Arcane Spellcasters in PF2E – quo vadis?


General Discussion

601 to 650 of 851 << first < prev | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | next > last >>

1 person marked this as a favorite.
magnuskn wrote:
Makarion wrote:

Actually, I'd be all in favour of a setting where only the most legendary of spellcasters can cast a 5th level spell, and where martials are on par with that. Maybe want to eliminate levels as such a hard power-up experience a bit, or create half-levels somehow, but as a general power gage, I'd be cool with it.

Granted, that is not what most PF and D&D players are likely to enjoy, but I bet I'm not alone in longing for some good old Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser, and similar, fantasy.

And, though it scrapes at the "then go play something else" fallacy, I'd like to mention that there are games like that already. No need to hijack this one, too.

There are also games that do super-high-power levels too (Exalted, for one example). The thing to note about both the low-powered and high-powered option is that they present Merlin and Lancelot as endgame peers, or Doctor Strange and Goku as endgame peers. They don't make Doctor Strange and Lancelot the top tier options for casters and martials. Paizo need to pick a power level to aim at for 20th level, and not make sure all the classes get to it.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
John Mechalas wrote:
Cyouni wrote:
Given half the posts have been back-and-forths of "this was a major problem in 1E" and "well, I like it like that", I'm really not sure where you're looking.

You're not seeing the forest for the trees. You're lost in the weeds of individual debates about individual spells. These debates are what happen when people bring up a spell as an example of their overarching concerns about either PF1 or PF2. And because people like to argue back and forth.

The most useful posts are the longer analysis posts where people lay out their concerns. Those are the ones that start the above debates. Focus on those and use them as context for the back-and-forth. A fierce defense of the utility teleport is not the same as claiming all of PF1E is fine.

Yeah, pretty much that.

I'm checking out of the debate until next week, since I'm with relatives until Monday and then it's basically sleep/work/meet with friends/sleep until Wednesday. I thought I'd mention it since I'm at least tangentially involved in some of the debates and the thread starter.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
John Mechalas wrote:
Cyouni wrote:
Given half the posts have been back-and-forths of "this was a major problem in 1E" and "well, I like it like that", I'm really not sure where you're looking.

You're not seeing the forest for the trees. You're lost in the weeds of individual debates about individual spells. These debates are what happen when people bring up a spell as an example of their overarching concerns about either PF1 or PF2. And because people like to argue back and forth.

The most useful posts are the longer analysis posts where people lay out their concerns. Those are the ones that start the above debates. Focus on those and use them as context for the back-and-forth. A fierce defense of the utility of teleport is not the same as claiming all of PF1E is fine.

Yet teleportation is one of the bigger examples in PF1 as to why magic trumps everything else (after the obviously broken things), and anything that weakens it is met with a massive amount of uproar.

If teleportation, one of the things at the top of the list for what needed to be weakened, can't get changed, what can?

Dark Archive

4 people marked this as a favorite.

You can nerf teleport to some point. I dont think i ever saw people who likes arbitrary long distance travels where they have to fight arbitrery random encounters and face challenges such as climb this unnecessarily high mountain. Teleport saves you from those and it is a nice backup plan when things dont go according to plan. You can nerf it to a point where it cannot be used for things such as scry and fry but putting it into a list which new gms can easly see it as a no go spell isnt the way to do it. A lot of those gms will look at uncommon list and saw them as broken spells.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Cyouni wrote:
John Mechalas wrote:
Cyouni wrote:
Given half the posts have been back-and-forths of "this was a major problem in 1E" and "well, I like it like that", I'm really not sure where you're looking.

You're not seeing the forest for the trees. You're lost in the weeds of individual debates about individual spells. These debates are what happen when people bring up a spell as an example of their overarching concerns about either PF1 or PF2. And because people like to argue back and forth.

The most useful posts are the longer analysis posts where people lay out their concerns. Those are the ones that start the above debates. Focus on those and use them as context for the back-and-forth. A fierce defense of the utility of teleport is not the same as claiming all of PF1E is fine.

Yet teleportation is one of the bigger examples in PF1 as to why magic trumps everything else (after the obviously broken things), and anything that weakens it is met with a massive amount of uproar.

If teleportation, one of the things at the top of the list for what needed to be weakened, can't get changed, what can?

Or it didn't. 'Cause it's a playstyle and preference issue. I don't want to play LotR at high levels, and escaping is difficult enough without the spell nerfs. And banning it is super easy.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Cyouni wrote:

Yet teleportation is one of the bigger examples in PF1 as to why magic trumps everything else (after the obviously broken things), and anything that weakens it is met with a massive amount of uproar.

If teleportation, one of the things at the top of the list for what needed to be weakened, can't get changed, what can?

In this very thread, I suggested a way teleport could be changed to eliminate one of the common complaints, which is scry&fry: limit the destination to 1) places you can see, 2) places you have been, and 3) well-known public places like cities (I'd refine that to, public areas of well-known public places). More or less this is what the Playtest did, but it lost the ability to scry on your friends* and teleport to them, which was pretty useful.

Why not loosen that up with: 4) something or a (willing) someone with a personal connection to the caster to serve as a beacon. Now you can still teleport to your buddy, but not to the enemy's lair/keep/bedroom.

The larger argument I am making here is that we can solve some of the magic issues with a scalpel instead of a club.

*Because of the change to scrying


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Its quite clear that Paizo wants to dial the game down - reduce everyone's power. The reason is pretty obvious - to extend the Golden Spot (which in PF1 is generally said to be around level 3-7) where characters feel heroic and capable, but not overpowering or scenario-destroying.

The rarity factor serves the same purpose - it gates potentially scenario-breaking effects behind a GM fiat.

The issue here is not if Pathfinder has reduced characters in power (it has), it is whether the balance between casters and martials is the right one.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Starfox wrote:

Its quite clear that Paizo wants to dial the game down - reduce everyone's power. The reason is pretty obvious - to extend the Golden Spot (which in PF1 is generally said to be around level 3-7) where characters feel heroic and capable, but not overpowering or scenario-destroying.

The rarity factor serves the same purpose - it gates potentially scenario-breaking effects behind a GM fiat.

The issue here is not if Pathfinder has reduced characters in power (it has), it is whether the balance between casters and martials is the right one.

That is a big mistake and Paizo should know better. WOTC tried to do the same thing with 4E and all it did was homogenize every tier of play. While it seemed fun for the first 3 levels, combat grew rather dull around 7th+. 4E has the ignoble distinction of being the only edition where my players complained that the balors hit them for too little damage and demanded that I raised the damage to make the balors a worthy threat. Its very sad when your players complain about you not hurting them enough to make the combat seem worthwhile


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Lausth wrote:
You can nerf teleport to some point. I dont think i ever saw people who likes arbitrary long distance travels where they have to fight arbitrery random encounters and face challenges such as climb this unnecessarily high mountain. Teleport saves you from those and it is a nice backup plan when things dont go according to plan. You can nerf it to a point where it cannot be used for things such as scry and fry but putting it into a list which new gms can easly see it as a no go spell isnt the way to do it. A lot of those gms will look at uncommon list and saw them as broken spells.

yet it's exactly those new GMs that will face problems in a system with Teleport being free and potentially exploited.

the uncommon list is for the protection of said campaigns to not get ruined because a GM can't handle the teleport.

others, more experienced GMs, the kind of people who can plan around teleport, are knowledgable enough to allow an uncommon spell.

teleport being uncommon is one of the wisest decisions if PF wants to expand to newer gamers.

Older gamers can, and will, allow uncommon spells, and can, and will, play with and around such spells.

(plus, I've seen noone complain about using teleport as a long distance travel tool, and it's still easily usable as such. It's all the other s@#* one can pull with teleport that's being toned down)

necromental wrote:

Or it didn't. 'Cause it's a playstyle and preference issue. I don't want to play LotR at high levels, and escaping is difficult enough without the spell nerfs. And banning it is super easy.

allowing it out of an uncommon list is even easier:

people who can handle it, will allow it, people who don't won't.
the other option, it being easily accesible and the GM being able to ban it is actually much harder, because the GM who needs to ban the spell in the first place, probably won't even know WHY he needs to ban it before he comes across an unplanned situation that will ruin his story.

Dark Archive

5 people marked this as a favorite.

Wisest decision? Hardly. They could have add a note to it. Saying how and when to use teleport. Talking about wisest decisions. Nerfing half of the all of the player choices(Out of 12 classes 6 of them are casters including the alchemist) in your game where players of said classes starts to feel like a useless weight isnt exactly the most wisest decision ever. Yes i am including the cleric to the list. Being the healbot isnt the best caster experience ever excluding people who likes that type of playstyle.


4 people marked this as a favorite.

Okay, so everyone's read how much I hate most of the nerfs to spellcasting, right? Cool. Just wanted to make sure before I say this.

I'm actually okay with certain spells being uncommon and rare. When I was new to gming that separation would have helped me a lot. I get nervous easily and if I banned overpowered spells certain players had a tendency to complain that I was punishing them for choosing efficient options. I know some problem players will still complain, but some will also let it go at "it's right there in the rules that it's uncommon."

Some form of a list that says "this option is powerful so your gm needs to okay it before you choose it" is fine with me. I just worry that pfs characters might not get access to any of those options at all. It would be sort of aggravating since they've been around a while in pfs.

That's not to say it couldn't be handled better. Sidebars for new gms on how to use those options in a campaign, how to respond to players using them, etc would be great.

Dark Archive

3 people marked this as a favorite.

Putting spells in an uncommon list wont do. Just adding some notes to it or guiding new gms to better understand the problems they could face would be much more helpfull to them. At its current state uncommon list will be no go list for a lot of gms. Why making it look like a game breaking choice is better than informing newer gms. I just dont get it.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Lausth wrote:

Putting spells in an uncommon list wont do. Just adding some notes to it or guiding new gms to better understand the problems they could face would be much more helpfull to them. At its current state uncommon list will be no go list for a lot of gms. Why making it look like a game breaking choice is better than informing newer gms. I just dont get it.

It can be a game breaking choice. Gming hard and complicated. Especially if you're new to it. It's easy to forget or overlook things you were planning on doing to mitigate certain spells. Yes I would very much like if there was a "this is why we made these spells uncommon so think about it before letting players use them, and this is how you should go about things if you allow them" write up in the gming section of the book. But if they're good they'll eventually talk to other gms and/or figure out how to mitigate stuff like teleport on their own.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Corwin Icewolf wrote:
Gming hard and complicated. Especially if you're new to it.

If you're going to miss something, it's the rarity on the spells as they are now and not a sidebar explaining spells that might be issues or plans you made after reading said sidebar. Add to that the rarity doesn't tell you HOW the spell is an issue or if it's an issue at all as rarity is used in the equipment section for unusual and hard to find items and not ones that are complicated or troublesome. I new DM is more likely to allow a spell that might be an issue the rarity way than the sidebar way IMO.


5 people marked this as a favorite.

I like the “Tome of Battle”. I used it with Pathfinder and had it as a source book for all of my home games. None of my players used it. A Pathfinder fighter comes in at a little stronger than the warblade with the fighter be being less complex.

You can do a lot of the things from ToB in PF2. Make an attack targeting touch AC, the monk can do this at level 8. Move across water. Both the monk and the rogue can do this. Run up walls. The rogue can do this. Move and still hit hard. Everyone can do this with how magic weapons work. Move two times in a round and still attack. Everyone one can do this now with the three actions a turn. Move and get two attack rolls.
Can do this with Double Slice.

I would guess that you can do at least 20% of the things listed in ToB in PF2, and more is likely coming in the future. Given this I do think they did hit the casters with the nurf bat a few too many times. I was one of the ones that thought the casters needed a bit of nurfing, and the martials could use a boost.

The things I think should be given back to the casters.

1. Quality of Life spells. They did not hurt game balance.

2. The duration of many spells needs to be increased. This could be done by being able to heighten spells to increase duration like is done with the jump spell.1 Minute-> 5 minute-> 30 minute-> 1 hour-> 8 hour->1 day. Each boost in duration only increasing the duration. Each step up takes another level higher spell. I do not think it would be over powered to use a 6th level spell slot to get 1st level spell effect all day.

3. Decrease casting time on some spells. Mending is a good example, it is possible to do repairs much more quickly with the “quick repair” feat. The 1 hour casting time is not reasonable.

4. Decrease the casting time of at least some of the attack cantrips to one action. If the cantrip is doing less damage than a weapon attack and requires an attack roll I do not see what would be unbalanced with letting a caster cast more than one. Just add on the multiple attack penalty and it is unlikely to cause a problem.


graystone wrote:
Corwin Icewolf wrote:
Gming hard and complicated. Especially if you're new to it.
If you're going to miss something, it's the rarity on the spells as they are now and not a sidebar explaining spells that might be issues or plans you made after reading said sidebar. Add to that the rarity doesn't tell you HOW the spell is an issue or if it's an issue at all as rarity is used in the equipment section for unusual and hard to find items and not ones that are complicated or troublesome. I new DM is more likely to allow a spell that might be an issue the rarity way than the sidebar way IMO.

So, which is easier:

A full paragraph for each problematic spell

OR

A more visible, single paragraph, that says: "All uncommon spells can be problematic for an inexperienced GM, allow them with caution. "

The least work a new GM has to do, the better.

People more experienced with the game are much more suited to put stuff in rather than newbies taking stuff out.

There's 0 reasons to go the opposite way expert veteran laziness.


Arrow17 wrote:
Starfox wrote:

Its quite clear that Paizo wants to dial the game down - reduce everyone's power. The reason is pretty obvious - to extend the Golden Spot (which in PF1 is generally said to be around level 3-7) where characters feel heroic and capable, but not overpowering or scenario-destroying.

The rarity factor serves the same purpose - it gates potentially scenario-breaking effects behind a GM fiat.

The issue here is not if Pathfinder has reduced characters in power (it has), it is whether the balance between casters and martials is the right one.

That is a big mistake and Paizo should know better. WOTC tried to do the same thing with 4E and all it did was homogenize every tier of play. While it seemed fun for the first 3 levels, combat grew rather dull around 7th+. 4E has the ignoble distinction of being the only edition where my players complained that the balors hit them for too little damage and demanded that I raised the damage to make the balors a worthy threat. Its very sad when your players complain about you not hurting them enough to make the combat seem worthwhile

Yep, and by MM3, they reduced monster hit points and increased monster damage, but by then, it was too little too late.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Tursic wrote:

I like the “Tome of Battle”. I used it with Pathfinder and had it as a source book for all of my home games. None of my players used it. A Pathfinder fighter comes in at a little stronger than the warblade with the fighter be being less complex.

You can do a lot of the things from ToB in PF2. Make an attack targeting touch AC, the monk can do this at level 8. Move across water. Both the monk and the rogue can do this. Run up walls. The rogue can do this. Move and still hit hard. Everyone can do this with how magic weapons work. Move two times in a round and still attack. Everyone one can do this now with the three actions a turn. Move and get two attack rolls.
Can do this with Double Slice.

I would guess that you can do at least 20% of the things listed in ToB in PF2, and more is likely coming in the future. Given this I do think they did hit the casters with the nurf bat a few too many times. I was one of the ones that thought the casters needed a bit of nurfing, and the martials could use a boost.

The things I think should be given back to the casters.

1. Quality of Life spells. They did not hurt game balance.

2. The duration of many spells needs to be increased. This could be done by being able to heighten spells to increase duration like is done with the jump spell.1 Minute-> 5 minute-> 30 minute-> 1 hour-> 8 hour->1 day. Each boost in duration only increasing the duration. Each step up takes another level higher spell. I do not think it would be over powered to use a 6th level spell slot to get 1st level spell effect all day.

3. Decrease casting time on some spells. Mending is a good example, it is possible to do repairs much more quickly with the “quick repair” feat. The 1 hour casting time is not reasonable.

4. Decrease the casting time of at least some of the attack cantrips to one action. If the cantrip is doing less damage than a weapon attack and requires an attack roll I do not see what would be unbalanced with letting a caster cast more than one. Just add on the multiple...

while you say it ToB made them more complicated than their base counterparts (or granted things that could be done... with heavy specialization and much later in their career), i say it made them more interesting and fun to play than their base counterparts.

it's one of the reasons why i like path of war so much for pathfinder: it allows martials to do things that previously only casters or monsters were allowed to do, things like targeting saves not named fortitude, inflicting several different stripes of debuffs, granting additional movement options (such as combat-duration flight or short-range teleportation), the ability to actually, really fill out a proper "tank" role if they so chose (such as by intervening during enemy attacks without sacrificing your entire turn to do so, stopping enemies from moving past you, and heavily debuffing those who do, etc), and giving them a few subsystems to give martials something to DO in combat aside from "move-attack" or "full attack" that were just intrinsic functions of the characters, rather than overcomplicated combat maneuvers that only worked with half your career's feats specialized into like trip/grapple/feint/dirty tricks.
examples of this would be things like cursed razor style's curse mechanics, or that one silver style's pseudo-poisons, black seraph's uses for demoralization, or mithral current's draw-attack approach, and so on--much like spells, you just GET them. they're effectively part of your character's toolkit, rather than something you have to pay through the nose to get and keep relevant.

Dark Archive

2 people marked this as a favorite.

sigh

Shroudb

I am worried for new gms and new players. I started this game with occult adventures. Wierd invisible walls, misunderstood text and intentions was baked into my first year. It was a soul crushing experience. If you want newer people to play your game you should avoid those and let people have fun with half of your options you are giving to them.

More experienced players has no candy in this. They have their own games.

This why i dont want to discuss how to make magic better here. You need people who want to make magic better first.

EDIT:I dont want newer players go through the same things i had to go through. This magic system is pushing them in that direction.


6 people marked this as a favorite.

I'm in favor of putting "problematic" spells such as Scry, Teleport, etc etc... in the uncommon list. For new GMs, that means the players will have to ask for those spells to them, thus reducing the "surprise" effect, and the GM will have time to read and search about those spells. For experienced GMs, they can rule that those spells aren't uncommon in their settings (or rule the rarity rules out of the spells if they want to).

Edit :

Tursic wrote:
4. Decrease the casting time of at least some of the attack cantrips to one action. If the cantrip is doing less damage than a weapon attack and requires an attack roll I do not see what would be unbalanced with letting a caster cast more than one. Just add on the multiple attack penalty and it is unlikely to cause a problem.

Aren't those Attack cantrips already subjected to the multiple attack penalty ? I thought all actions with the Attack trait were subjected to and increase this.

Edit 2 :

Just checked. It seems like Acid Splash is the only "attack" cantrip without the Attack trait.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
shroudb wrote:
necromental wrote:

Or it didn't. 'Cause it's a playstyle and preference issue. I don't want to play LotR at high levels, and escaping is difficult enough without the spell nerfs. And banning it is super easy.

allowing it out of an uncommon list is even easier:

people who can handle it, will allow it, people who don't won't.
the other option, it being easily accesible and the GM being able to ban it is actually much harder, because the GM who needs to ban the spell in the first place, probably won't even know WHY he needs to ban it before he comes across an unplanned situation that will ruin his story.

As I've told you before in this same thread I have no problem with rarity(*), but I have a severe problem with 10 minute casting time, because of getaway use of the spell (and considering there are counter measures like dimensional anchor, no it's not overpowered).

*although I agree with Almarane that putting things on rarity lists because they are potentially a problem without explaining to new GMs why are they a problem will cause unnecessary banns and frustrations to experienced players.


Almarane wrote:
I'm in favor of putting "problematic" spells such as Scry, Teleport, etc etc..

Neat, some are not fond of the scry-tele-kill action, or the lengths DMs must reach in order to counter thus in a non-contrived way, in order to be worthy.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Chipping in to say that I dislike the nerfs to spells but that Teleport should retain a lot of the nerfs, including the 10 minute casting time. Don't need to see this spell mid-fight.

In fact, it should probably just be a ritual like resurrection. Don't wanna tax spell slots.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
shroudb wrote:
Lausth wrote:

Putting spells in an uncommon list wont do. Just adding some notes to it or guiding new gms to better understand the problems they could face would be much more helpfull to them. At its current state uncommon list will be no go list for a lot of gms. Why making it look like a game breaking choice is better than informing newer gms. I just dont get it.

That's terrible.

Let's force new GMs to read every little sidenote (and add like 10 pages to the book) so that more experienced players can be more powerful 5% of the time.

That will show them new GMs.

/sarcasm off

No. Just no.

Make the easy choice for the least experienced, and the experienced choice for those who have it.

The only justification for the opposite is "but mah candy wahhhhh".

That is ridiculous. Sidebars is the way to go because it teaches new gms why things are problematic, and would be very nice to also have pointers on handling it which makes for better gms.

Relying on rarity is dumb because it doesn't anything to the new gm about how to be a better gm.


7 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Typing from my phone, so I'll be brief: If there are no escape spells, prepare for a lot of TPK's or never challenge your group too much (good luck in never getting that wrong...). I'd rather have a spell which allows a party more liberty for such a margin of error. Especially with the new tight math.


Lausth wrote:
Nerfing half of the all of the player choices(Out of 12 classes 6 of them are casters including the alchemist) in your game where players of said classes starts to feel like a useless weight isnt exactly the most wisest decision ever. Yes i am including the cleric to the list. Being the healbot isnt the best caster experience ever excluding people who likes that type of playstyle.

Lausth, have you actually playtested a caster in the playtest modules? They are not dead weight in my experience, and Cleric isnt just healbot. I made a Cleric of Iomedae for a friend that focuses on frontline tanking, with 5 per day reaction from domain (Might) that reduces damage taken by 11. Combined with being able to cast Shield every round as an option to absorb 10 physical attack damage, he can tank a lot of damage while either longsword attacking or healing.

Not only are casters effective in the playtest, they very much have options to be more than one dimensional.


4 people marked this as a favorite.

To the teleport question, I would be happy if it was split into Travel Teleport, for getting to another city (which breaks some campaigns and can be Uncommon, and should probably have a long cast time) and Escape Teleport, which sends you and your party to somewhere fairly nearby you've already been, like the exit to the Murder Tower, and can be Common at relative safety with a short cast time (3-actions probably).

EDIT: Travel Teleport having an also-Uncommon Ritual version would be awesome too.

Dark Archive

2 people marked this as a favorite.

I did. I playtested the wizard. One of my friends tested the druid. They werent funny experiences. I will playtest it more ofcourse. It is hard to find a dedicated party. I guess our next playtest session will be next week.

EDIT:With amiri i was invincible! That is ofcourse due to gm rolling very low all the time in that session.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
GM DarkLightHitomi wrote:
shroudb wrote:
Lausth wrote:

Putting spells in an uncommon list wont do. Just adding some notes to it or guiding new gms to better understand the problems they could face would be much more helpfull to them. At its current state uncommon list will be no go list for a lot of gms. Why making it look like a game breaking choice is better than informing newer gms. I just dont get it.

That's terrible.

Let's force new GMs to read every little sidenote (and add like 10 pages to the book) so that more experienced players can be more powerful 5% of the time.

That will show them new GMs.

/sarcasm off

No. Just no.

Make the easy choice for the least experienced, and the experienced choice for those who have it.

The only justification for the opposite is "but mah candy wahhhhh".

That is ridiculous. Sidebars is the way to go because it teaches new gms why things are problematic, and would be very nice to also have pointers on handling it which makes for better gms.

Relying on rarity is dumb because it doesn't anything to the new gm about how to be a better gm.

This is pretty much what I was going to post. Rarity is much easier and simple if you want that new GM to stay an inexperienced GM and not learn the in's and out's of the game. If you don't tell them WHY some spells are inexplicably rarer but just telling them to not use them then they might as well not publish them as the message jumps right past 'these might cause an issue' to 'never use, we just wasted space on spells we don't want players to ever use.'


4 people marked this as a favorite.

Rarity is a good system here, but I 100% agree it should be complimented by sidebars. Not just for the system as a whole, but on specific iconic spells that required rarity and how to handle them.


magnuskn wrote:
Typing from my phone, so I'll be brief: If there are no escape spells, prepare for a lot of TPK's or never challenge your group too much (good luck in never getting that wrong...). I'd rather have a spell which allows a party more liberty for such a margin of error. Especially with the new tight math.

I wouldn't mind the casting time IF I could spend part of that time setting up a return location: What I mean is if I had to first set up a place to return to for 10 min and then have a reasonable 1 round casting time allows escapes but not the old scry and fry and other tactics. Heck I wouldn't even mind if it required a lower level spell to set up a teleport beacon and change the casting time of the teleport.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Arrow17 wrote:
That is a big mistake and Paizo should know better. WOTC tried to do the same thing with 4E and all it did was homogenize every tier of play. While it seemed fun for the first 3 levels, combat grew rather dull around 7th+. 4E has the ignoble distinction of being the only edition where my players complained that the balors hit them for too little damage and demanded that I raised the damage to make the balors a worthy threat. Its very sad when your players complain about you not hurting them enough to make the combat seem worthwhile

I don't think the monsters not hitting hard enough in PF2 is a problem... :)

As for power levels being reduced across the board, it HAS to be necessary at some point, because power levels have gradually increased across editions from Original D&D through PF1. Eventually you reach the point that 4E reached, and executed poorly in my opinion, and where 5e has continued to go, and has made a killing. PF1 won't survive as a profitable game as "rocket tag from level 1," which in my eyes is where it is headed.

It needs to welcome new players (from a rules standpoint; the community by and large is pretty welcoming), and part of this is not only being easier to assimilate choices, but being able to emulate the types of fantasy that are popular, from Conan, to Kingkiller Chronicles, to Lord of the Rings, to Game of Thrones, to Harry Potter. None of those genres stand up well to the types of Rocket Tag and "a spell for every situation" that PF1 is known for.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

From my play experience, it seems increasingly clear that, whatever it says on paper, casters only feel a bit weaker at lower levels (first couple parts of Doomsday Dawn). Sure, they may not be gods from level 7+ like in PF1, but they still feel competent and impactful once they get some additional spell slots and higher level spells.

I think part of this is NPC saves just being too high (especially at low levels) and maybe spells needing a slight boost or greater spell selection at low levels as well.

Whatever it says on paper, *actual play* does not suggest casters uniformly suck.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
GM DarkLightHitomi wrote:
That's terrible.

Indeed.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Data Lore wrote:

From my play experience, it seems increasingly clear that, whatever it says on paper, casters only feel a bit weaker at lower levels (first couple parts of Doomsday Dawn). Sure, they may not be gods from level 7+ like in PF1, but they still feel competent and impactful once they get some additional spell slots and higher level spells.

I think part of this is NPC saves just being too high (especially at low levels) and maybe spells needing a slight boost or greater spell selection at low levels as well.

Whatever it says on paper, *actual play* does not suggest casters uniformly suck.

From my play experience, casters certainly still feel weak at level 4 and 7.

One of the newer players who just joined my playtesting group tried his hands at the Wizard for the very first time.
He had never played a spellcaster character before, be it in PF 1.0 or any other tabletop RPG, since he is kinda new to the hobby.
He also playtested as a Rogue at level 1 and had a lot of fun with that character.

After playing his Wizard for some sessions, this usually very quiet guy who had not uttered a word of how he felt suddenly told us, right in the middle of play: "Wizards are weak. They serve no purpose because whatever they do has no impact and it would have been a better idea to simply try and attack that thing with a sword rather than cast a spell at it."

Do keep in mind that this player never played a 1st edition Wizard. He has no god-wizard nostalgia, in fact he doesn't even know what that is.
His experience with the playtest was the first experience he had with Pathfinder and he simply came to the conclusion that casters feel weaker to him than martials, at the moment.


dnoisette wrote:
Data Lore wrote:

From my play experience, it seems increasingly clear that, whatever it says on paper, casters only feel a bit weaker at lower levels (first couple parts of Doomsday Dawn). Sure, they may not be gods from level 7+ like in PF1, but they still feel competent and impactful once they get some additional spell slots and higher level spells.

I think part of this is NPC saves just being too high (especially at low levels) and maybe spells needing a slight boost or greater spell selection at low levels as well.

Whatever it says on paper, *actual play* does not suggest casters uniformly suck.

From my play experience, casters certainly still feel weak at level 4 and 7.

One of the newer players who just joined my playtesting group tried his hands at the Wizard for the very first time.
He had never played a spellcaster character before, be it in PF 1.0 or any other tabletop RPG, since he is kinda new to the hobby.
He also playtested as a Rogue at level 1 and had a lot of fun with that character.

After playing his Wizard for some sessions, this usually very quiet guy who had not uttered a word of how he felt suddenly told us, right in the middle of play: "Wizards are weak. They serve no purpose because whatever they do has no impact and it would have been a better idea to simply try and attack that thing with a sword rather than cast a spell at it."

Do keep in mind that this player never played a 1st edition Wizard. He has no god-wizard nostalgia, in fact he doesn't even know what that is.
His experience with the playtest was the first experience he had with Pathfinder and he simply came to the conclusion that casters feel weaker to him than martials, at the moment.

My recommendation, for a better play experience and so that we can collectively provide feedback that can be used to improve the magic system, is to first design what you want your caster to do and achieve, whether that is mostly stylistic or mostly performanced based. Find the mechanics that relate to that aim, and then playtest.

Then you can say, specifically, where the disconnect is between what you wanted the character to do and how they interacted with the adventure.

I have personally tested Cleric healing and melee tanking (strong), Druid and Wizard summoning focus (strong), and Cleric multiclassing (strong). I had very specific goals though, and the playtest met or exceeded my expectations on fun and effectiveness. On the other hand, there are many caster avenues I have zero experience with, some of which could certainly use more work.

With specific feedback from people testing those things we can agree publicly on where we vote / advocate for change, and we can test different avenues or approaches to a character concept that may already be more strongly supported (leading us to advocate either condensing or improvement of the underperforming mechanics).


Lyee wrote:

To the teleport question, I would be happy if it was split into Travel Teleport, for getting to another city (which breaks some campaigns and can be Uncommon, and should probably have a long cast time) and Escape Teleport, which sends you and your party to somewhere fairly nearby you've already been, like the exit to the Murder Tower, and can be Common at relative safety with a short cast time (3-actions probably).

EDIT: Travel Teleport having an also-Uncommon Ritual version would be awesome too.

Having a 3-action cast time on Escape-port would be nice on both sides. It would be usable, but it's also possible to disrupt if they have AOOs, as well as being harder to instantly reposition for everyone to escape.

I'd personally also like it if there were some level-limit on how many you can move quickly, so that you have to usually prepare a slot that's at least top slot - 2, but I could get along without needing that restriction.

---

I think part of the problem with comparing casters to martials during the level 4 adventure is that's the best time to compare for a martial - they have at least one magic weapon while the caster's still running on base cantrips for consistent effects.

(I think I have a bard in my level 4 adventure to compare with the barbarian and paladin, so we'll see how that goes.)


dnoisette wrote:
Data Lore wrote:

From my play experience, it seems increasingly clear that, whatever it says on paper, casters only feel a bit weaker at lower levels (first couple parts of Doomsday Dawn). Sure, they may not be gods from level 7+ like in PF1, but they still feel competent and impactful once they get some additional spell slots and higher level spells.

I think part of this is NPC saves just being too high (especially at low levels) and maybe spells needing a slight boost or greater spell selection at low levels as well.

Whatever it says on paper, *actual play* does not suggest casters uniformly suck.

From my play experience, casters certainly still feel weak at level 4 and 7.

One of the newer players who just joined my playtesting group tried his hands at the Wizard for the very first time.
He had never played a spellcaster character before, be it in PF 1.0 or any other tabletop RPG, since he is kinda new to the hobby.
He also playtested as a Rogue at level 1 and had a lot of fun with that character.

After playing his Wizard for some sessions, this usually very quiet guy who had not uttered a word of how he felt suddenly told us, right in the middle of play: "Wizards are weak. They serve no purpose because whatever they do has no impact and it would have been a better idea to simply try and attack that thing with a sword rather than cast a spell at it."

Do keep in mind that this player never played a 1st edition Wizard. He has no god-wizard nostalgia, in fact he doesn't even know what that is.
His experience with the playtest was the first experience he had with Pathfinder and he simply came to the conclusion that casters feel weaker to him than martials, at the moment.

Because it matters to figuring out what needs improvement, What sort of spells did he use?


4 people marked this as a favorite.
shroudb wrote:

That's terrible.

Let's force new GMs to read every little sidenote (and add like 10 pages to the book) so that more experienced players can be more powerful 5% of the time.

That will show them new GMs.

/sarcasm off

No. Just no.

Make the easy choice for the least experienced, and the experienced choice for those who have it.

The only justification for the opposite is "but mah candy wahhhhh".

Let’s look at some rare spells:

Antimagic field: Not only is this spell a higher level. Moreover, it can now be dispelled via a high level dispel and greatly diminishes party effectiveness (since magic items are now tied to damage output).

Bind Soul: Prevents enemies from being resurrected. Niche use. Requires you to kill the creature first. Attached an expensive material component. Also since many “return to life” spells require a body, this spell’s main effect can be replicated via mundane means.

Circle of Protection: Fairly good buff. Little out of combat effect.

Contingency: A classic escape/avoid TPK spell. Contingent teleport no works (because of casting time restrictions).

Crusade: High will saves means this spells duration will be next to nothing unless used on low level targets.

Detect Alignment: Only detects divine spellcasters, undead, and outsiders.

Detect Poison: Easily replaced by a small animal.

Dimension Lock: High level. Prevents annoying teleporting enemies from escaping over and over again.

Discern Lies: Short duration. Provides a sizeable, but not absurd bonus to a particular use of a particular skill.

Disjunction: Doesn’t provide any real benefit unless fighting an NPC with a magic weapon.

Dominate: Very good spell.

Drop Dead: Fun, higher level invisibility. Costs only a reaction to cast but requires concentration.

Echoing Nightmare: Would be a good debuff if it didn’t confuse you when the target successfully saves. Currently a good reward attached to a steep cost.

Ethereal Jaunt: Requires concentration. I think this spell allows you to move through objects.

False Vision: Niche use, misleads scryers. Promotes player creativity.

Globe of Invulnerability: No longer moves with you, short duration, no longer provides guaranteed protection against low level spells.
Hallucinatory Terrain: Player creativity spell. Long casting time.

Magic Aura/Undetectable Alignment: Super niche use. Exists to foil a cantrip.

Magnificent Mansion: A spell that makes the 7-minute adventuring day slightly less tedious to deal with. No combat utility.

Mind Blank: A solid and classic spell. Helps players keep control of their own characters.

Mind Probe / Mind Reading: Allow good characters to gather information from enemies without resorting to torture. Mind reading now has a caster penalty attached to critical success.

Modify Memory: Great out of combat spell. Promotes player creativity.

Nondetection: Prevents divinations. Only retains functionality at higher levels if heightened.

Passwall: I don’t like this spell. But it doesn’t do much more than a player attacking a wall with their adamantite pick for hours would.

Plane Shift: Allows players to explore their GM’s world. Highly inaccurate. Can’t be used in combat or against enemies.

Possession: A really cool spell. Tons of strategic utility. However, like many other spells, possession’s out of combat utility is diminished by it’s short duration. Also, it leaves your body extremely vulnerable, and the target can take actions even if they fail their save.

Every Power Word Spells: Great spells. Some of the only spells with one action casts. Not as effective against high level creatures.

Private Sanctum: Like mind blank and nondetection, private sanctum foils divinations (except this time in an area).

Protection from _______: An iconic buff. Now only lasts for one encounter.

Raise Dead: Did your character die? Do you not want your character which you’ve spent countless hours building/playing/developing to be dead forever? Well then this is the spell for you. Also, the cost the bring your 20th level character back has been more than quadrupled.

Read Omens, Stone Tell, Talking Corpse: The utility of this spell is totally dependant on the DM. Great opportunity for some creative DMing.

Reverse Gravity: May cause minimal fall damage. Disadvantages creatures without reach, flight, ranged attacks, or teleportation.

Revival: Roughly equivalent to a heightened heal with the added benefit of restoring dead allies. More useful the closer you are to a TPK.

Rope Trick: Now higher level. “We leave the dungeon and then come back the next day”, or “We barricaded ourselves in the dungeon room and set up camp” becomes “I cast rope trick.”

Scrying: One of the classics. Scry and die no longer works.

Shadow Blast: A direct damage spell.

Shadow Walk: A spell that mitigates travel time, but doesn’t prevent random encounters. Imprecise.

Spell Turning: Functions once, requires a reaction and a check, has to be precast.

Telepathic Bonds: A spell that allows party members speak freely while around NPCs. Curbs metagameyness in certain situations.

Tongues: Inferior to comprehend language.

Tree Stride: Would mitigates travel time but only works on a single party member.

Waking Nightmare: Terrible. Assuming the target has a 51% or greater chance to succeed his saving throw, this spell buffs whoever you cast it on.

Zone of Truth: A potentially better anti-lying spell than discern lies, assuming targets fail their saving throw.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------
It seems to me like you'd have to be a really incompetent DM to let most of these spells “ruin your campaign”. I know it’s fun to go after teleport, but what about every other spell on the uncommon list? Such broad restrictions seem arbitrary at best, and heavily restrictive of player agency at worst.

Also, I really dislike your “More experienced players can be more powerful 5% of the time” line of reasoning. A new player may want to cast Magnificent Mansion as much if not more than an experienced player. In fact, a lot of these spells don’t even have to do with direct power; they are utility spells that have benefited entire parties for decades. I have never seen people calling for restrictions to spells like magic circle against ______ and contingency and yet here we are.

Two more things. First, one of the big problems with the rarity system is not that it prevents GMs from including certain spells in the game but instead that it deters them from doing so, especially in the case of APs. Second, The idea that new GMs may want some explanation as to why they are encouraged to restrict access to certain spells doesn’t seem as outlandish as you make it out to be. Transparency in design is always a good thing.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Cyouni wrote:
they have at least one magic weapon while the caster's still running on base cantrips for consistent effects.

This cannot be overstated. I had a barbarian and a ranger in the party. The barbarian trumped everyone due to having a magic greataxe. The dual wielding ranger, however, did not feel better than any of the casters at all (actually, somewhat worse).


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Corwin Icewolf wrote:


Because it matters to figuring out what needs improvement, What sort of spells did he use?

He chose to be a Universalist Wizard.

Spoilers ahead for Chapter 2 of Doomsday Dawn:

For cantrips, he used the following:
Detect Magic, Light, Prestidigitation, Shield and Telekinetic Projectile

Detect Magic: He used it once, successfully, to reveal the presence of the electric trap on the tomb's entrance. He could not dispel it because he doesn't have that spell yet so the Rogue took one for the team.

Light: There was a Bard in the party who offered to cast Light whenever it was indeed so the Wizard could be free to prepare anything else. He decided for Prestidigitation.
Quick note here that the Bard player actually said at the end of first play session: "My most valuable contribution to the party is dispelling darkness. I am as valuable as a torch".

Prestidigitation: He had seen this used once during Chapter 1 to carefully pluck the idol from the water. He could not find such a use for the spell and used it for roleplay only (cooking venison, cleaning his clothes after battle).

Shield: He would always save an action to cast this cantrip and loved it. He felt it was really good and his favorite one so far. It prevented him from taking two hits, once for increased AC, the second for blocking. He said that, unlike an actual shield, he would not hesitate to use it because it's not like it's gonna break one of his items.
Important note here: despite not having proficiency, the Wizard was wearing medium armor because a quick math showed it would be better than Mage Armor

Telekinetic Projectile: He soon switched it out for Electric Arc because he quickly realized he was unable to hit reliably, even with 16 DEX at level 4.
About Electric Arc: he felt this cantrip was better for not requiring an attack roll but the damage felt pitiful to him.

His selection of 1st level spells was as follow:

Color Spray, Comprehend Languages and Magic Missile

Color Spray: The hyenas had scent and so did the Manticore. The Ankhrav has tremorsense and so did the scorpion.
The Elementals and Gnolls were the only creatures that relied exclusively on vision for their precise sense.
As such, they are the only ones that could have been dazzled from the spell.
It worked against the Gnoll and one of them even failed his save and became blinded.
He felt this had been a good use of his spell but totally wasted on other encounters and said he would not use it again in another "adventuring in the wilds" kind of game.

Comprehend Languages: Never came up, other PCs already knew the required languages when they were needed.

Magic Missile: His go-to spell that he used against the Ankhrav and Manticore and provided valuable contribution to difficult fights. There was no ranged PC in the party so sniping the creature from a safe distance of the quick sands or while it was flying felt like a good option.
Next day, he prepared 3 Magic Missiles and forgot about other spells.

Lastly, his choice of 2nd level spells:
Acid Arrow, Heightened Burning Hands, Invisibility

Acid Arrow: He prepared it twice and missed once. When it landed the second time, he was happy until he realized the amount of damage was...not so impressive. His target died 2 turns later to a sneak attack and even the persistent acid damage was inconsequential.
The Rogue's total damage in the next round was 32 and killed the target on spot.
The Wizard turned to me and told me: "Wait, I just spent the same amount of actions doing a third of that damage, how is that right?"
I tried to explain that spells usually have lower damage because they target TAC or multiple enemies.
He responded to this with "I may be targeting TAC but my attack roll is much lower than the Fighter and this spell is not doing AoE damage. It's just as hard to hit as with a regular attack but the damage is bad."
Hard to argue with that.

Heightened Burning Hands: He had prepared this because someone told him creatures with regeneration were often vulnerable to acid and fire.
He tried using it on the Water Elemental because it seemed logical to him.
He rolled damage for 8, the Elemental had fire resistance 5.
End of story.

Invisibility:Working as intended. He liked that spell that allowed him to get to a safe spot and drink a potion after he took a bad hit.
Then he asked the Rogue if he could go and scout ahead while the party was a bit low in HP.
The Rogue is a team player, he says yes. Invisibility runs out after he finished scouting one room.
Great spell but bad duration.

I will post again with my own feedback once I am done with Chapter 3.
Hopefully, being more experienced with spellcasters, I will fare better?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
dnoisette wrote:
Corwin Icewolf wrote:


Because it matters to figuring out what needs improvement, What sort of spells did he use?

He chose to be a Universalist Wizard.

Does your caster for the level 7 module have a specific concept or strategic aim against which to test your expectations?

A new player with a low level universalist wizard could as easily be a matter of not knowing how they want to fit in the puzzle as much or more than the rule set not providing them places in the puzzle, for any version of Pathfinder.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Freagarthach wrote:
dnoisette wrote:
Corwin Icewolf wrote:


Because it matters to figuring out what needs improvement, What sort of spells did he use?

He chose to be a Universalist Wizard.

Does your caster for the level 7 module have a specific concept or strategic aim against which to test your expectations?

A new player with a low level universalist wizard could as easily be a matter of not knowing how they want to fit in the puzzle as much or more than the rule set not providing them places in the puzzle, for any version of Pathfinder.

It's not really a matter of knowing what he wanted to do with his spells in the first place. It's the matter that very little of the spells he opted for proved useful to him when he wanted too.

He had asked for advice and built his character around the exact idea of being a universalit: provide some CC, have some blasts with enevery types that stop regeneration, have some general utility.
He felt he was lacking in all areas except for personal defense, due to Shield and Invisibility.
The Bard had a slightly better time with Heal and Magic Weapon but both of them ended up telling me (their DM) that they would not be rolling another spellcaster until the end of the playtest.
The Bard had wanted to be a Debuffer and that did not go well for him.

While I am DMing for Chapter 3 right now, I haven't been a player yet.
I'm waiting on the new class archetypes to decide how I'm gonna build my character and what I'm gonna do with it.
It's a good thing they drop on Monday, I'll have two days to ready my character!


1 person marked this as a favorite.
dnoisette wrote:
Corwin Icewolf wrote:


Because it matters to figuring out what needs improvement, What sort of spells did he use?

He chose to be a Universalist Wizard.

** spoiler omitted **...

Sounds like a combination of your Wizard friend having low system mastery, having a series of encounters that just don't work with a certain conditional spell prepared, and having a party overload on a language because it was in the spoiler/teaser for the scenario. All in all, some of it sounds like it worked great, some didn't and that's pretty well what you want out of a Wizard.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
dnoisette wrote:
Freagarthach wrote:
dnoisette wrote:
Corwin Icewolf wrote:


Because it matters to figuring out what needs improvement, What sort of spells did he use?

He chose to be a Universalist Wizard.

Does your caster for the level 7 module have a specific concept or strategic aim against which to test your expectations?

A new player with a low level universalist wizard could as easily be a matter of not knowing how they want to fit in the puzzle as much or more than the rule set not providing them places in the puzzle, for any version of Pathfinder.

It's not really a matter of knowing what he wanted to do with his spells in the first place. It's the matter that very little of the spells he opted for proved useful to him when he wanted too.

He had asked for advice and built his character around the exact idea of being a universalit: provide some CC, have some blasts with enevery types that stop regeneration, have some general utility.
He felt he was lacking in all areas except for personal defense, due to Shield and Invisibility.
The Bard had a slightly better time with Heal and Magic Weapon but both of them ended up telling me (their DM) that they would not be rolling another spellcaster until the end of the playtest.
The Bard had wanted to be a Debuffer and that did not go well for him.

While I am DMing for Chapter 3 right now, I haven't been a player yet.
I'm waiting on the new class archetypes to decide how I'm gonna build my character and what I'm gonna do with it.
It's a good thing they drop on Monday, I'll have two days to ready my character!

The two of us who looked seriously at Bard did not take long to agree that it would not have enough payout on a mechanics level to make it worth it for us (both mechanics oriented players to a large extent, flavor follows). I can definitely believe that Bard buffer / debuffer is a concept that needs more attention and improvement.

My 4th level Wizard had similarly good experiences with Shield, using it to take 17 hps from a critical hit rather than 21 of his 40 total, and indirectly with Invisibility (via Quasit scouting).


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Greg.Everham wrote:
dnoisette wrote:
Corwin Icewolf wrote:


Because it matters to figuring out what needs improvement, What sort of spells did he use?

He chose to be a Universalist Wizard.

** spoiler omitted **...

Sounds like a combination of your Wizard friend having low system mastery, having a series of encounters that just don't work with a certain conditional spell prepared, and having a party overload on a language because it was in the spoiler/teaser for the scenario. All in all, some of it sounds like it worked great, some didn't and that's pretty well what you want out of a Wizard.

Did we read the same analysis? Because it sounded to me like only the personal defense stuff and the one color spray worked great and he was mostly dead weight throughout the scenario.

Although yeah, the devs putting "you should consider speaking gnoll" probably is what took the wind out of the comp languages sail.


5 people marked this as a favorite.
Greg.Everham wrote:
dnoisette wrote:
Corwin Icewolf wrote:


Because it matters to figuring out what needs improvement, What sort of spells did he use?

He chose to be a Universalist Wizard.

** spoiler omitted **...

Sounds like a combination of your Wizard friend having low system mastery, having a series of encounters that just don't work with a certain conditional spell prepared, and having a party overload on a language because it was in the spoiler/teaser for the scenario. All in all, some of it sounds like it worked great, some didn't and that's pretty well what you want out of a Wizard.

What do you make of his comments regarding Acid Arrow then?

He understood how it worked, how to use it, the specific encounter did work with that spell and yet he felt that it had been a waste of his actions.
Same thing happened with Burning Hands.
Though he would use Magic Missile very often, he was not happy with it.
The damage wasn't on par with regular weapons and he only used it so that he would at least hear that there had been a result for the actions he spent.

He also did not understand the reason why he should spend actions casting Color Spray. He told me that the party would have been better if he had been a martial character because, with the amount of damage he could have done with two hits, the target would have been dead...instead of just blinded.

Overall, he felt that spells did not have enough impact to warrant using over just attacking with a weapon.

The reason I am reporting this feedback here is because some people seem to be convinced that us saying arcane spellcasters are bad at the moment is because we're "spoiled children from 1st edition".

This player started Pathfinder with PF 2.0. He started arcane spellcasters with PF 2.0. And he took him about 8 hours of play to feel convinced that "spellcasters are bad".

Maybe he's in the wrong but my point is: it's not just old players that look at arcane spellcasters and wonder what's happening.

I should also mention that this class disparity shows dramatically as well between martial characters themselves.
The Fighter and Rogue players had a blast and they shone through every fight. The Rogue even ended up critically hitting with an improvised weapon which was just lucky and really fun.
The Ranger, however, had a much harder time.
Building his character to be an archer was the first difficulty and I helped him through it.
Keeping his animal companion alive was impossible and the only reason the poor thing still stands is that I chose to let it live and ignore it.
He enjoyed using his survival and stealth skills but that was about it.

In short, there are huge balance issues in this edition and arcane spellcasters just happen to be at the very low end of the spectrum.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
dnoisette wrote:
Corwin Icewolf wrote:


Because it matters to figuring out what needs improvement, What sort of spells did he use?

He chose to be a Universalist Wizard.

** spoiler omitted **...

Hmm, let's examine this closely.

Doomsday Dawn 2:

Light: Remember that a second Light means two possible sources, something that's quite relevant in a lot of scenarios.

Color Spray: Looking at what you've listed and checking it against the book, this was improperly ruled on your part. Scent and tremorsense are both listed as imprecise senses, and therefore both Dazzled and Blinded have full effect on them.

Acid Arrow: Honestly, persistent damage is trickier to work with as a player than an enemy. 1d8+CAM plus 1d6 persistent is usually pretty decent, but if you have someone in perfect placing to get off max damage I can see why it wouldn't feel as strong. Usually better used on things at a decent range that won't die immediately. If you're expecting fast-paced, close-range fights, I wouldn't pick Acid Arrow.

Heightened Burning Hands: This one was more a misplay than anything else, and sounds like it only targeted one creature.


4 people marked this as a favorite.

Spells in pf2 are pathetic. Animal companions, summoning and wildshape are also pathetic. No in my group is remotely interested in pf2 anymore.

601 to 650 of 851 << first < prev | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Archive / Pathfinder / Playtests & Prerelease Discussions / Pathfinder Playtest / Pathfinder Playtest General Discussion / Arcane Spellcasters in PF2E – quo vadis? All Messageboards