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I don't see any once per round limitations built into the spell's sustain text. Ergo, you could potentially move someone three times in a round, or move three people. Or four with Effortlesss Concentration! This is my thinking as well. It can be sustained multiple times, up to four as you say (5 if we poach Cackle), allowing for you to potentially move your entire party about. I'm eyeing this for the Commander when it comes out as well. Bring an ally into position for a formation, or whatever the release version may be called.
Pretty much got it! It’s a reaction teleport spell when triggers when you take damage from an attack or spell. Lets you teleport 20ft in the direction of your choice and grants you aforementioned resistance. Schools of Gates looks like one of the best schools overall. We also now have enough teleport spells to fill a personal staff.
I do feel like this is a plant for Battlecry. The school overall has a lot of teleportation and movement options, all of which would be perfect for the more tactical lines of play that I think we are expecting there. Effortless Concentration comes online just 3 levels after the 30ft movement is achieved, so the two work well. Poaching Cackle from the Witch also opens it up a little as well, while getting an additional focus point.
Shining Kingdoms gives us a new Wizard school, the School of Gates. I actually quite like this school, as both its focus spells seem very useful and it grants several school spells I quite like (Warping Pull and Echo Jump being stand outs). I would like to focus in on the 1st level focus spell, Friendly Push, however. It reads:
Off the bat this has a lot going for it. - It falls into that realm of focus spell where it can conceivably be used in every encounter for your entire adventuring career, and has a very iconic, "Build around me" feel. - It can be sustained multiple times a round. - Post 13th level, it can function as either a side-grade or upgrade to your own stride actions. - Being a single action, there are several possible applications for the Ready Action - It has a fun interaction with Catfall/Rolling Landing - Probably some fun things can be done by a Liturgist Animist who poaches it. Overall it can give your turns a very tactical "Chess master" feel with your party, and can have just some fun general interactions in several scenarios. So What hijinx can we pull with it? Party builds and combos, item interactions, everything is on the table.
My Bloodlord Necromancer Wizard doesn't really work anymore. They were a Lepistadt graduate who used the necromancy slot to take all the antonomy heavy necromancy spells. Less raise-the-dead necromancer, more body horror. Post remaster I can still technically do this, but I have to trade out normal spellslots to do it while being lumbered with schools spells from School of the Boundary I don't particularly want. I guess he would actually be closer to Protean Form these days, but I also don't really want most of those spells either. So the remaster didn't kill the character as such, just forced me to trade effectiveness for theme and gave me nothing in return for making me worse. I was actually rather excited when I thought Rivals was going to introduce Lepistadt as an actual school. I had hoped this character would have been restored, but alas.
What I'm hearing from this discussion, however, is that to the class already most susceptible to and punished by Table Variance, the Runelord now adds additional layers to that. I can see how that if the you think anathema aren't really restrictions and don't play them as such, then yes, its the archetype isn't due much reward. If they are played as actual restrictions, then the archetype is now missing a real payoff for those restructions. We need to take into account that with the remaster the Wizard got a substantial nerf to horizonal power, and lost the crown for having the most top-level spell slots (either tying with or being replaced by the Oracle, depending on build). I guess I had hoped that the rare archetype of the Runelord was a partial correction for these nerfs. But I guess not.
Considering that the anathema is basically saying-but-not-saying the old restricted schools of magic, I'd have preferred if the anathema pointed to trait tags or something clearer. The removal of schools would have gone much better, and the system itself would be much more robust and flexible, if it had been paired with a serious application of traits to spells. Obviously the time constraints of the remaster prevented this, but a comprehensive trait system is the answer to a lot of issues in and around magic. If nothing else, it would allow Personal Staves to have some life again.
I'll give you this, on the condition that you accept that there are already potentially hundreds of instances already in the game line that we just accept every day. In this instance we know due to an errata, but there exists quite a bit of room for this sort of error all over the system. In which case we can't know until we know. A perfectly valid errata may have also clarified the preparing issue without touching the additional charges, for instance. We can't take any potential ambiguity as a red flag because... well, Paizo leave a ton of ambiguity everywhere.
They may not have intended it to the final, printed, version of the ability, but its a clear vision of a feature which is perfectly functional as written and makes sense.It's all very well, but there's one small hitch: all this text never said anything that the base rule 'prepare only one staff per day' is removed. So yes, you add charges from a prepared staff. And your weapon is a staff. You prepare only one as usual though. So it always was only one set of charges. Functional and makes sense. Because it doesn't need to. Your functional staff is not an actual staff that gained charges from being prepared. It is a functional staff that gained charges as described in the ability. If you chose to prepare an actual staff, you used those rules as normal, and if you merged them you used the actions as governed by the text. Yes they needed to state that the functional staff could not be prepared separately as it was not explictly clear. But your functional staff never said it could be prepared anyhow.
Never let it be said that I think Paizo word their abilites well, and there is certainly room to improve it. My contention was more around the additional charges granted to the initial staff was not an error or wording, or, if it was, they went out of their way to insert additional language for the sole purpose of making room for error. If you forget the merging aspect for a moment and just look what was in the first paragraph, its a fairly unambiguous ability. I agree that the reading where people thought you could get 2 full staff charges + the additional was always wrong and not supported in the text.
they just messed up the wording of the rule a bit. Lets be honest here. That is not really what happened. Lets compare text.
"with charges equal to the highest rank of spells you can cast" is a clear feature, which is then referenced later in the next paragraph to tell you how to handle those extra charges with the staff merge function. They may not have intended it to the final, printed, version of the ability, but its a clear vision of a feature which is perfectly functional as written and makes sense. Paizo are allowed to change their mind or walk things backs, but its not something that was created due to some muddled wording.
Perhaps if players were allowed to strick their fingers in mousetraps at the start of each session, that woud suffice. Sometimes ones want to be argumentative hides for the forest for the trees. I'm saying that your outlook on the situation is absurd, not that you have said an absurd thing on its face. You are making the case that downsides, or costs, should not be something which can be mitigated. You want these costs to hurt, so that any potential upside is paid for. Its a fine idea on paper, but the nature of the medium means that there exists no real costs a player could be asked to pay that aren't in some way mitigatable if - and this is where we cross the absurdity boundry in your reasoning - we don't count "no longer does certain things" as a cost. Encouraging changes in behaviour is the goal of things like the anthema system. To say that because the system works to meet its intended goal, it is then, not a restriction or cost to the player, is silly. Reductions in agency which encourage alternative lines of play is the entire point! This the "stick" (or Negative incentive) portion of Carrot & Stick behavioural economics. My general problem with this errata is that it removed most of the expected carrot (our positive incentive). Paizo has made it clear they want Wizards to be most defined by the spells they cast. This is at odds with the "toolbox" approach they have generally positioned the class as. We can see the (awful) changes to the school spell slot as means to get Wizards closer to that desired spot of "defined by the spells they cast" approach. Paizo have thus far opted to it all through negative incentives. Restrictions and lack of options, as opposed to Carrots. With the initial release of the Runelord, it looked like Paizo had actually struck a good balance. Being able to cast their sin spells more often than other spells, while also allowing them to prepare their other spells in their core slots, safe in the knowledge that could fall back into those sin spells with 10m break, was actually great. The additional Runelord restrictions all made sense in this context and it served as a great example of the carrot and stick coming together to make Wizards that not only felt different from each other, but were actually more defined by the spells they cast. Then they threw it away.
Imo, it's more akin to a rogue promising to never train in Thievery for a bonus to Stealth. There is quite a bit of circular reasoning in this. You are asking for it to hurt, and for the player to be made to feel that hurt everyday, but the practical cash-outs are virtually identical. The players still aren't casting the proscribed spells. The players intention of ever using those spells is immaterial. It is, however, impacting what happens within the confines of the game and limits the possible scope of solutions that player could bring. The correlate of being a prepared caster is that for every spell you prepare, you are not preparing every other spell that could also fill its space. Restricting what can and cannot be prepared causes the spells in this correlate to shift as a natural consequence. Saying this doesn't impact balance is kind of silly. If impacting the types of magic a Wizard can do is not enough, then what would a real cost look like? - A HP deduction for additional slots? - Wizards try to avoid being hit regardless, so evidently this is aso not an actual obstacle or inconvenience. - A scaling penalty to saves for slots? - Wizards strive not to be impacted by harmful effects anyhow, so this is also not an actual obstacle or inconvenience. - A loss of feats for extra slots? - Wizard class feats of note are few and far between, so trading them away would not be an actual obstacle or inconvenience. And with those 4 options, we have expended the resoures afforded in the Wizard chasis. Beyond that, all we could offer would be penalties to the classes proficiencies with Magic. Which seems like a rather pyric trade at best. Perhaps if players were allowed to strick their fingers in mousetraps at the start of each session, that woud suffice.
I'm putting my vote in the 'no, you don't get to prepare two staves and get the free charges on both of them' column. That was a TGTBT ruling that wouldn't fly at my tables to begin with. If you want to play it that way at your tables you are still certainly able to houserule .What are you talking about? I guess I’m confused by you patting yourself on the back for now allowing an interpretation that I personally never saw anyone bar you advance. So I guess good work on that! I fully agree that being able to prepare two staffs, get the charges from both, and then add your max spell rank in additional charges on top of that is not what the original text said. Mostly because it never said that.
Drawbacks can be offset by benefits.
I'm putting my vote in the 'no, you don't get to prepare two staves and get the free charges on both of them' column. That was a TGTBT ruling that wouldn't fly at my tables to begin with. If you want to play it that way at your tables you are still certainly able to houserule . What are you talking about? It’s a functional staff which has your sin spells, and a number of charges equal to your highest spell rank + a regular staff. So at most + 10 charges at 19th level.
This feels like we are in arbitrary and capricious territory. Would casting Conductive Weapons on an allies weapon be Anathema to you?
Ugh, this guy. He doesn't shut up. What happened to the bard that just quipped about stuff or the one that slept with the dragon? It started as a joke, but now I like the idea of a neurodivergent Bard whose barding methodology is info dumping constantly.
So, I'm confused. What's this an announcement of? Release of a new Adventure Path? an Actual Play? more sourcebooks? I'm probably missing some context or something.What this announcement is will be revealed tomorrow on the stream. You're not missing any context at all. Definitely a The Mandalorion crossover event. Pedro Pascal will be doing an Actual Play of the secret new sin, Handsomeness.
So, lets break this out, as there exists two aspects at play with this Anathema. 1) What counts as "the elements"? and 2) What spells can I cast? 1) Pathfinder 2e does not have an "Elemental" damage type. Damage types are defined here. The what we do have is "Energy" damage. Elemental damage, then, we can reasonably say is probably just a subset of energy damage, but this does not actually appear anywhere in the rules. However, the limitation is not against dealing damage of a certain damage type, but, instead, dealing damage with those elements. This means that, for instance, if we have a fire spell that does force damage, it would still hit the Anathema because it is the 'element' that is dealing the damage, not the damage type itself. As of RoE, we have defined the elements as: Air, Earth, Fire, Metal, Water & Wood. From this we can reasonably infer that if we are dealing damage with a spell which has any of these traits, it would trigger Anathema. We then have a special crave out for explicitly void. Void is also a trait, just not one of the elemental ones above. Now, with this, there is a potential problem. What about electricity? Electricity is a damage type, but not an elemental type. Many electricity dealing spells lack either the Air or Metal trait, while some others do. This is not simply a matter of old vs spells, as even some of those that are post RoE/Remaster contuine to see electricity as not a distinct element. Personally I see this as fine, if a bit unintuitive, it just means that your Runelord have access some reliable early damage spells without being Anathema. 2) As a small point: Casting a sin spell never invokes the anathema of its school of sin So if its on your list, you don't have to worry about it.
Don't forget Retrieval Prisms while you are at it. For 12gp a pop, at higher levels they can do some real work.
Runelord does look like a pretty cool midrange wizard from the skimming a did. I think the new Runelord is actually the best Paizo have put out for them this edition. It does a lot of good things while still being tied to the curriculum system. Having a mini Staff Nexus baked in with a mini spell substitution alone makes it head and shoulders above the base Wizard. But, more importantly, it has focus spells I want to cast every combat. Shame they didn’t keep the point expansion.
given how that would require mechanical changes to the class rather than additional feats and schools I broadly agree with this. Feats and schools are problems for the Wizard, but they aren't The Problem with Wizards. That said, a 1st level feat could do a lot for the Wizard I would say.
Simple, effective and flavourful. Also plugs the missing skill I guess.
Part of it is the addictive vs the exclusive nature of the content. The schools & archetypes exclude each other, you can only be doing one at a time and you can never mix and match. Whereas class feats can be taken in a much more adaptive way. It expands the class to a greater degree in some ways, because they can expand all characters potentially equally. Whereas subclass options cannot do that. I agree that some people are be overly unfair on the contents number. This is, by far, the most thought Paizo have given Wizards in years. The “technology” they are deploying here with the curriculum spells is a much needed elevation of the otherwise awful remaster change. So it is good all round. I just wish there was more of it on more fronts.
Those would be some hefty tomes! I can see those being a nice end-of-life product for 2nd edition. A couple of big, heavy, books which compile various things in particular books. Maybe about 4/5 in total.
We should start a pool. Money goes to a charity to aid in childrens literacy. I'll pledge 250USD that we get to 12 books, both Rules & Lost Omens, after Player Core 1, before Wizards get another new class feat printed. Come on Paizo! Take my money, prove me wrong!
Wizards haven’t got any new Wizard-specific content in the last 6/7 books, be they rules or LO. (There was an AP with a new school however! ) I haven’t seen Rivals yet, but Wizards have long overdue some actual content. A lack of actual class feats is just sad to see. It’s hard to think of a book more perfect to drop a handful of new feats for specific things.
Apparently in the new book rival academies there are no wizard feats, just a lot of spells and schools I know you personally don’t agree, but I cannot express enough how anaemic the Wizard is. New schools were NEEDED as a bare minimum because the remaster took more schools and focus spells than it gave back. Resulting in a net loss of options. The wizard still had the least class feats of any core class. I’ve heard there is only actually 3 new schools as well, but I’ll have to wait and see on that one.
Being able to dip your toe into other subclass options is something most classes should have at higher levels. It just gives classes that bit more internal depth.
Are you playing a Remastered Witch or a Premaster? The Witch got a lot more unique and stand-outish in the remaster, so if you aren’t using the remaster, I would look into that! The second thing I’d ask is what drew you to the Witch initially? Perhaps it’s not right for what you want to be doing and another class does make sense! Also, it would be wise to chat to your GM if they are constantly targeting your familiars. While there is meant to be a risk/reward element to using familiars directly in combat, if it happens constantly, your GM may need to alter their game style. It’s not intended for the Witch to consistently lose out on a chunk of their class features everyday.
This thread really blew up. I've never played Wizard but it does seem like the idea is for it to be "the" prepared caster so much of its identity has to do with interacting with that system. It's just not very flashy. It’s a standard 3 slot prepared caster, like a Druid or Cleric. It has a 4th, limited slot, which allows for a selection of under 20 spells in edition to the standard 3. It has some thesis options which allow you to play with slots a bit, but it’s no more complicated than a clerics font. The simple truth of the Wizard is that they are not actually “the” anything. The best they can claim is some marginal gains over some other casters. |
