| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Are people really that shocked by this change?
They are heavily leaning into encouraging Spellcasters to use Focus Spells more and Cantrips less, this will have that impact. It pushes PCs away from boring consistent Cantrip Spam into having to spend resources on things they chose to invest Class Feats on (or a dedicated Class Path) that defines what their personal specialty is.
Cantrips after level 2 should be the option of last resort with the exception of enemies that are magic immune in which case you can always TRY to use a crossbow or just simply cry instead. This is all by design and the game balance thus far has shown that it is often a better option to use a Cantrip than an actual Spell Slot or Focus point.
That aside, it does still very much surprise me that they ARE operating under a "nerf positive" assumption but there is still no sign that Bard is getting knocked down a peg.
They are not pushing focus spells or anything else. Even with ability damage, cantrips were mostly a filler damaging effect in easy encounters.
This was done for some other reason that is not yet clear.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I figure the main reasons for dropping the stat mod from cantrips were:
- It was confusing to add your casting mod to some spell damage and not others, and people kept forgetting to do this or adding it when they shouldn't. So now all spells are consistent in how you roll damage.
- Spells are supposed to be swingier with lower valleys and higher peaks; after all disintegrate can do 12 damage or 400.
- This is now the same way that the Kineticist works, where you don't add your KAS to your impulses and only do on your basic blasts if you spend an extra action.
- The Magus no longer adds two different stats to their damage rolls with spellstrike with cantrips. Pathfinder 2e generally doesn't like you doing that sort of thing.
- Cantrips are not supposed to be your bread and butter, they're supposed to be a backup option. By 7th level a Wizard has like 11 spell slots, you're going to have like 3-4 fights in a day usually.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And how many different spells did the witch wind up using? Because in my experience it's always the same dozen or so spells 1-20 with the occasional supplemental scroll. The same tired buffs and debuffs that have been carrying the entire spellcaster playstyle since the system launched. I wouldn't call that versatility either. It's just that pigeonholing yourself into hard support is a stronger playstyle than pigeonholing yourself into blasting.I've seen first hand the difference between a player who leans into the caster's strengths vs just throwing fire spells.
Witch vs druid
Levels 1-10
The witch, at every turn, was the MVP of nearly every moderate or higher threat encounter.
The druid, occasionally, had good power moments, but just as many bad ones.
The issue is, people want what the druid player is doing to be the way a caster plays
But, despite comments about willingly losing versatility for it to function, I am very doubtful that people will agree with how much they will lose.
In the end, I disagree that the versatility is over valued by paizo
It's under valued by many players though
Edit: this didn't even begin to touch the ooc power the witch had that the druid gave up on in favor of more fire spells
Baba yaga patron focus power
Protector tree
Lose the path
Thoughtful gift
Ray of frost
Friend fetch
Hideous laughter
Status
Warriors regret
Off the top of my head, but it was over the course of 2 years
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Are people really that shocked by this change?
They are heavily leaning into encouraging Spellcasters to use Focus Spells more and Cantrips less, this will have that impact. It pushes PCs away from boring consistent Cantrip Spam into having to spend resources on things they chose to invest Class Feats on (or a dedicated Class Path) that defines what their personal specialty is.
Cantrips after level 2 should be the option of last resort with the exception of enemies that are magic immune in which case you can always TRY to use a crossbow or just simply cry instead. This is all by design and the game balance thus far has shown that it is often a better option to use a Cantrip than an actual Spell Slot or Focus point.
That aside, it does still very much surprise me that they ARE operating under a "nerf positive" assumption but there is still no sign that Bard is getting knocked down a peg.
I would rather them remove cantrips from the game if this was true
Just more reason for me to ignore magic gear and invest in a ranged weapon tbh
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Now you're thinking. Maybe remove Weapon Potency and Striking runes too and have extra dice of damage based on character level.Maybe are they also removing Strength to damage...
That would strongly rebalance the game.That's ABP and they won't make the basic rule out of it.
But removing Strength to damage and creating a static bonus to damage for weapons and cantrips (or damaging spells in general) of 4 points at level 1, 7 points with Weapon Spe and 12 points with Greater Spe would help a lot of classes (Swashbuckler, Investigator), slightly nerf Fighter and rebalance Finesse builds to finaly compete with Strength based builds.
Finesse isn't for competing with strength builds
It's so you have good accuracy in melee after getting rushed down while your were shooting
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've seen first hand the difference between a player who leans into the caster's strengths vs just throwing fire spells.
Witch vs druid
Levels 1-10
The witch, at every turn, was the MVP of nearly every moderate or higher threat encounter.
The druid, occasionally, had good power moments, but just as many bad ones.
The issue is, people want what the druid player is doing to be the way a caster plays
But, despite comments about willingly losing versatility for it to function, I am very doubtful that people will agree with how much they will lose.
In the end, I disagree that the versatility is over valued by paizo
It's under valued by many players though
Edit: this didn't even begin to touch the ooc power the witch had that the druid gave up on in favor of more fire spells
This doesn't sound like a very well played druid.
When I played my druid, at early levels I relied on a mix of bow shot often with electric arc even single target mixed in with Tempest Surge[i]. [i]Tempest Surge has a great rider for helping the party.
As I gained more spells, I mixed those in along with my usual routine.
I also picked up order explorer and had an AC, so I could further mix in bow shots or AC attacks or a mix of them with cantrips, spells, and Tempest surge.
Then I retrained into wild shape later one.
If the druid is not the MVP in your game, they are not utilizing all their abilities or building very well. It's not all about damage.
Every caster cannot play like a druid. A druid can do so much. I would heal as needed. I would summon sometimes to create headaches. Blast. Debuff with a fear or tempest surge or entangle. I could blast damage or martial damage with a weapon or wild shape. I built up their strength and athletics so they could grapple and trip because the druid can focus every ability boost on the four high value stats.
Druid and witch are not even comparable in abilities if you are building optimally and it's not[/i][/i]...
I'm sorry firelion but until your table stops using home brewed 5e style casting in your pf2e games I can't take much what you say to heart
But I also never said he played well, he played to a theme, a fire druid. A leshy fire druid
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Are people really that shocked by this change?
They are heavily leaning into encouraging Spellcasters to use Focus Spells more and Cantrips less, this will have that impact. It pushes PCs away from boring consistent Cantrip Spam into having to spend resources on things they chose to invest Class Feats on (or a dedicated Class Path) that defines what their personal specialty is.
Cantrips after level 2 should be the option of last resort with the exception of enemies that are magic immune in which case you can always TRY to use a crossbow or just simply cry instead. This is all by design and the game balance thus far has shown that it is often a better option to use a Cantrip than an actual Spell Slot or Focus point.
That aside, it does still very much surprise me that they ARE operating under a "nerf positive" assumption but there is still no sign that Bard is getting knocked down a peg.
Honestly I don't know where some people find this concept that spellcasters like to spam cantrips.
None spellcaster like to spam cantrips we only spam cantrips because the focus spells ended and we need to save some spellslots because after a dozen encounters we don't want to face a boss with only cantrips avaliable.
Nerf cantrip will only make what is already boring and inefficient even more boring and inefficient.
No, that would just make Dex-based characters overly strong, just like they are in other systems. Please don't.Maybe are they also removing Strength to damage...
That would strongly rebalance the game.
Relax, they're just being ironic.
Whenever you see Farien around here, expect irony! hahaha
At this point Paizo could literally delete casters and people would justify it saying that casters were only usefull for occasional utility.
We are almost there!
- The Magus no longer adds two different stats to their damage rolls with spellstrike with cantrips. Pathfinder 2e generally doesn't like you doing that sort of thing.
But the Kineticist does this (it adds Str + Con to "melee" 2-action blasts). I don't thing that Magus or Eldritch Archer are the reason behind this.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I figure the main reasons for dropping the stat mod from cantrips were:
- It was confusing to add your casting mod to some spell damage and not others, and people kept forgetting to do this or adding it when they shouldn't. So now all spells are consistent in how you roll damage.
- Spells are supposed to be swingier with lower valleys and higher peaks; after all disintegrate can do 12 damage or 400.
- This is now the same way that the Kineticist works, where you don't add your KAS to your impulses and only do on your basic blasts if you spend an extra action.
- The Magus no longer adds two different stats to their damage rolls with spellstrike with cantrips. Pathfinder 2e generally doesn't like you doing that sort of thing.
- Cantrips are not supposed to be your bread and butter, they're supposed to be a backup option. By 7th level a Wizard has like 11 spell slots, you're going to have like 3-4 fights in a day usually.
I think it has more to do with uniformity than anything else.
None of what you stated was a sufficient issue for this change.
I think there is likely something else going on that is not yet known.
...I've seen first hand the difference between a player who leans into the caster's strengths vs just throwing fire spells.
Witch vs druid
Levels 1-10
The witch, at every turn, was the MVP of nearly every moderate or higher threat encounter.
The druid, occasionally, had good power moments, but just as many bad ones.
The issue is, people want what the druid player is doing to be the way a caster plays
But, despite comments about willingly losing versatility for it to function, I am very doubtful that people will agree with how much they will lose.
In the end, I disagree that the versatility is over valued by paizo
It's under valued by many players though
Edit: this didn't even begin to touch the ooc power the witch had that the druid gave up on in favor of more fire spells
This doesn't sound like a very well played druid.
When I played my druid, at early levels I relied on a mix of bow shot often with electric arc even single target mixed in with Tempest Surge[i]. [i]Tempest Surge has a great rider for helping the party.
As I gained more spells, I mixed those in along with my usual routine.
I also picked up order explorer and had an AC, so I could further mix in bow shots or AC attacks or a mix of them with cantrips, spells, and Tempest surge.
Then I retrained into wild shape later one.
If the druid is not the MVP in your game, they are not utilizing all their abilities or building very well. It's not all about damage.
Every caster cannot play like a druid. A druid can do so much. I would heal as needed. I would summon sometimes to create headaches. Blast. Debuff with a fear or tempest surge or entangle. I could blast damage or martial damage with a weapon or wild shape. I built up their strength and athletics so they could grapple and trip because the druid can focus every ability boost on the four high value stats.
Druid and witch are not even comparable in abilities if you are[/i][/i]
Since the witch does exactly the same thing, not sure why you can't.
I'm asking for an explanation of what the witch was doing innate to the class that made them perform better than the druid.
Even with both the witch and druid operating with 5E style casting, the druid far exceeds the abilities of the witch due to better chassis options.
Even if we were discussing prepared casters with 3 slots, both are prepared casters with 3 slots. Main difference is the druid has much better focus spell and feat options as well as a better casting stat. I did not change at all any of that.
Witch is a badly designed class with very underwhelming abilities. Druid is a very well designed class that you can optimize nicely that is competitive with every other class in the game.
My point doesn't change unless the player deliberately plays the druid poorly or uses a deliberately bad build for personal reasons. Whereas the witch doesn't even have the option to optimize much because their feat and focus spell options are so bad.
I find it odd you used the witch as an example against the druid. I do not in any way want the designers thinking the witch doesn't need some serious work to bring them up to par. So I when I see this idea put out there, I want to make it clear the witch is a much, much worse class than the druid due to innate design of the witch chassis including feat and focus spell options.
And on a side note, I am never going back to the lame Vancian prepared casting. 5E casting is by far...miles and miles and miles...way, way, way...better than PF2 holding on to the outdated, boring, and limiting stuck in the mud casting. I would literally go back to D&D if they hadn't screwed up so many other aspects of their game because of how much more I like 5E casting. If PF2 doesn't go all in on 5E style casting at some point and D&D gets it right on the other aspects of their game, I'll switch back to D&D with my entire group in a heartbeat.
Classes from SoM and latter will only get some erratas later.
For 1d8 cantrips its basically the same avg damage of 1d8+4. This doesn't change too much. But its useful if you take it to use with a Magus/Eldritch Archer that dump the spellcasting attribute.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I hate that "the casting martial can even more easily dump its casting stat" is being used as a positive here
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I figure the main reasons for dropping the stat mod from cantrips were:
- It was confusing to add your casting mod to some spell damage and not others, and people kept forgetting to do this or adding it when they shouldn't. So now all spells are consistent in how you roll damage.
- Spells are supposed to be swingier with lower valleys and higher peaks; after all disintegrate can do 12 damage or 400.
- This is now the same way that the Kineticist works, where you don't add your KAS to your impulses and only do on your basic blasts if you spend an extra action.
- The Magus no longer adds two different stats to their damage rolls with spellstrike with cantrips. Pathfinder 2e generally doesn't like you doing that sort of thing.
- Cantrips are not supposed to be your bread and butter, they're supposed to be a backup option. By 7th level a Wizard has like 11 spell slots, you're going to have like 3-4 fights in a day usually.
You have missed the Eidolon Spell Caster. They already use the Spell DC and Attack Modifer of their Summoner. Now they have a cantrip that doesn't rely on their spell casting modifier so they can sack their Charisma score completely and still have a fair cantrip option.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Message from michael sayre, for remastered rule
Silver bullet
S$%& I missed
Should've worked on my aim more
(Tbf I mostly agree, but silver bullet terminology is usually seen as a instant sure fire miracle solution (
|
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
Message from michael sayre, for remastered ruleSilver bullet
S&!* I missed
Should've worked on my aim more
(Tbf I mostly agree, but silver bullet terminology is usually seen as a instant sure fire miracle solution (
Yeah, exceeding rarely will a spell ever actually be an actual Silver Bullet for a situation. In fact, not being able to solve situations with single spells was an explicit design goal!
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Message from michael sayre, for remastered ruleSilver bullet
S*!~ I missed
Should've worked on my aim more
(Tbf I mostly agree, but silver bullet terminology is usually seen as a instant sure fire miracle solution (
I'd rather be allowed to make the spells I'm interested in casting work well rather than be expected to take a specific meta mix of spells on every caster.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'd rather be allowed to make the spells I'm interested in casting work well rather than be expected to take a specific meta mix of spells on every caster.Message from michael sayre, for remastered ruleSilver bullet
S+*@ I missed
Should've worked on my aim more
(Tbf I mostly agree, but silver bullet terminology is usually seen as a instant sure fire miracle solution (
In a game this tactics heavy, you can do that and accept the ramifications when you run into a enemy with a high save because you chose theme over function
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I hate that "the casting martial can even more easily dump its casting stat" is being used as a positive here
Why? Build diversity is a good thing.
Nobody's saying you can't build a Magus with high Int, but *needing* to have high Int on your Magus is a big limitation on what kinds of characters you can build. You have medium armor so you're going to want at least 14 dex, you need to maximize your to-hit stat, and you want Con and Wis because "you are a frontliner."
Being able to build Cha-Magi and Int-Summoners now is great.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, exceeding rarely will a spell ever actually be an actual Silver Bullet for a situation. In fact, not being able to solve situations with single spells was an explicit design goal!Message from michael sayre, for remastered ruleSilver bullet
S&!* I missed
Should've worked on my aim more
(Tbf I mostly agree, but silver bullet terminology is usually seen as a instant sure fire miracle solution (
Agreed Silver Bullet is a poor descriptive choice for most caster options.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
In a game this tactics heavy, you can do that and accept the ramifications when you run into a enemy with a high save because you chose theme over function
Why are the two separate rather than a caster who goes in on the idea being allowed to take on the raw AC targeting DPS roll while a martial character specs into party buffing and crowd control with their own unique suite of maneuvers and auras? There is zero reason this caster meta is the only one that can exist in a mechanically balanced tactics-focused game.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Honestly though "I can pick the right tool for every job" is one of the main appeals of being a prepared caster. It's the spontaneous casters who are most hurt by this sort of thing, since they don't have as many arrows in their quiver.
Honestly though "I can pick the right tool for every job" is one of the main appeals of being a prepared caster. It's the spontaneous casters who are most hurt by this sort of thing, since they don't have as many arrows in their quiver.Except that in PF2 spontaneous casters can add spells just like a prepared caster. The only limitation PF2 casters have is that they cannot spontaneously highten at will.
Which is funny in PF1 wizard and sorcerer were even, despite the fact sorcerer had more spells, more abilities, and could spontaneously highten; While the witch kept up with their at will hexes. But now the sorcerer is outright better than wizard and witch.
Interesting, I vastly prefer prepared casting in this system vs spontaneous.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Honestly though "I can pick the right tool for every job" is one of the main appeals of being a prepared caster. It's the spontaneous casters who are most hurt by this sort of thing, since they don't have as many arrows in their quiver.Except that in PF2 spontaneous casters can add spells just like a prepared caster. The only limitation PF2 casters have is that they cannot spontaneously highten at will.
Which is funny in PF1 wizard and sorcerer were even, despite the fact sorcerer had more spells, more abilities, and could spontaneously highten; While the witch kept up with their at will hexes. But now the sorcerer is outright better than wizard and witch.
You can't though? Learning a spell as a spontaneous caster just allows you to add it to your repertoire when you add or swap spells. It's mostly only for uncommon and rare spells.
Except arcane sorc and bard of course. They can get a sort of spellbook through their feats.
Summoner is a joke 4 spells is nothing, they should have gotten at least a custom font of summon spells to cast any creature of the tradition (or something better).
That's because summoner is actually a martial class who's "gimmick" is that you're attached to a humanoid that can be targeted and taken out as it likely has lower AC than your main character (the Eidolon) so needs to be held back at a distance away from the fight.
If you start to think of your main character being your Eidolon, the design of summoner starts to make sense - you're a weird looking Barbarian that lacks rage and gets some cantrips in exchange at the cost of having a 'soft' backside.
| 16 people marked this as a favorite. |
So from Michael Sayre we have an indication the Paizo makes the following assumptions for prepared casters:
1) Prepared casters will usually have a very good idea of what creatures and problems that will be facing the party on a given day and can prepare and have the spells in their spellbooks that can act as 'silver bullets' to solve them, and/or 2
2) Casters can dictate what encounters or how encounters/problems will happen and their circumstances so the spells they have prepared will work as silver bullets and solve the problem.
3) Casters are balanced around the idea that monsters will most of the time have an exploitable weakness or save and casters will most of the time have a spell that will make them as effective in that situation as a martial is with a non-varying toolkit (Debuff AC (trip/flank) and strike to do damage).
4) The playstyle is or can be as or sometimes slightly more effective as a martial or a good skill check (which I can get expert/master/legendary on earlier and can get item bonuses to help succeed at against the same defences the spell targets without those bonuses for debuffs) if I have all the the above in place and guess correctly/have a useful result from a recall knowledge check is a rewarding playstyle.
We know 1) is unlikely give how much divination spells have been nerfed to prevent this situation (for good reason) and that recall knowledge is not caster specific and other classes don't rely on it anyway. Even if try a martial can just by a few consumables and generally achieve the same results so hardly a selling point.
2) Is pure GM fiat (or the caster is the GM?) and generally published adventures to work to this as written.
3) Many monster don't have exploitable weaknesses or a meaningfully low save that will reward a caster with extra effect (debuff/damage) over what a martial achieves just by striking with an appropriate physical damage type or appropriate material (people forget there are many cheap consumables that all a martial to mimic damage types to achieve the same damage types with less overhead and be more effective when they do so).
4) Good for masochists I suppose.
Nothing about this is good design. All the caster nerfs together mean a lot more work for the same output. Its the same problem the toolbox alchemist has - I don't need the alchemist there if I just ask them to make me consumables at the start of the day. If the wizard has divined what encounters are ahead in time to do prep at the start of the day then that knowledge can just be passed along to a martial to do the same thing (have the right materials/tools on hand) without the weaknesses of the caster. If consumables didn't exist that did most of what magic is capable of this might be a stronger argument.
If success chances for spells was similar to success chances for martials it would mean more. If prepared casters were able to have enough spells prepared at their top levels to cover 80% of damage types and all save types all the time and for every encounter then it would be less of an issue.
Toolbox assumptions do not play out well as at any given time a caster can only have a very small number of tools available (that are now more limited then they ever were in past additions) to solve a much greater (and with heavy divination nerfs) range of problems that need much more specific tools than in the past.
None of these assumptions in my experience hold out. A large number of posters feel the same. Even if Paizo is correct, if the market segment they are appealing to doesn't feel the same way then the product is bad, don't blame the people for not liking a product and say they should change expectations to meet ours. Sure its Paizo's product but its the players money that is being spent on it.
I feel like Paizo's balancing is based on white room assumptions that present casters with ideal circumstances and have very different ideas as to what makes playing a caster satisfying to a large amount of the vocal community.
It would probably help if the class fantasy for casters was 'play this class if you like providing support to other classes, don't play this class if your fantasy of a wizard is doing competitive damage' more clearly.
I don't want casters to outshine martials but I don't think balancing around white room ideal circumstances for casters that under those conditions make them equal to martials is good either. They need to be either as reliable as martials with the same levels of prep required or they need to be 20 to 30% stronger than martials if circumstances are ideal to make up for the bulk of the time when they are 20% to 30% weaker in damage, survivability, longevity of resources, and debuff chances.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
we know the baseline for a single target damage cantrip is 3d4, which produces higher averages and significantly higher maximums than 1d4+4.
I'd take 1d4+4 over 3d4 any day.
BUT AS NOTED ABOVE ME, IS ACTUALLY 2D4, NOT 3D4. WHICH MAKES THIS NERF EVEN HARDER.
Predictability is extremely important when making action choices. I always assume that 1d4+4 is going to do 5 damage, then be cut in half to 3 from a successful save - and base my action economy around that. Once it heightens to 2d4+4 - I assume it's still going to do 3 damage.
By contrast, give me 3d4 and I can only reliably predict 2 because it seems like the entire bestiary has master rank reflex save anyway. ;)
We've gone from 'this sucks' to 'this really sucks'.
You need to stack on a lot though, before you can overcome the loss of a predictable modifier.
As for "you'll make it up in the focus spells"...
Ok so... now I can spam the druid berry spell 3 times per fight, or witch hex 3 times, etc...
Focus spells will only make up the difference when we get focus spells that are useful in combat (hex will be at first, but after you use up your 3 max-rank spell slots, you're just casting hex on prestidigitation from that point on so your underwear stays clean for longer).
Or is every caster supposed to start with storm druid now?