I don’t think the Elementalist was really meant to fulfill the “narrowly themed blaster caster” fantasy. The Psychic and the Kineticist are the ones that fill those fantasies.
To be clear, I don't think the Elementalist was meant to be a pure blaster, either -- there's still a lot of utility in their spell list, even if there isn't as much as in a main-tradition spell list. I think the thematic idea was just to create an element-centric caster, and mechanically that was an opportunity to test out a caster with access to a narrower, though not narrow range of spells. The Psychic and Kineticist I agree are both much more specialized, which is why both can opt into really good blasting.
I think ultimately the disconnect here is that Paizo simply isn’t willing to make an incredibly narrowly themed blaster that actually benefits from the full upsides of the Spellcasting subsystem. Wizards and Sorcerers have 4 spell slots per rank and most others have 3 per rank alongside bonuses from focus spells, Feats, and class features. Therefore every single caster, including dedicated blasters, must be balanced with the assumption that they’ll have 4 slots’ per rank worth of flexibility. This means that even within the context of blasting it’s expected that the caster can target AC + 2/3 Saves (or even 3/3), deal 2+ damage types (gaining a virtual benefit by bypassing Resistances and/or benefiting from Weaknesses), and inflict a couple conditions (blasters can often inflict Dazzled/Blinded, speed penalties, forced movement, and Slowed alongside their damage). If they mathed out the game so that someone who chooses not to use any of that flexibility is powerful, they’d also have mathed out the game so that anyone who does use that flexibility is busted
I agree with the general conclusion here: when even the least versatile caster in the game can know more spells than a martial class can have feats, there needs to be an assumption that casters are going to need to put their versatility to use. The fewer spells a caster can know or prepare, and the narrower the spell list they draw from, the stronger they can be allowed with those spells and the less constrained they need to be by per-day resources, though I also feel that starts to brush up against a threshold where the class eventually ceases to become a caster entirely. The Kineticist sits beyond that threshold, which is why they're neither a caster nor a martial class.
I think another important component here when considering blaster casters is that by default, you will always have some spell slots that won't be suited for blasting. Even if you prepare nothing but attack spells in your top-rank slots and an an equivalent number of sure strikes in your bottom-rank slots, you'll still eventually find yourself with a lot of awkward mid-range spell slots that aren't going to deal good damage, but aren't going to be boosting your damage output either. Thus, with our current model for spell slots, even the blastiest caster is going to need to be balanced around using spell slots for non-blasting utility as well.
That’s why their solutions for narrowly themed blasters always end up gaining more of their power from outside of the fundamental subsystem that casters use. Elementalist isn’t meant to be a narrowly themed caster, it still plays with that fundamental subsystem and is balanced with that in mind.
For the same reason that the Elementalist isn't a narrowly-themed blaster, I don't think we really have had true narrowly-themed casters yet. Even the Psychic and their subclasses cover broad themes and draw from a spell list of hundreds of extremely diverse spells. If we were to have a true specialist caster, I think one of the first problems that would have to be answered is that of hard counters: a pure mesmer or illusionist would be almost entirely useless against mindless enemies, of which there are many, and any mage specialized in a specific type of damage, such as cold or poison, will suffer against enemies immune to those damage types. The Kineticist partially mitigates this with Extract Elements, but even then it's still recommended to branch out into another element or take Versatile Blasts if you want to blast consistently.
Fair point. OTOH really the only reason I can think of doing so is to gain access to the out-of-combat versatility some of the other lists provide. So maybe just ensure the player is aware that they are truly paying a cost of fewer spellstrike options, in order to gain whatever utility they see as the benefit. Maybe a good way to ensure it's an informed choice is have the player write down the cantrips and first few ranks of spells they intend to prepare. 2/rank isn't hard to plan out, and it may ensure the player thinks through what it is they get - and don't get.
I definitely agree this would help a player realize what they're giving up before committing, though I'd also add that if the intent is to gain out-of-combat utility, there's also a net loss there in my opinion, as the arcane list I think is bar none the best for out-of-combat spells in general. Primal, divine, and occult do have their own benefits, including healing and cleansing, but arcane is the tradition that lets you manipulate items, change terrain, alter minds, travel large distances, divine information, and survive out in the wilderness, all in the same package. Other traditions do some of this at a time, and often have more spells to that effect, but no tradition does all of this at once, so even if you'd get to be better at a specific range of things, I'm not sure that either would compensate for being able to do far fewer things overall.
Could be the reason we don't see more of them is precisely this; the strict math tends to make this 'great on paper' idea just not work out well in implementation.
I do think there are ways to make this work, but I agree buffing numbers oughtn't be the way to go. An ice mage with nothing but cold spells and a +2 to all of their spell attack rolls and DCs is likely going to be OP when they blast, but they're also still going to have limited options for their lower-rank slots, and will suck against any enemy immune to cold. In order to have ultra-specialized blasters at that level, I think that's when you'd have to start coming up with new subsystems entirely to make their casting more consistent, which circles back to one of the original points: the fundamental model for casters in 2e with per-day spell slots of different ranks forces casters to be versatile generalists rather than dedicated blasters in a balanced game. If we want pure blaster casters, we'd need to alter that model or use a different one entirely.
I think one thing about the wizard that i know i have struggled with (not just in this game) is that spell choice is not actually a matter of expression. The choices of spells you pick at each level up are not ways to design a concept they are tools a wizard is adding to round out their toolbox.
Each spell is a tool for a situation so making a wizard with spells as a matter of expression of a character concept that doesnt have the right tools for the situations you will encounter is an ill equipped wizard.
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Of course there is no “non-arcane Magus.” It is an arcane caster, that is the narrative fantasy of the class.
I think we are about to see a bunch of archetypes in our next couple of rule books that are largely going to be about adding and combining different flavors of magic to various classes, and I strongly suspect that many of the players that are entrenched in their dissatisfaction with archetypes will remain so, although, perhaps the mythic variant rules are going to raise the ceiling and the floor of character power fantasy that it will give those players a specific way to enjoy their character types that are possible, but feel under-powered compared to other options.
But it is 100% about player-GM interaction where the potential of playing a wizard who casts vaguely ice themed spells resides. Spells don’t need a cold tag for telekinetic projectile to be about crystallizing water vapor around an object to hurl it at an enemy, or for hydraulic push to be an intense blast of frozen water that melts as fast as it forms. None of them need to change mechanically at all, because cold damage is already a weird gamist concept that is not how getting hit by a frozen object works anyway. Letting the player come up with ways to describe how slow, or enfeeble, or grease fits the theme is much better than trying to force all of that creativity into having to limit the character to specific traits that don’t really have anything to do with how the character needs to work in play.
I think there is a segment that feels like it is never worth establishing narrative constraints for themselves unless the get something out of it in return, but “just be creative about how the spells you want fit your theme” and then if your ice mage occasionally casts a regular old fireball, it can either be because they created such an abominably cold point of thermal disequilibrium that the area around it spontaneously combusted…or the character is actually a Golarion Wizard, who primarily trains in casting damaging cold spells…but is also a Wizard, and thus an arcane caster capable of learning any arcane spell they want to learn and have access to, which is the actual narrative fantasy of the remastered PF2 Wizard.
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Of course there is no “non-arcane Magus.” It is an arcane caster, that is the narrative fantasy of the class.
I do think though that the Magus chassis (martial proficiency, wave casting) could be easily spun out into three different classes with the rest of the class features underlining how a tradition differs from the arcane tradition.
Like it's not hard to see the Mesmerist as an Occult gish arranged around debuffing instead of spellstrike. Personally I think the Divine and Arcane traditions get too much attention and the Occult and Primal ones not enough. Like when War of Immortals comes out we'll be getting our third divine caster in the Animist, and we still haven't gotten a second primal caster that's not a pick-a-list.
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Funny, I was joking just the other day "what if Guardian keeps the name of its Taunt ability but we rename it the Mesmerist and now it's a mind control-themed martial".
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But as Bluemagetim's post above indicates, not every player gets the same enjoyment (and in some cases, may not be up to) converting a stock written description into an expression of the character.
This is where my issue is. You (but not any specific you)want to play a character that isn’t really supported by the narrative lore of the game (an ice mage), but expect the game to do all the work for you? That feels like an unreasonable expectation for me.
The Elementalist primarily seems to be there for players who want to play a blaster in a class that otherwise has less blaster support than they want. For example a Flames Oracle can use the Elementalist Archetype to swap out the Divine list for spells that support their playstyle more explicitly.
Unfortunately, Oracles can't pick up Elementalist, since the prerequisite is to cast from the Arcane or Primal list..........
I played a Flames oracle and got frustrated at the lack of fire spells to fit the playstyle and theme and did try to look at Elementalist lol xd. [in the end my GM gave me the Oracles+ homebrew thing where they gave the Oracles bonus spells fitting their theme]
This is where my issue is. You (but not any specific you)want to play a character that isn’t really supported by the narrative lore of the game (an ice mage), but expect the game to do all the work for you? That feels like an unreasonable expectation for me.
Treating Pathfinder's lore as immutable and sacrosanct is what strikes me as unreasonable in this discussion. The game's lore and narrative have changed frequently for the better, often to accommodate a wider range of valid character fantasies: for instance, Sorcerers in PF1e were arcane casters, and in 2e they were changed to base their magical tradition on their bloodline. Thus, Pathfinder's lore is more flexible than you're making it out to be, and has plenty of room to evolve further, particularly as the Silence in Snow Witch patron makes it clear that ice mages of at least one sort are in fact canon.
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The game’s lore and narrative have changed to make Golarion a unique place with consistent logic for the kinds of stories that Paizo’s creative staff want to tell.
Wizards jumping ship from the arcane list to a primal list majorly undermines what defines a PF2 wizard and the point of having an arcane magic tradition. The silence in snow witch works wonderfully as an INT caster of elemental spells because the witch gets their power from different sources, not by figuring out the inherent magic itself, which is the point of the arcane tradition.
The issue with trying to have full casters with extremely limited spell lists of regular spell slot spells, or spells per day, is that, if they have full caster proficiency, they are able to use scrolls and items to have access to a full tradition of magic. So the whole “missing out on certain options” really boils down to a few less flexible spell slots per day, which isn’t nothing, but it isn’t much for room to trade off power. That is why most visions of a specialized magical character that want to really be able to stretch what they can do casting the same thing over and over again are looking at the kineticist as a base and not a full caster.
i wonder what a Hedge Wizard school would be like.
You learned to study magic from a mentor removed from academic institutions, out in the field you learned from nature directly having studied a particular natural cycle like the flow of air or water currents or the crash of hurricanes and other storms. You gain access to the primal spell list instead of the arcane list. Specifically air water cold and electricity elements could be included on the school spell list with this kind of lore.
A little mixed but still kind of cool and the focus spell could be offensive and let you choose the element you are most familiar with as the damage type.
I dont know enough about lore to know if the studying and learning approach of a wizard cant be done with primal magic though.
Wizards jumping ship from the arcane list to a primal list majorly undermines what defines a PF2 wizard and the point of having an arcane magic tradition.
The assumption that ice is exclusively the domain of primal magic is false -- ice magic comes from harnessing material essence, which is covered by both the arcane and primal traditions. This is why Wizards can also be elementalists, and why spells that create or manipulate ice are in both the arcane and primal lists. It is perfectly possible for a Wizard to exclusively study ice magic, the problem is simply that such a Wizard would not be terribly powerful by PF2e's mechanics.
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Yeah, the basic problem is that the game does not (and will not) give you anything for "I prefer to use ice magic, and never other elements" when you have access to the entire arcane/primal spell list much like it will not give you anything for "I prefer to use a sword, I will never pick up a bow and fight at a distance" when you have martial weapon proficiency.
The Elementalist primarily seems to be there for players who want to play a blaster in a class that otherwise has less blaster support than they want. For example a Flames Oracle can use the Elementalist Archetype to swap out the Divine list for spells that support their playstyle more explicitly.Unfortunately, Oracles can't pick up Elementalist, since the prerequisite is to cast from the Arcane or Primal list..........
I played a Flames oracle and got frustrated at the lack of fire spells to fit the playstyle and theme and did try to look at Elementalist lol xd. [in the end my GM gave me the Oracles+ homebrew thing where they gave the Oracles bonus spells fitting their theme]
Wow, I had not realized that lol.
I would run a hedge witch as a druid, rogue or thaumaturge, I think. Give them a multicast into wizard or witch and a big focus on the Ritualist archetype. They're not a mainline caster, they just have a collection of tricks.
I would love to see a "hedge wizard" class archetype/spell school, though!
i wonder what a Hedge Wizard school would be like.
You learned to study magic from a mentor removed from academic institutions, out in the field you learned from nature directly having studied a particular natural cycle like the flow of air or water currents or the crash of hurricanes and other storms. You gain access to the primal spell list instead of the arcane list. Specifically air water cold and electricity elements could be included on the school spell list with this kind of lore.
A little mixed but still kind of cool and the focus spell could be offensive and let you choose the element you are most familiar with as the damage type.I dont know enough about lore to know if the studying and learning approach of a wizard cant be done with primal magic though.
I would suggest the Elementalist archetype for that. It gives you most of those air, water, cold spells in exchange for losing non-elemental spells (though sadly and strangely elementalists don't get any lightning? That seems like an oversight). Feats allow you to add water and fire traits, and occasionally some extra damage for an extra action. What it doesn't do is trade away the non-elemental spells for higher proficiency with what's left, or more slots, or higher slots, or increased damage/effect without some action cost. Which, I think, is often what the ask is about and in fact why I think a lot of players see it as a bad trade for giving away Arcane's great list. But for someone who is really into the concept you describe, it could be a good fit.
Though frankly, you don't really need it. You could play a wizard 'straight up', select elemental spells, and just use that as your backstory or to work with the GM to use it to create a school. The Arcane list has 144 spells with one of the air, earth, fire, metal, water, or wood traits. Plenty there to select from. Including electricity, cold, and acid brings it up to 214. Really, you don't need to modify the wizard at all to create an...
I think for me picking a school that fits a theme I like and then taking lighting magic for my chosen spells or learning them as I go is what I would do. I would need to clear all the lightning spells with a GM before deciding to play an Air specialized elementalist. They dont get them naturally.
But yeah higher proficiency would put a specialized caster in another league of magic user and that wouldn't be right.
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Yeah, the basic problem is that the game does not (and will not) give you anything for "I prefer to use ice magic, and never other elements" when you have access to the entire arcane/primal spell list much like it will not give you anything for "I prefer to use a sword, I will never pick up a bow and fight at a distance" when you have martial weapon proficiency.
There really isn't anything stopping Paizo from making a cryomancer archetype with a bunch of feats with effects that trigger off of doing cold damage with spells other than time and interest. Shadowcaster gives you some good reasons to focus on shadow spells, the Fireball support in Spell Trickster makes it a lot more reasonable to rely on Fireball as your main trick. There's plenty of precedent for leaning into spell themes with class feats. The better question is why there aren't more caster class feats like that, given that supporting particular builds and themes is how martial class feats work.
Although archetypes like the Captivator and Shadowcaster do encourage leaning into a specific theme, I still don't think it's feasible to commit entirely to those archetype's themes, as the player is neither compelled nor rewarded for doing so. If the player were to pick nothing but cold spells in the case of a cryomancer archetype, that would raise the question of how they'd deal with cold-immune enemies, which one such archetype would have to address in order to fully deliver on its theme IMO.
Because of this, I think the main obstacle to these kinds of dedicated builds is mechanical, rather than narrative: because a caster can opt into spells beyond their designated specialty, they need to be balanced as if they're making use of the full breadth of their spell list, even if they're not. If a specialized cryomancer archetype prevented you from preparing/learning any spells other than cold spells, that would remove that consideration and allow the archetype to be balanced like a proper specialist, including by dealing better with resistance and immunity. That, however, would also create its own knock-on effects: are there enough cold spells out there for this archetype to work well and be interesting? If this archetype is meant to be a blaster, what's it supposed to do with its lower-rank slots? How much power would you need to give, and of what kind, for such an archetype to be balanced and feel good to play?
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"Because putting out new under-reviewed content at a fast and reckless rate is a big part of how RPGs become worse over time," right? I mean, that feels like an easy one.hard disagree, especially with the ease of publishing erratas in blog posts etc, any issues with that are more than offset by how constrained and weak all PF2 characters feel.
It might be easy to publish errata online, but you still need to make the errata, which is rather time-consuming. Also at some point it still needs to be copy-fit into the books.
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Blasters (as a named sub class, not a setup by a normal wizard) should have something to allow them to 'combine' lower level slots, to keep them viable for mook clearance
Blasters work fine without that.
Also, everytime Paizo releases something to "save up on resources" it's in general too bad. We get to do with what we have.| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
any issues with that are more than offset by how constrained and weak all PF2 characters feel, not unplayably so, but this game is such a slog, with no 'g@&~+# I feel cool' moments that stand out to me,Have you tried using more, lower level monsters? The idea that Level X characters should be fighting Level X monsters is kind of arbitrary. If your players want a more heroic feel and you want combats to last 1-2 rounds instead of 3-4, and have more combats per session, so that it feels like the PCs are crushing it, then set a different standard for encounters.
Yeah, the feel good moments of PF1 are easy to reproduce: Just reduce the difficulty to PF1 levels. So roughly build encounters as if the PCs were one level lower.
But the moment you explain someone the "feel good moments" are just because of very easy encounters, they complain that the game should give you the feeling that encounters are tough when they are actually trivial. Psychology...
Like spell-blending wizards, you mean?
So true...
Anyway, we hear the same complaints over and over. Sometimes, I'm close to answer like the basic video gamer: L2P!
Because of this, I think the main obstacle to these kinds of dedicated builds is mechanical, rather than narrative: because a caster can opt into spells beyond their designated specialty, they need to be balanced as if they're making use of the full breadth of their spell list, even if they're not. If a specialized cryomancer archetype prevented you from preparing/learning any spells other than cold spells, that would remove that consideration and allow the archetype to be balanced like a proper specialist, including by dealing better with resistance and immunity.
The problems here for this kind of thing for any kind of full caster class in PF2 are bigger than you go into. They require a caster that completely abandons a spell tradition for a uniquely limited spell list. What we have like this in PF2 is the Elementalist archetype and maybe, very loosely, the way that Kineticists access spells from scrolls.
The issue is that it is triflingly easy to gain spells that are "off list," so even if you had a class that either had an incredibly narrow bespoke spell list, or was limited to using the cast a spell activity only from "spells that have the cold trait" or something similar, a single archetype feat into a spell casting MC means the character gets their full spellcasting proficiency to all scroll casting, and the idea that the class is limiting what spells you can cast as a restriction on your power is pretty much meaningless. I think this is the primary reason why PF2 has pretty much given up the ghost of things like spell focus, school specialization, and other effects that let you trade spell selection versatility for power.
The PF2 path to accomplish such things are focus spells and powers granted through specific feats, that don't fully interact with the cast a spell activity, and thus are never going to feel like "specialized spell casting" to someone who needs their casting to be both regular spell casting, and some how more powerful than what the spells themselves do.
The problems here for this kind of thing for any kind of full caster class in PF2 are bigger than you go into. They require a caster that completely abandons a spell tradition for a uniquely limited spell list. What we have like this in PF2 is the Elementalist archetype and maybe, very loosely, the way that Kineticists access spells from scrolls.
The issue is that it is triflingly easy to gain spells that are "off list," so even if you had a class that either had an incredibly narrow bespoke spell list, or was limited to using the cast a spell activity only from "spells that have the cold trait" or something similar, a single archetype feat into a spell casting MC means the character gets their full spellcasting proficiency to all scroll casting
You outline the solution to your own problem: if a class archetype were to bar you from Casting a Spell that lacked the relevant trait, you wouldn't be able to bypass this through items or other archetypes, as casting spells always relies on the Cast a Spell activity. The Shadowcaster is an example of this, as opting into the archetype disallows light spells even from ancestry feats. In general, PF2e's rules are consistent in a way that allows rules to work as they should and generate few to no exceptions or abuse cases, which is why there are already several in-game examples of classes that can cast some spells, but not others, beyond even magical traditions.
Speaking of which, in the specific case of ice spells, you also wouldn't need to make a new spell list, given that the vast majority of cold spells are both arcane and primal. The problem right now is simply that there are very few such spells, and most of them are made for blasting, so going back to the above that raises the question of whether one such caster would be functional or interesting. I agree with Easl that the net benefit to such a thematic restriction is also likely to be fewer resource constraints rather than more power, which may not be to everyone's liking.
You outline the solution to your own problem: if a class archetype were to bar you from Casting a Spell that lacked the relevant trait, you wouldn't be able to bypass this through items or other archetypes, as casting spells always relies on the Cast a Spell activity. The Shadowcaster is an example of this, as opting into the archetype disallows light spells even from ancestry feats.
I feel that this limitation on the Shadowcaster is purely roleplay and doesn't bring any extra power to the archetype. The concept of min maxing doesn't exist in PF2, an archetype that would prevent you from casting any spell but Cold spells would not be stronger than the next archetype, making the whole thing awfully underpowered.
I feel that this limitation on the Shadowcaster is purely roleplay and doesn't bring any extra power to the archetype. The concept of min maxing doesn't exist in PF2, an archetype that would prevent you from casting any spell but Cold spells would not be stronger than the next archetype, making the whole thing awfully underpowered.
While I certainly agree that "you can't cast light spells" is only a minor restriction, I'm sure you'll also agree that "you can literally only cast cold spells" is a massive restriction for any caster class. "If it's equally strong, it's underpowered" is also not a statement that is internally consistent, nor do I think it really gets to what's being discussed: I agree with you that it's likely not a good idea to compensate for limited spell access with pure numerical buffs, but that doesn't mean there can't be other significant benefits for those equally significant tradeoffs, such as fewer resource restrictions on the spells you get to cast.
A side point to this whole discussion I think is that specialist casters are not a solution to players feeling that spells are weak: casting a spell with one of your top-rank slots represents the absolute peak of power you can achieve in PF2e, and is stronger than any ability that's unrestricted by daily uses. If a player feels their strengths are diluted across too large a range of spells, that's understandable and could perhaps be worked with, but if a player wants to one-shot a boss with a blast spell or the like, no amount of specialization is likely to let that happen, nor should it.
To say that a top level spell slot is always the height of casting power is generally true, and I strongly agree that the right top level spell slot spell should be the height of power. But it is more than a little misleading to imply that any top level spell slot is the height of spell casting power.
When it comes to blasting, and trying to do damage, Spell casting is a multi-tiered game of rock, paper, scissors that includes save targeting and damage type. It is not very hard, at almost every level of play, for a damage spell that is a rank or even two behind a caster’s top slot spells to out damage the wrong damage type/save spell. If a character is truly limited to one damage type or targeting only one saving throw , then that would be an absolutely devastating setback for that player, and they are going to ru into infuriating encounters…but the idea that spell selection can truly be limited thusly in PF2 is the false supposition. With full casting proficiency and access to scrolls, any caster has full access to all the spells that make casting powerful. That is why limiting spell selection is just not an effective trade in for any significant power increase in an archetype or class, and why Kineticists don’t cast spells in the first place/their abilities can’t be used with spell casting proficiency.
To say that a top level spell slot is always the height of casting power is generally true, and I strongly agree that the right top level spell slot spell should be the height of power. But it is more than a little misleading to imply that any top level spell slot is the height of spell casting power.
When it comes to blasting, and trying to do damage, Spell casting is a multi-tiered game of rock, paper, scissors that includes save targeting and damage type. It is not very hard, at almost every level of play, for a damage spell that is a rank or even two behind a caster’s top slot spells to out damage the wrong damage type/save spell. If a character is truly limited to one damage type or targeting only one saving throw , then that would be an absolutely devastating setback for that player, and they are going to ru into infuriating encounters…but the idea that spell selection can truly be limited thusly in PF2 is the false supposition. With full casting proficiency and access to scrolls, any caster has full access to all the spells that make casting powerful. That is why limiting spell selection is just not an effective trade in for any significant power increase in an archetype or class, and why Kineticists don’t cast spells in the first place/their abilities can’t be used with spell casting proficiency.
I don't think you understand that if you are unable to Cast a Spell, that prohibition applies to scrolls as well, which you can only use with the Cast a Spell activity. If a hypothetical ice mage were unable to Cast a Spell that lacked the cold trait, they wouldn't be able to Cast a Spell from a scroll if the spell on the scroll lacked the cold trait. I also don't think splitting hairs over saves or spells with gaps in their heightening detracts from the fact that in general, your top-rank slots represent the peak of power for a player character in 2e. If a player uses one of their most powerful slots to cast a spell that wouldn't benefit from its rank, targets a strong save, or deals damage the target is immune to, that's on them, not the game's design.
The issue you bring up of casters getting hard-countered is also one that has also been mentioned several times in this discussion already, though it's definitely relevant to the topic of specialized casters. It's not an intractable problem either, given how Kineticists have Extract Elements and Versatile Blasts to help mitigate this kind of problem, but it does mean that any sort of specialized caster would need a dedicated mechanic to turn what are normally hard counters into soft counters against them, which would eat into any archetype's budget for power and complexity. It's something that could probably be done with a class archetype or even a fully-fledged class (though "ice mage" or anything that specific is unlikely to ever become one), but it almost certainly wouldn't work on a regular archetype, particularly as that kind of specialization would work only for some casters and not others.
A side point to this whole discussion I think is that specialist casters are not a solution to players feeling that spells are weak...I don't think that was the OP's point. It's more the point that (1) a kineticist doesn't fill the conceptual space an all day blaster caster would occupy, because it really doesn't feel like you're a caster at all. (2) So this conceptual space is still lacking a class, or archetype, or other instantiation in the game. AFAICT he's not complaining about spell power at all.
(Minor OP points worth mentioning are (3) this doesn't take away from the kineticist, which OP sees as filling a different and fun conceptual space, and (4) OP recognizes that no game can have an 'it's own thing' for every one of of the infinite concepts players can imagine...but still, as PC concepts go, this is one that gets imagined a lot.)
Yep. All of this. Thank you Easl.
We did discuss the power of magic a while back in another thread at least one other thread. I believe we were all pretty split on the topic.
I am not sure where I am on it now. I'm watching my players throw out spells and in the right situations its devastating. Like a cleric using a 3 action heal with undead that need redeading and allies that need healing.
"Because putting out new under-reviewed content at a fast and reckless rate is a big part of how RPGs become worse over time," right? I mean, that feels like an easy one.hard disagree, especially with the ease of publishing erratas in blog posts etc, any issues with that are more than offset by how constrained and weak all PF2 characters feel, not unplayably so, but this game is such a slog, with no 'g!%&*& I feel cool' moments that stand out to me, the fact that monsters are totally untethered from pc classes really doesn't help.I'm sorry I couldn't hear you over the sound of the cleric nuking a 60ft radius circle 200ft away while the gunslinger triggers 5 crit effect off runes and their unique shooting action.
But also have you seen the speed at which major gaming companies publish errata, even for purely digital games.
Games workshop had vastly improved on their errata and balance cycles for a game with a lot of moving parts and no GM to adjudication things. Before they went under Privateer Press was also very good at managing a living ruleset.
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I don't think that was the OP's point. It's more the point that (1) a kineticist doesn't fill the conceptual space an all day blaster caster would occupy, because it really doesn't feel like you're a caster at all. (2) So this conceptual space is still lacking a class, or archetype, or other instantiation in the game. AFAICT he's not complaining about spell power at all.
I agree, that sidebar wasn't in response to the OP, but more to SuperBidi and the general assumption made in some comments that restricting the spell access of casters would lead to numerical buffs to their damage or, more generally, the upper limit to their spell power. As far as I can see Bluemagetim isn't asking for stronger spells, it's more that whenever I see the topic of specialist casters come up, I often also see people either advocating or opposing the notion on the grounds that it would involve improving their raw spell power. I don't think that's something that ought to happen, nor do I think that's a necessary result of specializing casters. Rather, I think specialist casters would be more likely to be less restricted by per-day resources, which I think raises another question: if a class can cast a potentially unlimited number of spells per day, would they still feel like a caster? I'd personally want the answer to be yes, but I'm guessing that to many, part and parcel of being a caster in Pathfinder is that you're limited by your spell slots per day.
I don't think that was the OP's point. It's more the point that (1) a kineticist doesn't fill the conceptual space an all day blaster caster would occupy, because it really doesn't feel like you're a caster at all. (2) So this conceptual space is still lacking a class, or archetype, or other instantiation in the game. AFAICT he's not complaining about spell power at all.I agree, that sidebar wasn't in response to the OP, but more to SuperBidi and the general assumption made in some comments that restricting the spell access of casters would lead to numerical buffs to their damage or, more generally, the upper limit to their spell power. As far as I can see Bluemagetim isn't asking for stronger spells, it's more that whenever I see the topic of specialist casters come up, I often also see people either advocating or opposing the notion on the grounds that it would involve improving their raw spell power. I don't think that's something that ought to happen, nor do I think that's a necessary result of specializing casters. Rather, I think specialist casters would be more likely to be less restricted by per-day resources, which I think raises another question: if a class can cast a potentially unlimited number of spells per day, would they still feel like a caster? I'd personally want the answer to be yes, but I'm guessing that to many, part and parcel of being a caster in Pathfinder is that you're limited by your spell slots per day.
Wands and staves fill some of this space right? At least if not unlimited it will get you to a saturation point where you dont care to cast more. its just going to be spell ranks below your max if your GM is following the treasure guidelines.
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I don't think that was the OP's point. It's more the point that (1) a kineticist doesn't fill the conceptual space an all day blaster caster would occupy, because it really doesn't feel like you're a caster at all. (2) So this conceptual space is still lacking a class, or archetype, or other instantiation in the game. AFAICT he's not complaining about spell power at all.I agree, that sidebar wasn't in response to the OP, but more to SuperBidi and the general assumption made in some comments that restricting the spell access of casters would lead to numerical buffs to their damage or, more generally, the upper limit to their spell power. As far as I can see Bluemagetim isn't asking for stronger spells, it's more that whenever I see the topic of specialist casters come up, I often also see people either advocating or opposing the notion on the grounds that it would involve improving their raw spell power. I don't think that's something that ought to happen, nor do I think that's a necessary result of specializing casters. Rather, I think specialist casters would be more likely to be less restricted by per-day resources, which I think raises another question: if a class can cast a potentially unlimited number of spells per day, would they still feel like a caster? I'd personally want the answer to be yes, but I'm guessing that to many, part and parcel of being a caster in Pathfinder is that you're limited by your spell slots per day.
Casting a potentially unlimited number of specialized spells per day is IMO the prompt that gave us the Kineticist.
I guess the thing about an "all-day blaster" who is also a "Magic User" is that someone who can blast all day seems like someone defined by their stamina (like the Kineticist) whereas for the entire history of this family of games magic users were defined by "they want to stop and rest before anybody else."
If there's an all-day anything, it shouldn't be arranged around spell slots or mental stats.
Wands and staves fill some of this space right? At least if not unlimited it will get you to a saturation point where you dont care to cast more. its just going to be spell ranks below your max if your GM is following the treasure guidelines.
You're right, though spell ranks below your max I think is the important bit here: staves, wands, and scrolls are generally going to be helping you cast more lower-rank spells, which is great for various assorted utility but not so great for blasting. If you want to use your True Staff of the Desert Winds to cast wrathful storm, you'll be left with just enough for a cast of create water, which is strong in the sense that you get to cast an extra 9th-rank spell in combat, but is still nowhere near the same amount of uptime as, say, a Kineticist's impulses or even a Psychic's amps, even if the spell is arguably stronger than either.
Well this goes back to the discussion of names and nouns. For some players, it does seem like part of what "feels like a caster" is naming what they are 'wizard' and naming their mechanics 'spells.'
I actually think this is the opposite problem here: with the Wizard, the problem is that both the term and class are so nebulous in-game and in fiction in general that there are about as many ways to define the Wizard as there are players. By contrast, the identity of casters in PF2e, PF1e, and D&D before has very specifically hinged upon spell slots, such that to many players they are an essential aspect of caster classes in tabletop games. This is the very reason why Paizo kept spell slots in 2e, as that was one of the steps they took to ensure that caster classes would still feel familiar enough for 1e players to make the jump. Perhaps in a future edition, things might be different, but in 2e there is a risk that a caster without spell slots wouldn't feel like a "true" caster anymore to some players, including players wanting a specialist.
But side note, the option you mention above would likely render the kineticist obsolete. Smaller spell pool for unlimited casts, no other downside is better than smaller spell pool for unlimited casts at max spell rank-1.
This presumes that casters would have their daily resources removed entirely and their spells rendered castable at-will all the way up to 10th rank, which I personally don't think needs to happen or ought to. The option I mention is for casters to have fewer daily resource constraints, not zero resource constraints, and even in a world where casters could cast most spells without the daily constraints of spell slots, I still believe their ability to cast 10th-rank spells should be limited to once per day. I would also argue that the Kineticist gets tremendous unique benefits of their own, such as martial-grade durability, surprisingly good flexibility thanks to Reflow Elements, and additional goodies through their kinetic aura, impulse junction, and gate junctions, so they're likely to feel different from any other caster regardless.
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Yes and no, if you find the buff/debuff cycle off fights fun, more power to you, you used to be able to build to do it, now at least most of the party has to, with no option to build away. Don't like doing the chores and watching monsters save/ignore what you are doing until something works? Sucks to be me I guess.
I mostly like to blast the hell out of enemies. Whatever caster I build, I end up blasting (besides Occult caster that I end up disliking). Buff, debuff, healing, control, I find all these areas unsatisfying (not as main specialization, I can cast such spells when they are particularily effective). It seems it's me as lots of players are praising these aspects of the game.
Now, if you expect all your actions to succeed then you should play a game without dice. There will be moments that suck, like for martials and everyone. Sometimes, dice hate you. Sometimes they love you, too.
When it comes to blasting, and trying to do damage, Spell casting is a multi-tiered game of rock, paper, scissors that includes save targeting and damage type.
Honestly, it's not that complicated. My Wild Witch only casts Lightning Bolt, Sudden Bolt and the occasional Electric Arc and Fireball (and Heal against Undeads). It's all about Electricity and Reflex saves. And she's doing fine (as she's outdamaging the 2 Kineticists she plays with, which is a low bar to reach but still).
While I certainly agree that "you can't cast light spells" is only a minor restriction, I'm sure you'll also agree that "you can literally only cast cold spells" is a massive restriction for any caster class. "If it's equally strong, it's underpowered" is also not a statement that is internally consistent, nor do I think it really gets to what's being discussed: I agree with you that it's likely not a good idea to compensate for limited spell access with pure numerical buffs, but that doesn't mean there can't be other significant benefits for those equally significant tradeoffs, such as fewer resource restrictions on the spells you get to cast.
You didn't get what I mean: PF2 doesn't value min maxing. So if you create an archetype that can only cast cold spells, it just casts cold spells and that's all. No numerical bonuses, no other significant benefit, no tradeoff because PF2 doesn't make any such tradeoffs. If you only want to cast cold spells, just do it and don't expect any compensation for it.
That's why Kineticist is a new class and not just an archetype.
You didn't get what I mean: PF2 doesn't value min maxing.
That's why Kineticist is a new class and not just an archetype.
It is impressive that you would disprove yourself so succinctly. The Kineticist is the exact counterexample to your claim, as the class is perfectly capable of "min maxing" by focusing exclusively on a single element, gaining a tremendous range of benefits that make them a solid class. You also appear to have missed the fact that no-one else is asking for numerical buffs, and I in fact wrote the following exact paragraph with you in mind:
A side point to this whole discussion I think is that specialist casters are not a solution to players feeling that spells are weak: casting a spell with one of your top-rank slots represents the absolute peak of power you can achieve in PF2e, and is stronger than any ability that's unrestricted by daily uses. If a player feels their strengths are diluted across too large a range of spells, that's understandable and could perhaps be worked with, but if a player wants to one-shot a boss with a blast spell or the like, no amount of specialization is likely to let that happen, nor should it.
Neither I, nor the OP, nor most people in this discussion who'd like to see a specialist caster want numerical buffs. A caster class archetype that casts only ice spells or something equally narrow is still going to be more versatile than many martial classes, particularly the Fighter, so this wouldn't qualify as "min maxing" even by 2e's standards.
The Kineticist is the exact counterexample to your claim, as the class is perfectly capable of "min maxing" by focusing exclusively on a single element, gaining a tremendous range of benefits that make them a solid class.
"Tremendous"? It's strange that everyone is complaining that there's no point in focusing on a single element then. Maybe you should take a closer look at the Kineticist, it's a perfect argument to support what I'm saying.
Neither I, nor the OP, nor most people in this discussion who'd like to see a specialist caster want numerical buffs.
Ok... I'll quote you again:
Rather, I think specialist casters would be more likely to be less restricted by per-day resources
So if a Wizard can cast 5 spells per spell rank and your ice mage, with a lower restriction on per-day resources, can cast 10 of them... Ho, isn't that a numerical buff?
More slotted spells means more potent spells, because slotted spells are more powerful than focus spells and cantrips.As a side note, if you persist in stating that I would be somehow able to "disprove myself" or any other form of personal attacks, this conversation will be over (at least for me).