Is magic underwhelming or I'm playing it wrong?

[Rex Lupus]

So, I just started the game as a wizard and I have played a few hours, but the magic in the game seems to be extremely underwhelming. I'm at level 2 with just 4 slots, so only 4 spells per rest and I'm in a place with several encounters by now, meaning I can't use spells all the time. My melee characters have done the most damage and my mage just uses a crossbow since it's stronger than the cantrips (what it sound strange as I would thought they would be the same strength). With not event ammunition to take into account, I don't see what is even the point of the damage cantrips over the crossbow. Can some more experience player shed me some light?

[Decius Brutus]

RACHMANOVSKI の投稿を引用：

Okay, I've beeb trial and error for... 40 hours now i guess, but my advice is to stack attack magic (usually evocation) per level, at level 2, you usually allowed to stack 3 (or 5?) magic memory on the slot, as for me, I stack 3 (or 5?) Magic missile, so I got 3 (or 5?) Magic missile casts per rest. What I don't understand is how many projectile that one party member could spawn. I try to do it to Tristain and Octavia but only Octavia able to spawn 3-5 projectiles, whole Tristain only one, so I respec Tristain back into pure cleric and it's going well so far for both Octavia and Tristain. I'm on troll lair quest now, so far I'm steamrolling every encounter (except when I got swarmed by trolls).

The number of magic missiles increases with caster level, the more levels of Wizard and Arcane Trickster that you have the more missiles will appear, up to a limit. Magic Missile is never a main damage spell, though. It's a spell that's useful to finish off an opponent who is already almost dead without using an action of a primary attacker.

If you want a magic user that does a lot of damage, you actually want a kinetecist. Manage your burn carefully, it's a useful tool to be able to output a lot of damage very quickly.

[Dallar]

How do I actually start hitting stuff with low level wizard? I can understand why target resist the spell, but why does all my cantrips are just...missing? I spend all my stat points at INT and CON, does wizard require any other stats to be useful? It feels really underwhelming to chug few control spells and then just spend the rest of the fight watching your "master of the arcane" missing point blank shots at the stunned target.

[Swordman_Red]

Dallar の投稿を引用：

How do I actually start hitting stuff with low level wizard? I can understand why target resist the spell, but why does all my cantrips are just...missing? I spend all my stat points at INT and CON, does wizard require any other stats to be useful? It feels really underwhelming to chug few control spells and then just spend the rest of the fight watching your "master of the arcane" missing point blank shots at the stunned target.

most of the damaging cantrips are ranged touch attacks, meaning it requires a dex based roll to hit.
all ranged attacks made on the targets locked in melee with someone else suffer -4 penalty to hit roll, unless the attacker has Precise shot feat.
therefore caster without somewhat decent dex and precise shot is not going to hit much

[Mork]

Dallar の投稿を引用：

but why does all my cantrips are just...missing?

Most likely because you don't have the feat Precise Shot.

Precise Shot (Combat)
You are adept at firing ranged attacks into melee.

Prerequisite: Point-Blank Shot.

Benefit: You can shoot or throw ranged weapons at an opponent engaged in melee without taking the standard –4 penalty on your attack roll.

Note: Two characters are engaged in melee if they are enemies of each other and either threatens the other.

.....................................................................

Range touch spells that need to roll to hit like most cantrip are affected by this -4 penalty.

Note that not all wizard / sorcerer builds want to waste 2 feats for this. For example, its not important for a DC caster that want to control the battle field with crown control spells while precise shot is important for Arcane trickster who specialize in range touch spells.

[Ilja]

If you didn't place any points to DEX now, then there are spells starting from 2nd level to increase it temporarily.

Unless you are playing very front line wizard, I would have rather placed those points to WIS instead of CON. Wizards will remain fragile with high CON and rely spells, positioning and others for protection. They do have higher will save though and WIS would only increase their ability to survive against charms. That way they can also better protect other characters from magical attack - when they are less likely to run around confused or afraid.

My own wizards start with either 10 or 12 points in CON, depending on what sort of wizard they are.

[Dallar]

Ah, so I screw up stats, feats AND the positioning. No wonder the wizard felt like a useless potato in combat. Thank you for the explanations!

[InEffect]

tbh stats are pretty meaningless for casters, except for the casting stat. RTA's are easy to land with buffs regardless of the stats, saves are largely a meme as it's easy to be immune to most everything in the game instead, they need spell progression, so it's hard to justify dipping anywhere for the stats, and they don't carry a lot of gear.
I usually roll with 16 con and 19 casting stat on a dedicated caster, unless I am doing something weird as that allows them to take a stray shot and still live on unfair.

[NamelessOne]

I haven't put a single point in Con or Wis on a wizard in my 30 years of playing DND/PF. You need int and dex. Period. The rest is just quality of life and RP. And honestly, the dex is just QoL too.

For that matter I had a player at my TT game who has a 6 con wizard and he lived from level 1 to end of campaign at 17. Between buffs and positioning he was almost never threatened.

[Bloodartist]

Rex Lupus の投稿を引用：

So, I just started the game as a wizard and I have played a few hours, but the magic in the game seems to be extremely underwhelming. I'm at level 2 with just 4 slots, so only 4 spells per rest and I'm in a place with several encounters by now, meaning I can't use spells all the time. My melee characters have done the most damage and my mage just uses a crossbow since it's stronger than the cantrips (what it sound strange as I would thought they would be the same strength). With not event ammunition to take into account, I don't see what is even the point of the damage cantrips over the crossbow. Can some more experience player shed me some light?

This is common to all roleplaying games almost. Magic-users are weak in the beginning and super-powerful in the end. So if you feel weak in the beginning, its basically by design.
(playing full wizard here myself)

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards

[InEffect]

Except arcane casters being weak early is not true in PF. They are not in the slightest. And they never were in DnD either(except for maybe 4e, I've no experience in it, so can't tell).

[mike_hanna211]

InEffect の投稿を引用：

Except arcane casters being weak early is not true in PF. They are not in the slightest. And they never were in DnD either(except for maybe 4e, I've no experience in it, so can't tell).

I'd disagree and say low level mages were extremely weak in 1st and 2nd editions of AD&D (even 3/3.5 to an extent). 1d4 hp/lvl, and no bonus spells (unless you took a specialization, in 2nd edition), meant a stray arrow could kill you pretty easily. If you somehow managed to max DEX during character creation, you'd still only have AC 6, which is still horrible. Intelligent monsters would most definitely target spell casters with ranged attacks if/when possible. The trade-off of being weak at the beginning is mages become ultra-powerful at higher levels. To the point of being untouchable against any except another mage.

[InEffect]

Mages in 2e still have sleep and illusions. The former is an instant death to anything it worked on, the latter depends on DM, but without some DM ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ it's also broken. And in 3.5/PF there's so much misery in mages arsenal it's not even funny. Grease, illusions, sleep, slow, haste, flight, glitterdust, clouds, and a ton more. In case of PnP you can also run divination and make your DM age prematurely, which is why it's almost always banned, although that's more of a cleric thing.

[NamelessOne]

In 2ed add the armor spell with high dex could get your AC down to 2-3 range iirc. A 1 hd monster needed a 19 to hit AC0, So would need an 17 to hit a full dex protected wizard. The 2nd level spell list gave protection from arrows, which made the wizard immune to non magical projectiles. 2e bows did not impart their bonus to ammunition for the purpose of resistances.

Even if the wizard had no dex bonus and no armor spell would only be about 50 percent of the time by the 1 hd monster. Level 1 spells had faster casting time than the weapon speed of a bow. Sleep could take out up to 4d4 orcs with one cast. Usually before they got to act.

[Jalmari H.]

Acid splash is great spell especially with arcane trickster. But anyhow early game it's better to focus on long lasting buffs in general. Even then casters are better at buffing party than doing damage because game has REST LIMITED areas so you want to avoid resting. Make a lot of characters with animal companions and buff them = easy mode win. Later in game casters can make a lot of damage but like I said, REST LIMITS.

[InEffect]

Make a lot of pets. Spend a lot of time and slots buffing them. Watch them being oneshot by the first mob on unfair to roll a nat 20 cause they have no mirror.
Also, there are pretty much no meaningful rest limits. 8h here and there don't matter in the slightest so long as one doesn't rest after the every other encounter or something like that.