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From the Wizard class on AoN : "During Combat Encounters...
You likely try to stay out of the fray, carefully judging when to use your spells. You save your most powerful magic to incapacitate threatening foes and use your cantrips when only weaker foes remain. When enemies pull out tricks like invisibility or flight, you answer with spells like glitterdust or earth bind, leveling the field for your allies."
This remembers me the expectation/reality memes:
Expectation: "You likely try to stay out of the fray, carefully judging when to use your spells"Reality: "OK, its my I turn and we have a bunch of enemies ahead, so what to do? I can RK to get extra info of some of them but they are different types, I can try to debuff them but I don't know if this is really needed to be debuffed... To hell! Chain Lightning!!! in the next turn if some of them survives to this and to my allies I will see what to do!"
Expectation: "You save your most powerful magic to incapacitate threatening foes and use your cantrips when only weaker foes remain"
Reality: "Oh an strong opponent I will use Paralyze on it! (Roll 19) Good! It will be paralyzed for 1 round! - (GM) Sorry but no your enemy level is higher than the double of your spell level so it effect is one grade less so it only is stunned 1 - Shit! I should have used EA and a Strike!"
Expectation: "When enemies pull out tricks like invisibility or flight, you answer with spells like glitterdust or earth bind, leveling the field for your allies."
Reality A: "(GM) The enemy casts a spell and sudden disappear! - (Party) No problem our wizard can deal with this - (Wizard) But I didn't know the we would face an invisible opponent so I didn't prepare any anti-invisibility spell!"
Reality B: "Wizard starts to use only cantrips! - (Someone) Why are you just using cantrips? - (Wizard) Eh! Because I didn't know you we will face so I had prepared situational spells like glitterdust and earth bind and now I don't have general use spells"
My problem with classes like the wizard is they don't fulfill the class fantasy when you build particular types.Huh. I don't think my character concepts have ever been bound to a particular class. If my concept is 'ninja' and I find that it's better served by Fighter than Rogue, I pick Fighter and tell people that my in-character background is a ninja.
PF2E's choice to make their 'academic magic wielder' not be the strongest blaster is a bit different. But not terribly different - lots of systems do that. If, in a future game, I wanna play a blaster, I'll use kineticist to fulfill that fantasy and if I want my concept to be 'wizard,' I'll have him go by 'wizard' in-character, select appropriate skills, feats that let me use magic items, give him high INT and an academic background, etc., etc. Because the class is just the vehicle for teh concept, and the concept is the thing, not the class. At least to me. I recognize that others' mileage may vary.
Yeah I'm the other side where I keep trying to make a red mantis assassin I'm happy with and one of my main disconnects is that the best class for this is fighter and not like rogue
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...There's flexibility, but as mentioned there's limitations due to how classes work. A wizard is not going to shine well as a tank, and a barbarian is not the go-to for party buffs and support. They can have options to help or moonlight, but the usual response to the wizard swinging at a monster with their staff while the barbarian hangs thirty feet back is 'who taught you tactics?'.
There's also another thing that Paizo may be watching out for: our good friend power creep. Maybe fighters are The Best at attack accuracy ... so if they make a class that is Better at it than fighters, then what?
All this makes me realise that game design isn't easy, at least.
My problem with classes like the wizard is they don't fulfill the class fantasy when you build particular types.
If you build an evoker wizard, you are not trying to be a support caster. You want to bring the hammer.
If you're playing a conjurer, you want to summon things that make you highly effective at using summons.
In PF1 the wizard was powerful because the base types of spells were powerful and the evocation wizard at least did get a nice damage boost.
In PF2 they should likely use the focus spells to give that big boost for the type of caster you are. An evocation wizard should have something like an empower spells where they can do some big blow ups a few times a day. A conjurer should substantially boost summons well beyond what Augment Summons does that doesn't even stack with other buff spells.
People want their class fantasies to be meaningful. When Paizo misses hard on a class and makes it so you can only play it one way that you don't want to play, it really sucks.
I made an evocation wizard wanting to be a blaster and was terribly disappointed. A focus spell that was the equivalent of a 1 action magic missile I can get from a wand of manifold missile or using a 1st level spell. And an evocation boost that required me to be in melee range? What was that?
You don't want to be a toolbox as an evoker, summoner, or necromancer.
So if you're going to force everyone into wizard "toolbox" class, then just make everyone choose Universalist and get rid of the extra class options that make people think they will be something else.
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From the Wizard class on AoN : "During Combat Encounters...
You likely try to stay out of the fray, carefully judging when to use your spells. You save your most powerful magic to incapacitate threatening foes and use your cantrips when only weaker foes remain. When enemies pull out tricks like invisibility or flight, you answer with spells like glitterdust or earth bind, leveling the field for your allies."
So you're saying that the designers should have gotten rid of all the schools and ideas behind each school and said, "This is what you are, don't try to be anything else or build any other way."
And you consider that a quality design decision for a class?
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From the Wizard class on AoN : "During Combat Encounters...
You likely try to stay out of the fray, carefully judging when to use your spells. You save your most powerful magic to incapacitate threatening foes and use your cantrips when only weaker foes remain. When enemies pull out tricks like invisibility or flight, you answer with spells like glitterdust or earth bind, leveling the field for your allies."So you're saying that the designers should have gotten rid of all the schools and ideas behind each school and said, "This is what you are, don't try to be anything else or build any other way."
And you consider that a quality design decision for a class?
I did not say anything. I just quoted the CRB.
And I definitely do not mean what you read in this, like at all. It is your own personal reading of things. It is not universal.
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From the Wizard class on AoN : "During Combat Encounters...
You likely try to stay out of the fray, carefully judging when to use your spells. You save your most powerful magic to incapacitate threatening foes and use your cantrips when only weaker foes remain. When enemies pull out tricks like invisibility or flight, you answer with spells like glitterdust or earth bind, leveling the field for your allies."This remembers me the expectation/reality memes:
Expectation: "You likely try to stay out of the fray, carefully judging when to use your spells"
Reality: "OK, its my I turn and we have a bunch of enemies ahead, so what to do? I can RK to get extra info of some of them but they are different types, I can try to debuff them but I don't know if this is really needed to be debuffed... To hell! Chain Lightning!!! in the next turn if some of them survives to this and to my allies I will see what to do!"Expectation: "You save your most powerful magic to incapacitate threatening foes and use your cantrips when only weaker foes remain"
Reality: "Oh an strong opponent I will use Paralyze on it! (Roll 19) Good! It will be paralyzed for 1 round! - (GM) Sorry but no your enemy level is higher than the double of your spell level so it effect is one grade less so it only is stunned 1 - Shit! I should have used EA and a Strike!"Expectation: "When enemies pull out tricks like invisibility or flight, you answer with spells like glitterdust or earth bind, leveling the field for your allies."
Reality A: "(GM) The enemy casts a spell and sudden disappear! - (Party) No problem our wizard can deal with this - (Wizard) But I didn't know the we would face an invisible opponent so I didn't prepare any anti-invisibility spell!"
Reality B: "Wizard starts to use only cantrips! - (Someone) Why are you just using cantrips? - (Wizard) Eh! Because I didn't know you we will face so I had prepared situational spells like glitterdust and earth bind and now I don't have general use spells"
So much hyperbole here against a quote of the CRB that just shows the toolbox aspect of the Wizard was definitely not a hidden Paizo conspiracy against unwarned players.
Just a note : it feels strange to me that your most powerful spells would have Incapacitation. There are many other more powerful spells far better to use against a single high-level target.
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I agree about the spellcasters main focus being a toolbox nothing being something hidden (but I still remember that when someone said this about 4 years ago many people here came in defend to spellcasters saying the opposite).
I just never agreed with this text since the first time I saw it. IME vancian prepared spellcasters was never so flexible as some people and this text defend due the difficult to guess what do you will need when you prepare your daily spells into spellslots and how this tends to make player to select the mostly more all-rounder spells available (like healing/fireballs/lightning/non-incapacitation debuff spells) and ignoring most situational ones to avoid "lock" the spell slot with a unusable spell or need to depend from a workaround like the old cleric/druids spell conversion or currently the Spell Substitution.
About incapacitation was a pun with "You save your most powerful magic to incapacitate threatening foes" being ironic about that the real incapacitation spells basically aren't really effective agains the most threatening foes.
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From the Wizard class on AoN : "During Combat Encounters...
You likely try to stay out of the fray, carefully judging when to use your spells. You save your most powerful magic to incapacitate threatening foes and use your cantrips when only weaker foes remain. When enemies pull out tricks like invisibility or flight, you answer with spells like glitterdust or earth bind, leveling the field for your allies."
From the Sorcerer class on AoN: " During Combat Encounters...
You use spells to injure your enemies, influence their minds, and hamper their movements. You might be too vulnerable to get into melee combat, or your bloodline might give you abilities that help you hold your own in a brawl. While your magic is powerful, to conserve your best spells—or when you’ve used them all up—you also rely on cantrips."So it's fully in the class description to do damage to enemies, except the system does a poor job supporting that fantasy against meaningful foes.
Lest we forget that changes to spells affect more than just the wizard.
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I'm sort of confused where the idea that the wizard and sorcerer are bad at damage is coming from. Things like Fireball, Meteor Swarm, and Horrid Wilting are quite strong. You are limited in how many fireballs you get, but that's the nature of Vancian Casting.
The only casters that really struggle to do damage with spells in my experience are the divine ones.
Where "damage spells" struggle is:
- Attacking saves is almost always better than attacking AC, since basically every monster has a weak save and very few monsters have low AC.
-You are not as good at single target damage as martials, but this is what martials do so file this under expectation management.
Pathfinder 2nd edition is designed so that "you cannot regularly end an encounter with a single top level spell slot" which was absolutely not true in the previous edition, but I think this is also an expectation management thing.
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I'm sort of confused where the idea that the wizard and sorcerer are bad at damage is coming from. Things like Fireball, Meteor Swarm, and Horrid Wilting are quite strong. You are limited in how many fireballs you get, but that's the nature of Vancian Casting.
The only casters that really struggle to do damage with spells in my experience are the divine ones.
Where "damage spells" struggle is:
- Attacking saves is almost always better than attacking AC, since basically every monster has a weak save and very few monsters have low AC.
-You are not as good at single target damage as martials, but this is what martials do so file this under expectation management.
When you're only good at damage 3-4 times per day and it's AoE damage which is less valuable, you get a reputation for being bad at damage.
Doubly so when the average damage of, for example, a fireball against a level-2 enemy can be as much as 40% weaker than a fighter attacking twice with a d10 weapon, and much worse if there are any debuffs or buffs to consider. Even with a shortbow, it's stronger by default and that only gets exacerbated with math fixing. And that's with a Low save. Enemy only has moderate or better? Tough luck, you're now even worse off.
It can look sick every once in awhile when you land a big chain of crit fails on a horde of mooks with low saves, but who wants to bank on that when you can throw out some low level control spells or an AoE incapacitate and let the local martials tear through targets like wet tissue.
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People are going to need to reconsider whether or not AoE damage is less valuable, since that's basically the Kineticist's whole thing.
If there's not anyone around to do AoE damage to soften up groups, it's going to take a lot longer for a martial who attacks one person at a time to clear through the opposition. This is not worthless.
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People are going to need to reconsider whether or not AoE damage is less valuable, since that's basically the Kineticist's whole thing.
If there's not anyone around to do AoE damage to soften up groups, it's going to take a lot longer for a martial who attacks one person at a time to clear through the opposition. This is not worthless.
The difference is that kineticist isn't only doing it 3-4 times per day, their AoE is still ok and, get this, their single target fire impulse+blast is better than fireball+bow strike. Even desert air gets good AoE and better single target with the whole "boomerang the ground" thing.
The kineticist shouldn't have anything to worry about.
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People are going to need to reconsider whether or not AoE damage is less valuable, since that's basically the Kineticist's whole thing.
If there's not anyone around to do AoE damage to soften up groups, it's going to take a lot longer for a martial who attacks one person at a time to clear through the opposition. This is not worthless.
I play and run mostly Paizo APs. It is infrequent in my experience that AoE significantly impacts the outcome of a fight. It can soften up some of the mooks, but in a lot of cases the mooks aren't a significant impediment in the first place.
In APL+2 boss plus a few "lieutenant" types, AoE does okay vs the lieutenant types, but just okay. You're still likely better with battlefield control. And spells for damage are pretty bad vs bosses, since their most likely outcome is a successful save, which sure does 1/2 damage, but it's still an ineffective use of a spell slot.So your damage is good vs relatively non-threatening enemies and poor vs meaningful ones.
This has always seemed wrong to me. Sure, everyone is going to have a harder time vs the boss, but I've always felt like casters get the worse time of it, if you're trying to contribute directly to damage and not indirectly by helping allies.
Being the buffer/debuffer shouldn't be the only viable role a primary caster can fill vs boss encounters.
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I'm sort of confused where the idea that the wizard and sorcerer are bad at damage is coming from. Things like Fireball, Meteor Swarm, and Horrid Wilting are quite strong. You are limited in how many fireballs you get, but that's the nature of Vancian Casting.
The only casters that really struggle to do damage with spells in my experience are the divine ones.
Where "damage spells" struggle is:
- Attacking saves is almost always better than attacking AC, since basically every monster has a weak save and very few monsters have low AC.
-You are not as good at single target damage as martials, but this is what martials do so file this under expectation management.Pathfinder 2nd edition is designed so that "you cannot regularly end an encounter with a single top level spell slot" which was absolutely not true in the previous edition, but I think this is also an expectation management thing.
It's single target damage. Some folks want to be good at everything with no cost paid.
I've tracked damage. Casters are not bad at damage. Some players just don't want to do the necessary things to be good at damage like build up a weapon, get a good focus spell, and memorize single target blast spells. They seem to want to be good at damage casting 1 spell per round rather than do damage from multiple sources to be good at damage.
When I focus on damage as a caster, casters are good at damage. But then you don't get to be good at other things like debuffing or utility because you're focusing your resources on being good at damage.
There is trade off with casters that some players don't want to pay to be good at damage.
I've tracked damage extensively. You can build a damage caster, but not a damage caster in the way that some players want. So they call that "bad at damage", when you should be using all available resources rather than claiming you shouldn't have to do something like build up a weapon to be good at damage.
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...I'm sort of confused where the idea that the wizard and sorcerer are bad at damage is coming from. Things like Fireball, Meteor Swarm, and Horrid Wilting are quite strong. You are limited in how many fireballs you get, but that's the nature of Vancian Casting.
The only casters that really struggle to do damage with spells in my experience are the divine ones.
Where "damage spells" struggle is:
- Attacking saves is almost always better than attacking AC, since basically every monster has a weak save and very few monsters have low AC.
-You are not as good at single target damage as martials, but this is what martials do so file this under expectation management.Pathfinder 2nd edition is designed so that "you cannot regularly end an encounter with a single top level spell slot" which was absolutely not true in the previous edition, but I think this is also an expectation management thing.
It's single target damage. Some folks want to be good at everything with no cost paid.
I've tracked damage. Casters are not bad at damage. Some players just don't want to do the necessary things to be good at damage like build up a weapon, get a good focus spell, and memorize single target blast spells. They seem to want to be good at damage casting 1 spell per round rather than do damage from multiple sources to be good at damage.
When I focus on damage as a caster, casters are good at damage. But then you don't get to be good at other things like debuffing or utility because you're focusing your resources on being good at damage.
There is trade off with casters that some players don't want to pay to be good at damage.
I've tracked damage extensively. You can build a damage caster, but not a damage caster in the way that some players want. So they call that "bad at damage", when you should be using all available resources rather than claiming you shouldn't have to do something like build up a weapon to be good at damage.
Not according to me, but according to the data.
If you're not going to use the options to do damage the way Paizo has set it up, then that is your fault.
I've proven how a caster can compete with damage against martials. I've tracked it to prove it can be done.
You are asking for far too much if you want a caster to be able to debuff, buff, heal, battlefield control, and also do damage like a martial. So I very much do expect that you should have to focus your casting resources and your build to do damage if you want to do damage like a martial that has to focus their build and resources on doing damage.
And as far as picking limited spells, welcome to every edition of D&D and RPGs ever made. Some spells are better than others and always have been and always will be. When I played PF1 or any edition of D&D, there were always the high value spells like haste or magic missile or fireball or hold person or what not. They may change some each edition, but the high value spells that you pick to be optimal are always there, every edition.
So yes, you will have to play smart and pick the right spells to do the thing you want to do well. Same as martials have to pick the right feats and weapons to do the thing they want to do well.
Welcome to RPGs.
As far as eight times a day go, there aren't eight fights a day where the same person will do the highest damage. So this is a falsehood right from the beginning.
In AOE fights, casters absolutely destroy martials at doing damage and it's not even close. There were fights where my druid or sorcerer were top damage dealer by a mile against multiple mooks. Main area where martials dominate damage is single target damage, often because the caster is enabling victory through debuffing and control because martials have trouble doing that against boss level enemies.
I DM and play in PF2. I know this game extremely well. I've tracked damage metrics and fights extensively to get a great feel for the classes and the capabilities of each class. A caster focusing just on damage can match a martial for single target damage, not every fight, but some of the time. Just as a martial doesn't always do the most damage or even the same martial. It literally can change fight by fight depending on the rolls, initiative order, and the like.
It's always changing. It's a complete fabrication that any single class dominates damage all the time. The only reality I've seen is the fighter does the most damage the most often, but even they don't win the damage run every fight and certainly not in AoE situations.
The point is that spellcasters are complicated classes in PF2.
In case of damage, as Deriven Firelion said, you need to build them around this, like use Spell Blending to move slots to get up to 6 top rank slots and 5 slots in your second best spell rank to use them to do blasts and summons.
For sorcerer you can get Draconic or Elemental bloodline and use Dragon Breath or Elemental Blast spells to do a more sustainable caster.
But there are problems with such builds the other type of builds don't suffer. For example this wizard spell blending build depends that you don't get too much encounter in a day or you risk to becoming without spellslots. Other point is that up to level 5 the casters usually don't have too much damage options basically becoming strongly dependents from cantrips and weapon and even so their efficiency becomes bellow most martials.
For other side non-incapacitant debuff and utility spells and even healing don't suffer from this complication, casters continue to be efficient using 1st rank slots with things like Fear and Goblin Pox from up to level 20 or even Illusory Object.
This collaborates to the concept that casters was designed to be best toolboxes and debuffers with damage and other offensive options being more complicated and secondary to them.
Currently if you want to do a stronger magical damage dealer/blaster you have to focus in Psychic or Kineticist.
The biggest problem I've found for casters I fixed by enabling 5E casting.
The biggest problem being using up a spell in a prepared spell slot and not having access to that spell when that same spell may be the best spell for nearly every fight. Then not being able to have access to what might be the 'silver bullet" spell for another fight that may come up rarely.
So you sit there with this prepared spell stuck in a slot that you never get the chance to use. While you have this useful spell you prepared once or twice that is no longer accessible in a used slot. You can get it back once as a wizard and then it's done for the day unless you choose this one boring thesis that allows you to change out spells as a wizard.
That's why the sorcerer is more fun. He can learn 4 spells in his repertoire then use his 4 spell slots for any of those four spells as needed. There are very, very few instances in the game where one of those four spells used will not be useful for nearly every fight or problem you face.
That's why I got rid of prepared slot casting and moved everyone over to 5E style casting. 5E style casting makes casters more fun and enjoyable to play. If Paizo did this, they would fix nearly every caster complaint they get. It would all just disappear because flexible casting that allows you to memorize a limited number of spells then use slots with nearly unlimited flexibility and heightening leads to a far more fun and enjoyable experience as a caster. The kind of experience you want as a caster where you feel like the fun, flexible toolbox and problem solver that casters are known to be rather than the frustrated player going, "Gee. I used my 3rd level fireball slot and my universal bond, I guess I'm stuck now" while the sorcerers are going "I'm still casting fireball all day, baby."
So many of these issues with casters are Paizo holding onto the highly imbalanced Vancian prepared slot casting versus spontaneous casting. Spontaneous casters are better, more fun, and more enjoyable to manage.
That's why prepared casters with good focus spells feel better because a good focus spell feels like a bit of spontaneous casting mixed with your prepared slots. You really feel terrible as a caster when you have a bunch of slots filled with useless spells that aren't applicable to a given situation and you can't use them most of the day because of the limitations of prepared casting.
That's why I sympathize with the misery of the wizard or witch, both casters stuck using prepared spell slots with bad focus spell options. The druid is a prepared caster, but their good focus spell options make up for it providing versatility and longevity. Cleric has its healing font giving it some flexibility. Sorcerer and bard are spontaneous casters with feats allowing them to adjust spells daily along with good focus spells. So they don't suffer form the prepared caster dilemma much at all.
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The biggest problem I've found for casters I fixed by enabling 5E casting.
I can't speak for anyone else, but, to me, if part of your response to people criticisms about the design of spellcasting is "Well, I houserule the base assumptions about how spellcasting works", it takes a lot of the wind of out of the rest of your argument.
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It's single target damage. Some folks want to be good at everything with no cost paid.
I've tracked damage. Casters are not bad at damage. Some players just don't want to do the necessary things to be good at damage like build up a weapon, get a good focus spell, and memorize single target blast spells. They seem to want to be good at damage casting 1 spell per round rather than do damage from multiple sources to be good at damage.
When I focus on damage as a caster, casters are good at damage. But then you don't get to be good at other things like debuffing or utility because you're focusing your resources on being good at damage.
There is trade off with casters that some players don't want to pay to be good at damage.
I've tracked damage extensively. You can build a damage caster, but not a damage caster in the way that some players want. So they call that "bad at damage", when you should be using all available resources rather than claiming you shouldn't have to do something like build up a weapon to be good at damage.
Deriven your numbers tracking and calculations are innaccurate for RAW for casters so you comparisons aren't correct. Already your casters have a much greater range of spells at high levels or versatility that prepared casters will not have. So if my best vs reflex spell is 3 levels below my max spell list the damage will be lower if I try to take advantage of it because the dice are lower.
You are already applying a fix which makes casters better but your fix isn't RAW so it skews your perception of caster vs martial disparity. Its probably as big as assuming casters have double the number of max and max -1 level slots available to them or that all monster saves are 2 or 3 points lower because you have that extra flexibility. You casters can properly prepare and know they probably have the right tool rather than wasting 2 or 3 spell slots or more on spells that are maybes where a good situation to use them doesn't arise.
So caster vs martial disparity is a thing if you play by the rules. Please refrain from saying it is fine at RAW when your changes to 5e casting show that you found PF2e RAW meant they were not equal.
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The biggest problem I've found for casters I fixed by enabling 5E casting.I can't speak for anyone else, but, to me, if part of your response to people criticisms about the design of spellcasting is "Well, I houserule the base assumptions about how spellcasting works", it takes a lot of the wind of out of the rest of your argument.
Many people are saying this.
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The biggest problem I've found for casters I fixed by enabling 5E casting.I can't speak for anyone else, but, to me, if part of your response to people criticisms about the design of spellcasting is "Well, I houserule the base assumptions about how spellcasting works", it takes a lot of the wind of out of the rest of your argument.
It is my assuption that the post of Deriven about the stats for damage deals with situations where this homebrew rule is not applied (because the homebrew is mentioned in another post and I do not believe Deriven would try to mislead readers)
I hope Deriven will clarify this.
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It's single target damage. Some folks want to be good at everything with no cost paid.
I've tracked damage. Casters are not bad at damage. Some players just don't want to do the necessary things to be good at damage like build up a weapon, get a good focus spell, and memorize single target blast spells. They seem to want to be good at damage casting 1 spell per round rather than do damage from multiple sources to be good at damage.
When I focus on damage as a caster, casters are good at damage. But then you don't get to be good at other things like debuffing or utility because you're focusing your resources on being good at damage.
There is trade off with casters that some players don't want to pay to be good at damage.
I've tracked damage extensively. You can build a damage caster, but not a damage caster in the way that some players want. So they call that "bad at damage", when you should be using all available resources rather than claiming you shouldn't have to do something like build up a weapon to be good at damage.
Deriven your numbers tracking and calculations are innaccurate for RAW for casters so you comparisons aren't correct. Already your casters have a much greater range of spells at high levels or versatility that prepared casters will not have. So if my best vs reflex spell is 3 levels below my max spell list the damage will be lower if I try to take advantage of it because the dice are lower.
You are already applying a fix which makes casters better but your fix isn't RAW so it skews your perception of caster vs martial disparity. Its probably as big as assuming casters have double the number of max and max -1 level slots available to them or that all monster saves are 2 or 3 points lower because you have that extra flexibility. You casters can properly prepare and know they probably have the right tool rather than wasting 2 or 3 spell slots or more on spells that are maybes where a good situation to use them doesn't arise.
So caster...
Caster vs. Martial disparity is not a thing except for wizards and witches.
This is my problem. This group making this argument are lumping all casters into the mix and it's not the case, so stop doing it.
Druids and bards don't need a boost. They don't. I played a druid before I changed the rules to 5E casting and it was a big eye opener. Druid was wrecking things. Their focus spell options are amazing. They don't need any extra help. It's the same with bards.
Sorcerer is fine as well. Spontaneous casting works fine in PF2.
Wizard and witch are not good. That should be the focus of the complaints. Not a general caster vs. martial disparity when some casters are doing absolutely fine and better than fine.
So why do you all keep calling it a caster vs. martial disparity when it's a certain casters disparity.
No one is crying about the power of the monk or ranger versus every caster.
This whole argument often boils down to fighters and rogues versus wizards and witches. Not a caster vs. martial disparity.
If people would focus their complaints to provable and actionable complaints, maybe Paizo could do something.
But when you're making up a falsehood like Caster vs. Martial disparity when certain casters are absolutely crushing it and other casters live in misery as well as certain martials being terrible like the Swashbuckler and Investigator, then how can Paizo action that?
Boost all casting, watch the druid and bard and sorcerer become even better? And martials besides the fighter rogue and maybe barbarian hating life?
Focus the arguments on real problems in the game with the caster classes that have issues.
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I doubt any of those systems makes it so you cannot play a good DPS mage because its "too much" and "think of the martials".
It's pretty obvious you haven't played Ars Magica (in which Magi are just better than everybody else) or Mage: the Ascension (in which there are no DPS characters, since it isn't a combat game.)
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The biggest problem I've found for casters I fixed by enabling 5E casting.I can't speak for anyone else, but, to me, if part of your response to people criticisms about the design of spellcasting is "Well, I houserule the base assumptions about how spellcasting works", it takes a lot of the wind of out of the rest of your argument.It is my assuption that the post of Deriven about the stats for damage deals with situations where this homebrew rule is not applied (because the homebrew is mentioned in another post and I do not believe Deriven would try to mislead readers)
I hope Deriven will clarify this.
I played this game straight for the first year or more. That is when I made my modifications because I like to play a game out of the box to see how it works. I house ruled PF1 as well after I learned how it worked. I made these modifications mainly to make the wizard more viable because the experience of playing a wizard in PF2 is pretty damn terrible in my opinion, especially compared to what it was in PF1.
What did I find tracking damage, watching play as a DM, and learning the game? Quite a lot. I DM this game a lot. I am the primary DM of my group and we play quite a bit.
I like to make sure my players are having an even playing experience, so I track the game to see how it is working. So when my players choose a particular class, it gives me a chance to see how something works in play. I track the actions, the damage, the overall feel of the play experience.
Without listing all the data I took and observations, I found the following:
1. Casters are fine.
2. Prepared 6 hit point casters have the biggest problem. Wizard and witch.
Why?
It's a combination of bad feats, bad focus spells, limited quality innate abilities, bad weapon choices not allowing them tot take advantage of ancestry feats, combined with the usual spikiness of casting.
So wizard and witch both feel badly in play and have the most what I will call disappointing moments in a game, especially so at low level.
Whether it is something like Evil Eye as an example. Evil Eye does a mild fear effect for 1 action. It acts similarly to intimidate, but using a spellcasting source and requiring a sustain action to maintain it.
Given the way PF2 is played with short duration combats, Evil Eye is inferior to other similar abilities like bard Dirge of Doom or Intimidate. Having to use an action to sustain a fear effect is rarely useful, making an Evil Eye witch's main hex rarely useful. Fights are sufficiently short that a 1 action intimidate or the far more effective 1 action dirge of doom handles the fear effectively for a given combat.
This is one example of a key witch ability not having enough bang for the buck to justify choosing that option compared to other superior options. It is a badly designed ability for the witch chassis.
It would likely be better if it didn't require a sustain or had a damage component. Something to stand out as superior to a competing ability that added something to a short duration fight.
3. The fighter is the martial everything gets compared to because fighter's in PF2 are an incredibly well designed, optimized class with a lot of build flexibility that can do some nutty damage due to how crits work and reaction attacks.
4. Most of the other martials have weaknesses or problems and aren't these supermen that overshadow casters.
Low level barbarian play can be quite rough because rage reduces AC increasing critical hits. If you get knocked out as a barbarian, you're basically just swinging to hit with no bonuses.
Rogue can't take hits very well and has a weak fort save.
Ranger has action economy issues as they get higher level when the precision damage that looked so great the first 5 levels starts to look not so great and still requires that action to make happen while everyone around you is getting faster with better action economy.
Monk has no damage increasing ability they gain levels. It's flurry at level 1 and flurry at level 10 and flurry at level 15 and flurry at level 20.
5. Casters have a lot of nice options and abilities that allow them to do damage well on top of doing a lot of other things well that martials can't even begin to match.
For example, a high level caster can do the following:
Start a sustain spell, then maintain it for free with Effortless Concentration.
While this sustain spell is going, they can unleash a blast spell.
Then they can take a tricked out weapon and hit things with it as well as the second attack of a martial
So you can build up this layered damage that combines blasting, sustain spell damage, and a weapon attack which can lead to huge damage spikes for a caster.
6. If a caster feels like selling out on a boss fight, they can do a lot of damage.
The reason they choose to do otherwise is because a caster can make the fight easier by dropping a spell like synesthesia or phantasmal killer or slow on the enemy.
Or set up the killing blow with something like a synesthesia followed by a true target.
If you want to instead focus on blasting, go for it. You can do a ton of damage. Is it your most effective option? No, because you can do things martials can't even think about doing.
7. The top damage dealer changes on a per fight basis. It's rarely the same individual even amongst martials.
So when I take all this into account, I don't see a caster vs. martial disparity.
What I see is certain poorly designed classes like the witch and wizard for casters and the swashbuckler and investigator for martials with the monk and ranger needing some fairly minor tweaks to bring them up to par.
After DMing and playing PF2 since near when I came out, my assessment is:
Classes that are fine
Fighter
Rogue
Barbarian
Druid
Bard
Psychic
Magus
Cleric
Sorcerer
Summoner
Champion
Oracle
Classes requiring minor tweaks
Ranger (Hunt Prey doesn't scale well)
Monk (Needs some unique damage enhancer as Flurry of Blows doesn't scale at all)
Alchemist: Bombers need at least Master bomb proficiency. Mutagenists need master unarmed combat or whatever weapon they feel like using. Their attack rolls are too low.
Classes that need some serious reworks
Witch: Hex cantrips aren't very impactful. Bad feat options. Focus spells are not very impactful. Familiar isn't very useful in combat or even useful enough out of combat to make it useful.
Wizard: Only the universalist path feels somewhat viable. Bad focus spell options. Arcane list is not the best list and needs some unique options as good as the unique options on other lists. Spell Thesis feel very limited. If you take anything but Spell Substitution, you can't take advantage of the wizard's vaunted spell versatility they had to spend rather large sums of gold to build up in the span of time that adventures play. Spell Blending adds more high level slots and is probably more fun, but not worth it if you have to take it over Spell Substitution which best leverages the wizard's ability to change out spells. Not much to the wizard class chassis to make them feel special.
Investigator: Thematically pretty cool. Offensive capabilities utter garbage and need a rework to make them viable. Easily the worst designed martial for combat in the game with the lowest impactful combat abilities. You sit there going, "Someone really liked the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movies, but didn't get the damage level for that ability done well enough to make this a viable class in combat.
Swashbuckler: Needs a serious rework of panache generation and finisher mechanics. Playable only by those who want to torture themselves until the panache generation and finisher mechanics are reworked.
Classes I have no experience with because no one has played them:
Thaumaturge
Classes I have no experience with because we don't want them in our game:
Gunslinger
Inventor
Suffice it to say after playing the base rules, that's how I see the game. I don't see a caster vs. martial disparity. I see certain class design misses, some worse than others, that need a Paizo design team to reassess and redesign for competitive play in their given designed roles.
But overall, most classes are well designed in PF2. Casters and martials are balanced against each other well. I still like high level casters way more than I like high level martials because I value versatile power. But at least high level martials are still highly useful in PF2 and carry their weight. PF2 martials still feel powerful at high level compared to casters unlike PF1 where casters were king by a country mile and way more powerful than martials. This is a far more even situation.
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This is one example of a key witch ability not having enough bang for the buck to justify choosing that option compared to other superior options. It is a badly designed ability for the witch chassis.
It would likely be better if it didn't require a sustain or had a damage component. Something to stand out as superior to a competing ability that added something to a short duration fight.
I fundamentally disagree with the way you're trying to analyze the classes. Comparing individual effects such fear (Witch) vs. fear (Bard) vs. fear (Cha feat) and declaring a class "badly designed" if those effects aren't equal misses the forest for the trees. Classes are a package. It's entirely possible to balance classes by saying Class Prime gets an A in thing 1, a B in thing 2, and a C in thing 3, while CLass Secundo gets a C in thing 1, a B in thing 2, and an A in thing 3. The Witch's fear can be lesser to the Bard's, and the classes can still be balanced if the Witch does some other thing better than the bard.
This also makes the game interesting from the sense of giving different parties different strengths and weaknesses. If all casters did fear exactly the same, then it wouldn't matter which caster was played, and tactics would be the same for witches and bards. That's not fun. Both witch and bard should bring *unique* tactics to the party. You completely miss that when you insist that, for exmaple, the fear effects should be equal and comparable.
Having said that...
What I see is certain poorly designed classes like the witch and wizard for casters and the swashbuckler and investigator for martialsAIUI Witch and Wizard are the exact caster classes getting the biggest overhaul in Revised. So it looks like the designers do in fact see too many "Cs" and not enough "As" in those two classes' sets of abilities. This should make you happy. I'm looking forward to it too. But I really hope they *don't* overhaul the classes by making their class-specific...
That is not how I analyze classes. I analyze comparative effectiveness. Classes should be comparatively effective even if using different mechanics. You should have a baseline ability you can compare abilities to that do somewhat similar things, while you flavor the mechanics with enough variation to make them interesting.
The Evil Eye example I used was to show something that was comparatively built as a fear ability that did not work as well as the fear abilities of other classes. That means it needs something added to make it feel equally effective, even while using a slightly different mechanic.
That's the key to good class design. Variation with equivalent effectiveness.
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No, topic is about whole class
And quote is about whole class that uses Int as key
Int is fine as a primary attribute, providing the GM plays Recall Knowledge reasonably. If your GMs interpretation of Recall Knowledge is making it useless, then by the rules he is doing it wrong. Find a way to reinterpret it. I am hoping Paizo will clear this up in the Remaster.
Investigator works fine as long as the GM is happy and on board with Purse a Lead. If he ignores it and doesn't let you use it then he should have the gumption to tell you to take another class. Investigator could use more class feats.
Inventor is fine, but critically failing your Overdrive sucks. I'd be removing that result. I hope Paizo eventually do to. Inventor could use more class feats and gadgets.
Magus is great. No problems really just watch your action economy
Wizard is good. Too many of its class feats are useless though.
Witch is underdone, I won't rehash it here. It is getting a makeover.
Alchemist still needs a boost, but that is happening.
Of the other classes Swashbuckler needs a boost to panache gaining and damage, and that is about it.
PF2 is remarkably well balanced for a game with this many options.
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removal of +stat from cantrips.
Unnecessary tweak for the sake of making a tweak. I haven't heard a reasonable justification for it yet. Making that change is more confusing than not. Paizo deserve all the flak they are getting over it.
Likewise creating Spellhearts so every caster can get all the main cantrips, then creating Needle Dart so every caster has a ranged damage cantrip. I dislike it as a design decision - I think it homogenises the game too much.
But that is their decision to make.
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Having all damage from all spells follow a similar formula is good value.
I guess but doing it now? They clearly made a decision not to use tightly templated language everywhere else in PF2. Why reverse this one now? Changing is more confusing. This is not as if it is something that was confusing people.
Casters with a 16 in their main stat being more viable is good value.
People go on about +1 to hit in this game not +1 damage. Meta wise it has done virtually nothing. The 18 in your attack stat is still mostly mandatory. It is an annoying change for the sake of it that weakens someones toys for no significant reason.
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I analyze comparative effectiveness.Of specific abilities. Like the ability to provoke a Fear effect.
Classes should be comparatively effective even if using different mechanics. You should have a baseline ability you can compare abilities to that do somewhat similar things, while you flavor the mechanics with enough variation to make them interesting.The baseline caster ability which is directly comparable across classes is spell proficiency. It's 1/7/15/19 for all casters except Summoner, Magus, and Warpriest.
That's a core equivalency. Beyond that, as I said, I disagree that all "somewhat similar things" must be equally effective in every class.
The Evil Eye example I used was to show something that was comparatively built as a fear ability that did not work as well as the fear abilities of other classes. That means it needs something added to make it feel equally effective, even while using a slightly different mechanic.No, it doesn't mean that. It means the Witch is not as good at provoking fear as the Bard. This is perfectly fine*, so long as the Witch is better than the Bard at some other thing so that the full package of each class is about equally valuable. (I will acknowledge that for those two classes, right now, they aren't. But as Gortle said, no need to rehash the need for a Witch upgrade.)
*Well, taking Fear specifically it seems thematically weird. But we are both using 'Fear' as an example to stand in for a variety of debuffs and abilities. In that respect, having Bard be better than the Witch at one of them is fine. Likewise having Witch be better than Bard at some of them is fine, IMO.
That's the key to good class design. Variation with equivalent effectiveness.We will have to agree to disagree. IMO equivalent effectiveness in the majority of particulars takes away real build choices and replaces it with false choices. I *want* the choice of Witch vs. Bard to change the answer to...
Explain how it takes away from build choices when an Occult witch's main ability is Evil Eye?
If a class's core ability like a Hex cantrip does a certain thing, it should be as effective a another core class's ability to do a similar thing.
If you aren't focusing on equivalent effectiveness for a core class feature choice, then why would anyone pick that option?
In real play, not having equivalent effectiveness is what limits build options because a core class choice can be shown to clearly be inferior to another class's similar choice which means choosing it is a bad option without any replacement reason for doing so.
So there is no "agree to disagree." There is one individual not wanting to encourage build variation because they don't want core class choices to be measured on effectiveness and me wanting to ensure that core class choices like a Hex cantrip should be made equally effective so that build option for a class is viable and effective which in the case of the witch the Patron choice with associated Hex Cantrip is a central build choice. If that central build choice is much weaker comparatively, there is no reason to choose it.
You have to have a way to measure the effectiveness of comparative build choices when they are central to the class.
If you aren't using comparative effectiveness, then you are discouraging build variation, not encouraging it.
There is no "agree to disagree" on this matter. These games are played by people who will compare build choices central to a class and make a choice based on metrics which will manifest in gameplay comparatively. They will know intuitively when something feels weak and is a bad build option.
Bad build options that are not comparatively effective reduce choice because players will avoid bad build options due to their lack of effectiveness.
Badly designed build options discourage players from making those choices and thus discourage build variation. This isn't something we need to agree on, it's a provable fact.
That is why effective variation should be a design standard for core class abilities. Effective variation creates a much larger number of build choices because it means a player doesn't have to make a bad choice.
PF2s balance is built on effective variation. That's why you might see a fighter and barbarian equally effective even though the fighter achieves that effectiveness through increased accuracy while the barbarian achieves their effectiveness through increased damage from rage. But both are equally effective at doing damage with a core class mechanic.
Whereas in the case of the witch a core class mechanic like a hex cantrip Evil Eye is a bad choice because it is not even more effective than a common skill like Intimidation or a class feat like Dirge of Doom making it feel like a terrible choice by the witch thus reducing the witch's build variation because the class cantrip for that particular patron is easily simulated by a skill or greatly overshadowed by a level 6 feat for the effective duration of most combats.
This is a measurable fact. There is nothing the witch receives to change the reality that Evil Eye is a poorly designed core class mechanic that should be avoided thus reducing build variation.
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Badly designed build options discourage players from making those choices and thus discourage build variation. This isn't something we need to agree on, it's a provable fact.
Whereas in the case of the witch a core class mechanic like a hex cantrip Evil Eye is a bad choice because it is not even more effective than a common skill like Intimidation or a class feat like Dirge of Doom making it feel like a terrible choice by the witch thus reducing the witch's build variation because the class cantrip for that particular patron is easily simulated by a skill or greatly overshadowed by a level 6 feat for the effective duration of most combats.
I'm all aboard the balance train, let me preface this by saying that.
But I will say that comparing witch (one of the worst classes in PF 2e) to bard (one of the most powerful classes in PF 2e) does a disservice to both.
Yes, evil eye is inferior to Dirge of Doom. But it's pretty much superior to Demoralize, since it can be sustained (unlike demoralize) and even sustained as a free action at higher levels (with Effortless Concentration at 16).
Now, as regards the Dirge of Doom comparison. It's quite fair that Evil Eye is worse. But dirge of doom is absolutely absurd. Handing out a no-save -1 numbers shift on EVERYTHING (attack rolls, saves, ability checks, and AC) is patently ridiculous. No other class gets anything close to that.
Diabolic edict is a FOCUS SPELL (limited resource as opposed to cantrips), has the same action cost, and targets only one creature. It also only lasts only one round. -1 to enemies is roughly analogous to +1 for allies (and bard has a +1 to attacks focus cantrip as well that hits ALL ALLIES within 60 feet rather than just one within 30).
Magic's vessel is similarly a focus spell, targets only one creature within touch range, and grants +1 to saves plus resistance = level to spell damage. Meanwhile, bard has inspire defense, which is a cantrip, and grants +1 to saves plus resistance = half...
Is it better than Demoralize for the duration of PF2 fights?
Think about this.
1. Evil Eye requires a save based on your casting stat.
Even on a critical failure you are frightened 2.
Even sustaining the spell, the target is frightened 1 and can't be lowered. So you must spend 1 action a round to maintain it as frightened 1 for how long? How long are the duration of most fights?
A basic success does nothing and makes you immune for 1 minute.
2. Demoralize also requires 1 action to use.
You can build up Demoralize with feats and items to a higher percentage change to critically succeed.
If you critically succeed, the target is frightened 2. So it is frightened for 2 for 1 round and frightened 1 for another round.
You don't have to sustain the Demoralize if you critically succeed.
It works for 2 rounds on a critical success for 1 action.
Whereas a on a critical failure Evil can work for more than 2 rounds if you spend an action every round to sustain it. So for the same two rounds it costs you 2 actions to use Evil Eye.
Given the short duration of combats, Evil Eye is generally equal at best to Demoralize and likely worse given the sustain requirement and the lac of ability to build up a casting stat like you can a skill.
A skill will be Legendary at level 15 with a boost for Intimidating Prowess and an item bonus for the Intimidate Skill. You can even pick up Intimidating Glare to dot he "evil eye" better than the witch for more levels.
Do you see how bad Evil Eye is? It's real poorly designed with some very rare circumstances where it will be better than Demoralize.
Needs a complete redesign.
Then look at Dirge of Doom. 30 foot AoE. No save. 1 action per round to maintain. It's far, far better than Evil Eye for 1 action per round and one level 6 feat.
Evil Eye should be much, much cooler than it is as if you choose that patron, it is literally the main thing you get that makes you stand out comparatively.
Every witch can choose the later lessons. Every witch gets a familiar. But only the Hex Cantrip differentiates the witch's from each other and is the core class mechanic that is supposed to be the witch's thing.
It should be very good, definitely better than the Intimidate Skill Demoralize which every class can take and build up including martials.
Evil Eye was one of those abilities that wasn't very well thought out in how it compares to equivalent abilities. It needs a redesign and should improve as you level. All the hex cantrips should improve as the witch levels to make those unique hex cantrips really standout when the witch uses them as they reach higher level.
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That shows you didn't understand the point.
The point is that if there is tactics A all classes should be able to meet a minium level X of achieving it. Yes a class can be better at the thing it specializing, but no class should have it be impossible or out right worse at it. How the class goes about A matters because it changes how the character plays, but the overall result should be about the same when compared with other comparable abilities. So a Rogue using Sneak Attack should do about as much damage as a Monk using Flurry of Blows, both of which are about as much as the Barbarian raging.
Nobody is saying that class abilities should be the same. People are saying that they should have equivalent effectiveness. Bard has an at-will single action 60-ft AoE that makes everyone frightened 1 no save. A witch having an at-will single action single target frightened 1 (2 on crit) that makes targets immune after targetting should have an effect that is much better than what the bard gets. A barbarian using its feats to upgrade demoralize and only single target should have an effect that is stronger than what the bard gets. But this is not what the game currently does.
Variation does not mean that things have vastly different effectiveness. It means that they have different ways to activate effects p how strong those effects are. Its why people who think casters are bad are complaining that an effect you can do twice a day at most (10th level spells slots) are worse than a focus spell or a martial.
Before bashing others, you might want to read what you are talking about a bit more. The Bard does not have a 60ft AoE that makes everyone frightened. You're confusing Dirge of Doom and its 30ft with Inspire Courage and its 60ft. Completely different, as anyone playing a Bard could tell you.