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WWHsmackdown wrote:
After 4+ years of this balance point not changing the continued complaining of some comes off as extremely bitter and extremely confusing bc the effort is ultimately wasted. I mean, why not direct that energy towards the eventual pf3 playtest; It's not gonna get you anything now. God knows if it legitimately gives you this much stress and anger then you're better served playing the systems that don't do this. Pf1e and dnd5e are right there giving you the casters you want. Throughout this game's entire run the attack benchmarks between casters and martials has not changed, will not change, and never had any design intentions of changing from the designers. The best you got was an item to switch to saves. To continue to complain for changes that demonstrably will not come seems to me either lunacy or a deliberate desire to heckle the people who made the thing you don't like as well as the people who enjoy the thing you don't like. It can't be any genuine expectation of change, can it?

So your take is that people should not complain about bad game design and just take whatever bad thing a developer adds. Are you also one that likes it when a dev adds a bunch of time wasters to justify micro transactions?

They say hope dies last, but you know what I am tired of this same argument being used every single time. You like your bad mechanics and want an echo chamber? Fine keep them. Congrats you won, one less person asking the devs to fix their mistakes.

Best of wishes to Paizo, but I'm done trying argue for a game that I enjoy to be made better while treated as if I was a second class citizen.


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Unicore wrote:
Temperans wrote:

Some people just want to use 1 type of spell and those people are punished because "well you should had picked something different". That is bad design no matter how much you try to justify it.

If something has a worse chance to take effect than normal the expectation is that it has a much better effect to compensate. But spell attacks do not do this. Instead they are mediocre effects while also being more difficult to land.

This is not about being better than martials as some people keep trying to say. Its about 1/day abilities not being balanced properly for being 1/day.

Players that only want to cast one type of spell need a special class built to do that (like the kineticist) because full casters always have access to way more spells they can cast. It is unreasonable to expect one class to accommodate such specialization and breadth together.

You should not need a whole new class just for this. It should just work.

Also no, the game expects you to have at most 4 of the highest spell level (up to 9th) and at most 2 10th level. 4 times a day I can have a 50/50 to be mediocre is bad no matter how much you try to justify it with "if you have this very specific situation its okay".


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Some people just want to use 1 type of spell and those people are punished because "well you should had picked something different". That is bad design no matter how much you try to justify it.

If something has a worse chance to take effect than normal the expectation is that it has a much better effect to compensate. But spell attacks do not do this. Instead they are mediocre effects while also being more difficult to land.

This is not about being better than martials as some people keep trying to say. Its about 1/day abilities not being balanced properly for being 1/day.


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Slot based spell attack are not worth it.
So players don't get them except for very specific things.
So the devs don't make more.
So players don't get more.

Yeah there are few spells when the thing has needed help from the start and even when they introduced the class that revolved around it they didn't add significantly more.

Its a self fulfilling prophesy.


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Did someone say spell attacks should be the best always? Didn't see that.

I have only seen people asking that such spells get something to be worth the slot they are cast from without just making everything into a save.

How you read "make this type of spe3ll the best" from "this type of spell needs better accuracy to be worth it" is beyond me.


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Captain Morgan wrote:
Edit: No, Temp, you don't need Crossbow Crackshot, which is a bad fear because you have to reload the same turn you shoot to get the bonus. You want the Sniping Duo dedication. which gives you a circumstance bonus that will eventually outscale the old crossbow ace, lets you ignore lesser cover, and still benefit from backstabber.

Just going to say that still isn't quite the same. Sniping Duo locks you outnof other archetypes and require that the ally hits to get the benefit.

Yes it scales to +3 eventually. But Crossbow Ace was damage now and always.


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Captain Morgan wrote:
YuriP wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:

While I initially didn't love the slight damage nerf compared to CRB crossbow ace vs remaster crossbow ace with arbelest, there's one really good benefit. The new crossbow ace looks pretty skippable to me. It looks like the sniper's covered reload but is generally worse because it lacks HideYou can snag it if you're interested, but can also skip it now if you don't feel like investing in deception or constantly taking cover.

And that frees you up to take other feats. I was initially thinking that would be Monster Hunter or Animal Companion to diversify your build, but then I noticed... gravity weapon is right there, and will likely put the Remaster Ranger ahead of the old Ranger. Old ranger could snag Gravity Weapon, too, technically, but then they are delaying Hunter's Aim at 2 or Running Reload at 4. And getting gravity bow early sounds like a nice choice given it sound like we have new warden spells coming, so growing your focus pool will likely be wise.

This change also means crossbow switch hitters can be a thing, which was basically just for bows pre-remaster. Overall, this change feels really good once you skip crossbow ace.

You got an interesting point, now Crossbow Ace isn't a must have feat anymore for crossbow rangers anymore. Yet this option also feels more weak than before when compared to the alternative (Flurry + Bow).

So I still don't see this see this being beneficial in general. I also wanted that this feat works with firearms too.

At last it can now combine with Crossbow Crack Shot so if you are making a remastered crossbow range you could consider to take Gunslinger dedication.

I'm not sure what you mean. This feat does work with firearms, and I don't see how gravity weapon + arbelest is any worse than crossbow ace + crossbow was, and don't follow the logic to be worse relative to a flurry ranger with hunted show and a shortbow. Besides the one action to activate...

Let me correct you a bit.

Pre-remaster:
Crossbow with Crossbow Ace deals 1d10+2 at 120ft on every shot.
With Gravity Weapon and Precise shot its 1d10+3+1d8 at 120ft on the first shot (assuming it hits).

Post-remaster:
Crossbow deals 1d8 at 120ft.
With Gravity Weapon its 1d8+1 at 120ft.

Arbalest deals 1d10+Backstabber at 110ft.
With Gravity Weapon its 1d10+1+Backstabber+1d8 at 110ft on the first shot (assuming it hits).

If you have to get Gunslinger Archetype to get Crossbow Crack Shot that is 3 feats to do what you could previously do with 2.

So in short to do what you could do previously you now have to spend more feats. Or you have to keep making the enemy flat-footed on every round and use the new weapon (which cannot be gotten at level 1 and has a shorter range). The one good crossbow playstyle is now worse for the sake of making a new playstyle that is more inconsistent with no real benefit.


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Ed Reppert wrote:
From wikipedia: " A skilled arbalestier (arbalester) could loose two bolts per minute". That's one bolt every 5 combat rounds. Reload 12? :-)

And they dealt a whole lot more damage, and ignored armor, and ignored tough hides.

While 1800s muskets (period accurate for golarion) were 1/minute and were even stronger than crossbows.

But yeah that aint happening in PF2.


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Yeah I think something must have lost in translation because most of this seems to be meh.

Crossbows had too many feat taxes so the solition was to: Make the main feat worse and mandate it to require deception, add a forced item choice that is in some ways worse, add a new feat tax at level 16, and give crossbows the crit specification that should had been given to bows... Who decided any of this was a good idea?

Putting warden spells in the main class but not snare crafting seems like a repeat of not placing warden spells in the intial release. Now snares won't be part of Rangers and it will cause issues just like warden spells caused issues.

It feels like we are being told that its an upgrade, when it feels and looks more like a side grade.


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I love how I never said "spell attack need to be the best" and somehow that is what people are responding to.

Or how about where I never said that wizards need to be the best at everything. Yet once again people acting as if I said that.

Oh would you look at that, limited number of spells per day. What's that I can only 4 spell slots and after that they are gone, finished, gone? Ah yes much versatility when I pick 4 damage spell because I want to make an offensive caster. Much versatility when I have a ~40-50% chance of doing nothing with an ability that is only 4 times a day and no better than a Fighter hitting twice. Oh right I have to spend twice as many 1/day abilities for it to have reads again oh that's right a ~45-55% how impressive for a 20th level character that you are lucky if you see it once every 4 years.

No no I get it, I get it. We have to let the person who only swong their weapon around be able to be the bestest ever at using their infinite use weapons. Now if only the thing you were using was not a weapon and could only be done 4 times a day.... oh wait. I forgot that person swingin a weapon can also cast utility/buff magic, make items, buff/debuff everyone around them, be very agile, punish bad positioning, and have decent defenses.

But you know what carry on talking about having your cake and eating it. I'll be over here watching as this thing called "MaG1k" is roasted and carved out to feed some poor hobos who seem to be in need of some healing.


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Karmagator wrote:

People really are hyperfocusing on one thing in a very unhealthy way. I mean I get it when people become upset about their favourites changing and it's a bit of a bummer if we don't get a good electricity damage option somewhere, but hell, quite a few of you are acting like the Magus' entire being revolved around Shocking Grasp.

Meanwhile I'm over here looking at the focus point changes and wondering why I would ever touch my slots (and often my cantrips) for attacks every again. Pretty much as Michael said, though probably not with quite this in mind. For the "great" cost of a second level feat (Psychic Dedication), I get a focus spell that does almost the same damage as a highest level SG plus a pushback for shenanigans/damage mitigation on top. That I can spam every fight without even looking at my slots. Instead I can use my slots for problems I cannot simply hit harder or simply hit even harder in other ways. Meaning overall my Magus will become objectively stronger than the pre-change variant relying on Shocking Grasp ever could have been.

And people are complaining???????

The complain is because their "solution" highlights all the issues that spell attacks had and they kept ignoring, which they might potentially. Even removed spell attacks as an option in the first place.

If you are allowed to have 3 spells every 30 minutes that deal as much damage as a 9th level spell which you can only cast 2 to 4 times A DAY then the entire argument that "this must be weak because balance" fall apart like tissue paper.


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Captain Morgan wrote:
Calliope5431 wrote:

[I think the remaster removes that conflict, for non-holy PCs anyway. No more "I totally count as good aligned for the purposes of getting free paladin reaction stabs but also can torture prisoners for the greater good" rogues, for instance. The main thing that might get a little gross is that stuff like Divine Wrath can fall upon the innocent now.

I'd honestly have preferred that Good/Holy characters kept the old alignment damage rules and evil characters didn't. I understand why they didn't do that from a mechanical perspective (symmetry is much easier to write, mechanically) and from an in-play perspective (nobody wants to have their divine lances bounce off bears and fire elementals).

The real problem is that with alignment there's no distinction in neutrality between "innocent baby", "hungry animal", and "hardened mercenary who will work for bad guys but isn't actually evil". They all just get lumped into "neutral." Because the pre-remaster alignment damage rules (for Good damage at least) were designed around neutral creatures that were all pure innocent Neutral babies. Not rampaging Neutral fire elementals, psychotic proteans, booty-hungry pirates, or angry bears.

Tl;dr alignment was narrow enough that you couldn't assume all the monsters the PCs fought were Evil, but it was also sufficiently broad that there were whole classes of enemies (elementals, monitors, wild animals, bandits) that fell under the "pure innocent child" umbrella of neutrality when they really should not have.

Technically Divine Wrath could always hurt innocents because innocent could mean neutral, as you point out.

I also don't think Holy creatures being immune to Holy damage would have solved your problem. While I believe almost all Holy people will be good, most good people will not be Holy. This might be the most significant change from alignment for the lore. One could be Good just by doing good deeds and acting as a good person. Holy requires divine intervention. You could be the...

I think the correct way it should had been treated is that it triggered weakness, bypassed resistance, and/or was resisted. Specific effects could add bonus damage that only affected some creatures, but those would be the exceptions not the rule.


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Themetricsystem wrote:

This may be a bit off-topic but something that was quite hard to put into words has been rubbing me the wrong way about alignment for years and the changes with Remaster have helped highlight what that is.

** spoiler omitted **...

Simple everything is made from magic, but that does not mean that anything can manipulate (use) magic.

Tiny rant to continue your rant:

This is were the extraordinary, supernatural, spell, and spell-like tags came in. Extraordinary was very magical, but it was from pure exertions of your body (think adrenalin). Supernatural was definetly magic, but it was very instinctual. Spells were active control of magic in a way that was measured and forced. Spell-like was very much a spell, but done instinctually.

The new essences cause issue because the setting was not originally written with them in mind at all. A Druid was divine because they prayed to nature for their effects, while the Witch was Arcane because they studied how to use magic for their effects. The alignment were just a byproduct of how you acted and thought, not part of some war that you may not even be interested in. While Positive (Vitality) and Negative (Void) just fealt broader as heat vs entropy, radiation vs containment, matter vs antimatter, Antigravity vs gravity.


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The Raven Black wrote:
PossibleCabbage wrote:

Holy and Unholy are more about intent than Good and Evil were, but are still roughly homologous since Holy is about "selflessness" and "wanting to help people" while Unholy is more about "selfishness" and "cruelty".

So like a Holy Evil thing might be something that wants to help people very badly, it just has seriously misguided notions about "what exactly that involves."

An Unholy Good thing might be someone who reliably helps end threats to communities, because the pay is good and the work (i.e. killing) is fun.

I actually believe there might be mortals with this kind of corner cases. I think some people would love them. And GMs can always houserule.

But the Golarion deities are another thing completely.

Now, the replacing of alignment by holy/unholy makes even the deities feel less straightjacketed. But that mostly makes a difference for people who saw alignment as a straightjacket. I did not, so for me it changes basically nothing.

Personally, I always felt that the people making alignment into a straight jacket wanted to play neutral but get the benefits of the other alignments. In that respect I guess they got their wish granted, now everyone is "neutral".


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Unicore wrote:

It isn’t a question of whether casters with item bonuses to spell attack roll spells would be out damaging martials. The question is whether spell attack roll spells just became the unquestioned best way for casters to do single target damage in the game.

One clear step in replacing shocking grasp with thunderstrike is that the development team is more interested in having casters play the saving throw game than find ways to maximize spell attack roll spells. But any further speculation on that really needs to wait until we see the rest of the spells in the remastery.

So why shouldn't the SINGLE target spell be the biggest SINGLE target effect?

If you are spending an entire spell slot to target a single target it better be better than something designed to target a group. But that is not how they have set things up and thus all the complaints. Them switching to all spells being saves doesn't solve the issue, just tries to go around it. Heck all spells becoming save based proves that Shadow Signet was just an action tax, while also making that item as currently written entirely useless.

But yes any further speculation on that part has to wait until the remaster rules are out.


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If a caster wants to focus on spell attacks and spend the money for it why shouldn't the game provide it?

A caster that does not focus on that can still grab anything else they want just like every other character can.


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AestheticDialectic wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:

Or maybe the answer is to let the casters play a Kineticist, complete with gate attenuators.

Actually, this is likely what I would also tell a martial's player if they want to poach casters' utility and save-targetting abilities : play a Kineticist.

The refusal to play the kineticist by the people who want other casters to be the kineticist, and who would like the kineticist the most, is probably the single most annoying thing about these caster and wizard threads. The solution to these people's problems is right in front of them and they don't want it for reasons like "it's not actually a caster" (false) and "it doesn't have spells" (entirely cosmetic)

No its because "play an entirely different class with entirely different mechanics" is not actually solving the issue.

What you are doing is the same as people used to do saying "just play a sorcerer instead of kineticist". Just like back then that is not solving anything.

Also saying "just ignore those issues" is the equivalent of putting your head in the sand. Just because you are not seeing it does not mean the issues are not there.


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Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:
Temperans wrote:
I don't quite get what you mean about automatons. I was giving examples of the difference between construct with soul and without a soul. Automatons have an automaton core instead of a soul (quite a powerful artifact if I might add) a mind with planar energy as power.

Pardon my insistence, but what would the point of the automaton core be if it didn't preserve the soul? Automatons were created as vessels for the Jistkan people to stave off the collapse of their empire. Each automaton core explicitly contains a Jistkan soul, often trapped within, since even if the body is destroyed the core might not be.

Automaton wrote:
These intelligent constructs house actual souls and represent what remains of a dying empire's last attempt at greatness. Automatons combine technological ingenuity with magical power, creating a blended being wholly unique to Golarion.

Answer is that "spark of consciousness" did not read as "soul" to me until you pointed it out. But apparently they are one and the same which at that point I don't even know anymore.

To me they had downloaded their minds into the core, not trapped their souls to become a mechanical lich.


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Idk I liked that elves are not monotoned good guys and you have some that are clearly aweful. Makes for great villain material outside of "bandits bad".

Also it is entirely possible for 2 species to be entirely incompatible but still crossbreed with the same third species. This is in biology is called a ring species. Up until now Elf - Orc was a close ring species because they could live together and not interbreed, but could breed with humans. What makes those five (half-elf and half-orc are their own species) being part of a ring species interesting is that if all species with human genes become extinct then elfs and orcs would be entirely incompatible.

Half-elf and half-orc being true breeding (for at least some genes) also makes the whole thing more complicated.


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I am of the opinion that what PF2 considers a moderate encounter is actually difficult because of how close the fights are. This is why you get TPKs from moderate encounters. It also does not help that some creatures are stronger than they might seem because of how their rules work.

I still feel like spontaneous is better at handling surprise encounters, which is why the "signature spells" was invented to nerf spontaneous heightening.

Prepared would be SOL in that type of situation unless they were an arcanist and had the spell in spellbook.


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Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:
Temperans wrote:
I don't believe they will make soulless creatures (constructs and mindless undead) immune to spirit damage. But that would make the name cause confusion because spirit == soul-like thing is pretty much stablished. But clearly its something born from the formerly aligned planes which are very much related to souls.

You may wish to reconsider this view in light of the evidence:

RoE Remaster Preview p. 4 wrote:
Spirit Damage: Directly affecting the spiritual essence of a creature, spirit damage can damage a target projecting its consciousness or possessing another creature even if the target’s body is elsewhere. The possessed creature isn’t harmed by the blast. Spirit damage doesn’t harm creatures that have no spirit, such as constructs. Many effects that deal spirit damage also have the sanctified, holy, or unholy trait/

I could see spirit damage being allowed to affect whatever it is that pilots a mindless creature (i.e. an amount of void pooled into a corpse, perhaps combined with a shred of soul, perhaps not, depending which part of the lore you interrogate and when), if only so that holy powers can still be used to blast zombies. For consistency I would somewhat rather not unless there is a clear division drawn between 'still enough soul' mindless undead and 'not enough spirit' constructs.

...

Also automatons being soulless is rather a strange assertion given that was kind of the point of automatons. Most poppets obviously don't, but independent playable poppets explicitly gain a spark of life (which from context of description obviously includes both vital and spiritual essence), so I would move in favour of PC poppets having souls.

Does anyone know if regular old leshies have any soul lore or if they're just pure 'vitae' given form?

I reject any and all uses of the essences as bunk given current lore. If they change that with the remaster well that's something for later.

Having said that, thanks for the correction. Given what RoE says, then yeah mindless undead would be immune because they are soulless.

I don't quite get what you mean about automatons. I was giving examples of the difference between construct with soul and without a soul. Automatons have an automaton core instead of a soul (quite a powerful artifact if I might add) a mind with planar energy as power. Poppet, I will admit I was unclear I meant that non-player constructs are soulless. Player constructs are weird because poppets are usually just remote controlled robots.

As for Leshies. They are nature spirits in a plant body. They do not follow the path of souls from positive plane throught the river into the outer planes; Instead they behave more like fey and just need a spellcaster to give them a body.


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Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Alchemist is already an unplayable mess, I don't see why we need to make it any worse than what it already is.

Short of playing with a Superstition Barbarian (who is just as bad by the way), or some Mortal Healing characters, there is no justification to play an Alchemist over any other character mechanically.

This thread seems more like finding a glitch that nobody thought off because of how weird the rules of the class are.

Its not that they are "becoming weaker" if he is right (wish FAQ button was still around), its that people were playing it better than it was written in the first place. Which would honestly not surprise me give how alchemist feels like a last minute rush job as they tried to scramble to remove the failed resonance system.


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Souls are quite literally made of positive energy and potential.

Incorporeal undeads are souls stuck in the mortal plane.

Mindless corporeal undeads have no soul just negative energy.

Minded corporeal undeads have a soul and negative energy (a reversal).

Constructs have no soul unless it is an exception (Usually things with a soulgem). Poppets and automatons are souless, but Androids are not.

Outsiders (creatures from the outer and elemental planes) are made of souls + the plane itself. Good place as any to remind people that outsiders are created from templates (including all their memories and personality) and any variation is entirely from the interactions after it was created.

Fey are weird and their souls like jello (while in the first world).

Dragons are ancient magical reptiles. Yes they have a soul.

**************

Alignment damage pre-PF2 was effectively a form of special material. Just like cold iron can bypass resistance and trigger weakness so could alignment damage. But unlike special materials it could be added to anything.

Alignment damage post-PF2 was its own type like slashing, fire, etc. but it only affected its opposite.

Spirit damage seems to take it one step further making it fully into a damage type like any other. So now everyone is affected equally (outside of weakness/resistance).

I don't believe they will make soulless creatures (constructs and mindless undead) immune to spirit damage. But that would make the name cause confusion because spirit == soul-like thing is pretty much stablished. But clearly its something born from the formerly aligned planes which are very much related to souls. I personally would had gone with "planar" to separate it from souls if it really works on anything.


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What then gets exactly to the meat of this thread.

Spontaneous casters can see that something failed and change their strategy as needed. But a prepared caster does not have this luxury and if they prepared wrong they are stuck.

This means that a prepared caster needs to work extra hard to remain relevant, while also getting punished by the system because "well you might have picked something else".


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Unicore wrote:
Temperans wrote:
Unicore wrote:

Why though?

Why not just design spell damage and accuracy from the beginning to be at the level you would want them to be?

I mean the thing about weapon runes is they only apply to one weapon. “Here is an item that works on all spells” might as well just be built into the spells to begin with. What interesting choice would this enable?

Item solution is good after the spells have been done to avoid doing a 1k+ spell errata. If you are building the spell system from scratch then yeah its a lot easier to just have it built in to the spell system.

Weapon runes apply to only 1 weapon, unless you are using any of the "add X rune pulled out of this bag" items. Still affects all attacks with that weapon.

Spells are single use and so yeah it affect a bigger variety, but then its only a handful of attacks instead of all attacks.

If the developers wanted to rebalance spells, isn’t the remaster the time they would have done it? I mean they are doing it with cantrips and have to change every spell in the book a little already anyways.

Which is why people are bringing up all the issues with casters even knowing that its too late for the books. Specially the talk about what got nerfed or buffed in the remaster.

We can easily assume that they did not fix it. We can also easily continue to complain of that being a poor choice.


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Unless you absolutely require an ability given by a specific ancestry or the concept absolutely requires said ancestry it really doesn't matter. Specially now that they are making the ancestry ability score be effectively the same as human's.

Backgrounds matters more since it can affect your bonus feats and skills. But none of that is really "character defining".

Class is the meats, potatoes, and desert.


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Yes I think that Alchemist as a whole was balanced around bombs, its why they had to entirely rework the class multiple times and it is still not good.

As for their old rulings, anything that seem like it is "too good" gets nerfed via errata. The only things that has gotten a buff via errata is Mutagenist which straight up didn't work.


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Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Temperans wrote:
Xenocrat wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
Karneios wrote:
Since shocking grasp is the only spell slot attacking touch spell they've printed at all ever I don't think it's that safe to assume, hell just looking at attack spells available at all in the arcane list kills any belief that there's gonna be some great replacement coming for the magus
I do not think nerfing the Magus was a design goal for Remaster. YMMV.
Bug slaughter was a not a design goal of windshields.
Actually, that is exactly the intent. That bugs die in the windshield instead of on you or your teeth.
Then why wasn't it called a bugshield?

Because bugshield sounds dumb and windshields block other stuff that get carried by the wind.

Why are they called mice and not clicker?


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The Raven Black wrote:
Squiggit wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:


Actually INT works in PF2 for skills exactly the way it did in PF1. Trained in PF2 is the exact equivalent of putting a skill rank each level in the skill in PF1.
Not really. Putting ranks in a skill in PF1 gave you full value in that skill and access to every normal action that skill had. Simply being trained in a skill in PF2 doesn't do that. You'll fall behind on typical DCs and not have access to certain proficiency gated activities.

Good point about the proficiency-gating (which I strongly dislike TBT, especially in PFS).

But Trained in PF2 gives you lvl+2 bonus on skill checks. Investing a skill rank every level in a skill in PF1 gave you lvl+3 bonus in Class skills and lvl bonus in non-Class skills. So additional Trained skills are actually better in PF2.

Not to mention there are less skills in PF2.

But the DCs (which were a mess in PF1 IMO) did not stay the same in PF2.

PF1 did not assume you would put every point into the same skill. PF2 assumes that not only will you do that, but that you will also get every boost to the skill that you can.

It goes back to the whole "assume that the players are min maxed" which plagues other aspects of the game.


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The Raven Black wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Easl wrote:
Temperans wrote:

Its also good to remember why he [DF] has those houserules.

He played the game straight, notated all the damage from level 1 to 20 for various classes, and came to the conclusion that prepared casting in this edition is bad.

If the spellcasting was not bad he wouldn'g have to use those houserules.

Allowing players with deep OOC knowledge of stat blocks to play their characters as if the characters have that knowledge is not "playing the game straight." It will have the obvious effect of reducing the value of in-game options and mechanics that are there to help the party identify weaknesses, identify good tactics, or tackle a wide range of encounters.

Personally I think focusing ttrpg sessions on bosskill encounters and including very few mob, non-combat, etc. encounters is also not really playing a ttrpg straight. As they are designed for "sandbox-style play" not "wargame miniature combat-style play" But that's a more contentious claim, I suppose. Certainly there is some crossover and I'm glad people *can* get satisfying warmage miniature-style tactical combat out of it. I just don't think that when we talk about class balance, that the devs were counting only those types of scenes.

Characters with 22 Int need to be played like a 10 Int character and have zero knowledge of the enemy, or be forced to spend actions to be able to use their OoC knowledge? This would be like saying a Fighter can't swing a sword because the Wizard can't swing a sword. Just because every character has low Int doesn’t meant the Wizard has to be played like a low Int character.

The game assumes that players do not use OoC knowledge.

Character with 22 INT will be Trained in many skills and will have better chances at RK checks than 10 INT characters.

Simple facts of the game.

Why do people feel the need to bash posters that just describe how

...

System mastery by its very nature means the experienced players are better. You physically cannot escape that, specially with more complex games.

Not only that but you are saying that its okay for this 1 specific class that is not at all related to knowledge outside of high Int should be punished more than all other classes who don't require it.

By your argument freaking Bard should be absolutely aweful as they are the ones that really are the "knowledge class". But what do they have instead? 8 hp, light armor training, martial weapon training, and quite literally the best focus spells in the game. I call your arguments BS.


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Xenocrat wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
Karneios wrote:
Since shocking grasp is the only spell slot attacking touch spell they've printed at all ever I don't think it's that safe to assume, hell just looking at attack spells available at all in the arcane list kills any belief that there's gonna be some great replacement coming for the magus
I do not think nerfing the Magus was a design goal for Remaster. YMMV.
Bug slaughter was a not a design goal of windshields.

Actually, that is exactly the intent. That bugs die in the windshield instead of on you or your teeth.


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Squiggit wrote:
Temperans wrote:


From what I have seen that's now what their group did.

I don't see how not needing recall knowledge make the wizard worse when they are getting more info than they would have with recall knowledge. While 5e spellcasting (while I dislike it) is closer to spontaneous and thus less bad than PF2 prepared.

Not needing recall knowledge is less relevant here than the part about having 20 encounters per day while judging a class that's entirely based around daily resources.

Per dev comments, a normal spellcaster is balanced around using roughly one top level slot per encounter, give or take a little (with the wizard getting a couple extra). Deriven's encounter scheme changes that one top level spell per five encounters, at a minimum (it was 20 or more after all).

In other words, he nerfed the wizard to be 20% as good as normal. It's no wonder then that he'd need to do a lot of extra work to make them playable.

All other casters that have less spell slots should then be suffering more since they only have 3 spells. But once again it comes back to those repeatable high power Focus Spells.

Make it so that Inspire Courage targeted only 1 character and costed a focus point, make it so the Primal Summons is an action instead of a free action, etc. Lets see if those classes are still "fun" when they have the same quality spells as the wizard.


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Pathfinder is a war game, its why it has so many rule and minutia and part of why it has been consistenly popular. You can run an RP game in any system don't even need a lot of rules for it. But Pathfinder is designed to focus on and allow combat. I think its weirder that some people are against playing the game for what it is: A combat simulator with a splash of RP and a heaping dose of worldbuilding.

Not worrying about recall knowledge and still finding prepared casters (specially wizard) to be worse speaks loudly about how bad that system is.

Seriously think about it. People are saying that Wizard is "good because of recall knowledge" but players with access to the information without the Recall Knowledge tax still find prepared to be worse. Adding the tax makes something that feels bad even worse.


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Calliope5431 wrote:
Sandal Fury wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
Sandal Fury wrote:
Granted I haven't played a great many tabletop systems, but I think 2E's prepared casting is the worst magic system I've ever played

Do you think you could give us the reasons that make you feel so ?

I play a Witch in PFS and I have not felt it was that awful.

It's mostly the fact that spells no longer scale with caster level, so if you want a given spell to be effective, you have prepare it in a higher level slot. Turns the whole thing into a bookkeeping nightmare. It's like they took 5e casting and added all the worst aspects of PF1 casting to make something exponentially worse than both.

Flexible spellcasting makes it better, but it's borderline insulting (hyperbole, yes) that I have to spend a feat AND sacrifice spells-per-day in order fix a bad spell preparation system. Flexible spellcasting should just be an option by default.

Not to mention that magic in general is less impactful than PF1

These are all fair, yep.

Though it's worth noting that spells do scale with caster level in PF 2E, just not in the same way as PF 1E. In PF 1E, damage and duration scaled with CL. In PF 2E, it's DC.

You can cast a 2nd level hideous laughter at level 20 without the only effect being that the monster keels over laughing...at your hilariously low save DC. Which is what would happen in PF 1E. Because DC was calculated using spell level and not character level.

Before low level debuffs had little effect while damage and buffs were usable. Now buffs are the only ones useable, because debuffs are expected to fail.


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Themetricsystem wrote:

Takes the DF makes on the topic of spellcasting or combat metas cannot be taken seriously or at face value, he has openly stated MANY times that he uses homebrew-modified 5eish spellcasting, downtime and that their group has already established a hardened meta that is rinse-repeat with mandatory spells and actions that their players do not or are not willing to deviate from. Add to that their group has zero compunctions with using OOC information that the player knows as a character with 10 int and who has zero lore skills and mix in a bit of above-average optimization and suddenly trying to speak with them on these topics is going to result in translation and understanding issues to say the least.

I'm not saying this to put on airs like I am in any way better than DF but merely to let everyone else here know that when you're talking about expectations and how things actually work that he isn't actually talking about the same thing you are, he is talking about the modified and unique way that he and his group plays the game so it's not even really apples to oranges here, it's apples to pinecones.

Its also good to remember why he has those houserules.

He played the game straight, notated all the damage from level 1 to 20 for various classes, and came to the conclusion that prepared casting in this edition is bad.

If the spellcasting was not bad he wouldn'g have to use those houserules.


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SuperBidi reponded to the first two for the rest:

Dark_Schneider wrote:
Quote:
* High Int is practically useless.
More skills and languages is not useless.

Classes start with enough trained skills that getting more usually does not matter. High int also does not increase your number of master or legendary skills which are the ones that really matter.

More languages is just flavor and in 90% off cases will not help. Of that last 10% a good chunk can be dealt with charades without knowing the same language.

Dark_Schneider wrote:
Quote:
* Water Breathing is hyper situational.
But life saving. Notice that for all these situational the more important is to have in your list, so can use scrolls when required.

The ability to use scrolls was default for everyone, but even now all you need is trick magic item.

Dark_Schneider wrote:
Quote:
* Charm is incapacitstion, aka only really works on mooks.
And setting NPC friendly, which can be pretty handy.

something you can do with skill checks.

Dark_Schneider wrote:
Quote:
* Different damage types is a thing, but many people like thei mono element casters. Also prepared cannot adjust spells on the fly to target weaknesses. Another thing, martials have plenty of ways to trigger weaknesses even without magic.
That is more about character creation (making mono element is a choice). For martials depends much about your magical item system, but with magic is easier usually.

We are talking about Pathfinder. There are non magical ways for martials to trigger weaknesses via alchemical items. There are magic runes for every elemental damage. The only thing magic has on martial is the range and easier access to AoE.


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x x 806 wrote:

Caster shine in their versatility. Out of combat you have spell that make you breath underwater, make light, charmed people, calm them, change appearance. In combat you can deal damage with different element to target weakness.different area of effect, different range

Casters often have high int, wis or cha so they can have a lot of skills trained and more language learned. They are the one that can indicate how to deal with a creature but also use diplomacy or deception better than other class. Last game I turn around an ogre not with a spell but with a command that looked good enough to be obeyed because my deception was trained. There is more chance that you are the one with a weird language that permit to know what the monster are saying to each other.

They have familiar that can scout with their small size and ability to fly at low level and be guinea pig to test traps.

You can get away from a bad combat better than other class with invisibility or teleport and heal yourself and other party members. You can survive in climate that are hostile with resistance spell.

So this compensate the fact that martial class can do two attack in a round while we can only do one spell.

Some corrections:

* Can't use teleport because it is uncommon.
* Familiars cannot scout because they require being commanded.
* Not every caster has heal, even if this system kind of forces you to some to stay relevant.
* Familiar dying takes a weak to return, and summons are straight up inpractical for 80% of situations.
* More languages usually is meaningless. The few times that it might be relevant it usually doesn't require skills. Also anyone can use diplomacy (its not a caster thing).
* High Int is practically useless.
* Water Breathing is hyper situational.
* Charm is incapacitstion, aka only really works on mooks.
* Different damage types is a thing, but many people like thei mono element casters. Also prepared cannot adjust spells on the fly to target weaknesses. Another thing, martials have plenty of ways to trigger weaknesses even without magic.


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If you followed Recall Knowledge by the book it would be more useless than it already is.

I still don't get why people try to use that as a defense for how weak Wizards are. Its like someone saying that using a bicycle is comparable to a motorcycle in a race; No matter how much you cope the bicycle stands no chance.


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What Deriven plays does not sound like a video game. It sounds like a battle game, which is the type of games Pathfinder was built on.

You need to do very specific things for a TTRPG to feel like a video game and just brute forcing everything because it works is not one of them.


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Lia Wynn wrote:

I think that one thing people forget is that martials have four degrees of success, too. Let's compare casters to martials.

A martial swings at an enemy. One of four things happen:

Crit Miss. No damage. Rarely does this matter, but it can.
Miss. No damage.
Hit. Damage.
Crit Hit: Double damage.

What about a caster? A caster tosses out a save spell, the enemy rolls the save and what do we get:

Crit Sucess: No damage. Equal to the martial equivalent.
Success: Half damage and almost always a status effect. Much better than the marital miss.
Fail: Full damage and often a stronger status effect.
Crit Fail: Double damage and often a brutal status effect.

The only time a save spell does nothing is if a foe critically makes the save, which is the same as the martial critically missing. The rest of the time, the caster is actually ahead, because the caster does damage+ something. Now, a martial can do +something as well with rune investment, but that's not a default thing.

If you want to clear a room with one spell, PF2E is not the game for that. But to say that casters are not effective in the system is not accurate IMO.

You are forgetting that casters also have spell attacks that work just like the martials but lack the Item Bonus to attack.


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Crouza wrote:
siegfriedliner wrote:
Crouza wrote:
Deriven Firelion wrote:
Calliope5431 wrote:

Yeah 20 fights per rest is sort of excessive in my opinion. Most I've ever done is 12. Sort of impressed I have to admit.

But yep, we have different approaches and that's fine!

(this experience is mostly with modules from published APs to be clear)

Main reason I imagine we can do this is I've had the same group for 30 years. So coordination is really, really strong from the moment we build the group.

But we still love playing these games after all this time. The imagination is the best game engine of all time.

It sound like you enjoy strategy and seem to be making the wizard work for you.

I still hope we get some positive wizard changes that make your experience even better without breaking the balance of course.

I don't think the wizard is some unfixable mess. I just want a little more of the WIZARD back, just a bit. It's been such a great class for all these editions of this game. I feel like the wizard should have a little bit of a special place in any D&D based game. I know PF2 is really balanced, but I'd prefer the wizard near the top of the PF2 game tier. The wizard is legendary in D&D across all editions.

I know these are old, old names never to be used in PF. But Bigby, Mordenkainen, Elminster, The Blackstaff, The Simbul, Manshoon, so many legendary wizards in the history of D&D. PF2 wizard isn't giving me that legendary feel.

C'mon Buhlman, bring back some of the legendary feel of the wizard.

All this tells me is that Mark Seifter was completely right when he referred to wizard as a Green-Eyed Monster. This obsession that the Wizard must not be balanced because it isn't the best class in the game, and this demand to constantly be better than every other character option available, really just highlights this reality.

You think any dnd wizard can even approach the levels of Elminster or Mordenkainen? The literal mary sues of the dnd world who

...

We have mentioned multiple times that it is not about immediately ending fights. At this point you are actively ignoring what we are actually saying to attack your strawman.


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Cantrips were never an issue and making removing the Key stat is not making them better. Less consistent is not better, I'll give you different but not better.

There has been nothing shown that says the the focus spells will be improved in any way. They have mentioned moving some of them around but nothing about improving them.

Condensing spells was something that was supposed to happen 4 years ago with the heightening effects and variable action spells. The fact that they are doing it now with light does not say if the same will happen with other spells. Not to mention that in the process they are removing what made light such a good spells: The fact you could cast it on an item and then used that for vision.

Shocking Grasp being removed for another spell is not fixing the issues of spell attacks. In fact its the opposite, they are effectively running away from the issue while also removing an iconic pathfinder spell. Not to mention that "a debuff on a crit fail" is nothing more than a ribbon given how unlikely creatures are to crit fail.

The new schools are less thematic than what the wizards had, they are more constrained, and they really do not provide a direction when player could already do that. The lack of theming was entirely a self manufacture issue by the fact that Paizo released very few feats for the wizard compare to the other core classes. They literally pulled the meme of knocking yourself of a bike to blame someone else.

Only the wizard gets talked about because its an 18 page thread were Bard is OP (and nobody can convince me devs don't play favorite), Cleric is effectively set for life with their healing font regardless of whatever else they do, and Druid is a pseudo martial. Sorcerer is fine, Oracle is dull but useable, Witch most agree is the worst outside of Wizard, and Psychic is set as the "cantrip class". We spent a long time talking about the many issues of the Witch, now we are talking about Wizard.

High level play keeps popping up because its the only time where the defining feature of a "caster" is actually useful or supported. Which again goes back to "all the casters who do not have a good focus spell feel bad at all levels of play".


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The wizard is the most caster of the casters. It is literally the only thing the wizard does. If the wizard who has nothing else feels bad, then other caster relying solely on their spell slots will feel worse. Which is why every single time people point to how good the focus spells and feats of other casters are.

If you play a caster with the good focus spells things will be good. Otherwise, suck it up and make due cause you aren't getting any help.


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All the runelords, Nex, Nethys, Geb, Xanderghul, Jatembe, Arazni (yes that goddess was a wizard), Karamoss (Tech Wizard), Razmir, Aroden (Yes, the God of Humanity was a Wizard), Serren (creator of Serren's Swift Girding and Armor Lock), Aroden (Yes he was a wizard), a number of Pathfinder Society Venture-Captains, Salaphiel (Literally own the tallest tower in Heaven's fifth floor), Zafer XXXVIII (the head djinni), etc.

List of Golarion Wizards


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Martialmasters wrote:

Yes you should design your encounters to highlight different players and classes strengths and weaknesses.

That's the Hallmark of a good GM

Not needing to do that is the Hallmark of a balanced RPG.


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Most of those spells you mentioned are Uncommon or Rare. The rest are usually situational (Ex: Tongues comes up maybe once a campaign if you are lucky. Dispel Magic is fighting an uphill battle due to enemies being higher level.

So "oh that class its okay of you give them a bunch of spells that are soft banned and no other class requires". The class is weak and the only justification for it being good given is "if the GM allows them", while ignoring "oh look all other caster can get the same spells".


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Unicore wrote:
Deriven Firelion wrote:
Ed Reppert wrote:
Deriven Firelion wrote:
Literally untouchable abilities the bard has that a caster can't even emulate with a level 10 spells.
Clearly we need to severely nerf the bard. :-)
Or improve the wizard so they can do something untouchable as well with a focus ability.
Please no! I am ok with wizards having some focus spells, but the more class budget that goes into class defining focus spells the less of the budget can just go to more spell slots. Can’t we please have one class be “prepared spell slots, the class?” The wizard thematically really feels like the right class for this.

Well I have been asking for things to make those prepared spells better for 4 years and all I get is "you are just a power gamer your opinion is invalid" (paraphrased).


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The Raven Black wrote:
Temperans wrote:

Let me make a simple comparison.

Bard has unlimited wide AoE spells for 1 action.
Wizard has limited very restricted single target spells for 1 action. Some of those also require spending 3 actions the previous turn.

Bard has ways to poach spells from any school in class.
Wizard does not have any way to poach spells.

Bard has 8 HP, 1 legendary will, expert with martial weapons, expert with light armor, and master in perception.
Wizard has 6 HP, 0 legendary saves, expert in unarmor, expert with simple weapons, and expert in perception.

Bard has a way to get expert in all lore skills and ways to benefit from recall knowledge.
Wizard has none of that.

Bard has significantly better feats.
Wizard has very few.

Bard has significantly more feats and more feats to support each of their muses (which they can mix and match).
Wizard has very few feats that help their choosen school or thesis and cannot mix and match.

Bards have 3 spells slots per spell level.
Wizards have 4 spell slots per spell level.

Bard has ways to always debuff enemies before casting their spells (dirge).
Wizard has no way to do so.

***********************

Are you seeing the issue? Yes you can play a wizard and if the dice and GM are nice you might even have fun. But that fun is in spite of the wizard whose only benefit is "cast 1 more single use spell".

Which an Arcane Sorcerer will have the same number of spells as the Wizard. Spell blending give 1 extra spell for levels 3 to 9 (max 7), at the cost 2 spells per level from 1 to 7 (max 14). So you end up having fewer spells than the Sorcerer.

You list all the things a Bard can do but avoid mentioning the fact that a single Bard cannot do all of them.

As you avoid mentioning that the Bard is worse at Lore (because KAS is CHA) than the Wizard (whose KAS is INT).

As usual.

I literally only listed the chassis, number of class options, and quality of said options. So yes they get everything I listed, get out with the strawman.

Also they get Loremaster's Etude, which means a free reroll every 10 minutes. Or how about all those lore spells that are exclusive to Occult. Its like saying that Alchemist is good at Recall Knowledge, it just ain't happening.


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Let me make a simple comparison.

Bard has unlimited wide AoE spells for 1 action.
Wizard has limited very restricted single target spells for 1 action. Some of those also require spending 3 actions the previous turn.

Bard has ways to poach spells from any school in class.
Wizard does not have any way to poach spells.

Bard has 8 HP, 1 legendary will, expert with martial weapons, expert with light armor, and master in perception.
Wizard has 6 HP, 0 legendary saves, expert in unarmor, expert with simple weapons, and expert in perception.

Bard has a way to get expert in all lore skills and ways to benefit from recall knowledge.
Wizard has none of that.

Bard has significantly better feats.
Wizard has very few.

Bard has significantly more feats and more feats to support each of their muses (which they can mix and match).
Wizard has very few feats that help their choosen school or thesis and cannot mix and match.

Bards have 3 spells slots per spell level.
Wizards have 4 spell slots per spell level.

Bard has ways to always debuff enemies before casting their spells (dirge).
Wizard has no way to do so.

***********************

Are you seeing the issue? Yes you can play a wizard and if the dice and GM are nice you might even have fun. But that fun is in spite of the wizard whose only benefit is "cast 1 more single use spell".

Which an Arcane Sorcerer will have the same number of spells as the Wizard. Spell blending give 1 extra spell for levels 3 to 9 (max 7), at the cost 2 spells per level from 1 to 7 (max 14). So you end up having fewer spells than the Sorcerer.


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I like spontaneous because you can just try again.

I liked prepared because you could get spells faster and had a lot more control over how you cast your spells.

I dislike prepared now because all of its benefits are gone. While keeping all the negatives.

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