't technically exist within the confines of the class. Even if there is an argument that there can be, until it's printed, it's all conjecture. All Wizards are currently discount Harry Potters until they clarify it in the setting, and my character is now no different than that by proxy.

Picking a School to specialize in (or just not specializing at all) had mechanical impacts on your character, where you got bonus slots specifically for that School of spell (meaning if I wanted more Evocation slots, I'd have to be an Evoker, and so on), or you had additional uses of your Bonded Item for each spell level you could cast if you were a Universalist. Telling people to play a specific subclass means I now have to pick mechanics that I don't like just to be able to pick/learn the spells that I want (because one spell I might like not on my list can't be learned now), when previously, I never had to make that sacrifice. This mechanic already exists in the Runelord Dedication tree, which was purely opt-in; let's not make it a core class feature where you can't cast X spells if you take Y school. By the way, where are my Occult tradition Wizards?

I've never seen anyone tout School Focus Powers as being anything special, and that's mostly because they aren't. The Illusion one you say is "a banger" is pretty meh in a combat situation, especially in the higher levels, where enemies can see through it on a regular basis (which invalidates its usage for safety and scouting). It might be neat from an out-of-combat standpoint, but it also requires good Stealth, which isn't a guarantee, and one bad roll leads to being discovered and chased. Necromancers self-healing as a Reaction shouldn't be used regularly if they're utilizing their positioning, otherwise it's just plain bad, and the Clairvoyance is pretty niche in use, unless you're scouting and/or keeping watch. Witch Focus spells are bad, but Wizards are probably worse.

If they're trying to do away with the 8 schools of magic, which I suspect is because of the OGL, then it's going to be very tough for the Wizard class to not be cookie cutter spell lists of specific spells (think of the current Elemental list currently available), since there is now no means of which to identify what sort of spells behave in what manners. And if they're not trying to do away with that, then it's a reinvention of a wheel that is already, in my opinion, still pretty damn functional, in which case I don't know what sort of problem this change is expected to solve.

The Remastered panel at Paizo Con today was really enlightening about SO many things that trying to jam them all in one thread feels impossible. One of the most interesting and exciting changes that the remastery is introducing (by necessity) is the elimination of what I will call the old-schools of magic, replacing them with actual "schools of magic," meaning that your school of magic as a wizard is the actual school you attended to learn your wizardry and it will determine your starting spells in your spell book and possibly some additional elements of the class, probably along the lines of focus spells, if focus spells are still a part of the class at all anymore.

This means that Golarion Wizards really are going to look a lot different than other game's wizards as there are nearly a limitless number of potential schools of magic across Golarion. The one's mentioned in the panel today (that I remember) include a school of battle wizardry that is going to include a lot of evocation options, but also martial battlefield control options like Earthbind, which would be "must learn spells" for any wizard that is going to be casting spells alongside an army. I think this means that you are likely to have some higher level spells in your starting spellbook right from the start, as they are resources your school gives you as you graduate. The other two that I remember being talked about is a school of universal something (which is like the generic wizardy wizard school) and a school with a really cool name that I don't remember that is about bodily transformation and nature magic that i think will respond well to the "this game doesn't support a good transmuter" line of criticism.

I can't imagine we won't get an illusionist school of mirages and misdirection as well as a cheliaxian school of devil summoning. But eventually we could get lots of different options which could include feats as well as spells.

One hypothetical example of how this will let them really break the old molds in the future is...

I'm not sure how I feel about this, because this feels like it's an overextending restriction; does my character really have to come from a school that teaches magic? What if I don't want my character to be some "Ye Olde Magick College Graduate" like Harry Potter? My previous Wizard character was self-taught after he stole the research notes of a Dark Elf fleshwarper who used magic to amplify his projects; this character is now invalidated by this straight-jacketing of flavor.

And why should my spells be pre-chosen for me when the Wizard class was almost always defined as being the most versatile of the spellcasters (via preparation and spell learning)? It feels more like they're trying to "cookie cutter" the Wizard class, which is only going to help beginners, and basically neuter the more advanced players by pigeon-holing them into specific spell selections. And the worst part is, the suggested class paths within each class write-up already does this, both to have "cookie cutter" builds, and to guide the newbies; why turn it into a major feature of the class?

Most every spellcasting class has Focus Spells in some fashion, the Wizard being the odd one out for Focus Spells seems like a really bad design choice, plus nobody is saying that Wizard Focus Spells should go away, they just need to be better. Force Bolt is ironically the best Focus Spell that Wizards get, and it's just a bona fide 1 action Magic Missile restricted to 30 feet. (And Magi get this in the form of the Force Fang feat.) The rest are usually so bad that they aren't worth mentioning. And the Advanced School powers are never worth the feat expenditure. Also, lacking a "Greater" School Power feat really hurts the class' feat parity in the later levels, since Sorcerers and Witches and all the other classes with Focus Spells basically get them.

The whole "limitless potential of schools" makes no sense when the game has already defined that there are 8 schools of magic; Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, and Transmutation. At best, I suspect the "schools of magic" will replace the Arcane Thesis feature (which is honestly one that I would have expected to stay, since it's not copied from D&D), but that's just a poor decision when all they need to do is buff the Arcane Theses (and maybe add a few more so that people don't always pick the same two that are actually "good").

I think having region-specific spells could be a fun option (at least for adventure paths), but this falls under the same issues as the old D&D spells (such as the old Acid Arrow and X Hand spells), and having a class' power defined by their regional availability feels really, really bad. It would be like saying a Fighter can only take X feat if they are from Y region or have access to Z weapon. And this is only more amplified if the option is extremely good. Class power restricted by regional availability sounds like a no-no in design to me.

I merely listed common examples, it's not an exhaustive list.

I suppose that technically, Wall of Force doesn't really override or change any of the LoE rules, since it still remains a "solid physical barrier," and it stating that it "blocks physical effects" is a redundancy, not a specific change (because it doesn't say it doesn't block other effects as part of it).

Man, so many people sleeping on this spell (myself included) to be a complete "F you" to enemy spellcasters.

The concept is that your magic needed to start a fireball cannot pass through the Wall of Force so you cannot use it through it. Only visual effects that starts from casters that can pass through the Wall of Force and can hit targets in the other side.

Imagine it as an armored glass that allows visible light to pass through, but not infrared (glasses in general are opaque to infrared light), and infrared in this case would be magic (force).

As for alignment effects, I really don't know how it behaves. Considering them as physical seems a bit far-fetched here.

Anyway, I don't doubt that soon they will see something else (like force) with the Holy/Unholy trait and the interpretation will change again.

Well, by RAW, it's neither teleportation nor visual, and it has a physical manifestation, so it's physical and by proxy it won't work.

That changes if you instead use Mental spells, though, like Phantasmal Killer, since there is no physical effect to it.

Man, this spell just got insanely more powerful when actually adhering to RAW.

Otherwise, fine, I will concede to the RAW, even though IMO it doesn't make sense in the case of Fireball.

We have discussed this at length previously.

To summarize:

The ruling that line of effect is needed for all spells and that Wall of Force blocks line of effect is generally considered the correct interpretation.

There is a bit of wiggle room because of the wording of Spell Targeting saying that you only need to be able to see the target of the spell (which may include the origin point of a burst spell).

There are also some strange cases that strict RAW causes regarding things like shooting a pistol at a target on the other side of a thin pane of glass. That would be prevented because you don't have line of effect with the pistol to the other side of the glass pane.

Depends on if the glass pane is attended or not. If unattended and covers the whole creature, yes, the attack would affect the glass first and by RAW do nothing to the creature (though I personally would houserule otherwise, depending on circumstance). If attended, it's a held object and doesn't provide any sort of terrain benefits to the character, since it likely doesn't have rules similar to Tower Shields.

Even though the spell says that it just appears?

A roaring blast of fire appears at a spot you designate, dealing 6d6 fire damage.

Fireball wouldn't be blocked because the Fireball simply originates in a square of your choosing, it doesn't travel through the wall, so it shouldn't be blocked by the wall. This was a change made from the 1E version, which traveled from your square to the target area.

And the Wall of Force is invisible, so it doesn't block line of sight, which is basically all you need for Fireball to work.

Now, the explosion wouldn't travel past the wall, but you could put up a Wall of Force and then originate Fireballs on the other side without issue.

With the larger role of edicts and anathema, will they have mechanical weight for more characters?

Given that the edicts and anathemas of ancestries seems more roleplay-specific than mechanics-specific, I suspect that the consequences will likewise be roleplay-specific than mechanics-specific.

For example, some towns (or residents of the same ancestry as you, at least) might look unfavorably upon you or act against you if you don't follow the edicts or embrace the anathemas of your own ancestry.

Maybe I'm not reading the feat correctly, but based on my initial interpretation of the new feat, it seems that a Chain Lightning effect wouldn't fulfill the trigger for the reaction, but a Polar Ray or Finger of Death would, which is...bizarre. Nor would the feat seem to trigger on critical hits/failures, which is even more bizarre.

I'm otherwise fine with the write-up. It's vague enough to make it apply to a broad spectrum, but specific enough to define the ancestry (though maybe some more Ancestry feats involving the Clan Dagger would be nice if it's meant to be a crucial part of their culture). People reading into more than what's written up sounds more like personal problems than objective issues to me.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

If anything, the "HP" clause in the Death rules make no sense, because once you are dead, you cease to be a creature and instead become an object (AKA corpse), meaning your "HP" is adjusted to be that of the durability and hardness of a corpse of your size, which probably isn't much, but also isn't 0 either. Either way, tracking HP of a corpse or defaulting it to 0 makes no sense, especially if it's, say, used to raise undead, which means it just never becomes undead since it remains at 0 HP and is forcibly destroyed by general undead rules. These all fall under the Too Bad to Be True clause, which means that odds are, the concept of "You're at 0 HP as a corpse" is simply false.

Your talent for creative writing is impressive. I am not sure why you felt it was necessary to quote rules at me that I had already cited from a valid source. I assure you, I read them.

When you die you are reduced to 0 HP. This is a pretty clear rule and is an on topic discussion for this forum. I am not familiar with the "Too Bad To Be True clause" can you cite a source for that? Your example of creating an undead, while very entertaining, seems out of place here. An undead is not dead, it is undead. Exactly what it says on the tin, if you will. The actual rules as published by Paizo plainly state "and you can’t be brought above 0 Hit Points as long as you remain dead." so I really have no idea why you think that prohibits Create Undead.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Just as well, you're ignoring the TGTBT clause, where a party can "wombo-combo" this regardless of whether the abilities were meant to be balanced around this being possible, which I can assure you, it probably isn't.

As for this tasteful parting shot, may I direct your attention here?

ReyalsKanras wrote:

In the interests of fair and balanced commentary, I only see two problems. First, this part of Death effects:

Nethys wrote:

If an effect states it kills you outright, you die without having to

...

If you read them, then I am confused as to how you come to the conclusion that by RAW, the effects would double-tap, when by RAW, it shouldn't, because instant death (especially one not from a death effect) bypasses the HP and Dying rules, meaning the trigger should never take place if the creature never reaches that HP threshold. You are arguing it does by RAW, so it should trigger by RAW, when I am saying by RAW it does not and cannot.

The "Too Bad to Be True" is basically the inverse of "Too Good to Be True;" that is, Paizo wouldn't purposefully print useless/improper rules that either don't make sense or are superfluous in the grand scheme of the game. This isn't to say that they won't print niche rules (such as Armor Assist), but that the rules should at least accomplish something. In this case, causing a corpse to have 0 HP doesn't work because then the body is destroyed by nature of it being an object, therefore effects which require a body (such as Raise Dead) don't work, because in short, there is no longer a dead creature present by nature of the body of said creature being destroyed. This isn't like your typical PG-13 RPG game where enemies phase out or turn to dust when you defeat them, and drop lootables/coins/gold bars/whatever.

The "Too Good to Be True" rule is already referenced above. In short, being able to "double tap" effects in an attempt to circumvent an obvious limitation put forth by the rules (such as purposefully triggering a feature that requires a specific circumstance to arise and consequently circumventing or bending the rules to meet those circumstances) falls under that clause.

Tactical Drongo wrote:

Also there seem to be by Design no advanced favored weapons anymore

There's always Achaekek and his sawtooth sabers, though that's the exception that prooves the rule. Sawtooth sabers were made to be Achaekek's weapons, and they were meant to be tricky to use without sufficient training, so they sort of had to be advanced, but it also made zero sense for Achaekek's worshipers to not know how to use them.

What's funny is that, while Achaekek Clerics have proficiency in this weapon, Achaekek Champions do not; they merely only get access to it.

It does also mean that an Achaekek Cleric can go into Red Mantis Assassin dedication in spite of other more suitable classes that should be able to.

One guy made a million layer damascus knife. It's actually not that hard to do, the process is that you stack a number of different materials, say 5, forge weld them together, draw them out, cut it into pieces (say 5), stack them and now you have 25 layers. Do this again and you have 125 layers. Do this again and you have 625 layers. etc.

So you can see how anybody can get a big number from a fairly simple process. There's just no real need to cut and restack like 15 times.

I can agree with this, and if anything, it can cause even more problems with the blade's structural integrity, since it introduces more opportunities for the welds to fail and therefore create weakspots, delaminations, cold shuts, etc. inside the blade.

When going for a decorative look, going anything over, say, 250 layers of metal, has diminishing returns. You might still have a pattern, but it becomes less and less of a stark contrast the more layers you add, since the layers are so compressed that they're basically all melded together into one.

-snip-

Um, yes it does. It says in the spell description that the target is immediately slain. Here's what the rules say about that:

If an effect states it kills you outright, you die without having to reach dying 4 and without being reduced to 0 Hit Points.

So no Dying 4 and no 0 HP. You're just dead. That's it.

Also, the entire clause there is titled Death Effects and Instant Death, not just Death Effects, meaning it covers both concepts. Favoring the one because it comes first in the entry doesn't really track if it involves rules that it doesn't govern.

If anything, the "HP" clause in the Death rules make no sense, because once you are dead, you cease to be a creature and instead become an object (AKA corpse), meaning your "HP" is adjusted to be that of the durability and hardness of a corpse of your size, which probably isn't much, but also isn't 0 either. Either way, tracking HP of a corpse or defaulting it to 0 makes no sense, especially if it's, say, used to raise undead, which means it just never becomes undead since it remains at 0 HP and is forcibly destroyed by general undead rules. These all fall under the Too Bad to Be True clause, which means that odds are, the concept of "You're at 0 HP as a corpse" is simply false.

Just as well, you're ignoring the TGTBT clause, where a party can "wombo-combo" this regardless of whether the abilities were meant to be balanced around this being possible, which I can assure you, it probably isn't.

Yeah, I also don't like that Quick Draw is expressly only for weapons, and not for other items, like potions or scrolls (though at least the latter I can understand not permitting for merely an action), or even for items that are stowed in a backpack that you might need to take out.

Going to say that the RAW disagrees, and that even if it didn't, it's TGTBT.

Well yeah PF2E is maybe nice for some but it utterly fails to answer the question who killed Aroden. 1/10 game.

Hey, now, I'm trying to keep a low profile on that!

The Composite Longbow description has your answer:

This projectile weapon is made from horn, wood, and sinew laminated together to increase the power of its pull and the force of its projectile. Like all longbows, its great size also increases the bow’s range and power. You must use two hands to fire it, and it cannot be used while mounted. Any time an ability is specifically restricted to a longbow, such as Erastil’s favored weapon, it also applies to composite longbows unless otherwise stated.

So, the Composite Longbow counts as a Longbow for most every purpose, and specifically lists Deity Favored Weapons as an example. Which means that if the weapon is meant to count as another weapon, it would expressly say so. This sets the precedent of "a weapon doesn't count as something unless it says it does."

This sort of text is lacking from the Scorpion Whip entry, so it doesn't count as a Whip for feats and abilities requiring it.

I personally don't see a balance concern with it working for deity favored weapons, since the only real difference is a rarity tag (which shouldn't exist) and a non-lethal trait missing; it's otherwise the same weapon type, has all the same traits, damage type, dice size, etc., so it's not really gaining or losing anything extremely significant; the weapon having less bulk (which is inconsistent) and costing more (which doesn't make sense since it has equal or less traits) seems more like inconsistent design than it does a serious balance difference. In a home game, I personally don't see an issue in allowing it to work, and this is probably all that a player should concern themselves with. But by RAW, Scorpion Whip is not a Whip, so it doesn't count for abilities and effects expressly requiring the Whip weapon, such as Deity Favored Weapons.

It says to make a melee Strike with a weapon or unarmed attack. Leshy seed pods are unarmed attacks, but aren't melee strikes. So Spellstrike doesn't work with those types of attacks.

You are making things uselessly complicated. Outside special circumstances, like high mobility fights or having your Fighter Slowed, Haste gives you an extra third action every round. The basic third action is a third attack so you can very easily compare it to Electric Arc and see that it's plain bad. Sure, you can find better uses of your third action but you won't get much more oomph out of it. And comparing to single target Electric Arc is comparing to the absolute floor when it comes to spellcasting.

Exchanging a first and second action for third actions is a bad tradeoff, and that's without even counting the spell slot. Haste 3 is a circumstancial spell, using it in a normal fight is a pure waste of actions.

Haste means I can avoid enemy third action attacks via movement without compromising DPR, and/or inflict specialty attacks on the enemy. You might find them useless, but Power Attack works great against high resistance/high AC enemies, Intimidating Strike is an awesome debuff to increase the accuracy of a follow-up Strike (and reduce the offensive prowess of the enemy), and Knockdown has the opportunity to both do that and cause the enemy to waste actions standing up; combined with spending the Hasted action to Stride, that's an enemy wasting 2 actions not attacking anyone. Or, I could try and employ AoOs for that.

And I don't understand why you keep saying you have to use Haste for a third attack when I've said before that the Fighter isn't making 3 attacks. He's only making two. Strawmanning my argument isn't doing your argument any favors, because I've already acknowledged that it's a waste of actions.

It strikes me that if putting heroism on your striker and synthesia on an enemy is enough to demoslih everything a team is facing, perhaps they’re not facing many encounters with multiple enemies.

The more enemies you introduce the less valuable buffs like heroism and debuffs like synth become.

Giving rise to AOEs and battlefield control becoming more useful

Usually because using those effects doesn't warrant that kind of power expenditure. You end up demolishing such encounters without those buffs/debuffs, meaning they are relatively useless.

Using high end spell slots on multiple weak(er) enemies isn't really good from a resource management standpoint, and even then, there are other spells that can accomplish this to relatively similar effect (such as heightened Fear) without needing to burn high end slots.

Makes the Air Bubble reactionary spell much more useful in a combat situation, so I'm all for this interpretation.

I'm not assuming the Fighter is going to Strike 3 times in a round, when they have feats like Knockdown (leading into Improved Knockdown later), Power Attack, and Intimidating Strike in their arsenal; saying they will or should is a disingenuous argument, especially since you already admit it's a bad use of actions.

Attacking twice is enough for them to pull out against the Wizard's DPR with Electric Arc, and is honestly the more fair comparison, since Wizard's Electric Arc is 2 actions; all Haste does is make certain circumstances come out more frequently (such as providing an additional action for Movement, letting the Fighter spend an action for a specialty attack) instead of having to compromise what they can otherwise do on their turn.

Define "normal" circumstances. Against Level-X enemies, it's probably not, given that these are already relatively weak enemies that can just be Crit into oblivion by the Fighter, or can be killed via Electric Arc without much issue. Against on-level enemies, it's debatable, and against Level+X enemies, these are considered boss-tier enemies, which probably isn't the expected "normal" circumstances.

Given that we are discussing boss creatures, buffing Fighter with Haste for feats like Intimidating Strike means they can reduce their Saves and AC for Electric Arc to have more DPR, or Knockdown to potentially reduce enemy actions (not unlike a successfully saved Slow spell), or Power Attack for pure damage bonus (which is 6.5 on average with a D12 weapon, but probably less due to DPR calculations).

At best, you can say that Haste has a lower start point due that it requires a round to set up, but in the case of Power Attack, it accumulates DPR over time; given that it's only one round where you aren't doing an average of 7 damage, and are doing, say, 4, which follows up to 11 afterward, it basically evens itself out after the first round it's triggered, and only improves from there, assuming Fighter is attacking for 3-4 rounds.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

But you aren't targeting the same creature twice with Electric Arc, so it is more like 1/4 damage on a success, half on a failure. You're not doing 2x dice and 2x modifier against a boss, acting like you are isn't even an accurate or fair comparison.

The extra attack with Haste can also instead be done to allow other actions to work, like Demoralize/Intimidating Strike, Movement, etc. without losing effective Strike actions.

If you aren't keeping that Fighter up to snuff, you got bigger issues than not using Electric Arc/Magic Missiles.

I'm speaking of Electric Arc against a single level+3 target and gave the Flat Footed condition to the boss for the comparison. You are vastly overvaluing the extra action from Haste.

And Demoralize is a third action, too. The benefit will be very close to a third attack (and you can do it only once, so very quickly your Fighter will be left with Strikes).

At 7th level as an example, I don't think it holds up that Electric Arc is better.

A Fighter at this level is going to be at +18 to hit (or +16 for non-Fighters), whereas a Wizard is going to have a 25 Save DC (or +15 spell attack roll). A level 10 creature is going to have an AC in the 29-30 range on average (let's just use 30 for posterity's sake), and will have a Reflex Save of 19-20 on average (let's just use 20 for posterity's sake as well), and having an overall health pool of 180 HP.

So, Fighter will be able to hit on a 12 or higher on their first attack as a single action, not factoring in any debuffs or buffs, dealing 2D12+7 damage (average 19). They can use Demoralize to start, and feats and abilities like Intimidating Strike to maintain Frightened, Power Attack to punch through with stronger single attacks (making the average hit become 25.5), as well as Knockdown to attempt to make the enemy Prone. A Fighter with Expert Athletics at this level will have less bonuses than their to-hit, since they can have 11 from Proficiency, 4 from Strength, and a +1 from a Lifting Belt at this level, meaning they have less chance to succeed with Knockdown, but it has the same success rate as Electric Arc dealing full damage. While all of this doesn't make him deal more damage per hit, it does increase his DPR, given that he can inflict Frightened 1 on the regular combined with the potential for Prone, thereby both triggering reactions for Standing Up, as well as inflicting Flat-Footed, meaning a second attack significantly increases in DPR due to having exponentially more chance to hit, and not having to choose whether to move or to strike is huge when you can do both, which is where Haste truly shines.

Meanwhile, Wizard will only be doing 4D4+4 damage with Electric Arc (average 14, halved to 7 on a success) for 2 actions, with the enemy being able to succeed or critically succeed on 75% of rolls (anything 5 or higher succeeds, 15 or higher is a critical). Wizard being able to invest in Intimidate isn't very likely to occur, given they are relatively MAD in their scope (needing to boost Wisdom, Constitution, Intelligence, and Dexterity means not much space for boosting Charisma at 5th level or more), and probably even less likely to succeed than Fighter, whom has probably invested in Intimidating Prowess/Glare at this point. They have the Fear spell, but that takes a round, and they are probably likely to succeed against that as well if their bonus is the same as their Reflex (making that benefit not relevant for the follow-up of Electric Arc). Though we can tip the odds in his favor a bit for a round with Force Bolt if we feel inclined.

Honestly, I don't think the math works out. Feel free to post a graph showing me otherwise, though, and let me know the paradigms you are applying.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

The occult list has so much effective versatility.

Yes Occult has some good tricks. It does look like they picked the best bits out of the Arcane list.

So what is it missing?

Elemental Damage. Big area of effect spells. Many people think this is the thing that casters are best at.

Walls - also very good for crowd control.

Not just good tricks; the best tricks, and tricks that nobody else can get. They didn't just pick the best bits, they have their own bits that Arcane can't pick from. Occult is the bully of the Arcane spell list, no cap.

Again, Elemental Damage is only good for trash mob clearing, and maybe weakness exploitation, and most of the time there, the martials can take care of it in a few rounds of trivial combat, or have weapon runes specifically designed to trigger common weaknesses; being able to do it in one round, and/or at lower levels, is not in and of itself a relatively useful boon.

Walls aren't as potent as they have been in previous editions. Walls of Stone are relatively easy to break down and at-best serve as a makeshift bridge, Wind Walls only work for ranged attacks (I've only ever had one encounter in all the time I've played where this ability had a significant impact), and the others ones (like Wall of Fire/Water/Ice) either are worse than simply using standard blast spells, or are superficial at-best. Not to mention, they almost always take 3 actions (Prismatic Wall only takes 2 for some reason), meaning they are already bad on the action economy for a class that already struggles with action economy as it is.

Wall of Force is probably one of the few "useful" walls in the game, given that 1. it's invisible, so creatures can't immediately tell there is a wall in their way, 2. it stops incorporeal creatures dead in their tracks and blocks physical attacks from coming through, and 3. it's actually relatively difficult to destroy without actions spent or abilities used. And guess what? Occult gets it, so again, the "best" tools are taken by Occult, and Primal gets the rest. Oh, wow, Arcane getting access to both "types" of walls certainly is a game-changer in the favor of the Arcane spellcaster! Said nobody ever.

Combat healing is easy. Any one can do it including wizards if they want. That the arcane caster does not have it on their spell list is just not relevant. There are focus spell healing sources that cost one or two feats to take eg Blessed One. Then there are the classes that have the spare hands to do medicine in combat. Then there is the fact that an arcane sorcerer can get Heal if they want it. But you are singing the praises of occult so you aren't just talking about Heal. Medic is a good option for a wizard.

And that's the big thing there: If they want. A Wizard shouldn't have to want (or even feel like they want) to go to the front lines to treat the Fighter's wounds, especially when other classes with more HP, AC, Saves, etc. can do so at the same efficiency as the Wizard, if not better. And honestly, people who play Wizards, nine times out of ten, don't want to be healers, it's not their class identity, they are poor at it for a reason. In fact, I don't particularly mind that a Wizard (or any Arcane spellcaster) can't really ever heal anyone with their spells; the problem is that they aren't given anything especially intrinsical to their kit to do so (and before you say it, Arcane Sorcerer doesn't count).

There aren't that many focus spells that are healing, and taking dedications for them is an opportunity cost; what if I wanted Sorcerer/Witch dedication for more spell slots with my Legendary Casting DC and better focus spells (that aren't healing)? What if I wanted Alchemist dedication for non-magical contributions via the reagents or crafting? What if I wanted Rogue dedication for some added skills/skill feats, and neat personal benefits that both keep me alive and give me unique ways to contribute to combat? (The last one, for the record, I've done before in actual play, and it's saved my character more times than I can count.) The idea that you can just take a dedication (which is pretty hard to take feats to branch out from, by the way,) isn't really a cure-all solution. It's also a touch spell, meaning you have to be in melee range (AKA next to a front liner) to utilize, so it's another risky option.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

And Electric Arc being better than Haste is hard to justify when restricted to a single target, meaning against bosses, it's probably not going to outperform a Fighter's secondary attack after having more actions for things like movement, Knockdown, Demoralize, etc.

And still it does twice more damage against a boss (half damage on miss is very useful) than the extra attack Haste provides to your Fighter. So you'll need 3 rounds of combat (past the round where you buff the Fighter, who generally has a better Initiative than a caster) to just break even. Considering the risk of Hasting the Fighter (as you now have all your eggs in the same basket and bosses are rarely stupid) and the spell slot cost, it's better to go for Electric Arc than Haste.

But you aren't targeting the same creature twice with Electric Arc, so it is more like 1/4 damage on a success, half on a failure. You're not doing 2x dice and 2x modifier against a boss, acting like you are isn't even an accurate or fair comparison.

The extra attack with Haste can also instead be done to allow other actions to work, like Demoralize/Intimidating Strike, Movement, etc. without losing effective Strike actions.

If you aren't keeping that Fighter up to snuff, you got bigger issues than not using Electric Arc/Magic Missiles.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

buffing martials provides more group DPR than casting a spell like Polar Ray.

I vastly disagree with that. If your martials can operate at full efficiency then the casters have not much to do to win the fight. But if your martials always operate at full efficiency then your GM should really start considering more variation in their fights. If fights never endanger the party besides "more damage and hit points" then you are playing at D&D5 (sorry, it was nasty). In PF2, monsters can deal with martials in ways that martials can't handle, and then you'll have to count on casters, either by providing the damage themselves (it's costly, I agree, but sometimes you have to) or by removing the effects that are hindering martials (sometimes it's possible, sometimes it's not).

Also, I find that buffs suck before high levels. You have extremely few valid buffs: Circle of Protection 4, Haste 7, True Target... and Bard's Compositions, obviously, but they don't take spell slots. Well, there are certainly a few more, but overall buffing martials is a waste of spell slots to me, you'll get way more damage out of a good blast (even against a single target).

Edit: I just compared Magic Missile 3 with Dangerous Sorcery to Haste on a melee Flurry Ranger (I think it's quite a good target for Haste). You need to wait for level 13 for the Ranger to finally break even after 2 rounds, way after Magic Missile's due date. Compared to Electric Arc, Haste is equivalent. There's just no point casting it unless you can prebuff.

The most useless encounter a caster can be is against Golems, and that's largely if they don't have the right spell(s) prepared. Even if they don't have the right "weakness" spells available, buffs still significantly contribute to the combat, and short of doing things like Aid to increase to-hit/AC, they aren't going to be doing much else.

Plenty of cases in our groups where HP damage isn't the biggest threat, though it still remains one against certain obvious foes. In fact, most of our character deaths are caused by non-HP related effects, such as by being Drained, or insta-kill effects.

Buffs are harder to justify in the lower levels because they lack the innate scaling debuffs have. Fear at 17th level is just as effective as Fear at 5th level in terms of relative potency, whereas Haste is massively increased by 13th level in terms of potential, before it being hard(er) to justify at 5th level. When the playing field is evened out, it's debateable enough that either one could be done at a given turn and it's fine. But honestly, Hasting a Fighter at 5th level is a better use of damage against a boss than Magic Missiles.

You won't get good damage out of blasting bosses, though, because of their higher AC and Saves (and lack of personal bonuses/targeted debuffs), whereas if you debuff them (or buff allies), you will get more out of the rounds those buffs and debuffs affect compared to just using Magic Missiles.

Magic Missiles with Dangerous Sorcery gives a slight damage boost, but it's non-standard and also giving an inherent edge to something that is already relatively weaker by comparison, so it's kind of disingenuous. And Electric Arc being better than Haste is hard to justify when restricted to a single target, meaning against bosses, it's probably not going to outperform a Fighter's secondary attack after having more actions for things like movement, Knockdown, Demoralize, etc.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Alchemic_Genius wrote:

Twiggies wrote:

Nah, you gotta update it to pf2e terms.

Here is the stat block I propose for Katanas:

Traits: [Two-Hand 1d12] [Deadly d12] [Versatile P] [Agile]
Damage: 1d10 S
Category: Martial
Groups: Sword

Pfft, obviously it should be fatal d12, not deadly; deadly doesn't come close to the true power of superior craftsmanship /s

Why not both?

IIRC, Fatal covers Deadly and more.

They aren't mutually exclusive traits, though.

Deadly adds dice not multiplied on a critical, and Fatal changes base dice (as well as adding one not multiplied on a critical).

So, a 3D8 base weapon (such as Greater Striking) with Deadly D12 and Fatal D12 would be a total of 6D12 on a critical 3 of which aren't multiplied (two from Deadly, one from Fatal).

Twiggies wrote:

Nah, you gotta update it to pf2e terms.

Here is the stat block I propose for Katanas:

Traits: [Two-Hand 1d12] [Deadly d12] [Versatile P] [Agile]
Damage: 1d10 S
Category: Martial
Groups: Sword

Pfft, obviously it should be fatal d12, not deadly; deadly doesn't come close to the true power of superior craftsmanship /s

Why not both?

Bosses are not really an issue at high level. Synesthesia is an outlier, but Slow and Roaring Applause (and Fear, Hideous Laughter, True Target, Trip, etc...) are in general enough to trivialize/rip appart a boss fight. Bosses are dangerous at low level because you don't have these tools (or because they consume your highest level slots).

My experience has been that couple/trio of enemies have been as tough to deal with as boss fights (a couple of Brimoraks at level 4 and a trio of Lesser Deaths at level 17 should have TPKed the party if the GM had played them nasty).

Also, blasting works fine. I really don't get why some players feel it sucks. It's just not, obviously, a tool for bosses.

Slow requires failing a Fortitude Save to get a meaningful debuff, which is unlikely against most every boss. Yes, losing an action for a round is significant, but not that strong in the long run, compared to Synesthesia, which is 1 round of serious pain and complications for the bad guy. Fear also isn't fool-proof since there are a fair amount of mindless creatures, and most of those other spells are Incapacitate or Occult-exclusive.

Bosses being dangerous at lower levels is also because of their power ratio, where a single crit can take out an entire PC, which is far less likely to happen at the higher levels due to them having less of a power ratio.

Blasting sucks because it's fodder control at-best and a waste of spell slots for a better spell at-worst. When Magic Missile is the best damaging single target spell in the game against bosses, you know it's a pretty terrible action to use against them, and honestly, buffing martials provides more group DPR than casting a spell like Polar Ray.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Gortle wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I asked for unique arcane spells

To which I said no.

That is not a reasonable request because much of arcane is replicated everywhere. I'm not especially a fan of that decision. But there actually is very little pure arcane. Or pure any tradition for that matter. Most of it is shared.

I think you had no examples and did a cop out.

No it wasn't a cop out. Those spells are all arcane spells. I'm saying the point that they be arcane only is rubbish. It is just not relevant.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I've read your posts long enough to know if you know something, you'll share it. If you don't or can't, then you won't because you don't know the answer or it doesn't exist. I'm thinking there are no uniquely effective arcane spells you know off the top of your head or have used.

I don't keep track of the Arcane only spells as there is no value to know that.

You are the first person that I can recall to rate the Arcane list in third place.

I would also rate Arcane at 3rd, simply because a Druid can replicate a good amount of buffs and blasting with strong healing sprinkled in, and a Bard can replicate all of the debuffs and utility with even more unique/potent buffs and debuffs.

At no point would I ever consider Arcane to be better than Primal from a conservative standpoint (limiting to common spells), or better than Occult from any standpoint.

Seriously, who needs blasting when it's honestly one of the weakest effects for a spellcaster to invest in (damage is the martial's territory, not the spellcaster's, and AoE damage is no exception), and who needs utility in Arcane when Occult has it in spades on levels that Arcane can only match at-best and be outclassed at-worst? Heck, the only reason I'd rate Primal as a better list than Arcane is because they have access to Heal, one of the strongest spells in the game; they also get some of the buff spells of Arcane, and really, short of spells like Teleport or Slow, they have a good amount of the Arcane utility already.

Arcane having access to elemental spells is nowhere near as potent or equivalent to a spell like Synesthesia; Contingency is garbage (except for NPCs in APs, because they get to effectively "cheat" Contingency to always be useful in an advantageous circumstance, whereas players risk it either not going off at all, or it simply not being effective), and spells like Summon Archmage are way too late in the game to get something that's, again, nowhere near the power level of Synesthesia. Oh, I extend beneficial spells for up to 3 more rounds? Cool, doesn't matter when combats end after 5 rounds on average, and most in-combat spells last for 10 rounds, meaning the odds of spells running out were already practically non-existent. Oh, I do a bunch of damage? Yeah, I'd do more damage by inflicting a Clumsy 3 debuff for a round and following up with a True Target for my martials to ensure hits/encourage crits, compared to a whopping 10D6 damage with a save they are very likely to succeed against for half, not to mention any resistances/immunities they might have against my effect. What a garbage spell with a garbage effect that something that's half its level easily trumps, and that's not even factoring in True Target.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I asked for unique arcane spells

To which I said no.

That is not a reasonable request because much of arcane is replicated everywhere. I'm not especially a fan of that decision. But there actually is very little pure arcane. Or pure any tradition for that matter. Most of it is shared.

So then why is Occult so unique and powerful (to the point of having better, more exclusive spells) and Arcane is just plain bland and weak in comparison?

I opened this thread hoping it would be the katana copypasta.

Same.

I'm hoping somebody will come in and post it and redeem the thread for the memes, because otherwise this is a dumpster fire.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

I don't really think of Synesthesia as something you're forced to take, so much as why you pick the occult spell list in general. It is a really strong tool but I'm not sure the occult spell list feels unbalanced on the whole. Every spell list has a small number of really really good spells and some glaring weaknesses it doesn't cover at all.

Synesthesia falls under the "mandatory" tier of options, not unlike Fighters et. al. taking Sudden Charge, or Clerics preparing Heal/Harm spells. After all, you aren't going to be doing much else with your spell list, other than Haste/Slow, or the occasional Soothe.

Occult has all of the best Arcane spells with none of the drawbacks, and has more "unique" spells (which are easily Occult's best spells, by the way,) compared to any other tradition list.

It either needs a nerf on its existing/exclusive options, or it needs to not be so exclusive in some of its spells, or it needs exclusive analogues; because seriously, I'm baffled how Occult can utilize a spell like Synesthesia, but Arcane cannot.

I'm not sure I'd agree that Sudden Charge is mandatory given how small some dungeon rooms are, and I don't think clerics need to use their prepared slots for heal or harm when they have Divine Font slots automatically. Also, those are both level 1 options as opposed to level 9.

I've seen Sudden Charge used across all levels of play, and I've seen Clerics prepare Harm/Heal slots even though they have Fonts providing free slots for them (especially when they don't have the option to do both, either based on deity choice or because they didn't invest the feat to be able to prepare both with their Fonts), and the point is that these are "must-have" options, their level shouldn't matter.

If you want to compare it to an "at-level" option, let's try Multi-Talented, then; the ability to take a multiclass dedication without any care for dedication restrictions (or even attribute restrictions if Half-Elf) is pretty potent and unique, often better than most other ancestry feats you can get.

gesalt wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

I don't really think of Synesthesia as something you're forced to take, so much as why you pick the occult spell list in general. It is a really strong tool but I'm not sure the occult spell list feels unbalanced on the whole. Every spell list has a small number of really really good spells and some glaring weaknesses it doesn't cover at all.

What are the really good unique Arcane Spells for combat?

It's only contingency last I checked. Most of arcane's spells, combat or otherwise, are shared by other traditions. Usually occult but the blasting and walls go to primal.

To be clear I wasn't limiting that comment to unique spells, but taking the list holistically. Arcane has lots of options occult does not, even with many being shared by primal.

But those options are relatively weak compared to what the Occult list already gets. Fireball, Chain Lightning, et. al. aren't going to be as important as Synesthesia on a boss, which is really the encounters that you are most likely to TPK, since multiple low level enemies aren't generally going to be a threat. And getting access to a heal like Soothe is something that is used across all levels of play, compared to what...Burning Hands? Shocking Grasp? Pretty weak spells in the upper levels, TBH. The way I see it, Arcane got shafted and poached real hard, to the point that its "unique" spells are garbage, and everything else it does well can be done with another list.

Even taking options like Disintegrate or Polar Ray into account, the former is best used as utility in the forms of exit/entrance creation, and the latter is just an amped up Ray of Frost, which is pretty yawn-worthy.