A breakdown, critique, and alternate take on spell traditions

[Teridax]

Part 0: Introduction

Any forumgoer who's been on here for a little while will have probably seen a few threads like these already: both arcane magic and occult magic are particular subjects of controversy, as there's a general player confusion as to what those traditions are meant to be about. Divine magic gets its own criticism for lacking spells, particularly many strong spells, compared to other traditions. The upcoming remaster is set to change a few things, such as by implementing spirit damage that will hopefully make divine spell damage a lot more consistent, but I feel there are quite a few unanswered questions and unaddressed problems that remain:

Despite moving away from the old eight schools of magic, arcane magic is still likely to include them implicitly in the form of all of the spells previously assigned those schools. This retains a tradition that's been overloaded with spells mainly just to accommodate the wizard class as known in previous editions, making it no surprise that arcane magic feels overly broad and unfocused to many.

Occult magic is starting to become similarly problematic: because the occult is so often defined as the magic of the unknown, it often just comes across to many as just "weird arcane magic" and puts the two traditions at odds with one another. Secrets of Magic even calls this out, but there is genuine cause for concern given the excessive overlap between the two spell lists, a remnant from splitting the old wizard's spell lists into two. The association between the occult and space, beyond lacking much justification besides outer space being weird and largely unknown, is starting to become problematic for Starfinder 2e, where every caster there could easily be themed as occult, an issue Paizo is trying very hard to avoid.

Player attempts to define all of these traditions tend to have the issue of always coming from many different starting points: because the lore around magic in 2e is largely defined around spell lists designed to accommodate classes from prior editions, there's a lot of fuzziness and inconsistency depending on what you start with, e.g. themes, essences, examples of famous casters, and so on. This also makes for a chicken-and-egg problem where there's no consistent agreement on what to start from in order to define the rest.

Looking at individual spells, their assignment often can feel arbitrary and influenced more by legacy than by any consistent thematic methodology. For example, Mending is a spell that's specifically about fixing a broken item, yet that's given to every tradition of magic, including traditions that aren't supposed to deal with the material at all. By contrast, Synesthesia, a powerful mind-scrambling spell, is exclusive to the occult tradition despite also ostensibly making sense as an arcane spell, and the first argument made to justify that is one of balance, rather than theme (i.e. "arcane magic would be too strong if it had nearly all of the game's strongest spells").

Finally, a common criticism levied even by the developers themselves is that casters are often defined by what they can't do, rather than by what they can do, which makes it more difficult to define them properly in the long run. For instance, defining the wizard as "a caster who can do anything except heal" makes for a class that has no real specialty, which is why many players continue to expect radically different things from the wizard.

Effectively, while the creation of magical traditions and caster-agnostic spell lists has allowed for greater differentiation and better future-proofing than class-specific spell lists of old, there is also a deep-set problem of niche protection not being terribly respected across these traditions. Primal magic seems to have come out the best, with a strong identity across spells with perhaps only a few thematic exceptions, while every other tradition has ended up suffering from a lack of similar sharpness, which in turn makes some character builds just a bit more difficult to differentiate, and some classes just a bit too generalist for their own good. It's unlikely to be a problem that will be fixed in 2e, barring some massive redrawing of spell lists, but I think this is still a topic worth discussing in view of a hypothetical 3e or other future edition.

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Part 1: An Essence-Based Breakdown

Let's first bear in mind what was said in the above: because there isn't all that much consistency to how magic traditions, magical essences, and spell lists are defined, there's no truly objective starting point for trying to define magic in Pathfinder. In trying to set clear delimitations to spell traditions, I'm inherently making a subjective call here, which I'll nonetheless try to justify as best I can: defining magic by underlying essences is, in my opinion, a great idea, because that can start to set identifiable niches that can inform what each given tradition and its casters can be expected to do (as opposed to what they can't do, even though it informs that as well). By starting with the four magical essences, we can start to get a picture of the general ballpark of effects that can be combined with each other.

Important to note, however, is that the four essences as defined are not, in my opinion, immune to criticism, and could do with some tweaks in my opinion: spiritual essence in particular is not terribly well-defined I feel, because decision-making is attributed to mental essence, whereas faith and belief are attributed to vital essence. If spiritual essence isn't what lets creatures forge their own path in the grand cosmic cycle of souls, what is it even meant to do? I would thus want to use the four essences as a starting point, but also tweak them slightly, which would make the result probably a little more subjective, but also hopefully leave more thematic room for certain traditions and casters.

With all of this said, here's what I think the four essences ought to look like as the basic building blocks of magic:

Material Essence
Starting with the simplest (in theory), material essence I think is the most well-defined currently, in that it's the magical essence governing physical matter.

Material essence ought to govern the alteration of matter, which should include mending inanimate matter (and thus healing constructs), and changing the basic properties of inanimate matter, such as by altering its shape, composition, and dimensions such as weight or size.

Material essence also ought to govern the projection, absorption, and redirection of energy. This ought to mean access to kinetic damage types such as bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing, but also the commonly-known energy damage types such as acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic.

Mental Essence
Mental essence I feel ought to be refined slightly, in that I think it ought to still cover knowledge and the senses, but not emotion and decision-making in and of itself, in order to not overtake spiritual essence, which I'll explain further below.

Mental essence ought to govern any sharing of information, including telepathic communication, scrying, and divinatory spells that obtain cold, hard facts.

Mental essence also ought to govern mental damage, as well as protection against effects that would damage the mind or try to wrest information from it.

Spiritual Essence
The biggest change here I think is that spiritual essence, in my opinion, should cover the soul's ability to feel emotion and make decisions, as those I think are the essential qualities that let souls make the moral choices that shape their journey across the planes in the cycle of souls.

Spiritual essence ought to affect the soul, such as by dealing spirit damage, eliciting emotions, affecting decisions, or stopping or deviating a soul's normal path throughout the multiverse.

Spiritual essence I think also ought to govern interaction with the Outer Sphere, such as travel to and from those planes, and the ability to contact outsiders from those planes.

Vital Essence
Vital essence I don't think needs to change that much, in that it should cover life and its flow across the multiverse.

Vital essence ought to govern the manipulation of vitality, such as by healing hit points and dealing vitality damage, as well as the void, such as by dealing void damage and healing creatures whose flow of life energy has been reversed, such as undead. This should also mean exclusive access to the death trait on spells.

Because vital essence flows from Creation's Forge to the Void, it ought to govern interaction with the Inner Sphere, such as travel to and from those planes, and the ability to contact creatures from those planes.

So far, so simple, right? You might notice that a few different effects are missing, which brings us to the step where we start combining these building blocks up into traditions, each of which is greater than the sum of its parts:

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Part 2: Redrawn Magical Traditions

With the basic foundation of magical essences redrawn, let's see what happens when we put those together into magical traditions, and what could change from what we have now:

Arcane
This I feel would have the biggest changes: if material essence covers inanimate matter and energy, and mental essence covers information and the senses, that I think leads to a much more succinct delimitation of arcane magic as the magic of the structure, the kind of magic you use reshape reality as we know it. If the Universe were a video game, arcane magic would be the equivalent of cheat codes you'd get to use to alter any property that isn't a health bar or other players. While the application of mind over matter lends itself naturally to formal study, study shouldn't be the only way to wield arcane magic. This means outside of wizards and magi, there should be room for other arcane casters who may be self-taught, or who make use of runes and other magical structures to produce the exact forms and flows of arcane spells.

In addition to the basic portfolios of material and mental essence, arcane magic I think ought to govern alteration of more abstract properties, such as space and time. This means arcane magic ought to be what lets you teleport through space, though not across planes. This should also mean, in my opinion, exclusive access to applications of mind over matter, such as telekinesis and force constructs.

Contrary to current implementation, arcane magic in my opinion shouldn't allow the creation of undead, shapeshifting, or the wielding of vitality or void damage, as all of that I think requires manipulating vital essence. I also don't think it should cover the manipulation of emotions or the domination of wills, which I think gets into the domain of spiritual essence. Though arcane magic should be what lets you teleport through space, interplanar travel I think ought to be the domain of other spell traditions.

Also contrary to current implementation, I think arcane magic could do with increased access to protective and restorative spells that cover inanimate matter and the mind specifically. A wizard should therefore be able to cure the effects of Feeblemind and other specifically mental (but not spiritual or vital) debuffs, but should also be able to access all spells that scramble the mind directly, like Synesthesia

As an aside, force damage I think ought to be dropped. Most existing force damage spells are likely to be redone as spirit damage spells, and the remaining few arcane force damage spells would likely make more sense as spells that deal physical or energy damage. Arcane already has the largest selection of damage types, and ought to rely on using the right type for the occasion instead of bypassing all resistances and immunities with one type.

Occult
Also a tradition I think would change a fair bit along these lines, the occult tradition should remain the magic of stories, and specifically cover pretty much anything you'd expect from telepathy (but not telekinesis), along with a bit of spooky extraplanar interactions. Crafting illusions, enchanting the mind and the spirit, and communicating with souls from beyond this mortal coil ought to be the specialty of occult casters, who would be second to none at manipulating creatures, for good or ill. Occult casters should not, however, be able to influence matter, even if they could pick up thoughts and emotions around otherwise inanimate objects, nor should they be able to alter a creature's lifeforce.

Because occult magic lies at the intersection of the mental and the spiritual, occult casters should have exclusive access to all effects that mess with a target's mind and emotions at the same time, like Phantasmal Killer or Weird, effects that rely on performance, like Overselling Flourish, or effects that rely on true names and the importance attached to them.

Because occult magic uses spiritual essence, occult casters ought to be able to deal spirit damage, and alter a target's fate (arcane and primal casters shouldn't, by contrast).

Occult magic shouldn't be able to heal, as that ought to be the domain of vital essence, and I feel a lot of spells currently labeled as spiritual ought to be vital instead. Rather, occult spells should be able to grant temporary hit points instead, while protecting against damage to the mind or spirit and curing ailments to both.

Occult magic I don't think ought to cover telekinetic effects, as manipulating matter ought to be the domain of the arcane. Because of this, I feel the psychic could probably be made into a dual-tradition caster, with some conscious minds providing access to the arcane list, and others granting access to the occult list, as both incorporate the mental essence psychics hinge upon.

Divine
Divine I think (and hope) would be the biggest winner from this redrawing, as it would hopefully gain access to more spells, plus would be able to be the best spell list for a bunch of things. Not only would divine magic cover healing and death effects thanks to access to vital essence, it should cover a whole slew of buffs, debuffs, and crowd control related to spiritual essence. Divine magic would have the best access to interplanar travel and communication, and would also have exclusive access to resurrection, which would require both returning a soul to its body and infusing it with life.

I feel divine magic ought to cover exclusively spirit, vitality, and void damage, with deities and feats instead providing other damage types (Sarenrae's divine fire would likely be divine ice if it came from Kostchtchie, even if the base effect would be the same).

Any spell-based buff or debuff that doesn't cover the manipulation of matter, energy, information, or senses should be a divine spell.

We need more spells that are exclusively divine, i.e. that lie at the intersection of vital and spiritual essence. It's not just that divine magic should incorporate all of the lifeforce manipulation of primal magic and the soul manipulation of spiritual magic, divine magic also ought to include curses harmful to both health and fate, spells that turn constructs into truly living creatures with a soul, and spells that not only slay a creature, but destroy their soul as well.

Primal
Primal I think needs the least changes, and would likely be the tradition that would change the least. As with now, you'd get to control matter and energy, as well as life and death, and as a result of it be able to shape living matter as well as the inanimate, as well as summon new and existing lifeforms to your aid and unleash deadly diseases. Spells that specifically rely on living matter, like Inside Ropes, I feel ought to be exclusively primal as a result. Same as now, primal would therefore be the most direct tradition, with spells that would be great for creating, destroying, and transforming, though not so much controlling or manipulating other creatures unless they're made specifically of nothing but material or vital essence.

Part 3: Conclusion
The long and short of it all is that, in a more ideal world, I'd like spell traditions to be redrawn so that they're more or less equalized in size and range of things they can do. On one hand, this I think should mean reducing the breadth of arcane and occult magic to a more focused list of effects, but then also expanding divine magic somewhat to have more privileged access to a whole bunch of effects, particularly crowd control. This may not be a universally-agreed separation of traditions and their spells, but I feel it could lead to a structure for future implementations of those traditions that I think would lead to easier differentiation, as well as more easily identifiable caster classes.

The final thing I'd like to add to the above wall of text is that the above redrawing of spell traditions I think carries a few implications:

Pretty much all spells currently given to all traditions, like Mending, ought to be made exclusive to one or two.

Several spells that are currently a bit broad, like Plane Shift or Remove Curse, likely ought to be split into multiple spells that cover a smaller range of effects more specific to one or more traditions, e.g. "Travel the Inner Sphere"/"Travel the Outer Sphere", or "Cure Mental/Spiritual/Vital Ailment" (ideally with less generic names).

The magus, witch, and wizard would likely no longer need to use a spellbook-like mechanic to avoid becoming too versatile, and could instead use their spellbook or familiar to learn other kinds of things.

If the above traditions ever turn out to be too specific for existing casters, caster class and subclass features ought to fill in the gaps, just like how the current druid chassis features good defenses to make up for the primal tradition's focus on direct combat.

[3-Body Problem]

So you want to make Wizards even worse and even less connected to what they've been since the dawn of TTRPGs while buffing Clerics who already get a better base chasis with Occult getting gutted as collateral damage. Your fixes don't fix anything while making several already conteniously weak classes worse.

You get a hard no from me on this.

[Arcaian]

I think it's an interesting perspective on the essences, and I certainly wouldn't have an issue if things went this way - I think ideally all traditions should fundamentally be separated from their iconic classes in the way you're describing. If the justification for the arcane list being so broad is 'but wizards', then give wizards class features. Talking of this:

3-Body Problem wrote:

So you want to make Wizards even worse and even less connected to what they've been since the dawn of TTRPGs while buffing Clerics who already get a better base chasis with Occult getting gutted as collateral damage. Your fixes don't fix anything while making several already conteniously weak classes worse.

You get a hard no from me on this.

The original post literally says:

Quote:

The magus, witch, and wizard would likely no longer need to use a spellbook-like mechanic to avoid becoming too versatile, and could instead use their spellbook or familiar to learn other kinds of things.

If the above traditions ever turn out to be too specific for existing casters, caster class and subclass features ought to fill in the gaps, just like how the current druid chassis features good defenses to make up for the primal tradition's focus on direct combat.

The point is to try and take a critical eye to the traditions, make their mechanics more in-keeping with their narrative and thematic roles, and then rebalance any casters that are now out-of-tune to make up for this. If your concern is that wizards would be too weak, this would be an excellent time for something like each school giving you spells from outside the Arcane tradition. It feels rather fitting to me that wizards are so learned that they've managed to combine spells in ways they're not typically understood to work - hell, that's literally a whole thing the Magaambya does. Giving the lists a specific - and limited - niche to occupy does more to help define class identity than it does to take that away or weaken it; the difference between a wizard and an arcane witch would be a great place to test out how this differentiation could look, for example - right now, they are similar to a somewhat absurd degree.

[3-Body Problem]

Arcaian wrote:

I think it's an interesting perspective on the essences, and I certainly wouldn't have an issue if things went this way - I think ideally all traditions should fundamentally be separated from their iconic classes in the way you're describing. If the justification for the arcane list being so broad is 'but wizards', then give wizards class features. Talking of this:

3-Body Problem wrote:

So you want to make Wizards even worse and even less connected to what they've been since the dawn of TTRPGs while buffing Clerics who already get a better base chasis with Occult getting gutted as collateral damage. Your fixes don't fix anything while making several already conteniously weak classes worse.

You get a hard no from me on this.

The original post literally says:

Quote:

The magus, witch, and wizard would likely no longer need to use a spellbook-like mechanic to avoid becoming too versatile, and could instead use their spellbook or familiar to learn other kinds of things.

If the above traditions ever turn out to be too specific for existing casters, caster class and subclass features ought to fill in the gaps, just like how the current druid chassis features good defenses to make up for the primal tradition's focus on direct combat.

The point is to try and take a critical eye to the traditions, make their mechanics more in-keeping with their narrative and thematic roles, and then rebalance any casters that are now out-of-tune to make up for this.

I fundamentally dislike the way the traditions have been implemented so even if balance is perfect, and given the issues I have with PF2 I have my doubts, I don't think I would enjoy it. I do not think there is a valid excuse for not maintaining per class spell lists in the digital age we live in.

[The Raven Black]

3-Body Problem wrote:

Arcaian wrote:

I think it's an interesting perspective on the essences, and I certainly wouldn't have an issue if things went this way - I think ideally all traditions should fundamentally be separated from their iconic classes in the way you're describing. If the justification for the arcane list being so broad is 'but wizards', then give wizards class features. Talking of this:

3-Body Problem wrote:

So you want to make Wizards even worse and even less connected to what they've been since the dawn of TTRPGs while buffing Clerics who already get a better base chasis with Occult getting gutted as collateral damage. Your fixes don't fix anything while making several already conteniously weak classes worse.

You get a hard no from me on this.

The original post literally says:

Quote:

The magus, witch, and wizard would likely no longer need to use a spellbook-like mechanic to avoid becoming too versatile, and could instead use their spellbook or familiar to learn other kinds of things.

If the above traditions ever turn out to be too specific for existing casters, caster class and subclass features ought to fill in the gaps, just like how the current druid chassis features good defenses to make up for the primal tradition's focus on direct combat.

The point is to try and take a critical eye to the traditions, make their mechanics more in-keeping with their narrative and thematic roles, and then rebalance any casters that are now out-of-tune to make up for this.

I fundamentally dislike the way the traditions have been implemented so even if balance is perfect, and given the issues I have with PF2 I have my doubts, I don't think I would enjoy it. I do not think there is a valid excuse for not maintaining per class spell lists in the digital age we live in.

Game designers' sanity and quality of life ?

[Calliope5431]

3-Body Problem wrote:

Arcaian wrote:

I think it's an interesting perspective on the essences, and I certainly wouldn't have an issue if things went this way - I think ideally all traditions should fundamentally be separated from their iconic classes in the way you're describing. If the justification for the arcane list being so broad is 'but wizards', then give wizards class features. Talking of this:

3-Body Problem wrote:

So you want to make Wizards even worse and even less connected to what they've been since the dawn of TTRPGs while buffing Clerics who already get a better base chasis with Occult getting gutted as collateral damage. Your fixes don't fix anything while making several already conteniously weak classes worse.

You get a hard no from me on this.

The original post literally says:

Quote:

The magus, witch, and wizard would likely no longer need to use a spellbook-like mechanic to avoid becoming too versatile, and could instead use their spellbook or familiar to learn other kinds of things.

If the above traditions ever turn out to be too specific for existing casters, caster class and subclass features ought to fill in the gaps, just like how the current druid chassis features good defenses to make up for the primal tradition's focus on direct combat.

The point is to try and take a critical eye to the traditions, make their mechanics more in-keeping with their narrative and thematic roles, and then rebalance any casters that are now out-of-tune to make up for this.

I fundamentally dislike the way the traditions have been implemented so even if balance is perfect, and given the issues I have with PF2 I have my doubts, I don't think I would enjoy it. I do not think there is a valid excuse for not maintaining per class spell lists in the digital age we live in.

Not everyone has the internet, and lots of people want to use physical books.

The absolute train wreck that was 3.5 and PF 1e spell list collation ought to give ANYONE advocating for per-class spell lists pause. It vaguely workable in D&D 5e, but D&D 5e has (had?) the advantage of basically never publishing new player content and spells.

[Cyouni]

I don't see why spirit should have anything to do with emotions, clearly a mental thing. I don't understand why you seem to think controlling someone's mind with magic is a spirit-based thing, because the whole point is that mental control does not affect the soul.

If anything, I'd say force effects are more along the lines of spiritual vs material, given how they affect spiritual bodies so effectively. (Yes, I'm temporarily putting aside how they are physical manifestations that also affect the physical form.) I think one of the most obvious things here as an example is Spiritual Blast.

3-Body Problem wrote:

I fundamentally dislike the way the traditions have been implemented so even if balance is perfect, and given the issues I have with PF2 I have my doubts, I don't think I would enjoy it. I do not think there is a valid excuse for not maintaining per class spell lists in the digital age we live in.

Ah yes, the "we should go digital-only" crowd appears again, despite all the reasons Paizo has given against it.

[3-Body Problem]

The Raven Black wrote:

Game designers' sanity and quality of life ?

Is maintaining a table and thinking about which new spells are appropriate for each casting class really supposed to be some impossible feat? I do not buy that for a second.

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

I believe it has been made clear in the lore before that the experience of consciousness (including emotion) does not belong to any one essence. I'm running off to work right now, but iirc emotions are actually based in all four essences to greater or lesser degrees. For example mind is supposed to specialize in headier, more cerebral aspects of emotion while life essence sits around basic instinctual emotions.

[AestheticDialectic]

I could definitely co-sign everything in the OP. Particularly I like the idea of narrowing down arcane and divorcing it from the wizard and then refocusing the wizard to be one of the arcane casters but one focused on break the rules and boundaries of spellcasting. Right now wizards break spell slot rules within their chassis and I think this is where they should go. I would also like them to break tradition boundaries in small ways, but I won't get into the weeds of that here. You mention crowd control for divine casters, and if you mean effects like wall of stone, black tentacles, slow and the force spells, well you can already see that I believe this kind of spells effect should be the arcane bread and butter, but I'm not opposed to divine getting crowd control in some measure, I just believe arcane should be the best at it, that this is the niche of arcane in a mechanical sense. The breakdown would be something like:
We have several spelled effects:
-utility, such as knock, teleporting, divination and the like
-crowd control aka battlefield control, effects that stop enemies from being able to do things. Removing actions like slow, separating them with walls of stone, having them grappled by black tentacles
-AoE damage
-single Target Damage
-debuffs, numerical decreases in the abilities of enemies
-buffs
-healing/removing ailments/resurrection
-Summoning

Then we separate what traditions are primary, secondary and tertiary in:
Primary is the things the tradition is best in class at
Secondary is the things the tradition does decent
Tertiary is very limited access
And then ofc not-at-all.

For example arcane would be
Primary:
-Battlefield control
-Utility
-AoE Damage
Secondary:
-Debuffing
-Summoning
Tertiary:
-Buffing
-Single Target Damage
Not-at-all:
-healing

Something like that divine would be
Primary:
-Healing
-Buffs
Secondary:
-Debuffs
-AoE Damage
Tertiary:
-Battlefield control
-Single Target Damage
-Summoning

It's possible divine should get damage in each category bumped up, but this is a rough on the fly categorization

[AestheticDialectic]

Cyouni wrote:

I don't see why spirit should have anything to do with emotions, clearly a mental thing. I don't understand why you seem to think controlling someone's mind with magic is a spirit-based thing, because the whole point is that mental control does not affect the soul.

If anything, I'd say force effects are more along the lines of spiritual vs material, given how they affect spiritual bodies so effectively. (Yes, I'm temporarily putting aside how they are physical manifestations that also affect the physical form.) I think one of the most obvious things here as an example is Spiritual Blast.

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

I believe it has been made clear in the lore before that the experience of consciousness (including emotion) does not belong to any one essence. I'm running off to work right now, but iirc emotions are actually based in all four essences to greater or lesser degrees. For example mind is supposed to specialize in headier, more cerebral aspects of emotion while life essence sits around basic instinctual emotions.

Emotions are stated to be spirit in the Secrets of Magic book, and that mental does not govern emotions

[Cyouni]

3-Body Problem wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

Game designers' sanity and quality of life ?

Is maintaining a table and thinking about which new spells are appropriate for each casting class really supposed to be some impossible feat? I do not buy that for a second.

You're aware that there are 1388 spells currently and 13 classes capable of casting, right?

You're aware that you're suggesting quadrupling+ the work of developers for no benefit? And then it also breaks the entire system if they introduce a new casting class, because now they have to backport all 1388 spells into that class?

[Cyouni]

AestheticDialectic wrote:

Cyouni wrote:

I don't see why spirit should have anything to do with emotions, clearly a mental thing. I don't understand why you seem to think controlling someone's mind with magic is a spirit-based thing, because the whole point is that mental control does not affect the soul.

If anything, I'd say force effects are more along the lines of spiritual vs material, given how they affect spiritual bodies so effectively. (Yes, I'm temporarily putting aside how they are physical manifestations that also affect the physical form.) I think one of the most obvious things here as an example is Spiritual Blast.

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

I believe it has been made clear in the lore before that the experience of consciousness (including emotion) does not belong to any one essence. I'm running off to work right now, but iirc emotions are actually based in all four essences to greater or lesser degrees. For example mind is supposed to specialize in headier, more cerebral aspects of emotion while life essence sits around basic instinctual emotions.

Emotions are stated to be spirit in the Secrets of Magic book, and that mental does not govern emotions

I would have to take a look at that, because that's an interesting setup there.

[Calliope5431]

Cyouni wrote:

3-Body Problem wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

Game designers' sanity and quality of life ?

Is maintaining a table and thinking about which new spells are appropriate for each casting class really supposed to be some impossible feat? I do not buy that for a second.

You're aware that there are 1388 spells currently and 13 classes capable of casting, right?

You're aware that you're suggesting quadrupling+ the work of developers for no benefit? And then it also breaks the entire system if they introduce a new casting class, because now they have to backport all 1388 spells into that class?

Oh it's much worse than that. Consider the fact that witch and sorcerer have subclass-based spell lists, or the fact that cleric deity spells exist.

Ideally, in a perfect world, there would be a nice curated spell list for every single subclass and every single deity, everyone would use web tools to design their characters, and the devs might use Natural Language Processing and AI tools to create spell lists fairly easily.

In practice, that's an abject nightmare and NO.

[3-Body Problem]

Calliope5431 wrote:

Not everyone has the internet, and lots of people want to use physical books.

Anybody who can afford to spend money on a TTRPG can also afford a device that can download an updated PDF (or cache a webpage if AoN is their preference) anyplace that has wifi. For dead tree types, you can always print out your class's updated spell lists as they're updated. It's not as if new books come out all that often.

Quote:

The absolute train wreck that was 3.5 and PF 1e spell list collation ought to give ANYONE advocating for per-class spell lists pause. It vaguely workable in D&D 5e, but D&D 5e has (had?) the advantage of basically never publishing new player content and spells.

Paizo is bad at formating pretty much everything they touch but that's hardly an unsolvable problem.

[3-Body Problem]

Cyouni wrote:

You're aware that there are 1388 spells currently and 13 classes capable of casting, right?

You're aware that you're suggesting quadrupling+ the work of developers for no benefit? And then it also breaks the entire system if they introduce a new casting class, because now they have to backport all 1388 spells into that class?

1,400 items and 13 categories is not a lot of data to sort especially if you go in knowing that you're planning to sort things and tag it all from the start. What spells new classes get should be a part of the design process for new casting classes as much as their feats and class features are.

[GameDesignerDM]

3-Body Problem wrote:

Calliope5431 wrote:

Not everyone has the internet, and lots of people want to use physical books.

Anybody who can afford to spend money on a TTRPG can also afford a device that can download an updated PDF (or cache a webpage if AoN is their preference) anyplace that has wifi. For dead tree types, you can always print out your class's updated spell lists as they're updated. It's not as if new books come out all that often.

You can't actually know that, though.

[3-Body Problem]

Calliope5431 wrote:

Oh it's much worse than that. Consider the fact that witch and sorcerer have subclass-based spell lists, or the fact that cleric deity spells exist.

Ideally, in a perfect world, there would be a nice curated spell list for every single subclass and every single deity, everyone would use web tools to design their characters, and the devs might use Natural Language Processing and AI tools to create spell lists fairly easily.

In practice, that's an abject nightmare and NO.

Those sub-class-based spell lists already exist and would simply exist as a layer above a baselayer of class spell lists. It's zero additional work compared to what already exists.

[3-Body Problem]

GameDesignerDM wrote:

You can't actually know that, though.

Then those players get screwed until somebody can fax them an updated list of spells. That seems like an extreme edge case and one that can be solved by satellite internet almost anywhere Paizo ships to.

[QuidEst]

The proposed spell traditions certainly make more sense with the lore of essences, but I'd find them unpleasant to play with. Having no spells that can affect the material world directly is a big pain and would limit certain casters to just sitting on their hands when there aren't strangers or ghosts around. I do think it's important for the magic traditions to sprawl a bit outside of their strict confines.

But, hey. If things roll around to PF3 and the designers want to sit down and make lore-guided spell lists that still give everyone plenty of things to do, I'm happy to check it out. I'm not going to rule out the possibility that I'd like the result. As it is here? Eh... it feels needlessly strict.

[AestheticDialectic]

Cyouni wrote:

AestheticDialectic wrote:

Cyouni wrote:

I don't see why spirit should have anything to do with emotions, clearly a mental thing. I don't understand why you seem to think controlling someone's mind with magic is a spirit-based thing, because the whole point is that mental control does not affect the soul.

If anything, I'd say force effects are more along the lines of spiritual vs material, given how they affect spiritual bodies so effectively. (Yes, I'm temporarily putting aside how they are physical manifestations that also affect the physical form.) I think one of the most obvious things here as an example is Spiritual Blast.

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

I believe it has been made clear in the lore before that the experience of consciousness (including emotion) does not belong to any one essence. I'm running off to work right now, but iirc emotions are actually based in all four essences to greater or lesser degrees. For example mind is supposed to specialize in headier, more cerebral aspects of emotion while life essence sits around basic instinctual emotions.

Emotions are stated to be spirit in the Secrets of Magic book, and that mental does not govern emotions

I would have to take a look at that, because that's an interesting setup there.

Let me get a page number for you....

Starts on page 16

[Calliope5431]

3-Body Problem wrote:

Calliope5431 wrote:

Not everyone has the internet, and lots of people want to use physical books.

Anybody who can afford to spend money on a TTRPG can also afford a device that can download an updated PDF (or cache a webpage if AoN is their preference) anyplace that has wifi. For dead tree types, you can always print out your class's updated spell lists as they're updated. It's not as if new books come out all that often.

Quote:

The absolute train wreck that was 3.5 and PF 1e spell list collation ought to give ANYONE advocating for per-class spell lists pause. It vaguely workable in D&D 5e, but D&D 5e has (had?) the advantage of basically never publishing new player content and spells.

Paizo is bad at formating pretty much everything they touch but that's hardly an unsolvable problem.

I actually think Paizo's formatting is pretty decent. Especially compared to the dumpster fire that was WotC's spell list formatting in the 3.5 years.

Frankly, I've seen 3.5/PF 1E spell lists. I've PLAYED both. It's a godawful mess, it's a nightmare for the designers, and there's no actual benefit to doing it.

Quote:

Those sub-class-based spell lists already exist and would simply exist as a layer above a baselayer of class spell lists. It's zero additional work compared to what already exists.

Um. Not really, no.

Sorcerers and witches use the traditions to determine their ENTIRE spell list (with a little extra sprinkled on top). Unless you're advocating going back to Ye Olde Sorc/Wiz list (or a generic sorcerer list separate from the wizard list that ALL sorcerers use), which I sincerely hope you are NOT, switching to class-specific lists would torpedo most of their flavor and each subclass' unique traits.

[Trip.H]

As far as the theming of the magic and its traditions goes, I find it interesting to think about Alchemy, and how it's explicitly non-magical. Seizing, unmaking, and remaking the fundamental Quintessences into one's own design. Yet without the same common thread of soul-power(?) of the magical traditions.

But, that's off-topic.

------------

As far as the mechanical implementation of such a change, I think many are being a little overly dramatic / pessimistic about the workload.

If the change were paired with adding in new sidegrade spells for any essential tools that were getting removed from a class/tradition, I don't see it being too problematic, and the balancing would have each prior example to use.
The main reason to not do it is the benefit, while very real and worth doing, is not something that can be sold for $$$ as easily as something like the Kineticist.

Adding side-grade spells would be like the family of Magic/Runic Weapon, Shillelagh, Conductive Weapon. They all have important mechanical differences in line w/ their theming, but are tools with (generally) the same function. I do love Conductive Weapon for breaking the mold a bit and being a flat d6.

Idk, but I can't see more than 20ish of the new filler/sidegrade spells being needed, and as no existing spell would be getting its numbers altered, that's not even a full balancing pass for new gameplay.

It would just be looking through each tradition's Before --> After toolset and making sure to fill in any needed gaps.

[Calliope5431]

Trip.H wrote:

As far as the theming of the magic and its traditions goes, I find it interesting to think about Alchemy, and how it's explicitly non-magical. Seizing, unmaking, and remaking the fundamental Quintessences into one's own design.

But, that's off-topic.

------------

As far as the mechanical implementation of such a change, I think many are being a little overly dramatic / pessimistic about the workload.

If the change were paired with adding in new sidegrade spells for any essential tools that were getting removed from a class/tradition, I don't see it being too problematic, and the balancing would have each prior example to use.
The main reason to not do it is the benefit, while very real and worth doing, is not something that can be sold for $$$ as easily as something like the Kineticist.

Adding side-grade spells would be like the family of Magic/Runic Weapon, Shillelagh, Conductive Weapon. They all have important mechanical differences in line w/ their theming, but are tools with (generally) the same function. I do love Conductive Weapon for breaking the mold a bit and being a flat d6.

Idk, but I can't see more than 20ish of the new filler/sidegrade spells being needed, and as no existing spell would be getting it's numbers altered, that's not even a full balancing pass in a gameplay sense.

It would just be looking through each tradition's Before --> After toolset and making sure to fill in any needed gaps.

I totally think that damage type variety should be a thing built into spells.

Not as in "you can choose fire, cold, or electricity whenever you cast this spell!" (that would be too strong). But along the lines of "well, at level 5, your wizard can learn Fireball. But he could instead learn Coldball. Or he can learn Acidball".

The fact that there are literally dozens of spells that basically read "the targets in [w] area take [x] amount of [y] damage type on a basic [z] save" means there's a whole lot of room for more general spells, like say "energy ball" which you can learn as an acid, cold, fire, or electricity spell. Potentially in line, burst, or cone form.

Which would ultimately simplify things and would cut down on page count, because you don't have to publish dozens of spells for each damage type, shape, and level.

It's already a thing for Elemental Bloodline sorcerers, who can learn bludgeoning versions of fire spells like Produce Flame or Fireball.

[3-Body Problem]

Calliope5431 wrote:

Um. Not really, no.

Sorcerers and witches use the traditions to determine their ENTIRE spell list (with a little extra sprinkled on top). Unless you're advocating going back to Ye Olde Sorc/Wiz list (or a generic sorcerer list separate from the wizard list that ALL sorcerers use), which I sincerely hope you are NOT, switching to class-specific lists would torpedo most of their flavor and each subclass' unique traits.

Sorry, I was thinking of the bonus spells known lists, and not the pick-a-tradition casters that are unique to PF2. I'd have many of them represented by the base sorcerer list with additional spells known and restricted on a theme-by-theme basis with some hard-to-make work lists being spun off as their own class or archetype. Though I wouldn't be opposed to making bespoke lists for each flavor of sorcerer and witch either.

[Calliope5431]

3-Body Problem wrote:

Calliope5431 wrote:

Um. Not really, no.

Sorcerers and witches use the traditions to determine their ENTIRE spell list (with a little extra sprinkled on top). Unless you're advocating going back to Ye Olde Sorc/Wiz list (or a generic sorcerer list separate from the wizard list that ALL sorcerers use), which I sincerely hope you are NOT, switching to class-specific lists would torpedo most of their flavor and each subclass' unique traits.

Sorry, I was thinking of the bonus spells known lists, and not the pick-a-tradition casters that are unique to PF2. I'd have many of them represented by the base sorcerer list with additional spells known and restricted on a theme-by-theme basis with some hard-to-make work lists being spun off as their own class or archetype. Though I wouldn't be opposed to making bespoke lists for each flavor of sorcerer and witch either.

Yeah I do think traditions help with a simpler implementation of that. Since you have 4 general "themes" that you can then add spells to, rather than having to spin things off or write custom lists for every subclass.

Again - in a perfect world, I'd agree that every (sub)class should have their own special list. It'd be really cool. But the overhead for doing so is immense, and 3.5 (more so than PF 1e, but both are relevant examples) proves why that can get really really unsustainably painful.

[Teridax]

I did not expect this thread to blow up so quickly, and I'm very glad to see a lot of productive discussion on the topic as well! A few comments on my part:

The above does intend to pare down the breadth of what certain types of casters can do, and even though that would lead to some casters being able to do fewer things, and have more things they can't do, I feel that in itself is a good thing for a number of reasons: for one, lacking certain things is what makes playing characters who have those things more interesting, which makes for more replayability, but it also means those weaknesses can be compensated in different ways, chiefly by breaking the rules to the class's advantage. This is commonly used with martial classes in ways that make them stand out and feel great at certain things, and is a thread that exists in many casters and can be pulled even further in my opinion (for example, certain wizard arcane theses and the way they play with spell slots).

Despite the above, the intent is not to nerf casters, quite the opposite: while I certainly don't want the return of the god-wizard from PF1e, I feel there's this sweet spot between versatility and raw power where classes get to feel like they have incredible agency and build freedom, while still feeling strong at what they do. A wizard who can't also be a necromancer, mesmerist, and shapeshifter at the same time ought to be able to feel like they're cheating with their spellcasting due to their class features, and generally casters with clear gaps in what they can do with their spells ought to have those filled in with a solid core chassis and class feats that let them be at least competent in most situations.

As AestheticDialectic mentioned, emotions are the realm of spiritual essence rather than mental essence, and while I agree that mental and emotion effects are currently mostly conflated (all emotion effects also have the mental trait), I feel that ought to be separated in the future. Being able to turn otherwise mindless undead, issue divinely-empowered commands, or compel souls into compliance from beyond the Universe I think are good examples of why divine casting ought to have a lot of crowd control, along with the occult tradition of course, as controlling the soul is what allows that kind of domination. Along with perverting life into undeath, it should also mean divine magic should be able to be used for the worst forms of evil, along with the greatest good. In mechanical terms, I also feel arcane casters would have enough agency by molding the Universe like putty to not also need crowd control to feel good, whereas divine magic feels lacking to many players.

I fully agree with every comment on separating "iconic" casters from their spell list. A commonly-voiced opinion of magic is that it's less about different tools than it's about different flavors of the same thing (e.g. Coke vs. Pepsi, rather than a hammer versus a screwdriver), and while I disagree strongly with applying that to traditions (what's the point of different traditions if that's the case?), I do think it very much applies to caster classes: the arcane tradition does not need to be tailor-made to wizards; wizards should have all the class features and feats they need to fill in the gaps, including potentially a thesis or school of magic that applies scholarly study to an entirely different magical tradition. Conversely, just because wizards are studious and clerics practice faith does not mean the arcane or divine traditions should only be reached via study or faith, either: we have oracles who wield divine magic without needing to be faithful to a deity, for example, and I think there's room for plenty more types of arcane casters who aren't just magical scientists.

As a side note, I feel if one really does want to play an omni-mage who can cast any spell under the sun, it would probably be quite easy to homebrew exactly that kind of class in 2e, particularly with the upcoming changes to spell proficiencies in the remaster. The end result would likely not be able to feel terribly powerful or interesting while still being balanced, but it's certainly a class that one can create if the need is really so great.

[AnimatedPaper]

I had similar thoughts as you OP, and in fact prefer your phrasing of arcane as "reality manipulation."

I'd definitely be satisfied with revision along those lines. I don't necessarily agree with everything you said, but close enough that I wouldn't mind the differences.

[Deriven Firelion]

I liked the class spell lists of PF1 mechanically.

I like the new system conceptually, especially the way they use it. I don't think they should become too caught up in lore or some nebulous idea of what each means.

To me the focus should be on how each classes accesses their magic and not on some hard idea of what each magic type means.

Arcane: Accesses magic through study, rigorous discipline, and the use of scientific principles of magic.

Divine: Accesses magic through prayer, worship, and the power of a deity or divine source of magic.

Occult: Accesses magic through the study of secrets, myth, contact with an unusual being, folk magic, and a variety of more non-scientific methods like songs and stories.

Primal: Accesses the power within the living world itself. The very power of nature intuitively or through a powerful source like a nature deity or animal totem.

The focus for each essence or type of magic is more defined by how the caster accesses the magic and less intertwined with any idea of what each type of magic is. Typing magic makes it too locked in and creates a limiting factor that isn't necessary.

All we the players need to know is how each caster practicing magic accesses it, which is what the definitions should be concerned with.

It doesn't matter to me if a wizard using arcane magic learns by that fireball by carefully learning gestures and words to align the universal energies to conjure and control fire or the druid using primal magic learns gestures and words to call forth the fire from the plane of fire and launch it at a target. They are both fundamentally doing something similar, but the way they learned to access these sources is different even if the source is the same.

[Easl]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

To me the focus should be on how each classes accesses their magic and not on some hard idea of what each magic type means.

...

The focus for each essence or type of magic is more defined by how the caster accesses the magic and less intertwined with any idea of what each type of magic is. Typing magic makes it too locked in and creates a limiting factor that isn't necessary.

I agree with you on all of this, with a quibble. As Unicore noted in their earlier thread about Arcane, the spell lists and particularly Arcane are (or maybe, 'have become over editions') a bit of a grab-bag. It would be nice if Arcane at least had *some* stronger theming, a sort of 'here's what it does well' rather than just 'it doesn't do healing.' Occult too; that seems an ideal candidate for "less overlap, more weird" But sure, the primalist gets their fireball and lightning through a spiritwalk while the wizard studies and the divine gets a similar smitey spell through prayer.

Maybe you give each tradition some sort of mild special effect? Arcane spells get 1-3 points penetration against resistance because they are precise and tuned. Primal gets extra spirit damage or ability to shift some damage to spirit. Spells from occult make the scene a bit darker or makes the atmosphere fevered so that opponent Will saves are 1 point harder, and divine makes the scene a bit lighter or give allies a 1 point bonus to fortitude saves. Stuff like that. So that yeah there is overlap, but each tradition also brings it's own flavor to the casting table. The differences should not be so valuable that we get minimaxing "well you can't be a blaster with primal, because Arcane's benefit is just too good and you'll always be inferior to them." But some sort of "yeah it's the same spell, but when you do it this way, that happens" sort of cool thing.

My initial thoughts on the OP is that the changes suggested would require a whole host of other class changes to ensure balance. So probably a 3E kind of idea. It's interesting and thought-provoking, but not something I'd want to see implemented in the current rules set.

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

AestheticDialectic wrote:

Cyouni wrote:

AestheticDialectic wrote:

Cyouni wrote:

I don't see why spirit should have anything to do with emotions, clearly a mental thing. I don't understand why you seem to think controlling someone's mind with magic is a spirit-based thing, because the whole point is that mental control does not affect the soul.

If anything, I'd say force effects are more along the lines of spiritual vs material, given how they affect spiritual bodies so effectively. (Yes, I'm temporarily putting aside how they are physical manifestations that also affect the physical form.) I think one of the most obvious things here as an example is Spiritual Blast.

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

I believe it has been made clear in the lore before that the experience of consciousness (including emotion) does not belong to any one essence. I'm running off to work right now, but iirc emotions are actually based in all four essences to greater or lesser degrees. For example mind is supposed to specialize in headier, more cerebral aspects of emotion while life essence sits around basic instinctual emotions.

Emotions are stated to be spirit in the Secrets of Magic book, and that mental does not govern emotions

I would have to take a look at that, because that's an interesting setup there.

Let me get a page number for you....

Starts on page 16

Interesting, because that is the opposite impression I have gotten from the same section. If I were to selectively quote the portions which I believe most relevant to my earlier assertion:

"On Essences" by Marquise Cordelia Perseis - Secrets of Magic wrote:

It’s critical that you don’t overgeneralize Mind to mean “Everything I experience in my consciousness as a thinking being.” All three of the remaining essences (and even Matter, when considering the ability of physical chemicals to alter a mental state) have profound parts to play in your experience of consciousness.

[...]
Mind is not simply cold and calculating logic. Intellectual creativity and dreams are built of Mind, along with Spirit. Emotions are among the most difficult parts of our experience to distribute among the essences, and are the subject of great debates as to exactly how they should be assigned. Suffice to say, my best summary is that many of our emotions are complex enough that they are composed of more than one essence, and the most instinctual and subconscious emotions aren’t associated with Mind.

There is emphasis on the most instinctual emotions not being associated with mind, but on the other hand the Charm spell is explicitly called out as a (mental/emotion) effect that can be created by manipulating mental essence and by calling out specific emotions as not falling under the purview of Mind, it would seem to suggest that Mind is certainly among the essences that compose emotions.

[Deriven Firelion]

Easl wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

To me the focus should be on how each classes accesses their magic and not on some hard idea of what each magic type means.

...

The focus for each essence or type of magic is more defined by how the caster accesses the magic and less intertwined with any idea of what each type of magic is. Typing magic makes it too locked in and creates a limiting factor that isn't necessary.

I agree with you on all of this, with a quibble. As Unicore noted in their earlier thread about Arcane, the spell lists and particularly Arcane are (or maybe, 'have become over editions') a bit of a grab-bag. It would be nice if Arcane at least had *some* stronger theming, a sort of 'here's what it does well' rather than just 'it doesn't do healing.' Occult too; that seems an ideal candidate for "less overlap, more weird" But sure, the primalist gets their fireball and lightning through a spiritwalk while the wizard studies and the divine gets a similar smitey spell through prayer.

Maybe you give each tradition some sort of mild special effect? Arcane spells get 1-3 points penetration against resistance because they are precise and tuned. Primal gets extra spirit damage or ability to shift some damage to spirit. Spells from occult make the scene a bit darker or makes the atmosphere fevered so that opponent Will saves are 1 point harder, and divine makes the scene a bit lighter or give allies a 1 point bonus to fortitude saves. Stuff like that. So that yeah there is overlap, but each tradition also brings it's own flavor to the casting table. The differences should not be so valuable that we get minimaxing "well you can't be a blaster with primal, because Arcane's benefit is just too good and you'll always be inferior to them." But some sort of "yeah it's the same spell, but when you do it this way, that happens" sort of cool thing.

My initial thoughts on the OP is that the changes suggested would require a whole host of other class changes to ensure balance. So probably a 3E kind...

I would rather each class handle any kind of bonus rather than a tradition of magic.

Tradition of magic is an easy way to identify of each type of casting tradition has learned to access. Whether they can access something further in the future is up to the designers.

I'm ok with healing being tied to every tradition but Arcane. Though they could remove it from Occult too and I'd be fine with it.

[Teridax]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I liked the class spell lists of PF1 mechanically.

I like the new system conceptually, especially the way they use it. I don't think they should become too caught up in lore or some nebulous idea of what each means.

To me the focus should be on how each classes accesses their magic and not on some hard idea of what each magic type means.

Arcane: Accesses magic through study, rigorous discipline, and the use of scientific principles of magic.

Divine: Accesses magic through prayer, worship, and the power of a deity or divine source of magic.

Occult: Accesses magic through the study of secrets, myth, contact with an unusual being, folk magic, and a variety of more non-scientific methods like songs and stories.

Primal: Accesses the power within the living world itself. The very power of nature intuitively or through a powerful source like a nature deity or animal totem.

The focus for each essence or type of magic is more defined by how the caster accesses the magic and less intertwined with any idea of what each type of magic is. Typing magic makes it too locked in and creates a limiting factor that isn't necessary.

All we the players need to know is how each caster practicing magic accesses it, which is what the definitions should be concerned with.

It doesn't matter to me if a wizard using arcane magic learns by that fireball by carefully learning gestures and words to align the universal energies to conjure and control fire or the druid using primal magic learns gestures and words to call forth the fire from the plane of fire and launch it at a target. They are both fundamentally doing something similar, but the way they learned to access these sources is different even if the source is the same.

I feel this approach would be quite limiting in practice, because it applies a framing that I think ought to be applied to classes and not traditions, while failing to differentiate magic itself. If the only way to cast magic is through study, prayer, more study, or intuition, then the only valid casters you can have are the wizard, cleric, bard, and druid, and if there's no other difference to the traditions, then they all end up doing the same thing anyway. At that point, we might as well just revert back to the generic magic-user of AD&D.

By contrast, if we apply proper differentiation to the traditions themselves, then rather than just having generic magic, already we get to have four distinct types of magic, which means at least four caster classes that will play fundamentally differently from one another. If we then apply your suggested framing to classes, rather than traditions, then we get to have plenty more caster classes who get to feel different from each other even when they access the same tradition. Just to give out some examples of more casters that could potentially come about:

A hedge mage whose arcane magic is self-taught, rather than learned through formal study, and who gets to come up with entirely new spell structures and spellcasting methods as a result of their unorthodox path.

An arcane class who channels magic from runes, crystals, tattoos, and other stuctured objects, trading off flexibility for reliability and output.

A necromancer who wields either divine or primal magic, raising the dead and redirecting the flow of vital essence itself.

A primal class who'd work as an anti-druid of sorts, aligning themselves with the entropic forces of the Void and channeling the shadows of the Netherworld in an inversion of the natural order of the Inner Sphere.

Beyond that, there are many more magic classes that'd fit along this kind of framework, I'm sure. So long as it is the class that defines the approach to magic, not the tradition, I think there can be as many classes as there are approaches, and when applied to a framework of four distinct traditions, you get to multiply the playstyles even further whenever any one of those classes can opt into more than one tradition. That, to me, is a lot more interesting than making traditions themselves only cosmetically different ways of getting to the same magic.

[Easl]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I would rather each class handle any kind of bonus rather than a tradition of magic.

Why not both? Granted, the combinatorial problem means devs have to think a bit more about ensuring the bonuses don't interact in some too good or too bad way. But in-game it shouldn't be much of a problem, because Alice has a fixed class and tradition, so after session 1 her player and the GM both know exactly what that one combo is always going to be.

I'm fine with Arcane not having healing too. I just think "anything not healing" is not much of a theme.

[Deriven Firelion]

Teridax wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I liked the class spell lists of PF1 mechanically.

I like the new system conceptually, especially the way they use it. I don't think they should become too caught up in lore or some nebulous idea of what each means.

To me the focus should be on how each classes accesses their magic and not on some hard idea of what each magic type means.

Arcane: Accesses magic through study, rigorous discipline, and the use of scientific principles of magic.

Divine: Accesses magic through prayer, worship, and the power of a deity or divine source of magic.

Occult: Accesses magic through the study of secrets, myth, contact with an unusual being, folk magic, and a variety of more non-scientific methods like songs and stories.

Primal: Accesses the power within the living world itself. The very power of nature intuitively or through a powerful source like a nature deity or animal totem.

The focus for each essence or type of magic is more defined by how the caster accesses the magic and less intertwined with any idea of what each type of magic is. Typing magic makes it too locked in and creates a limiting factor that isn't necessary.

All we the players need to know is how each caster practicing magic accesses it, which is what the definitions should be concerned with.

It doesn't matter to me if a wizard using arcane magic learns by that fireball by carefully learning gestures and words to align the universal energies to conjure and control fire or the druid using primal magic learns gestures and words to call forth the fire from the plane of fire and launch it at a target. They are both fundamentally doing something similar, but the way they learned to access these sources is different even if the source is the same.

I feel this approach would be quite limiting in practice, because it applies a framing that I think ought to be applied to classes and not traditions, while failing to differentiate magic itself. If the only way to cast magic is through study,...

No. It wouldn't be limiting.

The only way isn't prayer. Each class would have their own method. The list would provide a broad overview of possible methods guiding what class should have each list.

Same as happens now without the strangeness of having to define what each type of magic does as that just leads to problematic explanations for why charm is on three lists and absent another.

If you focus more on how each type of user accesses magic rather than try to force square pegs into round holes forcing each "essence" to conform to certain base "essences" of magic, you have a far more open system.

[Deriven Firelion]

Easl wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I would rather each class handle any kind of bonus rather than a tradition of magic.

Why not both? Granted, the combinatorial problem means devs have to think a bit more about ensuring the bonuses don't interact in some too good or too bad way. But in-game it shouldn't be much of a problem, because Alice has a fixed class and tradition, so after session 1 her player and the GM both know exactly what that one combo is always going to be.

I'm fine with Arcane not having healing too. I just think "anything not healing" is not much of a theme.

I explained why not both.

By focusing on the method of accessing magic, you don't lock the list to taking different types of magic that some would deem inappropriate. Right now we're seeing these discussion of what should be on each list because of the definition for the "type" of magic each list deals with.

"Type" of magic to me is a waste of time. It's magic. Who cares if primal accesses charm from primal fey power and arcane accesses charm from study of the human mind and how to manipulate it.

We can get that same result by the class traditional access by saying the primal casters learned this from fey creatures and the arcane casters learned it by careful study of the mind.

It's a subtle difference that keeps the traditions from being locked in at a base level to "type" of magic each can access.

In reality, I want cool spells on each spell list that makes each caster fun to play. I like the way traditions allow for more flexible caster builds like sorcerers and witches who can access different magic and fulfill different roles than they could in PF1. It makes it a lot more fun to build casters that have access to different lists that can fulfill different roles.

I barely read the essences. I don't want the designers building spell traditions that lock them too deeply into ideas that prevent the addition of cool spells to all the lists because they are overly concerned about what each "type" of magic represents.

[The Raven Black]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Easl wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I would rather each class handle any kind of bonus rather than a tradition of magic.

Why not both? Granted, the combinatorial problem means devs have to think a bit more about ensuring the bonuses don't interact in some too good or too bad way. But in-game it shouldn't be much of a problem, because Alice has a fixed class and tradition, so after session 1 her player and the GM both know exactly what that one combo is always going to be.

I'm fine with Arcane not having healing too. I just think "anything not healing" is not much of a theme.

I explained why not both.

By focusing on the method of accessing magic, you don't lock the list to taking different types of magic that some would deem inappropriate. Right now we're seeing these discussion of what should be on each list because of the definition for the "type" of magic each list deals with.

"Type" of magic to me is a waste of time. It's magic. Who cares if primal accesses charm from primal fey power and arcane accesses charm from study of the human mind and how to manipulate it.

We can get that same result by the class traditional access by saying the primal casters learned this from fey creatures and the arcane casters learned it by careful study of the mind.

It's a subtle difference that keeps the traditions from being locked in at a base level to "type" of magic each can access.

In reality, I want cool spells on each spell list that makes each caster fun to play. I like the way traditions allow for more flexible caster builds like sorcerers and witches who can access different magic and fulfill different roles than they could in PF1. It makes it a lot more fun to build casters that have access to different lists that can fulfill different roles.

I barely read the essences. I don't want the designers building spell traditions that lock them too deeply into ideas that prevent the addition of cool spells to all the lists because they are overly concerned about what...

That will give every caster a single common list of spells. Or am I missing something ?

[3-Body Problem]

The Raven Black wrote:

That will give every caster a single common list of spells. Or am I missing something ?

I'm pretty sure Deriven is mostly aiming for a post hoc lore reason to keep the current classes able to cast their iconic spells in spite of the apparent changes to how magic works.

[Pieces-Kai]

I think I find myself liking the idea of the 4 traditions than how they've actually been implemented and while I don't think we should go back to specific class lists but I do think we need something better than just 4 lists.

[AestheticDialectic]

Pieces-Kai wrote:

I think I find myself liking the idea of the 4 traditions than how they've actually been implemented and while I don't think we should go back to specific class lists but I do think we need something better than just 4 lists.

I think it would be best if we had the four lists, but they get tightened up a lot such as in this post to really trim down on what they're good at and have access to, then give individual casters features, feats and focus spells that expand their horizons, double down on a theme, or create nuance. So for instance a clerics and druids might want a way to get some martial prowess with things like the war priest and the wild shape. Wizards might get access to spells outside their tradition to be that little swiss army knife, sorcerers would get class abilities that would double up on the flavor and thematics of their bloodline and so on

[Silver2195]

Pieces-Kai wrote:

I think I find myself liking the idea of the 4 traditions than how they've actually been implemented and while I don't think we should go back to specific class lists but I do think we need something better than just 4 lists.

Technically, we have five lists, thanks to the Elementalist archetype.

I think it would be interesting to see more classes with Elementalist-style bespoke spell lists. It should be possible to use the trait system to effectively do this without actually writing out long lists, as the Captivator archetype shows. (Technically, Captivator uses spell schools, but I assume the Remastered version with just say either "mental or illusion" or "emotion or illusion" instead of "enchantment or illusion.")

Of course you would have to give those classes other benefits to make up for their limited spell lists.

[Pieces-Kai]

AestheticDialectic wrote:

Pieces-Kai wrote:

I think I find myself liking the idea of the 4 traditions than how they've actually been implemented and while I don't think we should go back to specific class lists but I do think we need something better than just 4 lists.

I think it would be best if we had the four lists, but they get tightened up a lot such as in this post to really trim down on what they're good at and have access to, then give individual casters features, feats and focus spells that expand their horizons, double down on a theme, or create nuance. So for instance a clerics and druids might want a way to get some martial prowess with things like the war priest and the wild shape. Wizards might get access to spells outside their tradition to be that little swiss army knife, sorcerers would get class abilities that would double up on the flavor and thematics of their bloodline and so on

I think a Shadow of the Demon Lord style approach would probably work better where the traditions are mostly much more simpler where they usually are just a simple concept like Fire spells and by having subclasses determine which of these traditions they have access to like for example Cleric has access to like Divine and Healing/Life by default but lets say you are a follower of Sarenrae so you also get access to the Fire Tradition.

[AestheticDialectic]

Pieces-Kai wrote:

I think a Shadow of the Demon Lord style approach would probably work better where the traditions are mostly much more simpler where they usually are just a simple concept like Fire spells and by having subclasses determine which of these traditions they have access to like for example Cleric has access to like Divine and Healing/Life by default but lets say you are a follower of Sarenrae so you also get access to the Fire Tradition.

I'm not hot on this, and not for any particular reason, it just aesthetically feels less interesting to me. I also have concerns of this bloating into too many lists, like 8, 9, 10 or even as many as twenty if we are splitting damage types into lists. If we split damages types into their own lists I'll probably have to bring up only picking fire spells not being viable more often than I already do

[The Raven Black]

The Cleric's domains work like this already.

[AestheticDialectic]

The Raven Black wrote:

The Cleric's domains work like this already.

Dieties add 3 spells to your list, except Nethys who adds 9, and domains give two focus spells each

[Silver2195]

Nalinivati also gives 9 spells.

[Teridax]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

No. It wouldn't be limiting.

The only way isn't prayer. Each class would have their own method. The list would provide a broad overview of possible methods guiding what class should have each list.

Same as happens now without the strangeness of having to define what each type of magic does as that just leads to problematic explanations for why charm is on three lists and absent another.

If you focus more on how each type of user accesses magic rather than try to force square pegs into round holes forcing each "essence" to conform to certain base "essences" of magic, you have a far more open system.

Right, but what you're proposing still comes across as the opposite of that. If magical traditions are what prescribe how people access magic, then you need to redefine those traditions and the means of accessing them each time you add a new caster class that accesses magic differently from existing classes. Means of access also say nothing about what the magic is, so with what you're proposing there's no point to having four magical traditions either. By contrast, by giving magical traditions themselves a stronger definition, and then determining how that magic is accessed on a per-class basis, you'd get to have a solid thematic foundation that would also leave much more room for new caster classes.

[Tectorman]

Teridax wrote:

As a side note, I feel if one really does want to play an omni-mage who can cast any spell under the sun, it would probably be quite easy to homebrew exactly that kind of class in 2e, particularly with the upcoming changes to spell proficiencies in the remaster. The end result would likely not be able to feel terribly powerful or interesting while still being balanced, but it's certainly a class that one can create if the need is really so great.

I feel like we could already accomplish this in a pinch. Take a Wizard and use a multiclass dedication to expand his spells and options. Or have dual-classing be how the "omniwizard" of old is expressed in the game.

The real problem would be marketing. Getting players used to the idea that a caster having their magic defined only as "anything not healing" isn't meant to be a baseline expectation.

[Teridax]

Tectorman wrote:

I feel like we could already accomplish this in a pinch. Take a Wizard and use a multiclass dedication to expand his spells and options. Or have dual-classing be how the "omniwizard" of old is expressed in the game.

The real problem would be marketing. Getting players used to the idea that a caster having their magic defined only as "anything not healing" isn't meant to be a baseline expectation.

This is true. With free archetype rules, any full spellcaster would be able to opt into every other magical tradition with legendary proficiency and spell slots up to 8th rank in those other traditions, with the ability to go for breadth feats for even more slots of up to 6th rank. You'd even still have enough room to go for a few core class feats in-between. Going that far would probably be overkill, but it would certainly let a player cast almost every spell in the game on the same character. I wonder how fun such a character would feel to play in practice, though, as they'd be pulled in a lot of different directions at once.

On a semi-related note, I tried redrawing spell lists based on this take on spell traditions, and I feel that helped gain a lot more insight into some underlying issues with spell traditions as they exist now:

We know about how the arcane tradition is still very much "the wizard spell list", but there's arguably an even worse offender in the form of the primal spell list: despite playing with the forces of life and matter, primal spells aren't allowed to deal a lot of void damage, leech life from others, or otherwise subvert the natural order of things. It's no surprise then that there's still no dedicated primal caster besides the druid, because the primal spell list is tailored exclusively towards the druid, with spells that invert vital energy being bundled off into essentially "anything but primal magic".

Looking at the occult spell list, it's trying to cover too many things at once: not only is it the designated "spooky" tradition regardless of the spooky things every other tradition can also do, it's also trying to cover virtually anything you can do with your mind, despite arcane also being a tradition that relies on mental essence. There's also a lot of confusion between spirit and life, and the end result is a very messy tradition whose common throughline can only be vaguely discerned through the lens of specific IRL cultural references on what is and isn't spooky.

The divine tradition is hiding the fact that there are truly shockingly few spells that toy with lifeforce or souls, let alone both. There are hundreds of spells that are essentially just variations of throwing different kinds of matter and energy at people, but only a handful of ways of harming the soul, contacting creatures across planes, or messing with a creature's lifeforce. That kind of space is ripe for not one, but multiple expansions in my opinion, all of which should benefit divine magic with a bit of spillover into the primal and occult.

Thus, I think there's likely a lot of room for improvement, including changes to existing classes:

Wizards could likely be allowed cross-tradition schools in a world where arcane magic were much more limited in the range of things it could do. Furthermore, shortening the breadth of arcane magic while giving it exclusive access to certain things (e.g. time travel, teleportation, telekinesis, force constructs, etc.) would leave a lot more room for new kinds of arcane casters, such as self-taught hedge mages or runecasters.

Psychics definitely ought to be able to choose between the arcane or occult tradition depending on their conscious mind. More generally, with sharper traditions and essences there's likely room for several more dual-tradition casters covering a particular essence, such as material essence (maybe a shifter of some kind), spiritual essence (maybe a soul shepherd or reincarnated soul), and vital essence (definitely a necromancer).

We need more primal casters besides druids, specifically primal casters that care a lot less about being in constant harmony with nature. You could have a primal shadowcaster as a full class, and generally there's ample room for primal casters that subvert and twist nature instead of just aligning with it.

The witch I think really ought to be a cross-tradition caster. Starting with the baseline of a prepared occult caster and then dipping into other traditions would give the class all of the spells they'd need to fulfil the specific fantasy of a crafty witch (arcane), a hag or swamp witch (primal), or a witch who practices white or black magic (divine).

With this kind of separation, Starfinder 2e I think would struggle a lot less with every caster risking falling into the occult tradition: putting aside the obvious arcane theme of the technomancer (though you could still go occult with a "ghost in the machine" kind of subclass), mystics would stand out much better as divine/primal casters with a vital essence-based connection, and witchwarpers would similarly fit well as either arcane or occult casters depending on whether they bring about alternate timelines (arcane), or manifest dreams and other impossible realities born of thoughts and emotions (occult).

[AestheticDialectic]

I mentioned this elsewhere but creating undead is life/vital essence, it's using void(negative energy) to create life instead of vitality(positive energy) which results in the undead hunger and their destructive/evil natures. Void is 100% without any uncertainty life essence and thus should be only accessible to primal and divine casters. This kind of leads us to a world where primal slowly becomes a less fitting name