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Nice writeup and an interesting read. Thank you!

Just some minor corrections/additions:

Good shoutout on these corrections! Draining strike at range definitely makes it slightly more appealing, though with only simple ranged available to you at max expert prof, would still struggle a bit.

The focus spell scaling to 10 bit is something I hadn't considered. My brain auto-completed the usual "heightening stops at 9", so that's pretty cool.

Not sure how I missed create thrall only scaling every 2 instead of every 1, I even put it in the dang writeup, noticeable dip in the dps, but it's "Free" damage still.

I did indeed get bone-spear scaling backwards. I think when I did my math I applied it correctly, I just typed it wrong. Whoops. Yeah just re-checked and my math was right. Though including the 10th level does make it edge out most other spells in terms of damage.

I think I just straight up forgot the living graveyard making people prone thing, but I'm not sure how much it changes my mind on it being a little lackluster.

And as far as perfected thrall goes, yeah, that damage does help a bit, not sure where I pulled the d6 from but I was kinda fading there at the end after typing the review for over an hour. I do agree that I wish it had the same "attack once on summon" thing that regular thralls get to at least give you some amount of advantage the turn it comes into play instead of making it purely a setup action.

Thanks for the catches! It's way too late to edit my original post unfortunately, but still very helpful.

Insert clickbait thumbnail with title like "Necromancer: Dead on Arrival?!" here.

Hello again! Your friendly neighborhood internet dweller here once again to do a breakdown of the new Necromancer playtest. I will be going through the class by level, then do a review of the feats, then the Focus Spells. Finally, I'll be giving my summarized take on the class as a whole. This is going to be a lot of text, and I will not apologize. I've done my best to break out things into sections to make it easier to navigate.

I'd like to reiterate before I begin that regardless of how negative I may come across, I am genuinely excited for the new classes, and hope that my feedback can be some small benefit to the designers.

That being said, let's jump right into it.

BASE FEATURES/LEVEL 1
Trained in Perception, Reflex, Will, Occultism, 2+Int Skills, Simple/Unarmed, Light/Unarmored, Spell attack and DC. Expert in Fortitude.

8+Con HP, Key Attribute is Intelligence.

Essentially Psychic casting progression.

Create Thrall cantrip.

Consume Thrall focus spell.

Subclass for zombies/skeletons/spirits, grants a different focus spell for each. (Dead Weight, Bone Spear, Life Tap respectively)

Mastery of Life and death, lets you freely swap between Void and Vital damage to change your damage to whichever is better to hit the enemy with. Very cool that you can Vampiric Touch an undead this way. I like this a lot.

Undead Lore, a free lore skill that auto scales. And a pretty reliably good one in most campaigns since it's a rare campaign indeed where undead NEVER come up. Really solid.

Initial reaction is that this all seems fine. Slightly tankier than your average caster with slightly more HP and light armor. The Psychic spell progression catches me off guard, but I'm waiting to see how this "thrall" mechanic shakes out. Consume thrall is interesting in that it essentially gives you +1 max focus points over the normal cap. Subclass focus spells are interesting, but I'll break those down in the Focus Spells section.

Only concern at this point is that since thralls only get 1 hp and this doesn't scale, and they auto fail all saves and are auto-hit by attacks, any enemy that does AoE will rinse your thralls instantly. Something GMs have to be very careful about, as any AoE heavy series of encounters will have the class feeling very handicapped.

LEVEL 2-5
Inevitable Return, very cool reaction, very flavorful. Useless in big Single Boss fights, but that should be a minority of encounters.

Grim Wards,this one is interesting. The only other classes that get a save prof boot at 3 are Fighter, Gunslinger, Kineticist, Ranger, Swashbuckler and Thaumaturge, and those classes all have 2 experts at 1 with their level 3 boost rounding them out to all Expert. This looks to be the first class that get a save prof boost at this level that didn't start out with two experts. The "Juggernaut" effect vs. haunts/undead mental/possession effects is so niche outside specific campaigns as to be not worth consideration, but good flavor.

Reflex Expertise at 5. Fully expert by 5. Pretty solid. Makes it the most well-rounded in saves of all the casters on a quick review. I really need to make a spreadsheet before the next playtest to make this review process faster.

LEVEL 6-10
Expert Necromancy at 7, standard casting progression.

Perception Expert at 7, solid.

Not much to say for this level range in terms of class features.

LEVEL 11-15
Unnatural Fortitude at 11. Juggernaut is always solid. Fort Jugg on a caster is interesting.

Weapon Expert at 11. Standard weapon prof increase for a caster. Notable for a thought that will come up later. Remember this.

Light Armor expert at 13. Also standard for a caster. Same issue as Weapon Expert for later thoughts.

Master Necromancy at 15, standard caster progression continues.

LEVEL 16-20
Undying Resilience at 17, Super Juggernaut for Fortitude. Very nice.

Epitatph at 19, 10th level spell slot. Standard.

Legendary Necromancy at 19, finale of standard caster progression.

Quick Notes
So the core shell of the class appears to be a pretty bog-standard caster progression, though with just a touch more resilience from their armor and hp. Fortitude being the big benefit instead of Will like a usual caster is interesting though.

FEATS 1-5

1: There are feats here to get each of the subclass focus spells, in case you want to pick up more than the one you get.

Bone Speaker lets you use your free Undead Lore on living things that have skeletons, but only lets you find out stuff about their biology. Considering that you're almost always going to want to use this to recall knowledge about weaknesses/resistances, slam dunk here. Also lets you use UL instead of Medicine when examining corpses, niche but neat.

Reach of the Dead lets you originate a spell you're casting from a thrall within 60 feet instead of yourself. Really cool.

2: Conceal Spell, standard.

Muscle Barrier, grants the associated focus spell. This is a common theme with these feats...

Necrotic Bomb, grants focus spell.

Reaper's Weapon Familiarity, this one is interesting. It seems to lean into the idea that the necromancer might be more of a gish, lets you treat Greatswords, Scythes, and Any Axes as one step lower (Advanced->Martial->Simple). But given that your weapon prof caps out at expert, seems like a bit of a trap.

4: Body Shield. Use your thrall for cover as a reaction, and grants damage reduction if they hit. Very good, very flavorful, one of my favorite feats hands down.

Bony Barrage, grants focus spell...

Draining Strike, Once per turn, you can make a strike and destroy up to three thralls, dealing +1d4 damage per thrall destroyed, and healing 1d4 HP per thrall destroyed. Flavorful, but it doesn't scale at all? I'm assuming it has pseudo-built in scaling given that you can spam out 3+ thralls every turn at later levels, essentially letting you always get that +3d4 damage/healing every turn. Pretty flavorful and unfortunately one of the only ways to consistently make use of your thralls outside of focus points. More on that later.

FEATS 6-10
6: Bone Burst, essentially Reactive Strike for creatures passing by a thrall that is within 60 feet of you, dealing 2d10 at base, 3d10 at 12 and 4d10 at 18. Very fun, very flavorful.

Reclaim Power, once per 10 minutes, lets you drain up to 5 thralls to heal 10 hp per thrall drained, and if you drain all 5, you also decrease your "clumsy, enfeebled, frightened, sickened, or stupefied condition" by 1. This one is odd because a) does it let you decrease ALL of them by 1, or only a single one of your choice? and b) this is another one where my knee-jerk reaction is that it feels a little weak at first blush. It's only usable once per 10 minutes, you have to consume FIVE full thralls, which means even at the highest levels you need multiple casts of create thrall to get the max benefit, which means a minimum of two turns. It's a lot of action economy consumed for a relatively minor benefit compared to what other classes can do consistently. I'd personally either give this some sort of scaling or make it's impact bigger.

Zombie Horde, grants a focus spell...

8: Conglomerate of Limbs, grants a focus spell...

Osteo Weapon, grants you a free weapon that auto scales it's fundamental runes with your level. Very cool, very flavorful. Unfortunately another gish trap.

10: Desperate Surge, lets you (essentially) use a thrall to use your spell attack in place of athletics for a Grab, Reposition, Shove or Trip. Flavorful but really sketchy since you probably shouldn't be up in melee as a caster, let alone grappling.

Lifesense: Oooo, this one is interesting. 30ft impreceise lifesense is already pretty fun, but getting to just know the HP of living and undead creatures is pretty wild, and I can see some GMs out there hating this.

Quickened Casting, pretty standard.

FEATS 11-15
12: Become as Spirit, the spirit-mancer subclass upgrade. Lets you move through enemies as difficult terrain, ignore natural difficult terrain, bonus on escape checks, and whenever you destroy a thrall you get resistance against ALL DAMAGE equal to half your level. Very nice.

Necrotic Focus, Refocus to full. Fine, but i've historically found if you've got 10 minutes to refocus, you've got 30. After the remaster this became a lot less necessary.

Reinforced Skeleton, skeleto-mancer subclass upgrade. Permanent resistance equal to half your level against two damage types of limited selection and +10 status bonus to speed, upgraded to +20 whenever you destroy a thrall. Pretty solid overall.

Vital Conduit, zombie-mancer subclass upgrade. +Level HP, whenever you destroy a thrall, any adjacent enemies need to make a fort save or be sickened one. This is... fine. Definitely a let down compared to the other two.

14: Recurring nightmare. Focus spell.

Skeletal Lancers. Focus spell.

FEATS 16-20
16: Desperate Revival, reaction upon being dropped to 0 but not *immediately* killed, you suck the life out of all living creatures within 60 feet, and you regain hp = life loss. EXTREMELY flavorful but if you're going down and your party is low, this has a very high chance of dropping parts of your party. I can see accidental TPKs being very easily caused by this.

Effortless Concentration, a free sustain at the start of every turn. I'll admit I don't know how many occult spells require sustaining, and only 6 of the printed focus spells for the class benefit from sustaining. This could be insane or useless depending on the spells available.

Flesh Tsunami, Focus spell.

18: Bind Heroic Spirit, Focus Spell.

Ectoplasmic Aura, You + allies within 30 get +1 Circumstance to AC, enemies within 30 need to make a save or lose access to reactions. Interesting but seems... meh for 18th level.

20: Living Graveyard, focus spell.

Morem Ultimatum, 2nd 10th level slot.

Perfected Thrall, focus spell.

Quick Notes

Okay, there are 34 feats in the playtest. Of those, 14 of them grant Focus Spells. That's 41/% of feat options as focus spells. I'm not super fond of the idea that this class is seemingly wholly reliant on it's focus spells to do almost anything with it's key "Create Thralls" ability. Only 6 of the feats let you do anything with your created thralls, two of those are situational reactions, one of them is only usable every 10 minutes, one will essentially never be used more than once a fight (osteo armaments), and Desperate Surge should probably never see the light of day, meaning that the only way to use your thralls outside of focus points in any consistent fashion is Draining Strike, which is requiring you as a caster to make a melee strike, which you're not great at. This is a bit of a let down for me. Let's hope the focus spells are awesome to compensate.

FOCUS SPELLS

1: Bone Spear, respectable damage. Sac a thrall to do a 15-foot line that deals 2d8 scaling by a d8 every spell rank. Slightly higher avg damage than fireball. Not a save based action, it's a spell attack vs. every creature in the line, and counts as 2 towards MAP, but doesn't increase until you've made all your attacks. Solid damage, solid scaling, solid option.

Create Thrall, the bread and butter Cantrip. Creates a thrall that lasts for 1 min within 30 feet. Scales up at 7, 15 and 19 for +1 thrall. You get a spell attack against a target adjacent to one of your thralls for 1d6 + 1d6 per 2 spell ranks, scaling to a max of 10d6. Respectable damage on the summon. At higher levels I can only imagine the chaos of how many thralls you can spam out. The fact that they're actual creatures and as such can provide flanking is something I have a feeling people might miss at first blush but can provide a LOT of value all on it's own.

Dead Weight. This... is a choice. Launch a thrall at single enemy within 15 feet of it make a fort save. Crit success no effect. Succeed, -10 penalty to speeds. Failure immobilized but can escape. Crit fail, grabbed, can escape. TWO MASSIVE ISSUES. 1) No matter if they fail, the duration is ONE ROUND. Which means as written, even if they crit fail, they're only grabbed for a single round for your 1 focus point. 2) "This spell ends if the thrall is destroyed or a creature that failed the save successfully Escapes." Thralls have 1 HP and are automatically hit by strikes... which means that literally any creature can just make an unarmed strike and auto-kill the thrall, no need to escape. This is honestly one of the worst spells I've ever seen. This needs a SIGNIFICANT overhaul prior to release.

Life Tap. Sac a thrall within 30 feet, to the thrall stride to a target within 30 feet and have it make a fort save. Crit success no effect, success, fail, and crit fail make it drained 1,2,3 respectively for 1 minute, and you can have yourself or an ally within 30 feet of the now-moved thrall gain HP equal to the amount of HP lost. Decent option. Bone spear really blows this out of the water though.

Muscle Barrier. Sac a thrall within 60 to grant you or an ally within 15 feet of said thrall 10 temp HP and +1 status to athletics until the HP is gone, scaling +10 temp HP per spell rank. I think this might be the single largest temp HP granting effect in the game since it can theoretically scale up to 90 temp HP, which isn't nothing. Very interesting. Kinda wish the athletics bonus scaled too, at least a little.

Necrotic Bomb. Sac a thrall 60 to make it go boom, 10 ft emanation for 1d12 void (or vitality!) damage, scaling 1d12 per spell level. 9d12 makes it just sub-fireball in terms of average damage. Respectable. Kinda wish you could make this emanation bigger, but at the same time you can quite literally litter the battlefield with thralls. If this ability wasn't a focus spell it'd go nuts. As another point of comparison, Fire Kineticist can do slightly less average damage in twice the emanation every other turn starting at 8. So I guess you're trading frequency for damage with this class.

2: Bony Barrage. Sac a thrall within 30 to make a 30 foot cone, each creature in the cone makes a reflex save vs 2d10 piercing, scaling by 1d10 every spell rank. If there's a thrall in the targeted area, you can sac that thrall to a) give your allies in the cone immunity to it, and b) +1 status to AC until the start of your next turn. Pretty solid. Less damage than bone spear but bigger AoE and nice secondary effects.

3: Zombie Horde. Now this is a freakin' spell. Sac a thrall to create a 10-foot burst of Zombies. It's difficult terrain, and any creature that starts its turn in the space takes 3d4 (+1d4 per rank) bludgeoning with a basic fort save. Lasts 1 minute. Once per round on subsequent turns, you can sustain it to move the horde up to 10 feet, and if it moves into another thrall, it consumes the thrall and makes the burst 5 feet wider. If you play your cards right, that means it'd cap out at a 50 foot burst. Not high damage but consistent, wide-ranging, highly thematic. I like this one A LOT.

4: Conglomerate of Limbs. You create a grappling machine. Create a thrall with 40 (+10 per rank) hp instead of the usual 1, whenever an enemy begins it's turn next to the thrall, fort save or be grappled for 1 rd or until it escapes. Subsequent turns you can sustain once to make it move up to 15. This is what Dead Weight wishes it was. Can potentially grapple multiple enemies if they're in close quarters, can re-grapple targets on subsequent rounds, probably dies to 3-4 attacks but at least that's soaking decent amount of attention.

5: Nada.

6: Also Nada.

7: Recurring Nightmare. Create a special thrall within 30 feet that can share space with creatures, and can fly. Lasts 1 minute. If it is summoned into or ends it's movement in a creatures space, will save or be frightend 1, crit fail frightened 2. On subsequent turns, can make it Fly 60, OR re-create the Nightmare if it was destroyed, which is super interesting. None of the other "Focus Point Thralls" have this benefit, which I find interesting. I kinda wish they had this, but I also understand why they don't.

Skeletal Lancers. Create 5 thralls within 60 feet, they each have a lance and 10ft reach. Any time an enemy within their reach makes a strike, they take 5 piercing, but no more than once per strike. Can sustain each subsequent turn to make any number move up to 30 feet. Doesn't scale, which I find sad. Honestly by this level 5 piercing is almost nothing, the only thing that makes it reliable is the fact that they essentially take the damage EACH time they strike, so if an enemy is strike happy (like a lot of monsters are), they're "essentially" taking 10-15 persistent piercing damage, and that can apply to a lot of creatures depending on how creative you get with your positioning. My only gripe here is that they still have the 1 hp auto-kill of thralls. I'd really like if this had the recurring nightmare benefit, maybe let you re-create up to 1 of the lancers if they've been destroyed?

8: Flesh Tsunami. What a spell name. Sac a thrall within 30 to create a 60 foot cone, turns the cone into greater difficult terrain, if there's another thrall in the cone, you make each enemy in the area make a fort save. Crit succeed nothing, succeed, -10 speed for 1 round, fail -20 speed for 1 round, crit fail, immobilized for 1 round or until it escapes. This feels like dead weight all over again. This is a very high level spell, that requires you to sac 2 thralls and a focus point for full value, and it... makes people move less for one round at most. The greater difficult terrain lasting a minute is nice, but the actual effect of the saves feels so niche as to never warrant using.

9: Bind Heroic Spirit. Here it is. The epitome of the gish trap for the class. +3 status bonus to attack rolls and saving throws for one minute. Whenever you successfully strike, create a thrall adjacent to you that lasts 1 minute. This is exactly what the class needs to even try and function as a gish, and you don't get it until ****ing 18th level. Credit to Ronald The Rules Lawyer here, but I really think this should be implemented WAY sooner and scale as you level. Maybe at level 6 for +1, then +2 at 12 and +3 at 18? It'd at least slightly close the gap between the classes inherent lackluster attack rolls and a martial. As it is this feels like a "Oh I'm level 18, guess I'll re-tool my entire character to function as a gish now" which is a massive feelsbad in my mind.

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.

Living Graveyard. Summon a massive animated graveyard within 100 feet with 400hp. it also summons 5 thralls. Each round after you can sustain it to make it move up to 60 feet and make 3 new thralls. Very cool, hyper flavorful, absolutely wild to imagine in person. Ultimately, I have no idea what this is useful for. If you need thralls, you can spend your one sustain to make 4 rather than 3 from the graveyard. if you have the free-sustain feat I guess it's 3 free thralls a turn, but given how few things you can use them for once you run out of focus points, I feel like your thrall creation will RAPIDLY outpace your ability to consume them.

FINAL SUMMARY/REVIEW

I absolutely adore the flavor of this class and I'm so happy we're getting to explore this niche finally. It has a lot of potential, and as always I'm sure that the class will see a massive improvement between now and release. Ultimately my fully summarized thoughts are as follows:

1) If the class wants the option to be a gish, Heroic Spirit needs to come way earlier or there need to be more options to support it. I think making heroic spirit lower level and scaling is a quick and easy way to do that.

2) The class needs more consistent ways to make use of it's thralls outside of focus spells. Even if there was a cantrip you could take to just command a thrall within range to make a new attack, that'd be something. Anything to make use of these thralls your spamming across the battlefield once you're out of focus points.

3) Dead Weight and likely Flesh Tsunami seem incredibly underwhelming, Dead Weight especially. It's a spell that costs you essentially 2 actions to make an enemy lose at most 1 action if they decide to pop your undead balloon of a thrall, and if they weren't planning to move anyway they can just fully ignore it.

4) There are a few things that create an effect "from where the thrall was" which is odd when most spells and such create an effect "centered on one corner of the square". Might need a language clean up.

5) I like the idea of the spells that can consume multiple thralls for bigger effects. Bony Barrage and Flesh Tsunami as obvious examples, but also stuff like Reclaim Power or Draining Strike, it's an interesting way to handle some "pseudo-scaling" that could be achieved at lower levels but is easier as you get higher and can spam your thralls out faster. It really leans into this flavor of the Necromancer building their horde and then using it to great effect, even if we can't achieve the stereotypical horde of undead storming the gates.

6) This is purely a thought, but maybe a feat to give them access to the Create Undead ritual? Could let players at least try and live up to the ravening horde fantasy with the right resources.

7) Similarly, giving the class some version of the Command/Improved Command Undead feats from OG Core Rulebook.

All told, I'm very much looking forward to how this turns out. Thank you again to the designers for all your hard work, and thank you for continuing to bring incredible classes to the game.

Tune in next time for my breakdown of the Runesmith!

Aha. Okay, good points folks, appreciate the insight.

That's how it would work with anything else, right? Like if you only failed against a slow spell the first time but crit failed on this bonus save you would end up worse off. Why would afflictions be an exception?

The issue there is that most spells don't actually present an ongoing effect, they just leave behind a lingering condition.

Take Slow as an example. The spell says they're slowed 1 for 1 minute on a failure. The Exemplar uses OMTG and the ally gets a new save against the slowed condition.

If they save, the condition goes away, this makes sense. If they fail, it doesn't. But since they're making a save against the CONDITION, rather than the effect, I'd argue that a critical failure wouldn't make it worse.

It's a weird nitpick, but this is a pretty unusual ability in the first place.

EDIT: For further clarity, this ability also creates a weird gray area regarding saves.

Using the slow example again. Lets say PC1 fails against the slow spell, he is now slowed for 1 minute. Exemplar uses OMTG. PC1 now makes the save. Is he now only slowed for 1 round? Does the slowed go away entirely?

My reading is that if someone is just saving against a condition, arguably a save makes it go away, a failure of any kind means it stays the same.

But it's always possible I'm misinterpreting something.

"You rally your allies, carrying them from the brink of disaster to the verge of victory. Each ally in your aura can immediately attempt a new saving throw with a +2 status bonus against one ongoing negative effect or condition currently affecting them, even if that effect would not normally allow a new saving throw."

So against most things, this is fine. One time effects that go away either after a set time or a specific condition.

However, given that failing a save against an ongoing affliction could in fact make it worse, does using this risk advancing the affliction?

I cannot wait for this. In 1E the NPC Codex got an insane amount of use because I tend to run a lot of humanoid-centric campaigns. As it is I currently have to do a lot of custom stat blocks.

I'm really looking forward to the revamped Guardian. The core theme is such a compelling one that I know a lot of players will likely enjoy, we just need to see it deliver on the theme a little better. And with the the way Paizo has historically generally nailed releases after the playtest feedback, I'm really looking forward to this release.

This is a very good point. Especially with something like plant banner.

"Oh no, the enemy took my banner, let me just pull a new one from my Spacious Pouch and we're good to go."

Quick Thoughts

Just like commander, really digging this class so far. I honestly don't have a ton of feedback, but here's what I found.

1) Reaction Time: The reaction this feature grants, is the intent that the guardian can use Intercept and the like the moment an enemy attacks, even when surprised?

2) Energetic Specialization: This is a STAGGERINGLY underwhelming feat to me. At max value you're looking at 5 Resistance to a single energy type. Even if you added the ability for the Greater Armor Specialization to apply, that's 8 Resistance. Maybe I'm not seeing the proper value of it here, but I'd personally recommend adding a note that Greater Armor Specialization applies to this at a minimum.

... Honestly that's it. Everything else in this class seems really spot on and I'm looking forward to testing it out more directly. It really delivers on the class fantasy and it has a lot of cool tools to facilitate that.

Quick Thoughts:

Love the idea and implementation of the class so far.

1) Ready, Aim, Fire! Seems highly over-powered for it's cost and level, especially when compared to Executioner's Volley 4 levels later. It generates up to ~10 free actions, and up to 6 reaction strikes. There's also a slight confusion on if it allows multiple people in your Squad to use a cantrip or just the one.

2) Plant Banner: Two issues
2a) The fact that an enemy can just turn it off with an interact action seems weird, even if that would proc Reactive strikes, since it's a fairly short-range aura which means unless your entire party is firing from range, odds are it won't be too difficult for an enemy to come in and just take it. I'd prefer to see some mitigation factor where either the aura boost is larger or the enemy needs to make some type of saving throw to remove it.
2b) The jump in the temp HP it provides is really jarring. At level 14 you're getting ~5 HP per round, at level 15 you go to ~20 HP per round. Maybe add an intermediate step at level 10 that boosts it to Int + 1/2 Level, make it a little smoother.

3) Quickening Banner: given the sheer action economy a lot of the Tactics provide, this feat ends up feeling really lackluster in comparison. I understand that because it doesn't have the usual Tactic-style restrictions it has a lot more flexibility, and it's essentially a tactic that doesn't take a prep slot... it still just feels underwhelming to me in comparison. I'd almost prefer it take two actions but not have the 10 minute cooldown. That might be too good though. It just feels really odd to have tactics that can, at level 1 every round, spend 1 or 2 actions to generate 6+ FREE actions not including reactions, and then here at level 14 you spend 1 action to generate 6 actions only once per combat effectively.

Overall, I really enjoy this class. I had significantly less negative feedback regarding it than I did the Animist or the Exemplar playtests, so massive kudos to the design team for really hitting the nail on the head here.

I thought I saw that True Strike changed to allow a caster to use their spellcaster attribute as the attack bonus on a weapon they were holding? Is that correct?

It is not.

(Guessing critical crafting still safe to be used.)

Yeah, looking over it, nothing about Critical Crafting should conflict with the Remaster.

The fact that the updated crafting doesn't address complex crafting/quick setup at all makes me a little sad, but I guess I can homebrew the interaction.

God I really hope the Assassin archetype gets a fix in this book. It has several major flaws and could really use some love.

Especially the fact that, the way it's written, you essentially can't use it at early levels of Free Archetype Variant without locking yourself out of two FA feats.

Adding some personal observations on a few of the options I haven't seen mentioned, notably on a few of the effects I disagree with/believe some of the power was not acknowledged on.

I generally agree with your points. I hadn't thought about Motionless Cutter like that, but I agree it's a bit more trap-y then I would like.

Thief of Moonlight is also a good shout.

Thousand League Sandals I still feel is kinda clunky. Maybe I'm personally biased, but I'd prefer something like "At the start of your turn, allies within your aura gain +10ft speed until the end of their next turn." Solves a little bit of the aura weirdness, lets them benefit from it for more than a single move action.

You're welcome :)

I wonder how Only the Worthy interacts with Twin Stars. It says "while so Released, you can’t use the ikon" Can I not swing the second weapon if I use one to hold an enemy down?

I can see how that might be confusing. I would say that you can still use the second weapon, as it explicitly calls out the Twin Star as a "Copy".

I will say that I think this is a pretty easy "at the table" fix with a GM who isn't a meanie, but I agree that adding this sort of "build your own" could be interesting. The one possible risk is that a lot of the epithets are VERY heavily flavor oriented, and making an epithet pick-and-match would likely make them a lot more bland in order to facilitate the variety.

They did say that there will be more epithets in the full release, so hopefully they get enough to cover pretty broad swaths of options/themes.

This feels like a Guide to the playtest Exemplar. Extremely useful : concise but clear on the why.

Thanks a lot.

You're welcome! Glad you found it helpful.

The class is only mad if your want to use your class DC on certain abilities as it keys off charisma

Otherwise it isn't mad unless you don't like having to make choices at character creation

Doing a quick check of how many of the playtest abilities key off your class DC.

Root Epithets: 0
Dominion Epithet: 3/4
Sovereignty Epithet: 2/3

Body Ikons: 1/4
Weapon Ikons: 1/5
Worn Ikons: 1/4

Feats: 7/29

So on average, if you wanted to be less MAD and dump charisma, you'd essentially trashcan 1/4 of available exemplar abilities. Can you do so and still easily have a great exemplar? Sure. But saying "You only are MAD if you want to use 1/4 of the class" is not a great feeling.

(Again leaving this up for clarity and posterity rather than doing a dirty delete)

So after a quick re-review, I'm fairly certain the class DC will scale of strength/dexterity, charisma is only necessary for your domain spells. So you really only need 4 stats if you're going the domain route, and even then you can opt to focus on domains that buff and thus don't really need high DCs. So in fact you really only need Str/Dex/Con, and can mostly dump the others.

The flavor of it not working on you is weird, and if you rely on the ability, you encumber allies in combat if you do anything other than huddle up and ignore all your other ikons.

This is a super funny take I hadn't even considered.

FlySkyHigh wrote:

Though, where are you getting the drag value? I remember things like that from older editions but I haven't been able to find that in 2e rules.

I don't have my physical Core Rulebook handy, but here's a link to the rule on AoN

Apparently dragged objects are treated as having half their normal bulk.

Ah excellent, thank you. I'd tried searching "Drag" on AoN and easytools and got nothing, apparently I wasn't specific enough.

But anyway, back to your original question, as a GM I'd likely just end up making judgement calls based on the scale we have available. A Trebuchet is 48 bulk. A boulder thrown by a trebuchet? Probably weighs about as much as a large creature, so 12 bulk. How far can you throw it? Heck if I know. But given that barbarians have a feat for that exact purpose, based on the rules you couldn't do it at all.

Bulk is hard. It's measurement isn't exactly linear. 1 Bulk is 5-10 lbs, but a medium creature is only 6 bulk despite the fact that your average human would be around 150-180lbs. Large creatures are 12 bulk. Huge creatures are 24 bulk. Gargantuan creatures are 48 bulk.

For scale, a Trebuchet is considered Gargantuan, so in that instance your character could drag around a Trebuchet. If you had the Enlarge ability from Warped by Rage, you could actively carry it around as your bulk limit doubles. EDIT: Actually, Warped by Rage makes you Huge not large, so your bulk limit would quadruple. You could carry around a trebuchet with minimal effort.

Though, where are you getting the drag value? I remember things like that from older editions but I haven't been able to find that in 2e rules.

Quote:

Light Armor Expertise: YIKES, this comes super late.

Quote:

Light Armor Mastery at 19 is oof.

I think you're overestimating how bad these are. 13/19 is fairly standard. Rogue, Barbarian, Swashbuckler, Gunslinger, Investigator, Kineticist all follow that progression. Inventor, Magus, Thaumaturge, and Ranger get expertise 2 levels earlier but still get Master at 19.

Fighter is the only master-tier armor class that gets both early.

Possibly, but my thinking is more along the lines of the armor type limitation.

Light: Rogue, Swashbuckler, Investigator, Kineticist (Which can often still use medium or heavy armor through infusions).

Medium: Barbarian, Gunslinger, Inventor, Magus, Thaumaturge, Ranger.

I probably should've phrased my initial commentary better, but my thoughts are more focused on "If we're going to limit this class to light armor, and not give them an avenue outside of archetypes for anything heavier, then we may wish to bump up when they get the increases". Personally, I'm ultimately fine with sticking to light armor only if we set their proficiency increases to be in line with fighter.

One quick error there in your analysis - Kineticist impulse scaling is by character level. At level 3, Oceans Balm heals 2d8 HP. (a +2 on impulses is basically the same as +1 on spells, but impulses also do things like +3 and such in places)

Ope. You're right. I'll go fix that.

There, fixed. Thanks for catching that.

If I were a youtuber, this is where I'd insert a clickbait title. Instead, I'm just going to give you a massive wall of text. Apologies in advance, and I don't honestly expect any replies, but I hope my input is of some small benefit to the designers. I'm going to go over the class chassis, then the ikons, then feats. Starting FROM THE TOP

Initial Profs + Level 1

Perception, Saving Throws, Attacks, Class DC are all solid.

Skills is odd because the only other classes to date that had Int+2 Skills were Champion, Druid, Cleric and Wizard. I'm assuming the real comparison point here is Champion, since Druid/Cleric/Wizard lose out on some skills in exchange for their incredibly versatile spellcasting. In the Champion's case, they do often end up feeling slightly lackluster during RP due to the skill limit but they have the flavor of the "Paladin" behavior to lean on. Actually no, re-reading champion, Champion also has the bonus skill from their deity. As does Cleric, and Druid gets one from their order, so this skill limit is really only present on Wizard, an Intelligence focused class. For lack of a better term, the fact that Exemplars are already fairly MAD (They want Strength, Dex, Con, and Cha at the least), most Exemplars will have at most 10 Int. This has the side-effect of making Exemplars the "Dumbest" class.

Defenses is also rough because of the light armor limit. I get the sense from this class that the desire is to go glass cannon, but given the proclivity of heroes and their ability to shrug off incredible blows, this feels somewhat counter-productive. Medium armor prof would be my preference, and I foresee a lot of Exemplar-Sentinels in our future. Not a fan of this honestly, I'd prefer to see at least Medium armor included.

Humble Strikes is a nice feature. While I don't think it'll really change anything, it's a nice nod to the source material. Unfortunately, Martial Weapons can still get higher damage dice than any simple weapon can even with this buff, and come with a suite of useful traits that most simple weapons lack. Neat, but I think will mostly go un-used in most cases that aren't a player choosing a specific weapon type for flavor, but very helpful for those players.

Shift Immanence/Spark Transcendence. I love the transcendence mechanic, it's a lot of fun. My main pain point is that Immanence only being active while an Ikon is means that a lot of Ikons either won't see use, (mostly Worn ikons), or an Exemplar will constantly have to feel like they're "nerfing" themselves to get a niche benefit. Comparing this to Kineticist, who just has the big "on/off" switch of elememental aura, this is juggling a lot more balls in the air, and for little to no additional benefit compared to kineticist.

Levels 2-5

Quick note: the fact that Exemplars don't get a level 1 feat is somewhat baffling. They would be the first martial ever to not get a 1st level feat. I'm assuming this is because they already get so much at level 1 with the ikons, but Kineticists get a ton at level 1 as well and still get their level 1 feat.

Root Epithets: I'm assuming because these give us an additional skill training is why we only get 2+int at 1. On to specific reviews.

- Brave: A solid if not particularly inspiring ability. Requiring it to be towards an enemy is a nice nod to the "Brave" moniker, since you can't use the defensively oriented body ikon abilities and then run away.

- Cunning: An odd scenario. It requires you to spark your body, and you get a free feint, but it essentially precludes you from ever using the feint for your "big hit" abilities, since you can't then spark your weapon. A neat ability as well, but seems like an odd counter-intuitive moment to me.

- Mournful: Understated but strong. Dazzle with no save until the start of YOUR next turn is potent.

- Radiant: "free" healing is nice. Given the 10 minute immunity similarity, quick comparison to Kineticist's "Ocean's Balm", it's at range compared to Balm, and it's healing actually scales much better. At level 3 it's healing 8 hp guaranteed, as opposed to Balm's 4.5 average with a max of 8. By the time Balm scales at 5, Radiant is healing 12 guaranteed, compared to an average of 9 from Balm. Radiant is generally above rate, it's not as strong as a high-roll from Balm, but it's more consistently good. Very solid ability, and it also means the Radiant Exemplar can skip getting Medicine.

EDIT: Leaving my original (wrong) analysis there for honesty. I had forgotten that Kineticist doesn't scale like spell levels, but off character levels. As such, at level 3, Radiant heals 8, Ocean's Balm heals an average of 9, max of 16. At 5 it'd be Radiant healing 12, Balm healing an average of 13.5 with a max of 24. Final point of comparison for this is at level 9, Radiant healing will heal 20, and Balm will do an average of 22.5 with a max of 40. This means Radiant reliably hits the average of the effects of Balm, without the upside of the bigger heal or the risk of a much lower one. Though the fact that it can be done at range is still very beneficial.

Spirit Striking: Fun take on weapon specialization, especially when coupled with Dominion epithets later.

Levels 6-10

Dominion Epithet: My personal take is that I think the Worn Ikons should've been the ones to get the boost at this level, since I think the Weapon ikons will almost always be the most... well... iconic. Plus Worn Ikons get little to no support currently in the playtest until the big epithets at 15. This might change with release, but if Worn Ikons will continue to get minimal feat support, it might be a good idea to move the worn ikon buffs down to this spot. Anyway.

- Born of the Bones of the Earth: Passive is solid. Immanence is incredible and very flavorful. Transcend provides a fun repeatable aoe. Key thing to keep in mind is that because the terrain change is permanent, that Exemplar better have a way to ignore/avoid the difficult terrain or they will rapidly make the battlefield an absolute mess of difficult terrain if they spam this.

- Restless as the Tide: Passive is solid. Immanence is rough because as written you would hit yourself and all your allies, leads to a scenario where you start hoping you DON'T crit which is an odd place to be. Also only very situationally useful, against single targets you're looking at a max +4 damage. Transcendence is actually incredible. I love this one so much. Just casually shift the entire battlefield, oh and pull a target to you and smack them while you're at it. Great stuff.

- Peerless Under Heaven: Passive is solid. Immanence isn't particularly fancy but also solid. Reap the Field is actively a trap. Mathematically it's almost always worse than just striking a second time, even at a -5. This ability needs a massive overhaul, it also doesn't address what happens if you crit either of your targets. As written you technically couldn't use it if you crit the first target, though I think only the most die-hard GMs wouldn't allow that.

- Whose Cry is Thunder: Passive is fairly meh? The saving throw bonus is essentially a non-factor since most bonuses to saving throws are generic, and there are only 2 abilities in the entire playtest that are "exemplar abilities that grant resistance", and neither of them are particularly interesting. This has a weird anti-synergy with the Skin as Hard as Horn ikon, since you'd technically only get electricity resistance while the skin ikon was active, despite this ability being granted by the weapon. Very odd. Immanence is absolutely incredible. Transcend is less incredible but still very solid, good Thor vibes.

Resolve is good. Feels odd that a class that doesn't want Wisdom for any of it's abilities is best at Will saves, but thematically appropriate.

Levels 11-15

Greater Resolve: Wow, Legendary at 13. I guess this is why we don't really care if they dump Wisdom (at least at this point) since they now can no longer crit fail will saves at all.

Light Armor Expertise: YIKES, this comes super late. This reinforces my belief that our lovely designers really want this class to be a glass cannon, which seems at odds with the legendary hero trope. This would make a little more sense if some of the body ikons were stronger and granted them alternate routes to being tanky, but the body Ikons I've seen don't particularly achieve that goal well.

Greater Spirit Striking: Still cool.

Juggernaut: This is honestly what I'd expected before Resolve, but still nice.

Sovereignty Epithet: Honestly, I feel like all the worn Auras should be 30 feet at base, and these should increase it to 60. I also think that it's odd that both the Body and Weapon Epithets grant some other passive benefit when the ikon isn't utilized (Skills for Body, usually changes to spirit damage for weapons) but Worn Epithets ONLY do stuff while they're active. Yet another blow to Worn ikons.

- Teacher of Heroes: Immanence. This is solid. Very flavorful and fun. Transcend: Has anti-synergy with itself. Once you transcend, the thing you just did is only active if you then immediately shift the spark back to the worn ikon. So in order for this to actually work on the turn you use it, it's actually a 3 action ability. After that you're forced to either just not use your other ikons, or play a very hampered version of the spark-shifting game where you need to have it back in your worn at the end of every turn. Not a great feeling. Aside from that, synergizes well with the fact that you're going to get hit a lot with low AC. It's also worth noting that recall knowledge is an odd effect for a class with very few skills, and low Intelligence, another sort of odd anti-synergy in this.

- The Last Ruler: Immanence is meh. On brand, and free action demoralizes are great. Anti-synergy with the fact that you have low AC. Transcend is very nice, great for sweeping up mobs, next to useless against solo enemies, but fun none-the-less.

- Thief of Moonlight: Immanence is actively bad. At first blush it might seem solid, but the fact that it requires the target to miss (unlikely to happen in the first place with your low AC), but the fact that even if they do miss that it lasts only until the end of your next turn means that often AT MOST you're imposing dazzled on them for 1 attack. They miss their first attack, get dazzled, MIGHT miss their second attack if they even take one, then it's back to you and the ability ends. Transcend: Flavorful but risky. I'm not a fan of the incapacitation trait being added here though. This is also a notorious "Save or suck" style effect. Another "Great for sweeping up mooks, useless against bosses". The prevalence of these effects in the mythic hero class is understandable but odd at the same time. Heroes are often regarded for the great beasts they slay, not for the armies of commoners they kill.

Levels 16-20

Not much going on here. Light Armor Mastery at 19 is oof.

Body Ikons

Eye-Catching Spot: Immanence is an effective +1 AC, very nice. On brand for the "defensively" oriented body ikons. Transcend is solid as well, though your class DC isn't going to be very high most of the time.

Gaze Sharp as Steel: Immanence is fun. Transcend is horrible. It feels super weird to spend an action to grant yourself a reaction you MIGHT use, plus this is one that would often likely be wanted by a ranged exemplar who wouldn't be able to make good use of the Reactive Strike anyway.

Scar of the Survivor: Overall great, and I think as written this would become the "Default" body ikon. Immanence is solid, Transcend is fantastic but not overpowering. This is honestly the gold standard of what I think the Body Ikons should achieve.

Skin Hard as Horn: I did a bigger math breakdown in this thread about how bad this ikon is. The immanence resistance is minimal and also gets deactivated during a crit, which while very Achilles makes it even more situational than it already is, and the transcendence is just... bad.

Weapon Ikons

Weapon ikons are by far the most solid of the three types. Only downside is that there are a few weapon types that aren't really supported here. Unarmed/natural, more types of Bludgeoning, and "precision ranged".

Barrow's Edge: Very solid. Making their soul bleed is awesome, and the transcend is great. Very good one.

Fated Shot: Excellent. Immanence is respectable, and spammable aoe, even a small burst, is great for a ranged martial.

Gleaming Blade: It's bonus damage and double strike, what's not to love. Solid.

Noble Branch: The Transcend needs to be clarified, but if it works how I think (ex: If I hit you for 2d10+6, the transcend does 2d10), then this is really nice and I like it a lot.

Titan's Breaker: I can crush castles with a club, just give me enough time. Honestly an incredible option.

Worn Ikons

Palisade Bangles: Immanence is solid, I'm glad that the designers realized the anti-synergy with shields and attempted to call it out, but in this circumstance it might be better to say something like "This bonus can stack with any circumstance bonus provided by shields"? Transcend is... meh. At base level it can shift an enemy 2 squares towards you if they fail a low Fort save. At 15 that goes up to 4 squares, but still not great.

Skybearer's Belt: A funny one. Could be fun for a grappler since this is "almost" Titan Wrestler while active, with some bonus carrying capacity. Transcend is a fun "Get the squishy out of harm's way" ability, but considering how often the mantra is to kill the enemy before they kill you, this is a lot of actions to do a slight reposition.

Thousand-League Sandals: Immanence is great on it's face, but an aura that grants move-speed is odd to implement in a turn-based game, especially one with such a small radius. It leads to a scenario where the exemplar almost wants to go last, so that everyone can move first, and then the Exemplar can go catch up to them before their next turn starts. Transcend is fantastic.

Victor's Wreath: Lesser Inspire Courage at all times is solid, again, wish there was a better range, but solid. Transcend is fantastic. Honestly the best one of them all in my opinion. Doing s!*~ like letting people return from being petrified, giving them chances to shrug off curses, fantastic. It also doesn't "guarantee" that they can just cure any plague in a narrative, as if the town is afflicted by a plague and the Wreath gives them a new save, it may just end up hastening someone's death. Very strong in certain scenarios but not overwhelmingly so from a purely narrative standpoint

Feats 1-5

Sanctified Soul: Oh look, you become sanctified.

Twin Stars: This is an example of why I think Exemplars NEED a feat at level 1. If someone wants to be a dual-wielding exemplar, this feat is pretty crucial for them.

Vow of Mortal Defiance: Deicide, the 1st level feat. Love it.

Claim Initiate Domain: Fun. Focus spells are nice.

Leap the Falls: Animist wishes it had this. Unironically good, though I wish it wasn't inherently tied to if your body was active, but I can see the reasoning.

Thorns of Mortality: Fantastic feat. Barrow's Edge would pair well with this. Screw your regenerating monsters.

Hurl At The Horizon: Neat idea, but technically it means you often just hurl your weapon at someone... and then can't get it back without running after it. You technically can't etch returning on a weapon that isn't thrown at base. Someone elsewhere suggested also giving it a transcend that does something and returns the weapon to your hand. Or it requires you to spend your 6th level feat to also get...

Only the Worthy: Fun. Another solid Thor reference. As written you can use this like old school immovable rods, since you could command it to remain in place while in mid-air, which I'm super okay with. Love this feat.

Through the Needle's Eye: Here's that support for precision ranged I mentioned before, but this is a save against a low dc for one round of blinded. Not sure I'd ever recommend this.

Feats 6-10

Motionless Cutter: Love it. Three actions for up to possibly 4 attacks. Very gamble-heavy as there's always a chance you miss the first attack and blow your whole turn.

Reactive Strike: It's Reactive Strike. The existence of this also makes Gaze Sharp As Steel even worse.

Binding Serpents Celestial Arrow: A cool ability, but as written what exactly happens with the thrown version? Do you lose access to the weapon until they escape?

Additional Ikon: Solid, but this makes the spark juggling game harder. Also: it's not really addressed how this handles the feats/epithets that buff your ikons. If I take Additional Ikon: Worn, do both of my Worn ikons get the benefits of my Sovereignty Epithet? Do I need to pick one?

Claim Advanced Domain: More domain magic. Fun.

Dominion Signifier: Solid damage options.

Fish from the Falls' Edge: Once Per Day Breath of Life, but it also turns off your key class features for a round... Not sure about this one. I think at this point I'd rather just go the route of picking up Trick Magic Item and using a Staff of Healing. Very flavorful though.

Journey of the Sky Chariot: The first piece of worn ikon support, and it's a good one. Unfortunately, because it deactivates if you shift your spark, it essentially precludes you from using anything but your worn ikon while you're flying or you fall.

Mated Birds in Paired Flight: Very fun dual-wielding feat.

Feats 11-15

Compliant Gold: STAFF GET LONGER. Love this. Very solid.

Extract Vow of Nonviolence: This is a fun one. I think that two actions might be a lot, I'd prefer it to be a single action like Demoralize.

Warped by Rage: Another fun one. At first I was going to gripe about the enlarge getting turned off when you transcend, but the transcend fixes that. This means that with careful sparking/shifting you can maintain the enlarge indefinitely. Love it.

Destined Victory: The only other worn ikon support feat. It provides a defensive bent to a worn ikon, which is odd on it's face, but I appreciate the ability to spread the love around and make it not quite as crippling defensively to have your worn ikon active between turns. Very solid immanence and transcend, very good feat.

Infinite Blades Celestial Arrow: looks solid. If the Immanence functions like the Noble Branch transcend, it's really solid. Transcend is absolutely bonkers and I love it.

Feats 16-20

Seven-Colored Cosmic Bridge: Immanence is incredible. Transcend is incredible. Great feat.

Strike Rivers, Seize Winds: This one is... interesting. Very flavorful, but it essentially gives you a small pool of 1/day spells. Honestly pretty solid overall.

Eternity-Incinerating Blaze: Jesus christ. Now this is an 18th level feat. Inducing doomed on crits is already fantastic, bonus damage strike that also has the ability of just ERASING SOMEONE FROM TIME. It should be clarified if the target is able to be resurrected, because my knee-jerk reaction is that it'd take a Wish to restore them to the timeline.

Sunwrecker: Man. After following the last feat "I get free darkness spells on crits" is a big step down. The Transcend is equally a step down, it's a big burst of darkness that you're guaranteed to see through, and is super hard to dispel. Flavorful, but not in the same league as the previous feat.

Cutting Without Blade: this is...... fine? I guess the biggest benefit of this is just the ability to move your spark, as a free action. Lots of flavor, and then the main mechanical benefit is that shift spark is now a free action. Kind of underwhelming though.

A Place Beyond Mortality: This is oddly written? It's a once per day activated, requires you have one point in your focus pool, but you stop aging? Do you resume aging if you use that last focus point? Idk I am probably being semantic. This is a good feat. Never a huge fan of "You must die for this to see benefit" though. I guess it does let the Exemplar go a bit hog wild during the end of a campaign since they can just ignore death once each day.

Final Thoughts

Re-reading this post I realize that I might be coming across as negative. I'd like to be clear that I'm EXTREMELY enthused for this class and am already awaiting the end of 2024 so I can get my hands on the full release. If I wasn't, I wouldn't have spent this much time doing such a thorough review and analysis. I do think there are some hiccups to be worked out, but this is why we do the playtest. Few key takeaways:

1) I think Exemplars need at least medium armor, or at least need their armor proficiency to scale faster. We want them to wear light armor? Maybe consider letting them hit legendary in light armor at some point.

2) I think Worn Ikons need some love. The auras feel too small and by and large most of them feel pretty underwhelming in general. The Sovereignty Epithets should also provide some passive benefit outside of the immanence/transcend, in my opinion.

3) I think there are a few anti-synergy pieces here and there that desperately need to be addressed. The number of "if you miss" abilities is very high for a class that will have a relatively low AC. Teacher of Heroes turning off it's own ability immediately after transcending, things like that.

4) I think a main comparison point with this class should be the Kineticist. It fills a similar niche of "I have a small pool of abilities I can repeatedly spam while being primarily a martial". Kineticist ends up with better AC, better attack rolls, is less MAD, has a wider variety of abilities, and is less complex to play from round-to-round. All in all I struggle to find what about the Exemplar makes them not just a strictly worse version of Kineticist in most avenues of comparison. Again, I'm very enthused for this class, I'm just sincerely hoping this gets the Kineticist treatment of seeing a significant improvement from playtest to release.

I definitely hope that they don't do the sort of mythic paths that Owlcat did in the WotR game, since I really prefer the fantasy of "you are imbued with mythic energy and are cultivating your own legend" to "you're becoming more like an angel".

The only six paths you really need are the six associated with the six attributes.

This seems to be very much a matter of preference. I've seen a lot of sentiment online of people who would very much like the Owlcat versions.

I personally would like a mix of the standard version and the owlcat versions. I think being able to a pursue "this is why I'm personally powerful, because I'm a archmage/hierophant/etc" or a "I'm becoming a mfing archlich/dragon" are both interesting ways of going about it.

I'm also here to yay parallel mythical is confirmed! (And azata mythical class/archetype too)

Are you saying those things are confirmed? If so, source? I missed it.

Yes. IMO Bile is currently the best Animist's Focus Spell. It's pretty easy to use, pretty fast to get its maximum output (1st round, stance, bile, bile and starting from 2nd round bile, sustain, sustain, and then sustain, sustain, sustain) you still can Leap/Step each time you sustain it.

Even if you put into a situation where you need to use another spell (like healing someone) you can simply stop to sustain 2 biles and begin to use your spell slots (it's like your was changing you gameplay mode).

Making this using the new refocus rules that allows you get all your 3 focus point in 30 minutes this makes that build pretty sustainable as a default strategy for blaster Animists.

I understand why some people compares it with psychics and put psychic into a subpar position. But remember that this is a playtest (the final version could be pretty different) and we still don't know what the designers will do with psychics in post-remaster.

But currently using the playtest. If you want to make an very efficient sustainable focus caster the animist probably is your best option.

Mother of God. I had completely failed to consider sustaining multiple instances. at 5th level that'd be...

2d4+3+2d4, three times a round. Average 24 damage per turn on a single target. In a perfect scenario hitting 4 enemies that's 96 DPR at level 5. If you can reliably hit two people with each burst that's an insane damage output for such a low level and "infinite" ability.

I'm at least hoping that Mythic is a second "tier" of archetypes if they go the archetype route. My group uses Free Archetype variant by default, and I would hate to give up that flavor if we want to use Mythic, and I don't like the idea of having to give up on class feats for it either.

Keeping in mind that if that did happen, that'd mean a group using both Mythic and Free Archetype would have a lot of stuff going on, I still would prefer that to effectively "losing" free archetype to support mythic.

YuriP wrote:

This and some other things makes me think that the class probably will be nerfed in its final version.

But we need to remember that druid's have a very solid chassis too (and even more solid after remaster).

The question is more why some caster get a considerably more solid chassis while others don't.

I would expect changes to the psychic focus amps in the remaster probably just allowing them to regain all their focus points in 10 minutes from level 1.

Per the remaster preview doc, the Refocus action as a default is getting improved, regardless of class, to get 1 point back per 10 minutes, and every class that gets a feat to improve their refocus (I think all of them at 12th level) their feat gets changed to let them get back all their points with one Refocus.

AFAIK though, Psychic isn't slated for any remaster-specific changes outside of that.

I think Worn ikons in generally are pretty underwhelming in the current playtest. It might just because a lot of options for them didn't get included, but given that the only "buffs" to them come at 10+, and even then it's only a level 10 feat, a level 14 feat, and then the level 15 epithet, it just feels like Worn Ikons need a lot more support.

I also think Worn Ikon auras should be larger at a base level. (30' base and 60' when they expand at higher levels, but that's just my opinion)

Also generally speaking their powers are often underwhelming. Not all of them, but most of them seem very under-tuned, though that's also fairly par-the-course for playtests starting weak and getting improved for the release.

Thousand-League Sandals seems like the only worn ikon you use consistently as a ranged character (honestly... these feel like less consistent transcends generally, but palisade bangles makes sense for melee to try). Because even if no allies are in your aura, it lets you stride+move spark for one action.

We really need some ways to get more transcendence abilities on worn ikons before level 17 - I don't think there's a single one?

Level 15 Epithets give bonuses to Worn, Level 10 Journey of the Sky Chariot applies to Worn, Level 14 feat Destined Victory applies to Worn, but that's pretty much it.

Yeah, doing a few test builds, a lot of the builds ended up coming down to not really caring about my body or worn ikons almost at all, just using Fated Shot to spam Rain of Seven Lights every turn. Spend every turn by shifting spark to the weapon, last two actions to Transcend, switching spark back to defensive body ikon, repeat.

My worry is if you try to give some passive bonuses, then presumably the actual Transcend effects would need to be neutered to keep the same power budget. I would rather the designer's buff the other Ikons so you also feel good using them.

I'd be okay purposefully choosing in my turn to give up some of the damage to get a cool support effect. Would be a nice niche bouncing between high damage, high support, high utility since the average would be reasonable. I think right now, maybe it just feels like bouncing between high damage to mid damage + circumstantial benefit.

The way I'm looking at it is in comparison to Kineticist.

"Is This Transcend action equivalent or better than a 2 action overflow"

And in a lot of cases it's coming up short. Especially given how much of the Exemplar's power is focused into the three ikons, 2/3s of which is inactive at any given point in time.

Kineticist has a ton of abilities that are active at all times, while a vast majority of Exemplar abilities only function while a given Ikon is active. And at first blush, even when a given Ikon is active, nothing seems like it's particularly over-tuned.

breithauptclan wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

Doesn't a trap-minded Rogue (et al) negate traps as a threat? And traps seem more common, yet unless there's a distraction or the trap's OP, when does a trap activate at your table?

Plus Mobility, if one goes half speed, negates Reaction-based traps.

Neutralizing Haunts seems very on theme for Animists so they should have similar prowess. This comparison does suggest the Animist should take some action to overcome the haunt (whether it can react or not), and perhaps move slower while guarding against them.

What, exactly, are you talking about? All I am finding is Trap Finder.

Which very much does not negate traps.

If Spirit Walk worked like Trap Finder only for Haunts instead, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have this thread.

"Trap-minded Rogue" isn't a game term, it's simply saying any (typical) Rogue with a mind to address traps. And that they have little trouble with traps (w/ the exceptions noted above). I thought this was fairly well known & consistent at PF2 tables. So what I'm talking about is how builds with a high Dex/high Perception/high Thievery can handle traps on behalf of the party. Whether that build has Trapfinder (or Mobility) is secondary, though both would help.

After which I suggest that should perhaps be the baseline for an Animist to handle Haunts. Not automatic (as currently written), but reliable, and maybe requiring more investment, i.e. maybe they'd need to max out Religion or Occult proficiency to handle at-level Haunts much like a trap-guy needs to max out Thievery.

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Separately I could imagine a party bypassing lots of Haunts, losing their Animist, and then having to exit. Gulp.

I'd say not quite. Because a trap-focused rogue still has to "engage" with the game to deal with the traps. Perception is involved, and disabling the traps. There's action occurring.

Meanwhile an Animist can just walk their party through a haunted mansion packed to the brim with Haunts and by the way it's written, nothing happens at all. No story is told. Maybe the GM tells the Animist about the Haunts they're just naturally suppressing, but otherwise nothing occurs.

The equivalent would be if a Trap-focused Rogue had an aura that said "No traps function within 30 feet". The Rogue could take a casual stroll with their entire party through a trapped hallway and nothing would happen.

EDIT: Quick edit to note, there's a difference between "minimizing" and "negating" a threat. Trap-focused rogues minimize traps as a threat, but because they can crit fail their disable checks, it's never fully trivialized. Meanwhile Animists just have an off-switch for Haunts, actually negating them entirely.

dmerceless wrote:

I don't think the issue is in the core design here, but in how underwhelming some of the non-weapon options and their Transcendences are.

Ideally, you should be pressing one "cool button" almost every round, with the tradeoff that you can't always use the same one. However, Thousand-League Sandals, Skin as Hard as Horn and Scar of the Survivor are the only non-weapon ikons with Transcendances you can reliably use and feel good about using.

With the correct build, you should almost never be manually switching, but it's not hard to build yourself into a trap where both your Body and Worn ikon are super situational (or straight up bad) and you have to manually put your spark on weapon to access the good one again.

I think that the problem is the both in core design and underwhelming of some Ikon.

In core design I think that only able to benefit from just one Ikon per round limits the utility and versatility of non-weapon Ikons too much. If you was able to keep some effect of Ikon that don't are with your Spark (like making Immanence fully passive) or give some ability that allows you the keep one of them working for some extra time (like a "Lingering Composition" to keep them working for 3-4 rounds without the Spark) this would increase their utility a lot.

For other side is possible to simply get better non-weapons ikons and have more non-weakon ikons improvement feats too. But this still keep the problem that you will basically focus in the same Ikon almost all time during encounter and maybe another during exploration mode.

I agree that it's a bit of both. A few things that come to mind:

1) Given that the "Defense" ikon is the one you'd normally want active between rounds, it means that the "Utility" ikon will actually only rarely see use, especially given that-
2) The 15 foot aura of the "Utility" ikons means that you essentially need to be in the thick of things for this to actually provide benefit, but in order to provide that benefit you have to turn off your defense-oriented ikon, meaning you're leaving yourself more vulnerable.
3) There is some minor overlap, but generally speaking the only ikons that grant offensive bonuses are the weapon ikons. Thematically this make sense, but as both the OP, others and myself have noted, this leads to either a "good turn bad turn" cycle, or you run the risk of someone doing the "shift-transcend-repeat" cycle I mentioned earlier to spam out the weapon transcendence every turn.

A few potential fixes I can see

A) Have Ikons grant some benefit when not 'invested'.
B) Increase the base aura radius of the Worn Ikons to make it a little more forgiving.
C) Have several Worn/Body ikons have more slightly more compelling effects.
D) Provide a feat or ability later that allows more than one Ikon to be active at a time.
E) Provide a Reaction option to switch your spark, which would allow you to keep your "utility" ikon active but switch to your "defense" ikon if s+!@ starts hitting the fan.

In my mind, a very common desire will be for an Exemplar to find a specific spot to plant themselves and then repeat the following sequence ad infinitum:

Action 1: Shift Immanence from Body to Weapon
Action 2/3: Transcend Weapon, shifting back to Body.

This will let them use their "defensive" Ikon when it's not their turn, and their "offensive" Ikon big ability every turn.

This feels like it runs the biggest risk of the "illusion of choice" of any class to date, at least in my mind, since this rotation would potentially feel almost mandatory if you want to do "the cool thing" as often as possible.

This is actually one of my only complaints about the class. I get that at the end of the day it's not the ikon but the Exemplar who is special, but it feels weird to me for reasons I can't fully explain that the ikons do nothing without the spark. No residual divine benefit, just back to mundane status.

Apparently Michael Sayre confirmed elsewhere that Unarmed will be fully supported. So in theory that would leave only a single "item" ikon with Worn.

I think how this intersects with Afflictions is a major confusion point as well.

If they fail the save does the Affliction advance staves? That's one thing that would make this not quite as potent since you risk rapidly advancing the curse/disease/poison that might otherwise take much longer to run its course.

Meanwhile, if this just imparts a basic "you either cleanse the effect or nothing different happens" it would trivialize afflictions.

I'm hoping it's the former, as that's how my initial read goes. From a narrative standpoint it also prevents the exemplar from single handedly curing plagues. If the NPCs are hit with a DC they can't succeed on without a 20, the exemplar spamming this would just hasten the deaths of everyone effected.

At the end of the day it's another variation of "move and strike with one action" but it comes with a fairly significant downside. Given that a) it's only up to half your speed, which means often the other enemy needs to be VERY close, and that b) as Joyd's noted, missing the second strike ends up making everything feel terrible...

Yeah this one doesn't feel great. To me, a Transcend action should be something that has an obvious benefit. This one doesn't. There are so many other ways in this game to get a bonus attack at the same MAP, or just reducing your MAP penalty to make it less significant, that this action being a core element of a character would feel very underwhelming at the least.

...cunning sniper type Exemplar...

I agree 100%. This, bludgeoning, shields, and unarmed are the fighting types that aren't really supported by current ikons.

- No Scar but This (Scar of the Survivor ikon) probably should have a requirement on how often it can be used, otherwise it's just free heal to full outside of combat.

I don't personally view this as an issue. This is only marginally better than the Medicine skill in terms of speed. Not to mention several other classes get Non-Selfish "free full out of combat heal" abilities, just slower than this. (Paladin LoH, Kineticist healing, etc).

- A Moment Unending (Gaze Sharp as Steel ikon) doesn't really seem to be a very beneficial ability.

Yeah this one felt super clunky to me as well.

...Humble Strikes...

At first I flipped out thinking that Humble Strikes was going to allow d20 damage dice, until I re-read and realized it was only for simple weapons, and no simple weapon goes above a d10. I do agree that Humble Strikes just seems like a neat little ability but that I'd wager the vast majority of Exemplars would never consider, and all go full in on Martial weapons. The only instance I could see that changing was if somehow Exemplars got a higher proficiency with Simple weapons

After talking over this body ikon with some of my regular players, the general consensus is that it feels drastically underwhelming. The convergence of a) needing a specific damage type to be being used, b) to have that damage type be totally nullified or c) for the person to miss while attempting to deal that damage type all while d) the resistance value makes b essentially a non-factor...

In my mind this ikon needs either a fairly significant buff, either in the flat resistance value, maybe making the damage value = to level at base with a larger number when transcending, or by widening the amount of applicable damage types, and just removing the "if you reduce it to 0" element since it'd rarely if ever trigger.

Any body ikon you have would gain the ability when it has your divine spark resting in it. But even if you have two body ikons, you can only have your spark resting inside one at a time.

Right, but if you have a feat that enhances "your body ikon", do you get the benefit if either is active? Or only if a specific one is active?

Gonna do some QUICK MATHS

Going to do some rough average damage breakdowns at the Striker level thresholds, against even-levelled monsters at base comparison. This is specifically focusing on the "Reduce to 0" trigger, rather than the "missed" trigger.

Level comparisons:

Level 1: Moderate monster damage is 1d6+2. Our Resistance is 1. Odds of Crash reducing damage to 0, 0%. To potentially trigger this effect, you'd need to fight a -1 level monster, and you'd have a 25% chance of reducing damage to 0. Any higher is 0%.

Level 5: Moderate monster damage is 2d6+6. Our resistance is 5. Odds of Crash reducing damage to 0, 0%. To potentially trigger this effect, vs. a level 1 monster would be 66%, level 2 would only be 12.5%. Any higher it's 0%

Level 12: Moderate monster damage is 3d8+12. Our Resistance is 12. Odds of Crash reducing damage to 0, 0%. To potentially trigger this effect, vs. a level 8 monster would be 4.68%. Any higher is 0%.

Level 19: Moderate monster damage is 4d8+17. Our Resistance is 19. Odds of Crash reducing damage to 0, 0%. To potentially trigger this effect, vs. a level 15 monster would be 1%. Level 16 would be .4%. Level 17 would be .1%. Any higher is 0%.

In short: at essentially every level, the only chance you have of triggering the "reduced to 0" threshold is only if you're fighting something significantly lower than you, and even then the odds are incredibly slim, growing more and more slim the higher level you go.

Honestly, I'd much prefer they remove the "if you reduce it to 0" aspect entirely and just leave the "if the opponent misses", because of how slim a chance it has to occur. That, or change the math on how much the resistance grants you. Even making it like 5+Level would increase the odds to a meaningful but not overwhelming amount.

Many feats and abilities state something like "your body ikon gains the following:"

How do these intersect with having multiple ikons of the same type? Do all of them get the bonus? Do you have to pick one?

It's relatively slow in-combat healing, but faster than the medicine skill out of combat.

You're correct that it is infinite self-healing, but the medicine skill trivializes out of combat healing anyway.

Calliope5431 wrote:

Wait is animist divine or primal? I thought they said divine...

Its divine.

They also said depending on your spirits you can get spells from other traditions

Unicore wrote:

Are they any mechanical rules for what deification means? There are a lot of pebbles on the beach which can have their own gods to rule over them. There is no special powers you inherently get, there is no real definition of what it means to have obtained godhood in PF2 because it is a purely narrative mechanic.

Make me a god!

*hands the character an ant farm.*

I mean. "Give me Sarenrae's powerset with no consequences or responsibilities" also works. There are actual gods, and "gimme that" is reasonable enough phrasing.

And there are other uses: "blow up this city" is also not defined, but at that point you start going down rabbit holes of "why does wish even exist if it can't do anything you intuitively think it can do on paper."

You shouldn't be bringing wish into a setting if you're just going to nerf it death like that. It's perfectly fine to say that there's no set meaning for divinity, but handing a character an ant farm or teleporting them outside the starstone cathedral is clearly not the point of the Rare Ritual 10, and it's really disingenuous to argue that it is.

I would argue that the ant farm/teleporting to starstone would be viable outcomes for at least the Crit Fail for Wish. I'd argue the starstone teleport would even fall under the "success" category.

Are they any mechanical rules for what deification means? There are a lot of pebbles on the beach which can have their own gods to rule over them. There is no special powers you inherently get, there is no real definition of what it means to have obtained godhood in PF2 because it is a purely narrative mechanic.

Make me a god!

*hands the character an ant farm.*

That would fall under the Success/Crit Fail versions of the Wish Ritual probably. The whole point of Crit Success is to give the target exactly what they want unfortunately.