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The Kineticist isn't even a new class. It's just the updated version of a PF1 class that was very popular.
Like if you've never heard of the kineticist, I have to imagine you didn't look at any of the "we're going to announce a playtest for a new class" threads, since people were asking for that one from the beginning.
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The Kineticist isn't even a new class. It's just the updated version of a PF1 class that was very popular.
Like if you've never heard of the kineticist, I have to imagine you didn't look at any of the "we're going to announce a playtest for a new class" threads, since people were asking for that one from the beginning.
Oh wow I actually missed that part of the post XD
The Kineticist isn't even a new class. It's just the updated version of a PF1 class that was very popular.
Like if you've never heard of the kineticist, I have to imagine you didn't look at any of the "we're going to announce a playtest for a new class" threads, since people were asking for that one from the beginning.
I'm aware that a lot of people wanted it but it's still a new class and having to use it as the supported blaster does show that they likely won't support blasting with a proper caster.
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He's pretty out of touch and one wonders how often he plays the game he works on.
Yikes! Of course he does. This type of toxicity towards the devs, and I'm concerned the tone of this thread as a whole, is why we can't have nice things.
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I'm aware that a lot of people wanted it but it's still a new class and having to use it as the supported blaster does show that they likely won't support blasting with a proper caster.The Kineticist isn't even a new class. It's just the updated version of a PF1 class that was very popular.
Like if you've never heard of the kineticist, I have to imagine you didn't look at any of the "we're going to announce a playtest for a new class" threads, since people were asking for that one from the beginning.
What constitutes new here? Because the original kineticist was released in the 2015 book "Occult Adventures" for pathfinder first edition. Here is the Archives of Nethys page for the class.
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Well, you will have to choose what you want from a blaster:
- Staying power
- Damage potential
The Kineticist is was designed, way back in 1st edition as the "all-day blaster". That has always been its nature. In your 30th combat of the day, the kineticist can keep pace with all the martials who don't have resources to track, while the Wizard and cleric ran out of spells 20 fights ago.
What the kineticist cannot do is "reach into the toolbox and grab anything off-theme"(if you're a pure geokineticist and a problem can't be solved with rocks, it can't be solved by you) and it probably can't hit the same peaks for damage as a slot casting blaster in the 2-3 fights where the slot casting blaster decides to go all out.
This is a reasonable way to differentiate these classes and was, in fact, the same way they were distinguished in PF1. Back in PF1 the Blood Arcanist with Spell Perfection on Delayed Blast Fireball did more damage than the Kineticist did, but it could only cast Empowered Intensified Maximized Fireball with 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spell slots and you only got so many of those.
It's not a bad idea to have two classes have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to doing the same thing. Like a fighter with a greataxe and a barbarian with a greataxe play differently. A monk with a bow and a ranger with a bow play differently. This is, in fact, a good thing.
What the kineticist shows is if you're going to get a themed specialist then the difference between "that thing" and "a wizard" is that the wizard is a toolbox character which has options that the themed specialist doesn't have. This is by design and not wanting to use those options is like a fighter not wanting to use the best weapons.
What constitutes new here? Because the original kineticist was released in the 2015 book "Occult Adventures" for pathfinder first edition. Here is the Archives of Nethys page for the class.I'm aware that a lot of people wanted it but it's still a new class and having to use it as the supported blaster does show that they likely won't support blasting with a proper caster.The Kineticist isn't even a new class. It's just the updated version of a PF1 class that was very popular.
Like if you've never heard of the kineticist, I have to imagine you didn't look at any of the "we're going to announce a playtest for a new class" threads, since people were asking for that one from the beginning.
New as in new to PF2. The Swashbuckler, Magus, etc. were also new classes when added back into the game.
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Martials have both staying power AND damage potential.
Sure, but what they don't have is: AoE and the ability to target different defenses. The Kineticist has both! Not as good as actual casters (there's nothing a kineticist can do to target will, for example) but what the kineticist class is probably best at is "AoE against trash mobs" since they don't have to worry about resource management and you can hit everybody in a 60' line/10' burst/30' curve/30' cone from level 1.
Your damage against a single target is going to be less than a real martial (but still good), and your damage compared to resource dependent blasters is going to be overall lower. Like Solar Detonation is 3 actions and overflow (so every other turn before 19th level), versus fireball's 2 actions, both are a 20' burst that does fire damage. When you unlock it, both deal 6d6 fire, solar detonation adds 2d6 vitality (aka positive energy) and a blind/dazzle chance... but fireball scales with +2d6 fire damage, while solar detonation scales +1d6 fire and +1d6 vitality. Since most things aren't damaged by vitality damage (undead and the like are) fireball wins the damage race, particularly if you want to keep throwing them. But solar detonation is still good!
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Well, you will have to choose what you want from a blaster:
- Staying power
- Damage potentialThe Kineticist is was designed, way back in 1st edition as the "all-day blaster". That has always been its nature. In your 30th combat of the day, the kineticist can keep pace with all the martials who don't have resources to track, while the Wizard and cleric ran out of spells 20 fights ago.
What the kineticist cannot do is "reach into the toolbox and grab anything off-theme"(if you're a pure geokineticist and a problem can't be solved with rocks, it can't be solved by you) and it probably can't hit the same peaks for damage as a slot casting blaster in the 2-3 fights where the slot casting blaster decides to go all out.
This is a reasonable way to differentiate these classes and was, in fact, the same way they were distinguished in PF1. Back in PF1 the Blood Arcanist with Spell Perfection on Delayed Blast Fireball did more damage than the Kineticist did, but it could only cast Empowered Intensified Maximized Fireball with 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spell slots and you only got so many of those.
It's not a bad idea to have two classes have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to doing the same thing. Like a fighter with a greataxe and a barbarian with a greataxe play differently. A monk with a bow and a ranger with a bow play differently. This is, in fact, a good thing.
What the kineticist shows is if you're going to get a themed specialist then the difference between "that thing" and "a wizard" is that the wizard is a toolbox character which has options that the themed specialist doesn't have. This is by design and not wanting to use those options is like a fighter not wanting to use the best weapons.
I would argue that vancian magic, including spontaneous and flexible variants, is not conducive to a video game style spellcaster who's job it is to be a ranged damage dealer. AoE or otherwise, and the kineticist was designed in 1e understanding this, or I assume so anyways. I think this is good though, I don't want to play a wizard in a ttrpg to emulate a video game mage. The best wizards are toolboxes, and the most fun playing a wizard is being a toolbox, and I would argue the class fantasy of the wizard is being a toolbox down to the vancian magic which I think encourages such a thing. The fact a kineticist can just be a "pyromancer" in such a video game fashion I think fits neatly into this dichotomy, but I also have to ask to what degree "I only do fire" is much of a "theme". Wizards clearly also pick themes, like death magic or illusions, or in the new book "civic engineering" which is far more interesting to me than "I'm a fire mage"
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For the 100th time though, casters can do lots of damage. They do this damage with AoEs and they do this damage by targeting low defenses, bypassing resistances and hitting weaknesses.
They don’t manage this often in white rooms against damage test dummies with no low saves or weaknesses, but they manage it in actual play for many players.
This is what Michael Sayre is talking about, this is what many players are reporting back as well.
Not everyone is having the same experience. This is true. Some players are getting frustrated and finding casting underwhelming. Very often, the people having these play experiences are reporting some similar things:
Their GMs are not giving them good information from recalling knowledge.
They are not even trying to recall knowledge because they are convinced that certain static routines are better than finding the enemies weak spot. Often these static routines are things like “cast electric arc even against 1 enemy until you get chain lightning.”
They are playing with martial players who expect the caster just to set them up/or the rest of the team is focused on debuffing AC and boosting attack rolls, but the caster is actively avoiding memorizing any attack roll spells.
They are very low level and throwing out attack roll cantrips against everything without doing any prep work to help those spells land. This falls in to the static routine trap, but it can also lead to over correcting.
The rest of the party is placing too many expectations in the caster to cover everything but combat damage, so they don’t have enough actions to set up good damaging options.
Some of these problems are the result of APs and adventures leaning away from the strengths of offensive spell casting and a lack of useful direction for GMs on making recalling knowledge actionable. Some of it is players stuck in other game strategies and mind sets. Some of it is bad communication between parties about roles and expectations. Some of it is over restrictive GMs. And some of it is that the design philosophy of the game is to actively discourage one true tactical supremacy and for combats generally to be challenging and require some good luck.
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I was also going to say that "actively punish" is a bit wrong. Casters have feats that benefit damage spell specifically including one that creates weaknesses for subsequent casts and stuff like staves and the wizard's spellblending let you effectively turn low level spellslot into higher level spells lots. The only thing I would argue is that focusing on only being a damage dealer is suboptimal, but it's not "punished". I think there is a huge difference between these two things
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I think it’s worth noting that the Curriculum changes are pretty counter to Sayre’s portrayal of the Wizard. It’s hard to pack all the “silver bullets” you’ll need when a quarter of your spell slots are restricted to a pretty small list.
If those list spells line up, great! But if they don’t, you’re much worse than before.
Also, I’d need to work it out, but I feel like that “a PF2 Wizard with a staff has more spells than in 1e” is wrong, except perhaps in the explicit circumstance of more 1st level spells. You could get some crazy high slot totals in 1e. Might be wrong there, as it’s been a good while, but I have vague memory of having 9 9th level slots at some point.
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I think it’s worth noting that the Curriculum changes are pretty counter to Sayre’s portrayal of the Wizard. It’s hard to pack all the “silver bullets” you’ll need when a quarter of your spell slots are restricted to a pretty small list.Pck as many silver bullets as you can, and if you don't like the spells from that school, why are you picking it?
If those list spells line up, great! But if they don’t, you’re much worse than before.
The same as before.
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Pck as many silver bullets as you can, and if you don't like the spells from that school, why are you picking it?
It doesn't matter what school you pick.
Your total number of available options is shrinking dramatically. A tool kit isn't as powerful as a tool box for storing all your options.
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Pck as many silver bullets as you can, and if you don't like the spells from that school, why are you picking it?It doesn't matter what school you pick.
Your total number of available options is shrinking dramatically. A tool kit isn't as powerful as a tool box for storing all your options.
Idk, enchantment stands out to me as a school that had a whole bunch of incapacitation spells that made filling the bonus slots of some levels very difficult and ate into this in the exact way you complained about
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Idk, enchantment stands out to me as a school that had a whole bunch of incapacitation spells that made filling the bonus slots of some levels very difficult and ate into this in the exact way you complained aboutPck as many silver bullets as you can, and if you don't like the spells from that school, why are you picking it?It doesn't matter what school you pick.
Your total number of available options is shrinking dramatically. A tool kit isn't as powerful as a tool box for storing all your options.
While all schools were not equal, the number was still higher out the gate than 18.
Quality of choices is another discussion unfortunately.
While all schools were not equal, the number was still higher out the gate than 18.
Quality of choices is another discussion unfortunately.
I really only care that wizards are at 3+1 because sorcerers are just chilling at 4. 4+1 is maybe too much to ask for simultaneously. If only we could do something like divine font for school spells, or the old PF1 cleric and druid swapping prepared spells for cure/nature's ally, but for school spells
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Pck as many silver bullets as you can, and if you don't like the spells from that school, why are you picking it?It doesn't matter what school you pick.
Your total number of available options is shrinking dramatically. A tool kit isn't as powerful as a tool box for storing all your options.
Please share your copy of the remastered Wizard with the class.
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Please share your copy of the remastered Wizard with the class.Pck as many silver bullets as you can, and if you don't like the spells from that school, why are you picking it?It doesn't matter what school you pick.
Your total number of available options is shrinking dramatically. A tool kit isn't as powerful as a tool box for storing all your options.
Ha! I'm still waiting on my copy of RoE, I'll show you in January probably.
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It's 2 dice actually, which is a nerf. Only Needle darts has 3d4 which might be a typo.This thread is fascinating in the way discourse has been directed.
The argument has formed over whether cantrip nerfs are justifiable and meaningful. The framing is entirely on whether the nerfs are bad or actually not a big deal, the premise that Paizo has decided to nerf spellcaster cantrip damage is something all sides stipulate to, yet we know the baseline for a single target damage cantrip is 3d4, which produces higher averages and significantly higher maximums than 1d4+4.
So the central discussion topic of this thread is based on a lie that everyone is simply willing to go along with for the sake of conversation.
The Pathfinder community is very interesting.
This isn't a typo, it's a different way to give 2d6 without have to give 1d6 heightening. Needle darts is a physical damage cantrip that progress poorly than other physical damage cantrips like Telekinetic Projectile and Gouging Claw.
The main advantage o Needle darts is to change its material type to try to exploit a weakness. But in general the nerf continues, this 3d4 is in place of a 1d6+attribute.
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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 (
PF2 Silver Bullet is NOT the I WIN button (that was PF1). It's reducing the severity of the encounter by a step or two. This happens pretty often in my PF2 caster experience.
Expecting the PF1-style Silver Bullet is unrealistic.
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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 (
PF2 Silver Bullet is NOT the I WIN button (that was PF1). It's reducing the severity of the encounter by a step or two. This happens pretty often in my PF2 caster experience.
Expecting the PF1-style Silver Bullet is unrealistic.
That's what we are all saying. Silver Bullets don't actually exist in this system by design. No one thing will "solve" an encounter. So the idea of coaching Caster utility in that sort of language sends mixed messages on intent.
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We don’t know what the final spell list of the player core 1 will be, so speculating on spell selection for a remastered wizard is nearly impossible at this point.
I can say that one way to cover your bases for multiple encounters a day is identifying useful low level spells that target different saves and have scrolls of them on hand. This won’t always give you the power house damage options, but it can help set those up.
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For the 100th time though, casters can do lots of damage. They do this damage with AoEs and they do this damage by targeting low defenses, bypassing resistances and hitting weaknesses.
They don’t manage this often in white rooms against damage test dummies with no low saves or weaknesses, but they manage it in actual play for many players.
This is what Michael Sayre is talking about, this is what many players are reporting back as well.
Not everyone is having the same experience. This is true. Some players are getting frustrated and finding casting underwhelming. Very often, the people having these play experiences are reporting some similar things:
Their GMs are not giving them good information from recalling knowledge.
They are not even trying to recall knowledge because they are convinced that certain static routines are better than finding the enemies weak spot. Often these static routines are things like “cast electric arc even against 1 enemy until you get chain lightning.”
They are playing with martial players who expect the caster just to set them up/or the rest of the team is focused on debuffing AC and boosting attack rolls, but the caster is actively avoiding memorizing any attack roll spells.
They are very low level and throwing out attack roll cantrips against everything without doing any prep work to help those spells land. This falls in to the static routine trap, but it can also lead to over correcting.
The rest of the party is placing too many expectations in the caster to cover everything but combat damage, so they don’t have enough actions to set up good damaging options.
Some of these problems are the result of APs and adventures leaning away from the strengths of offensive spell casting and a lack of useful direction for GMs on making recalling knowledge actionable. Some of it is players stuck in other game strategies and mind sets. Some of it is bad communication between parties about roles and expectations. Some of it is over restrictive GMs. And some of it...
There are too many "white rooms" assumptions in you arguments too.
Casters only do a lot of damage starting from lvl 9. Before this they are just weak a have pretty limited number of resources. Some specific casters with specific builds like Wizards with Spell Blending and Elemental/Draconic Sorcerers the get some additional high level slots or some additional damage or a strong focus spell can get a bit more effectiveness earlier. Before this they are extremely dependent from cantrips and these looks like are being nerfed making the initial levels even more difficult and boring than currently already is.
About RK you blaming the players for a thing that was badly designed.
RK doesn't explain how the information have to be give to the players nor have clear guidelines to GMs to select what information is good or no.
If someone RK a dragon for example what information is relevant? Its flight ability? Its Frightful Presence? Its Immunities? Its Weaknesses? That it have Attack of Opportunity? Its Breath Weapon? This will depend from what's most useful for players currently or what's its most iconic characteristic? May give information like weaknesses and lowest saves preferentially don't trivializes things like Exploit Vulnerability, Strategic Assessment and Battle Assessment?
And to complete RK failure basically prohibits the player to try again and the rarity affect way much the RK effectiveness specially against the creatures that you must need of it.
So again don't blame the players because they don't want or "don't know" how to use a bad design feature and consequently don't blame the casters to not trust theirs spells choices in it.
Don't blame the caster for avoid spell attacks that works as all or nothing and gets MAPs over get save spells that usually grants that you probably won't lose a daily limited resource due a pretty common bad roll.
But I agree with the AP part. Due how spellcasters are their effectiveness and tactics along the day strongly depends of how the adventures will work. Long daily explorations with a dozen of encounters hurts spellcasters way more than getting 2 stronger encounters in a day yet this also hurts the incapacitation spells effectiveness problem even more.
So please don't try to invert the onus of the problem saying that the fault of the bad design choices comes from players.
Players will play how they play. If they are having fun, then great. However sub-optimally that play style might seem to some, if everyone is having fun, it is a good play style.
If players are not having fun though, then something might be wrong with trying to fit that play style over the game that is being played. It can take a while to figure this out, and it can be complicated when one player is having fun but their fun is frustrating other players at the table. These are situations that require open communication to resolve.
I agree that the direction around recalling knowledge has left many tables struggling to use it effectively and that is a place for improvement that we have been told us being addressed in the remaster. I am not blaming the player for responding to the situation at their table, but I am saying that frustration with the recall knowledge mechanic is a very common parallel to players complaining about the effectiveness of casters, and tables that feel good about his recall knowledge is being used often also feel good about the effectiveness of casters. The two are linked and it seems like one way of running it leads to more player frustration than another.
Are these changes listed somewhere? Or is it all in a video.
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I had a lot of success with shadow blast as a divine caster because it let me manipulate area of effect to hit multiple foes and do damage types that triggered weakness. I didn’t try to use it all the time though, just as my pocket ace for triggering weaknesses as a cleric so I didn’t have to try to cover that with a bunch of other spells.
Occult has magic missile, telekinetic projectile and almost as many fortitude targeting spells as will targeting spells. It is just lacking on reflex. Divine’s issue is more that if you want to blast, you are are either fighting undead and obliterating them, or you are out to destroy the living and in either case you are looking at will and fort. Primal has reflex and fort in abundance. So yes, not every caster is supposed to have as much versatility as a wizard, but the arcane list pays for targeting 3 saves by having nothing in the way of healing. They all have trade offs.
Are these changes listed somewhere? Or is it all in a video.
They are in a preview PDF
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One of the facinating points that Mark Seifter made (and I'm paraphrasing as best I can) in the roll for combat stream yesterday was that the design of the wizard is to a large extent a holdover from D&D and that the class tends to expand into so many different areas that its hard not to come away with a design that in the end is a jack of all trades and master of none. And also its hard to really have a specialist caster class that doesn't in some way step on the toes of the wizard because the wizard has such big toes.
The big example he cited was a necromancer - we could actually have a full necromancer class if the wizard class were reimagined into something more streamlined. Hopefully the remaster will be able to address the problem somewhat but I have a feeling we'll have to wait for a 3rd edition (should one eventually come) to really fix that.
Thanks, YuriP. I'll check it out.
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Probably the biggest "feels bad" part with the wizard is boss fights, when you're fighting Level+3 enemies or something like that. We know from experience that the best thing to do in this situation is to cast things like slow and synesthesia that make the boss's actions less valuable. This is tactically very effective and it helps the party win.
What it doesn't do is "make you feel like a powerful wizard" because you're unlikely to get those moments where you reduce your enemy to a pile of ash. It's honestly unclear what to do here since there were a lot of combats in PF1 that ended in anticlimactic fashion when the boss failed a save against a "save or die" effect and that was a bummer.
Probably the best thing to do is for the wizard player to change their mindset, so that "debuffing the really scary boss monster because that helps the team the most" is something they actually want to do.
SynaesthesiaNot this one.
I admit the arcane list is the one I am least familiar with based on characters I have played. Assuredly the Wizard has several options with which to "make the really dangerous thing waste its actions on things that are not 'killing the PCs'." If not, that would be a better thing to address than "cantrip damage."
Blasting wasn't good in PF1. It's just that the game allowed you to stack math high enough with a properly built character that you could make all manner of things effective. Save or Die spells were always a more effective means of "ruining people's days" than "fireballs" it was mostly that you could make fireballs good if you jumped through enough hoops.
Pathfinder 2e flat out removed "spend feats as math enhancers" from the game in order to tighten up the math. One of the consequences of this is that you no longer get to invest in doing a specific thing well. So if that specific thing is not a great idea to begin with, it won't become one through investment.
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Blasting wasn't good in PF1. It's just that the game allowed you to stack math high enough with a properly built character that you could make all manner of things effective. Save or Die spells were always a more effective means of "ruining people's days" than "fireballs" it was mostly that you could make fireballs good if you jumped through enough hoops.
The funniest part of this is that the best possible thing you could do with fireball was turning it into a save or die with Dazing Metamagic.
In a boss fight against a high Fort creature, you are very unlikely to do more than waste a single action of the creature with a slow spell. This is very valuable (and shouldn't be undersold) if the creature has multi-action abilities that get disrupted by not having enough actions, but if the creature is mostly just attacking (something pretty common with high fort enemies) slow can pretty easily be 1 third action attack. A spell like mirror image has a pretty good chance of wasting 2 or more actions from a bruiser-like monster, without being dependent on making a save. Yes, the images can be burst on a miss and it doesn't help much with non-attack roll abilities, but often times players greatly underestimate the value of putting enemies in a position of trying to choose between the least-worst of two options: attack the vulnerable caster, and potentially waste good attack rolls, or attack someone else? It is a very effective way of surviving a round or two to get in close and take advantage of melee spell attack rolls vs off-guard opponents or deliver more powerful touch spells. It can also make the enemy think twice about using its attack of opportunity on you while you still have a lot of images.
Especially for wizards, trying to learn more about the campaign and the challenges that are ahead is part of the game and a reward experience. I think a lot of GMs could really benefit from running more PFS scenarios and thinking about how those short adventures really try to help the players imagine themselves into the world and a group with a long term vision that has to address local and immediate problems on a frequent basis.
Also, the downtime rules are clunky. They work very well for PFS and when treated as just a completely separate part of the game that should be zipped through as quickly as possible. But if time between adventures is treated with any amount of roleplaying or engagement, players end up getting themselves into encounters and side quests so fast that it can be pretty disruptive. It doesn't help that there are activities like gathering information that don't squarely fit into either the time frame of exploration mode or downtime mode. Is everyone on the team gathering information for an hour? If they aren't what are they doing? It is not always a problem and good GMs can wing it just fine, but it is awkward to have parts of the game that don't line up into the large categories you create for time management, especially when some classes are more dependent upon being able to use that downtime effectively than others. This often becomes the case with casters who also get weird time constraints around activities like learning spells, and then needing to be able to make 4 scrolls at once for some reason, so needing a minimum of 4 days.