Forcible Energy is a great spell shape feat that is wizard only and with a party built to exploit it, it can really ramp up the team damage by a ton.
It rarely seems like players new to RPGs are the ones that complain about the wizard. It is almost always a complaint in relationship to “how a wizard is supposed to be played” being ported over from another games expectations.
I don’t even think a blaster wizard is hard to play for newbies to PF2 as long as they don’t get trapped in a cycle of over using cantrips and only one type of defense targeting.
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Yeah, I agree (to Yuri) that wizards should be about manipulating their spells and doing stuff with spells and spellslots more than other casters who might get more unique class specific spells, more powerful/intense spells(sorcerer), or wilder magical class abilities. A wizard should be able to change the damage type of spells, the size and shape, combine two spells into one, get more spell slots, change the point of origin of where spells are cast, dispel magic and counterspells best, and poach other lists best(within reason!). I also think what each magic tradition does should be more narrow, and that every class should poach spells from other lists according to subclass, but instead of like nethys giving clerics magic missile, or psychics who poach arcane for fire and cold spells for that one subclass, wizards get a feat or two that lets them just pick a spell here and there from another tradition, not too many to keep the identity as arcane primarily, but to get into that "I study magic" thing the wizard does. I also think maybe they should be able to use magic items just a little bit better
I'm okay with wizards getting slightly worse focus spells if they are the spell slot spell caster who gets the most slots and more juice out of staves, wands and scrolls
I also want a PF3E to design casting around master proficiency like they did for martials, and then give the big specially focused casters legendary. So wizards, sorcerers, cloistered clerics too perhaps, would be our typical legendary spellcasters, but a druid might be master because they can turn into animals, get an animal companion and probably should get feats that let them summon better than anyone else, except the summoner IF that class returns
Sorcerers by contrast to wizards should get damage bonuses to spells, bonuses to healing if they're divine, maybe like an extra rider on various other spells. I would like to see spontaneous fully abandon vancian magic and maybe use spells from the spell section, but use them like a kineticist fully without slots, BUT a sorcerer should be inflexible but POTENT. I think a sorcerer's fire should penetrate fire resistances or even immunities. A wizard might match defenses to exploit weaknesses, a sorcerer should be able to obliterate the resistances of enemies and over come them through shear force of will. While I don't think sorcerers should get a higher spell DC than wizard, or much of a higher one, I do think if a wizard has like 10, 20 or whatever spells prepared a day, sorcerers have like 5 or 10 spells they know, but can REALLY put on the hurt with them. While I think wizards should be metamagic masters, I would be super for sorcerers getting an almost exclusive ability to, at high levels, double up on blast spells. Like throw two fireballs in a turn like once per encounter or once per hour or something. A wizard gets to quicken spell something like once a day, a sorcerer maybe can do it a few times a day, but it's double of one spell. Like 3 actions two fireballs, 3 actions two icy prisons and so on and so forth
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I feel like the problem YuriP outlined isn’t really about Wizards but more so about spellcasting occupying such a huge chunk of the power budget that there’s very little room to give the classes bespoke features that are evocative of their respective fantasies.
The problems they outlined for the Wizard can be mostly summed up: the Wizard should be so learned they can break the rules of spellcasting, but Thesis + Spellshape doesn’t deliver fully on that. However the same can be said about any Arcane Sorcerer’s theme, can it not? Their fantasy is their blood is overflowing with magic which should increase the potency of their spells and/or let them draw on those spells to boost their own prowess, and that usually gets expressed via… a Blood Magic effect that gives you a +1 somewhere or the other. In this comparison the Sorcerer’s Blood Magic pops up more frequently than a Wizard’s Thesis does, but the Thesis tends to have a larger impact when it’s relevant so it all evens out. Ultimately the problem is that 95% of their power budget is embedded into Spellcasting, and that leaves almost no room for features to baby a consistently powerful impact on gameplay?
Hell the same can be said for almost any Arcane or Primal caster in the game. It’s usually Divine/Occult casters who get that extra bit of thematic expression to their mechanics because of how much more limited their spell lists are (and of course casters with serious limitations on spell slots like the Magus that too).
The only way I see them getting a stronger thematic expression is if their spells are deemphasized, but that will also upset a lot of people.
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Forcible Energy is a great spell shape feat that is wizard only and with a party built to exploit it, it can really ramp up the team damage by a ton.
It rarely seems like players new to RPGs are the ones that complain about the wizard. It is almost always a complaint in relationship to “how a wizard is supposed to be played” being ported over from another games expectations.
I don’t even think a blaster wizard is hard to play for newbies to PF2 as long as they don’t get trapped in a cycle of over using cantrips and only one type of defense targeting.
Define great? It does an extra 5 points of damage to one target for an extra action until the end of your next turn. So you get one extra spell at 5 damage if it does the same damage and I'm assuming you're talking aligning with runes for attacks.
It has to be the same energy type as the spell you cast. Another spellshape feat with fairly limited applicability.
Given that this thread is talking about theoretical characters who are wizards or wizard multiclass, let me discuss a situation in the Strength of Thousands adventure path in which I am dealing with those considerations.
The 1st module, Kindled Magic, provides several likeable NPCs for social interatcion at the Magaambya Academy, which specializes in arcane and primal magic. Nine of those are fellow students in the same dormitory: Anchor Root, Chizire, Esi Djana, Haibram Thodja, Ignaci Canterells, Mariama Keitana, Noxolo, Okoro Obiyo, and Strands-of-Glowing-Dawn Tzeniwe. Each has a half-page description of their skills and life story in an article named "Students of the Magaambya," but the descriptions lack stat blocks. However, my PCs not only interact with NPCs, they also team up with NPCs, so I have created stat blocks for three of them.
Ignaci Canterells is described as "N | male | human | thaumaturge" with notable skills Crafting, Society, Stealth, and Thievery. He is interested in cryptography and knows the formula for forgetful ink. That is the only case where the character's class is given: Thaumaturge, so I statted him out as a 2nd-level Thaumaturge with Wizard Multiclass Dedication and Alchemical Crafting.
Okoro Obiyo is described as "NG | male | human | researcher" with notable skills Athletics, Diplomacy,
Performance, and Occultism. He has a large collection of board games and knows the arcane/occult spell mind games. Due to him favoring Occultism over Arcana, I made him a 3rd-level Gathered Lore (Intelligence as key ability score) Psychic with Druid Multiclass Dedication.
Strands-of-Glowing-Dawn Tzeniwe is described as "NG | female | anadi | dreamweaver" with notable skills Crafting, Diplomacy, Performance, and Society. She is a middle-aged mother of two toddlers (not that they toddle, because they have eight legs) and knows the arcane/occult spell friendfetch. I don't know what a dreamweaver is, so I made her a weaver instead. She attended the academy after her village noted her children have magical potential and decided the best way to nuture that potential was training their mother. She is a 2nd-level Investigator with Wizard Multiclass Dedication and Web Weaver ancestry feat.
My quandary is Esi Djana. She is described as "LG | female | human | ace student" with notable skills Arcana, Athletics, Diplomacy, and Society. She is involved is several student activities and sports teams and knows the arcane/divine spell impeccable flow. She is one of two dorm mates trained in Arcana, and by her interests she is the best candidate for a wizard among the dorm mates.
But I ought to give her lots of skills to justify her reputation as an ace student, so the 2+INT and Arcana initial skills of a wizard work against her. Seriously, her ability scores would have to be STR +2, DEX +1, CON +0, INT +4, WIS +1, CHA +1 and she would excel despite low bonuses by having the +2 trained proficiency bonus in every skill that mattered in her classes: Acrobatics, Arcana, Athletics, Diplomacy, Nature, Occultism, Religion, and Society with Lore from her background. She would skip any classes based on Crafting, Deception, Intimidation, Medicine, Performance, Stealth, Survival, or Thievery. The current wizard rules are bad for academics.
She would have one more trained skill and still cast arcane spells as a summoner with a construct or dragon eidolon or a witch of The Inscribed One. She would have the same number of skills as a sorcerer with draconic or imperial bloodline. She would have one fewer trained skill as a magus, due to Int 16 instead of Int 18, but that would better fit her athletic reputation and let her use her high Intelligence as her casting stat.
Furthermore, the free module Threshold of Knowledge features five 1st-level students of the Magaambya Academy. I downloaded the PDF to further supplement the NPC student body and because the 4th module, Secrets of the Temple City, suggested adding those five characters as NPCs. Ekene is a female elf monk, Kalaggi Nakutu is a female human fighter, Muruwa is a female grippli rogue, Uki is a male human cleric, and Zane Ikundi is a male human sorcerer. None are wizards or druids despite the Magaambya's emphasis on those two fields.
I feel like the problem YuriP outlined isn’t really about Wizards but more so about spellcasting occupying such a huge chunk of the power budget that there’s very little room to give the classes bespoke features that are evocative of their respective fantasies.
The problems they outlined for the Wizard can be mostly summed up: the Wizard should be so learned they can break the rules of spellcasting, but Thesis + Spellshape doesn’t deliver fully on that. However the same can be said about any Arcane Sorcerer’s theme, can it not? Their fantasy is their blood is overflowing with magic which should increase the potency of their spells and/or let them draw on those spells to boost their own prowess, and that usually gets expressed via… a Blood Magic effect that gives you a +1 somewhere or the other. In this comparison the Sorcerer’s Blood Magic pops up more frequently than a Wizard’s Thesis does, but the Thesis tends to have a larger impact when it’s relevant so it all evens out. Ultimately the problem is that 95% of their power budget is embedded into Spellcasting, and that leaves almost no room for features to baby a consistently powerful impact on gameplay?
Hell the same can be said for almost any Arcane or Primal caster in the game. It’s usually Divine/Occult casters who get that extra bit of thematic expression to their mechanics because of how much more limited their spell lists are (and of course casters with serious limitations on spell slots like the Magus that too).
The only way I see them getting a stronger thematic expression is if their spells are deemphasized, but that will also upset a lot of people.
How do you reach this conclusion when most of the caster classes have powerful bespoke features to fill their class fantasy?
Bard songs are amazingly strong.
Druid focus spells and the feats you can build on them strong.
Cleric has extremely strong healing or harm options.
Psychic amped cantrips and unleash psyche pretty strong.
Sorc focus spells can be quite strong.
Once again, you reiterate that there is this one class that doesn't have powerful bespoke features...etc, etc.
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I feel like the problem YuriP outlined isn’t really about Wizards but more so about spellcasting occupying such a huge chunk of the power budget that there’s very little room to give the classes bespoke features that are evocative of their respective fantasies.
The problems they outlined for the Wizard can be mostly summed up: the Wizard should be so learned they can break the rules of spellcasting, but Thesis + Spellshape doesn’t deliver fully on that. However the same can be said about any Arcane Sorcerer’s theme, can it not? Their fantasy is their blood is overflowing with magic which should increase the potency of their spells and/or let them draw on those spells to boost their own prowess, and that usually gets expressed via… a Blood Magic effect that gives you a +1 somewhere or the other. In this comparison the Sorcerer’s Blood Magic pops up more frequently than a Wizard’s Thesis does, but the Thesis tends to have a larger impact when it’s relevant so it all evens out. Ultimately the problem is that 95% of their power budget is embedded into Spellcasting, and that leaves almost no room for features to baby a consistently powerful impact on gameplay?
Hell the same can be said for almost any Arcane or Primal caster in the game. It’s usually Divine/Occult casters who get that extra bit of thematic expression to their mechanics because of how much more limited their spell lists are (and of course casters with serious limitations on spell slots like the Magus that too).
The only way I see them getting a stronger thematic expression is if their spells are deemphasized, but that will also upset a lot of people.
I don't think that sorcerers are in same situation because the sorcerer base context is naturally more flexible. Blood Magic looks more like a bonus to help to differentiate one sorcerer lineage from others but what really makes each sorcerer distinct from others sorcerers is the mix of different traditions + different focus spells + blood magic and what makes sorcerers different from wizards is the flexibility of spontaneous spell casting + more flexible usage of spell slots (you can use all your 4 slots as you want once that they are no bounded to a school or to repeat spells that you already cast this day).
My point with sorcerers was more about theirs feats. That their feat selection is so better than the wizard that even some feats that they have makes more sense if it was in wizard than in sorcerer list but for some reason it was in sorcerer feat list.
My main felling is that when the designers developed wizards they keep it too much closer to some PF1 contexts to try to diminish a bit the strangeness to some players that come from PF1 and due this the class lacks of some boldness. This is a bad felling when I read the entire sorcerer class and think "cool" while when I read the entire wizard class I think "meh".
Currently most wizard players keeps the wizards popularity high more due their role representing a "wizard" than due its mechanics with some mechanical exceptions like SuperBidi's wizards blaster using Spell Blending in adventures with a low number of encounters per day or without too much hurry pressure allowing it to rest when needed or to some exceptional hurry situations with scrolls.
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They took off a lot of what made the schools of magic better in PF1. You had some real powerful school abilities in PF1. They replaced those with "What is this trash?" focus spells.
In PF1 for evocation Intense Spells was nice as you level. Force bolt is the same. Elemental Wall could actually be good and much better than that weird personal explosion ability elemental tempest, though Energy Absorption is a bit better if situational.
Each school had some abilities, some very good that enhanced the wizard.
The new school abilities are either too weak like force bolt or too action intensive like protective ward.
It's all very painful at low level and at higher level you ignore to use more effective slots.
Forcible Energy is a great spell shape feat that is wizard only and with a party built to exploit it, it can really ramp up the team damage by a ton.
It rarely seems like players new to RPGs are the ones that complain about the wizard. It is almost always a complaint in relationship to “how a wizard is supposed to be played” being ported over from another games expectations.
I don’t even think a blaster wizard is hard to play for newbies to PF2 as long as they don’t get trapped in a cycle of over using cantrips and only one type of defense targeting.
Define great? It does an extra 5 points of damage to one target for an extra action until the end of your next turn. So you get one extra spell at 5 damage if it does the same damage and I'm assuming you're talking aligning with runes for attacks.
It has to be the same energy type as the spell you cast. Another spellshape feat with fairly limited applicability.
Yes I think that Unicore is talking about of a teamwork around this feat.
This way a Wizard casting a fireball can get the benefit of +5 (even if target has success) to dmg and that all the allies that have a Flame rune or a Fire damage could get this same benefit multiplying it.
It's not bad but also competes with sustainable spells like Floating Flame or a Summon Spell or even the 1-action Ignition from fire body when you reach level 13 and don't progress.
Also this teamwork doesn't work well if the allies doesn't able to do the same damage type for some reason and its pretty meh when compared to kineticists using Kindle Inner Flames and Fire Weakness in the party without need a lot of teamwork to function.
Yet it still works for Wizard players that want to get save some spell slots with spells for their 3rd action and gives some extra damage.
Forcible Energy is a great spell shape feat that is wizard only and with a party built to exploit it, it can really ramp up the team damage by a ton.
It rarely seems like players new to RPGs are the ones that complain about the wizard. It is almost always a complaint in relationship to “how a wizard is supposed to be played” being ported over from another games expectations.
I don’t even think a blaster wizard is hard to play for newbies to PF2 as long as they don’t get trapped in a cycle of over using cantrips and only one type of defense targeting.
Define great? It does an extra 5 points of damage to one target for an extra action until the end of your next turn. So you get one extra spell at 5 damage if it does the same damage and I'm assuming you're talking aligning with runes for attacks.
It has to be the same energy type as the spell you cast. Another spellshape feat with fairly limited applicability.
Yes I think that Unicore is talking about of a teamwork around this feat.
This way a Wizard casting a fireball can get the benefit of +5 (even if target has success) to dmg and that all the allies that have a Flame rune or a Fire damage could get this same benefit multiplying it.
It's not bad but also competes with sustainable spells like Floating Flame or a Summon Spell or even the 1-action Ignition from fire body when you reach level 13 and don't progress.
Also this teamwork does work well if the allies are not doesn't able to do the same damage type for some reason and its pretty meh when compared to kineticists using Kindle Inner Flames and Fire Weakness in the party without need a lot of teamwork to function.
Yet it still works for Wizard players that want to get save some spell slots with spells for their 3rd action and gives some extra damage.
I'm accustomed to Unicore overvaluing a feat. In specific situations, the 5 point weakness could be good. But a situational feat that may or may not prove useful.
I've played with a couple of Ruffian Rogues, they forget to apply their 5 point weapon debilitation weakness all the time, no one notices as things are going to die quick still die quick. Which is why weaknesses are either too powerful like when it's 20 points a hit and everyone has a holy rune or too little to notice because some monsters are too weak.
I personally wish as a DM they would greatly reduce weaknesses because they are far too easy to exploit the strongest ones against the strongest creatures even without spells. In fact, spells are the least of my worries as they only apply once. When I have a whole group of people with holy weapons smacking on a demon boss with haste while that boss is debuffed, that is far more annoying as a DM when the creature is taking an extra 80 points plus a turn. They didn't give enough hit points to deal with a weakness that easy to exploit with a weapon rune.
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I've played a Psychic, and it's not really such a damage dealer. Unleash Psyche bites you as much as it helps and the Occult Tradition is really bad for damage. Overall, you'll be able to deal as much damage with a Wizard but with more versatility.
Yeah, I think of Psychics as primarily controllers/debuffers, with some secondary blasting when needed. You absolutely can make one as a blaster, it just seems to be going against its strengths.
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Or be in a party with a fire kineticist, and alchemist and hit a a solo boss creature with overwhelming energy.
I've played a Psychic, and it's not really such a damage dealer. Unleash Psyche bites you as much as it helps and the Occult Tradition is really bad for damage. Overall, you'll be able to deal as much damage with a Wizard but with more versatility.Yeah, I think of Psychics as primarily controllers/debuffers, with some secondary blasting when needed. You absolutely can make one as a blaster, it just seems to be going against its strengths.
No psychics are not that good with controlling/debuffing. Their small set of spell slots difficulties the sustainability to get the most effective debuffs of the occult tradition and their AMPs are less effective than most hexes and debuff/controlling impulses.
Psychic shines more as low to mid level DD while the AMPs and Unleash are strong enought to compete with spell slots' spells.
Or be in a party with a fire kineticist, and alchemist and hit a a solo boss creature with overwhelming energy.
It's unlikely that a lvl 12 fire kineticist doesn't have fire weakness. So probably it will not get no benefit from this.
Only weapons with energy dmg runes, bombs, and energy damage spell casters that really will get some benefit.
I feel like the problem YuriP outlined isn’t really about Wizards but more so about spellcasting occupying such a huge chunk of the power budget that there’s very little room to give the classes bespoke features that are evocative of their respective fantasies.
The problems they outlined for the Wizard can be mostly summed up: the Wizard should be so learned they can break the rules of spellcasting, but Thesis + Spellshape doesn’t deliver fully on that. However the same can be said about any Arcane Sorcerer’s theme, can it not? Their fantasy is their blood is overflowing with magic which should increase the potency of their spells and/or let them draw on those spells to boost their own prowess, and that usually gets expressed via… a Blood Magic effect that gives you a +1 somewhere or the other. In this comparison the Sorcerer’s Blood Magic pops up more frequently than a Wizard’s Thesis does, but the Thesis tends to have a larger impact when it’s relevant so it all evens out. Ultimately the problem is that 95% of their power budget is embedded into Spellcasting, and that leaves almost no room for features to baby a consistently powerful impact on gameplay?
Hell the same can be said for almost any Arcane or Primal caster in the game. It’s usually Divine/Occult casters who get that extra bit of thematic expression to their mechanics because of how much more limited their spell lists are (and of course casters with serious limitations on spell slots like the Magus that too).
The only way I see them getting a stronger thematic expression is if their spells are deemphasized, but that will also upset a lot of people.
How do you reach this conclusion when most of the caster classes have powerful bespoke features to fill their class fantasy?
You could just read the post you're replying to where I clearly address almost everything you mentioned. Bards, Clerics, and Psychics are covered by this part of the original post:
It’s usually Divine/Occult casters who get that extra bit of thematic expression to their mechanics because of how much more limited their spell lists are (and of course casters with serious limitations on spell slots like the Magus that too).
Sorcerers were already explicitly covered by me pointing out that their focus spells and blood magic are benefits that come up more often than the Wizard's Thesis comes up, but end up being less impactful on a per-use basis than the Wizard's Thesis is, so it evens out.
Druid is the only one I didn't explicitly address, and that still falls into what I suggested. It has a lot less of a thematic expression than Clerics or Bards because a huge percent of their power budget is invested into their very powerful spell list and it leaves very little room for mechanics that strongly reflect their themes. They have more room for it than a Sorcerer, but still not a ton of room.
Once again, you reiterate that there is this one class that doesn't have powerful bespoke features...etc, etc.
I truly don't know what point you're trying to make here.
Are you implying that Wizards, Arcane/Primal Sorcerers, Arcane/Primal Witches, and Druids have a huge chunk of their power budget invested into class features, Feats, and focus spells? If so, come on, we both know that is not true. In fact we have explicit confirmation that the designers do specifically boost Occult/Divine casters compared to their peers for this exact reason.
I don't think that sorcerers are in same situation because the sorcerer base context is naturally more flexible. Blood Magic looks more like a bonus to help to differentiate one sorcerer lineage from others but what really makes each sorcerer distinct from others sorcerers is the mix of different traditions + different focus spells + blood magic and what makes sorcerers different from wizards is the flexibility of spontaneous spell casting + more flexible usage of spell slots (you can use all your 4 slots as you want once that they are no bounded to a school or to repeat spells that you already cast this day).
It's odd to count Spontaneous casting as a differentiating/thematic element for Sorcerers but not count Spellbook Prepared casting as one for Wizards? Like they are virtually identical in terms of what they add to their classes' from both a mechanics and thematics perspective.
If talking about what sets Wizard aside from other Prepared casters it's one extra spell slot per rank, Thesis, and a few unique Feats. When talking about Sorcerer and differentiating it from other Spontaneous casters it's one extra spell slot per rank, Blood Magic, and a few unique Feats. The budget is roughly similar, and in both cases (as is the case for most Arcane/Primal casters) you'll find roughly equally small wiggle room differentiating one caster from another because so much of the power budget is just "this class gets a really good list of spells".
My point with sorcerers was more about theirs feats. That their feat selection is so better than the wizard that even some feats that they have makes more sense if it was in wizard than in sorcerer list but for some reason it was in sorcerer feat list.
Is this really the case? I see this brought up often, but Wizards have quite a few bombs in their Feat list that are (mostly) unique to them: Spellbook Prodigy, Nonlethal Spell, Silent Spell, Spell Protection Array, Explosive Arrival (think Summoners have a version of this?), Irresistible Magic, Bond Conservation, Scroll Adept (this one Witches get something similar iirc), Clever Counterspell, Reprepare Spell, Spell Combination, etc.
Not saying Sorcerers have bad Feats or anything, but I sincerely disagree that Wizards don't have both powerful and thematic Feats. Perhaps Premaster this was the case (a lot of the lower level ones I mentioned either didn't exist or were weaker) but Wizards now have a very good list of Feats.
Or be in a party with a fire kineticist, and alchemist and hit a a solo boss creature with overwhelming energy.
Even without contribution from allies, there are many ways to trigger weaknesses multiple times as a Wizard. Spells like Floating Flame, Dehydrate, Fiery Body, etc can really help you bring out multiple pings when needed.
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You could just read the post you're replying to where I clearly address almost everything you mentioned. Bards, Clerics, and Psychics are covered by this part of the original post:...I feel like the problem YuriP outlined isn’t really about Wizards but more so about spellcasting occupying such a huge chunk of the power budget that there’s very little room to give the classes bespoke features that are evocative of their respective fantasies.
The problems they outlined for the Wizard can be mostly summed up: the Wizard should be so learned they can break the rules of spellcasting, but Thesis + Spellshape doesn’t deliver fully on that. However the same can be said about any Arcane Sorcerer’s theme, can it not? Their fantasy is their blood is overflowing with magic which should increase the potency of their spells and/or let them draw on those spells to boost their own prowess, and that usually gets expressed via… a Blood Magic effect that gives you a +1 somewhere or the other. In this comparison the Sorcerer’s Blood Magic pops up more frequently than a Wizard’s Thesis does, but the Thesis tends to have a larger impact when it’s relevant so it all evens out. Ultimately the problem is that 95% of their power budget is embedded into Spellcasting, and that leaves almost no room for features to baby a consistently powerful impact on gameplay?
Hell the same can be said for almost any Arcane or Primal caster in the game. It’s usually Divine/Occult casters who get that extra bit of thematic expression to their mechanics because of how much more limited their spell lists are (and of course casters with serious limitations on spell slots like the Magus that too).
The only way I see them getting a stronger thematic expression is if their spells are deemphasized, but that will also upset a lot of people.
How do you reach this conclusion when most of the caster classes have powerful bespoke features to fill their class fantasy?
The point is you are manufacturing a problem that doesn't exist for the vast majority of caster classes.
I cannot recall any major threads on any caster class but the wizard and witch having problems unless you count the "Bards are overpowered"
threads.
PF2 magic is perfectly fine and fun.
Some of us disagree on the quality of the wizard and not their casting, but their overall class chassis and abilities including feats and focus spells.
The witch I'm still not sure of because it looks greatly improved, but the changes are recent and no one has played one in my group yet.
I already gave Unicore the monk doesn't need a change for different reasons than he illustrated. I finally saw one played at high level and they have such a huge amount of stackable damage at high level that improving their low level abilities may lead to overkill.
I'm still not sold on the wizard though I think they have the best level 20 caster feats of any class other than maybe the bard, but other than the wizard needs more punching up with their schools and innate class abilities to truly make them attractive in my opinion.
I wish these discussions included play experience and a real understanding of the classes discussed including feats and capability in play because that is what helps Paizo when they know what they can work on and not all over the place ideas wanting wholesale change they don't intend on doing.
These discussions should be very focused on what classes do to provide feedback that can be actioned. It should show the posters tried to play the class and can speak from experience using it in play.
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...You could just read the post you're replying to where I clearly address almost everything you mentioned. Bards, Clerics, and Psychics are covered by this part ofI feel like the problem YuriP outlined isn’t really about Wizards but more so about spellcasting occupying such a huge chunk of the power budget that there’s very little room to give the classes bespoke features that are evocative of their respective fantasies.
The problems they outlined for the Wizard can be mostly summed up: the Wizard should be so learned they can break the rules of spellcasting, but Thesis + Spellshape doesn’t deliver fully on that. However the same can be said about any Arcane Sorcerer’s theme, can it not? Their fantasy is their blood is overflowing with magic which should increase the potency of their spells and/or let them draw on those spells to boost their own prowess, and that usually gets expressed via… a Blood Magic effect that gives you a +1 somewhere or the other. In this comparison the Sorcerer’s Blood Magic pops up more frequently than a Wizard’s Thesis does, but the Thesis tends to have a larger impact when it’s relevant so it all evens out. Ultimately the problem is that 95% of their power budget is embedded into Spellcasting, and that leaves almost no room for features to baby a consistently powerful impact on gameplay?
Hell the same can be said for almost any Arcane or Primal caster in the game. It’s usually Divine/Occult casters who get that extra bit of thematic expression to their mechanics because of how much more limited their spell lists are (and of course casters with serious limitations on spell slots like the Magus that too).
The only way I see them getting a stronger thematic expression is if their spells are deemphasized, but that will also upset a lot of people.
How do you reach this conclusion when most of the caster classes have powerful bespoke features to fill their class fantasy?
Again, I genuinely have no idea what any of this has to do with what I said. You keep claiming (across multiple threads) that I’m manufacturing problems but you’re literally manufacturing arguments on my behalf.
Nowhere have I stated, or even implied, that spellcasters are weak. Nowhere have I said Bards are overpowered. In fact I have explicitly said multiple times that I have a much higher opinion of Wizards than you do…
Please take the five seconds it takes to actually read what you’re responding to.
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People have mentioned placing sacred cows on pyres for new editions. Can one of these be this unwavering adherence to 'Muh Class Fantasy!!!'
If you want to play a wizard who does nothing but blast fire spells all day every day, play a fire kineticist. "But I want to play a wizard!" Okay, put your fire kineticist into some robes and a funny hat, boost your intelligence, grab a staff, and you can call it whatever you want. There you go, there's your fire blaster wizard. You are now playing a fire blasting wizard that's a kineticist.
"But I want to blast electricity all day!" Well Skippo, we've got kineticists with access to electricity! Or hell, just talk to your GM and have him take the fire kineticist and just change everything to electricity!
Or maybe just name every class Wizard. If everyone is a wizard, it's hard to say that wizards are weak when they can do everything!
Wizard isn't weak. There are just classes that do what you want to do better than it.
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It's odd to count Spontaneous casting as a differentiating/thematic element for Sorcerers but not count Spellbook Prepared casting as one for Wizards? Like they are virtually identical in terms of what they add to their classes' from both a mechanics and thematics perspective.
If talking about what sets Wizard aside from other Prepared casters it's one extra spell slot per rank, Thesis, and a few unique Feats. When talking about Sorcerer and differentiating it from other Spontaneous casters it's one extra spell slot per rank, Blood Magic, and a few unique Feats. The budget is roughly similar, and in both cases (as is the case for most Arcane/Primal casters) you'll find roughly equally small wiggle room differentiating one caster from another because so much of the power budget is just "this class gets a really good list of spells".
But was you that put Wizards and Arcane Sorcerers in the same bag when in practice they are fundamentally different.
My point with sorcerers was more about theirs feats. That their feat selection is so better than the wizard that even some feats that they have makes more sense if it was in wizard than in sorcerer list but for some reason it was in sorcerer feat list.Is this really the case? I see this brought up often, but Wizards have quite a few bombs in their Feat list that are (mostly) unique to them: Spellbook Prodigy, Nonlethal Spell, Silent Spell, Spell Protection Array, Explosive Arrival (think Summoners have a version of this?), Irresistible Magic, Bond Conservation, Scroll Adept (this one Witches get something similar iirc), Clever Counterspell, Reprepare Spell, Spell Combination, etc.
Not saying Sorcerers have bad Feats or anything, but I sincerely disagree that Wizards don't have both powerful and thematic Feats. Perhaps Premaster this was the case (a lot of the lower level ones I mentioned either didn't exist or were weaker) but Wizards now have a very good list of Feats.
Do you really read these feats or tried to use them in practice?
It's odd to count Spontaneous casting as a differentiating/thematic element for Sorcerers but not count Spellbook Prepared casting as one for Wizards? Like they are virtually identical in terms of what they add to their classes' from both a mechanics and thematics perspective.
If talking about what sets Wizard aside from other Prepared casters it's one extra spell slot per rank, Thesis, and a few unique Feats. When talking about Sorcerer and differentiating it from other Spontaneous casters it's one extra spell slot per rank, Blood Magic, and a few unique Feats. The budget is roughly similar, and in both cases (as is the case for most Arcane/Primal casters) you'll find roughly equally small wiggle room differentiating one caster from another because so much of the power budget is just "this class gets a really good list of spells".
But was you that put Wizards and Arcane Sorcerers in the same bag when in practice they are fundamentally different.
I compared them in how they tend to have very little room in their power budget for bespoke features. My comparison still stands, everything I said about the power budget of Arcane/Primal casters not leaving room for as many bespoke features still holds true.
As for the specific Feats you addressed:
- Spellbook Prodigy: I’ll admit, I overrated this one. Idk why I thought it did more than it did lol.
- Nonlethal Spell: It is a situational option for sure, but plenty of classes get situationally powerful options that fit their theme well. Not saying it’s an all star everyone should pick at all, but it is uniquely good for campaigns that matter,
- Conceal Spell: Whoops yeah, used the Legacy version. The new version is stronger and earlier though.
- Bond Cinswrvation: You’re ignoring its real power though. It lets the caster who already has the largest number of unconditional slots in the game have even more slots.
- Clever Counterspell: When used right, it is far better than anyone else’s ability to Counterspell.
- Reprepare Spell: You’re seriously underestimating this one. It’s actually flat out stronger than the level 20 Sorcerer Feat you pointed to, because it can be used to reprepare any number of spells between combats, while the Sorcerer Feat only recasts one spell per minute. You can blow your whole lower rank load for combat 1 and for combat 2 go in as if it’s still the first combat of the day.
Overall I’m still confused what Feats you’re referencing that are supposed to be massively outperforming these Wizard options. Could you give a few examples?
Do you really read these feats or tried to use them in practice?
Spellbook Prodigy: It's a Magical Shorthand skill feat that uses a class feat slot! The only benefit if to save a bit of money if you critically fails.
As a GM, my wizards are NPCs simplified with fewer feats. However, one player did make a wizard in our Strength of Thousands campaign, Idris. I mentioned Idris before in comment #160 for learning Magical Shorthand skill feat to take advantage of the free spellbooks in the Magaambya's libraries. Thus, Idris passed up Spellbook Prodigy.
Idris went for Enhanced Familiar as his 2nd-level class feat. The player said she planned on touch telepathy, darkvision, flight, and shared senses for the familiar, but she has not been using any of them at 2nd or 3rd level. She is waiting until the 4th-level Mask Familiar feat from Idris's free Magaambyan Attendant archetype before letting Idris have a familiar. She wants Idris's Magaambya mask to come alive as a bird familiar.
She is using the wizard feats to create a particular vision, a Magaambya wizard, rather than for power. On the other hand, that player has mastered the art of teamwork via roleplaying, so the more roleplaying the more tactical teamwork.
Nonlethal Spell: It's a metamagic spellshape to try to prevent to kill your opponents when you use blasts at cost of an action. It's super circunstancial and meh once that you can help take down your opponent in many more ways without need this using many other spells. Could be a good feat if you don't have something better to take in its place.
The Magaambya teachers have asked the PCs to not kill the gremlins infesting campus, despite some gremlins being willing to kill the PCs. This makes fighting the gremlins with spells trickier. Currently, PCs plan to weaken the gremlins with lethal damage from spells and then knock them out with nonlethal weapon damage. They have found that a few spells, such as Admonishing Ray and Illusionary Creature, deal nonlethal damage, but using prepared spells makes them harder to apply successfully at the right moment. Nonlethal Spell costing an action to apply is better than the -4 penalty for dealing nonlethal damage with a lethal weapon, but adding nonlethal to a weapon does not require a feat.
I see Yurip's point. The spellshape feats unique to wizards are weaker than the spellshape feats, such as Reach Spell, Widen Spell, Cantrip Expansion, and Enhance Familiar, that are shared with other spellcasters.
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WRT to feat discussion:
Almost every single one of these feats is worse over the course of an average adventuring day than getting inspire courage and lingering composition from bard if your party doesn't have one, getting amped imaginary weapon if you want to deal more significant damage on turns you don't use high level spell slots, and so on. These are things that are consistently useful over an entire adventuring day. Almost all the wizard feats just... aren't. They're extremely situational or things that would be nice if they weren't only usable once per day. The bar for class feats is, imo, a lot higher than this.
Reprepare spell is nearly pointless with the expectation of a 3/day encounter allocation, and it's 18th level, where you already have enough lower level spell slots to waste on one-action spells and reactions for the whole day. Even if your GM is dragging you through the mud with a long day, it still won't fix the problem because your high level slots are where your power is. Likewise, if you needed to cast True Strike a billion times you should've bought a staff with it. It's the exact kind of ability that sounds strong but isn't actually very good because it doesn't increase your power ceiling in any meaningful capacity. Is casting fourth level spells all day as an 18th level wizard actually any good?
Conceal Spell is an action for RP benefit. Usually pointless in combat.
Bond Conservation... I don't even understand why it costs an action. And it's again a once per day ability.
Nonlethal spell is nearly useless in every campaign I've seen, practically speaking. And should you really need a feat tax to be a pacifist?
Irresistable Magic is understandable and desirable, but can also flop. Its value is again extremely dependent on what you're facing. I would need to actually crunch numbers to see how many monsters even have status bonuses. The benefit isn't nearly as obvious as it was with Spell Pen, where you were going through SR+save and not just the save.
Spell Protection Array would be alright if you had any idea when you were getting hit by spells in practice, if it had a larger area than a 5-foot burst (which makes it kind of important to know when and who you think will get hit by spells, and is something the enemy caster can adjust around themselves), and so on.
Scroll Adept is alright. Explosive Arrival is good if you want to summon a lot, at least.
Wizard feats feel like they were made with no acknowledgement of the fact you could poach other, better choices at almost any time.
People have mentioned placing sacred cows on pyres for new editions. Can one of these be this unwavering adherence to 'Muh Class Fantasy!!!'
If you want to play a wizard who does nothing but blast fire spells all day every day, play a fire kineticist. "But I want to play a wizard!" Okay, put your fire kineticist into some robes and a funny hat, boost your intelligence, grab a staff, and you can call it whatever you want. There you go, there's your fire blaster wizard. You are now playing a fire blasting wizard that's a kineticist.
"But I want to blast electricity all day!" Well Skippo, we've got kineticists with access to electricity! Or hell, just talk to your GM and have him take the fire kineticist and just change everything to electricity!
Or maybe just name every class Wizard. If everyone is a wizard, it's hard to say that wizards are weak when they can do everything!
Wizard isn't weak. There are just classes that do what you want to do better than it.
The current game design punishes you intensely for this. Putting INT boosts on a kineticist makes no sense. You're tossing away save increases and damage. Maybe you're also tossing away the ability to use strong CHA-based skills instead of damage, if you prefer that. The target success/fail rates are already slightly unforgiving and balanced to assume your stat distribution is optimal. Putting boosts into the single worst stat in the game, not wearing light armor, and everything else you're implying is just a bad idea.
This game doesn't have the headroom for questionable build choices in my experience, especially if you're not playing with free archetype or gradual ASI. I say this as someone who wishes it did, honestly.
I agree most people who want to play a blaster-y gameplay style (not everyone, but most people) are better off playing kineticist. But acting like you can rp your kineticist into a wizard doesn't make sense. The mechanics represent something very different than a wizard, function very differently, and reward very different choices.
Edited to add discussion of some of the other feats.
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I think the wizard is fine, but I would like casters being designed in such a way to feel more different and that's why I advocate for the four spell lists to become more restrictive as a baseline to offer more in the power budget of classes, and allow subclasses to add spells to a class necessary for the thematics. For example I think all necromancy should be divine only, but a wizard with "spooky guy" school would get to add necromancy spells to their repertoire. I also wonder if we should do away with having slots all of several levels leading up to 10, and just have slots for the highest level or levels of spell(s). It does seems awfully archaic and clunky even when playing shiny new high budget critically claimed cultural phenomena, BG3. I like that vancian magic adds to the feel of being a wizard, picking and choosing your tools each day, but picking for ten separate levels of spells and each individually is just a bit much and I certainly don't like the design trend of "one big mega spell a day" for 10th level spells, especially when they're lack luster
If we can scrunch up the spells casters prep each day and remove the weird spell rank system, I think we can start creating even more room for bespoke class features for casters, and I would even say a system like this but designed around being similar to encounter powers instead of daily powers, and forgo focus spells, would be ideal
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Bond Conservation... I don't even understand why it costs an action. And it's again a once per day ability.
bond conservation is NOT once per day, it's once per use of drain bonded item, a universalist can use this hypothetically 9 times per day minimum, ignoring chaining this. Since this gives you a new instance of drian bonded item, that instance can also allow you to use bond conservativon again. Meaning, refill a 9th level slot, use conservation and get the ability to drain again for a 7th level slot. Use that and then use conservation a second time and get another instance of drain bonded item for a 5th level slot, and so on
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Bond Conservation... I don't even understand why it costs an action. And it's again a once per day ability.bond conservation is NOT once per day, it's once per use of drain bonded item, a universalist can use this hypothetically 9 times per day minimum, ignoring chaining this. Since this gives you a new instance of drian bonded item, that instance can also allow you to use bond conservativon again. Meaning, refill a 9th level slot, use conservation and get the ability to drain again for a 7th level slot. Use that and then use conservation a second time and get another instance of drain bonded item for a 5th level slot, and so on
I'll admit that was poor mistake on my part, but you also missed that the spell having to be two tiers lower means that using drain bonded item on 1st and 2nd level slots isn't very helpful. Even if you can chain it, chaining a 5th>3rd>1st level spell over three turns and using 3 actions every turn to keep up the chain just isn't very good. This just doesn't pass the smell test to me because I'd rather be using third actions to move or cast one action spells from low rank slots, not use two or three actions across two turns to cast from lower ranked slots. It's an inherently inefficient action.
EDIT: And since it's still a use of Drain Bonded Item, you have to have already spent the lower level spell slot to get value.
EDIT 2: I see this feat as misleading because, imo, it only gives value in the situation where all the following apply:
-I am using drain bonded item to cast a spell (so i have already cast it today)
-I want to cast a spell next turn that I have already cast today and that spell is a lower level spell
-I do not want to use my third action for anything else more pressing or efficient
-I am not better off just casting a different spell (of a lower or higher level) next turn and disregarding this opportunity
These stars will not align as often as someone taking this feat would like. Being action-inefficient for the sake of resource conservation is not actually very good.
EDIT 3: For kicks, I have to ask: Why does this have the spellshape tag? Nothing it enables works like a spellshape feat. In fact, it must be used -after- whatever spell you cast with Drain Bonded Item, and you must use Drain Bonded Item again to get the benefit, so you aren't casting directly before the spell you'll get as a result of using it. The spellshape rules text seems completely irrelevant here.
Yeah, I consider Bond Conservation one of the strongest Wizard feats since a 17th level Universalist can use drained bonded item to cast.
An extra 9th rank spell, & a 7th, & a 5th, & a 3rd, & a 1st.
An extra 8th rank spell, & a 6th, & a 4th, & a 2nd
An extra 7th rank spell, & a 5th, & a 3rd, & a 1st
An extra 6th rank spell, & a 4th, & a 2nd
An extra 5th rank spell, & a 3rd, & a 1st
An extra 4th rank spell, & a 2nd.
An extra 3rd rank spell, & a 1st.
An extra 2nd rank spell
An extra 1st rank spell.
In optimal conditions, which you probably won't meet, you're getting 4 extra 1st rank spells, 4 extra 2nd rank spells, 3 extra 3rd rank spells, 2 extra 4th rank spells, 2 extra 5th rank spells, plus extra spells of the 6th and 7th ranks.
This is potentially one of the strongest feats in the entire game, but you should only take it on a Universalist.
Spot the difference between these two characters Dr Finius Von Blastingham, has studied the application of fire magic since he was 10, dedicated hours to understanding the process, application and applicable concepts to the manipulation of mana to cause fire, as well as how normal fire acts, the various denizens of the plane of fire etc.Fergal O'kaboom. Some guy whose ancestor had some multiplayer activities with someone who was more out of this world than they thought.
And number 2 is the better fire caster.
Sports science student when they find out they lost to a guy who was born like that:
More seriously yes, Dr Finus Von Blastingham knows more about fire (Recall Knowledge) than Fergal O'kaboom and depending on his thesis might know more ways to spellshape fire spells, can reformat his fire spells in a short period of time, or will with enough practical experience have more fireballs than anyone else...
But he can't replicate the innate blood nature of Fergal O'kaboom which makes his fire just that much more damaging. Welcome to fantasy, where hidden power in the blood and a pretty face can carry you further than 20 years of study in magic.
Try being a pure fighter till you get to graduation age. And then you take the exact same studies as Dr Finius.
While one of Dr Finius' fellow students quits studying magic after graduation and joins the academy of fist and weapon and Reactive Strike.
20 years later, the former is still lagging light years behind the latter as far as magic is concerned.
And in fact, the more they study magic while the other studies fighting, the less powerful a magic-user they become in comparison.
Aka Fighter MC Wizard vs Wizard MC Fighter.
Sounds like a pretty good buddy cop comedy. ^^
My problem with Bond Conservation is that it's an extra cast of "cast again a spell that you already casted today" to a caster class that's is already too bounded to its lower flexibility.
The feat is not bad this thing only reinforces the currently generalist casting that wizards are have with prepared casting.
It's that thing. I'm a lvl 17 wizard and I have Bond Conservation feat. So to take advantage of this feat I need to put an all-rounder spell into 7th. After I cast this spell now I can cast another all-rounder rank 9 spell. Now that I used a rank 9 all-rounder spell I can recast it again with Drain Bounded Item and now that I drained my Bounded Item with a rank 9 spell I can use it do recast my 7th all-rounder spell.
You can repeat this process reducing all ranks by 1 if you are an universalist spell caster.
It's a pretty restrictive way to get some extra "slots" that cannot be used with flexibility.
Yet it works if your plan is basically blast or debuff with same spells over and over again.
Bond conservation won't do the white room cast a million spells chain, but you'll get several extra slots back fairly easily throughout the day with it. It allows for an extra spell or two in a combat without draining *more* resources than you normally would
Yeah, I consider Bond Conservation one of the strongest Wizard feats since a 17th level Universalist can use drained bonded item to cast.
An extra 9th rank spell, & a 7th, & a 5th, & a 3rd, & a 1st.
An extra 8th rank spell, & a 6th, & a 4th, & a 2nd
An extra 7th rank spell, & a 5th, & a 3rd, & a 1st
An extra 6th rank spell, & a 4th, & a 2nd
An extra 5th rank spell, & a 3rd, & a 1st
An extra 4th rank spell, & a 2nd.
An extra 3rd rank spell, & a 1st.
An extra 2nd rank spell
An extra 1st rank spell.In optimal conditions, which you probably won't meet, you're getting 4 extra 1st rank spells, 4 extra 2nd rank spells, 3 extra 3rd rank spells, 2 extra 4th rank spells, 2 extra 5th rank spells, plus extra spells of the 6th and 7th ranks.
This is potentially one of the strongest feats in the entire game, but you should only take it on a Universalist.
This is the ceiling, and this is a HIGH ceiling, and I would say the floor is pretty high of getting 1 or 2 extra spells for free-ish in combat, universalist getting to do this multiple combats in a day brings the floor up higher. This feat is good because of this high-ish floor and astronomically high ceiling. I can see campaigns where this never comes up, like the one that takes place in the realm of the mammoth lords, but I wouldn't play a wizard in that campaign pretty much ever
Bond Conservation is a joke of a feat, like most of the feats supposed to increase the sustainability of casters. It is not worth the time to read it.
"They are not worth the time to read them." kkkkkkk
This was the most severe critic that I saw someone talking about a feat.
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"They are not worth the time to read them." kkkkkkk
This was the most severe critic that I saw someone talking about a feat.
I've seen so many discussions about Bond Conservation... For a feat that has just no use at all.
Spells 4 ranks under your maximum are functionally free. And getting 2 extra spells of 2-3 ranks under your maximum if you jump through tons of hoops is ridiculous.| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Bond Conservation is a joke of a feat, like most of the feats supposed to increase the sustainability of casters. It is not worth the time to read it.
It is complex and has restrictions which are annoying. Typically I'd rather have a simple slot like say Primal Evolution gives.
I feel like y’all are trying to make Bond Conservation into something it’s not, and then severely underrating it because it doesn’t fill the vision of it basically letting you be a Spontaneous caster.
I’m with AestheticDialectic on this one. While the theoretical ceiling may be incredibly super duper high, it’s not anywhere near necessary to perform at the ceiling for the Feat to be useful. The Feat basically just gives you 2-4 extra spell slots depending on your exact level and how well you time its use, and that’s already plentiful. When you take the caster who’s meant to be using as many spell slots as possible and has meh focus spells to offset that, and you give them even more spell slots, they’ll be happy.
The fact that it doesn’t represent that many spell slots at the level you first obtain it and scales to represent more is also pretty intentional. The gap between a Spontaneous caster’s combat-to-combat flexibility and a Wizard’s is relatively small at lower levels, it’s only when the caster has like 5+ Signature spells that the latter starts to feel much more restricted, so that when Feats like Bond Conservation, Superior Bond, Reprepare Spell, etc come into play to make sure the Prepared caster gets additional brute force potency for the day. Notably, it’s why three of the Wizard Thesis are designed to become exponentially more powerful as you level up.
All that being said, regardless of your views on Bond Conservation specifically, I still don’t buy this argument that Sorcerers somehow have way stronger Feats. The benefits of most of the Feats Sorcerers get are just about as marginal as the Wizard Feats I listed.
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Bond Conservation is a joke of a feat, like most of the feats supposed to increase the sustainability of casters. It is not worth the time to read it.
I think it is a good feat that requires too much tracking and planning to use well for the vast majority of players. People don't want to track that much to make a feat effective.
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It's not only a track question but also a "I must use a top rank -2 to make this thing work" so to it work and worth you not only have to use a higher rank spell but also a -2 rank spell before use it to cast 2 spells that you already casted again.
Do this breaks any trace of versatility that the class currently have and if you save it to when you are out of both bounded spell slots you probably never will use it.
It's like SuperBidi pointed "is a joke of a feat, like most of the feats supposed to increase the sustainability of casters".
I can see this more having a psychological effect to make the caster as less afraid to use its spell slots than a real effective use.
On Spell Book Prodigy:
When I first read the Player Core, I was pretty dismissive of this feat. ThenI decided to pick it for my most recent wizard because I was a human, going spell blending and decided I was going to commit 90% of my wealth to buying scrolls, including higher level scrolls than I can currently cast on my own, and to just see how "all the spells" feel in play.
Here is what I noticed about Spell Book Prodigy: You get it at level 1, not level 3 (or more likely level 4 when you have a skill feat for it), and you don't even have to increase arcana as your very first skill increase if you need something else for your character concept. The level 1 thing is actually kind of a big deal because, even if your party is selling everything you find at half value, each party member should have earned about 60 gold by level 3. Cutting the cost of learn a spell at both ends (successes to critical successes and crit failures to failure) adds up to a lot of gold when you are spending all of your wealth on scrolls. When I bought a rank 3 fireball scroll halfway through second level, because I knew we were going into a fight that was going to spiral into fighting a lot of enemies, I probably wouldn't have even tried to learn it before using it if I hadn't had magical short hand already.
You can easily retrain out of it when you feel like you have learned enough spells/magical shorthand will be good enough for your needs. You can have a mercinary mentality to your low level class feats when none of them are build dependent. Like reach spell is also very good at all levels, but if you have a one action focus spell you plan on using every encounter, and you are buying a lot of scrolls to learn spells from the day you want to be able to learn them and potentially even spell substitute them, then you probably wont get more use out of reach spell, at least for many levels
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Superior Bond, Reprepare Spell
More laughably bad feats. A spell slot 2 ranks under your maximum at the cost of a level 14 feat??? And even worse: free rank 4 spells at level... 18??? Or how to pay for free stuff!
Superior Bond, Reprepare SpellMore laughably bad feats. A spell slot 2 ranks under your maximum at the cost of a level 14 feat??? And even worse: free rank 4 spells at level... 18??? Or how to pay for free stuff!
You are still severely underestimating these Feats. Even at its baseline, an extra rank-2 slot is nothing to scoff at because most casters operate out of their top 3 ranks of spells (and Wizards more so than others due to relying harder on spell slots than focus spells or cantrips). At the level you get it at, Superior Bond is an extra use of Wall of Stone (even at rank-2 it still has enough HP to be amazing) or Freezing Rain or Wave of Despair, which is inherently insane. By the time you’re at level 20 it’s an extra use of Contingency or Ferrous Form or Power Word Stun. Dismissing the spell for being two ranks below the max is kind of insane, because at the levels you’re using this feature at, rank-2 spells are insanely good.
And I call this all “at a baseline” because Superior Bond + Bond Conservation combines into being way more spell slots than you’d otherwise have.
As for Spell Repreperation, there are plenty of 3rd and 4th rank spells that are good to be spamming all day long every single day. 4th rank Hidebound, Wooden Double, Zephyr Slip, Time Jump, Slow, Confusion, 3rd rank Fear, the list goes on and on. The big thing here is that a Spell Repreperation Wizard can operate nearly entirely out of those low rank spells if they want to because they scale incredibly well, and then dedicate their higher rank slots to long duration buffs, Contingencies, things that Counteract, silver bullets for specific situations, or Action efficient damage options. The Feat is a massive force multiplier.
All that being said, you’re still ignoring the elephant in the room: the discussion wasn’t about whether you like Wizard Feats in a vacuum. The claim here was that Sorcerer Feats are significantly stronger than Wizard Feats which… isn’t really true, and these were provided as examples of Feats that are on the level of most Sorcerer Feats. Both Wizards and Arcane Sorcerers have fairly little room for extremely generically strong Feats because of how much of their power budget is invested into the Arcane spell list itself.
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Even at its baseline, an extra rank-2 slot is nothing to scoff at
A rank -2 Scroll costs 10% of an at level consumable. Considering that you get the feat at level 14, you'll hardly need even half a dozen of them. So you payed a level 14 feat to gain... half a consumable.
As for Spell Repreperation, there are plenty of 3rd and 4th rank spells that are good to be spamming all day long every single day.
A level 4 Scroll costs 70 gp, a level 18 consumable costs 7k, you can buy a hundred such Scrolls if you want. So you're paying a feat for what's virtually free.
These feats are absolutely useless. They are a shame.
I was not intervening about the feat comparison (Sorcerer also has some pretty bad feats) but just to point out that there are extremely few feats that increase your number of spells per day that are worth reading.
As a side note:
The big thing here is that a Spell Repreperation Wizard can operate nearly entirely out of those low rank spells if they want to
Why would you decide to play a level 18 Wizard like a level 7 one?
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Even at its baseline, an extra rank-2 slot is nothing to scoff atA rank -2 Scroll costs 10% of an at level consumable. Considering that you get the feat at level 14, you'll hardly need even half a dozen of them. So you payed a level 14 feat to gain... half a consumable.
As for Spell Repreperation, there are plenty of 3rd and 4th rank spells that are good to be spamming all day long every single day.A level 4 Scroll costs 70 gp, a level 18 consumable costs 7k, you can buy a hundred such Scrolls if you want. So you're paying a feat for what's virtually free.
These feats are absolutely useless. They are a shame.
Scrolls hit diminishing returns fast because of handedness Action economy. Carrying 10 scrolls of Wooden Double to protect yourself isn’t a viable strategy because you’ll often find yourself spending multiple Actions juggling them into place and/or not be have space for the staff, wands, shield, weapon, etc combination that you’d like to have on your person.
A Retrieval Belt can help with that but now we’re no longer spending tiny amounts of gold, we’re spending “on-level permanent magic item” amounts of gold that could’ve been spent on a lot of other relevant stuff (Greater Retrieval Belt is almost directly competing with Shadow Signet, Type II Ring of Wizardry, Accolade Robe, quite a few relevant Greater Staves and Spellhearts, etc).
To say nothing of the fact that even if you fix the Action cost of drawing it, it still requires near perfect foresight to be able to use these. Like if you need a Time Jump in combat you're… probably using that to escape an enemy’s Reach without trigger Reactions. But… drawing the scroll will trigger that Reaction anyways. Same way you’re not always gonna know “I’m gonna be crit soon, I better have Wooden Double in my hand now”. Same with not knowing what spells are relevant to a specific encounter: if you’re level 15 you don’t know ahead of time whether a 6th rank Slow to destroy a mass of enemies is what you want right now, or if you want an Unexpected Transposition to protect yourself from an enemy, or if you want Cast into Time to quickly unrestrain a friend while dealing damage, or whatever else. Casting such things out of your own slots is a big boost.
I’m not saying scrolls are useless, of course, but “just use scrolls” isn’t an answer to everything. Extra spell slots come with tons of their own advantages, even lower rank ones.
The big thing here is that a Spell Repreperation Wizard can operate nearly entirely out of those low rank spells if they want toWhy would you decide to play a level 18 Wizard like a level 7 one?
Eh fair enough, I was being silly there.
The actual strength is being able to prepare several lower rank spells that you can efficiently spam in between turns of spending 2-3 Actions on higher rank, meaningful spells and/ir silver bullets that are so good when they matter that they’re worth having “always on”.
I will say, I definitely underestimated how many spells have a Duration and thus won’t count for this Feat, so it’s gonna move lower in my valuation. For example this Feat doesn’t help you spam Slow or Hidebound. The main spells here that I see being handy are Wooden Double, Zephyr Slip, Time Jump, Acid Grip (it’s one of those “silver bullets” I mentioned, since it’s so effective at breaking Grabbed/Restrained), Brine Dragon’s Bile (just to spam a bit of damage between rounds), Dimension Door (notably you can expend it on Contingency and Reprepare it however many times you want), and probably a few others.
So I think it’s still good but I do agree that I over evaluated it initially.
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Scrolls hit diminishing returns fast because of handedness Action economy.
You can just have a Familiar to hand them to you.
Also, having Scrolls doesn't prevent you from using your slotted spells. Maybe you'll prepare more Wooden Double and less "whatever can be used with a Scroll". What I wanted to show is that you can already have a near unlimited amount of low level spells without any feat. I play with Scrolls with my casters, and I very rarely have to pay actions to draw them (and these actions never impacted me). So the actual benefit of these feats is close to none... and they are supposed to be the pinacle of being a Wizard.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Scrolls hit diminishing returns fast because of handedness Action economy.You can just have a Familiar to hand them to you.
A familiar handing them to you would still involve:
1. You predicting the spell you need correctly well ahead of time if you want your familiar to have already been holding it.
2. Interact Actions (which can trigger Reactions and cause you to lose your familiar).
3. The familiar standing out in the open the whole time and exposing themselves to AoEs and incidental attacks.
It’s not a terrible strategy but it’s not so good as to obsolete the Feats. This is especially true because, as you yourself said, why would you try to fight like a level 7 Wizard at level 18? You’re not using these rank 1-6 spells for casting Slow or Fear or whatever else you’re primarily using them for things you can’t predict you’ll need in your hand ahead of time. By the time you need to use Wooden Double, or Time Jump, or Acid Grip in a high level fight, it may already be too late to worry about drawing a scroll or having a familiar give it to you.
What I wanted to show is that you can already have a near unlimited amount of low level spells without any feat.
Sure. But the kinds of low rank spells you tend to use in the middle of combat tend to be the kinda of spells that don’t give you a convenient window to draw them.
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Worth noting that you cannot use Drain Bonded Item (and therefore Bond Conservation) to cast reaction spells very effectively, because the text of Drain Bonded Item specifies you can cast the spell "during your turn." It's one of the reasons I'm not valuing the feat very highly.
Scrolls hit diminishing returns fast because of handedness Action economy.You can just have a Familiar to hand them to you.
A familiar handing them to you would still involve:
1. You predicting the spell you need correctly well ahead of time if you want your familiar to have already been holding it.
2. Interact Actions (which can trigger Reactions and cause you to lose your familiar).
3. The familiar standing out in the open the whole time and exposing themselves to AoEs and incidental attacks.It’s not a terrible strategy but it’s not so good as to obsolete the Feats. This is especially true because, as you yourself said, why would you try to fight like a level 7 Wizard at level 18? You’re not using these rank 1-6 spells for casting Slow or Fear or whatever else you’re primarily using them for things you can’t predict you’ll need in your hand ahead of time. By the time you need to use Wooden Double, or Time Jump, or Acid Grip in a high level fight, it may already be too late to worry about drawing a scroll or having a familiar give it to you.
Sure. But the kinds of low rank spells you tend to use in the middle of combat tend to be the kinda of spells that don’t give you a convenient window to draw them.What I wanted to show is that you can already have a near unlimited amount of low level spells without any feat.
Not exactly. A valet familiar still able to put a scroll on each hand with a single action. You still require an action to command it but you got the double of scroll with such action what saves a future draw action.
AoE risk is a bit overrated for ranged casters. Usually most monsters/NPCs prefer to target an area most concentrated of targets what's usually means the frontline not the casters that usually are more distant and alone and usually only the reflexes AoE that is the really dangerous one (will effects usually are debuff effects that usually doesn't creates a problem for familiars, fortitude damage checks are pretty rare too) but this can be diminished with Damage Avoidance ability and the familiar shares the AC and Saves from its master what's usually means the it have some good values. Also incidental attacks are very rare (unless the creature have some multi-target attack and the familiar is in range) because the familiars doesn't impose a direct threat to the monsters/NPCs.
I'm not saying that there's no risk for familiars but usually is way less the people think.
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It's not only a track question but also a "I must use a top rank -2 to make this thing work" so to it work and worth you not only have to use a higher rank spell but also a -2 rank spell before use it to cast 2 spells that you already casted again.
Do this breaks any trace of versatility that the class currently have and if you save it to when you are out of both bounded spell slots you probably never will use it.
It's like SuperBidi pointed "is a joke of a feat, like most of the feats supposed to increase the sustainability of casters".
I can see this more having a psychological effect to make the caster as less afraid to use its spell slots than a real effective use.
That's why when I recommend the feat, I explain you must have something in mind with it. It requires the creation of combinations you know you will use with this feat and the other feat it synergizes with Superior Bond. So it's more of a high level feat that requires too much thought and tracking to use for most players if the DM is very strict with rules.
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Even at its baseline, an extra rank-2 slot is nothing to scoff atA rank -2 Scroll costs 10% of an at level consumable. Considering that you get the feat at level 14, you'll hardly need even half a dozen of them. So you payed a level 14 feat to gain... half a consumable.
As for Spell Repreperation, there are plenty of 3rd and 4th rank spells that are good to be spamming all day long every single day.A level 4 Scroll costs 70 gp, a level 18 consumable costs 7k, you can buy a hundred such Scrolls if you want. So you're paying a feat for what's virtually free.
These feats are absolutely useless. They are a shame.
I was not intervening about the feat comparison (Sorcerer also has some pretty bad feats) but just to point out that there are extremely few feats that increase your number of spells per day that are worth reading.
As a side note:
The big thing here is that a Spell Repreperation Wizard can operate nearly entirely out of those low rank spells if they want toWhy would you decide to play a level 18 Wizard like a level 7 one?
Reprepare spell is a free 4th level casting or a free level 4 consumable every time you get time to reprepare. Is it great or super interesting? Nope. Just another example of the tasteless porridge wizard in PF2 that relies on spell slots for everything. This is one of your best level 14 feat so you can cast a level 4 spell all day like a level 4 blasting spell all day.
A bland, tasteless moderately ok feat. A free 70 gold as many times per day as they get a chance to reprepare and use a lvl 4 blasting spell like vision or death or a level 4 fireball.
Scrolls hit diminishing returns fast because of handedness Action economy.You can just have a Familiar to hand them to you.
A familiar handing them to you would still involve:
1. You predicting the spell you need correctly well ahead of time if you want your familiar to have already been holding it.
2. Interact Actions (which can trigger Reactions and cause you to lose your familiar).
3. The familiar standing out in the open the whole time and exposing themselves to AoEs and incidental attacks.It’s not a terrible strategy but it’s not so good as to obsolete the Feats. This is especially true because, as you yourself said, why would you try to fight like a level 7 Wizard at level 18? You’re not using these rank 1-6 spells for casting Slow or Fear or whatever else you’re primarily using them for things you can’t predict you’ll need in your hand ahead of time. By the time you need to use Wooden Double, or Time Jump, or Acid Grip in a high level fight, it may already be too late to worry about drawing a scroll or having a familiar give it to you.
Sure. But the kinds of low rank spells you tend to use in the middle of combat tend to be the kinda of spells that don’t give you a convenient window to draw them.What I wanted to show is that you can already have a near unlimited amount of low level spells without any feat.
Not exactly. A valet familiar still able to put a scroll on each hand with a single action. You still require an action to command it but you got the double of scroll with such action what saves a future draw action.
AoE risk is a bit overrated for ranged casters. Usually most monsters/NPCs prefer to target an area most concentrated of targets what's usually means the frontline not the casters that usually are more distant and alone and usually only the reflexes AoE that is the really dangerous one (will effects usually are debuff effects that usually...
Tricks that look ridiculous, but are the only way to optimize a familiar. It's best move is putting a scroll in each hand to reduce the action cost of drawing a scroll as you blast them off.
It is very true this is a good ability or at least one of the best for a caster with a familiar. Not sure how often it is necessary as I have never needed to blow that many scrolls off during an adventuring day. I mostly use scrolls for utility spells or healing, then focus my slots on combat spells like blasts or slow during actual play. I rarely need to rely too much on scrolls during combat.
I agree I just pointed that is not so "8 or 80".
That's doesn't mean that I like this strategy just that is a bit easier solution to those who the casting strategy relies on scrolls. This doesn't mean that you are not putting your familiar at risk. Maybe you can need to turn it into a tattoo after an AoE to prevent its death or maybe it can dead and you need to take another one 1 week later.
IMO a sorcerer with just one scroll at hand and a staff in the other hand is enough to deal with most adventure days without problems and in a very versatile way. But there are other solutions for other classes and players with different playstyles.
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Even at its baseline, an extra rank-2 slot is nothing to scoff atA rank -2 Scroll costs 10% of an at level consumable. Considering that you get the feat at level 14, you'll hardly need even half a dozen of them. So you payed a level 14 feat to gain... half a consumable.
As for Spell Repreperation, there are plenty of 3rd and 4th rank spells that are good to be spamming all day long every single day.A level 4 Scroll costs 70 gp, a level 18 consumable costs 7k, you can buy a hundred such Scrolls if you want. So you're paying a feat for what's virtually free.
These feats are absolutely useless. They are a shame.
I was not intervening about the feat comparison (Sorcerer also has some pretty bad feats) but just to point out that there are extremely few feats that increase your number of spells per day that are worth reading.
As a side note:
The big thing here is that a Spell Repreperation Wizard can operate nearly entirely out of those low rank spells if they want toWhy would you decide to play a level 18 Wizard like a level 7 one?A bland, tasteless
It being bland or tasteless is very much subjective.
I personally think “I’m such a big nerd that I break the fundamental rules of spellcasting” is literally the reason to play a Wizard. That’s the whole reason I even play Wizards, just like how people play Fighters for the flavour of “I’m so good at weapons I don’t need a damage gimmick”.
moderately ok feat.
I’ve been trying to argue since the very beginning that pretty Wizard, Arcane Sorcerer, and Arcane Witches get class features and Feats that range between “alright” and “moderately good with a high ceiling”.
A free 70 gold as many times per day as they get a chance to reprepare and use a lvl 4 blasting spell like vision or death or a level 4 fireball.
A low level blast is a terrible use of a spell slot that’s going to be 5 whole ranks below your maximum rank by the time you get Reprepare Spell.
Your low rank spells at this level are likely dedicated to out of combat usage, long duration enchantments, Reaction or 1-Action spells you squeeze in between your 2-3 Action higher rank spells, or “silver bullets” that are always good to have around for unique situations. Reprepare Spell doesn’t interact with long duration enchantments (obviously), and doesn’t compete with scrolls for out of combat utility, but for the last two categories it practically means you have an infinite number of those prepared. That’s a pretty good use of the Feat.
Need I remind you that the Sorcerer’s get a weaker version of this as a capstone Feat, where they can only use it once per encounter while the Wizard can Reprepare any number of spells that they used previously in an encounter.
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Even at its baseline, an extra rank-2 slot is nothing to scoff atA rank -2 Scroll costs 10% of an at level consumable. Considering that you get the feat at level 14, you'll hardly need even half a dozen of them. So you payed a level 14 feat to gain... half a consumable.
As for Spell Repreperation, there are plenty of 3rd and 4th rank spells that are good to be spamming all day long every single day.A level 4 Scroll costs 70 gp, a level 18 consumable costs 7k, you can buy a hundred such Scrolls if you want. So you're paying a feat for what's virtually free.
These feats are absolutely useless. They are a shame.
I was not intervening about the feat comparison (Sorcerer also has some pretty bad feats) but just to point out that there are extremely few feats that increase your number of spells per day that are worth reading.
As a side note:
The big thing here is that a Spell Repreperation Wizard can operate nearly entirely out of those low rank spells if they want toWhy would you decide to play a level 18 Wizard like a level 7 one?A bland, tasteless
It being bland or tasteless is very much subjective.
I personally think “I’m such a big nerd that I break the fundamental rules of spellcasting” is literally the reason to play a Wizard. That’s the whole reason I even play Wizards, just like how people play Fighters for the flavour of “I’m so good at weapons I don’t need a damage gimmick”.
moderately ok feat.
I’ve been trying to argue since the very beginning that pretty Wizard, Arcane Sorcerer, and Arcane Witches get class features and Feats that range between “alright” and “moderately good with a high ceiling”.
A low level blast is a terrible use...A free 70 gold as many times per day as they get a chance to reprepare and use a lvl 4 blasting spell like vision or death or a level 4 fireball.
That is the rub isn't it? I do not like the PF2 wizard. Worst iteration of the wizard I've seen in any edition of D&D I've played other than maybe 4E. Bland, boring feats and class features saved from being terrible by the power of generic Legendary casting.
But someone like Unicore considers it his favorite version. But I've never seen Unicore down on anything produced by Paizo.
I have zero power to change the wizard in a way that I like or that makes it fun to play without completely rewriting the class. I've already made them spontaneous casters and given them Spell Substitution for free and they still rarely get played. I still haven't seen one to high level because no one in my group can stand playing one to high level with so many other more interesting and powerful class options available.
For myself, I find it hard to believe that the most popular class in my group since we played when the wizard was called Magic User is now relegated to this class no one wants to play in PF2. I had a wizard nearly every campaign for 30 plus years. At least a few players all time favorite characters including myself were wizards.
Now no one wants to play the class. It's not even the power any more at this point as we all learned how to make casting work in PF2. It's just a boring class with boring class features and feats and not much to look forward to.
I guess this will have to be the first version of a D&D type of game where very few wizards are played. I've done what I can to make them more competitive with my house rules. I'm not rewriting all their feats and focus spells. I'm going to accept that in PF2 wizards are not a very popular class in my normally pro-wizard group and they can make what they see as more interesting and powerful.
Maybe PF3 will make a better wizard that will be more popular again. It's definitely strange to see the wizard on the low end of the power hierarchy after so many decades at or near the top. Even 5E did not nuke the wizard into the bottom tier of casters like PF2 did. It's pretty surprising.