Is full casting full casting, or is arcane > divine?

Sylrae · Aug 11, 2010

Branched from here:

concerro said:
"Full Casting" is misleading. The arcane spells are a lot better than the divine spells. The squishy wizard is still the most powerful class according to most people.

So here's what I want to know. Opinions, possibly with data to back it up.
Wouldn't mind hearing comments from the official paizo people either. It would be interesting to hear from James or Jason particularly.

Are the cleric and druid spell lists in PRPG worse than the equivalent progression in arcane?

1. In Core only
2. In Core + APG
3. All Paizo Products
4. All Paizo Products + All 3.0/3.5e Forgotten Realms (this is my next campaign)

My first instincts are (Cleric v Wizard):
1. Yes, they're really limited in variability, and damage output, though possibly not if you go with inflict and undead stuff.
2. Pretty close if not quite even.
3. Likely even.
4. Definitely Even.

Druid v Wizard
I'd say druids are on an even playing field with wizards from the get go. the lists seem comparable in area control and damage dealing, and the swap seems to be less skill type spells and more healing/animal control spells.

This comparison is a split off from the thread I started before, but it's the main deciding factor in it.

Perhaps the lists need to be broken into spell roles before we can make this comparison accurately.

I'll be checking back.

Gorbacz · Aug 11, 2010

Define "worse". Worse as in less damage ? Variety ? Buffs ? Self buffs ? Battlefield control ?

Wizard and Cleric spell lists were made with different things in mind, so making a straight comprasion is a bit like comparing apples and oranges.

Damage spells, for most of it, suck donkey balls and you're better off casting save-or-die and save-or-suck spells. Of which, Wizard has arguable more choices.

APG doesn't change the situation much. There aren't any ground-breaking spells there. Non-APG Paizo crunch is pretty much negligible - there aren't many spells there, and what is usually thematic and nice, but not exactly in the Orb of ... and Wraithstrike league.

It all goes bananas if we throw Spell Compendium into the mix. But that book is one giant warning sign anyway.

Sylrae · Aug 12, 2010

"Worse as in less damage ? Variety ? Buffs ? Self buffs ? Battlefield control ?"
All of the above, combined. Add in utility spells like expeditions retreat, knock, and overland flight.

That's why I said you may need to compare them by category to get a good solid answer.

Yeah, I'm not including spell compendium, but some of the spells in spell compendium come from 3.x forgotten realms books, or a few other 3.x books that I WILL be including.

All Paizo books

3.x books I'll be picking and choosing and upgrading spells from. (ill be shoving them into a word document that will serve as a sortof custom spell compendium, which I'll print and hand to the players).

FRCS
Players Guide to Faerun
Magic of Faerun
Races of Faerun
Underdark
Serpent Kingdoms
Champions of Ruin
Champions of Valor
Dragons of Faerun (and possibly draconomicon)
Waterdeep
Planar Handbook
Heroes of Horror
Expedition to Undermountain
Expedition to the Demonweb pit
and one or two spells from Savage Species.

The main ones will be the top 4 books. The 4 will have almost everything in them brought over.

Voadam · Aug 12, 2010

Mostly going from memory of 3e here but:

Clerics are just as good at summoning. Druids are different at summoning but just as good with stronger critters with less magical specials like dr.

Divination, clerics and druids are fantastic at divinations, many specific ones are class specific across the board though (identify, commune, legend lore, find the path, etc.)

Necromancy clerics can out animate a necromancer wizard.

Blasting spells there is a hierarchy of wizard/sorcerer then druid then cleric but even the cleric is full of attack spells.

Buffing is as strong or stronger for a cleric druid as for arcane.

Healing is super strong for cleric and druid while quite weak for arcane.

Utility is generally stronger/deeper for arcane but clerics and druids both have substantial individual ones like silence and wind walk.

Having access to any spell on the spell list on a particular day is much stronger than knowing a limited number of spells IMO.

pawsplay · Aug 13, 2010

I think the cleric spell list is actually stronger, assuming at least one domain adds something in the way of breadth.

Philosopher · Aug 13, 2010

Has anyone ever actually played (or seen someone else play) a cleric with a poor melee build (light or no armour, low Strength score, etc.) that still held its own against the wizard? With some people saying that the spell lists are par and others denying it, it would be nice to get some evidence from actual play.

pawsplay · Aug 13, 2010

Philosopher said:
Has anyone ever actually played (or seen someone else play) a cleric with a poor melee build (light or no armour, low Strength score, etc.) that still held its own against the wizard? With some people saying that the spell lists are par and others denying it, it would be nice to get some evidence from actual play.

No, because generally the cleric has a strong melee build AND holds its own against the wizard.

Vorpal Mouse · Aug 14, 2010

I think most people would rather have a cleric in their party. That's gotta be worth something ^^

Samurai · Aug 14, 2010

I play a Dwarven Druid, and we have an Evoker in the party as well. IMO the Evoker does more damage more often. I can do some things, some of which are almost as good, but in general, spell for spell a wizard wins.

Psion · Aug 14, 2010

Direct power comparisons of "better" between classes is fraught with peril. You can show that class X will whip the snot out of class Y, but unless you are playing an arena fight game, such analyses often fail to capture what is relevant to the actual game.

More to the point, the wizard's core spell selection has all the sexay blast spells and whatnot. But clerics have more in the defense and enhancement department, which is often more relevant in the team situation.

Now the other part of your question--comparing different rules-sets--does seem to me to be a bit more of a worthwhile question, so long as such an analysis is done again not merely looking at an arena fight situation, but in the D&D(/PF) team situation. Does adding certain rules and breaking down certain barriers cause problems in the game as it is actual played? Does it make it more difficult to challenge the players or allow one class to supplant another class?

I think that the wizard could never quite replace the other classes in late 3.5 (though he was clearly a very pivotal member of the party). But the cleric and druid clearly could.

To me, if such is not true under Pathfinder, that would be a measure of success of the rules-set.