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.

 

[Yaarel]

I would move away from ‘slots’, and during the design process think in terms of ‘spell points’, to ensure points are balanced and simple to implement. The slots can ride on top of the spell system that is calibrated for points.

 

[Koloth]

If I read this correctly, a 1st level Wizard can now cast a Magic Missile with 3 missiles by spending two actions on it. Does seem to up power what were low level spells as long as the party is fighting a static battle. If you need to move, you have a choice to make.

For those complaining about the 15 minute work day Wizard, that can be remedied by imposing a "mission must be done by deadline" condition. If you have 6 days to rescue the Prince and the kidnappers are a 5 day trip away, you can't afford to rest every time your Wizard expends her complete spell load on a random Orc band.

 

[Yaarel]

Finally, I hate material components.

Maybe have mouth (verbal), empty hand (somatic), and a concentration (!) be the three spell components.



Material components for 15-minute magic rituals is fine, and makes sense to me.

Please, remove all costly gp components. Instead, limit the frequency, such as once per long rest, or once per week or month (lunar cycle). Using frequency instead of wealth is more reliable for gaming balance, and is more setting neutral, working equally well for wealthy aristocratic characters or moneyless nomadic characters.

 

[dave2008]

It gets REALLY problematic if some characters can spew huge amounts of magical fire (acid etc) all day long without ever tiring.

It also means low-level spells quickly become obsolete, which is not what you want.

I realize feeble stick-poking doesn't feel heroic, but the only way to resolve this is to separate casters into two different groups.

Blasters with endless at-will magical damage. Should be treated more like a warrior swinging his axe all day. These classes gain limited or no access to higher levels of magic. Being able to unleash unlimited amounts of fire (acid etc) is treated as significantly better than ordinary axe swings, even if the numerical damage is similar.

Casters whose cantrips are just that, and who gets no access to at-will magical blasts.

I recently came to a similar conclusion. Would have just given XP, but I can't on this thread for some reason.

 

[Yaarel]

For range, simplify as
• upto 10 feet = melee (adjacent)
• upto 30 feet = close (near)
• upto 100 feet = distant (far)

Other ranges are less important
• upto 300 feet = mid range (bowshot) (city block)
• upto 3000 feet = long range
• sight
• anywhere in same plane = remote

 

[Aldarc]

The cleric class needs to be setting neutral − so nonpolytheistic options are a normal option that a character can choose.
• abstract concept − like love, detachment (buddhism), ethics or alignment (paladin)
• cosmic force − like light (consciousness, energy, positivity), elements (daoism, Darksun)
• animism (every feature of nature has a psionic psychic presence, druid)

You are the only person who has this problem; you need to get over this hang-up with the cleric class.

 

[Yaarel]

You are the only person who has this problem; you need to get over this hang-up with the cleric class.

Heh, the unappealing polytheism makes other people simply refuse to play D&D in the first place.



In any case, this is about 3e that has many different kinds of cleric (such as Darksun cleric that reveres the four elements as sacred, sorta like Daoism, or paladin that upholds the ethics of an alignment), and this is about Pathfinder that strongly supports the player and helps the player to customize the character concept.



Besides, if Pathfinder 2 turns out to be remotely balanced, I find its customizability highly appealing. I will want to use the P2 system for all kinds of settings with all kinds of genres. Especially near future.

 

[Aldarc]

Heh, the unappealing polytheism makes other people simply refuse to play D&D in the first place.

You are making an Everest out of this anthill of a "problem."

Signed,

A guy who rarely uses D&D-style polytheistic homebrews and who has NEVER encountered this problem with D&D clerics and religion with his players, many of whom in the past consisted of priests, pastors, and religious scholars.

Besides, if Pathfinder 2 turns out to be remotely balanced, I find its customizability highly appealing. I will want to use the P2 system for all kinds of settings with all kinds of genres. Especially near future.

I am skeptical that you will make it work, but not because any shortcomings of PF2's design but because of your own self-engineered problems and unperceptiveness to easy answers for said non-problems.

 

[Yaarel]

[MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION]

In its day, I used 3e for many different kinds of settings with different kinds of genres.

I see no reason why
1) Pathfinder should be difficult to use for various genres
2) why designing rules to make setting customizability easy needs to be a problem.

The only reason I stopped using 3e is because I value the relative balance of 4e and 5e.

 

[Yaarel]

Thinking on it more, I really like the idea in my earlier post.

Make the three spell casting components:
• Verbal
• Somatic (empty hand)
• Concentration!