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Link: Single Action Casting rules proposal by Samurai.
Right now, it is only 1 page long, and much of that is how it affects specific spells. Some of the changes are directly carried over from my House Rules, but I included some specific spell changes to aid in balance as well (Heal, Harm, Magic Missile, Force Bolt, etc). I welcome your feedback and ideas of what other spells may need tweaks to work with the system and maintain balance. I also included a change to using Metamagic to aid caster's action economy (it now spends their Reaction for the round instead of an action, since casters rarely have good reaction abilities), along with my existing rule that the first Sustain each round is a free action. Enjoy!
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I think those are too many changes at once, though I like the Idea of using the reaction for the Metamagics, simply because this would eliminate the almost necessity for some caster classes to multiclass into other classes offering viable reactions.
Also I find sustain is viable for most spells IF you drop the requirement for continuous sustain. If you give sustain for free that is an extra action/attack per round for spells like Flaming Sphere or Spiritual Weapon and probably much too good. What I would prefer instead is that all sustain spells work a little like Bless, i.e. if you sustain the spell does something, however it is NOT lost if you skip one or more sustains. So if you need your actions to do other things in one round you can still sustain the spell in the next round until the spell has run its full duration.
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@ Ubertron_X, that's a possible idea:
If you spend an action on the Sustain, the spell is able to actively do something, like make an attack roll or expand the radius of a Bless/Bane. If you use a free action Sustain, it simply continues the existing spell, but can't be moved or expanded.
Do you think that would be a fair compromise?
My initial thoughts are that:
1, All 2 action are now 1 action spells with the flourish trait.
2, all existing variable action spells such as MM, heal, harm, etc stay as they are but do not have the flourish trait.
It preserves the PF2 system mostly as is. It’s an easily remembered rule with maybe a few edge cases. Done.
For me, as few rule changes as possible is a plus. It gives casters more flexibility without substantially changing anything.
Thoughts?
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Thoughts?
1) Well, the ability to be able to cast twice in a round (something D&D players know and expect with a slot spell and a cantrip) is part of the reason for making this change. The game limiting them to casting only 1 spell per round while making even level 1 martial characters able to attack 3-4 times in a round (and providing early game feats to facilitate this more effectively) is part of PF2e's imbalance. Since PF2e has more categories than just cantrip or slot spell, that leaves the question of how Focus spells should work, and I decided to count them in the cantrip/non-Flourish category since most caster Focus spells are nothing to write home about.
2) In my games, no one in their right mind uses a spell slot to cast a 1-action heal or harm or a single Magic Missile (unless you are using the Force Bolt spell and thus have no other choice, which is why I made the listed changes to it). Loosing out on the multiple missiles or +8 bonus for the 2-action heals/harms is just too big a cost, and the game makes it a waste to even offer it if we are reducing all the other spells to single action castings. So the point is to balance the 1-action spells with the multi-action spells, not just make them "possible", which is why I made the specific changes I did. Heal/Harm a single target and get a bonus equal to your casting stat (rather than a flat +8 bonus) as a single action, or be able to do a lesser effect to everyone within 30'. And choose between a few magic missiles as a single action, or twice as many with a 2-action casting (a fairer choice that triple the number of missiles for spending the same spell slot). So in effect, I've changed the 1-2-3 action castings into 1-2 action spells instead, and tried to balance each version a bit better to give occasions where you could see a caster choosing to use each one of the 2 casting choices depending upon the situation (which I don't feel they currently are).
A couple of things regarding Heal/Harm.
1) The normal Harm spell does not have extra damage on the 2-action variant. Only the 2-action heal is granting +8 points healed per spell level.
2) There are at least a couple of Cleric feats that directly mess with Heal/Harm, so if these spells are changed these feats need to be looked at. Prime examples: Fast Channel, level 14, Echoing Channel, level 18 and Metamagic Channel, level 20. I would therefore not recommend tempering with Heal/Harm action economy.
I think existing 1 action spells could continue to exist without the flourish trait as well.
IMO I don’t think spell casters are as far off as you. Allowing casters to play with the action economy more is a good start. In a clerics case, it now allows a 2 action heal as well as some additional fun, which is where I notice the issue most in my own games. In my own games, I see 2 action healing the most followed by 3 action healing when the party is in trouble. 1 action healing is used sparingly but conversely these are the rounds the cleric can have the most fun because he can cast another spell and feel more useful. So allowing the 2 action spell to work with a flourish spell is a significant upgrade in my eyes already.
In regards to magic missile, I have seen it used as a single action to finish off a creature fairly often so it has its uses.
The other issue I see with spell casters that no one has mentioned is the dice that are used. First, at mid to higher levels, they chuck an awful lot of dice. This takes time to gather the dice, roll them, and add them up. Spell casters turns are already lengthy by that measure. Additionally, dice tend to roll towards the mean. Seeing loads of dice looks good at first glance but the mean means the damage isn’t as significant as first thought. I think the system would have been better with less dice rolled, say up to 5, with the rest of the dice statically set as damage at say 75 percent of the die total. For example, instead of rolling 10d8, roll 5d8 and add 30. This is 45 damage vs 52 damage. Speeds up the game and makes casters more potent but also greatly removes the big swings in damage where maximum is really impossible to achieve. But many players like chucking dice but if you look beyond that thrill, it’s actually a drawback. And this is another difference between martials and casters. Martials static damage bonus from high strength and other sources makes it feel good even when they roll poor damage. Spell casters, much less so.
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A couple of things regarding Heal/Harm.
1) The normal Harm spell does not have extra damage on the 2-action variant. Only the 2-action heal is granting +8 points healed per spell level.
2) There are at least a couple of Cleric feats that directly mess with Heal/Harm, so if these spells are changed these feats need to be looked at. Prime examples: Fast Channel, level 14, Echoing Channel, level 18 and Metamagic Channel, level 20. I would therefore not recommend tempering with Heal/Harm action economy.
Harm counts as healing for your undead creations, and Heal works as damage to undead, so I feel they should both work identically no matter who the targets are. I prefer adding the casting stat instead of a flat +8's though, and you'll notice that Heightening either spell only adds more d8's (or d10's if you have Healing/Harming Hands) not additional +8's or stat bonuses. So a 5th level targeted Heal spell would heal 5d8 + casting stat mod (+4 probably), not 5d8 + 40 in RAW. So giving this minor boost to the Harms as well as the heals is not such a massive bonus anymore.
Some ideas of how to deal with the feats you mentioned:
Fast Channel: You can perform an Area Heal at the same speed as a targeted Heal, so 1 action instead of 2, just choose which effect you want.
Echoing Channel: This is a Metamagic feat, so by spending your Reaction for the round, when you cast a 1 action targeted Heal you can also affect a second person, with an identical number of dice but with no casting stat bonus to that second target.
Metamagic Channel: You can apply a Metamagic feat to your Heal or Harm spells as a free action, not a Reaction or Action. So with this feat, you could freely cast a 1 action targeted Heal up to 60' away by adding your Reach metamagic, for instance.
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@ Duskreign: I'm not going to be messing with the number of dice in order to add a flat damage bonus is this mod. that isn't my goal here.
Going through the CRB:
Hypercognition: This spell gives you 6 Recall Knowledge actions for a 1 action spell, I'm fine with it having the Flourish trait so the caster doesn't spend a ton of time before another player gets a turn.
Jump:This allows a 30' jump, multiple times for 1 minute at 3rd level. I could possibly see a case to be made to not make Jump a Flourish, to allow quick assaults.
The 3 Power Words (Blind, Kill, Stun): These are very powerful spells. It's true they are great preludes to an ambush, though...
True Strike and True Target: These are meant to be used in the same round as casting another spell/making an attack, so there is a definite reason to not apply Flourish to these spells.
So, that's pretty much the whole list of such spells in the CRB. Many of them do seem to be geared toward ambushes or quick assaults, or meant to be used with other spellcasting in the last examples. How about a blanket rule to cover all of them: If a spell already has a casting time of 1 action, it does not gain the Flourish trait.
Ok, a new version at the same link has now been posted with the above changes/additions.
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So, for what it’s worth, my table tried out my proposed ideas tonight. My players are 14th level for context and the idea was loved. We will continue to test this but effectively giving casters an extra action while keeping spell casting limitations in effect due to the flourish trait worked spectacularly.
The only major question this brought up was magic items and how many actions they now took since many are modelled after spells. For now, I gave them the same caveat as I did spells which was that all 2 action magic items are now 1 action with the flourish trait. This in particular needs much more testing but I’m really pleased with my changes.
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Great to hear is a success! It's shame that the RAW didn't follow these rules (we are only using and applying rules Paizo had created), but I think it will become a very popular mod!
Yes, many of the staves and wands literally say you activate them with the Cast a Spell action, so as long as the item is in hand, it's the same speed as casting as a spell. Same with items that say "you cast X spell", like Hand of the Mage or Hat of Disguise.