Could Class Archetyping Fix Wizard?

[Gortle]

exequiel759 wrote:

I don't recall a single spell that creates an object that lasts forever with the exception of maybe wish, which isn't something everybody can access easily, and the only magical stuff that doesn't vanish are magic items which are regular items enchanted with magic. I don't see how there couldn't be an economy in a magical world with these circumstances.

Wall of Stone.

Imagine the Great Wall of Golarian.

[Deriven Firelion]

R3st8 wrote:

Unicore wrote:

This has veered very far off topic, but remember that none of the economic elements of the game are codified in rules outside of how they work for the players. That is because the base line is "have it work however works to tell the best story at your table." So if your table wants a world economy "solved by magic," that is your prerogative, but it probably doesn't work that well for a setting in constant conflict, and hence you wont see much of that in pre-written adventures.

It is the same reason the setting and lore folks don't want to go around setting settlement stat blocks for places that might eventually be used in an adventure. Too much formal setting structure where it isn't serving a specific story only prevents future stories from being told.

Not really; I think economics is an essential part of world-building, especially since many conflicts in our world are motivated by economic reasons. For instance, there is a significant difference between being unable to sell a thousand daggers because of balance and being unable to sell them because, after the first thirty, they became devalued since everyone who needed one has already bought it. Additionally, if other mages have already entered the dagger-making market, the supply may exceed the demand.

If you simply tell people they can’t create food for cheap due to balance issues, it will feel gamy. However, if you explain that it is against the law because it would drive down food prices—an action banned due to pressure from farm owners—that could lead to a quest of its own. This is the kind of deep simulationist role-playing that I love.

I disagree. Economics is only important if it is a relevant part of the story. There are many stories and worlds built with no economic information or very little that are great. Middle Earth is one of the most well built worlds ever and it has little or no economic information. Information is only necessary if it is part of the story and necessary to the reader or participant.

[SuperBidi]

R3st8 wrote:

I think economics is an essential part of world-building

Economics is an essential part of building a capitalistic world.

I don't see Golarion as a capitalistic world. There are a few organizations that may look capitalistic but overall I don't see countries fighting for economic dominance. Capitalism really grew quite late in our world, mostly when industrialization allowed the production of a crazy amount of goods at a single place. Before that, goods were produced case by case when someone needed it. Growing more food than you need means rotting food in your granaries.

And when you add the extreme randomness of Golarion (one day your country is rich, the next day you have an undead uprising on your hands), accumulating goods/wealth doesn't look like a useful goal in life.

I'm in the "handwave economy" team. It's really not an interesting subject to speak about in a medieval fantasy world.

[Squiggit]

In the right story I think you could make delving into the economics of a magical world interesting, I'm pretty sure there are some stories that do that even.

But within the context of what PF does it's probably not important. If anything trying to track the relative market value of the treasure you're selling based on supply and demand and geography is going to just bog down a game unless the players are really into that specific thing.

[Ryangwy]

The biggest issue is that you'd be hard pressed to find people in the real world who agrees on what our known, recorded, detailed-to-the-last-transaction economy does in response to perfectly normal stimuli. There are how many schools and sub-schools of economics out there? I guarantee that whatever Paizo writes about the economy, people will voraciously disagree no matter how well researched. We already have Lost Omens Travel Guide as an economic primer anyway, and people still forget it exists when discussing Golarion. (For what it's worth, the answer in Travel Guide is that Abadar regulates excessive use of magic in trade as it creates excessive reliance on single points of failures and gives those people too much ability to destroy economies - basically, it's treated like GM crops in Europe, to use an easy analogy).

Now, wizard, that one we can all agree has serious issues... right guys? /s

[Old_Man_Robot]

Noodle Bones wrote:

This is also how I liked to play my wizards. This just isn't an option now. The wizard doesn't have a good selection of buffs or debuffs, and the debuffs it does get are to hard to land, to the point I just gave up. It would have made sense that curriculum spells, cast from curriculum slots, would be more powerful. That should have been built into the chassis. You should be better at those arcane theses spells, any wizard can cast charm, but yours is more difficult to resist, and if it doesn't land it should remain uncast. If your thesis is spell shaping, they should be a free action, because it's what you specialize in. We are almost level 5, and I have had a single battle where my wizard made a difference. I don't need to compete as a fighter, but it would be great to be as valuable as a fighter. To land my spells as often as the fighters sword hits (who doesn't run out of sword juice). Is the wizard weaker? Not everyone agrees, but I think so. It certainly isn't as valuable a core class anymore.

I've said before there is an apparent departure in design for the Wizard when it comes to encouraging behaviour.

Paizo have made it so that, in order to encourage casting curriculum spells, they locked a spell slot per level to those spells. A "stick" approach.

Contrast this with Sorcerers, for instance, who are encouraged to cast their bloodline spells by getting a reward in the form of Blood Magic for doing so. A "carrot" approach.

Feats and abilties that do interesting things with curriculum spells would certainly be a path to making the whole mechanic more appealing.

[R3st8]

SuperBidi wrote:

R3st8 wrote:

I think economics is an essential part of world-building

Economics is an essential part of building a capitalistic world.

I don't see Golarion as a capitalistic world. There are a few organizations that may look capitalistic but overall I don't see countries fighting for economic dominance. Capitalism really grew quite late in our world, mostly when industrialization allowed the production of a crazy amount of goods at a single place. Before that, goods were produced case by case when someone needed it. Growing more food than you need means rotting food in your granaries.

And when you add the extreme randomness of Golarion (one day your country is rich, the next day you have an undead uprising on your hands), accumulating goods/wealth doesn't look like a useful goal in life.

I'm in the "handwave economy" team. It's really not an interesting subject to speak about in a medieval fantasy world.

I used to think being a merchant was a perfectly valid way to play Pathfinder, but I guess not. Things have changed, and TTRPGs as a whole seem to have solidified into a "right way to play" that mostly revolves around encounters.

[Errenor]

R3st8 wrote:

I used to think being a merchant was a perfectly valid way to play Pathfinder, but I guess not. Things have changed, and TTRPGs as a whole seem to have solidified into a "right way to play" that mostly revolves around encounters.

Interesting. Which class would this character have and how they would fit into normal Pathfinder adventure? Merchants typically buy and sell goods, carry on business negotiations, travel here and there maybe and live mundane lives in other things. They don't fight monsters and/or armies, they hire other people to do that (or run, or die). That's possible to play in some TTRPG, but I doubt it would be very interesting for a lot of people, and no Pathfinder edition was made for this sort of gameplay.

Merchant backgrounds certainly exist in PF2 though.

[SuperBidi]

R3st8 wrote:

I used to think being a merchant was a perfectly valid way to play Pathfinder

By being a merchant, you mean that your GM determines the price and demand of all goods in the country you're playing in? Or that your Greatsword Fighter is Trained in Diplomacy and Mercantile Lore? Because I have never seen anyone doing the former, as for the latter it doesn't look like "economy" at all.

R3st8 wrote:

Things have changed, and TTRPGs as a whole seem to have solidified into a "right way to play" that mostly revolves around encounters.

I literally said I was in the "handwave economy team", which is pretty much the contrary of the "right way to play".

[Tridus]

Errenor wrote:

R3st8 wrote:

I used to think being a merchant was a perfectly valid way to play Pathfinder, but I guess not. Things have changed, and TTRPGs as a whole seem to have solidified into a "right way to play" that mostly revolves around encounters.

Interesting. Which class would this character have and how they would fit into normal Pathfinder adventure? Merchants typically buy and sell goods, carry on business negotiations, travel here and there maybe and live mundane lives in other things. They don't fight monsters and/or armies, they hire other people to do that (or run, or die). That's possible to play in some TTRPG, but I doubt it would be very interesting for a lot of people, and no Pathfinder edition was made for this sort of gameplay.

Merchant backgrounds certainly exist in PF2 though.

Not really a "normal adventure", but there's definitely campaigns where economics matter more. I ran one years ago where the PCs were all indebted to a local crime boss, who had them pay off their debt by delving a dungeon underneath the city that the criminal gang recently discovered (and that no one else knew about), and selling those goods in an Outfitter's Shop that the PCs ran.

Economics definitely mattered in that since they needed to make a certain amount of money every time period (I think it was monthly, but maybe weekly, its been a long time) towards repaying their debt lest their criminal patrons become displeased.

In that case they were incentivized to run the shop by the simple fact that anything they sold there could go at "full price" rather than the discount that other merchants would pay to buy things from adventurers. They also needed to hire staff to run the place when they were in the dungeon and they didn't really want to put 50 magic axes for sale at the same time since flooding the market would have implications on the price. Though I know in one case they made a deal with one of the local mercenary companies to sell a large stockpile of gear to them at a discount in order to move all of it at once, which both parties were pretty happy with. It was a pretty fun campaign IMO.

Economics does come up in some APs as well, though its usually less at the forefront. Extinction Curse definitely has a "harvests are getting worse year after year and that's having wide ranging impacts, including on the economy" theme going, though the goal of the adventure is to fix the underlying problem and not to be a travelling merchant.

Kingmaker COULD have had a heavier economics theme than it does, but the kingdom's economy is so heavily abstracted and isolated from the adventurer economy that it doesn't really take advantage of the opportunity.

[Ryangwy]

R3st8 wrote:

I used to think being a merchant was a perfectly valid way to play Pathfinder, but I guess not. Things have changed, and TTRPGs as a whole seem to have solidified into a "right way to play" that mostly revolves around encounters.

I'm going to do things backwards, so firstly, TTRPGs have actually diversified greatly. If you want to play a merchant or whatnot, there's plenty of non-d20 games that are specialised in that direction. It's great. But also, the d20 system has always been about encounters. Static price lists and 'sell for half price' have been there since, uh, forever? You could not have ever, by the book alone, played a merchant in Pathfinder, without some bespoke subsystem that exists for a single AP or niche splatbook, because you cannot buy (or, for that matter, craft) items for less than you can sell them for, RAW.

[Tridus]

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

I've said before there is an apparent departure in design for the Wizard when it comes to encouraging behaviour.

Paizo have made it so that, in order to encourage casting curriculum spells, they locked a spell slot per level to those spells. A "stick" approach.

Contrast this with Sorcerers, for instance, who are encouraged to cast their bloodline spells by getting a reward in the form of Blood Magic for doing so. A "carrot" approach.

Feats and abilties that do interesting things with curriculum spells would certainly be a path to making the whole mechanic more appealing.

Very true. It also feels bad IMO because it got so much more restrictive in the remaster. The old spell schools were big, and it was pretty likely there was always SOMETHING new you'd want to get from them to use those school slots for (and if you didn't, universalist was an option).

The new schools feel significantly more restrictive, and I think that contributes a lot to Wizard just not feeling like it got better in the Remaster.

[Errenor]

Tridus wrote:

...delving a dungeon underneath the city...

Looks like a fun concept! Though they also weren't normal merchants, they still (mostly?) has been delving a dungeon. So, 'revolved around encounters' again, not what the guy wanted.

[Gortle]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

R3st8 wrote:

Unicore wrote:

This has veered very far off topic, but remember that none of the economic elements of the game are codified in rules outside of how they work for the players. That is because the base line is "have it work however works to tell the best story at your table." So if your table wants a world economy "solved by magic," that is your prerogative, but it probably doesn't work that well for a setting in constant conflict, and hence you wont see much of that in pre-written adventures.

It is the same reason the setting and lore folks don't want to go around setting settlement stat blocks for places that might eventually be used in an adventure. Too much formal setting structure where it isn't serving a specific story only prevents future stories from being told.

Not really; I think economics is an essential part of world-building, especially since many conflicts in our world are motivated by economic reasons. For instance, there is a significant difference between being unable to sell a thousand daggers because of balance and being unable to sell them because, after the first thirty, they became devalued since everyone who needed one has already bought it. Additionally, if other mages have already entered the dagger-making market, the supply may exceed the demand.

If you simply tell people they can’t create food for cheap due to balance issues, it will feel gamy. However, if you explain that it is against the law because it would drive down food prices—an action banned due to pressure from farm owners—that could lead to a quest of its own. This is the kind of deep simulationist role-playing that I love.

I disagree. Economics is only important if it is a relevant part of the story. There are many stories and worlds built with no economic information or very little that are great. Middle Earth is one of the most well built worlds ever and it has little or no economic information. Information is only necessary if it is part of the story and necessary to the...

For sure economics is only relevant to a story when you dig a bit deeper and only if you want. But the world building questions were asked.

Economics is just one of those fundamental principles which affects society whether we like it or not. Once you understand some of the basics it is very hard to ignore.

[R3st8]

Gortle wrote:

For sure economics is only relevant to a story when you dig a bit deeper and only if you want. But the world building questions were asked.

Economics is just one of those fundamental principles which affects society whether we like it or not. Once you understand some of the basics it is very hard to ignore.

It reminds me of when I started watching medieval channels and learned how armor works. Now, every time I see inaccurate armor—like one that covers your arms but leaves your chest open, or designs that would make it impossible to move—I cannot help but cringe.

Once seen, it cannot be unseen. It’s the curse of knowledge: the more you know and understand, the more you notice inconsistencies and contradictions.

[Unicore]

Yeah, but magic isn’t one of those things we (as players) can actually have perfect knowledge of, nor really the economic principles of supply and demand in a world where magic and gods are physically and metaphysically present in the word.

In fact, the idea of approaching social sciences as science in such a word would be nearly impossible/maybe never develop as a field because the “rules” would change with the will of the gods and powerful other casters who regularly take what is supposedly the limits of power and then break them.

I think that is one of the challenging bits of the wizard in Golarion. The rules of magic and its essence are incredibly not well suited to scientific study and declaring certain occurances as provable theories is nearly impossible.

[Teridax]

Unicore wrote:

Yeah, but magic isn’t one of those things we (as players) can actually have perfect knowledge of, nor really the economic principles of supply and demand in a world where magic and gods are physically and metaphysically present in the word.

In fact, the idea of approaching social sciences as science in such a word would be nearly impossible/maybe never develop as a field because the “rules” would change with the will of the gods and powerful other casters who regularly take what is supposedly the limits of power and then break them.

I think that is one of the challenging bits of the wizard in Golarion. The rules of magic and its essence are incredibly not well suited to scientific study and declaring certain occurances as provable theories is nearly impossible.

I don't really agree with this take, as I feel it conflates arcane magic with divine magic when the two are distinct in the in-game world. Divine magic is by nature fickle and subject to the whims of whoever wields divine power, but arcane magic is very much established in-game to be based on consistent enough laws that it can be researched and studied. On the subject of economics, there are canonical schools of civic wizardry where Wizards study for the specific purpose of using arcane magic for public and commercial work. The entire point of magical traditions in general is that they allow for wildly different forms of magic to coexist, in this case magic-as-divine-intervention and magic-as-science.

[Bluemagetim]

The system of city and town level is a measure of the availability of goods and services.
And if your just making all places allow for anything to be bought or sold then you have made decisions about the economy as well.

[Old_Man_Robot]

Teridax wrote:

On the subject of economics, there are canonical schools of civic wizardry where Wizards study for the specific purpose of using arcane magic for public and commercial work.

New School:

"The Thaler Academia of Behavioral Arcanomics"
Grants the Nudge Fate hex cantrip.

[Teridax]

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

Teridax wrote:

On the subject of economics, there are canonical schools of civic wizardry where Wizards study for the specific purpose of using arcane magic for public and commercial work.

New School:

"The Thaler Academia of Behavioral Arcanomics"
Grants the Nudge Fate hex cantrip.

On that note, I wrote a brew for adding lots more arcane schools a while ago, and this one might be relevant to the current conversation:

School of Economic Arts
Commerce is the lifeblood of most nations, particularly those on the famous Golden Road such as Katapesh, Kelesh, or Rahadoum, along with the sprawling city of Absalom. You’ve applied your magical aptitude to trade at an institution in one of these nations, learning to identify precious goods, create useful items, and generate wealth from seemingly nothing.

Curriculum
Cantrips detect metal, needle darts
1st fold metal, instant pottery, item facade, weave wood
2nd clad in metal, pave ground
3rd cozy cabin, shrink item
4th creation, elemental sense
5th secret chest, telekinetic haul
6th petrify, wall of metal
7th contingency, dancing fountain
8th ferrous form, scintillating pattern
9th resplendent mansion

School Spells
Initial appearance of wealth
Advanced precious metals

[Ed Reppert]

IMO, if you're trying to build a semi-realistic world, you should look at economics. If you're trying to build a background for "adventures" where economics plays little or no part, then looking at economics is less useful.

As for which real-world school of economics is correct, IMO there can be only one. :-) Of course, that one is disparaged by those who want to use "economic policy" as a political weapon -- which is most bankers and almost all politicians. Free market capitalism (not crony capitalism or socialism/capitalism hybrids or any of the other versions of "not really capitalism" out there) is the only thing that works, because it's the only thing based on how people actually behave.

But I don't really want to argue about it, so I'll shut up now. :-)

[Deriven Firelion]

Ed Reppert wrote:

IMO, if you're trying to build a semi-realistic world, you should look at economics. If you're trying to build a background for "adventures" where economics plays little or no part, then looking at economics is less useful.

As for which real-world school of economics is correct, IMO there can be only one. :-) Of course, that one is disparaged by those who want to use "economic policy" as a political weapon -- which is most bankers and almost all politicians. Free market capitalism (not crony capitalism or socialism/capitalism hybrids or any of the other versions of "not really capitalism" out there) is the only thing that works, because it's the only thing based on how people actually behave.

But I don't really want to argue about it, so I'll shut up now. :-)

This is not true at all. This is one of the biggest problem with the pro-capitalist people is they cannot accept that some people have little interest in money and do not want to live their life pursuing wealth or assets.

Socialism/Communism is also a very real form of economics that many human groups lived under known as tribalism where you live as a group sharing resources amongst a group and living as a community.

A socialist and capitalist model is actually how humans have lived for most of their time organized. Capitalist with people wanting to be acknowledged for their individual contributions and socialism for shared group resources where people come together to build barns, share food, and take care of the community.

There is a reason a socialist and capitalist mix has existed in every nation for time eternal when you study human economic behavior. Even the early days of the United States was a socialist and capitalist mix as people always come together to form communities and share resources mixed with business activity.

The most unnatural economics is forcing either paradigm on the entire group as an absolute form of resource management. That is unnatural the behavior of humans rather than letting the group decide what they will push as business and what they will share as a community as both types of resource management are useful to human groups.

[Tridus]

Teridax wrote:

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

Teridax wrote:

On the subject of economics, there are canonical schools of civic wizardry where Wizards study for the specific purpose of using arcane magic for public and commercial work.

New School:

"The Thaler Academia of Behavioral Arcanomics"
Grants the Nudge Fate hex cantrip.

On that note, I wrote a brew for adding lots more arcane schools a while ago, and this one might be relevant to the current conversation:

School of Economic Arts
Commerce is the lifeblood of most nations, particularly those on the famous Golden Road such as Katapesh, Kelesh, or Rahadoum, along with the sprawling city of Absalom. You’ve applied your magical aptitude to trade at an institution in one of these nations, learning to identify precious goods, create useful items, and generate wealth from seemingly nothing.

Curriculum
Cantrips detect metal, needle darts
1st fold metal, instant pottery, item facade, weave wood
2nd clad in metal, pave ground
3rd cozy cabin, shrink item
4th creation, elemental sense
5th secret chest, telekinetic haul
6th petrify, wall of metal
7th contingency, dancing fountain
8th ferrous form, scintillating pattern
9th resplendent mansion

School Spells
Initial appearance of wealth
Advanced precious metals

This is a really cool idea, though I feel like Read Aura should be one of the cantrips. It's helpful for properly identifying magic items vs fakes/cursed ones, and feels like someone trying to make a market run smoothly should be versed in. :)

[Bluemagetim]

Tridus wrote:

Teridax wrote:

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

Teridax wrote:

On the subject of economics, there are canonical schools of civic wizardry where Wizards study for the specific purpose of using arcane magic for public and commercial work.

New School:

"The Thaler Academia of Behavioral Arcanomics"
Grants the Nudge Fate hex cantrip.

On that note, I wrote a brew for adding lots more arcane schools a while ago, and this one might be relevant to the current conversation:

School of Economic Arts
Commerce is the lifeblood of most nations, particularly those on the famous Golden Road such as Katapesh, Kelesh, or Rahadoum, along with the sprawling city of Absalom. You’ve applied your magical aptitude to trade at an institution in one of these nations, learning to identify precious goods, create useful items, and generate wealth from seemingly nothing.

Curriculum
Cantrips detect metal, needle darts
1st fold metal, instant pottery, item facade, weave wood
2nd clad in metal, pave ground
3rd cozy cabin, shrink item
4th creation, elemental sense
5th secret chest, telekinetic haul
6th petrify, wall of metal
7th contingency, dancing fountain
8th ferrous form, scintillating pattern
9th resplendent mansion

School Spells
Initial appearance of wealth
Advanced precious metals

This is a really cool idea, though I feel like Read Aura should be one of the cantrips. It's helpful for properly identifying magic items vs fakes/cursed ones, and feels like someone trying to make a market run smoothly should be versed in. :)

I agree.

Is this really the actual problem with the schools direction? there are just not enough of them out there yet to fit the different kinds of concepts people want to play?
Like if you had a school curriculum that looks the way you want would it really be a problem that its a restricted list?

[Gortle]

Teridax wrote:

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

Teridax wrote:

On the subject of economics, there are canonical schools of civic wizardry where Wizards study for the specific purpose of using arcane magic for public and commercial work.

New School:

"The Thaler Academia of Behavioral Arcanomics"
Grants the Nudge Fate hex cantrip.

On that note, I wrote a brew for adding lots more arcane schools a while ago, and this one might be relevant to the current conversation:

School of Economic Arts
Commerce is the lifeblood of most nations, particularly those on the famous Golden Road such as Katapesh, Kelesh, or Rahadoum, along with the sprawling city of Absalom. You’ve applied your magical aptitude to trade at an institution in one of these nations, learning to identify precious goods, create useful items, and generate wealth from seemingly nothing.

Curriculum
Cantrips detect metal, needle darts
1st fold metal, instant pottery, item facade, weave wood
2nd clad in metal, pave ground
3rd cozy cabin, shrink item
4th creation, elemental sense
5th secret chest, telekinetic haul
6th petrify, wall of metal
7th contingency, dancing fountain
8th ferrous form, scintillating pattern
9th resplendent mansion

School Spells
Initial appearance of wealth
Advanced precious metals

Very good attempt to get us back on track. This school needs a side note. Not very popular amongst adventurers, but the students of this school often go on to develop enormous secular power and wealth.

[BotBrain]

Gortle wrote:

Teridax wrote:

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

Teridax wrote:

On the subject of economics, there are canonical schools of civic wizardry where Wizards study for the specific purpose of using arcane magic for public and commercial work.

New School:

"The Thaler Academia of Behavioral Arcanomics"
Grants the Nudge Fate hex cantrip.

On that note, I wrote a brew for adding lots more arcane schools a while ago, and this one might be relevant to the current conversation:

School of Economic Arts
Commerce is the lifeblood of most nations, particularly those on the famous Golden Road such as Katapesh, Kelesh, or Rahadoum, along with the sprawling city of Absalom. You’ve applied your magical aptitude to trade at an institution in one of these nations, learning to identify precious goods, create useful items, and generate wealth from seemingly nothing.

Curriculum
Cantrips detect metal, needle darts
1st fold metal, instant pottery, item facade, weave wood
2nd clad in metal, pave ground
3rd cozy cabin, shrink item
4th creation, elemental sense
5th secret chest, telekinetic haul
6th petrify, wall of metal
7th contingency, dancing fountain
8th ferrous form, scintillating pattern
9th resplendent mansion

School Spells
Initial appearance of wealth
Advanced precious metals

Very good attempt to get us back on track. This school needs a side note. Not very popular amongst adventurers, but the students of this school often go on to develop enormous secular power and wealth.

I can already see a character who via the school becomes fabously wealthy, but gets bored or loses it all in some event and decides to turn their talents to adventuring. Who better to bring to a dungeon than the guy who knows what's worth taking home?

[Tridus]

Bluemagetim wrote:

Is this really the actual problem with the schools direction? there are just not enough of them out there yet to fit the different kinds of concepts people want to play?

Like if you had a school curriculum that looks the way you want would it really be a problem that its a restricted list?

What I've gotten from this thread is that Wizard has more than one pain point depending on who you're asking (and disagreement on which ones are the problem), but schools are a frequent one. I would think that yeah, if a school is giving you what you want then that part would go away since you're getting what you want out of it.

The old schools had an easier time of it due to their inherently greater flexibility, although my experience is that certain ones were MUCH more popular than others.

In that sense, Rival Academies will probably help by adding to the school options, especially if they lean into the themes of each of the schools and make some of their specific stuff available.

Like, a Maaganbaya Wizard School adding All Is One, One Is All as one of its spells would certainly be interesting given that its a rare spell with a really unique effect, and that it's perfectly thematic for the school. I don't know if they'd ever actually go "you can just get rare high level spells by picking this", but doing something like that with the schools would certainly make them interesting and make you feel like you're getting something that some other Wizard (or some other class) can't get without significantly more difficulty (if at all).

Some of the existing schools in PC1 have uncommon options, and if they lean more into that then the schools are doing something unique to Wizard as the premier students of arcane magic: giving them a direct path to spells that are much harder/impossible for other spellcasters to get.

To me, that would certainly give the class something unique and make school selection really matter.

[Bluemagetim]

Tridus wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

Is this really the actual problem with the schools direction? there are just not enough of them out there yet to fit the different kinds of concepts people want to play?

Like if you had a school curriculum that looks the way you want would it really be a problem that its a restricted list?

What I've gotten from this thread is that Wizard has more than one pain point depending on who you're asking (and disagreement on which ones are the problem), but schools are a frequent one. I would think that yeah, if a school is giving you what you want then that part would go away since you're getting what you want out of it.

The old schools had an easier time of it due to their inherently greater flexibility, although my experience is that certain ones were MUCH more popular than others.

In that sense, Rival Academies will probably help by adding to the school options, especially if they lean into the themes of each of the schools and make some of their specific stuff available.

Like, a Maaganbaya Wizard School adding All Is One, One Is All as one of its spells would certainly be interesting given that its a rare spell with a really unique effect, and that it's perfectly thematic for the school. I don't know if they'd ever actually go "you can just get rare high level spells by picking this", but doing something like that with the schools would certainly make them interesting and make you feel like you're getting something that some other Wizard (or some other class) can't get without significantly more difficulty (if at all).

Some of the existing schools in PC1 have uncommon options, and if they lean more into that then the schools are doing something unique to Wizard as the premier students of arcane magic: giving them a direct path to spells that are much harder/impossible for other spellcasters to get.

To me, that would certainly give the class something unique and make school selection really matter.

More schools also have the potential of addressing the focus spell gripes.

But it will make some people feel that the original schools are trap options if the focus spells are leagues apart in power.

[Tridus]

Bluemagetim wrote:

More schools also have the potential of addressing the focus spell gripes.

But it will make some people feel that the original schools are trap options if the focus spells are leagues apart in power.

It's a risk if it gets out of line, yeah... though as an Oracle player, those folks can get in line. ;)

[R3st8]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

This is not true at all. This is one of the biggest problem with the pro-capitalist people is they cannot accept that some people have little interest in money and do not want to live their life pursuing wealth or assets.

Socialism/Communism is also a very real form of economics that many human groups lived under known as tribalism where you live as a group sharing resources amongst a group and living as a community.

I have to say, I’m not pro-capitalism. My interest in economics comes from years of debating it online long before it was mainstream. There’s a clear distinction between economics and capitalism, and misunderstanding that difference is one of the reasons why capitalism can be so dangerous, what I want is deep detailed world-building and a world without capitalism or gold coins still requires thoughtful logistics and management.

Lastly, I want to address SuperBidi and Ed Reppert. When I mention “the right way to play,” I’m critiquing the notion that there’s only one correct approach to the game. The reality is that it didn’t have a single right way to play; it aimed for realism, which led to emergent gameplay. It started as a dungeon crawler in the BECMI era, expanded into simulationism with 3.5, and then contracted back with 5e and 2e. That’s what frustrates me.

There seems to be this assumption that adventuring and encounters are the only valid ways to enjoy the game, rather than embracing the sandbox style that allowed for diverse playstyles, like being a merchant or engaging in other non-combat roles. The earlier editions offered a more open experience where players could interact with the rules and let the story unfold naturally, which feels lost in the current approach.

[Kyrone]

On class archetypes that I would like to see on Wizard would be Mystic Theurge, something like loosing the 4th slot but can now learn and prepare both divine and arcane spells, with domains as focus spells and being able to be sanctified.

And about rival academies, I would not put many expectations on it to give a lot of new Wizard schools, a good amount of the academies are not even Wizard ones, like have a Bard and Monk based ones. Also it's like a 130 page book heavy on lore (which is good for people that wants to play a campaign based on them).

If I am being optimistic I would say 10 new schools, and that's because Runelord have 7, one for each sin and those will likely use domains as focus spells like secrets of magic again. And have a good chance that Diviners Sight and Physical Boost makes a comeback.

[Old_Man_Robot]

Bluemagetim wrote:

But it will make some people feel that the original schools are trap options if the focus spells are leagues apart in power.

I mean, lets just call it like it is here, the school redesigns that PC1 aren't great, and being beholden to that power level - while in Paizo's wheelhouse for the Wizard - isn't good for the class.

There was some clear errors in judgement with some designs (Looking at you Battle Magic). Along with the fact it reduced the number of available schools along focus spell options.

If PC1 schools serve a generic, common tagged, list of ever-green but "mid-at-best" options then that could be a solid place for them.

New schools, representing specific literal schools or specific approaches to magic - along with either uncommon or rare tags as is appropriate for their concept - that then ratchet up what schools can do, should be the evolution of the feature.

Bluemagetim wrote:

And about rival academies, I would not put many expectations on it to give a lot of new Wizard schools

I am 100% prepared to be utterly disappointed in both the number and quality of new schools.

The real problem is, when would Wizard's ever get a healthy number of schools? What might even be a good number?

We have 61 domains and around 20 Sorcerer bloodlines, compared to 7 Wizard Schools.

20 seems solid to me, as school design is closer to bloodlines than domains, but they realistically sit somewhere between. New Schools have more to them than domains but less than bloodlines, so maybe 30 or so as good end-of-system total.

_____

But ultimately, unless Paizo start peppering new content with them, we aren't ever going to reach a decent number. Especially if the upcoming Lost Omens is light on actual options.

I was less than thrilled by the lack of Wizard content in the recent Tian Xia books.

[SuperBidi]

R3st8 wrote:

Lastly, I want to address SuperBidi and Ed Reppert. When I mention “the right way to play,” I’m critiquing the notion that there’s only one correct approach to the game.

You're the only one to speak of "the right way to play".

Sometimes, I wonder if "the right way to play" is not the godwin point of TTRPG conversations...

[Kyrone]

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

We have 61 domains and around 20 Sorcerer bloodlines, compared to 7 Wizard Schools.

20 seems solid to me, as school design is closer to bloodlines than domains, but they realistically sit somewhere between. New Schools have more to them than domains but less than bloodlines, so maybe 30 or so as good end-of-system total.

Hey, we have 8 , the Red Mantis exists... that the focus spells are literally the mentalism ones with another name.

[Teridax]

The lack of additional schools since the remaster is the pain point with the Wizard that I personally find the most confusing, because of all the problems with the class, it's by far the easiest to remediate and has really not been touched upon well at all. As mentioned above, the one new school we got is basically a copy of the School of Mentalism, which to me doesn't really do the best job of selling the idea that new schools are really easy to come up with.

I think with this there are two degrees of problems with arcane schools: for those who are fine with the Wizard's overall design and balance post-remaster, it's still not great that we have fewer schools than what we had post-remaster. One of the developer statements made was that the new model would allow for many more schools to be added beyond the eight legacy schools of magic, and while I can easily believe that (the brew linked above should hopefully demonstrate that the recipe for creating new schools is fairly simple, with lots of examples), that promise has yet to be fulfilled. Perhaps we'll get more schools with the rival academies sourcebook, but so far it's been slim pickings in almost an entire year.

The second degree, which goes back to OP's and Old_Man_Robot's points, is that for all the theming and potential to arcane schools, they've ultimately served to make the class more mechanically limited in a remaster that otherwise made nearly every other caster less restricted and often straight-up more powerful overall. Contrast the Wizard's treatment to the Oracle's, for instance, and both I think sit at opposite extremes of the spectrum while being equally unsuccessful as class reworks (the Wizard got the tighter theming they needed along with a significant unnecessary nerf; the Oracle got the power buffs they needed at the cost of their class identity). Ideally, there should be a way to give the Wizard the flavor of having studied a specific subject at a particular arcane school, but its current implementation restricts the Wizard's fourth slot per rank so severely that it no longer feels like this amazing benefit, particularly at a time when more casters get a much less restricted fourth slot at seemingly no tradeoff (which isn't necessarily a good thing either). I would also prefer the Wizard to have just three slots per rank and an altogether different implementation for arcane schools, and wrote another brew to that effect, though perhaps a class archetype could be a better way of satisfying both those wanting something fresh from the Wizard and those who like the class as-is.

[Tridus]

Teridax wrote:

The lack of additional schools since the remaster is the pain point with the Wizard that I personally find the most confusing, because of all the problems with the class, it's by far the easiest to remediate and has really not been touched upon well at all. As mentioned above, the one new school we got is basically a copy of the School of Mentalism, which to me doesn't really do the best job of selling the idea that new schools are really easy to come up with.

I think it's pretty clear Paizo is overworked lately, with the Remaster and the schedule problems it created causing issues with simply not enough time to do things like this.

I mean, PC2 has been out a couple of months and we don't have an errata for how many spells Oracle actually has. And if they can't address something that fundamental on a timeline of months, then new content is clearly going to suffer.

Quote:

Perhaps we'll get more schools with the rival academies sourcebook, but so far it's been slim pickings in almost an entire year.

That feels like the book to do it, to me. Or maybe Battlecry as well, with "war themed options for other classes" besides the new ones. I feel confident its going to happen at some point, though the wait can definitely be frustrating.

Quote:

Contrast the Wizard's treatment to the Oracle's, for instance, and both I think sit at opposite extremes of the spectrum while being equally unsuccessful as class reworks (the Wizard got the tighter theming they needed along with a significant unnecessary nerf; the Oracle got the power buffs they needed at the cost of their class identity). Ideally, there should be a way to give the Wizard the flavor of having studied a specific subject at a particular arcane school, but its current implementation restricts the Wizard's fourth slot per rank so severely that it no longer feels like this amazing benefit, particularly at a time when more casters get a much less restricted fourth slot at seemingly no tradeoff (which isn't necessarily a good thing either).

I see a fair number of Wizard players not taking a school at all (or the unified school as its called now). I don't know if that's actually better per-se, but it seems a lot of players just value the ability to get a spell they actually want a second time more than they value another slot that is locked down tightly. That's just anecdotal and I don't know how it lines up with others experiences, but its just what I've seen from people playing Wizards now.

It certainly doesn't feel like a unique class thing to get a 4th slot that is tightly restricted when Oracle got one with no restrictions at all*. Sorcerer also already had it, but its becoming more common now. So it's not this particularly special thing anymore, especially a restricted one.

The good news is that better schools are something they can add without having to change the class itself, so this is a more inherently fixable problem than what happened with Oracle and the "sorry we broke your mysteries" debacle.

* I maintain this was a band-aid when they ran out of time on PC2 and realized what a mess Oracle was, which is why the table and text don't agree. Which goes back to the schedule problems the remaster caused. But that is yet another thread.

[Teridax]

I think the issue with the new framework is that "better schools" can only go so far: pre-remaster, each of the eight legacy schools covered dozens upon dozens of spells, so even your 1st-rank slot could hold one of many different spells, which was still more limited than the full breadth of arcane spells (or, at least, the ones you had in your spellbook), but still pretty versatile. As an added bonus, learning more spells of your school meant you had more spells to choose from when preparing into your fourth slot, so Wizards were naturally incentivized to lean into their chosen school and pick more spells belonging to it.

By contrast, current arcane schools will only have around a dozen spells in their curriculum in total, which makes that fourth slot severely more limited. It creates situations that didn't exist before where certain spell slots are doomed to become obsolete, because they can only be used to prepare spells that need to be heightened to stay relevant, but it also creates awkward situations where certain spells that would normally be a perfect fit for a school can't be added to that school's curriculum, let alone prepared in a Wizard's fourth slot, without GM fiat (for instance, the School of Civic Wizardry and pave ground). Although the new schools are much more thematically fleshed out than they were before, they're fundamentally a lot more restrictive than their predecessors, and therefore a lot weaker to boot in a way that's pretty much impossible to remediate with their current structure.

[Old_Man_Robot]

Tridus wrote:

I see a fair number of Wizard players not taking a school at all (or the unified school as its called now). I don't know if that's actually better per-se, but it seems a lot of players just value the ability to get a spell they actually want a second time more than they value another slot that is locked down tightly.

That or Spell Blending. Both methods of sidesteping the entire slot.

Tridus wrote:

It certainly doesn't feel like a unique class thing to get a 4th slot that is tightly restricted when Oracle got one with no restrictions at all*. Sorcerer also already had it, but its becoming more common now. So it's not this particularly special thing anymore, especially a restricted one.

We're currently a few weeks out from having the 4th 4-slot caster. We don't yet know the final shape of the Animist, but currently only the Wizard has a restriction in this way.

This puts the breakdown of caster types at:
- (4) Three-slot Casters (Bard, Cleric, Druid, Witch)
- (4) Four-slot Casters (Animist, Oracle, Sorcerer, Wizard)
- (2) Bounded Casters (Magus, Summoner)
- (1) Psychic, which is unique.

So being a 4-slot caster is no longer particularly special in and of itself.

[Errenor]

Teridax wrote:

As an added bonus, learning more spells of your school meant you had more spells to choose from when preparing into your fourth slot, so Wizards were naturally incentivized to lean into their chosen school and pick more spells belonging to it.

Great catch btw. I haven't noticed this aspect before.

[Bluemagetim]

This would be an example that for me would be perfect.
Lighting school.
Gets thunderstrike. Lightningbolt, and chain lightning.
Wouldnt care what else it gets in curriculum.

[pH unbalanced]

Errenor wrote:

Teridax wrote:

As an added bonus, learning more spells of your school meant you had more spells to choose from when preparing into your fourth slot, so Wizards were naturally incentivized to lean into their chosen school and pick more spells belonging to it.

Great catch btw. I haven't noticed this aspect before.

Exactly this. This is why Remaster Wizards are in a worse place than Premaster Wizards.

That is why the fix that I am expecting to see in Rival Academies are Wizard Class Feats that expand how you can use your school spell slots.

[Voqu]

Captain Morgan wrote:

25speedforseaweedleshy wrote:

wizard are the only class become significantly weaker instead of stronger in pc1 and 2

flexible caster archetype couldn't save them

expect paizo to produce some miracle new runelord archetype to save wizard seem overly optimistic

Eh. I would put some qualifiers on that. I'd argue the caster baseline just got raised in general between the refocus changes and spell buffs, wizards are probably strong than before overall. But they aren't relatively stronger compared to other classes.

The other thing is the specific nerf (limited choices for curriculum spells) is explicitly written to allow the player and GM to collaborate and add more thematically appropriate spells, which is much cleaner than trying to homebrew the whole class. So at most tables you should be fine, but I have no idea how that works on PFS.

Other problems, like boring feats or bad focus spells, aren't new, and wizards got small improvements there in the remaster. These are also problems that you can bypass with multiclassing. I recognize this feels bad to have to do, but that's probably an expectation adjustment people should make. Cuz I agree with you that Paizo probably won't publish a miracle archetype that fixes everything.

You could also add another spellcasting dedication like witch to gain extra spells and abilities.

[Squiggit]

I'd kind of like to see new schools give off-list spells.

One of the theoretical advantages of tailored spell lists is that they don't have to draw from a single tradition... Indeed, that's how a lot of other specific spell list choices work. Stuff like fire domain clerics getting fireball, or fey sorcerers getting a whole bunch of occult mind effecting spells. Missed opportunity to not give Boundary a couple occult/divine only necromantic spells or protean access to other shapechanges like animal or dinosaur form.

[moosher12]

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

Tridus wrote:

I see a fair number of Wizard players not taking a school at all (or the unified school as its called now). I don't know if that's actually better per-se, but it seems a lot of players just value the ability to get a spell they actually want a second time more than they value another slot that is locked down tightly.

That or Spell Blending. Both methods of sidesteping the entire slot.

Tridus wrote:

It certainly doesn't feel like a unique class thing to get a 4th slot that is tightly restricted when Oracle got one with no restrictions at all*. Sorcerer also already had it, but its becoming more common now. So it's not this particularly special thing anymore, especially a restricted one.

We're currently a few weeks out from having the 4th 4-slot caster. We don't yet know the final shape of the Animist, but currently only the Wizard has a restriction in this way.

This puts the breakdown of caster types at:
- (4) Three-slot Casters (Bard, Cleric, Druid, Witch)
- (4) Four-slot Casters (Animist, Oracle, Sorcerer, Wizard)
- (2) Bounded Casters (Magus, Summoner)
- (1) Psychic, which is unique.

So being a 4-slot caster is no longer particularly special in and of itself.

Let's also not forget that Mystic and Witchwarper are also going to be 4-slot casters unless nerfed. So that's 4, 6, 2, 1

[Bluemagetim]

Squiggit wrote:

I'd kind of like to see new schools give off-list spells.

One of the theoretical advantages of tailored spell lists is that they don't have to draw from a single tradition... Indeed, that's how a lot of other specific spell list choices work. Stuff like fire domain clerics getting fireball, or fey sorcerers getting a whole bunch of occult mind effecting spells. Missed opportunity to not give Boundary a couple occult/divine only necromantic spells or protean access to other shapechanges like animal or dinosaur form.

This is a good point. Having a slot that can use off list spells would be a nice benefit to have.

[Teridax]

Squiggit wrote:

I'd kind of like to see new schools give off-list spells.

One of the theoretical advantages of tailored spell lists is that they don't have to draw from a single tradition... Indeed, that's how a lot of other specific spell list choices work. Stuff like fire domain clerics getting fireball, or fey sorcerers getting a whole bunch of occult mind effecting spells. Missed opportunity to not give Boundary a couple occult/divine only necromantic spells or protean access to other shapechanges like animal or dinosaur form.

I wouldn't mind this, and had this been the basis of the Wizard from the start, we would've had both a much more distinct class and a much less overloaded arcane spell list. I'll have to find the specific reference, but at least one developer flat-out said the arcane list was designed around the Wizard, and specifically had to include plenty of spells of each legacy school so that they'd be about equally balanced next to each other (this was one of the major problems with the legacy schools of magic). Had the arcane list been made much leaner, the Wizard would likely have been able to prepare freely from that spell list and use their spellbook to write down off-menu spells, instead of needing a spellbook to restrict the entire range of arcane spells they can prepare like any other prepared arcane caster.

[Ryangwy]

Teridax wrote:

I wouldn't mind this, and had this been the basis of the Wizard from the start, we would've had both a much more distinct class and a much less overloaded arcane spell list. I'll have to find the specific reference, but at least one developer flat-out said the arcane list was designed around the Wizard, and specifically had to include plenty of spells of each legacy school so that they'd be about equally balanced next to each other (this was one of the major problems with the legacy schools of magic). Had the arcane list been made much leaner, the Wizard would likely have been able to prepare freely from that spell list and use their spellbook to write down off-menu spells, instead of needing a spellbook to restrict the entire range of arcane spells they can prepare like any other prepared arcane caster.

It's interesting that they didn't do that for the remaster - the remaster schools all have at least one spell that you wouldn't normally think is part of the school, but needs it's own bespoke line in the school description to justify (notably toxic cloud, which requires a pretty big reach on both the school and the spell). My gutsense is that they designed remaster wizard after the spell list was settled, which is why the schools have unbalanced picks including uncommon spells and weird, poorly justified stuff.

[Ed Reppert]

moosher12 wrote:

Let's also not forget that Mystic and Witchwarper are also going to be 4-slot casters unless nerfed. So that's 4, 6, 2, 1

What the heck is a Witchwarper? And when are we supposed to get these classes?

[Teridax]

Ed Reppert wrote:

What the heck is a Witchwarper? And when are we supposed to get these classes?

The Mystic and Witchwarper are both casters in Starfinder that are getting implemented in its Second Edition Player Core, and so will be playable in Pathfinder 2e at the GM's discretion. SF2e I think is set to launch late next year, so it's still a ways off, but so far both classes in the playtest are 4-slot spontaneous casters, which worries me a little.

[Tridus]

Teridax wrote:

Ed Reppert wrote:

What the heck is a Witchwarper? And when are we supposed to get these classes?

The Mystic and Witchwarper are both casters in Starfinder that are getting implemented in its Second Edition Player Core, and so will be playable in Pathfinder 2e at the GM's discretion. SF2e I think is set to launch late next year, so it's still a ways off, but so far both classes in the playtest are 4-slot spontaneous casters, which worries me a little.

I wouldn't normally think much of it because Starfinder isn't the same game even if it is the same base system engine now, but Oracle also going to 4 (and IIRC Animist as well although they're not fully unrestricted) really makes you wonder if that's just the baseline going forward and at some point between PC1 and PC2 they changed their minds on what the baseline should be.