Okay so I'm not getting into the debate as to whether or not Paizo went too far in trying to balance spellcasters & martials that they ended up nerfing magic users. That isn't what this thread is about.(and personally I'd probably come down on the side of the martials if it was)
What this is about is asking if, from an in-universe, lore/character perspective, is magic weaker than it used to be?
From a gameplay perspective, full casters in Pathfinder(and by extension, the pathfinder era; the distant past of Starfinder), were able to cast 9th level spells while Starfinder mystics & technomancers are only able to cast 6th level spells.
Is that, strictly speaking, purely a gameplay abstraction? More than a few of the 6th level spells in Starfinder were 7th or higher in Pathfinder. So is it that purely a gameplay decision where previously Paizo wanted to keep the stronger spells out of reach for longer to maintain the fiction of balance(and tradition of the game's lineage) and with the prevalence of advanced technology closing the gap, that's no longer necessary so the spell levels have been condensed to streamline the system but nothing's changed in universe?
Or, continuing on with that from an in-universe perspective, the levels assigned to spells were never actually a hard and fast, immutable law of how magic worked but rather a simple categorization given to them by mortal spell casters, and in the centuries since PF, magic users in universe have re-categorized & condensed the spells?
Or is it actually a thing that the spellcasters of the post-gap era are weaker than the most powerful wizards/sorcerers/witches/arcanists/clerics/druids/oracles/shaman/pychics of the past, and that they tell tales of the awesome power of casters of ages past?
Or is it one of those things that was erased by the Gap? Which wouldn't make a lot of sense given what all else they've managed to put together, and if nothing else, there should be some 9th level casters hanging out on Eox.
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"9th level spells" as Pathfinder conceived them seem like kind of a meaningless category in Starfinder's magic engine. Wish is a sixth level spell. The engine has been rebalanced, it's not that three levels of spellcasting have been lopped off the top and nothing else changed. So I don't think the question as to where the 9th-level spellcasters are is a very meaningful one in that sense. (There's also the question of whether tech is essentially its own supplementary form of "magic" in Starfinder and should be factored in here, to which I personally think the answer is "yes.")
That's not to say that there isn't magic available in the new setting beyond what we presently see. There surely is. I expect it means that when we see higher than 6th-level spells appear they will be the kind of thing that has epic effects on the scale of star systems or the galaxy in general: the kind of magic that might produce something like the Godshield, or even be able to sound the mysteries of the Gap. And it will probably be a Big Deal whose revelation is the subject of multiple adventure paths.
I rationalize it as a combination of society becoming less reliant on magic (and devoting less time/energy to it) and many of the secrets of magic being "lost to the sands of time".
I frequently throw in references to PF spellcasting in story elements, such as stumbling across ancient scrolls that describe mystics able to change form as easily as changing clothes (wildshape), but that only dragons and demons are capable of such extraordinary feats of magic now.
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Is magic weaker than before? The real answer is "nobody knows." The Gap saw to that.
It also presumes that just because no one *casts* 9th level spells, that nobody ever *uses* 9th level spell effects. There are likely plenty of such use. . . by and via technomagical constructs. Nobody needs to cast Meteor Swarm, if people instead build Cannons of Meteor Swarm in a factory.
A Cannon of Meteor Swarm would be a ridiculously high level weapon and would likely be just as rare as the spell itself. Most weapons in the book don't really compare to a weapon that attacks four times in a single attack action that deals 6d6 damage (8d6 direct hit) in a 40ft. radius.
It also presumes that just because no one *casts* 9th level spells, that nobody ever *uses* 9th level spell effects. There are likely plenty of such use. . . by and via technomagical constructs. Nobody needs to cast Meteor Swarm, if people instead build Cannons of Meteor Swarm in a factory.A Cannon of Meteor Swarm would be a ridiculously high level weapon and would likely be just as rare as the spell itself. Most weapons in the book don't really compare to a weapon that attacks four times in a single attack action that deals 6d6 damage (8d6 direct hit) in a 40ft. radius.
Except (if you adjust for the different abstractions) the weapons used in space combat, which do accomplish this.
(The core rulebook states that starship weapons, if used against creatures or structures on the ground, would function more like aoe hazards)
It also presumes that just because no one *casts* 9th level spells, that nobody ever *uses* 9th level spell effects. There are likely plenty of such use. . . by and via technomagical constructs. Nobody needs to cast Meteor Swarm, if people instead build Cannons of Meteor Swarm in a factory.A Cannon of Meteor Swarm would be a ridiculously high level weapon and would likely be just as rare as the spell itself. Most weapons in the book don't really compare to a weapon that attacks four times in a single attack action that deals 6d6 damage (8d6 direct hit) in a 40ft. radius.Except (if you adjust for the different abstractions) the weapons used in space combat, which do accomplish this.
(The core rulebook states that starship weapons, if used against creatures or structures on the ground, would function more like aoe hazards)
An item level represents how advanced and scarce it is, and a meteor swarm cannon would likely be in at the 17-20 range. Its rarity would be intended by the game, not just an assumption that people are making.
A weapon duplicating Meteor Swarm, even assuming it's not upscaled upon conversion, would still be more effective against creature scale targets than most starship weapon attacks. The GM has total control of how effective it is, whether it's an AOE or not, what CR the hazard functions as, and if the GM allows the particular weapon to do damage in the first place to creature scale targets.
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There's some weapons that come quite close to a meteor swarm in terms of damage. It's a change from target having to save, to you having to roll to hit and you need to get a bit more up close and personal :P
In the heavy weapon area we have:
Paragon X-Gun on automatic can hit up to 25 targets in a 60 ft cone for 9d12 piercing. A heavy machinegun on automatic has only 12 targets, but the same area, and only 7d10 piercing, and the autobeam artillery laser manages 20 targets in a 60 ft cone for 6d8 fire. There's also the blast weapons, like the Screamer, HFD which just hits every target in a 60 ft. cone for 4d10 sonic, or the Phoenix Class flamethrower which sadly only has a 30 ft. range but does a nice 9d6 fire.
The longarm section also has one that is decent:
Paragon Magnetar rifle targets 24 creatures in a 60 ft cone for 8d8 piercing.
The others only have a 30 ft cone (Grapeshot scattergun and Elite autobeam rifle).
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Please be careful about the tone in which you post. If you are feeling strong emotions, instead of posting in the heat of the moment, step away for a while, calm down, and then come back and make your point in a civil and polite manner.
We're a community here. Hostility, whether direct or indirect, is unwarranted and unwanted.
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I think instead of saying "magic is weaker", we ought to be saying "pc spellcasting is weaker".
And that we can surely all agree is true. Magic is mechanically and literarily more than just casting spells, however. There's a CR 19 devil that can turn into a spaceship and teleport its colossal body at will. That's pretty damn powerful magic, and it exists in this universe. It's just not in player hands.
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Can't really call it "medium combat progression" when there's only two in the game. That kind of just makes it "good combat progression" and "bad combat progression."
There's some weapons that come quite close to a meteor swarm in terms of damage. It's a change from target having to save, to you having to roll to hit and you need to get a bit more up close and personal :P
In the heavy weapon area we have:
Paragon X-Gun on automatic can hit up to 25 targets in a 60 ft cone for 9d12 piercing. A heavy machinegun on automatic has only 12 targets, but the same area, and only 7d10 piercing, and the autobeam artillery laser manages 20 targets in a 60 ft cone for 6d8 fire. There's also the blast weapons, like the Screamer, HFD which just hits every target in a 60 ft. cone for 4d10 sonic, or the Phoenix Class flamethrower which sadly only has a 30 ft. range but does a nice 9d6 fire.The longarm section also has one that is decent:
Paragon Magnetar rifle targets 24 creatures in a 60 ft cone for 8d8 piercing.
The others only have a 30 ft cone (Grapeshot scattergun and Elite autobeam rifle).
The hypothetical Meteor Swarm Cannon is a 17-20th level weapon, as all of the weapons you named, except one, are all in the 17-20 range. So, yes, they should. The actual Meteor Swarm spell would be rebalanced by increasing the damage, anyway.
In my headcanon, the reason you get things like 'only 2 magic items' is that the nonspecialized, less educated (in a way) route of 'we can totally explain magic, and why bother taking decades to learn int?' results in a more readily produced and consumed generalist spread, but at the cost of the precision of specialization.
So whereas in Pathfinder making things like a magic item took a specialist and investment, its not a huge deal for anyone to do it, but the quality suffers, so the magic leaks and interferes with other low quality stuff that's the new standard.
That said, I'd say the magic 'system' is weaker because the users don't gain the same level of proficiency to master it, the spells are the same, more or less, just nobody puts in the same effort and thus doesn't have the full spread a PF caster would.
Hmm, maybe it's like the Law of Conservation of Ninjitsu. Since magic is so commonplace now that even low-level tech items frequently involve some magical principles, the overall magic level maximum in the galaxy is significantly lower.
Which means that some lich from old Golarion might go on a quest to destroy all that magic-using technology in order to get their 9th level spells back.
I tend to think that it's degraded partly as a result of common technology overtaking rare magic.
In my case 9th level casters still exist (the players have a bonafide wizard on the crew) but the presence of capital ship weapons, nuclear armanents, and devices that can make trillions of calculations a second has made such vaunted practitioners rare in the extreme. Why devote one's life to mastering planar travel when people do it all the time through relatively cheap mechanical means?
The bone sages of Eox are still incredibly powerful spellcasters but have found little need to flex that power when a whispered word will send a fleet to accomplish the work of dozens of high level spells.
The wizard makes an absolute fortune in a side business by the way, turns out the sheer plethora of spells at her disposal are in high demand.
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I think that the best point on this subject (not my original idea) is that saving throws v. Spells are based on spell level, but the saving throw progression is just like in Pathfinder. So casting your highest level spell at say, 13th level would a 5th level spell instead of 7th, which is that much easier to save against.
…can I ask why you dug up a thread from four years ago?
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Clearly Necromancy is still going strong.
The precogs are not sending their best from the future.
silly question but why is posting to an old thread even an issue, and what's the expiration date
If you’re a thousand years old like me, it’s considered bad netiquette :p
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silly question but why is posting to an old thread even an issue, and what's the expiration dateIf you’re a thousand years old like me, it’s considered bad netiquette :p
My gray feather are not showing in that old picture of me I use, I'm not quite 1000 yet unless you count my time in my egg.
I'm glad Einstine didn't post this theory of relativity to an internet forum :P
What is the expiration date when a post becomes too old to comment too?
I have a hunch that most posts to old threads are accidental where someone was searching the Paizo website for a subject, I know I have done that. before.
So how old does a thread have to be before you can repost it as a new thread, it seems netiquette doesn't like posting to an old post but also doesn't like reposting the same question.
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"Hey was this ever answered?" is a valid necro.
"Well, I disagree with you person who posted 2 years actually because..." is not.
If you're resurecting a question fine, if you're jumpstarting a convo like it's ongoing then not so much, cause the convo isn't ongoing. They're talking to people who aren't there, naturally people are gonna point this out.
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I still don't get the who value of calling out necro post
The subject of this thread certainly has changed in the game system to justify revisiting like the release of galactic magic. or the star in Locus 1. The OP is still active in the forums so no need for using speak-to-dead type spells to keep the conversation going or renewed.
The last post here that brought out the reply of necro was someone's first and still only post.
My question is pointing out necroing more important than welcoming new users? I also accidentally necroed a post when I was new, my response to all the necro replies was to not post for 4 months.
There are some necro posts I really like in the forms that make my day, but they all come from real necros like Zo!
"I still don't get the who value of calling out necro post"
I just explained it last month if you bothered to read the post.
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Necroing a post is like walking up to a stranger and continuing a conversation you heard them having with someone else weeks ago. It's weird and offputting. Introduce the subject anew without jumping on old, dated context from other people.
Calling me "active" on here is strong. I'm semi-active at best.
But yeah while I haven't done a deep dive into Galactic Magic certainly the impression I got from glancing over it was that the answer to the question was no, the changes to magic are non-diegetic & do not reflect an actual weakening of magic within the context universe.
Which, that's neat.