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Will the changes be added to the FAQ page?
And in both cases, you can compare that to the Fly spell which gives you a fly speed of 20. Legacy also had the Air Walk spell which used your land speed, but has been removed. Fly gives you 20 or your speed, whichever is greater.
I assume this is mostly to limit the power of these ancestry feats (which are very powerful either way) and not meant as a nerf to Tailwind. And if you think about the name "Tailwind" mostly being a way to un-OGL the old Longstrider, the spell not affecting fly speed makes perfectly sense.
The ability to heighten spells from the staff (by paying an according number of charges, of course) would go a long way towards making some of the sins better. Lust for example has so many incapacitaion spells that it's rarely feasible to use your charges for anything but a top rank spell, seriously reducing the flexibility the staff otherwise provides.
By RAW, you can completely sidestep the need to learn any of your curriculum spells. The dedication at level 2 allows you to swap one prepared spell for a curriculum spell (including sin spells). But unlike the Spell Substitution thesis, the dedication never says you can only swap in spells in your spell book. So you could in theory just prepare whatever you want during your daily preparation and then spend 10 minutes per spell to switch any number of them to a curriculum spell without having any of them in your spellbook.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. :(
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.
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.
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.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. 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!?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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'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"?
But paizo need to decide on a class's flavor at some point. I could easily reflavor most of the kineticist to use necrotic instead of elemental stuff. If the Runesmith used magically charged needles to embed in allies and foes instead of inscribed runes, the class would suddenly be a battle acupuncturist. An alchemist throwing shrunken heads instead of Vials would be a witch doctor. And so on and so forth.
Having to kill stiff before you can use your class abilities sounds terrible. It results in near-permanent minions, of which you should never have more than one under the game's design. Or if they are semi-permanent and only last for a few hours or until the next day, you're basically dead weight at the beginning of the day. Good luck on that dragon hunt where the dragon is your only foe all day. What are you going to do? Kill a few peasants along the way? Someone on reddit even argued that since PF2 doesn't support a Necromancer with a dozen undead minions, the class shouldn't be made for PF2 at all, which seems like a ridiculous notion. I really don't understand the whole flavor debate. The PF2 Necromancer is different from the most common depiction of necromancers in media. So what? The PF2 wizard is also vastly different from Gandalf or Harry Potter. Things can share a name and similar theme without being identical in execution. The current thrall system has a few rough edges but for me it's a perfectly valid version if what a Necromancer can be.
While I don't really care about the name of a class, I don't think we'll ever get another one that's closer to being a "Necromancer". The thing everyone seems to associate with that name are lots of undead minions you can order around to do your bidding. But we all know something like that will probably never happen. Limiting the amount of moving parts during each player's turn seems very much rooted in PF2's design philosophy, systems and balance. So basically, I think it's now or never.
ugh idk, I agree with your thesis that they'd do better with medium armor. I just wish that weren't so true for thematic reasons. As someone who also suggested to give them medium armor: What exactly about their theme doesn't fit medium armor? I don't see how it fits them any better or worse than light armor. Or even heavy, for that matter. They aren't a nimble class and their theme is more or less standing their ground while throwing thralls at their enemies (because their action economy is too tight to move around more than absolutely necessary). I could absolutely see them prefer the heavier armor types. We would need a few more skeletal armors to have a perfect fit, but that seems easy enough to accomplish. Anyone who still prefers light armor could still use it, after all. Since blanket medium armor proficiency seems unlikely to happen, a fourth subclass that get Armor Proficiency as its general feat would be a decent middle ground. At least I could play a necromancer at level 1 without feeling the overwhelming need to be a human for armor proficiency.
Crossbow and Heavy Crossbow have 120 ft.
Same for swimming enemies.
Nice read, thanks for the writeup! I just did a few games and a few fights with a level 8 necromancer [...] So there was no shortage of thralls whatsoever. Could you run a few encounter at level 6 and see how that feels in comparison? I still think the class suffers a lot in playability and feel if you only have one thrall per action at your disposal. Like if you need your only thrall per turn to use your focus spells, Bone Burst suddenly becomes much less usable and it can be awkward to even use Consume Thrall.
Bone Spear only has a 10 ft range. That didn't hinder its performance? It's also not a 15ft cone, but a 15 ft line, so it covers only 3 squares, not 6 or 7 like a 15 cone would.
I mean, all caster classes have such a feat at or around that level. Even the Wizard, despite having no option to get more than 2 focus points without using an archetype (Ironically, I think the wizard is the only class to get this feat later, at level 14). Its use is questionable, but then again, so is the use of many feats. In my feedback thread, I suggested changing it a bit. It could allow you to consume two thralls for two actions when using the Consume Thrall ability. Would still allow you to fully recharge your Pool in 10 minutes outside of combat, but would also have some potential use in combat, and the increased action cost still makes it something you won't be tempted to use too frequently I think.
Yeah, the Primal Spell list is almost as long as the Occult one and I've often seen people say that primal is the most powerful tradition (whether I agree or not is another topic). If you filter AoN to only show Rule books and no spells from lost omens and adventures, Primal has actually overtaken Occult as the second largest spell school (most likely thanks to Rage of Elements. If druids can get all the primal spells, I don't see a big reason why another class couldn't get all occult spells.
You can move through the spaces of creatures three sizes larger or smaller. Gargantuan is three sizes larger than Medium. Sure, but you still can't share a square with them outside of movement. The graveyard is four by four squares and needs exactly that (uninterrupted) area to even exist and more if you want it to Stride. That's nothing you can count on having available in all or even most encounters, especially when fighting multiple enemies. The Graveyard would be much more usable if it was redefined as a swarm-like thrall, consisting of corspes, limbs and gravestones that move along the ground and can share spaces with creatures of any size, even when not moving. 10: Perfected Thrall. Create a 200 HP thrall, and you can use it as a source to destroy, but each time you woulud destroy it it instead loses 20 hp. I wonder if you can repeatedly sac it to the same effects for something like Draining Strike or Reclaim power... anyway. On subsequent turns, can move and make a spell attack through it to smack for 7d6. This is... fine? Like by this level you're not hurting for destruction fodder when you can make 4 thralls for 1 action, and since the spell otherwise does nothing the turn it shows up, it's a 200 hp body that you can then try and hit things with for the next 9 turns to do mediocre damage. Average 24.5 damage assuming you hit... I dunno. Like this is cool on it's face but the more I think about it the less interesting or impactful it becomes. Another small correction: The damage is 7d10, not 7d6. So it's 38,5 points of damage on average, over 50% more than what you assumed. Quite solid for a repeatable effect that you can also use as fodder for your other abilities, I think. I just wish it could attack on the turn it's created.
Since most thrall movement from focus spells is a Stride, they are subject to difficult terrain. It's a bit weird that Flesh Tsunami can potentially limit the effective range of some of your focus spells quite dramatically. And what about the thralls created by living graveyard? Are they automatically knocked prone by it and can't ever be used for any of the movement focus spells since they can't take a Stand action?
Nice writeup and an interesting read. Thank you! Just some minor corrections/additions: Draining Strike doesn't require a melee Strike. It works at range. So you can pull out an air repeater, stuff three zombies into it and fire them at your enemies. :D Bone Spear isn't 2d8 with 1d8 heighten per level. It's 1d8 with 2d8 heighten per level. It scales exceptionally well for a focus spell, easily outscaling staples like fireball and even chain lightning (if you look only on rolled damage number and ignore the potential number of targets of course). But it starts really really weak, barely more damaging than create thrall and it's short range of 10 ft combined with a 15 ft line area makes it awkward to use. Becomes a lot better once you can create more thralls at once and get Reach of the Dead. Create Thrall has max damage of 5d6, not 10d6. Muscle Barrier scales up to 100 temp HP, not 90. There's no rules saying Focus spells don't heighten to rank 10. Necrotic Bomb: Also scales to rank 10 for 10d12 damage. Living Graveyard knocks all nearby creatures prone if they fail a fort save. It's called an emanation, but from the description it's not perfectly clear whether this happens only on cast or as permanent aura-like effect. It also seems unable to move through creatures or share their space. Being Gargantuan itself it can theoretical block a huge area, but it might as well just end up being a huge pain in the neck to even find the space to summon that thing, much less move it each turn.
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