Looking At The Pathfinder 2 Wizard Class

Yesterday's Pathfinder 2 playtest update at the Paizo website talked about the Wizard class for the game.

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It looks like the wizard is going to start out with plenty of options for players. "[FONT=&amp]At 1st level, you begin play with a spellbook containing 10 cantrips and eight 1st-level spells, giving you a wide variety of spells to draw upon when you prepare your magic each morning. Starting out, you can prepare four cantrips and two 1st-level spells each day. In addition, you also select your arcane school at 1st level, which grants you one extra spell slot of each level that you can use only to prepare a spell from your chosen school.[/FONT][FONT=&amp]" They also talk about one of the special abilities of the wizard, "[/FONT][FONT=&amp]Speaking of which, all wizards gain the ability to place some of their power into a designated item called an arcane focus. You can drain the power from that focus once per day to cast any one spell that you have already cast without spending another spell slot. Universalists get to use this ability once for each level of spell that they can cast![/FONT][FONT=&amp]"[/FONT]
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They also give us a look at some magic, including the ever popular Magic Missile.

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It looks like they're going to play with the options that are available to the class as well, making the wizard a bit more flexible. This is one of those classes that attracts a lot of controversy, so I am sure that someone​ will be unhappy with the decisions that they're going to make for the class.

 

[Shasarak]

D&D and its ilk haven’t been Lord of the Rings for a long time, and I don’t think video games are to blame. At least not solely to blame. Tolkien’s fingerprints will always be there on the genre, but it didn’t take long for people to start craving a world that was more fantastical, where magic played a big part in everyday life. For as long as there have been people roleplaying as wizards, there have been people wishing that they could be doing magic instead of using weapons badly. Doing magic is, after all, the primary appeal of being a wizard. And honestly, what’s the big deal if the ~4.5 damage per turn the wizard can do without expending a resource comes from a 1d8 crossbow or a 1d8 magic beam? If the damage type is that big of a concern, charge a small tax on the die size for it. But let the players who want to be the guy who casts spells actually cast spells.

I think that if spamming firebolt over and over is your idea of magic then it looks like you are going to be in luck with the Pathfinder playtest. Because as you said what is the difference if your 4.5 damage per round comes from a crossbow bolt or shooting "magic".

 

[Shasarak]

He also wasn't spamming crossbow bolts either. (I also think that Gandalf is more Druid than Wizard.)

I agree, I always put him at about a 5th level Druid using the DnD rules.

This sentiment is a bit condescending, if not inaccurate.

Neither condescending nor inaccurate I am afraid.

This is less about video games and more about changing prevailing norms and tastes. For example, even outside of the spell conservation, the d4 HD wizard is gone. I don't think video games are to blame for that. Cantrips have increasingly become more basic combat functional across D&D editions so it is not surprising to see Pathfinder 2 follow suit. Sure Gandalf doesn't constantly spam spells, but other fantasy wizards and mages in literature do. "Hello, Wheel of Time" to name an obvious example. And D&D's power fantasy vastly outpaces anything out of Middle Earth.

Wheel of Time probably has the worst magic system if you have a problem with OP magic and if you want to include an even more popular fantasy wizard like Harry Potter, you would struggle to accurately model either using DnD rules.

But in any case I can not see how increasing the hit dice of Wizards relates to spamming magic attack cantrips as it does seems to be more about not wanting your character to die when a random house cat jumps out at you.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think that if spamming firebolt over and over is your idea of magic then it looks like you are going to be in luck with the Pathfinder playtest. Because as you said what is the difference if your 4.5 damage per round comes from a crossbow bolt or shooting "magic".

I’m pretty sure making fire appear spontaneously out of thin air is magic by just about any definition, but go ahead and No True Scotsman miraculous phemona that flip the bird to the laws of thermodynamics if that’s what floats your boat, I guess.

 

[CapnZapp]

If you think Pathfinder - and indeed the whole of Dungeons & Dragons - isn't a highly specific genre, you really haven played many rpgs...

 

[zztong]

If you think Pathfinder - and indeed the whole of Dungeons & Dragons - isn't a highly specific genre, you really haven played many rpgs...

Oh yeh, D&D/PF is its own brand of fantasy that I fondly equate to Sharknado. Not everyone wants to use those rules for that genre, which is a significant source of friction when debating proposed rules. I'd appreciate it PF2 supported a few different forms of magic, but that would chew up page space and only appeal to a few people. You can always "house-rule" alternatives, but when the game requires automation to manage/maintain a character, that automation is going to support the written rules.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Doing magic is, after all, the primary appeal of being a wizard. And honestly, what’s the big deal if the ~4.5 damage per turn the wizard can do without expending a resource comes from a 1d8 crossbow or a 1d8 magic beam?

It changes the tone of the world thematically, because magic goes from something that most people will probably never witness, to something that they very probably will. If an AD&D wizard walks into town, then even if they announce themselves as a wizard, it's something that the townsfolk pretty much have to take on faith; they're still just some weirdo, who might know some interesting things, but the likelihood of them doing anything magical is remote. It makes the world feel more like a realistic Medieval European setting, where people also believed in magic even if they never saw it, and which nevertheless continued to operate as though magic was not actually real. (Granted, of course, that is entirely a matter of taste; but it's a taste which AD&D catered to better than PF does.)

Mechanically, at-will magic gives a spellcaster even more incentive to focus on the one stat that they already care about, at the expense of something else. With at-will magic, a wizard with Int 20 and Strength 8 is just better than a wizard with Int 18 and Strength 14; where, without at-will magic, the stronger wizard might actually get some mileage out of their less-than-optimal abilities.

There's also an issue which was extremely apparent in 4E, and which could potentially reappear in PF2, where everyone has the same bonus to whatever one thing they do. If the fighter has Strength 20 and a +3 sword and weapon focus: sword, and the wizard has Int 20 and a +3 wand and spell focus: evocation, then they both end up with exactly +10 on everything they do every round (which further contributes to the same-y-ness). When a wizard has to rely on a different stat for their basic attacks, you get a much wider variety of competence. If the fighter is at +10 to hit all-day every-day, but the wizard is sometimes at +7, then it's extremely obvious that the fighter is better in those specific circumstances.

 

[MichaelSomething]

It changes the tone of the world thematically, because magic goes from something that most people will probably never witness, to something that they very probably will.

3.5 already changed that with its leveled character demographics. Every town had some spell casters in it.

If your the type who home brews, then that depends on how your world works. Though, admittedly, I bet most don't think about the percentage of their population who are spell casters, or have decent access to them.

 

[Ancalagon]

If I had to make an argument for his frustrations, it would be that Pathfinder is so complex that folks need to use Hero Lab. But once you embrace Hero Lab your ability to implement a custom setting becomes difficult because Hero Lab won't enforce your setting's rules.

For instance, my home-brew setting has three deities, all neutral. I had to define all of the Golarion deities as "aspects/avatars" of those three deities so that players could make Clerics using Hero Lab. I can ignore mechanics like alignment easily, but realigning the various Clerical Domains in Hero Lab represents much more effort than I have available. I had to resort to half-heartedly supporting Golarion deities.

That is a *really* good point about Hero-lab and customization. Well said

... but he said that polytheism was a big problem *particularly* in 5e, not Pathfinder...

 

[The Crimson Binome]

3.5 already changed that with its leveled character demographics. Every town had some spell casters in it.

Theoretically, if you were using those guidelines, then sure. You could also just not use those guidelines, though.

Altering class mechanics to remove at-will magic requires significantly more-invasive home-brewing than simply creating a new setting, not least in that it has a direct impact on class balance. For example, every class in 4E was balanced around the assumption of having one primary stat and two or three dump stats, so forcing spellcasters to occasionally rely on weapons would be a significant penalty; with the assumption that everyone would always be using their best stat every time, being forced to use anything else meant you were definitely going to miss.

If your the type who home brews, then that depends on how your world works. Though, admittedly, I bet most don't think about the percentage of their population who are spell casters, or have decent access to them.

For the kind of DM who goes around inventing entire settings, I'm pretty sure that most do think about that sort of thing. For many, they may choose to run with whatever default assumptions they can speculate from the existing guidelines, of course, but "how do magic and spellcasters fit into this world?" is basically the first question you ask when creating a new fantasy setting.

 

[Charlaquin]

It changes the tone of the world thematically, because magic goes from something that most people will probably never witness, to something that they very probably will. If an AD&D wizard walks into town, then even if they announce themselves as a wizard, it's something that the townsfolk pretty much have to take on faith; they're still just some weirdo, who might know some interesting things, but the likelihood of them doing anything magical is remote. It makes the world feel more like a realistic Medieval European setting, where people also believed in magic even if they never saw it, and which nevertheless continued to operate as though magic was not actually real. (Granted, of course, that is entirely a matter of taste; but it's a taste which AD&D catered to better than PF does.)

Right, that was my point. In my experience, most people who want to roleplay as wizards want to do so because they want to use magic. A setting where a wizard is expected to not use magic most of the time (like lord of the rings) is not satisfying to those people. Granted, there's an audience for both, but D&D and its ilk haven't been that tolkienesque Medieval European setting for a long time. Not having at-will magic is at this point pretty much just a holdover from a style D&D has long since moved on from.

Mechanically, at-will magic gives a spellcaster even more incentive to focus on the one stat that they already care about, at the expense of something else. With at-will magic, a wizard with Int 20 and Strength 8 is just better than a wizard with Int 18 and Strength 14; where, without at-will magic, the stronger wizard might actually get some mileage out of their less-than-optimal abilities.

I'm not of the opinion that diversifying ability scores is a particularly important goal, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There's also an issue which was extremely apparent in 4E, and which could potentially reappear in PF2, where everyone has the same bonus to whatever one thing they do. If the fighter has Strength 20 and a +3 sword and weapon focus: sword, and the wizard has Int 20 and a +3 wand and spell focus: evocation, then they both end up with exactly +10 on everything they do every round (which further contributes to the same-y-ness). When a wizard has to rely on a different stat for their basic attacks, you get a much wider variety of competence. If the fighter is at +10 to hit all-day every-day, but the wizard is sometimes at +7, then it's extremely obvious that the fighter is better in those specific circumstances.

"Issue" is an interesting word for everyone at the table being able to reliably perform with the same degree of competence. I'd call it, "good game design." Call me "the video game generation" if you will, but I'd rather characters be differentiated by what they can do, not what bonus they get to their rolls.