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Tridus wrote: Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:
But also it's very much not something I'd care to see as core to the Wizard class's future. We all live busy lives, I'd rather not the act of preparing to play the game to require substantial player skill expression to find the optimal combination of spells for the day they're going to face. I'd much rather mechanics like was suggested before where you can establish a 'plan' in-character to bust out a spell later that you the player couldn't have known you'd need, but you the character may have thought to bring along just in case.
One of my players has ADD and is a mom in her 40s. She really can't play a class like Wizard. Any prepared caster is a challenge due to the constant analysis required for changing spell lists and having the right number of given spells available. But then Wizard adds a second layer of book keeping with the spell book and lacks something like Divine Font or Untamed Form as fallback options.
5e style prepared casting simply works far better for someone like her because there is no "do I need one or two fireballs today?" Frankly this is one of very few things 5e just does better than PF2. The problem with the accessibility argument (which is something I'm tracking in the games discourse in general, not only TTRPG) is that while it sounds very attractive on paper to reduce complexity in order to increase accessibility and userbase of The Thing, sometimes said complexity is inherent component of the quality of said experience, and by removing it, the experience itself gets warped to the point of being something different. It also works two ways, because increased complexity and resulting ergodic (or operational) friction and resistance can be the quality that makes something enjoyable for use by some – without enough operational friction you might not get enough stimulation to keep certain people invested and focused.
Which is why I don't want the wizard to be simpler, I want the bookkeeping to be rewarding. Modern media landscape is heading towards homogenized streamlined design that is friction and resistance barren, leaving less and less options for people who want and need this sort of exercise to have fun and become locked in.
No margin (or magnitude) of power sorc has over wizard will be relevant for me, because I find Sorcerer's fantasy to be foundamentally incompatible with what I want due to being aesthetically and symbolically things I don't like, especially eugenic apprroach to magic as a bloodline birthright and use of Charisma as the key stat governing their powers. I suspect I'm not the only one, so it might be why mechanical and ease-of-use of Sorcer is not necessarily as convincing as it might sound.

Tridus wrote: BishopMcQ wrote: Suddenly the spellbook is hugely valuable instead of a thing that doesn't really do anything except be more work than a Cleric has to do. That's ummatched "I have what I need" for spells, and it also pairs great with Counterspell (because you'll be able to get the right spell a lot more readily without any fiddly bits).
Let me spend gold at market rate to cast spells out of my spellbook like they are scrolls. Or even at a premium. I *like* scrolls gameplay, but there is always something little bit wrong about them being best bought from a rando shopkeeper, rather than being my own work (because time sink is time sink). Let me vaporize magical reagents to complete spells from the spellbook or something, or just let me vaporize gold during daily prep to produce scrolls literally the same way as if I would buy them, but reframed as me scribing them myself.
Let me have a Scroll Folio: keep my scrolls in a book-binder, so I can constantly keep a book-aesthetic item and use it to access my scroll collection at a cost of a hand slot.

Thinking about it, the way I actually really liked current Curriculum and School rules being used is the remastered Runelord. While anathemas are a pain, the ones you deem playable are actually interesting, and more importantly, I really liked the combo of core curriculum spells + supplementary specialized ones. But what I liked the most, I think, is Runelords ability to spell substitute into their curriculum spells.
So for the current system, a big improvement for me would be:
1. Add a way to runelord substitute into your curriculum for other schools (it can be a feat, I guess).
2. Add an ability to expand your curriculum. Even adding one spell per feat to make curriculum more 'yours' would be welcome. You could make it a level 2 feat that can be taken multiple times every X levels.
Another thing I've recently found myself lacking is the ability to have diverse study equivalent. I would love an ability to get another schools school spell and add one or two curriculum spells from them to my own. And I would love an ability to add mini-version of another thesis to create a hybrid thesis. I love the School and Thesis flavor, but I would like an ability to keep the academic spirit alive by letting wizards get interdisciplinary.

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So, for me, the core of Wizard fantasy that differenetiates it from other magic users is as follows:
1. Magic that is obtained through study and is intellectual in nature, not instinctual, emotional, or religious
2. Focus on knowing things and intellectual approach to problems
3. Affinity for using traditional trappings of a wizard: magical tomes, staves, wands, scrolls, rings, hats
4. Understanding magic as a rules-driven system that allows for exploiting or changing some of the rules some of the time.
This leads to specific pain points for me in the current iteration of the Wizard. One is that unless you go Loremaster or have a GM with lore-friendly ruling for Untrained Improvisation, Wizard is not in a position to be very good about knowing things. They can be *passable*, but their need to focus on Arcane and the fact they get to max out the standard number of skills means that you are just not going to be that knowledgable about stuff, especially compared to rogues or investigators or the wost offenders – thaumaturges (I absolutely hate that Thaumaturge is a Charisma class – were it an Intelligence class, it would be actually very close to my fantasy of a wizard). My current solution is to keep grabbing Additional Lore with skill feats, and use initial skill trainings to pick Lores rather than real skills, because Lores tend to be much more useful at Trained compared to other Knowledge skills.
I understand that the game tried to make wizard the best knowledge user by the virtue of being able to strongly capitalize on information via exploiting weakest saves and weaknesses, but as mentioned earlier in this thread, spontaneous non intelligence casters can do that too, and often better. Other than Knowledge is Power, it makes me just sad that ther is little mechanical satisfaction driven from your class for actually engaging with the recall knowledge system. At very worst, give me Arcane Education feature that allows me to Recall Knowledge about potential *uses of my spells* rolling Arcana instead of whatever. So instead of using Religion to check which save of the Devilsaurus Rex is the weakest, let me ask *which kind of a spell is most likely to land against them*.
Personally, I would love if Wizard got auto-scaling on Arcana and a Skill Training variant that can be only used on Lores or a Quick Study feat. Let me be a nerd! If Sorcerer is Rogue, then let Wizard be the Investigator, to use a comparison.
The magical trappings part of wizard is, again, better represented by thaumaturge than a wizard for me. Giving wizard access to feats or class features that encourage using magical items, especially consumables, would be a good way in my book for encouraging the prepared caster fantasy. Let me quickdraw my wands and scrolls, even if only once per minute. Being able to get extra uses of wands and grimoires would also help reinforce wizard as the intelligence-driven tool-user. What thaumaturges esoterica is condensing into flavor that is hand-waved mechanically would be great for a wizard as an actual mechanical expression of interactions with magical items in the game.
I feel that a lot of work could be done by giving extra action compression to Recall Knowledge by giving options that combine it with a follow-up action. For example, you could let me draw a scroll/wand, sustain a spell or apply a Spellshape as a part of the succesful check for Recall Knowledge. This would reinforce the basic idea of 'ask a question, and immediately use the answer for something clever'. The recent Spellshifter archetype hits close to what I wish spellshapes were for a wizard: less an ability to objectively enhance a spell by adding some fraction of power to it, but an ability to make technically equal adjustments that leverage specific situations to make the change asymmetrically powerful. You know, stuff like swapping one type of damage for another or forcing the target to use save either of the saves that is not the original one.
I actually don't need to have the most slots of all casters, and I wouldn't cry if Schools and curriculum slots were removed entirely. Honestly? I would gladly swap the 4th spell slot in exchange for giving Wizard unique spin on practical magic by adding class skill feats to their list of options that represent various ways of cleverly applying magic. Things like using Telekinetic Hand for Thievery or Athletics, you know, stuff that Spell Trickster tried to do. I would kill for a Wizard that ditches School system, gets extra skill upgrades for Lores, and gets Skillful Magic skill feats at the same rate the Investigator gets their bonus skill feats. For me, wizard is the *scholar* type of magic user.
Ability to accelerate Onset time for Contact poisons from 1 minute to 1-3 rounds + clarification if you can spill it on someone directly (and if so, does it need an attack check or is it an equivalent of a touch spell that does not need it) would make melee "contact poisoner" fairly decent.
That, or printing contact poisons that actually have reasonable onset timers.

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Anyway, I don't think that rules making an assumption that primary precise sense of humans and human-like ancestries will be the default sense for majority of typical cases is ableist or excluding. It does not prevent blind people from playing the game, it does not deny existence of blind people. It also does not handwave nor fetishizes their struggle by making it a trivial road bump that then can be turned into a cute gimmick.
What can be argued to possibly be excluding disabled people in general is the fact that the main "course" of the game - adventuring - is very disability-unfriendly, basically being a game about either magically empowered individuals or individuals in top-notch physical condition overcoming physical and magical obstacles with skill and power. It is a very ufriendly occupation to people who are not equipped in one of above, and extra ufriendly to those actively struggling with the physical part of the equation. Pretty much the only way for such character to function is a) find magical way to substitute, or b) find magical way to functionally remove their disability, which has its own risks, including the afromentioned fetishization and trivialization.
To be honest? I do not think that PF2, being pretty much a light-hearted beer and pretzel dungeoncrawl, is equipped to deal with respectable representation of struggles disabled groups have to live with. The best at this point the system has to offer is dodging the issue by offering the blind (or crippled, or...) character a way to be such only in name, and playing out the game as if they werent.
And yes, pretending that disability is not a life-changing disability can be offensive, doubly so when it is fetishized into a superpower.
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To be honest, while I understand trying to be inclusive, I also don't see the problem with atypical setup being exactly that - atypical and not the default. Not being default is OK - rules still are constructed in a way that allows you to get other primary sense, you just need to switch your perspective accordingly. I do not expect to see a game about, say, competetive biking to have core rules built around people who lack their lower limbs.
I'm new to the game, so I'm not really seeing the easily accessible ways to make your characters primary sense not-sight, at least not at chargen and then a bunch of levels further. I don't think the game is conductive to playing a character with physical disability until at least you get a chance to aquire some magical items that make such concept workable adventurer.
Snares feel pretty good to use so far, but that is probably because of high scouting high stealth approach, and provoking the opponents to be pulled into pre-snared terrain instead of walking into them. Which is fine with me, as that is the gameplay pattern that reinforces the stealthy ranger fantasy to me - scout, prepare, divide and conquer.

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Alchemy_Dad wrote:
If you search the forum and find all the familiar discussions you will find they often devolve to this level. Many times the same posters do it. But if you are careful you can find posts where the Devs speak or are quoted. They feel the familiar is more about story and flavor as apposed to battle buddy. It was even pointed out that they feel you could have a owl that doesn't take fly and could only sit on your shoulder. Then went on to say if you did that then you likely didn't really want an owl. I feel like they are more like when I say "Bob the Monk run over to the table, backflips on top, jumps into the rafters and hides." Now if the DM made him action out that outside if combat would show that the DM is a...
There is nothing in the rules of familiars that makes them cool storytelling devices or roleplaying outlets. Just saying that they are such doesn't make them function like so. They provide no structure for interesting narrative to emerge within the game. If it does, it is actively against the familiar rules, not thanks to them. And yes, narrative and storytelling can spring from codified rules, in fact, there are entire genres of roleplaying games that are focused on such experience.
Familiars, in their current form, are all promise and no payoff. They are basically a bare-boned vestige of rules that throws its hands up in the air and tells you to figure it out on your own. Which is not exactly very good design for a tool envisioned as "interesting storytelling device".
And yes, many people do not homebrew and do not wish to do so. There is nothing shameful about it. There are many possible motivations behind not wishing to do so. "You can homebrew" is not a valid justificatio for justifying or normalizing poor quality of a commercial product.
Does it make the game bad? No, of course not. But it does not mean that the game should not be criticized. You can enjoy and like the game while being cognizant and critical of its flaws.
Retraining into a thing that wasn't possible to you when you were at the level that you are retraining is IMHO the only sensible way to do it, unless you want to riddle it with exceptions to exceptions to prevent stuff like "so I now retrain my sorcerer spells known and make most of them high level instead of sticking to what was pickable at a given level".
I also don't have a problem with human-centric fighter-dominated cultural archetype being easier to get as a human fighter than when you are not. Then again, you might make a joke that this is actually a feature, as it protects you from getting into a bad archetype centered around a bad weapon : P.
Succeeding on the Learn a Spell activity as a non-wizard:
A) You are a Sorcerer, Bard or other class with limited number of spells known:
It adds the spell in question as a valid choice for your future level-ups or spell-swaps. The primary use of this is to get access to uncommon, rare, or even unique spells that the GM might hand out as a loot.
B) You are a prepared caster, like a Cleric, who knows all the common spells of applicable level:
It allows you to prepare uncommon, rare, and unique spells you find.
Yeah. Their squishiness is a problem. Enjoy having Life-link with your familiar and being fireballed. Suddenly, you are either chooising between letting the little rodent turn into BBQ, or taking double damage from the effect.
SuperBidi wrote: Castilliano wrote: I wouldn't use a familiar to deliver a spell if I liked my familiar. I wouldn't go adventuring with my familiar if I liked it. Touche.
Honestly, I'm not sure what fantasy are the Familiars supposed to emulate. They are not the mystical beings that teach you magical secrets in exchange for abiding a contract (they are way too dumb to be any sort of wisdom-dispensing companion, as their skills are miserable); they are not really a mystical beings offering magical assistance and service in exchange for something else either. They are basically pets that don't do anything and are a platform to pick extra spell slot once you can do that. Maybe it is because I'm a newcomer to the genre, but they do not map to anything I would expect from a "familiar", both from folk tradition and fantasy media.
A lot of touch spells do not include Attack roll, actually.
I think the best use of spell delivery for the Familiar is - assuming that the command to deliver is a part of the spellcasting action itself - the ability to hand out *beneficial* touch spells without having to move to your friends. Throwing your squirrel at enemies, even with Lifelink, sounds disastrous. Though technically, with Lifelink, each attack that didn't trigger Lifelink but targeted the Familiar is actually wasted action on the opponent, so...profit? Sadly, with 5 hp per level, they will most likely be downed by a single hit anyway. Too bad there is no familiar ability to enhance their durability!
So for offensive spells, I would rather take Reach Spell. For friendly spells that do not involve throwing a familiar at the enemies, Spell Delivery.
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More interesting stuff for Specialists and Universalists Wizard. I'm really sad that they shoot themselves into a foot by making Hand of Apprentice a requirement for some of Universalist options; I really don't like that Focus Spell and I would much prefer to get something more interesting as the Universalist Focus power. Why give me a free feat on level 1 and then browbeat me into spending it on a power that I do not like because it unlocks more of my "schools" stuff?
And yes, more metamagic that is actually interesting would be thrilling. I was super excited about the possibilities that three action system opens up for metamagic, but after reading through them I'm kinda bummed.

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Archetype for Wizards that allows to specialize in their school further, including interesting stuff like poaching school-appropriate crosstraditional spells.
Class Archetype for Wizard that switches them to Occult spell-list.
Some interesting Intelligence-focused archetypes that allow that stat to do cool stuff that is not casting wizard spells. Let my Fighter show off their Tactical Brilliance and my Rogue to unleas their Mastermind schemes!
Poisons and Sickness focused necromancy archetype for casters that allows you to get some fun with the Poison and Disease subsystems from the player side of the table.
"Gadgeeter" (Artificer?) aimed at Rogue, Alchemist and to lesser extent Fighter that is all about doing interesting thing with magic gear.
And for love that is all unholy, an Armor-proficiency providing archetype that isn't lore locked behind a specific organization so you suddenly won't have everyone who doesn't want to put Dex as their second highest stat but does not get Medium/Heavy Armor proficiency expertise from their class lining up their Hellknight applications. One of things that people told me about PF2 was that I can do my plate-encased wizard fantasy in this game and while it is true, it isn't exactly easy or friendly or even "good" to do.
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If I want to make "Magicfinder, the Magical Girl Pathfinder Campaign", will the book provide me with the tools and framework to do so? I've heard the book will showcase how to play when you want everybody is a pirate...and this instantly made me think about Sailorfinders ;) .
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Will there be support for Philosophy-Oriented, not necessarily God-Worshipping Clerics and Divine Sorcerers?
Is there a chance for removing the veil and exposing the transparency on how weapon profiles are built, helping us create our own simple/martial/advanced weapon while sleeping safely knowing that balance is preserved?
Guns! Anything on guns? What is the philosophy towards the firearms this time around? Anything you can share or tease?
Any love for magical clothes instead of armor, so my Pretty Magical Girl Soldier Of Justice can engage with different set of equipment choices (including runes, etc) than a plate wearing juggernaut?
What player-facing options players, not GMs, can be excited about when buying this book?
Nothing says your familiar can have an inventory. I wouldn't assume that absence of saying they don't have it automatically makes them have it, especially when they have blank attributes so you can't even really properly calculate stuff like their Bulk.
What Chirurgeon needed was an Injection Gun/Spear that uses vials of potions and poisons as ammo and allows you to preload them with like 3 charges of such items and then deliver them to foes and friends with an action. Or, perhaps, instead of preloading, make them a viable ammo so you load them in as part of reload action, preserving your action economy.
Should have been either a Field Research ability, or a lvl1 feat, or just a generic equipment anyone can get but they start with.
Because by the point you are using Disintegrate, you are actually excited about having a chance to shoot a Spell Attack, because with abundance of attack bonuses that one can get from friends and beneficial spells, combined with True Strike, you are asking less "Did I miss or did I hit?", and more "Did I hit or did I crit?". So it is basically a chance to degrade opponents Fort save, which is huge.

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While I am hard-pressed to play a Sorcerer instead of Wizard, I don't think they are that bad. You pick one spell per spell level that you want to heighten, while you pick your other spells to make sure they are useable even without heightening. Grease is as good at level 18 as it was at level 1, as your DC scales up without heightening (in fact, you might argue Grease will be better than it was, because many foes - dragons included - will be large, so easier to walk into a space containing the oil, and have more dangerous multi-action activations). This is true for so many spells that if it wasn't my unhealthy desire for having all the spells all the time, I would probably totally do with just a bunch of useful signature spells and then a bunch of ever-green universally spells that do not require heightening to remain viable.
Spell Substitution Wizards are silver-bullet seeking casters that want to have THE best spell for specific situation. Sorcerers are all about maximum efficiency spell picks that will reward you for versatility, not weakness exploitation.
Of course, this might make some people unhappy, because your first priority to make a good sorcerer spell-list is to pick for maximum utility and always having an applicable tool to use with your slots, and if you go for thematic spell picks that overlap and do not provide anything new compared to heightened version of similar spell from before, you will often find yourself "gimped".
Even if you could literally spill the contact poison on the touch-range opponent (turning them into interesting take on Touch spells but with alchemical items), 99% of them has onset time that makes them pointless to use.
Overall, from Alchemists perspective, there is only one really usable category of poisons - the injury poisons - and using it requires jumping through some serious hoops to make it work action-wise.
vagabond_666 wrote: Ravingdork wrote: Don't bursts always begin at a grid intersection?
I don't really see how an emanation can also be a burst. The definitions are too different.
Orthogonal cones always start at the edge of your space, except when they don't, why should bursts be any different?
(The 15 foot cone was wrong in 1st Edition, because it didn't start at the corner of your space. They've changed the language defining cones, so it's now correct, but that means the 30 and 60 foot examples in the book are now wrong) How should the correct 30 and 60 cone look properly? Could you provide a correct image? Cones were already hard for me to wrap my head around due to certain visual and geometric disabilities, and this is only making them worse.
I generally avoid podcasts and un-written "how to X" advice (I just read much faster and listening to stuff is way too slow to me and tires me out), but I liked the Lost Omen stream so I'll give these a try!
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Signature Spell allows you to basically cast all possible versions of that spell as long as you have appropriate spell slot, going up or down. You might want to learn a Fireball as 4th level spell and signature it there because there is another lvl3 spell that you want to keep as Signature.
Spell-Blending is probably way more useful in a high paced adventure where you don't have time to scout ahead and tailor your spell selection to exploit intel you just got from your scout.
It also is probably way better if you want to blast, because while Lvl 1 Grease stays competetive for the entire game and thus low level slots remain useful forever, if you want to throw buckets of damage at your foes, less total slots but more of the highest caliber ones will help you burst better.
I wouldn't call it a mess, exactly...but it is not friendly to selective reading and trying to jump around.
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Well you are buying both, but then you can go to rune-jacker and ask him to transfer the magical rune/software into your other thing. He then etches some basic runes for your magical sparks to "jump into", and because the actually hard part is figuring out how to make the magical sparks, it takes him a day instead of a week.
You can have fancy runes all you want, but without that certain magical energy, they wont glow and turn your sword on fire. You are transfering that potentiality from one rune to another. Does that help to make it sound less weird?
Because other classes can use this Spell Activity to make it possible to make an Uncommon spell a viable choice to add to their repertoire next time they level up.
For example, if your GM gave you as a quest reward a teacher willing to teach your Sorc a Rare tradition-flipped spell (like Phantom Pain but for Arcane, or one of the Uncommon Arcane spells), this skill activity allows to make it a viable choice for your future level ups.
Arcane Evolution Sorcs can also use it to add spells to their spellbooks they then use to take advantage of the Evolution.
The Wizard Spellbook feature guides you to Arcane Skill on page 241, which is kinda silly, because that section then ping-pongs you to the Learn Spell activity, so I cut the middle man when answering your question. But technically, the wizard-class description does point you there, in the end.
I imagine that the actually expensive, time-consuming part is the magical spark within the runes, not the physical vessel of runes themselves. So you are probably using some sort of process to quickly jump one rune from one "vessel" to another.
Basically, the hardware (physically carved runes) are irrelevant if you don't transfer the software (the magic part of the runes).
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I personally value Charisma higher - while Intelligence gives you more skills, they will never catch up, remaining Trained. None of them have direct combat applications, either, so your utility is mostly restricted to being a Knowledge-Bot. So while Charisma has technically less skills, each of them is higher impact both in combat and in exploration mode, IMHO.
One of the best things about Sorcerers is that, unlike a Wizard, you can manage to soften a target with a good Demoralize to make them Frightened, and follow up with a spell within the same turn, making your ability to stick spells better than that of average wizard.
Intelligence might get better once we will get stuff that triggers off successful Recall Knowledge and more Rituals to actually use the Int Based skills in an impactful way. Intelligence gets better if your GM is OK with using it to Aid your friends Deckard-Cain style, but that is pretty GM dependant.
Yes. Consult Learn Spell skill activity on page 238. Magical Shorthand skill feat is also handy for any wizard wanting to save time and money, page 264.
Page 580, transferring runes. It also has a note where you can find a Runestone.
TLDR, you can use Craft skill to switch runes from one object to another, and it takes only a day instead of standard 4 days of Craft-work.
So if you find a Flaming Greatsword +1, you can give it to your Crafter and within a couple of days, you will have Granny's Flaming Sword +1.
Yes. And that's why you can absolutely start the game with your grandmothers sword and not cry in frustration when you find a better +1 Flaming Greatsword.
In fact, if you are good at scouting and predicting what lies ahead, you probably should have a bunch of situational runes to apply to your sword as needed. If you think you are going to fight a lot of Fire-Weak creatures, it only takes a single day to make your pimped out sword suddenly Flaming, as long as you had a rune in your possesion.
You can store unused runes on a Runestone.They cost 3gp.

Sorcerers get a better spellcasting stat than Wizards (though Recall Knowledge being a basic action slapped on so many things makes Intelligence still a real fun to use), so while you might have less varied spell selection, it is much easier to expand both your combat arsenal (intimidation, athletics stuff with a whip if you go Dex for AC) and out-of-combat prowess (all the fun Charisma skills are yours to take).
Sorcerer looks actually good. Due to auto-scaling DCs, you don't need *that many* signature spells - if you picked signature Burning Hands, odds are you don't need another Cone spell for a long, long time, and even when you pick say Cone of Cold, it is absolutely sensible to drop Burning Hands as a Signature because you already have a "Cone" covered in your arsenal, and your "Fire" niche is probably now filled with Fireball or Flaming Sphere.
Again, casters really want to cover wide range of elements, saves, and shapes; if you try to play a Sorcerer that picks "all and only fire spells", you will feel lacking, as there are no feats or tools to reward you for purposefully restricting your options, which as far as I understand was a thing in previous games where you had to invest into specific type of spells to make them competitive.

Has anyone figured the "budget" for different weapons categories? After some basic glancing, it feels to me it could be really easy to create new weapon stat-blocks by simply moving a few points of the "budget" around, but I'm having a really bad headache this week and my brain refuses to combine all this together and grokk it.
One of our players wants a really really big sword that has the reach (and is still a sword, "polearms look lame"), so either removing a Versatile from Greatsword and adding reach or dropping its damage dice to d10 and adding reach seems really simple and intuitive.
The other wants to make the crossbowiest crossbow to ever crossbow, not only shifting the "budget points" around, but actually advancing it into martial and then advanced weapon group to get the deadliest, coolest, over-complicated training-demanding crossbow to ever crossbow. Again, "bows are lame".
Shifting the points within the same category seems easy, as it is generally "a trait for a trait, or a trait for a damage dice size", but for some reasons the crossbow transcending two groups and still keeping reload 1 makes my brain fry. I guess that is because there much more moving parts for ranged weapons, with range and reload beings a factor too?
I also have no idea how to evaluate Bulk or negative traits - the player in question wants a crossbow that makes them Clumsy if they moved this turn, to represent "nesting up" with it and sniping dragons out of the sky.
Ranger sniper turret fantasy with manportable dragonslaying ballista, basically.
Thanks for the answers! it was a fun stream. I'm sad I missed it and had to watch a VoD, but I'm really grateful for the TLDR on the various regions and iconic personalities - I'm a total newbie when it comes to this setting and getting such kind of passionate, but condensated and on-the-point review of various places gave me a good starting point to plan out my strategic reading of it when I raid my friends place and get my hands on the book.
Seems like that by RAW, none of these feats - including also generic Grapple - occupy your hand, and instead work based on proximity. Which is neat, but could be a bug, kind of like how at the moment you totally can grapple and trip a swarm.
Magic books that are similar to staves but give access to spells unique to them [including a special attack cantrip] would be really fun. I like the imagery of a wizard with oversized eldritch book.
The idea of fire weapons still cant give me a rest, mostly because one of the things that dissapointed me about Alchemist was that "Bombs" feel more like throwing fluids at opponents than bombs/grenades. They lack the oomph and explosive shake I expected from the name.
I know, but a practical, adventuring-ready version of the fire weapons that can stand next to magic runes and other fantasy stuff would benefit from romanticization.
I don't mind some hextech or alchemical pseudo science weapons, but I would prefer to maintain the ratio of authentic weapons - silly weapons at about 3:1. Gnome Flickmace novelty factor lasted for exactly a week.
And yeah, I dislike the racial weapons.
I guess the "weirdest" weapon I would want is wuxia-style meteor hammer.
EDIT
Actually, romanticized fire weapons like fire lance would also be interesting. I would play a Precision Ranger built around explosives and fire weapons. Just don't make them Alchemist exclusive.

Hag looks cool, but I haven't wrapped my head around it yet. Would probably work well with a Redeemer bodyguard who slaps Stupefied on people so you can wreck them with Occult will spells.
Imperial is my favorite flavor-wise, but I still need to find a good use for Ancestral Surge. The bloodline power I warmed up to after realizing it can be pretty good with Dex-Athletics Trip and some good Intimidate. Both are easy to get and keep up, as Dex is your physical attribute of choice. Tripping a foe with a whip or glaring at them menacingly is a fun use of your third action. The spell list is universally good.
I would love Undeath if it wasn't Divine. I dislike Divine spell list a lot and I wish there was a way to play it Occult or Arcane. If I was forced to play Divine Sorc, it would be Undeath one.
Elemental Bloodline looks cool. The Primal spell list is interesting, so when I decide to try it out, it all depends wheter my most recent character before that was Charisma heavy or not - don't want to play two charismators in a row.
Rest of the bloodlines are a hard meh for me. I like the Sorc, but I find the choice to prioritize the Divine spell list a strange one, especially with the weird Deity-problems mentioned in a different thread. I would prefer one extra Arcane and one extra Occult bloodline instead of Demonic and Diabolic, or instead of Demonic and Undeath - especially since some of their Focus powers have Evil trait, and from what I've heard, Evil tagged options are banned from Organized Play?
Aberrant has interesting flavor but I don't like the focus spells and bloodline power, which is a shame.
You sure you didn't mix it up with the PF1 condition cards?
Another broad question:
This book probably had an interesting design dilemma. While a lot of initial PF2 playerbase is probably the PF1 returnees who know and love the setting already, there is also the non-trivial playerbase that has little next to no exposure to the previous iteration of the game and Golarion.
What challenges had you to face when balancing the compromise between making the book a good starting point for new people, while also appealing to returning players for which things vital for newcomers might be unneeded repeating exposition about something they already knew?
I imagine it is an intimidating problem to solve, because it could have been easy to accidentally alienate one or the other!
Go to Fighter class section, page 141, and check the sidebar that lists all the proficiencies. It is a list of all your initial proficiencies, including all armor, which starts Trained.
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Agreed. I think it was just unfortunate move to do the "ask your questions!" thread, because due to the phrasing it had, it hyped up people for immediate answers next Livestream, and now each time the stuff won't be answered, there will be some unfortunate betrayal of expectations.
Better to not promise and surprise that to raise a possibility and then not deliver. For one or another reason, our perception tends to categorize "raised possibility" as a "promise", and then gets salty.
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