Is the signature spell you get at level 3 in addition to the new spells in your repertoire, or do you pick one of those spells to become a signature?
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Is the signature spell you get at level 3 in addition to the new spells in your repertoire, or do you pick one of those spells to become a signature?
Signature spell is a feature that lets you pick any spell you know of that level and cast it at any level (that you have slots for). Its not a new spell known, but rather allows you to heighten a previously learned spell to a higher (or lower) level.
Is the signature spell you get at level 3 in addition to the new spells in your repertoire, or do you pick one of those spells to become a signature?Signature spell is a feature that lets you pick any spell you know of that level and cast it at any level (that you have slots for). Its not a new spell known, but rather allows you to heighten a previously learned spell to a higher (or lower) level.
I'm not sure of the part about a previously learned spell, though.
In the CRB, it is written: "Signature Spells - Level 3; You’ve learned to cast some of your spells more flexibly. For each spell level you have access to, choose one spell of that level to be a signature spell. You don’t need to learn heightened versions of signature spells separately; instead, you can heighten these spells freely. If you’ve learned a signature spell at a higher level than its minimum, you can also cast all its lower-level versions without learning those separately. If you swap out a signature spell, you can choose a replacement signature spell of the same spell level at which you learned the previous spell. You can also retrain specifically to change a signature spell to a different spell of that level without swapping any spells; this takes as much time as retraining a spell normally does."
It does not say that the signature spell must be chosen from your spell repertoire.
In fact, in the sorcerer dedication it specifically says that you choose from your spell repertoire, but it does not in the sorcerer class section.
The official Errata concerning such dedications states: " At 6th level, they grant you a 2nd-level spell slot, and if you have a spell repertoire, you can select one spell from your repertoire as a signature spell."
To me, RAW says that the signature spell a sorcerer gets at each spell slot level is an additional spell known. So, at 3rd level, a sorcerer knows 5 cantrips, 1 bloodline 1st level spell, 3 other 1st level spells, and one 1st level signature spell, 1 bloodline 2nd level spell, 2 other 2nd level spells, and one 2nd level signature spell.
The daily spell slots aren't changed, of course.
Since wizards can add innumerable spells to their spellbook (well, as long as the gold allows, anyway), this doesn't change the balance between them.
You're half right. Signature Spell does not require you to know the spell in order to select it as your Signature Spell. There's no requirement that the spell be part of your repertoire.
However, Signature Spell never adds the spell to your repertoire nor allows you to cast it for free either. It just allows you to heighten the spell without learning it multiple times.
So you can pick a spell you don't know as a signature spell, but you can't cast it until you actually learn it.
Ummm . . . that makes no sense to me. If it is your signature spell, you know it. It doesn't say you have to learn it separately.
And, of course you can't cast a signature spell for free. You have to use one of your spell slots.
If it is your signature spell, you know it.
Where does it say that?
Nothing in the section you quoted mentions adding the spell you picked to your repertoire.
So either it's in your repertoire and you can cast it, or it's not and you can't.
Agreed to part, but then it says to pick them from any you have access to, which is your tradition's spell list, not just the repertoire. The errata made very clear that for the archetypes for bard/sorcerers it is chosen from your repertoire. It made no such change for the classes themselves.
And the signature spell is what you've learned to cast a spell more flexibly, i.e. at all heightened levels.
Also that says even more that a signature spell is one of your spells, so you don't learn it separately.
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Sorcerers only learn Spells through the Spell Repertoire Class Feature. As Squigget said, if it's not in your Repertoire, you cannot cast it.
Each day, you can cast up to three 1st-level spells. You must know spells to cast them, and you learn them via the spell repertoire class feature. The number of spells you can cast each day is called your spell slots.
Spell RepertoireThe collection of spells you can cast is called your spell repertoire. At 1st level, you learn two 1st-level spells of your choice and four cantrips of your choice, as well as an additional spell and cantrip from your bloodline (page 194). You choose these from the common spells from the tradition corresponding to your bloodline, or from other spells from that tradition to which you have access. You can cast any spell in your spell repertoire by using a spell slot of an appropriate spell level.You add to this spell repertoire as you increase in level. Each time you get a spell slot (see Table 3–17), you add a spell of the same level to your spell repertoire. When you gain access to a new level of spells, your first new spell is always your bloodline spell, but you can choose the other spells you gain. At 2nd level, you select another 1st-level spell; at 3rd level, you gain a new bloodline spell and two other 2nd-level spells, and so on. When you add spells, you might choose a higher-level version of a spell you already have so that you can cast a heightened version of that spell.Though you gain them at the same rate, your spell slots and the spells in your spell repertoire are separate. If a feat or other ability adds a spell to your spell repertoire, it wouldn’t give you another spell slot, and vice versa.
The Signature Spell Class Feature does not add Spells to your Repertoire.
For us the topic came up due to the specific wording in the official Errata which added to the caster archetype dedications, but NOT to the bard/sorcerer class abilities.
At the end of the above quote, it says that other abilities can add spells to your spell repertoire, so you can't just say that the signature feature doesn't add them due to that section.
it added that wording to the archetypes because those archetypes didn't have signature spells before the errata, which was causing issues with their playability.
There's still nothing in the text of signature spell that suggests you add the spell you pick to your repertoire.
Signature Spell specifically does indeed add spells to your repertoire. It says that you know all of the heightened levels of a spell, or down-leveled if chosen higher. Each heightened version of a spell can take a different slot in a repertoire. So for example Acidic Burst, if chosen as a signature spell, would give each of its heightened versions to your repertoire, level 1 through level 10. You would know all 10 of those spells and they could have taken up a place in the repertoire if not signature. You don't have to learn all 9 of the other versions separately due to signature spell. Thus signature spell does teach you the spells.
I don't see why adding ONE spell of each level as a signature spell to a sorcerer or bard's repertoire could be such a problem. So they know 4 or 5 spells per level instead of 3 or 4? It's not like the wizard is going to be upset, since theoretically they could learn every single spell in the libraries. And clerics/druids don't have a limit on known spells at all.
So, Arcane Evolution specifically says to choose one of the spells from your repertoire as an extra signature spell for the day - pointing out again that the level 3 sorcerer ability does not include that wording.
I'm still going to go with it as one new spell per level. Woo, sorcerers get 5 spells per level in their repertoire instead of 4. LOL I don't think that's going to bother wizards with their entire list of spells (as long as the gold holds up) that they can freely heighten as wanted.
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So, Arcane Evolution specifically says to choose one of the spells from your repertoire as an extra signature spell for the day - pointing out again that the level 3 sorcerer ability does not include that wording.
I'm still going to go with it as one new spell per level. Woo, sorcerers get 5 spells per level in their repertoire instead of 4. LOL I don't think that's going to bother wizards with their entire list of spells (as long as the gold holds up) that they can freely heighten as wanted.
Should move the thread to house rules then
I'm still going to go with it as one new spell per level. Woo, sorcerers get 5 spells per level in their repertoire instead of 4. LOL I don't think that's going to bother wizards with their entire list of spells (as long as the gold holds up) that they can freely heighten as wanted.
Of course it will. Sorcerer already has an expanded spell choice over Wizard. It will increase the difference.
PF2 is not PF1. The versatile caster is Sorcerer, the specialized one is Wizard. Increasing Sorcerer versatility is a big thing.
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Sorcerer really is the better caster in 2e. Wizards just doesn't have much outside maybe getting to know more spells if he is lucky. But the time that is useful is very questionable.
Spell Blending Wizards are extremely sustainable. You get 10/11 spells of your 2 higher spell slots, 30% more than a Sorcerer, it's not negligeable.
But most Theses are too weak to compete.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The versatile caster is Sorcerer, the specialized one is Wizard. Increasing Sorcerer versatility is a big thing.
This amuses me because there's an entire thread devoted to saying how "versatile" the wizard is.
The versatile caster is Sorcerer, the specialized one is Wizard. Increasing Sorcerer versatility is a big thing.This amuses me because there's an entire thread devoted to saying how "versatile" the wizard is.
I mean, it is as a next day (or same day with the right thesis) problem solver, it's just that situation is a lot less common than the tactical combat versatility that the Sorcerer has.
Wizards are also allowed to automatically heighten any spell they want to. Sorcerers cannot. Other than their signature spells, any that they want to heighten, they have to learn at each level. And if they want to replace them, it is either one per level or having to retrain the spell.
Please don't try to say that sorcerers are more versatile across the board. They aren't. The two classes are just different enough to work.
Reading the words of the CRB and other sources, I see it as I have said and for Society play. There has been no word from staff either way.
Should move the thread to house rules then
Why? This is about Society play and continues to be.
The versatile caster is Sorcerer, the specialized one is Wizard. Increasing Sorcerer versatility is a big thing.This amuses me because there's an entire thread devoted to saying how "versatile" the wizard is.There's more than one kind of versatility is all that's happening there.
Wizards are versatile in what variety of spells can be available to them from day to day.
Sorcerers are versatile in what variety of spells can be available to them at the moment of choosing to cast a spell.
Which is "more versatile" differs depending on what sort of versatility you mean.
Most people "selling" the Wizard versatility speak about how you can alter your spell list when "you know what you're up to". From personal experience, you nearly never know what you're up to (or you just know so few that you will hardly alter 10% of your spells). Most of the time, prepared casters take a "versatile" spell list. You really only have the choice between as many spells as you have prepared at each level, so between 3 to 4, when the Sorcerer has a choice of 6-7 spells with Signature spells taken into account. So, Sorcerers are way more versatile than Wizards as they have a twice bigger spell list.
Spell Substition Wizards are the only ones who can try to compete (and in my opinion they are still behind the Sorcerer).
And even if your DM allows you to know in advance exactly what you will face during the day, chances are high that you won't alter your spell list that much as there are not many hyper specialized spells in the game (and most are on the Divine spell list anyway). Also, you need to learn a spell to take it. Most Wizards don't have that much choice of spells among their highest level spells as you can hardly learn them immediately when you get access to them.
Also, scrolls exist and in general complement the Sorcerer spell list for all the low level spells that you may want sometimes.
And the heighten argument is partly a joke, as most heighten spells don't compete with spells of their levels. So you nearly never heighten spells.
The versatile Wizard has no weapon to compete against a Sorcerer.
On the other hand, Specialized Wizards are awesome. The only Wizards I've liked to play with (I play PFS) were hyper specialized ones. They were the only ones who were not out of (useful) spells after 2 encounters.
Tbh, there are very-very few features that D&D 5e actually done better than both PF1e and PF2e.
And one of those features is how spellcasters preparing their spells.
IN D&D 3.5, PF1e and 2e, "spell preparation" spells casters not only lose lots of versatility because of how they prepare spells. But it also might make extremely annoying on high levels maintain whole list of prepared spells.
Most people "selling" the Wizard versatility speak about how you can alter your spell list when "you know what you're up to". From personal experience, you nearly never know what you're up to (or you just know so few that you will hardly alter 10% of your spells).That is a time when it is useful to acknowledge (on both sides of the discussion) that table-variance should be accounted for when trying to discuss a baseline of how something works.
On that I fully agree, there is table variation. It's true that I was focusing on Paizo APs/adventures/PFS.
If like in most Paizo adventures combat is a big part of what your spells will be used for the versatility of the Wizard just goes to trash. Most (if not all) of your higher level spells will go to combat spells (it's by design, most lower level spells are unsuitable for combat). So, ok, you can choose your lower level spells but Sorcerers will have some of them (the most common ones) and they can have scrolls for the other ones.
Now, if your DM loves to put you in extremely diverse situations with an incentive on non-combat situations you get suddenly way more mileage out of a Wizard.
So, I agree that the Wizard versatility is extremely important on non-combat centric adventures. But I don't think the game is well balanced for these types of adventures as many classes will fall short as their main (if not only) skill is combat (Fighter, Barbarian, etc...).
But I don't think the game is well balanced for these types of adventures as many classes will fall short as their main (if not only) skill is combat (Fighter, Barbarian, etc...).Because every character has an actually meaningful number of skills and does not have to buy their non-combat effectiveness with the same resource as their combat effectiveness, this game is actually better balanced for these types of adventures than most similar games are.
It's true that it's better balanced than most similar games. But it doesn't mean it's balanced at all.
Yes, your Strength-based Fighter can increase Arcana next to Athletics. But considering he will have even half the out-of-combat efficiency of a Wizard is optimistic. For non-combat centric adventures, you just don't play a Fighter.Between Paizo APs and adventures and the fact that there are some classes with absolutely no built in out of combat efficiency, I think I can safely assume that non-combat centric adventures are the rarity. The Wizard versatility is only usable at the cost of its combat efficiency and as such you won't be able to use it in most adventures.
TL;DR: No, because you can't even say whether your own campaigns that fit your assumptions are more numerous than my own campaigns which do not fit your assumptions - so drawing a conclusion about "most adventures" is inherently inaccurate.
Why do I have the feeling that we already had this conversation ;)
Let's write it in a purely factual way:
In non-combat centric adventures, the Wizard can use the plain range of its versatility (and I will even go further away by stating it becomes a crazy good class in such context).
In combat centric adventures, the Wizard can't use the plain range of its versatility as it will need to focus first and foremost on combat. In such adventures, the Sorcerer expanded spell list will make it the versatile caster.