Why casters MUST feel "weaker" in Pathfinder 2e (Rules Lawyer)
Вставка
- Опубліковано 1 лип 2024
- 0:00 Intro
3:14 PF2e nerfed casters
6:32 D&D raised expectations
18:13 The power of casters in PF2e
28:00 Why casters must feel "weaker"
31:54 Closing thoughts, + New opportunities!?
38:08 Outro
"Did Paizo Over-Nerf Casters Compared to D&D? (And who won Martials vs. Casters?)"
• Did Pathfinder 2E Over...
"What's the Point of Status Effects?" (Design Doc)
• What's the Point of St...
"The problem with PF2 Spellcasters is not Power - it's Barrier of Entry"
/ the_problem_with_pf2_s...
"Do we want thematic casters?"
/ do_we_want_thematic_ca...
"An Essay On Magical Issues - Part 1: Casters, Blasters, Generalists And Roles"
/ an_essay_on_magical_is...
Mark Seifter's FULL COMMENTARY on wizard + 8 schools of magic constraining the design space (Roll for Combat stream, at timestamp):
• Let's Look at the New ...
=============================
LIKE & SUBSCRIBE! I'm a lawyer who teaches and runs tabletop RPGs (Pathfinder, D&D, Starfinder) for kids, teens, and adults, and making videos related to TTRPGs and board games.
JOIN MY DISCORD to chat with our community and/or try the Pathfinder Beginner Box or our drop-in PF2e play system! / discord
SUPPORT MY PATREON for early access to many of my videos and access to exclusive content, and to support me! I do unpaid public-interest legal work and rely on the Patreon and private GMing.
/ theruleslawyer
For PF2E actual plays, SUBSCRIBE to my other channel, "RULES LAWYER DISCORD COMMUNITY CHANNEL":
/ @theruleslawyerliveplay
Follow me on TWITTER at: / theruleslawyer1
Pick up your Pathfinder 2e book on Amazon using my affiliate links below. As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases which helps me continue doing what I love!
Pathfinder 2e Core Rulebook: amzn.to/3BiFCSj
Pathfinder 2e Beginner Box: amzn.to/3eVsUBB - Ігри
Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if part of the problem is the lack of play using the action economy, with spells most often taking two actions or more, meaning casters effectively have a standard action and a move/miscellaneous a la 3.x, making them feel locked in by the system rather than freed by it. I could see virtue in single-target spells taking single actions a la Strikes, meanwhile area/multi-target damage takes multiple actions; this might require a lot of rebalancing, but I think allowing that greater sense of play with the system might go a long way to help spellcasters feel better to play, as well as other avenues for freeing up actions for casters.
I agree. Another aspect where it feels like casters don't really engage in the systems mechanics is spell attacks vs normally attack rolls. Spell attacks almost always cost 2 actions, don't get the same accuracy buffs and scaling as other attack roll features, and still cost a finite spell slot to attempt. All of this for what seems to be an above average change for a miss which gives no value on a failure. The only accuracy support available for spell attacks are true strike, which is strong, but is only on two spell lists and costs another spell slot, and a level 10 shadow signent ring.
It makes them feel like a trap option for most caster classes unless your a gish build like the magus, compared to save spells which still give you some value on failure.
I like where casters are right now, but agree that they need to be able to do more with the 3 actions. Basically all spells are 2 actions. There are a few 1-3 2-3 3 and even 2 rounds spells, but there is basically no one action spells, except for shield, true strike and a few focus spells which ofc only specific people have access to.
Interesting idea to play with would be to make all cantrips 1 actions (or at least a majority) and their damage comming mainly from spell slots and focus spells and with cantrips they would modify the battlefield and cripple enemies or help allies
Absolutely this
I agree. it's not that casters are weak in this system. It's that they FEEL weak, which is a major difference.
@@powercore2000 I agree, half damage on spell attack roll misses might be good. I'd even accept quarter damage or enforced minimum damage on a miss. Just as long as it does *something* for your two actions and finite resource and the opportunity cost of not just using a save spell.
It would be wonderful to see more spells with flexible action economy. Horizon Thunder Sphere and Heal are great exemple of that. I realize it's maybe impossible to do that for EVERY spells in existence, but I think it's doable for a good part. And maybe mix some really specific/niche/situational spells into others more streamlined and used.
it would be funny if they did it with all the spells though, even if it's really unnecessary to do so. Speak with Dead, get 2 questions per action spend casting this spell. Charm 1 action just gives a bonus to diplomacy checks, 2 actions works as it does now, 3 actions works as it does now but they also call you a cool nickname you desire.
With enough people chipping in I believe we can turn every spell dynamic in under 3 actions.
I think it would be cool for some that consume 2 actions on turns 1&2, rather than all 3 both turns. Spells like inner radiance torrent are so situational, with the final blast being so positioning dependent which makes it pretty easy for it to end in frustration.
Yes every spell being like those shouldn't be the goal. The goal should be for there to be enough such spells so that each spell school (/curriculum) can have access to at least one.
I think what you identified around 29:00 is part of the frustration people feel with regarding casters in this game.
Because, especially prepared, casters can change their spell list daily and because of the removal of the math fixer feats from PF1 (and good riddance), it's hard for a caster to truly specialize in anything.
Sure you can pick all the damage spells every day, but any given day you could decide to become a battle field control caster instead. And there's no way to really limit your own versatility in exchange for greater, albeit narrower, power.
In PF1 if you want to be "The Fireball Wizard", you can put all your feats towards Spell Focus (Evocation), Spell Penetration, Empower Spell Metamagic, ect.
Most of the feats a Fireball Wizard would take weren't shared by other kinds of wizards and because their benefits only affected Evocation Spells or Spells with Spell Resistance (ie: those not typically cast by control wizards), they could become better at damage spells than their contemporaries.
And there's just no adequate way to specialize casters in PF2 by comparison.
It *might* have been nice if there were an archetype or something that let you reduce your spell selection for increased benefits from spells of a different category. Something akin to the elementalist archetype, but MORE.
Oh well. While I do miss PF1 feats allowing for more hyper-focused builds, PF2 is definitely the better game overall. But I do still miss some aspects of PF1.
Honestly, as the one caster in a party of martial, I don't feel like a supporter, I just kinda feel worthless. In battle it feels like everyone else is doing more damage or more effective with their combat actions and I'm just a body taking up space and during exploration everyone else feels much more useful with their better skills
i mean in PF2, a wizard and fighter have the exact same skill and skill feat progression, wizard just has a few more skills that will never go beyond Trained. Only the rogue and investigator get more
@lawrl777 true, two of the martials on the group were a rogue and investigator
I'm right there with you. I'm a druid in a party full of martials and yeah definitely feel just like pretty useless really doesn't feel great when I ise fire ball on a trash mob and 3/4 succeed the Save and take 0 damage for one of my limited and precious "big spells" or when I cast flaming sphere on a slug monster and it and the sphere are occupying the same space and it takes no damage for 4 turns another spell slot wasted ugh it feels terrible.
I mean in all of these cases it feels like you're not playing to your strengths if you constantly lament your lack of damage.
@Dharengo "Or more effective with their combat options" It doesn't feel like they're only going blaster here.
Re: Support being less or more "glorious".
I mean it depends on support in question. If your support is that you spend two actions and a spell slot to inflict a -1 status penalty to DCs and ability checks for one round it will probably not feel all that glorious. Sure it can turn a hit into a crit, or a miss into a hit, but all in all it's just a 10% chance of actually doing anything at all - because if whoever attacks the target doesn't roll one of the two very specific values on the die, it has basically no effect. Does it help? Sure it does when those specific values are rolled. Does it feel extremely impactful? I can only speak for myself, but not really. Sadly more often than not it will not do anything.
This so much. People who like support (like me) also want our support to feel cool and exciting. Stuff like Conductive Weapon, less stuff like -1 to AC or +1 to attack rolls.
I agree that buff cantrips like Guidance are quite underwhelming. It gets better with something like Inspire Courage, as it applies to the entire party (usually), and that small effect adds up significantly. Then the big splashy buffs - Haste, for instance.
Honestly, the attack buffs are significantly hampered by the flat scaling of a d20 combined with tiers of success. Using multiple dice produces a bell curve distribution that makes a flat bonus more effective in the middle (hit vs miss) without as much increase in the extremes (hit vs crit). I have long felt that d20 systems would be better off using 2d10 or 3d8 instead of 1d20, but that's a particularly hard sacred cow to kill.
@@Ghost.in.the.Machine Inspire Courage is fantastic and feels awesome to use specifically for that reason. Spending a 3rd level spell slot to give one person a +1 to attack rolls (Heroism), not so much. Heroism is also one of the best buffs in the game and one of the best spells on the Divine spell list. Yes it does more than giving a bonus to attack, but that's the most relevant part of what it does.
It's not unreasonable to assume that if I'm playing a class which is using the Divine spell list, I would actually like to be pretty good at buffing people, but the buffs are so boring. I would like to be doing stuff like infusing my allies' weapons with the power of my god, or giving them angel wings to fly, or even just something more akin to 5e's Bless spell where a 1d4 is added to the attack roll instead of just a flat 1.
Yeah +X to hit is relatively boring. It's more interesting really for support stuff that gives pure hit bonuses to be a reaction type ability where you can use it on an almost good enough roll to make it a success. So someone rolls a 22, misses the AC of 23 and you say "I'll use thunder god's blessing to give you a +2 to that attack, turning it into a hit."
That way, whenever you cast the spell, the spell feels like it did something, both in the narrative and from a player perspective. Everyone knows the cleric or bard turned the miss into a hit, and the character feels useful. As opposed "I bless you 3, you feel slightly stronger, gain a +1 to your attack rolls", to which most people are going to be very underwhelmed.
@@taragnor This is why it's good to keep track of modifiers so you know exactly why the check hit or crit, then if that was because of a buff or debuff you narrate how, like if an enemy Clumsy and that causes a hit you can narrate that the enemy stumbled due to the spell and that's why the attack hit. This is made easier in Foundry by modules like Modifiers Matter.
i think one thing i've noticed while running abomination vaults is that most saving throw spells feel terrible since most monsters so far seem to save really easily against effects
If you aim for the worse saves, they won't save all that often for how strong the effects are!
@@rednidedni3875 That and pretty much every save spell also do something on an enemy success. And try to have someone intimidate or something the monster first so their saves get worse.
@@DakonBlackblade2 "Something" is often not worth the 2 actions and the spell slot. You'd have been better off buffing your group, which doesn't give a save. Intimidate also needs a roll and is an if-come-maybe. Makings rolls to make other rolls better create multiple points of failure.
@@davidbowles7281 Lol, PF2e is based on buffing and debuffing, what the hell are you talking about? Also demoralizing is super free, more often than not ppl will have a spare action after attacking twice, moving and attacking or whatever. If your group does not have an intimidation specialist it is missing a great asset.
Also "something" is much better than "nothing" which is what a martial gets when they miss an attack, "but it's only one action" you might say, ye but the follow up attack is much less likely to land so likely it'd be two actions for two missed attacks (and sometimes strikes can be 2 actions, there are plenty of 2 actions activities that are strikes). On top of this having an almost guaranteed outcome allows you to plan around spells much more easily, you know unless the enemy crit saves X will always happen, and your group can make a strategy around X, if Y happens great, nut having effects on fails gives you consistency and that is great in a strategical system like PF2e.
And lastly, its a blatant lie that save spells fail too much (if casters actually target low saves or at the very least avoid high saves), the freaking system is designed so that a save spell will land around 60% of the time baseline against enemies of the same level as you, usually what this complain means is that someone tried to target the 3 LVs higher big boss dragon's forititude and missed
@@rednidedni3875 if you have meta-knowledge or have homebrewed recall knowledge*
I feel like one of the reason the for someone caster feel weak, is the fact that they are the only class(exept alchemist ) that rely on "x number of times" per day abilities expecually at lower levels. Focus point limit this to an extent, but with the fact that martial can theoretically go to an infinite number of encounter day can make them feel very limited and over reliant on spells that aren't going to miss like runic weapon.
It's sort of irritating that the clip example you used of the absent player Bard being controlled by a martial player is super high level play. I haven't played FotRP but I do know it's a 10-20 AP, and yes Maze is a powerful spell but it's one of few that are that powerful and to top it all off, not only did the Bard player not have to play the painful beginning levels, the martial player got to jump straight into a minimum 15th level caster that does have all its fun toys and spell slots.
Not to mention Bard is notoriously one of the more generous casters in terms of feeling useful at all points in the game, so even at low levels I'd say the argument feels pretty disingenuous since their Comp Cantrips are nuts and a lot of times other casters' Focus Spells don't hold a candle to them. Being a spontaneous caster doesn't hinder you too hard when you always have good compositions to rely on, whereas there's not nearly as much reliability in the Sorcerer's or Oracle's focus spells.
A big part of the caster discussion that I never see get attention, but which I think is critical, is what part of the game are you playing? Are you playing at level 1 or level 10?
Most every example I see someone tout of spells and spellcasters being awesome comes from waving around high level spells like maze. But I have literally never played any of these games in my 15 years with the hobby past level 13. I would say 80% of my playtime in these games has been between levels 1-5. And I don't think its a hot take at this point to say casters feel pretty crap at low levels in P2. I'd be willing to bet money that there is a distinct correlation between players that are unsatisfied with casters and players that have only experienced low level play. And as a result, I think this is a very critical part of the discussion. Will I play a sorcerer in your game? Are we starting at level 10? Then hell yes I will. Oh, we're starting at level 1? Hell no. I'm not going to spend 4 hours each week for months being bored and disappointed with my class, only to START feeling like an actual sorcerer that can do some cool magic right before the game falls apart. Just give me the fighter.
I think it is good that Pathfinder allows players to play a vast array of character, with tons of options, but there is always a point at which class set limits upon what one can do. That's how class-based RPGs works. A feature, not a bug. And as always, class discussions disappear when you play a class-less RPG.
Yes, I think that’s right. I think that’s the response to the Blaster Caster discussed near the end of the video: PF2E doesn’t design a class that has only 1 version of itself. The blaster caster is so specific - big damage, and low everything else. Why develop a class where there’s only one way to play it?
@@DavidGRauscher Because there's no way to achieve that archetype with existing classes? Also how does "big damage" equate to "only one way to play it"? I'm fairly sure there's quite some design space to enable various "big damage" concepts. Frankly if "single target damage" is martials' only thing (as argued in the video) then why is there so many martial classes then?
@@HaibaneKuu but there are ways to achieve it. The Magus does this and has the sacrificed versatility that every one says they are happy to give up. Psychic too. The kintetist as well. The problem is people want their Wizard to do it, without sacrificing too mucn of anything else.
@@Prberts That "problem" is overblown. It's even seen in the video how the most common opinion and desire is to have more specialized casters that do smaller subset of magic well rather than "doing big damage and retaining all the versatility".
@@HaibaneKuuYes, I was wondering if an Archetype-approach might work. Issue is it would have to impose some really significant constraints to achieve the design objectives of OP that was cited (ie, you take this archetype you get blasty, but at the same time you must accept a Nerf in everything else). Possible but could prove problematic. I don’t think Single Target Damage is Martials’ only thing - he’s saying it’s their Special Thing - the thing they are best at. All Classes have a TON of ways they can be built, and do and be good at lots of different things. You could build a Fighter that’s also good at Diplomacy, for example, or really smart with some skills. But they’ll never be the Best at those other things.
There are two vocal minorities in the community. One that tells everyone to be grateful for Paizo's grace, and the other that treats everything in the system with disdain. The problem is, both of these groups interfere with valid criticism and discussion of the game.
I enjoy playing casters, but that's not going to stop me from criticizing some of their flaws. Save spells, support spells, and utility spells are in a decent place for the most part. Attack spells on the other hand. . .they're in a very rough spot. It's expected that you spend a slot or staff charge on true strike to get them to hit, and that doesn't sit right with me. You're spending 3 actions, and 2 resources, for the chance of succeeding a single attack roll.
Worth noting is that said attack roll is not just going to be very accurate, but also hits like a *truck* for the kind of range it has.
I agree that balancing around true strike is wonky but eh, the primal/divine attack roll spells make up a tiny margin and I think it's no bigger a problem than something like Invoke Spirits being underwhelming.
Especially when there's alternatives. Primal gets 3 action horizon thunder sphere which performs quite well, both get searing light which hits so bloody hard in the right fights that it doesn't even need help to be worth the gamble.
I agree. And seems like the Rules Lawyer belongs to the first of those minorities you mention.
@@enriquesanders Hardly. Ronald criticizes Paizo when it is deserved - recall knowledge, pre-remaster hammer/flail crit specialization, etc.
@rednidedni3875 The better solution is to get rid of true strike, or nerf it into the ground, and give casters fundamental rune access or something. True Strike is a legacy thing and it’s a problem spell, working out to a +3 bonus to an attack roll from very low levels for the cost of spending an extra slot. If it absolutely must stay as is, at least add some fun to it and make it a reaction trigger and a fortune effect so all of your rank one spells don’t have to be true strike the minute you hit level 3.
There shouldn’t be an item or spell that if you don’t take it you can’t be viable in a 1v1 or ambush. Best in slot was a big problem in 3.5/Pf1e that PF2E was supposed to be designing around. Remember amulets of natural armor? Cloak of resistance? Ring of protection?
@@aaronjung5502 While I agree on its clunkiness, I really don't think you "can't be viable in 1v1s" or the other things you said. You do not have to prepare true strike everywhere, I don't know what you'd use that many slots for to begin with - doubly so when staves with the spell exist when you really want it. Spell attack spells make up just a small fraction of good anti-boss spells.
One thing that is ACTUALLY lacking in PF2e and needs to be addressed with the remaster is Recall Knowledge. To attack different defenses and actually USE my diverse toolkit of damage types and attack options (all three saves, AC) I need a way to find out how and when! Recall Knowledge needs clearer rules and casters need more ways to use and/or action compression for Recall Knowledge (i’d even go as far to suggest giving casters access to one automatically scaling knowledge Skill, maybe Nature for Druids, Arcana for Wizard, etc.)
These are, for me, the most important changes which NEED TO HAPPEN with the remaster in my opinion.
EDIT: All this is from the point of view, that people complain about casters in combat. I think these changes would make them more satisfying to play.
The thing is, we actually need to know what we will be fighting when I prep we prep our spells.
Say I decide to prep a bunch of mental spells, turns out we are fighting a golem! None of those spells slots are useful!
Or I prep Calm Emotions and everything is too high level? Or I prep for undead killing getting Holy Cascade and we don't fight undead? Turns out I just now have a 1st level fireball that cost a holy water and three actions to cast. So many of these instances has these come up where my spell slots are literally useless.
When people talk about versatile, people never think about it the other way, of versatiling yourself being useless.
@@cold12u also very true and harder to "hardcode" into the rules. Need to raise the issue to your dm and play together with him
I think buffing RK wouldn't satisfy the mass of complaints but I'm all for it. At the minimum I roll the right skill for the player, having to choose a certain "field" to cross reference in your head is kind of absurd.
It has been announced by the developers that recall knowledge is getting a clearer system in the remaster
@@cold12u Something that really helps with this is scouting and research. If you're just barreling into every encounter willy-nilly or your GM just throws them at you without warning, prepped casting can feel really punishing. But the more space you have to plan, the better you'll do. Talk to your GM if you feel like they're not giving you enough space to lean into you class features.
Also, the spell substitution thesis and flexible caster archetype say hi. You don't have to put up with Vancian casting on your favorite class if you don't want to.
While I agree with many of your points, one that I understand in theory seems to fall flat in practice. Casters can target different defenses is one of those "900 IQ" things I think that reddit post was talking about. With an average of 3 slots per level, how is a caster supposed to have a spell for each defense at a spell rank that is viable for their level? The example you gave was Maze which is Rank 8, but that's level 15. Most games don't make it that far, with many APs coming out now topping at level 10. What is a caster supposed to do in the low to mid-level games? And I don't mean to be a blaster caster, but to be able to contribute damage effectively and meaningfully for their level. Other than Magic Missile in a slot at every level. Hope this is addressed in your 'How to Caster'.
Let alone that Marshals have *ZERO* consumable resources that they have to manage - unlike a caster who can easily run dry if they try to keep up damage output. It 100% sucks to sit there and cantrip your way through things. Focus spells aren't the greatest answer, since magic feels so much less impactful in 2e.
if you want to play a wizard then you have less damage but way more utility, so use spells that do utility, there are still many options to do damage for spell casters like druids or magus, but complaining about a low damage high utility class having low damage just feels like you want what you cant have.
@@diegocorvalan5435 Bullshit. Wizards shouldn't be releagted to utility only. Thats a bad design, much like rogue in 3.5.
@diegocorvalan5435 But you _aren't,_ though. You aren't trading damage for utility in a utility class. You're trading _average damage_ using limited resources vs giving away even that for the _potential_ of utility. Every utility spell you prepare is one less Fear. A rogue doesn't have to cut off a finger in the morning if they want to use a lockpick that day
@@Toxie2725I'm sorry that just this once your wizard doesn't do everything a martial can better than a martial can and more.
My issue with the casters has always been on accuracy. At the higher levels of the APs, the caster is wasting their spell slots attempting to target enemies. Yes, the caster can target something other than AC. But that doesn't mean the enemy doesn't crit succeed anyway. The casters need runes to increase their accuracy/DC. We did that, and it felt better.
This is mostly an AP problem - Paizo's AP designers aren't following their own game's encounter guidelines and it can feel frustrating for the PCs when going up against like the 4th PL+0 multi-enemy fight or PL+3 single enemy "not a boss-fight" fight in the session. The *actual* encounter design guidelines make for a fairly satisfying experience for even a suboptimal spellcaster.
I presume the APs do this because they want the characters to level up in accordance with the beats of the book and don't want to throw fights that give low amounts of XP everywhere since that'd make it feel more like a slog. I *also* presume this is why newer adventures aren't going to always be 1-20 or 1-10/11-20 and they'll be experimenting with level ranges (one of the new adventures is confirmed to be 1-12 for example)
I can't quite wrap my head around this quite yet. Casters get legendary in spell DC's, and it's not like monsters get legendary or even master equivalent in every single defense. The idea that they will crit succeed 100% of the time seems rather alien to me at this point in time.
@Dharengo I apologise for flooding your notifications so much, but that is such a bad take. Most people aren't speaking from the experience of level, and this is supremely funny to me by the way, _level fucking 19._ Before that, casters are consistently two levels behind martials in proficiency, and this isn't even counting potency runes, which casters don't get. The closest thing they get is a Shadow Signet, which only appears when your game is close to ending anyway
Waaait a minute with the cantrip point.
Sure, Warlock gets to cast powerful cantrips, but that's kinda their thing cause they only have 2 spell slots (albeit short rest ones) for majority of their career. Without 2 level dip into warlock (which will by the way delay your spell level progression) your best bet is Firebolt, which while you said "is also very powerful" is notably less powerful than Agonizing Eldritch Blast, because it's just 1d10 (scaling up to 4d10 at 17th) and you don't get to add ability modifier to it unless you are playing one of the subclasses that let you do so - and even then only once. You aren't going to outdamage a martial with firebolts.
I dislike that attack rolls for spells are significantly weaker than targeting a save. Fix that, and I will shelve the rest of my complaints. There are spells where you have to make an attack roll and then the target also makes a save. That's very hard to do just to get a debuff off.
True Strike is a bit of a stopgap, but it does work. However, it's only in 2 spell traditions out of 4. If there were different spellcaster feats that could increase their spell attack bonus in different situations, that would be great. Imagine a Witch being able to gain a bonus to hit against hexed enemies, or a cleric praying as a skill check to get a bonus to their next spell if they succeed. Isn't that more flavourful?
Note: this is not actually about power level, its about theming for me. If a wizard can know all these attack roll spells, they should be viable to a minimum extent. They're already limited resources, why do they have to be exceedingly unreliable as well?
There's a magic item for this in game.
@@jgrif7891 a 10th lvl magic item, which is a bandaid, not a solution
band-aid solution and its a lvl 10 item..@@jgrif7891
Legitimately Paizo's designers have said that attack roll spells are like this *specifically* because of True Strike being in the game. IMO, scrap True Strike and allow the casters a magic item akin to a Gate Attenuator and that solves a lot of issues regarding attack roll spells, or as per your suggestion, give the casters feats that give them bonuses pertaining to their unique mechanics.
True Strike is really limiting the design space of attack roll spells (and to a degree Magus).
The ability for casters to target multiple defenses has always been the biggest justification to me for them not being as accurate or not getting item bonuses to hit.
The only thing conflicting with this was how some casting traditions didn't have access to very good spells to target a lot of options; being able to hypothetically target multiple defenses is a moot point if you don't have anything that actually can do so. Divine's only attack cantrip was alignment based and thus useless on neutral creatures; beyond that they had Daze, which scales incredibly slowly. But, the remaster is changing that up with how spirit damage works and with the new needle darts spell, and there's also the focus spell changes.
I will say that sometimes it's still kinda difficult still to envision an 'evil' cleric who wants to hurt people, since most of your spells are more defensive, but you also get those free casts of Harm which are getting boosted even further.
How to play a damage caster in PF2e: Play a martial. Magus does the most single target damage.
Is that good design? I don't really think it is.
Would you rather have martials be useless?
I would rather have what we have now compated to DnD5e martial/caster divide
Someone at the PF2e subreddit presents caster builds that CAN compete with a ranged martial (which I think is the apt comparison) in single-target damage, which requires that they focus heavily towards it. They can outperform them in a few fights a day, while being comparable for the remaining fights in the day. Here is a link to our exchange: www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/160m9rx/comment/jxq1aey/?context=3
This also seems to be an answer to what some people have been asking for in recent conversations: to be able to be a spell-slot spellcaster who does comparable damage to martials at the cost of non-damaging spells.
They write:
"That also leads into my only real disagreement with the video, where he (and the excited players he clips in the beginning) implies that casters can’t really match martial damage except in AoE situations. I don’t think that’s true. Both math and experience has shown me that they can match martial single target damage, exceed it even, and they can do so consistently throughout an adventuring day: but only for ranged martials, and only if they’re willing to commit a very hefty chunk of their class/subclass features/Feats and spell slots to doing damage. There’s no equivalent to the 5E-like “throw out a Summon, spam cantrips, and you’ll exceed a martial’s damage easily”, you have to pay a daily opportunity cost to choose to match a martial’s damage."
This is more convincing to me than most of the arguments and math I've seen suggesting that casters are 'underpowered'.
I believe part of the issue is that the 'buff casters' side of things can't decide what exactly that entails.
I can sympathize with those who desire to be able to specialize their casting, but I usually see people who want to specialize also want to remove the downsides of their specialization with the ability to pierce immunities, etc. I understand that having enemies succeed against many of your spells is frustrating, but the underlying math of the system relies on this in many ways and as the post above shows, the effect you actually have in practice is no less than a martial. At what point are you just asking for a buff because you've decided you feel bad, rather than because you're undertuned?
Everything I've seen in real play suggests that casters are fine power-wise, but not satisfaction-wise. So how do we increase player satisfaction without unbalancing the game?
@@pvcschwang5702For your last question, the system can't at a base RAW level. But individual tables can homebrew to address the feelsbad if they want to. The "How to Buff Casters" vid I'm planning will give some suggestions.
@@pvcschwang5702 One practical solution is including more “mook” type swarms in your encounter building so casters can do more “epic” stuff.
This makes me love the "Curriculum" idea for wizards even more. More breakup from that gigantic list. More specialization, more flavour, more diversity overall!
I don't really see it solving the issue of the giant spell list. You'll still get the arcane spell list and be able to learn all the spells on it with enough time and gold.
I wish they'd actually done that. Make the default for casters extreme specialization, only having access to one 'curriculum'/'spell school'/etc, allow those spells to be really badass at their thing. Universal casters could exist, but they'd get spells multiple levels later to balance the versatility.
@@GM_Alexandria that sounds genuinely awful to me
@@Gleem1 I mean that can easily be thwarted by a DM. If you have an issue with it (and are averse to actually talking to your players for some reason) you can make it so the actually usueful magical writing is really really rare and that not many if any wizards is interested in teaching
@@GM_Alexandria I would hate that with a passion, would never play casters.
In my opinion, casters should have more spell slots and spells prepared to cast, like it in DnD. Because current spell slit system in PF really takes that flexibility you were talking about away. In my experience its hard to know what kind of spell can really help me, because the situation in game can change drastically and I won't have any spells to react on.this changes. At this moment I feel like I suck in combat (less single target damage, less to hit chance, enemies always have "success" on their saves) and suck out of it, because spell slots are too precious to waste them on any kind of small utility stuff. Especially spell slots feels like a problem when after a big battle martials can just refocus and patch themselves with medicine and go on, but you have no slots and became really useless
Yup I agree with everything you just said.
Are you targeting the right defenses? Are you using spells that are powerful even when the enemy succeeds?
Are you using focus spells?
@Dharengo What I hate about the "Are you targetting the right defenses" thing is that the argument only works when you're level 10 and you have a half million spellslots to work with. At level 5, you have three slots at three levels, for most classes. Some of them get four. So, assuming the outlier, you have 16 slots in total.
Okay. Great. Wonderful. There are three saves in the game. That's five spells of each save, plus one extra. Except not all spells are equal, are they. Not all saves are equal. When you're running through a dungeon, you might find a lot of the same monster, which means you'll use the spells with the same save more often. Which means you'll run out of those five spells _much_ more quickly than you'd expect, just seeing the number. Once they run out? Well, now you're off targetting secondary saves. Maybe even with a spell that's worse on a failure than your other one, because _not all spells are equal._
But remember. This isn't leaving _any_ room for the supposed versatility of a prepared caster. Because vancian magic, as much as I hate it, does a great job at making sure casters don't have a spell for every situation. Because for every situation you plan for, that's one less Fear. One less Fireball. One less spell that you _know_ will be useful, because this is a game built primarily around combat. You either have to choose to have the _potential_ of out of combat utility, or you have to choose the semi-guarantee of using your spells in combat.
Thank you for the video. I look forward to the related videos you mentioned.
As a DM and Champion (Redeemer), I disagree with a few points. I apology for the length. Despite the number of points, I do not entirely disagree with you.
* The premise that casters MUST feel weaker is flawed. This implies that a caster's versatility comes be trading effectiveness. A caster must feel like they contribute less to the table. I think your intent is that they should not contribute as much raw single target damage as a fighter/other martials. Everyone at the table should feel roughly equal, not overshadowed by another class, but also not "weak".
* The only issue I personally have with the power of slotted spells is that it is the only holdback where your encounter effectiveness is determined by your morning preparation and not by your encounter actions. Every innovation that Pathfinder 2e has in the magical arena from it's 3.5 roots has been strictly non-Vancian, making the Vancian remnants out of place.
* As far as damaging cantrips, a spellcaster shouldn't feel that a ranged weapon is a better option than casting a cantrip. Even if you don't change the damage of the cantrips, the fact that they have range LIMITS while ranged weapons have range INCREMENTS cand cripple cantrips in an encounter. Not to mention that it is a missed opportunity for spells in general. Imaging a call lighting spell with a range increment of 30 or 60 and the volley keyword.
* (Minor) The history of spellcasters in D&D isn't really relevant to where they should be relative to the other systems. If you are making the argument that something doesn't suck, making the argument that it used to suck more, doesn't prove your point.
* (Minor) ua-cam.com/video/x9opzNvgcVI/v-deo.html - Third edition didn't introduce multiclassing. They made it more accessible and allowed level dipping. At least AD&D 2e had dual classing and multiclassing. If I remember correctly, dual classing was human only and better. Then there were also kits, like the Bladesinger to make an elven fighter-mage.
* ua-cam.com/video/x9opzNvgcVI/v-deo.html The problem you mention with Flexible Spellcasting is not unique to D&D 5e. The same issue applies with Pathfinder 2e. Unless you are a spontaneous caster, spells also scale up by the slot used. Pathfinder has the same "problem" of being able to cast hypnotic pattern multiple times per day with slots left over. The difference is that in D&D you make a short list during the morning preparations and then make the meaningful spell decisions during the encounter. If being a good Pathfinder spellcaster is being able to make effective spell choices at the start of the day, this should be a minimal difference that lowers the player skill floor for spellcasters.
* ua-cam.com/video/x9opzNvgcVI/v-deo.html Again, this is not that new to 5e. I don't recall if concentration checks after taking damage was in 4e, but it was in 3/3.5. And caster AC as well as resistances and immunities could get ridiculous in 3/3.5.
* ua-cam.com/video/x9opzNvgcVI/v-deo.html (out of context) I don't see anything wrong with wanting to do damage comparable to, or exceeding a fighter, *by expending a level appropriate spell slot* or other limited resource. The fighter is not limited to 2 cleaves per day. It still has to be weighed against the other aspects of the class and the nature of the attack with similar risk-reward profiles. Are you comparing damage against the fighter's melee option, compare a touch/5 ft range spell. Are you wanting to attack at range? Compare your ranged spell against a fighter's ranged damage output. And of course, adjust for any differences in resistances or other effects that would impact the final average damage.
* ua-cam.com/video/x9opzNvgcVI/v-deo.html Casters aren't the only ones that can heal. Medicine + Battle Medicine makes healing and in and out of combat available to everyone (Add in Godless Healing and Mortal Healing for even more healing). Champions have lay on hands (Healing 1-3 times about every 10 minutes!). Some skill feats make caster niche's available to non-casters (I believe being trained in Arcana allows you take a Arcane Sense that gives you Detect Magic at will. Discern Lies just gives you a +4 to sense motive checks for a 4th level spell slot. Rangers, Rogues, and Investigators will have the same total bonus at the level without expending any resources. Spellcasters can be versatile, but how much of that versatility is no longer exclusive to spellcasters?
* ua-cam.com/video/x9opzNvgcVI/v-deo.html This goes to an earlier point. Compare Like to Like. Ignore the movement of a melee fighter as the comparison is invalid. What is the damage of the Fighter with a bow? Or for that matter, what about comparing a Wizard with a crossbow (will be proficient in Remaster) Electric Arc against an opponent 90 feet away?
* ua-cam.com/video/x9opzNvgcVI/v-deo.html The ability to raise the dead and some of the other sacred cows were moved to Rituals in Pathfinder 2e and, unlike D&D, ritual casting is open to all classes so, while they may be easily added to a spellcaster's repertoire, they are not spellcaster exclusive. A Fighter who can make the skill checks can Astrally Project, Teleport, Resurrect the dead, Create Undead, Create a Demiplane, create a Clone. So again, in Pathfinder 2e, how much of a spellcaster's versatility is actually still exclusive to spellcasters?
* I couldn't find the timestamp again, but a one point, you mention resistance to physical damage as a problem that only martials face. Monsters have have resistance multiple damage types, though I can't speak to how common various resistances are at different levels. Resistance is an issue that all classes face, but spellcasters, I believe are more likely to face out right immunity. If you decided to build a character around Reince from The Witcher, you're hosed against a Red Dragon. Whereas, the hammer Fighter may face reduced damage against a zombie, but what outright ignores it because it is bludgeoning? Ghosts, for example, will have resistance 5 to both fire and (magic) hammers.
Again thank you for your content.
I feel like the problem with "Well they have to specialize :)" is that it feels hard to do. Every single caster's strength is 'versatility' which feels like a mistake. Allow some casters to have less versatility in trade for specializing in other things. If you try to specialize into a certain playstyle you'll perform poorly because you're supposed to be the 'Batman Wizard'
Edit: Dang, almost like as neat as 4 traditions with each caster having full access to the entire tradition might be a bit much. Maybe some casters could have tailored spell lists (like some used to)
In fact the specialization of every caster is to be a cheerleader, Buffing and Debuffing is the specialization of all the casters in the game, all other spells are eventual
It's interesting to see a problem that 4e very definitely solved come back in both its child and its nephew.
I think there should be a niche for a blaster caster that doesn't have the highest dpr, but can bring the highest damage in a single round - a nuker, basically.
You can actually kind of do this as a spellblending thesis wizard: you sacrifice two lower-rank slots to gain one of up to two ranks higher. Does nothing at levels 1 and 2 (unless you wanna crack a slot in half to prep two extra cantrips), but once you hit level 3 you can rock out with 4 rank 2 slots (3 f you're not a universalist, 5 if you count draining your bonded item). By level 6, you're looking at up to six fireballs a day, and it only gets nuttier from there.
@@n.l.g.6401And to add to that - upgrading your staff is cheaper than martials upgrading their gear. Every caster should have +1 to their highest slot because of that. And they can use scrolls. And they can use wands.
It’s so disingenuous with the damage arguments where it’s shown how to deal incredible damage with a caster and folks say, “But you used your 3 spell slots to do that”.
Fine, no items? Take away the martials runes. Martials will be shit too without their items.
@toodleselnoodos6738 Expound on this incredible damage. Does it actually take accuracy into account or are you just comparing average hit to average hit? Because casters hit a lot less and have to spend more actions to try. A high level caster will hit slightly more often than a high level martials second attack.
Wands and scrolls are a single level dip into a caster. Kind of like people used to dip into fighter in 3.5. Which we all agree was bad.
Where are you getting a +1 for casters from a staff. Do you mean more spell slots for the wizard to miss with?
I don’t think it’s crazy to ask for a caster that has utility and can still hit for decent burst damage in exchange for their extreme fragility. Y’all would go nuts if someone suggested rogues shouldn’t be able to access +1 fundamental runes to balance out their skill monkey utility. Their burst damage is also high when they hit, but like a caster, they need to hit.
@@aaronjung5502 One additional spell slots.
@@aaronjung5502 Shadow signet is why casters can't get fundamental runes. That item was a mistake. I understand they were worried about casters when they released without access to fundamental runes originally...but fixing that issue with shadow signet was a mistake.
I think that the brouhaha is caused by people not wanting low level casters to suck, as they lack consistency of higher level casters, which higher level casters solve through better and more varied spells, and access to lower ring spellslots, meanwhile the lower level casters have to use the damage as a band-aid.
Old school AD&D 2nd wizards were very frustrating at the lowest levels. You were extremely fragile, you will only be able to cast a very few spells before being effectively useless, and it takes a lot longer to climb out of these levels.
That said, the cleric in AD&D was very strong in that version of the game, and was one of the better options at low levels.
@@anomaloushumanoid How is that relevant? All classes should be about as strong on all levels so everyone feels useful, and having people dislike playing, so they can get a reward later is a terrible idea, especially in a system where you're kinda required to have different classes in a party, so if people don't want to do that, tough luck, everyone's gonna suck, or just one of you is gonna suck, pick your poison.
@@mr.cauliflower3536 It's relevant in that people want low level casters to not suck, because they did use to suck, really really hard.
@@anomaloushumanoid So you think "it used to be worse" is a good excuse?
Fundamentally I think the most harmful part of caster playspace in pf2 IS their "niche". Every single caster class in the game combined has less variety than 1-2 non-caster classes, because they are all locked inside the same near-identical generalist toolbox identity. There's incredibly strong spells like Synesthesia or Maze or Roaring Applause, and they're great. But every caster in the game is held back by these options existing.
Kineticist is a promising breath of fresh air! Oh also paizo should really get rid of or rework the trap options in the spell lists.
when you create hundreds of spells there's always going to be trap options, especially if you're Paizo who much prefers an option be severely underpowered than even slightly overpowered. I think this is smart as it protects the game from power creep, but you can almost feel the trepidation of the designers with how lackluster some of these options are.
I think a few heuristics I'd like to see going forward are no more incapacitation single target spells, if you want single target incapacitation make it only affect one component or variation of the spell, such as with Cinder Swarm or Phantasmal Killer. Another is to always provide an effect on a successful saving throw, and to more generally balance spells with the understanding that successful saving throws will often be the most likely outcome, and are what players will primarily look towards when evaluating save targeting spells.
Less, more versatile (and/or with variable action cost) spells would make casting in pf2 soooo much better
I agree. I think casters should be encouraged to specialise, and that should MEAN something. There's no inherent issue with a wizard outputting damage similar to a Fighter (accounting for multi-target damage and vulnerabilities ofc), the issue in that one that can do that can implicitly ALSO be a jack-of-all-trades generalist toolbox.
My approach would be to nerf spells across the board. Then make character choice- class, subclasses, and feats--a really matter. You SHOULD be able to perform on par to a fighter- but only if you spec 100% into doing so, sacrificing your utility pillar.
I like the idea.
Like ¥ When you can choose a new spell, you can highten existing spell instead (looks similar to what is already here, but we need to make it better)
Agreed totally, why is so easy to make a full party of a certain martial class but so clunky to make the same of a spellcaster class?
While the history of d&d wizards is a good point on expectations, I feel like 2e is also to blame. It has a bit of bait and switch built in into casters, where for many spells you're supposed to plan around fail effects. When a player reads available spells the natural expectation is to succeed on regular basis. One expecting those better effects then becomes more in more dissatisfied as the game progresses. No other thing in 2e is built around failure. Thief is expected to open locks and disarm traps, not to trigger most of the traps but "hey, at least it's better than stepping on them". Sure, if one cracks the numbers during character build they can have proper expectations, but the rulebooks don't lead you there. Many spells are like disarm action. You read the name and description and think you'll disarm opponents. What it really does is -2 to opponent attack rolls. Anywhere where you can reliably get critical success you can as well just attack and kill with the crit, instead of wasting one MAP for that effect. Expectation is failure effect on spells should be consolidation prize, but very often it's the prize, while success is "cool bonus sometimes". In the rest of the game critical success is the "cool bonus sometimes". At least in the games I DM this is main source of dissatisfaction. Even players with no prior d&d experience feel that, and when they express their dislike of casters it's the core problem. Once they learn "the secret" and adjust their expectations and spell selection it starts to be much more fun for them. So, pf2e, as much as I like it, can't put the whole blame on spoiled d&d vets.
I feel like what you are describing here is interesting. Technically "failing" is not an option at all for spells, that aren't spell attacks. Technically it's the opponent "succeeding" a saving throw. Both terms are quite stupid, though. If an opponent "succeeds" the saving throw it feels like I "failed" the spell only on terminology. In fact the spell hit and had an effect. It's therefore neither a "success" for the opponent nor a "failure" for the caster. Instead it's an unsatisfying compromise for both, considering how the game mechanics frame it. It'd probably be less unsatisfying if saving throws wouldn't run on a "failure/success"-scale, which still presupposes "save or suck", but instead be framed as simply degrees of effect as a scale without a binary opposition.
I wonder if changing the names of the level of success to "nullified, moderate, major, critical" would help set expectations better.
@@genocysalso don't write
half, 4d6, double
Write
2d6, x2 damage, x4 damage
PF2e isn't to blame, the examples set by Adventure Paths kinda are. Adventure Paths are full of fights against single creatures at level PL+2 or +3, which is a recipe for forcing casters to always only look at the succeed options. My recommendation: cap enemies that aren't storied boss fights at level +1 and use the extra budget to buy more PL-1 or -2 enemies, which are still threatening but have a way higher chance of being failed or critically failed. This method is way more in line with the suggested adventure-building guidelines, but is sadly often not followed by the APs themselves.
Bonus suggestion: replace PL-3 and -4 enemies with minions, PL-2 creatures that are Slowed 1 and have 3 hp but take 1 damage on a miss/succeeding a save, 2 damage on being hit/failing a save, or 3 damage on being critted/critically failing. Give them Power Attack to punish being ignored. Use 3-4 of them instead of a PL-2 creature with full hp.
@@malkyn9998 Fireball is a lousy boss killer option... yet it's a wonderful crowd clearer. But Boss DPR is the main measuring tool many people use to determine strength.
For the interested, my home brew balance solution was to allow casters to use accuracy runes on attack roll spells for a 1 action tax, and they don’t stack with other accuracy enhancements like true strike. They can either fire off an attack roll spell less accurately for 2 actions or spend an extra action to make it more accurate. Kind of gives it the feel of either trying to quickly do something technical or slowing down to make sure you get it perfect.
Y'know, 4e gets a bad rap, but it pretty much managed to give each tradition options for tanking, buffing, dpr, and control while also being relatively accessible and maintaining balance between its classes.
4e was an incredible system. A lot of 5e and P2e's best ideas came from 4e.
4e is the only edition of D&D I'd play again. No one was just attacking. Even the fighter had diverse options.
@@Myrdraall Very true. There was so much customization that even characters of the same class often felt different. I have a theory on the people who like 4e. If you'll indulge my curiosity, what do you do for a living?
It grinds my gears how 4e was received. It was so good for martials and really did a lot to fix the linear fighter/quadratic wizard issue that had been plaguing D&D for decades. Sure it had it's issues, but as someone who started on Red Box/1st ed AD&D in the 80s I think it's the best iteration of the game so far. Anyway glad to see some 4e love out there. While I'm not much of a fan of PF1e (though I do prefer D&D 3.5 to previous editions), it looks like PF 2e is what I am after.
I like to say that 4e had classes with very samey mechanics that played very differently to each other, whereas pf2e has classes with very diverse mechanics that play the same.
I do think one of the reasons people do get frustrated with Casters might have something to do with the fact that, for the majority of a character's lifespan, the most common result on a save vs their DC is the one called "Success" (for the enemy), the second-worst result. Maybe that framing has something to do with it?
Only if you target their not worst save...which as a caster you should be.
Just did a quick test comparing the Spell DC of a caster with the Moderate save of an on-level enemy, and the number they need to roll to succeed a save doesn't go above 10 until level 19 (obviously this is worse when you use a higher level enemy). That being said, Low saves are about 3 lower than moderate, so if you have targeted that, Failure is the most common result.
@@ColdNapalm42
a lot of monsters still have more than 50% chance to succeed on a save against their worst save.
it's a major constraint on spell selection, which is already limited by all the trash spells.
find out the worst save isn't even reliable.
@Apfeljunge666 define a lot. Because even at level +2 I am seeing a lot of greater than 50% of failure for worst save once you factor in a -1 to -3(depending on level)for status penalty to their saves that you should reliably have before attempting a save spell. Why would we assume martial will take advantage of tactics and teamwork for their performance benchmark but not the caster. Yes, there are some critters that has high saves where targeting saves is bad...you also have spells that target AC for those...that you can spin to your advantage with as well with once again teamwork and tactics.
@@ColdNapalm42 so you're metagaming in order to play the character properly or you've homebrewed recall knowledge? Or just guessing what the lowest save is? Because "target the lowest save" really requires you to do one of those three things first, and it's pretty important which one it is.
While I like the general rule of P2 spellcasting that "All spells require 2 actions to cast; unless it's a reaction" as a general rule. There is definitely space for spells that have immediate and temporary effects that only require a single action to cast; like a cold spell that super chills the air in the area causing sheathed weapons to get stuck in their scabbards and tightens leather straps and fittings due to the temperature drop, preventing characters from easily accessing stowed items normally at the ready for just a single turn. With a snap of their fingers the bard can debilitate the enemies opportunity to respond to a surprise attack launched by the party who can draw their weapons on a signal together before the spell but faster than their enemies can respond, or an arcane trickster rouge can cast this just as things seem to be getting dicey so he can flee while his opponents struggle to draw their weapons.
Sadly most of the time the multi-action spell general rule hurts probably my favorite spellcaster subtype the subtle spell caster. But hurting some niche playstyles is probably better for the games health than allowing already dominant styles to become super dominant.
I get what you're saying but the spell you describe really should not be single action.
I was talking about something like this with a friend the other day, and I made a certain analogy:
Casters are like a Toolbox, where you have a bunch of different tools for any given small job, while Martials are like Power Tools, more potent at their particular job they're designed for, but not as flexible in things besides that.
Part of the issue as you've mentioned is that the toolbox carriers also want to stuff in some power tools, even though we both know a table saw isn't going to fit in there.
A full party, then, should work like a craftsman's full set of tools, using the toolboxes for the parts that require finesse, and the power tools for when you can't do it by hand alone so easily. (And you're likely not going to use a screwdriver to bore in wood screws as much as you aren't going to do fine chisel work with a jackhammer)
That reasoning is nothing but coping. If you put in your box nothing but damage, you should be able to dish nearly as much damage as the others, whose ressources aren't even limited. But with delayed scaling and lack of runes, you will noticeably lag behind, and there is no design philosophy where this is alright. I think that if the scaling was decently balanced, we wouldn't see a fourth of the complains we do now. In the end, casters are a toolbox that misses and gets resisted.
@@Myrdraall Putting nothing but damage in your box does not limit your ability to put other things in your box, that is where the power budget of the casters goes, that is the design philosphy. The classes are balanced around all the things they can do, and for casters it is a way wider ranged of things. If you want to focus on damage as a caster, you can still dish out pretty good damage under the right circumstances, but it does not take away your ability to do other things on the fly. That is why the balance is that way.
And now for the misses and gets resisted part, as a martial you need to be able to hit consistently and try to crit to be effective. As a caster, simply landing a spell is more than effective enough to change the entire outcome of a boss fight. I mean imagine simply landing a spell like slow and crippling the boss for the rest of the fight in such a consistent way that you could stack multiple effects like those on every boss encounter... It would suddenly stop being challenging right?
@@MyrdraallBeing able to do anything and choosing to deal damage is not the same thing as playing a class / build that by design can "only" deal damage as its primary function. (I know Fighter and martials in general can do more than that but I think most people would agree their options are much thinner compared to a spellcaster)
I actually strongly agree that there should be a class which takes the thematics of a spellcaster and trades all the versatility for raw power (Kineticist comes close, but I still would like something that leans a little more towards a traditional "wand and wizard hat" type of magic). But that's not what a wizard, cleric, bard, or even sorcerer is. They have access to the entire spell list for their tradition. You may only choose to utilize a small part of it, but the simple fact is that simply having the option to pick and choose from that huge list of options has to come at an opportunity cost. And if you play a Wizard and only choose damage dealing spells, that's perfectly fine, you're living your truth, but if you complain that that doesn't compete with the Fighter for single target damage, it's... Kind of like being a Rogue and expecting to do as much damage as a Fighter in every situation. You're trying to outcompete The Class That Does Single Target Damage at Its Thing and ignoring the huge list of things your class is amazing at that Fighter can't touch.
I'm not arguing there shouldn't be magic classes that can deal damage comparable to a martial class, but the current spell casters can't be that and be balanced. It's not good enough to Choose Not To Be Versatile, in order to compete with other damage dealing classes and still be balanced, you have to give up the *option* to be versatile, if that makes sense. And I think that requires that you give up having a spell list, or at least have one much smaller than the existing traditions provide, and have an available toolkit much more similar to what the Kineticist has.
I'm going to address Prepared Casters here, since they and Spontaneous Casters are very different in terms of versatility.
The problem is that you get charged twice. It isn't that "Putting nothing in the box does not limit your ability to put other things in the box," because that's actually exactly what it does.
Every single Comprehend Language, every single Create Food, every single Speak with Dead every single Knock, is one less Fear. As much as I hate Vancian magic, it actually tackles this pretty well. You literally cannot excercise the versatility implied by your class' spell list, not unless you see something right in front of you and decide to squat down for a long rest.
Every single utility spell you can cast is damage you cannot deal that day. Every single utility spell you can cast in one lesn Frighten or Slow. You _actively pay_ every single time for even the _opportunity_ of casting these spells, with direct, measureable numerical loss, whether that be loss in debuffs, support, or damage. If you don't come upon any corpses to speak to, if you don't have to track someone with a divination, if you don't have to control the minds of anyone, that spell slot might as well have never been there.
A Rogue doesn't have to worry about this. They don't say "Oh man guys, I picked a lock three hours ago. I'm too tired to stab this guy in the eye now." But a Wizard does!
You get charged for versatility in your class' build, your spell power, _and_ your spell slots. That's the problem.
Faced with this, who's going to take any of the actually interesting options? Especially a newer player? Why wouldn't they just take a bunch of damage or control spells, because those are atleast sure to come up?
You know I've never thought that the problem with casters in 2E is their power, it's how bad they feel to play. I don't think casters need buffs, or at least nothing overt... I think the little annoyances of playing particularly low level spellcasters need to be smoothed out. I just started playing a Witch and being level 1 with only 2 spell slots even though there are fundamentally important spells I basically need to prepare (Mage Armor and Magic Weapon, always low-level essentials) just sucks. Then now with the Remaster you have these severe cuts to the minimum damage cantrips can deal which is annoying, and because of proficiency delays on spellcasters (which would be fine if proficiency only affected your DC but it's also attached to your spell attack rolls that target AC). With Cantrips there are very few 1-action fillers unless you're playing certain classes, which can often make casters who fail to cast an effective spell feel like their turn was wasted. All of these things combined descend on the most commonly played levels of the game to make casting just have all these little frustrations, and despite the fact that casters are perfectly powerful anyway it does make you feel weak. I really think these frustrations can be pretty easily smoothed over. Every caster should have a way to recuperate a few low-level spell slots throughout a day, there should be more one action cantrips and in particular one that deals damage, and they should put spellcasting ability mod onto all spell damage. Changes like this would be minimally balance-effecting and yet drastically improve the feel of low-level spellcasting.
Also there needs to be more support for specialist casters. I think having a limited spell list with a faster spell rank progression should be something they're looking at. All in all, I think people wouldn't be worried about whether casters were buffed or nerfed or not if the casters they were playing didn't feel so bad to play.
Mage armor sucks in pf2, don't do that to yourself
@@leonelegenderIt helps at level 1.
I think an example that highlights "Feel" vs "Mechanics" is the rogue in 5e. It is, objectively, just a bad class in combat. Expertise is nice to have, but the maths on it is pretty wonky before level 9 or so. I've heard multiple people who are very experienced with the system call it a contender for the worst class in the game.
But do you know how many people complain about rogues being weak? Literally only optimizers. Never heard anybody else complain. This is because the designers did an _amazing_ job at building the class.
Sneak attack barely lets you keep up with Extra Attack. A d6 of consistent damage every two levels is so pathetic that optimizers rarely take more than three levels of Rogue unless they're actively trying to fit in Rogue levels. But it certainly _feels_ amazing to roll a metric fuckton of dice, especially on a crit. Crits that you're pretty likely to get, since you're incentivised to get advantage moreso than most other classes. Expertise gives you big numbers on your sheet. Having a +11 to stealth feels great. Cunning action feels amazing to play with, since you can afford to just _do more stuff._
This is why design matters a lot more than optimization. A class doesn't have to be good to feel good. But conversely, a class doesn't have to be bad to feel bad
All that utility and battlefield control doesn't mean anything if the monsters are succeeding on their saves more often than they fail. When many of the encounters I've come across during my time as a player have enemies that can Succeed rolling a five or better, it usually means I'm lucky to just get that and not a Crit Success. Attack the weak save, you say? Well, several enemies have had strong and weak saves that were within two points of one another, so not much of an improvement in my odds. I generally try to buff the party in these situations, though several encounters have come down to one or two round affairs due to the magus landing Crits on his spellstrikes, or even his regular attacks, so I usually feel like I've wasted my spell slots on one fight buffs.
Now, I admit, it may just be the fact that I'm playing in Age of Ashes (notoriously overtuned as I understand it), and a majority of the encounters feel like they're meant to be on the high end of the difficulty scale, but my experience as a caster has certainly not been feeling that great. We are also only three players, using dual-class and free archetypes, so that's definitely a factor there too (i'm playing a sorcerer/summoner), since we're missing at least three actions a turn on our side and another body in the mix.
I guess I'd just like a little more consistency in getting off a spell effect so that I actually feel like I'm contributing something useful. The martials (magus/fighter and cleric/champion) land their hits much more often than my spells Succeed, often because my pet gets up there for flanking and knockdown. Their accuracy is probably 50% or better, which feels normal for me, but my spells actually getting a regular Failure seems closer to maybe 33% or less. I can probably count on one hand the number of Crit Fails I've actually seen on my spells. This was VERY noticeable around levels 5 to 7, when the martials got their melee improvements while I was waiting to get my spellcasting improvement. Them getting to add magical bonuses to their to-hit rolls is another thing martials get that casters don't; at least I'm not aware of any items that improve either spell attack bonus or save DC.
I feel like most of my problems with the feel of playing a caster would likely be fixed with improved consistency on enemies getting a Fail on a save, closer to what the martials are experiencing with their successful attacks. Not fishing for Crits or anything here, just a regular fail will do. Maybe in a game where the encounters are always feeling so dangerous, I might not even be having this issue.
On the other side of the screen, as a DM in my Abomination Vaults game, the encounters feel a lot more balanced and fun compared the the AoA game. The party's casters seem to have a much more reliable ratio of success and failure on their spells against the enemies they're facing. Some fights have been close calls, there have been a couple of PC deaths, but I've not heard the same complaints I've voiced about my experience from my players (aside from the one who has that attitude where all casters suck because they're not as powerful as they are in 5e or older editions, and he "proved" it by playing horribly built characters that were mostly ineffective and useless due to poor tactics and decisions, and thus became the two PC deaths the group has had thus far).
Full disclosure, I am a refugee from 5e and I played full casters. I have been playing Pathfinder 2e for months now as a Bard. We are only level 6, so I don't know what high level bard play is like, but I have found myself feeling less powerful than I did at the same level in 5e. The lower damage I totally understand and I agree with. But my favorite thing to do in 5e wasn't damage, it was battlefield control, and (at least at level 6 and under so far) I have felt pretty awful so far in pathfinder. Almost all of these kinds of spells require that the enemy critically fail a saving throw, which has never happened for me yet. So I stopped wasting spell slots on that kind of spell and it has bummed me out a lot.
On the other hand, buffing feels so much better in Pathfinder than 5e, so I like that aspect a lot and have been trying to focus on what I can do as a Pathfinder bard, rather than what I can't. I just have to get used to the fact that I can't end encounters with one cast of Hypnotic Pattern anymore. I guess my real complaint is that I'll never reach that level of power if I always have to rely on the enemy not just failing a saving throw, but critically failing a saving throw, that part feels bad and is super common for just about every control spell I have access to at level 6.
Spoiler alert, your spells will basically never land and this problem gets worse not better as you level. So I guess either double down on the support caster or change to a martial class since they're all that's worth playing in pf2e
@@Dream146seems like a bad take, as pf2e spellcasters are still decently strong
Well, that's how it should be ig. Like, is it fair if one spell just ends the whole fight?
So, control and such must be more limited. Effective if used corrextly, but not OP
@Alex-cq1zr I get what you are saying, control spells are very powerful in 5e. However, they are so weak and limited in Pathfinder that it doesn't feel worth the spell slot to ever cast. I'm not going to rely on an enemy critically failing a save, I'll just use a different kind of spell. Is that how they should be balanced? And having a regular failed save usually result in barely a mild inconvenience for a single round just feels way too weak.
Many of the hallmark control spells work to a limited extent on a success, though? Like, the poster child for "casters aren't weak, you're just thinking about them incorrectly" - Slow - is *still* Slowed 1 for a round on a successful save from the enemy. Ditto goes for other core lockdown tools like Fear, Curse of Lost Time, Synesthesia, etc.
I am playing a cloistered cleric in a campaign as my first caster. We are all pretty new to the system and we have all agreed that the fear spell is easily our strongest party member.
When you get to higher LVs and can get the fear spell that hits then entire enemy team at once it gets even better.
19:27 Wait a second, isn't creating pocket planes a ritual, which non-spellcasters can do?
I think you are right in this case, while the general point is still true
The classic spell to create a demiplane is a Ritual, but there are spells that create extradimensional spaces with the Extradimensional trait that have a variety of uses
I think an interesting concept for a caster class that would satisfy that person who wanted a caster that is highly specific to damage would be a class that gets exclusively focus spells. I'm not sure of the best way to balance it off hand, but I imagine it could be something where each level they can choose between some number of focus spells to get access to. This would eliminate the issue of having access to the full spell list while also retaining the vibe of a traditional caster.
Although it is not exactly as you describe, I think philosophically psychic fills that niche with its focus cantrips.
Be a spellcaster! Cast the same dozen spells actually worth some of the ink they're written with, no matter your actual tradition or class! With a spellcaster, you can do marvelous things, like rattling a lock so it's slightly easier to open, create a floating disk that can carry two and a half yoyos, and moderatley inconvenience your foes for 6 seconds in a myriad ways! For that, you pay with a daily limit on your cool things, lower defenses, and a "master of none" tax on top of that.
Wait, wait. wait. With the incapacitation trait you are looking at having a small chance of moderately inconveniencing your foes so it isn't guaranteed. Be a caster! Have fun watching the incapacitation trait make even your pointless -1 not work due to critical saves!
I think the disappointment with caster damage isn't that you can't do as much as a martial, but that you do less than a martial in many different ways. Not only do your cantrips have smaller damage die than martial attacks, your to hit will start trailing behind martials especially as they start getting runes, and your to hit is balanced around true strike existing. 5e doesn't feel bad in this regard because your bread and butter damage cantrips are d10s. This is a bit overboard in terms of power, but much much stronger than lets say Divine Lance's 1d4 to a single target as a baseline bread and butter divine spell list damage cantrip.
I also wonder if the frustration with power level also has to do with party item progression. A potency rune is 35 gold while a level 1 wand is 60. The fighter is going to hit that minor power gain quite easily, and the party is going to have to pool together funds to get the wizard a single cast of sleep a day. Of course, you could get scrolls, but this is in comparison to a permanent item like a rune. In my current game, my sorceror hasn't been able to afford anything really while the martials have their item spikes already.
You could say "skill issue. You could buy x y z item instead". But I find that sort of toxic in terms of you being expected to follow some very specific item progression or else you're playing the game wrong. The rune system is cool for upgrading weapons and such, but a partial result is that martials have a gold tax they pretty much have to pay at certain levels, and casters have too many mediocre choices that don't feel good at all, that you have to be getting a college degree in pathfinder items in order to get what you're expected to have.
No, your to hit is not balanced around true strike. It was kinda sorta in core...but shadow signet is the real issue. You can have borked chances to crit because of this item...especially with true strike tossed in. But it is gonna be either incredibly powerful as the critter has a big difference between save DC and AC or not. But you can't have fundamental runes AND this item AND true strike. Hell this item and true strike alone is pretty bad as it is. They should have added a +1-3 to hit for the potency and +1-3 for save DC for "magic striking" runes for casters.
Good video, but I want to share one occasional issue with the more tool-box style of casters (which is what P2E promotes); they are much more dependent on your GM and their encounter design. I've run into this issue a few times (with different systems) but the main one was in Pathfinder 1st edition. I built a caster (a Shaman) who would regularly prepare a range of different utility spells, but it never felt like I could "guess right" and often a large chunk of my spell list just being blank. The main concern is that if a GM just throws a single big boss monster with a lot of HP at you, a bunch of spells are less useful or actively harmful. AOE will hit your melee characters (and the damage might be worse than what they are doing), lots of powerful debuffs/save vs suck spells have a very small chance of working (fear, blind/deafness, hold person, ext), crowd control effects/movement restrictions aren't really relevant once people have engaged (and can limit the mobility of your party), and if there is only one target with a single set of weaknesses or resistances the damage spells you prepared might not line up well. In the end I often just used my unlimited actions (Hex, Misfortune, and Chant which were quite good) and prepared more healing since that is always going to be useful outside of combat, but it was rather boring and I felt underutilized. For casters to have power the GM's need to give them some ability to be able to predict what sorts of encounters they might face during the day (although not perfect knowledge) and they should plan their encounters with that range of effects in mind. However, if you have a newer GM that is a lot more effort and the result can often be just a big damage sponge that hits hard and maybe has some abilities or a cool special attack. It does seem like by default that is a bit less of an issue in P2E, but it is still definitely a concern.
I think the "barrier of entry" discussion is a very good one. We had to take time in my group to explain all the ways a caster can be good and all the impact it has, where we never have to do this for martial characters. Yes, every +1 matters, but big numbers feel more rewarding.
Another thing I find doesn't help is in the way spell effectiveness is calculated. A caster using a spell will usually not roll themselves but have the monsters roll a defense check. I think it removes some of the basic fun of rolling dices that is so core in this game. I'm actually thinking about swapping those rolls, and have the caster roll agains't enemy defense in my game.
Remember that if you help make big numbers happen, then those big numbers are because of you.
The eternal problem with the mage is its two conflicting fantasies: The Generalist, and the Specialist.
Pf2e leans into the Generalist.
What many want is a way to keep the magical flavor, and sacrifice the generalist nature of the class to be a specialist.
And I mean more than just a blasting specialist. Perhaps I want to play an enchanter, who zeros in on mind manipulation. The enchantment wizard promises that fantasy, and does not deliver. The enchantment wizard is just a universalist who always happens to have some enchantment on hand. Imagine giving the wizard huge buffs to their school, but restricting them only to the spell slots granted by their school. Maybe that's a bad idea, but it's illustrative of a common desire.
Elemental specialists are also a common trope, but Kineticist does a mostly fine job at that. Really only fails if you want a Cryomancer.
I'll also add that I don't think any kind of buffing specialist really needs to be made in this way. Buffing your allies is already perfect on casters as is, if not a bit overtuned. If such a specialist was to be made buffing spells would probably need to be nerfed.
@@exomancer3632as a support caster Main I can tell you playing pure support caster in pathfinder 2e feels and plays terrible.
I think PF2e lend itself into Specialist sort of game, Class ttrpg can't really be both Generalist and Specialist at the same time without feeling like the other one is better.
Yea, I remember the old days of the second edition. Wizard casting spell 90% spell resisted. Lost concentration whenever something attacked him. Eventually landing a fireball for 20 damage.
I also remember our warrior, with triple specialization dishing out 130hp of damage in a single round.
We were all trying to play the game, mostly we ran after the warrior and cleaned up the leftovers. I remember getting hit by two meteor showers for 25 damage.
No the game was not balanced then.
You need to look even further back in the first edition D&D Rules encyclopedia.
That is My 2E experience in most games. The effective spells were to buff imho.
reaching into your components pouch. its empty.. martials are the biggest cry babies in the world and it is amazing to me that the narrative they push is no actually spellcaster are the crybabies who always get their way. upside down world
I will use Wizard for my specific example of weakness. In my playing of Pathfinder, I never know what creatures I am going to be facing so I cannot forearm myself with good spells. I never know if we will be facing a goblin or a fire Memphite. By the background, Wizards are suppose to be the learned class, spending years in study however, my wizards never seem to pass a recall knowledge check to even Identify the creature we are facing (wasting an action). A wizard who has spent years studying typically has a smaller chance of ID'ing a Ghoul then a cleric does. The game is SO worried about balance that it loses the flavor of the specific class. Besides, in almost all games of Pathfinder I have played in, the game typically goes Fight, rest, Fight, rest, Fight, sleep. Next day, rinse and repeat. Unless the players force role-playing, very little role-play happens. Pathfinder needs to find a way to reward role-playing since all games i have played in the only way to get EX is to kill things.
I agree. The issue with Pathfinder 2E is the it is SO invested in balance it forgot that the game is supposed to be fun.
One huge problem I find with the argument that "If you want a mechanical niche, play the class for that niche" is that I have never seen a player who just wants the mechanics of a particular class. They want a type of flavor to go with it. And oftentimes, the flavor of the class they're given for their mechanical goal does not match the flavor they want for their character. Not to mention, they may want to specialize in certain skills that the class just doesn't support very well, or they may want a primary attribute that the class doesn't use for its abilities. Say you want the kineticist playstyle but want to focus primarily on intelligence instead of constitution. You can't do that in PF2e.
The problem therein is that you can't easily reconcile mechanical and narrative goals in this system. Yes, you could reflavor an archer as using magic instead of a bow and arrow if you really wanted to, but the mechanics are going to still function as if you had one which can oftentimes make no sense and contradict the flavor, causing this little phenomenon called ludonarrative dissonance: When the mechanics of the game conflict with the narrative. This isn't unique to PF2e, it's been a problem with practically every class-based game I've ever played and is the main reason I don't like them.
I see the limitations of each class when it comes to flavor to be inherent in class based systems, especially in pf, while that does allow multiple themes to be expressed by different classes it also means that there will be many more class/theme concepts that won't be.
In your kinetist example, going int vs con makes that class less resistant making combat builds ''weaker" (I'm not saying that would be bad idea, it sounds cool, but that difference comes from how some abilities are stronger than others in different situations).
The level of limitations in a system determine how many option there will be (more strict will allow more options like classes in pf, less strict might allow less class options but more freedom within those classes).
The Inquisitor in P1E and 5E's Warlock are excellent examples of classes chosen typically for mechanics and not flavor.
@@jeronemitchellDid you mean the other way around? Because I've never seen a Warlock player pick the class for anything but the flavour. I mean, excepting a one level hexblade dip, I guess
My only problem with PF2e casters is the Incapacitation trait. I don't like that I need to constantly think about what level enemy I am facing, or that some of my coolest spells are almost impossible to pull off in a critical situation. The trait should stay, but its applied too liberally and it should apply to level 3 difference instead of 2.
I'd probably homebrew incapacitation a bit myself (something like a +2 status bonus/level above)... But one thing that makes it feel a bit better is throwing some lower level enemies at the party sometimes and having THEIR spells whiff on the PCs. Remind the PCs that it works both ways.
Counteract checks have the same problem. It's practically impossible to counteract the effects of something that's higher level than you, because you need a critical success, which means you need a natural 20. If the level difference is too big then even a critical success isn't enough. And just about every spell that tries to remove conditions or prevent you from being affected by stuff uses counteract checks.
@@elifia
This is incorrect. On a regular success, you dispel effects 1 rank higher. Even on a failure you'll dispel effects one level lower. If the GM is always treating every effect the party comes across as a rank equal to 1/2 the creature's level, that's going to be steep and always need a spell slot from highest level to succeed. Suggestion is to have GMs treat magical effects as the minimum level needed to achieve their effect - a caster creating a dungeon isn't going to spend a 6th level slot on Darkness when the 4th level effect is the big utility/trap upgrade. Thus a PC caster that comes across a 4th rank darkness spell that can cast 5th rank spells suddenly has an interesting choice - gamble with a 3rd rank dispel magic or go for the almost-sure thing with a 5th rank dispel magic.
@@malkyn9998 That assumes that you can figure out what rank the effect is. And far from all effects are spells, non-spell effects are indeed always half level. It'd really suck to gamble that rank 3 dispel magic only for the effect to actually be rank 5, so you never stood a real chance. And if you only have spell slots up to rank 5 and then run into a rank 7 effect, you're just fucked.
I think there needs to be a way officially to ascertain the likely level of a creature myself
Ronald, I respect you a lot and have been subscribed for a long time.
What I find frustrating about this video is that it feels disingenuous to go into a huge talk about how spoiled casters are before saying "they want to have their cake and eat it too", while totally ignoring just how many people have said "No, I'd be perfectly happy as a sorcerer to forego my access to utility spells for the sake of better single target damage options".
What people on your side of this argument are largely missing is that there's a specific flavor of class fantasy that used to be possible and is extremely common in media, but doesn't really work in pathfinder 2e (Kineticiist comes closest, and I love the class, but it has a specific flavor to it). I don't think "role protection" is necessary in the way you're framing it--A slotted caster who is able to do similar single target damage to a ranged martial would not be ruinous to people who want to play rangers, fighters or gunslingers.
Being a swiss army knife is one type of caster role, it doesn't need to be the only one, and im tired of this disingenuous framing that it does.
Play Psychic then, go for dangerous sorcery, use a signature slot on magic missle for boss dpr...
Amen brother
These arguments can only be made by dismissing the feelings and experiences of people playing casters and finding the experience unenjoyable. In order to defend the game system, you have to maintain that all of these people are unreasonable and want to have fun wrong.
My personal problem with p2e spellcasters as GM was spell usage out of combat and maybe of combat spell durations.
Lot of spell slots and spell switching allows you to do random cool stuff out of combat. It felt like they are sitting in the dungeon waiting for the melees to break, find and open stuff. In p2e players are hoarding spell slots. I don't rememeber anyone trying blasting lock with a fireball. (and frying half of the party) and then when it doesnt work trying another spell.
I've let the caster cast out of combat without using spell slots.(prepare the spell for 10 minutes and just cast it for free). And for second party I made the occurence of engaments more predictable. Both worked for the player engagement quite well and made them just try stupid and fun stuff.
It gets better with played sessions, but the low number of spell slots is a problem when switching from dnd..
I don't feel like you really answered the comment about why the guy that wants a caster that can just do big damage without any of the other benefits of being a caster can't have it. You explain why it doesn't work currently because casters DO get access to their full spell lists and thus they need to be limited in damage. You mention that for some people that's an expectation that they get full spell lists. But you fail to answer the question of, why can't you have a Wizard that has dedicated their study so intensely into damaging spells they've become literally incapable of other types of magic.
You bring up the kineticist, which is a fantastic class and the one I plan to play next, but the kineticist doesn't use spells. That's it's fundamental issue on fulfilling this class type. It can do what it does all day.
What I want is a caster that is incapable of casting other types of spells other than JUST damage. Not damage with riders. Just. Damage. But it's still a caster. It still uses spell slots. Out of spells? You get mediocre cantrips the rest of the day. But the flip side is even lower level slots still do good damage because those slots literally can't do anything else. And the highest level slots do BIG BIG DAMAGE. But I still don't even want to take away from a fighter or hunter being amazing single target. I'm fine with also being fully locked to AoE such that fighting just a boss, I can still only Fireball it. My character even with the extreme power of highest spell slot can MAYBE do the same single target damage as a fighter while expending a resource the fighter isn't, but hitting 2 targets puts them ahead.
Why can't this exist in pf2e? I mean that from a pure mechanics and balance perspective not a "But people expect X from wizards" perspective. What is mechanically stopping Paizo from doing this? That's a question you didn't really answer. And at this point the fantasy concept of the guy who's only good at explosions is a popular one. So why can't we have it. Kineticists don't have resources and still have other utility. They're not it.
"why can't you have a Wizard that has dedicated their study so intensely into damaging spells they've become literally incapable of other types of magic."
Can't you just be a Sorcerer who chooses only damaging spells?
Or are you talking about pairing it with stronger damage? I don't see anything inherently wrong with that - maybe what that Reddit poster says about introducing a Class Archetype is the answer? Maybe I can introduce this idea into my upcoming Homebrew video? I would be concerned, though, that if limited resources can outdamage at-will abilities from martials, then GMs will have more reason to "fill out" encounters in adventuring days to manage. It destabilizes the current encounter building system.
A sorcerer only choosing damage spells is still limited to the damage spells that currently exist that are balanced against the entire spell list. You can do it, but I'd put it's capabilities at "mediocre at best".
I also noted that this supposed caster would be more balanced around AoE. It *Might* just barely do the same damage single target as a fighter with it's highest level spell slot, but it isn't explicitly necessary. It would also be odd to me that a DM would adjust encounter count in an adventuring day to account for 2-4 turns of a caster maybe doing the same damage as a fighter with their biggest resource. It doesn't seem like the most concerning thing. It's also just odd to me that I'm not even suggesting making them consistently even close to a Fighter's damage and it would be a concern? Why? I'm not pushing for better cantrips here than can be uses constantly, or even better focus spells that are recoverable between combat. You get max level slots a couple times per day, and that's it. Unless the DM decided to throw hoards of monsters at the players every combat (an area that a well-equipped caster already excels at anyway over a martial) I think this proposed caster might average out to the same total damage as a martial, but it'd be worse in some scenarios and better than others. It'd be a damage dealer with a different damage profile than martials.
As for target scaling, since I recognize that itself is a very reasonable concern, spells should be balanced around their scaling. Some spells should be the most powerful at 3-4 targets, others at like 10+. Get Intel on what you're gonna be fighting so you can optimize target count and save targeting.
Speaking of save targeting, at least for what I'd like to see, this would assume optimal save targeting the entire time. That assumption helps balancing out AoE damage with mixed monster types so you're never fully effective against everything, and is another single target limiter where you need to manage your spells against a single target well or drop off in damage on average.
So a spell cast at a max level spell slot is maybe okayish single target and very good at AoE. Lower level slots are less effective due to slot scaling so even 2 spell levels lower you're looking at pretty okay AoE and mediocre at best single target and down it goes from there.
Right now we still have that basic system in place, but the damage at any level is set very low to compensate for the other powers of casters like you mention in the video. If you just make a blaster now your best spell slot is pretty okay at best. And for a caster with finite resources, that sucks.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG
I would though love it if you played around with the concept as a home brew thing. Not necessarily something fully fleshed out, but at least tinker with it and share results.
What do you even mean with dealing the same damage as a fighter?
For example atm a rank 3 fireball at level 5 with dangerous sorcery from the sorcerer deals as much single target damage as a fighter using a maul with power attack.
I think a big part of this is not just expectations from D&D but from video games. As you mention while Wizards have long been overpowered in D&D, damage was often not their most powerful aspects if you wanted to really break them (they were just so OP so they also had great damage). But if you come from WoW, Diablo, Final Fantasy or many other video games the Wizard (or Sorcerer or Black Mage) meant all in damage often at the cost of durability and often don't have those other flexible options or they aren't very useful (often not even working on bosses or other powerful enemies). I know I came to D&D after first playing JRPG's which effected how me and my playgroup approached the game and the types of characters we tried to build.
I'm not saying Paizo has to cater to these expectations all the time (and I think P2E is the first game where you can really feel like the powerful martial characters in the games mentioned) but Paizo should be aware of them. I wonder if one or two of the new wizard curriculums might be focused heavily on damage (a little like Evocation already was). And I don't care if they are the best, if you are looking for the absolute best options you don't get to be so picky, but it is good to include something for the people who like the image of the more destructive and blasty style of mage, and I do agree that Kenetisist has a very different flavor.
DND 5e Wizard: Great at everything, outshines most classes outside of Druid, Bard, and Paladin
DND 5e Monk & Rogue: Not best at anything. Being a Ranger makes you better at what both of them are “good” at.
"Higher level creatures had 90% or 100% spell resistance". True, but a creature's spell resistance was reduced by 5% for each caster level over 11. So a 16th level wizard would be reducing that resistance by 25%. Conversely, each level below 11th increased the creature's spell resistance by 5%. And you have a good point in that creature's saving throws at high levels often blanked character's spells, especially if the moster was equiped with something like a cloak or a ring of protection.
Not in 2E
No it wasn’t.
*I think the big thing your missing is that regardless of how "tight" the math is, if something feels bad then the math doesn't matter.*
You can't say that they SHOULD feel bad because that's balanced because it feeling bad is a problem.
The points not missed the point was that its balanced for the sake of other classes as well. If you arent careful with the balance than your just sacrficing martials classes enjoyment which fixes nothing it just shifts the burden over. He spends the video trying help people acknowledge their strength and talking about how these changes might actually open up the space to make those hyper specialized classes people want
The game is telling you that if you want to do what class Y does, you should play class Y.
"I wanna do what a ranger does, but as a wizard", makes the ranger obsolete.
Back in 3.5, there was a war caster class that fit the "more damage than a fighter, but without the versatility of a wizard". So it certainly could be done. You topped out at something like 3 spells known, with a strong emphasis on evocation spells. I don't remember how many cantrips, but in 3.5 they were limited use too. In exchange, you reduced your arcane spell failure by 15%, eventually by 30%, and got proficiency in light and medium armor. You also got the medium-growth base attack progression. Lore-wise, these were mages taken from academy, or recruited *before* they joined an academy, specifically to fight on the battlefield. They were given the minimum training required to throw "blaster caster" spells, and deployed. The end result is a character that can out damage a fighter, including in single target damage, but, due to the limited spell slots, only for 1 or 2 minutes of fighting. And unlike a properly trained wizard, they won't be solving your magical challenges.
Balance-wise, you could certainly do the same thing in PF2e, without stepping on toes. First, this isn't going to replace the fighter's dual-role on the front line of dishing out _and taking_ damage, nor does it replace their ability to knock people prone, or otherwise control the front line. Second, the limited spell slots means in a full day of adventuring, the fighter will still _average_ higher single target damage.
Mechanically, you'd probably want to use the arcane or primal spell list. Let them know 2 cantrips, and 2 spells, increasing to 3 spells at level 5 or so. All their spells and cantrips must be evocation (with spell schools going away, make it "all must be damaging" or similar). Give them light armor, increasing to medium armor eventually, and Trained in martial weapons.
It would need a bit more work to figure out what exactly to hand out when, how many spell slots to give, and so on, but I think could make for an interesting class.
Class you're describing sounds like Magus. They know 5 cantrips and 4 spellslots per day until level 9.
Ah yes, the War Caster. Near universally reviled as being inferior *in every way* to a wizard with a 1 level dip in fighter and few feats, items, and spells.
Trying to balance spells as a limited resource only worked when spell preparation was linked to a day rather than 'after an 8 hour rest', as the latter just leads to the 5 minute adventuring day - which makes the full casters even *more* powerful.
It was more like the psychic, in that the magus mixes spell & martial combat, while the War Caster was purely a caster with some armor proficiency. Less martial capability than even a PF2e Warpriest. @@TheGeorg1236
You dont have to make a new class to create a blaster caster.
Create a spell tag called "YOU ARE A BLASTER HARRY". Apply this tag to every spell in the game. Make a wizard tradition/arcane thesis/whatever your want to call it named "BLASTER". Give it a feature called "BLASTER". Make it do the following: "You can only sribe an arcane spell into your spellbook if it has the "YOU ARE A BLASTER HARRY" property." And then you can give it class feat or thesis feat that says "You gain a +1 to spell attack rolls and spell DCs for spells that have the "YOU ARE A BLASTER HARRY" tag".
Very complicated way to make kineticist.
@@Coffeewings334i didnt realize every kineticist has access to most blasting spells, isntead only the ones that match their elements
@@texteel I can’t tell if this is irony or if you actually realized this. Getting multiple elements with Kineticist is quite easy.
@@Coffeewings334okay, if you select all the elements on a kineticist, will you have access to all the fireballs, all the cones of cold, all the chain lightnings, and all the other blasting spells at the same time?
Because that is what I am advocating for. A fullcaster that can easily have all of those the moment they become available, at the cost of not having any support, buffing and debuffing spells, and they gain +X to their DCs.
@@texteel You don’t get specifically what you’re asking for but what you get is… practically the same thing. You get access to ranged damage and elemental AoE abilities that you can spam infinitely, which are as strong or stronger than caster damage spells, at a higher DC.
I imagine what a lot of people want from an evocation caster could be fulfilled by a kinetecist with a caster archetype. Though the issue is that impulses are fictionally different from spells. So you won't really feel perfectly like a fire mage who mostly casts fire spells.
An evocation caster still has access to every arcane spell in the game. An evocation caster is no less versatile than most other caster
This is why spell schools are also going. Curriculum is the way
i mean impulses can be counterspelled, they count as spells
Nope. That won’t solve it. Because even having infinite “spells”, they start complaining they can’t outdamage the Fighter.
They claim they don’t want that, but then someone posts a graph of Kineticist damage being less than a Greatsword fighter and then the comments roll in on how Kineticist is a “worthless blaster”.
@@johnmoone8013 Now they do. Traditionally, Evokers had no access to illusion/enchantment and conjuration.
Which edition are you referring to? Be specific please
I don't know what kind of games of 3e/3.5 you were playing, but in my 20+ years of experience spells were never "nearly impossible to resist" due to stacking bonuses to DCs. Bonuses to DCs for spells are very rare throughout all of 3e. The biggest problem spells are the ones that are suddiciently punishing on a successful save or don't have a save to begin with (Maze and Irresistible Dance).
I would also want a definition of nearly impossible to resist. I personally would define that at a minimum of needing a natual 20 to succeed on the saving throw.
22:54 - Here’s what I don’t understand - in the Maze example, if you had been facing, say an ancient blue dragon (Creature 18) the dragon has a +31 perception and a level 15 wizard has a spell dc 36 - how would the dragon not escape that spell with a critical success 25% of the time?
the maze spell completely shuts down any creature for at least 1 round, usually more, which is huge even if they crit their first roll to get out
A PL+3 enemy is usually once in a while. It is literally listed as a final boss encounter for a reason. Using a single highest level slot to allow your party to potentially have a turn or two to reposition, buff against the element of their breath weapon defensively, ready actions, heal is huge. Even if the dragon critically succeeds, you are still costing them an action as a worst case scenerio, and if they do not crit succeed on turn 1, you are giving your team a huge window of time to breathe.
My 5 cents in this debate are: Wizards should be like scientists.
They should specialize in one school with maybe a minor in another school. Limit the amount a school can do. Maybe Elementalists get a control spell, but it would not be as powerful as a same-level control spell from the Enchantment school.
It feels dumb that if you can have access to high levels of two different spell schools, the skill set is the same. Like summoning a demon is somehow the same as casting Cone of Cold.
Also when you see a wizard casting a spell, you would know what kind of wizard they were and counterplay accordingly.
I think the power level for casters is fine as does most people I talk to. What most have issues with are two things.
1) more focused builds which you covered, being very good in a much more narrow field, like a summoner not like the current class but a wizard type that focuses heavily on summoning spells but gives up other stuff for better versions of those spells. Or the popular necromancer.
2) A big complaint I hear among people I know is it is great having a big list of spells but since you have to pick them without knowing what will happen, people tend to focus on picking combat spells, because those will always be used and others might not get used.
For 2 I have played around with allowing more non-combat spells to be cast as rituals but with big time requirements, making them useless in combat or even when time is a issue. But allows them to be used more and so far players have loved it.
The other thing I tried was using the 5e style spell slots. meaning you memorize x number of spells per day and you get x number of spell points/slots per level a day that can be used on any spell of that level or lower.
Both I found made players take fewer combat focused spells, more niche spells and in both cases caster players greatly enjoyed playing their casters more, with out IMHO making them more powerful, just more versatile, which yes is a type of power but it had little effect in combat again IMHO.
I think either or even a combination of those would make most people happy with casters, especially if option 1 of new narrow focused classes where introduced, I think most players would be happy with casters. Again just my personal opinion.
I liked your comment and all, especially the ritual idea, but memorize x number of spells per day and getting x spell slots is too similar to spontaneous casting so I don't like it much and spell points in an appropriate conversion can end up just like giving spell blending to all casters
@@xaropevic7918 Yes it would mean reworking sorcerers but adding the flexibility to all casters as I said makes them use spells they normally don't in my experience which makes for more dynamic game play.
DnD 5e does that, it is one of the few things I think they did better than PF2e
@@nutluck I would be fine if they did something to differ sorcerers and spontaneous casters better but the way done in 5e seems to me too generic to the point I don't know the difference between those two sources
RE: Comment about kineticist and doing less damage than a fighter.
> Fighter can't heal with water or create fireballs at will.
I mean not every kineticist can do that either. You have to build specifically for that. A kineticist built for damage is going to be, what a single-gate fire kineticist with both impulse junction and aura junction, so until like level 9 you probably won't have any access to water. Also until level 10, you are essentially melee range if you actually want to take advantage of aura junction. I would hope that will be rewarded with good damage, because that's really all that this character can do.
Also I dunno what kineticist can provide "fireballs at will" it doesn't seem like any impulses have comparable damage to a fireball. If you mean area damage in general, sure, but I would rather argue that "doing single target damage" and "doing aoe damage" is a strange dilemma in general. I would rather have both martials and casters have options for both rather than locking the ability to do single target damage to martials and say it's a niche worth protecting.
Why is it a specific niche worth protecting? Why can't martials get feats or techniques that allow to attack multiple targets in an area in one way or another? Why can't casters/kineticists have a "fuck that guy in particular" spells? That seems fairly arbitrary to me.
I will disagree with you on only one point: cantrip damage in 5e *SUH-HUUUUCKS.*
Consider this: when calculating DPR for D&D 5e, the *BASELINE* is generally considered to be Eldritch Blast WITH Agonizing Blast and an increase to CHA at every opportunity until it's maxxed out.
You will note that this damage completely outclasses every other cantrip in the game. You should also note that any optimizer can beat this baseline, often by over 100% and almost always without using cantrips at all.
This is not a defense of 5e magic or even 5e generally. Because you're right in saying that a system requiring one of exactly two feats or the paladin's Smite (bringing spellcasting into play again) in order to optimize a martial character's damage output is deeply flawed.
However, if you're playing a "full caster" in 5e and expecting to exceed or even match *ANY* martial character's damage output, much less one that's been optimized in any way, with Fire Bolt, Ray of Frost or any cantrp *BUT* Eldritch Blast, you're in for a disappointing game.
i mean im pretty sure sorlock eldritch machine gun is still the king of round-after-round DPR in 5e, and it specifically sacrifices all other spells on the altar of eldritch blast
On the topic of caster specialization, I really liked Mesmerist in first edition, but it likely can't be printed without full custom spell lists like 1e had, which it feels Paizo doesn't want to do for this edition.
They have done it like for the elementalist or shadow caster.
I'm still fairly early in this video, but overall, I think casters are fine *as a class type.* The issue lies with monster/NPC save scaling compared to casters and caster scaling. Monster/NPC saves are out of control, as they scale faster and higher than the player's own Class DC can ever be. For the most part, in order for a monster/NPC to save against your spell, especially at higher levels, they just need to not roll a 1 or a 2 which is... just about the least fun thing on the planet.
I play a bard in Fists of the Ruby Phoenix, we did a short campaign to level from 1-12 to get a feel for our classes before starting. Everything was fine, for the most part, but monsters/NPCs were saving against me more often than not. Okay, maybe it'll get better when we hit higher levels. Nope - not a chance. I can count, on one hand, how many times an enemy has failed a save against me, even after using Combat Reading to target the weakest save AND having a homebrew relic to inflict Clumsy 2, Enfeebled 2, or Stupefied 2 after a successful combat reading. Four times. Four. Times. We're level 16 now, and only four times an enemy has failed a save against me. I have also only hit with an Attack Roll spell *six times* - four of those times were because I was rolling hot and rolled above a 17. This. Is. Not. Fun. Nor is it good design, imo. It's to the point where all I do is lingering comp > inspire courage, combat reading > announce what I find. I don't find it worth it *at all* to expend spell slots for something that will just be saved against, do five damage, and have a rider effect that is near worthless. I just came into a Shadow Signet... and it is completely awful to rely on an item just to be able to hit an attack roll.
"But rabidelfman, casters have aoe! You should be using your aoe!" - You are correct, but if your martials just clutter the area... most aoes hit all creatures in an area. Martials don't like being nuked by one of their own, from my experience. Then, when I take the time, actions, and multiple turns, to position myself to be able to do a cone of some kind... it's very... whelming. I am normally whelmed.
Either casters need a way to have their Class DCs buffed like with potency runes, or NPC saves need to come down and scale better to provide a better experience. My GM refuses to nerf or buff anything, so I've requested a change of class when we get to the next book. Playing a caster is just not fun because the game is literally built to be anti-caster. I don't want to be a god, I don't want to have a single spell decide an encounter, I just want to feel like I'm actually doing *something* instead of just taking up space and chasing people around with inspire courage.
Yea, the system has kinda scared away my consistent PF group from playing casters, and the options each caster gets with their chassis and feats just aren't super appealing to me, which is a shame! I want casters to have that sense of viability that the martials now have, and I also wonder on more flavorful options that hopefully the Remaster will provide to their class feats and features.
This EXACTLY! What makes it even more miserable is that to shift the balance in your favor as a caster you have to spend a bunch of time inflicting debuffs on enemies which themselves require the enemy to fail their saves at, just to have about a 50/50 shot at actually having the enemies fail the save (Which, at the point you may as well have just yolo'd the spell you were going to cast originally), whereas all a martial needs to do to inflict a -2 to AC is just Flank... The disparity is insane
@@nyx7664 50/50 shot? Man, I'd kill for a 50/50 shot at landing a save or suck. I don't want to be the best at something, I just want to feel like I'm making at least somewhat of a difference and to have fun while doing it. I would also like there to be ways for martials to help casters land stuff, which outside of Bon Mot, I can't think of anything martials can do. I would kill for something like the Grabbed, Prone, Immobilized, or any other condition that reduces someone's ability to move, imparted something like a -2 to reflex saves... or corrosive acids imparting -2 to fortitude saves because it's eating away at your armor/skin, or non-lethal attacks inflicting Stupefied because they're bonking them in the head. Little things like this could go a long, long way to making casters actually feel good.
What does "doing something" mean to you?
I think the game assumes players are debuffing enemies though with demoralize, bon mot, poisons, many bombs that cause debuffs like Skunk Bomb etc. There are a ton of tools to reduce enemy saves. Many players don't use those tools, don't understand them, or don't realize they should be using those tools. If Pathfinder fails in someway it's that it hasn't taught players the value of debuffs. I think the game also assumes that players are using recall knowledge to sus out low saves and target those. The 3 action economy isn't just for attacking, moving, and casting spells. There are a plethora of actions that help a character or other characters to land their shit.
I think one way of letting spellcasters be blasters is by 1) adding a lot of blasting spells that are _all_ by design _very_ situational, through the particular areas of effect, damage type, secondary (not always beneficial) effects, etc., so that if you want to play a blaster you have to fill your preparations/spellbook with blasting spells and you only find out which ones you can actually use that day during play, so that only preparing one or two will likely be wasted preparations and 2) potentially only letting the spellcasters who don't have access to their entire spell list each day for preparations have access to them, so that you _can_ play a blaster, but you have to specialise and give up the versatility you would otherwise have as a spellcaster.
On the topic of support players, I don't care if my Bardsong actually gives the numbers to swing things, it just feels fun to know you are making everybody better.
And when an attack misses, and you remind them they have that +1, so it hits...
Decent video overall, even if the thumbnail is a bit inflammatory. My personal hope is we see a caster class archetype that severely limits the spell list to only blast spells but strengthens them in exchange. I probably wouldn't play it as I like the "god wizard" playstyle but it would make the game more fun and approachable for a lot of people without disrupting balance.
I think the main thing left unaddressed is the disparity between low and high level casters. The spell slot progression was grandfathered in from previous editions and seems horribly designed, with barely any slots being available at the lowest levels and far too many to reasonably cast in a day at the highest levels. This severely limits your resources as well as your versatility at low levels. You need to make every spell count so the incentive is to prioritize spells that are as consistently useful as possible such as Heal, Magic Weapon, and Magic Missile. The biggest recurring feeling I had multiple times when playing a low level wizard was "I wish I prepared Magic Missile/Magic Weapon more times instead of X spell that isn't useful in this situation" while being relegated to Electric Arcing every turn. Which wasn't a great feeling as I don't consider these spells to be all that interesting or fun, but they sure as hell felt stronger than the alternatives.
I suppose this could be a matter of preference, as I've seen people say they like the old school style of casters starting out very weak but growing exponentially in strength, but I want to have fun from 1-20 and right now the low level slog kills my fun. I'll play a caster in any campaign that starts at at least level 5 but otherwise I avoid them. This might not seem like a big issue because 1-4 is only 20% of the level progression but the vast majority of play happens in this level range, Mark Seifter seemed to recall it being 75% of play happening at level 5 or lower. I honestly think that a lot of this discourse comes from people trying out casters at low levels and coming away justifiably dissatisfied.
The thing is: if you narrow the versatility of all magic users down and allow them to be stronger in whatever they end up specializing (by subclass feats and such), you can also just make one of the subclass open up the versatility instead of the buffs in power of anything specific.
But then of course you'd see the extra power you're giving up much better and some people might have a problem with that.
Thanks for the video, it's a good overview of the topic and the discussion around it for people like me, who are only slowly delving into Pathfinder :).
I feel like PF and 5E don't do what I would prefer which is... ALL the classes can do SOME of these things, just no one character can do all of them. If I want to make a Mage Tank, that should be fine. But that should require a level of specialization that means they're not also out there hucking fireballs. Or a Control Fighter who can keep the baddies on their knees while someone else gets the damage in. An archer who can heal! Lets get wacky! Give 'em trick arrows and a focus on support.
But in every case it's about THIS SPECIFIC character can do this, but not EVERY member of the class can do this.
I dunno, I just never really liked the whole class -> role situation. I want the character to be able to be expressed more novel-ly.
A fact that hurts the wizard swizz army knife fantasy is the prepared spell slots aspect. Preparing the wrong, or unhelpful spells comes at a huge cost of wasting your usable slots. Which encourages using the same generally optimal, but repetitive safe buff spells. The whole list of options is nice to have, but you only ever get to use a fraction of it at a given time, and you have to prepare it 24 hours in advance to what you'll be facing.
Being a swizz army knife with an answer for anything that comes there way seems to be better served from dnd style spell slots where you can slot in any known spell at a given time. So you have that niche magical answer to the problem given. I do like prepared casting and having to prep your spell slots in advance as a concept, but I feel like it goes against the toolbox style of play wizards are meant to have. I feel like a rebalance could be better served that increases flexibility but decreases power in other areas, or better wizard feats that could lean into that flexible caster angle.
EDIT: Likewise restricting the full spell list as you mentioned would be nicer to better specialize the character
I've never played 5E and I don't give a shit how they do casters. Whenever caster strength gets defended the argument is always based around cherrypicking from a list of a couple dozen extremely over powered (and often very high level to the point that most players will never see those in their games) spells and using those as an argument for why casters are fine such as your example using Maze. It also assumes caster players always have the perfect spells prepared (maybe I missed the page in the CRB where they teach you to predict the future). I want to be able to utilize my whole spell list and not just the ones that still work even on a successful save. Casters may be "balanced" (though I would disagree on this), but they lost a lot of fun and dismissing players that want casters to feel good as just selfish or entitled isn't helpful to actually improving the game. There's also the problem that because most spells are at least 2 actions, casters don't get to utilize the 3 action economy and most of their turns are simply move > cast a spell with very little actual options.
The goal of Pathfinder 2E is mathematical balance, not fun. Casters are there to provide buffs to melees and provide utility spells out of combat. In boss fights, they are supposed to darn martials socks until they get access, apparently, to Maze and then cast it as it is the spell used to justify all caster nerfs.
I do feel that the Maze example from the beginning feels fairly disingenuous. It's a 8th rank spell, so you won't get to use it until level 15. How common are spells like that in PF2e? Right now I'm not trying to say that there's no powerful and/or impactful spells prior to it, but how many spells are actually going to have an effect with no save like Maze? "Is this what like to play a spellcaster" implies that it's the baseline of what they are, but is it really?
Agreed
They always use Maze as an example because it is the rare powerful spell. It is in NO way a good example of most of the spells in Pathfinder 2E, which have saves that are fairly easily made resulting in generally a 1 round debuff during normal combats and complete resistance during boss fights.
At this point I just want my spells to hit, man.
I’m fine with some of the nerfing. I just want my spells to fucking hit and have full effect (simply ‘fail on save’, I don’t expect crit fails 24/7).
A -1 to enemies, caused by my spells or whatever, isn’t going to do much.
I just want my stuff to land, man. Just give me slightly better DCs and better spell attack roll bonuses. That’s all I want at this point. :/
I just want my spells to actually do something and I want to feel like I’m actually useful or impactful with my spells.
You could impact thing outside combat, and caster have impact, that -1 could lead to a hit or crit, I mainly use caster and I find them to be far more useful in term of other thing outside combat, but also inside combat caster have a lot of thing they can do more than most martial.
Even the debuffs are cool - IF the monsters don’t need to Crit fail to get that -1.
My friend has a valid complaint that PC necromancers don't feel like a necromancer.
So I actually think a big part of why people coming from dnd, especially 5e, feel like casters are so much weaker is partially due to spell nerfs, but I also think it is the fact that most games start at level 3 in 5e and most games start at 1 in PF2. In PF2 the martials do not have to wait till level 3 to get their "subclass" or playstyle identity they get it right from level 1, while casters didn't have this problem at level 1 in 5e. But casters by 3 do have a lot more spell slots and even have second level spells. Starting out in 2e only having a couple spells is jarring for those that are used to starting with 6 spells a day and knowing around that many spells.
and PF2 even gives you about 6 spells per day at level 3 too! It's just that you shouldn't skip the first 2 levels
@@lawrl777 EXACTLY
This is such an interesting video for helping clarify the class fantasy of casters in PF2e and summarize the community opinion. As someone new to bothe PF2e and TTRPGs in general, I daresay I have a little less baggage coming in to the system. While I appreciate all this wonderful coverage, I'd love to see more videos focussed on casters that shed all this hostorical baggage and focus on the fun of playing a caster, much like your demo of the Maze spell, but with more detail like your usual combat demos. I think that there is something to be said for presenting the class fantasy and fun of a class without worrying about any of this, especially in getting new players excited. That said, I would hasten to say that none of these requests are demands, but merely what I would wish to see and experience.
I know everyone craps on the divine list, but especially as a cleric, do people forget that they have auto access to the ENTIRE list every time they prepare their spells? (Minus alignment and deity restrictions of course.) if they can get even a hint of what is coming to adjust their prepped spells, it can be pretty powerful.
The idea that Maze is something you want casters at high level to cast is just a terrible experience. It either completely dominates the boss encounter and you win easily or the boss saves after a round and your wasted your 8th level spell slot for a marginal gain. You might as well be using 3e disintegrate or some other save or die spell.
Casters shouldn't outdamage melee, but reducing everything to these extremely high variance spells is why people hate it, you need a complete revamp of a large portion of the spell list or save system to make it work. Balance doesn't matter if its a terrible play experience half the time when you gambling on one of your higher level spell slots. Also, I think cantrips can scale like 5e (outside of eldrich blast being insane), it's is just a filler move, pathfinder 2e cantrips basically useless after the first few levels
in my last session, while the fighter was mostly attacking, defending and healing, the witch made a cauldron of oil sprout legs and dump itself on the white dragon they were fighting, leading to it catching on fire quickly after. I feel like the her being a novice in TTRPs really helped having a healthier outlook on spellcasting, rather than just looking at averages complaining that "My numbers aren't as big as those of the big number class"
It's more than that, the GM allowing cool stuff to happened outside of the rules.
You can't or not allowed to do that normally.
My sorceress shut down a "Tucker's Kobolds" style ambush with a well timed Calm Emotions, and the martials ran in to beat up the leader.
I find some people are still transfixed on DPR races against the boss.
@@Chadius people always use either Calm Emotion, Synthesia, and Slow as a counter to how spells are not bad. The overtuned outliers.
@@Chadius I’ve played a Bard in Abomination Vaults and did zero damage the entire time and was many a fights MVP. That synesthesia landing Belcora was clutch. But… that’s not the only caster fantasy and the opposite fantasy of doing nothing but damage and annihilating a boss is non-existent in this system. I am forced to be a utility first caster because I have the big spell list. As a sorcerer I don’t have the option to burn Bellcora to a cinder easily. I have layer debuffs which she has to crit fail or the incapacitate effect comes in and then I have to land a crit on her with my piddling accuracy.
@@neurolancer81I have a combat Bard (with Fighter archetype) who uses a whip to punish at range while I use Illusory Creature to shoot people or set up flanks (or heck, just take a hit from the boss and waste enemy actions.) I don't really debuff with magic. I don't use Slow of Synthesia either, I use Heroism and Haste on the martials instead, and True Strike or Shield when I have a spare action. Not sure if I'm still utility, but it's enough damage dealing for me.
AD&D 2nd Edition had initiative! Spells had a casting time, which was added to your initiative roll, whereas a weapon user had a Speed Factor for each particular weapon type. So for initiative order you rolled 1d10, added your casting time or weapon speed factor, and went lowest first. (Also, armor had modified AC vs Piercing, Slashing, and Bludgeoning which was cool).
The initiative system was kind of overcomplicated, and they had some suggested alternates (players roll a single d10, monsters roll a d10, everyone adds their cast time/weapon factor) Anyways, 3e didn't add initiative to D&D, it just streamlined, simplified, and standardized it (Since there were several alternate initiative rules in AD&D 2e)
Yes. Also you had 2 barred schools if you were an evoker. This guy doesn't knowwhat he's taking about.
He didn't say AD&D2E didn't have initiative though. And adding casting time to your initiative was the problem he described.
That statement about the 9000 IQ player hits home for me and it is my problem with casting.
The argument always is you need to target the weakest save, how do you know what that is? RK doesn’t tell you that. You have to use meta knowledge to get it, which is immersion breaking.
The argument always is, you have a Swiss Army knife but no I don’t. I either have the knife, or the file or the scissors and on top of that I have to guess which of these I will need on the day.
All of you players with the perfect GMs telescoping this knowledge, good for you, that’s not what most players have.
LIES!!!! Meta gaming not required. All you need to do to disco er a creatures lowest save is succeed on a knowledge check. It can be you, or anyone else in your party who then communicate icates it to you.
Failure to use a main feature of game design is not the Editions' fault.
@devinbyrnes8058 RAW I’m pretty sure there isn’t anything directly saying you get to know a creature’s saves off of Recall Knowledge. It may be implied but it’s not directly said to my knowlege. If I’m wrong please link me the source.
@@devinbyrnes8058 RAW knowledge checks don not give you save information. It gives you colloquial info like a Troll is weak to fire and acid. A crit success gives you some more info but RAW you don’t get saves. The caster has to use their turns casting cantrips to figure out which one hit on what roll on the dice .
@@neurolancer81 I definitely think “something subtler” on a crit could include saves per RAW. These creatures are known to be clumsy = target reflex.
@@devinbyrnes8058 I agree that this is one interpretation but the GMs I’ve had so not use this interpretation.
Plus; most of these “white room” analyses which show casters doing ok also expect you to know the middle save because the spells lists don’t always have the spells which target the lowest save and good luck ever getting that info without using spells slots or spending turns throwing out cantrips. My major complaint is that it takes a lot of in game time and effort on top of game mastery to be on par with the martials. So, again comes back to fact that Paizo, in avoiding the 9000 IQ player from breaking the system, have made the barrier to entry for spell casting classes much higher than it was needed.
Koreans have good treatment of non caster classes in their fantasy novels. Whereas spellcasters have circles up to 9th magic rank, martial classes have aura or ki (depends on the source material) and have their ranks based on wuxia novels (grandmaster, peak master, transcendent master, to name a few).
It makes both martials and casters strong in their own righr
I agree with a lot of points made here but I feel that generalising spellcasters to just spellcasters is too general. Video mentions that there are 1300+ different spells and puts generalist, prepared spellcasters in the same box as more specialised kineticist.
I think it shouldn't be as specific and should separate them in a few categories at least.
I feel not enough time was spent on discussing limited availability. For example, a wizard doesn't have access to all existing spells he can cast at all time. And he can't cast his prepared spells ad infinitum, like kineticist can. I'd say it's desirable that a wizard should be able to outshine everyone in one encounter if he has just the perfect spells both learned and prepared for that day. But after that his viability should be severely limited. Remember limited availability - gold, scrolls, number of prepared spells.
Unless something changed in Pathfinder 2E and wizard gets access to all the spells available at his level immediately and all the spells he prepared for the day he can cast infinitely. If that's not the case I think the topic would warrant more specific video for different classes of casters. I feel that too little time was spent discussing the drawbacks of limited spell availability and limited spells prepared.
I'm still new to pf2e and my table has only gotten to lvl3 but so far the "weakness" of spellcasters seems to be the extremely limited spell slots at lower lvls. I'm playing a storm druid and our other caster is a Divine Sorcerer. We've both been really concerned about using our spell slots as we tend to have a few encounters a day and even the "easy" ones feel difficult. When you can only do your main thing 3 or 4 times a day and there's a high chance we'll need them more later it can often feel like your hamstringing yourself and that sucks.
That said I've found the balance as a Druid to be mostly fine, while our Sorcerer was super frustrated for months until he eventually completely rebuilt his character. The big difference between our characters (as far as I can see) is focus spells. My storm druid has an excellent focus spell I can use once or twice a combat that feels amazing to use even when it fails whereas his Sorcerer focus spell wasn't that great. Having a cool spell I can always do massively offsets the extreme spell slot management of early levels. So the solution in my mind is to give low level casters more choices for focus spells that feel impactful without outshining martials.
The lack of decent damage cantrips on the divine list vs Primal getting great cantrips was also a factor. I'll never out damage the Fighter or Rogue but I'll always have a cantrip that can do something impactful for any creature. Same can't be said for Divine.
OK, you asked, so listened to the whole thing before responding, I have so much rage at all the minority opinions being applied to all players dissatisfied with PF2 casters. In my case the kineticist is the OPPOSITE of what I want, I love the diversity, I live the mixing and matching and coming up with a list of spells for the day and how to apply them correctly. What I want is all that trouble, all that resource management to feel WORTH IT when I do. PF2 nerfs the spells themselves to the point they don't equate to being worth the trouble of spending 2 actions and a daily spell slot for the result gained. Maybe if incapacitation only meant a spell can't crit a monster that's more than 2 levels higher, not that all results shift one higher. Maybe if using the Pathfinder's most famous "Marshal good, Caster bad" rule, fighter's getting expert training in weapons, they gave sorcerers expert training in spell attack rolls and wizards expert training in wizard DC's or something like that. Just make it so there is something, anything to make it feel like when you spend a limited resource it is worth it. Right now casters seem weaker than they should because the spells just don't feel like they do enough for what they do. Your example clip, everyone marveled at the bard's spell for being so good, they are all martial players so that seems awesome to them because they don't think of resource management, they just swing and swing and swing and when they miss they swing some more and the combat makes it to another round and oh well. But if the bard casts a spell and the monster saves the bard doesn't get to try again the next round, spell slots are limited resources and also cost multiple actions and because of that SHOULD feel impactful when they do manage to succeed at landing a spell.
Many good points!
I still feel a need for homebrew "spell attack runes" to make spell attacks not miss constantly. I don't mind dealing less damage or having less attacks per turn, but constantly missing just feels like "Great, I wasted my turn trying to participate again"; IE, frustrating. Especially for characters like my sorceress who are all about one damage type.
"wasted my turn" was how I felt 70% of the time playing a caster in pf2e. Whether it was a miss or an enemy making their save on a roll of an 8 when I specifically targeted their weakest save.
I think that feeling wasted is valid, but as a person who mainly play caster, I think that you felt that way because martial hit more, but I think that the point, because unless the enemy crit on saving throw most spell still have effect, I think PF2e are more suited into class design than most rpg, Martial are to either deal consistent damage so they did to hit more easily or do other techical stuff, while caster are verstile and have plenty of use, but not great for consistent damage, that why they make Caster use Spell DC.
They don't miss constantly, they miss roughly 10% more often, the problem most ppl have is that they use their attack roll spells versus "the big boss" without first having said boss debuffed and whatnot. While martials also tend to waste attacks doing this as well, they don’t have limited resources and can just take a gamble, casters really should wait till their shot will have a higher chance to land.
That said I like the design of the kineticist gate attenuator, and would have no problem homebrewing something similar for other casters (I kind believe Paizo themselves will do it on the revised magic items list coming November).
DakonBlackblade2 Not 10%, the problem is far worse at higher levels. Fighter with a +3 weapon runs a full MAP ahead just by default, literally starting at the fighters second attack. Problem is worse still with flurry or agile grace or other MAP reducers. You may be starting at just higher than the bonus for a martials 3rd attack.
Also, if you’re waiting to take your shot, by default, you’re going to run short of things to do, and waste your turn flinging low hit probability cantrips or using a magical crossbow with an even lower bonus on the off chance you crit on one of three attacks.
@@aaronjung5502 Fighters run ahead of other martials too, that's what they do. How many saves can a fighter target thought? Does his class DC ever get legendary? And you can buff the fighter, or debuff the monster if you want, to make him crit even more often, that extra damage done is not the fighter's, effectively, it is yours.
Really if you want to understand how good casters are in PF2 simply run a LV20 encounter with a full martial team x a LV23 monster, then do the same with a balanced party, and you will understand (considering the party is good with tactics). The lower attack roll thing is not a problem.
I don't know if you'll recognize or even read this, but as someone who gave feedback on reddit and youtube urging you not to title this video how you originally were going to, I thank you for this well-nuanced and understanding overview of the grievances of caster players like the ones in my play group.
For us, it's the caster's inability to interact with the 3-action economy fully as well as being unable to roll their own knowledge checks, combined with inability to specialize. I'm making efforts to help with this by making cantrips which do very little damage but have a casting time of 1 action. Sadly I don't know if it will help, though, as most of my group seems uninterested in ever playing a caster when martials are so dynamic and exciting in PF2e.
Even if casters get powerful spells later such as Maze, it doesn't feel good to play someone who gets so little ability to act on their turn and applies milquetoast effects like -1 to AC, while across from them their martial friends are dealing insane damage with crits which their spells may not even have enabled because they simply rolled a 20. One of my players in particular who is not a power gamer in any sense of the word has been more frustrated than I've ever seen her with a class in a TTRPG because her turns aren't exciting and she can't make the specialist caster she wants to make.
Very good analysis, as always very pertinent
Well this was a nice video to see after getting up this morning and figuring out how to reintroduce burns for kineticists.
Something I thought though in regards to the person wanting to play a blaster wizard instead of a kineticist, why not play a kineticist with a scholar background and dressed like a wizard? I know this doesn't solve some valid issues such as wanting to play as a dedicated necromancer, but I can't help but find that some people might get too caught up in class tropes that aren't actually required.
I think people are tied too strongly to class as opposed to concept when making 'mages'.
It's exactly this. Pathfinder encourages concepts and ways to fulfill that concept, and a lot of players want a class-based "suit" they can jump into all ready made and ride like a pre-fab mech.
well since the Kineticist is basically a martial with extra steps, and has none of the class fantasy, what other options are there?
This
Because it's what the new generation of tabletop players are exposed to now. Before they transitioned to tabletop, they more than likely played a videogame or two that heavily fixated on class abilities that will define their experience and enjoyment of the game.
Yep absolutely nothing is stopping you from playing a kineticist or psychic but have the character just think of and call themselves as a specialist wizard
5E's biggest "Caster problem" is wizards, it is not white room thinking (every online discussion assumes the caster in question is a wizard with every single spell in the game prepared, which is not how it works), it is that way too many tables long rest way too often (I am sticking to tiers 1 and 2, and maybe 3, because people don't really play tier 4 in 5e D&D, which is a separate issue) and do not short rest enough.
I've been playing levelup's a5e for over a year and a slight nerf to fireball and a lot more utility both in and out of combat for non spellcasters has really improved things.
The issue is not that spellcasters in D&D do too much damage, (wizards are way too tanky in t1/2 with shield though) outside of the spell "Animate Objects", and evocation wizards abusing a (lets call it what it is, a glitch) with magic missile, wizards do not do as much damage to single targets as martial characters. For example, by the time a wizard picks up Disintegrate, their most powerful single target spell (that often has a 50/50 of working), a fighter will be outdamaging disintegrate on their first round of combat, and coming pretty close on subsequent rounds. That's just a fact, but the internet doesn't seem to largely be aware of it outside of the D&D youtuber community who Definitely Gets It
Schrodinger's Wizard as they call it. A Wizard who has prepared the exact spells for whatever encounter you need at this very moment.
Which funnily enough seems to be what is often assumed in these PF2e discussions online. Like sure, internet, your Wizard always has the exact number of spells that target the specific weakness and the correct save that the monster has despite having proper Vancian preparation rules.
I am totally an advocate for more chosen spell lists for various classes! Arcane, Divine, Primal, Occult are just too huge, and all the occult characters could just choose the same spells and look pretty similar in the scope of what they can do with their magic. I agree choice is rarely a bad thing, but I'd love to see more personality at the expense of a bit of choice. Maybe make the spell lists more granular, handpick (at a game design level I mean) the spells available for each class, there would be a lot of them of course, but choose them as thematically as possible, while still recognizing the various theme nuances a class can have. That would be awesome in my opinion.
As someone that dislikes resource management as a core mechanic, I strongly prefer the kineticist (or it's mechanical predecessor, the 3.5 Warlock) to Vancian spellcasting. I think the biggest problem with the Kineticist model is that making each spell it's own class-specific feat makes it rather unwieldy.
That being said, I think a hybrid solution could work quite well for all spellcasters (in a future PF3e) - your gate/curriculum/deity/etc. gives you access to spells with certain traits, and then you take feats to add spells of certain ranks (that have the appropriate traits) to your repertoire.
Of course you would need to completely rebalance spells around not being a limited resource, which would likely mean getting rid of some 'sacred cow' spells like True Strike.
4e was very balanced and we all know how that went. The thing I see with casters in 5e is that a lot of little things and some big turn in their favor, which not only put them back on top but to an even greater extent than editions before.
Big first, martial classes don’t have nearly as much versatility of action as high level casters. They should have a lot more battle maneuver abilities not to make them as good as casters can be at their best but just to make them more fun.
Casters don’t have to prepare specific spell slot anymore. With a few exceptions they can cast any spell they know or have studied during a long rest, as long as they haven’t used all the spells slots of that level or higher.
Minor now, as you’ve said in older D&D editions getting into melee range could really hamstring non-martial casters with attacks of opportunity and concentration checks. In 5e even the Mage Slayer feet doesn’t let a martial have a chance to prevent casters from getting away.
Save scaling is bad and downright broken if feats are incorporated. This isn’t really noticeable at lower levels but makes casters spell DC quickly outpace Saves at higher levels. Introducing better save scaling (2 primary (+2xPB), 2 secondary abilities (+PB) caster DC = 10 + AB + PB) and disconnecting feats from Ability Score Increases goes a long way towards fixing the save scaling issue.
All that said I really like where casters are at in 5e I just think martial classes should have cooler things to do and be able to do those cool things as often as casters can.
4e failed for decisions outside game mechanics
I think the biggest problem with casters in D20 type TTRPGs is that they are really underpowered at low levels and very overpowered at high levels. Paizo just nerfed low-level casters even more, which angered people.
That's a problem with other systems that paizo managed to pretty much fix. Casters have dominatingly many and powerful spells at high levels, but are kept in check at actually needing their still-limited high level slots for big moves while enemies throw out similar stuff. At low levels, spells are weaker and less plentiful - but especially at very low levels, cantrips hit really hard.
my personal problem with this is that while their spells are more balanced 1-20, the low level spells become useless much faster. If spells could auto heighten at certain levels like kineticist impulses and be locked to their spell slot rank to cast it would be great imo. Cantrips should never be a better option than a full on spell. Safer? Sure. Better? No.
A few notes about AD&D 1E - initiative was by sides, not individual. The sequence went casters declare, missile users declare, melee declares, and then melee moves and attacks, missile users move and attack, spellcasters move and attack. Casters were balanced by the fact that melee could see what they were doing and could react (move up and whack them, disrupting their spell), before their spells could ever go off. Martials (Fighters, Rangers, Paladins) also had more HP, AC and *better saves* (remember, each class had unique saving through tables.
Whayt i want to know is how does this balancing of spellcasters affect spellcasting enemies. I dont want my lich who has worked for 600 years to feel like he is fighting with parlor tricks