Tach1223's page

Darkorin wrote:

We all know rules rigid people and I'm sure that if the wording is that you can Heighten the spell, some of them will say that you can increase it's power but not decrease it with spontaneous heightening, and they should make it clear.

Good thing these are blogs and not rules, then.

Well it's the closesed thing we have to the rules. Also I think the printed versions are well... printed so they won't change if that's the case.

Darkorin wrote:

Now... about that Spontaneous Heightening ability...

Blog wrote:

The spontaneous heightening feature lets you choose two spells at the start of each day that you can cast as their heightened versions using any of your spell slots.

Don't parse the wording too closely, the writer wasn't quoting the class feature. They may have just been assuming you"d always heighten the base version of the spell.

Well what if I don't know the base version of the spell? As someone brought up (don't remember who) Fly might work like in starfinder level 1 being featherfall 2 being levatate and 3 being fly. If that's the case do I get get to cast lower versions if I only know fly? Cause with the wording as is I don't but the difference in fly and featherfall might make me want to use both so i have to know fly 1 (featherfall) in that case and don't have the option to know a different level 1 spell.

Deadmanwalking wrote:

My bet is that it applies to the 'free' spells a Wizard gets from leveling, too, meaning they need to actively go out and find rarer spells.

How all this effects Spontaneous Casters I have no idea.

Since it's a "bet", I would really like for people to stop saying that wizard's spellbook versatility isn't better than the sorcerer's.

We should stick to things that we do know for now and adjust afterward to additional knowledge we acquire.

Thus, Wizards have versatility and Sorcerers have endurance. And saying that Sorcerers can mitigate that lack of versatility through Scroll/Wands/Staves, which all are DM dependent, is questionable.

Well less spells learend automaticly makes the ability of the wizard to learn spells in other ways more powerful.

Hi Tach1223, and welcome to the forum.

My thoughts on spontaneous heightening are that, while it is theoretically like a prepared spell in practice you will have your go-to spells for heightening. This is because the utility of many heightened spells overlap. (e.g Invisibility (1), which is pf1 vanish, will give invisibility (2) - pf1 invisibility and invisibility (4) - pf1 greater Invisibility. These all do essentially the same thing so you are better off just getting Invisibility (4)).
Since there is no point in getting heightened versions of these spells, it will reinforce the idea that these remain your permanent heightened spells, and the only time you would change it is in downtime when you need a higher level version of a known spell for crafting (e.g. you have invisibilty (1) and want to craft a property rune for invisibilty (4)) , or there is a skill boost spell you can apply to downtime activities.

It still retains the flavour of sorcerer spontaneity since (unlike a wizard) you don't actually use any slots for it unless you cast a spell, and you decide then what slot you use. This contrasts with the wizard who had to decide in the morning what slots he is allocating to that spell; if he gets the wrong slot he might waste the slot or only get a partial effect whereas the sorcerer can pick the right slot for the effect he needs, as often as he needs it (so long as he has slots left).

Thanks for the welcome.

If in practice it would be the go-to spells anyways I´d say make them fixed. I see how changing them sometimes is very useful but i don´t think it fits the thematic of a sorcerer that get´s his spells from his blood and can´t change what spells he gets (which is how I picture it and realised isn´t as definite as i thought)

Three per spell level, plus bloodline spells

That looks like not a lot. Where was that stated?

Edit: Messed up the quoting. XD

Whether or not it's overpowered to allow free spontaneous heightening is contentious at present and we won't get a better feel until the playtest. I personally believe it probably is, as it means that compared to a cleric or wizard a sorc would have a staggeringly large number of options on tap if built in any sorc of optimal way. For example, let's look at a sorc with all 9 spell slots at 4 spells of each level with the hypothetical ability to heighten freely. For the first 8 spell levels let's assume 1/4 are heightenable to every level (rather than fussing with half of them heightening every two levels or something). We would get the following number of options at each spell level:

Level 1: 4 spells
Level 2: 5 spells
Level 3: 6 spells
Level 4: 7 spells
Level 5: 8 spells
Level 6: 9 spells
Level 7: 10 spells
Level 8: 11 spells
Level 9: 12 spells

If we assumed the sorc had managed to choose options that averaged out at two new options at every level past first we'd get the following set up instead:
Level 1: 4 spells
Level 2: 6 spells
Level 3: 8 spells
Level 4: 10 spells
Level 5: 12 spells
Level 6: 14 spells
Level 7: 16 spells
Level 8: 18 spells
Level 9: 20 spells

We don't yet know the exact number of spells that heighten, so it's hard to give a better estimate here. While the lower list might be overkill in all but the most edge cases, I wouldn't be surprised to see values somewhere between the two lists. In contrast, a wizard or cleric can be expected to have closer to 3-4 different spells available at their top level (5 for a cleric with channeling up). From what we know an abusively built universalist wizard might be able to outperform a sorc in lower level casting shenanigans, but a freely heightenable endgame sorcerer would seem to have a massive advantage in options over prepared casters.

As said I can see the point of it being overpowered. And as you have said it´s difficult to judge without having it played befor so I won´t argue much about it befor having it played myself. I´d argue that in theory having all spells form one list (or acually in case of clerics)is also overpowered.

While the thematics are slightly off with the "preparing" the spells for spontaneous heightening, I feel that's the sort of thing that might feel slightly different with a tiny bit of flavour text, like "Each day, a sorcerer can focus her mind on the tasks ahead, her magical blood granting supernatural control over two spells that will help her in the events yet to come."

To me it doesn´t really feel different when I read it but that´s probebly also due to my bias. I always thought that a sorcerers choice of spells wasn´t acually chosen by the character but those are the ones his blood gives him access to and changing known spells isn´t really posible (Which the rules state otherwise that I apperently completly locked away in my mind). It never crosed my mind (till now) that it might be different. That´s also what pushes my thoughts to a sorcerers powers are either completly flexible or locked in for the rest of his live. Thou if it´s different i have a hard time understanding why the sorcerer has a limit on his known spells and the wizard doesn´t. And befor anyone says it´s because of his spellbook why can´t the sorcerer use one the same way then?

Even if the Sorcerer's Heighten Spell ability only goes to the maximum Spell Tier and can't be utilized for lower Tier slots (and that seems unlikely), they STILL would have 33 Spells available with a vast selection of 9th Tier spells compared to the Wizard.

Meanwhile, the Wizard at 18th level has 29 spells (and three or four 9th Tier spells), and with their Focus they can recast any one of those spells once. Why the heck would anyone want to play a Wizard when it's so underpowered compared to the Sorcerer?

The new system STILL has the Sorcerer with a slight edge in some ways over the Wizard. Depending on when they get the spells that Heighten, they STILL would (at 18th level) have six 9th Tier spells available... and (depending on how Heighten Spell works) potentially six 8th Tier spells, six 7th Tier spells, and so forth. They are constrained in their spell selection, but even that can be worked around through Scrolls, Wands, and Staves - and with their higher Charisma they can utilize these more frequently, though I'm sure the Wizard has other benefits that Sorcerers lack.

I don´t quite understand what you are arguing here? Are you saying the sorcerer knows more spells than the wizard? Because the answer is to that is simply no. Even if a sorcerer learns more spells per level (which i can´t find right now) the wizard can learn more spells throught the nature of spellbooks.

And yes, a huge spell selection slows the game down. I've stated this before. I've SEEN this before. While I think the spell selection has been cut far too much (Clerics, Wizards, and Sorcerers should get at least one extra maximum spell for each Tier), by reducing the number of spells available you speed up the game. Nor does this mean a Wizard or Sorcerer (or Cleric!) who uses up normal spells is out of luck... they can still use Cantrips and Orisons which level up. They're not as good as a spell of the same level but they can cast it several scores of times a day (in theory "infinite" but given there's 24 hours in a day, assuming six-second rounds and non-stop combat for every moment of that day it's a little over 17,000 times in that day - so not quite infinite due to how time itself works).

Well the more choices always slow down. I´d argue it doesn´t matter if it´s in a battle or at the start of a day because I have seen it in my group mostly at the start of the day for preparing spell which slowed down everything. But in my group everyone tries to think about what to do during the other players turns and do the first thing that comes to mind when it´s their turn.

First of all...
Hi

I literally just made this account cause I feel the need to share my thoughts and mostly complain about why I don´t like this spontaneous heightening.

But first I´ll share my thoughts about what I do like which is basically everything else. I´m also not an english native so please excuse bad english or stupid mistakes concerning my writing. Feel free to point out any other mistakes I make.

1. Bloodlines and spell lists:
I like that the bloodline defines what spell list you have. I think it´s thematically appropriate and appreciate it. The demonic is fine i guess but I´m personally more interested in the draconic.

2. Spontaneous Spellcasting
I´m all for the same progression of spells. i thought it was really annoying in PF1 that it wasn´t and I gladly trade the more casting for it.

3. Sorcerer Features
Only 3 bloodline powers is a bit sad but I´m ok with it if they feel less generic. I´ll get to spontaneous heightening at the end of my post.

4. Sorcerer Feats
Overwhelming Spell was something I wished for in PF1 and I´m glad to have it in PF2. I would be interested if and how if at all it interacts with immunity.
Dangerous Sorcery is nice as an option but it really depends on how it interacts with multi hit and damage over time spells to determine how good it is (not that I´m the person to do that).
Blood Magic looks interesting. Only a question of how easy or difficult it is to get bleeding effect.
I like the evolution feats I only hope they are well balanced against each other.
Wellspring spell is interesting but it all depends on how strong the 10th level spells are. But just the thought of teleporting every minute sounds fun.

5. spontaneous heightening
I don´t like it (as if i didn´t say it already). I was expecting the ability to heighten every spell to whatever level I want. Naturally I´m disappointed it´s not like that but I can understand how it could be overpowered (but I´m not 100% convinced it is).
What bothers me the most is that you have to prepare it. I don´t like prepared casting which is why I want to play a sorcerer (in general). I feel that it doesn´t have much to do with spontanous casting and i think it fits a wizard much more than a sorcerer. I would like it either as a permanent choice or completly spontanous. For example every time you get a new spelllevel you can chose a spell from a lower level to be able to heighten it freely or X times a day (or using X spell points) you can heighten a spell you know.