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Except scrolls are so meh most of the time that scrolls are mostly just useful for noncombat stuff.
Also permanent items feel much better than spending money on something that might not work.
If spells were built like gacha games when you have the chance to get something extremely valuable, then they might seem better. But as they are, they dont really seem worth it as anything but extra utility.
Why are scrolls meh? They use exactly the same DC or spell attack roll as your spells. I believe you can even use metamagic with scrolls because scrolls use the Cast a Spell action.
Casting a chain lightning from a scroll exactly the same as a chain lightning from a spell slot save for feats like Dangerous Sorcery.
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I think they were overly conservative with summoning spells. It's tough because you really do not be in a situation where it effectively becomes Summon Fighter.
The easy fix for summoning spells would be have their attack roll be your spellcasting attack roll. Damage on a summoned creature 5 levels behind what you're fighting is a sufficient control to allow it to use your spell attack roll to hit.
Except scrolls are so meh most of the time that scrolls are mostly just useful for noncombat stuff.
Also permanent items feel much better than spending money on something that might not work.
If spells were built like gacha games when you have the chance to get something extremely valuable, then they might seem better. But as they are, they dont really seem worth it as anything but extra utility.
Why are scrolls meh? They use exactly the same DC or spell attack roll as your spells. I believe you can even use metamagic with scrolls because scrolls use the Cast a Spell action.
Casting a chain lightning from a scroll exactly the same as a chain lightning from a spell slot save for feats like Dangerous Sorcery.
They are meh because high level scrolls that might be useful cost a ton. While low level scrolls even with the enhanced DC barely do anything outside of a few select spells or utility.
Yeah they might be useful, but you are still burning money to try your luck.
I took crafting myself. Not like I imagine making a bunch of whatever scrolls. During downtime I will make a bunch of sudden bolt and chain lightning scrolls between adventures. Easy hits.
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For myself, this all boils down to a frustration with the Vancian magic system. The limitation is too great or at least *feels* too great. The greatest modern innovation in tabletop rpgs to combat this? Cantrips that you can cast at will.
The ability to cast scalable cantrips doesn't offset this. Balance gets talked about a lot. However, I don't think this is a problem of balance. It's about human psychology. The feel of it. Maybe, mathematically speaking, casters are balanced. But it doesn't matter if they're not enjoyable.
I remember playing pillars of eternity where the Cipher class could cast more spells as he damaged opponents. Mathematically, he would be objectively weaker as he had to roll to hit with a physical attack and then roll to hit with his spells but the freedom of not having limited spells felt great. It's about feeling not maths.
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For myself, this all boils down to a frustration with the Vancian magic system. The limitation is too great or at least *feels* too great. The greatest modern innovation in tabletop rpgs to combat this? Cantrips that you can cast at will.
I doubt the base system will change. So what can you expect?
An official variant rule with spell points? I'm sure someone has home brewed one. If not give me ten minutes.
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For myself, this all boils down to a frustration with the Vancian magic system. The limitation is too great or at least *feels* too great. The greatest modern innovation in tabletop rpgs to combat this? Cantrips that you can cast at will.
The ability to cast scalable cantrips doesn't offset this. Balance gets talked about a lot. However, I don't think this is a problem of balance. It's about human psychology. The feel of it. Maybe, mathematically speaking, casters are balanced. But it doesn't matter if they're not enjoyable.
I remember playing pillars of eternity where the Cipher class could cast more spells as he damaged opponents. Mathematically, he would be objectively weaker as he had to roll to hit with a physical attack and then roll to hit with his spells but the freedom of not having limited spells felt great. It's about feeling not maths.
But Balance is a far easier metric to analyze than fun.
I love vancian magic and find the limits to be the reason i enjoy playing the game. I wouldn't want to play a spellcaster that didn't have the spellcasting limits in the game now.
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And the biggest quality of life change I made to casting is getting rid of Vancian Magic and moving to the 5E flexible casting system. For all the things I love about PF2's very balanced system, 5E casting hit it out of the park for fun casting. Easy to use, highly flexible, and still balanced on a per caster basis. I ported 5E casting into PF2 and I will never go back to Vancian casting. I wish that PF2 had tossed out Vancian casting, but someone in the decision making process at Paizo must like it too much.
Vancian casting is an additional stopgap to already reduced power casting. It wasn't necessary.
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For myself, this all boils down to a frustration with the Vancian magic system. The limitation is too great or at least *feels* too great. The greatest modern innovation in tabletop rpgs to combat this? Cantrips that you can cast at will.
The ability to cast scalable cantrips doesn't offset this. Balance gets talked about a lot. However, I don't think this is a problem of balance. It's about human psychology. The feel of it. Maybe, mathematically speaking, casters are balanced. But it doesn't matter if they're not enjoyable.
I remember playing pillars of eternity where the Cipher class could cast more spells as he damaged opponents. Mathematically, he would be objectively weaker as he had to roll to hit with a physical attack and then roll to hit with his spells but the freedom of not having limited spells felt great. It's about feeling not maths.
But Balance is a far easier metric to analyze than fun.
I love vancian magic and find the limits to be the reason i enjoy playing the game. I wouldn't want to play a spellcaster that didn't have the spellcasting limits in the game now.
I find Paizo's dedication to the maths charming and I appreciate it but with the casters it feels like they've taken the magic out of them. I still like the game and there are always the martial classes. If other people like the casters then that's great. Everyone has their favourite class(es). I by no means am saying that Paizo did a bad job with the casters. This is just my opinion. My assumption would be that Paizo listened to what people wanted and mostly people are happy with the casters.
automatic bonus progression? its what i use, the issue is i HAVE to drop more spell scrolls to balance things out, because i cannot just give more money.
I'm strongly thinking in using it for my upcoming post confinement Extinction Curse. But I don't find APB to be all unicorns and rainbows. First, it gives way too many equipment to the players (for me, skill boosting items are not supposed to be a given but a choice amongst consumables, extra special materials weapons and non mandatory items). Also, as you point out, it gives a very different equipment advantage between the caster who only needs an armor and the Rogue with secondary weapons and lots of important skills. So you have to play with the loot to account for this.
And it doesn't give items at the same level players will drop them. For example, in Extinction Curse, you get your first Striking Rune at level 5, when the APB will put everyone under Striking runes at level 4. It makes character stronger overall.So, I'll have to modify APB for it to suit my needs and then modify the adventure to account for APB. It's quite a burden.
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It’s not that someone in Paizo wanted it, it’s that the player base wanted it. It was a question in the playtest and the people who responded wanted it. Iirc it came up in one of the Know Direction interviews around launch. Now maybe they should have said screw that and go with something new/different. They certainly did that with enough other things.
What percentage wanted that? I've hated Vancian Casting for years. I guess my bad for switching to 5E during the playtest. I was burnt out on PF and 5E seemed good at the time. I still like parts of 5E, but not the lack of integrating feats and customization as well as the game being way too easy.
Did you hear what the percentage was? I imagine that must have been a contentious vote.
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Vancian casting is not the problem entirely. Its also how spells and casters are balanced.
Spells were purposely made to not auto scale. Even as as casters got less spells. Even as as spell duration became weaker. Even as casters lost action economy and defenses.
Certain casters. As I've stated, a well built druid is a marvel to play.
Though I personally find the bard boring, it is still great to play. You always feel powerful.
Worst feeling classes to play: wizard, sorcerer, and monk.
Wizard and sorcerer because you don't have anything going for you other than spells. Every other spellcasting class has that and much more. Feels terrible when an enemy makes its save which it does 50% or more of the time if a boss.
Monk because you are a martial damage dealer who does the lowest damage. Your regular hits the lowest. Your crit the lowest. But gee, you can run really fast.
I feel like we need a speech from Herm Edwards like his "You play to win the game" speech. His speech would be, "You play a martial to do damage and kill your enemies. That's the great thing about playing a martial. You play a martial to do damage and kill your enemies. Not this run faster than anyone nonsense."
I do think Wizards and Sorcerers struggle early on compared to 3-casters. At low levels, their additional spells are few enough that it's not a significant edge over classes like Druid and Bard, who are more front-loaded with powerful focus spells and abilities. Later on, the extra spells are a large enough quantity that Wizards and Sorcerers can spam slotted magic without needing to worry too much about running out before other casters really reach that volume. Put another way, 4-casters get an extra spell slot per spell level, which means their advantage at level 1 (1 extra spell slot) is pretty low.
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Why are scrolls meh?
A minor point, but I don't see anyone else mentioning it yet.
Scrolls come with an action tax. You can't just cast from a scroll, based on your preparedness, using that scroll can eat up an additional 1 or 2 actions.
This means you potentially won't even be able to cast the spell the turn you draw the scroll.
And, once again because scrolls are consumables, its per scroll. Even barring Quick Draw, once you draw a weapon that's it drawn, you don't need to re-draw it every few swings.
Having scroll usage as part of your standard tactics eats both time and money!
Why are scrolls meh?
A minor point, but I don't see anyone else mentioning it yet.
Scrolls come with an action tax. You can't just cast from a scroll, based on your preparedness, using that scroll can eat up an additional 1 or 2 actions.
It's far from a minor point. But you can work around it.
The classical way is to draw your scrolls before combat the same way martials have their weapons at the ready. If you really see yourself using scrolls a lot (and unexpected ones) you can get an Independent Valet Familiar to reduce the action cost to 0.But honestly, I always have 2 scrolls at hand when I expect combat, and I never saw the need to draw one during combat. It's quite easy to work around.
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Another thing to consider regarding consumables is availability, i.e. depending a lot on the type of game or campaign you are currently playing. It may be one thing being able to restock after any PFS short, however in our current AoA volume we have not seen a settlement in weeks and despite gaining some levels probably will not see one for quite some time.
And the biggest quality of life change I made to casting is getting rid of Vancian Magic and moving to the 5E flexible casting system. For all the things I love about PF2's very balanced system, 5E casting hit it out of the park for fun casting. Easy to use, highly flexible, and still balanced on a per caster basis. I ported 5E casting into PF2 and I will never go back to Vancian casting. I wish that PF2 had tossed out Vancian casting, but someone in the decision making process at Paizo must like it too much.
Vancian casting is an additional stopgap to already reduced power casting. It wasn't necessary.
If you don't mind me asking, how did you homebrew removing vancian casting? I come from 5e so I'm familiar with that casting. It seems like a nice buff to prepared casters. How do you handle spontaneous casters?
My AoA game rushed the down time between book 1 and 2 and then put us on an extended exploration mission that has completely denied us the ability to craft. It has made things a lot harder, and that limitation is real for sure, but it is also something that we didn't really know we needed and the GM had to bring a new player in on the fly so downtime got rushed because the character was not with us at the end of the first book. In future periods of down time I think we will be better about advocating for down time for ourselves.
As far as not enough good low level spells to put on scrolls, or cast from lower levels, that is not an experience I have had at all. There are tons of great 1st level spells that stay useful through all levels of play. Befuddle, Command, Fear, Goblin Pox, and Grease are almost always more useful spells than cantrips against challenging opponents (equal level or higher). Then there are a ton of situational ones that can be a lot of fun for when you have good battle field control spells out. Hydraulic push, even as a first level spell is worth 2 actions when you can push someone through a wall of fire or other terrain feature. If you have a bunch of true strikes memorized at first level, you can have scrolls that have spells like hydraulic push, ray of enfeeblement, or acid arrows, and then have flexibility on whether you use true strike with a wider range of spells, cantrips (like tanglefoot at higher levels when it is a serious debuff) or items/weapons.
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If you really see yourself using scrolls a lot (and unexpected ones) you can get an Independent Valet Familiar to reduce the action cost to 0
Independent and Valet don't interact, so it would still cost an action to either Command your familiar or to Interact with an item its independently retrieved.
But yes, commanding a valet familiar to retrieve then hand you a two-action spell scroll, does mean you can reduce the action tax for scroll use down to 1.
The classical way is to draw your scrolls before combat the same way martials have their weapons at the ready. If you really see yourself using scrolls a lot (and unexpected ones) you can get an Independent Valet Familiar to reduce the action cost to 0.
But honestly, I always have 2 scrolls at hand when I expect combat, and I never saw the need to draw one during combat.
How are you casting spells with both your hands full of scrolls? Scrolls don't have the free-hand special rule of staves. If you enter combat with a scroll in each hand you can't actually use either to cast a spell.
Never mind, as Fowlj points out, I neglected the material component conversion of scrolls!
It's quite easy to work around.
But now we're employing work arounds for work arounds.
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But honestly, I always have 2 scrolls at hand when I expect combat, and I never saw the need to draw one during combat.How are you casting spells with both your hands full of scrolls? Scrolls don't have the free-hand special rule of staves. If you enter combat with a scroll in each hand you can't actually use either to cast a spell.
Somatic components can be done with your hands full:
A somatic component is a specific hand movement or gesture that generates a magical nexus. The spell gains the manipulate trait and requires you to make gestures. You can use this component while holding something in your hand, but not if you are restrained or otherwise unable to gesture freely.
So most spells work fine with two scrolls drawn. Spells with Material components wouldn't work, though.
EDIT: Actually, nevermind that last part, because you also replace material with somatic when casting from a scroll anyway.
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Independent and Valet don't interact, so it would still cost an action to either Command your familiar or to Interact with an item its independently retrieved.
Yes, they work. You should read Valet again. If you don't have 2 actions, you can still use it for one item per action.
How are you casting spells with both your hands full of scrolls? Scrolls don't have the free-hand special rule of staves. If you enter combat with a scroll in each hand you can't actually use either to cast a spell.
I'm playing a Sorcerer, so I can cast spells with my hands full. For other casters you just have to be careful about material components (but they are quite rare anyway).
But now we're employing work arounds for work arounds.
It's not much of a work around. It's just basic to start combat with your equipment at hand. Only the Familiar thing is a work around, but you don't need it much.
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Independent and Valet don't interact, so it would still cost an action to either Command your familiar or to Interact with an item its independently retrieved.Yes, they work. You should read Valet again. If you don't have 2 actions, you can still use it for one item per action.
They 100% do not work.
You can command your familiar to deliver you items more efficiently. Your familiar doesn't use its 2 actions immediately upon your command. Instead, up to twice before the end of your turn, you can have your familiar Interact to retrieve an item of light or negligible Bulk you are wearing and place it into one of your free hands. The familiar can't use this ability to retrieve stowed items. If the familiar has a different number of actions, it can retrieve one item for each action it has when commanded this way.
In an encounter, if you don't Command your familiar, it still gains 1 action each round. Typically, you still decide how it spends that action, but, the GM might determine that your familiar chooses its own tactics rather than performing your preferred action.
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You can command your familiar to deliver you items more efficiently. Your familiar doesn't use its 2 actions immediately upon your command. Instead, up to twice before the end of your turn, you can have your familiar Interact to retrieve an item of light or negligible Bulk you are wearing and place it into one of your free hands. The familiar can't use this ability to retrieve stowed items. If the familiar has a different number of actions, it can retrieve one item for each action it has when commanded this way.In an encounter, if you don't Command your familiar, it still gains 1 action each round. Typically, you still decide how it spends that action, but, the GM might determine that your familiar chooses its own tactics rather than performing your preferred action.
Valet says it works for a different number of actions. Independent is the only way to have a different number of actions. And you say they don't work together? Well, allow me to disagree on this one.
You are reading the rules too closely. At some point, RAI has to be considered. The goal of Independent is for your Familiar to act the way the player wants. It's even written in the rules.|
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Issuing a Command to a familiar is a specific action, identical to that needed to command any minion.
Independent only works on turns where you don’t command your familiar. The number of actions it gains doesn’t matter.
Velvet allows you to vary how your commands operate, but still requires to you command your familiar. The number of actions doesn’t matter.
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Issuing a Command to a familiar is a specific action, identical to that needed to command any minion.
Independent only works on turns where you don’t command your familiar. The number of actions it gains doesn’t matter.
Velvet allows you to vary how your commands operate, but still requires to you command your familiar. The number of actions doesn’t matter.
So, they wrote a line to cover Independent and Valet interaction but you tell me this line shouldn't be applied?
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So, they wrote a line to cover Independent and Valet interaction but you tell me this line shouldn't be applied?Issuing a Command to a familiar is a specific action, identical to that needed to command any minion.
Independent only works on turns where you don’t command your familiar. The number of actions it gains doesn’t matter.
Velvet allows you to vary how your commands operate, but still requires to you command your familiar. The number of actions doesn’t matter.
What line is that? I see no reference to Valet in Independent or Independent in Valet.
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Let me help you:
"If the familiar has a different number of actions, it can retrieve one item for each action it has when commanded this way."
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Let me help you:
"If the familiar has a different number of actions, it can retrieve one item for each action it has when commanded this way."
Correct. This line is meaningless if the only way to use Valet is the stand Command for your companions.
Its pretty clearly intended to work with independent...
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Let me help you:
"If the familiar has a different number of actions, it can retrieve one item for each action it has when commanded this way."
You even quoted the word commanded, the one thing you can’t do with Independent.
Heaven forbid there ever be future proofing in case familiars ever gain more actions.
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Let me help you:
"If the familiar has a different number of actions, it can retrieve one item for each action it has when commanded this way."
You even quoted the word commanded, the one thing you can’t do with Independent.
Heaven forbid there ever be future proofing in case familiars ever gain more actions.
So, they wrote a line that can be applied but must not be applied because it's only for future proofing? Are there other lines we should not apply because they are only for future proofing?
Your argument doesn't hold water. If they wanted Independent and Valet not to interact together, they would have just removed this line. They wrote it, maybe badly, but the line is here and clearly shows intention.
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Let me help you:
"If the familiar has a different number of actions, it can retrieve one item for each action it has when commanded this way."
You even quoted the word commanded, the one thing you can’t do with Independent.
Heaven forbid there ever be future proofing in case familiars ever gain more actions.
So, they wrote a line that can be applied but must not be applied because it's only for future proofing? Are there other lines we should not apply because they are only for future proofing?
Your argument doesn't hold water. If they wanted Independent and Valet not to interact together, they would have just removed this line. They wrote it, maybe badly, but the line is here and clearly shows intention.
I don't see intent: the word command has meaning for minions and Independent is all about what it can do when you do NOT command it. It seems to me the clear intent matches what Old_Man_Robot is saying.
IMO, "If the familiar has a different number of actions, it can retrieve one item for each action it has when commanded this way" is for debuffs like slow that lower the number of actions you can take so a valet familiar might get less than 2 actions when commanded. In NO way does this interact with independent the way it's written
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You are reading only want you want here.
You can’t command your familiar and gain an additional action from independent on the same turn. Valet only works when you command your familiar and explicitly only works on the actions derived from that command.
You even quote this.
Everything else you are saying is irrelevant.
You are reading only want you want here.
It's called RAI.
But maybe you are the kind of person who need a Dead condition to be sure a dead character can't act?|
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You are reading only want you want here.It's called RAI.
But maybe you are the kind of person who need a Dead condition to be sure a dead character can't act?
And how did you come about this intent that directly contravenes the wording of the two abilities?
I see no source of intent for these abilities to interact. I see explicit wording so that they don’t.
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You are reading only want you want here.It's called RAI.
But maybe you are the kind of person who need a Dead condition to be sure a dead character can't act?And how did you come about this intent that directly contravenes the wording of the two abilities?
I see no source of intent for these abilities to interact. I see explicit wording so that they don’t.
It has a specific callout for how to resolve numbers of actions other than the typical two from being commanded.
Whats more reasonable - that line is currently absolutely meaningless, or its intended to address things like independent familiars?
I dont think "meaningless text" is the most likely intent.
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But maybe you are the kind of person who need a Dead condition to be sure a dead character can't act?
It's the other way around: it's like having a dead condition and trying to say RAI lets you have actions IMO. Yours debating that a command gives you an activity when you clearly aren't commanding it which IMO is 100% against RAI. A sentence about different numbers of actions when a command is given in no way informs about intent when not commanded.
It has a specific callout for how to resolve numbers of actions other than the typical two from being commanded.
What about a familiar that has Slow? Is that more likely than it talking about commanding but it was really talking about an ability that is all about NOT commanding? I know which one seems right to me.
EDIT: instead of slowed, I should say stunned as it isn't reliant on start of turn but when actions are regained.
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And how did you come about this intent that directly contravenes the wording of the two abilities?
I see no source of intent for these abilities to interact. I see explicit wording so that they don’t.
I see an intent, it looks like I'm not the only one as you are the first one to ever object on this reading and that's not the first time I've spoken about this interaction. I don't think I'll convince you, so we'll stay on that. Maybe there'll be at some point someone bringing this issue on the rules discussion.
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I see an intent, it looks like I'm not the only one as you are the first one to ever object on this reading and that's not the first time I've spoken about this interaction.
I've seen you mention the abilities before but I never saw/noticed that you where using one with the other: If I had, I'd have said it didn't work like that. As such, you might have others that didn't read your other posts and understand you where using Independent's 'no command' ability to use the Valet ability that requires a command.
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Based on a lot of other design examples in PF2 text, I'd be inclined to say they don't combine. They're both intended as replacement effects.
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two two obviously do not stack, RAI is for unknown scenarios with no ruling, you are instead misinterpretting rules to suit your tastes and calling it RAI.
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I think this is kind of a pointless tangent for the purposes of this thread. I don't believe the two combine based on either RAW or RAI (the RAI reading seems very flimsy to me) but that really doesn't have some kind of earth-shattering impact on caster viability or scroll use. Casters will use scrolls with or without Valet + Independent - they have hands to carry things before combat starts, which is what all my casters do.
If this particular rules quibble matters to people it might be better served as a separate thread.
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Ok, I back off on this one. It's true that I didn't thought of the interaction with Stunned. It kills my main argument.
I still find this rule silly. The Familiar can't do something when he is Independent that he can do while commanded. I mean, he can use Quick Alchemy while Independent but can't lend an item.
Anyway, as Henro says, it's not very important in the case of scrolls. I never used it with my casters.
Ok, I back off on this one. It's true that I didn't thought of the interaction with Stunned. It kills my main argument.
I still find this rule silly. The Familiar can't do something when he is Independent that he can do while commanded. I mean, he can use Quick Alchemy while Independent but can't lend an item.Anyway, as Henro says, it's not very important in the case of scrolls. I never used it with my casters.
Independent only gives one action anyway, which is required to draw it. Still not enough actions to make drawing out scrolls into the caster's hand a thing of the past like we're making it out to be. The caster still has to spend an action to pull from the Familiar to their possession, the other half of the Valet command.
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If you don't mind me asking, how did you homebrew removing vancian casting? I come from 5e so I'm familiar with that casting. It seems like a nice buff to prepared casters. How do you handle spontaneous casters?And the biggest quality of life change I made to casting is getting rid of Vancian Magic and moving to the 5E flexible casting system. For all the things I love about PF2's very balanced system, 5E casting hit it out of the park for fun casting. Easy to use, highly flexible, and still balanced on a per caster basis. I ported 5E casting into PF2 and I will never go back to Vancian casting. I wish that PF2 had tossed out Vancian casting, but someone in the decision making process at Paizo must like it too much.
Vancian casting is an additional stopgap to already reduced power casting. It wasn't necessary.
I let Spontaneous Casters have the same number of spells plus their bloodline spells. It balanced the same surprisingly. A Spontaneous Caster ends with 27 spells plus their bloodline spells. So I gave them level + spellcasting stat plus bloodline spells for a total of 36 spells.
So far it has been unnecessary to reduce the number of spells as the sorcerer class features are sufficient to attract players against wizard class features.