Uncustomizable Grimoires...

[Verde]

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.

In general, the main thing holding us back is ourselves Edited March 2, 2019 by Verde

[Arthur Dent]

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.

 

So this is off topic and a bit of a dumb question, but can you read the grimoire descriptions in-game?

[wingedchocolatecake]

Do you mean accessing their spells and general descriptions? Yup, just right-click on them like you would any old weapon. 

[Arthur Dent]

Do you mean accessing their spells and general descriptions? Yup, just right-click on them like you would any old weapon. 

 

No, I mean the flavor text. So I was making my character a personalised grimoire and when linking the name to the stringtables I noticed that grimoires also have tag for a description.

Most descriptions are the same, but there are a few unique ones, like the Aloth one.

 

But I see no option to actually access them in-game and quite a few of them seem to be overlapping. So I'm wondering if they exist in-game or just in the game files and they never bothered to remove them.

[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.

 

So this is off topic and a bit of a dumb question, but can you read the grimoire descriptions in-game?

 

That's actually a fair question, I pulled that excerpt from the wiki page but now I'm wondering where they got that from or if they dug through code to retrieve that because right clicking grimoires just shows the spells contained inside.

[xzar_monty]

Would be pretty strange if it was in the game but not retrievable. My guess is they made it up.

[DiabloStorm]

Would be pretty strange if it was in the game but not retrievable. My guess is they made it up.

I'm not sure why they would waste time doing that. Tagaziel on here is the same one that does edits to that wiki so perhaps he would know for sure.

[xzar_monty]

That's a fair enough point -- but isn't all wikiwork a waste of time?

[DiabloStorm]

That's a fair enough point -- but isn't all wikiwork a waste of time?

No, I document things on there as well, it's more useful than writing notes to myself offline, this way anyone interested benefits. Specifically I was documenting all the different grimoires and their spells/locations for my POE1 wizard solo back then, knowing where to go for what helps a lot. There's more to it than that, but no, not a waste of time, especially if anybody is interested in metagame info, or ALL OF THE THINGS OBSIDIAN REFUSES TO BE TRANSPARENT ABOUT *cough*

[Raevyn]

One thing is a system that 'fits' into the skill balance, another thing is whether the system makes actual sense and feels good character/class/lore wise.

I think the wizard system in Deadfire feels somewhat unrewarding, it's really more of a pluggable sorcerer casting system, which require no forward planning, except at the wrong point, which is on level-up.

 

The example I usually think of as to why the non-customizable grimoire system feels 'counter-intuitive':

 

Lets say you want to build a fire-wizard and you want to cast primarily fire-based spells.

You know that there is a fire-grimoire out there (which you would surely want to get your hands on as a fire wizard, right?) 

With the current system that would mean you should AVOID all the fire spells on level up, since most if not all of them are already in the fire grimoire! That just feels rather silly character-wise. 

 

On the other hand, if you do pick fire-spells on level up as a fire-wizard, finding the fire-grimoire is a pretty major 'meh' feeling, since you already have all the spells except for the special unique spell, and you very likely will be using a different grimoire :S

 

Who makes these grimoires in the first place? Wizards, right? Our characters are not true wizards or what? Sometimes it's the little details

 

I sometimes like to be puritan when it comes to spell choice such that the known spells makes sense for the wizard character. It seems off putting that my fire-based wizard also has a random necromantic or fear etc spell in his repertoire and action bar, 'just because random'. If there was an option to switch from a personal customized grimoire to a secondary one with situational/off-spec spells, I probably would actually switch grimoire during combat at times.

The system just feels a little half-baked and a bit too locked down in my opinion.

[Guest Blutwurstritter]

I also found the fact that you can no longer edit the grimoires weird. Lore wise it makes absolutely no sense. Now i always have the feeling that my mage is an illiterate which is off putting and quite opposite to how i picture mages.

From a gameplay perspective it is reasonable since mages would have an massive advantage over other casters, even more pronounced than the current state. I do understand why did implemented it this way but i don't think it is a satisfying solution. 

Generally i thought the idea of swapping grimoires sounded interesting but i never used it due to the delay it causes in combat.

In PoE 1 you could simply learn all the spells, except for a handful of special spells( which were overpowered), effectively punishing you if you didn't equip that special grimoire. 

In PoE 2 it feels forced, especially for players of PoE 1, which is a bad thing a for a game play mechanism in my opinion. 

Edited March 10, 2019 by Blutwurstritter

[Ashen Rohk]

The PoE1 system was totally broken. The need to swap grimoires didn't exist as you just spell-loaded your starting grimoire as you progressed through the game and ended up with a complete spell book. It's something I actually like, having all spells to hand, but it's broken as hell.

 

The current system is a bit more interesting due to the different spell sets that drop in high level grimoires but as others have said, you don't really need to learn many spells at level up to have a comprehensive list. I'd rather a BG2 system existed where you can learn all spells but your slots are per rest rather than per encounter.

[xzar_monty]

The PoE1 system was totally broken. The need to swap grimoires didn't exist as you just spell-loaded your starting grimoire as you progressed through the game and ended up with a complete spell book. It's something I actually like, having all spells to hand, but it's broken as hell.

 

So what's broken about this?