Arelith

Re the new Spellsword ability,

New Passive Ability: Arcane Flux
When active, Arcane Flux will replenish the next hostile spell cast via the spellsword spellbook. Dispels and spell breaches are exempt.

Could regular wizards stand to have something like this as well? Just curious if there's a reason why it's spellsword only.

Likely to bring flavour to SS rotation. Wizard do have access to Infinicast spells via spell focus, and likely more slots than spellsword due to pure INT focus, as well as specialized spell slot equipment.

That would be my guess. Wizards do also get Epic Spells, while Spellsword access to them is more limited.

No denying that everybody likes more cookies, but that would be my guess behind the design.

Wizards and sorcerers should probably get access to some form of sustained damage other than summons.

What if, and hear me out, what if most damage spells scaled to level 30?

Arcane flux is a cool little trick for spellswords to encourage them to do different things every now and then, yeah. I vibe w/it.

I have mixed feelings on giving wizards the same tools as other classes, though. One of the things I love about the way balance has been going lately is the asymmetry. Things are not the same. And if there's going to be changes to wizard and sorcerer, I would like them to follow this trend of having tools that make them feel unique.

Whosdis wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 7:56 am Wizards and sorcerers should probably get access to some form of sustained damage other than summons.

The more I play casting classes, the more contempt I have for the paradigm that a wizard conjures up a summon and sits there, idling while it does all of the work until something big and scary comes along that the wizard has to burn half of their spellbook on. I almost wish summons didn't exist in this game at all so that entire classes wouldn't have to be balanced around having access to them.

So I agree that one of the biggest things holding Wizards and Sorcs back right now is that they're half BAB classes with no sustain damage. It's just not fun to stand there and do nothing. At least not for me. I like having buttons and clicking the buttons.

That's not to say that wizard and sorc are bad at all! They're still really good because as it turns out, being able to hellball people is always pretty good and a good wizard can turn, burn, and shut down people hard as long as they get the upperhand. But. Like. It's really hard to want to play a wizard on the server where the current shamans and clerics exist. They're just so much more fun to play mechanically.

But anyways, FvS, Cleric, and Shaman can get away with it because they have synergies and skills that are -considerably- helpful in attaining sustain damage, albeit at sacrifices to casting power, and they're 3/4ths BAB.

Warlocks have EB, which isn't perfect, but it can take the edge off quite a bit.

Bards are dumb and I hate them, they are my nemesis, and I will see them driven from the earth. I don't actually have any balance complaints about bards. I just hold a deep, primal contempt for bards.

And uh. Spellswords got... sword. So. Sord.

Aren wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 12:48 pm What if, and hear me out, what if most damage spells scaled to level 30?

There's some that'd be really funny to scale to 30, but I think that would just benefit true frosts a lot more than wizards and standard sorcs. Would 100% be interested in Scorching Rays that scaled to level 27 so I could have aggressive disco parties, though.

The dichotomy of summons being mandatory to do anything in PVE for more than a few encounters and being completely useless in PVP due to WoF is a very nebulous spot to be put in, yes.

so the thing about spell swords is
they don't have epic spell foci, nor higher than about a 10 int mod
so they one free spell they get every now and then is going to be from a very small list

it's just a neat little thing to put 'spell' in 'spellsword.' not every class has to have exact parity and copies of each other's features.

Wizards should get it, for no other reason than spell swords are worse wizards than normal wizards, so shouldn't be getting more spell castings than there int allows for when a "better" mage doesn't.

Maybe not Arcane Flux per se, but considering Spellswords already do more-than-competitive melee damage, giving them repetitive hostile spell casts when Wizards and Sorcerers are stuck in a Vancian pit other than the mostly-useless-past-low-level-combat GSF spells, it strikes me as a rather odd design.

I read somewhere that the reason wizards don't get it is because of saves-or-die spells, and I think most wizard players would agree they hate those spells. There've been threads before asking for fewer of those spells even. Save-or-die spells could be entirely omitted from an arcane flux wizard feat and people would be fine with it.

Arcane flux is activated through Elemental Maelstrom and Elemental Strike, neither of which Wizards have access to.

msheeler wrote: Tue May 31, 2022 6:39 pm Arcane flux is activated through Elemental Maelstrom and Elemental Strike, neither of which Wizards have access to.

Question isn't really should they have the exact same ability but whether they could have something like it. Keep in mind some cleric paths also replenish spells under certain conditions.

I mean something similar would be a game changer even if it had limitations like "no save or die spells." Wizards feel very behind the times compared to most other casters and while the inificast level 1 spells can be nice (and some scale pretty well, I believe a recent update boosted their effectiveness against SR too) being able to throw around more mid-tier damage spells would make them a lot more enticing for PVE. Heck even something like being able to use damage spells from wands you created at full effectiveness would be welcome.

Take a hint from 5e, make cantrips unlimited and give them damage scaling? Nothing impressive, but enough to keep them in the game.

In the great balance of things remember also that Spellswords have none of the summoning spells that a wizard does. Also, in practice (I tried it out) doing the equivalent of a single writ of work I was able to achieve arcane flux and use it a grand total of 4 times.

To be clear that is 4 times in a good 15 to 20 encounters.

It is definitely not a game changer and with the much lower spell capacity of a Spell Sword allows them to keep their buff and occasionally fire off an offensive spell.

I play a wizard exclusively these days, and whilst I enjoy it, I'd be lying if I said that they're a dynamic class to play in most situations.

The majority of a wizard's time (other than RP) is spent either;
(A) Buffing others, including a summons
(B) Hiding behind others, including a summons
(C) Casting Mass-Haste, or being harassed with requests for Mass-Haste

Very occasionally they get to do (D), which is;
(D) Melt faces with spells

Now, (D) is a lot of fun, but that seems to be reserved for other classes, like True Flames/Frosts/Fizzles, Warlocks, Clerics, Shamans, and Favoured Souls.

If we're going for each class to feel different? And to have its own niche?

I don't want the niche of the wizard to be "guy/gal/meat popsicle who is a buff and haste bot and hides behind summons".

I mean, if that's what they're meant to be, then by all means, we can lean into that and give them something unique that isn't tied to a specialist chassis. Mass-Haste at will on a cooldown or something, so at least we can use our other spell slots for different things.

But if they're not meant to be that, then what?

To me, where a wizard shines, is their versatility. Their ability to have, with a little notice, (almost) any (arcane) spell on hand to deal with a situation.

In a game world though where anyone who puts in the effort can cast literally any spell in the game through scrolls (and in many cases, grimoires which totally nix the need to invest in Lore, thanks guys), Wizards just feel like the nerd that everyone bullies for their lunch money.

On top of that, a lot of really good arcane spells were given to Shaman and Clerics, which means that, unless what you are after is bonus feats and a familiar, a Cleric or Shaman can, in many cases, be a better Wizard than a Wizard can (except for Mass-Haste, feeding into the feeling that that's all we're supposed to do).

So. How do we solve this?

To me, part of the solution can be seen with what was done with Paladin for their Holy Sword ability. Specifically, that it was locked off from scroll and wand usage. Pick a few spells that are game-changers (or create them if they do not exist), and ensure that Wizards can access them, and Wizards only.

Another part of the solution can be seen with the GSF infini spells. Specifically, a Wizard who invests to get the focus feats along a line gets a certain spell that is castable at will. For each ESF that a Wizard gets, give them a higher level spell from that spell school that they can cast at will (even if it may need a short cooldown). You get yourself ESF: Divination as a Wizard? Hello PW: Stun on an 18 second cooldown (as an example, would need to be checked for balance issues, don't shoot me). ESF: Evocation could give you Bigby's Forceful hand, again on a cooldown of some sort, etc.

And you'll notice that I picked "Crowd Control" spells. That leads me to my third part of the solution.

Allow spell save DCs to be based on 10+1/2HD+Spell Casting Mod (and feats) rather than 10+Spell Level+Spell Casting Mod (and feats), for the love of God, because otherwise all we have are direct damage spells, hiding behind a summons, or fishing for ones.

Even a Wizard with a base 28 Int, getting themselves up to a 40 with items, would only have a DC 46 save on PW: Kill if they have ESF: Div, which in most situations, is only going to be competitive, not game breaking. But without that change, you're talking about it being DC 40, a swing of 30% in terms of effectiveness, or more honestly, a swing to fishing for 1s.

I don't see Wizards as being the damage dealers in a party. I see them as being the problem solvers, the crowd controllers, the "I have a spell for this" guys, sort of a spellcasting MacGuyver. Sure, they need some way to do damage, and a summons can provide that for them (or Tensers, if you're talking about a Transmutation specialist).

The issue isn't damage. It's having something meaningful to do.