Sure. You get fewer spell slots than a school wizard or sorcerer, but get some flexibility on reusing some of those spells.
Of course, sorcerer has better flexibility and more spells.
You have to spend the extra action each round if you want to carry it forward.
Issue being:
A Universalist wizard of, say, lv10, can use Arcane Focus once per spell level (so 5).
With Focus Conservation, this turns into a use for 5 (and then 3 and 1), a use for 4 (and then 2), a use for 3 (and then 1) and then another two uses for 2 and 1, for a total of 9 spells recovered.
A Specialist would get 3.
At lv17, the comparison becomes 19 for the generalist vs 5 for the specialist, not counting level 10 slots. At lv20, you can reach 24 vs 5.
Personally, I'd restrict Focus Conservation to specialists only.
While this might be a niche case and practically never happen, it's still pretty extreme for being a niche case.
You can't just count slots when your casting is limited by when, what and how you can do it. It's a powerful option, but not as much as you are making it look.
Would it be acceptable to say that the universalist would get two or three times as much benefit as the specialist?
Such as, say that you can't *always* use it, and when you can you almost always end up only gaining 1 extra, a specialist would occasionally gain 1 bonus slot, while a generalist would usually get 3?
Still sounds a bit off.
Well, Drain Focus is a bit more limited than straight up spell slots. After all you have to have cast the spell already for you to be able to cast it with Drain Focus at all.
Then while using Focus Conservation you are forced to use spells lower than a certain level which further restricts you. I think this is a case where it looks really good under optimal circumstances but in reality you might not want to, or be able to make full use of it anyways making the additional activations a universalist gets out of it less impactful.
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-What did I miss? How do Sorcerer get more spells per day?
Whenever you gain a spell from your bloodline, you also gain a spell slot of that level, which you can use to cast any sorcerer spell, not just the spell granted by your bloodline.
I think most people missed this little bit of fine-print tucked away in there. Effectively you can add an extra +1 to every level of the sorcerer spell per day progression. It's super easy to miss and needs to be made much more clear in the final printing.
-What did I miss? How do Sorcerer get more spells per day?Whenever you gain a spell from your bloodline, you also gain a spell slot of that level, which you can use to cast any sorcerer spell, not just the spell granted by your bloodline.I think most people missed this little bit of fine-print tucked away in there. Effectively you can add an extra +1 to every level of the sorcerer spell per day progression. It's super easy to miss and needs to be made much more clear in the final printing.
But that's not more spells, that's the same number of spells as a wizard. (And one less than a specialist wizard.)
...And one less than a specialist wizard.I think you are reading something incorrectly.
A specialist wizard gets at most 3 spell slots of a spell level, +1 of their chosen school, for a total of 4, and a sorcerer gets 3 spell slots of a spell level +1 from their bloodline (that really should be re-worded and put into their spells per day chart because, unlike with wizard, there is no way not to have that spell slot).
Plus one from Arcane Focus.
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Plus one from Arcane Focus....And one less than a specialist wizard.I think you are reading something incorrectly.
A specialist wizard gets at most 3 spell slots of a spell level, +1 of their chosen school, for a total of 4, and a sorcerer gets 3 spell slots of a spell level +1 from their bloodline (that really should be re-worded and put into their spells per day chart because, unlike with wizard, there is no way not to have that spell slot).
Yeah... but not only is that a re-cast of an already cast spell, which isn't as useful or potent as a sorcerer spell slot, it is a separate class feature which sorcerers also happen to get some of automatically as they level where wizards would have to buy them.
So i'll see that arcane focus spell per day with a sorcerer's bloodline powers.
No, I... uh.
3 slots, plus specialty, plus arcane focus.3 slots, plus bloodline.
That’s it.
Bloodline Powers don’t compete with it. They compete with Specialist Powers.
Plus one from Arcane Focus....And one less than a specialist wizard.I think you are reading something incorrectly.
A specialist wizard gets at most 3 spell slots of a spell level, +1 of their chosen school, for a total of 4, and a sorcerer gets 3 spell slots of a spell level +1 from their bloodline (that really should be re-worded and put into their spells per day chart because, unlike with wizard, there is no way not to have that spell slot).
Yeah... but not only is that a re-cast of an already cast spell, which isn't as useful or potent as a sorcerer spell slot, it is a separate class feature which sorcerers also happen to get some of automatically as they level where wizards would have to buy them.
So i'll see that arcane focus spell per day with a sorcerer's bloodline powers.
No, I... uh.
3 slots, plus specialty, plus arcane focus.
3 slots, plus bloodline.That’s it.
Bloodline Powers don’t compete with it. They compete with Specialist Powers.
Specialists Wizards can use Arcane Focus once a day, so they only have an advantage of 1 extra spell per day over the Sorcerer. That said, Sorcerers get more Resonance thanks to a CHA key stat.
A specialist wizard gets at most 3 spell slots of a spell level, +1 of their chosen school, for a total of 4, and a sorcerer gets 3 spell slots of a spell level +1 from their bloodline (that really should be re-worded and put into their spells per day chart because, unlike with wizard, there is no way not to have that spell slot).
I agree with italicized part. I'm baffled what possible purpose is served by not just baking this into the chart. If there is no difference in how these slots are usable, no reason to treat them as special 'bonus'. Perhaps it was artifact of previous version where the bonus slot only applied to Bloodline spells?
"specialist powers" = you get 1 automatically as you level and can potentially get more with feats if you want them.
"bloodline powers" = you get 3 automatically as you level instead of gaining feats, and cannot choose.
Ftfy.
Haven’t seen a single sorcerer thread where that wasn’t brought up as a major issue, not sure how you can consider it an advantage...@Quandary,
I believe the spell slot table is meant to be a ‘one size fits all’ with individual classes adding extra slots if needed. It even determined spells known for spontaneous casters.
In that view, it makes a lot of sense to not rewrite the table... but at the same time it’d make sense to just write the table once at the beginning of the Classes chapter, as “Table 2.1: Spellcasters” or whatnot.
OK... But like you say that has coherency problems.
(IMHO moving table to single place would be less useful / need more page flipping)
Your comment does make me think a desire to save space and not have 2nd table for Spells Known may have played role here,
but IMHO it's easy enough to have single table for both Spells Known and Slots with a X/Y notation in same table cell.
i.e.
Sorceror Spells Known and Slots Per Day
Your . Spell Level
Level . 1st 2nd 3rd etc
1 ..... 3/4 3/4 2/3
This reminds me that phrases like "Spells Per Day" or "Sorceror Spellcasting" should not really be used to refer only to Spell Slots. That goes for Table title, and prose like "The number of spells you can cast each day are called your spell slots" which just isn't technically accurate, given Spell Points Powers are also spells with distinct daily limit. Instead should use more precise terminology like "Spell Slots determine how many times per day you can cast your Spells Known", and don't use heading like "Sorceror Spellcasting to refer only to Spells Known/Slots, when Powers are equally 'Sorceror Spellcasting". It's a new game, and there's just no reason to force players to use game terms so inconsistently. (to recall, P1E was egregious like this, making big deal of 'attack action' vs 'any attack' [roll] distinction re: Vital Strike, yet shoving general attack roll rules under the Standard Action:Attack section, entirely undermining that distinction)
Plus one from Arcane Focus....And one less than a specialist wizard.I think you are reading something incorrectly.
A specialist wizard gets at most 3 spell slots of a spell level, +1 of their chosen school, for a total of 4, and a sorcerer gets 3 spell slots of a spell level +1 from their bloodline (that really should be re-worded and put into their spells per day chart because, unlike with wizard, there is no way not to have that spell slot).
Correct.
Totally stupid of Paizo to print the spell tables like they have when 99% of the casters get one more spell than the number listed in the table.