Yunni's page

Background: I'm starting a new campaign that everyone expects to last for a long time. This is a group that has already played a multi-year campaign to level 20. I played a wizard in that old campaign and loved it. (I know wizards can problematically outshine other players at high levels, but I was support-focused enough and they were focused enough on their damage dealing that it actually worked out well.) I was the last player to commit to joining the new campaign, so we already had a melee fighter tank, a ranger (or possibly rogue), and a bloodrager. A couple people might be willing to switch, but overall everyone is pretty committed to their characters and roles. Everyone, including the DM, recommends that I play a healer of some sort. I've spent really a very long time playing around with possible builds, including shamans, clerics, and even witches. But I miss my wizard. I have begun to question my group's basic presumption that every party needs a healer. Maybe it's not entirely motivated reasoning to think that what we really need is some form of an arcane CC/support/utility caster.

So what do you think? Could I go full wizard/arcanist, strand my party without a healer, and still have a decent party composition without my DM having to rescue us with a healer DMPC? (It is relevant to note that he is generally willing to provide us with pretty liberal access to diverse magic items.) If not, would a cleric/oracle cohort for mostly out-of-combat utility healing be sufficient in a party with no other healing? (I will also note that neither my DM nor I are huge fans of playing cohorts.)

Evidence in favor: I know there is a popular school of thought that damage is best prevented, not healed. Healing certainly can't keep pace with damage, and so eventually healing is a losing game in any battle that goes on long enough. In CRPGs I like to play heavy control parties with that general philosophy, although I usually find healing too useful to forgo altogether. Blitz attacker parties work on the same basic principle -- after all, if they're dead, they can't hurt you -- and this party might do well with that model as it has three main damage dealers. I can't help but remember that in my last campaign with this group, our battle oracle didn't spend much in-combat time healing, as he was far more effective as a self-buffed damage machine. As a wizard, I could help control the battlefield to make healing unnecessary, as I did in the last campaign. Magic items (or a cleric cohort, DM permitting) could help us heal outside of combat.

Evidence against: All of the above said, in-combat healing can definitely be dead useful. Sometimes you just need to give the DPS one more turn or two before they drop, and you can't always prevent all the damage (inevitably, enemies make all their saves, roll crazy high to hit, and so on). Also, someone needs to be able to deal with ability damage, status effects, etc., whether in combat or out. And while a wizard (or rogue) will eventually be able to UMD at least some of this if the DM allows enough access to magic items (which I think he would, and I could take magic creation feats to help), it'll be a problem at low levels due both to low UMD and limited gold.

(I should say that as large as my old wizard has become in my imagination, I also recognize that there are good versatile builds of several other classes. Hell, if you use Wandering Hex with a Shaman to get the Arcane Enlightenment hex of the Lore Spirit, you can straight up get rotating wizard spells, and my DM's liberal magic item policy could give me even more access to wizard magic, all on top of the Shaman's admittedly somewhat circumscribed existing mix of the witch, cleric, and druid lists. That's a fair way toward a non-crippled Mystic Theurge, which, if it were better, would be my ideal class -- I always want all the spells! That's all just to say that I think I probably could really like a character of a different class, even if I'm not nearly as drawn to them right now. What I most want to play is a versatile prepared support/utility caster with a good spell list. That sounds most like a wizard to me, but I'm willing to give anything a good look.)

I've gotten RotR Ezren through the Academy in one turn before because he's almost guaranteed to get at least one extra exploration per turn (as the Academy will give him one unless his first exploration encounters a spell, in which case he's likely to acquire it and get a free explore through his ability) and is excellent at acquiring all the spells and magic items he encounters on subsequent explorations, giving him even more free explores. When he runs into something like an ally he can recharge a spell like Haste to keep it going even longer!

Scattertracks was a serious favorite of mine. It's simple, elegant, low-cost, evocative, and useful. Can't ask for anything more!

I'm so happy this one made it. One of my absolute favorites during voting! I saw it several times and always upvoted it. I just love the idea of walking on shaped clouds, I love the thunderstorm detail, and i really want to give this to my players and see what they do with it. Congratulations and good luck in the map round!

It would be sad to be a sprite with no SU or SP abilities and I'd probably be shunned by the other sprites, but I'd still rather be a sprite, I think. The unpredictability of turning into different beasts would drive me crazy, even if I got to keep my mind through it all. (Unless we're talking about what I would rather do *in game*, in which case I'd definitely rather be random monsters! Much more fun.)

In real life, would you rather have a pet pipefox or a pet faerie dragon?

Thank you so much for this book, Paizo. If it's even half as useful as I think it will be, I'll be happy.

This is going to be a godsend for the middle-school students I GM, as well as for my adult group (especially my one new player and two veterans who are so intimidated by the CRB that they still just rely on the rest of us during any level-up situation). But mostly, I'm picking this up for myself! I wish I'd had this book when I started playing Pathfinder. I already had a year's experience playing in a 3.5 campaign, but when I picked up the Core Rulebook I quickly realized I was way out of my depth. I've taught myself number theory from a textbook before, but, especially because I didn't have anyone with experience to help me learn the rules, this felt harder! The Core Rulebook was often daunting and befuddling. It's only now, after two years of playing and GMing and lots of careful reading, that I finally feel I've gained enough of an intuitive sense of the rules to be able to strategize with any real ease or agility. Of course I'm always learning more.

The CRB has very little guidance or strategy -- it's almost 100% rules, and that's it. All those rules and facts are great reference for veterans. But I think what it's hard for veterans to appreciate is just how much knowledge it really takes to put all these rules in their proper context. The CRB tells you what a rule is, but it doesn't tell you what that *means* for your character or *why* the rules are this way.

Here's a sort of odd example of what some interpretation of the rules can do: I never thought twice about "unseen servant" the first several times I came across it. Sure, I could understand the rules of how it worked and it sounded potentially useful for exploring dubious dungeon rooms at a distance, but that didn't mean much to me. It took reading the forums to realize that unseen servant is awesome partly because it means my wizard doesn't have to expend so many actions to get out all those potions, wands, rods, and scrolls. Other examples: it's not immediately obvious that you should have a wand of this spell you cast a lot but shouldn't have a wand of that other spell you cast a lot. Or that one of the advantages of being a wizard rather than a sorcerer is combining your ability to know a lot of different spells with your scribe scroll bonus feat to create a stockpile of great but situationally useful spells. And maybe most importantly: I was grateful to class guides on the forums for introducing me to the concept of a control wizard. I had already conceived, fuzzily, of having my wizard do some kind of battlefield control, but having a clear concept was beyond helpful. I drew on pieces of the advice I saw to make my favorite character ever to play!

Where this book can help the most is giving old and new players alike a framework for understanding the rules. Then, with this framework well in hand, they'll have a good solid ground they can use to interpret all the information in the CRB. Players can even use this framework to understand the APG and UC and UM, even without those books being explicitly included here. (I'm disappointed that material from those books won't be covered in this guide, but I completely understand the reasoning.) I think that it'll even make it more possible for a lot of people to think more creatively, because they'll be grounded enough that they can then entertain wacky ideas, rather than desperately trying to get their footing.

I also hope that this book will highlight some of the most iconic (if not necessarily always the most optimized) spells, items, and features in the game. Things like glitterdust or rope trick or the ten-foot-pole aren't highlighted in the CRB; you're largely left to spot them for yourself in a sea of noise.

Basically, I'm happy to see this book because Pathfinder, like D&D, is overflowing with unwritten conventions and assumptions that are invisible to the game designers and veteran players but are huge stumbling blocks for new players and experienced players who, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the rules, are just in the habit of following along. Even long-time veterans can always benefit from a new perspective not necessarily reflected in their groups' assumptions.

Just wanted to add how much everyone in my gaming group (who barely comment on the forums and are hardly part of any vocal minority) would love an official Kitsunes of Golarion book, or anything similar. (I'll check out some of the third-party material people have been mentioning too.) A Tian-Xia races book would also be welcome; personally, I'd love more about the samsarans. I know it may be quite a while before we get more Tian-Xia material, but it doesn't hurt to say: if you make it, there's people who'd like to buy it!

Casting Defensively wrote:

If you want to cast a spell without provoking any attacks of opportunity, you must make a concentration check (DC 15 + double the level of the spell you're casting) to succeed. You lose the spell if you fail.

There is nothing in the entry that says you don't also provoke the AoO as well. All it says is you don't provoke if you succeed and that you loose the spell if you fail. Without anything in the language saying that you lose the spell instead of provoking you could easily suffer both.

Although the Core Rulebook language is indeed ambiguous, there is actually a clear and definitive answer to this question in the Core Rulebook, in the feat Spellbreaker. The feat clarifies that normally, if you fail to cast defensively, you lose the spell but do not provoke an attack of opportunity. Link

You can strike at enemy spellcasters who fail to cast defensively when you threaten them.

Prerequisites: Disruptive, 10th-level fighter.

Benefit: Enemies in your threatened area that fail their checks to cast spells defensively provoke attacks of opportunity from you.

Normal: Enemies that fail to cast spells defensively do not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Well, as levels go on, concentration check become pretty close to auto successes - much more so for a magus where the highest DC for casting defensively will be 27 (level 6 spell), rather than 33 (level 9 spell), but they still get a full 20 caster levels.

But anyway, Spell Combat isn't a standard action, it's a full round action. You need your move action for it too.

Thanks, yes, I meant a full round action. Hence of course the lack of movement besides a five foot step. (Which can still get you out of attack of opportunity range when facing limited monsters who don't have reach, a fairly common occurrence at the lower levels where casting defensively is less of a sure thing.)

Also yeah, it is pretty close to auto success at higher levels, which is a little sad for me as DM, but on the other hand my magus player would feel seriously crippled if he couldn't cast with confidence. My player already gets a +18 bonus on his defensive casting checks at caster level nine. For second level spells and below he literally can't fail. For third level spells he only fails on a 1, which has happened only once so far. When I say I think it helps balance the game I'm thinking about lower levels, when a magus who can cast and attack in a single full round action has an advantage over melee classes with only have one attack. So it's tempered in a way similar to two weapon fighting, with minuses to hit and the requirement that the melee weapon be light or one handed, as well as the potential for attacks of opportunity.

One of my players plays a Magus, and he nearly always casts defensively: by making a DC 15+double spell level Concentration check (d20+caster level+spellcasting class's primary ability modifier, in this case intelligence), he does not provoke an attack of opportunity. (If he fails, he loses the spell, but usually he considers it worth the risk.) He invested in the Combat Casting feat (+4 Concentration when casting defensively). That combined with his high intelligence score means that he very, very rarely fails his concentration check. If he never failed, I would consider that somewhat overpowered; being able to cast spells and attack in the span of a single standard action is very powerful in the first place!