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Imagine a suite of Wizard exclusive spell shape feats, themed around both thesis and school choices (but general ones as well), enabled by successfully RKing an enemy, which allowed the Wizard to do unique things and reward them for using their knowledge. Add a knowledge mechanic on top and you’ve got a class!
Just for the purposes of clarity, the errata was to make all staves Specific Magic Weapons, which is a captial letters games term with the following rules:
So while it was largely done because of Shifting rune, it was an all round property rune disablement. This also applies to Personal Staves.
That is amazing but also why does the Spellstriker's Staff get Shifting on it!? I am so confused by their choices even more now. It is a very incredibly powerful staff. It just confuses me more about the design choice personally. Charitably, the choice may simply have come down to "Conservation of Cool". In a world where all staves could be gaunlets with some additional gold, it would become pretty common place for it to be a thing that people do. Where as, a Magus (and to a lesser extent the Runelord), get to have that suprise factor to them. That said, you don't actually to be a magus to use a Spellstriker Staff. You just don't get all the benefits and the spell selection is rather limited to things Magus' like.
Realistically, the school remaster fundamentally changed the value proposition of the Wizard as a 4 slot caster, but that change was never really accounted for elsewhere in the remastering of the class. Keeping schools to their current format, even if they are good versions of schools (gates) doesn't actually redress this change. Using Ascalaphus 3 points above, a lot of schools - at least to me - fail point (1). For a lot of schools, at several levels, I feel like I am just taking the least bad / least niche option rather than something I actually want or am excited to have. Many fail point (2) on their face. It was just a lot of take, with very little give attached.
Can a magus use Runic Impression on a staff to give the staff a property rune? They made a speific staff for the Magus use case. The Spellstriker Staff
You used to. The problem is people put shifting runes on them and turned them into gauntlets while keeping your hand free, so they errataed it. There are now a few ways to get the functionality back, but I recall this feeling like a werid enshitification move. "No, you can no longer generally do that!... But if you want to spend class options on it here, here or here, then that can be arranged..." That said, before the Sure Strike nerf, I did have a sorcerer who wore a gaunlet-form Spellstriker Staff just to use Sure Strike.
What is the Dragonet Ancestry It's VERY similar to the Sprite ancestry. Tiny sized, cute, progressive flight feats, different flavours as 1st level feats, option to be small sized instead, but with a breath weapon which recharges on a 1d4.
Its neat. Its one of those "a little something for everyone" style archetypes. Its dedication feat is beefy, and it has 12 feats all told. Does everything from granting flight options, a couple of defensive options, some AoE damage and fear options, at first glance "Deepening Devotion" might be nuts. Also gives the ability to access an extradimensional space to store a hoard in.
Have you checked recently, specifically on the store library and not the forums digital content?The Codex is here for some subscribers already Good catch, its in my store library but not digital content. Thank you for the tech support!
The Wizard simply isn’t a knowledge class. It should be, it superficially looks like it is, but it isn’t. Wizards have zero mechanics which aid or enhance their ability to make RK checks besides just having Int as a key stat. They got their first ability which even mentioned RK in the remaster, and it only functions on a critical success. Wizards have the least amount of trained skills in the game. They have 3+Int, while everyone else is at least 4+Int, including other Int classes. A ton of classes have mechanics which either aid RK or directly grant information about enemies - even sorcerer now thanks to the effect that allows them to RK on any enemy with Arcana (as awkward as it is) - the wizard has no such features. Plus, it’s not like Wizard can leverage information they gain in an encounter if they weren’t already prepared to handle it before the encounter began These are all faults with the Wizards design if they are meant to be a knowledge class.
Because that’s not actually relevant. The fact that a conceptual similar issue was present in the past, doesn’t mean its presence elsewhere now is okay. It kind of makes it worse actually, given that Paizo took steps to specifically address the problem you mentioned.
I think when people talk about best classes, they are generally talking in a more holistic way. Unless the trick was sustainable, repeatable, and relatively non-controversial, I don't think we generally consider 1/day Nova tactics as part of a "best" analysis. Pumping 3, one-action, 9th level Force Barrages into an enemy to triple trigger explosion of power is fun and all, but its not like that is the core of the class itself, just a particular exploit. It's like how a staff nexus Wizard can do nova damage by breaking an infused staff of power, then casting Remake to do it again the next day. That doesn't make the Wizard a top-tier class, it can just do something to trigger a nova effect.
Just for some context, a perfectly normal mid-combat turn for my 18th level Animist I mentioned before, could look like: Turn Starts - Cycle of Souls as a free action> Step, Sustain Earths Bile (started on a previous turn) > Drop into Channelers stance (from Forest's Heart the turn before) > Cardinal Guardians resolves. Action 1: Step > Sustain River Carving Mountains to reposition Action 2 & 3: Use a 7th level Apparition slot to upcast Fireball, benefiting from Channelers Stance bonus damage and potentially Cardinal Guardians. Total potential damage dealth:
Bare in mind that is me choosing to cast Fireball over a higher level spell, which I also have access to. That looks like a really good turn!
I think the fundamental tension in this whole discussion rests on two things: 1) The Animist is one of the most powerful casters in the game.
With the valdity of point 1 being contingent on your capacity to handle point 2. I can see a player who hasn't worked out all the rotations and possible lines of play - and their spell selection as part of such - being relatively mediocre. When I dropped a high-level (17th) Animist into a 3-shot adventure my friend put together, I printed out a seperate sheet that hand all my tricks, rotations, and lines of actions listed out. Because the Animist can switch these between things fairly rapidly, I found myself saying things to myself "I can drop out of line 3 at the start of my next turn into line 5, and then depending on what happens with the Rogue's plan, I can pivot from there into either line 2 or 4"
Suboptiminal design elements around the Wizard? In Pathfinder 2e?! Never!
Interesting. I have a friend who uses Ordergroove for what is basically a Crochett-pattern-of-the-month club. She releases PDF crochett patterns to her club members via the email members function and includes a download link she hosts elsewhere. The link tool she uses checks the email address the code came through and only allows a code to be redeemed once per email. Not saying that is what you should do, there are obviously more elements to that, just some food for thought!
Yep! Instead of a process where we authorize your cards a week before subscriptions start shipping, and then charge your cards when your subscription ships, our new system handles things a bit differently. We will email you a subscription reminder a week before subscriptions processes, then on Sub Day your card will be charged, you will get your PDFs, and your order is sent to the warehouse to be shipped. PDFs will process on the same day for everyone. No waiting around for your order to ship! Perfect. I've wanted this for years. The roulette of "will I be punished for being a subscriber with a post-release date PDF" has needed to go for a loooong time.
So the release of the newer wizard subclass and schools isn't addressing what people feel the class was lacking? We haven't got a new Wizard subclass since Secrets of Magic. As for Schools, if more schools used School of Gates as their model, then they would be in a much better shape. Unofortunately, School of Gates is the standout rather than the rule and part of me is half expecting the sustain portion to get errata'ed out. Same with Wizard feats really. We got some new Wizard feats in Player Core 1, but nothing since then and before that it was once again Secrets of Magic. What the Wizard is getting is class archetypes. Class archetypes are great, I love twists on existing classes, espically ones that allow you dial into speifiic niches of the class or on lore-elements which would otherwise be too narrow for the class itself. The problem with getting all your innovation and expansion through class archetypes is that they are mutually-excluding silos of content. The two main archetypes, Runelord and Warmage, essentially have to re-do the class features of the Wizard each time, making zero use of the Wizards more modal design with its sub-class options. In an ideal world the class would be expanding like all the other classes are, with archetypes doing interesting things on top of this organic growth. Siloing the only new content Wizards ever get isn't actually helping the class.
I disagree. This is a long thread and it isn't filled with wizard defenders. Everyone has one reason or another to explain why the wizard is only playable compared to where other classes are excelling. I've been banging the "Wizards are poorly designed" drum since 2019. The Remaster made them worse, and Paizo seems to constantly have their head in the sand. Paizo have declined to share how their internally Satisfaction/Success metrics work, so we can only guess at how we truely got to the current state.
This was always going to be the outcome. The majority of the schools in Player Core 1 just aren't good. The system Paizo chose for them also meant that they would age poorly as the system progressed. We shouldn't worry about it, they did a bad job in Player Core 1 and there is no dancing around that. They either make better school going forward, which we are seeing occassionally, or they will provide ways up update/override spell choices in a mechanically meaningful way (not just "You and your GM sort it out, Hasbro's lawyers are on line 2"). Powercreeping schools, and the entire Wizard class as it stands, is not only good for the game but desireable.
Ah, I saw the instant minefield spell already in the list, so just assumed :P.I'm not seeing Frozen Fog (from Battlecry!) in the guide - not really sure how to evaluate it since it's mostly damage over time. What are your thoughts on it?I haven't got to Battle Cry yet... I'd missed Instant Minefield until now. It having the subtle trait is incredibly funny to me. Just the idea of arming a series of mines behind the chairs of people you dislike around a long banquet table, only for them to off as soon as people stand up at the end of the meal is making me giggle. Not to mention the potential damage output for proper clustering.
I think its in the name. They are table top role playing games. So I would say role playing is the genre and umbrella these games fall under. But I guess It would be more correct to concede there is a major focus on combat and it is oart of the draw of the game but its is in the context of a roleplaying game promising endless options and has plenty of options if the GM uses them for players to not have to engage in the well developed combat rules. There are definitely "breds" of TTRPG. Games like Wanderhome, Wizards & Wastes and (potentially a deep cut) Nobilis are in the vein of No-to-low combat through and through. They are a markedly different bred of TTRPG vs those that come the D&D lineage, they are all TTRPG's all the same.
I don’t think there is any real way to say this isn’t a combat focused game. Combat is in its bones, its ancestors are all combat focused games, by page count, by weight of content, the fact it just got a war gaming supplement. PF2 is combat focused as part of its core design ethos. It’s not the systems be-all and end-all however. It’s not wholly focused on combat, and there are several means of getting around encounters without combat itself, but when I look at actual non-combat focused TTRPG’s, they don’t look like Pathfinder.
I will always be reluctant with any solution which places an additional burden on a GM, at least not while the class remains Common. While I think its true that the current state of the Wizard does already place a higher burden on both the player and the GM than most other classes, and that this burden is generally uncommunicated and sort of left for people to discover on their own, I think this is generally a mistake by Paizo rather than an intentional requirement. Personally, I think the issue with preparation is already a solved problem in PF2, its just that Wizard's don't generally have it. Most classes solve the preparation problem by have either good fall back options in the form of either good, general purpose, focus spells or some class actions which are repeatable and worthwhile. Witches have their Familiar actions and access to a wide range of focus spells, Clerics and Druids have access to a bunch of different focus spells and can tip their toes into other subclass styles, Animists can kind of do whatever they want. It's largely the Wizard which fails to have good fallback options which allow them to remain relevant and interesting while not having good preparation. If more focus spells where built like Friendly Push, with additional focus spell options on top of them, it would go a long way to fixing up the gaps in the Wizard. Friendly Push is the model on which all 1st level Wizard school focus spells should be based. Cheap, repeatable, Impactful, Flavourful and a source of greater subclass identity and something a Wizard may wish to do every turn if possible, and scales as they level. Imagine if Force Bolt could be sustained, imagine as well if you eventually got to 3 bolts fired per sustain. Or if you could sustain Earthworks to move or reshape every turn. These would be impactful, identity defining features, which would allow Wizards of different schools to feel different from each other and for them to have options they could do if cause of poor prepation. You add to this additional focus spell options in general, things Wizards might want, the standard refocus feat at 12th, and you've reformed the class without having to fundamentally rework preparation.
These, to me, are questions which our at the heart of the balancing problems with the Wizard. Because the answer to both of these CAN be yes, Paizo have said that they have to assume that it is true. But how often is it actually true? Further, why does it not extend to all prepared casters? In the post-remaster era, the Wizard is a 3 slot prepared caster with an additional limited spell slot. The 4th spell slot will generally fail to meet the conditions of (2) unless it just happens to by happenstance. The Wizard has never before had so little control of what goes into that 4th slot, which means the burden of meeting (2) falls on its general 3 prepared slots. This puts it on par with most other prepared caster in the game. This is generally fine, but the idea that a Wizard has a solution for every problem is no more true for it than for any other caster post re-master. The presumptive burden of this was never addressed however. This is one of the reasons why I've said before that a restructuring of the spell lists should have come with a rework of the Wizard. Everyone has a pretty good toolbox these days, and the Wizard lost their ability to grab an additional tool of their choice. For me, however, (1) has always been the real problem with the Wizards assumed point of balance. Even if it was actually true that the Wizard and the Wizard alone could have a solution for every problem, they would also have to: A) Know the problem exists and is upcoming
But we've all been playing this game for a long time now, we know that no Wizard player has these 3 points at any given point in time, and certainly doesn't have them every day. So it leaves them balanced around an assumption they can't ever really live up to.
Without something like comprehensive tags/traits being applied to spells to govern options, I don't see this being workable without something game breaking being open. Paizo really should have invested the time to add more comprehensive traits to spells overall, as there exists quite a few places where it could have paid off. But honestly, I think the simplest, best answer is the one thats been circled around on time and time again. Spell Sub should be a default class feature. Or do that 2nd & 8th level feat tax I suggested, if you need really feel the need to have it cost something else.
A well done wizard would excite and unite the community. Nah, you're wrong. People get very excited about reworks and remasters. We saw the massive buzz with the class remasters, people clamour for new content all the time. Another section of the community would be overjoyed if the Wizard threads would stop. Re-remastering the Wizard would be a win all round. You want to sell it through? Want to make it a big selling point of a product? Great! A Treasure Vault style book for all classes. A big book with new class feats, class archetypes, items, and more! "Hundreds of feats, 11 new class archetypes, the Wizard Perfected, new class options, items and more!" Going class by class, the book would talk about the role these classes play in different parts of the world. The culture impact, local meaning and importance. We'd get slices of life, what each classes mean to the people of Golarion, stories, and, weaving through out all of this would be the new options. The newer classes would naturally get a heavier focus to expand them out as well. Not just stuff for the sake of stuff, but an "in the life" expansion of each class which otherwise doesn't have a home. Round it out with the "Wizard Perfected", a new redesign of the class with some additional instructions on how to adopt the existing archetypes. Maybe introduce some remastered character options like, FA, Dual classing, etc. Throw a bow on it and generate the most hype a single product has ever generated by Paizo. Not a box ticking excercise, but a love letter to all the concepts and ideas that otherwise don't have a place or a home.
The skill thing is also an issue that most of the Int key stat classes start with very low base skills with the understanding they are probably boosting int. This is broadly incorrect. Also all classes default to a standard of at least 4 + Int starting trained skills. This is usually some combo of what’s in the stat line + class granted. Wizards break this by having only 3+int. Why Wizards are still missing a skill, even after the remaster, is a testament to the lack of care taken with the class. The remastered schools should each have granted a trained skill.
If we were to scale class feats by what we've seen Paizo do so far. Swapping spells out with your schools spells is a 2nd level feat. Arcane Bond, as seen via the Oracle, is a 6th level feat. This would place Spell Substitution as either a 4th or 8th level feat. They could split the difference have the 2nd level school swap feat be the preq for the broader version of the feat at 8th. Giving some modality to how much want their Wizard to be able to swap spells. Given statements from Paizo where they "Don't balance around you having the perfect spell... but yeah we always expect you to have the a really really good spell", it would relieve some of the classes tention points.
The intersection of the Wizard class and the Arcane list is one of the “original sins” of this edition. Wizards paid through the nose to access the “best list”, hence why they had weird unique penalties, like being the only class to not have simple weapon prof, they are still missing a skill and are missing focus spells and focus spell options. But the arcane list was never exclusive to the Wizard, so the price paid was always disproportionately paid by them. Paizo then remaster the other lists to make them stronger, so the value of what the Wizard paid for went down. This is also on top of the other remaster nerfs. List rebalancing should have came with actual, meaningful, Wizard class rebalancing.
I mean, Wizards getting nerfed (to what degree is debatable outside of the general consensus that they were definitely nerfed) was more like a sad collateral damage from switching from OGL to ORC. With schools going from {b]general classification of magic spells[/b] to the ACTUAL school of wizardry you attended, alongside Paizo probably rushing it, and thus the feature being weaker, does suck though. This will sound mean, but it wasn’t “collateral damage”, it was sheer lack of effort to render a good product. The reasons for this lack of effort could be varied, and entirely reasonable, understandable and agreeable in and of themselves, but the OGL changes didn’t force Paizo to make Wizards worse. But when you look at some of the changes other classes got, it’s clear there was care put in to address specific issues or to aid specific conceptual elements. They just didn’t do this with the Wizard. Not really. Part of me wonders if this is why we are seeing so many Class archetypes for the Wizard. They know the fumbled the core features, so they have to fully replace them anytime they do want to give the class anything interesting.
That's crossing one of the systems true red lines. A martial focused kineticist is best you can expect here. The kineticist is probably a good rough template for the Shifter to begin with.
I was looking through Battle Cry with my playgroup and one of my players noticed the Atlas Arcane item. The Atlas Arcane is a 7th level item with the following effects:
Said player says that should allow you to know the shape/layout any dungeon you are in - at least on a floor by floor basis. I can see a case for this, but I also have a feeling the intent is only for the world surface to be shown. This does constraints its usefulness for otherwise all sorts of legitimate applications. What do we think?
The caveat here is "except when it isn't". Do you recall the original wording of Cloud Jump?
Compare this with the 4th printing
Then compare with the remaster version
While this has been a case of both errata and a revision, the intended function of cloud jump hasn't actually changed. Its just that not all the text within Cloud Jump was literal rules text, even when it seems to give clear instructions on use and functionality. You were never intended to be able break your character speed limits without spending additional resource, but the short, simple, seemingly with an example, text on Cloud Jump used to look like you just got to triple your distance and then could do other things to extend it further. Up until the remaster, the full and complete sentence "Triple the distance you Long Jump (so you could jump 60 feet on a seccessful DC 20 check.)" did not actually do what it says to do. To me this a good example of the "flavour" of the feat getting in the way of its actual mechanical function.
There is something preventing it, though- "Esoteric" is much broader of a category than is allowed for a lore skill, even if you're taking it as a general lore skill.Would that even work? Esoteric Lore is a spell class feature granting a special Lore skill. Can a Skilled Familiar even pick it up and even if they did it would just be normal Esoteric Lore not the super special one Thaumaturge gets...Am I even wrong but if I am not wrong then Tome is a great implement for Recall Knowledge checks and other items which grant Item bonuses to Lore/Recall Knowledge.While potentially more contentious overall, there is nothing preventing anyone from taking "Esoteric" lore as a lore skill in general, but it will only allow them to RK on anything the GM deems it to, it won't be able to mimic the Thaumaturge class ability. We should take this to a different thread as we might be getting into the weeds of pet modifiers and the semantics of if esoteric would actually be too broad a category (given that it returns nothing if you are not a Thaumaturge).
Would that even work? Esoteric Lore is a spell class feature granting a special Lore skill. Can a Skilled Familiar even pick it up and even if they did it would just be normal Esoteric Lore not the super special one Thaumaturge gets...Am I even wrong but if I am not wrong then Tome is a great implement for Recall Knowledge checks and other items which grant Item bonuses to Lore/Recall Knowledge. While potentially more contentious overall, there is nothing preventing anyone from taking "Esoteric" lore as a lore skill in general, but it will only allow them to RK on anything the GM deems it to, it won't be able to mimic the Thaumaturge class ability. In this case, you aren't looking to, simply roll the skill check in order to provide aid to Thaum making the actual check. The lore checks themselves are the same, but the Thaum has class features which provide special benefits. This is, however, immaterial, its just to show that the documents creator is assuming on-level optimisation in some cases for non-Thaums, but not applying the same to Thaums when they have equal access to the same methods. Hence distorting the validity of any comparison.
I'm not sure who made this, but it is riddled with errors and mistakes. It looks to have been made with the objective of downplaying the thaumaturge as a knowledge class, and so has made several choices to achieve that. I'm not going to go to tab by tab, but here are some immediate standout issues: - An assumed -2 penalty has been applied to the Thaumaturges proficiency across the board, without exception. In reality, this penalty is only applied when the Thaumatuge choses to use the Diverse Lore feat to apply Esoteric Lore against something it couldn't normally be used on (Any creature, haunt and curses - creatures being the big one). The analysis does not make any distinctions here on use and has decided to apply the penalty universally while making no provision for how the other skills are being used. - It is assuming that other classes with access to the Familiar feat chain will optimise their recall knowledge using Skilled>Second Opinion to grant aid to the caster. This, for some reason, is denied to the Thaumaturge who also has the required Familiar and Enhanced Familiar feats, and there is nothing stopping the familiar from taking Esoteric Lore as an option for Skilled. While this provides the same type of bonus as the Tome implement, it can scale higher quicker for the on-level comparisons. The circumstance bonus from this option is also universally not scaled correctly. It just assumes famailiars will crit on a DC15 check from level 7 onwards. Probabilistic scaling like this needs to be handled differently. - It assumes that at higher levels a caster will spend a spell slot of at least a 6th level casting of Pocket Library for a +3 bonus. For some reason it does not assume that a Thaumaturge would upgrade a wand or use one of their esoteric scrolls to do the same, staggering the bonus to deferred levels as per scroll scalaing. - The "Optimised FA Build" tab pits a fully optimised Int caster against an only partially optimised Thaum, robbing them of potentially 6 points of bonus (+2 Chr, +2 proficiency, +2 status from Pocket Library) All in all, its deeply flawed and I wouldn't use it for actual judgements.
For what its worth, Bestiary Scholar and Universal Theory work great here as well, and can scale up to legendary with Arcana.
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.
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