Upcasting

[pixierose]

So if I am remembering correctly one of the Dev's mentioned something that sounded like they would be implementing something like Upcasting, I am a big fan of upcasting but I have a few concerns in how it might be implementing.

For those of you who don't know, upcasting is the concept of casting a lower level spell in a higher level spell slot for increased effect(either more targets, or more damage, etc).

In my opinion it allows for some interesting flexibility when it comes to combat. My concern is that upcasting works best with two types of casting, spontaneous and arcanist/5e styled prepared casters.

When you only care about your spells prepared for that day(as opposed to the each individual slot) it allows for the flexibility I mentioned. If you prepare fireball, you can throughout the day cast as many fireballs that you may need at what level you need it. You can choose to save your third level spell slots for spells that don't scale as well, or keep it safe and save those bigger spell slots and save keep them for something else. 5E takes a bit further than the arcanist because what spells you can prepare are not limited by the levels(if i'm remembering the arcanist correctly, you can prepare a number of third level spells, but you don't have to assign each of them a number of slots)

However, if it's implemented that prepared casters need to prepare spell slots with each lv, I think it would just add to my level of frustration with prepared casters in pathfinder or I might just ignore the upcasting mechanic with them, because how could you prepare if you need a lv 4 fireball vs a lv 3 fireball.

I guess another concern if spontaneous casters actually have to learn "fireball lv4" instead of just knowing "fireball." At that point I don't even think it would be upcasting anymore it would be something else.

That being said this is all speculation off of a few comments I saw(although I can't seem to find where I read them.) And ultimately if they go through with this choice, I can always play other classes, and stick to spontaneous casters.

What do you all think about upcasting, how well it works with preparing spells vs preparing spell slots, and how it might be implemented in P2E

[Planpanther]

Vancian has always been about making the best with the choices you make. For me resource management is core to my fantasy RPG experience. I get that has gone out of style, but I dont see a prepared caster problem here. YMMV

[Stone Dog]

As someone who really enjoys Vancian casting, the Arcanist is my favorite version of it to date and I hope the wizard at least goes a bit down that road.

[WhiteMagus2000]

I don't mind the thought of upcasting (and resonance), if it helps reduce the caster/martial disparity (although I'm sure it's not going to stop complaints), but I really want to see it actually balanced. Otherwise my players and I will probably just ignore it.
What I mean by balanced is that a magic missile cast in a third level spell slot needs to be as effective of a choice as fireball or haste. In 5e, the majority of upcast spells looked way weaker than a real spell of the same level. If the upcast spells are weaker most of the time, than upcasting is going to be just another noob trap.

[BishopMcQ]

If you compare prepared Upcasting as theorized to PF 1e prepared metamagics, it feels fairly comparable to me. How do you know that you need an Empowered Fireball or if that's going to just be overkill when you start your day preparing spells? Honestly you don't, much of Prepared Spellcasting is about planning and doing the best you can when the plan does not survive initial contact with the enemy.

The tradeoff of being able to do it without an increase in action cost, like Spontaneous casters currently have with metamagics, is part of what gives Prepared spellcasters an edge in the moment. Do you want the same few tricks everyday and repeat them, or the flexibility to change your tricks each day and pre-plan to what you expect is coming?

So, if we assume that a Wizard has to prepare an Upcast version, it'd be likely that a Sorcerer would have to spend extra actions on the casting. Or perhaps the devs go more of an Arcanist route, or Wizards burn multiple spell slots to upcast, or something completely different...

I'm curious to know how it plays out, but we are shining a laser pointer at the ceiling and trying to figure out what the entire fresco is at this point.

[Frogsplosion]

I'm hoping if they do implement upcasting that they actually make the higher level versions worth casting, because 5e's upcasting largely sucks.

[Planpanther]

^ That is true. The only time I really upcast is if I need a particular damage type and have a higher slot open, or if I want to get more targets with some type of controlling/debuff effect. Though im fine with blaster not being the king of casters. YMMV.

[QuidEst]

Frogsplosion wrote:

I'm hoping if they do implement upcasting that they actually make the higher level versions worth casting, because 5e's upcasting largely sucks.

Eh, I'm pretty happy with it. Charm Person and Charm Monster don't need to be separate spells, after all, and the different versions of cure spells/fear spells/sleep spells/summon spells really didn't need to be separate spells.

[Fuzzypaws]

Planpanther wrote:

^ That is true. The only time I really upcast is if I need a particular damage type and have a higher slot open, or if I want to get more targets with some type of controlling/debuff effect. Though im fine with blaster not being the king of casters. YMMV.

SOMEONE has to be the king of casters, and personally, blaster would at least be more fun than the two current back and forth contenders, the buffbot and save-or-suck.

[Planpanther]

There is no accounting for taste.

[Leedwashere]

I seem to recall hearing somewhere that metamagic is still a thing. My hope is that the majority of spells don't have intrinsic scaling benefits for being cast in a higher level slot, and that the ones which get the most of it are the spells that used to be part of a chain. So summon monster is just one spell, with the list you pick from determined by which level you cast it. Same goes foe elemental body, restoration, heal... basically, just roll all the different iterations of the same spell into one spell which you can learn at its lowest level and then automatically unlock the better versions as you get access to them.

That still leaves metamagic its niche for taking normally non-scaling magic and pumping it up in interesting and unique ways.

[FaerieGodfather]

Personally, my hopes are:

Wizard and Bard: Arcanist preparation with small numbers of permanent spells known.

Cleric: Warmage casting from very narrow spell list + Advanced Learning from broader Cleric list + Sha'ir retrieval.

Druid and Sorcerer: Sorcerer-style spontaneous casting from narrower spell lists, but much more expansive bonus spells from Domains and/or Bloodlines.

Ranger and Paladin: Spontaneous.

[Wolfism]

I'm hoping:
Wizard with Arcanist casting.

Druid IF they are focused on spellcasting instead of wild shape beating up the shaman and taking their stuff, particularly the wandering spirit abilities since they seem very thematic to a spell casting Druid.

Sorcerer beating up the Kineticist and taking their stuff, really separating them from the wizard and making them the default blaster class. Makes them feel like a true channeler of magic.

Cleric I really like the warmage/shi'ir style mentioned above. It seems really thematic and makes clerics really distinct from each other. Also there should really be a way from the beginning where you can trade out armor proficiency for better casting options as a cleric. A priest/whitemage character should really not be a difficult thing to make.

I have no idea about the bard, they always seemed like a weird mish mash of a class to me but it seems like their spells should be directly tied into their performance not separate.

[GeneticDrift]

The kineticist is too cool to be absorbed by a sorcerer. Give it its own thing.

I really hope meta magic is the same so i can play a wizard in full plate who saves on action econemy when using still spell.

Upcasting a first level spell with a 3rd lvl slot doesn't need to be as good as a third level spell. It gives you more options.

[QuidEst]

Bleh… I don't want Sorcerer being squashed into blasting. They make such stylish enchanters, after all.

[Wolfism]

The Kineticist had really cool mechanics but never really had its own distinct flavor. It channels the base elemental energy of the world while the sorcerer...channels the base magical energy of the world...that is the sorcerer's shtick.

The sorcerer on the other hand had really cool flavor but mechanically it was just designed to not make the giant arcane spell list only useful to a single class. It was a very slightly tweaked wizard, not what it's flavor wanted it to live up to.

Pathfinder 1 has almost 50 base classes. I'd rather not wait for all of those to get something as cool as the Kineticist again when it fits so well into the sorcerer's space and makes them something really distinct and interesting.

If I had to guess, the main reason you like the sorcerer better than the wizard as an enchanter was due to the casting being charisma based. Well if they actually pull off making the wizard not dependant only on intelligence it would make sense for an enchanter to have a decent charisma. Maybe more so than intelligence depending on how they set the rules up, which could go a long way toward making wizard builds more varied as well.

Edit: Along those lines it would be really cool to see the wizard get abilities based on other stats that make sense for different schools. Not changing the casting stat but just to give wizards a reason to use other abilities than just intelligence. Enchanting would have mechanics based on charisma, evocation maybe on constitution, not sure what would be wisdom based, maybe abjuration? I could see necromancy also having charisma based abilities, conjuration as constitution as you're concentrating on holding things into this plane of existence. Divination would definitely get something interesting from wisdom. Could be interesting, the trade off vs just pumping intelligence would have to be worth it though, and a purely intelligence build would still have to be viable just not the only option.

[Fuzzypaws]

Count me in for combining the Kineticist with the Sorcerer. There's a lot of room for expanding the flavor and options there. Combining the classes only helps both of them, /especially/ the kineticist, which doesn't have much... flavor as a class? outside its role as a combat blaster.

[Talek & Luna]

If they do decide on up casting, they need to do a better job than the 5E folks did. Up casting by 5E rules is not worth it for most of the damage spells. Not only is the damage weak but you do not get enough high level slots to make it viable. Control spells can occasionally be worth it but tend to be more dangerous to PC's than monsters. Take hold person for example, its a second level spell so you could up cast it to get a four person party by casting a 5th level spell. Very much worth it for a BBEG caster to attempt since saving throws increase as your stat increases.