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It might be too late for this idea if it hasn't already been considered, but I think one issue with the spell casting traditions, especially non-arcane traditions, is that too many spells are common and there are not enough suggested or mechanical ways for characters to gain access to uncommon spells.
Instead of just trying to make non-arcane lists more limited than the arcane list (which only really seems to work with the divine list) it would make more sense for the primal and occult list to have a much smaller list of spells that are common/ freely available for any caster with access to the tradition to pick up, but for there to be more GM guidance in giving access to spells for casters to learn/ keep in a spell book. I think this works well with divine domain focus spells, where there are lots of options, but you can't gain access to all of them at once.
Even in the arcane list, it would be fine for more spells to be uncommon as long as wizards (through school and feat) have ways of picking them up.
I am thinking that maybe this is a part of the redesign of wizard schools, where the given spells each level are just spells that are uncommon spells, whether they are from the arcane tradition or not, and that access to them requires finding a spell book from that school, or being a part of the school itself.
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I definitely hope we reexamine the access gap between Witches/Wizards and clerics/druids.
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I think changing the Rarity of spells would have too much of an impact on existing characters and on other books to be within the Remastered scope.
Well, it's probably moot at this point anyway, but considering every spell is getting a pass to remove schools (and potentially replace with new traits) and change actions/components, many are getting punch ups, and a significant number are being combined or renamed... Reevaluating rarity while they are at it wouldn't be outrageous.
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I have not noticed this issue. I make it fairly easy to learn uncommon or rarer spells. I don't like classes like the druid having to use a spell book given the primal tradition should be more about teaching between living beings than carrying a book. This is not something I think much about as I don't make casters work very hard for uncommon spells or rarer.
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I wouldn't mind rarity being purged honestly.
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Uncommon just means ask your GM first, there should be no other barrier then that. So either your GM says yes and you can pick it up on level up or buy it, or you have to put some effort into it doing a little side quest, or you don't get to use it.
I don't think trying to use uncommon for gating things in other ways would work well. Even trying to make wizard school spells harder for other wizards to get might be ok but would still be widely different at different tables.
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Rarity probably wouldn't be my preferred lever for addressing the spell access gap. I can think of alternatives:
A. Eliminate the material price/cost of Learn a Spell. It is annoying bookkeeping which unequally impacts classes. It makes wizards feel less like scholars or scientists and more like accountants.
B. Introduce the cost to all classes, but remove the requirement that you have access to the spell already through writing or a teacher. A wizard's costs should not be for "rare inks," it should be for experimentation. A cleric or cleric would be offerings to their god or patron to bestow new powers, and a druid would basically be donating to a "Save the Whales" fund. ;P
C. Combine A and B. Remove the cost if you find a spellbook or a friend willing to teach you for free. Otherwise, you need to pay to discover the spell.
These would also have added benefit of further distinguishing Pathfinder from D&D. Speaking of, I wonder if the prepared/spontaneous divide will remain a thing. Vancian casting obviously originated with Jack Vance, but the prepared vs spontaneous thing seems pretty specific to D&D origins. Is it worth keeping around? Player Core 1 is mostly prepared casters, with the only exception being the bard (which is basically a learned casting class already.) Bard and Sorcerer have already eroded at the divide with certain feats. Would the game be better if everyone had a repertoire but could only prepare a certain portion of it?
Or perhaps your repertoire wouldn't be determined on a daily basis, but by Learn a Spell essentially doubling as a quicker retraining.
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I think this draws on some of the internal tension in the rarity system.
Rarity is supposed to be on its face a GM-facing floodgate, with uncommon options being something the GM has some control over.
In that respect, uncommon options with access routes (even the ones that currently exist) don't make a lot of sense and I think run the risk of misleading less experienced GMs into thinking there should be additional costs or penalties applied to uncommon options simply because some do (again, this is something that already happens with already existing access mechanics).
So I'm kind of opposed to using rarity in this way, I think it muddies up the system too much.
I do agree that spell preparation and learning can feel frustrating though. Genuinely feels bad to be a divine witch and have 9 free spells in your spellbook while your cleric buddy can pick between like 70 or so (and gains more with each new book).
That said I think any option that limits spell learning for clerics and druids is going to get backlash. PFS already tried this and everyone hated it.
A. Eliminate the material price/cost of Learn a Spell. It is annoying bookkeeping which unequally impacts classes. It makes wizards feel less like scholars or scientists and more like accountants.
I think all three of your options are decent ones, but at the same time I think to some extent the flavor of learning and unlocking spells as a witch or wizard is an important contrast to the cleric or druid simply 'getting' the magic from their deity.
I'd rather see an option D: Acknowledging that there is a downside to being a spellbook based caster and giving the classes some mechanics that both reward their exploratory efforts and perhaps shift some power back elsewhere because of it.
Because my biggest problem is less that my Witch has to learn spells, and more that it just feels like a 'bonus downside' that I have six or seven times fewer spells than the other prepared caster and it would feel really cool if there was something that made me feel like exploring my tradition myself was a good thing, not a tax.
A. Eliminate the material price/cost of Learn a Spell. It is annoying bookkeeping which unequally impacts classes. It makes wizards feel less like scholars or scientists and more like accountants.I think all three of your options are decent ones, but at the same time I think to some extent the flavor of learning and unlocking spells as a witch or wizard is an important contrast to the cleric or druid simply 'getting' the magic from their deity.
While I agree, I think "getting" your magic from a deity is an open ended concept, and I think clerics literally paying tribute to their god could enhance their roleplay. (I'm less sure of it for druids, but that's because their connection to nature always felt a little amorphous to me.) And option A in particular doesn't preclude learning, it just means Learning is primarily a function of knowledge and not coin. If you find a Runelord's spellbook, you shouldn't be stymied in using it because your bank account is too low.
I'd rather see an option D: Acknowledging that there is a downside to being a spellbook based caster and giving the classes some mechanics that both reward their exploratory efforts and perhaps shift some power back elsewhere because of it.
Because my biggest problem is less that my Witch has to learn spells, and more that it just feels like a 'bonus downside' that I have six or seven times fewer spells than the other prepared caster and it would feel really cool if there was something that made me feel like exploring my tradition myself was a good thing, not a tax.
I could also dig that, but it is a little hard to envision and balance. It used to be that the wizard had the strongest list, which even with school restrictions made them the strongest class despite the frailest chassis. That certainly doesn't seem to be the case anymore with pick-a-list casters. I had an idea at one point that spell book pages could double as scrolls in a pinch-- you would lose the ability to prepare the spell again but could cast it without preparation. But that would likely require retuning the costs of scrolls and Learn a Spell, which seems beyond the Remaster.
If the spells were legitimately much better than a common option, then I can see using rarity. But uncommon or rare spells are usually different ways of doing roughly the same thing, so I won't worry about it.
I would like to see the whole wizard spell acquisition more codified and cheaper with the ability of a wizard to research spells to learn without an extensive cost in time or resources.
Last few times I've tried the wizard, I have to allocate a lot of gold into expanding my spellbook. That is costly in terms of time and money. A lot of that just to have more options to do different non-combat things than the spells I take for combat.
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Rarity is already used this way for focus spells. You have to have some kind of ability to gain access to most focus spells.
All it would take to make it work for remastered classes is for the new spells in book to be spells that casters want to use, and then have paths to access them beyond “ask your GM.” Sure any non remastered Druid can learn the old chain lightning spell, but storm order druids in the new remastery get automatic access to uncommon primal spells with the electricity or water tag. And have you seen how cool the new 7th level Lightning Form spell is? (As a hypothetical example)
For my homebrew games I use spells rarity only as flags to know what spells need to be checked by GM to be allowed or not. So we don't even consider the rarity as a access restriction for spells. If the spell doesn't create a narrative problem it can be used normally like common spells.
I like the idea that all classes need to learn their spells, not necessarily for a cost. Wizards might still need to have the spellbook limitation but I see no reason druids shouldn't have to learn new spells off of other druids, same for clerics and bards. Bring the community back to spell casters. They don't need to spend gold etc to learn them but they do need to spend a bit of time and engage with other NPCs or books of lore to learn them.
Clerics and druids having access to all spells all the time is a bit lopsided and also a huge amount of options for a new player trying to get into the game to understand. Having a smaller list and then learning more as you adventure feels a better way to build knowledge, also allows for more balance. You start knowing 10 cantrips and 5+ primary stat modifier in spells.
Makes a softer easier entry point for new players, gets rid of the need for rarity outside of the weird shenanigans that is org play and its reliance on rarity to limit options.
I personally am not against the idea of druids and clerics not knowing all spells. But from a very different point of view.
For me, clerics and druids knowing all common spells helps justify Vancian magic (the fact that they need to prepare spells tied to specific spellslots), but wizards and witches don't have that benefit, which greatly limits their versatility.
That's why I don't see any problem with the cleric and the druid losing the ability to know everything, but to compensate for the vancian magic, it had to go along! Otherwise both would fall into the same problem that the wizard has since 3.0, which is the sorcerer basically being much more flexible when it comes to casting.
How does wizard spell expenditure compare to other classes’ purchases? I don’t see them investing in striking runes that often …
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How does wizard spell expenditure compare to other classes’ purchases? I don’t see them investing in striking runes that often …
I mean, neither do sorcerers, druids, or clerics per se either.
My primal witch and storm druid are exactly as good with weapons as each other, but the witch gets a tiny fraction of the number of preparable spells without investing money, donwtime, and probably feat choice to help manage that...
There's nothing but downside here.
How does wizard spell expenditure compare to other classes’ purchases? I don’t see them investing in striking runes that often …
It depends on a few factors and how you interpret or run the rules.
Some factors:
1. Number of spellbooks, scrolls, or other spell sources you find during adventuring.
2. How your DM runs the cost of acquisition. I've read some DMs charge players only the cost of writing the spell in the spellbook. Whereas I run the cost as the cost of writing the spell in the spellbook as a separate cost and I allow players to purchase scrolls of spells as an acquisition cost to keep it simple. I don't make the cost any higher for uncommon or rare spells, but the DC is higher which includes a higher failure rate to write them in your spellbook. This makes Magical Shorthand feat more valuable for casters who have to learn a lot of spells.
It adds up over time for certain. Wizards have a much higher cost for building up their spellbook than repertoire or list casters have.