Wizard Substitution for all Casters


Homebrew and House Rules


Would it be broken to remove it as a Thesis and simply exchanging it as an action all Prepared Casters can do instead of Refocusing?


Probably wouldn't be broken but the two classes that benefit the most from it (cleric and druid due to knowing most of their list) are already pretty good.


'Instead of refocusing' may be a bit too high of a cost.

Witch is a prepared caster too. They will want to be able to refocus.


It is rather a choice, spend 10 minutes to refocus or to switch out a spell with another spell, you know instead. Not that they wouldn't be able to refocus focus points. I should have been more detailed in that.

Sovereign Court

It would be particularly good for cleric and druid yeah. Maybe this should only be something that's available for prepared casters that don't automatically know their entire spell list (witch, wizard, magus)?


"Would it be broken" I would say is not a very useful metric, because Pathfinder 2e is a system that will still continue to function under all but the most extreme of house rules, and "broken" is a highly subjective standard that varies from person to person. I think the more useful way to broach this kind of house rule is to go through its potential impact, and whether or not that is something you're okay with having at your table.

In the case of this particular house rule, the impact is that every prepared caster, in addition to whichever benefits they may currently have, will have the advantage of having at least one spell that is likely to be perfect for the next encounter. Though I would personally consider this change unnecessary, I would also not find this super-disruptive to my table unless the party also had spontaneous casters, a Kineticist, or some other class with a versatile toolset that's mostly locked in. If you're fine with your prepared casters being more versatile, and you're sure this doesn't eat anyone else's lunch at your table, then this should be fine.

I will say, though, that this house rule may also have the benefit of being a good learning tool for newer players: starting out as a prepared caster in Pathfinder is deceptively difficult, because a lot of those classes' power stems from having the game knowledge to prepare spells optimally, and know based on context which spells to go for the next day. There is a major chance players might underperform as a prepared caster to begin with, and this kind of feature would give players more of a chance to adjust on the fly and figure out which spells work best for which situations. I'd be much more likely to allow this house rule at my table if my players were new to Pathfinder, though I'd also probably relax the rules on retraining for everyone else too as players figure out their build.

Sovereign Court

I really like Teridax's analysis.

I also tend to be pretty liberal with retraining. In fact, unless a downtime/uptime cycle was really a part of the campaign theme (it might be in Kingmaker?) I would probably just kinda waive required retraining days and just say "okay, in between these two missions, feel free to make some changes".

There used to be this fear that players would abuse that, selecting stuff at low level that they would then switch out for different stuff, based on knowing it would only be good at low level.

But the way PF2 class feats are set up, that fear doesn't really manifest so much. Most of the low-level feats don't get replaced in function by higher level feats. For a fighter, stuff like Sudden Charge stays useful at all levels for example. Similar for a wizard with Reach Spell.

The Uncanny Acumen feat is really just the weird exception here as far as I can tell.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Second Edition / Homebrew and House Rules / Wizard Substitution for all Casters All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Homebrew and House Rules