|
| 13 people marked this as a favorite. |
On side note can somebody explain why Wizard still get less basic trained skills than other intelligence casters even after Remastered.I fail to see any reason behind that
Legacy design principles that Paizo wasn't motivated enought to change.
Wizards, and for some reason Magus', have the lowest trained skills at 1st level when you don't account for Intelligence. Once you account for intelligence they will have a decent number of trained skills.
Why this is true for only the Wizard and Magus have this base reduction, and not true for other Int based class in the game, is because that is how it was in the 3.0 and PF1 days.
Wizard schools should all have granted a trained skill.
____
More broadly, Paizo seem to apply a school of throught to Wizards I term "Theme by reduction". Whereas most classes get incentives to act in certain ways or use certain abilites by being given rewards for doing so, Paizo seem to have opted for an approach for Wizards where certain theme elements are expressed because alternative options have been removed or harder to obtain. Making the chosen options a path-of-least-resistance.
It's why, formerly, Wizard's were the only class to lack basic weapon prof.
And its why now the classes bonus spell slot is so heavily restricted. You "want" to cast those spells a lot because they compromise 25% of all the spells would be able to cast in a day. Contrast this with Sorcerers who, when they use their gift spells, get a reward for doing so.
The through-line to a having fewer skills at base is that they want Wizard's to be more focused on using those skills for magic related things. You need to be able to recall knowledge on a bunch of things, but instead of granting support to do so, they make it harder for the Wizard to explore alternatives without potentially losing an important feature. Contrast with something like the Thaumaturge, who is somewhat showered with skills around magic, allowing them to keep up martial skill options.
|
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I also just noticed that between Gifted Power and Divine Effusion, Oracles can also have 6 top level spell slots per day. Thankfully they have to wait until 18th to get Divine Effusion, but still.
Lessen's the Wizard value prop from "Class with potential for the most top-rank spell slots" to "One of the classes with potential for the most top-rank spell slots"
2. Incap effects aren’t about the difference between failure and crit failures, they’re about success and failure. Failing a save vs Slow, synesthesia, or fear isn’t really result in that much different of an effect than success, just a matter of degree or duration. Incap effects take you out of the picture for at least a round on a failure. That is where the shift really matters. A boss monster getting taken out of combat for a round is fine on a crit fail, but there shouldn’t be anywhere near a 30 to 50 percent chance of it happening, or else 3 or more caster PCs would just easily shut them down.3. Incap spells are a mixed bag, but generally excellent in play. Without incap, spells like calm are ever green from a level 2 slot in ways that just trivialize too many encounters in a day.
Maybe your right. but something about it still feels off to me.
In the example with the lindworm and the level 5 wizard. And this is playing the save game and going for worst save.With incapacitate
1 - fail
2-6 - success
7-16 - crit success
17-20 crit successif there was no incapacitate at all
1 - crit fail
2-6 - fail
7-16 - success
17- 20...I mean, the question is why are you pointing an incap spell at a higher level opponent? Did you really need that 1/20 chance to make it lose it's entire turn? If you want to make it lose an action guaranteed, Slow is the same level, while if it's reactions you want gone you'd use Roaring Applause (also same level). Of course, those two also have a weaker crit failure effect than the failure effect of Paralyze, so that's the tradeoff. Like Spell Attacks, they are balanced for what they do, except what they do is "spend two actions and a spell slot for a chance to remove an entire turn" which against a +2 opponent is really good if it happens actually! Which is why it only happens on a crit.
Consistently getting Stunned 1 on 2-16 (if you don't upgrade successes) would actually make Paralyze really...
Point made.
Now would not upgrading successes on incapacitate be a fair effect for a spell shape that takes an action and is gained at level 12 so it couldnt be gained through multiclassing?
For some spells it would do nothing too.
Like VIBRANT PATTERN rank 6 already has no effect on success.
But WARP MIND rank 7 would get confuse for the first action on success.
...
2. Incap effects aren’t about the difference between failure and crit failures, they’re about success and failure. Failing a save vs Slow, synesthesia, or fear isn’t really result in that much different of an effect than success, just a matter of degree or duration. Incap effects take you out of the picture for at least a round on a failure. That is where the shift really matters. A boss monster getting taken out of combat for a round is fine on a crit fail, but there shouldn’t be anywhere near a 30 to 50 percent chance of it happening, or else 3 or more caster PCs would just easily shut them down.3. Incap spells are a mixed bag, but generally excellent in play. Without incap, spells like calm are ever green from a level 2 slot in ways that just trivialize too many encounters in a day.
Maybe your right. but something about it still feels off to me.
In the example with the lindworm and the level 5 wizard. And this is playing the save game and going for worst save.With incapacitate
1 - fail
2-6 - success
7-16 - crit success
17-20 crit successif there was no incapacitate at all
1 - crit fail
2-6 - fail
7-16 - success
17- 20...I mean, the question is why are you pointing an incap spell at a higher level opponent? Did you really need that 1/20 chance to make it lose it's entire turn? If you want to make it lose an action guaranteed, Slow is the same level, while if it's reactions you want gone you'd use Roaring Applause (also same level). Of course, those two also have a weaker crit failure effect than the failure effect of Paralyze, so that's the tradeoff. Like Spell Attacks, they are balanced for what they do, except what they do is "spend two actions and a spell slot for a chance to remove an entire turn" which against a +2 opponent is really good if it happens actually! Which is why it only happens on a crit.
Consistently getting Stunned 1 on 2-16 (if you don't upgrade successes) would
What if it was a spellshape focus spell any wizard could get with a feat?
This is my read on wizards, the arcane tradition and skills (so this is just one way the situation can be looked at and isn't an attempt to force anything on anyone):
Arcane magic is complicated, messy and confusing. There is a reason the vast majority of people who cast spells get their power from a source, and the vast majority of those sources don't touch arcane magic either. Wizards are special, because they undertake the process of learning how to work magic without any tricks or gimmicks, and arcane magic is the only kind of magic there is that can be learned this way. It takes incredible intelligence to learn how to practice magic without the intervention of some kind of benefactor, and even for the incredibly intelligent, it takes years and years of study to master this ability.
Arcane sorcerers are the worst (from the perspective of wizards)! These baffoons walk into the room and just start casting spells with no real practice or training, doing what is essentially impossible, just because someone in their family before them actually did the work. They are entitled jerks, I tell ya!
Arcane witches are only slightly better. They are downright dirty cheaters...but at least they have to be smart enough to figure out how to cheat, how to find a patron that will help them tap into these powers, and it is not anything just given to them.
Magi try. You have to give them that. They just don't try hard enough to really be worth calling true casters, but they don't cheat or have the world just handed them on a platter.
Summoners aren't real. Real summoners are wizards. Summoners are just the human pets of powerful creatures pretending like what they do is spell casting.
SO yeah, the wizard is really smart, but the thing is, learning to cast arcane magic is a task that is nearly impossible unless you are both incredibly smart and dedicated to spending years of training doing nothing but learn how to cast spells. Why would a wizard waste time practicing how to climb a rock or identify the difference between the tracks of a horse and the tracks of a unicorn, when "Magic!"?
All this is to say that I would rather wizards just get another spell slot if they could get anything, rather than getting boosts to skills, or armor proficiency or weapon proficiency (which I still feel like was a mistake), or any other class chassis change that isn't directly tied to casting more potential spells a day. I get folks wanting to maybe see one of the theses built into the class, but the issue with getting two theses is that some of them get complicated on how they would stack, especially the two most likely to get stacked: substitution and blending. It can lead to a lot of book keeping and if the GM is trying to keep an eye on how many spells you have of each rank and what those spells are, being able to switch both axises up can be a headache. I would hope you would have to commit to your blended spell slots each day, but that would take in book explaining or you would have people wanting to blend and unblend slots during the day, and it just feels like the much easier solution is to make the wizard a 5 slot caster at this point, if folks really feel like the wizard is intensely underpowered, which I do not.
Some of the interactions would probably be very easy actually. Some might need clarification.
Blending choices are made during daily prep, you are stuck with those choices all day. Spell sub only allows emptying a prepared slot and refilling it with something else. There wouldnt need to be any text saying you cannot unblend slots.
I think this wouldn't be complicated. and tracking is no more complicated than spell blending or spell sub on its own.
Spell blending with staff nexus provides a choice of order but it wouldnt make sense to give up the same slot for both abilities. Maybe that being spelled out would keep those who want to twist a read in their favor at bay.
|
|
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Giving the Wizard a 5th slot and doing nothing else wouldn’t fix any of the problems with the class.
It would successfully make them unique. But I would rather have a class more with more mechanical depth and interesting mechanics than just a pile of spell slots.
The Wizard should be so much more than just Generic Spell Slot Man.
Giving the Wizard a 5th slot and doing nothing else wouldn’t fix any of the problems with the class.
Okay how about a 6th slot.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Giving the Wizard a 5th slot and doing nothing else wouldn’t fix any of the problems with the class.Okay how about a 6th slot.
Are those slots still limited to curriculum? No thanks
But seriously, I still like the thing of just letting you expend a prepared slot to cast a curriculum spell, like if I have Haste prepared, I can expend it to cast fireball if I am in the battle school.
At least that would make wizard unique in some way.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I really like Wizards.
I like the new spellschools for the in theory. The flavor is really great... but mechanically they are so much more restrictive than the old slots and make me sad.
I wish that new school slot was just totally flexible and let you spontaneously cast any of their school spells in that slot. That's my preference for that slot.
I might also like to give the metamagic(spellshape) one a focus spell to cheat extra action cost.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I really like Wizards.
I like the new spellschools for the in theory. The flavor is really great... but mechanically they are so much more restrictive than the old slots and make me sad.
I wish that new school slot was just totally flexible and let you spontaneously cast any of their school spells in that slot. That's my preference for that slot.
I might also like to give the metamagic(spellshape) one a focus spell to cheat extra action cost.
You know. This got me thinking.
Having the ability to spontaneously cast from a school slot any school spell really makes the wizard feel like they are adopting a bit of sorcerer to be good.I cant help but feel maybe the wizard needs to double down on prepared casting somehow instead to feel not so samey but weaker than sorcerer.
perhaps as some have suggested allowing wizards to go back to including spell shape as part of preparation or even better give a rank increase value to spell shape abilities and allow them to cast a spell out of a higher slot, losing both the original prepared spell and the higher slot but gaining the following benefits.
The spell is heightened to the slot used to cast the spell.
The spell can still be spell shaped by those that say if your next action is a spell. (Example reach spell added through use of a 1 rank higher slot but widen spell added by use of an action before casting.)
A sly benefit here is that any prepared lower slot spell can be cast at any rank higher if the wizard is willing to give up the slot the spell is in and the slot they are going to cast from.
This kind of takes advantage of wizards higher number of slots and fixes some of the problem with incapacitate since if you slotted a lower rank incapacitate you can at any time cast it from your highest rank slot using this feature. And does it without removing anything that makes incapacitate limited on higher level creatures since thats not something anyone seems to want.
Of course this should be a focus spell.
First off as a focus spell its use is limited per combat.
Second as a focus spell it can be introduced with a feat any wizard can obtain.
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
Ok I might be a little late on this, but I just got my PC2 and read sorcerer. What's up with "tap into blood"? 1 action arcana RK while under the effects of blood magic?!? The sorc is more learned than the wizard. I'm confused. Honestly the whole of sorc, where feats and features reward you for using your bloodline spells has me looking at the wizards spell schools and shaking my head. I'm just gonna turn schools into free spells for your book; all four slots will be free and clear at my table. Imperial bloodline focus spell seems cracked and I'm not gonna dwell to long on that outlier, but the rest of the sorcerer (features and feats) SLAPS for a caster with four slots. The sorcerer plays with their theme consistently while wizard is just kind of....there. Reading through sorcerer surprised me on how stark the divide is. Wizard feels barren by comparison
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I cant help but feel maybe the wizard needs to double down on prepared casting somehow instead to feel not so samey but weaker than sorcerer.
My post here is a response to Bluemagetim's comment #936 on Tuesday, July 30. The topic drifted away while I worked on a new mechanic to propose, but the topic has drifted back. I am also fulfilling a promise to Teridax to find a better mechanic for the wizard than focus and font spells.
You know maybe thinking of what the goals of such a focus spell would be first can help identify what it actually should do to achieve that goal?
Is the goal to give the wizard more ranked spells per day? if not the focus spell should also use up the same rank spell slot.
My goal is that wizards should have more fun on a long adventuring day.
My players are very good at resource management, so I could throw 10 Moderate-Threat encounters at them in a single day, if I give them breaks for Treat Wounds and Refocus. Imagine an active wizard in such as gauntlet. One top-rank spell and one cantrip in the first 4 encounters, two second-from-top-rank spells in the next 2 encounters, one Arcane Bond recall and a cantrip in the 7th encounter, and then they are down to third-from-the-top-rank spells and cantrips for the last 3 encounters, with an occasional focus spell in place of a cantrip. Sure, a sorcerer has the same problem, but their focus spells are more fun. Other spellcasters, such as a bard, can pull out a sword and join melee. The wizard almost entirely relies on their spell slots, which run out. Then they are down to cantrips.
PF2 was not designed for 10 Moderate-Threat encounters in a day, but my players like that pace. Other wizard players might prefer to rely on cantrips less often.
Even in a campaign with only 3 Moderate-Threat encounters a day, playing a wizard is about holding back their strongest spells to save them for later. I would like the wizard to feel less restrained and to show off more.
Is the goal to allow the wizard unfettered access to their spell book every encounter? Up to 3 times per encounter? If not then meaningful restrictions need to be in place to give the choices intended.
Combat is balanced around spellcasters having to conserve their spells, so that they typically cast only one top-rank spell per Moderate-Threat combat. The kineticist is the alternative design that can use their impulses freely, by designing impulses weaker than spells. Character that uses focus spells instead of slotted spells could mimic a spellcaster by casting a single very strong focus spell once. As Teridax pointed out in comment #924 Tuesday, a mature focus pool with 3 focus points means that a focus spell can be cast 3 times. And if the focuscaster insists on a 30-minute break to Refocus 3 times, the character could do that next combat, too. A focus spell strong enough to replace a top-rank slotted spell would not be balanced.
To judge the strength of the wizard's Arcane School focus spells, we have Ars Grammatica's Rune of Observation, Battle Magic's Force Bolt, and Mentalism's Invisibility Cloak for easy comparison. Rune of Observation focus 4 mimics Clairvoyance spell 4, but the duration increases to 1 hour and the range drops to zero feet. It can spy on a location only where the party has already been, making it useless of scouting ahead. Force Bolt focus 1 mimics the one-action mode of Force Barrage spell 1 but the range drops to 30 feet. That is about half as powerful as Force Barrage. Invisibility Cloak focus 4 mimics [url="https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1577&Redirected=1"Invisibility[/url] spell 2, but the duration drops to 1 minute. The 6th-rank heightening of Invisibility Cloak restores the 10 minute duration. A 2nd-level spell like Invisibility tends to be a quarter as powerful as a 4th-level spell.
Is the goal to allow a wizard to do in 6 seconds what normally takes time in the morning to prepare and action compress the casting of the spell in that same amount of time? Is the goal to allow any spell known to be deployed immediately in the same turn without it being prepared? If not then there needs to be time involved like a two round cast.
Well, a 20th-level wizard prepares 80 spells in their one-hour daily preparations, an average of 45 seconds per spell. 6 seconds is only 8 times faster. And Drain Bonded Item takes only a free action to prepare a spell again.
But my reasoning is that the wizard carrying around a spellbook implies that they have all their spells close at hand. Having the versatility of a spellbook but being able to use that versatility only during daily preparations can be frustrating. Planning ahead cannot handle an unexpected need to change plans. The only other use for the spellbook is studying it to Refocus. The spellbook is an iconic item that should be more relevant. Spell Substitution does make the spellbook more relevant, which is why I am basing my next mechanic on it.
Nevertheless, I will try to think of a third mechanic instead of focus spells and font spells for the Spellbook Reference. This is all just theorycrafting not yet a houserule, though the player of the wizard Idris in my campaign recently agreed to playtest Spellbook Reference.
The third mechanic is fairly simple: regenerative spell slots. This replaces both the curriculum spell slots as written and the Drain Bonded Item ability.
Curriculum Slot Feature 1
Your practice with your school's curriculum boosts your capacity for spellcasting. You gain an additional spell slot, called a curriculum slot, at your highest spell rank. You can prepare only spells from your school's curriculum in this curriculum slot. You gain the Replenish Curriculum Slot activity.
Replenish Curriculum Slot
Arcane, Wizard
You can spend 10 minutes studying your spellbook in order to prepare a new curriculum spell into your curriculum spell slot, regardless whether the slot is full or empty. This also counts as a Refocus activity. If you stop the replenishment before the full ten minutes, the slot remains unchanged.
And if one curriculum slot is not enough, here is a class feat for more.
Extended Curriculum Feat 1
Wizard
Requirement Curriculum Slot
You gain a curriculum cantrip slot. At 3rd level you also gain an additional non-cantrip curriculum slot at one rank below ypur highest spell rank. You can prepare only spells from your school's curriculum in these curriculum slots. You can replenish some or all curriculum slots in a single Replenish Curriculum Slot activity.
I limited the replenishment to curriculum spells because some spells might become abusive if they could be cast a hundred times per day; for example, protector tree could create a forest. The curriculum lists can avoid these spells, though currently a Ars Grammatica wizard could run a messenger business out of casting sending and a Boundary wizard could run a transport business out of casting teleport. The School of Unified Magical Theory would have to be upgraded, perhaps with Drain Magic Item as a once-per-hour ability, since it lacks curriculum spells.
That is an interesting reading of Rune of observation, Mathmuse. It is true that the focus spell has no range, but it says it creates a sensor as clairvoyance, but must be created within line of sight.
I always read that to mean that the only thing that changed from the clairvoyance spell was duration and casting time, as those are the only two things called out in the focus spell, but you are reading everything not called out as having a value of 0 instead of being the same as the Clairvoyance spell. I don't understand why you would put the sentence about needing to be created within line of sight if you had to create the sensor adjacent to you. Actually, without the range from clairvoyance carrying over, where could you create the sensor? Spells that create things (like create water or creation) are called out as having a range of 0.
The only spells that don't have any range at all seem to be spells that target you explicitly. Targeting yourself with Rune of Observation doesn't make any sense.
That is an interesting reading of Rune of observation, Mathmuse. It is true that the focus spell has no range, but it says it creates a sensor as clairvoyance, but must be created within line of sight.
I always read that to mean that the only thing that changed from the clairvoyance spell was duration and casting time, as those are the only two things called out in the focus spell, but you are reading everything not called out as having a value of 0 instead of being the same as the Clairvoyance spell. I don't understand why you would put the sentence about needing to be created within line of sight if you had to create the sensor adjacent to you.
Oops, I had a mental glitch. I had misremembered the wording of Rune of Observation despite having read it minutes before I wrote the sentence about it. I think of clairvoyance as being able to look ahead to where the caster can't visit, so line of sight seemed a strong restriction, the equivalent of placing the sensor next to the caster.
But Rune of Observation could be used to look around a corner, or look into a third-story window, or be placed for aerial observation above a battlefield. It loses only the ability to look into interior rooms or the other side of a forest, and other places that are more than one obstacle beyond line of sight. Thus, Rune of Observation would be about half as strong as Clairvoyance.
That is an interesting reading of Rune of observation, Mathmuse. It is true that the focus spell has no range, but it says it creates a sensor as clairvoyance, but must be created within line of sight.
I always read that to mean that the only thing that changed from the clairvoyance spell was duration and casting time, as those are the only two things called out in the focus spell, but you are reading everything not called out as having a value of 0 instead of being the same as the Clairvoyance spell. I don't understand why you would put the sentence about needing to be created within line of sight if you had to create the sensor adjacent to you.
Oops, I had a mental glitch. I had misremembered the wording of Rune of Observation despite having read it minutes before I wrote the sentence about it. I think of clairvoyance as being able to look ahead to where the caster can't visit, so line of sight seemed a strong restriction, the equivalent of placing the sensor next to the caster.
But Rune of Observation could be used to look around a corner, or look into a third-story window, or be placed for aerial observation above a battlefield. It loses only the ability to look into interior rooms or the other side of a forest, and other places that are more than one obstacle beyond line of sight. Thus, Rune of Observation would be about half as strong as Clairvoyance.
Yeah I felt that rune of observation was best on a wizard with conceal spell and trained in stealth. Maybe a cast of invisibility to be sure your not spotted when casting. But like a sniper you could place this thing from pretty far and hear everything as if you were right there.
Sorry I thought it gave sound too.
First off this was a very thoughtful response Mathmuse.
nothing wrong with trying to make the game fit your tables conventions.
I had some thoughts below.
A focus spell strong enough to replace a top-rank slotted spell would not be balanced.
I see the equivalence your establishing to spell rank by looking at existing focus spells. That seems like a good comparison and it does seem like they get a slightly less capable version of the spell they are mimicking, likely due to the renewable nature. Another point to consider is what they did with drain bonded item (not a focus spell based feat but it does help see how high a rank would be gainable at a 1 time per day rate by giving up a level 8 feat)
The designers really made gaining back a spell even once a day at rank -2 kind of expensive as a 8th level feat. Likely because of the range options available if recasting a rank -2 or more spell that was prepared.
Well, a 20th-level wizard prepares 80 spells in their one-hour daily preparations, an average of 45 seconds per spell. 6 seconds is only 8 times faster. And Drain Bonded Item takes only a free action to prepare a spell again.But my reasoning is that the wizard carrying around a spellbook implies that they have all their spells close at hand. Having the versatility of a spellbook but being able to use that versatility only during daily preparations can be frustrating. Planning ahead cannot handle an unexpected need to change plans. The only other use for the spellbook is studying it to Refocus. The spellbook is an iconic item that should be more relevant. Spell Substitution does make the spellbook more relevant, which is why I am basing my next mechanic on it.
To be fair drain bonded item is more of a recast of an expended prepared spell.
But looking at it the way you put it a wizard gets faster at preparing per spell as they level. I wouldn't have thought of it that way before.8 rounds would not be practical for a combat ability in this game though but 2 rounds is something some spells do take to do their most potent effect.
Maybe it would be kind of interesting for a wizard who could take cover and refresh a spell or do a speedy spell substitution while behind cover as a 3 action activity.
From there the level its obtainable at and the ranks it can provide if its refreshing a slot would be where the tuning is at.
The third mechanic is fairly simple: regenerative spell slots. This replaces both the curriculum spell slots as written and the Drain Bonded Item ability.Curriculum Slot Feature 1
Your practice with your school's curriculum boosts your capacity for spellcasting. You gain an additional spell slot, called a curriculum slot, at your highest spell rank. You can prepare only spells from your school's curriculum in this curriculum slot. You gain the Replenish Curriculum Slot activity.Replenish Curriculum Slot
Arcane, Wizard
You can spend 10 minutes studying your spellbook in order to prepare a new curriculum spell into your curriculum spell slot, regardless whether the slot is full or empty. This also counts as a Refocus activity. If you stop the replenishment before the full ten minutes, the slot remains unchanged.And if one curriculum slot is not enough, here is a class feat for more.
Extended Curriculum Feat 1
Wizard
Requirement Curriculum Slot
You gain a curriculum cantrip slot. At 3rd level you also gain an additional non-cantrip curriculum slot at one rank below ypur highest spell rank. You can prepare only spells from your school's curriculum in these curriculum slots. You can replenish some or all curriculum slots in a single Replenish Curriculum Slot activity.I limited the replenishment to curriculum spells because some spells might become abusive if they could be cast a hundred times per day; for example, protector tree could create a forest. The curriculum lists can avoid these spells, though currently a Ars Grammatica wizard could run a messenger business out of casting sending and a Boundary wizard could run a transport business out of casting teleport. The School of Unified Magical Theory would have to be upgraded, perhaps with Drain Magic Item as a once-per-hour ability, since it lacks curriculum spells.
Go for it.
To meet the goals you stated this sounds like it can do it.A wizard that has no problem unleashing spells every combat for 10 encounters a day.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
Ok I might be a little late on this, but I just got my PC2 and read sorcerer. What's up with "tap into blood"? 1 action arcana RK while under the effects of blood magic?!? The sorc is more learned than the wizard. I'm confused. Honestly the whole of sorc, where feats and features reward you for using your bloodline spells has me looking at the wizards spell schools and shaking my head. I'm just gonna turn schools into free spells for your book; all four slots will be free and clear at my table. Imperial bloodline focus spell seems cracked and I'm not gonna dwell to long on that outlier, but the rest of the sorcerer (features and feats) SLAPS for a caster with four slots. The sorcerer plays with their theme consistently while wizard is just kind of....there. Reading through sorcerer surprised me on how stark the divide is. Wizard feels barren by comparison
Even before PC2 came out, the Sorcerer was better based on sheer feats and abilities and versatility alone. Also, what you can do with Charisma as a stat far outpaces what you can do with Intelligence as a stat, so even if they had identical features, Sorcerer had the better stat to play the game with.
The power creep from the release of PC2 just made it even more obvious that Wizard Bad and Sorcerer Good. The only way a Wizard can outpace a Sorcerer now is by having completely different daily challenges that require their utmost power to accomplish, and even that is a toss-up since that still requires that the Wizard player is smart enough to plan for that specific challenge, and that the Sorcerer isn't already planned to deal with said challenges.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
For those interested here is the Wizard brew I was working on. The TL;DR is that you'd be a three-slot caster, no curriculum or anything, except you'd get Spell Substitution instead of Arcane Bond by default, arcane schools that'd encourage picking certain spells through tailored spellshapes instead of forcing you to prepare from a restricted list, and a massively supercharged arcane thesis. For instance, Arcane Bond, the thesis, would let you cast a spell from your spellbook once for each rank of spell that you can cast, no preparation needed. After that, you could build upon your thesis with feats at 4th, 8th, and 14th level, as well as pick other feats that'd make you better at Lore, learning new spells, or exploiting your opponent's weaknesses. Overall, you'd be a lot more flexible, and players new to the Wizard would have an easier time correcting their spell selection on the fly and feeling powerful through their baseline options.
New ancestral memories power is previously only obtainable through whispering staff (level 20 item) and unique true name cantrip. I know they are circumstance penalties instead of status, but in terms of single-action saveless DC buffs these are the only options
Or like... a demoralize check.
I mean, that is only after lvl 9, if starting at lvl 1, the player will have 8 levels where the focus is basically a fancy demoralize. On those 8 levels before that I would say that another bloodline like Draconic is better just because the focus spells are more straightfoward. At lvl 9 or higher however ancestral memories heighten and becomes really good and you have the spell slots and spells to take advantage of it.
|
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I mean, that is only after lvl 9, if starting at lvl 1, the player will have 8 levels where the focus is basically a fancy demoralize. On those 8 levels before that I would say that another bloodline like Draconic is better just because the focus spells are more straightfoward. At lvl 9 or higher however ancestral memories heighten and becomes really good and you have the spell slots and spells to take advantage of it.
It's strength is that it always works. No save, no check, no immune/unaffected enemy types, no immunity period afterwards. You spend the point and get your prize!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Demoralize also doesn't cost a focus point.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Also, the sorcerer is best positioned to use Demoralize (or Bon Mot) anyway, so this just further pushes the gulf between arcane sorcerer and wizard in terms of landing save spells
Amusingly you could argue that Ancestral Memories is more of a boost to the Wizard than the Sorcerer.
Becausea) Sorcerers can already debuff easily with Intimidation and Bon Mot.
b) Only Imperial Sorcerers can get Ancestral Memories. No other Sorcerer can. Whereas every Wizard can get it by level 4 if they have Cha +2.
Also, the sorcerer is best positioned to use Demoralize (or Bon Mot) anyway, so this just further pushes the gulf between arcane sorcerer and wizard in terms of landing save spellsAmusingly you could argue that Ancestral Memories is more of a boost to the Wizard than the Sorcerer.
Because
a) Sorcerers can already debuff easily with Intimidation and Bon Mot.
b) Only Imperial Sorcerers can get Ancestral Memories. No other Sorcerer can. Whereas every Wizard can get it by level 4 if they have Cha +2.
That.
And tap into blood is also there to make arcana checks universal.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
And tap into blood is also there to make arcana checks universal.
Blood magic is not something you can get via the archetype.
And tap into blood is also there to make arcana checks universal.Blood magic is not something you can get via the archetype.
Oh man right,
That would have been great for wizards.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Blood magic is cheater magic anyway. I do like Oracle for vision of weakness though. One action, automatic knowledge of lowest save and weaknesses is better than a -1 to the enemy’s save DC almost all of the time. By the time the penalty kicks up to 2 or higher, targeting the lowest save is likely a +3 to +6 bonus over targeting a higher save, and you know what energy types to hit.
Lol. Cheater magic.
Imperial is the best Arcane Sorcerer, with great Granted spells, 2 really good focus spells (we don't talk about extend blood magic), one of them being one action that you always want to use makes triggering blood magic easy. But at lower levels a new player would be better suited with like Draconic and their more direct focus spell I believe.
But anyway, we are getting out of topic talking about a better class than Wizard.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
But anyway, we are getting out of topic talking about a better class than Wizard.
I disagree, because it has a direct correlation with what an example of a good arcane caster can become, which is what is expected of the Wizard.
We look at the Arcane Sorcerer and go "This could have been a Wizard," then look at what we got for the Wizard, and go "This sucks, I would much rather play the Sorcerer and reflavor it to be Wizard-like."
Really, if we look at other spellcasters as a valid benchmark, and then compare that benchmark to what the Wizard is accomplishing now, we can both ascertain a level of balance for the Wizard, and compare what things the Wizard can improve at without invalidating other classes.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
But anyway, we are getting out of topic talking about a better class than Wizard.I disagree, because it has a direct correlation with what an example of a good arcane caster can become, which is what is expected of the Wizard.
We look at the Arcane Sorcerer and go "This could have been a Wizard," then look at what we got for the Wizard, and go "This sucks, I would much rather play the Sorcerer and reflavor it to be Wizard-like."
Really, if we look at other spellcasters as a valid benchmark, and then compare that benchmark to what the Wizard is accomplishing now, we can both ascertain a level of balance for the Wizard, and compare what things the Wizard can improve at without invalidating other classes.
True, I didn't think that way.
Specially when looking at Imperial that is using knowledge of their death ancestors to power up their spells or just undermining enemy spells, heck, Arcane Countermeasures do sounds like something that wizard should have been able to do but using their own studies.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The lack of caster archetypes is something that really piss me off, more archetypes like Shadowcaster would be really welcome, that gives focus spells, let you have spells from different lists and some abililies. It would help every caster, but specially wizard as your feats are bad anyway so you pick better ones lol.
Like Elementalist could have been a regular archetype that grants a Focus spell of that element and have a feat that add some spells from that element to your repertoire/spell book and so on.
At least we are getting a domain one, so have a few options there. I hope that is not locked into like Wisdom casting stat.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
This "imperial sorcerer is the new wizard" hype is wildly unfounded.
I have looked over the sorcerer class and I think you can build a good imperial sorcerer for being an arcane sorcerer but they don't do what wizards do.
Tap into Blood is not even a feat worth taking. The imperial sorcerer blood magic only lasts until the start of your next round. You have to cast a bloodmagic spell, then tap into blood, so you will never be recalling knowledge with arcana on the first round and then casting a spell benefiting from that knowledge. Best case scenario is that by level 5 you are casting haste in the first round, then tap into blood to recall knowledge, then going offensive on the 2nd round. This isn't terrible, but it is not as good as people are imagining it to be.
So then there is ancestral memories. It is an interesting focus spell that I bet a lot of players will be excited to use, but status bonuses to attack rolls are pretty easy to come by, so the only really special element left is the -1 status penalty to one creature's next save, but only against your spell casting.
There will be very many times where casting this focus spell will just plainly be worse than spending your first action to demoralize your foe, because that is a penalty that will last all the way through the enemy's next turn and that your allies can all benefit from as well.
Yes eventually the penalty gets to be a -3, but by the time it even gets close, then it is a very poachable ability, and even then there are other options that are very comparable in strength.
So in the end, it really boils down again to the imperial sorcerer being a sorcerer with the arcane list, and if you like playing an arcane sorcerer, you will have fun with the class, but it doesn't do what a wizard does, and it certainly doesn't do what wizards do better.
And hopefully we have established this but what the wizard does that sorcerers cannot is be the wizard that tomorrow's situation needs almost no matter what kind of wizard is needed.
A sorcerer is more fixed. they can choose to expand the different functions they can perform as they level and choose any function they have expanded to in the moment, but they cannot perform a function they didnt expand to on a day to day basis.
The sorcerer is a customizable Swiss army knife, while a wizard has a toolbox in in their garage but has to go back to it every time they need a different tool
|
|
Tap into Blood is not even a feat worth taking. The imperial sorcerer blood magic only lasts until the start of your next round. You have to cast a bloodmagic spell, then tap into blood, so you will never be recalling knowledge with arcana on the first round and then casting a spell benefiting from that knowledge. Best case scenario is that by level 5 you are casting haste in the first round, then tap into blood to recall knowledge, then going offensive on the 2nd round. This isn't terrible, but it is not as good as people are imagining it to be.
It's important functionality that the Wizard simply can't replicate. It's nearest approximation comes at 10th level from an archetype.
So yeah, not being able to fully utilize this feature on your own first turn is hardly a down side. Given that you use it from level 1, and it makes a great 3rd action.
Tap into Blood is not even a feat worth taking. The imperial sorcerer blood magic only lasts until the start of your next round. You have to cast a bloodmagic spell, then tap into blood, so you will never be recalling knowledge with arcana on the first round and then casting a spell benefiting from that knowledge. Best case scenario is that by level 5 you are casting haste in the first round, then tap into blood to recall knowledge, then going offensive on the 2nd round. This isn't terrible, but it is not as good as people are imagining it to be.
It's important functionality that the Wizard simply can't replicate. It's nearest approximation comes at 10th level from an archetype.
So yeah, not being able to fully utilize this feature on your own first turn is hardly a down side. Given that you use it from level 1, and it makes a great 3rd action.
But when?
It only triggers off of blood magic. Your focus spell is one action. If you cast it, you are not casting anything else to actually use it. After a 2 action Force Barrage? That is really not the OP/make wizards cry first round that it is being set up to be. The imperial sorcerer is set up more to just be a bludgeon and to cast ancestral memories round one followed by your best offensive spell. But many times, your whole party would have been better off with you demoralizing and then casting your offensive spell. By the time you've figured out what save to target with tap into blood, it is going to be round 3.|
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Tap into Blood is not even a feat worth taking. The imperial sorcerer blood magic only lasts until the start of your next round. You have to cast a bloodmagic spell, then tap into blood, so you will never be recalling knowledge with arcana on the first round and then casting a spell benefiting from that knowledge. Best case scenario is that by level 5 you are casting haste in the first round, then tap into blood to recall knowledge, then going offensive on the 2nd round. This isn't terrible, but it is not as good as people are imagining it to be.
It's important functionality that the Wizard simply can't replicate. It's nearest approximation comes at 10th level from an archetype.
So yeah, not being able to fully utilize this feature on your own first turn is hardly a down side. Given that you use it from level 1, and it makes a great 3rd action.
But when?
It only triggers off of blood magic. Your focus spell is one action. If you cast it, you are not casting anything else to actually use it. After a 2 action Force Barrage? That is really not the OP/make wizards cry first round that it is being set up to be. The imperial sorcerer is set up more to just be a bludgeon and to cast ancestral memories round one followed by your best offensive spell. But many times, your whole party would have been better off with you demoralizing and then casting your offensive spell. By the time you've figured out what save to target with tap into blood, it is going to be round 3.
It feels like you are really reaching to have a problem here.
Either do a 1 action Force Barrage, or cast Shield and use a reaction to trigger Blood Rising, then Tap to RK. That leaves you with a whole action to do something else with.
This isn't onerous. It needs 1 action of setup to gain functionality the Wizard simple can't replicate internally.