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If your GM works with you to expand your school spells so they dont have to be spells with heightening effects (and therefore subject to obsolescence in their sanctioned slots) your wizard is boring but largely fine. If your wizard school does have heightened school spells and your GM is just running it as is.....you're kind of hosed. I know I'd hate playing a 3 slot caster that's budgeted as a 4 slot caster. Fingers crossed that vancian and spell slots go the way of alignment in the next edition. As it stands, wizard is just a class for me to avoid in favor of sorc or witch. Necro gives me hope they may eventually make a new studious arcane class, in which case I could ignore wizard completely and move on.
I don't see how range plays into the conversation at all when the vast majority of spells are 30ft to begin with. So no I don't think 30ft spells is a sign of bad design at all just the same way spellslots aren't bad design. Infact, giving spells to much range as a standard is bad design when most maps don't even support it.
Yes Protective Wards absolutely is a relevant exception as said and needs either its sustain removed, or start off at a larger radius/increase faster). Can't even Widen it, unlike the others which work with Reach.
We also do have examples of bad focus spells in other classes to, Druids Wildfire or Oracles Tempest Touch, premasters gluttons jaw for sorcerer.I wish rival academies reprints some focus spells or gives us proper new ones.
But stating that Wizards just arent competitive to is just not true when we consider that pre-master the wizard was considered to just be a flatout better witch in every possible situation. The wizard has options that arent as engaging yes. But at the same time people really prone to undervalue what the Wizard does. Pointing both at its Intelligence Key stat and unengaging mechanics. But yet, people don't seem to play with the mechanics of which Arcana and Occultism is supposed to solve. How many actually plays with the players not knowing the spells until they spend actions to recognize them.
Its the exact same thing as Michael Sayre wrote regarding Class Balance and Design.
Reddit: Michael Sayre, Class design and Balance.
The majority of spells are not 30 feet. What level are you playing to?
Most AOE spells reach 500 foot range.
Some other attacks spells start at 120 feet like Thunderburst and actual force barrage.
One of the reasons I'm familiar with range is because range is the best defense for casters. PCs and enemies. I use it often to keep PCs at bay. I also leverage it with monsters as they would use range if they had the option. There is zero tactical advantage in allowing enemies to close within 30 feet of you if they have other options. And they increasingly have other options as the levels rise.
I also consider reach spell the best Spellshape feat in the game for those times when you do not want to be in range, but guess what the majority of wizard focus spells aren't designed to be useful with reach spell because they are emanations.
Wizard focus spells are badly designed. Why keep defending them?
What are you gaining by defending a design choice that makes wizard focus spells mostly an after thought?
But stating that Wizards just arent competitive to is just not true when we consider that pre-master the wizard was considered to just be a flatout better witch in every possible situation.The causality here is not that the Wizard was good, it’s that the Witch was even worse than that.
Post remaster, the Witch got some big improvements, the Wizard was made worse, so the Wizard slipped below the Witch in both a practical and comparative level.
In a way Wizard was made worse by a small margin, but I still don't agree that Wizard splipped below the Witch with except on a superficial level. Especially not on a level that doesn't involve minmaxing.
Witch now has its own niche where previous the wizard could fill the previous niche of an improved familiar while also having additional spellslots.
Wizard still has the better overall spellcasting versatility and capacity. Witch has similarly similar to how Sayre speaks about arcanist. More bespoke/Specialized abilities that makes you feel valuable.
You're comparing the wizard to a witch? No one considers the witch great. The Remaster Witch is better, but still a mostly average caster class compared to the better casters.
Even after the Remaster, no one in my group wants to play a witch. The familiar abilities are either mostly useless or require such short range as to get your familiar killed.
How do you so many of you not deal with the same stuff I deal with as you level? The AoE hammer spells. The harsh auras and gazes. The powerful ranged attacks a lot of creatures have. The multi-target attacks with 10 to 15 foot reach. The sheer size of the creatures at higher CRs. The high amount of damage and attack rolls built to hit a Master armor class wearing maxed out armor while casters only get excellent. The high special ability and spell DCs that often lead to you having well over a 50 percent failure rate and often a good chance of a critical fail that hammers the six hit point casters.
There is a reason I see these classes differently and range as vitally important. Nothing like standing too close to the wrong creature and getting petrified or doomed or frightened or bleeding damage or something. That is not fun. Let your Master and Legendary Fort and Ref save martials with 8 to 12 hit points a level do that. Mr. Six Hit point caster or even often 8 hit point caster stay at range and hammer away from the save every round auras and gazes and strange special abilities.
Force missile: Fine. 1 action magic missile for a focus point with 30 foot range. Range is too short IMO for a class that wants to operate at a longer range, but it's ok.30ft is enough for most published adventures. That particular spells aren't useful in some situations is quite OK.
Do you play in groups that never bother to protect the casters?
Do you know how easy it is to bypass protecting the casters? Increasingly so at high level, especially for groups of creatures.
That's on top of gazes, auras, and lots of AoE group attacks.
Yes but by the same token wizards aren't defenceless either. The days of having d4 hitpoints and no AC are long gone. I do expect casters to be attacked directly sometimes.
Casters operate better at longer distance.
Many classes do. But movement rates also go up so minimum safe distance can be very far.
Sometimes the wizard needs to lend a hand. Even with a fragile caster sometimes I will step forward for one round in order to protect other characters who are in very bad condition.
The majority of spells are not 30 feet. What level are you playing to?
Most AOE spells reach 500 foot range.
Ok.. lets check.
Nethys lists 1455 spells total. 1050 without focus spells.
Not counting focus spells only a measly 313 pushes above 30ft.
179 pushes 120ft or more. Half of which are available before rank 4, Where as 112 of 30ft or less are 5th rank or higher.This includes all AoEs with a range, But without adding the AoE without range to the 30ft count. Of which again more than half of all Cones, Lines, Emanations without range are 30ft or less even at high ranks. (17/29; 5th and over).
So yeah... Majority of spells are 30ft or less, This rings true ranks 1-4 as much as it does ranks 5-9. Your 500ft spells number less than 40 total at all ranks.
Nor do I see the 50% failure chance outside the pl+2 situations or the parties where nobody cares about bonus to saves.
The difference here is that the way you describe you and your groups way of dealing with monster mechanics as a caster is..well.. by not dealing with them if that makes sense to describe it that way? And I don't have to agree with just trying to avoid something especially when Range is just as much an hinderance to your enemy as it is to a squishy wizard should they be caught out by one of said enemies running towards them 150ft a turn (or sometimes.. single action)Thats how my level 15+ wizards die, Because they got to far away from the party where champions, fighters, medics and clerics cannot help them and the neccesary party buffs are nowhere to be seen.
You run a Nethys check to strawman an argument?
I'll go with my experience. The spells getting used have massive ranges. Because a bunch of unused utility spells have a 30 foot range as filler on a list means nothing to me.
I play this game as a player and DM at high level and the spells that hammer like Chain Lightning. Howling Blizzard, Fireball, Eclipse Burst, and other such spells have a 500 foot range.
Spells like Force Barrage and Thunderburst are 120 foot range.
The main 30 foot spells used are slow, dominate, heal, and wall spells, which are often used to divide battlefields or slow targets or recover.
Even AOE haste is used as a starting combat buff.
But open with range and hammer from afar is the set up, then use 30 foot spells with reach once the martials close.
A lot of the other spells are filler. Maybe certain people like to try them to see if they can make them useful. But the big hammer AOE have long ranges and can soften targets from range.
If you know how range works, then you know the medic will be set in the middle outside of 30 feet to avoid to auras and gazes with hammer casters set behind them but within heal range, so you're easily able to operate in the 50 to 60 feet away. This is enough distance for reach to extend your 30 foot spells while keeping you far enough away from the battle and spread to avoid severe AOE attacks.
30 feet is insufficient for that strategy, especially when an emanation which can't be cast on someone else farther away.
This is why we use archers as well. Our set up is let the usually two, maybe three martials head in. The hammer caster stays back around the archer or healer so you're operating in the 35 feet to 60 feet away range.
That's why reach spell is so valuable. That's why these focus spells for emanations are pretty worthless for ranged casters.
What is a well designed focus spells or class cantrips?
Courageous Anthem: 60 foot emanation. Only targets allies. Smart, useful design.
Lingering Composition: Free action. Works with Courageous Anthem or Rallying Anthem enhancing an already useful composition cantrip.
Untamed Form: Multiple feats that build on it. Useful for a variety of combat and utility function. Improves as you level. Fulfills class fantasy.
Ancestral Memories: Heightens nicely. Works with spells flexibly including range and all other spell traits.
Thoughtfully designed focus spells or cantrips that work to enhance the class and fulfill the class fantasy. More of the above is what I'd like to see for the wizard that works well with the wizard playstyle and class fantasy.
You don't need 100s of blasting spells to have a range of 60+ feat. A decent selection across the level range is perfectly sufficient, you can easily find 30-50 spells that will suit your need, which is likely more than you need especially given many casters prepare a more diverse array of spells.
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That essay is really tragic. Basically admits to a bunch of things players find fun then shrugs them off as not worth the effort and kind of handwaves a lot of balance problems based on hypothetical versatility that a character probably doesn't even have in the first place.
I'll go with my experience. The spells getting used have massive ranges.Guess what, So do I. I have no doubt those are the spells used at your tables but thats not true for ALL tables.
To me it seems obvious casters were made to operate between 30-60 with lost efficiency after 30ft unless limited resources or extra actions are spent. Thats my argument all along and the fact the majority of spells used or not are limited to 30 proves that. Why else would it be a static 30, Why would Reach Spell give 30 and not another number, it upgraded 25->100 in 1e but at cost but spell ranges also upgraded over time there.
Presenting hazards for the party to overcome is not bad design so why would auras not be 30 to push ranged options out of their efficient zone?
Weak options are not bad design, But I've already admitted... Protective wards is badly designed, Paizo has indirectly admitted that when they changed bane/bless and its a sin they didnt touch Protective wards. On the same note Fortify summoning should be a Spellshape.
But Scramble body, Spiral of Horrors and Earthworks? Nah i'm not buying the idea that these are badly designed. Even Charming Push is useful when the wizard is about to eat draconic frenzy. Weak? Maybe. Thats another discussion.
They don't have a loss of efficiency past 30 feet. This is a ridiculous claim easily shown to be so in play. Casters have plenty of options past 30 feet and reach spell is an excellent use of a third action, better than shield or other single action options.
I've broken down why each focus spell is pretty useless. Going Force Missile is ok due to 30 foot range in no way that changes that.
If I were DMing you and your group, I'd show you why range matters when your group gets absolutely hammered if they don't prepare to operate at range. Range is one of the biggest advantages casters have and not learning how to destroy things at range means your DM isn't using it. Not because it isn't possible, but because they choose to run simple encounters in easy range for players to operate, even creatures that have zero need or business being close to the PCs like a strafing dragon or some caster with room to use their tools or flying demons with unlimited powerful ranged attacks at 100 plus feet which all do exist in the game.
Range is pretty important.
it often equals actions wasted and a lot of range is a lot of actions wasted. Characters able to act a long ranges simply put have more actions than players that cannot when a battle starts at long range.
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One thing we can know though, its pretty clear there is a divide between the internal design principles at Paizo and as seen by a large slice of the playerbase.
To be fair, I don't think the design standards even within Paizo are as homogeneous as we think. Player Core 1 released with incredibly lethal dying rules that needed urgent errata, because at least two developers had radically different ways of running recovery checks and each believed theirs was the official way of doing it. Even Sayre's applying a double standard in that essay, as he was the main designer for the Animist, a spellcaster so versatile that they not only encroach on the niche of several other spellcasters at once, but also get to eat the lunch of martial classes too. It's all very "limitations for thee and not for me", in my opinion.
But also, let's actually look at what that essay is saying, because I think it actually reinforces what a lot of critics have been advocating: for starters, the whole bit about the Arcanist being more popular due to their accessibility sounds to me like the Wizard could easily be made more popular if they were made more accessible, something I think Spell Substitution as a core class feature would achieve. What I find particularly good about that thesis is that it is maximally effective for less experienced or skillful players, because it lets you error-correct more easily during the day, and minimally effective for players who do plan very successfully ahead, even though there will always be room for some adjustments. Were it to replace arcane bond, and not just exist as an addition, it may even end up being one of those changes that is a net balance nerf, and yet makes the class feel much more powerful.
Secondly, while Sayre is right that the Wizard is versatile by dint of having access to the arcane list (and, by extension, so is an arcane Witch), the gap between that list and the other spell lists has shrunk dramatically post-remaster, where the divine list in particular got given some of the best blasting around and altogether much more versatility. What the essay fails to account for is the Wizard's spellbook, a mechanic specifically designed to limit the class's versatility, and a mechanic classes like the Cleric and Druid (and the Animist) lack entirely. It's a big reason why the Cleric in particular became a much stronger class post-remaster, along with their improved font and buffed Warpriest doctrine, to the point where I find it almost quaint that we're still wringing our hands over the Wizard's supposed overwhelming versatility when they got a net reduction in it following the changes to their school spell slot.
I'll also support the statement made by others here that the Witch is not the gold standard of balance they're being made out to be. The remaster massively improved the class, but that in itself isn't difficult when the pre-remaster Witch was one of the weakest classes in the game. Better as they are now, most of their subclasses are okay at best, with some being downright mediocre (such as the arcane Witch!), and if it weren't for the Resentment I do think the general opinion of the Witch would be much lower. A personal point of annoyance for me is how the Witch still can't recover their familiar during the day if they die, and when that happens (which can happen easily in combat), you're just a three-slot caster with a cantrip that, if you're lucky, will be somewhat above-average. Rather than insist upon keeping the Wizard down just so that they don't once again outshine the game's second-weakest caster, we could stand to advocate for improvements to both.
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Examples where the actual design of the class option works against what its trying to do. How do we determine that such changes are needed or wanted without falling into the trap of survivorship bias? Most people satisfied with wizard aren't going to interact with threads like these after all and handwaiving away what they want from a wizard is not really an option either.
I'll have to add survivorship bias to the list of terms people in online discussion spaces badly misunderstand, though in this particular case I don't blame you, because the term has been weaponized by developers across many different companies and products to this exact purpose. Survivorship bias is when data passes through a selection process, and people over-focus on the data that passed, omitting the data that didn't. Correct citation of survivorship bias would be to claim that lots of people complain about the Wizard because lots of people play the Wizard, whereas people don't complain about, say, the Ranger, because nobody plays the Ranger, though in order for that claim to be true (and I personally really don't think it is), you'd still need actual data to confirm what you're saying. By contrast, saying "well actually, your criticism is invalid because there's maybe this secret silent majority that thinks everything is just fine" isn't making a sound argument based on concrete evidence, it's just magical thinking.
Ultimately, the cautionary tale that is survivorship bias is there to remind us to look at the evidence, and this is what the evidence says: of all the classes in Pathfinder 2e, the Wizard is among those that consistently receives criticism and is often seen as weak in the game's current state. I do think the class is played more often than even more unpopular classes like the Inventor, which is why more people complain, but that criticism remains valid. By contrast, I see few to no people criticizing the Bard or the Fighter as weak, and more niche classes like the Thaumaturge are perfectly capable of having an overwhelmingly positive reputation. There is therefore good reason to believe that the Wizard has room to improve, particularly as the core class has objectively lost a significant degree of power with the remaster.
I don't think spell tradition plays into this at all after the remaster.
This is where I'm more conservative and still believe the arcane list is stronger, but let's run with this: if what you say is true and the other traditions are just as powerful and versatile as arcane, do you not think being restricted to 53 spells as a baseline to prepare from, as opposed to nearly 700, is quite a significant limitation? In fact, do you not think that being restricted to between 21 and 2 spells at most for your fourth spell slots, as opposed to between dozens and hundreds, is similarly limiting? The closest analogue there I'd say is the Cloistered Cleric, except they get class features that add to their spell list, with the ability to prepare from the entirety of the divine list. Although they can only prepare at most 2 different kinds of spells into their bonus spell slots, those slots all go up to 10th rank, and they eventually get six of them.
I've also not made any claims to the supposed gold standard of wizard/Witch balance as opposed to the other prepared casters which, lets be honest are all very generalist to begin with. Something which I cannot see Animist as, That class sacrifices one of its highest level slots and instead gets to have further restrictions on the spells it can take with the option of swapping the restricted lists on the fly, But you still only have a limited amount you can attune to each day with feats that disable them for certain durations.. or even until daily prep.
The Animist doesn't sacrifice squat. They're a 3-slot caster that inexplicably gets a fourth slot per rank past a certain point, and the spell slot they "sacrifice" gives them access to a repertoire of nothing but signature spells from across all traditions, which eventually exceeds even the Sorcerer's in size. Claiming that they "sacrifice" a slot for this is like claiming that the Cleric "sacrifices" their spell slots whenever they prepare one of the additional spells their deity provides them. It is a bonus, one of a great deal many they receive that gives them above-average versatility, above-average spell output, and even above-average raw power.
But also: if you didn't intend to hold the Witch as a balance standard, why bring up the class at all? You don't really get to claim this in my opinion when you also had this to say:
But stating that Wizards just arent competitive to is just not true when we consider that pre-master the wizard was considered to just be a flatout better witch in every possible situation.
Similarly, when you gave feedback on my Wizard brew, you had this statement to make:
But regardless I don't think the weakest base chassi or limitation of the spellbook acts as enough of a counterweight to allow this version of the wizard to exist alongside the other classes like the witch. Who also share quite a lot of things with the wizard chassi. Including spellbook limitation.
It sounds an awful lot to me like the Witch is being used here as an excuse to keep the Wizard down, when in practice both could stand to be improved.
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That essay is really tragic. Basically admits to a bunch of things players find fun then shrugs them off as not worth the effort and kind of handwaves a lot of balance problems based on hypothetical versatility that a character probably doesn't even have in the first place.
I think that's mischaracterizing the essay to some degree - I don't think it's saying that they're not worth the effort, I think it's saying that there is a fundamental trade-off here you can't ignore. I don't think the core point of the essay is wrong - if you don't balance the game around assuming that a highly versatile character takes advantage (not perfectly, but pretty well) of their versatility, people who do take advantage of the versatility well are going to be unbalanced. If consistently casting only fire spells, or focusing your build around casting spell attack rolls, gave you equivalent outcomes to other classes and you maintain the ability to pull out all manner of other useful spells, then the class is too versatile for its power, and that's an important consideration in class design.
The exact degree of taking advantage of that versatility you balance around is definitely worth discussing, and the amount of power you gain from versatility needs to be considered as well. If you can perform at 95% of your theoretical maximum power by just preparing the best all-round spells, then this whole point is moot. It's difficult to determine exactly how much power the versatility of prepared casting gives you in PF2, because it is pretty radically table-dependent, as has been discussed many times already in this thread. Personally, I think the degree of versatility inherent to Vancian casting with big spell lists is a bit too much - I rarely see players engaging heavily in re-preparing their whole spell list every day, and I regularly see players wanting to specialise their magic in a way that Vancian casting doesn't really allow. If we had some sort of trade-off where you have to pick between broadening the spells you have available to you to prepare vs specialising in the few spells you do have available, I think you could make the versatility more impactful should you choose to invest, and you can make the doubling-down on one type of magic possible without necessarily having to worry about the consequences for a highly versatile caster - but that might've been too radical a change for the PF1 -> PF2 era.
That essay is really tragic. Basically admits to a bunch of things players find fun then shrugs them off as not worth the effort and kind of handwaves a lot of balance problems based on hypothetical versatility that a character probably doesn't even have in the first place.I think that's mischaracterizing the essay to some degree - I don't think it's saying that they're not worth the effort, I think it's saying that there is a fundamental trade-off here you can't ignore. I don't think the core point of the essay is wrong - if you don't balance the game around assuming that a highly versatile character takes advantage (not perfectly, but pretty well) of their versatility, people who do take advantage of the versatility well are going to be unbalanced. If consistently casting only fire spells, or focusing your build around casting spell attack rolls, gave you equivalent outcomes to other classes and you maintain the ability to pull out all manner of other useful spells, then the class is too versatile for its power, and that's an important consideration in class design.
The exact degree of taking advantage of that versatility you balance around is definitely worth discussing, and the amount of power you gain from versatility needs to be considered as well. If you can perform at 95% of your theoretical maximum power by just preparing the best all-round spells, then this whole point is moot. It's difficult to determine exactly how much power the versatility of prepared casting gives you in PF2, because it is pretty radically table-dependent, as has been discussed many times already in this thread. Personally, I think the degree of versatility inherent to Vancian casting with big spell lists is a bit too much - I rarely see players engaging heavily in re-preparing their whole spell list every day, and I regularly see players wanting to specialise their magic in a way that Vancian casting doesn't really allow. If we had some sort of trade-off where you have to pick between...
The versatile advantage of prepared spellcasting is not an advantage anymore. A good spell selection as a sorcerer covers 95% of what you need and the last 5% can be covered by consumables, staves and arcane évolution.
It’s so heavily skewed towards spontaneous that I’d argue a spontaneous 3 slots caster is probably stronger that a 4-slot prepared one.
I'll go with my experience. The spells getting used have massive ranges...
I've played (and GM'd for) 5 tables now, and not a single one of them has an experience similar to what you are describing. Most combat encounters - and by most I mean basically all - take place on battlemaps that are 30x30 or less, and typically if there are larger maps they are in environments with walls and obstacles that prevent easy targeting from one side of the map to the other anyway.
Most spellcasters that I have played with and played as don't prepare more than one big AOE blasting spell a day, and maybe one of the melee martial characters will carry around an Eruption item, and these will be the extent of the ranged AOE damage options the party has access to outside of cantrips. They are only situationally useful, and spells like Fear and Slow that target individuals within X range are much easier to make use of and I see them much more often - and they have 30 feet of range (or 60 with Reach Spell or Familiar Conduit) which rarely feels inadequate.
I don't doubt this is extremely common as when I played when younger, DMs normally ran encounters by the book as they were set up with very little thought into how to leverage the abilities of the monsters.
That's why when these players get to the table of a DM like myself that is extremely tactical with my use of enemy monsters, they don't last long. They're quite surprised they are playing a DM that does uses the powerful ranged capabilities of many monsters to keep them from reaching them and hammer them.
If your prepared casters are preparing only one blaster spell a day, then spontaneous casters with sig spells are out damaging them by leaps and bounds.
My experience with multiple casters to high level is AOE blasting and AOE slow is king at high levels for taking down groups. For solo monsters you can play around a bit, but for groups you nuke them down while your martials smash them and it goes real, real fast.
My group often sets up to soften groups at range. Just as if a caster enemy is facing them, they're looking to hammer that group at range. Casters are extremely weak at close range, subject to Reactive Strike or trip and spells are action economy hogs that when disrupted are a huge loss of resources and caster enemies are trivialized by placing them close to the PCs more often than not. So you use range to ensure a caster enemy can set up and get their main attacks off.
I know this is attributed to table variance and maybe the majority of DMs run a by the book in a 30 x 30 room map which I've seen in APs or smaller a ton. But that doesn't mean the capability to do otherwise is not present. A DM not using it is their choice, but it is tactically inefficient not to use the ranged capabilities of enemies or the PCs.
I haven't played that way since I was a young, inexperienced player who didn't think about how to leverage the tactical advantage of range.
I'm mot interested in doing all the math. I'd love to someone like Mathmuse to show you how powerful spontaneous casting with signature spells is with on-demand versatility versus the theoretical versatility of a wizard. The difference in favor of the spontaneous caster is massive.
Sig spells with spontaneous casting is far superior in PF2 to prepared casting in terms of on-demand, meaningful versatility.
If a matrix were made showing all the ways a spontaneous caster can cast their spells, it would dwarf the on-demand versatility of the prepared casters including the wizard.
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I don't think the core point of the essay is wrong - if you don't balance the game around assuming that a highly versatile character takes advantage (not perfectly, but pretty well) of their versatility, people who do take advantage of the versatility well are going to be unbalanced.
How much of a problem is it that someone playing perfectly is going to have above average results? How much are we throwing out chasing that? Like, other classes also have gradients of power to them but we don't seem nearly as fixated on aiming for the top.
To put "if you don't balance around taking advantage of all your versatility" another way...
If you balance a class around the assumption that it's played near-perfectly, anyone who makes suboptimal choices for any reason is going to have a bad time. Or anyone who plays in a game environment where perfect decision making is not possible will have a degraded experience. And so on.
The real damning thing for me here is that this standard doesn't really seem to be applied in the same way to other classes. There have been significant efforts, both in base PF2 and even moreso with remaster balance changes, to try to promote a variety of options for classes to be able to lean into. PF2 has prided itself on this. The community has prided itself on promoting this, on encouraging people to play what feels good because there are often ways to make it functional.
... Yet inevitably whenever this conversation comes up, even the designers (or well, former designers) default to a discussion of optimization first and everything else second.
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While I do think it's important to consider what a character looks like when played optimally, I do think the issue here is that with the Wizard, there's a significantly above-average performance gap based on system knowledge and mastery. A perfectly-played Wizard can certainly do decently, but playing a Wizard perfectly requires knowing which spells are optimal in general, which spells are optimal for certain situations, and preparing all of that ahead of time in such a way that you've got the right distribution of spells for the day. Not only that, but you have to do all of this when choosing which spells to add to your spellbook, and if you choose wrong, then short of the GM throwing you a bone you're stuck with a spellbook that won't let you put your spell slots, normal or spell school, to the best use. This I think is particularly difficult with the arcane list, which is full of extremely niche spells that just so happen to be really effective in specific situations.
All of this is to say: rather than focus on the Wizard's power ceiling, which is more or less okay, we ought to perhaps talk more about how the Wizard doesn't really gel with Pathfinder's principle of making classes perform well even without a great deal of system mastery. The Wizard is an infamously beginner-unfriendly class, and that I think is a big part of why they come across as weak -- because to a great deal many players, they genuinely are. There's not much use in designing a class that will feel good in the hands of only a single-digit percentage of anyone who tries them out, and who'll just underwhelm everyone else who'd otherwise be interested in their theme. Beyond just buffing the class, which I do think there's room for, it would be worth trying to make the class easier to get into, even to players unfamiliar with PF2e.
The wizard general casting power is fine. Once you learn what the high value spells are, you put them in a bunch of slots and your combat power will be fine.
If you have Spell Substitution or at least a day to prepare, you can use spells as a rogue might use skills to solve lots of different problems.
It's the class build options that are lacking. Most feats that don't feel impactful.
Schools are overly restrictive and focus spells are lacking impact.
Spell Thesis are meh.
About the only place where the wizard has some great options is the level 20 feats. They have some of the best level 20 caster feats. How many people will make it to level 20 and play much time there? Until they create level 20 plus modules, you get to enjoy those level 20 feats for maybe a third of an adventure at best. If you make it to level 20 as a wizard, which great feat to pick is a hard choice.
Is anyone still arguing the wizard needs more power? I don't really see it.
Mostly I see people wanting a more fun wizard that gets rid of the legacy stuff that no longer works well in PF2. It seems like the wizard was hamstrung with this legacy paradigm that didn't transfer over well to PF and if they get rid of it and build the wizard for PF2 with better feats and schools that don't limit their spell options, the wizard would be a fun PF2 class.
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So the idea of making the wizard easier to use actually is a great space for wizard schools.
They give you a set of schools spells that currently fit a theme but if they were selected based on giving you a working basis for a playstyle that was reinforced by the focus spell given to that school that would accomplish the idea of a guiderail for wizard play.
Do you think they already did this to a degree?
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I don't think the core point of the essay is wrong - if you don't balance the game around assuming that a highly versatile character takes advantage (not perfectly, but pretty well) of their versatility, people who do take advantage of the versatility well are going to be unbalanced.How much of a problem is it that someone playing perfectly is going to have above average results? How much are we throwing out chasing that? Like, other classes also have gradients of power to them but we don't seem nearly as fixated on aiming for the top.
To put "if you don't balance around taking advantage of all your versatility" another way...
If you balance a class around the assumption that it's played near-perfectly, anyone who makes suboptimal choices for any reason is going to have a bad time. Or anyone who plays in a game environment where perfect decision making is not possible will have a degraded experience. And so on.
The real damning thing for me here is that this standard doesn't really seem to be applied in the same way to other classes. There have been significant efforts, both in base PF2 and even moreso with remaster balance changes, to try to promote a variety of options for classes to be able to lean into. PF2 has prided itself on this. The community has prided itself on promoting this, on encouraging people to play what feels good because there are often ways to make it functional.
... Yet inevitably whenever this conversation comes up, even the designers (or well, former designers) default to a discussion of optimization first and everything else second.
In all honesty, I see the issue as twofold.
1) Power creep is inherent to the nature of expanding the game via splatbooks, etc., and spells gives more characters new abilities than class feats and the like do. So casters tend to benefit disproportionately.
Wizard can only ever be as versatile as the spell list is large. At the release of the game, a spell list can be fairly constrained, and casting power can be kept relatively bounded. But the very structure of the game incentivizes printing spells! They're great bang-for-buck when it comes to their relevance::page space ratio. So prepared casters (honestly moreso non-spellbook prepared casters) benefit more as the edition goes on.
2) Most non-casters just... don't have enough versatility built into their chassis to meaningfully compete with casters. A caster chassis built with about the same amount of options as a normal martial looks like... a kineticist. Even a spontaneous caster far outstrips a martial's breadth of possible options and abilities, and that's before we even talk about breadth in terms of -kinds- of abilities and not just raw amount. You could bring martials up (what I prefer, as someone who likes casters) or push casters down (which has benefits in terms of design complexity, but would probably look too much like 4e for many people's tastes). But unless you do one of those, casters will continue to have a greater breadth of options that will make them hard to rein in.
2E did try to address this, to a point, and it did hammer the nail to a degree—a bit from both angles, really. But it's still a lingering specter as long as classes don't have parity in the breadth of options available to them.
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As per Michael Sayre's own words, it is strawmanning him to think that the game is balanced around Wizard's having perfect preparation.
This is a good companion thread for those who wish to understand Sayre's original post more fully.
In addition, here is a follow-up to that follow-up, where he expands futher.
My own personal thoughts are in those threads already, though I moved beyond the "acceptance" and back to dissatisfaction due to the release of Player Core 2.
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If silver bullet spells existed in any great amount, then such an idea of perfect preparation might stand up to analysis.
In my experience, a sorcerer with round 36 spells known is more than enough to cover 90 percent plus of situations. An arcane sorc with a spellbook can boost that up to 95 plus.
The wizard appears to have versatility, but it doesn't. It has less than the spontaneous casters with sig spells who can do things like take Dispel Magic as a sig spell in a level 2 or 3 slot, then have it available across multiple levels with one slot known whereas if the wizard wants to do the the same thing they have to prepare multiple slots of different levels.
This ultimately leads to less versatility in combat and the only value a wizard brings is out of combat versatility if given enough time to prepare and enough money to build a sufficiently large spellbook.
Even then, a spellbook sorc can do similar if say one spell changeout is all you need. So can a polymath bard.
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I don't think the core point of the essay is wrong - if you don't balance the game around assuming that a highly versatile character takes advantage (not perfectly, but pretty well) of their versatility, people who do take advantage of the versatility well are going to be unbalanced.How much of a problem is it that someone playing perfectly is going to have above average results? How much are we throwing out chasing that? Like, other classes also have gradients of power to them but we don't seem nearly as fixated on aiming for the top.
To put "if you don't balance around taking advantage of all your versatility" another way...
If you balance a class around the assumption that it's played near-perfectly, anyone who makes suboptimal choices for any reason is going to have a bad time. Or anyone who plays in a game environment where perfect decision making is not possible will have a degraded experience. And so on.
The real damning thing for me here is that this standard doesn't really seem to be applied in the same way to other classes. There have been significant efforts, both in base PF2 and even moreso with remaster balance changes, to try to promote a variety of options for classes to be able to lean into. PF2 has prided itself on this. The community has prided itself on promoting this, on encouraging people to play what feels good because there are often ways to make it functional.
... Yet inevitably whenever this conversation comes up, even the designers (or well, former designers) default to a discussion of optimization first and everything else second.
You literally quote me saying "not perfectly, but pretty well" before proceeding to argue against the idea that we should balance all casters around perfect play. I didn't say that, and Michael Sayre didn't say that. The difference in the versatility of something like a ranger and a prepared caster aren't comparable, that's why this conversation comes up for prepared casters. It's not like I'm sitting here saying that the wizard is perfect - I do think there are issues with the power level and class options of the wizard specifically, which is why I wrote and published a 3PP book addressing my issues with the class. And yes, balancing around playing perfectly is going to mean anyone who isn't playing perfectly underperforms; it's basically an unavoidable situation when a class has very significant versatility and balance is a key goal of the system. If you're not going to undermine the balance, you either need to reduce their versatility, or you need to do your best to communicate the expected level of competence and give tools and education to help players reach that point. I don't think that has been pulled off fully in this case - but that doesn't mean the fundamental logic here has a flaw.
As per Michael Sayre's own words, it is strawmanning him to think that the game is balanced around Wizard's having perfect preparation.
This is a good companion thread for those who wish to understand Sayre's original post more fully.
In addition, here is a follow-up to that follow-up, where he expands futher.
My own personal thoughts are in those threads already, though I moved beyond the "acceptance" and back to dissatisfaction due to the release of Player Core 2.
The clarification was basically, "you're expected to be able to target an acceptable defense with a top rank slot at least once per moderate or harder combat, and also target acceptable defenses with some lower rank slots, a focus spell, or a cantrip on turns you aren't using top rank spells." That's definitely different from expecting a wizard to have silver bullets, but it's still (imo) pretty burdensome as a prepared caster without a baked-in backup routine. It's a problem a properly built spontaneous caster can solve on the fly (and solve more precisely) by existing without needing a backup routine, so it's honestly bizarre that spontaneous casters generally have superior backup routines to the wizard.
Wizard can multiclass and archetype into whatever backup routines you want without much opportunity cost because its class feats are mediocre, which is admittedly useful in its own way; you can customize a backup routine to your party without giving up as much as many other classes would. But it does mean you're slower to get those backup routines than a class that comes with them, unfortunately, and it definitely doesn't help new PF2E players (who won't know what archetypes to take) take advantage of the class.
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The "covering bases" element is also a relatively small requirement.
The game has 4 saves and around 23 unique damage types, but it's not the case that you need an option to cover all 23 of them types with a spell per save.
You need a few solid ever-green options, a spread of cantrips, and the ability to access more niche options in some reasonable way.
Every full caster meets these needs in one way or another.
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If you're not going to undermine the balance, you either need to reduce their versatility, or you need to do your best to communicate the expected level of competence and give tools and education to help players reach that point
But they did reduce versatility. Considerably so.
The Wizard's 4th slot went from hundreds of potential options, which grew with each new content release, to less than 20 with no automatic or guaranteed means of expansion.
People really downplay this change, but, for me, it changed the fundamental balancing point of the Wizard in a very negative way. The Wizards versatility is now that of any 3 slot prepared caster + 20ish.
They are still, technically, the most versatile, but the whole dynamic is utterly different than it was before.
The "covering bases" element is also a relatively small requirement.
The game has 4 saves and around 23 unique damage types, but it's not the case that you need an option to cover all 23 of them types with a spell per save.
You need a few solid ever-green options, a spread of cantrips, and the ability to access more niche options in some reasonable way.
Every full caster meets these needs in one way or another.
Covering defenses is not difficult for a prepared caster at the beginning of the day, though a prepared caster can end up priced into ignoring a save or two in their top rank slots to take powerful buff or utility spells. The bigger issue is that it gets progressively more difficult to target defenses as the amount of encounters you've had increases, since you've expended more slots. DBI is only a minor salve on that issue, and the limited nature of your fourth slot doesn't help a lot either.
Spontaneous casters don't lose the ability to target a save at a certain rank as they use their spells, and also have every signature spell and relevant repertoire spell available at that rank until they expend their last slot of that rank. It's a fundamentally frustrating difference, particularly on longer adventuring days or on days that ask you to fight many enemies with similar defenses.
Prepared casting is also quite frustrating given how powerful some evergreen spells are, such as slow. I do not want to have to fill a ton of slots with slow, for example, to have access to multiple casts of slow over the course of an adventuring day.
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The "covering bases" element is also a relatively small requirement.
The game has 4 saves and around 23 unique damage types, but it's not the case that you need an option to cover all 23 of them types with a spell per save.
You need a few solid ever-green options, a spread of cantrips, and the ability to access more niche options in some reasonable way.
Every full caster meets these needs in one way or another.
Covering defenses is not difficult for a prepared caster at the beginning of the day, though a prepared caster can end up priced into ignoring a save or two in their top rank slots to take powerful buff or utility spells. The bigger issue is that it gets progressively more difficult to target defenses as the amount of encounters you've had increases, since you've expended more slots. DBI is only a minor salve on that issue, and the limited nature of your fourth slot doesn't help a lot either.
Spontaneous casters don't lose the ability to target a save at a certain rank as they use their spells, and also have every signature spell and relevant repertoire spell available at that rank until they expend their last slot of that rank. It's a fundamentally frustrating difference, particularly on longer adventuring days or on days that ask you to fight many enemies with similar defenses.
Prepared casting is also quite frustrating given how powerful some evergreen spells are, such as slow. I do not want to have to fill a ton of slots with slow, for example, to have access to multiple casts of slow over the course of an adventuring day.
I agree on all points.
It's why Spontaneous casting feels better. It has a lower theoretical ceiling and - if you chose spells poorly - will have a lower actual ceiling. Chosen wisely and it's much more powerful than prepared.
Or you play Arcane Sorcerer and have the best of both worlds for the cost of a single feat!
Spontaneous spellcasting definitely has a lower skill floor, which I think is the important bit here -- it's very difficult to completely bungle a repertoire, because spontaneous casters tend to get some reliable spells added automatically. So long as you have at least one useful spell per rank, you can fall back to that at any given moment, so you can always expect to do decently. By contrast, if you prepared badly for the day, you don't really have the flexibility to swap out of your own mistakes.
The Wizard's by no means the only Vancian spellcaster in the game, but they're specifically designed to be the Vancian spellcaster -- they use the most complex spell list in the game, most of their class features and feats double down on their spell preparation and output, and even the backups casters get as a general rule (i.e. focus spells) are intentionally weak. That the class is so mechanically tied to their spell list not only makes it difficult to flesh out their identity, it also gives them little to fall back on when a player is still unfamiliar with the basics of spellcasting -- not even optimal play, just the importance of varying damage types and targeted saves. By contrast, at least the Cleric gets their divine font, the Druid gets strong base stats and focus spells, and the Witch gets their familiar and a hex cantrip (which aren't always amazing as far as fallback options go, but it's something). The Wizard could stand to have that skill floor lowered a little, so that if a new player wants to play the class, they don't find themselves struggling as badly. They might still struggle, but if it's at least a little less of a struggle than before, that could be an improvement.
Beyond making Spell Substitution a core class feature, which I think would make the Wizard's spell preparation a lot more forgiving, I think there are other ways to do this too: in the brew I linked before, one of the arcane theses mentioned there makes the Wizard a flexible spellcaster, and that I think is the kind of subclass choice that could be easily recommended to newer players. I don't think the Wizard is ever going to stop being a prepared spellcaster in 2e, but letting the class opt into the benefits of spontaneous spellcasting, much like the Arcanist that got cited above, could certainly allow players to go for a simpler, yet strong playstyle.
I also do think that more broadly, the Wizard's arcane thesis could be the solution to different players wanting different things out of the class: it's been mentioned that it's difficult to push the Wizard in any one direction given how there are so many different expectations for the theme of a wizard, but I also don't think that's an impossible problem to solve. The Wizard is structured in such a way that they have some of the worst base stats in the game and exceptionally restricted spellcasting, which in my opinion leaves a ton of power budget for their class features. Right now, I think their budget's being somewhat misallocated into their curriculum and fourth spell slot, and with a bit of shifting around, most of their power could be put into their thesis instead, as a way of completely defining their playstyle according to the player's choice. Whether a player wants the Wizard to be an ultra-versatile generalist, a hyper-specialized blaster, or anything in-between and more, that's something that can be achieved via a powerful enough thesis, I think.
The idea that arcane evolution solves the wizards versatility for the sorcerer is just not there.
It is one spell added to rep you can change out each preparation,
Its more like solving the need for a specific scroll.
Its better used to have 1 additional sig for the day.
It cannot completely change the kind of caster build your sorcerer is day to day like a wizard can. A wizard can literally have all different spells prepped from one day to the next. Its just not the same.
It is that the arcane spell list has a number of favorites in it that everyone wants and that no one wants to actually have a very different list that plays very differently day to day. Its the idea that deviation from evergreen spells as they've been called makes the character worse in general and not really situationally better.
If a sorcerer can know every spell they need to know then they were designed with too many spells known to them for there to be space for a class like the wizard.
Really if the sorcerer never finds a situation where they are out of their depth with the spells they selected then there is no reason for a wizard over them.
And if a sorcerer can be out of their depth there is space for the wizard to matter, how often this happens determines how good a wizard can be.
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I don't understand how some of you can't see the problem with PF2 magic of spontaneous versus prepared. You can see the problem by looking at the structure of PF2.
Let's look at the dispel magic example. In PF1 dispel magic didn't require a counteract level. It had different levels of effectiveness with a third level capping at +10 and greater at +20. These spells remained a level 3 and a level 6 slot which the wizard had plenty of. So the wizard could prep dispels in level 3 and level 6 slots that stayed effective.
That's changed in PF2. This reality has also greatly hammered the wizard's spell power and versatility from Vancian magic.
In PF2 a wizard who wants to dispel level 8 spells must prepare at a least a level 7 dispel. This means at level 13 to 15, if they want to have a decent chance of dispelling level+1 effects they must use top level spell slots for dispel magic as lower level spells have a near zero chance of working.
So that means a level 13 wizard as an example must use their top level slots. They will have 2 level 7 slots and one school slot and a use of arcane bond. So if they slot the level 7 dispel into their slots for two tries and maybe an arcane bond they are locked into those spells using their top level slots.
Where as a spontaneous caster can put dispel magic in a level 2 or 3 spell known, make it a signature spell, and keep his spells known for rank 7 spells. Then he can use all three of his slots to cast it if needed. He can even use 5th level slots if he's desperate to use all 4 of his slots to try for a crit success dispel.
He has a total of 7 slots to try for a dispel.
This is all without having to use their top level slots known to learn dispel magic. Whereas the wizard to counteract effects or gain equivalent damage has to slot a spell in its highest level slots because they don't have signature spells.
This actually makes it so they have fewer options for use in their higher level slots because they are locked in to them once prepared whereas a sorcerer with signature spells can cast many different spells with their top level slots on demand.
This change with the way magic works further emphasizes how the changes to magic from PF1 to PF2 further made prepared casting vastly inferior to spontaneous.
It's really not even close any more.
PF1. Level 3 fireball in a level 3 slot stayed evergreen for a wizard.
PF2 a level 3 fireball in a level 3 slot is trash damage against equivalent level enemies at even around level 9 or so.
Sure, the wizard can blend or gets one or two more high level slots. But they need them because they have to lock those spells in and they better be useful or they are wasted slots. Sorcerer never feels this way.
It's all due to the many ways they changed the magic system from PF1 to PF2 which makes prepared casting burdensome and limited.
They could have just made all spellcasters look like wavecasters and given them more class chassis benefits.
Then you dont have to worry about those lower level spellslots counting against your power budget
Just wanted to add here I am being a little cheek and tongue.
So many other people have said how important even those lower level slots are and how wave casters are not real casters because they don't have them. Those lower level slots matter and there are many spells that make great use of them.
They could have just made all spellcasters look like wavecasters and given them more class chassis benefits.
Then you dont have to worry about those lower level spellslots counting against your power budgetJust wanted to add here I am being a little cheek and tongue.
So many other people have said how important even those lower level slots are and how wave casters are not real casters because they don't have them. Those lower level slots matter and there are many spells that make great use of them.
I use lower level slots all the time.
See the Unseen
Sure Strike
Fly
Slow
Haste
Revealing Light
Passwall
Fleet Step
Tons. And with the new ruling as a spontaneous caster you can up cast them with higher slots without losing them. They are not locked in like they are for a prepared caster, so once used you can't use them again.
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I agree with this. I would also add (in support of your points) that making all of your spells have the same DC (instead of having all your spells scale with CL to a cap dependent on slot level) drastically increases the power of unscaling debuff spells like slow, laughing fit, or roaring applause, since they bypass the issues scaling spells like Dispel Magic have and can be cast out of lower slots. (The same also goes for unscaling or only mildly scaling buffs, like see the unseen, sure strike, fly, and so on, but that's not really a change from before.)