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I personally just refuse to sorcerers free spontaneous heightening without also giving the prepared casters the ability to spontaneously heighten/cast their spells as well, which I absolutely dont want beyond a shadow of a doubt, because that just kicks sorcerer back down in terms of having any advantage.
The reason I cant just give it to sorcerer is that it would make divine sorcerer and likely other spontaneous classes with time extremely restricted in expected spell list when it comes to a proposed meta, with the second concern being opportunity costs in general. With free heightening the expectation that a sorcerer fill every single slot on the spell list, if not immeadiately but with time on level up/downtime to change their spells known, with the spells meant to remove and counteract anything and everything, and any other spell that's too invaluable to not carry around in an easily heightened form.
Every Sorcerer ever would have to carry dispel magic, restoration(assuming it's on their current list) and the like, and there's a bunch of them. There's no meaningful choice to be had. Even if you had a divine sorcerer and cleric in the same party, there's NO value in having the cleric take those spells with the normal prepared rules when the sorcerer can have them at a much much lower opportunity cost. As is, a wizard should almost never carry around a dispel magic if they share the party with a spontaneous caster, but the limited number of heightenable slots keep it from being a burden on expectations for a sorcerer, which let's them build how they want.
I think in my game, I'd just giver Sorcerer's an amount of Signature Spells equal to character level, that ways they don't get ALL OF THE SPELLS! but they also get more than just 1 per spell level+BL. Kinda like how 5e Wizards get an amount of prepared spells known equal to level+int, make them feel a bit more Arcanist-y while also keeping the flavor and "I can't do this all the time to all the things". There's also unlimited undercasting a la Starfinder, because that works amazingly well in that system, and this system seems to function rather similarly to that. Cest la vie, house rules are meant to increase fun, not squeeze out every ounce of bang for your proverbial buck, but at the same time low power levels can make things unfun for most.
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(Unless I'm forgetting someone. Probably am)
LOL Wasn't me! :P
My thought on Resonance can be best conveyed by a quote from Ripley: "nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure".
When 'killing it with fire' isn't nearly effective enough, 'nuking it from orbit' is your last resort …because it's the only way to be sure. :)
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I did, sort of, actually felt it wasn't restrictive enough.
I was a person who really liked Resonance conceptually and am sad that it wasn't able to work out.Eyyy, a fourth person who likes Resonance! (Unless I'm forgetting someone. Probably am)
Come join the club with me, MaxAstro, and David Silver! XD
I feel like if they split up the armor slots from the item spam from the get go, and made the latter scale on level+Cha, it would have went smoother imo. Because scrolls and staff charges eating the same magical pool makes a lot of sense, it's your body's internal magical force. Back to the topic at hand, I really hope they reworked a lot of the bloodline powers, Infernal's powers that weren't Hellfire Plume were rather... lacking in usability.
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I am pretty sure I want to see all the rules before I decide to change them. Well, except the death & dying rules, I know I'm going to change those, I'm just not sure to what.
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I'm just on the edge of my seat waiting for a spoiler on staves... I am desperately, desperately hoping that the final version of staves resembles the Focus test rules.
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@MusicAddict
I think you will find that 3 spells per level plus your bloodline is a really limited list of spells known especially when most bloodlines have a few bad spells in them. The sorcerer lost 7 spells known from PF1 to PF2 plus another 5 cantripts. Additionally all their scaling damage spells are locked at the lowest damage level possible without spontaneous heightening which is a huge hit to an evocation heavy spell list.
As far as your worry about changing with the game meta I have not had your experience. We have always been very restrictive about retraining spells outside of leveling and the leveling mechanic is very limiting as by the nature of the game you will want to release an old spell that you have attained their big brother in order to gain a lower level utility spell. If you have a gm letting sorcerers swap out their spells known easily that might be the source of the problem. In PFS it is really expensive to do a rebuild on even a low level spell much less anything level 5 and up.
The sorcerers of any spell list are going to naturally gravitate toward the most versatile and potent of the spells on the list, that’s just the way you build a successful sorcerer. Not overlapping spell lists is more important than not overlapping prepared casters vs spontaneous casters for keeping all party members relevant. The prepared spell caster will be able to respond to the game meta daily where a sorcerer will need to wait an entire level to make 1 adjustment.
In short signature spells and spontaneous heightening needs to make up at least 7 spells known and the loss of power from having spells stuck at their initial spell level of damage. A few spells like Heal and Harm are great to have as signature spells as they a level 1 spells with +1 heightening mechanics but most heightenable spells only have 2-3 other spells that they can effectively be heightened to rather than the 8 spells a level 1 spell with +1 heightening. This does not keep up with the losses from PF1 spells known at only 2 signature spells.
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As far as your worry about changing with the game meta I have not had your experience. We have always been very restrictive about retraining spells outside of leveling and the leveling mechanic is very limiting as by the nature of the game you will want to release an old spell that you have attained their big brother in order to gain a lower level utility spell. If you have a gm letting sorcerers swap out their spells known easily that might be the source of the problem. In PFS it is really expensive to do a rebuild on even a low level spell much less anything level 5 and up.
Do we actually know how PFS is handling PF2 retraining? Retraining is core part of the rules in PF2, so it may be more common and available. If you restrict retraining in your home games, well... You're in homebrew territory. There be monsters.
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@Saedar
I was not aware that the retraining was significantly changed into a core mechanic and not a "at GMs discretion". I thought changing spells, at least rules as written, was mostly done just at level and then in a restricted manor.
@Saedar
I was not aware that the retraining was significantly changed into a core mechanic and not a "at GMs discretion". I thought changing spells, at least rules as written, was mostly done just at level and then in a restricted manor.
Retraining is a core part of the downtime rules in PF2. I don't remember if spell retraining was a part of that in the playtest.
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I was a person who really liked Resonance conceptually and am sad that it wasn't able to work out.Eyyy, a fourth person who likes Resonance! (Unless I'm forgetting someone. Probably am)
Come join the club with me, MaxAstro, and David Silver! XD
I too liked Resonance. I felt more could have been done with it-- perhaps making potions don't use it but reusable items do. Shame the backlash against it was so visceral, as I'm sure that made them more likely to abandon it outright.
Resonance as implemented had some flaws, but the solution should have been to clean up the issues and make it function better, not turn CHA back into the universal dump stat.
@Saedar
Ah I see it now. We never used it so I glanced over retraining. Per the downtime rules class features which Spells Known is one for a Sorcerer is one month of downtime to retrain. Hard to say if that's one spell or the entire list but I would guess one spell.
In the games I am usually part of you only get that much down time between adventure arcs. This will give you flexibility in general but you wont be swapping spells to be undead focused if you suddenly get a plot hook to go kill a vampire. I guess your mileage may vary and I will be interested to see how PFS ends up setting it up
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I was a person who really liked Resonance conceptually and am sad that it wasn't able to work out.Eyyy, a fourth person who likes Resonance! (Unless I'm forgetting someone. Probably am)
Come join the club with me, MaxAstro, and David Silver! XD
At least you remembered you forgot me.
I, too, liked what resonance could have been.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Resonance as implemented had some flaws, but the solution should have been to clean up the issues and make it function better, not turn CHA back into the universal dump stat.
I don't know that there WAS an easy fix: the rule was paradoxically far too restrictive in some ways and far too open in others: for instance, consumables using it was far too restrictive while others say they never came close to the limit, meaning it was pointless paperwork.
EDIT/PS: We should most likely move on from this as we're in the thread "SORCERER'S SIGNATURE SPELL".
[Resonance] was paradoxically far too restrictive in some ways and far too open in others: for instance, consumables using it was far too restrictive while others say they never came close to the limit, meaning it was pointless paperwork.
I don't know if that demonstrates objective problem with mechanic, as much as different groups failing to successfully assimilate to new paradigm while others took it on board, which could happen for many new 2E mechanics. But Paizo has made clear objective system design was not sole metric, some choices were made simply for popular taste, or even for lack of consensus. Certainly if everything else balanced out, an approach which didn't require distinct mechanic was preferred since it means a lower bar for new players to start playing the game.
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I don't know if that demonstrates objective problem with mechanic, as much as different groups failing to successfully assimilate to new paradigm while others took it on board, which could happen for many new 2E mechanics.
EDIT/PS: We should most likely move on from this as we're in the thread "SORCERER'S SIGNATURE SPELL".
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popcorns
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Continuation of repeating pattern of advocating for ending of thread derailment after making a statement on the subject of said thread derailment in an attempt to get the last word in and not have people disagree with them.
It's an attempt to stop ME from continuing a derail: there are so many active threads going on that I tend to reply to a thread post and not notice what thread I'm in. I've had a few posts removed lately because of that so I'm trying to be more vigilant with it. If you're familiar with my posts, I'm not afraid to have people disagree with me: In fact I had a whole post ready to post to continue the debate when I saw my own last post. I'd be more than happy to continue said debate in an appropriate thread. ;)
I wonder with spells per level will be the more popular ones for signature spells, my guess are:
Lvl1: Summon Monster, Heal
Lvl2: Flaming Sphere, Restoration
Lvl3: Dispel Magic, Paralyze
Lvl4: Dimension Door
Lvl5: Summon Dragon
Lvl6: Teleport, Disintegrate
For me, the critical design philosophy for PF2 is modularity: We built the game in such a way that we can all make changes to make our dreams and preferences a reality, without causing weird or unexpected side effects in various other systems that throw off the rest of the game. That way, if your group wants to do something different with spontaneous casters, we want you to be empowered to make that change and we want to make instituting that change as easy for you as is possible. On Arcane Mark last night, Elfteiroh mentioned that they usually didn't feel confident making bigger houserule changes in PF1 but have already started getting excited for some in PF2 and feeling confident in being able to adjudicate and apply them based on the playtest and the reveals so far. I hope that continues to be true!
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your post.
You wrote a lot of things that hit hard and in the right places. I understand, for what is worth it, that your job and the job of everyone at Paizo is not easy, and sometimes we fans don't support you in the right ways. I didn't want to sound ungrateful.So, I think I'll just wait and see the final Sorcerer and, after trying it, if I still won't like it I'll make like Elfteiroh and try to overcome my fear of houserules to use the modularity at the core of this system to make the game more comfortable for my group and I.
Thank you again for your continue effort to make a great game for everyone!
Again, I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt and hope that attitude and approach isn't your intent as that's no proper way to act on these forums, but if it isn't your intent then I figured I should probably say something so that you know that it's very much how you come across.
I'm truly sorry! Honestly I didn't want to sound like that or infer such things BUT after re-reading my post(s) I can see how I can appear/sound to people. I apologize and you made the right call in, well, calling me out.
Just to better clarify one of the most important things: I don't think my opinions are correct more than anybody else! It's true that I *don't* like the system for how I imagine it is (for lack of information and based on pure speculation) and this is my opinion that touches only myself but I would never imply that people who enjoy the same system are wrong.To make an example: I don't like very much pure Vancian spellcasting, I love the possibility to have the Wizard/Arcanist/Sorcerer sub-systems in the same game because I can choose the one that most fit me. But I would never imply that just because I prefer one spellcasting system over the others then my choice is better in some way.
Don't know how to put this part on words better, I just hope what I wrote made sense!
And to close the circle: how do you suggest we can spur the conversation in a better direction/good discussion about the Sorcerer/Spontaneous Spellcaster Signature Spell?
(in a modest effort to claim back this thread from all the people talking about Resonance)
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Fair enough, apologies for the assumption of malintent. I've dealt with enough nonsense in various places that sometimes something comes off too readily as negative, despite my generally trying to avoid assuming the worst of others.Continuation of repeating pattern of advocating for ending of thread derailment after making a statement on the subject of said thread derailment in an attempt to get the last word in and not have people disagree with them.It's an attempt to stop ME from continuing a derail: there are so many active threads going on that I tend to reply to a thread post and not notice what thread I'm in. I've had a few posts removed lately because of that so I'm trying to be more vigilant with it. If you're familiar with my posts, I'm not afraid to have people disagree with me: In fact I had a whole post ready to post to continue the debate when I saw my own last post. I'd be more than happy to continue said debate in an appropriate thread. ;)
My rule of thumb is to assume that everyone is in earnest and just not always perfect at expressing themselves; many of us gamers, even those of us who wordsmith for a living, are not always perfect at crafting the perfect turn of phrase. I try to read things in the best possible line when they're online and I lack all the other normal context. That's not to say I've never seen a post on paizo.com that I was sure was in bad faith, but it just felt to me like it was mostly that Gawain was someone who's very passionate and feels really strongly about sorcerers in a way that might have caused him not to be thinking from other viewpoints as much when he worded that post, and so I responded in kind. We're all gamers and we love Pathfinder, and I think using this rule of thumb helps try to keep our paizo.com community a friendlier and more thought-provoking place (even if part of it is simply from the lens I choose to view with).
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But again that is only relative to a point because that's a universal casting change and is thus comparing PF1 Sorc by PF1 standards and PF2 Sorc by PF1 standards instead of comparing PF1 Sorc by PF1 standards and PF2 Sorc by PF2 standards and seeing how that looks, particularly compared to other PF1 casters by PF1 standards and PF2 casters by PF2 standards.
I think there really isn't much benefit in comparing cross system after all. Perhaps even detrimental given that one of the impetuses to make PF2 was that PF1 was weighed down by 3.5 baggage and constantly worrying about how the new compared to the old. Looking back at PF1 and other systems can give us a frame of reference and an idea of what to look for in terms of progress, but I don't think direct comparisons add much.
The focus should instead be on how the class looks in its own world, wholly separate from PF1.
How good does the class feel to play? That includes everything from how varied and impactful its options feel to how difficult and complex it is to figure out and so on.
How well does it fulfill its own fantasy? Does it feel like your character is tapping into arcane secrets in their blood to unleash devastating magic?
And finally, how well does it compare to its peers, primarily the wizard, secondarily other full casters and tertiarily every other class.
Admittedly kind of hard since we only have a limited picture of what the final project, but my point is that "This is better than in PF1" or "This is worse than in PF1" don't mean a lot on their own because lots of moving parts have changed and PF1 sorcerers are never going to be competing against PF2 sorcerers anyways.
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Fair enough, apologies for the assumption of malintent. I've dealt with enough nonsense in various places that sometimes something comes off too readily as negative, despite my generally trying to avoid assuming the worst of others.
To be honest, one of the reasons I'm mainly a lurker and not a poster is because writing posts in threads over the Internet is way off to be a perfect way to communicate and misunderstandings are quite common. As Mark Seifter wrote in another post, lack of context is the prime suspect, I believe.
While I can advocate for myself and not wanting to be malicious, my past posts surely was not perfectly written so I'll try to get better - and to convene a tone more adequate for this forum.As to continuing the suggestion, I'm honestly not sure. I feel like opinions on both sides have been pretty well stated and expounded on, along with some potential in-between options. I think at this point it's at more of an agree to disagree point than anything.
But we can agree that we need more spoilers!
One thing I will add on it though, I think comparing PF1 and PF2 Sorcerers beyond a certain point is a mistake.
True - again, I feel guilty as the one who started it by calling out 5E.
But I want to return to this topic for one second, hoping to not derail.The first time I called out "5E spellcasters" was not a comparison made in the light of "power level" or "play level" or even "play experience" of Sorcerers per se. I was not trying to compare Sorcerer between different editions of different RPG.
The thing I tried (badly) to focus on was how the system is ingrained at the rules level: how spellcasting works in 5E is, in itself, universal, with the same rules for every one and how in my experience the simplicity of the system seems to be, again in my personal opinion, one of the best version of the Vancian spellcasting for every class in 5E - as I write this, I'm aware I don't know how spellcasting really is in PF2 and even I can't know if the new spellcasting will be a better experience for me and/or my group, but again, I created this thread to speculate and gain information, so having people with different opinions are most certainly welcomed.
When we look at what we know about PF2, my major concern how expressed in other posts is how rules for spontaneous casters seems different for various design reasons, that surely cover things like "analysis paralysis" and balance, and the things that I keep can't grasp is how, in the scales of PF2's developing, this points generated more weight then others - and all of this I find as the source of my most aggressive answers, a mix of what we know and don't know, of what will, could and won't be in the final version of the game.
Most of my anxiety surely went away by knowing that by design the game can be more adapted to different tables, helping people transitioning to one system to the other and to grant the best experience to everyone without creating a cascade effect on rules and balancing inside the game itself if a rule, like how spontaneous spellcasting works, is changed. Something that, always in my opinion, I don't find true in other TTRPGs.
I put a lot of hope and comfort in this.
[...]but it just felt to me like it was mostly that Gawain was someone who's very passionate and feels really strongly about sorcerers in a way that might have caused him not to be thinking from other viewpoints as much when he worded that post, and so I responded in kind. We're all gamers and we love Pathfinder[...].
Eheh. I pass as a very chill guy in real life and I surprise even myself for the times I get so passionate for what is, after all, a game.
I think there really isn't much benefit in comparing cross system after all. Perhaps even detrimental given that one of the impetuses to make PF2 was that PF1 was weighed down by 3.5 baggage and constantly worrying about how the new compared to the old. Looking back at PF1 and other systems can give us a frame of reference and an idea of what to look for in terms of progress, but I don't think direct comparisons add much.
The focus should instead be on how the class looks in its own world, wholly separate from PF1.
How good does the class feel to play? That includes everything from how varied and impactful its options feel to how difficult and complex it is to figure out and so on.
How well does it fulfill its own fantasy? Does it feel like your character is tapping into arcane secrets in their blood to unleash devastating magic?
And finally, how well does it compare to its peers, primarily the wizard, secondarily other full casters and tertiarily every other class.Admittedly kind of hard since we only have a limited picture of what the final project, but my point is that "This is better than in PF1" or "This is worse than in PF1" don't mean a lot on their own because lots of moving parts have changed and PF1 sorcerers are never going to be competing against PF2 sorcerers anyways.
These are excellent points. I add: this post by tqomins shows all the Multiclass Archetypes feats, that we can use as a reminder and to expand on the questions rised by Squiggit, expecially in the compare part.
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The thing I tried (badly) to focus on was how the system is ingrained at the rules level: how spellcasting works in 5E is, in itself, universal, with the same rules for every one and how in my experience the simplicity of the system seems to be, again in my personal opinion, one of the best version of the Vancian spellcasting for every class in 5E - as I write this, I'm aware I don't know how spellcasting really is in PF2 and even I can't know if the new spellcasting will be a better experience for me and/or my group, but again, I created this thread to speculate and gain information, so having people with different opinions are most certainly welcomed.
When we look at what we know about PF2, my major concern how expressed in other posts is how rules for spontaneous casters seems different for various design reasons, that surely cover things like "analysis paralysis" and balance, and the things that I keep can't grasp is how, in the scales of PF2's developing, this points generated more weight then others - and all of this I find as the source of my most aggressive answers, a mix of what we know and don't know, of what will, could and won't be in the final version of the game.
I'm going to take the liberty of rephrasing these points real quickly to summarize my understanding:
- The 5e spellcasting rules are universal for "everyone" (presumably all classes
- You consider those rules simple to understand
- You really like that implementation
- You're concerned that the different rules built around heightening spontaneous casters in PF2 are a patch that solves a problem of confusing rules and too many options that you think are, perhaps, better solved by 5E-style casting
These seem like pretty valid opinions to have, and certainly there are plenty of others who have shared similar opinions during the playtest.
That said, there are those of us that don't want all spellcasters to work the same. I think one of Pathfinder's strengths is the willingness to take a ton of different approaches to problems and playstyles. Off the top of my head, PF1 had classes built around spontaneous spells, prepared spells with learned lists (wizard), prepared spells without learned lists (cleric), spontaneous conversion of prepared spells (cleric), prepared spell options from learned lists with spontaneous casting from those options (arcanist, which I understand to be like 5e casting), hexes (witch), spell-like abilities (kineticist blasts), pool-based casting (monk), prepared spells from learned lists as items (alchemist)...
And I'm not even including the flavor pieces. There's definitely some risk that the complexity doesn't offer value and should instead be consolidated (supernatural abilities, spell-like abilities, half a dozen different pools...basically all now just focus spells). It's tricky to find the balance, but the prepared vs. spontaneous dichotomy + additional nuances has been around for a long time, and appeal to different players in different ways. I'm glad the different casting options exist, and that the space is there to continue adding other casting styles (like Arcanist, which I've never actually used or had a player use) back in.
What I do like is that generally players not diving into full casters really only need to know how focus points work, and full casters really only need to know how their individual class casting works. It's too early for me to really make a call on how confusing the rules on heightening are for various casting types. I know that there have been a number of times when new classes came out that I had to read through them several times to even kind of understand what was happening there (like kineticists).
I don't think "if you want simple, go play 5e" is a necessary answer, but there's definitely a different design philosophy at play. I feel comfortable recommending a PF2 sorcerer to a new player without worrying about whether or not they can wrap their heads around spontaneous heightening options, because a lot of the turn-to-turn decision making seems to be adequately simplified while not feeling overly restrictive, monotonous, or out of balance...but time will tell.
