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When the first blogs were presented I was very exited about PF2 and still think some of the changes to the core system are very good improvements, but later blogs diminished my enthusiasm, specially the ones concerned with magic, and frankly some were quite disappointing. Now that I have been able to read the complete systems involved I must said the disappointment on how magic is being handle in PF2 has only increased.
I will list the parts which I disagree with the direction taken and propose a design I will prefer.
- Prepared spellcasting Prepared casting can be quite unfun and is really difficult for new players.
I think arcanist style should be used instead. - Spontaneous heightening Spontaneous casting already has a very hard limiting factor in spells known, the limit on heightening on spontaneous caster doubles down on it.
Spontaneous heightening should be free, I think it will be balanced with Arcanist style for prepared caster as long as spontaneous caster gain enough spells known. - Spell disruption Is ridiculous easy to disrupt spells, that damage equal to level is enough to disrupt spells without offering any opportunity to the caster doesn't seem fair.
There should be Spell Roll vs damage dealt to prevent disruption. - Rarity Lots of staple spells are uncommon which is quite disappointing in itself, but frankly, I think games should aim to remove GM Fiat as much as possible, not increase it.
This needs to disappear completely. - Rods I don't know if Rods are just absent from the playtest or removed from the game, but I suspect the later.
Bring Rods back, specially Metamagic Rods. - Staves Staves are quite taxing to use, from what I have read is the only held item that require investment, it cause that nobody else could use the Staff for a day, and depending on the level is the charges it gets.
Remove investing and charges from Staves, Resonance should be the only cap for activations. - Wands level cap I’m very disappointed to see there is still spell level cap on wands, and with Spell roll cap on top of it.
Remove the 4th level cap on wands. - Wands charges I really think that Wands should not be consumables, actually I think consumables should be one use only.
Wands should be like Dueling Wands without once per day limit. - Magic items once per day Once per day abilities are quite unfun, and more so when is on top of expending Resonance.
Remove the once per day cap, Resonance should be the only cap for activations. - Resonance for consumables I already don't like consumables very much, the idea of using money on something that once used is gone instead of a permanent magic item that can be used over and over is already quite unappealing to me, that now on tops will consume a resource like Resonance is just too much.
Seriously consider dropping it for consumables. - 10th level spells Is really jarring to see that spells are gained every odd level except 19th, class progression should not be mutilated like that, and frankly 10th level spells are not that impressive to justify a feat gate for once per day at level 20th
10th level spells should be gained automatically, two slots at level 19th and another at 20th. - Metamagic feats I seriously cannot understand why metamagic feats are not general feats anymore
Metamagic should not be class specific, return metamagic to general feats. - Class feats Once per day abilities are unfun, at least I avoid them like the plague.
Replace caps of once per day with Spell Points or another resource that allows a choice of number of activations
There are other things I have not make up mind still like concentrate, summoning, polymorph, and planar binding, but it doesn't look promising.
To conclude, I play RPGs because I like magic and high fantasy, so that is what I will be looking for to evaluate if the migration is worth it for me or not.
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Don’t do any of these.
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Only point I agree is the last one, I prefer resources (resolve, resonance, whatever) to 1x day uses.
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Only point I agree is the last one, I prefer resources (resolve, resonance, whatever) to 1x day uses.
When I first heard the idea of Resonance, I had envisioned something like the Focus Points of the Occultist from PF1, which had me pretty excited.
Kind of a gadget-y approach, invest X points in the item for effect A, Y points for effect B, and so on. Never crossed my mind that you'd need to burn one do down a potion, which is supposed to be self-contained magic. I really don't like what we wound up with. I'd love an Occultist -style system.
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Prepared spells. I've never liked prepared casting at all, but if they ever make an arcanist it wouldn't have much uniqueness if the wizard prepared spells the same way. just exploits.
Not that i think they'll make an arcanist, but this early in the playtest who knows what they might do in the future.
so the choices would be either leave it alone, or make all casters spontaneous. since a wizard's thing is that they can learn spells, the second would be horribly unbalanced given the sorcerer's limited spell repertoire. so they left it alone.
I don't think any of the ACG are going to exist in PF2 as anything that Archetypes.
After trying the Arcanist and 5e Prepared casting I find very difficult to return to the previous method.
Rarity. dude, Pathfinder 1e had so many spell options from so many little splats that were A LOT stronger than options in the main books. having a system in place that says "You have to have run across this spell someplace in character to learn it at level up," really reduces that issue, and plenty of GMs do that sort of thing anyway. this just puts it in the main book and keeps GMs from having to make their own system for it.
That shows that those spells were badly designed. Rarity goes much further than that requieren GM fiat for uncommon spells, there are a lot of uncommon spells just in the playtest many of them staples for me, I cannot stand a system that requires that level a fiat.
Staves. Staves require those things for a reason. They're basically a permanent source of extra spells per day.
And resonance per activation is not enough?
Wands. let's not. making them non consumables limited to a small number of charges per day (1-3) I could see, but keep the cap at 4th level spells, and you certainly shouldn't be able to spam wands all day.
I proposed to remove charges completely, that is the point of having Resonance, is it not?
As for the 4th level cap I don't see the point, Spell Dueling Wands already allow spells of any level.
I seriously cannot understand why metamagic feats are not general feats anymore. Metamagic should not be class specific, return metamagic to general feats.Because they fit the design space that Paizo wants class feats to fill, not general feats. They aren't all that class specific, either. Multiple metamagic feats are shared across several classes.
You know what I could have been more clear there, what I mean is that metamagic feats should not be class gated, but you are right that class feats is the way to access to metamagic feats, so I guess PF2 needs a section for feats that can be taken by multiple classes in order to avoid repetition.
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Only point I agree is the last one, I prefer resources (resolve, resonance, whatever) to 1x day uses.When I first heard the idea of Resonance, I had envisioned something like the Focus Points of the Occultist from PF1, which had me pretty excited.
Kind of a gadget-y approach, invest X points in the item for effect A, Y points for effect B, and so on. Never crossed my mind that you'd need to burn one do down a potion, which is supposed to be self-contained magic. I really don't like what we wound up with. I'd love an Occultist -style system.
And not only that, check the thread of Bag of Holding, it cost a resonance point to open it each time.
If Paizo wants to make PF2 low magic game/setting is their call, but that is not a game in which I'm interested.
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I'd rather a wand have a small number of uses per day than a moderate or large number of uses forever.
I can agree with that
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Say rather it was ridiculously easy to avoid disruption in the 3.x period. Easy disruption was one of the balancing factors of casters that got lost along the way, like healing being part of Necromancy.
I have seen/heard in several places this complaint about Heal becoming a necromancy spell and wanted to point something out. Back in 1st and 2nd editions of AD&D healing spells were necromancy. I for one actually like this return to form for these types of spells as part of the understanding of the necromancy school was the manipulation of the life force.
I agree with most of these points, except the first one. I'm still quite happy with prepared and spontaneous casting as it was in the prior edition, except of course that the Sorcerer currently is really lacking as a class and that the new "you must prepare Fireball as a 8th level spell to get a chance at decent damage" is a terrible idea.