Soon after getting the Playtest I started looking at some "sacred cow" spells to see if they had changed. I had a few -gasp!- moments:
- HASTE: Only affects one creature!
This makes it no longer an obvious choice when getting 3rd-level spells. This spell has needed a nerf.
- RAISE DEAD: It is now a 6th level spell. It MUST happen within 3 days of a creature's death, and the one-week enervation penalty is impossible to remove. It becomes significantly more expensive to raise high-level dead characters.
This effectively makes death no longer a cheap speed bump in high-level play. Also, taking away the ability to raise the dead after 3 days is a definite change to the game setting.
Are there other spells people have noticed that look like game changers? And what did you think of them?
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Unseen Servant is concentration up to a minute now, down from an hour per level.
Slow is also one target (up to 10 targets if cast at 6th level)
Crushing Despair (5th) is basically an area slow one level earlier, but with a 1 round delay and two Will saves rather than a Fortitude Save.
Dimension Door is unusable if you have a familiar on you (or other creature). No transport option at all
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I only took a glance but there are so many spells with glaring problems it made feel sad. Main problems seems to be spells so heavily nerfed they dont do the thing they suppose to do, spells that only work on critical fails, spells that heightening basically does nothing. 30 feet range(even short range was 35-75 feet it was still considered a dangerous position), concentration(when it isn't needed at all) and terrible damage output seems to plague the spell list.
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Unseen Servant is concentration up to a minute now, down from an hour per level.
Boo. Unnecessary nerf to a flavor spell. I liked having a cleaning service for lazy wizards, it really fit. Beyond sacrificial door opener, I don't have any idea what other people were doing with the things, but that doesn't seem like abuse for a spell slot.
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Planar Binding is now a ritual rather than a spell, and crit failure summons a face-eating-thing-that-should-not-be rather than your original target.
Blink makes you appear 10 ft. in a random direction determined by the DM at the end of each of your turns for 1 minute. No longer lets you move through walls or objects, can't use it to bypass locked doors unless you get lucky with your random direction (and the DM can simply choose not to let you go that way anyhow).
A bunch of Conjuration stuff got moved around:
•Acid Arrow, Acid Splash, and Glitterdust went to Evocation
•Cloudkill went to Necromancy
•Mage Armor went to Abjuration
•No sign of the 1st level Mount spell, only Phantom Steed at 2nd
•Obscuring Mist got bumped from 1st to 2nd
•Black Tentacles got bumped from 4th to 5th
•Teleport got bumped from 5th to 6th and made Uncommon (requires GM approval)
•No sign of Sleet Storm, Secure Shelter, Trap the Soul, or Wall of Iron
This, plus the explicit ban on using multiple summoned creatures due to action economy, means it's a bad day for Conjurers.
In other news, Rope Trick got bumped from 2nd to 4th, as well as made Uncommon (A.K.A not for players, enemies only). Also, no more window outside, and can be dispelled by enemies with a successful Athletics check on the rope. So basically, they took the spell out the back and layed into it with nerf bats.
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Blink is super-gutted. Good riddance, imo
We already kinda knew this, but Shield is also gutted even though it's now a cantrip. (Also good riddance, imo)
A lot of lower level evocation spells seem better at the time you take them (burning hands is 2d6, Shocking Grasp is 1d12).
Glad to see summon monster nerfed but not removed. Spell did far too much and slowed down play at the table horrifically when abused. It's still going to be good, just not a free contender for best spell anymore.
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Bless / Bane - now an Aura of only 30' and requires Concentration.
As I understand the rules of a Aura, which seem similar to PF1 you have to be within it to get the effect. Which means its more to keep up with as you figure out is it still going, oh and am I in the radius of it.
This in conjunction with the changes to spells being disrupted is going to make playing spell casters much harder. Base rule is if you take damage equal to or higher than your level you lose the spell.
For Example, 1st level Cleric casts Bless (one of his two spells at 1st level). Has to stay with in 30' or less of the front line so the Fighter benefits from it. Bad guy slips past front line (which is 30' away thanks to Aura) two actions to move up to Cleric, attacks, hits spell is gone since its going to do at least 1 point of damage, no save/roll just gone.
There is the Steady Spellcasting Feat available at 4th to casters. Which makes it so you have to take 2x your level in damage to lose a spell. Which still seems really easy.
Planar Binding is now a ritual rather than a spell, and crit failure summons a face-eating-thing-that-should-not-be rather than your original target.
Blink makes you appear 10 ft. in a random direction determined by the DM at the end of each of your turns for 1 minute. No longer lets you move through walls or objects, can't use it to bypass locked doors unless you get lucky with your random direction (and the DM can simply choose not to let you go that way anyhow).
A bunch of Conjuration stuff got moved around:
•Acid Arrow, Acid Splash, and Glitterdust went to Evocation
•Cloudkill went to Necromancy
•Mage Armor went to Abjuration
•No sign of the 1st level Mount spell, only Phantom Steed at 2nd
•Obscuring Mist got bumped from 1st to 2nd
•Black Tentacles got bumped from 4th to 5th
•Teleport got bumped from 5th to 6th and made Uncommon (requires GM approval)
•No sign of Sleet Storm, Secure Shelter, Trap the Soul, or Wall of IronThis, plus the explicit ban on using multiple summoned creatures due to action economy, means it's a bad day for Conjurers.
In other news, Rope Trick got bumped from 2nd to 4th, as well as made Uncommon (A.K.A not for players, enemies only). Also, no more window outside, and can be dispelled by enemies with a successful Athletics check on the rope. So basically, they took the spell out the back and layed into it with nerf bats.
Trap the soul got changed to soul bind. not sure about the others.
Possession went from 5th to 7th, is Occult only, has a 1 minute duration, has concentrate, has 30' range and requires LOE, and on a success only lets you and your target share possession of his body. Really, really bad.
Heightened/greater possession went from 8th to 9th, 10 minute duration. It's pretty decent, even shared possession is ok as long as your body isn't vulnerable and the concentrate doesn't matter much if they aren't attacking your body and you don't need a Shield cantrip or movement out of the way.
It's worth noting that a bunch of the concentration action economy constraints disappear after this feat is taken:
EFFORTLESS CONCENTRATION - Wizard Feat 14.
Free action. Trigger: Your turn begins.
You immediately gain the effects of a Concentrate on a Spell action to extend the duration of one of your active wizard spells
Helps with Summon monster, for example.
One of the biggest changes is that little is immune to mind affecting anymore, just those things that actually lack minds, like oozes, mindless undead, and constructs. But mind control got nerfed and lots of things do have save bonuses to mind affecting. Still, I'll take it.
Illusion is also a lot more useable, detect magic can't detect higher level stuff, arcane sight is gone, and even True Sight only tries to pierce illusions, it's not an auto win.
Remove Curse is gone and the two curses I've found as spells are higher level and quite weak. Combat curses seem a thing of the past.
It's worth noting that a bunch of the concentration action economy constraints disappear after this feat is taken:
Helps with Summon monster, for example.
EFFORTLESS CONCENTRATION - Wizard Feat 14.
Free action. Trigger: Your turn begins.
You immediately gain the effects of a Concentrate on a Spell action to extend the duration of one of your active wizard spells
I'm not sure it completely does, you still have to use an action to order them by the spell text. I think this only works with passive maintenance of other spell effects, but maybe a summon already fighting keeps fighting as long as you maintain it this way.
I'm not sure it completely does, you still have to use an action to order them by the spell text. I think this only works with passive maintenance of other spell effects, but maybe a summon already fighting keeps fighting as long as you maintain it this way.It's worth noting that a bunch of the concentration action economy constraints disappear after this feat is taken:
Helps with Summon monster, for example.
EFFORTLESS CONCENTRATION - Wizard Feat 14.
Free action. Trigger: Your turn begins.
You immediately gain the effects of a Concentrate on a Spell action to extend the duration of one of your active wizard spells
Hard to be sure. From the spell description
If you can communicate with it, you can attempt to command it as part of your action to Concentrate on a Spell.
But then on p.308, in the Basic Actions section:
SPEAKING
As long as you can act, you can also speak. You don’t need to spend any type of action, reaction, or free action to speak, but because a round represents 6 seconds of time, you can usually speak at most a single sentence or so per round.
So if commanding a summoned monster is just speaking + concentrating, it *should* be fine from level 14 on for wizards at least.
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The almost complete nerf through the bank of almost every spell is hardest thing for me to swallow in this playtest. Combined with the much more limited daily casting abilities of spellcasters this is quite a demoralizing start. Not to mention that blasting seems to have been essentially gutted as an option as well, with the capped spells and no empower/maximise metamagic possibilities.
I really get the feeling that we are supposed to be brought back into having to clear every room in a dungeon with melee combat, with Wizards/Sorcerers being relegated to softening up the enemies.
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Fabricate is just gone.
Create Water is now first level and creates a maximum of 2 gallons.
Mending is also first level. It does subsume make whole (Heightened 2nd) but also completely nerfs it. (Goes from a object 10 cubic feet per level to an object of at most 1 bulk (2 bulk with Heightened 3rd).)
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The spell selection with all of the spells that are now rare hurts. With these spell now just wasting page count for a lot of players. They should have saved the rare spells for later books, not eat up space in the core. If you are going to include a rare spells in core, there should be a way for a player to unlock it. Maybe a set of general feats that unlock the rare spells by school. You should not need to ask the GM to use stuff in core.
Pints of oil at just 1cp would be more cost effective.
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I went through the cleric cantrips as part of character creation, and I'm somewhat underwhelmed. Based on the pre-release blogs, I was expecting these to be scaling utility abilites, but they aren't. To take a couple of examples:
Light lasts 24 hours, but you can only have one active, as in PF1, so it becomes more of a 1/day ability.
Guidance doesn't scale up, has had its duration dropped from 1 minute to 1 round, and the target is bolstered, evven if they don't use the benefit. So in an average 4 persn party this is a 4/day ability.
Message is 1 target for 1 round, which is a serous downgrade, but probably a stylistic improvement t the current tactical comms unit version.
Forbidding ward is a nice reusabale 'give an ally +1 defence against a specific opponent that I can see myself using a fair bit.
Detect magic does just that - detects magic. To identify the school of magic you need to cast a separate Read Aura cantrip with a 10 minute casting time. Good luck picking up the correct magic mcguffin when there are two trapped fakes sitting next to it and the boulder trap just got triggered.
The offensive cantrips scale just fine, but the utility and flavour ones aren't, as ritten, living up to the promise of "cool scaling powers you can use all day.". I get the feeling Paizo have presented us with 'this is the lowest power level, if you don't break the system we might give you abit more leeway' versions of some spells.
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Have you guys seen the new Barkskin? Level two spell, two actions to cast, 1 minute duration for a touch spell that gives the target
resistance 1 to B and P, and weakness 2 to fire
Heightened(+2) to increase resistance by 2 and weakness by 3
My eyes!!!
Why did they do this to spellcasters? I'm so disappointed
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Glad to see summon monster nerfed but not removed. Spell did far too much and slowed down play at the table horrifically when abused. It's still going to be good, just not a free contender for best spell anymore.
I can see how summon monster needed a nerf, but I think they've taken it too far, especially the higher levels - with the new level-based math the summoned creature will be failing and crit-failing in tough encounters most of the time. I would suggest the summoned creature to be at least (spell level x 2 -3) to stay relevant.
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The almost complete nerf through the bank of almost every spell is hardest thing for me to swallow in this playtest. Combined with the much more limited daily casting abilities of spellcasters this is quite a demoralizing start. Not to mention that blasting seems to have been essentially gutted as an option as well, with the capped spells and no empower/maximise metamagic possibilities.
I really get the feeling that we are supposed to be brought back into having to clear every room in a dungeon with melee combat, with Wizards/Sorcerers being relegated to softening up the enemies.
Yeah, this is something that went down absolutely horribly with my group. By far the biggest concern. Lots of disappointment, anger and feelings of betrayal. It's not just one or two things, but magic has been severely de-powered basically across the board. And from multiple angles which add up to really dramatic effect; less powerful spells, shorter durations, restrictive concentration, fewer targets, fewer spells per day, no auto-scaling which ends up requiring you to use those precious few spell slots for your more basic spells, summons requiring actions and having fewer of their own, etc. The end result looks pretty brutal on spell-casters. Admittedly we haven't gotten to the actual test yet, and my reading is behind others, but it does look pretty rough. I've never even played a full caster, and it looks highly excessive to me. I can see a mild reigning in of magic, but this is way too much.
This really needs to be dramatically rolled-back for the final.
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I'm not sure it completely does, you still have to use an action to order them by the spell text. I think this only works with passive maintenance of other spell effects, but maybe a summon already fighting keeps fighting as long as you maintain it this way.It's worth noting that a bunch of the concentration action economy constraints disappear after this feat is taken:
Helps with Summon monster, for example.
EFFORTLESS CONCENTRATION - Wizard Feat 14.
Free action. Trigger: Your turn begins.
You immediately gain the effects of a Concentrate on a Spell action to extend the duration of one of your active wizard spells
And there is the issue that if you take damage equal or greater than your level, your summoned creature apparently goes *poof*
That doesn't seem like a high bar to reach, so the way to handle someone who summons monsters is just to give them one good whack and don't bother with the monster at all.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Fabricate is just gone.
Create Water is now first level and creates a maximum of 2 gallons.
Mending is also first level. It does subsume make whole (Heightened 2nd) but also completely nerfs it. (Goes from a object 10 cubic feet per level to an object of at most 1 bulk (2 bulk with Heightened 3rd).)
The create water change is one I agree with. As a cantrip it meant a dedicated caster could create almost unlimited water by spending enough time recasting it. Really takes all drama out of a desert survival scenario for example, when a 1st level cleric and just spam water and ignore that aspect. Two gallons seems reasonable to me right now, but maybe it needs to be increased.
The change to Endure Elements killed a recent PF1 character concept -- a character who simply does not care about the weather because they cast Endure Elements on themselves every day. But now that spell is a 2nd level spell, so PF2 characters will need to bundle up in cold weather at levels 1-2.
Not sure why some of you seem to think concentration on a spell is easily broken. It's no longer "take damage on an enemies turn and lose the spell".
Concentration takes a single action on your turn each round. Only being damaged on this action will make you lose concentration. The action has only the concentrate trait, so it doesn't even trigger attacks of opportunity.
Not counting exotic reactions some monsters might have (haven't read the bestiary yet), the only reliable way to hit a caster when he does his concentration action is to ready an action with that trigger.
Not sure why some of you seem to think concentration on a spell is easily broken. It's no longer "take damage on an enemies turn and lose the spell".
Concentration takes a single action on your turn each round. Only being damaged on this action will make you lose concentration. The action has only the concentrate trait, so it doesn't even trigger attacks of opportunity.
Not counting exotic reactions some monsters might have (haven't read the bestiary yet), the only reliable way to hit a caster when he does his concentration action is to ready an action with that trigger.
There four monsters in the bestiary who have Disruptive on their AoO, which allows them to trigger on a Concentrate action. Levels 13, 20, 20, and 22, though.
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Flame Blade is gone. It was often a fairly terrible spell, but I loved the theme and flavor of it.
Want it back.
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In general, way too many touch and ranged touch spells have two points of failure, which makes them very bad (especially since they're completely wasted on a miss).
A couple other spells (like crushing despair) have double saves, which is also very bad.
Spell slots feel a lot more precious, so casting anything that can fail is iffy. Casting anything that has multiple ways of failing? Just insane.
There four monsters in the bestiary who have Disruptive on their AoO, which allows them to trigger on a Concentrate action. Levels 13, 20, 20, and 22, though.Not sure why some of you seem to think concentration on a spell is easily broken. It's no longer "take damage on an enemies turn and lose the spell".
Concentration takes a single action on your turn each round. Only being damaged on this action will make you lose concentration. The action has only the concentrate trait, so it doesn't even trigger attacks of opportunity.
Not counting exotic reactions some monsters might have (haven't read the bestiary yet), the only reliable way to hit a caster when he does his concentration action is to ready an action with that trigger.
Four doesn't sound too bad. Also, Verbal casting is concentration, too. So you're quite limited when any of them is next to you anyway.
Silence is a touch spell with no save, which makes it a good Reach Spell metamagic candidate or on Spellstrike Ammunition.
Nope. Willing target only.
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Reductions in duration, number of targets, and the power of the actual spell effect are very disappointing to me. Here are some comparisons of classic/iconic spells:
Air Walk
- 1e: 1 minute/level
- 2e: 1 minute
Bless
- 1e: 1 minute/level, 2 buff effects.
- 2e: 1 minute max, requires spending an action to concentrate each round, 1 buff effect
Cloudkill
- 1e: standard action cast, 1 minute/level, CON damage, save for half
- 2e: 3 actions to cast, 1 minute max, does HP damage (an average of 17.5 damage on a failed save), there’s now a mechanic for holding your breath. Cloudkill stands out because it’s a legacy spell. It doesn’t even cause Drained, which is close enough to what it did in 1e. Instead, it just does a small amount of HP damage
Confusion
- 1e: 1 round/level (7 when you first get access), 15’ AOE.
- 2e: 1 minute, single target, get a new save each round
Dimension Door
- 1e: 600+ feet minimum, self and 1+ (scales) targets.
- 2e: flat 60’ and you must see the space, self-only
Dominate Person (now just Dominate)
- 1e: 5th level spell, 1 day/level, need to concentrate 1 round/day or target gets a new save.
- 2e: 6th level spell, flat 1 day duration, new save every round (except on a critical failure, then each time a new order is given)
Fly
- 1e: 3rd level spell, 1 minute/level.
- 2e: 4th level spell, 1 minute flat, flying in 2e is much more restrictive (you fall out of the air if you don’t spend an action to move, and you can’t Step)
Glitterdust
- 1e: blind on a failed save, no save to prevent becoming fully visible.
- 2e: target is Concealed if invisibility is negated, 1 round on a successful save, Dazzled (not blindness) secondary effect
Haste
- 1e: 1 target/caster level, multiple buff effects.
- 2e: single target until heightened to 7th level, one buff effect that can only be used to Stride or Strike
Those are some pretty drastic differences. It does look like blasting as a caster is somewhat improved in some regards. But blasting has always been a subpar use of your limited spell slots because your martial party members can do HP damage all day without spending resources. Casters can alter reality in ways that martial cannot, so why spend your spells doing something they can already do without expending a resource? With many buff/debuff spells being much less effective, it feels casters are intended to mainly just do more HP damage in combat like other PCs. Or heal. I don’t think this much of a drastic cut in overall power is an okay solution to the caster/martial power discrepancy. I enjoy playing casters, especially full casters, and these changes to spells significantly decrease my enjoyment of playing Pathfinder.
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I agree. If pf2 spells stay as is my group will never play pf2.The almost complete nerf through the bank of almost every spell is hardest thing for me to swallow in this playtest. Combined with the much more limited daily casting abilities of spellcasters this is quite a demoralizing start. Not to mention that blasting seems to have been essentially gutted as an option as well, with the capped spells and no empower/maximise metamagic possibilities.
I really get the feeling that we are supposed to be brought back into having to clear every room in a dungeon with melee combat, with Wizards/Sorcerers being relegated to softening up the enemies.
It'd probably be a deal-breaker for my group too. It was the first and biggest complaint with the system. Followed by resonance.
I can understand reigning in the power a little. But magic got hit from every angle at once, dramatically dragging it down. Fewer spell slots, plus no auto-scaling, plus weaker spells, plus concentration actions, etc. All adds up to a major hit.
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"Telekinetic Projectile" got a tremendous boost...They also removed the weight limit.
For a cantrip, it's rather handy. Cart blocking the street? Chuck it in the river! Heavy chest of treasure to move? Fling it down the corridor! Traps in the passage? Hurl dead orcs at it! Siege tower stuck on the wrong side of the moat? Lob it over! Galley starting to sink? Throw it on shore!
This may not be RAI.
One spell that got me was Sleep
Now, we have only played 1st level thus far, but it seems that sleep is actually stronger now than it was before to a degree.
It does not appear to have an HD limitation or any limitation on it in that arena except that it is range 30 feet with an area of a 5 foot burst.
Does this mean you could theoretically put an Ancient Red Dragon to sleep for 1 minute? Or on a Critical Failure of a save, for 1 hour?
And then there's the even better version at Heightened (3rd).
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What struck me is that spells seem to do pretty negligible damage now. Hit points are up across the board and spell damage is lower than ever. You are a 6th level mage, you throw a fireball into a crowd of level 2 monsters, they all fail their saves... and none of them die. Heck, you roll a few under average against level 1 monsters and they survive too. I feel like I'm missing something here. I mean spells didn't do nearly the damage as martials in pf1, but it seems like the gap just doubled.
One spell that got me was Sleep
Now, we have only played 1st level thus far, but it seems that sleep is actually stronger now than it was before to a degree.
It does not appear to have an HD limitation or any limitation on it in that arena except that it is range 30 feet with an area of a 5 foot burst.
Does this mean you could theoretically put an Ancient Red Dragon to sleep for 1 minute? Or on a Critical Failure of a save, for 1 hour?
And then there's the even better version at Heightened (3rd).
It is amazing, and 3rd level Sleep is better than Paralyze.
But many monsters, including dragons, are immune to the Asleep condition.
Disintegrate is going to be the 6th and higher go to spell I think.
12 D10 that can be heightened to 20 D10 at 20th level, with the target getting 2 chances to be criticaled (once on the to hit roll, and second on the save). Best they can get is 1/2 damage instead of the 5d6 the 1st edition spell gave.
This is really risky without True Strike and buffs. A 20th level Wizard with a +4 Spell Duelist's wand and 18 dexterity has (20+3+4+4) +31 to hit with a ranged touch attack, which is about as optimized as you can get without burning attributes to get Dex up another point, and that wand costs A LOT.
A Pit Fiend has TAC 41, a Balor TAC 42. Without True Strike and/or a big conditional bonus from a Bard or Heroism plus flatfooted you've basically got a 50% chance to entirely waste your spell right there. Flatfooted plus max heroism/Bard still gives you around a 25% chance to miss without True Strike, but at least now your crit chance is pretty respectable, especially with a True Strike.
Your maximized DC is 40, and a Pit Fiend makes his Fort save on a 6, a Balor on 9. You can improve that with a Spell Penetration (Wizard) feat by 1, and more if you debuff ahead of time, but basically the expected damage without outside help or set up against a Balor is less than 25% of the average damage of a Disintegrate.
It's a strong spell, but your equal level enemies have equally strong defenses. Plan and prepare or you're going to be sorry. Save debuffing takes a while and is unreliable, but maxing your chance to hit is more within your control.
Heh, it's sorta funny, I feel like the one big game-changer in terms of spells is True Strike. It went from being a mediocre, very situational spell, to one that's going to be a key piece of most wizard's toolboxes, particularly any Gish character. One action spells are going to be a focus in this edition, I think.
Agreed. The best two round high level boss killer is True Strike + Polar Ray (or Enervation) followed by True Strike + Disintegration. First one inflicts some minor damage and high probability save debuff (or just debuff if Enervation), second hopefully delivers the big crit fail damage. You really want party support to maximize your chances of success, though.