Deriven Firelion's page

Combats are meaningful if they drive the story and/or provide a challenge.

1. You can have a bunch of weak combatants letting the players flex if the job is to intimidate a bunch of low challenge enemies to make the PCs look tough and send a message to the bad guys or to carve a path into enemy headquarters that eats some resources as they make their way to the BBEG.

2. Hunting down some huge monster that is a challenge, but isn't necessarily integral to the story. More of a side quest tossed in to break up the monotony.

For the challenge, I try to get a real good feel for the PCs capabilities then ramp the challenge to the point of pushing them to the brink of death. I want the PCs to feel like they could have died. If my PCs are saying things like, "I thought were going to die" or "I didn't think we would make it", but they still win then the goal is accomplished.

What I don't bother with is encounters with no meaningful reason to exist. I'm not a big fan of sandboxes. I much prefer story driven games with combats deriving from the story. Sandbox encounters I often handwave is I know they will be no real challenge and have no meaningful story addition.

I like to collapse lots of encounters in quick succession so as to strain party resources and really make them feel pressed like a real battle would. Very little downtime. Hit the enemy hard and fast or get hit hard and fast. I can't see why enemies would let a party prepare to destroy them or recover resources rather than press them.

I like to give the enemy the necessary resources to mount a challenge. If intelligent enemies, then adding caster and healing support like a PC party would have. If a huge monster, then boosts it CR or hit points to withstand concentrated attack long enough to be a threat.

You want the fight in the mind's eye to mirror a fantasy novel or game or action movie where the PCs win, but also know the stakes are high and the danger is real.

I play casters the following way in PF2.

1. I build up a ranged weapon at low level. I fire it while casting a cantrip like frostbite or electric arc. Something with a save so as not to affect MAP.

2. In the mid levels, I just direct damage spells combined with my weapon. Maybe combine it with a good focus spell for sustain.

3. At high level, I nuke the living hell out of stuff while activating magic items like a wand of manifold missiles to get a stream of extra damage going or use a sustain spell like phantom orchestra.

4. I do this while also casting slow or synesthesia. I generally open up with a blast, then layer in a debuff against stronger stuff.

PF2 tends to have rotational top damage. No single class is top all the time. It's going depend on crits which the fighter tends to do most often. But any class can have a brutal round. So top damage can change from fight to fight.

With casters you want to layer damage sources. Your individual cantrips are pretty low damage, but with a weapon they can match a martial some rounds. Given at low level you are generally the same as a martial with a weapon, it is wise to use one.

As your caster proficiency advances and spells do more damage with better focus points or magic items, you can start relying more on those.

Casters are the kings of AOE damage. Martials usually do more single target, but if you really unleash or layer on as a caster you can do a lot of damage.

Once you get quicken spell, you can have at least one big hammer fight a day.

I find my casters keep up quite well with damage while having far more utility abilities during a campaign. The main martial that has strong utility and strong combat is the rogue. No other martials top casters for utility and damage combined. Martials are mainly focused on damage and some combat control with maybe athletics or acrobatics being their most useful skill.

You have to play a caster to learn to master how they work. I definitely recommend using a weapon for the early levels combined with a save spell. That's the best way to do good damage while waiting for the stronger spells as you level up. And it is more fun to build up a weapon when the interesting magic items are scarce at low level.

I find casters to the strongest, most interesting classes in the game. I get real bored playing martials because they are very limited.

My personal favorite casters are the druid, sorc, magus (a hybrid), and oracle. I think the cleric is top notch now too that they get general blasting and much better feats.

Worst caster is the wizard. I personally don't enjoy the bard because the party expects you to buff all the time which I get real bored of, but the buffs are so good it's hard to justify not using them.

Casters are real fun as you level. They get more interesting at high level than most martials with the exception of the rogue.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

But if a fighter or other class, you can take rogue archetype, pick up Trapfinder, then get a Master perception with a Canny Acumen, and you can search for Legendary perception traps. It's one of the many reasons the rogue archetype is the best archetype in the game for its many useful purposes.

How does a character with Master Perception find legendary gated perception traps? Trap Finder lets them DISARM them, NOT find them

My bad. I guess you're screwed if you don't have a Legendary perception character with you. Paizo should probably fix that as forcing a group to have a Legendary perception character is not great given there are only three that have it and not everyone wants to play those classes every time.

I was using force fang to very high level. I did start to adjust my focus point use on my magus when I picked up imaginary weapon around level 6 to 8. Then I would split the points. I did sometimes use the weapon rune feat with a focus point if exploiting a weakness.

Magus has some good focus point options. Force Fang remains useful even to high level if you have a round where you want to recharge and do some single target damage.

Perpdepog wrote:

I can understand a trap being gated behind perception proficiency, even if I'm also not a fan. Traps are meant to be hidden; an obvious trap isn't much of a trap.

I mean isn't hiding the trap what the dc is for?

Perception gating doesn't mean it's hard to detect the trap, it means you are literally not allowed and utterly incapable of detecting the trap if you decided to play a fighter with a gun instead of a gunslinger even if you beat the dc by 10 or 20 or 50.

Diagetically you can only really describe it as some sort of divine intervention, not the trap being designed more sneakily.

I think they want to make Legendary perception mean something.

But if a fighter or other class, you can take rogue archetype, pick up Trapfinder, then get a Master perception with a Canny Acumen, and you can search for Legendary perception traps. It's one of the many reasons the rogue archetype is the best archetype in the game for its many useful purposes.

I guess the ability to use it after a spell strike and ignore MAP is an advantage I had not thought of.

I guess in that particular niche, it is better than the other conflux spells.

I thought about Force Bolt, which is comparable damage-wise, but it is also ranged, which, in most cases, Force Fang is not.

I realize that the recharging spell strike is an advantage, but that is not really fair to use that as a comparison to other focus spells, because that is such a unique thing to the magus.

It just seems weak compared to other conflux spells. Perhaps I am just not weighing the disregarding of MAP as much as I should.

I thought it was worse than other conflux spells too. I found that it is one of the better conflux spells mostly because it requires no setup. It's super easy to use. No area, no teleportation, not situational, just do some extra damage with no map and recharge your spell strike for 1 focus point. Very efficient, effective, and easy to use in nearly any situation.

I thought it sucked reading it too. When you use it, you figure out that a moderate amount of guaranteed damage for 1 focus point combined with a 1 action recharge you would spend anyway is a good use of a focus point. It makes for a good round of damage and a smoother rotation.

People don't like losing characters to hazards. I think they are mostly put in to include some skill challenges. They made a module named Tomb of Horrors years ago with hazards that were truly dangerous. It was fun for some and a nightmare character killer for others. Hazards are not something people want to do much more than they do. I don't see it changing. If your group would prefer hazards with more danger and meaning, then make it happen. Most groups are happy with the way hazards are right now and barely care if they even put them in a dungeon or module.

Maya should probably clean all this AI discussion out of the thread. As we always seem to do, we all took this on a side tangent. This thread is about guides and it should stay about guides.

Starlit Span magus is super easy.

Remastered oracle is pretty easy to run. Sorc is easier, but bard is harder to run than a Remaster Oracle unless you hit the courageous anthem button and do the same thing over and over.

Bard is best if you like being a buff bot that everyone looks at sideways when they don't get their buffs.

Sorc is versatile. You can build a blaster that does good casting damage.

Not sure why you were told to avoid the magus or oracle. Both are strong options. If you don't have an archer, a starlit span magus is an amazing archer.

Precision damage is about 3.5 points per die on average.

Rogue does 3.5 to 14 precision per hit.

Investigator: 3.5 to 17.5 for their single hit in a round.

Swashbuckler: 7 to 20.5 for their single hit plus other effects depending on finisher.

Any high resistance would mostly neuter the precision damage from classes that rely on it.

Yeah what if it scaled like:

1-4 @ Precision Resistance 5
5-8 @ Precision Resistance 10
9-12 @ Precision Resistance 15
13-16 @ Precision Resistance 20
17-20 @ Precision Resistance 25

Instead of outright immunity?

I think 50 percent damage would probably be best. It still works, but is less effective against precision resistant creatures. Then you don't completely shutdown precision damage characters.

ScooterScoots wrote:

So what spellshapes are would be useful to apply to extend blood magic? Well, there's only one I can think of. Melodious spell. As part of using the spellshape, melodious spell allows us to attempt a demoralize check.

I love Melodious Spell for that effect!

Side note: I recommend getting Pitch-Perfect Projection from the Dandy archetype to get that free "Reach Spell" on Demoralize from Spellshape Mastery. You can even use that spellshape on the Melodious Spell spellshape itself, because Melodious Spell is "an action that creates an auditory effect with a range" (Demoralize, 30ft range), effectively chaining 3 spellshape actions into one thing!

Deriven Firelion wrote:

This might be mega-disintegrate if you can cast some powerful spells with it.

Disintegrate is an imperial bloodline spell...

Mega-disintegrate is a used in conjunction with level 20 wizard feat Spell Combination. It's a level 10 slot with two level 8 disintegrates combined into it used with true strike.

For balance purposes, it should be more like 50 percent less damage rather than immunity or a resistance like they did with golems and spells. When immunity ruins a classes entire stick, that's not great even though it may add a touch of realism.

For the rogue you kind of shrug because the overall class is so amazing. It really hurts the swashbuckler as that one big precision damage hit is most of what they do.

This might be mega-disintegrate if you can cast some powerful spells with it.

Things I'm hoping for:

- Give the Eidolon its own skill progression instead of using the Summoner's skills. Yes, would make Summoner a skill monkey class, but why not. It really fits the class fantasy and the way it works now often feels very forced and weird.

- Let Eidolons use the tools their skills require.

- Just let Boost Eidolon's duration go up by heightening the spell. This shouldn't require a feat (and definitely not a successful non-KAS skill roll vs lvl based DC).

- Tandem Movement should be a class feature instead of a feat tax.

I wouldn't mind seeing this.

Archmage is an arbitrary title. You can build an organization that recognizes that title. Then decide what they must do to earn it.

All the old D&D titles are gone in place of classes.

I imagine they could make an archmage Archetype and give it abilities.

It's not something I consider much. You can give your character whatever title they feel like it. If you want to be an archmage, name your character an archmage and come up with a reason why.

Maybe that group survives if the DM runs a soft game.

1. Soothe is vastly inferior to the 2 action heal. If no one changes to a heal class, you will have problems.

2. Ranger can be a switch hitter. They can pick up a shield or two weapons and step into melee once enemies close.

You should be softening targets from range as much possible.

3. Bard player should be Battle Muse. They should be building around battle muse. They should be strength based. They must not understand the game at all to choose battleaxe with +0 strength. I wouldn't even play with this person, but I imagine it is your friend. This type of choice is group sabotage.

If they want to be a melee battle bard, they should build appropriately or they are acting as an anchor to the group to make them weaker and sink them.

4. If your group is newer, RK is mainly useful for oozes or something like will-o-wisps. You can mostly hit stuff.

If you all have fun playing together and the DM keeps the game soft, you can survive. That's what's important.

If you want the group to do better, your players have to build better characters and group synergies. If they aren't willing to do that, then it's going to be a painful game.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

It's an amazing time to be alive.

Maybe. Only time will tell.

For every near Utopian society where the technology is successfully and (mostly) painlessly integrated into society and society (mostly) painlessly adjusts there is a Dystopian society where terrorists get ahold of bio engineered viruses, where AI puts most people out of work and society implodes, where the rich become richer and more in control and essentially immortal and the peons fall into complete slavery, where the insane Tech Bro billionaires like <Deleted to make this a little less political> take complete control.

And, of course, our civilization (not to mention species and world) have to survive the next 50 years of global warming first to get there.

And who knows where the current world order will be in 5 years, let alone 20. It has changed a LOT in the last 10 years and I think we can ALL agree that the changes are often for the worse (we'll all disagree which changes are good and which ones bad, of course. But we're all seeing changes that we don't like).

I'm pretty much a pessimist and fairly glad that I'm an old fart who has lived a good life and will likely be dead before the REALLY big changes (good and bad) come about.

Haha. Seems a lot of people are.

I'm an optimist. I love reading history. This is the most peaceful, prosperous time in history. We have the most advanced tech we've ever had to the point where even the lower classes live better than kings of old did.

I don't blame you for your viewpoint. It comes from the mainstream news and media. I don't watch them much. They have to generate ratings for revenue and good news and stable times do not sell well. Fear-mongering sells well. People for some reason are suspicious of good times and feel better believing that something bad is going to happen. Governments an the ruling powers rely on fear to rule.

I mostly watch the business news, read history, and compare modern times to ancient times, we're doing much, much better than at any period in history. I think AI and all the advancements right now will lead to even better times as we gain more control over our world and the opportunity to expand off it.

Humans do better with other humans doing well. The entire world is a better place when humans are engaging in mutual cooperation and improvement. There are obviously evil rulers out there, but the smart leaders know the best way to a better future is scaling prosperity to as many as possible.

Politics in America is ever changing. I'm glad of it. That's the most I'll say of it.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

AI regulation is going to be driven by competitive pressures, necessity, and a big fight for control of content in the creative industries.

I'm more looking forward to the robots. That's going to be fun if we can send AI robots to colonize other planets as a preparation for human habitation. We have self-driving cars right now, automated warehouses, and I hope at some point robot maids/cooks that will allow us more time to engage in less tedious activities. Science fiction is coming to life in our time. Pretty fun.

I think self-regulation will happen quite naturally once the bubble bursts and users have to pay the real costs of AI.

Any bubble bursting will be a temporary part of the scaling process. AI tech and robotics will be scaled to a cost similar to what you pay now. There is no "real cost" of AI. There is only the current cost as the various players figure out how to scale the tech, monetize it, and use it to create value for consumers.

Companies are already looking to reduce the power needs of AI. They are finding cheaper ways to manufacture chips or use different chips for different parts of the AI process. They are scaling size. Right now is like the start of a race where a bunch of companies are using big bursts of capital to get a lead, but this tech race is a marathon and it will be the companies that learn to run more efficiently and effectively that will win the long race.

This tech is so new that we're in the early stages of development. We haven't even gotten to the best part of robotics yet where AI is brought to life and we get to have domestic robots and self-driving cars that are affordable and efficient. I envy the younger generation as they will live in to see the growth of AI and robotics and a world like the sci fi movies and books of our youth.

I cannot tell you how much I look forward to the age of robotics. It's going to be amazing.

Might happen, or not....

It's not an if, it's a when. Humans will never, ever stop working on advancement in every major nation with the technology to do so.

Same as eventually humans will configure genes to eliminate most major diseases. We're in the start of the CRISPR revolution.

Start of the robotics revolution.

Then you have neuralink connecting machine and brain.

All the space start ups looking to lower the cost of satellite launches and space travel with the hopes of colonizing planets.

We're at the start of the next major technological revolution in a variety of areas. Even the obesity drugs are the start of more control over the human body.

It's an amazing time to be alive.

I would not believe the fear-mongering on all this stuff. Humans have a way of always figuring out how to use new technology to benefit the masses even if things are lop-sided for a while. It's best to embrace new technology and learn to use it well for human improvement.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

AI regulation is going to be driven by competitive pressures, necessity, and a big fight for control of content in the creative industries.

I'm more looking forward to the robots. That's going to be fun if we can send AI robots to colonize other planets as a preparation for human habitation. We have self-driving cars right now, automated warehouses, and I hope at some point robot maids/cooks that will allow us more time to engage in less tedious activities. Science fiction is coming to life in our time. Pretty fun.

I think self-regulation will happen quite naturally once the bubble bursts and users have to pay the real costs of AI.

Any bubble bursting will be a temporary part of the scaling process. AI tech and robotics will be scaled to a cost similar to what you pay now. There is no "real cost" of AI. There is only the current cost as the various players figure out how to scale the tech, monetize it, and use it to create value for consumers.

Companies are already looking to reduce the power needs of AI. They are finding cheaper ways to manufacture chips or use different chips for different parts of the AI process. They are scaling size. Right now is like the start of a race where a bunch of companies are using big bursts of capital to get a lead, but this tech race is a marathon and it will be the companies that learn to run more efficiently and effectively that will win the long race.

This tech is so new that we're in the early stages of development. We haven't even gotten to the best part of robotics yet where AI is brought to life and we get to have domestic robots and self-driving cars that are affordable and efficient. I envy the younger generation as they will live in to see the growth of AI and robotics and a world like the sci fi movies and books of our youth.

I cannot tell you how much I look forward to the age of robotics. It's going to be amazing.

That's a good effort, Mathmuse. Gives the curriculum's something interesting.

AI regulation is going to be driven by competitive pressures, necessity, and a big fight for control of content in the creative industries.

I'm more looking forward to the robots. That's going to be fun if we can send AI robots to colonize other planets as a preparation for human habitation. We have self-driving cars right now, automated warehouses, and I hope at some point robot maids/cooks that will allow us more time to engage in less tedious activities. Science fiction is coming to life in our time. Pretty fun.

Just chiming in with another "haven't seen Psychic dedication on a Magus". I even played a Starlit Span Magus without dedicating into Psychic because I wanted Vitality Lash and Divine Lance from Cleric dedication. Heck, when I do take Psychic dedication it's because I meet a confluence of wanting: a focus spell, a one-action or reaction filler, and I am tired of seeing Blessed One. Or I'm a Wizard and I want something useful to spend my focus points on (and I don't go Witch instead).

If you take the amps out of Psychic dedication, then what does the archetype actually offer over Bard or Witch? Pretty sure that just leaves some slightly improved cantrips, some class feats that nobody wants (including the actual Psychics usually), and archetype spellcasting. Those cantrips had better be rocking since the alternative is good focus spells, a familiar, some decent class feats, and courageous anthem.

If you take away the amp, not much with gouging strike so good now.

I don't have any guides, but Paizo taking this hardline stance is going to hurt them. AI is going to happen whether Paizo wants it or not. There is no stopping it. Trying to police every instance of AI use by a large, varied gaming community is going to create a real adversarial relationship with some of the most loyal members of Paizo's fan base that spend the time to write guides to improve investment in the game for themselves and others. AI makes the guides easier to write for people that aren't making money writing them, but also operate as free, no labor to Paizo helpful tools for the community.

Now Paizo plans to ban or deny these loyal customers in a futile effort to slow down AI? That doesn't seem like a great idea.

At some point in time, AI is going to be creating DMs and likely be able to take Paizo modules and convert them so an AI DM can run them or support a DM running them for players. It's best Paizo look for ways to embrace this tech than try to work against something that is going to keep getting better and better and better.

Paizo not allowing or using AI tools is like trying stop video games or the internet from being used. It's a mistake and not likely to work out well for the company in the long run.

I hope Paizo rethinks this stance as you can't slow down new technology adoption. It will lead to obsolescence and give competitors an advantage that will lead to self-inflicted damage that could be avoided.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Claxon wrote:

I don't think concentrate replaces verbal components.

Auditory specifically mentions needing to be able to speak, while concentrate talks about only mental focus.

But really it doesn't matter to the overall discussion.

*Although there is a problem with the auditory trait that it doesn't sufficiently differentiate between needing to be able to speak, needing the target to hear something, and something that generates sound waves that have an impact regardless of ability to be heard.

Examples, sounds waves causing damage. A spell that exerts control on someone (command), and casting a spell (speaking).

Verbal components used to have the concentrate trait. So when they took all the verbal components off spells, they replaced them with the concentrate trait.

Auditory trait generally means you need to be able to make sound. I can see how you thought that was the replacement for verbal, but very few spells have the auditory trait.

Almost every spell (maybe every one) that used to have a verbal component now has the concentrate trait as a replacement.

I still disagree with your conclusion, but it mostly doesn't matter on how the game is run or played (because the remastered spells are relatively clear with their new traits) so I'm just going to drop it.

I didn't make a conclusion. I'm stating what they did. They replaced the verbal components with the concentrate trait. I'm assuming they did it because the verbal trait had the concentrate trait. They wanted to keep the concentrate trait on all the spells that had the verbal component beforehand to keep the general idea that spells have a concentrate and manipulate component to their casting to maintain internal consistency with abilities that work off the concentrate or manipulate trait. It was one of the first things I noticed when I was looking at how they changed the verbal and somatic components on spells in the remaster.

Other changes:

1. No more school tags.

2. Spell name changes from magic missile to force barrage. Plenty like that.

3. Removal of alignment tags or damage, all replaced with spirt damage and the holy or unholy trait.

4. Positive energy became vitality. Negative became void.

The addition of the concentrate tag in place of a verbal component was like the above changes. They had to replace it with something, so they took the trait that interacted with verbal tag pre-remaster and applied it to all the spells.

I think you can color the concentrate trait with whatever explanation exists now for how a class cast spells. Might be verbal for a bard or maybe an intense concentration for a wizard or sorc or a prayer for a cleric. I imagine that color element is open-ended.

I have no idea. Seems like an arbitrary limitation that I can't find a reason for.

I don't think concentrate replaces verbal components.

Auditory specifically mentions needing to be able to speak, while concentrate talks about only mental focus.

But really it doesn't matter to the overall discussion.

*Although there is a problem with the auditory trait that it doesn't sufficiently differentiate between needing to be able to speak, needing the target to hear something, and something that generates sound waves that have an impact regardless of ability to be heard.

Examples, sounds waves causing damage. A spell that exerts control on someone (command), and casting a spell (speaking).

Verbal components used to have the concentrate trait. So when they took all the verbal components off spells, they replaced them with the concentrate trait.

Auditory trait generally means you need to be able to make sound. I can see how you thought that was the replacement for verbal, but very few spells have the auditory trait.

Almost every spell (maybe every one) that used to have a verbal component now has the concentrate trait as a replacement.

HammerJack wrote:

Claxon wrote:

I've always viewed the idea of the manipulate trait as leaving ones self open (for an attack). When viewed that way, whether it represents material or somatic components, or even just mental focus, it makes sense (to me) that psychic spellcasting would still leave one open to Attacks of Opportunity.

I think that it's definitely a gesture, not just intense concentration for 2 reasons:

1. That matches the description in spellcasting rules and in psychic spellcasting.

2. You *also* have mechanics that constrain movement and add a flat check to Manipulate actions.

Ultimately it doesn't quite matter how we envision it as long as we acknowledge that some spells (most really) have the manipulate trait, and psychic spell casting doesn't do anything to get rid of it. Pyschic spell casting substituted verbal and somatic components, but remaster spells don't have that. They have auditory and manipulate. Which honestly works just fine.

Concentrate and Manipulate. Concentrate replaced verbal and Manipulate replaced Somatic.

Even drawing a weapon is an interact action with the manipulate trait which activates Reactive Strike.

Manipulate is some kind of movement that opens you up to attack.

If I feel like the player would like one, I give it to them as treasure or enough material if they want to make it themselves. Material prices are too expensive in my opinion for what they provide, especially with the rules for material that you can put runes on by power level.

Well level 14 for Mysterious Repertoire instead of level 8 for the old sorcerer. It is befinitely a good point. You have always been more keen on higher level play. But I think you'd be more upset about missing Effortless Concentration.

Sorcerer get divine access as a level 1 feat - Blessed Blood, which is arguably better than a free class ability at level 11.

It is just that the best Oracle abilities are there level 1 cursebound feats. Which anyone can get via a couple of archetype feats.

I don't use Effortless Concentration too much. I have to admit for a divine caster effortless concentration would be nice. They seem to have really limited effortless concentration on divine casters. Witch and sorc divine casters only ones with it I believe. Divine is probably the best list for using Effortless Concentration with some of their buffs and summons.

I really thought Effortless concentration would be a lot more useful. I think I mainly use it on Quandary and Phantom Orchestra for non-divine casters. It is nice for quandary since that is primarily used for killing mooks more easily by getting rid of a mini-boss or boss type creature.

High level characters are so strong that when you get effortless concentration someone inevitably ends up landing crits that end fights fast, so this spell you want to keep up a while ends up feeling "meh."

Agreed that is the biggest problem. The new Oracle suffers from the same problem as the Pyschic - you can poach the best part. I for one prefer a sorcerer - oracle over a straight oracle.

I don't know. I like the oracle. They gave the oracle the old sorcerer get one spell from any list thing and Divine Access. They have a lot of spell power. My oracle picked up synesthesia and some good blasting spells.

I do wish the curses did more interesting things though. They're kind of boring now, but powerful.

If they do a ramp class design, it has to be fast enough and controlled enough by the player where the DM doesn't have to do a lot of work to make it work. Player control over their abilities is very important. The only way the ramp works is if it can be done by the player within the duration of the battle consistently to be a viable play-style.

*Face slamming intensifies*

Okay. So, my question has been answered.
Spell and Class DC are not the same.
Thank you everyone.

Mods, can you lock this thread? We don't need this argument here.

Welcome to the forums.

shroudb wrote:

agree on the fireball (because it's visible as soon as it leaves your person), disagree on the "the direction the pain comes from"

Witch of Miracles, Deiven, shroudb:

That's not how fireball works. The explosion of fire simply appears; there is no "trail back to the caster."

I like the fireball flying from the caster. It looks cool. You do what you want in your games though.

Are there really that many players of wood kineticists bullying their GM into letting them plant forests?

Not that I wouldn't be amused that there were enough players bullying their GMs into letting them plant forests that it required discussion of how to handle it. It would be even funnier if it required Paizo to issue errata because of players "bullying GMS into letting them plant forests."

That's just funny.

Without the Amp Imaginary Weapon is just a very cool and flavorful strong cantrip. It's good, but Gouging Claw will usually outdamage it. It has the benefit of covering a damage type that gouging claw doesn't have (bludgeoning) so it's a very nice addition to have but wouldn't feel "mandatory" the way it does now.

The bludgeoning is nice and the force tag hitting incorporeal creatures past their resistance.

I agree. It isn't mandatory. There is only class that breaks imaginary weapon with one ability.

Deriven Firelion I agree with all the factors you brought up being important to the analysis.

Synthesia might not be the best spell to use for comparing a Wizard to a spontaneous caster because its not available to wizards.
But I know you like slow.
and in many instances youre argument will work for this spell too.
You get slow 1 for 1 round and that is all you need.

But you could do better with a different spell if fort is the highest save.
In your groups I would probably use command instead of slow against a creature with high fort and low will. Tell it to drop and watch your teams martials reactive strike it. and it will have around the same odds of landing a failure as slow would have for success, will also deny at least 1 action but maybe two if the creature gets up and increase damage through party synergy.
Like a troll or troll warleader for example.

Why i make this argument? Mainly to just point out other spells besides the mainstay high quality spells have moments they can be a better option only because of high and low save differences.

Sure, they have moments. I find those moments occur more with utility spells to solve odd problems. That's where the wizard can shine, but really any prepared caster with a spell list with some utility. Or focus utility spells like the druid wild shape.

For combat, most of the time a good chain lightning to open the fight softens a lot of targets in multi-target fight.

Some debuff to lower AC, slow, and some magic missiles or vision of death is nice for a single target creature.

Even the change to golems makes reflex save spells that do high damage often more effective against golems. Though it is nice slow works against golems now. Most mental and fort spells useless against golems if doing negative damage or applying a rider.

PF2 is a very different game that past editions. Very fast and furious with debuffs and damage most useful as ending fights as a solo class doesn't do much anymore.

I remember in PF1/3E I would win alone as a wizard. This wasn't very fun to the other PCs, but it was fun for me to be that powerful.

PF2 is very much built for the group to win and not individual casters. A crit save on a slow is the most common "I win" button that ruins encounters.

I will say the arcane list Power Word Kill for an easy 1 action 50 points of damage is pretty nice for a killing blow at high level. I've used that more than a few times and it works real well as long as not immune to death effects.

I just like the idea of the build up to climactic ability then reset.

it feels as epic as the oracles curse concept to me.

I don't want this. It's one of those ideas that seems theoretically interesting, but the way PF2 combat works it would rarely occur because fights rarely last that long. Single targets last even less long. So any "ramp" would have to be very, very fast to have a chance of even doing it once against a prominent target.

I do not like ramp up abilities. Too much movement, too many other PCs doing their stuff, and targets often don't last long with the crit rules whether a spell crit or melee crit from multiple party members launching attacks.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Do some of the damage cantrips not have the attack trait? Might be interesting to be able to do damage as a swash after a finisher with a spell lacking the attack trait.

That is correct. And something I don't really like about how Swashbuckler's Finisher is defined.

Yes, you are allowed to cast Frostbite after a Finisher.

No, you are not allowed to cast Ignition after a Finisher.

I cannot find any logical explanation for why it was designed that way.

You and me both.

I'm running a swashbuckler right now and we just hit level 19. Holy cow, the high level swash is pretty brutal. Once the player picks up Illimitable Finisher or whatever that feat is called, I expect their damage to spike again.

They just got the ability where they can apply Confident and Precise Finisher to every finisher and every Opportune Riposte. That is a pretty strong ability.

Then they can do two finishers with one action the way I read it with Precise Finisher damage even on a miss. That's going to get pretty nutty.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

This argument comes down to the value of RK. I think the reason sorcerers have sorcererous potency is because they are bad at RK checks. The game expects wizards to more consistently be hitting the weakest save and sorcerers to be guessing most of the time.

If this is not the result playing out in game its not the wizards design at fault.

Not really. Intelligence used to give a huge skill advantage in PF1.

Skills are easy to come by at a trained level in PF2. So the focus is on proficiency. Intelligence gives no advantage in proficiency.

At best you can do like some do spending skill feats on additional lore which auto-scales and uses intelligence to give a minor advantage on often unnecessary RK checks that cost an action that use intelligence.

You know how often I used RK in PF1? All the time, nearly every battle. It was a free action, intelligence based, and wizards were the undisputed kings of knowledge skills.

You know how often I use RK in PF2? Almost never. Religion and Nature for some RK skills are wisdom based. Proficiency matters big in this edition. Lore skills are narrow so additional lore might not cover everything. And the more importantly nothing is immune to almost anything anymore, even the immune creatures are obvious like a red dragon immune to fire or devils. So you don't even need to RK any more to figure out how to beat creatures. And it costs 1 action to maybe gain a minor unnecessary advantage while martials just hit it to determine what works against it and 99% of the time hitting it works.

The games expectation as far as I can tell is that if you do not RK you should be hitting higher saves 2/3s of the time on spells you cast.

If sorcerers are hitting a higher save 2/3s of the time because they guessing which spell will hit low save instead of knowing which spell will hit lowest save then it would explain why sorcererous potency is on sorcerer and after the remaster locked away from other classes...

That's not how it works any more. I don't know why some are having a hard time adapting to the changes.

Spell power is no longer determined by just the save. In fact, save is not the even best determinant of spell power:

1. Spell effect as determined by the four saves is the most important way to look at a spell. What happens at each save level. A lower save may not be best if on a success there is no effect against a spell that even if you succeed you take half-damage or some other effect.

2. Power of the spell itself including tags, amount of damage, riders, incap, and such.

3. Number of targets. What is best for multiple targets or single targets.

4. Commonality of high save. In my experience, Fort is usually the highest save on most creatures. Will and Reflex are relatively equal. You're almost always good using a reflex save spell. Not only because it is often the weakest or at least equivalent save, but the spells do half damage on a success which can still be quite substantial for a lot of spells.

5. Weaknesses, resistance, immunities. These are not as important since they add moderate damage that can't be doubled or halved. So as long as you land some damage, you'll activate a weakness. But the weakness is only worth adding if the base spell does enough damage to justify its use over another spell.

Martials are much better at activating weakness damage since they do it every hit.

6. How does spell interact with the group? Even if you RK and determine a weak save, does it matter if you want to use synesthesia or vision of death to give a rider so all your party members will get a bonus to hit?

Synesthesia is still likely to last for one round. It may not take more than one round to do the job.

This idea of attacking weakest save isn't as relevant as with PF1/3E where success or failure was the only consideration.

That's why I said I used RK in nearly every fight in PF1. Lots of creatures had immunity, strong resistances, spell resistance, and the like. You needed to know how to bypass them. Weakest save mattered as there was success or failure. That's it.

In PF2 that is not the case. Success or failure is one of many factors and not the most important one.

Even if you learn a creature has a weak reflex save and strong fort save, it may still be more effective to chain cast slow to defeat it rather than try a reflex or will save against. It depends on the effectiveness of the spell available.

All I know for certain is I rarely use RK. I rarely have a problem not doing so. Most spells work on most things. Very few things are immune to anything. The most common immunities I've run into are fire and mental. If they're immune to mental, most of your mental spells are useless even if that is the weakest save.

So it is often best to rely on Reflex saves or spells lacking the mental tag or doing mental damage unless you know for certain they will do something make them worth using.

PF2 is a very different game than PF1/3E where RK and missing the save was very important and very effective meaning if the save was failed, you pretty much won the encounter. There aren't spells like that any longer.

Tridus wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I'm not sure why "the Wizard is a weaker choice for a magic focused character" is an intolerable situation when "the Fighter is a weaker choice for a sword focused character" has been a fact of life a lot of times in the history of this family of games.

Well there's what everyone else said: PF2 actively tried to fix this and succeeded at it. Fighters are really good. I've literally used "you can play a Fighter and not suck" as a sales pitch for folks to try PF2, and it's the reason one of my Abomination Vaults players is in my game.

But also the main difference is that "Fighters suck" was a fact for so long that people just lived with it. Some players literally had never played the game from a time before that was a truism. It was just the stats quo, and people adapt to the status quo. That doesn't mean it was a good thing, but people just got used to it.

"Wizards suck" has not been the status quo in the "D&D descended TTRPG" family, historically. People are not used to it, and players coming over from 5e or PF1 absolutely do not expect it.

Quote:

The Remaster was less "let's fix all the classes" and more "let's make the best of a bad situation."

This is true. Though I don't think they've made the most of the framework they have. Like, why does the School of Rooted Wisdom not have any of the Maaganbaya themed uncommon/rare spells on it? That's the perfect place for them, and "my years of school study gives me access to spells that Sorcerers need the GM to give them" is a thing the class could stand to lean on far more than it does.

They have done it sometimes (Gates has all kinds of interesting spells on it), but a lot of the schools are just "this is stuff you could have taken anyway if we didn't restrict you."

Wizards have more slots than any other caster except cleric it’s simple math 3 + 1 curriculum spell plus Drain Bonded item they also have what ever slot games their Arcane Thesis gives them. On top of this there...

Did you really just post this? Ever single caster class gets Legendary casting except the magus and summoner.

You gotta be trolling us with this post.

This argument comes down to the value of RK. I think the reason sorcerers have sorcererous potency is because they are bad at RK checks. The game expects wizards to more consistently be hitting the weakest save and sorcerers to be guessing most of the time.

If this is not the result playing out in game its not the wizards design at fault.

Not really. Intelligence used to give a huge skill advantage in PF1.

Skills are easy to come by at a trained level in PF2. So the focus is on proficiency. Intelligence gives no advantage in proficiency.

At best you can do like some do spending skill feats on additional lore which auto-scales and uses intelligence to give a minor advantage on often unnecessary RK checks that cost an action that use intelligence.

You know how often I used RK in PF1? All the time, nearly every battle. It was a free action, intelligence based, and wizards were the undisputed kings of knowledge skills.

You know how often I use RK in PF2? Almost never. Religion and Nature for some RK skills are wisdom based. Proficiency matters big in this edition. Lore skills are narrow so additional lore might not cover everything. And the more importantly nothing is immune to almost anything anymore, even the immune creatures are obvious like a red dragon immune to fire or devils. So you don't even need to RK any more to figure out how to beat creatures. And it costs 1 action to maybe gain a minor unnecessary advantage while martials just hit it to determine what works against it and 99% of the time hitting it works.

Do some of the damage cantrips not have the attack trait? Might be interesting to be able to do damage as a swash after a finisher with a spell lacking the attack trait.

I love how every complaint about the Wizard ignores half the character build in order to justify their complaint. The wizards school is weak when compared to the sorcerer blood line! Well it should be because it’s only half the equation you also have the arcane thesis to consider both those combined is easily equal to a Sorcerer’s bloodline.

“ I wish the designers would admit this and get rid of it. Make the wizard a four slot caster like the sorc. There's not point in keeping them a 3 slot caster with special rules to become 4 slot. Their innate class abilities just don't warrant the 3 slot limit like the witch hexes do.”. This is just stupid Wizards have 4 slots you just have to choose one of your curriculum spell. In fact a Wizard runs more slots that a Sorcerer generally especially if the take the Staff Thesis.

The truth of the matter if you know how to run a Wizard your generally more powerful than a Sorcerer but a Wizard has a much higher learning curve than a Sorcerer. There’s no real thought behind a Sorcerer no learning needed at all it’s casting on easy mode while a Wizard is far more powerful once you learn how.

This is not true. I'm not sure why people keep claiming this.

I know casters as well as you can know them. I've played the wizard as my primary in every edition of D&D they existed. I play more casters than martials by a good margin.

There is this niche that keeps making the claim the wizard is stronger than the sorcerer and they are not. I have about as good a system mastery as exists in PF2, 5E, PF1, 3E, 3.5E, 2nd edition, and 1st edition. I'm an old school player focused primarily on casters.

If you have system mastery in PF2, then the spontaneous casters are better by a good margin.

In PF1 wizards were king by a mile. Best class in the game. Slow start, but spectacularly powerful at high level. If you have system mastery as I did, then you know why they were so much better in PF1/3E.

Just as if you have system mastery in PF2, you know why spontaneous casters are better in PF2. The main reason being because changing out spells is not longer very valuable. There aren't alpha spells any more. There aren't silver bullet spells any more. There is only the casting of the same most powerful spell over and over and over again. And spontaneous casters do that better than prepared casters.

That's how PF2 works. The class features of the spontaneous casters are generally better.

I don't know why you are holding on on to this old paradigm when wizards could find those perfect spells like PF1/3E when such spells no longer exist. There is no immunity to energy spells castable on a whole group anymore. No mobile individual wind walls that ruin archers. No mass hold monsters. No dominate that ends battles. No enervate or energy drain that automatically adds negative levels with no saves. Very few longer duration party buffs. No cheap wands. No ability enhancing spells. There isn't even a mass fly spell anymore.

The new paradigm is simple, straightforward, and narrow. Very few spell slots. Very few mass buff spells.

And in this new paradigm, the wizard is not that great. The spontaneous casters, specifically the sorcerer and bard are much better than they are. They are even more versatile users of magic.

When I hear a person make the claim wizards are better, it clearly shows they haven't even bothered to learn all that sorcerers and spontaneous casters can do. If they did have system mastery and knew sorcs, they would know that 45 spells known and 1 they can change out every day is more than enough to match anything the wizard can come up with.

Basically bake Unleash Psyche in the amping of psi cantrips ?

Like "While your psyche is unleashed your psi cantrip's are amplified, dealing their effect listed in their "unleashed" section."

And the feat amps then are a separate thing, amps being the ability to spend focus points to add an effect to psi-cantrips. Those can be gotten from archetype, while the unleash cannot.

Sure, something like that as long as they make Unleash Psyche last longer.

I am still not sure how they thought 2 rounds was enough for Unleash Psyche. No one in my group has been able to make much use of Unleash Psyche the way it is current constructed. It is one of the most limiting abilities I've ever seen with a terrible, terrible, bad, shouldn't have been done design that makes the caster stupefied after use. It would be the equivalent of making barbarian rage cause a barbarian to get a -2 penalty to their attacks or more after using rage. It's super bad design.

Unleash Psyche lasting 2 rounds then applying the stupefied condition reducing the psychics spell DCs and attack modifiers while requiring them to make a roll to cast was something I'm surprised made it past class testing. How did anyone that ran the class ok this?

The psychic needs as much, if not more work, than the with pre-Remaster witch to make it viable.

I like the Remastered Oracle. I do miss some of the unique powers, but only one or two were any good. In the future, I'd like some more refinement. But the base chassis of the oracle is very good. I'm glad they made the change as the new oracle is much more playable than the old one.

About all I would like in the future is some refinement of the curses and unique oracle powers to make the class feel more like the curses give abilities that fit their theme.

Didn't think they could make the wizard more limited and worse in the Remaster, but somehow they managed it.

I hope they get rid of the school tied to spell slots mechanic and make curriculums provide unique abilities and focus spells. The spell slots tied to curriculum mechanic doesn't translate well to PF2. I wish the designers would admit this and get rid of it. Make the wizard a four slot caster like the sorc. There's not point in keeping them a 3 slot caster with special rules to become 4 slot. Their innate class abilities just don't warrant the 3 slot limit like the witch hexes do.

If they remaster the psychic, they could fix the imaginary weapon problem by building the psychic more like the oracle making the psychic amps work off a different resource than focus points. If they model it in that direction, then they won't have to worry about poaching.

I think the Remastered Oracle curse mechanic is a better way to build a Remastered psychic by giving the psychic a unique resource pool that allows it to do its psychic things more often while also having meaningful focus spells. Psychic limitations of 3 focus points a battle was pretty limiting in groups like I run with where you don't slow down when you start to run a dungeon or encounter area. I think an additional resource pool tied to their psychic abilities would give them more endurance than the limited focus point system they currently run on.

And it would fix the imaginary weapon problem by allowing them to tag it with some psychic ability tag that isn't easy to access for other classes. It would solve a lot of problems with making the psychic a more unique class with less poachable power.