TiMuSW's page

And again, this is not true. You learn 2 new spells per level, plus a spell from your school each time you gain spells of a new rank. I have already listed the numbers for this, and shown that you get more spells in your spellbook than a Sorcerer gets spells in their repertoire, even if you never learn a single additional spell. I was in fact severely wrong, and grossly undercounted the number of spells you learn as a Wizard, as you get 43 freeform spells and 10 more from your school, for a total of 53 spells in your spellbook. Out of those, you will have room to get some niche options along the way.

I did calculate the number of spells added wrong, since I mostly play universalist. This does bring up the power of spell substitution a bit.

It is impossible to discuss the benefits of Spell Substitution without bringing up prepared casting, as the entire point of Spell Substitution is that it leverages the advantages of prepared casting. For starters, it is once again false to claim I am discussing the benefits of learning spells here, as I am discussing the merits of the mechanic on the assumption that you're not adding any more spells to your spellbook besides the bare minimum (which means it also only gets better from there, and you're bound to integrate more low-rank utility spells by way of scrolls once those become cheap enough). Secondly, you are ignoring the fact that spontaneous casters like the Sorcerer will usually have multiple copies of the same spell in their repertoire, because spontaneous spells don't auto-heighten unless they're signature spells (and you really don't want to waste a signature spell choice on utility spells that heighten only at certain ranks). A Wizard will therefore have access to a much larger number of different spells than the Sorcerer, with the benefit of being able to prepare those utility...

No the point being prepared casting without Spell Substitution already gives you leverage over multiple adventure days. Therefore the value of Spell Substitution should be evaluated with "out of combat, same day situtation when you have 10 minutes to change your spells" alone, which we have to admit is still a niche case. This has nothing to do with Spontaneous vs. Prepared discussion.

In terms of rushing through a dungeon, do keep in mind that Spell Substitution is competing with Treat Wounds/Refocus/Identify Magic and other 10 minute activities you can take. In my experience, in a PFS game where GM tends to handwaive these sort of things unless the scenario calls out for a time limit you do feel like you have all the 10 minutes in the world. However in a campaign where GM pays close attention to time and immersive enemy reactions (i.e., no one coming down this Hall way for 30 minutes straight) that's not always the case.Therefore GM/campaign dependent.

Also keep in mind that your Spell Slots are limited, even the lower level ones. Lower level slots can be used for reaction spells/Spell Blending that can't be replaced by scrolls. Using Scrolls for utility is much better than spell substitute slots for untility then later on not having enough spell slot/right spell prepared for a boss fight and having to fall back on combat spell scrolls. Lower level spell scrolls are very cheap that you can afford to have all the good utility scrolls in your pouch. What Spell Substitution can do that scrolls can never do is change your highest/second highest rank/combat spells prepared. But how often do you spell substitute those spells?

In addition, when I talk about being "Interruptive" I don't just mean having the in game 10 minutes. I mean you as a Player have to interrupt other players who might like to role-play other activities/charge in because their character IS supposed to be hot-headed, etc. Once again this isn't always a problem, but mechanically it can get annoying depends on your group, same way people can find Investigator annoying in certain situations.

Lastly, I did mention spells such as Helpful Steps/Phantasmal Minion/Create Water/Revealing Light/Translate that at first looks situational and justify having them learnt and Spell Substitute instead of keeping a bunch of scrolls around. But the issue is many of these nich spells when you need them you don't have those 10 minutes. I've came across many social situations where I have a niche spell to solve the issue (Airlift/Translate, etc.) but the group is in the middle of a conversation/being chased therefore cannot affort the time. If I had spend the gold on buying a scroll instead of learning two spells I never used, we would've been much better off.

I'm not trying to argue Spell Substitution is useless, I'm arguing that it isn't as strong as many people think, when you consider the opportunity cost being not only the gold, but also the alternative Thesis you could've picked.

TiMuSW wrote:

Teridax wrote:

TiMuSW wrote:

All the use cases you made are valid, but to do all that you will first need to LEARN those spells, and unless you play a PFS game or campaigns like SotT that happens in a magic school, learning those spells require you to purchase scrolls and then spend a fee that's a quarter to half the cost of scroll depending on if you spend another feat to boost spell learning. Sure you can have your GM drop loots of spellbooks that happens to contain the specific spells you want, but once again that means the usefulness of this thesis is vareis greatly depending on both your GM AND your campaign, unlike Improve Familiar Attunement or Spell Blending.

This isn't really true either, given how you automatically add spells to your spellbook every level. Even if you never learn a single spell throughout your entire adventuring career, your spellbook will have 43 spells, 33 of which are entirely up to you, as opposed to the Sorcerer's maximum base repertoire of 38 spells, 29 of which are freeform. Even if a Sorcerer added only one of each spell to their repertoire, which is inadvisable, they would still know fewer spells than a Wizard would have in their spellbook. This is also ignoring the major benefit of preparing spells, which is the ability to automatically heighten the same spell by preparing it into a higher-rank slot. You don't need to learn jump 1 and jump 3 when all you need is jump in your spellbook, for example. Thus, there is plenty of room to pick up some more niche spells as a Wizard, despite the limitations of using a spellbook.

The number of new spells you learnt at level up equals exactly the number of slots you have, except for the six spells you learnt at level 1. Utlising just the spells you learnt through class progression makes spell substitution even worse --- The only times it feels useful becomes when you pick niche spells when level up then prepare heightened spells for top level slots, or when you

...

Please take a look my initial reply. I’m not saying Spell Substitution has no use or is completely bad. In fact, I started with how often I play spell substitution wizards. It’s my favourite thesis thematically and I’ve even written a memo for my friend on it’s different uses and how to tell when to spell substitute and when to prepare scrolls.

My point is people saying it’s not as good as it looks in theory crafting also has a point. It does have its limits and there are alternatives that diminishes its value. We shouldn’t assume people disliking it because they played it wrong or haven’t played one, and I listed the reasons why I think they might felt that way.

TiMuSW wrote:

All the use cases you made are valid, but to do all that you will first need to LEARN those spells, and unless you play a PFS game or campaigns like SotT that happens in a magic school, learning those spells require you to purchase scrolls and then spend a fee that's a quarter to half the cost of scroll depending on if you spend another feat to boost spell learning. Sure you can have your GM drop loots of spellbooks that happens to contain the specific spells you want, but once again that means the usefulness of this thesis is vareis greatly depending on both your GM AND your campaign, unlike Improve Familiar Attunement or Spell Blending.

This isn't really true either, given how you automatically add spells to your spellbook every level. Even if you never learn a single spell throughout your entire adventuring career, your spellbook will have 43 spells, 33 of which are entirely up to you, as opposed to the Sorcerer's maximum base repertoire of 38 spells, 29 of which are freeform. Even if a Sorcerer added only one of each spell to their repertoire, which is inadvisable, they would still know fewer spells than a Wizard would have in their spellbook. This is also ignoring the major benefit of preparing spells, which is the ability to automatically heighten the same spell by preparing it into a higher-rank slot. You don't need to learn jump 1 and jump 3 when all you need is jump in your spellbook, for example. Thus, there is plenty of room to pick up some more niche spells as a Wizard, despite the limitations of using a spellbook.

The number of new spells you learnt at level up equals exactly the number of slots you have, except for the six spells you learnt at level 1. Utlising just the spells you learnt through class progression makes spell substitution even worse --- The only times it feels useful becomes when you pick niche spells when level up then prepare heightened spells for top level slots, or when you need multiple casts of the same spell later in the day. If you cherry pick just the best spells of each rank like a sorcerer does and don't learn spells from scrolls, spell substitution doesn't do much at all.

What you said there is partly the benefit of spell learning and prepared casting, not the benefit of Spell Substitution.

Witch of Miracles wrote:

Spellsub sounds powerful. But in actuality, it requires significant investment into learning spells, and enabling concessions from both party and GM. Most class features need neither. Worse, spellsub usually won't buy you that much of an advantage over a Sorcerer's selection of on-level+signature spells. PF2E casting is combat-focused and tends to lack narrative power, so you're not getting value in that way. And at most tables, it's rare to run into situations where

1) you wanted a spell that isn't good enough to take on an arcane Sorc
2) the spell could truly have turned a fight around compared to a more evergreen choice
3) you had the time and opportunity to scout ahead
4) you had 10 minutes to spellsub
5) you bought the spell before entering the dungeon.

More often, spellsub is just "let me take 10 minutes to get something targeting the right save"—something a Sorc can do on the fly in combat.

I'm normally all for critiquing the Wizard and asking for better, but this to me is a very blinkered way of viewing Spell Substitution. PF2e's casting has a tremendous range of applications out of combat, especially with arcane spells, and Spell Substitution means you can easily come up with the optimal solution to a problem that crops up in exploration. Does the party wind up in a flooded area they have to swim through? No problem, just sub out a spell slot to water breathing. Find an ancient text in a language nobody can understand? Sub to translate and you'll be covered. Bottomless chasm too large to jump across? Airlift. Spell Substitution means you can prepare nothing but safe choices if you want and sub out to more niche spells when the situation crops up out of combat, and when you know you're going to be fighting more of the same enemy (say, in a location that turns out to be infested with undead), then 10 minutes to sub out to at least one more appropriate spell before the next encounter is not a big ask for that kind of benefit, even if...

While I really like Spell Substitution and have almost always picked it for my wizards (and I've played quite a few wizards in 2e), I do see why it feels it's not worth an arcane thesis in many scenarios/compaigns.

All the use cases you made are valid, but to do all that you will first need to LEARN those spells, and unless you play a PFS game or campaigns like SotT that happens in a magic school, learning those spells require you to purchase scrolls and then spend a fee that's a quarter to half the cost of scroll depending on if you spend another feat to boost spell learning. Sure you can have your GM drop loots of spellbooks that happens to contain the specific spells you want, but once again that means the usefulness of this thesis is vareis greatly depending on both your GM AND your campaign, unlike Improve Familiar Attunement or Spell Blending.

If you need to buy a scroll of Water Breathing any way, why not just use that scroll when the niche situation comes up? Scrolls two or three ranks below your highest rank starts to feel dirt cheap, so the biggest value of spell substitution is when the nich situation keep coming up repetitively (but honestly you can still have enough scrolls for them or find an alternative solution, Paizo loves their skill checks. Skill checks don't cost you precious gold or spell slots, and there shouldn't be an issue unsolvable without a specific spell. If the same need keeps coming up for a month you would be preparing that spell everyday anyway), or when your need to change your highest rank spells because for whatever reason you succeed the super high DC RK on an unique boss before meeting them and asked just the right question --- Point is, you really don't learn info about upcoming fights that would justify you changing your highest rank spells, and have 10 minutes but not a day to prepare without interruption all that often.

Also remember it takes 10 minutes to switch, and for many niche spells, when you need them you really need them IMMEDIATELY. What if it isn't an ancient text you need to translate but a conversation that's happening right now? For things like Helpful Steps and Create Water, you often end up buying multiple scrolls anyway, since when you need to distinguish a fire or create a ladder in combat, you don't have those 10 minutes.

Not to mention it does feel interruptive you as the group wizard have to keep asking people to take a 10 minutes break, and the fact that your spell slots are limited, using them for utility now is always risking not having the right combat spell later. I love Spell Substitution and tried to make most of it, but I do see its issues.

Hag is an occult caster, so no Recall Knowledge with Tap Into Blood.

I mentioned retributive spite as an example of good blood magic you can get through feats (e.g. crossblooded evolution). There are many blood magic effects you can get now that it’s a new focus of remaster sorcerer design. It was a follow up of my previous points: you don’t have to rely on your initial blood magic to use TiB

And who cares about out of combat blood magic effects? Go Cleanse Cuisine as a Wood Sorcerer?

What are you talking about? We were talking about out of combat RK checks because you can get into blood magic effects easily.

TiMuSW wrote:

I have to point out that Unified Theory doesn't allow you to recall knowledge on any topic. There are many RK checks that require you to use medicine, specific lores, crafting and society.

More importantly, Unified theory doesn't even cover all checks for Nature, Occultism, or Religion: "Whenever you use a skill action or a skill feat that requires a Nature, Occultism, or Religion check, depending on the magic tradition"

Meaning Recall knowledge in general is not it at all. And in particular no Recall Knowledge on creatures.
What works is Identify Magic and Recognize Spell and Quick Recognition and... that's pretty much it. Maybe something else? But not sure what it could be. Learn a Spell probably too if you don't want to maximize your 'normal' magic skill and want to use Arcana instead.

Yes, no RK on creature unless it's depending on magic tradition. But I thought RK in general is allowed if it's on a magic related topic? RK is still a skill action even if it's general and don't require you to be trained.

Even then that does make it a lot more niche.

What works is Identify Magic and Recognize Spell and Quick Recognition and... that's pretty much it. Maybe something else?

Trick magic item, that's what I think most people use it for.

No, I'm saying an INT-based character will start with a lot more trained RK-relevant skills than a CHA-based one, and that if they do nothing but keep those skills at trained, they're better than your arcana TiB guy though most of levels 1-20 for any such trained RK check.

Not 'for any such RK checks', on wisdom based RK checks they would only be on par with arcane sorcerer for level 1 to 5, maybe 1 to 7 if the sorcerer really insist to go without int. That is far from most of levels 1-20. AND eventually sorcerer surpasses them on any int based skill they don't maximize (three legendary means most wizards will maximize only one or two int skills, and no vanilla wizard can cover them all).

That extra +1 could’ve been easily assigned to int at a much earlier stage. Sure, okay. Add 1 to every Sorc score in my list. It's the same basic outcome.

No it is not when you consider non int based skills. And I did mention going +2 +3 int isn't a big price (in many cases even resulting in stronger builds, e.g. heavy armor).

I guess our mileage varies then. Personally, if another player wanted to play a TiB sorc. or diverse lore thaumaturge, or any other character with a 'cover all the bases, but at a lower bonus' ability, I'd welcome it. The party benefits. We use my higher roll on the skills like arcane, occult, religion etc. for which I have the skill, and and you use your jack-of-all-trades-like ability on the others.

Sure, your group might be fine with it. Some of my groups are all friends and won't have an issue with it. But it doesn't change the fact it's an un-needed RK buff on sorc, or that is makes a lot of wizard players out there unhappy, and for good reason. The thematic 'supermacy on arcana' given to the sorcerer is outright rude to wizard players. Wizards are supposed to be weaker than sorcerer at spells (and they surely are, not even limited to damaging spells any more) but smarter and more learnt at arcane knowledge.

So it's GM-dependent how finely they want to 'slice the Lore pie.' The thinner they slice it, the more valuable things like TiB or diverse lore become. But as Unicore said, players knowing in session 0 that they're going to be in an undead campaign are likely to take undead-related lores.

....Once again, do I have to stress that this is an example meant to showcase the limitation of traditional RK built, where you need to invest in a bunch of different skills? Pre-knowledge to what lore is useful in a given campaign is far from assumed knowledge freely given by all DMs.

Even then, do you seriously not see the power in being able to RK on a random noble/spellcaster in a supposed undead campaign without any preparation or some feat investment several weeks ago? And not all campaigns/scenarios with undead outright tells you there will be undead, btw.

Ultimately I suppose we just disagree on what this ability means for int-based classes. If TiB seems so good to you that you don't want to play an int character, then play sorcs instead of int characters.

This is a discussion on wizard and sorcerer as classes and their potential issues. Please don't make statements like 'if you don't like it, play something else/if you like it just play it'. That defies the whole point of this discussion, does it not?

To go back to the original topic of this disccusion and elaborate a bit more on this last point:

The designer saying 'we know you like wizards, and we made the parts you like into thaumaturge and kinetics, go play those classes instead' is precisely what caused the wizard issue in my opinion. Sure different wizard players enjoy different aspects of the wizard class, but many of them enjoyed those traits on the basis that they are playing a 'arcane researcher/scholar/knowledgeable character, someone who LEARNT magic'. They don't necessarily want to go to a different class, even non-int class to have those traits. They would much prefer sacrifcing some other abilities of wizard to get those traits, but within the frame of a wizard class.

I agree with Unicore that it is much harder to use than it seems. Everyone & especially the designers always seem to ignore how difficult it is to trigger bloodmagic.

Kitusser wrote:

My point is that if the Wizard wants to, they can invest in enough skills to probably outdo this feature. It does require decent bit of investment, but it is possible and is not entirely unreasonable. Remember that the only levels this really matters in are levels 1-14, because of Unified Theory.

If the Sorcerer has zero or minimal Intelligence investment, then the Wizard only needs to be Trained to match their skill modifier (as long as it's an Intelligence skill).

Now that is just plain wrong. Even a -1 INT Sorcerer now surpasses the apex-item-clutching Wizard with this ability.

Because the one thing that everyone but me seems not to have figured out yet, is that an arcane Sorcerer shouldn't use Arcana to Recall Knowledge on Nature or Religion or Society or whatever, but on Jungle Bird Lore or Zombie Shambler Lore or Varisian Pirates Lore or whatever you currently encounter.

Using this ability for highly specific Lore skills - instead of general knowledge skills - drops the DC by ~5 points! That's not something a Wizard's INT modifier can ever really make up for.

And the best thing about the arcane Tap Into Blood is that this isn't a bonus to the roll, but a drop of the DC, which means an arcane Sorcerer can just snag Assurance (Arcana) and auto succeed on every Recall Knowledge check henceforth, even with a -1 INT modifier!

This isn't surpassing the Wizard, this is surpassing the Bard!

I would guess it's less of everyone forgetting about lore dc and more of disagreeing lore dc can be applied in this case.

'you can use Arcana instead of the skill normally needed for that subject' means you can use Arcana to RK on the SUBJECT. Nowhere does it say you can use Arcana as if it is a lore skill. Look up what a subject is in recall knowledge if you need.

If you really want lore on everything, go investigator with keen recollections, but even that isn't as good as Tap into Blood at higher levels.

Also I really don't think it's that hard to trigger blood magic. We all agree that out of combat it's a piece of cake. In combat you could take Hag's retributive spite blood magic effect when you cast ancestral memory in turn 1 (not a bad blood magic by the way), and be set for tap into blood for at least one turn. And that is just one example.

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

Kitusser wrote:

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

Arcane: One of two worthwhile effects. Encroaches on the wizard and other intelligent skill using classes a fair bit though.

It actually doesn't encroach on the Wizard.

It SHOULD be encroaching on the Wizard, but this wholly surpasses the Wizard's knowledge functionality.

I'd agree if the Sorcerer wasn't hard pressed to fit Int into their build. Sacrificing any of Cha, Dex, Wis, or Con is just losing too much. You could maybe argue that losing 2 points is fine, but anything past that is too much.

Wizard just needs to be buffed somehow.

Sorcerers don't need an Int investment to make it work. Not really.

The thing is that they aren't competing with an Int based class who has the same skill proficiency as them, rolling against the same creature. That is that Int classes strength afterall.

They are competing against the lack of skill proficiency that Int based class will have against everything that isn't in their wheelhouse.

Having a +7 from Int to a lore check is great, but its a hell of a lot less than the +28 the sorcerer may have because they get to use 1 skill for everything.

Not all Int classes are the same mind you, Investigators (and some Rogues) get a much better time out of this comparison.

Orientating to the Wizard in particular, at 20th the Wizard will have 3 skills at legendary and potentially more if they pick up serveral Additional Lore feats. However, even when attempting to optimise, the Wizard simply can't cover all the options that they may face in a 1-20 adventure (more so if you do one of those 1-11 paths and jump to a different 11+ path).

The Arcane version of Tap Into Blood removes that worry. Its a single investment which will always be useful against every enemy.

My point is that if the Wizard wants to, they can invest in enough skills to probably outdo this feature. It does require decent bit of investment, but it is...

I have to point out that Unified Theory doesn't allow you to recall knowledge on any topic. There are many RK checks that require you to use medicine, specific lores, crafting and society.

While the later two are int based skill, once you hit level 15 a +8 proficiency bonus is still on par with +6 int and +2 trained. If the sorcerer has any point in int (which they most likely would, since you can't have three +5 stats unless you play some very specific races), they would still outdone wizard in those fields.

But yes, having to invest in so many different skills is usually the pain point of recall knowledge.

TiMuSW wrote:

Try having the wizard and sorcerer in your example both RK a ghoul (or most undead), or better, play a undead scenario, then tell me wizard is still better at RK than Tap into blood imperial sorc.

Or your wizard takes Additional Lore Undead if you are not going to move religion past trained, and is doing better than the imperial sorcerer in Abomination Vaults an undead heavy campaign.

First of all, you cannot always take undead lore depending on how you interpret the ruling on lore skills. It’s often vampire lore + ghouls lore + zombie lore + lich lore + skeleton lore and some other lore I can’t remember on top of my head. Yes I did play a wizard in undead campaign and took a bunch of lore skill. Guess how many feats it took me? And guess how effective my character is on RKing other creatures and subjects we came across in that campaign?

Secondly, even if for some reason you wizard decides to keep religion as your highest skill and wisdom as second highest stat. They are still only ‘as effective’ as your tap into blood imperial sorcerer. Who has the added benefit of having their thematic skill as their most proficient skill. And once again, guess how effective that wizard is at recalling none-religion things.

Do I really have to explain to you, that I used undead RK as an example to show that for non imperial sorcerer character, how limited dedicating a single skill is at RK, rather than to nitpick a scenario sorcerer can beat wizard in? Because with tap into blood, there are many of them.

TiMuSW wrote:

Kitusser wrote:

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

I honestly don't understand this "throwing the toys out of the pram" issue with Tap Into Blood is.

It being an action instead of a Reaction/Free Action does make it a bit awkward. That awkwardness is far from a deal breaker.

I would LOVE to have a similar option as the Arcane Tap Into Blood for Wizard's. Tying it to School spells would be utter trash, given how much more limited those options are compared to the Sorcerers ability to trigger blood magic. But this should be something Wizards can do.

To reframe this discussion, it's not that Tap Into Blood is the most OMG AMAZEBALLS ability ever.

Its that it takes something that feels like it should be a Wizard feature, and gives it Sorcerers, while the Wizard simply lacks anything like that.

The Wizard should be a knowledge class. But they aren't.

It's a deal breaker for Divine, Occult and Primal sorcerers. This feat is basically pointless for them, and the only way it would make sense would be if the ability was a free action or a reaction.

FYI the reason why Occult is bad is because you need to cast a spell before getting your boosted step. In 99% of scenarios, you've already defeated the purpose of the step by casting a spell, because Reactive Strike is provoked by spells.

Primal and Divine are self explanatory.

Why is this whole discussion centered around Arcane? That's the only part of the feature that does not suck.

Because this is a discussion about wizard being weak. The natural comparison is therefore arcane sorcerer.

That would make sense if the argument was only about the comparison to the Wizard, but it is not.

Well, for what’s its worth I believe the message you originally quoted, when they said ‘tap into blood being one action is far from a deal breaker’ they were definitely referring to the arcane version not the entire feat.

I definitely agree with you that they did the other options dirty and I thought it’s being discussed more in the other topic.

I think occult is far from comparable to arcane but still slightly better than the other two though. Blood rising, long lasting blood magic effect (like retributive spite) might have some use of it. But yeah, step after you cast a spell is still jokingly bad, it’s just the other two are worse.

TiMuSW wrote:

The difference is you don't ALWAYS have a high RK chance because skill increase is quite valuable on casters....

[In a later comment]
...What really triggers the wizard player is also that Sorcerers are now 'smarter' than Wizards, or at least getting more out of Arcana

But the Wizard still does almost always have a higher RK check. Well, pretty much any Int-based character does.

Let's compare a 'Tap into Blood' sorcerer with +0 INT but who increases Arcane every chance they get, with a Wiz or other INT character who increases their Int every chance they get but stays at trained for the RK checks we care about. For brevity we'll stick just to the levels where either Int or Arcane proficiency changes.

Level 1. INT PC +7. TiB Sorc: +3.

Level 3. INT PC +9. TiB Sorc: +7.

Level 7. INT PC +13. TiB Sorc: +11.

Level 10. INT PC +17. TiB Sorc: +14.

Level 15. INT PC +22. TiB Sorc: +23. Huzzah!

Level 20. INT PC +28, Tib Sorc. +28.

Throughout this build, the INT PC has spent basically nothing - not one build resource after selecting 'trained' in RK-relevant skills at level 1 - on Rk checks. The Sorc has spent every major skill bump on it, and requires a fp each time they use it.

In reality, the INT PC is likely increasing Int skills, which are most relevant to RK. So they'll have a bigger edge where they do so. But also in reality, not all RK checks will use something the Int character is trained in, so the Sorc will have a big edge when some strange or unexpected RK is needed.

But overall, I can't see any Wizard player getting "triggered" by the above comparison. They're superior throughout most of the 1-20 progression, for less build resources, and for less in-play resources to use it.

Have you actually been in a game where someone was playing a remaster imperial sorcerer, another player was playing a wizard, and player 2 got really upset (i.e. triggered) by player 1 being able to make RK checks using tap into blood?

1. Are you seriously trying to say ‘being able to RK with arcana’ is even remotely comparable to ‘being able to recall ANYTHING with arcana’?

In case you didn’t notice, at least half the skills you RK creature on isn’t int based, not to mention non-creature RKs. None int based RKs are just as common if not more common, and you made it sound like they are niche and rare with your ‘strange and unexpected RKs’. No. They are always expected.

By level 9 your int bonus is behind master proficiency’s +6 bonus, so not being able to bring every knowledge skill to legendary WILL make you worse at RKing, on literally everything other than arcana in your example.

2. Why are you comparing with in 0? Unless you play a race with -1 on str most sorcerers will end up with +7, +5, +5 +4 snd +1 at level 20. That extra +1 could’ve been easily assigned to int at a much earlier stage. Not to mention most imperial sorcerers who would like to utilise this (or just fulfill their wizard dream with a thematically close but better class) would be happy to get +2 or +3 int at the cost of one more +4 stat. If you are going heavy armor, there is no downside at all.

3. Yes I have seen people playing remaster sorcerer we started before Aug 1st as soon as we got the book. Yes I have seen wizard players getting triggered. It is quite a sight when you get over 2000 new chats in your channel in one day, and 60% of them being wizard and non-wizard players shocked by this change (and the ancient memories change) or making jokes about how wizards are paying back for 3.5 and pf1. (The rest being complains about monks and how good new oracle is btw)

Try having the wizard and sorcerer in your example both RK a ghoul (or most undead), or better, play a undead scenario, then tell me wizard is still better at RK than Tap into blood imperial sorc.

If Tap into Blood sounds awesome to you, again, I suggest trying it out in play. Just make sure you realize its many limitations or you will probably get pretty frustrated when your GM tells you you are not under the effect of blood magic and that it doesn't pair with very many other recall knowledge items or abilities.

Until I see this massive shift in players abandoning wizards for imperial sorcerers and having more fun with that class than with wizards, I am not really worried that Wizard has been replaced or that Imperial Sorcerer is a better wizard, because I know that I cannot build an imperial sorcerer to do what I want a wizard to do, since I tried to do it. I. just have no interest in casting haste at the start of every single encounter where I want to recall knowledge. I find my wizard does fine recalling knowledge picking up about 3 additional lores as skill feats over 20 levels and keeping society and either Religion (usually) or Nature (depending on the campaign) at expert and then later master, often having a decent focus spell to assist RK by level 6. You really dont want to be spending 2 focus points on every RK check,which would be necessary to use something like loremaster's etitude or scholarly recollection.

I have seen many players going imperial sorcerer once they understand the system a bit better, abandoning whatever they had in mind for a wizard and reflavoring imperial sorcerer to be better, and this is even before PC2. They generally find sorcerer more ‘prepared’ for all kinds of scenarios than a wizard if they play smart. But I guess there’s no convincing you since we obviously play with very different groups with very different levels of optimisation and encounter difficulties.

Picking useful lores isn’t always easy or possible, simple as that. Skills feats are often sneezed upon but a wizard does have much need of them for a lot of other things. They don’t want to spend it if they don’t know for sure it would work, this is from an optimisation perspective.

From a flavour perspective I already explained why many wizard players are triggered. Their PCs are suppose to be more learnt and knowledgeable and good at arcana. If no one can RK everything with Arcana they might have told themselves ‘it’s because arcana isn’t the solution to everything. (Though once again we have unified theory suggesting Arcana IS suppose to be most versatile and have the ability to substitute other skills in some limited ways). But Tap into Blood pretty much outright said to them ‘No, Arcana can reveal the mysteries of almost everything in the Universe, it’s just Wizards that suck at it’.

Sorcerers get the might, wizard focus on the smart, I thought that’s the class identities they are still trying to stick? If not then why not give wizards dangerous magic and dc buffs like how they buffed sorcerer RK.

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

I honestly don't understand this "throwing the toys out of the pram" issue with Tap Into Blood is.

It being an action instead of a Reaction/Free Action does make it a bit awkward. That awkwardness is far from a deal breaker.

I would LOVE to have a similar option as the Arcane Tap Into Blood for Wizard's. Tying it to School spells would be utter trash, given how much more limited those options are compared to the Sorcerers ability to trigger blood magic. But this should be something Wizards can do.

To reframe this discussion, it's not that Tap Into Blood is the most OMG AMAZEBALLS ability ever.

Its that it takes something that feels like it should be a Wizard feature, and gives it Sorcerers, while the Wizard simply lacks anything like that.

The Wizard should be a knowledge class. But they aren't.

It's a deal breaker for Divine, Occult and Primal sorcerers. This feat is basically pointless for them, and the only way it would make sense would be if the ability was a free action or a reaction.

FYI the reason why Occult is bad is because you need to cast a spell before getting your boosted step. In 99% of scenarios, you've already defeated the purpose of the step by casting a spell, because Reactive Strike is provoked by spells.

Primal and Divine are self explanatory.

Why is this whole discussion centered around Arcane? That's the only part of the feature that does not suck.

Because this is a discussion about wizard being weak. The natural comparison is therefore arcane sorcerer.

@TiMuSW, maybe go back and read my response to your last post about these points because I address them there. Also read Tap into Blood a little more carefully because the only recall knowledge check you can use arcana for is the one granted by the action you spend Tapping into blood/ getting free action recall knowledge checks for the arcane sorcerer is completely useless unless they would already be arcana checks to begin with.

Apologies for missing that part about out of combat casting.

Regarding what you said about 'loudly casting a focus to recall knowledge when scouting'. That is the issue with ALL RK focus spell, which you admitted you still like to pick them up because they are still worth it. Once again there are many ways to get around it and it's not a ancestral memory issue if it's at least on par with other RK focus spells even in this regard.

Yes RK on arcana is locked to one action, my mistake on that one. Still I think it's useful even in combat (blood rising, other longer duration blood magic, your own extended blood magic focus if really neeeded), and exceedingly good out of combat.

What really triggers the wizard player is also that Sorcerers are now 'smarter' than Wizards, or at least getting more out of Arcana, a skill representing their learning and studying of arcane. I don't think the idea wizards aren't suppose to be good at RK checks is true. They literally got a 8th level class feat that only functions when they criticallly succeed a RK, yet they have no way to fully utilize it without multiclassing. (Only three legendary skills same as any other caster, see what I mean now about skill increase being valueable and Tap into Blood solves that?). And don't underestimate on RK check difficulties, especially when you try to RK a potential boss, you need to be good at the skill you RK with in terms of skill progression.

TiMuSW wrote:

You didn’t say anything about RK out of combat. Do you never use RK out of combat? In my experience RK out of combat is much more often than in combat. What’s stopping you from tapping into blood then?

Oh goodness. So in addition to most casters wanting 10-min breaks between combat scenes to refocus, imperial sorcerers are now going to start asking for 10-min or longer breaks between non-combat scenes (and non-combat to combat scene transitions) to refocus too? "Hold on guys, that was a really tough question. I need to sit down for 10 minutes before we answer another one." I'm sure the wizards will be totally in awe of that ability. Paizo just gave imperial sorcerers an 'analysis paralysis' feat lol.

(Being serious, I do like Tap Into Blood's arcane effect. But like unicore I don't necessarily see how casting a splashy spell and spending a focus point every time you want to RK is a good replacement for someone just having a high RK chance. It's not going to be all that appropriate to do in some non-combat scenes, and it means you're either going into the next scene a focus point down or you're asking for 10-min gaps between even more scenes.)

The difference is you don't ALWAYS have a high RK chance because skill increase is quite valuable on casters. Knowledge Orcale has an ability that allows them to gain lore on anything before RK, which is a high level focus spell that costs a focus point.

I don't know why people think focus points and refocus are so exceedingly valueable. At mid to higher levels you got focused items and starting from first level your familiar can already give you a focus back. It surely isn't as bad as spending a mid-higher level spell slot to gain the same effect, yet wizards would definitely still take that if such a spell exists. Even if you don't get that focus point back after RK, at lower level it still isn't bad, at higher level its well worth it.

To be honest, 10 minute really isn't much in a lot of exploration scenario, and its not like the whole team is forced to do nothing to wait for the sorc. It's not like the alchemist in your team won't be asking for frequent 10 minute break to get their vials back, or the spell-sub wizard in your team wouldn't be asking for 10 min to change spells.

Rising blood is interesting, but it is another 1st level feat for a class that doesn't get feats at first level, so to combine it with tap into blood is a very heavy investment that only pays off if you have another member in the party with the same tradition as you that is going to be targeting you with a lot of spells (hopefully buff spells!). That is a use case, but still a lot of feats for a feat starved class.

As far as the quickened spell, you are suggesting casting ancestral memories, then tapping into blood, then casting a quickened spell as the third action? That is clever, but it is a once a day party trick, not a strong piece of evidence for "my character always recalls knowledge with arcana."

The reaction spell is useless for the imperial sorcerer's usage with Tap into blood because the blood magic ends at the start of your round. And the recall knowledge benefit of tap into blood is tied directly to using an action on your turn to tap into blood, while under the effect of blood magic, so it really isn't going to combine well with items and archetypes that give you free action recall knowledge activities.

I guess there is nothing stopping an imperial sorcerer from just casting ancestral memories for no other purpose than triggering blood magic, then recalling knowledge using arcana and just being down a focus point until you can refocus. I love focus spells that help with recall knowledge and pick them up on many characters because you often do have the ability to refocus before needing to act on that information. That is a good idea, but it means you have to loudly cast a spell every time you want to recall knowledge (sorcerers don't get conceal spell), so it limits what you can do with recalling knowledge while scouting/right before combat. I agree that makes it better, but it is still a bit risky having arcana be your only recall knowledge option because there will be times you can't use it.

I also agree that the ways to use it are limited by how familiar the player is with the...

Quickened spell really is worth it when it comes to it, and it’s not the only way you can one action cast a two action lower level spell. But I’ll leave it at that.

Arcane countermeasure doesn’t have to trigger your imperial blood magic effect, which is the whole point of the change to crossblooded evolution and all the other blood magic feats: a lot of them can last at least till the end of your next turn. Arcane countermeasure itself is also a pretty strong reaction that can outright negate incap spells or things like 3rd level fear/command and 6th level slow without check or spending high level slots.

You didn’t say anything about RK out of combat. Do you never use RK out of combat? In my experience RK out of combat is much more often than in combat. What’s stopping you from tapping into blood then?

And lastly, I did mention free-action RK items and multiclassing for free-action RK right?

The thing is, an imperial sorcerer when given more gp, more uncommons, free archetype or ancestral paragon or any other type of optional resources, will always have a greater improvement than wizard because of things like this — their built-in class abilities and class options are simple and strong, something wizard will need to spend more resources to simply catch up.

The “use arcana to recall knowledge on any creature” ability of tap into blood is nearly a combat only ability and one that you can’t really benefit from until minimally the second of combat as an imperial sorcerer. If you one action magic missile, one action tap into blood recall knowledge, you don’t really have the actions left to cast a spell that will target a weak save or likely trigger a weakness. That is a set back for the sorcerer because the best time to recall knowledge is before combat begins (if you can find out what you will be facing), followed by the very first action of combat. Neither of these are times you can be using tap into blood. I am not saying that makes it totally useless, but it is a significant limitation on an ability that still requires you to pump a skill that you could otherwise leave at trained and dump the corresponding attribute for.

It is the oracle’s vision of weakness which everyone should be jealous of/multiclassing to steal.

As a wizard player, I definitely don’t feel like my lunch has been stolen by tap into blood. Even if I somehow could get a similar ability (RK with arcana against any creature after casting a spell), I’d still be disinclined to want to dump nature, religion and society as skills, and would be much more likely to MC Oracle than Sorcerer.

Why is it a combat only ability? What's stopping you from spending a focus point out of combat to RK ANYTHING on arcana?

Even if we limit it to combat only, quickened casting is available to sorcerers. Any high level spellcaster will know quickened roaring applause/laughing fit or even slow is well worth it. A -3 to fish for failure on any of these spells have the potential to be game changing. And you can now RK before hand to know if your enemies are immune.

Lastly, did you notice the new blood rising feat? Or the fact imperial sorcerer got a good reaction focus spell at higher level. Both of which can trigger your blood magic effect as well.

There are also free-action RK items and free-action RK abilities you can obtain from multiclass archetypes. There are literally so many ways to use it, limited only by how familiar the player is to the available resources.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Kyrone wrote:

But anyway, we are getting out of topic talking about a better class than Wizard.

I disagree, because it has a direct correlation with what an example of a good arcane caster can become, which is what is expected of the Wizard.

We look at the Arcane Sorcerer and go "This could have been a Wizard," then look at what we got for the Wizard, and go "This sucks, I would much rather play the Sorcerer and reflavor it to be Wizard-like."

Really, if we look at other spellcasters as a valid benchmark, and then compare that benchmark to what the Wizard is accomplishing now, we can both ascertain a level of balance for the Wizard, and compare what things the Wizard can improve at without invalidating other classes.

True, I didn't think that way.

Specially when looking at Imperial that is using knowledge of their death ancestors to power up their spells or just undermining enemy spells, heck, Arcane Countermeasures do sounds like something that wizard should have been able to do but using their own studies.

They did remove spontaneous caster counterspell, so I think either they decided to scratch counterspell completely in PC2 after PC1 is already made, or they are considering making counter spelling more prepared caster focused.

Arcane Countermeasure is still super cool and wizard-like though. At first look one might think its just reducing damage of a spell, something very sorc like, until they realize how it potentially negates incapacitation spells and spells with heightened area effects, or other powerful heightened effects...

I mean, that is only after lvl 9, if starting at lvl 1, the player will have 8 levels where the focus is basically a fancy demoralize. On those 8 levels before that I would say that another bloodline like Draconic is better just because the focus spells are more straightfoward. At lvl 9 or higher however ancestral memories heighten and becomes really good and you have the spell slots and spells to take advantage of it.

I would agree it’s true power come online at level 9, but level 9 and above aps are not uncommon. The point is more on how rare it is to get single actionDC penalties without saves.

And don’t forget about the 10 min temporary immunity, emotional, mental and auditory tags of demoralize. Each has various ways of countering/negating depending on the type of monster. And the -4 penalty to things you don’t share a language with. And the fact you must keep intimidation your most proficient skill to have a moderate rate of succeeding.

This focus spell has none of that.

TiMuSW wrote:

New ancestral memories power is previously only obtainable through whispering staff (level 20 item) and unique true name cantrip. I know they are circumstance penalties instead of status, but in terms of single-action saveless DC buffs these are the only options

Or like... a demoralize check.

Does your demoralize check give you -2 or -3 status penalties on enemy checks without SAVES?

Or like…name me ANY other single action spell/ability that does that without saves.

Or you know what? Name me even one way to get -3 on a SUCCESS or FAILED save without incapacitation trait, on a single action.

Ok I might be a little late on this, but I just got my PC2 and read sorcerer. What's up with "tap into blood"? 1 action arcana RK while under the effects of blood magic?!? The sorc is more learned than the wizard. I'm confused. Honestly the whole of sorc, where feats and features reward you for using your bloodline spells has me looking at the wizards spell schools and shaking my head. I'm just gonna turn schools into free spells for your book; all four slots will be free and clear at my table. Imperial bloodline focus spell seems cracked and I'm not gonna dwell to long on that outlier, but the rest of the sorcerer (features and feats) SLAPS for a caster with four slots. The sorcerer plays with their theme consistently while wizard is just kind of....there. Reading through sorcerer surprised me on how stark the divide is. Wizard feels barren by comparison

I mean, even before remaster sorcerer has always been thematically better designed, more powerful AND more versatile in combat than wizard. Think about the amount of top level spell options they can pull off. Never expect a wizard to always have the right spell in combat, but definitely expect a good sorc to do.

The old crossblooded evolution also gives them one spell from other tradition without the need of any archetype, costing a single 8-th level feat.

The old Blood Magic Component was the only action-free option that allow your caster to never trigger AoOs when casting. And it's not obtainable by any other classes.

Sure they buffed split-shot, gave some powerful new feats and buffed a few of the focus spells besides the imperial one. But expect to see sorc players complaining about the loss of crossblooded evolution and BMC.

New ancestral memories power is previously only obtainable through whispering staff (level 20 item) and unique true name cantrip. I know they are circumstance penalties instead of status, but in terms of single-action saveless DC buffs these are the only options, and even them only give -2.

And apparently sorcs are smart enough to remember all the spells they learn in head while a wizard must rely on book. The fact they think removing spellbook from arcane evolution instead of removing daily spell swap ability solves the issue of sorc treading on wizard class identity is just....insulting. They even buffed it so now sorcs can heighten the spell they added however they want.

So yeah, Sorcerer has always been, and will be for any foreseeable future, better than wizard in pathfinder 2e. It's to do with the direction designers decided to go for wizards. The designer outright said that the wizard you want to be playing can be found in sorc and kinetics, so I don't expect anything good on vanilla wizard anymore.

AestheticDialectic wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

snip

Always being able to target the weakest save with the best kind of spells effect against an enemy is a silver bullet. It's back breaking and even in this game solves an encounter, it's just less obvious. I don't know how you can consistently write the same things to me and everyone else day after day and expect things to go differently. Some spells affect different scenarios more, some spells still invalidate skills. Consider how fly invalidates athletics used to climb. Easy simple example, no skill check. Yes the game is well balanced, but part of that balance is restricting these things. Flexible casting has a cost for a reason, the designers were right to give it a cost...

Yeah, “there are no silver bullet spells” is a wild take lol.

I throw Laughing Fit when facing a Black Dragon and know that we’ll die against its Reaction, Acid Grip when my friend is Restrained, Wall of Stone when facing 4x on-level enemies as a difficult encounter, Freezing Rain when facing 8+ lower level enemies as a difficult encounter, etc.

Not only are situationally good spells a powerful and useful thing in this game, the entire caster experience is balanced around their use.

All of which are staple/must have spells a good sorcerer/wizard should already take if they are expecting any challenge from battle. Sad thing is wizards rarely know which of these enemies they will face, and their prepared slots are much more restrictive compared with a sorcerer in preparing these spells—once you cast it it’s gone, and even if they do know they still won’t be more effective than a sorcerer on these spells.

Sorcerers who are smart enough to fill spell repertoire with friendfetch, laughing fit, roaring applause, time jump, wall of stone, true target, quandary, and signature spell dispel magic will always have a better time pulling off silver bullets in battle.

I wouldn’t really call staple spell options silver bullet. Spells like glitter dust and earthbind whose effectiveness drops almost to zero when you don’t need them, but jumps to the ceiling when you do, are the silver bullets to me. Laughing fit is just something experienced players will always make sure available in the team, and acid grip at second rank is just a staple choice you can prepare everyday without lacking behind, so is a mob countering aoe.

Let’s assume that I, Unicore, am a player that just wants to be able to have the option to cast as many possible different spells as I can as a character. That is what I value and want out of a character and I want to be able to change a spell that I can cast with 10 minutes of time.

I could go Sorcerer as one option:

Sorcerer level 7
Rank 1 (4 options)
2+1 any spell
1 bloodline spell
1 of these can be a signature spell
Rank 2 (5 options)
2+1 any spell
1 bloodline spell
1 of these can be a signature spell
Rank 3 (6 options)
2+1 any spell
1 bloodline spell
1 of these can be a signature spell
Rank 4 (6 options)
2 any spell
1 bloodline spell

21 spells as a base plus

720 gp all spent on scrolls

There are 100 rank 1 arcane spells in rulebook and Lost Omen line only (lets avoid adventure spells for now since those are largely campaign specific and maybe you swap 1 or 2 of them out for some of these other scrolls. Let’s assume you only really want to be able to cast about 25% of these, so that is 100 gp on scrolls. These are scrolls though so you only get the rank 1 use out of these (this is where wizards can really pull ahead) any of these you want to cast at heightened levels you need to pay extra for.

Rank 2 has 99 spells. If you want 25 of these as scrolls at 12 gp each , that is going to run you 300 more gp. This is still in the realm of feasible, but very unlikely, still this is an exercise in “I want to be able to cast all the spells I possibly can” as a character goal.

Rank 3 drops off to 85 spells, but they cost 30 gp each, so at level 7, it is going to be tough to have even 10 of these.

Rank 4 has 74 spells, but at a cost 70 gp each, at level 7 you maybe have 1 of them, although it will have cost you 1 rank 3 scroll, one rank 2 scroll and 2 rank 1 scrolls.

So your sorcerer maybe has
27 rank 1 spells available
30 rank 2 spells available
15 rank 3 spells available
7 rank 4 spells available

Or a total of 79 possible spells they could cast. I could just...

I've played several spell substitutoin wizard in several different scenarios/aps across different tiers of play. Here are a few things I noticed in actual play:

1. Spell substition isn't as good as a scroll prepared for combat silver bullets. By this I mean spells such as dispel magic, glitterdust, gust of wind, fly or earthbind. Very rarely you would know in advance the exact enemies you are going to face, and even if you do know often times their special abilities are hidden behind layers of recall knowledge checks. Scrolls prepared are much more reliant than spell substitution when you need these spells.

2. At higher level your leveled wealth make lower level scorlls dirt cheap. You would never run out of lower level utility spells like water walking, buoyant bubbles, phantasmal minion or phantom steed. You also don't need many combat spells in your lower level spell known because they would be waste of actions in a severe/extreme encounter, and you can swap them out for the few good utility ones.

3. Your spell slot is way more limited than sorcerer. In reality you only have two to three slots you can freely substitute in spells, and spending top slots on out of combat utility means your combat efficiency will drop significantly. At the same time, very rarely you will gain information to tailor your top level slots for boss. As a result, a sorcerer with good choice of signature spells and top level spells will still be much more flexible than you in combat, and at least on par with you in out of combat utility.

4. To further elaborate on the third point: I've went through EVERY single spell published with a group of diehard fans to have a thorough discussion about how useful each of them are in actual campaign. There really isn't 150 powerful or even just staple choices at level 7. There are lots and lots of trap spells like interposing earth that triggers AoO and zephyr slip that not only triggers them twice but also do nothing to enemies with reach. Powerful spells like laughing fit, slow, time jump, power word and quandary are easily covered by sorcerer spell known.

5. Sure, spell substituion wizards might be able to try out different spells in combat for fun or in theory use lots of utility spells to solve non-combat encounter in interesting ways. But the reality is, spell substition wizard experience isn't as good as one might think because of the way modules and scenarios are written. Paizo made those challenges with expectations that players will solve through certain actions and skill checks (they just love their skill checks and social encounters), and their newly published ones are becoming more and more linear.

6. Also don't forget you do not stay on level 7 forever, chances are you will have utility scrolls unused as you level up and benefit from the nonlinear growth of wealth. The way wealth progression is designed means you have pretty much no reason to save gp for the next level as a spellcaster, since you don't rely on runes as much, so scrolls becomes the most economic choice. Eventually your scroll/wands repertoire will be so large that you can easily cover your utility needs, and let your teammates use their skills and class abilities to cover the rest like a good player is supposed to. After all, Paizo specifically designed the game so that utility spells are less effective.

The thing is, prior to the new Ancestral Memories focus spell the only saveless single action effects that gives saving throw penalty are the rare Invoke true name cantrip and the level 20 apex item Whispering staff.

Sure they are circumstance penalties instead of status, but name me a spell that gives -3 status with a success save, let alone no save. Invoke true name requires you to know the true name on top of being rare, and whispering staff is a mental effect at level 20.

Even better, you can use those effects WITH Ancestral Memories.

And few people even mentioned the buffs to things like Split Slot, funny they buffed it right before 5r deleted twin spells. I think current sorcerer is in peak condition, might not be as powerful in sustainability or versatility than the new Oracle, but definitely mops the floor with puny Wizards who are now worse in both aspects on top of pure spell power.

I think i might understand what Derivan means. When they are in combat they are throwing out spells, and probably the same ones.

If thats happening then its a situation where the sorcerer has a huge advantage of having the spells in their repertoire that a wizard with the time knowledge and preparation in advance would have selected from their spell book.

But playstyle can be considered more holistically and also mean all of the lead up to combat and sometimes for the wizard avoiding or changing it with the right spell a sorcerer wouldnt bother with because they set themselves up mainly to fight.

But the way 2e scenarios and campaigns are designed, most of the out of combat tasks are mean to be handled by skills and social encounters. Spells are often much less effective even if you can find a way to use them. We have to admit that PF2 is a very combat oriented rule comparing to a lot of other trpg rules, with the recent modules becoming even more linear.

Also, once again, scrolls and wands and staffs are often better at handling niche spells than prepared spell slots. A lot of times you wouldn’t have a day or even 10 minutes when the niche situation suddenly show up. Scrolls aren’t even that much more expensive than learning spells. Sure, they are consumables, but the abundance of (and the expectation of spell caster spending gold on) scrolls still greatly mitigate the niche of wizards.

The power ceiling was historically a bit too managed for me to feel comfortable designing that sort of thing into PF2E, really. PF1E DBI is a level 14 feat tacked onto a rare archetype not applicable to most games. That speaks volumes to me about how controlled the power levels are for arcane casters, and the assumed value of PF1E DBI. (Maybe that's changing with PC2.)

To be honest, I would personally prefer a game where classes had more unique and bespoke high points. But PF2E has mostly differentiated classes via their main action compression abilities, spells, and focus spells, and settled on most forms of strength being subtle. A lot of theoretically interesting ideas are incompatible with how the game has been designed

I may have agreed with you prior to PC2. But after the new Oracle feats and focus spells, I feel like PF2 is no longer restricted to the old power model or ‘most forms of strength being subtle’. Sure PF1 DBI is powerful, but so is being able to freely cast focus spells for one minute or quicken spell 3-action heal or harm with extra healing and extra damage 4 times per battle, or void healing on demand from level 1. They now have the most spells known, are the only full caster able to have spells known from multiple spell traditions by class features alone, and have outright powerful spammable curse-bound action fillers and some of their new focus spells that are stronger than leveled spells.

Once again, I would agree if you think new Oracle is yet another outlier, but I feel like Paizo hasn’t historically been subtle when giving powerful abilities. Bard has saveless frightened 1 aura from level 6 while the same rare archetype that gives DBI on level 14 only gives a save-and-immune-for-one-minute frightened aura feat on level 18. Because of this I wouldn’t use ‘rare archetype level 14 feat’ as a justification on the power level of an ability. It’s common knowledge that many high level feats from rare archetypes are jokes, and many experienced gm/player I know wouldn’t spend a level 14 feat on DBI because by then they all have the ‘optimal’ combat spells prepared and more than enough scrolls to cover utility. Though this might be an issue of the spell system making seemingly powerful ability lackluster. There being a few powerful/optimal spell choices on each rank of the arcane lists and a large amount of mediocre and bad filler options being an issue.

I’m kind of leaning both ways on your proposed new focus spell. As I mentioned I do see the power of it, it’s just that the spells worth using it with in combat is not as broad as at first glance. (And the thing with recent focus spells…I know, I’m repeating myself now…and did you know that apparently someone said the new Oracle and PC1 wizard were done by the same designer?)

TiMuSW wrote:

My bad for bringing PF1 into this discussion, but I still don’t think a single spontaneous spell slot to cast any spell they managed to have their hands on and spent gold learning for Wizard is that rude to Sorcerer. Especially when each of the more power classes all have their own unique abilities others can’t take. It’s like saying fighters having +2 is rude to the other martial, or starlight magus is rude to Eldritch archer. Maybe it is, but it looks to me like Paizo don’t mind, and players probably wouldn’t mind so much if the class they want to play ALL have something uniquely powerful.

For what it's worth, I do think those are rude to each other. Fighter is especially frustrating. Seeing the fighter have something like 25-33% fewer misses than you (note that I said fewer misses, not more hits) is pretty unfun.

That sort of conception of what's rude (in the scope of PF2E, at least) does inform my choices. If you disagree, I understand, though.

Quote:

I’m glad you agree imperial sorc focus spell is rude, but if we look at Oracle, sorcerer changes suddenly become very polite…I think even if oracle stays 3 slots the other changes are still enough to put them at tier 0 among spell casters now. If Paizo have no issue making powerful classes, why do they need to keep Wizard in its current spot? They never worried about fighter or magus or the new oracle stealing others show?

In general, I'd say it seems like the design team philosophy changed somewhat over time, probably as design leads and so on changed. I get the feeling if wizard were remade in PC2 by whoever made oracle, we'd be looking at a significantly different class than what we got in PC1.

AestheticDialectic wrote:

Unlike others I do not think wizards should be skill users, at all. I think if you have spells you should not be as good with skills. I only mildly agree with people that they should be alright at recall knowledge as it fits the studious theme and the design

...

Oh and I think the real reason +2 feel so much more powerful isn’t just fewer misses, or even more hits, it’s also a higher crit rate. Coupled with spells like heroism, abilities and spells that gives to circumstance bonus to hit, status debuff from spell-caster and flanking, fighters can have ridiculous crit rates that melts through even +2 or +3 enemies.

TiMuSW wrote:

My bad for bringing PF1 into this discussion, but I still don’t think a single spontaneous spell slot to cast any spell they managed to have their hands on and spent gold learning for Wizard is that rude to Sorcerer. Especially when each of the more power classes all have their own unique abilities others can’t take. It’s like saying fighters having +2 is rude to the other martial, or starlight magus is rude to Eldritch archer. Maybe it is, but it looks to me like Paizo don’t mind, and players probably wouldn’t mind so much if the class they want to play ALL have something uniquely powerful.

For what it's worth, I do think those are rude to each other. Fighter is especially frustrating. Seeing the fighter have something like 25-33% fewer misses than you (note that I said fewer misses, not more hits) is pretty unfun.

That sort of conception of what's rude (in the scope of PF2E, at least) does inform my choices. If you disagree, I understand, though.

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I’m glad you agree imperial sorc focus spell is rude, but if we look at Oracle, sorcerer changes suddenly become very polite…I think even if oracle stays 3 slots the other changes are still enough to put them at tier 0 among spell casters now. If Paizo have no issue making powerful classes, why do they need to keep Wizard in its current spot? They never worried about fighter or magus or the new oracle stealing others show?

In general, I'd say it seems like the design team philosophy changed somewhat over time, probably as design leads and so on changed. I get the feeling if wizard were remade in PC2 by whoever made oracle, we'd be looking at a significantly different class than what we got in PC1.

AestheticDialectic wrote:

Unlike others I do not think wizards should be skill users, at all. I think if you have spells you should not be as good with skills. I only mildly agree with people that they should be alright at recall knowledge as it fits the studious theme and the design

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I can respect that you disagree on approaches like giving wizard PF1 bonded item. I do also think a straight +2 is one of the worse ways of giving class identities.

Nevertheless I’m still leaning towards giving classes unique but POWERful abilities that represent their class identities. To me bonded item doesn’t seem to intrude on what sorcerers are suppose to be good at, but we can agree to disagree. It’s a fine balance when it comes to giving classes powerful abilities.

I guess I’m more optimistic because I tend to believe if they make these abilities distinct, and not mess up on what class identity to focus on (like they did with guardian) then it would all be fine. A counter example would be what they did to Thaumaturge and Investigator, where their class identities overlay and some abilities they gave Thaumaturge completely outshines Investigator.

I think your proposed hypothetical ability is cool, might seem a bit underpowered to me because of the new focus spells, and the fact that all damage/summon/counteract spells have strict progression model over ranks. Focus spells like imaginary weapon and cantrips like live wire are deemed overpower because they exceeds that model. (i.e., 2d6 per rank for heightened damage spells, 1d4 per rank for heightened cantrips, 1d8s for focus spells, smaller dices or slower progression for damage spells with extra effects). Therefore, giving focus spells that are heightened to lower than your highest rank, even if they are spell slot spells made focus, still seem a bit weak. You wouldn’t waste actions casting a lower ranked damage/incap/summon/counteract spell in a severe or extreme combat, even if they are free. If the combat is easy, then it wouldn’t feel like an impactful ability.

I can see the power of having the ability to cast spells from spell book you haven’t prepared though, so maybe it’s still fine. I just don’t think is that much more powerful then existing spell substitution or scrolls if used only for out of combat utilities that it would save current wizard by itself (but as it is I would take any improvement to current wizard…)

AestheticDialectic wrote:

Turning wizards spontaneous makes them no longer feel like a wizard is my issue. Learning spells, being able to fill up a spell book, and deliberately prepping cool spells is peak wizard action. Prepared castings not having to learn heightened versions is also something which turns even the baseline into a lot of day to day versatility. At level 4 your don't know 7+4 spells, you know 7+11 spells. At level 6 you know 7+11+15 spells and so on. Each lower rank spell is a potential spell for your higher rank slots and it was said by mark seifter that it was deliberate that heightened spells were as good as the rank of spells they were heightened to. It's a little more granular than this as some spells don't heighten much or often, but most do

They're not spontaneous in this theoretical rendering. They're fully prepared outside of the DBI slots. DBI is already a more limited form of a spontaneous slot anyways.

Wizard being able to upcast "for free" did not give it any meaningful advantage over a sorcerer with its limited upcasting in 2E. (Frankly, I think the only reason Sorcs can't freely heighten is that spontaneous would be far too versatile without the signature spell limitation—far more versatile in practice than most prepared casters could hope to be. Signature spells were an artificial limitation imposed on spontaneous casters to nerf them; free heighten was not a benefit given to prepared classes.)

Wizard upcasting for free just meant it didn't have to go out of its way to fill its spellbook 50 times over, and spell learning costs didn't have to account for it. It is just a much less painful design for a class that can buy spells. It did not give it much of a real advantage over a spontaneous caster.

Upcast spells are usually slightly worse than a spell of that level. It'll usually lack useful riders, range, AoE size, or something else when compared to an on-level spell.

Universalist wizard also still upcasts for free in my shower thought change.

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My bad for bringing PF1 into this discussion, but I still don’t think a single spontaneous spell slot to cast any spell they managed to have their hands on and spent gold learning for Wizard is that rude to Sorcerer. Especially when each of the more power classes all have their own unique abilities others can’t take. It’s like saying fighters having +2 is rude to the other martial, or starlight magus is rude to Eldritch archer. Maybe it is, but it looks to me like Paizo don’t mind, and players probably wouldn’t mind so much if the class they want to play ALL have something uniquely powerful.

I’m glad you agree imperial sorc focus spell is rude, but if we look at Oracle, sorcerer changes suddenly become very polite…I think even if oracle stays 3 slots the other changes are still enough to put them at tier 0 among spell casters now. If Paizo have no issue making powerful classes, why do they need to keep Wizard in its current spot? They never worried about fighter or magus or the new oracle stealing others show?

Looking at current wizard and the new Monk and swashbuckler, it seems to me if a team is made only of ‘strong’ classes like the new alchemist, oracle, bard or fighter, the players would still feel unique while all feeling strong. It’s only when you mix wizard with sorcerer, mix Druid with oracle, mix monk with magus or team a rogue with a swashbuckler that players begin to feel the sting.

In other words, wizard already have Infinite Possibility and the Lich option if they gain access. It’s because being able to pull off a spell from a much bigger ‘spell repertoire’ compared to sorcerer in a specific situation is exactly the niche wizards are suppose to fill, it’s their class identity, to study and prepare and have a better option occasionally than the those born spell-casters. I think even if you let Wizards keep the other down sides, the old bonded item would still be something that Wizards should have.

After looking at remaster Oracle changes, feats and focus spells, I feel like remaster Wizard is a complete joke. I would never thought the Imperial Sorcerer new focus spell was just the tip of an iceberg.

Gortle wrote:

Facinating, but this is not a signifcant factor in how I rate wizards. I don't mind if they get access to all the spells in the book. In PF2 the spells are not really hyperspecialised or overpowered in any one situation.

I agree the spells in PF2E generally aren't hyperspecialized or overpowered, but that's why I think it works. In PF2E, the level of versatility I'm giving wizard doesn't blow out the game.

For me, the main point of the change is to give wizard easier access to their versatility, via both the drain bonded item change and the increase to spells learned at levelup. The latter would eliminate table variance in spells known, and the former would make it play better with less accommodating tables.

Capping spells known and the change to heightening for wizard feels right to me in order to keep the 3 prepared slots + 1 superflex slot in line with sorc's four less flexible slots, more than anything else. It would be kind of rude to sorc if wizard had even one slot they could use to cast basically any spell in their spellbook (excepting reaction spells, because of how DBI works).

Why would a PF1 bonded item that’s limited to once per day be rude to sorcerer, when it is already made a feat in the lich archetype that no one ever complained. Mind you Sorcerers are given status bonus to damage that no Wizard player ever considered ‘rude’, and they are being made class feature instead of feat with added benefit of applying to healing spells now. They are also given a new focus spell that gives maximum -3 to enemy saving throw. I seriously doubt bonded item change would be that imbalanced given the much more restricted spell design in 2e.

Also don’t forget Sorcerers (and everyone else) can already learn spells. Arcane Sorcerer can even ‘prepare’ a spell each day from their spell book. Learning spell is already balanced by the new wealth system in 2e, since it would still cost a wizard a significant sum that can otherwise be spent on magic items and scrolls (which comes close and sometimes perform even better as ‘silver bullet’ then preparing from your spell book)

I personally feel like the proposed changes are pushing wizards further down the ‘discounted sorcerer’ track. With too much similarity to sorcerer and losing even more class identities.

After seeing what they did to remaster Oracle and Sorcerer I don’t think there should be any doubt how weak Wizard is, or that Imperial Sorcerer is superior to Wizard in every single aspects that matters to an arcane caster (damage? higher. flexibility? better. spell dc? Not even a competition!)

The thing is being able to flexibly cast 4 spells is already more flexible than casting 4 prepared spells that are gone after one cast. Limitations on bloodline spells can easily be overcome by flexible casting, but you will never do the same for prepared school slots. If they expect every wizard to take spell blending or go specialist to “have the most spell slots”, they should’ve make spell blending an inherent class feature like what they are doing to dangerous magic.

People expect wizard to be able to pull of niche spells that are perfect for a given occasion, but the reality is, flexible casting combined with well chosen scrolls and wands are MUCH better that doing that. What’s better, wizards spending gold learning spells would mean they have less cash to spend on scrolls and wands. And since they expect you to buy scrolls and wands to compensate your limited spells per day, wizard needs to spend that money anyway if the campaign is of any challenge.

Then we have the new imperial bloodline single action focus spell that just put the nails on Wizard’s coffin. Now they have equivalent +1/2/3 spell dc with no check/save needed on top of a spell book, more flexible spell slots, better improvements from scrolls and wands, and extra damage bonus. It’s obvious Paizo just don’t like Wizards and want to keep them on the bottom tier. And I wouldn’t expect them to make any improvement let alone remake the Wizard class in any significant way.