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On the other hand, a lot of people thought Kineticists were pretty mediocre despite their playstyle defining wild talent and element options.
In my experience, only armchair theorists believed that. Anyone I've ever met who saw them in play always said they were really powerful, broken even.
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On the other hand, a lot of people thought Kineticists were pretty mediocre despite their playstyle defining wild talent and element options.In my experience, only armchair theorists believed that. Anyone I've ever met who saw them in play always said they were really powerful, broken even.
I don't think I've seen anyone at a table I play call them broken, but fair enough, replace Kineticist with another PF1 class that got talents of some kind but wasn't very good if you prefer.
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Bond conversation is definitely an example of a good wizard feat (probably too good, I'm not sure Paizo realized the ramifications of how it worked with the Universalist when they designed it), but I'd also say it's the exception rather than the norm.
There are a lot of feats that barely do anything or serve as math fixers or niche ways to adjust spells. Few and far between are the feats that give you new actions or ways to interact with the world around you, which are generally speaking the best kinds of PF2 class feats.
I'd put a few wizard feats in that category of new ways to interact with the world.
Silent Spell lets you cast illusions and enchantments without others picking up on what you're doing.
Clever Counterspell is another, though it does require a level 1 class feat prerequisite. The skill feats are a less important tax, but they are still there. You can get the prerequisite through a human racial feat or a general for adapted ancestry + human racial feat. This is an extremely powerful feat that isn't possible by any other caster. Add on reflect spell for some sweet wizard dueling action.
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It's kind of goofy to complain about hyperbole, then immediately jump to one of your own with something as silly as "oh I guess you'd rather skip your turn."
I thought we were talking about offensive spells, blasting (Spell attacks vs DC) And that was not the entirety of what I said, as Cyouni call you on, you just pick whatever you want in the response and make a phrase that suits your current mockery. (Calling what I'm saying silly, of what Cyouni said as Dumb and nonsensical)
Can you please be less rude? Is too much to ask? No one is calling your arguments Dumb, Silly and Nonsensical.
Can you please answer the argument in question though? How much more power do you think it needs to be worthwhile.
PS; I think is a fun discussion, but only in a civil manner.
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If I wanted to play a sage wizard, I'd just take Clever Improviser or Untrained Improvisation.
That way, I effectively have knowledge in all the Lore skills.
Then I'd max Arcana so as to qualify for high end skill feats dealing with Recall Knowledge and the like. Eventually, I'd get Unified Theory, so as to call myself a master of magic.
If I wanted to play a sage wizard, I'd just take Clever Improviser or Untrained Improvisation.
That way, I effectively have knowledge in all the Lore skills.
Then I'd max Arcana so as to qualify for high end skill feats dealing with Recall Knowledge and the like. Eventually, I'd get Unified Theory, so as to call myself a master of magic.
Unified Theory is such a cool concept!
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As PF2 currently stands, I severely question whether Paizo can deliver a satisfying version that lives up to the name of the class. Kineticist is based around the concept of prebuffing, spending resources without recovering it, and the management of Power vs Sustain (via spending actions to mitigate cost and increasing cost of abilities). Just the concept of prebuffing being mostly extinct makes Kineticist questionable. The rest is stopped by the standardize system of Spells and Focus spells actively preventing them without severely changing how those systems work. (Looks at the terrible Oracle playtest and the weird Witch playtest.)
Most likely, the Kineticist concept that Paizo will try to replicate, will be everything except the resource management, that will be standardized. It would be a character who fulfills the fantasy of throwing energy on doing tricks with it, not the mechanics of the class (That I love by the way) PF2 doesn't work like that.
Expecting the metagame to be the same as in PF1 is pointless, everything is going to be disappointing.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Gee, it is almost as if there is a divide in to-hit accuracy between casters and martials (Fighter being special here), which just may ever-so-slightly discourage casters from using spells that need attack rolls. Unless they pay the True Strike tax presumably.That's sort of the problem, yeah. The accuracy issues, along with the inferior mechanics generally make a lot of spell attacks poor investments. The conclusion isn't 'spellcasters suck' but rather 'these spell aren't really worth your time.' I don't know why that's supposed to be good though.
Because, at least as far as the CRB classes are concerned, the role of the casters is *not* to be primary damage dealers. One way to keep their damage in check is their accuracy. And the reason why that is good is so that they don't make the martial classes obsolete. Again.
Is it possible to imagine that the core caster classes simply are intentionally not designed as magical damage dealers?Possible, yeah. If that's the case Paizo probably should have made that more clear, though.
That said I'm not convinced. It'd be weird to publish damage-oriented Sorcerer Bloodlines, Druid Orders, etc. if they weren't intended to be functional damage dealers... and they can be functional damage dealers in the right situations, so if that was the goal there were a lot of missteps here.
Uhm...
Roleplaying the Wizard
During Combat Encounters...
You likely try to stay out of the fray, carefully judging when to use your spells. You save your most powerful magic to incapacitate threatening foes and use your cantrips when only weaker foes remain. When enemies pull out tricks like invisibility or flight, you answer with spells like glitterdust or earth bind, leveling the field for your allies.
All right there in the manual. Note that this explicitly spells out that the Wizard is the one who applies magical solutions to magical problems. Blasting is such a waste of his magnificent abilities, but if the battle is already won, he too will throw around a few cantrips to help mop up. But at the end of the day, he is the guy that makes sure the other party members can do their jobs by dealing with obstacles.
Imagine a Warlock or Kineticist class...Would be great, but I think there's room for a blasting Sorcerer and a Kineticist to co-exist...
Sure. But remember that Paizo still wants to sell Ultimate Magic for PF 2 too, so...
Because you can't have your cake and eat it. If you want Wizards to be able to specialise to the extend you want them too, they must pay the price in versatility.Sort of wondering how much of this thread you've been reading, because that's precisely the point I and others have been making. Wizard schools neither encourage specializations nor limit versatility, making them kind of nothing burgers that end up leaving most flavors of wizard feel exceptionally samey.
All of it, thank you very much, and I just need to point out AGAIN that the Wizard, as presented in this game, has ALL THE MAGIC*. NOT having ALL THE MAGIC* does not a Wizard make. Ergo, Wizard can not be allowed to specialise in a way that makes him
a) not-a-Wizard (on account of NOT having access to ALL THE MAGIC*)
and
b) beating other classes AT THEIR OWN GAME**. Because of course not.
* As in, access to all schools of magic, not all spells.
** For example, skill classes at skills. There is a thread about that too by the way.
Again though, why is that a good thing? Why would the game be worse if your choice of School felt like a significant and meaningful part of what defined you as a Wizard?
Does that apply to other classes too? Would Monks be more interesting if they didn't have stances or special combat actions, but their base unarmed strike was stronger?
Because, in the end, RPGs are intended to be played by people, presumably friends, who come together to while away a few hours in an elaborate game of make-believe.
And if that game would make casters as über as they were in D&D 3.x and, by extension, PF 1 (see: Backwards compatibility), it would not be a fun game. And that's bad. And thus NOT making it bad is good.
So here's the thing: The Wizard, as written, does not do what you want it to do for some good reasons. Instead of griping about it, you should figure out what exactly you want and then come up with houserules that do that.
And I would advise that you stop obsessing about attack rolls and more consider to make casters better at their bread-and-butter: Making their spell effects stick.
The thing is, martials see critical hits much more often then casters see their spells unleash their full potential, simply because you usually see more attacks rolled then spells cast. And I can agree, wholeheartedly even, that this sucks from the perspective of a caster player. That this can feel underwhelming, frustrating even. So helping casters with their spell DCs is fair game. Boosting their attack rolls is not.
Because, at least as far as the CRB classes are concerned, the role of the casters is *not* to be primary damage dealers. One way to keep their damage in check is their accuracy. And the reason why that is good is so that they don't make the martial classes obsolete. Again.
Wizards have always been envisioned as sprint / nova damage dealers while martials have always been envisioned as marathon damage dealers. A fighter can have his "circular saw" longswort in operation for a full 100 turns before becomming exhausted, how long can a wizard blast away for full effect? Usually the party needs to rest because casters are out of spells, not because the martials are out of repeatable attacks (not even HP in this edition). And yes I am aware that this can be a problem if you only have few encounters per day.
So in older editions we had this guy with an assault rifle and a full clip versus the guy with a pocket knife (which granted was wrong on its own account), but now the later guy has been upgraded to katana while the first guy has a flintlock pistol and wet gunpowder (aka still decent if he could only get his shots off).
Also, adjusting accuracy to reduce damage output is a terrible, terrible, terrible game mechanic, especially in conjunction with expandable ressources, because missing special attacks is even less fun than missing standard attacks already is. Don't get me wrong I really like what they did with the fighter and the other martials in regards to accuracy, but a barbarian that misses in one round simply will take another swing in the next and probably will get a big hit in eventually. A wizard that misses the "one big spell" he had prepared however...
In addition I wholeheartedly reject the notion of the wizard being the "be our adventure solution provider on anything apart from combat" argument in a game that has his good share of solving problems by combat.
@Lycar
No one has asked for PF2 wizards or casters to be backwards compatible or uber. And to say a version of Wizards/casters that no one is asking for would make the game "not fun" is easily one of the biggest straw man I have ever seen.
My complaints are directed at people who push for Wizards being able to screw other classes out of their niches.
You DO NOT GET to rival martials at damage output, unless you pay for the privilege by sacrificing the things that you can do, but martial and skill focused classes can't.
You DO NOT GET to complain that casters were nerfed into the ground, if you do not also explain how you want to ensure that there is still a reason to play non-casters, once you get your wishes.
1) Casters being able to situationally do more damage than martials does not in any way make martial obsolete./QUOTE]Casters doing more damage in total with AoE spells is fine, rivalling martials single-target damage with at-will abilities is not. That is what I said. Repeatedly.
Want to know where people did complain about casters being broken?I've been playing D&D since the Red Box edition. I already know, thank you very much.
Thankfully PF 2 for the most part dealt with those issues (that 3.0 introduced for the most part). Casters can no longer win entire encounters all by themselves, they actually NEED their fellow players to thrive now. And that is a good thing, don't you think?
2) Wizards in PF2 are meant to be learned/scholars, studying 1 school of magic, and focusing on 1 thesis. But mechanically everyone behaves the same as if they were generalist. In fact last time I checked there were only 2 feats interacting with Arcane School, both of them were for the Universalist. Were is the specialization that...Then make suggestions about how to fix that and don't complain about casters 'not doing enough damage'. If you'd actually read what I wrote, then you would know that I agree that casters currently need some help with, well, being casters.
But the solution is NOT boosting their to-hit score and their damage output, the solution is to make their spells crit a bit more often then they do now. And the solution to THAT could very well be feats and other abilities that help mitigate enemy saves and resistances.
If specialist would have means to make their chosen school of spell stick, THAT would make a specialisation a meaningful choice, help casters* be more successful and, on top of all that, NOT step on the toes of the other classes. Simple item bonuses to everything don't do that though.
*Presumably other casting classes would get help making their own 'iconic' magic stick. I guess Sorcerors could get something for their focus spells for example. And, presumably, some spells that would be considered 'iconic' to their bloodline. Think PF 1 bloodline spells.
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Wizards have always been envisioned as sprint / nova damage dealers while martials have always been envisioned as marathon damage dealers.
Think about what that means in the context of a co-operative multi-player game though.
If we have a nova caster, then either he is dominating a number of encounters by himself, relegating everybody else to 'mule' or maybe scroll caddy, OR he is the BBEG, the Boss fight. And thus an NPC.
A caster player going nova and then demanding the party rests, so he can have his beauty sleep is simply being a jerk to his fellow players. That is on the player, not the game, but would it not be better if the game was designed in a way that makes such a playstyle a losing proposition?
So in older editions we had this guy with an assault rifle and a full clip versus the guy with a pocket knife (which granted was wrong on its own account), but now the later guy has been upgraded to katana while the first guy has a flintlock pistol and wet gunpowder (aka still decent if he could only get his shots off).
And it is with 'getting his shot of' that casters currently have trouble, and THAT is something that should be addressed. Ideally in a fun and interesting way. Maybe with class feats locked into school specialisations. Maybe by making knowledge checks to mitigate enemy defences.
Also, adjusting accuracy to reduce damage output is a terrible, terrible, terrible game mechanic, especially in conjunction with expandable ressources, because missing special attacks is even less fun than missing standard attacks already is.
Granted, but most spells don't require attack rolls to begin with. For everything else, there's True Strike. And most spells requiring an attack roll are direct damage spells, and I think you know how I feel about those...
Don't get me wrong I really like what they did with the fighter and the other martials in regards to accuracy, but a barbarian that misses in one round simply will take another swing in the next and probably will get a big hit in eventually. A wizard that misses the "one big spell" he had prepared however...
In addition I wholeheartedly reject the notion of the wizard being the "be our adventure solution provider on anything apart from combat" argument in a game that has his good share of solving problems by combat.
You misunderstand, the Wizard (and casters in general) is awesome at solving practical problems... in combat!
What good is a Barbarian if he can't get right into the dragon's grill to Power Attack that smirk off its scaly face? Wizard casts Fly. It's awkward, it can no longer make the whole party skip climb checks (still great for the BBEG to become a recurring enemy though), but it totally helps with this encounter.
Battlefield control and save-or-suck spells are still very much alive, they just no longer win fights all by themselves. Or rather, SoS became more of a safe-and-be-debuffed-or-be-really-debuffed. With a non-trivial chance of being fully resisted though, and only a lucky critical failure will see the full 'suck' effect to come to pass.
The point is, even in 3.x and PF 1, one of the most powerful, and arguably the most party-friendly caster is the God-Wizard. The Grand Enabler. The guy who is awesome by making other people awesome at their job.
In retrospect, a lot of the woes of the muggle classes may have been wrought by the idea that the caster classes would prop them up to efficiency. But, well, just like mandatory magic items, if you, as a caster, are expected by the game design to allocate a number of your limited daily resources towards getting your party up to expected numbers, instead of making everybody awesome when it matters...
Where PF 2 is right now is that every class is *viable* right out of the box. No class *needs* a single class feat to be reasonably effective. No party *needs* a Rogue to deal with traps. And no party strictly *needs* a caster to lay down debuffs and battlefield control.
A caster's spell slots no longer determine the length of the adventuring day. Not only are casters allowed to be casters all day long, thanks to scaling, at-will cantrips.
They can rest easily, knowing that even if they exhaust their daily supply of spells, the party will not be doomed by a random encounter on their way back to camp.
Casters can do a lot of things, but blasting, and especially nova blasting is a bad use of magic in a game where casters are supposed to be part of a party. Especially a party containing non-casters.
As an aside, HP limiting the martial's daily effectiveness has not been true in D&D 3.x and PF 1 outside the lowest of levels. Wands of CLW or Infernal Healing anyone? Making the Medicine skill worth a damn was ultimately needed to also make 'healing in combat' a valid thing, which means that Clerics reserving spell slots for cure spells now actually makes sense. And the mass-production of wands went the way of the Dodo.
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My complaints are directed at people who push for Wizards being able to screw other classes out of their niches.You DO NOT GET to rival martials at damage output, unless you pay for the privilege by sacrificing the things that you can do, but martial and skill focused classes can't.
You DO NOT GET to complain that casters were nerfed into the ground, if you do not also explain how you want to ensure that there is still a reason to play non-casters, once you get your wishes.
I feel EVERY class should be balanced.
That means the wizard should be able to rival, even slightly surpass, the martial classes in damage output, at least several times a day by using their highest level spell slots. Once those slots are used up, they need to either use remaining lower level slots or cantrips, or worst of all, switch to weapons as a last resort. Lower level slots and cantrips I'm fine with being slightly below the martial classes because they make up for it with versatility and a range of spell options. But it should not be a massive difference between classes (where, say a martial is doing 20+ points per round and the caster is doing 6 points per round when they can even hit.)
That is called being nerfed into the ground.
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My complaints are directed at people who push for Wizards being able to screw other classes out of their niches.You DO NOT GET to rival martials at damage output, unless you pay for the privilege by sacrificing the things that you can do, but martial and skill focused classes can't.
You DO NOT GET to complain that casters were nerfed into the ground, if you do not also explain how you want to ensure that there is still a reason to play non-casters, once you get your wishes.
I feel EVERY class should be balanced.
That means the wizard should be able to rival, even slightly surpass, the martial classes in damage output, at least several times a day by using their highest level spell slots. Once those slots are used up, they need to either use remaining lower level slots or cantrips, or worst of all, switch to weapons as a last resort. Lower level slots and cantrips I'm fine with being slightly below the martial classes because they make up for it with versatility and a range of spell options. But it should not be a massive difference between classes (where, say a martial is doing 20+ points per round and the caster is doing 6 points per round when they can even hit.)
That is called being nerfed into the ground.
Hey, there was an edition of the game where Wizards could literally blow up reality but the idea was that they're balanced because they can do it a limited amount of times per day while the Fighter can swing their sword all day.
Which in practice meant that past first few levels, Wizards blew their spell slots to nova 4 encounters and then rope trick/teleport/demiplane away to call it a day and rinse and repeat once their slots recharged.
I can't remember which edition was that, care to help me out?
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Hey, there was an edition of the game where Wizards could literally blow up reality but the idea was that they're balanced because they can do it a limited amount of times per day while the Fighter can swing their sword all day.
Which in practice meant that past first few levels, Wizards blew their spell slots to nova 4 encounters and then rope trick/teleport/demiplane away to call it a day and rinse and repeat once their slots recharged.
I can't remember which edition was that, care to help me out?
I don't think it's fair to use previous editions as a cudgel to beat the current wizard with. The current edition can be judged on it's own merit.
It's true that Wizards could disappear after using all their resources and then wait out their recharge time, but I think it's clear the DM was never supposed to let that happen. Wizards have limited resources, that should be an important and unavoidable part of their class balance when compared to the unlimited resources of a strong mundane attack.
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Hey, there was an edition of the game where Wizards could literally blow up reality but the idea was that they're balanced because they can do it a limited amount of times per day while the Fighter can swing their sword all day.
Which in practice meant that past first few levels, Wizards blew their spell slots to nova 4 encounters and then rope trick/teleport/demiplane away to call it a day and rinse and repeat once their slots recharged.
I can't remember which edition was that, care to help me out?
I don't think it's fair to use previous editions as a cudgel to beat the current wizard with. The current edition can be judged on it's own merit.
It's true that Wizards could disappear after using all their resources and then wait out their recharge time, but I think it's clear the DM was never supposed to let that happen. Wizards have limited resources, that should be an important and unavoidable part of their class balance when compared to the unlimited resources of a strong mundane attack.
I was replying to Samurai's notion that PF1 paradigm was fine (super powerful but limited by uses). It wasn't.
And if you're telling me that the GM is supposed to do extra work in order to address rules imbalance, well, I'll just go and play a game where I don't have to do this work. 5e is one, PF2 is another. In neither do full casters have such an absurd power level that actively encourages the game to turn into the party coming up with creative new ways to do the 15-minutes adventuring day and the GM coming up with increasingly contrived ways of preventing that.
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I was replying to Samurai's notion that PF1 paradigm was fine (super powerful but limited by uses). It wasn't.
And if you're telling me that the GM is supposed to do extra work in order to address rules imbalance, well, I'll just go and play a game where I don't have to do this work. 5e is one, PF2 is another. In neither do full casters have such an absurd power level that actively encourages the game to turn into the party coming up with creative new ways to do the 15-minutes adventuring day and the GM coming up with increasingly contrived ways of preventing that.
I don't think the idea of a powerful ability with limited uses is a flawed concept. Magic got out of hand in 3.X/Pathfinder for a number of reasons, but that isn't one of them.
If you don't want to force balance on the 1e system, you don't have to, I was just saying that the GM could force a wizard to live with the decision of blowing all their spell slots early.
2e casters don't have absurd power level, which is good, but they also don't feel good to play. I think you can start giving them back some power without jumping the shark. But you shouldn't say they 'deserve' to be underpowered in 2e as punishment for being overpowered in 1e.
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It's true that Wizards could disappear after using all their resources and then wait out their recharge time, but I think it's clear the DM was never supposed to let that happen.
How would a DM even begin to stop such a thing without immense support from the rules (as we have now in 2e)?
Telling the party they can't run away is only going to either upset players or lead to a TPK.
It's true that Wizards could disappear after using all their resources and then wait out their recharge time, but I think it's clear the DM was never supposed to let that happen.How would a DM even begin to stop such a thing without immense support from the rules (as we have now in 2e)?
Telling the party they can't run away is only going to either upset players or lead to a TPK.
My easiest thought is just to use narrative tricks to ensure that fights have to be done in one or two full rests. "These enemies must be dispatched quickly to save the thingy" or "If you don't defeat them all, they enemy will have time to reinforce and you'll have wasted your tine" that sort of thing.
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You're still calling for the GM to do extra work and even go as far as altering his adventures or printed modules to compensate for the shortcomings of the ruleset. And the moment somebody says "hey, are you going out on your limb to kick us just because the Wizard here is so powerful", well, your game is beginning to fall apart.
I'm calling it bull, there are games that don't force you to do that.
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I agree that 1e did not handle casters very well, I think most people do.
I just also don't think that means a 'limited amount of powerful abilities' type character can't be balanced. It just need to be handled correctly, and I think wizards in 2e were overnerfed.
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I agree that 1e did not handle casters very well, I think most people do.
I just also don't think that means a 'limited amount of powerful abilities' type character can't be balanced. It just need to be handled correctly, and I think wizards in 2e were overnerfed.
Well, you're obviously a fan of Wizards and not happy that they're no longer top dogs, but is there any particular playing experience supporting your assessment? Because I run one PF2 game and play another one, didn't see anything to that effect, and the people on this forum who bemoan Wizards being nerfed to ground usually turn out to not having played the game at all.
My only complaint about Wizards is pretty much the same as other casters - too few variable action number spells means that casters are frequently left with no exciting options for their third action, but that's rather easily fixable in the upcoming books and devs indicated that they're aware of the issue.
Btw I am kind of getting tired of hearing, "wizards are fine because its a party". There is 0 reasons why a party with an attsck wizard should be inferior to a party with a buff/debuff wizard. Those are 2 different parties and should both be viable.
I keep getting weirded out by people treating spell selection like a build. It's not a build when you can change it at a moment's notice.
Any wizard can prepare from a large selection of spells. It's inevitable that a Wizard who only prepares direct damage spells will be weaker as a result. Refusing to prepare a certain type of spell when the situation calls for it isn't a build, it's a tactical mistake. The same is true if you only ever prepare mental debuffs - eventually you'll run into someone with a high will.
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Well, you're obviously a fan of Wizards and not happy that they're no longer top dogs
I'd like a game where all the classes are balanced, Wizards are just the bottom tier right now for 2e. When talking about 5e balance I always bring up ranger instead of wizard when talking about who needs buffs.
But is there any particular playing experience supporting your assessment? Because I run one PF2 game and play another one, didn't see anything to that effect, and the people on this forum who bemoan Wizards being nerfed to ground usually turn out to not having played the game at all.
I ran a 12 game long P2e society event at my uni last semester (you can find it here). I really like 2e, particularly the three action economy, but it's rough playing a wizard. Our bard also had trouble staying relevant in combat, but our druid seemed to fair much better. Still the hardest hit out of the group is the wizard, who just feels weak to me right now.
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Btw I am kind of getting tired of hearing, "wizards are fine because its a party". There is 0 reasons why a party with an attsck wizard should be inferior to a party with a buff/debuff wizard. Those are 2 different parties and should both be viable.I keep getting weirded out by people treating spell selection like a build. It's not a build when you can change it at a moment's notice.
Any wizard can prepare from a large selection of spells. It's inevitable that a Wizard who only prepares direct damage spells will be weaker as a result. Refusing to prepare a certain type of spell when the situation calls for it isn't a build, it's a tactical mistake. The same is true if you only ever prepare mental debuffs - eventually you'll run into someone with a high will.
You say "any wizard can prepare from a large selection of spell", and that's true, but you only get three spells per level. Even if you use one of each level to prepare a damage, control, utility trio, your actual list at any given time is really limited.
You say "any wizard can prepare from a large selection of spell", and that's true, but you only get three spells per level. Even if you use one of each level to prepare a damage, control, utility trio, your actual list at any given time is really limited.
This is true. I think Wizards get a lot of utility since getting low-level spells is dirt cheap and heightening is a thing, but you're absolutely right that Wizards have a limited selection of spells at their highest level. I stand by what I said, but I also understand the perspective that their highest-level spell selection can feel limiting and expanding it can be quite expensive.
why are you comparing all types of blast spells (of different energies and can be of different saves or attacks) with a single type of debuff with a single save?
I was comparing single-target damage (that's what I meant with "direct damage") but I realize I should have been more clear as it reads somewhat ambiguously.
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Because, at least as far as the CRB classes are concerned, the role of the casters is *not* to be primary damage dealers. One way to keep their damage in check is their accuracy. And the reason why that is good is so that they don't make the martial classes obsolete. Again.
Except, again, this comparison isn't being made between Wizard Spells and Fighter Strikes, it's between Wizard Spells and Other Wizard Spells.
It doesn't follow to suggest a spell needs to be inaccurate to keep it from outshining martials when literally right next to it is another spell that's just as good and way more accurate and doesn't cause the problems you're suggesting.
Even if you were right though, accuracy gating is a terrible mechanic.
Your premise doesn't hold up though because spellcasters are accurate, with the right spell at least. With the way saving throws work, many spells will have an 80-90% chance of doing something against most CR appropriate enemies and if you can reliably target a low save even the chances of just getting a failure will be comparable, sometimes even better than the martial's odds of landing a hit. It's just a handful of spells whose overall numbers don't quite add up.
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I feel EVERY class should be balanced.
That means the wizard should be able to rival, even slightly surpass, the martial classes in damage output, at least several times a day by using their highest level spell slots.
You seem to think that "balanced" means "every class should be able to do at least as much damage as "martial classes" (which ones?) do". That's... nuts. The goal should be to maximize the survivability of the group. And yes, the group's damage output.
I was playing another game yesterday, an MMO called Clan Lord. I was playing a mystic, one of three classes (the other two are healer and fighter; fighter has three subclasses). Mystics can't fight worth a damn. One of the fighters was having trouble hitting the critters we were up against. So I boosted her accuracy. My damage remained the same - zero. Hers went up. The party's went up quite a bit. We won the fight. And that is the goal.
Mystics are good for other things. How many critters, and what kind, are around the bend, on the other side of the door? A mystic can answer that. A fighter got separated from the group and is in trouble. Where is he? A mystic can answer that. Fighters can't. Mystics can lure critters into fighting range without getting hit. No other character in the game can do that. "Balance" has to be about the balance of the group against the enemies they will face. It's not about everybody being able to do as much damage as the fighters.
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Because, at least as far as the CRB classes are concerned, the role of the casters is *not* to be primary damage dealers. One way to keep their damage in check is their accuracy. And the reason why that is good is so that they don't make the martial classes obsolete. Again.Except, again, this comparison isn't being made between Wizard Spells and Fighter Strikes, it's between Wizard Spells and Other Wizard Spells.
It doesn't follow to suggest a spell needs to be inaccurate to keep it from outshining martials when literally right next to it is another spell that's just as good and way more accurate and doesn't cause the problems you're suggesting.
Even if you were right though, accuracy gating is a terrible mechanic.
Your premise doesn't hold up though because spellcasters are accurate, with the right spell at least. With the way saving throws work, many spells will have an 80-90% chance of doing something against most CR appropriate enemies and if you can reliably target a low save even the chances of just getting a failure will be comparable, sometimes even better than the martial's odds of landing a hit. It's just a handful of spells whose overall numbers don't quite add up.
It is important to remember though that the developers were made aware of the issue of damaging spells not feeling good enough during the playtest, and chose to correct the problem by increasing the damage die and quantity, not by adjusting the accuracy. It seems like spell attack roll spells are designed to be spells that are swinging for the fences.
A story from my game last night: Our 2nd level party has a sorcerer, a cleric, a barbarian, and a rogue. We (I, the cleric) tried to get clever with a Bear and a bunch of enemies and the plan fell apart. The bear beat me to initiative, and crit me into unconsciousness, in the dark, with no party members around. It was lights out for me because none of the martials could make it to me before the very hungry bear ate me next round.
The sorcerer is a dragon sorcerer themed around cold spells and chose hydraulic push as a thematic feeling spell. The four other times she tried to cast it, she missed. Everyone in the party was questioning whether that was really a sensible spell to have, especially because she always seems to need to be able to move before casting it, making it so that she never uses true strike on it, until she crit the bear for for 32 points of damage and moved it back through spaces it had to squeeze through to get to me, saving my character's life. No other character in the party is coming close to 32 points of damage on a single attack. The barbarian traded his bastard sword for a flail and a shield because he got too tired of ending up on the floor by the end of almost every battle
Yes this was an incredibly improbable series of events. My character should have been dead. But I wasn't because the sorcerer was enamored with the hight reward potential of the spell enough to keep casting it over higher accuracy spells.
The point: Any ability to gain an inherent and not situational or tactical increase in accuracy for spell attack roll spells is going to correspond to a decrease in spell damage, or have to coincide with an increase in damage from all other spells and probably martial characters as well, or else the top end of what they can do (take a level +1 creature completely out of the battle and nearly kill it in one shot).
Having a spell that only works well 1 in 5 times is very easy to dismiss in theory, except when it saves the day in a way no other spell could have (did enough damage to really make the bear think twice about what it was doing AND move it into a position where it could no longer easily pick up a free meal). Some people like having spells that make big fireworks when they are pulled off successfully.
A later fight in a the same session, we encountered an enemy with an incredibly high AC and mobility, that was immune to negative energy (leaving my cleric completely useless against it). It was late in the adventuring day and we had not rested so we were pretty much down to cantrips and melee attacks as a party. we tried to demoralize it a total of 4 times and never succeeded. We tried grapling it, tripping it, and attacking it for 4 rounds and only one out of the three other characters (the rogue) ever got a single physical hit in against the creature. The only reason this fast, little, impossible to hit monster didn't TPK us was because the sorcerer was able to spam electric arc on it 3 times (2 times for half damage, and one critical failure).
The second point: The ability for casters to easily prepare both reliable damage spells, and swing for the fences damage spells is a unique and powerful form of versatility that is not replicated well by martial characters. The fighter has one feat that plays towards that, but not until 10th level. Utilizing both types of spells gives casters a powerful and niche place in the party.
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Its the mentality of single-player domination os the encounter that I think bothers most people angry with the wizard.
In PF1 you could do a character that can end encounters by himself, in PF2 is no longer even remotely possible to do this regularly.
In my playtime (Levels 1-9), the wizard has always been important, sometimes MVP of the fight or encounter. But even with a top player at the helm, he cannot solve problems alone. In that game, even terrible players do something.
(In one game, I have a player sorcerer who only does Produce Flame)
So I think the wizard is fine. I think he lacks more fun feats, but that will come with time.
In PF1 I used to overshadow everyone using the wizard, and I was trying my hardest no to pick overbearing combos (But it was so strong compared to the others; SoS Spells, Summons, etc) I could have done those Adventures with NPCs, I didn't need anyone.
As a player, I really don't like the change, but I think is better for the game, so I'm happy overall
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32 damage in 5 rounds using 5 limited resources is very bad damage.
The fact that you are telling this as a success story makes me understand how you think the wizard is not so bad.
This is exactly my point. Until that 5th casting of this spell, I was firmly in the camp of "this is a terrible spell and our caster should not be using it, or at least, since she has true strike, should not use it without it."
Then she saved my life with it, and I realized that some players like having a real powerhouse Hail Mary in their back pocket, because it can be pretty legendary when it all works at exactly the right time.
A smart player can even have their back pocket Hail Mary, and still have very reliable spells for leaning on most of the rest of the time ( as the rest of the story indicated.)
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In my opinion large parts of this are not entirely about power level but player expectation and exitement. And I dare say that for many players the most exitement comes from combat.
As such many players don't care that they have a multitude of reality altering spells out of combat. The thrill of battle gets our blood pumping, not that we can teleport elsewhere afterwards. Also many players aren't content with casting buff or debuff spells for failure effects. If they wanted to do this in the first place they would probably have chosen Bard or Cleric. Likewise many players don't care that they have access to auto-damage mook-clearing spells, aka having to content to deal with (presumed) lesser enemies. What they do care about however is that they need a 15+ to hit a higher level monster or boss mob and the huge disappointment on miss after miss after miss (without using True Strike).
As another thread in this forum clearly shows spellcasters in general and wizards particularily simply do not seem to be exiting to play, be it because of the new action economy or the conceived power drop.
Note that I am entirely not in the wizards are unplayable corner but just wanted to make some points trying to use the point of view that I imagine at least some forumites advocate.
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In my opinion large parts of this are not entirely about power level but player expectation and exitement. And I dare say that for many players the most exitement comes from combat.
As such many players don't care that they have a multitude of reality altering spells out of combat. The thrill of battle gets our blood pumping, not that we can teleport elsewhere afterwards. Also many players aren't content with casting buff or debuff spells for failure effects. If they wanted to do this in the first place they would probably have chosen Bard or Cleric. Likewise many players don't care that they have access to auto-damage mook-clearing spells, aka having to content to deal with (presumed) lesser enemies. What they do care about however is that they need a 15+ to hit a higher level monster or boss mob and the huge disappointment on miss after miss after miss (without using True Strike).
As another thread in this forum clearly shows spellcasters in general and wizards particularily simply do not seem to be exiting to play, be it because of the new action economy or the conceived power drop.
Note that I am entirely not in the wizards are unplayable corner but just wanted to make some points trying to use the point of view that I imagine at least some forumites advocate.
See I think the underlying assumption from a lot of folks critical of wizard accuracy with spells right now, comes from people missing that this was a fundamental math construct of the game, dialed in through the playtest by giving damage dealing spells more damage, not more accuracy. It was not a willy-nilly choice to restrict the ways casters get bonuses to their attack roll spells or saving throw DCs. In fact, increasing the damage, instead of the accuracy was a way to give blasters in particular a way to really make a difference on the battlefield, but without the certainty that they will always be able to do so.
The developers want to encourage team play. They want your casters looking for bonuses on the battlefield. Those bonuses exist, and the Wizard of PF1 was way to good at applying the potential benefits of their Hail Mary or Nova plan with very reliable accuracy, to the point that everything came down to initiative. PF2 makes blasting more fun by leaving open the possibility that the spells do incredible things when they go off the way you hope they will, but have removed the option of building the entire party around the assumption that they always will.
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considering that these spells only had an high impact on the highest slot, on your average 5 to 1 hit. No, there is literally no room for the hailmary to work.32 damage in 5 rounds using 5 limited resources is very bad damage.
The fact that you are telling this as a success story makes me understand how you think the wizard is not so bad.
This is exactly my point. Until that 5th casting of this spell, I was firmly in the camp of "this is a terrible spell and our caster should not be using it, or at least, since she has true strike, should not use it without it."
Then she saved my life with it, and I realized that some players like having a real powerhouse Hail Mary in their back pocket, because it can be pretty legendary when it all works at exactly the right time.
A smart player can even have their back pocket Hail Mary, and still have very reliable spells for leaning on most of the rest of the time ( as the rest of the story indicated.)
Can you explain this a little more? I just gave you a real game experience where it worked exactly. I'd say it happens at our table about every 4 sessions in fact, where a powerful enemy critically fails a save we assume they would have easily passed or a caster crits with a spell to spectacular results. How often is a Hail Mary pass supposed to be completed? If a caster gets three chances every rest cycle, and you have two casters in your party. The odds of magic saving the day start to go up very quickly.
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See I think the underlying assumption from a lot of folks critical of wizard accuracy with spells right now, comes from people missing that this was a fundamental math construct of the game, dialed in through the playtest by giving damage dealing spells more damage, not more accuracy. It was not a willy-nilly choice to restrict the ways casters get bonuses to their attack roll spells or saving throw DCs. In fact, increasing the damage, instead of the accuracy was a way to give blasters in particular a way to really make a difference on the battlefield, but without the certainty that they will always be able to do so.
The developers want to encourage team play. They want your casters looking for bonuses on the battlefield. Those bonuses exist, and the Wizard of PF1 was way to good at applying the potential benefits of their Hail Mary or Nova plan with very reliable accuracy, to the point that everything came down to initiative. PF2 makes blasting more fun by leaving open the possibility that the spells do incredible things when they go off the way you hope they will, but have removed the option of building the entire party around the assumption that they always will.
While I do not doubt much of this there are a lot of math centric players (this one included) that do not like to gamble (too much) and would rather never try a Hail Mary maneuvre except in a "I might as well try my luck or we will all be dead anyway" all or nothing desperate type of situation. If those players happen to have memorized Hail Marys spells at all.
Years of D&D have "shown" us that repeated fireballs and magic missiles are most of the time always better than any pompous save or die spell (simply because if in doubt the big bad will make his save anyway), i.e. not to rely on chance and now we are to rely on chance even if the math may still tell us otherwise (spell attack spell average damage output vs basic save spell average damage output)?
Don't think many players will embrace the concept of "don't worry if you didn't hit 3 of 4 monsters with your top level spell the 4th one was spectacular!"
See I think the underlying assumption from a lot of folks critical of wizard accuracy with spells right now, comes from people missing that this was a fundamental math construct of the game, dialed in through the playtest by giving damage dealing spells more damage, not more accuracy.
That only matters if the math construct ends up working out and the spell still feels satisfying to cast. The latter is YMMV (but we've seen a lot of people express dissatisfaction with spells that reliably leave them doing nothing on a turn), but for the former it doesn't add up for many of the spells that have been brought up.
FWIW though, Hydraulic Push isn't a bad choice here, it has damage in the same ballpark as magic missile and beats burning hands on average against one target (although Hydraulic Push's crit effect scales poorly at higher levels).
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What I'd like to see more than math boosters for Wizards--and casters generally--are more ways to have limited spell slots that miss not "fizzle." Then it's a matter of action economy and not as much about resources.
I imagine a lot of folks would feel less bummed about missing with their acid arrow or whatever if the slot either wasn't used when they missed (a bit too much, if always available) or if they had a limited way to yoink that slot back and have another go at it for a limited time or something. Missing sucks, but missing and losing a spell slot is doubly punishing and can be a real turn-off for players, and is something I hope class feats can play with some more.
Limited math boosters might also work for me if they're flavorful. For instance, maybe a metamagic class feat that allows an evoker to spend a lower level spell slot to enhance a higher level evocation spell. Or a divination feat that acts as a sort of mini-ritual and can crank up the range or clarity of a diviner's spell.
As I've said, I think Wizards are fine and fun, but they definitely haven't benefitted from the modularity of the P2e class feat system and have a whole lot of room to expand in that regard.
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While I do not doubt much of this there are a lot of math centric players (this one included) that do not like to gamble (too much) and would rather never try a Hail Mary maneuvre except in a "I might as well try my luck or we will all be dead anyway" all or nothing desperate type of situation. If those players happen to have memorized Hail Marys spells at all.
Years of D&D have "shown" us that repeated fireballs and magic missiles are most of the time always better than any pompous save or die spell (simply because if in doubt the big bad will make his save anyway), i.e. not to rely on chance and now we are to rely on chance even if the math may still tell us otherwise (spell attack spell average damage output vs basic save spell average damage output)?
Don't think many players will embrace the concept of...
This proves my point further for the wizard. Spell attack roll spells are there for the gamblers. They look terrible to me as well, until the other caster in my party, who continues to choose to use them, saves my life with a spell I would have never tried to cast. They also have a HUGE booster in the form of Truestrike, that again is really geared toward the arcane spell list.
And yet the arcane list has a treasure trove of other spells that do appeal to a more statistically minded player. Magic Missile is almost never going to fail to do damage. It is one of the safest spells there are. Targeting saves is another safe and usually useful route to go, as is buffing instead of debuffing, especially debuffing with spells that require attack rolls.
And yet, those attack roll spells are going to be nasty when they do hit. This means they are probably more likely to see use cast by NPCs than PCs, but there are players too that want to gamble and it is important the rewards for doing so are enticing.
The problem is that there are clearly a subset of players who feel entitled to have the power of the gambling spells and the reliability of the safest spells, and I just don't think that is ever going to happen.
Going by Math, 50% chance to deal 70 damage averages the same as 70% chance to deal 50 damage and with a large enough sample they should be equally "effective" (say, entire day's worth of spamming this spell).
However, those two scenarios are not equivalent! The 50% chance one has a lot higher variance and potential for multiple attempts in a row to all fail, so it will "feel bad".
The "feel bad" is way more important than the "average 35 damage" in a game like this.