ADDITIONS/ERRATA: -One other straightforward "thing to try before homebrewing" is to make a conscious effort to find and acknowledge the many moments when another player's action applied the decisive +1 or -2 needed to change the outcome. They are MUCH more frequent in PF2e than in other systems and leads to great moments at the table! Some say +1s sound dry and boring, but it means great moments are SHARED and can be the RESULT of sound decisions. Win-win in my book. And if playing on Foundry, the "PF2E Modifiers Matter" module does this automatically! -A couple commenters suggests being more generous with "spell" items like scrolls, wands, etc. - this is a nice "non house rule" way to get at some of the difficulties identified here! -WEIRD rendering issue 20:57 to 21:47. Sorry! -I like one commenter's suggestion of allowing Aid to assist a spellcaster land their Saving Throw spell. I hesitate to allow it for an entire AOE (maybe for a particularly appropriate action?), but to apply a circumstance penalty to at least 1 enemy's saving throw sounds good to me.
@@justicar5 PF2 avoids PF1/5e-style "always good to use" mathematical bonuses and favors making them situational, to prevent auto-picks/feat taxes Power Attack is good versus enemies with resistance and enemies against which your 2nd attack at -5 will almost certainly miss (e.g. higher-level soldier types)
The biggest problem with +1s is that they FEEL boring. There is nothing in the monkey brain that looks at a +1 bonus and gives the goody good chemicals. Saying that the +1 can be great moments to be shared sounds more like cope because +1s ARE dull and boring. Which are not the same thing as important or impactful. And those events would be shared *anyway*. The part of it being about the result of sound decisions, while true, that is something that has little to do with the +1 or -1 itself, and more to do with how it enables others like a combo.
My houserule for prepared casters is to give all of them the "Spell Substitution" wizard thesis baked in. Spell substitution wizards now get the ability to free action swap a spell for a single action 1/2/3/4 times per day (for TEML arcane spellcasting proficiency respectively). I find it saves a ton of in game time and bellyaching when it would be "optimal" to scout one day, come back the next with correct preparation, and doesn't penalize players for not having godlike foresight and planning (which my wizard player certainly does not have)
Rules Lawyer, here are many of the PF2 caster suggestions I've been making for many years. 1) Spells that as written require 2 or 3 actions to cast gain the Flourish trait and their casting times are reduced by 1 action (to 1 or 2 Actions instead). If the spell as written takes only 1 action to cast, it's unaffected by this rule, and may be cast in the same round as a Flourish spell. 2) The 1st Sustain a Spell Action taken in a round is a Free Action. Any 2nd or later Sustains in a round take 1 action each, s normal. 3) Wizards: If they chose a Universalist, they get the Spell Substitution thesis for free and may also choose 1 other Thesis, in addition to the multiple Drain Bonded Items. If they chose to Specialize in a School, that school always counts as 1 Prof step higher for all purposes and they get 1 additional spell of that school for each spell level they can cast. (So, an Evoker at level 1 is Expert Prof. at casting Evocation spells, and Trained at all other schools. A School Specialist becomes Legendary in their single School at 15th level and Master in all other schools, because at 19th level, when the Universalist finally gets Legendary in all schools, the Specialist instead gets 1 free feat, same as the Universalist got at 1st level.) 4) Sorcerers gain all their "Granted Spells" added to their Spell Pool as soon as they are able to cast spells of that level, and all their spells count as Signature Spells (no need to learn the same spell at multiple levels, learn it once and cast it at any level spell slot available). 5) Druids gain a Primal Font of spells that are automatically learned and prepared, and they may each be cast once per day without spending a slot. The free casting is also Heightened as if the spell were a cantrip. Each font consists of 4 spells (a 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th level spell, learned when that level of spells is learned), based on the Druid's initial Order choice. (If a Druid takes the Order Explorer feat to learn additional Orders, only their initial Order provides Primal Font spells) 6) Clerics gain several boosts. Their proficiency in Simple Weapons and Unarmed attacks increases whenever their Deity's weapon Proficiency increases, and they get several feats for free at certain levels (for example, at 3rd level, a Cloistered Cleric gets Cantrip Expansion for free, while a Warpriest gets Emblazon Armaments for free.) 7) Bards count all spells known as Signature Spells, and I also made specific changes to some of their class feats. 8) Amulets of (Arcane/Divine/Occult/Primal) Spell Power: a new item that adds it's bonus to attack rolls and spell DCs for spells of that magical tradition, once the amulet is Invested and worn by the caster. They come in +1, +2, and +3 varieties, same as Potency Runes (gained/learned at roughly the same time you'd give martials the equivalent Potency Runes).
Favorite house rule is for the Incapacitate trait - instead of always getting one degree of success better, instead they can never crit fail. Makes Incapacitate trait spells no longer completely useless against bosses, while also never letting them effectively take out a difficult enemy. They have higher saves already, so it's already harder to get them to fail in the first place. And 2e shifted the big power of Incapacitate effects to crit fails, so a regular fail is always limited.
Giving it a heart but I also hesitate because I'm going to assume it works against the party as well. In general, allowing extreme events (like save or suck) to occur more often works the party which is supposed to succeed on average. Imagine an intelligent foe casting Paralyze on the party's only healer for example. A problem on its own, yes - but what if by we now can have FOUR OR MORE enemies 4 levels lower than the healer who are able to take turns casting Paralyze on them. In theory their lower DCs will be resisted, but with that many castings something is bound to fall through. The ONLY thing that keeps me open-minded on this one is that spells like Slow and Synesthesia are already pretty strong and DON'T have the Incapacitation trait!
That campaign got to level 7 I think before the group ran into scheduling issues. Lasted over a year, less than two. Started within 6 months of 2e coming out. Since most debuff spells don't stack their condition, the party didn't really suffer from it. And the Fae Sorc was appeased that their spells did something to the tougher enemies, despite their grumbling that could sound otherwise.
While I agree that we don't need more one action spells strictly speaking, I think the lack of variable action spells is a huge missed opportunity. I like the way you put it "the future of casting"
While I am playing as caster often I don't feel like I am playing with 3 action economy it more often feels like I am playing spell action + small action and at the same time martials can do 4 or even more things every turn due to quickened and feats that cheat action economy and thier reactions are far more frequent
I know this isn't satisfactory, but I do think it is hard to think of 1-action spells that satisfies this itch. Notably, there already ARE 1-action spells in the game but they're more like "Swift actions" from previous editions in that they're more like "a ribbon" to your "main action" on your turn: things like Shield, Guidance, etc. Sustain actions also fall in this category. So I'm guessing you're looking something more directly impactful with a 1-action spell, most obviously an attack spell? Which also comes with the advantage of possibly being able to deal different damage types to reflect that caster fantasy? Design-wise, Kineticist's Elemental Blast is the closest thing we see in PF2 to scratch this itch. One can attack 3 times with increasingly low accuracy, AND have the option of building up a stronger 2-action blast... So for now that's our official option for casters who want to go there. Homebrew-wise, I don't know if anyone has tried to make 2+ action spells cost 1 less action but have the Flourish trait if it is 2 actions or more? And whether anyone sees any issues with that? Finally -- again probably not satisfactory to you -- I think all this is tempered by the fact that any caster can take up a weapon and do single-action Strikes, whereas martials aren't able to play with caster toys and have to take a Dedication feat to do so. Anyway, just some thoughts.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I was mostly thinking about my divine sorcerer, and I felt like this the most when durring combat I wanted to use draconic form (I had acces form archetype), but when I use it I have one action left, if I started turn next to the enemy the I've made myself even more valuable to dmg (dragon form has lover AC than myself and 10 temp hp is nothing) but when I would start turn away from enemy my only action will be striding to the enemy giving them geat squishy target, and as I am playing kobold with very strong draconic connections I really want to use this spell for other spells I just don't feel that not casting 2 action spell during turn just isn't worth my actions, there is soo much buff spells that I want to have effect as soon as possible I've played kineticis once and I love it, it is now my go to option for magic dmg character as caster I always have wand staff or other items that gives me spells so my hands are most often full
As a new player I agree. My typical cleric turn is: 1) Do a knowledge role that fails or reveals no useful info. 2) Cast a cantrip that usually misses. 3) Wait for the fighters to defeat the monster and do medicine checks after combat is over IF the fighter hasn't already healed with Battle Medicine. Sucks to suck.
@@Xyphyri I don't know what lv you are playing but if you are 5lv+ don't hesitate to cast your leveled spells, you have very decent selection of buff spells and the sooner you cast them the more value you get form them
We use the same advancement on Prof for Casters and Martials, and no one even notices it... xD but it leads to more spell crits and happy moments which everyone in the table cheers for
So my homebrew solution has been... interesting. It was kind of by accident, but I thought I would share it. Basically, I've ripped the Destiny Point system from the Star Wars FFG games. I put down 3 tokens in the center of the board that have a red and blue side. During any d20 roll, someone can flip one from the blue side to the red side in order to increase their level of success by 1 step. This has allows casters to hit/crit when they really need it, and it has made my sorcerer and magus players very happy. It also helps avoid class pitfalls such as the alchemist's odd scaling. It comes with the downside of players critting much more often, and it shifts the power in their favor a lot, which is where the other half of this rule comes in. The GM can flip any red side over to blue in order to give any creature a number of actions equal to the number of tokens flipped. All 3 are red? Well you guys using the tokens has made it to where my big bad guy now essentially gets another turn. Its similar to legendary actions in that way, but they can be given out to any creature. I've explained it to my players as essentially being the strands of fate being manipulated. They get to manipulate it in their favor, but for each hit/crit they force, I get to do an extra attack, or reposition. Its made our combats a lot more dynamic and fun. (I also flip them to introduce conflict in roleplay moments, such as a group of guards coming at an inopportune time, which lets me give the tokens back to them during non-combat moments) I can totally see this rule not being for every table. Or even any table. But its super fun for ours, and I just thought I'd share it here, as it really has let my casters shine when they WANT to, without changing the overall balance of the game too far in anyone's favor. It just gives a bit of agency to the player's rolls, and we've had a lot of fun with it. This also easily solves a lot of issues with incapacitation, I've noticed. A player knows it has incapacitation? Twist fate a bit and make sure they can get that success they need :) Edit: I should note, this has completely replaced hero points at my table.
I really like the sound of this actually. If I tried this I'd be tempted to expand the options a tad, both for players and GM, but yeah this sounds like a lot of fun.
@@WolforNuva we’ve slowly expanded what the points can do. And feel free to limit them as well (such as no increasing a roll to be a critical success). I’ve added rerolling damage on the players side, to avoid those 8 damage critical hits lol I even had fun making my own tokens by painting some miniature bases blue and red.
My easy three balances for casters: • Add a new “Spellcasting Nexus” Property Rune that lets you add your Weapon Item Bonus to Spell Attacks • All spells you learn are “Signature”. Don’t have to relearn Spells you already know. Instead, you just get one bonus spell slot at highest level to cast a Signature Spell (like how Clerics get four of these to Heal or Harm. Unifying design is easy to work with). • Every enemy has one more vulnerability. Even if this isn’t a Weakness, this can be a -2 to a certain time of saving throw (olfactory effects, charm / diplomacy effects, topple effects, distracted or vulnerable to acoustic or sonic effects, etc). I don’t want to change cantrips too much, overstep martial classes or kineticist, or dramatically change enemy stats. I want to just ease the process of play and provide their gameplay fantasy. Plus 3rd Rank Spells are very very potent when they target saves, again why I don’t buff that flat out (plus, this buffs casters without buffing Magus). I am also definitely in favor in reworking Recall Knowledge. The way we do it is getting basic fundamental knowledge on a miss, also telling a feature and allowing a question on a Hit, and two features and two questions on a Crit. The catch is you only can recall once per hero vs target per encounter unless you have some knowledge toolkit. So you’ll know more even on a miss, and you really feel like a researcher. Also in agreement of changing Aid! My down and dirty rule is that the DC to Aid is a step lower than the DC of what you’re trying to Aid with. So, if an enemy’s AC is 18, DC 13 to Aid. If an ally is tempting a DC 25 Crafting check, the DC to Aid is 20.
The defense of casters saying that they have increased versatility is, to me, like saying Rangers are the best DnD character because they are both part fighter, part rouge and part druid. Martial can heal with the medicine skill, debuff enemies with intimidation or flanking, use weapons with specific runes to target weaknesses. Casters can do similar things but with lower chance to hit and with limited spell lots. So, they have to waste a action to find lowest save of the monster, and just hope that you both have an appropriate spell and that the spell does actually hit. Certainly does seem to favor Martial and nerfing casters does seem a bit unfair. Edited: Spelling/grammar. Also, best attacks use two actions, of course.
I absolutely agree and as a new player I'd add that spell diversity and veritilty is a WEAKNESS. The massive wealth of spells only makes it more likely you'll pick a dud and be sitting on the side of an encounter watching the fighters have all the fun. Additionally, any game where you can anticipate what your DM will throw at you is a bad game! As a player, you want to be surprised and let your DM player flex their creativity! I hate being bummed out by my DMs hard work because the 2 spells I can prepare don't fit the encounters.
makes me miss touch AC. say what you will about AC, touch AC, flatfooded AC, and Flatfooted Touch AC making things complicated, it let casters HIT. It gave them the ability to destroy heavily armored foes who were shrugging of sword swings so those meatheads could deal with the agile foes the caster couldn't harm with reflex saves and hits.
Honestly, just easier encounters or creatures fixes the problem a lot of new GMs have. They're always tempted to throw creatures equal to or greater than the player, but that's rarely the right decision. Don't be afraid that your players will blow through the lower stakes encounters. That was the standard experience in 5e, 3.x, and PF1e. Just because those encounters and creatures were labeled medium in those and easy in PF2e doesn't mean anything.
This is a lesson I had to learn on my own back when I was playing 5e. I knew that the system made combat very easy after a certain point and in my desire to see the party challenged I constantly pushed for bigger harder battles. This not only left my party with a sort of combat fatigue, where they felt tired of always fighting uphill battles, but it also made what I wanted to be standout boss fights a lot less interesting or memorable since they couldn't be much harder than the standard fights without becoming straight up unfair. Those weaker encounters are more important than I think most people realise.
I also say lowering the boss level and adding hazards/additional mobs maintains the challenge but let's casters shine more. When you take out half the enemy group in a single fireball you feel real good.
My personal way I have been looking to buff casters is introducing potency runes to casting, but instead of a flat +1 to all attack rolls, its a +1 to specific damage types and spell traits. For example a Fire Spell Potency Rune would give a +1 to the DC and attack rolls for Fire spells specifically. I personally like this idea because it feels similar to weapon progression, since a flat +1 to spell attacks is fine, casters still have the innate advantage of it basically applying to all their spells. So by limiting it to one trait or damage type it mimics the progression of weapons and allows for a more specialist type fantasy.
On average I wish P2E had more weaknesses. It would feel good for casters, but also it'd be a substantial boost to the feel of using Recall Knowledge, which is a really good baseline action for casters (who are often brainy) to use their third action on, round 1. While it has more weaknesses per capita listed on its monsters than 5E, the impression I get as someone running Abomination Vaults for a party that uses Recall Knowledge every combat is that I wish there were 20-25% more monsters with weaknesses. They don't all have to be easily accessible - the Good-aligned damage weakness of some devils is fine and not easy for parties to come by, while allowing them to plan against it if they know there'll be a devil later on - but having to tell the party, "nah, he's just a ball of hp, no weaknesses, watch out for his Swallow Whole attack on his bite." Broad-scope Magic Vulnerability would be...iffy. You'd want to only have it on a rare few things, because in those fights the martials would be forced into the background unless magic weapons also triggered it at which point the monster would just be butter; designed to be sliced through.
As someone who first played pathfinder 2e as a druid with an animal companion in a campaign, i was finding myself constantly at low levels just struggling to do anything i wanted. 1 action up command my animal and 2 actions to cast a spell i never found i had an action without feeling like i was missing on being more helpful. Like recalling knowledge to help the party. Since most combats was animal companion command and cast spell. Just my issue i did respec into a monk it is feeling better so far.
When it comes to three action economy, I feel like there’s a trick that could be borrowed from the Magus. Their Spellstrike is essentially three actions for the cost of two, but those actions are pre-specified. If casters had homebrew 2-action activities which did an action appropriate to class and subclass, plus cast a 1 or 2 action spell, that’d allow a lot of the fun of the three action economy, but keeping most of the per-turn balance of 2-action spells.
@@lawrl777 yeah, with the caveat that Magus will also sometimes reload while also doing something. I guess a better example might be the Slinger's Reload, which is granting action economy, but in a specific and narrow way.
One buff I would add for spellcasters I would consider would be to change spell attack ranges to range increments. One or two action spells aren't going to make any difference against a fighter with a longbow at 240 feet. Also, I will disagree on one point: versatility is not powerful. It is the /potential/ to do something powerful and a potential unrealized, whatever the cause, isn't helpful.
As a caster going through a pre-made campaign, paizo tends to put a lot of solo encounters. Solo encounters tend to have higher saving throw which in exchange make most of your spell slot that are not buffs to your team fizzle into a faillure or crit faillure (without counting all the spells that have incapacitation and can't be used). When a spell succeed they are great but they so rarely do so, when they fail you lose your spell slot as well making this faillure feel even more bitter . It forces the player to use spells that have effect on faillure because this is all you will ever get. Its just not a fun gameplay. Mass encounter are always easy for any class so I do not count them. Low level were very painful. The 'high' save of a monster is nearly impossible to breach which cuts you from a part of your library.
Odds of success on those solo boss encounters are low. But when they succeed? They can single handedly turn a severe encounter into a low encounter. Even if it’s only 1 out of 5 or 6 times it works, it can be extremely satisfying for many players when it does. Honestly if the success rates were buffed, I would severely nerf the effects.
This was a huge problem for D&D before 5th edition and PF1e as well. I stopped playing a caster with spells that have saves as the baddies made their saves about 80% of the time. It’s not that fun when most of what you do is spend a resource to do nothing.
Exactly, things being extraordinary 1 time out of 6 still means that 5/6 of the time, you will slap your face and feel like you just wasted your turn, action and spellslots, then you end up waiting 10 min for the table to play before its your turn again.@@alanthomasgramont
I had this exact same problem with a published AP Every fucking encounter was +3 level solo boss fight, the martials were able to at least fish for crits, where as I was able to about 30 percent of the time grant a small buff. most of the time the critical success rates would just mean I did nothing. It was real unfun....... and then I found out my Gm was leaving off the magic resistance which the majority of monsters at those levels had. It really really soured me on P2e, and this was after a decade of playing the original game as my prefered tabletop game.
I think Paizo should reduce saves on monsters by 1 at low level play, and by 2 (total, not cumulative with the previous change) at higher levels. I also think leveled attack roll spells should do damage on a miss (but not a critical miss).
I like the idea of effect on a miss in theory, but we have the existence of True Strike/Sure Strike in the game. I've seen the view expressed that Sure Strike should be removed, and I wouldn't be against it... It creates a weird meta that is not obvious. Mark Seifter himself said there was debate internally about whether to keep it in the game.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I agree with removing true strike and making spell attacks follow the normal math instead, which would require splitting the spell casting proficiencies to spell attacks and spell saves.
Something I have been considering is allowing hero points to force rerolls on enemy saves to player spells. This gives spellcasters something extra to use them on, but I worry that it might be a little too powerful in the long run. Would that change be too impactful?
At our table, we use Hero Points to prevent enemies from critically hitting. It does make things easier during big boss encounters, but it works for us. I feel like your suggestion would have a similar effect, so give it a shot for a session or two and if it sticks, go with it. I would warn against this if players are using certain races that get fortune or misfortune effects from ancestry feats (tengu and catfolk come to mind). This would overly nerf their ancestry's identity.
Oh hey, my post on breaking the game is hard showed up. Thanks, Ronald! I think the most interesting things people tried to bring up in that thread was trying to say that "casters just totally outclassed martials at that point" but even with my homebrewed runes the casters end up -2 for levels 5 and 6, -2 for levels 13 and 14, and they only get to be +2 on their attacks for the final couple of levels. By the point that casters would statistically go past most martials they already have a complete set of feats which can allow them a wide range of utility. I feel that a lot of people do overlook that martials usually have similarly incredible amounts of utility. Especially things like champion or ranger. Champion reaction is amazing along with warden's boon. My party constantly has the flurry ranger giving his boon to the monk for an utterly insane combo of high damage hits. Certain martial feats, like warden's boon, really are a unique form of utility that even casters can't exactly access. As for my personal reasons to buffing DC's alongside the spell attacks, it's because saves are also built with accounting for skill checks. Skill checks can not only get a bonus from items, but they can go all the way up to a +4 item bonus thanks to high level consumables. But I do think rather than the griping about martials it would be good to show a genuine effort to explore just how much better they've grown in utility compared to previous editions with how good archetyping and skill feats can be.
@KaZlos sure. I dunno about most tables but most combat I see is either surprise or unexpected. Casting a spell makes noise too which can impact your ambush. I've watched all Rules Lawyer videos on this subject and I respectfully find most spells in pf2e very underwhelming. Bless is a perfect example of attempted balance making the caster experience less fun.
I do think the “+5ft every round” means that, at most, a caster will get a 15ft radius before combat ends, because the vast majority of combats last 3 rounds from what I hear in the community. This means a bless caster pretty much always has to be in the front lines, and they can’t cast any more spells until bless is done, because PF2 combat in my experience means MOVEMENT. You are Not getting another spell when evrry round means 1 action is used for sustain, and 1 action at least is mused to move to optimally place your very short radius bless.
Spell Attacks and Spell DCs being tied to the same number really hurts the feeling of spell attacks. Shadow Signet helps, and sure strike (which isn't meta-magic, so it can stack with shadow signet) helps deal with attack rolls being more likely to just do nothing and feel bad as a waste of a spell slot. The problem is these kinda feel like band-aids that feel like "you need to learn the meta" in order to succeed. I don't know if you can fix the issue in a non-band-aid way without fundamentally changing the system, but for now, as a GM with newer players, at least you can point these two things out to give them a head start in making these play-styles more viable. Also, just give the wanna-be blaster caster a big ol staff of sure strike can help them out too.
I've been experimenting with increasing caster endurance in a different way: by letting them regain a spell slot of each rank after an encounter, similar to pre-remaster focus spells. This means that casters are able to use their main abilities in every fight, so it doesn't feel so bad when you cast a spell and it whiffs. It doesn't make extreme fights any easier, since they were already (meant to be) entered with a full day's complement of resources. The main problem is that easy and moderate fights are virtually guaranteed to not expend any daily spell slots, which is a problem because usually "How many spell slots will the casters have to use during the fight?" seems to be the only stake for those encounters. (This is different to, say, 5e or PF1, where "How many hit points will we lose?" and "How many martial limited-use abilities will be used?" are also important considerations.) But having encounters where the party's main aim is to *stop* their casters from having to use their fun powers is kind of bad design anyway, and I'm not sad to see it go. You just need to replace it with another day-long consequence for combats which go badly, so the easier fights don't become boring. My current rule is that the wounded condition doesn't go away until you sleep, meaning that you can only get knocked out so many times in a single day before you die.
For me the greatest pain point of casters vs martials divide actually goes to the bit where the martials are to large extent closed out of supporting casters for the most part. They could recall knowledge, yes, but unless they are a thaumaturge their ability scores on RK skills usually aren't very high, and I often find martials have a higher value on their third action in comparison to casters. In general I've felt though a lot of the talk around ''PF2e is a teamgame'' has been a bit disingenious because it expects spellcasters to be always supporting the martials, but it feels equally adamant in shoehorning the idea martials don't get to treat this as a team game. Aside from Demoralize of course, but again, charisma based skill that helps martials and casters equally and off guard which helps with spell attacks that have been entirely absent beyond the first few levels in every campaign I've partook in. The not recommended bit of the video addressed this as problematic due to buffing martials aswell. Something my table had considered at a time was making it so prone would include some small penalty to reflex saves (-1, because surprisingly most people are less agile when they are laying on the ground). That way the penalty that is given is redundant to martials by the time it is applied since the target is already tripped. Maybe I looked too much into that point where it was addressed as crux of the problem, but there seems to be so many easy workarounds to the given problem to take it *too* seriously. Good video still though, no doubt some of the tips help some of the people who feel like they are frustrated with abilities not landing.
The issue is it makes the lack of spells slots issue worse/last longer. It also significantly reduces the number of cantrips at lower lvls for reasons I still don't understand.
Another nice Homebrew for casters is to provide a new Feat: Feat 2 - Enduring Knowledge: General Prerequisite: Cast a Spell ability You cast a 1st-level spell targeting AC and the result is a Failure or Critical Failure. You do not lose the spell and slot used. You cast a 1st-level spell requiring a saving throw and the result is a Critical Success. You do not lose the spell and slot used. Heightened (Caster Level 5): Add 2nd-level spell Heightened (Caster Level 10): Add 3nd-level spell Heightened (Caster Level 15): Add 4th-level spell Heightened (Caster Level 20): Add 5th-level spell
Our table is using the spell potency runes, we also tried applying the bonus to save DCs, up until now it's worked fine, although I have to note that none of our campaigns have went into the higher levels of play. Another think I want to point out though, as a GM, even if I give these spell potency runes to my casters, the moment I feel like my PCs are too strong, I can just increase the encounter difficulty, this way, I also get to have more fun as a GM using stronger, more complex enemies. This thing works for the kind of heroic fantasy I am running, perhaps others won't have such fun.
In 5e I actually have gotten to the point where I allow my players to see creature hp %, AC, and saving throws on tooltips. We find the game becomes a lot more tactical when that's the case (it feels kinda like playing Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics) and it allows everyone to feel better about decisions even when they fail because they actively opted into the odds. If the game becomes easier because of it (which it actually hasn't for us) then you can compensate just by upping encounter difficulty slightly. I'm hoping the same will hold true in PF, especially because then Recall Knowledge can be more about understanding tactics and abilities rather than just numerical stuff.
On the rare occasions I've GMed I've used player-facing enemy HP bars on roll20. It doesn't give them an exact HP amount remaining or even an exact HP%, but it makes it a lot easier to work out how much HP an enemy has remaining (you can eyeball HP estimates by how much the bar goes down when you hit for like, 10 damage) _and_ it has the bonus of making it way easier for players to know how to flavour their attacks, since they know whether they just did a big hit or a small one, whether their hit got the monster to below half, etc. So rather than just "I swing my sword at the monster" they can go "I strike with an overhead slash of my greatsword. The ogre blocks it with his club, but the heavy impact jars his arms," or "With a flourish, I batter the ogre's club aside, follow into a spin to build momentum and take advantage of my greatsword's weight, and sweep the blade across, cutting a nasty gash in the ogre's side." I'd hesitate to make exact AC and saves visible initially, at least for types of foes you are likely to fight many times or make many attacks against, but I might spell out which save is the weakest and which is the highest, and when the party discovers the exact AC of a monster anyway (by hitting it on the nose after missing by 1 earlier) I would certainly write it down where they can see it.
My friend played a lvl 3 war cleric and he felt very powerful slinging spells and making weapon attacks. I'm new to Pathfinder 2e and bringing family and friends into the hobby that are also new. I made a friend a war cleric (dispite my insistence he makes his own character). I based it on one of d4 deep dive's war cleric build.
why would buffing casters, making spellslots more impactful lead to more frequent resting? Wouldnt it be the opposite? Because there would be less "wasted" spells?
@@texteel just long rest between each fight to get your slotted spells back. that's how we cheese fights in 5e. clear a room, barricade the door, take a long rest, repeat. then it's up to the GM to put a clock on your adventure, and it begins to feel railroady.
I see this as mostly an encounter design problem that Paizo perpetuated in the APs. Build your severe and extreme encounters but stuff them full of mooks with only a few enemies party level and higher. Casters feel real powerful when they can pull off their area spells consistently. This also matches better with actual fantasy fiction where it's almost always 1 or 2 names enemies and a faceless horde of guards or henchmen. The one mistake players will still make is doing a lot of single targets spells on bosses, that said on a lucky roll they potentially do a lot more than a lucky roll from a martial
I've ran Pathfinder 2e now for 2 years with my group, and my first two adjustments have worked perfectly for this for us for the whole time. I do the "give them more 10 minute Refocus times" and I give every caster a standard buff of +2 to Spell Attacks and DC's right from creation. It works perfectly for us and doesn't break anything or cheapen anyone else in the game at the same time. Just these 2 little tweaks works perfectly! Thnx for the video again, Ronald! 👊
@buttermilkbiscut5477 You're welcome! Actually, any caster we've had, which has either been Sorceror, Wizard, Cleric, Druid, and Witch are all we've played of the full casters, and Magus and Oracle are the only "half" casters. They've done some Archetypes, but my group goes hard after full party synergy on casters, skills, feats, and equipment when they play. From all of those, this adjustment has been incredibly helpful, playable, and totally not game-breaking/math-breaking in any ways. I stay very directly with Creature Levels and Totals in all the AP's I run, whether 2E, or 1E that I either convert, or fellow Discord-ers do.
I am playing my first 2e character, an Illusionist Wizard, in Extinction Curse, and 1-5 were pretty rough. However, that is no different than 1e or any other 3.X game that I've played. We are now level 10 and it is a much better play experience. The only change I would like is for the Incapacitation trait to be a bit softer- most of my Illusion spells (which I want to cast, they're the whole reason I am an Illusionist), can actually do something useful and I don't always have to prepare all of them in my highest spell level slot. I think if I were DMing I would change Incapacitation so that enemies that are two times or more levels higher than a spell rank can't critically fail and just fail instead, rather than what the rule is now.
I agree that incapacitation does feel bad, but I think your idea swings it a little too hard the other way. a success effect on a single beefy creature is worth as much or more as a critical success effect on a single, lower level mook in a group of mooks. I might consider giving the target a +5 bonus to their save and remove the possibility of critical failure.
@@kwagmeijer26any creature that qualifies for the Incapacitate trait will always have a higher than normal save due to being higher level. So they will always be less likely to fail in the first place. And the big power behind Incapacitate effects is on the crit fail, which is still blocked under the house rule.
Hi Roland, I am a new GM to pathfinder 2e, I have interacted with you in the quite long video where you watch the puffin forest and Taking20 videos. I just wanted to tell you that I have try a mini campaign (just 6 sessions more or less). I love your videos, thanks for showing me this game. Also, I decided to start at second level and only using trivial, low and moderate encounters so my players could adapt better and it worked. Do you think this is a good advice for new pathfinder 2e GM's?
Strategizing is a nice word for "predicting the future and being unable to react to it in case it is different from what you expected". Thats not strategy that is just luck. Frankly inflexibility just breeds a fill all slots with the max dps and pray that you predict correclty if you kill trash or bosses today. A flexible way for wizards etc to exist while not making the sorcerer obsolete is a never ending ache i feel with pathfinder.
RL says - we have a toxic gatekeeping issue. Also RL says - casting is hard because you’re just too dumb. I know you don’t mean this, but gods damn it feels a bit like that.
Your house rule on RK has now been confirmed by Paizo as the way it was always meant to have been run (Player asks a specific question, GM rolls RK secret check, on a success they get the answer, on a crit success they get extra or another question). Also, I'll say it forever, I know 2e is an abstraction and realism isn't the priority, but it is absurd that neither immobilized nor grabbed reduce Reflex saves. I know this would help subsequent trip attempts in addition to reflex save spells and be used against the party too... but that just makes sense to me. Can't see any way around it.
Maybe you mentioned this and I missed it, but another thing you can do to buff casters is to make sure and sprinkle wands that the casters can use into the loot. Each wand acts like a spell slot for casters.
Yeah but it also encourages martials to take trick magic item or a caster archetype so they can also dip into the caster goodies. That won’t make the caster feel more useful.
@@aaronjung5502 GMs get to decide on the DC and you can make it very clear that in your game, the DC for tricking magic items is very high (optionally especially so if the magic item is drawn to someone nearby who could use it without tricking it)
@@snakeatwar The GM gets to decide everything at the table, but the baseline is a DC based on item level. It would require a house rule, which I'm fine with (I play with several, including homebrewed spell accuracy runes). I'm just pointing out that RAW, lots of wands can either empower the caster or undermine them.
@@aaronjung5502 Very true. I was just pointing out that the feat specifically says that the DM gets to decide the DC (suggesting they can use the rank of the spell as a baseline) but it doesn't say you need to use it as is. I just thought that making this ruling would be a good way to minimize the conflicts that the TMI feat presents with regard to martials competing with casters. And yes, of course, the GM does get to decide everything at the table.
I hope they give better rules for Recall Knowledge that aren't linked to the creature's level. It's silly that you can have two of the same creatures with one being higher level and the difficulty to discover their weakness is different.
“The typical DC is 20, but the GM might adjust this DC for particularly hard or easy tasks.” How do people read that as “the DC is always and only 20” for Aid? I’ve let low level PCs aid a DC of their level or the enemies level to aid an ally which is often less than 20. RAW the Aid DC is what the GM says it is, 20 is more of what we call a guideline than an actual hard dc for every situation. Great video overall!
On screen at 25:10 I correct my statement of "fixed DC" with the caption "default DC" Of course I myself advocate for not using the default DC of 20. Tho even what you quote, when taken at face value, saves lowers the DC for "particularly easy" tasks. Saying "set it to a Standard Level DC" is a DIFFERENT standard; it's a house rule. And one that I support as better than what's written!
What about Aid increasing the spell dc of casters alongside attack roll? I have tried multiple times to aid for a cleric, yet the situation then always calls for a save spell. On the subject of aid, one could consider combining the aid action with recall knowledge and seek, meaning if you take the recall knowledge action or seek action, you can use your reaction to aid someone as you took time to survey the battlefield.
-I like the Aid to help with a Saving Throw spell! Will add to my pinned comment (though I'm less sure about helping an entire AoE but at least 1 target) -The second suggestion sounds like a great idea tho I'm already buffing R.K. and Aid in my games in other ways. Sounds like a good feat to me tho!
The two house rules for more HP until reaching level 3, and more spells until reaching level 3, can be solved more easily by starting at level 2. There's no particular advantage by starting at 1 other than appeal to tradition , and the complexity of making a level 2 character isn't bigger than making a level 1, and then add a bunch of house rules.
And here I thought that this would be full of tips for other players at the table to buff casters... So, for example, a high charisma martial could use the bon mot feat to make it easier for his caster buddy to be effective with his will save spells.
I've noticed as a new player playing a Storm Druid that the extra focus point they start with is really useful. If the big bad succeeds or critically succeeds their reflex save against Tempest Surge I can still try it again. With the remaster rules I can refocus twice between battles to get both back, though I suspect they'll errata the extra focus point Storm and Leaf druids get. I have an alternative to your suggestion of giving lvl1/2 casters 5 lvl1 spell slots. Instead give your lvl1 & lvl2 casters one extra 1st lvl slot that can only be used in combat but refreshes when they refocus. I think this is better in a few ways: - It inherently scales to the number of encounters. 5 slots could be too many or too few depending on the session. - You always get to do your "main thing" (ie cast a spell) atleast once every encounter. - It also speeds up the learning process of how to caster in pf2e as you're free to experiment without worrying using up all your resources. To give a real example I keep seeing Gust of Wind recommended but I've been too skeptical to risk one of my precious spell slots trying it. With this rule I'd be happy giving it a go. The only caveat is I'm not sure how to handle prepared vs spontaneous casters with this idea. I'm tempted to say you prepared a specific spell each time you refocus regardless as that again encourages trying things and accelerates the learning process.
Another interesting thing casters can do is get into the melee since everyone uses shields, and just a feat gives shield block, bastion gives a free hand shield for material components if needed and sentinel or the new dwarf version give you higher class armour, while having touch spells that can trigger reactions, at the downside of nor typically being as thicc as a martial, but it works well Alternatively, battle forms for casters can do them a lot of good, and oozeform is the superior form for foghting enemies that crit a lot of you have access to it
Love the content .just a thought Playing a caster well requires a lot of meta knowledge. I think for instance how many fights will my gm throw at me before a long rest and will they give not a lot of pl+ level enemies and their weakness/ strengths against prepared spells.
Preface: I don't care about blasting. I don't care about damage. People LOVE to remind others that casters are a support role, and that's it. They also love to let us know that caster strength comes from their versatility and the fact that they have over a thousand spells to choose from... only around, what, 300 of which are actually useful and not uselessly thematic or incredibly niche? What if you're a spontaneous occult caster, and you didn't pick the one Fortitude save spell that is useful, and now you find yourself up against (however unlikely) a Fortitude-weak enemy? Welp, you're SOL, 'cause now you get the miss all of your attack rolls and get critically saved upon with all of your debuffs. Time to inspire courage, winning streak/haste, and Aid, good ol' 20 second turns. Honestly, if "spellstrike runes" were a thing, we could get rid of awful crutches like True Strike and Shadow Signet. As far as save DCs go, people *love* to say how tight the math is and that everything is perfect and working as intended... until you go a full year without landing a single failed save spell while targeting the lowest DC, even after debuffing it. Math is tight, experience is hell. That said, if people are intent on not giving items to buff class DCs, then I think it's time that support roles become a two way street. Right now, it's casters support martials and martials support themselves - outside of a couple feats, there is no way for a martial to support a caster (why would they, anyway? they get all of their bonuses from just positioning either themselves or the enemy). But, what if casters could benefit from that positioning, as well? Simple things like conditions like Grabbed, Prone, Immobilized, etc. reducing reflex saves by 2, or a martial being able to use a non-lethal attack to ring an enemy's bell and inflict Stupefied. Simple things like that could go a very, very long way, and also give martials more third-action options and allow them to support casters like casters try to support them, but often fail to because welp, they saved again!
Ya, good points. Although to be fair, the way the shadow Signet targets saves should be how most spells should be by default. Casters shouldn't target AC at all except with specific spells
@@petenell5807 That would be a very cool thing to set pf2e apart from a lot of other D20 systems (outside of its rigid ruleset), and I would welcome that change.
Agreed with pretty much everything here. Although I am happy to announce that after 6 months of playing 3 times a week (several campaigns), I experienced the first crit failed save on a spell - and another enemy even failed a save (also first regular failed save I experienced). The results were actually pretty insane in effect considering it was Enervation on a boss fight. I do feel like those surges of power should happen maybe just a tiny bit more often though.
Thanks for making this video! As you probably know by my comments, I am an ardent believer that the easiest and cleanest way is to do the math boosts for both spell attack and DCs. My version is this (always both attack and DC): +1 "rune" at level 2, which becomes a +2 "rune" at level 5 and onwards up to level 20. That's all. No need for a +3. This fixes the curves and brings the chances of full effect of spell on enemies (while targeting their lowest save!) up to around 60%, in line with martials attacks. That's what makes the game ejoyable. Also, after testing and crunching some numbers I have realized that Class DCs are just as behind for fundamental stuff like a monk's stunning fist or rangers' traps, so I would also suggest the same buff to Class DCs, same levels, again +2 is the cap.
I have a problem with the idea that "casters are more versatile." Martials can also attack from the safety of range, and do better than the caster at it. The Martial can also target saves with Athletics or Intimidate. Martials have versatility from the feats they pick, and still have higher chance to hit. I took a look at the GM book for monster creation, and saves tend to be higher than the respective AC, until level 20. And, a caster has theoretically more versatility. But you can't change your spells mid combat.
I've been playing a fighter after playing a caster and I feel I have so much MORE option of things to do and zero feelings of wasted turns, it's insane
@@franciscoteixeira174 agree, as a fighter I have many good good options. As a caster I have versatile options that are less impactfull and many times I need to see into the future to make good use of it. Many times people say use schroll and wands as a caster. With one feat you have that option as martial to.
I enjoy playing casters in every system, except pathfinder 2. I feel like pathfinder 2 makes them WAY inferior early on with the promise of "Just wait till later" ie your not going to make a video about 5 first level wizards taking on a PF2 encounter like you did fighters. I feel like when you get to "later" your met with "well we can't make you better than martials you should just play your role" but now it's too late, you've invested many sessions into a table and now your stuck playing the caster. If the caster could do what it does infinitely like a martial character it would be one thing, but they can't, not only do they have finite resources in spell slots but they have to guess what they will need before hand. Which I'm ok with when those spell slots mean something, when they work exceptionally well, but in PF2 they don't. Seems like prior to 5th level they just aren't balanced and after 5th level they are balanced against "Well what could a martial do this turn, we can't have them do anything more significant than that because they have UTILITY!" A martial can just reduce hit points but you can apply debuffs, you better be so happy you can give debuffs! I was so ready to like this video till you opened it up by basically saying "This is a crutch, I prefer it the other way but here's a bone for you whiners" I'm just not in the mood to watch it anymore after about 2 minutes in, but I like your content so I'll give you a like and a comment and maybe come back and actually watch the rest later.
Give them to-hit runes while banning true strike. Possibly partial spell slots back on refocus. An ideal rework would be to remove spell slots entirely and rebalance spells to be encounter or skill check based. Games like pillars of eternity and divinity as well as trrpgs like Zweihänder or Warhammer fantasy 2e do this just fine without the game exploding.
Interesting idea. I think spellslots really only work in system where magic is allowed to be more crazy and impactful as a limited resource. PF2E is obviously very scared to allowed that to happen so spell slots feel very out of place. Oftenr you would cast a spell with so many immersion breaking restrictions for the sake of balance or the spell will simply mss and it just feels very bad. Im suprised they decided to keep spell slots for 2e tbh. It feels like they decided to give martials a lot of cool abilities and an interesting action economy to work with while casters kind of got left in the dust imo
@@smccann1998 Spell slots do feel like they're there mostly for tradition's sake. Perhaps they were worried of straying too far off course like D&D 4e did and the complaint was that martials and casters felt too similar.
The old style Warhammer games uses an odd balance where you gamble your character life for power, not a very good game balance from a spell effect perspective. Have not played 2e but I also know that 4e also has terrible scaling issues, erly the wizard can't actually cast his magic without blowing up more offten then he suceeds, and when they get going they obliterate everything in sight. (very lore appropriate, not very balanced) I will say that the Iron kingdoms RPG works really well, they have a turn based resource. But as it comes from a war game so the effects are a lot tamer than dnd/pf spells, the effects are more along the lines of moveing someone 3' and the spells are not restricted by level so there is no wait untill level X where spell Y becomes available.
@@JohanRoland 2e and Zweihänder do a few things to balance spells by tier. Higher level spells are harder to cast. Higher level spells backfire harder when you fail to cast them. (Critical failures on higher level spells can kill you. Low chance, but it's there.) All spell effects are balanced around being potentially spammed to a degree. Damage is extremely bounded in the system so the craziest damage formulas you'll ever see are around 3d10+10 and 3d6x6+10 for weapons and spells. (the latter formula means exploding d6). The long and short is that combat is extremely lethal and advancing is more about being harder to kill than doing more damage.
Two minor suggestions for balance if you’re worried about power creep for wizards but they want to feel more accurate on their attack rolls: First, it doesn’t really hurt to homebrew in a relatively weak weapon, say 1d4 elemental, spirit or force damage with 30 foot range and no increments, that relies on spell attack rolls instead of standard attack rolls and can have only fundamental runes applied. It lets the caster hit stuff more accurately but far less effectively than martials and plays into the whole theme of working around resistances. Maybe make it a ring or something. Second, I’m reposting my post from the last video because if I’m honest it’s probably more appropriate here: “ Homebrewed in a specific spell attack rune. +1/+2 at levels 5 and 13. The rune adds a 1 action metamagic activity that allows the caster to add the runs as an item bonus on their attack roll, but also increases the critical hit threshold by the same amount. So if your spell attack is 15 and the target AC is 25, and you use a +1 rune, for one more action you get a spell attack roll of 16 but you also now crit on a 36 instead of a 35. Same die roll gives you a crit but you’re more likely to hit. Metamagic so there’s no Shadow Signet interaction, nor other metamagic weirdness. My player seems to like it and tells me he feels more “wizard-y”, in that he can either fire off a less accurate blast or refocus himself and get a more accurate blast. Crits math doesn’t change at all and the caster feels like he’s more likely to contribute with a relatively minor damage bump in exchange for an extra action. A pretty minor buff option and the caster gets to feel better, because really, how the caster FEELS is the issue. It’s balanced but it feels toothless, and this gives it the feeling of having some choppers without wildly altering all that tight math..” Anyhow, hope that helps people. I don’t know that I’d use both but one or the other at minimum won’t throw things off too much. Enjoy!
I aprracite your m passion towards pf2. The most popular opinion I've heard against it, is that pf2 kills fun in the name of balance. Which is exactly what I've experienced when I did try to run it. Lastly, the amount of gatekeepers is absolutely awful.
My experience also. It definitly feels less Roleplaying and more game. I just gave up on it when I realised it isnt what I want as a GM. Haha yeah its almost impossible to try have a differing opinion about the game with the community.
Im sorry you feel that way! I definitely see where you’re coming from - I will often ignore rules in pf2 to help reward cool/clever player ideas and keep things fun, and imo its a lot easier to do that than balance an unbalanced system. Dont let the gatekeepers get you down though! If theres enough you like about pf2 to try again, play it however you want, no one not at your table gets to decide how you play.
@hauk119 Thank you, I appreciate it, but the community is really to much for me. I even had to leave the FB page due to gatekeepers. I struggle to get by such attitude, as I would have to deal with it constantly. I am sorry to say it, but pf2 popularity is not due to its merits but because " The main star of the show" ( which i heat to admit it myself) made some very poor decisions. I agree with your statement, 5E it is not the answer to a balanced game per se, but it gets things moving. I personally switched to Advanced 5th edition which is, in my opinion, the best of both worlds. Basically, a baby between 5e and pf2, or 5e with the right amount of pf2 😄👍. I wished more pf2 players were like you. Take it easy mate, and thanks again
@@daved.8483 The comment above his about the Book of the Dead? That's a comment agreeing with you. I think human beings have the capability to misunderstand each other and be rude. Some of those human beings play Pathfinder. Some play other things. I'm sorry you see those people when you play Pathfinder, but they're not Pathfinder. Look at all the comments around yours that have absolutely nothing negative to say to anyone. I'm not going to count all the positive and constructive conversations here because I don't have time.
My biggest recommendation for casters who don't have the right spell prepared is to make a list of spells they don't normally prepare, and buy scrolls for each of them they can afford. Things like Faerie Fire, Glitterdust, See Invisibility. I had a thaumaturge that was focused on casting a bunch of scrolls and this is what I did for them!
Quite intresting that in most combats the powerful enemy can ignore me as a caster. Most of the time it feels like it is more important for the enemy to bring down martials becuse they are the one doing the real impact and getting the stuff done. I have no one to buff anyway if they bring them down fast. Better to crit down a fighter fast, than to take away that fighters +1/+2 buffer.
What would be nice is some appropriate buffs / transmutation spells (not sure if these already exist). Like one caster could tweak reality, and the other benefit of it. Like say the 'Force Barrage' spell doing fire damage instead of energy damage, but only if the spell originates withing a flame induction area or something.
I'm not worried about discrepancies in overall balance, but I still struggle to find decent 2nd or 3rd level spells for my Diabolic sorcerer -- all the spells granted by his bloodline are attack spells, and the only save he can target is Will. Would it be possible to supplement "How to Caster Good" with "How to _Divine_ Caster Good"? Or perhaps this would be a better challenge for SwingRipper, since he's demonstrated a willingness to do spell evaluations...
Divine is definitely the hardest spell list to get offensive with. It can shine in the right moments, but it relies heavily on attack rolls and fortitude save (especially if you are trying to use spells that deal respectable damage)... which usually go hand-in-hand as far as enemy design goes, meaning your ability to target the lowest save is hampered quite a bit. This has changed as more supplements have come out, with more will save based spells and even some reflex based ones, but boy, if you are only using core, it is rough.
Diabolic gives you Flaming sphere at 2nd, which is Reflex, not AC. You're additional options would be Blessed Blood with a good Blasting Diety that doesn't have a lot of overlap (Hilariously, Sarenrae is my first pick, which would make your devil blooded mage worship the fiery angel of forgiveness), Crossblooded (unfortunately 8th level) for a freebie, or trawling the spell list for the odd spell like Warrior's Regret (2nd from Secrets of Magic) or Agonizing Despair (3rd from Advanced Player's Guide). Generally speaking, Divine casters have the spell list with the least spells but AFAIK every one of them has some limited way to poach spells from other lists. In general, though, divine emphasizes being a supporter and healer (that lays a mean beat down on undead and outsiders way harder than any other class, based on my limited experience in the Vaults), while Diabolic gives you mental debuff options to fit the theme of a devilish contractor. Edit: Oh, and your blood magic adds +Rank fire damage to your target, so Flaming Sphere will do some extra damage on top of what you normally would do! And Charm/Enthrall for some reason...
PF2e is designed to have casters handle crowds and then buff martials to have the glorious damage moments. Only way to do that is take away those glorious caster damage moments - they even nerfed wish so bad that the amazing worlds one might imagine with castles in the clouds, surely can't happen due to casters. It's certainly a low fantasy minis game now. Reset the combat allowing all to heal with a contrived medicine skill - much more believable from a narrative stand point to have wounds be focused as endurance. But many still consider it a DnD game rather than a glorified minis game. The argument is always that's just people being stuck in the old system. but it's also casters that want to picture a high fantasy variant. PF2es solution is always "play something else". Just know casters are now 50% buff 50% blast at the cost of power that might steal glory. Using 1e with a focus on interruptions being the balance and it's working great.
What if I want to be a blaster-caster sourcerer? The blaster-caster character I had in mind is not a kenetisist, and is deffinently not a psychic or wizard. I would use magus, if they didn't require spellbooks.
In my games I simply tell someone what skill they need to roll for Recall Knowledge. I like this idea of unlimited uses in a fight, though. I have a player that I know will use it with his Ranger when he can. The easiest way to make casters feel stronger is use monsters that are 2 levels lower in your fight budget. Now everyone feels strong.
The changes I personally made in my groups is that I moved expert and master proficiency one level downwards (so 6th and 14th level respectively), and have casters be able to benefit from weapon potency runes for spell attacks against AC (so no combination with the Shadow Signet) up to a bonus of +2 (same as the gate attenuator) through either an additional weapon property rune or if they use a prepared magical staff with the respective potency rune on it. I made these two adjustments about 1½ years ago and both me and my players are very happy with them.
I like these, and I think if Paizo could implement them without the added complexity they might choose to (hell, maybe the gate attenuator is a sign of something for casters in the remaster). The problem is all those caveats being a large mental load for a small mechanical benefit. I think keeping attack rolls and spell saves keyed off the same number has been important for the design team.
My suggestions would simply be something like: - Dissociate Spell Attack from spell DC and scale it at 5 and 13 like everyone else and let runes apply to it, ban Shadow Signet, change True Strike to touch, once per character per 10 mins or remove it. - Let players use hero points to force a reroll on an enemy saving throw. This should be enough for a better action and slot economy on spell attacks and a much better feel on saving throws, which casters have to deal with much more but have no way to mitigate like other attacks when luck isn't on their side. Casters arent weak by any means; they just don't play as well in the system.
How's this for an alternative to flexible preparation? From the rulebook: "If you specialize in an arcane school, rather than studying each school equally (as universalists do), you gain an extra spell slot at each spell level for which you have wizard spell slots. You can prepare only spells of your chosen arcane school in these extra slots." What if flexible preparation removed the preparation requirement from this extra slot? They can use this spell slot as a wildcard slot, and they can use it to cast any spell of that level from their specialty without having to name that spell in advance. This feels fun to me because now your conjurer can always conjure what they need when they need it, your transmuter can always transmute the thing or person that needs transmuting. They can prepare and cast spells from other schools just as before, but they can really get a lot more out of their chosen school. If that feels too strong, maybe require them to spend an action and/or a focus point to do it.
RaW in every game I run is always just suggestions. I just go with what my players will find as fun. The chosen system is really just the flavor for the story we are trying to tell.
What is the "default difficulty" supposed to be? Is the "standard" encounter intended to be low or moderate threat, and how many of each threat can I realistically throw at the party between each full rest? I'm about to run my first one-shots and one-off adventures in PF with some of my current 5e players, and in a year or so after we finish our 5e campaign we're hoping to switch entirely. I'm guessing there's a table somewhere like "12 encounter points in a day is considered normal difficulty, where moderate threat counts as 5, low is 3, [etc.]" that I have yet to find. I know there's no specific adventuring day mechanic in PF (which I like) since you don't have to wear down your party to give them a challenge; but surely there's some kind of guideline for ideal targets for various difficulties since there are still daily abilities in the game.
While there's no table for a suggested "adventuring day budget" (as that would be extremely dependent on not only party comp but also player tactics and even game style) it's fairly clear via the descriptions under "Building Encounters" (CRB pg. 488) that Low-threat and Moderate-threat encounters should make up the bulk of your challenges while Severe-threat encounters are meant for mid-stakes boss fights and Extreme-threat encounters are meant to be climaxes and large consequences. Trivial-threat encounters should also be used occasionally as a way for the party to recognize their growth or just to break up otherwise spice up a heated social situation (Descriptions from the book below). A lot of people unfortunately have bad experiences with Paizo's early-to-mid APs, which do not tend to follow their own suggestions and err on the more-threatening sides for encounters, with little to no in-module guiding for making it easier while keeping the intended feeling. " *Trivial-threat* encounters are so easy that the characters have essentially no chance of losing; they shouldn’t even need to spend significant resources unless they are particularly wasteful. These encounters work best as warm-ups, palate cleansers, or reminders of how awesome the characters are. A trivial-threat encounter can still be fun to play, so don’t ignore them just because of the lack of threat. *Low-threat* encounters present a veneer of difficulty and typically use some of the party’s resources. However, it would be rare or the result of very poor tactics for the entire party to be seriously threatened. *Moderate-threat* encounters are a serious challenge to the characters, though unlikely to overpower them completely. Characters usually need to use sound tactics and manage their resources wisely to come out of a moderate-threat encounter ready to continue on and face a harder challenge without resting. *Severe-threat* encounters are the hardest encounters most groups of characters can consistently defeat. These encounters are most appropriate for important moments in your story, such as confronting a final boss. Bad luck, poor tactics, or a lack of resources due to prior encounters can easily turn a severe-threat encounter against the characters, and a wise group keeps the option to disengage open. *Extreme-threat* encounters are so dangerous that they are likely to be an even match for the characters, particularly if the characters are low on resources. This makes them too challenging for most uses. An extreme-threat encounter might be appropriate for a fully rested group of characters that can go all-out, for the climactic encounter at the end of an entire campaign, or for a group of veteran players using advanced tactics and teamwork."
When I ran Troubles in Otari I had a player who really wanted to player a blaster caster, we had a team of otherwise tactical trio but he wanted to spike the ball that they were serving with all the juicy -1s and 2s to AC with to hit spells so I just made it so his wand (he liked the idea of a spell casting focus why not) could have Fundamental runes of +1-+3 (but no striking) cause he felt a little lagging in accuracy not that Troubles would ever get him above +1 fundamental even giving him access to that made him way happier.
Have a friend who tried something similar as to giving the wizard access to more spellslots at level one. The wizard absolutely hated it as while the other classes actually saw a progression of power early on the wizard basically only got reach spell and a few more lines in their spellbook.
Here are the ways I buff casters in my games, because I do think casters can be weak and too unreliable at low levels even for experienced players. So these techniques make casters more powerful at low level while having a minimal impact at higher ones. - Using a ten minute activity, any spellcaster can recover a spell slot of their lowest level which does not have an expended spell. - I have a skill feat that allows casters to move as a reaction after casting a spell that takes two or three actions to cast. - I have it so that Incapacitation cannot increase something to a Critical Success. - I have added several skill feats that increase the capacity for martials to decrease enemy saves, such as a Taunt ability that reduces a creatures Reflex Saves. - I added spellcasting potency runes that allow you to increase your spell attack rolls but not your DC. I'm also considering other little tweaks, like allowing holding a spellcasting focus letting you deal extra damage with your spells equal to your spellcasting ability mod.
One variant on adjusting encounters is to start the players at level 2 or 3 and keep the encounters the same. This has the advantage that it can be done for one or two new players while experienced players are at level. It is also self-correcting. The rest of the party and encounters will catch up to them as they get more familiar. I'd suggest this for players who know roleplaying but aren't familiar with PF2. It does mean that they make more choices. ----- I suspect that 1-action attack spells that are balanced would be underwhelming for many players. Especially if they use the full spell slot that a most effective spell would use. I know some people that are loathe to use magic missile unless they can do the full three actions because they feel that they have wasted a spell slot to do less damage. I could see some of the "less effective" cantrips being one action if you removed their added effects. Like a daze that only did damage. This would also allow spellcasters to ready an attack, which would be very useful.
my table has decided multiclassing is for us. Therefore we havent changed casting much, we are considering removing shadow signet ring for caster potency runes that's about it. Oh and necromancers have seperate buffs letting them summon decent stuff without spending a 4th of their gold
I would personally give Flexible Casting as a totally free Option. Not a feat/archetype, not even a free feat or archetype. I mean give them the option during preparation to prepare as a traditional Vancian caster, or as the more Flexible spellcaster instead. This, at least to me, would help ease players used to the 5e flexible caster in to the pathfinder/3e vancian casting allowing them to switch freely between them as they become more comfortable with prepared spellcasting, especially if you allow the players to get enough information on a particular day's encounter that the spellcaster is confident they could prepare the perfect list of spells. The other more extreme option I may use for one or two of my players who tend to be a little more absent during the preparation phase of playing, is simply to buff flexible casting to the same number of spells per day as the class would normally have. "But that's unbalanced" I don't care how unbalanced an extra spell per level is if it will help get a player in to playing a new class. "Why don't they just play sorcerer?" because maybe they like the roleplay of being a wizard instead.
I did some pretty bonkers things with spellcasting, i found the system pretty robust when it came to handling what i allowed my players to do, and i didn't feel like they were too strong or broken, even when giving them things like free haste for 3 rounds every combat.
ive literally had the exact opposite experience with pathfinder casters. IDGI. I have always felt more magical as a pathfinder wizard at each level than a dnd one, my partner's the same
I have found the difference between martial and casters comes down to how often they roll dice. A martials basic attack is one action and often will have a chance to attempt 2 attacks a round vs the caster with most spells being 2 actions. If a martial misses the first attack they can at least attempt a second and feel like they have an option, a caster misses their spell attack, whelp better luck next round which might be 20 plus minutes later. It just feels bad especially if you get on a low rolling streak. I implemented the basic save degrees of success for spell attack rolls as well. So if a caster spending a limited resource and their only real d20 roll a round they will still feel like they are contributing something.
Worse, a ton of offensive spells are save spells so you don't even get to roll, nor can you mitigate bad luck by spending a hero point when you really hope your attack connects. I think this contributes significantly to how the class feels.
Reworking saves into DC's to be targeted by the active party I think should be something considered. If you are acting then you should roll, sure statistically who roles doesn't matter but rolling is fun and lends the illusion of having some form of control.
In PF2 caster are more weak because they cause minor dmg. A barbarian have 2d8+13 of dmg every single turn. and a mage have a 2d6 in minor area... My solution its simples, raise every single spell that is not a Cantrip dmg in PF2 by +2d6. that is . This equilibrate at all with not complicated changes.
What my gm has done is let weapons thrown via telekinetic projectile affect damage and their runes and properties count. It would be overkill if we had any martial son the team. But we have a bow ranger. And a rogue who is mostly absent. This also gives me the thematics I want. I’m sure it’s not for everyone. But I get to enjoy my class more.
Magus can be a great class, but I honestly wouldn't recommend it to someone who is complaining about PF2E casters being underpowered. It takes by far the most severe "weaknesses" of casters - a severely restricted action economy and limited per-day abilities - and turns them both up to 11. If you are not playing Magus as a support character, just like any other caster, you're going to hate it. A magus will not succeed at being a martial due to both being very MAD and having a slower proficiency progression, and they will fail even harder at being a blaster caster because they have half the spell slots. Magus are good for the same core reason casters are good - they have an amazingly broad toolkit. If you're dealing with someone who can't understand why that's desirable while playing a pure caster, they definitely aren't going to learn the lesson playing a hybrid.
One of the big problem with casters, IMHO, is that we tend to only focus on combat, while one of the major advantages of casters are outside of that, where their "reality bending" stuff really kicks in! I think one big step toward casters being recognised is to give the group challenges the spellcaster actually do have the best tool at hand to resolve: Massive cliff where fly or air walk is great, conditions like curses or afflictions for the divine, animal or nature related situations where a speak with animal or some nature bending utility tool a primal caster have, etc... And actually describing it and giving the spotlight to those moments is important, not just handwaving it either.
The problem then becomes that, atleast with prepared casters, they have to cut into their already low sustain and overall daily total usefulness just on the off-chance that a utility spell that they prepared is somewhat useful. Especially when with the metaknowledge that the GM probably won't be throwing an unsolveable problem at you, it's a lot harder to justify not just preparing another buff or a Fear
So weird - levels 1 through 6 don’t really give me much grief as a caster; it’s level 7 and higher where the monsters (especially the boss monsters) absolutely WRECK me, and I’m back to casting spells that don’t have saves or attack rolls. For levels 1 through 5, I’m keeping up , and only at most +1 behind the martials.
When is your GM handing out +1 weapon runes? 5-7 is a pain point for most casters because their accuracy lags behind a decked out martial because of when they get weapon and spell proficiencies, respectively.
@@aaronjung5502- around level 2 or so, same as recommended; that’s why I’m only +1 or so behind. Without considering the rune, casters are par with other characters or martials (except for fighters, but you really can’t compare there, I compare more to paladins and barbarians) , so it’s when the “expert” and “master” and then the higher runes (+2s) that casters are quickly outpaced. And warpriest characters have the worst of both worlds - they get expert and master super-late and never get legendary for their weapons, and never get above expert for their spells, meaning after about level 9 it’s pretty pointless for them to prep spells that use attacks or saves.
Personally I would love more reaction, 1 action and 3 action spells in the game. Even if there are already good 1 action activities casters can do, the irritation i have about them is that everyone can do most of them. I'd rather do what i made the character to do, cast spells.
Personally I just think we need a few better spells at 1st and 2nd rank. That's when being a caster is most painful, because there are like 4 spells that actually do anything worthwhile in combat. 3 dice on the 1st rank cones, d12 not d10 on the 2nd rank area hits,. Until fireball that playstyle has nothing really worthwhile over cantrips.
It's actually the reason I dropped trying playing as a caster and just moved to the Kineticist. I don't like them lore wise, story wise, but they do what I want - do damage. They don't pay half of their brute power for doing sometimes useful things. I don't want to pay for them. It's cool that twice or trice I can do something cool nobody else can. But if there is a choice between being strong in the fight VS make that 3 times though the whole campaign something extraordinary? No thanks. Additionally - when you're role-playing a mighty wizard and DM is like - sorry, we have to focus on survival, so no food spells and so on. I do understand it - but that makes the whole idea of the casting magician obsolete. Thank God now you can have 3 focus points and choose undead, devil, dragon or any other bloodline with rather useful combat spells so basically can just emit the real wraith at the enemies. At least as long as their level doesn't go overseas and those 8d6 are obsolete.
Instead of giving casters more spellslots, just give them a book with 10 spellscrolls, have them learn the interact mechanic and experiment with all of the different spells.
ADDITIONS/ERRATA:
-One other straightforward "thing to try before homebrewing" is to make a conscious effort to find and acknowledge the many moments when another player's action applied the decisive +1 or -2 needed to change the outcome. They are MUCH more frequent in PF2e than in other systems and leads to great moments at the table! Some say +1s sound dry and boring, but it means great moments are SHARED and can be the RESULT of sound decisions. Win-win in my book. And if playing on Foundry, the "PF2E Modifiers Matter" module does this automatically!
-A couple commenters suggests being more generous with "spell" items like scrolls, wands, etc. - this is a nice "non house rule" way to get at some of the difficulties identified here!
-WEIRD rendering issue 20:57 to 21:47. Sorry!
-I like one commenter's suggestion of allowing Aid to assist a spellcaster land their Saving Throw spell. I hesitate to allow it for an entire AOE (maybe for a particularly appropriate action?), but to apply a circumstance penalty to at least 1 enemy's saving throw sounds good to me.
I am going to ask yet again: What feat would a fighter take to hit harder, (and power attack beign a trap feat not worth the 2 actions does not count)
@@justicar5 PF2 avoids PF1/5e-style "always good to use" mathematical bonuses and favors making them situational, to prevent auto-picks/feat taxes
Power Attack is good versus enemies with resistance and enemies against which your 2nd attack at -5 will almost certainly miss (e.g. higher-level soldier types)
@@justicar5 Power Attack
@@justicar5Barbarian Dedication
The biggest problem with +1s is that they FEEL boring. There is nothing in the monkey brain that looks at a +1 bonus and gives the goody good chemicals.
Saying that the +1 can be great moments to be shared sounds more like cope because +1s ARE dull and boring. Which are not the same thing as important or impactful. And those events would be shared *anyway*.
The part of it being about the result of sound decisions, while true, that is something that has little to do with the +1 or -1 itself, and more to do with how it enables others like a combo.
My houserule for prepared casters is to give all of them the "Spell Substitution" wizard thesis baked in. Spell substitution wizards now get the ability to free action swap a spell for a single action 1/2/3/4 times per day (for TEML arcane spellcasting proficiency respectively). I find it saves a ton of in game time and bellyaching when it would be "optimal" to scout one day, come back the next with correct preparation, and doesn't penalize players for not having godlike foresight and planning (which my wizard player certainly does not have)
Rules Lawyer, here are many of the PF2 caster suggestions I've been making for many years.
1) Spells that as written require 2 or 3 actions to cast gain the Flourish trait and their casting times are reduced by 1 action (to 1 or 2 Actions instead). If the spell as written takes only 1 action to cast, it's unaffected by this rule, and may be cast in the same round as a Flourish spell.
2) The 1st Sustain a Spell Action taken in a round is a Free Action. Any 2nd or later Sustains in a round take 1 action each, s normal.
3) Wizards: If they chose a Universalist, they get the Spell Substitution thesis for free and may also choose 1 other Thesis, in addition to the multiple Drain Bonded Items. If they chose to Specialize in a School, that school always counts as 1 Prof step higher for all purposes and they get 1 additional spell of that school for each spell level they can cast. (So, an Evoker at level 1 is Expert Prof. at casting Evocation spells, and Trained at all other schools. A School Specialist becomes Legendary in their single School at 15th level and Master in all other schools, because at 19th level, when the Universalist finally gets Legendary in all schools, the Specialist instead gets 1 free feat, same as the Universalist got at 1st level.)
4) Sorcerers gain all their "Granted Spells" added to their Spell Pool as soon as they are able to cast spells of that level, and all their spells count as Signature Spells (no need to learn the same spell at multiple levels, learn it once and cast it at any level spell slot available).
5) Druids gain a Primal Font of spells that are automatically learned and prepared, and they may each be cast once per day without spending a slot. The free casting is also Heightened as if the spell were a cantrip. Each font consists of 4 spells (a 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th level spell, learned when that level of spells is learned), based on the Druid's initial Order choice. (If a Druid takes the Order Explorer feat to learn additional Orders, only their initial Order provides Primal Font spells)
6) Clerics gain several boosts. Their proficiency in Simple Weapons and Unarmed attacks increases whenever their Deity's weapon Proficiency increases, and they get several feats for free at certain levels (for example, at 3rd level, a Cloistered Cleric gets Cantrip Expansion for free, while a Warpriest gets Emblazon Armaments for free.)
7) Bards count all spells known as Signature Spells, and I also made specific changes to some of their class feats.
8) Amulets of (Arcane/Divine/Occult/Primal) Spell Power: a new item that adds it's bonus to attack rolls and spell DCs for spells of that magical tradition, once the amulet is Invested and worn by the caster. They come in +1, +2, and +3 varieties, same as Potency Runes (gained/learned at roughly the same time you'd give martials the equivalent Potency Runes).
Favorite house rule is for the Incapacitate trait - instead of always getting one degree of success better, instead they can never crit fail.
Makes Incapacitate trait spells no longer completely useless against bosses, while also never letting them effectively take out a difficult enemy. They have higher saves already, so it's already harder to get them to fail in the first place. And 2e shifted the big power of Incapacitate effects to crit fails, so a regular fail is always limited.
Oh I love that
This is exactly what I do lol.
Giving it a heart but I also hesitate because I'm going to assume it works against the party as well.
In general, allowing extreme events (like save or suck) to occur more often works the party which is supposed to succeed on average. Imagine an intelligent foe casting Paralyze on the party's only healer for example. A problem on its own, yes - but what if by we now can have FOUR OR MORE enemies 4 levels lower than the healer who are able to take turns casting Paralyze on them. In theory their lower DCs will be resisted, but with that many castings something is bound to fall through.
The ONLY thing that keeps me open-minded on this one is that spells like Slow and Synesthesia are already pretty strong and DON'T have the Incapacitation trait!
@Skelethin and@@adamu.2674How long have you played with it and what levels have your campaigns gone up to?
That campaign got to level 7 I think before the group ran into scheduling issues. Lasted over a year, less than two. Started within 6 months of 2e coming out.
Since most debuff spells don't stack their condition, the party didn't really suffer from it. And the Fae Sorc was appeased that their spells did something to the tougher enemies, despite their grumbling that could sound otherwise.
While I agree that we don't need more one action spells strictly speaking, I think the lack of variable action spells is a huge missed opportunity. I like the way you put it "the future of casting"
While I am playing as caster often I don't feel like I am playing with 3 action economy
it more often feels like I am playing spell action + small action
and at the same time martials can do 4 or even more things every turn due to quickened and feats that cheat action economy and thier reactions are far more frequent
I know this isn't satisfactory, but I do think it is hard to think of 1-action spells that satisfies this itch. Notably, there already ARE 1-action spells in the game but they're more like "Swift actions" from previous editions in that they're more like "a ribbon" to your "main action" on your turn: things like Shield, Guidance, etc. Sustain actions also fall in this category.
So I'm guessing you're looking something more directly impactful with a 1-action spell, most obviously an attack spell? Which also comes with the advantage of possibly being able to deal different damage types to reflect that caster fantasy?
Design-wise, Kineticist's Elemental Blast is the closest thing we see in PF2 to scratch this itch. One can attack 3 times with increasingly low accuracy, AND have the option of building up a stronger 2-action blast... So for now that's our official option for casters who want to go there.
Homebrew-wise, I don't know if anyone has tried to make 2+ action spells cost 1 less action but have the Flourish trait if it is 2 actions or more? And whether anyone sees any issues with that?
Finally -- again probably not satisfactory to you -- I think all this is tempered by the fact that any caster can take up a weapon and do single-action Strikes, whereas martials aren't able to play with caster toys and have to take a Dedication feat to do so.
Anyway, just some thoughts.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I was mostly thinking about my divine sorcerer, and I felt like this the most when durring combat I wanted to use draconic form (I had acces form archetype), but when I use it I have one action left, if I started turn next to the enemy the I've made myself even more valuable to dmg (dragon form has lover AC than myself and 10 temp hp is nothing) but when I would start turn away from enemy my only action will be striding to the enemy giving them geat squishy target, and as I am playing kobold with very strong draconic connections I really want to use this spell
for other spells I just don't feel that not casting 2 action spell during turn just isn't worth my actions, there is soo much buff spells that I want to have effect as soon as possible
I've played kineticis once and I love it, it is now my go to option for magic dmg character
as caster I always have wand staff or other items that gives me spells so my hands are most often full
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I think if more spells worked like the elemental blast from kineticist, people wouldn't have as big of an issue.
As a new player I agree. My typical cleric turn is: 1) Do a knowledge role that fails or reveals no useful info. 2) Cast a cantrip that usually misses. 3) Wait for the fighters to defeat the monster and do medicine checks after combat is over IF the fighter hasn't already healed with Battle Medicine.
Sucks to suck.
@@Xyphyri I don't know what lv you are playing but if you are 5lv+ don't hesitate to cast your leveled spells, you have very decent selection of buff spells and the sooner you cast them the more value you get form them
We use the same advancement on Prof for Casters and Martials, and no one even notices it... xD but it leads to more spell crits and happy moments which everyone in the table cheers for
So my homebrew solution has been... interesting. It was kind of by accident, but I thought I would share it. Basically, I've ripped the Destiny Point system from the Star Wars FFG games. I put down 3 tokens in the center of the board that have a red and blue side. During any d20 roll, someone can flip one from the blue side to the red side in order to increase their level of success by 1 step. This has allows casters to hit/crit when they really need it, and it has made my sorcerer and magus players very happy. It also helps avoid class pitfalls such as the alchemist's odd scaling. It comes with the downside of players critting much more often, and it shifts the power in their favor a lot, which is where the other half of this rule comes in. The GM can flip any red side over to blue in order to give any creature a number of actions equal to the number of tokens flipped. All 3 are red? Well you guys using the tokens has made it to where my big bad guy now essentially gets another turn. Its similar to legendary actions in that way, but they can be given out to any creature. I've explained it to my players as essentially being the strands of fate being manipulated. They get to manipulate it in their favor, but for each hit/crit they force, I get to do an extra attack, or reposition. Its made our combats a lot more dynamic and fun. (I also flip them to introduce conflict in roleplay moments, such as a group of guards coming at an inopportune time, which lets me give the tokens back to them during non-combat moments)
I can totally see this rule not being for every table. Or even any table. But its super fun for ours, and I just thought I'd share it here, as it really has let my casters shine when they WANT to, without changing the overall balance of the game too far in anyone's favor. It just gives a bit of agency to the player's rolls, and we've had a lot of fun with it. This also easily solves a lot of issues with incapacitation, I've noticed. A player knows it has incapacitation? Twist fate a bit and make sure they can get that success they need :)
Edit: I should note, this has completely replaced hero points at my table.
I really like the sound of this actually. If I tried this I'd be tempted to expand the options a tad, both for players and GM, but yeah this sounds like a lot of fun.
@@WolforNuva we’ve slowly expanded what the points can do. And feel free to limit them as well (such as no increasing a roll to be a critical success). I’ve added rerolling damage on the players side, to avoid those 8 damage critical hits lol
I even had fun making my own tokens by painting some miniature bases blue and red.
This is genius, balancing improved ability to remove enemy actions against a consequence of future enemies having more actions.
My easy three balances for casters:
• Add a new “Spellcasting Nexus” Property Rune that lets you add your Weapon Item Bonus to Spell Attacks
• All spells you learn are “Signature”. Don’t have to relearn Spells you already know. Instead, you just get one bonus spell slot at highest level to cast a Signature Spell (like how Clerics get four of these to Heal or Harm. Unifying design is easy to work with).
• Every enemy has one more vulnerability. Even if this isn’t a Weakness, this can be a -2 to a certain time of saving throw (olfactory effects, charm / diplomacy effects, topple effects, distracted or vulnerable to acoustic or sonic effects, etc).
I don’t want to change cantrips too much, overstep martial classes or kineticist, or dramatically change enemy stats. I want to just ease the process of play and provide their gameplay fantasy. Plus 3rd Rank Spells are very very potent when they target saves, again why I don’t buff that flat out (plus, this buffs casters without buffing Magus).
I am also definitely in favor in reworking Recall Knowledge. The way we do it is getting basic fundamental knowledge on a miss, also telling a feature and allowing a question on a Hit, and two features and two questions on a Crit. The catch is you only can recall once per hero vs target per encounter unless you have some knowledge toolkit. So you’ll know more even on a miss, and you really feel like a researcher.
Also in agreement of changing Aid! My down and dirty rule is that the DC to Aid is a step lower than the DC of what you’re trying to Aid with. So, if an enemy’s AC is 18, DC 13 to Aid. If an ally is tempting a DC 25 Crafting check, the DC to Aid is 20.
The defense of casters saying that they have increased versatility is, to me, like saying Rangers are the best DnD character because they are both part fighter, part rouge and part druid.
Martial can heal with the medicine skill, debuff enemies with intimidation or flanking, use weapons with specific runes to target weaknesses.
Casters can do similar things but with lower chance to hit and with limited spell lots. So, they have to waste a action to find lowest save of the monster, and just hope that you both have an appropriate spell and that the spell does actually hit.
Certainly does seem to favor Martial and nerfing casters does seem a bit unfair.
Edited: Spelling/grammar. Also, best attacks use two actions, of course.
I absolutely agree and as a new player I'd add that spell diversity and veritilty is a WEAKNESS. The massive wealth of spells only makes it more likely you'll pick a dud and be sitting on the side of an encounter watching the fighters have all the fun.
Additionally, any game where you can anticipate what your DM will throw at you is a bad game! As a player, you want to be surprised and let your DM player flex their creativity! I hate being bummed out by my DMs hard work because the 2 spells I can prepare don't fit the encounters.
makes me miss touch AC. say what you will about AC, touch AC, flatfooded AC, and Flatfooted Touch AC making things complicated, it let casters HIT. It gave them the ability to destroy heavily armored foes who were shrugging of sword swings so those meatheads could deal with the agile foes the caster couldn't harm with reflex saves and hits.
Honestly, just easier encounters or creatures fixes the problem a lot of new GMs have. They're always tempted to throw creatures equal to or greater than the player, but that's rarely the right decision.
Don't be afraid that your players will blow through the lower stakes encounters. That was the standard experience in 5e, 3.x, and PF1e. Just because those encounters and creatures were labeled medium in those and easy in PF2e doesn't mean anything.
This is a lesson I had to learn on my own back when I was playing 5e. I knew that the system made combat very easy after a certain point and in my desire to see the party challenged I constantly pushed for bigger harder battles. This not only left my party with a sort of combat fatigue, where they felt tired of always fighting uphill battles, but it also made what I wanted to be standout boss fights a lot less interesting or memorable since they couldn't be much harder than the standard fights without becoming straight up unfair.
Those weaker encounters are more important than I think most people realise.
I also say lowering the boss level and adding hazards/additional mobs maintains the challenge but let's casters shine more. When you take out half the enemy group in a single fireball you feel real good.
My personal way I have been looking to buff casters is introducing potency runes to casting, but instead of a flat +1 to all attack rolls, its a +1 to specific damage types and spell traits. For example a Fire Spell Potency Rune would give a +1 to the DC and attack rolls for Fire spells specifically.
I personally like this idea because it feels similar to weapon progression, since a flat +1 to spell attacks is fine, casters still have the innate advantage of it basically applying to all their spells. So by limiting it to one trait or damage type it mimics the progression of weapons and allows for a more specialist type fantasy.
Thoughts on having some monsters have magic weakness overall? Several are magic resistant instead.
On average I wish P2E had more weaknesses. It would feel good for casters, but also it'd be a substantial boost to the feel of using Recall Knowledge, which is a really good baseline action for casters (who are often brainy) to use their third action on, round 1.
While it has more weaknesses per capita listed on its monsters than 5E, the impression I get as someone running Abomination Vaults for a party that uses Recall Knowledge every combat is that I wish there were 20-25% more monsters with weaknesses. They don't all have to be easily accessible - the Good-aligned damage weakness of some devils is fine and not easy for parties to come by, while allowing them to plan against it if they know there'll be a devil later on - but having to tell the party, "nah, he's just a ball of hp, no weaknesses, watch out for his Swallow Whole attack on his bite."
Broad-scope Magic Vulnerability would be...iffy. You'd want to only have it on a rare few things, because in those fights the martials would be forced into the background unless magic weapons also triggered it at which point the monster would just be butter; designed to be sliced through.
As someone who first played pathfinder 2e as a druid with an animal companion in a campaign, i was finding myself constantly at low levels just struggling to do anything i wanted. 1 action up command my animal and 2 actions to cast a spell i never found i had an action without feeling like i was missing on being more helpful. Like recalling knowledge to help the party. Since most combats was animal companion command and cast spell. Just my issue i did respec into a monk it is feeling better so far.
When it comes to three action economy, I feel like there’s a trick that could be borrowed from the Magus. Their Spellstrike is essentially three actions for the cost of two, but those actions are pre-specified.
If casters had homebrew 2-action activities which did an action appropriate to class and subclass, plus cast a 1 or 2 action spell, that’d allow a lot of the fun of the three action economy, but keeping most of the per-turn balance of 2-action spells.
that makes sense and follows PF2 design ethos, although tbf spellstrike has to be "reloaded" so really it's a MAP-saver not an action-saver
@@lawrl777 yeah, with the caveat that Magus will also sometimes reload while also doing something.
I guess a better example might be the Slinger's Reload, which is granting action economy, but in a specific and narrow way.
One buff I would add for spellcasters I would consider would be to change spell attack ranges to range increments. One or two action spells aren't going to make any difference against a fighter with a longbow at 240 feet. Also, I will disagree on one point: versatility is not powerful. It is the /potential/ to do something powerful and a potential unrealized, whatever the cause, isn't helpful.
As a caster going through a pre-made campaign, paizo tends to put a lot of solo encounters. Solo encounters tend to have higher saving throw which in exchange make most of your spell slot that are not buffs to your team fizzle into a faillure or crit faillure (without counting all the spells that have incapacitation and can't be used). When a spell succeed they are great but they so rarely do so, when they fail you lose your spell slot as well making this faillure feel even more bitter . It forces the player to use spells that have effect on faillure because this is all you will ever get. Its just not a fun gameplay. Mass encounter are always easy for any class so I do not count them. Low level were very painful. The 'high' save of a monster is nearly impossible to breach which cuts you from a part of your library.
Odds of success on those solo boss encounters are low. But when they succeed? They can single handedly turn a severe encounter into a low encounter. Even if it’s only 1 out of 5 or 6 times it works, it can be extremely satisfying for many players when it does. Honestly if the success rates were buffed, I would severely nerf the effects.
This was a huge problem for D&D before 5th edition and PF1e as well. I stopped playing a caster with spells that have saves as the baddies made their saves about 80% of the time. It’s not that fun when most of what you do is spend a resource to do nothing.
Exactly, things being extraordinary 1 time out of 6 still means that 5/6 of the time, you will slap your face and feel like you just wasted your turn, action and spellslots, then you end up waiting 10 min for the table to play before its your turn again.@@alanthomasgramont
But you wont have the actions or the spell slots to gamble on that crit fail on the boss. @@ASalad
I had this exact same problem with a published AP
Every fucking encounter was +3 level solo boss fight, the martials were able to at least fish for crits, where as I was able to about 30 percent of the time grant a small buff. most of the time the critical success rates would just mean I did nothing. It was real unfun....... and then I found out my Gm was leaving off the magic resistance which the majority of monsters at those levels had. It really really soured me on P2e, and this was after a decade of playing the original game as my prefered tabletop game.
I think Paizo should reduce saves on monsters by 1 at low level play, and by 2 (total, not cumulative with the previous change) at higher levels. I also think leveled attack roll spells should do damage on a miss (but not a critical miss).
I like the idea of effect on a miss in theory, but we have the existence of True Strike/Sure Strike in the game.
I've seen the view expressed that Sure Strike should be removed, and I wouldn't be against it... It creates a weird meta that is not obvious.
Mark Seifter himself said there was debate internally about whether to keep it in the game.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I agree with removing true strike and making spell attacks follow the normal math instead, which would require splitting the spell casting proficiencies to spell attacks and spell saves.
Something I have been considering is allowing hero points to force rerolls on enemy saves to player spells. This gives spellcasters something extra to use them on, but I worry that it might be a little too powerful in the long run. Would that change be too impactful?
At our table, we use Hero Points to prevent enemies from critically hitting. It does make things easier during big boss encounters, but it works for us. I feel like your suggestion would have a similar effect, so give it a shot for a session or two and if it sticks, go with it.
I would warn against this if players are using certain races that get fortune or misfortune effects from ancestry feats (tengu and catfolk come to mind). This would overly nerf their ancestry's identity.
Oh hey, my post on breaking the game is hard showed up. Thanks, Ronald!
I think the most interesting things people tried to bring up in that thread was trying to say that "casters just totally outclassed martials at that point" but even with my homebrewed runes the casters end up -2 for levels 5 and 6, -2 for levels 13 and 14, and they only get to be +2 on their attacks for the final couple of levels.
By the point that casters would statistically go past most martials they already have a complete set of feats which can allow them a wide range of utility. I feel that a lot of people do overlook that martials usually have similarly incredible amounts of utility. Especially things like champion or ranger. Champion reaction is amazing along with warden's boon. My party constantly has the flurry ranger giving his boon to the monk for an utterly insane combo of high damage hits. Certain martial feats, like warden's boon, really are a unique form of utility that even casters can't exactly access.
As for my personal reasons to buffing DC's alongside the spell attacks, it's because saves are also built with accounting for skill checks. Skill checks can not only get a bonus from items, but they can go all the way up to a +4 item bonus thanks to high level consumables.
But I do think rather than the griping about martials it would be good to show a genuine effort to explore just how much better they've grown in utility compared to previous editions with how good archetyping and skill feats can be.
Bless having +1 is fine. A 5ft radius that you need to use actions to make bigger is just annoying to me.
you can always precast it, before combat
@KaZlos sure. I dunno about most tables but most combat I see is either surprise or unexpected. Casting a spell makes noise too which can impact your ambush. I've watched all Rules Lawyer videos on this subject and I respectfully find most spells in pf2e very underwhelming. Bless is a perfect example of attempted balance making the caster experience less fun.
I do think the “+5ft every round” means that, at most, a caster will get a 15ft radius before combat ends, because the vast majority of combats last 3 rounds from what I hear in the community. This means a bless caster pretty much always has to be in the front lines, and they can’t cast any more spells until bless is done, because PF2 combat in my experience means MOVEMENT. You are Not getting another spell when evrry round means 1 action is used for sustain, and 1 action at least is mused to move to optimally place your very short radius bless.
My homebrew is that bless is a 1-3 action spell, 1 action is 5 foot emanation, 2 starts at 15, and 3 starts at 30
@@charmandenator5686I love this, elegant and simple.
Spell Attacks and Spell DCs being tied to the same number really hurts the feeling of spell attacks. Shadow Signet helps, and sure strike (which isn't meta-magic, so it can stack with shadow signet) helps deal with attack rolls being more likely to just do nothing and feel bad as a waste of a spell slot. The problem is these kinda feel like band-aids that feel like "you need to learn the meta" in order to succeed.
I don't know if you can fix the issue in a non-band-aid way without fundamentally changing the system, but for now, as a GM with newer players, at least you can point these two things out to give them a head start in making these play-styles more viable. Also, just give the wanna-be blaster caster a big ol staff of sure strike can help them out too.
I've been experimenting with increasing caster endurance in a different way: by letting them regain a spell slot of each rank after an encounter, similar to pre-remaster focus spells. This means that casters are able to use their main abilities in every fight, so it doesn't feel so bad when you cast a spell and it whiffs. It doesn't make extreme fights any easier, since they were already (meant to be) entered with a full day's complement of resources. The main problem is that easy and moderate fights are virtually guaranteed to not expend any daily spell slots, which is a problem because usually "How many spell slots will the casters have to use during the fight?" seems to be the only stake for those encounters. (This is different to, say, 5e or PF1, where "How many hit points will we lose?" and "How many martial limited-use abilities will be used?" are also important considerations.) But having encounters where the party's main aim is to *stop* their casters from having to use their fun powers is kind of bad design anyway, and I'm not sad to see it go. You just need to replace it with another day-long consequence for combats which go badly, so the easier fights don't become boring. My current rule is that the wounded condition doesn't go away until you sleep, meaning that you can only get knocked out so many times in a single day before you die.
For me the greatest pain point of casters vs martials divide actually goes to the bit where the martials are to large extent closed out of supporting casters for the most part. They could recall knowledge, yes, but unless they are a thaumaturge their ability scores on RK skills usually aren't very high, and I often find martials have a higher value on their third action in comparison to casters. In general I've felt though a lot of the talk around ''PF2e is a teamgame'' has been a bit disingenious because it expects spellcasters to be always supporting the martials, but it feels equally adamant in shoehorning the idea martials don't get to treat this as a team game. Aside from Demoralize of course, but again, charisma based skill that helps martials and casters equally and off guard which helps with spell attacks that have been entirely absent beyond the first few levels in every campaign I've partook in.
The not recommended bit of the video addressed this as problematic due to buffing martials aswell. Something my table had considered at a time was making it so prone would include some small penalty to reflex saves (-1, because surprisingly most people are less agile when they are laying on the ground). That way the penalty that is given is redundant to martials by the time it is applied since the target is already tripped. Maybe I looked too much into that point where it was addressed as crux of the problem, but there seems to be so many easy workarounds to the given problem to take it *too* seriously.
Good video still though, no doubt some of the tips help some of the people who feel like they are frustrated with abilities not landing.
The Flexible Spellcasting variant is a great option for players coming over from 5E as it's pretty analogous to that style of casting.
I like it, but I can't help but feel like its too big of a nerf for the comfortable casting.
The issue is it makes the lack of spells slots issue worse/last longer. It also significantly reduces the number of cantrips at lower lvls for reasons I still don't understand.
Another nice Homebrew for casters is to provide a new Feat:
Feat 2 - Enduring Knowledge: General Prerequisite: Cast a Spell ability
You cast a 1st-level spell targeting AC and the result is a Failure or Critical Failure. You do not lose the spell and slot used.
You cast a 1st-level spell requiring a saving throw and the result is a Critical Success. You do not lose the spell and slot used.
Heightened (Caster Level 5): Add 2nd-level spell
Heightened (Caster Level 10): Add 3nd-level spell
Heightened (Caster Level 15): Add 4th-level spell
Heightened (Caster Level 20): Add 5th-level spell
Our table is using the spell potency runes, we also tried applying the bonus to save DCs, up until now it's worked fine, although I have to note that none of our campaigns have went into the higher levels of play. Another think I want to point out though, as a GM, even if I give these spell potency runes to my casters, the moment I feel like my PCs are too strong, I can just increase the encounter difficulty, this way, I also get to have more fun as a GM using stronger, more complex enemies.
This thing works for the kind of heroic fantasy I am running, perhaps others won't have such fun.
In 5e I actually have gotten to the point where I allow my players to see creature hp %, AC, and saving throws on tooltips. We find the game becomes a lot more tactical when that's the case (it feels kinda like playing Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics) and it allows everyone to feel better about decisions even when they fail because they actively opted into the odds.
If the game becomes easier because of it (which it actually hasn't for us) then you can compensate just by upping encounter difficulty slightly.
I'm hoping the same will hold true in PF, especially because then Recall Knowledge can be more about understanding tactics and abilities rather than just numerical stuff.
On the rare occasions I've GMed I've used player-facing enemy HP bars on roll20. It doesn't give them an exact HP amount remaining or even an exact HP%, but it makes it a lot easier to work out how much HP an enemy has remaining (you can eyeball HP estimates by how much the bar goes down when you hit for like, 10 damage) _and_ it has the bonus of making it way easier for players to know how to flavour their attacks, since they know whether they just did a big hit or a small one, whether their hit got the monster to below half, etc. So rather than just "I swing my sword at the monster" they can go "I strike with an overhead slash of my greatsword. The ogre blocks it with his club, but the heavy impact jars his arms," or "With a flourish, I batter the ogre's club aside, follow into a spin to build momentum and take advantage of my greatsword's weight, and sweep the blade across, cutting a nasty gash in the ogre's side."
I'd hesitate to make exact AC and saves visible initially, at least for types of foes you are likely to fight many times or make many attacks against, but I might spell out which save is the weakest and which is the highest, and when the party discovers the exact AC of a monster anyway (by hitting it on the nose after missing by 1 earlier) I would certainly write it down where they can see it.
My friend played a lvl 3 war cleric and he felt very powerful slinging spells and making weapon attacks.
I'm new to Pathfinder 2e and bringing family and friends into the hobby that are also new. I made a friend a war cleric (dispite my insistence he makes his own character). I based it on one of d4 deep dive's war cleric build.
why would buffing casters, making spellslots more impactful lead to more frequent resting?
Wouldnt it be the opposite? Because there would be less "wasted" spells?
Because you want all your impactful spells back for each fight.
@@BlueSapphyre your focus spells, maybe, but not your slotted spells
@@texteel just long rest between each fight to get your slotted spells back. that's how we cheese fights in 5e. clear a room, barricade the door, take a long rest, repeat. then it's up to the GM to put a clock on your adventure, and it begins to feel railroady.
I see this as mostly an encounter design problem that Paizo perpetuated in the APs. Build your severe and extreme encounters but stuff them full of mooks with only a few enemies party level and higher. Casters feel real powerful when they can pull off their area spells consistently. This also matches better with actual fantasy fiction where it's almost always 1 or 2 names enemies and a faceless horde of guards or henchmen. The one mistake players will still make is doing a lot of single targets spells on bosses, that said on a lucky roll they potentially do a lot more than a lucky roll from a martial
I've ran Pathfinder 2e now for 2 years with my group, and my first two adjustments have worked perfectly for this for us for the whole time. I do the "give them more 10 minute Refocus times" and I give every caster a standard buff of +2 to Spell Attacks and DC's right from creation.
It works perfectly for us and doesn't break anything or cheapen anyone else in the game at the same time.
Just these 2 little tweaks works perfectly!
Thnx for the video again, Ronald! 👊
im interested in this idea , how does the plus 2effect half casters/wave casters and archtypes? if you don't mind sharing
@buttermilkbiscut5477 You're welcome! Actually, any caster we've had, which has either been Sorceror, Wizard, Cleric, Druid, and Witch are all we've played of the full casters, and Magus and Oracle are the only "half" casters.
They've done some Archetypes, but my group goes hard after full party synergy on casters, skills, feats, and equipment when they play.
From all of those, this adjustment has been incredibly helpful, playable, and totally not game-breaking/math-breaking in any ways.
I stay very directly with Creature Levels and Totals in all the AP's I run, whether 2E, or 1E that I either convert, or fellow Discord-ers do.
I dig it! You should definitely post it somewhere! With your dm play style and players style input
I am playing my first 2e character, an Illusionist Wizard, in Extinction Curse, and 1-5 were pretty rough. However, that is no different than 1e or any other 3.X game that I've played. We are now level 10 and it is a much better play experience. The only change I would like is for the Incapacitation trait to be a bit softer- most of my Illusion spells (which I want to cast, they're the whole reason I am an Illusionist), can actually do something useful and I don't always have to prepare all of them in my highest spell level slot. I think if I were DMing I would change Incapacitation so that enemies that are two times or more levels higher than a spell rank can't critically fail and just fail instead, rather than what the rule is now.
Yeah I would get behind that change. Especially the shift from success to critical success is the one that hurts me the most.
I agree that incapacitation does feel bad, but I think your idea swings it a little too hard the other way. a success effect on a single beefy creature is worth as much or more as a critical success effect on a single, lower level mook in a group of mooks. I might consider giving the target a +5 bonus to their save and remove the possibility of critical failure.
@@kwagmeijer26any creature that qualifies for the Incapacitate trait will always have a higher than normal save due to being higher level. So they will always be less likely to fail in the first place. And the big power behind Incapacitate effects is on the crit fail, which is still blocked under the house rule.
Hi Roland, I am a new GM to pathfinder 2e, I have interacted with you in the quite long video where you watch the puffin forest and Taking20 videos. I just wanted to tell you that I have try a mini campaign (just 6 sessions more or less). I love your videos, thanks for showing me this game. Also, I decided to start at second level and only using trivial, low and moderate encounters so my players could adapt better and it worked. Do you think this is a good advice for new pathfinder 2e GM's?
yep!
Strategizing is a nice word for "predicting the future and being unable to react to it in case it is different from what you expected". Thats not strategy that is just luck. Frankly inflexibility just breeds a fill all slots with the max dps and pray that you predict correclty if you kill trash or bosses today. A flexible way for wizards etc to exist while not making the sorcerer obsolete is a never ending ache i feel with pathfinder.
RL says - we have a toxic gatekeeping issue.
Also RL says - casting is hard because you’re just too dumb.
I know you don’t mean this, but gods damn it feels a bit like that.
Your house rule on RK has now been confirmed by Paizo as the way it was always meant to have been run (Player asks a specific question, GM rolls RK secret check, on a success they get the answer, on a crit success they get extra or another question).
Also, I'll say it forever, I know 2e is an abstraction and realism isn't the priority, but it is absurd that neither immobilized nor grabbed reduce Reflex saves. I know this would help subsequent trip attempts in addition to reflex save spells and be used against the party too... but that just makes sense to me. Can't see any way around it.
Maybe you mentioned this and I missed it, but another thing you can do to buff casters is to make sure and sprinkle wands that the casters can use into the loot. Each wand acts like a spell slot for casters.
Yeah but it also encourages martials to take trick magic item or a caster archetype so they can also dip into the caster goodies. That won’t make the caster feel more useful.
@@aaronjung5502 GMs get to decide on the DC and you can make it very clear that in your game, the DC for tricking magic items is very high (optionally especially so if the magic item is drawn to someone nearby who could use it without tricking it)
@@snakeatwar The GM gets to decide everything at the table, but the baseline is a DC based on item level. It would require a house rule, which I'm fine with (I play with several, including homebrewed spell accuracy runes). I'm just pointing out that RAW, lots of wands can either empower the caster or undermine them.
@@aaronjung5502 Very true. I was just pointing out that the feat specifically says that the DM gets to decide the DC (suggesting they can use the rank of the spell as a baseline) but it doesn't say you need to use it as is. I just thought that making this ruling would be a good way to minimize the conflicts that the TMI feat presents with regard to martials competing with casters. And yes, of course, the GM does get to decide everything at the table.
I hope they give better rules for Recall Knowledge that aren't linked to the creature's level. It's silly that you can have two of the same creatures with one being higher level and the difficulty to discover their weakness is different.
“The typical DC is 20, but the GM might adjust this DC for particularly hard or easy tasks.”
How do people read that as “the DC is always and only 20” for Aid? I’ve let low level PCs aid a DC of their level or the enemies level to aid an ally which is often less than 20. RAW the Aid DC is what the GM says it is, 20 is more of what we call a guideline than an actual hard dc for every situation.
Great video overall!
On screen at 25:10 I correct my statement of "fixed DC" with the caption "default DC"
Of course I myself advocate for not using the default DC of 20.
Tho even what you quote, when taken at face value, saves lowers the DC for "particularly easy" tasks.
Saying "set it to a Standard Level DC" is a DIFFERENT standard; it's a house rule. And one that I support as better than what's written!
im a big fan of the aid DC being 15+level in combat, and 12+ level out of combat.
What about Aid increasing the spell dc of casters alongside attack roll? I have tried multiple times to aid for a cleric, yet the situation then always calls for a save spell.
On the subject of aid, one could consider combining the aid action with recall knowledge and seek, meaning if you take the recall knowledge action or seek action, you can use your reaction to aid someone as you took time to survey the battlefield.
-I like the Aid to help with a Saving Throw spell! Will add to my pinned comment (though I'm less sure about helping an entire AoE but at least 1 target)
-The second suggestion sounds like a great idea tho I'm already buffing R.K. and Aid in my games in other ways. Sounds like a good feat to me tho!
The two house rules for more HP until reaching level 3, and more spells until reaching level 3, can be solved more easily by starting at level 2. There's no particular advantage by starting at 1 other than appeal to tradition , and the complexity of making a level 2 character isn't bigger than making a level 1, and then add a bunch of house rules.
And here I thought that this would be full of tips for other players at the table to buff casters... So, for example, a high charisma martial could use the bon mot feat to make it easier for his caster buddy to be effective with his will save spells.
I've noticed as a new player playing a Storm Druid that the extra focus point they start with is really useful. If the big bad succeeds or critically succeeds their reflex save against Tempest Surge I can still try it again. With the remaster rules I can refocus twice between battles to get both back, though I suspect they'll errata the extra focus point Storm and Leaf druids get.
I have an alternative to your suggestion of giving lvl1/2 casters 5 lvl1 spell slots. Instead give your lvl1 & lvl2 casters one extra 1st lvl slot that can only be used in combat but refreshes when they refocus. I think this is better in a few ways:
- It inherently scales to the number of encounters. 5 slots could be too many or too few depending on the session.
- You always get to do your "main thing" (ie cast a spell) atleast once every encounter.
- It also speeds up the learning process of how to caster in pf2e as you're free to experiment without worrying using up all your resources. To give a real example I keep seeing Gust of Wind recommended but I've been too skeptical to risk one of my precious spell slots trying it. With this rule I'd be happy giving it a go.
The only caveat is I'm not sure how to handle prepared vs spontaneous casters with this idea. I'm tempted to say you prepared a specific spell each time you refocus regardless as that again encourages trying things and accelerates the learning process.
Another interesting thing casters can do is get into the melee since everyone uses shields, and just a feat gives shield block, bastion gives a free hand shield for material components if needed and sentinel or the new dwarf version give you higher class armour, while having touch spells that can trigger reactions, at the downside of nor typically being as thicc as a martial, but it works well
Alternatively, battle forms for casters can do them a lot of good, and oozeform is the superior form for foghting enemies that crit a lot of you have access to it
Love the content .just a thought Playing a caster well requires a lot of meta knowledge. I think for instance how many fights will my gm throw at me before a long rest and will they give not a lot of pl+ level enemies and their weakness/ strengths against prepared spells.
Slot spells vs Mana pool! I still maintain it is one of the most janky design decisions coming from D&D.
Preface: I don't care about blasting. I don't care about damage. People LOVE to remind others that casters are a support role, and that's it. They also love to let us know that caster strength comes from their versatility and the fact that they have over a thousand spells to choose from... only around, what, 300 of which are actually useful and not uselessly thematic or incredibly niche? What if you're a spontaneous occult caster, and you didn't pick the one Fortitude save spell that is useful, and now you find yourself up against (however unlikely) a Fortitude-weak enemy? Welp, you're SOL, 'cause now you get the miss all of your attack rolls and get critically saved upon with all of your debuffs. Time to inspire courage, winning streak/haste, and Aid, good ol' 20 second turns.
Honestly, if "spellstrike runes" were a thing, we could get rid of awful crutches like True Strike and Shadow Signet. As far as save DCs go, people *love* to say how tight the math is and that everything is perfect and working as intended... until you go a full year without landing a single failed save spell while targeting the lowest DC, even after debuffing it. Math is tight, experience is hell.
That said, if people are intent on not giving items to buff class DCs, then I think it's time that support roles become a two way street. Right now, it's casters support martials and martials support themselves - outside of a couple feats, there is no way for a martial to support a caster (why would they, anyway? they get all of their bonuses from just positioning either themselves or the enemy). But, what if casters could benefit from that positioning, as well? Simple things like conditions like Grabbed, Prone, Immobilized, etc. reducing reflex saves by 2, or a martial being able to use a non-lethal attack to ring an enemy's bell and inflict Stupefied. Simple things like that could go a very, very long way, and also give martials more third-action options and allow them to support casters like casters try to support them, but often fail to because welp, they saved again!
Love this comment - sums up a lot of my feelings as well.
Ya, good points. Although to be fair, the way the shadow Signet targets saves should be how most spells should be by default. Casters shouldn't target AC at all except with specific spells
@@petenell5807 That would be a very cool thing to set pf2e apart from a lot of other D20 systems (outside of its rigid ruleset), and I would welcome that change.
Agreed with pretty much everything here. Although I am happy to announce that after 6 months of playing 3 times a week (several campaigns), I experienced the first crit failed save on a spell - and another enemy even failed a save (also first regular failed save I experienced). The results were actually pretty insane in effect considering it was Enervation on a boss fight.
I do feel like those surges of power should happen maybe just a tiny bit more often though.
Another good endurance option is giving out more scrolls and wands.
and for wanna-be blaster casters, a staff of sure strike.
I actually dislike this because it encourages martials to step on the casters toes.
The martials won't be able to use the spell items without the feat (Trick Magic Item), shouldn't cause that@@aaronjung5502
honestly, all your recomendations are good, the way i increase low level endurance is by... starting at level 3. 😅
Thanks for making this video! As you probably know by my comments, I am an ardent believer that the easiest and cleanest way is to do the math boosts for both spell attack and DCs. My version is this (always both attack and DC): +1 "rune" at level 2, which becomes a +2 "rune" at level 5 and onwards up to level 20. That's all. No need for a +3. This fixes the curves and brings the chances of full effect of spell on enemies (while targeting their lowest save!) up to around 60%, in line with martials attacks. That's what makes the game ejoyable.
Also, after testing and crunching some numbers I have realized that Class DCs are just as behind for fundamental stuff like a monk's stunning fist or rangers' traps, so I would also suggest the same buff to Class DCs, same levels, again +2 is the cap.
@ 1:15 : You say "higher skill floor", but I think you mean "higher skill ceiling and lower floor"?
I have a problem with the idea that "casters are more versatile." Martials can also attack from the safety of range, and do better than the caster at it. The Martial can also target saves with Athletics or Intimidate. Martials have versatility from the feats they pick, and still have higher chance to hit. I took a look at the GM book for monster creation, and saves tend to be higher than the respective AC, until level 20. And, a caster has theoretically more versatility. But you can't change your spells mid combat.
I've been playing a fighter after playing a caster and I feel I have so much MORE option of things to do and zero feelings of wasted turns, it's insane
@@franciscoteixeira174 agree, as a fighter I have many good good options. As a caster I have versatile options that are less impactfull and many times I need to see into the future to make good use of it. Many times people say use schroll and wands as a caster. With one feat you have that option as martial to.
I enjoy playing casters in every system, except pathfinder 2.
I feel like pathfinder 2 makes them WAY inferior early on with the promise of "Just wait till later" ie your not going to make a video about 5 first level wizards taking on a PF2 encounter like you did fighters.
I feel like when you get to "later" your met with "well we can't make you better than martials you should just play your role" but now it's too late, you've invested many sessions into a table and now your stuck playing the caster.
If the caster could do what it does infinitely like a martial character it would be one thing, but they can't, not only do they have finite resources in spell slots but they have to guess what they will need before hand. Which I'm ok with when those spell slots mean something, when they work exceptionally well, but in PF2 they don't. Seems like prior to 5th level they just aren't balanced and after 5th level they are balanced against "Well what could a martial do this turn, we can't have them do anything more significant than that because they have UTILITY!" A martial can just reduce hit points but you can apply debuffs, you better be so happy you can give debuffs!
I was so ready to like this video till you opened it up by basically saying "This is a crutch, I prefer it the other way but here's a bone for you whiners" I'm just not in the mood to watch it anymore after about 2 minutes in, but I like your content so I'll give you a like and a comment and maybe come back and actually watch the rest later.
Give them to-hit runes while banning true strike. Possibly partial spell slots back on refocus.
An ideal rework would be to remove spell slots entirely and rebalance spells to be encounter or skill check based. Games like pillars of eternity and divinity as well as trrpgs like Zweihänder or Warhammer fantasy 2e do this just fine without the game exploding.
Interesting idea. I think spellslots really only work in system where magic is allowed to be more crazy and impactful as a limited resource. PF2E is obviously very scared to allowed that to happen so spell slots feel very out of place. Oftenr you would cast a spell with so many immersion breaking restrictions for the sake of balance or the spell will simply mss and it just feels very bad.
Im suprised they decided to keep spell slots for 2e tbh. It feels like they decided to give martials a lot of cool abilities and an interesting action economy to work with while casters kind of got left in the dust imo
@@smccann1998 Spell slots do feel like they're there mostly for tradition's sake. Perhaps they were worried of straying too far off course like D&D 4e did and the complaint was that martials and casters felt too similar.
The old style Warhammer games uses an odd balance where you gamble your character life for power, not a very good game balance from a spell effect perspective. Have not played 2e but I also know that 4e also has terrible scaling issues, erly the wizard can't actually cast his magic without blowing up more offten then he suceeds, and when they get going they obliterate everything in sight. (very lore appropriate, not very balanced)
I will say that the Iron kingdoms RPG works really well, they have a turn based resource. But as it comes from a war game so the effects are a lot tamer than dnd/pf spells, the effects are more along the lines of moveing someone 3' and the spells are not restricted by level so there is no wait untill level X where spell Y becomes available.
@@JohanRoland
2e and Zweihänder do a few things to balance spells by tier.
Higher level spells are harder to cast.
Higher level spells backfire harder when you fail to cast them. (Critical failures on higher level spells can kill you. Low chance, but it's there.)
All spell effects are balanced around being potentially spammed to a degree. Damage is extremely bounded in the system so the craziest damage formulas you'll ever see are around 3d10+10 and 3d6x6+10 for weapons and spells. (the latter formula means exploding d6).
The long and short is that combat is extremely lethal and advancing is more about being harder to kill than doing more damage.
Two minor suggestions for balance if you’re worried about power creep for wizards but they want to feel more accurate on their attack rolls:
First, it doesn’t really hurt to homebrew in a relatively weak weapon, say 1d4 elemental, spirit or force damage with 30 foot range and no increments, that relies on spell attack rolls instead of standard attack rolls and can have only fundamental runes applied. It lets the caster hit stuff more accurately but far less effectively than martials and plays into the whole theme of working around resistances. Maybe make it a ring or something.
Second, I’m reposting my post from the last video because if I’m honest it’s probably more appropriate here:
“ Homebrewed in a specific spell attack rune. +1/+2 at levels 5 and 13. The rune adds a 1 action metamagic activity that allows the caster to add the runs as an item bonus on their attack roll, but also increases the critical hit threshold by the same amount. So if your spell attack is 15 and the target AC is 25, and you use a +1 rune, for one more action you get a spell attack roll of 16 but you also now crit on a 36 instead of a 35. Same die roll gives you a crit but you’re more likely to hit. Metamagic so there’s no Shadow Signet interaction, nor other metamagic weirdness.
My player seems to like it and tells me he feels more “wizard-y”, in that he can either fire off a less accurate blast or refocus himself and get a more accurate blast. Crits math doesn’t change at all and the caster feels like he’s more likely to contribute with a relatively minor damage bump in exchange for an extra action. A pretty minor buff option and the caster gets to feel better, because really, how the caster FEELS is the issue. It’s balanced but it feels toothless, and this gives it the feeling of having some choppers without wildly altering all that tight math..”
Anyhow, hope that helps people. I don’t know that I’d use both but one or the other at minimum won’t throw things off too much. Enjoy!
I aprracite your m passion towards pf2.
The most popular opinion I've heard against it, is that pf2 kills fun in the name of balance. Which is exactly what I've experienced when I did try to run it.
Lastly, the amount of gatekeepers is absolutely awful.
My experience also. It definitly feels less Roleplaying and more game. I just gave up on it when I realised it isnt what I want as a GM. Haha yeah its almost impossible to try have a differing opinion about the game with the community.
It absolutely does sometimes, just look at the archetypes from Book of the Dead
Im sorry you feel that way! I definitely see where you’re coming from - I will often ignore rules in pf2 to help reward cool/clever player ideas and keep things fun, and imo its a lot easier to do that than balance an unbalanced system. Dont let the gatekeepers get you down though!
If theres enough you like about pf2 to try again, play it however you want, no one not at your table gets to decide how you play.
@hauk119 Thank you, I appreciate it, but the community is really to much for me. I even had to leave the FB page due to gatekeepers. I struggle to get by such attitude, as I would have to deal with it constantly.
I am sorry to say it, but pf2 popularity is not due to its merits but because " The main star of the show" ( which i heat to admit it myself) made some very poor decisions.
I agree with your statement, 5E it is not the answer to a balanced game per se, but it gets things moving. I personally switched to Advanced 5th edition which is, in my opinion, the best of both worlds.
Basically, a baby between 5e and pf2, or 5e with the right amount of pf2 😄👍. I wished more pf2 players were like you. Take it easy mate, and thanks again
@@daved.8483 The comment above his about the Book of the Dead? That's a comment agreeing with you.
I think human beings have the capability to misunderstand each other and be rude. Some of those human beings play Pathfinder. Some play other things. I'm sorry you see those people when you play Pathfinder, but they're not Pathfinder. Look at all the comments around yours that have absolutely nothing negative to say to anyone. I'm not going to count all the positive and constructive conversations here because I don't have time.
My biggest recommendation for casters who don't have the right spell prepared is to make a list of spells they don't normally prepare, and buy scrolls for each of them they can afford. Things like Faerie Fire, Glitterdust, See Invisibility. I had a thaumaturge that was focused on casting a bunch of scrolls and this is what I did for them!
Quite intresting that in most combats the powerful enemy can ignore me as a caster. Most of the time it feels like it is more important for the enemy to bring down martials becuse they are the one doing the real impact and getting the stuff done. I have no one to buff anyway if they bring them down fast. Better to crit down a fighter fast, than to take away that fighters +1/+2 buffer.
What would be nice is some appropriate buffs / transmutation spells (not sure if these already exist). Like one caster could tweak reality, and the other benefit of it. Like say the 'Force Barrage' spell doing fire damage instead of energy damage, but only if the spell originates withing a flame induction area or something.
I'm not worried about discrepancies in overall balance, but I still struggle to find decent 2nd or 3rd level spells for my Diabolic sorcerer -- all the spells granted by his bloodline are attack spells, and the only save he can target is Will. Would it be possible to supplement "How to Caster Good" with "How to _Divine_ Caster Good"? Or perhaps this would be a better challenge for SwingRipper, since he's demonstrated a willingness to do spell evaluations...
Divine is definitely the hardest spell list to get offensive with. It can shine in the right moments, but it relies heavily on attack rolls and fortitude save (especially if you are trying to use spells that deal respectable damage)... which usually go hand-in-hand as far as enemy design goes, meaning your ability to target the lowest save is hampered quite a bit. This has changed as more supplements have come out, with more will save based spells and even some reflex based ones, but boy, if you are only using core, it is rough.
Diabolic gives you Flaming sphere at 2nd, which is Reflex, not AC. You're additional options would be Blessed Blood with a good Blasting Diety that doesn't have a lot of overlap (Hilariously, Sarenrae is my first pick, which would make your devil blooded mage worship the fiery angel of forgiveness), Crossblooded (unfortunately 8th level) for a freebie, or trawling the spell list for the odd spell like Warrior's Regret (2nd from Secrets of Magic) or Agonizing Despair (3rd from Advanced Player's Guide).
Generally speaking, Divine casters have the spell list with the least spells but AFAIK every one of them has some limited way to poach spells from other lists. In general, though, divine emphasizes being a supporter and healer (that lays a mean beat down on undead and outsiders way harder than any other class, based on my limited experience in the Vaults), while Diabolic gives you mental debuff options to fit the theme of a devilish contractor.
Edit: Oh, and your blood magic adds +Rank fire damage to your target, so Flaming Sphere will do some extra damage on top of what you normally would do! And Charm/Enthrall for some reason...
Ronald’s thumbnail looks like, “Do you even CAST, Bro?” 😄
Thanks Ronald! Great tips and ideas 💡
PF2e is designed to have casters handle crowds and then buff martials to have the glorious damage moments. Only way to do that is take away those glorious caster damage moments - they even nerfed wish so bad that the amazing worlds one might imagine with castles in the clouds, surely can't happen due to casters. It's certainly a low fantasy minis game now. Reset the combat allowing all to heal with a contrived medicine skill - much more believable from a narrative stand point to have wounds be focused as endurance. But many still consider it a DnD game rather than a glorified minis game. The argument is always that's just people being stuck in the old system. but it's also casters that want to picture a high fantasy variant. PF2es solution is always "play something else". Just know casters are now 50% buff 50% blast at the cost of power that might steal glory. Using 1e with a focus on interruptions being the balance and it's working great.
What if I want to be a blaster-caster sourcerer? The blaster-caster character I had in mind is not a kenetisist, and is deffinently not a psychic or wizard.
I would use magus, if they didn't require spellbooks.
In my games I simply tell someone what skill they need to roll for Recall Knowledge. I like this idea of unlimited uses in a fight, though. I have a player that I know will use it with his Ranger when he can.
The easiest way to make casters feel stronger is use monsters that are 2 levels lower in your fight budget. Now everyone feels strong.
The guy mentioned at 24:14 sounds smart
The changes I personally made in my groups is that I moved expert and master proficiency one level downwards (so 6th and 14th level respectively), and have casters be able to benefit from weapon potency runes for spell attacks against AC (so no combination with the Shadow Signet) up to a bonus of +2 (same as the gate attenuator) through either an additional weapon property rune or if they use a prepared magical staff with the respective potency rune on it.
I made these two adjustments about 1½ years ago and both me and my players are very happy with them.
I like these, and I think if Paizo could implement them without the added complexity they might choose to (hell, maybe the gate attenuator is a sign of something for casters in the remaster). The problem is all those caveats being a large mental load for a small mechanical benefit. I think keeping attack rolls and spell saves keyed off the same number has been important for the design team.
My suggestions would simply be something like:
- Dissociate Spell Attack from spell DC and scale it at 5 and 13 like everyone else and let runes apply to it, ban Shadow Signet, change True Strike to touch, once per character per 10 mins or remove it.
- Let players use hero points to force a reroll on an enemy saving throw.
This should be enough for a better action and slot economy on spell attacks and a much better feel on saving throws, which casters have to deal with much more but have no way to mitigate like other attacks when luck isn't on their side.
Casters arent weak by any means; they just don't play as well in the system.
How's this for an alternative to flexible preparation?
From the rulebook: "If you specialize in an arcane school, rather than studying each school equally (as universalists do), you gain an extra spell slot at each spell level for which you have wizard spell slots. You can prepare only spells of your chosen arcane school in these extra slots."
What if flexible preparation removed the preparation requirement from this extra slot? They can use this spell slot as a wildcard slot, and they can use it to cast any spell of that level from their specialty without having to name that spell in advance.
This feels fun to me because now your conjurer can always conjure what they need when they need it, your transmuter can always transmute the thing or person that needs transmuting. They can prepare and cast spells from other schools just as before, but they can really get a lot more out of their chosen school.
If that feels too strong, maybe require them to spend an action and/or a focus point to do it.
RaW in every game I run is always just suggestions.
I just go with what my players will find as fun. The chosen system is really just the flavor for the story we are trying to tell.
What is the "default difficulty" supposed to be? Is the "standard" encounter intended to be low or moderate threat, and how many of each threat can I realistically throw at the party between each full rest?
I'm about to run my first one-shots and one-off adventures in PF with some of my current 5e players, and in a year or so after we finish our 5e campaign we're hoping to switch entirely.
I'm guessing there's a table somewhere like "12 encounter points in a day is considered normal difficulty, where moderate threat counts as 5, low is 3, [etc.]" that I have yet to find.
I know there's no specific adventuring day mechanic in PF (which I like) since you don't have to wear down your party to give them a challenge; but surely there's some kind of guideline for ideal targets for various difficulties since there are still daily abilities in the game.
While there's no table for a suggested "adventuring day budget" (as that would be extremely dependent on not only party comp but also player tactics and even game style) it's fairly clear via the descriptions under "Building Encounters" (CRB pg. 488) that Low-threat and Moderate-threat encounters should make up the bulk of your challenges while Severe-threat encounters are meant for mid-stakes boss fights and Extreme-threat encounters are meant to be climaxes and large consequences. Trivial-threat encounters should also be used occasionally as a way for the party to recognize their growth or just to break up otherwise spice up a heated social situation (Descriptions from the book below). A lot of people unfortunately have bad experiences with Paizo's early-to-mid APs, which do not tend to follow their own suggestions and err on the more-threatening sides for encounters, with little to no in-module guiding for making it easier while keeping the intended feeling.
" *Trivial-threat* encounters are so easy that the characters have essentially no chance of losing; they shouldn’t even need to spend significant resources unless they are particularly wasteful. These encounters work best as warm-ups, palate cleansers, or reminders of how awesome the characters are. A trivial-threat encounter can still be fun to play, so don’t ignore them just because of the lack of threat.
*Low-threat* encounters present a veneer of difficulty and typically use some of the party’s resources. However, it would be rare or the result of very poor tactics for the entire party to be seriously threatened.
*Moderate-threat* encounters are a serious challenge to the characters, though unlikely to overpower them completely. Characters usually need to use sound tactics and manage their resources wisely to come out of a moderate-threat encounter ready to continue on and face a harder challenge without resting.
*Severe-threat* encounters are the hardest encounters most groups of characters can consistently defeat. These encounters are most appropriate for important moments in your story, such as confronting a final boss. Bad luck, poor tactics, or a lack of resources due to prior encounters can easily turn a severe-threat encounter against the characters, and a wise group keeps the option to disengage open.
*Extreme-threat* encounters are so dangerous that they are likely to be an even match for the characters, particularly if the characters are low on resources. This makes them too challenging for most uses. An extreme-threat encounter might be appropriate for a fully rested group of characters that can go all-out, for the climactic encounter at the end of an entire campaign, or for a group of veteran players using advanced tactics and teamwork."
I like some of the ideas. I'd just implement them differently. Instead of a buff/nerf of hit points the local alchemist left a supply of +10 hp pots.
When I ran Troubles in Otari I had a player who really wanted to player a blaster caster, we had a team of otherwise tactical trio but he wanted to spike the ball that they were serving with all the juicy -1s and 2s to AC with to hit spells so I just made it so his wand (he liked the idea of a spell casting focus why not) could have Fundamental runes of +1-+3 (but no striking) cause he felt a little lagging in accuracy not that Troubles would ever get him above +1 fundamental even giving him access to that made him way happier.
Have a friend who tried something similar as to giving the wizard access to more spellslots at level one.
The wizard absolutely hated it as while the other classes actually saw a progression of power early on the wizard basically only got reach spell and a few more lines in their spellbook.
Here are the ways I buff casters in my games, because I do think casters can be weak and too unreliable at low levels even for experienced players. So these techniques make casters more powerful at low level while having a minimal impact at higher ones.
- Using a ten minute activity, any spellcaster can recover a spell slot of their lowest level which does not have an expended spell.
- I have a skill feat that allows casters to move as a reaction after casting a spell that takes two or three actions to cast.
- I have it so that Incapacitation cannot increase something to a Critical Success.
- I have added several skill feats that increase the capacity for martials to decrease enemy saves, such as a Taunt ability that reduces a creatures Reflex Saves.
- I added spellcasting potency runes that allow you to increase your spell attack rolls but not your DC.
I'm also considering other little tweaks, like allowing holding a spellcasting focus letting you deal extra damage with your spells equal to your spellcasting ability mod.
One variant on adjusting encounters is to start the players at level 2 or 3 and keep the encounters the same. This has the advantage that it can be done for one or two new players while experienced players are at level. It is also self-correcting. The rest of the party and encounters will catch up to them as they get more familiar.
I'd suggest this for players who know roleplaying but aren't familiar with PF2. It does mean that they make more choices.
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I suspect that 1-action attack spells that are balanced would be underwhelming for many players. Especially if they use the full spell slot that a most effective spell would use. I know some people that are loathe to use magic missile unless they can do the full three actions because they feel that they have wasted a spell slot to do less damage.
I could see some of the "less effective" cantrips being one action if you removed their added effects. Like a daze that only did damage.
This would also allow spellcasters to ready an attack, which would be very useful.
my table has decided multiclassing is for us. Therefore we havent changed casting much, we are considering removing shadow signet ring for caster potency runes that's about it. Oh and necromancers have seperate buffs letting them summon decent stuff without spending a 4th of their gold
1) Make recall knowledge better.
2) Buff counter spell by giving clever counter spell as part of counter spell.
I have played a Bard and am currently playing a Wizard. Casters don't need buffing. Some players just need to change their expectations.
I would personally give Flexible Casting as a totally free Option. Not a feat/archetype, not even a free feat or archetype. I mean give them the option during preparation to prepare as a traditional Vancian caster, or as the more Flexible spellcaster instead. This, at least to me, would help ease players used to the 5e flexible caster in to the pathfinder/3e vancian casting allowing them to switch freely between them as they become more comfortable with prepared spellcasting, especially if you allow the players to get enough information on a particular day's encounter that the spellcaster is confident they could prepare the perfect list of spells.
The other more extreme option I may use for one or two of my players who tend to be a little more absent during the preparation phase of playing, is simply to buff flexible casting to the same number of spells per day as the class would normally have. "But that's unbalanced" I don't care how unbalanced an extra spell per level is if it will help get a player in to playing a new class. "Why don't they just play sorcerer?" because maybe they like the roleplay of being a wizard instead.
I did some pretty bonkers things with spellcasting, i found the system pretty robust when it came to handling what i allowed my players to do, and i didn't feel like they were too strong or broken, even when giving them things like free haste for 3 rounds every combat.
ive literally had the exact opposite experience with pathfinder casters. IDGI. I have always felt more magical as a pathfinder wizard at each level than a dnd one, my partner's the same
I have found the difference between martial and casters comes down to how often they roll dice. A martials basic attack is one action and often will have a chance to attempt 2 attacks a round vs the caster with most spells being 2 actions. If a martial misses the first attack they can at least attempt a second and feel like they have an option, a caster misses their spell attack, whelp better luck next round which might be 20 plus minutes later. It just feels bad especially if you get on a low rolling streak.
I implemented the basic save degrees of success for spell attack rolls as well. So if a caster spending a limited resource and their only real d20 roll a round they will still feel like they are contributing something.
Worse, a ton of offensive spells are save spells so you don't even get to roll, nor can you mitigate bad luck by spending a hero point when you really hope your attack connects. I think this contributes significantly to how the class feels.
Reworking saves into DC's to be targeted by the active party I think should be something considered. If you are acting then you should roll, sure statistically who roles doesn't matter but rolling is fun and lends the illusion of having some form of control.
In PF2 caster are more weak because they cause minor dmg. A barbarian have 2d8+13 of dmg every single turn. and a mage have a 2d6 in minor area... My solution its simples, raise every single spell that is not a Cantrip dmg in PF2 by +2d6. that is . This equilibrate at all with not complicated changes.
What my gm has done is let weapons thrown via telekinetic projectile affect damage and their runes and properties count. It would be overkill if we had any martial son the team. But we have a bow ranger. And a rogue who is mostly absent.
This also gives me the thematics I want. I’m sure it’s not for everyone. But I get to enjoy my class more.
Magus can be a great class, but I honestly wouldn't recommend it to someone who is complaining about PF2E casters being underpowered. It takes by far the most severe "weaknesses" of casters - a severely restricted action economy and limited per-day abilities - and turns them both up to 11.
If you are not playing Magus as a support character, just like any other caster, you're going to hate it. A magus will not succeed at being a martial due to both being very MAD and having a slower proficiency progression, and they will fail even harder at being a blaster caster because they have half the spell slots.
Magus are good for the same core reason casters are good - they have an amazingly broad toolkit. If you're dealing with someone who can't understand why that's desirable while playing a pure caster, they definitely aren't going to learn the lesson playing a hybrid.
Make some cantrip like INVOKE TRUE NAME, but easier and more common, maybe using recall knowledge.
My main problem is wizards feeling terrible for battlefield control prior to level 5.
Another option is to give casters Staves early, and buff Staves if that's not enough.
One of the big problem with casters, IMHO, is that we tend to only focus on combat, while one of the major advantages of casters are outside of that, where their "reality bending" stuff really kicks in!
I think one big step toward casters being recognised is to give the group challenges the spellcaster actually do have the best tool at hand to resolve: Massive cliff where fly or air walk is great, conditions like curses or afflictions for the divine, animal or nature related situations where a speak with animal or some nature bending utility tool a primal caster have, etc...
And actually describing it and giving the spotlight to those moments is important, not just handwaving it either.
The problem then becomes that, atleast with prepared casters, they have to cut into their already low sustain and overall daily total usefulness just on the off-chance that a utility spell that they prepared is somewhat useful. Especially when with the metaknowledge that the GM probably won't be throwing an unsolveable problem at you, it's a lot harder to justify not just preparing another buff or a Fear
So weird - levels 1 through 6 don’t really give me much grief as a caster; it’s level 7 and higher where the monsters (especially the boss monsters) absolutely WRECK me, and I’m back to casting spells that don’t have saves or attack rolls. For levels 1 through 5, I’m keeping up , and only at most +1 behind the martials.
When is your GM handing out +1 weapon runes? 5-7 is a pain point for most casters because their accuracy lags behind a decked out martial because of when they get weapon and spell proficiencies, respectively.
@@aaronjung5502- around level 2 or so, same as recommended; that’s why I’m only +1 or so behind. Without considering the rune, casters are par with other characters or martials (except for fighters, but you really can’t compare there, I compare more to paladins and barbarians) , so it’s when the “expert” and “master” and then the higher runes (+2s) that casters are quickly outpaced. And warpriest characters have the worst of both worlds - they get expert and master super-late and never get legendary for their weapons, and never get above expert for their spells, meaning after about level 9 it’s pretty pointless for them to prep spells that use attacks or saves.
Personally I would love more reaction, 1 action and 3 action spells in the game. Even if there are already good 1 action activities casters can do, the irritation i have about them is that everyone can do most of them. I'd rather do what i made the character to do, cast spells.
Personally I just think we need a few better spells at 1st and 2nd rank. That's when being a caster is most painful, because there are like 4 spells that actually do anything worthwhile in combat. 3 dice on the 1st rank cones, d12 not d10 on the 2nd rank area hits,. Until fireball that playstyle has nothing really worthwhile over cantrips.
Just give them a couple of staves. Each one gives a substantial power boost.
I had a barbarian at level one do 40 damage in one crit. Would not have happened without level 1 magic weapon front sorcerer.
It's actually the reason I dropped trying playing as a caster and just moved to the Kineticist. I don't like them lore wise, story wise, but they do what I want - do damage. They don't pay half of their brute power for doing sometimes useful things. I don't want to pay for them. It's cool that twice or trice I can do something cool nobody else can. But if there is a choice between being strong in the fight VS make that 3 times though the whole campaign something extraordinary? No thanks. Additionally - when you're role-playing a mighty wizard and DM is like - sorry, we have to focus on survival, so no food spells and so on. I do understand it - but that makes the whole idea of the casting magician obsolete. Thank God now you can have 3 focus points and choose undead, devil, dragon or any other bloodline with rather useful combat spells so basically can just emit the real wraith at the enemies. At least as long as their level doesn't go overseas and those 8d6 are obsolete.
Instead of giving casters more spellslots, just give them a book with 10 spellscrolls, have them learn the interact mechanic and experiment with all of the different spells.
Just play a ranger or Barbarian and re flavor it as a spell caster. Lol
Nice!