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Is anyone still using cantrips at L10, much less L17 & L20?Magus.
Psychic.
I do use on some casters in trivial fights martials easily clean up just to do something on my turns combined with a weapon attack.
Summoner too.
Another complication with consumable use that drives some players to frustration and Anger is the guidelines from the GMG make it clear that it doesn’t matter if the PCs are trying to penny pinch or spend their gold quickly on consumables, the GM should be checking in occasionally and giving more gold to players if they are too far under budget on equipment. So the real cost, according to the GMG of using more consumables should be finding more of them or otherwise getting a discount on them to make sure players aren’t falling behind on basic numbers. The difference between saving up to buy equipment a half level early vs waiting and finding one a level later can be the difference between getting to treat a top level spell slot like an focus spell instead of a once or twice a day ability.
This advice in the GMG runs into problems too with GMs who run APs “by the book” and give exactly as much treasure as the players find in the game without concern for if the players are spending gold narratively or giving it away, or if the players are failing perception checks often and not finding it. This is a real problem that should probably be clarified in the GMG when talking about running published material.
That's why I think that ABP is so popular. It's not only easier to use and avoid obvious investment but also frees the money to be used in other things and consumables.
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My experience with APB has been the opposite. GMs tend cut the amount of gold they give out, and then as a wizard I am getting bonuses to a bunch of stuff I was never planning on spending any gold on and then not getting the compensatory gold to spend on scrolls. In my opinion APB should give x number of free scrolls per day to caster.
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ABP doesn't guarantee that magic item exist at all: it's totally valid to have NO scrolls, wands and staves in ABP.
"With this variant, you can ignore as much of Table 10–9: Party Treasure by Level from the Core Rulebook as you want, though you’ll usually want to provide consistent currency. The main area your choice will impact is in spellcasting items, such as scrolls and wands.
Remove all potency runes, striking runes, and resilient runes. Items that normally grant an item bonus to statistics or damage dice no longer do, other than the base item bonus to AC from armor. Apex items do not increase ability scores. If your world still includes magic items, a safe bet is to continue to give out consumable items at roughly the rate on Table 10–9 of the Core Rulebook."
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It's safe to say that if for some reason that you've insisted your world does not contain scrolls, staves, and wands that letting a player be a Wizard is an odd choice.
Like the "if those items exist" clause in ABP seem tailored to "if you want to make your version of Golarion a low-magic world" which sort of suggests people shouldn't be playing casters at all.
Back to the point of using consumables ... how often 'should' they be used? Is it safe to assume a first-level wizard will earn four gold pieces a day to buy a new scroll? Or should they assume a scroll is used every other day?
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It's safe to say that if for some reason that you've insisted your world does not contain scrolls, staves, and wands that letting a player be a Wizard is an odd choice.
Like the "if those items exist" clause in ABP seem tailored to "if you want to make your version of Golarion a low-magic world" which sort of suggests people shouldn't be playing casters at all.
There is a distinct difference between allowing magic people and magic items [or non-unique magic items]. I mean what is the explanation for allowing every magic item that boosts magic users [and making them pay for it] but having a complete void for non-magic users?
Secondly, there are fantasy settings with magic people in them and do not have ubiquitous magic consumables. It's not like Gandalf is out of place and he doesn't have a notebook full of scrolls.
Thirdly, even without magic, consumables can be available with alchemy.
Back to the point of using consumables ... how often 'should' they be used? Is it safe to assume a first-level wizard will earn four gold pieces a day to buy a new scroll? Or should they assume a scroll is used every other day?
*shrug* Got me. Some make it seem like you're going through them like toilet paper. SuperBidi, for instance, said they got 2 scrolls to start [8 gp] and their "low level casters use a ton of scrolls".
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Yet this comparison is being made between Needle Darts and EA. But EA is a save cantrip while Needle is an attack cantrip.3d4 vs 1d4+4 single target save cantrip
Yeah, real super. And yes, that's only single target on the EA.
One too many d's there. Should be:
2d4 vs 1d4+4
If it was 3d4, I still wouldn't like it because I like predictability - but it'd no longer be a math argument, I'd be a 'personal taste' argument.
This is not comparable. Because 2d4 avg damage is equals to 1d4+4 minimum damage.
He/She compared to 3d4 because their avg damage are more closer. Also the attribute bonus is progressive becoming +5 at level 10, +6 at level 17 and +7 at level 20.
But remaster electric arc is not 3d4, it will be 2d4.
If there was added context, I didn't see it in that post. Thus my reply.
I only saw someone claiming Electric Arc would be 3d4 - and a comment after which seemed to imply they thus felt we were actually getting a buff.
But it looks like, based on comments after mine, that they meant the exact opposite. So, I guess we're all on the same page here and just a bit of textual confusion.
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As for my actual opinion.
I'm seeing a two hit situation that just makes this all feel like a very bad mess for Paizo.
First we get Kineticist which is an arguably much more powerful "caster like" class.
I've made posts in a number of places (mostly reddit and discord) on how I feel the average player wants to play DPS, not support. My backing for this is 20+ years playing MMOs where the hardest role to fill is always the support. Whether support means tank, healer, or a utility like the PF2E caster (and in the top MMO, this is Dancer and Bard - buff bot DPS support). Raid comps and pickup groups alike often fall apart before they can find someone willing to play those roles - even in MMOs where you can swap your role on the fly like FFXIV, World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, or Guild Wars 2 all allow - people would often rather not play at all than play a support / utility.
Yet PF2E has made somewhere around half of it's classes utility / support. Some of them to an extreme of being mostly buff-bots.
Players who like support, see no problem. Players who like DPS, had to get by with 'Cantrips' until Kineticist came out.
Cantrips were NOT equal to your top spell rank, many say they're not even equal to spell rank -1 or rank -2. BUT at least they gave you "something" to feel like you were doing a bit of the role you wanted to play. This for example... is why FFXIV's Dancer is more popular than Classic WoW's Ret Paladin. One at least could do subpar DPS while being a buffbot. The other was almost purely a buffbot (Ret paladin had DPS, but raid back then were 40 people, and your buffs were single target and measured in seconds and had to applied to as many of the 40 as you could hit before starting all over again - modern WoW's Ret Paladin doesn't even have it's support toolkit anymore and has become a martial DPS (*)).
So hit one:
Roughly 7 rule books in, we finally get a 'DPS caster'. Yeah, it's not a "real spell caster" - but it looks close enough that we see players drooling over it.
People like me start looking at it, then at the casters, and calling it a disruption to the game balance. Pushback notes a number of things that slowly mild down my response as it's very tightly focused and lacking in the utility.
BUT... why did I not see that at first?
Because most players in gaming want to be a DPS. And that's what I'm comparing it against with the other 'real casters' because that's my instinct.
That's not how PF2E sees its casters. Even if it's what the typical gamer would want. They want 50% of their classes to be designed to be "almost" forced into the least popular role in games: support, utility, or at worst just buffbots.
Cantrips formed the counter that - well, you can at least be an "off-DPS" as well as support.
And then hit two comes:
The Remaster Preview hints at cantrips getting a solid DPS Nerf. Which then appears to likely be later confirmed from dev comments on twitter.
Meaning they APPEAR to be doubling down on pushing all but kineticist into being even more support / utility than they are now.
There's a reddit thread where people are asking if Paizo just doesn't understand it's own community. I kind of agree with that thread.
I feel this all should have been flipped. The core rulebook should have had 3-4 casters built like Kineticist - DPS casters. We should have had to wait 7 rulebooks to get the utility build that the minority prefers.
AND...
This is coming from someone who ALWAYS plays support in MMO like games, and historically has done so as well in tRPGS.
Some people will note that a video game is not the same as a tRPG. But the players mostly are, and people are the same. MMOs have tried for 2 decades to make a popular support concept - and it's never worked. But at least the MMOs have been smart enough to not make half their roster of choices support.
And then nerfing that support's ability to even dabble into non-support, just makes it hurt even more.
(*) The change in WoW of the Ret Paladin going from a support buffbot to a martial DPS is an interesting tanget: MMO developers have been willing to make more radical changes to address moments when a design choice does not match their community.
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Question: have we had an explanation as to why casters scale their spellcasting proficiency at level 7, 15 and 19, while martials scale weapons at 5 and 13 ?
In my opinion this makes the majority of the life experience from the caster perspective to be frustrating. Getting to Legendary at 19 is essentially meaningless as the game is basically over and you have played catch up to martials up until then...
Is it because of the way spells scale in damage/effectiveness? If that's the case, are Paizo shifting the spells down with the remaster so that they can finally bring casters on a 5 - 13 path as well? I wouldn't know where to put Legendary in that case, but maybe there's no need, or maybe stays there at 19 ?
In the end, even a permanent item will not be used an infinite number of times.
It is an amount of money paid to get a given result for a certain number of times before the campaign ends.
The difference with a consumable is mostly an illusion.
So, what matters is which is the best way to spend your PC's money to get the aforementioned result.
Consumables have a definite advantage in being one-use and thus cheaper, which makes them available earlier.
I'm far more focused on building up armor, saving for an Apex item, and skill enhancing items. I mostly play APs. The money in APs isn't usually super high where I can casually spend money on consumables. If I find a useful scroll, wand, or staff in an AP, then I use it. Otherwise, sell everything and stock up on gold to build permanent items.
If I have a crafter and downtime, I make permanent items for a bit cheaper than they would normally cost.
That's how I do gold in campaigns. I don't spend a penny on a consumable until I have my main items and ready to buy upgrades at appropriate levels. Even the key items are real expensive.
I understand. But you miss on remarkable items. Cat's eye elixir is my go to consumable for every character. With lesser antidote and antiplague not far behind.
And that's not even talking about healing potions and elixirs of life.
If it proved necessary, we would buy it. The group I play in as a whole runs on a sort of minimum necessary to win type of mentality. I haven't found it very necessary to pick up any additional consumables to win. Usually we just use the high value spells and let the martials do the damage. Martial players like doing damage and swinging hard, so let them do the heavy lifting doing damage.
That means as a caster I'm not usually in range to have to make a save or worry about disease or poison. Most martials have good enough saves to resist or we have a condition remover to handle that after battle.
Just how we play. We generally allow the purchase of items upon reaching the necessary item level. So everyone saves to be ready to buy the good items as soon as they reach the level where the DM oks their purchase.
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Back to the point of using consumables ... how often 'should' they be used? Is it safe to assume a first-level wizard will earn four gold pieces a day to buy a new scroll? Or should they assume a scroll is used every other day?
How many days will your character be first level? and how many of those days will be spent adventuring? It would be uncommon for any character to have more than 10 encounters and not level up. With story awards common with APs, I think 8 encounters is really much more common than 10, and especially as encounters at 60 or less are the kind of encounters that very few spell slot spells are worth casting because it is very rare for a 60xp encounter or less to last even 2 rounds, and at level one, it is hard to imagine having a better spell slot spell than electric arc for most medium or low encounters if it is more than 1 enemy. If it is just one enemy, you really don't know if it is a medium encounter or a harder encounter without recalling knowledge, or metagame knowledge, or a GM that is being kind with descriptions.
So how many encounters will you be in at level 1 where an extra level 1 spell slot will make a difference? If you start with Super Bidi's 2 (1 more than I tend to start with), that is 4 to 5 to 6 spell slots perhaps for the first day of adventuring (wizard specialist with arcane bond is 6). Assuming 4ish encounters, are you likely to get 8 gold out of those 4 encounters? Gold by encounter says that you should be getting more than 4 gold per moderate encounter, so using scrolls after spell slots when encounters feel dangerous is really rather sustainable for casters.
By the end of the first 4 to 5 encounters your character has probably earned at least 10 gp. What are you going to be spending that on that is better than 2 extra spell slots for the next day?
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This also comes down to how you play.
Some players usually stop at level 10, especially if playing PFS.
As a player I'm planning for level 10 plus. Those who play only to around level 10 don't even necessarily get +2 or greater striking weapons because level 10 is when weapons start to upgrade as far as item level.
Those items are expensive. You go from paying 100 gold for a +1 striking weapon to paying two thousand for a +2 greater striking weapon to paying 40,000 for a +3 major striking weapon.
When you're playing in a campaign where you're fairly certain you'll hit level 15 and above, you start very low level building up cash only picking up those items you know will improve your strategy while not wasting much coin on items that get used and done.
I wouldn't probably start buying consumables until I obtained my Apex Item , major striking weapon or a good staff, and all my armor upgrades with the skill items I want. That's a long way from early levels.
Early levels are easy. I don't spend much time worrying about doing less damage than the 2 hand sword wielding fighter or barb.
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This is what happens if I'm given a bunch of scrolls
I pick one
I walk around with it in my hand
Fight starts, I cast it
I go back to using either my spell slots or cantrips+striking with a weapon
If I have a staff it's for ooc options
This has resulted in me feeling like I contribute more to a given encounter as a caster, not less.
I'm not going to use that meta magic *draw scroll* in combat unless it's the difference between life and death
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The whole point of this thread is that some people are struggling with the early level experience and asking what can make it better. By level 10, each character can be expecting to earn about 200 gold per moderate encounter. Trying to save up for your apex item at level 1, pinching pennies the whole way, is definitely making the game a lot more difficult on yourself and is a terrible strategy for new players.
This game does not operate on a realistic economy. Gold in your inventory cannot save you in a dungeon and within 10 encounters you will earn so much more wealth that your social class has certainly gone up as well.
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The whole point of this thread is that some people are struggling with the early level experience and asking what can make it better. By level 10, each character can be expecting to earn about 200 gold per moderate encounter. Trying to save up for your apex item at level 1, pinching pennies the whole way, is definitely making the game a lot more difficult on yourself and is a terrible strategy for new players.
This game does not operate on a realistic economy. Gold in your inventory cannot save you in a dungeon and within 10 encounters you will earn so much more wealth that your social class has certainly gone up as well.
My view differs as to the point of this thread. Your definition of make it better is lean into using consumables of which access is entirely dependent on GM.
It doesn't address that for a large % of the community consumables feels bad. Nothing about saying use more is going to change that and its a problem that has existed for longer than Paizo has been a company.
So for the seemingly significant portion of the community that doesn't want to lean on consumables as a caster and doesn't want to be support as a caster what is you advice?
For those that want the magical DPS fantasy not the toolbox of occasional lucky moments what is your advice? If it is change what you think a caster should be that is alienating. Its not like I am asking for a caster to be a warrior or tank, I am asking for a very common fantasy trope for caster DPS.
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At level 1? Electric arc is how almost any caster becomes an all day blaster. Pair it with ray of frost for range and a close-up higher damage cantrip like gouging claw. Congrats! Your ability to do damage is about as good as any ranged martial and if you tag on a weapon to attack with, your DPR is good. Use your spell slots for whatever you want. Hopefully force bolt makes it through in some fashion as well because that automatic damage is very good for boosting DPR at level 1.
Even if your goal is doing damage, it is a good idea to take debuffing or buffing level 1 spells to last whole encounters. Eventually you’ll fill in the slots with damaging spell slots, but level 1 casters have never had reliable access to spell slots for defining their round by round actions.
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The whole point of this thread is that some people are struggling with the early level experience and asking what can make it better. By level 10, each character can be expecting to earn about 200 gold per moderate encounter. Trying to save up for your apex item at level 1, pinching pennies the whole way, is definitely making the game a lot more difficult on yourself and is a terrible strategy for new players.
This game does not operate on a realistic economy. Gold in your inventory cannot save you in a dungeon and within 10 encounters you will earn so much more wealth that your social class has certainly gone up as well.
The only caster that feels sucky at low level is the wizard.
I feel find using Tempest Surge with cantrips and a weapon as a druid.
I feel fine using a weapon as a cleric.
I feel fine using a focus option or a weapon and cantrip as a sorcerer.
I even feel fine using a hex cantrip, a weapon, and a cantrip as a witch.
Bard feels fine using composition cantrips to boost the party, use a weapon, and/or cantrips.
The worst class is the wizard. Bad weapon choices, bad focus spells, and just cantrips to rely on. Wizard felt terrible because you couldn't pick any of the weapon feats for ancestries because you don't have simple weapon proficiency. All the school focus spells were mostly bad. It was the most terrible experience being a low level wizard.
Low level casters are fine. That is why I'm so tired of hearing about casters are bad when it's mostly wizards and witches are bad. Wizards across almost all levels comparatively. Witches as you start to see your focus and feat options are bad.
People keep wanting to lump casters together in this caster versus martial comparison. But it's not accurate at all.
For casters the wizard and witch feel terrible. They were big design misses and need work.
For martials the investigator and swashbuckler have problems and the ranger and monk to a much lesser degree. Investigator needs a power up badly. Swashbuckler needs the panache and finisher mechanic reworked. The monk needs a mild damage upgrade. The ranger needs an action economy fix to Hunt Prey as the levels rise.
Other than that, every class is pretty much good. So Paizo really needs to work on just a handful of classes to make things better for those classes.
It's not a caster versus martial disparity. That doesn't exist. It's not a low level casters are bad, it's just the wizard who relies more on spell slots more than any other class.
These are all very specific problems with very specific classes.
The honest truth is Paizo designed this game better than any previous edition of D and D and PF. Now they are the point where they need to fix a handful of classes with very specific problems that shouldn't be that hard to fix.
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Back to the point of using consumables ... how often 'should' they be used? Is it safe to assume a first-level wizard will earn four gold pieces a day to buy a new scroll? Or should they assume a scroll is used every other day?*shrug* Got me. Some make it seem like you're going through them like toilet paper. SuperBidi, for instance, said they got 2 scrolls to start [8 gp] and their "low level casters use a ton of scrolls".
Yes there's a strange how many people overvalue to scrolls but in fact its not like a char get enough time, money and actions to use them frequently.
This is the treasure table per character thats the around of the game expect that a character have when reach each level.
This is the scroll prices per rank table.
Now lets do a simple math of how many top levels scrolls you can get each level based on Lump Sum (dedication all your money to them):
1. 15 / 4 = 3
2. (30-15) / 4 = 3
3. (75-30) / 12 = 3
4. (140-75) / 12 = 5
5. (270-140) / 30 = 4
6. (450-270) / 30 = 6
7. (720-450) / 70 = 3
8. (1100-720) / 70 = 5
9. (1600-1100) / 150 = 3
10. (2300-1600) / 150 = 4
11. (3200-2300) / 300 = 3
12. (4500-3200) / 300 = 4
13. (6400-4500) / 600 = 3
14. (9300-6400) / 600 = 4
15. (13500-9300) / 1300 = 3
16. (20000-13500) / 1300 = 5
17. (30000-20000) / 3000 = 3
18. (45000-30000) / 3000 = 5
19. (69000-45000) / 8000 = 3
20. (112000-69000) / 8000 = 5
So if use all the money, including selling all your perma itens the maximum that a char can get is around 4 scrolls per level. If we consider the a moderate XP budged is 80 you will probably have around 12-13 encounters before level up so you will able to use about 1 scroll every 3 encounters!
But notice that this math is pretty optimistic if we consider that you probably will want some perma itens you probably just have enough money to get one top rank scroll per level.
So outside the idea to use scrolls to cast longstrider/mage armor (whats probably way better to get a wand to do this). I don't see too much efficiency doing this.
...I worry that the new changes to focus points and the at-will kineticist powers will really hurt support casters too at low levels, as they can finally do competitive amounts of healing to what was once the sole domain of caster's spell slots.
For example, take a champion and a cloistered cleric of Sarenrae, both of whom want to focus on party support. The champion takes Dieties Domain (fire ray), and decides to play an ancient elf with psychic dedication, giving them a focus pool of 3 points at level 1. The cloistered cleric chooses human, so they can take healing hands so their heal spells roll d10s, and chooses to start with +4 wis and +3 cha.
The cloistered cleric can cast 2 heals from spell slots and 4 from their healing font, for 6*(8+1d10) = 81 total healing on average, at the sacrifice of their survivability and doing more than casting fire ray and cantrips. And since their healing and cantrips are both 2 action, they are going to struggle to find a third action to perform.
Under the old rules, champions could only cast one lay on hands for 6 healing/combat, which wasn't really enough to keep up with incoming damage in even moderate encounters at level 1. In the remaster, this champion can do 18 points of healing/combat, in addition to the strong damage mitigation from the champion's reaction and the AC bonus from lay on hands. The champion is even competitive in burst healing, as 2 lay on hands = 12 healing compared to 13.5 average healing from the buffed 2 action spell slot. If you have more than 4 combats a day, the champion can actually output more total healing (and is way better at downtime healing) than the healbot cloistered priest. For an equivalent divine sorcerer who only casts heal, the champion will outheal them on average if you have more than 2 combats a day.
Having multiple ways to play a support is great, but the champion gets full martial damage, plate mail (eventually) and 10 hp/level, in addition to the better utility from champions
Don't worry that much about healing. Spellcasters will keep their place as top healers of the game. They not only heal more per action but also get a way bigger healing source than 3-4 heals per encounter that a champion can get. Also you need to invest some feats to get more healing focus spells or impulses and this competes too much with other options. Healing for casters is way more comfortable.
The only real problem that casters have is to role as damage dealers or tankers once they was cleared made to focus into toolboxing, debuffing and healing keeping the main role as tank/dd to martials.
At level 1? Electric arc is how almost any caster becomes an all day blaster. Pair it with ray of frost for range and a close-up higher damage cantrip like gouging claw. Congrats! Your ability to do damage is about as good as any ranged martial and if you tag on a weapon to attack with, your DPR is good. Use your spell slots for whatever you want. Hopefully force bolt makes it through in some fashion as well because that automatic damage is very good for boosting DPR at level 1.
Even if your goal is doing damage, it is a good idea to take debuffing or buffing level 1 spells to last whole encounters. Eventually you’ll fill in the slots with damaging spell slots, but level 1 casters have never had reliable access to spell slots for defining their round by round actions.
Sorry Unicore but not. You not even get closer to a Fighter or a Ranger DPR with a bow or a throw weapon.
The Remaster Preview hints at cantrips getting a solid DPS Nerf. Which then appears to likely be later confirmed from dev comments on twitter.I have to note that's still only low-level (<5) problem. Cantrip scaling is the same. But yes, it's still a problem and low levels experience is very important.
The main point for me isn't not too how much they nerfed. The AVG damage is still closer but the why Paizo done these things.
Why nerf cantrips in low levels if they was never a problem? Why change this? Why worse the currently situation of low-level casters if no one is getting a real problem with it? Why do this knowing that players already complain that attack cantrip is already pretty inefficient?
This is the part that bothers me the most in all of this, is Paizo kicking the dead dog and doing the opposite of what was asked, making what was already not good worse.
This is the part that bothers me the most in all of this, is Paizo kicking the dead dog and doing the opposite of what was asked, making what was already not good worse.
That stupid difference between their vision to the rest of the community is what makes no sense.
According to treasure by encounter, a level 1 party should roughly be getting 18 gp per moderate encounter. That’s about 4.5 gp per character per encounter. This would also blow the 175gp number out of the water though, so the numbers are loose.
What your math is ignoring is that top level -1 spells are fine for casting when they are the right spell, so 3-4 scrolls a level can easily triple. Scrolls work to greatly extend a caster’s adventuring day. It is definitely enough to greatly skew player’s perception of casting classes.
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Also Yuri,
I just realized you were using the lump sum of gold for a starting character at that level, AND subtracting the previous levels!
Players are expected to get and use consumables as a part of treasure loot. Players who have been playing strait through should generally be above the lump sum total for the starting level, and if they are not, then the GM is supposed to boost them, regardless of how their previous treasure has been spent. This is all spelled out in the CRB Gamemastering section. This is also why the treasure by encounter numbers are so much higher than your estimates here.
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Sorry but still way bellow that this. Your number is based that these treasure will be always gold and that you can stop between encounters to buy more scrolls. But in practice you still starts with 15 gp to use not only in scrolls but also your perma items like adventure gear, food and some daily needs.
Also many treasures not come in gold but as items and sometime even scrolls (thats usually is no for the spell that you want/need) after you get some downtime you will divide the itens with other party members keep those that is useful like potions and magical weapons and sell those wont interest to the rest of the party and pointed by Party Treasure by Level table you probably will enter in 2nd level with about 10-15gp to use to buy just 1 or 2 scrolls and buy some food, pay the inn and same something to unexpected needs.
This idea of "Scrolls work to greatly extend a caster’s adventuring day. It is definitely enough to greatly skew player’s perception of casting classes." is completely unreal.
...1 spells are fine for casting when they are the right spell, so 3-4 scrolls a level can easily triple...
And once again we back to toolbox. You are buying a scroll that requires one extra action to use it when is time to use the "right spell" and will this "greatly extend a caster’s adventuring day"?
Sorry Unicore but there's no way to the things works like this.
The players should get 175 total gold by level 2. 40 of that should be in straight gold. The rest in items. If you are giving players consumables they are not likely to use themselves, your direction is to only count them as half for treasure.
But even if it was all in items that had to be sold for half value, every player should get more than 20 gp by level 2 and even then, you’ve under treasured them.
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The players should get 175 total gold by level 2. 40 of that should be in straight gold. The rest in items. If you are giving players consumables they are not likely to use themselves, your direction is to only count them as half for treasure.
But even if it was all in items that had to be sold for half value, every player should get more than 20 gp by level 2 and even then, you’ve under treasured them.
There is zero way your reading that right
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A level 2 character has 30 gold worth of gear for wealth by level.
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I don’t know what to tell you, it is all laid out in the
core rulebook, page 508.
Maybe you haven’t done much homebrewing or encounter design, but I ran a 13 level campaign that was all homebrew so I got pretty familiar with those rules.
I think it is easy for players not to realize this game expectation if the GM is not following these rules. And the thing is, martials who find runes weapons are getting away keeping 90% of the wealth for those items, so it can easily seem like just keeping a tuned weapon as a caster is the better deal for your character too, but especially at level 2, that is just playing into your character looking like they have valuable gear, that is not as useful to your character, especially for wizards who might not really be good with any weapons anyway.
But over the course of level one, the party of 4 should find about 175 total treasure, with the expectation that 40 of that be gold or 100% valued sale items, up to 4 level 1 and 2 items the party expects to keep or just trade runes off of, and then a couple of consumables that should either be expected to be used at full value, or if they are likely to be sold, there should be twice as many of them. 175 divided by 4 is 43.75 gp per player. Some of it might be sold at half value but it should still be at least 30 gp per player if not more.
The consumables value is expected to be spent before the next level, hence why the lump sum for a new character starting at level 2 is lower than the amount of treasure that should be given out in actual play. This is the explicit expectation of the game. It is also why ABP can be so problematic for casters.
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The 175 gold is for "an entire party of 4" which if "all that stuff is exactly the stuff that the party would have bought on purpose" would result in 43.75 gold per character.
Since this is likely not the case, things sell for half value, and a character created at a given level will buy only items that they want with their starting gold. then this doesn't actually disagree with the WBL table.
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I don’t know what to tell you, it is all laid out in the
core rulebook, page 508.Maybe you haven’t done much homebrewing or encounter design, but I ran a 13 level campaign that was all homebrew so I got pretty familiar with those rules.
I think it is easy for players not to realize this game expectation if the GM is not following these rules. And the thing is, martials who find runes weapons are getting away keeping 90% of the wealth for those items, so it can easily seem like just keeping a tuned weapon as a caster is the better deal for your character too, but especially at level 2, that is just playing into your character looking like they have valuable gear, that is not as useful to your character, especially for wizards who might not really be good with any weapons anyway.
But over the course of level one, the party of 4 should find about 175 total treasure, with the expectation that 40 of that be gold or 100% valued sale items, up to 4 level 1 and 2 items the party expects to keep or just trade runes off of, and then a couple of consumables that should either be expected to be used at full value, or if they are likely to be sold, there should be twice as many of them. 175 divided by 4 is 43.75 gp per player. Some of it might be sold at half value but it should still be at least 30 gp per player if not more.The consumables value is expected to be spent before the next level, hence why the lump sum for a new character starting at level 2 is lower than the amount of treasure that should be given out in actual play. This is the explicit expectation of the game. It is also why ABP can be so problematic for casters.
That is party treasure.
You're not going to have the entire party treasure amount for your individual character.
You need to buy an armor rune too or buy spells or purchase skill items or weapons. Why would I use my limited gold to buy a consumable item when I want to buy permanent items as soon as I can get them?
I think the salient questions is- What can a GM give the party in loot drops for low level characters that a spellcaster would want that is not a consumable item? You're not supposed to give the party that much liquid wealth, and a 1st level wand costs more than a +1 weapon.
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I think the salient questions is- What can a GM give the party in loot drops for low level characters that a spellcaster would want that is not a consumable item? You're not supposed to give the party that much liquid wealth, and a 1st level wand costs more than a +1 weapon.
Are wands actually that valuable though? Whatever the system prices them at it doesn't seem like wands are currently all that desirable outside of casting a few notably lengthy buffs before diving into the adventure for the day. I'd be fine experimenting with treating wands as if they're half as valuable as claimed and being ready to walk things back if this breaks something.
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I think the salient questions is- What can a GM give the party in loot drops for low level characters that a spellcaster would want that is not a consumable item? You're not supposed to give the party that much liquid wealth, and a 1st level wand costs more than a +1 weapon.Are wands actually that valuable though? Whatever the system prices them at it doesn't seem like wands are currently all that desirable outside of casting a few notably lengthy buffs before diving into the adventure for the day. I'd be fine experimenting with treating wands as if they're half as valuable as claimed and being ready to walk things back if this breaks something.
Wands are not that valuable in play, though some are nice. I imagine the Paizo designers valued them as a reusable consumable.
I added item bonuses to hit for attack spells to wands and staves and they still don't throw off the game balance.
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I think the salient questions is- What can a GM give the party in loot drops for low level characters that a spellcaster would want that is not a consumable item? You're not supposed to give the party that much liquid wealth, and a 1st level wand costs more than a +1 weapon.Are wands actually that valuable though? Whatever the system prices them at it doesn't seem like wands are currently all that desirable outside of casting a few notably lengthy buffs before diving into the adventure for the day. I'd be fine experimenting with treating wands as if they're half as valuable as claimed and being ready to walk things back if this breaks something.
Wands are good for spells you know you will use about once a day as a replacement for a scroll of said spell
Wealth by level is for starting new characters at that level and is a number for GMs to use as a bottom baseline for checking to see if the player’s are dividing loot up fairly. If any PC is at less than 30gp at the start of level 2, the GM has given out too little treasure/treasure that is not valuable enough for the characters.
But the GM should have given out 175 gp of treasure, not 60 gp, which is what giving each player 15 more gold would have done. If you read the treasure by level section, the rules are explicit about all of this.
The issue here is that players don’t really get to control this and can only really look at the wealth by level chart and ask if they have as least that much by level 2. But if they are just at 30 gp after having played through all of level 1, and they haven’t used any consumables, then either some party members are way over budget, or the GM is not giving out nearly enough treasure.
Adding in house rules items will complicate that sure. How much additional value do add to a wand that gives out item bonuses? Wands are already way out of the price range for characters at the start of level 2, so one would greatly shift the wealth of the character given such wand, without significantly helping that character if they are really struggling with running out of resources as a caster. After all, going through 4 to 6 encounters per day means getting to use the wand maybe 3 times? Meanwhile, 4 useful scrolls as loot will do a lot more for the caster character in making them feel like they have resources to contribute to a challenging encounter, even if it comes late in the day. As a GM, not giving the party consumable resources that are useful to caster, while just handing out things like weapon potency runes or a suit of plate armor, is making the game harder for casters, much the same way as only giving a character who recalls knowledge information that they already know or is not actionable.
Maybe the remastered rules will be more clear, since it is clear that even experienced GMs are not really aware of how much more wealth players should be getting in actual play than following the wealth by level table, as a guide.
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There are very, very clearly several exceptions to this.
The most obvious is the wand of L2 longstrider. I don't think I've ever seem a semi-optimized arcane or primal caster who doesn't put buying one of these as a quite high priority.
Other common exceptions are things like mage armor. Depending on the campaign (eg, wilderness campaign where you're wandering for days, or a campaign with slow advancement) its reasonably likely that a wand is far more cost effective than scrolls. And beats dedicating a spell to it.
Depending on campaign there are quite a few spells that you'll want on just about every single day and a wand is often the cheapest alternative.
The effect of your Wand of Longstrider is to free one of your spell slots (the one you'd use to cast Longstrider). So you effectively gain a spell slot you can spend on any spell you want. And it's this spell that you need to track to determine the usefulness of your Wand. And chances are extremely high that you won't cast this spell 10 to 15 times in your entire career. So buy a couple of Scrolls of this spell and you have roughly the equivalent of your Wand of Longstrider but for a 5th of the price.
The fact that "everyone buys it" doesn't mean it's anywhere close to optimized. Wisdom of the crowd has its limits. And in general, you reach the limit when bias hit the table, like in this case bia against consumable items.
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Back to the point of using consumables ... how often 'should' they be used? Is it safe to assume a first-level wizard will earn four gold pieces a day to buy a new scroll? Or should they assume a scroll is used every other day?
There's really no "should" answer to that question. There are a lot of different uses of consumables. I personally buy scrolls for my casters and craft alchemical items for my Alchemists, mostly to lengthen my adventuring days and avoid getting out of spells/items in the middle of a deadly fight. But these things are not ones I can forecast, they happen, sometimes, rarely, I'd say once every 3-4 levels on average.
I also have a pouch of utility spells/alchemical items, but these ones are rarely used besides my Scrolls of Faerie Fire.So my overall use of Scrolls/crafted Alchemical Items is rather low. In PF2, I invest roughly 5-10% of my gold in non-utility items (1 or 2 scrolls per spell level, depending on the caster I play and the expected difficulty of the campaign). And actually a higher portion of my gold goes for utility items, but it's mostly a gold sink so it's because the environments I play in are rather generous with gold.
I saw someone raising the question of availability, and it's true it's an important question. I had GMs annoying me on finding Scrolls, as if finding a consumable item should be as hard as finding a permanent item. I think it shouldn't, but they thought otherwise. On the contrary, there are lots of environments like PFS where no one gives a crap about the way you spend your gold.
I also find that loot is rather bad in most APs. In general, past the mandatory runes, you have nearly nothing interesting. At least, martials have runes and can be quite happy about them, but for casters it's a complete derth of items (you can play an entire campaign without keeping a single item but runes, it happened to me in Starfinder but Pathfinder 2 is not much different). Sometimes, the GM wants to give you a "good item" and most of the time they'll look at Wands and Staves and (unless they ask you what item to give you) they are always sad when you sell it immediately. Scrolls, on the other hand, are always a good thing as long as the GM chooses any high level fight oriented spell (I'd definitely prefer a bunch of Fireball 5 Scrolls than a bunch of Flame Strike Scrolls but I'd definitely keep and use the Flame Strike ones if I ever find them as having the top notch spell is not necessary as long as the spell is a high level easy to use one).
The effect of your Wand of Longstrider is to free one of your spell slots (the one you'd use to cast Longstrider). So you effectively gain a spell slot you can spend on any spell you want. And it's this spell that you need to track to determine the usefulness of your Wand. And chances are extremely high that you won't cast this spell 10 to 15 times in your entire career. So buy a couple of Scrolls of this spell and you have roughly the equivalent of your Wand of Longstrider but for a 5th of the price.
The fact that "everyone buys it" doesn't mean it's anywhere close to optimized. Wisdom of the crowd has its limits. And in general, you reach the limit when bias hit the table, like in this case bia against consumable items.
It is pretty funny how wands are typically better value for martials.
That said, there are some level 2 spells worth freeing the slot up for even if this is more true for something like see invis (5th) where you free up another synesthesia or wall of stone or something.
In the case of something like the flex wizard, blender wizard or flexible blender wizard, it has more value because you're already burning a bunch of slots elsewhere.
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It is pretty funny how wands are typically better value for martials.
I find that quite logical. There are 2 uses of Wands: Grabbing a spell you can cast and grabbing a spell you can't cast. Obviously, there's more value out of the second use and as such they are much more attractive in that case.
Also, it's not limited to martials. Some of my casters have Wands. My Oracle uses a Wand of Spectral Hand to deliver his Tempest Touches easily. And as a lot of my casters grab Psychic Dedication for the exceptional Focus Spells, I also grab Wands of some iconic Occult spells (Synesthesia and Slow first and foremost). And I find Wands of Manifold Missiles to be absolutely abusable with the right build (the only Witch build I like uses Fervor on themselves and Wands of Manifold Missiles for an unacceptable amount of automatic damage every round).If the environment you play in split gold equally between casters and martials, you have in general a lot of spare gold as a caster as you don't need to buy weapons. Considering the amount of gold, there's in general a way to get a lot of value out of it.
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It is very easy to assume martials are better than casters when more than 50% of party actions and resources go towards supporting them. I wonder how common it is for parties that are decrying how bad casters are to unfairly divide up party wealth because "the caster doesn't really need anything at this level," or for the caster to get caught up spending all of their wealth trying to be a martial instead of buying more casting options.
It is a huge problem with ABP that it is focused exclusively on item bonuses and not the other things items do for characters. I totally get not enjoying turning every TTRPG into "Wagon Packer" where everything is about counting coppers and spending too much time feeling like you are just having to micromanage your inventory, but caster items give more spells per day. Spells are a resource that is inherently very valuable and are difficult to modify except by adding more of them, or taking them away. ABP just does not address that well at all and it leaves many players of casters having a sour experience with their class choice.
It doesn't help if GMs that are not using ABP, but are running pre-written APs are not really paying attention to wealth distribution or how it is used by their party and martial characters are consistently getting 90% of the value of their treasure while casters are getting 50%, assuming that the party is even splitting the treasure up equally.
I do think that this can be leveled as a systemic problem with PF2, but not with the rules system itself, but rather the systems in place of communicating rules expectations to GMs and players across many different types of games that players might play in. It is not an easy thing to get right, so I don't suggest this as a "problem" that is a fault of Paizo folks, who I think are doing a fantastic job overall, but I think PFS gets player wealth right more often than probably Pre-written Adventure Paths and modules do. More regular "wealth check-ins" are definitely needed than most players experience when playing a long campaign. Especially if this problem is already manifesting by level 2 (as seen in this thread). getting 50% less wealth than you should hurts at level 2, but it will absolutely wreck wizard and witch and sorcerer players by level 5 or 7 if it has been going on the whole time. No wonder the meta around casters, especially at low levels is so negative in certain groups.
Groups that look at items only as bonuses to character numbers, especially permanent bonuses, are leaving casters in the dust until staves and apex items really become prevalent. Spell hearts were an excellent addition to try to help mitigate this for some groups, but there really is nothing even close to scrolls in the early levels of the game for extending spell casting for casters.
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The wands thing was not "wands are good" so much as "what permanent gear that helps casters actually exists at low levels without breaking the wealth curve?"
A weapon potency rune is 35 gold, so you can give those out pretty early, but casters don't want those. Armor potency runes are 160 so that's more of a 3rd/4th level loot drop. Staves and Wands bottom out at 60 so those don't start showing up until 3rd level or so.
I think the point is that if you're a low-level spellcaster and you absolutely refuse to cast a spell from a scroll, it's possible you are doing it wrong since scrolls are about the only item that you're liable to want to use in those very early loot piles (I mean, maybe you might drink a healing potion, but those are generally for people who face more danger.)
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The wands thing was not "wands are good" so much as "what permanent gear that helps casters actually exists at low levels without breaking the wealth curve?"
A weapon potency rune is 35 gold, so you can give those out pretty early, but casters don't want those. Armor potency runes are 160 so that's more of a 3rd/4th level loot drop. Staves and Wands bottom out at 60 so those don't start showing up until 3rd level or so.
I think the point is that if you're a low-level spellcaster and you absolutely refuse to cast a spell from a scroll, it's possible you are doing it wrong since scrolls are about the only item that you're liable to want to use in those very early loot piles (I mean, maybe you might drink a healing potion, but those are generally for people who face more danger.)
I don't see what's wrong with the caster getting cash so he can buy whichever staff, wand, spellheart, ect they want at the start of 3rd. I find this puts them ahead of people that waiting for a particular drop or are saving for something more expensive [like armor runes]. I don't know that casters particularly NEED items for level 1 and 2: my caster is quite happy with a big fat gem or bag of cash in "those very early loot piles": I mean it makes more sense that creatures for those levels aren't rolling around on beds made out of scrolls and it's not like they are a durable item you'd expect to survive in something like an animal/monster den.
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Yeah, as long as the caster is getting the equal part treasure to the martial characters including items kept and used, it is ok, even if the difference between a character who has saved every last copper from level 1 to 3 and the character that has spent 20-50 of their treasure on scrolls will be that the character saving their wealth will get the wand 3ish encounters earlier than the character who has been buying some scrolls along the way.
In practice this will mater if they have the wealth to buy it between dungeons or not. If neither is there by the time the party goes off to a new dungeon, there will be no difference, because the 4 to 6 encounters in the new dungeon will make wand available to both of them. It is not wrong to play where you don't spend any gold before going off to the dungeon if you can't buy the permanent item you want next, but you are making the next several encounters more difficult on yourself, and the likelihood that you get more gold than you need to get the now level appropriate item in loot during that day is pretty high, so it is a decision that often has no pay off, but I do understand the psychology of just feeling bad about using consumables. That is a player choice, but it is also one that is making the game more difficult for you, not making the game more difficult for casting characters.