Can I Change The Spells In Aloth's Grimoire?

[Gary1986]

Im not sure i like the new way of learning magic for Wizards in POE2. Are the spells in Aloths Grimoire permanent? Or can i change them?

 

Thanks 

[dam]

Unless it changed, they're permanent.

 

Now instead of swapping spells around grimoires, you swap grimoires themselves.

 

 

I very much agree, I do not like this either.

 

I'm possibly not even going to make a single wizard playthrough just because of that

[Gary1986]

Wow that's sad.

 

Such a bad new change.

 

Hopefully they will change it somehow in the future

Edited May 9, 2018 by Gary1986

[Mikeymoonshine]

It was done to make wizards more specialised in POE you can learn every spell by copying it into your grimoire making all other grimoires useless once you had copied any spells you didn't already have. You still get to pick 2-3 spells per power level. Learn the ones you are going to use the most and if you need a specific spell or spells only for a specific situation use a grimoire with that spell/those spells. Wizards are still very powerful.

[Wormerine]

As mentioned before. As wizardy „memorize” repertoire of spells when lvling up, Grimoires are there to expand their repertoire and ar intended to be swapped around.

[Gary1986]

It was done to make wizards more specialised in POE you can learn every spell by copying it into your grimoire making all other grimoires useless once you had copied any spells you didn't already have. You still get to pick 2-3 spells per power level. Learn the ones you are going to use the most and if you need a specific spell or spells only for a specific situation use a grimoire with that spell/those spells. Wizards are still very powerful.

Yeah I'm gonna pass on that. I'm just not going to use Aloth or wizards.

 

Such a really bad concept. Now I end up with friendly fire AOE spells that I'd never of picked given the chance being used by Aloth as he's set to auto-attack.

Edited May 9, 2018 by Gary1986

[Mikeymoonshine]

 

It was done to make wizards more specialised in POE you can learn every spell by copying it into your grimoire making all other grimoires useless once you had copied any spells you didn't already have. You still get to pick 2-3 spells per power level. Learn the ones you are going to use the most and if you need a specific spell or spells only for a specific situation use a grimoire with that spell/those spells. Wizards are still very powerful.

Yeah I'm gonna pass on that. I'm just not going to use Aloth or wizards.

 

Such a really bad concept. Now I end up with friendly fire AOE spells that I'd never of picked given the chance being used by Aloth as he's set to auto-attack.

 

 

If you don't like Aloth's spells you can retrain him, if you don't like his AI you can change it, or turn it off. Not saying you have to use a wizard it's your choice but there are already ways to adress the issues you have with the system in the game.

[Guest]

As mentioned before. As wizardy „memorize” repertoire of spells when lvling up, Grimoires are there to expand their repertoire and ar intended to be swapped around.

Yep, works pretty well too, considering the grimoires available right off the bat. I love that all spells are now per encounter now.

[demeisen]

​

​

I very much agree, I do not like this either.

 

I'm possibly not even going to make a single wizard playthrough just because of that

 

I've started with a potd wizard, and I'm really tempted to start over with a different class for that reason.

​

​I do not have any complaints about the effectiveness of the wizard.  It's doing fine.  Merely the fun of the wizard.  It's maddeningly stifling not being able to pick your own spell combinations, rather than be limited to the few you learn + what the grimoire has picked for you, minus any overlap.  It's destroyed one of the primary enjoyments of the class, a tradition going all the way back to pen and paper.  Long term thinking is gone too, due to the instant replenishing of spells after each combat, "action" style.  Instant gratification central.

​

​Don't get me wrong: the Deadfire world looks amazing, the art is unreasonably beautiful, the game is immersive, and the writing, humor, and voice acting are top tier.  But oh man am I not happy with wizards.  Probably going to restart with a different class and hope for an eventual fix or community mod.

 

​This would be easy to fix: the core mechanics are mostly alright.  It's just the bits 'round the edge.  People who don't want to edit the grimoires certainly would not have to do so.  Just allow their editing as in POE1, and provide an "ironman" type game mode to turn off the infuriating Diablo auto-regeneration of health and spells, and I'm a happy Deadfire player.  You don't even have to rebalance anything: I can pick an easier difficulty if potd is too hard with those restrictions.  These two things are really sapping my enjoyment at the moment.  Everything else seems wonderful so far.

​

Edited May 9, 2018 by demeisen

[Gary1986]

​

​

I very much agree, I do not like this either.

 

I'm possibly not even going to make a single wizard playthrough just because of that

 

I've started with a potd wizard, and I'm really tempted to start over with a different class for that reason.

​

​I do not have any complaints about the effectiveness of the wizard.  It's doing fine.  Merely the fun of the wizard.  It's maddeningly stifling not being able to pick your own spell combinations, rather than be limited to the few you learn + what the grimoire has picked for you, minus any overlap.  It's destroyed one of the primary enjoyments of the class, a tradition going all the way back to pen and paper.  Long term thinking is gone too, due to the instant replenishing of spells after each combat, "action" style.  Instant gratification central.

​

​Don't get me wrong: the Deadfire world looks amazing, the art is unreasonably beautiful, the game is immersive, and the writing, humor, and voice acting are top tier.  But oh man am I not happy with wizards.  Probably going to restart with a different class and hope for an eventual fix or community mod.

 

​This would be easy to fix: the core mechanics are mostly alright.  It's just the bits 'round the edge.  People who don't want to edit the grimoires certainly would not have to do so.  Just allow their editing as in POE1, and provide an "ironman" type game mode to turn off the infuriating Diablo auto-regeneration of health and spells, and I'm a happy Deadfire player.  You don't even have to rebalance anything: I can pick an easier difficulty if potd is too hard with those restrictions.  These two things are really sapping my enjoyment at the moment.  Everything else seems wonderful so far.

​

 

 

They could just create a special vendor who edits your grimoire and adds the spells you want for a cost.

Edited May 9, 2018 by Gary1986

[Answermancer]

 

They could just create a special vendor who edits your grimoire and adds the spells you want for a cost.

 

 

The idea behind Grimoires now is that they are highly focused and specialized, and meant to be used more like weapons, swapped for the right occasion.

 

Gonna fight a bunch of stuff weak to fire? Equip a Grimoire focused on Fire spells.

 

This also means that finding new Grimoires focused on specific domains is more interesting and Grimoires are more like any other loot. I believe they can even have special power and enchantments on them, just like weapons and armor.

 

Anyway, if you hate it that's fine, but that's the idea. I think it sounds interesting in theory at least, more interesting than the first game where I basically never once swapped a Grimoire, and finding new ones was mostly pointless except in the few rare ones that had unique spells to learn.

Edited May 9, 2018 by Answermancer

[demeisen]

​

 

 

This also means that finding new Grimoires focused on specific domains is more interesting and Grimoires are more like any other loot.

 

​Maybe, but they sort of threw the baby out with the bathwater, and made the class not nearly as fun because of it.

​

​I think they could have made grimoires more "special" to find just by having more spells that were only found on grimoires you found in interest places or on difficult opponents, but couldn't learn via the level-up mechanic.  But let me learn them, so I can select the set of spells I find most appropriate for what I expect to encounter, and form my own dynamic strategies via synergies between the ones I pick.

​

​

[Answermancer]

I absolutely hated the idea at first but it grew on me during the Beta, and as I started to understand the tactical benefits to gameplay.

 

But yeah, I understand why someone would hate it.

[EzekielMoerdyk]

There were numerous debates on this forum leading up to release regarding the drop of Vancian (per rest) spell casting for per encounter casting. I assume such debates were held internally by the designers as well. It is relatively clear that you cannot have both - it is either or. Having a single class with mostly per rest abilities change the entire pacing and balance lf the game. In the end, it was a design decision (of which the pros and cons can be argued endlessly) which is here to stay. IIRC it was done on order to improve on the rest system - so that it isnt necessary to rest too frequently in order to replenish spells. With the new rest/food mechanic, you can last for a long time on a given rare food/inn bonus if you keep your party members from being knocked out. Previously, even the best players would eventually run out of per-rest recources and would be forced to rest only to replenish.

 

In the same vein, giving a single class access (whether through loot or upon lvl) to all their spells AND a per-encounter based system would mean that class becomes a diversity machine monster, and as a result the spells for that class would probably have to be toned down to prevent an auto include in each party. It is the same reason why druids and priests lost access to all of their spells and have to choose as wizards do. In fact, in the new system, wizards are fulfilling their role as the most diverse spell caster by gaining access to other spells through grimoires. Finally, I would argue that having to carefully choose spells is a required prerequisite for having (mostly) balanced multiclassing. If you could easily learn all spells for a class, multiclassing becomes massively OP since you can build (effectively) a fully loaded fighter with full access to all wizard spells. Other systems (like DnD) balanced this by artificial limitations, such as allowable armour or greatly reduced health pools. In PoE2, a wizard/fighter have to carefully select their spells and abilities based on the role they wish to fulfill.

 

Imo, the limited spell availibility to all spell casters carries a number of additional benefits:

I) Increases value of grimoire loot, as stated previously in this thread

II) Promotes potion, drug and scroll usage + associated skill investment + loot and merhant value

III) Promotes planning, and upon complete party knock-out, rewards a different grimoire load out.

IV) Promotes wizard specialization and variability.

[ArnoldRimmer]

I don't like this, I think pillars had it better. No one swapped spell books in PoE1, seems like some designer got annoyed that no one but him thought this was great and forced his view through that it would be cool to swap spell books. So instead of having spells that you can change as needed you now have to use a "different" spell book... and the number of spells you can cast has been reduced just to force you to swap books.

[falchen]

Just in case someone missed this - you can get other grimoires with different spells and even swap between them. There's even special ones with unique spells like last time - someone already found one with Nikaraugh's shadowflame.

[CAlmond]

my problem right now is that I can't easily compare aloth's grimoire to other grimoires. Or is there a way to do that in game that I'm missing?

[Wormerine]

​

​

I very much agree, I do not like this either.

 

I'm possibly not even going to make a single wizard playthrough just because of that

 

I've started with a potd wizard, and I'm really tempted to start over with a different class for that reason.

​

​I do not have any complaints about the effectiveness of the wizard.  It's doing fine.  Merely the fun of the wizard.  It's maddeningly stifling not being able to pick your own spell combinations, rather than be limited to the few you learn + what the grimoire has picked for you, minus any overlap.  It's destroyed one of the primary enjoyments of the class, a tradition going all the way back to pen and paper.  Long term thinking is gone too, due to the instant replenishing of spells after each combat, "action" style.  Instant gratification central.

​

​Don't get me wrong: the Deadfire world looks amazing, the art is unreasonably beautiful, the game is immersive, and the writing, humor, and voice acting are top tier.  But oh man am I not happy with wizards.  Probably going to restart with a different class and hope for an eventual fix or community mod.

There has been plenty of discussion about it. Where I stand is following:

 

The resource management and long term planning/thinking is great. However, you need the overall structure of the game to support that. Difficulty which would force you to use spells. Dungeons from which you can't return and demand from you to manage your resources well. I see the per-encounter system from PoE1 and IE games as an adopted system from tabletops, which never found it place in its computer counterparts. Resting is never limited to you, so mismanaging your resources wastes your time in the worst case. Whatever, strategic value the old system provided was imaginary or result of self imposed limitations by players. None of those are good designs.

 

I would welcome an RPG which would focus on this aspect of gameplay (standalone adventure in White That Wends focuing on survival - go for it Obs!), in an RPG with structure like PoE this per-rest thing was nothing more than annoyance, which in some extreme cases had negative impact on players enjoyment: with rest spamming or barely using spells (me being in the 2nd group). The new system to me seems more consistant and faithful to the rest of the game and design.

 

But as Dude would say:

https://youtu.be/pWdd6_ZxX8c

Edited May 10, 2018 by Wormerine

[SmugPlatypus]

I really don't get it, why do people expect Wizards to be the only class with full access to ALL their abilities? Because that's what they had in the PoE1 system and it was silly. It made Grimoires as a concept entirely irrelevant. MAYBE you'd have a second one. MAYBE. Other than that, you'd just put the best spells in there and be done with it, swapping them out as you see fit since you learned all of them.

 

The new system is much better. It gets the player to actually make some choices regarding their spell selection. And despite that, Wizards are still the only class with potential to access all their abilities without respeccing, since you can just bring in Grimoires with spells you need. The only downside is that you might not have 100% of them ready at all times.

 

Finally, just picking a Grimoire you like and then building around it will still leave you with a majority of spells available.

 

Seriously, Deadfire does have its rough edges, but this is hardly one of them....

[Mikeymoonshine]

 

​

​

I very much agree, I do not like this either.

 

I'm possibly not even going to make a single wizard playthrough just because of that

 

I've started with a potd wizard, and I'm really tempted to start over with a different class for that reason.

​

​I do not have any complaints about the effectiveness of the wizard.  It's doing fine.  Merely the fun of the wizard.  It's maddeningly stifling not being able to pick your own spell combinations, rather than be limited to the few you learn + what the grimoire has picked for you, minus any overlap.  It's destroyed one of the primary enjoyments of the class, a tradition going all the way back to pen and paper.  Long term thinking is gone too, due to the instant replenishing of spells after each combat, "action" style.  Instant gratification central.

​

​Don't get me wrong: the Deadfire world looks amazing, the art is unreasonably beautiful, the game is immersive, and the writing, humor, and voice acting are top tier.  But oh man am I not happy with wizards.  Probably going to restart with a different class and hope for an eventual fix or community mod.

There has been plenty of discussion about it. Where I stand is following:

 

The resource management and long term planning/thinking is great. However, you need the overall structure of the game to support that. Difficulty which would force you to use spells. Dungeons from which you can't return and demand from you to manage your resources well. I see the per-encounter system from PoE1 and IE games as an adopted system from tabletops, which never found it place in its computer counterparts. Resting is never limited to you, so mismanaging your resources wastes your time in the worst case. Whatever, strategic value the old system provided was imaginary or result of self imposed limitations by players. None of those are good designs.

 

I would welcome an RPG which would focus on this aspect of gameplay (standalone adventure in White That Wends focuing on survival - go for it Obs!), in an RPG with structure like PoE this per-rest thing was nothing more than annoyance, which in some extreme cases had negative impact on players enjoyment: with rest spamming or barely using spells (me being in the 2nd group). The new system to me seems more consistant and faithful to the rest of the game and design.

 

But as Dude would say:

https://youtu.be/pWdd6_ZxX8c 

 

 

 

I was not to keen on the removal of Vancian casting either but now it seems to be balanced decently enough it really doesn't bother me much other than the game being overall too easy but i imagine that will be patched at some point or something. As the person above me just said you can't really expect wizards to be the only class that maintains access to all spells in a per encounter system. I get just preferring the old system but it isn't really a wizard specific issue it's just simply a result of them losing vancian casting. 

[Answermancer]

Really great responses above by Ezekiel and Wormerine (and others), I encourage anyone who wants more insight into this decision to read and internalize them.

 

I think a great point that I missed that others have pointed out and bears emphasizing:
Wizards are now the only class that has access to every single spell without respeccing.

 

Yes, you need to swap Grimoire, just like my a melee character has to swap weapons to change damage type, but by keeping several themed Grimoires around they can access any spell available to the class, which is something that no other caster can do in the new system (for the reasons outlined by others above).

[demeisen]

I really don't get it, why do people expect Wizards to be the only class with full access to ALL their abilities?

 

​I don't think anyone expects full access to all their abilities, but merely preserving the long-standing ability to select from the whole spell catalog.  There is a whole dimension of RPG gameplay which gets obliterated by these changes, and for many of us it was an important aspect of RPGs.  BTW, many other casting classes (clerics, druids, etc) also had dynamic access to their whole spell catalog, so it's not just wizards.

​

​Traditionally, dynamic selection was a core aspect of casting classes, going clear back to P&P and for decades of CRPGs since, but was balanced against real rest restrictions.  However, this started to break down when CRPGs began to pursue a more mass market / casual audience, many of who would play by spamming everything they had even in small fights to feel powerful, and then be left in a lurch.  Players complained, and CRPG makers responded by relaxing hard rest restrictions more and more, making them into soft restrictions, or sometimes no restrictions at all.  That appeased the people who didn't like long-term gameplay decisions, but it did massive collateral damage:

​

• ​It negates the importance of smaller fights.  They no longer have any meaningful cost, because you auto-regenerate what you used right after.  In the traditional way, even the small fights are part of grinding you down over time.

  ​

• ​You no longer have to play smaller fights efficiently.  You're getting everything you used right back.

   

• ​You no longer have to make meaningful choices about which spells to use, or limit yourself strategically.  They're all coming right back.  An element of decision making is hence rendered obsolete (granted, one many people didn't like - but others found quite appealing).

   

• ​It removes flexibility around creating your own combinations.  You get to pick a few permanent ones, but otherwise are restricted to "canned" sets, so a whole aspect of creating custom novel strategies is lost.  Less thinking / creativity results.

   

• ​A class differentiator is now lost.  Previously you had sustained damage classes, and powerful but intermittent damage classes.  Some players couldn't tolerate one PC not doing something in every single fight, or doing only a little in some fights, so this differentiator has been more and more lost over time.

   

• ​There's little to no long term strategizing.  The "unit of attention" becomes a single fight.

   

• ​The feel of being on a journey is eroded, and hence, the immersion of the game.  Now I just feel like I have an unrelated series of standalone fights, and I'm reset after each one so I can meet the next with the full catalog again.

   

• ​There's no more satisfaction in avoiding resource starvation, because I'm getting reset after each fight.  A whole element of enjoyment is thus erased.​

   

• ​There's no more pressure when you start a fight down to a few weird spells you've never used before, and have to improvise and create clever tactics.  All fights are driven towards the same thing, because start each fight with my spells reset.

​I could go on, but suffice it to say many of us see the loss of these things as a catastrophe for the genre.  It sacrifices long term considerations on the alter of the short attention span appeal.

​

​I understand many people like it and want that more "action" experience where all their skills and abilities are reset after every single fight.  That's cool with me - to each his own!  That's why I think it should be a game option, like "hardcore" mode: "Let me pick my own spells, but don't bloody reset them or my HP pool after each fight like I'm playing Diablo".  That way both camps can have their preference.  That has happened with other "casualizations" of CRPGs - e.g, early CRPGs had severely restricted saves, where you had to make it back to a safe place to save, and there were no quick-saves or mid-stream saves or any kind.  There was a lot on the line, sometimes hours of gameplay, so you were forced to take matters seriously rather than mash F5.  That annoyed a lot of players, so that also was changed, but many games still provide it as an option - and many players still use the option!  That's all I want: an option, so I don't have to deal with what feels to me like an eviscerated RPG experience.

​

​EDIT: fix missing words.

Edited May 10, 2018 by demeisen

[Moriendor]

I really don't get it, why do people expect Wizards to be the only class with full access to ALL their abilities? Because that's what they had in the PoE1 system and it was silly. It made Grimoires as a concept entirely irrelevant. MAYBE you'd have a second one. MAYBE. Other than that, you'd just put the best spells in there and be done with it, swapping them out as you see fit since you learned all of them.

 

The new system is much better. It gets the player to actually make some choices regarding their spell selection. And despite that, Wizards are still the only class with potential to access all their abilities without respeccing, since you can just bring in Grimoires with spells you need. The only downside is that you might not have 100% of them ready at all times.

 

Finally, just picking a Grimoire you like and then building around it will still leave you with a majority of spells available.

 

Seriously, Deadfire does have its rough edges, but this is hardly one of them....

 

I agree. It's a good change. I played through the first game and the expansions with a Wizard and very much enjoyed my character but it almost felt like cheating that you could just copy spells into grimoires as much as you liked. With Aloth in the party, as a Wiz, you'd effectively double your level-up progression by copying each other's grimoires.

 

I like it better in Deadfire and I hope there is a long delay (~10 seconds) for switching grimoires in combat. You should definitely be gently forced to specialize and maintain one (YOUR) grimoire except for extreme emergencies.

 

For a possible PoE 3 they should overhaul it even more IMHO. Maybe get rid of interchangeable grimoires entirely or keep grimoires but make it so you get a huge bonus from using your own one. If you use 3rd party grimoires (e.g. "poor foreign handwriting" as a lore explanation) make them less effective or something.

 

Lots of possibilities but they are on the right track with Deadfire. In the first game it was borderline cheating/exploiting how it was done.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Moriendor

[Gary1986]

Thanks for all the responses.

 

For now as I'm using Aloth I just use him without a grimoire equipped, that way he only gets and uses spells he learns via level up progression.

 

It would just be nice if you could just edit the spells in your grimoire for a price at a special vendor. It would still only be giving you 2 extra spells for each power level, so it's not like I'm asking for complete access (as in usage) of every spell for every fight.

Edited May 11, 2018 by Gary1986

[LordBlade]

In the first game, I basically just used the same spells all game. If I found something I found better, I could swap one out. But mostly I'd stick with a setup.

But it was nice being able to learn all the spells. It's kind of part of why you play a wizard.

 

Having set spells with no option to change them seems really bad.