Gaulin's page

I think necromancer is awesome and I'm definitely not calling for a change buuttt if I got to change it to my liking, I would give class features at a couple points in the leveling curve that allowed a free focus spell, similar to what fighter gets with combat flexibility or whatever it's called. Necromancer has so many good feats that it can be hard to fit focus spells into a build.

As soon as I read living thunderbolt, I knew it was too good and needed errata, and that people would be upset when it got errata'd because people just love their overpowered stuff and will argue to the ends of the earth to say it's not overpowered.

I still think it's one of the best spells around. It's one of the only ways to get pretty good damage just from moving, on top of all the other benefits. If you have haste and living thunderbolt, that's a huge benefit. Or shock to the system, which is both thematic and even better since you can fly with the quickened condition it grants. A really high level caster could quickened move through spaces to deal damage, effortless concentration another spell, and still have three actions left.

I do get the feeling that some uncommon stuff might not be looked at too hard, balance wise. I'm not worried about the uncommon archetypes in this book being too strong, since they can just be banned easily.

Outlier - runesmith has three abilities that heal a not insignificant amount that they can do at will, which breaks the norm set up so far (almost all healing costs resources or has an immunity period or is otherwise limited in some way.) At level 9, a runesmith can apply germantria rune and another divine/primal rune (could be something like cruonign which deals void damage in a cone to deal damage and heal the rube bearer further even) and detonate using vital compound invocation to heal the runebearer 20hp, themselves 20hp, anyone they want for another 23 hp. They could do this every turn if they wanted. A max rank two action heal at this level heals 5d8+40, average of 62.5, so around the same net healing.

Blave wrote:

Blue_frog wrote:

Infuse Void is mandatory because Necromancer is all about focus spells

I don't think Infuse Void is quite as essential as you state. Three Focus points per fight is plenty in most cases.

Sure 3 is fine...

POWER HUNGRY, FEAT 18 wrote:

NECROMANCER
Prerequisites Reclaim Power
You focus your hunger, allowing you to consume even more power from your thralls. Whenever you destroy three thralls with Reclaim Power, you completely refill your focus pool.

But 7 is better.

This. I know it comes late, but this really helps solidify necromancer focus spell supremacy, imo

I love them a lot. I feel like a lot of the trade-offs are worth it. I would love the option to be more widespread and varied; most of the natural armor feats are heritages which prevents a character from also taking a versatile heritage for instance, which can be a bummer. But yeah we could use light armor versions as well as the medium versions that most of the feats are.

Gaulin wrote:

It definitely feels like they missed stuff on runesmith. Save progression, their weapon specialization only working with weapons and not unarmed attacks, and probably (at least) flourish on invoke. And also being able to trace if you have a free hand but that one might be intentional even if I hate it.

These are probably all intentional. Well, maybe not runes on handwraps allowing their special faux weapon specialization.

Ah you're right, about the saves at least. I thought that will started out as just trained but it's expert.

It definitely feels like they missed stuff on runesmith. Save progression, their weapon specialization only working with weapons and not unarmed attacks, and probably (at least) flourish on invoke. And also being able to trace if you have a free hand but that one might be intentional even if I hate it.

I feel like the main draw for me to play a reaper would be medium armor from the get go, bind heroic spirit, and maybe some of the feats that let you do more damage/survive in melee. Spell attacks are going to hit hard and often, while melee strikes will be good in situations where there's an enemy in your face but I wouldn't wade into melee if I could help it.

Surprised to see no one talking about living thunderbolt. I'll describe it;

5th rank spell, arcane and primal, polymorph effect. 1 minute duration (not a sustained spell).

You gain 60ft fly speed, resistance to electric damage 10, and auto succeed escape attempts against immobilize, grab, restrain effects unless they are magic and higher level than this spell. You can move through other creatures spaces as if they weren't there.

When you move through a creatures space, they take 6d12 electricity damage with a reflex save, on a failure they're dazzled. A creature can only take damage this way once per round.

+1 heighten, +1d12 damage.

It does seem like the learn a spell activity is referencing only adding non common spells as options to your dirge when you level up. At least by the wording in the book. I hope we get clarification because it definitely reads weird.

I'm also annoyed that runesmiths pseudo weapon specialization only works on weapons and not unarmed attacks, really thought that would be fixed for release.

Gaulin wrote:

...I'm also personally annoyed and hate the change that you need an artisans kit to trace a rune; I loved the visual of just tracing a magic rune with a finger for a quick rune trace. Plus, I personally loather when a character needs a certain item to do their thing, I know it rarely comes up but I hate ittt. ...

I agree. I liked the aesthetics of the finger-tracing.

And always needing to be wearing a 2-bulk toolkit is rough since it uses up your entire standard worn toolkit capacity.

Of course, Smithing Weapons does allow you to not wear the toolkit so long as you are always holding a hammer, knife, or pick in one hand.

But that's a pretty restrictive option, too.

Gaulin wrote:

...Sad to see healing plaster didn't make the remaster. I know technically I can use the legacy version but would have been nice.

Agreed. Being able to avoid needing the 2-bulk healing toolkit is nice for the skill-monkey builds that I often like.

Plus I just think the concept is fun. :)

One character I want to play eventually is an earth kineticist who goes all in on medicine and takes healing plaster as a cantrip. One day.

But yeah I do like smithing weapons as a feat, that makes sense and fits the flavor for sure. But I have a hard time picturing, say, a greatsword wielding runesmith quickly swapping a hand off their weapon to go for their paintbrush or whatever, and draw a rune, and put their hand back on their 2h weapon, all in the same time it takes for any other character to adjust their grip on the same weapon. Also, the friggin description on trace rune says - "Your fingers dance, glowing light leaving behind the image of a rune." Like whyyy change so you can't just use your hand, reeeee.

Oh well I did get a lot of what I was hoping for in this book. I always get hung up on silly things like this that make it hard for me to fully love a class.

My extremely niche takes from quickly reading the book;

Osteo armaments being in, and at level 4 is awesome. The only two changes are that weapons last no longer than an hour (but there's no cool down of any sort), and that you can only do the decaying rune bit at level 8 which is totally fair.

Necromancer in general is really cool. I still don't think that a melee necromancer is a greaaaat idea, just because of their proficiencies at later levels, but maybe I'm wrong. Caster necro seems super flavorful and strong, having interesting ways of dealing with problematic issues for casters.

Runesmith... I'm not sure about yet. It seems like it's too strong. No cool down or immunity periods on its healing stuff seems like needed errata. It's damage seems like it really is too high. I'm also personally annoyed and hate the change that you need an artisans kit to trace a rune; I loved the visual of just tracing a magic rune with a finger for a quick rune trace. Plus, I personally loather when a character needs a certain item to do their thing, I know it rarely comes up but I hate ittt.

There's a lot of new spells, and some reeeally strong ones, as well as flavorful. Like living thunderbolt... Maybe the strongest spell I've ever seen.

Sad to see healing plaster didn't make the remaster. I know technically I can use the legacy version but would have been nice.

I wonder if we'll get clearer wording on conditions and shared issues between summoner and eidolon. Like, what happens when a death effect kills the eidolon, or a poison? A couple edge cases that I was always curious about, and kind of big deals in some cases.

There's also a lot of stuff we just don't know about runesmith yet. On paper, right now, it looks very (too?) strong. But I doubt paizo would release something that overpowered, there's likely some key stuff we're missing. One more day until pdfs!

Runesmith, to me, is right on the line of a lot of different concepts. A sort of standard fantasy weapon enchanter, a naruto style ninja that draws symbols to make effects (one of the runesmith feats to teleport to a sigil they've made is almost exactly like a certain power in that franchise), or witch hat atelier which is a new anime that my friends and I fell in love with. Fullmetal is another one for sure. I'm sure there's a ton of other inspirations, but all this to say that it's definitely a fantasy that's used in a lot of media and one I'm personally excited for.

Gaulin wrote:

Honestly I'm a little worried runesmith might be too strong. I really like the class conceptually and mechanically but it does seem to do silly amounts of damage even still. Hopefully there's pieces of the puzzle we don't have yet, like you can only invoke once a turn or one of each rune etched at a time, etc.

From what I've gathered, apart from runes dealing 1d8/spell level instead of 2d6/spell level:

- You can only invoke one kind of rune once per round
- You can only invoke once per round, and no more than two runes at once.

So you still can do some impressive single target damage, but you have to work for it.

I haven't seen those stipulations mentioned anywhere, but some people have been theorizing similar things are likely in the final product. There's a bit of a doompost on reddit about how overpowered runesmith damage looks right now, and while I'm pretty sure the full, final product won't be able to pull off what the poster claims, it does concern me slightly.

Honestly I'm a little worried runesmith might be too strong. I really like the class conceptually and mechanically but it does seem to do silly amounts of damage even still. Hopefully there's pieces of the puzzle we don't have yet, like you can only invoke once a turn or one of each rune etched at a time, etc.

Wargamer has a runesmith article up!

Trying to keep hype levels in check but it's harddd. Did not expect magus to be changed at all and the changes made to it look great. If summoner gets similar treatment that will be awesome. Also everything that's been teased for necromancer makes it looks like such a fun and flavorful caster. Also excited to see new equipment (expanded tattoos!), spells, archetypes, and we've seen almost nothing about runesmith.

Was kind of hoping we'd get a tiny spoiler of a section every day this week (since likely everything will get spoiled come Monday, or for us subscribers we will actually have it) but nothing yet today. At least Friday will be paizo live!

I really love double spelltrike. It's a very unique way of giving magus a pseudo 10th level spell slot. I'm sure there are plenty of combinations of spells that will make double spell strike better than a 10th level slot, in some ways.

Mathfinder has a video up showing off some magus changes, looks cool. And it's confirmed it has psychic spell slot progression which is great for you magus players

Suuuper happy about the archetype. I figured it would get create thrall but limited to one thrall, and a skill. Having that and two cantrips is wicked!

Happy with necromancer archetype (much better than I thought it would be) and that captivator is coming back! Also magus archetype has regular casting benefits... Is magus going to have as many slots as psychic/necromancer?

Sort of slightly off topic but we don't get monthly shipping threads anymore? Do we have an idea when impossible magic starts shipping/subscribers might get their pdfs?

My group surprised me by choosing blood lords as our next campaign, so the timing of this book coming out is super fortunate (the timing of the book has nothing to do with them choosing the ap).

As soon as I read the playtest I wanted to make a bakuwa lizardfolk fighter that goes all in on the necromancer archetype and ancestral bone magic. Bones all the way down. With built in bone armor, able to create bone weapons, having a bunch of utility with being able to cast spells, and a couple (eventual) free fighter feats, I'm pretty excited. I don't think fighter really needs all that many feats to be fully combat capable, but time will tell. There's also an extreeemely cool crocodilian lizardfolk miniature that I bought that makes me sooo happy.

Getting back on the topics of mechanics of the Necromancer and its hype, I just came across a small post by Know Direction with another awesome tidbit.

Seems there is a 6th level feat that gives Necromancer an extra spell slot, always at your highest rank, that can only be used for Summon Undead. Apparently it does something else too, but they said they had an article next week that will cover it in more detail.

Whatever else it does is bonus to me. An extra spell to summon undead at highest rank...yes to more to add to my growing horde! I'm going to find it likely hard to pass up, but man all the feats I've seen so far are between good and phenomenal. No duds so far, so can't wait to see what else is coming!

Oh dang! That's awesome. And cool to see we'll get to see more next week too. Thank you for sharing.

Has anyone seen any hints at when we might get more previews? The early level necromancer preview was awesome. And I do know about the paizo preview on July 10th (so far awaaaay). Has anyone heard of any other content creators who have permission to spoil some stuff, and when we might see it?

Very happy to read that osteo armaments is back, and at level 4. Just have to hope that it hasn't changed from the playtest beyond the new level requirement (which is an improvement) and that you can't sacrifice a thrall for a decaying rune until level 8 which is totally fine.

Yeah that's sort of what I was thinking. Might be easier to just handwave it, or have the character take the extra damage maybe?

I'm not saying it's common, I know you can't generally attack armor directly, but there are definitely a number of monsters, items and spells that can damage armor. Some of it might need gm fiat, like withering grasp (does natural armor count as an item?) but others raw definitely damage armor.

Maybe this isn't a rules discussion topic, since there's no raw I don't think. But I'm curious; for those ancestries with feats that grant natural armor, how would one adjudicate damage done to said armor? I'm about to start a new campaign soon and I love the idea of a bakuwa iruxi with bony plate hide, but I thought of damage to armor and it gave me pause for a moment.

Happy to hear that we're getting more tattoos. One thing I have always wanted was weapon runes as tattoos, which is pretty niche and probably won't be in the book but would be amazing for me, personally. During a discord chat with Mark Seifter during either paizocon or gencon, when they were talking about secrets of magic, he had mentioned that weapon runes as tattoos was something Logan wanted to get in the book but it took too much room/was not worth how much space it took. Not getting my hopes up but yeah, I'd love it.

There was a cool necromancer feat teased, that you separate your body into bone, blood, flesh, and spirit and make four strikes, I think?

Also blood is a new subclass for necromancer, which is cool.

Some pretty cool teases came out of the know direction interview with Joshua birdsong yesterday. Not sure if it will go up on YouTube, and I haven't seen any write ups of the video, but it's worth checking out if you're excited about the book I think.

I just saw the know direction paizocon schedule was posted, and Joshua birdsong will be hosting a panel on impossible magic as the last panel on Sunday.

Again, I'm trying not to get too excited, but I do have some hopes. I hope healing plaster gets reprinted and osteo armaments stays as a feat on necromancer (unchanged plz).

It is good to temper expectations, yes. I very much doubt summoner or magus will be changed much, and there will be a lot of upset people. Most of the book will be the same stuff reprinted, most likely. Best to go in being excited for the new classes, but not expecting much else.

The thing with Aberrations is it's such a wastebin taxon, it's anything that doesn't fit the model of life (or unlife, or construct, or whatever an ooze is) "as we know it."

Some are living things that are just modified a little bit sideways in a way that in some non-discreet way goes past just being a mutant or a cyborg or something.

Some are just life from a different, alien evolutionary baseline.

Some are outright created beings that might have been beasts or humanoids if the creator had done a better or slightly different job.

Some are conglomerate beings of somehow altered normal animals.

Some are cosmic horrors from beyond the basic concept of matter, molded from the stuff of dreams or imagination or void energy or time.

And then there's the K'nonna.

None of these are the same kind of thing! It's like writing eight biology textbooks about the different categories of mammal and then rolling all other life on the planet into the category of "Bugs," one volume.

That said I would also like an Aberration Eidolon, and to have some kind of Lovecraftian alien as a playable ancestry, we got Beings of Ib and Yaddithian in 1e!

Definitely agree with this. I'm generally just kind of annoyed by how much stuff occult gets, seems to be paizos favorite. Personally I feel like most of the 'created in a lab' type stuff should be arcane. Magical beasts, fleshwarps, golems, more oozes, constructs, etc. I don't understand why a fleshwarp is occult other than that they can be creepy I guess? To me, while they have a wide variety, they are more like Frankensteins monster, which is much more arcane than occult. Its definitely possible I'm missing something or there's some lore I don't know about but that's the vibe I get. Plus, isn't nex have a major focus on fleshwarping, and is mostly an arcane focused city?

Hope we get some impossible magic previews tomorrow. Maybe it's a bit too far out but I would love some sneak peaks, or at the very least a more concrete announcement on when we might get a solid preview before release.

Due to a variety of factors, according to the announcement of there being no paizocon. If we do get some good spoilers from paizo lives, that would help, it's just nice to have a known time that we would get the goods.

I just want impossible magic teasers....this last quarter of waiting is brutal. Feels like forever ago that necro and runesmith were playtested for a new book....

I feel this hard. No paizocon makes it even rougher. Its been such a long wait.

There is a ton of existing content out there, and I'm not going to go back and look through every feat to look for things that might cause issues with impulses being spells. But I would be very surprised if there were none. I love paizo but they tend to make mistakes semi often, and having to consider how every past, present and future spell/feat/item/whatever interaction also works with impulses is a big ask. Kineticist being in its own bubble works.

It just bugs me that there are often these threads on people theorizing kineticist changes when I personally love the class and don't want it to change. I feel the need to step in and post my two cents, so it doesn't seem like everyone is unhappy with the class. I like not being dependant on items as much, I like that the class has a focus on aoe, etc. Would it be nice if it worked with mythic, or commander feats, or got some of the tweaks I would want for some impulses? Sure. But an overhaul would make me pretty upset, and I believe that changes like making blasts strikes would cause rebalancing to the class in ways I wouldn't like.

By virtue of being spells, and being compatible with things like spell strike or a bunch of other feats, meta magic, whatever. That would make it likely that impulses would need to be nerfed in some way. If kineticist was strikes and spells, I would assume it would be closer to the playtest version, which I personally did not like near as much.

Also this whole thread is about hypotheticals, I think it's unfair to demand I don't talk about something because you don't agree with it. I'm also not saying that anything I wrote is definite, but going off my observations of how devs balance classes, they are things that I would expect. I've seen people clamor for kineticist buffs all over, but they rarely consider the flip side to the changes they propose. I'm playing devils advocate.

Hard disagree with any talk of changing blasts to work as strikes or impulses to count as spells or any of that. I personally love kineticist as it is, and I think people have a blind spot for all the reworks of pf2e content sometimes. If blasts were to function as strikes, for example, I would also expect damage to be lowered on blasts, and maybe even kineticist dc never reaching legendary. Same with functioning as spells, there would be major drawbacks as well, most likely. Its a real monkeys paw situation; if there were massive changes as a few loud posters wish for, a lot of people (probably including those clamoring for changes) would be disappointed.

I personally prefer that old content not be changed, if it is I would rather small tweaks or clarifications to specific impulses or what have you. There is no reason we couldn't get an addition to commander feats so it includes blasts, or an addition to some mythic paths to work with blasts. We could get more items that work with kineticist. We could get more archetypes that scale off of class dc.

Kineticist is my favorite class by a mile. I love that it's not super dependant on items, and gets the best of both worlds when it comes to class dc and pseudo spell attacks (item bonus on top of legendary DC is awesome). And a million other reasons.

The way that starfinder 2e's galactic ancestries handles standardized ancestry feats is awesome. Its probably too late to get something like that in pathfinder 2e, but that would be amazing. Especially if we got something similar for classes. That being said, yeah more player options are always the thing I look forward to most. A galactic ancestries style pathfinder book to gather up all the pre-remaster pathfinder ancestries in one place would be very welcome.

Just wanted to voice my support and appreciation for the resist all change. I much prefer monsters to die faster and not purposely avoid feats or abilities that deal multiple types of damage.

Yeah I'm very excited for final release of runesmith. I hope damage runes get toned down but have more variety (not all fort saves) and have more diatretic (sp?) runes. And the hands/weapon wielding issue resolved. But runesmith might have the most potential of any playtest class we've had in my opinion.

My personal take on shifter; a full martial with focus spells. But the focus spells, and there would be many, akin to necromancer, would last until your next daily preparations and all be morph spells. There would be a bunch that change your arms, skin, legs, head, back, etc, sort of like how augmentations work in starfinder 1e. Things like claw attack, wings, breath weapon, ranged spike attack, hard shell, stuff like that. So you could only have one morph at a time per body part, and you could change it in combat to adapt to a new situation but it would cost a focus point so you couldn't do it constantly. There would be feats to do things like combine two morph focus spells or have a preset group of morph focus spells you can cast all at once, stuff like that. So everyone could make their own 'chimera' type martial.

I was hoping for a golem ancestry, I wonder if that could be what the new iconic is? Golems would be fitting in a book with necromancer, isn't Geb about fleshwarps and magical constructs?

Also a big hope for me - I really hope that healing plaster makes the remaster cut. It's one of my favorite cantrips but I don't think many people use it.

Honestly I thought this was going to be a out how there's much fewer props available in a more 3d environment. Which is another problem.