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After thinking about wizards and playing around a little, I wanted to pitch some ideas for wizard feats to make specialists feel a bit more "specialized." I think (hope) that we'll be seeing something along these lines in Secrets of Magic, but this is a toss of my hat into the ring.
I want to preface that I don't feel confident in these feat levels, but I've enjoyed tinkering with ideas. I doubt I'll be expanding on these ideas, as it was more of a fun thought experiment for me ("What does your specialization say about your playstyle?").
That said, here we are.
Generally, I aimed to give wizards more options and tricks rather than overtly powerful buffs, but I don't think that I've succeeded every time. As well, there are some specializations that I feel like their party role might be a bit muddled or could go in numerous ways (lookin' at you, transmuters). Anyway, this was just a fun little side project for today and maybe it could spark some more ideas from folks in thread!
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I made something similar a while back, and I find a lot of these ideas fairly interesting.
Shed spell I wonder if it ought to be metamagic? I do love the idea of sacrificing a buff to gain an extra layer of protection. I think Bumbling Pawn is a homerun in terms of flavor, I might clean up that wording and use it for my own games. Staggering Spell I find very simple and effective in its implementation. Fade Away doesn't really feel like Metamagic to me - it doesn't alter the spell you cast in any way, it just gives you an auxiliary bonus effect. I suspect Vital Essence is really, really strong as it just gives you temp hit points at no cost every single turn.
Another point of interest I've been considering is the feats being locked to a school of magic. I've created feats like this previously, but after the release of the APG I'm not as sure if this is always a good path forward. Feats like Convincing Illusion allow illusionists to spec further into their school, but is also open to any deceptive wizard. I think this may allow for more customization on wizards overall, and allow them to potentially specialize in secondary or even tertiary schools.
Nicely laid out and some nice concepts. Understand I’m a PF2e naif, and not really a player of casters, so this is all just me trying to be helpful!
* Spell Duelist: I’m not a fan of making this a feat choice. But I like the concept.
* Distracting Summon: Nice! Does this need a “until the start of x next turn” to clarify?
* Unbound Fate: I think losing a spell is a pretty good price, though I could see that it might be cheap if it saves you from dying. Perhaps some other caveat or additional payment, though I’m not sure what that might be. I applaud efforts to stop this being “dipped” but does that affect the price paid and does the level pre-req actually negate the dip meaningfully? (I’m really not au fait with dedications etc so this is a completely naive question).
* Bumbling Pawn: I love this. Maybe change to “in ways that distract their allies” or “in ways that hinder their allies”. Does this also need a duration for the difficult terrain effect?
* Shed Spell: Just a thought, but the wording makes me think that maybe only once it has successfully saved its stops working, i.e. it is in effect until it works (you successfully save) once. So if you fail your save, the Abjuration spell that gave you the effect it still current, and only reaches its duration when it would normally run out or you successfully save against a spell.
* Staggering Spell/Snagging Spell: I like these a lot. Although I rail against the lack of feats characters have, I would keep these separate, or yes, one feat that improves to Snagging at a higher level.
* Fade Away: Awesome concept.
* Vital Essence: I like this a lot, though I wonder if there might be some Necromancy spells where this makes no thematic sense, leading to a permanent flavor of “I cast necro, I gain darque health”. Kinda feels like it should be a sub-class choice or something. Not quite sure what I mean here, though given how I feel about feats maybe this is just right. Totally unsure as to the math, obviously.
Another point of interest I've been considering is the feats being locked to a school of magic. I've created feats like this previously, but after the release of the APG I'm not as sure if this is always a good path forward. Feats like Convincing Illusion allow illusionists to spec further into their school, but is also open to any deceptive wizard. I think this may allow for more customization on wizards overall, and allow them to potentially specialize in secondary or even tertiary schools.
I can't express how much I agree with this. In thinking up "school specialization feats," I think I overlooked the fact that perhaps gating them off isn't exactly healthy for the game unless they're really directly building off of the granted powers of the specialization (or are granted as a part of the specialization; something I think DMW is doing in his homebrew). I would also really like the idea of the evoker who "dabbled in a bit of illusion," to help create some more fleshed out wizards.
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Another point of interest I've been considering is the feats being locked to a school of magic. I've created feats like this previously, but after the release of the APG I'm not as sure if this is always a good path forward. Feats like Convincing Illusion allow illusionists to spec further into their school, but is also open to any deceptive wizard. I think this may allow for more customization on wizards overall, and allow them to potentially specialize in secondary or even tertiary schools.
Counterpoint: If all specialization-style feats were just available to every wizard, then what is the point of a Specialist? My table already considers Universalist to be superior to any of the school specializations, so this would only make specialists more of a joke if everyone else can grab their coolest and/or most powerful feats.
I can get the idea of allowing a secondary specialization - but that could easily be done with an archetype-style option that lets you pick feats from a specific specialization at 1/2 level. If specialists can't get cool things on their own, then they'll always be inferior.
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So my question is, within the rules that we have now, how do we make specialists feel special, while still allowing wizards who don't specialize to feel like they have interesting choices. My first approach, as we've seen, is to give arcane schools feats locked by specialization. I still think this is good and would like to see it.
Maybe something like...
Fade Away
When you cast a spell of the illusion school, you gain concealment until the start of your next turn. If your arcane school is illusion, this lasts for 1 minute instead.
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The conclusion I came to when it comes to gating feats was; while a handful of school-gated feats are both fine and good, making a majority of the school-themed but not gated is preferable. This is the best of both worlds imo; allowing schooled Wizards access to some extra-spicy specialty feats while still allowing Wizards to mix and match.
I also think too many school-gated feats also risks making Wizard feat progression feel a bit too "rigid"; a Wizard might feel strongly compelled to pick up the school-gated feat every level they can. So I think a few school-gated feats can be a fantastic reward for specialization, where many can actually hurt the class.
Incidentally; this thread might be of relevance to the conversation since it's basically a different execution of the same idea (if you'll forgive the self-plug Ruzza). If nothing else, it could serve as a springboard for further feat ideas.