|
It is a bit strange to feel that posts that quote my own are talking about something I never wrote.
I just do not know how to answer in a relevant way.
How I feel every time people think that I am arguing for something I never said I wanted.
But if you think I misrepresented you here is how I saw your post:
You talked about experienced players having advantage. That is system mastery, you cannot avoid system mastery.
This is the wizard's thread and you talked about it being okay for the wizard to be as it currently is because of recall knowledge. Hence interpreted as 1 class should be punished by having it required that they do something they are not designed to do and don't get any extra benefit from.
Everyone just loves to ignore how Bard does get everything that is supposedly "the wizard's thing". While also ignoring how it has much better tools. Hence my rejection of your arguments because it flies in the face of how other classes get treated.
Most interesting and a sincere thank you for sharing, because it is not what I meant. Feels like a RAW vs RAI thing but for posts now.
You just seem to be ignoring nuance at the moment to attack my character directly.Well I certainly apologize about that. I did not intend to. I disagree with your opinion that Pathfinder 2E is "A combat simulator with a splash of RP," I think that viewpoint drives a lot of the disagreement on these boards about balance because "it's about combat simulation" and "it's about playing a role" lead to different notions of what "a balanced class" should be. Fair enough?
I don't see why there should be any disagreement. If you are playing a role then your should be good at your role, regardless of if that role is in combat or out of it.
I agree its what causes issues but probably not for the reason you think. You see it as "combat vs roleplay" I see it as "effective roleplay vs any roleplay". I am the type that wants the mechanical options I pick to be good because that helps me roleplay. But others are happy as long as they can say they participated, even if that participation is small.
So to you, you have to balance combat and roleplay separate because "they have different goals". For me you have to balance them both together because their goals should be one and the same: To make a fun character.
I think they mean role as in a character. I have played almost 20+ years with people who balk at the idea of 'optimization' or 'balance' and just play whatever makes the most sense for the narrative of their character, even if they take something that is viewed as the weakest option in the entire game.
And they've never cared at all, because the character comes first, everything else second. To them, balance isn't even a consideration for anything in relation to how they play or find their fun. So a conversation like this would be total anathema.
Not at all. I think a class is balanced if the whole package (contributions to combat, social, exploration etc. etc.) makes for a balanced package. If the mechanics of class X are not as good as the mechanics for class Y for combat, that does not necessarily imply lack of balance for me. But under a "this game is a combat simulator first, RP second" view, I can very well see how that would lead to the conclusion that the class is not balanced.
Given PF2's level of focus on combat as the system with the largest page count devoted to it, I feel like all classes should be equal in combat and then given a set of in-class out-of-combat activities to excel at. For casters, this would mean splitting spells into 4-categories (focus, cantrip, slotted, and 5e-style rituals) so that the ritual spells don't need to compete with slotted spells and we can balance around this paradigm. For martial characters, it would mean re-examining what, for example, a Fighter ought to bring out of combat and to social situations.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
3. I rewrote the focus spells of the wizard to make them work better with the play-style of the class.I'm genuinely confused - How did rewriting the focus spells not help the class last longer? Did you stop yourself from making them actually good?
The base focus spells aren't very good. So even slight changes didn't work.
I'll break down a few of them.
Evoker: 1st level is an extra 1 action magic missile. I boosted the damage to 1d6+1. It's ok, but hardly a game changer.
2nd focus spell: I didn't change this much. It's a melee range AoE ability. Evokers don't want to be in melee range.
Necromancer: Level 1: A sicken ray. Not terrible, but not a high damage blaster like an Unraveling Blast. I made it a 1 action cast so you could use it to set up a spell.
2nd Tier: Life Siphon heal when coupled with a spell, but does no damage. I like the life drain ability of the Undead Sorc.
Abjuration: Protective ward is a sustain action. Wizard is already action intensive and it has no heightening. I made this work like bless and dread aura work like bless too.
Energy Absorption: It's a decent situational defense, but no damage.
I won't go over every one, but the wizard doesn't have focus spells that are very universally applicable, do much damage, or have good action economy with the way you play a wizard.
A wizard is a caster with 6 hit points and caster saves and AC. So you don't want them too close to a battle. They want to operate from range. They need debuffs and damage with their spells. They use a lot of 2 action casting activities which precludes sustaining much.
But the wizard focus spells are focused on some situational thematic element that makes them fairly useless for a sustained adventuring day where you want to do damage and debuff.
Compare it to say Tempest Surge which does damage and does a clumsy 2 debuff. This is useful all day.
Or a elemental sorcs focus spells which are a single target 1 action blast which works good with a save spell going up to an AoE blast.
Harrow sorc has Unraveling Blast, a variable buff/debuff, and a 1 minute long True Strike type of ability you can put on someone.
Not every Bloodline is great, but most focus spell classes had them designed with their play-style in mind.
I rewrote some of the spells like making Sickening Ray 1 action, making Augment Summoning a free action cast as part of the spell, boosting the damage on Force missile, and making Dread Aura work more like Bless where you only needed to sustain to expand it.
It's just not enough to make the wizard sustain throughout a day where you want to be able to do a good amount of damage with focus spells as well as other things to sustain through the day.
I wasn't going to spend so much time rewriting the focus spells that I'm writing pages. I made some minor bumps and improvements. It still wasn't enough to make them interesting.
The only guy trying wizard still went universalist because universalist has the best feats for a wizard and most functional casting slots. Arcane Bond is at a least a touch of spontaneous casting. And a universalist getting 1 use per spell level combined with feats like Bond Conservation is way too valuable to focus on a school of magic if you are going to play a wizard.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
RK is situationally useful.
If you don't have a RK character in the group or your group tends to attack first, think about things when they have to you tend to find out that martials and casters can kill most things without knowing much about them.
That's why I view RK as situationally useful and less useful than actively used Charisma based skills which I've seen used in combat to set up spells or other actions to improve chances of success directly. An intimidate on a boss lowers the AC or saves for everyone attacking it immediately.
Whereas telling the group the creature has a weakness to good may or may not help. Maybe your party doesn't have the means to do good damage, so it's a pointless revelation. That's why as a DM I give the player using RK a ton of info hoping someone in the group can exploit the info so the RK guy feels like he did something.
I don't much have to do this for Charisma based skills. The Bon Mot player has a good idea if they rolled high enough for it to work. Same with intimidate. If the ability is effective, it's impact is felt immediately.
That's my experience.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Characters with 22 Int need to be played like a 10 Int character and have zero knowledge of the enemy, or be forced to spend actions to be able to use their OoC knowledge? This would be like saying a Fighter can't swing a sword because the Wizard can't swing a sword. Just because every character has low Int doesn’t meant the Wizard has to be played like a low Int character.Its also good to remember why he [DF] has those houserules.
He played the game straight, notated all the damage from level 1 to 20 for various classes, and came to the conclusion that prepared casting in this edition is bad.
If the spellcasting was not bad he wouldn'g have to use those houserules.
Allowing players with deep OOC knowledge of stat blocks to play their characters as if the characters have that knowledge is not "playing the game straight." It will have the obvious effect of reducing the value of in-game options and mechanics that are there to help the party identify weaknesses, identify good tactics, or tackle a wide range of encounters.
Personally I think focusing ttrpg sessions on bosskill encounters and including very few mob, non-combat, etc. encounters is also not really playing a ttrpg straight. As they are designed for "sandbox-style play" not "wargame miniature combat-style play" But that's a more contentious claim, I suppose. Certainly there is some crossover and I'm glad people *can* get satisfying warmage miniature-style tactical combat out of it. I just don't think that when we talk about class balance, that the devs were counting only those types of scenes.
But should characters with 22 int played by a newbie player be less knowledgeable about monster weaknesses than an uneducated 8 int 8 wis peasant who's never stepped outside his backyard played by a 40 year veteran RPG hobbyist? That's the real issue here.
Namely, that a veteran player who ignores RK and uses OOC knowledge brings entirely...
What if you just don't need RK to win the battle? What if the fighter and rogue hitting it work just fine?
Do you still feel like your action for RK was useful if the rogue and fighter just kill the monster without much of a problem?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yes?
Because I got to blow things up and have fun. Who cares if the fighter and rogue could have solved it alone?
You might as well ask the fighter if they should bother fighting, if the wizard and rogue can solve the problem without them.
It turns out that trivial encounters are trivial for a reason.
But I remember a time where our group had precisely this discussion and the wizard felt bad. We decided to see what happens if there are no casters and let two martials handle everything.
The wizard sat back for a while. Then the martials fought a low threat encounter against a bunch of archers at 300 foot range, and promptly died horribly without the wizard. We then redid the encounter, this time with the wizard. And won easily.
We've done this playtest multiple times in different modules. The wizard complained, then we removed the wizard, and the party would eventually run into a demilich and die horribly to a moderate threat encounter.
We've also done the reverse, and had the wizard and sorcerer playing while the fighter and rogue sat back. And playtested a 4 caster party. It's honestly much easier and much more balanced than 4 martials, though I think a balanced team is definitely best.
You don't really need the wizard to make that change happen, but yes, casters do help the martials when the problems happen and vice versa.
Point is RK doesn't make the intel stat better than the charisma or wisdom stat. That is what this debate is about.
Some seem to be of the mind that intel is as valuable a stat as charisma or wisdom. I think that is provably wrong due to a lack of quality skill and skill feat support and intel's lack of applicability to anything besides a casting stat for certain casters and intel-based skills which it appears RK is the best combat action they can come up with.
I would like to see intel-based skills get some love for direct combat effect with skill feats that have some quality, impactful skill actions like charisma skills have.
Wisdom impacts will saves, perception, wisdom skills like survival, nature, or religion. Even religion has proved pretty useful in dealing with haunts. Perception is always great. I've noticed religion added some nice skill feats like Pilgrim's token and the Battle Prayer or whatever that can do good damage to a target for 1 action.
Be nice to see intel as a main stat get some love.
You were asking about whether or not I thought my RK actions felt useful as a wizard in a trivial fight. I thought they were, that's all.
(I'll also add - actions you spend on RK in a trivial fight aren't just useful in that fight. They're also nice later, if you're fighting recurring enemies. I recall vividly
** spoiler omitted **
It's really useful.
What does useful mean to you though? We ran the Age of Ashes module. We whacked out the Scarlet Triad with no RK used. They were humanoids. Kill them as fast as possible.
I'm not sure what your group composition looks like or what you're doing that would make you feel RK was useful.
We had zero problems with the Triad. That was before we did any house rules running just by the book. That was a bard, champion redeemer, cleric, ranger archer, and a rogue. We just whacked them all.
I'm wondering if your feeling of usefulness is subjective or objective.
For me when I'm measuring, it's objective usefulness as in I can measure the impact using numbers. I know the bard was objectively good in those battles boosting hit rolls and such. The cleric was objectively good healing. I'm not what objectively helpful ability RK would do against the Scarlet Triad, a fairly easy to beat humanoid group.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You were asking about whether or not I thought my RK actions felt useful as a wizard in a trivial fight. I thought they were, that's all.
(I'll also add - actions you spend on RK in a trivial fight aren't just useful in that fight. They're also nice later, if you're fighting recurring enemies. I recall vividly
** spoiler omitted **
It's really useful.
What does useful mean to you though? We ran the Age of Ashes module. We whacked out the Scarlet Triad with no RK used. They were humanoids. Kill them as fast as possible.
I'm not sure what your group composition looks like or what you're doing that would make you feel RK was useful.
We had zero problems with the Triad. That was before we did any house rules running just by the book. That was a bard, champion redeemer, cleric, ranger archer, and a rogue. We just whacked them all.
I'm wondering if your feeling of usefulness is subjective or objective.
For me when I'm measuring, it's objective usefulness as in I can measure the impact using numbers. I know the bard was objectively good in those battles boosting hit rolls and such. The cleric was objectively good healing. I'm not what objectively helpful ability RK would do against the Scarlet Triad, a fairly easy to beat humanoid group.
The game is designed to have multiple paths to success. One way does not invalidate another way.
It is not easily reducable to numbers. RK reduces the number of wasted actions, and enables you to prepare for encounters. Yes you can learn from trial and error. That doesn't mean RK is useless. Yes you can power you way through encounters anyway, but that speaks more to encounter design than anything else. Your GM should consider increasing the difficulty more or reducing some of the nice house rules you play with.Current group is playing with a Thaumaturge. It is not really doing much more dmaage than the character it replaced, but the party is picking up on a lot more clues/ treasures/ and sub plots that they often missed before.
You were asking about whether or not I thought my RK actions felt useful as a wizard in a trivial fight. I thought they were, that's all.
(I'll also add - actions you spend on RK in a trivial fight aren't just useful in that fight. They're also nice later, if you're fighting recurring enemies. I recall vividly
** spoiler omitted **
It's really useful.
What does useful mean to you though? We ran the Age of Ashes module. We whacked out the Scarlet Triad with no RK used. They were humanoids. Kill them as fast as possible.
I'm not sure what your group composition looks like or what you're doing that would make you feel RK was useful.
We had zero problems with the Triad. That was before we did any house rules running just by the book. That was a bard, champion redeemer, cleric, ranger archer, and a rogue. We just whacked them all.
I'm wondering if your feeling of usefulness is subjective or objective.
For me when I'm measuring, it's objective usefulness as in I can measure the impact using numbers. I know the bard was objectively good in those battles boosting hit rolls and such. The cleric was objectively good healing. I'm not what objectively helpful ability RK would do against the Scarlet Triad, a fairly easy to beat humanoid group.
And we had a wizard and also killed them. That's not the point.
I think you're misinterpreting a lot of the arguments people are making. No one is saying anything about RK being the end all and be all. Just that it's useful to have.
The wizard used RK to find their weakest save, and then prepared spells mercilessly targeting that save. Which you can't do from just fighting them because unless you Google the module you have no reasonable way of knowing what their lowest save is, only whether they succeed or fail. And there's no way to know in play if they're failing a given saving throw because you're targeting a weak save or because they rolled poorly. Other than RK.
Also, re...
The original debate that sparked this side tangent was RK was as good or better than Charisma based skill actions. That's the origin of the debate.
The debate is not "Can RK be useful sometimes."
I still contend charisma is a more valuable casting stat and charisma skill actions are more valuable more often than intel based skill actions.
Yes. The DM added monsters. We generally increase numbers for the increased size of the party.
There was one extremely brutal encounter in book 4 involving an undead boss and his minions. That was truly a brutal and difficult encounter that almost TPKed us. It was in a quarry.
But the Scarlet Triad was mostly humanoids. The DM did design another brutal encounter in Book 5 that was tailor made involving multiple casters that was when the DM learned to be careful with multiple high level caster enemies with room to move. Getting hammered by AoE as a group is tough. That was the fight we learned the power of critical fails against AoE spells.
Martial enemies are generally easy. But enemies that can drop heavy pain at range with high DCs has to be limited or you will TPK groups.
I'm not sure how you set your parties up, but we don't generally like to chase. If you're the one running at someone as they hammer you, you've put yourself in a bad position.
You were asking about whether or not I thought my RK actions felt useful as a wizard in a trivial fight. I thought they were, that's all.
(I'll also add - actions you spend on RK in a trivial fight aren't just useful in that fight. They're also nice later, if you're fighting recurring enemies. I recall vividly
** spoiler omitted **
It's really useful.
What does useful mean to you though? We ran the Age of Ashes module. We whacked out the Scarlet Triad with no RK used. They were humanoids. Kill them as fast as possible.
I'm not sure what your group composition looks like or what you're doing that would make you feel RK was useful.
We had zero problems with the Triad. That was before we did any house rules running just by the book. That was a bard, champion redeemer, cleric, ranger archer, and a rogue. We just whacked them all.
I'm wondering if your feeling of usefulness is subjective or objective.
For me when I'm measuring, it's objective usefulness as in I can measure the impact using numbers. I know the bard was objectively good in those battles boosting hit rolls and such. The cleric was objectively good healing. I'm not what objectively helpful ability RK would do against the Scarlet Triad, a fairly easy to beat humanoid group.
The game is designed to have multiple paths to success. One way does not invalidate another way.
It is not easily reducable to numbers. RK reduces the number of wasted actions, and enables you to prepare for encounters. Yes you can learn from trial and error. That doesn't mean RK is useless. Yes you can power you way through encounters anyway, but that speaks more to encounter design than anything else. Your GM should consider increasing the difficulty more or reducing some of the nice house rules you play with.Current group is playing with a Thaumaturge. It is not really doing much more dmaage than the character it replaced, but the party is picking up on a lot more clues/ treasures/...
What would the reduced house rules do to make RK more effective?
I have no house rules for martials other than panache generation generation for the swashbuckler.
So you recommend I weaken casters by getting rid of 5E spontaneous heightening to what? Weaken casters? What exactly do you think that would do to make RK more effective?
What do you even know of my house rules other than I gave casters 5E style casting including wizards?
My house rules do nothing for martials. They still crush things because the base rules are extremely favorable to martials already.
You have posted your house rules more than once and it is trivial for anyone to go look.
That house rule comment was aimed generically.
But really I mean what ever interpretation you have of them that is making RK useless.
You have found an effective way to play. Good. But it is not the only way.
You think a couple of combos are super strong. Great. Now play a different one.
You have posted your house rules more than once and it is trivial for anyone to go look.
That house rule comment was aimed generically.
But really I mean what ever interpretation you have of them that is making RK useless.
You have found an effective way to play. Good. But it is not the only way.
You think a couple of combos are super strong. Great. Now play a different one.
I think RK is situationally useful and mostly unnecessary. We do use it on occasion. As I stated above, I give a ton of information hoping the group can find something to action.
The whole debate was based on the value of Charisma versus Intelligence as a casting stat. I think due to the value of Charisma-based skills in and out of combat as well as skill feat support, Charisma is a more valuable casting stat than Intelligence.
I say this and I suddenly end up in a debate on the value of RK as some posters go way out of their way to prove me wrong.
Well, I still feel like I did before that Charisma is a more valuable casting stat because Charisma skills have a more broad use, more universal skill actions, and better skill feat support.
And we do try other things. The reality is even we get bored of the same old, same old.
On these forums I'm more interested in a better wizard and witch. In my home games, I play things for fun like finally running up a summoner and finding it to be a fun class.
I'd also like the swashbuckler officially fixed. I'd like to see some slight upgrades to core abilities on the monk and ranger.
The most contentious topic always seems to be the wizard. Some really like it and think it's great, but some of us want a better wizard.
Though I did notice that some who like the wizard still rate it low among the caster classes. I found that odd, though honest.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
If the 'Power of the Wizard' is just to have a high int score and the potential to be good at int knowlwdge skills it is dead out of the gate.
Lots of classes can choose to have good int (1 point bonus behind wizard) and and pick up a additional lore. The value of RK checks is highly situational and table dependant so if thats the main draw other than a few extra spell slots compared to non sorc casters its not good.
Wizard needs some tweaks and could do wuth actual interesting feats particularly at low levels (1 - 6) where it needs it most.
Ability to change spells is highly overrated when many games including many APs don't allow time for it. Many of the situational utility spells are easily replaceable with skill checks or consumeables. Extra spells known is extra gold spent and many are limited by settlement level or rarity.
Seriously this thread has turned into (mostly) the value of int as a stat rather than the value of the wizard as a class. All stats have value, no one is making an argument for 'the value of fighters is strength' or the 'value is of sorcs is the requirement to have a high cha stat or fall behind the games assumed math.'
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Meanwhile the wizard hurls spells at range 300 feet with no penalty whatsoever.Which game are you talking about? You mean that one spell, Fireball? In PF2 the range of spells is 30ft. 120 ft for some much rarer. Anything else should be counted as basically non-existing in these discussions.
To add on to this, there are practically zero combats that take place at 300+ feet of distance. They are the outliers, and even that is generous. It would take even a Monk with Longstrider and Ki Rush 2 rounds worth of actions to close the gap, and other martials are much, much slower with their move speeds. So saying being able to hurl spells at 300+ feet is a feature is false when the feature is never really shown in actual play.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
To add on to this, there are practically zero combats that take place at 300+ feet of distance. They are the outliers, and even that is generous. It would take even a Monk with Longstrider and Ki Rush 2 rounds worth of actions to close the gap, and other martials are much, much slower with their move speeds. So saying being able to hurl spells at 300+ feet is a feature is false when the feature is never really shown in actual play.Meanwhile the wizard hurls spells at range 300 feet with no penalty whatsoever.Which game are you talking about? You mean that one spell, Fireball? In PF2 the range of spells is 30ft. 120 ft for some much rarer. Anything else should be counted as basically non-existing in these discussions.
Starting range of encounters is largely a GM choice. There are amazing spells for blasting and battlefield control at range 120ft+ where both together can create very difficult problems for opponents. As a GM, I very rarely start any outdoor fight closer than 150ft. putting you battles on a standard flip mat will probably lead to more 100ft battles, but you can always put 2 together, which i strongly recommend doing for wilderness encounters.
This isn't to say there should never be encounters in small rooms, or long narrow hallways, but if the party is doing any kind of overland travel, wilderness exploration, or approaching a defended camp/dungeon with guards, you really should be doing some larger map encounters as well. Collapsing large camp/dungeon encounters on top of each other is a lot of fun and lets planning and casters really have time to shine. If, as a GM, none of your encounters ever last 10 full rounds, i strongly recommend mixing things up a little more and it will really help spread around the spotlight.
As a player of a wizard, if the GM has some random wilderness encounter built on a 25x25 map, see if they will let you spend your first action moving away, off the map and use a longer range spell. if the GM has no way to make that work, you are playing at a table that is going to make your life as a wizard very difficult. Not just for thi encounter, but because it probably means the GM is unprepared to do any of the improvisational, reality-bending "going off script" that spells exist to do. At a minimum it means you need to be incredibly conservative with your spell selection.
|
|
Then sorry I misinterpret. What did you mean then by your post?Most interesting and a sincere thank you for sharing, because it is not what I meant. Feels like a RAW vs RAI thing but for posts now.It is a bit strange to feel that posts that quote my own are talking about something I never wrote.
I just do not know how to answer in a relevant way.
How I feel every time people think that I am arguing for something I never said I wanted.
But if you think I misrepresented you here is how I saw your post:
You talked about experienced players having advantage. That is system mastery, you cannot avoid system mastery.
This is the wizard's thread and you talked about it being okay for the wizard to be as it currently is because of recall knowledge. Hence interpreted as 1 class should be punished by having it required that they do something they are not designed to do and don't get any extra benefit from.
Everyone just loves to ignore how Bard does get everything that is supposedly "the wizard's thing". While also ignoring how it has much better tools. Hence my rejection of your arguments because it flies in the face of how other classes get treated.
Sorry for taking so long to answer. And thank you for being gracious about this.
I am not sure how to phrase my meaning to avoid sounding belligerent, which is not my intention. I will try my best.
First, I do not count knowing the stats and abilities, weaknesses... of creatures as system mastery. And I definitely expect experienced players at my table to separate OoC knowledge from IC knowledge.
For me, it is like having a player who already played or read the adventure. I would expect them to do their best and abstain from using this knowledge.
Second, I do not feel the Wizard is OK to be where it is. But the class is not abysmally bad either IMO. I actually hope for Wizards to get an additional slot at each spell rank. I feel it would make playing one feel better while still being balanced. Also, I hope the Remaster will bring Wizards good Focus spells that have synergies with their school spells.
And my point about RK is not that it should be considered one of the Wizard's great strengths. Just that INT classes, which include the Wizard, are better at it than classes with other KAS. And that RK is useful and thus brings value to the game.
I hope this clarifies my meaning.
To add on to this, there are practically zero combats that take place at 300+ feet of distance. They are the outliers, and even that is generous. It would take even a Monk with Longstrider and Ki Rush 2 rounds worth of actions to close the gap, and other martials are much, much slower with their move speeds. So saying being able to hurl spells at 300+ feet is a feature is false when the feature is never really shown in actual play.Meanwhile the wizard hurls spells at range 300 feet with no penalty whatsoever.Which game are you talking about? You mean that one spell, Fireball? In PF2 the range of spells is 30ft. 120 ft for some much rarer. Anything else should be counted as basically non-existing in these discussions.Starting range of encounters is largely a GM choice. There are amazing spells for blasting and battlefield control at range 120ft+ where both together can create very difficult problems for opponents. As a GM, I very rarely start any outdoor fight closer than 150ft. putting you battles on a standard flip mat will probably lead to more 100ft battles, but you can always put 2 together, which i strongly recommend doing for wilderness encounters.
This isn't to say there should never be encounters in small rooms, or long narrow hallways, but if the party is doing any kind of overland travel, wilderness exploration, or approaching a defended camp/dungeon with guards, you really should be doing some larger map encounters as well. Collapsing large camp/dungeon encounters on top of each other is a lot of fun and lets planning and casters really have time to shine. If, as a GM, none of your encounters ever last 10 full rounds, i strongly recommend mixing things up a little more and it will really help spread around the spotlight.
As a player of a wizard, if the GM has some random wilderness encounter built on a 25x25 map, see if they will let you spend your first action moving away, off the...
Fireball and Chain Lightning are the only two I know off the top of my head that see play regularly, and even then these spells probably aren't cast any further than 150-200 feet away. Other spells are either niche in use or very high level, to the point that it's not exactly common for it to take place. I saw Eclipse Burst used against us to great effect, and when I picked it up, I only ever used it twice, since not many encounters are 120 feet in radius. And one of those times caused friendly fire because the Fighter player was impatient.
And my Wizard had plenty of distance and protections in place that I didn't need to sit back 200+ feet to contribute. Really, if I am sitting back that far, I am probably more at risk of being attacked from that side than I am if I was closer.
Again, I am not saying that encounters past 120 feet do not exist, but that they are most definitely outliers, to the point that most every table probably isn't going to play at that range (largely because there aren't many viable tactics to use at that range), so saying it is either a common occurrence or that it should be a gold standard for Wizard players just doesn't seem to track, both based on existing options as well as encounter practicality.
“The rest of the party doesn’t want to play to the wizard’s strengths” is a whole table issue, including the wizard player. Table communication is important. If 3 out of 4 players want to play one way and the 4th a different way, there is going to be tension. My tables usually have 2 casters in them at a minimum and usually talk tactics between sessions. I don’t see the same issues you do at my table Darksol. It seems realistic to say “there are some builds that clash with other build’s play style.”
There are close up , party supporting wizard builds that work well. Blasting with those builds usually doesn’t work well because you have other spells the party needs to to cast in the first rounds. Blasters work much better with patient switch hitting/trap setting martials who have other actions to use in the first round than rushing in to melee.
My AoA party with a wizard, Cleric, scoundrel Rogue and Champion MC sorcerer owned enemies that tried to stay at range and if they closed, they would be navigating walls, moving into greater darkness, only to have their darkvision stolen, and pinned in place, wasting actions left and right. The maps for that campaign were mostly very large. It is not that uncommon a play style.
“The rest of the party doesn’t want to play to the wizard’s strengths” is a whole table issue, including the wizard player. Table communication is important. If 3 out of 4 players want to play one way and the 4th a different way, there is going to be tension. My tables usually have 2 casters in them at a minimum and usually talk tactics between sessions. I don’t see the same issues you do at my table Darksol. It seems realistic to say “there are some builds that clash with other build’s play style.”
There are close up , party supporting wizard builds that work well. Blasting with those builds usually doesn’t work well because you have other spells the party needs to to cast in the first rounds. Blasters work much better with patient switch hitting/trap setting martials who have other actions to use in the first round than rushing in to melee.
My AoA party with a wizard, Cleric, scoundrel Rogue and Champion MC sorcerer owned enemies that tried to stay at range and if they closed, they would be navigating walls, moving into greater darkness, only to have their darkvision stolen, and pinned in place, wasting actions left and right. The maps for that campaign were mostly very large. It is not that uncommon a play style.
Even without that one instance (which was taken in good humor by the way. I seriously wonder why everyone instantly jumps to "you have issues at your table" when a minor consequence is ever brought up as a result of play), the spell's extremely large radius made it impractical to use without friendly fire or damaging/destroying entire areas regardless, hence why I wasn't all that impressed with the spell compared to Chain Lightning. Also, the same problem applies to Sunburst as well, though less so, given that it's mostly an Undead killer anyway, but it's also a reason why our party Cleric didn't really take it either.
Point I was making is that playing that far back can be just as (if not more) detrimental as playing close. At least playing close(r), you have all the party members who can help you out, meaning if you are in a bind, you have more support, whereas staying back you might have maybe one party member who might not be able to help you (enough). The number of close options far outweigh the distance options, and are usually stronger as well.
The whole party can stay at distance if they build for it. Switch hitting in pf2 is not hard to build for