GameDesignerDM's page

GameDesignerDM wrote:

I also played a Sniper Gunslinger who was the single greatest contributor to combat and out of combat.

Once again, i don't mean to be mean but you can understand that singular experiences are not absolute statements and they don't account for the absurdly singular and unique experience everyone has. i've seen, on multiple accounts, a warpriest outdamage a barbarian, should we say that warpriests are better damage dealer than barbarians?

The same can be said of your statements too, though. Like, whenever someone comes to the forums and says some declarative X statement, there are always people coming out being like "actually no, that's not been my experience" - so I really don't think any of this is some outlier or anything like that, and just that everyone's experience is actually different, and maybe we shouldn't be making blanket statements about something being universally true.

I also played a Sniper Gunslinger who was the single greatest contributor to combat and out of combat.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

It's entirely plausible that the tradition of Necromancy as represented by the class specifically developed over time in order to avoid divine attention from the likes of Pharasma or Urgathoa. It's not like you really want attention from Tar-Baphon or Geb either.

The sorts of "actually raising the dead" or "making mindless undead that last longer than you have use for them" or "creating intelligent undead" is specifically the sort of thing that will get you attention from powers that want to control or destroy you, so you figure out how to play with the energies of life and death in a way that doesn't create those kinds of problems.

All of which speaks to the issue with Pathfinder 2 being so embedded into the lore of Golarion. For those without these narrative “barriers”, they…don’t exist.

So while it might help Paizo craft an identity for their necromancer, and give some reasons for mechanical limitations/boundaries, it leaves those of us who play largely outside of Golarion…bereft of equally interesting mechanical options because “story”.

You can just make up your own story to work with the class, then.

IIRC, the reason we only ever get two classes now in supplement books as opposed to four like the APG is specifically because of page space. The Kineticist is an outlier because of the Impulses.

I also don't know what to tell you in that, yeah, they sometimes make decisions for business/corporate/cost reasons and in publishing page space is like the number one concern because pages equal cost.

Sure - but playtesting four classes vs. two and having it result in the same amount of good data requires longer playtests and more runway, which if I remember, was one of the reasons why the APG classes had such disjointed final versions.

They've found a good spot with two classes per book, and I don't think they should change it, in my opinion.

YuriP wrote:

Because unfortunately we have an space limit in the books and turn a class more versatile also usually means that it will be more restricted in their specialized options.

That is such a corporate mindset to have. Classes can only be made once; they can be supplemented later, but fixing the core is much harder. If they are so constrained by page space, then perhaps releasing two at a time isn't the best idea. Additionally, was it ever confirmed that they consider list selection under balance? It's not as if you can switch between spell lists once chosen, so I will need some evidence for that.

IIRC, the reason we only ever get two classes now in supplement books as opposed to four like the APG is specifically because of page space. The Kineticist is an outlier because of the Impulses.

I also don't know what to tell you in that, yeah, they sometimes make decisions for business/corporate/cost reasons and in publishing page space is like the number one concern because pages equal cost.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

No more class-specific spell lists please. The number of focus spells is probably too high too, since you don't really want more than ~3-4 of them.

But the Necromancer should probably get a feat or something that adds certain "Necromancy themed spells" to their Dirge. Like how Clerics of Fire Gods get to cast Fireball even though it's an Arcane spell.

Keeping a limited number of spell lists makes things easy and economical, but ease is not always the best choice. Sometimes, you have to choose quality over convenience in order to make a class shine to its fullest potential. This principle works both ways; for example, a necromancer's spell list could be utilized by other classes and archetypes, so it's not a complete loss in terms of economy.

For the health of the game and the designer's sanity, the spell lists we have now are the proper solution and class-specific lists should not make a return.

They didn't really ruin it for everyone, though. I've been playing PF2E since it came out and have had at least one or two casters in every game I've played in or GM'd and I've seen Sure Strike cast like maybe 10 times, if that.

Sometimes things get nerfed or changed because it counters what the original intention of the feature was - and that's just fine. Nerfs aren't malicious, they're just things that sometimes are needed, and players may not always know why its needed.

graystone wrote:

I'd just say to express in the Playtest Survey what you're like to see in the complete class.

I don't really get what is your point here, aren't these forum made specifically for people to tell what they think about the iteration of the class that's being playtested?

Sure, interaction with already released element of the game need less playtesting, but it still need some of it if they want to use these elements in uncommon ways. And these forum are made for us to talk about how we feel about the current iteration of the class, so i'm reporting (and I'm not the only one), that from my perspective, the necromancer don't interact enough with necromancy in general, instead focussing solely on it's own special feature. So I'm expressing that I would like more feature, no matter the form they take, that allow for this class to make better use of the already released necromancy option.

It's more that say, for example, Animist didn't have a Familiar option in the Playtest, but does in the final release - because Paizo already knows how Familiars interact with wide swathes of the system, and there was no need to gather data that could take away from the other aspects they really are looking for input on.

Thus, the same is true here with Thralls and any hypothetical undead familiar/companion feats in the final release..

ElementalofCuteness wrote:

Trip.H wrote:

It is pretty frustrating to see how much this errata was "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" though.

And where is he confirmation or denial that Rogue don't get crit success on all 3 saves at level 17? That been a very "The sequaky wheel gets the grease."

But there are a few issues still there like why Blade Ally works the way it does?

That phrase doesn't mean that devs capitulate to community complaints and reward whiners with buffs.

The devs can genuinely look at such clamor and think "Nope, that one's fine/working as intended/good enough/ etc."

That's why my example was inhaled, something that's literally got an incomplete ruleset, and not something that just presently sucks too bad to be an appealing option, like Blade Ally.

I know you have lots of pain points, but as was said in this thread already, it may help to just lower expectations of them ever being fixed or being something Paizo thinks is an actual issue - because at a certain point, and after numerous errata, the latter may just be the case.

So they nerfed Sure Strike?

One of the very few (if not the only) spells that actually gives SA roll spells a chance at functioning?

My SA rolls are miserable enough with how their odds are designed. Do they just not want casters having fun, or something? How is it that every time I come back around to 2E, its always casters getting their skulls cracked with the errata bat? ;_;

It looks more like they likely had an intent with designing the spell in what the use or expected player behavior would be with it, and it went against that, so are now adding it rules to make it closer to their original desire.

That is, they don't want it to be that someone just loads up all of their spell slots with it and constantly spams it.

It honestly just sounds like no version of this class that would actually make it in the design ecosystem that is PF2E - outside of third-party - would ever satisfy what you're looking for.

That's a bummer, of course, but not every class needs to appeal to everyone, and that's okay.

GameDesignerDM wrote:

'Actual' necromancers were those who communed with the dead and evolved from early shamanistic practices, and mostly summoned spirits to commune with or provide guidance and what have you.

The version that is being talked about being wanted (and that this class absolutely successfully emulates) is far more modern and isn't the 'only' way to do necromancy.

How do summoned Thralls that stand still doing nothing, emulate animated bodies?

You are using necromantic energies to summon creatures made of bone, flesh, or ectoplasm/spiritual essence - all things that are derived from the history of necromancers in both folklore, myth, and modern depictions.

Again, you are talking about one interpretation - not the only one. Paizo is carving out a bespoke niche for their named version, and its one that is clearly inspired by all kinds of necromancers, and is not more right or wrong than any other kind.

'Actual' necromancers were those who communed with the dead and evolved from early shamanistic practices, and mostly summoned spirits to commune with or provide guidance and what have you.

The version that is being talked about being wanted (and that this class absolutely successfully emulates) is far more modern and isn't the 'only' way to do necromancy.

No, it absolutely is a necromancer - it just doesn't fit what you specifically want, but it does for plenty of others.

Yeah, that just sounds like what we are getting? So I'm not sure what else you would expect.

I also think its okay - and good - that an IP is carving out their own space and expectations for a fantasy trope. It keeps the genre alive and fresh, and helps people to shift expectations in what various games are wanting to deliver.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Maya Coleman wrote:

Definitely here to change the lack of interaction! I know I'm not a Dev, but I'll take the questions I see here to the team and scurry back with answers as soon as I can!

Could you bother the heads of the playtest to get two clarifications on fairly fundamental questions?

- Does the Runesmith feat "Runic Tattoo" require a rune that can go on a creature, or can you use it with a weapon/shield/armor rune?

- Does the attack from "Create Thrall" need to be with the thrall you've just created, or can it be from any basic thrall?

Back in the day the lead for each class playtest used to post occasionally in the subforums and could answer stuff like this.

I'm on it, PossibleCabbage! I'll get you answers as soon as I can!

You're awesome, Maya.

Hey, can we stop assuming what Paizo is doing, has done, or has 'lost', or whatever? It's all mostly speculation, anyway.

It's unproductive, and its stuff like this that makes ANY dev not want to engage with the community.

YuriP wrote:

Another thematic solution to not depend from corpses is that necromancer could use "material components/locus" to create the thralls like bones for osteomancers, pieces of flesh for caromancers or piles of funeral ashes for vitamancers. And the rest of the undead body grows from magical energy. These components doesn't really exists mechanically being part of manipulate trait.

This means that thrall would keep their current mechanic of being created from nowhere but with a better explanation of how it's made.

I was thinking along these lines too, where the Necromancer carries tokens to transform, i.e. teeth (perhaps from a hydra for fans of Ray). Whether Necros recycle them, pluck their own hair or nails, or whatnot doesn't really matter; that little flavor smooths over the "from nothing/no once living body" or "tapping the (evil) Void itself" issues.

This is actually already alluded to in the descriptions for the Grim Fascinations -

Bone shapers, also known as osteomancers, craft what they desire from the skeletons of the dead or simply create new skeletons by expanding and shaping small bone pieces.

The other two imply similar things, so I think that might be what they are going for with the class.

I love the Dirge - it's spooky and weird and perfect for an occult prepared caster.

Wizard: "Where's your spellbook?"

Necromancer: "I don't have one."

Wizard: "Then, were do you keep all your notations on spells?"

Necromancer: "In my soul - in my bones! You can hear the whispering echoes sometimes, if you listen real close. When I sleep, they're like a lullaby."

I dunno, it fits real well to me, and you can do a lot of flavoring with it. Intelligence fits, too, since they are studying the minutiae of life and death, and everything with that.

"[X Product/Game/Company] is dead/dying/ect." is like the oldest adage in internet fandom and is almost never actually true - change, sure, but that's not the same, and a healthy anything is a balance of retention vs. acquisition.

Also, in game dev across the board, turnover is pretty high (usually people leave after say a project or a few projects) and even when everything is going well, it still happens. Plus, people who aren't 'plugged in' probably don't even know who makes the game they play. All the best to Michael Sayre.

I'm sure Paizo is fine - and the game will be fine.

Anyway, glad to see the errata coming soon.

I should also be able to RP my Necromancer as polite, practical, and charming if I want.

My concept is very much Emmrich from Dragon Age, yeah.

Aren't all undead unholy? And thus your thralls and their attacks would count as u holy as well.

Nothing in the Necromancer kit is Unholy.

GameDesignerDM wrote:

Dariush Amani wrote:

There are few things this community likes more than to say the magus is fine *waves hand* don't talk about the magus. Its deplorable action economy is justified, its bad spellslot design is justified, its rote play cycle is justified. Spellstrike isn't a trap, you don't need to do the thing your class traded everything for, every round even though you can't use it on round 1 anyway. Magus players telling the community it needs improvements are to be shouted down by the non-magus playing masses. You're not allowed to have more fun with the class.

They don't think it be like it is, but it do.

There are multiple Magus players in this thread saying they aren't wildly unplayable or broken or whatever else you are claiming they are - and despite that, still saying some small things could be tweaked to smooth our minor rough edges.

There isn't some conspiracy going on.

And here we have a perfect example. It barely took more than 1 minute.

Yeah, we all know conspiracy theories (which this idea basically is) can't really be disproven and are just constantly taking everything as evidence of its existence.

There's also a whole other thread that was made by Magus players to talk about what changes could be made to smooth out the small wrinkles, but I guess it's convenient to ignore that.

There are few things this community likes more than to say the magus is fine *waves hand* don't talk about the magus. Its deplorable action economy is justified, its bad spellslot design is justified, its rote play cycle is justified. Spellstrike isn't a trap, you don't need to do the thing your class traded everything for, every round even though you can't use it on round 1 anyway. Magus players telling the community it needs improvements are to be shouted down by the non-magus playing masses. You're not allowed to have more fun with the class.

They don't think it be like it is, but it do.

There are multiple Magus players in this thread saying they aren't wildly unplayable or broken or whatever else you are claiming they are - and despite that, still saying some small things could be tweaked to smooth our minor rough edges.

There isn't some conspiracy going on.

Yeah, I could see them getting a Feat chain for a Familiar in the final release, just there's probably no real need to playtest it since they already know how something like that functions.

Errenor wrote:

Tremaine wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

Tremaine wrote:

So the necromancer does not reanimate the dead, and the beings it summons are just tokens for abilities....then why call it necromancer?

Why not?...

It does resemble Diablos necro, Bone spear, corpse explosion etc, Not the more 'traditional' carefully ritually prepared corpses for animation route.

Good thing nobody removed rituals. Or Summon Undead. Or Reanimator.

Aaand. You can put all of that into Necromancer too if you want!

So any other caster is a better or at least equal necromancer to the class with that name...

Well, no, I wouldn't think so necessarily - until now we haven't had a bespoke class that is capital 'N' Necromancer (Wizard had a school, but was still a Wizard on the tin) and if Golarion's capital 'N' Necromancer is one that utilizes Thralls in this fashion, then they are alone in that.

Its Archetype will give you some version of it, certainly, but you still won't be on the same level.

Okay, Necromancer is already my new favorite caster.

Beyond the mechanics, I'm excited to brainstorm what my Necromancer's Thralls might look like - that will be fun to see from other folks, too, I think.

That doesn't sound like a very healthy table mindset - and if any GM does that, they should not be GMing.

I expect the necromancer won't have real undead minions, but rather class abilities and magical effects that pretend to be. I predict that, at least initially, the necromancer will be another disaster akin to the Swarmkeeper archetype.

They literally summon physical things that are undead.

The poster mentioned they get some Feats that interact with weapons which sound pretty cool -

They've got caster proficiencies, but some feats about using weapons, such as one that lets them use certain martial weapons, one that lets then summon a weapon with maxed out fundamental runes and a Decaying rune, and one that lets them make a strike where they sacrifice thralls to deal bonus damage and regain HP on a hit

Thralls could have some rider granted to them by a Feat or Dirge that has something to the effect of doing a small amount of damage any time its killed (outside of the AoE ability you can do) so that even if enemies go and kill your Thrall, they are still getting hit with something.

GameDesignerDM wrote:

Sometimes in game dev, decisions made by one designer may not have been something agreed upon by another, and when one has a chance to alter that decision, they do so.

Not saying that's the case here, but sometimes its just "because we/I/my team wanted to" and that's completely within their prerogative to do so. The results vary with how they are received but sometimes its nothing more than that. I've encountered it a whole lot in my job.

So your hypothesis is that a random dev didn't like these rituals being available without even more hoops to jump through and thus pushed through a change with little upside just for the lulz... This is not a strong argument for why we should be cool with this change.

Notice I said 'results may vary' but yeah sometimes that's what happens. Design is often a feels based discipline - and it can play out that way more often than you think. I've been in numerous situations where game directors are just like 'feels bad, change it' and the design team just has to tweak it until they get a 'feels good, ship it'.

Not for 'lulz' either, but a sincere belief something is better the way they envision - most devs don't do their jobs in bad faith, and even when it isn't received well, there is more often than not genuine intent behind it.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

As I said before, unless Paizo comes out and speaks on the matter, it's all speculation, but acting like changes don't get done just to get done (such as nerfs to an existing option, nuking options into oblivion, etc.) is absurd. It's all a part of game balance. Sometimes you have to make the harsh decision nobody likes.

So what balance issue was a high-level rarity gated ritual causing? You're suggesting that this was a harsh decision that needed to be made for the sake of balance, so what exactly was the old version of this ritual breaking?

Sometimes in game dev, decisions made by one designer may not have been something agreed upon by another, and when one has a chance to alter that decision, they do so.

Not saying that's the case here, but sometimes its just "because we/I/my team wanted to" and that's completely within their prerogative to do so. The results vary with how they are received but sometimes its nothing more than that. I've encountered it a whole lot in my job.

(Or there's some heretofore unknown material coming in the future that does something more with Rituals and gives non-Mythic reprinted/slightly altered versions of those or what not, and this is just preplanning for that.)

Ravingdork wrote:

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Tell me you're mad about losing that toy you left in the attic without telling me you're mad about losing that toy you left in the attic.

You really need someone to tell you why it's bad that someone is stealing stuff from your home???

Is Paizo breaking into your house and changing your ritual rules in your books? No? Then it's not even an apt comparison to begin with. The point is that something you've never used and valued being changed into something else you've never used and valued doesn't change the fact that you aren't using or valuing the thing being changed, before or after the fact, so getting upset about it happening makes no sense.

Yeah, and a lot of discourse that occurs these days on the internet is people being mad or upset about things they didn't care about before they were told to be upset about it - or are upset about something they don't even have or use.

So I don't blame people for questioning reactions, especially with such a small change in the grand scheme of things - and, no, I don't think it's the start of some big trend.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Tell me you're mad about losing that toy you left in the attic without telling me you're mad about losing that toy you left in the attic.

You really need someone to tell you why it's bad that someone is stealing stuff from your home???

This is sort of a bad analogy, because you can just play with those Rituals as they were before WoI - Paizo isn't actually coming into your game and telling you 'no'.

Which is true, of like, everything that people do in their home games.

Well, no, all we know is that it has a thing called a Dirge and things called Thralls which they can explode for damage, eat to regain a focus point, or jump onto an enemy - only a few things they can do that we know of.

Thralls also don't last long on purpose, so they aren't like animal companions or familiars.

That's really it - so I think jumping to conclusions about certain things is premature at this point. How much of a 'minion master' they are is still TBD.

The spell is not required to literally sprout from the single atom at the tip of the arrow at the time of impact. It hits the whole square. If you target one tiny creature with burning hands spellstrike in a square containing four tiny creatures, all of them must save.

It feels like you've been making increasingly odd nitpicks in service of a desire for expansive spellstrike to work in a way that would objectively and provably be out of line with other damage options. You have to acknowledge at some point that you need to make an abstraction to turn something into a game mechanic, and that abstraction will fail to perfectly click with logic—especially if you care about game balance.

This particular poster also wants Fighters to just be objectively better than they currently are, to the point there would be like no reason to play any other martial.

I wouldn't read too much into the artworks. The one with the spirit mirror is from Book of the Dead and depicts the Exorcist archetype, for example. I would assume the other artworks are from some previous publications as well.

With any luck, well get sketch drawings of the new iconic with the playtest on Monday. At least that's been the case for all previous playtests.

They bucked that trend with Commander and Guardian, iirc - they said something about not being ready to reveal them or something to that effect.

GameDesignerDM wrote:

One of them is, for sure, but the other one is a little less than that - the Halfling, I think it is, with the mirror. Shows to me there's room for both, for sure.

Oh, I thought that was the Runesmith, not a second Necromancer.

Yeah, it's one of the Necromancers - the Runesmith art is the Dwarf with the hammer and then the human (?) with the panther pelt and glowing purple runes that looks like she's pulling a sword out of a magical space.

Yeah, no, I vastly prefer all the aid given to GMs and almost every new GM I've ever had the pleasure to interact with has also said they prefer when the system provides them tools to help build their confidence and not just throwing them to the wind.

Justnobodyfqwl wrote:

Because of this, I fully expect the class to stay away from pigeonholing you as a spooky goth.

The released pic (is it the iconic?) is all about spooky goth.

But I'll join you in hoping that that's just one of several subclasses or directions that a player can take their build.

One of them is, for sure, but the other one is a little less than that - the Halfling, I think it is, with the mirror. Shows to me there's room for both, for sure.

It seems to be like Thralls being something unique and specific to Necromancers - and not being necessarily little jangly skeleton boys, but also maybe spirits and other things, like how the one art depicted one of them pulling what looked like spirits out of a mirror, which feels very Occult to me - and how they seem to have stuff like exploding them and whatnot to deliver effects, it might end up being the case where just like some people can be fighters, but not everyone is a Fighter, the setting bespoke Necromancer functions differently than a caster that uses spells from the Divine list that interact with undead.

"These? No, these are Thralls - that magic won't work on them, only mine." Or something like that.

I doubt the choice to give them the Occult list was done all that arbitrarily, so I'm very interested to see what they've done with it.

I hope Necromancer is a wave caster so it can afford to have actual class abilities. Casters don't seem to get much chance to have strong identities in 2e with how much of their potency is locked behind spell lists they share with others.

Animists are full casters and have a very strong identity. Same with Psychic. And Witch.

I think there's plenty of room for Necromancer to have a strong identity while being a full caster.

Well, they may have finally given us the class that gets me to play a full caster.

I GM for a player that almost always plays a Magus of some kind in my games, and he always has a blast and the character contributes a lot to all arenas of play. So, no, I don't think they need some power boost as they are already a fun and effective class - but some of the suggestions in this thread to smooth out some small wrinkles could be cool.

Legacy spells can be treated as "3rd-party material" now, thus being unavailable.

Maybe in PFS, but no one in any home game gets to decide that but the GM. They certainly are not 'unavailable' in my games - and I don't think most people's default assumption when talking here is that everyone is playing PFS, or even considering it in conversation.

No, that's not the point. The point is what Paizo has given us - the Magus has their own niche, and it is not meant to be Spellstriking every turn without cost.

I will say that blank-slate players absolutely do not accept / assume that other humanoids just get to have entire stat blocks and damage profiles that "cheat" via monster rules.

You can't really say this with any amount of absolute certainty, though, because I've played with players who are brand new and none of them have ever cared about that.

They've mostly just had fun learning their character and how to play - the monsters are for the GM to worry about.

People all have different experiences, of course, but again, you can't say something like that with absolute certainty at all.

Also, it's not really cheating if the NPCs have rules for how to make NPCs and they are just using those. Different doesn't mean 'cheating' or whatever.