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And yet...
Obviously barkskin is transmutation because it is changing matter.Like I said they gave away stuff that belonged to transmutation to other schools. That and many more spells used to be Transmutation.
The original description for Transmutation: "Transmutation spells change the properties of some creature, thing, or condition."
The PF2e deacription: "Transmutation spells make alterations to or transform the physical form of a creature or object. The morph and polymorph traits appear primarily in transmutation spells."
PF2 abjuration:"Abjurations protect and ward. They create barriers that keep out attacks, effects, or even certain types of creatures. They also create effects that harm trespassers or banish interlopers."They specifically changed the spell from turning your skin into a hard bark into creating a shell. Going from, "Barkskin toughens a creature's skin" to "The target's skin becomes covered in bark."
In otherwords, the schools of magic clearly never really fit over PF2 as an underlying metaphysics of how magic worked in world because the traditions had to step in and be a bigger component of the universe as the new, distinctly not D&D IP, and thus schools of magic never did what they were intended to do in PF2 from inception, and were not the right fit for this game. Hence the endless arguments about only a couple of wizard schools really feeling like they fit in world?
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Only Barkskin isn't just transmutation. It's also evocation, manipulation of an element. It's also necromancy, manipulation of life force and infection. It's also abjuration, because it creates a barrier that keeps out attacks. Abjuration itself is a huge mess--"walls of force" ought to be evocation, but they're also protective spells, so which are they? Acid splash being conjuration was always utterly absurd, too.
Transmutation lost those spells for balance reasons. The "objective categorizations" didn't fit well into a system that needed all the schools to be on the same level and with the same versatility. This new system won't have to worry about that as much, hopefully.
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Goes to show how arbitrary and unscientific these categories were.
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In otherwords, the schools of magic clearly never really fit over PF2 as an underlying metaphysics of how magic worked in world because the traditions had to step in and be a bigger component of the universe as the new, distinctly not D&D IP, and thus schools of magic never did what they were intended to do in PF2 from inception, and were not the right fit for this game. Hence the endless arguments about only a couple of wizard schools really feeling like they fit in world?And yet...
Obviously barkskin is transmutation because it is changing matter.Like I said they gave away stuff that belonged to transmutation to other schools. That and many more spells used to be Transmutation.
The original description for Transmutation: "Transmutation spells change the properties of some creature, thing, or condition."
The PF2e deacription: "Transmutation spells make alterations to or transform the physical form of a creature or object. The morph and polymorph traits appear primarily in transmutation spells."
PF2 abjuration:"Abjurations protect and ward. They create barriers that keep out attacks, effects, or even certain types of creatures. They also create effects that harm trespassers or banish interlopers."They specifically changed the spell from turning your skin into a hard bark into creating a shell. Going from, "Barkskin toughens a creature's skin" to "The target's skin becomes covered in bark."
What? The schools fit perfectly well just like the fit perfectly well for 10 years, and would fit perfectly well for the next 10+ years.
The schools do what they say they do, but Paizo decided to change the spells. Of course a categorization wont fit right when you actively sabotage it. Feather Fall? Used to be transmutation. Mage Hand? Used to be transmutation. Gravity...
I guess Unicore meant that debates about what should be the proper school of this or that spell have been going on for years (and really more than 10 years).
Change is coming and it's unstoppable. We might as well learn to swim and go with the flow.
Evocation is about the control of elements and energies. Wall of Force and Barkskin are both manipulating elements and/or energies.
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They said the thesis is staying.
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What? The schools fit perfectly well just like the fit perfectly well for 10 years, and would fit perfectly well for the next 10+ years.
The schools do what they say they do, but Paizo decided to change the spells. Of course a categorization wont fit right when you actively sabotage it. Feather Fall? Used to be transmutation. Mage Hand? Used to be transmutation. Gravity effects? Used to be transmutation. Etc.
Your argument is based on assuming the schools were correct as is and that PF2 has messed up the system by not understanding what the schools are and changing spells until they didn’t fit well anymore.
But PF2 spell changes were more about fitting them in the traditions and making changes to the spells to make them fit the mechanics of PF2 better. Schools were already an awkward fit for PF2 before realizing that they were a metaphysical property of magic that D&D absolutely could claim as its own IP. At the very least they’d have to add some/subtract some or change all the names and even then, they were a whole lot of organizational trait space that was largely irrelevant to the rest of the game outside of wizards.
This was a decision that a lot of us saw coming right at the announcement of ORC/remastering. We didn’t see exactly how it work out, but D&D schools of magic and PF2 haven’t been a good fit from the start.
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every evocation spell has also historically been a conjuration spell. basically the same thing
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in 3.5 a ball of fire was evocation but an orb of fire was conjuration. Probably my favorite.
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Basically anything involving acid was conjuration. Being really scary was necromancy. Levitating objects was transmutation.
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The thing is, schools of magic are now essentially going to be a literal spell book that maybe includes a focus spell or other unique option. New spells don’t need to fit into old spell books unless they reprint a fundamental change to that older school of magic, which probably would be worth spelling out when the spell is introduced.
If you are already playing a wizard when a new spell comes out, you can learn it if you want to.
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My theory is they might somehow tie the schools to traits (like, for an easy one, "all spells with the Polymorph trait are in Protean Form"). I'm sure they have a plan for it, though.
It doesn’t sound like it will be important for every spell to fit within a school though. I don’t think any school is going to get bonuses to their school spells, and spells won’t have schools attached to them innately. In fact some might overlap and belong to multiple schools. We might get feats that tie to traits that fit over many spells common to certain schools but those will forward on other spells you add to your book anyway if they have the relevant trait.
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Cure/Heal has bounced around a few times as well.
Invocation/Evocation/Conjuration/Necromancy
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A cool feature of this system as well will be that as a player, you will be able to talk to your GM and design your own school pretty easily if you want, without having to make any real changes to the system. If you want a character to start their own magic school and then start a new campaign with a character who studied at that school, it will be pretty easy to make that happen.
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Ah, Temperans, you're a Big Wizard Fan Because Wizards Are The Best, that explains a lot.
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Creating a whole new wizard school was pretty much impossible until now.
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You could always create your own organization that was its own “school” but it was not a school of magic that defined how a character approached magic and what spells they would get access to for many levels, possibly even defining what unique and repeatable spell or spell like ability you would get access to.
I get that you feel like removing metaphysical schools of magic is a loss of a character concept that you wish PF2 still had, but you have felt like those weren’t real options in PF2 anyway because not enough was tied to them. I think this remaster change is a change acknowledging that was true…it just is the opposite of the change you wanted which was to go the opposite direction and beef up wizards connections to metaphysical schools. But if you take a step back and look at the legal purpose of remasters in the first place, doubling down on making things work more similarly to OGL systems, that don’t really exist in the lore beyond D&D was just never going to be the choice.
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One of the things that I used to like about the schools of magic was how every spell could fit into an objective category that was etched into the fundamental principles of magic... And then I came to realize that the differences between one school and the next were astonishingly arbitrary.
For the most, the distinction of whether a spell belongs to one school or another was based entirely on feel or intended function, rather than what fundamental principles underpinning the cosmos it manipulates. Why is manipulating light for illumination 'evocation' and manipulating light to create a hologram 'illusion'? Mostly because illusions are decided to be separate from blasting spells. Why are illusions which create an image in a target's mind different from manipulating that target's mind with enchantment? Same reason.
This fundamental arbitrariness is what made me finally grasp some of the appeal of the Runelords. Because the majority of modern magic is in some way founded on the techniques and principles set down by the rulers of ancient Thassilon, in the categories they defined according to what jived with their personal wheelhouses, we have an answer for where these categories came from, why they (were) so ubiquitous, and why they are so arbitrary.
Meanwhile, arguably the introduction of the traditions really shakes up the idea that all kinds of magic, not just wizardry, are based on the techniques and practices established by the runelords 10,000 years ago, we have every reason to understand that these are only ways of categorising an incredibly complex system of spells by similar features which seemed fundamental to ancient superwizards, but which aren't necessarily representative of the true nature of reality. Something like how our understanding of the tree of life gets more complicated every single time we look deeper.
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Looking at how people are analyzing the traditional schools, I am beginning to think that the Mage the Ascension sphere division is better. Anyway, I am not exactly thrilled with this change, I will have to wait and see.
Anyway, is true that outside Wizard and some very specific references, the old schools of magic are not very important even on basic PF2.
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then I came to realize that the differences between one school and the next were astonishingly arbitrary.
It doesn't have to be arbitrary. If there were firm guidlines it would be OK. But they never really saw any value in it so it was ignored.
Too many cooks spoil the broth.
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At least we will get replacements for the school focus spells. There are only a few that actually made it into use. Many were terrible.
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That thought of an Ustalavic Wizard subclass who gets lightning and undead stuff has set my brain on *fire.* They'd better make that real.
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My ratings for scenarios, top to bottom:
Trait-based, top-tier: flexibly adapts to new spells and encourages spells to have accurate traits.
Discrete list with occasional off-list inclusion, mid-tier: more rigid, but will allow for wizards to feel like they study their specialty in more depth.
Discrete list with only arcane: feels like a nerf, even if it's only to one slot. Doesn't adapt to new content, but definitely easy to balance. Hope that if this happens, the focus spells are bangers to make up for it.
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The schools I recall the names of:
School of Battle Magic
School of Civic [Engineering?]
School of the Protean Form
School of Unified Magical TheoryI partly wonder if any of these schools are going to be tied to actual physical locations in the world, or if for example the Korvosan Academae will have within it several schools of magic taught, while maybe omitting others. It seems like a School of Battle Magic is something that could be taught at any military college around the world since everyone has utility for blowing stuff up, while maybe certain other schools are more unique to certain regions.
The system/principle seems to be very much what “the Dark Eye” has done for decades - however as I liked that very much I also like this change.
Have other schools (besides the 4 above) been mentioned already?
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The schools I recall the names of:
School of Battle Magic
School of Civic [Engineering?]
School of the Protean Form
School of Unified Magical TheoryI partly wonder if any of these schools are going to be tied to actual physical locations in the world, or if for example the Korvosan Academae will have within it several schools of magic taught, while maybe omitting others. It seems like a School of Battle Magic is something that could be taught at any military college around the world since everyone has utility for blowing stuff up, while maybe certain other schools are more unique to certain regions.
The system/principle seems to be very much what “the Dark Eye” has done for decades - however as I liked that very much I also like this change.
Have other schools (besides the 4 above) been mentioned already?
Nope, but I'd definitely expect all eight schools of magic to have something that enables similar types of characters for carry-over purposes. Would there not be a school of warding? (... Would that be the School of Soft Knocks?)
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My biggest concern is regarding things that are out of scope of Remaster but reference schools.
Like Captivator and Red Mantis Assassin archetypes specifically learn spells based on their school, and neither of those books are part of the remaster package.
Maybe Paizo will use their special new and improved errata system we've heard about to address this.
They said they'll definitely errata everything (except monsters) that gets affected sooner or later. They see those concerns and don't want this kind of disconnect either.
Until then, I would expect the promised "conversion document" we'll get for Rage of Elements to do some heavy lifting. That won't solve everything, but PC1 should give us some blueprints for homebrewing temporary replacements - e.g. wizard feats for the magus equivalents. If all else fails, the old mechanics will do, I think.
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The Schools being changed into something so anodyne they look like they came from an undergraduate college curriculum is depressing.
If Paizo is really that starved for people who are good at naming things, call Onyx Path. They always come up with weird, evocative names for stuff, but I think you can do better than "School of Battle Magic/Civic Wizardry"
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I think they're simply divine.
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The Schools being changed into something so anodyne they look like they came from an undergraduate college curriculum is depressing.
If Paizo is really that starved for people who are good at naming things, call Onyx Path. They always come up with weird, evocative names for stuff, but I think you can do better than "School of Battle Magic/Civic Wizardry"
For ease of entry, I think a couple overly obvious schools of magic that are supposed to do a very basic player fantasy need giant billboard names. The school of battle magic is good for bullhorning “this is the school for a combat focused wizard.” Names that are too esoteric for very basic options that many players will want will only confound newer players. Hopefully the spell selection in these schools will well match the themes and do what they say on the box.
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The Schools being changed into something so anodyne they look like they came from an undergraduate college curriculum is depressing.
If Paizo is really that starved for people who are good at naming things, call Onyx Path. They always come up with weird, evocative names for stuff, but I think you can do better than "School of Battle Magic/Civic Wizardry"
When they come out, we'll make a thread for more esoteric sounding options. But are we surprised the magic science class has straightforward names whiles witches go the mysterious route?
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The Schools being changed into something so anodyne they look like they came from an undergraduate college curriculum is depressing.
If Paizo is really that starved for people who are good at naming things, call Onyx Path. They always come up with weird, evocative names for stuff, but I think you can do better than "School of Battle Magic/Civic Wizardry"
The new school names simply state what they are about, which is great for both lore and telling the player what they are getting. The mystical sounding names are already covered by the actual institution your wizard has studied at.
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Spells won't have school tags at all any more. Not every arcane spell will belong to a spell school. Spell school spells will just be spells that school wizards get in their starting spellbook.
I don't think we know yet whether wizards will just default to 4 spells or 3 spells with one bonus spell from their list, but I am guessing it will be the 4 spells, because you are only going to have 1 or 2 spells from any given level past 1st in your school probably.
The rest of the arcane spells are just spells out there in the universe that you can learn because you are a wizard and learning is your specialty.
We don't really know about mechanical differences, they have been pretty vague on that.
But my main issue is how the spells are defined.
If it is a discrete list for each school, that is going to be a SUPER LONG list, if not, it is kind of a nerf from existing things. Also, it makes it hard to update for new spells.
I doubt it is trait based, as I think they said they got rid of the traits except illusion? Plus if it is trait based it is basically the old evocation-transmutation etc by a different name.
I think you are confusing things a bit here. These are not spell lists, that's still the purview of traditions and those are not being changed. What's changing is spell schools (transmutation, evocation, abjuration...etc.) and the wizard's class feature based on that. The latter is the topic of this thread and as far as we know, it's just a bunch of free spells you learn plus unique focus spells.
In my opinion the schools of magic often involved a lot of overlap when it came to the classification of spells.
Barkskin, for example.
The target's skin becomes covered in bark.Sure, it's abjuration because it protects you, but it also sounds like it could fit into Transformation or maybe even Conjuration.
So I don't think it was ever true that spells were objectively assigned to clearly defined schools.
Obviously barkskin is transmutation because it is changing matter.
Abjuration is about creating barrier, negating effects, and repelling intruders. Not just "anything that is defensive". Just like Evocation is about creating energy, not just damage. Or how conjuration is about creating creatures or objects out of nothing, not just making things.
You are making my point, because it currently is Abjuration, not Transmutation.
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That was my thinking as well. Either backward compatibility will be difficult, or schools will end up feeling much more like sorcerer bloodlines.Exactly, so instead of having a choice of 3-12 spells to put into the slot, we'd have 1 (not counting upcasting). I'm worried. It would be not fun at all :(
I hope it wouldn't be the case. I see how many spells in bloodlines/domains/minds and so on are either extremely niche or completely bad and almost useless.
I think it would be very unlikely that school wizards keep the 1 bonus spell that has to come from their school each level if it is only 1 or 2 spells. Wizards do not need a nerf. What is more likely is that there will be feats added to the wizard class that work well with spells or spell traits that are common in specific school groupings and for their to be feats that benefit those spells, like we already have well with convincing illusion, and not so well with form retention.
Since wizards are just defined by what they learn about magic and not inhererent limits based upon the source of their power, it really doesn't make as much sense for their restrictions to be negative limitations, but rather positive benefits from feat selection and class resources.
Yes, we do. Quite a lot....
Even mathematicians bicker.
...
Well, I'm old so I still prefer Leibnitz v. Newton theory over the more modern Taylor v. Perry analysis.
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The Remastered panel at Paizo Con today was really enlightening about SO many things that trying to jam them all in one thread feels impossible. One of the most interesting and exciting changes that the remastery is introducing (by necessity) is the elimination of what I will call the old-schools of magic, replacing them with actual "schools of magic," meaning that your school of magic as a wizard is the actual school you attended to learn your wizardry and it will determine your starting spells in your spell book and possibly some additional elements of the class, probably along the lines of focus spells, if focus spells are still a part of the class at all anymore.
This means that Golarion Wizards really are going to look a lot different than other game's wizards as there are nearly a limitless number of potential schools of magic across Golarion. The one's mentioned in the panel today (that I remember) include a school of battle wizardry that is going to include a lot of evocation options, but also martial battlefield control options like Earthbind, which would be "must learn spells" for any wizard that is going to be casting spells alongside an army. I think this means that you are likely to have some higher level spells in your starting spellbook right from the start, as they are resources your school gives you as you graduate. The other two that I remember being talked about is a school of universal something (which is like the generic wizardy wizard school) and a school with a really cool name that I don't remember that is about bodily transformation and nature magic that i think will respond well to the "this game doesn't support a good transmuter" line of criticism.
I can't imagine we won't get an illusionist school of mirages and misdirection as well as a cheliaxian school of devil summoning. But eventually we could get lots of different options which could include feats as well as spells.
One hypothetical example of how this will let them really break the old molds in the future is...
I'm not sure how I feel about this, because this feels like it's an overextending restriction; does my character really have to come from a school that teaches magic? What if I don't want my character to be some "Ye Olde Magick College Graduate" like Harry Potter? My previous Wizard character was self-taught after he stole the research notes of a Dark Elf fleshwarper who used magic to amplify his projects; this character is now invalidated by this straight-jacketing of flavor.
And why should my spells be pre-chosen for me when the Wizard class was almost always defined as being the most versatile of the spellcasters (via preparation and spell learning)? It feels more like they're trying to "cookie cutter" the Wizard class, which is only going to help beginners, and basically neuter the more advanced players by pigeon-holing them into specific spell selections. And the worst part is, the suggested class paths within each class write-up already does this, both to have "cookie cutter" builds, and to guide the newbies; why turn it into a major feature of the class?
Most every spellcasting class has Focus Spells in some fashion, the Wizard being the odd one out for Focus Spells seems like a really bad design choice, plus nobody is saying that Wizard Focus Spells should go away, they just need to be better. Force Bolt is ironically the best Focus Spell that Wizards get, and it's just a bona fide 1 action Magic Missile restricted to 30 feet. (And Magi get this in the form of the Force Fang feat.) The rest are usually so bad that they aren't worth mentioning. And the Advanced School powers are never worth the feat expenditure. Also, lacking a "Greater" School Power feat really hurts the class' feat parity in the later levels, since Sorcerers and Witches and all the other classes with Focus Spells basically get them.
The whole "limitless potential of schools" makes no sense when the game has already defined that there are 8 schools of magic; Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, and Transmutation. At best, I suspect the "schools of magic" will replace the Arcane Thesis feature (which is honestly one that I would have expected to stay, since it's not copied from D&D), but that's just a poor decision when all they need to do is buff the Arcane Theses (and maybe add a few more so that people don't always pick the same two that are actually "good").
I think having region-specific spells could be a fun option (at least for adventure paths), but this falls under the same issues as the old D&D spells (such as the old Acid Arrow and X Hand spells), and having a class' power defined by their regional availability feels really, really bad. It would be like saying a Fighter can only take X feat if they are from Y region or have access to Z weapon. And this is only more amplified if the option is extremely good. Class power restricted by regional availability sounds like a no-no in design to me.
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I'm not sure how I feel about this, because this feels like it's an overextending restriction; does my character really have to come from a school that teaches magic? What if I don't want my character to be some "Ye Olde Magick College Graduate" like Harry Potter? My previous Wizard character was self-taught after he stole the research notes of a Dark Elf fleshwarper who used magic to amplify his projects; this character is now invalidated by this straight-jacketing of flavor.
Your character isn't invalidated, though. "School of X" doesn't have to be a literal school. See: the school of life, the school of hard knocks, schools of thought, etc. In this case, your character self-taught using notes from the school of protean form, which is what fleshwarping falls under. It's like saying that patrons becoming more evocatively mysterious invalidates a Witch who knows who their patron is- it was always a little off of the class's directly presented fantasy, but remains just as valid now as before.
And why should my spells be pre-chosen for me when the Wizard class was almost always defined as being the most versatile of the spellcasters (via preparation and spell learning)? It feels more like they're trying to "cookie cutter" the Wizard class, which is only going to help beginners, and basically neuter the more advanced players by pigeon-holing them into specific spell selections. And the worst part is, the suggested class paths within each class write-up already does this, both to have "cookie cutter" builds, and to guide the newbies; why turn it into a major feature of the class?
We don't really know how that works. At the very least, an equivalent to universalist is still kicking around.
Most every spellcasting class has Focus Spells in some fashion, the Wizard being the odd one out for Focus Spells seems like a really bad design choice, plus nobody is saying that Wizard Focus Spells should go away, they just need to be better. Force Bolt is ironically the best Focus Spell that Wizards get, and it's just a bona fide 1 action Magic Missile restricted to 30 feet. (And Magi get this in the form of the Force Fang feat.) The rest are usually so bad that they aren't worth mentioning. And the Advanced School powers are never worth the feat expenditure. Also, lacking a "Greater" School Power feat really hurts the class' feat parity in the later levels, since Sorcerers and Witches and all the other classes with Focus Spells basically get them.
Wizards' advanced focus spells have some bangers. High-level illusionists can spend all day invisible without touching their spell slots, necromancers get healing in the arcane list as a spell rider, diviners get one action Clairvoyance with six times the duration, extendable to all day. Witch has two common greater hexes that have to be taken two levels greater, and they're both worse than any of those. I get complaining about the intro focus spells, absolutely, but the 8th level focus spells are generally really good.
The whole "limitless potential of schools" makes no sense when the game has already defined that there are 8 schools of magic; Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, and Transmutation. At best, I suspect the "schools of magic" will replace the Arcane Thesis feature (which is honestly one that I would have expected to stay, since it's not copied from D&D), but that's just a poor decision when all they need to do is buff the Arcane Theses (and maybe add a few more so that people don't always pick the same two that are actually "good").
... Huh? The whole point is that spells and Wizard subclasses aren't going to be tied to eight schools anymore? And I really don't see why they'd replace thesis when this pretty clearly replaces the schools of magic subclass part of Wizard. Sorry, just not following this paragraph.