Yoveu's page

Not talking about houserules I have tested and proved balanced or anything else, just an idea that I want to discuss.

PREMISE:

I don't have any link, but I remember the devs said that when selecting spells for the traditions they were bounded to give to wizards (and so to arcane list) most of what it had in Pathfinder; otherwise veteran players would feel a too wide gap between what they could do and what they will be able to.

I also read many threads about differentiation of lists (here an example: https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42ber?Could-we-have-less-crossover-between-the #4 ), and recently a new thread about how to distinguish more wizards and sorcerers ( https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42d8h?Taking-a-look-at-the-Division-of-Niches- for ).

I have made a simple sheet to compare the 4 traditions: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13sRbT4KZ9mlk1uLdL1iPuGFU0G4gJV-Eo3m XI1cny1g/edit?usp=sharing

It's clear that arcane tradition has more or less all the spells except for the healing ones and the ones thematic of the other traditions (divine support, emotion control, nature), this cause an imbalance and limits the design space -I suppose.

PROPOSAL:

Make the arcane list thinner, removing some of the more generical spells from the 8 schools (3-7 each for example) and change the wizard specializations in a way similar to Dominions and Bloodlines: they now grant a selection of spells to the wizard not already in his tradition list.
The point would be to make Arcane school less factotum without take away identity from Wizard: he would instead distinguish himself from another Arcane caster for his augmented versatility -his proper niche.

EXAMPLE 1:
Arcane tradition loses 40 spells, 1 spell for each spell level from 4 to 8 for each magic school.
Let's say now a Wizard has the capability to study and cast (through his deep researches on the field) Arcane Spells and 5 more (from the 48 we took), the ones which were of his specialization.

EXAMPLE 2:
Arcane tradition loses 48 spells, 1 spell for each spell level from 2 to 7 for each magic school.
Let's say now a Wizard has the capability to study and cast (through his deep researches on the field) Arcane Spells and 36 more (from the 48 we took), which depend on his specialization: we would exclude the 16 from the opposite schools (a concept we don't have anymore).

EXAMPLE 3:
Arcane tradition loses 40 spells, 1 spell for each spell level from 3 to 7 for each magic school.
Let's say now a Wizard has the capability to study and cast (through his deep researches on the field) Arcane Spells and 40 more (the ones we took from the list).

We can change the variables as we like, and I have offered three examples from "School really matters for the wizard" to "nothing really changes".

What do you think? It's not a ponderated fix to the game, just an idea to share.

I think alchemists should be able to get away with just investing in craft and not in arcana. However it might also be fun if there were some feats that gave training in arcane/divine/occult/primal or had trained in one of those as a prerequisite and gave some sort of additional set of formulas or enhancements. Something like better healing potions for divine, better bombs for arcane, better mutagens for nature, better tools I guess for occultisim. That way you could have some mechanics involved with flavoring your alchemist a certain way. Maybe that's better left to archetypes though.

I think it’s a wonderful idea!

Personally I’d see good a distinction like this:
-Bomber, who study also Arcana to give his bombs better effects
-Potionist, who study Religion (especially the vital and spiritual essences) to empower his filters
-Poisoner, who study Nature and the different properties of venoms
-Mutagenist, who study Occult to change his body in extraourdinary shapes
-Tinkerer, who expands his Crafting knowledges and becomes reeeeeeeally cool; or simply Generalist

We all know that there are many feat of the alchemist tree that are underwealming, if they’re going to modify what we already know they could make the same treatment we’ve seen for the druid:
every specialization has a 1-level feat (instead of all about the bombs.