Pathfinder Secrets of Magic

AnimatedPaper wrote:

Well, if nothing else, Aaron now has your feedback.

I actually think there's something to your comment that it feels like we know more about what is in G&G than SoM. Probably because what we do know about SoM we don't really have a firm frame of reference. Spells, sure. Magic, yes. The two classes, definitely. But beyond that...

What IS Geomancy? Will Rune magic look like focus spells? Will pervasive magic be a player-side thing or more of a GM's tool? Class feats are guaranteed, but what kind of skill feats might be lurking? Archetypes? Rituals? Its a lot of questions!

Whereas with G&G, I have a pretty good idea on what an ancestry looks like. I might not have all the rules for a steam engine, but I can surmise what kind of games that might include. And we have example firearms to pick apart, which gives us an idea of what to expect for that entire section. Plus bombs and other consumables.

I guess my point is that whichever book has actually revealed more information, the hints we have on G&G are seemingly more rooted in rules elements we already know or were just revealed, while Shadow Magic could be any number of things.

It's in the name folks. Secrets of Magic.

Umm... yeah... that's what I said...?

The problem is that PaizoCon is roughly 5 months away, if I recall correctly; and that is only about 2 months before Secrets of Magic comes out. We usually learn a few more things about an upcoming book before that point. I hope they will tell us some details before then. I'm not looking for every detail. Well... actually, I am. :) But, I know they have to hold some stuff back. However, I also know that marketing-wise, it is always a good strategy to whet a potential audience's appetite for a book in a slow burn before release so that the audience does not forget the book is coming.

Honestly, at this point, I feel like I know more about Guns & Gears than I do about Secrets of Magic and G&G comes out 2 months after SoM. Maybe it is because G&G's playtest has more "fiddly bits" to play with (for the firearms) and more discussion about firearms in Golarion on the boards here. I'm not certain, but I do know G&G's product description and the talk on the boards has me feeling more confident in what is coming in that book than in how much I think I know about what to expect in SoM. I guess there is a reason it is called "SECRETS of Magic". :)

I guess I am also just frustrated because I am more excited for what I see in the playtest version of the new Inventor class than I ever was for the what I saw in the playtest versions of Magus and Summoner classes. It is disheartening to me because those were two of my all-time favorite classes in 1st edition and I am concerned with what happened in the SoM playtest with those classes.

Eh, first world problems... I guess I should just focus on the fact that I just survived getting over COVID and be happy with that. I've just been cooped up in the house too long, I guess. How does that song go...

With the lights out, it's less dangerous.
Here we are now, entertain us!
I feel stupid and contagious.
Here we are now, entertain us!

FIRST OF ALL, congrats on your convalescence. I hope you feel fully well soon.

Second, my VP has a different perspective, supported by data. Previews don't create preorders. Paizo has a lot of new blood, so don't expect the "usual" patterns to necessarily hold if they don't work. More and more we are focusing on posting content after a book launches, when fans can actually click and buy here, at FLGS, and online retailers. And more and more our Director of Brand Strategy is focusing on blog content that points to a product, but is free and evergreen, like fiction, NPCs, encounters, etc with a softer touch that I am not capable of, but fully support.

On the other hand, to no one's surprise, we also want to promote subscriptions, so some previews need to be written to convince new players to subscribe. You veterans may or may not be subscribers, but will likely scrub the evergreen brand content for every little clue and enjoy the heck out of doing so. So yes, we want to keep you entertained and we are grateful for your enthusiasm, but revealing a lot about a book before it launches? Not so much. Buzz is great, but marketing loves a Call to Action that includes a purchase.

By my count we have over 160+ Paizo products this year, along with numerous partner products, Kickstarters, Humble Bundles, cons, charities, liveplays, and community content to promote. To keep up the pace, most of the Creative Team is rightfully too busy creating to promote. So I'm being as strategic as I can be about where and when I shine the spotlight. I find myself spending some weekends and evenings scheduling social media campaigns on art, lore, and rules because I'm so darn excited about these games, so I my "martyrdom is of my own making," haha. Still, it is all about maintaining a marathon pace, not a sprint. We are not a big team.

Please try to focus on the new release in front of you, because that is what we will be doing. Look to social media for previews. Even though they need to be shorter than a blog (because short attention spans), I can post a lot more of them there than via the blogs.

Have some faith regarding the final versions of the Magus and Summoner classes. The design team has a history of listening to players. Open Playtests are not their only tools. And I am sure PaizoCon will contain many revelations. Adventures Ahead!

Awesome insight into the marketing at Paizo! Thanks for taking the time to explain it, Aaron. As an outsider peeking in, it is very insightful and I find it is always a good thing to learn about industries where I only have the knowledge of a lay person. I guess I won't keep my hopes up about seeing anything on the blog regarding this book before a late May at PaizoCon, then, and just hope for a tweet or two before the con.

I do have faith in the designers, though. It's just that I was hoping to learn a little bit about what direction they took to fix some of the issues we saw in the playtest.

Waiting is... waiting for fullness is... As the Martian said. :-)

Also this book isn't coming out till end of July. We have still have 6 1/2 months for them to tease stuff out.

Also this book isn't coming out till end of July. We have still have 6 1/2 months for them to tease stuff out.

Yeah, but according to the post from Aaron above, it sounds like nothing will be teased for the next 4 1/2 months of that time.

Kelseus wrote:

Also this book isn't coming out till end of July. We have still have 6 1/2 months for them to tease stuff out.

Yeah, but according to the post from Aaron above, it sounds like nothing will be teased for the next 4 1/2 months of that time.

We have other things in the meanwhile though? Ancestry Guide, Bestiary 3, the Mwangi Expanse book... I think we'll have plenty of things to talk about and look forward to before that one.

Ashanderai wrote:

Kelseus wrote:

Also this book isn't coming out till end of July. We have still have 6 1/2 months for them to tease stuff out.

Yeah, but according to the post from Aaron above, it sounds like nothing will be teased for the next 4 1/2 months of that time.

We have other things in the meanwhile though? Ancestry Guide, Bestiary 3, the Mwangi Expanse book... I think we'll have plenty of things to talk about and look forward to before that one.

Yes, we will, and I am excited about that stuff, too. But, that is a different issue than what I was talking about.

Anyway, to get this back on topic... what sorts of other Magus Syntheses... or whatever the name gets changes to (I want to call them something like Eldritch Techniques, Fusion Casting, or Arcane Tactics)... do you think we might end up with in addition to the ones from the playtest, if any? We know about Sustaining Steel for the 2-handed weapon casting style w/HP boost, Shooting Star for the ranged weapon casting, and Slide Casting for the 1-handed weapon & free hand casting with movement.

I'm hoping for:
Sword & Board for a weapon and shield casting style
Pugilist for the Unarmed Martial Artist caster style
Double Weapon casting style

I'm not bothering to come up with fancy names for these since it is just theory-crafting hopes I'm talking about here, anyway.

I’m almost certain we’ll see a gun synthesis in guns and gears, as they’ve talked a lot about gunmages

honestly and this will probably be unpopular im hoping for a lot more necromancy stuff specifically rituals (yes yes I know you're not supposed to play evil) but some of us do! let's us have the very basics of the ritual of undeath (we can already summon alot of undead & even demons) maybe something like a family curse control ritual you get a npcs or even pcs blood do the ritual & thier family is under your control as long as you have the pendent jewel ect?

yes your assumed to be heroes but thiers already plenty of evil options in the books. lean into that a bit more paizo sometimes evil is fun!

They’ll most likely be evil options for stuff in the book.

What you mentioned though it’s not so much the evil aspect, as it is the niche aspect of that type of content.

I'm hoping we'll get the rules for a homunculus familiar. It was disappointing that the APG had rules elements that required a homunculus familiar but never told us how to get one or what it's abilities are.

I do hope we get... not so much spoilers, but a more descriptive summary of what's going to be in the book. With what's written I feel a lot of peoples' expectations are getting maybe a little too high, hoping for all sorts of random stuff (me included).

I do hope we get... not so much spoilers, but a more descriptive summary of what's going to be in the book. With what's written I feel a lot of peoples' expectations are getting maybe a little too high, hoping for all sorts of random stuff (me included).

Yeah, I wish the description would be more like Guns and Gears', with contents listed.

I'm hoping we'll get the rules for a homunculus familiar. It was disappointing that the APG had rules elements that required a homunculus familiar but never told us how to get one or what it's abilities are.

Like this?

Gisher wrote:

I'm hoping we'll get the rules for a homunculus familiar. It was disappointing that the APG had rules elements that required a homunculus familiar but never told us how to get one or what it's abilities are.

Like this?

Not the Alchemical Familiars. The APG twice mentions having a Homunculus as a familiar. It is pretty clearly a Specific Familiar like the Faerie Dragon, Imp, and Spellslime, but there wasn't an entry for it.

Gaulin wrote:

I do hope we get... not so much spoilers, but a more descriptive summary of what's going to be in the book. With what's written I feel a lot of peoples' expectations are getting maybe a little too high, hoping for all sorts of random stuff (me included).

Yeah, I wish the description would be more like Guns and Gears', with contents listed.

Noted. I'm sure we wanted to be vague until more is written. I'll explore updated text.

It might just be the nature of the book, I remember at gencon when Logan was talking about it, he said basically things would be put in if they fit the theme of a section. Like maybe an elemental druid in the element section, etc. But it really does lend itself to a lot of speculation and wishing because of it.

I wonder if it'll have any more magic-oriented animal companions. I'm not entirely sure what that would look like, but sounds like a fun idea.

I mean, I guess that's what familiars are, but I guess I was more thinking like an animal companion that has some kind of simple spell-ish ability as its advanced maneuver or something.

This is the GEN CON release correct?

This is the GEN CON release correct?

Yes.

What are the odds of getting teasers for some of the new spells once we get closer to release?

Also, don't know the odds of something like this appearing in this book, but I would love to eventually see some rules on making our own spells if we want to. Not necessarily anything too set in stone or hard written rules, but just some general guidelines and tips for abilities, damage, and such that would serve as touch-points for making them.

There is a game (Harnmaster) where magic deliberately works like that (PCs inventing spells) There's some specific guidance, but the general rule is "look at existing spells and see what level they are for what they can do, and make your new spells accordingly". Also, designing new spells in Harnmaster is heavily dependent on GM interaction - you don't just let players come up with whatever they want and say "okay, that's fine". There's also some discussion about how the spells that exist in the world define how the world works, and that if you add new spells, you change the way the world works. One example I remember: there is no "fly" spell. If you allow a "fly" spell, you change things in drastic ways (you can, for example, map an awfully big area from ten thousand feet).

I don't know the odds of this kind of thing appearing in PF2E either, but I'd guess they're not all that high.

Is that tentacled being Yamasoth from behind the doomsday door?

What are the odds of getting teasers for some of the new spells once we get closer to release?

Also, don't know the odds of something like this appearing in this book, but I would love to eventually see some rules on making our own spells if we want to. Not necessarily anything too set in stone or hard written rules, but just some general guidelines and tips for abilities, damage, and such that would serve as touch-points for making them.

The plan is to some kind of preview in time to inspire people to subscribe to the Rulebook line, a couple more before the street date to build enthusiasm, and then several "how to use this book now that you have it" type posts after launch. It is too far out to give details. I have not seen it yet. Focusing on the Bestiary 3 next.

Do we know if spheres of power is in this book? I remember someone mentioning it, but I might have made it up, or am associating someone saying "I hope there's spheres of power in this!"

Do we know if spheres of power is in this book? I remember someone mentioning it, but I might have made it up, or am associating someone saying "I hope there's spheres of power in this!"

That last thing, to the best of my knowledge, Spheres of Power are not confirmed for this. The only thing that could possible be in that vein, is the fact that we know there are things in this to 'address' vancian casting. But since the designers only cryptically said 'yes' we don't even know what that means.

Also, we should note that this is a third-party system.
I have high doubts Paizo will copy a big third-party thing like that. At least, not without hiring the original writers for that.

Steelbro300 wrote:

Do we know if spheres of power is in this book? I remember someone mentioning it, but I might have made it up, or am associating someone saying "I hope there's spheres of power in this!"

That last thing, to the best of my knowledge, Spheres of Power are not confirmed for this. The only thing that could possible be in that vein, is the fact that we know there are things in this to 'address' vancian casting. But since the designers only cryptically said 'yes' we don't even know what that means.

Those mischievous designers. :)

Speaking of mischievous designers. :-)

My favorite "rules of magic": P.E.I. Bonewits' Authentic Thaumaturgy. Every mage has one or more (usually more, up to maybe half a dozen) "psychic abilities" (e.g., telepathy, heat control, cold control, various forms of psychokinesis) which can be combined with the "Laws of Magic" (e.g. the Law of Contagion, the Law of Similarity, the Law of True Names) to produce a magical effect. Various techniques can be used to increase the base chance of successfully casting the spell. Spells are generally devised by individual mages, and spells that produce "the same" or similar effects may use quite different psychic abilities or Laws. For instance, you might use gravity control to increase the gravitational pull in your target's vicinity, effectively pinning him to the ground. Or you or another mage might use density control to make him heavier by increasing his density, with the same effect. There are various kinds of magic (e.g. thaumaturgy vs theurgy).

My second favorite rules: N. Robin Crossby's HârnMaster Gold: The Shek-P'var wherein every spell is a separate skill, each one has its own skill base, which for a given caster depends on that caster's Aura and Intelligence), and each one has its own mastery level, which ranges from (usually) twice the skill base to 100+ the skill base. Effective mastery level is mastery level modified by environment and other considerations and ranges up to 95, which means there's always a 5% chance of failure. Mages learn spells by researching them, a complex process that may depend on a mentor or written work or involve independent study and can take several days - and several tries. This is an elemental magic system, the six elements being Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Spirit, and Metal. Whatever your primary "convocation" (which depends on to which element you attune in your apprenticeship) researching and casting spells of other convocations will be more difficult, and in some cases impossible.

I am looking forward to any previews of the finalized magus. The playtest one was close but not quite right.

Hope they fix the magus class

Hope they fix the magus class

Same here. I hope they fix both classes.

Magus really suffers a LOT from 4 spells per day. I'd rather remove spells all together and give them easily renewable focus spells and cantrips.

For the Eidolon, more customization. In fact, I noticed that the Inventor's construct innovation got a ton of customization and is what I'd like the summoner to have in a similar way.

Then it'll be perfect.

Figured I'd let the people here know about the spoilers they revealed in this month's Paizo Live livestream.

Logan Bonner revealed 2 types of casting found in the book's final chapter, the "Book of Unlimited Magic": First is Geomancy, which is how the terrain will interact with your spells.

More importantly, the second is called Flexible Preparation. Described as the type of casting the Arcanist does, you know less spells known per day, but in exchange you can cast them however you want. So i.e. the neo-Vancian casting from D&D 5e that people have been asking for.

They also had spoilers from Starfinder, as well as the Lost Omens' next 2 books "Mwangi Expanse" and "The Grand Bazaar". I'll be posting the LO spoilers in their product pages.

Figured I'd let the people here know about the spoilers they revealed in this month's Paizo Live livestream.

Logan Bonner revealed 2 types of casting found in the book's final chapter, the "Book of Unlimited Magic": First is Geomancy, which is how the terrain will interact with your spells.

More importantly, the second is called Flexible Preparation. Described as the type of casting the Arcanist does, you know less spells known per day, but in exchange you can cast them however you want. So i.e. the neo-Vancian casting from D&D 5e that people have been asking for.

They also had spoilers from Starfinder, as well as the Lost Omens' next 2 books "Mwangi Expanse" and "The Grand Bazaar". I'll be posting the LO spoilers in their product pages.

Was it spells known or spell slots? I can't remember

Ezekieru wrote:

Figured I'd let the people here know about the spoilers they revealed in this month's Paizo Live livestream.

Logan Bonner revealed 2 types of casting found in the book's final chapter, the "Book of Unlimited Magic": First is Geomancy, which is how the terrain will interact with your spells.

More importantly, the second is called Flexible Preparation. Described as the type of casting the Arcanist does, you know less spells known per day, but in exchange you can cast them however you want. So i.e. the neo-Vancian casting from D&D 5e that people have been asking for.

They also had spoilers from Starfinder, as well as the Lost Omens' next 2 books "Mwangi Expanse" and "The Grand Bazaar". I'll be posting the LO spoilers in their product pages.

Was it spells known or spell slots? I can't remember

The exact quote:

"And there's also one called Flexible Preparation, which is kind of a cross between Prepared magic and Spontaneous magic. If you remember the Arcanist from Pathfinder First Edition, it's kinda similar to that where you're going to prepare a smaller number of spells per day but you'll be able to cast each of those as many times as you want instead of going 1-to-1 for your prepared spells to what you can cast."

So I'm guessing, you keep the same number of slots, but you don't get to prepare the same number of spells to your spell slots, limiting you that way but allowing you to cast them like a spontaneous spellcaster would.

Why is it so hard to get to this forum, I never expect Pathfinder 2 books to be filed under Paizo and I didn't find it in a search either ;w;

Anyway, yeah, this basically seems like the neo-Vancian lots of people ask for and likely what they meant by "addressing" the style. Unclear what the trade-off will be or how it can be implemented, but my bet is a no-cost variant rule for either prepared casters or all casters that doesn't touch spells known but effectively shaves off one spell preparation per spell level.

For example, if you have 3 Lv 1 spell slots you know 3 spells, but can only prepare 2, though you have free reign on which slots are used to cast them. Since it's kinda worse than spontaneous casting if you know as many spells but can't prepare as many to actually use, they might throw in the ability to freely heighten, or maybe the ability to vary the amount of spells prepared across levels and pay to learn more to prepare from is enough. Also not sure how they'll balance that against Clerics and Druids who don't need to learn spells at all.

Trickier than I expected! Whatever they decide, I'm definitely looking forward to the Book of Unlimited Magic and the classes. :>

From the existence and description of the Secrets of Magic spell cards (with 400 cards!), we now have confirmation that this book is loaded with new spells.

Based on the bits of info we've gotten the last couple of days, I think maybe people should temper expectations in regards to player options. 400 spells, 2 classes, some alternate spellcasting rules and a few more things detailed in the description is a ton to pack into a little over 250 pages. I've seen a lot of people expressing hopes for class feats and a ton of other stuff, but I kind of doubt a lot of that will be in this book.

I shall await "Secrets of Magic: The Sequel". :-)

Based on the bits of info we've gotten the last couple of days, I think maybe people should temper expectations in regards to player options. 400 spells, 2 classes, some alternate spellcasting rules and a few more things detailed in the description is a ton to pack into a little over 250 pages. I've seen a lot of people expressing hopes for class feats and a ton of other stuff, but I kind of doubt a lot of that will be in this book.

400 spell cards. There are multiple copies of spells on multiple lists.

I am very excited to see this 'neo-vancian' variation and how its implemented, hopefully it'll be some kind of player facing option. I am also very excited by that spell card entry, this is probably going to enable a LOT of caster concepts that had to dilute themselves a bit before.

Gaulin wrote:

Based on the bits of info we've gotten the last couple of days, I think maybe people should temper expectations in regards to player options. 400 spells, 2 classes, some alternate spellcasting rules and a few more things detailed in the description is a ton to pack into a little over 250 pages. I've seen a lot of people expressing hopes for class feats and a ton of other stuff, but I kind of doubt a lot of that will be in this book.

400 spell cards. There are multiple copies of spells on multiple lists.

Yes, that is why I was careful not to give a specific number of spells. But given that there are only four spell lists in PF2, that would be an absolute minimum of 100 spells, with 200 or so being more likely.

As for feats, I am pretty sure that we can count on at least basic sets of class feats and multiclassing feats for each of the two new classes. How far they go beyond those feats depends on what else they have in the book that requires some sort of feat support.

QuidEst wrote:

Gaulin wrote:

Based on the bits of info we've gotten the last couple of days, I think maybe people should temper expectations in regards to player options. 400 spells, 2 classes, some alternate spellcasting rules and a few more things detailed in the description is a ton to pack into a little over 250 pages. I've seen a lot of people expressing hopes for class feats and a ton of other stuff, but I kind of doubt a lot of that will be in this book.

400 spell cards. There are multiple copies of spells on multiple lists.

Yes, that is why I was careful not to give a specific number of spells. But given that there are only four spell lists in PF2, that would be an absolute minimum of 100 spells, with 200 or so being more likely.

As for feats, I am pretty sure that we can count on at least basic sets of class feats and multiclassing feats for each of the two new classes. How far they go beyond those feats depends on what else they have in the book that requires some sort of feat support.

remember also that some of these will undoubtedly be focus spells for the magus and summoner.

remember also that some of these will undoubtedly be focus spells for the magus and summoner.

Yes, but I think we can assume that this is not a very large number. Max of 20 total between the two classes, with more likely closer to 15. I would say 200 new spells is a fair estimate.

KaiBlob1 wrote:

remember also that some of these will undoubtedly be focus spells for the magus and summoner.

Yes, but I think we can assume that this is not a very large number. Max of 20 total between the two classes, with more likely closer to 15. I would say 200 new spells is a fair estimate.

We got 149 new spells with the APG. The APG spell cards were numbered 225. If we assume a similar distribution of tradition overlap and new focus spells, we could assume for about twice the cards.

(A direct "149/225 = X/425" with simple substitutions gives us around ~280 new spells. I still don't get my hopes up for that number of spells though. Going with a very conservative "400" new cards, we end up with around ~265.)

400 as the number of cards is known from the product description. It is the number of distinct spells that we are speculating about.

400 as the number of cards is known from the product description. It is the number of distinct spells that we are speculating about.

I am speculating about the exact same thing though?

Also note: The APG cards were advertised as "more than 150 cards" and ended up with 225 cards, so "400" is not the exact number, it could be anything between 401 and 450 I would say... (And even then, based on the APG cards it could even get close to 500 cards, but I wouldn't get my hopes up that they under-advertised that much two times in a row.)

Kelseus wrote:

KaiBlob1 wrote:

remember also that some of these will undoubtedly be focus spells for the magus and summoner.

Yes, but I think we can assume that this is not a very large number. Max of 20 total between the two classes, with more likely closer to 15. I would say 200 new spells is a fair estimate.

We got 149 new spells with the APG. The APG spell cards were numbered 225. If we assume a similar distribution of tradition overlap and new focus spells, we could assume for about twice the cards.

And here I'm assuming there are also new focus spells for existing classes.
200~250 new spells would be a very conservative estimate. It's possible it could go up to 300, but I wouldn't get my hope up.

(A direct "149/225 = X/425" with simple substitutions gives us around ~280 new spells. I still don't get my hopes up for that number of spells though. Going with a very conservative "400" new cards, we end up with around ~265.)

I brain-farted.

139 of the 225 cards in the APG are actual spells.
So that would make it about 63/139 = ~45% of the spell cards remain if you remove all the "doubles".
If we go with 425 cards, and maybe about 50 new focus spells? So that leaves us 375 cards... So about ~170 unique spells if we assume a similar overlap as in APG.

If we assume no focus spells, We're at almost 200 unique spells. I just realized it's impossible, Magus and Summoner are likely to get some.

170 new spells are still more than double the APG spells! :O
That's kinda a lot of spells. o_o

(Even if we assume the same number of focus spells as in APG (86), it's still ~150 new spells, again more than double the amount in APG.)

Hm. What, exactly, is a spell?