No, they do not. Needing to know the spell at different ranks has only ever been a rule of spontaneous casters.
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Just to make it clear to Vlad, since he asked his question with both Wizard and sorc
Wizard is a Prepared caster so they dont need to.
While Sorcerers is a spontaneous and needs to learn spells at the rank they want to cast it.
Sorcerers do not have to learn it. Learning it is a specific type of action. A sorc can "learn" or place any common spell in a higher level slot once it becomes available. They have to place it in a higher level repertoire slot unless it is a signature spell. If it is a signature spell, they can heighten it at will.
The major advantage of spontaneous casting is signature spells which allow you to slot a fireball in a 3rd level slot, then designate it a signature spell, then you can heighten it as needed.
Another advantage of spontaneous casters is a spontaneous caster can cast a spell in a higher level slot without heightening it. So if you run out of level 3 slots, you can still use level 4 slots to cast fireball without heightening it.
Whereas a prepared caster runs out of a spell they prepared, they have one use with arcane bond then their done.
The only spells you have to learn with the Learn a Spell activity are uncommon or rare spells or common spells that exceed the number of free common spells you can know for free as you level. This can be DM dependent as well as rare or uncommon spells might be allowed to add if your DM allows it.
Just to make it clear to Vlad, since he asked his question with both Wizard and sorc
Wizard is a Prepared caster so they dont need to.
While Sorcerers is a spontaneous and needs to learn spells at the rank they want to cast it.
Correct, but this is why spontaneous casters also get Signature spells.
This allows you to heighten or (lower if you used a higher rank signature spell slot than required) a spell freely without needing to know it at multiple levels.
I think the confusion comes from my native language, when they translated...
Ah. One of the best ways to get better translated text is with overly specific and excessively verbose source text.
To summarize the rules for learning and preparing spells:
"Knowing" a spell is different than having the spell ready to cast. Knowing a spell is done through the 'Learn a Spell' activity, as well as a handful of spells learned automatically as the character levels up.
Prepared spellcasters get a spell ready to cast by preparing it in a spell slot. They can freely choose which Rank of spell slot to put the spell in (as long as the spell slot meets the minimum Rank of the spell) and the casting Rank of the spell will match the spell slot used.
Spontaneous spellcasters get a spell ready to cast by placing it in their Repertoire. This is something that is done infrequently - often only when leveling up, though there is a downtime activity available to swap spells into Repertoire. We don't often track which spells a spontaneous spellcaster 'knows'. It usually doesn't affect gameplay. We mostly only track what spells are in Repertoire. A spell has to be placed in Repertoire at a specific spell Rank (though you can place a spell in multiple Repertoire slots at different Ranks if desired). You can cast the spell with that Rank of spell slot or higher, but the spell's effect is always only the Rank of the effect as placed in Repertoire. Signature Spells are an exception to this. A spell learned as a Signature Spell can be cast with a higher Rank spell slot for the Heightened effect of that spell slot's Rank.
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I'm not sure why, but I understood this rule exactly the opposite of what is being explained here. So I'm very glad I read this thread, because TIL.
One thing I do wish to confirm, though I'm pretty sure I know the answer ... if I want to cast, say, Fireball, more than once, I need to "prepare" it more than once? I've been led to believe that's the case, but clearly I don't "know" as much as I should. MTIA!
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A Spontaneous spellcaster needs Fireball in their repertoire, but doesnt prepare it for the day.
A Prepared spellcaster needs to prepare Fireball in multiple slots if they want to cast it multiple times.
The Flexible Spellcaster Class Archetype is an edge case that changes how prepared casters work. They prepare a set of the spells for the day, then cast from that set as if they were a spontaneous caster, but all spells were Signature spells. They pay for this benefit by having fewer spellslots of every level, as well as by taking the Class Archetype.
Let's work through some examples.
A spontaneous caster has fireball, haste, and lightning bolt in their repertoire and 4 slots of 3rd rank in which to cast from.
In a given day they could cast 4 fireballs; OR 4 lightning bolts; OR 4 hastes; OR 2 freballs, 1 lightning bolt, and 1 haste; or any other combination of 4 castings.
If fireball was their signature spell, and they could cast up to 5th rank spells, then they could cast fireball additional times each day, at higher damage, using their 4th and 5th rank spell slots.
Even if it wasn't a signature spell, they could still cast it additional times a day with higher rank slots. However, it would not gain any of the heightened benefits and would still be treated as a 3rd-rank fireball.
A prepared caster needs to decide which slots are going to use which spells at the start of the day, and with a few exceptions it is set until their next daily preparations.
So a wizard with four 3rd-rank slots and two 4th-ranks slots could prepare fireball (×2), haste, and lightning bolt in their 3rd-rank slots and heightened fireball (8d6, ×2) in their 4th-rank slots. Unlike a spontaneous caster, they would NOT need to learn fireball at multiple ranks, or make it a signature spell, in order to do this.
Throughout the day, said wizard could cast four fireballs and one each of haste and lightning bolt. They cannot mix and match in the middle of the day, only at the start.
A big benefit to prepared casters is that they don't need signature spells, or to learn spells at a higher rank, in order to heighten them. If they want to heighten a spell they know, they merely need to plug it into a higher ranked slot during daily preparation.
Many prepared casters also either know all the common spells of their tradition (clerics and druids, for example) or have the capacity to expand their known spells via resource expenditure (witches and wizards, for example ample).
Many spontaneous casters(such as bards and sorcerers), on the other hand, will only ever know the spells they gain upon leveling up.
So prepared casters have a greater breadth of spell knowledge whereas spontaneous casters have a narrower focus, but greater moment to moment flexibility.
Someone with the Flexible Spellcaster archetype gets the best of both worlds, but lacks longevity and staying power due to having far fewer daily spell slots to work with.
I hope that helps.
Even if it wasn't a signature spell, they could still cast it additional times a day with higher rank slots. However, it would not gain any of the heightened benefits and would still be treated as a 3rd-rank fireball.
RD, I think this statement might be untrue.
Heightening Spells
When you get spell slots of 2nd rank and higher, you can fill those slots with stronger versions of lower-rank spells. This increases the spell's rank, heightening it to match the spell slot. You must have a spell in your spell repertoire at the rank you want to cast it in order to heighten it to that rank. Many spells have specific improvements when they are heightened to certain ranks. The signature spells class feature lets you heighten certain spells freely.
The way I interpret this is, that in order for a spontaneous caster to cast a spell out of a slot, requires them to have it in their spell repertoire at that rank of spell, unless it's a signature spell.
If you allow them to cast it out of the rank slot without even knowing the higher level version (even with no benefit) it's honestly a bit too good IMO. Maybe my understanding is incorrect, but that's how I've always parsed it. It's like the one real limiting factor to spontaneous spell casting.
I also think a lot of people, so used to PF1 spell casting don't realize this is an issue, that you can't freely heighten spell into a higher rank (at no benefit). Or perhaps (again), I'm really misunderstanding the rules.
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Even if it wasn't a signature spell, they could still cast it additional times a day with higher rank slots. However, it would not gain any of the heightened benefits and would still be treated as a 3rd-rank fireball.RD, I think this statement might be untrue.
Heightening Spells
When you get spell slots of 2nd rank and higher, you can fill those slots with stronger versions of lower-rank spells. This increases the spell's rank, heightening it to match the spell slot. You must have a spell in your spell repertoire at the rank you want to cast it in order to heighten it to that rank. Many spells have specific improvements when they are heightened to certain ranks. The signature spells class feature lets you heighten certain spells freely.The way I interpret this is, that in order for a spontaneous caster to cast a spell out of a slot, requires them to have it in their spell repertoire at that rank of spell, unless it's a signature spell.
If you allow them to cast it out of the rank slot without even knowing the higher level version (even with no benefit) it's honestly a bit too good IMO. Maybe my understanding is incorrect, but that's how I've always parsed it. It's like the one real limiting factor to spontaneous spell casting.
I also think a lot of people, so used to PF1 spell casting don't realize this is an issue, that you can't freely heighten spell into a higher rank (at no benefit). Or perhaps (again), I'm really misunderstanding the rules.
In the remaster, it was made explicit that they can do this, in the last paragraph of the Heightened Spontaneous Spells heading.
As a spontaneous caster, you can also choose to cast a lower-rank spell using a higher-rank spell slot without heightening it or knowing it at a higher rank. This casts the spell at the rank you know the spell, not the rank of the higher slot. The spell doesn’t have any heightened effects, so it’s usually not a very efficient use of your magic outside of highly specific circumstances. For instance, if your party was having trouble with an invisible enemy, and you had revealing light in your repertoire but had already spent all of your 2nd-rank spell slots, it might be worth it to use a 3rd-rank spell slot to cast the spell, even though it’d have no heightened benefit.
In the remaster, it was made explicit that they can do this, in the last paragraph of the Heightened Spontaneous Spells heading.
Quite right.
It was arguably true pre-Remaster as well (and I often did argue that it was back in the day), though it was, admittedly, far less clear/explicit than it is today. Now with the clarifying rules verbiage, there can be no doubt post-Remaster.
Even if it wasn't a signature spell, they could still cast it additional times a day with higher rank slots. However, it would not gain any of the heightened benefits and would still be treated as a 3rd-rank fireball.RD, I think this statement might be untrue.
Heightening Spells
When you get spell slots of 2nd rank and higher, you can fill those slots with stronger versions of lower-rank spells. This increases the spell's rank, heightening it to match the spell slot. You must have a spell in your spell repertoire at the rank you want to cast it in order to heighten it to that rank. Many spells have specific improvements when they are heightened to certain ranks. The signature spells class feature lets you heighten certain spells freely.The way I interpret this is, that in order for a spontaneous caster to cast a spell out of a slot, requires them to have it in their spell repertoire at that rank of spell, unless it's a signature spell.
If you allow them to cast it out of the rank slot without even knowing the higher level version (even with no benefit) it's honestly a bit too good IMO. Maybe my understanding is incorrect, but that's how I've always parsed it. It's like the one real limiting factor to spontaneous spell casting.
I also think a lot of people, so used to PF1 spell casting don't realize this is an issue, that you can't freely heighten spell into a higher rank (at no benefit). Or perhaps (again), I'm really misunderstanding the rules.
In the remaster, it was made explicit that they can do this, in the last paragraph of the Heightened Spontaneous Spells heading.
As a spontaneous caster, you can also choose to cast a lower-rank spell using a higher-rank spell slot without heightening it or knowing it at a higher rank. This casts the spell at the rank you know the spell, not the rank of the higher slot. The spell doesn’t have any heightened effects, so it’s usually not a very efficient...
Great, thanks for that clarification. Do you happen to have a AoN link handy for that? I went looking in the Sorcerer class description and didn't see it there.
Edit: Never mind, I found it under the rules chapter for spell slots. Unfortunately, already being generally familiar with the rules I hadn't thought to look in the (admittedly obvious) place for such a change.
I would however say, without this clarification that was made in the Remaster, that it wasn't permitted (although seems to be that it wasn't intended since they did change it, and was purely bad wording of the rules).