ADDITIONS/ERRATA: -Spell Protection Array, the feat with the seemingly-unnecessary Sustain ability allows for abilities that let you do a free Sustain -28:28 The Phantasmal Minion spell itself gives the wizard the choice to make it invisible. (So a utility buff! Alas.)

You honestly needed to be hired by Paizo to go through all of their stuff and find the wrinkles. What an amazing job you've done in such a short amount of time. The community appreciates it!

One of the problems with the new curricula is the narrower choices for the wizard's curriculum slot. Previously, there were so many options that any school could probably find something... However, with the very narrow choices available, there is far more burden put on the designers and their balance choices/ability. Previously almost any school could be made viable, but with the very small list of choices, there is a greater risk of an objectively optimal curricula choice (or set of choices) overshadowing all others. As anyone who has played with a large enough player base can tell you, this is a recipe for one power gamer/optimizer to totally skew/imbalance an entire campaign with the inevitable shenanigans. While a GM would be free to alter things for balance, this puts more of a burden on them, which is something we've criticized D&D 5e for. Additionally, this option is simply not available for organized play, which is far more objectively standardized around the official core rules. While spellcasters are certainly improved, we should also not be surprised when all the wizards we see in the future only come from one or two curricula.

I think the best way to describe my feelings on new Wizard is to say that the best Wizard feat is Psychic Dedication. I get what they were going for. Wizard had the most versatile list and the ability to get an obscene amount of spells with the ability to answer almost anything other than healing. The general casting proficiency change is massive for it, since both Psychic and Witch are easy dips, giving either spammable excellent focus spells or slots of any tradition. Plus, some spells got tweaked to be more efficient. However, with all that being said, the same applies to all casters. The school nerfs and less schools feel unnecessary without a secondary school feat and other classes got some really nice things (especially Cleric). Wizard Thesis is still incredibly good, but it feels like it’s the only major thing they have anymore. Even their school slots and Drain Bonded don’t feel that great when Cleric is running around with 4+ font and when Druid and Bard have incredible focus options.

True Strike should be a school spell for Battle Wizards.

I know there was a need to get this out more quickly but i feel like if Paizo was going to limit wizards flexibility by removing the schools, there was a need to create a larger list of curriculum. Not just 8, to match the 8 schools, but maybe 10 or 12. I know that would requier designing more focus spells, but if they provided a few more curriculum, it would be much easier to find one that has a set of spells that you are looking for and less pressure on perfectly balancing them.

Paizo throwing away good focus spells for wizards after the changes to focus points brings me pain. Literally kneecapping my boy.

The major weakening of spellcasters came with the move to p2e, in the way of 5e but not to the same extent, the move from the quadratic growth in power casters experienced, and the number of spells that they could have active at one time being greatly shackled, Primary example, a summoning focused wizard can have 1 summon active at a time, because the spell takes 3 actions and to keep it up for its full and very limited 1 minute duration you have to sustain it as one of your actions every round. It is actually something I saw in this video as well, the summoning spells seem to be treated as the unwanted step child by the team in charge of p2e.

With Spell Protection Arry I think the sustain option is for the free sustain wizards get later on - but the duration per "casting" of SPA can only be 1 minute so after that duration the wizard has to explicitly use the action again and then can sustain it with the free action sustain again for a minute - at least that's how I understand it

Overall i like the feat reworks (explosive summoning sounds very fun), but the remster feels like a side grade for the wizard specifically when all other classes feel directly improved or buffed. Universal spell casting and component removals are some of the biggest advantages but those were system changes not wizard changes. Edit: the crafting changes also buff the spell nexus wizard due to no formuals needed for common staves and overall buffing the utility of the craft skill. I would have liked to see the arcane thesis gain some love, more stock magic schools and some flexibility in their spell selection written out in the rules. I hope this is a stage for some of the other class concepts and builds paizo said they've wanted to do like a necromancer.

That "moment of silence" music rocks

I might be in the minority, but I liked attack roll spells for my wizard. Getting a character Stupified or Drained is not as common as flat-footed in the game and sometimes gave you that better chance to crit. I liked the versatility of having those spells available.

How I'd "fix" Wizards ... Allow countered spells via spells "known" not prepared. This is different to spells inscribed (inscribed means you have mentally prepared the spell by scribing it in your book...) and I'd halve the cost of inscribing a spell. ("writing the spell in the book") Your "inscribed" spells are your list of spells that you can prepare. not known. Known means you have seen the spell in action and you know its effects, so it can be countered.

28:28 - The Phantasmal Minion statblock doesn't say it's invisible, but the spell explicitly lets the caster choose to make it invisible.

I like the Wizard. And after playing one currently, I think is super strong (Im playing a Thematic, spaming style with low versatility) but they did the wizards dirty in the Remaster. Like, Zero love. Just fixing some things that where a no issue. Meanwhile, the Rogue gets buffed to hell, and gets MF juggernaut

I'm interested if the sorcerer will get any changes in core 2, id be fine with just some more interesting feats and elemental sorcerer actually doing more than one element damage.

Excellent summary. I like your colour coded chart of the focus spell changes. I guess all Wizards can become Blessed Ones or Lore Masters for that extra focus point!

I am rather curious how the shifting of spells from attacks to saves will affect the Magus. The big benefit to spellstrike was getting to use your martial proficiency and weapon runes to replace your spell attack and use your weapon result as the spell attack result. But spells that have a save still require a save (when used with Expansive Spellstrike). It seems like a magus nerf, unless they address it in PC2

I actually realy like the changes to Curriculums. An Accounting Major, Computer Science Major, and a Graphic Design Major would take very different classea and have different skill sets. I also feel it encourages thinking about your backstory and knowing your characters' general vibe. Though maybe they could have added the equivalent of an Associates in Arts where you have a lot of different options from different schools, but none of the strongest stuff since you didn't specialize.

Light is now a side grade. The majority of it is a buff but the fact you can't imbue a pebble with light and drop it down a bottomless pit is now a nerf. Though it does make everlight better so that's a olus

A lot of the changes to spells (Replacing attack rolls with save effects) actually hurts the Magus more than anything else. It somewhat forces the Magus to take 'Expansive Spellstrike' in order to have damage variety. Example being the Ray of Frost change to Frostbite. Ignition is great and all, but if straight damage was my sole concern I'd take the psychic dedication to get access to the 'Imaginary Weapon' cantrip.

Scene: Julia Ceasar bleeds from multiple stab wounds on the senate floor. "Ah it hurts but... it's premature to conclude they want me dead" *Brute enters the scene*

new schools had to either give spells from other tradition or have better focus spells P.s third one- working as spontaneous

Most of the buffs were for martials. The cantrip dmg change is a martial buff. The buffs to casters are for their martial versions. The focus spell buff more buffs the martials with focus spells.

It actually made me laugh. Every tradition didn't get its own variant of wish. . It got a variant that countered Wish. Poor Arcane Casters are in a situation where they can make anything they desire happen, but three other traditions can just simply say 'No', and it doesn't happen. I think it's a shame that every 10th level 'Wish' variant lost its flavor, but separating Wish from Arcane and putting every tradition on an even field for it is still a good change nonetheless.

I love that you brought up a programming meme about the 8 schools with no explanation for using that specific meme in general lmao

I can see what they're trying and a lot of the changes I appreciate however I'm really not a fan of so much being down to the DM despite being a DM myself. It puts the wizard in an odd situation that an experienced player will effectively bargain with the DM whereas a new player will be left in a very odd position.

Wizards are extremely powerful because of their ridiculous number of spell slots. The problem is that the best wizard is the Spell Blending wizard, who gets an extra +1 spell slot on their top two levels of spells, which gives them a ridiculous amount of firepower over other classes - at level 7, a witch has two level 4 spells, whereas a wizard has, effectively, five if they have spell blending. This doesn't "show up" as an ability, so people don't register it as a thing, but it is a huge source of power for them - being able to drop big spells every significant encounter is a big deal, as is being able to unload big spell after big spell in hard encounters. This is what makes wizards one of the strongest classes in the game.

I feel Wizard is in a bad spot because they feel like worse Sorcerer. Spontaneous honestly feels so much better to use, and scrolls are so cheap the a Sorc can just buy the Wizard's flexibility for pennies on the dollar. Combine that with having so much worse focus spells than Sorc and I can't really find a time I would want to play Wizard. With Witch gaining so many good abilities that don't cost a spellslot, if I wanted an Int caster I'll just play witch. Honestly I feel Wizard REEEEAAAAALLY wants some half decent focus spells instead of ones that aren't even worth the actions they cost. Like, imagine spending 2 actions and a Focus point on Scramble Body to do Evil Eye (a 1 action hex cantrip). You gave up casting any other spells on your turn AND a Focus point for a SLIM chance at a slow.

I absolutely disagree with the author and this 8 school crusade. The 8 schools were a lot more thematic. Giving arcane magic a scientific flavor. And as we already spotted. You DIDNT need to remove them to implement the magic schools. As each magic school just basically has a focus upon 2 of the 8 schools. Removing them was completely pointless. Except in removing flavor from the game.

I am going to love crafting new wizard schools for my new settings. Adds alot of character and doesnt seem too hard to balance.

Pour one out for acidstar the acid magus. First lost the ability to spell strike himself and everyone arouns him with acid splash. Now can't use acid arrow either.

18:14 It took me this long since the announcement of the magic school removal to realize something... The Magus' Arcane Cascade has some features tied to the different schools of magic; the previous spell used before going into the stance changes the damage type of the Magus' Spell Strikes. There's also a feat that grants "spell-like" affects to the Magus after casting a spell from a particular school. Has there been any word on how those features are going to be affected?

The scaling problem already existed before the revision. Your low level spell slots can only be used for non-scaling spells at high level and that feels super meta and bad to me. I think spells should automatically scale. Maybe not automatically all the way to their best version based on your level, but they need to scale somehow

My problem with the new curriculums is the same as the school's. I was hoping to have options that shows specialization of the set of spells you decided to pick up. Feats that only those with said school could access. As is it still feels like you need to take an architype to truly show you are dedicated to a specific kind of spell.

I absolutely LOVE that conjugation uses the logo for the Python programming language.

Counterpoint: In 1e, spell schools means you can define how your wizard plays to a large degree. If you want to be an illusion wizard, you can make yourself very good at illusions to the point that only enemies that have particularly good will saves or resistances to such magic are safe. 2e wants characters to be exceptionally average at everything though. the only reason spell schools can be disregarded is because they designed 2e so that a wizard of a spell school isnt actually any better at them for the most part which frankly is kind lame and removes interesting character options.

For spell protection array. It's because the feat itself and sustain actions have different tags, name manipulate vs concentrate so sustaining it vs using the feat again can have some important differences even if the action cost is the same.

the change from Attack to TS is wellcome for caster but the Magus need a remaster too... or you must take Expansive Spellstrike to actually use your "spellstrike"

So Ronald, if you were to add a home brew feature like “Study Abroad”, what would it look like? What level feat, how would it read, etc…?

I feel like Wizard could have benefited from being the Fighter of Spellcasters, make their spellcasting proficiency progress faster than the other casters.

I do like the Idea of the new magical schools. I do believe ill keep the old ones in, perhaps not as schools, but maybe calling them "magical lores" or something similar. As it's true they're not always a practical curriculum but they were great descriptors for types of magic and i still see use for such a descriptors in game. Even if they're not tied to class abilities.

I wanna play a protean school wizard soooo bad. EVOLVE AND ADAPT! Also, I'm so happy to see that wizards now have access to the summoner ostentatious arrival feat

The summoning spellshape HAD to be a free action, otherwise it couldn't exist, all summoning spells are 3 action casts.

Spiral of Horrors (Previously Dread Aura) was nerfed as the previous language did not allow the frightened condition to be reduced whatsoever, now it can't be reduced past 1. Before with the aura, a lucky casting of fear could have all the enemies be stuck at frightened 2-3 as long as they were within the aura

I would love if the school spells could brush against other traditions. Like a homebrew School of Arcane Conquest (or Tyranny - the name is in the air 🤔) having spells like: Charm, Dominate, Phantasmal Killer (or the renamed one), Weird, Horrid Wilting, Suggestion, Subconscious Suggestion, Soul Bind, Wail of the Banshee). I'd really like to have Soul Bind and Wail of the Banshee as a Wizard (they could cast those in PF1e... why not in 2e).

I'm honestly fine with the changes but I'm really sad that they didn't give feats you can choose specifically for each Curriculum. For me that would make me want to take a specific one more if it helps the specific spells I'm wanting to use for that. Like for Mentalism a feat that lets you use INT instead of Char for Deception checks to make your Illusions harder to disbelieve. Or battle magic feat where splash damage won't hit your allies too, something like that for each one. Since there aren't any feats like that I don't see much point going into an Arcane School and instead go to Unified Magical Theory.

i actually like the 8 (+ universal) arcane schools. this is a part that DnD doesn't own. the schools are not perfect but they are not broken, they should 100% have added Elemental Schools

I want to say as someone who was shouting about spellcaster nerfs, while they made some spells better, the absolute GUTTING of the divine list and the removal of several spells for no apparent reason, not to mention the cantrip changes, have not changed my mind at all. Whatever they're trying to turn this into I'm sure Gary Gygax would have been delighted with. But he would have also hated all the rules as well. Also removing "spell schools" and replacing them with literal spell schools is really stupid. Just really bad. They've managed to make wizards even less interesting to the people who actually wanted to play as them. I'm in a server with 56 different PCs who are all playing in different campaigns. There is one wizard. Nobody wants to play this class. The only class with less rep is the gunslinger, an infamously clunky class to play.

My theory is that Paizo is making wizard weak, to further distance themselves from Wizards of the Coast. :^)

It seems like a lot of spells are changing from spell attacks to saving throws. This makes me wonder what they are going to do with the magus, since they are essentially loosing a lot of their best spell options (Shocking grasp and polar ray for example). I wonder if they are thinking of reworking expanded spellstrike. I can see something like having the spell affect the target as if the target had failed if you hit, or as if it had critically failed if you critically hit. I'm not sure how that would be balance-wise, but I like the idea.

moving to saving throws from attack rolls is a straight nerfm for two reasons: It means you have to have memorised multiple spells to target different saves, meaning you might not have a spell that will work against that target, rather than a few that functioned as old reliable, and you cannot crit.

I think they should give a list of focus spells for new cirricula.

Thank you for these excellent videos.

spell protection array. i think having is sustainable is to allow them to be threatened and not have to do a manipulate action

So, wait, the custom curriculum that was shown in the preview is now no longer a thing? I liked the idea of having every wizard choose a small list of spells that fit with the theme they were going for, like “the goblin school of blowing things up”, made up only of flashy fire spells. You can’t tell me that in the school of war magic they only teach like 20 spells and everyone learns the same ones. The previous schools were, if anything, universal, as they could fit anywhere and any wizard could find their niche. These new six schools are fine, but they feel limited, like they feel as examples for the custom school system they wanted to implement… and then they just… didn’t. It feels weird for the class that should rightfully be the most customizable.

I'm still very against the removal of the magic schools. I think Paizo just took the easy way out and didn't even bother renaming them.

Dread Aura/Spiral of Horrors seems to have been nerfed, no? It used to prevent reducing frightened altogether, but now it only prevents reducing frightened below frightened 1. So that’s exactly like the Bard’s Dirge of Doom but worse, right? Costs 2-actions initially AND costs a focus point.

It will be interesting to see how PFS handles some of the issues, such as curriculum spells that become useless.

Re: a homebrew feat for cross-currucula Focus Spells, why not call it Extracurricular Studies? ;)

Want to play a archetype with a focus spell based around improving your summons but still end up the worst summoner in the game, well do I have a spell school for you.

Thank you, Ronald!

Seems like they focused their innovations on the Witch meanwhile the Wizard feels like it was made with recycled materials.

I've been planning to put Civic Wizards in the lore of my homebrew world and thinking about all the things that would affect, this makes it so much easier!

Spiral of Horrors was a bit of a let-down, but I think it might see some use in a future game. I must admit, I was also hoping Bespell Weapon (now Strikes) would get a buff though. I really hope that we'll be getting immobilizing spells to actually make the detonation array work.

One thing I find kind of sad is that this "new" class direction is very antagonistic with non-school background wizards. The street urchin that pick pocketed a spellbook or someone who grew up far away from magic schools who is very self taught/only really studied under one mentor.

Magic mouth being able to make the smell of a food or prefuim as a clue is amazing.

Re:weak cantrips or wasted slots : they had Sigil as the only Transmutation cantrip for years. It meant any Transmutation Wizard was down one cantrip (played one in PFS to lvl7 and did not find a single use for it despite constant attempts - one of the repeat DMs found this funny). Lets be real; if Paizo could, they would drop the Wizard as a class. They do not care.

Even spellbook prodigy was nerfed

The best thing about the new schools is simple....we can have MORE!! Now that schools are not bound to schools of magic types we are now bound around a theme of magic. School of mindless destruction. With an innate desire to destroy or seek entropy this school seeks to find the beauty of things coming to and end be it life, or objects. New focus spells around this concept, different spells and such. It is better in the long run. Wizard got a hard buff, but at the cost of LESS outright specialization like before. The biggest problem right now is the Runelord archetype no longer works with current wizard and thus will need an update at some point.

There should be a "wizard-school dropout" school of magic (which could also include those who are self taught) to replace the universalist.

I kinda hoped that we would get a unique spellshape feat for each of the schools to increase the flavor of the schools, rather than just being a list of thematic spells. I really like the flavor of the different schools and kinda hoped for paizo to lean into the themeing more.

I just don't get the point of remove schools (or types) of magic, they could've done all these changes to Wizards without the removal of the different types of magic, like Evocation spells can exist with the School of Battle Magic, there is literally no conflict between these 2. I 100% think that the removal of schools of magic from the game is a terrible decision and it lowers the flavor value of the game overall. Detect Magic has a really cool use case of finding the school of magic being detected which granted a HUGE hint towards what the magical property is. There are also flavorful things about describing a caster who cast a spell that isn't identified, as a GM it helped me a ton to have spell schools as I would use the school of magic to help me describe how the spell was being cast. I can't think of a single positive of remove the type of magic associated with spells.

I noticed something in the new version of Light that’s interesting. When you create the light orb in a creature’s space it must be willing to attach the light orb to it. In the next sentence it states that attaching/detaching the orb can be preformed when sustain is used to move the orb but the word willing is missing. So I presume the sustain action would allow you to attach a light orb to a hostile creature. Can anyone more familiar with the rules tell me if I’m missing anything here?

I think the que spellprotection array has the you can sustain is because there is some feat or ability that allow you to sustain it as a free actions

I`m very confused didn't the school slot spell still needed to be part of you spellbook? When talking about wizard in the remaster people talk like the school slot was open to any speel of the school in the list, not spell of the school in your spellbook????

I migrated from a martial 3.5, to loving casters in 5e and now I'm loving the new PF2.1e but I'm going back to martials. Having to guess what spells I'm going to need is going to drive me to fit all the pieces _"that's right, into the square hole"_ . Why bother with 5d chess of predicting the future when you can just select murder to solve everything.

I'm curious to see how the Runelords fit in now, given how they were tied in with the schools of magic.

Well RIP Wizard. Barely any buffs and now GM fiat is necessary to make it work. No idea how this was designed by the same people.

Yay, my dual crit-spec Magus build is still viable. I just hope there's a path to gain an Arcane Thesis through the Archetype, not that the build really needs it.

MAJOR nerf to continual flame/everlight, actually! It now ONLY affects the gemstone you touch. No more charming enemies to allow them to forever make them glow with heightened continual flames. Was playing in a Strahd-like campaign once, and let me tell you, tricking the vampire lord into letting me put that spell on them made him A LOT less scary... so this nerf makes me feel like I was personally targeted by the devs.

Although I do agree the Wizard was not overly nerfed but saying that they get access to all simple weapons is not a buff. In the end, I think it will be meaningless as a wizard will not really use weapons. I do wish they had added something to play up the idea that Wizards go to school and are highly intelligent (or just well read) and given them an optional feat that truly buffs recall knowledge.

I wish they'd just go to spell points. We used Elements of Magic in 3.5 and it was great. A few issues of course, but way more fun than vancian, at least for us. Plus things like downtime can lend to getting points back.

With how easy focus points are to get now I'm wondering if I shouldn't just homebrew it to "if you have access to any focus spells you have 3 focus points". Mostly would help low-levels anyway.

Sustain doesn't have the manipulate trait, Spell Protection Array does.

If there is a trend of changing attack roll spells to saving throws, I hope they change Spellstrike and Spell Shot (the Eldritch Archer equivalent). Otherwise, I'm losing the chance to cast Acid Arrow as an Eldritch Shot and I would be very sad.

The more I see of Pathfinder 2e, the more intrigued I am. Unfortunately, I don't know anyone else who plays it

Aside from my dislike towards the changes to cantrips, I also strongly dislike the removal of the traditional arcane schools of magic and the move towards "Hogwarts" style in world arcane schools. I preferred when in world magic schools were an opt-in option for settings and now that they're actual mechanics for the wizard class, it'll become an opt-out decision. I don't like wizards being flavored as fantasy college students and that being pushed in as default.

Learning that diviner's sight is gone is a serious bummer. It wasn't amazing but I love the flavor and teamwork that it opens up

I'm sorry, but the remastered wizard is worse in almost every way imo. Its sad too sinse all the other classes got great changes. Also, they would have been better off just renaming the categorization of spells rather than doing this "schools of magic" solution. It's flavorful, but it makes no sense considering it gets rid of a system of cataloging magic. It's like the library doing away with the index.

Finally, my dwarf wizard is, by raw, proficient with his clan dagger and hammer.

14:50 Wait, that's not a real tear!

Magic Mouth/Embed Message became disability accessible :D

(Probably others have said this buuuut) It should be the "Minor Field of Study" or somesuch. I like the idea that the wizard "schools" are now like "I went to Hogwarts" but they're realllllly more like "I have a Bachelor's degree in engineering" (and then "with a minor in mind reading")

before watching: oh dang with no schools of magic, how will the ancient Thassilon/rune magic stuff change???

Yeah they didn't need to remove the old system. All they had to do was change the names of some.

The thing with changing the magic schools with the arcana schools is that lore wise doesn´t have any sense. The former were a school of thought, a way to try to categorize spells, but the new arcane schools are actually places when wizards study. That´s dumb, is like people instead of talking about mathematics, need to talk about the especiality from the University of Numbers and Wonders of California. Wizards NEED to categorize their spells, the game need it from a lore and mechanical perspective, in fact, in the tags from the spells appear the old schools, which is even dumber, remove it or not, but not this in between.

They're removing ability scores in favour of just using the ability bonus, so why don't they remove movement counting by 5s? Instead of 25 or 20, just say they have move of 5 or 4. By having movement that doesn't necessarily translate to a real-world unit, they can treat it as more abstract. Paizo already does this with money; you can try to compare PF coins to real-world currency, but it won't work consistently because inflation and price changes affects some goods or commodities more than others.

Are damage cantrips weaker because they no longer add spell ability mod to damage? (Electric arc is a flat 2d4)

I know that these changes in arcane spells are supposed to benefit casters but damn will I miss some of the previous spells when playing eldritch archer (unless it gets rewritten in some extra errata that your attack gets compared to that creature's dc for applying effects then it would get more creative with applying eldritch shots for utility instead of just extra damage)