Spellcasting Modification

[Valehntyn]

The most common complaint I've seen concerning pathfinder 2 is the spellcasting system. The Vancian system feels old, unnecessarily restrictive (especially for players coming from 5e) and makes spellcasters feel, frankly, unfun; especially considering, in the case of prepared casters, that you almost have to be psychic to be able to play it as effectively as possible (much more so than other classes).

Below is a link to the google doc with my suggested modifications to caster rules in order to lift some of the restrictive nature off of them, while still giving them reasonable restrictions and maintaining the distinction and flavor of prepared and spontaneous casters.

If you have suggestions/comments/better ideas, I'd love to hear them.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kmZmvH8dPvEkKLFlmlLYFQkTTFHFZ-jn25Ytnli Hyoc/edit?usp=sharing

[Wheldrake]

Sounds like a homebrew solution.

I think that if you dislike Vancian spellcasting, you should use only spontaneous spellcasters in your home games. Problem solved.

The link you posted doesn't appear to work.

[Valehntyn]

Hmm, I'm not sure why the link isn't working. The thing is -- I don't want to completely remove prepared casting, I think it serves a purpose and adds a level of differentiation and flavor to the casters, I just think in current form, it's way too punishing to casters, who have already taken a pretty significant damage reduction compared to their martial counterparts.

I'll go ahead and shorthand the changes I made below:

Spontaneous casting:
all spells are freely heightenable (so you don't need to learn the same spell multiple times). Signature spells are cast using focus points instead of spellslots (so that you always have access to your signature spells) 1 focus point to cast at base spell level, +1 level per focus point used. To adjust for no longer needing to learn spells multiple times, you know 1 less spell per spell level.

Prepared casting:
instead of preparing spells by slot, you prepare them by level, so that you assign spells to the level you want them to be castable at, and that levels spellslots may be used to cast any spells prepared for that level. If you want to heighten a spell, you must prepare it for the higher level as well.

[Mellored]

Why not just play a sorcerer?

[Squiggit]

Valehntyn wrote:

Hmm, I'm not sure why the link isn't working.

There's a space before the capital H near the end of the URL, which means it tries to bring up a google doc that doesn't exist at all.

[Wheldrake]

Yeah, erm... no.

Sounds like a fine homebrew mod, but unnecessarily complex.
Notably, your use of focus points doesn't fit into their inherently limited number. And if you raise the number of focus points to deal with how you want signature spells to work, that will have other wonky effects.

And I don't see how preparing spells "by level" works. It sounds like you're giving wizards full spontaneous slots with a full spellbook, as full as they can pack it. Sounds like they get all the advantages of being a sorcerer, with none of the drawbacks.

[Samurai]

Are you sure you changed the access to your google doc so that others can view it?? It says the file does not exist.

That said, I'd be interested in reading it. I've made a lot of changes to the rules myself.

[Samurai]

Squiggit wrote:

Valehntyn wrote:

Hmm, I'm not sure why the link isn't working.

There's a space before the capital H near the end of the URL, which means it tries to bring up a google doc that doesn't exist at all.

Thanks, that worked now. You can click "Get a shareable link" so you don't need to type it and maybe make a mistake.

Here:
Spellcasting changes

[Bandw2]

the only thing i would change between prepared and spontaneous casters is prepared should have more slots, not spontaneous. imo

[Loreguard]

Under prepared casters, you still have the part of the line in the text saying your chosen spells are prepared until you cast them or you prepare your spells again the next day.

Personally, upcasting and one free casting of signature spells hardly is balanced against fully reconfigurable spontaneous spell casting in the old style every day being given to wizards.

I’m actually inclined to say wizards should have to roll a chance to learn an new heightened version of a spell they knew at a lower level. That would help make up for the equivalent expectation being placed on the spontaneous caster.

As to the other comment, Wizards shouldn’t need more slots than they have, as the can completely reconfigure them easily daily, and by default spontaneous cases have limited configurability, only each time they level up.

I’m inclined to say sorcerers need/could use an extra spell in their repertoire per spell level to make up for inflexibility on the daily level.

For example, sorcerer multiclass has but one option per spell level. Wizards have the same number of castings but have complete freedom to pick spells daily.