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!

 

[Charlaquin]

In the long term, it is a good bold decision if it works, and if not...

Sure, but not overhauling the system would undoubtedly be a bad decision in the long term, because again, “people who don’t want to play 4e” is not a sustainable market, and “people who want to play 3.x forever” is a market that is very difficult to satisfy while also attracting new customers, and getting more difficult the older 3.x gets. Sure, what they’re doing with PF2 carries a risk of failure, but continuing to barely iterate on the same system that was already starting to show its age when I first started playing D&D in high school will lead to certain (if slow) failure. Is it better to take the path that you know ends in certain death, but is at least a very long road there, or the path that might end in swift death but might end in a long road to prosperity? I’d say the latter is obviously better, but I guess YMMV.

I don't particularly care, I'm fairly disinterested except as game industry theory.

Indeed, Paizo’s journey has been and continues to be a fascinating one. Any way PF2 shakes out, it will be fun to watch.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

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.

This makes me excited about ranger 3.9. I can not take the spellcasting feat? Thank you. (With my luck, spellcasting will be "baked in".)

 

[Sunseeker]

I don't play PF1, nor will I play PF2, so I ain't getting anything no matter how we cut it. The question is more theoretical to me.

So you're what, wasting our time? Trolling? Poo-posting?

Now now before you're all "Ugh, you shouldn't have to like a game to talk about it!" Yeah, well you should at least play it. Otherwise you're wasting everyone's time.

 

[Parmandur]

So you're what, wasting our time? Trolling? Poo-posting?

Now now before you're all "Ugh, you shouldn't have to like a game to talk about it!" Yeah, well you should at least play it. Otherwise you're wasting everyone's time.

I'm just talking, this is after all a public forum. I'll likely read through the free document to good around with the life cycle in theorycrafting, but I have no use case for this game. It isn't doing anything that D&D isn't already doing for me.

 

[Aldarc]

Unfortunately, D&D Wisdom is a nonsense stat.

It has ‘perception’, which moreso belongs to Intelligence. And it has ‘willpower’, which moreso belongs to Charisma.

Heh, what D&D Wisdom lacks is a mechanical way to represent ... ‘wisdom’.

The D&D game is in desperate need of rethinking the abilities scores. The game improves by using Intelligence and Charisma for the mental stats − and eliminating Wisdom.

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

 

[Lylandra]

I'm reading the blog post on Paizo, and this comment from Mark has me dismayed:



It sounds like old vancian casting is sticking around. I was really hoping that this sacred cow would be slaughtered and the pieces scattered among the cosmos for good.

I really hope it is more in league with what we're seeing in 5e: You can prepare spells, but they are your spells known for the day. If you could then simply use them with your spell slots the way you'd like to (see: heighten is now free for all), then you could have a good amount of flexibility.

What I really want to see die in a fire though is the per-slot fire&forget spells we're still seeing with the PF1 wizard, cleric etc. The alchemist could be the one exception to this rule as he actually brews physical objects.

 

[houser2112]

I really hope it is more in league with what we're seeing in 5e: You can prepare spells, but they are your spells known for the day. If you could then simply use them with your spell slots the way you'd like to (see: heighten is now free for all), then you could have a good amount of flexibility.

What I really want to see die in a fire though is the per-slot fire&forget spells we're still seeing with the PF1 wizard, cleric etc. The alchemist could be the one exception to this rule as he actually brews physical objects.

Apparently not, because in that Cleric thread someone quoted another blog:

Heightening a spell works much like it did previously, where you prepare a spell in a higher-level slot (or cast it using a higher-level slot if you're a spontaneous caster).

At its heart, like every system, [the magic system] still works the way you’d expect. If you’re a spellcaster, you can prepare your spells every day so you know what spells you can cast and once they’re cast, they’re gone. We kept what is called Vancian spellcasting. There are still spontaneous spellcasters who don’t quite work that way but are close. They have spells that they know that they can cast from a certain amount of slots.

So paleo-vancian casting is here to stay. I had such high hopes, because Paizo had already given the blueprint for neo-vancian casting with the Arcanist, and then 5E gave it to all the full casters in that game.

 

[Lylandra]

Apparently not, because in that Cleric thread someone quoted another blog:



So paleo-vancian casting is here to stay. I had such high hopes, because Paizo had already given the blueprint for neo-vancian casting with the Arcanist, and then 5E gave it to all the full casters in that game.

Meh.

So while there is still hope that this might change due to playtest responses, I guess I'll be stuck with spontaneous casters or the arcanist again. I really don't understand how anyone could be in favour of old-school vancian casting but with fewer spell slots.

Just give sorcerers, bards, oracles, arcanists (and martial characters) their own cool stuff to make them versatile and interesting and get rid of fire&forget casting altogether.

 

[Charlaquin]

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.

 

[jmucchiello]

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.