Any sorcerer news?

[Hang Zhao]

Just wondering if there is any sorcerer news. Especially for the balance between each spell list variant.

[Joe M.]

No, there hasn't been any Sorcerer news yet. I'm also curious to hear about the class.

[The Raven Black]

I read a post from Mark Seifter about the results of the Surveys as confirmation that we will get Sorcerers of the 4 lists

[TheGoofyGE3K]

We had that originally, right? Im hoping sorcerers get a little more Pizzazz, not much reason to go sorcerer vs bard if going occult

[Siro]

TheGoofyGE3K wrote:

We had that originally, right? Im hoping sorcerers get a little more Pizzazz, not much reason to go sorcerer vs bard if going occult

Yeah, had that thought myself when trying to make one, although {at least for me} the main issue was the Aberrant bloodline itself, and it being the only source of Sorcerers occult spells. Flavour it was pretty good, but the problem was the powers could be a little to situational <could still be useful, but it took some set up in comparison to others> and a lot of the bloodline spells were lackluster, gutting alot of what made it special in practice.

Hopefully there are enough changes in the final addition to Aberrant {I still do love the concept}/more occult bloodlines to help with this problem.

[thejeff]

Siro wrote:

TheGoofyGE3K wrote:

We had that originally, right? Im hoping sorcerers get a little more Pizzazz, not much reason to go sorcerer vs bard if going occult

Yeah, had that thought myself when trying to make one, although {at least for me} the main issue was the Aberrant bloodline itself, and it being the only source of Sorcerers occult spells. Flavour it was pretty good, but the problem was the powers could be a little to situational <could still be useful, but it took some set up in comparison to others> and a lot of the bloodline spells were lackluster, gutting alot of what made it special in practice.

Hopefully there are enough changes in the final addition to Aberrant {I still do love the concept}/more occult bloodlines to help with this problem.

Yeah, my feeling in general was that the non-Arcane spell lists were weaker, but the non-Arcane sorcerers didn't really get the features to make up for that the other casting classes did.

Occult bloodline abilities need to be more powerful than arcane ones, just like bards get a whole lot more outside of their spell lists than wizards do.

[Siro]

thejeff wrote:

Yeah, my feeling in general was that the non-Arcane spell lists were weaker, but the non-Arcane sorcerers didn't really get the features to make up for that the other casting classes did.

Occult bloodline abilities need to be more powerful than arcane ones, just like bards get a whole lot more outside of their spell lists than wizards do.

Ture, Arcane seems to the more powerful casting list {note= this isn't to say the other lists are bad, they have stuff the Arcane would love to have such as healing spells, or 'Heroism' off the top of my head.} But they have there own brand of impactful spells, and more importantly (and where I think there true power comes) a huge variety of many different types of spells. From my understanding this was because of the wizard and how iconic certain spells and the way they could specialize in certain schools of magic, which made conversion somewhat difficult, and expanded the arcane list {a wizard that could not cast Magic Missile is a sad Wizard indeed, and the need to included at least a couple of spells from each school to accommodate the school specialization feature.)

Now this works in a vacuum of wizards and arcane, {more so assuming spells are going to get a little bit of a buff in the actual PF2} as the class is more limited in options outside of magic. However, place these same limitations on a class because they may get the Arcane list, you see a bit more of the problem when they don't. Occult Sorcerers is just the easiest to see this because there one option to gain this casting isn't the greatest.

In conclusion, I do not think the Arcane list is to powerful given the limitations it places on the classes that gain it. However these same limitations on class with non-Arcane spell {ie at this point just the non-Arcane bloodline Sorcerers} are slightly to much for what they get in return.

[Deadmanwalking]

I agree that non-Arcane Sorcerers had issues in the playtest. Any or all of the reasons for that could have changed in the final version, though, so let's see how it goes.

[Quandary]

Really it is absurd that School Specialists dictate Core arcane list, entirely ignoring precedent of how Cleric Domain Spells work, doubly so when that carries over to impeding balancing the 4 list Sorceror. I'm pretty sure a good balance between pared-down Core Arcane list and School lists can be managed, probably including Feats for Universalists or non-opposed School Specialists to delve back into the expanded School lists they are interested in, coincidentally helping better differentiate Wizard playstyles akin to other Class Paths. This definitely was discussed in Playtest and was on Devs' radar, so optimistic something good is done here.

[Siro]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

I agree that non-Arcane Sorcerers had issues in the playtest. Any or all of the reasons for that could have changed in the final version, though, so let's see how it goes.

Agreed. I enjoyed a good portion of what was in the playtest, and given what has been gleamed from the liveplay stream so far, I'm both really happy about the changes {fixed a decent amount of the issues I had with the playtest, and knowing it has only scratched the surface} and excitedly optimistic about the finished product.

[Captain Morgan]

Yeah, I'd rather we get spell lists that are better balanced with each other over using powers to make,up the difference. (Though aberrant and fey powers need a buff anyway.) Multiclassing means people can poach the best of the best powers.

I'm curious if school specialists are still a thing. As I recall when Jason was talking about the new thesis thing wizards get, the example was familiars. That certainly doesn't align with schools. If the thesis is instead of schools rather than in addition to, it removes some of the pressure to have the arcane list do everything.

[Deadmanwalking]

Another possibility is that Schools now only and exclusively add spells ala a Sorcerer Bloodline and Thesis does all the rest.

[morphail]

Quandary wrote:

Really it is absurd that School Specialists dictate Core arcane list, entirely ignoring precedent of how Cleric Domain Spells work, doubly so when that carries over to impeding balancing the 4 list Sorceror. I'm pretty sure a good balance between pared-down Core Arcane list and School lists can be managed, probably including Feats for Universalists or non-opposed School Specialists to delve back into the expanded School lists they are interested in, coincidentally helping better differentiate Wizard playstyles akin to other Class Paths. This definitely was discussed in Playtest and was on Devs' radar, so optimistic something good is done here.

I actually made such a list "arcane list lite" and saw that to satisfy concepts from P1 all you really need is "Necromancer" "Enchanter" and "Polymorpher" archetypes/ class feats.

Power balance is not something that interests me, but I much preferred ir if the 4 new kinds of magic were distinct enough from each other. It had a potential to be much better than the 8 schools system of 2nd edition AD&D.

[Ediwir]

I would love to get my hands on that arcane lite list, if you were so kind to link or share.

[morphail]

Ediwir wrote:

I would love to get my hands on that arcane lite list, if you were so kind to link or share.

Happily!

(*) = had to think a bit about these

Arcane
level 1
air bubble
alarm*
ant haul*
burning hands
color spray
feather fall
fllet step
floating disk
grease
gust of wind
illusory disguise
illusory object
item façade
jump
lock
longstrider
mage armor
magic aura
magic missile
magic weapon
mending
negate aroma
shocking grasp
ventriloquism

level 2
acid arrow
blur
comprehnd languge
continual flame
darkness
darkvision
endure elements
enlarge
flaming sphere
glitterdust
illusiory creature
invisibility
kncok
magic mouth
mirrot image
obscuring mist
resist energy
see invisibilty
shrink
spider climb
telekinetic maneuver
water breathing
water walk
web*

level 3
clairaudience
dispel magic
earthbind
fireball
ghostly weapon
haste
hypnotic pattern*
invisibility sphere
levitate
lightning bolt
locate
meld into stone
mind reading*
nondetection
secret page
shrink item
slow
stinking cloud
wall of wind

level 4
blink
clairboyance
detect scrying
dimension door
dimensional anchor
fire shield
fly
gaseous form*
globe of invunerability
hallucinatory terrain
private sanctum
resilient sphere
rope trick
shape stone
solid fog
spell immunity
telepathy*
veil
wall of fire
weapon storm

level 5
black tentacles(?)
chromatic wall
cloak of colors
cone of cold
control water
drop dead
elemental form*
false vision
illiusiory scene
mind probe*
passwall
prying eye
sending
shadow siphon
shadow walk
telekinetic haul
telepathic bond
tongues
wall of ice
wall of stone

level 6
chain lightning
collective transposition
disintegrate
flesh to stone
repulsion*
scrying
spellwrack
teleport
true seeing*
vibrant pattern
wall of force

level 7
contingency
dimensional locl
energy aegis
fiery body
magnificient mansion
plane shift
prismatic spray
project image
reverse gravity
spell turning

level 8
antimagic field
disappearance
discern location
earthquake
horrid wilting*
maze
mind blank
polar ray
prismatic wall
unrelenting observation

level9
disjunction
foresight
implosion
meteor swarm
replendent mansion
weird

[Captain Morgan]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Another possibility is that Schools now only and exclusively add spells ala a Sorcerer Bloodline and Thesis does all the rest.

I think that is my favorite solution. Not only does it help balance the spell lists, but it makes a school specialist truly feel like a specialist by learning spells other couldn't begin to wrap their head around. Getting an extra spell slot per day is functional but not especially exciting by comparison.

I also think it creates more space for wizard material later. The whole subschool thing PF1 had going always felt needlessly confusing. Just making the thesis into a total package a la bloodlines or mysteries makes it really easy to print new ones.

I also think that spell list packages, be they on the wizard or sorcerer or what have you, should grant exclusively spell's not available on the caster's default list. I hate getting a list full of junk you could have already picked like Angelic has.

[j b 200]

if memory serves, they said that there would be more bloodlines available when the final version came out, that they paired down the list for the playtest.

[Garfaulk Sharpstone]

I would love bloodlines that gave access to multiple spell lists, but with lesser bloodline abilites, while bloodlines thaat give but one spell list have stronger bloodline powers. That would be pretty cool

[The Raven Black]

Joe M. wrote:

~Something~ has changed with heightening for spontaneous casters, but no indication as to what the new heightening will look like:

Mark Seifter wrote:

Oh, gotcha, you mean heightening for spontaneous casters, rather than heightening in general for everybody. Logan and I had a long chat about this topic, and we think we found a way to do it that gives you a lot more leeway than spontaneous heightening did, without bringing back the analysis paralysis of the time when I first wrote it with free heightening and without causing issues where spontaneous casters have pressure to stock up on only heightenable spells and bloodlines with non-heightenable spells have a problem. Anecdotally, the spontaneous casters seem pretty happy with it. Hopefully for your group too!

All thanks to Joe M. and to Mark of course