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Why do you use tailwind in a repertoire? This is a spell where you in a wand.I still want to go back and look at the tank 2 spell selection for a sorcerer and try to understand how you cover even the basic basics?
Rank 2 tailwind, invisibility, dispel magic as a signature spell and then one bloodline spell is not covering half of what I want to be able to do with rank 2 spells as a wizard. Sorcerers do not get enough spells to really cover even basic stuff without using a ton of scrolls.
I don’t think Unicore is saying you have to necessarily use Tailwind from your Repertoire. They’re saying “here’s a non-exhaustive list of rank 2 spells I care about, I’m already having trouble budgeting between Repertoire and scrolls and wands.” It’s a response to the constant claims on this forum that it’s easy to replicate this versatility via wands and scrolls, because in practice it really isn’t that easy to get all the versatility in there, only a portion of it.
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Why do you use tailwind in a repertoire? This is a spell where you in a wand.I still want to go back and look at the tank 2 spell selection for a sorcerer and try to understand how you cover even the basic basics?
Rank 2 tailwind, invisibility, dispel magic as a signature spell and then one bloodline spell is not covering half of what I want to be able to do with rank 2 spells as a wizard. Sorcerers do not get enough spells to really cover even basic stuff without using a ton of scrolls.
At level 7? That is quite the commitment.
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Schrodinger wizards, in practice most of those specific spells ends unused, after years GMing this game, people do remember when they that right spell, but forget all the other times that it ended unused during most adventure days and I had to custom made encounters just for the player to use it so they would not feel bad preparing it.
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Why do you use tailwind in a repertoire? This is a spell where you in a wand.I still want to go back and look at the tank 2 spell selection for a sorcerer and try to understand how you cover even the basic basics?
Rank 2 tailwind, invisibility, dispel magic as a signature spell and then one bloodline spell is not covering half of what I want to be able to do with rank 2 spells as a wizard. Sorcerers do not get enough spells to really cover even basic stuff without using a ton of scrolls.
I don't even take Tailwind. I thought it was cool initially, but reach spell is more than enough for the vast majority of combats and casters have lots of long range spells.
Tailwind is another one of those spells that people talk about as amazing for the +30 foot movement, but in play it isn't necessary. Lots of classes have mobility boosting feats like Sudden Charge or monk movement. Casters hammer from range using Reach spell to cover an additional 30 feet if needed.
Schrodinger wizards, in practice most of those specific spells ends unused, after years GMing this game, people do remember when they that right spell, but forget all the other times that it ended unused during most adventure days and I had to custom made encounters just for the player to use it so they would not feel bad preparing it.
All encounters are custom made by someone.
When you use an encounter made by Paizo or use one you make yourself they each are custom made with the result of making some spells better for them and others worse.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Schrodinger wizards, in practice most of those specific spells ends unused, after years GMing this game, people do remember when they that right spell, but forget all the other times that it ended unused during most adventure days and I had to custom made encounters just for the player to use it so they would not feel bad preparing it.
Schrodinger’s Wizard is, as the designers themselves put it, more or less a strawman. No one out here is saying the Wizard approaches every single scenario with near perfect information, just that they have the ability to approach with more or less “good enough” choices towards a very, very wide variety of situations.
In fact the very common refrain of “just use a scroll” falls more under a Schrodinger’s Sorcerer, because it requires a player to have basically perfect information for when they’ll need scrolls, as well as how many they’ll need.
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The Schrodinger argument is happening for the sorcerer too here even before considering scrolls.
This is the reason I wanted to compare a specific sorcerer build with set spells chosen that are supposed to make the wizard obsolete.
Instead we are actually talking about multiple different sorcerer options as if we can swap out those sorcerers at any time to compare to a single wizard.
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Schrodinger wizards, in practice most of those specific spells ends unused, after years GMing this game, people do remember when they that right spell, but forget all the other times that it ended unused during most adventure days and I had to custom made encounters just for the player to use it so they would not feel bad preparing it.
Yep. There are a very tight list of high value spells in PF2.
I also understand some people like trying new spells and feel good using some other spell for some unique problem solving function or in battle. I have players myself who try out new spells hoping to find some gem that looked good on paper. That's part of the fun of casting.
Just in these threads far too many folks oversell changing out spells rather than relying on a high value spell that works 95% plus of the time.
Even in PF1 I had figured out all the high value spells and stuck to them to kill almost everything with rare exception picking up some other spells for utility and dealing with that handful of situations where a spell did not work.
One of my go to PF1 spells was enervate. This spell worked on everything that wasn't undead, immune to negative levels, or didn't have death ward on and I would often strip death ward with a quickened dispel magic. Those situations were specific and otherwise enervate was a highly effective spell for destroying the vast majority of enemies that was low enough level it was easy to quicken.
PF2 isn't much different. You learn the high value spells, they'll solve the vast majority of your combat issues. Noncombat issues can call upon more spellcasting, but you usually have enough in a group to take care of them through skills or other prepared casters where this idea being put forth of the wizard solving these problems with just their spells has more to do with a lack of group versatility that has led to reliance on a single character trying to find the perfect spell selection.
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Why do you use tailwind in a repertoire? This is a spell where you in a wand.I still want to go back and look at the tank 2 spell selection for a sorcerer and try to understand how you cover even the basic basics?
Rank 2 tailwind, invisibility, dispel magic as a signature spell and then one bloodline spell is not covering half of what I want to be able to do with rank 2 spells as a wizard. Sorcerers do not get enough spells to really cover even basic stuff without using a ton of scrolls.
I don’t think Unicore is saying you have to necessarily use Tailwind from your Repertoire. They’re saying “here’s a non-exhaustive list of rank 2 spells I care about, I’m already having trouble budgeting between Repertoire and scrolls and wands.” It’s a response to the constant claims on this forum that it’s easy to replicate this versatility via wands and scrolls, because in practice it really isn’t that easy to get all the versatility in there, only a portion of it.
You don't need the versatility. That's what I'm getting at. You just don't. If this is the selling point of the wizard: unnecessary versatility. It's a bad selling point.
In entire group of characters, there is going to be plenty of versatility to solve problems or you have a not very well built group.
My sorcerers as an example on top of their 36 spells have well charisma based skills. Intimidation, Deception, and Diplomacy with skill feats which allow you to do a whole lot with an often higher success rate than spells.
My druids have developed Untamed Form. Untamed Form allows for immense versatility with scouting, moving parties across hazards, flying combat, and the like.
This argument that the only way to obtain versatility in a group is a wizard changing out spells is not how well built groups operate. Why do you keep insisting that this caster versatility is some major advantage like an entire group of well built characters that don't even have a wizard is very viable.
I have run with no wizards in all but maybe three groups for the entire time PF2 has been out. We've never needed a high level wizard. They are a character that if you never play one or have on in your group, you wouldn't even notice like you did in PF1 where not having a wizard was a huge disadvantage. Not having a healer caster of some kind in PF2 is definitely noticeable. You may not need a dedicated healer, but some kind of healer in PF2 is highly desirable and noticeable.
You also notice as posted above notice the absence of a condition removal caster which is better covered by divine, occult, and primal.
But versatile arcane caster is the lowest value caster on the list, which is all the wizard is.
See thats not what is being argued.
Wizard isnt being put on a pedestal here. Its just being given some acknowledgement for things it can do well. And remember this thread is named Wizards are weak.
A specific wizard can be set up to have something available to help in a wide variety of situations. A specific sorcerer has to make choices as to what they will be able to do and at what spell ranks they will be able to do it. Only a hand full of their spells get to be signature and those can only be shifted around at level up.
So I still think we take a specific wizard and a specific sorcerer and from there compare if the sorcerers extra spells are not useful and if that specific sorcerer has a better solution for 95% of situations.
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Of course a party doesn't need a wizard for everyone at the table to have fun playing PF2. It also doesn't need a fighter, or a cleric, or a rogue, or a sorcerer either. In fact you can pretty much have 4 of any class or classes and if they are what everyone at the table wants to play and the GM also wants to play with these players enough to make sure that everyone has fun then it will be a good party.
Saying you can play without casting more than 36 total different spells in a campaign is exactly as valuable to you as you want it to be. Just as I can play with a wizard, cast 150 different spells (or more) over a campaign, and be effective and everyone can have fun.
Versatile arcane caster might be the lowest on your list, but I promise you, in play, the GM doesn't pull punches on our party, we face 365 xp encounters right after facing a 120xp encounter and a 240 xp encounter in the same day, with only 40 total minutes of breaks between them, and our party beat that last encounter with no one falling down. This 365 xp encounter was extra brutal because we leveled up from 6 to 7 after the 240 xp encounter, but we didn't have time to rest, so the alchemist and my wizard didn't get to memorize 4th rank slots. We still have to face at least another 160 xp worth of boss monsters we know are somewhere in the dungeon + an minions that might be around them, but I still have a 3rd, 2nd and 2 first rank slots left because I brought a ton of scrolls in, and after our last short rest I was able to switch the 3rd rank spell over to another slow (there is another caster who I think will probably have a low fort save), and one of first rank slots over to a fear spell because the other boss npc is some kind of tanky brute, that will probably be acting as the body guard. Already today I have also cast from my slots: Fireball
twice (drain bonded item), Lightning bolt (from a scroll), a rank 3 dispel magic, slow (from a scroll) false vitality 2x, Blazing Bolt x2 (1 scroll), Force Barrage (at rank 1, killing a level 9 Leukodaemon), rank 1 tailwind (needed speed to get through a particularly grueling gauntlet of traps), as well as 6 other offensive 2nd and 1st rank scrolls. This turned out to be an all combat spell day which I knew going into the day, so I was pretty heavy on my combat load out.
I had several defensive reaction spells memorized at the start of the day because I had no idea what order we were going to face the several boss creatures that we tracked down to the same big dungeon lair, but I have been switching those out as I have needed more offensive fire power just fine, and we got really lucky with some of the early bosses failing saves that kept us from needing me to tank too much. The days before this we were running around through the city piecing together a bunch of clues and I was casting everything from illusory disguise 6 times in a day to rank 3 water breathing so we could explore an underwater boat (and I could cast lightning bolt instead of fireball down there), Invisibility a bunch, tons of Knock, several Lock (remember the party is alchemist, 2 kineticists and a Wizard), a vital rank 3 Translate, and many other options that would have cost a sorcerer tons of gp in scrolls to accomplish. I also spent a lot on scrolls, but it was to have 1 of each of these spells that I learned, and then used the scroll 1 time, usually at the lowest possible rank. You are never going to convince me that I could have contributed half as much playing a sorcerer, or a rogue, or any other class.
You don't need the versatility. That's what I'm getting at. You just don't. If this is the selling point of the wizard: unnecessary versatility. It's a bad selling point.
I’m aware what you’re getting at, you’ve just done literally nothing to actually support that argument. All you’ve done is made some weird claims about how you’d break the game at someone else’s table.
My sorcerers as an example on top of their 36 spells
36 spells… aka a level 18+ Sorcerer… is less than the 50 ish spells I mentioned for my level 1-10 Wizard example that I used?
I’m sorry, what exactly are you hoping to prove here? Because this falls entirely in line with the fact that the Sorcerer has less versatility… If we used an actual play example from a level 1-20 Wizard the Sorcerer’s spell flexibiltiy would be an order of magnitude lower.
This argument that the only way to obtain versatility in a group is a wizard changing out spells is not how well built groups operate.
Absolutely no one claimed that the Wizard is the only way for a party to be versatile. It’s just that versatility is the Wizard’s (and Druid’s, for that matter) biggest strength, and it’s a good strength to have.
Why do you keep insisting that this caster versatility is some major advantage like an entire group of well built characters that don't even have a wizard is very viable.
A well built group of characters that don’t even have a Sorcerer is also very viable. So… what’s your point exactly?
I have run with no wizards in all but maybe three groups for the entire time PF2 has been out. We've never needed a high level wizard. They are a character that if you never play one or have on in your group, you wouldn't even notice like you did in PF1 where not having a wizard was a huge disadvantage.
And I have run games and played gameswithout a Sorcerer too. So again… what exactly is your point?
It seems like you’ve completely lost track of the argument here. No one said Sorcerers are unviable, you said there’s no advantage to bringing a Wizard over a Sorcerer. All we’ve done is point out the many ways in which that’s a false claim.
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How much gold will that end up being that the Wizard spends on other, more relevant, permanent items?
Few things.
1) What's the value of a spell slot? I don't have a good answer to this, because scrolls are priced with the understanding you already have spell slots, that the scroll is a cast beyond your assigned power budget, and the scroll is a one-use slot with worse action economy. But it's the question at the bottom of "how good is learning this utility spell instead of buying a scroll?" Every day you prepare a one-off utility spell, it eats a spell slot it doesn't have to. How much value loss does that add up over time? Since we're a familiar attunement wizard, not a spell sub wizard, we're guaranteed to effectively lose a slot for the day if we prepare a spell and don't use it. Your slots are as much a resource as a scroll.
This is especially relevant for tailwind, which is eating a second level slot every day. You're probably keeping that wand your whole adventuring career. You just buy the wand.
2) WBL in PF2E should not be done with lump sum; that's a massively losing game. The Tailwind wand is a 5th-level permanent item and will occupy a fifth level permanent item "allocation." That's what it's competing against, not other consumables. Likewise, consumables either come out of the party consumable allocation or your currency, and don't eat into your permanent item allocation. I would not treat permanent items and consumables as fungible. The game penalizes your asset value for choosing to do so, even. In my opinion, taking lump sum is a losing proposition: basic stat bumps are too valuable to give up, and more gold is better than less gold.
IMO, the wand of tailwind is obviously a better value than losing a second level slot in perpetuity. But you may not even care much about having the +10 status bonus (which would be fair), and might rather have a different permanent item until the wand is cheap enough to be negligible. In that case, though, I don't think you'd ever consider preparing tailwind every day. So.
3) We keep ignoring arcane evolution in this conversation. The Sorc only has to spend gold above the wizard if they need more than one specialized spell in a day.
4) This is a minor point, such that it verges on a nitpick. But you may be pressed into buying scrolls of spells you wish to learn anyways, if you want to learn them at all. I don't think this happens in an ideal scenario, mind. But if you're in a position where you're allowed to shop but also don't have significant downtime, you probably can't hunt down someone who knows a spell and take the time to learn it from them. You can, however, buy the scroll and use it to learn the spell later. I only bring it up because it has come up once or twice for my groups in the course of play.
5) Also a minor point, but... Dangerous Sorcery is a damage bonus, but it's also a sort of "anti-resistance" buff. There's comparatively less need for different damage types on Sorcerers with Dangerous Sorcery, which does reduce the amount of spells you need to know to be as effective at blasting as a wizard.
Further also you mentioned the "relevancy window" issue, but that's doubly true for these itemed spells! For example Earthbind is a spell you shoved off onto items. But I used Earthbind as my anti-flier strategy for levels 6-8, and a scroll of Earthbind is 30 GP which is... quite expensive for levels 6-7, it's somewhere between 1/6th to 1/4th of your total free currency available at these levels already! By the time it gets cheap for you (level 9 ish) I had stopped casting Earthbind as my go to anti-flier spell, I was casting Fly which, again, would cost too much GP.
Scrolls fall off if the spells fall off, and falling off is relative to your available options. If a scroll of earthbind is the only option you have available, it's still useful. I'm not actually sure it falls off in the way you describe.
Fly is also not a significant upgrade over Earthbind for this usecase, because it helps exactly one person fight. It's more of a sidegrade; you can have a save spell that might help the entire party fight the creature, or a no-save buff that will definitely help one (and only one) person fight. Also, personally, I become less and less sure Fly is worth a top level slot in PF2E every day. Your top level slots are so valuable relative to your other slots that you need to be getting a lot of combat value out of them, and I wouldn't say you're going to be able to get a lot of defensive value out of fly in a game with spell ranges this short. Meanwhile, its primary offensive value is fighting fliers. ...Honestly, isn't the best defensive fly user someone like a longbow user at 100ft, or a sniper gunslinger that just busts enemies with an arquebus from 150ft range anyways?
And again, if we're talking about a Sorc with Arcane Evolution, they only need to buy a scroll over learning the spell if they will need 2 non-repertoire spells that day.
For what it's worth, I agree the scroll isn't cheap. But the cost is right in line with other consumable options of its level, like a lesser elixir of life, so I find it hard to say it's particularly expensive either.
I was ignoring staves, class features (Wizards don't have the best focus spells but they have Spell Blending, Spell Sub, or Staff Thesis available), and Archetypes too though!
Yes, but I didn't claim wizard doesn't benefit from them; it does. It's just that wizard gets less benefit than sorc in terms of spells known from staves and archetypes, while both sorc and wizard gain about the same amount in-day versatility from them (though that in-day versatility is comparatively more valuable to the wizard). Wizard benefits significantly more from focus spells gained by archetyping, though, and arguably has more feats it doesn't care about that it can throw away for archetype feats.
Personally, I think it's somewhat irresponsible to ignore class features, item choices, and build options when discussing this; you end up in spherical cow territory. Real characters will have items and feats. That being said, one does also have to be cautious to make sure they aren't bandying about combinations of choices that can't or won't occur in actual play (like taking a bunch of Sorc feats but also taking a spellcasting archetype early). ...This is just reminding me that I should open up pathbuilder and actually try to build the equivalent sorc for your character.
And yes a Sorcerer gets higher marginal returns on taking a spellcasting Archetype for versatility than a Wizard does, but:
- the Wizard can pick a spellcasting Archetype for potency rather than versatility, for higher marginal returns. For example, my wizard had Cleric Archetype for access to a Staff of Healing, and
- the Wizard doesn't have to worry about picking a spellcasting Archetype, they can pick Rogue Archetype (for light armour, Mobility, and Skill Mastery).Ultimately the problem here isn't that you can't make up for a Sorcerer's lack of day to day versatility, it's just that you pay an opportunity cost for it, an opportunity cost the Wizard doesn't have to pay (they pay the cost in other ways, by losing within-day flexibility).
Those are both still options for the sorcerer, though.
There's nothing wrong with picking up Cleric Archetype on a Sorc. Even if the spells are overall weaker on the Divine list, you still gain a huge amount of day-to-day versatility from that—arguably a greater value gain for the sorc (who has little) than the wizard (who already has some), since you're getting divine spell prep and access to all common divine spells of these levels out of the deal—and I'm sure a Sorc wouldn't be too miffed about taking the staff of healing, either. I'm admittedly a bit confused about your assertion about taking cleric for "potency," unless you just mean on heal spells—in which case it seems to come out about the same for the sorcerer.
You do end up with less casting versatility if you take rogue, but you frankly use skills better than the wizard in practice (since you have CHA as your main stat). It is worse for sorc than wizard if you specifically desire casting versatility, yeah; no argument there. I like rogue most as the L9 Ancestry Feat dip for human, though.
I used Earthbind when our level 7 party was faced with two erinyes who flew far above enough that the party's martials couldn't reach them to Trip them, and they had ranged Strikes that would far outpace our damage if the melees had swapped to their backup ranged weapons. How exactly are these level 7 martials supposed to be Tripping these enemies who never enter their melee reach?
Honestly, looking at the Erinys statblock is convincing me more and more that earthbind is just a poorly conceived spell when it's given such a small range. These are creatures with Translocate at will and weapons with a 100ft range increment. You can basically never fight these things outdoors. They can just be 190 ft away forever and fire at you until they use up all 60 of their arrows. This is obnoxious. Even putting fly on a martial won't stop them from getting kited. This encounter looks like the enemies have to sandbag to be reasonably killable if there's no ceiling above you.
Hell, I'm starting to wonder how many flying enemies in this game are designed this way. I may want to check that.
Good a dragon example.
A smart party in general doesnt face a dragon in open spaces where it has the advantage right?
If the party gets caught in that situation and they are smart about it, it becomes a chase scene not a normal encounter. The next part of the scenario is the effort to find its lair or to lure it somewhere where its flight cannot be easily used. In that situation earthbind plays a better role of keeping it down rather than trying to get into range to use it when the dragon is in its element.
You could come with a bunch of scrolls but then you cant move if you want to use them. Im guessing every action is going to matter. A wizard can slot enough earth binds to keep it from escaping needed (of course the wizard will have self buffed with fly first so they can fly then earthbind) and unlike a sorcerer trying to replicate this with scrolls the wizard with the same scroll and learning time knows the spell and can slot it as much as they think they will need. A sorcerer cant afford to slot that niche of a spell let alone make it signature.If instead the party is fighting several same level dragons the wizard can easily prepare a couple earthbind in their top slots and that will likely keep them on the ground.
This only matters ofcourse if the party is set up to take advantage of it. Or if this is a situation where you are luring the dragon into an area you have an advantage in maybe you have traps set up you are earbinding the dragon into.
I feel compelled to ask why the dragon would let you lure it from an open space in the first place, honestly. I also feel compelled to ask how you think you can run from a creature with triple your land speed in fly speed and a 100 ft ranged attack. I likewise feel compelled to ask why you think you always have the luxury of choosing whether or not to fight the dragon. If the dragon wants to chase you, it can. If it's terrorizing a town and you're of a level to fight it, are you going to just say, "nope, time to run?" You do not always have this level of control over encounters, especially not without there being consequences attached.
WRT to Sorc and Earthbind, see again Arcane Evolution, which gets ignored repeatedly in these conversations for whatever reason. A sorc with AE that wants to cast earthbind four times in a day can do that, as long as there isn't another spell they would rather have instead, or they don't mind losing the extra signature choice. Further, they only have to use as many slots on it as are actually needed. The sorc also doesn't need to make that spell a signature because it has no gain from being heightened; if they run out of third level slots, they can still use higher level slots to cast it without heightening it, as per the rules on heightened spontaneous spells.
WRT to scroll action economy, there are ways to make it possible to get scrolls into your hand without drawing them. Retrieval Belts are good, but I think the retrieval prism talisman is also an extremely good option for retrieving scrolls. 12 gp to retrieve the first scroll in a combat is expensive at early levels, but begins to become very cheap over time. Other people have mentioned things like valet familiars earlier in the thread, as well, though I'm far less acquianted with those options.
This also got very far afield of the point, which is that earthbind is of limited utility against the most annoying flying enemies while they are flying. "You should fight the enemy elsewhere" doesn't change this fact, and if anything only reinforces how poor the option actually is at dealing with the situation.
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Dragons move very fast, but they still need to be within range to attack and use their breath weapons. On top of needing enormous space to take advantage of their mobility.
I thought something like earthbind would be useful against dragons as well, but it turned out not to be necessary.
The best way to deal with dragons is not earthbind, but a trip or grapple martial with fly, high movement, and sudden charge. Dragons can be knocked out of the air. They have mostly weak reflex saves. Barbs, fighters, monks and such with slam down or trip can knock them from the air forcing them to use their reaction to prevent their fall and taking damage. Once down, then you maintain the trip and hammer them with reactive strikes or similar attacks. They usually don't last long.
Once again this is a Schroedinger's wizard argument absent any analysis of how your group is constructed. It's a handful of pro-wizard players pretending the rest of the group does nothing but stand there looking at the wizard, "Going well, I built my character only to hit things in melee range. So you gotta take care of that Mr. Wizard or we're all screwed."
While groups who know how powerful combat maneuvers are in PF2 just charge the flier and knock them from the air because even with high mobility, their attack range is still within melee range more often than not and have to close enough to knock them from the sky.
Once their down, then you keep them down and they don't make it back in the air.
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this falls entirely in line with the fact that the Sorcerer has less versatility…
I mean yes and no. The wizard is more versatile tomorrow, but not more versatile five minutes from now. How much value there is there is going to lean a lot into campaign structure and how much the GM is willing to throw the wizard a bone.
Simply saying the Wizard is more versatile though isn't quite right, because the wizard can only access that versatility at specific intervals.
feel compelled to ask why the dragon would let you lure it from an open space in the first place, honestly. I also feel compelled to ask how you think you can run from a creature with triple your land speed in fly speed and a 100 ft ranged attack. I likewise feel compelled to ask why you think you always have the luxury of choosing whether or not to fight the dragon. If the dragon wants to chase you, it can. If it's terrorizing a town and you're of a level to fight it, are you going to just say, "nope, time to run?" You do not always have this level of control over encounters, especially not without there being consequences attached.
My mistake. Earthbind would have needed to have incapacitate for much of what I said to matter about heightening it and same level dragons.
But as to getting lured. probably not hard to do. Find out something it wants and put it somewhere you can fight with an advantage.
As for running away.
Movements speeds are irrelevant in chase scenes, in fact they were designed exactly to nullify numeric movement speeds to make chases work.
Instead turns are done by the party making skill checks attacks or spells to overcome obstacles like one turn may be avoiding a breath attack, another could be getting past a stampede of animals also running from the dragon, if this is a town you can include objectives like carrying away small children, helping someone caught under a fallen cart. In fact helping towns people escape would make an interesting chase scene since getting people to safety would be as important as getting away yourself. Maybe the town has one fortified structure and you need to comb the town and get everyone back to the structure alive while avoiding the dragon. heck that can scene can be run even at low level way before the party could actually fight one.
Thanks for the idea.
Dragons move very fast, but they still need to be within range to attack and use their breath weapons. On top of needing enormous space to take advantage of their mobility.
I thought something like earthbind would be useful against dragons as well, but it turned out not to be necessary.
The best way to deal with dragons is not earthbind, but a trip or grapple martial with fly, high movement, and sudden charge. Dragons can be knocked out of the air. They have mostly weak reflex saves. Barbs, fighters, monks and such with slam down or trip can knock them from the air forcing them to use their reaction to prevent their fall and taking damage. Once down, then you maintain the trip and hammer them with reactive strikes or similar attacks. They usually don't last long.
Once again this is a Schroedinger's wizard argument absent any analysis of how your group is constructed. It's a handful of pro-wizard players pretending the rest of the group does nothing but stand there looking at the wizard, "Going well, I built my character only to hit things in melee range. So you gotta take care of that Mr. Wizard or we're all screwed."
While groups who know how powerful combat maneuvers are in PF2 just charge the flier and knock them from the air because even with high mobility, their attack range is still within melee range more often than not and have to close enough to knock them from the sky.
Once their down, then you keep them down and they don't make it back in the air.
Can i ask? What do you consider the role in the party is for an arcane sorcerer built in the way you would have them built?
What is the role of a wizard?| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Dragons move very fast, but they still need to be within range to attack and use their breath weapons. On top of needing enormous space to take advantage of their mobility.
I thought something like earthbind would be useful against dragons as well, but it turned out not to be necessary.
The best way to deal with dragons is not earthbind, but a trip or grapple martial with fly, high movement, and sudden charge. Dragons can be knocked out of the air. They have mostly weak reflex saves. Barbs, fighters, monks and such with slam down or trip can knock them from the air forcing them to use their reaction to prevent their fall and taking damage. Once down, then you maintain the trip and hammer them with reactive strikes or similar attacks. They usually don't last long.
Once again this is a Schroedinger's wizard argument absent any analysis of how your group is constructed. It's a handful of pro-wizard players pretending the rest of the group does nothing but stand there looking at the wizard, "Going well, I built my character only to hit things in melee range. So you gotta take care of that Mr. Wizard or we're all screwed."
While groups who know how powerful combat maneuvers are in PF2 just charge the flier and knock them from the air because even with high mobility, their attack range is still within melee range more often than not and have to close enough to knock them from the sky.
Once their down, then you keep them down and they don't make it back in the air.
Can i ask? What do you consider the role in the party is for an arcane sorcerer built in the way you would have them built?
What is the role of a wizard?
Now you're discussing something more meaty and interesting that delves into how casters work in a party.
If I'm playing an arcane sorcerer (I would also include occult sorcerer as they often perform the same function) depending on the campaign as campaign optimization is also necessary, then I am there to work within the group's strengths and weaknesses as well as optimize my character to deal with a variety of situations by choosing quality spells that are best. I'm going to take arcane evolution or occult evolution to enhance my number of choices.
Let me list my spell load out for a level 20 Harrow Sorcerer with Occult Evolution that finished Agents of Edgewatch.
This character had Occult Evolution, so took mental blast spells often or some kind of mental spell for a need with 1 minute of downtime daily.
They also had high Diplomacy and Deception. I did not build up the Intimidation much.
The character idea as interrogator/infiltration specialist with sufficient spells to assist in the defeat of enemies for her guard unit.
When you build a sorcerer, you don't just focus on blasting or something. You pick key high value spells, then spread utility for your group function.
There are certain areas casters have to deal with for the group because martials are pretty bad at it:
1. Invisibility: This casters deal with best. Every caster should at all times be ready to deal with invisibility.
2. Slow or Haste: Slow is an encounter destroying spell with few creatures that can resist it well. It destroys bosses and mooks enabling easy victories. Haste can boost action economy in your favor, especially helpful at high level to facilitate things like Whirlwind Attack or other high action cost big attacks.
3. Movement: If your martials need to fly, then you gotta get them moving. This becomes less necessary as you level if your martials are allowed to choose ancestries with flight capability. But more valuable if they can't.
4. Healing: Some type of healing is always helpful for those times when a bad crit occurs or you're fighting some monster damage dealing enemy.
5. Condition Removal: A good medic can help this, but you want some kind of condition removal, preferably restoration as a signature spell if you're the primary condition remover.
After that, you have a good deal of flexibility with spell choices. If you're someone like Super Bidi, you might pick up a bunch of blast spells. If you're someone who wants some other aspect of a caster developed, maybe you pick up control spells. It's up to you and how well it will work within your group paradigm.
Surprisingly at least at first, you find that you want more lower level spells as sig spells than higher level spells. Higher level spells don't often require much heightening like lower level spells.
The wizard unfortunately must slot a low level spell into a higher level slot, whereas a sorcerer just picks it as a signature spell and heightens it as needed. They have a feat to expand their number of signature spells. So their 7th level spell choices go from 5 to 13 as they have 5 different level 7 spells and 6 lower level signature spells they can heighten to level 7 as needed and with sig spell expansion they now have 8 spells they can heighten.
So this supposedly versatile wizard who has to prepare spells in all their slots ends up having to slot 3 plus 1 level 7 spells to use in their slots or add a couple with Spell Blending for a total of 5 or 6 level 7 spells they can cast, each one prepared in advanced. Whereas a sorcerer can use their 4 slots to cast up to 13 different level 7 spells in any combination in their slots as needed. They can do across all their spells as they level, so the overall combination allows a huge amount of flexibility.
If they are arcane, they can add a sig spell or an entirely different spell to their repertoire boosting their options tp 14 or changing out for a spell necessary to deal with the situation.
Occult Spellcasting: Spell DC: 45/Spell Attack: +35
Uncommon or Rare Spells Known: Telepathic Bond
Cantrips (5 prepared-lvl 10)
1. Detect Magic (Bloodline)
2. Forbidding Ward
3. Shield
4. Telekinetic Projectile
5. Electric Arc (Adapted Cantrip)
1st level Spells (4 Slots)
1. Ill Omen (Bloodline)
2. Heal (Cross-blooded)-Sig Spell
3. Magic Missile (Sig spell from Sig Spell Expansion
4. True Strike
5. Protection
2nd level spells (4 slots)
1. Augury (BL)
2. See Invisibility
3. Restoration (Sig Spell)
4. Dispel Magic (Sig spell from Sig spell Expansion)
5. Faerie Fire
3rd level spells (4 slots)
1. Wanderer’s Guide (BL)
2. Slow (Sig Spell)
3. Invisibility Sphere
4. Heroism
5. Haste
4th level spells (4 slots)
1. Suggestion (BL)
2. Fly
3. Veil
4. Phantasmal Killer
5. Invisibility (Minimum 2nd) (Sig Spell)
5th level spells (4 slots)
1. Shadow Siphon (BL)
2. Synesthesia
3. Tongues
4. Prying Eye
5. Telepathic Bond (Uncommon)
6th level spells (4 slots)
1. True Seeing (BL)
2. Wall of Force
3. Phantom Orchestra
4. Teleport (Uncommon) Sig Spell
5. Unexpected Transposition
7th level spells (4 slots)
1. Retrocognition (BL) (Sig Spell)
2. True Target
3. Energy Aegis
4. Plane Shift (Uncommon)
5. Magnificent Mansion (Uncommon)
8th level (4 slots)
1. Unrelenting Observation (BL)
2. Disappearance
3. Spirit Song (Sig Spell)
4. Maze
5. Mind Blank (Uncommon)
9th level (4 slots)
1. Weird (BL)
2. Foresight
3. Wail of the Banshee
4. Prismatic Sphere
5. Banishment (minimum 5th level)-Sig Spell
10th (2 slot)
1. Alter Reality
2. Time Stop
3. Nullify
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It is frustrating that some people read a statement like “Wizards are weak and could use some additional help” to be “Wizards don’t deserve help unless they are utterly worthless”. It’s a very strange mentality.
Wizards having things they are currently good at doesn’t detract from the other problems with the class.
Also, this thread is falling into the trap of overcharging the Wizard for the concept of prepared casting when it’s not exclusive to the Wizard.
The Wizard has one additional 1 spell slot per level compared to other prepared casters. This spell slot is restricted to those spells found within their curriculum. Their flexibility is better but no longer so-much better than other prepared casters.
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The main thing is that the prepared casting is kinda all the Wizard currently have as the other prepared casters have either good features or good focus spells that takes off the weight of spell selection.
Witch was horrible before, but the familiar passives gave a huge power boost and your focus stuff are all better than the Wizard ones.
Druid have amazing focus spells, letting you basically use them for combat and leave your spell slots for anything else.
And Cleric while just as dependent of spell slots as the Wizard, it have a ton of top slots with heal spells and better feats. Focus spells are mixed, some domains have amazing ones, while others... exist.
If Wizard had better features or feats it would not be so controversial, like instead of the limited 4th slot make it just like the others, and the Wizard can just expend a prepared slot to cast a spell of their curriculum.
As for scrolls, I usually don't comment about them because every caster can use it, as do staves and so on, the same way that I usually would not pick stuff like Seen the Unseen on Sorcerer (campaign dependent, if it's like a ghost campaign then it's another story) and just have a scroll or two for that and after expending buy another when possible, I would do the same playing Wizard, not prepare it and just have the scroll in the back pocket.
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Doing my part to reach the goal of 1000 posts of faffing about!
this falls entirely in line with the fact that the Sorcerer has less versatility…I mean yes and no. The wizard is more versatile tomorrow, but not more versatile five minutes from now. How much value there is there is going to lean a lot into campaign structure and how much the GM is willing to throw the wizard a bone.
Simply saying the Wizard is more versatile though isn't quite right, because the wizard can only access that versatility at specific intervals.
This is a needless correction. I have said several times in almost every single post I’ve made in the past page and a half that Wizard’s flexibility is day to day and Sorcerer’s is encounter to encounter (unless Spell Sub is involved of course).
I can’t verbosely include that caveat every single time I make a post.
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It is frustrating that some people read a statement like “Wizards are weak and could use some additional help” to be “Wizards don’t deserve help unless they are utterly worthless”. It’s a very strange mentality.
Wizards having things they are currently good at doesn’t detract from the other problems with the class.
Also, this thread is falling into the trap of overcharging the Wizard for the concept of prepared casting when it’s not exclusive to the Wizard.
The Wizard has one additional 1 spell slot per level compared to other prepared casters. This spell slot is restricted to those spells found within their curriculum. Their flexibility is better but no longer so-much better than other prepared casters.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure nobody would complain if wizards got some buffs (and I'm surprised Paizo's been digging their heels in about it for so long). The question is, which buffs? More/better focus spells? More forgiving spell prep? More unique feats? Some kind of extra, passive oomph a la dangerous sorcery? Something's missing from the class, I feel.
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Yeah, I'm pretty sure nobody would complain if wizards got some buffs (and I'm surprised Paizo's been digging their heels in about it for so long). The question is, which buffs? More/better focus spells? More forgiving spell prep? More unique feats? Some kind of extra, passive oomph a la dangerous sorcery? Something's missing from the class, I feel.It is frustrating that some people read a statement like “Wizards are weak and could use some additional help” to be “Wizards don’t deserve help unless they are utterly worthless”. It’s a very strange mentality.
Wizards having things they are currently good at doesn’t detract from the other problems with the class.
Also, this thread is falling into the trap of overcharging the Wizard for the concept of prepared casting when it’s not exclusive to the Wizard.
The Wizard has one additional 1 spell slot per level compared to other prepared casters. This spell slot is restricted to those spells found within their curriculum. Their flexibility is better but no longer so-much better than other prepared casters.
I think any buffs to Wizards need to be of the “raise the floor, leave the ceiling in place” sort. So definitely no “Spell Sub for every Wizard!” thing.
I would like the following:
- The weaker focus spells (Charming Push for example) brought in line with the stronger ones (Hand of the Apprentice and Earthworks).
- Experimental Spellshaping gets a significant buff and Improved Familir Attunement gets a small buff to match with the 3 best Theses.
- Curriculum spells changed to each reference two Traits rather than being bespoke, static lists. Mentalism = Mental + Illusion, Civic = Earth + Wood, etc.
- New Feats that give some unique, bespoke features to each School and/or Thesis.
These kinds of changes would do a good job making the Wizard easier for players to get a decent performance with, but not make it absurd in the hands of players who now now to use them.
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More new schools with new focus spells seems like the most reasonable "buff" that the wizard will see in PF2, as well as possibly some additional class feats as new books get released. Those have the potential to help satisfy the folks that feeling unsatisfied with the current schools, although I doubt "more powerful focus spells" is a likely addition...unless more powerful just means doing something very different from what current wizard focus spells do, and something more in line with what is available from other classes.
Automatic additional lore in some lore related to a specific school feels a lot like adding simple weapon proficiency was to the remastered wizard. It is something that technically registers as "buffing" the class, but in an insignificant way that won't actually make anyone unhappy with the wizard class feel like it is now fufilling the class fantasy that it wasn't before. Having the additional lore tied to a lore given by the school means it is something you can't really retrain, and thus will be useless for most players, in most campaigns. Like sure you could give boundary something like undead lore, and most players would say that is going to be fairly useful most of the time, but even warfare lore on battle wizardry would a useless addition for many players, and then you get to all these other schools where finding something useful and relevant can be a real challenge. Just picking up additional lore as a skill feat at level 2 (before most folks could even take magical shorthand) is better than tying the lore to a school, because you can retrain the lore as you need through out the campaign.
Nothing about how prepared casting or wizard casting work at a fundamental level is going to be errata'd into existence, as most of those kind of ideas are just better off being directed at some kind of new class.
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You’re right that giving a Lore tied to school choices doesn’t overly move power needle of the class (though literally giving them Additional Lore would be nice), but, much like weapon proficiency before it, it’s absence is demonstrative of a problem with the approach to the class from Paizo’s end.
Schools giving a lore is such a simple, no fuss, incredibly cheap, mechanical and flavour win for the class. I was honestly shocked to see that they didn’t include them.
I recall watching the initial live stream and seeing the schools didn’t grant an associated skill, and I knew in that moment that I was going to be disappointed with the whole Wizard remaster.
I think any buffs to Wizards need to be of the “raise the floor, leave the ceiling in place” sort. So definitely no “Spell Sub for every Wizard!” thing.
As an addition to everything else the Wizard has, probably not, but as a replacement for an existing feature, like Arcane Bond? That could perhaps work out. The benefit to Spell Substitution is that it does significantly lower the barrier to entry by making the Wizard’s prepared spellcasting much more flexible, and letting players adjust their loadout over the course of the day. Arcane Bond shouldn’t disappear forever, but could likely do well as an arcane thesis.
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Yeah, I'm pretty sure nobody would complain if wizards got some buffs (and I'm surprised Paizo's been digging their heels in about it for so long). The question is, which buffs? More/better focus spells? More forgiving spell prep? More unique feats? Some kind of extra, passive oomph a la dangerous sorcery? Something's missing from the class, I feel.It is frustrating that some people read a statement like “Wizards are weak and could use some additional help” to be “Wizards don’t deserve help unless they are utterly worthless”. It’s a very strange mentality.
Wizards having things they are currently good at doesn’t detract from the other problems with the class.
Also, this thread is falling into the trap of overcharging the Wizard for the concept of prepared casting when it’s not exclusive to the Wizard.
The Wizard has one additional 1 spell slot per level compared to other prepared casters. This spell slot is restricted to those spells found within their curriculum. Their flexibility is better but no longer so-much better than other prepared casters.
IMO wizards deserves more boldness in both thesis and schools.
For example:
Just like paizo made a bold improvement in alchemists versatility the same could be made for thesis improving it up to you be able to change a spell with just some actions (or maybe a compressed action like Quick Alchemy does in PC2).
Currently school system is just terrible. Instead I think we could add school as spell casting specialization. It's like blood magic but affecting every spell of a type representing an area of study. For example:
And so on (please add more and more magic specializations). There are many things about manipulate the magic using thesis and school that could be added to make wizard interesting unique a flavorful due its studies and knowledge about magic that can easily make it an very interesting class by itself without risk to direct compete with other spell casters.
I also would like the Wizards could get a Bardic Lore like feat to allow it to use Arcana vs all creatures with a -2 penalty and will become a bonus of +1 status after get Unified Theory.
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I don't think giving wizards two thesis moves the ceiling that much. The one that does is, I think, spell blending + staff nexus, capable of giving you three more top level slots eventually (one from spell blending, then expend three lower-than-max slots to get two max rank worth of charges) but if that's a huge concern you could make it such that neither are a valid 1st choice for thesis and you can only choose them for a second thesis.
But hod yes please do something, anything about schools. They've taken a huge hit yo flexibility for nothing. Also, get tid of those uncommon spells, Ars Grammatica delenda est
Some classes (bards and druids for example) have feats that adds more than one subclass. I think this could be done even now in a new book.
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I am still traveling and visiting relatives, but my wife talked her way into a classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game that her brother and nephew play in, so I have quiet time to write.
I described this thread to my wife as we drove, and she made an interesting observation. For a prepared caster, a spellbook is a disadvantage.
The prepared casters without spellbooks or spell-memorizing familiars, cleric and druid, can access their entire spell list. The spellbook is a way of restricting the arcane spell list to a smaller set of learned spells. The witch's familiar also restricts the spells known, but the witch gains a well-trained familiar to soften the loss.
Thus, an iconic features of a wizard is that they must work hard to learn more spells unlike the cleric and druid. This makes the spell versatility of the wizard more dependent on the setting and campaign.
Spell Substitution changes the spellbook from a liability to an asset, but that is only one arcane thesis out of many.
Dragons move very fast, but they still need to be within range to attack and use their breath weapons. On top of needing enormous space to take advantage of their mobility.
I thought something like earthbind would be useful against dragons as well, but it turned out not to be necessary.
The best way to deal with dragons is not earthbind, but a trip or grapple martial with fly, high movement, and sudden charge. Dragons can be knocked out of the air. They have mostly weak reflex saves. Barbs, fighters, monks and such with slam down or trip can knock them from the air forcing them to use their reaction to prevent their fall and taking damage. Once down, then you maintain the trip and hammer them with reactive strikes or similar attacks. They usually don't last long.
Once again this is a Schroedinger's wizard argument absent any analysis of how your group is constructed. It's a handful of pro-wizard players pretending the rest of the group does nothing but stand there looking at the wizard, "Going well, I built my character only to hit things in melee range. So you gotta take care of that Mr. Wizard or we're all screwed."
While groups who know how powerful combat maneuvers are in PF2 just charge the flier and knock them from the air because even with high mobility, their attack range is still within melee range more often than not and have to close enough to knock them from the sky.
Once their down, then you keep them down and they don't make it back in the air.
Can i ask? What do you consider the role in the party is for an arcane sorcerer built in the way you would have them built?
What is the role of a wizard?Now you're discussing something more meaty and interesting that delves into how casters work in a party.
If I'm playing an arcane sorcerer (I would also include occult sorcerer as they often perform the same function) depending on the campaign as campaign optimization is also necessary, then I am...
Thank you Deriven.
And like you said someone else might build a sorcerer to be more of a blaster and another person might build one to do something else. When the sorcerer does this they will be better at it than the wizard will be at it, since they get bonuses to damage/bloodline effects/their 4th slot is more flexible than a wizards 4th. And of course poaching from other lists put sorcerer well above the wizard in some respects.
The wizard on the other hand can change their set up daily to be a different kind of caster. they can from a larger list of spells change wardrobe if you will from just control one day to mainly blasting the next to almost all utility if that's what the day needs of them. The number of roles a single wizard build can choose from each day exceeds a what a single sorcerer build can choose from on the same day to day basis. Meaning wizards are not set into a single caster role if they dont want to be on a day to day basis. They dont have the flexibility within the day that the sorcerer will have as has been said but they can from one day to the next be a completely different build at least from spell selection. Because they don't have the in day flexibility they have more work to do in figuring out what a next day will need of them based on what their party lacks or based on what they can compliment and enhance for the parties strengths. That extra work is actually part of the fun for some players and why they like the wizard and just a chore for others.
I'm going to pre-empt Deriven and say that's only at the extremes, because certain roles, like debuffing and utility, don't need heightened slots, so the sorcerer can still be a decent debuffer off slows and fears (and Demoralize and bon mots!), and pull off utility via their lowest level slots and scrolls. The sorcerer can genuinely cast Invisibility or fly on everyone in the party if that's what it takes, for instance, because they are likely to have those spells anyway.The wizard on the other hand can change their set up daily to be a different kind of caster. they can from a larger list of spells change wardrobe if you will from just control one day to mainly blasting the next to almost all utility if that's what the day needs of them. The number of roles a single wizard build can choose from each day exceeds a what a single sorcerer build can choose from on the same day to day basis.
Right. A single sorcerer build can be made to do a lot of things and all of those options they selected are always available to them. With signature spells available heightened to any rank. No argument there.
but a selection of spells need to be made and signature spells need to be chosen. Once that is done a sorcerer is those things every day till they level up. Arcane evo providing 1 spell change up per day.The difference is the wizard can take on more things than what a single sorcerer build has actually selected in its entirety. Whether a particular player values those other things is a different story, whether an individual player is satisfied with the number of options a single sorcerer build can achieve is also preference. But the wizard day to day can change everything up and fill a role they were not filling the day before into more roles than a sorcerer can.
Also to be fair to Deriven's build a wizard cannot fill much of the role that specific sorcerer can fill because it has heal and some occult spells wizards dont have access to.
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I am still traveling and visiting relatives, but my wife talked her way into a classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game that her brother and nephew play in, so I have quiet time to write.
I described this thread to my wife as we drove, and she made an interesting observation. For a prepared caster, a spellbook is a disadvantage.
The prepared casters without spellbooks or spell-memorizing familiars, cleric and druid, can access their entire spell list. The spellbook is a way of restricting the arcane spell list to a smaller set of learned spells. The witch's familiar also restricts the spells known, but the witch gains a well-trained familiar to soften the loss.
Thus, an iconic features of a wizard is that they must work hard to learn more spells unlike the cleric and druid. This makes the spell versatility of the wizard more dependent on the setting and campaign.
Spell Substitution changes the spellbook from a liability to an asset, but that is only one arcane thesis out of many.
That's why I made Spell Substitution a free thesis. It should just be a given that the wizard can do this to keep with the new features the sorcerer gets to have major on demand casting versatility.
Spell Substitution allows a wizard to trade time for versatility throughout an adventuring day while still having another thesis for fun.
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...Dragons move very fast, but they still need to be within range to attack and use their breath weapons. On top of needing enormous space to take advantage of their mobility.
I thought something like earthbind would be useful against dragons as well, but it turned out not to be necessary.
The best way to deal with dragons is not earthbind, but a trip or grapple martial with fly, high movement, and sudden charge. Dragons can be knocked out of the air. They have mostly weak reflex saves. Barbs, fighters, monks and such with slam down or trip can knock them from the air forcing them to use their reaction to prevent their fall and taking damage. Once down, then you maintain the trip and hammer them with reactive strikes or similar attacks. They usually don't last long.
Once again this is a Schroedinger's wizard argument absent any analysis of how your group is constructed. It's a handful of pro-wizard players pretending the rest of the group does nothing but stand there looking at the wizard, "Going well, I built my character only to hit things in melee range. So you gotta take care of that Mr. Wizard or we're all screwed."
While groups who know how powerful combat maneuvers are in PF2 just charge the flier and knock them from the air because even with high mobility, their attack range is still within melee range more often than not and have to close enough to knock them from the sky.
Once their down, then you keep them down and they don't make it back in the air.
Can i ask? What do you consider the role in the party is for an arcane sorcerer built in the way you would have them built?
What is the role of a wizard?Now you're discussing something more meaty and interesting that delves into how casters work in a party.
If I'm playing an arcane sorcerer (I would also include occult sorcerer as they often perform the same function) depending on the campaign as campaign
We all know the wizard can change daily.
The problem with this debate:
1. As I posted above, a sorcerer has 36 to 45 spells. You can have a very well rounded spell list as a sorcerer with that many options plus your focus spells.
My Harrow Sorcerer has rewrite possibility and could use their reaction to boost hit chances. Also a nice damage blast spell. And a buff spell. Harrow does have some of the best focus options, but that is on top of everything else they get.
2. How valuable is the ability to change out spells daily? You can do an entire dungeon in a single day or encounter area in a single day. You're not going to do do a room, wait a day, do the next room, wait a day.
How valuable is changing your spells from day to day when you often play the game clearing entire encounter areas of multiple encounters in a single day?
Even with Spell Substitution, 10 minutes downtime to change out a single spell. How often can you do that in an adventuring day and how valuable is it?
That's why in these discussions wizard versatility is more a theoretical advantage than a real advantage as many builds of spontaneous casters know how to build well balanced spell lists.
...Dragons move very fast, but they still need to be within range to attack and use their breath weapons. On top of needing enormous space to take advantage of their mobility.
I thought something like earthbind would be useful against dragons as well, but it turned out not to be necessary.
The best way to deal with dragons is not earthbind, but a trip or grapple martial with fly, high movement, and sudden charge. Dragons can be knocked out of the air. They have mostly weak reflex saves. Barbs, fighters, monks and such with slam down or trip can knock them from the air forcing them to use their reaction to prevent their fall and taking damage. Once down, then you maintain the trip and hammer them with reactive strikes or similar attacks. They usually don't last long.
Once again this is a Schroedinger's wizard argument absent any analysis of how your group is constructed. It's a handful of pro-wizard players pretending the rest of the group does nothing but stand there looking at the wizard, "Going well, I built my character only to hit things in melee range. So you gotta take care of that Mr. Wizard or we're all screwed."
While groups who know how powerful combat maneuvers are in PF2 just charge the flier and knock them from the air because even with high mobility, their attack range is still within melee range more often than not and have to close enough to knock them from the sky.
Once their down, then you keep them down and they don't make it back in the air.
Can i ask? What do you consider the role in the party is for an arcane sorcerer built in the way you would have them built?
What is the role of a wizard?Now you're discussing something more meaty and interesting that delves into how casters work in a party.
If I'm playing an arcane sorcerer (I would also include occult sorcerer as they often perform the same function) depending on the
Ok so im sure there is a lot a sorcerer can do with the 36-45 spells they have selected. More so for the signature spells among them.
But this game has over 200 arcane spells in PC1 and over 400 when including other books.So for example your harrow sorcerer has slow as signature. Obviously one of the go to spells in this game. Its a great spell since it doesnt have incapacitate and the slow condition even applies on success. it even gets to target up to 10 creatures when heightened to 6th rank. Understandably one of the best spells in the game. Its only limitations are that it is a 30 ft spell. You can get it to 60 ft with reach spell. the other being it is fortitude which seems to be most creatures best save.
A wizard will likely have slow in their spell book too, but for some situations where more distance is needed to target several foes and will saves are the best save to target they could have stagnate time prepared. And that is of course assuming the wizard knows this ahead of the adventuring day.
And im not trying to say this spell is better than slow or has more uses. Im not even saying that stagnate time is a spell a wizard has to have. I am saying that there will be moments where another spell that applies an effect like slowed in this example but with different parameters like a will save and 120 foot distance and that means there is a time and place where that other spell can be a better part of the battle strategy than the staple spell that is better in most situations.
The sorcerer wont have room for all these different spells that do essentially the same thing cause they only have 36-45. When they want to apply slowed they will just get slow because its the most widely applicable.
Scrolls no longer being consumed by the learn a spell activity has a lot of knock on effects that improve wizard versatility. And the two universal components of scrolls using your DC and the rank of slots not determining spell DC allow wizards to use lower spell slots for niche stuff, something that used to be what you did with scrolls, and now scrolls can be used for widely applicable things, and then ofc if you have damaging spells they go in your two 2-3 ranks of slots. This is not a hard and fast rule, but it's a lot more flexibility with scrolls that prepared casters have over spontaneous ones. As spontaneous casters MUST use their slots for generalist "always good" spells, or be punished
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...Dragons move very fast, but they still need to be within range to attack and use their breath weapons. On top of needing enormous space to take advantage of their mobility.
I thought something like earthbind would be useful against dragons as well, but it turned out not to be necessary.
The best way to deal with dragons is not earthbind, but a trip or grapple martial with fly, high movement, and sudden charge. Dragons can be knocked out of the air. They have mostly weak reflex saves. Barbs, fighters, monks and such with slam down or trip can knock them from the air forcing them to use their reaction to prevent their fall and taking damage. Once down, then you maintain the trip and hammer them with reactive strikes or similar attacks. They usually don't last long.
Once again this is a Schroedinger's wizard argument absent any analysis of how your group is constructed. It's a handful of pro-wizard players pretending the rest of the group does nothing but stand there looking at the wizard, "Going well, I built my character only to hit things in melee range. So you gotta take care of that Mr. Wizard or we're all screwed."
While groups who know how powerful combat maneuvers are in PF2 just charge the flier and knock them from the air because even with high mobility, their attack range is still within melee range more often than not and have to close enough to knock them from the sky.
Once their down, then you keep them down and they don't make it back in the air.
Can i ask? What do you consider the role in the party is for an arcane sorcerer built in the way you would have them built?
What is the role of a wizard?Now you're discussing something more meaty and interesting that delves into how casters work in a party.
If I'm playing an arcane sorcerer (I would also include occult sorcerer as they often perform
Is the rare times when that spell is better worth the trade off?
Or just worth not giving the wizard some upgrades to improve the class?
All some of us want is a better wizard. Better feats, customization, and curriculums. Not sure what's wrong with that.
There are a lot of other classes that get their cake and to eat it too. The wizard has a lot of limitations that put it on the weaker end of the caster scale.
Make it better. It's not much to ask to make it better at things it should be good at like intelligence based skills, make its casting versatility occur in real time so they can get a nice spell before a day is up with more than one thesis, and punch up their feats to make the more fun.
It's not like we're asking for wizards to be god wizards again. Just to punch them up like they did other classes.
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It is really easy for folks that don’t feel the wizard is good enough to say “make the wizard better” and feel like there is a consensus there, but have 0 agreement about what that means.
(Some) Folks say they want stronger theming, but that is more than likely a nerf to the wizard when played to its strengths. So for some folks, that means there is an opportunity to reallocate some power distribution away from versatility to something that silos the wizard more, but if it applies to all wizards, you are taking away what many players who are satisfied with the class enjoy about it. Then, if this is not going to take away general wizard versatility, it is either a pure power buff, or a bad class option. This is actually exactly what happened with spell schools.
Remastered spell schools give wizards more free spells known than the original PF2 wizard had. That was a straight up buff to what schools did. The trade off for that was limiting what spells could go into that school spell slot. (This is ignoring how schools also cleaned up focus spells and mostly removed bed the worst options, as many folks wanted the ceiling raised on focus spells, not the floor). Now people are essentially complaining that more spells know around a tighter theming was a huge nerf that killed the wizard school feature for them…because tighter theming has to match exactly what the players vision for a character is, or else it prevents players from just playing that character (never mind the fact that the spells in the curriculum are called out as being changeable with GM support and the class provide multiple ways around being stuck with specific spell slots that feel lacking, like both the staff nexus and spell blending theses). You have some players who would probably just be thrilled if one school had two or three spells changed to something they want to use, others who hate that schools grant uncommon spells, others who just want more spells in each school, and the problem is that all of the horizontal changes will result in different players getting upset by them, and the vertical power changes are pretty just asking for more power again (hence the nature of vertical power changes).
As soon as you start adding features to the “cast spells from spell slots as much as possible” class that are not about that, then you are just inviting more player dissatisfaction and demands to make those features more significant or get rid of them. There is not a lot of incentive to try to do that with the existing wizard class, and it is a lot more sensible to do that with a newer class that doesn’t get tied to that past identity, which has always been the wizards identity (have the biggest possible pool of spells to potentially cast, so you can create your own customization for what that means in your own game).
I disagree the extra know spells from new schools rarely are the spells that you want to know. Also this benefit doesn't compensate the fact that you school slots are way more restricted including with some schools like School of Battle Magic that becomes with dead slots over your progression. This was a clear nerf from what we had in legacy wizard.
The other point that I disagree is that is better to keep the wizard as it is and create a new wizard like class. The problem is not about we don't have alternatives to wizards we already have many, the problem is that the wizard is subpar and many unexperienced players are attracted by wizard's thematic/fantasy and discover its weakness in practice and starts to complain about it and for some reason some folks here thinks that wizard have to be subpar for some masochist reason.
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As soon as you start adding features to the “cast spells from spell slots as much as possible” class that are not about that, then you are just inviting more player dissatisfaction and demands to make those features more significant or get rid of them. There is not a lot of incentive to try to do that with the existing wizard class, and it is a lot more sensible to do that with a newer class that doesn’t get tied to that past identity, which has always been the wizards identity (have the biggest possible pool of spells to potentially cast, so you can create your own customization for what that means in your own game).
I'd argue that PF2 wizard's identity is nearly entirely idiosyncratic to PF2. Spells are vastly different than previous editions, and that's where wizard's power budget and featureset mostly was and is. If you change the spells, you change the wizard. "Cast a bunch of spells" is only the same fantasy across two systems when the spells are comparable. PF2E casting is not all that comparable to PF1/DnD casting in practice, imo, despite looking superficially similar, so the wizard isn't all that comparable either.
The idea that making PF2E wizard better along some axis will somehow ruin what people are looking for from a "wizard," writ large, makes no sense to me because of the above. PF2E wizard already divested itself of its legacy identity in practice. The similarities are mostly just a thin layer of paint and placeholder promises of casting spells from the arcane list that you've gotten at levelup or bought. What, exactly, are we planning to mourn the loss of? The 1E wizard, which I think we all accept is gone (and I personally don't think even belongs in this game anyways)? The current 2E wizard identity that many of us dislike? Or perhaps this "cast spells from spell slots as much as possible" thing?
(As an aside, frankly, I never would have considered "casting the most spells" a core part of wizard's legacy identity at all. Heck, 1E sorc technically fulfils that criteria better than 1E wizard. To me, it's all about the narrative power a wizard has, the idea you are allowed to break the rules of the mundane, the ability to pull out the exact right spell for the situation with enough time to prepare. Obviously, the narrative power of magic is stripped back in PF2E on purpose, so that leaves the last part as most important to me. And as a result, I frankly think a wavecasting class with extremely good focus spells, twice as many free spells learned, and the ability to cast any spell in your spellbook with one of the two slots of each wavecasting level would feel more "wizardly" than what we have, just because it better allows you to have the right spell for the situation without clunky things like spell substitution. )
If we want to just leave wizard as-is and start lifeboating different wizard fantasies into new bespoke classes, let me be clear—I'm down for that. I'd be psyched to see "magician," "arcanist," "spell physicist," whatever coat of paint you want to slap on an arcane caster chassis. I'm down to try new variants of wavecasters with unique features; I'm down for 2 slot casters with powerful features; I'm down for high-flavor casters with narrow bespoke spell lists; I'm down for about anything they want to try that isn't "this class casts arcane spells and has 4 slots... and that's about it because we've exhausted the power budget." I don't think "we can't please everyone with issues" is a particularly good excuse to please no one with issues.
Subpar is very much a matter of opinion, for you the class feels subpar. But Paizo and others on this board have shown that there are people who are ok with where the wizard sits right. And if Paizo isn't really willing to change it means they have access to information you don't. Because as the alchemist and war priest have shown they are willing to make changes to a class or subclass if they feel it's warranted.
Then surely, we can at least agree that there are several contingents of people that want to play a prepared arcane caster and would be better served by a new class than any of the available options.
As an aside, this is another reason I find the loss of PF1E-styled archetypes frustrating. It probably would be a lot easier to publish several wizard archetypes than it would be to push through several entirely new classes.
Is the rare times when that spell is better worth the trade off?
Or just worth not giving the wizard some upgrades to improve the class?
All some of us want is a better wizard. Better feats, customization, and curriculums. Not sure what's wrong with that.
There are a lot of other classes that get their cake and to eat it too. The wizard has a lot of limitations that put it on the weaker end of the caster scale.
Make it better. It's not much to ask to make it better at things it should be good at like intelligence based skills, make its casting versatility occur in real time so they can get a nice spell before a day is up with more than one thesis, and punch up their feats to make the more fun.
It's not like we're asking for wizards to be god wizards again. Just to punch them up like they did other classes.
Yeah pretty much. But if a wizard has over 200 of the 400 spells the number of situations that come up that would be rare for any 1 of those spells known will be more common as a collection. The number of combinations you can bring to a situation also increase. So you put on the stagnate time to do the party tactic but remember both wizards and sorcerers have scrolls wands and staves to use so even when the wizard has set up niche spells they are not giving up the staples entirely.
I have made suggestions for improving the class too though.
On theme I felt an additional lore choice that makes sense for the wizard school would be nice. unicore made an argument against doing this being that specific campaigns can make the themed options useless. Another place to allow a swap that is still on theme. (I don't agree with the curriculum issues others have because I think GMs are supposed to work with their players on spell swaps RAW). Themeing being the reason the list is restricted not power. GMs should not think of of restricting swapping due to a perceived boost in power if the swap strongly fits the theme. There is no power consideration for the list they gave to protean vs battle vs ars ect..
The wizard is budgeted for power based on every spell in the arcane list being used at the most opportune time. They just assume a wizard is always hitting the weakest save, always hitting weaknesses for extra damage and avoiding resistances, and always from the longest distance possible.
If they didn't assume this then the ceiling for the class would end up higher than one that does always hit the weakest save and always hit weaknesses and avoid resistances, and doing so from the longest distance possible.
But let me go back to agreeing with you more here. Wizards dont have perfect knowledge of whats to come and more often than not cannot leverage the advantages of preparing a series of spells that would be so perfect if they just knew about this situation and that one. in practice wizards do fall short of the assumptions above and that perfect ceiling is likely not attainable.
This thread really should have been titled, "Four years of Wizard players explaining that when they spent 18 years defending power disparity they meant that it was fine when their favourite class was at the top of the power curve."
Ehhh two things can be true. There could definitely be 3.Xers here that miss the god fantasy. I never played any 3.X and never played a wizard in 5e. I just think the wizard in P2E is tragically boring and devoid of interesting, mechanical class identity beyond spell slots. A 3 slot wizard that had scaling features and feats tied to thesis or school would be a lot more satisfying to me.