4 years of PF 2: Wizards are weak

[Finoan]

Xenocrat wrote:

Yes, and the design of the CRB ensured that GMs had control of those spells so they wouldn't ruin their campaign. PC1 took that away from them.

Slotted uncommon spells are not the same as (everything is) uncommon focus spells.

The Ars Grammatica school gives the Wizard access to Veil of Privacy, Dispelling Globe, Truespeech, Planar Seal, and Detonate Magic specifically.

It doesn't give access to any and all other uncommon slotted spells. Those are still under GM permission restrictions.

I'm not seeing the problem here. Or how this is noticeably different than a common feat giving access to a specific uncommon focus spell. Yes, the game devs decided to specifically give access to a particular uncommon option in a very specific manner.

Another similarity would be the ancestral weapon feats that give access to those ancestry's uncommon weapons.

[Bluemagetim]

Ok so this is another benefit of the way curriculum were designed.
It gives wizards options other casters either have to find in game or wont at all get if not available in game.

I kind of like this. A reason to go to school to learn magic.

Basically having uncommon choices in curriculum is in the wizard budget.

[Farien]

Xenocrat wrote:

Slotted uncommon spells are not the same as (everything is) uncommon focus spells.

Except for, you know, all the ones that aren't.

[Squiggit]

Finoan wrote:

The Ars Grammatica school gives the Wizard access to Veil of Privacy, Dispelling Globe, Truespeech, Planar Seal, and Detonate Magic specifically.

I had another GM express interest in restricting some uncommon wizard spells and while trying to argue with them noticed that the curriculum entry doesn't actually spell out access, nor does it directly give you the spells as some other options do, so it's more unclear than you're giving it credit for (and the way focus spells work has pretty much nothing to do with it).

Given that teleport is both on this list and has been called out specifically in the past as a spell that's been made uncommon so GMs can keep it out of their games, it's hard to say what the designers really want here.

It's just another unfortunate side effect of the questionable writing in these new schools.

[Bluemagetim]

Squiggit wrote:

Finoan wrote:

The Ars Grammatica school gives the Wizard access to Veil of Privacy, Dispelling Globe, Truespeech, Planar Seal, and Detonate Magic specifically.

I had another GM express interest in restricting some uncommon wizard spells and while trying to argue with them noticed that the curriculum entry doesn't actually spell out access, nor does it directly give you the spells as some other options do, so it's more unclear than you're giving it credit for (and the way focus spells work has pretty much nothing to do with it).

Given that teleport is both on this list and has been called out specifically in the past as a spell that's been made uncommon so GMs can keep it out of their games, it's hard to say what the designers really want here.

It's just another unfortunate side effect of the questionable writing in these new schools.

i noticed the specific words of you gain access were missing as well. Thats why I wondered if others here interpreted it differently.

My thought is that the sentence after the uncommon mention in that section is actually saying two things.
Its suggesting GMs allow other spells that make sense, but by using the term swap its low key suggesting that GMs who dont like those uncommon spells allow players to swap in something else that makes sense for the school.

[Finoan]

Squiggit wrote:

I had another GM express interest in restricting some uncommon wizard spells and while trying to argue with them noticed that the curriculum entry doesn't actually spell out access, nor does it directly give you the spells as some other options do, so it's more unclear than you're giving it credit for (and the way focus spells work has pretty much nothing to do with it).

Given that teleport is both on this list and has been called out specifically in the past as a spell that's been made uncommon so GMs can keep it out of their games, it's hard to say what the designers really want here.

It's just another unfortunate side effect of the questionable writing in these new schools.

No, it doesn't explicitly give access to the Uncommon spells on the curriculum list. It also doesn't explicitly mention that the player still needs to get permission to select the Uncommon spells from their curriculum list either.

That looks pretty ambiguous at best. Definitely not a clear 'these spells are uncommon so of course they aren't allowed'.

And the note in the Curriculum Spells rules, "A superscript “U” indicates an uncommon spell." does clearly show that the developers were quite aware that they were knowingly putting uncommon spells on the curriculum lists.

So with that and the RAW of the Uncommon trait saying that class choices (such as Wizard School) can give access to uncommon options, I think ruling that it generally doesn't work - that Wizard School curriculum doesn't give access to the Uncommon spells on the curriculum list - is an uphill battle.

If there is a particular spell on the list that is going to be a problem for a particular game, the GM should talk to the players about it. But it doesn't sit right with me to go against RAW in the general case and promote that ruling in general on the forums here solely because of hypothetical situations for specific games.

[egindar]

Farien wrote:

Xenocrat wrote:

Slotted uncommon spells are not the same as (everything is) uncommon focus spells.

Except for, you know, all the ones that aren't.

It looks like the vast majority of these are Gods & Magic domain spells, which is interesting as an argument about the rarity of focus spells, because the domain spells in both Player Core and the original Core Rulebook uniformly have both the Uncommon and Cleric traits, whereas the Gods & Magic domain spells have neither. Seems more like an oversight in an LO splat than a deliberate design choice.

[Finoan]

egindar wrote:

Farien wrote:

Xenocrat wrote:

Slotted uncommon spells are not the same as (everything is) uncommon focus spells.

Except for, you know, all the ones that aren't.

It looks like the vast majority of these are Gods & Magic domain spells, which is interesting as an argument about the rarity of focus spells, because the domain spells in both Player Core and the original Core Rulebook uniformly have both the Uncommon and Cleric traits, whereas the Gods & Magic domain spells have neither. Seems more like an oversight in an LO splat than a deliberate design choice.

Still, until I see errata otherwise - or have particular game balance problems with a particular campaign that I want to invoke the First Rule on, I'm going to run it by RAW.

And I haven't really seen any argument that RAW isn't that the game devs said:

Yes, adding these uncommon spells was deliberate. "A superscript “U” indicates an uncommon spell."
Yes, choosing a Wizard School gives you access to those uncommon spells. "Some character choices give access to uncommon options,"
Yes, you can choose, without restrictions, those uncommon curriculum spells. "As soon as you gain the ability to cast wizard spells of a new rank, choose one of the spells from your curriculum of that rank to add to your spellbook."

[Unicore]

I think the value with the uncommon options being spelled out in the school list is that it is a giant flag to wave in session 0, so if a GM is going to have issues, they can see it coming from the beginning rather than when the character levels up later and asks about a particular spell.

[Ryangwy]

Xenocrat wrote:

Yes. It was very sloppy and careless to publish those schools with those spells without making the schools themselves uncommon.

I agree with this and am baffled how people seem to think getting access to uncommon spells that were uncommon for GM purposes, not access reasons, is a feature of the wizard class. Ars Grammatica delenda est.

(The actual odd duck is Mentalism, who has Mind Reading despite several good mental spells at that rank. At least the rest there really isn't any better options at that rank, or is Ars Grammatica which is half uncommon by weight. I'd still prefer they find the page space to fit four more common spells for Civic Wizardry and Boundary but assuming spells were decided before the wizard schools were it's merely incompetent and not cruel)

[egindar]

Finoan wrote:

egindar wrote:

Farien wrote:

Xenocrat wrote:

Slotted uncommon spells are not the same as (everything is) uncommon focus spells.

Except for, you know, all the ones that aren't.

It looks like the vast majority of these are Gods & Magic domain spells, which is interesting as an argument about the rarity of focus spells, because the domain spells in both Player Core and the original Core Rulebook uniformly have both the Uncommon and Cleric traits, whereas the Gods & Magic domain spells have neither. Seems more like an oversight in an LO splat than a deliberate design choice.

Still, until I see errata otherwise - or have particular game balance problems with a particular campaign that I want to invoke the First Rule on, I'm going to run it by RAW.

And I haven't really seen any argument that RAW isn't that the game devs said:

Yes, adding these uncommon spells was deliberate. "A superscript “U” indicates an uncommon spell."
Yes, choosing a Wizard School gives you access to those uncommon spells. "Some character choices give access to uncommon options,"
Yes, you can choose, without restrictions, those uncommon curriculum spells. "As soon as you gain the ability to cast wizard spells of a new rank, choose one of the spells from your curriculum of that rank to add to your spellbook."

Nobody in here is seriously arguing with you on that point, though (I wasn't even weighing in on that side of the conversation, just about the focus spells being Common). The contention isn't whether these spells can be accessed per the text of PC1, but that it's a poor design decision that they CAN be accessed, because they're Uncommon for reasons different from Uncommon focus spells (which isn't something that's actually disproven by the existence of Common focus spells, I'd note).

Flatly, I think it's ridiculous to believe or argue that Teleport and Mind Reading are Uncommon for the same reasons as Soothing Ballad and Ki Blast.

[Bluemagetim]

Mind reading doesnt break anything. Its completely in GM narrative territory to determine what surface thoughts are for the NPC and if anything it gives a great opportunity to provide players information you want them to have.

Teleport on the other hand forces a few things on the narrative when traveling or providing obstacles is concerned. But players cannot teleport anywhere they have no knowledge of its appearance. This basically shuts down teleporting to any location other than ones the players have been or the GM otherwise allows knowledge of. That does pose some challenges to the GM they might not want to deal with but there is no planet hopping if the GM doesnt introduce a chance to know what a location on another planet looks like. Just like there is only as much town hopping as there are towns the players have been to. Its fairly limited actually.

[Ryangwy]

Bluemagetim wrote:

Mind reading doesnt break anything. Its completely in GM narrative territory to determine what surface thoughts are for the NPC and if anything it gives a great opportunity to provide players information you want them to have.

Teleport on the other hand forces a few things on the narrative when traveling or providing obstacles is concerned. But players cannot teleport anywhere they have no knowledge of its appearance. This basically shuts down teleporting to any location other than ones the players have been or the GM otherwise allows knowledge of. That does pose some challenges to the GM they might not want to deal with but there is no planet hopping if the GM doesnt introduce a chance to know what a location on another planet looks like. Just like there is only as much town hopping as there are towns the players have been to. Its fairly limited actually.

"There isn't a problem if GMs know what situations the spell breaks" was also the argument made for these spells back in 3.PF1 and it's still a terrible argument, even if they have been reigned in a bit. There's a lot of APs who have "getting back out now that we've stirred the hornet's nest" as a challenge, for instance - if you're content to let the Boundary Wizard trivalise 300XP worth of encounters that's your choice, but loads of GMs are going to have a rude awakening when the necromancer does that all of a sudden because it really, really isn't obvious to a rookie GM that this is supposed to be an issue on a common marked spell school. (Ars Grammatica delenda est)

[Bluemagetim]

Ryangwy wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

Mind reading doesnt break anything. Its completely in GM narrative territory to determine what surface thoughts are for the NPC and if anything it gives a great opportunity to provide players information you want them to have.

Teleport on the other hand forces a few things on the narrative when traveling or providing obstacles is concerned. But players cannot teleport anywhere they have no knowledge of its appearance. This basically shuts down teleporting to any location other than ones the players have been or the GM otherwise allows knowledge of. That does pose some challenges to the GM they might not want to deal with but there is no planet hopping if the GM doesnt introduce a chance to know what a location on another planet looks like. Just like there is only as much town hopping as there are towns the players have been to. Its fairly limited actually.

"There isn't a problem if GMs know what situations the spell breaks" was also the argument made for these spells back in 3.PF1 and it's still a terrible argument, even if they have been reigned in a bit. There's a lot of APs who have "getting back out now that we've stirred the hornet's nest" as a challenge, for instance - if you're content to let the Boundary Wizard trivalise 300XP worth of encounters that's your choice, but loads of GMs are going to have a rude awakening when the necromancer does that all of a sudden because it really, really isn't obvious to a rookie GM that this is supposed to be an issue on a common marked spell school. (Ars Grammatica delenda est)

What i think i will agree with on this is that if such a spell is a class feature its expected to be allowed, if a GM has to make it not work for story integrity too often it just feels bad for the player and honestly the GM.

They left a phrase in the wording that gives a GM the ability to just say it seems your recollection of the location is no longer accurate to what it is now. Something about the place has changed such that your spell is not working.
I would at the least let players understand when taking this spell, or better yet as Unicore suggested at session 0 when making a boundry wizard that there will be points in the game where teleport will not work for story integrity, so if you wanted this spell keep that in mind.

[Ryangwy]

Bluemagetim wrote:

What i think i will agree with on this is that if such a spell is a class feature its expected to be allowed, if a GM has to make it not work for story integrity too often it just feels bad for the player and honestly the GM.
They left a phrase in the wording that gives a GM the ability to just say it seems your recollection of the location is no longer accurate to what it is now. Something about the place has changed such that...

Mmm, I think you're slightly missing my concern here? The issue with nesting uncommons inside commons is that the GM may very well not notice things at all. After all, none of the wizard schools have any uncommons at 1st level, and the thing is not uncommon tagged itself. Unless you read through the list, and also comprehend why this uncommon is different from ancestry weapons and focus spells, the GM and player are going to get into a hasty argument several levels in when the player casts the spell they added to their spell list automatically without clearing with the GM and the GM now has to scramble to shut it down in a way that doesn't make the player upset they've lost one school spell essentially. Fundamentally it's bad design because it is not in fact signposted that the GM should talk about this!

[Unicore]

There is not one uncommon spell in the Ars Grammatica school that allows the PCs to do any narrative breaking tricks except stop uncommon spells from being used against the party. So a GM with issues about the school is either the GM is planning on having enemies use a bunch of stuff the PCs are not going to get access to, or choosing most of the uncommon options is likely to be a waste of PC resources. Either way, I see a lot of frustrated players unless the GM is talking to them in advance. The only spell available as a curriculum spell that maybe qualifies as narratively disruptive is teleport.

[Finoan]

egindar wrote:

Nobody in here is seriously arguing with you on that point,

I'll disagree on that one. And leave it at that.

egindar wrote:

Flatly, I think it's ridiculous to believe or argue that Teleport and Mind Reading are Uncommon for the same reasons as Soothing Ballad and Ki Blast.

Then I expect that you can also understand what my actual point is - that the existence of Teleport and Mind Reading on the curriculum lists isn't justification for assuming that this is a typographical error and that the game devs didn't really mean to give any Uncommon spells at all and blanket ban all of them from all curriculum lists, and then continue to claim that they are playing the game by RAW.

If Teleport or Mind Reading is going to be a problem, use the First Rule and the note in Curriculum Spells itself about giving alternative spells that match the theme.

@Ryangwy: I'm not sure what more signposting you are expecting than a deliberate callout in the Curriculum Spells rule text itself, and noting with a superscript "U" specifically which spells are uncommon.

Making the School overall be Uncommon just makes that School less available - which isn't the intent. Or necessary.

[Squiggit]

Finoan wrote:

Then I expect that you can also understand what my actual point is - that the existence of Teleport and Mind Reading on the curriculum lists isn't justification for assuming that this is a typographical error and that the game devs didn't really mean to give any Uncommon spells

... Are you doing that on purpose? None of the people you've been replying to these past few posts have called it a typo.

[Xenocrat]

I have found it instructive that the Wizard and Oracle remasters were done by the same person. The unifying philosophy is there.

[Old_Man_Robot]

Xenocrat wrote:

I have found it instructive that the Wizard and Oracle remasters were done by the same person. The unifying philosophy is there.

I haven’t got a copy of the book yet, so would you mind expanding on this a little?

The impression I’ve gotten thus far is that the Oracle has overall improved but paid for it with a lessening of variety in different play styles.

[Ryangwy]

Finoan wrote:

@Ryangwy: I'm not sure what more signposting you are expecting than a deliberate callout in the Curriculum Spells rule text itself, and noting with a superscript "U" specifically which spells are uncommon.

Making the School overall be Uncommon just makes that School less available - which isn't the intent. Or necessary.

Yes, it's clearly the intent that 2/3rd of the Wizard spell schools contain uncommon spells, and hence that the GM is required to check all schools beforehand despite the schools themselves being common, think very carefully if any of those spells might break their game, then make adjustments. This is also totally misaligned with how the uncommon tag and access granted by common features used to work, because those were all focus spells and ancestry weapons which broke nothing.

The fact the designer of the remaster Wizard thought it was a good idea to do that and the fact that experience GMs would check through everything does not excuse the fact that this will trip up inexperienced GMs or those who, used to premaster Wizard and Sorcerer, erroneous assume remaster wizard school spells would not have any uncommon spells on them and were not able to check; for instance, if they use AoN instead, where schools are in a separate tab.

(Ars Grammatica delenda est)

[The-Magic-Sword]

Ryangwy wrote:

Finoan wrote:

@Ryangwy: I'm not sure what more signposting you are expecting than a deliberate callout in the Curriculum Spells rule text itself, and noting with a superscript "U" specifically which spells are uncommon.

Making the School overall be Uncommon just makes that School less available - which isn't the intent. Or necessary.

Yes, it's clearly the intent that 2/3rd of the Wizard spell schools contain uncommon spells, and hence that the GM is required to check all schools beforehand despite the schools themselves being common, think very carefully if any of those spells might break their game, then make adjustments. This is also totally misaligned with how the uncommon tag and access granted by common features used to work, because those were all focus spells and ancestry weapons which broke nothing.

The fact the designer of the remaster Wizard thought it was a good idea to do that and the fact that experience GMs would check through everything does not excuse the fact that this will trip up inexperienced GMs or those who, used to premaster Wizard and Sorcerer, erroneous assume remaster wizard school spells would not have any uncommon spells on them and were not able to check; for instance, if they use AoN instead, where schools are in a separate tab.

(Ars Grammatica delenda est)

I don't think you're supposed to forbid the uncommon things granted by common character options, it's like an access entry-- the game is making an authoritative statement that the subclass is allowed a special dispensation to access it. Like, obviously you can make a themed campaign that could remove or replace it, but you're already most likely banning common options for that purpose.

[Witch of Miracles]

The entire point of this argument is that the things marked uncommon because they're class features and the spells marked uncommon because they can bypass plot elements are marked uncommon for different reasons. The wizard class is mixing them as though they're the same.

Guaranteed access to teleport seems like a very unusual design lever to pull, given that it's at odds with the way uncommon is used for spells in general. It makes more sense that it's an oversight.

EDIT: Perhaps it'd be clearer to say that uncommon really means two separate things, depending on where it's used. For class features and the like, it means "restricted to the source class." For spells, it means "restricted to games where the GM says it's okay." These are not at all the same, but the wizard class is written like they are. That's a problem.

[AestheticDialectic]

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

I don't think you're supposed to forbid the uncommon things granted by common character options, it's like an access entry-- the game is making an authoritative statement that the subclass is allowed a special dispensation to access it. Like, obviously you can make a themed campaign that could remove or replace it, but you're already most likely banning common options for that purpose.

If you did the ancestry options for weapons would not make sense

[The-Magic-Sword]

Witch of Miracles wrote:

The entire point of this argument is that the things marked uncommon because they're class features and the spells marked uncommon because they can bypass plot elements are marked uncommon for different reasons. The wizard class is mixing them as though they're the same.

Guaranteed access to teleport seems like a very unusual design lever to pull, given that it's at odds with the way uncommon is used for spells in general. It makes more sense that it's an oversight.

That's extraordinarily unlikely, Translocate into Teleport into Interplanar Teleport is a pretty clear deliberate through line, while Ars Grammatica has five uncommon spells, and Civic Wizardry has a few as well.

[The-Magic-Sword]

AestheticDialectic wrote:

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

I don't think you're supposed to forbid the uncommon things granted by common character options, it's like an access entry-- the game is making an authoritative statement that the subclass is allowed a special dispensation to access it. Like, obviously you can make a themed campaign that could remove or replace it, but you're already most likely banning common options for that purpose.

If you did the ancestry options for weapons would not make sense

They exist in a middle-ground state to govern a campaign where they're supposed to only be available to people they're highly thematic for, that's part of why they have the proficiency shift on them too-- they still play a role in character building for campaigns where they're made common.

[egindar]

Finoan wrote:

egindar wrote:

Nobody in here is seriously arguing with you on that point,

I'll disagree on that one. And leave it at that.

It would be remiss of me to put words in Xenocrat's mouth, so if they'd like to chime in here I'll defer, but I would like to point to the post they made less than 20 minutes later and ask what you think they meant by "sloppy and careless" in light of it.

I don't think there's a question of whether the person/people who wrote the curricula intended to grant access to those spells, but I think there is a question of whether they should have, and whether it's a "mistake" in the grander scheme of the design paradigms that Paizo (collectively) has had in place for 5 years.

For example, the person/people who wrote the original version of Heaven's Thunder intended - unambiguously so - to add level to damage with the feat. At the same time, it was obviously a mistake as far as Paizo's broader paradigms are concerned, and one that was rectified.

[R3st8]

And just when I thought there was a benefit from the remaster schools I'm immediately proven wrong, I guess I cant even count on having class features anymore, the wizard team just can't stop taking Ls.

[Ryangwy]

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

Witch of Miracles wrote:

The entire point of this argument is that the things marked uncommon because they're class features and the spells marked uncommon because they can bypass plot elements are marked uncommon for different reasons. The wizard class is mixing them as though they're the same.

Guaranteed access to teleport seems like a very unusual design lever to pull, given that it's at odds with the way uncommon is used for spells in general. It makes more sense that it's an oversight.

That's extraordinarily unlikely, Translocate into Teleport into Interplanar Teleport is a pretty clear deliberate through line, while Ars Grammatica has five uncommon spells, and Civic Wizardry has a few as well.

The oversight is, I think, that whoever wrote the wizard school list missed the memo on why those spells were uncommon to begin with, and constructed the schools in such a way that they had to contain uncommon spells. Civic Wizardry just runs out of thematic spells from the arcane list, and Boundary feels like it was stretched from being necromancy and force to also teleportation because there aren't enough relevant arcane spells either. And Ars Grammatica is nothing but uncommon spells and still has 1 spell per rank at some points because Ars Grammatica delenda est. Clearly someone dropped the ball somewhere.

[Bluemagetim]

I dont see it the same way Ryangwy.
3 areas theming, mechanics, and GMing.

Giving teleport to boundry mages who study traveling between planes and calling things from them is thematically sound.
Giving uncommon spells to wizards who learn from masters in their fields is thematically sound.

So theme is on point.

Mechanics of the spell is restrictive to places they know the appearance of. If anything is different the GM has cause to say the area has changed to much and your spell either sends you to this other place (a place the gm can work with) or just doesnt work. Since the state if environments is under GM fiat this part of the spells functioning is completely under gm control.

So Mechanics are balanced and GMing is not ruined.
I think the real issue is if a GM does not want even this limited version of teleport the GM is entering railroad territory. Higher level campaign's should account for expanding travel options and not throw story progression and required encounters in places the party can easily bypass.(edit all things can be bypassed through mundane means too so i really mean to use the point below)
If you want the party to take a certain route they can and sometimes do even without teleport ignore it. Its better to give the party reasons to want to take that route than to expect the terrain to force it.

[Ryangwy]

Bluemagetim wrote:

Giving teleport to boundry mages who study traveling between planes and calling things from them is thematically sound.
Giving uncommon spells to wizards who learn from masters in their fields is thematically sound.

So theme is on point.

Ew, no. Theme should not be allowed to violate design principles. Heck, theme wasn't enough to keep several oracle curses from being gutted, and they needed those more than the wizard needed uncommon spells. Boundary isn't the cross planar school, anyway; teleport can't do that and the only plane crossed with any regularity is the void plane and whatever plane incorporeal creatures (mostly ghosts) are on, given they couldn't give it literally any summon spell other than summon undead. Let's be real, it the necromancy school and some overworked guy tossed teleport in to make up numbers

Bluemagetim wrote:

Mechanics of the spell is restrictive to places they know the appearance of. If anything is different the GM has cause to say the area has changed to much and your spell either sends you to this other place (a place the gm can work with) or just doesnt work. Since the state if environments is under GM fiat this part of the spells functioning is completely under gm control.

So Mechanics are balanced and GMing is not ruined.
I think the real issue is if a GM does not want even this limited version of teleport the GM is entering railroad territory. Higher level campaign's should account for expanding travel options and not throw story progression and required encounters in places the party can easily bypass.(edit all things can be bypassed through mundane means too so i really mean to use the point below)
If you want the party to take a certain route they can and sometimes do even without teleport ignore it. Its better to give the party reasons to want to take that route than to expect the terrain to force it.

Once again, 'the GM can balance things at the table' is a terrible concept, Paizo was explicitly moving away from that and I'm fairly certain they outright named making teleport and mind reading uncommon as one of the ways they did so. And now we're back to the PF1e days of adventures grinding to a halt as the wizard pulls a potentially game breaking (but also maybe not, gotta read the spell three times and cross reference your notes while the other 3 players twiddle their thumbs) spell out of nowhere. And then get told by others that getting their plans derailed us 'skill issues' and they are a bad wrong railroading GM for not having prepared for teleport.

[Squiggit]

What the GM should or shouldn't do is besides the point, tbh. I think teleport is a fine spell and with some work a GM can make sure it doesn't break their campaigns and only serves to help reinforce the PCs growing power.

But the whole concept about rarity to limit usability and restricting spells based on their campaign influence comes from Paizo, not me.

A GM who, by perfectly normal RAW, denies a boundary wizard teleport is now doing something that can directly feel like a personal restriction on the wizard.

A GM who decides to give the wizard permission to take it because it's on their list might now have to deal with a spell they otherwise weren't comfortable with.

Whether or not teleport is actually problematic or if you're a bad GM for not wanting it or whatever doesn't matter. It's the fact that the game is both putting it out as a class feature, while also flagging it with a GM-facing warning, while also being nonspecific on access.

The issue here is entirely the framework the game built for itself.

[Bluemagetim]

Squiggit wrote:

What the GM should or shouldn't do is besides the point, tbh. I think teleport is a fine spell and with some work a GM can make sure it doesn't break their campaigns and only serves to help reinforce the PCs growing power.

But the whole concept about rarity to limit usability and restricting spells based on their campaign influence comes from Paizo, not me.

A GM who, by perfectly normal RAW, denies a boundary wizard teleport is now doing something that can directly feel like a personal restriction on the wizard.

A GM who decides to give the wizard permission to take it because it's on their list might now have to deal with a spell they otherwise weren't comfortable with.

Whether or not teleport is actually problematic or if you're a bad GM for not wanting it or whatever doesn't matter. It's the fact that the game is both putting it out as a class feature, while also flagging it with a GM-facing warning, while also being nonspecific on access.

The issue here is entirely the framework the game built for itself.

Putting the should and should nots aside you are right.

It puts the GM in a place where they have to talk with the group anytime a wizard is being played and choices have to be made.
Maybe that is part of the intent as well.

[Old_Man_Robot]

It honestly can’t realistically be part of the intent. It’s the sort of thing that would need to be actively communicated, not left for discovery in play.

[YuriP]

I came here to add more fuel to the fire write that after get some more info about PC2's sorcerer I even less reason to take a Wizard over a Imperial Sorcerer.

Not only the change of Dangerous Sorcery to Sorcerous Potency that basically removed the capacity of improve the extra damage that wizards got via sorcerer archetype (ok, you can get the legacy Dangerous Sorcery if your GM allows but I can imagine that will have a good amount of GMs that will simply substitute the CRB and APG for PC1 and PC2 specially because many feats was compressed and changed in a point that some legacy feats may become confused when used with remaster content) but the changes in Ancestral Memories made this Imperial Sorcerer Focus Spell (that the wizards never got something close) and the changes in Crossblooded Evolution tha allows to get the blood magic effect that is more benefit to your build and the Greater Crossblooded Evolution that get a pretty good spell selection from another bloodline that you will be able to cast with bloodline effects.

All this can turn an Imperial Sorcerer way more brutal than you can get with a wizard. You for example take a Imperial Sorcerer that got Elemental Sorcerer blood magic and get the 3 lightning spells from metal as your heightened blood magic spell to not only do the double of your spell rank as bonus and extra damage but also using Ancestral Memories to make an enemy to roll the save with a -3 penalty basically increasing your hit and critical change in 15%!

[Riddlyn]

Who shows up at a table with a complete ready character without talking to the GM (at minimum) and other players? PFS not withstanding that's just asking for trouble.

[Deriven Firelion]

My feeling reading and participating in these threads over four years is there are a group of players which are apparently fairly large who enjoy the magical problem solving capacity of the wizard and value the ability to change spells for no other reason than personal enjoyment.

Given the tight math of this game, the short duration of fights, and most caster power coming from the power of the spell used, I can't really argue a very wide power gap between any Legendary progression caster.

If all you care about with the wizard is being able to cast a lot of different spells and problem solve with spells with a GM and group that gives you the time, then the wizard can be an attractive class.

I guess the wizard is just the class that casts a lot of different spells on the arcane list. That's enough for some people.

[Ryangwy]

Riddlyn wrote:

Who shows up at a table with a complete ready character without talking to the GM (at minimum) and other players? PFS not withstanding that's just asking for trouble.

The issue is that the wizard hides how much you need to talk to the GM about. Like, look, if the GM has time to look through all your choices and craft the campaign around each and every spell you take, good on you, but then the uncommon tag doesn't really matter, does it?

But most GMs don't have infinite free tone and the wizard cheats. At first level, nothing is uncommon, so it looks fine, then ten levels down the road you've suddenly got an uncommon spell but you and the GM have already gotten into the habit of OKing spells. This will happen and is absolutely not the fault of either the player or the GM - rather, it's on Paizo for breaking their own set rules.

[Unicore]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

My feeling reading and participating in these threads over four years is there are a group of players which are apparently fairly large who enjoy the magical problem solving capacity of the wizard and value the ability to change spells for no other reason than personal enjoyment.

Given the tight math of this game, the short duration of fights, and most caster power coming from the power of the spell used, I can't really argue a very wide power gap between any Legendary progression caster.

If all you care about with the wizard is being able to cast a lot of different spells and problem solve with spells with a GM and group that gives you the time, then the wizard can be an attractive class.

I guess the wizard is just the class that casts a lot of different spells on the arcane list. That's enough for some people.

It is 90% this and not having heal on the list is actually also a huge boon for the wizard because it means that no one in the party looks at your character and thinks "Why can't you just memorize heal spells and be the party healer."

Like every cleric, oracle, and druid I have ever played has had the expectation that you either are primarily playing a healing support role, or you are kind of playing your character wrong. The cleric gets enough additional heal spells that it isn't that big a deal, but play an Oracle who doesn't have heal as your very first signature spell and everyone looks at you like you don't understand how the game works.

I don't mind filling the healing support character role about 25% of the time I play, but I generally want to be a caster 90% of the time I get to be a player, and I want to cast lots of different spells when I do play. As an oracle, I ended up casting heal with about 30-50% of my spell slots, and being pretty dependent on focus spells for any kind of offensive spell casting my character was going to do. The rest of my party was a swashbuckler, a fighter and a rogue and mostly just got mauled in melee while also doing a lot of damage back, but being completely unable to keep up with their own healing needs. The same players playing the alchemist, 2 kineticists and me playing the wizard are doing so much better than we were in the last campaign with those characters, largely because support needs are well distributed and no one is just trying to stand around in melee getting pummeled.

[Riddlyn]

Ryangwy wrote:

Riddlyn wrote:

Who shows up at a table with a complete ready character without talking to the GM (at minimum) and other players? PFS not withstanding that's just asking for trouble.

The issue is that the wizard hides how much you need to talk to the GM about. Like, look, if the GM has time to look through all your choices and craft the campaign around each and every spell you take, good on you, but then the uncommon tag doesn't really matter, does it?

But most GMs don't have infinite free tone and the wizard cheats. At first level, nothing is uncommon, so it looks fine, then ten levels down the road you've suddenly got an uncommon spell but you and the GM have already gotten into the habit of OKing spells. This will happen and is absolutely not the fault of either the player or the GM - rather, it's on Paizo for breaking their own set rules.

Yeah, no. It takes about as much time to look at a wizard school as it does a sorcerer bloodline. Saying a GM is willing to look at one and not the other makes no sense.

[AestheticDialectic]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

My feeling reading and participating in these threads over four years is there are a group of players which are apparently fairly large who enjoy the magical problem solving capacity of the wizard and value the ability to change spells for no other reason than personal enjoyment.

Given the tight math of this game, the short duration of fights, and most caster power coming from the power of the spell used, I can't really argue a very wide power gap between any Legendary progression caster.

If all you care about with the wizard is being able to cast a lot of different spells and problem solve with spells with a GM and group that gives you the time, then the wizard can be an attractive class.

I guess the wizard is just the class that casts a lot of different spells on the arcane list. That's enough for some people.

This is a massive portion of it, yeah. In and out of combat. Fortunately spell design made it so problem solving in combat is not an auto win in the way it used to be so you get to problem solve in combat and still be liked by the table

[Ryangwy]

Riddlyn wrote:

Ryangwy wrote:

The issue is that the wizard hides how much you need to talk to the GM about. Like, look, if the GM has time to look through all your choices and craft the campaign around each and every spell you take, good on you, but then the uncommon tag doesn't really matter, does it?

But most GMs don't have infinite free tone and the wizard cheats. At first level, nothing is uncommon, so it looks fine, then ten levels down the road you've suddenly got an uncommon spell but you and the GM have already gotten into the habit of OKing spells. This will happen and is absolutely not the fault of either the player or the GM - rather, it's on Paizo for breaking their own set rules.

Yeah, no. It takes about as much time to look at a wizard school as it does a sorcerer bloodline. Saying a GM is willing to look at one and not the other makes no sense.

Well, yes, because I don't look at either! Up until PC1, every single common feature or feat that grants slotted spells only grants common ones, there's no reason to think the remaster wizard would suddenly break that rule. On the player's end, focus spells would have conditioned them to treat common class features that grant uncommon spells to not need discussion. And, once again, it's a 1st level choice whose problematic aspects are going to pop up several levels later, long past when either party are actively thinking about it.

Like, this actually happened to me. I caught Ars Grammatica having uncommon spells on my second read, which I did because my wizard player is a divination wizard and so I had to make him an entire school. I spotted Civic Wizardry and Boundary on a third read. I completely missed Mentalism having the singular mind reading until I started posting in this thread! If I wasn't on this board and my wizard player was illusion, enchantment, conjugation or necromancy, I would likely end up OKing things on a first pass and only realise what went wrong when my player started casting those spells.

[Unicore]

But , like, what Ars Grammatica uncommon spell is going to cause problems for your campaign? Why would any of those spells necessitate you telling your player they can’t use them?

I get that mind reading might be uncomfortable at some tables, (but so should charm and dominate), and teleporting can invalidate some badly designed high level campaigns that don’t take incredible movement speeds/options into account (and maybe the occasional game using no level to prof?), but a lot of spells that don’t really interact with large narrative elements at all ended up uncommon too. Just denying all uncommon options outright without considering their effect on the campaign is problematic GM behavior too.

[Witch of Miracles]

Unicore wrote:

But , like, what Ars Grammatica uncommon spell is going to cause problems for your campaign? Why would any of those spells necessitate you telling your player they can’t use them?

I get that mind reading might be uncomfortable at some tables, (but so should charm and dominate), and teleporting can invalidate some badly designed high level campaigns that don’t take incredible movement speeds/options into account (and maybe the occasional game using no level to prof?), but a lot of spells that don’t really interact with large narrative elements at all ended up uncommon too. Just denying all uncommon options outright without considering their effect on the campaign is problematic GM behavior too.

To pick at one, Truespeech could be an issue if you have plot-relevant NPCs speaking in Rare languages and the party isn't -supposed- to be able to understand them or respond to them. If a large part of your campaign involved disparate cultures with different languages reconciling, for example, Truespeech (and similar spells like Translate) could trivialize aspects of that narrative.

On a smaller scale, it could ruin puzzles that require you to infer snippets of ancient languages by context.

EDIT: I'd also bristle at the suggestion that a high level campaign that doesn't want teleportation involved is poorly designed. It fundamentally trivializes "journey home" narratives and the like.

[Ryangwy]

I am somewhat disturbed that not wanting uncommon spells in your campaign is considered problematic GMing by so many people. Why did Paizo invent the uncommon tag if only bad GMs like me use it anyway? These losers should just git gud, amirite?

I don't want to have to read through 1 to however many spells Ars Grammatica has to figure out which one I have to work around. The premise PF2e sold to GMs is that you could trust the system. If I'm going to be second guessing every spell, I might as well go back to 3.5e.

[The Raven Black]

Ryangwy wrote:

I am somewhat disturbed that not wanting uncommon spells in your campaign is considered problematic GMing by so many people. Why did Paizo invent the uncommon tag if only bad GMs like me use it anyway? These losers should just git gud, amirite?

I don't want to have to read through 1 to however many spells Ars Grammatica has to figure out which one I have to work around. The premise PF2e sold to GMs is that you could trust the system. If I'm going to be second guessing every spell, I might as well go back to 3.5e.

Uncommon is basically "work at it and you will get it".

But it is ALSO a way to signal potentially problematic things to GMs so that they can assess the impact and say No if necessary.

[Deriven Firelion]

Why make this uncommon spell thing hard? If you don't want it, tell the player and offer alternatives. Problem solved. Player can decide if they want to stay or not after you tell them and they consider the alternatives.

[Unicore]

True speech is only a convenience spell in comparison to translate being common. So any adventure using language-based challenges a limit would already need to know that a second rank spell exists which invalidates it, and not just that uncommon tags will protect the challenging element.

That is really the problem with most of these uncommon spell tags. There are almost always other magical ways to bypsss what these spells supposedly protect, mostly with enough caveats that GMs can make special exceptions for a specific situation to make the spell have complications in one or two instances per campaign, without just flatly denying access to a spell. I mean, a cleric of Zon Kuthon is in almost exactly the same boat as a boundary wizard if a GM refuses to read any of their player characters’ abilities in advance, only at a much lower level.

[Squiggit]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Why make this uncommon spell thing hard? If you don't want it, tell the player and offer alternatives. Problem solved. Player can decide if they want to stay or not after you tell them and they consider the alternatives.

It's not hard in practice, but it is another layer in which the Wizard requires special attention from the GM to function and another way in which the schools feel a little underbaked.

[Witch of Miracles]

Unicore wrote:

True speech is only a convenience spell in comparison to translate being common. So any adventure using language-based challenges a limit would already need to know that a second rank spell exists which invalidates it, and not just that uncommon tags will protect the challenging element.

That is really the problem with most of these uncommon spell tags. There are almost always other magical ways to bypsss what these spells supposedly protect, mostly with enough caveats that GMs can make special exceptions for a specific situation to make the spell have complications in one or two instances per campaign, without just flatly denying access to a spell. I mean, a cleric of Zon Kuthon is in almost exactly the same boat as a boundary wizard if a GM refuses to read any of their player characters’ abilities in advance, only at a much lower level.

If I'm being honest, it strikes me as an oversight that comprehend isn't uncommon. Even something like Seashell of Stolen Sound reads like it should be uncommon to me, though. In general, I almost expect any spell that exists solely for the sake of providing out-of-combat utility (beyond what skills can provide, anyways—e.g., charm does little more than a diplomacy check would, and that's why I suspect it's okay) to be uncommon. By my observations, part of PF2E's design ethos with rarities was ensuring that solving mundane plot problems via magical means was opt-in, not opt-out.