That doesn't rebuttal what I said in the slightest...
In fact this thread is from August of this year...
I am not jumping in a necroing an old thread. This is a modern problem. the discussion isn't tired, its 399 posts.
Take a stroll through the forum archives. Threads complaining about how trash the 2e wizard is go back to launch. This is just another iteration of it.
I disagree. This is a long thread and it isn't filled with wizard defenders. Everyone has one reason or another to explain why the wizard is only playable compared to where other classes are excelling.Yeah because these arguments have been going on for years now and most people are exhausted. You're late to the party
That doesn't rebuttal what I said in the slightest...
In fact this thread is from August of this year...
I am not jumping in a necroing an old thread. This is a modern problem. the discussion isn't tired, its 399 posts.
I didn't say or imply you necro'd anything whatsoever. I said that you are talking as if it's only criticism of the wizard that exists and nothing else. That it is unanimous, or near unanimous that people think the wizard is in a bad spot. If you had been here, as in on the forums not this specific thread, paying attention for the past few years you would know that this topic has been pretty divisive with people on all sides of the issue. Many people strong defenders of the current design as it exists, and even the post-remaster version. There is no shortage of individuals who like the wizard as it is and find it powerful. Talking about it as obviously very bad and that everyone agrees it is bad is unobservant and myopic. I would like changes to the class, but I think it's still around A tier overall. It's a solid chassis, it would be nice if it was S tier, but I don't ever want to argue about the wizard ever again. Everything that could be said has been said. Let's move the hell on
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This would mean that Paizo quickly became aware of the error after/during publishing, but has chosen to not admit to the error, and has made no public effort to correct it.
This is unacceptable, telling us that Paizo is not willing to spend the effort/capital to fix an error that is harming their own product.
Or, just maybe, Paizo is aware of the error, and some developers would like to fix this error in errata, but that errata hasn't released yet, as the G&G remaster released only shortly before the release of this year's spring errata. I don't think this is really "unacceptable"; the sky isn't falling and the whole game isn't on fire from this one otherwise obvious oversight. It is a mistake that ought to be corrected, for sure, but the fact that it hasn't been fixed on the spot yet isn't some damning indictment of Paizo's competence as an entire company or its developers' willingness to design good game content.
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I said this in other threads before but I feel it's appropiate to repeat it here; the feedback from people that engage in more in-depth discussions about a game are much more likely to give more meaningful feedback than the casual player of said game. This doesn't mean their opinions aren't valid or that those shouldn't be taken into account (they are the majority after all), but when the discussions revolve around balance I don't feel those that say "I think the wizard is actually fine and its a fun class" would become angry if the class ended up buffed in an errata because it was indeed underperforming, which I think its very much the case for the wizard which gets 400+ comment thread every other week since the release of the edition pretty much.
If anything, if there was someone that already thought the class was fun before it would find the buffed version of said class to be funnier.
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I think it's also worth breaking down different arcane classes here to get a feel of what's class-specific and what's more specific to the arcane tradition:
So overall, although the arcane tradition certainly could use some improvement in the form of more bespoke spells and perhaps a bit of pruning, it seems its spell list is at the very least solid enough that it's not necessarily responsible for severe deficiencies in classes that draw on them. Rather, it seems like the issue is more that the power of prepared arcane spellcasting appears to be grossly overvalued, such that prepared arcane casters are saddled with greater restrictions or lesser powers compared to alternatives. Thus, even if we were to improve the arcane list, that would not necessarily make those classes or subclasses feel better to play. Rather, the solution would likely be to apply targeted improvements to each class and subclass, such as to the Wizard as mentioned above but also to the Inscribed One Witch and the Magus, in order to directly address concerns there.
I've been away from this a while. Has this thread come to a consensus on the arcane list?
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I've been away from this a while. Has this thread come to a consensus on the arcane list?
Depends on how you define consensus.
I think a lot of people agree that the arcane list is fine, and its simply the wizard that is a problem. And there is unfortunately an association between the arcane list and Wizard as though the Wizard were the poster boy.
I don't think there is a major problem with the arcane list.
To me the Wizard lacks flavour as it is currently implemented. It doesn't really stand out from other casters.
I dislike that meta magic is rarely used. I dislike that recall knowledge (which is a good concept) doen't really work well for a wizard - at least compared to other classes which have it handed to them on a plate.
I don't see that it is going to change in this edition.
I think all of us from PF1 compare the arcane list to the old wizard/sorcerer spell list since it is the only list the wizard has access to. The arcane list is trash compared to the old wizard/sorcerer list.
In PF2 the arcane list is fine. It's balanced with a strong focus on blasting and magical utility compared to the other lists.
When you go from wizard/sorcerer spell list with nearly everything to the arcane list lacking the best buff, the best debuff, no healing, and shares almost every spell but a handful of ok spells with other lists, it feels like a huge drop off.
I don't think it is myopic in the slightest to see the energy this and past threads get and see that the community at large does not think this class is A tier.
Reverse even, to tell someone to just move on when this is clearly a problem and say "its A tier to me so whatever" (paraphrasing of course) is just covering your ears to problems. We have legit criticism and even better ideas just here. Though they haven't so far "the squeaky wheel gets the grease". As long as we are vocal, insistent, and polite there is a non-zero chance someone will take this into consideration. Maybe it just keeps the ideas alive for new people to find and make into homebrew. I vehemently disagree with moving on. There is nothing wrong with talking.
I tried to be insistent but my idea seems not to have impressed anyone so I'll certainly move on from that, but not from my stance that Wizard isn't appealing to play. As anecdotal as it might be I insist that I hardly see wizards played in more than 300 online games through Warhorn. Its not a popular class. Other classes are more engaging to play, are more enjoyable to play, and live their specific fantasy better. That might be anecdotal, but its backed up with what is said here.
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Paizo insists the wizard is in a fine place and is a popular class. I also don't see wizards played very often, but in PF1 I saw wizards nearly every campaign due to being the most powerful class in the game.
Now wizard's are one of the least played classes. Maybe that is where Paizo wants them this time around as they went from too powerful to a niche class to played by those that like that class fantasy.
Now rogues, fighters, sorcs and clerics are the most played classes. Sorc seems to have replaced the wizard as the go to low hit point caster class in the core 4. No one wants the headache of managing spell lists any longer with it no longer being a worthwhile endeavor since every caster i the same and the spells are shared on multiple lists.
In PF1 having a wizard/sorc spell list with new books bolstering power, managing a spell list was THE reason wizard's were powerful. Now all spells are sort of equally powerful. So just take the same spell and use it over and over again. The sorc is better at doing that, so they seem to have replaced the wizard in PF2. Not to mention charisma is a better stat than intel when it comes to impactful skills and skill feats.
It would be interesting to ask the Pathbuilder dev which are the most played classes in their app. I used to be in a group which was attempting to re-unchain PF1e a few years ago before I switched to PF2e and I remember we once asked him if he had data on which were the most picked skills on the app (we were working on consolidated skill list at the moment), but I feel Deriven's take on the rogue, fighter, sorcerer, and cleric being the most played is likely correct. I can see magus and swashbuckler high up there too, bard probably as well.
I want to say this in the most respectful way I can, but its not the first time I notice Paizo having a weird perception of which things are popular and which aren't. I don't know how exactly they measure what's popular or not, I assume its the numbers from Pathfinder Nexus and Pathfinder Society, but how do the number of people that play either on Pathfinder Nexus or in Pathfinder Society compare to the people that use Pathbuilder? I'm probably talking out of my a$$ here but I feel Pathbuilder users are way more numerous than the people that use Pathfinder Nexus and play Pathfinder Society together.
Even if that isn't the case and I'm totally off with my numbers, I would like for Paizo to have access to all the numbers when making decisions because it can't be a coincidence that a ton of people online seem to have a few points which are widely agreed upon like the one discussed in this thread.
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Or, just maybe, Paizo is aware of the error, and some developers would like to fix this error in errata, but that errata hasn't released yet, as the G&G remaster released only shortly before the release of this year's spring errata. I don't think this is really "unacceptable"; the sky isn't falling and the whole game isn't on fire from this one otherwise obvious oversight. It is a mistake that ought to be corrected, for sure, but the fact that it hasn't been fixed on the spot yet isn't some damning indictment of Paizo's competence as an entire company or its developers' willingness to design good game content.This would mean that Paizo quickly became aware of the error after/during publishing, but has chosen to not admit to the error, and has made no public effort to correct it.
This is unacceptable, telling us that Paizo is not willing to spend the effort/capital to fix an error that is harming their own product.
Sure, maybe. But Paizo's error correction in PF2 has been so bad for a while that they completely lost the benefit of the doubt.
- It took literally years to fix Arcane Cascade. It was fortunate that it was just so flagrantly, obviously wrong that everyone collectively house ruled it and moved on.
- It took 5 months to fix Remaster Oracle's spell slots, where the class details directly contradicted themselves on what is the most basic function of a spellcaster. We're at 14 months and counting to get the same fix for repertoire size. (And in this case we have folks like the Pathbuilder dev flat out going "we don't know what's correct here so we're picking one and here's how you can do the other in the app".)
- We're going on a year for some of the more glaring issues and points of confusion in Mythic, though I'm not sure they're ever going to actually fix that stuff given how mythic was received.
- There's a long list of outstanding points of confusion where people just don't understand how something is supposed to work, and how the way most folks are doing it is different than what the book seems to say. IWR and instances of damage is a glaring example where it's never been clear. This is something Paizo did better in PF1 with the FAQ. (In PF2, we've kind of got "do what Foundry does" instead.)
There's tons of examples of this going all the way back to the release of the game, but I really feel it got a lot worse with the remaster's compressed schedule. PC2 had a lot of really glaring errors for a core book, and we can at least assume stuff in a core book might get fixed. When this happens in an AP or a Lost Omens Book? Good luck.
So yeah, they might fix Firework Technician at some point. But if people don't give them the benefit of the doubt at this point, I totally understand that. They haven't exactly been doing anything to demonstrate why they should have it when it comes to post-release support for their products, as that has been awful for quite a while.
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Yup, we now live in a world where 3 or fewer team indie devs can and do push patches to Steam games with great speed. Fixing the game for their entire audience as they become aware of issues negatively impact the player experience.
When these issues & errors in pf2 could be greatly ameliorated by an online FAQ or "pending errata" webpage, there is just no flipping excuse anymore.
Some high ranking dev (or IP owner) is log-jamming the blatantly obvious course of action, and pf2's fun factor really does suffer greatly from this absurdity.
It's up to the rest of Paizo to verbally joust the guy around until he comes to his senses, but I'd never blame a single person who wishes to avoid putting even a little risk to their job.
I've been in the newbie position on the bugs team at a company where my early "hold up, that sounds kinda dumb sub optimal, why don't we---" and then got essentially trauma dumped on by my peers who each had previously made their own desperate appeal to the higher ups. The engineering department even had polished & presented a 20+ page document desperately seeking such updates to the company's methodology.
Most bright-eyed hires will have the fire to make one plea / pitch, and if(when) they get quashed, that's it.
After that experience, they will be hesitant to even draw attention to themselves, let alone risk the social capital to advocate for a change.
Pf2 is a system where a monster with +10 to its rock throw attack entry gets published, but never gets any form of official correction. Not even an acknowledgment of error. That is not a "red flag," that is simply proof positive that Paizo sell an incomplete and erroneous product.I am not seeing why "a monster with +10 to its rock throw attack entry" is a problem on its face. It could be a problem if the bonus should be more like +2 or +20, based on Level, but it is far from self-evident. What monster, and what should the bonus be?
More generally, I think you are severely underestimating how difficult quality assurance is. The presence of mistakes does not indicate that they do not have people and systems trying to avoid them - such people and systems will never be perfect.
That said, they really should publish errata in a more timely manner. I agree with you on that.
The storm giant. It should be +27 on rock throwing. Someone put a 3 instead of a 2, so it now has a rock throwing hit roll of a monster 6 or more CR higher than the creature.
The existence of an error doesn't alone signal the lack of QA. It's how "obviously" the error can be understood to be an error by ~layman players that reveals the lack of meaningful QA.
There is just no way a human read the dev's final submission with the PoV of error-checking. That "one attack is 37 instead of 27" error would have "with high certainty" been caught and fixed before publishing.
(it's also the kind of error the dev themself should have caught, but that's a different issue...)
+37 to rock throw is just an easy example to point to.
Others, like Firework Tech breaking that balance of alchemy as a subsystem, take more time to explain how blatantly they reveal an "effectively 0" QA norm going on behind the scenes at Paizo.
QA is not expected to catch everything, which is why it's normal and fine to have errata / patches. But it really still needs to happen for complex systems like this. Video games get harsh criticism for pushing bugged patches for the same reason. Releasing a new content book, to then hurt your existing system as badly as Firework Tech does, is simply an indicator of great incompetence. That's genuinely hard to do for a ttrpg.
I'm honestly worried that the "name brand" 3rd party content like Team Plus has more QA than Paizo does at this point. Ugh. That really sucks if true.
I've been in the newbie position on the bugs team at a company where my early "hold up, that sounds kindadumbsub optimal, why don't we---" and then got essentially trauma dumped on by my peers who each had previously made their own desperate appeal to the higher ups. The engineering department even had polished & presented a 20+ page document desperately seeking such updates to the company's methodology.Most bright-eyed hires will have the fire to make one plea / pitch, and if(when) they get quashed, that's it.
After that experience, they will be hesitant to even draw attention to themselves, let alone risk the social capital to advocate for a change.
That's rough. :(
Remember when Maya was new here, saw some of these questions, and said xe would try to get an answer? Notice how there was no answer and that stopped happening?
I felt really bad for Maya in that situation, who was trying to help us out but pretty clearly got told from elsewhere in the company that answering rules questions is not done for some reason.
There's tons of examples of this going all the way back to the release of the game, but I really feel it got a lot worse with the remaster's compressed schedule. PC2 had a lot of really glaring errors for a core book, and we can at least assume stuff in a core book might get fixed. When this happens in an AP or a Lost Omens Book? Good luck.
I think that's the point though: it's not that Paizo's not necessarily aware of this, it's that the company has been putting all hands on deck towards publishing new content for years now, doubled down on this with the remasters, and devoted comparatively limited time towards fixing or rebalancing content via errata. From the looks of it, at least one staff member had to fight for more regular errata waves, and even then those took a little while to get back on-schedule.
This isn't to say that we can't criticize Paizo for doing this -- I think it's a classic mistake to focus only on the stuff that makes money directly without addressing instances of poor quality in existing content, especially for a product that predicates itself on high quality -- but there is also ultimately only so much that we can do. What we can do besides give criticism is put forth suggestions for errata, which has been done in a thread that several people have nonetheless attempted to derail with arguments and homebrew. If we're not participating in these forums with any hope of achieving something constructive, whether it's giving useful feedback or generating worthwhile discussion, why are we even here?
So the release of the newer wizard subclass and schools isn't addressing what people feel the class was lacking?
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I've been in the newbie position on the bugs team at a company where my early "hold up, that sounds kindadumbsub optimal, why don't we---" and then got essentially trauma dumped on by my peers who each had previously made their own desperate appeal to the higher ups. The engineering department even had polished & presented a 20+ page document desperately seeking such updates to the company's methodology.Most bright-eyed hires will have the fire to make one plea / pitch, and if(when) they get quashed, that's it.
After that experience, they will be hesitant to even draw attention to themselves, let alone risk the social capital to advocate for a change.That's rough. :(
Remember when Maya was new here, saw some of these questions, and said xe would try to get an answer? Notice how there was no answer and that stopped happening?
I felt really bad for Maya in that situation, who was trying to help us out but pretty clearly got told from elsewhere in the company that answering rules questions is not done for some reason.
I would be extremely careful as a company too if my player base would read something posted on discord by a single designer and suddenly that becomes canon for the entire game.
All Maya would have to do to have the player base suddenly posting something as canon is talk to one designer, get some casual answer to a question, post it, and that would suddenly become canon even if it wasn't an official ruling.
I would be very careful about making things canon after what happened in PF1/3E where rules lawyering became a thing that appears to be gone in PF2. I'm happy for it. I want my game to be my game. I don't care what someone else does in their game.
DMs should have the power, not some perfect or official interpretation of the rules.
So the release of the newer wizard subclass and schools isn't addressing what people feel the class was lacking?
They're all kinda s~%&, so no. And war mage killing thesis, forcing battle magic, and forcing you to buy back arcane bond at 8th level is just plain insulting.
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The problems people have with the wizard are fundamentally part of the class. An arcane school can't fix that.
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I would be extremely careful as a company too if my player base would read something posted on discord by a single designer and suddenly that becomes canon for the entire game.
There's a big gap between "giving a casual answer and having that treated as final" and "it's been over a year and we still don't have consensus on the number of spells in Oracle's repertoire because the book contradicts itself."
It seems like it should be pretty straightforward for the designers to figure out what the intention is there and provide an answer. Just like it should have been for spells per day, which took 5 months. (PFS had a ruling out pretty quickly and why the rules folks at Paizo can't do the same is the big question.)
This isn't some edge case interaction between obscure AP backmatter entries that are both rare and were never intended to appear in the same campaign. It's the most basic part of how a core spellcasting class works. If expecting a straight answer on something that basic is asking too much, then something is horribly wrong in Paizo land.
All Maya would have to do to have the player base suddenly posting something as canon is talk to one designer, get some casual answer to a question, post it, and that would suddenly become canon even if it wasn't an official ruling.
And if it turned out to be wrong, the designers could issue an errata later that says "no, this is the real answer."
And there's still a lot of daylight between not giving casual answers and not giving answers at all. Some of these things have been confusing people for multiple years. That's how we ended up with Foundry as a defacto source of truth for some of this stuff like instances of damage and IWR.
I would be very careful about making things canon after what happened in PF1/3E where rules lawyering became a thing that appears to be gone in PF2. I'm happy for it. I want my game to be my game. I don't care what someone else does in their game.
DMs should have the power, not some perfect or official interpretation of the rules.
Counterpoint: PFS exists and needs the rules to be clear because the whole point is consistent enforcement. Two DMs can read Oracle right now and reasonably give different answers to the repertoire size, leaving a player having to deal with a character being ruled illegal at one table and legal at another.
Hell, even Korakai (the iconic Oracle) doesn't clear this up because he's got multiple errors on his sheet and has different repertoire sizes at different spell ranks (or is using a third interpretation that isn't in the text). This is not something that should take a year to fix and the idea that Paizo can't get an answer for it because players might get the wrong idea if someone actually answers it is a really poor excuse now that we're going on 14 months.
Also, DMs of home games should be able to know what the rules are. What good is buying a rulebook that gives you unclear rules and says "I dunno, figure it out for yourself?"
That's not a quality product. It also does nothing to end rules lawyering, because now we have rules lawyers trying to parse out and argue their case for what the rules actually are. That's not at all better than "the rule is clear but I don't like it so I'm going to house rule it".
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So the release of the newer wizard subclass and schools isn't addressing what people feel the class was lacking?
Weak schools is one thing people complained about, so better schools do help that... but Wizard's issues are pretty systemic so that alone won't do it.
I would be extremely careful as a company too if my player base would read something posted on discord by a single designer and suddenly that becomes canon for the entire game.There's a big gap between "giving a casual answer and having that treated as final" and "it's been over a year and we still don't have consensus on the number of spells in Oracle's repertoire because the book contradicts itself."
It seems like it should be pretty straightforward for the designers to figure out what the intention is there and provide an answer. Just like it should have been for spells per day, which took 5 months. (PFS had a ruling out pretty quickly and why the rules folks at Paizo can't do the same is the big question.)
This isn't some edge case interaction between obscure AP backmatter entries that are both rare and were never intended to appear in the same campaign. It's the most basic part of how a core spellcasting class works. If expecting a straight answer on something that basic is asking too much, then something is horribly wrong in Paizo land.
All Maya would have to do to have the player base suddenly posting something as canon is talk to one designer, get some casual answer to a question, post it, and that would suddenly become canon even if it wasn't an official ruling.And if it turned out to be wrong, the designers could issue an errata later that says "no, this is the real answer."
And there's still a lot of daylight between not giving casual answers and not giving answers at all. Some of these things have been confusing people for multiple years. That's how we ended up with Foundry as a defacto source of truth for some of this stuff like instances of damage and IWR.
...I would be very careful about making things canon after what happened in PF1/3E where rules lawyering became a thing that appears to be gone in PF2. I'm happy for it. I want my game to be my game. I don't care what someone else does in their game.
DMs
I would rather have unclear rules that I can make make sense than cleared up rules that break the game or create annoying and strange interactions that look stupid in my mind's eye.
What do I pay for? When the game started, the rules were very light and open-ended. I liked that. I also enjoy more advanced rules that add interesting options like combat maneuvers.
I think I'm mostly paying for a skeleton of rules that I can easily modify and aren't holding me hostage as a DM. I mostly want a combat system with maybe some guidelines for how to handle other things. I do not want hard-coded rules for things like exploration or downtime. I want guidelines that give me a framework for storytelling. I mainly want combat rules as that creates the illusion of threat with rules that give a modicum of balance, verisimilitude, and transparency that makes the player feel that building a character allows them to have the feeling their decisions matter in combat with a reasonable chance of success rolling the dice.
I want well-designed adventures that reduce my workload for adventure creation.
I want some creative world work so I can reduce my workload in world design.
I'm not paying for hard rules where everything is spelled out and players can try to force me to follow the rules as written or even rules as intended, but are there playing with a DM because they want a fun experience playing a character in a fantasy world that feels real and exciting with consequences and rewards. RPGs are cooperative storytelling and I think people are looking for a less rigid game with rules and more of an open-ended game that's a bit of a game and a bit of a book or movie/TV show that they are a part of as a character.
It seems how RPGs have been for most of their years of existence. They tend to attract people who like the creativity in the game with the common ground being the rules they all agree to follow mostly provided by designers looking to design a combat system that gives that illusion of threat that makes winning and losing a combination of a well built character and random dice rolls that give a feeling that neither winning nor losing is predetermined.
At least that's how I see it.
As far as PFS goes, they should have a group that makes the final rule decisions for the entire society if they feel it is necessary. That doesn't necessarily have to be Paizo designers.
I would rather have unclear rules that I can make make sense than cleared up rules that break the game or create annoying and strange interactions that look stupid in my mind's eye.
What do I pay for? When the game started, the rules were very light and open-ended. I liked that. I also enjoy more advanced rules that add interesting options like combat maneuvers.
I think I'm mostly paying for a skeleton of rules that I can easily modify and aren't holding me hostage as a DM. I mostly want a combat system with maybe some guidelines for how to handle other things. I do not want hard-coded rules for things like exploration or downtime. I want guidelines that give me a framework for storytelling. I mainly want combat rules as that creates the illusion of threat with rules that give a modicum of balance, verisimilitude, and transparency that makes the player feel that building a character allows them to have the feeling their decisions matter in combat with a reasonable chance of success rolling the dice.
I want well-designed adventures that reduce my workload for adventure creation.
I want some creative world work so I can reduce my workload in world design.
I'm not paying for hard rules where everything is spelled out and players can try to force me to follow the rules as written or even rules as intended, but are there playing with a DM because they want a fun experience playing a character in a fantasy world that feels real and exciting with consequences and rewards. RPGs are cooperative storytelling and I think people are looking for a less rigid game with rules and more of an open-ended game that's a bit of a game and a bit of a book or movie/TV show that they are a part of as a character.
It seems how RPGs have been for most of their years of existence. They tend to attract people who like the creativity in the game with the common ground being the rules they all agree to follow mostly provided by designers looking to design a combat system that gives that illusion of threat that makes winning and losing a combination of a well built character and random dice rolls that give a feeling that neither winning nor losing is predetermined.
At least that's how I see it.
As far as PFS goes, they should have a group that makes the final rule decisions for the entire society if they feel it is necessary. That doesn't necessarily have to be Paizo designers.
Rules that don't contradict themselves in the same block of text would be included, surely? Because that's what I'm asking for, here. I don't think its a high bar.
There's also a big difference between rules that are meant to be broad and open ended, and rules that are meant to be specific but aren't clear in how the specifics work.
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I don't think there is a major problem with the arcane list.
To me the Wizard lacks flavour as it is currently implemented. It doesn't really stand out from other casters.
I dislike that meta magic is rarely used. I dislike that recall knowledge (which is a good concept) doen't really work well for a wizard - at least compared to other classes which have it handed to them on a plate.
I don't see that it is going to change in this edition.
Wizard actually does pretty decent with RK because it can pick up untrained improv and use untrained lore to RK with a DC reduction. Admittedly more of an Int class thing than a wizard thing though, and nowhere near as good as a fully invested RK character with a scaling Omni-lore bestiary scholar, or the like. It is lot cheaper though.
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So the release of the newer wizard subclass and schools isn't addressing what people feel the class was lacking?They're all kinda s#%!, so no. And war mage killing thesis, forcing battle magic, and forcing you to buy back arcane bond at 8th level is just plain insulting.
Hey gates wizard is cool as f$#@. Actually good wizard subclass with good extra spells and baller focus spells. Friendly push is great (especially with walls of water and the like) and rapid retreat is amazing, besides teleporting out of reach of melee enemies it completely negates swallow whole.
...I would rather have unclear rules that I can make make sense than cleared up rules that break the game or create annoying and strange interactions that look stupid in my mind's eye.
What do I pay for? When the game started, the rules were very light and open-ended. I liked that. I also enjoy more advanced rules that add interesting options like combat maneuvers.
I think I'm mostly paying for a skeleton of rules that I can easily modify and aren't holding me hostage as a DM. I mostly want a combat system with maybe some guidelines for how to handle other things. I do not want hard-coded rules for things like exploration or downtime. I want guidelines that give me a framework for storytelling. I mainly want combat rules as that creates the illusion of threat with rules that give a modicum of balance, verisimilitude, and transparency that makes the player feel that building a character allows them to have the feeling their decisions matter in combat with a reasonable chance of success rolling the dice.
I want well-designed adventures that reduce my workload for adventure creation.
I want some creative world work so I can reduce my workload in world design.
I'm not paying for hard rules where everything is spelled out and players can try to force me to follow the rules as written or even rules as intended, but are there playing with a DM because they want a fun experience playing a character in a fantasy world that feels real and exciting with consequences and rewards. RPGs are cooperative storytelling and I think people are looking for a less rigid game with rules and more of an open-ended game that's a bit of a game and a bit of a book or movie/TV show that they are a part of as a character.
It seems how RPGs have been for most of their years of existence. They tend to attract people who like the creativity in the game with the common ground being the rules they all agree to follow mostly provided by designers looking to design a combat system that gives that
I look at each thing on a case by case basis.
Clearing up whether the oracle has 3 or 4 spells is great.
A random quote from a designer turning Tumble Through into a stride replacement that doesn't require you Tumble Through and having a certain segment of the player base lock onto it as canon to make a single class work is not great.
And some of the monster abilities could use some editing clean up.
Ones that have kind of reached a point where I think it's pretty clear but even greater clarity would be nice but not necessary is instance of damage and hardness. I'm pretty sure I understand how it runs and am not having problems running it, but it could be written clearer maybe in the next edition.
It just depends. I mostly clean the stuff up myself after discussing it with the other players if unclear rules start causing problems. I encourage others to do the same.
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Also, DMs of home games should be able to know what the rules are. What good is buying a rulebook that gives you unclear rules and says "I dunno, figure it out for yourself?"
Which is not an insignificant reason some players swapped to PF2e from dnd5e. That game is so full of holes and minimal options my swap to PF2e is pretty which and complete. Haven't played a game of 5e in 3 years and don't miss it.
So it sucks we are getting WOTC level mistakes here.So the release of the newer wizard subclass and schools isn't addressing what people feel the class was lacking?
I also consider this to be a Paizo level mistake. Instead of fixing the core problem they try to "patch" the problem with a fix only in subclass. We saw this with Sorcerer options in the dnd5e book Tasha's Cauldron. The new options are objectively better mechanically than the older options. Its a great fix to what Sorcerer was missing, but it wasn't retroactive and thus is just power creep.
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So the release of the newer wizard subclass and schools isn't addressing what people feel the class was lacking?
We haven't got a new Wizard subclass since Secrets of Magic.
As for Schools, if more schools used School of Gates as their model, then they would be in a much better shape. Unofortunately, School of Gates is the standout rather than the rule and part of me is half expecting the sustain portion to get errata'ed out.
Same with Wizard feats really. We got some new Wizard feats in Player Core 1, but nothing since then and before that it was once again Secrets of Magic.
What the Wizard is getting is class archetypes.
Class archetypes are great, I love twists on existing classes, espically ones that allow you dial into speifiic niches of the class or on lore-elements which would otherwise be too narrow for the class itself.
The problem with getting all your innovation and expansion through class archetypes is that they are mutually-excluding silos of content.
The two main archetypes, Runelord and Warmage, essentially have to re-do the class features of the Wizard each time, making zero use of the Wizards more modal design with its sub-class options.
In an ideal world the class would be expanding like all the other classes are, with archetypes doing interesting things on top of this organic growth.
Siloing the only new content Wizards ever get isn't actually helping the class.
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If it's of interest, I've floated an idea in a homebrew thread that could help the Wizard in particular at home games: specifically, if the Wizard could prepare from the arcane list, had an unrestricted fourth slot per rank, and could instead swap any prepared spell to a spell in their spellbook as a 10-minute activity, that could kill a few birds with one stone: the class would be a lot more flexible, they'd get a version of Spell Substitution by default, and they'd get to lean into their curriculum without being restricted by it. It would require some readjustments around spellbook mechanics and the School of Unified Magical Theory, but could also help the class shine better at what they're meant to do, while turning what is currently a significant limitation into a strength.
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A random quote from a designer turning Tumble Through into a stride replacement that doesn't require you Tumble Through and having a certain segment of the player base lock onto it as canon to make a single class work is not great.
The tumble through statement being gelled onto by the community isn’t just because a designer said so. It’s because it was seen as confirmation of what was already the simplest way of running tumble through consistent with the hiding rules, tumble through being a predeclared action (not a reaction to moving through an enemy’s space), and avoiding stuff like readied action stride blocking tumble through.
Tumble through working the way it does was already mainstream before litagurist was even released, that’s why quick spring had to be fixed. A designer quote is just a nail in the coffin of an already stacked deck.
So the release of the newer wizard subclass and schools isn't addressing what people feel the class was lacking?We haven't got a new Wizard subclass since Secrets of Magic.
As for Schools, if more schools used School of Gates as their model, then they would be in a much better shape. Unofortunately, School of Gates is the standout rather than the rule and part of me is half expecting the sustain portion to get errata'ed out.
Same with Wizard feats really. We got some new Wizard feats in Player Core 1, but nothing since then and before that it was once again Secrets of Magic.
What the Wizard is getting is class archetypes.
Class archetypes are great, I love twists on existing classes, espically ones that allow you dial into speifiic niches of the class or on lore-elements which would otherwise be too narrow for the class itself.
The problem with getting all your innovation and expansion through class archetypes is that they are mutually-excluding silos of content.
The two main archetypes, Runelord and Warmage, essentially have to re-do the class features of the Wizard each time, making zero use of the Wizards more modal design with its sub-class options.
In an ideal world the class would be expanding like all the other classes are, with archetypes doing interesting things on top of this organic growth.
Siloing the only new content Wizards ever get isn't actually helping the class.
That is a good point. It’s a silo of a fix, it only helps if you want those exact set of changes.
And even adding new feats risks adding things that are essentially the only real choice unless multiple competing feats are added at the same time.
New schools though? They seem very niche in concept. But do the spell lists make them more appealing than the original schools? The focus spells? These were two of the problems most had with the originals. That and a spoken for 4th slot.
Gates
Kalistrade
Magical tech
Rooted wisdom
Reclamation
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A random quote from a designer turning Tumble Through into a stride replacement that doesn't require you Tumble Through and having a certain segment of the player base lock onto it as canon to make a single class work is not great.The tumble through statement being gelled onto by the community isn’t just because a designer said so. It’s because it was seen as confirmation of what was already the simplest way of running tumble through consistent with the hiding rules, tumble through being a predeclared action (not a reaction to moving through an enemy’s space), and avoiding stuff like readied action stride blocking tumble through.
Tumble through working the way it does was already mainstream before litagurist was even released, that’s why quick spring had to be fixed. A designer quote is just a nail in the coffin of an already stacked deck.
I see it as a ridiculous rules interpretation that I want no part of. Tumble Through isn't and never should be a replacement for Stride. It is a specific action with a specific purpose. I and my group have never, ever played it as a replacement for Stride and knew nothing about Quick Spring rules ridiculousness. My group in general doesn't really like when the use of the rule leads to ridiculous outcomes like Tumble Through and Stride becoming essentially the same and one of them might as well not even exist or have words wasted on them. To me that is when rules writing is bad and I feel the need to fix it, which I have done with Tumble Through so that it is not the same thing as Stride.
That is why I view any attempt at rigid rules lawyering because Paizo has made a rule ridiculous is what I do not want in my game.
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Having an official place to put "pending errata" is exactly how unofficial dev posts no longer have such "rule weight" behind them.
Rephrased: It is *because* we so badly lack proper communication that the players latch on to casual word of dev so strongly. If Paizo were to add better communication channels around rule clarifications, uncertain solo devs making comments would not need to be held up as hard rule fact.
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Your concerns about Paizo's official ruling contradiction your own table rules is a completely separate and disconnected issue.
In my opinion, everyone should try to get more comfortable modifying the game's rules to their own fancy. No single person should justify the rules being incomplete and contradictory because of their own personal tastes.
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Having an official place to put "pending errata" is exactly how unofficial dev posts no longer have such "rule weight" behind them.
Rephrased: It is *because* we so badly lack proper communication that the players latch on to casual word of dev so strongly. If Paizo were to add better communication channels around rule clarifications, uncertain solo devs making comments would not need to be held up as hard rule fact.
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Your concerns about Paizo's official ruling contradiction your own table rules is a completely separate and disconnected issue.
In my opinion, everyone should try to get more comfortable modifying the game's rules to their own fancy. No single person should justify the rules being incomplete and contradictory because of their own personal tastes.
That's how we've done it since I started playing RPGs. I'm ok with it.
I was not a fan of 3E/PF1 rules lawyering with players seeking rulings from up on high to try to force DMs to let some insane, broken thing work because the Paizo/D&D devs said that's how it worked. If something is breaking the game or causing issues, then let DMs fix it by leaving it open-ended or fix it in a way that isn't broken.
One thing I will say about PF2 is there aren't many broken things. I think the worst thing most of us can find is Imaginary Weapon with Starlit Span magus. If that's the most broken combo in PF2, that's pretty amazing given how many broken combos, spells, abilities, and the like there were in PF1. PF2 plays pretty well from 1 to 20 and I don't see any class so powerful that it overshadows any other class. Even the boring classes do fine for those that like them.
Having an official place to put "pending errata" is exactly how unofficial dev posts no longer have such "rule weight" behind them.
Rephrased: It is *because* we so badly lack proper communication that the players latch on to casual word of dev so strongly. If Paizo were to add better communication channels around rule clarifications, uncertain solo devs making comments would not need to be held up as hard rule fact.
______
Your concerns about Paizo's official ruling contradiction your own table rules is a completely separate and disconnected issue.
In my opinion, everyone should try to get more comfortable modifying the game's rules to their own fancy. No single person should justify the rules being incomplete and contradictory because of their own personal tastes.
That's how we've done it since I started playing RPGs. I'm ok with it.
I was not a fan of 3E/PF1 rules lawyering with players seeking rulings from up on high to try to force DMs to let some insane, broken thing work because the Paizo/D&D devs said that's how it worked. If something is breaking the game or causing issues, then let DMs fix it by leaving it open-ended or fix it in a way that isn't broken.
One thing I will say about PF2 is there aren't many broken things. I think the worst thing most of us can find is Imaginary Weapon with Starlit Span magus. If that's the most broken combo in PF2, that's pretty amazing given how many broken combos, spells, abilities, and the like there were in PF1. PF2 plays pretty well from 1 to 20 and I don't see any class so powerful that it overshadows any other class. Even the boring classes do fine for those that like them.
Starlit with IW is downright tame compared to disruptive stance with reach and tactical reflexes (and later boundless reprisals), or resentment witch, let alone something outright gamebreaking like instant minefield or anything to do with the drowning rules. You really underestimate the heights of power in this game.
Starlit with IW is downright tame compared to disruptive stance with reach and tactical reflexes (and later boundless reprisals), or resentment witch, let alone something outright gamebreaking like instant minefield or anything to do with the drowning rules....Having an official place to put "pending errata" is exactly how unofficial dev posts no longer have such "rule weight" behind them.
Rephrased: It is *because* we so badly lack proper communication that the players latch on to casual word of dev so strongly. If Paizo were to add better communication channels around rule clarifications, uncertain solo devs making comments would not need to be held up as hard rule fact.
______
Your concerns about Paizo's official ruling contradiction your own table rules is a completely separate and disconnected issue.
In my opinion, everyone should try to get more comfortable modifying the game's rules to their own fancy. No single person should justify the rules being incomplete and contradictory because of their own personal tastes.
That's how we've done it since I started playing RPGs. I'm ok with it.
I was not a fan of 3E/PF1 rules lawyering with players seeking rulings from up on high to try to force DMs to let some insane, broken thing work because the Paizo/D&D devs said that's how it worked. If something is breaking the game or causing issues, then let DMs fix it by leaving it open-ended or fix it in a way that isn't broken.
One thing I will say about PF2 is there aren't many broken things. I think the worst thing most of us can find is Imaginary Weapon with Starlit Span magus. If that's the most broken combo in PF2, that's pretty amazing given how many broken combos, spells, abilities, and the like there were in PF1. PF2 plays pretty well from 1 to 20 and I don't see any class so powerful that it overshadows any other class. Even the boring classes do fine for those that like them.
No, I do not see any of those things being over-powered. They are situational and require more setup. I'm not sure what you're seeing that is more powerful than a focus point spent at range with a sure strike to hammer an opponent for 20d8 plus weapon damage. This all requires no set up by anyone else and is self-contained in a single character done at up to 100 foot range.
Part of being overpowered is how easy or hard something is to set up and/or counter.
Starlit with IW is downright tame compared to disruptive stance with reach and tactical reflexes (and later boundless reprisals), or resentment witch, let alone something outright gamebreaking like instant minefield or anything to do with the drowning rules....
Eh. Disruptive stance doesn't really do anything you couldn't already do with silence 4th + trip and minefield is just another thing to throw into the berms-shove shredder. That said, I am glad that strat keeps getting more tools to use.
Do tell me about drowning though. Not something I've given much thought to outside of the monk suffocation combo.
Do tell me about drowning though. Not something I've given much thought to outside of the monk suffocation combo.
Spells like Aqueous Orb, Wall of Water, and Pillar of Water can instantly put foes underwater, and rely on them getting out of the water to avoid drowning.
If you combo a water spell with some form of holding the foe in place, they can drown pretty quick.
Pillar of Water has an up to 15ft radius, meaning that there's rooms in APs like Abomination Vaults that if door-blocked, can become drowning traps filled with water.
I'm pretty sure devils need to breathe by default, so uh... yeah.
Do tell me about drowning though. Not something I've given much thought to outside of the monk suffocation combo.Spells like Aqueous Orb, Wall of Water, and Pillar of Water can instantly put foes underwater, and rely on them getting out of the water to avoid drowning.
If you combo a water spell with some form of holding the foe in place, they can drown pretty quick.
Pillar of Water has an up to 15ft radius, meaning that there's rooms in APs like Abomination Vaults that if door-blocked, can become drowning traps filled with water.
I'm pretty sure devils need to breathe by default, so uh... yeah.
I have a swamp-themed summoner who has used all of those water spells to amazing effect.
Starlit with IW is downright tame compared to disruptive stance with reach and tactical reflexes (and later boundless reprisals), or resentment witch, let alone something outright gamebreaking like instant minefield or anything to do with the drowning rules....Eh. Disruptive stance doesn't really do anything you couldn't already do with silence 4th + trip and minefield is just another thing to throw into the berms-shove shredder. That said, I am glad that strat keeps getting more tools to use.
Do tell me about drowning though. Not something I've given much thought to outside of the monk suffocation combo.
Because of how the drowning rules are set up anything that makes you lose your breath/speak results in instant unconsciousness underwater. Methods include laughing fit, mask of uncanny breath, and pointed question. Probably a couple other ways too, it’s a problem with the drowning rules not any specific method of invoking them.
Pretty much an instakill on anything that breathes so long as you have two casters in the party or they’re dumb enough to stay in the water for a round.
No, I do not see any of those things being over-powered. They are situational and require more setup. I'm not sure what you're seeing that is more powerful than a focus point spent at range with a sure strike to hammer an opponent for 20d8 plus weapon damage. This all requires no set up by anyone else and is self-contained in a single character done at up to 100 foot range.
Part of being overpowered is how easy or hard something is to set up and/or counter.
Hardest possible disagree. IW is fundamentally just damage. It’s a lot of damage, but not more than a magus just going nova with their spell slots. And it doesn’t even work with touch focus like their slotted spells do. More sustainable, but that’s all. And it is so interruptible. Any action reduction/tax, stupefied, reactive strike - they all disrupt the magus’s damage machine.
Disruptive stance with reach and additional reactions, on the other hand, completely shuts down any enemy concentrate actions - not just spellcasting. And if they try to move away you reactive strike them and stop that. It’s utterly oppressive against spellcasters, if you have a properly build disruptive stance fighter in the party you have to put in work to have your spellcasting monsters matter at all.
And I forgot to mention it earlier but don’t even get me started on high level stealth. Sneak savant + foil senses + swift sneak + invis + mind blank + a bow starts to look less like pf2e and more like battleship, where the enemies’s 15ft seek radius is significantly smaller than the possible places you could be located, in ideal conditions by a factor of around 50 but even in a smallish room you’ve still got a good 3/4 chance of just not being in the seek radius to even have a chance of losing undetected. I tested this vs treerazor and even with every disadvantage imaginable (start next to treerazor, auto lose initiative, etc.) the only reason the sneak build didn’t win is because we forgot to give it a holy rune.
Starlit with IW is downright tame compared to disruptive stance with reach and tactical reflexes (and later boundless reprisals), or resentment witch, let alone something outright gamebreaking like instant minefield or anything to do with the drowning rules....Eh. Disruptive stance doesn't really do anything you couldn't already do with silence 4th + trip and minefield is just another thing to throw into the berms-shove shredder. That said, I am glad that strat keeps getting more tools to use.
Do tell me about drowning though. Not something I've given much thought to outside of the monk suffocation combo.
Because of how the drowning rules are set up anything that makes you lose your breath/speak results in instant unconsciousness underwater. Methods include laughing fit, mask of uncanny breath, and pointed question. Probably a couple other ways too, it’s a problem with the drowning rules not any specific method of invoking them.
Pretty much an instakill on anything that breathes so long as you have two casters in the party or they’re dumb enough to stay in the water for a round.
I think you're playing the RAI game instead of the RAW game if you believe laughing fit mechanically requires a creature to open their mouth. Laughing Fit doesn't even require the creature to be able to laugh in order to work. Honestly, it might be more accurate to say you're playing the flavor game and not the RAI game. I doubt the devs intended to make laughing fit force a creature to open their mouth, if they have one.
If you're playing in that more loose narrative space, I don't see why a creature forced to respond with pointed question can't choose to mime a response or something instead.
stuff
Just the obvious stuff then. Oh well.
And tragically, you only lose your breath if you speak. Laughing or creative question answering methods won't trigger suffocation. It might seem stupid for these things to function this way, but this is pf2e and it does far more egregiously logic breaking things than this.
Do tell me about drowning though. Not something I've given much thought to outside of the monk suffocation combo.Spells like Aqueous Orb, Wall of Water, and Pillar of Water can instantly put foes underwater, and rely on them getting out of the water to avoid drowning.
If you combo a water spell with some form of holding the foe in place, they can drown pretty quick.
Pillar of Water has an up to 15ft radius, meaning that there's rooms in APs like Abomination Vaults that if door-blocked, can become drowning traps filled with water.
I'm pretty sure devils need to breathe by default, so uh... yeah.
To add to this. I have a player theory crafting a game where they will use Aqueous Orb plus the Investigator's Pointed Question to force drowning.
No, I do not see any of those things being over-powered. They are situational and require more setup. I'm not sure what you're seeing that is more powerful than a focus point spent at range with a sure strike to hammer an opponent for 20d8 plus weapon damage. This all requires no set up by anyone else and is self-contained in a single character done at up to 100 foot range.
Part of being overpowered is how easy or hard something is to set up and/or counter.
Hardest possible disagree. IW is fundamentally just damage. It’s a lot of damage, but not more than a magus just going nova with their spell slots. And it doesn’t even work with touch focus like their slotted spells do. More sustainable, but that’s all. And it is so interruptible. Any action reduction/tax, stupefied, reactive strike - they all disrupt the magus’s damage machine.
Disruptive stance with reach and additional reactions, on the other hand, completely shuts down any enemy concentrate actions - not just spellcasting. And if they try to move away you reactive strike them and stop that. It’s utterly oppressive against spellcasters, if you have a properly build disruptive stance fighter in the party you have to put in work to have your spellcasting monsters matter at all.
And I forgot to mention it earlier but don’t even get me started on high level stealth. Sneak savant + foil senses + swift sneak + invis + mind blank + a bow starts to look less like pf2e and more like battleship, where the enemies’s 15ft seek radius is significantly smaller than the possible places you could be located, in ideal conditions by a factor of around 50 but even in a smallish room you’ve still got a good 3/4 chance of just not being in the seek radius to even have a chance of losing undetected. I tested this vs treerazor and even with every disadvantage imaginable (start next to treerazor, auto lose initiative, etc.) the only reason the sneak build didn’t win is because we forgot to give it a holy rune.
Why would shutting down concentrate actions matter? It is completely unnecessary in the majority of encounters.
You are exaggerating the effectiveness of these tactics. I've used all of them and nowhere near as strong as you are claiming. A bow is not as good as a caster with all the listed spells hammering from afar.
Some people hop on, claim something is really strong, then act like that would be strong in something I run. It would not. I'm not sure what you are playing in that makes these combos standout.