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Since splitting out magic into 4 clear traditions and tying one skill to each of them, it feels like a lot of adventure writers have gobbled up the fun mysteriousness of Occultism as a basis for inventing new monsters, compelling sinister plots and researching the mysteries of the universe.
At first I thought this was great, but with going on 2 years of hindsight, it feels like arcane magic is getting left in the narrative dust. Studying magic anymore just seems boring in comparison to what occultism has to offer. I guess, in world, there is the very real incentive to study arcane magic instead of occult, in that it seems like there are very few ways to study the occult without losing your mind to some greater old one or other mysterious patron or muse.
It just seems like in play, arcana is now a nearly useless skill for understanding magic generally, as it now applies to such a specific subset of what magic is in golarion and a bunch of monsters seem to have gotten labeled as occult, just because they are weird, even though they are crafted by wizards.
I am hopeful that that is primarily just a product of occult magic being the shiny new fun thing to play with narratively. But having 4 traditions of magic now, and society applying to almost everything, it does seem like arcana is the least important knowledge skill in the game, short of participating in a specifically wizard or dragon hunting campaign. And even with rituals, it doesn't seem like Arcane magic has anything unique to it all anymore.
This realization arise from participating in many conversations about the wizard class, and while I actually am a fan of the class mechanically, I am starting to see that narratively, studying arcane magic is starting to seem like the "safe option" that nobles let their kids study because it is entirely knowable and contained, whereas anything really powerful or potentially dangerous gets labeled occult. It is making arcane magic look really boring.
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If you read the skill knowledge checks occultism is the most niche one.
On identifying creatures it only applies to Astral, Ooze, Spirit and Aberration, all of them extremely uncommon to find unless you are playing a campaign specific of them.
While Arcane have Beast, Dragon, Construct and Elemental.
And then skill uses of recall.
[Arcana] Recall Knowledge about arcane theories; magic traditions; creatures of arcane significance (like dragons and beasts); and the Elemental, Astral, and Shadow Planes.
[Occultism] Recall Knowledge about ancient mysteries; obscure philosophies; creatures of occult significance (like aberrations, spirits, and oozes); and the Positive Energy, Negative Energy, Shadow, Astral, and Ethereal Planes.
Then Rituals as primary caster, most are overwhelming Religion, then Nature, and Arcane and Occultism have each 2 exclusive, though Occultism is usually found as a secondary caster.
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Since splitting out magic into 4 clear traditions and tying one skill to each of them, it feels like a lot of adventure writers have gobbled up the fun mysteriousness of Occultism as a basis for inventing new monsters, compelling sinister plots and researching the mysteries of the universe.
At first I thought this was great, but with going on 2 years of hindsight, it feels like arcane magic is getting left in the narrative dust. Studying magic anymore just seems boring in comparison to what occultism has to offer. I guess, in world, there is the very real incentive to study arcane magic instead of occult, in that it seems like there are very few ways to study the occult without losing your mind to some greater old one or other mysterious patron or muse.
It just seems like in play, arcana is now a nearly useless skill for understanding magic generally, as it now applies to such a specific subset of what magic is in golarion and a bunch of monsters seem to have gotten labeled as occult, just because they are weird, even though they are crafted by wizards.
I am hopeful that that is primarily just a product of occult magic being the shiny new fun thing to play with narratively. But having 4 traditions of magic now, and society applying to almost everything, it does seem like arcana is the least important knowledge skill in the game, short of participating in a specifically wizard or dragon hunting campaign. And even with rituals, it doesn't seem like Arcane magic has anything unique to it all anymore.
This realization arise from participating in many conversations about the wizard class, and while I actually am a fan of the class mechanically, I am starting to see that narratively, studying arcane magic is starting to seem like the "safe option" that nobles let their kids study because it is entirely knowable and contained, whereas anything really powerful or potentially dangerous gets labeled occult. It is making arcane magic look really boring.
I don't disagree with you, at all actually, but I also think this is pretty easy to hand-wave or re-flavor. I mean if you distill things down, arcane and occult are very close to each other, just as primal and divine are. I personally don't see why we ended up with 4 spells lists, but I have a feeling it had more to do with mechanics than flavor.
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From a narrative standpoint Arcana and Occult feel kind of arbitrary to me to begin with. There's a lot of conceptual overlap and it sort of feels like a grab bag what's occult and what's arcane. Probably doesn't help that the words themselves are so similar, or that Occult's primary defining trait mostly seems to be 'weird' rather than anything unifying different Occult elements.
The rest of this admittedly stretches beyond just Occult, but:
It feels strange to have a hard line on the skill checks the way they are, especially when you could arguably rearrange the groupings in other combinations that make just as much sense or more.
Like you can't have someone who specializes in extraplanar creatures because they're spread across four knowledge skills, but someone who knows a lot about Elementals will know a lot about Wendigos and Pegasi by extension. The connection feels tenuous.
TBH it also feels weird to me that understanding the anatomy and inner workings of a Beast is an Int-based activity, but understanding animal biology is a Wis-based activity.
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While Arcane have Beast, Dragon, Construct and Elemental.
Perhaps a Beast focused campaign will help bring things into focus. Hopefully the Strength of Thousands will also help.
I feel the lack of flavor to Arcane is actually the opposite of OP's; it is because Arcane includes every type of magic that it has no distinction. If they'd stuck to Matter and Mind as their tentpole, I think it would have created a more solid base to riff off. Want to warp the world (as in your surroundings) around your will? Conjure objects? Delve into the mind and dreams? Arcane is your go to. But talking to your dead Aunt Clara, maybe you ought to talk to a cleric instead (or a necromancer). Positive definitions are more preferred than negative ones, I agree, but being defined by what you can't do, allowing you to have more toys now that you have a specialty of your own, is no bad thing.
I've said before, but I would have preferred Arcane to have a really solid, limited theme, but Wizards be able to routinely break that theme by way of their school abilities. A lot of the stories each tradition tells is weakened by the fact that they were written as class-specific spell lists first, and then the essence/tradition thing applied on top of it afterwards.
It's not just Arcane that affects though. For instance, why does Primal have all those "Talk to animals" type of spells? It makes sense that a Druid can do that, of course, but why should an elemental sorcerer? Given that the mind essence is tied to occult and arcane, how different would it have looked if the Wizard was the class that could do that, demonstrating their mastery over Mind.
TBH it also feels weird to me that understanding the anatomy and inner workings of a Beast is an Int-based activity, but understanding animal biology is a Wis-based activity.
NGL, I often wondered if that was stuck onto Arcane mostly so that they wouldn't just have dragons, elementals, and constructs.
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I never really liked Occultism as a skill, because it was just so damn vague what the difference would be with Arcana. I mean, the words are practically synonyms. They're both fancy words for secret/hidden stuff.
I think you could give them more distinct identity by making Occultism a Charisma based skill - it's not really knowing things, it's more about conspiracy theories, and spooky psychic things that seem to work according to different rules depending on who's observing them.
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It's not just Arcane that affects though. For instance, why does Primal have all those "Talk to animals" type of spells? It makes sense that a Druid can do that, of course, but why should an elemental sorcerer? Given that the mind essence is tied to occult and arcane, how different would it have looked if the Wizard was the class that could do that, demonstrating their mastery over Mind.
Primal rather than Arcane because the animals you're talking to have instincts, not rationality. Primal can speak their language because it is their language. Arcane doesn't know how to convert your thoughts into their instinct.
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I've also found Arcane magic to be either the "super-science" or standard magical tradition. At best, in flavor, it's magic that can be studied and experimented with (a reason I believe Unified Theory allows casting of any spell through magic items). At worst it's traditional and unoriginal.
Occult magic on the other hand is a bit fresher and newer. And yes, thematically, its spooky, mysterious, forbidden and dangerous feel has a lot of weight.
I think the newness factor is what might be selling the Occult spell list (if it is being favored over Arcane magic). Most everyone who has been playing for a while has cast Fireball. It's basic. Spells like Synesthesia are the new cool thing.
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Arcane was always super grab-bag-ish, even in 1E. Primal magic has really clear flavor and Divine magic has really clear flavor, but arcane magic has always just been "all the leftovers, plus some stuff filched from druids and clerics". The problem is that occult followed in arcane's footsteps by being a weird grab bag. Literally, just whatever the author thought was weird enough to be considered occult. Which could be anything really, depending on the author and the setting.
The "weird phenomena" angle also clashes with the bard, as suddenly bards are all about ghosts, eldritch entities and oozes. In my mind, that's far from the first thing to come to me when I hear "bard".
Had they called occult magic instead "psychic" and given it a better defined association with ESP, telekinesis and mental magics (which was basically the bard's wheelhouse in 1E), I think the delineation of where arcane ends and where psychic begins would be clearer cut.
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I like Occult, even if the distinction isn't super clear. I also like bards being to the sanity eroding abberation what clerics are to devil's.
To Unicore's original point, PF1 had a copious amounts of arcane casters. There were were at least 4 or 5 APs focused on wizards (Runelords, Carrion Crown, Tyrant's Grasp) and whole PFS seasons. That ground has been mined a lot, and I think they probably want to do other things for a bit while letting Tar Baphom and Sorrin and Razmir (or however the heck you spell those names) just exist in the background for a while.
Even Age of Ashes had multiple end book wizard villains, and I can only assume the upcoming magic school arc is gonna lean heavy on arcane again.
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As it is presented, I see Arcane as the science of magic. Occult, on the other hand, occupies a space similar to the real world. Weird, esoteric knowledge, secret societies, etc. For me, personally, the distinction works as far as a high fantasy setting goes. If you have well studied magic, there is probably all sorts of weird fringe stuff that doesn't fall under mainstream studies.
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Reading this made me realize I've seen this before. Unfortunately, I think it's part of a sort of inevitable drift that leads from all of these things becoming more mainstream.
When wizards and magic are rare, it's innately mysterious and easy to portray as potentially dangerous. The more that gets popular, the more that escalates to the point where you have settings full of wizards, or settings where every adventurer is a magic user of some kind, then magic can't really be mysterious or inherently dangerous anymore.
However, there's still a clear appeal for that level of mystery and danger, so a new layer is created, but since it's essentially recreating the original form of the thing it's based on, there's a lot of overlap and makes that really muddy.
This happened to Warcraft as well. Wizards used to be looked on with a lot of suspicion. It was a trait of paladins that they were prejudiced against wizards, because meddling with magic was often a dangerous affair. The original excuse for the demons invading was wizards using arcane magic essentially serving as a beacon that drew them in.
Since the cosmology has been significantly more codified and elaborated on, now, arcane magic is simply the building blocks of the material realm and it's 100% safe and normal and innocuous. Demonic "fel" magic took over as the dangerous, risky kind, and then Lovecraftian void magic, but both of those have already undergone a lot of "only as evil as you use it" sort of situations as they begun to be proliferated to players and the universe is expanded to show that every realm and source of power has its good and bad sides.
It certainly leads to some awkward middle ground. In theory I like the idea of having a safer form of magic that doesn't carry a bunch of ambiguous baggage along with something more risky and mysterious, but keeping them both interesting is a bit difficult as a result.
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I never really liked Occultism as a skill, because it was just so damn vague what the difference would be with Arcana. I mean, the words are practically synonyms. They're both fancy words for secret/hidden stuff.
I think you could give them more distinct identity by making Occultism a Charisma based skill - it's not really knowing things, it's more about conspiracy theories, and spooky psychic things that seem to work according to different rules depending on who's observing them.
Ugh, please no "Occultism as a Charisma skill" thing again. While I like your reasoning, what's the flavour of Recall Knowledge then? Hear-say? Then it should be more inaccurate, if anything.
IMHO, they're not synonyms. Arcana is all about the magical stuff. As the book says, "creatures of arcane significance." It's the rational stuff. Occultism is about the irrational stuff, things that can't be explained by science. Things that go bump in the night. By all right, oozes shouldn't exist. Aberrations are basically weird mutations. Things from beyond the stars, and so on. There's some weird overlap, sure. Worshipers of Cthulhu could also be seen as divine, but it's basically the source that's weird.
Arcana = rational, easily deduced.
Occultism = weird, unknowable, creepy.
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IMHO, they're not synonyms. Arcana is all about the magical stuff. As the book says, "creatures of arcane significance." It's the rational stuff. Occultism is about the irrational stuff, things that can't be explained by science. Things that go bump in the night. By all right, oozes shouldn't exist. Aberrations are basically weird mutations. Things from beyond the stars, and so on. There's some weird overlap, sure. Worshipers of Cthulhu could also be seen as divine, but it's basically the source that's weird.
Arcana = rational, easily deduced.
Occultism = weird, unknowable, creepy.
And that is why I would have expected the Witch (or Warlock) as the full progression Occult caster in the CRB, and not the (formerly half-caster) Bard. Dunno about you, but when I think of occult magic and what is associated with the occult I immediately think of Witches, not Bards. However the game designers thought otherwise.
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Arcane = rational is a pretty interesting claim to make. It might be true within the context of the last 5 to 10 years of fantasy literature, in an attempt to normalize the study of magic as a respectable pursuit, but there is a lot of room there for critical analysis, and asking why we are now wanting to give the court magician their old respectable role, while casting an eye of suspicion on the village witch.
But the idea that oozes are occult because they are weird, while a nation of wizards in world makes them and utilizes them in technological ways is already creating a pretty massive inconsistency in world.
I really wasn’t trying to make this argument in my first post, but if occult has become a word tied to “othering” certain aspects of magical lore, while arcane is tied to “normalizing” that magical lore, I think the problem is bigger than just making arcane magic boring.
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Perhaps view arcane not as rational, but possibilities. Just about anything can be done with arcane magic, so long as you know how to get there. Manipulating magic to suddenly make three images of you, or making a barrier, etc. Its not easy, and many wondrous things still happen. It's all about the magical ways to make things happen. Occult, however, is trying to harness the magic without full understanding. The bard didnt study how to do what he does. It just works for hom. And a lot of that magic is strange, and has less reason to it. But is still similar.
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Perhaps view arcane not as rational, but possibilities. Just about anything can be done with arcane magic, so long as you know how to get there. Manipulating magic to suddenly make three images of you, or making a barrier, etc. Its not easy, and many wondrous things still happen. It's all about the magical ways to make things happen. Occult, however, is trying to harness the magic without full understanding. The bard didnt study how to do what he does. It just works for hom. And a lot of that magic is strange, and has less reason to it. But is still similar.
That would make sense if Occult wasn't an Intelligence-based skill. The fact it can be studied and requires a brain to do so doesn't make it any more weird or strange than Arcane. In fact, a Wizard is more inclined to be aware of and know about Occultism than even those whom practice it with their spellcasting. So is it really all that more strange to an Arcane spellcaster? Not really.
The fact of the matter is that Occult deals with the Eldritch, things which use means that aren't conventional to us mortals to reconstitute magic. Most Arcane spells draw power from the planes by utilizing esoteric writings, incantations, and material offerings, whereas Occult simply doesn't do that. Or if they do, it's in a completely separate way that doesn't require planar help. To compare, Nethys is to Arcane as Cthulhu is to Occult.
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I think theres a lot of things that factor in to the narrative power of occultism vs arcana:
First; without linear fighter quadratic wizard, wizards feel a lot more "normal". They still have the most spells, and their thesis gives a lot of interesting ways for them to interact with their spells, but at the end of the day, they're just nerds who do their part in an adventuring team, rather than nerds who will eventually rend heaven asunder single handedly. Meanwhile, bards still have tons of cool bard stuff to do alongside their occult spells. The class features granted by occult classes are flashier than "get extra spell slots"
Second; pop culture and media is kinda veering a little bit away from things like dragons and such in fantasy media, and instead seems to look more at psychological/existential threats or political intrigue as the main conflict, which is more occult than arcane. It makes sense for APs to follow this trend from a marketing standpoint
Lastly; in media, scholarly pursuits are often made very grandiose because people find that more interesting than normal science and such. Occult has that flavor of trifling with things and secrets left hidden baked right in to the spell tradition. Nothing stops arcane magic from being the same way, but it's not a flavor that was innately put there.
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The problem with 'Occult' as being somehow more fundamentally esoteric and irrational is that... it isn't.
Magical traditions are standardized in game. The specific spells an Occult spellcaster learns are different, but it doesn't function inherently differently than Arcane or Divine magic.
and the Occult witch is sitting over there literally learning spells like a wizard does, through study and analysis... just with, like, a cool tarantula instead of a book.
It's clearly just as rational as Arcane magic... just a slightly different discipline.
Ugh, please no "Occultism as a Charisma skill" thing again. While I like your reasoning, what's the flavour of Recall Knowledge then? Hear-say? Then it should be more inaccurate, if anything.
Feel like Cha-based occult would be something more like "force of will to pierce the veil and discern the truth" more than anything.
Doesn't make a ton of sense, but Wisdom-exclusive nature and medicine are pretty arbitrary too.
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Perhaps view arcane not as rational, but possibilities. Just about anything can be done with arcane magic, so long as you know how to get there. Manipulating magic to suddenly make three images of you, or making a barrier, etc. Its not easy, and many wondrous things still happen. It's all about the magical ways to make things happen. Occult, however, is trying to harness the magic without full understanding. The bard didnt study how to do what he does. It just works for hom. And a lot of that magic is strange, and has less reason to it. But is still similar.That would make sense if Occult wasn't an Intelligence-based skill. The fact it can be studied and requires a brain to do so doesn't make it any more weird or strange than Arcane. In fact, a Wizard is more inclined to be aware of and know about Occultism than even those whom practice it with their spellcasting. So is it really all that more strange to an Arcane spellcaster? Not really.
The fact of the matter is that Occult deals with the Eldritch, things which use means that aren't conventional to us mortals to reconstitute magic. Most Arcane spells draw power from the planes by utilizing esoteric writings, incantations, and material offerings, whereas Occult simply doesn't do that. Or if they do, it's in a completely separate way that doesn't require planar help. To compare, Nethys is to Arcane as Cthulhu is to Occult.
Well, it still requires knowledge to remember all all of the different things that exist in the occult skill. And yes, wizards may know about the occult, which is represented in the Occult skill a) being intelligence-based and b) being a skill many wizards likely pick up due to their high intelligence. But they still utilize their powers through the arcane.
While not a perfect analogy, you can almost see Arcane as Science and Occultism as Science Fiction. Science is still dangerous, worth exploring, and can be unpredictable, but can be quantified via writing it down and such. Sure, scientists know of some sci-fi thins-but they still base their work on science. And while you need to be very smart to follow science, you also need to be smart enough when writing your sci-fi stories to make them believable, even if you cant really explain what's happening. Still uses intelligence, even if the story is more charisma-based. Thus bards.
Much in the same way that Society could be Charisma, Arcana and Occultism are intelligence because its measuring your ability to recall the information. (Yes, religion, nature, and medicine could be there too, but thats another story)
The problem with 'Occult' as being somehow more fundamentally esoteric and irrational is that... it isn't.
Magical traditions are standardized in game. The specific spells an Occult spellcaster learns are different, but it doesn't function inherently differently than Arcane or Divine magic.
and the Occult witch is sitting over there literally learning spells like a wizard does, through study and analysis... just with, like, a cool tarantula instead of a book.
It's clearly just as rational as Arcane magic... just a slightly different discipline.
Ugh, please no "Occultism as a Charisma skill" thing again. While I like your reasoning, what's the flavour of Recall Knowledge then? Hear-say? Then it should be more inaccurate, if anything.Feel like Cha-based occult would be something more like "force of will to pierce the veil and discern the truth" more than anything.
Doesn't make a ton of sense, but Wisdom-exclusive nature and medicine are pretty arbitrary too.
Witches are gifted their spells from their patrons/familiars, arent they? They only add spells to their repertoire from scrolls by feeding their familiars the scrolls lol
As for the others being wisdom vs int... it's really a balance thing. But kinda makes sense for two of them due to the faith-basis both religion and nature have *looks at medicine* then there's this guy. Done to provide balance due to the high number of int skills vs wis skills, and works if your cleric is the main healer.
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I've just explained to players that Occultism is the reason Arcane magic schools exist. You'd rather deal with the building blocks and have to get there through laborious study than hope you can control whatever it is you tap into with Occultism and not end up with your mind screaming into the Æther for eternity.
Arcana being magic-science is a refrain I've seen often, but I think the flipside for Occultism isn't necessarily that it's something that cannot be studied, but maybe something that should not be studied. It's what happens when you screw up, or take shortcuts, or make deals with the wrong sort of creature, or keep scratching at the "secrets" arcane colleges don't teach because they don't want to have to repair the north wing every year and lose tuition. Not to say that Arcane magic or Arcana aren't dangerous, only that they're studied, systematized, rationalized, and disseminated on a scale that produces theories/rules/etc. Occult is the fringe, and what's Occult now might be Arcane in a hundred years.
I don't know if the mechanical schools of magic quite get there in-game (Occult could use some more really weird, Occult-specific stuff IMO), but for characters in the world they might know a cousin at the Acadamae but also know not to dabble in whatever the guy in the woods is doing. So Occultism being Int makes sense to me. Occultism being a driving force for adventures also seems compelling, because someone in the world might have a passing familiarity with arcane or divine magic but be seriously unsettled by the possibilities of unchecked Occultism.
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I understand why Society could be Charisma-based, but it's more than just "asking around." You also need to know etiquette, local laws, and so on. Yeah, a lot can be accomplished by asking the locals, but I don't think it encompasses all the applications of the skill.
And yeah, the decision to split Medicine, Nature, and Religion off to Wisdom feels odd, but there's a mechanical explanation. Otherwise, Clerics and Druids are bad at their own associated skills (especially in PF1, where Clerics often had to dump INT). But I think it fits flavourfully as well: INT-based skills are about knowing (recollection), WIS-based skills are about experience/practice. A Wizard might know a lion can sprint and jump, but to understand that you can apply it as a pounce attack takes insight. In my mind, you still need to have read about it, so I admit, some intelligence does apply (how else would you know if something's venomous?), but knowing it's a paralytic is one thing, translating it as a Clumsy status is another. Similarly, a lot of Religion skills are about putting faith into practice (though, admittedly, a lot of recognition would be INT-based). Any nerd can list all the faiths that do baptisms, but how you baptise comes from experience and insight.
Dumb example: cooking. Following a recipe is easy, and takes no skill at all. But knowing where you can deviate from the recipe and can improve upon it comes through experience and insight. A Wisdom-based character knows which ingredients add what to the dish, while an Intelligence-based character needs trial and error. They might know what a carrot tastes like, but how will it add to the overall experience? (Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit, Wisdom is knowing not to add it to a fruit salad.)
Same can be said for Medicine. An INT-character says, "The book says to make an incision here, and stitch up afterwards," but doesn't know how to stitch someone up. Application of a skill requires insight, not knowledge.
Back to Occultism: weird stuff needs to be catalogued. That's INT-based. There's no reasoning with a sentient blob of plasma. Why does it move? I don't know. You can't intuit anything from it. You observe its behaviour and note down it can climb walls and form tentacles.
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Occult is the fringe, and what's Occult now might be Arcane in a hundred years.
Yes, exactly. I've had this discussion with someone before. Hags might have once wielded arcane powers, but by twisting and corrupting it, it became something else. It simply isn't recognisable anymore as the original textbook magic.
And like I said before, worshipers of Cthulhu still get magic. Wouldn't that mean Cthulhu is a divine being? Yes, for all intents and purposes he is, but it's the origin (and purpose) that make it Occult.
It's a cheap way out, but it's not just the practice, but also the intent that matters. That's not to say Occult is inherently evil, just not understood. As soon as it's understood (and, in some cases, accepted), it becomes Arcane. (Which reminds me of a Tim Minchin bit: "Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proven to work? Medicine.")
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I think, as a GM, I am just going to be a lot more prone to letting Arcana be used for understanding all magic. I will still have a penalty to DC for using it for other schools, but I won't probably have the penalty be more than +2, so that by level 7 a wizard will be competent at understanding all things magical with just the Arcana skill.
A think that I am hoping that secrets of magic has, but I am doubtful it will, would for there to be a bit of a longer discussion about what lore in a school of magic could be useful for, and for Lore: School of magic to have some skill feats attached to it in the same kind of way as Underworld Lore. Like if there were feats that gave you bonuses to recall knowledge and identify magic in a specific school, including being able to treat successes as critical success, I think it would add a great way for wizards, and all casters, to be able to specialize in a school of magic more meaningfully.
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Arcane = rational is a pretty interesting claim to make. It might be true within the context of the last 5 to 10 years of fantasy literature, in an attempt to normalize the study of magic as a respectable pursuit, but there is a lot of room there for critical analysis, and asking why we are now wanting to give the court magician their old respectable role, while casting an eye of suspicion on the village witch.
But the idea that oozes are occult because they are weird, while a nation of wizards in world makes them and utilizes them in technological ways is already creating a pretty massive inconsistency in world.
I don't think the last 5-10 years of fantasy literature have as much to bear as the CRB, which describes Arcane as:
Arcane spellcasters use logic and rationality to categorize the magic inherent in the world around them.
Though in fairness, Occult is mostly a string of synonyms of the same sentence:
The practitioners of occult traditions seek to understand the unexplainable, categorize the bizarre, and otherwise access the ephemeral in a systematic way.
The sticking point seems to be that Arcane is already well understood, as others have pointed out, where Occult is primarily interested in things not yet explained, with no interest in making it more accessible to others.
Also, I think you're correct regarding Oozes. "They're weird, therefore occult" works to a certain extent, but they're not creatures of the mind or spirit, and are primarily matter. Arcane or Primal would make much more sense for oozes, though Primal is a bit crowded.
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i think religeon is the most narratively compelling myself,
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I agree that the problem is that Arcana doesn't really have a "hook" in the same way that the other traditions do.
Divine magic is associated with the Gods and the fundamental moral forces of the multiverse.
Primal magic is associated with nature and the very elemental building blocks of reality.
Occult magic is associated with eldritch entities that are in some ways incompatible with the world as we know it.
Arcane magic is associated with magic. And dragons and genies I guess?
It almost feels like arcane magic is shoehorned into Golarion because a fantasy setting needs wizards in it. It doesn't feel like it is really woven into the fabric of the setting the way the other 3 traditions are.
At least, that's my take on it.
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I agree that the problem is that Arcana doesn't really have a "hook" in the same way that the other traditions do.
Divine magic is associated with the Gods and the fundamental moral forces of the multiverse.
Primal magic is associated with nature and the very elemental building blocks of reality.
Occult magic is associated with eldritch entities that are in some ways incompatible with the world as we know it.
Arcane magic is associated with magic. And dragons and genies I guess?It almost feels like arcane magic is shoehorned into Golarion because a fantasy setting needs wizards in it. It doesn't feel like it is really woven into the fabric of the setting the way the other 3 traditions are.
At least, that's my take on it.
I'd say arcane belongs if only to represent the forces of magic wrestled from the aether by way of stubborn human /whatever ancestry gumption through methods of theory and application. Innovation is always an exploitation of the resources around you and arcane (to me) represents the magic that comes from US and OUR understanding of the universal forces. It's cool in the sense that if you're willing to put in the leg work you don't need a connection to god, the forces of nature, or cthulhu. You can do it all on your own (with books).
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I am hopeful that we are going to get a hefty narrative shot in the arm for magic generally, and especially arcane magic with the Secrets of Magic book.
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i think religeon is the most narratively compelling myself,
I'd say it is as well, simply because half of the quests and party decisions are based off of Champions and Clerics whose deities require us to act certain ways, or be conscripted servants of said deities. What's that, we can't kill the bandits because they surrendered? Oh, and we can't steal things that would help us complete our mission? And we have to kill these demons because [insert deity here] said so? What about what I want to do?
It really brings a drag to the group when half of your missions involve working with the party Cleric/Champion's church, especially when your character might not agree with or even be at odds with said character's deity, or their churchfolk.
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I agree that the problem is that Arcana doesn't really have a "hook" in the same way that the other traditions do.
Divine magic is associated with the Gods and the fundamental moral forces of the multiverse.
Primal magic is associated with nature and the very elemental building blocks of reality.
Occult magic is associated with eldritch entities that are in some ways incompatible with the world as we know it.
Arcane magic is associated with magic. And dragons and genies I guess?It almost feels like arcane magic is shoehorned into Golarion because a fantasy setting needs wizards in it. It doesn't feel like it is really woven into the fabric of the setting the way the other 3 traditions are.
At least, that's my take on it.
Golarion has been stated to be an inherently magical world, and Arcane Magic both manipulates this inherent magic, as well as pulls magic from other common planes of existence to do your bidding on the Material Plane. (Chromatic) Dragons and Genies are inherently magical, not unlike Golarion itself, as are technically Elementals, so it would make sense that they would be tied to the Arcane arts.
Comparatively speaking, Occult would indeed be effects from a magical world, or effects from another plane of existence, but they would be "alien" in nature. It's not particularly clear, but I would say anything outside of the major planes of existence (like Plane of Fire, Plane of Shadow, etc.), or from a planet that's not Golarion, would definitely be labeled as Occult in this case.
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Huh. Arcane magic is, oddly the only one that's not inherent in the setting. It had to be made. Primal comes from nature, divine comes from gods and such. Occultism is all the weird stuff (or whatever it is) while Arcane is learned. Some creatures do have arcane magic, sure, but they're mostly creatures that could've been smart enough to figure it out.
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Yeah, it never occurred to me that Golarion has no equivalent to the Weave or whatever, and few Big Things you can really point at and say "that's arcane magic" other than, like, dragons, or the Mana Wastes and wild magic. Instead, it's individual archetypes, aesthetics and exploits which tend to define what arcane magic is.
I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I think I might like it — if explored/emphasized the right ways, anyway. It might be an improvement to have another Big Thing to point at, caused/found by the masses of Wizards and other arcane casters throughout Golarion.
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I guess it was my impression that the various Runelords and The Whispering Tyrant were sort of the canonical "arcane" threats? Alongside Geb. And the end of P1e's AP run was Whispering Tyrant: The Campaign.
Maybe 2e's AP run has had less of that, but Age of Ashes is pretty arcane/primal. Taking a short break from Tar Baphon and Runelords seems alright.
Still waiting on my full-on Vudra AP...
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Yeah, it never occurred to me that Golarion has no equivalent to the Weave or whatever, and few Big Things you can really point at and say "that's arcane magic" other than, like, dragons, or the Mana Wastes and wild magic. Instead, it's individual archetypes, aesthetics and exploits which tend to define what arcane magic is.
I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I think I might like it — if explored/emphasized the right ways, anyway. It might be an improvement to have another Big Thing to point at, caused/found by the masses of Wizards and other arcane casters throughout Golarion.
Just saying, but there’s a vague threat on the western half of the Arcadian continent that is undescribed. If we have an Arcadian AP, that’s what I want the focus to be. (My family is many generation Californian, as in we’ve been here longer than it’s been called that. I’d love an AP that explores the occult side of our history in a way that isn’t cowboy vs Indians (because if we do that the vaqueritos are going down)).
Other than that Puna’chong is right; there’s a metric ton of high level wizards in the settings lore and history. Around 15 (Runelords, Nex, Geb, Arazni, Whispering Tyrant, Aroden, Old Mage) off the top of my head that we’re meeting or dealing with as part of the settings adventures, not including arcane sorcerers like Abrogial and Razmir.
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Yeah, it never occurred to me that Golarion has no equivalent to the Weave or whatever, and few Big Things you can really point at and say "that's arcane magic" other than, like, dragons, or the Mana Wastes and wild magic. Instead, it's individual archetypes, aesthetics and exploits which tend to define what arcane magic is.
I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I think I might like it — if explored/emphasized the right ways, anyway. It might be an improvement to have another Big Thing to point at, caused/found by the masses of Wizards and other arcane casters throughout Golarion.
Just saying, but there’s a vague threat on the western half of the Arcadian continent that is undescribed. If we have an Arcadian AP, that’s what I want the focus to be.
Other than that Puna’chong is right; there’s a metric ton of high level wizards in the settings lore and history. Around 15 (Runelords, Nex, Geb, Arazni, Whispering Tyrant, Aroden, Old Mage) off the top of my head that we’re meeting or dealing with as part of the settings adventures, not including arcane sorcerers like Abrogial and Razmir.
There are a lot of powerful wizards, but there is little for lower level, or developing wizards to do in Golarion, in terms of what are they researching/hoping to accomplish/learn? All there really is is spells. Maybe that is enough, but it makes the narrative of arcane lore rather boring in comparison to trying to unlock the secrets of the unknown/nature/the gods.
I am hoping we get some more interesting arcane rituals, feats, and other ways to interact with arcane magic beyond spell slots in the secrets of Magic.
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I suppose it's a matter of perspective.
I think arcane is pretty compelling, personally, because in-world you have these Runelords associated with absurdly powerful arcane sin magic and rune magic, and each of them alone poses an existential threat. The Whispering Tyrant is a blockbuster, and seemingly a time bomb waiting to go off.
I guess what are you thinking low level wizards should be doing that they aren't? Narratively there's plenty to support them constantly learning new spells and new ways of casting spells, there's a fair amount written about things like the Acadamae and the Magaambya that can get you a nice arcane college backstory, plus the upcoming AP. Many of the Pathfinder paperback books have wizard characters doing wizard things.
Narratively it seems pretty clear that wizards and arcane practitioners are constantly trying to push the boundaries of what "standard" magic is and does. They're feared and respected in regular society, considered to be among The Professionals of their communities. But low level wizards aren't trusted to not kill themselves and everyone around them when they dabble in things they can't control, and one wrong syllable or misplaced motion can be disastrous, so yeah; they're typically under tutelage somewhere before they become a PC.
Mechanically I think there should be more ways for every type of caster to interact with their spells, especially wizards with schools and metamagic, but I don't think that's necessarily all that different between the different types of magic. But mechanics don't have to be narrative, you just have to be inventive. There's a lot of storytelling in Golarion about arcane magic, and a significant portion of APs are telling stories about arcane events.
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Arcane is gonna always be slightly mundane bc of it lacking some deeper root like the other 3. However, like I said upthread that makes it endearing bc it's the application of study and theory. It's the magic of "I figured this out on my own!!! (Ignoring the peer reviewed thesis I totally learned this from in the library)." It's a written history of applied magics. An engineer isn't as romantic a notion as a sculptor inspired by muses, but his story is endearing bc of the grit and labor he toiled through to get his level of mastery. My only complaint is sorcerer and witch getting access to arcane. I don't like arcane magic being something that is innate or given. It should only be taken by means of study. It has no source outside of our scientific theory
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"Magic you can study" just doesn't seem like a compelling hook to me, because all kinds of magic can be studied (it's kind of what the Witch does with their Intelligence-based multi-tradition casting). The other 3 traditions feel like they are actually a part of of the fabric go Golarion, while Arcane feels disconnected from the world. It's the magic that Dragons and Genies know, except as elemental creatures it feels like they should be using Primal Magic too.
To me, it feels like the only reason that Arcane magic is still around is that Wizards are around, and traditionally the kind of magic that Wizards use is called arcane. If Wizards were conceived of as a class that made an academic study of primal and/or occult magic, they'd still be able to fulfill the same basic tropes in 2e that they did in 1e while also actually feeling like they're more connected to the Lore of the World because they're studying the building blocks of the world and the unknown mysteries beyond its borders (which feels quite wizardly, IMO).
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The way I see it Arcane was relevant because anything not divine or psychic was arcane. With traditions, Primal eats up into both Divine and Arcane, so it doesn't cause much problem. But Occult straight up just takes a large chunk of Arcane.
On the class side. Bard was one of the least Occult classes, having just a single archetype. Its connection being, "knows a lot of stuff from traveling/stories." Wizards however had much closer connections to Occult with a lot more access to Eldritch things. Same with Sorcerer, Arcanist, Witch, Cleric, etc.
So the entire Eldritch and Weird aspect of Arcane was removed. Which is why it became less relevant. Occult took two of the most interesting part of Arcane magic. Because, "Bards know a lot of things". Occult is all about knowledge afterall, look at all the: divination, mind control, illusions, misdirection, etc.
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P.S. Its weird hearing that Sorcerers sharing the spell list with Wizards is bad. For decades it was literally the exact same spell list while everyone had their own. But Wizard was fine, but now it isn't when everyone shares the same 4 spell lists.
The biggest problem is not Sorcerer sharing the spell list. Its that Sorcerer and Bard can have all the spell lists if they want. While Wizards are stuck with Arcane. While Occultist gets all the cool stuff, just cause.
I agree.
Occult is every bit as good as arcane, if not better.
Force damage.
Mental Damage
Illusions including Phantasmal Killer and Weird
Healing
Fly
Haste
Synesthesia
Heroism
Debuffs
Condition Removal
Negative Energy damage
Wall spells
Charms and Domination
Mind Blank
About the only thing Arcane has is energy damage spells and arcane lacks healing.
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I think historically, wizards were pretty occult. Arcane, occult, they're basically synonyms. If you look at D&D books from thirty years ago, those wizards are often loners and misfits, only sometimes banding together in schools with plenty of egos and backstabbing. They're messing with stuff they don't understand and probably shouldn't touch. They've got the ego to think they'll challenge the gods (compared to clerics who are a bit more deferent).
But things change. You see it in Terry Pratchett, where you have Ponder Stibbons inventing a magical computer, upsetting the older wizards who do things the old way. I think it also reflects the society we live in, and the greater role of STEM in many peoples lives. Wizards as magical scientists and hackers as opposed to scholars of old books.
2E of course kicks in the door on re-imagining how it all could work. Nature and Religion are shoved to Wisdom so that clerics and druids can be good at their key skills. Occultism is set up as the new... bard and sorcerer thing? Wait what, why is that still Intelligence based? And why is it so awkwardly close to Arcana? Same ability score and the description is mostly synonyms still.
At least the spell list is somewhat different. But here's how I imagine it (with a splash of house ruling);
Religion is about spiritual forces, like gods, angels, demons and souls. Works off of wisdom; much of that has to do with inner faith and intuition, not just analytical understanding and school learning.
Nature is more about the living and elemental forces in the natural world. It works off of Wisdom because it's about instinct and feeling a deep inner bond with the world around us.
Arcana is the analytical way of doing this. Whether they're traditional scholars or innovative scientists, the key is that they apply learning, analysis, questioning, reasoning. These are people trying to find the hidden levers to push on to make the world move. There is also a link to dragons and some other inherently magical creatures here. Wizards are the primary arcane casters although it's entirely possible that they got good by looking at sorcerers with a lab notebook and trying to replicate what they saw.
Occultism is about fringes and liminal things. It's the footnote in a nice almost perfectly complete arcane theorem, specifying that for these edge cases it doesn't work and can't be explained. These are people doing things that shouldn't be possible and if they explain how to do it, you can never quite get it to work the same way. It's based on Charisma because it really seems that while this stuff shouldn't work, the practitioner's belief that they can do it, that they do know what they're doing, is what makes it work. This drives wizards nuts by the way. It also means that while on the one hand occultists tend to be charismatic and get followers, they also have big egos and big spats. Unlike arcane magic which you can write down, distribute and replicate, occult magic is much more personal and harder to scale up to whole organizations. It also makes occultists liminal figures, dealing with stuff on the fringe of society. A bard is a special person because he says stuff other people sort of notice but can't put into words (or don't dare say).
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I went back and looked at some of the old discussions about the four essences, and how arcane was supposed to represent the material and the mental, while leaving the spiritual and the vital alone, and remembered that huge part of the problem is that some deep and fundamental narrative aspects of being a wizard just do not fit in the essences being broken up that way. Necromancy and transmutation, as schools of magic are just way too dependent upon being connected to the vital to serve a wizard well.
This is a massive problem narratively, because of how much wizard lore is tied up in trying to find a way to live forever. If the 4 elements came before the game lore, Lichs would probably never be wizard based and have to be the product of a studious, INT based, non-god derived study of divine magic.
Wizards as arcane practitioners would be about transferring their minds into inorganic, or at least non-living, material forms.
Again, it will be interesting to see how much effort goes into unifying the major narrative change that happened with adopting the 4 essences in the secrets of magic book. There is still a lot of work to be done there, as it does not feel like Tar Baphon could have ever become the whispering tyrant as a wizard alone. Sorcerers, witches and even clerics are just so much more dynamic in being able to break the rules of the essences and gain access to the magic that builds a narrative theme.
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I went back and looked at some of the old discussions about the four essences, and how arcane was supposed to represent the material and the mental, while leaving the spiritual and the vital alone, and remembered that huge part of the problem is that some deep and fundamental narrative aspects of being a wizard just do not fit in the essences being broken up that way. Necromancy and transmutation, as schools of magic are just way too dependent upon being connected to the vital to serve a wizard well.Agreed. Well, mostly, there's definitely room for material essence in the transmutation school, but it's very much a sub-set of transmutations.
A problem that has plagued D&D basically ever since people started to create additional classes is that the wizard is overly broad. It's basically "all the magic that doesn't heal." Well, and talk to animals/plants, maybe. AD&D 2e, and really Dragonlance Adventures before that, made the problem worse by putting too much weight on the schools of magic, which back in AD&D 1e were mostly flavor (and the Illusionist was a distinct class, much like the druid was distinct from the cleric).
Generally speaking, I think the game would be better served by doing away with wizard as a character class and replacing it with a number of more specialized casters (and not having them tied to the old schools), each of which has their own spell list. But that's definitely not going to happen in PF2, which has moved in the other direction regarding spell lists.
I don't know that a hundred spell lists are necessary. Just give us some feats that let wizards pick up a couple of spells from other lists to fill in their school specialization and I think you would have a lot of happy wizard players.