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I'll say this. Many of us, myself included, have come and made our own predictions about how this is all going to turn out, based on our understanding of Paizo as a company. Some of these understandings are in direct opposition to one another, and have resulted in predictions that are in direct opposition to one another. Some day, not too many months hence, we'll actually have solid answers to this thing. On that day, I would like to call on those of us who turn out to have been incorrect (including myself, if I am among that number) to actually let that adjust our attitude towards Paizo and our expectation of its likely future behaviors.
Also, I invite basically anyone to remind me that I have said this, once the day comes, because I know for a fact that I won't remember it that long on my own, and I do like to have my opinions be grounded in evidence whenever possible.
For the record, then:
My own prediction, as above: a series of small but meaningful adjustments that make the wizard overall a bit stronger, and make the blaster wizard in particular a lot more playable as a build.
Secondary prediction, if I'm wrong about the primary: that it's something that's bigger, chunkier, more significant/profound than that, still buffing them, just in a more notable way.
I find it really quite unlikely that the wizard will just be left there treading water. I find it searingly unlikely that they'll be left worse off than they are now. I accept that if either of these happen (especially the second) that's going to mean that my understanding of the situation was seriously flawed, and I'm going to have to reconsider some things.
All of these predictions are in a context that counts the weapon proficiency thing as a no-op. Simple weapon proficiency isn't the prize. It's the freebie you get in the parking lot, before you've even reached the door. Similarly, it'll be in context where we kind of expect everyone to get a bit of a bump, and aren't counting that. "not getting anything more than anyone else got" counts as "treading water" in this case.
If Simple Weapon Proficiency was free for all classes, everyone would have it. The fact that the Wizard didn't have it is indicative that it indeed has value, and has a cost associated with it.That's circular logic. The mere existence of a thing does not inherently give it value.
It does if you assume some Darwinian logic.
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It does if you assume some Darwinian logic.If Simple Weapon Proficiency was free for all classes, everyone would have it. The fact that the Wizard didn't have it is indicative that it indeed has value, and has a cost associated with it.That's circular logic. The mere existence of a thing does not inherently give it value.
Not exactly. Darwinian logic is that the continued existence of something means it is not detrimental to survival. It's not quite the same.
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For the question "are the Weapon Prof changes a buff" I'd have to say, yes, they are a buff. Now, do I think Paizo is using that as an intentional weight on the OTHER side of the scale when they deal with the consequences of Spell Schools being removed, I don't really think so, I think it is simply just something they want to "clean up" despite how it impacts the baseline.
For example, that change, if viewed as a buff, would be yet another bump/+1 in the "Bard is OP" category as they ALREADY have the best selection of Weapon options for Spellcasters, but I don't think they're looking at it like that, especially since I don't envision them nerfing the Bard (despite how I feel about that... *grumbles*OPcantripFocusSpells*grumble*) in exchange for that buff so I REALLY don't foresee them applying the change to the Schools in a thoughtful way to counterbalance them getting Simple Weapons.
I don't know WHERE people got the idea, but the community at large seems to more or less be in agreement that it MUST be true so I can only assume they have a good reason for it, that none of the changes that will come with PF2.5/PF2r/P2.5/P2.1/P2r/etc will be intentional or balance nerfs, instead the common wisdom seems to be that they'll only buff things to being them up to being more comparable to the current best options... So, whatever replaces the current Spell School stuff, it stands to reason, will probably be at LEAST as good as what exists if not better, that's why I think they'll opt to give them something akin to a build-a-school feature that offers SOMETHING like the existing Signature Spell feature but at the same time isn't identical to that or any other existing Feat/Thesis.
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The one thing which is getting nerfed is the hammer/flail crit spec.
I mean, "I cast spells that are good at blowing things up" is more in tune with "what the player who would choose this option wants to do" than "I cast evocation spells."
Like "Dancing Lights" was evocation and "Incendiary Fog" was conjuration and I'm pretty sure the "War Mage" training would emphasize the latter more than the former.
War mage that focuses on evocation is obviously more focused on the explosions.
War mage that focuses on conjuration is obviously more focused on battlefield control.
War mage that focuses on necromancy is obviously more focused on war crimes.
War mage that focuses on divination is obviously more focused on spionage.
Etc.Having a mechanic that is "war mage" and focuses only on a handful of spells is less versatile than letting the player pick the spells they want to focus on. The only benefit the new mechanic provides is that Paizo can waste more space making specific lists and selling it as adding more options, without actually doing so.
I also don't believe the "we can add more feats for specific schools now" because they could already had done it, but they didn't. I don't know why but the devs right now refuse to give wizards actual feats and this change does not change that fact.
Now that we know Paizo has had concerns about leaning too heavily into OGL stuff for a while now, it seems pretty likely that trying to build up school specialization with school related feats that touched numbers was never going to happen in PF2. They never wanted wizards that only really cast spells within a very narrow grouping of spells that were school spells for this edition and saw that as a problem from 3.X that they were not looking to carry over. Only casting a very narrow range of spells is for spontaneous casters.
We don’t really know enough about the schools to speculate more about how they will interact with feats or advanced focus spells.
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Speculation: I don't think there really is going to be a difference between a universalist school wizard and any other school wizard other than the spells they can select (including focus spells) and maybe access to feats. The goal here is to move away from wizard types that slot in exactly to D&D molds, so I think the universal school is just going to be a little more open ended about the spells you can choose at each level, and probably have the hand of the apprentice focus spell or something similar.
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Speculation: I don't think there really is going to be a difference between a universalist school wizard and any other school wizard other than the spells they can select (including focus spells) and maybe access to feats. The goal here is to move away from wizard types that slot in exactly to D&D molds, so I think the universal school is just going to be a little more open ended about the spells you can choose at each level, and probably have the hand of the apprentice focus spell or something similar.
Sure, but then what do you get for specialization? Unless you get additional spells known per level or something, there really isn't any benefit to taking a specialized school over a universal one. It's the Kineticist playtest issue all over again.
The mere existence of a thing does not inherently give it value.
Sure it does. If not, then that means everyone can take this feat for free because it has no value.
If I had to guess in terms of mechanical aspects of the schools:
1) a spell list for some representative schools that provide a base spells known, or a bonus of spells learned per level. Wizards can of course any arcane spell. This would include guidelines for building your own school spell lists
For the other additions, I see three options:
2) a broad bonus based on the character of the school. So, for a school of war magic, a choice of +1 damage per spell level, or +1 to hit with spell attacks, for schools associated with polymorphing, either an enemy penalty to saves or a bonus to duration.
3) focus spells that are broadly associated with different aspects of magic, but based on effect rather a determinative school. Again, the sample schools would have focus spells already assigned, but guidelines provided hooking onto custom schools.
4) metamagic feats the modify the spells associated with your school's mainfocus. These could applied to your school's spell list (maybe for free? Too greedy!)
I think the key here will to make the schools as modular as possible in terms of unique bonuses. There has to be a balance between accessibility for new players (so, the provided player core schools) and flexibility for different experiences while avoiding the pf1 trap of system mastery destroying all sense of balance.
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If all schools, including the universalist, get a unique focus spell, then that should differentiate them. Plus, we don't know if we will get a "universalist". Theres no "generic" druid order or bardic muse.Speculation: I don't think there really is going to be a difference between a universalist school wizard and any other school wizard other than the spells they can select (including focus spells) and maybe access to feats. The goal here is to move away from wizard types that slot in exactly to D&D molds, so I think the universal school is just going to be a little more open ended about the spells you can choose at each level, and probably have the hand of the apprentice focus spell or something similar.Sure, but then what do you get for specialization? Unless you get additional spells known per level or something, there really isn't any benefit to taking a specialized school over a universal one. It's the Kineticist playtest issue all over again.
Yeah that's what I was wondering, I don't think we'll even get a Universalist since we don't got magical category schools anymore to even specialize in. We have majors, not things we want to focus on with our degrees.
A specialist might get more spells per level in their book for free as well as focus spells and potentially advanced focus spells at higher levels to get them up to three.
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Plus, we don't know if we will get a "universalist". Theres no "generic" druid order or bardic muse.
As it happens, the School of Unified Magical Theory was namedropped as a functional successor to universalist wizards which gives extra feats iirc. This from the remaster panel.
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I'm a little perplexed, since it seems like it isn't so much a OGL issue with the schools, since the concept of having spells have schools associated with them and those be the eight names we know has been placed in Creative Commons, right? I don't know the specific school descriptions text are in Creative Commons, but that just gives them the ability to refine the lines in the way Paizo would have wanted, and left opportunity for spells to be able to be part of more than one school.
Worse, it is removing those schools from not only the Arcane list, but also removing it from the other lists. It takes away aspects that were detectable in the past, that eeked out a small bit of information about a magical effect that could be helpful, but not necessarily outright reveal of the full details.
I'm not particularly exited for this loss. I would have been fine with the concept of renaming or even shuffling some of the schools. (and the sin/virtue names would have been potentially obvious possibility names if they had wanted renaming) I have to say I find it really hard to imagine looking at an aura and having the GM tell me, it has a Battle magic aura, or it looks like it has a Civics aura. It seems like we are actually full out losing something here that was truly valuable in the long run.
The ability to have potentially have classes or archetypes that could easily be limited to 'primal spells' of Evocation School would have been perfectly functional and valuable mechanic. My understanding although I can't list them from my own experience, we already will be experiencing from the sounds of it a breaking the ways existing archetypes work.
I'll confess I don't mind the concept of schools of magic having spells they commonly teach, and those crossing scopes of more general types of spells is perfectly fine to me. If they had gotten rid of the old default 'schools' which would have more in world been tied back to Runelords past. I have no problem with modern schools tending to be oriented differently, having war schools and civic schools with their 'core curriculum lists'. But if spells still had schools or 'factors' which would represent some of the basic elements the that would be consistent parts of the spells of all the different 'traditions'.
Then someone asks, but how do I make an old school built off the Runelords of Lust. Ohh.. they say, that is easy, they get this focus spell over here and everything Arcane with the factor of Enchantment is considered part of their curriculum. This can be done at any time after the remaster since the needed information would/could be there. Make new ones/factors such as Elemental and/or something else, and allow spells to include more than one factor. Honestly, I'd expect that the spells factors play into the spell signatures that are supposed to magically arise and appear during casting. I don't imagine them showing up together and having a rune/sign that would commonly appear because a dozen like minded mages all agree they like the spell and should generally teach it to their pupils. That doesn't makes sense, either in game-wise or world-lore wise. Now having easy access to a set curricular spells during level up and easier learning of such spells and even easier casting yes, that makes sense.
So I look forward to seeing what they do... but I don't look forward to losing the tags of Enchantment/Conjuration/Necromancy and such as they were things that were, at least for me, regularly used, both as player and GM. While coming up with a categorization for an odd spell here and there that might not have been categorized in a source, or had been placed in a group that didn't sit well with me wouldn't have been a big concern of mine. But they idea of it being removed from all spells across all tradition is sad for me.
I'll hope they change their mind on the outright removing the categorization, and will look at positively as I can for the new school mechanics from the bonus spell mechanics side that will most likely still be in place somehow.
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My assumption is that schools will grant your spell book free spells as you level up. (Which is good because spell book costs feel kind of unnecessary at this point.) It may also open doors for wizards to poach spells off other lists a la gods for clerics. For example, we have a gap for fiend summoning wizards right now as a player option which I would like to see fixed.
I'm not assuming they will restrict your slots in anyway until I hear it from Paizo.
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I say all of this as someone who’s favorite RPG character of all time is the Diviner Wizard I played through to level 17 when we beat the highly modified final boss of Carrion Crown (because bosses needed to be tune up to pose a challenge at all in PF1) in a fight that lasted all of 3 hours and 2 rounds. I love many 3.x wizards I have played, all specialists, but there is a definite reality to the argument that schools of magic and traditions of magic just don’t play together well and schools of magic and class spell lists actually always butted heads.
I do hope that attention is given to detect magic, so that you can start to identify associated traits with spells and maybe we even get a few more traits for spells where it might functionally mater if something is created/changed/or temporarily called forth, but schools were very hit and miss on making sense of that stuff anyway. Maybe not being able to rely on 10 different authors interpretation of schools of magic through 4 + rpg systems will encourage more thoughtful spell descriptions that are not “flavor text” but actually explain what the spell does. (See create water for a prime example of confusion).
It sounds like James Case is being incredibly methodical in organizing the work that is being done to spells and if anything in the remastery is going to almost feel like a new game, I bet it is spells and not anything to do with classes or creatures.
I don't know what the devs' mechanical strategy is here but I'm having a hard time imagining how this is gonna be anything but a more limited and harder to maintain version of what we already have.I mean, it's only more limited if Paizo intentionally chooses to direct the class in a more limited way. I'm not saying that's impossible, but it's also essentially approaching the problem from the assumption that Paizo's primary goal is to hurt its players.
It's approaching the problem from the assumption that Paizo is willing to trade "depth and choices" for "easier to design". Which, ya know, doesn't have to be a bad thing. I just don't understand the tradeoff in this case.
- Jee
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I'm a little perplexed, since it seems like it isn't so much a OGL issue with the schools, since the concept of having spells have schools associated with them and those be the eight names we know has been placed in Creative Commons, right? I don't know the specific school descriptions text are in Creative Commons, but that just gives them the ability to refine the lines in the way Paizo would have wanted, and left opportunity for spells to be able to be part of more than one school.
Worse, it is removing those schools from not only the Arcane list, but also removing it from the other lists. It takes away aspects that were detectable in the past, that eeked out a small bit of information about a magical effect that could be helpful, but not necessarily outright reveal of the full details.
I'm not particularly exited for this loss. I would have been fine with the concept of renaming or even shuffling some of the schools. (and the sin/virtue names would have been potentially obvious possibility names if they had wanted renaming) I have to say I find it really hard to imagine looking at an aura and having the GM tell me, it has a Battle magic aura, or it looks like it has a Civics aura. It seems like we are actually full out losing something here that was truly valuable in the long run.
The ability to have potentially have classes or archetypes that could easily be limited to 'primal spells' of Evocation School would have been perfectly functional and valuable mechanic. My understanding although I can't list them from my own experience, we already will be experiencing from the sounds of it a breaking the ways existing archetypes work.
I'll confess I don't mind the concept of schools of magic having spells they commonly teach, and those crossing scopes of more general types of spells is perfectly fine to me. If they had gotten rid of the old default 'schools' which would have more in world been tied back to Runelords past. I have no problem with modern schools tending to be oriented...
Creative Commons IIRC is an All or Nothing thing. You cannot use it for only part of your product, unlike OGL and ORC.
Which is why Paizo had to create the ORC instead of relying on CC.
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Loreguard makes a few interesting and relevant points (a welcome breath of fresh air) about losing the ability to describe a magical aura based on the school of magic it belongs to.
As has been mentioned, I don't for a moment imagine that these new schools will have any kind of relevance wrt to empirically detectable aspects such as auras (i.e. I expect there will be no such ting as an 'aura of battle magic' because the school of battle magic doesn't describe the nature of the spell itself, only the wizard who cast it).
Admittedly I have tended to find it a little odd to think that spells have a fundamental flavour to them based on which arbitrary category they fall under. Even if we were to accept that the schools make complete empirical sense, being able to sense from a spell's aura that it was used for information gathering vs. creating energy vs. creating energy (but this time to trick a foe instead of burn them) but not say whether the spell created heat or cold with the same level of investigation was a bit idiosyncratic to me.
That said, if the ability to read magical auras continues to exist in some form (assuming Read Aura and Detect Magic get rolled back up into one cantrip again maybe?), I could see it rather giving you a list of the traits associated with the spell. A flaming rune having an incendiary aura tells you as much if not more than an evocation aura (which formerly could include anything from shooting lightning to just glowing).
I wanted to suggest that perhaps instead also if you could read the aura of a wizard's spell, with sufficient acumen you might be able to perceive if the wizard who made the wall of stone studied Civic Wizardry or merely picked up the spell in their extracurricular time. However, not only would this only apply to wizards (unless you could similarly identify if a spell was cast by a fire elemental sorcerer, or a cleric of a death goddess from the aura) but it occurs to me I don't think spell auras really exist in any real sense anymore. Off the top of my head, Read Aura and Magic Aura both target magic items, and Identify Magic already covers learning a spell's name and function directly, without needing to mince words about schools.
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Look, the weapon proficiency change is purely a Quality of Life update to the class because it was the only class not to have it. There will not be a compensatory cost applied to Wizards because of this. This will merely be correcting a design choice which they have since moved away from.
If you must think of it in terms of totally-made-up-and-really-really-don't-exist class budgets. The Wizard shipped with an unspent surplus of points. This change would be using a tiny fraction of those unspent points.
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My assumption is that schools will grant your spell book free spells as you level up. (Which is good because spell book costs feel kind of unnecessary at this point.) It may also open doors for wizards to poach spells off other lists a la gods for clerics. For example, we have a gap for fiend summoning wizards right now as a player option which I would like to see fixed.
I'm not assuming they will restrict your slots in anyway until I hear it from Paizo.
My assumption as well. A key point that was made during the preview is that everyone of a certain school knows their school spells (emphasis mine). That sounds like free spellbook spells, or perhaps even spells you can cast without needing a spellbook at all.
A universalist might get 1 per rank (but can choose any arcane for this), while specialists get 2, and some from off-list.
Basically a beefed up deity list is what I'm suggesting, so there's a precedent for it.
Look, the weapon proficiency change is purely a Quality of Life update to the class because it was the only class not to have it. There will not be a compensatory cost applied to Wizards because of this. This will merely be correcting a design choice which they have since moved away from.
If you must think of it in terms of totally-made-up-and-really-really-don't-exist class budgets. The Wizard shipped with an unspent surplus of points. This change would be using a tiny fraction of those unspent points.
If that was the case, errata would have taken care of it by now; the fact it hasn't means that concept is debunked, and that Paizo was fine with Wizard not having proficiencies in weapons that even other spellcasters had. It took OGL separation to get it changed; saying it's a QoL change is mere happenstance at-best, and superfluous at-worst.
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If that was the case, errata would have taken care of it by now;As staff have said repeatedly, PF2r includes a lot of errata. That's the reason they are giving for not needing to playtest any of the changes: they've listened to feedback over the past 4 years, and the non-OGL-required changes are simply the next round of errata.
There's no need to desparage Paizo staff and claim otherwise.
I never said that they needed to playtest it before they implement the Remaster, stop strawmanning me. I said that they had plenty of ample opportunity to errata it before, and it never got done because they didn't see a problem with it before, and now it's a problem because of the OGL, so they are fixing it.
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Look, the weapon proficiency change is purely a Quality of Life update to the class because it was the only class not to have it. There will not be a compensatory cost applied to Wizards because of this. This will merely be correcting a design choice which they have since moved away from.
If you must think of it in terms of totally-made-up-and-really-really-don't-exist class budgets. The Wizard shipped with an unspent surplus of points. This change would be using a tiny fraction of those unspent points.
Just to point out, but class budgets do exist. They are of course more of a starting point than a straight jacket, but they've been mentioned here or there over the years by the designers.
I agree with your larger point that simple weapon proficiency probably does not affect said budget, but Darksol is at least correct that it is a possibility.
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If that was the case, errata would have taken care of it by now
Not really.
Look, the weapon proficiency change is purely a Quality of Life update to the class because it was the only class not to have it. There will not be a compensatory cost applied to Wizards because of this. This will merely be correcting a design choice which they have since moved away from.
If you must think of it in terms of totally-made-up-and-really-really-don't-exist class budgets. The Wizard shipped with an unspent surplus of points. This change would be using a tiny fraction of those unspent points.
Just to point out, but class budgets do exist. They are of course more of a starting point than a straight jacket, but they've been mentioned here or there over the years by the designers.
I agree with your larger point that simple weapon proficiency probably does not affect said budget, but Darksol is at least correct that it is a possibility.
Just to be clear, I do think it is possible for Paizo to change their mind on things, but the lack of change while having the ability to do so suggests more that they don't think a change is necessary than it is a case of Paizo hating/neglecting the class.
And with the Remaster and the baggage (or removal) it has suggests a change is not a matter of changing their mind on the class' balance.
Not really.
If that was the case, errata would have taken care of it by now
And what makes it that way. They did so for the Alchemist. What makes Wizard/Rogue not warrant the errata?
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And what makes it that way. They did so for the Alchemist. What makes Wizard/Rogue not warrant the errata?Not really.
If that was the case, errata would have taken care of it by now
Because (especially for the wizard, a bit less so for the rogue) it's not something that really matters. Whether or not a wizard can wield a morning star effectively is fairly inconsequential for most builds and therefore not particularly high priority errata.
Moreover "They didn't change before" is simply a weak agument that doesn't make much sense. It supposes a finality to the process of developing and changing a game that doesn't exist. The very fact that we've had four errata and now a remaster that goes above and beyond simply removing OGL already torpedos the idea.
There's no reason not to simply take Paizo at face value: They picked something for arbitrary and legacy reasons, but because they're a pain to work around and for the sake of improving consistency they're removing it.
My take on the the proficiency boost for bards/wizards/rogues is that at the games conception, they were restrictions that only really mattered for characters building against type and not into type, and that they created a sense of continuity between past versions of these classes and the new game.
This exact conversation is why I was opposed to an Errata that would have given wizards simple weapons, because either the class balance was about right for the class, or it wasn't, but if it wasn't, then adding more weapon proficiencies to the most magical of magical classes was boosting the class in the completely wrong way to make wizardy wizards more fun to play.
But remastering has forced Paizo to want to reject continuity with past versions of D&D and thus the minor balance changes they make are just not that big a deal because changes were going to need to happen anyway. I would still much rather have at least one class, and preferably the wizard , that gives up all weapon proficiency in exchange for casting potential, but Paizo is clearly very into "new weapons as expanding character identity" far more than they are into new spells doing so. I totally recognize wanting to make sure no character is denied from interacting with that.
It is possible at launch that they didn't know how well players would respond to how interesting and versatile the weapons and weapon traits element of their game would be, and so future proofing classes away from being restricted from that wasn't something they were thinking about at the time.
What made warpriests not warrant errata but still get changed in the remaster? Or oracles? Or witches?And what makes it that way. They did so for the Alchemist. What makes Wizard/Rogue not warrant the errata?Not really.
If that was the case, errata would have taken care of it by now
Witch requires changes that errata itself can't fix, and Oracles are getting changes as a result of them altering how Refocusing works (fundamentally, they are invalidating the multi-point refocus feats); they are otherwise relatively fine as a class.
Warpriest is probably in the same boat as Wizards/Rogues, since it shouldn't be difficult to errata proficiency boosts to a class (and again, see Alchemist), so only one of those is something that I am in agreement with of needing only errata.
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Paizo understood that using bespoke weapon list for classes did not work well with the rest of the PF2 mechanics. This was readily shown by the discussions in threads about Rogue and Wizard.
So, they are taking this feedback into account and improving the class accordingly.
I think they will do the same with all the easy to correct problems people mentioned about the Wizard class for the past years.
Those erratas were likely low on their todo list, but now they have the opportunity to do them, and so they will.
And what makes it that way. They did so for the Alchemist. What makes Wizard/Rogue not warrant the errata?Not really.
If that was the case, errata would have taken care of it by nowBecause (especially for the wizard, a bit less so for the rogue) it's not something that really matters. Whether or not a wizard can wield a morning star effectively is fairly inconsequential for most builds and therefore not particularly high priority errata.
Moreover "They didn't change before" is simply a weak agument that doesn't make much sense. It supposes a finality to the process of developing and changing a game that doesn't exist. The very fact that we've had four errata and now a remaster that goes above and beyond simply removing OGL already torpedos the idea.
There's no reason not to simply take Paizo at face value: They picked something for arbitrary and legacy reasons, but because they're a pain to work around and for the sake of improving consistency they're removing it.
Okay, sure, I acknowledge that weapon proficiencies are largely useless to a Wizard. But if it doesn't matter, why go through the trouble of changing it if it's so inconsequential that changing it doesn't mean anything? Just the idea of arguing over it alone is proof enough that it has to have some sort of value, otherwise arguing for its own sake is basically being disingenuous.
"They were waiting until the Remaster to implement this change" is just as weak of an argument, since we have precedent that they are indeed capable of adjusting proficiency scaling via errata. I would accept it as an argument if this was a change that errata can't cover, and I would accept it if Paizo acknowledged that the Wizard didn't need the proficiencies. The fact that it is doable in errata and the lack of change despite being told at least by the 2nd or 3rd printing, again, suggests that changing it has another reason behind it.
I would accept them changing it because it's particularly beholden to the OGL class, and they want to avoid a lawsuit. But given that they haven't expressly said one way or the other (to my knowledge) as to why it's happening, and them having the ability to change proficiencies on errata, saying that they either couldn't or that the Remaster was required to do so doesn't make sense, even if consequently the reverse is just conjecture.
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Paizo understood that using bespoke weapon list for classes did not work well with the rest of the PF2 mechanics. This was readily shown by the discussions in threads about Rogue and Wizard.
So, they are taking this feedback into account and improving the class accordingly.
I think they will do the same with all the easy to correct problems people mentioned about the Wizard class for the past years.
Those erratas were likely low on their todo list, but now they have the opportunity to do them, and so they will.
Yep, the real issue is all the non quality of life changes.
The proficiency thing is a nothing burger. If anything the fact that they are granting that means they wont provide Wizards better casting than say Cloistered Cleric, not that they will add negatives for it.
The negatives will come instead because of the apparent dislike for Wizards as a class that some people have. Specially given how arcane casters are almost always underpowered or actioned taxed to high heaven.
Why would people hate the Wizard class ?
And who would these people be ?
Arcane casters have the list with the greatest versatility by far. I do not see them as worse than other casters at all. Do you have any specific example in mind ?
I REALLY hope we get clarity on this sooner than later.
I am hopeful the way forward is about player choice as opposed to player travel, even though I love the idea of discovering new spells at specialist schools all over the world.
I would love to see the following.
On character creation, the player makes choice about where their character studied, which in turn has areas of emphasis and expertise and spell packages to learn and work with. This is how Classic and Mongoose Traveller handle pre-play character training in some ways.
Those choices are based on school themes as opposed to specific school locations. You already choose if you were a farmhand of a laborer without saying what farm or granite quarry, why not wrap this into another caster centric background element? Might be fun.
In the long term, having specialty spells at specific locations for players to discover, study, learn, or steal is a fun game play goal. Those could be rolled into future APs and sourcebooks.
Paizo understood that using bespoke weapon list for classes did not work well with the rest of the PF2 mechanics. This was readily shown by the discussions in threads about Rogue and Wizard.
So, they are taking this feedback into account and improving the class accordingly.
I think they will do the same with all the easy to correct problems people mentioned about the Wizard class for the past years.
Those erratas were likely low on their todo list, but now they have the opportunity to do them, and so they will.
Yep, the real issue is all the non quality of life changes.
The proficiency thing is a nothing burger. If anything the fact that they are granting that means they wont provide Wizards better casting than say Cloistered Cleric, not that they will add negatives for it.
The negatives will come instead because of the apparent dislike for Wizards as a class that some people have. Specially given how arcane casters are almost always underpowered or actioned taxed to high heaven.
Why would people hate the Wizard class ?
And who would these people be ?
Arcane casters have the list with the greatest versatility by far. I do not see them as worse than other casters at all. Do you have any specific example in mind ?
I don't think they hate them, so much as "this class doesn't need to be any more than it is, so let's not give them any more."
I disagree on the versatility part. Bards buff and debuff better (without getting into focus spells), and have all of the best perks of the Wizard spell list. Druids don't debuff that much, but have the best healing spells and some exclusive buffs and added proficiencies, and all of the "good" Wizard blasting. Clerics might have less of a spell list, but having Fonts housing their two best spells more than makes up for it. And Sorcerers can be whatever list they want with superior focus spells (for the most part).
What do Wizards get? Meh focus spells with an easily poachable spell list. Not sure how that is the "greatest versatility."
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Okay, sure, I acknowledge that weapon proficiencies are largely useless to a Wizard. But if it doesn't matter, why go through the trouble of changing it if it's so inconsequential that changing it doesn't mean anything?
Well, if you want my opinion, because it's ultimately not a helpful rule. It provides little to no positive impact, doesn't meaningfully balance normal wizards (because 2e wizards never need to touch a weapon, and even if they do it'd probably be one of the ones they already have), while making a couple of edge-case builds that already suck slightly more annoying to play.
But to address the second part:
The question of "Why go through the trouble" is I think part of the reason it works well as a remaster change. Paizo's errata process seems somewhat involved and convoluted, even for simple changes there's a whole pipeline every change has to go through, not least of which is formatting and editing and tons of other little considerations.
But when you're rewriting the entire CRB anyways those negative considerations largely evaporate and it becomes a value-neutral decision, because you're going to have to put something there regardless (if anything, the status quo and its six extra words becomes the more onerous decision).
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Paizo understood that using bespoke weapon list for classes did not work well with the rest of the PF2 mechanics. This was readily shown by the discussions in threads about Rogue and Wizard.
So, they are taking this feedback into account and improving the class accordingly.
I think they will do the same with all the easy to correct problems people mentioned about the Wizard class for the past years.
Those erratas were likely low on their todo list, but now they have the opportunity to do them, and so they will.
Yep, the real issue is all the non quality of life changes.
The proficiency thing is a nothing burger. If anything the fact that they are granting that means they wont provide Wizards better casting than say Cloistered Cleric, not that they will add negatives for it.
The negatives will come instead because of the apparent dislike for Wizards as a class that some people have. Specially given how arcane casters are almost always underpowered or actioned taxed to high heaven.
Why would people hate the Wizard class ?
And who would these people be ?
Arcane casters have the list with the greatest versatility by far. I do not see them as worse than other casters at all. Do you have any specific example in mind ?
I don't think they hate them, so much as "this class doesn't need to be any more than it is, so let's not give them any more."
I disagree on the versatility part. Bards buff and debuff better (without getting into focus spells), and have all of the best perks of the Wizard spell list. Druids don't debuff that much, but have the best healing spells and some exclusive buffs and added proficiencies, and all of the "good" Wizard blasting. Clerics might have less of a spell list, but having Fonts housing their two best spells more than makes up for it. And Sorcerers can be whatever list they want with superior focus spells (for the most part).
What do Wizards get? Meh focus...
You're comparing classes, whereas Temperans (and my comment to them on that point) was about Traditions ("arcane casters").