# Pathfinder 2 Character Sheet #6: Ezren, Human Wizard



## Kaodi (Jul 18, 2018)

Looks pretty good. I will be interested to see how Shield works out as a cantrip.


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## jmucchiello (Jul 18, 2018)

Kaodi said:


> Looks pretty good. I will be interested to see how Shield works out as a cantrip.




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


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## Azgulor (Jul 18, 2018)

I see PF2's active shield cantrip as being more along the lines of the mystic shield's Dr. Strange employs rather than the "deflector shield" version of prior editions.  The new version is much cooler and more thematic, IMO.  A scaling mechanic, feat, or some other new design space may improve upon the 10 min recast time.


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## Xalorend (Jul 18, 2018)

jmucchiello said:


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



Well, you also have to consider that medium HP is much higher (at least at lvl 1) from PF 1E. While two magic missiles could easily knock out a Wizard/Sorcerer, not it takes a bit more, so you don't need to be paranoid about that for the first lvl.


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## jmucchiello (Jul 18, 2018)

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


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## shadowva (Jul 18, 2018)

Would like to know how cantrips are going to scale with character level, disappointing that Acid Splash only does 1d4 acid damage.
Also doe not show the number of spell slots he has available, but I assume 2, with the two first level spells filling them, since it has a little text about casting each only once.
I'm hoping that have a better character sheet in the playtest for players to use.


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## steeldragons (Jul 18, 2018)

Kaodi said:


> Looks pretty good. I will be interested to see how Shield works out as a cantrip.




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

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


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## Charles Pickering (Jul 18, 2018)

Due to his focus power he can cast 3 first level spells per day. So he can either cast burning hands twice or magic missiles twice. As for the shield cantrip you have to remember that crit hits happen if you beat the number you need to hit by 10 OR a natural 20. So every +1 to your AC has a much bigger impact than it does in PF1. Then it has the option of if you are low on HP and are about to get smashed burn the shield to blunt the attack. You can do this basically once every fight which is pretty sweet.


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## JMCampbell82 (Jul 18, 2018)

jmucchiello said:


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




"You have prepared the following spells. Each can be cast once."


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## TwoSix (Jul 18, 2018)

steeldragons said:


> This was my first thought. Might work out...but, realistically/in play, how often are you taking 4 or less HP of physical damage?
> 
> Seems like a "Shield Block" is going to be a limited DR/absorbed hp, but will "shatter" every time.



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


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## Blue (Jul 18, 2018)

jmucchiello said:


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




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

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


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## Blue (Jul 18, 2018)

jmucchiello said:


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




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

I'm not fond of that positioning myself.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 18, 2018)

shadowva said:


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




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


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## jmucchiello (Jul 18, 2018)

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


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## Tony Vargas (Jul 18, 2018)

jmucchiello said:


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



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



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



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


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## nightspaladin (Jul 18, 2018)

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


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## Andy Taylor (Jul 18, 2018)

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


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## TwoSix (Jul 18, 2018)

jmucchiello said:


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



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


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## houser2112 (Jul 18, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> jmucchiello said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Yes, but it doesn't completely negate _magic missile_ like it used to (at least it doesn't say that it does, so we have to assume it doesn't). It interacts with _magic missile_ as a normal Shield Block reaction does, which only negates damage up to the Hardness of the shield used (which is 4 for Ezren).


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## TwoSix (Jul 18, 2018)

houser2112 said:


> Yes, but it doesn't completely negate _magic missile_ like it used to (at least it doesn't say that it does, so we have to assume it doesn't). It interacts with _magic missile_ as a normal Shield Block reaction does, which only negates damage up to the Hardness of the shield used (which is 4 for Ezren).



Yes, I agree it is different than previous versions.


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## mellored (Jul 18, 2018)

jmucchiello said:


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



Because it's a cantrip, not a level 1 spell.

And you can still block a magic missile, with a 50% chance of breaking your shield (and a 25% chance of you taking 1 damage).


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## mellored (Jul 18, 2018)

shadowva said:


> Would like to know how cantrips are going to scale with character level






nightspaladin said:


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



Yes, they scale.

"In the playtest, cantrips are spells you can cast at will, but they are no longer level 0. Instead, they automatically heighten to the highest spell level you can currently cast. That means if you're 5th level, your ray of frost is 3rd level and deals more damage, and your light cantrip is better at counteracting magical darkness."


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## mach1.9pants (Jul 18, 2018)

Yeah there is a lot missing from those sheets, like magic missile heightened for more missiles, so that is a level one only sheet. Don't read too much into what those spells and powers do at higher level.


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## mellored (Jul 18, 2018)

Blue said:


> Right above Burning Hands in the detail breakout:  "You have prepared the following spells.  Each can be cast once."
> 
> I'm not fond of that positioning myself.



It's old school preparation for the wizard.  You want to cast magic missile twice, you need to prepare it twice.  You can also prepare cantrips.
Sorcerer's get the 5e style flexible casting.

And you only get 2 spell slots at level 1.  (+1 from your arcane focus)


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## Hurin88 (Jul 18, 2018)

Seems like hits for level 1 characters don't really vary that much. The Wizard has 16, the Human Paladin 19, and the Cleric and Fighter 20.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 18, 2018)

Andy Taylor said:


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



Arcane Focus says right there in the description, “*Frequency* once per day.” Courtly Graces and General Training both have asterisks after them, and at the bottom of the first page, it notes “*abilities marked with an asterisk are already reflected in other statistics.” Presumably, those Feats give him some level of Proficiency in something. Keep in mind, this is not the actual character sheet, it’s just the stat sheet used for the handful of preview sessions they’ve done. It only contains the bare minimum information necessary to play this specific prepare character. The actual character sheet has much more specific detail.



houser2112 said:


> It interacts with _magic missile_ as a normal Shield Block reaction does, which only negates damage up to the Hardness of the shield used (which is 4 for Ezren).



A normal shield block reaction doesn’t interact with magic missile at all.



mellored said:


> Sorcerer's get the 5e style flexible casting.



More or less, but unlike in 5e they can’t freely heighten spells. If a sorcerer wants to cast magic missile at 2nd level, they need to learn it at second level. They can choose 2 spells per day that they can actually freely Heighten, 5e style that day.



Hurin88 said:


> Seems like hits for level 1 characters don't really vary that much. The Wizard has 16, the Human Paladin 19, and the Cleric and Fighter 20.



That gap will widen at higher levels. They’re looking very close right now because Ancestry also adds HP at 1st level, but it doesn’t at higher levels. So right now we’be got:
Human (8) + Wizard (6) + Con (+2) = 16
Human (8) + Paladin (10) + Con (+1) = 19
Human (8) + Cleric (10) + Con (+2) = 20
Human (8) + Fighter (10) + Con (+2) = 20
Elf (6) + Rogue (8) + Con (+2) = 16
Goblin (8) + Alchemist (6) + Con (+1) = 15

So apart from the elf, everyone is getting +8 HP at first level, skewing the totals closer together. At later levels, the class HP will have a bigger impact and make a bigger difference.


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## mewzard (Jul 19, 2018)

Hurin88 said:


> Seems like hits for level 1 characters don't really vary that much. The Wizard has 16, the Human Paladin 19, and the Cleric and Fighter 20.




Well, it can vary quite a bit.

For instance, an Elf Wizard with an 8 Con (which is possible due to their racial -2 to Con) can have 11 HP, the lowest I can think of right now. 6 HP from Elf for the first level, 6 from Wizard, -1 from 8 Con.

Now, let's try something different, with a Human Barbarian, and let's give them 16 Con, which is totally doable, regardless of what stat your class gives. Now, Human gives them 8 HP at first level, then Barbarian gives 12 HP, and 16 Con would give a +3 to HP, giving us 23 HP, not even counting taking the Toughness feat at first level, or your Barbarian Rage temp HP.

That's a decent range. If Orc is indeed an ancestry, and if it gives more HP at first level, like, say, 10? That would raise it even higher.


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## Sunseeker (Jul 19, 2018)

Hurin88 said:


> Seems like hits for level 1 characters don't really vary that much. The Wizard has 16, the Human Paladin 19, and the Cleric and Fighter 20.




But if you subtract the bonus 10 HP from that number, you have much the same range that you've always had.

6HP for the Wizard, 9 for the Paladin, 10 for the Cleric and 10 for the Fighter.
In PF1 this would boil down to
1d6+0Con Wizard.
1d10-1Con Paladin
1d8+2 Cleric
1d10+0 Fighter

These aren't unreasonable stat combinations to see at any given table in a 3.X-style system.


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## jmucchiello (Jul 19, 2018)

mellored said:


> Because it's a cantrip, not a level 1 spell.



I pointed that out. What was your point?



> And you can still block a magic missile, with a 50% chance of breaking your shield (and a 25% chance of you taking 1 damage).



No equivalence what so ever.

Want to address my actual point: "why didn't they just give the cantrip a different name to avoid confusion?"


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## mewzard (Jul 19, 2018)

jmucchiello said:


> I pointed that out. What was your point?
> 
> No equivalence what so ever.
> 
> Want to address my actual point: "why didn't they just give the cantrip a different name to avoid confusion?"




...Because it literally functions like an in-game shield? Hence the name Shield?

I'm wondering how Shield scales, given Cantrips are cast as if at your highest spell level.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 19, 2018)

mewzard said:


> Well, it can vary quite a bit.
> 
> For instance, an Elf Wizard with an 8 Con (which is possible due to their racial -2 to Con) can have 11 HP, the lowest I can think of right now. 6 HP from Elf for the first level, 6 from Wizard, -1 from 8 Con.
> 
> ...



Dwarf gives 10 HP at 1st, which they've said is the highest in the core.


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## TwoSix (Jul 19, 2018)

jmucchiello said:


> Want to address my actual point: "why didn't they just give the cantrip a different name to avoid confusion?"



I would imagine because every time there's an edition revamp, the designers have to decide whether to update any existing game element with an eye towards consistency or towards novelty.  Sometimes you want to update something familiar just to reinforce you're doing something new and different this time.

Obviously, people will disagree on where that line will be drawn, but they have to make those decisions for hundreds or thousands of game elements, which is why crowdsourcing some of those decisions via a playtest is a good idea.  If enough people feel the way you do, they just might change it!


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## mewzard (Jul 19, 2018)

Charlaquin said:


> Dwarf gives 10 HP at 1st, which they've said is the highest in the core.




Ah, right, thanks!

So yeah, a Dwarf Barbarian with 16 Con would have 25 HP (10+12+3). Even more with Toughness and Barbarian Rage. A lot more than the Elf Wizard with 8 Con stuck with 11 HP.


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## mellored (Jul 19, 2018)

mewzard said:


> I'm wondering how Shield scales, given Cantrips are cast as if at your highest spell level.



I'm guessing an 1 point increase in hardness each spell level.
So it blocks 12 damage at highest level.


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## houser2112 (Jul 19, 2018)

Charlaquin said:


> houser2112 said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I know, I was merely pointing out that the _shield_ cantrip grants you the Shield Block reaction as if you were holding an actual shield (and tells you what its hardness for the purposes of that reaction is), which includes the possibility of "trample" damage, and no matter how much damage _magic missile_ does, the _shield_ is gone. This is a significant departure from the way _shield_ has interacted with _magic missile_ in the past (No "trample" damage from _magic missile_ will get through a _shield_, and no amount of beating on a _shield_ with _magic missile_ will bring it down). In other words, I feel jmucchiello's pain.


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## Kaodi (Jul 19, 2018)

Did they already say back at the beginning how ability score generation would work? These characters have been made with 16 14 12 12 10 10 . Under the Starfinder system that would just be 12 pt buy, under the PF1 system 19 pt buy (which could indicate 20 pts in the actual rules).


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## Tony Vargas (Jul 19, 2018)

jmucchiello said:


> Want to address my actual point: "why didn't they just give the cantrip a different name to avoid confusion?"



 Probably because continuity is so important in a D&D clone.  You need to retain all the classic spells, even if in name only.  If there were /also/ a Shield spell, of course, the cantrip would need a different name...

...what do you suggest?  Buckler?    Parma Magicka?


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## Hurin88 (Jul 19, 2018)

Sunseeker said:


> But if you subtract the bonus 10 HP from that number, you have much the same range that you've always had.
> 
> 6HP for the Wizard, 9 for the Paladin, 10 for the Cleric and 10 for the Fighter.




I don't play Pathfinder, but I had assumed that, since it was based on 3.5, that Wizards only got 1d4, not 6. But I guess I was wrong about that.

Overall, though, I see your point: there is still quite a bit of variation.


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## mellored (Jul 19, 2018)

Kaodi said:


> Did they already say back at the beginning how ability score generation would work? These characters have been made with 16 14 12 12 10 10 . Under the Starfinder system that would just be 12 pt buy, under the PF1 system 19 pt buy (which could indicate 20 pts in the actual rules).



They mentioned races having rather flexible scores.
Like +1 to Dex or Int, and +1 to any other.

Other than that, I haven't seen anything.


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## Baron Tarvis Fjord (Jul 19, 2018)

I believe we were promised a pdf?


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## jmucchiello (Jul 19, 2018)

mellored said:


> I'm guessing an 1 point increase in hardness each spell level.
> So it blocks 12 damage at highest level.




A 9th level spell that block up to 12 damage every round. Once it blocks 12 damage it no longer works for 10 minutes. That's a 9th level effect? There exists a 17th level wizard who is getting hit by attacks that do less than 12 damage EVER? Doesn't sound useful to me.


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## nineballl2 (Jul 20, 2018)

A PDF with all the pregens was mentioned.. ? Did I miss it?


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## Dalamar (Jul 20, 2018)

jmucchiello said:


> A 9th level spell that block up to 12 damage every round. Once it blocks 12 damage it no longer works for 10 minutes. That's a 9th level effect? There exists a 17th level wizard who is getting hit by attacks that do less than 12 damage EVER? Doesn't sound useful to me.



A 9th level _cantrip_ that blocks 12 damage. And the scaling is just a guess, it could be more, it could be less. It is likely that the recharge duration decreases with the automatic heightening as well.


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## FitzTheRuke (Jul 20, 2018)

Have we been given access to PDFs for all these character sheets so we can print 'em?


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## Baron Tarvis Fjord (Jul 20, 2018)

Pee Dee Eff! Pee Dee Eff!


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