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I was just thinking about this idea. What if in the future (PF3) ALL casters worked like the PF1 Arcanist did? Which is to say, not prepared or spontaneous casting as most of us are familiar with, but instead you prepare certain spell known per day, but can cast any of those prepared slots out of any slot that is high enough level?
I was just musing that I feel like spontaneous vs prepared has had its run, it's an unnecessary distinction (and if PF2 spontaneous feels a lot better than prepared after the introduction of Signature spells).
What do the rest of you think? What if in the future we did away with both and introduced something like Arcanist style casting and the ability to upscale any prepared spell into a higher level slot?
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You can call them Flexible Spellcasters. In case you don't know, it's a class archetype for Prepared casters that only really works with the Wizard (due to a reduction in number of spell slots).
Having tested all 3, I'm kind of puzzled by your question.
Casters in Pathfinder (and D&D before that) are a bit of "I can do everything". Which is a weird take. In most games and media, casters are specialized, much closer to Kineticists in terms of functioning. So it's hard for me to answer you as they are so special I have no point of comparison.
Now, the difference between Prepared, Spontaneous and Flexible... I don't think any one of those is better than the others for a significant part of the population. I think people hate them more than they like them. If you are a Prepared lover, you won't say that Prepared casting is awesome but that Spontaneous casting is awful. So choosing one and imposing it to everyone will certainly infuriate a proportion of the population and satisfy no one.
As such, I think it's a bad idea to choose for the players.
Alright...it's valid feedback that some people might be really attached to their preferred version of spellcasting.
What if in a future edition you could choose which kind of casting your class had, instead of it depending on your class?
Now obviously (and I didn't say this before) it means that every casting class needs to have a strong cohesive identify outside of simply casting spells (I think this is why so many people are dissatisfied with the Wizard in PF2).
But let's ignore issue of class identity.
What if every casting class was designed so that the player could choose whether they had prepared casting, spontaneous casting (with signature spells), or "flexible casting" (though I have a specific gripe with that archetype which is that it cuts the number of spell per level too much, which is reflective of it being created after Spontaneous casters get 4 spell of a level and Prepared get 3, they felt it necessary to penalize flexible casting further).
Which is honestly why i want to get rid of spontaneous and prepared, and unify to flexible, but with 3 slots per spell level.
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I don't think homogenizing casting classes even further than they already are solves any problems whatsoever, and simply introduces more. It's already the case that there is barely a difference between spellcasting traditions
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You can call them Flexible Spellcasters. In case you don't know, it's a class archetype for Prepared casters that only really works with the Wizard (due to a reduction in number of spell slots).
Works fairly well for the druid, at least until the very highest levels. Their strong focus spells and companion or wild shape abilities are sufficient for most fights and leave them enough slots for when they really need them.
I don't think homogenizing casting classes even further than they already are solves any problems whatsoever, and simply introduces more. It's already the case that there is barely a difference between spellcasting traditions
Do you really feel that the difference between prepared and spontaneous casters gives much of a distinction between classes? Not talking spell list or anything like that, just eliminating prepared and spontaneous casting for something like what the flexible caster archetype provides (but with more slots) for everyone.
I do actually agree with you that there isn't enough class feats/abilities, at least for some classes, that they don't have a strong enough identity, but I consider that a separate issue that isn't specific to how they prepare/have spells, how many they can know, and how they can use those slots.
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I guess I should add, I generally hate prepared casters in PF2. To me they feel much worse than spontaneous casters. In my mind, it's primarily because spontaneous casters get more slots and get more flexibility on how to use those slots. While prepared casters theoretically have access to more spells, you rarely know enough in advance to make good use of that information compared to just running a sort of generic spell load out with scrolls to supplement, which is basically what I do with spontaneous casters.
Honestly, I mostly like where spontaneous casting is at, except that outside of combat time I'd like for my caster to be able to cast those spells that rarely have use or purpose and do so not from an item (which is more about the "lore" and fantasy of the character than actual power).
Which basically gets you to flexible casting.
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I don't think homogenizing casting classes even further than they already are solves any problems whatsoever, and simply introduces more. It's already the case that there is barely a difference between spellcasting traditionsDo you really feel that the difference between prepared and spontaneous casters gives much of a distinction between classes? Not talking spell list or anything like that, just eliminating prepared and spontaneous casting for something like what the flexible caster archetype provides (but with more slots) for everyone.
I do actually agree with you that there isn't enough class feats/abilities, at least for some classes, that they don't have a strong enough identity, but I consider that a separate issue that isn't specific to how they prepare/have spells, how many they can know, and how they can use those slots.
As someone who enjoys playing both spontaneous and prepared casters, yes, the distinction does genuinely add to the game for me. They do feel different to play.
But making plans for a day and changing spell loadouts as a prepared caster has been a very regular occurrence for me, so prepared has never felt like a worse cousin of spontaneous.
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I'd propose a fourth alternative: spontaneous with a pinch of preparation.
This is what the Polymath Bard and the Arcane Sorcerer with spellbook already kinda do. Basically, you're a spontaneous caster, but you can switch out a few spells per day with different ones.
Overall I think spontaneous casting is good for game flow - it skips a frequent analysis paralysis moment of "what do I do with all of these slots today" for a simpler one: "is there one specific spell that looks really good today?" And for the sorcerer, it's also simpler: what are the spells you want most of the time, knowing you still have some wiggle room for things you'll only need rarely.
You can make some classes a bit better at this than others; maybe wizards get to change 4 spells per day to a sorcerer's 1, or sorcerers are more locked into bloodline spells you can't switch. That still allows you to present some class flavor. But you can have everyone running on the basic rails of spontaneous casting, while still keeping some customizability.
That's nice, because then we don't have to devote "budget" to artificially creating some things prepared is better at and some spontaneous. Maybe this frees up space to let every spell be "signature" for example, because we're no longer infringing on a powerful feature from the prepared casters.
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Way I read it, Flexible with 3 slots per spell rank would be far too powerful because all of those would be Signature spells.
"The number of spells in your spell collection each day equals the total number of spell slots you get each day from your class spells."
"you can heighten any spell in your spell collection to any level you can cast, similar to a spontaneous spellcaster's signature spells"
I think we need to have a better way to mix Spontaneous and Prepared so that people can add some silver bullet spells to their usual staple of spells that they can freely cast from their slots.
Other than scrolls ofc.
And I really wish we could get rid of the choosing a Signature spell for each rank that ends up making people jump through mental hoops to optimize which spell they can cast with which slot.
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Maybe we could steal a page from the way PF2 normalized the way people spent skill points in PF1.
Some skills, people invested only the minimum to be able to make a check. Some they kept on advancing till they reached a fixed number. And others they advanced as much as they could, investing in feats that got them even better numbers. All of this has been subsumed in PF2 in the UTEML proficiency system.
For spells, AFAICT, there are those you want to always cast at max rank and those you want to cast at a given rank. And then there are those you want to cast as much as possible and those you only need to cast a few times a day, or even only once a day.
Maybe casters could designate a given number of known spells in each category.
Just wild musings here.
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I'd propose a fourth alternative: spontaneous with a pinch of preparation.
This is what the Polymath Bard and the Arcane Sorcerer with spellbook already kinda do. Basically, you're a spontaneous caster, but you can switch out a few spells per day with different ones.
Overall I think spontaneous casting is good for game flow - it skips a frequent analysis paralysis moment of "what do I do with all of these slots today" for a simpler one: "is there one specific spell that looks really good today?" And for the sorcerer, it's also simpler: what are the spells you want most of the time, knowing you still have some wiggle room for things you'll only need rarely.
You can make some classes a bit better at this than others; maybe wizards get to change 4 spells per day to a sorcerer's 1, or sorcerers are more locked into bloodline spells you can't switch. That still allows you to present some class flavor. But you can have everyone running on the basic rails of spontaneous casting, while still keeping some customizability.
That's nice, because then we don't have to devote "budget" to artificially creating some things prepared is better at and some spontaneous. Maybe this frees up space to let every spell be "signature" for example, because we're no longer infringing on a powerful feature from the prepared casters.
I do like that, but if that was more generally available (to me specifically, if I could choose that kind of casting freely with any class) I doubt I'd ever choose to have prepared casting (if I was able to choose).
Maybe we could steal a page from the way PF2 normalized the way people spent skill points in PF1.
Some skills, people invested only the minimum to be able to make a check. Some they kept on advancing till they reached a fixed number. And others they advanced as much as they could, investing in feats that got them even better numbers. All of this has been subsumed in PF2 in the UTEML proficiency system.
For spells, AFAICT, there are those you want to always cast at max rank and those you want to cast at a given rank. And then there are those you want to cast as much as possible and those you only need to cast a few times a day, or even only once a day.
Maybe casters could designate a given number of known spells in each category.
Just wild musings here.
That would be interesting, but I think that would get wildly complicated I think (and hard to balance).
Now, if you're in a game where you don't get prep info and you stick to 2-3 combats per day, the two casters might prep similar load outs all the time and might feel like the kineticist in that all three just use what they want, when they want, without thinking much about slot resources. So it's going to vary by game. But yes, all three can feel very different.
Yeah, this is absolutely my group. Rarely do you get information ahead of time to allow for actionable changes to prepared spells, and also around 3 combats in a day seems like just what happens, unless there is some specific reason needed to keep going (which is relatively rare).
And I guess I should clarify, I don't mean that spontaneous and prepared don't feel different, they do. It's just to me, prepared casting feels like ****. Aside from the limited opportunities to be able to cast that rare spell you've got hidden away in your spell book on one of the non-adventuring days.
My above quoted comment was more about if the other poster really felt it gave credibly distinction between classes. To me, I'm thinking about bloodlines for the Sorcerer, the familiar and patron for Witches, etc. It's not that different kinds of casting don't feel different.
But prepared casting obviously doesn't differentiate the wizard and the witch, because they're both prepared arcane casters (technically that's just one of the patron options for the Witch, but that is something that sets the witch apart is that they can get access to different list by selecting different patrons). I guess that was my point. Prepared (or spontaneous) doesn't make a caster unique when there are other casters with the same casting tradition and method of spell "use" (prepared vs spontaneous).
As a middle ground the new SF2 Technomancer has some limited spontaneity in their prepared spells.
The Technomancer prepares spells normally from their Spell Database (digital form of a Wizard's spellbook). They also have a Spell Cache of one specific spell at each rank, determined by their subclass (called a Programming Language). It's listed like the bonus spells known for a spontaneous spellcasting class's subclass.
Once every ten minutes you can Download Spell as a free action to replace a prepared spell with a Spell Cache spell, heightened to the slot it now fills. (E.g. DPS++ language has Disintegrate as its 6th rank Spell Cache spell, you could Download Spell to put it into a 6+ rank and get the full heightened benefits when you cast it.)
There's two additional feats to allow any Technomancer to expand their Spell Cache (Expanded Cache at 4th level lets you choose any two spells of different ranks changeable only when you gain new ranks of spells, Spell Library at 8th lets you choose during daily preparations one spell of every rank from your Database to add to your Cache; I think ultimately these are ways to have a pair of additional 10th level spells "known" and ready to replace your 10th level spell(s) prepared, in addition to heighten options).
With one or both of these you have a narrow or wide self-selected choice of "break in case of emergency" spells you can instantly prepare once per combat in addition to the (often lackluster or limited) selection imposed by your Programming Language.
There's also a 16th level feat, Download All, that lets you spend 1a instead of a free action to swap as many of your prepared spells out as you want with anything from your Cache when you Download Spell. Dump out all the utility you don't need anymore for offensive/control/mobility/whatever in any quantity your remaining slots and available Cache selections can support.
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I'd personally overhaul spellcasting entirely for PF3e, but if that doesn't happen, then yes, I'd like arcanist-style casting (flexible preparation) to become the norm going forward. That said, it kinda saddens me to see so many people here pushing back against what I see as an obvious area for improvement. IMO, vancian casting and all its iterations feel like a vestigial system that feels totally out of place in this day and age.
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I'd personally overhaul spellcasting entirely for PF3e, but if that doesn't happen, then yes, I'd like arcanist-style casting (flexible preparation) to become the norm going forward. That said, it kinda saddens me to see so many people here pushing back against what I see as an obvious area for improvement. IMO, vancian casting and all its iterations feel like a vestigial system that feels totally out of place in this day and age.
While I agree that Vancian casting has many issues (especially the time spent on spell list customisation), it's the only magic system that gives so much flexibility to casters.
D&D4 touched it, and it's been one of the biggest gripe I've seen against this system. Wizards that didn't really feel different than Fighters. Actually, the Kineticist is often considered a martial despite being just a non-Vancian caster.
I'm not sure Vancian casting can disappear without infuriating a big portion of the player base.
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I'd personally overhaul spellcasting entirely for PF3e, but if that doesn't happen, then yes, I'd like arcanist-style casting (flexible preparation) to become the norm going forward. That said, it kinda saddens me to see so many people here pushing back against what I see as an obvious area for improvement. IMO, vancian casting and all its iterations feel like a vestigial system that feels totally out of place in this day and age.While I agree that Vancian casting has many issues (especially the time spent on spell list customisation), it's the only magic system that gives so much flexibility to casters.
D&D4 touched it, and it's been one of the biggest gripe I've seen against this system. Wizards that didn't really feel different than Fighters. Actually, the Kineticist is often considered a martial despite being just a non-Vancian caster.
I'm not sure Vancian casting can disappear without infuriating a big portion of the player base.
I get the feeling that Vancian casting has stuck around in the collective memory of TTRPG players because of the days when casters could decimate every obstacle in a campaign with just a handful of spell slots. But now that PF2e has made that nearly impossible, all that remains are the downsides.
The fact that a wizard player has to make 28 choices every single day at 20th level is IMO proof that something needs to change.
I don't think people want flexibility when playing casters; I think they want alternative ways to solve problems. Does the party need to cross a chasm but nobody has Athletics? The caster casts fly and carries everyone to the other side. Is there a door with multiple locks that can't be picked through conventional means? The caster casts knock. I think it would be much simpler to turn all non-combat spells into rituals (assuming the ritual system gets reworked alongside them), while significantly reducing the number of spell slots and, if possible, making them encounter-based. If utility spells options were readily available as rituals, I don't think people would be against a much more streamlined spellcasting system that only revolved around combat options.
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I think the witch feels different from the wizard; familiar, familiar ability and hexes are things many witches will use practically every encounter. But I do agree with your general 'what if' thought exercise - i.e. Paizo could, if it wanted, unify casting mechanics and instead use class features, feats, or more differentiated spell lists to make the casting classes feel different (though I wouldn't bet on that last one; I thought Paizo was actively trying to get away from that)
Oh I agree very much that a Witch feels very different from a wizard despite (potentially) being two arcane prepared casters. But it is because of the Witches class features and feats that it is the case (I personally feel the wizard doesn't have a strong identity but that's a separate issue).
But yes, my thought here is that in a PF3 future, they should unify casting and put more effort into class features/abilities that make classes feel distinct.
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I think the witch feels different from the wizard; familiar, familiar ability and hexes are things many witches will use practically every encounter. But I do agree with your general 'what if' thought exercise - i.e. Paizo could, if it wanted, unify casting mechanics and instead use class features, feats, or more differentiated spell lists to make the casting classes feel different (though I wouldn't bet on that last one; I thought Paizo was actively trying to get away from that)
On a system where every class has their own class feat list and class features, we don't really need different spell lists to diferentiate spellcasting classes. You are saying it here; the wizard and the witch feel different from each other despite sharing more than 80% of their class chassis, so if we got a unified spellcasting system for every caster in the game that would only make Paizo try harder to make each class feel more unique. I think its a win-win situation.
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I get the feeling that Vancian casting has stuck around in the collective memory of TTRPG players because of the days when casters could decimate every obstacle in a campaign with just a handful of spell slots. But now that PF2e has made that nearly impossible, all that remains are the downsides.
The fact that a wizard player has to make 28 choices every single day at 20th level is IMO proof that something needs to change.
I don't think people want flexibility when playing casters; I think they want alternative ways to solve problems. Does the party need to cross a chasm but nobody has Athletics? The caster casts fly and carries everyone to the other side. Is there a door with multiple locks that can't be picked through conventional means? The caster casts knock. I think it would be much simpler to turn all non-combat spells into rituals (assuming the ritual system gets reworked alongside them), while significantly reducing the number of spell slots and, if possible, making them encounter-based. If...
I'm not sure why anyone would dislike flexible spell casting, other than the reduced spell slots. Ignore quantity of spell slots, it's better than either spontaneous or prepared casting.
You do bring up a fair point....what is everyone could access out of combat rituals. Magic that takes too long to be practical in combat, but can be used to solve problems outside of combat.
Need to traverse chasm (as you suggested)? 10 minute ritual to get 2 minutes of flight. The main problem would be finding a way to prevent them from being used in combat. But I think it's very interesting (conceptually) to have an alternate magic system that could allow anyone to use magic.
Although, ultimately we're kind of just reimaging a different way of magic items. Because currently that's how the system works, right? Don't have a fly spell prepared? Hope you have a magic item (scroll, potion, wonderous item) to cover the gap. The difference would be that rituals would theoretically more flexible because you're not buying them in advance. But they also need some sort of limit on how often you can do it. But really were just kind of reinventing the wheel of "magic items" at that point.
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I'm not sure Vancian casting can disappear without infuriating a big portion of the player base.
One of the top 20 PF1 forum posters for many years crashed out hard when the playtest changed Paladin to Champion and allowed non-LG alignments. Wrote a screed that was at least a dozen long paragraphs about Paizo’s cruel, evil, and insane betrayal and never posted again.
Only person I wish would (or could) come back more is Deadmanwalking, and for extremely different reasons.
I'm not sure why anyone would dislike flexible spell casting, other than the reduced spell slots. Ignore quantity of spell slots, it's better than either spontaneous or prepared casting.
You do bring up a fair point....what is everyone could access out of combat rituals. Magic that takes too long to be practical in combat, but can be used to solve problems outside of combat.
Need to traverse chasm (as you suggested)? 10 minute ritual to get 2 minutes of flight. The main problem would be finding a way to prevent them from being used in combat. But I think it's very interesting (conceptually) to have an alternate magic system that could allow anyone to use magic.
Although, ultimately we're kind of just reimaging a different way of magic items. Because currently that's how the system works, right? Don't have a fly spell prepared? Hope you have a magic item (scroll, potion, wonderous item) to cover the gap. The difference would be that rituals would theoretically more flexible because you're not buying them in advance. But they also need some sort of limit on how often you can do it. But really were just kind of reinventing the wheel of "magic items" at that point.
Oh, I didn't mean flexibility in the sense of flexible casting, but rather the flexibility that comes from having a thousand spell slots and potentially being able to prepare the right spell for every situation. Sorry for the confusion.
Regarding the rest of your comment, I think this could be easily solved by making the flight spell last exactly as long as it takes to cross the chasm. That way, players couldn't pre-cast rituals and have them ready to use in combat. I also think a sensible GM could handle this on their own, especially if the rules explicitly stated that rituals aren't meant to interact with combat rules.
I do like that rituals can be used by everyone in PF2e, but I feel that rituals like the ones I'm suggesting should be easier for casters to perform than for non-casters. For example, a fighter with a high Arcana modifier could perform a flight ritual to cross the chasm, but they would need to make a few skill checks and would likely take more time to do so. A caster, on the other hand, could perform the ritual much faster and without needing to make any checks.
As for magic items, I've personally never liked them that much because they feel a bit too game-y for my tastes. For exmaple, I don't like the idea of either the GM or the system assuming that players will have access to items like wands of fly to deal with every flying enemy they encounter past a certain point in the campaign. If the GM plans to throw a bunch of flying encounters at the party in the upcoming sessions, they should damn well make sure the players have some way of dealing with them. Otherwise, I think that's bad design, both on the system's part and the GM's. Especially because the GM has had more than enough opportunities to include wands of fly as loot in earlier dungeons or hint at the possibility of upcoming flying encounters so that players can buy them in advance.
Scrolls and wands could still exist as extra spell slots for use in combat, or even as a way for non-casters to bypass the checks required to perform rituals. However, I think having casters handle out-of-combat magic themselves, rather than relying on wands and scrolls, is a much preferable and less game-y approach that many tables would appreciate.
The fact that a wizard player has to make 28 choices every single day at 20th level is IMO proof that something needs to change.Eh, a subsystem not working at 20th level isn't super compelling to me. Levels 5-15 are more the sweet spot for the game, and for that I have to say our druid *player* has both a lot of fun and gets good in-game utility out of using the seven days between sessions to plan what he wants to take.
28 options at 20th level is obviously the most extreme example, but I feel the system also falls short at lower levels. For example, a kineticist can have up to 17 impulse feats at 20th level, yet the system still feels the need to limit their flexibility by making the ability to quickly retrain them a 11th level feature. The animist can also retrain their wandering feats every day, but they're unlikely to have more than 3 or 4 of them. My point is that, outside of prepared casters, no class makes more than a handful of choices each day. Even at 7th level, when a prepared caster would only need to make 11 choices, that's still far more than most other classes make on a daily basis, and, in other cases, even over the course of their entire careers. After all, most martial classes get only 11 class feats in total.
I don't think people want flexibility when playing casters; I think they want alternative ways to solve problems.I'm sure there is no single thing all players want out of the magic system; different players want all sorts of different things. Personally I love the 'pick 5 of 20 possible spells, tomorrow you can pic differently' concept. But I'm sure lots of others don't, I get that.
Instead to me, main issue I see with the current system (and what is really highlighted when there's a kineticist in the group) is that the whole the slot system creates this weird party disjointedness where it makes complete story and session sense for some PCs to want to keep adventuring, while it makes complete story and session sense for other PCs to want to take a rest. The classes would have a more consistent tempo of play if every class had some important, limited daily resource...or a la kineticist, none of them did.
That's my biggest issue with spellcasters in PF2e.
Every other class is effectively encounter-based, which means castersare the main reason a party might need to call it a day and stop adventuring to rest.
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The core problem with prepared casting in PF2 is that there is often just no real benefit to it for the extra effort. PF2 doesn't have many silver bullet spells that are actually worth using, even if you can find out ahead of time what you're going to fight and plan for it.*
In practice in PF2, however, you get to invest a ton of effort wading through hundreds of spells to reach the point of "oh I should probably just take Slow". And if you do take a flyer on some niche special spell and then that situation doesn't happen, you've got a dead slot and you get punished for guessing wrong. If that was a high rank slot, it's significant.
PF2 does have a nice set of generalist spells that work on almost everything and are also among the best spells in the game. Once you take those, you simply don't need that much else. And this is why spontaneous casters work so well: they get everything they need for almost every encounter in the game and can deploy it pretty much at will.
The only part of this prepared casters are actually better at is reactive spellcasting, like picking up Cleanse Affliction the next day after someone gets a disease. Course if you only take one of them and you roll a 2 on your counteract check... oops? But if you take 3 and roll a 19 on the first one, you've now got two dead slots. It's just fiddly and annoying.
The paradox here is that if you don't have foreknowledge of upcoming encounters, spontaneous casters are MORE flexible than prepared casters are: the spontaneous caster can react if they suddenly need 4 chain lightning/cleanse affliction/whatever without any notice. The prepared caster largely can't react to that and will be stuck with spell slots they can't use while being in a situation where they don't have the spell they need.
Flexible/Arcanist/5e casting/whatever you want to call it addresses that part pretty well. You still need to pick spells, but you're not penalized nearly as badly for guessing wrong. This model works pretty well and I'd be happy to see it.
TBH - I'm fully over Vancian prepared casting at this point. It slows the whole game down every time someone has to change spell lists. All the books with new spells just make the list more bloated and make that take even longer. And if a new player does it? They're either going to be stuck in analysis paralysis hell, or they take some standard spells and don't actually change the list hardly ever, at which point they could have just been a spontaneous caster and been better off.
In PF2 it just doesn't tend to work at its peak well enough to be worth the downsides.
* Of course, PF1/D&D 3.5/etc do have lots of these, and they made prepared casting great. Use spells or scout to figure out what you're fighting, go plan the correct spell loadout to hard counter it, win the battle.
They also made the game kind of suck: I've literally won encounters in the planning phase, to the point that there was simply no point in running the encounter. That tends to be pretty boring for the GM when it happens (running an encounter you know is already solved isn't very engaging), not to mention for the other players who instead of playing are watching the Wizard reorganize their spell book for a half an hour so they can trivialize encounters. That type of gameplay sucks for everyone who isn't doing the planning.
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That's my biggest issue with spellcasters in PF2e.
Every other class is effectively encounter-based, which means castersare the main reason a party might need to call it a day and stop adventuring to rest.
Yeah PF2e seems to rely entirely on spellcasters running out of resources to decide when its time to end a day, now that Alchemists have renewable vials.
It's a strange design decision because it means a party heavy on martials and focus spells can just keep an adventuring day going a LOT longer and at some point if they have to stop its probably to take pity on the one caster who can't do a 9th encounter that day.
It feels like a thing where non-casters got moved into a new design space away from per day powers but casters remain in the old paradigm.
PF3 is going to have to pick one, I think.
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It feels like a thing where non-casters got moved into a new design space away from per day powers but casters remain in the old paradigm.
I am personally sad they moved away from limited resources for martials (there are still a few, Battle Medicine comes to mind, and also some Ancestry feats, but very few overall). While I'm fine having some martials with no limitations, I don't see the point in having all martials without limitations. I agree with you that a choice has to be made.
I think there's a point in setting a number of limited resources: It gives a good idea of what is the intended length of an adventuring day. Going through a 9th encounter without resting and switching to anything else would make the game repetitive as hell. The adventuring day with 3-4 fights and a few non-fight encounters is quite ideal, in my opinion. It's long enough to be meaty, but not repetitive long.
Looking at kineticist and focus spell abilities look like, unlimited/encounter-based casters would be dreadfully less powerful and capable of bringing in the big guns/support when the encounters get difficult.
Not even looking offensively, parties without access to some high rank heal spells can really get in over their heads quickly with difficult encounters. Effects like powerword stun and blind/slow spells, synesthesia, etc. can just massively shift encounter difficulty balance in ways more limited resources don’t. The effect of this would be narrowing the band of potential encounters a party can face into an even smaller range than PF2 already has and make things feel way more treadmilly.
Not to mention you’d have to remove the limited resource element of items or else you’d have just shifted all of that encounter balance flexibility into consumables
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I get the feeling that Vancian casting has stuck around in the collective memory of TTRPG players because of the days when casters could decimate every obstacle in a campaign with just a handful of spell slots. But now that PF2e has made that nearly impossible, all that remains are the downsides.
The fact that a wizard player has to make 28 choices every single day at 20th level is IMO proof that something needs to change.
I don't think people want flexibility when playing casters; I think they want alternative ways to solve problems. Does the party need to cross a chasm but nobody has Athletics? The caster casts fly and carries everyone to the other side. Is there a door with multiple locks that can't be picked through conventional means? The caster casts knock. I think it would be much simpler to turn all non-combat spells into rituals (assuming the ritual system gets reworked alongside them), while significantly reducing the number of spell slots and, if possible, making them encounter-based. If...
I'm not sure why anyone would dislike flexible spell casting, other than the reduced spell slots. Ignore quantity of spell slots, it's better than either spontaneous or prepared casting.
You do bring up a fair point....what is everyone could access out of combat rituals. Magic that takes too long to be practical in combat, but can be used to solve problems outside of combat.
Need to traverse chasm (as you suggested)? 10 minute ritual to get 2 minutes of flight. The main problem would be finding a way to prevent them from being used in combat. But I think it's very interesting (conceptually) to have an alternate magic system that could allow anyone to use magic.
Although, ultimately we're kind of just reimaging a different way of magic items. Because currently that's how the system works, right? Don't have a fly spell prepared? Hope you have a magic item (scroll, potion, wonderous item) to cover the gap. The difference would be that rituals would theoretically more...
It's that "this is a more powerful character option" doesn't equate to "this is a more fun game design." Flexible casting removes friction, but the friction and decision making of trying to make the most out of preparing spells and choosing when to use them IS a large part of the fun of it. That's why someone would dislike changing everything to flexible casting.
Vancian casting is certainly not the only good mechanic a game could use for magic. But it is ONE satisfying mechanic they can use.
Preparing all the spells for a 20th level wizard isn't a bug, it's the feature.
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Looking at kineticist and focus spell abilities look like, unlimited/encounter-based casters would be dreadfully less powerful and capable of bringing in the big guns/support when the encounters get difficult.
Not even looking offensively, parties without access to some high rank heal spells can really get in over their heads quickly with difficult encounters. Effects like powerword stun and blind/slow spells, synesthesia, etc. can just massively shift encounter difficulty balance in ways more limited resources don’t. The effect of this would be narrowing the band of potential encounters a party can face into an even smaller range than PF2 already has and make things feel way more treadmilly.
Not to mention you’d have to remove the limited resource element of items or else you’d have just shifted all of that encounter balance flexibility into consumables
It's a different game design if everything is encounter or unlimited based. Likewise it's a different game design if everything is daily limit based.
PF2 tries to do both at the same time depending on if you're a caster or not, and it creates this tension where a bunch of people in a group have no reason to need to stop for a day but the caster player reaches a point where their character is functionally crippled if the day carries on.
Spreading daily powers out more broadly is the other way to address it, because now attrition is spread more broadly amongst the characters.
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I personally don't have a problem with a party having 20 encounters a day. For some it could be unrealistic, but I'd argued multiple times on these forums that I think people believe certain things to be unrealistic in TTRPGs while also ignoring every other unrealistic aspect about the game just because they are used to them. If you want to keep it realistic, its totally up to the GM and players to rest after a few encounters to help their immersion, but if a table wants to go full blown videogame and have 30 encounters with rests between them back to back I think it should be allowed as well.
Or rather, casters should be allowed to do so. Because every other class doesn't need more than a 30 minute rest to keep going already.
PF3e has to commit to one side. Not the half-daily / half-encounter thing it currently does.
Spreading daily powers out too evenly flopped. Narratively, players want there to be reasons things work at the scale they do.
I think one common mistake parties make in PF2 is thinking that limited resources only apply to the casters. The number of heal spells a party has access to is only a “caster problem” if everyone in the party expects the caster with the heal spell to be the one to do all emergency, in encounter healing.
Right now there are a lot of martial classes that only interact with limited resources with their items, but that only really becomes invisible when you use Automatic bonus progression. Personally, I think items/consumables works pretty decently as a limited resource element for martials as long as the whole party respects that the cleric being out of heal spells and the wizard being down to cantrips is a party-wide problem that the whole party has to deal with. Martials having daily powers in 4e was not really fun or interesting and casters having so few of them was also part of what made the game less fun.
I have no objection to PF2 offering more encounter-resourced casters, although I think they tend to be weaker than full slot-based casters. I much prefer a system turning to offer both than a system that forces all to be just one.
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It's that "this is a more powerful character option" doesn't equate to "this is a more fun game design." Flexible casting removes friction, but the friction and decision making of trying to make the most out of preparing spells and choosing when to use them IS a large part of the fun of it. That's why someone would dislike changing everything to flexible casting.
Vancian casting is certainly not the only good mechanic a game could use for magic. But it is ONE satisfying mechanic they can use.
Preparing all the spells for a 20th level wizard isn't a bug, it's the feature.
It is a bug to me. I never liked spellcasters for that reason. Not just in PF2e, but in PF1e, D&D 5e, and D&D 3.5. Does it mean that Paizo needs to cater casters especifically to me? Not at all, but the fact that there's posts almost every week about how casters with dozens upon dozens of comments either here or in the subreddit shows that a sizeable amount of the player base has a problem with casters in PF2e, even if not everybody has the same problem or agree what the core problem really is.
PF1e used splatbooks to try some rules they later used to SF1e, and SF1e itself was also a testing ground for rules that eventually had their way into PF2e. I hope Paizo at some point does a similar thing by publishing variant spellcasting systems to see exactly what people like and what people dislike about them, and hopefully design a spellcaster system that's of the liking of most people for PF3e.
I'd personally overhaul spellcasting entirely for PF3e, but if that doesn't happen, then yes, I'd like arcanist-style casting (flexible preparation) to become the norm going forward. That said, it kinda saddens me to see so many people here pushing back against what I see as an obvious area for improvement. IMO, vancian casting and all its iterations feel like a vestigial system that feels totally out of place in this day and age.
People said this about combat in RuneScape and many of it's other esoteric and unintuitive systems, and yet the version of the game that is most beloved is OSRS which as a design philosophy keeps it's eccentricities. Vancian is weird, archaic and awkward, it's also beautiful in it's own way and most importantly feels *magical*. There is something truly arcane about the fact that casting a spell makes you forget it. It's forbidden knowledge you can only temporarily understand. That's special, and not all games ought to have it, and not all classes, but at least one class ought to keep it
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Just wanted to point out that the 4th edition D&D experiment of giving all characters encounter, daily and at will powers was generally NOT considered a success. Lots of people hated the fact that all classes felt so similar.
Personally, I like the resource allocation game. I find that (especially as a GM) a long string of moderate or so encounters can get quite boring since there is essentially NO point to most of them (PCs win, spend 10 minutes healing, move on). But I also was firmly in the "dislike 4th ed D&D because everything felt so similar" camp.
13th Age tries to square this circle by making healing essentially a daily resource for all characters so EVERYBODY needed to rest after 4 encounters. But that also had significant issues.
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Already made my opinion known on it. D&D 5E moved to all spontaneous/prepared casting combined. Worked fine. They were able to focus more on designing quality class features than spending time worrying about power budgets for spontaneous versus prepared casting.
I hope they do move to standardized spontaneous/prepared hybrid casting in PF3 like they moved to standardized martial and casting proficiency advancement. Get rid of that concern about the power of spontaneous versus prepared and focus on high quality, differentiated feats and class features to define classes.
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It also doesn't help that most daily resources (outside of spells) are pretty underwhelming. I feel like it's fairly common for players to ignore items and effects with a "once per day" limitation because they're simply not worth the cost. There are probably some exceptions, but I honestly can't think of a single one right now.
I'm also not asking for 4e's power system in PF3e. I love the current state of martial classes, and they're only getting better with each new book. My issues are mostly with Vancian casting and daily attrition in a system that seems to have already moved past that design philosophy in most of its areas.
I mean, we are ignoring that the system as it is designed right now works. Paizo doesn't have to pick a side, PF2E proves it. A dislike of vancian magic is simply imposing personal preference onto the rest of the game. It's short sighted
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I don't think we need to wait until PF3e to have a flexible spellcaster class; that could be a very fun addition to the game. I don't think, however, that every spellcaster ought to follow this model, as I don't think it suits everyone and it would limit variety unnecessarily. Even in a 3e where I'd personally like spell slots to no longer be the default model for spellcasting, I'd still like there to be the option to pick a Vancian caster for those who enjoy that playstyle.
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I mean, we are ignoring that the system as it is designed right now works. Paizo doesn't have to pick a side, PF2E proves it. A dislike of vancian magic is simply imposing personal preference onto the rest of the game. It's short sighted
5E did it. It's the biggest game in the fantasy RPG market.
I wonder if the Vancian casters would go back to it if they went with the spontaneous/prepared hybrid like 5E but offered a caster archetype for that minority that wants to keep Vancian.
Vancian doesn't mirror fantasy books or stories or movies. It's a unique form of casting randomly chosen by the creator of D&D because he felt it worked well for a game. If he had chosen spontaneous from the beginning, no one would even know what prepared was as with D&D discarding it no one uses Vancian casting anymore to my knowledge, not even the game that originated it.
Only PF2 and Paizo are holding onto to Vancian and even they have to be seeing not many like it anymore. Just a minority of old school gamers holding onto a form of casting that writers of novels for these games don't even use in their books because it's so bad for storytelling.
I still remembering reading a bunch of Forgotten Realms books. I don't remember a single one using Vancian casting for any of their wizards. They cast the right spell at the right time to fit the story. No mention of Vancian casting or much about it.
Why does Vancian casting fit priests or druids? It makes even less sense for any class other than the wizard.
I hope in PF3 they get rid of Vancian, then provide some Vancian archetype for wizards for those that want that old school wizard feel. Vancian shouldn't be applied to any class other than the wizard. Not the witch, not the cleric, not the druid, just the wizard.
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I still remembering reading a bunch of Forgotten Realms books. I don't remember a single one using Vancian casting for any of their wizards. They cast the right spell at the right time to fit the story. No mention of Vancian casting or much about it.
Did they speak about THAC0 at least?
Damn, these books are not respecting the rule set!!!
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Vancian doesn't mirror fantasy books or stories or movies.
Actually it does. A lot of the time, wizards can cast spells only a single time (or at least a limited number of times per day). Repeated cast of the same spell is not the general rule.