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.

 

[Charlaquin]

Ergo, not everyone in the world should have 4E class features. Q.E.D.

Not everyone in the world (of 4e) does have 4e class features. Only characters with classes have them, which in the world of 4e is a rare and exceptional thing.

Anyway, we’ve long since passed the point where this metaphor has broken down. The point was meant to be that, much like “when everyone is super, no one will be,” when every character has cool, interesting things to do, no one does. Which is just silly. . All of the main characters of the film are super, and that doesn’t cheapen their superpowers, even if we ignore the non-superpowered characters, because all of their powers are different. Likewise, the fact that all PCs in 5e have interesting things to do, doesn’t cheapen the interesting things other characters have to do, because they do different interesting things.

Also, Syndrome’s quote, while a punchy soundbite, is demonstrably wrong. Just as Mr. Incredible being strong doesn’t make invisible girl’s invisibility less cool, everyone being super wouldn’t make superpowers not super. For a good example of a setting that examines the implications of a world where everyone (or almost everyone) has some kind of superpower, look at My Hero Academia. Even if you take the superness of super powers as a zero sum game, some powers are just inherently better than others.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Not everyone in the world (of 4e) does have 4e class features. Only characters with classes have them, which in the world of 4e is a rare and exceptional thing.

If they're so exceptional, how come everyone in every random group of misfits thrown together by happenstance just so happens to have them?

 

[Charlaquin]

If they're so exceptional, how come everyone in every random group of misfits thrown together by happenstance just so happens to have them?

4e is not a game about groups of random misfits. It is a game about heroes.

 

[pemerton]

I think it's a mistake to look at PC generation as a type of random sampling process.

In DL, the ex-girlfriend of one of the main protagonists happens to be a principal antagonist. That doesn't mean that if you randomly sample a bunch of warrior types, or wizards of high sorcery, they're all going to be related to the villains, be destined to discover the most powerful of lost spellbooks, etc.

 

[TwoSix]

If they're so exceptional, how come everyone in every random group of misfits thrown together by happenstance just so happens to have them?

Remember how in all those fantasy novels you've read the main character gets killed by a random arrow in Chapter 7, and then the book ends? I sure love those books.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Remember how in all those fantasy novels you've read the main character gets killed by a random arrow in Chapter 7, and then the book ends? I sure love those books.

Ah! Another George R. R. Martin fan!

 

[TheCosmicKid]

4e is not a game about groups of random misfits. It is a game about heroes.

Tomayto, tomahto.

 

[zztong]

Just a couple of observations.

Sometimes when a GM wants magic to be rare, they're assigning some special significance to it in the lore of the setting. There have been times when I've wanted to restrict magic to NPCs where it could be loosely defined and used as a plot device.

Its been forever since I played D&D 4e (and we didn't play it for more than a couple of months) but what I recall was the feeling among myself and my friends was that the character class didn't mean anything. All characters felt the same because their daily/encounter/anytime powers all had the same effects. It felt like everyone had a damage ability, everyone had a damage and move ability, everyone had a damage and mark ability, everyone could heal themselves, etc. Of course, a real analysis would prove that generalization wasn't entirely true, but it felt like it was true 80% of the time.

 

[pemerton]

Its been forever since I played D&D 4e (and we didn't play it for more than a couple of months) but what I recall was the feeling among myself and my friends was that the character class didn't mean anything. All characters felt the same because their daily/encounter/anytime powers all had the same effects. It felt like everyone had a damage ability, everyone had a damage and move ability, everyone had a damage and mark ability, everyone could heal themselves, etc. Of course, a real analysis would prove that generalization wasn't entirely true, but it felt like it was true 80% of the time.

I've played a fair bit of 4e. Your generalisation isn't remotely true. What mark ability did your wizard, cleric, ranger, rogue, warlock, invoker, or sorcerer have? What forced movement powers was your ranger using? How was your rogue healing him-/herself?

I'm having trouble working out what sort of PC builds you're referring to.

 

[zztong]

I've played a fair bit of 4e. Your generalisation isn't remotely true. What mark ability did your wizard, cleric, ranger, rogue, warlock, invoker, or sorcerer have? What forced movement powers was your ranger using? How was your rogue healing him-/herself?

I'm having trouble working out what sort of PC builds you're referring to.

I regret I cannot be specific. Its been too long. Everyone had healing surges. Many classes seemed to have some power that led us to put a little ring around a target for a round, such that the mini's often had 2-3 color rings on them.

Really, my point was that at the time, and at the table I played at, we generally felt that the classes weren't very different from one another. Fighters felt like Wizards, etc. Or, that mechanics can make a difference to how players feel, even though by all rights the "special effect" of a power should be the real determination as to if something is "magic" or not.

I'm not trying to rag on 4e. I'm pointing out what we felt locally about class definitions that used similar mechanics.