Pathfinder: WotR - Spellcasting Guide

[Music] what's going on everybody mortem here this time bringing you a guide to spell casting in the pathfinder wrath of the righteous for my regular listeners my voice sounds a little off because i lost my voice recently as i was a bit under the weather but nonetheless we are going over this guide so this guide will give you all of the basics to spell casting in general and basically how a lot of it works behind the scenes on a mechanical level so with no further ado let's jump into this now there are primarily two types of spell casting however occasionally you do get a third which is basically untyped but the two primaries are arcane or divine now there are some role play implications to both of those things but what they mean on a mechanical level is that arcane casters have to learn their spells and that divine casters will get every spell available to them once they reach the appropriate level to get those spells this means that arcane casters can actually learn how to cast spells from scribing scrolls from their inventory into their spell book which is something not available to divine casters now i did also mention there is an untyped school of magic this is very specific to a couple classes for instance alchemist they technically get what are called spell extracts meaning that they can cast spells however alchemists do that on a role play basis basically where they turn their spells into potions that they can then either imbibe or later share with their party which is technically classified as spell casting but again fairly specific to the alchemist then we have prepared versus spontaneous spell casting prepared is pretty straightforward it actually just means that you have to prepare your spells prior to using them meaning that it is a spell slot system basically for every level of spells that you can cast you'll have to prepare the spells that you can cast for that day out of every spell that you know so you'll assign a spell to a spell slot and then once this is done you actually have to rest for them to become available and then there is spontaneous spell casting spontaneous spellcasters get a certain number of times they can cast that level of spells per day so rather than preparing their spells into spell slots they can simply cast every spell that they know of that level but only a certain number of times per day per level of spell next up we have our casting ability so this is basically the modifier that affects your particular classes spell casting now the primary thing that your casting ability is going to do for you is give you the ability to cast your spells frankly but ultimately it's two things in order to cast spells at a certain level your class's appropriate class ability has to be one above 10 for every level you want to cast so what that means is if i want to cast a level 4 spell and i'm using say wisdom as my casting stat then i have to have 14 wisdom in order to be able to cast a level four spells for that class now the other thing that a high casting ability will do for you is just straight up give you more casts per day meaning that it will give you more spell slots or casts per day for a spontaneous caster just across the board so there is of course the minimum required to cast a spell at all but then having above that limit will actually give you extra spell slots now i occasionally answer this question when it comes to the mythic paths and wrath of the righteous so i do want to mention it here it is possible for some classes to merge their spell book with the spell book of the mythic path that they choose in game if you are playing one of those classes and you merge spell books with your mythic path then the spell book will still operate off of your class's casting stat if you do not do that then your mythic spell book will operate off your mythic rank instead of your casting ability now next up we have spell resistance some spells are subject to a target's spell resistance spell resistance is in a way like armor class but for spells now each individual spell will tell you whether or not it is affected by the enemy's spell resistance it will just tell you that as part of the tool tip of the spell so that might be something you want to check per spell depending on what you're doing now overcoming a monster spell resistance comes down to basically rolling a d20 and then adding your caster level now we'll get into exactly what the caster level is here in just a minute however this can be further modified by certain feats like spell penetration spell penetration effectively for the specific role of overcoming spell resistance adds levels to your caster level to make that check harder to overcome so if you have spell penetration it's still technically a d20 plus your caster level however your caster level is getting boosted for the specific instance of overcoming spell resistance which is why spell penetration is such a popular feat damage spells are pretty much always affected by spell resistance unless they're an aoe that is to say an area of effect spell as well as any spell that would cause the creature to transform or otherwise impede it in some way most of that is always affected by spell resistance but again refer to an individual spell and it will tell you exactly whether or not that spell is in fact affected by spell resistance now next up we are talking saving throws versus attack rolls believe it or not some of your spells will actually use attack rolls to determine whether or not they actually hit something now this is primarily any spell that gives you projectiles that then hit an enemy that is primarily what is affected by attack rolls now specifically it is a ranged touch attack roll meaning that it hits your target's touch ac as a ranged attack now that is important for a couple reasons because it is technically a ranged attack it benefits from dexterity this is why you often see casting classes be recommended dexterity as an ability score because it will impact their ability to hit targets with their spells furthermore it hits touch ac which is usually about half of whatever a target's actual ac is sometimes even lower than that but basically touch ac is lower than it targets normal ac because a touch attack really only requires you to touch the target it really doesn't matter if they're wearing armor or if they can block it just the act of touching the target is enough for the effect to take place hence touch ac and then we have saving throws so this tends to apply to any area of effect damage spell as well as a great many other spells but a saving throw is basically broken down into two things partial or full meaning that when a spell would hit a target they can in some instances perform a saving throw against the effects and a successful throw might either partially negate the spell or fully negate the spell again the tool tip of each individual spell will tell you this now how are saving throws and attack rolls actually calculated for this saving throws are pretty straightforward it is a d20 plus that target's appropriate defense versus the dc of the spell that you cast from your character so what does that actually mean well basically their appropriate defense is either fortitude reflex or will these are three defenses everyone has as a bonus basically it is a bonus to the d20 rule on a savings throw by hitting inspect and mousing over an enemy you can see these bonuses on the tool tip that pops up so basically you would roll a d20 add the appropriate defense from the monster to get the total number versus the character that cast it dc on that spell say a target has a will defense of 10 you would roll a d20 take whatever that roll was add the 10 and then that number has to go up against the dc now the dc can change pretty drastically from character to character but your dc as a spell caster depends on quite a few things uh your caster level items you might have equipped but you can always see that spells current dc simply by mousing over it so if i want to hit something with phantasmal killer i can see the dc of that spell when i mouse over it and basically that means in order to make a successful saving throw against that particular spell a monster would have to take their d20 plus their bonus and exceed the dc on the spell and then that brings us to attack rolls now this is pretty straightforward actually it's just a d20 plus any bonuses you have to your attack rolls versus the targets touch ac because again our spells are going to be ranged touch attacks now the important thing to understand about the range touch attack rules that you will be making is that they are because they are technically ranged attack rolls subject to a lot of feats that would affect ranged attacks this is why you'll see casters pick up things like point blank shot as well as precise shot which makes it easier to hit targets that are engaged in melee even as a spell caster now next up we're going to talk about caster level caster level depending on what class you're playing might just straight up be your character level however it is a bit more nuanced than that because if you're multi-classing or something you might want to pay attention to what your actual character's caster level is which you can see by opening up the inventory and going to the spellbook menu it will then show you your character's caster level but basically this is just the sum of all of the classes that are giving you caster levels now some classes don't actually get caster levels right away or they have a slowed progression such as paladins for instance who only gets spells at level 4 similar to a blood rager now caster level like a lot of other things can be affected by other sources for instance again on spell penetration we can pick up feats that will then add a bonus to our caster level for those roles so you'll want to watch out for wording and things like that but it is important to know your caster level and if you again go to the spell book menu on your character screen it will show you all of the levels that are giving you caster levels and what class they are coming from but before we move on it's important to know your caster level because oftentimes additional effects for spells are based on your caster level now usually the tooltip of the spell itself will tell you about this it will also tell you if there are any caps on this some spells obviously have a limit on the maximum damage they can do regardless of how high your caster level actually is so something to keep in mind on a per spell basis but your caster level is very important and is a general indication of how powerful your spells are and your spell casting itself is now for the last bit of this video we are going to quickly go over a few things for starters spell failure also in the spell book menu on your character you will see your current spell failure chance this basically means for whatever reason you're trying to cast a spell there's a percent chance of failure this is primarily affected by equipped items for instance if you're a wizard and for some reason have that wizard in heavy armor you are then subject to an arcane spell failure chance now this primarily affects arcane spellcasters not so much divine that said a lot of classes that get spells and can also wear armor are usually not subject to spell failure chants as long as they are casting their own classes spells so if they are multi-classed for instance they might not necessarily get the spell failure chance for their spells but if you multi-class into something else and try to cast spells from that class it might then be subject to spell failure so if you're ever doing something kind of odd and you're not sure or you actually see one of your spells fail if you go to that character's spell book menu you can see your current spell failure chance based on all of the current factors that apply to your character just right there obviously you want this at zero but depending on your class and things it might be higher than that and speaking of spell failure let's talk about concentration now in pathfinder concentration isn't going to come up a ton but it is a thing spells aren't required to be maintained by maintaining concentration or anything like that the primary thing concentration is used for in pathfinder is when you are initially casting the spell meaning that if you go to cast a spell and say you're too close to an enemy or something and you take a attack of opportunity or a enemy cast something like entangle and you are in an entangled space something like that you might be forced to roll a concentration check and much like spell failure failing this check actually just straight up makes you fail casting the spell period and that's primarily the way concentration is going to come up in pathfinder especially wrath of the righteous here but basically it's when you go to cast a spell and say you take a bunch of damage then you'll be forced to roll a concentration roll it doesn't come up too much otherwise and then last but not least i did want to mention spell descriptors at the end of this so spell descriptors are important some of them are fairly obvious if you cast a fire spell it's going to be described as a fire spell however nonetheless they are important because all of a spell's spell descriptors are also what you need to look for in a monster's immunities because say you cast a mind-affecting spell if you cast that on an undead typically speaking it won't work because undead are under normal circumstances immune to mind-affecting spells however there are classes like the durge bard that get to completely ignore that but by and large the undead are immune to mind-affecting but a spell descriptors as they are mentioned in your spell will be the exact same words that are used for the spell immunities of a monster so if it's immune to compulsion or mind affecting and your spell says it's one of those things then it's likely not going to work outside of very specific circumstances so always pay attention to your spell descriptors and try not to waste moves on using spells that are not going to be effective because the creature you're trying to hit with them is just straight up immune one quick side note about that though if you are using an energy type spell which is to say it deals some sort of elemental damage there is a mythic feat called ascendant element that will let you bypass all immunities and resistances a target might have with the chosen element so if i'm casting fire spells against something that is immune to fire normally but i have ascendant element fire i am still going to do damage so that would be an instance in which the fact that that target is immune to fire is irrelevant so there you go guys there is my beginner's guide to spell casting i certainly hope you enjoyed it if it helped you out let me know down in the comment section below if you liked it like the video but regardless of any event truly thank you so much for watching may you wander in wisdom and have an amazing day [Music]

Channel: Mortismal Gaming

Views: 59,085

Keywords: Mortym, Mortismal Gaming, Pathfinder, WotR, Wrath of the Righteous, Spellcasting, Guide, Arcane, Divine, Ability score, Caster Level, Concentration, Spell Penetration, DC, Difficulty Check

Id: MRqtTLlb3zQ

Length: 14min 9sec (849 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 03 2021