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"?
Currency allocation on the "Treasure for New Characters" table, since it's about as close as there is to an individual WBL table.
Most APs give out more treasure than the party treasure or treasure for new characters tables, to my knowledge, so most players will have more money than this. Nevertheless, it's the closest thing I have to a measuring stick for expected player income.
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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.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.
Most sessions will have 3 fights. Some will have 2, but some will have 4. I've even seen 5. (Balance is around 4 encounters, of which 1 is expected to be non-combat.)
As a reminder, PFS reports include nothing about characters, not even their level. Well, yes, there's a name.
They'll know name, number of scenarios played (so, yes level), Prestige earned, and faction.
You *can* enter class info but I don't know how many people do that -- I would expect that to be low. It used to be mildly helpful to enter class & stat info for online play, but now there are better ways to keep track of that.
Currency allocation on the "Treasure for New Characters" table, since it's about as close as there is to an individual WBL table.
Why currency allocation and not lump sum? Currency allocation is just a really small part of what you own.
Currency allocation on the "Treasure for New Characters" table, since it's about as close as there is to an individual WBL table.Why currency allocation and not lump sum? Currency allocation is just a really small part of what you own.
I could also do % of lump sum, sure. I can run those numbers later, after I get done with some shoveling.
I personally find % currency more meaningful; permanent items+currency means currency is a remainder after you've already factored in several large and desirable item purchases you would likely make anyways. And the items and currency are also usually worth more gold overall than lump sum. But I can understand wanting % of lump sum as another reference point.
...I appreciate the point your making but does the wizard have to have all of the 580The 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 gave arcane evo its due further in that post.
If all you need is one spell and the sorcerer has to learn it and its lower rank no problem. they can learn it and have up to 4 casts of it ready to go for the day. But if its on rank they might not learn the spell when they try and have to wait till they level to try again. A wizard is just better at adapting in this way cause they are int based and likely to invest in arcana all the way.And if what you want to do is actually shift up several spells for expected situations then a sorcerer just isn't able to do that. They will make the best use of what they have +1 added spell, if they succeed at learning it. I am not saying a sorcerer wont have a useable spell in rep. But if there are spells better suited they can only add 1 of them for the situation.
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This is the % of Lump Sum wealth that it costs, cumulatively, to buy exactly one spell of each rank on curve. I'm assuming only successes on Learn a Spell, and no scroll costs are factored in:
1) 13.33%
2) 6.67%
3) 10.67%
4) 5.71%
5) 8.89%
6) 5.33%
7) 8.33%
8) 5.45%
9) 8.13%
10) 5.65%
11) 8.44%
12) 6.00%
13) 8.91%
14) 6.13%
15) 9.04%
16) 6.10%
17) 9.07%
18) 6.04%
19) 14.09%
20) 8.68%
It looks like less, but you've got to also remember that important items are expensive and chunk you quite hard. A greater resilient rune is 3440 gp of the 13,500 gp of your level 15 lump sum. A level 12 staff is 1800 gp. An armor potency rune +2 is L11 and 1060 gp. A type III ring of wizardry is L12, costs 2000 gp, gives +2 arcana, and gives you two slots for slow (if your dm allows it). Eyes of the Cat are 700 gp. A greater choker of elocution (which gives languages and +2 society) is 900 gp. A greater endless grimoire is another third rank slot and another 900 gp, though you may prefer a wand of slow for 360 gp and a book of lingering blaze for 900 gp; fire resist is common enough, let's take that option. A greater retrieval belt is 600 gp. Your trusty tailwind wand is still 160 against you.
Without even buying an armor property rune, that's 11920 gp and you have 1580 left. Learning an 8th rank spell is 650 gp, and we haven't even accounted for any spells you've bought in the past. And god forbid you need to buy the scroll; that be 1300+650 for 1950 gp total and put you over budget immediately, even if you critically succeed on learning a spell.
Some of the stuff above is easier to sac; I think the grimoire is probably first to go. But you get the idea. Money is very tight.
EDIT: Note the first list does assume you're buying the spell pretty much immediately when you level, and not using money gained throughout the level. The numbers, when taken as a percentage of the /next/ level's lump sum, are instead:
1) 6.67%
2) 2.67%
3) 5.71%
4) 2.96%
5) 5.33%
6) 3.33%
7) 5.45%
8) 3.75%
9) 5.65%
10) 4.06%
11) 6.00%
12) 4.22%
13) 6.13%
14) 4.22%
15)6.10%
16) 4.07%
17) 6.04%
18) 3.94%
19) 8.68%
(none for 20, i'm too lazy to derive it from party treasure by level)
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My money's on them getting it from ... PFS feedback...As a reminder, PFS reports include nothing about characters, not even their level. Well, yes, there's a name.
Really?
Every time I sign up to play PFS I have to give:Character Name
Character Class
Character Level
Character's Faction
Character's PFS #
Now I don't know if anything except the PFS# is reported.
I've only ever played, so it may be that the GM only needs to report the #
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I have a Level 15 Wizard in a friend's homebrew campaign. Started him at Level 12... we brought the campaign over from D&D 3.5 at that level (the GM wanted to try Pathfinder, and, well, keeping the GM happy is a priority when he's been running for 10+ years.)
I've been giving a lot of thought to playing a Wizard in PFS. Kinda based on my other Wizard, but making some different choices. For one thing, I went Rogue Dedication with the other guy. I think I'd like to go straight Wizard this time.
One thing I've noticed: For the early levels, I think Wizards have the edge on Cantrips. For the first few levels Cantrips are, IMHO, pretty important.
Any Wizard can, of course, swap out their Prepared Cantrips every day. They share that capability with the Witch. The Sorcerer can't do that, at least not until later levels (when they're able to rely more on Spell Slots anyways.)
I mean, I like Eat Fire... Fire damage is common, it's a Cantrip that uses a Reaction (and a 1st level Wizard doesn't have a lot of uses for Reactions, usually), it has a fun secondary effect... what's not to like? Still though, if I know I'm going to be facing the zombie master, I'd rather slot something else.
By a strict reading, Spell Substitution doesn't work with Cantrips, as it specifies spell slots... but really, I think it's not a big stretch for the Thesis that enables swapping prepared spells to be able to swap a prepared Cantrip.
Spell Blending? While yes, it doesn't work to get high level slots for a while, you can still trade any slot to prepare two additional Cantrips that day. I can see value in the early levels for doing that.
Staff Nexus: While I agree with everyone who thinks that the whole "spend a 1st Rank slot to charge a single 1st Rank spell from the Staff" is pointless... it still will give an additional Cantrip (and you don't have to charge the Staff for that.)
The other two Theses don't really help in that way. I'm not a big Familiar fan, so I've never really examined what Improved Familiar Attunement really gives you.
I think though, that I'm going to stick with Experimental Spellshaping. I like starting with Reach Spell (going to go Human and grab Spellbook Prodigy as well.) My 15th level guy has gotten a lot of use out being able to swap between Spellshaping Feats. So that'll be fun at 4th.
So I'm looking at going Ars Magica, and I think it will work out quite well. Command is a fun School spell. Never noticed before that it shuts down Reactions until the Command is obeyed. Kinda cool.
One thing I do like about the new Schools over the old: the old Schools didn't give you free Spells in your Spellbook. The new ones do. I can appreciate that.
Third action, I have some options. Move, as always. Cast Shield if I prep it. (I do like Shield.) If I'm stuck close to the action, Protective Wards is there. Want to keep my distance? Reach Spell.
Anyways, I'm rambling.
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My money's on them getting it from ... PFS feedback...As a reminder, PFS reports include nothing about characters, not even their level. Well, yes, there's a name.Really?
Every time I sign up to play PFS I have to give:
Character Name
Character Class
Character Level
Character's Faction
Character's PFS #Now I don't know if anything except the PFS# is reported.
I've only ever played, so it may be that the GM only needs to report the #
I GM PFS2e. When you report, it's Character Name, Faction, PFS Player # and Character #.
Class is never mentioned in the Reporting. Sign-up sheets ask for it because it helps the GMs prep for the games.
I am pretty sure the PFS character database links class and level to the character number. It would probably be trivially easy to figure out how many players are playing each class in reported PFS scenarios and how often those characters are leveling up. I bet PFS sees a fair number of wizards and people stick with them, because I’ve seen it online, and because scenarios are pretty wizard friendly.
At least with spell substitution, I have found wizards can get away with only ever buying one of a lot more utility scrolls than any other caster can, thus also increasing their spellbook by a lot more. Spells like illusory disguise, which heighten at set Ranks can be pretty annoying to keep on hand with scrolls in a useful fashion, but you can decide on the fly if you need a heightened one (or 3) or not in most situations where you are planning an infiltration or heist.
Third action, I have some options. Move, as always. Cast Shield if I prep it. (I do like Shield.) If I'm stuck close to the action, Protective Wards is there. Want to keep my distance? Reach Spell.
It can be very party dependent , but I got tons of use out of protective wards in a party with 2 kineticists and an alchemist. I can’t even count how many critical hits it turned in to regular hits and hits into misses for which it was responsible. The area is probably on the small side, given you have to sustain it to keep it around, and it could afford to be buffed, but it was definitely a useful third action in many encounters. The hard part is keeping any focus points around to use it after you get your level focus spell and have clairvoyance on demand.
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I am pretty sure the PFS character database links class and level to the character number. It would probably be trivially easy to figure out how many players are playing each class in reported PFS scenarios and how often those characters are leveling up. I bet PFS sees a fair number of wizards and people stick with them, because I’ve seen it online, and because scenarios are pretty wizard friendly.
Like I said, class is an optional field. (They have spaces for you to fill out your class and race and stats and as much else as you want to, but there is no reason to do it, and it is in a 1e format. It used to be important for PbP on the Paizo site, but it is not directly used for anything else.)
Most people I know do not fill any of that information in, although it wouldn't shock me if some new players did for their first few characters.
Level is absolutely tracked.
I don't know if they do surveys with VCs or RVCs, but that would be a way they could get more on the ground information. It would also be possible for them to get some info from places like Roll20 or Foundry, but no idea if there if any data sharing agreements like those exist.
Rune of Observation is a bit limited in that you have to be able to see where you place the sensor. But after that? For long-term surveillance there's nothing like it.
My 15th level Wizard, his group needed to get information out of a base commander. He and the party Rogue snuck into the base, got to his office, set the sensor above the desk, and retreated to a safe spot roughly 500' away. And proceeded to watch the commander sitting at his desk, going about his day, for the rest of the day.
Reports, personnel lists, all kind of things were open on that desk while my Wizard watched. And as he had a +5 Intelligence, the GM ruled that he could easily remember everything he could see. It was fantastic.
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I read Arcane Evolution Remastered. Apparently you don't need a spellbook anymore. You can learn the spell from any source and you just know it and can add it to your repertoire during daily prep or make another spell your sig spell for the day.
So no spellbook, just add them to your list and pick from them as you learn them.
Another mini-buff for the sorcerer.
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The more I look at spell learning costs, the wilder it is to me that the divine list got buffed the way it did and the primal list was so good to begin with.
Wizard realistically struggles to afford even three on-curve spells of every rank while also buying items. On the levels you get a new rank of spells, that costs you somewhere between 15% and 20% of the next level's lump sum budget without Magical Shorthand, and that's assuming you don't need to buy any scrolls. But divine and primal prepared casters with spell lists that are shockingly comparable to the arcane list get access to all the common spells of their tradition? For free? Think of how much gold that's worth to a spellbook caster!* The wizard got run over roughshod.
Arcane and Occult seem spellbook limited because they have more unique out of combat utility than divine or primal, and the devs seem to not want you to have too much of it at a time. But most (not all, but most) out of combat utility spells are only worth buying once they're lower level, cheap, and plentiful; at that point, the monetary gating barely exists. I'm not really sure making on-level spells so limited for spellbook casters is doing them any favors as compared to their non-spellbook brethren. It might be worth houseruling the prices of either spells or some prepared-caster-specific item (like grimoires) down; it might even be worth specifically lowering the prices of combat spells and leaving non-combat spells intact, if that's the real concern. Were the devs that afraid of a wizard trivializing an of out of combat challenge with spellsub and shrink item at level 5?
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*There is a point at which the real value of additional spells is significantly lower, IMO, and I also believe the wizard's free spell total is pretty much at that point. But I think the contrast is still stark: the amount of value a Druid or Cleric is getting for free seems wildly disproportionate when their spell lists aren't really weaker than the Arcane list.
This is the % of Lump Sum wealth that it costs, cumulatively, to buy exactly one spell of each rank on curve.
Good job with the numbers.
That's why I nearly never learn spells. Even one spell per level is rather ridiculous and still reduces your overall money by a significant amount.Outside Spell Substitution Wizard, I find there's no real need to learn spells. Most of the time, you prepare the exact same spells every morning.
As a side note: Witches have to learn their spells even if they are Primal/Divine. It has nothing to do with the traditions by themselves, but with the classes.
Good job with the numbers.
That's why I nearly never learn spells. Even one spell per level is rather ridiculous and still reduces your overall money by a significant amount.Outside Spell Substitution Wizard, I find there's no real need to learn spells. Most of the time, you prepare the exact same spells every morning.
It would be great if there were more "silver bullet" spells like you have on the divine list against fiends and undeads, but the arcane list is lacking a lot of those. You can find a couple spells more effective against plants or lycanthrops but that's about it.
Currently, even if the wizard knows 100% that he'll face two constructs, a babau and an arcane dragon in this cave, it doesn't give him any advantage over a sorcerer because there are no specific spells that would help him, apart from the obvious ones like Resist Energy that are usually in a spell repertoire anyway.
If there were more spells tailored to specific challenges, maybe that would help make the wizard more versatile.
Like a spell that would work especially well on a slime, or a golem, or a dragon.
Slime Mold
You point your finger and the target ooze makes a fortitude save:
Success: The ooze is slowed 1 for a round as its fluids thicken.
Failure: The ooze becomes thicker and can be critted for a round
Critical Failure: Same as failure, but for a minute
Construct Bane
You utter a word of power, trying to pry apart the powerful spells that animate your opponent. Target construct makes a will save, even if it's immune to magic, as you directly attack its fundation.
Success: The integrity of the contruct is shaking. Despite being immune to magic/mental, it becomes confused for its first action.
Failure: The construct loses its magic immunity for 3 rounds
Critical Failure: Same as failure, but for a minute
I don't know how powerful that would be and that's beside the point, it can be adjusted later. The point is that no spontaneous caster will ever take something like "construct bane" in its spell repertoire, since it's much too narrow. But a wizard who knows he'll visit a mage tower and has high chances to encounter constructs would slot it - and actually make a difference.
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It would be great if there were more "silver bullet" spells like you have on the divine list against fiends and undeads, but the arcane list is lacking a lot of those.
The arcane list has silver bullet spells. If you know you'll have to fight underwater and then climb a big flat wall, you have silver bullets to handle these cases. You don't have silver bullets for monsters but you have some for other situations.
But...
I personally prefer Scrolls. If I have a Scroll of Water Breathing, I can use it for the underwater fight even if I was not aware of it. And if I'm aware there'll be an underwater fight, then I just Learn the Spell (a couple hours) and prepare it the next morning.
Scrolls, Scrolls, Scrolls. 60% of my equipment is in Scrolls with my casters, because they beat the competition hands down.
The arcane list has silver bullet spells. If you know you'll have to fight underwater and then climb a big flat wall, you have silver bullets to handle these cases. You don't have silver bullets for monsters but you have some for other situations.But...
I personally prefer Scrolls. If I have a Scroll of Water Breathing, I can use it for the underwater fight even if I was not aware of it. And if I'm aware there'll be an underwater fight, then I just Learn the Spell (a couple hours) and prepare it the next morning.Scrolls, Scrolls, Scrolls. 60% of my equipment is in Scrolls with my casters, because they beat the competition hands down.
Exactly: silver bullet spells are mostly utility, not combat-oriented. And I'm like you, carrying a whole library on my sorcerer's back ^^
But good utility isn't enough to help prepared casters because:
1) Utility usually isn't as constrained by timing as a fight, so it doesn't matter if you need to rummage through your stuff to find the right scroll
2) Utility usually is a one-time thing. You need water breathing to go through this obstacle (and maybe to go back), but unless you're playing Skulls & Shackles, you probably won't need it more than once or twice.
3) Utility often uses a lower level slot.
These three reasons make it so mostly everything can be covered by a scroll, a staff or a wand. The only thing that would be harder to replace is combat spells, because 1) timing matters, 2) you might need to use it more than once and 3) you usually use a top slot.
Which is why I think that specific combat scrolls would go a long way towards making the wizard (and prepared casters as a whole) more desirable.
But then, following what Witch of Miracles said, the price of learning a spell should be significantly reduced for the wizard in order to take advantage of it.
But good utility isn't enough to help prepared casters
I don't think Scrolls help prepared casters. Nor that they diminish them somehow, it's orthogonal to the "Wizard is weak" discussion.
As for learning a spell, my experience is that I mostly use half a dozen spells with my casters, a small bunch of niche spells and then utility spells from Scrolls. Overall, the 2 spells per level are actually more than I need.
I already expressed that in my opinion the Prepared vs Spontaneous debate depends on the tactical savviness of the player, explaining why there are opposite opinions on the Wizard. I'm personally out of the "Wizard is weak" debate. Because I have a good enough explanation as to why things are as they are but also because I think it's useless as Paizo won't buff the Wizard ;)
I don't think the wizard is weak myself just because Legendary casting is good on every character.
I think they have lackluster class features and feats and lack an identity that makes them clearly better at something other than I can change out spells which every prepared caster can do.
The way PF2 is built is combat ability is exactly equal on nearly every character.
Every master martial is the same with the fighter getting a boost on weapons for fewer class features.
Every legendary caster is the same with class features and feats separating their quality.
If you're analyzing how well each caster can cast a spell, then everyone is equal.
If you're analyzing what can each caster do besides cast a spell, that is where the wizard starts to look lacking. I hope at some the designers find some kind of cool identity for the PF2 wizard that makes them stand out a little more and make for a more fun class to build with feats.
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Over time, I've come to feel like wizard lost their identity almost on accident. Most of their class identity (and power) in 1E was tied up in having access to the best spell progression and the best spell list; no one else had that, so the other classes competing with wizard got unique selling points to compensate.
Now, everyone has essentially the same progression, and the spell lists are almost identical in power. And all the other classes kept some kind of USP. But wizard? Nope. Wizard is still designed like it doesn't need any USP beyond casting the best spells on the best curve, when that's not even something it does anymore.
I mean, the 1e Sorcerer used the same spell list, and despite slightly slower spell progression also ended up with more spell slots than the Wizard, so I don't think that's factually true. The reason the Wizard beat the Sorcerer in that edition was because prepared spellcasting was so much better than spontaneous spellcasting, an issue Paizo noted and corrected in 2e. For much of 2e, the Wizard and the Sorcerer were also on more equal footing: pre-remaster, the Sorcerer didn't have sorcerous potency, and their focus spells were generally much weaker, whereas the Wizard's fourth slot accommodated many more spells. This is the reason why this sort of thread didn't really crop up until the remaster, because it's only with the remaster's changes that the Wizard got nerfed while most other casters got buffed. I still do think the Wizard's ability to prepare arcane spells shines at higher levels, even though it really doesn't at low levels, and shines less overall than it used to.
Regarding learning spells: I think one of the issues there is the clash of expectations, where players expect their studious Wizard to be able to pick up lots of scrolls and spellbooks on the field, but that entire aspect of the class's roleplaying is up to the GM or the AP. Although learning low-level spells from scrolls is trivially cheap, that too is only a benefit that comes about at higher levels, and isn't the most exciting compared to learning a brand-new top-rank spell. The brew I linked proposes a system to help collection-based classes add more spells or formulas to their repository, but I think there are generally three ways you could go about this, depending on taste:
I suppose you could have an option #4 and add every common arcane spell to every Wizard's spellbook, but the above should already help a GM throw their Wizard player a bone if they're not feeling like they can lean enough into their character's magical studies. Study should in my opinion be part of the Wizard's identity, and beyond their spellbook there ought to be plenty more feats that play with that, and perhaps even class features to help as well.
Regarding learning spells: I think one of the issues there is the clash of expectations, where players expect their studious Wizard to be able to pick up lots of scrolls and spellbooks on the field, but that entire aspect of the class's roleplaying is up to the GM or the AP. Although learning low-level spells from scrolls is trivially cheap, that too is only a benefit that comes about at higher levels, and isn't the most exciting compared to learning a brand-new top-rank spell. The brew I linked proposes a system to help collection-based classes add more spells or formulas to their repository, but I think there are generally three ways you could go about this, depending on taste:
I like those ideas.
How about a fourth one, making "research spell" either a downtime activity or some kind of earn income thing ?
Like, if a wizard has a couple days of downtime, he could add a spell for free in his spellbook. Or if his camping activity is "research spell", he could get one for free every four camps, or something like this.
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I like those ideas.
How about a fourth one, making "research spell" either a downtime activity or some kind of earn income thing ?
Like, if a wizard has a couple days of downtime, he could add a spell for free in his spellbook. Or if his camping activity is "research spell", he could get one for free every four camps, or something like this.
I think this is something you can technically do already, to an extent. Learn a Spell is an exploration activity, which means you could Earn Income during downtime and use that income to Learn a Spell during that period, something the rules themselves seem to suggest:
Downtime gives you time to rest fully, engage in crafting or a professional endeavor, learn new spells, retrain feats, or just have fun.
If this is something not already enabled, I would definitely allow it as the GM, as I think learning spells during downtime is very much what a Wizard would do.
However, I also don't know how much this would help in the majority of cases, because I think a lot of complaints happen due to the pace of many APs, which don't allow for much downtime. The issue I've seen players report or experience is that their Wizard can never take the time to sit down and learn spells even on the occasions where they do come across a spellbook, simply because most of their day is spent adventuring and the party often rests as soon as they don't feel they can continue adventuring any longer. Magical Shorthand does exist, but most Wizards will only be able to take the feat at level 4, and spending a feat to remove an inconvenience doesn't necessarily feel worth it.
To start on a small tangent: I think the issue with a lot of downtime or downtime-adjacent activities is that needing to sit down and work at something for several hours is a dealbreaker for many parties. Forget about taking more than 10 minutes in-between encounters; even in my experience where exploration time is fairly generous, it's been rare to have the entire party be okay with, say, the Alchemist taking 4 hours to Craft a bunch of consumables, an Inventor taking an equal amount of time to Craft the formula for a gadget, or even the Wizard taking a couple of hours to transcribe a spell from a scroll. Not only does it severely affect the crafting-centric classes, it also impacts the Wizard, the Witch, and the Magus, who will want to learn at least one spell in a pinch for time to time.
This is an idea that will almost certainly need development, but I think it might be worth having some kind of daily preparation timeslot that can be used to do something that takes up to a day of work during your daily prep, in addition to all the normal things your daily preparations entail. Thus, the Alchemist and Inventor could Craft some items or formulas, and the Wizard would be able to Learn a Spell each new adventuring day, no matter how busy it gets during. This could even be something a character could build upon with feats, so that they can do multiple days' worth of work during their daily prep or do multiple activities at once!
I don't think anyone would argue against sorc being the 'better fit' class for a player who either intentionally chooses or just organically gravitates towards repeat casting the same half a dozen spells throughout L1-20.
3 saves, solo bosses, hordes of mooks and couple of enemies. So you need 9 spells at most, the rest is useless pedantry.
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On that note: if we're aiming to make the Wizard feel a bit better, giving them Magical Shorthand for free at level 1 would be a minor, yet flavorful buff. It wouldn't solve all of their problems, but it'd at least make learning spells cheaper and easier.
I mean, the 1e Sorcerer used the same spell list, and despite slightly slower spell progression also ended up with more spell slots than the Wizard, so I don't think that's factually true. The reason the Wizard beat the Sorcerer in that edition was because prepared spellcasting was so much better than spontaneous spellcasting, an issue Paizo noted and corrected in 2e. For much of 2e, the Wizard and the Sorcerer were also on more equal footing: pre-remaster, the Sorcerer didn't have sorcerous potency, and their focus spells were generally much weaker, whereas the Wizard's fourth slot accommodated many more spells. This is the reason why this sort of thread didn't really crop up until the remaster, because it's only with the remaster's changes that the Wizard got nerfed while most other casters got buffed. I still do think the Wizard's ability to prepare arcane spells shines at higher levels, even though it really doesn't at low levels, and shines less overall than it used to.
Wizard was better because Wizards got new spell ranks a level earlier and Sorcerer had no hope of having enough spells on hand to hit that threshold of having enough spells to cover most situations. You literally get one spell known of your highest rank when you first gain access to that rank. You don't even get your bloodline spells until a level after. You just have utterly abysmal versatility. You need to accumulate a lot of levels and have a lot of lower rank spells to play with—ideally with more choices accumulated with human FCB, which is very good—before you can hope to really hold a candle to the wizard. Your bloodline effects were cool, but they weren't better than just having multiple highest rank spells on time.
Like, the level wizard gets haste, you're on rank 2 spells. Then the level you do get haste, it's the only rank 3 spell you can cast at all. By the time you have more than 1 rank 3 spell, wizard has rank 4 spells. It's painful.
There were other issues (like spontaneous metamagic being kind of clunky due to the full round cost), but the spell and spells known progression being bad is the most fundamental.
Sorcerer was just kept down hilariously badly out of a fear it might obsolete the wizard. It could not come anywhere close to doing a wizard's job. Sorcs eventually become good combat mages in their own right at higher levels, though.
If 1E spontaneous had a faster spells known progression, got to know more spells overall than they do now, and got new spell ranks at the same rate as the wizard, it would've been much closer—probably almost even in practice, with human FCB. In theory, wizard would hold an advantage because spells were overall stronger, and excelled in niche usecases (e.g Transmute Rock to Mud against a construct, something a Sorc would probably never be able to do). Scrolls also had lower DCs, too, meaning versatility from a wizard could be meaningfully better than just lugging scrolls for those weird one-off cases.
Ughm... surprise!How about a fourth one, making "research spell" either a downtime activity or some kind of earn income thing ?
Like, if a wizard has a couple days of downtime, he could add a spell for free in his spellbook. Or if his camping activity is "research spell", he could get one for free every four camps, or something like this.
Magical Shorthand reduces the cost but, according to the data given by Witch of Miracles, it's still significant if you want to have a good spellbook.
I'm proposing to get spells for free on a regular basis.
Edit: I appreciate the link, because I didn't know you could do it as an earn income already.
Wizard was better because Wizards got new spell ranks a level earlier and Sorcerer had no hope of having enough spells on hand to hit that threshold of having enough spells to cover most situations. You literally get one spell known of your highest rank when you first gain access to that rank. You don't even get your bloodline spells until a level after. You just have utterly abysmal versatility.
This does not contradict what I've said, and in fact I think this hits a lot of talking points from previous conversations: versatility is in fact quite an asset, and spell preparation makes a huge difference compared to a far more rigid spell repertoire. Even without the earlier spell access, the 1e Wizard would still be far more flexible than the Sorcerer thanks to their spell preparation, and we can see this in D&D 3.5e and 5e as well, the latter of which gives the Wizard flexible spellcasting, the best ritual spellcasting in the game, and eventually the ability to cast a couple of spells like cantrips. There are at least three examples of the Wizard eating the Sorcerer's lunch purely on the basis of their versatility, so I'd say it's a good thing that 2e's Sorcerer does things the Wizard distinctly cannot. The aim shouldn't be to return to that dominance, in my opinion, but to let the Wizard shine in entirely different ways, ideally ways that don't revolve around raw spell power.
I think this hits a lot of talking points from previous conversations: versatility is in fact quite an asset, and spell preparation makes a huge difference compared to a far more rigid spell repertoire. Even without the earlier spell access, the 1e Wizard would still be far more flexible than the Sorcerer thanks to their spell preparation, and we can see this in D&D 3.5e and 5e as well, the latter of which gives the Wizard flexible spellcasting, the best ritual spellcasting in the game, and eventually the ability to cast a couple of spells like cantrips. There are at least three examples of the Wizard eating the Sorcerer's lunch purely on the basis of their versatility, so I'd say it's a good thing that 2e's Sorcerer does things the Wizard distinctly cannot. The aim shouldn't be to return to that dominance, in my opinion, but to let the Wizard shine in entirely different ways, ideally ways that don't revolve around raw spell power.
I'm not disagreeing that versatility was important in 1E. Versatility was far more important than it is in 2E.
I am saying spontaneous was so starved for it on two axes (spell ranks available and spells known) that they never had a meaningful chance of competing with prepared casters.
EDIT: Like, even if they got spell ranks on curve, having one top rank spell known when you first get access would still just be so bad. They'd be sunk compared to prepared on that alone.
I am saying spontaneous was so starved for it on two axes (spell ranks available and spells known) that they never had a meaningful chance of competing with prepared casters.
Isn't this what I said as well, though?
The reason the Wizard beat the Sorcerer in that edition was because prepared spellcasting was so much better than spontaneous spellcasting, an issue Paizo noted and corrected in 2e.
It sounds like we're not disagreeing with each other. The point I'm trying to highlight from this is that while spontaneous casting has improved a lot in 2e, Vancian spellcasting has remained much the same. Even though the arcane list no longer has the "I-win" buttons of 1e, it still has a lot of silver bullets -- it's just that the standard for what counts as a silver bullet is no longer "trivializes the encounter, wins the campaign, and ascends you to godhood". An arcane spellcaster can disable a troll's regeneration or trigger lots of other damage type-based weaknesses, much like a primal spellcaster, but can also shut down powerful reactions with laughing fit and use other mental control spells, while having plenty of options to choose from in both exploration and social encounters. Many monsters in 2e are designed to have exploitable weaknesses, so even if a spell won't single-handedly win an encounter, it can still make a big difference. Although the Sorcerer has a larger and more flexible repertoire than in 1e, the Wizard still eventually gets more flexibility still thanks to their spell prep -- and that's something that I think ought to be developed on, so that this shines at earlier levels, and to an extent that truly lets the Wizard excel in a way you wouldn't see in, say, an arcane Witch.
Just as an example, there's room in my opinion for a feat that gives you a circumstance bonus to damage if you knowingly trigger a monster's weakness, which would combo well with both Recall Knowledge and the Forcible Energy feat. Similarly, I don't think the True Hypercognition feat would be out of place on the Wizard -- in fact, I find it weird that the Bard of all classes has it, and it feels like a lot of study-oriented feats got given to the Bard and not the Wizard for some reason. Part of the reason why the Wizard doesn't feel like they get to leverage the most out of their spell list I think is because not many of their customization options build on that -- some do, like Spell Substitution, but there's room for many more.
I have had very different experiences with wizards and scrolls than is being reported here. My wizard with magical shorthand would spend close to 50 percent of her wealth on scrolls and if other players in the party wanted me casting certain spells on them frequently, they would buy me those specific scrolls. I had spell book prodigy from level one, and by level 7 I was critically succeeding on the learn spell activity with great frequency. Learning rank 1 spells was essentially half off.
Here are some reasons I think this felt so productive in the campaign I was in:
On rank spell scrolls were probably 25 percent or more of the consumable treasure we found and I had basic cleric casting, so I could cast divine scrolls at near arcane spell efficiency, especially as i was only one attribute boost behind at most levels.
There are useful spells to cast on days where you have 0 combat encounters. As a player, you can’t know for certain which days those will be, but with spell substitution, you don’t need to know that in advance and you can partially switch through out the day based upon your growing assessment of the days likely challenges. There is really no other caster that can do this. Yes, you can always buy more scrolls of the same spells you might need, but for a fair number of fun utility spells, a rank 3 version is going to do different things ha than a rank 1 and that adds up to a lot of different scrolls you have to carry to be able to use these abilities frequently.
I have more but have run out of writing time. I’ll come back to this because I do think the wizard does just approach the game differently than a lot of casters
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There are useful spells to cast on days where you have 0 combat encounters. As a player, you can’t know for certain which days those will be, but with spell substitution, you don’t need to know that in advance and you can partially switch through out the day based upon your growing assessment of the days likely challenges. There is really no other caster that can do this.
What a great point. I also agree that it should be a core feature of the Wizard class and not something they have to trade for other options!
Because this
I do think the wizard does just approach the game differently than a lot of casters
Should only be allowed to be true if it isn’t the case for all Wizards equally.
I mean, the 1e Sorcerer used the same spell list, and despite slightly slower spell progression also ended up with more spell slots than the Wizard, so I don't think that's factually true. The reason the Wizard beat the Sorcerer in that edition was because prepared spellcasting was so much better than spontaneous spellcasting, an issue Paizo noted and corrected in 2e. For much of 2e, the Wizard and the Sorcerer were also on more equal footing: pre-remaster, the Sorcerer didn't have sorcerous potency, and their focus spells were generally much weaker, whereas the Wizard's fourth slot accommodated many more spells. This is the reason why this sort of thread didn't really crop up until the remaster, because it's only with the remaster's changes that the Wizard got nerfed while most other casters got buffed. I still do think the Wizard's ability to prepare arcane spells shines at higher levels, even though it really doesn't at low levels, and shines less overall than it used to.
Regarding learning spells: I think one of the issues there is the clash of expectations, where players expect their studious Wizard to be able to pick up lots of scrolls and spellbooks on the field, but that entire aspect of the class's roleplaying is up to the GM or the AP. Although learning low-level spells from scrolls is trivially cheap, that too is only a benefit that comes about at higher levels, and isn't the most exciting compared to learning a brand-new top-rank spell. The brew I linked proposes a system to help collection-based classes add more spells or formulas to their repository, but I think there are generally three ways you could go about this, depending on taste:
Option #1: Learning Points. At each level, your character starts with 2 Learning Points. Each time they add a spell or formula to their repository (in the Wizard's case, their spellbook), they learn it for free and mark down a Learning Point. You can still learn more spells at 0 Learning Points, just not for free. At each new level, you...
Right now wizards choose 4 spells per rank after rank 1 whereas sorcerers choose 3. They both get some from bloodline or school but thats the number they actually get to choose freely from leveling.
Rank 1 wizard gets to choose 5 to sorcerer's 3 and gets 2 from school compared to sorcerers 1.Basically getting more spells known as a base line would be welcome, in fact the 2 spells should be 1 more chosen freely and 1 more from school. Not sure why wizards dont just get all their school spells known.
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Just wanted to pop in and say thank you to everyone for cleaning up this thread! Constructive disagreement is encouraged because it's enlightening in surprising ways! For example, I've never played a Wizard, and after reading this thread, I find myself considering it, which I have never been compelled to do before! lol Anyway, thank you all. Carry on! ^^
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There are useful spells to cast on days where you have 0 combat encounters. As a player, you can’t know for certain which days those will be, but with spell substitution, you don’t need to know that in advance and you can partially switch through out the day based upon your growing assessment of the days likely challenges. There is really no other caster that can do this.What a great point. I also agree that it should be a core feature of the Wizard class and not something they have to trade for other options!
Because this
I do think the wizard does just approach the game differently than a lot of castersShould only be allowed to be true if it isn’t the case for all Wizards equally.
I said earlier that I would not mind spell substitution being the wizard’s thing and built into the class. I do think there are players who don’t want to change up their spells that often and prefer being able to blend away school spells for more higher level slots and who like being to flexibly change up what spell shaping feats they have. I think the witch doubling down on the familiar has made the familiar thesis for the wizard into “be a less good witch” and probably could have been retired, but taking bad options out of the game tends to get people more angry than leaving them in and having people eventually stop picking them. Staff nexus feels largely the same to me, except I do see the “I cast only low level spells every day/all the time as well as my top level slots” as something some players seem to enjoy. I feel like scrolls can largely cover this, and casting really low rank spells frequently in important rounds of important encounters to be a party hostile play style, so a thesis that can easily lead to that seems like a not great idea to me.
So if Paizo feels like theses are supposed to be a one of X feature, deciding spell substitution is the best one for all wizards because it gives them the most unique play experience is something I personally think is true, but also unnecessary to force on players that never really want to deal with the complexity of having to have familiarity with their entire spellbook at all times to be effective. I can see how forcing that feature on the class, even if a second thesis option was granted, could be a complexity deal breaker for some players.
There are useful spells to cast on days where you have 0 combat encounters. As a player, you can’t know for certain which days those will be, but with spell substitution, you don’t need to know that in advance and you can partially switch through out the day based upon your growing assessment of the days likely challenges. There is really no other caster that can do this.What a great point. I also agree that it should be a core feature of the Wizard class and not something they have to trade for other options!
Because this
I do think the wizard does just approach the game differently than a lot of castersShould only be allowed to be true if it isn’t the case for all Wizards equally.I said earlier that I would not mind spell substitution being the wizard’s thing and built into the class. I do think there are players who don’t want to change up their spells that often and prefer being able to blend away school spells for more higher level slots and who like being to flexibly change up what spell shaping feats they have. I think the witch doubling down on the familiar has made the familiar thesis for the wizard into “be a less good witch” and probably could have been retired, but taking bad options out of the game tends to get people more angry than leaving them in and having people eventually stop picking them. Staff nexus feels largely the same to me, except I do see the “I cast only low level spells every day/all the time as well as my top level slots” as something some players seem to enjoy. I feel like scrolls can largely cover this, and casting really low rank spells frequently in important rounds of important encounters to be a party hostile play style, so a thesis that can easily lead to that seems like a not great idea to me.
So if Paizo feels like theses are supposed to be a one of X feature, deciding spell substitution is the best one for all wizards because it gives them the most...
I would call back to SuperBidi point about the wizard daily prep being forgiving and spell sub being even more forgiving for mistakes in spell choices.
It could be seen as adding complexity or if SuperBidi's point is taken then it could just be seen as space for players to learn and change what they have as they get more familiar with the games spells.| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I mean, the 1e Sorcerer used the same spell list, and despite slightly slower spell progression also ended up with more spell slots than the Wizard, so I don't think that's factually true. The reason the Wizard beat the Sorcerer in that edition was because prepared spellcasting was so much better than spontaneous spellcasting, an issue Paizo noted and corrected in 2e. For much of 2e, the Wizard and the Sorcerer were also on more equal footing: pre-remaster, the Sorcerer didn't have sorcerous potency, and their focus spells were generally much weaker, whereas the Wizard's fourth slot accommodated many more spells. This is the reason why this sort of thread didn't really crop up until the remaster, because it's only with the remaster's changes that the Wizard got nerfed while most other casters got buffed. I still do think the Wizard's ability to prepare arcane spells shines at higher levels, even though it really doesn't at low levels, and shines less overall than it used to.Wizard was better because Wizards got new spell ranks a level earlier and Sorcerer had no hope of having enough spells on hand to hit that threshold of having enough spells to cover most situations. You literally get one spell known of your highest rank when you first gain access to that rank. You don't even get your bloodline spells until a level after. You just have utterly abysmal versatility. You need to accumulate a lot of levels and have a lot of lower rank spells to play with—ideally with more choices accumulated with human FCB, which is very good—before you can hope to really hold a candle to the wizard. Your bloodline effects were cool, but they weren't better than just having multiple highest rank spells on time.
Like, the level wizard gets haste, you're on rank 2 spells. Then the level you do get haste, it's the only rank 3 spell you can cast at all. By the time you have more than 1 rank 3 spell, wizard has rank 4 spells. It's painful.
There were other issues (like spontaneous...
That's another small change I forgot between the magic systems. Prepared casting used to get a spell rank one level earlier than a spontaneous caster. PF2 removed that difference.
I think this hits a lot of talking points from previous conversations: versatility is in fact quite an asset, and spell preparation makes a huge difference compared to a far more rigid spell repertoire. Even without the earlier spell access, the 1e Wizard would still be far more flexible than the Sorcerer thanks to their spell preparation, and we can see this in D&D 3.5e and 5e as well, the latter of which gives the Wizard flexible spellcasting, the best ritual spellcasting in the game, and eventually the ability to cast a couple of spells like cantrips. There are at least three examples of the Wizard eating the Sorcerer's lunch purely on the basis of their versatility, so I'd say it's a good thing that 2e's Sorcerer does things the Wizard distinctly cannot. The aim shouldn't be to return to that dominance, in my opinion, but to let the Wizard shine in entirely different ways, ideally ways that don't revolve around raw spell power.I'm not disagreeing that versatility was important in 1E. Versatility was far more important than it is in 2E.
I am saying spontaneous was so starved for it on two axes (spell ranks available and spells known) that they never had a meaningful chance of competing with prepared casters.
EDIT: Like, even if they got spell ranks on curve, having one top rank spell known when you first get access would still just be so bad. They'd be sunk compared to prepared on that alone.
Versatility and the wizard had many, many more spells.
A spontaneous caster was severely limited in spells known with few feats to expand that number. Their stat only increased the number of spell slots and thus number of slots they could cast per day.
Whereas the wizard's increased prepared slots allowed them to slot more spells and they were the absolute best at crafting when crafting was very good. Wands were often created very cheaply for long-lasting buffs. This made the wizard very powerful because they use a level 2 slot to cast something like Mirror Image and have it lands for hours at higher level. Or stoneskin. Or Boar's Con or whatever it was called. That is all gone and thankfully so in PF2. I hated all that buff stacking.
Now spontaneous casters, specifically the sorcerer gets 36 plus spells known with signature spells base. Then can boost spells known with feats. Then can use their 4 slots per level to cast in any combination. This creates massive versatility the wizard used to have based on sheer number of slots that were both spells known and casts per day combined leaving enough slots the wizard used to be the most versatile caster and most powerful caster period.
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Over time, I've come to feel like wizard lost their identity almost on accident. Most of their class identity (and power) in 1E was tied up in having access to the best spell progression and the best spell list; no one else had that, so the other classes competing with wizard got unique selling points to compensate.
I mean, that kind of sounds like the class never really had an identity to begin with. "Better than everyone else" isn't really meaningful class identity, it's just bad balance.
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Just wanted to pop in and say thank you to everyone for cleaning up this thread! Constructive disagreement is encouraged because it's enlightening in surprising ways! For example, I've never played a Wizard, and after reading this thread, I find myself considering it, which I have never been compelled to do before! lol Anyway, thank you all. Carry on! ^^
Just out of curiosity, does there exist a venue by which we could get the developers to answer some of the more recurring questions or concerns about the class.
Wizards have generated smoke for years, but I feel like a lot of the things we see from the dev side all come due to specific things (new books, etc). A Q&A style with some submitted questions might go a ways to clearing some things up.
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Over time, I've come to feel like wizard lost their identity almost on accident. Most of their class identity (and power) in 1E was tied up in having access to the best spell progression and the best spell list; no one else had that, so the other classes competing with wizard got unique selling points to compensate.I mean, that kind of sounds like the class never really had an identity to begin with. "Better than everyone else" isn't really meaningful class identity, it's just bad balance.It did have an identity. Of the 11 core classes in Pathfinder 1st Edition, four were full casters.
The cleric and druid relied on external forces for their power.
The sorcerer and wizard were their own source of magic:
A sorcerer's magic is inherent, a birthright.
The wizard, on the other hand, gains power through diligent study.
While all classes level equally, the wizard distinguished themselves as the only caster who didn't need external intervention or inherent luck to gain power. The wizard's niche was to be a truly self-made caster, beholden to no one.
The areas of study actually meant something as well with quality "focus spells" and innate bonuses. It meant something to be a wizard conjurer or a wizard evoker, now it means nothing.
Some limited extra spell from the arcane list that often exists on one of the other three lists. The focus spells barely support the class fantasy and many are so bad no one even remembers to use them.
Even players like Unicore or Aesthetic Dialectic who love the wizard don't even bother to mention the focus spells in these discussions like even they barely remember to use the focus spells because they are so "meh." That really tells you how bad they are when the hardcore wizard players don't even bring them up as a selling point for the wizard.
Wizard used to be the best with metamagic, but spellshape feats in PF2 are all uniform and work exactly the same for Spontaneous and Prepared casters.
A prepared caster had a big advantage with metamagic in PF1. The wizard had the biggest advantage. A spontaneous caster needed a full round to use a single metamagic feat. A wizard could prepare metamagic spells not increasing casting time for use of a metamagic feat.
No prepared caster has no advantage. Even as a spontaneous caster, I mainly only use Reach Spell. I have one player that uses Quicken Spell to nova nuke during the day. But no one really uses Spellshape Feats in my group any more.
Metamagic/Spellshape feats are not as good as they used to be for any class.
Reach Spell is probably the most useful sphellshape feat in the game now as it let' you move without moving.
It is a long thread, but Otto and I talked about using both the Ars Grammatical focus spells not that long ago. Wizard focus spells, at their best are one action spells that assume you will also be casting a spell from a spell slot or supliment casting a spell from a spell slot.
The imperial sorcerer’s first focus spell does feel like it should have been a wizard focus spell and the imperial sorcerer could have picked any one wizard focus spell, since that is kinda more on theme with the bloodline.
I think the focus spells are meh, yeah. I also don't think that's where I want the power budget to go. Other classes already have good focus spells, or are even focused on focus spells(no pun intended). I like that the focus spells at least are mostly 1 action and can be combined with regular spellcasting. If they're to have focus spells, I think they should stay one action. Which does mean they must necessarily be weaker