Its the mechanics by which tension in the moment-to-moment arises.
"I hit him with my sword"
"Ok, he dies."
"Cool! I hit the next guy with my sword"
"He dies too."You pretty much described how I feel watching martial characters play.
I normally play enchantment/illusion characters as dice rolling just isn't my thing, and adding more reasons for me to touch the accursed things isn't fun - for me at least.
I personally find dice a little nerve-wracking as I'm personally cursed (I have bad luck confirmation bias). But my long experience and most online sentiment leads me to believe people like it.
I think people feel more control of their fate if they get to roll the dice when they do a thing. Which also a superstition, but a very gut-level one. And one I have no issue enabling.
Whatever makes players comfortable and happy. I just quoted in response to a druid character who particularly finds casters flat because they don't roll dice. Easy solution is let them roll spell attacks vs DC10+SaveBonus. But that is a buff, so if the DM is a bit better at arithmetic on the fly and wants to keep the balance the same as RAW Pathfinder, they should make it 12+SaveBonus.
I'm playing with a group where the spellcasters aren't really into the deep tactical stuff, so I'm making spell saves into spell attack rolls vs 10+Save and 11+Save for the worst saves. So that moderate and low saves are closer, and a little more likely, and spells FEEL a smidge more powerful and like the player is actively causing the effect. But if you were a player, I'd wobble that so you didn't roll so much, etc.
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Having come off Gloomhaven, and the way that your attack modifier deck (the card based replacement for the d20) works, it is immensely satisfying when you customize your deck to be full of awesome.
As an (essentially a caster class*) I had added a bunch of "hit an additional target" cards. I walked into a room and knew I was going to be hitting 3 enemies. There were six targets, all at full health.
Draw, rolling add target. Rolling means I get the effect and draw again, +2.
Next target, draw, +0 & stun.
Next target, draw, rolling add target, rolling wound, +0.
Next target, draw, +1.
Next target, draw, rolling add target, +0.
Last target, draw, rolling +1, +1.
Everything was either dead or crippled. I did a similar thing in the last room of a scenario (a different one) and had pre-cursed an enemy with an ability that said that when it died, I got to make 3 ranged attacks, and another ongoing buff that when the target of one of my curses died, I got to make an immediate attack.
I unequivocally took a scenario that had, until that moment, been looking like we were going to lose and turn it into a crushing victory. Both of the other players had exhausted (hit 0 hp or run out of cards) and one of them remarked that "that was close" and I looked at what I had left to work with (nearly full HP** and 6 cards in hand) and said, "No, not really. I could have gone another two or three turns."
*Technically he's a ranger, but the difference between "shoot an arrow at it" and "scorching ray it" is whether or not an attack interacts with the element board. And sometimes not even then.
**Two turns prior I had been down to 2.
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It's almost exactly a 10% bump in effectiveness, which is actually pretty big in Pathfinder terms. You could have saves be save+12 to keep the math the same, or just be okay with more powerful spells.
save+11 is a good small bump if you play with a group who doesn't want to be really tactical about spells, and most importantly: Rolling is fun.
That's helpful. Thanks.
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Its the mechanics by which tension in the moment-to-moment arises.
"I hit him with my sword"
"Ok, he dies."
"Cool! I hit the next guy with my sword"
"He dies too."You pretty much described how I feel watching martial characters play.
I normally play enchantment/illusion characters as dice rolling just isn't my thing, and adding more reasons for me to touch the accursed things isn't fun - for me at least.
I personally find dice a little nerve-wracking as I'm personally cursed (I have bad luck confirmation bias). But my long experience and most online sentiment leads me to believe people like it.
I think people feel more control of their fate if they get to roll the dice when they do a thing. Which also a superstition, but a very gut-level one. And one I have no issue enabling.
Nothing really superstitious about it. Rolling dice is partly a sign and reason to be actively engaged with the environment and story. Plus big die pools are a lot of shiny bobbles rolling around; and is entertaining to watch. :D
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I like the tactile experience of rolling dice. It helps me stay engaged. I like the little dopamine burst my brain gives me when I roll something big.
The person I asked the question for feels even more strongly. She has a jail for "naughty" dice. She'll stand and cheer for a good roll.
If6 course it is all random, but I'd rather feel like I'm responsible for the result in some way.
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I can definitely see the argument being made that wizards and sorcerers are now the "jack of all trades, master of none" classes. They can do damage to the enemy, but not as much as a martial. They can buff and debuff, but not as much as a bard. They can AoE weak enemies in droves, but have a hard time with at-level enemies, and finishing off weak mobs feels like less important mop-up work. For many people, being the "backup damage-dealer," "backup buffer," or "backup healer" doesn't feel great.
Heck, when the bard was the jack of all trade master of none in 1e at least they had tons of skills and amazing role play potential.
Honestly, for me the wizard feels like a good multiclass option but not something you would play pure. If I want to play a pure caster it seems like the sorcerer is the better option.
And all of this talk about wizards feeling boring and underpowered is making me wonder if they will release the archanist class. Because if it's anything close to it's 1e counterpart the wizard would be obsolete right then and there.
It seemed like, to me at least, the PF1e arcanist made the sorcerer obsolete (spontaneous casting *and* choosing your spells each day). A PF2e arcanist would probably obsolete both the wizard and arcane-bloodlined sorcerers. I have a hard enough time seeing why I would choose to play an occult-bloodlined sorcerer over a bard as it is (from a mechanical standpoint anyway. There may be story reasons to not be a bard over a sorcerer.).
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Thinking about it further if someone had asked me to design the wizard for 2e I would have probably just skipped the wizard and make the arcanist the primary prepared casting class. We could still call it the wizard if people got super defensive about tradition and flavor. But that's just me.
I would have still called it a wizard, but I definitely would have pillaged arcanist tricks for wizard feat ideas.
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Debuff is not even something wizards should focus on, considering the gaming and literature background. Remember when Gandalf threw a debuff on someone? I do not.
Well that's a terrible argument, Gandalf casts maybe three spells, Light, Animal Messenger, Summon Eagle.
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Thinking about it further if someone had asked me to design the wizard for 2e I would have probably just skipped the wizard and make the arcanist the primary prepared casting class. We could still call it the wizard if people got super defensive about tradition and flavor. But that's just me.I would have still called it a wizard, but I definitely would have pillaged arcanist tricks for wizard feat ideas.
Same. The arcanist felt in a lot of ways like a huge revision of the Wizard, fixing a lot of its bad mechanics and actually giving it real class features. Seems like a mistake to have essentially just decided to go back to the old version and bring back a lot of its old problems in PF2.
Same. The arcanist felt in a lot of ways like a huge revision of the Wizard, fixing a lot of its bad mechanics and actually giving it real class features. Seems like a mistake to have essentially just decided to go back to the old version and bring back a lot of its old problems in PF2.Thinking about it further if someone had asked me to design the wizard for 2e I would have probably just skipped the wizard and make the arcanist the primary prepared casting class. We could still call it the wizard if people got super defensive about tradition and flavor. But that's just me.I would have still called it a wizard, but I definitely would have pillaged arcanist tricks for wizard feat ideas.
Well the designers did say that they wanted every class from the PF1e Core Rulebook in the PF2e Core Rulebook, and wanted to keep them recognizable (though looking at the Champion and the Ranger, the definition of "recognizable" varied). I'm sure I said this during the playtest, but if it were up to me, I would have cannibalized the Arcanist to make the PF2e Wizard and cannibalized the Kineticist to make the PF2e Sorcerer. Kineticist casting always felt like a better fit for inborn magic than Wizards' spells. Plus it would have baked Kineticist style casting into the core of the game, instead of it being an add-on later.
Well the designers did say that they wanted every class from the PF1e Core Rulebook in the PF2e Core Rulebook, and wanted to keep them recognizable (though looking at the Champion and the Ranger, the definition of "recognizable" varied). I'm sure I said this during the playtest, but if it were up to me, I would have cannibalized the Arcanist to make the PF2e Wizard and cannibalized the Kineticist to make the PF2e Sorcerer. Kineticist casting always felt like a better fit for inborn magic than Wizards' spells. Plus it would have baked Kineticist style casting into the core of the game, instead of it being an add-on later.Same. The arcanist felt in a lot of ways like a huge revision of the Wizard, fixing a lot of its bad mechanics and actually giving it real class features. Seems like a mistake to have essentially just decided to go back to the old version and bring back a lot of its old problems in PF2.Thinking about it further if someone had asked me to design the wizard for 2e I would have probably just skipped the wizard and make the arcanist the primary prepared casting class. We could still call it the wizard if people got super defensive about tradition and flavor. But that's just me.I would have still called it a wizard, but I definitely would have pillaged arcanist tricks for wizard feat ideas.
While it's unfortunate they can't use the kineticist to make a sorcerer, there's still the possibility of cannibalizing the arcanist to add on to the wizard. I'm assuming the APG will have new class feats for all existing classes.
Sorcerers are hit and miss based on their bloodline, because some of them give you reliable new actions and some of them... don't. Though even then comparing Tempest Surge and Elemental Toss feels pretty bad.What do you mean? Tempest Surge does damage and a debuff for two actions, while Elemental Toss deals damage for one action. Why is one more or less reliable than the other?
Well, Tempest Surge is a Reflex save while Elemental Toss is an attack roll, and attack rolls often aren't ideal for casters.
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Well the designers did say that they wanted every class from the PF1e Core Rulebook in the PF2e Core Rulebook, and wanted to keep them recognizable (though looking at the Champion and the Ranger, the definition of "recognizable" varied).
That's fair and I'm not really arguing that the class should have even undergone as significant a redesign as the Ranger or Champion.
I just think that bland, almost nonexistent class features and school specializations that barely feel like they matter to how your character plays in the long run aren't really the things that needed to be salvaged from PF1's Wizard.
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Well the desiigners did say that they wanted every class from the PF1e Core Rulebook in the PF2e Core Rulebook, and wanted to keep them recognizable (though looking at the Champion and the Ranger, the definition of "recognizable" varied).That's fair and I'm not really arguing that the class should have even undergone as significant a redesign as the Ranger or Champion.
I just think that bland, almost nonexistent class features and school specializations that barely feel like they matter to how your character plays in the long run aren't really the things that needed to be salvaged from PF1's Wizard.
Honestly I was really hoping schools and thesis would pack a lot more punch. Schools hasn’t really ever gotten as much Day in the sun as I hoped across any edition I’ve played so far.
Maybe Archetypes with the school focuses as qualifiers can bring that to the table. Illusion is the one I actually like the most, and illusion was always my favorite school so I came out okay, but transmuters seem to be suffering.
I think I need to look at rituals some more too, lots of narrative power there
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I would really have likde if even more spells were implemented as (shortish-to-cast) rituals and Wizards were reduced in spell slots, but made masters of rituals.
For example, Mage Armour being a ritual instead of a long-term spell.
And also, built-in contingency into Wizard spellcasting. Make it so a lot of their spellcasting is using contingency principles, allowing Wizards to cheat on action economy by using triggers, but thus creating opportunities for triggers not going off properly (maybe have a % fail chance, especially if triggers are fairly simple).
But, eh, missed chance.
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I think the people who think casters are under-powered need to re-calibrate their sense of what a balanced spell caster looks like, because these casters we have are quite powerful.
They can hit more targets at a much lower level than the martials they're being compared to, their spells are more reliable than physically attacking someone (because of the failure effects, on even basic saves) in both a strictly offensive and control sense, they have plenty of resources to throw around between their spell slots and focus points (which I'll remind you offer auto-heightening damage numbers.) Every spellcaster has an ever expanding set of tools that they can bring to bear in a wide variety of situations.
Even when discussing the psychology of failure effects, we need to make sure aren't losing the forest for the trees: someone who believes that their character is weak because of the rate of 'failure' and who insists they don't care about the failure effects and how it plays into their success rate is fundamentally wrong
we tend to use these play feel arguments to assert "I'm right, even when I'm actually wrong" they're valuable fro ma design point of view, but not especially reliable (I would invite you to consider the deluge of individuals on reddit who would claim vancian casting is intrinsically inferior to non-vancian casting) because it's subordinate to skewed perceptions created by say, overpowered spellcasters in other games.
In the end, when you've been dramatically overpowered, balance feels like under power. Which really, is the TLDR of this thread. At most, Casters could stand to have a small item bonus to their spells, I wouldn't even go further than a +1 without risking unbalancing them.
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In the end, when you've been dramatically overpowered, balance feels like under power. Which really, is the TLDR of this thread.
I mean if you want to completely ignore all the talk about playability, quality of life and use of new game features, sure.
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Looking at the Wizard Focus spells it kind of feels like the canibalized some Exploits. However it's hard to tell wether this is true because School abilities and Exploits were always very similar.
Ex: Dimensional Shift and Teleportation School; Force Strike and Evocation School; etc.
Dimensional shift is the most busted ever power that any caster gets in the game IMO in PF1. Not that teleportation school wasn’t good, but holy god, dimensional shift was good.
In the end, when you've been dramatically overpowered, balance feels like under power. Which really, is the TLDR of this thread.I mean if you want to completely ignore all the talk about playability, quality of life and use of new game features, sure.
Those conversations are incidental to the subject of the thread, unless they're being used to talk about power in an indirect sense to make assertions of underpoweredness harder to challenge.
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I think the people who think casters are under-powered need to re-calibrate their sense of what a balanced spell caster looks like, because these casters we have are quite powerful.
That's entirely possible. I recommend addressing actual complaints rather than using hypothetical psychological explanations as a pretext for dismissing the topic.
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Those conversations are incidental to the subject of the thread, unless they're being used to talk about power in an indirect sense to make assertions of underpoweredness harder to challenge.
Not really, they're a big part of why some people are finding spellcasters unsatisfying to play.
Correction: I messed up its slide, shift is words of power. *I should double check more often
Any way yeah Dimensional Slide was awesome. Getting Face Thief with it makes it so much easier to escape in urban campaigns.
Yes the line of sight move action for level *10 movement and speed ability that doesn’t provoke and aoo.
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Maybe not, but your suggestion that people aren't complaining about being weak but being boring or static seems pretty conclusively disproved by all the proposals to make playing wizards fun again by giving them more power.that not the point >_>Propose a solution that makes the Wizard more interesting without also making them more powerful. I'm sure the people complaining about casters being underpowered will take it up enthusiastically.like, with what my theory is, that people aren't actually complaining about being weak, but being boring or static, this isn't a surprise.It's sort of interesting to me how there aren't similar complaints about how much worse archery is relative to other options compared to PF1.
Since archery was the king of DPR strategies in PF1, since not only could you get a full attack off wherever, but you could get a lot of shots off in a given round with pretty good accuracy, and stack up a lot of static bonuses.
But now static damage bonuses are gone for the most part, nobody gets more than 3 attacks off, and the -10 attack isn't that valuable so you're no longer at a severe advantage compared to "run up and whack them" as a combat strategy.
Archery had a similar damping down to spellcasting, but doesn't seem nearly as controversial.
right because people playing them think they're not as powerful, but they're really just less fun.
As people are stating that the suggestions put forth are making casters more powerful, can someone explain how my suggestion is ending up with them being more powerful?
When producing the plan for lower action cost spells, I was decreasing certain values of spells to provide a choice--baseline power level at 2 actions, or allow a slightly weaker version for 1 action. I don't see where the power creep comes in, but others may have a different viewpoint based on their experiences playing the game.
Low action cost spells effectively means more spells in a single round, and given the biggest limitation on the power of spells is their action cost, reductions of that directly correlate to power.
For instance, let's say reducing Burning Hands to a 1 action spell does that effect described earlier:
- Now you can combine Burning Hands with two other Burning Hands. That's 3 lines in 3 different directs, which is almost better than the original Burning Hands (which requires careful direction to not hit allies)
- It also allows riders a lot easier. so a 1 action Burning Hands and a feat/ability that allows you to deal persistent fire damage on a fire spell equal to your ability score, now gets thrice the value.
- It allows variation in the same round, variation means more versatile.
Is it busted? Not sure. Quickened Casting is a 10th level Feat, but that only requires the spell be 2 levels lower and it retains all of its normal benefits.
It's certainly not just a straightforward add though, it would need to heavily consider balance to ensure combinations didn't become particularly bad.
And honestly, I would find it more palpable if it was programatically determined:
They should almost seem bad, because they are effectively in this context "bonus focus powers" in a sense (at least in part).
It has to be that if the spell at one action were cast twice, it would be worse than the original spell (if it were two actions, three action spells with reductions probably shouldn't be a thing).
It also allows riders a lot easier. so a 1 action Burning Hands and a feat/ability that allows you to deal persistent fire damage on a fire spell equal to your ability score, now gets thrice the value.
Not really. If a creature is suffering persistent damage (fire) and gains persistent damage (fire), it takes only the larger of the two values; its a condition like all other conditions.
"Value" being whatever damage is listed next to the entry. 1d6 > 1 and 6 > 1d6. ("1d6" is probably greater than "3", but you don't roll the d6 before figuring it out, because 1d6 is unequivocally larger than 1d4 even though it can roll lower).
Regardless, you don't add them together.
Multiple Persistent Damage Conditions
You can be simultaneously affected by multiple persistent
damage conditions so long as they have different damage
types. If you would gain more than one persistent damage
condition with the same damage type, the higher amount
of damage overrides the lower amount. The damage you
take from persistent damage occurs all at once, so if
something triggers when you take damage, it triggers
only once; for example, if you’re dying with several types
of persistent damage, the persistent damage increases
your dying condition only once.
Emanation spells halve their radius, if the radius is 5ft, it is reduced to your square
I'm not sure a zero-foot emanation makes sense, tbh. I can see why you've done this (so that a "you and all adjacent squares" actually gets smaller) but there are "targets enemies" 5 foot emanation effects.
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Well that's a terrible argument, Gandalf casts maybe three spells, Light, Animal Messenger, Summon Eagle.
Debuff is not even something wizards should focus on, considering the gaming and literature background. Remember when Gandalf threw a debuff on someone? I do not.
False..
Gandalf’s Spells from the Hobbit (page numbers are from my hardback edition)
21 Colored smoke rings from pipe are made to change color and dance in Bilbo’s place. Let’s call this one Control Smoke.
25 Blue light from end of staff. [Is this a spell or a property of the staff?] Call it Staff Light.
50 Ventriloquism against the trolls.
52 Open door to the trolls lair. [BTW – he failed at this one.] A Knock spell.
69 More blue light from staff. Staff Light again.
70 More colored smoke rings dancing. Control Smoke again.
71 Flash like lightning [With smell of gunpowder. Spell or alchemy?] Call it Flash / Spark of Light.
75 Extinguish flame lights in the goblin’s cave. We also get a tower of blue glowing smoke with white sparks. A variant of Control Smoke combined with Flash / Spark of Light.
78 More light from staff. Staff Light again.
113 Ignite pine cones with blue fire to drop on goblins from tree. Call it Ignite Small Fire. [This may not be a spell either, since G wields on of the Three Great Rings, which happens to be of fire.]
121 Started a fire. [Ignite Small Fire, same as the pine cone spell?]
140 More smoke rings, this time with shapes in addition to colors and dancing. Control Smoke.
292 Sound of thunder, also lightning from the staff that does not appear to be a true Lighting Bolt. [The lightning could be Flash / Spark of Light.] We also find that G can summon a black cloud. [An actual storm, or just Control Smoke again?] Lastly, the deep booming voice. Call this the Enhance Presence spell.
Gandalf’s Spells from Fellowship of the Ring (page numbers are from my hardback edition)
39 Magical fireworks. [We don’t know how long it took for G to make them, but they bore his mark and I assume they were his work. Note that this is the second reference to gunpowder. It is entirely possible that G uses gun or flash powder to enhance his spell repertoire. If they are truly magical, we can assume a combination of Control Smoke, Loud Noise, Ignite Small Fire, and Flash / Spark of Light. Fireworks may truly be a work of magical art since they may combine as many as four spells. No wonder the Hobbits were amazed.]
43 Another flash of light. Flash / Spark of Light.
46 G seems to appear tall and menacing. [Perhaps it isn’t even a spell!] Enhance Presence.
231 G shapes Elrond’s flood waves at the Ford to look like horses. A new one. How about Control Water, similar to his Control Smoke?
308 Using his staff, G lights a fire. “I cannot burn snow.” Ignite Small Fire.
316 In the battle with the wargs, G combines Enhance Presence with Ignite Small Fire. He manages to set a whole bunch of trees on fire, but he does so by just starting one fire that spreads.
321 G tries to Bless Bill the horse for luck. This may not even be an actual spell.
324 G claims to know 200 Knock spells to open doors – all of which fail to open the Gates of Moria. He eventually opens the door by cleverness, not by magic.
327 Staff Light again.
332 Big flash of light from the staff (like lightning). Flash / Spark of Light again.
342 Flash of Light from staff.
344 Flash of Light from staff. This one may do actual damage – a variant of Ignite Small Fire?
345 Hold Portal. This one works for awhile until the orcs break down the door.
349 Sheet of Flame upon breaking staff. This may not be a spell, either, but a property of the staff. I’ll give G credit for Ignite Small Fire to start the effect and assume the staff magnified it. Of course, at this point G dies and we won’t see any more spells for awhile. Also, perhaps a Sunder spell to break the bridge.
Gandalf’s Spells from The Two Towers (page numbers are from my hardback edition)
514 Some sort of Command Person spell used on Legolas and Gimli. It is worth noting that G gained this spell only after becoming The White, unless Command Person is just a glorified Enhance Presence or something like that.
515 Enhance Presence again.
516 Command Person and/or Enhance Presence as everyone drops their weapons. Legolas’ arrow bursts into flame – another Ignite Small Fire.
536 Still more Enhance Presence.
537 Sound of Thunder [Loud Noise.] Fires diminish and the room grows dark, and the staff is actually credited for this spell [Extinguish Flame.] Flash of Lightning [Flash / Spark of Light.]
538 G gives Theoden strength of mind and body. A spell, or just the power of suggestion? I’ll call it Command Person again, but this may be too simplistic.
606 G issues a Command Person to Saruman. This is also combined with Enhance Presence.
607 G breaks Saruman’s staff at a distance. This is a really neat trick! Call its breaking force a Sunder spell.
Gandalf’s Spells from Return of the King (page numbers are from my hardback edition)
841 Shaft of white light. [Staff Light]
925 Prolonged shining white light. [Staff Light]
Anyone that believes that never really read the books.
Low action cost spells effectively means more spells in a single round, and given the biggest limitation on the power of spells is their action cost, reductions of that directly correlate to power.
That depends on if you keep the one spell per round limit - and then again it would depend on the effects of the lower action spells and how they balance out.
Casters are 'balanced' fine right now - that doesn't make them satisfying to play - having ways to interact with the action system would help.
Not really. If a creature is suffering persistent damage (fire) and gains persistent damage (fire), it takes only the larger of the two values; its a condition like all other conditions.
It's still two attempts to trigger the persistent damage though, which isn't nothing.
And again, this was just a random rider I pulled out. Other riders might have different affects that do interact in such a way (nothing comes to mind).
Regardless, multiple trigger attempts is better than the one trigger attempt.
I'm not sure a zero-foot emanation makes sense, tbh. I can see why you've done this (so that a "you and all adjacent squares" actually gets smaller) but there are "targets enemies" 5 foot emanation effects.
It still applies to opponents that would enter your square on purpose (in the case of a grapple or a swarm for instance).
And remember, it's just an option, no ones forcing them to make a personal square emanation.
That depends on if you keep the one spell per round limit - and then again it would depend on the effects of the lower action spells and how they balance out.
The one spell per round limit that was suggested, to me, is a bad idea.
Once, it makes things like Elemental Toss no longer able to be combined with other spells (and a bunch of other interactions like Shield, True strike Disintegrate, etc.)
Two, it requires introducing a new rule as a limitation, as opposed to a new form of "Content" which is the "1 action version" of these spells in question. To me, if content requires the addition of a new restriction that did not previously exist, then the content is flawed in some capacity.
Those are my issues there.