| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've seen maybe 4 semi-popular threads about this this week, and now that out of combat healing is 90% fixed, I think it's going to become my next hill to fight on.
Casters aren't great at damage, and low level spell slots become entirely useless for damage. This feels wrong to some people, so let's talk about it.
Specifically, let's step back a bit and figure out where we want spells and spell slots to be.
This is not a topic about narrative and out of combat power. It might influence where we end up in this discussion, but this discussion itself is about where we want casters combat power to be.
Being abstract, we need a point of reference. We'll have two characters. Eagle Edd, the Archer, and Cabalist Carl, the Caster.
Edd is out baseline. He is a well-built, but not cheesy or munchkin'd archer. Probably a fighter, but we are being nonspecific intentionally, he could be a ranger. He'll be maxing out his dex, using the best weapon, getting potency runes, probably property runes too. He doesn't have a bard glued to him, or that one broken pair of gloves from an obscure splatbook. He definitely has some relevant feats.
Edd, in a round, does 100% of what Edd does. It's consistent. He doesn't need to position much, being an archer, he doesn't have many daily resources that alter his output. Edd does 100%. A melee guy starting in melee might do 120%, or 140%, and closer to 100% if he has to move once. If he can only get one attack off, Edd might do 65%.
This thread asks:
* If Carl uses his highest level spell slot, how much of Edd's 100% should it do?
I think most people agree this should be over 100%, since it's a limited resource, and his best one. Clearly it depends a bit on the situation (Fireballing 5 enemies is going to be a bigger % than fireballing 2). What's a reasonable 'average'? 150%? 300%?
* If Carl uses a Cantrip, how much of Edd's 100% should it do?
Does this change with level? I think most people agree it should be less than 100%. 90%? 50%?
*If Carl and Edd are both high level (15ish) and Carl uses a low level spell slot, how much of Edd's 100% should it do?
This, I believe, is the awkward subject people aren't sure on. That low level spell slot is a limited resource. Carl is definitely putting more of his resources into a turn than Edd. But he has enough of these to last throughout all of a short adventuring day. If he's throwing out impressive 300% high-level spells sometimes, and also outdoing Edd on out of combat utility and every round of short adventuring days, Edd is going to be very sad indeed.
My answers to these are:
* High level spell slots should be 300%, the reason to play the class, super impressive, awesome fun things. They should be a main draw of a caster.
* Cantrips should be 50%ish. Round-to-round at-will combat is a martials place to stand out. Cantrips should definitely be worth using, but not even challenge martials for power.
* Low level spell slots should be worse than the martial on an average round. Maybe 80%. If you get things just right and hit many enemies or a weakness, maybe it spikes to 120% that round. Good job.
Right now I feel that it's:
* High level spells are 180% or so? Enemy saves are very high, many spells have been nerfed. They're decent enough, but not exciting and I think could be better without breaking things.
* Cantrips are about right!
* Low level spells, for damage, fall off so hard that they become 15% or something. This feels really, really broken.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Low level (1-2) blasts were bad in PF1 already. They are actually better now because they can be used to trigger weakness.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I feel like Edd (or the archer specifically) is pretty much the highest end of single target damage dealing in PF2 because of the likelihood that he will be shooting three or more arrows a turn. Right now, it is probably impossible not to class Edd out as either a fighter or a Ranger because there are just too many feats that matter on combat style.
Casters in PF2 look much more to me like "controllers" from 4e than single target blasters. They are at their best mopping up many lower level, but potentially dangerous threats (like well positioned enemy archers), and controlling the battlefield with lasting effects.
Cantrips are, in many ways a bit of trap at two actions a casting as far as damage goes. With how things scale at higher levels, a ranged combat weapon that is kept within 2 or 3 levels of the character is probably going to be a better option if you can grab a shortbow through an ancestry or archetype feat.
The system seems pretty intentionally designed for characters not to use lower level spells in lower level slots for damage dealing, especially not single target high damage dealing. I get why a lot of floks feel like this nerfs the blaster, but it is much better for the game that spells universally do not scale with level. True strike is the much better 1st level spell for the blaster caster than a damage dealing spell.
What caster's need is help finding spells that work well against boss monsters that are a level or two higher than the party (probably in the form of a guide) and probably a few more spells that fit that bill. At low levels it is Magic Missile, but I am not sure what they are at higher levels.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Assuming you started this thread because you want us to share our mutual expectations for casters, I will answer your 3 questions below:
If Carl uses his highest level spell slot, how much of Edd's 100% should it do?
Carl should do 200% of Edd's 100%. That is, using a highest level spell slot should be twice as effective as using something that has no resource requirements.
Yes, Carl will outshine Edd on that specific round. He can do it 3-4 times per day. After that, he's back at being below Edd's 100% or actually buffing Edd to make it more than 100% in the first place.Now, if casters had more spell slots per day than they currently do, I'd be more inclined to saying that Carl should do 150% of Edd's 100%.
With more spell slots, you don't have to make it so that every spell goes nova and has twice the same output as regular attacks.
But with the current limited number of spells slots, 200% it is for me.
If Carl uses a Cantrip, how much of Edd's 100% should it do?
Cantrips currently require 2 actions to cast.
Yes, most of them target TAC and one (Electric Arc) even has no attack requirements and instead asks for the enemy to save against it.However, since you can only fire one damaging cantrip per round whereas Edd can attack as much as 3 times per round (without being Quick), then each cantrip should be 50% of Edd's damage.
This means that, each round Carl uses a cantrip, he actually does 50% less damage than Edd.
It's okay because now he has an incentive to use his higher level spell slots and Edd has an incentive to stay with weapons because cantrips aren't as good.
Cantrips should still contribute enough damage that using them does not make Carl feel like he's throwing a straw at the BBEG.
Now, if damaging cantrips were to become 1-action only, my answer would be that using 3 of them in a round should result in no more than 50% of Edd's damage.
If Carl and Edd are both high level (15ish) and Carl uses a low level spell slot, how much of Edd's 100% should it do?
Carl has very few highest level spell slots per day.
His lower level spells should remain relevant because otherwise, he's back at using only cantrips and, in that case, cantrips should do much more than the 50% I previously advocated for!If Carl uses a spell slot that is no more than 2 levels lower, he should do 100% of Edd's damage, at the very least. Otherwise, why is Carl not using weapons again?
If Carl uses a spell slot that is 3 to 5 levels lower, he should do 70-80% of Edd's damage. Carl's 3 highest level spell slots are now relevant and the really lower level slots should not be as effective as the others.
If Carl uses a spell slots that is more than 5 levels lower than the highest he can cast, he should not exceed 50% of Edd's damage.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
With so few spell slots and thus so few opportunities to shine, cantrips should actually be sitting at about 75-80% of an equivalent weapon user, because it's what a caster will be stuck with most of the time. As most cantrips already do less damage than an equivalent weapon, making them take 1 action instead of 2 would be ideal. If they stay at 2 actions a cantrip should actually do more damage than a weapon, or do equal damage with some rider like a minor buff or debuff, because you only get to use it once per round.
Highest level slots should be about 200% on average for single target or 100-150% for area, depending on factors like size of area, any riders, etc.
Once a low level slot would be equalled or outpaced by a cantrip, it should become a cantrip. So there should be text with such spells saying that if you have it prepared in a slot of tier X but have access to slots of tier Y, you can cast it at tier X at will.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
How many rounds of fighting are expected in a typical adventuring day? Probably at least 10, with some slow fights probably making it 20~ Can't rate the damage spells in the vaccuum of 1 single fight because you have to ration the spells for all day. It would be too easy, which is what D&D 4E did.
Also this doe shurt the Blaster more than other types of Wizard. Blasting are the only spells that "fall behind". Buffs and utility spells continue to be full power even if left on lv1 slots forever and only get more rewarding to heighten, while blasts are on a treadmill.
I think blast spells, specifically, need to be on a different track entirely to make the iconic Evoker fantasy actuallly work. This is the only build that only has 3-4 things to do per day then becomes pretty worthless. (Am saying EVERY slot is a blast as an extreme example)
Low level blasts need to maintain some value like the rest of the spells, even if you need a feat for it.
I have this feeling that slots-per-day spellcasting will never be able to shake off the 5MWD problem, especially the spotlight monopoly type...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think this is a very constructive way to approach the problem Lyee. There is however a big question that needs to be evaluated:
How many round of combat are Carl and Edd expected to participate in before Carl recovers his spell slots?
To balance Edd and Carl, you need to solve the following formula:
N*Edd's Arrows = (N-A-B)*Carl's Cantrip + (A)*Carl's Big Spells + (B)*Carl's Low Spells, where N is the number of rounds of combat before Carl recovers his spell slots
For example, let's assume that Paizo gets the numbers from the playtest and finds that, on average, an adventuring day is 20 round of combat. Let's say Edd's turn does 100% of Edd, so 1, while Carl's Cantrip does 50% of Edd, or .5, Carl's Big Spell does 300% of Edd, or 3, and Carl's Low Spells do 80% of Edd, or .8. Let's say Carl is 4th level and has 3 big 2nd level spells and 3 little 1st level spells.
Edd does 20*1, or 20 over those 20 rounds. Carl does (20-3-3)*0.5 + (3)*3 + (0.75)*3, or 7 + 9 + 2.4, or 18.4 over those 20 rounds.
A quick calculation says that if combat were about 17 rounds each day, both characters would be about equal. Shorter days favour Carl, because he can bust out his best spells early and get ahead of Edd, who conversely excels at longer days. However, it's important to remember that Carl has an advantage, since he (1) has control over when and how his damage increases, and (2) gets a head-start on Edd if he spends spells early.
Things get more complicated of course at higher levels when Carl has five or six different levels of spell, each of whom has a different efficiency. If this three 6th level spells do 300%, his three 5th level spells might do 250%, and his three 4th could do 200%, at which point Cal can spend the first nine combat rounds of the day and achieve 22.5, while Edd is at 9. If Carl only used cantrips after that, Edd would catch up at round 36, 27 rounds later. Even if Carl's top three spells were 300%, 200%, and 150% and he only used Cantrips after, he's at 19.5 after 9 rounds and it would take Edd until round 30 (21 later) to catch up.
Right now, you think that big spells do about 180%, and that lower ones are worthless. Let's assume Carl's got 6th level spells, that his biggest do 180%, his 5th do 150%, his 4th do 120%, and everything else is cantrips. If Carl casts all his spells at the start of the day, he achieves 13.5 to Edd's 9. Edd will catch up on round 18, 9 rounds later. That's very close to how Carl and Edd operated at low levels.
From this we can assume the following:
- When Carl has few spell slots, every spell needs to be much stronger than Edd's basic actions for him to keep up.
- When Carl has many spell slots, his best spells have to be marginally better than Edd's basic actions, and lower level ones need to fall off quickly for Edd to keep up.
Therefore we can draw two possible solutions, though there are doubtless more:
1) 1st and 2nd level spells need to have high impact at low levels, but higher level spells give diminishing returns. At 1st level, Carl's best spell is about 3-4 times as good as Edd's power per round. At 5th level, Carl's best spell is maybe 2.5 times as strong. At 11th level, Carl's best spell is maybe 1.5 times as strong.
2) Set casters to a more fixed number of spells, and make castings of lower level spells virtually unlimited. For example, imagine if Carl can cast his strongest spells three times per day, his second-strongest three times per day, and his third-strongest three times per day. This is equivalent to a 6th level caster's spells per day. Now imagine that, as Carl gets to higher levels, instead of getting more spell slots, he just upgrades what his strongest spell per day is. All those lower-level spells can be Heightened to those higher slots for free. In addition, perhaps give him the ability to cast his lower-level slots at will, perhaps with a limit of once per minute unless he spends a spell slot.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Someone suggested in the classes sub-forum that Sorcerers be given the ability to spontaneously adjust the level of a given spell (be it to make it higher level or lower level) with the use of spell points.
It's an interesting idea that one could consider to help low level blasting spells remain viable options at higher levels.
Spend a spell point on that 1st level Burning Hands, cast the spell at your current heighest spell level.
Given that you can only have so many spell points per day, it's not something you can do everytime you cast a blasting spell.
Assuming spells don't change at all and stay this nerfed, I like that solution.
It provides blasters with more than 3 relevant spells per day before they have to move on to relying on cantrips.
You can have it be a class feature or ask spellcasters to pay a feat tax to be able to do this, I don't care.
Hey, let's make it a 4th-level feat for Wizards, Sorcerers and Druids:
Empowering Magic (Feat level 4)
Traits: Metamagic, Druid (or Sorcerer, or Wizard, as appropriate)
You gain the Overcast power which you can cast at the cost of 1 Spell Point. Increase your Spell Point pool by 1.
Overcast (Power level 2)
Casting: Somatic Casting free action
Trigger: You cast an evocation spell that deals acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage.
You cast the triggering spell as if it were heightened to the highest spell level you can cast.
Now I really want this in the game.
Here's hoping Mark is lurking around this thread. :D
First of all great thread. It’s always nice to see polite, constructive, data driven threads, and this is a good one to boot.
I think the highest level slot precentage needs to be broken up to single target and multiple targets, with single being 200% and multiple being around 60-80%, with the goal being 300% in total. I completely agree with OP about casters.
I have to say one of the things that I liked in PF1 is that spell levels had two strokes of life: when a spell level is your highest and used in combat, and when you have spells three or so slots higher and can use the spells for utility and prebuffs (like unseen servent and mage armor). If the second type is still alive and well in PF2 then it isn’t a problem that those spells don’t take part in damage output calculations (though they still need to be taken account of because of spells like the excellent true strike).
Edit:fixed some grammar.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Casters are already less versatile by a huge margin than in PF1. A cantrip that only does damage like a light weapon can be a single action and a martial will still be better action for action. A cantrip that does damage as a heavy weapon like Telekinetic Projectile works fine as a two action cantrip.
This is Blaster Cleric erasure.
Clerics who want to be blasters (clerics of Sarenrae I presume) are welcome to multiclass into an appropriate archetype for this feat.
The arcane and primal spell lists have strong innate blasting spells which they do not share with the divine and occult spell list.
There is a reason for that: Bards and Clerics are not meant to be blasters.
Sure, you should definitely be able to build such character if you want to; but you should not have access to the feats that are specifically designed for blasting from a selection of your own class feats.
While the evocation Wizard is something quite common in fantasy, I'm pretty sure most people do not picture a mage throwing out fireballs when they hear the words "cleric" or "bard".
I want it to be possible to build a blaster cleric or bard.
I think it should require multiclassing because blasting is not one of their core roles to begin with.
It's just like Druids, Rangers and animal companions: what if I want to be a Cleric and have an animal companion?
Well, I have to take an appropriate archetype because it is not meant to be a primary class feature for my Cleric. :)
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The way PF2 is currently set up, I feel like DPR is everyone's responsibility. The ability to output decent amounts of damage on an at-will basis is just a basic expectation in this game system. Lacking it can make you a liability to the rest of the party, being unable to assist in a takedown whenever you don't want to or can't expend high-level slots. Battles in PF2 tend to last longer, consumables are vastly more expensive (even before considering resonance), monsters are generally more dangerous until they're completely put down, and tight math makes it harder for specialists to compensate for those in the party that can't contribute as much. All that means that casters basically need to ensure they have some at-will options at their disposal that are effective and spammable.
As things currently stand, casters need 1-action cantrips that fill this niche so they aren't obligated to pick up magical weapons. However, that takes us down the road to homogeneity. I would much prefer to step back closer to PF1 in this respect where HP damage isn't the only answer, and casters wouldn't be shackled to that role out of necessity. However, that would involve essentially a complete overhaul of the spell list and class balance so I don't see that happening any time soon.
As for blasting, I'm strongly opposed to making feat taxes to have it work. I was saying this before the playtest released, and I still feel it now: all kinds of spellcasting should work out of the box without the need for feat investment for basic competency. I feel that damage-dealing spells (and any others that need to scale with level) should auto-heighten without requiring higher level spell slots. Rebalance them if need be, but the current state needs to change.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think cantrip damage should land above a wizard using an appropriately potent runed crossbow. That might mean making a few weapons for wizards that boost cantrips or lower level spells.
If you had a Staff of Flame that added +1d6 fire damage to a fire cantrip and +3d6 fire damage to a fire spell of level 3 or lower, that’s one way to give casters an additional loot option and make the lower level damage spells a little more competitive.
It’s a fact that some players want to play blaster casters, its a common power fantasy, so putting a few tools in there to make it work well is probably a good idea.
Cleric in PF1 could go Leadership or Noble Scion to get a pet Ranger or Druid along with the animal companion. True for any class, but Cleric already had a lot of base power to recommend it.As to Evocation, in PF1 I only went that way twice, and both times it was straight Cleric. The Fire / Ash / Destruction (sub)domains allowed all the things that Clerics are good at while also providing extra AoE and tricked out Disintegrate shenanigans. Wizard / Sorcerer / Arcanist offered so many powerful paths that went beyond straight hit point damage that it felt like a waste using their immense potential in so linear a manner.
Also, for me, the ultimate Blast / Evocation / truly old school Invocation is a level+10(+) Holy Word, preparing all those levels ahead of time for the moment you finally reach that spell level and become a true "blaster."
Does all that fly in the face of expected fantasy tropes? I do not know - but if it does, I still had an awful lot of fun that way.
I never said it wasn't fun or couldn't be done.
I said it's more of a "secondary class concept" for Clerics to be blasters whereas it's more of a "primary class concept" for traditional arcane spellcasters.
I don't know how to say that in a fashion that is easier to understand without making it look like I want it to be a restricted option.
*Sigh*...English is not my first language so I'm afraid I won't be able to do better than this anyway.
Also, the animal domain in PF1 granted Clerics a reduced animal companion ;) Although I understand not wanting to do the same in PF2.
I'm perfectly aware of that but I was referencing 2nd edition when I said that multiclassing into an appropriate archetype was required for a Cleric to have an animal companion.
It's not necessarily my view but it appears to be Paizo's view that each class is supposed to have very specific niches and they should not be accessible to all.
Best example of that is Ranger: Hunted Target and Twin Takedown are nice but they're required to make a Ranger work, currently.
Paizo wants TWF and archery Rangers and that's all.
That's not what I want personally but I was trying to match the current playtest philosophy in suggesting a new feat that could be introduced "as is" and would not conflict with the apparent idea that each class has their own very specific things which others should not be able to get.
Blasting seems to be one of the things that Paizo means to be Druid, Sorcerer and Wizard-only.
These three classes are the only ones that have feats that help directly with that (Storm druid order feats, Dangerous Sorcery, Overwhelming Spell...).