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What makes wizard underwhelming apart from "is better at buffs" and "not great single target but gets good AoE? Complexity? Unsatisfying spell lists?
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Feb 20, 2023 19:09
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Alchemist and Wizard both require more system mastery than most to feel good, though that's much more true of alchemist. Wizard is fine, it's just not the wizard of PF1E or D&D1/2/3/5. Generally all the CRB classes aside from alchemist are good at their fantasy, and then once you move outside the CRB you tend to work harder to achieve similar results. I think alchemist is the only class where you can feel really useless without a solid game plan. Like at least as wizard you can electric arc every round and you're just mediocre.
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Feb 20, 2023 19:10
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marshmallow creep posted:What makes wizard underwhelming apart from "is better at buffs" and "not great single target but gets good AoE? Complexity? Unsatisfying spell lists? Awful class feats. Most people also don't like vancian casting, so the sorcerer is a better fit. The solution to the former is multiclassing. You don't lose much if you multiclass as a wizard because so much of your power is baked into your spell slots. I've not tried it, but flexible spellcasting might be a good fix for vancian casting. It looks really debilitating but upon learning you can heighten any memorized spells to full effect I'm pretty sure it is actually really powerful. Losing cantrips at level 1 is baffling and terrible though. Early game wizard didn't need to be worse.
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Feb 20, 2023 19:15
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marshmallow creep posted:What makes wizard underwhelming apart from "is better at buffs" and "not great single target but gets good AoE? Complexity? Unsatisfying spell lists? I played like 3 levels of wizard, and it was very hard to come up with tactically meaningful contributions beyond burning spell slots on magic missile, and even then I felt like it was a waste unless I used that with all 3 actions. It was hard to come up with a good tactical rhythm. In my current group, I've been playing a goblin rogue and it's just night and day difference. It's 1000% more fun, especially during combat, but also rogue feels better at doing exploration actions like scout or investigate (and of course sneak). The martial classes seem cool, too, and we have a cleric and a druid in our party that have had some clutch cantrips like Produce Flame and Divine Lance.
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Feb 20, 2023 19:17
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marshmallow creep posted:What makes wizard underwhelming apart from "is better at buffs" and "not great single target but gets good AoE? Complexity? Unsatisfying spell lists? Sorcerer is generally better, especially for new players, because spontaneous casting is better in almost every situation and is a lot easier to use. Cha is also generally a better primary stat because it has awesome third action options that dont need GM adjucation, whereas Int only has Recall Knowledge which can be very DM dependent on how good it is (as well player dependent to respond to it). Low level casters in general are not great and wizard is just probably the worst one at low levels Piell fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Feb 20, 2023 |
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Feb 20, 2023 19:18
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Piell posted:Sorcerer is generally better, especially for new players, because spontaneous casting is better in almost every situation and is a lot easier to use. Cha is also generally a better primary skill because it has awesome third action options that dont need GM adjucation, whereas Int only has Recall Knowledge which can be very DM dependent on how good it is. Low level casters in general are not great and wizard is just probably the worst one at low levels Yeah, the sorcerer in 5E is largely considered terrible I think, so that colors the view people have of it coming into PF2E, so they get turned off by vancian casting on the wizard and don't even consider the sorcerer because it's already bad in their head.
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Feb 20, 2023 19:19
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M. Night Skymall posted:Yeah, the sorcerer in 5E is largely considered terrible I think, so that colors the view people have of it coming into PF2E, so they get turned off by vancian casting on the wizard and don't even consider the sorcerer because it's already bad in their head. Haha yes that was exactly my thinking when I picked Wizard over Sorc.
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Feb 20, 2023 19:21
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wizards are really fuckign boring to play, have zero flavor, and mostly cast electric arc, a cantrip, system mastery and getting to high levels allows for being sorta mediocre. don't play a wizard.
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Feb 20, 2023 19:48
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:I do, because the analogies break down completely at high levels. Let's take your tomato example. High INT is "knowing that the tomato is actually a berry, it's scientific name is solanum lycopersicum, it's a distant relative of the nightshade" and high Wisdom is..."don't put them in your fruit salad, still". This is why I like Shadowrun's mental stats much better. They're much easier to define in an abstract without referring to each other. Essentially, instead of Intelligence and Wisdom, it uses Logic and Intuition. Logic is straight-line thinking, following a process, deducing information from known unknowns, and so on. Intuition is nonlinear thinking, acting on a hunch, making connections that aren't obvious except in hindsight, etc. It also neatly leaves "Intelligence" undefined, which is for the best.
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Feb 20, 2023 19:51
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Wizards are fine
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Feb 20, 2023 20:21
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Speaking of wizards as a new gm I understand I should be giving the 4 essential runes out making sure the party stays up to date. However for a wizard should I be handing out other items instead of like for instance the striking runes like wands or scrolls?
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Feb 20, 2023 20:59
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Vire posted:Speaking of wizards as a new gm I understand I should be giving the 4 essential runes out making sure the party stays up to date. However for a wizard should I be handing out other items instead of like for instance the striking runes like wands or scrolls? Caster gear progression is via staves. Wands and scrolls are also good though.
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Feb 20, 2023 21:11
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Are bards also supposed to get staves?
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Feb 20, 2023 21:14
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All casters benefit from staves. The mentalist staff for example is all occult spell list stuff https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=350. Basically you get a # of charges in a staff for free when you do your daily preparations equal to your highest spell slot. Casting from the staff consumes a # of charges equal to the level of the spell. So they're free spell slots, like wands, but a bit more versatile.
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Feb 20, 2023 21:19
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Andrast posted:Wizards are fine nah
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Feb 20, 2023 21:41
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I feel like attack cantrips should be one action instead of two and the wizard should have a feat line that lowers the multi-attack penalty. I'm buying a ton of scrolls and its fun having a bunch of versatility, but the damage feels bad. Copying is kind of annoying because you can fail but the scroll isn't destroyed by copying so you still get a free cast of whatever spell your copying. I like the prepared casting on the wizard, it keeps the wizard from getting to crazy and sometimes it does suck to not prepare the right thing, but it feels so good when you prepare the exact right thing.
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Feb 20, 2023 21:58
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Vire posted:Speaking of wizards as a new gm I understand I should be giving the 4 essential runes out making sure the party stays up to date. However for a wizard should I be handing out other items instead of like for instance the striking runes like wands or scrolls? A good staff is basically like a whole stack of extra spells known and spell slots. Talk to the player and get a feel for what they’d want to make sure you don’t give them a dud staff in terms of spells on it - the rules for “Personalized Staves” are also a good guideline for just GM homebrewing something up, and don’t feel afraid to slap on a neat ribbon effect that matches one of the prebuilt staves even if you change up the spells. Beyond that, a Wand of $Spell is essentially a once per day spell slot for a specific spell - they’re great to hand out for out of combat, utility type spells that your casters will otherwise have trouble justifying burning slots on. Same for scrolls for similar type spells that might see even less and more circumstantial use. If you do go this route, if the caster is a wizard, give them more than one of the scroll because otherwise they will sit on it until they can write it in their spellbook, and in general, make it clear that saving consumables is a lovely idea, because what will happen is your squad will put scale the usefulness of the consumable.
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Feb 20, 2023 22:02
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If I'm a 1E wizard liker who doesn't like to blast can I have fun?
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Feb 20, 2023 22:46
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If you like the 1e wizard because you get to just solve problems by yourself with minimal interaction from other people, no. If you like it because it's a prepared arcane spellcaster who leans harder into a school, yes.
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Feb 20, 2023 23:33
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Play a sorcerer though, signature spells add a tremendous amount of utility and I think sorcerers just do what a wizard wants to do better.
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Feb 20, 2023 23:34
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Rick posted:If I'm a 1E wizard liker who doesn't like to blast can I have fun? the utility spells got hit way harder than anything else. if you want to do things with spells, it's uh.....hard. and you don't get really any extra tools as a wizard, you're sorta a walking spell list and in pf2 that's just not super great. there's a bunch of other issues too. honestly just play something else, there's fun stuff to play.
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Feb 20, 2023 23:48
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If your goal is just "spellcaster", than sorcerer is absolutely the better pick over wizard. You don't have to fret over every preparing every single spell slot ahead of time, and whenever you do need a very specific spell for a niche situation you can just use staves, wands, or scrolls for that. Being Charisma-based is even more useful than being Intelligence-based, as you can get more reliable use from your third action for Demoralize or Bon Mot to lower saves immediately before targeting them. It's also easier to archetype in bard or oracle for even more spells per day that still use your highest ability score. Wizard is still cool if you have something specific in mind though. Some of the focus spells are pretty good, like Protective Ward from taking the Abjuration school effectively turns you into an Inspire Defense bard. If you're planning to use a shield by dipping Bastion or something the high Int will make you better at the Crafting checks necessary to repair it. Rick posted:If I'm a 1E wizard liker who doesn't like to blast can I have fun? Damaging spells are actually kind of a trap in 2e outside of multi-target area stuff against big groups, so you're usually better off using buff/debuff/utility spells over anything that just does damage anyway. Like a fully heightened Disintegrate enhanced by True Strike and Dangerous Sorcery will do less damage on average than a super run-of-the-mill martial character with a bow going Strike > Strike > Strike. Vanguard Warden fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Feb 21, 2023 |
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Feb 21, 2023 00:03
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If there's a cool archetype that looks really cool to you, but you're not playing a free archetype game, Wizard is kind of an above average chassis to throw those feats on to just because your class feats are less essential relative to a lot of other classes. A neato build I've been kicking around in Pathbuilder recently is a Wizard w/ Medic dedication that's focused on mobility enhancer type spells to get to people for battle medicine and such.
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Feb 21, 2023 00:06
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here is protective wardquote:Source Core Rulebook pg. 407 4.0 here is inspire defense, a 2nd level cantrip quote:Uncommon Bard Cantrip Composition Emotion Enchantment Mental +1 ac is good, protective ward is not good. other ideas are to focus on mobility spells so you can use battle medicine potentially two times on someone in a single fight instead of just getting the heal spell, multiclassing because your class feats are not essential (it's because they're bad, if they were good they would be essential), and the shield thing just play something else lol
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Feb 21, 2023 00:49
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Andrast posted:Wizards are fine Yeah they're okay. Still feel like wizards of old but don't have the ability to just say "No one else needs to play". They're not hyper good and some people freak out about that.
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Feb 21, 2023 01:05
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There's actually no limit on how many times you can Sustain the spell for Protective Ward, so you could spend extra actions to jack up its range at the start, even if at cap it's still half the range of Inspire Defense. Yes it's not a cantrip like Inspire Defense either, but it doesn't take additional focus points to keep sustaining it every round so it's pretty much the same idea unless you get Effortless Concentration later. Inspire Defense is absolutely better, but wizards get more spells per day than bards anyway.
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Feb 21, 2023 01:38
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sugar free jazz posted:here is protective ward Yes but then if you're casting Inspire Defense you can't cast Inspire Courage. Also hot take: composition cantrips are unbalanced compared to everything else. Just like, compare IC to pretty much any other one-action thing.
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Feb 21, 2023 03:02
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yeah it's not even one action, it's one action with lingering composition so it's probably just one action for 3-4 rounds of the thing its weird how they gave bards so much juice
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Feb 21, 2023 03:13
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Bards being the best caster is not a particularly hot take
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Feb 21, 2023 06:00
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So: if wizards are broken, how would you fix them?
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Feb 21, 2023 07:28
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Lamuella posted:So: if wizards are broken, how would you fix them? I would give them sorc spell slots baseline. It made sense for sorcerers to have more spell slots before, because the number of spells they knew was limited. I think with signature spells it's not limited very effectively at all, and they still get the most spell slots for some reason anyway. Wizards aren't incredibly bad, they just aren't particularly good and there are other options for doing what you might want a wizard to do better. I would leave in drain bond, so they actually have the most spell slots in return for being vancian casters with mediocre feats.
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Feb 21, 2023 07:47
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M. Night Skymall posted:I would give them sorc spell slots baseline. It made sense for sorcerers to have more spell slots before, because the number of spells they knew was limited. I think with signature spells it's not limited very effectively at all, and they still get the most spell slots for some reason anyway. Wizards aren't incredibly bad, they just aren't particularly good and there are other options for doing what you might want a wizard to do better. I would leave in drain bond, so they actually have the most spell slots in return for being vancian casters with mediocre feats. I am very confused, because they both have 4 spells/level, but wizard has drain bond for +1. Wizards straight up have the most spells.
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Feb 21, 2023 07:57
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Cyouni posted:I am very confused, because they both have 4 spells/level, but wizard has drain bond for +1. I honestly thought Wizards had fewer slots too until I started building one. It's subtle because the table doesn't show it, the extra spells come from your arcane school feature or from extra uses of Drain Bonded Item for universalist. Though I'm not a fan of 5e in general, I honestly prefer having prepared spellcasters just act like spontaneous casters that prepare their spell repertoire every day. Old-school vancian prepared spellcasting is probably one of the worst-feeling parts of PF2, even the way signature spells work instead of free-form heightening is kind of janky.
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Feb 21, 2023 08:48
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Am I misremembering or were some pf1e classes able to "burn" prepared spells to use the slot for something else? I feel like I remember hearing an actual play where a cleric prepared a bunch of stuff but largely used the slots for Cure Light Wounds.
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Feb 21, 2023 09:19
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pf1 clerics could burn prepared spells to cast an equivalent-level cure spell, and druids could do the same to cast summon nature's ally
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Feb 21, 2023 09:23
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That's true of the 1st edition Pathfinder cleric, yes. The spontaneous casting ability, which let you cast any spell as a same-level cure spell (if you channel positive energy) or inflict spell (if you channel negative energy). It was a holdover from the 3.5 cleric (which let you spontaneously cure if you turn undead like a good cleric, forcing the undead to flee from your positive energy and possibly destroying them instantly, or to spontaneously inflict if you rebuke undead like an evil cleric, bolstering undead and possibly controlling them; instead Pathfinder opted to make the use of positive and negative energy interact with hit points like it does everywhere else, for good or for ill).
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Feb 21, 2023 09:27
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Rick posted:If I'm a 1E wizard liker who doesn't like to blast can I have fun? Yes, definitely. Wizards get tons of cool spells, and the most spell slots of any class. 2e's degrees of success system means that you will often be doing cool and useful stuff even if the enemy succeeds on their saving throw.
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Feb 21, 2023 09:28
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Cyouni posted:I am very confused, because they both have 4 spells/level, but wizard has drain bond for +1. I like Spell Blending wizards once you get some levels since you get more of your highest level slots to play with compared to anyone else
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Feb 21, 2023 11:05
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Andrast posted:Bards being the best caster is not a particularly hot take I know this to be true in 5e, but even in PF 2e?
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Feb 21, 2023 11:56
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Finster Dexter posted:I know this to be true in 5e, but even in PF 2e? Composition cantrips are very good
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Feb 21, 2023 11:59
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