Okay, so Archives of Nethys has updated to have some material from PF2e’s Remaster. And I like the new Wizard Arcane Schools? They’re actually really exciting to me.
Moving away from D&D’s schools of magic, abjuration, necromancy, etc, spells don’t have a school anymore, though studying an arcane school will let you learn certain spells. But these schools are more … I don’t want to say ‘practical’, but they do kind of feel like … magic you study towards a purpose? It’s not about what the spells are, the arbitrary categories they’re deemed to fit into, it’s about the kind of things you want your magic to do. Your school is a collection of magic you’ve studied towards a goal. I’m not sure how to phrase this, but I like the ethos. And. There’s just a couple of particular schools that excite me just for existing.
Particularly, I’m just going to be honest here, the School of Civic Wizardry. Is it a good subclass? I have no clue. But I love that it’s a thing that exists. If you want to study magic to build things, to transport things, if you want to be an architect arcane, honey baby, have we the school for you! If you became a wizard to help build and maintain cities, there’s now a school for that. That just makes me happy.
I also enjoy the School of Ars Grammatica. It’s the school of runes and wards, the magic of words, the underpinning geometries of magic. Wards are an idea in fantasy that have always fascinated me, and you also can’t go wrong with the magic of communication.
Then there’s the School of the Boundary, for when you want to get spooky. This is the school of summoning, seeing, traversing. Trespass and transgress. I really really really like the boundary, the liminal, as a theme. People may have noticed. So, yes. Excellent school. Do enjoy it.
And then, of course, there’s the School of Mentalism. The magics of the mind. I just really like illusions?
This is not to knock the schools of Battle Magic, Protean Form or Unified Magical Theory, of course. I’m just. Likely gonna pick a few of the others first.
I do also love that the entries for each give examples of actual schools, as in places in the setting, where you might have learned particular Arcane Schools. Embedding your mechanics in your setting, and vice versa, is always a thing I enjoy.
But yes. I really just want a wizard construction worker now? An architect arcane. None of this arty farty ‘what is the meaning of magic’ stuff, magic is so you can build a building without having to move rocks with your body like an idiot. Okay? Magic exists so we can make things easier. There’s no need to get complicated and silly about it.
It’d be funny to have a party that’s a small wizard construction/building inspection firm? You have your Civic Wizard who does the building, your Ars Grammatica Wizard who does the warding and puts the magical phones in, and then you have the black sheep, the Boundary Wizard, who does building inspections and tells people whether their shit’s haunted or if they just built too close to the sewer and the ventilation in this end of the city isn’t the best.
I’m intrigued, let’s say. I like where this is going. And yes, I’m gonna make a dwarven wizard in a hard hat and sturdy boots. Naturally. Heh.