Ancestors Oracle to hit bonus compared to martials:
1-4: Equal
5-9: -1
10: -2
11-12: Equal
13-14: -2
15-16: -1
17-19 (assuming apex at 17 and that an oracle wants to get apex in charisma): -2
20: -3
So if it was a +2 then they would actually have more hit bonus at some levels and be equal a lot more.
And with the presence of a readily available status bonus to hit they have no boost and is as good as regular caster in that department instead.
Ancestors also has to deal with the randomness that is their curse though. 50/50 shot you don't get the bonus to attack rolls and a 1 in 4 shot you end up with skill focus and have a 6 in 20 chance of losing non-skill combat actions. And Oracle doesn't get any other martial support and spells that help martial abilities give status bonuses. So equal more often or even slightly better on occasion I don't think would be that bad if you are accepting an 8 in 20 chance of losing the actions for doing anything other than striking and have no feats or other bonuses to support melee combat.
Battle Oracle player here who just played a session with a bard. At low levels the Inspire only fails to stack for +1 damage which is no big deal. At higher levels the bard should have opportunity to replace it with a different composition. Odds are a party with two primary casters will be better served by Dirge of Doom anyway.
I'm more ticked about circumstance bonuses being so common out of combat. Lots of feats and features give them. Aid gives them. And a lot of contextual AP activities give them as well. At least two of those three should usually stack, IMO.
The easiest solution is just making those AP contextual bonuses stack or reduce the DC.
But the bard can't not inspire courage still because the martials who don't get a status bonus still want it.
The entire thing seems weird to me. PF2e is a party based system and making certain class features status bonuses means they function relatively worse the better the party works together. If a wildshape druid is supposed to be on par with martials just give it a flat +2 when wildshaped or don't.
The system does not make access to buffs seem like a balancing feature. Attack buffs just aren't that plentiful. Heroism is single target/1 fight and only divine/occult. Bards get inspire courage, but they are the only ones with anything like it. If you don't have a bard you probably won't see a status bonus to hit more than once a day until the 9th+ when 3rd level spells are plentiful enough to spend on +1s to hit for a single character. It ends up not being a penalty for half the game and then when heroism hits +2/3 it becomes painful because the martials suddenly spike to a +2 above you after keeping pace up till that point.
We have a super hard time believing that a person who was evil or did something evil can ever change. Often saying that its all a ploy, or that it wont last.
And, I think because people do not want to wrongdoers to continue to exist without some form of obvious punishment. There is a cruel vindictiveness to 'justice' where suffering must be dealt back out to wrongdoers.
When dealing with deities I think it gets strange. Noticula was a Chaotic Evil demon lord for eons. So much evil and pain has been done in her name and she has done quite a bit personally, almost by definition. Having left her old life of sex murder behind, she's trying this new bohemian thing and it'll probably be a long time before her church is widely accepted--if ever.
Redemption = Death is...annoying in many respects. Anakin Skywalker gets a pass because Star Wars is morally simple, but he really shouldn't.
Making sure that a person suffers while doing their penitence only makes it harder for them to complete it. Of course, on the other hand, it feels bad when someone tries to stop being evil and it appears to happen without consequence.
Restorative justice is, like, hard man. Especially when people have varying strong opinions what constitutes justice.
The problem with Redemption = Death is that it's used less to redeem the villain and more to avoid the sticky issue of what to do with the villain after he survives nearly trying to destroy the world so it often ends up contrived.
As an extreme example, if Hitler said sorry about the Holocaust and surrendered to the Allies at the end of WWII what would have happened to him? Most likely he would still have been executed. (How'd that be for the end of a redemption arc?) In writing we also know the redemption is genuine. For all anyone knew Darth Vader weighed his options and decided killing the Emperor was the best way to save his own skin, but we as the viewer know it was an honest redemption.
And then you get into what redemption means. If the villain decides to end his villainy and lead a life as a 9-5 office worker is it wrong to punish him even if he has no intention to do evil again? It's harder emotionally to rip a person who once did evil out of a quiet relatively happy life but just brushing over the fact he once tried to destroy the world is just as wrong. Once again using the Holocaust as an example Germany still prosecutes anyone who worked at a death camp. There's no statute of limitations for crimes against humanity. The 90 year old retirees are no threat to anyone, but allowing the crime to overlooked is considered unacceptable.
Also with the whole redemption requires hard work, at the end of the story the world is no longer in danger. The villain can never save the world to offset the near destruction he caused because there is (hopefully) a happily ever after and not another world destroying threat to protect against. How much community service does it take to offset near genocide? If littering is the next biggest issue the world faces how is the villain supposed to redeem himself?
Redemption = Death avoids all of this. The price is payed. The messy bits skipped over. The villain realizes his mistakes and redeems himself with one big act of selflessness.
On a different topic, is it ever good to submit to evil? As an absurd example if the neighboring country demands a tribute of 1 gold coin a year or it will declare war? 1 gold coin is negligible and a war would cost countless lives. But that's still extortion which is a very serious crime. Considering the value of life is priceless is any amount of extortion that doesn't cause serious economic hardship worth violence? If paying the villain off ends a war and prevents another war is it wrong to pay him off? (There's probably some Demon or Daemon out there who particularly enjoys this thought experiment.)
Having two hitboxes is pretty much meaningless because enemies don't decide who to attack based on surface area and a character has 9 adjacent squares to be attacked from. You will never be targeted simply because of that.
A summoner and Eidolon should fairly quickly get the same AC. Spend the general feats on armor proficiency or just grab sentinel. The summoner can spend an action to raise a shield if he's desperate.
The roll twice take lower on AoE spells is brutal though. It's a massive vulnerability and the class doesn't give any defensive advantages to offset that while actively encouraging the summoner to stay close to the Eidolon.
Another big weakness is that if the Summoner hits zero the Eidolon poofs and isn't coming back for the fight at least. Rather than in a desperate situation even a weak heal can get any other class swinging at full strength again.
But looking beyond the defensive side of things, the summoner's biggest bonus is that it effectively gets 4 actions. Except if the Eidolon wants to pretend to be a martial the summoner needs to spend an action to buff it. So really in most situations it's three actions. And compared to other martials the Eidolon doesn't get much. Its strikes are poor damage. Its defenses are nothing special. And it doesn't have any fancy tricks aside from what the chassis gives it like every other martial.
On the summoner side the summoner gets 4 spells and some cantrips. The cantrips aren't useless but if you really want one there are plenty of ways to get one as any class. And with how progression works summoner cantrips will just be less effective than full caster cantrips at various points, especially if the summoner doesn't start with 18 charisma because it's easy to pick 4 spells that don't care about casting stat, like summons. Now those 4 spells can be top level buffs except there's no rule that you can cast personal buffs (the very few that there are) on your Eidolon so every buff you can cast another full caster could cast instead (it's what they are there for most fights). On top of that they all eat two actions to set up once again eating into the action bonus a summoner is supposed to get.
With all of that summoners end up feeling like bland martials with a few high level spells rather than a summoner or even an Eidolon master because the Summoner's half the class takes away from all the cool things the Eidolon might be able to do if it was a full martial with focus point tricks instead.
Trying to figure out the Golarion economy is a mess because a single low level caster makes an order of magnitude more money than anyone else. Even the most basic magic sword is worth years of living expenses. If the goal is highest GDP the best option by far is to gear the entire economy to producing magic items. Even a bad caster can make 1,000 gp a day, a low level commoner makes 8-10 gp a week.
What I love about the Tolkien Elves is that they are the ancestors of Orcs and thus of Uruk-Hai, of Half-Elves and thus of Numenoreans, including the Witchking IIRC. Food for thought.
"Ancestors"
Orcs were created from Elves because Melkor (or any Valar) couldn't create life like Eru Iluvatar. So instead he took Iluvatar's creation, corrupted it, and called it his own. That's what evil was to Tolkien, a corruption of good.
The Elves were the First Children of Iluvatar and better than the other races in every way. In the movies there's a scene where Legolas easily outdrinks Gimli. Tolkien didn't bother with things like "balance" because he was writing a story, not a game system.
With the way stats work out unless you are a wis caster trying to be a martial requires strength which means you have to either give up your casting stat or drop one of your saves to be subpar at it and casters already lag with saves as time goes on. Bastion could help you get around needing dex but if you are taking a weapon archetype you have to delay that till at least level 10. Trying to martial ends up turning a caster into even more of a glass cannon for slightly more to hit and damage on a third action.
3 - This is a feeling I don't personally have, but I think it's worth mentioning. Blasters are at their best when fighting hordes of minions. Lots of people don't think of punching below their weight class as very fun or important to the party.
Part of it is also that it's better to let the fighter get nearly killed than to actually spend a fireball. Because outside of combat you can get HP back to full for 0 resources. That fireball isn't coming back without resting. There's no reward for nuking the mooks as hard as possible. The casters are the only ones playing resource management so anything short of the fighter's life is cheaper than actually spending a top level slot on fireball. What is the caster actually providing the party by clearing the mooks out in 1 round instead just letting the fighter spend 3 rounds cleaning up?
As a general stance I say anything that was available 5 levels back is something an intelligent enemy will at least attempt to counter. So starting at level 6 enemies who are worried about magical spies will take precautions against things like ravens and rats since there are many different ways a level 1 caster can get information from them. A level 8 enemy will take precautions against invisibility and a level 10 will take precautions against flying. Does that mean every enemy uses perfect protection? No. But it does mean players shouldn't expect enemies to ignore wild animals in their camp after a little while because even the weakest caster has a way to glean information from them (or just transform into one). Unless a familiar gets a new trick at 6th or becomes more skilled at stealth (which as shown above it's not terrible but not rogue level which is where the standard is considering auto scaling perception) it's not going to be a scout on virtue of just being a bird. 1st level features being ignored by level 20 guards makes the world feel too detached from the existence of PCs to me.
I think Pharasma is a built-in wrinkle for non-PCs in Golarion, and a reason for why liches or other eternal youth/life activities would still be relevant.
Seems like a resurrection is necessarily another god/power pilfering from Pharasma's domain, and they probably don't want to do that very often or for people who aren't very important. PCs are different because they're necessarily heroes, but some random rich person might be able to afford the ritual and still have it not work because Pharasma's like "Yeah, nah, to the Boneyard with this one."
It's also why Urgathoa is a thing in the first place. Like her whole portfolio is explicitly a giant middle finger to Pharasma.
Resurrection still never cheats old age so immortality is still important.
It doesn't help there are very few ways to actually *stop* resurrections short of trapping the soul. As long as they cut off a finger and store it somewhere safe to be rezzed from destroying the body doesn't even work. Since spells like remove curse can be spammed anything that can be removed with a CL check is pretty much worthless. It'd be nice if there was a fast judgement sort of spell which gets them judged by Pharasma so they can't be rezzed.
It's like an employer expecting an employee to spend 90% of their paycheque improving their ability to do their job.
"Good job these past weeks, Bob. Here's $1500. Be sure to spend $1350 on office supplies. Upgrade your computer and keep saving for that better scanner."
Adventurers are typically self employed freelancers. There is no employer. Most have patrons or accept contracts for specific jobs in which they bear the cost of expenses. They are expected to use their money to improve their business.
Any other complaints about the economy notwithstanding, this is perfectly normal and expected given the usual type of work adventurers engage in.
Which is true... until it's not. See Agents of Edgewatch.
And while self-employed small businesses should invest *some* money into growing and expanding their business, most small business owners also spend money on housing, savings, personal goods, and luxury items. Adventurers are all people will million dollar businesses and platinum credit cards who spend ALL of their funds on the business while still living in a van down by the river.
And there was quite a bit of talk in Agents of Edgewatch about how it did and did not handle that aspect well.
High level magic items are expensive. Prohibitively so to most people. Adventurers are people who could afford them and likely will purchase them because they don't like dying and keeping your gear topped off will reduce chances of sudden death. At any point, a PC could say 'Naw, I'm done.' and retire. Or just adventure and subsist off of drops while investing their gold into their lifestyle.
How players handle their wealth is not a system problem. Its a table issue.
(How much wealth is too much is a fair question. Does a Major striking rune really have to cost 31,065 gp? Eh. Season to taste.)
Part of the issue with prices is that they don't want a level 10 character being able to afford a +3 major striking weapon or something like that. It was somewhat of an issue in 1e where a caster could just save up 36k and buy a +6 headband far earlier than expected while a martial was busy buying weapons and armor and a belt and so on. So to offset that prices were increased exponentially based on what level they were expected to be earned at. A caster who wants an early Apex item is going to be waiting a long time. So prices are constantly doubling and over 20 levels there's some silly pricing while most goods and services are valued at level 2-3 tops.
Spell Substitution is in a weird place. It implies you prepared incorrectly at dawn and can now fix the problem. It also implies you now know about the threat and have at least 10 minutes downtime per spell to adapt to it. It's still not adapt to the current situation. It just means you can adapt to the situation 10 minutes from now. And there aren't many spells that solve one specific problem really well anymore. And with how precious spell slots are now the wizard is going to be hesitant using a high level spell slot on utility even if it's the perfect spell for the job. Because any hazard that isn't lethal can be patched up by medicine. Sure it's an expert skill check to cross the pit safely but fly is a 3rd level spell and medicine is free, both take 10 minutes.
It does allow for some "rebalancing" midday where the wizard can go oh we've fought a lot of bad fort enemies let me swap a fireball over to a fort debuff to keep all my bases covered. But that can also backfire when it turns out the rest of the enemies are high fort. But that's just trying to emulate a spontaneous caster who can just pick which save as needed.
And the wizard doesn't have that much money compared to a martial to spend on fleshing out a spellbook with a bunch of niche utility spells to even take advantage of spell substitution. A stave costs nearly as much as an on level weapon and a wizard wants on level armor as much as martials if not more so because of the terrible saves and slow AC progression. And it's a skill roll. Rolling low means sorry have to wait an entire level to learn a spell. A wizard trying to learn fireball at 5th off a scroll because it was in loot instead of from the level up has a 25% chance of failing and not being able to learn fireball. Next level it's only a 20% chance of being forced to wait yet another level. (Combined that's a 1 in 20 chance a wizard has to put off learning fireball till 7th because of trying to take advantage of loot instead of using one of the four spells learned from level ups)
If the AoA thread is any indication, level 8 versus a level 9 boss, which should put his DC at 26 and the bosses saves between 18 and 16. Very far from "bosses don't fail saves."
If this is about a certain book 1 encounter, that's a whole 'nother story that has nothing to do with wizards and everything to do with the wonkiness of that encounter.
Level 7, spell DC 25. I know everyone keeps saying, "the math is very tightly tuned," but around what value? If a caster targets a spell at the boss's worst save, the odds of beating him should be around 75%, not 50/50.
Getting everything exactly right with all factors in my favor shouldn't be the expected bare-minimum break-even point; it's a a rare and lucky occurrence that should result in extremely high likelihood of success.
The problem is the balance against enemies of various levels.
If you make it 75% against an enemy’s weakest save that’s Party Level+2, then it’s around 90% against an enemy that Party Level+0, and 100% against an enemy that’s Party Level-2.
So Paizo made it that it’s closer to 50% for Party Level+2, since they’re a boss, and then around 65% against Party Level+0, since they’re your equals and it feels good to be hitting around that percentage of a time given enough rounds, and then you get to the 80% against Party Level -2.
And if the boss has a legitimate Terrible Save and not just a Moderate-to-Low save, then you will have that 60-70% hit chance on their lowest save. Otherwise, you need someone else to help debuff with Demoralize/Bon Mot/etc. to help increase your success chance to that level.
It doesn't help that because of how crits work they can't make bad saves too bad since that'd mean double damage or major debuffs from spells which does make them overpowered. But on the flip side unlike a weapon attack where a whiff just means trying again next time (or right now) a caster is down a resource. Most spells aren't powerful enough for a successful save to feel like it was worth two actions and a very limited resource. This stings worse when a 20 is rolled on a save or a wrong bad save guess on a boss and it's actually a complete loss of 2 actions and a resource. The wizard might not have prepped two on level reflex blast spells or more than one good fort debuff. This lessens over time because debuffs don't need high slots usually so a wizard can prep stinking clouds at 3rd level and prep fireball in all 5th level slots and always have a tool for the situation. At very low levels its entirely possibly that the wizard prepped almost all reflex blasts because the low level debuffs aren't great which means a reflex boss really hurts the caster. A high save on a L+2 is around 80% likely to pass which means 30% chance of completely avoiding the spell. (High AC on the other hand is only +1 over moderate AC so a martial hits 35-40% of the time on a L+2, a fighter 10% more, before de/buffs and it's important to note that there are 0 ways to buff spell DC vs a bard cantrip increasing to hit by 1 for all martials combine with flatfooted and a martial suddenly hits 50-55% of the time, fighters 60-65%)
I think part of the issue also comes from there being a lack of ways to manipulate saving DCs or enemy saving throws. It's not common to hand out conditions outside frightened and sickened (and even that one is usually from another spell effect). Aside from target weakest save there's not much a caster can do to make their spells more effective. Investing another spell and action for stupefied 1 is a big investment for something that only benefits the caster. And as time goes on martial buffs tend to go up. Heroism/Inspire Courage gets more powerful high AC stays in the same place. Frightened/Sickened are generally stuck at 1-2 and require regular reapplication while Heroism lasts the fight. It makes martials feel much more tactical and that the player has control over how good a martial is in a fight compared to a caster where it's very dependent on the monster being fought.
The fact flexibility is so important in the middle of combat is why I think spontaneous casters are more powerful than prepared ones at least early on. As long as they know a spell for each defense they can spam it for the fight while a wizard needs to have prepped enough of each individual spell. Arcane sorcs and bards both get a way to prep a spell which is enough to cover a lot of downtime advantages for prepared casters as well.
Anything that'd require more than 10 combat feats. (joking, though any build that relied on investing in a feat chain to be good at needs class support or you can't do it)
2/3rds casting is the big one. Which is weird because with the way DCs work 2/3rds casting should be better than ever. And with access to archetypes magic is no longer caster only so access to magic should be worth less. I think it's mostly that the power budget for the classes is just so small that spells don't really fit in combined with a lack of action economy help for spells. No Magus spell strike, no warpriest fervor, no bloodrager greater bloodrage, heck summoner just gave a 2nd set of actions in a strong pet, you are always having to pick between martial or casting and with how tight the bounded accuracy is there's not much leeway for being good at both. Either you are going to be better at martial at which point you should pick a martial class and focus your feats and actions on that or you are going to be good at casting in which case you should focus your feats and actions on that. And since there's no way to combine them to get small buffs and attack or using martial abilities to make spells more effective it's hard to make a balanced 2/3rds caster.
I think the flavor text doesn't match what the ability actually does.
>You can pull forth both positive and negative energy simultaneously to harm your enemies and heal your allies.
Is just flavor text with no mechanical effect.
>If your next action is to cast a 1-action or 2-action heal or harm spell, choose one creature in range that would be harmed by the spell, and choose another creature within range that would be healed by the spell. Your heal or harm targets both creatures.
The rest seems clear to me. If you cast a heal/harm spell you can target one creature who would be healed by the spell and one who would be harmed (these are not referencing the spells, but just the regular meanings of heal and harm since harm is never referenced in heal and vice versa) by the spell. So one undead and one living creature. And then the same spell hits them both.
So it's not you use both positive and negative energy simultaneously, but you use the same energy for both effects.
I spent a lot of time wondering why I always felt guns were out of place in High Fantasy. My first thoughts actually went to Sci-fi and Star Wars more specifically. Because in the Knights of the Old Republic game there are regular people (not space monks) running around with swords in a world of laser guns and I was never bothered by it.
The main reason is because it's all so alien. I have no frame of reference for what a laser gun can do in real life. And when they say they have advanced armor that deflects laser bolts and energy shielding, but they've also advanced sword tech to wear it can slice through that armor I can just nod my head and accept it like I can accept magic.
And for Heroic/High Fantasy I can see it work even with black powder guns. Even if I have a frame of reference for guns magic exists and the heroes have it. Impregnable armor, swords of impossible sharpness, spells that ward off ranged attacks, all of these are common tropes and having them effect bullets doesn't bother me. The heroes using magical gear instead of guns can fit just fine because magic is still magic.
But in Star Wars everyone can go to their local shop and buy an energy shield for a few credits. Not a good one, but one that'll let you get into close range with a sword. And for most civilians and soldiers guns are still the weapon of choice. Swords are side arms, not the weapon of choice for most.
In High Fantasy mundane swords and bows are the weapons of choice. If guns are introduced there's no good way to justify that not being the case unless guns are rare or expensive, but then in game terms it means no level 1 character is going to have a gun. And guns are also very good at killing things that don't have guns, like raiding orc/goblin tribes.
In Sci-Fi Sci-Fi tech is the baseline. In High Fantasy, the baseline isn't everything is magic, it's everything is idyllic medieval tech and magic is something hard to acquire. And in Sci-Fi the opposition is usually other sentients with equal or even greater tech. In fantasy especially early on the threats are relatively mundane, giant rats, a pack of wolves, and an ogre as a boss. All things in my mind a gun should easily handle. And yet the PCs will still use swords and spears and bows and the peasants will never band together and shoot a charging ogre dead (heck I doubt a level 0 NPC could harm a level 5 monster even with a gun).
The issue is even though it's fantasy, wolves are still wolves, humans are still humans. I have a frame of reference for what those are and when guns are added in I have a frame of reference for what I expect guns to do. When it doesn't match it affects verisimilitude in a way adding in a way to launch fireballs from your hands just doesn't. And I have an expectation that when guns exist they are the weapon of choice for most people who can get their hands on them (magic not withstanding). And guns allow humanoids to overcome mundane nature which just isn't true in Pathfinder.
How about no. Why do you people insist on stuffing high levels of tech into a fantasy game?
While I agree in general, lets not forget that incredibly advanced technology has been baked into Golarion for a long time, namely in Numeria.
It's a land of crashed starships, Androids and laser-toting barbarians.
In the specific setting of Golarion, its possible that the corpse of a Technic League Gearman has been transported down to Alkenstar for study, wherein some of the less high-tech but otherwise more advanced designs and techniques have been reversed engineered for general use.
Gearmen seem to have internal magazine fed weapons, which another step more advanced than the move from muzzleloader to chamberloader, so it might even make sense for Golarion to even "skip" the chamber step.
Either way, within the bounds of Golarion, it's far from impossible. Its a lot easier to replicate something which you know is possible and can see applications of, rather than invent it wholesale.
I'll start by saying this is my personal take on guns in fantasy. Everyone has their own take on it and I'm not trying to tell people they are wrong. Make the setting you enjoy.
There's a big difference between aliens who crashed advanced tech into fantasy land and actually having access to advanced tech. To Numerians laser guns, robots, and cybernetics are just as magical to them as magic weapons and constructs. Not every wandering tribe is going to be a bunch of cyberpunk barbarians, maybe only the chieftain. Alien sci-fi occupies the same place as ancient magical gear from long lost civilizations so it can fit into high fantasy. As long as its distinctly alien and poorly understood just like ancient magic is. In Golarion terms, ancient Thassilon takes up the same space in Varisia as the crashed spaceships do in Numeria (at least until Return of the Runelords happened).
Once guns become efficient and common the settings tend to change. Because guns kill things good and anyone can use them. Gone are the days of villagers fearing dragons since they all have mounted cannons. Gone are the days of goblin raids because the guard can just shoot them dead. The shambling undead horde gets shot redead by a disciplined firing line.
So to manage that guns are balanced against crossbows and swords to try and explain why people keep using weapons other than guns. But at that point is it even really a "gun" in anything other than description? It doesn't kill things good. It's not easy to use. It doesn't capture any of what makes a gun a gun. It's just another mundane weapon in the weapon shop on the rack between bows and crossbows. The only way to make guns fit into fantasy is to make them not really guns.
Rules wise I'm not sure it matters, but looking at what it does which is grow a lump of flesh into a body that seems to fit most with either Divine which focuses on spells related to life or Occult which still has life based spells but with a more weird tilt to them. Arcane really doesn't do the necromancy/life thing well anymore. Though class wise it's definitely much more of a wizard spell than a bard or cleric spell.
Wrapping it in with Focus creates way more problems then it solves. MM brought up dedications which works as a double-edged sword: grabbing dedications would allow for inventors to get access to their more significantly powerful abilities while also disincentivizing actually using the Focus powers as flavorful character options. An Inventor with champion dedication now has to choose between Explode (or any number of unstable actions) and Lay on Hands and I don't think that's actually an interesting design direction.
But that's what every other class designed has to deal with. You want to be a monk/champion? Your lay on hand uses the same pool as your monk ki powers as any other multiclass focus power you pick up.
I really don't get the connection between "focus abilities" and "unstable". Not every ability that is not supposed to be available every round is a focus ability; spell slots are not focus abilities.
Because they take up the exact same design space as focus. A slew of abilities you get 1 of per combat and eventually 2/combat for a feat. It functions a bit different in that instead of getting a point with every unstable power and having to take a separate feat to be able to recover 2 uses you just take a feat to get 2/combat and be able to restore them both.
The DC does scale slower than the increase over time but you still end up less than 50/50 to get full int.
Standard DC at 20th is 40.
Level (20) + Proficiency (8) + Int (7) + Magic Item (3) = +38 so 40% chance of a crit
The bigger issue is damage doesn't scale at all. It starts at +2 from 18 int and reaches +3 when you have 22 int at 20th (or if you grab an int apex item which isn't worth it since str apex item gives to hit and damage). Why not just invest those points into a different stat when you don't get a boost until long after most characters retire? The inventor's main combat style seems to be beat them over the head with a slightly modified weapon rather than something inventor-y.
I think unstable is good as a flavorful focus pool. The explosion chance is a non-issue to me. A 20% chance of an additional focus point is better than any other class aside from the oracle. Though the totally-not-magic! aspect of the class when it has infrared see-in-the-dark googles, a semi-sentient construct pet, and ways to build and adjust inventions on the fly makes me roll my eyes.
Preparations vary heavily depending on the GM and scenario. Some places will put up divination wards, sometimes the area to explore is just the wilderness in general, and sometimes it's too dangerous to risk being down a party member in combat. Or on the flip side the place you are exploring is a volcano. You probably don't want to prep fireball. No divination needed.
But knowing you don't need fireball just means you don't waste a slot. It means you are on par with the spontaneous caster who could already cast cone of cold every time instead.
Divination is also available to spontaneous casters through staves and scrolls, Prying Eye is actually on the divine list, and arcane sorcerer can spend a feat to prepare one spell per day. Getting ahold of certain spells during downtime or for an off-day generally isn't too hard and casters generally have gold to spare. It doesn't mean prepared casting doesn't have the advantage there, but it's something spontaneous casters have tools to mitigate and work around. There are tools a spontaneous caster can use to pretend to be a prepared caster for a day. Aside from spell substitution there isn't much a prepared caster can do to pretend to be spontaneous.
I still think Arcane has relative value due to its access to unique spells and elemental value
I think the issue is wizard has trouble taking advantage of that because of prepared casting. It's nice that there's a blast for cold, poison, fire, electric, and so on. But a wizard only has so many top level slots and those are picked at the beginning of the day. If the wizard prepped too many fireballs and needs lightning bolt then that's that. Or if he tried to be versatile and cover all his bases he may only be able to hit weakness once. Spontaneous takes advantage of that much nicer. You can have a signature fireball, a signature cone of cold, lightning bolt at top level, and still have room for top level buffs. And then you can pick which blast you need when you need it. A wizard can with foreknowledge prepare against enemies very well. A sorcerer doesn't need foreknowledge he can just be constantly versatile. The sorcerer can also cast low level spells to ping weaknesses that a wizard can't because he didn't prep a bunch of level 1 snowballs to ping cold while a signature snowball can be any level between 1 and max.
Arcane may have technically more spells but Occult poaches a lot of the interesting ones that aren't straight damage. It doesn't help Occult isn't helpless on the damage front (though more susceptible to being countered by an immune monster). And blasting is generally something spontaneous casters do better than prepared ones because a wizard needs to prepare 3 fireballs or 3 lightning bolts or some mix to keep on curve in combat while a sorcerer can know fireball, lightning bolt, and haste and pick which one to cast when the time comes.
Even at first level Occult is already stepping on Arcane/Primal damage toes with Phantom Pain (an occult only spell) that deals 2d4 to a single target ON A SUCCESSFUL SAVE. On a failed save it deals 2d4+1d4 per round per level and also inflicts sickened. Snowball the closest analogue for ranged single target damage with a rider on the arcane list is 2d4/level on a hit, nothing on a miss, and there's a save to avoid the rider. Admonishing Ray is 2d6/level, no rider, also spell attack.
At 2nd Occult gets Animated Assault, 2d10 a small AoE and is sustainable if the monster stays in place.
3rd it gets Vampiric Touch, 4th it gets Phantasmal Killer, and at 6th it gets Spirit Blast and Vampiric Exsanguination to be dealing AoE damage.
But even before 6th the Occult list has options for single target damaging options that even come with debuff riders. Occult shines against bosses and big fights because it has spells that can multitask and Arcane's big boost over Occult is AoE. Arcane can pick some of those spells up too, but that defeats the purpose. If the wizard is just preparing spells that are on the occult list regularly then is arcane better? And that doesn't even get into Occult poaching Chromatic Wall and Wall of Force giving them battlefield control if they want it. Meanwhile the wizard can never heal, their anti-invisibility spell Glitterdust is just worse than Faerie Fire. They get Summon Fey at 1st and Summon Entity at 5th so they can call in some utility. They even put fly on the Occult list so mobility from transmutation isn't a draw. There is very little on the Arcane list Occult can't at least bootleg. On the other side I feel there are a lot of things on the Occult list Arcane wishes it could do. Like heal or have defensive buffs like death ward or protection or buff like heroism. (Or get have bard proficiencies and features instead of wizard/sorc/witch ones but that's not what this is about.)
I suppose none of you ever fielded or saw a bipedal Eidolon with a greatsword that made a Fighter with a greatsword look scrawny, and then proceeded to make them feel completely unnecessary for the rest of a session.
So what if it wasn't technically as good as an ideal, fully optimized, built from a thousand books fighter?
They made most other players feel bad, because an Eidolon was a second PC run by the Summoner and they were great regardless of what you did with them.
As noted, some were just way more broken than others - but there wasn't one that didn't roll straight off the assembly line as a second martial player character.
The Fighter could outdo a non-absurd Unchained Eidolon (Pounce + Reach is hard to match no matter what) without Summoner support. Large/Huge were absurdly good too which is why they halved the bonuses in Unchained.
The Eidolon had better raw Str and damage dice (if Large/Huge) but the Fighter had higher HD + Weapon Training +Armor Training or whatever archetype he picked. To-Hit wise the Eidolon ended up behind a well geared Fighter and AC wise they had to share items with the summoner so they'd end up behind there over time as well. The Fighter would also have double the amount of feats. Now the Eidolon did get a Summoner to cast buffs on it which was a massive boon, but in a straight Eidolon vs Fighter comparison the Fighter comes out better in almost every metric (ignoring Chained Large/Huge and Pounce).
My initial impression of the Summoner is that I like the concept, but it's subpar mechanically with it pulling in so many directions.
The Eidolon is the centerpiece of the class and in combat is supposed to take the leading role with the Summoner supporting it in combat. They get 4 actions between them sort of which is the same as other pet classes but they split 2 2 action actions which is a disadvantage.
But the Eidolon is behind on all fronts compared to a martial. Its Str is behind and it doesn't get class features to boost its damage and it's stuck with a d8 weapon at best. Looking further no class feats really help the Eidolon much with combat. The ranged weapon evolution gives it another option but not a better one. Getting to Towering Evolution gets 10 ft reach, but with no AoO it just helps avoid AoOs in exchange for not fitting anywhere. The 14th level feats for resistance and saves don't stack with the level 2 cantrip that the summoner will be using a lot. With the Eidolon behind on all fronts that means the Summoner part has to make up for it right?
Not really. The Summoner half gets sorcerer proficiencies for weapons and armor. That's not a big deal, it's one general feat to fix the armor and the Eidolon was handling the attack part anyway. I feel the Summoner should get light armor to at least. They aren't casters and they are already a weak point when it comes to AoE effects, they don't need lower AC than the Eidolon without investment as well.
Spellwise the Summoner gets cantrips and 4 spells per day. I don't think 2/2 spells per day even at top level slots offsets just how behind the Eidolon is. The lower proficiency makes the key stat being Chr actually hurt since with an innate -2 and the class flavor pushing the Summoner towards picking summon and support spells which don't run off Chr. Summon X being effectively 4 actions since you can't use Act Together stings as well though there are feats to offset that.
Looking at Conduit spells,
Evolution Surge I like. It gives access to the niche evolutions when they are needed.
Boost Eidolon would be a good buff, but it doesn't even let the Eidolon keep up with other martial damage boosters like rage or sneak attack. It ends up more like a band-aid that is required to keep the Eidolon competitive which also eats the extra action the Summoner gets. +2 damage per die is the average difference between a d8 and a d12. A barbarian even not raging deals more damage with their greataxe and is more accurate than a buffed Eidolon since he has higher str. An Eidolon should be much closer to a raging barbarian when buffed.
Unfetter has a 1 minute duration. Should be 10 at least. Even moving at full speed an Eidolon couldn't even get 1/2 a mile before vanishing even moving at full speed. With a longer duration it's a good 1st level feat.
Reinforce Eidolon is good. +1 status bonus to AC and Saves and resistance to damage. Since Eidolon saves and AC are on par or better after 3rd level this is just nice and resistance to all damage is nice. Not stacking with Boost is somewhat moot when the Eidolon can't get attacks off reactions so Boost-Attack-Reinforce doesn't have a drawback.
So while I like what the Summoner does, none of it feels quite impactful enough to offset the inherent weakness of the Eidolon. Either the Summoner needs a fleshed out spell list or the Eidolon needs to get more martial abilities. With more spells the Summoner could actually afford to cast spells like haste and heroism consistently. Or it could ditch the spells entirely so that the Eidolon can shine. I prefer if it got some spells but if no casting means getting a good Eidolon I'd take it.
One last complaint: Why wait till 3rd to give the Eidolon Expert unarmored? Just having it be 2 AC behind the curve for two levels doesn't make much sense.
Uh no? Casters innately fall around 2 AC below any martial and that's IF you put a lot of points into dex. If you have 10 dex, for example, your AC is only going to be 13 compared to say a champion wearing heavy armor is at 19 (without the shield) or a monk is at 18 with 16 dex or 19 AC with 18 dex.. Rogue is at 18 AC.
The most you're hoping to get from a caster is 16 AC if you put a lot of your stats into dex. So 13-16 AC doesn't really compare with 18-19 AC.
If you want comparable AC at 3rd level, you need to devote a feat to make it work. A feat that no martial needs to devote. PLUS that feat that you devote doesn't get natural progression. They finally get expert in their unarmored defense at level...
Champion and Monk has +2 AC on everyone from level 1. That's their class feature. Heavy Armor is another +1 for anyone that gets it (Fighter/Champion). Shields are a moot point, Champions and Wizards get the same AC bonus from shields and until 20th the Champion gets nothing helping them raise a shield faster.
A level 1 wizard starting with 16 dex is behind. But by 3rd they can pick up light armor proficiency and be on par with every other martial (or 2nd for a class feat for heavy off Champion multiclass). And Bard and Druid are full casters and start with actual armor as well as Warpriest Clerics. It's not until 13th that the general armor proficiency feat falls behind and by that point you'll almost have the 20 dex expected for someone unarmored to keep up with someone in armor. Armor + Dex caps at 5 unless you have key stat dex or heavy armor where you can reach +6 or +7 with the Apex item at 20th. At 20th dex monks have the best AC in a vacuum but only at 20th.
I'd say Summoner should get light armor as part of the class and the Eidolon should get Expert at 1st so they don't have to wait till 3rd to be on the same curve as everyone else, but AC is something everyone in the party between the levels of 3 and 19 should be the same in.
You are one Player with one HP pool and set of actions. That is absolutely a distinction that helps Summoners not dominate the table from other Players.
Or you could be a ranger or druid and get 2 pools or just invest in beast master. A separate HP pool wouldn't change that much when the summoner would be a d6 and about as useful as an animal companion outside 4 spells per day. Or at least a separate condition pool since where the summoner gets really hampered isn't through HP but through the AoE save or sucks that it gets disadvantage on. The Eidolon/Summoner combo is not powerful enough to outshine other characters even without that weakness.
Also how is the eidolon weak? The summoner feels like quite a strong class already to me and my table with small if any issues.
The Eidolon is slightly behind martials on all fronts and that's before the martials start getting feats to boost their abilities and their damage fixer is the summoner spending an action which defeats the purpose of 4 actions in 1 round. They can't power attack, two weapon fight, sword and board (nothing says they can't use a shield, but it'd have to be non-magical and they can never shield block), and so on all while being stuck with a d8 weapon with no tags.
And a few spells from the Summoner doesn't make up for being behind. If the Summoner was a full multiclass archetype it'd be good but its 4 spells. And with Reinforce Eidolon and Tandem Move being almost required you don't have a fully functional class till 4th level and can't start looking at archetypes or other feats till 6th. Factor in Summoner's Call and Transpose 4 out of your 10 feats are spent on mobility and trying not to be two bodies at once rather than taking advantage of that fact.
And the capstones are blah. The plane shift one is pure flavor. And Eternal Boost is just the 16th level Maestro Bard feat for a constant cantrip.
I think it's a good base, but it needs to be dialed up. If the Eidolon is going to be a martial it needs the feats and combat support to keep up. If the Eidolon is supposed to be a subpar martial than the Summoner needs to be tuned to at least archetype caster progression and feat support to give it the support it needs. Compared to the Magus I think its a good base, but it's still not where it needs to be.
Citation Needed. The last advancement I see is Expert, from Specialized Animal Companion. And they also don't get item bonuses...
Edit: Removed attack from the "master" list
Companion max hit 20 level + 4 prof + 8 attribute = 32
Eidolon max hit 20 level + 6 prof + 5 attribute + item 3 = 34
Eidolon wins by 2
+1 to the Eidolon for the Str Apex item. No reason for the Summoner to pick up the charisma one when it gets 4 spells none at top level. It's 1 behind a martial and gets a Summoner to go with it. In terms of raw numbers its exactly where it should be. They also get more AC, damage, and access to magical items compared to an animal companion. The only number fix I could see is expert unarmored at 1st since it's really just a patch to let it keep up with other martials without armor.
I do think the Summoner needs access to more feats to give the Eidolon a more varied attack pattern than attack-attack-attack but numbers wise they are fine.
Also on the reverse side, a champion or a cleric or both in a party with a summoner is going to get a lot more milage out of their damage reduction abilities and healing when they don't have to split their abilities between two targets.
The cleric not having to walk into melee to do the touch range heal on the Eidolon is nice.
Why are the enemies just attacking the people doing something and not the clear weaklings?
If you have a group of intelligent enemies who believe themselves superior (as most enemies do) they will try to capture the weak looking enemy and use them as ransom. If not out right kill them to demoralize the other people.
All of this goes into the types of GM, the mentality of NPCs, and how willing the GM is to handhold the players.
example was yetis my group encountered recently. they did not ignore weak looking targets, they attacked everyone, flanking at times as they out numbered us.
summoner is getting attacked more and hit more often in this scenario. and this is far from being remotely uncommon in the games i play in.
Summoner casts invisibility and just doesn't take hostile actions for the fight until they are in a safer place or just flies out of the situation. Spend an action for the summoner to move and the Eidolon to attack so the turn isn't completely defensive. The summoner should have a budget of 1 spell per fight along with a staff and maybe a few scrolls. They are no more helpless than another caster and they have a full martial. If they are in that bad of a situation they just cast a defensive spell and make only one target available. If the Summoner can't survive one round of attacks before nopeing out its already an issue and if the GM is sending enough monsters that the summoner can be dropped in one round with split fire the casters are all probably bleeding on the ground as well.
requires some suspension of disbelief and a dm really handholding to not bring you down just by playing the game as normal.
Does it? What scenarios does having an extra body in the back row make you more vulnerable to attacks? If you are getting shot at with a bow you could just as easy have been shot at as single target. If you are being attacked in melee you could easily have been surrounded in melee and had a -2 from flatfooted instead (or the melee monsters walked right past the martials). So there's no situation where you on the front line (and the Eidolon has martial defenses, saves, and HP) couldn't have been attacked where the backline was unless you are being so overwhelmed with monsters they won't fit around a single target and that's before the mid level feat to just yank your Eidolon next to you in an emergency.
Defensewise the summoner really isn't that bad. They get two good saves and can invest in dex/armor feats and they get two master saves. The biggest weakness of the summoner is the multitarget save or sucks where everyone gets targeted once but that isn't a constant threat.
Really you are just one character that takes up two independent squares on the battlefield, not two characters.
I feel it doesn't help much in combat either because most enemies won't know hurting the Summoner will hurt the Eidolon and the Summoner can go hide in a corner and be unthreatening tossing a bard cantrip on the Eidolon every round. Combined with three other party members including other casters being targets I can't see many enemies going out of their way to go after the Summoner. And the summoner has decent defenses itself especially if it dips for some armor. There's nothing particularly pushing the summoner to max Chr aside from so they can have 16 Dex, Con, and Wis. At level 1 the Summoner could have equal AC to the Eidolon (and then from 3rd to 13th the Eidolon is ahead until the Summoner catches up and then the Eidolon is better at 19th and 20th). If the Summoner invests in armor they can keep up till 5th and if they get heavy armor (it's one class feat and 2 general feats for scaling heavy armor) they keep up till 19th. The only major bonus is strength with helps at the lower levels if for some reason you need to pass a strength check that your Eidolon can't do itself. But outside that I can't see getting much use out of Synthesis.
Cantrip wise, the best is Electric Arc in most situations which hurts the magus even more. The best parts about the cantrip are the possibility to hit two targets and that its a basic save instead of a spell attack. Spell strike adds an extra miss chance with no accuracy fixer and doesn't let it target two enemies at once. The magus would be better off just casting Electric Arc many times (at least until their DC starts lagging far behind compared to their weapon accuracy) and using the third action for defense or mobility than using striking spell when they don't want to use resources.
Depending on the GM they might not have ever mentioned the unique reaction the monster had. What recall knowledge tells is not something the player controls. If the GM always starts with resistances and works their way down to unique reactions when what you want to know is its unique reaction turn one you are out of luck. (True) Hypercognition can help but that's not a wizard thing. The only benefit wizard has over everyone else in recall knowledge is that he is an int caster, but Investigator has more support and is int based and occult list witch gets access to the Hypercognition spell which is great for learning about the strange creature you are fighting. Recall knowledges that don't run off Int are poor for the wizard (unless they go loremaster but at that's just taking what enigma bard has had since day 1).
Everyone going on about the Wizard's extra spell slot. The Cleric gets starting from 1st level 1+Chr mod free top level heal/harm spells so they can prep utility and buffs instead of being relegated to heal/harmbot only. Sure they can't change them out but it gives the cleric a staple top level spell they can always fall back on and it interacts with the 3 action system. Until 5th level the wizard does not have the most spells per day and it never has the most top level spells per day unless the cleric ignores charisma. Why don't wizards get an iconic spell they can actually use regularly at their top level? They get 1 spell tied to their school per day extra. Why doesn't a summoner wizard get a pool of summons or an evocation wizard a pool of magic missiles? Mastery is not one extra spell slot, it's 4 of them that eventually scales to 6 if you invest.
The thing that makes this different is the very specific wording on compositions. https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=31 When you cast a new composition all ongoing effects caused by previous compositions end. Dirge causes fear as an ongoing effect so it ends. I would agree with other people’s points if that ruling didn’t exist but it does. So things like general spell durations and different type of fear applications don’t matter. If you don’t use harmonize it’s gone. Bards are already powerful enough without giving them extra power outside RAW.
There are spells that cause Frightened as an ongoing effect and spells that cause Frightened separate from the spell itself. The Frightened condition isn't automatically an ongoing effect of the composition because the composition causes it any more than death caused by a composition is am ongoing condition caused by a composition. (Fatal Aria has no duration so the composition clearly doesn't use magic to maintain the effects) Certain mundane conditions are obviously exempt such as death (which is a condition). Frightened is in a gray area and can work either way depending on the spell though I agree that in this case it leans towards being a condition maintained by the spell rather than a mundane effect.
Eldritch nails seems like a trap to me no matter the situation unless you are confident your attack won't miss regardless of what hex you are using or they print. As you said they are str based weapons which for a witch is a steep cost. And even if you hit they still get a save vs the hex. So you are adding a chance of 4d6+7 tops in exchange for an extra chance of possibly wasting your focus point. Add in it has to be melee when you are almost always at range and it isn't really an action saver since you need to move in and you are going to want to move out. Unless you plan to be in melee anyway which is a big risk.
The Composition trait is more restrictive than the Hex trait (Outside the bard capstone that lets you spam compositions); Compositions are far less restrictive than hexes. If a bard starts dirge of doom and swaps to inspire courage he can still swap back to dirge of doom next turn. A witch cannot. If they drop their hex they can't use it again on that target for the fight meanwhile the bard can hit the entire party or group of enemies every round with whatever composition he knows. Lingering composition is more restrictive than cackle but there are plenty of fights where the bard just inspires courage and has no plans to stop. A focus point for 2/3 actions is better than a focus point for 1 even if cackle can be used on a summon to get a round of two of double summons. Restrictions that limit it to something the bard was planning to do anyway isn't really a restriction.
>Right now, we can't even do that. Not that I even think the Bard is the best comparison in this case, because the Witch has a lot more combinations/variability than the Bard by a considerable amount, but nonetheless.
A witch is a spellcaster, it picks its list and gets a hex, and that's its class. They can pick up a few hexes and make their familiar have more abilities, but neither of those make it particularly more versatile. People have gone through and compared it to each other spell casting class and witch ends up behind almost every time. Bard is the other class with a spammable class cantrip so it gets the most comparison since the spell casting isn't special combined with the iconic witch being pictured as a debuffer to the bard's buffer. It doesn't help that bard got a new muse and composition support with the APG that the witch can't hope to compare to with their cantrip.
Occult: Bard has versatility in class feats and muses, skills, compositions, a better chassis, and spontaneous casting is more versatile than prepared in 2e I'd say in terms of the adventuring day let alone that a caster bard can learn to prep spells from off list and eventually even pick up a 4th slot at each level and as a capstone make every spell they know signature.
Divine: The hex and familiar aren't bad compared to what a cloistered cleric gets, but the cleric chassis is better with an earlier master will save, wisdom casting, and 8 HP per level. The divine list is also very buff heavy but you'll also want healing while the cleric gets a pile of channels so they can prep whatever buffs they want while being an effective healer or damage dealer. Warpriest also gets better armor proficiencies and fort save at the cost of no legendary casting but for a divine list that isn't a big deal if they are heal or buff focused.
Primal: Druid just has so many more abilities and options than a witch for the same amount of casting. They have wildshape, an animal companion, good focus spells, better armor, weapons, and HP. A class DC for crit specialization even if they want to go that route. Wis casting is better than Int casting. Druid is just a well rounded class compared to the witch getting some hexes and a familiar.
Arcane: This is probably the most favorable comparison for the witch. It has the same chassis as the wizard with one extra trained skill, but one less spell per level. It's familiar is better than even a wizard who focuses on it and gets one no matter what. The hex is pretty niche though on par weaker than some of the better wizard school powers. Wizard feats aren't any better than witch feats for the most part. The witch will get better, more usable focus spells off their feats than most 8th level school powers. A wizard is probably better off just grabbing archetypes. Arcane thesis though gives the wizard several ways to either reprepare spells during the day or just get more top or low level slots or get some metamagic for free to free up the class feats. In comparison to the witch there is some variety in how it casts. So the comparison comes down to how much you value a familiar and focus hexes versus an extra spell slot and some versatility in arcane thesis. Personally I think the wizard has enough open class feats it can pick up its own super familiar or even better an animal companion off an archetype if it really wants to and the free focus spells are not strong enough to make me give up the extra spell per day and options an arcane thesis would give me. But that is just personal preference and play style at that point.
Using forum posts to gauge opinion on anything is a terrible idea. People posting here are generally going to be positive on 2nd edition. If you weren't generally positive about the current 2e paradigm there's no reason to be posting here. Paizo isn't changing their ways now and if the APG didn't change things, at this point nothing will.
If you polled current wizard players on whether they like wizard I'd be willing to bet they like it because if they hated being a wizard they stop being a wizard. If people want to play a different kind of wizard there's D&D 5e and PF1e or they just picked a different spellcasting class and took multiclass wizard if they were really attached to the arcane list (Or just reflavor a polymath bard who picks up enigma feats too or vice versa). Few people are going to bother trying to fix the wizard anymore. Anyone interested in wizard and disliked it has moved on and Paizo hasn't made any moves to change things up to bring them back. This discussion is as done to death as the battle medicine one and at this point all we can do is wait and see what Paizo does.
The best gauge for playability of classes would probably be a survey on how much people play certain classes but one of those that can actually get a random sample of PF2e players is not easy. A PFS class survey might not be a bad idea to get a feel for the dynamic right now but even then that's going to be the most dedicated and experienced group of players.
(I'm sure most of this has already been said at this point)
Part of the problem with wizard is you never actually know how long the adventuring day is going to be especially at low levels (or if today is a combat day but rarely is there a surprise adventuring day). The martials can go essentially all day with no rests as long as someone has the medicine skill, the cleric has a whole set of extra top level heal spells they can keep in their back pocket for the really dangerous fights, the bard has their compositions, and the druid has a whole swath of focus spells and an animal companion to carry them through the day. The wizard has cantrips which anyone can get off several different ancestries if they really want one and their school focus powers which are meh at best.
1 extra spell per spell level doesn't lengthen the adventuring day by that much because if you aren't spending spell slots you are doing something anyone with a second level class feat could do with a +1 to hit and +1 damage thanks to your key ability (heck at 5th and 6th a martial built to cantrip is just as good as a full caster at it thanks to casters getting expert casting at 7th). Spell Substitution only compounds that fact trading out your possible utility low level spells to try and give yourself an extra top level combat relevant spell.
A 5th level wizard (no spell substitution because at 5th it doesn't affect the total amount of top 2 level spells) has 8 top level spells, 2 of which must be of their specialist school and 1 which must have been prepped already.
With combat lasting 3-6 rounds and severe tending towards the high end of that a wizard is going to want to sit on at least 3 spells in case there's a severe fight at any point where pinging cantrips just won't cut it (if the GM throws two at you, you're pretty much useless unless that's entire adventuring day). That cuts the total useful spells for the rest of the day down to 5 (and even on non-combat days you probably want to prep that many combat spells in case there's an ambush). Any spell preped as a utility spell that's not combat related cuts into this number (like say false life to try and mitigate your low HP or invisibility sphere for the infiltration of the enemy base before you start kicking down doors). Let's say 2 utility spells are prepped that may or may not be useful for the day or aren't combat related. That leaves 3 combat useful spells. If there are 3 other combats in a day that gives you a budget of 1 spell per fight. If there are more cantrips and 1st level spells are all that is left.
But that assumes the wizard knows exactly how many fights are in a day. If he doesn't every fight he has to weigh the options of spending his one spell budget he has or trying to save it for some extra oomph in case of a severe fight. Fireball would be great against that group of Level-2 monsters, but the fighter is handling those well, maybe it should be saved for later. So the wizard is constantly weighing being inept in the current fight just in case there's a dangerous fight where he needs to contribute or even a moderately difficult fight where a well timed fireball will actually turn the tables instead of just speed up the defeat of the enemies.
In a well built party a low to mid level wizard's combat job is basically to sit on his hands until there is a dangerous fight where he is needed. Out of combat spells can be used to patch holes in skill proficiencies in the party but at low levels most downtime spells can be replicated with skill checks or just Trick Magic Item if its a low level spell. It's not until 5th to 6th level spells that the wizard can really contribute to fights outside cantrips with no worries since that's when the 3-5th level utility spells which don't fit in the spell budget at the lower levels start to shine since spells like haste or stinking cloud are always good and those slots can continue to be combat relevant even though they are low level.
Low level wizards can be fun, heck I know people enjoyed 3.5 monk, because in the end it's a role-playing game not a dice simulator, but that doesn't mean it's balanced or that a 3.5 monk was in any way a good class.
I think the issue is that a caster who invests even all 10 class feats into being a martial will still prefer just casting electric arc at any given point instead of being in melee thanks to lower AC (that's mostly fixable with champion or sentinel + general feats or just a high dex but that takes till 15th to get 20 dex), bad saves (even outside wizard no caster gets above expert in fort or reflex both of which monsters like to force on attacks, general feats can help but don't give evasion or the equivalent), low hp (-2/4 per level adds up and is only compounded by poor defenses), -3 to hit minimum assuming 16 str/dex to start, and -2-5 damage over time thanks to weapon spec and lower strength (it's a feat to get scaling martial weapons, heck you can dip bard for it now). You can spend a lot of feats mitigating those issues but you are always playing catch up, even with all the feats you have those numbers (especially on the offensive side) are hard to change and will never catch a martial even with no feat investment. Meanwhile electric arc is just sitting there with damage based on a stat you can max, autoscaling damage with no item requirement, proficiency that scales as well if not better than a martials, deals damage on a successful save, and can even hit two people at once. Slap on the forcible energy metamagic and tell your party to invest in shock weapons and you've got a build that will work till 20th, just don't expect to have free actions.
Meanwhile for a 2-5 feats a martial can be a competent utility caster since proficiency and stats doesn't change how good true strike is or most other utility spells. They will never have as many as a caster but a caster needs to spend spell slots to keep up in combat while a martial can prep whatever spells they want and still function in combat by swinging their sword. And a martial can stop taking caster feats at any point. If they want to stop at expert they can and still get the benefits of a few low level spells and staff/scroll access. A caster who dips a bit will end up falling back on cantrips making their martial dip a waste. Really the issue is spells are a very versatile class feature that is valuable at any point so being able to dip even a little is very good (on top of spells being the main class feature of casters not named bard). Being a good martial is yes or no, there is no benefit to being kind of good at swinging a sword (especially with scaling cantrips) and martial class features are heavily protected compared to spells (1d6 sneak attack ever instead of 1 feat per 1d6 up to 4d6 which would be the spell equivalent) because martials dipping other martials for their combat fixers would skew the power level very quickly. Letting a caster have bootleg rage would be fine, letting a fighter do it would make the fighter even more dominant. Compared to letting a wizard get up to 8th level occult spells (or more arcane off sorc) is the same amount of power as a fighter getting those same spells. They are a static value that doesn't stack with other features (though some spells do certainly do *cough* true strike *cough*).
With all that said I don't really see a way around the issue with how 2e works. If anything the issue is they gave martials too much access to spell casting for relatively cheap and didn't give the casters anything to make up for that. The caster chassis is worse than the martial one in almost every way and they are lacking in impactful class features that aren't cast spells (ignoring bard) and then martials can take the main class feature of casters and be almost as good especially on the utility side. How was that ever going to be balanced?
Achaekek went mad and consumed his own impartiality to become little more than a mindless beast for many eons to follow.
Any way you could elaborate a bit on that? Assassin Mantis god has always been one of the more interesting gods to me, but never seems to get much lore. Considering his shift of domains after Earthfall did something happen then to change his view?
