Blave's page

The wording was very much "add the staff's charges". If anything, I'm baffled that anyone read it another way.

The biggest argument against it was always "you can't prepare two staves" but then again, it also never said you have to actually prepare your personal rune staff.

But that's all moot now I guess. We live in a post spring-errata world now and wizard is back at the bottom of the class list - and I obviously don't mean alphabetically.

Yeah, I don't think that one is getting reverted. That ability was definitely in the "Too good to be true" territory. I remember reading it and thinking, "Well whose gonna wanna play a normal wizard," which is not gonna be a good approach.

I honestly think the anathema is enough of a deterrent to make sure players still play the vanilla wizard.

And frankly, the Runelord was hardly overpowered when compared to remastered Imperial Sorcerers or Oracles. The Wizard being worse in comparison is a flaw in the base class, not in the archetype.

Envy is terrible, no offensive spells outside of Mental damage!?

Not that it changes all that much, but there's still non-mental ways of dealing damage as an Envy Runelord. You can still use spells that deal force or sonic damage (few as they are). Or physical damage as long as the spell isn't elemental or void-based. Stuff like vomit swarm and telekinetic projectile work. Even Rouse Skeleton doesn't technically violate your anathema, despite it's necromantic flavor.

So instead I'll politely ask if maybe this archetype just isn't for you? I don't think getting

*another* extra top level slot from those two spells is going to fundamentally change the issues you've got with the archetype if you don't like how the first one works.

Well, I kind of want to like the Wizard but the remaster has made this really hard. The Runelord made it quite a bit easier for various reasons. With the errata, one big reason is gone. And I'm not even speaking from a power perspective here. I'm planning to play a Greed Runelord, despite it being one of the weakest sins - and definitely not gaining much from an extra top level cast at most levels.

But the mere fact that I could have gotten an overcharged stuff was a very fun thought. Even though the Greed spell list is quite lackluster. Breaking the limits of normal spellcaster with your sin spells is just a great concept.

Now this is gone. The main draw for the archetype is just a staff with a questionable spell list. Yes, its max spells are a rank higher than equal level bought staves, which isn't nothing. But I'm basically giving up 98% of all will targeting spells for this. A huge hit to the character's flexibility, which is usually what I value in arcane and prepared casters.

Past level 5 or so, I don't see much mechanical value in the Runelord. If you happen to have one of the sins with a great spell list, sure. But for the other 4 or 5? The abilities will simply not balance out the anathema. I'm reasonably sure that a basic spell blending or substitution wizard will be more powerful.

I will probably still play him because I don't really have time to come up with something else before the campaign starts and I've been tinkering on this character for at least 6 months.

That "extra top rank slot" is limited to two spells. Oh, and at level 15+ it's reduced to a single spell. You at least get to spontaneously choose which one you want to cast before then.

Then there's spell quality. Getting to choose between 2 spells isn't great if one or even both of them are just bad or highly situational.

Sure, you can use the charges to spam a few lower level spells but even for those many are bad - or become bad as levels go on because they rely on damage, counteracting or have the incapacitation trait.

There's maybe 2 sins with a spell list that really benefits from those extra top rank slots at all levels.

The errata'd Runelord is barely worth dealing with the anathema. And only because the base wizard is somehow even worse, if more flexible.

I don't know your table, character concept and situation, but why not? Taking another caster, making some background adjustments shouldn't be too hard I suppose?

Being a wizard is a very substantial part of this character. If I just change the class, I might as well build another character altogether.

Witch would be the only thing that might also be a good fit, but we already got one. And I want to be an arcane caster and I'm not touching the Inscribed One with a reach spellshape Telekinetic Hand heightened to rank 5 (which is the caster equivalent of a 10 ft pole).

I also kind of want to play this character for RP reasons. I just have to decide whether to stick with Greed Runelord or go back to the original (pre-Rival Academies) plan of being a universalist.

I never liked the entire concept. Wizards and sins don't mesh at all.

Well, that's mostly a flavor concern and up to each player to decide.

But mechanically, the wizard is already bland and the pre-errata Runelord was the first thing in over five years that got me actually excited to play one. Far less so post-errata, unfortunately.

It's probably too late to switch my character (or at least his class) for our new campaign starting this sunday. But if the errata happened two weeks ago, I would seriously have considered dropping the Runelord archetype - and maybe even the wizard class entirely. That's just sad.

Oh great, 6 days before I finally start playing a Runelord, the archetype's most amazing feature gets removed. Yay?

What remains is

- a free staff that's very much hit or miss depending on your level and sin.
- a very limited form of spell substitution.
- limited martial weapon proficiency (worth less than half a general feat).
- on average better focus spells.
- a few decent, but mostly not outstanding, feats.

If the feats and focus spells of the baseline wizard were actually good, the errata'd Runelord wouldn't really bring anything useful to the table.

I'm not convinced this is worth the anathema anymore. I was perfectly willing to play each and every Sin previously, but with that blow to the Runelord's power, I don't think I could stomach playing some of the weaker Sins.

No panel about Pathfinder2e rule books? No Battlecry preview or something?

It's literally written in the class description under sanctification...

If the deity lists “none,” you can choose only options that don't require the holy or unholy trait.

Can I get Raise Symbol and use it with my Shield without having to get Emblazoned Armament?

That's something you have to ask your GM. I don't think there's a RAW way to treat a shield as a religious symbol other than Emblazon Armament. There's a specific magic shield somewhere that counts as Symbol of Torag, but that's about it.

Any update on how this turned out Blave? Curious because I am building a Warpriest currently at level 8 and I will be the only tank. The party has a healer already.

Didn't expect to see a 4+ years old thread if mine reappear, so sorry for the late response.

As Yuri has mentioned correctly, A LOT has changed since I was last discussing this. I ultimately ended up playing another character altogether but if I were to rebuild a warpriest now it would look very different from what the original idea here.

I'd absolutely go Bastion if possible. The ability to raise a shield as a reaction takes a lot of strain from your action economy.

Another somewhat unusual thing I'd seriously consider is going Magus archetype. Grabbing Shielding Strike is another amazing action economy enhancer and Spellstrike is a much more versatile option than Channel Smite.

Getting both Magus and Bastion in a timely manner requires free archetype and a permissive GM, of course. I usually have both in my group, fortunately.

But for regular play, I agree with Yuri that champion is great. Heavy armor and the reaction alone make this a very powerful archetype. The new remaster feat Defensive advance is an action economy enhancer similar to what Bastion or Magus can provide.

If you can muster the required charisma, I'd go champion over sentinel without hesitation. Mighty Bulwark is ultimately just a +1 to reflex saves most of the time, and not worth the feat investment. Reflex targeting stuff that doesn't deal damage is too rare as the sole reason for sentinel. And you likely have Raise Symbol, so it's not like your saves are terrible either way.

Blave wrote:

So it doesn't matter when exactly you spend the action to sustain it as long as it happens before the end of your next turn.

For the context of the question asked, yes. I would agree with that.

There is an edge case that wasn't asked about. You do have to sustain the spell after the start of your 'next' turn (or rather, after the start of the turn the spell is scheduled to end on) in order for it to extend the duration.

So if you cast a spell on round 1 for your first two actions, then sustain the spell for your third action that round, it doesn't extend the duration farther than the end of round 2.

Similarly, if you cast a spell on round 1, then somehow manage to sustain the spell while it is not your turn before you start your round 2 (readied action or something bizarre like that), it would still set the spell's expiration time to the end of your 'next' turn, which is still going to be the end of round 2.

Sustaining won't set the expiration time of the spell to be the end of round 3 until you are using the sustain action at some point during your round 2. But it doesn't matter when during round 2 you sustain the spell. 'First action' is not required - unless an ability is requiring it (like Effortless Concentration that allows Sustain as a free action, but has a trigger of 'your turn starts').

You can also sustain multiple spells during a round. As many as you have actions to spend on them.

I don't see an edge cases here. It's still just as I said: If you cast or sustain a spell with the durqtion "sustained", it lasts until the end of your next turn. None of your examples change anything about it. In no case does sustaining just increase the duration by a round, and neither did I claim it ever does.

A spell with a duration of sustained always lasts until the end of your next turn. Sustaining it extends its duration until the end of your next turn as well. So it doesn't matter when exactly you spend the action to sustain it as long as it happens before the end of your next turn.

So sustaining with your third action is fine.

I'd like a clear statement whether or not the Deafenend condition is supposed to have a chance to make you lose your spell when you cast it (assuming it's not a subtle one).

This came up multiple times on reddit in the past months with the main arguemnt being that spellcasting requires speech and all speech being auditory by RAW.

If you can actually cast the spell because you are a caster and have it on your spell list, sure.

If you're using Trick Magic Item then no, since it takes an action to use TMI so you don't have 3 actions left for the spell.

No mention of the lacking number of thralls at the lowest levels is disappointing. :(

Is there any reason this does not show up on demiplane?

Probably because it's not release yet. Unless Demiplane lists books before release. No idea how they usually handle this since I don't really use their website.

Fair enough

But if you know its not RAW, maybe say things like "Your GM might allow your familiar to act while you're down." instead of making a rather absolute sounding statement like "When you go down, your Familiar can still do things".

Could have saved us both a couple of posts. :)

It's a focus spell you Cast as a free action to Command your familiar. You can't take free actions, Command a minion or Cast a Spell if you're unable to act.

Even the flavor text "at your unspoken plea" indicates that you still have to do something to get it to work, even if it is just a fleeting thought.

"Your patron simply moves its agent directly" is taken out of context. The full sentence is "Your Command does not have the auditory or concentrate traits; your patron simply moves its agent directly." So it's just a flavor explanation for the removal of the traits for the Command action.

I see no room in the RAW here to say you can use this while unconcious. The GM might still allow it, of course, but it simply doesn't work that way by RAW.

Patron's Puppet is super fun. When you go down, your Familiar can still do things (and that's great).

You can't use Patron's Puppet if you're unable to act.

Yeah, this has to be for pre-master, right? I don't see how anyone could think the witch is less interesting and unique than the wizard after Player Core.

Also don't forget that your familiar doesn't just die at 0 HP. It goes to dying 1, just like any player character.

I agree. It's intentional due to Fire and Cold being the overall very common damage types. My armor inventor specifically covered those two with Charms of Resistance because they give a bigger resistance.

If an action causes you to rolls an attack against a target or makes the target roll a save, it's most certainly a hostile action. The same goes for any action that causes damage (even if it doesn't involve a check, like Force Barrage) or inflicts a negative condition on the target. So yes, I would absolutely consider casting slow a hostile action in this situation.

The line blurrs a bit for effects that do neither of those things. An effect that turns the ground beneath an enemy to difficult terrain but doesn't affect the enemy itself may or may not be considered hostile, for example.

QuidEst wrote:

Hyyudu wrote:

Does anyone knows (based on previous playtests or as some insider info) when we should wait for official release of Necromancer and Runesmith? Playtest has ended 31.01, and after release I believe we'll have new class features, runes for Runesmith, subclasses and so on. What is the usual gap between playtest end and release?

Pathfinder publishes classes in the book released at GenCon, and this year that is Commander and Guardian. GenCon 2026 starts July 30th, so July 30th, 2026 is when these classes will come out in their final form.

Save War of Immortals, which was an October release. I'm guessing that's an outlier because of a combination of getting SF2E's playtest--which did release at GenCon--up and running, and lingering wonkiness from needing to put out the remastered core books.

Guns and Gears was also an October release since it came in the same year as SoM (which was that year's GenCon release).

That being said, it seems too optimistic to hope for the Impossible book to be released this October. Either they break the usual schedule and give us Impossible as the spring rule book of 2026 or we'll really have to wait until GenCon 2026.

Cool, now where is our Secrets of Magic Remasted/Rework? Paizo has basically remastered everything else. Watch as the new Academy book will have Remastered Magus and Summoner.

Last word was that they remaster books sell put their copies. Whoch may or may not happen to books like SoM or DA.

I'm still not sure a remastered SoM is ever going to happen since there's quite a lot of lore stuff in there that's obsolete with the remaster. A complete replacement book like divine mysteries seems more likely.

And Rival Academies is a Lost Omens book. Those never had classes before. I doubt they would start something like that now.

Wait Treasure Vault is getting Remastered!?

Yes it is.

Wait does that mean no Remasterd Automaton Ancestry even? Dang it, I was hoping. I don't have a copy to check in the PDF but thanks.

At a glance, at least their Reinforced Chassis feat has been upgraded. It no longer requires armor proficiency and gives you a +3 AC bonus with a +1 Dex cap at level 1. Scales to +4 armor at level 5 and +5 armor at level 1. A high level monk will have amazing AC with that.

The remaster stuff is also online on Pathfinder Nexus. You can check the Automatons here.

The PDF is now available for people who have the pre-master pdf. At least it showed up in my downloads. Be aware that it's not marked as "remaster". Look for a Guns and Gears copy that was last updated on December 4th.

Looks like Reverse Engineer still has impossible requirements for its level. Ah well...

I was reading Overdrive and its improvement was minimal. Basically if it fail you get 1 extra damage instead of nothing and if you critically fail you cooldown only 1d4 rounds instead of 1 minute.

It's weird that the 1 damage on a failure is fire damage. If you're fighting something with weakness to fire, failing the check might end up more beneficial than succeeding. Unless you're using the weapon innovation of course.

It still too meh compared to all other damage improvement abilities that other martials get. 1d4 is way better than 1 minute yet for many encounters if this means that you become half or even the entire combat without Overdrive.

Most fights are likely decided before that cooldown is done, so this is a very minor buff. I also disagree that Overdrive is meh, but that's another discussion altogether.

Any idea when the premaster PDFs might be updated? Just checked my downloads and they're still showing 2021 as the last updated day.

I would expect that to happen later today. Most likely during paizo's office hours which are still a while off, if I'm not mostaken.

Btw, Pathfinder Nexus has the remastered stuff online already. Be aware that the feats are messed up and show only the old versions. If you type "Remaster" in the search bar above the feats, they will be replaced with the new version.

I haven't looked at items or anything else besides classes and archetypes, but I would assume the same need to filter would apply to them.

The PDF is now available. Still waiting for the pre-master pdf to be updated in my Downloads.

Wait, how do you cast fortify summoning at the same time as a summon spell? Those are exclusively 3 actions, are they not? Do you quicken your summons or something? Because without quicken, I don't see how you can use the focus spell on the same turn as the summon spells.

Hand of the Apprentice: Single action weapon strike using spellcasting. Expensive to invest in but it really is worth the damage and potential crit effect. Some people rule that potency rune doesnt apply, Other people do which does make its value vary from table to table.

Non-muscle Wizards will very likely use it with their staff. At best, you're looking at 4d8+7 damage for a single action. Not terrible (especially at the huge range), but still a very steep gold cost which might be better invested into other things, like a more powerful staff or more spells. Critical Specialization is unreliable and just a 10 ft knockback that's even defined as forced movement, limiting its usefulness.

Applying potency runes to this is very much a house rule and shouldn't be part of such discussions.

Fortify summoning: Using creatures with auto-grab abilities, stench, knockdown, engulf/swallow or similar.

Auto-Grab is no longer a thing in the remaster. But the worst thing about Fortify Summoning is that it essentially eats your whole turn since you also need to sustain the summon to get any use out of it. Spending two whole turns to get a slightly buffed summon is not a great deal in my book.

Scramble body: 2 action evil eye hex. but it instead targets fortitude and comes with slowed 1 + sickened 2 if they crit fail. Does lack the sustain part but i've never seen a witch sustain that hex outside having a spare action with nothing else to do.

It's still a two-action spell (i.e. basically eats your whole turn) that does nothing on a successful save. It's the only one that somehow got worse with the remaster since fort is often a strong save on enemies. The old version was a spell attack so it could at least benefit from off-guard and attack buffs.

Anyway, that's just my take. I'm not going to argue about this. We ulitmately agree that many of the wizard's focus spells are sub-par, even if we're thinking of different ones.

Meanwhile Hand of the Apprentice, Fortify summoning and Scramble body are absolutely great.

That's funny. Those three are the absolutely worst of the wizard's focus spells for me.

Always interesting to see how much opinions differ between players.

I don't think the wizard needs a numbers boost. It's not really making the class any more interesting from a mechanical point of view, just more effective. It also risks shoehorning players into relying on certain types of spells more than they should and could be a trap especially for newer players.

I'd much rather see the class design fixed than its power. More useful and interesting focus spells and feats would be a great start. Maybe increase the uses of Arcane Bond (with some limitation to not give the class even more top level slots) and maybe the ability to spend those uses on various abilities depending on your thesis and/or school. For Example, the Spellshape thesis could allow you to spend an Arcane Bond "charge" to use a Spellshape as a free action or maybe to aply two Spellshapes to the same spell. Spell Substitution could spend an action and a Bond charge to instantly switch out a spell. Stuff like that.

Somehing along those lines would makes the thesis/schools choice more interesting and give Arcane Bond an identity that goes beyond "more spells".

Bone Spear seems extremely awkward to use in practice unless you also get Reach of the Dead. And preferably wait to level 7 so you can use them together immediately.

Bone Spear's initial damage is also kind of bad. It's balanced as a potential area attack but the weird range/area combination makes it hard to hit two enemies and very unlikely to ever hit 3. When used against a single enemy, it's barely better than the damage of create thrall, but costs twice the actions, a focus point and a thrall. If you're hitting oy two foes anyway, you might as well just creat thrall twice (live with the MAP penalty on the second cast) and still have an action left - not to mention two thralls left for flanking.

Overall, I agree that the initial focus spells are just not good enough early on to carry the class through the earliest levels. You're mostly just limited to create thrall plus cantrip and a singular slot per day.

Hey, there's a classic red-colored dragon on the cover.

The very first post here seays the cover isn't final. Chances are there will be no red dragon on the final version.

I play alongside a Flames oracle. When PC2 was released, the oracle was rebuilt using the reamster rules. We were level 15 or 16 at the time, I think. The player chose to get basically no curseboud feat - other than foretell harm which he got for free, of course. His reasoning was that there's simply no need to get more abilities if you have 4 slots per rank and a very solid spell list.

I don't feel like his combat performance has changed much compared to pre-master. He barely interacts with his curse anymore since he rarely uses any coursebound abilities and his focus spells (of which he mostly uses whirling flames) don't affect the curse any longer.

So other than the spell list, he doesn't feel much different from what a fire elemental sorcerer would feel. He's a bit more sturdy as an oracle, of course, but my gut reaction tells me he would overall be more effective as a blaster sorcerer, even more so if he would add the oracle archetype for Foretell Harm.

Yes, a Strike by definition deals damage on a success unless an ability explicitely says otherwise.

I will probably watch that when I have the opportunity, but I'm not sure a video has much value as feedback for a playtest. You might want to condense your findings in text form and post them here if you're serious about giving feedback.

The problem of add it as a class feature instead of feat is that it will be accounted as class power not as class option.

You misread my post. I didn't suggest turning it into a class feature. Just to add a necromancer-exclusive class feature as a prerequisite for the feat. Simulat to how many of the heal/harm-related spellshapes of the cleric require you to have the divine font feature and as such are unavailable from the cleric archetype.

Castilliano wrote:

Bind Heroic Spirit: yeah, making a Thrall w/ a successful Strike seems modest enough to gain earlier, especially given the amount of investment to build for actually striking. The +3 could be scaled back say to +1/6 levels. Still iffy offensively, but the save boost helps patch a hole. Trick here is we likely don't want martials to gain access to it.

It could be a lvl 12 feat instead of start from lower levels allowing it to be accessible via MC archetype (starting with +2 and heightening to +3 at rank 9).

I don't thin level 12 is necessary. They could just add some class feature that's unavailable for the Archetype as a prerequisite. Something like Grim Wards or Inevitable Return. It would hardly be the first class feat with a prerequisite that the class itself will always fulfill.

I agree but partially. A melee martial necromancer still lacks the martial necromancer progression.

Oh, I didn't mean the Necromancer is good in melee. I just don't think MADness is the thing holding him back.

I don't see how a melee Necromancer is any more MAD than any of the martials with mental key attributes?

I'm playing a Goblin Inventor and started with +3 Str, +1 Dex, +1 Con, +4 Int, +0 Wis and -1 Cha. (She was created before the voluntary flaw rules were changed.) And I'm doing just fine with my 8 HP per level. I'm also playing alongside a Thaumaturge who started with +3 Str and +4 Cha and also works perfectly fine.

The necro is even on the high end of caster saving throw progression. Still lower than a martial of course, but that's the price you pay for magic.

The one thing I would like to see for the melee Necromancer is medium armor. Preferable as a baseline. If druids and animists can have it, so can the Necromancer. Alternatively, I could live with a subclass that gets Armor Proficiency as their free general feat.

Reaper's Weapon Familiarity (which desperately needs a buff mechanically, but its mere existance is amazing!) is all about grabbing the biggest, meanest blade you can find, so it seems quite obvious that melee Necro is supposed to be strength-based. And that's just impossible to pull off in light armor unless you want to dump your intelligence which doesn't seem smart (pun intended). So as it stands right now, any melee Necromancer will either have to be Human or face quite a struggle at the first levels before he can pick up Medium Armor Proficiency in some way.

I'm still not sure how Class DC interacts with muticlass archetypes, as discussed here.

If I'm a barbarian with the monk archetype, do I have two separate Class DCs? If yes, which one do I use for an ability that says it uses "Your class DC"?

No, you can only use one free action per trigger.

Misread the question. Ignore me. Kyrand below is correct.

Thank you again for doing some testing and sharing your thoughts and results! And good call on the rollback. I don't think the potential broken-ness of the Calm spell needs any playtesting at this point. :D Though it might have been interesting to see how a sustaining a spell affects your overall action economy. I deliberately left sustained spells out of my spell selection when building a few Necromancers to see how they feel.

He casts fear on the fighter who misses his save and is now frightened 2

That should have been frightened 1 thanks to Bravery, no?

I cast a thrall next to A2 then use bony barrage, getting all three remaining mobs in it. I sacrifice the thrall next to me to make it party-friendly.

Since you aimed it at a thrall next to you, where you in the area of effect yourself? Sacrificing a second thrall only protects your allies, not yourself.

Neither of those are likely to have mattered in the end, of course.

------------------

It's an interesting read and doesn't sound too bad for low level. But it seemed to be quite an ideal situation for the necromancer.

- It was close quarters so you didn't have to move once.
- You were directly engaged in melee which allowed you to spend a reaction to create a thrall and immediatly consume it, which otherwise might cause you to move due to its quite limited range.
- It was multiple enemies, including two that were quite a bit lower level than the party, which fueled your Inevitable Return very well. A fight against three on level or two PL+1 creature would probably go quite differently.
- An enemy dropping each turn for your to turn into a thrall is great when it happens. But it's not guaranteed and not available before level 3.
- Your level and build allowed you to have multiple focus spells and thus multiple focus points. If you don't have that option because you're still level 1 or simply want non-focus spell feats early on, you're in for a very rough start into your adventuring career.

I might just be a bit too pessimistic, mind you. It just seems like there's multiple factors at work here that made your experience quite smooth and that it could easily have been more clunky if only one or two of those points were different.

May I ask what your build looked like exactly? I think you had only Bone Spear and Bone Spray for focus spells so I'm curious what your remaining class feat was.