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I love it when people compare wizards to sorcerers and decide that wizards are just better. Yes, they have access to all the arcane spells, theoretically, and sorcerers just don't.

Everybody ignores the fact that preparation spellcasting means you as a player have to call the ball exactly right at the beginning of each adventuring day or you ended up wasting resources on a certain number of useless spells.

Narrow as they have to be built, sorcerers aren't goaded into speculative resource waste. If I know lightning bolt, when a lightning bolt is needed, I cast it.

Designing the imperial sorcerer to have the same spell progression as a universalist wizard is very strong.

I'd be hard pressed to determine which caster is stronger. Certainly an arcane sorcerer is a better artillery piece or battle-mage. And certainly a wizard is a better toolbox. Pick your poison, they did a good job here.

I would have liked to have had more Mythic support than I got in PF1; I enjoy the type of campaign where your party actually slays the demon lord and explicitly becomes a demigod in the planes as a finisher, for instance.

Whether that style of campaign would require the addition of tiers or levels of power beyond 20th in PF2, or whether this edition will be designed such that "slaying the demon lord" play will be within the capability of a party of 20th level characters, thereby obviating the need for mythic, would of course be a design decision. I would prefer the latter, honestly.

Certainly, PF1 was explicitly designed such that a party of 20th levels couldn't kill a demon lord or an archdevil, and that always seemed strange to me.

It's not about how people feel about mythic. It's about how it sells.

All the same. I'm not privy to their financials and forecasts; that's their business and their problem. I'm putting my vote in as a consumer with disposable cash that I'd appreciate basic mythic support for psychic characters.

What about mythic support for these classes?

Regardless of how people may or not feel about the mythic rules/mythic AP, it would be irritating to have a mythic campaign that doesn't well support these characters as a viable choice.

For instance, take the psychic- although it'd best fit into the Archmage mythic path in terms of analogous function, it can't go simply because it's not "arcane".

Hopefully this gets cleared up quickly for mythic fans.

4) Dunno. At this point I'm not too keen on doing another mythic PC Adventure Path at all though.

This was disappointing to hear, I must admit. I really enjoyed the rule set and that style of play. May we know the reasons behind why you would not wish to do another mythic PC Adventure Path?

I am of a mind with TwoWolves here; I think the class should emphasize the classic 5 attack forms/5 defense forms more. As it is, the psychic can't really indulge himself with all of them without giving up a lot else. Since the psychic doesn't really have any other way of dealing damage, these should be gratis.

I have to agree with a lot of other posters as well, regarding the bland nature of the class. It really feels like this guy came out half-baked. I'd like to send it back to the kitchen for some more critical thought about how this class can be made to be more original/standout and also effective in a variety of situations.

First impressions, all IMHO of course.

Spells? No thanks. Name them Powers or Talents or Abilities or something else. They can behave exactly like spells and interact exactly the same with Spell Resistance etc, but not spells. Psychics shouldn't be using wands and staves.

Undercasting? Ugh. Why not make them scaling UP instead of DOWN? When you have what is effectively a spontaneous full caster, why make them burn their limited higher level "spells known" for weaker effects?

Speaking of weaker effects, it sure seems like the attack/defense "spells" are woefully underpowered for their levels.

All of the classic attack/defence forms should not be "spells" at all. They should be like Magus Arcana. Start with 1 attack and 1 defense at 1st level, then pick from a list every 3 levels. They should be scaleable, not undercastable. They could be powered with "phrenic pool" points, which could be increased to pay for escalating costs of upscaled "spells". The current uses for the phrenic amplification could be moved to feats or another mechanic ("uses/day" or something), or have their costs adjusted to account for the greater number of available points.

Psychic Disciplines. Call me old fashioned, but I had hoped this would more closely mirror the classic disciplines, rather than be like Sorcerer bloodlines. Currently, this class is (again, IMHO) a poor-man's sorcerer. Telepathy, Precognition/Object Reading, Mind Control, Psychoportation, etc etc. instead seems more in line with what I think people might be hoping for. Lore? That just looks like an attempt to make a psychic themed sorcerer look more like a psychic themed wizard. Pain? Make an archetype instead.

Again, I have not studied the playtest document in depth, and all of these are just my first impressions after a quick read through. If I got something wrong mechanically, forgive me, I'll look at it more closely when time permits.

No, an arcanist is definitely not stronger than a wizard.

The wizard gets a substantial amount of spells of the next highest level for 40% of levels. Another 50% of levels, they share the same highest spell level...but the wizard is strictly better at spellcasting in the sense that all the wizard has to do to equal the arcanist is to memorize the same spell N times. That's because the arcanist can only memorize 1 spell of his highest spell level 1-18.

Also, if the wizard is a specialist and has the bonded item feature as well as competitive INT, the wizard typically can cast 4 spells at the highest spell level the level he receives it.

All the hype about the arcanist is hype. All the arcanist has is an extra bag of miscellaneous tricks. He won't keep up with a well-designed wizard.

I'm still curious about this. Any official errata that resolves the contradiction?

Any unofficial guidance from developers?

Evil can play at the same table as good with zero problems. As long as the evil character is into teamwork with all the rest of the players and doesn't break the fun by ruining somebody else's fun, there's nothing wrong when a character's motivation is "rule personal empire with a tyrannical fist" rather than "feed and clothe poor orphans."

When you start sticking your Pathfinder knife into somebody else's PC's back, it stops being fun. Don't do it. That's the GM's prerogative, and you're crossing the line with your gaming group. Instead, stick your character's knife into an NPC gnome. I hear that they make great steaks.

Dear James Jacobs,

As the author of the "Cults of the Dark Tapestry" article in Pathfinder #42, how would you go about mechanically representing cultists/wizards of the Old Cults at your table with regards to the use of Planar Binding/Planar Ally style spells?

For instance, a Cultist of Azathoth casts Planar Ally- I'm having a hard time finding creatures in the Bestiary that are thematically Mythos and yet can meet the mechanical requirements of the spell (Outsider, not Aberration). Similarly for the archetypal wizard who "knows things that man was not meant to know" and his/her Planar Binding spell.

Ditto for cultists and their Summon Monster spell line- it seems odd for the cultists to be summoning Fiends and Demons rather than Mythos entities. Can you recommend a patch-over for this?

Thanks for any advice.

Quick feedback:

Arcane summoners (conjurer wizards, summoners) exist, are popular, and would benefit topically from the Mighty Summons ability. It doesn't seem to make sense to restrict this ability to Hierophants and divine casters only. Please cross-post this ability to the Archmage path as well.

Question: Does mighty summoning stack with superior summons (i.e. 1d3 beasts of level -1 list, +1 superior summoning, +1 might summons)?