Pathfinder 2 Character Sheet #6: Ezren, Human Wizard

It's a sad day, because today is the last of our six previews of the Pathfinder 2nd Edition iconic pregenerated characters. But the full playtest is out very soon! Anyhow, today we have Ezren, the human wizard. Amusing factoid -- although Ezren looks old he's only 42, which makes him younger than may people who have played him.

Paizo's Mark Seifter says "Ezren’s magic missile is just as flexible as Kyra’s heal, whether you want an all-out-salvo of three missiles or a single missile as a follow-up to another spell. Combined with Drain Arcane Focus to restore the spell, Ezren was consistently the MVP against the boss in most demos we ran, putting out roughly 21 damage automatically over the course of two rounds. His Widen Spell feat is jaw-droppingly effective on spells like fireball, and while it’s much harder to use it to its full potential with burning hands, it does add more than 50% more area, so the few times I saw an Ezren use that combination, he devastated the field."

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And that's it for the previews! If you missed any, here are the other five:

• Fumbus, goblin alchemist
• Kyra, human cleric
• Valeros, human fighter
• Seelah, human paladin
• Merisiel, elf rogue

 

[mewzard]

I pointed that out. What was your point?

No equivalence what so ever.

Want to address my actual point: "why didn't they just give the cantrip a different name to avoid confusion?"

...Because it literally functions like an in-game shield? Hence the name Shield?

I'm wondering how Shield scales, given Cantrips are cast as if at your highest spell level.

 

[Charlaquin]

Well, it can vary quite a bit.

For instance, an Elf Wizard with an 8 Con (which is possible due to their racial -2 to Con) can have 11 HP, the lowest I can think of right now. 6 HP from Elf for the first level, 6 from Wizard, -1 from 8 Con.

Now, let's try something different, with a Human Barbarian, and let's give them 16 Con, which is totally doable, regardless of what stat your class gives. Now, Human gives them 8 HP at first level, then Barbarian gives 12 HP, and 16 Con would give a +3 to HP, giving us 23 HP, not even counting taking the Toughness feat at first level, or your Barbarian Rage temp HP.

That's a decent range. If Orc is indeed an ancestry, and if it gives more HP at first level, like, say, 10? That would raise it even higher.

Dwarf gives 10 HP at 1st, which they've said is the highest in the core.

 

[TwoSix]

Want to address my actual point: "why didn't they just give the cantrip a different name to avoid confusion?"

I would imagine because every time there's an edition revamp, the designers have to decide whether to update any existing game element with an eye towards consistency or towards novelty. Sometimes you want to update something familiar just to reinforce you're doing something new and different this time.

Obviously, people will disagree on where that line will be drawn, but they have to make those decisions for hundreds or thousands of game elements, which is why crowdsourcing some of those decisions via a playtest is a good idea. If enough people feel the way you do, they just might change it!

 

[mewzard]

Dwarf gives 10 HP at 1st, which they've said is the highest in the core.

Ah, right, thanks!

So yeah, a Dwarf Barbarian with 16 Con would have 25 HP (10+12+3). Even more with Toughness and Barbarian Rage. A lot more than the Elf Wizard with 8 Con stuck with 11 HP.

 

[mellored]

I'm wondering how Shield scales, given Cantrips are cast as if at your highest spell level.

I'm guessing an 1 point increase in hardness each spell level.
So it blocks 12 damage at highest level.

 

[houser2112]

It interacts with magic missile as a normal Shield Block reaction does, which only negates damage up to the Hardness of the shield used (which is 4 for Ezren).

A normal shield block reaction doesn’t interact with magic missile at all.

I know, I was merely pointing out that the shield cantrip grants you the Shield Block reaction as if you were holding an actual shield (and tells you what its hardness for the purposes of that reaction is), which includes the possibility of "trample" damage, and no matter how much damage magic missile does, the shield is gone. This is a significant departure from the way shield has interacted with magic missile in the past (No "trample" damage from magic missile will get through a shield, and no amount of beating on a shield with magic missile will bring it down). In other words, I feel jmucchiello's pain.

 

[Kaodi]

Did they already say back at the beginning how ability score generation would work? These characters have been made with 16 14 12 12 10 10 . Under the Starfinder system that would just be 12 pt buy, under the PF1 system 19 pt buy (which could indicate 20 pts in the actual rules).

 

[Tony Vargas]

Want to address my actual point: "why didn't they just give the cantrip a different name to avoid confusion?"

Probably because continuity is so important in a D&D clone. You need to retain all the classic spells, even if in name only. If there were /also/ a Shield spell, of course, the cantrip would need a different name...

...what do you suggest? Buckler? Parma Magicka?

 

[Hurin70]

But if you subtract the bonus 10 HP from that number, you have much the same range that you've always had.

6HP for the Wizard, 9 for the Paladin, 10 for the Cleric and 10 for the Fighter.

I don't play Pathfinder, but I had assumed that, since it was based on 3.5, that Wizards only got 1d4, not 6. But I guess I was wrong about that.

Overall, though, I see your point: there is still quite a bit of variation.

 

[mellored]

Did they already say back at the beginning how ability score generation would work? These characters have been made with 16 14 12 12 10 10 . Under the Starfinder system that would just be 12 pt buy, under the PF1 system 19 pt buy (which could indicate 20 pts in the actual rules).

They mentioned races having rather flexible scores.
Like +1 to Dex or Int, and +1 to any other.

Other than that, I haven't seen anything.