Uncustomizable Grimoires...

[DiabloStorm]

Aloth's neat, careful calligraphy has been painted across the pages, forming an orderly catalogue of the spells he's learned and the incantations required to cast them. Arcane symbols shimmer and writhe across the pages, ready to absorb and channel energy. You feel traces of Aloth's essence within the grimoire and can almost hear him reciting his spells with measured precision.

Wow, so, lore-wise Aloth is able to customize his own grimoire but player wizards have this ability ripped from them in the second game? How does that work? Why does Obsidian feel the need to take away our nice things from POE1?

Why can we not customize grimoires all of a sudden when we could before?

Is this payment for "spells per encounter"? because the cost is not worth this. Do you think this will force us into "swapping grimoires"? because I REFUSE and the implementation is awful and obsidian's preselected spells inhibit the player's playstyle and the given grimoires aren't suitable for every situation.

The slow casting times (FIREBALL), completely changed(confusion/terrify) and now worthless spell effects (Confusion I'm looking at you) nerfed damage(many), nerfed range(FIREBALL) (though in some cases range(lance)/damage(fireball) buffed in a way, but still not substantial enough to even out)

And still the tooltips/descriptions are godawful. Excluding everything I just mentioned which is irritating enough, it seems Obsidian has still not learned to stop being vague with spell descriptions and how things are going to function. I'll use Delayed fireball as an example.(which by the way still has it's 10m range yet plain old fireball range was nerfed for who the hell knows why) "...lies dormant for a fixed amount of time" Is it SO HARD to list a DURATION in NUMBERS? I have to say that this trend is in a lot of games and it irritates me to no end how cryptic the developers will be with simple to write, pertinent information. It's immersion breaking when I have to stop playing, fire up google and try to hunt down this type of simple information that was lazily left out. Plus with how LIMITED wizards have been left in this game, I can't afford to waste my time guessing how spells will work before I make my choices. I get 2 spell casts, they have to matter. Can't waste my selection on something Obsidian decided to nerf secretly. How about some transparency?

[asnjas]

Customizing grims is stupid because its no different than selecting the same spells at level up. They might as well remove grims and give wizards two additional spells each power level. It adds nothing.

 

How tf does no grim customization inhibit players playstyle? You can still play however you want with what spells you want. Jesus h chr. Infact you are less inhibited than priests or druids who dont even get any kind of extra spell options. They are pigeonholed into certain bonus spells when wizards can choose between various grim arrangements. No single grim is suitable to every situation yet wizqrds can swap to one that is suitable but wizards are the class that is inhibited. Right.

Edited February 28, 2019 by asnjas

[Verde]

Customizing grims is stupid because its no different than selecting the same spells at level up. They might as well remove grims and give wizards two additional spells each power level. It adds nothing.

 

How tf does no grim customization inhibit players playstyle? You can still play however you want with what spells you want. Jesus h chr. Infact you are less inhibited than priests or druids who dont even get any kind of extra spell options. They are pigeonholed into certain bonus spells when wizards can choose between various grim arrangements. No single grim is suitable to every situation yet wizqrds can swap to one that is suitable but wizards are the class that is inhibited. Right.

Dude you legit get way too triggered off this criticism. It's clear you don't agree with it, but it's in no way "stupid" or trigger worthy. Relax. Many people both agree and disagree with it. It seems like a step back because it feels clunky and arbitrary.

 

One of the main issues is that most Grimoires aren't unique AND you still pick spells at start up. Why not one or the other? It lacks in-game reasoning.

Edited February 28, 2019 by Verde

[Wormerine]

It was changed, because the system was changed. In addition Obs envisioned grimoires as something players would swap in between - something that apparently didn't happen much in PoE1.

 

As in Deadfire Wizards "memorize" a decent amount of spells when leveling up, there is no need to edit your grimoire as the "core" spells of your character are always available. In Deadfire grimoires are a supplement of your wizard's grimore, rather then his whole spell Bible. I found it to work pretty well. I do liked learning and writing spells thematically, but I don't see the old system as any way superior. I think it would be nice to be able to craft a custom grimoire late game, though to be honest I never felt a need for one.

Now, if you "REFUSE" to adjust to many new systems you will have a bad time, but it's hardly something one can held against the system. Item/ability discriptions are quite unprecise/vague, that is true. not to mention how misleadingly calculated some things are (like various penalties, which I still don't quite understand)

[DiabloStorm]

It was changed, because the system was changed. In addition Obs envisioned grimoires as something players would swap in between - something that apparently didn't happen much in PoE1.

 

As in Deadfire Wizards "memorize" a decent amount of spells when leveling up, there is no need to edit your grimoire as the "core" spells of your character are always available. In Deadfire grimoires are a supplement of your wizard's grimore, rather then his whole spell Bible. I found it to work pretty well. I do liked learning and writing spells thematically, but I don't see the old system as any way superior. I think it would be nice to be able to craft a custom grimoire late game, though to be honest I never felt a need for one.

 

Now, if you "REFUSE" to adjust to many new systems you will have a bad time, but it's hardly something one can held against the system. Item/ability discriptions are quite unprecise/vague, that is true. not to mention how misleadingly calculated some things are (like various penalties, which I still don't quite understand)

Unless one has prior knowledge of where to obtain, how early to obtain and what is contained inside of the predetermined selection of spells inside of each grimoire, you could be like me, "memorize" chill fog, then find a grimoire that already has it in it....that's a waste of a point spent. Do I get something in return for spending a point into chill fog when I use a grimoire that already has it? Increased power? HIGHLY doubt I get anything, only get screwed out of that point I bet.

 

And that other guy up there that doesnt understand how this inhibits playstyle... Who even chose what gets to go into the grimoires and why? Well, not the players. It was Obsidian and the spell choices seems arbitrary or loosely based on the name of the grimoire, you can't tailor-pick which spells you want in your grimoire.......unless you're Aloth which the lore indicates....which is an obvious lie since their grimoire can't be (further?) customized either. Just because you swap to another grimoire with ANOTHER arbitrary selection of spells in it suddenly means it's suitable for the situation? Huh??? What are you even talking about. I'm just saying I don't like this change, they stripped us of something we had from the first game while still implying through lore that it is still possible within the game-world to customize our grimoires and yet we still cant. That's just stupid.

Edited March 1, 2019 by DiabloStorm

[asnjas]

 

It was changed, because the system was changed. In addition Obs envisioned grimoires as something players would swap in between - something that apparently didn't happen much in PoE1.

 

As in Deadfire Wizards "memorize" a decent amount of spells when leveling up, there is no need to edit your grimoire as the "core" spells of your character are always available. In Deadfire grimoires are a supplement of your wizard's grimore, rather then his whole spell Bible. I found it to work pretty well. I do liked learning and writing spells thematically, but I don't see the old system as any way superior. I think it would be nice to be able to craft a custom grimoire late game, though to be honest I never felt a need for one.

 

Now, if you "REFUSE" to adjust to many new systems you will have a bad time, but it's hardly something one can held against the system. Item/ability discriptions are quite unprecise/vague, that is true. not to mention how misleadingly calculated some things are (like various penalties, which I still don't quite understand)

Unless one has prior knowledge of where to obtain, how early to obtain and what is contained inside of the predetermined selection of spells inside of each grimoire, you could be like me, "memorize" chill fog, then find a grimoire that already has it in it....that's a waste of a point spent. Do I get something in return for spending a point into chill fog when I use a grimoire that already has it? Increased power? HIGHLY doubt I get anything, only get screwed out of that point I bet.

 

And that other guy up there that doesnt understand how this inhibits playstyle... Who even chose what gets to go into the grimoires and why? Well, not the players. It was Obsidian and the spell choices seems arbitrary or loosely based on the name of the grimoire, you can't tailor-pick which spells you want in your grimoire.......unless you're Aloth which the lore indicates....which is an obvious lie since their grimoire can't be (further?) customized either. Just because you swap to another grimoire with ANOTHER arbitrary selection of spells in it suddenly means it's suitable for the situation? Huh??? What are you even talking about. I'm just saying I don't like this change, they stripped us of something we had from the first game while still implying through lore that it is still possible within the game-world to customize our grimoires and yet we still cant. That's just stupid.

Huh what who? It doesnt inhibit playstyle cause you can play in whatever style you want. Inhibiting playstyle is something completely different than customizing. Yeah the spells are chosen by obsidian so what. You can still see what spells the grims possess and match them with what youve chosen at level up. You can literally play whatever style you want. Who huh? You are not inhibited from using the spells you want. People treat grims like they are your main source for spells but they are not. Playstyle in spell selection is not tied to your grim. Grims are extra spells. Jesus chr.

 

Youre literally better off than priest and druids. Their free spells are chosen by obsidian too without the option to change grims. Why does no one complain about the lack of customization? Oh because it makes sense cause the gods grant the uncustomizable spells to the priest. But it doesnt make sense when a grim grant uncustomizable spells to fhe wizard. Thats stupid.

 

Yes you can switch to another grim. Is that hard? We switch to other weapons when some enemy has too high def and no one blinks an eye. But when we must switch grims because another grim offers a free spell that fits the situation then people complain simply because they cant customize the grim. Lol. Switching grims actually very consistent with switching weapons but oh well. REFUSE IT.

[MountainTiger]

 

It was changed, because the system was changed. In addition Obs envisioned grimoires as something players would swap in between - something that apparently didn't happen much in PoE1.

 

As in Deadfire Wizards "memorize" a decent amount of spells when leveling up, there is no need to edit your grimoire as the "core" spells of your character are always available. In Deadfire grimoires are a supplement of your wizard's grimore, rather then his whole spell Bible. I found it to work pretty well. I do liked learning and writing spells thematically, but I don't see the old system as any way superior. I think it would be nice to be able to craft a custom grimoire late game, though to be honest I never felt a need for one.

 

Now, if you "REFUSE" to adjust to many new systems you will have a bad time, but it's hardly something one can held against the system. Item/ability discriptions are quite unprecise/vague, that is true. not to mention how misleadingly calculated some things are (like various penalties, which I still don't quite understand)

Unless one has prior knowledge of where to obtain, how early to obtain and what is contained inside of the predetermined selection of spells inside of each grimoire, you could be like me, "memorize" chill fog, then find a grimoire that already has it in it....that's a waste of a point spent. Do I get something in return for spending a point into chill fog when I use a grimoire that already has it? Increased power? HIGHLY doubt I get anything, only get screwed out of that point I bet.

 

You can respec for a trivial cost at any inn.

 

The biggest thing Wizards get from grimoires is a lesser need to spend points on active abilities than any other class; with two spells/level available at all times and the potential to switch between grimoires in the middle of a fight (so potentially 10 spells/level available with the default number of quickslots; from PL 6 on, this is greater than the number of spells in the game), they can free up a lot of points for passives and/or for the other side of a multiclass. The first game's grimoire system would have pushed this even further because it allowed you to spend copper to learn spells from found grimoires, which would completely eliminate the motivation to spend points on spells at level up rather than just learning them with money.

[DiabloStorm]

 

 

It was changed, because the system was changed. In addition Obs envisioned grimoires as something players would swap in between - something that apparently didn't happen much in PoE1.

 

As in Deadfire Wizards "memorize" a decent amount of spells when leveling up, there is no need to edit your grimoire as the "core" spells of your character are always available. In Deadfire grimoires are a supplement of your wizard's grimore, rather then his whole spell Bible. I found it to work pretty well. I do liked learning and writing spells thematically, but I don't see the old system as any way superior. I think it would be nice to be able to craft a custom grimoire late game, though to be honest I never felt a need for one.

 

Now, if you "REFUSE" to adjust to many new systems you will have a bad time, but it's hardly something one can held against the system. Item/ability discriptions are quite unprecise/vague, that is true. not to mention how misleadingly calculated some things are (like various penalties, which I still don't quite understand)

Unless one has prior knowledge of where to obtain, how early to obtain and what is contained inside of the predetermined selection of spells inside of each grimoire, you could be like me, "memorize" chill fog, then find a grimoire that already has it in it....that's a waste of a point spent. Do I get something in return for spending a point into chill fog when I use a grimoire that already has it? Increased power? HIGHLY doubt I get anything, only get screwed out of that point I bet.

 

You can respec for a trivial cost at any inn.

 

The biggest thing Wizards get from grimoires is a lesser need to spend points on active abilities than any other class; with two spells/level available at all times and the potential to switch between grimoires in the middle of a fight (so potentially 10 spells/level available with the default number of quickslots; from PL 6 on, this is greater than the number of spells in the game), they can free up a lot of points for passives and/or for the other side of a multiclass. The first game's grimoire system would have pushed this even further because it allowed you to spend copper to learn spells from found grimoires, which would completely eliminate the motivation to spend points on spells at level up rather than just learning them with money.

 

Believe me, I plan on respeccing once I find more grimoires so I know what I'm working with. I'm playing as wizard, solo. Whatever problems other classes are having, I wouldn't know yet, (but I'm guessing they're abundant) because this is how I'm playing; solo, blind. Also "trivial" cost... not if I need that money and am short later on. Solo play doesn't afford me to spend frivolously, even if I wasn't solo I wouldn't spend frivolously because it's not my playstyle. I don't know what I might need later on, why would I be wasteful?

 

I fail to see the value in putting myself in grimoire cooldown and "10 spells/level" when I can only cast twice from each rank or 3 times if I want to burn empowerment every. single. fight.... which wouldn't be a sustainable thing to do without a lot of backtracking...which makes the per encounter spells lose their point. I did POTD solo wizard in the first game, grit my teeth and did backtracking to INNs to restore spell uses, relying on empower in this game just recreates that problem.

 

Also, recovery times and spell casting times are brutal compared to last time, I dont have the luxury or slots to spare to deal with grimoire cooldowns. I'm not even running any armor, con or res because of the recovery/action time restrictions imposed in this game. Maybe if there was no grimoire cooldown...

[Boeroer]

Grimoires as in PoE would have been too strong for Deadfire. Even now the mechanic is too strong in my opinion. Because as others said: grimoires let you completely skip all spells at level up and only pick passives - yet you don't loose the ability to cast any spell you want (as soon as you know where to get the fitting grimoires - but they drop so frenquently and you can buy/steal so many...). This isn't as obvious with SC Wizards since they don't have that many passives to pick from, but muticlass Wizards can put everything into their second class and will still not gimp theyr spellcasting ability or range of spells if they have a good range of grimoires. Here more Qick Item slots (Depp Pockets, Fleshmender, Giftbearer's Cloak) really make sense.

 

If Priests and Druids had trinkets of their own which would give them some advantages with their abilites or ability choice in general I wouldn't complain, but atm grimoires are a (too) powerful boon to Wizards. Giving them the option of learning spells from grimoires and editing grimoires (which makes not much sense anyway unless you'd fill an empty one with you special spell collection) would lift them even higher.

 

Then remember all the cheese when retraining in PoE so you could learn ALL spells from grimoire at lvl 1 and would pick the spells you didn't cover with grimoires yet in order to have th biggest "in-memory" spell collection possible. Nay... 

 

I think the current grimoire mechanics are in a better spot than in PoE. Or were if they gave Priests and Druid trinkets to play with in order to balance those "spell-use" casters better wich each other.  

 

As a sidenote:

not only Obsidian decided which spells are in grimoires. Most of the unique ones are actually backer items. They contain great unique spells. Zandethu's Draconic Fury, my my...

Edited March 1, 2019 by Boeroer

[xzar_monty]

DiabloStorm: Personally, I like the fact that you can make "bad" choices, i.e. get duplicate spells from both learning a spell and then getting a grimoire with that in it, too. I believe that's called less than ideal luck. It happens, in life, quite often, and in table-top RPG it's a given, too. It adds spice to the game.

 

Yes, you can check everything on the net, find out where the grimoires are and plan your way in such a manner that you'll never make unfortunate choices. But where's the fun, then?

 

Also, as pointed out, respeccing is not particularly expensive.

[Wormerine]

Believe me, I plan on respeccing once I find more grimoires so I know what I'm working with. I'm playing as wizard, solo. Whatever problems other classes are having, I wouldn't know yet, (but I'm guessing they're abundant) because this is how I'm playing; solo, blind.

Ah, that explains a lot. Still, little sympathies from me, as I see an ability to beat game solo as a sign of how imperfect the system is - if a team base game is beatable with a solo character than something is seriously off.

 

But yeah, you will find solo wizards much more difficult to use as a lot of changes assume you will have a party to protect them during combat. I am sure there are some builds you can do that are effective but going in blind and playing game in an “I know what I am doing, extra challenge mod” can be frustrating. Deadfire is a different game, so don’t assume that your knowledge from PoE1 will directly translate into the sequel.

 

Before long you will be drowning in Grimoires. There are also bunch you can buy.

[DiabloStorm]

 

 

It was changed, because the system was changed. In addition Obs envisioned grimoires as something players would swap in between - something that apparently didn't happen much in PoE1.

 

As in Deadfire Wizards "memorize" a decent amount of spells when leveling up, there is no need to edit your grimoire as the "core" spells of your character are always available. In Deadfire grimoires are a supplement of your wizard's grimore, rather then his whole spell Bible. I found it to work pretty well. I do liked learning and writing spells thematically, but I don't see the old system as any way superior. I think it would be nice to be able to craft a custom grimoire late game, though to be honest I never felt a need for one.

 

Now, if you "REFUSE" to adjust to many new systems you will have a bad time, but it's hardly something one can held against the system. Item/ability discriptions are quite unprecise/vague, that is true. not to mention how misleadingly calculated some things are (like various penalties, which I still don't quite understand)

Unless one has prior knowledge of where to obtain, how early to obtain and what is contained inside of the predetermined selection of spells inside of each grimoire, you could be like me, "memorize" chill fog, then find a grimoire that already has it in it....that's a waste of a point spent. Do I get something in return for spending a point into chill fog when I use a grimoire that already has it? Increased power? HIGHLY doubt I get anything, only get screwed out of that point I bet.

 

You can respec for a trivial cost at any inn.

 

The biggest thing Wizards get from grimoires is a lesser need to spend points on active abilities than any other class; with two spells/level available at all times and the potential to switch between grimoires in the middle of a fight (so potentially 10 spells/level available with the default number of quickslots; from PL 6 on, this is greater than the number of spells in the game), they can free up a lot of points for passives and/or for the other side of a multiclass. The first game's grimoire system would have pushed this even further because it allowed you to spend copper to learn spells from found grimoires, which would completely eliminate the motivation to spend points on spells at level up rather than just learning them with money.

 

Turns out you can't even respec choices made at character creation without modding.

[xzar_monty]

Wormerine: You're onto something quite relevant there. I am prepared to submit the thesis that it is essentially impossible to create a character or choose options that make your life in the game significantly harder than some other choices would have made. And that's a definite drawback.

 

And yes, you can always pick all the extra challenges etc., and while I agree with that, that's not a good way to explain away the fact that there's something fundamentally a bit awry with the game, in terms of what it requires of you.

[thelee]

And still the tooltips/descriptions are godawful. Excluding everything I just mentioned which is irritating enough, it seems Obsidian has still not learned to stop being vague with spell descriptions and how things are going to function. I'll use Delayed fireball as an example.(which by the way still has it's 10m range yet plain old fireball range was nerfed for who the hell knows why) "...lies dormant for a fixed amount of time" Is it SO HARD to list a DURATION in NUMBERS?

 

One thing I've learned after working in a similar industry for a long time is that "strings" of text aren't cheap, especially if they are localized. Purposefully gameplay descriptions will be vague (for example, things that say "Restore 1 of each class resource" even on classes that only have one type of resource, or "High chance of blah blah" even if that chance is 100%) because that means you can patch in gameplay changes without having to do another cycle of updating strings (which may require review) and potentially localization/re-translation effort (which can cost money if contracted out, and certainly will add time). I think that's why there was effort made to make auto-generated tooltip descriptions, but clearly (as you've seen) they aren't 100% comprehensive.

 

A real example is the loading screen tip about empowerment. Even though they eventually managed to update it around ~2.0, it's still wrong, it just has lagged the pace of successive gameplay patches of what empowerment actually does so it is still completely inaccurate. Imagine (from an employee perspective) having to do this for every single gameplay tweak that you do (and there are lots with every patch, not to mention a good amount with hotfixes).

 

This is not really offered as an excuse just an explanation. I just picked up Assassin's Creed Odyssey, and the tooltip descriptions there make Deadfire's look like scientific white papers by comparison. (Also - Diablo 3 lists all units in the US as "meters" even though it doesn't make any sense at all - it was because too late in the process they realized it was too much of a headache for internationalization/localization purposes to have "feet/inches" in the US and "meters" everywhere else, so they just made it "meters" all the time and you just have to imagine that everyone is a freaking giant and everything is completely out of scale.)

 

Anyway, to the original point: I think a significant complaint about new grimoire mechanics would be mitigated if the UI were better. It would be best if you could see all the spells for all quick-slotted grimoires, and then the ones that aren't actively equipped are specially marked to indicate that trying to use that spell would induce a 2s switch time. I use grimoire switching a lot, and it can get a bit old to constantly right-click on grimoires to remind myself if this grimoire had X spell or not.

Edited March 1, 2019 by thelee

[thelee]

Grimoires as in PoE would have been too strong for Deadfire. Even now the mechanic is too strong in my opinion. Because as others said: grimoires let you completely skip all spells at level up and only pick passives - yet you don't loose the ability to cast any spell you want (as soon as you know where to get the fitting grimoires - but they drop so frenquently and you can buy/steal so many...). This isn't as obvious with SC Wizards since they don't have that many passives to pick from, but muticlass Wizards can put everything into their second class and will still not gimp theyr spellcasting ability or range of spells if they have a good range of grimoires. Here more Qick Item slots (Depp Pockets, Fleshmender, Giftbearer's Cloak) really make sense.

 

If Priests and Druids had trinkets of their own which would give them some advantages with their abilites or ability choice in general I wouldn't complain, but atm grimoires are a (too) powerful boon to Wizards. Giving them the option of learning spells from grimoires and editing grimoires (which makes not much sense anyway unless you'd fill an empty one with you special spell collection) would lift them even higher.

 

Then remember all the cheese when retraining in PoE so you could learn ALL spells from grimoire at lvl 1 and would pick the spells you didn't cover with grimoires yet in order to have th biggest "in-memory" spell collection possible. Nay... 

 

I think the current grimoire mechanics are in a better spot than in PoE. Or were if they gave Priests and Druid trinkets to play with in order to balance those "spell-use" casters better wich each other.  

 

As a sidenote:

not only Obsidian decided which spells are in grimoires. Most of the unique ones are actually backer items. They contain great unique spells. Zandethu's Draconic Fury, my my...

 

adding to boeroer's good perspective, i found grimoire switching PoE1 a non-starter. The delay--even with quick switch--was so freaking long, that it was almost always better just to have a good all-purpose selection of 4 spells per spell level and only have a separate grimoire if you needed e.g. backup corrode damage and your main grimoire was fire (by Deadfire combat speeds, default grimoire switch delay in PoE1 was around 20 seconds!!). I found this to be a broken gameplay design of PoE1, because it meant that while the wizard was supposed to have the most spell-casting diversity, in practice they frequently had the least.

 

that is not to say that probably they went a little too far in the other direction. As others have alluded, I like taking fassina a lot as a character, and a single-class conjurer without much effort I can get coverage for all her higher-level ability levels just with grimoire switching. An un-subclassed mage might require a little bit more metagaming, but it's definitely a huge advantage over other casters.

Edited March 1, 2019 by thelee

[rjshae]

It was changed, because the system was changed. In addition Obs envisioned grimoires as something players would swap in between - something that apparently didn't happen much in PoE1.

 

The system as designed actually deters swapping grimoires. At level up with Aloth, one tends to pick spells that complement the spells in his book. Ergo, the book is a complement to his spell list, whereas another book is likely to have more overlap and be less optimal.

 

The system needs to be designed so that there is a benefit to having a picked spell that is also in a grimoire. Like a +2 power bonus, for example. It then becomes a trade-off, and makes swapping grimoires more useful.

[uuuhhii]

now that all the caster have to choose their spell when level up

and can no longer learn spell from other grimoire

the existence of grimoire are some what redundant

why not just allow wizard to choose one more spell each power level instead of subclass determined spell each power level like druid and priest

that way wizard are still versatile and have total control over what spells to learn

if still want to keep special grimoire around for flavor then just make them give some small bonus instead of spells

like llengrath grimoire give extra duration for enchantment spells

ninagauth grimoire give bonus freeze damage

Edited March 2, 2019 by uuuhhii

[xzar_monty]

The only reason I've found for swapping grimoires is if you get a really good spell that only exists in that particular grimoire and nowhere else. And there are maybe... two of these?

[uuuhhii]

The only reason I've found for swapping grimoires is if you get a really good spell that only exists in that particular grimoire and nowhere else. And there are maybe... two of these?

crushing doom and shadowflame?

[Boeroer]

Then - I'm sorry - you guys are using grimoires ineffectively.

 

Sure you can (and maybe want to - in case if SC Wizard heven have to) learn some spells with ability points - those that you always want to have access to without switching.

 

But using a meticulously composed collection of up to 7 Grimoires (trinket slot + 6 quick item slots) can give you access to nearly all spells while you don't need to spend one single ability point. Switching Grimoires doesn't take a ton of time in Deadfire (Quick Switch doesn't help by the way). Of course meta knowledge is very handy here.

 

So the system is totally designed to motivate Grimoire swapping. You could even make a collection of fire grimoires which you swap to once you switched to Magran's Favor + Sun & Moon - or some Illusion Grimoires once you switch to Eye of Wael and so on.

 

The grimoire mechanic is such a huge advantage over Priests' and Druids' spell & trinket mechanic (hint: they have no trinket mechanic) that it's OP. To have access to all spells without retrainig. Even during an encounter you can have up to 14 different spells per spell level at your disposal.

 

While the idea to give bonus PL for a spell that you learned and that's also in your current grimoire is nice - it would make an overpowered mechanic even more overpowered.

 

Having no spells in grimoires makes no sense (unless we redifine grimoires as tomes which don't hold the actual spells but something like explanations, comments and "metamagical" knowledge about spells). 

[uuuhhii]

why would anyone suggest learn one spell from grimoire per power level

remove grimoire entirely then give the wizard one more spell per power level to correspond with subclass spell of druid and priest

remove spell from grimoire make some sense in deadfire

since wizard doesn't equip grimoire at all still have access to spell learned leveling up

no grimoire as a equipment just means wizard always have their own grimoire with all the spell their learned written in it

may as well simplify the matter and make wizard get all spell from level up instead of 2 from grimoire others from level

[Verde]

As you said though, meta knowledge is very handy - I'd say it's required. So that rules out new and maybe casual players.

 

And by the time you have enough meta knowledge to meticulously manage multiple grimoires, couldn't you just customize a spell set based on one or two grimoires for most encounters? Sure you can swap against unique encounters, but for the most part wouldn't a balanced spell set work? Otherwise you are swapping grimoires with a potential for redundancies. Unless you are saying don't pick any spells at level up which is unrealistic, requiring an academic understanding of the game that shouldn't be asked of a gamer. If you're saying that grimoires allow reduced spells picked on level up, I can buy that, and is certainly food for thought.

Edited March 2, 2019 by Verde

[Boeroer]

I do indeed pick no spells with a wizard unless I need to - or unless I always want access to that spell no matter what.

 

Usually those are the spells I want to spam in quick succession at the start of combat (self buffs for example). But even for that you can find the proper grimoire (and start encounter with that one).

 

I will pick passives with an SC Wizard over spells, knowing that I can get the spell with a grimoire.

 

With a muticlass wizard I will pick mostly abilities of the second class. If I have to pick wizard abilities I will pick the generic ones I wanted to pick anyway (e.g. Two Handed Style when I play a Sage with Quarterstaff or Fast Runner if I play a ranged Geomancer).

 

It's true that new players will not be able to exploit the grimoire mechanics - initially. There is retraining though. So nothing stops a new player from realizing that one doesn't necessarily need to pick spells. As soon as he has a nice collection of grimoires one could retrain and pick less spells - and only pick the spells that are not in the grimoires.

Edited March 2, 2019 by Boeroer

[AeonsLegend]

The main problem with levelling up and classes is that all classes are treated the same. None are actually unique. They all gain abilities and such the same way. Adding a grimoire to a Wizard with free abilities is actually kind of weird. It would be like giving a Barbarian a tome with 18 free abilities. When comparing Priests and Wizards for instance it's actually rediculous how many different spells a Wizard gets to cast when comparing to any other spellcaster.

 

The only way to work around this is to not give a Wizard spells to choose from, but give him more passive abilities or specific empowering ablities to change the way spells work. And then have only Grimoires to cast spells from. Sure make it customizable and remove grimoire swapping. I mean each grimoire contains a handful of spells. It's a huge book. Why carry many huge books, when each one can contain all spells easily.

 

I think they tried a different approach to the DnD memorization of spells and well... failed. Just go back to what DnD does. Maybe tweak it a bit. Or go the way the Warlock works in DnD. but don't try both and add grimoires.

[hilfazer]

The main problem with levelling up and classes is that all classes are treated the same. None are actually unique. They all gain abilities and such the same way. Adding a grimoire to a Wizard with free abilities is actually kind of weird. It would be like giving a Barbarian a tome with 18 free abilities. When comparing Priests and Wizards for instance it's actually rediculous how many different spells a Wizard gets to cast when comparing to any other spellcaster.

Obsidian aren't hiding their Wizard bias, are they?