| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've made one of my favorite characters, Hama, as both a pre-remaster sorcerer and a post-remaster witch.
And though I like them both a great deal for their concept and execution, mechanically, I'm having a hard time finding worthwhile, mechanical strengths of the witch over the sorcerer.
They both can get familiars, can pull from a variety of spell lists, and can get potent focus spells via feats. They both have similar base stats, with only minor variations--most of which is caused by their focus on either Intelligence or Charisma.
But the witch isn't nearly as versatile with their spells as the sorcerer I feel. Hama the sorcerer can cast her chosen spells in any order, over and over again. Hama, the witch on the other hand, can basically cast each one one time, and that's it. This is further stymied by her limited number of daily slots, making it so that to prepare key spells multiple times will absolutely cripple any versatility she might otherwise have. She might have an edge over her sorcerer counterpart if she knew exactly what was coming, or needed a specific spell for a specific situation, but a sorcerer with scrolls can accomplish that just as well. The witch though? She can't afford numerous scrolls, a staff, or other items because a lot of that money needs to go towards filling her familiar's head with the spells that theoretically will maker her versatile once in a blue moon. Without them, she's strictly less prepared than a sorcerer (pun intended).
If the sorcerer gets any kind of boost in Player Core 2, the apparent disparity between the two class' spellcasting abilities will only become greater.
What are your own thoughts on the interplay between the two classes? What makes you want to play a witch over a sorcerer besides the label on the tin?
What about the focus spells and familiar bonus effect vs bloodline bonus effect?
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
What are your own thoughts on the interplay between the two classes? What makes you want to play a witch over a sorcerer besides the label on the tin?
I have both. The Sorcerer is definitely the easy path, it's superior to the Witch in nearly everything. But the Witch has a few very strong abilities available both through feats and Patrons. And the Witch's drawbacks can be dealt with when it's assets can't be really grabbed by the Sorcerer.
So the Sorcerer will be better than the Witch for most players, but I think a fraction of players will be able to do crazy things with a Witch.
What about the focus spells and familiar bonus effect vs bloodline bonus effect?
I feel the focus spells are roughly equivalent in power, at least for the low and mid-levels. I think the witch pulls ahead slightly with their higher level focus spells at level 10+.
The bonus familiar abilities are nice, but rarely have much impact compared to other class abilities. It's not nothing though. A sorcerer seeking a stronger familiar can get part way there with Familiar Master or Dedicated Witch. Undying for the witch familiar is also nice, allowing the witch to do things with their familiar that a sorcerer wouldn't dare risk.
The unique patron ability given to witch familiars in the remaster is really strong too, and one of the few places I feel they get something that can't be easily poached or invalidated by the sorcerer.
In comparison, bloodline effects of the sorcerer are so weak and circumstantial that I sometimes forget that it exists, even when relevant. I'm hoping they get buffed or replaced with something better in Player Core 2.
All in all, I guess the class abilities and base chassis are roughly comparable; it's the stark difference in their base spellcasting that concerns me.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
She can't afford numerous scrolls, a staff, or other items because a lot of that money needs to go towards filling her familiar's head with the spells that theoretically will maker her versatile once in a blue moon
As a side note, it's a bad idea to learn spells with a Witch. Just buy Scrolls like the Sorcerer so you can handle all the situations you need to handle. And if for some reason you suddenly need to prepare the spell in the Scroll, just feed it to your Familiar while you rest. As such, you can have the scroll and eat it, too.
For non-Spell Substitution Wizards it works, too. Especially if you have Magical Shorthand. But there's a check in the Wizard's case (the bonus being that you can use a HP on it as you are not in downtime when you learn it).
She can't afford numerous scrolls, a staff, or other items because a lot of that money needs to go towards filling her familiar's head with the spells that theoretically will maker her versatile once in a blue moonAs a side note, it's a bad idea to learn spells with a Witch. Just buy Scrolls like the Sorcerer so you can handle all the situations you need to handle. And if for some reason you suddenly need to prepare the spell in the Scroll, just feed it to your Familiar while you rest. As such, you can have the scroll and eat it, too.
I hadn't thought of that. I was thinking about it the other way around; learning as many fit-the-character-theme spells as I could, so that I could later craft them as scrolls.
But I ran out of starting funds before I could really take it as far as I wanted.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I agree that the sorcerer is better for combat and the witch for non-combat utility/exploration, Shroudb, but you lost me on the social bit. I think sorcerers would be much better at that then witches, given their Charisma focus.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I have already made my opinion known about spontaneous versus prepared casters. Prepared casting isn't very fun for me in PF2. They did a much better job on spontaneous casters in PF2.
Prepared casting was good in PF1 because of the rules for prepared casting such as leaving slots open to fill as you go, lots of slots from ability score bonuses, and consumable magic items having tons of charges or uses to cover utility spells so you can fill your slots with high value spells, multiple copies if necessary. And they had great feats for giving prepared caster a go to spell like Spell Perfection or Spell Specialization which gave some flexibility to prepared casters.
None of that has been provided to prepared casters in PF2 save for a specific wizard thesis and a few higher level feats of questionable quality. You have far fewer slots. Consumables are more expensive and crafting not as good as it used to be.
That's why I consider 5Es solution for casting a much better solution than PF2 when reducing the spell slots of all casters. They made everyone spontaneous, while finding a way to balance the former prepared casters versus spontaneous casters.
PF2 did not do that. Which is why the spontaneous casters feel so much better than the prepared casters in play and why you don't see many folks complaining about sorcerers or bards or spontaneous casters.
So you have to suck it up and deal with prepared casting in PF2 and its inferiority to spontaneous casting or use that Flexible Caster archetype until the PF2 design team sees that prepared casting with a small number of slots and none of the rules they had in PF1 isn't all that great and makes changes. The Flexible Caster archetype was an option they tossed in for those that don't like PF2 prepared casting. Not sure how well it works as I have more fun making sorcerers and spontaneous casters and rarely touch prepared casters.
Good luck, RD. Maybe give the witch a try just to see if it is fun and can be turned into something great.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Personally, I much prefer witch over sorcerer, but I think they both have their merits. I have a preference for prep casters over spoon casters, including valuing the stronger familiar more than some might.
However, I do find that the sorcerer has better focus spells in some circumstances. A few, like those from Aberrant, Demonic, Hag don't impress me very much though, but that's only a minor issue when you can just pick a different bloodline or just deal with 1 or 2 mediocre focus spells. The biggest killer for sorcerer for me though is actually pretty silly, and that's the granted spells. It's nice to get extra spell slots, but I despise having a quarter of my spells chosen for me. In some cases it's not a big issue, such as with the Draconic and Fey bloodlines, but when it comes to something like the Harrow bloodline it just feels annoying. Despite these minor annoyances, I do think sorcerer is a good class all around and does better than witch when it comes to social circumstances and sheer casting power. If this is what you're looking for, then it's a great choice.
What I like about witch, and why I would choose it over the sorcerer, is the familiar and spell versatility. The groups I play with often make time to anticipate what might be fought next and figure out how to best deal with it, so prep casting provides a huge boon over spoon casting in that regard. Other than this, the new unique witch patron abilities can be really helpful I find based on the bit I've played and seen so far, and I adore that you get them in addition to the low action cost of the hex spells. Intelligence as a main stat also means you can invest into Crafting to make your own scrolls and staff pretty effectively! Much better now that Craft takes a lot less time to do. If you want a unique familiar, especially a specific familiar, with little investment and prefer prep casting like I do, then witch is the best choice.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Personally, I think there's a middle ground on Versatility-- your higher level slots should be bread and butter spells, with some versatility built into your lower level slots, and to know what your bread and butter spells are involves knowing your intended role in the party. Either way, you aren't looking to prepare one of everything you can cast, you're looking to give yourself and arsenal of magic that feels good, coded to what you expect to be doing that day in broad terms-- like "fighting monsters" or "fighting undead specifically" or "attending a party where I might cast enchantments to get people to like me" you can divvy down a little, but only with lower level spells (unless you choose to rely on spells like fear for combat which don't need to scale.)
But there's also something to be said for the question of, does your party need Intelligence or Charisma more at the moment?
Personally, I think there's a middle ground on Versatility-- your higher level slots should be bread and butter spells, with some versatility built into your lower level slots, and to know what your bread and butter spells are involves knowing your intended role in the party. Either way, you aren't looking to prepare one of everything you can cast, you're looking to give yourself and arsenal of magic that feels good, coded to what you expect to be doing that day in broad terms-- like "fighting monsters" or "fighting undead specifically" or "attending a party where I might cast enchantments to get people to like me" you can divvy down a little, but only with lower level spells (unless you choose to rely on spells like fear for combat which don't need to scale.)
But there's also something to be said for the question of, does your party need Intelligence or Charisma more at the moment?
I have not found this to be the case. High level spells are nice and can be great for blasting or an AoE version of a high value spell.
But I use lots of level 3 slots for slow, level 5 for synesthesia, level 2 for See invis, level 1 for true strike, level 2 for faerie fire, level 4 for restoration, fly, and phantasmal killer.
There are a lot of lower level slots that stay very valuable across all levels that I use often. I can cast Slow all day and it's almost always a great spell against everything.
The main thing I use max level slots for is blasting or AoE slow or haste.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Personally, I think there's a middle ground on Versatility-- your higher level slots should be bread and butter spells, with some versatility built into your lower level slots, and to know what your bread and butter spells are involves knowing your intended role in the party. Either way, you aren't looking to prepare one of everything you can cast, you're looking to give yourself and arsenal of magic that feels good, coded to what you expect to be doing that day in broad terms-- like "fighting monsters" or "fighting undead specifically" or "attending a party where I might cast enchantments to get people to like me" you can divvy down a little, but only with lower level spells (unless you choose to rely on spells like fear for combat which don't need to scale.)
But there's also something to be said for the question of, does your party need Intelligence or Charisma more at the moment?
I have not found this to be the case. High level spells are nice and can be great for blasting or an AoE version of a high value spell.
But I use lots of level 3 slots for slow, level 5 for synesthesia, level 2 for See invis, level 1 for true strike, level 2 for faerie fire, level 4 for restoration, fly, and phantasmal killer.
There are a lot of lower level slots that stay very valuable across all levels that I use often. I can cast Slow all day and it's almost always a great spell against everything.
The main thing I use max level slots for is blasting or AoE slow or haste.
Those spells are all fine, but you're broadly going to be casting something, you can elect for that to be slow or fear, or it can be force barrage or heal or whatever. There's only so much action economy so it becomes about "what do i do when im in a fight and how much of it might i need"
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I feel like prepared casters are, ironically, less able to actually bring situational spells to bear in their slots. The nature of slots for them means you want the least-conditional stuff possible when you're going in with less information.
Spontaneous casters, conversely, can have a spell or two that isn't always useful in their repertoire because it's always available without further cost to them. And especially as you level, it's not hard to swap out lower level spells that way - if you have Slow on your level 3 options, you can have something niche too, because you can always burn the slot on Slow instead.
Now, a prepared caster can, theoretically, bring nothing but silver bullets if they know ahead of time what's coming. But as a practical matter... if a campaign has a common enough enemy type a spontaneous caster probably picks up a spell for that anyways. If you're preparing for a big bad with a known weakness, retraining a silver bullet in is an option still, as are scrolls, etc. (And then there's the arcane sorcerer, who can have a spellbook of silver bullets and then fire as many as needed after picking which one is useful for the day).
Heck, Summoner gets a repertoire of five spells, period. (And I mean, only 4 spells a day, but) And with that you can still do something like Heal, Haste, blasting spell (I use Scorching Ray here atm), debuff, and then one more for whatever you like (and it doesn't matter how useful it actually ends up being because you'll never not have a relevant spell available after those first four)
This is more my experience as well. Spontaneous casters have more effective versatility on a daily, on demand basis.
The main advantage I've seen with prepared casters is they can switch spells up for making odd situations easier. You can mostly accomplish the same thing with skills, but spells make it so much easier. If you need to do surveillance or disguises or teleport past defenses or use an odd corner case spell on something and you have a day to prepare, then a prepared caster can be great to have.
If you're just doing a dungeon crawl or chaining combat encounters, spontaneous casters are usually better. They dial up a quality combat spell, do some blasting, use some focus spells, and you can go a practically all day keeping up with martial who need very little to help them do the job.
I've also found that with a spontaneous caster, you can pick up utility spells if you go with a casting archetype. If you're playing free archetype, it's far better for a sorc to grab a prepared casting archetype for utility casting than a prepared caster to pick up a spontaneous casting archetype. Utility spells don't require a maxed out stat. You don't care about prepared caster feats given most are so meh. So you can get the minimum and use the prepared slots for utility spells, while focusing your spontaneous slots on blasting and control/debuff spells.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I have already made my opinion known about spontaneous versus prepared casters. Prepared casting isn't very fun for me in PF2. They did a much better job on spontaneous casters in PF2.
Prepared casting was good in PF1 because of the rules for prepared casting such as leaving slots open to fill as you go, lots of slots from ability score bonuses, and consumable magic items having tons of charges or uses to cover utility spells so you can fill your slots with high value spells, multiple copies if necessary. And they had great feats for giving prepared caster a go to spell like Spell Perfection or Spell Specialization which gave some flexibility to prepared casters.
None of that has been provided to prepared casters in PF2 save for a specific wizard thesis and a few higher level feats of questionable quality. You have far fewer slots. Consumables are more expensive and crafting not as good as it used to be.
That's why I consider 5Es solution for casting a much better solution than PF2 when reducing the spell slots of all casters. They made everyone spontaneous, while finding a way to balance the former prepared casters versus spontaneous casters.
PF2 did not do that. Which is why the spontaneous casters feel so much better than the prepared casters in play and why you don't see many folks complaining about sorcerers or bards or spontaneous casters.
So you have to suck it up and deal with prepared casting in PF2 and its inferiority to spontaneous casting or use that Flexible Caster archetype until the PF2 design team sees that prepared casting with a small number of slots and none of the rules they had in PF1 isn't all that great and makes changes. The Flexible Caster archetype was an option they tossed in for those that don't like PF2 prepared casting. Not sure how well it works as I have more fun making sorcerers and spontaneous casters and rarely touch prepared casters.
Good luck, RD. Maybe give the witch a try just to see if it is fun and can be turned into something great.
5e has the problem of sorc being a pretty terrible choice compared to wizard bc wiz is spontaneous AND can add to its book. Sorc becomes pretty superfluous in that system
I feel like spontaneous vs. prepared is something Paizo can get for free in terms of making two different classes appeal to different kinds of players. Since people generally already have opinions of which one they would prever.
Like I, for one, would enjoy a spontaneous druid.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
...I have already made my opinion known about spontaneous versus prepared casters. Prepared casting isn't very fun for me in PF2. They did a much better job on spontaneous casters in PF2.
Prepared casting was good in PF1 because of the rules for prepared casting such as leaving slots open to fill as you go, lots of slots from ability score bonuses, and consumable magic items having tons of charges or uses to cover utility spells so you can fill your slots with high value spells, multiple copies if necessary. And they had great feats for giving prepared caster a go to spell like Spell Perfection or Spell Specialization which gave some flexibility to prepared casters.
None of that has been provided to prepared casters in PF2 save for a specific wizard thesis and a few higher level feats of questionable quality. You have far fewer slots. Consumables are more expensive and crafting not as good as it used to be.
That's why I consider 5Es solution for casting a much better solution than PF2 when reducing the spell slots of all casters. They made everyone spontaneous, while finding a way to balance the former prepared casters versus spontaneous casters.
PF2 did not do that. Which is why the spontaneous casters feel so much better than the prepared casters in play and why you don't see many folks complaining about sorcerers or bards or spontaneous casters.
So you have to suck it up and deal with prepared casting in PF2 and its inferiority to spontaneous casting or use that Flexible Caster archetype until the PF2 design team sees that prepared casting with a small number of slots and none of the rules they had in PF1 isn't all that great and makes changes. The Flexible Caster archetype was an option they tossed in for those that don't like PF2 prepared casting. Not sure how well it works as I have more fun making sorcerers and spontaneous casters and rarely touch prepared casters.
Good luck, RD. Maybe give the witch a try just to see if it is fun and can be turned
In 5E I think the sorc had the only metamagic.
Sorc had competition from the warlock as well since it was sort of spontaneous and a bigger damage dealer in that game.
Wizard also had great powers, which made them more fun to play in 5E. School powers in 5E were pretty good for quite a few of the wizard types. Wizards were well done in 5E even after the substantial drop in power from 3E.
It wasn't just because of the spontaneous casting. They had a good quality class chassis. I have to give the D and D designers props on a well done wizard.
One big difference from how the Witch and Sorcerer play (other than prepared vs. spontaneous) is that the Witch is much more likely to be invested in "Sustaining your good spells" as a tactic. Like they're going to get a lot more mileage out of the "free sustain" feat everybody gets.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I feel like spontaneous vs. prepared is something Paizo can get for free in terms of making two different classes appeal to different kinds of players. Since people generally already have opinions of which one they would prever.
Like I, for one, would enjoy a spontaneous druid.
One thing I've noticed is that even extremely competent players have strong but diverging opinions on which they ever want to play, I have a player who only plays prepared casters (and psychic, but they deliberately downplay the slots on it in favor of amped cantrips) and a player who only plays spontaneous.
A spontaneous druid, cleric of even witch all seem fine to me, but the one class that really feels it should always be prepared is the wizard. The problem with this is that without other classes that also prepare spells, the way wizards break normal preparation rules is less meaningful when they are the only ones preparing or having to prepare
My only issues is I actually think the ranked slots are annoying/dumb. It would be neat if low level spells were just cantripified as you get into higher levels. They become free to cast. It really depends on how much this game needs to be around resources and conserving resources. Is this a hardcore dungeon game? Or a game about heroic dudes suplexing dragons? I don't know what the solution is but I don't want a mana pool and I don't want them to be like kineticist impulses either, and I want the wizard to feel deliberate in their actions. They plan their spells ahead of time, but I also wouldn't want 5e preparations unless spontaneous casters are overhauled and function entirely differently. 5e makes spontaneous casting less special and that is a bummer despite my dislike for spontaneous
A lot of it is going to depend on your ability to usefully shift your loadout day to day. How much information do you have when you wake up as to the day's challenges, that you didn't have at last level-up? If you have very little to none (some campaigns are like this), then spontaneous will beat prepared every time, generally by a wide margin. If you have lots of pertinent information (like, say, often knowing a day or two in advance what kinds of enemies you're going to be facing, and possibly specific additional things about the biggest ones), and the prepared caster has the player-time necessary to rejigger their prepared spells accordingly, the prepared caster can be quite a lot more powerful.
Of course, you also have to be the right kind of player for it. Having the info and the time doesn't do a lot for you if the idea of rebuilding your spell list every day is exhausting to you.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think also, if prepared casters' slotted spells auto-heightened a lot of the disparity between them and spontaneous casters (who already get this advantage with some of their spells) could be alleviated.
OK. I'm confused. Prepared Casters already get to heighten all of their spells known. They just have to prepare them in the higher level spell slots.
Spontaneous Casters get to have some of their spells known as Signature Spells, but they only get the heightened effects when they cast them with a higher level spell slot.
So the only thing I can think of that you are saying is that you are misunderstanding how Signature Spells works and thinking that Spontaneous Caster's Signature Spells auto heighten like Cantrips even when cast with the minimum level spell slot - which they don't.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
If you have lots of pertinent information (like, say, often knowing a day or two in advance what kinds of enemies you're going to be facing, and possibly specific additional things about the biggest ones), and the prepared caster has the player-time necessary to rejigger their prepared spells accordingly, the prepared caster can be quite a lot more powerful.
No. Let's face it, Prepared casters never beat Spontaneous casters in combat.
Let's take an illustrative example: You are a Divine caster and you know you will face Fiends. How many Searing Lights will you prepare? Will you prepare half a dozen of them and take the risk your intel was wrong? Or will you prepare a couple of them like every normal adventuring day? Foreknowledge doesn't really help. And considering the extremely limited number of effective combat spells, the Spontaneous caster certainly has all of them in their Repertoire.
From my experience, if all you care about is combat then Spontaneous is the right choice. If you care a lot about out of combat, then Prepared can shine. The whole "If you know what creatures are ahead Prepared casters can shine" is a lie. It's pure theorycrafting that never happens.
If you have lots of pertinent information (like, say, often knowing a day or two in advance what kinds of enemies you're going to be facing, and possibly specific additional things about the biggest ones), and the prepared caster has the player-time necessary to rejigger their prepared spells accordingly, the prepared caster can be quite a lot more powerful.No. Let's face it, Prepared casters never beat Spontaneous casters in combat.
Let's take an illustrative example: You are a Divine caster and you know you will face Fiends. How many Searing Lights will you prepare? Will you prepare half a dozen of them and take the risk your intel was wrong? Or will you prepare a couple of them like every normal adventuring day? Foreknowledge doesn't really help. And considering the extremely limited number of effective combat spells, the Spontaneous caster certainly has all of them in their Repertoire.
From my experience, if all you care about is combat then Spontaneous is the right choice. If you care a lot about out of combat, then Prepared can shine. The whole "If you know what creatures are ahead Prepared casters can shine" is a lie. It's pure theorycrafting that never happens.
So first? It's true. The stuff I'm talking about is theorycrafting. I'll admit it. At the same time, my entire point was that "in my experience" is the sort of thing that only gets you a limited slice of the possibility space. Is it true for you personally, in the gaming environment that's available to you? I don't doubt it. That doesn't mean that it's necessarily true for everyone everywhere.
Now on to your example.
Actually, having looked through the level 3 Divine spells, I'll buy that example, as far as it goes. If all you care about is combat, and you're running off the Divine list, then yeah, there probably are a number of levels where "Divine" plus "ignoring all of that out-of-combat stuff" leaves you with few enough options that you can fit all reasonable contingencies within a standard spell repertoire - and 3rd seems to be one of them. Sure. Divine is pretty one-note about its attack spells, after all. (...though knowing that your enemy is a demon summoner and you might want to pack a few castings of Circle of Protection is still potentially worthwhile)
Now, I do count "today will be heavy on the combat" and "today we likely wont' have much if any combat but there's a lot of intrigue" and "today is mostly about wilderness survival with maybe a bit of combat" as the sorts of things that being a prepared caster can prepare you for... but that's not actually the argument I'd make here.
You talked about Divine. Let's look at Occult. You picked third level, so I guess I'll just go with that one.
- Circle of Protection as a special bonus against summoners is still a thing
- Whether your primary foes are going to be good at will, reflex, or Fortitude is distinctly a thing. There are a number of options for both fort and will, and at least a few for reflex.
- Ghostly weapon is meaningless most days, but potentially quite valuable on the days where it matters
- Invisibility Sphere is the sort of thing that can be really useful for certain specific situations but is otherwise largely not.
- Mind of Menace is a particularly niche spell that applies best when being mentally attacked in a significant way by creatures with relatively low will. That's not common, but it's not unheard-of.
- Ooze Form is going to care about what kinds of damage the enemy is likely to put out.
- If you expect to face, say, a single powerful zombie (who has mindless, organs, and a vulnerability to slashing), then strategies like "Organsight plus Telekinetic Projectile" start looking pretty good.
- If you're expecting to face off against a large number of lesser zombies, then Rouse Skeletons has real appeal.
- If most or all your party has Darksight, and the foe does not, then rank 3 Wall of Shadow is potentially very powerful. If the foe does, then it's worthless.
...and that's in the level where you get access to both Haste and Heroism, so it's not like there aren't other spells there that would be filling up the standard repertoire.
So, in a game where everyone only really cares about combat, a Divine Witch is probably losing out to a Divine Sorceror or Oracle (before taking specific class features into account). The Occult witch, though, potentially has some real upside against the Occult Sorceror, if they can get enough info on the day to come.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Except the occult sorcerer learns slow as their primary boss combat spell, signature calm emotions for mooks and leaves heroism and haste for after heightening makes them more useful. You only really need a few meta combat spells across all spell ranks so you're free to fill your repertoire with invis sphere, illusions, clairvoyance/audience, etc, etc.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So with the witch you have your 4 highest level slots how many in actuality are going to change on a daily basis?
How many are set to must have spells even when you know what is coming?
I say this because when making a spontaneous caster you might pick a spell or two on theme alone but there will be spells you take just because they are must haves.
I dont think its different for a prepared caster. Those must haves are not only going to be ones you learn but they will likely have some dedicated slots even if you rotate out other spells. And it thats the case how many slots end up actually being changeable in practice?
Ah it looks like its 3 spells per day for highest level slots.
So how many are going to end up spoken for almost no matter the situation?
And i am not saying its the same spells for every witch, the spells that will end up being must haves will be different depending on the party that witch is rolling with and of course the tradition
Except the occult sorcerer learns slow as their primary boss combat spell, signature calm emotions for mooks and leaves heroism and haste for after heightening makes them more useful. You only really need a few meta combat spells across all spell ranks so you're free to fill your repertoire with invis sphere, illusions, clairvoyance/audience, etc, etc.
You know, I had a response here, but then I went and noticed how the total number of spells known a witch gets per level (before spending money on Learn a Spell) was actually the same as what a Sorcerer gets, and I compared the cost of Learn a Spell for max spell rank with the vague wealth by level table and... yeah.
I mean, there are still a few arguments to be made, about the fact that Witch can freely heighten regardless, and how the Sorcerer has to spend the first of those four on bloodline spells every rank, but those arguments are thin things indeed.
Like, let's look at one of the more extreme points. Consider level 6, and level 3 spells. The witch knows 4 of them as gifts from their patron. The sorcerer knows their bloodline spell plus two others. Learning new level 16 spells is 16 gold a pop. So... looking at the Character Wealth table, and assuming a character who's getting the same number of spells each level, a witch who's willing to spend almost all of their ready cash on buying scrolls to learn will have spend 72 gold getting three of them.
Now, looking at the Aberrant bloodline (because, honestly, if I was somehow playing an occult Sorc, that's the one I would play, just thematically) my third-level spell woudl be Vampiric Touch, which... isn't great. I then have two other slots in the repertoire to fill with workhorse combat spells, and then I'm done. Slow is apparently one of them. Cool. I might take Rouse Skeletons for the other, if only because it looks cool and useful and pretty generally applicable, especially for fights where there *isn't* one big stompy boss dude to cast slow at. With third level spells, I'm capable of targeting Reflex and Fortitude... and that's it. I certainly don't have space for things like Invisibility Sphere, but with no prep whatsoever I can swap between Slow on the one big guy, Calm Emotions on the band of bandits, and Rouse Skeletons for mulching a small horde of shambling undead. I also still have that 72 gold to play with for things like scrolls that I might use in the moment.
By comparison, with 7 spells in the spellbook, my witch buddy can afford to include things like Wall of Shadow and Paralyze (which in many ways works like "Slow, but it's a will save"). Possibly include Shadow Projectile for those times when you know it's going to be a ten-minute workday (...though that one is probably better as one of your lower-level spells, once you've leveled up enough that 3rd counts as lower-level).
...so it's not that there's nothing there. At the same time, that was specifically picked as one of the more extreme points, and the witch in question had to drain their money pouch pretty badly to make ti happen and they have to have quite a bit of info on the day to come to leverage it properly... and have that info actually be reliable so they don't hork themselves over by mispredicting.
I'll note that there's a real difference between this and the Cleric/Druid, who just know all of their own common spells for free without having to pay anything at all.
That said, for the case of the witch? I'm willing to accept that I've been incorrect. With respect to combat... while the prepared caster certainly benefits from foreknowledge in a way that the spontaneous caster doesn't, in all but the most extreme cases, it looks like that's a madder of closing the gap some, rather than giving the prepared caster an advantage. Now, for noncombat situations that involve a bit of foreknowledge, the prepared caster really starts coming into their own, especially since they can better leverage all of those low-level spell slots that are so cheap (by comparison) to learn new spells for. There are some campaigns, though, that just don't have "noncombat with a bit of foreknowledge" days.
Except the occult sorcerer learns slow as their primary boss combat spell, signature calm emotions for mooks and leaves heroism and haste for after heightening makes them more useful. You only really need a few meta combat spells across all spell ranks so you're free to fill your repertoire with invis sphere, illusions, clairvoyance/audience, etc, etc.
Yep. Exactly what I do.
I also take Occult Evolution and make sure not to fill slots with mental spells I can pick up with occult evolution as needed. Takes me a minute to grab a useful mental spell on the occult list for the day. I usually take phantasmal calamity for blasting, but sometimes take something else for interrogation or maybe calm emotions.
As far as I can tell, you take occult evolution at your highest level. So you can grab some mental spell like charm in your highest level slot as needed. So occult evolution not only acts as a flexible daily spell slot, but it also allows heightening of that spell like a prepared caster.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
You talked about Divine. Let's look at Occult. You picked third level, so I guess I'll just go with that one.
I'll raise a few problems with your examples (outside the availability issue you raised):
- They ask for exceptional knowledge. You will in general know what general type of creatures you will face, sometimes some types of monsters (the big boss is a Lich) and some speculations (we faced lots of zombies we will certainly face more) but rarely information as precise as "being mentally attacked in a significant way by creatures with relatively low will".- What happens if you never manage to cast your spell? Combats are unpredictable, you may not be able to cast the exact spell you prepared for the exact combat you prepared it for. If the result is a wasted spell slot then maybe you should have prepared a more generally usable spell.
- Many of your example spells are just bad. Even in the situations where they are at their best they are not really stellar. It's better to default to more usable and efficient spells.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Another thing I really like about prepared casters is actually the control over heightening-- signature spells are fine, but for a lot of the game you don't have a huge number of them, and that can lead to some tension in spell selection that didn't exist when I play my Wizard, and I wasn't even Spell Substitution which would have made that a stronger consideration, I was Spell Blending.
The big thing for me really is having a "I'm expecting to fight a lot today" and "I'm expecting to want a lot of utility today" set of loadouts or depending on the environment I'm going into, or even just sheer variety where I might decide to go with a utility heavy comp one day (relying on low level fear and slow and such for combat, but upcasted fly and whatnot on the high end) but on another day stick with Blasting (meaning low level utility slots, and high level damage slots.)
I don't think an extended discussion of "which is better, spontaneous vs. prepared" is the full answer to the OP.
Definitely. Prepared classes and Spontaneous classes come with different features and it has to be taken into account. Actually, Prepared classes tend to have better class features than Spontaneous ones. Which is legitimate to me.
Hexes and lessons are better designed than bloodlines overall and its to be expected since this is the remastered witch, after the remastered sorcerer is revealed these features might have completely changed for them.
The casting stat being cha or int is a tradeoff based on gameplay preference. Cha is much more aggressive and more universally applicable since you literally weaken opponents with it. Int does help you be a better planner by rolling RK on the clues and circumstances available to get a better idea of what you might be facing even before you face it. In battle knowledge gained is funny enough a great thing to share with a spontaneous caster who might actually be able to leverage that info with something in their repertoire. Before hand knowledge is better for a prepared caster but only if they have the spells to leverage that knowledge. A clever player using int will look for anything that might let them rk for an advantage and a good GM is providing those opportunities. But Cha is not as GM reliant on opportunities of use.
So in a general sense i give the edge on stat and prep vs spont to sorcerer. There will be situations where the witch int and planning can come out on top but the sorcerer's repertoire + cha abilities will be better off more often. And if playing together they can actually compliment each other and both benefit from the cha and int benefits with the witch prepping spells to take care of situations the sorcerer just cant affort to include a solution to in their repertoire.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't think an extended discussion of "which is better, spontaneous vs. prepared" is the full answer to the OP.Definitely. Prepared classes and Spontaneous classes come with different features and it has to be taken into account. Actually, Prepared classes tend to have better class features than Spontaneous ones. Which is legitimate to me.
Bard has great class features.
Sorc is based on bloodline. There are some real amazing bloodline powers. I'm playing a Harrow Sorc right now and the Harrow Bloodline spells are quite nice.
Druid has great class features. Cleric gets the healing font, but that is real nice.
I won't rehash how I feel about the PF2 wizard.
Witch has a familiar and a 1st level lesson. Familiar can be ok now.
Oracle depends on curse. But there are a few decent curses.
Psychic has pretty good class features.
I don't know. I find the class features of spontaneous more abundant, but for raw effectiveness I think they are pretty balanced against each other. I would call class features a draw.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't think an extended discussion of "which is better, spontaneous vs. prepared" is the full answer to the OP. Rather it's just one of several factors:
Spontaneous vs. Prepared: if you like the former, take Sorc. If you like the latter, take Witch. In fairness, I agree with a lot of posters that most players probably prefer spontaneous due to it's in-game flexibility. But not all will. Okay so with that done...
Int vs. Cha: if you want the former types of skills, take Witch. If you want the latter, take Sorc.
Hexes & Lessons vs. Bloodline: if you you want a single action cantrip to help with action economy, plus the option to buy more with feats, take witch. If you prefer to get a bunch of more standard 2a and 3a focus spells without having to spend more feats on this feature, take Sorc.
Familiar vs. assorted Sorc benefits: if you want a powerful familiar, take Witch. If having a familiar be a big part of your concept doesn't thrill you, take Sorc.
Unique concept: if you have a very specific concept in mind that centers around some specific class or subcleass feature (e.g. Resentment debuffer), then obviously your class choice is dictated by that decision.
Variety: if you played a Sorc in your last campaign, you may take Witch (or something else) this time. Or vice versa. Because most players don't choose to play the exact same class & concept over and over again. Sometimes the answer to "why play an X" is "because I haven't done that before."
Very true. And this is especially true for the OP where he has a character concept in mind already. I think skill usage alone is defining enough to make this choice on. Whether a character is charismatic is a pretty important distinction by itself. Neither class is so much better than the other to overshadow what fits the theme better.