Yeah, agree.
It's a shame PF2 has absolutely no guidelines for what sort of encounter frequency it's balanced around.
Its a little weird because PF2e doesn't care about how few encounters you do, because hard encounters are hard irrespective of the 'resource' drain earlier DND-types care about-- like if those two encounters in my two encounter days are a severe and an extreme, they're still plenty challenging and we don't really question it (though, on the whole, we focus on tougher encounters as a result, its not worth it to roll initiative for lower than a moderate encounter.)
If you do 3 encounters, or even like 5 encounters you're still not really weak either (especially factoring in staves) but definitionally, there is a point where casters run out of resources and their power moves down to exclusively what they can do with focus spells and cantrips (or lower level slots if you move fully into siege mode), and if that becomes expected, you end up in a place where you probably feel like your power is an average of your real capability and your empty tank capability.
Meanwhile 5e does tell you to do 6-8 encounters and virtually no one does, its the biggest mismatch between table expectation and the way the game works.
I think this might end up being an issue in terms of fun, rather than possibilities.
Being able to recover all hp and 1 focus point ( low levels ) after every fight while, eventually, saving some healing spell, could easily lead to several encounters where spellcasters rely on cantrips and focus spells.
Ofc, being able to rely on spell slots would make things easier.
Is your group going to rest because they can't afford to push it forward or just to make things funnier for spellcasters? Or anything else?
Interestingly, our culture ended up being that once the casters were looking sideways at their slots, the whole group pushes to rest-- no one wants to go into what could be a severe or extreme for all they know without the good stuff because they know they'll die without the lifeline casters provide and for non-healers, without the whole group pumping out a certain level of efficiency.
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Interestingly, our culture ended up being that once the casters were looking sideways at their slots, the whole group pushes to rest-- no one wants to go into what could be a severe or extreme for all they know without the good stuff because they know they'll die without the lifeline casters provide and for non-healers, without the whole group pumping out a certain level of efficiency.I think this might end up being an issue in terms of fun, rather than possibilities.
Being able to recover all hp and 1 focus point ( low levels ) after every fight while, eventually, saving some healing spell, could easily lead to several encounters where spellcasters rely on cantrips and focus spells.
Ofc, being able to rely on spell slots would make things easier.
Is your group going to rest because they can't afford to push it forward or just to make things funnier for spellcasters? Or anything else?
This is certainly an edition where not having spells isn't anywhere near as much of a death sentence compared to previous editions, given that cantrips exist, Focus spells exist, Treat Wounds exists, and effects which debuff enemies or buff allies provide far more effective "healing" compared to just casting Heal spells all day long. (Which, I'm not saying Heal is bad or anything, but it's more of an emergency resource than it is something which to rely on constantly.)
Incidentally, our group initially (jokingly) balanced around how many Mass Haste spells we had prepared/able to cast for each encounter, because we felt like we couldn't defeat encounters without it, so in a way, it hasn't really changed that much with that thought process in mind.
"Okay guys, we're getting close to the BBEG, who's ready to take him down?"
"I just cast my last Mass Haste spell in the previous encounter."
"Oh. Nevermind, we have to rest now, there's no damn way we're defeating the BBEG without Haste."
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My groups tend to push on until something is done unless they are forced to run. The casters use minimal non-renewable resources as possible unless needed. This is our normal style of play from previous editions of the game. Least use of force possible to win with casters only unleashing the big guns if needed.
Doesn't have much to do with our dislike of wizards in PF2. Wizards don't have fun build options. Their casting is fine. They don't look cool in the mind's eye. You read their feats and they are boring as hell. How do you compare reading something like Diviner's sense at level 12 while the druid is looking at Dragon Form? For us it's the feats and class features that are boring with nothing special from the casting to compensate.
Then there is the roles each class can fill. The wizard is extremely limited and leads to a less flexible party build. When every other list can heal and do other things, you can make a druid or a bard and not need a limited arcane casting wizard who can't heal or buff very well. Wizards are the most limited of the caster classes when it comes to the roles they can fill and what their magic can provide a group.
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Actually here's a very important question, I think it would be helpful if we all saw a bunch of very direct answers to this, how many fights do our groups do per daily preparations?
Usually, as much as possible until the witch is completely out of gaz, at which point we can't really justify pushing forward. It's slowly ticking upward as our level rise, but so far 6 encounter in a day is pushing it (just reached level 7). Playing throught extinction curse right now, it was a bit weird because a lot of the "rest" didn't seemed to make much sense "fluff-wise" at it was still early and people weren't hurt, but we pretty much had to or the witch was stuck casting occult cantrip only (as she had no damaging focus, not even her hex one).
It's a bit of a feel bad tho since she's pretty much the sole reason why we stop (that and the drained condition which we have no way of curing except throught sleep). It was already a problem in PF1 and dnd (especially at early levels), but the limited amount of healing per days meant that martials also had a limit, and that the rest were for everybody. Now that healing is uncapped, martials have pretty much no reason for stopping, but casters still get worse as the day goes on, and it end up feeling as if they're the only one "slowing the group".
That's actually the main reason for why I created that thread, less for a balance perspective but more of a "gameplay feel" one. Right now, from what I see, playing low level spellcasters seems to feel bad, as your spells have (relatively) high chance of failing, you don't get a lot of "tries" before you're out of gaz, and once you're out, you have to stop your whole group or be "worth less" than the other characters as you're stuck casting only (possibly underwhelming) focus spells and cantrip.
I don’t know if it is a funny thing or not, but having encounters crash over each other and not giving too many 10+ minute breaks between encounters where it doesn’t make sense to increases the value of casters a lot, because HP becomes a limited resource and durational spells get a lot more time to shine. As a GM, all it usually takes is one minion enemy running out the door in the back instead of charging forward to signal to the players that the encounter is about to run long as well and then they can often have a round or two to clean up the current encounter and precast any spells they want to. I find my players have more fun when this happens than when every room remains static and they just heal and refocus after every encounter.
The bigger “truth” though is that players really shouldn’t have any set expectation about a total number of encounters they might face in a day, not as tightly controlled a number as “4 to 6.” Having just one or two a day should be a fairly common experience. When staring down a dungeon of unknown size, the characters should be rewarded for wanting to feel out the defenses or gather information, or scout if possible. Obviously, player expectation affects all of this and knowing your group and what will be fun for the most people is more important than any of this, but a good RPG needs spells, classes, items, and GM resources to make all of these different kinds of adventures and situations possible. I think PF 2 does this pretty well overall, but sometimes as a player certain options can end up looking universally bad instead of situationally useful if those situations happen so rarely they are hard to imagine. Like fireball having a 500ft range is an absolute beast on a large map where creatures might have to spend 6 or more rounds closing that gap, but if your maps are never bigger than 50x50 squares, that range is a meaningless number.
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Then you have to ask yourself what constitutes an encounter? What if you wander into a dungeon of humanoids and the entire area comes down on you and pursues you to the death? How do you block that into encounters and ensure you don't have too many?
For RP and hexploration adventures Paizo recommends 1-3 encounters a session.
But for other adventures they recommend 3-6 encounters a session.
Then most sessions don't have a lot of travel time or time spent, meaning you can easily end up with 4 or more encounters a day. Which the more combat focused campaigns have almost without fault 6 or more moderate encounters and 6 or more severe encounters.
(I got the numbers from the adventure themes section).
Interestingly, though, looking at the adventuring recipes they don't actually suggest that those are actually compressed into any given number of days. Some of them heavily suggest that they explicitly contain multiple ins and outs, the dungeon crawl in particular tells you to place a secure cave or staging area in.
Its very clear the voyages they discuss are meant to be distinct rest periods, looking at some of these, which means those encounter numbers aren't actually per day, they're for running the adventure in a given number of sessions with that much content.
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Actually here's a very important question, I think it would be helpful if we all saw a bunch of very direct answers to this, how many fights do our groups do per daily preparations?
I'll start: 2-4 (leaving out a bunch of days technically, but only because hexcrawling's single-encounter-sometimes travel days are very different than our days spent in dungeons and such.)
3-5 depending on the pathfinder scenario. I’d say average is 3 uncommon is 4 and rare is 5. If it’s 5 many are so quick it’s about a single round fight or so because they’re very weak monsters.
In Bounties I try to use as many slots as possible it’s actually a race because it’s always 1 monster in my experience.
All pathfinder society experience I don’t have a static group.
Casters shine much brighter with multiple lower or even level enemies.
Against higher level enemies you turn into a heal or buff/debuff battery for martials or the group will often die. Martials can't take the beating in melee range from a high level boss monster.
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I don’t have anyone to actively play with at the moment but back when I did it was probably between 0-3 a day usually.
But we were a fairly high RP group, we weren’t just doing encounter after encounter in a session, that felt a bit boring to us.
If you’re doing 7 encounters with enough space between to medicine up all your Martians but never enough time to full rest I feel like yeah obviously the caster is going to feel s$%% lol. You’ve reduced them to their 1 focus spell and maybe 2 or 3 combat cantrips they know for most of the day?
But I feel like that’s more to do with running the game in a way that sets casters up to fail.
If the idea of pf2 is most combats run 4-6 rounds, and casters around level 7-12 have around 11-18 spell slots, the game doesn’t really work at 7 encounters a day, that’s like 28-42 rounds.
Our boss fights go something like this:
1. Roll Initiative.
2. Boss does some insane crit or a few of them. Can usually crit anyone in the party on a 10 or better except maybe a well built champion. Has some aura or special attack that is brutal. Super high AC and saves.
3. Martials go in and start swinging hoping to land at least one hit a round against a huge hit point pool, high AC, or resistance in some combination.
4. Maybe some brutal AoE hit that rips multiple martials and possibly the casters apart.
5. Heal or die with hopefully someone landing a debuff.
That's why this whole martial vs. caster thing is such an odd discussion. Martials don't exactly have this easy life like a wizard in PF1. In PF1 the wizard or casters in general were so powerful, the fight was over before anyone swung. Casters couldn't be touched most of the time. It was just a battle of initiative followed by saves and goodbye monster.
In P2 the so called powerful martial damage dealer is getting his hit point pool wrecked standing in battle with some boss monster that can hit him on a 2 or better and crit him on an 8 to 10 roll with some aura or harsh AoE attack with a super high saving throw against he has maybe a 50 percent chance of making if he's got the right save built up or have something really nasty happen to him.
The martial is praying the casters can stick a debuff on the monster to lower its AC or land a slow or something to slow the pain down. If they were fighting this creature alone or even two of them together, they would both die more than likely. Two regular martials, even fighters alone against a boss+2 to 4 mob is a death wish for those fighters.
The fighters absolutely need the casters there for buff/debuff and heal support or the so called most powerful martial in the game is going to die. Any class needs this.
In the really tough fights, martials are not doing much else but damage praying the casters keep them on their feet. Some of these boss monsters are so tough they just attack from the prone position. They don't care. They have reach and even prone with a -2 attack roll they're rolling crits and hammering away.
Martial life isn't some easy walk in the park like PF1 wizard life was. I used to roleplay my wizard reading a book during combat barely paying attention because he was so enormously powerful that he was untouchable, unkillable, and martials were nothing more than clean up crews for me to collect the treasure.
Not the case at all in PF2. Even the strongest martial is heavily reliant on casters for survival. Just a last Sunday I was running a fighter/cleric dual class who got absolutely wrecked by some equal level creatures ganging up on him. Got a few crits, ate his hit point pool up. And this is a dual class character playing a mix of the strongest martial in the game with a cleric. He still got tore up.
PF2 is a brutal game. The damage cuts both ways. No martial is staying alive without caster support as the levels rise. If a full group of martials runs into a group of casters with no caster support at higher level, they are going to kiss the baby and take a dirt nap unless the GM plays them ridiculously bad.
The group set up at higher level is such that casters often need to shift into support mode for group survival, not because they can't do damage.
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When staring down a dungeon of unknown size, the characters should be rewarded for wanting to feel out the defenses or gather information, or scout if possible.
Prying eye is amazing for this. :)
So much so that I've had GMs "pop" it with magic before I could learn much, more often than not.
That's how you know you've got a good spell. ;)
When staring down a dungeon of unknown size, the characters should be rewarded for wanting to feel out the defenses or gather information, or scout if possible.Prying eye is amazing for this. :)
So much so that I've had GMs "pop" it with magic before I could learn much, more often than not.
That's how you know you've got a good spell. ;)
I've only used that spell twice. It was awesome both times, but plenty of other opportunities ruined by doors and walls and other obstacles.
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I think sorcerers should have 1 less spell slot per level actually.
Making them a 4 slot caster ate too much of the Wizards lunch.
I picked up Greater Mental Evolution at level 18.
*takes more of the wizards steak off his plate and some his potatoes, pours half his glass of wine in my cup.*
I now have 45 total spells to chose from with my 4 slots per level and my signature spells.
On top of my pretty great Harrow Sorcerer focus spells.
And I can still use scrolls, staves, and wands.
And I get Occult Evolution which means I can grab any mental spell I need of any level up to 9th.
And I grabbed the heal spell with bloodline evolution.
And hey, a question for the knowledgeable rules folk. I know I can't get any additional 10th level spell slots without taking the feat for an extra slot. I know that feats granting spells don't let me cast an additional 10th level spell.
But what about additional 10th level spells in the repertoire? Greater Mental Evolution doesn't seem to block taking an additional 10th level spell choice in the repertoire. And Occult Evolution doesn't say you can't take a 10th level mental spell as an option. So how do the feats that expand the repertoire work for 10th level?
The wizard still has a bit of steak left on his plate and some tasty look asparagus.
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speaking of sorcerers, how are arcane sorcerers compared to wizards (I haven't played nor have seen played either in PF2 so far)?
From what I've experienced in PF1, sorcerer are a bit weaker than wizard (but still excellent because PF1 caster), as spontaneous casting tend to be weaker than prepared one with experienced player, but the fact that they get more spell per day is one of the thing that give them a bit of an edge over wizard, as they're more effective during long days. How do they compare now that they have the exact same amount of slots?
Main place the wizard shines is amazing level 20 feats and the ability to adjust for noncombat utility.
For battle, the arcane sorc is more versatile in battle considering the narrow number of highly effective spells and their ability to choose between four spells per level plus signature spells.
Some folks prefer the wizard for style reasons and just like to cast different spells for fun even if less effective.
Charisma skills are very nice too.
Agree'd to be honest on top of this Sorceres need to KNOW less spells...they are spontaneous and can up and down cast spells ffs...they should only KNOW 2 spells of each level and have 3 spell slots end of story, its ridiculous to me how OP they are...yes Wizard can be GOOD but it takes 10x more effort to do.I think sorcerers should have 1 less spell slot per level actually.
Making them a 4 slot caster ate too much of the Wizards lunch.
I honestly don't like this type of leveling down, in the end it only makes people who complain about spellcasters x martial complain more.
Today, with more gameplay experience, I have a slightly different opinion than I had a year ago.
I still think that Paizo missed the opportunity to use a different and less complex mechanic familiar to players of younger generations such as MP or rechargeable magic (better known as cooldown spells, as breath weapons are), or at least to have put this as a variant.
But in the case of the magic spaces themselves, today I think they should have been more regressive. Not as much as 5e, but I still think there should have been more low-level spell slots than high-level ones. Probably something like 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2, for both prepared and spontaneous casters, as I don't see the point in the sorcerer's 2e having more spell slots than the rest.
The rationale behind this is that at low levels despite the cantrips being stronger when compared to lvl 1/2 spellslot's spells, the caster also has less money, less versatility with their spells and a generally weaker chassis. While at high levels the experience is already very different, with the character having much more versatility and money to buy things like staffs, wands and scrolls.
A spellcaster's gameplay experience evolves considerably over the levels, making the experience of a high-level spellcaster who has accumulated several spells, spell slots and items much more versatile, powerful and interesting than that of a low-level spellcaster. This to me would justify a decreasing evolution in this spellcaster's spells.
*shrugs* As sorcerer you can easily have 2 safe options and one unsafe option. Especially since you can swap spells out at level ups.Not only that, but staves, wands, and scrolls are all very viable options even for offensive spells, because they use your spell attack and DC values instead of some pre-crafted (crappy) value.
In PF1 those items mostly sucked for offensive use because the values never scaled. In PF2 these items are good because they do, and allow a sorcerer to pick up spells they wouldn't frequently use but want to have access to and still have them be effective.
Honestly, the versatility of wizards in PF1 is what made them good. They could potentially have any spell for any situation, that's why people loved them (even if in reality this rarely actually worked that way). Sorcerers were derided for their limited number of spells known. But in PF2, items and consumables can make up for that, without a decrease in potency. Now the tables have flipped, and I find little reason to play a wizard over a sorcerer.
Edit: And to expand on that, I see little value in prepared spell casting over spontaneous, thanks to how the above magic items work. At least in a comparison of spell casting only. Class features of any given class could shift the preference in different directions.
PF1 wizards had the following:
1. Immense number of spell slots based on stat.
2. Could fill spell slots at later times in the day as needed.
3. Bonus metamagic and crafting feats which were both immensely powerful options in PF1. Craft Wonderous Item was almost a must take. Quicken Spell and other metamagic feats which the wizard could take and prep using metamagic better than the sorcerer.
4. Good school options with often a very good level 20 ability and middle level abilities that could be good as well.
5. Far cheaper to add to spell books.
6. Wands that could hold 50 charges of some low level buff spells or long-lasting spells.
7. Much longer durations of spells based on level.
8. Damage based on level making lower level slots more valuable.
9. Staffs had more charges.
10. Scrolls far cheaper to make.
11. More access to Spontaneous casting with Spell Perfection or Spell Specialization.
Wizard was nerfed on so many levels from PF1 that the two classes share mostly just a name and some basic spellcasting mechanics from the old PF1. Their power levels have been squashed so hard that they barely resemble what they once were.
This was a resurrected thread. We already beat this topic to death. I should have looked at the date.
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I honestly don't like this type of leveling downAgree'd to be honest on top of this Sorceres need to KNOW less spells...they are spontaneous and can up and down cast spells ffs...they should only KNOW 2 spells of each level and have 3 spell slots end of story, its ridiculous to me how OP they are...yes Wizard can be GOOD but it takes 10x more effort to do.I think sorcerers should have 1 less spell slot per level actually.
Making them a 4 slot caster ate too much of the Wizards lunch.
I'm not a fan of it either honestly, it feels bad.
But now, with Player Core 1 behind us, subtraction is what Paizo opted for with the Wizard. The school slot change really curtailed the versatility aspect of the Wizard.
It makes sense that they should apply the same hand to the Sorcerer.
Arcane Evolution, at least, should be reworked and no longer allow for spell preparation.
Leave novel/niche spell-based solutions wholly to the prepared casters.
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I honestly don't like this type of leveling downAgree'd to be honest on top of this Sorceres need to KNOW less spells...they are spontaneous and can up and down cast spells ffs...they should only KNOW 2 spells of each level and have 3 spell slots end of story, its ridiculous to me how OP they are...yes Wizard can be GOOD but it takes 10x more effort to do.I think sorcerers should have 1 less spell slot per level actually.
Making them a 4 slot caster ate too much of the Wizards lunch.
I'm not a fan of it either honestly, it feels bad.
But now, with Player Core 1 behind us, subtraction is what Paizo opted for with the Wizard. The school slot change really curtailed the versatility aspect of the Wizard.
It makes sense that they should apply the same hand to the Sorcerer.
Arcane Evolution, at least, should be reworked and no longer allow for spell preparation.
Leave novel/niche spell-based solutions wholly to the prepared casters.
I don't know what the designers see with the wizard because I can't see it.
I could see the advantages of the wizard very clearly in PF1.
As a person who likes to leverage the system, the sorcerer builds so much better in nearly every way than the wizard. I don't know why they felt the wizard needed nearly nothing for an upgrade.
I am a level 19 Harrow Sorcerer right now. I have so many spell choices at this point that the wizard's matters not at all. Completely meaningless. Max high level slots mean next to nothing since the majority if the best blasting spells are in the 6 to 7 spell range.
Spells like meteor swarm can be hard to use given their huge area. Spells like [i]chain lightning[i] arrow salvo, and lower level blast spells are still much easier to use in play.
Level 3 or 6 slow is still the most powerful combat spell in the game. Other spells even of higher level are inferior to a level 6 slow, yet the argument is always "The wizard has more high level slots." What does that even matter if the high level spells are unusable for some reason or less valuable than a lower level spell in battle?
At level 19 I rarely use all my spell slots and definitely don't have a need to. My harrow sorcerer focus spells are extremely good.
I've made a ton of sorcerers and have always been very satisfied with the class. I cannot say the same of wizards or witches.
I can't see much of a reason to play a wizard unless you just like the concept or you are in a campaign with a heavy amount of between combat preparation downtime. Even then using all your slots on utility or some kind of non-combat shenanigans doesn't seem very satisfying as when combat hits you'd rather be the sorcerer.
I've never seen a wizard outperform a sorcerer in combat unless it came down to lucky saves in favor of the wizard which is the case with any caster.
The PF2 wizard has worse on demand versatility, worse feats, worse focus spells, worse main casting stat, and even their arcane bond is a poor man's spontaneous casting. Also a higher cost for spell versatility which eats up more of their wealth by level.
It is so hard for a player focused on performance to choose a wizard over a sorcerer given how much the sorcerer has to offer.
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I find that thinking of spell slots in a vacuum is not helpful.
Sorcerers get 4 per level,
wizards have a way to recover spells,
Clerics get extras to cover their job of healing,
Druids have very useful focus spells and the shield block feat,
Psychics have enhanced cantrips,
Magus and Summoner focus on special non-casting abilities with their casting as a little bonus,
The Witch has special abilies through their familiar with some wonderful focus spells and focus cantrips,
the Bard has martial abilties even without being the martial bard, along with it's focus cantrips,
the Oracle... has it's curse and focus spells... eh that one needs work.
They made sure that each of the casting classes has a way to either stretch their spell slots, or other ways to contribute.
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That is the why the conversation is focused on quality and parity of the options, rather than just the existence of the options.
Technically some classes have about 1460+ spells-from-spell-slots spells per day, with things like Bloodline Conduit, Leyline Conduit, etc and their normal spell slots. We don't take that into consideration because just the existence of the option doesn't impact its qualative aspects.
The goal should be overall class parity, with each class having their own meaningful "thing" that adds to a parties overall value. If one class can bring everything another can, plus more, that's a problem, and its why we have conversations like this.
This was a resurrected thread. We already beat this topic to death. I should have looked at the date.
I think the remastery changes might be enough to make revisiting this topic again worthwhile personally. Everyone is going to have their own perspective on this topic and I value hearing people's play experiences and theoretical concerns/ideas about classes.
The options for Wizards and Sorcerers cover too many different potential builds for me personally to consider the classes in terms of overall class parity or balance. I will present the two wizard builds I have seen in play/played since adopting remastery changes and why they feel incredibly "wizardy" to me, doing things that a sorcerer character is not going to do.
Wizard 1: Level 16 wizard in Fist of the Ruby Phoenix campaign I am running.
This wizard is a counterspeller. Enemy casters (of which there are a lot in this campaign, especially at higher level) are completely shut down. Even worse than shut down, their spells get used back against them every time they try to cast. Between clever counterspell and reflect spell, the wizard is able to use higher level slots very often to make sure that their counter spell attempts are succeeding minimally on a success, and often even on a failure. The wizard has spell blending as their thesis to make sure they have a lot of these higher level slots so that they can cast a spell on their own turn (often something like a level 6 haste or slow) and then still shut down enemy casting. The fact that wizard feats and theses tend to apply to all spells you can cast make wizards very effective when multiclassed into something that gives you a different tradition of magic, although the real benefits of this don't tend to kick in until much higher levels/once you can have 2 slots per rank in your MC tradition.
The effectiveness of this wizard is hedged by the campaign giving you a lot of the same kinds of caster enemies (although that is pretty common), you getting to watch the other teams in the tournament fight several times before facing them down yourself, and GMs wanting your shut down counterspeller to be effective without feeling like you have ruined the campaign for them. Acknowledging those situations, this wizard is absolutely beloved by the party, is the party face and tactical lynch pin and there is only one team in the later round of the tournament who is likely to be getting any casting off against the rest of the party (because they will be casting with so many different casters each round, I look forward to seeing it). Cali is an amazingly effective character who does not feel like she would be the same as a sorcerer at all.
Wizard 2: Level 4 Wizard in a conversion of Curse of the Crimson Throne I am playing in (we just finished book 1, I think the GM is planning on running the campaign to level 18, but considering adding some material to take us to 20).
Sitsi is a spell substitution Ars Gramatica wizard. She is also the first and only wizard I have played with/seen that was built from the start of the campaign to be a remastered Wizard. A big part of that is that the remastered rules are neither finished being published, nor available on the archives of Nethys yet, so I imagine this will be worth coming back to in another year. Sitsi is low level, but her wizardness is definitely in her ability to basically prepare for encounters on the fly. In an urban campaign, it is very common that we get a mission that we are supposed to accomplish that day. I think any other thesis would be infuriating in this situation unless the GM let you do all of your spell preparation after reporting in to your various quest givers. But what really makes a spell substitution wizard feel unique is what happens when you start really going all in on filling in your spell book with spells that you have access to after having bought them off scrolls. What makes the spell substitution so cool is that, with 10 minutes, I can heighten any spell I know to whatever rank spell I need it at. My character is only level 4 (so I only have 2 ranks of spells), but already being able to do stuff like decide I need a rank 2 ventriloquism or Illusory Disguise, or Thunder Strike, instead of the level 1 one I have on the scroll I purchased has been useful and I have 19 rank 1 spells in my book, 5 rank 2 spells and 1 rank 3 spell (well I can't use it from my book yet, but I learned it and can cast it from the scroll we found it from without worrying about not having that spell later). I usually start the day with very generic combat spells memorized and then tune my spells as we go for the very different kinds of encounters we experience in this urban campaign. I can't wait to get my level 8 focus spell, because then I will have basically unlimited clairvoyance, and we have almost always been on time crunches of the scale "you can spend a couple of hours preparing for what is next, but you don't really have a day" which will make the recon stuff I will be able to do incredibly valuable. I also use nonlethal spell a lot, because we are almost always trying to learn information from everyone we are attacking and spells are terrible for taking enemies alive.
I can see an argument that some arcane sorcerers are in a similar place, but 19 rank 1 spells at level 4? It feels like it would be hard to build a similar character.
That is the why the conversation is focused on quality and parity of the options, rather than just the existence of the options.
Technically some classes have about 1460+ spells-from-spell-slots spells per day, with things like Bloodline Conduit, Leyline Conduit, etc and their normal spell slots. We don't take that into consideration because just the existence of the option doesn't impact its qualative aspects.
The goal should be overall class parity, with each class having their own meaningful "thing" that adds to a parties overall value. If one class can bring everything another can, plus more, that's a problem, and its why we have conversations like this.
There is a lot of alignment weakness creatures at high level as well which makes cleric blasting pretty darn potent or a sorcerer who can grab an alignment damage spell with Bloodline feats.
I made my level 3 sig spell slow. I can slow all day at level 19. I can heighten, single target slow, and just turn enemies to molasses so many times that I don't need a whole lot else.
Though one level 9 spell that is real nice is wail of the banshee. I can do that up to 5 times per day if I choose to while also being able to foresight or meteor swarm.
I have 4 strong level 9 choices I can use up to 5 times including my level 10 slot. I have Time Stop and Alter Reality.
I don't think the number of slots is a problem given lower level spells stay useful for a long time now. Even a level 3 slow is almost always useful with the same DC to resist as any other spell.
I don't see slots as much of a problem at all.
Deriven has done a decent job remembering to express things as his opinion rather than fact
But just as a reminder for everybody else out there it's not the only opinion.
Example: I find the wizard to be one of the best casters in PF2, and find the sorcerer extremely weak in comparison. (I think basically the exact opposite of Deriven's experience)
Deriven has done a decent job remembering to express things as his opinion rather than fact
But just as a reminder for everybody else out there it's not the only opinion.
Example: I find the wizard to be one of the best casters in PF2, and find the sorcerer extremely weak in comparison. (I think basically the exact opposite of Deriven's experience)
I can see it to be honest with you.
That's why I lumped all high level casters together at this point. If you get Legendary casting and have some high value spells on your list, you can do just fine as a caster.
I even used to think clerics suck at blasting until I saw some of their higher level spells in action. They can be fairly potent blasters and their healing is hard to beat for any monsters. They get some pretty nice feats too to help the group.
At this point as much I poke fun at wizards, I think you can make any high level caster base class work well. The spells themselves are well built and powerful.
I've played multiple high level sorcerers and druids and I mostly like them because they provide me with versatile options I enjoy. But really, anyone that can cast level 6 slow, chain lightning, and the like, basically any of the high value spells or really just fun spells can do well as a caster.
I don't think there is a whole lot of difference between casters at high level. Mostly style choices and a few little differences that you can give or take depending on what you prefer.
Sure, I have great focus spells as Harrow. But fights only last 3 to 5 rounds or so, so I don't get a whole lot of chances to use them. You have hit hard and fast with your best spells and the battle is usually won. I did use my focus spells more at lower level here and there, but at level 19 the entire party just hammers about everything so hard and fast that options are kind of a shrug at this point.
It's not PF1 kind of not even a challenge fights, but high level parties have definitely shifted the math to their favor and absolutely destroy almost anything they fight. Everyone is powerful at level 16 plus including the wizard and even the investigator. I really thought the investigator sucked hard and it is a slow build class, but even the Investigator is tearing things up at level 19. Though I'm more generous than others at allowing Strategic Strike free action to work against groups of creatures serving some villain and cheap Insight Coffee works well. Probably should give the investigator d8s in the next iteration for Strategic Strike.
PF2 is so balanced once the end game is reached, every single class is contributing a lot of powerful options to group success. The opponents have very little chance of victory regardless of if you're a wizard or sorcerer or druid or cleric or bard. The hammer is falling hard on the opponents.
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Deriven has done a decent job remembering to express things as his opinion rather than fact
But just as a reminder for everybody else out there it's not the only opinion.
Example: I find the wizard to be one of the best casters in PF2, and find the sorcerer extremely weak in comparison. (I think basically the exact opposite of Deriven's experience)
OK, but what do you see in Wizard that make it way stronger than Sorcerer?