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Zore posted:Apparently they're removing +stat from damage across the board for spells which seems uh... extreme. So... Is there a point to even trying to play a blaster spellcaster anymore? Just switch to Kineticist, apparently.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 03:12 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 05:50 |
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sugar free jazz posted:sure man, mind control the genie to get its wishes and use them to become a god, go for it, whats the worst that could happen, he said, eying achaekek nervously One of the designers was talking about it in the discord when someone was asking why the new cantrips they were showing off didn't have +stat to damage.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 03:16 |
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Zore posted:One of the designers was talking about it in the discord when someone was asking why the new cantrips they were showing off didn't have +stat to damage. Where? I'm not seeing this anywhere, just people speculating based on the new cantrips in the preview pdf.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 03:56 |
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Kvantum posted:So... Is there a point to even trying to play a blaster spellcaster anymore? Just switch to Kineticist, apparently. Eh, they changed Produce Flame from 1d4 to 2d4 at base, so it mainly loses 1.5 damage at low levels and 4.5 damage at max. If you use it in melee though, it spikes up hard in comparison. At level 20, that changes it from 10d4+7 (+10d4 persistent fire on critical) to 11d6 (+10d6 fire on critical), changing the average from 32(+25 persistent) to 38.5(+35 persistent).
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 04:07 |
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One of the new Rage of Elements cantrips looks like this: which is quite good. Solid initial damage and hitting weaknesses is a very good feature to have.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 04:15 |
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feels real unnecessary to take attributes off spell damage. like im sure the damage is on average real similar, but I’m just not sure who wanted this change and what the point really is and what problem it solves.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 05:06 |
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sugar free jazz posted:feels real unnecessary to take attributes off spell damage. like im sure the damage is on average real similar, but I’m just not sure who wanted this change and what the point really is and what problem it solves. It was me, I wanted this change. It lets you scale cantrip damage in a more granular fashion and stops electives arc from being better than your focus spells at level one. Without your ability mod some of the lesser cantrips will probably be allowed to scale better. It also struck me as bizarre that the only spells that got your ability modifier towards damage were cantrips. I'm glad they've standardized them. This also makes Magus significantly less MAD if they stick with spellstrikes and spells without saves. You can dump intelligence and take charisma and use the feat that gives a free feint before spellstriking without loving over your damage.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 05:23 |
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It makes low levels even worse for casters which is kinda the opposite of what should be happening
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 06:44 |
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Jen X posted:It makes low levels even worse for casters which is kinda the opposite of what should be happening Does it? The new needle darts cantrip is on par with the other single target damage cantrips. Andrast fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Jul 26, 2023 |
# ? Jul 26, 2023 06:49 |
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Jen X posted:It makes low levels even worse for casters which is kinda the opposite of what should be happening I mean, what's your comparison to? Needle Darts, for instance, compares pretty favourably to (1d6+1)*1.5, which is composite shortbow tier. New Produce Flame is 1d4 lower, but also is fire instead of piercing and has stronger scaling in melee.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 07:16 |
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Andrast posted:Does it? The new needle darts cantrip is on par with the other single target damage cantrips. I think I'm assuming that it's an exception but it's a reasonable point that, even if it seems very likely that all previous cantrips that were 1dx+mod are now 2dx (on average lower and definitely less consistent), we haven't actually seen more than a few Cyouni posted:I mean, what's your comparison to? Needle Darts, for instance, compares pretty favourably to (1d6+1)*1.5, which is composite shortbow tier. New Produce Flame is 1d4 lower, but also is fire instead of piercing and has stronger scaling in melee. The primary hit is to consistency (damage floor in particular), the average damage numbers are barely worse the problem is that low level casters are the most likely to rely on cantrips due to slot attrition and, with how ineffective that can feel, making it easier to be even less impactful sucks Jen X fucked around with this message at 09:35 on Jul 26, 2023 |
# ? Jul 26, 2023 07:16 |
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Even searching, I cannot find the comment from anyone official at Paizo about the change to cantrips in the Discord. Not to say it isn't there (plenty of people have said it is), I just can't confirm it. E: Nevermind, here it is: 3 Action Economist fucked around with this message at 13:16 on Jul 26, 2023 |
# ? Jul 26, 2023 13:07 |
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It's possible that this could be part of a wider change to caster rebalancing right? Maybe some new class features that will re-add flat damage, or potency runes for spells or something. It just seems very unlikely that Paizo is unaware of the current mood about blaster casters and would deliberately knock the damage down even more.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 13:35 |
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I really hate damage cantrips and wish they would just get rid of them. I don't know why they just don't base them off physical attacks. Cantrips are two actions, and an attack is one action. I know about MAP penalty but there is no option for casters to try with it. Physical attackers can gamble with three attacks, spellcasters cant with cantrips. They want cantrips to be the fallback choice, but they feel like a wasted turn. Have them do shortbow/longbow damage and scale like that. Give spellcasters all the ways to improve their attacks that non magical players can. Let spellcasters gamble with MAP. Im kind of bummed the direction they seem to be going but it could add up to something good. The changes to magic could make it even more available and Golarion is already pretty high magic. If it leads to more magic being available just through items I can get behind that. Scoss posted:It's possible that this could be part of a wider change to caster rebalancing right? Maybe some new class features that will re-add flat damage, or potency runes for spells or something. I'm kind of leaning this way right now the more I think about it. Getting the changes slowly dripped out is really hurting the big picture, I think.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 13:38 |
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gurragadon posted:I really hate damage cantrips and wish they would just get rid of them. I don't know why they just don't base them off physical attacks. Cantrips are two actions, and an attack is one action. I know about MAP penalty but there is no option for casters to try with it. Physical attackers can gamble with three attacks, spellcasters cant with cantrips. They want cantrips to be the fallback choice, but they feel like a wasted turn. I would say that they won’t do this because damage cantrips, as much as they underperform, at least feel a bit different mechanically to attacking with a longbow. They don’t want the classes to all have identical to hit modifiers and identical damage as that cuts into choice and makes everyone feel samey. This is I feel the rational behind some of the funkier martials like Inventor starting with 16 in their attack stat. Additionally, cantrips being below a martials strikes in damage is intentional, so that spell slots can outperform a martials strikes.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 13:52 |
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KPC_Mammon posted:It was me, I wanted this change. It lets you scale cantrip damage in a more granular fashion and stops electives arc from being better than your focus spells at level one. I’m not sure what you mean by more granular scaling. their scaling is adding dice and doesn’t seem to be changing much if at all. average damage looks to be about the same or very slightly worse when looking at the new spells. mod to damage for cantrips wasn’t confusing and one cantrip is now 1d6+1 while others are just flat d4 or d6 which is less consistent mechanically Seems weird and really bad design to have a caster who doesn’t want to invest in their casting stat to the point that you want to and can dump it for the sake of a single feat the only way this makes sense to me is if there’s some other stuff coming down the line as part of a much broader balancing errata in which case weird piece to announce on its own
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 14:01 |
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sugar free jazz posted:I’m not sure what you mean by more granular scaling. their scaling is adding dice and doesn’t seem to be changing much if at all. average damage looks to be about the same or very slightly worse when looking at the new spells. Maguses are martials first casters second imo
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 14:18 |
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Is the plural Mageese or Magi and who lied to me
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 14:26 |
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It’s Magi. Whose idea was it to use a name like that for a gish class, anyway? I guess they wanted to avoid the clunky compound names 3.5e classes tended to have (the closest 3.5 equivalent was IIRC called the Hexblade, and if they made another class like that that they would totally call it the Spellblade or Swordmage or even Warspell).
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 15:04 |
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Andrast posted:Maguses are martials first casters second imo ok? like, yes they’re a gish, that they’re a gish changes nothing about how bad of a design it would be if they could dump their casting stat for the sake of a single feat sugar free jazz fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Jul 26, 2023 |
# ? Jul 26, 2023 15:04 |
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To expand on my complaint about the name, Magus sounds like a pure spellcaster (maybe a Wisdom-based arcane caster?). This is also true of Thaumaturge, I guess. That said, they are both good names even if they don’t really fit the classes - PF2 is good about not giving classes awkward names. Subclasses, not so much - Warpriest, Superstition Instinct, Sparkling Targe, Battledancer, Antipaladin, and half the Gunslinger subclasses aren’t great names.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 15:31 |
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Black Noise posted:Is the plural Mageese or Magi and who lied to me You're thinking of a goose wizard.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 15:38 |
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Silver2195 posted:To expand on my complaint about the name, Magus sounds like a pure spellcaster (maybe a Wisdom-based arcane caster?).. Magus makes me think of Chrono Trigger and I never got a wisdom vibe from him.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 15:46 |
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Maybe I should have said an Int-based divine caster. That would fit the word’s original meaning (a Zoroastrian priest). Apparently the broader meaning (and the words magic, magician, etc.) derives from the belief among some Greek writers of the powers of Persian magicians; Pliny the Elder even claimed that Zoroaster invented magic.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 15:58 |
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gurragadon posted:I really hate damage cantrips and wish they would just get rid of them. I don't know why they just don't base them off physical attacks. Cantrips are two actions, and an attack is one action. I know about MAP penalty but there is no option for casters to try with it. Physical attackers can gamble with three attacks, spellcasters cant with cantrips. They want cantrips to be the fallback choice, but they feel like a wasted turn. Consider that would make any save cantrip automatically a default choice as a third action, and massively devalue any 1-action focus spells.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 16:24 |
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Cyouni posted:Consider that would make any save cantrip automatically a default choice as a third action, and massively devalue any 1-action focus spells. Specifically for the wizard at least I think they should just get rid of focus spells and fold them into the spell list. I don't really understand their purpose for full casters. They make sense to me for classes who don't really use magic but might have something magical happen every once in a while. You could also deal with spamming cantrips with spellcasting rules like you can't cast cantrips if you cast a leveled spell during the turn. gurragadon fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Jul 26, 2023 |
# ? Jul 26, 2023 17:13 |
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gurragadon posted:Specifically for the wizard at least I think they should just get rid of focus spells and fold them into the spell list. I don't really understand their purpose for full casters. They make sense to me for classes who don't really use magic but might have something magical happen every once in a while. bards, sorcerers, witches, psychics, clerics, druids, and oracles are full casters. paizo disagrees with you about the role of focus spells for full casters based off the design of many full casters.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 17:43 |
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Cantrips/Focus Spells/Slotted Spells are just occupying the same design space as At Will/Encounter/Daily powers from DnD 4e. The idea that you have options whose power scales in inverse proportion to how quickly they are replenished is a common mechanic, and removing focus spells would push us back toward the old "15-minute adventuring day" concept for full casters.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 17:50 |
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Yeah that is very true, I didn't realize how many focus spells there actually are because they seem so pointless for a wizard. I was suprised when I looked them up. I wonder if part of the change is to actually increase the amount of focus spells for wizards, which I would support fully. That could be a good compensation for lowering spell choices elsewhere in the class.SithDrummer posted:Cantrips/Focus Spells/Slotted Spells are just occupying the same design space as At Will/Encounter/Daily powers from DnD 4e. I am not familiar with DnD 4e so I didn't know that was the design they were coming from. An improvement to focus spells would make sense in that regard. If I had a focus spell I wanted to cast every combat and a few options to choose from that would be really cool. gurragadon fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Jul 26, 2023 |
# ? Jul 26, 2023 17:52 |
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Edit: Double post damnit, first time I think.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 17:54 |
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gurragadon posted:Yeah that is very true, I didn't realize how many focus spells there actually are because they seem so pointless for a wizard. I was suprised when I looked them up. I wonder if part of the change is to actually increase the amount of focus spells for wizards, which I would support fully. That could be a good compensation for lowering spell choices elsewhere in the class. oh, absolutely, wizard focus spells are real dogshit
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 17:57 |
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They do have some solid ones but those are definitely the exceptions
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 17:59 |
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Yeah, they could stand to be made more consistent with one another, or to have options to choose from. Aa far as DnD 4e, I don't know if Paizo borrowed the idea, or came to it independently - I'm just saying that, however they got there, the two constructions adhere to the same design scheme.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 18:04 |
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IIRC, Paizo hired some of the people who designed D&D 4E when it came time to develop PF2E. As someone who was/is big into D&D 4E, I can tell you that PF2E is unquestionably heavily influenced by D&D 4E design principles. It is very much cut from the same design cloth.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 19:50 |
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Logan Bonner was lead designer on PH3, and also worked on PH1 and 2. Stephen Radney-MacFarland, another one of the original designers, also worked on 4e.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 19:54 |
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https://twitter.com/MichaelJSayre1/status/1684271002304528385?s=19 oh thank god
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 20:06 |
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Dick Burglar posted:IIRC, Paizo hired some of the people who designed D&D 4E when it came time to develop PF2E. As someone who was/is big into D&D 4E, I can tell you that PF2E is unquestionably heavily influenced by D&D 4E design principles. It is very much cut from the same design cloth. They literally replaced "encounter" and "daily" with "focus point" and "you can't use this again for 24 hours" and people ate it up. Incredible, but instructive.
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 20:10 |
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gurragadon posted:Specifically for the wizard at least I think they should just get rid of focus spells and fold them into the spell list. I don't really understand their purpose for full casters. They make sense to me for classes who don't really use magic but might have something magical happen every once in a while. they should actually get rid of spell slots in favor of more focus spells yesssss Jen X fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Jul 26, 2023 |
# ? Jul 26, 2023 20:15 |
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:They literally replaced "encounter" and "daily" with "focus point" and "you can't use this again for 24 hours" and people ate it up. Incredible, but instructive. I mean, focus points are similar to encounter powers but they're more granular in terms to how often you can use them during the adventure day, which is probably more daunting for the players but also instantly plays better to the 3.5/Pathfinder audience (and frankly to me, even though I don't really have critiques of 4th ed. because it was hard as balls to find a group to play it with when it came out, so I just never did).
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 20:35 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 05:50 |
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:They literally replaced "encounter" and "daily" with "focus point" and "you can't use this again for 24 hours" and people ate it up. Incredible, but instructive. There is actually an important difference between 4e encounter powers and PF2 focus spells. If you have three encounter powers, you can use all three once each in the same fight, but you can’t use one of them three times in the same fight. The 4e version is, perhaps ironically, the more Vancian one. The other difference is that focus spells are, well, spells, meaning that “supernatural” martial classes like the Monk get them, but Fighters do not. This is also somewhat ironic, because the difference discussed above presents a clear justification for Fighters getting powers like this. It makes sense that certain maneuvers could take a lot of Fighter’s stamina, while the lore justification for the 4e version is less clear to me; maybe each encounter power is putting strain on a different muscle?
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# ? Jul 26, 2023 20:37 |