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This is a thread topic that I have been thinking about for longer than the announcement of the remaster, and is very connected to many of the ideas that are posted in these 2 threads:
The Arcane Tradition - what do you think?
but these are some new things affecting my thinking about the Arcane tradition since the announcement of the remastered ruleset and the dropping of schools of magic as an innate property spells themselves and a classification determined by in world schools.
1stly: The metaphysical reality of Golarion has strongly moved away from "hello player! Here is exactly how everything works in universe, with immutable laws of reality." and towards, "Hello player, here is an example of an in world voice explaining how some people in at least one particular region make sense of the games mechanical rule set, but we are not promising that it always works this way and won't significantly change in the future."
In other words, (and this was something that we did start to see with the Secrets of Magic book), when we get rules text that is connected to lore, it is from an in world perspective that is one of many possibilities, rather than the exact way that it is for everyone. Even our (player) knowledge of the planes is largely just the common innersea interpretation of the planes, with many other possible arrangements of planes out there beyond what the scholars currently know. This was a necessary change because it vastly opens up how different cultures can have different gods and different metaphysical realities than those of the Core 20 and the boneyard etc. Long story short, Golarion is much more of a subjective reality campaign setting than it was in PF1 or even at the start of PF2.
2ndly: In world, I don't think we are going to get much interaction between the loss of schools of magic as objective classifications of types of magic, and what that has meant in world. It is hard to stop talking about something that becomes a huge "this used to be here in the past, but isn't." We got it with the Drow, but it came in the back matter of a transitional AP, and is not something that is going to be brought back up in Core Rule Books published under the ORC license. I suspect the old schools of magic will similarly not be something that can be talked about if the biggest reason for their removal was for legal considerations of wanting the ORC world of Golarion to be different from proprietary metaphysic systems.
So the new schools of magic, as actual physical schools and theories of magic that are held up as philosophies of magic are going to be a little bumpy for many players because they are just going to have always existed in Golarion despite having never existed previously and terms like "Necromancer" and "Conjuerer" aren't fundamentally connected to any inherent properties of magic, but to how certain in world groups look at magic and how it can be manipulated.
Ok, so given all that, I want to revisit the conversation of "what is Arcane Magic?"
There have been 2 ways of approaching this question. One is to stick to the essences. Arcane magic is the meeting place of the essences of Matter and Mind. This will have to be the future of the Arcane Tradition, but I think we as players are going to need a lot of help figuring out what this means, especially, where does this magical power come from?
This is because the more practical attempts to explain the Arcane Tradition tend to do so by describing it as the "science of magic" with a focus on mathematics or linguistics. It had some kind of strange legacy connections to the power of dragons, but anytime someone started talking about arcane magic as a way of understanding the mysteries of the universe, you started running into real problems in world, because what mysteries of the universe are we really talking about? Almost every AP or adventure that really delves into mysteries finds that the root cause of the magic behind those mysteries to be connected to divine machinations, planar influence (which is almost all divine or primal in PF2), or weird, mind-shattering stuff that gets labeled as Occult now.
With no schools of magic, what are wizards and other arcane casters studying, and how are they studying it? There is no more system for trying to classify magic that isn't just directly tied to its power source, some of which falls outside arcane casters ability to manipulate. We can try to compare wizards to real world scientists, but magic is not real, so are our characters breaking the 4th wall to be essentially studying the underlying game mechanics themselves? Any why then would they be tied and limited to just examining 2 essences of magic? "I want to understand the mysteries of how magic works...but I don't want to consider that it could be connected to the spirit or the innate life force of living beings" is a really weird take for scientists, especially when the effects of other traditions of magic are observable and just as measurable as anything in the arcane tradition.
We got some fun lore writing examining this stuff in the secrets of magic book, but the vast majority of it falls apart now stepping away from schools of magic. There were some really cool metaphors and "arcane" ways of talking about how spell casting in PF2 works, but on reading again after considering all the changes, they just feel like ways of explaining how every slot based caster, and especially prepared caster, is limited in what spells they can learn and how.
What does all of this mean?
Well, maybe it is a request for a new, arcane focused rule book to give the arcane tradition its own place in Golarion, because it feels like the arcane tradition has mostly just been the "fill in your own idea about what wizards are from other games/fantasy lore, and it goes here" with nothing really connecting it to something distinctly of Pathfinder Lore. I mean we have the Rune Lords, and we have Tar Baphon, and we have the Magaambya academy and Old Man Jatembe and the magic warriors as really cool examples of Arcane casters that exist in the world, that need to be arcane, but their connection to the new lore and magic schools is going to take some bigger work to situate back into the ORC version of Golarion.
The Wizard is my favorite fantasy class and if you know anything about this Unicorn on these boards, you probably know that I am one of the staunchest defenders of the PF2 wizard's overall class design as the "spell slot prepared caster" as I think that prepared spell slots do the best job of simulating the careful, studied approach to magic that defines a wizard. So I say this as someone who loves the mechanical design of the wizard class, but what is a wizard of the the civics school studying that they wouldn't be concerned with many of the exact same things as a cleric of Abadar? Or would lead them either to scoff or jealously resent the ways an elementalist shapes earth and stone to form permanent structures? Why wouldn't they be trying to study, and potentially exploit these other ways of accomplishing the same things? What is fundamentally making their magic different enough from these others that it exists as a separate magic tradition?
For me, this has to boil down to where the magic comes from and what price you pay for using it. Arcane magic as a studied form of magic is about only harnessing magic that has a knowable price, that doesn't indenture you permanently to another entity (oops bye arcane witch), and that requires incredible intelligence to use safely, repeatedly, and under your own control. I said for me because this also seems to rule out arcane sorcerers as well as witches. It is just really hard to say what arcane magic is or where it comes from in Golarion without intruding into other traditions pretty intensely. Like it almost exists exclusively as a mechanical designation and not well as a lore one...even though some of my favorite Golarion Lore is tied to practical users of this tradition.
Is any of this making sense to anyone else? Is my wizard brain flailing at trying to understand why I partially share a magic tradition with people who make bargains for the power I have worked so meticulously to understand and control? Or with idiots who just happened to smart, magically inclined parents? If it is about magic being some force out there in the universe that can be manipulated in different ways, where is the power that us wizards are using coming from and why can't we studiously understand the connection of magic that involves spirits and life?
I would love to see other player's perspectives on these topics, and I would really love to see a Lost Omens book tackle bringing the Arcane Tradition squarely into its ORC Golarion Lore. How about you?
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Meh, I see wizards as the physicists of the mumbo jumbo that is magic. An arcane witch or arcane sorcerer can utilize "science" without understanding it. Heck, I'm typing out this response to you on my handheld computer and I promise you I know nothing about computer science. There can be magic that is sourceless and fundamental to the firmament of reality, not beholden to any power but it's own. A natural force like gravity. It doesn't need symbolic connections, life force, or divinity to function. It just is. Whether it's studied (ala the wizard), bargained for (witch), or finessed with ignorance (sorcerer), it's just a fundamental thing like protons and electrons
Meh, I see wizards as the physicists of the mumbo jumbo that is magic. An arcane witch or arcane sorcerer can utilize "science" without understanding it. Heck, I'm typing out this response to you on my handheld computer and I promise you I know nothing about computer science
For me though, it is not all magic. It is some kind of magic that has no specific power source that I (as a wizard) am limited to studying rationally. I just want more explanation for why I can only gain the ability to use arcane magic by study. Like what is it that can be studied, because there is plenty of other magic that apparently cannot every be learned by study.
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I'm typing out this response to you on my handheld computer and I promise you I know nothing about computer science.
I do know a lot about computer science and I also think it makes a great analogy for magic.
Including having different people taking different paths to the same end goal.
Some study programming in college.
Some learn it by experimenting and trying things out.
Some learn it from their parents.
Some just download code pieces from the internet and cobble it together until it works.
Meh, I see wizards as the physicists of the mumbo jumbo that is magic. An arcane witch or arcane sorcerer can utilize "science" without understanding it. Heck, I'm typing out this response to you on my handheld computer and I promise you I know nothing about computer scienceFor me though, it is not all magic. It is some kind of magic that has no specific power source that I (as a wizard) am limited to studying rationally. I just want more explanation for why I can only gain the ability to use arcane magic by study. Like what is it that can be studied, because there is plenty of other magic that apparently cannot every be learned by study.
I only view arcane as quantifiable. Just my opinion though, I know that's not a satisfying answer
I'm also thinking that this conundrum isn't exclusive to the Arcane tradition. It also feels a bit strange to be casting Divine tradition spells as an Oracle or Witch or Sorcerer that has little to no connection to any divinity.
Thank you everyone for contributing to this conversation. I agree that there are many possible explanations for what arcane magic is in Golarion, but that the ones we currently have (pre-core 1) are all pretty much, "eh, you are probably coming to this game with a preconceived notion of what a wizard is...Arcane magic is the magic they cast," with anyone else using it kind of falling into the "its the big everything basket."
The problem with relying on "arcane magic is what you think it is" is that for way too many players, that is just going to be "wink, D&D wizards, wink."
Speculating too much on what spells will and won't stick around in the arcane tradition at this point feels premature, and it is possible that player core 1 or the GM core deal with this adequately, but I feel like making the traditions of magic feel Golarion-y is just as important a part of the remaster project as removing alignment or the schools of magic, and I hope it either already has gotten attention or will in its own Lost Omens book.
I'm also thinking that this conundrum isn't exclusive to the Arcane tradition. It also feels a bit strange to be casting Divine tradition spells as an Oracle or Witch or Sorcerer that has little to no connection to any divinity.
But you do. Oracles don't get their power as a reward for faith, but their powers do come from the same source as the gods. Same with divine sorcerers, their magical power is the same magical power as that the gods grant. Witches are getting their power from a patron and the terms of the contract are different, but divine witches are getting it from someone syphoning it from something connected to the gods.
The problem with arcane magic is that there is no power source for it, so where is it coming from? Pretty much the caster's mind feels like the closest thing Golarion has to an answer. I think they could run with that, and it makes sense that the "mind" essence is there, but where is the matter essence coming into it? Especially as this is a world with ghost wizards.
Thank you everyone for contributing to this conversation. I agree that there are many possible explanations for what arcane magic is in Golarion, but that the ones we currently have (pre-core 1) are all pretty much, "eh, you are probably coming to this game with a preconceived notion of what a wizard is...Arcane magic is the magic they cast," with anyone else using it kind of falling into the "its the big everything basket."
The problem with relying on "arcane magic is what you think it is" is that for way too many players, that is just going to be "wink, D&D wizards, wink."
Speculating too much on what spells will and won't stick around in the arcane tradition at this point feels premature, and it is possible that player core 1 or the GM core deal with this adequately, but I feel like making the traditions of magic feel Golarion-y is just as important a part of the remaster project as removing alignment or the schools of magic, and I hope it either already has gotten attention or will in its own Lost Omens book.
I have no horse in that lore discomfort race like you do but if it means magus and summoner getting the remaster treatment (I like them both but I won't oppose ANY class getting a second pass after years of hindsight) then I'm all for another book in the spirit of Secrets of Magic. Maybe that book could have more magical archetypes ala spell trickster, shadow mage, and captivator as opposed to the class archetypes like elementalist
Personally, I think of Arcane as the physics of magic; manipulating the (albeit magical) rules of Golarion. While occult is like divine in that it's reaching beyond Golarion to some different plane or source for it's effects. And primal is the weird one that doesn't fit because 'nature' is not really another plane or a different power source. It's just a really game-convenient category :) Though now with the resurgence of wood and metal planes, maybe they could tie it to that or vitality.
Or you could just go whole hog in on the current "here is how the characters in the world see things, but they may not be right" meta, and say that maybe there's *not* any distinction between the magic types, Golarion casters just haven't figured that out yet. Arcane and Occult and Primal may be like 19th century electricity and magnetism. They sure look different, but...
I really like this answer, but wouldn't it be the wizards that are going to figure this out?
Ideally, in a PF3, I think dropping the arcane tradition entirely (since it is mostly just a path to accessing a limited set of spells that fit in other traditions) and having school, thesis and feats be the wizards path towards accessing spells that fit the theme of their study (with a generalist one that can pick any spell, but with greater limits on how often they can cast them) would be the most thematic and interesting way to make the wizard be the "I study magic" class.
Personally, I think of Arcane as the physics of magic; manipulating the (albeit magical) rules of Golarion. While occult is like divine in that it's reaching beyond Golarion to some different plane or source for it's effects. And primal is the weird one that doesn't fit because 'nature' is not really another plane or a different power source. It's just a really game-convenient category :) Though now with the resurgence of wood and metal planes, maybe they could tie it to that or vitality.
Or you could just go whole hog in on the current "here is how the characters in the world see things, but they may not be right" meta, and say that maybe there's *not* any distinction between the magic types, Golarion casters just haven't figured that out yet. Arcane and Occult and Primal may be like 19th century electricity and magnetism. They sure look different, but...
I really like this answer, but wouldn't it be the wizards that are going to figure this out?
Ideally, in a PF3, I think dropping the arcane tradition entirely (since it is mostly just a path to accessing a limited set of spells that fit in other traditions) and having school, thesis and feats be the wizards path towards accessing spells that fit the theme of their study (with a generalist one that can pick any spell, but with greater limits on how often they can cast them) would be the most thematic and interesting way to make the wizard be the "I study magic" class.
At that point there would be no inherent magic. Just magic coming from sources. I would prefer keeping arcane. I don't think damaging the setting is worth narratively justifying the wizard. I'd rather shore up the wizard with more abilities involving academia and experimentation than remove lore (and potential narrative magic sources for pick a list classes) to retroactively make the wizard more appealing.
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I think one of the core problems right now with the arcane tradition is that it is very difficult to separate its identity from that of the wizard: the arcane tradition is still very much "the wizard spell list", and the wizard as a class isn't really defined all that much in mechanical terms beyond "arcane magic: the class". It's for this reason I think that the magus, the only other dedicated arcane caster, is effectively a wizard who skipped a few magic lessons to train with weapons and armor instead.
I'm going to echo the opinion of a few others here and on other spaces and say that in my opinion, arcane magic isn't just magic as a science, but also magic as programming: arcane magic in my opinion is all about the measurable and the quantifiable, so that a practitioner can input the same sequence of words, gestures, and so on and get an equally reliable output that taps into the basic building blocks of matter and information in the world. For this reason, arcane magic should have an unparalleled influence over matter, energy, and information, which should make it an excellent tradition for divination, alteration of properties, and just general energy-based blasting, with unmatched influence over time and space. Arcane magic oughtn't have any mystery to it so much as unsolved problems and the wonder of learning new facts and applying them, much like science or mathematics.
For this reason, however, I also feel arcane magic as it currently exists ought to change a fair bit, as in my opinion it extends into territory that it shouldn't affect:
On the flipside, I also do think quite a few things could be made exclusively to arcane magic: force damage in particular I think ought to be exclusive to the arcane tradition, as I think it sits at the perfect intersection of material and mental essence as incredibly refined magic used to make and unmake the Universe. Every spell from other traditions that currently deals force damage should deal spiritual or bludgeoning damage instead. There's also likely more room for time- and space-based magic which ought to be made core to the arcane tradition, rather than kept exclusive to certain archetypes.
As a side note, I also don't think arcane is the only tradition that could use some refinement: the occult tradition in my opinion is also fairly diffuse, and a big part of that I think comes from a major conflation between spiritual and vital essence. I don't particularly think the occult tradition should have access to hit point healing, for example, though occult magic should certainly be able to grant temporary hit points and remove curses. By refining both traditions, the separation between each one could become more clear.
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I'm also thinking that this conundrum isn't exclusive to the Arcane tradition. It also feels a bit strange to be casting Divine tradition spells as an Oracle or Witch or Sorcerer that has little to no connection to any divinity.But you do. Oracles don't get their power as a reward for faith, but their powers do come from the same source as the gods. Same with divine sorcerers, their magical power is the same magical power as that the gods grant. Witches are getting their power from a patron and the terms of the contract are different, but divine witches are getting it from someone syphoning it from something connected to the gods.
That still sounds like the exact same argument you are making for the Wizard and the Arcane tradition vs Sorcerer and Witch.
It also sounds like you are enforcing flavor of characters that you aren't playing. I play a Lore Oracle that has no connection to deity at all. The Oracle casts Divine spells - but why? What exactly are Divine spells and why are they Divine?
I want to revisit the conversation of "what is Arcane Magic?"
I would also ask: What is Divine Magic?
Matter existed in one point then expanded, it continues to expand and will do so until all the heat dies out. It will then contract back into one point and the big bang may very well happen all over again (my favorite episode of Futurama). I don't see any reason why magic can't be an inherent part of Pharasma's creation of the universe. Something that just IS. It doesn't have to COME from anything. It IS everything (everything material I suppose)
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I agree that there is probably an issue that the whole of the arcane tradition right now boils down to “it’s the tradition of wizards.” And that is a problem because it got a ton of spells that it needed in order for wizards of each school exist. So it was mechanically defined in a way that never really fit over the essences.
I am definitely curious what will change with the remastery. The arcane tradition needs to be different from “the magic that wizards can study,” or else there is really no point having it connect to the essences at all, it is just an arbitrary class-based spell list, not a metaphysical approach to understanding the underlying forces of the universe.
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I agree that there is probably an issue that the whole of the arcane tradition right now boils down to “it’s the tradition of wizards.” And that is a problem because it got a ton of spells that it needed in order for wizards of each school exist. So it was mechanically defined in a way that never really fit over the essences.
I am definitely curious what will change with the remastery. The arcane tradition needs to be different from “the magic that wizards can study,” or else there is really no point having it connect to the essences at all, it is just an arbitrary class-based spell list, not a metaphysical approach to understanding the underlying forces of the universe.
I'm confused and curious about what your intent is with this.
Yes, mechanically the Arcane tradition list is a collection of spells that are chosen somewhat arbitrarily. So is the Divine list, the Occult list, and the Primal list. Only the Elemental list actually has a stated theme.
The essenses are one way of giving some lore and flavor to them. But it is hardly the only way.
And a particular class such as Wizard, Cleric, Bard, Sorcerer, Witch, or Oracle may have their own unique ways of explaining why they have a particular tradition list.
Arcane casting to a Wizard may indeed be different than Arcane casting to a Sorcerer or Witch. I don't see a problem with that. Not any more of a problem than Divine casting to a Cleric is (or at least can be) different than Divine casting to an Oracle. Even individual characters of the same class may have different reasons and explanations of why they cast those spells.
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Thinking about it a bit more, I think there’s another class in the game that would make sense as an arcane caster, and that’s the psychic — or, at least, some psychics.
At their core, the psychic is the master of the mind, as befits their theme. However, the psychic only uses the occult tradition when the arcane tradition also uses mental essence, and we can see a bit of that thematic awkwardness in subclasses like the Distant Grasp and the Oscillating Wave, which feature a ton of arcane, rather than occult spells. “Mind over matter” ought to be the defining maxim of the arcane tradition, yet many spells that dabble in both mind and matter are also included in the occult tradition, despite a lack of relevance to the tradition’s use of spiritual essence. Telekinesis in particular is literally about moving matter with your mind, yet for whichever reason, pretty much every telekinetic spell is occult as well as arcane.
Because of this, I feel the problem with the arcane tradition isn’t even arcane magic, but occult magic: occult spells right now are a potpourri of diverse effects that by all rights shouldn’t really be in the tradition, and because of this, both the arcane and in my opinion the divine traditions are also made less sharp. Giving the theme of outer space to the occult tradition makes little sense to me, for instance, and we’re starting to see the problem with that attribution in Starfinder 2e, where every caster could all too easily be described as occult.
In this respect, I feel refining the occult tradition could also go a long way towards improving both the arcane and divine traditions: occult magic shouldn’t dabble in material or vital essence, but then it should still excel at protecting the mind and the soul, with spells that should safeguard against mental damage and other effects. As a result, the arcane tradition could itself be afforded some more protective qualities, so long as the protection is against material, energy, or mental attacks. In fact, you could even let an arcane caster cast healing, so long as the healing exclusively affects damage to inert matter or the intellect, such as the stupefied condition.
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So, just from a personal view, I think a good way to figure out what makes a magic, is to look at what gives Arcane magic. Now obviously there's the easy looks (Wizard and Magus) which I'll come back to in a second, but first I want to look at the Pick-a-List casters (at least as we have them right now, just because that's what's available), Sorcerer, Summoner, and Witch.
Starting with Witch, because at the moment it has the least routes to Arcane magic. The Arcane Patron Theme for the current Witch is the Rune theme. Sigils, Symbols, Tomes and Texts, Words and Wisdom. Okay, that's one datapoint.
Then we can look at the Sorcerer. Now, I'm gonna set aside Draconic for the moment, because that feels mostly a legacy thing, and we also already know Dragons are going multi-Traditional in the Remaster anyways. So that leaves us with Imperial from the CRB, and Genie from the APG. Imperial is your ancestor mastered magic, and you inherited their ability. And then Genies are notoriously the Wishcrafters (though I'm not sure how well that's gonna carry over in the Remaster, but again going by what we have right now). Anything you want, but it must be in the form of a verbal wish. Even a couple of the PreMaster Genie Bloodline's focus spells directly reference Wishing.
And finally we have the Summoner. Again, setting aside Dragons, that leaves us with only one Arcane source: the Construct Eidolon, Magically Empowered Machinery. Gears and Pistons, Wiring, or some other form of mechanism given life.
So what am I getting at? Well, the Summoner and Witch both have Arcane granting options that are very Structural, very Mechanical. Sorcerer might be a bit of an oddball, but then again, Genies are most known for a very structured form of magic (it must be a Wish, which itself requires a specific set of trigger words to happen), and while it's just one interpretation Imperial would be the best bloodline to represent something along the lines of a "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" situation, as well as family trees themselves being, ya know, pretty rigid. I don't think Imperial bloodlines show up in adopted children very much.
And then we have the Wizard and Magus themselves. Magi conjure their magic through martial arts, up to and including channeling the magic straight up through their weapons. And Wizards quite literally attend schools to learn specific forms of magic, the most structured way to learn spellcasting.
So in conclusion: To me, Arcane Magic is the Tradition of Magic through Structure. Occult Casters typically pull on the power of superstition, the power of the unknowable, in a way they could be seen as pulling on the power of Belief. This works because the stories say it will work, or (in the case of Psychics) because I believe it will work and my Mind can manipulate reality. Divine Casters are frequently granted their power by another being, and even when they're not they are still generally tapping the Domains, the Concept of something, to draw on their power. Primal Casters channel the ambient energy of the Planes, frequently the Elemental ones, or the Forge or Void, conducting that raw energy into someone. Arcane Casters though...
As someone else said, Arcane Casters are the Casters of Mind and Material. They pull a little bit of the Tradition Occult uses, and a bit of the ambient Planar Power that Primal are tapping, and they shape it through developed, tried and tested structural forms to create the desired effect. They know that if you draw out this sequence of runes, pull on this thread of reality with this amount of force at this angle, or say this line of Old Diabolic with just this accent, it'll produce this desired ball of flame that far away in that direction. But it doesn't do that just because they believe it will hard enough like an Occult caster, oh no. It has been tried and tested, over and over, by many generations before them. And if you don't draw that rune just right, if your angle is a little off, if you pronounced it LeviosAh instead of LeviOhsa, well, the power just won't come. And that's why not just anyone can be an Arcane Caster, you need that eye for detail, and the memory for all the minor minutiae to make sure you get everything exactly right.
And then Magi are Arcane Casters, because see, Martial Arts are also actually very structural. A couple degrees off in your stance could be the difference between that blow deflecting off your sword, or sliding down into your arm. The difference between your own blow landing in the shoulder or the neck. Not that big a leap from their to adding in strikes that draw the right runes, a stance that draws those threads of reality with you, a battlecry invoking the right term as you swing, bringing those desired effects into your blow. Magi are likely going to be using a lot of particular fighting styles blended with particular casting styles for their blending.
If you'd rather have a more loose style, the idea that surely something about this fighting style is going to invoke the right magic... that sounds like an Occult angle, might I introduce you the Thaumaturge whose effects work because they can will it into being hard enough. Or if you really just want to have faith that you will be enough of a Hero, might we direct you instead to the Champion for that true Faith-based fighting. Or maybe the Exemplar if you have more faith in your own ability than the Gods. Or maybe the Monk if you want less Hero and more Spiritual. And if you just want to take Raw Magical Power and use that to blow people away, that sounds like you want to be Primal, so for you we have the Kineticist. But the Magus is the one who has Trained in their arts of magic and war both, perfected the details of each, until they can blend the structure of Arcane Magic and the precision of the Warrior.
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This works because the stories say it will work, or (in the case of Psychics) because I believe it will work and my Mind can manipulate reality.
Sorry for snipping this. I don’t want to seem like I’m ignoring the rest of your post, because it was quite good and had a lot of things I agree with, but this to me is a perfect summation of why psychics should have been arcane. To use some of what you said, psychics can see our untidy universe and impose THEIR structure, their sense of order or disorder, onto reality. Genies work somewhat the same way; they’re elementals and have all the raw power of elemental magic, but they immediately impose order and control on it. And, you know, everything else in the universe.
…you know I’d never connected that thought before now, but now I’m going to take a while to think of genies as the original psychics, and how that both works and doesn’t work on a mechanical level. I assume mostly not, but maybe I’ll be surprised!
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This is a pretty big concept change.
Staying away from how arcane magic is expressed in mechanics, I think the answer is better left unknown to a degree. Arcane magic might have some known sources but its much better to maintain the mystery and let there be many yet unknown sources out there. Dnd made a huge mistake in using the concept of the weave, its terribly limiting in scope for the concept of magic that for me should have many diverse expressions and sources even within what could be considered an arcane concept.
The move pathfinder is making is kinda freeing. It might be fine to define what is known as long as there is always more left unknown to create and explore.
I think others have said this but to me it feels like arcane is always trying to master those sources, rather than channel them embody them or be granted power by them, in which case whatever the source arcane is attempting to be in control of it. Maybe thats a defining feature.
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Reading through this thread I feel like one of the bigger problems is that a lot of people are approaching this from different starting points.
There are a lot of posts framed not as what is, but what they wish would be (draconic summoners don't count, thaumaturges are an occult class, psychics should be arcane, the spell lists need to be completely altered, etc.)
So just from a practical standpoint I feel like it's going to be hard to answer the OP's question when essentially we have people talking about entirely different things to begin with that are to varying degrees disconnected from what the game tells us.
There's also some similar trouble over themeing: We talk about Arcane being the only school that's 'studied' and learned, but the Halcyon school is all about the academic understanding of primal magic and sorcerers and witches (post remaster) explicitly don't really study but access arcane magic just fine.
We talk about arcane being more quantifiable or mathematical (as opposed to occult or divine being more abstract) ... but we also know that occult and divine follow the same set of rules that arcane does. There's no fundamental difference in the rules to access magic, only what kind of magic they access.
... What that tells me is that the traditions are more about vehicles to access magic and the destination you reach, rather than something more fundamental. It's not Science vs Art, it's Coke vs Pepsi. You're both reaching in the fridge for something cold to drink, but the flavor is going to be a little bit different for each of you because you grabbed a different can.
If I were to personally have a say in how a hypothetical 3e would be made, my approach would be:
-Arcane magic would essentially because the "natural science" tradition, mainly focused on controlling natural forces and elements from the material side and the mental side leaning into things like divination to analyze things and augment perception and to manipulate/control/decieve how the mind interprets things. In this proposal, the arcane list's scope would become narrower, but more thematically cohesive and more in line with the other traditions.
-The wizard, as the "magical scientist" class would have curriculums much as the remaster works, but these curriculums would poach spells from other lists and add them the the wizard's spell list. Irl, scientists generally have to have a broad general education to cover the fundamentals, but also have a specialization in their studies. A wizard's curriculum would give them thematically appropriate spells off of other lists that ties into their studies; for example, a mentalism wizard might nab some spells that influence the mind from the divine and occult lists that dont appear on the arcane list, a battlemage would poach healing, aoe, and other "battle magic", a conjurer would be able to learn a wide variety of summoning spells, etc. This would allow the wizard to feel like an actual magical scientist ("I know the fundamental theory of magic so well, I can create things beyond the normal scope of the arcane tradition") while dodging the weirdness of why in a world where medical science is so advanced that first aid can take you from deaths door to looking fairly decent in like 10 min at low level can a magical scholar not leave how to mend wounds.
I mean, it is very unlikely arcane is going anywhere or losing its sparkly magic connection. We know the mirage dragon is going to be an arcane dragon, and it would be cool for every runelord to be tied to an arcane dragon attached to their sin. The number of Rune lords isn’t changing either and they are a very good lore basis for “let’s make sure this all fits in the arcane tradition.” I just would like some more clear lore content to help separate that from the old schools of magic and make sure elements of Magaambya magic is right there in the base of the arcane lore too, since Jatembe is right there from the beginning of arcane magic in Golarion.
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I also think that this thread: Explain Occult to me should be linked.
And I especially don't want to see this thread devolve into saying that each tradition has 'one true caster' class and all the other classes that cast from that tradition are 'cheaters' and are doing it wrong.
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I also think that this thread: Explain Occult to me should be linked.
And I especially don't want to see this thread devolve into saying that each tradition has 'one true caster' class and all the other classes that cast from that tradition are 'cheaters' and are doing it wrong.
Ah yes, that was a fun thread. Haven't come up with anything I can particularly add yet for this thread, but I have been lurking...
Fun looking back on that thread at old comments I've made about wishing wizards had more of a vibe other than 'generic spell specialist picks 1/8th of all spells to specialize in' to now where the Remaster has turned schools into more tightly themed disciplines of magic.
(Meanwhile this thread is basically about one complaint I had in that thread: "What is arcane magic at its core and what ties various creatures to have it as an innate ability rather than a different tradition? / Is any tradition a diegetic Thing or is it just the combination of 2/4 essences and the approaches to magic that work best for those?)
Wait, which is supposed to be the one true caster for occult? Are Bards the ones doing it right and Psychics the cheaters, or is it the other way around?
If you scope out the thread linked (I know it's long and I personally helped make it even longer...), your question was actually the topic of several arguments about whether one caster was 'truer' than the other. I believe either OP or somebody else who cropped up early didn't like Bards much and especially didn't like them being the 'face' of Occult magic when, in their opinion, Bards were not 'true' occult casters deserving of the title. If I remember correctly, anyway--that was a whole year ago and I've only skimmed the thread.
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I wonder if an arcane version of druid or cleric would actually be broken? I somewhat doubt it but it's an interesting thought
I think a good example of how this could potentially go wrong is D&D 5e's wizard: despite having fewer features than any other class, the wizard in that game quickly becomes the most powerful class in the game, and that would still likely be the case even if they had no class features at all besides their spellcasting. The simple fact that they have access to such a massive and powerful spell list is enough to make them the game's most versatile spellcaster, and eventually the one most capable of shaping the course of the party's adventure.
Now, Pathfinder 2e's wizard is a very different beast, and spells in 2e can't break a campaign in half like they can in other editions, but the arcane spell list remains both extremely versatile and exceptionally powerful, as does the occult spell list to a lesser extent. As 5e's wizard shows, versatility is power, and giving all of that versatility in one go to a prepared arcane caster (less sure about an occult caster) is likely to lead to a caster with many more "perfect answers" for any given day. Even though perfect answers are less powerful in 2e than editions with more disruptive magic, casting the perfect spell for the occasion can still make a major impact, as it should. The end result would thus be a class whose spellcasting would start out a lot stronger than that of the wizard or an arcane witch, and who'd therefore likely need to be balanced by having less power elsewhere, which would in turn risk creating a class that'd feel weak and less accessible than alternatives.
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For me, the power source makes divine and primal cleric and Druid prepared casters having access to all the common spells in their tradition work narratively for me. The caster themselves aren’t really doing that much of the work. The spells are granted by a power source. The witch is a little weird in how the spells aren’t quite granted but still dependent on the patron through the familiar, but wizards and witches do need to do work themselves to memorize spells.
The divine list was very well put together to provide just enough good stuff that it works, because everyone who uses it can get additional spells from elsewhere. It makes it the easiest spell list to give a new class because you can do interesting class feature stuff that is only really offering additional spells available.
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I wonder if an arcane version of druid or cleric would actually be broken? I somewhat doubt it but it's an interesting thoughtI think a good example of how this could potentially go wrong is D&D 5e's wizard: despite having fewer features than any other class, the wizard in that game quickly becomes the most powerful class in the game, and that would still likely be the case even if they had no class features at all besides their spellcasting. The simple fact that they have access to such a massive and powerful spell list is enough to make them the game's most versatile spellcaster, and eventually the one most capable of shaping the course of the party's adventure.
Now, Pathfinder 2e's wizard is a very different beast, and spells in 2e can't break a campaign in half like they can in other editions, but the arcane spell list remains both extremely versatile and exceptionally powerful, as does the occult spell list to a lesser extent. As 5e's wizard shows, versatility is power, and giving all of that versatility in one go to a prepared arcane caster (less sure about an occult caster) is likely to lead to a caster with many more "perfect answers" for any given day. Even though perfect answers are less powerful in 2e than editions with more disruptive magic, casting the perfect spell for the occasion can still make a major impact, as it should. The end result would thus be a class whose spellcasting would start out a lot stronger than that of the wizard or an arcane witch, and who'd therefore likely need to be balanced by having less power elsewhere, which would in turn risk creating a class that'd feel weak and less accessible than alternatives.
The rarity system should keep that reigned in. Clerics and Druids get full access to common spells, not their entire lists. If the arcane and occult lists are altered so that their common spells at least were more tightly thematic to whatever the devs decided the main themes of those lists should be, instead of the kitchen sink that is arcane, I'd consider that a win.
Honestly, and this is just a random thought instead of serious suggestion, I wouldn't mind if all prepared casters were put on similar footing here. Let all of them freely prepare common spells without needing a spellbook or similar mechanic; but then all have some kind of spellbook or prayerbook for any uncommon, rare, or offlist spells they come across. Probably eliminate the free spells each level, except for the ones granted by your school/deity/patron or whatever.
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The implementation of the rarity system doesn't really work for it, but having spells have different rarity tags on different class lists would have been interesting for narrowing the primal list and the arcane list in particular. Like default druids would treat most extra-planar primal spells as uncommon, but different orders could have made them common.
But it would probably have made the stat blocks for spells significantly more unwieldy.
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I think Arcane, like the other Traditions, is HOW you access magic. And this how (here with a reasoned approach focused on the tangible parts of reality, ie Mental + Material) influences the magical powers you get (aka spell list).
I keep typing and then deleting a response to this, because you're not wrong but I don't want you to be right. I strongly dislike that sidebar in the core rulebook that goes into how each tradition access their spells and power. To me, that is something that should be (and really, largely is) handled at the class level, not spell tradition level.
That sidebar never sat well with me, and caused a bit of kerfluffle during the witch playtest when it was used as evidence that divine witches would make no narrative sense.
If nothing else changes, I hope that gets quietly left out of the player core.
The "free" spells per level, at least in the case of the wizard, allows the conceit that he actually spends most of his (down)time researching and learning new spells, without actually requiring him to spend that time. I daresay most Pathfinder players would prefer that to "you need to spend the next three weeks doing nothing but studying this document you found describing a fifth level spell" with an accompanying about 25-35% chance that at the end of the three weeks you find that you failed to learn anything and have to start over -- after you find another written work on the spell, or a mentor who knows it and is willing to teach it (which can get pretty expensive).
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It's weird seeing my old thread and disagreeing with a lot of my wizard takes on it, but I somewhat still agree with my main take about arcane vs occult, but I do feel the book Secrets of Magic exists almost as a direct response to my post filling out questions I had. However at the end of the day I think you're right Unicore. Arcane seems to have no real lore weight behind it or total sense, and arcane magic being """scientific""" seems to just be "well it's usually a wizard thing" despite wizards only being what, a third or a fourth of arcane casters?
My suggestion to Paizo is that maybe arcane magic gets divorced from being the "scientific" magic. Philosophers are academics too after all and they're not scientists. Bards are also academics. The wizard and bard have a lot of thematic overlap in this area, and so does arcane and occult. They still feel like sister traditions. Instead the wizard could stop being "the arcane guy" but the "I study magic like the bard but instead of framing it through poetry, music and stories, I frame it through models, systems and abstract theories." I think the mechanical and thematic identity of wizards should be transgressing boundaries in magic. Spell blending, spell substitution and metamagic thesis all already break boundaries in spell casting, and this shows up in wizard feats such as the one that lets you make a slot which is just pure potentiality, it can be any spell in your spellbook. Wizards as a class could break rules because they don't see the world as divided along the arbitrary lines others put up. We could have a wizard always have the arcane list as the avenue by which they enter the world of understanding and studying magic but like all boundaries they can break this in small ways and get access to some limited number of spells from other traditions as part of their study of magic. Basically something not too dissimilar to cross blooded evolution, but perhaps replacing the spell schools and giving more spells of another tradition but they can only be prepared in your bonus slots. There can be multiple of these that either give specific spells or let you poach a specific tradition, however they have their own feat lines and focus spells. So there isn't just one occult, one divine and one primal, but say two or three of each. This is obviously a 3e idea
I wrote all this but I still don't know what arcane should be on it's own divorced from being "the wizard magic"
The four traditions, especially with arcane schools being removed, are fundamentally incompatible with how magic used to work on Golarion. Any attempt to define them without there being some in universe reason for them having changed in the first place is doomed to failure because all the pieces that must fit to explain things cannot currently fit. I hope Paizo is willing to write the changes they've been forced to make into lore without destroying the already tenuous connection some classes have to their past versions.
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The four traditions, especially with arcane schools being removed, are fundamentally incompatible with how magic used to work on Golarion. Any attempt to define them without there being some in universe reason for them having changed in the first place is doomed to failure because all the pieces that must fit to explain things cannot currently fit. I hope Paizo is willing to write the changes they've been forced to make into lore without destroying the already tenuous connection some classes have to their past versions.
I don't think so; wizard got their rewrite and Magus will get errata. Deep breaths, bud
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The four traditions, especially with arcane schools being removed, are fundamentally incompatible with how magic used to work on Golarion. Any attempt to define them without there being some in universe reason for them having changed in the first place is doomed to failure because all the pieces that must fit to explain things cannot currently fit. I hope Paizo is willing to write the changes they've been forced to make into lore without destroying the already tenuous connection some classes have to their past versions.
I honestly do not see how this can be when the 4 traditions are a basic foundation of PF2.
The four traditions, especially with arcane schools being removed, are fundamentally incompatible with how magic used to work on Golarion. Any attempt to define them without there being some in universe reason for them having changed in the first place is doomed to failure because all the pieces that must fit to explain things cannot currently fit. I hope Paizo is willing to write the changes they've been forced to make into lore without destroying the already tenuous connection some classes have to their past versions.I honestly do not see how this can be when the 4 traditions are a basic foundation of PF2.
They mean from 1e because it was even closer to d&d then
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To be fair we might still see them kill the God of magic... but probably not as any means of justifying all these preexisting lore developments, esp since magic is obviously also much older than and not directly tied to the existence of Nethys.
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I think 3-Body Problem means that they're incompatible with lore from some point in the PF1 era. Which they probably are, but so are a lot of things. Drow not actually existing contradicts multiple PF2 APs, but we can roll with it and pretend that all friendly drow were actually normal cavern elves and all unfriendly drow were actually serpentfolk. Contradictions with PF1 material are even easier to politely ignore.The four traditions, especially with arcane schools being removed, are fundamentally incompatible with how magic used to work on Golarion. Any attempt to define them without there being some in universe reason for them having changed in the first place is doomed to failure because all the pieces that must fit to explain things cannot currently fit. I hope Paizo is willing to write the changes they've been forced to make into lore without destroying the already tenuous connection some classes have to their past versions.I honestly do not see how this can be when the 4 traditions are a basic foundation of PF2.
Apart from the Runelords, where they can be styled as the magic of a given Sin/Virtue instead of explicitly referencing the DnD schools, I do not remember a canon element of the setting that would be incompatible with the Remastered PF2 system.