R3st8's page

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!

I wonder if we could do something like a kickstarter where if enough people pledge paizo will make the wizard class unchained.

The words versatile and flexible are starting to become trigger words for me, every time i hear versatile, flexible, viable, ok etc... in a class discussion I 'm starting to assume its horrible.

Apparently in the new book rival academies there are no wizard feats, just a lot of spells and schools

Really? that is disappointing.

On top of that, the Graveyard of Souls isn't the only option for athiest souls. Some train under Phlegyas and become psychopomps themselves, some find peace, some still go to an outer plane as a petitioner and some get reincarnated.

I always thought this, along with the book where an atheist begs Pharasma for help, was particularly insulting. It's almost as if it's saying that atheists can't hold to their ideals and end up bowing to the gods. If you become a psychopomp or beg a god for help, then you were never an atheist to begin with.

And even if it was the only option for athiests, the Graveyard of Souls is still an afterlife and the Boneyards is still part of the Outer Planes and the Cycle of Souls - the existance of which isn't a bad thing, anymore than Heaven and Hell existing is bad for the universe.

Yes, it is bad if you are a real atheist because the gods supposedly created your kind when the previous world clearly had immediate reincarnation for dubious purposes. They deliberately cursed your kind with aging and did everything to prevent you from escaping this curse. When you died, they trapped your souls in a graveyard. If you are a true atheist, you would be furious at the gods, especially that goddess.

On Earth, atheism most often means lack of a belief in gods (w/ a small portion believing in a lack of gods). On Golarion I think one would add the misotheists like Rahadoun/Ezren as well as those with a lack of worship of any god (since it's rarer there to lack a belief).

In all it's a much bigger umbrellas than those categories. On Facebook I wrote a post called "50 Shades of Atheism" making a list I thought I would have to pad to fulfill, but I'd had to trim. Among the missing here are the most common "I did research gods, and meh." That meh could represent a lack of evidence, a lack of a good fit w/ the gods they know exist (on Golarion), or a greater appeal elsewhere (perhaps via philosophy or simply thinking divine questions are overrated/irrelevant). So not the hate of the misotheist, implied lack of religious knowledge of the irreligious, and without falling into nihilism (which is more a pitfall for those whose religion failed them than for atheists themselves).

I wonder if there are more existentialists than those in Rahadoun. Hmm.
Maybe some cultivators in Tian?

misotheism is hatred of gods.

Not worshiping = hatred?

The Raven Black wrote:

IIRC I read somewhere that the Groetus thing was only for unfaithful atheists, just like unfaithful believers had their own dooms. Whereas faithful atheists were allowed to rest peacefully or roam creation as they wished, just like faithful believers had their own rewards.

Like from Pharasma's perspective there are probably multiple kinds of Atheists, who can be handled differently.

- Metaphysical Nihilists, i.e. "life is meaningless, the Gods are meaningless, the afterlife is meaningless."
- Misotheists, i.e. "the Gods do not deserve my respect."
- Irreligious, i.e. "I just never give the Gods a thought."
etc.

The irreligious can just be treated like everybody else, they can't stop God from telling them "you have to go over there now" any more than they could stop a King from doing the same thing.

The Misotheists and Nihilists might instead prefer oblivion or quietude.

That sounds like what church propaganda says about atheists. No, we are not nihilistic; we don't hate God(well not all of them), nor are we thoughtless. We are just independent-minded people who don't want arbitrary hierarchy imposed upon us.

I feel the existence of Phlegyas, someone who Pharasma personally elevated to the rank of Usher, who also is tasked with handling the souls of Atheists, does imply that Pharasma doesn't feed Atheists to Groetus.

Friendly reminder that Pharasma is NOT the sole judge of all souls, most are getting judged by Yamaraj and Ushers, it's a whole ass legal system, and Pharasma leaves much of it's running to the discretion of those beneath her.

Also, iirc, there was an incident when Axis demanded Pharasma strip all Psychopomps of personality and free will and just make them drones, but she obviously refused; hardly the actions of a Tyrant.

And briefly on the memory thing, that's definitely not something Pharasma does that's not part of the normal process of Judgement; otherwise, I doubt one of the most powerful goddesses would be stumped by a Demigods sabotage (Soul Anchor)

I'm here now, gonna defend the Lady of the Graves.

I feel like they have retconnedwhite-whashed or rather memory-holed most of the things she did wrong. However, because those things were part of her character, it doesn't work. It's like if they erased everything that Asmodeus did, would you suddenly trust him?

Teridax wrote:

Not gonna lie, I'd totally spring for the tote bag that doubles up as a spacious pouch, especially if it were to come with a summoned crawling hand plushie.

This is absolutely a plushie I could make. I'm putting it on my list.

A Leshy plushie would be nice too.

I have a dog in my house. When he was a pup, we put a piece of wood to stop him from entering the house when no one was around to watch him. Now that he’s older, he could easily knock the piece of wood down, but instead, he just stands there, looking at it with those puppy eyes. This is called learned helplessness. It’s similar to Stockholm Syndrome—a survival mechanism that stops you from picking fights you’re unlikely to win, even if it’s not rational or moral.

When people face overwhelming enemies or problems like slavery, tyranny, dictatorship, oligarchies, aging, or death, they often choose acceptance—or rather submission—because it’s easier to see the issue as something natural than to spend your whole life fighting a problem that feels larger than life. The worst part is that once you accept a problem, you lose the chance to work toward improving your situation.

That makes sense, I will refrain then.

I grew up in a household with a lot of older relatives, and unfortunately, four of them have passed away. My younger brother and a childhood friend also died—one from a disease and the other from brain cancer. I hate death, I'm working to become a medic so I can fight it, death sucks.

Counter point:

In PF2, if a GM wants to play this way, they can have players use rituals to do things like possess a king, or they can even just have a kingdom where the king is 8 levels lower than the PCs and then the players can probably dominate/impersonate/imprison/etc. the local leader and accomplish pretty much the same thing narratively. What won't happen in PF2 is a Wizard player essentially dominating a higher level or on level King essentially forever, because of one low save roll.

As a player of a wizard that possessed way more powerful creatures than I regularly in PF1, I recognize that that trivialized encounters way too often to be fun for everyone at the table to be a regular, 3-4 times a day tactic that I could use and very few enemies had a chance to save against because my DCs were absurd.

I think the decision to get away from that style of casting was very intentional and not something that a lot of players want to see come back/be a part of the narrative of "wizard." That is why I think fighter is a bad example to look at for what the wizard could be, and why I would strongly advocate against adding elements to it that bring those kind of options back.

EDIT: Specificially, I mean that "possess a king and take over their kingdom" is an NPC or solo player game. Not a party working together thing, especially not to be something that happens with daily rechargeable resources.

I don’t see your point here. Saying that a wizard casting magic jar isn’t team play is like saying a rogue using stealth, deception, or performance isn’t team play. Each class has its strengths, and they aren’t required to be constantly working together. For example, a fighter could easily intimidate someone trying to interrogate the king, while a rogue could use deception to explain away any oddities. I just don’t see the validity of this argument.

Regarding the use of dominate or similar spells, yes, with sufficient resources and time, you can achieve the same result, but I never claimed otherwise. It seems like you're struggling to grasp my point: it’s not about power or results; it’s about whether it can fulfill a fantasy. Pathfinder 1st Edition, with its numerous classes, archetypes, feats, and spells, can fulfill many fantasies. It’s not about the power of these fantasies or their outcomes; it’s about the fantasy itself.

Sure, you can hire someone to perform a ritual, but that doesn’t relate to your experience as a wizard. Yes, you can have the GM re-flavor or homebrew content, but at that point, the rules lose their significance. The thrill of carefully searching among countless options to devise and execute a plan—like in heist movies—disappears. You’re no longer achieving results because of your system mastery or cleverness; you’re simply getting by because the GM was in a good mood and said, 'OK.'

And why are you bringing up high-level creatures? I already told you I don’t mind if I have to be level 20 to possess a level 10 king. It’s not about trying to trivialize encounters or outshine party members. I feel like you’re missing the point.

Now that the wizard is nowhere near as powerful as he used to be, designers have to replace this lack of power with flavor. Take the remastered witch, for instance. Except for resentment (and even so), it's still pretty weak - but it oozes flavor, and has very unique mechanisms that make it attractive. In the opposite direction, we have the oracle, who got hugely buffed (apart from Battle - press F to pay respect - and life/ancestors), but lost a lot of its flavor.

I have to slightly disagree because people tend to frame me as a power gamer who wants the wizard to be overpowered, but that simply isn't true. My problem lies in what the wizard can do, regardless of their relative power level compared to on-level monsters and other players. By that, I mean the following: a Pathfinder 1e (PF1) wizard could use magic jar to possess a king and impersonate him. A Pathfinder 2e (PF2) wizard cannot do this because not only has the spell been removed, but even the duration of possession effects has been severely reduced.

To those who think I want the wizard to be more powerful, that's not the point. The wizard can't do it on the level they used to, and they can't do it even at level 20. It's not a matter of being ahead of the curve compared to other classes or on-level monsters; it's a matter of being able to fulfill the character fantasy AT ALL. People love to complain about spells failing or missing, focus spells, and the number of spells available, but my issue is that the wizard can no longer fulfill certain fantasies, period, regardless of their level.

Yes, the power ceiling was lowered, but it feels like the system as a whole went from high-magic to mid-magic. Balance is important, but I feel depth and complexity were sacrificed without anything to replace them, and that is my issue. If it weren't for so many different nerfs, it wouldn't be as bad. It's the gutting of the class by a thousand cuts that is incredibly irritating.

Alzheimer's and Dementia.

That is a disease, and as someone whose parents suffered from it to the point of forgetting who I was, please don't lump it in with old age. While senescence is also a disease, even if most people think otherwise, these two conditions are far worse and certainly not a natural part of life.

The stuff you are quoting is not from the books. It's not even from the appendices. You are quoting material Tolkien wrote likely in his letters or the Histories of Middle Earth assembled from his notes by his son.

Gandalf was called a wizard in the The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Books. So is Saruman.

And Tolkien changed his view of magic after he was told by a religious friend that sorcery was the work of The Devil. That's why you don't see the quotes you're using in Tolkien's base work because he later changed his mind of the reasoning behind the characters due to his religious beliefs.

Gandalf is and was a wizard, named so from The Hobbit.

Gandalf the Wizard.

He served exactly the same purpose a wizard serves in a story.

Once again, you're arguing different world building ideas rather than what was used in the story. How the magic works is less relevant than that it does work.

If you read Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf clearly talks about learning spells of opening. He also used Narya, The Ring of Fire, to do magic. He was highly learned and went often to the libraries of Minas Tirith to research the Elder Days.

I know you're pulling information in Tolkien's letters now which he changed at his whim if it did not suit his religious values. He contradicts part of his original creations on the material in his letters for reasons other than a consistent and good story.

We could go back and forth all day.

But I'm not going to spend my time on it.

Gandalf was a wizard. Named so in the books Gandalf the Wizard from his creation in The Hobbit.

Wait you mean all this time he wasn't just a angel pretending to be a wizard but a real wizard, I guess I have misjudged him he is back to being one of my favorite wizards.

I'm mainly here to point out what of the several lore errors being used as examples I can confirm, whether its fey not having souls or the idea that Pharasma cursed the gnomes with mortality, or even that atheists are forced to stay in the Boneyard against their will. That you turn these misunderstandings and objections into further evidence of your own arguments calls to question where exactly the goalposts went and how much you understand the examples you are using to prove your point, but other people can make those arguments. I only have time to read and respond to so many assertions and I have no desire to convince you out of a position you've deeply convinced yourself into. I'd merely like to make sure the facts the argument has been based on are presented accurately as possible so that readers can come to their own conclusions based on the actual evidence and not what was taken out of context, misunderstood, or brought in from a lore error 15 years ago when the writing of the lore was less closely managed and writers might introduce concepts that don't fit the Age of Lost Omens or its characters.

Lore error is a weird term to use here, lore retconned because it was unpopular would be a better word specially since gnomes having souls or not or whether the whole race was affected or not is irrelevant for the argument being presented here,

or even that atheists are forced to stay in the Boneyard against their will.

I would like to see your source for that because the wiki clearly contradicts that Graveyard of Souls

(Those souls that still have the will to rouse themselves here are usually either those that have recently arrived or those consumed by emotion over their fate; some wander emotionlessly and in a haze, while others might beg visitors for aid or simply lash out at them in their rage. The rare souls that do find peace with their ultimate fate instead serve the graveyard as its custodians or guardians.1)

But I will admit the Lady of the North Star but surprized me.

This is one of the two things that always miffed me about Tolkien: making Gandalf into an angel and turning orcs from what they were in Celtic mythology into what they are now. The original word 'orcneas,' derived from Orcus (originated from Horkos, a Greek god of oaths who punished those who broke them and sometimes associated with other Roman underworld deities like Pluto, Hades, and Dis Pater), means something like 'hell corpse,' 'hell-devil,' 'demon-corpses,' or 'corpse from Orcus.' It seems more like an undead demon than a green, buff elf. Then it became a pig-man, then a goblin, the huge buff-goblin, and now green, buff elves. then gain hollywood takes a lot of the blame too.

Anubis' scales are the empty tool most known for fair an unbiased measurement. He takes the ~heart and weights it against a feather of truth; even if he has personal beef with a mortal for committing his anathema, that does not change how the scales fall.

If you ask me, the best way to write about afterlife judgment in tabletop role-playing games is through karma. If your actions are bad, you go to a bad world, like a law of physics. The best way to handle gods is to have them be more like forces of nature, such as Gaia or Alaya from Fate Grand Order—something that is less of a person and more of a sentient force. But then again, that universe is a hell of its own with the timeline pruning and the whole system of the planets, so I wouldn't advocate for the story itself.

Edit Note: I just noticed that Fate also has this issue with anti-immortality. I wonder how common this is in fiction writing.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Trip.H wrote:

I neglected the detail that in both versions, the gnomes seem to have little blame, and it was their non-gnome ruler Eldest that angered Pharasma. Regardless of how many individual gnomes were invovled, collective punishment for the whole species is rather "yikes."

I mean, it's only punishment from a certain perspective. Yes, gnomes can die now, but they also have souls when they didn't before.

I would like to reiterate that fey already have souls. By some accounts all living creatures in the cosmos have or are souls, but treat this as a fairly broad blanket statement that may be contradicted by specific lore.

Incidentally, regardless whether one believes mortality was a punishment or gift to the gnomes who received it, it's worth noting that it was not inflicted/given to the entire species...

https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Gnome#Migration wrote:

During the Age of Anguish (beginning in -4202 AR),910 many gnomes left the First World and migrated to Golarion, although some gnomes remained behind and continue to live an immortal existence there to this day.

You can go to the First World today and find gnomes who were not involved and remain functionally immortal. Then again, this comes from the same overwritten lore source that fostered the idea that fey have no souls, so regard it, as well as the notion that fey, gnomish or otherwise, are immortal (rather than just functionally so as long as they stay in their lane) as potentially dubious.

Meanwhile, while it wouldn't surprise me if the Kingmaker CRPG (where Jubilost Narthropple comes from) cooked up a bit of haphazard lore for gnomes, it appears that the story given by the avatar of Shyka appears in the Companion Guide for Kingmaker 2e, lending much greater credibility to the claim. Even so, Shyka there regards the gift of mortality (given by their Eldest) to those gnomes who received it as freedom from the First World and her siblings' predilections....

If you constantly have to rewrite a character's lore to erase sins, like feeding atheist souls to Groetus, then that character is likely evil.

I wonder why its so hard to get this one class right but others are relatively ok some even great, what is so special about the wizard?

Ah, now I think I'm understanding where the hate is coming from. "All earth religions claim there is only one/two/etc. destinations for souls"? Should we start with one of the real world religions from which much fantasy has been inspired? The Greeks said that the underworld consisted of Tartarus, Asphodel Meadows, and Elysium. More than the one or two you seem to think is the norm. Many animist religions believe that the spirits of the deceased stay and continue to influence the world of the living. I could go on and on about the diversity of religions and their beliefs, including how the gods manipulate mortals or mortals' agency is tied into where they end up in the afterlife. However, we're talking about a game that also draws on the diversity of humanity as we know it.

I'm wondering where you are getting the idea of soul oblivion. Merging with other souls to create a stabile realm of like-minded souls seems to sound pretty peaceful to me, especially once you're beyond the pain and suffering of the Universe.

If I'm correct, the idea is that the majority of shades/petitioners become part of the plane, as does any outsider that dies there. The plane is then corroded by the Maelstrom. Therefore, if stopping the souls means the corrosion worsens, the logical conclusion is that the souls which make up the plane are also being corroded, since the potentiality goes to the forge of creation to make new souls. Too many people are used to the idea of souls being eternal (myself included), so the concept of souls being turned back into quintessence is jarring.

(Upon any outsider's destruction, its aligned quintessence—along with its compiled knowledge and beliefs—is absorbed into its home plane, or often into other planes if destroyed away from its home plane. Quintessence is perpetually disintegrated from the planes by the Maelstrom to become unaligned potentiality, at which point it is funneled to the Antipode and redirected to the Inner Planes. In Creation's Forge, it becomes part of the source matter of new souls.) from the wiki page on potentiality

The issue is that the majority of shades will likely fade eventually, and with the constant war, most outsiders will also die. Therefore, the only beings in this world who are not doomed to have their souls consumed by the plane and converted into quintessence/potentiality are the gods. This is why people consider this a very convenient (and selfish) mindset for the gods to have. Since gods existed before mortals and the universe did not end, it’s not entirely unreasonable to believe they created mortals to be consumed by the antipode so they don't have to die.

Instead, petitioners are claimed as chattel by Pharasma, and then she hands each soul to a god / plane of her choosing. This...

Imagine if it turns out she is secretly the final boss of pathfinder (if there is such thing as a final boss in a ttrpg) i doubt it would be the case but it a cool scenario to consider.

This is how mortals in Golarion's cosmos can accidentally end up existing for the sake being harvested/assimilated/consumed by the gods without their consent.

Such a accurate description of the issue I have with the setting , I just wish the atheists would put a little bit more of a fight than dying and accepting your fate.

moosher12 wrote:

Treerazor also respawns even if he's killed. And has yet to truly die. Says so in his own entry.

He's likely to die next month, for keeps.

But there are two basic problems with this approach:
- Literal gods do not have stats specifically so that they cannot be killed by anything except the story.
- While this is a game with a lot of combat rules, reaching for violence is not the best answer for everything.

Like if a dragon decides to talk to you instead of just smashing something and eating your livestock, that's a more powerful thing showing you respect, and the best response might *not* be "violence."

You are comparing souls with eggs and livestock? as if having your souls turned into planar mortar is some small favor?

The interesting thing about Rahadoum is that it is a mix of that kind of atheist, and the misotheistic kind. People in Rahadoum disagree with each other about a great number of things, so why not this? Some Rahadoumi folks will believe that celebrating the Gods because they are powerful is ridiculous, but they would also believe that objecting to Pharasma's judgement is ridiculous because she is very powerful. You just treat the experience like "the dragon has asked you to relocate your chickens, because the coop you have built is an annoyance to the dragon" you understand that this is something you should just go along with, since you have a good idea what the alternative is like and it's worse.

if the dragon was threatening the farmer adventurers would think of it as a monster and slay it, and some of these gods have stats: Conqueror Worm, Green Man, Avatar of the Lantern King, Manifestation Of Dahak, Treerazer, if they can bleed...

The Laws of Mortality differ from Earth's atheism anyway, and are closer to misotheism (belief in and hatred of deities). Ezren, for example, is listed as an atheist, yet believes creatures called gods exist and do divine deeds. And he dislikes how worship of them & the contention from that has lead to personal woe. So he might better be called anti-theist (against theism/worship of gods; though often in our world read as anti-religion or gnostic atheism).

As for Golarion atheists who disbelieve in gods, thinking it's all a scam with gods being fictional, they'd become enlightened after death and have some pondering to do. And atheists who against our definition do believe in gods, but that they aren't godly enough so want nothing to do with them, they'd adapt to whatever data they learn. Much like for Earth's atheists, of which I'm one, there'd be a diverse array of answers/philosophies/personalities with most simply accepting what is and moving on with their lives. Think of how many patients with a fatal diagnosis become exemplars of calmness and inner peace, handling their finite future better than most everyone around them. And I know many who dread the thought of an infinite lifespan so not only accept death, but embrace that they will die (just for most not yet!). Sure, there'll often be phases as one adjusts, much like with grief, but ultimately most kinda have to acknowledge that what is is, and it'd be the same in Golarion.

Or maybe this will spark a GM's adventure idea for some grand mortal revolt against the cosmos, extrapolating from what NPCs have tried already. Though we as objective viewers know that that too will ultimately prove fruitless, and any Golarion immortals will cease to be, both in their world and in ours once heat death arrives.

Cheers. :-)

Asmodeus, Cthulhu, the Conqueror Worm, the Rough Beast, Dahak, and the Lantern King—all of them are gods or god-adjacent entities. However, that doesn't mean one should worship them or allow them to have their way. I don't understand why some people find it so difficult to extend the same logic to other deities. In Pathfinder, a god represents a level of power; it is not akin to the Christian God, who is described as an infallible, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent being.

Wish we could get a dev reply here as well.

So here's the thing: Pathfinder, and by extension Golarion, is a made-up world where the gods are real, and magic is a fundamental part of existence. That sort of thing changes how religion and faith works on a deep, fundamental level, and it gets worse if you approach it from an omniscient perspective as a writer of a fantasy world or a reader of a fantasy world.

Keep in mind that no one who lives in Golarion exists in a reality where they can pick up the books we create about Golarion. They don't have those resources, and it's not really appropriate to assume everyone who lives on Golarion has read every book about Golarion that has been published.

As for Pharasma... the key there is to remember she's not human, nor does she have a human mind. She is, as are many deities, unknowable by human minds, including those that invent her. That's part of the mystery and terror and beauty and problem with matters of belief and mythology when they're presented as fantasies by a content creator, and not presented as guesswork from an in-world author.

My own personal take about the OP's question (and this, I MUST STRESS, is my take alone and IS NOT MEANT to be "canon" for Golarion in any way):

** spoiler omitted **

Have you considered creating a faction to represent these people? Because, if you ask me, the problem isn't so much Pharasma herself, but the fact that every alternative to her is evil—like the asura, the undead, or the sahkil. Maybe if there were a neutral or chaotic neutral faction to represent people who feel this way, others would side with them and champion their cause, much like how some people play the Bellflower Network.

And?

In general she doesn't.

To me this is akin to being upset that the...

It's more like the president has the codes to turn off your pacemaker, and you happen to be a member of the opposition party—she hates necromancy, remember? So, the fear that your clone may be shut down because "it's your time" has some legitimacy if you are, in fact, a necromancer.

It really sounds like people just want to become Asuras and rage against the gods and support in the utter corruption and destruction of all the creations of the gods.

Also if they hate the gods so much, I presume that you are making a special rahadoumi calander that doesn't use the same months? after all the months are named after gods.

I disagree that the Asura have a tendency to blame the victims, namely the mortals, for the sins of their creators. I would simply sit there and tell them the truth about what their gods have done and be there when their gods inevitably screw them over. Eventually, they would see the light and choose to walk my path of misotheism and mortal liberation of their own free will.

But the people in the thread railing against Pharasma feel like they're railing against the fact that death exist, including death of the soul, and the cycle of souls in general.

It's almost as if you are railing against the mere idea that death might not be inevitable in a game. Why do we need to go out of our way to bring fatalism into a fictional world? Why add things like 'clone' and 'raise dead' just to have a deity shut it down?

Vasyazx wrote:

Well house always win so even if you reject the game your essence still be used to futher one of gods agenda in these case you become building material for top god personal plane that doesn't sound as satisfying end for follower of laws of mortality

This feels like having strong feelings about which tree grows on your burial site. At some point you have to learn not to care about things you have no input on. I imagine a good part of "onboarding the recently deceased" is getting them to come to terms with this fact.

In real life, we fought against the monarchy, and now we are fighting against the oligarchy. It’s human nature to hate tyranny, so why fight against the gods as well? If people were to adopt a nihilistic view of life, then nobody would go to war, since what happens after they are dead would be considered irrelevant.

R3st8 wrote:

The issue is that, unlike other gods, you will always meet Pharasma at the end of your life, and the fact that Rahadoum is aware of their bleak prospects in the afterlife highlights my point. How can one say she is hands-off when she is the one who decides the fate of your soul? You can run from a tyrant king and avoid Asmodeus like the plague by never getting close to a contract, but you cannot avoid Pharasma.

Yeah, but that's death and what happens after. "You can't avoid death" is a pretty big running theme in a good chunk of human literature and mythology for as long as those have been things. In Greek mythology, getting on Hades' good or bad side (or a god influential enough to call in favors with him) determined how your soul spent the afterlife. Egyptian mythology had the heart weighed against a feather. China had a celestial bureaucracy determining what happened to you after death.

"What happens after death?" "It depends on what you did on life." "Who decides that?" "The god whose job it is to do that." Definitely not culturally universal, but it's also not uncommon.

It’s also a significant theme to explore the opposite, such as the peaches of immortality, ambrosia, the fountain of youth, the golden apples, the herb of Gilgamesh, the philosopher's stone, and the Holy Grail. My question is: why does that specific element have to be realistic? The entire game contains absurdities, so why not make death absurd as well? The choice to base the world on death and a cycle of souls was a design decision that I honestly don’t appreciate. It feels akin to creating a universe that operates on the cries of infant orphans, surely there were better options.

R3st8 wrote:

QuidEst wrote:

From a worldbuilding stance, you generally do want reasons why there aren't a bunch of immortals running everything with millennia of entrenched power

What do you think gods are?

Mostly hands off. Like if you go in the town square and start loudly proclaiming how much Abadar sucks, he's not going to smite you or send an underling to smite you by proxy. If you go in the town square and start loudly proclaiming how much the local authorities suck, you're likely to get arrested. In terms of the actual stories we tell when we play these games, literal intervention by an actual god should be exceptionally rare, but Terrestrial authorities will tell the PCs to do (or not do) things all the time. You can burn down the entire art museum and Shelyn is not going to show up (but the cops most likely will.)

What QuidEst is saying gets to how a fantasy world should be as recognizable as possible to the people who play the game. It would be hard to have anything resembling a normal social order if all of the leaders in government and industry are thousand-year-old vampires who are opposed to change. Blood Lords really tries to dig down on how ossified Geb society is since many of the various civil powers are deeply entrenched by virtue of "not aging, because undead." This should be a flavor available to players and GMs who want to play around in that sandbox, but generally "change" should be an option available in other places.

The issue is that, unlike other gods, you will always meet Pharasma at the end of your life, and the fact that Rahadoum is aware of their bleak prospects in the afterlife highlights my point. How can one say she is hands-off when she is the one who decides the fate of your soul? You can run from a tyrant king and avoid Asmodeus like the plague by never getting close to a contract, but you cannot avoid Pharasma.

But to address your point about the world being ruled by immortals, I think we might be getting closer to that world than you realize. That said, I would absolutely love to play in a world full of undead; I have even been thinking of writing one myself. It's sad how this theme is so underexplored.

Every time people say the wizard's identity is learning I feel like pointing out there's a spellbook caster who gets these feats called 'lessons' that provide a good focus spell and a complementary good spell for your spellbook and it sure isn't the wizard.

That concept doesn't quite work because the witch class relies on a patron. While witches certainly learn and grow, they can't really claim the identity of being self-made and beholden to no one. This is because their power and identity are intrinsically tied to their patron; the classic archetype involves a deal with a devil, tutelage from a fey creature, or a similar arrangement. This doesn't conflict with the wizard class. However, since I was primarily discussing the core classes of Pathfinder 1st Edition, one could argue that later additions like the arcanist or alchemist occupy some of that 'self-made magic user' identity.

From a worldbuilding stance, you generally do want reasons why there aren't a bunch of immortals running everything with millennia of entrenched power

What do you think gods are?

Witch of Miracles wrote:

Over time, I've come to feel like wizard lost their identity almost on accident. Most of their class identity (and power) in 1E was tied up in having access to the best spell progression and the best spell list; no one else had that, so the other classes competing with wizard got unique selling points to compensate.

I mean, that kind of sounds like the class never really had an identity to begin with. "Better than everyone else" isn't really meaningful class identity, it's just bad balance.

It did have an identity. Of the 11 core classes in Pathfinder 1st Edition, four were full casters.

The cleric and druid relied on external forces for their power.

The sorcerer and wizard were their own source of magic:

A sorcerer's magic is inherent, a birthright.

The wizard, on the other hand, gains power through diligent study.

While all classes level equally, the wizard distinguished themselves as the only caster who didn't need external intervention or inherent luck to gain power. The wizard's niche was to be a truly self-made caster, beholden to no one.

Pharasma was not "Good" and alignments no longer exist in the game, so there is no hard determination that Pharasma's established structure is good and just. She is comparable to Marvel's Galactus, with a role to play in whatever's going on but quite capable if being the villain in the story, even if they're generally doing what they think has to be done.

The universe Galorian exists in is not inherently just or good, and gods are not immune from making bad choices. Pharasma may be trying to do her best with a bad situation, but she's not Good, so her interests don't need to extend beyond keeping things working well enough to fulfil what she feels is her role.

I will praise that choice, alignment was always a bad system and the game will be better without it, no system will ever be able to fit all of the complexities of morality into 9 squares.

reading to this it feels like Trip has taken personal offense to Pharasma existing

while the old lady is just sitting there, doing her job, basically not bothering anyone

The issue isn't just Pharasma herself, but what she represents. She's essentially the Pathfinder equivalent of D&D's Wall of the Faithless, a feature so blatantly biased that it was thankfully removed in later editions. Just as the Wall was a thinly veiled attempt to punish atheist players (reflecting its origins in a more Christian-dominated era), Pharasma and the surrounding lore are clearly intended to shut down any discussion about the moral complexities of necromancy. She's a divine "I win" button designed to silence any necromancer who dares to suggest that raising the dead isn't automatically an act of evil. For players who enjoyed the morally gray necromancy of earlier editions, Pharasma is a slap in the face.

There's no sense in which the universe only exists because Pharasma manages it. It's just that she was there first, and set up the system to head off the catastrophe that undid the last universe she came from. It's because of this that every other God views her as a trustworthy neutral arbiter.

If she shuffled off this immortal coil, the system would still run pretty well, it's just that you'd get other Gods trying to bully her successor in ways that nobody bothers to try on Pharasma. Like if Asmodeus and Abadar disagree on the destination of a soul, they will defer to Pharasma's judgement and the dispute will end peacefully, a thing that wouldn't necessarily happen with a less tenured judge renowned for her impartiality.

I'm not arguing about this from a lore perspective, but from a design perspective. Creating gods or outsiders like Pharasma, the Mantis God, and axiomites to control player behavior is a design decision that I oppose. These characters were clearly created to enforce the will of the writer: 'I don't like undead? Here's Pharasma.' 'I don't like players seeking godhood? Here's the Mantis.' And so on—'I don't like [something else]? Here are the inevitables.

From a design perspective, I dislike how these characters force players to behave in certain ways by serving as counter-characters designed to punish them. This is why, in every game I GM, one of my first actions is to have all these characters mysteriously disappear because I'm opposed to this design choice.

The dissolution of all reality I think. Eventually anyways. The planes are made of soul stuff and without order to them, they'll fall to the maelstrom.

I'm really not a fan of making an entire cosmology spin around a single character. This tends to happen with Mary Sues or writer's pet characters, and especially in an RPG, there should be no deity above all others.

Huh? "Brought back to life by Pharasma" is so top-of-the-list of things Rahadoum isn't on board with that it has two books about it.

There is no need to bring back anything just leave the dead spirits in Rahadoum after all they did not consent to have their souls taken.

Pharasma respects atheists. Per the PF1 Planar Adventures book, she will allow anybody who rejects the legitimacy of her judgement the opportunity to just wait out eternity in a quiet spot in the boneyard.

You could also just choose to be judged and become part of the foundation of some plane or another. She will respect your choice either way.

That is a strange definition of respect. If she genuinely respects these souls, then she should allow them to return home.

So...

Buying on level spells is EXPENSIVE and should rarely be brought up in these conversations, despite showing up an awful lot when discussing both Sorc and Wizard. It eats into your budget for lower level items (and spells!) severely. Examples where a wizard has bought 3 or 4 on-curve spells to outdo a Sorc? Baloney. Same for the Sorc buying those spells to match the wizard with Arcane Evolution—total baloney. That wizard (and especially that sorc, with their lower arcana check) just broke the bank! Buying three on-level spells every odd level puts you 44% over your currency allocation at level 5, and you'll never go under it again after level 7. You need Magical Shorthand for it to really be worth ever buying on level spells, and even then it's not clear you would want to buy more than one every other level.

So, it's another example of white rooming that is impractical in reality. I'm wondering how the people bringing this up missed this—did their GM just give them tons of scrolls? That could be another example of table variance or house rules masking the negative aspects of the wizard class. This is the issue with the 'death by a thousand cuts' approach to nerfing. When you nerf things that synergize together with many small changes, not only is it impossible to predict how far the synergy will go, but if any of these small nerfs fail, they can reduce the effect of the nerf and mask its impact from players and developers.

Is there anything that would convince the dismissive crowd that there is a issue with the wizard? what could change you mind on the subject if anything?

R3st8 wrote:

At this point, I'm more interested in whatever data is telling the developers that Wizard is fine. There must be something wrong with the data or its interpretation, because I just can't believe that's the case.

I think their data is based more around player satisfaction than performance or comparative interesting builds.

This is a bit of a conspiracy theory, but I think it's possible that people who disliked the 'quadratic wizard' from Pathfinder 1 might have chosen the "very satisfied" option with the current wizard, and Paizo may have misinterpreted this as wizard players being happy. This could explain why satisfaction is supposedly high.

If I recall correctly, in one of these surveys or something similar, the wizard showed the most disparity between feedback—a disparity that wasn't as present in other classes. This was only seen in classes that were considered weak at the time, such as the witch or alchemist, and even then it was less pronounced. It's possible that this was indeed the case.

At this point, I'm more interested in whatever data is telling the developers that Wizard is fine. There must be something wrong with the data or its interpretation, because I just can't believe that's the case.

The Bard's lore and polymath muse would have been a great fit for a wizard. I feel like making that class into a full caster stole the wizard's thunder. The Unified Theory almost makes me think that the polymath feature was originally intended to be part of the wizard class and was changed later.

I don't think we really can find a 100% concensus because the heart of our experiences come down to subjective feelings and in table milage.

Paizo likewise would most likely not use the forums as a datapoint in what people's grivances about the wizard is because it is a rather small subsection of the community as a whole, but rather its a starting point to see how much interest there is behind improvements to wizard.

Most likely, They would base it on user surveys and other official table data like has been used in the past. Some issues are clearly written on the wall, Like focus spells that gave casters natural attacks but no proficiency. But I dont think this is one of those.

We might see one for wizard shortly after the Rival Academies.

Even the best democracies rarely achieve 100% consensus, but I believe we can strive for at least 51% agreement if we focus our efforts. While only the developers can determine whether our feedback makes a difference, to have any hope of influencing change, we must assume it does. Otherwise, we'd be taking a self-defeating stance. I firmly believe that those of us who can reach a consensus should do so because it addresses a common criticism often raised by opposing viewpoints.

I think it might help some of the discussion if we framed it a bit better.

I think the Wizard is a bad class.

I do not think the Wizard is a bad class. I think the Wizard is a bad class.

In that it the Wizard is structurally poor and mechanically subpar for the enviorment it finds itself in.

The floor of the Wizard is that of a legendary spellcaster, and has all the power and function of a legendardy spellcaster. They are not bad at casting spells, because they largely can't be bad at casting spells by the nature and structure of the game. This means they are mechanically serviceable and don't have any blockers (unlike, for example, early Alchemists who had literal blockers to be able to do what they were intended to do).

If all you wish from the Wizard is someone who can cast spells, then they check that box. Your choice of Wizard for that function will be as valid and fulflling as any other full caster you might wish to choose.

But that's not a class.

Man, we finally got even some of the more hardcore users to admit that there is something wrong with the class (because, with multiple threads and so many posts, it's undeniable). However, it's sad that we still can't find a consensus. We need a solid consensus on what is wrong with the wizard if we ever hope for it to be fixed.

I will never understand why there are always people so incredibly committed to arguing that the wizard is fine. I can understand why others want the class to be improved because they feel it is weak, but I can't grasp the mindset of those who vehemently defend the class as it is. Are they afraid that the wizard will revert to its state in Pathfinder 1? That seems very unlikely, considering the effort its taking to even get the developers to acknowledge that there is anything wrong with the class. There is no way they will make it broken again, so you people can relax.

Like does anyone really honestly think there is any real chance that if they buff the wizard they would go that far?

I can't prove it, but my feeling is the wizard has some kind of mandate at Paizo to make sure it doesn't become what it was in PF1 to the point almost no quality improvements and complete class changes occur to make it better for PF2 to the point it is on par with other caster classes, especially all the 8 hit point casters who received quality feats and class features.

This! This right here. I'm sure there is something happening behind the scenes because it would make sense if it were one thing or another. However, the way all these defects synergize together to make the wizard class as bad as it is doesn't happen naturally. This "death by a thousand cuts" suggests that everyone was worried about making the class overpowered, and they each implemented little nerfs that individually would be acceptable but, together, become class-crippling. Perhaps there was a team meeting where their boss told them "we need to nerf the wizard", and they overdid it.