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Did you all read that new sorcerer feat that let's them spend 1 action to RK with the Arcane skill for everything? Why would they give that to the sorcerer?
Now Crossblood evolution doesn't give you a spell from any list, but Greater Crossblood Evolution seems to give you three spells from another bloodline without even making you change out the spells you already have. So you can now end up with 49 spells as a sorcerer at level 18 or so.
TAP INTO BLOOD.
You have to be benefiting from a bloodline effect but thats just cast a relevant spell and then use your last action to tap into blood for a arcane RK check that applies to anything.Wow yeah. That is a huge boost for arcane sorcerers. Would this make investing in Int worth it though? Or does it as some would say set up a trap option cause a sorcerer otherwise wouldnt invest in Int?
Looking at it i wouldnt myself call it a trap. It looks good but it fits the pattern of abilities others have called traps in the past.
For an imperial sorcerer who will use their focus spells a lot to activate blood magic, that is awesome.
Yes. We made it past 1000. I would bet that wizard has the most threads and the most posts and should win an award as most divisive class.
Did you all read that new sorcerer feat that let's them spend 1 action to RK with the Arcane skill for everything? Why would they give that to the sorcerer?
Now Crossblood evolution doesn't give you a spell from any list, but Greater Crossblood Evolution seems to give you three spells from another bloodline without even making you change out the spells you already have. So you can now end up with 49 spells as a sorcerer at level 18 or so.
TAP INTO BLOOD.
You have to be benefiting from a bloodline effect but thats just cast a relevant spell and then use your last action to tap into blood for a arcane RK check that applies to anything.Wow yeah. That is a huge boost for arcane sorcerers. Would this make investing in Int worth it though? Or does it as some would say set up a trap option cause a sorcerer otherwise wouldnt invest in Int?
Looking at it i wouldnt myself call it a trap. It looks good but it fits the pattern of abilities others have called traps in the past.
For an imperial sorcerer who will use their focus spells a lot to activate blood magic, that is awesome.
Yes. We made it past 1000. I would bet that wizard has the most threads and the most posts and should win an award as most divisive class.
Tap into blood seems ok, but the “must have already cast a blood magic spell" means you are not learning anything actionable for your own character on the turn you recall knowledge. It also probably means needing to keep arcana as a maxed skill which is pretty costly for a sorcerer unless no one else in the party is keeping up with nature or religion.
They have thrown the imperial wizard a lot of treats, once I get the book I will look into making one, but I doubt it will come close to replacing a spell substitution wizard as my favorite class.
I also want to point out that a 15th level caster using slow against a solo boss fight is bad tactics. Unless you know the creature has a very bad fort, you can power word stun the boss as one action at the same range and without the manipulate trait, then cast a 2 action spell.
That's even worse...I mean, sure... but you've completely missed the point.
Since you're seemingly really caught up on the spell slow, the point I was making was that sometimes you're giving up two 1st-rank spells for another slow so you are actually getting a good deal.
Once again, I said it looks good when blending two 1st level spells for a 3rd. But looks bad when you are blending two 3rd level spells for a 5th and gets even worse as you get higher level.
A thesis that gets worse as you level isn't particularly good. A thesis that is overly situational isn't great either.
The entire argument that having more high level slots is an advantage is also a false one. It is not true, has never been true, and is a bad idea to build a class thesis around.
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The entire argument that having more high level slots is an advantage is also a false one. It is not true, has never been true, and is a bad idea to build a class thesis around.
This is an incredibly bold way of stating your playstyle preference as fact. There are a huge number of players who disagree with you and are happy having that option. The very basis of the magus and Summoner wave casting contradicts your claim. Mathmuse said earlier in the thread that the damage drop off is nearly 50% for just one rank of spells. I wasn't sure I believed that, but he knows his math way better than I would try to claim.
THere are great ever green spells at every spell rank. There are also really great new things you can do with spells at each new spell rank that lower tier spells cant do. debuffing has some strong low level options against 1 target, at close range. Trading 2 lower rank spells for one higher doesn't preclude you from using those lower rank spells, especially as they are dirt cheap scrolls. I often cary one of something like slow or fear into unknown combats as a wizard, just in case it is an encounter where that would be especially useful, andi can just drop the scroll if I need that hand for anything else. A top slot scroll is a lot less easy to replace.
Is having a scroll of slow in one hand and one less 3rd rank school spell to have a free anything 5th rank spell really not an obviously better situation than having 1 more slow spell and one rank 3 school spell?
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I also want to point out that a 15th level caster using slow against a solo boss fight is bad tactics. Unless you know the creature has a very bad fort, you can power word stun the boss as one action at the same range and without the manipulate trait, then cast a 2 action spell.
1) Uncommon spell.
2) Will never last more than a round against higher level opponents (which is your usecase where it's "bad tactics" to use slow) and is somehow worse than a failure on either Roaring Applause or Slow, because of course it is.
3) Less action-efficient against multiple enemies than heightened roaring applause or slow... because of course it is.
It's honestly more of a sidegrade than an upgrade in some respects. It's still really good, but to me, it more reflects on how strong Slow is that even hecking Power Word Stun can't look like a straight upgrade to Slow and heightened Slow.
EDIT: Initially said "on-level or higher level opponents" in (2). That's erroneous.
The entire argument that having more high level slots is an advantage is also a false one. It is not true, has never been true, and is a bad idea to build a class thesis around.This is an incredibly bold way of stating your playstyle preference as fact. There are a huge number of players who disagree with you and are happy having that option. The very basis of the magus and Summoner wave casting contradicts your claim. Mathmuse said earlier in the thread that the damage drop off is nearly 50% for just one rank of spells. I wasn't sure I believed that, but he knows his math way better than I would try to claim.
THere are great ever green spells at every spell rank. There are also really great new things you can do with spells at each new spell rank that lower tier spells cant do. debuffing has some strong low level options against 1 target, at close range. Trading 2 lower rank spells for one higher doesn't preclude you from using those lower rank spells, especially as they are dirt cheap scrolls. I often cary one of something like slow or fear into unknown combats as a wizard, just in case it is an encounter where that would be especially useful, andi can just drop the scroll if I need that hand for anything else. A top slot scroll is a lot less easy to replace.
Is having a scroll of slow in one hand and one less 3rd rank school spell to have a free anything 5th rank spell really not an obviously better situation than having 1 more slow spell and one rank 3 school spell?
It's not a preferred playstyle, but a provable fact. There's no use debating as I could only prove it to you by playing with you and showing you how to crush everything with lower level slots within the group dynamic.
Lower level slots are very valuable and I don't like using scrolls as they interfere with action economy as well as take away gold when high level items are enormously expensive. The cost of the highest level bracers with the highest level Apex item while also keeping a maxed out weapon and skill items is high. I'm not spending my coin on a bunch of scrolls when I want other stuff.
Your fights may be long enough for such to matter, but in my group which seems to be completely avoided in these discussions the martials are well built. I must impact the battle quickly. I don't have a bunch of rounds to pull scrolls or launch spells or things will end up dead.
Everyone discusses casters like they are walking the world alone. They aren't. Well built groups don't need "silver bullets" or days of preparation or perfect spells. They need a caster who can impact the battle fast, efficiently, and effectively as soon as it happens, even when there is no time between the next five or more encounters.
That's not a play-style. That's what just what happens in the game. This game is played by groups. They don't need preparation because they are well built too.
Mathmuse said earlier in the thread that the damage drop off is nearly 50% for just one rank of spells. I wasn't sure I believed that, but he knows his math way better than I would try to claim.
That was merely a rough estimate from design principles. The principle is that a character of level X+2 is twice as powerful as a character of level X. If the character's primary technique is casting spells, then the level X+2 character's spells ought to be twice as powerful. The character's spells would be one rank higher, so one more spell rank in theory should be twice as powerful. Note that this is power rather than damage. Damage usually increases linearly in sync with expected hit points of the targets, while extra targets or duration or area or special effects make up the rest of the power boost.
But in practice, most effects don't really double. Some unchanging effects are evergreen as Unicore called them, just as worthy of casting at high levels as at low levels.
The speed of Tailwind is equally useful at all levels until the caster spends all their time flying, but the change between the 1-hour duration of 1st-rank Tailwind and the 8-hour duration of 2nd-rank Tailwind is more than double. A wizard would prefer 4th-rank Fly to Tailwind (not that they compete for the same slots) due to the defensive advantage of flying, but I would not call Fly four times as powerful as 2nd-rank Tailwind. Despite both affecting movement, they are too different to compare.
Or consider Chromatic Wall At 5th rank, the wall has a randomly chosen a damaging magical effect out of four options colored red, orange, yellow, or green. 7th-rank adds nastier blue, indigo, and violet options, but the random choice could yield from red, orange, yellow, or green with only an extra 10 damage from the higher rank. 8th-rank Prismatic Wall layers all seven colors, which sounds more than twice as good as a 7th-rank Chromatic Wall, but both suffer from the vulnerability that the enemies could go around the wall. Finally, Prismatic Sphere shapes the wall into a protecttve sphere, removing that vulnerability. How can we measure the power scaling of that series?
Damage is easier to scale and we can see it grows linearly rather than doubling by rank.
• 1st-rank Breathe Fire deals 2d6 fire damage in a 15-foot cone. Heightened +1 gives an additional 2d6 fire damage, which happens to double the damage from 1st rank to 2nd rank, but it is a linear increase so is only 50% more from 2nd rank to 3rd rank.
• 2nd-rank Vomit Swarm deals 2d8 piercing damage in a 30-foot cone. 2d8 is 28% more damage than 2d6, but the area is four times as great so that represents the fundamental power boost.
• 3rd-rank Crashing Wave deals 6d6 bludgeoning damage in a 30-foot cone. That is the same damage as a 3rd-rank Breathe Fire (3 times the damage as a 1st-rank Breathe Fire), but four times the area, so it is superior to a 3rd-rank Breathe Fire. In contrast, 3rd-rank Elemental Annihilation Wave deals only 4d6 damage in a 30-foot cone, less than Crashing Wave, but it has three modes of casting, so loses power to gain versatility.
• 4th-rank Weapon Storm deals 4 weapon dice of damage in a 30-foot cone or 10-foot emanation. To get close to the 8d6 damage of 4th-range Breathe Fire, the weapon would have to have use d12s.
• 5th-level Elemental Breath deals 6d10 damage of a random energy type in a 60-foot cone and has extra disabling effects, too. 6d10 averages 33, while the 10d6 of 5th-rank Breath Fire averages 35 damage. A 60-foot cone has 16 times the area of a 15-foot cone. The damage is still growing linearly rather than doubling per rank, but the area and extra effects keep increasing.
No, slow spell against a boss at 15 level is not bad tactics at all. The level of the spell has nothing to do with the power of the spell. A level 15 boss even with a good fort save is more likely to miss. As a sorcerer you can chain cast slow, unlike a wizard. You can chain cast it all day if needed if a sig spell.
A slow spell combined with a trip martial, which we often have, is guaranteed a victory. If the boss is debuffed and fails it's save, then slow lasts 1 minute and you are freed up to do plenty of other things.
Slow only failing on a critical success makes it immensely powerful as it has a very low total failure rate.
I'd go head to head with you or anyone else on tactical play any day of the week. I have turned so many battles that would normally be hard into trivial fights using spells, many lower level like slow or 5th level synesthesia or true target or wall of force, that I don't even waste my time worrying about high level spells.
I still remember picking up meteor swarm thinking level 9 spell, this is going to be awesome. Never was able to use it too much because it's too big an area.
Just like that freezing rain spell you recommended. I spent a ton of time trying to find good sustain damage spells to use with Effortless Concentration. I found phantom orchestra because it is a tight area. I also found fights ended too fast for anything less than high value sustain spells.
Well built martials may not have the versatility of a well built caster and you can match them if you focus on doing damage with your spells, but they are also very capable on their own. They absolutely shred monsters and have plenty of control options as well. So it's better for the entire group to work with them rather than try to outshine them.
You don't need high level slots to work with a group of well built martials. You need things that work.
snip
It's worth noting that a lot of the power doubling comes in the form of DC and to-hit increases, particularly relative to opponents you used to be the same level as (and are now two levels greater than). Having a DC 2 (or more) higher than you would if you were the same level as your former opponents means that said opponents fail and crit fail much more of the time. That, in conjunction with the scaling on higher level spells, substantially increases your damage.
R1 4 -4 = 0
R2 4 -2 +1 = 3
R3 4 -2 +1 = 3
R4 4 -2 +1 = 3
R5 4 -2 +1 = 3
R6 4 -2 +1 = 3
R7 4 -2 +1 = 3
R8 4 -0 +1 = 5
R9 4 -0 +1 = 5
This is what spell blending looks like if you take what i did at 10 to level 20.
This wizard is slotting 5 spells at rank 9 and 5 spells at rank 8.
And gets to drain bonded item that one of them. Still has 3 spells at every other rank besides rank 1.
Then add wizards Spell mastery for 4 extra slots
R6 4 -2 +1 +1 = 4
R7 4 -2 +1 +1 = 4
R8 4 -0 +1 +1 = 6
R9 4 -0 +1 +1 = 6
And of course the 10th slot.
i would be surprised this wizard will have the number of actions in all the encounters in most adventuring days to use up all of those top two slot spells plus the 10th slot spell let alone use up all 3 spells from the lower ranks they still have.
This wizard wont use focus spells that take more than 1 action or are just a reaction casue every round in every combat is going to be high rank spell.
Spell math is built in tiers. I figured this out while analyzing spells on the way up.
Power Tiers:
1st and 2nd: first tier.
3rd to 5th: second tier.
6th to 8th: third tier.
9th and 10th: final tier.
But this mostly applies to damage and not total power. You still see damage jumps in those tiers.
The main power of a spell comes from how it interacts with the four level system of success and failure including traits like incap.
Mathmuse and I use different types of math for analysis. I generally prefer data than raw math. But you can also figure out how effective a spell is based on its four success levels.
Slow is a high value spell because it is effective for three of the four levels. So is synesthesia.
Whereas a paralyze is only effective for 3 of the four levels but has the incap trait which makes it only effective if you have knowledge that what you are fighting is within a certain level range so you can cast the appropriate level spell. Incap adds an additional level of analysis when used.
Whereas slow and synesthesia are equally valuable whether cast as a level 3 spell or a level 5 spell or a level 10 spell even against powerful single targets.
There is no easy way to mathematically determine the value of each spells because so many are very different in terms of how they interact with the system.
The entire argument that having more high level slots is an advantage is also a false one. It is not true, has never been true, and is a bad idea to build a class thesis around.This is an incredibly bold way of stating your playstyle preference as fact. There are a huge number of players who disagree with you and are happy having that option. The very basis of the magus and Summoner wave casting contradicts your claim. Mathmuse said earlier in the thread that the damage drop off is nearly 50% for just one rank of spells. I wasn't sure I believed that, but he knows his math way better than I would try to claim.
THere are great ever green spells at every spell rank. There are also really great new things you can do with spells at each new spell rank that lower tier spells cant do. debuffing has some strong low level options against 1 target, at close range. Trading 2 lower rank spells for one higher doesn't preclude you from using those lower rank spells, especially as they are dirt cheap scrolls. I often cary one of something like slow or fear into unknown combats as a wizard, just in case it is an encounter where that would be especially useful, andi can just drop the scroll if I need that hand for anything else. A top slot scroll is a lot less easy to replace.
Is having a scroll of slow in one hand and one less 3rd rank school spell to have a free anything 5th rank spell really not an obviously better situation than having 1 more slow spell and one rank 3 school spell?
It's not a preferred playstyle, but a provable fact. There's no use debating as I could only prove it to you by playing with you and showing you how to crush everything with lower level slots within the group dynamic.
Lower level slots are very valuable and I don't like using scrolls as they interfere with action economy as well as take away gold when high level items are enormously expensive. The cost of the highest level bracers with the highest level Apex...
My pont in the previous post is that you can slot what you want in higher slots if you still want to use more than 3 slows. You have so many slots that losing 1 for each but your top two ranks is not a big deal because your still way past the number of spells your going to have actions to cast in all the rounds of combat for the day.
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R1 4 -4 = 0
R2 4 -2 +1 = 3
R3 4 -2 +1 = 3
R4 4 -2 +1 = 3
R5 4 -2 +1 = 3
R6 4 -2 +1 = 3
R7 4 -2 +1 = 3
R8 4 -0 +1 = 5
R9 4 -0 +1 = 5This is what spell blending looks like if you take what i did at 10 to level 20.
This wizard is slotting 5 spells at rank 9 and 5 spells at rank 8.
And gets to drain bonded item that one of them. Still has 3 spells at every other rank besides rank 1.Then add wizards Spell mastery for 4 extra slots
R6 4 -2 +1 +1 = 4
R7 4 -2 +1 +1 = 4
R8 4 -0 +1 +1 = 6
R9 4 -0 +1 +1 = 6And of course the 10th slot.
i would be surprised this wizard will have the number of actions in all the encounters in most adventuring days to use up all of those top two slot spells plus the 10th slot spell let alone use up all 3 spells from the lower ranks they still have.
This wizard wont use focus spells that take more than 1 action or are just a reaction casue every round in every combat is going to be high rank spell.
And this is important why? What are you going to do with it? I can use level 3 and 5 spells to impact the battle better than level 9 and 10 spells.
That's what we're getting at. You keep showing these blending mixes like will they perform better than using lower level spells and that is not likely.
I've played so many casters now that high level spells just don't mean much. The entire reason I started this line of discussion is because I used tons of lower level spells to impact the battle that are often better than using a higher level slot.
High level spells are not the best spells. In fact, a lot of level 10 spells absolutely suck. Many of your best, most usable, highest value spells are in the 3 to 7 range.
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The entire argument that having more high level slots is an advantage is also a false one. It is not true, has never been true, and is a bad idea to build a class thesis around.This is an incredibly bold way of stating your playstyle preference as fact. There are a huge number of players who disagree with you and are happy having that option. The very basis of the magus and Summoner wave casting contradicts your claim. Mathmuse said earlier in the thread that the damage drop off is nearly 50% for just one rank of spells. I wasn't sure I believed that, but he knows his math way better than I would try to claim.
THere are great ever green spells at every spell rank. There are also really great new things you can do with spells at each new spell rank that lower tier spells cant do. debuffing has some strong low level options against 1 target, at close range. Trading 2 lower rank spells for one higher doesn't preclude you from using those lower rank spells, especially as they are dirt cheap scrolls. I often cary one of something like slow or fear into unknown combats as a wizard, just in case it is an encounter where that would be especially useful, andi can just drop the scroll if I need that hand for anything else. A top slot scroll is a lot less easy to replace.
Is having a scroll of slow in one hand and one less 3rd rank school spell to have a free anything 5th rank spell really not an obviously better situation than having 1 more slow spell and one rank 3 school spell?
It's not a preferred playstyle, but a provable fact. There's no use debating as I could only prove it to you by playing with you and showing you how to crush everything with lower level slots within the group dynamic.
Lower level slots are very valuable and I don't like using scrolls as they interfere with action economy as well as take away gold when high level items are enormously expensive. The cost of the highest level
My point is you need to slot slow and pick the slots, whereas the sorc just uses slow as a sig spell in every slot available beyond level 3.
Which is a better ability for an adventuring day? Reducing your total number of spells and slotting slow in higher level slots I guess or casting a bunch of different spells as needed. Which performs better from combat to combat over a day or many days?
How about focus spells worked in which can save you spell slots while still being effective which further allows you to maintain or exceed slot parity with a wizard.
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The entire argument that having more high level slots is an advantage is also a false one. It is not true, has never been true, and is a bad idea to build a class thesis around.This is an incredibly bold way of stating your playstyle preference as fact. There are a huge number of players who disagree with you and are happy having that option. The very basis of the magus and Summoner wave casting contradicts your claim. Mathmuse said earlier in the thread that the damage drop off is nearly 50% for just one rank of spells. I wasn't sure I believed that, but he knows his math way better than I would try to claim.
THere are great ever green spells at every spell rank. There are also really great new things you can do with spells at each new spell rank that lower tier spells cant do. debuffing has some strong low level options against 1 target, at close range. Trading 2 lower rank spells for one higher doesn't preclude you from using those lower rank spells, especially as they are dirt cheap scrolls. I often cary one of something like slow or fear into unknown combats as a wizard, just in case it is an encounter where that would be especially useful, andi can just drop the scroll if I need that hand for anything else. A top slot scroll is a lot less easy to replace.
Is having a scroll of slow in one hand and one less 3rd rank school spell to have a free anything 5th rank spell really not an obviously better situation than having 1 more slow spell and one rank 3 school spell?
It's not a preferred playstyle, but a provable fact. There's no use debating as I could only prove it to you by playing with you and showing you how to crush everything with lower level slots within the group dynamic.
Lower level slots are very valuable and I don't like using scrolls as they interfere with action economy as well as take away gold when high level items are enormously expensive.
Not all the slots are going to be slow. You can leave those for the lower level slots if you want them right?. But all of the spells that scale as you heighten them will benefit from higher level slots.
7 uses of rank 9 slots and 6 uses of rank 8 slots is good enough to get through most adventuring days (or is that in question?) and you can put in them any spells you want not just rank 8 and 9 spells if you prefer lower rank spells in them.Also my point was not that a spell blending wizard is better than another type of caster, it was that a spell blending wizard is not a bad caster and spell blending is not a bad thesis.
Also what is the spell blending wizard actually losing that they were going to use?
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It's not a preferred playstyle, but a provable fact. There's no use debating as I could only prove it to you by playing with you and showing you how to crush everything with lower level slots within the group dynamic.
Lower level slots are very valuable and I don't like using scrolls as they interfere with action economy as well as take away gold when high level items are enormously expensive. The cost of the highest level bracers with the highest level Apex item while also keeping a maxed out weapon and skill items is high. I'm not spending my coin on a bunch of scrolls when I want other stuff.
Your fights may be long enough for such to matter, but in my group which seems to be completely avoided in these discussions the martials are well built. I must impact the battle quickly. I don't have a bunch of rounds to pull scrolls or launch spells or things will end up dead.
Everyone discusses casters like they are walking the world alone. They aren't. Well built groups don't need "silver bullets" or days of preparation or perfect spells. They need a caster who can impact the battle fast, efficiently, and effectively as soon as it happens, even when there is no time between the next five or more encounters.
That's not a play-style. That's what just what happens in the game. This game is played by groups. They don't need preparation because they are well built too.
Deriven, these are the assumptions underwriting your argument:
1. Your party is mostly going to be composed of tactically efficient martial characters that will cover damage well enough that you can focus on debuffing.
2. Non-combat encounters can all be maximally resolved by skill use and role playing. Using any spells socially, during downtime, or in exploration is entirely for flavor and mostly a waste of resources.
3. The world/villians in your adventures are not doing their own research into the people trying to disrupt their plans and how to shut down your common tactics. You are not facing off against powerful higher level casters that are using a full range of scrying spells or spells like nightmare against your party regularly, requiring your party to have frequently employ their own magical defenses.
4. Your fellow players have no interest in engaging more heavily in learning about upcomming challenges and participating in research/gathering information activities that will benefit everyone. They mostly just want to charge ahead into the next encounters/dungeon as quickly as possible. Thus one player wanting to do these things will detract from the overall play experience.
All of these assumptions are fine for you at your table and work for you all to have a lot of fun. Awesome! That doesn't make them universally true or "facts" that other players at other tables just need to accept as being baseline assumptions about the game. When you combine them to make these kinds of claims, it suggests that you think you know how to play all casters better than everyone else...but really you have a play style that works well with your table in the adventures that you play.
I don't think anyone here is trying to argue with you anymore that wizards would be better casters than sorcerers in the games that you play with your table. Your original interest in the wizard in older additions of fantasy RPGs was their ability to dominate the game at higher levels faster and more easily than other casters. Now that that is not true, and that Paizo has moved the class away from specializing in a few powerful spells and using those spells like a hammer against your enemies, the class has lost interest for you. The good news is that the remastered sorcerer is the class they are really pushing the caster playstyle that you most enjoy into, so you are getting more of what you want for the class you most want to be playing in PF2.
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The entire argument that having more high level slots is an advantage is also a false one. It is not true, has never been true, and is a bad idea to build a class thesis around.This is an incredibly bold way of stating your playstyle preference as fact. There are a huge number of players who disagree with you and are happy having that option. The very basis of the magus and Summoner wave casting contradicts your claim. Mathmuse said earlier in the thread that the damage drop off is nearly 50% for just one rank of spells. I wasn't sure I believed that, but he knows his math way better than I would try to claim.
THere are great ever green spells at every spell rank. There are also really great new things you can do with spells at each new spell rank that lower tier spells cant do. debuffing has some strong low level options against 1 target, at close range. Trading 2 lower rank spells for one higher doesn't preclude you from using those lower rank spells, especially as they are dirt cheap scrolls. I often cary one of something like slow or fear into unknown combats as a wizard, just in case it is an encounter where that would be especially useful, andi can just drop the scroll if I need that hand for anything else. A top slot scroll is a lot less easy to replace.
Is having a scroll of slow in one hand and one less 3rd rank school spell to have a free anything 5th rank spell really not an obviously better situation than having 1 more slow spell and one rank 3 school spell?
It's not a preferred playstyle, but a provable fact. There's no use debating as I could only prove it to you by playing with you and showing you how to crush everything with lower level slots within the group dynamic.
Lower level slots are very valuable and I don't like using scrolls as they interfere with action economy as well as take away gold when high level
How do I know? You keep listing slots they have without anything in them. So how do I know what they're losing out on.
All I know is the sorcerer doesn't have to lose out on anything. They keep the slots and use them as they need them without having to worry about locking them in for the day.
You're that one keeps listing a bunch of empty spell blend slots I don't even know what you're loading them with.
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1. Your party is mostly going to be composed of tactically efficient martial characters that will cover damage well enough that you can focus on debuffing.
So you measure the wizard class by what? How weak the players are around you? Yes. The people I play with all build competent characters. That is how the game is played: in a group. They are doing damage and doing well too. I have to impact fast, not wait for opportune circumstances. I may only get a few rounds before they clear the board.
2. Non-combat encounters can all be maximally resolved by skill use and role playing. Using any spells socially, during downtime, or in exploration is entirely for flavor and mostly a waste of resources.
No. You are putting words in my mouth. I said non-combat encounters have multiple ways to solve them including skills and role-play. Non-combat encounters cannot be measured like combat because of the numerous ways a DM will allow them to be solved.
That's why I don't discuss non-combat encounters or role-play too much. You can have everything occur from a bunch of skill rolls by a rogue, a wizard coming up with a good spell selection, a good roleplay idea by the group using items, and a DM can even allow something as simple as the fighter using athletics to break things.
The wizard is not necessary for non-combat problem solving. No class is. Noncombat problem solving is a group activity where a mix of group abilities are often used to complete such encounters.
3. The world/villians in your adventures are not doing their own research into the people trying to disrupt their plans and how to shut down your common tactics. You are not facing off against powerful higher level casters that are using a full range of scrying spells or spells like nightmare against your party regularly, requiring your party to have frequently employ their own magical defenses.
Never said any of this. Not sure why you are claiming this save to strawman your arguments.
Our enemies are custom built. The degree to which they know what the party is doing varies. There are plenty of times counters are used and enemies are modified for party tactics.
It still doesn't require the wizard to do what? Come up with magical defenses? The arcane list is not strong for magical defenses, another reason I do not consider that list strong.
And I already listed how sorcerers can memorize dispel magic in a level 2 slot, then heighten it all day to dispel things or defend.
If you noticed the sorcerer spell build out I showed you, there are a bunch of defensive spells on there. Because you don't have to be a wizard to have defensive spells on your list you can cast more often than the wizard.
So why did you try to claim this? It's completely false. A real example of a strawman.
4. Your fellow players have no interest in engaging more heavily in learning about upcomming challenges and participating in research/gathering information activities that will benefit everyone. They mostly just want to charge ahead into the next encounters/dungeon as quickly as possible. Thus one player wanting to do these things will detract from the overall play experience.
I literally in another thread you posted in know that everyone in my group takes stealth. Scout is a role in our group. We already had this discussion. Why are you claiming this?
And once again, you don't need a wizard to do this at all. My occult sorcerer did just fine. Rogues, rangers, and monks with dex scout just fine.
You keep creating this strawman arguments to make it seem like the only the wizard can do things when they are not unique in any way.
All of these assumptions are fine for you at your table and work for you all to have a lot of fun. Awesome! That doesn't make them universally true or "facts" that other players at other tables just need to accept as being baseline assumptions about the game. When you combine them to make these kinds of claims, it suggests that you think you know how to play all casters better than everyone else...but really you have a play style that works well with your table in the adventures that you play.
I don't think anyone here is trying to argue with you anymore that wizards would be better casters than sorcerers in the games that you play with your table. Your original interest in the wizard in older additions of fantasy RPGs was their ability to dominate the game at higher levels faster and more easily than other casters. Now that that is not true, and that Paizo has moved the class away from specializing in a few powerful spells and using those spells like a hammer against your enemies, the class has lost interest for you. The good news is that the remastered sorcerer is the class they are really pushing the caster playstyle that you most enjoy into, so you are getting more of what you want for the class you most want to be playing in PF2.
None of these assumptions are true. You are creating a strawman argument that if anyone has posted with me know is completely false. Why did you even do it?
It's almost slander given how much I have stated how we play. How heavily scouting is used. How tactical we are in groups from the very point we build the party.
The only thing I have said is you don't need to be a wizard to do any of that. Most combats at the drop of a dime.
When you talk about the wizard, you act like the wizard gets a day between each encounter to prepare and that such unique silver bullet spells even exist when if you were even given the time, you'd probably slot a bunch of spells the sorcerer already has on their list.
Stop with the strawman claims already.
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Unicore,
A wizard should not be a class of hypotheticals in a group of unprepared weak players with advance information for every encounter to shine.
The wizard should be able to hang on the drop of a dime if ambushed by a powerful group of enemy casters and martials trying to assassinate your entire group.
That's what I've dealt with more than a few times from the DM. If you're not built to deal with a variety of situations that come up including heavy counters to your normal strats, you go down.
The wizard needs work. I don't know why that is a hard pill for you to swallow.
I want a better wizard. A more unique, interesting, and competitive wizard.
I point out something like how bad Infinite Possibilities is compared to heightening and you just ignore it. You literally cast a spell 2 levels lower from your spellbook at 18th level while the sorcerer is picking 3 spells from another list at the highest level to further expand their repertoire.
When I'm sitting there with my level 20 occult sorcerer, heightening banishment to 9th level to get rid of level 18 mooks on demand and if you have to do the same thing using Infinite Possibilities, you're casting it at level 7.
And this is a once a day level 18 feat. And you still act like it's good. It's not.
All I want is a better wizard. They deserve better. They are one of iconic classes of D&D that should be have been built with respect for the class in PF2.
Yet the wizard feels like it was built with the following directive, "I don't want to hear a word about an overpowered wizard in PF2. So the wizard will be one class we're making sure is kept tamped down for power."
"What about the bard?" asks another designer.
"No one cares about the bard. Just make sure the wizard is not overpowered."
That's what the wizard feels like in this edition to me.
Only thing I give them is they have great level 20 feats. Best level 20 caster feats or at least sharing number one with the bard's level 20 caster feats. Most of their other feats are pretty not great.
We're at over a 1000 posts. Man, the PF2 wizard, what happened to you buddy. I loved you all these years Wizard, now I gotta let you go because you're not good anymore. Maybe PF3 or an unchained book.
And I'm out. Good luck with your wizards.
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The entire argument that having more high level slots is an advantage is also a false one. It is not true, has never been true, and is a bad idea to build a class thesis around.This is an incredibly bold way of stating your playstyle preference as fact. There are a huge number of players who disagree with you and are happy having that option. The very basis of the magus and Summoner wave casting contradicts your claim. Mathmuse said earlier in the thread that the damage drop off is nearly 50% for just one rank of spells. I wasn't sure I believed that, but he knows his math way better than I would try to claim.
THere are great ever green spells at every spell rank. There are also really great new things you can do with spells at each new spell rank that lower tier spells cant do. debuffing has some strong low level options against 1 target, at close range. Trading 2 lower rank spells for one higher doesn't preclude you from using those lower rank spells, especially as they are dirt cheap scrolls. I often cary one of something like slow or fear into unknown combats as a wizard, just in case it is an encounter where that would be especially useful, andi can just drop the scroll if I need that hand for anything else. A top slot scroll is a lot less easy to replace.
Is having a scroll of slow in one hand and one less 3rd rank school spell to have a free anything 5th rank spell really not an obviously better situation than having 1 more slow spell and one rank 3 school spell?
It's not a preferred playstyle, but a provable fact. There's no use debating as I could only prove it to you by playing with you and showing you how to crush everything with lower level slots within the group dynamic.
Lower level slots are very valuable and I don't like using scrolls as they interfere with action economy as well as
That is a fair point.
The wizard just isnt comparable in a vacuum. They just have too many options to choose from on any given day. Whether blending slots was a good decision or a less optimal one depends on the what is needed that day. But the sorcerer isn't comparable either until all the choices are made and there is a set day they will both be tested on.But actually putting the argument aside you got me thinking about what I would want as a wizard, and I would not play a wizard optimally with my top slots.
I would go with spell blending and battle school. at level 10 i would get overwhelming energy. The reason is all I want to do is cast chain lighting in as many highest slots as i can.
level 11 being the first level that gets rank 6 spells. At that level with battle school and spell blending I can cast chain lighting 5 times a day. Overwhelming energy will reduce resistance to it by 11 at that level. And from there on my top slots would just be chain lighting. All my lower slots can be debuffs, buffs, control, terrain changing spells, or movement spells, defensive reaction spells. But those top slots would be dedicated to throwing out the biggest chain lighting I can.
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I'm finding it increasingly difficult to justify the Wizard's current limitations when we're soon jumping from one to four different 4-slot casters, each with better base stats, better class features, or both. Granted, part of that I think is because some of these classes are overtuned and should probably lose a spell slot per rank, but I think there's room for the Wizard to be a little bolder without reverting to PF1e levels of godmoding.
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Eight pages into the brew now. Here's a funny feat for you:
concentrate, wizard
Trigger A willing creature within 30 feet casts a lower-rank version of a spell you've prepared.
Cost Expend the higher-rank spell.
You butt in with a quick clarification or correction to the triggering creature’s spell, improving it overall. The triggering creature’s spell is heightened to the expended spell’s rank.
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The talk of table variance has made clear to me that my table style is not stable. I changed house interpretations and house rules between my PF2-converted Ironfang Invasion campaign and my Strength of Thousands campaign. Ironfang Invasion is a war story and Strength of Thousands is a school story, so the same details do not fit both.
Strength of Thousands is set at the Magaambya Academy specializing in arcane and primal magic. This should be the ideal environment for a wizard and one player made the divination wizard Idris. But the player is building Idris as a student rather than a combatant, because she loves roleplaying.
1. Your party is mostly going to be composed of tactically efficient martial characters that will cover damage well enough that you can focus on debuffing.So you measure the wizard class by what? How weak the players are around you? Yes. The people I play with all build competent characters. That is how the game is played: in a group. They are doing damage and doing well too. I have to impact fast, not wait for opportune circumstances. I may only get a few rounds before they clear the board.
Ironfang Invasion had five martial characters (champion, monk, ranger, and two rogues) and two spellcasters (druid and sorcerer). Strength of Thousands has three martials (champion, magus, and rogue) and four spellcasters (two bards, kineticist, and wizard). With two bards in Strength of Thousands, the party is always buffed with Courageous Anthem, and the spellcasters appreciate the boost as much as the martials, since at 3rd level they are casting attack cantrips.
2. Non-combat encounters can all be maximally resolved by skill use and role playing. Using any spells socially, during downtime, or in exploration is entirely for flavor and mostly a waste of resources.No. You are putting words in my mouth. I said non-combat encounters have multiple ways to solve them including skills and role-play. Non-combat encounters cannot be measured like combat because of the numerous ways a DM will allow them to be solved.
That's why I don't discuss non-combat encounters or role-play too much. You can have everything occur from a bunch of skill rolls by a rogue, a wizard coming up with a good spell selection, a good roleplay idea by the group using items, and a DM can even allow something as simple as the fighter using athletics to break things.
The wizard is not necessary for non-combat problem solving. No class is. Noncombat problem solving is a group activity where a mix of group abilities are often used to complete such encounters.
Mixing downtime missions with combat missions lets the wizard shine. A sorcerer has to make trade-offs in their spell repertoire. Every spell devoted to exploration mode or downtime mode displaces a spell choice for combat. But a wizard can learn all three and chose which ones fit the day ahead.
In Assault on Longshadow the PCs had to persuade the mayor and his advisors, repair the city wall, remove haunts from a mansion. and hunt down spies. For the city-wall-repair mission, the ranger had trained in Crafting for making snares and the Champion had trained in Crafting for making magic items, so they had the skills. The druid, like a wizard would, switched over to spells that created and shaped stone for the magic. For the spy-hunting mission, the rogue with sorcerer dedication had invested in Lie to Me and magical senses to become a living lie detector, and the sorcerer had Dispel Magic to strip away magical disguises. Attacking ordinary-looking people in the street would have been terrible public relations, but revealing them to be a bugbear in disguise made it all good.
3. The world/villains in your adventures are not doing their own research into the people trying to disrupt their plans and how to shut down your common tactics. You are not facing off against powerful higher level casters that are using a full range of scrying spells or spells like nightmare against your party regularly, requiring your party to have frequently employ their own magical defenses.Never said any of this. Not sure why you are claiming this save to strawman your arguments.
Our enemies are custom built. The degree to which they know what the party is doing varies. There are plenty of times counters are used and enemies are modified for party tactics....
Thus, I argue with examples from my campaigns so that I can talk about actual enemies. In the last module, Vault of the Onyx Citadel, the Ironfang Legion was very familiar with the party. But the Ironfang Legion had to buy crystal balls to try to scry on them because their spellcasters were mostly clerics.
In Assault on Longshadow the party kept finding spies because the enemy general Kosseruk was trying to track the party. She had figured out that they were the main obstacle to conquering Longshadow and she wanted to attack while they were out of town. (I apologized to my players for starting the attack while they were away, but they agreed that that made too much tactical sense to do otherwise.)
In Kindled Magic in Strength of Thousands the final boss is foolish and uninformed.
4. Your fellow players have no interest in engaging more heavily in learning about upcoming challenges and participating in research/gathering information activities that will benefit everyone. They mostly just want to charge ahead into the next encounters/dungeon as quickly as possible. Thus one player wanting to do these things will detract from the overall play experience.I literally in another thread you posted in know that everyone in my group takes stealth. Scout is a role in our group. We already had this discussion. Why are you claiming this?
And once again, you don't need a wizard to do this at all. My occult sorcerer did just fine. Rogues, rangers, and monks with dex scout just fine.
You keep creating this strawman arguments to make it seem like the only the wizard can do things when they are not unique in any way.
My Ironfang Invasion party were all trained in Stealth, too. They loved ambushes because they were good at them.
My Strength of Thousands party is not all trained in Stealth. The players teased that the rogue is the best non-Stealthy rogue that they have seen. Two PCs are trained in Stealth, so they have been scouting to look around corners in their current maze of underground tunnels. On the other hand, the wizard Idris is using Root Reading to also scan around those corners. They found the final boss's war room and confiscated his maps and notes. They were surprised upon reading them that the boss had targeted them for death, simply because he had a grudge against them for foiling one minor plan rather than for any useful tactical reason. (The players themselves had figured this out, but avoided metagaming on the plot.)
The Arcane Thesis of Idris is Improved Familiar Attunement. He has not acquired a familiar yet, because he has the Magaambyan Attendant free archetype and the player is planning on a Mask Familiar (feat 4) upon reaching 4th level. I suspect that that mask familiar will scout for Idris.
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Yet the wizard feels like it was built with the following directive, "I don't want to hear a word about an overpowered wizard in PF2. So the wizard will be one class we're making sure is kept tamped down for power."
"What about the bard?" asks another designer.
"No one cares about the bard. Just make sure the wizard is not overpowered."
That's what the wizard feels like in this edition to me.
That story is unfair to the Paizo developers. The weakness of the pre-Remaster PF2 wizard is from the subtleties in how some fundamental rules changes undermined the wizard's theme. A class based on spell slots alone suffers from the PF2 adventuring style of taking a 10-minute break for Treat Wounds and Refocus and continuing on.
They should have fixed the wizard in the Remaster, but I suspect that they were rushed. The wizard is the iconic representative of arcane spellcasting, so it had to be in Player Core 1.
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Because of how spontaneous works is actually easier to have spells dedicated for niche uses to be honest.
Let's pick the 3rd rank of spells of a weaker arcane bloodline, like let's say Gennie.
That locks in Enthrall, then put Shared Invisibility because the party stealth options, Safe Passage and lastly Slow for a generic good spell.
Even if you don't use the niche spells above you can expend all the 3rd rank slots on slow and any signature spell from the ranks under it. And mind you, this is the weakest Arcane Bloodline right now, but the focus spells are still more usable than most the Wizard ones.
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Yet the wizard feels like it was built with the following directive, "I don't want to hear a word about an overpowered wizard in PF2. So the wizard will be one class we're making sure is kept tamped down for power."
"What about the bard?" asks another designer.
"No one cares about the bard. Just make sure the wizard is not overpowered."
That's what the wizard feels like in this edition to me.
That story is unfair to the Paizo developers. The weakness of the pre-Remaster PF2 wizard is from the subtleties in how some fundamental rules changes undermined the wizard's theme. A class based on spell slots alone suffers from the PF2 adventuring style of taking a 10-minute break for Treat Wounds and Refocus and continuing on.
They should have fixed the wizard in the Remaster, but I suspect that they were rushed. The wizard is the iconic representative of arcane spellcasting, so it had to be in Player Core 1.
It was in Player Core 1 to get the old school mechanics out of the system asap. As that was the driving concern for the remaster projects speed and why things got rushed.
The reason it delivered a worst product in terms of the Wizard is probably due to a number of factors.
Regardless of those factors, the end result is still a substandard offering in the face of the other classes.
The fact that we have a whole book upcoming with Wizard options (as long away as that still is) indicates to me that they knew it wasn't their best work due to time being their enemy. Hopefully this book will give a serious boost to Wizard options on the whole, beyond just a few extra schools.
I just wish Wizards would stop getting the short end of the stick and that they had a strong internal advocate - something they seem to currently lack.
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response to assumptions about play style
point 1. Your party is mostly going to be composed of tactically efficient martial characters that will cover damage well enough that you can focus on debuffing.
Yes. The people I play with all build competent characters.
Ok, so we agree that this is one assumption about your table and your table's prefered play style. Most of the rest of the party is going to be damage dealing martials.
Non-combat encounters can all be maximally resolved by skill use and role playing. Using any spells socially, during downtime, or in exploration is entirely for flavor and mostly a waste of resources.
You say,
No. You are putting words in my mouth. I said non-combat encounters have multiple ways to solve them including skills and role-play. Non-combat encounters cannot be measured like combat because of the numerous ways a DM will allow them to be solved.
and then you go on to say
The wizard is not necessary for non-combat problem solving. No class is. Noncombat problem solving is a group activity where a mix of group abilities are often used to complete such encounters.
This is in fact just restating my claim. I said that at your table, non-combat encounters can all be maximally and satisfactorily resolved with skills by your party with out you feeling like the ability of a wizard to specifically prepare spells that will be particularly helpful to solve those problems would be of any extra benefit. So I will stop putting words in your mouth because you are the one saying that using spells to solve non-combat encounters is unnecessary, and thus there is no reason to play a character particularly good at doing so.
By the way, I agree that non-combat encounters are group problem-solving challenges...so are combat encounters. And I never said every part had to have a wizard, I have repeatedly said that no specific role or class is necessary to play this game. Only that wizards can be exceptionally good at helping the whole party absolutely smash non-combat encounters, often in ways that make later combat encounters much easier.
3. The world/villians in your adventures are not doing their own research into the people trying to disrupt their plans and how to shut down your common tactics. You are not facing off against powerful higher level casters that are using a full range of scrying spells or spells like nightmare against your party regularly, requiring your party to have frequently employ their own magical defenses.
This was a new claim that came out of left field. It was based largely on assumptions, but they are assumptions you immediately go on to verify:
Our enemies are custom built. The degree to which they know what the party is doing varies. There are plenty of times counters are used and enemies are modified for party tactics...And I already listed how sorcerers can memorize dispel magic in a level 2 slot, then heighten it all day to dispel things or defend.
Forgive me for being presumptuous, but dispel magic is not how you prevent a high level caster from scrying on your party, or remove the effects of a nightmare spell. Well built villainous casters can absolutely wreck any party. The vast majority of PF2 adventure paths pull punches instensely with what casters can do to prepare to destroy a party. I play a fair number of PF1 converted APs where those punches are not pulled and the GM tends to even ramp up those villian's tactics and spell usage over what it tactically recommended in the book.
Again, this was a new claim, and one that you had not previously been aware of, so it was a little unfair to bring up. I did so because I wanted to point out that the opinion that spells like detect scrying, False vision, dream message, sending, truespeak, mind reading, veil of privacy, scry, scrying ripples, etc. are not valuable spells to cast is an opinion based on your table's play style, not a statement of fact.
4. Your fellow players have no interest in engaging more heavily in learning about upcomming challenges and participating in research/gathering information activities that will benefit everyone. They mostly just want to charge ahead into the next encounters/dungeon as quickly as possible. Thus one player wanting to do these things will detract from the overall play experience.
Your said,
I literally in another thread you posted in know that everyone in my group takes stealth. Scout is a role in our group. We already had this discussion. Why are you claiming this?
And once again, you don't need a wizard to do this at all. My occult sorcerer did just fine. Rogues, rangers, and monks with dex scout just fine.
You keep creating this strawman arguments to make it seem like the only the wizard can do things when they are not unique in any way.
Scouting is one kind of information gathering. I agree. Tell me about a time your party went back to town to research a particularly important enemy that you knew was coming up?
My party just lost a character because we foolishly assumed that the vampire in the lair we were raiding was fightible, and not a level 15 monster against our party of level 7 characters who have already fought through 2 floors of a massive dungeon before encountering the vampire. And the thing is, I knew we could have learned more than just "there is a vampire here," and if we had, we would have realized the vampire didn't really want to fight, but we didn't figure that out until it was too late for one of us. That was an example of me as a player not playing my wizard as well as I should have, and so I feel like that character's death is on my character. Which is a fun bit of role playing for our table and not a problem or an issue to fix.
So when you say,
None of these assumptions are true. You are creating a strawman argument that if anyone has posted with me know is completely false. Why did you even do it?
I will say again that I appologize for springing the 3rd example up out of no where, but if you look back at your own responses to the assumptions I have read into about your table's play style based off of your many posts, you will realize that you are often just restating them in different ways back to me.
We all agree that the GM and the Table come together to decide what kind of characters will have fun in the adventure that the players are playing together, but out of no where you keep jumping from there to:
"The wizard is universally, and demonstrably terrible because no one plays games where their strengths are more valuable than the way I personally enjoy playing a sorcerer."
Yet the wizard feels like it was built with the following directive, "I don't want to hear a word about an overpowered wizard in PF2. So the wizard will be one class we're making sure is kept tamped down for power."
"What about the bard?" asks another designer.
"No one cares about the bard. Just make sure the wizard is not overpowered."
That's what the wizard feels like in this edition to me.
That story is unfair to the Paizo developers. The weakness of the pre-Remaster PF2 wizard is from the subtleties in how some fundamental rules changes undermined the wizard's theme. A class based on spell slots alone suffers from the PF2 adventuring style of taking a 10-minute break for Treat Wounds and Refocus and continuing on.
They should have fixed the wizard in the Remaster, but I suspect that they were rushed. The wizard is the iconic representative of arcane spellcasting, so it had to be in Player Core 1.
It was in Player Core 1 to get the old school mechanics out of the system asap. As that was the driving concern for the remaster projects speed and why things got rushed.
The reason it delivered a worst product in terms of the Wizard is probably due to a number of factors.
Regardless of those factors, the end result is still a substandard offering in the face of the other classes.
The fact that we have a whole book upcoming with Wizard options (as long away as that still is) indicates to me that they knew it wasn't their best work due to time being their enemy. Hopefully this book will give a serious boost to Wizard options on the whole, beyond just a few extra schools.
I just wish Wizards would stop getting the short end of the stick and that they had a strong internal advocate - something they seem to currently lack.
I am excited to hear about this but I can't find a product page or any information about it except your posts about it. Where did you hear about the academies book?
Well built villainous casters can absolutely wreck any party. The vast majority of PF2 adventure paths pull punches instensely with what casters can do to prepare to destroy a party. I play a fair number of PF1 converted APs where those punches are not pulled and the GM tends to even ramp up those villian's tactics and spell usage over what it tactically recommended in the book.
I could use some advice from Unicore on how to build villainous casters who seriously threaten the party. I don't want the party wrecked, since they are the heroes, but a greater feeling of winning by the skin of their teeth would be nice.
For example, in Prisoners of the Blight I rebuild Queen Arlantia as a 20th-level witch to challenge the 17th-level 7-member party and gave her some hefty minions, too. But since she assumed that she had trapped the party forever (the trap was a plot change from the module), she had prepared spells for the day-to-day running of her kingdom with only her two highest ranks of slots devoted to high-level encounters. Despite her protective Foresight Arlantia ended up hiding inside a Prismatic Sphere healing herself. However, the druid had prepared Cone of Cold, which counteracted the red layer, so that the ranger could pincushion Arlantia with arrows.
At the end of Vault of the Onyx Citadel both the party and their enemy the sorcerer Zanathura were 20th level, so she was not a serious challenge. But I gave her Time Stop and Bilocation so that she could pull the right levers for a hasty implementation of her evil plan before the party defeated her. The Ironfang Legion's spymaster Taurgreth had given the party inside information that let them focus on Zanathura and preserve the life of his beloved leader Azaersi--he knew that the party was merciful--so the PCs invented ways to slip past Azaersi, many guardian minions, and a big hazard to give Zanathura almost no time. I figured they would do that; thus, the Time Stop was necessary for the plot.
My villainous casters are just not scary enough.
Well built villainous casters can absolutely wreck any party. The vast majority of PF2 adventure paths pull punches instensely with what casters can do to prepare to destroy a party. I play a fair number of PF1 converted APs where those punches are not pulled and the GM tends to even ramp up those villian's tactics and spell usage over what it tactically recommended in the book.I could use some advice from Unicore on how to build villainous casters who seriously threaten the party. I don't want the party wrecked, since they are the heroes, but a greater feeling of winning by the skin of their teeth would be nice.
For example, in Prisoners of the Blight I rebuild Queen Arlantia as a 20th-level witch to challenge the 17th-level 7-member party and gave her some hefty minions, too. But since she assumed that she had trapped the party forever (the trap was a plot change from the module), she had prepared spells for the day-to-day running of her kingdom with only her two highest ranks of slots devoted to high-level encounters. Despite her protective Foresight Arlantia ended up hiding inside a Prismatic Sphere healing herself. However, the druid had prepared Cone of Cold, which counteracted the red layer, so that the ranger could pincushion Arlantia with arrows.
At the end of Vault of the Onyx Citadel both the party and their enemy the sorcerer Zanathura were 20th level, so she was not a serious challenge. But I gave her Time Stop and Bilocation so that she could pull the right levers for a hasty implementation of her evil plan before the party defeated her. The Ironfang Legion's spymaster Taurgreth had given the party inside information that let them focus on Zanathura and preserve the life of his beloved leader Azaersi--he knew that the party was...
This would be an excellent guide to write up some day. If you have specific questions about a specific AP though, Feel free to message me about it or start a thread in the corresponding place and then let me know its there. I would love to see a 20th level wizard antagonist that is an absolute super genius, but is also over the course of the campaign, trying to be the stay at home parent to a new born infant that grows into a toddler, and thus is struggling mightily with getting adequate rest, is getting sick all the time for no good reason, and can barely focus on the task at hand for more than 10 or 15 minutes
https://www.wargamer.com/pathfinder/lost-omens-rival-academies-announcedI am excited to hear about this but I can't find a product page or any information about it except your posts about it. Where did you hear about the...
Thanks! That looks interesting.
I think it will be about a lot more than wizards, but hopefully we will be getting at least 6 new schools of magic for wizards there, right?
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According to Erik Mona, Lost Omens: Divine Mysteries is intended to work as a soft replacement for Gods and Magic.
If that’s the case, it might mean that this works as a soft replacement for Secrets of Magic.
So it’s not explicitly a Wizard book. As much as I think Wizard’s could do with a more direct injection of love and attention.
I would love to see a 20th level wizard antagonist that is an absolute super genius, but is also over the course of the campaign, trying to be the stay at home parent to a new born infant that grows into a toddler, and thus is struggling mightily with getting adequate rest, is getting sick all the time for no good reason, and can barely focus on the task at hand for more than 10 or 15 minutes
Unicore, you just contributed to my Strength of Thousands campaign.
That adventure path mentions three teachers by name in the first module, and ten more teachers in later modules. Rather than having many nameless teachers around, I told the PCs that most of the Magaambya faculty was off on field work. Thus, I planned on inventing a few more teachers and having them show up in later semesters as they rotated out of field projects and back into teaching. I have been working on rogue/wizard Noor, because the rogue/sorcerer/gelid-shard PC Roshan could use a teacher who can teach rogue abilities. Noor is a spy in the Emerald Boughs branch of the Magaambya and based on real-life spy Noor Inayat Khan.
But the flavor of Noor returning from field work (a spying mission) because she is pregnant would be delightful. She would know contraceptive magic, but chose to conceive this baby. Then we can see the baby born and grow older during the semesters, just like we can see middle-aged student Tzeniwe's two children grow. If Noor ends up sick and tired, then her giving projects to the party instead of handling them herself would make lots of sense.
Also the plot of the pregnant wizard has shown up in Phyllis Eisenstein's 1979 Sorcerer's Son. A demonologist sent a charming minion to a rival sorceress to have a liaison with her and get her pregnant. That would temporarily disrupt her magical senses so he could carry out a covert operation without her noticing. The sorceress decided to have the baby, who became the sorcerer's son mentioned in the title.
According to Erik Mona, Lost Omens: Divine Mysteries is intended to work as a soft replacement for Gods and Magic.
If that’s the case, it might mean that this works as a soft replacement for Secrets of Magic.
So it’s not explicitly a Wizard book. As much as I think Wizard’s could do with a more direct injection of love and attention.
That is interesting. Secrets of Magic was rulebook line though, so I would temper expectations for a parallel amount of rules content.
Divine Mysteries is happening both because there's a considerable amount to redo in order to make it clear from OGL entanglements (every deity listed several alignments, after all) and because there's going to be both a bunch of gods dying and a bunch of new gods with the new event.
It's unrelated to other things that could be in the book, but I guess they could put whatever they want in there.
Here a specific spell blending battle wizard. Feel free to pick it apart.
i dont know what im doing but if we are going to compare then im glad to put something out there.
I went with aiuvaran to get elven weapon familiarity for bows to use with bespell strikes for a third action especially at lower levels, probably would have used flame wisps at lower levels too. But for a serious singular enemies this wizard has a staff with slow so no reason to slot it. And a wand of shard storm for the other hand.
Third actions include offensive spells like forcebolt and movement spells like time jump.
Ranks 9 and 8 are mainly dedicated to long rang damage spells that target everything desired in range. Ended up taking spell shape mastery to just add scintillating spell to chain lighting without the extra actionso another forcebolt or time jump can be used instead. When the bow is out it has quick strike so there is 1 shot bespelled per round without sacrificing any spell casting or movement.
I did notice that I dont have laughing fit like spells on the list. I would have liked to have it on the staff but I didnt see one that has both slow and laughing fit.
Spellblending Battle WizardWizard 20
N
Medium
Human
Aiuvarin
Humanoid
Perception +28 (+2 initiative); Low-Light Vision
Languages None selected
Skills Acrobatics +27, Arcana +35, Athletics +0, Crafting +29, Deception +25, Diplomacy +31, Lore: Astrology +29, Lore: Dragons +35, Lore: Fey +35, Lore: Fiends +35, Lore: Undead +35, Occultism +29, Society +35, Stealth +27
Str +0, Dex +5, Con +4, Int +7, Wis +4, Cha +3
Items +3 Major Resilient Explorer's Clothing, Crown of Intellect, Chronomancer Staff, Wand of Shardstorm (7th-Rank Spell)AC 42; Fort +31, Ref +32, Will +33
HP 228
Shield Block Speed 30 feet
Ranged +3 Major Striking Astral (Greater) Quickstrike Longbow +32 (Deadly d10, Volley 30 ft., Magical, Spirit, Rare, Magical), Damage 4d8+2 P +1d6 Spirit
Reach Spell
Elf Step
Widen Spell
Bespell Strikes
Overwhelming Energy
Forcible Energy
Quickened Casting
Scintillating Spell
Effortless Concentration
Drain Bonded Item
Crown of Intellect
Arcane Prepared Spells DC 45, attack +35;
10th Shadow Army;
9th Unspeakable Shadow, Unspeakable Shadow, Phantasmagoria, Chain Lightning (H+3), Chain Lightning (H+3);
8th Mask of Terror (H+1), Chain Lightning (H+2), Desiccate, Arctic Rift, Unrelenting Observation;
7th Fly (H+3), Freezing Rain (H+2), Haste (H+4);
6th Unexpected Transposition, Unexpected Transposition, Unexpected Transposition;
5th See the Unseen (H+3), Stagnate Time, Pressure Zone;
4th Agonizing Despair (H+1), Translocate, Translocate; 3rd Time Jump, Time Jump, Time Jump;
2nd Tailwind (H+1), Revealing Light, Revealing Light;
1st ;
Cantrips Electric Arc, Frostbite, Light, Message, Warp Step, Telekinetic Projectile
Arcane Innate Spells DC 41, attack +31; Cantrips Detect Magic
Focus Spells (2 points) Force Bolt
Energy Absorption
Additional Feats Additional Lore, Advanced School Spell, Aerialist, Aiuvarin, Arcane Sense, Elven Weapon Familiarity, Fleet, Glad-Hand, Incredible Initiative, Incredible Investiture, Irresistible Magic, Legendary Codebreaker, Magic Rider, Oddity Identification, Shameless Request, Spellshape Mastery, Toughness, Unified Theory, Unmistakable Lore
Additional Specials Arcane Bond, Arcane School (School of Battle Magic), Arcane Thesis (Spell Blending), Archwizard's Spellcraft, Defensive Robes, Prodigious Will, Spellbook, Wizard Spellcasting
No Staff of Whispers?
Oh yeah that staff looks insane.
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I usually like to have a Quandary for oh s@&* moments at that level, as it usually gives a round for a breather.
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10th Shadow Army;
9th Unspeakable Shadow, Unspeakable Shadow, Phantasmagoria, Chain Lightning (H+3), Chain Lightning (H+3);
8th Mask of Terror (H+1), Chain Lightning (H+2), Desiccate, Arctic Rift, Unrelenting Observation;
7th Fly (H+3), Freezing Rain (H+2), Haste (H+4);
6th Unexpected Transposition, Unexpected Transposition, Unexpected Transposition;
5th See the Unseen (H+3), Stagnate Time, Pressure Zone;
4th Agonizing Despair (H+1), Translocate, Translocate; 3rd Time Jump, Time Jump, Time Jump;
2nd Tailwind (H+1), Revealing Light, Revealing Light;
1st ;
Cantrips Electric Arc, Frostbite, Light, Message, Warp Step, Telekinetic Projectile
This is a good spell list. Maybe it needs another reaction spell option. But is is also a good example of why Wizards and prepared casters are not as strong as you might think.
There are 5 spells here that you have taken duplicates of. The equivalent Sorcerer will have 9 extra spells memorised. You have some other good spells in your book? Great but the sorcerer knows 9 of those now and can cast any of them 4 times. They will also be able to burn every level appropriate spell slot they have into Unspeakable Shadow or Chain Lightning and probably Force Barrage, Artic Rift, Fireball and more besides. That still gives the Sorcere heaps of space to have several control options as well.
A Sorcerer will also do more damage. They will have 2 blood magic effects from Crossblood Evolution and with Sorcerous Potency they are +2 damage per spell level on some spells. This would be Imperial plus Elemental Air. So their rank 8 Chain Lightning is at +16 damage and is doing more damage than the Wizards rank 9 Chain Lightning. To be fair this is the raison d'etre of the sorcerer, so I do expect them to win the damage comparison and they do absolutely crush it.
But with Tap into Blood (level 1 feat) they do just fine as a recall knowledge engine provided they take some Int. For sure that is not as good a roll as the Wizard would have with Unified Theory, but you don't have the limits of Unified Theory either. The best is a quick dip into Oracle for Whispers of Weakness which is just automatic.
Then there are free action steps from Propelling Sorcery.
Of course a Sorcerer is going to have Scare to Death and Bon Mot options. Following it up with Ancestral Memories for a -3 to an enemy save as required.
Tap into blood seems ok, but the “must have already cast a blood magic spell" means you are not learning anything actionable for your own character on the turn you recall knowledge. It also probably means needing to keep arcana as a maxed skill which is pretty costly for a sorcerer unless no one else in the party is keeping up with nature or religion.
They have thrown the imperial wizard a lot of treats, once I get the book I will look into making one, but I doubt it will come close to replacing a spell substitution wizard as my favorite class.
I suspect that this feat is supposed to be a free action. Getting a Demoralize that uses Nature is terrible on a Sorcerer, so is the 5ft step that you could already do. If it was a free action to activate, it doesn't seem so bad.
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I think if 'Knowledge is Power' was just a standard class ability at level 1 that wizards had and an additional lore per school would help tie in the thenatic (wizard is about knowledge) with rules to give them their edge. Add in a few feats to expand/add to their school spells, add feats to inprove knowledgenis power to add a spellshape as a feee action and wizard gets its knowledge schtick and feels competitive.
While some tables and groups may accommodate a wizard and in a sense contrive situations to make the versatility of the wizard seem useful other classes dob't require 'a prefered table playstyle' to shine. Derivans sorcerer works well whether you allow a lot of prep and research time or not. Other classes tend to perform well without expectations on how a table plays. Investigator in the remaster even got its abilities widened to it relies less on research and downtime.
Wizard is ok but is outshined by other classes. Arcane witch can have as many freely swappable (school slots are restricted) as the wizard, be as good at RK as a wizard with better feats and focus spells and a suped up familar.
Arcane sorcerers are now just clearly better than wizards in most situations and tables.
Wizards need something that makes than masters of lore other just naming class abilities to sound vaguely academic.
I suspect that this feat is supposed to be a free action. Getting a Demoralize that uses Nature is terrible on a Sorcerer, so is the 5ft step that you could already do. If it was a free action to activate, it doesn't seem so bad.Tap into blood seems ok, but the “must have already cast a blood magic spell" means you are not learning anything actionable for your own character on the turn you recall knowledge. It also probably means needing to keep arcana as a maxed skill which is pretty costly for a sorcerer unless no one else in the party is keeping up with nature or religion.
They have thrown the imperial wizard a lot of treats, once I get the book I will look into making one, but I doubt it will come close to replacing a spell substitution wizard as my favorite class.
There are ways to activate your bloodline magic as a reaction eg Blood Rising and Blood Vendetta is a bloodline spell for some.
And the spell blending thesis is most potent when the spells you are preparing in those higher rank slots are actually native to that rank, not when heightening something since heightened spells are naturally not as potent.I just wanna make a correction here. Mark Seifter on one fo the Roll for Combat streams said explicitly that heightened spells were designed to be just as good as spells of that level (otherwise what is the point?). This isn't 5e, they actually took this into account and looking at the numbers, especially for damage spells, it appears mostly consistent with this claimIf Mark said that, so be it.
...but they missed that mark on a wide variety of spells, so without being told they tried to make heightened spells equal to natively higher level spells, I'd have literally never known.
It seems so obvious that things like breathe fire heightened to 3rd rank are just plain out-done by things like fireball, even though the damage ranges might be similar.
It's more granular than that. Level 1 and 2 spells are more of an exception, but typically the damage dice are comparable and like heightened slow and heightened fear are spells I would consider as good as the levels they are heightened to for that heightened effect