
Ravingdork |
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Because spellcasting characters can target the lowest of four defenses, whereas martial characters generally cannot.
Giving caster characters bonuses on top of that versatility, even for only one of those four defenses, would greatly impinge upon the balance of martial characters, resulting in their being far less desirable for most players.
In short, you would end up with the old 1e problem of no one playing martial characters after level 5. Nobody needs that again.

Dragonhearthx |
Because spellcasting characters can target the lowest of four defenses, whereas martial characters generally cannot.
Giving caster characters bonuses on top of that versatility, even for only one of those four defenses, would greatly impinge upon the balance of martial characters, resulting in their being far less desirable for most players.
In short, you would end up with the old 1e problem of no one playing martial characters after level 5. Nobody needs that again.
thank you. I didn't know there was a history. (Bad blood)
I appreciate your time.
Unicore |
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Additionally, there was a desire for casting spells to feel different from making martial attacks. There are other games that basically treat magic like any other weapon that a character can train and specialize in, but it has a track record of making characters feel very similar to each other. The PF2 system was intentionally designed around avoiding that effect, and letting magic feel magical and not just turn "ray" and "blast" into new kinds of weapons.
Runes that work exactly the same for spells as they do for weapons would push those spells into just feeling like weapons with different names. They wanted a system where the way you get better at casting spells was different than just "spend money getting better tools," which is pretty much most of the narrative growth of weapon users.

Ruzza |
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To further add in, item bonuses to spell attack rolls (at the time separated into the wordy "non-weapon melee touch attack rolls" and "spell that requires a non-weapon ranged attack") were playtested back in 2019. For the reasons mentioned above, they didn't make the cut.
I grabbed out my Playtest book and snapped a quick picture for posterity.
EDIT: This was also the time that magic weapons went up to +5. As you can see the spellcasting item bonuses become available later than the bonuses typically were. Even during the playtest, the designers were bearing in mind the strengths that casters would have.

Dragonhearthx |
To further add in, item bonuses to spell attack rolls (at the time separated into the wordy "non-weapon melee touch attack rolls" and "spell that requires a non-weapon ranged attack") were playtested back in 2019. For the reasons mentioned above, they didn't make the cut.
I grabbed out my Playtest book and snapped a quick picture for posterity.
EDIT: This was also the time that magic weapons went up to +5. As you can see the spellcasting item bonuses become available later than the bonuses typically were. Even during the playtest, the designers were bearing in mind the strengths that casters would have.
[cat's eyes go wide] fascinating!

Crouza |
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I'm trying to find it but Mark Seifter or micheal sayre spoke on this a bit and basically, it came down to people in the playtest not liking potency runes on their spells, and that spells were balanced around them not being there.
Most people bring up true strike, but there's more than just true strike to consider. Spells like bless and heroism, or various spells that lower enemy AC, would need to be re-evaluated based on Casters having an always active buff to their accuracy. You would also need to rebalance save spells and attack spells to prevent one from being crazily over-valued by the math than the other.
Changes to how caster hit things have knock on effects unless properly isolated to casters only. Hence why stuff like the shadow signet ring exists, it's to give casters the ability to hit a lower AC on the enemy that won't necessitate a change in the balance of saving throw spells, attack spells, and enemy AC.