John Lynch 106 wrote: thejeff wrote: May I just say that I love this change, regardless of what it does to wizard/sorcerer comparison.
It's exactly the right kind of fix to the standard 3.x caster problems.
I say this with no sarcasm or snideness: Have you ever played D&D 4th edition? Because this was exact sort of solution they applied by making buffs have a duration of "until the end of the encounter". Suffice it to say, I was not satisfied with the solution when compared with PF1e.
However it does limit the impact spellcasters have on the party and help make sure non-casters are "powerful enough" by having almost no buffs exist in the game (again, haven't analysed the non-arcane list). Yes, I have and I wasn't fond of the meta nature of "one encounter", but fixed time limits don't have that problem.
I also wind up playing more low level games than high level ones, so rd/level being 1 minute and minute/level being 10 minute is actually more of a buff than a limit to caster impact. It was one of the multiplying factors that led to quadratic wizards - not only did they get more spells and more powerful ones, but even their weak spells jumped in effectiveness as they lasted longer and longer.
All else aside, this is a good change imo. And a nice simple one, that's easily ported as a house rule back into PF1, if you'd like.
Now, there may also have been changes in the number or power of buffs available, but that's outside the scope of switching to fixed durations.
John Lynch 106 wrote: s.
Avir wrote: enemies aren't stupid and just let you sit around for 10 minutes. Maybe your group is different. As I said, if enemies are aware of the PC's they will typically seek to overwhelm them rather then let the PCs fight a small group, stop to heal up with charges from a wand of cure light wounds which can take a few minutes at higher level and then rush them once they're fully healed. Nor have I seen Paizo AP's written in such a way where enemies are aware of the PC's and then stupidly allow them to sit around and heal up with wand charges before engaging in them. But your group might be different.
Maybe they did send that one messenger to rally the rest of the group and you sitting there for 10 minutes lets them get all their defenses set up and ready to overwhelm you, rather than you arriving right behind the messenger, while they're still trying to organize.
Though you're right that the common sitting around for 5 minutes looting the bodies and burning CLW charges on everybody accomplishes much of the same thing.
Thinking like this is probably why I have a lot of trouble not just slaughtering parties in those large "tribe full of enemies" scenarios.
thejeff wrote: Yes, I have and I wasn't fond of the meta nature of "one encounter", but fixed time limits don't have that problem. You realise it is the exact same solution right? They're just presenting it in such a way that gives the illusion of it being a 3.x game when in reality it's the 4e mechanic.
thejeff wrote: I also wind up playing more low level games than high level ones, so rd/level being 1 minute and minute/level being 10 minute is actually more of a buff than a limit to caster impact. How long do your combats typically last? Low level combats typically last 1-2 rounds (depending on how many enemies make their save vs colour spray) or around 3-5 rounds (if the wizard doesn't cast colour spray). Once you get past level 4 your 1 round/level buffs will last 1 combat and your 1 minute/level buffs will last 1-3 combats (depending if you're in rampage mode or not). At best this is the same scenario as PF2e. At worst it's a downgrade (GMs are encouraged to not let 10 minute buffs last more than a couple of fights).
thejeff wrote: It was one of the multiplying factors that led to quadratic wizards - not only did they get more spells and more powerful ones, but even their weak spells jumped in effectiveness as they lasted longer and longer. I don't mind fixed lengths. I find the substantially reduced lengths and the substantially reduced buffs to be a very 4e solution and the end result will likely be it doesn't feel like a 3.x game. But I haven't playtested yet unfortunately so I can't say for sure.
thejeff wrote: All else aside, this is a good change imo. And a nice simple one, that's easily ported as a house rule back into PF1, if you'd like. Pathfinder Unchained had similar rules if you're interested in doing that.
thejeff wrote: Maybe they did send that one messenger to rally the rest of the group and you sitting there for 10 minutes lets them get all their defenses set up and ready to overwhelm you, rather than you arriving right behind the messenger, while they're still trying to organize.
Though you're right that the common sitting around for 5 minutes looting the bodies and burning CLW charges on everybody accomplishes much of the same thing.
Thinking like this is probably why I have a lot of trouble not just slaughtering parties in those large "tribe full of enemies" scenarios.
Sure. But that problem exists in PF1e while everyone waits for the cleric to finish wanding everyone to full HP same as it will in PF2e where everyone waits for the wizard to stop swapping out his spells.
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John Lynch 106 wrote: thejeff wrote: Yes, I have and I wasn't fond of the meta nature of "one encounter", but fixed time limits don't have that problem. You realise it is the exact same solution right? They're just presenting it in such a way that gives the illusion of it being a 3.x game when in reality it's the 4e mechanic. It's the "exact same mechanic", except that the part that bothered me the most about it isn't the same at all - the meta-nature of "encounter". You don't get weird results if you wind up in non-normal length encounters - a chase scene, a running battle, an extended fight where the enemy comes in waves - things like that.
John Lynch 106 wrote: thejeff wrote: I also wind up playing more low level games than high level ones, so rd/level being 1 minute and minute/level being 10 minute is actually more of a buff than a limit to caster impact. How long do your combats typically last? Low level combats typically last 1-2 rounds (depending on how many enemies make their save vs colour spray) or around 3-5 rounds (if the wizard doesn't cast colour spray). Once you get past level 4 your 1 round/level buffs will last 1 combat and your 1 minute/level buffs will last 1-3 combats (depending if you're in rampage mode or not). At best this is the same scenario as PF2e. At worst it's a downgrade (GMs are encouraged to not let 10 minute buffs last more than a couple of fights). thejeff wrote: It was one of the multiplying factors that led to quadratic wizards - not only did they get more spells and more powerful ones, but even their weak spells jumped in effectiveness as they lasted longer and longer. I don't mind fixed lengths. I find the substantially reduced lengths and the substantially reduced buffs to be a very 4e solution and the end result will likely be it doesn't feel like a 3.x game. But I haven't playtested yet unfortunately so I can't say for sure.
As I said, I tend to play the lower end more often, so it's sometimes a buff and rarely a nerf. Some 1st level buffs become useful. The minute/level ones aren't a nerf at all until after 10th level and a fairly minor one until later.
John Lynch 106 wrote:
thejeff wrote: All else aside, this is a good change imo. And a nice simple one, that's easily ported as a house rule back into PF1, if you'd like. Pathfinder Unchained had similar rules if you're interested in doing that. Not sure I'd need anything other than the straightforward.
John Lynch 106 wrote: thejeff wrote: Maybe they did send that one messenger to rally the rest of the group and you sitting there for 10 minutes lets them get all their defenses set up and ready to overwhelm you, rather than you arriving right Sure. But that problem exists in PF1e while everyone waits for the cleric to finish wanding everyone to full HP same as it will in PF2e where everyone waits for the wizard to stop swapping out his spells. True, which is why my groups tried not to do that in those kinds of situations - imagine a commando raid, where the team takes the guardpost, then spends 5 minutes looting and bandaging before moving on into the compound.
I didn't say it was the same mechanic. I said it was the same solution. If the window dressing makes that a big of a difference for you then that's good for you. Can't say the trappings makes any significant difference for me.
If your group doesn't use wands of cow then that's good. But it signals that we have extremely disparate play styles.
John Lynch 106 wrote: I didn't say it was the same mechanic. I said it was the same solution. If the window dressing makes that a big of a difference for you then that's good for you. Can't say the trappings makes any significant difference for me.
If your group doesn't use wands of cow then that's good. But it signals that we have extremely disparate play styles.
We certainly do, when there's time and need, but we don't necessarily assume there's always going to be that time between every fight.
Often the timing won't be an issue - encounters will be more separated, we're sure an alarm wasn't raised, whatever.
So I picked up the 2E playtest book over this weekend March 22.
when I finish reading through all the classes the first thing I did was go to Google and type in "why does Pathfinder 2E hate sorcerer"
I fine-tuned it eventually get here that that is the takeaway I got from this book.
Which is very sad to me as it missed A fundamental idea of what is sorcerer is, and instead produces a fundamentally weaker version of a caster in every category of magic.
What I mean by this if you look at the wizard and you have knowledge and spontaneous like ability, The Bard you have support and heightening magic, obviously clerics are more optimized to use the healing and just the Divine casting list, and The druids abilities synergize better then the Fey bloodline with the primal Magic's. This leaves the sorcerer in a position of me questioning what role they are to fill besides a story one. Which is fine in some regards but even in RPG playing a character which is constantly outclassed gets old.
so enough complaining on to what I would actually do for sorcerer. Having read through the previous posts the automatic heightening of magic seems a simple solution and when I would implement just as a house rule if nothing else. but even that I think fails to really grasp what a sorcerer is a sorcerer is magic in a way that no wizard druid cleric or Bard can ever be. So why not utilize that innate will to give them an adaptability of spells that no other class has. So where the wizard will have the adaptability of knowledge a sorcerer will have adaptability of the individual spell. mechanically what that would look like is specific metamagic feats that have two components one which is something that costs an additional action and a lesser version or one with a draw back which is free.
Example of a metamagic feat that exists already widen. Standard increase the size of a cone or I would ever is the same a sorcerer though could sacrifice a half the width to double the length of a cone for free. The other example would be would be over power the quote free version would be maybe 3-5 points ignored. For a new example I thought of last night the traditional empower but the free version it increases say 4 squares by one or two additional dice sacrificing damage to every other square for double the empowered section, 1 increased 2 dice decreased.
In effect I believe nearly every spell a sorcerer cast should have some metamagic component to it. This first off gives the class a unique identity which cannot be duplicated elsewhere to the same degree. The second thing is it plays very well into the idea of what a sorcerer and what magic to a sorcerer is.
Now I'm sure that there are mechanical balancing functions which would have to go into this kind of change. Still as a play test I think now is a good opportunity to try them out. As right now I can tell you the sorcerer is never going to be a class that stands out. I will also be altering the class on my own if it doesn't see significant changes. To find a better balance for it.
Sorry if this isn't fully on topic of sorcerer v wizard but I thought it talked about the fundamental problem sorcerers have versus wizards.
The Sorcerer was buffed in successive playtest updates, and the overall metagame trends towards the end of the playtest were extremely favorable to the Sorcerer. In terms of raw power and build viability, the Sorcerer was arguably the top spellcasting class by the end of the playtest. So at least relative to the other classes it didn't have any problems.
Overall, caster classes just felt bland in PF2, like a return to 3.5 where they got a class feature at 1st level, and afterwards were just a spell list with a bunch of dead levels. This lack of class features was exacerbated by how few feats they got, and the fact that most of them would be spent on multiclassing anyways. So for the most part when picking a caster class you were looking at what spell list you got and what ability score it used, and maybe one or two feats that caught your eye. As a practical matter, were only a stone's throw away from a completely class-less system.
Hopefully the final version of the rules addresses these issues. Paizo has already said that they revitalized the power of magic in general (since spells were quite weak in the playtest) but it remains to be seen what will end up coming out the other end.
Dasrak wrote: Overall, caster classes just felt bland in PF2, like a return to 3.5 where they got a class feature at 1st level, and afterwards were just a spell list with a bunch of dead levels. This lack of class features was exacerbated by how few feats they got, and the fact that most of them would be spent on multiclassing anyways. So for the most part when picking a caster class you were looking at what spell list you got and what ability score it used, and maybe one or two feats that caught your eye. As a practical matter, were only a stone's throw away from a completely class-less system.
Hopefully the final version of the rules addresses these issues. Paizo has already said that they revitalized the power of magic in general (since spells were quite weak in the playtest) but it remains to be seen what will end up coming out the other end.
It's hard to give casters much else, when spells are already the most powerful class feature in the game - and one that automatically scales with level in both power, versatility and number of uses. Getting that, plus stuff that's as cool as what non-casters get is a problem.
The problem I had with the early version of the sorcerer was that the different spell lists it could access weren't balanced against each other, but the weaker ones didn't better other abilities to make up for it.
thejeff wrote: It's hard to give casters much else, when spells are already the most powerful class feature in the game - and one that automatically scales with level in both power, versatility and number of uses. Getting that, plus stuff that's as cool as what non-casters get is a problem. That or you could actually give the other classes comparable powers in their own right.
thejeff wrote: The problem I had with the early version of the sorcerer was that the different spell lists it could access weren't balanced against each other, but the weaker ones didn't better other abilities to make up for it. This was mostly an issue with the divine spell list; the others were fairly close, and a little extra content to give each their own niches would balance them out.
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