I agree with the main consensus here about PF2 fortunately doesn't need a dedicated healer just like happens older editions and other games. But I disagree that magical healer are completely indispensable specially in severe and extreme encounter where's the critical rate of the foes increases.
I currently GMing a group with a druid and a battle oracle. Both have heal and but rarely uses it. The druid has battle medicine and continual recovery, the party also has a paladin. So in mostly moderated and below situations they rarely uses heal spell, usually during encounter the battle medicine and lay on hands solves mostly situations and after it the champion begin to refocus to spawn lay on hands and the druid uses his medicine checks until the party are fully healed and them they continue their progression.
But in stronger encounter this changes. Almost always some one receives at last 1 critical hit in the encounter and the monsters are usually strong enough to take mostly of a player HP in just this hit and usually still has more actions to continue the attack. So isn't rare see some player even down in such encounters and heal spells really make the diference here but theses spells usually aren't used in great numbers to justify a dedicated healers usually just 1-3 heals are enough in such dangerous situations.
I agree with those who defends that heal focused strategies are usually bad and only prolongs the suffering but in many partys I already played and usually the players only changes to such strategies when their HP falls fast and the opponents still appears in good situation (in place sessions I usually says how badly are their opponents, in VTTs I usually I put the HP bars without the numbers) but in other situations they normally prefers to take down their enemies most fast as possible and heals outside the encounters.
Saying this I understand what Deriven Firelion says about arcane tradition being the "worse". It's not like the tradition is really worse than other 3 but probably is the secondary choice of an organized party. In mostly cases they usually checks if someone currently has heal spell before "unlock" the arcane casters to avoid a party without any heal spellcaster.
Which is something that our group clearly has mixed feelings about, the clear shift (depending on how you played PF1 before of course) from outlasting your opponents to more or less out-brute-forcing them. Its usually clash for 2 rounds, mop for 2 rounds, rinse and repeat. Our group really likes long fights where mistakes can be made and corrected and strategies can be changed even mid fight, and not the all-in, hit-hard, hit-fast fights of PF2. I applaude this changes on many levels, like making out of the manual monsters dangerous and threatening again, however after a couple of fights we simply found those fights more tiring than exciting.Monsters hit real hard and boss monsters critically hit easy and often. Enemy casters at higher level can level parties with AoE attacks.
PF2 is a very dangerous game with short, extreme fights where both sides are expected to get hit hard and often. As a DM I like it because it makes for short, fast combats that are challenging without much modification.
It's taken some getting used to for my players because they are used to being able to shift everything in their favor so that monsters are trivial. PF2 is not that game. You fight a boss monster and you're going to feel some pain and there's no real way around it.
My players start complaining when some boss monster decimates their hit points in a round or two or they have to make some insane save that they only succeed on with a 16 or higher or something crazy. Swallow Whole really pissed them off when they had to roll a 15 with master Athletics at lvl 13 to escape a purple worm even with an 18 strength and an item. And swallow whole can all be done in one round of actions. The DC to escape is DC 40. With a +2 item, an 18 strength, and Master Athletics with a +2 item is +25. Pretty brutal.
If this edition weren't so easy to DM, we might have gone back to PF1 as that edition is way more of a player's edition. PF2 is a DM's edition. Players have to tone down expectations to enjoy it. Since I'm one of the primary DMs, I have no desire to go back to 20 hours of prepping villains after calculating damage per round for the party and accounting for every buff and spell in the game to make an encounter challenging.
I'd rather have the difficulty set at hard and balanced than trivial and unbalanced. I can always tone encounters down and it takes less time than building up encounters using house rules and giving monsters 12,000 hit points to last long in a fight.
Hopefully the OPs GM learns how to adjust to make the game more fun for the players before the difficulty burns them out.
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I'm just saying the primal and divine list allow you to have one caster very easily in a group of all martials because you have combat healing combined with everything else that you might get from an arcane caster.It looks like your GM is not varying challenges properly. Martials are the less versatile classes. If you never need versatility, I tend to think your GM is always sending you the same challenges over and over again. So it's normal that, at some point, you end up valuing a very specific setup to the point of considering that any other setup is weak. But it's specific to your GM, not to the game per se.This is not really the case. I'll try again to see if I can get you to see what I'm talking about.
In PF1 and previous editions of D&D, we always had the equivalent of an arcane caster for the reasons stated on this thread and we always had a dedicated healer because of how deadly we like to play.
But in PF2 the arcane caster isn't really necessary. You can get by with a hybrid caster. Any group can get by with a single hybrid caster that has some form of combat healing. This isn't an opinion. It is the way the new system plays which I am personally happy with. The group did not like having to play a dedicated healer.
There seems to be this confusion that I'm saying the Arcane list is unplayable. I'm not saying that. I'm saying it's the least desirable spell list due to its lack of healing or a singularly good spell like synesthesia.
Synesthesia is the closest to an overpowered and must have spell as you get in PF2. And healing is a must when you need it.
We got through a lot of encounters where we don't need combat healing. That's why we learned that a dedicated healer like a cleric with a healing font is overkill. But every adventure or AP we run into an encounter that is just brutal, usually a level+2 or more encounter where healing is absolutely essential for survival.
Combat healing and the...
In my opinion, PF2 is properly balanced in that there is nothing you really need for a party to be viable. Even melee martials can be ignored as now anyone can tank (besides low level Wizards/Witch/Sorcerers because they can't maximize AC at low levels).
I GM Abomination Vaults and play and GM PFS. Clearly, both have different focus, different adventuring days, different needs to be covered, etc...
From your posts, it seems that you play in a specific environment (mostly APs, strong focus on combat, GMs being nasty during combat but nice outside of them). This is a specialized experience, even if it may be a common one.
So, I completely understand that in your case, the Arcane spell list is not that important. But I disagree that it's because of the list itself. In my opinion, it comes from the way you are playing.
As a GM, I tend to create complex challenges, forcing my players to use different strategies where Damage + Buff/Debuff + Healing is not the solution. For example, my players don't scout the Abomination Vaults. As a result, they take 2 to 4 fights at the same time regularly because they trigger an alarm, make tons of noise or whatever. The Arcane list covers scouting pretty well.
The level -6 door? I considered it could only be opened from the inside. At level 7, Dimension Door is not hard to get (the scroll was available from Morlibint). So, the party had to send someone alone to open the door for the party. It was either Arcane or Occult.
There's a nasty fight in the same floor. The monster has a limited Summon Entity. I considered it was able to Summon a weak Destrachan when at half hit points, who's first action would be to "destroy everything in the room". Another fight where controlling the monster was more important than killing it or healing damage.
Damage + Buff/Debuff + Healing solves many fights. But as soon as the GM is creative and adds nasty features or a more complex fight, versatile characters tend to suddenly shine. And I like to give their moment to versatile characters.
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...I'm just saying the primal and divine list allow you to have one caster very easily in a group of all martials because you have combat healing combined with everything else that you might get from an arcane caster.It looks like your GM is not varying challenges properly. Martials are the less versatile classes. If you never need versatility, I tend to think your GM is always sending you the same challenges over and over again. So it's normal that, at some point, you end up valuing a very specific setup to the point of considering that any other setup is weak. But it's specific to your GM, not to the game per se.This is not really the case. I'll try again to see if I can get you to see what I'm talking about.
In PF1 and previous editions of D&D, we always had the equivalent of an arcane caster for the reasons stated on this thread and we always had a dedicated healer because of how deadly we like to play.
But in PF2 the arcane caster isn't really necessary. You can get by with a hybrid caster. Any group can get by with a single hybrid caster that has some form of combat healing. This isn't an opinion. It is the way the new system plays which I am personally happy with. The group did not like having to play a dedicated healer.
There seems to be this confusion that I'm saying the Arcane list is unplayable. I'm not saying that. I'm saying it's the least desirable spell list due to its lack of healing or a singularly good spell like synesthesia.
Synesthesia is the closest to an overpowered and must have spell as you get in PF2. And healing is a must when you need it.
We got through a lot of encounters where we don't need combat healing. That's why we learned that a dedicated healer like a cleric with a healing font is overkill. But every adventure or AP we run into an encounter that is just brutal, usually a level+2 or more encounter where healing is absolutely essential for
It is definitely the design of the game making combat healing and the medicine skill as valuable as they are to PF2 running smoothly with fewer TPKs.
Spent enough time running every type of character and party for many levels for my group to learn as long as you have a primal or divine caster with a heal spell and a character or two with the medicine skill and associated feats, a group can make anything else they feel like making and be just fine.
The heal spell and medicine skill with associated feats is non-negotiable unless you want the game run very slow and deadly.
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Well this is a lot I only skimmed over.
The only thing I'll add, as having leveled a primal sorcerer to level 10 in PFS, and having played a cleric/bard to 20 in home games. The higher level I got the less I was using Heal.
In fact, I'm pretty sure I can count the number of times I used a heal spell past level 16 on one hand.
So, if an arcane caster could get access to Heal, would that change anything?
Yes.
Well this is a lot I only skimmed over.
The only thing I'll add, as having leveled a primal sorcerer to level 10 in PFS, and having played a cleric/bard to 20 in home games. The higher level I got the less I was using Heal.
In fact, I'm pretty sure I can count the number of times I used a heal spell past level 16 on one hand.
So for 15 levels, most of an adventurer's career, healing was useful. So your point is wait until lvl 16 to play an arcane caster when healing isn't as needed?
I might agree with that. Our higher level parties started to use healing less and less and medicine was the default method for healing between battle.
If things go really bad, you can use moment of renewal, which is an absolutely amazing spell only on the divine and primal list.
I think that would make arcane mostly superior to primal. Especially with some money tossed at condition removal scrolls
If the arcane list picked up a heal, the list would be on par or better.
But the classes with arcane wouldn't suddenly be good. I'd still rather play a druid or primal sorcerer over an arcane wizard. Though I might be more likely to try a draconic sorcerer. The druid is too good a class in PF2 to pass up when you want to play a powerful offensive spellcaster.
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I think that would make arcane mostly superior to primal. Especially with some money tossed at condition removal scrollsIf the arcane list picked up a heal, the list would be on par or better.
But the classes with arcane wouldn't suddenly be good. I'd still rather play a druid or primal sorcerer over an arcane wizard. Though I might be more likely to try a draconic sorcerer. The druid is too good a class in PF2 to pass up when you want to play a powerful offensive spellcaster.
Sorcerers can already get easy access to Heal via Cross blooded. Though when the draconic sorcerer in my party got it, I feel like they did worse. See my earlier comment about tunnel vision with healing-- the sorcerer player basically one shot nearly a dozen hazard encounters with spells like Wall of Wind and Dispel Magic, and wrecked a whole lot of others with lightning bolt, before level 8.
But once she got heal, she leaned on it more than she should have. The Ranger wound up dominated for several rounds with the sorcerer spamming heal before I reminded her she could just Dispel it. (To be fair the enemies were undead, so the double dipping 3 action heals was super tempting, but when it became the obvious answer the player didn't look for anything else.)
I think that would make arcane mostly superior to primal. Especially with some money tossed at condition removal scrollsIf the arcane list picked up a heal, the list would be on par or better.
But the classes with arcane wouldn't suddenly be good. I'd still rather play a druid or primal sorcerer over an arcane wizard. Though I might be more likely to try a draconic sorcerer. The druid is too good a class in PF2 to pass up when you want to play a powerful offensive spellcaster.
Sorcerers can already get easy access to Heal via Cross blooded. Though when the draconic sorcerer in my party got it, I feel like they did worse. See my earlier comment about tunnel vision with healing-- the sorcerer player basically one shot nearly a dozen hazard encounters with spells like Wall of Wind and Dispel Magic, and wrecked a whole lot of others with lightning bolt, before level 8.
But once she got heal, she leaned on it more than she should have. The Ranger wound up dominated for several rounds with the sorcerer spamming heal before I reminded her she could just Dispel it. (To be fair the enemies were undead, so the double dipping 3 action heals was super tempting, but when it became the obvious answer the player didn't look for anything else.)
The sorcerer didn't pick up heal until lvl 8. Heal is most useful in the first 5 or 6 levels becoming progressively less so as you gain more levels until as another poster stated at 16th level you don't need it very often.
My primal sorcerer is lvl 8. She rarely uses heal at lvl 8 outside of occasional really brutal encounters. She doesn't use it in multi-target encounters where an AoE spell would be better.
That is why I have made it very clear that a dedicated healer not great. But a hybrid healer best for groups.
There this is weird tunnel vision viewpoint that seems to misconstrue what is being said.
I am not saying combat healing great, always use it.
What I'm saying is hybrid healer most valuable caster because they can heal when needed. That should be very clear the "when needed" part. You don't need a dedicated healer any more. You just need a hybrid healer who can combat heal when needed and do other things.
That is what makes the primal and divine list so valuable. It isn't just the healing. It's that they can heal and do a lot of other stuff like blasting, condition removal, buffing, and the like.
If all the primal or divine list could do was heal, then arcane would be better or equal. But that's not the case. What makes the primal and divine list so good is these lists can heal and do tons of other stuff because you don't need heals that often. So a primal or divine caster can toss out blasts, cantrips, shapechange, summon creatures, buff the party, debuff the enemy, control the battlefield, and do all this other stuff while pulling out the big heal when it is needed.
That's the thing about combat healing in PF2. You might not needed it for 90 percent or more of what you face. But when you need those heals, you really need them or you're going to wipe.
The times I've had to use heal it's because some boss monster decimated the martials in a round with some surprise special attack. If I don't heal them, then they're going down and the monster will carve through your party while you're trying to nuke it down. That usually doesn't work.
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Quite the opposite of your attempt to twist my point. I'm saying heal is so unnecessary that by level 15 I have found you don't need it at all. And before that you can absolutely get by without it. The current folks I'm playing low level PFS with are a fighter, an arcane witch, a paladin, and a swashbuckler. We've been fine.
My level 10 Primal Sorcerer has probably cast it 10-12 times. I think from what I've seen in this thread people are heavily overvaluing heal. It's a good spell, don't get me wrong, but it's not as critical as it's being made out to be.
Proper battlefield control, buffs, and debuffs go a lot further in getting a group through encounters than heal does.
Quite the opposite of your attempt to twist my point. I'm saying heal is so unnecessary that by level 15 I have found you don't need it at all. And before that you can absolutely get by without it. The current folks I'm playing low level PFS with are a fighter, an arcane witch, a paladin, and a swashbuckler. We've been fine.
My level 10 Primal Sorcerer has probably cast it 10-12 times. I think from what I've seen in this thread people are heavily overvaluing heal. It's a good spell, don't get me wrong, but it's not as critical as it's being made out to be.
Proper battlefield control, buffs, and debuffs go a lot further in getting a group through encounters than heal does.
I'm not twisting your point. I just don't find your experience standard. I think you likely run in a campaign opposite of the original poster where your DM runs a soft game that isn't at all standard for PF2.
I believe if you ran the standard game, you would find combat heals a necessity. I've have seen level +1 or 2 monsters carve up a party easily no matter what they do, how well they play, what spells they use, or what they plan for. If you go without the heal spell, you will likely wipe more than a few times doing adventures unless the DM runs the game very soft which some DMs do.
In running Age of Ashes, Abomination Vaults, Extinction Curse, and Agents of Edgewatch as well as GM created content, there hasn't been a single campaign I've run or been run where at some point a combat heal wasn't a necessity or the party was going to die. Not a single one.
You are underplaying the heal spell and creating a false idea that isn't standard for the PF2 game.
No idea why people do this, but I noticed it on these forums quite a bit. Always someone making some alternative claim that I'm 100% certain would not be backed up by the data.
It's a playstyle thing. Deriven and his group seem to like to play an optimized for damage output game, so Heal lets them go hog wild without worrying about defense and focusing purely on offense.
Heal doesn't let you go hogwild. They help you survive.
If you're fighting lvl+2 or higher monsters, they do a lot of damage. So you get these sequences that occur where you're doing fine, doing fine, doing fine, then bam you run into a monster that suddenly hits for two crits in a row and has some crazy AoE attack that decimates the party's hit points.
I find it really hard to see how this isn't a common experience in PF2. What are you guys fighting that is so easily defeated?
Even a short while ago we fight a Destrachan that was absolutely nasty. Ripped the party apart in short order bringing people to near dead before we could dispatch it with some powerful AoE attacks.
Yet to some on this forum, it's like these fights don't occur.
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I find this healing discussion pretty absurd, honestly. My group and I had virtually no healing except potions from levels 6 to 12 and we are doing just fine.
Healing is something nice to have, but for me it is far from a requisite to have a functional party if you are willing to slow down combat.
Well, I've seen exactly one three action heal in two years and the group was full health when it was cast. So I haven't seen anything where the group got decimated all at once, we tend to not stand together. As for the crits thing yeah that happens occasionally, but I've been in several parties where no one had the heal spell and that was dealt with using other options like battle medicine and Lay on Hands. The only player deaths I've seen are from sheer stupidity (including my own). Close? Sure. But nothing where I've lamented the lack of the Heal spell.
3 action heals are not a good way to spend a heal. We never use 3 action heals as they don't apply the +8 per level bonus. Single target, 2 action heals or not at all.
Crits happen occasionally? They happen often fighting boss monsters who usually have a starting attack modifier that allows them to crit roughly 35% or more of the time on their first attack.
When I say AoE attacks, I mean something like an AOE melee attack where the MAP doesn't reduce until the attack is complete. So if you have 2 martials attacking, they might use an AoE melee attack with full MAP which increases the crit attacks.
Very strange that you've played multiple games where this hasn't led to some real decimated parties.
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3 actions heal is really useful when you are surrounded by undeads. For other situations is pretty useless unless for some reason all party members are heavily wounded.
I find this healing discussion pretty absurd, honestly. My group and I had virtually no healing except potions from levels 6 to 12 and we are doing just fine.
Healing is something nice to have, but for me it is far from a requisite to have a functional party if you are willing to slow down combat.
Healing has no effect on the speed of combat as it is spent either to bring a damage dealer back into battle or ensure they do not drop losing their actions in combat. Not sure why anyone would ever view combat healing as slowing down combat.
You must have some weird idea that heals are being cast instead of combat spells. That isn't the case at all.
Heals are being cast when another group member is either taken to unconsciousness or nearly so, so that healing them is ensuring you don't lose that players actions against the enemy. That in no way slows down combat.
3 actions heal is really useful when you are surrounded by undeads. For other situations is pretty useless unless for some reason all party members are heavily wounded.
I can agree with this.
Back to back Crits happen occasionally. Crits themselves aren't particularly rare especially when I GM. But I've played without dedicated magical healing and it's been fine. It got really dicey when we ran into something lvl+4, lvl+3 hurts but I don't think Heal would have particularly changed the outcomes of most of those. Plus those are supposed to be dicey anyway.
I've found groups with a divine caster tend to play more recklessly, which is why I made my above comment. They do a lot of stand and whack. The other groups had many more fighting retreats and use of terrain that significantly helped their survivability.
My personal favorite caster list is primal. I think it offers the most combat options, while also providing that occasionally needed heal. The classes you can take the primal list have some great build options. Druid is amazing. I like the elemental sorcerer as well.
I don't love the divine list honestly. But I had to list it because you can play with a divine caster and all martials and still get those heals when you need them along with other stuff. I built a really hammer Cleric of Gorum using a Greatsword and that shout ability from the Destruction Domain. And I built him with channel smite as well. He can do some pretty vicious damage, while also providing that heal when needed.
I think the main confusion is people think I'm saying you need heals all the time. You don't. You need them occasionally when things go real bad often by surprise due a creature having some really nasty attack sequence or just a series of really good rolls by the nasty boss monster.
PF2 mostly operates well enough with Medicine getting people up between battles.
My primal sorcerer hasn't had to cast heal too often either. I think we had like 3 fights she had to heal out of probably 40 fights or so. But when she has had to heal, it was needed. Death was coming.
That's why I prefer the primal list. I buy one heal spell and I can pretty much do what I want with the rest of my spells. Whereas the Divine list doesn't have as many fun options other than heals unless you're fighting fiends or undead. The arcane list doesn't have much unique to it and is attached to not very fun in my opinion class options. Now the occult list I like. You can do a lot with that last and it is attached to some good class and build options.
The arcane list tends to get oversold as the "best" spell list usually by pro-wizard players. I don't consider a list good because it has a lot of spells on it. I find the primal list the most attractive because it does most of what you'll need, can heal when needed, and is attached to often excellent class and build options.
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"I don't understand why everyone has a different experience than me. Clearly my opinion represents the majority and not the other way around."
I've had four groups of different players now and only one had a dedicated healer and all of them have had an arcane caster of some sort. Ironically the one group that used a dedicated healer definitely needed it as they were also the group that never used a single defensive action, spell, or even moved away from an enemy. The cleric soon only prepped heal in all of his slots, completely ignoring any other spell that could have prevented the attacks from landing in the first place.
"I don't understand why everyone has a different experience than me. Clearly my opinion represents the majority and not the other way around."
I've had four groups of different players now and only one had a dedicated healer and all of them have had an arcane caster of some sort. Ironically the one group that used a dedicated healer definitely needed it as they were also the group that never used a single defensive action, spell, or even moved away from an enemy. The cleric soon only prepped heal in all of his slots, completely ignoring any other spell that could have prevented the attacks from landing in the first place.
Now you're just making stuff up I didn't say and tossing it out there.
And I never said you needed a dedicated healer. PF2 doesn't need a dedicated healer other than the medicine skill and associated feats.
We no longer make dedicated healers for our groups. They are unnecessary. We make casters that have a heal spell for emergencies and do lots of other things that support combat.
I literally have stated multiple times that you don't need a dedicated healer. The more desirable healer is a hybrid using the primal or divine list because it allows everyone around you to make whatever they want including an arcane caster if they feel like it.
I haven't had any groups with an arcane caster past lvl 5, they all quit due to being overshadowed by every other class. Every single one of them was overshadowed in effectiveness by other classes every single time whether it was damage, buffs and debuffs, and even versatility. One player tried different wizards 3 times. He really tried to build a good one trying different schools. Wizards are his favorite class and he played a ton of them in PF1 and previous editions of D&D. When he plays games like Everquest and World of Warcraft, first class he makes is a wizard. He names his game characters after his wizard characters from D&D. Yet in PF2 all the wizards he made ended up feeling like a fifth wheel compared to what other classes brought to the table.
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Primal is too broad. It contains healing, blasting, buffs and some utility (fly). Editions past have given Druids some offense and utility but usually worse than Wizards --- no fly, haste, fireball, lightning bolt, etc. -- but weaker versions like call lightning. Primal should never have been this broad to leave room for Arcane to have more unique spells on its list.
Completely disagree, it was always silly that Druids were so bad at elemental blasting even though it fits their thematic wheelhouse in PF2.
Primal is an excellent spell list right now. It's varied and interesting but still the second smallest spell list in the game too.
Arcane does have way more spells than Primal though. The updated list from Old Man Robot is:
Arcane: 489
Occult: 441
Primal: 357
Divine: 282
See this thread.
The more egregious issue to me is that Occult has nearly as many spells as Arcane while also getting Heal "lite" (soothe)
Arcane gets disintegrate, which I admit is biased of me to say since it's my favorite spell, but is a VERY good spell.
It's damage and utility all together.
As for three action heals, Im gming a dhampirs party right now and three action harms comes up a LOT, it has meant the fighter and swashbuckler eat more dirt though since they have less focused healing.
I mean, arcane isn't just good because it's big, it's good because it can cover a lot of bases and has many strong spells on its list. It being good is more just a consequence of the former than the selling point in and of itself.
That doesn't change that Primal is really good too, especially if you want to focus on things like blasting or healing... but that's not exactly a bad thing.
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The larger spell list of arcane would also be a bigger advantage if you didn't have to pay for every spell. Keeping your spellbook stocked for every situation is tricky. And NPCs dropping spellbooks as loot seems to have fallen out of fashion.
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The group I run for is hardly optimised or strategists. But they managed most of the campaign without a dedicated magical healer (there was a druid, but they were wildshape focused and avoided healing).
They managed to go the last 8 sessions without a single heal spell spent (although the druid's death impacted the last 4 as there aren't any spellcasters with heal/soothe)
They beat the end of book fight and a few severe and extreme challenges along the way.
How did they manage this feat? Consumables exist, per day healing items exist and battle medic + medicine exists.
Healing magic can be nice and certainly has value, but it is hardly necessary even against extreme difficulty fights.
For the record I have attacked downed PCs multiple times and even had one die so it isn't like I am going super easy on the party either.
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Your group did not, by chance, include a Champion? Just asking, because I seem to have noticed that many groups that seem to not use healing at least have some kind of build in mitigation.
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The larger spell list of arcane would also be a bigger advantage if you didn't have to pay for every spell. Keeping your spellbook stocked for every situation is tricky. And NPCs dropping spellbooks as loot seems to have fallen out of fashion.
Actually, yeah! I've seen more spellbook drops in crpgs than I ever have in all my years of 5e and p2e. If it happened in previous editions why did it fall out of style?
The larger spell list of arcane would also be a bigger advantage if you didn't have to pay for every spell. Keeping your spellbook stocked for every situation is tricky. And NPCs dropping spellbooks as loot seems to have fallen out of fashion.Actually, yeah! I've seen more spellbook drops in crpgs than I ever have in all my years of 5e and p2e. If it happened in previous editions why did it fall out of style?
It was pretty popular in PF1, especially in the Runelord stories which primarily used wizard BBEGs. Age of Ashes had a few wizards that didn't list books (or at least what spells were in the books, beyond the prepare ones) but that could have been early adoption pains. Maybe they have gotten better with it since then. In general, they've cut way back on having every NPC carry a ton of equipment that fills out the WBL budget.
I also don't think they've published rules for selling spellbooks. And I don't totally remember what the rules are for preparing spells from someone else's book instead of copying them into your own. Formula books are in a similar boat.
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The larger spell list of arcane would also be a bigger advantage if you didn't have to pay for every spell. Keeping your spellbook stocked for every situation is tricky. And NPCs dropping spellbooks as loot seems to have fallen out of fashion.Actually, yeah! I've seen more spellbook drops in crpgs than I ever have in all my years of 5e and p2e. If it happened in previous editions why did it fall out of style?
5e tends to throw so much money at you you can buy what scrolls you want. Though I think they released a bunch of magic item spellbooks recently. More generally, npcs rarely have optimal spells prepared or scribed. They have thematic spells. Most wizard players from 3e onward just don't care enough to learn substandard spells from drops in modules/adventures/whatever.
The lower magic your campaign the more the wizard will appreciate crushing a rival and stealing their independent research.
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As a GM I try to always write down a list of recipes for alchemist and wizard enemies.
Even in AP's (looking at you Age of Ashes...)
If I'm doing homebrew, I'll make sure to stat out enemy wizard spellbooks, as well as ritual books and crafting books, because that's part of what they can do as preparation to f~@# over the PC's.
I even give them approximate value and reduce that from overall rewards.
But that's very much a GM thing, druids and clerics have the upper hand in this scenario for sure.
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Your group did not, by chance, include a Champion? Just asking, because I seem to have noticed that many groups that seem to not use healing at least have some kind of build in mitigation.
Barbarian, rogue, ranger, alchemist and the now dead druid, soon to be replaced by a bard without soothe.
A good mid level wand to pick up is vital beacon if the party doesn't have a healer. Upgrade it when necessary, overcharge if you are in a pinch healing wise and have a hero point top avoid the 5% chance of destruction if you get unlucky.
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As a GM I try to always write down a list of recipes for alchemist and wizard enemies.
Even in AP's (looking at you Age of Ashes...)
If I'm doing homebrew, I'll make sure to stat out enemy wizard spellbooks, as well as ritual books and crafting books, because that's part of what they can do as preparation to f%*@ over the PC's.
I even give them approximate value and reduce that from overall rewards.
But that's very much a GM thing, druids and clerics have the upper hand in this scenario for sure.
Interesting. I wonder if that is why Primal and Divine have far less spells.
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Regarding the Arcane vs Primal debate.
The problem is not that Primal is too good. The problem is that Arcane has nothing going for it. While at the same time Arcane classes continue to be given relatively bad feats and weird restriction for no apparent reason. This combines to make Primal straight up better than Arcane.
People mention Arcane having more spells overall. But the fact is Primal has considerably more unique spells. Which also tend to be stronger than Arcane versions.
Primal and divine are good for the following reasons:
1. Heals are great at stopping TPKs and character death.
2. Healing on a spell list that does lots of other things allows you to build parties with only a single caster that gives more flexibility to players to make whatever they want during character creation.
I have players that spent years in PF1 and previous D&D editions covering bases like dedicated healer and arcane utility caster because healing and spells like haste and fly were so good you couldn't much live without them or you were going to get destroyed by enemies using them.
One thing no one liked to play was the dedicated healer.
Well, PF2 got rid of the dedicated healer. My players are so happy.
Now you just need that one hybrid caster who can cast the occasional heal and the medicine guy and you can make whatever party you want.
Skills can cover almost everything else. If someone does want to play an arcane caster and find ways to do with spells what the skill guys do, then so be it. They can do that too.
The above is pretty much why the arcane list is less desirable in my group to the primal and divine list. It comes down to when you create characters, the primal and divine list make it so you don't need any other caster in the group. Most of my players prefer playing martials. This lets them do that without sacrificing healing.
One thing martials hate is being laid out in a fight and doing nothing. Heal gets them back on their feet fast with no skill check required.
Getting knocked out by a boss monster in PF2 seems so common that it's hard for me to see how it has happened to far more people playing PF2. We may be a combat oriented group, but we play pretty much monsters out the book as written. PF2 monsters are extremely vicious and capable of taking down parties.
Not sure how you're getting people back on their feet with potions and combat medicine with PF2 boss monsters able to so easily rip through hit points even of better defended martials, much less rip through caster hit points. But experiences seem to differ. I sure wish I could see what some of you are doing at your table to ameliorate 35% plus crit rates with boss monsters with extreme ACs and AOE attacks that can take half your hit points in one round. Just seems very odd to me.
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So just a chime in here because this has happened multiple times in quoted you've said DF.
In pf1 dedicated healer wasn't a thing... You had scrolls Of heal with UMD at higher levels, you had wands of fiendish healing at low levels, and some scrolls of breath of life here and there.
Most groups did not have a dedicated healer at all. You did your healing outside of combat because in combat it was a loss of actions. Controllers were the game in pf1e because incapacitating the ennemy to the point where he could not do anything was a much better way to mitigate damage.
Glitter dust, hold person, grease, icy prison, ray of enfeeblement, color spray, all of these packed much more of a punch.
This isn't even a me thing, it's outlined in multiple guides on strategy, such as the hammer-arm-anvil strategy guide or most class guides, not to mention treantmonk's legendary wizard guide.
Pf2e mellowed control and thus now combat healer is much more valuable, that I'll grant you.
But if your group had dedicated combat healer in pf1 then that does indicate previous bias? Although I know you boosted difficulty so perhaps it wasn't the original meta you were playing but very much your own bottled group?
Just to give an exemple:
Last parties I DM'ed
pirate crew:
Hunter
Magus
Arcanist
Eldritch cultist (negative channeling, learned CLW once in a while )
Return of the runelords:
Monk
Ranger
Witch
Warpriest (did heal, but only herself, eventually got the heal spell though)
Rise of the runelords:
Psion
Bard
Summoner
Kingmaker 2:
Gunslinger
Rogue/sorc
Alchemist
Monk
Shaman (could get the life spirit, but didn't)
Kingmaker 1:
Monk/sorc/dragon disciple
Diviner
Oracle (was actually a dedicated healer!)
Barbarian
Overall inspiré courage or a way to get it was MUCH more valuable to the group as it allowed for nova strats of killing the ennemy before it acted.
