Meet Pathfinder 2's Cleric; Plus Spellcasting Basics!

On the Paizo comments a lot of people are annoyed that classes get less than PF1, less class features and have to pay feats to get them back. The counter argument is that you get those feats instead of class features, just meaning you can chose how you want your class - rather than stuck with what is written. The same applies to races/ancestries. Either argument aside it does seem that all classes and races are nerfed, you don't have enough feats at level 1 in PF2 to get all the features to equal level 1 PF1. We haven't seen what backgrounds and Archetypes exactly do yet tho. I think this is a good thing, spread the power - but people don't like having things taken away I guess.

Secondly a lot of comments about only getting, max, 3 spells memorised per spell level. Another good thing IMO, to lower the power of casters vs mundanes; and also casters won;t have the spell to do automatically what other classes roll skills etc for all the time. There is the concern about 15 min adventure day tho, but that is partially offset by scaling cantrips.

These things mostly look good to me, as a DM normally I don't care about PC's having less than PF1. As long as they are better balanced against each other and opponents, it's irrelevant - but there is a lot of the Endowment Effect going on

Very interested to see the entire Playtest tho, very hard to get a feel with these tiny titbits - not that it hasn't released the rage on Paizo!

 

[Parmandur]

Unpopular opinion: Fire-and-forget Vancian is better than 5e Vancian. In fire-and-forget, every single use of a spell is a limited resource, whereas in 5e Vancian, only the spell slot is a resource, as with spontaneous casters. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but then what’s the point of “preparing” a subset of your spells each day?

I don’t see spell preparation as an interesting thing on its own. But at least in a traditional Vancian system it serves a purpose. It forces you to think not just about how many 3rd level spells you have left, but about how many fireballs you have left. The preparation is an added layer of complexity that you put up with because it makes for a deeper casting system. But in neo-Vancian, preparing spells is just this vestigial extra step with no benefit. Everyone’s a spontaneous caster, but some of them have to choose their list of spells they can spontaneously cast at the beginning of the day. But for what benefit? Why not just make everyone true spontaneous casters at that point? What do you achieve by making some classes decide which subset of their spells they can cast each day?

Either embrace Vancian casting or drop it. Or choose on an individual basis which classes can cast spontaneously and which classes have to do Vancian spell preparation. But 5e Vancian is just the worst of both worlds. All the added busywork of spell preparation with none of the interesting resource management that’s supposed to come with it.

Gives Wizards/Clerics/Druids more versatility than Bards/Sorcerers/Warlocks without creating imbalance in play: they have access to huge numbers of spells, though still only so many at a time. This allows Wizards to do things like research and look for more spells (cf. Caleb in Critical Role Campaign 2).

 

[Charlaquin]

The 5E spell system is as old of Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed. That was the first time I remember a magic system with prepared spells of the day that could be expended in slots also limited per day.

Sure, wherever it’s from. Its age isn’t my issue with it, my issue is that “preparing spells” serves no purpose in that variant. If you don’t have to manage how many times you cast a particular spell, only how many spells of each level you’ve cast, then the “preparation” is an unnecessary step. Just tell me how many spells from my spell list I’m allowed to prepare and I’ll prepare the same ones every day. Boom, now I’m a spontaneous caster. Might as well go full Vancian if you want that extra layer of resource management, or full spontaneous if you don’t want that extra layer of complexity. The style 5e uses, wherever it originally showed up, is dumb because it retains the added complexity of Vancian but does away with the added resource management. It’s sacrificing the depth to keep the complexity, which is the opposite of what good game mechanics should strive to do.

 

[Charlaquin]

Gives Wizards/Clerics/Druids more versatility than Bards/Sorcerers/Warlocks without creating imbalance in play: they have access to huge numbers of spells, though still only so many at a time. This allows Wizards to do things like research and look for more spells (cf. Caleb in Critical Role Campaign 2).

Sure, but you could accomplish the same goal with known spells instead of prepared spells. All that preparation accomplished in that style of magic is allows the player to change their list of known spells each day. Which is something you could easily introduce as a class feature without having to bake a spell preparation concept into the magic system. It’s just unnecessarily complicated for such little payoff. Traditional Vancian is complicated, but at least that complexity serves a purpose.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Unpopular opinion: Fire-and-forget Vancian is better than 5e Vancian.

It's a better system for a game where casters are attempting to appear balanced with non-casters. It's strictly inferior in the sense that the 5e neo-Vancian caster is in all ways more flexible than the old-school Vancian one - before we even get into at-will cantrips.

In fire-and-forget, every single use of a spell is a limited resource, whereas in 5e Vancian, only the spell slot is a resource, as with spontaneous casters. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but then what’s the point of “preparing” a subset of your spells each day?

As opposed to just spontaneously casting any spell on the Cleric or Druid list or absolutely any spell in your spellbook at any time?

I guess there's not much of a point, the level of flexibility/versatility (and thus Tier 1 power) is already unprecedented, why not drop that last scrap of a limitation?

The only way to go after that to make casters even less limited for D&D 6e or PF3 would be to just have one giant spell list, and let everyone cast spontaneously from it, I guess...

I don’t see spell preparation as an interesting thing on its own. But at least in a traditional Vancian system it serves a purpose. It forces you to think not just about how many 3rd level spells you have left, but about how many fireballs you have left. The preparation is an added layer of complexity that you put up with because it makes for a deeper casting system.

It seemed like a big part of the challenge - and thus interest and fun - of playing a magic-user back in the day.

It also puts a much greater limitation on the caster classes than have later editions (except, ironically, I guess, for 4e), nor was it the only limitation on casting from the early days that has fallen by the wayside, almost without comment.

 

[Yaarel]

Fantasy AGE broke up the three mental stats into four separate stats: Communication, Intelligence, Perception, and Willpower.

Yeah but the extra splitting that FAGE does, results in somewhat unequal stats. For example, the Intelligence is relatively ineffectual.

By contrast, I lump them as follows:

• Perceptiveness ( ≈ FAGE Perception+Intelligence)
• Empathy ( ≈ FAGE Willpower+Communication)

So each of the two is effective and frequent.

 

[Yaarel]

Sure, but you could accomplish the same goal with known spells instead of prepared spells. All that preparation accomplished in that style of magic is allows the player to change their list of known spells each day. Which is something you could easily introduce as a class feature without having to bake a spell preparation concept into the magic system. It’s just unnecessarily complicated for such little payoff. Traditional Vancian is complicated, but at least that complexity serves a purpose.

If I understand what you are saying.

• Every spell caster chooses which spells are known, only while leveling.
• These known spells are permanent.
• [ The caster can change the known spells while leveling. ]
• The caster can use slots to cast any known spell spontaneously.
• This is the normal way for casting spells for all caster classes.

• As an exception, a separate feature can swap in different known spells, per long rest.



So if I understand correctly, I basically agree.

Yet at this point:

• I would get rid of slots entirely, and use spell points as the new normal.
• Instead of swapping known spells per rest, simply let a wizard cast directly from a spellbook.

The wizard gets extra known spells if and only if casting from the spellbook.

 

[jmucchiello]

Sure, wherever it’s from. Its age isn’t my issue with it, my issue is that “preparing spells” serves no purpose in that variant. If you don’t have to manage how many times you cast a particular spell, only how many spells of each level you’ve cast, then the “preparation” is an unnecessary step. Just tell me how many spells from my spell list I’m allowed to prepare and I’ll prepare the same ones every day. Boom, now I’m a spontaneous caster. Might as well go full Vancian if you want that extra layer of resource management, or full spontaneous if you don’t want that extra layer of complexity. The style 5e uses, wherever it originally showed up, is dumb because it retains the added complexity of Vancian but does away with the added resource management. It’s sacrificing the depth to keep the complexity, which is the opposite of what good game mechanics should strive to do.

In your opinion. Others do not want that level of resource management. What you call a bug, some call a feature. No system will satisfy all comers. There is no One True Way.

 

[Yaarel]

• Athletics
• Perceptiveness
• Empathy
• Toughness

A Fighter stat, a Rogue stat, a Wizard stat, and a Cleric stat?

Yeah. Yet notice, in this case.

• Athletics → Fighter (melee, reflex, athlete)
• Perceptiveness → Rogue (sniper, stealth, perception, steady-hand manual dexterity)
• Empathy → Wizard (!) (caster, mental spells, willpower)
• Toughness → Cleric (!) (tough, lots of hit points, heavy armor, one-man army)

These four narrative tropes − jock guy, smart guy, heart guy, big guy − can flesh out in different ways. The Fighter-Rogue-Wizard-Cleric is an effective way to do it.

 

[Charlaquin]

It's a better system for a game where casters are attempting to appear balanced with non-casters. It's strictly inferior in the sense that the 5e neo-Vancian caster is in all ways more flexible than the old-school Vancian one - before we even get into at-will cantrips. As opposed to just spontaneously casting any spell on the Cleric or Druid list or absolutely any spell in your spellbook at any time?

No, as opposed to having a fixed subset of your spell list that you can cast from by expending spell slots. So, same system as 5e, only without the pretense of your subset of spells you can cast being “prepared” on a daily basis.

I guess there's not much of a point, the level of flexibility/versatility (and thus Tier 1 power) is already unprecedented, why not drop that last scrap of a limitation?

Caster/martial balance isn’t really my bugbear. Though, I do think giving martial characters more cool stuff is a better way to go about addressing it than restricting casters.

The only way to go after that to make casters even less limited for D&D 6e or PF3 would be to just have one giant spell list, and let everyone cast spontaneously from it, I guess...

Sure, if your goal was to make casters as flexible as possible. That’s not my goal though.

It seemed like a big part of the challenge - and thus interest and fun - of playing a magic-user back in the day.

It also puts a much greater limitation on the caster classes than have later editions (except, ironically, I guess, for 4e), nor was it the only limitation on casting from the early days that has fallen by the wayside, almost without comment.

I agree, which is why I prefer traditional Vancian casting... Have you considered the possibility that whoever you’re arguing against is made of straw? They’re certainly not me either way.

If I understand what you are saying.

• Every spell caster chooses which spells are known, only while leveling.
• These known spells are permanent.
• [ The caster can change the known spells while leveling. ]
• The caster can use slots to cast any known spell spontaneously.
• This is the normal way for casting spells for all caster classes.

• As an exception, a separate feature can swap in different known spells, per long rest.

I’m saying that would be preferable to the system used in 5e, yes. It would be functionally identical, but would remove the complexity of having a “spell preparation” concept baked into the system. Alternatively, going back to traditional Vancian where you have to prepare each spell individually would also be preferable, because then the spell preparation would serve a purpose- namely, making the resource management game deeper, by forcing the caster to think about “how many fireballs do I have left?” AND “how many counterspells do I have left?” instead of “how many third level spells do I have left?”

So if I understand correctly, I basically agree.

Yet at this point:

• I would get rid of slots entirely, and use spell points as the new normal.
• Instead of swapping known spells per rest, simply let a wizard cast directly from a spellbook.

The wizard gets extra known spells if and only if casting from the spellbook.

Sure, that sounds like an even better take on the no-spell-preparation style.

In your opinion. Others do not want that level of resource management. What you call a bug, some call a feature. No system will satisfy all comers. There is no One True Way.

And that’s fine. I’m not saying that having that level of resource management is superior. I’m saying if you don’t want that level resource management, why even have the pretense of spell preparation? It’s just an unnecessary layer of complexity. There’s nothing wrong with a more flexible casting system, but spell preparation doesn’t add anything meaningful to such a flexible casting system. Either embrace Vancian prep or dump it, either is a valid choice. But what 5e does is dumps the part of Vancian that makes the complexity of spell preparation worthwhile (for those who like resource management) and keeps the spell preparation for no reason.

 

[Parmandur]

Sure, but you could accomplish the same goal with known spells instead of prepared spells. All that preparation accomplished in that style of magic is allows the player to change their list of known spells each day. Which is something you could easily introduce as a class feature without having to bake a spell preparation concept into the magic system. It’s just unnecessarily complicated for such little payoff. Traditional Vancian is complicated, but at least that complexity serves a purpose.

OK, I agree, all it accomplishes is to allow the player to change their list of known spells each day. And it is a Class feature already. That would be the point, to provide the narrative feel of "Wizard" or "Cleric" as opposed to "Bard" or "Sorcerer."