...This is core of anyone defending the wizard. They take a situation where a wizard ability might appear to be better for that situation, then throw up some kind of defense.The problem is that this argument is like Schrödingers cat, i.e. it is both wrong and right at the same time.
If I am not entirely mistaken the prepared Wizard is supposed to be (at least somewhat) better than other casters and the unprepared Wizard is supposed to be (at least somewhat) worse than other casters by game design.
So by design the Wizard is very dependent on scouting (magical or mundane), on GM foreshadowing and/or his ability to make the correct informed decisions while being allowed sufficient preparation time. The Wizard is a lot better when he is the active, planning part than he is when he has to deal with rapid changes.
It is therefore not astonishing that many a Wizard is faring badly if he is constantly thrown into entirely surprising situations, something however many GM's and AP's like to do.
None of the other classes need that preparation. Their abilities just work.
I've launched tempest surge that did 126 points of damage with 14 persistent electricity and Clumsy 2 rider. So the lack of a hit roll or saving throw isn't necessarily a plus with force bolt. In PF2 getting a critical failure or critical success with spells can substantially boost the damage.
What do you do when 9 out of 10 classes have abilities that just work, then you have that one class that works only equally well if you spend slightly extra time letting them prepare? If the wizard worked substantially better with preparation, then it might be worth it. But they don't. And then they have to worry about whether they have the even that right spell in their spellbook to change out.
Wizard went from a boss king in PF1 to last kid picked on the team in PF2. Pretty disappointing for those that like wizard players.
The alchemist is such a class oddity. We had a goblin alchemist in our group and he rarely felt useless. There were times when he felt more useful than other times, but never flat-out useless.
Mistform and Cheetah elixir were loved by the party.
He seemed to have a bomb for everything he could make on the fly.
Splash damage really adds up when the bombs are flying.
Alchemist very did the most single target or even AOE damage. But his damage just keep adding up like water dripping through several leaks. He would have splash damage spreading against several targets. Then he would have persistent damage going on a few targets. Then he would be direct hammering with bombs. Everyone would be moving faster with Cheetah Elixir. Lots of hits would miss with Mistform Elixir.
It's like the Alchemist was never that guy you went, "Whoa" for doing incredible damage like an AOE spell with critical failures or a big bow hit from the precision ranger or a big blow from the barbarian, but also no one in the party considered him useless or weak. They knew his damage and effect was everywhere on the battlefield from the building splash damage, the burning creatures, and the missed hits and even the occasional heals when he picked up healing bombs.
Alchemist is one of those odd classes that doesn't really do big spectacular hits or effects, but had this additive effect that at the end of the fights you go, "Damn, this dude did a ton of damage and we love mistform."
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Considering certain other design decisions (e.g., Oracle curses being bound to mysteries so you can't just choose Haunted, even though curses are designed to be more balanced against each other now), I think you hit the nail on the head. Going through all the discussion, and comparing with PF2's balancing practices in general, suggests that the wizard was balanced under the assumption it would be minmaxed to heaven, to make sure that the perfect wizard could never be as game-shattering as a PF1 wizard could, with the unintentional(?) side effect that the class is behind the curve if not minmaxed to that same extent by the player.
I will say on oracle curses, they'd still have the pf1e problem if you could choose your benefit/curse mix. Lots of people would probably end up choosing Cosmos or Tempest curse, and some of the mysteries just flat out wouldn't work correctly without the curse (Life Major for instance, Ancestors in general, etc.)
As this has derived into a "Wizards suck" post I want to put one more nail in the coffin.
The turning point for me was comparing Wizard to Arcane sorcerers with the limited spellbook. You still get to pick the correct spell that saves the day but get spontaneous casting and actual Focus Spells and class feats. Same amount of spell slots too.
Still, I can see a future when Wizards get almost scary with new content released so if I have to choose I prefer them like this and not like in 1e.
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Really, the problem with the wizard seems to be that it's balanced around the perfect player who makes perfect preparations
I wouldn't say 'perfect' per se, but the Wizard is very clearly balanced around being a specific sort of generalist. If you want to specialize or focus around a certain concept or theme you're harming yourself and the game doesn't even communicate that very well (one of your first choices is specializing in a certain school after all, it just doesn't amount to much).
A wizard when played correctly is pretty good, but imo it's an inherent problem that there is such an obviously 'correct' playstyle in the first place. In the same way that it'd be problematic if Fighters only did good damage if they were using greatswords and every other fighter build was underwhelming.
The alchemist is in a similar boat, where a correctly played support dabbler is pretty efficient, while some other builds just stand there missing a lot, doing terrible gdamage and/or struggling with action economy problems
The forums tend to have this really tribal "I've got mine and I hope you don't get yours" mentality about the whole thing that makes it kinda frustrating to talk about though.
Considering certain other design decisions (e.g., Oracle curses being bound to mysteries so you can't just choose Haunted, even though curses are designed to be more balanced against each other now), I think you hit the nail on the head. Going through all the discussion, and comparing with PF2's balancing practices in general, suggests that the wizard was balanced under the assumption it would be minmaxed to heaven, to make sure that the perfect wizard could never be as game-shattering as a PF1 wizard could, with the unintentional(?) side effect that the class is behind the curve if not minmaxed to that same extent by the player.I will say on oracle curses, they'd still have the pf1e problem if you could choose your benefit/curse mix. Lots of people would probably end up choosing Cosmos or Tempest curse, and some of the mysteries just flat out wouldn't work correctly without the curse (Life Major for instance, Ancestors in general, etc.)
That's a fair point. While I do dislike curses being tied to mysteries and consider it to have been a knee-jerk reaction to the blatant minmaxing that went on in PF1, mainly because it removes some of the flexibility that made the class so fun, weaving them together so strictly does let them put additional mystery benefits in certain curses (like Ancestors and Life, where the curses are kinda blatant about having extra mystery benefits blended in). And while it's definitely true that some of the curses are less problematic than others, it's far less swingy than PF1's curses, and would likely be even closer if they'd been designed with choosing separately in mind.
Honestly, I'd have loved it if they'd given each mystery a "curse benefit" entry, listing any beneficial effects that come into effect while your minor/moderate/major curse is active. This would've allowed the curse entries themselves to solely list the negative effect, rather than intertwining curse benefits into the curse itself to render them inseparable. Would've required some rewrites (e.g., Life Major would probably need to activate a healing/damaging spell with the relevant level and trait (as determined by your mystery) instead of a heightened heal specifically, which would be doable but significantly more complex), though, but I remember a few people giving good suggestions and/or thematic reasonings for it in the playtest thread. But instead, we got mysteries tied to curses in a way that makes it near-impossible to separate them, removing the possibility of making, e.g.:
- An oracle that has the knowledge of their ancestor
Excalibur from Soul Eaterat their fingertips, if they can listen long enough (Lore mystery/Ancestors curse).
- A font for primordial fire of life, that immolates themself from the inside out by using it to fuel healing powers beyond what their body can withstand (Life/Flames).
- A literal hotheaded airhead of a goblin (Flames/Cosmos).
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I can see why they did it, and it's sound logic.
But no matter how sound the logic is, it still comes across as if they tied curses to specific mysteries as a kneejerk reaction to people almost always taking one of the "obvious best choice" curses, and then wove additional mystery benefits into the curses to make it that much harder to separate them. Possibly as a crutch because they didn't think they'd be able to make them equal, possibly because they figured the choice would be "locked down" either way (whether by optimisation or by their design), possibly to make sure each curse saw use, possibly because they felt it was a freedom they weren't willing to give, who knows why, but the point is that they brought things closer into alignment (if not wholly aligned), but then chose to lock 'em down on top of that. There are a couple other small things that had a similar feel to them (can't remember what off the top of my head, alas, but I recall noting it while reading through game content), being punished in PF2 for omnipresence/overbearingness/OP-ness/etc. in PF1, so it does, at least in my eyes, give credence to the idea that the wizard was subject to similar treatment.
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But no matter how sound the logic is, it still comes across as if they tied curses to specific mysteries as a kneejerk reaction to people almost always taking one of the "obvious best choice" curses, and then wove additional mystery benefits into the curses to make it that much harder to separate them
You're phrasing it very negatively with things like 'kneejerk' and 'crutch', but looking at the inherent problems PF1 curses had and redesigning them... doesn't seem like a bad thing to me.
Even outside the issue of minmax, PF1 curses had a tendency to feel very tacked on. There were this thing stapled to the class that largely didn't interact with the rest of your kit and most builds would generally downplay or ignore it entirely.
PF2 curses on the other hand a lot more fundamentally integral to the character and end up interplaying heavily with the rest of your concept. You can argue the balance isn't perfect, because it definitely isn't, but the ones that do work work way better than their PF1 counterparts.
The loss of flexibility can be a drag, but they're overall a lot more mechanically sound and feel a lot more like they actually belong in the class.
Really, the problem with the wizard seems to be that it's balanced around the perfect player who makes perfect preparationsI wouldn't say 'perfect' per se, but the Wizard is very clearly balanced around being a specific sort of generalist. If you want to specialize or focus around a certain concept or theme you're harming yourself and the game doesn't even communicate that very well (one of your first choices is specializing in a certain school after all, it just doesn't amount to much).
A wizard when played correctly is pretty good, but imo it's an inherent problem that there is such an obviously 'correct' playstyle in the first place. In the same way that it'd be problematic if Fighters only did good damage if they were using greatswords and every other fighter build was underwhelming.
The alchemist is in a similar boat, where a correctly played support dabbler is pretty efficient, while some other builds just stand there missing a lot, doing terrible gdamage and/or struggling with action economy problems
The forums tend to have this really tribal "I've got mine and I hope you don't get yours" mentality about the whole thing that makes it kinda frustrating to talk about though.
Hmm... that makes a lot of sense, actually. Considering that magic essentially runs on a different system than martial combat (by dint of usually having an unofficial two-action economy instead of the official three-action; most casters having situational options that are provably better than other options for any given situation, compared to most martial playstyles being relatively interchangeable to make the deciding factor "fun" instead of "optimisation"; and a large number of spells having one degree of failure vs. three degrees of success, compared to most other things having two degrees of failure vs. two degrees of success), it seems to be pretty hard for most players to wrap their heads around, at least initially. (Or if not hard, to at least require mental gymnastics or lateral thinking to get out of the martial mindset.) So, I can see people having trouble realising that they need to play certain casters (and the alchemist) a specific way if they want to succeed, since it stands at odds with most of the other player-facing, character-building content. And combine that with the one-fail-vs.-three-success system that most spells employ being forced into the standard labels (so that low successes are called failures), and it can make the casters, and wizards in particular, feel really weak.
(And as for the emphasis on the word "perfect" there, what I was looking at is that if they want to avoid the issue with PF1 wizards being able to consistently make significantly/notoriously better plays than the devs intended, then they have to balance around a wizard that always makes optimal choices. Which in turn would require a player that knows every in and out of their toolkit, knows every AP well enough to know which part of the toolkit is best for each situation that'll come up, knows the GM-created content well enough to do the same, and so on, while also being familiar with every possible interaction between their toolkit and the other players... which is easiest to convey by assuming a theoretical player that's perfect in every relevant aspect. ;P)
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This just hasn't been my experience at all, like there's all this hand wringing about designers falibility, and "I got mine mentalities" but the class seems fairly powerful from what I've seen as a GM and now played as a player. The extra slots don't seem worse at all, and my focus spell seems fine too (force bolt, in my case.) I haven't even gotten to use my spell blending yet and I already feel like I can go harder than the other members of my party.
But no matter how sound the logic is, it still comes across as if they tied curses to specific mysteries as a kneejerk reaction to people almost always taking one of the "obvious best choice" curses, and then wove additional mystery benefits into the curses to make it that much harder to separate themYou're phrasing it very negatively with things like 'kneejerk' and 'crutch', but looking at the inherent problems PF1 curses had and redesigning them... doesn't seem like a bad thing to me.
Even outside the issue of minmax, PF1 curses had a tendency to feel very tacked on. There were this thing stapled to the class that largely didn't interact with the rest of your kit and most builds would generally downplay or ignore it entirely.
PF2 curses on the other hand a lot more fundamentally integral to the character and end up interplaying heavily with the rest of your concept. You can argue the balance isn't perfect, because it definitely isn't, but the ones that do work work way better than their PF1 counterparts.
The loss of flexibility can be a drag, but they're overall a lot more mechanically sound and feel a lot more like they actually belong in the class.
Somewhat negative, yes. It's something I understand, but dislike. I feel that they could've been made thematically appropriate without being inseparably tied to your mystery, such as by keying off your mystery's properties or traits, yet still flexible enough to fit more than one mystery. This would've been significantly more difficult, however, and necessitated much more testing (probably at least 3-4 rounds of playtesting), hence seeing tying them together as a crutch to get the class working quickly & smoothly. But apart from that, with how much more restrictive it feels, reading the playtest document & thread gave the impression that they'd latched onto the idea of intertwining each mystery with a specific curse and hadn't considered allowing us the opportunity to test mix-and-match, hence "kneejerk".
I see where you're coming from, and agree that the curses are sound and fit well. I'm also well aware that PF2's balancing necessitates more restrictive design than PF1, and that this isn't the only place where things have been locked down with less freedom. Nonetheless, it's something I really would've liked to at least test during the playtest, even if it ended up not making the cut in the end. Maybe they could've, e.g., given each curse a list of domains like they did with curses, and only allowed a given mystery to be paired with a curse that shared at least one domain with it?
This just hasn't been my experience at all, like there's all this hand wringing about designers falibility, and "I got mine mentalities" but the class seems fairly powerful from what I've seen as a GM and now played as a player. The extra slots don't seem worse at all, and my focus spell seems fine too (force bolt, in my case.) I haven't even gotten to use my spell blending yet and I already feel like I can go harder than the other members of my party.
How are you going harder than your party? I don't even know what that means.
You want to track damage for a while telling us your party composition and let us know how that goes? That's what I did to measure empirically the effect of the wizard versus the effect of other classes on the game.
It's not real hard to do. You use an excel sheet. Track the damage done. Have a little notes column when the bard song or a strong debuff like Synesthesia had an effect. Log the damage for different focus spells like Tempest Surge or Wild Shape. You'll see how it goes.
For example, wild shape is like having a max level shapechange spell slot every battle. If wild shape proves useful in 3 battles, then the druid has the equivalent of three max level polymorph spells per day usable once or more per combat.
So the druid goes from 3 lvl 8 slots to 3 lvl 8 slots and 3 maximum lvl dragon form or 8th lvl sudden bolt equivalent spells.
That is how I go about measuring focus capabilities. What they are able to do versus a max level spell slot of a comparable spell and if they actually proved useful during a particular combat.
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This just hasn't been my experience at all, like there's all this hand wringing about designers falibility, and "I got mine mentalities" but the class seems fairly powerful from what I've seen as a GM and now played as a player. The extra slots don't seem worse at all, and my focus spell seems fine too (force bolt, in my case.) I haven't even gotten to use my spell blending yet and I already feel like I can go harder than the other members of my party.How are you going harder than your party? I don't even know what that means.
You want to track damage for a while telling us your party composition and let us know how that goes? That's what I did to measure empirically the effect of the wizard versus the effect of other classes on the game.
It's not real hard to do. You use an excel sheet. Track the damage done. Have a little notes column when the bard song or a strong debuff like Synesthesia had an effect. Log the damage for different focus spells like Tempest Surge or Wild Shape. You'll see how it goes.
For example, wild shape is like having a max level shapechange spell slot every battle. If wild shape proves useful in 3 battles, then the druid has the equivalent of three max level polymorph spells per day usable once or more per combat.
So the druid goes from 3 lvl 8 slots to 3 lvl 8 slots and 3 maximum lvl dragon form or 8th lvl sudden bolt equivalent spells.
That is how I go about measuring focus capabilities. What they are able to do versus a max level spell slot of a comparable spell and if they actually proved useful during a particular combat.
That strikes me as having a lot of room for error and tactical variance-- what if the Bard is just a better player, or gets better rolls than you?
Is the druid's wildshape actually 'useful' or is it just enabling their melee playstyle, how do you even compare something like that to what you do given that you aren't dependent on your focus spells in the same way?
Do you assign the damage of a frightened effect to the person who frightened or the person whose spell leveraged it?
Going harder means that I can cast more spells that are relevant in the same number of encounters, they have to conserve or they run out of gas, I don't really seem to have to as much.
I should hope the Druid and Bard get to do cool things with their class features, they don't have to be garbage at what they do for me to be good at what I do.
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Tbh some of the most vocal posters here don’t even play the game, so their feedback is solely from armchair theorycrafting.
This is a pretty baseless claim. It's a handy way to ignore people, but you can't actually say that with any certainty.
I do however agree that Wizards aren’t the flat out superior choice like they were in PF1.
Your post is pretty toxic.
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I think the Wizard has a clear design goal which they succeeded at and that's having more spell slots and do more unique things with those spell slots than anyone else.I would 100% agree... if the arcane sorcerer didn’t exist. It simply encroaches too much and too heavily on the Wizard, without the limitations of the Wizard, to say that Paizo succeeded at making the Wizard have its own “shtick”.
Your post got me to explore some Sorcerer builds and while the feat selection, as well as proficiencies (that one hurts particularly), definitely is much better nothing in the sorcerer kit comes close to the wildness that is the Wizard's Theses imo.
Like if you take Staff Nexus dedicate into a divine or primal spell list to pick up heal and can start using a staff of healing with 20 or more charges. Or Spell Blending with/or making, additional multiclass slots.
Also while it doesn't appeal to me much there's the bonded object spell chaining.
I find short of the Oracle with its curse mechanic that other spellcasters are a bit more vanilla compared.
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The thing that makes blasting so good is not feats like Dangerous Sorcery or damage bonuses or any feats, it's the double damage on critical fails. When you unleash a high level fireball or chain lightning on a group of Lvl-1 to 3 monsters and they critically fail their saves, the damage gets nutty. When you're hitting a higher number of lower level creatures, you see a lot of fails with often a critical fail or two. So you see some serious damage.
Quoted for truth.
With most SoS spells greatly nerfed or neutered, AoE is the new SoS.
My characters were never afraid of AoE in PF1. Worst thing that could happen was you took full damage. It was all about those SoS spells and effects, usually requiring strong Fort or Will saves.
In PF2 however and the 4 stages of success usually Ref saves are quite brutal as double damage on a crit fail tends to down you very quickly. Can't even tell when I last felt threatened by a Fort or Will save effect.
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I think the Wizard has a clear design goal which they succeeded at and that's having more spell slots and do more unique things with those spell slots than anyone else.I would 100% agree... if the arcane sorcerer didn’t exist. It simply encroaches too much and too heavily on the Wizard, without the limitations of the Wizard, to say that Paizo succeeded at making the Wizard have its own “shtick”.Your post got me to explore some Sorcerer builds and while the feat selection, as well as proficiencies (that one hurts particularly), definitely is much better nothing in the sorcerer kit comes close to the wildness that is the Wizard's Theses imo.
Like if you take Staff Nexus dedicate into a divine or primal spell list to pick up heal and can start using a staff of healing with 20 or more charges. Or Spell Blending with/or making, additional multiclass slots.
Also while it doesn't appeal to me much there's the bonded object spell chaining.I find short of the Oracle with its curse mechanic that other spellcasters are a bit more vanilla compared.
An Arcane Sorcerer can just take Crossblooded evolution to pick up Heal and make it a signature spell. They can also grab a staff of healing to get similar amounts of heals without a multiclass dedication and more versatility in what level they cast them, while also having a spellbook they can swap in spells from.
If you want to play an Arcane caster that can heal then Sorcerer is by far the better option.
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Your post got me to explore some Sorcerer builds and while the feat selection, as well as proficiencies (that one hurts particularly), definitely is much better nothing in the sorcerer kit comes close to the wildness that is the Wizard's Theses imo.
Like if you take Staff Nexus dedicate into a divine or primal spell list to pick up heal and can start using a staff of healing with 20 or more charges. Or Spell Blending with/or making, additional multiclass slots.
Also while it doesn't appeal to me much there's the bonded object spell chaining.I find short of the Oracle with its curse mechanic that other spellcasters are a bit more vanilla compared.
An Arcane Sorcerer can just take Crossblooded evolution to pick up Heal and make it a signature spell. They can also grab a staff of healing to get similar amounts of heals without a multiclass dedication and more versatility in what level they cast them, while also having a spellbook they can swap in spells from.
If you want to play an Arcane caster that can heal then Sorcerer is by far the better option.
Probably since a sorcerer can heigthen the spell further than a wizard can but the staff nexus wizard has to use less slots to heal many more times (for less healing).
And it's not just heal get a staff of divination and you eventually can have 20+ casts of true strike.
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Your post got me to explore some Sorcerer builds and while the feat selection, as well as proficiencies (that one hurts particularly), definitely is much better nothing in the sorcerer kit comes close to the wildness that is the Wizard's Theses imo.
Like if you take Staff Nexus dedicate into a divine or primal spell list to pick up heal and can start using a staff of healing with 20 or more charges. Or Spell Blending with/or making, additional multiclass slots.
Also while it doesn't appeal to me much there's the bonded object spell chaining.I find short of the Oracle with its curse mechanic that other spellcasters are a bit more vanilla compared.
An Arcane Sorcerer can just take Crossblooded evolution to pick up Heal and make it a signature spell. They can also grab a staff of healing to get similar amounts of heals without a multiclass dedication and more versatility in what level they cast them, while also having a spellbook they can swap in spells from.
If you want to play an Arcane caster that can heal then Sorcerer is by far the better option.
I don't see how Staff Nexus gives wizards access to heal. To Cast a spell from a staff, you need it on your spell list. Heal is divine and primal only.
Now it could work if you multiclass into into a primal or divine spellcaster class...but then you could use any staff with heal on it, not just Staff Nexus.
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I think the Wizard has a clear design goal which they succeeded at and that's having more spell slots and do more unique things with those spell slots than anyone else.I would 100% agree... if the arcane sorcerer didn’t exist. It simply encroaches too much and too heavily on the Wizard, without the limitations of the Wizard, to say that Paizo succeeded at making the Wizard have its own “shtick”.Your post got me to explore some Sorcerer builds and while the feat selection, as well as proficiencies (that one hurts particularly), definitely is much better nothing in the sorcerer kit comes close to the wildness that is the Wizard's Theses imo.
Like if you take Staff Nexus dedicate into a divine or primal spell list to pick up heal and can start using a staff of healing with 20 or more charges. Or Spell Blending with/or making, additional multiclass slots.
Also while it doesn't appeal to me much there's the bonded object spell chaining.
I find short of the Oracle with its curse mechanic that other spellcasters are a bit more vanilla compared.
An Arcane Sorcerer can just take Crossblooded evolution to pick up Heal and make it a signature spell. They can also grab a staff of healing to get similar amounts of heals without a multiclass dedication and more versatility in what level they cast them, while also having a spellbook they can swap in spells from.
If you want to play an Arcane caster that can heal then Sorcerer is by far the better option.
The issue with taking Crossblooded Evolution as a sorcerer to get heal is that it doesn't come online until 8th-level, whereas a wizard with staff nexus and a divine caster Dedication can start making it work as early as level 4 (when they can get divine spell slots to cast heal and/or a staff of healing, which is a level 4 item).
Depending on the type of game you're playing (starting from level 1 and ending at 6, or starting at level 10, say), that can make a BIG difference in which you may want to play as!
Furthermore, it is debatable whether Crossblooded Evolution even adds the spell to your class spell list for the purposes of being able to use it with a staff. Expect table variation on that point.
... the Wizard is very clearly balanced around being a specific sort of generalist. If you want to specialize or focus around a certain concept or theme you're harming yourself and the game doesn't even communicate that very well (one of your first choices is specializing in a certain school after all, it just doesn't amount to much).
A wizard when played correctly is pretty good, but imo it's an inherent problem that there is such an obviously 'correct' playstyle in the first place. In the same way that it'd be problematic if Fighters only did good damage if they were using greatswords and every other fighter build was underwhelming...
I agree that the wizard class doesn’t do well around a “specialization” as narrow as casting only one spell memorized at every level, but that would seriously be stepping on the toes of the sorcerer. The wizards school focus does feels shallow at low levels, but it starts to feel much more character defining at higher levels when 25% of your total spells is more than 1 or 2 spells. But themes that are broader than casting one specific spell are definitely possible. For example, information gatherer is a pretty fun wizard build. Battle field controller is a fun wizard build that really likes its access to lots of spell slots. Exploiter of enemy weakness is a pretty fun evoked or universalist build as well.
We have endlessly discussed how the wizard still needs more support for certain schools and how some feats fall flat, like form retention, so there is still room for improvement, but that is the kind of support that we can hope to see in secrets of magic for sure.
I do think there is a decently large sub set of players that want a system for magic that just parallels the abilities of martial characters, with cantrips functionally much more similar weapon strikes, with all classes having slightly more powerful abilities that can only be used about once an encounter or day. There is already systems like that if you really want casters and martials to interact with the game in exactly the same way
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Tbh some of the most vocal posters here don’t even play the game, so their feedback is solely from armchair theorycrafting.This is a pretty baseless claim. It's a handy way to ignore people, but you can't actually say that with any certainty.
I do however agree that Wizards aren’t the flat out superior choice like they were in PF1.Your post is pretty toxic.
With respect, this is actually known. To give some specific examples, Temperans has literally never played a game of PF2, and Samurai crafted 90+% of his homebrew before ever playing the game, and has only ever played his homebrew
Sherlock doesn't play, but I don't quite recall if he has actually ever played a game or not.
Feel free to ask them directly to confirm.
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Like if you take Staff Nexus dedicate into a divine or primal spell list to pick up heal and can start using a staff of healing with 20 or more charges.
This is certainly an interesting and niche trick, one I'm not 100% sure will hang around forever. It seems like when they wrote the below
You can prepare a staff only if you have at least one of the staff's spells on your spell list.
They did not consider how that would interact with their design of Staff Nexus.
You can Craft your makeshift staff into any other type of staff for the new staff's usual cost, adding the two spells you originally chose to the staff you Craft.
So yes, while there is no rules regarding how one "crafts" the upgraded staff to stop you from making a staff of healing, and, because of the added spells to the staff, you do indeed meet the preparation requirement, this seems like an oversight rather than an intended interaction.
Good catch though! Doubt we'll see an errata for it soon!
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For example, information gatherer is a pretty fun wizard build. Battle field controller is a fun wizard build that really likes its access to lots of spell slots. Exploiter of enemy weakness is a pretty fun evoked or universalist build as well.
My problem is that the Wizard is neither specifically nor exclusively good at any of those things.
The PF2 Wizard is not even actually a knowledge class. They have the least claim to that title of any Int based class by dint of having fewer trained skills than any other class and no additional advancement. I can't even recall a single Wizard fear that helps with Recall Knowledge checks.
The wizard is not the master of all knowledge, but they should be the best at arcane knowledge by a vast margin. Whether or not the GM lets that be significant is a highly dependent variable, and if anything has cast a bit of a dampener on the wizard it is that so much magic that used to be just arcane has been shunted in to occult magic and now it seems like nearly half of adventures have the powerful magic that needs to be researched occult instead of arcane. It is probably just a result of the newness of the new traditions and I imagine we are headed towards seeing some powerful arcane stuff again in the very near future.
It “information gatherer” is a lot more than knowledge recaller. I agree that occult has better divination spells now, but low level summons, pest form, invisibility, etc, all play into that too and both occultists and primal casters have limited access to all the types of spells that help work together to gather more information about a future situation or encounter.
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The wizard is not the master of all knowledge, but they should be the best at arcane knowledge by a vast margin
How? There is no mechanical implementation / cash out of this idea. Nothing stopping an Investigator or Rogue from just being straight better at it than they are.
Whether or not the GM lets that be significant is a highly dependent variable
Unless your GM bans others from taking Arcana / stops others from playing knowledge classes, then your GM has nothing to with it.
It “information gatherer” is a lot more than knowledge recaller. I agree that occult has better divination spells now, but low level summons, pest form, invisibility, etc, all play into that too and both occultists and primal casters have limited access to all the types of spells that help work together to gather more information about a future situation or encounter.
From 15th level the Wizard has effectively infinite out-of-combat invisibility. This is the only trick that they are expressly good at.
Remember: neither specifically nor exclusively good.
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Tbh some of the most vocal posters here don’t even play the game, so their feedback is solely from armchair theorycrafting.This is a pretty baseless claim. It's a handy way to ignore people, but you can't actually say that with any certainty.
I do however agree that Wizards aren’t the flat out superior choice like they were in PF1.Your post is pretty toxic.With respect, this is actually known. To give some specific examples, Temperans has literally never played a game of PF2, and Samurai crafted 90+% of his homebrew before ever playing the game, and has only ever played his homebrew
Sherlock doesn't play, but I don't quite recall if he has actually ever played a game or not.
Feel free to ask them directly to confirm.
Yeah I never played, I am sorry that I am bad at find groups and don't feel like actively looking.
Also there are a lot more than just me and Samurai. Deriven has tons of experience with the game, and is one of the people with the most high level experience. Not to mention all the other people who also played a lot and have found similar things.
I can only see this as an ad hominem.
it can't be an ad hominem, its related, an ad hominem would be some unrelated aspect of your character to the argument, having no experience with the thing you're discussing is most definitely related.
You know, there's a person on enworld in a similar boat I've offered to run for, they're hesitant about online play, but I wouldn't mind running a newbie one shot I have set up for like, you and them and whoever else. I have one ready to go on foundry already.
Like if you take Staff Nexus dedicate into a divine or primal spell list to pick up heal and can start using a staff of healing with 20 or more charges.This is certainly an interesting and niche trick, one I'm not 100% sure will hang around forever. It seems like when they wrote the below
You can prepare a staff only if you have at least one of the staff's spells on your spell list.They did not consider how that would interact with their design of Staff Nexus.
You can Craft your makeshift staff into any other type of staff for the new staff's usual cost, adding the two spells you originally chose to the staff you Craft.So yes, while there is no rules regarding how one "crafts" the upgraded staff to stop you from making a staff of healing, and, because of the added spells to the staff, you do indeed meet the preparation requirement, this seems like an oversight rather than an intended interaction.
Good catch though! Doubt we'll see an errata for it soon!
But there's way less heals than I said there'd be. Even stuffing a staff of healing full of charges from high level slots anything lvl 4+ is gonna consume the charges very quickly.
It works quite a bit better with low level spells that don't heighten like true strike that are still potent.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You know, there's a person on enworld in a similar boat I've offered to run for, they're hesitant about online play, but I wouldn't mind running a newbie one shot I have set up for like, you and them and whoever else. I have one ready to go on foundry already.
Oooh! Oooh! /raises hand
Like if you take Staff Nexus dedicate into a divine or primal spell list to pick up heal and can start using a staff of healing with 20 or more charges.This is certainly an interesting and niche trick, one I'm not 100% sure will hang around forever. It seems like when they wrote the belowYou can prepare a staff only if you have at least one of the staff's spells on your spell list.They did not consider how that would interact with their design of Staff Nexus.You can Craft your makeshift staff into any other type of staff for the new staff's usual cost, adding the two spells you originally chose to the staff you Craft.So yes, while there is no rules regarding how one "crafts" the upgraded staff to stop you from making a staff of healing, and, because of the added spells to the staff, you do indeed meet the preparation requirement, this seems like an oversight rather than an intended interaction.
Good catch though! Doubt we'll see an errata for it soon!
Are you indicating you could put an arcane spell into your nexus staff, turn that nexus staff into a staff of healing, and then cast heal from it?
Because that's not true at all. Any spell you try to cast from the staff charges must be on your spell list.
A staff gains charges when someone prepares it for the day. The person who prepared a staff can expend the charges to cast spells from it. You can Cast a Spell from a staff only if you have that spell on your spell list, are able to cast spells of the appropriate level, and expend a number of charges from the staff equal to the spell’s level. Casting a Spell from a staff requires holding the staff (typically in one hand) and Activating the staff by Casting the Spell, which takes the spell’s normal number of actions.
Your trick lets you prepare the staff, yes, but you'd only be able to use those charges to cast those spells that also happen to fall on your arcane list.
At a minimum, this means you'd need a spellcasting Dedication feat to be able to cast spells that only exist on non-arcane lists.
Oooh! Oooh! /raises hand
You know, there's a person on enworld in a similar boat I've offered to run for, they're hesitant about online play, but I wouldn't mind running a newbie one shot I have set up for like, you and them and whoever else. I have one ready to go on foundry already.
heheh, I'll send a PM to keep track of you.
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While some posters on this forum do not regularly play PF2, disputing their arguments for that specific reason is an ad hominem. For example, if you disagree with what Temperans says about Oracle Curses or Knowledge Classes, saying "You don't play PF2, therefore your argument is invalid." is an ad hominem, because you're ignoring what they say in favor of the person saying it.
Another problem is that while an ad hominem may be true of one person, it is not true of everyone who shares that individual's opinion.
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While some posters on this forum do not regularly play PF2, disputing their arguments for that specific reason is an ad hominem. For example, if you disagree with what Temperans says about Oracle Curses or Knowledge Classes, saying "You don't play PF2, therefore your argument is invalid." is an ad hominem, because you're ignoring what they say in favor of the person saying it.
Another problem is that while an ad hominem may be true of one person, it is not true of everyone who shares that individual's opinion.
No, because there's a bridge there, no one is disputing their arguments simply because they don't play PF2e in some arbitrary sense, their argument is being disputed because they can't have experienced the situation of balance, that exists in a game they haven't played.
Not having experienced something is a good reason to be considered less qualified to speak about it, when it comes to something like the feel and balance of a game. This is why playtesting and theory-crafting are two very different things.
There's a causative relationship there where the experience they're attempting to speak to without having play tested it is one that is hard to judge without that first hand experience, the game may very well work differently than they expect, an unexpected combination of other elements may mean that the unspoken assumptions they were employing don't apply. Hell, that's a problem with some people who have played it, but are carrying too much baggage from other systems and have maladapted expectations.
In other words, there is a reasonable and obvious logical relationship between their lack of play experience and the views they hold. That relationship renders it not ad hominem to suggest that their view may not hold as much water as that of someone who has played. They're not wrong because they haven't played it, they're wrong because of various factors they *don't understand because they haven't played it.*
The people who have played the game and feel this way are a separate matter, each person's viewpoint and arguments are separate-- a good argument, or an argument bad for other reasons, doesn't shield an argument that isn't good in its own right.
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While some posters on this forum do not regularly play PF2, disputing their arguments for that specific reason is an ad hominem. For example, if you disagree with what Temperans says about Oracle Curses or Knowledge Classes, saying "You don't play PF2, therefore your argument is invalid." is an ad hominem, because you're ignoring what they say in favor of the person saying it.
Another problem is that while an ad hominem may be true of one person, it is not true of everyone who shares that individual's opinion.
No, because there's a bridge there, no one is disputing their arguments simply because they don't play PF2e in some arbitrary sense, their argument is being disputed because they can't have experienced the situation of balance, that exists in a game they haven't played.
Not having experienced something is a good reason to be considered less qualified to speak about it, when it comes to something like the feel and balance of a game. This is why playtesting and theory-crafting are two very different things.
There's a causative relationship there where the experience they're attempting to speak to without having play tested it is one that is hard to judge without that first hand experience, the game may very well work differently than they expect, an unexpected combination of other elements may mean that the unspoken assumptions they were employing don't apply. Hell, that's a problem with some people who have played it, but are carrying too much baggage from other systems and have maladapted expectations.
In other words, there is a reasonable and obvious logical relationship between their lack of play experience and the views they hold. That relationship renders it not ad hominem to suggest that their view may not hold as much water as that of someone who has played. They're not wrong because they haven't played it, they're wrong because of various factors they *don't understand because they haven't played it.*
The people who have played the...
Okay, so do you actually disagree with Temperan's statement that wizards don't have any special advantages when it comes to Recall Knowledge, and are worse at it than investigators and some other classes? Or when they said the occult list has plenty of divination spells? What are they, specifically, wrong about?
These statements are both true IME (I've played 8 levels of wizard before changing classes, since it matters so much), so I don't see how Temperan's lack of actual play experience matters. It’s obvious just by reading the book.
Dunking on other forum posters who can't play frequently is gatekeeping, an ad hominem, and as Old_Man_Robot said, toxic.
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...While some posters on this forum do not regularly play PF2, disputing their arguments for that specific reason is an ad hominem. For example, if you disagree with what Temperans says about Oracle Curses or Knowledge Classes, saying "You don't play PF2, therefore your argument is invalid." is an ad hominem, because you're ignoring what they say in favor of the person saying it.
Another problem is that while an ad hominem may be true of one person, it is not true of everyone who shares that individual's opinion.
No, because there's a bridge there, no one is disputing their arguments simply because they don't play PF2e in some arbitrary sense, their argument is being disputed because they can't have experienced the situation of balance, that exists in a game they haven't played.
Not having experienced something is a good reason to be considered less qualified to speak about it, when it comes to something like the feel and balance of a game. This is why playtesting and theory-crafting are two very different things.
There's a causative relationship there where the experience they're attempting to speak to without having play tested it is one that is hard to judge without that first hand experience, the game may very well work differently than they expect, an unexpected combination of other elements may mean that the unspoken assumptions they were employing don't apply. Hell, that's a problem with some people who have played it, but are carrying too much baggage from other systems and have maladapted expectations.
In other words, there is a reasonable and obvious logical relationship between their lack of play experience and the views they hold. That relationship renders it not ad hominem to suggest that their view may not hold as much water as that of someone who has played. They're not wrong because they haven't played it, they're wrong because of various factors they *don't understand because they haven't played it.*
Off the top of my head? No idea, I'd disagree in the sense that the Wizard is plenty good at recall knowledge, but its not especially better than other main stat intelligence classes at it, with investigator having that as its niche. I'd say you could probably use magic for information gathering in a way the Investigator can't reasonably do, so that might help make up for it.
If the suggestion is that wizards are worse than other classes, and that their recall knowledge checks were supposed to make up for it, I'd tell you the wrong part of that statement was the idea that Wizards are worse than other classes. They're a normal prepared caster, who has a useful primary stat in terms of skills (how useful depends on the campaign, like any other skill), who gets extra spell slots / drain bonded item, in tandem with ways of making those slots go further (arcane thesis) compared to the others (who also get neat tricks to make up for their lack of spell power) and focus spells that can be potent but aren't build defining.
We're discussing the concept of something being ad hominem because it correctly identifies a lack of relevant experience in an assessment of something's power, itself. Temperans statements may be wrong or right on an individual basis, after all 'even a broken clock is right twice a day.' But reminding people that there are credibility issues (specifically credibility issues related to their lack of experience with the topic at hand) with some of the people engaged in the debate isn't wrong. Temperance is an example, but not a specific one, and they aren't the only one who hasn't played the game, or whose never played the base game without modification.
Especially since quite a few posters have begun to treat their viewpoint on the Casters/Wizards as self-validating 'It must be weak! Otherwise I wouldn't be saying/feeling that its weak! How dare you dismiss my tautological self assertion!' or framing the argument as being one they won so they can move on to policing dissent.
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Experience is good, but the thing about experience is that it informs arguments, it's not an argument in and of itself.
I agree that the wizard class doesn’t do well around a “specialization” as narrow as casting only one spell memorized at every level, but that would seriously be stepping on the toes of the sorcerer.
A little, but I think the Sorcerer is kind of in the same boat. Bloodlines imply a degree of specialization, but Sorcerers are much stronger if they generalize instead too. Arguably their best feature is the ability to collect an array of signature spells they can up/downcast at will to cover their bases, which gives them a tremendous amount of flexibility and means they're much harder to catch unprepared than a prepared caster.
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Experience is good, but the thing about experience is that it informs arguments, it's not an argument in and of itself.
I agree that the wizard class doesn’t do well around a “specialization” as narrow as casting only one spell memorized at every level, but that would seriously be stepping on the toes of the sorcerer.A little, but I think the Sorcerer is kind of in the same boat. Bloodlines imply a degree of specialization, but Sorcerers are much stronger if they generalize instead too. Arguably their best feature is the ability to collect an array of signature spells they can up/downcast at will to cover their bases, which gives them a tremendous amount of flexibility and means they're much harder to catch unprepared than a prepared caster.
exactly
no one is automatically wrong because they haven't played, that isn't being suggested, but their arguments would naturally be less informed, so keeping that in mind is helpful.
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Experience is good, but the thing about experience is that it informs arguments, it's not an argument in and of itself.
I agree that the wizard class doesn’t do well around a “specialization” as narrow as casting only one spell memorized at every level, but that would seriously be stepping on the toes of the sorcerer.A little, but I think the Sorcerer is kind of in the same boat. Bloodlines imply a degree of specialization, but Sorcerers are much stronger if they generalize instead too. Arguably their best feature is the ability to collect an array of signature spells they can up/downcast at will to cover their bases, which gives them a tremendous amount of flexibility and means they're much harder to catch unprepared than a prepared caster.exactly
no one is automatically wrong because they haven't played, that isn't being suggested, but their arguments would naturally be less informed, so keeping that in mind is helpful.
As a means of discrediting them from the jump by disregarding their opinions and ability to use common sense, math, and reading comprehension of the crb as "inherently less informed"?
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As a means of discrediting them from the jump by disregarding their opinions and ability to use common sense, math, and reading comprehension of the crb as "inherently less informed"?Experience is good, but the thing about experience is that it informs arguments, it's not an argument in and of itself.
I agree that the wizard class doesn’t do well around a “specialization” as narrow as casting only one spell memorized at every level, but that would seriously be stepping on the toes of the sorcerer.A little, but I think the Sorcerer is kind of in the same boat. Bloodlines imply a degree of specialization, but Sorcerers are much stronger if they generalize instead too. Arguably their best feature is the ability to collect an array of signature spells they can up/downcast at will to cover their bases, which gives them a tremendous amount of flexibility and means they're much harder to catch unprepared than a prepared caster.exactly
no one is automatically wrong because they haven't played, that isn't being suggested, but their arguments would naturally be less informed, so keeping that in mind is helpful.
No? That is the opposite of what has been stated, we're discussing the limited utility of "common sense, math, and reading comprehension of the crb"
No one should be doing that, not me, not you, not any of these other random posters, and not the designers themselves.
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As a means of discrediting them from the jump by disregarding their opinions and ability to use common sense, math, and reading comprehension of the crb as "inherently less informed"?Experience is good, but the thing about experience is that it informs arguments, it's not an argument in and of itself.
I agree that the wizard class doesn’t do well around a “specialization” as narrow as casting only one spell memorized at every level, but that would seriously be stepping on the toes of the sorcerer.A little, but I think the Sorcerer is kind of in the same boat. Bloodlines imply a degree of specialization, but Sorcerers are much stronger if they generalize instead too. Arguably their best feature is the ability to collect an array of signature spells they can up/downcast at will to cover their bases, which gives them a tremendous amount of flexibility and means they're much harder to catch unprepared than a prepared caster.exactly
no one is automatically wrong because they haven't played, that isn't being suggested, but their arguments would naturally be less informed, so keeping that in mind is helpful.
Do you know how many concepts have looked good on paper but been utterly awful in play?
If all you needed was "common sense, math, and reading comprehension", you wouldn't need iteration on game design.
As an example, I literally work in video game development, and have spent years studying design and iterating on various concepts. For a recent game a friend set up (that ultimately fell through), I spent quite a lot of time researching Shadowrun 5e, characters, build setups, and other details.
Yet, because I never ended up playing, despite all that research, I'd definitely say my opinion is worth less than someone who's actually played the game but hasn't done all the research I have. That's because despite my knowledge of the basic details, mechanics, rules, statistics, and structure of the game, I haven't experienced it. I don't know if the way I expect it to be plays out in practice. I don't have first-hand knowledge of how the game flows.
You don't need thousands of hours of experience to know that there are some things casters just suck at in PF2.
What's less apparent to people in this thread is that those gaps are cornerstones of Pathfinder 2's design philosophy. There are serious gaps in what spellcasters can do and those gaps tend to conveniently align with what martials are good at.
This is how PF2 addresses martial-caster disparity: by making martials indispensable even though they still kind of suck.
Notice that PF2 doesn't have 6-th level casters anymore despite how popular they were in PF1 (weaker than full casters, but more likely to encroach on martial design space). Notice the things that PF2 casters are the most obviously worse at compared to PF1: Layering defenses, dealing with bosses, summoning meatshields of their own, etc. None of this is on accident.
PF2 creates a synergy where spellcasters are good at manipulating battlefield conditions, AoE damage and providing lateral solutions to problems.
Martials meanwhile are good at hitting things with sticks.
That's the balance. That's why blasting bosses or building pseudo-martials out of warpriests or wizards with weapon dedications or even mutagen alchemists feels bad. Because you aren't supposed to do that.
I'm interested to see how the magus situates between those camps when it releases