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So...
The "Spell per day" are reduced, but "Preparing your spell collections" rely on the class' spell slots "from your spell slots per day for your class spells" and you prepare your spell collection from there.
So, example is as if you only get the two from the new table, but are referencing the old table in the class for the spell collection. Was this an error?
Or did they mean to hamstring the Flexible Caster to the point of being unusable by only having two spells to choose from for each level, oh, and the school spell, which is still prepared normally.
Did they mean to do this? Or is there something I am missing here.
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I see it the other way.
First you adjust your class's number of spell slots per level.
You can cast fewer spells each day. Your number of spell slots per day don't advance from 2 to 3 spells at even levels (see Table 5—1).
Then you count your spell slots available to you to know how many spells to put in your collection.
The number of spells in your spell collection each day equals the total number of spell slots you get each day from your class spells.
The number of spell slots that you get each day from your class spells has been changed.
So the 5th level Wizard should have
1st 2/2/(1)
2nd 2/2/(1)
3rd 2/2/(1)
And table 5-1 is correct when it lists 6 spells in collection.
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Then Flexible Spellcasting is limited and only for roleplay, basically. When a Sorcerer knows four spells in a given level and an "Arcanist" only knows two and a prepared school outlier, it has the wizard relying more on Cantrips than what they do in the Core.
Clerics has the Healing font that is more useful than the school spell.
I was really hoping they would have done it right, but they 5th edition borked it for the sake of balance.
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Prepared spellcasting is powerful because you can prepare spells that are the most useful for what you are expecting to encounter for the current day. You can adapt for changing adventuring needs. The drawback is that if you guess wrong, you won't be able to find much use for a particular spell that you have prepared. Also you may find that you run out of a spell that was needed more than you had prepared castings of.
Spontaneous spellcasting is powerful because you can repeatedly cast the spells that are the most useful. The drawback is that it takes a lot of time to change what spells you have available.
Flexible spellcasting has both powers. You can change out your entire spell preparation every day. And if you find that a few spells are more useful than others, you can just cast those ones repeatedly until you run out of spell slots to cast with. So it has to have a downside to compensate for that.
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Prepared spellcasting is a dodo of the roleplaying mechanic that should have been excised from the game in 1st edition (3.0 D&D or PF1) The arcanist type of spellcasting should have been the norm for PF2, but instead it is clinging on to this old crusty from the worn paperback book that Vancian wrote long ago.
How the thing is worded, you can prepare spells in your spell collection in the hightened slots, though it also includes reference to being like a sorcerer in nature while mentioning that you still need at least one 1st level spell in your collection to insure the usage of all spells slots. (does that even make sense?)
So... you can heighten spells by putting the heightened version in your spell collection, or by using higher spell slots with the lower spells, or both? Neither? One or the other? It does not say.
I stand by my assessment. It is a role play aspect and hamstrings the prepared caster as to not step on the Sorcerer's toes.
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Prepared spellcasting is a dodo of the roleplaying mechanic that should have been excised from the game in 1st edition (3.0 D&D or PF1) The arcanist type of spellcasting should have been the norm for PF2, but instead it is clinging on to this old crusty from the worn paperback book that Vancian wrote long ago.
How the thing is worded, you can prepare spells in your spell collection in the hightened slots, though it also includes reference to being like a sorcerer in nature while mentioning that you still need at least one 1st level spell in your collection to insure the usage of all spells slots. (does that even make sense?)
So... you can heighten spells by putting the heightened version in your spell collection, or by using higher spell slots with the lower spells, or both? Neither? One or the other? It does not say.
I stand by my assessment. It is a role play aspect and hamstrings the prepared caster as to not step on the Sorcerer's toes.
Well fortunately in PF2 you can play an Imperial Sorcerer with a spell book and forget that the wizard class exists. Its just all round better. But a lot of the PF2 customer base still want it - it may well have made PF1 a success - so they didn't change it.
I see no issue in prepared spellcasting ( I like the more, as they are harder in terms of preparation ).
Yes some people find it more fun to come up with a creative use for the spells they do have ready.
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Prepared spellcasting is a dodo of the roleplaying mechanic that should have been excised from the game in 1st edition (3.0 D&D or PF1) The arcanist type of spellcasting should have been the norm for PF2
Well, it would be trivially easy to houserule it to work this way in your own games.
It would be much harder to houserule it the other way. If Arcanist style spellcasting was what all of the spellcasting classes use, how would a particular player group go back to using prepared or spontaneous casting?
I stand by my assessment. It is a role play aspect and hamstrings the prepared caster as to not step on the Sorcerer's toes.
Actually, I don't really disagree with this. Flexible Spellcasting was created the way that it was so as not to introduce power creep.
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Not stepping on the sorcerer's toes sounds like a good thing, tbh.
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Being able to cast the spells with higher spell slots SEEMED like what it was trying to convey, but the section trips itself up going over things, and the mention of the need to keep a first level spell available.
It is just... a bit off.
To me, there is a difference between power creep and nerf bats. This selection doesn't improve the overall problem with the prepared caster when it limits what the character can pull from when pressed to cast a spell. This is on top of less casting per day while giving no real advantage for having those limitations.
My overall impression is that the Sorcerer is a better choice for a class as far as Arcane casting is concerned. The Wizard just gets batted into submission no matter what way you go.
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I looked over the heightening section of the Flexible Spellcaster archetype, and that's exactly what it conveys to me. "Once you gain 2nd-level spells, you can heighten any spell in your spell collection to any level you can cast, similar to a spontaneous spellcaster's signature spells. The only restriction is that you must select at least one 1st-level spell for your collection each time you prepare, ensuring that you can use all your spell slots each day."
That is it. That's literally the whole section on heightening. Basically, one of the advantages a Flexible Spellcaster has over a regular spontaneous caster (in addition to being able to swap out their entire spell collection from day to day) is that all of the spells they've prepared in their spell collection are signature spells. The tradeoff for these advantages is that flexible casters have fewer spell slots to cast them in. If that's a tradeoff you think isn't worth it, then I can understand that.
The limitations are:
Prepared Casters:
Overall Limitation of Spells available. Near unlimited. Gold might limit acquisition of extreme number of spells, time required would be minimal, but not trivial. But there isn't a technical max limitation.
Any particular day, the standard prepared caster picks a set of spells, and those are the spells they have for that day. This is irrespective of what spells they had directly available any other day. As they cast a spell, they lose it, unless they memorized it multiple times. However, some have the capability to pull back one of their previously cast spells they no longer have.
Spontaneous Casters:
Have a hard limit on the number of spells they can reasonably have available by their casting. They choose their spells at character creation and leveling. They have a very limited ability to change (1 spell, per level they advance).
They don't lose access to the spell they chose at character creation, just because they cast it already. So at the start of a casting day, they generally have around the same number of spells available as a prepared caster. It is just the spells were chosen at creation, instead of at the beginning of the day.
Note, spontaneous casters mention that you are supposed to be able to change spells, outside of the 1 spell per level, but by one reading it requires changing a core class feature (choice of spell in repertoire) so might take up to a month to do. I think PFS allows it with 1 week of downtime.
So by default, spontaneous casters have a very hard (but not absolute) cap on the number of spells they will ever have access to cast, but during a day, they have more flexibility as the day goes on, on what spells remain available to them.
New Flexible Casters:
They tried to split the difference. They keep the near unlimited availability to cast any spells in their tradition like the standard prepared caster. However, instead of losing the spells they have prepared, they behave like spontaneous casters and keep the spell selection through the entire day. They are a prepared, spontaneous caster. They get the benefit that both sides had before.
Since it is intended to be an option (not a requirement) they wanted to try to balance it so it wasn't hands down better or worse than either of the prior existing options.
So they reduced the number of slots. Daily they choose what of their extremely wide selection of spells, they wish to prepare, without concern for losing access to it by casting it.
I noticed that in order to pay for the extra power at early levels, they had to pay for this flexibility by losing out on some of the number of cantrips they can have prepared at a time.
Cantrips were something that Id noticed was tipped to the advantage for the prepared casters. Because cantrips don't get expended by casting them, the selection at character creation, makes it a choice that is more costly for the spontaneous casters. I actually thought that was backwards, and sorcerers should have had a bit of an edge on cantrips. I'd thought they would have had them learn new/extra cantrips as they unlocked additional spell levels, allowing their cantrip repertoire to increase over time. It is interesting that this sort of instead goes to a prepared caster archetype, but it is doing it to catch back up to the 'baseline' number of cantrips.
Really, while they do lose at the end approximately 1/3 of their spell slots, rounding in their favor, and the same in terms of starting spell choices, they don't have to worry about losing access to spells throughout the day. For every spell they might have taken at more than one slot in the same level, or different level, this chips away from the loss. In the end, assuming you use 2/3 or your spells, that means you probably win out on spell availability choices through the day. But you can still see that you made a concession for this improvement.
Prepared casters can be weak at the end of the day due to limited spell selection at that point, but proper preparation can limit this, and provides prepared casters great long term flexibility to handle a wide variety of different issues through a long campaign with changing focus (varied encounters, downtime, exploration).
Spontaneous casters remain able to do what limited items they can do for far longer during any particular day, but have to spread these abilities among all potential focus areas (varied encounter situations, downtime environments, and exploration) as the campaign goes on, as their starting choices define their actions.
Flexible casters have lots of daily preparation options so they can function within a set of relevant spells, from their wide base of campaign available spells. They just won't have as many options as a potential spontaneous that has ALL their choices dedicated to a specific focus, such a combat. So a combat only sorcerer might have more choice than a flexible caster towards the end of the day, but if they have a spell or two dedicated to exploration and/or downtime their flexibility would be more comparable at that point.
So honestly, it seems like a pretty well balanced trade off that doesn't dismiss either of the other two existing options' potential advantages.
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From my experience seeing them in play, they've seemed okay
Although maybe it's too balanced. Flexible Preparation costs a feat and locks you out of other class archetypes and I'm not sure it actually feels like it's that much better than normal preparation.
But I've seen a flexible wizard and a flexible druid in play. The wizard still had decent longevity and basically never ran into the problem of having 'dud' spell slots like a traditional wizard might. The druid leaned very heavily on wild shape anyways so they didn't really miss the lost slots.
Purely speculative, but I feel like a flexible witch might feel less fun since their fallbacks aren't as singularly effective as something like Wild Shape.
You also can't take your lesson feat at level 2 as a Witch.
Yeah, unless we were playing with a houserule of Witch getting Basic Lesson for free at 2nd level in addition to their normal 2nd level class feat, I would never recommend or play a Witch with Flexible Spellcasting.
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Sorta think that there should have been some way to get Flexible Casting without making it into an Archtype. Now, the Arcanist is not going to be a class by itself for this edition, which is... sad.
I would hope that some additional archtype feats for the Flexible Caster would be added in future books, maybe even get some focus spells that are specific to the alternative casting of the classes that take this alternative.
But, however disappointing this is, at least it is an option out there to get away from the Vancian Casting sacred cow.
Sorta think that there should have been some way to get Flexible Casting without making it into an Archtype. Now, the Arcanist is not going to be a class by itself for this edition, which is... sad.
It is trivially easy to houserule it. But be aware that it is a definite power bump over the game's standard spellcasting methods. Give a Witch Arcanist style spellcasting and it would be noticeably better than either the Wizard or the Sorcerer even with only three spell slots per spell level.
I would hope that some additional archtype feats for the Flexible Caster would be added in future books, maybe even get some focus spells that are specific to the alternative casting of the classes that take this alternative.
That would be cool. Maybe one similar to Arcane Breadth. Give back the third casting slot, but not increase spells in the spell collection, for spell levels lower than the highest two.
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From my experience seeing them in play, they've seemed okay
I don't have lots of experience yet but I'm quite liking it with my L9 cleric and L15 druid.
Both were changed to be flexible when SoM came out and so I've got a good feel for the differences it makes to the two characters.
In both cases they "feel" fairly balanced. I really like the extra flexibility (both the spontaneous casting side AND the swap my spells when necessary side). I also really miss the spell slots that I've lost.
But I'm pretty sure that the balance would shift
1) At lower levels where slots are more valuable (you just don't have enough).
2) With characters that relied completely on their spells. My cleric still has his healing font, my druid still is a medic who wild shapes a fair bit.
I think that I'd have preferred it if this form of spell casting had been the default all along. But that ship has long sailed and the flexible mage is very much a great compromise and addition to the game. Gives the player the choice.
Not sure that I'd charge a feat for it though. I think its pretty balanced without the feat. But I expect the main reason for that is to future proof it against more class archetypes that may come out in the future.
My confusion about interactions with Flexible Spellcaster....
I assume, as normal (+1 cantrip and +× slots per day), but am not positive.
Thanks!!
Sorta think that there should have been some way to get Flexible Casting without making it into an Archtype. Now, the Arcanist is not going to be a class by itself for this edition, which is... sad.
The main Arcanist things still missing are exploits and a counterpart to the Arcane Reservoir. These things could be packaged into an archetype, or just a set of class feats, possibly with many of the exploits being converted into focus spells.
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The main Arcanist things still missing are exploits and a counterpart to the Arcane Reservoir. These things could be packaged into an archetype, or just a set of class feats, possibly with many of the exploits being converted into focus spells.
The PF1 exploits run the gamut from fairly weak to pretty powerful, especially with the new math (adding +1 to your save DC is a pretty big thing in PF2). Heck, even turning the weakish things like the blasts into focus spells is creating significantly more powerful focus spells (or, if not, why bother?)
So to do this Paizo has to do either
1) Just significantly increase the power of the Wizard (and whatever other classes this affects) OR
2) Make you pay some equivalent penalty in order to balance the power gain. About the only currency that I see that can possibly be paid would be spell slots. And that is a really tough thing to balance properly.