I think the hexes from the patron are the primary feature of the Witch class in PF2. The familiar is an add on that is supposed to help with the hexes. But the hexes have so many limiters that they don't seem all that great.
The main advantage we've seen with the hexes is the one action casting cost for most. The target gaining immunity for 1 minute which is the duration of a combat often makes them seem very weak whereas you have a bard cantrip that just works for 1 action.
Imagine using evil eye as a one action cantrip with a save against a single target that becomes immune, then a bard shows up casts dirge of doom and does AOE fear with no save. No immunity to it. Can just keep using it and combine it with other cantrips.
You look at your hex and go, "Why did I bother?" Even the skill intimidate can be as effective as a witch hex for 1 action with the 1 minute immunity as well.
All the witch hex cantrips are mostly this way. Mildly ok, but so limited that can't even outclass a skill like intimidate and look like garbage compared to the 1 action support cantrip class the bard. A witch's cantrips should have been balanced similar to a bard's 1 action cantrips in my opinion.
No, they were the primary feature in PF1, in PF2, it's Familiars, because they have the most Familiar power compared to any other class. And Hexes are just an already dumbed down version of School spells from Wizards. What's that, I have to sustain a spell to ensure its duration lasts? When odds are, the enemy succeeds their save and then the duration doesn't last more than a round anyway? I can't accept that to be true based on how awful it is and how little of a power budget it covers. It's quite clear that Hexes were pushed to the wayside to make the Familiar part of the class shine (and it doesn't because Familiars in this game are beyond garbage). Also, Familiars and Hexes have nothing in common, so saying that one is an add-on to the other doesn't make any sense either.
The action economy of the Hexes would make more sense if they were actually balanced to be effective enough, but they're not. You have Hex Cantrips that are worse than any other Focus Cantrip (Bard and Psychic laugh at them, as you so kindly point out in your example), and you have Hex Focus Spells that are barely any better than Wizard School Spells (seriously, Force Bolt is better than most any Cantrip and Focus Spell a Witch can get). Heck, I couldn't hardly justify them, even if they were free actions! It'd be like if I was given something for free, and I demanded my money back, that's how awful this is.
Of course, there is another issue with your design concept: You're trying to outpace the best class in the game. Bards are the absolute best class in the game bar none. They have the best proficiencies for their role, they have the best spellcasting method and tradition in the game, and they have the best features in the game. You put any other class up against the Bard, and it will fail. Expecting the Witch, an APG class, to outpace a Core class, nay, the Core class, is just setting yourself up for failure. Now, Psychic on the other hand, might be more reasonable. Because not even Psychic outpaces Bard cantrips.
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Complaining about pick-a-list is missing the mark so badly on the Witch. Like the class has bad focus spells, bad feats, bad cantrips... but we wanna whinge about someone somewhere in the universe maybe playing a divine witch? Snap your fingers and delete whichever three traditions you don't want, the Witch isn't suddenly a good class.
Considering that pick-a-list is treated as part of the power budget of the class (as it was for Sorcerer), and it has caused other, far more important aspects of the class to fall into the wayside, it is as valid of a complaint about class power budget as any other.
Especially since, in my opinion, Witch can be relegated to one or two spell lists, and have Patron choices poach some of the other important spells you might want.
Isn’t the issue then really, when boiled down that we fundamentally disagree with how things were weighted in the class power budget debate
Considering that pick-a-list is treated as part of the power budget of the class (as it was for Sorcerer), and it has caused other, far more important aspects of the class to fall into the wayside, it is as valid of a complaint about class power budget as any other.
Especially since, in my opinion, Witch can be relegated to one or two spell lists, and have Patron choices poach some of the other important spells you might want.
Wait, being "pick a list" is considered part of the sorcerer power budget? isn't the sorcerer considered one of the strongest caster class out there, no matter the list, beating the wizard in their own turf and their "spell per day" advantages making them quite attractive in the other list too?
I don't really understand why pick a list should be considered part of the "power" of a class, when you only pick them once and then are locked in for the rest of the game. "arcane witch", "primal witch", etc might as well be entirely different class that share the same chasis and a feat pool, the fact that there's four of them shouldn't mean they should all be nerfed.
Bards are the absolute best class in the game bar none.
Why then would anyone choose to play any other class?
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Considering that pick-a-list is treated as part of the power budget of the class (as it was for Sorcerer), and it has caused other, far more important aspects of the class to fall into the wayside, it is as valid of a complaint about class power budget as any other.
Citation needed.
I don't really understand why pick a list should be considered part of the "power" of a class, when you only pick them once and then are locked in for the rest of the game.
It shouldn't and by all appearances it isn't, for the reason you pointed out. It doesn't make any sense to balance a class that way. The Witch just kind of sucks on its own (lack of) merits.
My complain is that Paizo here (and in every single playtest) went in wanting to make a specific class. There were some who told them "hey there are issues"; But then you got people saying "everything is fine they will fix" and Paizo instead of fixing double down because all they heard was "everything is fine".
That's not even correct though, people complained a lot and as a result the Witch went from a 4 slot caster with level 1 focus spells to a 3 slot caster with cantrips and focus spells as a level 2 feat instead, which is fairly significant.
Arguably part of why the Witch turned out as iffy as it did, because significant revisions were pushed out at the last minute, there was no playtest or review process to see if hex cantrips were well balanced or felt fun to use. They didn't even really update the class' chassis when changing its spellcasting mechanics.
Bards are the absolute best class in the game bar none.Why then would anyone choose to play any other class?
Because not everyone (always) wants to play the best class when they play this game.
Considering that pick-a-list is treated as part of the power budget of the class (as it was for Sorcerer), and it has caused other, far more important aspects of the class to fall into the wayside, it is as valid of a complaint about class power budget as any other.
Especially since, in my opinion, Witch can be relegated to one or two spell lists, and have Patron choices poach some of the other important spells you might want.
Wait, being "pick a list" is considered part of the sorcerer power budget? isn't the sorcerer considered one of the strongest caster class out there, no matter the list, beating the wizard in their own turf and their "spell per day" advantages making them quite attractive in the other list too?
I don't really understand why pick a list should be considered part of the "power" of a class, when you only pick them once and then are locked in for the rest of the game. "arcane witch", "primal witch", etc might as well be entirely different class that share the same chasis and a feat pool, the fact that there's four of them shouldn't mean they should all be nerfed.
Sorcerers are solid because of their pretty good class feats and (relatively) powerful bloodline spells and focus abilities. The pick-a-list is also one of the reasons the class was well received, and would overpower a Wizard if not because of the restrictions put forth by Spontaneous spellcasting (as well as some bad/trap bloodline options).
The reason why it should be considered is because you're encroaching upon multiple classes'/casters' territory simultaneously. It's a pseudo-Schrodinger's Spellcaster effect, because you have to balance the class between 4 tradition type of casters, and not just 1.
Considering that pick-a-list is treated as part of the power budget of the class (as it was for Sorcerer), and it has caused other, far more important aspects of the class to fall into the wayside, it is as valid of a complaint about class power budget as any other.Citation needed.
Not sure what you need a citation for. Asking for a citation for a complaint doesn't make sense, and asking for a citation for pick-a-list being a power budget thing isn't realistic because it requires cross-referencing every spellcaster that exists, because that's basically the amount of toes pick-a-list encroaches upon, especially when classes such as Wizard, Cleric, Druid, and Bard are balanced based on their given tradition.
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and asking for a citation for pick-a-list being a power budget thing isn't realistic
I mean it's the claim you keep making, it's not unrealistic to ask for something to back it up.
Unless you're saying it's the position itself that's unrealistic to defend?
The reason why it should be considered is because you're encroaching upon multiple classes'/casters' territory simultaneously.
That's obviously incorrect though. A winter witch encroaches on the bard's territory as much as a druid does (i.e. pretty much not at all). That someone else somewhere in the world at some point in time might play a different character entirely is irrelevant.
and asking for a citation for pick-a-list being a power budget thing isn't realisticI mean it's the claim you keep making, it's not unrealistic to ask for something to back it up.
Unless you're saying it's the position itself that's unrealistic to defend?
The reason why it should be considered is because you're encroaching upon multiple classes'/casters' territory simultaneously.That's obviously incorrect though. A winter witch encroaches on the bard's territory as much as a druid does (i.e. pretty much not at all). That someone else somewhere in the world at some point in time might play a different character entirely is irrelevant.
If spellcasting tradition isn't a balance factor, then why can't a Wizard cast Occult spells or a Druid cast Divine spells in place of their original tradition? If the answer is "They aren't designed to do so," as I suspect it probably is, then my point is already proven, in which case, what's the relevance of a citation?
The problem is that the class itself exists on all these spellcasting tradition planes, even if the character themselves do not, so you now have to balance the class between the axis of spellcasting it can occupy.
A class with a single list can get more bespoke options for that list, but that doesn't mean you can't bake in the same amount of power into list-agnostic options. I think you could give a wizard the occult list and not see any major difference in power.
Thinking about it from another angle, why should pick-a-list matter? It's a choice made at character creation, like class or ancestry; once it's locked in, you don't get any extra versatility from the options you didn't pick. It'd be like making a martial with twice the normal amount of class feat options (not class feat progression, just options available) and then making it noticeably weaker because it needs to pay for having 10 options to pick from for its 1st-level feat instead of 5.
Each tradition has strengths and weaknesses (or more accurately, capabilities and incapabilities) baked into them. Arcane spells are sparsely lacking in Healing, and Occult spells don't have much elemental capacity, for example. The issue becomes in the balance between these things. Comparatively speaking, Occult poaches the best of Arcane, and also has a lot of its own unique stuff that cannot be replicated elsewhere, whereas Primal likewise poaches the other half of Arcane (and some Divine), and also has unique stuff (though it's nowhere near as potent as Occult's). Divine is universally the worst spell list, but Arcane isn't much better simply because Primal and Occult have the better options of both of those lists by comparison.
The thing is, even with those denominations in mind, it doesn't explain why Bards, with the superior spell list, likewise get superior proficiencies and class abilities/feats, compared to a Wizard, or Cleric, or Druid, or most any other spellcasting class in the game. The meta reason is because Bards were boring buff bots, and so if they aren't the best in the game, then nobody would feel empowered enough to play them. Of course, if we ascribed to the idea that classes with set lists should have obviously set power budgets, it does little to explain away these class-specific discrepancies, and that's just involving the Core Rulebook.
As for the amount of options, it depends on how good any of those options are. It might not matter that much if I have 1 option out of 5 that are good, or 1 out of 10 that are good, but if I have 2 out of 10 that are good, even if it's the same ratio of good/bad options as 1 out of 5, the point is that I already have more good choices compared to what I had before, which means I have more versatility compared to anyone else, even if I only have one feat slot for that given level. This is an issue that becomes exacerbated with the release of new books, especially for classes that are already bloated with viable feat choices (like Fighters), but the fact of the matter is that having choice (more accurately, meaningful choice) means the class is far more versatile in its build capacity, and versatility is definitely a price to pay in terms of power budget.
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but the fact of the matter is that having choice (more accurately, meaningful choice) means the class is far more versatile in its build capacity, and versatility is definitely a price to pay in terms of power budget.
But they don't. A rune witch isn't casting occult spells, a fervor witch isn't also getting primal spells (except for a couple they might be able to poach from feats, but then we're talking about feats which are another matter).
Picking your tradition is a singular, top level choice that happens before you ever even start playing the game. Yes, someone could choose to play a divine witch instead of an occult witch.. but they could also choose to play a cleric or druid instead.
When the option only exists at chargen, it's not really any form of versatility available to the class. You might as well be saying that wizards need to be balanced against the fact that someone might choose to play a bard instead, because that's also a choice you make at character creation. Categorically nonsensical.
Bards also have significant diminishing returns. One bard is great, two bards is okay (lets stack Dirge of Doom with Inspire Courage), and past that you run into issues since bonuses don't stack.Because not everyone (always) wants to play the best class when they play this game.Bards are the absolute best class in the game bar none.Why then would anyone choose to play any other class?
I don't know as you have Dirge of Doom, Inspire Courage, Inspire Defense and Triple Time that would work well giving you +10' status bonus to all Speeds, +1 status bonus to AC and saving throws, a resistance of 1/2 spell's level to physical damage, +1 status bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls, and Foes within the area are frightened 1. IMO, the returns don't diminish for a party of 4 bards.
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I think the hexes from the patron are the primary feature of the Witch class in PF2. The familiar is an add on that is supposed to help with the hexes. But the hexes have so many limiters that they don't seem all that great.
The main advantage we've seen with the hexes is the one action casting cost for most. The target gaining immunity for 1 minute which is the duration of a combat often makes them seem very weak whereas you have a bard cantrip that just works for 1 action.
Imagine using evil eye as a one action cantrip with a save against a single target that becomes immune, then a bard shows up casts dirge of doom and does AOE fear with no save. No immunity to it. Can just keep using it and combine it with other cantrips.
You look at your hex and go, "Why did I bother?" Even the skill intimidate can be as effective as a witch hex for 1 action with the 1 minute immunity as well.
All the witch hex cantrips are mostly this way. Mildly ok, but so limited that can't even outclass a skill like intimidate and look like garbage compared to the 1 action support cantrip class the bard. A witch's cantrips should have been balanced similar to a bard's 1 action cantrips in my opinion.
No, they were the primary feature in PF1, in PF2, it's Familiars, because they have the most Familiar power compared to any other class. And Hexes are just an already dumbed down version of School spells from Wizards. What's that, I have to sustain a spell to ensure its duration lasts? When odds are, the enemy succeeds their save and then the duration doesn't last more than a round anyway? I can't accept that to be true based on how awful it is and how little of a power budget it covers. It's quite clear that Hexes were pushed to the wayside to make the Familiar part of the class shine (and it doesn't because Familiars in this game are beyond garbage). Also, Familiars and Hexes have nothing in common, so saying that one is an add-on to the other doesn't make any sense either.
The action...
I don't agree with you. The hexes are the main part of the class. That's why you get a free Hex from a patron and can accumulate several hexes. The familiar is an add on to help fuel hexes and spellcasting. Familiars are best as focus point batteries or extra spellcasting, which combines with hexes and spells. The familiar itself is only as useful as your class abilities that it fuels.
The hexes are weakly designed. That's what makes the witch not so great. They could improve the familiar a ton and no one would care if they didn't make the hexes better that the familiar fuels.
I don't know as you have Dirge of Doom, Inspire Courage, Inspire Defense and Triple Time that would work well giving you +10' status bonus to all Speeds, +1 status bonus to AC and saving throws, a resistance of 1/2 spell's level to physical damage, +1 status bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls, and Foes within the area are frightened 1. IMO, the returns don't diminish for a party of 4 bards.Bards also have significant diminishing returns. One bard is great, two bards is okay (lets stack Dirge of Doom with Inspire Courage), and past that you run into issues since bonuses don't stack.Because not everyone (always) wants to play the best class when they play this game.Bards are the absolute best class in the game bar none.Why then would anyone choose to play any other class?
I feel like once you end up being the guy on Triple Time duty you can start to feel a little bit of diminishing returns set in. TT is nice but kind of a sometimes spell.
Those three bards would probably be happier putting IC/ID/DoD on a fighter or barbarian or something anyways.
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You have to remember a few bards can each do something different, then incorporate spellcasting, weapon attacks, or skill use.
One bard doing inspire courage and another bard doing inspire defense, then each casting some spell for damage or intimidating could be quite nice.
Two bards in a party doing the healing, buffing, debuffing, and skill checks could be quite nice. They are charisma-based so they can easily do Bon Mot or Intimidate while tossing out bard cantrips.
If all you're focusing on is the bard cantrips, then sure there are diminishing returns. Bards have the cantrips and whole lot more they can do.
My biggest problem with the bard is I hate doing the same thing over and over again. The other PCs start getting irritated if you don't constantly buff them.
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What are you talking about? They have more Hex feats than familiar feats. The familiar feats are the standard familiar feats for any class that takes a familiar.
I've seen a player build three witches. They focus is way more on Hexes. It's just the hexes suck, but they don't suck as bad as the familiar or hair feats.
Hex Feats:
Cackle
Basic Lesson
Greater Lesson
Major Lesson (you can take this multiple times)
Hex Focus
Hex Wellspring
Split Hex
Hex Master
The familiar feats are either the standard familiar feats or there to fuel spellcasting.
The hair is a pretty useless side list of feats. I've not seen anyone use them as the witch is a terrible melee combatant.
All three of the witches I've seen built: two fervor witches and one evil eye witch have all been focused on hexes because the familiar is only good for extra focus points and casting.
I guess someone could focus on the familiar or hair, but it would do even less than the hexes. Hexes are the witch's bread and butter during combat.
I feel like once you end up being the guy on Triple Time duty you can start to feel a little bit of diminishing returns set in. TT is nice but kind of a sometimes spell.
Those three bards would probably be happier putting IC/ID/DoD on a fighter or barbarian or something anyways.
I was commenting on diminishing returns from bonuses from Composition cantrips and at relatively low levels you can manage 4 that don't overlap [and at higher, House of Imaginary Walls and Allegro can be used instead of Tripple Time].
That is completely different than overlapping other areas or missing abilities like tanking or raw damage. So I'm not arguing that 4 bards would be the best possible party composition, but you could do much worse in an all one class party. Though 4 bards taking Beastmaster for 4 animal companions to buff could be interesting.
If you have 20 feats (2 choices for every even level) that is a limited amount of space. So say half of the feats (10) will be for generic caster stuff (Ex: The obligatory 10th lv bonus spell). That leaves 10 feats to differentiate each play style. So you have a choice: Split the 10 feats between the class and one spell list (each gets 5 feats) or split them between the class and 4 spell lists (each gets 2 feats).
I struggle to remember a single caster feat that is specifically "attuned" to their specific spell list in a way it couldn't be left exactly the same if that caster happenned to have another list altogether. Pretty sure the caster I checked when I was character building (druid witch wizard and summonners)have literally zero feats that are "locked" to their list only, even focus spells or "additional spells" aren't because numerous feat let you take focus spells or learn spell specifically outside of your usual list.
Every list have their pro and cons, but none are specialised enought that a feat that work with one wouldn't also work with the others. There are problems with the witch, but the ability to chose your list isn't one.
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Isn’t the reason bards got so many skills and performances because the skill monkey performance was always their gimmick.
It’s just they used to be 2/3rd casters with 3/4BABand paizo got rid of that, but didn’t want to get rid of their gimmick?
(A slightly weird choice since it seemed somewhat universally agreed that the hybrid classes were the best design space in pf1)
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Isn’t the reason bards got so many skills and performances because the skill monkey performance was always their gimmick.
It’s just they used to be 2/3rd casters with 3/4BABand paizo got rid of that, but didn’t want to get rid of their gimmick?
(A slightly weird choice since it seemed somewhat universally agreed that the hybrid classes were the best design space in pf1)
Bards becoming full caster is simply a byproduct of the transformation from "spell list" to "magical tradition". Back in 3e/PF1, the wizard/sorcerer, druid, cleric and bard are the four "starter" spell list, and thus became the four magical tradition in PF2e. (ranger and paladin also had a spell list, but those were pretty much a limited selection of the druid and cleric list).
They needed a dedicated "full occult caster" from day one, and because it was largely based on the bard original list, making them full caster was the simplest choice.
Altho it is weird indeed that they got to be full caster, but keep most of the benefits they had for being an "hybrid casting" class, while wizard for exemple seems to be designed with the idea that "being a full caster" is benefit enought for not needing any additional goodies.
Maybe Bards should have had the 2 spells per slot thing witches got
To compensate for all their other goodies.
Cause their goodies are certainly better than witch and wizard goodies. Lol
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Actually upon reflection, no, just make the witch and wizard better lol
I can’t speak to the witch, but I love the wizard and have had a lot of fun playing them, and see one played in almost every game I play. I think that the wizard class is subtle in what it offers, and many thesis/feat/spell combos don’t leap out at players from a theory crafting perspective, but I see innovative solutions to problems coming from wizards very often and it is almost always a byproduct of wizards learning niche spells that spontaneous casters pass on, and having enough spell slots (or the spell substitution thesis) to have those spells ready when needed.
I have been experimenting more and more with trying to accomplish this with scrolls on spontaneous casters, and it is fun, but hard to do nearly as often as with a wizard. Wizards can buy the niche spell, learn it, and still use the scroll, so they are still better at this strategy than sorcerers, bards, and my current experiment, the Oracle. Yes, those other classes can invest in getting better at this strategy, but the wizard really doesn’t have to. The wizard doesn’t even have to try to have a lot of this flexibility, and can thus cover the tool box casting even while mostly memorizing blasting spells, or battlefield control spells, or buffing allies spells. Like I said, just buying the scroll, learning the spell and keeping the scroll is pretty good coverage and then if you use it, and discover a fun cool strategy for using it more, you can just memorize it for the part of the adventure where it is fun to do so, and then drop it overnight without having wasted any time or major resources on it.
PF2 adventures really do reward this play style pretty generously. I know it infuriates some players to hear, but the wizard is great at it and the arcane spell list is the best for it. Other prepared casters may get broader general access to their spell lists, and also get to do cool stuff as a result (clerics with status removal options, druids with nature utility options), but crafting scrolls gets difficult skill wise for these classes and at least for the cleric, status removal scrolls have a short shelf life, and you don’t get the added benefit of learning the new spell from it, so you are less likely to have the scroll on hand when you need it. Ironically, spending money on over leveled dispel magic scrolls has had massive payout for me in being able to counteract big bad effects on a lower tier of success than I should have been able to accomplish at my level, so I might be underselling the value of scrolls to clerics and druids, but I have never seen those characters play the scroll game really either, so it doesn’t seem like it is just me.
I really do think PF2 could be more explicit in reminding players that items are an essential part of expected character development and for casters this means more spells not math boosting spells, but in play, when it starts clicking, I see casters shining over and over again.
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While I agree that this is a source of strength for any prepared caster, and the wizard having an additional - school restricted - slot, makes them technically the best at it, I feel you are really over selling how potent it is.
Magic in general has a lot of intersecting limitations in this edition, and, unlike several other casters, Wizards don't have a real fall back options, so these intersecting restrictions hit them somewhat harder.
While I love a good spell combo, one of the limiting factors of relatively little spell slots is that a 2-spell combo does consume a not inconsiderable amount of opportunity cost for much the characters career.
I have a special place in my heart for Gravity Well shenanigans, for example, but you can realistically only do fun tricks with it a 2-3 times a day before you are just out of gas.
I really do think PF2 could be more explicit in reminding players that items are an essential part of expected character development and for casters this means more spells not math boosting spells, but in play, when it starts clicking, I see casters shining over and over again.
I would go one step further and say its a resounding failure, conceptually, if that is indeed the intent.
Consumables in most games, not get TTRPG's, have a well know hording principle to them. As best I can see, Pathfinder does nothing to foster a change to how people treat consumables, other than making casters feel worse for not burning their resources on them, but even at that, its an indirect inference and nothing actually linking them.
Plus the whole "martials reinvest, casters burn" disparity to gold usage.
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Isn’t the reason bards got so many skills and performances because the skill monkey performance was always their gimmick.
It’s just they used to be 2/3rd casters with 3/4BABand paizo got rid of that, but didn’t want to get rid of their gimmick?
(A slightly weird choice since it seemed somewhat universally agreed that the hybrid classes were the best design space in pf1)
Bards are comparatively overtuned compared to most casters no matter how you slice it.
Starting with expert in perception which natively goes to master, the best starting weapons proficiencies of any caster, too many skills, 8HP.
This is on top of their crazy powerful focus spells and full 3 slot spell casting.
Too much legacy nonsense was allowed to exist in the core classes. Which is the reason for most of the disparity really.
I think "legacy nonsense" sums up the caster disparity pretty well yeah.
Bard got upgraded to full caster (because they needed one of the starting class to be a full occult caster), but because the link needed to be made with PF1 bard, they kept all the goodies they got from being a hybrid class. Wouldn't want the player wanting to try PF2 with their favorite PF1 character to discover that bard can't use their weapon anymore.
Wizard went from having pretty much the most powerfull list to one balanced with the other 3, but kept all of the legacy limitation they had from being basically the best class of PF1.
And witch got shafted because what made them special in PF1 was basically present for all caster because of scalling cantrip and focus spell, so they just became a basic caster with no real "special feature" because legacy meant that they couldn't invent something new for her to do.
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Items to spell slots does not require consumables. In PF2, I think scrolls are the best way to get it, but staves and wands and spell hearts and other items can expand any caster’s range of spells too. You are not going to get top slots that way, which you can with scrolls, but you can get a lot more breath.
Not using consumables makes PF2 much harder for every class though. I highly recommend players consider at least joining a one off game sometime with a willingness to just buy and burn through consumables and see how different the game plays. You can still end up walking into an encounter you are not prepared for, but if you run, and come back with some targeted consumables those encounters drop in difficulty by at least 1 full level. The tight game math combined with the significance boost of weaknesses and resistances, combined with the number of hazards and creatures that have an exploitable flaw let consumables shine in play.
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Items to spell slots does not require consumables. In PF2, I think scrolls are the best way to get it, but staves and wands and spell hearts and other items can expand any caster’s range of spells too. You are not going to get top slots that way, which you can with scrolls, but you can get a lot more breath.
Not using consumables makes PF2 much harder for every class though. I highly recommend players consider at least joining a one off game sometime with a willingness to just buy and burn through consumables and see how different the game plays. You can still end up walking into an encounter you are not prepared for, but if you run, and come back with some targeted consumables those encounters drop in difficulty by at least 1 full level. The tight game math combined with the significance boost of weaknesses and resistances, combined with the number of hazards and creatures that have an exploitable flaw let consumables shine in play.
Don't get me wrong, I love me my consumables, but there is a massive asterisk to that love.
In that, I don't really want to have to pay for them out of my characters personal wealth.
I recently played a one-shot as a Thaumaturge who had access to as many consumables per day as possible. Scrolls, talismans, alchemy, gadgets and snares. So many of the characters class and free archetype feats were spent on ways that allowed him to be a walking item shop.
That was an extremely fun character and I had a blast playing them.
But the fun here is that I could produce them all for free as part of the characters daily prep.
Consumable purchasing should never be an expected part of your characters optimal/desired playstyle because consistent access to consumables and the wealth required to be spent, aren't things you should or can plan for in all circumstances.
Its not that they aren't strong, its that its just largely impractical to expect it.
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Also, as an aside, the best moments I've had as both a player and GM come from those situations where the niche bit of rubbish the group picked up 12 sessions ago, is the hero of the day.
Finding a scroll of Restyle, thinking its worthless and sitting in the bottom of bag, until it suddenly turns an entire encounter on its head out of nowhere, is the best part about them.
Its hard to plan for those moments.
Martials cannot just get all the runes. That is not a helpful statement to make in this conversation.
Let's take a step back for a moment.
There are many different kinds of encounters.
Most of the time, most characters have useful ways to contribute to most encounters.
Additionally, there is a particularly powerful point of inflection in PF2 that happens when you can get 10 higher (or lower) than a DC on a roll of 19 or less (or 2 or more for saves), unless there is a reason why the number on the attack roll/save DC doesn't really affect the overall result of action because of immunities, resistances, etc.
When player choices naturally line up with creature weaknesses or flaws, then those encounters feel like cake walks to the whole party, but another party might possibly really struggle with those encounters. Many parties are built to be good at smashing (doing lots of just general damage) pretty quickly, so encounters that can be smashed with general damage against defenses that don't require much manipulation to get to the inflection point will often become base-line "easier encounters" than others, but this is still a subjective position to party composition.
This is where a lot of general advice on these boards is targeted. It assumes parties will be built to melee smash encounters with just any type of damage to the highest possible value. In that model, the encounters that become difficult are encounters against creatures with very high AC, immunity or high resistance to physical damage, and mobility that combines with powerful attacks (so it becomes difficult to get multiple character making attacks against the creature each round).
Most parties will occasionally run into encounters where their strengths cannot overpower the strengths of their enemies. In these situations, everyone needs to be prepared to step back/run/regroup, and re-approach the encounter. Parties of 4 martials will still get themselves into this situation eventually in APs, and trying to push past the encounters anyway, or having everyone rush in after one PC does will very often result in a TPK.
A well prepared wizard is not any less likely than most martials to have something up their sleeve to help in an encounter that is difficult. Even if what the wizard has is things like wall of stone, solid fog, or other spells that help everyone run away or split up a difficult encounter to tackle in sections, that is an easy resource to keep in the back pocket. A party that thinks "well, everyone is at full HP, we are completely prepared for anything that we could possibly face behind the next door." Is a party setting itself up for a TPK in most published material. Consumables and daily use resources are a thing for every character and trying to just not use any of those tools ever so that the party can just stand around for however long after an encounter and heal and then move on is a badly built party that is going to get crushed eventually, and probably blame their GM for not letting have enough time to heal between encounters, or throw unfair enemies at the party.
Now, good GMs might be able to read into what their players are wanting from play by looking at the character sheets, and then there is a decision point to be made "DO I go with these expectations or challenge them?" That will have a huge impact on whether people have fun and enjoy the game or feel like it is too hard and unfun, but Adventure Paths are built assuming that players want to play a range of characters, not just martials who never want to use consumables or daily resources, so they feature different kinds of encounters that will eventually cause difficulties for every type of character and play style. Just because a situation is common doesn't mean you can build characters only prepared to face that situation.
Consumable purchasing should never be an expected part of your characters optimal/desired playstyle because consistent access to consumables and the wealth required to be spent, aren't things you should or can plan for in all circumstances.
Its not that they aren't strong, its that its just largely impractical to expect it.
I think my point here is that "casting more spells per day" is a reasonable expectation for players of casters to solve with items. It does not have to be consumables, but if you just count on the scrolls and wands and staves you find in the game to get these resources, that is like martial characters only using the weapons found in the game, and not transferring runes or selling ones off to buy ones that better fit their character.
Now personally, I think the cost of wands makes most of them a pretty terrible investment in most APs and campaigns because you don't usually have more than 10 encounters before you level up and if you are going through 4 to 6 encounters in a day, that means any one wand is probably getting 2 to 3 uses at a level where it will really shine, and then it should probably not be the most exciting thing your character has to do in a day. So I would rather go into each level having 4 or 5 scrolls at top level/top level -1 and keep rotating through what those spells are, rather than trying to save up and buy a wand of any one of those spells, even though I could probably have 10 to 12 scrolls for the cost of every wand.
A GM can very easily realize that their players are resistant to buying scrolls though and start trading in treasure bundles for caches of useful scrolls, as I acknowledge that some players need to really see the value of entering a difficult dungeon with 4 extra valuable spells to cast a day before they will recognize that "Hey, it is pretty easy to do this all the time" by just spending a little bit of your money.
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*Snip*
What is the argument here though, in regards to the context of this thread?
Running away and coming back better prepared is all well and good... but that should never be a "class identity".
Its a perk of the Prepared system that you can be prepared for anything, but you never will be prepared of everything nor in reality will you have the potential to be so capable in terms of response that its a go-to tactic.
"Oh shit, we needs lots of fire! Lets haul ass back to town and stock up" is a great move on a parties part, who recognise what they need in that circumstance. But that's not an identity.
Further, going back to the intersection of opportunity cost in terms of spells learned, spell slots prepared and wealth spent to learn, realistically its a big cost to be so prepare-able, but it feels like those costs are never really recognised for what they are.
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I feel like this thread just looped all the way back to why I put it up in the first place : the fact that caster daily ressources are so limited that they "need" to buy their way into more spell slot if they want to actually last until the end of day.
Martials utility never drop between encounter and they buy permanent stuff that make them better overall always (weapon/armor runes), while casters get progressively less powerfull the longer the day goes on, and buy stuff that allow them to stay relevant for a bit longer. It break hard if you pick the autimatic bonus progression system tho, since martial are now free to buy whatever they want, but caster are still "taxed" and have to spend money for these additional slots.
So back on topic, do people think that casters would be overpowered if they got one or two more spells for each spell levels?
My argument is that saying "the thing that could primarily fix casters in PF2 is more spell slots" is a style of play that is already possible to build around, and in fact is both very fun, and powerful.
The wizard is very good at exploiting this style of play and the nature of their spell book and how they learn spells should be seen as an invitation to fold heavy scroll usage into their play.
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I think my point here is that "casting more spells per day" is a reasonable expectation for players of casters to solve with items. It does not have to be consumables, but if you just count on the scrolls and wands and staves you find in the game to get these resources, that is like martial characters only using the weapons found in the game, and not transferring runes or selling ones off to buy ones that better fit their character.Consumable purchasing should never be an expected part of your characters optimal/desired playstyle because consistent access to consumables and the wealth required to be spent, aren't things you should or can plan for in all circumstances.
Its not that they aren't strong, its that its just largely impractical to expect it.
I mean, agreed. Staves should be a good investment for any caster, and wands are decent enough for those 1-day spells anyhow. It is specifically consumables as a remedy to other caster related issues that I don't agree with.
Also, to your martial example, by the same token, I doubt you really see much talisman use either.
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I feel like this thread just looped all the way back to why I put it up in the first place : the fact that caster daily ressources are so limited that they "need" to buy their way into more spell slot if they want to actually last until the end of day.
Martials utility never "drop" between encounter and they buy "permanent" stuff that make them better overall always (weapon/armor runes), while casters get progressively less powerfull the longer the day goes on, and buy stuff that allow them to stay relevant for a bit longer. It break hard if you pick the autimatic bonus progression system tho, since martial are now free to buy whatever they want, but caster are still "taxed" and have to spend money for these additional slots.
So back on topic, do people think that casters would be overpowered if they got one or two more spells for each spell levels?
Yes.
I think the playtests and the innumerable games since have given enough data for the devs to assess whether the balance is where they want it.
They have made zero move to freely increase the number of slots, so I surmise that doing so would unbalance the game, and likely the rules for building encounters.
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I think my point here is that "casting more spells per day" is a reasonable expectation for players of casters to solve with items. It does not have to be consumables, but if you just count on the scrolls and wands and staves you find in the game to get these resources, that is like martial characters only using the weapons found in the game, and not transferring runes or selling ones off to buy ones that better fit their character.Consumable purchasing should never be an expected part of your characters optimal/desired playstyle because consistent access to consumables and the wealth required to be spent, aren't things you should or can plan for in all circumstances.
Its not that they aren't strong, its that its just largely impractical to expect it.
I mean, agreed. Staves should be a good investment for any caster, and wands are decent enough for those 1-day spells anyhow. It is specifically consumables as a remedy to other caster related issues that I don't agree with.
Also, to your martial example, by the same token, I doubt you really see much talisman use either.
The skill requirements is what prevents my Martial PCs from buying Talismans.
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I think the playtests and the innumerable games since have given enough data for the devs to assess whether the balance is where they want it.They have made zero move to freely increase the number of slots, so I surmise that doing so would unbalance the game, and likely the rules for building encounters.
I hate "from the gap" style arguments. They don't actually satisfy or address any issues that people have, nor do they attempt to refute said issues.
"how it is, is how it is, and so that's the way it must be."
It also shields Paizo from being wrong on any issue because it posits they have some secret formula that they are pleased with. Ignoring all the times that paizo have already been wrong, it can't be said enough there is nothing secret about the games workings. There is no backend code, or set of dev tools which monitor game health. We have access to everything they do in terms of gameplay.
They have made zero move to freely increase the number of slots, so I surmise that doing so would unbalance the game, and likely the rules for building encounters.
I can understand some balance concern, but how exactly do the number of spell slot impact encounter building? It seems that right now, the guidelines for building encounter for your group is the same wether you're running your first combat of the day and your casters have all of their spells available, or the very last and they're down to focus and cantrip only.