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Also, at the moment, from a math perspective, part of the reason spellcasters get to Legendary in spells is to make up for missing out on magic weapon enhancements.Just wanted to comment on this since I've seen this argument before. Getting Legendary spellcasting at level 19 doesn't really make up for a lack of enhancements before then. Given that most at home campaigns tend to die out by the mid-teens in levels, getting a math fix at level 19 is kind of academic, as almost no caster will ever be around long enough to see it.
Its interesting that at level 18 (and only 18) with 4 feats invested MC casters have the same proficiency as full casters.
It is probably too late sadly to errata casters to get legendary earlier but there seems to be a lot of questions over why balance was done as it was, e.g.
Why is it level 19 to get legendary?
Why do spell proficiencies (especially for wizard/sorc) advance 2 levels behind martials?
Why do spell attacks not get any item boosts so can never achieve parity?
(or from another thread) why do Wizards get less skills? would it really have made a difference to give them the same base of 4 as other classes (I suspect not, it feels very arbitrary to get an extra trained skill so why deliberately give 1 less).
We speculate here but none of us is a Paizo dev (to my knowledge). Having 2 different tracks does seem to affect the perception that casters lag behind.
Right now it feels (real or not) wizards lag behind. They along with Sorcs feel like they have by far the least amount of feats.
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Being able to target saves is not a caster only thing many martial classes also target saves. Ex: Monk's Dragon Roar (Will Save), Barbarian's Dragon Rage Breath (Reflex Save), Barbarian's Thrash (Fortitude save), Monk's Mountain Quake (Fortitude save), Grapples, Shoves, etc.
Saves are not unique to Spellcasters, they just have higher access to it because there are more spells.
Even then Wizards having spells that target different saves doesn't mean a particular Wizard knows those spells. And even if they do know them, the are only so many spells that can be prepared. So again there is no way for the caster to know for sure at any point while preparing what he will face. Most GMs dont go around telling players what they will fight, and the recall knowledge rules are iffy on whether you can roll it without seeing the creature.
Then there are situations like PFS and random encounters where the casters dont even have hints about what they will fight and must deal with it with what ever it is they have.
And none of those abilities that target saves get item bonuses, nor do most of them even approach legendary proficiency, most not even hitting master until level 15 plus.
The only ones that do are combat maneuvers that are based off of skills and rarely do damage/significant damage.
Nearly two thousand posts in this thread, and most of 'em are just going around in circles. :-(
Yep - Even if you try to come to terms, it is pointless, the guy who just wants to rant is going to come again... and then the argument begins again.
There are some good ideas though, in the sea of rant-ness| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
We had all come together for just a brief moment not long ago.
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Except that you said,No other class has the power to choose the DC they are targeting with that kind of variance."And as I have stated, other classes could and have been given ways to target those saves.
Now as a matter of power, decreasing the proficiency of spellcasting by one step while introducing an item that gives it a bonus would indeed change the power dynamic. For one it would make it so casters have a lower base, but a high max (thanks to items being a +3 bonus). It would allow casters to be differentiated by having legendary or master proficiency, much like how weapons and armor proficiency differentiate different classes. It would allow Paizo to have more control in how DCs are increased, without having to use penalties or action costs, which would make casters vastly more different and interactive with the system. It would allow martials to spec more towards special abilities. It would allow all classes to have a comparable baseline when it comes to hitting. It would allow Paizo more control when creating feats, spells, and special abilities. Etc.
Just that one change would had given PF2 so much more variability, while continuing to use the same system for all classes, and having more control on how things work.
Except it wouldn't. Every caster then must have a +3 item with 0 variance simply to meet numbers expectations. It's not interesting, it's not special, it doesn't do anything but add to numbers. It's 100% an item tax that literally every caster or caster analogue (champion, monk, soon to be ranger) must pick up to make their spells function.
All martials would also have to drop their class proficiency down to expert, because that's also a factor in the balancing.
Multiclassing doesn't progress at all over the course of its lifetime because you go from trained at the beginning to expert at the very end. Similarly, it makes it impossible to create any satisfying gish class because they don't progress their casting.
Also, assuming you wanted to keep it in line with martial progression, casters don't progress their spell proficiency at all after level 13.
Please don't talk about it as though it's the obvious answer when there are so many problems with it.
Why is it level 19 to get legendary?
Why do spell proficiencies (especially for wizard/sorc) advance 2 levels behind martials?
These two are actually a lot easier to answer than you'd think. I'm approximately 90% sure (and I think there also was a similar dev answer during the playtest) that it's correlated with when the resilient runes come around. Casters get expert at 7, resilient comes up at 8. Casters get master at 15, greater resilient comes up at 14. Casters get legendary at 19, major resilient comes up at 20.
If spellcasters got master proficiency at 13, and had weapon specialization and expert armour proficiency at 15, I wonder if that would have been too squishy in terms of AC.
(or from another thread) why do Wizards get less skills? would it really have made a difference to give them the same base of 4 as other classes (I suspect not, it feels very arbitrary to get an extra trained skill so why deliberately give 1 less).
Because wizards aren't intended to have that many skills? Even now, they have more skills than anyone except the Rogue and the Bard with specifically 14+ Int that keeps investing in it.
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Unsurprising that you enjoyed the system that made spontaneous casters far worse than prepared casters, as a wizard die-hard. in 5e a wizard can prepare more spells than a sorcerer even knows, and then doesn't have to even worry about how many slots he commits to each spellA lot of people here say that the wizard is underpowered but after playing 5th I have to say that I find the wizard version of Ptf2 much more fun and versatileI have to hard disagree here. 5e vancian-light spellcasting is so much fun. I absolutely love it to bits and pieces.
I never played a spontaneous caster in 5e, so I would have no idea. I did play a ranger though, because I'm not a wizard die-hard. Being able to prepare a variety of spells and then only using the ones you need felt so much better. You never ended up with a dead spell slot and you could spread you list a little wider.
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Martials must already buy +3 weapons and dont complain. And everyone has to buy +3 armors and dont complain. Asking casters to do it wouldn't be too different would it?
Not just don't complain. Remember what Paizo has said about the playtest survey. Mandatory magic items that do nothing except allow the game's math to function properly are considered desirable features of Pathfinder.
Taking that assertion at face value, then surely Pathfinder spellcasters not having such items is actively detrimental to their overall quality and enjoyability.| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Martials must already buy +3 weapons and dont complain. And everyone has to buy +3 armors and dont complain. Asking casters to do it wouldn't be too different would it?Not just don't complain. Remember what Paizo has said about the playtest survey. Mandatory magic items that do nothing except allow the game's math to function properly are considered desirable features of Pathfinder.
Taking that assertion at face value, then surely Pathfinder spellcasters not having such items is actively detrimental to their overall quality and enjoyability.
That's not actually true.
The playtest survey was between "all inherent" and "actually have magic equipment", which was massively leaning towards the latter. Furthermore, both of those can be actually customized in numerous ways for actual customization, whereas that's not actually true of a spellcaster version. It's literally just a 100% math fix that doesn't have any other point. It can't be a held item like a staff, which might be the closest equivalent, because that only works as a setup for full casters.And that doesn't even address any of the issues you have with the system in the first place, because everything would be balanced assuming you have these items.
* Martials would be dropping their MC spellcasting proficiency to be inline with what casters get with MC martial proficiency. That includes needing to wait till level 12/13 to go to expert and having no scaling.
* I answered it before, but casters already need to wait till level 12/13 to get expert in weapons or armor, even when multiclassing Fighter/Champion.
Again, those are not equivalent.
You're trying to compare that to the equivalent of BAB, and they're not remotely equal. The reason it takes that long for multiclass weapon/armour proficiency is that's how long it takes for it to come up to expert in-class.
It also double-penalizes gishes and anyone else with a smattering of magical ability, because now you need to buy items to keep up with your utility. You can't grab a single Litany as a Champion without needing to buy a scaling magic item. You can't grab Ki Blast without that item.
* Not increasing spellcasting proficiency at all after they get master is only a problem if saves are not rebalanced to fit this version of the progression. Which probably should correspond to something similar to armor progression: Saves typically end at master, only going to legendary if it makes sense for the creature (Ex: Rogues with Reflex and Champions with Fortitude).
That's not the point - it's that once they hit 13, they have functionally 0 advancement. Martial characters get a bunch of martial advancements as they go up at 15, 17, 19, but spellcasters literally have nowhere to go. All their advancement is over.
This is really just for the sole purpose of "wizards get legendary in one school", and breaks a ton of things in the background for that. It only really works for full casters, as well.
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You only get Master in spellcasting via multiclass if you invest in it real heavily and hit 18th level. 18th level and above are more relevant now than in PF1, but I'm not sure it's worth quite this level of controversy...
Also, at the moment, from a math perspective, part of the reason spellcasters get to Legendary in spells is to make up for missing out on magic weapon enhancements. So yes, multiclass spellcasters hit Master, but multiclass martials get to take full advantage of magic weapons, which evens them out pretty well.
For comparison, a 20th level Ranger multiclassed to Druid with Wis 22 has Save DC 42 (vs. an average Save of +33 for moderate Saves, so they save on a 9, Saving 60% of the time), while a Bard Multiclassed to Champion focusing on weapons with Str 22, has an attack of +33 (vs. an AC of 45 for High AC, so they hit on a 12, 45% of the time).
That number is actually skewed more towards the Caster multiclassing Martial than the reverse. The odds are better.
Except that, as I've been repeatedly reminded, many spells still have an effect on saves while a miss does nothing so if feels like you should actually be looking for Strike Miss Chance vs Crit Spell Save on everything but Spell Attacks and then the Champion MC is better placed to benefit from Flanking and other benefits that a Caster is less likely to take advantage of, granted Bard and Druid are both much more likely to use those than a Wizard, and most Sorcerers. I will admit that those tend to wash out in the math since a spell caster *could* use the benefits, even if it's unlikely.
Additionally, the proficiency rarely matters when used for utility and buffs which is supposed to be the strongest build point for Wizards (or casters in general), although the limited number of slots does prevent the MC from making as much use of heighten mechanics which feels almost mandatory to making some buffs relevant at higher levels.
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5E casters, in my opinion, are terribly boring. They are incredibly effective at every level due to the broken cantrips, and the actual spell slots eventually tip then into broken territory.
The lack of challenge in the game as a whole makes me feel that most decisions don't have any weight behind them. I always built some stupid multi-class just so I wasn't bored to tears.
That is to say, I heavily prefer the excitement of just enough power to overcome challenges. I think weaker spellcasters really make that work in PF2, and I'm happy they choked up on them to start. I think it's probably safe to help them out a bit, but I wouldn't want them to go crazy with buffs.
I just wanted to offer my perspective. I really like casters in PF2 better than in any fantasy roleplaying system I've ever played because it really feels like your play decisions matter.
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I have to agree. In pretty much all respects I think PF2 beat 5e casters when it comes to class feature design, with the one caveat maybe of 5e schools being a bit more interesting than PF2 schools since they actually have features associated with them.
Unsurprising that you enjoyed the system that made spontaneous casters far worse than prepared casters, as a wizard die-hard.
I mean, 5e doing a terrible job balancing Sorcerers is really irrelevant to whether or not 5e has better casting mechanics for Wizards, though.
5E casters, in my opinion, are terribly boring. They are incredibly effective at every level due to the broken cantrips, and the actual spell slots eventually tip then into broken territory.
Can you elaborate on this point? My understanding was that 5e cantrips are still pretty behind what optimized weapon damage can do, aside from warlock's agonizing blast of course. I've played a wizard up to level 13 and found this to be largely true, in fact.
Also, My experience is that challenge in 5e has a lot of GM variance, even compared to other d20 systems. I've nearly died in a lot of fights even playing as a wizard.
Never really died playing as a druid, though. That would be impressive given how polymorph works, especially with circle of the Moon. I've heard this tapers off at higher levels though.
Sure, I do think eldritch blast is the only broken cantrip, but that's the fault of multi-classing. Still, a 2 level dip as a sorcerer or bard gets you an attack better than most martial attacks, and those characters still level up to get the highest level spells in the system.
Straight casters don't have access to a broken cantrip. Firebolt and Sacred Flame get casters through the early levels without spell slots taking over. Once a caster gets to level 11 or so, the spell utility they have eclipses the capability of martials completely. The linear martial versus quadratic caster effect is in full effect in that system.
As for challenge, I mostly mean challenge to the players. Every fight feels like the same thing in 5e, and the turn to turn decision making just feels rote.
I do also mean challenge to the characters. The death system in 5e is very forgiving, and the only way characters die without the whole party dying is if the enemies spend their turn beating up unconscious characters, which is highly inefficient.
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Coming into this thread very late, but I've read it the whole way through.
My previous experiences playing wizards were in 3.5 (where they were extremely broken) and 5e (where they'll still broken). I am currently playing a wizard in PF2e, as I thought it was the best fit for the party (Champion, Fighter, Rogue, Cleric - no debuffing or AoE blasting apparent, and no INT based characters made wizard the right fit).
The main issue regarding martial/caster disparity has been, and will remain, that martials are heavily geared towards winning combat through damage. In both 3.5e and 5e, casters start acquiring spells that win combat on a failed saving throw/successful attack roll (eventually you no longer need even that, you just win combat), exactly when is debatable, ignoring the turn requirement, positioning requirements, etc. required to win combat through damage (in 3.5 you could kill everything in 1 hit but it had some limitations). Eventually, casters acquire enough of these spells that they can throw out 2-3 every encounter, of which the monster will fail at least on average, which means that martials are no longer required to deal damage.
In addition, spells are useful in a large variety of situations that aren't dealing damage. Martial abilities... generally aren't. The ones that are are somewhat limited or come at the opportunity cost of an ability that does aid you in combat.
PF2e, IMO, took steps to rectify this. Skill feats gave martials things to do non-combat wise that aren't inhibiting their combat capabilities (though there are still issues where some skills such as Intimidation and Athletics are heavily geared towards combat anyway).
Aside from that they limited encounter ending effects to the top few levels of slot with the Incapacitation trait (mostly, some slipped through). This prevents casters ever reaching the "glut" of encounter ending spells that would make martials useless.
Going back to the question: Did wizards get nerfed? Unequivocally yes. Were they overnerfed? I would say no.
The wizard's greatest strength is still their toolbox. When people compare blasting spells to fighter damage, they're comparing one aspect of the toolbox to the fighter's main tool. The wizard is not a specialist, despite what schools may have you believe - you never give anything up to become an evocation specialist. All of those blasts are tools that require the right situation to be most effective, and the wizard has a good tool for every situation. It's a case of preparing your spell list holistically enough that you are able to tackle every situation that may arise. Simply choosing all of 1 type of spell and expecting it to be viable will probably be impossible unless you're actually giving up the ability to take any other spell, as the wizard has to be balanced around the assumption that - at any point - you can decide to prepare a different suite of spells that will actually help you against any situation you come across.
Playing at level 1, I haven't currently felt like I'm useless. It's a small sample size, and I'm not solo dominating encounters, but Magic Weapon on the Fighter which I can do 3 times a day (Universalist) is currently very powerful (I'm aware it drops off significantly). Electric Arc and Telekinetic Projectile/Produce Flame (I know both but am undecided on which I want to prepare going forward) deal a decent amount of damage from range.
Going forward I plan to:
- Use True Strike (from a Staff of Divination) + Hand of the Apprentice as my single-target damage.
- Prepare maybe 3 blasting spells and 3 debuff spells in my top level slots, targetting all 3 of Fort/Ref/Will and using Drain Bonded Item to regain the one that I want.
- Use my lower level slots for buffs and more minor debuffs.
I don't think this runs counter to how the wizard has played in every edition so far (except maybe OD&D were they were just blasters). It's just that they've reigned in how overpowered the wizard could be when played near optimally, and in doing so the wizard feels a bit behind when played suboptimally (For a generalist). The unfortunate matter of fact is that, for a class like the wizard (there are many moving parts to consider and at some point assumptions have to be made), the floor and ceiling of its power are intrinsically linked and at some point its impossible to reign it in at the top end without making it feel a bit behind at the bottom end.
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See, I feel like your post arguing that the Wizard is fine does a really effective job highlighting why the Wizard isn't.
You talk about the correct way to play a Wizard, describing a specific kind of playstyle with a specific approach to the game. You talk about having to make specific choices. You talk about the choices suggested by your specialization basically being a smokescreen you don't really pay attention to in the long run.
That's a pretty damning indictment of the class when it comes to living up to PF2's design philosophies of not boxing players into specific concepts and making their choices feel meaningful and robust. Yet somehow the takeaway is supposed to be that this is a healthy place for the class to be in.
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See, I feel like your post arguing that the Wizard is fine does a really effective job highlighting why the Wizard isn't.
You talk about the correct way to play a Wizard, describing a specific kind of playstyle with a specific approach to the game. You talk about having to make specific choices. You talk about the choices suggested by your specialization basically being a smokescreen you don't really pay attention to in the long run.
That's a pretty damning indictment of the class when it comes to living up to PF2's design philosophies of not boxing players into specific concepts and making their choices feel meaningful and robust. Yet somehow the takeaway is supposed to be that this is a healthy place for the class to be in.
Unless the specialisations really limited what the class was capable of, this is the only way that the class can function without being broken right now.
If spells were good enough that you could prepare all of one type of spell and be effective, then the person who prepares different types of spells is going to be overpowered. This is mostly because, between the 9 arcane schools, nothing is really separating them in terms of limiting what the wizard can do, so they still have to be balanced on the assumption that the wizard can, if they choose take a better spell loadout tomorrow instead of just shooting themself in the foot by artificially limiting their spell choices.
Of course, you could rectify this by making new arcane schools that really specialise the wizard down to one or two things (even though it would feel a bit similar to the sorcerer in that aspect) but I imagine few people would be happy with those schools either as you'd lose a lot (in terms of spell flexibility) and gain probably comparatively little in return.
I will say that even within the (rather broad IMO) class of correct options I've laid out for a wizard (which players should probably naturally gravitate towards) there is still a lot of choice. One fort, ref, will blast and one fort, ref, will debuff. There's a few spells that fit that descriptor and you are free to choose which one you want from that list.
Lower level spells being relegated to minor buffs and debuffs is an issue that would otherwise only be solved by switching the casting system to power points or using slots like 13th Age or the 5e Warlock, where you just have slots of the top level, because those slots are kind of condemned into being just minor effects due to there otherwise being too many impactful options for high level wizards.
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I will say that even within the (rather broad IMO) class of correct options I've laid out for a wizard (which players should probably naturally gravitate towards) there is still a lot of choice. One fort, ref, will blast and one fort, ref, will debuff. There's a few spells that fit that descriptor and you are free to choose which one you want from that list.
Further, the high level attack roll spells supported with true strike and magic missile are good options for offensive high level slots. Those options also don't require you to hit the weak save.
Wizards also don't have to prepare strictly offensive options in the high end. Invisibility 4 is an example I gave further up in the thread for a level 7 character option in a particular build. Lower level debuffs can also be fine. Slow, for example, is still a fine debuff once you reach character level 9 as a level 3 spell.
I just wanted to point out that there is even more options than you are suggesting to support your point that choices aren't very limited.
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I will say that even within the (rather broad IMO) class of correct options I've laid out for a wizard (which players should probably naturally gravitate towards) there is still a lot of choice. One fort, ref, will blast and one fort, ref, will debuff. There's a few spells that fit that descriptor and you are free to choose which one you want from that list.
Further, the high level attack roll spells supported with true strike and magic missile are good options for offensive high level slots. Those options also don't require you to hit the weak save.
Wizards also don't have to prepare strictly offensive options in the high end. Invisibility 4 is an example I gave further up in the thread for a level 7 character option in a particular build. Lower level debuffs can also be fine. Slow, for example, is still a fine debuff once you reach character level 9 as a level 3 spell.
I just wanted to point out that there is even more options than you are suggesting to support your point that choices aren't very limited.
There’s a few other options, primarily battlefield control such as walls, fog, etc. that are also good, but those kinds of spells don’t really need your top level slot, so I don’t mention them in a discussion of what will primarily be occupying your top level slots.
I neglect to mention spell attacks just because there’s so few of them - something like 16 total slotted (non-cantrip, non-focus) spell attacks in the game as of current.
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I will say that even within the (rather broad IMO) class of correct options I've laid out for a wizard (which players should probably naturally gravitate towards) there is still a lot of choice. One fort, ref, will blast and one fort, ref, will debuff. There's a few spells that fit that descriptor and you are free to choose which one you want from that list.
Further, the high level attack roll spells supported with true strike and magic missile are good options for offensive high level slots. Those options also don't require you to hit the weak save.
Wizards also don't have to prepare strictly offensive options in the high end. Invisibility 4 is an example I gave further up in the thread for a level 7 character option in a particular build. Lower level debuffs can also be fine. Slow, for example, is still a fine debuff once you reach character level 9 as a level 3 spell.
I just wanted to point out that there is even more options than you are suggesting to support your point that choices aren't very limited.
There’s a few other options, primarily battlefield control such as walls, fog, etc. that are also good, but those kinds of spells don’t really need your top level slot, so I don’t mention them in a discussion of what will primarily be occupying your top level slots.
I neglect to mention spell attacks just because there’s so few of them - something like 16 total slotted (non-cantrip, non-focus) spell attacks in the game as of current.
I agree with you. Using knowledge skills to figure out the weak save or other weakness then exploiting that weakness with prepared spells is the core wizard gameplay.
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No, no! We JUST got out of this horrible Groundhog Day loop. What is wrong with you people?!
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Yeah threads like this are enough to make someone run away kicking and screaming.
I though we were passed it as well Ruzza.
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How do you plan on preparing when you don't know what you will even fight, like 80% of adventures?
We go with the default - one blast and one debuff of fort/ref/will in our two top slots, use Drain Bonded Item to recover one if we need to double up.
You roll recall knowledge and find out their weak save is Reflex. But you spent so many resources on invisibility and true strike, chances are you only have 2 reflex save spells if any. And they might not even be top level spells, which means they have significantly reduced power.
The above has a mix of spells at top or near top power, it should work well enough
Then the next fight you come and find another encounter with poor reflex saves, but your already spent your spells on the previous encounter.
You can get shafted with 4 encounters in a row that all have strong fort/will and weak reflex (e.g.) but that should be an anomaly. A martial is equally likely to get screwed by 4 encounters in a row that all have high-extreme AC, or resistance to their damage, or flying if they're melee...
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I am trying to avoid rehashing circular debates, but I think there is an interesting new point to look at in the concept of thematic spells.
PF2 spells try very hard to be different from each other in more ways than just-- Energy blast spell: This spell is just like every other blast spell but it does x energy type of damage.
Because of that, being focused around an elemental theme as a blaster is difficult because it will take a very long time for you to be able to ignore resistances to that energy type, and you are limited to an extremely narrow band of spells, with your options at certain levels almost non-existent. The PF1 idea of elemental schools of magic for wizards is almost impossible to replicate in PF2, without a whole lot more spells getting added to the game, spells that will probably feel pretty repetitious.
From the way the spells were designed in PF2, I do not think elemental schools of magic for wizards was intended even as a future direction for wizards to be able to go. I think that style of casting is pretty much reserved for the sorcerer now. For anything like that to work, the entire arcane spell list would have to be rewritten giving out new traits to spells like fly, Earthbind, or else elemental wizards are going to have no spells in their school.
It seems pretty clear that the mechanics of PF2 are that wizards cast many different spells, sorcerers cast a few specific spells. There are narrative limitations to these that might be upsetting to some people, but that risk was accepted by the developers and doubled down upon with the assertion that class identity was tied to a mechanical niche that must be protected. That is an issue much bigger than wizards, just ask any martial character that wants to be legendary in their use of armor and not tied to a specific god and cause.
Perhaps, a future supplement that could allow for the reintroduction of more thematic wizards would be a way for wizards to spend down time creating their own spells, with guidelines for how to ensure balance, but I don't see that ever hitting the PFS circuit or belong to a rarity of less than rare or even unique.
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Specialization really doesn't work for sorcerers either. They only lose by not taking advantage of the full versatility their spell list provides.
What's needed for magic specialists is different spell casting system. Something like the kineticist, or even casting like Beguilers had is more suiting.
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In terms of casters who just want to cast one kind of damage spell, that could probably be easily accomplished with a class archetype. Something that says something along the lines of "Choose a damage type from the list below. Whenever you prepare a spell or add a spell to your repertoire that deals damage, you can change one of the damage types it deals to the one you chose." So easy access to cold fireballs, electric cone of colds, and fire chain lightnings. Doesn't solve the resistance problem on its own, but it grants an easy theme.
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So bottom line, you can't really play a specialist (wizard) in core. People clearly don't like that. And you're going to keep saying too bad, and people are going to keep saying that they don't like that. Like they have been for what? At least a thousand posts now?Also, "quit preparing only one type of spells guys, nobody wants to do that despite the fact that you guys apparently want to do that."
I usually at least have an underlying theme to what spells I typically prepare with a caster. Otherwise it doesn't make any sense, which is one of the reasons spheres of power is pretty popular.
All I'm saying is that if you want a specialist caster that deals competitive damage with a martial character, expect to trade out quite a lot for it. It's not going to be as simple as dedicating a few class feats to evoking to put your evocation damage high enough to be at whatever your expectation is of what it should do relative to a martial character. It will likely be a class archetype that trades out the ability to do anything but blast in return for dealing that kind of damage. Or, far more likely, it will be a separate class along the lines of the Kineticist.
Specialization really doesn't work for sorcerers either. They only lose by not taking advantage of the full versatility their spell list provides.
What's needed for magic specialists is different spell casting system. Something like the kineticist, or even casting like Beguilers had is more suiting.
I agree with this
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Except that the one thing we have agreed was that just a tiny increase in accuracy would probably fix the problem without needing to increase damage. Even just fixing the poor action economy or adding more Arcane School feats would go a long way to fixing some of the issues.
As for spells/feats, a huge part of the argument on your side was that Paizo is going to release more, so people should just wait. So I want to know if you all are changing your position to, "Paizo needs to release a [insert spezialized archetype]" and call it a day?
The reason I ask is because thats what schools were originally meant to be in the first place. Having to get an external archetype to fit the original concept of the class is.....
That “tiny” increase in accuracy increases the expected value of Wizard things by a tremendous amount. It’s not so simple as giving a +1 or +2 and saying it’s balanced. Crit fail/crit success effects are encounter ending and every +1 increases the chance to get those. At some point you have to consider how many encounters the caster is invalidating by simply casting a spell that ends the fight if the opponent rolls below a certain number on the dice. Currently that seems tuned to 1/20, possibly 1/10 on a weak save against equal level monsters, but a +2 could make that 15-20% which seems very high for that sort of impact.
The schools aren’t really supposed to be specialised archetypes as far as I can tell. If that was the intent, then it doesn’t convey that at all. A specialist would focus on something at the expense of other things. The schools don’t lose anything, they just enable you to use one form of magic more than the others (with the +1 slot) - they’re not any better at that school of magic - and give you some thematic focus powers (of varying impact - focus powers in the CRB are a bit haphazard balance wise).
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Except that the one thing we have agreed was that just a tiny increase in accuracy would probably fix the problem without needing to increase damage. Even just fixing the poor action economy or adding more Arcane School feats would go a long way to fixing some of the issues.
As for spells/feats, a huge part of the argument on your side was that Paizo is going to release more, so people should just wait. So I want to know if you all are changing your position to, "Paizo needs to release a [insert spezialized archetype]" and call it a day?
The reason I ask is because thats what schools were originally meant to be in the first place. Having to get an external archetype to fit the original concept of the class is.....
Not true.
A PF1 specialist wizard had to spend feats to get spell focus, and only ever had to have one spell per spell level dedicated to their school. Eventually more material came out to allow you to swap out your useless school features for better ones, and feats geared towards specific schools more than currently exists in PF2, but I think it is reasonable to wait and see what gets added to wizards in the APG. They say every class has some new stuff coming.
The accuracy thing will be interesting to see if, or how they address or not.
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See, I feel like your post arguing that the Wizard is fine does a really effective job highlighting why the Wizard isn't.
You talk about the correct way to play a Wizard, describing a specific kind of playstyle with a specific approach to the game. You talk about having to make specific choices. You talk about the choices suggested by your specialization basically being a smokescreen you don't really pay attention to in the long run.
That's a pretty damning indictment of the class when it comes to living up to PF2's design philosophies of not boxing players into specific concepts and making their choices feel meaningful and robust. Yet somehow the takeaway is supposed to be that this is a healthy place for the class to be in.
I think I am missing something here. I do not see PF2's design philosophies as not boxing players into specific concepts as far as Classes are concerned.
Want to be Legendary at attacks? Have to be a Fighter. Even to be Legendary at Unarmed. Monk does not cut it.
Want to be Legendary at defenses? Then Monk or Champion it is.
Want to get DEX to damage? Only a Rogue with a specific Racket gets that.
Want to Inspire Courage before 8th-level? You have to be the master of spontaneous Occult casting they call the Bard.
And so on. And so forth.
I do not see it as specific to Wizard.
So, likely I am missing something here.
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I read master magic as getting a generalist education in magic and studying a specific school as adding to that. Not as getting a narrow but focused education that knows nothing out of its specialty. The latter would be an interesting Class or Wizard archetype. But the current Class does not enforce this exclusive focus IMO. Which, come to think of it, is maybe what Exocist mentioned.
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are we talking about viable or optimal, because those are usually different things- there were spells, and even kinds of spells that are bad, in every version of the game so far. PF2e having a meta, and not having achieved some kind of arbitrarily perfect balance within a class should not be disqualifying.
Want to spam single target spell attacks as a specialist in that? Not optimal, but probably viable (contributing your weight in exp to an encounter) even without true strike, want to make it stronger? well now we're in optimization land, where specific combos are on the table. It'll be nice when we have more ways to make it stronger, but we have to wait and see what comes along.
In the same way that you can currently play a monk with bow, but that it won't actually be good until the zen archer comes along in the APG and provides options to capitalize on that fantasy. For the record, the majority of builds the Wizard could use, are currently more powerful than a bow monk.
All of that being said, I have another idea for a solution- future spell attacks should have a three action variant that grants roll twice and take higher on the attack roll. They can tune damage accordingly to make them more consistent but less powerful than the current spells, leaving true strike as the option to enhance the 'dummy fired' attack spells we currently have, creating a balance with options for more consistent spell attacks.
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So, likely I am missing something here.
Well, for one those don't really strike me as specific concepts so much as mechanical features. Like, is +2 to attack rolls really a character concept in and of itself?
For another, the comparison was to Wizard specializations and feats and of your three examples only one of them is actually about choices you make while playing a class.
It's a fitting one though, because while a Thief gets Dex to damage you can also play a Ruffian who has an entirely different stat spread, an entirely different set of weapons to choose from and likely will approach the game in a new way as a result. That's a choice that matters and ends up having a significant impact on how your character feels as a result.
PF2 made a big deal about that. Robust choices that matter. Meaningful options, not math fixers or things that are so niche you can't actually even tell when they're useful.
And yet in this thread, time and time again we keep getting told that none of those philosophies apply here. That this is how you play a Wizard, specializations and choices be damned... and if you want to do something different? Sucks to be you.
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It is my strong suspicion that a Thassilon specialist is going to come out in the APG that allows you to give up one or two schools of spells for abilities that focus you into your chosen school. I have no idea what that will look like, and it will probably be tied to strong in world lore that will ruffle some feathers, but it seems very in line with how things have been handled thus far.
Choosing a school is significant in PF2. Getting one extra spell per level in one school starts adding up by level 3 spells. Some schools are not capable of supporting a caster that is only interested in casting spells from their school, and they never have been. Abjuration, Divination, Illusion, Enchantment specialists have always benefited being able to take spells from other schools as well (all of them have, but very few of these specialist pick spells exclusive to their school spells).
No one likes to hear it, but the reduced number of spells per day + the plateau of lower level spell effectiveness means that a PF2 wizard is very much defined by their spell selection. Having 25 percent or more of your spells from one school is a significant choice you make as a wizard.
I still think the coolest way to make specialist school wizards feel unique would be to take additional lore in your specific school of magic and to creatively use that knowledge in play.