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I've been reading up on the universalist wizard as for the playtest story I am making a character that really suits that style over going a specialist. I am noticing when using RAW though that they seem to give up a lot over specialist ones.
At level 1, they lose a spell slot (which the specialist gains) and a cantrip. Sure those slots must be in their specialisation but that is not hard to chose your other spells around that. sure the universalist is supposed to get more uses out of the arcane focus drain but at level 1 this is still only a single use.
At higher levels the arcane drain looks like it beefs up to keep pace with the specialist spell slots... but specialist can still use the arcane drain at least once which gives them an extra spell in total to use.
specialists also get access to a pool of spell points with some power that function like some free spells.
the trade off is supposed to be a level 1 wizard feat, which considering they lose a full spell, a cantrip and give up powers seems to be a poor trade off. I understand you can choose a power for the universalist wizard so basically you are trading your feat to equal that power. but the lack of spell selection early and given the arcane focus can only recast previously cast spells (whereas you can simply prepare another spell as a specialist) seems a bit underwhelming.
I would think the idea for a universalist is to give them the ability to be more utility? If so they have less utility than a specialist which just seems weird.
I can think of a few ways this could be altered but going RAW I think it needs another pass. Unless I am reading it way wrong.
I think it's mostly fine, actually. Being one feat ahead is quite nice. Makes the Universalist the caster with the highest number of feats in the game, actually.
You could use the extra feat to get a familiar to gain the missing cantrip (and/or an extra slot at higher level). A Specialist can do the same at level 2, but at that level the Universalist could already have the Familiar and his first metamagic.
Would be nice if the Universalist's powers were a bit more impressive, though. Hand of the Apprentice is not bad, but requires you to have a decent weapon at higher levels. Universal Versatility sounds nice, but you'll probably end up using one power WAY more than any other, so you might as well be a specialist for that school.
I'd probably forget about powers altogether and get a Familiar at first level. Even if the Specialist has just as many cantrips, five should keep you going until your Arcane focus narrows the gap.
Hmm I see what you mean, though I still feel you are missing an extra spell out of the focus. Though that is negligible later (hurts at level 1 since I have 2 level 1 spells instead of 3)
I guess I was looking for it to be more in utility rather than the extra metamagic feat.
I am looking at taking Reach Spell as that level 1 feat at this stage.
Edit: oh but I only get 4 cantrips as a universalist, not 5 right?
Edit Edit: ah reading is tech though, the familiar would give me access to an extra cantrip?
Yes, the familiar can give you one more cantrip as one of it's powers. You could also get one more from your ancestry if you're an elf or gnome.
On direct comparison, I would actually ignore the one spell slot. It comes down to having powers or a feat (ignoring the questionable option to spend the gained feat to get a subpar power*).
However, if I went for a power, I would proabably want to have the improved power of my school, too. Those are pretty nice. So it's more like "Gain two feats or two powers".
Getting the second power would eat my level 8 or 10 feat, leaving little room for the other great level 8 feats (Makeshift Wand and Quickened Casting, maybe even Spell Penetration).
So yeah, if you want a summoner, get the Conjuration school. Every other school has a power that's fitting, but doesn't really do much to enhance your spelcasting.
*Come to think of it, Hand of the Apprentice is nice in the first few levels. You could probably get away with picking it up on 1, than retraining it to metamagic you have enough spells to make it count.
hmmm, for this one I went halfling wizard (for story purposes), I intentially went story over powergaming min/maxing (though not saying playing an elf or gnome is specifically doing that). I still feel it needs a little more to compensate for losing some of the cool powers and extra spells from the specialist but that is what the playtest is for after all! I guess I should play a specialist wizard in a different playtest to compare.
I'm glad to see this thread, I personally feel specialists are bad and fear the universalist getting nerfed. The more people like specialists the less likely that is.
There are no 1st level powers I want, most certainly including Hand of the Apprentice, which uses up a feat, a hand, and a weapon to be worse than a free cantrip. No thanks. There are few 4th level powers that are worthwhile, either, although Necromancy and Illusion aren't bad.
The generalist is one spell behind the specialist at his highest spell level and cantrips, but has improved flexibility at lower levels, able to decide which of his prepared spells at each level to duplicate via drain Arcane Focus.
The generalist also benefits greatly from the Focus Conservation feat, which lets him use each drain Arcane Focus action to get bonus spells, and the Empowering Focus feat (+2 DC once per day when draining Arcane Focus) because he has more opportunities to use the first and more flexibility to use the second.
A high level universal with Focus Conservation can easily get several to many bonus spells per day if he chains his Arcane Focus uses properly. As an example, there are plenty of 4th to 2nd level buff chains you can cast twice off one use of drain Arcane Focus (Blink/Invisibility or Invisibility(4th)/Resist Energy or Fly/Blur, or...). A 5th/3rd/1st level offensive chain of Black Tentacles/Stinking Cloud/Color Spray is a a decent one that only costs you your 5th level arcane focus use, but there are many, many others.
Strangely, the specialist advantage that I'm most jealous of in the playtest is the bonus spell for your spellbook. Adding spells is hideously expensive now, so that's a big wealth and flexibility boost.
Specialist wizards are just plain better. The big difference is that they actually are more versatile than universalist wizards because they can prepare 4 different spells per spell level. This changes a bit when quick preparation is available but specialists can take that too.
The powers actually aren't that important. They add flavour but they aren far away from being essential (except the cunjuring lvl 1 power maybe).
This edition kinda goes with what ad&d did. The difference is that in ad&d the specialists had spell restrictions and couldn't cast spells of their opposite school. That made universalists actually more versatile. Here they just get an extra feat. That's not enough to justify their limitations. In my opinion they should give universalists feats every even level, so they have 3 feats more in the end than specialists. That would make it actually appealing to go with universalist. Or add spellrestricions for specialists cause that would also fix the problem.
The generalist also benefits greatly from the Focus Conservation feat, which lets him use each drain Arcane Focus action to get bonus spells, and the Empowering Focus feat (+2 DC once per day when draining Arcane Focus) because he has more opportunities to use the first and more flexibility to use the second.
A generalist can't learn Empowering Focus.
Also, there are some good powers available for specialist. The best probably being augment summoning.
I agree with the others saying that a specialist is the stronger option. But I also think the gap is not nearly as large as in PF1. Playing a generalist is actually something I would seriously consider.
Interesting. I had just looked at the Arcane Drain feature, and concluded Universalists outstripped Specialists early on, but I suppose there are other factors involved.
I'm going to encourage my playtest group to run an Universalist in "The Lost Star" and in "When the Stars Go Dark", to see how much more potent the multiple Arcane Drains become at high level.
Good discussions, I do think I generally agree that they generalist is a little bit behind and less flexible when i should be more. I did see all the conserve focus feats that you can spend to get more reuses and I had considered that for the overall benefit later. I suppose as it is right now I am building a L1 character and in the short term it seems to get the short end of the wand, but in the long term it might not.
I kind of feel like you should still get the additional cantrip at L1 to equal the specialist cantrips (and if you take the familar feat you could get an additional) to really drive home the utility but i'll see how it plays.
Also a bit weird that empowering focus requires a school so it limits that from the universalist wizard... maybe a balancing option as late half the spells an generalist can cast would have a higher DC?
Well I can now say after the first part of the playtest, my suspicion is confirmed with the extra spell really hurting at level one. I had mage armor and magic missile preped using mage armor at the start of the day left me with 2 MM (I took the familar feat for the wizard to get the extra cantrip which helped a bit bringing me to 5 - light, electric arc, detect magic, read aura, shield. still not really sure why detect magic and read aura are different spells or they should be differentiated more)
It did leave me fee limited of when I could use my first level spells. As i said I suspect this will be alleviated somewhat later when you are getting magic staves, feats and wands to help supplement spells but at least a this level you feel it. thats not even talking about the 'powers' you would otherwise get.
I did enjoy the playtest though. I do think the cantrips otherwise made sense and gave me flexibility to move around where I needed to be on the map. I did swap around some cantrips between rest during the game so some more playing around with that loadout would be fun.
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I just created a wizard who focusses on archery, and since I didn't want to deal with specialization I am going universalist.
Getting that extra level 1 class feat is neat (I went with Reach Spell and I am looking forward to testing it soon in the second PFS playtest scenario), but the Drain Arcane Focus really must be wrong.
Right now it gives you another use for each spell level you can cast... so you would have access to more high-level spell slots than any other caster.