Could Class Archetyping Fix Wizard?

[Bluemagetim]

pH unbalanced wrote:

Ryangwy wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

But I agree GMs that are completely stuck on the current list as it is are making the game more difficult for wizard players. I think the intent was clear enough to incorporate spells that meet the theme and by doing this meant they only needed to provide a list of examples rather than a hard unalterable rule of a list and makes it unnecessary to revise the lists over and over as new content comes out.

The schools don't have any easy to understand correspondence like sharing traits or anything, and frankly they don't even share the same structure as each other (ARS GRAMMTICA). When 'Boundary' variably means 'teleport' or 'force damage' or 'void damage', when Protean Form has toxic cloud in it, how can a GM tell what's in-theme or not?

Also, if they were concerned about revising lists, maybe they should have, you know, not made it a list in the first place. Or introduced more spell traits, maybe. Making a 'thematic' school which randomly has some barely thematic entries in it and telling the GM to figure out what qualifies is going to result in chaos.

What I think we need is some Wizard feats that will give additional choices for your school slots.

Like "Elemental Study" which would allow you to add your choice of Fire, Electric, Cold, or Acid spells to your school.

Or "Religious Study" which would allow you to add your Deity's granted spells to your school.

Or "Dual Major" which would allow you to pick a second school.

Or "Acadamae Student" which would allow you to add spells with the Summon trait to your school.

(Possibly with some limitations -- pick one per rank. Or doesn't include your highest rank. Or these are high level feats which come online late and can't be picked up via multiclass.)

Will this fix Wizards if you just don't like the Wizard playstyle? Of course not. These are suggestions of ways to fix the Wizard for those who liked the Premaster Wizard, but feel the Remaster broke them.

Thats a neat idea.

Just taking elemental study.
The first feat could be lower level opening up the tags to curriculum slots. Then a 6th level feat in the tree adds some benefit when casting spells with those tags out of a curriculum slot.
It is clear though that the design stays away from over specialization but doing it to an appropriate degree would be cool.

[Bluemagetim]

Ryangwy wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

But I agree GMs that are completely stuck on the current list as it is are making the game more difficult for wizard players. I think the intent was clear enough to incorporate spells that meet the theme and by doing this meant they only needed to provide a list of examples rather than a hard unalterable rule of a list and makes it unnecessary to revise the lists over and over as new content comes out.

The schools don't have any easy to understand correspondence like sharing traits or anything, and frankly they don't even share the same structure as each other (ARS GRAMMTICA). When 'Boundary' variably means 'teleport' or 'force damage' or 'void damage', when Protean Form has toxic cloud in it, how can a GM tell what's in-theme or not?

Also, if they were concerned about revising lists, maybe they should have, you know, not made it a list in the first place. Or introduced more spell traits, maybe. Making a 'thematic' school which randomly has some barely thematic entries in it and telling the GM to figure out what qualifies is going to result in chaos.

I agree with how Easl put it.

Thinking of theme just as tags is one way to theme. Like lighting is a theme sure, and my favoorite. But they went with a broader approach to themeing by a collection of concepts rather than more narrow themeing like tags. This actually creates much more freedom for players. All GMs have to do is consider, is this spell reasonable? if so allow it.
I remember you dislike Ars perhaps the most. For Ars anything related to to either written forms or communication or unraveling of magic fit the theme. So if a player thinking eldritch horror theme Ars wizard who writes all of their spells into their book in Aklo looking at whispers of the void for a rank 4 curriculum spell, I would say yea that works.

[moosher12]

Ryangwy wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

But I agree GMs that are completely stuck on the current list as it is are making the game more difficult for wizard players. I think the intent was clear enough to incorporate spells that meet the theme and by doing this meant they only needed to provide a list of examples rather than a hard unalterable rule of a list and makes it unnecessary to revise the lists over and over as new content comes out.

The schools don't have any easy to understand correspondence like sharing traits or anything, and frankly they don't even share the same structure as each other (ARS GRAMMTICA). When 'Boundary' variably means 'teleport' or 'force damage' or 'void damage', when Protean Form has toxic cloud in it, how can a GM tell what's in-theme or not?

Also, if they were concerned about revising lists, maybe they should have, you know, not made it a list in the first place. Or introduced more spell traits, maybe. Making a 'thematic' school which randomly has some barely thematic entries in it and telling the GM to figure out what qualifies is going to result in chaos.

I know pagination is a concern dev side, but I feel that the idea of Spell Schools would have been better to work with if they simply had a larger sample size.

Basically, two changes.

1. The school should STRESS that the intention is to add other relevant spells as they come up, to better enforce the idea that the GM will have to. "Your GM might allow you to swap or add other spells to your curriculum if they strongly fit the theme." should probably be replaced with "Your GM should allow you to add other spells to your curriculum if they strongly fit the theme," for example.

2. The spell school should probably have double the spell list it currently has, but ideally, it should list all relevant Player Core spells. It's more data for GM's to review to see if another spell can be considered addable. And even if the GM wants to stick to the list only, it's a wider list for the players.

To me, the first question I asked myself when I read the entry was "How close is not close enough." Because I, like many GM's, when making a a judge on when a spell should be allowed, want to consider Paizo dev's intentions of balance when deciding if a spell is relevant for such a thing. Having a list of all spells allowed would at least give GMs a measure of "This spell looks loosely related, but it's in the list, so this lets me know the outer line." and "This spell is tangentially related in the same book that a player might ask for it, but it's not in the list, so this lets me know that that spell is too far from the theme" when considering what sort of spells to allow in a secondary book that introduces new spells.

[Ed Reppert]

SuperBidi wrote:

In my country, ortolan is a delicacy but the animal is now protected so it's illegal to prepare it. So some restaurants had to tell their customers that they won't get their delicacy anymore.

"In 1975, food critic Craig Claiborne made a winning $300 bid in an auction for a dinner for two, courtesy of American Express, at any restaurant in the world that takes its credit card. Claiborne selected Chez Denis in Paris for a $4,000 meal ($20,665 in 2022) that included a course of ortolans." -- Wikipedia.

[Easl]

moosher12 wrote:

Having a list of all spells allowed would at least give GMs a measure of "This spell looks loosely related, but it's in the list, so this lets me know the outer line." and "This spell is tangentially related in the same book that a player might ask for it, but it's not in the list, so this lets me know that that spell is too far from the theme" when considering what sort of spells to allow in a secondary book that introduces new spells

How could Paizo give a list in PC1 of 'all spells available' when we know there will be spells in PC2 and many other books planned over the next year? And why think that Paizo even has the intent of strictly limiting GMs in deciding what spells might reasonably swapped in, in their table's Ars Grammatica etc.? Maybe the reason they described the school theme and left it there was...becasuse their intent was to that the theme BE the guiding concept for GMs to use to make their own decisions. At some point, a GM has to take the training wheels off and GM for content, not just see themselves as cranking the handle of a machine that makes all the content decisions. Apologies if that sounds harsh, I don't mean to be, and I'm not directing that at anyone on these boards. Everyone probably has their own line as to where the content crosses from helpful and useful rules into overspecification of the game world. Telling me exactly what a wizard's school must teach and must not teach across all the multiple Golarion continents, Golarion-wide, to me, IMO, is overspecified. YMMV.

[exequiel759]

I haven't read all the 80+ comments that were added since the last time I passed by, so while it's likely someone already said it, I'll give my 2c too.

The wizard isn't a complex class. Quite the opposite in fact, its probably the easiest caster to play because the only thing you have to "know" are your spells pretty much; which is exactly the problem of the class. In older editions wizards were also like this, but because spellcasting was a bonkers feature it was more than enough. I ain't in the "casters are bad" wagon that some people in the community are, but it can't be denied that spellcasting is weaker when compared to what it used to be, although still perfectly serviceable in its own. The class that is the closest to the wizard in terms of design would be the fighter because both have a minimalistic approach in which they are designed to be the quintesential caster and martial respectively. The problem is that the fighter does the job of being the ultimate weapon master much more better than the wizard, who feels more like a feature-less caster with nothing there to compensate it.

I'm not saying the wizard should start being expertin spell attacks and spell DCs, because I think that alone would make the wizard too strong and likely create certain issues here and there (post-Remaster there's few effects that scale with either your class or spell DC, things that likely weren't made in mind with someoen beggining being expert from the get go with them) but I think the class should be tweaked to represent the "ultimate spell master" as the caster equivalent of the fighter.

I'm pretty sure I already made a comment in this post with the changes I would have made to the wizard so I won't repeat myself, but regardless of that I think we are already too late for the party in a sense. The remaster just happened and the wizard was left pretty much as is, so nothing released in a future book is going to save the class. I think the class that took the spot of the alchemist in being the "class with the most discourse online about its performance" is the wizard, so it's not impossible for them to do an errata pass but even then its not going to be anything too major. What we could expect, however, is too see future books release new content in the form of feats which could, in a way, kind of fix the wizard. The problem with that would be that the current feats we have will become trap options if that were to happen, which I think is something peopla aren't taking into account with runelord archetype, because even if the archetype is good, if its that good its going to become a default choice rather than something you'll want to take for flavor, RP, or whatever reason.

[Deriven Firelion]

Be nice if the wizard could do interesting things with focus spells with spells. I'd much rather have focus driven spellshape feats for every school to do unique and interesting things with spells than what they have now.

I'd rather just have a flat number of slots with curriculums providing focus abilities and little bonuses that fit the theme.

We don't need limited spell slots any longer. It creates more tedious bookkeeping.

[R3st8]

exequiel759 wrote:

which I think is something peopla aren't taking into account with runelord archetype, because even if the archetype is good, if its that good its going to become a default choice rather than something you'll want to take for flavor, RP, or whatever reason.

I mean its better to have a single good default choice than have only undertuned okay choices

[moosher12]

Easl wrote:

moosher12 wrote:

Having a list of all spells allowed would at least give GMs a measure of "This spell looks loosely related, but it's in the list, so this lets me know the outer line." and "This spell is tangentially related in the same book that a player might ask for it, but it's not in the list, so this lets me know that that spell is too far from the theme" when considering what sort of spells to allow in a secondary book that introduces new spells

How could Paizo give a list in PC1 of 'all spells available' when we know there will be spells in PC2 and many other books planned over the next year? And why think that Paizo even has the intent of strictly limiting GMs in deciding what spells might reasonably swapped in, in their table's Ars Grammatica etc.? Maybe the reason they described the school theme and left it there was...becasuse their intent was to that the theme BE the guiding concept for GMs to use to make their own decisions. At some point, a GM has to take the training wheels off and GM for content, not just see themselves as cranking the handle of a machine that makes all the content decisions. Apologies if that sounds harsh, I don't mean to be, and I'm not directing that at anyone on these boards. Everyone probably has their own line as to where the content crosses from helpful and useful rules into overspecification of the game world. Telling me exactly what a wizard's school must teach and must not teach across all the multiple Golarion continents, Golarion-wide, to me, IMO, is overspecified. YMMV.

Read my comment a second time. If the PC1 list is relatively comprehensive, people will have a good idea of what PC2, and other books spells would be appropriate. The more examples of what is appropriate and not appropriate, the easier it is for a GM to find the line of acceptability. And changing the language from "may" and "can" to "should" should also be put in place to enforce GMs to do this.

I already do this as a GM and let players add spells as relevant, but clearly the complaint among players is that a notable amount of GMs are choosing to not do that, and keep the list as is.

Telling GMs to take off the training wheels does not work if you are telling it to a player whose GM will refuse to take off the training wheels. I don't think this is a problem with GMs or players. This is a problem with the game's language phrasing the rule in such a way it sounds like an optional rule, leading GMs to err on the side of caution and choose to not expand the list.

The concern of my comment you responded to is not for myself, but for the newer GMs, or the GMs that are more hesitant to go off the book. Telling idealisms that GMs should take off the training wheels in a forum that only a very small percentage of GMs will ever read will only fix things for those few GMs. All the average GM has to work with is what is in the book they are reading.

[Aristophanes]

Wizards should be the meta-magic, or spell-shapes if you prefer, masters.
There should be shapes only a wizard can know. And no, you shouldn't be able to get the better ones from the Archetype. Wizards should be able to do things with spells that Witches and sorcerers can only dream about.

[Bluemagetim]

moosher12 wrote:

Easl wrote:

moosher12 wrote:

Having a list of all spells allowed would at least give GMs a measure of "This spell looks loosely related, but it's in the list, so this lets me know the outer line." and "This spell is tangentially related in the same book that a player might ask for it, but it's not in the list, so this lets me know that that spell is too far from the theme" when considering what sort of spells to allow in a secondary book that introduces new spells

How could Paizo give a list in PC1 of 'all spells available' when we know there will be spells in PC2 and many other books planned over the next year? And why think that Paizo even has the intent of strictly limiting GMs in deciding what spells might reasonably swapped in, in their table's Ars Grammatica etc.? Maybe the reason they described the school theme and left it there was...becasuse their intent was to that the theme BE the guiding concept for GMs to use to make their own decisions. At some point, a GM has to take the training wheels off and GM for content, not just see themselves as cranking the handle of a machine that makes all the content decisions. Apologies if that sounds harsh, I don't mean to be, and I'm not directing that at anyone on these boards. Everyone probably has their own line as to where the content crosses from helpful and useful rules into overspecification of the game world. Telling me exactly what a wizard's school must teach and must not teach across all the multiple Golarion continents, Golarion-wide, to me, IMO, is overspecified. YMMV.

Read my comment a second time. If the PC1 list is relatively comprehensive, people will have a good idea of what PC2, and other books spells would be appropriate. The more examples of what is appropriate and not appropriate, the easier it is for a GM to find the line of acceptability. And changing the language from "may" and "can" to "should" should also be put in place to enforce GMs to do this.

I already do this as a GM and let players...

Your also approaching identifying theme differently.

You want spells on the list to be examples and data points to decide what the theme. Another approach is to use the description of the theme along with the description of the spells to determine what fits.
One is aimed at determining game balance as you said, the other is not concerned with balance. I dont think school spell selection is at all a matter of game balance. And if you wanted to use spells in curriculum as data points for determining theme how about looking at the entire list from all ranks instead of looking only rank by rank. (i may have misunderstood but this seemed to be what you were saying)

[moosher12]

Bluemagetim wrote:

Your also approaching identifying theme differently.

You want spells on the list to be examples and data points to decide what the theme. Another approach is to use the description of the theme along with the description of the spells to determine what fits.
One is aimed at determining game balance as you said, the other is not concerned with balance. I dont think school spell selection is at all a matter of game balance. And if you wanted to use spells in curriculum as data points for determining theme how about looking at the entire list from all ranks instead of looking only rank by rank. (i may have misunderstood but this seemed to be what you were saying)

To clarify, I am not approaching "the line" as a balance line, but a thematic line. a player, for example, can argue that every school has reason to make Mystic Armor a school spell, but the question is, how many logical hoops do they have to go through to grant it for a theme? If half of the schools allow Mystic Armor, but the other half don't, you start to get a feeling what sort of themes would consider such a spell "Too far removed" when your player finally comes to you with, for example, Mirror Image in a speculative future book, and you want to decide whether their school would allow it. Obviously it'd be in Mentalism. A good case could be made for battle magic, would Ars Grammatica be too far removed? That's the sort of question you'd be wrestling with. Having more data points gives you a better idea of what makes for a reasonable case for a given spell, and what makes for an unreasonable case, versus less data points.

Many of these deliberations are obvious to me, but I've been studying Pathfinder 2E for 2 years straight. But I am thinking in terms of the newbie GM, as just because I can intuit it easily does not mean every GM, especially newer GMs, can.

The notion that the description of the theme alone is hampered by the language

Wizard wrote:

"Curriculum Spells: You automatically add some of the spells listed in your school's curriculum to your spellbook. At 1st level, you add a cantrip and two 1st-rank spells of your choice. As soon as you gain the ability to cast wizard spells of a new rank, choose one of the spells from your curriculum of that rank to add to your spellbook. A superscript “U” indicates an uncommon spell. Your GM might allow you to swap or add other spells to your curriculum if they strongly fit the theme."

The problem with this description is that it should address you with phrasing like describing the spell list as "examples" of spells in the curriculum to better give the impression the list is intentionally incomplete. Phrasing like "swap" can give an impression that it might be intentional to keep the size of the curriculum static. and language like "might" gives the impression its an optional rule, and not the intention for all GMs to do so. Gives a "do at own risk" vibe, which will scare less confident GMs from doing so at the expense of the player. With technical writing, careful diction is important to avoid unwanted interpretations. As the entry is, limiting the list to only what is given is a correct interpretation.

[R3st8]

moosher12 wrote:

... The problem with this description is that it should address you with phrasing like describing the spell list as "examples" of spells in the curriculum to better give the impression the list is intentionally incomplete. Phrasing like "swap" can give an impression that it might be intentional to keep the size of the curriculum static. and language like "might" gives the impression its an optional rule, and not the intention for all GMs to do so. Gives a "do at own risk" vibe, which will scare less confident GMs from doing so at the expense of the player. With technical writing, careful diction is important to avoid unwanted interpretations. As the entry is, limiting the list to only what is given is a correct interpretation.

I can definitely empathize with the feeling of not wanting to have to constantly consult the GM, after all the whole point of having a system is that rules are set instead of something you spend hour discussing and dealing with table variance.

[Bluemagetim]

moosher12 wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

Your also approaching identifying theme differently.

You want spells on the list to be examples and data points to decide what the theme. Another approach is to use the description of the theme along with the description of the spells to determine what fits.
One is aimed at determining game balance as you said, the other is not concerned with balance. I dont think school spell selection is at all a matter of game balance. And if you wanted to use spells in curriculum as data points for determining theme how about looking at the entire list from all ranks instead of looking only rank by rank. (i may have misunderstood but this seemed to be what you were saying)

To clarify, I am not approaching "the line" as a balance line, but a thematic line. a player, for example, can argue that every school has reason to make Mystic Armor a school spell, but the question is, how many logical hoops do they have to go through to grant it for a theme? If half of the schools allow Mystic Armor, but the other half don't, you start to get a feeling what sort of themes would consider such a spell "Too far removed" when your player finally comes to you with, for example, Mirror Image in a speculative future book, and you want to decide whether their school would allow it. Obviously it'd be in Mentalism. A good case could be made for battle magic, would Ars Grammatica be too far removed? That's the sort of question you'd be wrestling with. Having more data points gives you a better idea of what makes for a reasonable case for a given spell, and what makes for an unreasonable case, versus less data points.

Many of these deliberations are obvious to me, but I've been studying Pathfinder 2E for 2 years straight. But I am thinking in terms of the newbie GM, as just because I can intuit it easily does not mean every GM, especially newer GMs, can.

The notion that the description of the theme alone is hampered by the language

Wizard wrote:

"Curriculum Spells: You automatically add some of

...

Also "strongly" fits the theme means GMs shouldn't be too permissive either.

Like for mystic Armor its a ward so I wouldn't bat an eye if an Ars player wanted it. Battle already gets it and it makes sense there. Other schools dont have as much of an anchor as Ars. So even if a protean player wants it for their build they would need to use non curriculum slots since a ward doesn't strongly fit the theme of body manipulation.

i don't think there are any balance concerns being preserved by deciding which spells are or are not allowed. I think its really just preserving a sense of the schools identity.

[Ryangwy]

Bluemagetim wrote:

You want spells on the list to be examples and data points to decide what the theme. Another approach is to use the description of the theme along with the description of the spells to determine what fits.

One is aimed at determining game balance as you said, the other is not concerned with balance. I dont think school spell selection is at all a matter of game balance. And if you wanted to use spells in curriculum as data points for determining theme how about looking at the entire list from all ranks instead of looking only rank by rank. (i may have misunderstood but this seemed to be what you were saying)

The issue is that the school descriptions are vague as heck. Protean form states it cam turn harmless germs into harmful ones - would you have guessed that meant toxic cloud if it wasn't on the list?

[exequiel759]

Aristophanes wrote:

Wizards should be the meta-magic, or spell-shapes if you prefer, masters.

There should be shapes only a wizard can know. And no, you shouldn't be able to get the better ones from the Archetype. Wizards should be able to do things with spells that Witches and sorcerers can only dream about.

I suggested earlier that experimental spellshaping should become a baseline feature for wizards (kinda like how fighters have combat flexibility) along with making spell blending and/or spell substitution baseline features too.

The more I think about schools the less I like them, even when I initially liked the idea of the new schools even if I new they were a nerf. I think it would have been much better if wizards straight up had 4 spell slots and their school spells were spells you could cast spontaneously or something like that.

[moosher12]

Bluemagetim wrote:

Also "strongly" fits the theme means GMs shouldn't be too permissive either.

Like for mystic Armor its a ward so I wouldn't bat an eye if an Ars player wanted it. Battle already gets it and it makes sense there. Other schools dont have as much of an anchor as Ars. So even if a protean player wants it for their build they would need to use non curriculum slots since a ward doesn't strongly fit the theme of body manipulation.

i don't think there are any balance concerns being preserved by deciding which spells are or are not allowed. I think its really just preserving a sense of the schools identity.

Precisely. The line of what constitutes an acceptable addition and what does not can vary by GM. You obviously should not be too permissive, but how permissive is too permissive is up to debate, and most annoyingly, will be up to debate between a GM who wants to be reasonable, and a player who wants to get as much as they can get away with.

[Bluemagetim]

moosher12 wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

Also "strongly" fits the theme means GMs shouldn't be too permissive either.

Like for mystic Armor its a ward so I wouldn't bat an eye if an Ars player wanted it. Battle already gets it and it makes sense there. Other schools dont have as much of an anchor as Ars. So even if a protean player wants it for their build they would need to use non curriculum slots since a ward doesn't strongly fit the theme of body manipulation.

i don't think there are any balance concerns being preserved by deciding which spells are or are not allowed. I think its really just preserving a sense of the schools identity.

Precisely. The line of what constitutes an acceptable addition and what does not can vary by GM. You obviously should not be too permissive, but how permissive is too permissive is up to debate, and most annoyingly, will be up to debate between a GM who wants to be reasonable, and a player who wants to get as much as they can get away with.

Yeah thats true. Having to be the no person isnt fun.

A good answer to that player is asking if they want to take over being GM.

[Bluemagetim]

Ryangwy wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

You want spells on the list to be examples and data points to decide what the theme. Another approach is to use the description of the theme along with the description of the spells to determine what fits.

One is aimed at determining game balance as you said, the other is not concerned with balance. I dont think school spell selection is at all a matter of game balance. And if you wanted to use spells in curriculum as data points for determining theme how about looking at the entire list from all ranks instead of looking only rank by rank. (i may have misunderstood but this seemed to be what you were saying)

The issue is that the school descriptions are vague as heck. Protean form states it cam turn harmless germs into harmful ones - would you have guessed that meant toxic cloud if it wasn't on the list?

Honestly I looked up the difference between toxins and poisons to get a better understanding. Afterward I would say yes toxic cloud fits the theme of protean.

My instinctual response before looking it up was that not all poisonous substances are live organism based, lead can be poisonous for example. So if it was a cloud of lead vapor then that really wouldn't fit. But a cloud of toxins from organisms would.
Since the spell just says you conjure a poisonous fog it means the spell is open to protean. Also if there was a school of metal magic out there then they would also be able to claim this spell by conjuring some kind of vaporous toxic metals.

[Ryangwy]

Bluemagetim wrote:

Ryangwy wrote:

The issue is that the school descriptions are vague as heck. Protean form states it cam turn harmless germs into harmful ones - would you have guessed that meant toxic cloud if it wasn't on the list?

Honestly I looked up the difference between toxins and poisons to get a better understanding. Afterward I would say yes toxic cloud fits the theme of protean.

My instinctual response before looking it up was that not all poisonous substances are live organism based, lead can be poisonous for example. So if it was a cloud of lead vapor then that really wouldn't fit. But a cloud of toxins from organisms would.
Since the spell just says you conjure a poisonous fog it means the spell is open to protean. Also if there was a school of metal magic out there then they would also be able to claim this spell by conjuring some kind of vaporous toxic metals.

But you do see how this is a huge problem for leaving to the GM to decides, right, if even the official spells on the (painfully short) list don't cleanly fit into the schools as described? Forget toxic cloud, Protean Form has Vampiric Feast and Dessicate. Boundary have multiple void damage spells that only affect living creatures, despite that being the opposite of what it's titled as. Civic Wizardry has Revealing Light because apparently finding invisible gremlins is a core part of civicness.

[ottdmk]

Player Core pg 199 wrote:

You’ve learned the humble art of construction, of finding lost people and things, of moving speedily among buildings and moats

I don't know about you, but I think Revealing Light would be aces at finding somebody unconscious in the underbrush.

[Jan Caltrop]

New question: how do you think the upcoming academies book will change the arguments in this thread? Things that'll be settled (aside from "just wait until the book comes out to see what it has"), completely new issues that'll be raised, things where people keep arguing about that aspect but it's now clear they agree on the facts and just have differing value judgements, etc.

I have absolutely zero dogs in this race; this is mostly just so people will be able to say "called it" afterwards.

[The Raven Black]

I still honestly believe that, as opposed to 3.X/PF1, Wizard schools are almost only for flavor in PF2 Remaster rather than being a fundamental building block of the Class.

[Deriven Firelion]

The Raven Black wrote:

I still honestly believe that, as opposed to 3.X/PF1, Wizard schools are almost only for flavor in PF2 Remaster rather than being a fundamental building block of the Class.

If it didn't affect spell slots, I would agree.

[Ryangwy]

ottdmk wrote:

Player Core pg 199 wrote:

You’ve learned the humble art of construction, of finding lost people and things, of moving speedily among buildings and moats

I don't know about you, but I think Revealing Light would be aces at finding somebody unconscious in the underbrush.

It isn't, actually, that's kind of the issue. Like, the name sounds like it, but mechanically it's a small area spell you're only ever casting if you're sure someone's trying to actively hide from you in an area. If someone's unconscious in the underbrush, and you know well enough to figure out which area to cast revealing light into, you'd just... search the area, since they aren't actively hiding from you. And if you don't know which area, why are you spending multiple 2nd level spell slots to inefficiently do so? Remember, if you don't know where a person is, they're undetected, not concealed or hidden, and revealing light doesn't help with undetected!

Although it still has the mechanical issues of 'why is the invisible condition being used to represent such a person', See the Unseen would at least function better (being a self applied 10 min buff) and realistically darkvision would cover most of the scenarios that you are ina civic environment and could use some help to spot things, at least of the spells in PC1. Even more pertinently, they really should have prioritised making good, easily understood schools and picking spells for them to be in the PC1 arcane list, rather than add new attributes to schools when they realise they don't have enough spells to cover it. They didn't, and now we have to pretend a anti-invisibility spell that only works in a tiny area for a short period of time and mostly serves to dazzle targets is a totally valid civic spell.

[Bluemagetim]

Ryangwy wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

Ryangwy wrote:

The issue is that the school descriptions are vague as heck. Protean form states it cam turn harmless germs into harmful ones - would you have guessed that meant toxic cloud if it wasn't on the list?

Honestly I looked up the difference between toxins and poisons to get a better understanding. Afterward I would say yes toxic cloud fits the theme of protean.

My instinctual response before looking it up was that not all poisonous substances are live organism based, lead can be poisonous for example. So if it was a cloud of lead vapor then that really wouldn't fit. But a cloud of toxins from organisms would.
Since the spell just says you conjure a poisonous fog it means the spell is open to protean. Also if there was a school of metal magic out there then they would also be able to claim this spell by conjuring some kind of vaporous toxic metals.

But you do see how this is a huge problem for leaving to the GM to decides, right, if even the official spells on the (painfully short) list don't cleanly fit into the schools as described? Forget toxic cloud, Protean Form has Vampiric Feast and Dessicate. Boundary have multiple void damage spells that only affect living creatures, despite that being the opposite of what it's titled as. Civic Wizardry has Revealing Light because apparently finding invisible gremlins is a core part of civicness.

Im not sure if its a problem for other tables. Its not one for mine. Has it been for games youve played?

How about for anyone else here?
Played a wizard, had a theme in mind, shared it with your GM, and couldnt agree the spell met the theme?
Or as a GM has a disingenuous attempt at getting spells in curriculum that dont even come close to theme?

[pH unbalanced]

Bluemagetim wrote:

How about for anyone else here?
Played a wizard, had a theme in mind, shared it with your GM, and couldnt agree the spell met the theme?
Or as a GM has a disingenuous attempt at getting spells in curriculum that dont even come close to theme?

I mean, it's just a total, complete non-starter for society play. PFS does not allow GMs to make those kinds of decisions.

Generally speaking, in home games I start with PFS rules as a baseline -- if you want something different than that, you have to sell me on it. I'm not a particularly hard sell, but you do have to make a case.

GM Fiat is a last-resort way to solve problems -- I prefer more clear-cut, systematic ways of doing so.

[Easl]

Ryangwy wrote:

But you do see how this is a huge problem for leaving to the GM to decides, right, if even the official spells on the (painfully short) list don't cleanly fit into the schools as described?

Personally I don't see it as a big issue at all, but I say that under the assumption that prospective GMs won't stop at the title but will read the school's description before adjudicating what fits. Let's try that.

Quote:

Forget toxic cloud, Protean Form has Vampiric Feast and Dessicate. Boundary have multiple void damage spells that only affect living creatures, despite that being the opposite of what it's titled as.

The Boundary school teaches manipulation of other planes and 'forces beyond'. Summoning void plane forces fits reasonably well in it.

Quote:

Civic Wizardry has Revealing Light because apparently finding invisible gremlins is a core part of civicness.

Civic Wizardry says "You’ve learned the humble art of construction, of finding lost people and things..."

Revealing Light makes concealed things visible.

I understand other GMs may not want to make such judgment calls, but (a) the judgment calls certainly are easier if you read the full description for content, and (b) YMMV...I can only say that for me personally, I don't see this as an important need or a difficult GM thing to do.

[graystone]

pH unbalanced wrote:

GM Fiat is a last-resort way to solve problems -- I prefer more clear-cut, systematic ways of doing so.

Unfortunately, a lot of PF2 is built on GM Fiat being the answer to rules questions.

[exequiel759]

graystone wrote:

pH unbalanced wrote:

GM Fiat is a last-resort way to solve problems -- I prefer more clear-cut, systematic ways of doing so.

Unfortunately, a lot of PF2 is built on GM Fiat being the answer to rules questions.

Are we playing the same system? The only thing that requires heavy GM fiat in the system is the investigator, which is partly the reason why the class doesn't work for most tables and is regarded as "lesser rogue".

[Bluemagetim]

They did lay the decision of swapping or adding spells to a curriculum on the GM but they also opened that door by giving GMs the go ahead to do it in the rules text. The term GM fiat is changing a rule, removing one, or adding a rule. Here the rule is a GM might let you swap or add a spell if it strongly fits the theme. Its not a clear if this then that kind of rule but it is a rule and not complete fiat when a GM exercises discretion explicitly within a parameter defined in the rules in saying yes to a swap or add.

[Bluemagetim]

Bluemagetim wrote:

They did lay the decision of swapping or adding spells to a curriculum on the GM but they also opened that door by giving GMs the go ahead to do it in the rules text. The term GM fiat is changing a rule, removing one, or adding a rule. Here the rule is a GM might let you swap or add a spell if it strongly fits the theme. Its not a clear if this then that kind of rule but it is a rule and not complete fiat when a GM exercises discretion explicitly within a parameter defined in the rules in saying yes to a swap or add.

In a weird way it is actually GM fiat to remove your role in deciding if you are willing to swap or add a spell to a curriculum.

I know even just saying that is odd.

[graystone]

exequiel759 wrote:

graystone wrote:

pH unbalanced wrote:

GM Fiat is a last-resort way to solve problems -- I prefer more clear-cut, systematic ways of doing so.

Unfortunately, a lot of PF2 is built on GM Fiat being the answer to rules questions.

Are we playing the same system? The only thing that requires heavy GM fiat in the system is the investigator, which is partly the reason why the class doesn't work for most tables and is regarded as "lesser rogue".

How about 'what can a familiar/animal companion do in exploration' or 'what is an instance of damage'. There's lots more, but these'll make my point.

[Gortle]

exequiel759 wrote:

graystone wrote:

pH unbalanced wrote:

GM Fiat is a last-resort way to solve problems -- I prefer more clear-cut, systematic ways of doing so.

Unfortunately, a lot of PF2 is built on GM Fiat being the answer to rules questions.

Are we playing the same system? The only thing that requires heavy GM fiat in the system is the investigator, which is partly the reason why the class doesn't work for most tables and is regarded as "lesser rogue".

It is probably not fair to count Recall Knowledge or the Investigators class features as these are explicitly GM domain. Those are always going to be heavily GM involved.

Lets add to that list of GM fiat all these rules problems: taking Damage, Shield Blocking, Battle Forms, Persisting effects on a Summoner's Eidolon, what items an Eidolon can use, Kineticists versus Golem, healing undead, all the spells that say enemies explicitly but they target indiscriminately, rank 10 spell slots, poisoned minions, familiars in exploration mode, incorporeal.

I could go on. Typically we get a new issue every few days, along with many repeats, on the forums. There are a lot of things that GMs have to decide on when they come up. Paizo have left significant holes in the system. Not really in terms of balance the system itself most takes care of that, and GMs will typically stop major exploits. But there is a huge amount of material which is just not clear or has obvious problems.

[Squiggit]

A lot of those are kind of weak examples though and not really in the same ballpark.

[graystone]

Squiggit wrote:

A lot of those are kind of weak examples though and not really in the same ballpark.

My point was on the pervasiveness of Gm fiat in the system: if it's in ANY ballpark, it only bolsters my point that PF2 isn't the best system if you dislike running into GM fiat when looking for rules answers. The rules in the various books say "at the GM’s discretion" more than 200 times in addition to the areas where it's just plain silent about what happens in some situations.

[Ryangwy]

Easl wrote:

Personally I don't see it as a big issue at all, but I say that under the assumption that prospective GMs won't stop at the title but will read the school's description before adjudicating what fits. Let's try that.

I understand other GMs may not want to make such judgment calls, but (a) the judgment calls certainly are easier if you read the full description for content, and (b) YMMV...I can only say that for me personally, I don't see this as an important need or a difficult GM thing to do.

This would, of course, be easier if the school descriptions didn't frequently feature unthematic things that were shoehorned in. I've already explained in another comment why Revealing Light doesn't actually help with searching for lost things, but why is searching for lost things in civic Wizardry? Why does protean form transforms germs? Why is boundary simultaneously the anti undead and the pro undead school? Why does Ars Grammatica have defensive spells that arent word themed? Battle Magic tepidly says that any spell that conceivably is used in battle is OK, that's lovely.

Currently the schools are extremely loosely related set of themes. I suppose that makes it trivially easy to make any spell fit with sufficient reflavouring but that also kills their flavour dead. And I'm not interested in reflavouring for mechanical advantage.

[Squiggit]

graystone wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

A lot of those are kind of weak examples though and not really in the same ballpark.

My point was on the pervasiveness of Gm fiat in the system: if it's in ANY ballpark, it only bolsters my point that PF2 isn't the best system if you dislike running into GM fiat when looking for rules answers. The rules in the various books say "at the GM’s discretion" more than 200 times in addition to the areas where it's just plain silent about what happens in some situations.

I mean, I mostly agree with you, but I also just think there's a difference between "this rule is written confusingly" and "this rule doesn't work by strict RAW but it's not confusing" and "edge case under GM discretion" and "flavor-centric element that requires GM adjudication" and "hope your GM fixes a broken mechanic for you"

Lumping them all together under a single umbrella doesn't really do us any services.

... Like the last few posts in this line of thought kind of boil down to someone complaining about the unhelpful GM fiat line in wizard schools and another person saying "yeah but the damage rules confuse people too" which is just kind of ... not helpful or really relevant?

[graystone]

Squiggit wrote:

I also just think there's a difference between "this rule is written confusingly"

IMO, I would lump those into the category as a lot of them have been in the game since the start [like instances of damage].

Squiggit wrote:

"this rule doesn't work by strict RAW but it's not confusing"

I wouldn't include this as that's more an FAQ/errata issue, but I can't say it's wrong to include either as they DO require your DM to fix them.

Squiggit wrote:

"edge case under GM discretion"

These I'd also toss these in the pile: they might not come up often, but they build up in your memory every time you find one.

Squiggit wrote:

"flavor-centric element that requires GM adjudication"

If it truly has no mechanical impact, no need to include.

Squiggit wrote:

"hope your GM fixes a broken mechanic for you"

Another one for the faq/errata pile.

Squiggit wrote:

Lumping them all together under a single umbrella doesn't really do us any services.

Most seem like they could apply and even if we were to quibble over some of the examples, there are plenty of other to pick from.

Squiggit wrote:

... Like the last few posts in this line of thought kind of boil down to someone complaining about the unhelpful GM fiat line in wizard schools and another person saying "yeah but the damage rules confuse people too" which is just kind of ... not helpful or really relevant?

You skipped some steps though.

Someone complained that they didn't find GM fiat a satisfying answer.
I replied that GM fiat is often the answer in PF2.
Someone questioned if we were playing the same system as they could only think of one instance of dm fiat.
Then we gave to examples.

The examples might not be helpful to the person that made the first comment but the examples weren't given for that reason, but as a reply to the person that couldn't think of any examples.

[Gortle]

Squiggit wrote:

Lumping them all together under a single umbrella doesn't really do us any services.

... Like the last few posts in this line of thought kind of boil down to someone complaining about the unhelpful GM fiat line in wizard schools and another person saying "yeah but the damage rules confuse people too" which is just kind of ... not helpful or really relevant?

You put those back together. That was never the intent.

Threads mutate. They often have multiple concurrent conversations. I don't see that as a problem. Is there something about the wizard that you still want to talk about?

What we want to be able to do is pick up the book. Read it, Build a character and be confident as to how it will play. So much of the rules are written in crayon. We don't want GM fiat to be a thing with respect to the character and their abilities. Yes the GM has to control interaction with the rest of the world, but the way the mechanics of the game work should be clear.

Paizo made some really good strides in tidying up the rules with the remaster. But you still have to look up references to find the details of rules. It is painful and confusing. The natural language is nice but they have made it fuzzy. Taking Damage and Shield Blocking are not explicit. Things they tried to fix like the rules on rank 10 spells and conditions on minions are still unclear.

[Errenor]

Ryangwy wrote:

why is searching for lost things in civic Wizardry?

At least for that I can make a guess. Because searching for lost things and persons is a traditional service of various mediums, fortune tellers, witches, psychics and other con artists in the real world. Now our imaginary but very real wizards have to do the same as it's very civic. Well, maybe they are at least better at it. Of course the actual spell exactly for this thing is the uncommon Locate... and it's not on the list.

[Unicore]

My vision of the civic wizard is that these are largely the court wizards in very urban environments and are the wizards who also sit in on official diplomatic events, not to manipulate them or even participate in them necessarily, but to make sure they happen fairly and effectively.

Revealing light seems like a fair, harmless spell to cast on an area that will soon be the location of a talk or event, to make sure the area is clear. Personally, I think civic wizards should also have been given alarm for the same reason, but probably the developers were hesitant about saddling any school with too many noncombat only spells. Revealing light at least has combat utility, so maybe it felt like the better spell to include. If a player asked me if alarm could be a school spell instead of something else though, I’d readily agree.

[Easl]

Ryangwy wrote:

I've already explained in another comment why Revealing Light doesn't actually help with searching for lost things

Yeah and I disagree and can't see how you think that. It removes concealment (among other things). Yes the most common application in a game for that is going to be seeing enemies trying to hide in combat scene. But nothing prevents it from being used in a noncombat scene to reveal something concealed from some noble, villager, or what have you that they wish find.

Quote:

why is searching for lost things in civic Wizardry? Why does protean form transforms germs? Why is boundary simultaneously the anti undead and the pro undead school? Why does Ars Grammatica have defensive spells that arent word themed? Battle Magic tepidly says that any spell that conceivably is used in battle is OK, that's lovely.

Others have already answered the first.

It sounds to me that you just don't like that Paizo used qualitative descriptive themes rather than some easy-to-apply heuristic. As Bluemagetim said, yes you could make a school centered around a tag or damage type. That would be super easy to adjudicate, right? But that's not what Paizo did, and this bothers you. Fair enough. That's a preference argument though, not a game balance or ease of play argument. Compared to many of the other GM-adjudication issues brought up over the last day as examples of things GMs have to deal with in a game, "should I let this wizard's player swap in spell x for spell y in their school curriculum" is a pretty easy one. Particularly if one is in the "wizard is sooo underpowered" brigade. If you're in that group, why the heck would you complain about Paizo granting latitude to GMs to make the wizard colleges fairly expansive?

Quote:

I suppose that makes it trivially easy to make any spell fit with sufficient reflavouring but that also kills their flavour dead.

Well I think this must be another place where you and I simply prefer different game styles. I don't think it kills the flavor dead, I think it prevents the schools from being boring and one-dimensional. If the Golarion MIT *only* pumps out engineers, that is boring and one-dimensional. If it *also* pumps out musicians, that's a much more interesting school to drop into the game world. It's much more in keeping with these big schools of magic serving multiple different types of casters. After all, having four houses in Hogwarts doesn't kill the theming dead, does it? One school, many directions for students to take. Personally I like that better than every school having a very narrow curriculum. It's also, IMO more realistic of what colleges do, even specialist ones. Because in RL, MIT does produce musicians. Albeit not in the numbers that it produces engineers. :)

[Ryangwy]

Easl wrote:

Ryangwy wrote:

I've already explained in another comment why Revealing Light doesn't actually help with searching for lost things

Yeah and I disagree and can't see how you think that. It removes concealment (among other things). Yes the most common application in a game for that is going to be seeing enemies trying to hide in combat scene. But nothing prevents it from being used in a noncombat scene to reveal something concealed from some noble, villager, or what have you that they wish find.

Others have already answered the first.
It sounds to me that you just don't like that Paizo used qualitative descriptive themes rather than some easy-to-apply heuristic. As Bluemagetim said, yes you could make a school centered around a tag or damage type. That would be super easy to adjudicate, right? But that's not what Paizo did, and this bothers you. Fair enough. That's a preference argument though, not a game balance or ease of play argument. Compared to many of the other GM-adjudication issues brought up over the last day as examples of things GMs have to deal with in a game, "should I let this wizard's player swap in spell x for spell y in their school curriculum" is a pretty easy one. Particularly if one is in the "wizard is sooo underpowered" brigade. If you're in that group, why the heck would you complain about Paizo granting latitude to GMs to make the wizard colleges fairly expansive?

Well I think this must be another place where you and I simply prefer different game styles. I don't...

If they were going to do that they could have just... let every wizard customise their own school. The current state is a nowhere decision, where a strictly defined list is presented, and the option to expand on it is hinted at but not given any concrete backing. Yes, the vagueness of the wording does in fact affects many GM's ability to confidently adjucate, which is going to often result in defaulting to the strict assumption that nothing is to be added. I disagree with Paizo's qualitative descriptive themes because it does in fact cause an ease of understanding issue.

And also, no, the spell which dazzles people is not a harmless pet searching spells, and it removes the concealed and hidden conditions which are empathetically not the same as something being lost. Did I mention it only affects creatures? Because it does. The only way revealing light fits the description of civic wizardry is if you don't actually read what it does.

[Bluemagetim]

You know I just thought of strong parallel.
This game asks GMs to make the same kind of decisions all the time. It even has a system build on GM discretion.
When do you recognize a player has access to uncommon tagged elements of the game when they are not explicitly given by a feat or ability?
A Rare even more so.

In a sense a GM is making a very similar decision with swapping or adding school spells.
Especially since higher ranks are not in their book until they gain the level required to pick one. If a character spent in game time researching a different spell for curriculum that would be a great in game way to incorporate the rule for swapping.

[Ed Reppert]

Speaking of music... is the School of Rock only for Earth Mages?

[R3st8]

Bluemagetim wrote:

You know I just thought of strong parallel.

This game asks GMs to make the same kind of decisions all the time. It even has a system build on GM discretion.
When do you recognize a player has access to uncommon tagged elements of the game when they are not explicitly given by a feat or ability?
A Rare even more so.

In a sense a GM is making a very similar decision with swapping or adding school spells.
Especially since higher ranks are not in their book until they gain the level required to pick one. If a character spent in game time researching a different spell for curriculum that would be a great in game way to incorporate the rule for swapping.

I really think the rarity system can be tough for players with social anxiety or neurodivergent traits. It puts extra pressure on them to ask GMs for permission to use uncommon or rare items, which can feel overwhelming.

For someone who already finds social situations challenging, this can make them feel even more isolated. It can create tension at the table when new players see others using abilities or items they can’t access, leading to feelings of being sidelined. Overall, it seems like the rarity system adds unnecessary barriers that make it harder for some players to enjoy the game.

[Deriven Firelion]

R3st8 wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

You know I just thought of strong parallel.

This game asks GMs to make the same kind of decisions all the time. It even has a system build on GM discretion.
When do you recognize a player has access to uncommon tagged elements of the game when they are not explicitly given by a feat or ability?
A Rare even more so.

In a sense a GM is making a very similar decision with swapping or adding school spells.
Especially since higher ranks are not in their book until they gain the level required to pick one. If a character spent in game time researching a different spell for curriculum that would be a great in game way to incorporate the rule for swapping.

I really think the rarity system can be tough for players with social anxiety or neurodivergent traits. It puts extra pressure on them to ask GMs for permission to use uncommon or rare items, which can feel overwhelming.

For someone who already finds social situations challenging, this can make them feel even more isolated. It can create tension at the table when new players see others using abilities or items they can’t access, leading to feelings of being sidelined. Overall, it seems like the rarity system adds unnecessary barriers that make it harder for some players to enjoy the game.

I see it more as allowing DMs greater control over abilities that can create narrative breaking effects or effects that can also cause some players to feel uncomfortable like domination. I think Paizo's view on uncommon and rare is spot on as DMs should be watchful of abilities that break the narrative or allow players to engage in uncomfortable RP like using something like domination for twisted RP.

[graystone]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I see it more as allowing DMs greater control over abilities that can create narrative breaking effects or effects that can also cause some players to feel uncomfortable like domination. I think Paizo's view on uncommon and rare is spot on as DMs should be watchful of abilities that break the narrative or allow players to engage in uncomfortable RP like using something like domination for twisted RP.

If rarity only ever meant that, I'd agree. However it ALSO means limited availability that has no relation to narrative strength: Dominate and Personal Rain Cloud have the same rarity but i have a hard time finding anything narrative breaking about Personal Rain Cloud.

[Deriven Firelion]

graystone wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I see it more as allowing DMs greater control over abilities that can create narrative breaking effects or effects that can also cause some players to feel uncomfortable like domination. I think Paizo's view on uncommon and rare is spot on as DMs should be watchful of abilities that break the narrative or allow players to engage in uncomfortable RP like using something like domination for twisted RP.

If rarity only ever meant that, I'd agree. However it ALSO means limited availability that has no relation to narrative strength: Dominate and Personal Rain Cloud have the same rarity but i have a hard time finding anything narrative breaking about Personal Rain Cloud.

Some spells get lumped in from other books that get designated rare. That also means the DM can look at it and see it as you see it meaning no narrative impact and no strange RP, then allow it more than they might allow some other options.

Some spells from other books may be rare because the DM doesn't have access as well.

Who knows? Maybe walking around with a personal rain cloud would be annoying to some DMs.