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

 

[TwoSix]

This was my first thought. Might work out...but, realistically/in play, how often are you taking 4 or less HP of physical damage?

Seems like a "Shield Block" is going to be a limited DR/absorbed hp, but will "shatter" every time.

A cantrip for +1 AC, plus the ability to be used as 4 extra hit points roughly once a battle, seems pretty decent to me. Plus the fact we don't know how it scales.

 

[Blue]

Not being able to cast it again for 10 minutes makes it much less useful. I never saw "shield" as a literal analog to having a shield. It use to be described as force floating near the wizard like a wall. It was also the spell that countered the automatic hit from magic missile. Now magic missiles can destroy wizards. That's also different.

That's not correct. You can cast it every round and get the +1 AC for an action.

If you take the Reaction to Shield Block, then it prevents it's Hardness (4) in damage and you can't cast it again for 10 minutes. But otherwise cast as often as you like.

 

[Blue]

Where does it say how many times you can cast a spell (per day?)? It lists two spells as "first level" but it does not say how frequently they can cast these spells.

Right above Burning Hands in the detail breakout: "You have prepared the following spells. Each can be cast once."

I'm not fond of that positioning myself.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm hoping that have a better character sheet in the playtest for players to use.

They do. It has actually been shown, although only the first two pages, so we don’t know what the spellcasting sheet looks like yet. Here.

 

[jmucchiello]

The shield spell was the counter for magic missile. It no longer does that. It also use to be +4 AC (and a first level spell). They could have given this cantrip a different name so that there were no unmet expectations of grandeur.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Not being able to cast it again for 10 minutes makes it much less useful. I never saw "shield" as a literal analog to having a shield. It use to be described as force floating near the wizard like a wall.

It was an invisible disc of force floating near the wizard, and interposing itself between him and attacks - like a shield.

It was also the spell that countered the automatic hit from magic missile. Now magic missiles can destroy wizards. That's also different.

Yeah, IDK why they'd give that up, it's classic. Not just D&D classic, but one mage being able to pull out the right counter to another's spell is something you see in genre.

 

[nightspaladin]

Have we read anywhere that cantrips scale? They didn't in pf1

 

[Andy Taylor]

How much arcane focus does he have? What does courtly graces do? What about general training?

 

[TwoSix]

The shield spell was the counter for magic missile. It no longer does that. It also use to be +4 AC (and a first level spell). They could have given this cantrip a different name so that there were no unmet expectations of grandeur.

Shield is able to be used against magic missile. It's right in the spell description.

 

[houser2112]

The shield spell was the counter for magic missile. It no longer does that. It also use to be +4 AC (and a first level spell). They could have given this cantrip a different name so that there were no unmet expectations of grandeur.

Shield is able to be used against magic missile. It's right in the spell description.

Yes, but it doesn't completely negate magic missile like it used to (at least it doesn't say that it does, so we have to assume it doesn't). 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).