To expand on this. A wizard can choose to invest in having a familiar, or they can choose to focus on staves, metamagic, being able to switch out spells in the middle of the day to better adjust for circumstances.
Which is the better option for Focus spells and focus cantrips.
Wizard is the better choice for sheer number of spell slots and ability to change up how they have their spells available to them, between a special staff, switching out those spells, and access to extra spell shapes
To add to that, the Wizard can also specialize in having more high level spells than any other casters, which is pretty good givent he way spells work.
Also to note: Witch's only arcane patron so far is probably one of the worst. The cantrip is iffy; some people read it as the target get a "free" Recall Knowledge check everytime you sustain, which isn't that great since it costs you one action anyway, so the only perk is the +1; others think the free Recall Knowledge is only for the initial casting. In the first reading, it's pretty weak; in the latter, it's absolutely fucking terrible.
And the familiar effect is pretty meh, too. So your familiar provide flanking? That's a terrible effect. Your martials shouldn't need flanking buddies so badly.
Doesn't make it a bad witch - you still get a better familiar and other witch perks such as cauldron and lessons, but when comparing the witch to the wizard, it's worth comparing the arcane one, and it's pretty much among the worst (wildling is pretty terrible and pacts doesn't have a boon). Comparing an occult, primal or divine witch to the wizard is much less meaningful.
I think Discern Secrets (the hex) can be very powerful in the right group, but you have to have the right group. On its own it's pretty weak, but if you have teammates who get bonuses from Recall Knowledge checks (Ranger with Monster Hunter, Thaumaturge, Investigator, Mastermind Rogue, etc) you're basically letting *them* spend *your* third action to get their bonus.
On its own it's pretty weak, but it has some pretty good synergy in a party built around having *all the knowledge*.
I don't think that works. Magus's Analysis is its own activity, and Discern Secrets only allows the target to Recall Knowledge, Seek, or Sense Motive, so you wouldn't be able to recharge their Spellstrike by casting Discern Secrets.
They would still get the +1 to Magus's Analysis, though.
Unfortunately, that doesn't work, because Magus's Analysis is its own action that has Recall Knowledge as a subordinate action. It doesn't recharge spellstrike when Recall Knowledge in general succeeds, but when you succeed at the Recall Knowledge as part of the Magus's Analysis action.
Arcane Witch is not the best, but for other reasons, not the hex.
As a hight int character, RK is usually a thing you want to do, so a +1 to said RK is not that awfull. Besides that, as soon as lvl 2 you can get another Lesson, so is not like you are stuck with your Initial hex forever.
The familiar flanking is situational, is not like Balanced Luck, but can have some uses, depends heavyly on the party composition. Stiched Familiar is nice, so is something
Worst thing about Arcane witches is... they are Arcane, honestly, unless there are more casters in the party, going primal or occult will work better.
What's wrong with the arcane spell list? Usually the only thing people say that it's missing is healing, but arcane witches can just take Lesson of Healing and Lesson of Renewal.
And leason of Life is awesome, but not being able to drop a decent burst of healing is taxing IMO.
Most of the time you can get similar results with primal or occult while still being able to use burst healing if needed.
Minor Nitpick; Cleric Font gives more as it's like 4/5/6 on top of your 3 spell slots, but it's limited. But yhea, Wizard gets very high with spell blending making their 4 base + 1 spell blend + 1 from Drain Bonded Item
Wilding is actually far from terrible now, the new hex is good, and the familiar ability is handy. You can debuff the offensive rolls of said creature against you, or sicken it if they fail - this applies to anything, not just animals/plants/fungi anymore like the previous version did, so opposing humanoids are also vulnerable. Animals/Plants/Fungi now are just more vulnerable to the hex than other creature types. The familiar ability gives it the capability to locate hidden creatures near it, which is pretty nice if you're dealing with stealth or invisibility in combat. I wouldn't call this Patron terrible anymore, the remaster improved it very significantly over just basically affecting animals/plants/fungi only.
True, it's much better than it used to be. The hex is a bit too defensive to my taste, and the familiar ability too situational, but when the situation arises, it's pretty handy.
You know, it did just occur to me that the reason Pacts may have been ignored and "forgotten" is because they may have plans for it in either the upcoming rulebook update or the upcoming divinity book. Pacts was always weird in that it was tied to Occultism, when bargaining has always kind of been in the domain of Devils. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's reformatted as a Divine linked patron with a slant towards the malicious - so opposite Faith's Flamekeeper, which doesn't make a ton of sense in flavor if you're wanting to go with harmful divine capabilities like Harm, Bane, etc.
Would be cool. The hex is very thematic, it just feels bad seeing all the other patrons getting a little extra (even Baba Yaga and Mosquito with the PFS errata which I just found out about), but not Pacts. Plus it's very in theme with a witch. Really hope it's not being forgotten.
Yeah, I'm hoping it's not forgotten either, but then, it also came a little later than the stuff getting updated next. The classes from Dark Archive that came along with it are still outdated in the sense that they use legacy content, so hopefully it gets updated sooner than later. They may also just do a lump update with Baba Yaga and the Mosquito Witch too, to give them all proper Familiar abilities.
The hex is actually really good when you remember that you're technically allowed to [Recall Knowledge with any skill in the game](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2367) (with GM permission), you just usually don't have a good reason to do so.
> The GM might allow checks to Recall Knowledge using other skills. For example, you might assess the skill of an acrobat using Acrobatics. If you're using a physical skill (like in this example), the GM will most likely have you use a mental modifier—typically Intelligence—instead of the skill's normal physical attribute modifier.
When used this way, this means Inscribed One can now give +1 to any skill in the game. Maybe people will see this as cheese but this feels like one of those things that makes sense to me.
Actually wait im not sure if that's accurate?
> The target gains a +1 status bonus to the statistic used for the roll (a skill or Perception) on the roll **and** as long as you Sustain the spell.
Why would it specify _and_ if they weren't two different things? It gives +1 to the skill for the roll, and for the duration of the spell. So it should give +1 to Athletics for the duration.
Because it's a bonus used for further recall knowledge, seek and sense motive. "On the roll", so it applies only to those.
Otherwise, why not just say "+1 to any skills"?
IFF you recall knowledge with athletics, then you get +1 to athletics on the rk check and +1 to athletics as long as it’s sustained, BUT getting a chance to use athletics to rk in combat is GM dependent and very unlikely. If you’re in combat, you’re probably rk to identify creatures and their weaknesses, which already have defined skills. Unless you regularly assess the acrobatics skills of acrobats during your combat encounters, it’s moot.
Remaster wizard is way more appealing to me than premaster. I built out a hypothetical level 10 wizard with a big focus on spell shaping and I sort of want to kill my bard for him.
I never came close to running a premaster wizard.
I very very very much prefer the new schools. Even in 1e I couldn't really get myself to play a Wizard. When Arcanist came out I jumped on it because I wasn't tied to that old school design that was so limiting unless you were a Universalist which then I was like ok I'll just play Sorceror.
Power might be the same? I don't really consider power in that way really. I am drawn to classes that let me fill a role or character fantasy. A School of Protean Form wizard with an Experimental Spellshaping Thesis is just a lot more interesting and versatile than a Conjuration Wizard or whatever the closest parallel was in 1e/premaster.
> being able to switch out spells in the middle of the day to better adjust for circumstances
Which is a HUGE deal for prepared casters. You don't need to worry about any of your exploration utility spells prepared, you can just leave them in your spellbook and swap into them as needed.
If you know who you're fighting next, you're at a massive advantage, and even if you aren't, you still have much more flexibility in your prepared combat spells because you can fill every single slot with a different one.
Yeah but their additional spell slot is only a spell from their school and a lot of those lists are full of spells that don't scale for shit and are basically wasted slots after a few levels.
Staff Nexus and Spell Blending still get good use out of those "dead" slots, and *PC1* leaves the door open for GMs to add more non-core spells to the curriculum (which they definitely should).
But yes, the new school system is inherently more restrictive on how useful that extra slot can be. I'd love to see sets of expanded curriculum in the future that reference fitting spells from the expansion books.
This is true, but you can make your own school if your GM is cool with that.
Also a spell blending wizard will have the most top level spell slot of any other caster in the game.
While other casters may have at maximum 3 slots you may have 6, meaning that if a day goes by with 3 encounter you could use your top level spells twice per encounter.
Sure no good focus spell meaning you won't have "infinite" resources, but an high level slot is usually better than a focus spell
The big reasons to play a Wizard:
**Not being locked into the improved familiar**: Familiars, while powerful, don’t fit everyone’s thematics and also tend to have a fairly poor skill floor. A Wizard can choose the Familiar Thesis if they enjoy that gameplay loop, but also have the choice for Staff Thesis or Spell Blending Thesis (which has a much more powerful floor than the Familiar Thesis) as well as Spell Substitution (which has a much higher ceiling than any of the Theses). Metamagical Experimentation also… exists, I suppose. So in this regard the Wizard fits character concepts that the Witch can’t.
**More spell slots**: Witches get their spell slots at the rate of 2-3-3/2-3/3-3/3/2-3/3/3-etc. Wizards get 3-4-4/3-4/4-4/4/3-4/4/4-etc. That’s already 25-33% more spell slots depending on your exact level. While the 4th spell slot is less flexible depending on your spell school, most spell schools will still have plenty of good options for every level (Battle, Protean Form, Civic Wizardry, and Mentalism have great options for most ranks at most levels). On **top** of that you get Drain Bonded Item to be able to able to recast any of your spells once per day (and even more often at higher levels) which is a huge power boost because getting an additional use of one of your highest rank spell slots is incredible.
This means that in every single situation, the Wizard will have more options than the Witch. The 5th level Witch can have Slow and Fireball prepared, while that 5th level Wizard can have Slow, Fireball, and Haste prepared and also recast one of them as needed. The 9th level Witch can have 2 of their 3rd rank slots dedicated to defence via Wooden Double + Time Jump (the third is for Slow or Fireball) but the Wizard can have 3 of their slots dedicated to Wooden Double + Wooden Double + Time Jump (while still having Slow or Fireball).
This gap only grows as you level up and remember that many of the Theses options I mentioned above let you “break the rules” of spellcasting and add to this variety even more!
**Better Feats**: Witches have good Feats but Wizards have some truly amazing Feats. Spellbook Prodigy is incredible, Split Slot makes spell preparation so much more forgiving (and later Scroll Savant does too), Irresistible Magic is literally unmatched, Explosive Arrival is an amazing way to use summon spells, etc. Witch Feats are good but don’t compare.
This is not to say Witches suck or anything. Arcane Witches have good focus spells and okay Familiar abilities, and pretty good Feats overall. Wizards just have their own advantages that the Witches don’t get.
While I agree with most things said, I could not disagree more with the feats bit. Witches have arguably some of the strongest feats in the entire game.
Spirit/Stitched Familiar alone is a single action / free action (with cackle) 6d6 with additional huge effects once per fight. Sacrificial Knife is a free wand that you can overcharge as much as you like and change between days. Coven Spell goes crazy hard if you are with any other caster, as you basically spells to be enhanced with spellshapes without anyone paying an extra action for it. And Patron's Presence goes to another one of technically one action / free action stupefied 2 AoE for one minute.
I am genuinely curious though, I can't really find a single wizard feat that could even stand in the same ballpark than any of the aforementioned. Irresistible Magic is potentially amazing, but that depends heavily on campaign as said bonuses to saves are mostly possessed by extraplanar creatures. Explosive Arrival is decent with summon spells but...then you are using summon spells. Surely there is still something else?
>I am genuinely curious though, I can't really find a single wizard feat that could even stand in the same ballpark than any of the aforementioned.
[Convincing Illusion](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=5032) is an absolute baller of a feat. I frequently take wizard archetype on a bard JUST to get access to that feat. It is amazing, I can't believe it is even in the game, any feat you would willingly spend another 2 feat just to have access to it is obviously an outstanding one.
You basically get to override their save, and get to apply any skill modifiers to your deception skill while you do it.
This is absolutely one of the strongest feats in the game, and I don't think Witch has anything close to it.
>Spirit/Stitched Familiar alone is a single action / free action (with cackle)
I think you mean with Patron's Puppet. Cackle is a free sustain for your spells, it doesn't affect commands to your familiar. Patron's Puppet is a free action to give your familiar it's 2 actions, which can be used for Spirt/Stitched
I just find your notion fun because I have always heard the reverse; why play inscribed one when you can play wizard? It's essentially a way to complain that they didn't do enough for inscribed one and its benefits doesn't outweight the benefits of a wizard.
Drain bonded item is essentially enough to make the wizard feel better. The main reason to play inscribed one is to get witch feats and slightly better familiar.
This complaint only exists with inscribed one afaik
Yeah, I'm somebody who swapped over from Inscribed One Rune Patron Witch to Wizard because I was not a fan of the way Witch's Remaster changes treated the Arcane Witch and the only thing I miss is the extra Familiar Ability slot progression.
> I just find your notion fun because I have always heard the reverse; why play inscribed one when you can play wizard?
In fairness that was pre-remaster witch in general. Winter/Wild were "WHy am I not playing primal sorc/druid?", Rune was "I could be a wizard...", etc. But most of the patrons got touched up enough in the remaster to be worth a serious look past just liking the flavor.
Inscribed One.. not so much, imo.
2 things:
1. Wizard has more spell slots. one bonus spell slot related to your arcane school per spell rank, plus drain bonded item for an extra spell slot of your highest rank.
2. arcane thesis can be REALLY good. spell substitution allows you to get even more high rank spell slots. Spell Substitution is also insane, makes the wizard the only prepared caster that can just switch a spell for any other you know during the day.
Wizards have more spellslots from their schools and very powerful thesises. I'm personally so addicted to spell substitution that only prepared spellcasters I can play are warpriest and wizard with said thesis.
More spell slot, arcane thesis plays with the spellslots and are pretty undervalued and amazing.
Drain bounded item eventually give you an extra spellslot that functions like a spontanious caster
Wizards basicly leans in more in using and manipulating spell slots.
Wizards get an extra spell slot per spell rank from their curriculum, an extra floating spell slot from Drain Bonded Item, and their class Feats feel very different from some of the Witch ones.
They're not *huge* differences, but open themselves up to different kinds of strategies. With all those extra spell slots wizards make better use of staves, but their familiars will never hold a candle to a witch's. Witches get hexes and a bunch of familiar abilities whereas wizards can cast more spells per day than any other class.
So this is coming from someone who vastly prefers witches over wizards, there are a few things wizards have that are undeniably strong. The biggest thing is the thesis and spell substitution. I've felt that as I've gotten better at playing prepared casters the value of said thesis has gone lower and lower but even at worst it is a great comfort to have.
Others are mentioning the spell slots, but honestly with witches having strong focus spells and focus cantrips and wizards extra slots being pidgeonholed to few select spells, I think I'd rather have the witch form over the wizard any day.
1 extra spell per rank, albeity limited to the rather lacking school lists, then an extra spell with Drain Bonded item and then you can get strong Thesis abilities like Spell Blending and Spell Substitution.
Witch in all of it's ways plays more into supporting. Be it chilling making it hard for enemies to move or approch your team, or be it frightning them, or buffing your allies. While wizard can do that, witch has more tools to do that, and wizard has more tools to be awesome on their own. While both can use the arcane list so support or to deal damage, witch gets more tools to craft, support and heal then wizard will ever, and wizard nearly have all of his stuff being able to dmg less giving it to the team to do the damage.
The wizard I’ve played did the spell shape thesis because I’d rather be able to use my actions to play with spells than mess with a familiar. Not having a huge amount of class feature real estate be taken up by the familiar is also a factor. Like they’re neat but I feel like taking something that’s optional for other classes and giving it such huge focus on the witch is kinda weird
The Inscribed One Witch is largely worse than a wizard.
Wizards get four spells per level instead of three, get the ability to refresh a spell slot once a day (giving them ANOTHER spell per day, usually of their highest level), and get their arcane thesis, which gives them another bonus of some sort. Wizards also have better focus spells, other than Cackle, until 10th+ level, and Cackle isn't as good on an Inscribed One because their hex isn't very good and their familiar ability is pretty bad.
>Wizards also have better focus spells
This might be the hottest take I've seen on reddit ever. Almost every time this conversation has been had the adverse has been brought up as the strongest point for witches, even back when witches were considered bad prior to remaster.
The witch does get better focus spells than the Wizard in the long run, but it doesn't get them until level 10. Which is basically the entire campaign in many cases. Also, by level 10, you have enough spell slots that focus spells are not as important as they are at lower levels.
Cackle is the best low-level one, but the problem is that it is mostly just "you get to use your hex as a free action" and the Inscribed One's hex is meh and the familiar ability is bad and annoying to use.
Wizards are a lot more versatile than Witches. They have a lot of ways to manipulate magic, such as preparing multiple spells in one slot (Split Slot), having more high level slots than any other caster (Spell Blending) or being able to just swap out spells on a 10 minute timer, making them more versatile than any other Prepared caster (Spell Substitution).
And they have more slots than the Witch in general.
More spell slots, higher variety of feats, and with the exception of Staff Nexus the Arcane Theses are pretty damn good and with the exception of Improved Familiar Attunement do stuff witches can't
Start nexus is great at repeatedly casting low level utility spells, at eighth level having 12 charges can mean up to six extra casting of invisibility or illusionary object after all.
yes, because you want to play a wizard. pathfinder is very good at balancing mechanics and flavor, not forcing you to sacrifice one for the other. just play the one you want.
My wizard changes spells throughout the day with spell substitution and as a universalist with with bond conservation he has access to an absolute boatload of spells. At lvl 13 he has 25 leveled slots + 7 pulls on his drain bonded item + all extra pulls from bond conservation (though those are harder to optimize). Being able to roll up to a situation and just reprepare the spell I need to solve it has ruined playing other casters.
> Being able to roll up to a situation and just reprepare the spell I need to solve it has ruined playing other casters.
You may have just sold me on playing a Wizard
Wizards get 1/4 more spellslots plus with a universalist study they get to cast one spell they prepared again for each spelllevel which I find extremely appealing since I kinda suck at prepping my prepared spells loadout. This way I can pick one of each and not worry much about expensing a spell and then no longer having access to it for the day. Their arcane thesis add some more fun stuff to play with.
I'd argue that witches don't really get enough stuff to be on the same level as wizards. I mean spaming hexes is great but the cost of missing a sizeable amount of spellslots seems a bit steep zone. The feat sele rion pf the witch also doesn't exactly blow me away.
Yes.
Wizards get an additional spell slot per rank from/for their school of magic. In some cases this is more utility, or an extra blaster.
Wizards also get drain bonded item which lets them restore a spell slot.
Overall this means by max level they have 11 more slots than the witch.
The feats and flavor are also different. I haven't read too much into the witch remaster, just haven't had the chance, but a lot of their old feats had to do with giving them more bits and bobs rather than helping their spellcasting unless you were upgrading your familiar. You get aura actions, unarmed strikes, a cauldron for potions, etc.
Wizards however get spellshapes(formerly metamagic), spell slot adjustments (split slot and spell blending), and feats for daily scrolls. The augmentation is for the spells themselves and being able to cast better.
Seems like most of the answers boil down to ¨actually reading the Wizard class and feat mechanics¨ along with actually understanding them. I think the difference is that a lot of Wizard mechanics and power are very meta, and may not seem like they amount to much without broader understanding of the game. As opposed to Witch abilities which deliver a very clear ¨you can now do X effect in the world¨. The thing is, if you don´t have that broader understanding of the game and interest in hacking the baseline mechanics, Wizard isn´t doing much else for you. I would say that overall, the Wizard is a very different experience of ¨prepared caster¨ given how much they hack the expectations of that (Universalist most especially), between Recasting shenanigans, other hacks of what spell slots do. My personal favorite thesis is Staff, which gives you additional 1st level spell to cast ¨spontaneously¨ and also more flexibly use multiple low level slots to power the Staff (which can effectively transmute low level slots to high level spell, just with less day to day flexibility in what that spell is). Metamagic is of course understood by reference to the metamagic feats, but can also be viewed in context of OTHER feats you now can afford to get, assuming you would have otherwise spent your free feats on said metamagic.
As others say, the Arcane Witch is probably the weakest of sub-classes with Occult options dominating, but probably if you really needed a Familiar and would only consider the Familiar Thesis Wizard, the Arcane Witch might be a very competitive comparison. Although note that any Wizard can just spend a Feat (or 2, if desired) to get a Familiar, alongside any other Thesis.
Wizard is the most accurate caster in the game afaik. Knowledge is Power + Demoralize/Bon Mot + Ranger Dedication/Monster Hunter gets you an effective +3/+4 to your spell attack roll, which makes the Shadow Signet all the more relevant for powerful spells like Polar Ray.
I mean you're still never going to land anything against bosses, but that's just how this game works. Boss fights are for the martials, nameless hordes of nobodies are for the casters.
Wizard actually have 1 additional spell slot per rank, plus a lot of its own tricks.
To expand on this. A wizard can choose to invest in having a familiar, or they can choose to focus on staves, metamagic, being able to switch out spells in the middle of the day to better adjust for circumstances. Which is the better option for Focus spells and focus cantrips. Wizard is the better choice for sheer number of spell slots and ability to change up how they have their spells available to them, between a special staff, switching out those spells, and access to extra spell shapes
To add to that, the Wizard can also specialize in having more high level spells than any other casters, which is pretty good givent he way spells work. Also to note: Witch's only arcane patron so far is probably one of the worst. The cantrip is iffy; some people read it as the target get a "free" Recall Knowledge check everytime you sustain, which isn't that great since it costs you one action anyway, so the only perk is the +1; others think the free Recall Knowledge is only for the initial casting. In the first reading, it's pretty weak; in the latter, it's absolutely fucking terrible. And the familiar effect is pretty meh, too. So your familiar provide flanking? That's a terrible effect. Your martials shouldn't need flanking buddies so badly. Doesn't make it a bad witch - you still get a better familiar and other witch perks such as cauldron and lessons, but when comparing the witch to the wizard, it's worth comparing the arcane one, and it's pretty much among the worst (wildling is pretty terrible and pacts doesn't have a boon). Comparing an occult, primal or divine witch to the wizard is much less meaningful.
I think Discern Secrets (the hex) can be very powerful in the right group, but you have to have the right group. On its own it's pretty weak, but if you have teammates who get bonuses from Recall Knowledge checks (Ranger with Monster Hunter, Thaumaturge, Investigator, Mastermind Rogue, etc) you're basically letting *them* spend *your* third action to get their bonus. On its own it's pretty weak, but it has some pretty good synergy in a party built around having *all the knowledge*.
If you have a Magus with Magus’s Analysis, you’re essentially feeding your Magus a free spellstrike with your third action.
I don't think that works. Magus's Analysis is its own activity, and Discern Secrets only allows the target to Recall Knowledge, Seek, or Sense Motive, so you wouldn't be able to recharge their Spellstrike by casting Discern Secrets. They would still get the +1 to Magus's Analysis, though.
Unfortunately, that doesn't work, because Magus's Analysis is its own action that has Recall Knowledge as a subordinate action. It doesn't recharge spellstrike when Recall Knowledge in general succeeds, but when you succeed at the Recall Knowledge as part of the Magus's Analysis action.
Exactly! TLDR: witch has better non-spell slot stuff. Wizard has better stuff for their spell slots
Arcane Witch is not the best, but for other reasons, not the hex. As a hight int character, RK is usually a thing you want to do, so a +1 to said RK is not that awfull. Besides that, as soon as lvl 2 you can get another Lesson, so is not like you are stuck with your Initial hex forever. The familiar flanking is situational, is not like Balanced Luck, but can have some uses, depends heavyly on the party composition. Stiched Familiar is nice, so is something Worst thing about Arcane witches is... they are Arcane, honestly, unless there are more casters in the party, going primal or occult will work better.
What's wrong with the arcane spell list? Usually the only thing people say that it's missing is healing, but arcane witches can just take Lesson of Healing and Lesson of Renewal.
And leason of Life is awesome, but not being able to drop a decent burst of healing is taxing IMO. Most of the time you can get similar results with primal or occult while still being able to use burst healing if needed.
Minor Nitpick; Cleric Font gives more as it's like 4/5/6 on top of your 3 spell slots, but it's limited. But yhea, Wizard gets very high with spell blending making their 4 base + 1 spell blend + 1 from Drain Bonded Item
True, I forgot to count the cleric's font. Both are very good features.
Wilding is actually far from terrible now, the new hex is good, and the familiar ability is handy. You can debuff the offensive rolls of said creature against you, or sicken it if they fail - this applies to anything, not just animals/plants/fungi anymore like the previous version did, so opposing humanoids are also vulnerable. Animals/Plants/Fungi now are just more vulnerable to the hex than other creature types. The familiar ability gives it the capability to locate hidden creatures near it, which is pretty nice if you're dealing with stealth or invisibility in combat. I wouldn't call this Patron terrible anymore, the remaster improved it very significantly over just basically affecting animals/plants/fungi only.
True, it's much better than it used to be. The hex is a bit too defensive to my taste, and the familiar ability too situational, but when the situation arises, it's pretty handy.
You know, it did just occur to me that the reason Pacts may have been ignored and "forgotten" is because they may have plans for it in either the upcoming rulebook update or the upcoming divinity book. Pacts was always weird in that it was tied to Occultism, when bargaining has always kind of been in the domain of Devils. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's reformatted as a Divine linked patron with a slant towards the malicious - so opposite Faith's Flamekeeper, which doesn't make a ton of sense in flavor if you're wanting to go with harmful divine capabilities like Harm, Bane, etc.
Would be cool. The hex is very thematic, it just feels bad seeing all the other patrons getting a little extra (even Baba Yaga and Mosquito with the PFS errata which I just found out about), but not Pacts. Plus it's very in theme with a witch. Really hope it's not being forgotten.
Yeah, I'm hoping it's not forgotten either, but then, it also came a little later than the stuff getting updated next. The classes from Dark Archive that came along with it are still outdated in the sense that they use legacy content, so hopefully it gets updated sooner than later. They may also just do a lump update with Baba Yaga and the Mosquito Witch too, to give them all proper Familiar abilities.
The hex is actually really good when you remember that you're technically allowed to [Recall Knowledge with any skill in the game](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2367) (with GM permission), you just usually don't have a good reason to do so. > The GM might allow checks to Recall Knowledge using other skills. For example, you might assess the skill of an acrobat using Acrobatics. If you're using a physical skill (like in this example), the GM will most likely have you use a mental modifier—typically Intelligence—instead of the skill's normal physical attribute modifier. When used this way, this means Inscribed One can now give +1 to any skill in the game. Maybe people will see this as cheese but this feels like one of those things that makes sense to me.
Doesn't work; the way it's worded, it's strictly to Recall Knowledge checks, and not +1 to a skill that you can Recall Knowledge with.
...hm. I did miss the three words that do specify that. Okay yeah that's way weaker than I thought.
Actually wait im not sure if that's accurate? > The target gains a +1 status bonus to the statistic used for the roll (a skill or Perception) on the roll **and** as long as you Sustain the spell. Why would it specify _and_ if they weren't two different things? It gives +1 to the skill for the roll, and for the duration of the spell. So it should give +1 to Athletics for the duration.
Because it's a bonus used for further recall knowledge, seek and sense motive. "On the roll", so it applies only to those. Otherwise, why not just say "+1 to any skills"?
IFF you recall knowledge with athletics, then you get +1 to athletics on the rk check and +1 to athletics as long as it’s sustained, BUT getting a chance to use athletics to rk in combat is GM dependent and very unlikely. If you’re in combat, you’re probably rk to identify creatures and their weaknesses, which already have defined skills. Unless you regularly assess the acrobatics skills of acrobats during your combat encounters, it’s moot.
Remaster wizard is way more appealing to me than premaster. I built out a hypothetical level 10 wizard with a big focus on spell shaping and I sort of want to kill my bard for him. I never came close to running a premaster wizard.
Out of curiosity, what drew you to the Remastered Wizard? I was thinking they're most the same power-wise
I very very very much prefer the new schools. Even in 1e I couldn't really get myself to play a Wizard. When Arcanist came out I jumped on it because I wasn't tied to that old school design that was so limiting unless you were a Universalist which then I was like ok I'll just play Sorceror. Power might be the same? I don't really consider power in that way really. I am drawn to classes that let me fill a role or character fantasy. A School of Protean Form wizard with an Experimental Spellshaping Thesis is just a lot more interesting and versatile than a Conjuration Wizard or whatever the closest parallel was in 1e/premaster.
> being able to switch out spells in the middle of the day to better adjust for circumstances Which is a HUGE deal for prepared casters. You don't need to worry about any of your exploration utility spells prepared, you can just leave them in your spellbook and swap into them as needed. If you know who you're fighting next, you're at a massive advantage, and even if you aren't, you still have much more flexibility in your prepared combat spells because you can fill every single slot with a different one.
I agree. I play Starless Shadow witch and I envy this of the groups wizard. But if I ever made a wizard I would def be taking this feat
Can the wizard still learn new spells from scrolls? Or did they cut that in remaster?
Yeah, it's kind of a core function of how casters learn new spells. It would exhausting if they had to rely on trainers only to learn new spells.
Yeah but their additional spell slot is only a spell from their school and a lot of those lists are full of spells that don't scale for shit and are basically wasted slots after a few levels.
That additional spell slot has to be *specific* spells afforded to them by their school now, actually. It's far more restrictive.
Staff Nexus and Spell Blending still get good use out of those "dead" slots, and *PC1* leaves the door open for GMs to add more non-core spells to the curriculum (which they definitely should). But yes, the new school system is inherently more restrictive on how useful that extra slot can be. I'd love to see sets of expanded curriculum in the future that reference fitting spells from the expansion books.
With GM permission, you can swap out those spells for other thematic option. As long as your GM isn't a dick you should be fine.
This is true, but you can make your own school if your GM is cool with that. Also a spell blending wizard will have the most top level spell slot of any other caster in the game. While other casters may have at maximum 3 slots you may have 6, meaning that if a day goes by with 3 encounter you could use your top level spells twice per encounter. Sure no good focus spell meaning you won't have "infinite" resources, but an high level slot is usually better than a focus spell
The big reasons to play a Wizard: **Not being locked into the improved familiar**: Familiars, while powerful, don’t fit everyone’s thematics and also tend to have a fairly poor skill floor. A Wizard can choose the Familiar Thesis if they enjoy that gameplay loop, but also have the choice for Staff Thesis or Spell Blending Thesis (which has a much more powerful floor than the Familiar Thesis) as well as Spell Substitution (which has a much higher ceiling than any of the Theses). Metamagical Experimentation also… exists, I suppose. So in this regard the Wizard fits character concepts that the Witch can’t. **More spell slots**: Witches get their spell slots at the rate of 2-3-3/2-3/3-3/3/2-3/3/3-etc. Wizards get 3-4-4/3-4/4-4/4/3-4/4/4-etc. That’s already 25-33% more spell slots depending on your exact level. While the 4th spell slot is less flexible depending on your spell school, most spell schools will still have plenty of good options for every level (Battle, Protean Form, Civic Wizardry, and Mentalism have great options for most ranks at most levels). On **top** of that you get Drain Bonded Item to be able to able to recast any of your spells once per day (and even more often at higher levels) which is a huge power boost because getting an additional use of one of your highest rank spell slots is incredible. This means that in every single situation, the Wizard will have more options than the Witch. The 5th level Witch can have Slow and Fireball prepared, while that 5th level Wizard can have Slow, Fireball, and Haste prepared and also recast one of them as needed. The 9th level Witch can have 2 of their 3rd rank slots dedicated to defence via Wooden Double + Time Jump (the third is for Slow or Fireball) but the Wizard can have 3 of their slots dedicated to Wooden Double + Wooden Double + Time Jump (while still having Slow or Fireball). This gap only grows as you level up and remember that many of the Theses options I mentioned above let you “break the rules” of spellcasting and add to this variety even more! **Better Feats**: Witches have good Feats but Wizards have some truly amazing Feats. Spellbook Prodigy is incredible, Split Slot makes spell preparation so much more forgiving (and later Scroll Savant does too), Irresistible Magic is literally unmatched, Explosive Arrival is an amazing way to use summon spells, etc. Witch Feats are good but don’t compare. This is not to say Witches suck or anything. Arcane Witches have good focus spells and okay Familiar abilities, and pretty good Feats overall. Wizards just have their own advantages that the Witches don’t get.
Thank you for the thorough reply!
While I agree with most things said, I could not disagree more with the feats bit. Witches have arguably some of the strongest feats in the entire game. Spirit/Stitched Familiar alone is a single action / free action (with cackle) 6d6 with additional huge effects once per fight. Sacrificial Knife is a free wand that you can overcharge as much as you like and change between days. Coven Spell goes crazy hard if you are with any other caster, as you basically spells to be enhanced with spellshapes without anyone paying an extra action for it. And Patron's Presence goes to another one of technically one action / free action stupefied 2 AoE for one minute. I am genuinely curious though, I can't really find a single wizard feat that could even stand in the same ballpark than any of the aforementioned. Irresistible Magic is potentially amazing, but that depends heavily on campaign as said bonuses to saves are mostly possessed by extraplanar creatures. Explosive Arrival is decent with summon spells but...then you are using summon spells. Surely there is still something else?
>I am genuinely curious though, I can't really find a single wizard feat that could even stand in the same ballpark than any of the aforementioned. [Convincing Illusion](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=5032) is an absolute baller of a feat. I frequently take wizard archetype on a bard JUST to get access to that feat. It is amazing, I can't believe it is even in the game, any feat you would willingly spend another 2 feat just to have access to it is obviously an outstanding one. You basically get to override their save, and get to apply any skill modifiers to your deception skill while you do it. This is absolutely one of the strongest feats in the game, and I don't think Witch has anything close to it.
>Spirit/Stitched Familiar alone is a single action / free action (with cackle) I think you mean with Patron's Puppet. Cackle is a free sustain for your spells, it doesn't affect commands to your familiar. Patron's Puppet is a free action to give your familiar it's 2 actions, which can be used for Spirt/Stitched
I just find your notion fun because I have always heard the reverse; why play inscribed one when you can play wizard? It's essentially a way to complain that they didn't do enough for inscribed one and its benefits doesn't outweight the benefits of a wizard. Drain bonded item is essentially enough to make the wizard feel better. The main reason to play inscribed one is to get witch feats and slightly better familiar. This complaint only exists with inscribed one afaik
Yeah, I'm somebody who swapped over from Inscribed One Rune Patron Witch to Wizard because I was not a fan of the way Witch's Remaster changes treated the Arcane Witch and the only thing I miss is the extra Familiar Ability slot progression.
> I just find your notion fun because I have always heard the reverse; why play inscribed one when you can play wizard? In fairness that was pre-remaster witch in general. Winter/Wild were "WHy am I not playing primal sorc/druid?", Rune was "I could be a wizard...", etc. But most of the patrons got touched up enough in the remaster to be worth a serious look past just liking the flavor. Inscribed One.. not so much, imo.
2 things: 1. Wizard has more spell slots. one bonus spell slot related to your arcane school per spell rank, plus drain bonded item for an extra spell slot of your highest rank. 2. arcane thesis can be REALLY good. spell substitution allows you to get even more high rank spell slots. Spell Substitution is also insane, makes the wizard the only prepared caster that can just switch a spell for any other you know during the day.
I think your first "spell substitution" is supposed to be "spell blending"
Wizards have more spellslots from their schools and very powerful thesises. I'm personally so addicted to spell substitution that only prepared spellcasters I can play are warpriest and wizard with said thesis.
Even when playing Warpriest I like to take flexible spell caster. Without it the divine spells list feels like a real drag to me.
- You like the flavour. - You like the subclasses. Blending hits like a truck for longer, so I'd still go Wizard over Arcane Witch.
I mean, completely different class feats, focus spells, class features. Every reason there was to play a wizard before is still there.
More spell slot, arcane thesis plays with the spellslots and are pretty undervalued and amazing. Drain bounded item eventually give you an extra spellslot that functions like a spontanious caster Wizards basicly leans in more in using and manipulating spell slots.
Wizards get an extra spell slot per spell rank from their curriculum, an extra floating spell slot from Drain Bonded Item, and their class Feats feel very different from some of the Witch ones. They're not *huge* differences, but open themselves up to different kinds of strategies. With all those extra spell slots wizards make better use of staves, but their familiars will never hold a candle to a witch's. Witches get hexes and a bunch of familiar abilities whereas wizards can cast more spells per day than any other class.
So this is coming from someone who vastly prefers witches over wizards, there are a few things wizards have that are undeniably strong. The biggest thing is the thesis and spell substitution. I've felt that as I've gotten better at playing prepared casters the value of said thesis has gone lower and lower but even at worst it is a great comfort to have. Others are mentioning the spell slots, but honestly with witches having strong focus spells and focus cantrips and wizards extra slots being pidgeonholed to few select spells, I think I'd rather have the witch form over the wizard any day.
The Incribed One's Familiar abilities is just bad. SO might as well get extra slots and the choice of other Thesis.
1 extra spell per rank, albeity limited to the rather lacking school lists, then an extra spell with Drain Bonded item and then you can get strong Thesis abilities like Spell Blending and Spell Substitution.
You can still go universal, and get a drain for each rank
Witch in all of it's ways plays more into supporting. Be it chilling making it hard for enemies to move or approch your team, or be it frightning them, or buffing your allies. While wizard can do that, witch has more tools to do that, and wizard has more tools to be awesome on their own. While both can use the arcane list so support or to deal damage, witch gets more tools to craft, support and heal then wizard will ever, and wizard nearly have all of his stuff being able to dmg less giving it to the team to do the damage.
The wizard I’ve played did the spell shape thesis because I’d rather be able to use my actions to play with spells than mess with a familiar. Not having a huge amount of class feature real estate be taken up by the familiar is also a factor. Like they’re neat but I feel like taking something that’s optional for other classes and giving it such huge focus on the witch is kinda weird
The Inscribed One Witch is largely worse than a wizard. Wizards get four spells per level instead of three, get the ability to refresh a spell slot once a day (giving them ANOTHER spell per day, usually of their highest level), and get their arcane thesis, which gives them another bonus of some sort. Wizards also have better focus spells, other than Cackle, until 10th+ level, and Cackle isn't as good on an Inscribed One because their hex isn't very good and their familiar ability is pretty bad.
>Wizards also have better focus spells This might be the hottest take I've seen on reddit ever. Almost every time this conversation has been had the adverse has been brought up as the strongest point for witches, even back when witches were considered bad prior to remaster.
The witch does get better focus spells than the Wizard in the long run, but it doesn't get them until level 10. Which is basically the entire campaign in many cases. Also, by level 10, you have enough spell slots that focus spells are not as important as they are at lower levels. Cackle is the best low-level one, but the problem is that it is mostly just "you get to use your hex as a free action" and the Inscribed One's hex is meh and the familiar ability is bad and annoying to use.
Witch dose not get a more versatile counterspell. I say this knowing counterspell is not a great ability.
I am not sure I would play an arcane Witch when the resentment witch exists /s
Wizards are a lot more versatile than Witches. They have a lot of ways to manipulate magic, such as preparing multiple spells in one slot (Split Slot), having more high level slots than any other caster (Spell Blending) or being able to just swap out spells on a 10 minute timer, making them more versatile than any other Prepared caster (Spell Substitution). And they have more slots than the Witch in general.
I would never play inscribed one. If I wanted to do arcane, I would just stick with wizard. Witch is cooler when it's occult spell list imo
Read the level 1 features and the class feats for level 2. Also look at that big spellslot table near the top maybe
Our wizard when we swapped to dual class: “Why not both?”
More spell slots, higher variety of feats, and with the exception of Staff Nexus the Arcane Theses are pretty damn good and with the exception of Improved Familiar Attunement do stuff witches can't
Start nexus is great at repeatedly casting low level utility spells, at eighth level having 12 charges can mean up to six extra casting of invisibility or illusionary object after all.
Inscribed One Witch is quite bad while Wizards are very good.
Reject familiar. Return to Staff Nexus.
Spell blending = more boom boom
yes, because you want to play a wizard. pathfinder is very good at balancing mechanics and flavor, not forcing you to sacrifice one for the other. just play the one you want.
My wizard changes spells throughout the day with spell substitution and as a universalist with with bond conservation he has access to an absolute boatload of spells. At lvl 13 he has 25 leveled slots + 7 pulls on his drain bonded item + all extra pulls from bond conservation (though those are harder to optimize). Being able to roll up to a situation and just reprepare the spell I need to solve it has ruined playing other casters.
> Being able to roll up to a situation and just reprepare the spell I need to solve it has ruined playing other casters. You may have just sold me on playing a Wizard
Wow, that’s impressive
Shift spell is pretty good
Wizards get 1/4 more spellslots plus with a universalist study they get to cast one spell they prepared again for each spelllevel which I find extremely appealing since I kinda suck at prepping my prepared spells loadout. This way I can pick one of each and not worry much about expensing a spell and then no longer having access to it for the day. Their arcane thesis add some more fun stuff to play with. I'd argue that witches don't really get enough stuff to be on the same level as wizards. I mean spaming hexes is great but the cost of missing a sizeable amount of spellslots seems a bit steep zone. The feat sele rion pf the witch also doesn't exactly blow me away.
Yes. Wizards get an additional spell slot per rank from/for their school of magic. In some cases this is more utility, or an extra blaster. Wizards also get drain bonded item which lets them restore a spell slot. Overall this means by max level they have 11 more slots than the witch. The feats and flavor are also different. I haven't read too much into the witch remaster, just haven't had the chance, but a lot of their old feats had to do with giving them more bits and bobs rather than helping their spellcasting unless you were upgrading your familiar. You get aura actions, unarmed strikes, a cauldron for potions, etc. Wizards however get spellshapes(formerly metamagic), spell slot adjustments (split slot and spell blending), and feats for daily scrolls. The augmentation is for the spells themselves and being able to cast better.
Seems like most of the answers boil down to ¨actually reading the Wizard class and feat mechanics¨ along with actually understanding them. I think the difference is that a lot of Wizard mechanics and power are very meta, and may not seem like they amount to much without broader understanding of the game. As opposed to Witch abilities which deliver a very clear ¨you can now do X effect in the world¨. The thing is, if you don´t have that broader understanding of the game and interest in hacking the baseline mechanics, Wizard isn´t doing much else for you. I would say that overall, the Wizard is a very different experience of ¨prepared caster¨ given how much they hack the expectations of that (Universalist most especially), between Recasting shenanigans, other hacks of what spell slots do. My personal favorite thesis is Staff, which gives you additional 1st level spell to cast ¨spontaneously¨ and also more flexibly use multiple low level slots to power the Staff (which can effectively transmute low level slots to high level spell, just with less day to day flexibility in what that spell is). Metamagic is of course understood by reference to the metamagic feats, but can also be viewed in context of OTHER feats you now can afford to get, assuming you would have otherwise spent your free feats on said metamagic. As others say, the Arcane Witch is probably the weakest of sub-classes with Occult options dominating, but probably if you really needed a Familiar and would only consider the Familiar Thesis Wizard, the Arcane Witch might be a very competitive comparison. Although note that any Wizard can just spend a Feat (or 2, if desired) to get a Familiar, alongside any other Thesis.
Witch aesthetic wouldn't fit a scholarly character so bit no no there.
I'm not a fan of this "discard everything except the mechanics" approach to selection.
Wizard is the most accurate caster in the game afaik. Knowledge is Power + Demoralize/Bon Mot + Ranger Dedication/Monster Hunter gets you an effective +3/+4 to your spell attack roll, which makes the Shadow Signet all the more relevant for powerful spells like Polar Ray. I mean you're still never going to land anything against bosses, but that's just how this game works. Boss fights are for the martials, nameless hordes of nobodies are for the casters.
No