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My point about the remastered wizard school changes is that 100% that was a change away from D&D lore that leans harder into making wizard schools more narratively thematic, with a boost of more spells known to compensate, that many of the Wizard detractors who want more thematic wizards ended up hating for multiple reasons: couldn’t exactly replicate old spell schools, the players didn’t value gaining additional spells known, it made uncommon spells available to players, specific focus spells are now tied much more closely to themes that don’t have the same flexibility as before, some of these players want “thematic mechanic” to mean power incentives to cast a narrow set of spells.
So even when a group of folks who want to see changes to the wizard get together and appear to agree about something, the changes that are made specifically to address that broad issue won’t be satisfying to many of those players because their desires are pretty different.
And for the record, the thing that I least want to see return from 3.x is anything that incentivizes casters to have to cast fewer different spells because of the mechanical edge you get for casting them. Spell focus was a massive mechanical trap that the developers were incredibly far-sighted enough to remove. Maximizing spell damage numbers so anything like maximize spell or empower spell were unnecessary was equally the right move, even as it has made the ceiling of what metamagic/spell shaping can offer lower than in PF1. It is a very different approach to spell casting than many games where you spend some kind of points raising your proficiency in specific kinds of spells, but that makes spell casting much easier for new players to try out and not build a character into a trap, and it remains fun and tactical for players experienced with the system.
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First spell focus change was in starfinder where it was universal buff to spell DC, and dedicated casters like the technomancer got it for free as a class feature. Glad it is gone, glad opposition schools are gone. I kind of want schools gone entirely though and to double down on Arcane Thesis
First spell focus change was in starfinder where it was universal buff to spell DC, and dedicated casters like the technomancer got it for free as a class feature. Glad it is gone, glad opposition schools are gone. I kind of want schools gone entirely though and to double down on Arcane Thesis
I wouldn't go that far, I'd just make schools more of a ribbon feature of 10 free spells you get in your book as you lvl
Seriously? Spells known was never a big problem for wizards, they can pay a token fee to learn. That's like saying conjure bullet was a key part of spellshot. Yea, if you take one of two specific thesis you can trade away your 'tightly themed' (frankly I disagree) spell slots. Too bad for anyone who took anything else! Just find a GM who'll give you the spells you want, table variance is a feature of the wizard class and so we'll add more every revision.
Seriously, when people say they want to raise the floor, they mean the table variance floor. It was a problem premaster, it's a bigger problem remaster.
Are we observing the same thread? So many people have complained here about wizards not necessarily actually getting to copy spells into their spellbook... Also you get over 20 free spells in your book. It isn't nothing
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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."
Whenever the topic of the 2e wizard comes up, I see a lot of people say what you said here. What I never see, however, is anyone saying what you say they're saying.
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So even when a group of folks who want to see changes to the wizard get together and appear to agree about something, the changes that are made specifically to address that broad issue won’t be satisfying to many of those players because their desires are pretty different.
The mechanics and scope of those changes just also weren't very good. That's an important part to leave out. A lot of people were extremely excited when Paizo pitched the new school system. The end result of "pretty much the same system as before with none of the core issues addressed" is what most of the people I've talked to take issue with.
It's a direct obfuscation of the issues people have to just dismiss it as "well nobody can agree anyways"
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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...
I do not believe the wizard is power budgeted with that in mind at all. Very few ideal spells exist. That is nothing to build around given monsters and encounters are not built with ideal spells to exist. In fact, most encounters are built with multiple ways to solve them using skills, spells, or just creative problem solving involving GM fiat.
The wizard is built as it's own class as a standard Legendary progression caster with rules from PF1 ported over in PF2 form.
It's why people keep bringing up ideal spells without posting exactly what those are and whether they expect a party to wait another day if the wizard uses that "ideal" spell against one encounter only to find that spell they prepared doesn't work on the next five encounters. It's unrealistic for a wizard player to expect a party to wait a day between each encounter. So building around this idea of ideal spells is not realistic.
There are even many idea spells that aren't even on the arcane list, especially when Divine has a bunch of highly ideal spells for dealing with creature vulnerable to spirit damage, the best buffs, and condition removal. It's not possible to build around that idea.
Even the idea you have that spell is in your spellbook may be a longshot. It takes a lot of coin and opportunity to fill a spellbook with anything close to every arcane spell and most wizards won't even get close.
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So even when a group of folks who want to see changes to the wizard get together and appear to agree about something, the changes that are made specifically to address that broad issue won’t be satisfying to many of those players because their desires are pretty different.The mechanics and scope of those changes just also weren't very good. That's an important part to leave out. A lot of people were extremely excited when Paizo pitched the new school system. The end result of "pretty much the same system as before with none of the core issues addressed" is what most of the people I've talked to take issue with.
It's a direct obfuscation of the issues people have to just dismiss it as "well nobody can agree anyways"
Its been a common bad-faith retreat from Unicorn over the years. Its not a point worth engaging with.
The idea that agreement on problems should equal agreement on solutions is completely nonsensical. Pretty much the only time that happens is when there are no actual options, something that will never be the case in "what cool things can be added to a TTRPG class".
I do not believe the wizard is power budgeted with that in mind at all.
I admit i took it to an extreme in saying always having the a spell that hits weaknesses and always hitting low saves is the balance point.
But I am not far off as the design is based on what a skilled player can do with all the options a wizard can have.Michael Sayre did actually jump in to call me out in this other thread with something he felt was a bad use of something he previously said posted out of context. Now unless i got him wrong here too he basically says this.
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs4mzsg?Classes-that-use-Magic-why-they-feel
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Its been a common bad-faith retreat from Unicorn over the years. Its not a point worth engaging with.
The idea that agreement on problems should equal agreement on solutions is completely nonsensical. Pretty much the only time that happens is when there are no actual options, something that will never be the case in "what cool things can be added to a TTRPG class".
There isn't agreement on the problems though. I've certainly over the course of this edition seen competing and mutually exclusive lamentations over the alleged weakness of wizards from different people. You can check my old posts and see me calling wizards weak towards the start of this edition, but over the years I've changed my mind
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I pretty much agree with everyone else responding to Unicore here. To speak more directly to Unicore's discussion of the spell system:
Also, the idea that spell focus is a mechanical "trap" strikes me as nonsense. I agree it creates a question you must answer as a designer: is spell focus a bonus, or the new baseline? I agree you must account for it in the game design either way. But that doesn't really make it a trap. It's just a design lever. There are ways to limit its power, like making it so you can only take it once. And there could be interesting abilities that are spell-focus-like we could explore. What if wizard could designate a single prepared spell every day that had +1 DC, or something? That's strong, but hardly out of line, and could be interesting.
I've also never seen anyone explicitly avoid spells that would be good just because they don't have spell focus for that school; spell focus has never made someone avoid preparing a good spell from a different school in my years of playing. Admittedly, that's partially because a lot of spells still do something in 1E if an enemy succeeds, there's no chance of critical success, and saves scale wildly differently.
I'm also unsure I've been happy with 2E's metamagic and heighten system. In theory, it's more elegant. In practice, though, it's caused a lot of problems through oversimplification. The biggest issue, for me, has been the effective folding of Caster Level into spell rank, and the removal of caster level scaling. It's made poaching utility and buff spells much stronger than before. It's made scrolls stronger by eliminating one of the main things that made a scroll worse than a spell slot. (Scrolls were significantly worse when a level 3 slot for fireball could hit 10d6 and had more range.) It's increased casters' dependence on their top level slots to be useful. And it's made any spell that requires a counteract check much more frustrating to use. I think making some effects directly reference your spell proficiency, or adding some kind of additional scaling based on spell proficiency, might help add back some niche protection that casters lost.
I admit i took it to an extreme in saying always having the a spell that hits weaknesses and always hitting low saves is the balance point.
But I am not far off as the design is based on what a skilled player can do with all the options a wizard can have.Michael Sayre did actually jump in to call me out in this other thread with something he felt was a bad use of something he previously said posted out of context. Now unless i got him wrong here too he basically says this.
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs4mzsg?Classes-that-use-Magic-why-they-feel
I think the wizard is balanced assuming they always have a good spell option, not that they have the best spell option. Basically, they're balanced assuming that they always have a decent choice (not necessarily the best choice) they can use to target a weak save.
I pretty much agree with everyone else responding to Unicore here. To speak more directly to Unicore's discussion of the spell system:
Also, the idea that spell focus is a mechanical "trap" strikes me as nonsense. I agree it creates a question you must answer as a designer: is spell focus a bonus, or the new baseline? I agree you must account for it in the game design either way. But that doesn't really make it a trap. It's just a design lever. There are ways to limit its power, like making it so you can only take it once. And there could be interesting abilities that are spell-focus-like we could explore. What if wizard could designate a single prepared spell every day that had +1 DC, or something? That's strong, but hardly out of line, and could be interesting.
I've also never seen anyone explicitly avoid spells that would be good just because they don't have spell focus for that school; spell focus has never made someone avoid preparing a good spell from a different school in my years of playing. Admittedly, that's partially because a lot of spells still do something in 1E if an enemy succeeds, there's no chance of critical success, and saves scale wildly differently.
I'm also unsure I've been happy with 2E's metamagic and heighten system. In theory, it's more elegant. In practice, though, it's caused a lot of problems through oversimplification. The biggest issue, for me, has been the effective folding of Caster Level into spell rank, and the removal of caster level scaling. It's made poaching utility and buff spells much stronger than before. It's made scrolls stronger by eliminating one of the main things that made a scroll worse than a spell slot. (Scrolls were significantly worse when a level 3 slot for fireball could hit 10d6 and had more range.) It's increased casters' dependence on their top level slots to be useful. And it's made any spell that requires a counteract check much more frustrating to use. I think making some effects directly reference your spell proficiency, or adding some...
I point to dangerous sorcerery which has been changed into sorcerous potency?
That damage boost looks like it is a gimme to sorcerers because they have more limited options to choose even if they can use any combination of those options. It belies an expectation that sorcerers will not have as many situations where the spells in their repertoire meet the situation as well as what a wizard knowing what is to come has prepared.I will temper that by saying if its not possible for a wizard to prepare spells more suited to a given known next day situation then the wizard is not doing what IMO should be able to do.
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This thread was not started as a “let’s come up with new things that could be added to the wizard to make it more fun” thread, and still, many people’s suggestions are not additive ideas (like ideas for feats, class archetypes, new schools, new focus spells, new items, etc), but changes to the core class chassis itself. I agree that more new schools, more spells, and more new wizard feats would be great to see. The Druid got a bunch of cool, weird and thematic feats in dark archive for example. The Wizard has largely been left out of many of the newer books. An Arcadian gun wizard who didn’t work anything like a magus, but instead used a gun like casting element to shape and change the area of spells, maybe even changing damage types with consumable bullets that also had to be loaded (to help balance action costs) could be awesome, and totally justify a new school and possibly a full class archetype. There is definitely room in the game for more cool wizard stuff.
I do not want Paizo developers looking at threads on their message board and thinking that there are not players out here that understand the design intention of the original class and its remastered changes, and really enjoy what the class offers. Additionally, the vast majority of suggested changes to the class, core features would directly undermine what has been created with the PF2 wizard and explaining why things like spell focus would have been a terrible mistake pre-remaster and even worse now, or why copying 5e’s flexible casting into a system trying desperately to move away from having its wizard work exactly the same way still seems necessary because people still keep saying “this is what we want the wizard to be.” When those ships have sailed and aren’t coming back.
I also think it perfectly fine to have threads in the general discussion forum for people to discuss design choices and frustrations with a class, but expecting that people who disagree have to remain silent or are contributing to the conversation in bad faith is rude and unreasonable.
When one thread becomes the locus for all of those together, ideas and sentiments get muddled and many overlapping conversations happen at once.
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I don't really want a consensus to decide the wizard. I would prefer the designers go, "Ok, the PF1 stuff like Arcane Bond, Schools, and school abilities are hard to port over. Let's just sit down, read some fiction, and fashion a new wizard for PF2 that fits the archetype for wizardly type magic. Let's Pathfinder 2 this up and make it fun most of all. Then playtest it and see how people like it."
The biggest problem I have with the wizard is it's just not fun and it's not unique enough to be interesting. Every time I play one, I find the other casters more interesting to build.
I know people don't consider it much, but this has never happened with the wizard/magic user class across every edition of D&D and PF1 from the beginning. I even thought the 4E wizard was one of the better classes in a system I hated.
But this PF2 wizard just feels bad to play, not fun, not interesting, nothing to look forward to. Just a slog to level up where I start looking a other classes with more fun and interesting class features.
I keep wondering how did this happen? How did one of the most interesting classes in D&D/PF across every edition turn into this slog of a class to play with uninteresting class features, feats, and focus spells. It's a hard pill to swallow when you're favorite class goes from always fun to play from the way, way back time of Basic/1st Edition D&D all the way up to PF1/3E/5E, then suddenly the wizard feels like it sucks.
Feels terrible. 40 years of playing wizard/magic users or what not with a ton of my favorite characters this class to, "Oh man, playing this wizard feels like painting my bathroom a beige white again just to refresh the paint job" or bagging my groceries. Tedious, boring, and not fun to play. How did it happen? I don't know.
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I am fairly confident that is exactly what they did.I don't really want a consensus to decide the wizard. I would prefer the designers go, "Ok, the PF1 stuff like Arcane Bond, Schools, and school abilities are hard to port over. Let's just sit down, read some fiction, and fashion a new wizard for PF2 that fits the archetype for wizardly type magic.
Then playtest it and see how people like it."Time and money.
The biggest problem I have with the wizard is it's just not fun and it's not unique enough to be interesting.
What do you mean unique?
Yes I have a problem with the way that all traditions of magic start to feel the same. The boundary between what an arcane spell can do and what a divine spell can do has gotten blurry. I mean divine and occult have good area damage options. Primal go a numeric bonus to attack in Albatross curse. It does seem like the traditions are starting to mean less and less. Except of course Arcane doesn't have healing.Every time I play one, I find the other casters more interesting to build.
There are a couple of classes that I don't like thematically. But that is always going to be the case.
I even thought the 4E wizard was one of the better classes in a system I hated.
Really it was a part of what I didn't like about it - the greatly reduced spell list.
How did it happen? I don't know.
Hit Point bloat. That has been going on for 40 years. Some of it was necessary and the wizard benefits from it, but now direct damage spells aren't what they used to be.
Neutering of Counterspell - but the arcane sorcerer is still OK with it. That hurts.
Very few long term spells, that hurts prebuffing.
Massive down powering of summoning - getting rid of multiple summons was necessary. But we have troop rules why is there no option for them. To cope with all the rules issues of being able to summon from the bestairy summons are weaker than they needed to be if they had known stat blocks.
All of a players spell saves rank in this system (unlike D&D5 where 2 out of 6 do) so it is hard to find a weak save. BTW I like this because D&D5 is a game of rocket tag.
Melee damage is favoured over ranged damage and is higher in this system.
Then there are all the issues of Vancian magic which a portion of the player base want to move on from, but change was a big factor in the existance of PF1 in the first place, so we get to keep it.
Much of this was necessary, but it stacks up after a while.
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I am fairly confident that is exactly what they did.I don't really want a consensus to decide the wizard. I would prefer the designers go, "Ok, the PF1 stuff like Arcane Bond, Schools, and school abilities are hard to port over. Let's just sit down, read some fiction, and fashion a new wizard for PF2 that fits the archetype for wizardly type magic.
Then playtest it and see how people like it."Time and money.The biggest problem I have with the wizard is it's just not fun and it's not unique enough to be interesting.What do you mean unique?
Yes I have a problem with the way that all traditions of magic start to feel the same. The boundary between what an arcane spell can do and what a divine spell can do has gotten blurry. I mean divine and occult have good area damage options. Primal go a numeric bonus to attack in Albatross curse. It does seem like the traditions are starting to mean less and less. Except of course Arcane doesn't have healing.
Every time I play one, I find the other casters more interesting to build.There are a couple of classes that I don't like thematically. But that is always going to be the case.
I even thought the 4E wizard was one of the better classes in a system I hated.Really it was a part of what I didn't like about it - the greatly reduced spell list.
How did it happen? I don't know.Hit Point bloat. That has been going on for 40 years. Some of it was necessary and the wizard benefits from it, but now direct damage spells aren't what they used to be.
Neutering of Counterspell - but the arcane sorcerer is still OK with it. That hurts.
Very few long term spells, that hurts prebuffing.
Massive down powering of summoning - getting rid of multiple summons was necessary. But we have troop rules why is there no option for them. To cope with all the rules issues of...
The system changes seem to have hit the wizard the worst. Wizards had the most advantages in the base magic system in PF1/3E. And spells and items were more powerful and gated in earlier editions like 1st and 2nd edition. Not easy to grab spells or use items like staves and wands prior to 3rd edition.
Now it seems like the wizard ported over to PF2 and got nerf whacked by the base systemic changes to magic, spells, metamagic, and everything they relied on 1st edition to make them interesting and powerful without a sufficiently interesting replacement for all they lost.
There are a couple of classes that I don't like thematically. But that is always going to be the case.
This has never occurred for me with the wizard in any edition of D&D and in PF1. This is the first time the wizard has been ruined to the point of boring play ever for me.
This is not a theme issue as I love the wizard theme. I highly value intellect. I know how to play it well when the class makes it possible as the wizard has done all these years.
I find it frustrating when the intellectual magic class that used to be a skill monkey by virtue of high intelligence having a meaningful impact on skills, not just acquisition, but also level has been reduced to the intellectual capability of everyone else like intelligence means nothing. This aspect of the wizard has been completely removed from the wizard so that this highly intellectual class is reduced to the same intellectual level and skill acquisition as a barbarian or a fighter. Sorry if that seems wrong to me, but it does.
Intelligence was a high value casting stat in PF1/3E. Prior to that you role-played having a high intelligence as spells were gated behind a high intelligence in earlier versions of D&D. This simulated high intelligence having meaning by denying access with an insufficient intelligence.
This is one of many changes to the system that impacted and hurt the wizard thematically. The wizard's ability to alter magic was also greatly impacted by the reduction in power of metamagic. Metamagic was the power aspect of the wizard since they could harness these feats and received more of them than most classes which allowed well built metamagic strategies in PF1/3E. In earlier versions of D&D, spells were more powerful.
Now the wizard has no advantage using magic. More spells some claim, but less ways to use them in unique ways and fewer on their list leading to very simple strategies employed by almost every class like blasting or some control spells on two or more lists a bard can use as easily as a wizard due to being a 10 level caster with Legendary Proficiency on top of all their other advantages.
The wizard problems are very real and not just concerning power, but the theme of the wizard as one of the most powerful intellectuals in a given world. Wizards are not just intelligence based casters in a fantasy world like in PF2. They used to be genuine genius level casters well represented in the rules with an incredible number of skills built to a high level and an incredible ability to alter magic that no one else could really match.
Now even their genius level intellect looks nonexistent due to the way skills now work. I wish they had accounted for this idea in the development of the wizard as this incredible genius level intellectual caster. Now it just feels like some guy who casts a lot of different spells from a stripped down arcane list with a lot of fluff.
That is not a theme problem, but one of design. The wizard is poorly designed to simulate the intellectual genius level caster they were all these many years across editions.
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There isn't agreement on the problems though. I've certainly over the course of this edition seen competing and mutually exclusive lamentations over the alleged weakness of wizards from different people. You can check my old posts and see me calling wizards weak towards the start of this edition, but over the years I've changed my mindIts been a common bad-faith retreat from Unicorn over the years. Its not a point worth engaging with.
The idea that agreement on problems should equal agreement on solutions is completely nonsensical. Pretty much the only time that happens is when there are no actual options, something that will never be the case in "what cool things can be added to a TTRPG class".
I'm talking more to the general through-line of Unicorns argument that you need universal consenus on both problems and solutions for the portion to be valid.
Its an unrealistic expectation for anything.
If you had a large group of people try to decide where they all want to go out for dinner, you'll see the problem.
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I am fairly confident that is exactly what they did.
More accurately, what they did was provide an answer the question "How much of this do we have to change to not get sued by Hasbro/WotC?" To call the Remaster a genuine case of attempting to reimagine the wizardly fantasy isn't particularly accurate.
Really, the Remaster PF2 Wizard has a lot of the same mechanics as the Premaster PF2 Wizard, which has a lot of the same mechanics as the PF1 Wizard, which got its mechanics from 3.X. At best, the only "new" feature was the Thesis, which is really just boiled down to playstyle preference at-best, or introducing even more trap options to an already-riddled trap option class.
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I also think it perfectly fine to have threads in the general discussion forum for people to discuss design choices and frustrations with a class, but expecting that people who disagree have to remain silent or are contributing to the conversation in bad faith is rude...
Is this not what is happening.
We are at nearly 1000 posts on this thread alone. The only person being called out for making bad-faith comments is the person who was making bad-faith comments.
No one is asking for silence or not to contribute, simply that they respect their fellow posters by maintaining a base level of integrity, understand that their opinions are just one of many, accept that no one poster gets to be the arbiter of discourse, and that they participate as an equal. The goal of conversation's isn't to "win" them.
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I do not want Paizo developers looking at threads on their message board and thinking that there are not players out here that understand the design intention of the original class and its remastered changes, and really enjoy what the class offers.
There is actually a couple of things to unpack with this line of thought, so I would make it it's own post.
I do not want Paizo developers looking at threads on their message board and thinking
You don't need to worry about stuff like that. The impressions Paizo take from anything has been shown not to come from a single source and is apparently data driven. If you feel a need to shield them from oberserving certain kinds of sentiment, obfuscating potential input, if you succeed - you are hintering that data driven approach.
Product development across every sector thrives of both positive and negative feedback.
there are not players out here that understand the design intention of the original class and its remastered changes, and really enjoy what the class offers.
I hope you understand that when you frame people who don't like something as not understanding it, you are not engaging with those people honestly.
You saying that you enjoy the class is great! Let's talk about why we have a difference of opinion or why things you like don't land for me and vice versa.
Don't present outwards and your opinion is correct and mine is driven by lack of understanding. That is not engaging with your fellow forum users in good faith.
I am fairly confident that is exactly what they did.More accurately
No. His statement was not restricted to the remaster.
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I do not want Paizo developers looking at threads on their message board and thinking that there are not players out here that understand the design intention of the original class and its remastered changes, and really enjoy what the class offers.
I will say, this mentality explains a lot of behavior on these forums, and not just your own, Unicore. Lots of people style themselves as white knights in shining armor, rushing to the defense of their favorite brand or company against the evils of online criticism. Please don't do that, because as Old_Man_Robot says, not only does Paizo not need that kind of defense, trying to obfuscate criticism with pointless arguing does nothing but inject noise into what could otherwise serve as a useful feedback channel.
From my experience, though, it's not actually about defending anyone else: it is sadly common for people to associate part of their identity with a brand, to the point where criticizing the brand is interpreted as a personal attack. You can be and are a good person even when the product you are associating with is imperfect, and rest assured that even those of us criticizing the product are coming from a place of love.
It is also from a place a love that I think a lot of these suggestions are coming from: I personally don't want to overpower the Wizard, but I do think there is room to improve the class's quality of life and, importantly, make it more accessible. Reading through this exchange and others like it has helped me evolve my perspective of the class, to the point where I feel their curriculum mechanic as currently implemented is doomed to dissatisfy, and would prefer a different implementation that would encourage building around a certain style, without feeling like as much of a restriction. There is definitely room for more feats, more theses, and just more options for the Wizard in general (I wrote a whole bunch of arcane schools and even went through the trouble of implementing them in Foundry and Pathbuilder just so that Wizard players could have more options), but I don't think character options like those are how one goes about fixing a class that is fundamentally in need of improvements to their core features.
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If everything about the chassis is left alone, could new feats solve the issues people have?
I think it can.
Areas that could be improved through feats
Second tier theses upgrade
second thesis
Cross curriculum studies. A feat that teaches the wizard a new spell(s) and adds it as a curriculum spell
New Spellshape options
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I'd rather they go back to the drawing board and think something else up. making the wizard a more powerful and interesting intellectual caster. Maybe keep a little bit, but make them on par with the bard and druid in terms of interesting build options but simulating the genius level arcane caster.
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If everything about the chassis is left alone, could new feats solve the issues people have?
I think it can.
Areas that could be improved through featsSecond tier theses upgrade
second thesis
Cross curriculum studies. A feat that teaches the wizard a new spell(s) and adds it as a curriculum spell
New Spellshape options
There's a ton of levers which could be pulled to enable improvement beyond actual chassis change.
The Sorcerer got some massive improvements without too much in the way of chassis change.
The introduction of feats which grant additional focus spells, and the standard 12th level refocus feat, would be a start.
I was toying with the idea of a feat chain structure that would be go:
"Student of X"
"Graduate of X"
"Master of X"
The idea being that you could only take 1 of these chains at a time, and that they would introduce options / focus spells along more specific lines of play.
For example,
Student of Cryptozoology, 1st, grants a special Additional Lore feat for Cryptozoology and lets you use this special Cryptozoology lore in place of other skills for recall knowledge checks on creatures (not just weird ones).
Graduate of Cryptozoology, 4th, grants the "Know Thy Enemy" focus spell, which would be a reaction focus spell which works similiar to the new Ancestral Memories focus spell on the sorcerer, but only on an enemy you have successfully recalled knowledge on). So you would recall knowledge, then, if you succeed, pop a reaction to use this focus spell.
Master of Cryptozoology, 10th, lets you make a RK knowledge check at the start of your turn as a free action against an creature you haven't previously recalled knowledge on. If you crit succeed on the check that you used the Know Thy Enemy focus spell on, you can apply those bonuses or penalties to additonal of the same type.
We'd give this feat structure a its own trait, then say you can only have one such line of feats at a time, and you can only take a new "Student of" feat if you already have the "master of" the previous line, etc.
There isn't agreement on the problems though. I've certainly over the course of this edition seen competing and mutually exclusive lamentations over the alleged weakness of wizards from different people. You can check my old posts and see me calling wizards weak towards the start of this edition, but over the years I've changed my mindWhat about improving focus spells for wizards? I think many wizard players would agree with that as a consensus. Other classes, like bards and druids, seem to offer more utility and power through their focus spells. it could be beneficial to enhance the focus spells available to wizards and provide options that scale better.
I actually think the trade off wizard makes in class features and feats which increase the number of slotted spells for weaker and fewer focuses is good for the class identity of the wizard. Focus spells, to me at least, feel un-wizard-like. What does exist plays nicely with slotted spells. There is however something to be said about how Dread Aura/Spiral of Horrors is better than most other focus spells from most other classes. It is also worth mentioning that Clerics and Wizards both are on the level 1 and level 8 focus spell progress as opposed to level 1, 6 and 10 that something like the sorcerer has, and there are fewer complaints about the cleric. People can see font of healing is one such class feature that is worth the worse focus spells, and many cleric focus spells are incredibly bad. I would argue arcane bond is stronger than divine font, because a extra free top level slot is better than 4 heal spells. Contrary to want some people say, I still believe it is the case in this edition that damage prevention in combat is king and healing should be done outside of combat, and healing inside combat is an "oh s**~" button, or AoE damage undead and heal my allies button I suppose
I am in unicorn's camp that the wizard could just use more schools and more feats. The school thing might give slightly better focus spells for people who care (I don't)
I am writing up a homebrew wizard which gets rid of schools entirely, and I have a cool thesis which might balloon into an archetype that gives the wizard a "sorcerer-lite" function in the way that sorcerer has a "wizard-lite" option. God willing I'll have the first draft done soon to be put up and criticized
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I actually think the trade off wizard makes in class features and feats which increase the number of slotted spells for weaker and fewer focuses is good for the class identity of the wizard. Focus spells, to me at least, feel un-wizard-like. What does exist plays nicely with slotted spells.
This could be a very reasonable approach if it was applied evenly across the board.
3 slot 3 focus vs 4 slot 2 focus, sort of structure.
We haven't really seen that outside the Wizard however.
The Cleric is a solid parallel, but they sidestep the apparent restriction by having access to multiple domains. I agree that healing font isn't as good as an additional slot however. That said, with the different doctrine options, the Cleric is probably unique enough to make a direct comparsion not add up fully. There is a lot going on with the Cleric!
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I actually think the trade off wizard makes in class features and feats which increase the number of slotted spells for weaker and fewer focuses is good for the class identity of the wizard. Focus spells, to me at least, feel un-wizard-like. What does exist plays nicely with slotted spells. There is however something to be said about how Dread Aura/Spiral of Horrors is better than most other focus spells from most other classes. It is also worth mentioning that Clerics and Wizards both are on the level 1 and level 8 focus spell progress as opposed to level 1, 6 and 10 that something like the sorcerer has, and there are fewer complaints about the cleric. People can see font of healing is one such class feature that is worth the worse focus spells, and many cleric focus spells are incredibly bad. I would argue arcane bond is stronger than divine font, because a extra free top level slot is better than 4 heal spells. Contrary to want some people say, I still believe it is the case in this edition that damage prevention in combat is king and healing should be done outside of combat, and healing inside combat is an "oh s++#" button, or AoE damage undead and heal my allies button I suppose
Leaning too much into spellcasting makes for a terrible class identity, imo, because the more focused into slotted spells you are, the less distinguished you become from other classes that cast slotted spells from the same tradition. This is a large reason why I personally think current wizard isn't satisfying. "Casts more spells and casts them better" just makes people ask why they're playing this class instead of another one that also casts slightly fewer spells but has actually interesting and unique abilities. That's a ton of the complaints in the thread, even.
Spiral of Horrors looks great until you remember Dirge of Doom exists, does not cost focus points, only takes one action to cast, does not have the manipulate trait, is online two levels earlier, and can be lingering comp'd so that it has no action cost to sustain. At that point you just kind of sigh.
Healing in combat is quite strong, especially because Heal is such a flexible spell. Furthermore, Heal is effectively retroactive action denial; you could consider it somewhat like a backwards-looking slow. If you heal in fewer actions than the damage took to deal, that's incredible. Healing is bad when healing is not even with or outpacing damage, but a top-rank two action heal is absurd amounts of healing, so that's not as much of a concern.
Arcane Bond is unquestionably worse than font just because I'd take 4/5/6 top-rank heal spells over 1 top rank anything on the arcane list over the course of the day until quite late in the game. Perhaps a better comparison is font vs bond+school slots, but even then, font is going to be more value for most of the game just because it's top level slots. Cleric doesn't get a ton other than font, yeah, and I honestly think its class identity is weak. But heal is so versatile, and font is just such a sledgehammer of an ability, that it's hard to complain from a perspective of mechanical strength.
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"Casts more spells and casts them better" I think can be a valid niche for one class, and that's pretty much the case for the Sorcerer, who's also a simple, accessible caster by dint of also using the simpler mode of spellcasting. I don't think "casts spells better" is inherently the case for the Wizard, though, whose individual spells aren't necessarily straight-up stronger than anyone else's. Rather, their arcane thesis is more about giving them benefits around their spellcasting, to varying degrees of success. If these stood out more, the Wizard would probably have a more defined niche, but right now the class's identity really is mostly confined to preparing and casting lots of arcane spells, which by itself I agree isn't enough.
Spiral of Horrors looks great until you remember Dirge of Doom exists, does not cost focus points, only takes one action to cast, does not have the manipulate trait, is online two levels earlier, and can be lingering comp'd so that it has no action cost to sustain. At that point you just kind of sigh.
Not only should occult be better at numerical debuffs, but this isn't the whole story. Spiral of Horrors works with effortless concentration, for example. Making it significantly more free, and you aren't using focus points for much else so the cost isn't the same. Because you don't have crazy focus spells, casting this one is practically free anyways. Within the context of the wizard and how the wizard operates Spiral of Horrors works exactly as it should and is still one of the best focus spells
"Casts more spells and casts them better" I think can be a valid niche for one class, and that's pretty much the case for the Sorcerer, who's also a simple, accessible caster by dint of also using the simpler mode of spellcasting. I don't think "casts spells better" is inherently the case for the Wizard, though, whose individual spells aren't necessarily straight-up stronger than anyone else's. Rather, their arcane thesis is more about giving them benefits around their spellcasting, to varying degrees of success. If these stood out more, the Wizard would probably have a more defined niche, but right now the class's identity really is mostly confined to preparing and casting lots of arcane spells, which by itself I agree isn't enough.
Well I didn't say wizards cast spells "better" I said they cast the most and the most variety. Wizard out of all the classes gets the most feats and features which just simply add slotted spells per day in various forms. Sorcerers should be designed around little to no breadth but very potent spells, and the wizard around the breadth of spells and matching them to solving situations. Intelligence versus charismatic as it were. The sorcerer probably gets slightly too many spells known, but even then it's simply intellectually dishonest to say wizards do not access more of the arcane list to a pretty significant degree and does not do so reliably. Or that wizards cannot utilize scrolls better because niche spells can be more easily prepped day-to-day and predicted if they will be needed in a given day in this basis as opposed to on the basis of down time when you get scrolls. Sorcerers have to use their slots for their daily drivers and scrolls for niche stuff, wizards can use scrolls to fill up on daily useful stuff and prep niche stuff day to day as the challenges become known. This is even easier with spell substitution where you only have to consider this in ten minutes intervals rather than daily ones
I digress though. My point is just that I think the wizard does have flavor, a niche, a good reason to play it, cool and exciting features etc, but that people typically don't vibe with this and that is ok. I don't think every class should be for everyone and that the sorcerer should be the hotter sexier and more accessible option for most people
That said I do think the imperial focus spell makes me jealous, but y'know. I think knowledge is power should be a class feature that gives the -1 on a success, doesn't give the bonuses to your defenses or whatever, and gives this bonus to allies on a crit success, and that you get this at level 1. Then we could have a reason imperial gets a focus spell that does what it does
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Not only should occult be better at numerical debuffs, but
Out of interest, why does this feel like it should be true to you?
The tradition demarcation between Arcane and Occult is on the Spirit / Matter axis, with both having Mind as a shared essence.
So I can see, for instance, Arcane being better at fort targeting debuffs and Occult being better at will, with equal access to reflex.
But I'm not sold on the idea that one traditional should just have higher numerical penalties than the others.
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If "casts more spells" is uninteresting to you, then maybe you should play a different class? Expecting people who want to cast more spells to play a sorcerer, who in fact cannot cast all that many different spells, is removing a currently unique class identity. "Casts fewer spells better" clearly is the stamp they are trying to put on the sorcerer post remastery. They have removed the sorcerer's ability to poach spells from other traditions and doubled down on incentivizing casting blood magic spells to help secure this niche of limited number of spells that get a boost. Isn't that a strong indicator that the specialist mage from other games is a sorcerer in PF2?
Some players want a class that is "preparing and casting lots of different arcane spells" and the wizard allows this fantasy very well. Your wizard is defined primarily by the spells you choose to learn and memorize regularly and what kinds of problems to focus on solving with your spell selection, not from character building choices you are siloed into.
So that leaves schools as a somewhat confusing class feature for some players. On the one hand, it limits a bit of the "define your character by your own spell selection," by giving you a handful of pre-defined spells known and slot just for casting those spells. On the other hand, it is a limit that has multiple work arounds and also gives you a predefined focus spell and option for later focus spell that you can't really get anywhere else that is a pretty strong ability (except for the school of protean form, its rank 4 focus spell probably could have been its rank 1 focus spell and hardly compares to getting a scrying sensor for an hour, at will invisibility that eventually lasts for an hour, or the ability to gain and dish out temp HP every time you cast a spell).
There are a lot of good focus spells in the wizard schools, but they are pretty restricted by being school spells, so there is much less of an ability to pick and choose and combine them like there is with most other classes. I think that limitation is intentional to further push the wizard to be rigid on focus spells and flexible on spell slot spells.
Personally, I want a class that is as flexible with spell slot spells as possible, with as many slots as possible, which is why I enjoy the PF2 wizard class so much. And maybe it seems callus, but I don't really care if people want the opposite out of the wizard (more flexibility with features and focus spells, less with spell slots) because the game is absolutely stacked with casters that trade slots for class features and focus spells, and will continue to get more new caster classes that lean further into that, but probably never a class that strips out all focus spells, class features not focused exclusively on casting spells from spell slots (so including weapon proficiencies, but excluding things like theses), to just give as many spell slots as possible and especially spell slots that can be changed out as often as possible. The wizard really is it as far as that class goes, which is definitely why I get defensive about suggestions to gut that most defining and niche feature of the class.
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The sorcerer being able to cast the same amount of spells as the wizard, but also having better features, focus spells and feats really makes wizards looks anemic.
And if Oracle turns out to indeed change to 4 slots... that have 8hp/lvl, better saves proficiency and also cursebound stuff that are basically focus spells that uses another resource... I will laugh to not cry.
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Well I didn't say wizards cast spells "better" I said they cast the most and the most variety.
To be clear, my answer was to Witch of Miracles' post, rather than yours:
"Casts more spells and casts them better" just makes people ask why they're playing this class instead of another one that also casts slightly fewer spells but has actually interesting and unique abilities.
I also think they make a valid point that ties into yours: it is generally difficult to make "casts more spells" a class's entire identity and have it appeal to a lot of people, but in the Wizard's case I also don't think it's really the vibe most people get out of playing a brainy spellcaster who learns their magic. It certainly wasn't the Wizard's niche in 1e, where they cast the same number of spells as a Druid, plus the one spell they could cast via their bonded item, so much less than a Sorcerer. There's certainly a lot of potential to the Wizard's theme in my opinion, like their ability to "cheat" with magic in ways others can't access in the same way, or be really studious in general, but that's not something the class explores in great depth. It's impossible for them to right now, because so much of their power budget is allocated to their fourth slot, which is why it's disappointing to many that that benefit has been reduced to a point where it's sometimes impossible to use it to its fullest extent.
Not only should occult be better at numerical debuffs, butOut of interest, why does this feel like it should be true to you?
The tradition demarcation between Arcane and Occult is on the Spirit / Matter axis, with both having Mind as a shared essence.
So I can see, for instance, Arcane being better at fort targeting debuffs and Occult being better at will, with equal access to reflex.
But I'm not sold on the idea that one traditional should just have higher numerical penalties than the others.
So I want the lists to be tighter and less broad than they are now, with maybe arcane getting to be *slightly*, ever so slightly, more broad.... If it makes sense... Maybe.
So I think for example necromancy should be removed from every tradition but divine. I think numerical buffs should be the domain of occult and divine exclusively and that debuffs likewise fit more spirit than anything. I can see why we might still want this or that numerical debuffs in arcane, but that occult really should be the "debuffer" tradition. In contrast I think arcane should have the best battlefield control. The confusion lies in that a lot of people call battlefield control debuffs, and I've even seen Deriven call wall of stone "utility" primarily not battlefield control primarily. So when I say debuff I am differentiating it from slow, walls of stone etc.
I want the traditions to have a lot of fat trimmed and to get very narrowly focused. Then instead of big broad lists that eat a lot of power budget, we give specific subclasses access to spells from another tradition where appropriate. This means we have to make hard decisions and just remove stuff from traditions completely to really get the power increase to caster classes we want and from here can give more features and abilities which decrease the already absurd homogeneity of classes
So to give examples, the traditions should be as such:
Arcane gets exclusive access to force spells now that spirit exists and is different from force. Force is now magic quintessence and I think you should need to be arcane to access it, but that occult and divine, which previously had force spells, now get spells which do spirit focused things and spirit damage.
The way I see it arcane would be focused on battlefield control, blasts and utility. Divine on buffing the party, party protection and healing. Occult on debuffing, buffing and utility. Primal on summoning, blasting and healing
Then say, a spooky wizard maybe gets necromancy, and a cleric of Nethys gets force spells etc. Fey sorcerer might be a primal caster but gets all those cool occult spells like fear, charm and such
So, how's this as a take on changing the Wizard:
Arcane schools no longer give you a fourth slot or a curriculum of spells that you automatically learn. Instead, your arcane school gives you the following:
Warding Spell (Single Action)
concentrate, spellshape, wizard
Combining battle tactics with your command of the arcane, you use your offense to shore up your defenses by crafting a ward out of your spell's energy. If your next action is to Cast a non-cantrip Spell that deals damage, choose a willing creature within 30 feet of the spell's target or area, as well as one of the spell's damage types. The creature gains temporary Hit Points equal to the spell's rank for 1 minute, and while any of those temporary Hit Points remain, the creature also gains resistance to the chosen damage type equal to the spell's rank.
In exchange for no longer being a 4-slot caster by default, each arcane thesis could be made significantly stronger, and more could be added. For instance:
The general idea here is that the Wizard would lose spell output as a baseline, but instead have much more flexibility over their ability to cast spells, meatier arcane theses that'd have more of an impact on their playstyle, and just generally more stuff that'd feel bespoke to the class. The intent is to make the class more accessible without necessarily raising their power ceiling, but also to still let players regain the option to cast more spells if they want through Arcane Bond.
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Spiral of Horrors looks great until you remember Dirge of Doom exists, does not cost focus points, only takes one action to cast, does not have the manipulate trait, is online two levels earlier, and can be lingering comp'd so that it has no action cost to sustain. At that point you just kind of sigh.Not only should occult be better at numerical debuffs, but this isn't the whole story. Spiral of Horrors works with effortless concentration, for example. Making it significantly more free, and you aren't using focus points for much else so the cost isn't the same. Because you don't have crazy focus spells, casting this one is practically free anyways. Within the context of the wizard and how the wizard operates Spiral of Horrors works exactly as it should and is still one of the best focus spells
Honestly, the demarcation between "arcane" and "occult" from 1E that I think was intended to be ported into 2E is something like, "occult is a watered down arcane list that lets us give more power budget into class features like hexes." Witch's spell list in 1E has substantial omissions (like haste!) to make room for powerful effects like evil eye, fly hex, cauldron hex, and slumber. The occult list isn't nearly as watered down in 2E, though, so this starts to feel less and less like a fair trade. Occult doesn't lose any truly important debuff or utility spells in 2E, especially post-remaster.
Effortless concentration is a 16th level feat. That bard also gets. I'm unsure I follow the relevance, unless you want to actually make it look even worse because bard can sustain a different spell for free and also have dirge going.
Spiral of Horrors just does not feel good to cast on your turn, because its action efficiency becomes increasingly worse the longer the game runs. If you want to inflict frightened, there are better spells for this if you want to spend two actions. And Spiral of Horrors demands you stay in stride distance of enemies as a class with no armor proficiencies, poor save progression, and expert defense—on a turn you also cannot cast mirror image, blur, or another spell, which is a problem Dirge of Doom very notably does not have for the Bard.
If "casts more spells" is uninteresting to you, then maybe you should play a different class?
Generally speaking, that's exactly what I have chosen to do. But I still find it sad, as I have historically enjoyed playing and building wizards, clerics, witches, druids, and prepared casters in general. I am unhappy to see wizard in a state that does not excite me.
Casting large amounts of spells is not as exciting as casting impactful spells, and the guesswork a wizard is locked into means they are set up to fail at casting large amounts of impactful spells without spellsub and an accommodating GM and group—especially when compared to spontaneous casters.
I've also got to be honest: we've kind of treated it as a given that wizard is good at casting a lot of different spells, but as Mathmuse brought up earlier, a spellbook is actually a liability in that pursuit. Anyone who purely desires to cast a ton of spells will have an easier, less table-dependent time doing so on a Druid or Cleric. Free access to all the common spells on a spell list is quite the drug for versatile prepared casting. Those spell lists are generally less powerful, but the strongest spell for the situation is the one you can actually have, and there's no mother-may-I or gold spending with the common spells on those lists. If you need Foraging Friends for whatever reason, it's yours. Wizard is only good at casting a lot of arcane spells, and that list is increasingly devalued.
Personally, I want a class that is as flexible with spell slot spells as possible, with as many slots as possible, which is why I enjoy the PF2 wizard class so much. And maybe it seems callus, but I don't really care if people want the opposite out of the wizard (more flexibility with features and focus spells, less with spell slots) because the game is absolutely stacked with casters that trade slots for class features and focus spells, and will continue to get more new caster classes that lean further into that, but probably never a class that strips out all focus spells, class features not focused exclusively on casting spells from spell slots (so including weapon proficiencies, but excluding things like theses), to just give as many spell slots as possible and especially spell slots that can be changed out as often as possible. The wizard really is it as far as that class goes, which is definitely why I get defensive about suggestions to gut that most defining and niche feature of the class.
Hypothetically, if dropping even more class features opened wizard to being a true 5 slot caster, would you make that trade? Say you lose focus spells entirely, the feats are somehow worse (or perhaps you actually get fewer than other classes, even half as many—maybe this could push you to 6 slots?), you only get school spells for free after the first level but learn spells at half cost. Is that a trade you'd make?
Also, the game isn't really "stacked" with those kinds of casters for the arcane list. Your options for a normal prepared arcane caster are arcane witch and wizard, and even arcane witch is a bit worrying. Other playstyles and spell lists have more interesting options, but both prepared arcane casters are decidedly underwhelming to me.
Honestly, the demarcation between "arcane" and "occult" from 1E that I think was intended to be ported into 2E is something like, "occult is a watered down arcane list that lets us give more power budget into class features like hexes." Witch's spell list in 1E has substantial omissions (like haste!) to make room for powerful effects like evil eye, fly hex, cauldron hex, and slumber. The occult list isn't nearly as watered down in 2E, though, so this starts to feel less and less like a fair trade. Occult doesn't lose any truly important debuff or utility spells in 2E, especially post-remaster.
Genuinely I do not know where you're getting the connection between the witch and occult from. The witch is from the advanced players guide which came out in 2010 and occult adventures came out in 2015. Witch was described as an arcane caster, and the occult spellcaster introduced in occult adventures was the Psychic
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Honestly, the demarcation between "arcane" and "occult" from 1E that I think was intended to be ported into 2E is something like, "occult is a watered down arcane list that lets us give more power budget into class features like hexes." Witch's spell list in 1E has substantial omissions (like haste!) to make room for powerful effects like evil eye, fly hex, cauldron hex, and slumber. The occult list isn't nearly as watered down in 2E, though, so this starts to feel less and less like a fair trade. Occult doesn't lose any truly important debuff or utility spells in 2E, especially post-remaster.Genuinely I do not know where you're getting the connection between the witch and occult from. The witch is from the advanced players guide which came out in 2010 and occult adventures came out in 2015. Witch was described as an arcane caster, and the occult spellcaster introduced in occult adventures was the Psychic
The function of psychic spells in 1E and the function of occult spells in 2E are vastly, vastly different. Psychic does not have traditional blasts, but it does not possess a "watered down" spell list that is missing important utility. It is a pure spontaneous caster with a few small bells and whistles (almost all tied to spellcasts), and it's reliant on its spellslots.
Occult spells and classes in 2E are largely more akin to the 1E witch: lots of class power budget in bespoke features like bard songs. When 2E was in playtesting, I even noted that bard was the single best choice to port a witch into the system.
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What would the power budget exchange be if wizards didn't get focus spells at all and instead had more uses of drain bonded item + got some interesting extra effects when they used drain bonded item.
The effects could be based on school to add theming.
Hmm maybe too close to blood magic
The function of psychic spells in 1E and the function of occult spells in 2E are vastly, vastly different. Psychic does not have traditional blasts, but it does not possess a "watered down" spell list that is missing important utility. It is a pure spontaneous caster with a few small bells and whistles (almost all tied to spellcasts), and it's reliant on its spellslots.
Occult spells and classes in 2E are largely more akin to the 1E witch: lots of class power budget in bespoke features like bard songs. When 2E was in playtesting, I even noted that bard was the single best choice to port a witch into the system.
I don't necessarily disagree, and that kind of gets into my point. Witch was a master debuffer
No. His statement was not restricted to the remaster.I am fairly confident that is exactly what they did.More accurately
It doesn't matter if it is or not because even something as basic as Premaster to Remaster, little has changed for the Wizard mechanically. Really, the Wizard is about the same as it's been since 3.X, and is at-best streamlined to the new system.
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I also think it perfectly fine to have threads in the general discussion forum for people to discuss design choices and frustrations with a class, but expecting that people who disagree have to remain silent or are contributing to the conversation in bad faith is rude...
Is this not what is happening.
We are at nearly 1000 posts on this thread alone. The only person being called out for making bad-faith comments is the person who was making bad-faith comments.
This is always cited as the argument.
But it's literally always the same people making the same 1000 posts.
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This is always cited as the argument.
But it's literally always the same people making the same 1000 posts.
It's literally always the same people posting on these forums. I would say there are fewer than 100 people actively posting in this space, possibly even less than 50, so of course you're going to keep running into familiar faces.
It is kind of a moot point to talk about making major changes to the wizard chassis, because they aren’t going to remaster the remastered classes.
Giving up focus spells in class would be about exactly as much of a power shift as just requiring class feats to pick them up. Any class that has no focus spells can start picking them up as early as second level so the difference between none and “none I like” is very minimal.
You really can’t have a class that doesn’t get class feats at every even level in PF2. It would make the class impossible to archetype into or out of. You could have feats for picking up additional spells from spell slots…which the game already has covered, both in class for wizards, and via archetype.
Maybe, maybe you could sneak into an errata removing the automatic focus spell from your school choice, give the wizard a 1st level class feat, and then give the focus spell back as a level 1 class feat, but have a new class feat that would let you pick up the spell book of a second school, learn 2 of that school’s 1st rank school spells, and then treat all of that school’s school spells as your school spells when assigning daily slots.