NemoNoName's page

Just because Sorcerer can use Demoralise doesn't mean this is in any way lesser. They can use Demoralise once per enemy, and if it is a boss, now they have multiple ways to reduce their saves.

TOZ wrote:

So, have we solved anything yet?

Well, we can't solve anything. Designing anything to combat any identified issues is just Homebrew, which, ironically, would add to the table variance problem.

But if you'd like a very brief summary, the problems with the Wizard can be broken down into 3 primary categories, all 3 are interrelated and inform on the themselves:

Theme & Identity
- Wizard lacks a solid mechanical identity, seperate from other casters
- Wizard's theme isn't meaningfully fulfilled or explored

GM Dependence & Table Variance
- Several issues with Wizard seem to resolve around them needing a disproportionate amount of attention, cooperation and buy-in from the GM.
- This level of GM Buy-in is generally not communicated to either the player or the GM and needs to be "discovered"
- Table variance been Wizard experiences can be huge because of this

Mechanical Implementation
- Wizard has several specific issues in how the class is designed and how it interacts with the above two
- Specific call out to the change to the Curriculum slot restrictions diminishing one of the otherwise stated power-levers of the class.

I think this is an excellent summary of Wizard issues in PF2E.

I read the title as meaning the hypetrain is dead :D

As Gisher noted, Chakram is ranged so you can't use it in melee. However, you can use it with Investigator because it is ranged - and thus doesn't need Agile or Finesse. :)

Wizard: make you wish you played any other spellcasting class.

It really is absolutely required to max out your saves. Remember, it's not just frequency of being hit, but also frequency of being crit that is affected, and this is absolutely critical.

I was going to make a few minor points such as permanent items can also be sold for 1/2 value, consumeables fall under "should I use it now or save for next time" whereas permanent items will recharge to be ready if needed multiple times, etc.

However. None of that matters. What matters for me personally is that consumeables feel exceedingly consumerist and plain irresponsible. Why the hell would I use the equivalent of someones year of work as a one-off maybe-works-maybe-doesn't item such as a medium level scroll of offensive spell? It doesn't matter if I can afford it, but immorality of such an act is humongous.

No. I hate consumeables in general; they are far too expensive, often action hungry, and the worst part is, they just feel super-bad to use from so many angles.

Same issue(s), haven't so far tried any fixes.

Also, a lot of consumeable have a high action cost for dubious or even low-chance benefits.

Since Witch can cast any tradition, that means having to be less powerful mechanically than any of the other spellcasting classes.

Witches can only cast spells from one Tradition, they don't have cross-Tradition spell access.

The main problem with these kinds of spells is, where do you draw the line? These kinds of spells are so specialized they should either be covered by one very generic spell, or GM should allow it on the fly. They do not need to be defined for a game.

Why can't we have a single house-keeping spell that covers all cleaning needs for your home or dungeon instead of having "Wash bathtub", "Clean shower stall", and "Scrub jacuzzi" spells?

Secrets of Magic brought us a new, fancy, and very useful spell called Quick Sort.

It seems like a critical spell that should be in every spellcaster repertoire. I vote we need more spells like these! We need Heapsort, Bubble Sort, and Radix sort. This is URGENT!

=========================

On a slightly more serious note, can we please stop having these spells? I'm not even complaining that a better spell could've been added in its place, but just simply NOT having this spell would be improvement, since it just clogs the spell lists for no reason. Especially if you're trying to introduce new people, this type of spells are actually a detriment.

PF2 writers don't seem to like Transmutation, and so they keep taking out spells from that school, or nerfing into ground any that are left (ex. Animate Rope, or compare Expeditious Excavation to Telekinetic Maneuver).

And in general, the rule seems to be to move spells into Evocation.

It's a running theme in Pathfinder 2. For everything I like about the game, the overzealous attitudes to nerfing any chance of using things like shape changes is a serious problem. Check the Hybrid form of Beastkin.

I think Dragon claws are better than the wildmorph focus spell given to wild order druids as their default focus spell by a wide margin. Wild shape is more fun, but really only in a utility sense at both low levels and high levels, unless you sink feats into it.

I disagree strongly on this point. For several reasons; it is much easier to build a Druid that can stand in melee (without being better than a proper martial) since they start with Armour proficiency and higher hit points.

And while yes, you want to get those extra feats to upgrade Wild Claws feature, those extra feats bring you more than upgrade to Wild Claws and thus are much more worthwhile investment.

If you love lay on hands,

I hate it, I think it makes the game worse and less interesting.

you can pick it up as a sorcerer at level 2 with the Blessed One archetype AND get an extra focus point to boot. Continuing to get more new add on options takes care of the "Now I am stuck with this" aspect of this debate instantly.

Again, this doesn't resolve the problem of having Dragon Claws. This is just a forced fix for a problem that shouldn't exist.

You're not getting consensus. You're getting people on one side (those thinking there isn't a significant issue) getting tired and deciding to not post, just leaving the people on the other side posting.

Please don't mistake people being silent as agreeing.

That cuts both ways. And in fact, it seems from overview that number of people who think there IS an issue that stopped posting is higher than other way around.

Dragon claws are very thematic for their bloodline. Doesn't mean it was meant to be built around on the chassis it's on.

An thematic option that cannot be used well is THE example of "how to create a Negative Player Experience".

This is just a baldly bad faith argument that I actually laughed out loud as I read it. But to address your semblance of a point;

No. We want the options to be BETTER so that people aren't PUNISHED for attempting to make those "creative sorcerer builds" you are touting. We want them to exist, we like that they do exist, we do not want players to be pigeoned holed mechanically OR forced into a position where they have traded their ability to be mechanically effective for their character concept.

Just wanted to boost, this is a very nice summation! :)

On-level encounters are intended to be difficult challenges. They are not intended to be pubstomps. Stop acting like "on-level" means "trivial" in this system.

Errr... What? This is such a non-sequitur from what I said that it's impressive.

For starters and according to rules, a single on-level monster is 40XP, which in turn is classified as "Trivial encounter".

However, that is neither here nor there. I did not talk about whole encounters, mere probability of hitting an on-level threat. Martials are about 50-50 to hit it and to be hit back, which is fine. But it means spellcasters are going to be hit more frequently, with less HP to absorb the hits. Their primary defence is not being next to it. Thus, a spell that requires them to be next to the monster isn't going to be good even if hitting is on par with martials, and it will be unusable if it's weaker than martials.

Who said anything about hitting reliably? Martials (outside of Fighter) don't really hit reliably, they're hit-and-miss situation against on-level enemies. And as a caster, you'd still be hit way more often than a martial presumably - or if you could get comparable AC, you'd have way less HP. And provoke AoO way more often if you're going into CC.

But, note that people aren't asking for master proficiency, but instead to hit with spell attack mods. Meaning no runes, but eventually increased proficiency over martial (eventually is important here).

Again, people here seem to assume that proficiency, in form of the to-hit numbers, are what makes martials distinct from spellcasters. That misunderstands the game engine *so much*.

In fact, the to-hit numbers are the least part of it. The whole system is so skewed that if you don't have the on-level to-hit, you're not merely weaker, you are completely out. Having appropriate to-hit is a prerequisite for making ANYTHING work.

Furthermore, even if say sorcerer gets to-hit with their dragon claws equal to martials, this still leaves them extremely exposed because they have to get into close combat, somewhere where their low HP and questionable armour saves don't want them to be.

Even martials don't hit reliably with their to-hit numbers. Thus a sorcerer with similar to-hit number is being in melee trying to hit with an average weapon and overall subpar defences is not going to suddenly take martials special space.

What makes Martials truly distinct are their special abilities and feats, not pure numbers. Giving spellcasters a way to attack in melee with semi-decent weapons with similar to-hit values to martials won't make martials suddenly superflous. It will just make those spells useable (not even good, merely useable).

On the note of "you can't give casters numbers equal to martials because then what do martials have" - well they have their specialised feats and abilities.

If it's true that giving casters same numbers as martials would make them equal, then Fighter would make all other martials irrelevant.

Martials get feats and abilities besides the "pure" proficiency numbers. This is what makes them great, not the mere number. Numbers are NECESSARY for a martial, but they are not the entirety of martial experience. Martials would still be able to be martially. And no, caster MC'ing to get Power Attack wouldn't break the bank either - by that time, martials should have way larger access to other feats that make them special than pure numbers.

I don't buy this "spell that scales would be too strong". There's already plenty of spells that scale. Most Cantrips scale - shield is super useful from 1 to 20 no issue. So having a few more spells that scale wouldn't really break the bank.
Not to mention that despite scaling in attack/damage/AC, Polymorph spells would still fall behind in other aspects and thus wouldn't really even dominate the base-higher level Polymorph spells. If you use Animal Form, you never get flying, or resistances to energy damage.

They don't get to out-wizard you do they?

They don't? Skill Feats are way better than any built-in Wizard abilities and there's so many items that provide the exact same spells Wizard can cast.

In fact, a 1 min spell that gave you same attack modifier would allow you to mimic a Martial for 1/1440 of a day (since martials can just keep going). And the real strength of Martials is not merely in their main number, but in the abilities their feats give them.

Since spellcasters generally have 3 or 4 spell slots per spell level a day, that means that casting a spell allows you to mimic about 2/3*character level of their ability (2 because it's 3 spell slots for every 2 character levels, roughly speaking).
Or at 6th level, casting a spell gives you about 10-15% of spell ability a spellcaster will have.

P.S. And before the nay-sayers jump up, I don't actually want a Transformation spell. I'm just demolishing this particular argument against it.

Do you recall the stream in question, I can't remember anything recently.

Wasn't recently, this was a year or so ago. I remember the stream wasn't specifically about the Wizards but he referenced them on "good design example" and I think it must've been Focus Spells because it was one of the big pain points of the Wizards, one no-one is claiming is well done.

Although that's not the only time I found his reasoning questionable.
I eventually stopped watching Arcane Mark since it was never useful.

Honestly, rereading them, they're not amazing. All 3 are also for hair only. Interact with objects, up the die and get grapple, and hexed hair like the hex nails feat.

I mean, getting to d6 and having Grapple IS useful. But yeah.

I think it was Mark Seifter that outlined the math for a 1E problem and got it fixed, even before he got hired onto the Paizo team.

After hearing him talk on Arcane Mark on Wizards, I have serious reservations about anything he designs.

I have little faith in any form of adhered to power-budget in class design. It's clear that some sort of internal rationing happens, but the fact that the Bard and Witch reside in the same nominal space implies that the ability to pick traditions is costed too high.

I would love to see some form of official dev-kit for PF2e. So many class issues might become clearer if we actually understood what the game was trying for under the hood.

I fully agree, and I'm not saying it's costed properly in the power budget. Just that it takes up some space, and if the animal is limited to RP opportunities only, well... It explains part of the imbalance.

We know from Wizard that devs see access to Familiar roughly in the same terms as other Wizard thesis.

And we can see in Sorcerer that devs see access to different traditions as a big power budget item.

Therefore it makes sense that Witch suffers in power budget terms, since it pays power budget for both a Familiar (much like a Wizard, potentially even stronger) and for access to different traditions.

Problem with this "familiar is for RP only anyway" approach is that it consumes part of the Witch power budget. And people like their familiars having actual gameplay mechanics rather than being something that is just RP.

Have you considered that players never want to put their familiars in harms way because of RP reasons, and that they are useless for gameplay reasons?

There's no reason for monsters to use their highest attacks on summons. They can just swipe them with second or third attack due to how comparatively weak in level they are.

I think it's best to ignore examples unless the rule is unclear.

And the rule for Wizards gaining spells is quite clear.

And what's the point of complaining about any of that when there's a new book that will have a number of new feats/options specifically for magic on the horizon? I doubt at this point they're going to stop anything to go "Oh, they made the 1111th post on casters. I guess we should add more". They're going to wait until they see what the reaction is to the new book and options, then maybe revisit the conversation.

So you’re saying that you believe that the issues with casters that most people can agree on could by solved by the creation of a - let’s call it a supplement - that introduces new archetypes, feats, spells and items that is entirely focused on magic.

Something to help casters discover the secret to empowering themselves with more options?

Because we've been told to shut up and wait for Lost Omens: World Guide, which will provide interesting Archetypes and new feat options for classes. It brought a lot, but very little for Wizards.

Then it was clear why - there was Gods and Magic coming. There Wizards will get what they need, after all, it has "Magic" in the name. Wizards got essentially 0 from that book.

Then it was Advanced Players Guide. I mean, they promised all classes will get upgrades!

Wizards got one nice but limited Thesis and one feat worth mentioning (for Illusionists, which were already the best). 0 new Focus spells. Transmuters literally still didn't get a cantrip worth mentioning. They did get a feat though, one which is a) literally unusuable for 3 levels and b) in effect nerfs what you are doing instead of making it better.
And they got a grand total of 0 archetypes that lean into Wizardy things or interact well with Wizardy.

And those are just the highlights. Whenever people bring up their problems, it's always something next coming that fill fix the Wizard, shut up, you're just a power hungry munchkin.

After 2 years we're finally getting to the state where we admitting there is a problem.

In another 2 years we might agree on a solution.
We'll hopefully get it in print in just under another 2 years.

Then we'll all get to enjoy it for a few weeks until the play test for 3e hits, and the cycle starts again.

Sounds about right.

Unicore wrote:

What thematic caster is not a playable character in PF2 right now

There's lots of thematic concepts that aren't playable.

I have a couple of characters from stories I wrote that can transform creatures to buff or hinder them. Despite this being a common trope in fantasy, there's almost no options for transforming or altering other creatures aside from bestial curse and baleful polymorph, both of which are too high level to build a character concept around. Most polymorph spells only affect the caster.

Transmuter concepts in general don't work well. There is extremely limited damage or battlefield control options in Transmutation school. Many spells have been nerfed into oblivion (see Animate Rope).

Polymorph spells kinda work at level (kinda), but are weak, limited in application, and you can't really specialise in polymorphing into a specific form as it will quickly fall useless as you level up.

Just checking caster NPCs from Gamemaster Guide shows that almost all of them are have DCs 2 points higher than equal level PCs.

Investigator pales in comparison to the wizard. They one of the least effective classes in the game.

Playing investigator would be like playing a "wizard" version of a martial. I played an investigator for a few levels. That class was mostly made for role-playing and group support games with some mystery.

I'm sorry? I played both Wizard (7, almost 8 levels) and Investigator (level 4 I think? haven't been playing PFS for some months now) in PFS and Investigator blows the Wizard out of the water in usefulness and fun. Investigator is effective in combat, and absolutely rocks out of combat. Wizard is... Meh? Does well with stuff any other class would do well?

Having a free metamagic feat and an extra flexible one is being best at metamagic.

That's a very low bar, especially given that now, Wizards don't even get access to the best metamagic feats.

Regarding notes on Mastermind Rogue, you don't need to max-out Int to beat Wizard at Int stuff. You can do 14 or 16 in Int and still equal or beat them due to all the extra skill increases, skill feats, and just plain better class.

2. Most ability to change out spells when given sufficient time.

Only if you take that one thesis.

3. Best at intel-based skills.

4. Most languages due to intel.

Neither of this is true, since Investigator and Int-based Rogue can easily outclass wizards on both these accounts. And by a wide margin, by the virtue of having extra Skill feats and a bunch of other skill-related features.

8. Best at metamagic, which will likely be pretty powerful once more books are released.

First of all, this is not something they're good at, this is something they might be good at if any half-decent metamagic feats come out AND they give Wizards access to them.

And there hasn't been any clues that they are looking into doing this.

Also, not really. I guess they can lean into changing one metamagic feat every day? Yay?

Investigator. While you do miss the spells (though you can always multiclass), the sheer number of skills and other useful abilities is dazzling.

There is no niche for Wizard. They're just a spell dispensary, except other classes do it all better.

The problem is that this argument is like Schrödingers cat, i.e. it is both wrong and right at the same time.

If I am not entirely mistaken the prepared Wizard is supposed to be (at least somewhat) better than other casters and the unprepared Wizard is supposed to be (at least somewhat) worse than other casters by game design.

So by design the Wizard is very dependent on scouting (magical or mundane), on GM foreshadowing and/or his ability to make the correct informed decisions while being allowed sufficient preparation time. The Wizard is a lot better when he is the active, planning part than he is when he has to deal with rapid changes.

It is therefore not astonishing that many a Wizard is faring badly if he is constantly thrown into entirely surprising situations, something however many GM's and AP's like to do.

I will also point out that these comparisons also use Wizard prepared for the situation vs others with their generic loadouts. Whereas others can prepare too when they know a situation is coming up, and improve even more on their loadouts.

Sure, maybe they can't improve their performance by same amount as Wizard can, but they already start from higher baseline and will end up higher than Wizard performance again.

The Defender's theme seems to be a Champion but not have to respect any anathema. Since it is a negative theme, I think most people will not identify it with a Class theme.

It's only a negative theme if you start with the Champion as it is currently. It's in fact a complete mismatch of class and mechanics.

Just like literally every other class. I forgot how many times I lined up every advantage I could get for my monk and still missed both attacks against higher leveled enemies. It happens to every single class, not just spellcasters. The only different that while casters are spending renewable resources like spellslots, martial characters are getting whacked in the face by the enemy. Everyone needs to do the same stuff you're trying to say it's exclusive to spellcaster. Seems very cherry-picky too me.

Casters are spending limited (if renewable) resources while martials are going at it all day. HP are no longer the limit like they were previously, it's easy to replenish them. Spell slots are gone in combat or two.

Not to mention that there is Fighter in the mix who excels at stronger enemies, plus martials get repeated strikes every round (even if some at penalty) and reliable and repeatable ways to debuff an enemy.
All of that ignoring all the bonus abilities they can get via class abilities to provide them with even more flexibility.

Spellcasters may not be able to abuse the shoddy math of the previous editions to make so that the enemies, even stronger ones, have low chance of succeeding and single-handedly ending encounters while your party members just play second fiddle to your protagonist God Wizard,

... Yeah, this only deserves answers better left unwritten.

Please try to abandon your focus on previous editions and look at this edition, with a critical eye for balance.

but they can significantly impact the battle, like everyone else and they still get a ton of useful spells to outside of combat like before.

With the improvements to skill feats and nerfs to spells, I am not seeing any advantage in this at all.

Blasting in this edition is far stronger than previous edition simply because of the degrees of success AND all spellcasters have a reliable source of damage to draw from with cantrips.

You must be fighting only low level enemies. Blasting is weak against higher level enemies, often doing less damage than a "normal" martials attack.

Our Wizard wasn't even particular the best player around and forgot to use some of his features once in a while, but his Necromancy wizard had several clutch moment and after the first few levels I started calling a tank Wizard just because of the amount of self-healing he could do (School Focus spell and Vampiric Touch is an amazing combo and won us a fight).

That's temporary HP and you must be fighting very weak enemies to get much out of it. I've been using it on my Hellknight Full Plate Wizard and while it's useful, it's really not that noteable.

Do not mistake a balanced class with a useless ones.

I'm not. Wizards are not completely useless, just weak compared to other classes, especially martials.

I know a lot of people are enjoying seeing the Wizards struggle after years of Wizards being OP, but that's really not good for health of the game.

Even Paizo admits themselves that spellcasting is too weak, as it's artificially buffed on NPC spellcasters (they have a fairly consistent +2 over equal level PCs).

Personally, I'd have preferred a significantly different casting system that is more interactive on casters part, but we're stuck with what we have.

Mages can be played reliably as damage dealers.

IF you are targeting low-level enemies. Equal or higher level you need to go through hoops (targeting the worst save, trying to debuff) to just have a 50-50 chance of landing a spell.

Are they going to be consistently making you wonder "why do martials ever exist" like 5e and PF1?

No.

No, this edition is making me wonder why most spellcasters even exist.

Or at least, non-NPC spellcasters. A party can easily do with a single support spellcaster and all non-spellcaster classes.

to be fair I think staff nexus was a really nice get for wizards from the APG.

There's a few other stuff that APG brought positive to (some) Wizards, but overall, it's still a class that has no identity and struggles to maintain relevance.

Even the Staff Nexus really isn't noteable until later levels.

Here's the basic deal. Mathematically your bombs will be fine on damage but behind ranged martials, without investment. With investment, you'll be pretty much at the level of a ranged martial (shortbow level) so long as your bombs last - but you'll need to pick up Calculated/Expanded Splash and/or Sticky Bombs.

Translation: if you invest all character resources into making bombs viable you'll be on par with martial that picks up a shortbow and makes sure they has appropriate runes on it. Ignoring everything else these martials can get via class feats, non-basic runes, etc.

Witches are waiting for options to get more and better hex cantrips.

XD XD XD XD XD XD XD XD XD

Sounds very familiar to my issues with Wizards.

"Wait until Lost Omens Gods and Magic comes out and Wizards get more options."

"Wait until Gamemastery Guide comes out and Wizards get more options."

"Wait until few more Lost Omens books come out and Wizards get more options."

"Wait until Advanced Player's Guide comes out and Wizards get more options."

"Wait until Secrets of Magic comes out and Wizards get more options."

:D :D :D

Investigator. My favourite class of all time is Wizards, but these ones feel like underpowered Sorcerers instead.

That calculation seems to entirely ignore the problem of hitting with Alchemists. Which is the main issue.

Not to mention that ranged Fighter will easily make multiple attacks per round. And you yourself include various math fixer feats to make Alchemist kinda similar.

Same problem with Bottle Lighting. Awesome idea, my players caught on to it... And then proceeded to consistently miss with their bombs.

Especially on boss characters where you really want to apply something like this.

Yup. I've seen 2 alchemist at least 2 Alchemist so far give up on the class. And those were new players.

Personally, I tried making a Mutagen Alchemist, even talked the DM into giving us free Archetype so I can get more armour, optimized the shit out of it...

And even I had to give up because it's simply crap. Wasn't doing anything useful. Even the Healing Elixirs... I mean, level 1 healing elixirs give you d6 HP back, even for low HP classes this is barely registering on level 1 unless you roll good.

Also saw a few Alchemist in PFS games, but... I literally can't remember any details about them except for 1, whose contribution to the party were running around and raising people from unconscious (with too few HP due to Elixirs of Life being so subpar, so they dropped immediately down).