| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
They had considered making all casters like Arcanists and scrapping the Sorcerer but nixed the idea.
Damn.
That would have been cool.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've got mixed feelings about that. Arcanist casting is much better than Vancian nonsense. But I'm not sure ditching the Sorcerer would be a good idea. Sorcerers have been around since 3rd ed (or were they introduced late in 2nd?) and are popular. Nuking them seems like an overreaction. There must be some way for Sorcerers to stay relevant if Wizards became Arcanists.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'd really been hoping they would do this but then use the kineticist framework for the sorcerer, making them really mechanically distinct and giving them a very different niche from the wizards.
Plus I might actually play a wizard one day if they gave them the arcanist's casting. Won't happen otherwise.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's not too late to bring the idea back. They don't have to nix the Sorcerer for it either. 5e did the same thing with its prepared casters, yet the Bard and Sorcerer still exist and are popular choices there. I don't see why PF2 can't do the same, unless they don't want to be seen as copying the competition.
The sorcerer kinda works in 5E since it is the only one that gets metamagic. That being said, having played a 5E sorcerer, I thought it was a poor class.
I would love it if they went with their original plan. Kill the sorcerer. Make everyone Arcanists.
Design space be damned.
Memorizing individual spell uses... Ugh... Its just no bueno.
Think of it this way: scrap the sorcerer and you save on page count. Thats an upside right there.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Make everyone else arcanist style casters, but give the sorcerer spontaneous heightening on all spells known?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Why not let all of them spontaneously heighten into higher slots AND also get rid of the sorcerer?
I've made my own personal rewrites of a few classes. One of those was the sorcerer. What I did was give them a smaller number of base spell slots (I went with 3+level), the ability to cast a spell in their repertoire by spending Spell Points instead of using a spell slot, and made ALL of their spell slots the highest level they can cast. So all their spells are always heightened, no matter what. No cognitive load, there. No choosing day-by-day.
I don't like arcanist casting, personally. I like prepared spell slots (though only if leaving spell slots open for later is an option, I've discovered), but even if you had it, doing the sorcerer this way is decidedly a different flavor.
so, wait, that means that a 15 level sorc has like 18 level 8 spells? and that wasn't breaking your adventures?
Nope. The save DCs are all static in this edition, so it's not like the monsters are any more or less likely to fail vs a level 1 spell and a level 8 spell, and an equivalent level wizard has 31 spells they can cast. And not all spells get any benefit for heightening anyway, except in terms of counteract level.
To be fair, I did also reduce the number of spells in the repertoire to 1/level plus bloodline entries.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I certainly would prefer this since the analysis paralysis inherent in "prepare the correct spells and only the correct spells" made the Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Shaman, and Witch (barring the one archetype) simply unfun for me to play in PF1, so I avoided them (except for that one witch archetype which made it a spontaneous caster).
I liked the sorcerer but the reason I liked it was "you have access to the arcane list and you don't have to prepare spells" more than anything.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm normally a lurker, but I have multiple players at my table (we come from 5e, so it's expected) that would love to have the casters all behaving like the Arcanist. As for the sorcerer, if they boost the bloodlines with extra slots or something else to make the sorcerer viable, it may work. I don't see how the game balance would suffer from the change, but I'm no designer... It's a sacred cow that should have been slaughtered long ago!
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'd like arcanist style casting, but I don't think that means Sorcerers have to go the way of the dodo, it just means any spontaneous caster needs to have something that pushes them above the arcanist-style casters. If this means leaning into the bloodlines more (probably, in this case, without them costing a feat slot), or something, and obviously full spontaneous heightening would be a given, but I think there's room for the sorcerer, even with arcanist style casting.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think that sorcerers deserve a place thematically. I really wish they would just axe Vancian casting though. I am sure it has its fans, but I haven't met them. I have two groups and no one in either will play any of the vancian classes any more. The group that started with 5e is confused by their existance in general.
It makes less sense to them lore-wise, and the "analysis paralysis" another poster refered to is real.
Vancian magic is one of the things I was most hopeful about them killing off for 2e. I prefer just about every varient system I've used.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'd like arcanist style casting, but I don't think that means Sorcerers have to go the way of the dodo, it just means any spontaneous caster needs to have something that pushes them above the arcanist-style casters. If this means leaning into the bloodlines more (probably, in this case, without them costing a feat slot), or something, and obviously full spontaneous heightening would be a given, but I think there's room for the sorcerer, even with arcanist style casting.
Agreed. The draw of the Sorcerer is the conceptual simplicity of "knowing what magic you know, cast until out of magic oomph" that far more closely reflects how 99% of magic users in fiction work anyway. Making prepared casters prep their daily spells off of a larger list (either the primal or divine lists or the Wizard's spellbook) and then freeform casting those spells in whatever fashion the day dictates like the Arcanist helps bring those casters closer to relatable fictional examples, but still doesn't achieve the role the Sorcerer fills. And I definitely believe the Sorcerer would need something to assymetrically match the prep casters.
Just an example that I'm not married to:
"Congratulations! You just created 3.X, which is what we're changing to make this, instead."
Largely, yes, but not quite. What this actually is is the thought process leading to how Sorcerers and Wizards in 3.X was supposed to work. The flaw was that prep casters had obscenely easy ways to supplement their access of spells beyond what a Sorcerer could do (both in what they could cast and the magical oomph to cast them) through scrolls, potions, wands, etc; something that's being dealt with. Take it out, and doesn't the 3.X paradigm between Sorcerers and prep casters have a better shot of working as intended?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'd like arcanist style casting, but I don't think that means Sorcerers have to go the way of the dodo, it just means any spontaneous caster needs to have something that pushes them above the arcanist-style casters. If this means leaning into the bloodlines more (probably, in this case, without them costing a feat slot), or something, and obviously full spontaneous heightening would be a given, but I think there's room for the sorcerer, even with arcanist style casting.Agreed. The draw of the Sorcerer is the conceptual simplicity of "knowing what magic you know, cast until out of magic oomph" that far more closely reflects how 99% of magic users in fiction work anyway. Making prepared casters prep their daily spells off of a larger list (either the primal or divine lists or the Wizard's spellbook) and then freeform casting those spells in whatever fashion the day dictates like the Arcanist helps bring those casters closer to relatable fictional examples, but still doesn't achieve the role the Sorcerer fills. And I definitely believe the Sorcerer would need something to assymetrically match the prep casters.
Just an example that I'm not married to:** spoiler omitted **...
I see what you're getting at, and I think I agree. A Sorcerer should have more spells known than he has spells per day, while a Wizard using Arcanist casting has about the same number of spells he can prepare per day as what he can cast per day.
Thus, within a given day, a Sorcerer is far more versatile than a Wizard. Given time to rest and re-prepare spells, the Wizard can be more versatile than the Sorcerer.
That seems like a solid balance to me. It would still need to be determined how heightening would work:
My gut says "prepared casters need to pre-heighten spells and prepare it in that spell level, while spontaneous casters can heighten on the fly". More spells known for spontaneous casters also helps mitigate the problem with auto-heightening that Paizo mentioned: that spontaneous casters would prioritize spells that can be heightened. Learning more than 2 spells/level gives you more flexibility in your choices.
I do agree that learning spells should go top-down, not bottom-up,
so learning Fireball, 5th gives you access to Fireball 1~4,
rather than learning Fireball, 1st giving you access to Fireball 2~5.
so, wait, that means that a 15 level sorc has like 18 level 8 spells? and that wasn't breaking your adventures?Nope. The save DCs are all static in this edition, so it's not like the monsters are any more or less likely to fail vs a level 1 spell and a level 8 spell, and an equivalent level wizard has 31 spells they can cast. And not all spells get any benefit for heightening anyway, except in terms of counteract level.
To be fair, I did also reduce the number of spells in the repertoire to 1/level plus bloodline entries.
i mean, just a single level 8 blast repeted 18 times is enough to make most daily encounters melt...
sure, DCs are static, but there are heightened effects that are really up there.
A level 15 barbarian or fighter with a +4 greataxe is enough to make most daily encounters melt really fast, too (assuming that they have the ability to reach the enemy in the first place). It's all relative.
In practice, the sorcerer just doesn't have enough turns to use 18 level 8 spells in an encounter. And if he does have 18 turns, things are probably going sideways to the point where it's not even helping, because if they were helping then the encounter wouldn't have lasted 18 rounds in the first place. :)
Ya, casters are OK power wise. A couple spells could use some tweaking but they arent in the dire straits some folks claim.
The big barrier to enjoyment is flexibility not power. Having to prep individual spell uses is just no fun.
The worst part of it is Paizo is not sticking to strict Vancian casting because they like it. From the comments devs have made, I don't think any of them think its fun. They have strict Vancian casting for "Design Space" according to Bulhman.
Thats terrible.
you misunderstood, the 18 spells could easily cover firing only level 8 spells for all encounters of a day.and no, a barbarian with a +4 definetely does NOT "make encounters melt" (have you even run a high level pf2 encounter?)
just firing level 8 blasts every single combat round outdpr everything a martial can pull off.
and that would be on top of them having numerous other alternatives to spend their *level 8 spells* at.
sorry, but i trully believe that this is way to much for any single class to have.
Maybe it worked on your table, but it's absurdely powerful given the scope of power level we have in pf2 atm.
so, no....
Admittedly, I haven't gotten to run at the higher levels as much as I would like, yet. It's possible that I just didn't play enough to run into problems with it, and they're coming. Perhaps the final numbers will be different (like maybe 3+spell level instead, or something, I dunno just spit-balling).
The point of the post in the first place was to show that there are other knobs that can be turned to make sorcerers play differently than arcanists instead of scrapping them altogether.