Pathfinder

[limber comet]

I just wasnt gonna say anything at all

Mostly because I am flabbergasted

In a good way

[clever cobalt]

||Second Class is the Runesmith||

[limber comet]

Monday...

[clever cobalt]

monday yep

That's when ||The playtest|| comes out

[errant roost]

Did they say what makes these "impossible," or is that something else?

[frank crystal]

Oh hell yah

[clever cobalt]

Nope, just ||The new classes||

[heavy fulcrum]

||of all the random 3.5 classes to make a comeback, i didnt expect Dread Necromancer||

||i mean, it probably isnt DN but i have to make the joke anyway||

[clever cobalt]

I hope ||the NEcromancer plays like Maleghast||

[echo briar]

Necromancer feels weird

[clever cobalt]

yeah I'm definelty interested in how it plays

it's a prepared occult spellcasterm though

[echo briar]

Like, that seems like it’s another rare class

[clever cobalt]

yeah, it may hard to be fit into most of the setting

due to uh

the whole necromancy thing

[errant roost]

it was one of the first archetypes I looked up when I started investigating pf2e, so I'm pretty intrigued with where they go with it

[echo briar]

Are we sure it’s not a typo, and it’s supposed to be neck romancer?

[clever cobalt]

That's a Vampire

[heavy fulcrum]

well, necromancy is fine in general, its raising the dead thats bad

[clever cobalt]

who is also a necromancer

[clever cobalt]

from what I gathered it's generally based around minion control

so idk

[echo briar]

Watch the reason it’s impossible is because they are killing pharasma

[surreal basin]

Lmao

Anyway it’s whatever

The necromancy school of wizard isn’t rare

Why would this be

Just don’t do things people don’t like in front of them

[frank crystal]

I just hope ||necromancer|| makes a summoner class that’s good

As in

A class focused on summon spells

[surreal basin]

Don’t be a rogue using underhanded fighting in front of a gorum worshipper, etc

And yeah I’m

Uh

[frank crystal]

Not summoner

[surreal basin]

Curious how that’s gonna go

[frank crystal]

Summoner is good already

[surreal basin]

There’s no way it’s actually gonna use the summoning table

Because without tweaking imma be real that table is unusable

As someone’s main gimmick

Summoning a level 15 creature is not a valuable thing to do at level 18+ lol

[clever cobalt]

again, maleghast class

[frank crystal]

I do hope it allows for the horde of undead fantasy in some way

Even if not through actual summons

[surreal basin]

I generally trust Paizo to make a not-completely worthless class lol

[frank crystal]

Also the scythe in the art makes me wonder if this class will somehow be like

Gish viable

[errant roost]

that'd be fun. it reads as kind of ...Diablo-coded to me, so it might also just be a casting implement.

[frank crystal]

Also is there a ||runesmith|| in PF1E?

Just to get a feel of what it might be?

[errant roost]

maybe a prestige class?

[heavy fulcrum]

while there was a bit of thassilonian rune magic stuff in PF1, i imagine that this one is more based around item runes and that concept

[frank crystal]

Ah ok

[trail nova]

... I'll never be able to not associate Runesmith with Runepriest from 4e

[limber comet]

I'm really excited to see ||Runesmith|| admittedly, the idea of "support martials" is something I quite enjoy

[surreal basin]

I don’t think we need to spoiler the classes :p

[limber comet]

No?

Alrighty

[eager mountain]

Sooooo how about that necromancer

Sounds prettty neat

[solar storm]

Did they announce anything about the book the classes are gonna be in?

[limber comet]

Nope

[solar storm]

Interesting

[limber comet]

Not even anything about Battlecry

Which I'll admit

Extremely disappointing

I was hoping they'd at least show the iconics

[turbid dagger]

Someone told me they were for Rival Academies but they may have misheard
.....Two classes doesn't seem right for a lost omens actually so they may have misheard
They'd be very sad

[solar storm]

Yeah they don't usually put stuff that mechanically substantial in Lost Omens books

[limber comet]

Rival Academies is only like 130 pages lmfao

[turbid dagger]

Yeah they got ahead of themselves

[limber comet]

I mean it makes sense why they'd not announce the book yet

I assume Necromancer is gonna need a lot of tweaks lmao

But I for one am glad Necromancer is now a separate class

Even if it does render the necromancy alt Wizard conservation in Wizards+ obsolete

Or maybe not

[errant roost]

These actions seem interesting: "thralls" as a summon but also consumable resource? Runes you apply to items, and others that you apply to enemies (and then detonate)?

[heavy fulcrum]

i assume you get a focus spell thats a summon

so you can get a bunch of semi-free disposable minions

[solar storm]

Do we know if Necromancer is a full caster?

[heavy fulcrum]

and then you have abilities that just kill them for various effects

which makes sense, because just pure summoning actually sucks because of level restrictions

[errant roost]

them being a focus spell feels odd if you can turn them back into focus points.

[heavy fulcrum]

well you can only do it every ten minutes

presumably you can't refocus to recover the points while the thralls are active

thats my guess

[wary yoke]

... So, Necromancer and Runesmith will be new classes? I missed the stream and most of the discussion

[errant roost]

Yep

[woeful pecan]

Okay update (reminder: 1e game)

Going with a changeling witch, thrush familiar. Will be doubling as the Face. Probably no archetypes

Still unsure of patron

[echo briar]

Did they mention why this was impossible in the stream BTW?

If not, one really cool idea is that this is a lead up to Nex getting freed, and there being war in the impossible lands between him and Geb

[limber comet]

That is definitely a possibility

Nex is gonna be like "My death was greatly exaggerated."

[echo briar]

Is he even thought of as dead? I thought imprisonment was the leading hypothesis

[clever cobalt]

nope

[limber comet]

He's thought of dead, yeag

It's why Geb got depressed

[clever cobalt]

Though in reality he's stuck in one of his demiplanes

[surreal basin]

We might also get a follow up to a dangling thread from bloodlords if so

[clever cobalt]

which is?

is it the ||Geb ascending to godhood|| thing

[surreal basin]

||it’s possible for a bloodlords party to free Geb from being attached to the country, and he fucks off to wander the earth||

[clever cobalt]

yeah that

[surreal basin]

||unclear if he becomes a god||

[thorny berry]

crossing my fingers on necromancer being a 2-slot caster with beefier class features

[turbid dagger]

Another psychic type caster would be fun yeah

Would make prep, imo, more bearable

[limber comet]

Psychic and thaumaturge getting no love makes me sas

Sad

[clever cobalt]

Thaumaturge is fine as is tbh

It remains a very fun class

[surreal basin]

Yeah idk what they could get

[limber comet]

That is true

I don't know what else they would get

I just want more

Bc I'm greedy

[turbid dagger]

More implements and more meta strikes would be nice but yeah DEFFF not necessary

[limber comet]

It's like, I may as well just wait for Thaum+ lmao

[thorny berry]

minor balance and usability pass over implements, maybe

[eager mountain]

if thats the case its good that you can take back the point

[surreal basin]

Man Stolen Fate is a really fucking good AP

[sinful gyro]

Necromancer? Cooool

[wary yoke]

Funnily enough, this coincides with the setting I work on and have been updating for 2E, which is going to have a big necromantic uprising

The god of necromancy’s goal is to preserve as many souls as possible from being consumed before being judged (the setting being cut off from the outer planes), freezing them as undead being the primary method

[warped orbit]

the invocation on that rune seems pretty strong btw

means your tank will draw a lot of fire probably, but that's also what you want if you're a Champion or something

[sinful gyro]

I wonder how fun these would be in the blood Lords AP

Like necromancer is very on theme but it could end up sorta back firing

What with all the negative energy resistance and stuff

[warped orbit]

a common issue with Bloodlords unfortunately

[errant roost]

depends a lot on whether they can build to do a turn/command undead kind of thing. If you're just a negative energy blaster, yeah, but if you can uniquely debuff undead...

[warped orbit]

it's kinda comical how a lot of thematic class options are penalized because they don't work well against undead

and vice versa with certain undead being unable to harm players with negative healing, which they will almost guaranteed have

[rustic cape]

I do find it encouraging that the necromancer is being done and seems to be a minions class

Because it speaks to a recognition of, "no, actually this playstyle really isn't well-represented in the mechanics, how can we fix that?"

[warped orbit]

Yeah

[turbid dagger]

Conversely, I always understood the cause behind no minion class to be because uh
Minion classes can be kind of a nuisance in play
So I'm excited to see how they handle it

[warped orbit]

I assume the thralls themselves will be very low impact

And mostly just act as an extension of your own atuff

[turbid dagger]

Mhm, apparently there are different kinds of thralls
So I assume each has a relatively minor thing it does when out and then you spend them

[rustic cape]

Won't be long until we find out

[rustic cape]

That may be why they're calling it impossible

[limber comet]

Someone also posited a theory that it does have to do with the IL, and these classes represent a war between Geb and Nex

[echo briar]

It feels weird that necromancers will not have harm.

They are occult casters, and so will need to use sooth

[wary yoke]

I mean, I figure they're going to have some equivalent. They might get a cleric-style pool or just add Harm to their spell list

[warped orbit]

that would track

Runesmith does seem like a pretty Nexian thing

[limber comet]

I mean Runesmith specifically could fit anywhere tbh

It just makes sense that they'd focus on Geb and Nex

However, it is a bit strange we don't have any info on the book the Battlecry classes are coming in

This is probably untrue, but could it be an APG situation?

Just that they're taking their time and fully, thoroughly playtesting the classes two at a time?

[errant roost]

you're right that this is weird, but I love the idea of a setting where necromancers Soothe

[limber comet]

Necromancers will probably get access to harm

[warped orbit]

either that or some kind of unique negative healing

[limber comet]

I also would bet that necromancer will get unique ways of dealing with opposing undead

Cuz I can see that being a Problem

[errant roost]

[Reaction]
Trigger: you see a hostile undead
Effect: you can cry

[echo briar]

One idea for why it’s an occult caster is that it’s not using negative energy, but fears and beliefs

[limber comet]

That's a possibility

[wary yoke]

Probably more balanced than 1E necromancers

Who, when seeing a hostile undead, get an expression of utter joy as they start trying to control it

[frigid jackal]

1e necromancers would be
[reaction]
Trigger: You see a high HD boss monster.
Effect: You can force the GM to make a will save vs crying when you inevitably raise it.

[heavy fulcrum]

i once raised a massive pile of corpses as a flying cloud of angry limbs and screaming skulls

literally just "huge, flying, eight melee attacks" i think

here we go

he fell off in terms of combat effectiveness pretty quickly but he was always useful for carrying stuff and people

[rustic cape]

Yeah I would suspect they'll get it added outright and/or get something equivalent/better specifically for them

[limber comet]

The alternative is that thralls just aren't worth healing

But even then

[rustic cape]

I feel like they will get some significant ability to do void damage

[limber comet]

Yeah I agree

[turbid dagger]

I think them doing damage is confirmed
There have been a few scattered chats about them on other servers and one I've seen mentioned that one of the upside of spirit thralls is that they can do void damage instead

Oh wait necro not thralls lmaooo

Sorry!
But yeah usually caster subclasses net you extra spells so if nothing else I can see Harm coming in there

[errant roost]

Tomayto tomahto, kinda. If the thralls are how a necro does damage
Edit: tried to reply to "oh wait necros not thralls", whoops

[echo briar]

How do you think thralls are going to work that’s not wildly annoying?

Because the necromancer filling a hallway with 3 thralls is already going to cause problems

[limber comet]

They could have a time limit or something

[echo briar]

yea, but it seems like they will have at least 3, and 3 is already annoying

[woeful pecan]

Why is it so damn hard for me to pick a witch patron

[surreal basin]

I mean I can’t imagine they’ll stand up to focus fire

If a character uses their class to block a hallway in a bypassable manner I think that’s normal

[upbeat ridge]

Did they say what kas runesmith was

[eager mountain]

https://youtu.be/PSxuL_54sMk playing witch warper like

[echo briar]

I'm not saying its too strong. I'm saying its going to be annoying to deal with.

I've played in an AP that just gives every player an animal companion. Simply adding that many bodies to a map, even if they don't do anything, can really gunk things up

[warped orbit]

it's also possible the thralls won't block movement through their space

[echo briar]

that would be a possibility. but you would still have the annoyance to moving them to the right part of the battlefield.

I think the best possibility is Lancer drones

[warped orbit]

I do assume the thralls won't be full minion level entities

[echo briar]

you deploy them mid combat, and while they can move, that is not the assumption

[warped orbit]

they'll probably be a lot simpler since you can have multiple

[echo briar]

First reports of the new classes https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/s/gGjire0qog

Yep, lancer drones. Deploy them mid combat, and they don’t move

Both classes are int based, really leaving the other mental attributes out in the dust

[warped orbit]

makes sense I think

Runesmith sounds cool

I was hoping they would get a good amount of runes active at the same time

[echo briar]

Rune smith seems like a huge risk taking class. You can use a single action to have every single one of your runes activate a powerful effect, but then disappear

[warped orbit]

the invokes also seem pretty strong though, based on the one we saw already

[echo briar]

That’s what I’m saying. You can invoke every rune within 30 ft with 1 action

[errant roost]

I wonder if thrall creation scales up. One thrall per focus point when any random AOE instantly kills them sounds iffy

[warped orbit]

yeah I just don't think 'consuming' the rune is that big a deal

since fights tend to be pretty short

so doing a big invoke for maybe 3 runes (your two etched and one traced) is gonna be pretty big

[rustic cape]

It would be fun if you got a point back when a thrall went down

[echo briar]

I'm not saying its a bad thing. Just a risk

[rustic cape]

Or something like that

[echo briar]

go big or go home

[warped orbit]

it's a focus cantrip it doesn't consume any FP

they even have that one feat to consume a thrall to get an FP back

[rustic cape]

OH

[warped orbit]

but the thralls themselves don't do much of anything
they mostly just serve as vectors and resources for your other focus spells it seems

[thorny berry]

oh hell yeah necro is a 2-slot

excited to see what level of juice they end up having on the features then

both of these sound real cool from the descriptions

[turbid dagger]

So
||Whoever said they wanted Necromancer to be a two slot caster like psychic is gonna be happy||

Oh whoop

[echo briar]

The thralls having 1 hp also explains why necromancers don't have harm

[warped orbit]

ah so your subclass gives the thrall something to do

[thorny berry]

the ratatouille flashback meme with 4e minions

[turbid dagger]

It being two slots actually greatly appeals to me
I don't like prepcasting but my issues with it are reduced when you have fewer slots and other fun stuff to make up for it

[wary yoke]

I wonder if necromancer is going to actually hook into actual undead in any way

[rustic cape]

I would be shocked if it didn't have some tricks

[surreal basin]

I’m kinda surprised the class is Necromancer specifically

And not something a mite more generic

Is necromancy actually ontologically evil in golarion?

I know in forgotten realms making a zombie like

Tortures the soul of the original person or whatever

[frank crystal]

I believe so yah

At least raising undead

You gotta wrangle the soul

I actually remember that not being necessary for forgotten realms in death actually

It can be a thing but for stuff like mindless zombies and skeletons you can just use magic to animate them, no soul torture required

[surreal basin]

Okay looking into it

I actually think zombies and skeletons having souls bound to them has been retconned

The last mention of that was way back in the 3.5 days - modern sources say that they’re animated exclusively by negative energy

I think it’s just sentient undead that technically break the cycle of souls

[wary yoke]

Huh, thought that mindless undead still fucked up the soul

[silver geyser]

Mindless Undead still stops you being able to easily res somebody

So it's doing something

[frank crystal]

Also you’re still making a being who’s natural motivation is to murder all living beings

[silver geyser]

And Pharasma is cool with other ways of delaying your meeting with her

[frank crystal]

Undead in FR only don’t attack people mindlessly when their raiser still has control over them and commands them to do something else

[silver geyser]

Same case for Golarion

[frank crystal]

I thought for golarion you still need to torture the soul to raise undead?

[silver geyser]

Trauma is an undead defining thing

They can spontaneously arise (thanks Urgathoa), but it's always in response to trauma

[frank crystal]

Huh interesting

So just being an undead is effectively being tortured by your own trauma?

[silver geyser]

Usually

Mohrgs and the like conplicate that

Because also some people are so fucked morally that death doesn't stop them unless you put them to rest right.

And of course, there's undeath as a curse

[frank crystal]

Vampires, revenants and the like?

[silver geyser]

Revenants are more trauma response

[frank crystal]

Fair yah

[silver geyser]

But vamps and mummies can be a curse

[surreal basin]

I mean I’m open to being corrected I just like

Can’t find a source on that

And the book of the dead specifically says they don’t have a soul in them

So wherever it is, it’s not in their body

[wary yoke]

I'll check my undead hunters handbook when I get home

Or whatever the 1E splat was

[turbid dagger]

I'm
Gonna throw up

[clever cobalt]

That seems pretty neat

unless I'm missing something

[frank crystal]

Bardic Lore… 2!

[turbid dagger]

Mechanically its good its just
SO
Stupid

So silly and dumb 😭

[clever cobalt]

idk, makes sense to me

at least the Scaling part

[frank crystal]

Yah knowledge of undead inherently leads to knowledge of the things you can make into undead

It’s kinda roundabout but makes sense imo

[echo briar]

To know about the undead, you need to know about the unundead

[frank crystal]

Exactly!

[echo briar]

Also it causes the apocalypse to happen quicker

The souls get diminished by being undead, and eventually they will be so diminished that the cycle of souls will stop

However, considering the necromancer seemingly just creates thralls out of nothing, it may not be creating actual undead

[warped orbit]

lmaoooo

[warped orbit]

more like Diverse Lore 2

[warped orbit]

EDIT: Create Thrall makes more thralls at once as you level up (one per rank of your casting proficiency, so 4 at level 20). On-summon, one of the thralls gets to make a melee attack for minor damage with your spell attack modifier
edited in on the post btw

[plucky snow]

What features grant armor specialization effects?

[echo briar]

So, now that it’s partially relevant, do outsiders have skeletons?

[upbeat ridge]

Skelepathy

[errant roost]

Neat! Super newb follow up question to my earlier confusion: is there a practical difference between a focus cantrip and a generic cantrip?

[echo briar]

Only one class can use a focus cantrip

A bard can’t just learn it like guidance

[warped orbit]

not really, beyond the fact that focus cantrips are only gained through class features or feats

[clever cobalt]

Is that 4 max, or 4 per summon?

[warped orbit]

I think per summon, but could be wrong

also some info on Necro subclasses

There's 3 subclasses, one for bones, flesh, and spirits. Each gives a general feat, a level 1 class feat, and a unique thrall benefit. Bones has fleet and lets you make a DC 15 flat check to have your thralls not be harmed by effects that take reflex saves. Flesh has toughness and makes thralls create difficult terrain in their space when they're destroyed. Spirit has diehard and lets your thralls deal spirit or void damage whenever they would otherwise deal physical damage. The three class feats they get are ones that all just grant a focus spell

the thralls do also apparently make a little attack when you summon them, but otherwise most of your features expend thralls to do stuff

[errant roost]

Interesting 🤔 I guess you could balance all the thrall-spenders like they cost one extra action

[warped orbit]

they do apparently have a feat to turn a thrall into a weapon, so I'm hoping for some gish potential for Necro

[surreal basin]

Based on the fact that there aren’t really like

Zombie angels or devils

I assume no

[warped orbit]

okay read further, it is per summon

one of the thralls make an attack using your spell attack mod, dealing 1d6 heightening at +2 spell rank (kinda bad scaling, but I guess it's "free" damage)

[surreal basin]

Yeah I wouldn’t expect them to be big damage dealers

[rustic cape]

It does not, but it causes Magic Global Warming

[wary yoke]

I know undead fiends eventually would turn into Nightshades (or whatever stupid PF2E name it was, I refuse to remember because I remember it was really bad)

[surreal basin]

yeag

[wary yoke]

I don't think outsiders really leave corpses

[surreal basin]

thats when they get obliterated by a specific thing

[wary yoke]

Unless they're gated in

[rustic cape]

Making intelligent undead is particularly heinous but all undead-creation brings negative energy into the Prime that has no way of leaving

Which gradually causes More Undead Problems

[surreal basin]

huh

that makes more sense

[rustic cape]

In D&D, to be clear

[surreal basin]

still a relatively s- oh

i thought u meant in pathfinder

[rustic cape]

I dunno how it works in PF

I was responding to the FR thing

[surreal basin]

i will accept that as my headcanon for now
which would also probably mean that individual necromancy is negligible, but industrialized necromancy is the actual isssue

[rustic cape]

I vaaaaaguely remember that something similar might be part of Pharasma's objection?

[surreal basin]

yeah i saw some uncited stuff saying that t drew groetus closer to the boneyard

[rustic cape]

Yeah, if you take that reasoning, it's a very good answer to Necromancy Techbro arguments

[surreal basin]

but that also relied on the "shards of soul are installed in even basic undead"

[rustic cape]

("We should just have zombies do all of the agricultural labor, this will solve the problems with society" this is a techbro argument :P)

[surreal basin]

which i still havent seen backed up by anything

other than people on reddit just saying so

[frank crystal]

For my setting where undead don’t torture the souls it’s answer to necromancer techbros are “you are creating a being which is fundamentally suffering and wishes to spread suffering, only held back by the power of the caster which is almost always overestimated”

[rustic cape]

That's also part of it!

[frank crystal]

Since undead’s base thought in Esvalia is “Kill all living, raise them as undead, and march into hell to destroy it”

[rustic cape]

One of the big issues with Negative Energy Global Warming is that it increases the base rate at which undead spawn on their own

So it is, in fact, Negative Energy Global Warming

[frank crystal]

I’m honestly not sure how much I like necromantic global warming

That does feel sorta, thrown in there

the inherent immorality of creating undead is enough imo

[silver geyser]

So to answer the outsider skeleton question: Summons don't, but the real deal ones can leave bodies, so you can Undead them.

[frank crystal]

Hmm, part of my game might involve fighting the captain of the guard

And I’m wondering how to potentially spice up him as a boss fight

Him along with his more elite guards

I should give him attack dogs

[echo briar]

But many psychopomps have bones as part of them. Is that a skeleton?

[wary yoke]

I think the in-character Psychopomp response would be "Don't be a smartass"

[frank crystal]

Psychopomps are probably really annoyed with being asked about their physiology

Just being entirely magic beings

[wary yoke]

"I'm just trying to expand necromantic knowledge!"
"We know, that's what you're on trial for."

In the setting I work on, Psychopomps are the only true outer plane outsiders to have some presence on the world, constantly cataloguing and taking record which afterlife souls are bound to before the souls are essentially recycled to power the planar barrier keeping the world hidden

They are EXTREMELY overworked

I had an Occultist character whose outsider contact was a Nosoi he had had bribed; when he died, as an excuse to make a new character, I said that the psychopomps held his soul for bond and made him work off the time-debt

And, it turned out he enjoyed getting coffee at an interstitial office floor

[rustic cape]

No, and it's really weird that your skeleton looks like a psychopomp, what's wrong with you /s

[surreal basin]

Honestly outsiders imo are probably like

Just entirely made of magic energy

[frank crystal]

That’s what I assumed

[turbid dagger]

Considering outsiders can take precision damage, they probably totally do have organs and bones and such
They're just like
Made out of condensed magic
And as noted there are totally undead outsiders in the form of Darvakkas

[wary yoke]

That's the stupid name, right

My setting calls them Deadstars

[turbid dagger]

Darvakka is better than 'Nightshade'

[wary yoke]

Because I can never remember the original and I hate the new name

[turbid dagger]

Bro sounds like a failing comic companies punisher ripoff

[wary yoke]

It's not so much a problem with the name itself but I can never remember which is which due to the name scheme

[turbid dagger]

Mhm
I prefer the black speech names instead of the NightX names
Nasurgeth instead of Nightwave, Sykever instead of Nightwalker
The coolest one, the Umbraex, doesn't even have a night-name :3

[wary yoke]

It's also why we renamed Velstracs, because I appreciate the thought, but fuck they're so bad at coming up with names

[errant roost]

Nightwave sounds like a music genre

[wary yoke]

Nightwing

Not exactly a difficult naming scheme to keep to

[turbid dagger]

Ah, but Vanyvers are already nightwings

[surreal basin]

Nightbeak

[wary yoke]

I will not remember any of the new names

Fortunately, "the bird one" works

We're nightshades an OGL thing?

[silver geyser]

Yes

[surreal basin]

Oh they were a thing in 1e?

[turbid dagger]

I seem to recall them starting as a D&D thing yeah

I distinctly remember nightwalkers from an old 3.5 book I had

[surreal basin]

Okay yeah but they were just shadow undead, them being undead fiends is new lore

[turbid dagger]

Oh ye

[silver geyser]

Yeah, the undead fiends used to be Devourers.

[sinful gyro]

Ngl even if necromancer suck, its such a vibe I enjoy I really won't care

And good chance they won't suck at all

There's 3 subclasses, one for bones, flesh, and spirits. Each gives a general feat, a level 1 class feat, and a unique thrall benefit. Bones has fleet and lets you make a DC 15 flat check to have your thralls not be harmed by effects that take reflex saves. Flesh has toughness and makes thralls create difficult terrain in their space when they're destroyed. Spirit has diehard and lets your thralls deal spirit or void damage whenever they would otherwise deal physical damage. The three class feats they get are ones that all just grant a focus spell

Necromancers get auto-scaling proficiency in undead lore, and they have a level 2 class feat that lets them use undead lore to Recall Knowledge about any creature that has a skeleton

I'm so fucking in

Ah all this was posted earlier

But damn it sounds rad

[errant roost]

Bone Lore is funny enough that it deserves to get reposted

[sinful gyro]

Occult spells are also the best spells

[surreal basin]

BONE LORE

[sinful gyro]

Maybe I'll finally know a skeletons favorite food

[errant roost]

Milk?

[clever cobalt]

I thought it was Arcane spells?

[sinful gyro]

Nah

Occult is my jam

[clever cobalt]

puts down an enemy with high Will saves

[sinful gyro]

Will won't save your bones

Also you can save the same with high reflex

Which is much more common

[limber comet]

I wonder if there's a possibility to make a ghoul based necromancer

That would be cool I think

[craggy thunder]

"WHY MUST YOU FAIL ME SO OFTEN?!"

[errant roost]

we know that the playtests give them three subclasses, themed around reanimating bones, flesh, and spirit. Hopefully you can get a feat or something to also use Flesh Thralls to make some kind of paralyzing attack

[limber comet]

I like the idea of a morally sound-ish necromancer from the darklands fighting fire with fire

Which of course, only leads to a bigger fire

[clever cobalt]

My main worry is uh

How you fit a Necromancer into a game

Which i know has been discussed already but, they're kinda hard to justify playing lorewise outside of Geb/Blood Lords

[limber comet]

I mean, there'll probably be in an universe explanation

[clever cobalt]

Probably

[sinful gyro]

It's a form of magic like any other

Like, it's probably looked down upon and shunned and illegal

But so is being an assassin or theif

[heavy fulcrum]

presumably the argument will be that the thralls arent really undead, theyre just conjured meat monsters, or something

[errant roost]

They have a feature that lets them always use the worse of a creature's immunity to void and vitality for those damage types, but nothing much with healing. The Soothe spell should work just fine for them tho
reading through the AMA, here's how they made necromancer not useless against enemy undead

[limber comet]

Oh that's rad

[surreal basin]

Huh

[turbid dagger]

I'm curious as to how much void they actually get
Since IIRC Occult does not actually do that much

[limber comet]

I mean I assume their thralls are probably gonna be the main output of damage

[turbid dagger]

Only Spirit can do void damage by default, but yeah with stuff like the corpse bomb they do get more sources

[limber comet]

I'm so excited to sink my teeth into these classes

[solar storm]

Looks like the playtest is out

On Demiplane at least

[warped orbit]

already?

I thought it was gonna be on Monday

[rustic cape]

https://app.demiplane.com/nexus/pathfinder2e/classes/necromancer-playtest

[solar storm]

this is fun

[rustic cape]

Hm, so Create Thrall lets one thrall attack when it's cast

So it doubles as an attack

Meaning you're not going to be in a situation where you just did nothing because your thrall gets conked immediately

And the number of thralls you create goes up with proficiency, so by 7th level you're going to Always Be Flanking on that attack

The damage on the create thrall isn't amazing but it does let you choose a physical damage type

[warped orbit]

it's a small attack, but it's some "free" damage yeah

similar in scaling to a basic Kineticist blast

[rustic cape]

Oooh, and if you go Spirit Monger it can be void or spirit damage instead

Also Life Tap on Spirit Monger looks half decent

Not that any of the starter spells are bad, it seems

[warped orbit]

yeah and I saw someone mention they also get to circumvent negative damage immunity, as long as they aren't immune to positive too

[rustic cape]

Yeah, Mastery of Life and Death

Whenever you would do void or vitality, you can do the opposite if the target would be weaker against that effect

That also means they can hurt the living with vitality spells

Oh and you can create a thrall as a reaction on an enemy's death at 3rd

So like ... having lots of thralls should not be hard

[warped orbit]

I also read they apparently get a pseudo Reactive Strike

where you can explode a thrall if someone performs a trigger in reach of a thrall

[rustic cape]

Hah! You get early success improvement for will saves against undead mental effects

At expert instead of master

Alright, so at a baseline this looks pretty solid, gotta look at feats now

[warped orbit]

okay the Bone Lore feat is also slightly more limited than it was made to sound

[rustic cape]

Fortitude is the strong save

[warped orbit]

Bone Speaker
Feat 1
Necromancer
You can Recall Knowledge on living creatures with an internal or external skeleton using Undead Lore. If you do, you can learn only information pertaining to the biology of a creature—you cannot learn information about any learned abilities or abilities granted by items. Additionally, you can perform a forensic examination on a corpse using Undead Lore instead of Medicineif the corpse came from a creature with a skeleton.

[rustic cape]

But at least you hit expert with the other two saves pretty early

[warped orbit]

ooh, Life Tap seems pretty good

Fort save, but Drained 1 is a pretty decent payoff, especially with it also healing someone a bit

[rustic cape]

Yeah

Nice way to start the fight, plus since you're a Spirit Monger you're really good at hitting vulnerabilities

[warped orbit]

Reaper’s Weapon Familiarity
Feat 2
Necromancer
Long blades that can fell or reap in a single swing are classically associated with necromancy, and you take this association to a more practical end. You have familiarity with the greatsword, scythe, and all axes—for the purposes of proficiency, you treat any of these that are martial weapons as simple weapons and any that are advanced weapons as martial weapons.

lmao

[rustic cape]

yeah no

Muscle Barrier and Necrotic Bomb both look really solid

[warped orbit]

yeah

Body Shield also seems pretty great

especially once you can summon more thralls at once

this is conceptually pretty cool, but kinda wish it scaled

[rustic cape]

Draining Strike is for sure one of those "this is a multiclass pickup" gish feats

[warped orbit]

they have some feats pointing in that direction, but their proficiencies don't really allow it

this also seems pretty good
no more needing to Tumble, and some free resistance on most turns

[rustic cape]

Bone Burst is a solid reaction

[warped orbit]

Bone Shaper gets pseudo skeleton resistances and even more speed

[rustic cape]

Zombie Horde looks interesting

The damage might need a tune-up but

Overall I can see it

I like that you can sacrifice more thralls to it

[warped orbit]

I do like the class overall so far
not entirely sure on all the numbers, but that's something that will need to be figured out in playtesting

[rustic cape]

Yeah

You know what I'm realizing it is?

It's tower defense

Desperate Surge is interesting

Become As Spirit seems strong, Spirit Monger keeps winning

[warped orbit]

Yeah

The bone one also seems pretty good

[rustic cape]

Yeah

[warped orbit]

That's a lot of speed

Especially since they already get Fleet for free

[rustic cape]

Holy shit Ectoplasmic Aura

[sinful gyro]

They cooked?

[rustic cape]

You and all allies within 30 feet gain a +1 circumstance bonus to AC as the air between them and their enemies thickens with ectoplasm. Additionally, any enemy that ends its turn in this aura must attempt a Fortitude saving throw. On a failure, it can’t use reactions until the start of its next turn.

This is afaict an always-on aura

That ain't bad at all

Living Graveyard just lets you summon Legion Castlevania, that's sick

Yeah, that and Perfected Thrall are genuine competition for the 10th-level spell slot feat

[warped orbit]

Yeah they both seem quite good

And give you a lot of fodder for your feats

[sinful gyro]

I really want to play like, a super energetic up beat necromancer

Whose always talking about recycling

[rustic cape]

I have yet to read Runemaster

But Necromancer is really cooking

In much the way that Animist and Exemplar are, I think

Where they've said, "alright, we have classes that do sort of baseline system stuff, now we're gonna get weird"

[warped orbit]

I do think it has a good thematic and mechanical throughline

[rustic cape]

Definitely

[sinful gyro]

Seems a lot better than like, over designed niche wizard subclass

[warped orbit]

Bit more focus on area control

[rustic cape]

It plays tower defense

[warped orbit]

Especially later once you summon more thralls you can probably use them to just block space too

[rustic cape]

100%, I think they recognized that a Diablo 2-style necromancer was simply beyond the reach of current systems

So they gave us something entirely new

I do think it needs harm as a bonus spell known

Not even because it's a huge deal to not have it, just ... it should have it

That aside this feels at least conceptually ready for go time

Numbers may need adjustment

[plucky snow]

I am attempting this question again.

[sinful gyro]

You mean like, when do you get bulkwark from full plate armor?

[rustic cape]

I think most classes get them with expert armor proficiency

[plucky snow]

The armor specialization effect for plate armor is Resistance X to slashing damage, but not everyone gets to have that

[sinful gyro]

I think it's when you get armor expertise

[rustic cape]

Champions do, at least

[sinful gyro]

So for example champions get it at level 7

[rustic cape]

Same with fighters, at 11

[sinful gyro]

I think that's how it works

[plucky snow]

Ah, I see

[sinful gyro]

There's probably archetypes that grant it to?

But I couldn't say for sure

[plucky snow]

The Bulwark (?) archetype gets it, I just couldn't find it anywhere else

[rustic cape]

Huh, near as I can tell it's just champion and fighter

[plucky snow]

Thanks

[rustic cape]

I think there are some class feats that grant it

[sinful gyro]

The effects are pretty good imo

[plucky snow]

Which class is that?

[warped orbit]

Kineticist can get it with Armor in Earth

[sinful gyro]

Champion

I'm playing one atm, bulkwark comes up a fair amount

[rustic cape]

I don't think bulwark requires that, no?

Yeah Bulwark is just a normal trait

[sinful gyro]

Oh my bad

[rustic cape]

Armor specialization is specifically the damage resistance stuff depending on plate or chain or whatever

[sinful gyro]

Ye folks just can't slash me

[rustic cape]

Anyway I think it's just champions, fighters, specific archetypes, and maybe some class feats here and there

[plucky snow]

Interesting that Champion gets armor specialization before Fighter, I would have expected the opposite

[rustic cape]

Champion gets the best armor proficiency in the game

[sinful gyro]

Yeah they're much more about tanking than fighters

[rustic cape]

Fighter gets legendary weapons proficiency, champion gets legendary armor proficiency

(Monk gets legendary but only with unarmored)

(Which is strictly speaking a teeeeensy bit worse unless you're doing mountain stance)

[plucky snow]

ahh ok

[rustic cape]

I think Guardian is also supposed to get legendary armor?

And gunslinger gets legendary weapons but only with guns?

[clever cobalt]

Honestly, Sentinel is almost a required archetype for Heavy Armor users

Due to Mighty Bulwark

Unless you can get high Dex somehow

[sinful gyro]

So can necromancer get 2 focus points every 10 mins?

[rustic cape]

Yeah

[sinful gyro]

Cool

[rustic cape]

And absent time pressure you can assume 4 focus points per fight

Which helps because this class is super heavy on focus spells

[sinful gyro]

Ye

[rustic cape]

They are Its Deal

[sinful gyro]

Of grave importance

[rustic cape]

XD

[true delta]

Question: What are the use cases of Pathfinder Nexus? Or: Under which circumstances should I subscribe to said service?

[clever cobalt]

Looks like the highest save of the Necromancer is Fortitude, not Will

Which tracks tbf

[rustic cape]

Yep

Although they do get all saves to expert pretty quickly

And they get success-improvement on Will saves against the undead

[surreal basin]

If you have the spare money and really want an AON equivalent that updates immediately, although idk if subscribing stops you from having to buy all the books

Also I think demiplane has all the flavor and stuff

When you actually buy it

[rustic cape]

I appreciate that they have a ton of anti-undead tools

[clever cobalt]

Yeah, which is good

It was a worry I saw a lot of people had

[rustic cape]

And if you go for Spirit Monger you can easily play it as more of an Abhorsen style good-necromancer

[clever cobalt]

How so?

[rustic cape]

Fluff the thralls a little differently, avoid the really tactile sorts of abilities

[clever cobalt]

Fair

[rustic cape]

Plus your thralls can deal vitality damage to undead with a weakness so

[clever cobalt]

Hmm

Does that make it a bad idea to play in Blood Lords?

Due to all the Vitalty stuff involved there

Sounds good though, just wondering about use case

[rustic cape]

I don't think so? What I mean is that necromancer can choose best-of vitality or void damage when doing either

And spirit monger can have thralls do spirit or void in addition to the physical damage types

[clever cobalt]

Ah, fair

[rustic cape]

So the necromancer gets a lot of stuff that can hit undead hard

[clever cobalt]

So it's more like Thaumaturge Weakness stuff than actually dealing vitality damage

[rustic cape]

A bit! Critically it means you can turn all those void-damage spells that have problems with the undead into anti-undead spells

[true delta]

Thank you, netizen.

[clever cobalt]

Also, how many minions can you summon

Can you play Maleghast in PF2e now

[surreal basin]

I think 1-4 per summon action depending on ur level

[rustic cape]

1 at trained spellcasting proficiency

2 at expert

3 at master, 4 at legendary

Create Thrall is a 1-action focus cantrip that creates that many thralls and also allows one of your thralls to make a spell attack for 1d6(+1d6 per 2 levels of heightening) damage of any physical damage type

You can also eat a thrall for 1 action once/10 minutes to get a focus point back

That's the baseline

[clever cobalt]

That's a lot of minions potentially

Especially at higher level

An even better Summoner than the Summoner

[rustic cape]

The big thing is that thralls have 1 hp, always get hit, and fail all saves

By default, anyway

[clever cobalt]

Ah, so they're basically Action Economy Tolls than anything els

[rustic cape]

There are some focus spells for bigger, nastier thralls

[clever cobalt]

If that makes sense

But still, sounds pretty fun

[rustic cape]

Well, most of your focus spells hinge on thralls

You can also get a reaction that lets them reactive strike

And they can provide flanking for what that's worth

[clever cobalt]

That sounds fun

[rustic cape]

You can also use them to extend spell range and do other stuff

[clever cobalt]

Sounds like it basically trades Quality for Quantity, in terms of minions

I wonder how smoothly in plays in practice

[rustic cape]

Oh! And you can use a reaction to get a thrall when an enemy dies

[clever cobalt]

Nice

[rustic cape]

You are on top of all this a caster

Only 1-2 slots per rank

But

You are still a caster

[clever cobalt]

Neat

[rustic cape]

The only thing about the class as written that feels off to me is that it doesn't get Harm added to its spell list

It just feels like it should

[clever cobalt]

Fair

Yeah, I agree

[warped orbit]

admittedly they don't exactly need Harm either, but I see the flavor argument as well

[rustic cape]

Yeah, it's totally unnecessary

But

[surreal basin]

Yeah I’m personally glad they aren’t divine lol

Too many fuckin divine casters :p

[rustic cape]

Occult feels like a better fit anyway

[surreal basin]

Necromancer seems REALLY FUN

[tough perch]

Necromancer seems to try to deliver the fantasy of having a horde minions, but not really the mechanics
which i think is the best call

the minions are essentially resources and spell effects

kinda like lancer drones

there's a lot of gishy feats though, and i don't think they're enough to justify going to the frontlines

it'd be cool to have a death knight fascination

[surreal basin]

I don’t think there’s necessarily a lot, but it’s a theme
I think they could occasionally do it tbh

Like not a front liner, but occasionally dipping in and getting an attack in

Honestly I think Necromancer might be good to go lol, like this seems like a great class

[warped orbit]

most of the weapon stuff does work with ranged at least

[sinful gyro]

So like, nothing can destroy the horde (apart from you losing concentration or whatever)

[warped orbit]

so you can just make yourself a bow and do the occasional Strike

[sinful gyro]

And is there a limit on how big it can grow?

[rustic cape]

They seem to put those on a lot of casters and IMO it's for multiclass

[surreal basin]

Yes because it lasts 1 minute

Someone could math it out I’m sure

[sinful gyro]

Sure aside from that

[surreal basin]

It’s just difficult terrain that does a pretty small amount of damage

So I think it’s probably fine

Oh uh

Dispel magic

Would also get rid of it

[sinful gyro]

It's mobile and the damage floor is pretty high

And the bigger it gets the more it's gonna hit

[turbid dagger]

I am loving necromancer from reading it
My one little gripe is that I can't see a way to move basic thralls? A lot of the funny ones from later focus spells can move on sustain but not the basic fellas
Unless I am blind

[sinful gyro]

I'm not saying it's broken, I just think it looks real good

I don't think they can move by default

[turbid dagger]

I was expecting at least a feat to move basic thralls but nah, seemingly

[sinful gyro]

Honestly, making the base thralls immobile Probably makes the game a lot faster to run

[turbid dagger]

Yee, certainly ahving all of them move for free would have been too much
But I feel like as is it will occasionally get awkward leveraging them to the fullest, especially the free one you get on killing an enemy at level 3

As that spawns where the enemy was for better or worse

[sinful gyro]

A lot of their effects have a good range it looks like

So I think it'll work out

[surreal basin]

Yeah you just have to be meticulous with their placement

[sinful gyro]

I think the one that spawns on dead enemies can be really good actually, if you take thrall spells that care about being adjacent to allies

Like there's one that can give near by allies armor and protection from your aoe spells and stuff

So you use your reaction when your melee guy kills someone to summon a thrall next to them

And it's in the exact place you need it

[surreal basin]

Good fucking god

Runesmith eventually get 6 etched runes at once

That’s a lot

[sinful gyro]

Nice

Oh also

New favourite spell name

[surreal basin]

Also

Runesmith can do some fear and hunger shit

Some of the runes are applied to people

So I like the idea of drawing or carving them onto flesh

WOAH THE SHIELD RUNE

[warped orbit]

Runesmith looks neat

[warped orbit]

reading through feats rn

[rustic cape]

Some similar concepts to Exemplar

[warped orbit]

they can get one more from a feat as well 😛

[rustic cape]

Sick

[warped orbit]

Runic Tattoo lets you etch a rune into yourself that does not count against your limit

but if you invoke it, it goes inert until your next daily prep

[rustic cape]

Aha

[warped orbit]

they have some interesting metastrikes too

right at first level they can Strike and Trace for one action, 1/round

so Engraving Strike into invoking the rune you just Traced to detonate for some damage seems good

one tricky bit is that Trace requires you to have a free hand though

[rustic cape]

yet another class where unarmed is optimal

[surreal basin]

Uh

Uhhh

So

I don’t think they thought a specific rune through

Now it is level 17

But

on the same plane

[warped orbit]

oh yeah that one is pretty strong

[surreal basin]

And I cut it here but

If you know sigil

You can teleport the target to any sigil you’ve inscribed on the plane

Throw a rock with sigil into the ocean

You can now teleport enemies to the bottom of the ocean if they fail their save

Hang said rock above a volcano!

You get my point presumably

Fuck just having on the other side of the world would fuck over anything with their own ability to teleport lol

[warped orbit]

it might actually be, because they have some good shield support too

if you start adjacent there's also potential of doing Engraving Strike for a Strike and Trace of a damage rune, Trace second damage rune, Invoke to detonate both

[surreal basin]

True

Although yeah if you’re using weapon and shield

You’re just gonna wanna use tracing strike

Or engraving strike I mean

[warped orbit]

as written it doesn't actually obviate the need for a free hand is the thing

as does the similar feat for doing Raise a Shield and Trace in one action

[surreal basin]

Also rune singer

Oh I mean

I guess

[warped orbit]

yeah but that's only 1/minute

[surreal basin]

That’d be a really obstinate way to run it imo but I guess

Not the minute thing the hand thing

They should probably just make it so you don’t need a hand free at all

[warped orbit]

I mean, I sorta agree
but it doesn't say anywhere that you don't need to fulfill the usual requirements

so if they meant that to be the thing, it just needs to say it

[surreal basin]

Sure yeah

Again I just don’t think trace should need a hand free

If spells don’t

Especially this class that seemingly REALLY wants u to be doing sword and board

[upbeat ridge]

i kinda wish you were able to do a bit more with the necromancer thralls?

like at least let you command one like a normal minion?

paizo yet again scared of making minions not terrible

[warped orbit]

You sort of can with some of the higher level special thrall making focus spells

But otherwise its also that you could just summon more thralls instead

They're also pretty specifically not "real" minions

[rustic cape]

I mean thralls are clearly meant to be a horde of undead that you use to control space and cast spells from

And also they're a one-action attack spell analogous to the Animist's vessel spells

[upbeat ridge]

ah, isee

i thought there was like, a max you can summon

but like... that feels kinda odd right?

like the whole necromancer fantasy is yaknow commanding an army of undead?

[rustic cape]

You can summon as many as you like, plus have you looked at the Zombie Horde spell?

Lets you turn a thrall into a slow-moving damage (and difficult terrain, iirc?) emanation, and you can feed more thralls to it to make it bigger

[silver geyser]

Yeah, Necromancers can make an army without doing any action economy fuckery.

[rustic cape]

Also fwiw you can summon a big nasty thrall with decent HP relatively early on

[turbid dagger]

......Hm
How would
Necromancer interact with uh
Flexible preparation??

The drawback to flex prep is that your spells per level dont increase from 2 to 3 right

[rustic cape]

I think reasonably you would treat it as not increasing from 1 to 2

[turbid dagger]

lmao
I admittedly forgor that psychic started with 1 and increased to 2

[surreal basin]

Yeah don’t uh

Be a flexible psychic or necro lol

[limber comet]

Oh man,

Melee necro is totally viable

[rustic cape]

It has some stuff but I don’t think it really works

[eager mountain]

Ewwww

Cool af but ewwww

[upbeat ridge]

How many actions is summon thrall?

[limber comet]

1

[upbeat ridge]

That’s good at least

[rustic cape]

And the number of thralls summoned goes up with proficiency

Also create thrall is a decent 1-action spell attack

[sacred bluff]

First session of the pf1e campaign down, had a lot of fun! There's some really wild lore, good roleplaying, and my character is an absolute monster in combat Nearly soloed the sole combat encounter, dropping two Planetars before her first turn even started and doing the majority of the damage to drop two Gate Archons on her actual first turn. That's a CR 20 encounter for our party of four level 18 characters.

[thorny berry]

....boy starting a pf1 campaign at 18 is a wild choice lmao

I'm still in one, but our dm has been open about the fact that it will be ending at 16

and we straight up barred full casters

[thorny berry]

runesmith has some extremely cute feats, seems like space for a lot of different builds

a lot of very interesting positioning-focused stuff

[sacred bluff]

Yeah, I've never played above level 12 before. We're helping to playtest a module and I thought it would be a fun challenge

[woeful pecan]

Finally got a decent picrew of my new character

[rustic cape]

For some folks, much of the delight of 3.5 and PF1e in particular is fully engaging with the weirdness, complexity, and insane modularity of the mechanics

[warped orbit]

Pondering Necro a bit more
I kind of wish they had just ditched spellslots completely and juiced their focus casting even more

[rustic cape]

I wonder if we might get a necro class archetype down the line that does that and also makes them better direct combatants

I do think part of it is just that like ... inevitably there's some specific spellcasting stuff that's gonna feel like it should be on necromancer

And, I dunno, just generally I think people would complain

Also they probably want to give you something to dip into if your 4 focus points run out

[warped orbit]

I'm over time just kinda souring on spell slots more and more in general

[rustic cape]

I still have a lot of affection for them

[warped orbit]

All the thrall based stuff and focus spells on Necro are the interesting part of the class to me, the Occult casting is just kinda there

[rustic cape]

... why do centaurs have darkvision?

I mean not that I'm complaining but

Horses are not nocturnal

[errant roost]

Since they're fey, maybe? 3.5 centaurs had no excuse, though

[rustic cape]

Also I guess a lance is just a better longspear

Oh wait longspear is simple

That's why

[frank crystal]

So is there any mechanical difference between a creature with a -1 in every stat and a +6 in every stat?

Besides the flavor differences

[rustic cape]

At low levels a high attribute might be able to do unspecified skill stuff

But in general, no. Attributes on monsters are primarily aesthetic with a side of "just in case it comes up for some reason".

[echo briar]

How much bulk they can carry

[tough perch]

Theoretically these are accounted for in their derived statistics, but not really

the times i bothered to check, a monsters to hit bonus was the stat they would use to attack and a valid proficiency bonus

[limber comet]

I mean that's probably the point, for the thrall and focus point stuff to be your main method of interaction in combat, with occult spells as your backup

Either for in combat or out of combat utility

[rustic cape]

I think list spells are intended to be your "I'm out of focus points" thing in most cases

If you want to go more in on them you can a bit but mostly that's not your deal

It's a bit tricky and I think they're skirting around the edges of the focus point system's current limits quite a bit as-is

Give too much focus point silliness and the interactions with other systems get potentially tricky. I suppose they could have done something more like kineticist but then you face the inverse problem of too little interaction.

[tough perch]

honestly i'd like it if they removed or increased the limit on how many times you can consume your thralls to recover focus points

having unlimited focus points like this would still be constrained by action economy

since you gotta use the thralls both for focus points and as fuel for the spells themselves

maybe add that the focus points from consuming thralls can only be used for grave spells or something

that said, getting to use up to 4 focus points in a fight is probably fine, since you'd probably only ever would use one focus point per turn, and most fights only go up to 3 or 4 turns

still, most focus points feel like special exclusive spells, while necromancer's feel like a core class mechanic

i'd rather have the ability to not run out of my class mechanic during a longer fight

[rustic cape]

I think there's a degree of future-proofing there

And possibly past-proofing

Because archetypes and multiclassing do exist

[echo briar]

Then you have the problem if just poaching focus spells from archetypes.

[rustic cape]

Inevitably, someone would find a way to make it a problem

[surreal basin]

Also thralls can do things usually that don’t require a focus point AND you’re still a full caster

[frank crystal]

Gamers

Anyone got a cool random encounter chart for desert adventures?

My players are taking some dune crawlers into a 3 day long desert trip

And I want to do some random encounter rolling because I so rarely get the chance this game

Also the idea with this is that they’re going into a kinda, heavy storm weather sandstorm

Effectively Hurricane level winds in a desert

[trail nova]

I don’t know the PF bestiary well enough to really help, but what level?

[echo briar]

Do you think there’s enough living people in Geb for it to have Geb restaurants in other areas?

[surreal basin]

Probably
Might be called Osirian as a cuisine tho

[upbeat ridge]

are pf2e memes allowed here

[echo briar]

yes

[rustic cape]

... I understand the hypothetical humor here but US election-related memes just make me stressed out right now

[upbeat ridge]

thats fair

[deleted image of a "geb!" pf2e meme]

[rustic cape]

I appreciate it

[fast hill]

oh that meme is so good

but yes

[frank crystal]

Sorry for the delay, they’re level 8

[echo briar]

Playtest pdf is out now https://paizo.com/pathfinderplaytest

[errant roost]

any differences from what's on demiplane?

[rustic cape]

I think the big change needed for necromancer is making Master of Life and Death optional, so you don’t have to hit negative-immune creatures with vitality damage if you don’t want to

It’s a very good mechanic but I think it shouldn’t be compulsory

[solar thorn]

So, has anyone here finished AV? My players are closing in, and between extra encounters and perfectionism they're dangerously close to fighting the BBEG at level 12

If others have finished, did their players end up overleveled at the end?

[errant roost]

are there times when that's a bad thing? I guess if the negative-immune creature is an ally?

[echo briar]

Harm is fine. It is still undead so it is healed instead of hurt

[echo briar]

Demi plane doesn’t list how many actions many things are

Do we still have no idea why this is called the impossible playtest?

[rustic cape]

Basically, yeah. Also you might not want to pop your own thralls

[rustic cape]

Harm is fine but there's plenty of void damage that isn't harm

And tbc it's not a huge issue

It's literally the only complaint I have about necromancer, everything else is awesome

Master of Life and Death is also just really good tech

[clever cobalt]

Interesting

[rustic cape]

Do we think this is going to related to Impossible Lands

[clever cobalt]

potentially

[warped orbit]

I have

we went into things with an extra level from the BB though

but I think our GM also mentioned throttling our XP a bit for the last two floors so we wouldn't be too overleveled

[warped orbit]

something about a new war between Geb and Nex seems likely

[thorny berry]

'the possibilities of magic' is an odd phrase

[clever cobalt]

Shifter confirmed

[thorny berry]

that makes it sound like funkier systemic stuff than just some new classes but that's not really how paizo tends to operate

I assume it's just More Stuff generally and maybe some new weird optional subsystem confined to the one book

...or it's just general marketing fluff and I'm reading too much into it

[echo briar]

Secrets of magic is unremastersble. So it could be its replacement

[wary yoke]

If they're going to reprint bounded casters, accompanying the other bounded caster would work, I suppose

[thorny berry]

four classes in one book seems wild pagecount-wise

[echo briar]

counter point, divine mysteries

[thorny berry]

got me there

I'd be quite curious to see what they do with summoner since it feels a bit more in need of some reworking

[echo briar]

I mean, not really.

Magus needs to figure out what it wants to do with arcane cascade.

outside of like fey eidolon using spell schools, summoner is like the ranger or barbarian where it doesn't need anything really, but people wouldn't complain if it got something.

[stuck bane]

My group would have but we did want to do an 11-20 campaign with the characters afterwards, so I just told them I’d prefer to cap off their xp gain once they hit level 11, and they agreed

[surreal basin]

I mean imo I don’t expect everything to get reprinted

Some stuff like SoM content will either get a G&G mini-remaster or errata eventually, I think?

[vocal ember]

I guess if they got rid of the stuff they already reprinted/the stuff that is ogl you could probably fit in a couple classes

[vocal ember]

in terms of numbers if you cut out the stuff that's reprinted/ogl you get rid of about 27 pages I think

[echo briar]

The entire playtest is 24 pgs. 3 pages of more options seems reasonable

[solar thorn]

Yeah I think im going to cap to 11. They're currently ||~720 xp coming out of trial 1 of the empty temple|| so they will hit 12.

[echo briar]

Interesting observation, necromancer is noticeably worse in agents of edgewatch due to all attacks being non lethal.

It is also very bad in SoT, where you are encouraged to not kill most things

[frank crystal]

How long do vampires last without blood?

[solar storm]

I think for PC vampires they use the same starvation and thirst rules as normal but their hunger is sated only with blood

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2603

[frank crystal]

Ah shit

So essentially they last their con modifier+1

Hmm, that will make this character idea a lot harder

Does animal blood work?

[solar storm]

I think so

Some of the Undead Hungers require a humanoid but I don't think the vampire's does

[frank crystal]

Ok

Do vampires degrade like WOD vampires without blood in PF?

Like, physically degrading I mean

[solar storm]

I imagine so

[frank crystal]

Ok

I mentioned it in #tabletop-discussion but I want the idea of a vampire knight who’s always fully covered by armor to hide their degrading body after they swore off mortal blood

And I was wondering for this if it would be better to go vampire or Dhampir

[solar storm]

Yeah that should work fine I think

Mechanically I think Dhampir is kinda... better

[frank crystal]

I mean yah

[solar storm]

Vampire is a little meh mechanically and eats a lot of valuable feat slots in comparison

[frank crystal]

I could go Dhampir just to have something at level 1 tbh

Just flavor it as full vampire

Do Dhampir need blood actually?

I know they can drink it

[solar storm]

I don't think they require it the same way

[frank crystal]

What’s the benefit of drinking it then?

[solar storm]

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2349

[frank crystal]

So Dhampir gets a super useful drink blood action

And vampire doesn’t

That’s fucked up paizo

[solar storm]

I think they're about equal in power but Taste Blood is easier to proc

[surreal basin]

Vampires can get a drink blood action that buffs u and drains the enemy

It’s a little hard to do but it’s p funny to do on like

Boss adds

[solar storm]

They get it stock I think but its harder to use since it's really easy to set off taste blood in comparison

[frank crystal]

Yah drink blood requiring you grapple first is so annoying

And makes it useless on so many builds

(I know it can technically trigger off other stuff but those conditions are so rare for players to have access to)

When was the last time you paralyzed an enemy?

[solar storm]

Like 2 sessions ago but I get your general point

[frank crystal]

Wait how?

[surreal basin]

The paralyze spell dog

It do paralysis

:p

[solar storm]

yeah

incap makes it harder to use but

It's pretty good for making sure sentries can't raise an alarm

[surreal basin]

Taste blood also isn’t that much less situational - for a good number of build “you hit with a fangs strike” is already a non starter lmao

[solar storm]

true

[frank crystal]

Ngl, I kinda forgot that’s a spell

I kinda write off incap CC spells

Maybe to quickly

[frank crystal]

It does cover most martials at least though

[solar storm]

I kinda wish it had a heighten between 3rd and 7th level

[frank crystal]

Obviously you probably have a better weapon but you’re gonna be at least good at unarmed stacks

[solar storm]

Like if at rank 5 it could target 3 or something

[frank crystal]

Yah especially with how big the jump is

[surreal basin]

Oh I mean like

A caster

Is just insanely unlikely to hit with a fang strike and probably shouldn’t be up in someone’s face

Is all

[wary yoke]

Read through the Necromancer playtesting material, a bit disappointed that the Necromancer doesn’t have many tools to hook into real undead

Besides the same spells that any other non-primal caster has

[limber comet]

That's probably for a reason honestly

[wary yoke]

It’s a cool class, but it feels like it’s pretending to play with toy versions of real necromancy that NPCs have

[upbeat ridge]

yeah

paizo still too scared to make summons even decent

granted its a slippery slope but jeez

[wary yoke]

I know that every Necromancer PC can’t be friggen Tar-Baphon, but this is Locked Tomb necromancy, which is just neutral energy channeled through dead things. Still cool, but they’re tools to an end, not leashed monsters following your will.

[wary yoke]

Again, it works as a non-unholy necromancer, but I feel like part of the core fantasy of playing a necromancer is bringing your foes back, and the most the Impossible playtesting can do is create a new thrall on a reaction

[limber comet]

I dunno man, I might wanna resurrect my fallen foes but I also don't really want the gm to have to deal with me puppeting around a recently deceased boss monster

Thralls are a fine workaround

[upbeat ridge]

thats fair

im mostly saying i wish they were at least able to move

[surreal basin]

Yeah I’m gonna be real “bring my dead foes back” honestly just isn’t really a possibility in this system

Paizo full stop never wants summoning to be a full option, they’ve made that very clear with design choices

And while I think it’s overkill I get it - if you make it like that, now you have to design every single monster in the game with the idea that they can be summoned in mind

[surreal basin]

I think the class does the best alternate fantasy, “lead a horde of extremely disposable undead” reasonably well

[wary yoke]

And I still think the class is cool, but at best it's still a kid-gloves necromancer

It's playing with the toys while NPCs get the real stuff

Again, there isn't an Unholy tag in the entire class

[rustic cape]

... yes because unholy is almost strictly limited to divine characters

That's not really what unholy means in PF2e

[wary yoke]

The Create Undead ritual is Unholy

And nearly all real undead have it as a tag

[rustic cape]

Zombies and skeletons don't

Hm, looking at it, it's inconsistent

Oh wait, I see

The ones without are old pre-remaster ones

[wary yoke]

The only new one without is the Revenant, I think

[warped orbit]

Thinking about Runesmith some more

I think the class overall looks pretty neat, but my first reaction now is that the damage runes might be pretty centralising in terms of strategy

In that I think Tracing and Invoking those damaging runes might be your best bet most turns

[crystal walrus]

I need to read it

But there's no way of making like

Strong undead?

[wary yoke]

Some of the advanced focus spells do things like make bigger thralls

Some of which have more than a single-digit HP pool

[crystal walrus]

Mm.

No solo levelling for you then i see

[wary yoke]

They still only last one minute

[rustic cape]

I would point out that there is a way to make strong undead — it’s the create undead ritual at higher levels

That’s not going to suffice for your combat schtick but it’s not gone anywhere

[wary yoke]

Any other caster could do it though

[rustic cape]

Yes

[silver geyser]

Making undead is actually not a necromancer specific trick, as it turns out.

Making a lot of undead is.

[rustic cape]

Necromancers have access to undead creation-options that other casters don’t, yeah

[rustic cape]

And very quickly!

[wary yoke]

They're just undead-shaped tools though

Besides the undead tag they share no other mechanical resemblance to undead monsters

[rustic cape]

No? The fact that they're not undead with monster stats does not mean they are not, within the fiction, undead.

[wary yoke]

Most of them can functionally be a tripod with a sharp stick tied on

[rustic cape]

I guess this feels very arbitrary to me, there are a lot of game mechanics that you can strip of their fiction and say, "well they're not actually this thing" but the fiction is important