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There are a lot of different answers to these questions, depending on the point of view.
From a purely practical point of view, casters used to (in 1E and other editions of D&D) one shot fights with the proper spells. Now, fights are meant to last 3-4 rounds with a contribution of an entire 4PC-team. Which means that spells have been nerfed 12-16 times. So, yes, spells give -1s and things like that. It works as intended from the core design of the game.
Changing your mindset is certainly a good idea if you want to continue playing a caster. I personally like my casters and chances are great that I do the same things you do. So a different mindset can give a different look on spellcasters.
What do you play (for an adventure)? Some adventures really put martials ahead. Abomination Vaults is really putting them in the spotlight with a combination of tight spaces, lack of non-combat encounters and high number of single-opponent fights. Other adventures may be better suited for casters.
What do you play (for characters)?
I was a great lover of Bards in the past, I can't touch PF2 Bard with a 10-foot pole. Chances are high that what you like in PF2 may be different than what you used to like in previous editions. Don't hesitate to switch, you could have nice surprises.
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I'll admit that my mind is stuck in an all-or-nothing mindset.
That is what you need to overcome. In general with PF2, not just casters.
PF2 is for telling stories. But the stories that it is suited for telling aren't the 'we main characters are superpowered and will roll through every enemy that dares to stand against us'.
PF2 enemies are worthy enemies. They can take a beating and keep coming. And they can give as good as they get.
If you are looking for a TTRPG system where you are rolling through encounters, you might be able to tweak things by changing the relative level of the enemies that you are fighting. If your party of 4th level characters are going up against level 2 enemies, your spells are going to feel a lot more effective.
But if your party of 4th level characters age going up against level 7 enemies and you feel like the enemies are just shrugging off your spells - well, that's working as intended. A level +3 enemy is basically Thanos to your characters. You can take them down, but it will take everything you've got and a bit of luck on top of that.
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I cast a spell that causes Difficult terrain? Cool! Behold as...!
The... enemies... simply use the rest of their actions to literally reach me anyway so that they can hit me on their next turn despite what I did. So what that tells me is that... not much changed.
1) Actions eaten up moving are less actions spent harming you and your Allies.
2) why are you standing still?
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I'll admit that my mind is stuck in an all-or-nothing mindset.That is what you need to overcome. In general with PF2, not just casters.
PF2 is for telling stories. But the stories that it is suited for telling aren't the 'we main characters are superpowered and will roll through every enemy that dares to stand against us'.
I never said I wanted to be an absolute god or anything. At this point literally all I want is nothing more than just having my spells actually /work/.
I don't want to be OP. Or broken or anything. I just want my character's spells to do what they say on the tin and work more than once in a blue moon. :c
As mentioned above, the results you get thanks to your spells are game-changers, even if they are not immediate game-winners.
Wizard is not for everyone and Witch is currently underpowered, though that will change by the end of the year thanks to Remaster.
Spontaneous casters might actually bring you more satisfaction.
Or maybe Psychic or Kineticist like others have mentioned too.
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I'll admit that my mind is stuck in an all-or-nothing mindset.That is what you need to overcome. In general with PF2, not just casters.
PF2 is for telling stories. But the stories that it is suited for telling aren't the 'we main characters are superpowered and will roll through every enemy that dares to stand against us'.
I never said I wanted to be an absolute god or anything. At this point literally all I want is nothing more than just having my spells actually /work/.
I don't want to be OP. Or broken or anything.
Mmmm... No, in PF2 terms, that is pretty much what you are asking for. You want your spellcaster to be basically, 'I cast spell. Enemy is completely ineffective. It can't hit me or any of my allies any more.' Or 'I cast spell. Now ally is guaranteed to hit enemy.'
Basically, 'I cast spell. I win.'
Now, I will point out that I am taking to this conversation with your same attitude.
This post might not come across as too friendly, but being rude is not my intent, and I'm sorry.
If you want the raw and unabashed truth, I'm happy to oblige.
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As for what I play; typically a Wizard or an Occult Witch.
Well, Wizard and Witch...
3 solutions:
- Accept that success to the save will be the norm (60% of the time roughly, enemies succeed at their save).
- Switch classes. Druid if you really want to stay prepared. Sorcerer otherwise (Bard is strong but support oriented).
- Double down on spells. Prepare them twice so one will work.
Changing your mindset is necessary, in my opinion.
I fixed it by mainly avoiding 4 slot casters. The P2e balance point of spells is fine when you have additional class features to lean on
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I will just say, I have a player just like you in my game. They will play a caster and complain every time they cast a spell how "useless" they are except for damage. The spell can completely destroy an encounter and the player still thinks it was a waste. There is LITERALLY nothing I can do to change their mind, so I doubt we can help you here.
Won't even try to target monsters based on the saves and complains how their spells never hit. Somehow even a -3 penalty is seen as bad. As a GM it just drove me crazy. My encounters were decimated by casters using spells efficiently. I remember so many encounters trivialized because of spells like walls and debuffs like slow. Yet they always felt they never were good enough.
I have played PF1 where you just cast Glitterdust on multiple monsters and they lose over 8 ac from one spell and can't hit. IMO this is not a fun way to have a game. So many battles are won on the first round. 5e also has elements of this. Just giving everybody advantage almost always ends in combat being a joke.
No, I did not enjoy playing casters more in these systems. It is not fun having a battle determined 90% of the time by one spell.
PF2 you actually want to combo with allies. The only really advice I can give is... use initiative to your advantage. You can literally triple the effectiveness of a spell if you delay for your allies.
The reality is the player, and you will never be happy with spellcasting because he wants his spells to basically say "this monster is useless for the battle". Of course, you both say this isn't what you want but every example you gave the spells had just as much impact as a martial yet that "wasn't good enough".
This quote is the best example of this.
I cast a spell that causes Difficult terrain? Cool! Behold as...!
The... enemies... simply use the rest of their actions to literally reach me anyway so that they can hit me on their next turn despite what I did. So what that tells me is that... not much changed.
You cast one spell that wasted one or more monster's ENTIRE TURN yet you think it was bad... Why do you think a spell should do more than that? In reality there are plenty of spells that can potentially do more than this within PF2.
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Unfortunately, spell attacks are typically less likely to be successful than spells targeting appropriate enemy saves. There are some exceptions, but generally targeting a low save is better.
And if you're not targeting the enemy's lowest save, you're going to have a bad time. Devs have pretty much said so recently.
Even given that, some spells are strong enough even when the enemy saves.
Fear gives frightened 1 on a save, which is okay. Especially vs a single target.
Slow is great when the party out numbers the foes.
4 PCs vs 1 (remaining) enemy. Slow costs 2 of the party's combined 12 actions for 1/6 of their total, but removes 1 of the foe's combined 3 actions for 1/3 of their total.
It doesn't feel as great as older editions, but that's still a big trade up.
Synesthesia is great, if you happen to be an occult caster.
Don't get me wrong, I don't wholly disagree with you in principal. AP fights have a ton of foes a higher level than you and it sucks using a limited resource to no effect.
But enough spells have good enough effects on a regular save that it works okay.
(Funny enough, a lot of those spells that are 'good enough' on a successful save tend to be the same ones people complain about on these forums about being too good)
One of my first D&D 3.5 GMs was pretty bad too. Thought that the encounter building CR rating thing was that you would add up the levels of the characters in the party and that was the CR rating for the group. And would pick enemies accordingly.
There are people who misread or misunderstand the encounter building rules in PF2 as well.
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One other thing to understand about PF2 is that success is based on teamwork.
As a spellcaster, your role isn't necessarily to do the most damage. That is the role of the weapon wielding high damage classes like Fighter, Barbarian, Ranger, Thaumaturge, ...
A spellcaster can certainly do damage. Save based spells that do half damage on a successful save are good reliable damage. But it isn't a lot of damage. If you succeed at spell attack roll spells, or if the enemy fails the save, then you can do quite a bit of damage. But even that feels slightly less than what a martial character can do with a weapon and two actions.
If you are wanting to build a damage dealing spellcaster, I would recommend looking at Kineticist though. You give up the flexibility, but you don't use resources (like spell slots or even focus points) to throw damage around all day.
But as a teamwork caster, the teamwork options are huge. Combat in PF2 generally lasts between 3 and 5 rounds. And will start snowballing after 2 rounds. Things like wall spells, difficult terrain, or slow - spells that hinder an enemy for a few actions or even an entire round - can absolutely be combat changing. Because it lets your damage dealing allies focus on taking out one of the enemies without getting a ton of retaliation - even if it is only for a few seconds. That drastically moves closer the point of the combat where it starts snowballing in your favor.
Your spell isn't going to end the encounter immediately or completely negate an attacker's options. But it can help quite a bit.
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IME combats in PF2 are actually an experience in probabilities. Things go back and forth and then, at one point, the encounter starts going one way and it just keeps increasingly going that same say.
The idea is to use your PC's abilities and tactics both at PC-level and at the whole group level to ensure the probabilities go your way.
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And I don't mean 'still hit me once or twice in that combat'. I mean 'Every single time'.
Statements like this really drive home the all or nothing problem you have, and also undermine your credibility a tad. Either you're improbably unlucky and your GM always rolls straight fire against you, or.... you're exaggerating. If enemies are hitting you "every single time" I question how many attacks have actually been launched against you or if you just have a confirmation bias, because enemies should be rolling nat 1s against you at some point.
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Statements like this really drive home the all or nothing problem you have, and also undermine your credibility a tad. Either you're improbably unlucky and your GM always rolls straight fire against you, or.... you're exaggerating. If enemies are hitting you "every single time" I question how many attacks have actually been launched against you or if you just have a confirmation bias, because enemies should be rolling nat 1s against you at some point.And I don't mean 'still hit me once or twice in that combat'. I mean 'Every single time'.
And to say nothing of negating Critical Hits.
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If you keep playing PF2, I'd advise the following:
1. Learn the high value spells of PF2 like slow, phantasmal killer, wall spells, calm emotions, etc.
Action removal and debuffing is powerful.
2. Wizard is a pretty limited class unless all you want to do is have a lot of different blasts, debuff some, and use utility spells during exploration and downtime.
3. Check out some other classes. Druid is a very powerful class within the PF2 paradigm. Bard is powerful. Sorcerer is versatile. Psychic has some interesting abilities.
4. PF2 is a group game. You'll win as a group. So if you're helping the group win, then working as intended. You'll occasionally do the big hits or absolutely wreck something with a critical fail on a save, but it's rare. Casters are not there to win the game alone.
5. Definitely look at the four levels of spell saves and the traits. A spell that doesn't look great might often be a whole lot better than you think because it might still work on a success.
6. Learn the conditions. Certain conditions are more valuable than others depending on the group. Clumsy is a very good condition if your group attacks reflex saves. Stupefied if they attack will saves. Frightened affects nearly everything. Drained affects Fort saves. Best to know when to use spells that cause these conditions.
7. Pick up high value skills. A one action intimidate or bon mot to set up a spell before you cast it can help it land.
I think all of us caster main players that came over from PF1, 3E, or 5E felt the frustration of massively weakened in PF2. Once you get used to it, you'll find it makes for a better game for the group and especially for the DM.
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I think it helps to focus on level. PF2e doesn't lie: an enemy that is of your same level is about as strong as you are, and a contest against it can really go both ways.
A PC caster can shut down an enemy, just like a PC martial can hack it into pieces; but this can't happen reliably if such enemy is close to the character's level, or levels as a whole would be a lie. If you want to be able to reliably 'win' encounters with a single spell, you need to add quite a few levels to your character: try fireballing a bunch of level 1 creatures and you will see that it works as intended.
If spells were more likely to trounce on-level opponents, that would mean that casters were playing far above their stated level. Other systems may allow some characters to play like that, while PF2e keeps them (casters included) much closer to the actual power level that is written on their sheet. In short, it doesn't lie.
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I will clarify that avoiding the strongest save is the balance point, and hitting the weakest save is typically better than off-guard.
The spell effects you've listed as happening are all very powerful to me from the perspective of a GM.
The most important thing in a fight is the flow of action economy (with higher level actions being worth more)--everything hinges on this, damage, healing, everything. The difficult terrain essentially wasted two actions from a creature who didn't get to attack, which means you and your allies functionally get an entire bonus round compared to that creature who is now closer and likely in range of all your allies, reducing how many actions they have to spend.
I think it's very difficult to appreciate the impact you are making with more nuanced effects until you GM, and I have seen some frustrated casters move on to become GMs frustrated by new frustrated casters.
So when you say "I want my spells to work", and I see spells working, it's tricky to navigate. It is going to be the case that the higher level monsters resist, the same way that higher level monsters are harder for martials to hit. It's just that you'll likely have some effect, and sometimes have a strong or rarely have a critical effect.
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The best way I found to help people that come from other editions and struggle with this is telling them to try GMing once and experience a caster from the other side of the screen.
Most people change their initial opinion really quick.
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Maybe the spells lack that WOW factor. I have found that a personal issue of mine on the player side.
BUT, I have had wizards though that could wreck encounters with control. Wall of Stone w/ Cloud Kill for grim effect in a few games, Fly to keep out of range and tag things with Ray of Frost in every Wizard game I have played, Obscuring Mist with Blind Fight on the Martials in one campaign, Reverse Gravity in open terrain to take away A LOT of actions in two different games, True Target across several games doing WORK, Grease is still pretty great I love it at low levels and it stays good, Gust of Wind for hilarious effect if any fall hazards are nearby on flying creatures that crit fail on a regular fail and tripping causes them to fall and you make sure they have no Reactions to arrest the fall beforehand with Hideous Laughter (that works even on success), and Slow (no explanation needed).
I have had to have a more analytical eye to what my casters HAVE done in retrospect and it was more of a personal problem of feeling ineffectual or underpowered in the moment when that was not the case. Mainly due to another thread here making me think on it in depth and at the time I could not think of anything that FELT cool at the time and have since come up with things that were in fact awesome.
Maybe cast a more critical eye on how your spells help the party as a whole. You may be surprised like myself.
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So if I can't completely cripple enemies, or lock them down HARD.... Then as far as I'm aware we're about to die.
I think that's a rough experience to go through and a rough experience to unlearn and recontextualize. I can totally see why that would lead to a lot of stress around not feeling powerful enough on your own.
I wish you better GMs in the future!
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If you want your spells to hit and do damage every time, use Magic Missile.
If you don't like how your single-target spell has mediocre or short-lived effects on an enemy, take a beat, understand that the enemy is higher level than you and thus SHOULD resist it a good portion of the time, and rename the enemy "Success" save as a "Partial Failure".
Take notice that martials sometimes just miss all their attacks in a round, too.
If you're worried that enemies still damage your allies... Start using summon spells to have more allies. If the enemy kills your minion in one hit, that's still a hit that didn't hit yourself or your fellow party member.
Remember that you're not there to win the fight by yourself. If your issue is the label of the spell on the box, consider thinking of the spell in less potent terms-- "Spark" instead of "Lightning Bolt", "Spook" instead of "Fear".
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If you're looking for that "forget support actions, I wanna blast all day, and I want my blasts to hit as often as the martials hit" experience, then in this system your best bet is (IMO) the Kineticist with a gate attenuator.
Also consider Psychic.
Get your martials to actually trip or grapple the enemy, so you can get in on the Off-Guard debuff.
If you're looking for that "forget support actions, I wanna blast all day, and I want my blasts to hit as often as the martials hit" experience, then in this system your best bet is (IMO) the Kineticist with a gate attenuator.Also consider Psychic.
Get your martials to actually trip or grapple the enemy, so you can get in on the Off-Guard debuff.
Honestly yeah psychic spamming stuff like shatter mind is a great way to have a decent ish blaster experience.
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At lowest levels, before your martials get their striking runes, Magic Weapon is the strongest spell in the game. The two handed fighter’s extra damage? That’s damage that you did.
No spell in the game does as much potential damage than Magic Weapon while it is relevant.
I think that one thing people forget is that martials have four degrees of success, too. Let's compare casters to martials.
A martial swings at an enemy. One of four things happen:
Crit Miss. No damage. Rarely does this matter, but it can.
Miss. No damage.
Hit. Damage.
Crit Hit: Double damage.
What about a caster? A caster tosses out a save spell, the enemy rolls the save and what do we get:
Crit Sucess: No damage. Equal to the martial equivalent.
Success: Half damage and almost always a status effect. Much better than the marital miss.
Fail: Full damage and often a stronger status effect.
Crit Fail: Double damage and often a brutal status effect.
The only time a save spell does nothing is if a foe critically makes the save, which is the same as the martial critically missing. The rest of the time, the caster is actually ahead, because the caster does damage+ something. Now, a martial can do +something as well with rune investment, but that's not a default thing.
If you want to clear a room with one spell, PF2E is not the game for that. But to say that casters are not effective in the system is not accurate IMO.
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You are forgetting that casters also have spell attacks that work just like the martials but lack the Item Bonus to attack.I think that one thing people forget is that martials have four degrees of success, too. Let's compare casters to martials.
A martial swings at an enemy. One of four things happen:
Crit Miss. No damage. Rarely does this matter, but it can.
Miss. No damage.
Hit. Damage.
Crit Hit: Double damage.What about a caster? A caster tosses out a save spell, the enemy rolls the save and what do we get:
Crit Sucess: No damage. Equal to the martial equivalent.
Success: Half damage and almost always a status effect. Much better than the marital miss.
Fail: Full damage and often a stronger status effect.
Crit Fail: Double damage and often a brutal status effect.The only time a save spell does nothing is if a foe critically makes the save, which is the same as the martial critically missing. The rest of the time, the caster is actually ahead, because the caster does damage+ something. Now, a martial can do +something as well with rune investment, but that's not a default thing.
If you want to clear a room with one spell, PF2E is not the game for that. But to say that casters are not effective in the system is not accurate IMO.
In addition to the various save spells.
I'm not forgetting that at all. It seemed to me, and I may have been wrong, that the OPs complaint was for save spells, and so I talked about that.
Is your GM continually throwing threats at the party that are higher level than your characters? Are you being mindful of your enemy's low saves and avoiding targeting their high saves or AC?
If you're constantly faced with difficult encounters and are inadvertently targeting the enemy's highest save, then that could easily account for why it seems like you're ineffective.
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* Can't use teleport because it is uncommon.
Here is when Lore academic takes importance. You know about academics so could know a library where the spell is, and go for it to learn. uncommon does not means non-existent.
* Familiars cannot scout because they require being commanded.
Invisibility + trained in Stealth.
* High Int is practically useless.
More skills and languages is not useless.
* Water Breathing is hyper situational.
But life saving. Notice that for all these situational the more important is to have in your list, so can use scrolls when required.
* Charm is incapacitstion, aka only really works on mooks.
And setting NPC friendly, which can be pretty handy.
* Different damage types is a thing, but many people like thei mono element casters. Also prepared cannot adjust spells on the fly to target weaknesses. Another thing, martials have plenty of ways to trigger weaknesses even without magic.
That is more about character creation (making mono element is a choice). For martials depends much about your magical item system, but with magic is easier usually.
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* Can't use teleport because it is uncommon.Here is when Lore academic takes importance. You know about academics so could know a library where the spell is, and go for it to learn. uncommon does not means non-existent.
Uncommon means GM approval.
Invisibility + trained in Stealth.
Temperans was raising the fact that Familiar can't scout at all. But that's GM dependent, so it's no clear rule.
* Can't use teleport because it is uncommon.Here is when Lore academic takes importance. You know about academics so could know a library where the spell is, and go for it to learn. uncommon does not means non-existent.Uncommon means GM approval.
Invisibility + trained in Stealth.Temperans was raising the fact that Familiar can't scout at all. But that's GM dependent, so it's no clear rule.
If you play a very low-magic set for removing even uncommon (not only rare) spells then is supposed you can do less with magic.
About scouting, I only gave an option using magic instead using a Familiar for scouting.
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If you play a very low-magic set for removing even uncommon (not only rare) spells then is supposed you can do less with magic.
GM approval is not only linked to low-magic. I personally don't allow Teleport because it's disruptive.
About scouting, I only gave an option using magic instead using a Familiar for scouting.
Then you can nearly remove Invisibility as it only gives you one option Stealth doesn't give you which is to cross path of enemies (and when you're scouting, you don't do that in general as being detected means death).