How would you remaster the wizard?

[Easl]

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

Easl wrote:

P564: "The scroll’s rarity matches the spell’s rarity."

If your GM is not making 'common spell' scrolls as easily available as runes or heck even basic swords, then they are not meeting "a fundamental expectation for literally every class" either...

There are a number of points which were talked about upthread which can be susceptible to a high degree of table variance that impact Wizard performance more than many classes....

Get the most out of a Wizard, you just need a lot more cooperation from a GM than most other classes ask for or would even need. Which is an ask, not an expectation.

I agree that table variance in equipment availability can affect some classes more than others - and is most likely to negatively impact classes that are built for a high magic setting.

However, I disagree with your last sentence. It should not be an ask that common items be common. That is a very reasonable player expectation. Isn't it?

[R3st8]

Calliope5431 wrote:

Themetricsystem wrote:

It is beyond me why this thread continues at this point. No offense meant to those participating but ... the ink on the Remaster changes has been dry since before they even announced that it was happening and none of these suggestions are doing anything other than maybe recycling overblown hype in anticipation of the final changes that we already pretty much know are minor and far less sugary/sweet than what is being requested.

I get that it's kinda disappointing that there wasn't a public call to action for specific criquiqes, suggestions, and feedback in advance of the Remaster let alone a playtest but since they mentioned that the books are already done and off to the printer this whole thread strikes me as "hoping in one hand" and I think most of us know how the rest of that adage goes.

Two words. Quick hacks.

If you're disappointed with the wizard, it gives you some ideas for going to your GM and saying "hey, you know how wizard is sad? Could you do this?"

Likewise, it gives GMs with frustrated players ideas of how to help.

"Spell substitution as a class feature" for instance. Or "add an item like Gate Attenuator in Rage of Elements for some accuracy to spell attacks". I know @Deriven FireLion you've tried out "Flexible Casting on all wizards for free with no spell slot penalty" and it didn't work for you, but that's also another option (and your experience tells us what works and what doesn't). Maybe you want to add +1 or +2 to wizard DCs as a global thing. All of these are ways to make a happier wizard in a game you might want to run.

And the suggestions by the people defending the current wizard are helpful too, since they also give GMs advice to give to their players or maybe better ways to run the game (provide more opportunity to swap spells, give out more scrolls as loot, recommend to players that they take "abc" feats and theses if they want "xyz" result, remind their players that scrolls exist in general).

Basically, the remaster may be...

Elephant in the room but for wizards? if it gets so bad that the remaster just flat out nerfs the wizard we could always make community rules as a general consensus of those who are unsatisfied with wizard class.

[Squiggit]

Argonar_Alfaran wrote:

I also wouldn't assume everybody is playing APs, they are not mandatory for the game.

Yes Focus spells are the bare minimum of what I'd expect them to change, especially if they are supposed to become a bigger focus of the game.

It's less that you should assume everyone is playing an AP and more that APs are interesting to look at because they're created by Paizo, which gives us some insight into how they think the game should be played.

[Temperans]

Paizo develops the rules and is known to make quality APs, so it stands to reason that their APs would be a good fit for their game. By comparison you cannot expect random GMs to have consistent application of the rules, much less consistent adventure design.

Saying that a GM needs to do X otherwise Y classes do not work means that the GM needs to do extra work. This on a system that is sold as being "GM friendly" and "well balanced" makes those statements seem like they were made by biased reviewers. Yeah its "easier on GMs" if you ignore that a quarter of the classes barely function without explicit GM help. Yeah its "balanced" if you ignore the fact some classes are clearly favored (fighter & bard) while others are given token support (alchemist, witch, wizard, etc).

[Old_Man_Robot]

Easl wrote:

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

Easl wrote:

P564: "The scroll’s rarity matches the spell’s rarity."

If your GM is not making 'common spell' scrolls as easily available as runes or heck even basic swords, then they are not meeting "a fundamental expectation for literally every class" either...

There are a number of points which were talked about upthread which can be susceptible to a high degree of table variance that impact Wizard performance more than many classes....

Get the most out of a Wizard, you just need a lot more cooperation from a GM than most other classes ask for or would even need. Which is an ask, not an expectation.

I agree that table variance in equipment availability can affect some classes more than others - and is most likely to negatively impact classes that are built for a high magic setting.

However, I disagree with your last sentence. It should not be an ask that common items be common. That is a very reasonable player expectation. Isn't it?

In the same post you are quoting I said this wasn't about item distribution.

The Wizard needs greater level of coordination between player and GM in order to let the Wizard shine and have proper power fantasy moments.

Its easy, especially in a party where you are 1 of 6 players who needs such considerations, for a GM to unintendedly set the pace or style of a game to work against the needs of a Wizard.

Long adventuring days, no means of scouting or getting advanced knowledge of enemies, lack of opportunities to prepare ahead of time for encounters, lack of access to means of acquiring new spells readily, a focus on a smaller number of more powerful enemies, etc etc.

In a game where the GM is being particularly Wizard friendly, then the class works better.

But since you are only 1 player out of a group, you are asking for this consideration. You cannot just expect it. Not at every table and especially not every session.

[Dragonbane999]

Part of the issue with prepared casting, and wizard prepared casting in particular, is the already mentioned need to have foreknowledge of your encounters to actually gain the advantage preparation provides you.

Wizards feel this more keenly because their class toolkit does not have other options for them to use. Clerics use a limited spell list and focus more on party heals and buffs, which can stay consistent and Druids have shapeshifting for martial combat. Witches are pretty close with wizard for this issue.

I also agree that providing the opportunity to both acquire and have prepared the correct spells for the encounter is a consideration that GMs have to make for wizards to help them not just be worse sorcerers.

One of the things I think might work is retooling their drain bonded item to have an option to instead allow them to cast any spell in their spellbook. Maybe the universal wizard version lets them cast that one spell at each spell level, or a recast of a prepared spell, to prevent it from being too overpowered.

It's one of the things that's always bothered me about wizards, and why I liked arcanist so much. A wizard is centered around their spellbook, except the book is just a literal paperweight while adventuring. The quick study ability let arcanists actually use their spellbook actively throughout the day. Wizards need something similar.

I think of this as akin to the sorcerer's ability to take a feat to get a spellbook they can prepare one spell a day from. It lets the sorcerer dip their toe into the wizard realm so they aren't just out of luck if their base spells aren't up to the task.

Giving wizards the ability to, at least once per day, pull out the right spell for the job from their spellbook is like a supercharged preparation ability, which fits the wizard theme. After all, part of the preparation needed is having the foresight to bother learning the spell in the first place.

[Easl]

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

The Wizard needs greater level of coordination between player and GM in order to let the Wizard shine and have proper power fantasy moments.

Its easy, especially in a party where you are 1 of 6 players who needs such considerations, for a GM to unintendedly set the pace or style of a game to work against the needs of a Wizard.

Long adventuring days, no means of scouting or getting advanced knowledge of enemies, lack of opportunities to prepare ahead of time for encounters, lack of access to means of acquiring new spells readily, a focus on a smaller number of more powerful enemies, etc etc.

In a game where the GM is being particularly Wizard friendly, then the class works better.

But since you are only 1 player out of a group, you are asking for this consideration. You cannot just expect it. Not at every table and especially not every session.

But isn't that true of basically every class? A melee martial confronted with archers behind a city wall. A ranged caster or martial forced into melee range. Any character facing antagonists resistant or immune to their primary source of damage. A combat-specialized character in a non-combat scene. A non-combat-specialized character in a combat scene. The list goes on.

Temperans had a good observation about the APs being a standard point of comparison (because they're made by the game designers for 'how the game should be played'), but if we use them, I don't see your problems being major. Your list of 'unfriendly game/setting decisions for Wizards' isn't, for example, baked in to AV (maybe the last?). For sure, all the problems you mention could come up in a homebrew campaign, but at that point I don't see the issue. A good GM in a homebrew campaign *should be* considering the character's classes and build decisions when they design scenes, sessions, and story arcs. They *should be* considering how to give each PC a moment in the spotlight. So if you're arguing that the Wizard class requires GM coordination to shine in a homebrew campaign...okay? Point conceded but I'm not sure this is a problem Paizo need fix?

Doesn't this "problem with the class" fall under the general GM advice of "don't constantly make encounters that strip away the character's cool abilities because you can't think of a better way to make it challenging for them"?

For sure, that sort of GM failure can affect the Wizard more than others. "If I give them info and let them appropriately prep, they'll prep that one weird spell which will totally defeat my big cool trap in 5 seconds. I do not want my big cool trap defeated in 5 seconds. Therefore, I will not let the party gather appropriate info or appropriately prep." That sort of GMing for sure happens. And the Wizard, with a huge utility spell list to draw from, feels that sort of bad GMing more than others. But it's still an issue of *bad GMing*, not an issue of class design.

[Temperans]

A melee character that encounters archers can get cover and/or run up to the enemy. A person who uses ranged attacks that finds itself in melee and vice versa can choose to use a different weapon at any time. A spellcaster who picked a spell to learn (non-cleric/druid) is stuck with that spell until they learn more. An spontaneous caster can pick from any spell they know at any time. A prepared caster has to wait a full day (10 minutes for 1 specific subschool) for them to do so.

The comparison between just using a different weapon and needing to wait a full day is not at all comparable. The fact that casters already have a worse chance to land their effect unless they guess correctly makes it all worse because you very well might not have the spell that targets their specific weakness.

Wizards are only able to function as having "silver bullets" if they are allowed to scry (which was nerfed), their spells have a reliable chance to work (which they don't), and have the time & money to hunt for the specific spell that they need (people don't like that sort of gameplay).

This is why you only see the same set of spells being recommended every time. Those spells are the ones that work reliably due to their "the spell failed" being better than other spells. Which is bad when someone wants to make their thematic character and immediately become a worse character.

******************

Also setting up a type of adventure that is faster pace is not bad GMing. Not having everything told to a player unless they found out about it is not bad GMing.

It is bad class design when a class needs the GM to hold your hands otherwise the class is bad. It is the definition of bad design. Its the reason why PF2 alchemist, witch, wizard, etc are all consistently called bad classes.

Don't blame GMs for the fact that the game is not properly balanced. Specially not when people sell the game saying that is its biggest good point.

[Dragonbane999]

Wizards are in a weird spot where the considerations for them is an additive premeditated process, instead of a process that can be done with changes on the fly.

If you have an encounter with archers on a wall that is problematic for your fighters, you can not so subtly shove bows on some enemies in the encounter before, or add some melee fighters that come out, or put in a backdoor to the fort, or any number of changes that can be done literally in the same session.

For a wizard, you have to know what the party will be facing before they do, to an extent that the wizard is able to both find and learn the needed spells in time, and is given enough information to have them prepared on the correct day they need to be used.

I've often seen this done by heavily incentivizing divination spells, which a LOT of players underuse because GMs don't want to ruin their big surprise, or give away the entire plot of their campaign, which is the first thing players tend to want to use divination spells for. Players then get turned off of the spells when the GM immediately scrambles to be as vague as possible to the point the info feels worthless and a waste of play time to try and cajole out of the GM.

The biggest problem with attempting all of this preparation is, of course, that play is chaotic, your party doesn't do what you expect them to, and you have limited prep time and will often wing things or change them on the fly to compensate.

All of this tends to screw with the preparation needed by the wizard. When you make those on-the-fly changes, you would need to intentionally add/alter scenarios that get countered by the spells the wizard already has prepared.

The problem with this, is that if you do this, you are basically just designing your encounter around a preset and known list of spells that the wizard likes to prepare..... exactly like you would do for a sorcerer.

This discourages planning and preparation on the part of the wizard, since you will just compensate for whatever spells they prepare, and thus over time you get into a situation where the spellcaster might as well just play a sorcerer, because you are just going to design around the spell list they choose anyways. Any situations where you drop big hints like "Oh my, this thing coming up would sure be easier with a knock spell......." can just be covered by the sorcerer's one prepared spell feat.

[Temperans]

Dragonbane999 wrote:

Wizards are in a weird spot where the considerations for them is an additive premeditated process, instead of a process that can be done with changes on the fly.

If you have an encounter with archers on a wall that is problematic for your fighters, you can not so subtly shove bows on some enemies in the encounter before, or add some melee fighters that come out, or put in a backdoor to the fort, or any number of changes that can be done literally in the same session.

For a wizard, you have to know what the party will be facing before they do, to an extent that the wizard is able to both find and learn the needed spells in time, and is given enough information to have them prepared on the correct day they need to be used.

I've often seen this done by heavily incentivizing divination spells, which a LOT of players underuse because GMs don't want to ruin their big surprise, or give away the entire plot of their campaign, which is the first thing players tend to want to use divination spells for. Players then get turned off of the spells when the GM immediately scrambles to be as vague as possible to the point the info feels worthless and a waste of play time to try and cajole out of the GM.

The biggest problem with attempting all of this preparation is, of course, that play is chaotic, your party doesn't do what you expect them to, and you have limited prep time and will often wing things or change them on the fly to compensate.

All of this tends to screw with the preparation needed by the wizard. When you make those on-the-fly changes, you would need to intentionally add/alter scenarios that get countered by the spells the wizard already has prepared.

The problem with this, is that if you do this, you are basically just designing your encounter around a preset and known list of spells that the wizard likes to prepare..... exactly like you would do for a sorcerer.

This discourages planning and preparation on the part of the wizard, since you will just compensate for whatever spells they...

Divinations spells were also all made to be worse than past editions. For example:

* Scrying is uncommon, higher level, slower speed, more difficult to land, and cannot use the location for other spells.
* Claivoyance is higher level, shorter distance, & shorter duration. At least it has faster cast speed.
* Prying eyes makes only a single sensor, much shorter duration (1 minute instear of 1+ hours), cannot be upgraded to true seeing. The only good point is that it gives immidiate feed back instead of after they return.
* True Seeing has shorter duration, shorter distance, and its not guaranteed.
* etc.

So that playstyle is worse even if you wanted to try it. Which a lot of people do not want to play a divination mage or want to need those spells for their [insert cool magic attack] to work.

[Unicore]

I made a separate thread for continuing the conversation about encounter design, adventure design and player/GM expectations because, while I don't think it is off-topic, it has the potential to derail this thread from folks that just want to talk about changes they would make to the wizard class. That thread is intended to be a little more generalized to helping GMs think about the ways they run the game and the impact that will have on their table.

[Squiggit]

Easl wrote:

Doesn't this "problem with the class" fall under the general GM advice of "don't constantly make encounters that strip away the character's cool abilities because you can't think of a better way to make it challenging for them"?

But no one is talking about stripping away a character's abilities. The examples are largely typical encounters being run normally.

[Dexter Coffee]

More interesting feats that play better into the different niches honestly.

Some things along the lines of a Conjurer or Necromancer (or whatever they will be called now) being able to summon better versions than other folks. Say you can summon a 17th level common/uncommon outsider or undead since you are good at that kind of stuff, but it's a curated list so you can't pick something that outclasses a 3/4 Fighter class. Like a Marilith might be too good since its attack with augment summon is equal to a 3/4 Fighter but a Ice Linnorm not as much. Since it would be your 10th level spell and more of an endgame thing it would probably work fine. Along with more feats along the way to this one giving you more varied summons or ways to use them.

Blasters not getting better blasts that's more the psychic thing, but play into the battlefield control with feats and focus spells to debuff your enemies BEFORE hitting them hard and setting up advantageous situations for you melee allies. It is what I think of when thinking war wizard. I know this is already possible but maybe make it more obvious and more of change to make it easier for players to see HOW to go about blowing the bad guys up as a wizard blaster.

For my part the wizards have "good" choices but NOT "fun" choices. With spell sub thesis being particularly egregious as not being bad or anything but by being something worse by being boring. The same goes for the feat tax of spell penetration.

I want FUN in my choices, with other classes I have to make sacrifices because there a quite a few thing I REALLY want because they have fun choices. Wizard not at all nope. Time to archetype it up.

[R3st8]

Temperans wrote:

Divinations spells were also all made to be worse than past editions. For example:

* Scrying is uncommon, higher level, slower speed, more difficult to land, and cannot use the location for other spells.
* Claivoyance is higher level, shorter distance, & shorter duration. At least it has faster cast speed.
* Prying eyes makes only a single sensor, much shorter duration (1 minute instear of 1+ hours), cannot be upgraded to true seeing. The only good point is that it gives immidiate feed back instead of after they return.
* True Seeing has shorter duration, shorter distance, and its not guaranteed.
* etc.

So that playstyle is worse even if you wanted to try it. Which a lot of people do not want to play a divination mage or want to need those spells for their [insert cool magic attack] to work.

A example of multiple nerfs that make sense and are possibly balanced individually but when combined create a overnerf, the questions is whether its intended or not.