Disallowing spontaneous heightning

[John Lynch 106]

I don't get the reasoning for banning spontaneous heightening. 17th level wizards experience no analysis paralysis 9 times a day when they spontaneously choose to cast a spell through their arcane focus. Nor are they overpowered by getting to choose certain spells (e.g. dispel magic) and cast it at the optimum level through their arcane focus.

So why do sorcerers suddenly cause analysis paralysis? Why do they seem overpowered when wizards don't? Also if certain spells are really overpowered with spontaneous heightening, then sorcerers still get to be overpowered by selecting 2 of those spells a day, and wizards get to be overpowered up to 9 times a day.

The only benefit sorcerers seem to have is that they get more resonance then wizards. Except wizards get the luxury of having an 18 in their primary stat and a 16 in charisma to only put them behind by 1 point of resonance. So the so-called advantage sorcerers get can be as little as 1 resonance point per day. It doesn't seem like very much compared with wizards.

[magnuskn]

Yep, spontaneous heightening for all spells seems to be the solution to not having the sorcerer being completely inferior to the wizard at this point.

[Dragonborn3]

And the paralysis is much more likely to come about every time new spells levels are gained. Do you learn a heightened spell or a level appropriate spell? Which spell should you use you're Pittance of "Spontaneous" Hieghtening on each day?

If the sorcerer is picking the same two spells to auto-hieghten each day I feel like the system has simply failed.

And let us not forget that, for a single feat, a wizard can spend ten minutes and simply prepare a heightened spell of ANY spell he knows! This is quite a bit more flexible than anything a sorcerer could hope for.

[Kalvit]

I think that a possible fix that could have been made as a modification to the spontaneous heightening feature would be to expend a Spell Point to add another spell past the two you select at the start of the day. Or at least, to do so every time you attempt to heighten a spell outside of those two selections per day. That would make the decision making a little more flexible, as well as add more choices for using Spell Points.

[Soullos]

All spell casting classes in 5e can heighten any prepared/known spell all they want by casting a spell in a higher level spell slot and I don't see anyone complain about analysis paralysis. Many new players are getting their feet wet with 5e, a less complex game than either Pathfinders, so I don't see why PF2 can't have free heightening for all spell casters as well. *shrug*

[Yun E. Bears]

An alternative I like more could be, to just outright heighten every single spell the sorcerer casts to its maximum possible level? Maybe not to its full progression, but maybe like at 5th level every spell under 2nd level heightens to full second level regardless of the slot is used to cast it, then again at ninth they all go up to third, at eleventh they go to fourth, at fifteenth to fifth and at seventeenth to sixth?

[Dragonborn3]

I suppose they could always make things fair,... and make wizards have to learn every level of the spell too. [/evil grin]

[Blave]

John Lynch 106 wrote:

Nor are they overpowered by getting to choose certain spells (e.g. dispel magic) and cast it at the optimum level through their arcane focus.

That would require the wizard to already have cast dipel magic at each spell level. Arcane Focus only allows you to cast a spell you've alredy spend.