Yeah, I am actually getting more concerned. Devs indicated they covered the major mechanical changes in wizard, and kind of said bonus spells still work on schools.
So if I have a school with 18 spells, I get what, 2 choices of bonus spell per spell level? And odds are a bunch of the spells are "thematic" as in not that good.
That seems like a big nerf to me.
However, still reserving judgement, but not loving that.
To be clear, I have no issues with the idea of the new schools, but it seems like a heavy nerf to the bonus slot, which was already weird as sorcerers get four actual slots.
I saw some ask this question "Are wizards still 3 slots +1 bonus spell (bonus has to be a school spell?)?" to James Case, but he didn't actually answer it in his Ask a developer thread. Did you see it somewhere else?
The closest response I saw was from James Case saying:
t's true that the set curriculum list is fewer spells than "any spell with this trait that we're always making more of", but wizards already don't really have any limit to their spells known, so if you wanted to acquire a bunch of blasting spells beyond say what the school of battle magic gives you, you still can add them to your spellbook and such. ultimately, linkign the wizard to other traits (mental wizard, force wizard) would have just put another limit on what we could create and reintroduce a lot of the problems of the eight spell schools (not all the traits make sense either, like incapacitation). Having a tight and flavorful curriculum with unique focus spells lets us have a flavorful core to your wizard while still letting them be the masters of arcane utility they've always been
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Anchor Root is a very popular character from the Strength of Thousands campaign. She has a twitter now.Excuse me, Harry Potter is a discount Anchor Root.I don't understand.
We also need to divorce ourselves from the idea that Harry Potter was particularly original or influential in the whole genre of "young people go to school to learn magic" since like Wizard of Earthsea was 1963, and even She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named admits she was influenced by "The Worst Witch" which was first published in 1974. Hell, even Wheel of Time beat HP to the punch with the whole "youths at magic school" idea and that's one of 90,000 separate plot threads.
It was certainly super popular, but not actually the best example of anything.
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Like this is a TTRPG board, so there are people around here who have probably tracked down Jack Vance books and Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stuff. We're the people who care about "who had the idea first" not "who sold the most copies of a thing with the idea."
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TBT I believe the exact same reasoning could (and should) be applied to the Arcane Tradition to pare it down to spells that are really Mental and Material.
I sincerely hope the change in Wizard's schools will pave the way for this.
Indeed, simply taking Remaster as an opportunity to edit spells that didn't fit the Mental/Material essences out of the Arcane list, knowing that they can use the School mechanic to put them back onto the wizard class, would please me greatly.
For instance, Animate Dead. I thought the justification for keeping it with wizards was flimsy at best (a being composed entirely of matter essence sounds to me like a construct, not an undead). Necromancer Wizards, sure, them I can see casting it, but all wizards? I do get that they came up with the essences/traditions idea far too late in designing PF2 for that kind of editing to be practical. I doubt they had time to do it now either, but I would be pleased to be wrong about that.
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Also, I am pretty sure Jason Bulmahn said that there was going to be a spirit/necromancer school of magic very early in talking about the schools, but I don't think he named it exactly.
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I was hyped for every change until this one. It bummed me out so much so much that I had a hard time paying attention to the the rest of the stream. I liked having a universal, objective, trait-based categorization system for every spell in the universe, independent of tradition. And the infrastructure that went with it (Wizard schools). It felt cool. And the words themselves sounded wizardy. "Battle Magic" sounds like it came from a YA novel. "Evocation" sounds educated, even pretentious. It's just more on brand.
I have no idea how the new system works or if they're going to just change the old traits into new traits or what, so my ire is premature I'm sure. But my initial, involuntary reaction was one of revulsion.
I had a similar reaction to the Dragon change, but at least that's additive - I can still use the old dragons. Maybe it's just that as Pathfinder is forced further and further away from D&D I'm having a harder and harder time pretending that it's not just free, better D&D.
- Jee
It is another change from simulationist type approach to a gamist approach. There was a flavour associated with the old technical approach to magic. It hasn't been embraced by the current writers and it has fallen into disuse so know we can get rid of it. We now have this more functional approach. It is a pity as the old way never really reached it's potential.
Flavour wise I'm not a fan. It is going to be up to them to see what they can do with the new schools.
Mechanically the old arcane schools needed work. Most of the focus spells were useless even in their desired area. Leading to the common perception that the best way to play as wizard involved ignoring most of the wizard feats.
OGL ORC wise I see the point. I'm not sure businesswise it is a great idea to move further away from D&D. But I understand the decision is more or less forced. They need to do this.
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How will this impact the Runelords and possible runelord characters?Runelords were the inspiration for the change. They've always dealt with magic in a more natural and thematic manner than the eight schools of magic did. They would each have their own schools of magic, even if that's not published in these books.
I have never gotten Runelords. I haven't had a player try one either.
It just seems such a disservice to rune magic as a concept to tie it into the seven deadly sins. Runes have always in my mind been a discipline about precision and control.
For me the concept is a non starter.
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I honestly think the super modular, "all magic can be split up into specific objective categories and components" style has already reached its potential. It just wasn't in a d20-based Vancian system, since Vancian magic is inherently arbitrary and mysterious. Ars Magicka seems a lot closer to what schools were attempting.
Does the whole "Eight Schools of Magic" idea predate the AD&D 2e "Complete Wizards Handbook"? I'm pretty sure it wasn't in the book I started with.
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I honestly think the super modular, "all magic can be split up into specific objective categories and components" style has already reached its potential. It just wasn't in a d20-based Vancian system, since Vancian magic is inherently arbitrary and mysterious. Ars Magicka seems a lot closer to what schools were attempting.
Ars Magica had a more mechanical simulation underpinning. It is a different logic to the 8 schools. But it still was something you had to rationalise through. Can Creo Ignum do this effect? That whole logic was a fascinating part of the game.
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It is another change from simulationist type approach to a gamist approach.
How is "arbitrary categories picked by writers for reasons of gameplay considerations" less gamist than instead categorizing spells based on the methodology and educational disciplines that characters within the setting use?
I feel like sometimes the whole simulationist/gamist thing has just become shorthand for thing I like/thing I don't like.
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It was very clear from the remaster panel that this was not a "every wizard must have attended one of x number of starting schools in the game that are all unique physical spaces and if your character didn't start there, they can't be a disciple of this school" but that it will eventually include regional and probably famous magic schools in the setting as additional options, options that are not nearly as restrictive to characters as the old schools of magic were in past editions of the game, and have been become much less relevant in PF2.
I genuinely hope that they write something like "Lost Omens: Academies" as an eventual title in the LO line. Just seems like a "duh" for highlighting the emphasis various regions place on different mode of thought, magic, and combat, along with an easy way to introduce outre player options that might not necessarily fit into a strongly thematic book like Rage of Elements, or even Dark Archive (which was itself a bit of a grab bag).
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I really hope they improve the focus spells and make them on par with at least the better sorcerer focus spells. Focus spells are a big deal in PF2 and weak focus spells make for a weak class. Focus spells should fit the playstyle of the class and not just be some tacked on, "It sorta fits" type of class ability.
Anchor Root is a very popular character from the Strength of Thousands campaign. She has a twitter now.Excuse me, Harry Potter is a discount Anchor Root.I don't understand.We also need to divorce ourselves from the idea that Harry Potter was particularly original or influential in the whole genre of "young people go to school to learn magic" since like Wizard of Earthsea was 1963, and even She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named admits she was influenced by "The Worst Witch" which was first published in 1974. Hell, even Wheel of Time beat HP to the punch with the whole "youths at magic school" idea and that's one of 90,000 separate plot threads.
It was certainly super popular, but not actually the best example of anything.
Original, no. Influential, absolutely. This is like saying Pathfinder isn't influential because it's just based on D&D (which was based on a war game, but I don't know how solid the basis for that claim is). Point is, being a derivative work doesn't mean it's not influential, and saying it's not demonstrates a misunderstanding of causality and also undermines the entire work that Paizo is attempting to do here with its inclusion angle.
Popularity isn't always about being the best, either. Plenty of popular things are actually relatively bad for you to do, but people do it anyway due to things like peer pressure.
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Goes to show how arbitrary and unscientific these categories were.
Bit of a side tangent but honestly I'd describe them as unscientific for more of the opposite reason. Scientific categories tend to be pretty messy since the universe doesn't put itself in order for us, and more realistic spell schools would be pretty different from just eight categories that every spell innately belongs in. I'd love to see a game explore a more chaotic and realistic version of that, but I don't think Pathfinder is the right system for it.
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arbitrary categories picked by writers
That is the point they could have built on these and made it work. Sometimes they did. But for the last few editions they have just ignored them. They have been lanes not logic.
I feel like sometimes the whole simulationist/gamist thing has just become shorthand for thing I like/thing I don't like.
To me that just ignores that people have very different ways of thinking. Those ways of thinking manifest themsleves in preferences.
I'm an engineer. I enjoy that there are reasons for things. I need mechanics to relate to my story or the story is nonsensical. I understand things even just stories by knowing the why.
I am happy for the mechanics to be light, but I'm not happy for those mechanics to be self contradictory. My brain just flashes red and hits eject. Of course I'm human so what that is, is different for everyone.
I also like flavour, style, people and story. But I can't turn off the other half of my brain.
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I really hope they improve the focus spells and make them on par with at least the better sorcerer focus spells. Focus spells are a big deal in PF2 and weak focus spells make for a weak class. Focus spells should fit the playstyle of the class and not just be some tacked on, "It sorta fits" type of class ability.
I wish but so far the only class where the subclasses were even close to good regarding focus spells was the Druid. All their focus spells had a role and were good in that role. At least after the clarifying errata to Goodberry.
Aside from that they have been very hit and miss. A few good focus spells, many below par focus spells, and many so terrible you wouldn't even use them if you had them.
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Well, they aren't contradictory anymore, so there's that, at least.
The thing is, if we really wanted objective, scientific schools, we'd probably need fewer of them. The difference between Evocation, Conjuration and Abjuration was confused at best. Evocation is for elements and energies, except when you conjure those elements and energies. Wall of Force is an evocation spell, because you're controlling force energy, but shield is abjuration, because you're using it to protect someone, but fire shield is evocation, because, because, because, and so on and so on.
I'm referencing 3.5's spell categorizations here, by the way.
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One thing I dislike in fantasy settings is for one model for something that is fantastic (like "magic" or "what happens when you die") is the correct one.
It feels simultaneously more fantastical and more plausible when there are multiple competing theories that have at least some empirical weight behind them.
People on Golarion should argue about whether "Fire Shield" has more in common with "Shield" or "Fireball". Like there can be academic papers back and forth about the nature of one spell.` The rules shouldn't come down on this any more forcefully than they have to.
One thing I dislike in fantasy settings is for one model for something that is fantastic (like "magic" or "what happens when you die") is the correct one.
It feels simultaneously more fantastical and more plausible when there are multiple competing theories that have at least some empirical weight behind them.
People on Golarion should argue about whether "Fire Shield" has more in common with "Shield" or "Fireball". Like there can be academic papers back and forth about the nature of one spell.` The rules shouldn't come down on this any more forcefully than they have to.
This, 100%. Hard magic systems are their own thing, and they aren't at all bad, but I think lately we've sort of swerved towards an attitude where soft magic systems are seen as "lazy" or "childish", and that's not a trend I like a lot.
I really, really like PF2 opening up its magic lore more. A GM who wants to explain the Scientific Nature of Magic can, for their own setting, but a GM who likes to leave it mysterious is free to.
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The thing is, if we really wanted objective, scientific schools, we'd probably need fewer of them. The difference between Evocation, Conjuration and Abjuration was confused at best. Evocation is for elements and energies, except when you conjure those elements and energies. Wall of Force is an evocation spell, because you're controlling force energy, but shield is abjuration, because you're using it to protect someone, but fire shield is evocation, because, because, because, and so on and so on.
I'm referencing 3.5's spell categorizations here, by the way.
Yes they never really precisely defined things well so they put examples all over the place. But that a particular spell could exist in multiple schools doesn't invalidate the school concept.
Conjuration is more about matter than energy.
Well, they aren't contradictory anymore, so there's that, at least.
The thing is, if we really wanted objective, scientific schools, we'd probably need fewer of them. The difference between Evocation, Conjuration and Abjuration was confused at best. Evocation is for elements and energies, except when you conjure those elements and energies. Wall of Force is an evocation spell, because you're controlling force energy, but shield is abjuration, because you're using it to protect someone, but fire shield is evocation, because, because, because, and so on and so on.
I'm referencing 3.5's spell categorizations here, by the way.
Well, they have already categorized the Elemental spell list, so as far as I'm concerned, half of the effort is already done by Paizo; the other half is just them following through with it for the other spells, and then categorizing them as schools of magic.
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Or they could not. It sounds like we will see this strategy of moving towards debatable metaphysics play out in rage of elements too. Different places don’t really believe in different elemental planes or don’t comceptualize them as planes. We really don’t need formal categories of spells. Even traditions are fairly fluid now for most classes so I think we have a good chance of seeing that with schools of magic too.
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Or they could not. It sounds like we will see this strategy of moving towards debatable metaphysics play out in rage of elements too. Different places don’t really believe in different elemental planes or don’t comceptualize them as planes. We really don’t need formal categories of spells. Even traditions are fairly fluid now for most classes so I think we have a good chance of seeing that with schools of magic too.
I don't think regional beliefs count as mechanical fact. If there was a region that didn't believe in deities (i.e. a region that practices the Laws of Mortality), does that mean deities aren't real in the game world?
Otherwise, I would agree with this if there weren't effects that are handled differently solely based on those factors. Wall of Force ignores Teleportation effects, for example. There is a creature that literally eats Evocation magic as another example. Both of these I have seen in actual play.
The fact that those exist means that either A. those categories have meaning and should be reinforced (even if forcibly changed) to maintain their effects, or B. those problematic options also need to be changed in order to accommodate the new changes. In my opinion, there are a lot more issues from B that can slip through the cracks than A, meaning A is the easier/quicker fix for Paizo to implement.
In previous editions of D and D , conjuration also included a summoning school where one summoned animals or extra planar creatures. It is not a part of the Conjuration school.
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Trying to maintain a distinction between matter and energy for fantasy physics isn't going to work since we know from earth physics that those things are at some level interchangeable.
These new schools do a much better job of making these feel like proper subclasses rather than just an unthemed discount on particular types of spells. Being able to arbitrarily combine a suite of spells to create a whole playstyle, and perhaps add extra goodies on top to make a dedicated Blaster Caster wizard truly viable that would be OP were it available to a wizard that's going for the more classic God Wizard playstyle. Rules for making your own school would be great as well, to homebrew a particular school that the PC's will physically explore or that are otherwise a notable faction in the world.
Any Focus Point changes I think might also help with the pain points of the Flexible Spellcaster archetype, as currently having only two spell slots per rank is really, really limiting at early levels where you can't afford wands and staves to shore up on slots. I don't remember people talking too much about the higher level balance of Flexible Spellcaster, but if those early levels aren't as rough then I think that might better satisfy players that are coming in from 5e or just dislike Vancian but feel Flexible Spellcaster is too harsh a tradeoff.
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Yeah, I am actually getting more concerned. Devs indicated they covered the major mechanical changes in wizard, and kind of said bonus spells still work on schools.
So if I have a school with 18 spells, I get what, 2 choices of bonus spell per spell level? And odds are a bunch of the spells are "thematic" as in not that good.
That seems like a big nerf to me.
However, still reserving judgement, but not loving that.
To be clear, I have no issues with the idea of the new schools, but it seems like a heavy nerf to the bonus slot, which was already weird as sorcerers get four actual slots.
I saw some ask this question "Are wizards still 3 slots +1 bonus spell (bonus has to be a school spell?)?" to James Case, but he didn't actually answer it in his Ask a developer thread. Did you see it somewhere else?
The closest response I saw was from James Case saying:
t's true that the set curriculum list is fewer spells than "any spell with this trait that we're always making more of", but wizards already don't really have any limit to their spells known, so if you wanted to acquire a bunch of blasting spells beyond say what the school of battle magic gives you, you still can add them to your spellbook and such. ultimately, linkign the wizard to other traits (mental wizard, force wizard) would have just put another limit on what we could create and reintroduce a lot of the problems of the eight spell schools (not all the traits make sense either, like incapacitation). Having a tight and flavorful curriculum with unique focus spells lets us have a flavorful core to your wizard while still letting them be the masters of arcane utility they've always been
So Focus spells still go with the schools. I feel it will make it more difficult for players and GMs to create their own uniquely original schools, thereby stifling some of the potential for creativity we got from dumping the old 8 schools of magic.
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Conjuration was about creating matter, not energy. This is why it had Mage Armor, ehich created a tangible armor made of force.
Evocation was about creating energy, not matter. Its why it had wall of force, a wall made of energy.
Abjuration was about creating barriers (intangible fields), not energy or matter. This is why it had Ablative Barrier, a thin membrane of force that prevented damage.
This is truly an impressive reach. I hardly know how to respond. I would pick your brain for justifications on examples of other misfit spells but you've already knocked it out of the park.
Wall of Force, Floating Disk: Made of energy, not matter
Mage Armour, Unseen Servant: Made of tangible force, not energy
(Bonus, Shield: Made of intangible force field?)
Presumably the logic then follows,
Hydraulic Push: water energy, not matter
Aqueous Orb: water matter, not energy
Wall of Ice, Ice Storm: cold energy, not matter
Ice Spears: cold matter, not energy
Trying to maintain a distinction between matter and energy for fantasy physics isn't going to work since we know from earth physics that those things are at some level interchangeable.
Obviously laws of physics are different. There is magic after all.
I was quite quite happy to go with the weird gravity in spell jammer. Weird but cool to play with as a concept.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The schools I recall the names of:
School of Battle Magic
School of Civic [Engineering?]
School of the Protean Form
School of Unified Magical Theory
I hadn't gotten to see the paizo con thing, so idk what was said but "Unified Magical Theory" sounds so much like the feat Unified Theory. Which is the feat that allows you to use Arcana instead of religion, occultism and nature, stating:
You've started to make a meaningful connection about the common underpinnings of the four traditions of magic and magical essences, allowing you to understand them all through an arcane lens. Whenever you use a skill action or a skill feat that requires a Nature, Occultism, or Religion check, depending on the magic tradition, you can use Arcana instead. If you would normally take a penalty or have a higher DC for using Arcana on other magic (such as when using Identify Magic), you no longer do so.
From what y'all are saying this is just supposed to be the universalist equivalent, so I won't get my hopes up. It just sounds way too much like it would have some kind of halcyon speaker functionality (particularly the cascade bearers). It does seem extremely unlikely they would add something which does the same thing as something that requires a whole hell of a lot of investment to get up and running, especially without free archetype
I think, in play, it is going to turn out to be revealing and perhaps surprising how little the change to schools of magic is going to change playing wizards in PF2.
I think the developers have probably rightfully identified that a lot of the way players have been feeling frustrated by trying to build wizard characters in PF2 has been in getting the D&D feel of schools of magic to fit back over Golarion/PF2 wizards, and it turns out, especially with a need for that feel to change due to IP licensing, that is a feel that had to be less mechanically defined and more of just a voluntary narrative theme players could still choose, but could not be used to define “subclasses” of wizards.
Like if you have been following the “what is wrong with wizards” threads for years, many of the complaints and player proposed solutions revolve around, “I can’t play my PF1 summoner/necromancer/transmuter/evoker/etc. anymore” and that “the ability to specialize in schools of magic based themes is too absent from the game.” If you already felt this way, it is understandable to feel shocked and upset by this aspect of the remastery changes, but, at least to me, it is pretty easy to see how you could probably never make a movie where you had wizards operating in a system of the rigid schools of magic, specializing in those schools of magic and defining their lore along those lines and not immediately be called out as using Dungeons and Dragons wizards.
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I do kind of like that magic is becoming less objective, less "measured". It doesn't split into tidy objective categories anymore; even wizards can't agree on how magic should work, because it's magic. Every wizard has their ideas about how it works, but nobody fully agrees. Magic has been made more subjective, more mysterious, something to speculate about.
I also think this is going to be great for wizards in terms of just, like, giving each type of wizard a totally distinct vibe. It'll be great for new players, too.
I rather liked the pseudo-scientific classifications and treatment of arcane magic, and would be sad to see it go.
But if that sciency philosophy became its own school, then I could start seeing this change in a more positive light; as being an additive change rather than a subtractive one.
The idea of new generations of wizards rejecting labels and making up a bunch of new ones seems pretty apt for kids these days too. As are the parallels to Harry Potter's competing schools (or philosophical "houses" within a school). I imagine people are really going to dig it.
I for one absolutely love that schools are likely to see a lot if emphasis again, even if in a different form. No longer will it be "I'm an evoker," and nobody bats an eye. It will be "I am a student from the Twilight Academy of Galduria in Nidal, where I learned the secrets of SHADOW!"
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The only piece of the spell schools I'm going to miss is my too-smart-for-their-own-good wizards refusing to use the word "spell" as being too imprecise for technical clarity and therefore calling every spell by its class name instead. "She's preparing a transmutation!" kind of thing.
Of course, all that means is that now I can figure out my own, even more arcane (pun intended) classification system(s) and use that instead...
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I don't think the list will be that small. That would be a rather amateurish mistake for a company of Paizo's caliber to make. My guess would be that either the list will be much longer, or the schools will work differently than they used to so a shorter list won't be a problem. Most likely the former.