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Counterpoint, it's very easy to do data analysis wrong if you don't have the internal resources to ensure you are doing it right.
For years now I've been working with researchers and engineers on projects which most of you would probably name-check on. Even "professional scientists" get their analysis wrong on occassion. It can be shockingly easy to do if you don't have a robust understanding on how to structure and contextualise your data correctly.
I'm not saying it's the case here, but just having data isn't the same...
Yeah, obviously. But I don't think the feedback on PF2 classes is an extremely hard to understand piece of data.
Let's consider the counterpoint: How can the Wizard blow the Sorcerer out of the water?
Lets pump the breaks here.
This doesn't actually relate to what I was saying, and we're muddying the waters too much if we want to have this part of the conversation properly.
The Wizard would have it's issues even if Sorcerers didn't exist. Yes, the existence of Sorcerers does given some comparative points by which we can judge things, but it's not the real point of value.
The question of how Paizo gathers, interprets and utilises the data it acquires from customers is something we - from the outside - can only guess at. The internal metrics they use to understand their success in a given area is also not something we know.
We can't say how things like positive or negative feedback is understood at Paizo, or how that fits into any rubric of how classes are balanced.
Essentially we can't presuppose that "Something is the way it is because Paizo have data which shows the way it is is good", because it's too opaque for us to gleam anything from.
For example, in one of the previously linked threads, when someone asked about data gathering around Wizards, Sayre replied by talking about the commercial success of PF2. That is an example of how the data gathering around the quality of content is potentially understood internally, but, anyone who has worked with sort of stuff before will know that the road between QA and commercicals can be a long one with lots of interesting forks. In some cases, there might not even realistically be a road, depending on a lot of other factors (would you stop buying all Paizo products just because Rangers sucked? or swear off Coke forver because their new sugar free cherry flavour isn't to your taste?)
But the long and short of it is, the idea that there is "positivie data" which stands for one position or another is too vague to be meaningfully understood without a proper contextulaisation. Which we just don't have.
It's why I, personally, try to avoid aggregated-sentiment based arguments. I know I don't have the data, and we don't know enough about how those who might have it understand it, to make claims one way or another.
But, even beyond that, there still lots of scenarios where something can be qualitatively bad but popular, because those two metrics aren't necessarily tied together. You would have to do the work to figure out the relationship and judge accordingly.
"The data exists" is then, largely meaningless, really, if we can't understand it enough to talk about it in the ways we want to talk about it.
We also don't even know, for instance, if some sort of internal class quality guage even exists for Paizo - or, if it does - how that impacts how things are designed or products developed. We can probably assume there is something like that in place, but we are simply too removed to invoke the data potentially behind to mean one thing or another.
My number one guess would be that the PF2E team had their own internal playtesting team that said wizard was perfectly playable—they knew wizard was capable of getting through an adventuring day. The team knew their numbers looked fine in their design spreadsheets. And they also knew there would probably be a lot of initial backlash to the system changes from longtime caster players, and a lot of that backlash would probably center on the wizard.
So when you put those all together, it's kind of easy to see how wizard could go a long time without attention. Paizo might've figured it'd take a long time for initial backlash to tamp down and for them to get more impressions that were more about wizard in the context of PF2E and less about wizard in the context of people's expectations.
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Lets pump the breaks here.
We are way beyond 10 000 messages on "Wizard is weak" so I think we have lost the breaks a long time ago.
The Wizard would have it's issues even if Sorcerers didn't exist.
Not really. The main issue of the Wizard is the comparison with the other casters and first and foremost the Sorcerer. If you nerf all casters to the point of making the Wizard the king of casters... then you have PF1 Wizard and it was fine.
The question of how Paizo gathers, interprets and utilises the data it acquires from customers is something we - from the outside - can only guess at. The internal metrics they use to understand their success in a given area is also not something we know.
You are a few steps away from: There is no truth only perception.
Even if we don't know anything about their process, we can give them the benefit of the doubt (it's their job after all) and consider that when they state the Wizard's fine, it's because for the larger population of players it's fine.
But, even beyond that, there still lots of scenarios where something can be qualitatively bad but popular
So your point is: If you disagree with Paizo's data then you are the one being right.
With such logic we will make incredible progress!I'm teasing you, but I think you get what I want to convey. There have been thousands of posts explaining more or less the same thing, so chances are high these posts are "wrong". Somehow, what they convey is either flat out wrong or missing the point.
So the solution to the "Wizard issue" is none of what we have proposed so far.
Unless a Class Archetype fixes Wizard it is very much playable just boring till you get to the levels where you get stuff like secondary detonation which is a super powerful feat exclusive for wizards but comes online far to late for most people to use it. They just need some help rather it is better focus spells, hyper unique focus cantrips via feats (Which be cool), Spell Subsection as base class feature. Just something to make them go, "Hello, I am the master of the arcane arts and everyone else is just a copycat."
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Unless a Class Archetype fixes Wizard it is very much playable just boring till you get to the levels where you get stuff like secondary detonation which is a super powerful feat exclusive for wizards but comes online far to late for most people to use it. They just need some help rather it is better focus spells, hyper unique focus cantrips via feats (Which be cool), Spell Subsection as base class feature. Just something to make them go, "Hello, I am the master of the arcane arts and everyone else is just a copycat."
I do also agree that far too many feats for the wizard are upshifted too high. Knowledge is Power should be a level 1 feat or feature but is a level 8 feat
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Lets pump the breaks here.We are way beyond 10 000 messages on "Wizard is weak" so I think we have lost the breaks a long time ago.
The Wizard would have it's issues even if Sorcerers didn't exist.Not really. The main issue of the Wizard is the comparison with the other casters and first and foremost the Sorcerer. If you nerf all casters to the point of making the Wizard the king of casters... then you have PF1 Wizard and it was fine.
The question of how Paizo gathers, interprets and utilises the data it acquires from customers is something we - from the outside - can only guess at. The internal metrics they use to understand their success in a given area is also not something we know.You are a few steps away from: There is no truth only perception.
Even if we don't know anything about their process, we can give them the benefit of the doubt (it's their job after all) and consider that when they state the Wizard's fine, it's because for the larger population of players it's fine.
But, even beyond that, there still lots of scenarios where something can be qualitatively bad but popularSo your point is: If you disagree with Paizo's data then you are the one being right.
With such logic we will make incredible progress!I'm teasing you, but I think you get what I want to convey. There have been thousands of posts explaining more or less the same thing, so chances are high these posts are "wrong". Somehow, what they convey is either flat out wrong or missing the point.
So the solution to the "Wizard issue" is none of what we have proposed so far.
No, my point is you neither know nor understand the data you are in invoking. You can't answer basic questions on it let alone drill down into anything of value. It might be the best constructed dataset in the world or just vibes and duct tape. We don't know.
So it's meaningless to talk about.
No, my point is you neither know nor understand the data you are in invoking.
I don't invoke any data. I invoke Paizo's conclusion.
Now you're just playing word games.
I won't carry on with this point.
I'm not playing with words. You say the data is unknown, it's true. But Paizo point of view isn't and it carries way more weight than any point of view in this discussion.
So they say the Wizard's fine and as such it certainly is. If you can't deal with this information then you won't be able to get anywhere.
The strength of prepared casting is partly the diversity of arcane spells available to prepare in the game. If people have written off that argument cause 36 spells is good enough for them then 580 spells or so are just sitting there that they wont use and wont see the value in using in the situations designers had in mind for them.
The strength of prepared casting is partly the diversity of arcane spells available to prepare in the game. If people have written off that argument cause 36 spells is good enough for them then 580 spells or so are just sitting there that they wont use and wont see the value in using in the situations designers had in mind for them.
I think there's value in being able to pick different suites of spells for different play experiences. I can use more of the 580-something than 36—I just use them on a different character. (That different character will still have slow, though.)
A lot of spells, while slightly different, still fill niches close enough to each other to be fungible in practice. There's not much value in stacking up on similar spells on one character, but there's value in using those spells on a different character or character concept.
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I honestly would want to know the numbers Paizo uses internally to determine if something is succesful or has a high satisfication because for a while I been thinking those numbers must be off. The thaumaturge not being a popular class is what I always think about in regards to this topic because even if Paizo says they are unpopular I consistently see them mentioned everywhere and its not like I spend time in the most obscure PF2e communities or something like that. I'm pretty sure Paizo's stance with the thaumaturge comes from Pathfinder Nexus' numbers, who supposedly had playtest exemplar being one of the most played classes (makes sense since I believe it was one of the first classes released after the creation of that site) while the thaumaturge (that released two years before its creation and thus didn't have a free version that everybody has access) despite everything is on the lower side.
In regards to the wizard, I think something similar must be happening here. I can't fathom Paizo thinking people are satisfied with wizards when literally every day we have multiple posts about wizards in the subreddit and threads about the topic here on the forums always reach 100+ comments in the spam of a few days, easily being the threads with the most comments here. Not to mention that when I talk to newcommers they always mention not liking casters and wizards in particular.
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The main issue of the Wizard is the comparison with the other casters and first and foremost the Sorcerer.
Except when people complain about how bad prepared casting is as a mechanic or feat options being boring or the lack of meaningful specialization.
There's definitely a power element from some writers, but many of the core complaints don't actually have anything to do with power.
Arguably focusing too much on power sometimes reads like a smokescreen used to avoid considering the more fundamental design issues. Like someone can just say "but chain lightning does so much damage!" and completely ignore the actual meat of any critique of the class' design.
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I can't fathom Paizo thinking people are satisfied with wizards when literally every day we have multiple posts about wizards in the subreddit and threads about the topic here on the forums always reach 100+ comments in the spam of a few daysCan't speak for the subreddits, but here those 100+ comments represent the positions of maybe 20 players who'll post many times over on such subjects.* And forum members are a self-selected sample of players. So really not a representative sample of what "PF2E players" think. At all.
*There's nothing wrong with this. These fora are intended to allow conversations back and forth between GMs, players, folks interested in the system, and so on. But it does exacerbate the error of people reading "omg 100+ posts!" and thinking "there must be many many players with this opinion!"
The paizo wizard threads do get a lot of repeat customers, but you do see the "are casters bad or am I doing something wrong?" what feels like weekly or biweekly on the subreddit. Those threads do often immediately ask what their encounters are like... and the answer is usually "way harder than they should be btw i'm like level 3." And that usually is the issue half the time. But there are still a lot of people who feel ineffective or like their contributions just aren't memorable, even at the 10-12 mark.
I'm personally keeping a close eye on the oracle player (who is playing premaster oracle) in my season of ghosts game. I'm monitoring the "oracle is a bit rough" problems and the early caster problems like "a few lucky saves on spray of stars really makes you feel you did nothing, huh?" A lot of sessions, I could easily see how she might feel like she did nothing compared to the martials in the party—they have such comparatively obvious high points and their low points are pretty easy to ignore, while your high points are often more like "hey, fear let someone hit or stopped someone from getting hit" and "hey, nobody succeeded against my 2d4 fire damage spell that did... 5 damage! and they got dazzled for basically the whole combat!" right before the magus overkills the enemy by an amount that makes your damage and debuff wholly irrelevant.
She's never complained about any of it, and I think she has a solid idea of what her actual contribution is. (It's been quite relevant in the harder encounters; I have slightly, and only slightly, bumped up the difficulty because it's low to begin with and the party is handling it fine despite 3/4 of them being new to 2E). But I could see someone less in tune with the system math being massively dissatisfied with their character's performance.
I can't fathom Paizo thinking people are satisfied with wizards when literally every day we have multiple posts about wizards in the subreddit and threads about the topic here on the forums always reach 100+ comments in the spam of a few daysCan't speak for the subreddits, but here those 100+ comments represent the positions of maybe 20 players who'll post many times over on such subjects.* And forum members are a self-selected sample of players. So really not a representative sample of what "PF2E players" think. At all.
*There's nothing wrong with this. These fora are intended to allow conversations back and forth between GMs, players, folks interested in the system, and so on. But it does exacerbate the error of people reading "omg 100+ posts!" and thinking "there must be many many players with this opinion!"
I don't disagree with the 20 players on most of the forum threads thing, but if anything the frequency of threads about wizards and the ammount of comments those receive here and in the subreddit IMO show there must be something that keeps people coming back to this kind of discussions. Its not about if wizards or casters as a whole underperform or something like that, but rather that people feel something's off when playing a wizard or caster, which IMO is proof of disatisfaction.
In regards to the Pathfinder Nexus thing I mentioned earlier, I want to point out that I don't think Paizo has the wrong numbers or that they aren't doing a good job to interpret them correctly, but rather that they don't even have all the numbers to make a real and accurate estimate of success or satisfaction. As I said, I believe most of their numbers likely come from Pathfinder Nexus which makes sense, but I feel most people usually bring Pathbuilder as a character creation tool more often than Pathfinder Nexus because, well, its free and has existed way before Pathfinder Nexus was even announced. In the subreddit at least Pathbuilder is highly favored over Pathfinder Nexus and I think there's even a megathread that promotes Pathbuilder there. In fact, I think most people are using Pathfinder Nexus now since AoN has had a rough year with delays. At least I can speak for myself that I didn't even bother with Pathfinder Nexus until this happened.
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I do think Easl has a point. It's less that the criticism of the Wizard is unjustified, I find, and more that discussions get very weird when you have a small number of people trying to one-up each other on how hyperbolic they can get. This thread is the perfect example, and the vast majority of posts come from a number of people that can be counted on one hand. So far, we've had criticisms like "the Wizard lacks spell output", "the Wizard lacks versatility," or "spell preparation has literally no benefits", as well as requests for things like giving the Wizard a free +2 to their rolls and DCs, all of their arcane theses as core class features, and/or up to six extra spell slots of their three highest ranks. Whatever constructive, evidence- and experience-based criticism there is to be made of the Wizard, and whatever reasonable suggestions have been made here, have gotten drowned out, dismissed, or even twisted into accusations of defending the status quo. This thread could have had a much higher quality of discussion, but has instead become an echo chamber.
What I find particularly disappointing is how distant so much of this discussion often is from the Wizard, and the experiences players have with the class. If you go look on those caster threads on the subreddit and sort past the hyperbolic replies that get made there, there is at least a substantial number of comments where people relate theirs or their players' experience of the Wizard or other spellcasters, and describe what those players felt. That I think ought to be the basis of constructive and measured criticism, rather than pontificating over the hypotheticals of a Wizard's preparedness next to a Sorcerer with an infinite spell repertoire or something equally absurd. Even here, there is at least some sort of awareness that players dislike Vancian spellcasting and feel weak even when their character does hold their own next to other classes, yet not one single person has talked about how to thread that needle and make spell preparation feel good on the Wizard. None of the above cited suggestions try to address that problem, and instead they all focus on giving the Wizard more raw power, often in ways that I believe would directly worsen the class's existing design problems.
Really, the cure to this I think ought to be critical thinking and more play: it is my personal opinion that the Wizard, for several reasons, is at their worst at low levels, where most people play, and gets a fair bit better as they level up, though not so much that they make up for their deficiencies. There are many different ways to go about addressing the Wizard's issues, but before talking about piling on more power, I think the key objective ought to be making the Wizard feel better to play, and so especially at levels 1-4, where the class struggles the most. It's not just that the Wizard's underpowered, in my opinion, the class's power is allocated in a way that isn't always easy to appreciate, and so while buffs would benefit the class, there are more and less intelligent ways of going about it. We can and probably should try aiming for a class that's decently powerful and enjoyable, rather than a class that's ludicrously overtuned and still not fun to play.
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Except when people complain about how bad prepared casting is as a mechanic or feat options being boring or the lack of meaningful specialization.
There's definitely a power element from some writers, but many of the core complaints don't actually have anything to do with power.
Arguably focusing too much on power sometimes reads like a smokescreen used to avoid considering the more fundamental design issues. Like someone can just say "but chain lightning does so much damage!" and completely ignore the actual meat of any critique of the class' design.
We already been there, it gave nothing. Let's move things around.
Paizo developers have stated repeatedly that the Wizard's fine. Considering that they are actual game designers having access to much more data than we do, I think it's the closest we can get to an actual fact. Dismissing Paizo's point of view considering that "we know better" is certainly flat out wrong. We may be the next Richard Garfield, but chances are higher it's the Dunning-Kruger effect talking.
So, let's consider that the Wizard's fine.
Why are we disagreeing?
In the Wizard discussions, I tend to see the same faces. It's definitely an echo chamber, so the argument of the 1000+-message discussions is moot.
But among the familiar faces, I mostly see experienced players. System-savvy and for some of them tactically-savvy players. Paizo already stated (and I agree with them) that simplicity is a key factor in how a class is received. So, this seems like a possible explanation as to why the Wizard's fine despite our experience of the class. After all, beginners don't gravitate towards Paizo boards as much as experienced players. And tactically weak players tend to disregard discussions about optimization. That may explain even more the echo chamber.
The more I look at Prepared casting and the more I begin to think it's actually easier to use than Spontaneous casting. I see 2 key reasons:
- First, it's much more forgiving if you choose your spells badly, as you can change them the next morning. I remember a few players telling me that they won't play a character who can't change their spells easily. I dismissed it at times, but maybe I was wrong, maybe what they wanted to convey is that they are not able to build an effective Repertoire and as such need to be able to change their spells regularly to fix their mistakes.
- Second, tactically weak players tend to hoard spells, rarely casting even half of their slotted spells. This remove the main asset of Spontaneous casting: the fact that even when your spell list shrinks you keep the same choice of spells to cast.
As a consequence, I begin to think Prepared casting is better for beginners and tactically weak players than Spontaneous casting.
To that, I'll add a few elements that help in the specific case of the Wizard:
- The Wizard has always been a master of all magic. Players coming from other editions will tend to play their Wizards with a wide selection of spells. It's not the case for the Sorcerer (the main contender) and other casters (Oracle for example). I can easily see a beginner, playing a Fire Elemental Sorcerer, taking all the Fire spells they can to fully commit to their fantasy. But specialization, as a caster, is in general a wrong idea.
- Spell Substitution is extremely popular. Much more than its actual effectiveness would suggest. Spell Substitution is another forgiving element for beginners as you don't even have to wait for your next daily preparations to switch a spell you don't manage to use or took mistakenly.
So, let me raise this possible explanation: What if the Wizard main asset is that it's rather easy to play and forgiving? That would explain why most players think it's fine. And as such, buffing the Wizard would actually make it much better than the competition. That may even be the underlying reason the remaster buffed the Sorcerer against (apparent) common sense.
Food for thought (that will be quickly forgotten in the discussion, but who knows).
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The low level (1-4) experience as a wizard can be pretty miserable due to a combination of pretty much all of the above points, combined with low level spells being quite underwhelming compared to the impact you could have if you just built towards picking up big weapon and hitting things. This often leads to players feeling like it's better to focus on supporting their allies who ARE doing that, rather than doing what they actually wanted to do.
I want to pick up on this bit in particular, because I think it's the key to understanding why so many players report bad experiences with the Wizard in discussion spaces:
So with this in mind, I think a lot of the criticisms become much more understandable: when you have a party going through AV and one of the party members is a Wizard, they're going to start off feeling all of the Wizard's weaknesses without yet accessing much in the way of their strengths. It's valid for players to feel like their character is useless then, because they're arguably experiencing the Wizard at their worst. I don't think this describes the Wizard at all level ranges, but I do think this means that if we're looking for things to improve about the Wizard, making their low-level play feel significantly better ought to be a priority.
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seriously though, thats a lot of spells not being used at all if theres only like 36 in the game that are actually good.
That's actually a very good question, and probably the crux of the problem.
If there were hundreds of great spells to choose from, the wizard would have a distinct advantage over the sorcerer and other spontaneous casters. But sadly, it's not the case, for numerous reasons.
1) Useless spells
Some spells are borderline useless or easily replaced by mondane means. Breadcrumbs/Glowing Trail come to mind. Just carry some chalk. Or Eternal flame.
2) Redundant spells
A lot of spells are designed to do the same thing. They have sometimes small differences but they're close enough to be functionally the same. Take water walk and lotus walk, or Message rune and Embed message, or Nothing up my sleeve/Imaginary lockbox/Bottomless Stomach/Time pocket, and so many others.
3) Spells that aren't useful after the first few levels
Mystic armor, Runic Body, Runic Weapon...
Although they're upgraded in the remaster, they're much less useful later on.
4) Spells that have to be heightened
All incapacitation spells and most damage spells come to mind. As a level 11 caster, you won't take any damaging spell or incapacitation spell in your 3rd level slots, for instance, which reduces very significantly the number of spells you can choose from.
5) Spells that are replaced by better versions
Burning hands is a worse version of fireball (same damage, same type, worse targetting). Exploding earth scales very badly.
6) Spells that only work in a specific setting
Sanguine Mist is only useful if your friends and minions are undead.
7) Spells that are specific to another caster
Summoner's precaution and most animal companion/summoner spells.
8) Spells that are better on an NPC than a PC
Daydreamer's curse/Dull ambition/outcast's curse/savant's curse and most curses, actually. Diseases and most poisons as well.
9) Spells that compete for your reaction
There are some great spells that use your reaction, for instance Wooden Double, Blood Vendetta and Interposing Earth, but taking all of them might be a waste since you can only use one per turn.
10) Redundancy
Even if there are hundreds of combat spells, you don't need them all. After all, unless you're using quickened casting, you can only cast one spell per round.
When we talk about a good combat spell list, we ideally need the following:
- Sources of elemental damage for weaknesses (fire, electricity, acid, cold, maybe vitality/void).
- A couple AOE spells (damage and debuff) (howling blizzard...)
- Some way to deal with many mobs when your friends are already in the fray (Blazing bolt, mass slow, tempest of shades...)
- Single target damage and debuffs (force barrage, true target...)
- Friendly buffs (mass haste, foresight, mountain resilience...)
- Some reactions (shadow siphon, wooden double...)
So there are literally hundreds of ways to fry your enemies, but you only need a few of them at a time.
TLDR: Among the thousands of spells, there are indeed only a handful that are really useful in a fighting situation, thus mostly erasing the advantage the prepared caster SHOULD have. The problem is, new splat books won't help since new spells mostly are more of the same. Either they'll be better (in which case they'll replace the old ones) or they'll be worse (in which case they won't have an impact).
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Here are some of the reasons many have repeated throughout this thread that I actually think are constructive criticisms.
That's a good sum up of the points brought up in the thread, and it would be great if they would be adressed.
Being one of those who "argued till they were blue in the face that wizard is bad because imperial sorcerer is better", I felt the need to draw this comparison to show people who don't think the wizard has problems that there currently is a discrepancy.
But I probably went too far and apologize for that.
What the wizard really needs is some individuality and identity, outside of "I know the most arcane spells!" which just isn't a mechanically satisfying niche in this system.
Well, it *could* be if new books, like the one coming up next, would give us spells of different styles and not yet another variation of fireball - but lightning this time, and in a cone.
I'm not sure what kind of spells Paizo could come up with to freshen up the experience, but every spell that suddenly feels useful and not redundant is a huge boon to a prepared spellcaster like the wizard.
Is there anything that would convince the dismissive crowd that there is a issue with the wizard? what could change you mind on the subject if anything?
I only take issue with the idea that they are strictly worse in every way.
I would welcome more schools, more feats, more spells.If a new feat let them order explorer on theses it would be a great addition.
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I do think PFS scenarios work very well for wizards. You tend to get a lot of knowledge about what is coming up, tons of down time, free scrolls you can use to get new spells, and a lot of opportunity to use spells out of combat.
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Unless a Class Archetype fixes Wizard it is very much playable just boring till you get to the levels where you get stuff like secondary detonation which is a super powerful feat exclusive for wizards but comes online far to late for most people to use it. They just need some help rather it is better focus spells, hyper unique focus cantrips via feats (Which be cool), Spell Subsection as base class feature. Just something to make them go, "Hello, I am the master of the arcane arts and everyone else is just a copycat."
I don't consider it powerful. In play, it is very clunky. It works on occasion, the 5 foot burst and going off on your next turn giving the creature an entire turn to move makes it not work so often.
Fortell Harm is much better because it goes off at the start of the creature's next turn, doesn't require the creature stay in place, and hits all the creatures in the area of the spell damage. It is also a free action.
I'm playing an oracle right now and wondering why the heck is this 4 slot, spontaneous divine caster getting these nice feats.
Even their Knowledge of Shapes feat allows them to reach or Widen as a free action for an increase in curse. So now you have this 4 slot, spontaneous divine caster with 3 different resources with powerful effects it can draw upon.
They also can take spells from other sources to add to their repertoire and add a top level slot giving them five top level slots for casting.
I just keep scratching my head at why these other classes are getting abilities you would think would be cooler on the wizard.
Fortell Harm sure does make the 3 action heal on undead worth casting. Very nice damage.
My guess is the 4 slot Oracle was a mistake but its a popular one so they just go with it.
Just to be more clear.
My point in the spontaneous versus prepared debate has more to do with the claim by wizard players that wizard's are more versatile casters.
As the examples I used show, a spontaneous caster with signature spells is more versatile in an on demand situation than a prepared caster.
Power is the same so long as the prepared casters prepare the common high value spells that work for both spontaneous and prepared casters.
If a situation occurs where a prepared caster can leverage a combat spell for a particular situation, then that rare occurrence provides an advantage.
But a well designed repertoire usually covers most combat eventualities with signature spell heightening allowing versatile in combat use of high value spells.
Given how prepared casters often just prepare the best combat spells in their slots at a given level, slotting multiple uses of the combat spells, prepared versus spontaneous in actual play is not often noticeable.
A druid or wizard or sorcerer are all going to use chain lightning or some big blaster spell a lot with the same action cost, same DC, and you won't really care or notice that one casts it using a prepared slot and another casts it using a spontaneous slot.
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The strength of prepared casting is partly the diversity of arcane spells available to prepare in the game. If people have written off that argument cause 36 spells is good enough for them then 580 spells or so are just sitting there that they wont use and wont see the value in using in the situations designers had in mind for them.
Other people have already commented on the importance of the remaining spells, and the fact that nowadays you can have more than 36 spells known as a Sorcerer.
I will just add that, you are giving the remaining spells to the Wizard for free, but they aren't Clerics; In practice, I don't think you would ever be able to have every spell in your spellbook (so you are never really comparing the entire list against spells known), and for every scroll you assume the Wizard found or bought, you should assume the Sorcerer also found or bought (which means that, the "bigger spells repertoire" advantage, only really comes into play the second time you need such a spell the Sorcerer doesn't know in time-sensitive situation, and only if you actually prepared the spell and the Sorcerer does not have another spell in their repertoire that does the trick and didn't buy/find a backup scroll)
That is a lot of ifs and circumstances that must align, so that you maybe kinda catch up to the Sorcerer at their floor, from time to time.
A bit of a tangent, but another thing I would like to point out is that a lot of people tend to combine repertoire and casting method when discussing prepared against spontaneous casting, but these are two different components.
spontaneous casting is a more powerful form of casting, and a bigger/expandable repertoire is supposed to help prepared casters makeup for that; or, in other words, given the same repertoire spontaneous casting is a strictly better form of casting.
The strength of prepared casting is partly the diversity of arcane spells available to prepare in the game. If people have written off that argument cause 36 spells is good enough for them then 580 spells or so are just sitting there that they wont use and wont see the value in using in the situations designers had in mind for them.
Other people have already commented on the importance of the remaining spells, and the fact that nowadays you can have more than 36 spells known as a Sorcerer.
I will just add that, you are giving the remaining spells to the Wizard for free, but they aren't Clerics; In practice, I don't think you would ever be able to have every spell in your spellbook (so you are never really comparing the entire list against spells known), and for every scroll you assume the Wizard found or bought, you should assume the Sorcerer also found or bought (which means that, the "bigger spells repertoire" advantage, only really comes into play the second time you need such a spell the Sorcerer doesn't know in time-sensitive situation, and only if you actually prepared the spell and the Sorcerer does not have another spell in their repertoire that does the trick and didn't buy/find a backup scroll)
That is a lot of ifs and circumstances that must align, so that you maybe kinda catch up to the Sorcerer at their floor, from time to time.
A bit of a tangent, but another thing I would like to point out is that a lot of people tend to combine repertoire and casting method when discussing prepared against spontaneous casting, but these are two different components.
spontaneous casting is a more powerful form of casting, and a bigger/expandable repertoire is supposed to help prepared casters makeup for that; or, in other words, given the same repertoire spontaneous casting is a strictly better form of casting.
I appreciate the point your making but does the wizard have to have all of the 580 other spells to make the point I was going for?
They can have double the spells known as a sorcerer has and make the point. They can have gold waiting for the need and opportunity to buy more to deal with a known set of situations to make the point. Also sorcerers don't get those extra 9 or 12 spells past the 1 they can get from an evolution feat beyond 4 per rank in rep until level 16, until then they are only choosing 3 spell per rank with the last one decided for them by bloodline.But I will give you a wizard attempting to play the game like a sorcerer will not be as good as one. I've said that a few times in this thread even. IF there is no benefit from using more than the 4 per rank a sorcerer has in rep (essentially 4) then there is no point to a wizard, no point to most of the spells in the game either. But if there is a point to having access to more spells, learning new ones when needed, and setting up with a different set of spells than the ones you had the day before prepared, then the wizard does have a thing they can do better than a sorcerer. Change their capabilities.
I disagree on the point about "bigger spells repertoire" coming into play only on the second cast. The biggest cost in combat of having to use a scroll instead of a slot is action cost. (If it is a crucial spell you want to cast multiple times the arcane evo sorcerer can do that fine with up to 4 uses of it, and the scroll to fall back on)
Also I had an earlier point about delayed spell learning for sorcerers that pick up arcane evolution compared to wizards. A failure on that learn roll means they can't attempt again till next level for that spell.
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Has anyone ever calculated how many spells a wizard can actually buy, using some percentage of the currency amounts in treasure for starting characters? With and without Spellbook Prodigy?
Given the relative price scaling, I would expect a high level wizard could know almost any low level spell they wanted (and in fact could know all of them). But it's unclear how valuable that would be relative to a smaller amount of on level spells.
Maybe I should do that, just to put a clearer baseline on the discussion. It would be really annoying, but it's also getting annoying seeing versatility bandied about when none of us have actually pinned down what the amount of versatility a wizard can have is.
Also, does the game ever actually say you can prep out of more than one spellbook? Are you hard-capped at 100 spells unless you have an Endless Grimoire? It looks like it.
EDIT: It is also worth noting that a sorc would get to spend any money a wizard spends learning spells. Even discounts from spellbook prodigy/magical shorthand could just be given to a sorc as gold via earn income. It's disingenuous to act like wizard is learning spells with no opportunity cost and the sorcerer isn't getting something else instead of the spells. A comparison on these counts isn't really complete unless we specify what the sorc is buying or able to buy with their money.
Part of the assertion here is that having access to additional spell choice at spell prep is worth however much gold in consumables and lower level items that a wizard gives up to learn those spells, right?
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Also, looking at it:
Isn't it really cursed that Magical Shorthand only reduces the amount of time it takes to learn the spell on a success? Doesn't that imply that failing takes the normal amount of time?
With magical shorthand, you could literally learn a spell from a 9th rank scroll midadventure, provided you succeed the check. But if you attempt it and fail, you take... 9 hours?
What?
An activity's time consumption should not go up more than tenfold depending on a check result when you can do it in the middle of a dungeon. A downtime activity? Sure, I guess. But an exploration activity?
EDIT: ...Also, wouldn't this mean spellsub, prescient consumable, and magical shorthand would combo to allow you to learn any common lower level spell on demand (like water breathing) in the middle of a dungeon and then swap it in, but only in a reasonable timeframe if you succeed the learn a spell check?
That didn't transfer from my notepad how i wanted.
For a level 6 wizard it takes 68gp to get 1extra Rank 1, 3 extra rank 2, and 3 extra rank 3 spells. Which is double based repertoire for a sorcerer.
To get to triple ie having 12 spells at each rank it takes 164gp
Character wealth at level 6 is 450 lump sum. (80gp when permanent items are given out)
Is there anything that would convince the dismissive crowd that there is a issue with the wizard? what could change you mind on the subject if anything?
And what would convince the vocal minority that there is no issue with the Wizard? What could change your mind on the subject if anything?
I do think PFS scenarios work very well for wizards. You tend to get a lot of knowledge about what is coming up, tons of down time, free scrolls you can use to get new spells, and a lot of opportunity to use spells out of combat.
There’s also the fact that PFS encounters are easy by design so that any kind of group can succeed, and are usually limited to one or two fights. That’s the kind of setup where casters (wizards included) thrive.
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I appreciate the point your making but does the wizard have to have all of the 580 other spells to make the point I...The strength of prepared casting is partly the diversity of arcane spells available to prepare in the game. If people have written off that argument cause 36 spells is good enough for them then 580 spells or so are just sitting there that they wont use and wont see the value in using in the situations designers had in mind for them.
Other people have already commented on the importance of the remaining spells, and the fact that nowadays you can have more than 36 spells known as a Sorcerer.
I will just add that, you are giving the remaining spells to the Wizard for free, but they aren't Clerics; In practice, I don't think you would ever be able to have every spell in your spellbook (so you are never really comparing the entire list against spells known), and for every scroll you assume the Wizard found or bought, you should assume the Sorcerer also found or bought (which means that, the "bigger spells repertoire" advantage, only really comes into play the second time you need such a spell the Sorcerer doesn't know in time-sensitive situation, and only if you actually prepared the spell and the Sorcerer does not have another spell in their repertoire that does the trick and didn't buy/find a backup scroll)
That is a lot of ifs and circumstances that must align, so that you maybe kinda catch up to the Sorcerer at their floor, from time to time.
A bit of a tangent, but another thing I would like to point out is that a lot of people tend to combine repertoire and casting method when discussing prepared against spontaneous casting, but these are two different components.
spontaneous casting is a more powerful form of casting, and a bigger/expandable repertoire is supposed to help prepared casters makeup for that; or, in other words, given the same repertoire spontaneous casting is a strictly better form of casting.
Why do you keep ignoring the sorcerer can have a spellbook too and up to 48 spells known? More than the wizard can even slot.
Check this out. A sorcerer could take wizard or witch as an archetype and then stack up to level 8 spells they can switch out every day while also have 48 spells known, sig spells, and feats because it's easier to steal what a wizard does as a sorcerer than a wizard can steal a sorcerer.
A sorc can use all those wizard slots from the archetype for utility and all those little problem solving spells, while using their up to 48 spells known for combat spells.
Think it out more. It's very easy for a sorc to grab Arcane Evolution, get a spellbook to change out one spell a day.
If they need more, grab the wizard archetype or maybe cleric and stack up spells they can change out for additional ability to do a different daily loadout if for some reason they need to change out spells daily.
Is there anything that would convince the dismissive crowd that there is a issue with the wizard? what could change you mind on the subject if anything?And what would convince the vocal minority that there is no issue with the Wizard? What could change your mind on the subject if anything?
You get far more bang for the buck mastering the sorcerer class than you get mastering the wizard class.
If by fine you mean boring 6 hit point caster class with lackluster feats and class features that can cast spells like everyone else, then I guess the wizard is fine.
You get far more bang for the buck mastering the sorcerer class than you get mastering the wizard class.
If by fine you mean boring 6 hit point caster class with lackluster feats and class features that can cast spells like everyone else, then I guess the wizard is fine.
Not really helpful.
Maybe the Wizard is already the Fighter of the arcane, ie. the easiest arcane caster to play ;)
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I'm spreadsheeting some stuff with Learn a Spell prices versus your currency allocation for a level. Some findings:
I would say Magical Shorthand is borderline mandatory if you intend to buy any spells on curve. Without it, you're gambling on a 30-40% chance of crit success to avoid breaking your bank (and avoiding a 5% chance of crit failure). To wit:
If you only get successes, never crit fail, and buy an on-curve spell every odd level, the cumulative cost of that hits around 50% of your currency allocation on odd levels after 5, with an extreme spike to ~80% for the 10th rank spell, since they cost such an absurd amount more than 9th rank. On-level spells are prohibitively expensive! Magical Shorthand will bring that down to around 25%, which I would consider much more manageable as an alternative to spending gold on consumables.
Buying an on-curve spell every single level instead of every other level will start pushing you to 65% currency allocation around L5, and that slowly balloons upward until it starts hovering between 70-85% at level 9 and onward (excepting the massive spike at 19 and 20, where tacking on even 1 10th rank will exceed your currency allocation for L19 and tacking on the second will bring you to around 98% for L20).
Accounting for both the possibility of crit success and crit failure would, I think, reduce the average price without magical shorthand by maybe about 15% (as a gross oversimplification of some annoyingly complex math). Wizard has an advantage here over sorc, though I think the sorc should probably take magical shorthand too if they want to learn spells.
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Much of any additional spell that wizard gets from Learn a Spell will be lower level, preferably heightenable, if they're trying to avoid breaking the bank. that's where the value really lies. Let's ignore crit successes and crit fails for a moment, again. If, starting at level 3, you buy only one spell of max rank -1 every odd level, your %currency spend without magical shorthand is more like 10% at lower odd levels and 25% at higher.
In fact, if you buy a rank 1 spell each level at levels 1-4, then a spell of every rank that is max rank -2 or lower (excluding cantrips) at /every/ levelup thereafter, you won't ever exceed ~32% currency . And on many levels, it's more favorable.
With magical shorthand, you can buy roughly double that in all cases.
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So...
Buying on level spells is EXPENSIVE and should rarely be brought up in these conversations, despite showing up an awful lot when discussing both Sorc and Wizard. It eats into your budget for lower level items (and spells!) severely. Examples where a wizard has bought 3 or 4 on-curve spells to outdo a Sorc? Baloney. Same for the Sorc buying those spells to match the wizard with Arcane Evolution—total baloney. That wizard (and especially that sorc, with their lower arcana check) just broke the bank! Buying three on-level spells every odd level puts you 44% over your currency allocation at level 5, and you'll never go under it again after level 7. You need Magical Shorthand for it to really be worth ever buying on level spells, and even then it's not clear you would want to buy more than one every other level.
Buying lower level spells and heightening them is far more realistic, and you can (unsurprisingly) buy a ton more of them without breaking the bank. A genuinely absurd amount more, even. I knew this was true before, but seeing the numbers laid out was enlightening. It's literally cheaper to buy one spell of every rank at least 2 below your maximum every level than it is to buy a single on-curve spell every other level.
Buying lower level spells and heightening them is far more realistic, and you can (unsurprisingly) buy a ton more of them without breaking the bank. A genuinely absurd amount more, even. I knew this was true before, but seeing the numbers laid out was enlightening. It's literally cheaper to buy one spell of every rank at least 2 below your maximum every level than it is to buy a single on-curve spell every other level.
Thanks for doing this research !
How did you decide the price of getting a new spell ? Did you take the cost of the Learn a Spell activity, or did you add the price of a scroll and the cost of learning a spell ?
In some cases, DMs will allow the caster to learn a spell from a mentor (or another player), which significantly reduces the cost - although, of course, you cannot always count on it, and there's a lot of table variance.
This is why I keep saying that the sorcerer can stack up on low level scrolls to emulate a lot of spells he won't have. My high level sorcerers literally carry dozens of scrolls so as to always have on-demand water breathing, tongues or see invisibility - because the cost is negligible after a time, while your top slots are much more valuable.
Thanks for doing this research !
How did you decide the price of getting a new spell ? Did you take the cost of the Learn a Spell activity, or did you add the price of a scroll and the cost of learning a spell ?
In some cases, DMs will allow the caster to learn a spell from a mentor (or another player), which significantly reduces the cost - although, of course, you cannot always count on it, and there's a lot of table variance.
This is why I keep saying that the sorcerer can stack up on low level scrolls to emulate a lot of spells he won't have. My high level sorcerers literally carry dozens of scrolls so as to always have on-demand water breathing, tongues or see invisibility - because the cost is negligible after a time, while your top slots are much more valuable.
I used the cost of learn a spell alone, assuming you could obtain the spell without purchasing a scroll. Requiring a scroll is +200% cost that does not scale down with Magical Shorthand; you would be going over your currency allocation like crazy.
There's obvious table variance there, but I can't say I'm ever going to force a wizard to buy a scroll to learn a spell after running these numbers.
So...
Same than Blue_frog, I don't get what you are trying to show because I don't get what you are speaking about precisely.
Anyway, I don't learn spells with my casters, so it's kind of whiteroomy to me. But I buy truckload of Scrolls, which are twice more expensive than learning a spell, and I never had money issues. That's why I'm puzzled by your demonstration.
Edit: You answered part of the question just above. So the last question is: What did you consider as "the amount of money available to a character"?