I've tried a different browser I barely use and it still seems to be the premaster version for me..
If you use Chrome and tried Edge, it may have synced with Chrome. I know people complained about this years ago, but it may still be ongoing.
Search Posts
Same; my quick check was going to p.17 and looking at otherworldly protection (both are identical, listing alignments rather than spirit). My quick check was the back and both list the OGL as the license. Edit to add: I tried from a different browser and it downloaded the new one. I wonder if the system isn't pointing to the new version if you downloaded recently.
I just tried and both the Dec 3,2024 and August 2021 are the same file.
Any sort of persistent utility mid-encounter is action-intensive and short-lived, and because Invoking is so much comparatively easier to do, the loop becomes Tracing as much as you can then Invoking before the duration expires. This is definitely the root of the problem. The short duration makes it iffy as to whether you will see any benefit from the passive part of the rune. If you don't know for sure you will invoke the next turn you probably wasted an action to trace the rune I generally would agree but the presented utility/buff/debuff runes was just already too meh by themselves Yeah, I agree. I was trying to point out that it would obscure the play test as fewer people would bother with the utility runes and therefor give less feed back for balancing. While I agree with what you wrote for each of the runes, they could work out differently in actual play. I thought Bone Spear would be a lot better than it was.
Because the math is straightforward, the Paizo developers can correct it. I just don't understand how they selected 2d6 per two levels in the first place. I know way back with the Kineticist play test there was a mention of under tuning the damage to get people to use the other abilities. Plus, people tend to be happier when things get improved rather than a nerf. That lines up more with the Necromancer, who I don't think anyone has said deal too much damage. The Runesmith is the exact opposite problem. The damage abilities eclipse all the utility runes until the 9th and 17th level runes. Even then, the newer runes seem like something you would etch and not bother tracing mid-combat.
Once per minute you can trace a rune using song alone, removing the need to have a free hand, removing the manipulate trait and allowing you to use the 2-action version of Trace Rune as a single action.They had Rune-Singer, but that function of Rune-Singer is limited to once per minute - once you use it, it’s back to 2a Tracing to do it at range. That definitely changes thing. I am not sure how none of us noticed, but I am guessing that it is due to not having the frequency listed at the top like Engraving strike and remote detonation. You can do something similar with transpose etching, if you have an ally willing to let you etch hazardous runes on them before combat. players planned to use this in Ruby Phoenix with Rovan, seal of the dead vault. This way it last more than 1 round. They argued that the move penalty is untyped and should stack and I said the strat was cheese enough as is. Thanks to holidays and weather we didn't play enough to test it. On the use of beastmaster. My table intentionally did not use it as it felt like to much of a crutch. Same with free-archetypes, specific archetypes, and certain ancestries. Mostly things that gave improved proficiencies, action compression, or spells not part of the classes list. We didnt want something like Necromancer taking a caster archetype to get better cantrips or more spell slots. It makes it harder to see how big the problem actually is. Like I don't think I would have know that at high levels missing the extra low rank spell slots still felt limiting.
I do find there seems to be a lack of consensus among GMs as to how significantly enemies perceive the threat of thralls, and wonder about thralls making foes make extra rolls (to RK?) necessitated where…regular foes..wouldn’t. There was a question in one of the surveys about this. So, I think Paizo is at least aware this could be a table dependency problem. Can someone explain the many references to “Beastmaster” - is taking this archetype somehow useful in action economy for both Runesmith and Necromancer?!? What am I missing? All of what Trip.H said plus using an animal companion as a mount can get around some of the retractions with mounted combat. At higher levels is basically a free move action with out haste.
This time, the Necromancer bought 2 wands of containment with their money. They barely used their focus spells. When things got tough, which was fairly often, they cast containment, 5th-rank command or synesthesia. Their focus spells just couldn't compete on the action denial or debuff angle with those three spells, and the blast spells aren't going to turn the tide of battle when you need to reduce the damage the enemy is doing to you. Any other occult caster could have done what they did, but better. This was my biggest issue across all the levels I played or GMed, level 2 through 15. I kept feeling like it was not worth it to use the grave spells and the class would be better off just using it's slotted spells/cantrips. Too much effort, too slow, and too little payoff. to me it was not any one problem that make the grave spells feel ineffective, but the multiple little things that held them back. Just picking on the lower level grave spells. Bone spears damage is not great at level 1, has very poor range, and is anti-synergistic with create thrall due to both increasing MAP. Dead weight on a crit fail is at best a -5 to an enemy's attacks for one round or at worst nothing if the target is already next to someone. Life tap heals so little it is only useful in getting allies up from dying later in combat, but the drained condition would be better used at the start. Neither side is really worth it on their own. Muscle Barrier is very strong, but very passive for being the go to grave spell. Necrotic bomb is less damage, range and area than fireball. Plus, the need of a thrall means that casting it turn one, when it would be most useful, is not happening if you have to move to be close enough. Ranged runesmith is so significantly worse than the melee one, the 30-foot range on the 2 action Trace is just not a safe distance, at all, and is practically only good for making you not take Reactive Strike at a rather hefty cost, or tracing against low flying creatures that you otherwise can't reach. In most other situations, Stride+Trace+Trace (or Tracing Trance + Stride + Trace + Trace + Trace) is probably just going to be a better use of your time than trying to use Tracing Trance + 2 action Trace + 2 action Trace. As a result, its damage is backloaded into every second round where it gets to actually Invoke, making it very normal in terms of damage, while still keeping many of the Runesmith's issues due to the low range on trace. Remote Detonation probably had about a 50% hitrate, and as such the runesmith was frequently needing to spend another action on Invoke after using it. I am not sure I fallow on this unless you are talking specifically about runesmiths using weapons. I know that you are giving up engraving strike, but you can take Rune-singer instead of Remote Detonation. This would make the 2 action trace a single action. Meaning you only lose out on the potential damage from a single strike. The runesmith tracks with the inventor and thaumaturge to hit, but does not get their damage boosting. With Tracing trance and Rune-singer you can get out 4 traces in a single turn and then two more the next turn before invoking them all on the second turn while never moving. I think it is a boring loop, but it was very effective when my table used it. It even gave enough actions in those turns to use composite invocations, though they were not really worth it if you had to trace a single ineffective rune or wanted to invoke on multiple targets. As soon as you get Tracing trance it was easy enough to stack up 24d6 of damage across a couple of enemies every other round, even when having to spend an action each round to move. It scales at the same average as casting fireball from your highest rank slot on two foes every round, and can do more if you don't have to move. The Runesmith had the opposite problem to me than the Necromancer. It felt like the payoff for the effort was too strong to ignore and seemed like sandbagging if you wanted to do something else with the turn.
I agree that the total power of the grave spells will always be limited if the you can create thrall and grave spell the same turn. That said the grave spells as 3 action spells are further behind 3 action spells than other focus spells and regular 2 action spell. I don't believe the 1d6 every 2 ranks is enough to make up the difference. I think there is middle ground between 1 and 2 action create thralls. Limiting the range of a create thrall, but adding a way to move the thrall(s) with an action. You could still get a thrall in one action, but you would need another to place it where you want. This would also help with the people that want the thralls to move. I don't know if this is what I personally want, but is a potential solution.
2-slot prepared casting feels pretty bad. If you prepare a spell wrong, that's half your spells of that level that are now useless. I'd much rather be spontaneous at 2 slots, at least then half your spells are signatures.I fully agree. The main impression is that you don't have enough spellslots to nothing beyond Soothe. So in the end you just add Soothe in half of then what makes then useful. I fully agree, especially for the lower levels. My issue with spamming soothe is that it is just a worse heal and you have you just end up using it to remove dying from allies. At that point it does really matter if you are using rank 1 or rank 3, the ally will probably still go down to one hit. Eventually other spells like synesthesia take over at a certain point. That said, it does feel like you are limited to only the greatest hits for each rank. You just don't have enough room to pick a spell that might be situational.
The need for thralls to be in the right location made what I initially liked about the class much harder to do. I like the idea of announcing your intentions in advance. Placing a thrall in the middle or beside a group of enemies tells them whether you are going to use necrotic bomb or boner barrage. Then they should get to act accordingly, either spending actions to avoid the area or destroy the thrall. My problem was that both options are so easy that you end up just being better off creating new ones every turn. Even if it does work out the payoff is not any better than just casting a slotted spell or focus spells from psychic or oracle. There was a question in the survey about the number of thralls, the number of focus points, and are the thralls in the right spot. I had to pick the custom option because this problem shifts as you level up. Low level you don't have enough thralls, but at higher levels the enemies have so much more built into their kit that it is hard to keep thralls near them. in both cases you end up having to create thrall on the turn you plan to use a grave spell. I feel like there are not enough options that can use up the thralls left behind. There are a few, but only one really lets you use the ones no longer near the fight and it has a frequency of once per 10 minutes.
I like the idea of some sort of tandem strike like the summoner has. Another way would be like the other martially focused casters who usually have a way to give themselves a bonus to hit. The necromancer's could be causing off-guard by flacking with a thrall. Something like 2 actions that lets you create a thrall and strike at the same time. You could get the flanking benefit while making an attack without MAP and still get an attack with the thrall. It wouldn't save any actions, but it would let you optimize the order. I would like ways to give the thralls attacks more flavor as well. At the very least, you getting the decaying rune on your weapons with osteo armaments should apply to your thralls. I don't know how useful diplomacy would be against haunts unless you could use a intelligence instead of charisma. I am assuming that most players would prioritize int>dex>con/wis>the other>cha/str. So most players would have a 1 at best. Haunts usually have pretty high DCs and being 3+ behind you key stat would be rough.
I don't know if this solve the problem that I have. I know I have talked about the cost of grave spells being to high in other discussions. My issue is that the pay in multiple ways to get access to focus spells that are on par with existing focus spells. You have reduced spell slots to justify having powerful focus spells, but then pay again by having to create a thrall first. This problem is less noticeable once you start summoning more thralls at once, but still there if it is turn 1, the previous thralls have been destroyed, or are not in the right spot to be used. Muscle barrier is comparable to lay on hands. 10 temp hp vs 6 hp. +1 athletics vs +2 ac. Lay on hands is range touch while muscle barrier says range of 75ft (60ft to the thrall and 15ft from the thrall), but you cant summon a thrall that far without a feat. So, the range is more like 45ft(30ft + 15ft). You pay 2 extra actions for 45ft. Soul siphon and life tap are very similar. Both are a fort save that can inflict drain and give hp/temp hp based off the save. While soul siphon can only give you temp hp, it cost 2 less actions. Thunder burst and necrotic bomb are close. Both are basically fireball with extra steps. Necrotic bomb does about 5 to 12 more damage depending on the rank. The range and area are larger for thunder burst, it has a chance to deafen, and cost 1 less action. Using thralls as focus points sounds similar to summoning thralls on initiative with extra steps. You would still need to use actions to get them in the right spot, but you would also be vulnerable to losing your focus points before actually using them. I would be nervous that one breath weapon could take out all of my focus points.
I like the idea as a way to get thralls outside the regular 30ft summoning range for the grave spells with longer ranges. If that add more grave spells that gain bonuses from consuming more thralls, this becomes worse of an option. I also agree that it may be time consuming in combat. In Foundry or other VTTs its probably fine, but at a table it might be slow to have a player counting out the movement for 4 thralls.
Well, the spell (Talking Corpse) is already 10 min cast normally. Also, speaking/diplomacy with actual creatures is the easy one, yes. There are examples and the impact is rather limited. But speaking to corpses is really different, it has much bigger narrative impact and harder on GMs (which is why it's a slotted spell and uncommon). Yeah, maybe I was clear in what I was trying to say. I was trying to point out that if it were a ritual the time would probably be longer based on the existing rituals. For the diplomacy part, I was thinking more of skeletons and zombies from the bestiary. I think that it would be a little better than the kineticist's if it was just copy pasted with undead instead of elemental. I think the undead are more common and the kineticist is restricted to the elements they use. I was thinking that the Necromancer could be limited based on their grave fascination. Skeletons for Bone Shaper, zombies for Flesh Magician, but I don't know of any mindless ghosts or spirits to go with the Spirit Monger. If are any, I'm sure they are at least less common than the other two.
Correct me if I am wrong, but my main take away from your impressions is that the class struggles to interact directly with foes. Other than the thrall attack when summoned your damage came from a cantrip that the class does not have access to, you didn't seem to use any offence. The damaging focus spells seemed too costly in actions. I have had a similar experience at my table. I think my table did try to focus more on the damage side than you did. That part to me did start to feel better around level 7. At this point the damages are closer to spells on the arcane and primal list. Necro bomb is 1.5 average damage less than fireball, and Bone spear is 3.5 avg dmg over blazing bolt. Bone barrage is worse at 11.5 avg dmg behind breathe fire, but has a larger area and a way to avoid and even buff allies. Even with all that, it never felt like we were able to make the most of the spells though. Usually due to some combination of short ranges, lack of precision in casting, and the extra action cost. The Thralls did do fantastic in some complex hazards that targeted at random each round. They did poorly if the hazard used AoEs though.
Being able to use more spells as rituals looks like it could help the class feel less restricted by the limited spell slots. Only having 2 per rank makes it hard to not just pick the greatest hits at each rank. Giving more access to rituals, especially necro spells missing from the occult list, could really flesh out necromancers casting.Funny reading this as authors of the mod converting BG3 to PF2 are approaching converting spells and one the the biggest differences with dnd comes into the light: there's no mechanics in PF2 to cast slotted spells without limit. Either they should become a cantrip or a focus spell and both should be written individually anew. And in BG3 a some very important spells became rituals which aren't this in the actual rules. Like Speak with Dead. And I'm not sure that general PF2 needs this even for just Necromancer. Maybe just give access to it for Necromancer (it's uncommon) and make a feat or feature to use this 1/day for example. But not unlimited times per day. I do think the idea would need a lot of refinement to work. My biggest concern would be giving one player an activity that takes much more time then anything else the party wants to do. Even the shorter rituals have a 1 hour cast time. There are few examples of gaining innate spells. They usually tied to ancestry and limited to once per day. Classes seem to just get a feat that is very similar to a spell, but never the exact same thing. I would not be surprised if the Necromancer had a feat like Kineticist's Voice of Elements to let them speak to mindless undead.
Yeah I get that. I do think that the Int based classes do need something to boost up there skills. They get a lot of trained skills but rarely have the stats to back up anything other than recall knowledge. Plus Int does not help skills improve as you level up so stuff just falls behind. I like that a lot of the newer classes can use their best stat for other skills that are tied to the class. Something like you said using Int for social checks with undead or letting you use undead lore as a substitution for those skills. Being able to use more spells as rituals looks like it could help the class feel less restricted by the limited spell slots. Only having 2 per rank makes it hard to not just pick the greatest hits at each rank. Giving more access to rituals, especially necro spells missing from the occult list, could really flesh out necromancers casting.
While all the lore stuff is missing from the playtest, it does feel like the kind of content that would get left out for the sake of focusing the more unique aspects of the class. Druids have two feats that are basically what is being asked for. I would be disappointed and shocked if the class released with out something similar. For crafting out of bone, I feel like goblin's junk tinker feat would be easy enough to rewrite to work with bone instead of junk.
I also think necrotic bomb can feel bad when you first get access. The single d12 is quite swingy. Did the new focus spell make you feel more proactive in the fight or did it make the necromancer feel more passive?
"Macabre" is a word that looks cool and sounds silly. I can't hear "macabre spells" said out loud and not picture a farmer talking about what they use to grow corn, "mah cob spells". Alternatively, if you pronounce the "re" it makes me think of a mi cabra(my goat in spanish). Still a farmer but this one has "my goat spells".
Also this remembers me. Is this right? A 1d8 spell with heigtened 2d8 every rank? Yeah that's right. It does 1 fewer die than blazing bolt, but d8s instead of d6s. Almost all the grave spells have a very closely comparable spell, but the grave spell is always harder to use. Usually some combination of shorter range, smaller area, or more actions. You get to cast about 3 max rank spells most fights using focus points, but they are harder to get the most out of. I think this is why dead weight looks so bad. The class gives up a lot of spell slots for these focus spells and dead weight looks like it would be an average focus spell on a cleric. And preferably wait to level 7 so you can use them together immediately. The class does feel a lot better once you hit level 7. I think too many grave spells need that extra thrall to feel worth it. Having to spend 4+ actions across multiple turns makes the class feel very slow.
I think there are a few spells that might work if you could target a corpse with them, but they are all about rank 6 or higher. I also think Paizo would be hesitant to give them at a much lower level and to potentially let the party walk around with multiple bags of hit points tied to one character. Even the beast master is limited to the number of companions at one time.
When making a thrall from another corpse they could make it similar to the spelldrinker feat for the bloodrager. Have a list of creature types and an additional tag to add to the thrall. then just make the thrall the same size of the creature. The faster create thrall could be a free action like quicken spell that only works if you summon a thrall on the location of a creature that died recently. I don't know what a good time limit would be. Spamming thralls to search for traps seems like there could be unintended repercussions. You aren't finding the trap. You are triggering every trap, just hopefully from a safe distance.
Because they don't animate and control undead, they are a skin over a universal chassis. Which from a game balance perspective makes sense, but does not do what the necromancer fantasy I enjoy does I think I mentioned this in another thread you were in, but it sounds like you want the spell duplicate foe at a lower level with some adjustments. Something that targets a dead body and lets you control some facsimile of what they once were.
I think OP missed the point on moving thralls, so to answer his question: I would give up every feat and focus spell in the playtest to have created and controlled undead as a necromancer, every feat after they can move would be something to make them better. Would that not just be an undead summoner?
Bomber Alchemist can choose to deal splash damage only to the target, so they have a built-in way to avoid hitting the thralls. That's probably why it didn't come up. Yeah, that would have made a difference. We had a chirurgeon and gave up on using them for the test pretty quick. The goal was to let the necromancer carry the weight of being THE caster, but still have plentiful healing.
I am surprised you didn't run into issues with a necromancer and alchemist in the same party like my table did. The necromancer could not focus the same foe as the alchemist with they wanted the thrall to survive to the next round. we also had to shuffle turn order almost every fight to make sure the party could benefit from flanking with the thralls before the splash damage removed them.
I like that the spell is a line that can hit multiple foes, but boy does the spell chafe against a lot. The short range made it hard to use existing thralls and the short line made it hard to hit multiple foes. The MAP made it hard to use if you wanted to create thrall on the same turn, either before or after bone spear. I really hoped the first level grave spells would be you bread and butter for the class, but they start so weak. I will say they scale well damage wise. Life tap felt better at higher levels when a crit means more than 3 damage and the more of the party could take advantage of a weakened fort save. Bone spear felt better with summoning more thralls, because you could keep one near you for when enemies got close, but it was still hard to hit multiple targets. the Damage scales closely to other spells that target AC. Dead weight never felt worth it though.
So what's missing is something that connects the thrall you raise to the grave spell where you make something out of that thrall. You are talking about things like Conglomerate of Limbs and Recurring nightmare right? I know there are plenty of actions that affect what reactions are a available, but I don't know of any reactions that affect the actions you take. It would be something new.
I like how no one, even the people who mentioned liking the video, have said a single specific thing about the actual content the OP wanted to share (yes I know I'm being part of the problem here).OK I will be addressing it. I don't agree with his opinion on moving the thralls because he is approaching it from a gamist perspective. He fails to understand that the problem with not being able to move the thralls is not about efficiency; it's that they feel like statues or trees rather than real undead. There is a significant difference between saying, "It's not worth it to move the thralls," and "I literally cannot move the thralls." To be honest, it feels almost insulting that he suggests we aren't thinking when, in reality, he is the one who is hyper-focusing on action economy and feats while missing the point. I mostly agree with the way OP talks about thralls moving, but think he was a bit hasty in his dismissal and it leaves design space unused. I think if you just had the option to move existing thralls instead summoning new ones, there would be complaining that it was a trap for waist of an actions. To me thrall movement could work if it was tied to something else and small. Something like letting some thralls step when you preform certain actions could help them feel like the aren't statues, but also not slow things down with figuring out the movement for all of them. It could also help with adjusting a thrall before casting a grave spell.
-Corpse Raiser: Maybe untenable given the variety of enemies, but I'd like to see more done with raising actual corpses in the field. If this got made I think it would function a lot like the duplicate foe spell, but requires a dead or dying target and makes the minion undead. -The main request I've seen is for Thralls to be useful for more than fuel & detritus littering the battlefield after appearing. I think this could be done by not all grave spells using a focus point and/or consuming the thrall. Maybe like the inventor has a base version of abilities, but then can boost them by making them unstable; The Necromancer could have weaker versions of its' abilities, but could spend the focus point and destroy the thrall to get the full benefit. This could give the thralls more of a purpose after the focus points are gone.
Maestro bard and warrior are the only ones that have it by default, but any bard can pick up lingering composition with a 2nd level feat. Only the Bone Shaper has a way to prevent thralls from being destroyed. Sustaining spells is just part of being a caster and the Witch has more spells that do it. The Necromancer cant sustain and cast a new grave spell on the same turn if they have to also summon a thrall. Investigator can get free Devise a Stratagem on some targets and has a 2nd level feat to add a new Person of Interest. I would say that Devise a Stratagem is more valuable than the damage from create thrall. Weather the thrall flanking is more impactful is harder to say. The Magus gets conflux spells to help recharge. Rogues do need to spend actions to get foes off-guard, but most martials are also trying to do this. It has multiple ways to be set up and can be set up by other players. The class also gets to make foes off-guard by using other actions based off their Racket. If you crit succeed with most rackets the off-guard last longer. Ranger and Thaumaturge don't have action compression, but both have a way to sometimes start a fight focused on their target and only have to spend an action to swap to a new foe. Both have ways to make this targeting apply to other foes as a way of reducing the action tax. Create Thrall feels too similar to Gather Elements from the Kineticist playtest. The difference is every grave spell is an overflow impulse. At higher levels you can create more thralls at once, but I think it is too easy for most thralls to be removed. Especially at later levels. Spells like Burning Blossom completely stop the necromancer from using thralls they created on previous turns. Smaller spells like Ice Storm can seemingly lock you out of casting from an area. Maybe my table is just more aggressive towards the thralls or the enemies we fought were just better suited to deal with them.
I just think having to use create thrall almost every turn limits what the class can do. It starts to feel like an action tax after a bit. Lots of classes have to pay an extra action to access their whole kit, but most only have to pay it once per fight or once per enemy. The necromancer pays it on most turns. The other classes that have to pay the tax more often have action compression. gunslingers get to do other things during reloads and swashbucklers gain panache with multiple skill actions. Even the runesmith has level 1 feats to combine actions or reduce the number of actions for tracing a rune. I am saying I would like to see something in the class other than quicker summoning of thralls, as I think what made the class fun was setting up future turns. I just think it could be made a bit more reliable to get the pay off. Bone shaper's thrall enhancement is good, but it only works for reflex saves and is locked away from the other 2 Grim Fascinations.
Right now there are only 4 runes that deal damage when invoked. 2 are applied to an enemy and 2 are for allies (judging by the base effect). only 3 are avaliable at level 1.
At low level the damage does not seem absurd, but with scaling on the level 1 runes all being 2d6+(2d6 per 2 levels) coupled with multiple saves pulling the damage closer to the average, it could be for anything with a week fort save. The combinations could be a cool to work around this stacking damage. I do wonder how short the list would need to be.
I think most of my turns were Cantrip + Create Thrall I agree. I don't think my issue is needing or wanting to consume a thrall every round, but with needing to spam create thrall to make sure one is available when I do want to cast a grave spell. While playtesting, I found myself having to use create thrall almost every turn as they rarely made it multiple turns. This was especially true when fighting multiple foes. Either a couple lower-level creatures miss their first attacks and decides to spend the rest of their turn clear thralls, or the thralls get caught up in an AoE.
I have seen the need for more thralls at early levels brought up a few times. the solution that tends to be brought up is more thralls early with create thrall or action compression so you can summon them while accomplishing other actions, but I haven't seen much about keeping the thralls you have alive. I like the idea of setting up on one turn and then reaping the rewards of that planning on later turns. I think I would prefer if the thralls were a little easier to keep on the field. Either some grave spells only needing to originate from a thrall but not consume it, or making other options beside bone shaper have a chance at a thrall surviving. Something like the unstable trait for the inventor could be nice. the grave spells could slightly weaker unless you also consume the thrall with the spell.
They definitely struggle for actions. I would think an archetype with a lot of defensive passives would help out a good bit. Some thing like a champion(stats may be an issue) or a sentinel that could give access to better armor might be the best option. Being tougher might make it easier to get up close and just stay there, reducing the actions needed to move to safety. Though skill mastery might also be a good option. You are an int based class, but like every int based class you lack the skill feats and improvements you need to make use of all your trained feats.
I made a white-room damage calculator in excel a while back for a summoner to see what action orders were better between the summoner and the eidolon. I have since used it for a lot of other characters, like a thaumaturge to see what's better between the tome and weapon intensify vulnerability(tome is bout 5% if you know the exact AC to aim for and are unsure if you will get to make a reactive strike). It does a good job showing what you can expect on optimal turns, but requires a lot of work for each character. With the little bit of turn options I looked at with the necromancer(things like create thrall and then a cantrip or grave spell) the necromancer looks close to other casters. It was even close marshals like the thaumaturge and barbarian when using grave spells. I did not look at regular spells because they are the same for all occult casters. This did not hold true during play testing for my table. It was rare to feel like you got an optimal turn. at levels 4 and 5 it was hard to have a thrall up at the start of your turn unless you spammed create thrall the turn before. This meant that you either had to not move and summon a thrall the turn you cast a grave spell or have spent the previous turn creating multiple thralls. It was comparable to a gunslinger, such that a gunslinger can get one turn that is attack>reload>attack, but then the next turn was reload>attack>reload. This drops the turn average by a good bit for the gun slinger, but the gunslinger pays the action cost later and can save the better turn when foes are in a bad spot. At higher levels 14 and 15 the issue we were having was with the enemies themselves. Foes were either too big to get the thralls in position without standing in the monster's reach or the had abilities that gave movement or area damage. It felt like the battle fields would end up with lots of thralls, jut non in the right places. In short white-room math looks close enough to everything else, but in actually playing it was hard to get an opportunity to do what you wanted.
I don't know what elemental spells Primal has that arcane doesn't. I know primal is primarily associated with the elemental planes, but pretty much every single blast spell is shared between these two traditions I really thought there were more in Rage of Elements, but I just looked and there are only like a handful. Those were basically just other heal spells.
Do we know if quickened casting is intentionally missing the once per day frequency for the playtest or if it was mistake? It seems like feed back might be skewed if some tables play test with or without the restriction.
Aren't all the spells cast by the class necromancer spells, as long as it is from the class and not an archetype or ancestry? So, you any cantrip works.
I believe that across the board the lists should be much smaller, much tighter and less all encompassing. Then we just give classes the ability to add more spells to their list according to theme. Maybe wizards do this more, maybe they don't. Wizards already seem to have a theme in manipulating spell slots and doing better meta magic so I think that's their lane... But I digress. We won't see this resolved until 3e though I really thought they should have given the wizard schools gave access to some spells from other list. Like a med student wizard with sooth or a meteorologist with more of the elemental spells from primal. I think it would have had better schools had it been a player core2 class.
I actually like this type of necromancer more. One that tries to control the dead. When I hear pyromancer, I think about someone that controls fire, not just starting fires. Same thing for necromancer. I don't want it to just bring things back to life. That said, I do think the class needs some feature to help dying allies and more ways to interact with the dead in general. bone speaker is a start, but not nearly enough.
I like the idea of optionally losing the attack on create thrall to gain an extra thrall. It could also help bonny barrage.
I really don't want to see all legendary tactics be once-per-day tactics. I get that they could be made stronger, but it removes the element of choice from the option. In the playtest you could choose between a 1/day save or consistent encounter offence. With this change all the legendary tactics would become something you try to save for as long as possible each day. Plus, I feel offensive tactics are easy to justify not using in a dire situation if you are planning to save it for the boss.
With the changes to the tags on spells in the remaster, are the spells now immune to the DC 5 flat check?
I would fear that you would run into another problem like electric arc. It is not the highest damaging cantrip, but because it is a save, it usually averages to the highest damage. That's not even including that it can target two enemies. I think just having more single target spell that target saves would only make the ones that target ac feel worse. Maybe just having them function similarly to those might help them. Something as small as doing minimal damage or splash damage on a miss could help a lot. I mean acid splash is still good because I know even if I miss the troll the splash will still cancel the healing. This makes me almost want to use it over acid arrow, even if it wasn't a spell slot. |