Shriketalon's page

I mean, this is overlapping with the "What Exact is the Wizard Anyway?"-thread, but that's exactly why the Wizard had spell school specialisation (or schools in the remaster), right? They want you to be able to specialise in a specific theme without overcommitting. Like I said earlier, say I specialise in mind-affecting spells. Phantom Pain, Sleep, Agonizing Despair, and so on. All my spells are in this category. And now I'm fighting oozes. Or mindless undead. Or golems (though golems are an "f- you" to spellcasters in general). What are you gonna do now? The school you choose is supposed to be a bonus, a thing you excel at, not your bread and butter. It's to prevent you from making bad decisions you don't know are bad until way later. The remaster especially fixes this with a small list of bonus spells so that it's easy to homebrew extra schools without requiring hours of research or balancing. You get a handful of extra spells on top of your regularly allotted spells to show you've specialised in this subject, but not at the cost of anything else. Hell, even the Kineticist, who goes all-in on one or two damage types, has a failsafe built in.

It's definitely overlapping a lot with the What Exactly is a Wizard thread, I agree.

It's interesting that you bring up failsafes, though, because I think there's a big difference between how the two classes you mention handle it. The Kineticist failsafe enhances the class by further empowering the chosen theme. They correctly identified that the specialists would encounter major problems with damage resistance/immunity, and provided multiple tools to circumvent that (except against golems, which are just borked, and will hopefully change in the remaster). The blast usually gets multiple damage types, there's a weapon infusion to gain physical damage, and Extract Element is built into the core chassis. Nothing will make you feel like the unrivaled master of the fire element like stealing a creature's immunity to fire and then burning it to ash.

On the other hand, the failsafe for most core casters in the game is to abandon their theme in the moment. You are absolutely correct that your mind wizard would have issues against mindless creatures, but the game's solution is to make you bring along spells that go outside your theme. You'll need to pack some elemental blasting spells or summons or curses that have nothing to do with the type of wizard you wanted to play, because there's no way for a dedicated specialist to overcome those walls.

If the mind theme was designed like a Kineticist element, it would A) have multiple mechanical roles, so a lot of your spells are control effects on enemies, but some might buff allies as well, giving you thematic options, and B) provide a way to empower your own magic to overcome the walls they know you specifically will hit. Maybe that means your mind magic can control the base instincts of the ooze, reprogram constructs, or mimic the commands of the necromancer who raised those undead. Or maybe it just means that these creatures are constructed a bit differently, so that they automatically critically succeed saving throws against mind-altering effects, but you have an ability that turns all enemy critical successes into normal successes to future-proof it. It could take many forms. In this model, your spell school IS your bread and butter, and it's very toasty bred with delicious butter that has a built-in way to overcome mold (the metaphor is breaking down). But if you were a wizard who chose to diversify, you would simply set that undead on fire. Both options would be available, and both would be fun and viable.

With all respect, I feel there would be little difference with a Fire kineticist.

What would make them different ? Casting slot spells and cantrips instead of using Impulses ?

As someone who thinks the Kineticist is the best class Paizo has ever designed, I see this as an absolute win.

On a more serious note, since we're talking about class design for a hypothetical third edition, nothing about the existing class list would necessarily be on the table. Resembling the 2nd Edition Kineticist wouldn't be an issue, since everything would be designed for the 3rd edition. The Kineticist itself might not even exist, though lessons from the class would hopefully live on.

And yes, it's true that multiple classes that pick the Fire sphere might feel pretty similar when they're casting fire spells. It's worth noting, though, that that's even more true for the current giant spell lists. Is there that big a difference between a Familiar Thesis Wizard and an arcane Rune Witch? How about the differences in what spells you cast during a battle between a Cleric, an Oracle, a Divine Sorcerer, a Divine Witch, and the Animist currently being playtested? The differences are largely going to come down to class features and individual abilities like focus spells, not the bread-and-butter casting they do during the adventure.

I feel like giving each class only a handful of "themes" to work with will hamper their utility, unless they make sure to cover all the bases in each theme. And at that point, what's the point of picking a theme?

To continue discussing the Kineticist for a moment, I think the major advantage of a spell theme system would be what Amaya/Polaris points out. It enables the choice between versatility and specialization.

The Kineticist is absolutely brilliant because they found a way to balance a class that can choose to have a versatile repertoire of different abilities or focus on doing one thing really, really well, and both options come out relatively fun and balanced. It works so well because they designed the impulse list to combine with the junction system, buffs specifically designed for that element to enhance its overall theme.

That split is something sorely lacking for casters in the current system. Michael Sayre posted an article on their class balance a few days ago that discussed how they had to balance casters under the assumption that they would have the appropriate spell for any given situation. If you've decided to play your wizard as a dedicated necromancer, a blasting battle mage, an artistic illusionist, the game is not balanced around making those themes actually work on their own. It's balanced under the assumption that you'll prepare the best spells in your giant spell list for a given situation...the same spell list that every wizard possesses.

Imagine the wizard had the same kind of decision as a kineticist. A battle mage might get the Arcana theme for being a wizard, and the Battle Mage school grants them Warding and a choice between Fire/Lightning/Ice/Acid/Thunder. Over time, the mage takes the Expanded Studies option to pick up more elements and a few other war-appropriate themes for a huge repertoire of spells. This mage exploits elemental weaknesses to bombard enemies and pairs it with a few buffs or summons for good measure. They are versatile, and powerful as a result.

Meanwhile, another wizard might decide to be a dedicated necromancer. They have Arcane, Necromancy, and Malediction from their class and school. They forgo Expanded Studies in favor of Secrets of Magic and unlock a bunch of Necromancy-specific abilities tailored directly for the spells in that theme. They don't care about versatility at all, because they're here to animate corpses and chew bubblegum, and they're damn good at it.

That sort of design would give the wizard the same choice as the Kineticist. Do you want to be decent at many things, or really good at one thing? It's the best of both worlds, and if they can do it for one class, they can do it for many.

There's also a point of perspective. Currently, there are a total of 20 10th-level spells in the game. That includes Dinosaur Fort. The initial Core Rulebook had 26 cantrips and 511 slot spells total, including 13 of level 10, 19 of level 9, and 22 of level 8. Now, it's reasonable to have *some* overlap, but I feel like each theme should have at least one spell at each level, and if you're rocking 40 themes, then that overlap at the top starts getting a bit heavy.

One thing that could vastly improve the efficiency of the system is to stop designing spells for each level/rank, and make a lot of spells that are all available at 1st level that scale upward and outward.

Consider Chilling Spray and Cone of Cold. Both are cone-shaped ice damage spells, one at level 1 and one at level 5. Instead of creating another cone at 3, another at 7, and another at 9, it would be much better if we just had one single spell that handled "I want to shoot a spray of ice." That way, instead of having to design a Cone of Flames to pair with Burning Hands, one spell handles it all.

Cone of Cold could be a level 1 spell, a 15 foot cone that deals ice damage and penalizes movement. At the end of the spell description, it could have a description or table that shows how it scales in size and damage with each level, and the level 5 stats would have the size and damage of the current version (but keep the slow, because that fits the theme of ice). As long as they crunch the math, something this edition did extremely well, they can make spells that are balanced in all their incarnations. Fireball can be a tiny burst at level 1, and scale upward to a bigger and bigger explosion, Summon Animal can have stats balanced at all ranks, so the spell is playable at all levels, etc.

So when a Spell Theme/Sphere/Essence/Category is designed, it might only have around 15-20 spells total. Over half of them would be available at or near level 1 and cement the concept of that spell theme. Some concepts would definitely need to be higher ranks (powerful conditions, off-brand abilities like summoning on an element theme, etc), and it would be nice to give each theme at least one capstone spell that represents ultimate mastery, but a lot of them could be compressed down. Anything more eclectic could be handled by a more robust ritual system, or even things like skill feats with Theme tags that require access to that theme.

So the Fire theme would focus heavily on attacks combined with some buffs and utility, and end up looking something like this...
Low Level - burst spell (Fireball), cone spell (Burning Hands), ranged attack (Scorching Ray), melee strike (Shocking Grasp but fiery), cylinder (Flame Vortex), sustained AoE (Flaming Sphere), mixed control and damage (Heat Metal), offensive buff (Blazing Blade/Flame Dancer), utility (Smoke cloud), utility (Pyrotechnics)
Mid Level - mobility (Blazing Dive), control (Wall of Fire), empowerment (Fiery Body/Mantle of the Magma Heart), retaliatory defense (Fire Shield), complex attack (Volcanic Eruption), summon (Summon Fire Elemental)
Capstone - big, beefy spell (Meteor Swarm)

That list certainly isn't perfect, but something like that would do a reasonable job of representing what a theme is all about. Fire burns things. That can sometimes be useful for utility effects, but it mostly just roasts everything. Themes of Ice, Mind, Holy, or Plant would look dramatically different, but distilling them down into their core concepts and making those concepts scale across all ranks would make things far more efficient and easier to read through. Much like how they represented the elements so well in the kineticist, each theme could take its main concepts and turn them into a master list of iconic effects.

Do the elemental Versatile Heritages (talos, ardande, undine, suli, oread, sylph, and naari) get any special synergies with the Kineticist? For instance, some of them have access to innate cantrips or spells, and there are a few things like Charred Remains that trigger from the Cast a Spell action, which was really nice for elemental-themed spellcasters.

Along with the two new ones and the renaming, is there anything that makes these versatile heritages really good picks for a kineticist?

In regards to the Alchemist, I'd like to see an emphasis on more gear support. Every bomber is relying on the same Alchemical Bomb martial weapon, and a lot of the flaws people list about the class are actually disadvantages in the weapon stat block itself. If a fighter encounters a situation where their weapon doesn't work, the solution is to pull out another weapon, but the alchemist doesn't have that option. Similarly, many of the other research fields have action economy issues which could definitely be solved with some gear.

A fix to the Alchemist could be creating new weaponry/armor items that are designed to boost the class over time. Each research field could provide access to some of this equipment for free as part of the kit. When you build your Alchemist, you select gear for different situations in the exact same way that a martial character would select their focus via weapon selection.

Here are some examples to show what I mean. Please note that they are not balanced in the slightest, and serve only as general ideas.

Alchemical Bomb: This is the existing stack block. You throw it, make an attack roll, and it splashes. All alchemists get proficiency for free.
Sling Bomb: This is literally just a bomb on a string. You whirl it like a bolo and let go, increasing the throw range.
Alchemical Mine: This uses the same rules as the Explosive Mine gadget. When someone steps into the square, it explodes, automatically rolling an attack and treating the enemy as flat-footed.
Cluster Bomb: This advanced bomb can roll attacks against multiple foes in a small area, but it requires more resources to construct.
Fuse Bomb: This bomb packs a bigger payload, but the thicker casing required can't shatter on impact. It goes off on your next turn, forcing a Reflex saving throw against the effect.
Alchemical Sphere: These fragile glass spheres rupture on the slightest impact with a surface. Trading damage for reliable debuffs, these bombs inflict splash damage and the bomb's debuff on everything in the area.
Alchemical Spewer: This two-handed contraption takes Canisters, an ammunition type with identical properties to bomb payloads. When you load a canister into the Spewer and fire, it produces a cone or line AoE effect with the same damage/debuff as the bomb recipe. (coverting a single-target damage + splash into an AoE would require some balance tweaking).
Alchemical Spitters: These one-handed versions of the Spewer are linked to a central pack by tubes. Instead of firing one large cone or line, the alchemist can point each spewer in a different direction to create two small AoE effects.
Alchemical Spider Bomb: This expensive option pairs a Clockwork Spider Bomb with an alchemical payload. It behaves just like the CSB stat block, but the explosion uses the stats of whatever bomb you selected. You must craft the Gadget separately for this item.
Alchemical Spider Mouse: This is a faster version of the alchemical spider bomb, which speeds out on little wheels in a line. It can't handle difficult terrain or collisions, and will tip over and explode if it encounters anything in its path.
Mortar: This cumbersome device allows the alchemist to lob bombs at extreme range, though it requires setup and has the volley trait.
Canister Launcher: This single-shot grenade launcher provides a long-range version of the Spewer, creating a burst AoE that forces a reflex saving throw.
Alchemical Arrow: By miniaturizing a bomb, the alchemist can create an arrow or crossbow bolt that applies the splash damage and the bomb's debuff effect on hit, but lacks the sheer damage potential of an explosion.

I know that was heavy on bombing, but other alchemists could also use some gear.
Syringe Gauntlet: This item has all the normal properties of a gauntlet, but also has a syringe located on the forearm which can hold a single elixir/mutagen. The wielder can take the Interact action to administer the elixir without pulling it from their pack.
Syringe Claws: A more intricate version of the gauntlet, this glove has syringes on all four fingers, allowing more frequent use before reloading.
Syringer Band: This disturbing-looking item houses a single syringe pointed directly at the wearer's skin. The wearer can take the Interact action to smack the band and cause it to discharge the contents into their body. The band can't be reloaded without taking it off, a time-consuming process.
Syringer Rifle: It's a gun that shoots alchemical syringes. The good news is that you can deliver an elixir or mutagen at a range. The bad news is that you have to hit your target, either consuming an ally's reaction to hold still for the shot or beating their AC.
Alchemical Mister: This gear uses similar stats to a Cryomister gadget, and disperses a weakened version of an elixir, mutagen, or toxin in a burst area effect.
Mutagenic Mask: This headgear contains an aerosol version of a mutagen. By Interacting with the object, the wearer can breath in the mutagen and trigger the effect.

Thank you for indulging my long, silly list. The point is that the alchemist would really shine if it can combine its massive pool of alchemical recipes with different delivery mechanisms. I know it would add complication to the class, and they certainly don't need to implement that whole list of items, but providing a few different vectors for the alchemist to do their thing would really help the class make an impact.