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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.
When I read stuff like this it genuinely makes me wonder if some people are just literally playing an entirely different game than I am.
We’ve had no shortage of g+@~+@n I feel cool moments in PF2E, if anything they stand out more because the game’s in-play difficulty is generally much higher than prior d20 games (i.e. encounters typically have tools to fight back against you rather than being helpless against you). So when you demolish an encounter, you know it most likely happened because of the decisions you and your party made, not because of the game handing you a win at character creation.
"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.
Who's "everyone"? I do see people being enthusiastic about mixing and matching elements, an intended feature of the class, but outside of complaints around metal, I rarely see people trashing single-element builds. Whether you like it or not, Paizo very much supports "min maxing" with single-element Kineticists, and such a playstyle is expressly intended by the developers.
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?
Being able to cast more spells per day is not the numerical bonus to spell attack rolls and DCs you've been insisting would happen as a result of specialization, so no. If you really want to stretch the definition of "numerical buffs" beyond the agreed meaning in this discussion to mean literally any sort of mechanical benefit, you certainly can, but it would also make your own argument factually wrong, as the Runelord archetype does provide "numerical buffs" in the form of more Focus Points, not to mention devoid of meaning.
More slotted spells means more potent spells, because slotted spells are more powerful than focus spells and cantrips.
As already discussed, having more spells of higher ranks does not change the ceiling of power you can output, because the maximum power you can output with each casting of a top-rank spell does not change. By contrast, buffs to your attack rolls and DCs would change this ceiling.
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).
Pointing out that your arguments are internally inconsistent and factually incorrect is not a personal attack. If you truly believe it to be the case, please do feel free to leave the conversation, and no contribution of value will be lost.
Personally I don't think of minmax the way you do. I think of it as giving away breadth to be better at some ability. But a single element air kineticist is not better at Ariel Boomerang than an air/earth, or air/fire etc. one. Can't hit with higher accuracy. Can't do more damage with it. Can't cast it more often. In that way, the class does not min max.
You are right that Paizo did try to ensure "if you take a 5th air feat instead of 4 air feats and one earth feat, you'll do just as well" minmaxing. In fact I'd dare say that making both of those choices equally playable was probably one of their goals. But that's not how I'd typically use the term minmax.
To be clear, we're on the same page here. The continuous use of air quotes is there to reflect SuperBidi's own concept of min-maxing as a vertical increase in power in exchange for versatility, which I don't consider the only way to specialize, and which the Kineticist very much doesn't get for committing to a single element. I very much agree with you that single-element Kineticists get more goodies, rather than just the same but stronger, which is why I think specialist casters need not receive direct buffs to their spell power so much as other useful benefits that'd cater towards their theme.
It kinda is. The dude who pumps out 4x 6d6 fireballs/day is outdamaging the dude who pumps out 2x 6d6 fireballs/day. So an archetype which says 'get 2 extra spell slots of every rank you can cast, but you can only take fire spells" is likely to see a numerical benefit in their combat capability. At least, for situations outside of 'fire immune critter' and 'we only play one combat scene per game day.' But those sorts of hypotheticals are uncommon; across multiple common combat encounters per day, the 4 top slot specialist will outdamage the 2 top slot generalist.
By this logic, literally any kind of mechanic that improves your potential damage output, utility included, is a numeric buff in the same way, so our existing generalist casters are also specialized blasters. You are right that being able to cast spells with more higher-rank slots will allow you to output high-powered spells more often (and this doesn't just include damage), but again, this does not make your individual spells more powerful in the same respect as, say, the Psychic's Unleash Psyche and its status bonus to spell damage, or a bonus to your spell attack or DC. A specialist being able to use their specialty with greater consistency is how specialists work in 2e in general, including with martial classes and the Kineticist, and if sacrificing versatility were to come with absolutely no benefit whatsoever, then there would be no reason to do so.
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Pointing out that your arguments are internally inconsistent and factually incorrect is not a personal attack. If you truly believe it to be the case, please do feel free to leave the conversation, and no contribution of value will be lost.
Thanks. I will then leave this conversation (which is already pointless anyway). And I really think you don't get the meaning of personal attacks.
My opinion is that this would dissatisfy many people currently calling for specialist or dedicated casters. I could be wrong about that. But I think most people calling for them are tacitly assuming that such a class would come with higher expected dpr in those traits as compensation for giving up access to other spells. IMO, overbuffed mechanics have become part of the thematic concept.
I mean just look at elementalist. It has exactly the sort of feats you're talking about. But it's not popular. The people who are calling for elemental trait blaster specialists don't want "...and you can now spend a third action to create difficult terrain with your blast." So what do they want? We all kinda know, right? To bring down the house during combat encounters in your specialty. Not that you shoot fireballs exactly as well as any other wizard but you pick neat fire feats instead of metamagic feats.
I do think you're wrong about this, particularly as your comparison to the Elementalist misses the fact that the near-totality of the benefits you get from the archetype come from feats: you're not getting goodies in exchange for a net reduction in versatility, you're getting access to goodies that you'd be taking instead of the regular goodies from your class. The only "free" additional stuff you're getting from the archetype is access to a small number of additional spells (a mere 6 if you're a primal caster), which is neither sufficient compensation for giving up literal hundreds of other far more diverse spells, nor the kind of benefit that a specialist would really want.
I also don't really believe that the idea of a specialist is rooted in numerical bonuses to your rolls or DCs: while players asking for dedicated blasters certainly want to deal consistently high damage, that much can be answered by being able to cast spells at a higher rank with fewer resource constraints, as discussed already. This is why the Psychic can feel like a good blaster, because the combination of amps that can be recharged in-between encounters and Unleash Psyche lets them output a ton of damage that's not limited by per-day uses.
They can be! That I think is one of the points Superbidi and Deriven and some others all hit on: sorcerer, witch, wizard can be played as specialist casters very effectively with no change in rules needed at all. Just pick appropriate slot spells and don't be afraid to use them. What makes a "blaster caster" is dedicating all your top slots to damage and then actually pulling the trigger on them in play, rather that keeping everything in reserve in case there's a boss fight at the end of the session. Want a L5 arcane air/cold/electricity wizard blaster? Take (3) Lightning bolt x2, (2) Ash Cloud x2, Propulsive Breeze, (1) Thunderstrike x2, Chilling spray x1, (C) any combination of EA, Frostbite, Gale Blast, Slashing Gust, and utility you want. Take Spellblending if you want more lightning bolts or Staff thesis if you want more thunderstrikes. Take school of battle magic, or work with your GM to fashion your own school focusing on air/cold/electricity spells. As importantly, tactics: play this blaster with the idea that every single 3-round combat you expect to cast one lightning bolt, one of ash cloud or thunderstrike, and one round utility or cantrip.
Aaaaand...you're done. Specialist caster.
Right, and as per Michael Sayre's quote at the start of this discussion, your end result is not going to be viable:
So bringing it back to balance and customization: if a character has the potential to do anything and a goal of your game is balance, it must be assumed that the character will do all those things they're capable of. Since a wizard very much can have a spell for every situation that targets every possible defense, the game has to assume they do, otherwise you cannot meet the goal of balance. Customization, on the other side, demands that the player be allowed to make other choices and not prepare to the degree that the game assumes they must, which creates striations in the player base where classes are interpreted based on a given person's preferences and ability/desire to engage with the meta of the game. It's ultimately not possible to have the same class provide both endless possibilities and a balanced experience without assuming that those possibilities are capitalized on.
In other words: your "specialist caster", as you describe it, is going to be weak, and so by design: because there's nothing stopping your "specialist" from becoming a generalist whenever they feel like it by preparing more diverse spells, the game has to balance your caster around the assumption that they'll do exactly that and make use of the full breadth of spells available to them, even if they never will. Because your character wouldn't be making full use of their spells, they would therefore not be able to contribute on the same level as a generalist. A huge part of the discussion so far has revolved around what a character would need to force them into specialization, and what that character would need to become viable when forced into that specialization. Thus, caster specialization can't just be solved by self-imposing thematic limitations and pretending a character will work just as well.
My opinion is that this would dissatisfy many people currently calling for specialist or dedicated casters. I could be wrong about that. But I think most people calling for them are tacitly assuming that such a class would come with higher expected dpr in those traits as compensation for giving up access to other spells. IMO, overbuffed mechanics have become part of the thematic concept.
I mean just look at elementalist. It has exactly the sort of feats you're talking about. But it's not popular. The people who are calling for elemental trait blaster specialists don't want "...and you can now spend a third action to create difficult terrain with your blast." So what do they want? We all kinda know, right? To bring down the house during combat encounters in your specialty. Not that you shoot fireballs exactly as well as any other wizard but you pick neat fire feats instead of metamagic feats.
I do think you're wrong about this, particularly as your comparison to the Elementalist misses the fact that the near-totality of the benefits you get from the archetype come from feats: you're not getting goodies in exchange for a net reduction in versatility, you're getting access to goodies that you'd be taking instead of the regular goodies from your class. The only "free" additional stuff you're getting from the archetype is access to a small number of additional spells (a mere 6 if you're a primal caster), which is neither sufficient compensation for giving up literal hundreds of other far more diverse spells, nor the kind of benefit that a specialist would really want.
I also don't really believe that the idea of a specialist is rooted in numerical bonuses to your rolls or DCs: while players asking for dedicated blasters certainly want to deal consistently high damage, that much can be answered by being able to cast spells at a higher rank with fewer resource constraints, as discussed already. This is why the Psychic can feel like a good blaster, because the combination...
I think that's a misinterpretation of the quote, the damage playstyle has enough different spells that it's internally diverse-- a caster that uses the likes of Force Barrage, Thunderstrike, Shadow Projectile, Spell Attacks, Agonizing Despair-- all on the first 3 levels of the arcane list is fairly well-equipped to target all 4 defenses (and say screw it to just deterministically apply damage ofc) when it's convenient with nice overlap in terms of being able to hit even the moderate save (because you probably won't be able to just prepare all of those), that character will perform well.
I think what's being discussed here is the informal "Pyromancer" or "Hydromancer" people try to build out of Wizards by choosing only fire spells or whatever, that's a better fit for the quoted passage because you only really have reflex saves and spell attacks to work with.
Teridax, the things you are asking for from casters feels very close to how 4e was designed from the ground up. Interestingly, no one ever talked about “casters” vs “Martials” in that game except to say casters just didn’t essentially exist because there was no mechanical difference between who they and martials worked.
In very many ways PF2s design of casters with good cantrips and focus spells was to hold on to some of that without giving up the “casters cast so many spells a day and then can’t” which is what so many players felt like was lost in 4e.
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I think that's a misinterpretation of the quote, the damage playstyle has enough different spells that it's internally diverse-- a caster that uses the likes of Force Barrage, Thunderstrike, Shadow Projectile, Spell Attacks, Agonizing Despair-- all on the first 3 levels of the arcane list is fairly well-equipped to target all 4 defenses (and say screw it to just deterministically apply damage ofc) when it's convenient with nice overlap in terms of being able to hit even the moderate save (because you probably won't be able to just prepare all of those), that character will perform well.
I'm not certain how any of what you've just said relates to the discussion: the caster you're describing is not a specialist, and is certainly not an Elementalist. Even then, they're also still not going to do as well as a caster who also equips non-damaging spells, because you will have more spell slots than you'll be able to use for every combat encounter in most days, and eventually many of your spell slots will be ill-equipped for blasting anyways. A caster with a broader mix of spells would still be stronger.
I think what's being discussed here is the informal "Pyromancer" or "Hydromancer" people try to build out of Wizards by choosing only fire spells or whatever, that's a better fit for the quoted passage because you only really have reflex saves and spell attacks to work with.
Right, which is what's being discussed. Look at how I brought up Sayre's quote in response to a hypothetical "specialist caster" who picks up nothing but elemental spells that focus almost exclusively on damage.
What we are talking about here is: does the game as written allow for players to build to such a concept, if they want to. And the answer to that is yes, it does allow them to do so.
This is evidently false, given that the OP and the responses to it focus on the game's ability to accommodate specialist casters: it is not enough for it to simply be able to build a caster as a specialist, that caster has to be viable. As the developer quote indicates, it is not, and so by design. Perhaps you've been wanting to talk about something else this whole time, but if so then it may be better for you to start your own thread.
But I can't see Paizo releasing such a thing as official content either, so for those players, I would suggest: instead of complaining on the boards about what you think Paizo should write for you, go look at Pathfinder Infinite. Or talk to your GM about homebrew. But also, just consider trying a specialist the way the game lets you build one. Like above, or like kineticist. Because you might find that the game as written can give you a character that fits your concept reasonably well and is fun to play.
"Just shut up and put up with it" is a thought-terminating cliché in a forum discussion that has managed to bring up interesting points around the design of casters in PF2e and the things that would need to be done to accommodate specialists. For what it's worth, I have in fact homebrewed a specialist caster class that's worked out well in play, but I still don't think that's a reason to not make it known to Paizo that there is demand for specialist casters. I also fail to see why Paizo would categorically refuse to accommodate such a gameplay fantasy in the future, let alone how you could be so sure of this, so again, there is room to entertain productive conversation around the subject matter.
I somewhat dispute that it's necessarily weak as-is. I think that depends a lot on the AP, how the GM runs the AP, and/or the GM's campaign. If your players are heavily skewing their capability one way, then a good GM can react to that appropriately. "Skewed party against skewed threats" plays just as well as "well-balanced party against well-balanced threats." But yeah, I probably wouldn't recommend one for PFS.
You have been given a quote from the game's design manager, which they personally came to this thread to reiterate, which tells you otherwise. If the only way to avoid punishing your pseudo-specialist is to have the adventure tailor-made purely to their strengths, that is a sign that your character isn't functional, and the GM shouldn't have to deal with that kind of pressure when preparing their sessions.
The concept of a necromancer came up in the wizards are weak thread.
I havent looked to much into summoner but it looks like it hits the concept of a necromancer head on with an Undead Eidolon, summon undead, and vampiric feast. Seems pretty on the nose.
It also feels on concept to basically fuel your undead eidolon with your lifeforce(just another way of looking at shared hp) and steal life from others with something like vampiric feast (even if its only temp hp).
If Int is important to your character design and cha is against it then witch and wizard can both summon undead and vampiric feast.
Witch with silence in snow offers a sort of winter is coming concept with its hex. And make your familiar an undead one.
Wizard has the more studious necromancer concept with the boundary school focusing more on spirits and shades from other planes.
i think there is no shortage of possible concepts and class approaches to necromancers or different stripes.
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You have been given a quote from the game's design manager, which they personally came to this thread to reiterate, which tells you otherwise. If the only way to avoid punishing your pseudo-specialist is to have the adventure tailor-made purely to their strengths, that is a sign that your character isn't functional, and the GM shouldn't have to deal with that kind of pressure when preparing their sessions.
This doesn’t just apply to casters though, does it? A Barbarian who refuses to have decent Dex and backup weapons will also struggle with certain encounters. A Rogue doing nothing but Strikes + Sneak Attacks with no focus on skills of any kind will also struggle due to how common Precision and Off-guard immunity is (especially in APs).
A thematically built blaster caster will likely struggle about as much, and I don’t think that’s a reflection of a miss in the game’s balance or anything.
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This doesn’t just apply to casters though, does it? A Barbarian who refuses to have decent Dex and backup weapons will also struggle with certain encounters. A Rogue doing nothing but Strikes + Sneak Attacks with no focus on skills of any kind will also struggle due to how common Precision and Off-guard immunity is (especially in APs).
A thematically built blaster caster will likely struggle about as much, and I don’t think that’s a reflection of a miss in the game’s balance or anything.
I agree, neither case is a miss on the part of the game's balancing. However, both indicate a degree of rigidity in the game's design: if you don't boost your attributes in a manner the game expects from you, you will suffer, which is why even your Wizard will want to boost their Dexterity and Constitution rather than their Charisma. Similarly, the game assumes you'll be making use of the full breadth of spells made available to you, so as Sayre's quote indicates, if you limit yourself to less than that, you will also suffer. The point being made is that this mode of balancing is in fact a thing in Pathfinder, which Easl was trying to deny despite direct contradiction from a developer in this very thread.
Did you read the whole thing? Because he talks about why Paizo went with kineticist rather than specialist wizard you're requesting, and the difficulties he sees in your idea. So when you say you "fail to see why Paizo would categorically refuse to accommodate such a gameplay fantasy in the future" just go look. Right there, June 28th post on this very thread. He tells you why they did kineticist instead of what you're asking for, and he tells you the difficulties they see with what you're asking for.
I did in fact read the quote in full, which is apparently more than can be said for you. Let's bring it back, shall we?
So bringing it back to balance and customization: if a character has the potential to do anything and a goal of your game is balance, it must be assumed that the character will do all those things they're capable of. Since a wizard very much can have a spell for every situation that targets every possible defense, the game has to assume they do, otherwise you cannot meet the goal of balance. Customization, on the other side, demands that the player be allowed to make other choices and not prepare to the degree that the game assumes they must, which creates striations in the player base where classes are interpreted based on a given person's preferences and ability/desire to engage with the meta of the game. It's ultimately not possible to have the same class provide both endless possibilities and a balanced experience without assuming that those possibilities are capitalized on.
So if you want the fantasy of a wizard, and want a balanced game, but also don't want to have the game force you into having to use particular strategies to succeed, how do you square the circle? I suspect the best answer is "change your idea of what the wizard must be." D20 fantasy TTRPG wizards are heavily influenced by the dominating presence of D&D and, to a significantly lesser degree, the works of Jack Vance. But Vance hasn't been a particularly popular fantasy author for several generations now, and many popular fantasy wizards don't have massively diverse bags of tricks and fire and forget spells. They often have a smaller bag of focused abilities that they get increasingly competent with, with maybe some expansions into specific new themes and abilities as they grow in power. The PF2 kineticist is an example of how limiting the theme and degree of customization of a character can lead to a more overall satisfying and accessible play experience. Modernizing the idea of what a wizard is and can do, and rebuilding to that spec, could make the class more satisfying to those who find it inaccessible.
Of course, the other side of that equation is that a notable number of people like the wizard exactly as the current trope presents it, a fact that's further complicated by people's tendency to want a specific name on the tin for their character. A kineticist isn't a satisfying "elemental wizard" to some people simply because it isn't called a wizard, and that speaks to psychology in a way that you often can't design around. You can create the field of options to give everyone what they want, but it does require drawing lines in places where some people will just never want to see the line, and that's difficult to do anything about without revisiting your core assumptions regarding balance, depth, and customization.
Note how literally no part of the quote declares specialist casters to be impossible, as you claim. Instead, Sayre points out that specialist casters are feasible, and even expresses interest in how to broach them, but cautions the reader that doing so would involve redefining existing caster classes and thus going up against the legacy assumptions of what classes like the Wizard ought to look like.
But that's not all, as Sayre's response in this thread develops on this even further:
Working from that point, one possibility to making "specialist" wizards more appealing is to fundamentally change the baseline of wizards being able to do almost anything. When you change that assumption about the breadth of the toolbox, you can make things like the kineticist, who gets gate attenuators, almost no daily resource limitations, and can mono-theme the way people were asking for. This is a pretty obvious conclusion, and why "just play a kineticist if you want an elemental blaster" was such an obvious response to people making that request.
Please read this quote again, because this is Michael Sayre declaring that specialist casters are in fact feasible in 2e, and the idea formed the basis of the Kineticist's design (which he presents as one possible implementation out of several). Your claim that Paizo will never approach specialist casters in 2e is not only unfounded, but contradicted by a senior developer. Of course, you knew this already:
But to end this thought on a supportive note, he also leaves the door open for specialized archetypes and classes in the future. (Which is...late 2025 at the earliest? Because animist, exemplar, guardian, and commander are all still ahead of any other new classes in the queue.)
This is you openly admitting that Sayre considers specialist casters possible in 2e. Why then claim otherwise? Why argue pointlessly when we both know that specialist casters can't work purely through self-limitation, but are still possible to implement in the system with appropriate tradeoffs? What is it you are even trying to say in this discussion?
But APs run by the book are also, IMO, just a small part of the gaming community.
Based on which data? I absolutely disagree with this, and I see far more references to APs, especially Abomination Vaults, than to homebrew campaigns.
And my point in defending dedicated casters as viable under the current rules was that once you get away from that single narrow slice of how to play, specialized casters made using current rules will be fine. Because outside of that narrow confine, it's the GM that decides what challenges you face.
Again, this is just making excuses and putting undue pressure on the GM to fix a broken character. You fail to specify even one adjustment the GM would have to make to accommodate such a class, which doesn't bode well for your elemental specialist. From my own experience GMing, I can tell you that if your character's a pure blaster, any amount of non-combat challenge, including social challenges and encounters, will have the generalist casters outshine said blaster, and if they're restricted to a single element such as fire, then entire families of enemies such as devils would no longer be possible to run without screwing over that specialist. Not only is this incredibly restrictive, it's also not something a newer GM will know how to deal with, and because the considerations change based on the specialist themselves, it becomes even more complicated to work around that one character. Putting aside the tremendous amount of entitlement in expecting the GM to rewrite their entire campaign around your character, just because it is technically possible to devise a custom adventure that works for your character does not mean every custom adventure will automatically do so, so even then I would argue that the majority of adventures, including homebrew ones, will not allow a self-limited caster to shine.
It's also worth noting that Michael Sayre also addressed this in his post, which I urge you to actually read:
My first assertion (at this point) is that for a game to be balanced, you need to balance it against what a reasonably skilled player can do. So taking a wizard and having them memorize nothing but fire spells is going to be below the ceiling because memorizing some things that aren't fire spells is inherently more powerful in the framework of the game.
Notice how he refers to the game, not "the game as played under an official AP". Avoiding designing a new class or class archetype by instead asking GMs to homebrew adventures that deliberately flout key game elements, which you neglect to specify, does not sound like an efficient way of addressing the matter, if you ask me.
I, uh, I think what's being said is that if a 'specialist caster' is going to come about, it's going to look either like the elementalist/shadowcaster (access to spellshapes that only work on your specialisation but you don't get any baseline benefits) or the kineticist (free flow of max rank - 1 spells plus numerical buffs at baseline, at the cost of your max rank spells - don't ask me how to do that at level 1, since clearly that's why it isn't being done)
I don't think that's what's being said, though. Notice how Sayre specifically mentions the Kineticist as one out of other possibilities, i.e. "you can make things like the Kineticist" or "The PF2 kineticist is an example of how limiting the theme and degree of customization of a character can lead to a more overall satisfying and accessible play experience." To me, this says that a specialist caster is likely to have some fundamental things in common with the Kineticist, like fewer daily constraints, but doesn't have to literally be the Kineticist to work, much like how martial classes don't need to each be carbon copies of the Fighter to excel at martial stuff.
This doesn’t just apply to casters though, does it? A Barbarian who refuses to have decent Dex and backup weapons will also struggle with certain encounters. A Rogue doing nothing but Strikes + Sneak Attacks with no focus on skills of any kind will also struggle due to how common Precision and Off-guard immunity is (especially in APs).A thematically built blaster caster will likely struggle about as much, and I don’t think that’s a reflection of a miss in the game’s balance or anything.
Conceptually yes, but practically the game handles those fairly differently. The combat where a Barbarian cannot strike anything because they don't have a ranged backup weapon is incredibly rare in AP design. It's just not really a thing adventure designers do very often.
Precision damage immunity is also something they've generally been making a bit less common... but it's also just flatly a terrible mechanic so no real arguments there.
So like, yeah in theory there are ways other characters can run into trouble too for not diversifying themselves, but generally speaking adventure design is much more comfortable inconveniencing spellcasters than it is inconveniencing our melee only martial.
Abomination Vaults alone had more combats that either restricted or prevented our party spellcaster from participating than pretty much every AP we've played put together had that's prevented one of our martials from hitting things with a stick... and the caster in question wasn't even a specialist.
The culture is just completely different.
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I think that's a misinterpretation of the quote, the damage playstyle has enough different spells that it's internally diverse-- a caster that uses the likes of Force Barrage, Thunderstrike, Shadow Projectile, Spell Attacks, Agonizing Despair-- all on the first 3 levels of the arcane list is fairly well-equipped to target all 4 defenses (and say screw it to just deterministically apply damage ofc) when it's convenient with nice overlap in terms of being able to hit even the moderate save (because you probably won't be able to just prepare all of those), that character will perform well.I'm not certain how any of what you've just said relates to the discussion: the caster you're describing is not a specialist, and is certainly not an Elementalist. Even then, they're also still not going to do as well as a caster who also equips non-damaging spells, because you will have more spell slots than you'll be able to use for every combat encounter in most days, and eventually many of your spell slots will be ill-equipped for blasting anyways. A caster with a broader mix of spells would still be stronger.
I think what's being discussed here is the informal "Pyromancer" or "Hydromancer" people try to build out of Wizards by choosing only fire spells or whatever, that's a better fit for the quoted passage because you only really have reflex saves and spell attacks to work with.Right, which is what's being discussed. Look at how I brought up Sayre's quote in response to a hypothetical "specialist caster" who picks up nothing but elemental spells that focus almost exclusively on damage.
What we are talking about here is: does the game as written allow for players to build to such a concept, if they want to. And the answer to that is yes, it does allow them to do so.This is evidently false, given that the OP and the responses to it focus on the game's ability to accommodate specialist casters: it is not...
I was commenting on your response to Easl, who was discussing a multi-elemental blaster, and pointing out that the Sayre quote wouldn't really pertain since you're already in the realm of diverse saving throws and damage types (in their case, 3, in my case more) which is what you had used to respond to them.
You've got your foot in two doors, using the idea of a mono-elemental caster when you say specialist, but specialist also pertains to 'specific playstyle' like 'control' and 'blaster' casters, or broader themes like 'Storm Mage' or 'Destroyer Mage' or whatever-- which you've been responding to as if those specialties were simply folded in.
The quote is about how the existing casters, in particular the spell lists, weren't designed in such a way that spells single element can represent a complete, self-sufficient kit, and that the Kineticist is good for that use case.
But not all specialization is mono-elemental specialization, a specialized storm themed blaster is still hitting for multiple saves and damage types, despite being specialized both elementally and in terms of their party role.
I was commenting on your response to Easl, who was discussing a multi-elemental blaster, and pointing out that the Sayre quote wouldn't really pertain since you're already in the realm of diverse saving throws and damage types (in their case, 3, in my case more) which is what you had used to respond to them.
Sayre's point doesn't just pertain to diversity of saving throws for damage. Read what he has to say again in his response here:
A wizard who uses the totality of their skillset will be a massively effective blaster as they debuff and annihilate enemies who never make it into range to retaliate.
It doesn't matter how many different flavors of direct damage you pick, you're still going to underperform if you neglect to go for the combat utility at your disposal, which falls outside of Easl's listed specialization.
You've got your foot in two doors, using the idea of a mono-elemental caster when you say specialist, but specialist also pertains to 'specific playstyle' like 'control' and 'blaster' casters, or broader themes like 'Storm Mage' or 'Destroyer Mage' or whatever-- which you've been responding to as if those specialties were simply folded in.
I'd be curious to know which part of my responses suggests this, as I very specifically did not limit the idea of a specialist to a mono-elemental caster or even a blaster, and used another person's example of an ice mage primarily to illustrate issues that would arise with such a build in the system. Are you sure you're not projecting your own biases here?
The quote is about how the existing casters, in particular the spell lists, weren't designed in such a way that spells single element can represent a complete, self-sufficient kit, and that the Kineticist is good for that use case.
But not all specialization is mono-elemental specialization, a specialized storm themed blaster is still hitting for multiple saves and damage types, despite being specialized both elementally and in terms of their party role.
As Sayre's response indicates, in particular the bit I quoted here, it's not just about mono-elemental casters, it's about specialist mages in general. He points to the Kineticist because the Kineticist is the archetypal mono-elemental magic-user, and thus a great fit for players looking to build one such character, but also expands on specialists in general beyond elements, and explains how they can't be achieved in a viable way just through self-limitation. It is this kind of tunnel vision that to me suggests the fixation on mono-elemental builds here is stemming from you, not me, particularly as there is plenty of thematic magic that goes beyond the Kineticist's elements, like illusions, mind control, necromancy, you name it.
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The quote is about how the existing casters, in particular the spell lists, weren't designed in such a way that spells single element can represent a complete, self-sufficient kit, and that the Kineticist is good for that use case.
But not all specialization is mono-elemental specialization, a specialized storm themed blaster is still hitting for multiple saves and damage types, despite being specialized both elementally and in terms of their party role.
The way you define "specialist" definitely has bearing on the topic. Like, if you think "war mage" is a specialist, you can probably just do that, especially with a little archetyping. There are all kinds of spells that fit the broad bucket of "war" that could work.
Similarly, "elementalist" is pretty achievable in a way that "pyrokineticist using the wizard chassis" probably isn't, because spells with the fire trait have a narrower theme; you could scrounge up a few of them that target Fort and Will and a few more that also debuff, but you'd have a hard time filling out a complement of spells from rank 1 to 10 in a way that feels satisfying and on-theme at every level of play and doesn't run into some performance valleys. The main class bucket starts too broad to easily drill down to something that narrow without replacement architecture and content specifically designed to reinforce that purpose. But broadly you can probably get what you want from a bigger bucket of elements if you just want to focus on "elemental magic" via something like the elementalist archetype because that's a big enough bucket you probably have some version of pretty much all the tools you need.
Necromancy is another one where the spells skew towards Fort and Will with not a lot of Reflex, especially for some spell ranks, and there's a lot of different versions of what a "necromancer" might be, so moving away from "it's specifically a specialty wizard" to "it's a trope-specific bucket" could allow you to safely drop all the wizard stuff that is not necessary for the trope to make room for more necromancer stuff that checks all the various boxes you want to have checked to fully realize the concept in a more narrow and fully realized way. (Tangentially, necromancer has always been a weird one in d20 TTRPGs since a lot of the time the best necromancers have actually been divine casters but the wizard is the bucket people think of; another reason I see it as a flavor of specialist that can benefit from being freed from the wizard chassis and allowed to have its own, more tightly-customized, bucket o' goodies.)
But there are a lot of ways to get all the tools you need within a framework that might be considered a "specialist", so it's going to be difficult to have a conversation about specialists and how achievable/unachievable they are without drawing a line somewhere and being clear about what's on each side of it.
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It doesn't matter how many different flavors of direct damage you pick, you're still going to underperform if you neglect to go for the combat utility at your disposal, which falls outside of Easl's listed specialization.
On a semi-related note, this is why I dislike when people dismiss the differences between spells traditions’ versatility by saying “well X tradition has <2 spells> that target that Save so you’re wrong to say it can’t target Reflex well!”
Spellcasters are balanced around not just how many different Saves they can do target to do one thing, but also how many different things they can do while targeting one Save. This is especially true for the 4-slot casters because they actually have so much variety between all their options to actually use a huge slice of the variety that their spell list delivers.
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Elementalist failed to capture the imagination of the player base, because it lost too much compared to the simple Primal caster. The mechanics of the archetype just did not support the fantasy that most people wanted.
The staple spells Fear, Slow, Heal were removed and just not replaced except by duplicates of capabilities the primal list already had. This is core functionality that was unnecessarily lost.
Fear could have been reflavoured with some type of howling wind, that had a similar effect.
Slow could have been clinging mud or exhausting heat.
Heal didn't get a meaniful replacement - I mean maybe Gentle Breeze is something but Heal it is not. We have healing water effects in the game. Why didn't we get something in the elementalist?
You can reflavour most spell effects to most elemental, or energy, or the old school, and even the new school traits.
Yes some players can do it on the fly with a permissive GM, but we buy a game because we want the game to support our fantasy and give us common rules.
Yes it would have been more content. But just 3 new spells similar to these would have been enough.
I like the Kineticist and it fills a nice niche. I still think there is room for another new and improved Elementalist.
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we have an absolute glut of fire options and none for the other energy types, which creates a big issue esp as Final Fantasy has popularised the idea of fire/cold/electricity as the core 'magic' elements over the physical elements.
I think the problem is PF2 implementation of elements is too narrow. You can do a lot more than just damage and walls with elements in other game systems.
The elements have a long history of being narrowly utilized compared to their potential. I believe there needs to be a more aggressively creative elemental piece of fiction than the Avatar series to really drive writers to prioritize it. Rage of Elements was a good start, but had a lot of breadth to cover.
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Disappointing as it may be to casters, having a portal to elemental planes within you (aka Kineticist) beats any ability to manipulate elements by casting spells hands down.
In practice, perhaps, if only because the Elementalist is an underwhelming archetype, but I don't think that needs to be true in the absolute. If merely having access to a kind of magic excluded all others from even approaching that magic's theme, then we'd just have 4 casters, one for each tradition, but in practice we do get different characters approaching a similar theme from different angles, including casters dedicating themselves to elemental spellcasting via the Elementalist archetype. In mechanical terms, a Kineticist's power is also capped below a caster's highest-rank spells, and spells in general tend to do much more varied things than a Kineticist's impulses, including elemental spells. An elemental spellcaster in this respect is going to be using their elements very differently from a Kineticist, and there ought to be room for both.
It's also for this reason that I still think Bluemagetim has a point in wanting mono-themed wizards, including for elemental themes: yes, the Kineticist exists. Yes, Wizards are generalists by design, in part to cover a broad range of things associated with wizards in fiction. Despite this, and irrespective of PF2e's specific trappings, I do think it is a valid character concept for a fantasy spellcaster to become proficient in a very specific type of magic, whether it be mono-elemental magic or something equally elemental in a broader sense like illusion or poison, through study. The mono-elemental caster who researches and prepares their spells is a fundamentally different character from the one who throws out that same element just because they have an innate ability to do so. We can talk about the valid mechanical reasons why one kind of character is more achievable than the other in 2e specifically, but dismissing one concept altogether simply because it doesn't fit that framework does not strike me as particularly empathetic or imaginative.