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Wizards are the only Prepared Arcane casters. That's no small thing given that is probably the best list and most flexible casting method. On top of that, in practice, they often have as many spells per day as a Sorcerer and specialists actually have more.
Sorcerers, meanwhile, have better access to spells from traditions other than their own than anyone else by a fair bit (there's an 18th level Bard Feat for this...or an 8th level Sorcerer one), and with Bloodlines and Bloodline Magic some very solid unique tricks tied to their specific Bloodline.
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Wizards are the only Prepared Arcane casters. That's no small thing given that is probably the best list and most flexible casting method. On top of that, in practice, they often have as many spells per day as a Sorcerer and specialists actually have more.
That's only true until we get the Witch when the APG is released at the end of this month.
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That's only true until we get the Witch when the APG is released at the end of this month.
True. Of course, likewise, the Investigator has as many Skills as the Rogue, and the Witch will have significantly fewer spells per day than the Wizard, so there are still areas they are objectively better than Witch in.
Only have one Arcane Witch in the APG though (Runes patron). And they only have one focus cantrip that you gain with the first patron, the rest are focus spells that you have to use feats. 3 spell slots per spell level instead of the 4 of the Wizard.
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While the idea loosely holds true for now I expect that a few years down the road what we’ll have is the best 2-3 classes at anything With each having a different way of getting there. Even now it seems like you have to pick carefully to avoid this.
For instance, I’d say that the druid and alchemist both excel at filling multiple roles as they choose, presuming they don’t over specialize. The druid can bring higher numbers to a particular role, but really it needs to choose what it’s doing for a given day ahead of time. The alchemist can either focus at the start of the day and fill that role longer, or stay flexible and fill whichever role is needed right then.
Personally I prefer this, not every class needs to be great at everything, but each thing people want to do should have a few options to get there that are equally valid. Otherwise the game will end up weighted towards the things that are more frequently used and we get less variety.
The Sorcerer is imo the best to spécialisé in a specific magic theme, with their bloodlines, blood magic etc...
As for Cleric, that's forgetting that Divine Font Harm is a thing (let's hope APG will bring some more feat to make it more interesting, like a Debuff version of Heroic/Defensive recovery).
Sorcerer is the best counter speller. At least until 12th Level.
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I that of all the classes, wizards are the least unique because of Arcane sorcerors. As a wizard player, I say wizards can be summarized as being INT-based AND prepared casters AND having the Arcane tradition AND having more spells than most other classes.
The Arcane Sorcerer also has the latter two, so whether or not you consider Wizards to be unique comes down to how important it is to be an INT-based prepared caster as opposed to a CHA-based spontaneous one.
@siegfriedliner I don’t really agree with your opinion on alchemist. I do feel they fall behind the other classes in specific task but make up for it in flexibility.
No one else can afford to heal, & deal decent ranged strike with poison arrows, and throw bombs to hit groups and weaknesses, and apply debuffs, and apply party buffs, and fight in melee and also play the stride/strike/stride game.
At mid level all of those can actually be done in the same fight if you choose to, though that would burn through more of your pool than you need to use. And The pool of alchemical items will only increase. To me that’s flexibility. Yes they do each of those worse than another class. But let’s please not drag the arguments about it in here, there are plenty of other threads for that.
I that of all the classes, wizards are the least unique because of Arcane sorcerors. As a wizard player, I say wizards can be summarized as being INT-based AND prepared casters AND having the Arcane tradition AND having more spells than most other classes.
The Arcane Sorcerer also has the latter two, so whether or not you consider Wizards to be unique comes down to how important it is to be an INT-based prepared caster as opposed to a CHA-based spontaneous one.
I think both the wizard and the sorcerer suffer from the current lack of class feats. Both classes only have one or two options at each level right now and it really hursts their ability to demonstrate their specialty. I do think the wizard has a lot of room to become the master of metamagic and similar off the book magic Personalization, the thesis’s seem to lean that way with flexible spell slots, metamagic and more familiar abilities. But they lack the class feats at this point to really show off what the class seems to want.
Same with the sorcerer, too few class feats mean that you can’t personalize your angelic blooded caster enough to differentiate it from a cloistered cleric.
Thankfully I think these problems will go away as more options hit the books. Unfortunately I think they’ll take much longer to go away than people want due to the current product speed.
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Re: Wizards. This has probably been one of my biggest complaints since the playtest. Every other caster is framed as "can cast X tradition spells and do something else interesting," while wizards are just "can cast arcane tradition spells, but more/better than others." Which is technically a niche, just not a terribly interesting/fun one.
Wizards are the ultimate planners. If the party can successfully determine what sorts of challenges they're likely to face, the wizard can completely rearrange what spells they have for the day to meet that challenge.
And PF2 makes it very possible to do this kind of planning. Between Prying Eye to completely scout an area the day before you go in, to interrogating bad guys or asking clever questions of allies, to various skill checks to figure out what sorts of foes you might be facing.
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Wizards are the ultimate planners. If the party can successfully determine what sorts of challenges they're likely to face, the wizard can completely rearrange what spells they have for the day to meet that challenge.
And PF2 makes it very possible to do this kind of planning. Between Prying Eye to completely scout an area the day before you go in, to interrogating bad guys or asking clever questions of allies, to various skill checks to figure out what sorts of foes you might be facing.
cause you know
every party is willing to scout ahead
every party always has the time to scout
every party is willing to wait for the wizard to switch spells
every party is to willing wait a day to recover spell slots
every wizard picked the exact spells he needed on level up
every party always has the [time]. [gp] and [access to settlement] the wizard needs to learn the right spells
etc...
like for real is there some hidden cult in this forum that says you cant ever recognize how situational wizards are as a drawback or your soul will burn in hell for eternity
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ArchSage20,
The hidden cult is those who enjoy the process of doing their best to guess what might be up ahead by preparing the appropriate spells based on any information they can glean from any of the above mentioned practices within the tolerance of what their party will allow.
I'd share with you the secret handshake but the initiation actually requires you to do your best to find out what exactly that might be!
Wizards are the ultimate planners. If the party can successfully determine what sorts of challenges they're likely to face, the wizard can completely rearrange what spells they have for the day to meet that challenge.
And PF2 makes it very possible to do this kind of planning. Between Prying Eye to completely scout an area the day before you go in, to interrogating bad guys or asking clever questions of allies, to various skill checks to figure out what sorts of foes you might be facing.
cause you know
every party is willing to scout ahead
every party always has the time to scout
every party is willing to wait for the wizard to switch spells
every party is to willing wait a day to recover spell slots
every wizard picked the exact spells he needed on level up
every party always has the [time]. [gp] and [access to settlement] the wizard needs to learn the right spells
etc...
like for real is there some hidden cult in this forum that says you cant ever recognize how situational wizards are as a drawback or your soul will burn in hell for eternity
Why would a party be opposed to scouting ahead?
In my experience with PF2 adventures and APs (Fall of Plaguestone and Extinction Curse) the players rarely have a time limit. If I recall correctly, the designers have intentionally tried to avoid time limits in the past to accommodate different playstyles.
The wizard can switch spells when the rest of the party is healing, refocusing, regaining focus, etc.
The point about spell slots can apply to any caster.
Your point about level up spells is valid, but the witch I GM for has been able to pick level up spells based on what they'll be facing in the future, so it isn't impossible.
Wizards will be putting gold to learning new spells like martials will be putting gold to learning new items. And the time to learn new spells can be nearly meaningless with the Magical Shorthand feat. Your point on settlements is valid though.
The thing is, much of the discussed points heavily depend on the GM, not the party or wizard themselves. And especially vancian casters live or die with the amount of information the GM is willing to feed them.
You might call being tight on information a case of bad GM'ing, however it is not uncommon that the GM does not want his encounters and challenges to end up as piece of cake walkovers.
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The thing is, much of the discussed points heavily depend on the GM, not the party or wizard themselves. And especially vancian casters live or die with the amount of information the GM is willing to feed them.
You might call being tight on information a case of bad GM'ing, however it is not uncommon that the GM does not want his encounters and challenges to end up as piece of cake walkovers.
I'd say being tight on information all the time is bad GMing, but the GM shouldn't allow answers every time. There's a balance to be had to allow prepared casters to shine without letting them walk over encounters.
An example from my own game: The party knew that they would be going to an underwater temple soon, so the witch elected to learn lightning bolt instead of fireball. This was a big aid in most of the encounters, however she wasn't able to learn that the boss was a sea drake (thus being immune to electricity) until the fight started.
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The forums do have a pretty bad habit of exaggerating the benefits of prepared casting. Theorycrafting here always seems to assume perfect knowledge.
A lot of it feels like PF1 inertia, when Wizards had more spells that were overbearing enough to be applicable in most circumstances without having to worry too much about specifics and they learned spells faster than spontaneous casters.
PF2 has removed that spell level gap and made having the correct type of spell much more important, but it feels like that's just left people leaning even harder into Schrodinger's wizard when they talk about the class.
Sorcerer is the best counter speller. At least until 12th Level.
What happens at 12th?
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The thing is, much of the discussed points heavily depend on the GM, not the party or wizard themselves. And especially vancian casters live or die with the amount of information the GM is willing to feed them.
You might call being tight on information a case of bad GM'ing, however it is not uncommon that the GM does not want his encounters and challenges to end up as piece of cake walkovers.
I still don't agree with this, really. Its not terribly hard to design a powerful "general purpose" spell list, and all the prepared casters have been given safety net abilities to ensure they're never irrelevant.
Clerics have Divine Font, which gives them a hearty helping of always useful Heal/Harm at max level.
Druids get some of the more useful and least situational Focus Spells in the game if they chose Storm or Wild Shape.
Wizards all get bonded item to repeat a casting of a relevant spell, and Spell Blending and Spell Substitution both offer means of mitigating the drawbacks of prepared casting - Spell Blending can just brute force prepare extra copies of generically useful spells, and Substitution is more or less drawback free preparation that can adapt on the fly.
Prepared casting is nearly objectively more player friendly than ever.
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Wizards are the ultimate planners. If the party can successfully determine what sorts of challenges they're likely to face, the wizard can completely rearrange what spells they have for the day to meet that challenge.
And PF2 makes it very possible to do this kind of planning. Between Prying Eye to completely scout an area the day before you go in, to interrogating bad guys or asking clever questions of allies, to various skill checks to figure out what sorts of foes you might be facing.
cause you know
every party is willing to scout ahead
every party always has the time to scout
every party is willing to wait for the wizard to switch spells
every party is to willing wait a day to recover spell slots
every wizard picked the exact spells he needed on level up
every party always has the [time]. [gp] and [access to settlement] the wizard needs to learn the right spells
etc...
like for real is there some hidden cult in this forum that says you cant ever recognize how situational wizards are as a drawback or your soul will burn in hell for eternity
This is a really weird response. Cintra basically just said "wizards are good if they have time to plan." Saying that not all parties let you plan doesn't contradict it. Not all characters blend well with all parties. A champion or rogue is going to have a harder time in a party without another frontliner or good teamwork. A divine sorcerer is going to feel a bit redundant in a party with a cleric. A bard is going to be less exciting in a group where people focus on saving throw over attack rolls.
Also, you do realize you escalated there, right? Cintra didn't attack anyone there, and then you started going off about cults and burning in hell.
I still don't agree with this, really. Its not terribly hard to design a powerful "general purpose" spell list, and all the prepared casters have been given safety net abilities to ensure they're never irrelevant.
Of course it is not hard to design a powerful "general purpose" spell list, however given such a list the Sorcerer can probably do better. One argument that sets the Wizard over the Sorcerer is that he has access to all spells and can thus specialise if need be. That advantage is lost if you do not have an information advantage and need to prepare your general list all day.
Wizards all get bonded item to repeat a casting of a relevant spell, and Spell Blending and Spell Substitution both offer means of mitigating the drawbacks of prepared casting - Spell Blending can just brute force prepare extra copies of generically useful spells, and Substitution is more or less drawback free preparation that can adapt on the fly.
Yes, just ask an Universalist Improved Familiar Wizard about that. That is just to say that, apart from the Alchemist, Wizard is probably the 2nd easiest Class to build a less effective character (spell choices included).
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Yes, just ask an Universalist Improved Familiar Wizard about that. That is just to say that, apart from the Alchemist, Wizard is probably the 2nd easiest Class to build a less effective character (spell choices included).
Not going to argue on this - its a valid issue that Wizards are harder to make work than other classes, and have options that aren't as forgiving across the board (and some that are probably less good overall).
That said, I'd say Wizards are still worlds easier to "fix" than an Alchemist (a much better place overall), as you can get most of the way there with a new spellbook.
Prepared casting is nearly objectively more player friendly than ever.
Can't really agree with this at all.
Changes to spell access, specific spell mechanics and the game's internal math both make it much more important to prepare spells correctly and situationally more difficult to figure out which spells are the right ones.
These aren't even bad things, arguably it's kind of the point of what PF2 did with spellcasting in general. PF1 magic could be very oppressive when used in the right way. But I think it's hard to look at those factors and really argue that it's easier to prepare spells.
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a quote
For what it's worth, I don't think Captain Morgan was being patronizing. And I think you're underestimating the amount of times a party is able to know what's coming. If you're playing through Fall of Plaguestone, it's not unreasonable to assume that you're going to keep fighting alchemists. If you've been fighting a lich's army for the last four sessions, then you know not to prepare any spells that deal negative damage.
But you're right, you can't always prepare. But no one's saying that. There will always be situations where classes can't operate at full efficiency. The barbarian is going to have a hard time against flying enemies and enemies with high physical resistance. The rogue is going to have a hard time against things with precision immunity. A divine sorcerer who decided to learn bless is going to be disappointed when there's a bard in the party. Not all parties or situations are going to be ideal.
And on the flipside, yeah, a wizard who prepped two fireballs is going to have a not great time in a fight with enemies with fire resistance. But they have other spells. Be it fear, haste, magic missile, etc. Unless it's the end of the day and they've spent most of their slots, a wizard will have something they can do, just like any other caster. But even then, they have their cantrips, focus spells (the usefulness of which admittedly varies), they can Recall Knowledge which could help the rest of the party, hell, some even have a weapon they can use.
And I can almost guarantee that no one here is trying to get under your skin on purpose. We believe the things we're saying, we've had our own experiences with the game whether you agree with them or not. I admit my own were not with the wizard specifically, but I GM for an arcane witch who never casts their hexes, so they're effectively a slightly worse familiar thesis wizard.
The druid is really fun. I usually don't like playing druids, but in PF2 druids feel awesome to play. They can do so much.
Next time I try a wizard or sorcerer, I think I'm going to make the caster more like Gandalf in LotR and use more weapons. See if that helps any. Sure makes the druid more interesting.
the issues is that perfect preparation is being used as a argument to claim the wizard is perfect and need no balancing
everyone is good in their best match up any class can be great when fully prepared and in advantage
a fighter if armed with every possible buff, poison, enchantment etc.. available can be broken
but usually we don't assume they are for balance purposes so logically we also shouldn't assume it for the wizard
a sorcerer in a table that has a cleric is just poor party composition ,it could be fixed by asking who are the other members before joining
a barbarian having to fight fighting flying enemies is a occasional drawback like a enemy happening to have a dispel magic
the bless think could have been easily avoid by talking before the spell selection or before joining the table
those are in no way the same thing as the wizard needing perfect preparation to keep up with other classes they are more like a fighter putting all his score bonus in int they are mistakes not inherent and constant drawback of the class itself
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Wizards don't need perfect preparation to keep up. They can get by with minimal prep. But they are at their best when they do have it.
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But then again pathfinder 2e is aimed at roleplaying game veterans and thus has a high on complexity level. It's the antithesis of 5e which is all about assesibility, so the wizard needing far more skill to keep up is probably more a feature than a bug.
Whats ironic is, my players with less experience with prior editions have had an easier time adjusting to the balancing adjustments of PF2E.
They just adjust and roll with how things work in 2e, and have fewer expectations about how things "should" work, and have had no concerns about the effectiveness rate of spells, skills, etc. They just play and have fun.
That said, none of them are gaming newbies though. Complexity and mechanics aren't a concern for them - they're just learning TTRPGs instead of a new board game or PC game.
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the issues is that perfect preparation is being used as a argument to claim the wizard is perfect and need no balancing
Not in this thread they aren't. Certainly not before you went off. This thread was not about balance. It was made to talk about wizards (and alchemists and sorcerrs) perceived lack of niche to be the best at a particular thing. That's a lot less about balance than it is about a class being interesting. The most balanced you could have classes would be every class working the same, and it would also be boring.
The giant totem barbarian deals the highest damage in the game and has the best reach. That's a unique niche and draw of the instinct which can't be denied. But some people still think it is poorly balanced because it sacrifices its AC and reflex saves to hit just a little bit harder than the other instincts.
The conversation was about what wizards could do better than anyone else, not if they were overall weaker than the other classes. Cintra's answer was: taking advantage of planning and intelligence gathering. Saying "not everyone gets to plan" doesn't refute the idea that wizards are the best when they do.
An actual counterpoint would be that that clerics and druids can prepare their spell selection with a day's notice too, and have access to a much bigger chunk of their spell list. The wizard has a more flexible and powerful spell list, but probably has fewer spells in their spell book than the cleric and druid can call upon. I think the wizard only clearly pulls ahead if they have spell substitution.
The conversation has pivoted a little to general balance stuff now, at least among a few people. But that's largely because you started talking about balance. Until then it was just about the class having a niche. I don't know what you've experienced in other threads, but it doesn't seem to have much to do with this one.
the issues is that perfect preparation is being used as a argument to claim the wizard is perfect and need no balancing
Not in this thread they aren't. Certainly not before you went off. This thread was not about balance. It was made to talk about wizards (and alchemists and sorcerrs) perceived lack of niche to be the best at a particular thing. That's a lot less about balance than it is about a class being interesting. The most balanced you could have classes would be every class working the same, and it would also be boring.
The giant totem barbarian deals the highest damage in the game and has the best reach. That's a unique niche and draw of the instinct which can't be denied. But some people still think it is poorly balanced because it sacrifices its AC and reflex saves to hit just a little bit harder than the other instincts.
The conversation was about what wizards could do better than anyone else, not if they were overall weaker than the other classes. Cintra's answer was: taking advantage of planning and intelligence gathering. Saying "not everyone gets to plan" doesn't refute the idea that wizards are the best when they do.
An actual counterpoint would be that that clerics and druids can prepare their spell selection with a day's notice too, and have access to a much bigger chunk of their spell list. The wizard has a more flexible and powerful spell list, but probably has fewer spells in their spell book than the cleric and druid can call upon. I think the wizard only clearly pulls ahead if they have spell substitution.
The conversation has pivoted a little to general balance stuff now, at least among a few people. But that's largely because you started talking about balance. Until then it was just about the class having a niche. I don't know what you've experienced in other threads, but it doesn't seem to have much to do with this one.
i would find it hard to argue that having a niche and doing that niche properly is not question about balance in of itself
but fine since you insist i will make a thread about it
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Do PF2 wizards that prepare the right spells outshine their groupmates? Because if they don’t, that’s certainly a bad sign for wizards that don’t get lucky with their prepping for the day (i.e., if you need good planning to be mediocre). Where “strongest class when they have good advance information” would be a fair wizard ‘specialty’.
The gap between wizards on their best day and everyone else has certainly closed to be tighter than it was. Even on their best day, a Wizard won't make their party feel redundant.
There are more tools for same day recovery from bad preparation, though, too.
Plus, Wizards picked up "undisputed king of pushing one spell to its limit" as well. If you know Fireball is the correct hammer in a situation, it's now Evoker Wizards that can bring the most high level hammers to that situation - especially with spell blending. That's not nothing.
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i would find it hard to argue that having a niche and doing that niche...the issues is that perfect preparation is being used as a argument to claim the wizard is perfect and need no balancing
Not in this thread they aren't. Certainly not before you went off. This thread was not about balance. It was made to talk about wizards (and alchemists and sorcerrs) perceived lack of niche to be the best at a particular thing. That's a lot less about balance than it is about a class being interesting. The most balanced you could have classes would be every class working the same, and it would also be boring.
The giant totem barbarian deals the highest damage in the game and has the best reach. That's a unique niche and draw of the instinct which can't be denied. But some people still think it is poorly balanced because it sacrifices its AC and reflex saves to hit just a little bit harder than the other instincts.
The conversation was about what wizards could do better than anyone else, not if they were overall weaker than the other classes. Cintra's answer was: taking advantage of planning and intelligence gathering. Saying "not everyone gets to plan" doesn't refute the idea that wizards are the best when they do.
An actual counterpoint would be that that clerics and druids can prepare their spell selection with a day's notice too, and have access to a much bigger chunk of their spell list. The wizard has a more flexible and powerful spell list, but probably has fewer spells in their spell book than the cleric and druid can call upon. I think the wizard only clearly pulls ahead if they have spell substitution.
The conversation has pivoted a little to general balance stuff now, at least among a few people. But that's largely because you started talking about balance. Until then it was just about the class having a niche. I don't know what you've experienced in other threads, but it doesn't seem to have much to do with this one.
They are the only Class that gets five 10th Level Spell Slots. They are the undisputed champions of high Level Spellcasting.
10th level slots being their ‘specialty’ would be a big sadface for wizards at levels 1-18.
It's not just 10th level. They get more high level spell slots than all other casters for their entire careers. Assuming they take Spell Blending, which let's face it, isn't really a tough choice.