Here is how I would do an unleashed wizard:
I would make arcana a free auto scaling skill, but I wouldn't give free additional lores. Along with this I would give Knowledge is Power as a bespoke level 1 class feature but it's -1 to save/ac on success and -2 on critical success. I would take the theses and turn them into feats of various levels. Staff nexus as is becomes a first level feat, spell substition becomes a 2nd or 4th level feat, spellshape thesis is either level 1 or 2. Spell blending gets put between 4 and 8. Familiar thesis is likely scrapped but the familiar feat remains. Wizards becomes the only caster with a level 1 feat by default, and gets a feat like combat flexibility at level 9. Wizards simply get 4 slots and arcane bond starts as it is now, but gets an additional use at 10 and at 20, universalist is scrapped.
Wizard schools instead of having a dedicated slot now give you spells from the other three traditions not on the wizard spell list appropriate to the theme of the school. Mentalism might give synesthesia for example, and boundary might give summon fey or wall of flesh. Potentially each school could now get 3 focus spells, or 2 focus spells and wizards get a class ability or feat like "you may spend a focus point instead of an additional action for a spell shape" and that this would allow you to also use the additional action and apply two spellshapes on one spell
Ofc more spellshapes should be designed for the wizard as wizard exclusives. Wizard should get a spellshape that changsd the origin location of a spell to a different square than the wizard much like the psychic amp warp space. A spellshape feat that changes spell damage types, and to list a few metamagics from 1e that might be good fits for wizard specific feats: sickening spell (adds sickened as a rider), apocalyptic spell (creates difficult terrain), burning spell (adds persistent damage), contagious spell (spell can spread to additional targets), fearsome spell (frightened as a rider), lingering spell (gives a spell without a duration a duration, hard to implement probably), rime spell (adds encumbered as a rider), and the list of 1e metamagic is long so I'll stop here, but maybe the riders that apply conditions can be condensed into one feat that lets you choose one as you cast
Experimentally I would try to design a way wizards could instead of using spellshapes as normal with actions would instead apply them to spells as they prepare them like in 1e but how to do this probably requires significant retooling and is likely a headache, but this would become the niche that should be protected for wizards if I could get it working. I think this idea would get scrapped and prove too difficult
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Paizo has gotten more than enough feedback from us, that we do not much care for the current Wizard iteration, or their response (or lack thereof) in the Remaster, and their response (or, again, lack thereof) essentially amounted to "Everyone else doesn't have a problem with it, the problem stems solely from your perception, deal with it." So there is no point in constantly bringing up that the Wizard is not very fun as a class compared to other options.
Once again, nah.
I’ll continue to say that it is a lacklustre and poor version of the product I want. If they are determined to keep this version of the Wizard in place then, fine.
But, as a compromise, sell me the product that I clearly want to buy.
Make the Wizard2.
I’ll go on the record and say that no one will care how much of the toes it steps on from the current Wizard. Those toes are already red and bruised enough that it won’t make a difference.
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My shower thoughts on a wizard rework went like this:
-Completely remove the ability to buy spells. Wizard now effectively has a fixed number of spells known. This is PF2E; just kill the sacred cow that's giving wizard an untenable ceiling to balance against compared to everyone else. Give wizards a stable floor and ceiling on their versatility.
Facinating, but this is not a signifcant factor in how I rate wizards. I don't mind if they get access to all the spells in the book. In PF2 the spells are not really hyperspecialised or overpowered in any one situation.
Facinating, but this is not a signifcant factor in how I rate wizards. I don't mind if they get access to all the spells in the book. In PF2 the spells are not really hyperspecialised or overpowered in any one situation.
I agree the spells in PF2E generally aren't hyperspecialized or overpowered, but that's why I think it works. In PF2E, the level of versatility I'm giving wizard doesn't blow out the game.
For me, the main point of the change is to give wizard easier access to their versatility, via both the drain bonded item change and the increase to spells learned at levelup. The latter would eliminate table variance in spells known, and the former would make it play better with less accommodating tables.
Capping spells known and the change to heightening for wizard feels right to me in order to keep the 3 prepared slots + 1 superflex slot in line with sorc's four less flexible slots, more than anything else. It would be kind of rude to sorc if wizard had even one slot they could use to cast basically any spell in their spellbook (excepting reaction spells, because of how DBI works).
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Facinating, but this is not a signifcant factor in how I rate wizards. I don't mind if they get access to all the spells in the book. In PF2 the spells are not really hyperspecialised or overpowered in any one situation.
I agree the spells in PF2E generally aren't hyperspecialized or overpowered, but that's why I think it works. In PF2E, the level of versatility I'm giving wizard doesn't blow out the game.
For me, the main point of the change is to give wizard easier access to their versatility, via both the drain bonded item change and the increase to spells learned at levelup. The latter would eliminate table variance in spells known, and the former would make it play better with less accommodating tables.
Capping spells known and the change to heightening for wizard feels right to me in order to keep the 3 prepared slots + 1 superflex slot in line with sorc's four less flexible slots, more than anything else. It would be kind of rude to sorc if wizard had even one slot they could use to cast basically any spell in their spellbook (excepting reaction spells, because of how DBI works).
Turning wizards spontaneous makes them no longer feel like a wizard is my issue. Learning spells, being able to fill up a spell book, and deliberately prepping cool spells is peak wizard action. Prepared castings not having to learn heightened versions is also something which turns even the baseline into a lot of day to day versatility. At level 4 your don't know 7+4 spells, you know 7+11 spells. At level 6 you know 7+11+15 spells and so on. Each lower rank spell is a potential spell for your higher rank slots and it was said by mark seifter that it was deliberate that heightened spells were as good as the rank of spells they were heightened to. It's a little more granular than this as some spells don't heighten much or often, but most do
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Turning wizards spontaneous makes them no longer feel like a wizard is my issue. Learning spells, being able to fill up a spell book, and deliberately prepping cool spells is peak wizard action. Prepared castings not having to learn heightened versions is also something which turns even the baseline into a lot of day to day versatility. At level 4 your don't know 7+4 spells, you know 7+11 spells. At level 6 you know 7+11+15 spells and so on. Each lower rank spell is a potential spell for your higher rank slots and it was said by mark seifter that it was deliberate that heightened spells were as good as the rank of spells they were heightened to. It's a little more granular than this as some spells don't heighten much or often, but most do
Facinating, but this is not a signifcant factor in how I rate wizards. I don't mind if they get access to all the spells in the book. In PF2 the spells are not really hyperspecialised or overpowered in any one situation.
I agree the spells in PF2E generally aren't hyperspecialized or overpowered, but that's why I think it works. In PF2E, the level of versatility I'm giving wizard doesn't blow out the game.
For me, the main point of the change is to give wizard easier access to their versatility, via both the drain bonded item change and the increase to spells learned at levelup. The latter would eliminate table variance in spells known, and the former would make it play better with less accommodating tables.
Capping spells known and the change to heightening for wizard feels right to me in order to keep the 3 prepared slots + 1 superflex slot in line with sorc's four less flexible slots, more than anything else. It would be kind of rude to sorc if wizard had even one slot they could use to cast basically any spell in their spellbook (excepting reaction spells, because of how DBI works).
This is purely your personal preference.
Wizards had the means to obtain spontaneous like casting in PF1 and felt wizardly.
The wizard is more about intellectual magic, not about prepared casting. The wizard feels more wizardly by coming up with spell tactics and being very erudite, which was very well done in PF1 because intelligence was an extremely strong casting stat. In PF1 the casting stats were Wis, Int, and Cha whereas in PF2 the casting stats are Wis, Cha, Int.
Intelligence gives you next to nothing for investing in it since skills are now based on skill ups over skill points. Given the low number of starting skills for a wizard and all the easy ways to obtain a trained skill, intelligence providing additional skills merely allows them to reach parity with every other class.
Changing out spells I understand being the purview of the wizard for the feel of intellectual use of magic, but whether those spells are cast spontaneously or prepared should be irrelevant. The cleric and druid are prepared, but I don't hear arguments about their ability to prepare perfect spell lists or their magic being intellectual. Even the witch isn't discussed in this fashion and they are also intelligence based.
Once again 5E moved the wizard to spontaneous, still feels very much like a wizard.
So this is merely personal preference and has zero bearing on the wizard. Even the Arcanist was spontaneous with wizard preparation abilities and still felt fine in PF1.
Turning wizards spontaneous makes them no longer feel like a wizard is my issue. Learning spells, being able to fill up a spell book, and deliberately prepping cool spells is peak wizard action. Prepared castings not having to learn heightened versions is also something which turns even the baseline into a lot of day to day versatility. At level 4 your don't know 7+4 spells, you know 7+11 spells. At level 6 you know 7+11+15 spells and so on. Each lower rank spell is a potential spell for your higher rank slots and it was said by mark seifter that it was deliberate that heightened spells were as good as the rank of spells they were heightened to. It's a little more granular than this as some spells don't heighten much or often, but most do
They're not spontaneous in this theoretical rendering. They're fully prepared outside of the DBI slots. DBI is already a more limited form of a spontaneous slot anyways.
Wizard being able to upcast "for free" did not give it any meaningful advantage over a sorcerer with its limited upcasting in 2E. (Frankly, I think the only reason Sorcs can't freely heighten is that spontaneous would be far too versatile without the signature spell limitation—far more versatile in practice than most prepared casters could hope to be. Signature spells were an artificial limitation imposed on spontaneous casters to nerf them; free heighten was not a benefit given to prepared classes.)
Wizard upcasting for free just meant it didn't have to go out of its way to fill its spellbook 50 times over, and spell learning costs didn't have to account for it. It is just a much less painful design for a class that can buy spells. It did not give it much of a real advantage over a spontaneous caster.
Upcast spells are usually slightly worse than a spell of that level. It'll usually lack useful riders, range, AoE size, or something else when compared to an on-level spell.
Universalist wizard also still upcasts for free in my shower thought change.
I don't expect everyone to like that set of changes, since it slaughters sacred cows on purpose. But I think it's more in line with the design ethos of PF2E generally and deals with several of the issues complained about in the thread ad nauseam.
PF2E is a game that intentionally slaughters 3.5-ish design in favor of something very different, and I think the 3.5-ish wizard and the 3.5-ish wizard fantasy could not be expressed in this system if you tried because it is purposely designed to never let it exist. As the system is designed, the only things it can express from 3.5-ish wiz are "I have a spellbook, can learn new spells, and can cast prepared spells"—which are, incidentally, about the only aspects in which the current wizard feels like old wizard, and the only parts of that wizard fantasy it fulfills even remotely effectively. You simply aren't able to turn entire combats (or even the entire game world) into a lateral thinking puzzle in 2E the way you would in 1E, and that's by design. You aren't allowed to be a skills class, and that's by design. You aren't allowed to be good at knowledges by yourself, and that's by design.
It is far better to accept all this and build a class that functions like a PF2E class, has PF2E-like strengths and weaknesses, and is not actively fighting the system design at every turn for its identity. Wizard tried to cling to too much of its 1E identity and was gutted in the process, because its 1E identity literally breaks the design rules of PF2E at every turn—rules created partially in response to how strong it was, rules designed to not let it even exist.
In practice, PF1E wizard's playstyle and power is fundamentally tailored to a combat as war game. It cannot meaningfully be recreated in a combat as sport game like PF2E.
Why would a PF1 bonded item that’s limited to once per day be rude to sorcerer
Because if spells known weren't limited, then it's a spontaneous slot with a cap of every possible (affordable) option in the game. That seems quite rude to a sorcerer to me. Also, it's usable once at each spell rank per day in this rendering, not once per day flat. That is significantly stronger than 1E bonded item, which also required you to give up a familiar.
PF1 wizard was rude to PF1 Sorcerer in general. PF1 Sorc was a great class, but wizard is just... wizard. The classes are far more comparable in 2E than they ever were in 1E.
Mind you Sorcerers are given status bonus to damage that no Wizard player ever considered ‘rude’, and they are being made class feature instead of feat with added benefit of applying to healing spells now. They are also given a new focus spell that gives maximum -3 to enemy saving throw.
That imperial bloodline focus spell is rude to wizard, and wizards are just glad they can probably poach it. They're extra sad they can't poach dangerous sorcery on top of that, now that they're all archetyping Sorc anyways.
Also don’t forget Sorcerers (and everyone else) can already learn spells. Arcane Sorcerer can even ‘prepare’ a spell each day from their spell book. Learning spell is already balanced by the new wealth system in 2e, since it would still cost a wizard a significant sum that can otherwise be spent on magic items and scrolls (which comes close and sometimes perform even better as ‘silver bullet’ then preparing from your spell book)
We've talked about this sort of thing ad nauseam in this topic. I'm aware. Arcane evolution and similar feats do not allow a Sorc to approach a wizard's ability to use their wide variety of spells known. It's helpful, sure. But it is one spell (or one signature spell) a day. That is nothing like unfettered access to prepare anything in your spellbook.
Spell costs are only somewhat balanced by gold, as lower level spells that have useful heightens are disproportionately cheap for their value as levels increase. Same goes for low-level one action/reaction spells.
This is purely your personal preference.
Wizards had the means to obtain spontaneous like casting in PF1 and felt wizardly.
The wizard is more about intellectual magic, not about prepared casting. The wizard feels more wizardly by coming up with spell tactics and being very erudite, which was very well done in PF1 because intelligence was an extremely strong casting stat. In PF1 the casting stats were Wis, Int, and Cha whereas in PF2 the casting stats are Wis, Cha, Int.
Intelligence gives you next to nothing for investing in it since skills are now based on skill ups over skill points. Given the low number of starting skills for a wizard and all the easy ways to obtain a trained skill, intelligence providing additional skills merely allows them to reach parity with every other class.
Changing out spells I understand being the purview of the wizard for the feel of intellectual use of magic, but whether those spells are cast spontaneously or prepared should be irrelevant. The cleric and druid are prepared, but I don't hear arguments about their ability to prepare perfect spell lists or their magic being intellectual. Even the witch isn't discussed in this fashion and they are also intelligence based.
Once again 5E moved the wizard to spontaneous, still feels very much like a wizard.
So this is merely personal preference and has zero bearing on the wizard. Even the Arcanist was spontaneous with wizard preparation abilities and still felt fine in PF1.
5e wizard definitely feels less like a wizard outside of the Order of Scribes wizard, but more over the suggestion made doesn't make the wizard better or solve any issues with it. Instead it just homogenizes spellcasters which would exacerbate the issue not alleviate it. If wizards should feel like spell tacticians then feats which allows wizards to deploy spells in such a way that they gain maximal tactical advantage with them is where we should look instead of making them a crappy sorcerer
They're not spontaneous in this theoretical rendering. They're fully prepared outside of the DBI slots. DBI is already a more limited form of a spontaneous slot anyways.
Wizard being able to upcast "for free" did not give it any meaningful advantage over a sorcerer with its limited upcasting in 2E. (Frankly, I think the only reason Sorcs can't freely heighten is that spontaneous would be far too versatile without the signature spell limitation—far more versatile in practice than most prepared casters could hope to be. Signature spells were an artificial limitation imposed on spontaneous casters to nerf them; free heighten was not a benefit given to prepared classes.)
Wizard upcasting for free just meant it didn't have to go out of its way to fill its spellbook 50 times over, and spell learning costs didn't have to account for it. It is just a much less painful design for a class that can buy spells. It did not give it much of a real advantage over a spontaneous caster.
Upcast spells are usually slightly worse than a spell of that level. It'll usually lack useful riders, range, AoE size, or something else when compared to an on-level spell.
Universalist wizard also still upcasts for free in my shower thought change.
I don't expect everyone to like that set of changes, since it slaughters sacred cows on purpose. But I think it's more in line with the design ethos of PF2E generally and deals with several of the issues complained about in the thread ad nauseam.
PF2E is a game that intentionally slaughters 3.5-ish design in favor of something very different, and I think the 3.5-ish wizard and the 3.5-ish wizard fantasy could not be expressed in this system if you tried because it is purposely designed to never let it exist. As the system is designed, the only things it can express from 3.5-ish wiz are "I have a spellbook, can learn new spells, and can cast prepared spells"—which are, incidentally, about the only aspects in which the current wizard feels like old wizard, and the only parts of that wizard fantasy it fulfills even remotely effectively. You simply aren't able to turn entire combats (or even the entire game world) into a lateral thinking puzzle in 2E the way you would in 1E, and that's by design. You aren't allowed to be a skills class, and that's by design. You aren't allowed to be good at knowledges by yourself, and that's by design.
It is far better to accept all this and build a class that functions like a PF2E class, has PF2E-like strengths and weaknesses, and is not actively fighting the system design at every turn for its identity. Wizard tried to cling to too much of its 1E identity and was gutted in the process, because its 1E identity literally breaks the design rules of PF2E at every turn—rules created partially in response to how strong it was, rules designed to not let it even exist.
In practice, PF1E wizard's playstyle and power is fundamentally tailored to a combat as war game. It cannot meaningfully be recreated in a combat as sport game like PF2E.
Unlike others I do not think wizards should be skill users, at all. I think if you have spells you should not be as good with skills. I only mildly agree with people that they should be alright at recall knowledge as it fits the studious theme and the design philosophy behind the arcane tradition being about giving tools to exploit weaknesses. There is one huge issue I have with 5e style vancian casting(it's still vancian), which is that it is so similar to spontaneous that it either steps on their toes and makes everyone homogeneous. If we are to bring 5e style preparation to Pathfinder we can't and shouldn't do this until 3E and in that game spontaneous gets a major change which helps differentiate it. Wizards and sorcerers should feel significantly different in their relationship to spells
I'm going to refine my homebrew and post it at some point
Of course prepared vs spontaneous casting is a personal preference. If you take the wizard’s prepared casting away, then the game loses any option for playing a 4 slot arcane prepared caster. But the game already has a 4 slot spontaneous arcane caster. So you’d just be taking away one style of play because you like the other better, and the game already has an archetype that does the whole “wizard with spontaneous casting.”
Let me know if this thread swerves back from 6-20 paragraphs of homebrew that no one is going to read to 2-6 paragraphs of the same complaints being endlessly repeated. That’s the good stuff I can’t get enough of.
My bad for bringing PF1 into this discussion, but I still don’t think a single spontaneous spell slot to cast any spell they managed to have their hands on and spent gold learning for Wizard is that rude to Sorcerer. Especially when each of the more power classes all have their own unique abilities others can’t take. It’s like saying fighters having +2 is rude to the other martial, or starlight magus is rude to Eldritch archer. Maybe it is, but it looks to me like Paizo don’t mind, and players probably wouldn’t mind so much if the class they want to play ALL have something uniquely powerful.
For what it's worth, I do think those are rude to each other. Fighter is especially frustrating. Seeing the fighter have something like 25-33% fewer misses than you (note that I said fewer misses, not more hits) is pretty unfun.
That sort of conception of what's rude (in the scope of PF2E, at least) does inform my choices. If you disagree, I understand, though.
I’m glad you agree imperial sorc focus spell is rude, but if we look at Oracle, sorcerer changes suddenly become very polite…I think even if oracle stays 3 slots the other changes are still enough to put them at tier 0 among spell casters now. If Paizo have no issue making powerful classes, why do they need to keep Wizard in its current spot? They never worried about fighter or magus or the new oracle stealing others show?
In general, I'd say it seems like the design team philosophy changed somewhat over time, probably as design leads and so on changed. I get the feeling if wizard were remade in PC2 by whoever made oracle, we'd be looking at a significantly different class than what we got in PC1.
Unlike others I do not think wizards should be skill users, at all. I think if you have spells you should not be as good with skills. I only mildly agree with people that they should be alright at recall knowledge as it fits the studious theme and the design philosophy behind the arcane tradition being about giving tools to exploit weaknesses. There is one huge issue I have with 5e style vancian casting(it's still vancian), which is that it is so similar to spontaneous that it either steps on their toes and makes everyone homogeneous. If we are to bring 5e style preparation to Pathfinder we can't and shouldn't do this until 3E and in that game spontaneous gets a major change which helps differentiate it. Wizards and sorcerers should feel significantly different in their relationship to spell
For what it's worth, my primary concern is that wizard should end up with a unique, flavorful, and compelling mechanical identity in the context of PF2E. It doesn't need to look like the PF1E Wizard for me to be satisfied; it could be totally different.
For example, a casting class built and balanced around the following Hypothetical Ability could make a really cool wizard, even though it doesn't resemble any traditional wizard mechanic:
During your daily preparations, or when you refocus, choose any one spell from your spellbook that is at least two ranks lower than the highest rank spell you can cast. You can cast that spell as a focus spell. When you cast it in this way, it is heightened to one rank below the highest rank of spells you can cast. You may only have one spell selected to use as a focus spell in this way at a time.