Resonance, Spell Points, and Vancian Casting

[Epic Meepo]

If I’m playing a cleric in PF2...

...I use my gold to purchase the magic items I want, and I then activate those items in nearly any combination by spending points from a single Resonance pool.

...I use my class feats to select the domain powers I want, and I then activate those powers in nearly any combination by spending points from a single spell point pool.

...I use my spell slots to prepare the spells I want, and... I’m locked into casting that exact, immutable combination of spells by an archaic fire-and-forget spellcasting system from the 1980s.

One of these things is not like the others.

Why can’t my cleric purchase magic items using gold, select domain powers using feats, prepare spells using spell slots, and then activate any of them by spending points from a single resource pool?

Or, at most, have two resource pools for magic: a generous number of spell points for routine things (like class powers and non-heightened spells) plus a few spell surges per day for particularly potent effects (like heightened spells and magic items designed to be used only a small number of times per day).

If necessary, limit the number of magic items that can be active at any one time and adjust the power level of non-heightened spells to match the power level of class powers and magic items available at the same class level. (Make a non-heightened 9th-level spell equivalent in power to a 17th-level class power, for example.)

That seems like it would be a simpler, cleaner magic system than the hodgepodge of Resonance, spell points, prepared casting, and spontaneous casting appearing in the PF2 playtest.

[Fuzzypaws]

I don't mind items, powers, and spells being tracked separately. But we deserve Arcanist or 5E style casting instead of fire and forget, and we deserve a better term for powers than spell points. :p

[thflame]

I understand and I agree with you, but there are a large number of people here who would "do unspeakably horrible things to themselves or others" if Vancian magic didn't stay in the game.

I think merging all of a class' "magical" abilities into one pool would be nice. Unfortunately, such systems can be really hard to balance.

I believe Paladins in 5e burn spell slots for lay on hands and smites. It works quite elegantly, at least with my limited experience.

[IconicCatparent]

thflame wrote:

I understand and I agree with you, but there are a large number of people here who would "do unspeakably horrible things to themselves or others" if Vancian magic didn't stay in the game.

I think merging all of a class' "magical" abilities into one pool would be nice. Unfortunately, such systems can be really hard to balance.

I believe Paladins in 5e burn spell slots for lay on hands and smites. It works quite elegantly, at least with my limited experience.

I do prefer 5e's easier version of vancian casting. It's still complex enough to feel arcane. It doesn't feel like we're sanitizing away the weirdness.

But 5e's paladin is, for me, a cautionary tale. The paladin gets easy-vancian slots that can be used for smites or spells, a seperate pool of points for lay-on-hands, a third pool for divine sense, a fourth pool for channel divinity features, a short range aura that makes positioning important, and then at high levels, a fifth pool for cleansing touch. Brutal.

[Gavmania]

I'm all in favour of simplifying things where possible, but I fear that a large pool that powers everything would be used to fire off those few powerful effects you would otherwise have got to do once or twice, making you overpowered. Then, too the fighter and Rogue have nothing to spend their points on except magic items, so they would have a massive surplus with no way of spending it, or are you proposing that casters would get a bonus that non-casters would not receive?

[j b 200]

So far we are working off of VERY limited information on exactly how each of these things work. Keeping that premise in mind...

From what we have seen, the memorized spells are more powerful than the x/day spell point powers or the at-will cantrips. As Gavmania mentioned, if all abilities were one single pool it would be very hard to prevent the 15 minute work day from allowing an nova of all your strongest powers, and then retiring because you have nothing to do for the next fight. On the other hand, it appears that the Designers made the specific decision to include these X/day and at-will abilities to avoid that exact issue. I.e. I have a handful of fairly powerful spells that I use once to twice a fight and then fall back on my all day abilities so that you don't have the problem of the Level 1 crossbowman with 18 Int after the first fight of the evening.

Evidence of this intent can be found in two things. First zero level spells (whatever that class calls them), are not just at-will (as they were in P1), but also automatically heighten to your level. This helps to keep them relevant. It's not a ton of fun for a 10 level wizard to be firing off the same 1d4 ray of frost as he did 9 levels ago. This also helps to prevent a) a zero level spell eliminating an entire school of magic (illusion) and b) one of only 3-4 class features from becoming completely unused after level 3.
Secondly, each time you add a new spell points power (new domain, new ki power etc.) your pool of points goes up, this avoids your class power from becoming less helpful the more you invest in it. In P1, a Magus had a fixed rate of increase for his Arcane Pool, regardless on if you took one ability that utilized it or if you took ten. It's bad game design that discourages you from selecting more abilities because it decreases the usefulness of each individual ability as you gain more.

I understand that it can be frustrating to track multiple power sources, but it also encourages different builds, some that focus on spells, some that focus of spell powers and others on some other build, instead of locking every cleric/wizard into the only viable build.

[Pan]

I prefer vancian because you have to plan your day. The most interesting days are those your plan goes pear shaped and you gotta work with what you have. I believe spells in a can were supposed to soften the edges a bit on 3E, but unfortunately, blew the lid off casters. I think resonance is a great mechanic to put the lid back on.

A single resource pool would be simpler, ill give you that, but also make the game rather uninteresting without vancian. Clearly, ymmv.

[Fuzzypaws]

Pan wrote:

I prefer vancian because you have to plan your day. The most interesting days are those your plan goes pear shaped and you gotta work with what you have. I believe spells in a can were supposed to soften the edges a bit on 3E, but unfortunately, blew the lid off casters. I think resonance is a great mechanic to put the lid back on.

A single resource pool would be simpler, ill give you that, but also make the game rather uninteresting without vancian. Clearly, ymmv.

You still have to plan ahead with the spells you prepare under an Arcanist or 5E style preparation system. It just removes the fiddly BS of having to track what is prepared in every single individual spell slot, making casters less of a pain in the ass to play and removing player incentive to cheat and behave like an Arcanist anyway. You still only have a limited number of spells prepared, you just get more flexibility in how you actually cast them.

[Gorignak227]

I'm already pretty resigned to the fact that I'll have to endure vancian casting for the cleric (i don't play wizards much) since it sounds like paizo is pretty set on it and there's still some decent support for it from the player base...

Its a shame because the flexibility of upcasting is wasted on vancian and with only 3 spells/level vancian is going to be so much more limiting this time around forcing you to pick the spells you know you will be able to use and forgoing the fun niche spells.

[Malk_Content]

Fuzzypaws wrote:

Pan wrote:

I prefer vancian because you have to plan your day. The most interesting days are those your plan goes pear shaped and you gotta work with what you have. I believe spells in a can were supposed to soften the edges a bit on 3E, but unfortunately, blew the lid off casters. I think resonance is a great mechanic to put the lid back on.

A single resource pool would be simpler, ill give you that, but also make the game rather uninteresting without vancian. Clearly, ymmv.

You still have to plan ahead with the spells you prepare under an Arcanist or 5E style preparation system. It just removes the fiddly BS of having to track what is prepared in every single individual spell slot, making casters less of a pain in the ass to play and removing player incentive to cheat and behave like an Arcanist anyway. You still only have a limited number of spells prepared, you just get more flexibility in how you actually cast them.

One way I got around this was by creating physical cards of the spells for my players. At the start of the day they picked their cards and put a number of pennies on them to represent the slots used. Use a spell, remove a penny.

[Pan]

Gorignak227 wrote:

I'm already pretty resigned to the fact that I'll have to endure vancian casting for the cleric (i don't play wizards much) since it sounds like paizo is pretty set on it and there's still some decent support for it from the player base...

Its a shame because the flexibility of upcasting is wasted on vancian and with only 3 spells/level vancian is going to be so much more limiting this time around forcing you to pick the spells you know you will be able to use and forgoing the fun niche spells.

I think unlimited, scaling cantrips actually really opens up that space for selecting interesting spells. Couple that with spell point system and we might be surprised how much more interesting slot prep will be in PF2.