so today I realized this meme is about 2e which so far hasn’t fallen into the same pattern of content bloat (give it time, we live in a society). so my point is moot, even if I wasn’t exaggerating two complaints simultaneously .

but in 1e after years and years of releasing content to keep the business alive, Paizo ended up with spells like False Age, Wizened Appearence, Youthful Appearence, False Face, Transplant Visage, Disguise Self and probably some others that all did the same thing with slight changes. There’s a similar abundance of spells to just help your character not read books like Skim, Memorize Page, Perusal, Commune With Texts, and Explode Head (the most redundant spell of all)

Then there’s ones with mild bonuses to hyper-specific use cases. Polypurpose Panacea has 5 different effects that are all +1 to sleeping or digestion. Cultural Adaptation is similar but for every check that isn’t speaking another language. I can’t remember the name of it but there’s one that just gives you +1 to checks made to be a Sailorman. Most of these are superseded by other spells that will just give bonuses to entire groups of skills like Crafter’s Fortune but still have specific use cases