See my Edit above. The Void trait makes effects damage living creatures.
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Once living, these creatures were infused after death with void energy and soul-corrupting unholy magic. When reduced to 0 Hit Points, an undead creature is destroyed. Undead creatures are damaged by vitality energy and are healed by void energy, and don’t benefit from healing vitality effects. EDIT: Or do you mean that doesn't strictly speaking include immunity? Then it's covered by the Void trait, which makes effects "deal void damage to living creatures". So an undead creature can't be damaged by any void effects.
I don't think create thrall improves at all when you gain levels. You're stuck with 2 thralls (+/- command or puppeteer). So you might end up with fewer thralls overall at higher levels when compared to the playtest. Infuse Void + thingy will still often require you to not only have a thrall (or two if you want to kill one to regain focus), but also the thrall being in a position where the thingy makes sense. Unless create thrall counts as a damaging spell (which I personally don't think is true), the only one action damage grave spell I'm aware of is deathly scream. But that one does mental damage, against whoch your thralls are immune. If the feat requires you to kill something specifically with either void damage of the spellshape or the damage of the spell, you couldn't go create + infuse + thingy on the same turn.
That's interesting. I don't have the book and I'm mostly going by some spoilers and description from various sources like YouTube and discord. Makes it a bit hard to compare exact wording. But even if you can blow up a thrall with Infuse to regain a focus point, it still requires quite a bit of setup and costs multiple actions. I still wouldn't count on it as being a viable refocus option I'd rely on heavily. But it does increase the value of the feat.
Infuse Void is mandatory because Necromancer is all about focus spells I don't think Infuse Void is quite as essential as you state. Three Focus points per fight is plenty in most cases. By the time you've spend all of them (let's say turn three) most encounters should be decided and you can mop up with cantrips (or your weapon if you're a Reaper). And if it's a severe+ encounter, you're likely to spend at least one of your first turns on a max level spell, making your focus spells run out even later. Puppeteers have their once per day instant refocus and if that's still not enough you could get a familiar (undead or otherwise) to regain a focus point on demand once per day. Infuse Void also only works with grave spells and nearly all of those that deal damage require you to already have a thrall. Most are also two actions, so you'd need to have a thrall at the start of the turn if you want to do Infuse + Spell. And then it's only a single focus point you can regain per encounter. You of course also need a target to die to it, which is unreliable and probably means your side is winning even without your one extra focus point. I'm not sure a spell that causes a thrall to make a Strike counts as a "spell that deals damage". If it does, you could use Infuse Void with Thrall Charge or even Create Thrall. That would definitely increase its value. Infuse Void is a good spellshape, but I'd mostly pick it up as a puppeteer for the extra damage. If I regain a focus point with it, great! But it seems too unreliable to use it as a means to refocus. Though I'm not sure it says you have to kill an enemy with it. Surely you can't just make one of your thralls take vitality damage from a nearby Infused Necrotic Bomb to regain a focus spell, can you?
Necro at 6 has sooo many good feats... the necro in general has a ton of feats for a caster. I think about 70 or something? Though about 2 dozen of them are just "get a focus spell". (Someone with the book might be nice enough to do the counting.) But from all the previews I've seen, level 6 has the reaction bone burst. And the feats giving you a holy/unholy aura that passively hurts anyone with the opposite sanctification. A feat that for one action makes all your thralls immune to area and splash damage for 1 round. Reclaim Power for self sustain. The reaper/puppeteer specific feats. And i think there was a focus spell that summons a bunch of indestructible immobile blood "whips" or something that just keep hitting nearby enemies in the face. Sounded amazing in tight quarters.
Yeah, but if you're having it do something like carry valuables, it might be a pain to have them all clattering to the floor every sixty seconds. I was more thinking about having the thrall retrieve a key from a hook on the wall or something. I wasn't going to use a thrall as a carryall.
Is there a rule saying a creature can't take more damage than it has HP? Vampiric spell gets you tempHP equal to half the damage dealt to one creature. Could you just attack up one of your thralls with a cantrip as a prebuff before combat to start with a decent amount of extra HP? Also from what I understand there's nothing keeping you from having a thrall up at all times, making it walk down that dungeon corridor some 30-ish feet in front of you, correct? It can even open doors and chests (if unlocked), pull levers, push buttons, probabaly bring you items...? That seems like a ridiculous amount of utility outside of combat. Am I missing something that would prevent this?
I don't think Thrall Charge is a a viable spell for infuse void. That spellshape only works on spells that deal damage, I believe? Thrall Charge doesn't deal damage, it only increases the damage of the Thrall.
2 actions, 30 ft range, turns a thrall into a soul instrument that can only be heard by a single ally within 15 ft. Heals the ally for 1d8 damage per rank and grant fast healing 1 per rank as long as the target is within 15 ft of the thrall. Does not destroy the thrall. Duration is one minute, though I guess the thrall will still end after 1 minute if it's from some previous round. Also heals with vitality or void, depending on what heals the target. VEEEEERY good out of combat focus heal, even more so on a class that regains 2 focus points innately. Could also easily be grabbed via the archetype.
Yes, but that doesn't change the RAW on any Escape attemps done by a thrall.The focus spell explicitly calls out that attempts to escape do not auto-succeed and the DC is your spell DC I somehow missed that, thanks. Guess that can happen if you have to rely on YouTube videos for actual rules texts.
What are people's thoughts about Conjurer of Corpses. I love extra spell slots and like the idea of summons, so on the surface it seems cool. Just not sure of action economy of Necromancer and whether it is a good option. Thoughts? Casting it costs 3 actions which obviously keeps you from creating thralls so hopefully whatever you summon is worth the investment. I'm pretty sure I'd not spend a 6th level feat on this and just prepare summon undead I a regular slot if I want to cast it. That being said, the feat does allow your summoned undead to be targeted by your abilities that target thralls. Thrall Charge is an ability that targets a thrall. Not sure if that's RAI and if you could still command the summoned undead when sustaining the spell to give it 2 more actions, but it could have some interesting potential.
My memory might be off, but isn't full artworks a relatively recent development on AoN? Pretty sure they were an official partner before they started getting access to artworks. I get that the art is important to many people, but couldn't you at least go back to the before-art agreement? Give them the books early (and hopefully for free) so they can keep helping the game grow even if they have to remove all (or at least most) art from the site.
From what I've seen, the necro healing focus spell doesn't destroy the target thrall and provides the target with fast healing as long as it remains within 15 ft of the thrall. If you get the undead familiar, you can target it with your abilities as if it is a thrall. So you could make it independent and have it follow the healee around to keep the fast healing going. The familiar should be much harder to get rid off than a thrall.
On top of handing out free books, there's probably some effort involved when it comes to providing artworks. I assume at least some amount of work goes into this and AoN isn't simply handed all the artwork or given free reign to pull anything they want from the PDFs. I don't believe this is a huge amount of work, but it still costs paizo money. With the recent layoffs they might also simply lack the manpower to keep doing so. Not sure any of this justifies the step or even plays a part in the decision at all, mind you. But it may or may not have been a factor.
Not sure how often thrall charge will be used in practice. You can easily follow up create thrall with a MAP-less cantrip or one of your focus spells. Thrall Charge seems like a decent backup but so far I don't value it all that highly. I'd definitely try to avoid having it as part of my basic combat plan.
Reaper and puppeteer both get 2 thralls and one Strike out of one action. The Reaper's can be potentially much stronger (albeit with slightly less attack bonus at certain levels) but in exchange for that, he needs to be closer to the action and danger. I honestly think that's a perfectly good trade off.
The focus spell explicitly calls out that attempts to escape do not auto-succeed and the DC is your spell DC Yes, but that doesn't change the RAW on any Escape attemps done by a thrall.
That seems like a sensible interpretation. I hadn't even considered Strikes.
The thrall trait says all checks against the thrall auto-succeed which I would interpret as being a regular, non-crit success. The trait also says thralls auto-fail any check, which is a bit weird since Escape is one of the actions they can take.
The immediate effect of this might not be huge, but pulling support from a community site that is such an integral part of the game sets a bad precedence. AoN costs paizo basically nothing as far as I can tell, while their support and endorsement for the site was hugely positive publicity for a long time and brought many new players to the game.
Would be fun if hedge witch could get cantrips from all traditions with that feat. I'd love to pick up Vitality Lash on a Necro, but it's hard to find 12 great cantrips on the divine list. Thankfully, there seems to be a spellheart that provides vitality lash.
The Magical Understudy line got a big boost too, with the eidolon now using your spell modifiers and DC instead of its own. Summoner isn't exactly a class I know very well but hasn't this always been the case?
This is wild in the same book as magus with the same casting progression and martial scaling. Same SLOT progression. Necro is still a legendary caster, unlike the magus. Also gets 10th rank spells. Reaper is the first legendary caster with medium armor and martial weapons I think? (Not counting war mage since it's technically only familiar, not proficient). Also the first legendary caster with fort instead of will as their strong save and it even goes up to legendary, which is rare for caster saves. Strong fort goes a long way towards making a character more better at melee. I really don't think the Reaper (or the puppeteer for that matter) has a bad proficiency chassis. It's not quite bard level, but it's way above average for a caster.
I genuinely think Reaper goes great with Marshal. Probably needs free archetype. But a 1 action bless is great, buffs your flanking thrall buddy and boosts one of your weak saves. Getting Reactive Strike is always good as well. Saves you from getting Bind Heroic Spirit, so you have more focus points and better action economy. Also support your allies, of course. I've also read about some aura feat that can be activated for one action if you're holy and deals some spirit damage to nearby unholy creatures (with sanctification). Not sure if that's a stance or not (I'm hoping not), but it seems like it could be very effective on a reaper.
No spellcasting archetype has text for the learn a spell activity as far as I know. Unless you want to also say archetype wizards and witches are unable to add spells to their spellbooks and familiars. Those get a spellbook and a familiar as defined in their parent class. There's no definition anywhere that says you can add spells to a keepsake via Learn a Spell. I could see this going either way. The fact that you learn only low rank spells (but lots of them) makes me inclined to believe the hedge mage is meant to use low rank spells exclusively. But I can't really say what's the RAI here, especially since I've only seen parts of the archetype.
It has spellcasting, the keepsake is a repository, that's all the requirements to fire the Learn A Spell activity.No restriction at all on just learning spells via scrolls to properly fill out the higher slots instead of heightening.Wait, hedge mage archetype alone can potentially learn spells higher than 3rd rank? It's a bit stupid that Learn a Spell says how it interacts with repositories and repertoires, but only the latter is ever explicitly called out as being part of a class or archetype. If Dirge and the keepsake would be called repository at any point, we could save ourselves quite a bit of headache.
My impression was that the hedge mage can't learn new spells outside of its spelllcaster feat progression. Does the archetype say it can learn a spell at any point? Anyway it's weird that the heighten spellshape makes the hedge mage better for full casters than non-casters. As far as I understand, you could use this to heighten your rank 9 spells to rank 10, increasing your number of 10th rank spells quite significantly.
I read your post. It might well be a room issue, sure. But its not like we never got a class feature that's written across two pages. Even if it didn't fit on this page, would there really - really - not have been editing option to make room for one or two more lines? I don't think page 28 is the last of the Necro class section, right? But regardless of what we guess is the reason, my point stands. The wording isn't clear and could be improved or at least clarified in an errata or something.
The wording is just weird. The "and learn via Learn a Spell" at the end of the sentence doesn't fit at all, no matter how you look at it. I agree that the necro should be able to add spells to their dirge like wizard, witch and magus do, mind you. I'm just saying that the text doesn't really support (or deny) this in any way.
The full text according to someone on discord is "Each time you gain a level, you add two occult spells to your dirge, of any spell rank for which you have spell slots, chosen from common occult spells or others you gain access to and learn via Learn a Spell." It never says you add via learn a spell it only says you can add spells on level up that you learn via learn a spell. I have honestly no clue what the RAI is, seeing how this is our first prepared 2 slot caster. But the RAW is definitely not super clear. EDIT: Just remembered that we have another 2 slot prepared caster now: the magus. Had discord check and apparently his spellbook feature does list adding spells via learn a spell separately.
Is regaining HP the same as being healed? The blood necro regains some minor HP whenever a thrall is destroyed and someone on discord mentioned a new low-level armor property rune that increases your received healing by 1 or sonething along those lines. That could potentially be a very potent combination.
Do we know how Eidolons got "streamlined" ? As far as I understand you can choose one of the following for all eidolons: Either it gets +4 Str, +2 Dex and +2 AC (max dex bonus +3 I believe) Or it gets +2 Str, +4 Dex and +1 AC (not sure on max dex, assume +1). All other attributes are determined by type of eidolon.
The necro can be an outstanding out of combat healer. His focus spell song of the spirit heals an ally within 15 ft of a thrall for 1d8 per rank and then gives the ally fast healing 1 per rank for as long as the thrall stays within 15 ft (and survives). Thralls last up to a minute so that's 1d8 + 9 (or 10? Too lazy to think about that right now) healing per rank on a focus spell. On a class that can refocus for 2 points even at 1st level.
The rune from my post is an actual item. An armor property rune. Nothing to do with the runesmith. Should have specified that, my bad.
Apparently there's a level 5 armor rune (for any armor type) that allows you once per round to Step an extra 5 ft if you Step. That seems very useful for just bout anyone.
First PDFs seem to be arriving. First spoilers appear on the Pathfinder discord. Runesmith arch gives you two 1st level runes, you can have one active at once but that number scales to 2 at 9th and 3 ath 17th. You can invoke one rune at a time
If I ever saved the playtest pdf it died with my old laptop, so I'm sort of having to figure out how the class works from context clues and vague memories. The playtest is still available for download. You can literally type "impossible playtest" into google to find it again later if need be.
Can't wait to get my hands on this on MONDAY!!!!YEAH MONDAY IS SUBSCRIBER DAY!! WE'RE SO CLOSE!! I can't remember when I was last so hyped for a release! Or so sad that a subscription is just way too expensive for me here in Europe. :(
Having more lower level spell slots also makes non-damage Spellstrikes more viable. Striking an enemy and affecting him with slow for 2 actions might be more valuable than just doing a strike with extra damage. It's not a great use of a top rank slots, but if you're level 10+, a 3rd rank slot isn't all that valuable.
I'll repeat myself here: The Necro might just have enough going on to warrant a martial class having the same spell slot progression. The Psychic really does not. Still, I'm glad for all magus (and presumably summoner) players.
I think Puppeteers will have some incentive to dump 6 (one strike) or 7 (none) out in their first turn to set up a picket line that can use that reactive strike thing on people who move The reaction Bone Burst is weirdly not mentioned in KnowDirection's articles at all. I really hope it still exists.
There's a new article on KnowDirection. Mostly High Seas stuff, but also with some details on higher level Necromancer feats and focus spells in the second half. Some interesting stuff: Wings of Bone and Sinew, a level 8 feat that allows you to destroy a thrall for 1 action to gain skeletal wings (Fly speed) for a minute. March of the Dead (3 actions, level 8 feat) makes your thralls all move at once, weighing down enemies to encumber or even slow them. Skeletal Extension (level 10 feat, free action) gives you reach and the ability to Step 15 feet for a round when you destroy a thrall with your grave spells. Expanded Necromancy (level 10 feat) adds Grizzly Growth, Execute, Dessicate and Massacre to your spell list.
Oddly enough, the necromancer dedictation itself has the manipulate trait. I thought that was just a typo, but is it possible that's a lost trait meant to be in the description? Didn't notice that. I guess it's possible that the trait should be on the action? Let's hope for a day 1 errata to clear that up.
The damage is in the Comand Thrall focus cantrip. That does scale and looks like the archetype gets regular access to it. It just doesnt get the action compression of the full Necromancer, which is fair. I don't think Command a Thrall is a cantrip. The Necro Dedication says it's an action that's described in the thrall trait.
An instant flanking buddy sounds great for martials, especially since the action doesn't even have the manipulate trait (which I seriously hope is also true for the Create Thrall cantrip of the full class). It's also interesting that it's not a spell at all, so it's unaffected by things like stupefy, doesn't require you to speak and might not even have any obvious signs of magic happening. You can just make zombies pop up with a glance. That being said, I'm not sure I'd ever fit the poor action economy of the Necro archetype into a caster, though. EDIT: The acion not being a spell also means no heightening and thus, no scaling. I wonder where the base damage of a thrall Strike and its scaling is defined. Probably in the thrall trait.
Happy with necromancer archetype (much better than I thought it would be) and that captivator is coming back! Necro archetype seems great for martials. One action to set up a flanking buddy should be very popular with rogues and helpful for everyone else. Not sure I'd pick it on a caster, though. The action economy seems rough. Also magus archetype has regular casting benefits... Is magus going to have as many slots as psychic/necromancer? The necromancer might just have enough stuff going on to survive that, but the psychic would be devastated if a full martial gets his spell slot progression. It seems more likely that magus (and presumably summoner) get one slot for all lower ranks and keep their two slots for the two top ranks. And probably still no 10th level slot.
I think Command Thrall will be a lvl 4 or 6 feat. That would be terrible since you need Command Thrall to have your thralls do anything at all.
I would assume the Dedication gives us a Dirge with 2 known cantrip and the ability to prepare one of them per day. Anything else would break the spellcaster archetype mold, and I don't see that happening. It will also give us training in Occultism, of course. On top of that, I strongly assume it will come with Create Thrall as a focus Cantrip and the Command a Thrall action/cantrip. We won't get the action compress of the Fatal Methods, so no third thrall or free action Strike.
Has anyone seen any hints at when we might get more previews? The early level necromancer preview was awesome. And I do know about the paizo preview on July 10th (so far awaaaay). Has anyone heard of any other content creators who have permission to spoil some stuff, and when we might see it? I was low-key hoping for weekly updates on KnowDirection, but that's obviously not happening or we would have a new article since yesterday. I asked the author of the first article on reddit if there's an ETA for new ones. No answer yet, unfortunately.
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