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wizards are not underpowered, they are just incredibly bland, they really lack anything to point to as "the wizard thing" their feat list is mostly generic while not bad, largely flavorless. The arcane spell list is much the same, arcane has a huge pool of good spells but has the smallest number of unique spells so there is very little that feels distinct, you have a ton of good options but very little that is unique, and compared to the other classes, it is very lacking in identity or distinct mechanicsI have a player in my group playing a generalist wizard. They just hit level 11. And he has pretty much owned the battlefield up to this point. He separates enemies out, so they can fight a lot of them one at a time. He buffs, debuffs, and does damage when needed.
I don't understand anyone saying wizards are bland or underpowered. At all.
the thing is, any arcane caster can do that, an arcane sorcerer or witch, and a primal or occult caster can largely fill similer rolls. what wizard needs is identity, it needs "a wizard thing" and it cannot be "awesome spell list" because that is open to basically all non-divine full casters.
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the thing is, any arcane caster can do that, an arcane sorcerer or witch, and a primal or occult caster can largely fill similer rolls. what wizard needs is identity, it needs "a wizard thing" and it cannot be "awesome spell list" because that is open to basically all non-divine full casters.wizards are not underpowered, they are just incredibly bland, they really lack anything to point to as "the wizard thing" their feat list is mostly generic while not bad, largely flavorless. The arcane spell list is much the same, arcane has a huge pool of good spells but has the smallest number of unique spells so there is very little that feels distinct, you have a ton of good options but very little that is unique, and compared to the other classes, it is very lacking in identity or distinct mechanicsI have a player in my group playing a generalist wizard. They just hit level 11. And he has pretty much owned the battlefield up to this point. He separates enemies out, so they can fight a lot of them one at a time. He buffs, debuffs, and does damage when needed.
I don't understand anyone saying wizards are bland or underpowered. At all.
All the spell lists except divine can do this. Still not even sure why people consider arcane so good.
Primal has the slow spell as well. I usually get it with my primal casters.
People have this weird idea of the arcane list that it is somehow superior because they don't have much experience with primal. People at least appreciate the occult list. Occult list is very good at control.
I've had no trouble finding key spells on the primal list to control a battlefield or do what needs to be done.
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I decided to pull up some of our previous threads about Wizard balancing and look at the trends.
The language has changed a bit as we have seen the game expand, but the general points all look to be roughly the same.
No other class keeps returning this amount of discussion and I think that is somewhat telling. There is no smoke without fire, as they say, and nothing has produced as much smoke as the Wizard. It's just that no one can agree what exactly is on fire.
From the narrowing down I can think of the potential source is some combination of:
* Boring feats.
* Spells constrained too much.
* Bad delivery on theme.
* Difficulty landing spells.
* Bad action economy.
* Lack of interesting and impactful focus spells.
* Lack of prepared metamagic (those were a huge part of how Wizard interacted).
* Related to the previous points but slightly different, the lack in Wizard access to various metamagic feats.
If you were unsatisfied with core decisions made about the wizard class in the early development of the game, you are likely still upset. That hardly seems shocking to me, although there are several early naysayers who have come around on quite a few of these points.
The idea that spells are underwhelming in consistent play is routinely debunked by actual play experience. Once you learn what your spells can do they can be quite powerful. Wizards specialize in buffing, debuffing, multi target damage, and utility problem solving, they always have. They still do all of those things very effectively in PF2.
Wizard feats are not boring in any context but on paper. Silent spell is a unique wizard meta magic feat that is still awesomely powerful and useful in PF2. Forcible energy is awesomely powerful when synergism’s with your party and is a wizard only meta magic feat. Convincing illusion is an amazing wizard feat. “My spells don’t land enough” has a direct counter in spell penetration, but either that feat is called terrible, or a feat tax depending on what position is necessary to continue to deride wizards. The same really can be said about reach spell and widen spell as wizards are the class that gets enough spells to really make those feats valuable. Especially widen spell.
The addition of the thesis was a deliberate choice to change some of the wizards focus away from over specialization on a narrow selection of spells based on school. The ability to force the same spell on to any situation was a terrible problem in 3.x and has been rightfully fixed. It never should have been the wizard’s shtick in the first place.
The confusion over the difference between prepared and spontaneous meta magic was also an unnecessary complication that has been smartly solved by folding into the action economy. These are my opinions, but they are also clearly the opinions of the developers as well, and it seems like lots more players are having fun playing wizards in PF2 than are finding the experience entirely ruined. Wizards are still everywhere in PFS, and in the games that I see happening.
The fact that the only “glaring” problem with wizards that has been addressed with new material is the addition of a slight accuracy boosting item for spell attack roll spells (with the caveat that it still requires knowledge about your opponent) seems to indicate that dissatisfaction with these other elements of the game is not as pervasive as some would argue here on the boards.
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The idea that spells are underwhelming in consistent play is routinely debunked by actual play experience.
I really don't like when people assume those who disagree with them "don't actually play the game". It's kinda rude if you ask me, people can have different experiences. In my gaming group of 9 people, I'm the only one who don't find spells to be generally underwhelming, and that's mostly because I enjoy playing control casters a lot and know how to abuse the "meta" spells.
“My spells don’t land enough” has a direct counter in spell penetration, but either that feat is called terrible, or a feat tax depending on what position is necessary to continue to deride wizards.
That's because it is either useless or a feat tax. If you fight enough things with Magic Resistance for it to be relevant, it's a feat tax to make your spells hit better. If you don't, it's useless.
The fact that the only “glaring” problem with wizards that has been addressed with new material is the addition of a slight accuracy boosting item for spell attack roll spells (with the caveat that it still requires knowledge about your opponent) seems to indicate that dissatisfaction with these other elements of the game is not as pervasive as some would argue here on the boards.
Are their bad early game and how much better control and utility are compared to any other playstyle one might want for their mage fantasy not glaring problems?
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Wizard feats are not boring in any context but on paper. Silent spell is a unique wizard meta magic feat that is still awesomely powerful and useful in PF2. Forcible energy is awesomely powerful when synergism’s with your party and is a wizard only meta magic feat. Convincing illusion is an amazing wizard feat. “My spells don’t land enough” has a direct counter in spell penetration, but either that feat is called terrible, or a feat tax depending on what position is necessary to continue to deride wizards. The same really can be said about reach spell and widen spell as wizards are the class that gets enough spells to really make those feats valuable. Especially widen spell.
Silent spell is not awesomely powerful and useful. It's situationally useful and I doubt many wizards take it.
Forcible Energy is ok in some situations.
Convincing Illusion is very good if you use a lot of illusions and build up Deception and Charisma.
Spell Penetration is a solid feat. Very useful against many very powerful creatures.
Reach Spell is great, but lots of casters have that.
The best wizard feats that you actually look forward to getting over taking an archetype feat:
Scroll Savant. Very solid.
Effortless Concentration. Many casters have that.
Archwizard's Might. Most caster classes have this.
Spell Combination. Megadisintegrate
Spell Mastery.
Most of the wizard feats you could replace with feats from other classes and get far more bang for the buck once you have any degree of system mastery.
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No other class keeps returning this amount of discussion and I think that is somewhat telling. There is no smoke without fire, as they say, and nothing has produced as much smoke as the Wizard. It's just that no one can agree what exactly is on fire.
I don’t know. People can blow a lot of smoke from very little. Sometimes it’s just an alchemust with a smokestick.
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No other class keeps returning this amount of discussion and I think that is somewhat telling. There is no smoke without fire, as they say, and nothing has produced as much smoke as the Wizard. It's just that no one can agree what exactly is on fire.
The smoke clearly indicates that players' expectations are not met with current Wizard. But it tells nothing about expectations being realistic or not.
The fact that the classes generating the most smoke are the classes that were the most overpowered in PF1 (Wizard, Alchemist, Summoner, Magus) tells me that expectations have a lot to do with the quantity of smoke. The Investigator, commonly considered weak, is not raising even half that smoke. But it was not incredible in PF1, as such expectations are low. The Sorcerer is not considered much better than the Wizard, and slightly more flavorful (but not much mechanically) and it doesn't raise much smoke despite being based on exactly the same bases than the Wizard: Lots of spells slots.The argument of "people are complaning about that" doesn't tell us if there's really an issue. The fact that the discussions about the Wizard tend to be less polarized and getting a bit more on the "ok" side, the fact that some experienced players start to put the Wizard in the good classes also tells me that there may be less of an issue than past discussions may hint at.
Also, a lot of people consider that the fact that the Wizard was overpowered in past editions didn't affect their pleasure playing it. Because they were not playing "overpowered" builds and were playing a bit of what they wanted. But the fact that the Wizard was overpowered opened way more builds. If you play an overpowered class, you can make a non optimized build and have fun with it. If you play an average class, you lose this freedom as playing something subpar just for fun will end up being frustratingly weak. And in PF2, if you build your Wizard, you need to make it quite optimized. You can't just focus on one school or try to play with a small subset of spells as you'll end up frustrated. And that, I'm pretty sure, definitely affects the Wizard's player fun.
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No other class keeps returning this amount of discussion and I think that is somewhat telling. There is no smoke without fire, as they say, and nothing has produced as much smoke as the Wizard. It's just that no one can agree what exactly is on fire.The smoke clearly indicates that players' expectations are not met with current Wizard. But it tells nothing about expectations being realistic or not.
The fact that the classes generating the most smoke are the classes that were the most overpowered in PF1 (Wizard, Alchemist, Summoner, Magus) tells me that expectations have a lot to do with the quantity of smoke. The Investigator, commonly considered weak, is not raising even half that smoke. But it was not incredible in PF1, as such expectations are low. The Sorcerer is not considered much better than the Wizard, and slightly more flavorful (but not much mechanically) and it doesn't raise much smoke despite being based on exactly the same bases than the Wizard: Lots of spells slots.The argument of "people are complaning about that" doesn't tell us if there's really an issue. The fact that the discussions about the Wizard tend to be less polarized and getting a bit more on the "ok" side, the fact that some experienced players start to put the Wizard in the good classes also tells me that there may be less of an issue than past discussions may hint at.
... was alchemist overpowered in pf1? I always saw it as a high mid tier. and for summoner, people where less complaining about power and more the fundamental execution of what the class even is, which i consider something else entirely
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... was alchemist overpowered in pf1? I always saw it as a high mid tier. and for summoner, people where less complaining about power and more the fundamental execution of what the class even is, which i consider something else entirely
I played a non optimized Bomber. At level 10, I stopped playing it as I was overshadowing the rest of the party. I didn't even tried to go to the crazy 8 bombs per round that some players were reaching. With just 3 of them it was already crazy strong.
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I'm running a modestly-optimized alchemist bomber in a PF1 game right now. I almost 1-rounded a miniboss of Iron Gods 5 on my own. This is not a unique experience and being able to hand my tank an elixir that makes them huge and flying is icing.
Any of the caster or caster-adjacent classes in PF1 had broad ability to crack the system open, especially once you approach higher levels.
Also ran a summoner earlier on in PF1 and I just dominated. I went with Master Summoner and just laid waste with my mini-army. With eidolons, the way to break them was to stack a ton of primary natural weapons so every round was just subjecting the opposition to a chipper-shredder.
Silent spell is not awesomely powerful and useful. It's situationally useful and I doubt many wizards take it.
As a powerful combat trick:
It still pairs very effectively with a cleric or bard casting silence on a control martial while you stay up in the thick of it with them. There is not a more effective way of shutting down enemy casters in PF2, especially higher level casters. It is just a slightly higher level parlor trick than it was in PF1.As a powerful Narrative ability:
It is true that GMs sometimes hand wave casters drawing attention using magic, but I am pretty sure that 90% of wizards on Golarion that are not in dungeon crawling parties would be very much looking forward to the day they learn the silent spell feat.
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The idea that spells are underwhelming in consistent play is routinely debunked by actual play experience.I really don't like when people assume those who disagree with them "don't actually play the game". It's kinda rude if you ask me, people can have different experiences. In my gaming group of 9 people, I'm the only one who don't find spells to be generally underwhelming, and that's mostly because I enjoy playing control casters a lot and know how to abuse the "meta" spells.
“My spells don’t land enough” has a direct counter in spell penetration, but either that feat is called terrible, or a feat tax depending on what position is necessary to continue to deride wizards.That's because it is either useless or a feat tax. If you fight enough things with Magic Resistance for it to be relevant, it's a feat tax to make your spells hit better. If you don't, it's useless.
The fact that the only “glaring” problem with wizards that has been addressed with new material is the addition of a slight accuracy boosting item for spell attack roll spells (with the caveat that it still requires knowledge about your opponent) seems to indicate that dissatisfaction with these other elements of the game is not as pervasive as some would argue here on the boards.Are their bad early game and how much better control and utility are compared to any other playstyle one might want for their mage fantasy not glaring problems?
I was not suggesting that all complaints about spellcasting/wizards is coming from a place of having not played with them, but in every single one of these threads there is at least one person, often two or three over the course of the thread, that pop in to tell us about the problems of wizards, only for them to have no experience with the class and often making assumptions that are factually wrong about it (wizards not getting electric arc, for example within this thread). That creates a whole lot of confusion around what the real issues being discussed here are and I imagine that a vast majority of people who think the wizard is fine don't read much past those kind of responses.
And the fact that you say that 8 out of 9 people in your group find spellcasting generally to be underwhelming further complicates the discussion of whether the wizard itself is underpowered or balanced. The wizard is one of two "Spellcasters of Spellcasters" classes. Its deal is that it casts spells as often as possible, with the major variation on the sorcerer being that it changes up what spells it will be casting much more frequently and is INT based instead of CHA. If a player thinks casting spells from spell slots is a waste of time, then it should be expected that the wizard is going to come across as a terrible class to those platers. It would be a bad idea to try and "fix" the wizard to appeal to players that think that spell casting is a waste of time.
A feat that is incredibly powerful in the right circumstances and not useful in others is a well designed feat. That is what keeps it from being a must have feat for every player of the class at all times, and is why it is not a feat tax.
Wizards have a bad early game is not really true. A wizard with just reach spell and electric arc can end up being very effective in combat and prove to be difficult for enemies to attack, overcoming the weaknesses of their defenses. Wizards through out time are greatly wasting feats building to increase their AC through Armor instead of battlefield control. The same is still true in PF2.
The wizard focusing on control and utility is a defining staple of the class as well. Control is a massive concept in RPGs and includes a lot more than just casting the grease spell. It is absolutely at the core of the god wizard fantasy that got taken to extreme lengths in 3.x, and was the thing that wizards where built to do best in 4e and 5e as well. It is important to remember that control includes doing multi target damage and spells do this very effectively. Having lots of spell slots facilitates doing a whole lot of damage as a caster. Just not overwhelming powerful single targets at the same time.
The "other play styles" of the wizard that have been removed from the game have pretty much been removed from the game across the board, not just from the wizard. People talk about summons being useless, but I see people doing it pretty often in almost all of the games I play in or run and using monsters that have saves and bad effects on successes often leads to adding a condition, or doing damage against an enemy weakness with a saving throw ability to an enemy as well as a flanking partner in a dangerous location unless the enemy wastes an action to attack it. That is a pretty effective use of a high level spell slot.
People talk about incapacitation spells being useless, but I really think that is a result of the overtuned monsters of Age of Ashes and the first book of Extinction Curse. Level -1 an level -2 enemies in PF2 can be a real threat. 10 level -3 or 4 enemies along side a couple of level -1 or equal level enemies can be a really fun dynamic encounter if you use the mooks to accomplish goals for the enemy side that cause problems for the party. I think that the early adventure paths have failed to really activate the elements of PF2 that make the system fun and dynamic, but they are getting better and better at it. As the adventures do so, the ways in which the spell casting system has been changed will have more and more of a chance to shine, and I hope people revisit the wizard class in newer APs like the strength of Thousands AP.
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Silent spell is not awesomely powerful and useful. It's situationally useful and I doubt many wizards take it.
As a powerful combat trick:
It still pairs very effectively with a cleric or bard casting silence on a control martial while you stay up in the thick of it with them. There is not a more effective way of shutting down enemy casters in PF2, especially higher level casters. It is just a slightly higher level parlor trick than it was in PF1.As a powerful Narrative ability:
It is true that GMs sometimes hand wave casters drawing attention using magic, but I am pretty sure that 90% of wizards on Golarion that are not in dungeon crawling parties would be very much looking forward to the day they learn the silent spell feat.
So a bad player that has decided that somehow he'll have the action economy to move around in melee while having the 3 actions needed to cast silently instead of just using reach for his touch spells (why is he even using touch spells).
And for social situations where you need to cast something and have it not be seen or heard to be you, all you need to do is win stealth vs perception of anyone nearby who might observe you. That's probably a coin flip if you're lucky enough that only one person has eyes unless you can convince the gm that literally nobody is observing you.
Wizards have a bad early game is not really true. A wizard with just reach spell and electric arc can end up being very effective in combat
If by effective you mean doing pitiful chip damage sure. But that's true through the entire game for all casters that aren't the bard or the druid. Spell slots aren't worth expending in combat except in severe or extreme scenarios so going afk with electric arc on autocast is standard operating procedure.
The "other play styles" of the wizard that have been removed from the game have pretty much been removed from the game across the board, not just from the wizard. People talk about summons being useless, but I see people doing it pretty often in almost all of the games I play in or run and using monsters that have saves and bad effects on successes often leads to adding a condition, or doing damage against an enemy weakness with a saving throw ability to an enemy as well as a flanking partner in a dangerous location unless the enemy wastes an action to attack it. That is a pretty effective use of a high level spell slot.
The only consistently useful summon I've seen is the Croupier. The rest are unreliable at best and a waste of a turn at worst. That said, expending a level 1 slot or a wand to cast summon flanker is usually fine. At some point I should find the sweet spot of how low can I go to make the summon survive 2 attacks instead of 1 at any given point in the game.
Oh and AoE damage is pointless. If you're fighting mass mooks you either invalidate some of them for a bit with layered walls or you pop calm emotions and incapacitate groups of them. HP scaling being what it is makes trying to race them in damage a poor decision.
Silent spell is not awesomely powerful and useful. It's situationally useful and I doubt many wizards take it.
I love this feat. It's allowed me to do SO much! Every sorcerer I've played to date has taken it.
Forcible Energy is ok in some situations.
Agreed. It's better if you have a party that can dog pile the weakness.
Spell Penetration is a solid feat. Very useful against many very powerful creatures.
Yes, but it's boring too. Though it is good, I wonder if it is really better than other options out there.
Effortless Concentration. Many casters have that.
This one I don't get. Why are casters putting themselves in situations where they could lose their spells in the first place? I regularly replace this feat with intelligent tactical play in which I don’t cast near an enemy.
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(Yes, silent spell is a basic ability. I don't know and don't really care why PF2 designers hate undetectable magic so much.)
Undetectable magic is very powerful. I proved that in PF1 when I made a divination and enchantment hyper specialist that picked up an ability to conceal casting by rolling bluff. So I also hyper specialized in bluff to a point where enemies couldn't beat my roll.
If an NPC got in my way I'd introduce myself and then incapacitate them without them really being able to defend themselves. If an NPC had information we needed I'd just smile at them and read their minds. I circumvented a vast number of combats purely because I could essentially cast undetected. It was silly.
I completely understand why it is as difficult as it is to cast undetected in PF2.
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It works the other way too, if the enemy is casting a bunch of spells on the party and they fail to notice, they WILL call BS.
Silent spell is not awesomely powerful and useful. It's situationally useful and I doubt many wizards take it.
As a powerful combat trick:
It still pairs very effectively with a cleric or bard casting silence on a control martial while you stay up in the thick of it with them. There is not a more effective way of shutting down enemy casters in PF2, especially higher level casters. It is just a slightly higher level parlor trick than it was in PF1.As a powerful Narrative ability:
It is true that GMs sometimes hand wave casters drawing attention using magic, but I am pretty sure that 90% of wizards on Golarion that are not in dungeon crawling parties would be very much looking forward to the day they learn the silent spell feat.So a bad player that has decided that somehow he'll have the action economy to move around in melee while having the 3 actions needed to cast silently instead of just using reach for his touch spells (why is he even using touch spells).
And for social situations where you need to cast something and have it not be seen or heard to be you, all you need to do is win stealth vs perception of anyone nearby who might observe you. That's probably a coin flip if you're lucky enough that only one person has eyes unless you can convince the gm that literally nobody is observing you.
Wizards have a bad early game is not really true. A wizard with just reach spell and electric arc can end up being very effective in combatIf by effective you mean doing pitiful chip damage sure. But that's true through the entire game for all casters that aren't the bard or the druid. Spell slots aren't worth expending in combat except in severe or extreme scenarios so going afk with electric arc on autocast is standard operating procedure.
The "other play styles" of the wizard that have been removed from the game have pretty much been removed from the game across the board, not just from the wizard....
Real fast:
On average a ranged character at level 1 wielding a d8 ranged will deal 1d8+1 or 1d8+2 , plus 4 if inventor, 1d8 if ranger, 1d6 if rogue.
So let's say a spread of 5.5 to 10.
Electric arc will deal 6.5 to two targets or 11 on average. (We're assuming failures but we're also assuming a hit on the ranged weapon portion). So it's really not low damage.
Higher level spells on average will scale well too, final sacrifice on a floating skull just straight up ended my kobold mine encounter in kingmaker, killed 7 level-2 targets straight up.
Summons are usefule if positioned properly and chosen carefully as even with being on average level -3/4, they still provide a meat shield and have special abilities and have higher stats than PC's. They're not effective agaisnt level+2 targets and such but you don't take them out then, you want summons when you're fighting level+0 and less ennemies that are in abundance because you want to regain the action economy advantage.
Small thing: do you really spend 3 class feats to get this on your every sorcerer? It's good, but not that good I think.
Yes and no. I've made a bunch of sorcerer characters, and very few have taken that level of investment. But the couple of sorcerers I've actually had the opportunity to play? One was built for exactly that. The other didn't have it as part of the build until the group decided to try out Free Archetype.
And you confuse this with something. Effortless concentration is about action economy, it allows to Sustain one spell as a free action, that's all.
Yes, so it seems I have. In that case I love this one as well! XD
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I love this feat. It's allowed me to do SO much! Every sorcerer I've played to date has taken it.
Not sure what you're doing with it, but I haven't needed it.
Yes, but it's boring too. Though it is good, I wonder if it is really better than other options out there.
I've found even a 1 point reduction in a save requiring no action cost or skill roll is nice against many powerful creatures who have the PF2 equivalent of magic resistance.
This one I don't get. Why are casters putting themselves in situations where they could lose their spells in the first place? I regularly replace this feat with intelligent tactical play in which I don’t cast near an enemy.
Effortless Concentration is a lvl 16 ability that lets you sustain a spell as a free action. It's very powerful for any class using sustainable spells as an action economy booster.
I think you may be thinking of the flat check ability that prevents you from disrupted if hit with a critical hit.
I think you may be thinking of the flat check ability that prevents you from disrupted if hit with a critical hit.
I was thinking of Steady Spellcasting.
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Real fast:On average a ranged character at level 1 wielding a d8 ranged will deal 1d8+1 or 1d8+2 , plus 4 if inventor, 1d8 if ranger, 1d6 if rogue.
So let's say a spread of 5.5 to 10.
Electric arc will deal 6.5 to two targets or 11 on average. (We're assuming failures but we're also assuming a hit on the ranged weapon portion). So it's really not low damage.
Higher level spells on average will scale well too, final sacrifice on a floating skull just straight up ended my kobold mine encounter in kingmaker, killed 7 level-2 targets straight up.
Summons are usefule if positioned properly and chosen carefully as even with being on average level -3/4, they still provide a meat shield and have special abilities and have higher stats than PC's. They're not effective agaisnt level+2 targets and such but you don't take them out then, you want summons when you're fighting level+0 and less ennemies that are in abundance because you want to regain the action economy advantage.
Are you perhaps using a house rule because your math is way off because its ignoring action cost.
Ranged martial get 1d8+X on a single action. Scaling to 3d8+X+Proficiency on a single action. (X being various damage buffs)
Electric Arc is 1d4+Mod to two creatures for 2 actions. That's 1d4+Mod for 1 action, akay considerably less than martial. You might maybe have an argument with crossbow/firearm due to reload. But those have better scaling damage and better chance to crit. (Chance to crit is important).
Summons do not under any circumstances have higher stats than PCs by nature of how PF2 does stats and summons being 5 levels below the spell used to cast it for most of the game. That means that they are always worse than PCs. They also aren't meat shields when most of them lack AoO, aka they are entirely non threatening. Their best use is flanking and maybe, just maybe they have an ability that still does something on a success.
Also no summons aren't better when fighting multiple creatures...
Don't know where you get 3d8+x from.
Summons have better stats than Pc's of their level, so overall even though they're level -4, in terms of pc stats they're maybe at level -3 or -2.
For final sacrifice I am referring to the severed head https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=1077 which is allowed with base summon monster and at level 3 can deal 6d6 damage. The player ended the fight with AoE damage at level 3.
in actual play, as a GM, I've seen summons be very effective. they take hits, dich out damage outside of your own MAP, and when they get low can be exploded with final sacrifice. we have a team with an oracle, cleric and wizard with animate dead and final sacrifice in my remake kingmaker game and they've been VERY effective.
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Real fast:On average a ranged character at level 1 wielding a d8 ranged will deal 1d8+1 or 1d8+2 , plus 4 if inventor, 1d8 if ranger, 1d6 if rogue.
So let's say a spread of 5.5 to 10.
Electric arc will deal 6.5 to two targets or 11 on average. (We're assuming failures but we're also assuming a hit on the ranged weapon portion). So it's really not low damage.
Higher level spells on average will scale well too, final sacrifice on a floating skull just straight up ended my kobold mine encounter in kingmaker, killed 7 level-2 targets straight up.
Summons are usefule if positioned properly and chosen carefully as even with being on average level -3/4, they still provide a meat shield and have special abilities and have higher stats than PC's. They're not effective agaisnt level+2 targets and such but you don't take them out then, you want summons when you're fighting level+0 and less ennemies that are in abundance because you want to regain the action economy advantage.
Are you perhaps using a house rule because your math is way off because its ignoring action cost.
Ranged martial get 1d8+X on a single action. Scaling to 3d8+X+Proficiency on a single action. (X being various damage buffs)
Electric Arc is 1d4+Mod to two creatures for 2 actions. That's 1d4+Mod for 1 action, akay considerably less than martial. You might maybe have an argument with crossbow/firearm due to reload. But those have better scaling damage and better chance to crit. (Chance to crit is important).
Let's take a few easy samples of versus level+0 and level-2. So at level 1, that means we run up against AC of 15/14, assuming moderate, and similarly saves of +7/+5. (High AC is 1 higher, but we'll put that aside for now.)
A level 1 fighter has to-hit of +9, dealing 1d8+1 with a composite longbow, or 1d6+3 with a composite shortbow, assuming Point-Blank Shot. We'll assume average damage of 6, to split the difference. Against level+0, that's averaging 7.3 damage on shot 1, and 3.5 damage on shot 2. Against level-2, that's averaging 8.25/3.9.
A level 1 wizard has DC of 17, damage of 1d4+4, avg 6.5. Against level+0, they average 4.9 against each enemy, totalling to 9.8 vs the optimized fighter's 10.8. Against level-2, they average 5.5 against each enemy, totalling to 11 vs the optimized fighter's 12.1.
A level 1 precision ranger should probably be running shortbow to avoid volley problems, but again let's optimize it for best comparison. They get to-hit of +7, damage of 1d6+1+1d8 on first hit, and an overwhelmingly complicated formula I'm not going to bore you with to determine average damage on second hit. First hit vs level+0 averages 8 on shot 1, and 3 on shot 2, totalling 11. Vs level-2, we get 9.2 on the first shot, and 3.2 on the second, totalling 12.4 on the two shots.
Let's also look at a level 1 composite longbow flurry ranger. To-hit of +7/+4, damage of 1d8+1 (avg 5.5). Average vs level+0 is 5.2/3.3, total 8.5. Average vs level-2 is 6/3.6, total 9.6.
Please note that Electric Arc outdoes the optimized flurry ranger given two shots, and is just 1 damage behind the two optimized damage archers.
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To bring it back, and to quote breithauptclan, yes. Big picture mechanically and compared to other classes wizard proficiencies are a little less than. However, in practice, wizards as a whole are still easily within the range of 'balanced'.
Some people find the wizard to be lack luster, while others are content, and others even being enthusiastic. That spread indicates that wizards are probably just fine. Not amazing, not terrible.
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To bring it back, and to quote breithauptclan, yes. Big picture mechanically and compared to other classes wizard proficiencies are a little less than. However, in practice, wizards as a whole are still easily within the range of 'balanced'.
Some people find the wizard to be lack luster, while others are content, and others even being enthusiastic. That spread indicates that wizards are probably just fine. Not amazing, not terrible.
And considering how f@&!ing broken they were before, isn't that a good thing?
I mean I can remember casting two cl 10 fireballs at level 6 with my arcanist with my metamagic empower rod (lessser) and my girlfriend asking "did you just really do 300 damage in. 2 rounds at level 6?".
Meanwhile her magus had done 56 damage, which is great! But not comparable.
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Anyone upholding the 3.5 wizard as a standard of "balanced" is never going to be happy with anything that gets made within the mainstream RPG industry today, unless someone makes an RPG called Wizard: kneel before me or die.They did, it's called Mage: the awakening and it's actually quite fun !
Lol, definitely sharing this exchange with the Mage discord.
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I'm curious, what is 'the style that the game wants'?
I think it's a little bit if you play in the style that the game wants and a lot if you play in the style that would be more fun.
Support, of course. Be that offensive support with debuffs and control, defensive support with healing or just general support with buffing. The game clearly wants casters to be the ones oiling the wheel while martials are the ones running it, and if you want to go a different way you're a whole lot less effective. Mind, this is my preferred playstyle, so it works for me, but I still really don't like that other people feel like they need to play that way even if they don't want to. My group has had a lot of issues with that, and we don't seem to be the only ones.
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Anyone upholding the 3.5 wizard as a standard of "balanced" is never going to be happy with anything that gets made within the mainstream RPG industry today, unless someone makes an RPG called Wizard: kneel before me or die.They did, it's called Mage: the awakening and it's actually quite fun !
I prefer Ars Magica for my Wizards are Gods games.
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Support, of course. Be that offensive support with debuffs and control, defensive support with healing or just general support with buffing. The game clearly wants casters to be the ones oiling the wheel while martials are the ones running it, and if you want to go a different way you're a whole lot less effective. Mind, this is my preferred playstyle, so it works for me, but I still really don't like that other people feel like they need to play that way even if they don't want to. My group has had a lot of issues with that, and we don't seem to be the only ones.I'm curious, what is 'the style that the game wants'?
I think it's a little bit if you play in the style that the game wants and a lot if you play in the style that would be more fun.
LOL
I have not experienced that at all. And, as a point of reference, of the 6 2e characters I play regularly to semi-regularly, 5 of them are casters.
Edit: 1 wizard-PFS, 1 sorcerer-Strength of Thousands, 1 oracle-PFS, 1 cleric-PFS, 1 cleric-Agents of Edgewatch, 1 monk-Age of Ashes
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I prefer Ars Magica for my Wizards are Gods games.Anyone upholding the 3.5 wizard as a standard of "balanced" is never going to be happy with anything that gets made within the mainstream RPG industry today, unless someone makes an RPG called Wizard: kneel before me or die.They did, it's called Mage: the awakening and it's actually quite fun !
Custos was such a good concept to put these uppity martials in their proper subservient place.
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Custos was such a good concept to put these uppity martials in their proper subservient place.I prefer Ars Magica for my Wizards are Gods games.Anyone upholding the 3.5 wizard as a standard of "balanced" is never going to be happy with anything that gets made within the mainstream RPG industry today, unless someone makes an RPG called Wizard: kneel before me or die.They did, it's called Mage: the awakening and it's actually quite fun !
In Ars Magica, martials knew their place.
They still had choices though, they could choose if they wanted to say "Sir! Yes Sir!" or "Ribbit!"
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Still going to say Mage was the best. Martials were still martials, just so good it was magic. Like I could capture the joy of my people in ritual feasting, inscribe that into bullets and shoot demons invading Pluto with them.
Tastes vary :-). That sentence pretty much encapsulates what I loathe about Mage :-) :-)
Note - I'm NOT calling BadWrongFun on you or claiming superiority or anything of the sort. Just pointing out the fact that tastes vary a LOT and that, as they say, one persons delicacy is another persons poison.
this is straying a bit from the discussion of what wizards are, but i have a few house rules i use to make them a bit more interesting.
Firstly as a general rule I have all Lores auto scale proficiency and that each point of int bonus can be cashed in for either a language known, or a lore. this isn't exclusively a wizard thing but since they end up with more int than they know what to do with anyway this helps make them more mechanically knowledgeable.
School specialists are a more knowledgeable in their specialty, when identifying and counteracting any spell item or effect with their specialty tag they increase their degree of success by one.
Universalists are of course more broad in their study, and can attempt to identify any spell or magical effect, regardless of tradition with arcana in exchange by boosting the dc by 5 (as sort of babies first unified theory)
its probobly not exactly balanced but it does help wizards at my table feel more like wisened scholors who have spent their lives studieing books