Hey, we've been playing Savage Tide since PF Alpha has been out, dutifully updating everytime. I'm going to post some feedback from my wizard player. He has been playing an elven wizard since level 4, he is currently level 6. He has been played through Fiend's Embrace and the Bullywug Gambit.
General Gameplay Feedback
I'm going to ramble here a bit at the beginning. Most of the following comments apply generally to the 3E system.
Since 3.5, and even a bit before that I've played wizards almost to exclusion. I've played them at under 5th level almost to exclusion for various reasons most of which are not directly related to any choice on my part. Honestly, I enjoy them. Who doesn't like throwing around fireballs and torching entire groups of enemies? Who doesn't like being able to fly circles around the party and turn invisible? Wizards hands down are pretty darn cool. Still, the class has, and always has had some serious limitations.
The most obvious of them is the direct damage crunch. I'm sure someone somewhere after reading that just had their head explode. I'm sure there is someone busy typing a response that torches me for using direct damage spells at all on a wizard. I've heard it all before. "Use debuffing! Use battlefield control! Use save or lose spells! Use save AND lose spells." Yes, I got the memo. Using a wizard to actually kill things is so 2E. I've seen, and in some cases in other characters primarily for PBP games, even used the little lists of uber awesome spells. I won't deny that they can be very powerful when things go your way.
The thing is, in every situation a party isn't able to set up things as they'd like. In this game more often then not we've had to fight in very close quarters where we weren't all even able to get into the fight, where battlefield control was sometimes as harmful to us as our enemies. I've seen the super awesome power of glitterdust. I've seen it utterly fail to affect our foes because of save after save. I've also experienced the frustration of a sheet full of spells that were of no direct application to a fight. Maybe at higher levels when I've got more slots in general, and access to higher level spells overall things will be different. I'm definantly not committed to using only damaging spells. As a side note, pathfinder as nerfed a large number of the supposed low level win spells, from Web to Glitterdust. Further, without access to spells outside of core a large number of the "win" spells aren't available.
It's also worth nothing on this point, that the foes we have faced thus far, or at least I have faced thus far with the party haven't exactly been accommodating to the use of disabling spells. For more info feel free to check out the Savage Tide adventure path. From underwater action that rendered grease and glitterdust worth then useless, to foes who ignored sleep and similar spells, going for the cute debuffing and save vs. lose spells has not gone well for me. As a sidebar, the supposition on the CO boards that once you have a foe blind/unable to reach you/debuffed the fight is over is deeply offensive to me, based on actual gameplay. Foes don't just stand around screaming "BLAST ME" when they are debuffed. They run, hide, or do any number of annoying things. Further there isn't enough blasting to go around. This brings us back to...
The direct damage crunch. The fact is at this level I can't keep up with a full attack by the parties front liners. Even a single power attack does more damage then my most damaging spell (fireball in this case). Second level attack spells are less then stellar. Scorching ray in a level or two will be more impressive then it is now (currently 4d6). That doesn't help me now. I'm using 2nd level slots for magic missile. Now that will probably change moving forward, still I find it interesting overall. The spell is easily my most versatile at the moment. Allies in melee? Magic missile. Can't get in a position to fireball? Magic missile. To much collateral damage for a fireball to be practical? Magic missile.
The sad fact is I can't kill a foe of the same level before they can kill me with direct damage spells. Even if I had as many hit points as the fighters I still wouldn't win that matchup, and let me assure you I don't have anywhere near as many of they do, even with very good hp rolls and a high con. Similarly, when I use debuffing I often cannot kill them myself before the debuffs wear off or I run out of spells. That's when the debuffs are 100% effective. I am almost completely dependent on the party at this point. Just to illustrate the point here, it takes maybe 3 swings from a party fighter to put me under. Less if they get a lucky crit. On the other hand I need between 8-10 magic missiles or 4-6 fireballs (without saving throws, more if they save, which they have roughly a 50% chance of doing) to bring them down. Obviously comparing PCs, wizards with fighters in 1 on 1 match ups isn't fair and never has been. PC classes aren't meant to fight each other. They serve different purposes in different ways. Everything doesn't have to be perfectly equal. If I wanted everyone to do the same damage with every attack I'd go play 4E. Still, their stats are a fair representation of the foes at this level. Stick Heinrick or Brutus against a foe and they win most of the time losing some resources. Stick me against a foe alone and I burning nearly all my resources for the day against it just to stay alive.
It's frustrating to only have a handful of attack spells overall, and to have them each doing less damage then an attack by my allies. Attacks that don't run out for them.
It wasn't unexpected. As I've said, most of my gameplay experience is in this level bracket as a wizard, so I'm used to fighters dominating the game (which is part of why I've always objected to this idea that wizards were so overpowered, but I digress). The situation is much more pronounced in Pathfinder then 3.5. The changes to power attack seem to favor power attack at low levels and disfavor high levels, though I'm not certain as I haven't' looked at it closely. We'll have to see as things move forward. It might just be that the others are better at building and playing fighters then those I played with in person in the past. Hell it's probably both.
What I'm building up to with this is pretty simple, I'm really starting to agree with a post I saw somewhere not long ago that mocked the Evocation bonus ability, +1 damage per 5 levels and suggested a +5 bonus to spell damage per spell level (+5 for a first level spell, +10 second level, +15 third). Or something similar. If you are going to limit my attacks to a preset limit each day they should be stronger then normal attacks. Just my thought on it.
I won't deny the situation is better for wizards in Pathfinder in many ways then in standard 3.5. The bonus spells each day are really helpful, as are the specialist bonuses which give you a nifty ability to use in combat when out of spells so you aren't reduced to firing a crossbow. Some rulings by Kain have helped further mitigate the pain of playing a low level wizard. Still, I can't help but feel the fighter is darn attractive as a class - which is what I've maintained all along. More later.