If they went with something like trips suggestion I'd very much want a caster archetype of runesmith that's gives up martial accuracy for other benefits.
I imagine any class if well done can simulate multiple fantasies to various degrees. For me the class fantasy for runesmith is the runes and the language I'd like more class features revolving around language.
I think the reason is narrative. The invocation effect is supposed to be intrinsically tied to the rune. You use a manipulation action to trace it, and a verbal action to say it invoking the effect. So getting to choose your invocation doesn't make sense.
The average AC with 8 hit points isn't great. You don't get armor mastery until level 19 like most classes with master armor. That's a pretty painful journey to the average armor class with 8 hit points for a class that does best up close and personal in melee. No heavy armor either. Good thing they can grab a reaction to gain +2 AC (or use a shield) and grab the ability to move 10-25 feet without provoking reactions themselves. Plus with a thief they can pretty easily get better constitution if they are truly scared.
...And really I'd argue that being able to do that on exactly one class isn't good game design. I mean, thief/ruffian do good base damage and outside of precision immune enemies they have one of the higher end damage in the game. Along with having more skills than anyone but maybe investigator. They are one of if not best skill monkey One of the best damage dealers I don't see no Jack here.
I started playing a magus recently. Inexorable iron. So my thoughts are from this perspective. I enjoy having access to spells, I love the arcane list. My favorite moments were basically doing what a wizard does. Research and prepare. Using two hand weapons lead me to taking reactive strike (reach weapon) and using briny bolt or pre errata live wire. I tried psychic dedication for a bit, despite it making you literally a better magus it didn't fit my characters back story or flavor. So I accept being worse. The action economy is so rough I simply don't see it's potential burst as worthwhile. Arcane Cascade is the clunkiest and lowest reward class feature I'd rather have a 1 damage ribbon bump similar to gunslinger. I've experimented, ignoring it and using it. I can tell you, using it has set me back entire rounds and ignoring it has done almost nothing (at this point it's 4 recurring temp HP and 2 damage, I could not care less, and you shouldn't not care about your class features). At least let me enter/shift it as a free action upon spell strike hit. Spell strike is fine. But the base conflux is meh. Give me a conflux that let's me move or something that I can pick up as a feat. You suffer more in remaster imo tanking your intellect. ESPECIALLY vs ranged enemies or flying ones. Next time I'm just gonna play a ranged magus I see no reason to play a melee one ever again. I'm actually hoping this character dies, I've told my GM I won't feel bad. I'd rather play a fighter, or a wizard, or a fighter with wizard dedication, or a wizard with a bow or air repeater. I also consider the errata a nothing burger, why would I use a save spell with spell strike to add two levels of map and give the save spell a higher failure chance. It makes no sense.
Lower them to d4 Limit invoke to once per round Be careful on the new runes you introduce It's important to note that while the burst is too high, the dpr isn't far off once you remove the multiple invokes a round.
Jeeze, it's almost like runes whose primary function is dealing damage is fundamentally in conflict with the concept of a weapon-swinging martial, hunh. I'd gladly drop the martial proficiency personally for the runes. I'm going to politely ignore the hunh as I recognize I've had a bad day that went far longer than it should.
Primarily ranged, level 8. Air repeater, bayonet, rondache Human
Team
Goal is to stand 15 ft from paladin (in range of his reaction) Most action routines were 2 action trace+remote detonation Etchings were Ramparts on champion to raise his shield for him
Working with the assumption that tracing trance doesn't disallow the unique runic reprisal Using transpose and rune singing for emergency action compression War priest flanks and blesses with champion Ranger plinks further back Experience 2d4+astral rune+invoked rune fire 6d6 sounds a lot on paper but between all 3 actions and save effects having a different balance gradient to strikes means more often the enemy saves (one enemy saved on a 6, another saved on a 9) meant I didn't out damage the ranger on normal action routine rounds and regularly did less. The champion appreciated the occasional free action shield raise. I really invoked my etching instead using it to ensure constant bleed. But if the enemy rushed me it was an option. I could burst well if I wanted to dedicate the time (actions) First encounters we decided to do some of my own suggestions Lowered invoke damage to d4s Made it so I could only invoke once per round (again, ignoring runic reprisal special reaction invoke) It seemed much more acceptable, General feedback, My normal action routine was a bit boring but self inflicted. It wasn't bad at all and remote detonation invoking on miss is very appreciated. Damage felt high but not as high as you'd expect by the nature of saves. Install it was smoother than multiple attacks but I didn't steal the flurry rangers thunder. Defense with my build in particular felt adequate to good for a round or two. Beyond that I wanted to get away. Mobility was hohum, not Paramount for my build but it definitely impacted turns. Once we made the house rules, my damage curve still felt good, same minimum, less maximum, and the multi invoke cheese died (I only used it once)
It's key that whatever they do they maintain these elements Striking isn't simply better than using runes Don't change the action economy Basically if you nerf invoke damage too much you only ever strike, not enough then the play will simply be to use every available resource and action to burst. So the issue isn't the runes damage necessarily, at least not completely, it's how they stack. There are multiple ways of doing this. You could make it so a single creature can't have more than one of each type of rune on them. Creature, weapon, shield, armor. This will limit a creature to taking two instances of damaging invoked runes currently in the play test. Things like impact/whetstone and fire/thunder wouldn't stack. Next you make it so you can only invoke once per round, this would hard lock a single target to not being hit by more than two damaging runes a round (which is still his savage btw). Thirdly, you probably need to make engraving strike baseline , as it is right now I can play a rune Smith that simply never attacks, and TBH it feels better than attacking. Throwing out buffs and debuffs to invoke later.
I too share your views. At no point did I experience a disconnect because they aren't Diablo necromancers or some other popular trope.
I'd like these feats more if they gave critical specialization to said weapons.
I do wonder if the strictures of Pathfinder 2R’s balance and elegant design are to me, a straitjacket that stifles truly engaging or inspiring class design, or if conversely, I wish for too much from the system (or something just thematically different - I hear that the kineticist is inspired, but I have no interest in it at all) - I imagine it is a little of column A and little of column B.It sounds like neither, tbh. You have some very specific design choices you prefer and Paizo has chosen to do things in a different way. I don't see why that has to be some innate failure of the system.Well, once or twice, I might agree with you. But there were plenty of classes designed for PF1 both by Paizo and 3rd party publishers that I found inspired or interesting, but PF2, not so much. It seems tight and constrained. I live in hope. It's tight and constrained with a purpose is the main thing. The moment they are no longer this way is when this system starts to come apart.
Just let the Thralsl move and attack via a cantrip and problems be solved I think. That gives a fair amount of additional mechanical power is the problem. Suddenly one character has 5+ mobile units that can flank and you can choose which one attacks. I believe that's why they simply didn't give them this option.
I feel like with undead Master right there, it's a waste of time to just transpose that to this class
Only being about to trace or invoke 3 times a fight quite kill interest in the class I think. It doesn't really work without a massive redesign.
Manny melee characters simply do not have a reliable ranged option (strength giving l focus little Dex) A melee Magus needs to keep it's int high just to hit enemies from range, unreliably at certain levels. So I'm not sure why a heavily themed caster shouldn't rely on their spell slots.
YMMV on that, to me it doesn't get anywhere near the class fantasy, hell it's about as far away as possible while still being a caster.How would you define the class fantasy for a Necromancer? Sounds pretty close to what we currently have And the swarm is a focus spell you can pick up
Those are all feats and they help but still a pale comparison overall Heck without feats and etchings a ranged AOE is 5 actions I'm starkly against diminishing it's action economy for power retainment.
To me it's exactly what a necromancer is. So it probably depends on the media we've consumed.
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. Except it absolutely resembles a necromancer
Necromancer seems fine to me People really like to take the popular media and insist that it's the only interpretation.
My understanding is fortifying knock you trace a single shield rune as part of raise shield Runic reprisal is a special damaging rune etched onto your shield that ONLY invokes as a part of the reaction to shield block then otherwise goes away. I think that's the intent at least. I don't think the intent is to repeatedly trace damage runes every time you raise shield and have them persist. When you shield block it specifically mentions you invoking that reprisal, not other runes Tracing trance shouldn't allow you to fortifying knock.
Runesmith only generated an image on someone doing runes. Beyond that the identity is paizos to create. This isn't a barbarian here or a wizard. I maintain that, at worst, at MOST, you reduce the invokes to 2d4 scaling and make invoking itself a once per round affair. That is a marked reduction. Going from 2d6 per level to 1d6 would just be depressing.
Over time you kind of are, since it seems like you can't re-use thralls for Strikes, there's a decent chance if any thralls last the round that you'll have to put another down nearby to get your next attack in. I don't know if I think you should be able to and have them offer flanking. You could have half a dozen or more on the field later and that means your potentially offering off-guard to your entire party and can pick and choose every round who you attack with this benefit, from personal safety. So I can see why they wanted the limitations
This is definitely intended to be a burst class in the purest sense. Your meant to stack runes and detonate multiple. However, instead of cutting invoke scaling in half. I think it would be healthier for the class to give invoke the flourish trait or a once per round limitation. Then if damage is still too high, you simply lower the die of the invoked runes to d4s, but don't reduce them to 1d6. My reasoning is this. If you cut scaling in half, but don't limit invoke to one per round. You end up with a class where people will spend every available feat, resource to getting 2 invokes on one round because *optimal*. This takes a very freeform and expressive class and encourages it to find very set in action routines. If you instead limit invoke to once per round, not only have you halved their very high burst (and let's be honest, nuking one target with 3-4 damage runes as it currently is, is good burst). But you encourage a more varied use of their runes she actions. Suddenly there is greater incentive to also use runes for other purposes then damage because you can hit your damage *cap* more reliably. Whether you limit invoke to once or round or leave it as is, people will optimize their nuking. I'd rather that nuking be hard capped in exchange for keeping current or close to current single nuke burst and allowing more breathing room for other actions.
This is heavily dependant on level and why you plan your turns with what resources and positioning are available. If the thrall dies, your plans changed.
There is a dedication feat chain that literally gives you an undead companion.
I really feel like the desire for a Diablo necromancer or world if Warcraft death knight is starting to take away from the necromancer as it currently is. A class archetype I guess would be the best solution.
I'm my opinion my spell slots are for when I run out of things to do with my thralls So by round 5 Or I use it in the beginning for a buff.
Buckler have the free hand trait Other shields you can release your hand from and it doesn't get dropped because it's strapped, but then you need an interact action to reequip it. So normal shields in use are not free hand.
Neither is dumbing the game down because people don't like having to change their turn strategy. Agree to disagree
immediate things that jumped out to me They can summon more than one thrall at level 1 by spending more than one action. Create thrall doesn't have the flourish trait. Bone spear doesn't need to suffer map penalties because you don't have to attack with the thrall upon summon. Bone speaker comment tells me people who either don't use recall knowledge or only with thaum and investigator, bone speaker is incredibly powerful I do wonder sometimes if player expected class fantasy is often a massive assumption based on popular media.
If you don't want puzzles, don't pick a class that has them. I'm not in agreement that every class needs to be puzzle free or have a puzzle free option personally.
I think you will find many people disagree with your assessment of spells.
I thought a dirge was a song.
While I love free archetype. I'm also ok with classes being so feature rich that you don't need to.
Would be nice if you could just dismiss thralls, as many thralls as you want.
If you only look at healing or only look at damage or only look at the condition it may seem bad. But it does all 3 and the thrall can move 30ft to do it. It's consistent, it debuffs, lowers HP, heals. I think it's good TBH. I like it better than bone spear but I'm not into the gish aspect that much.
You thrall adjustment would effectively kill the class mechanically in certain encounters in favor of narrative flow.
Sounds like base kinesis class feature but for a thrall that's just... Servant. But seeing as we have both spells and a cantrip that can simulate this well enough, I agree it's kinda petty.
Magus play test had it's problems but was imo undeniably more interesting of a class overall in terms of expression and creativity. Right more runesmith has that, but we are at risk of flattening it and turning it into another Magus. Reactive strike is annoying, yes the class needs better codification and rules phrasing. But let's not accidentally flatten this class? I still think giving invoke a flourish trait would solve majority of it's short term burst damage. Tracing lasts until the end of your next turn. If there is still an issue, it's in some of the feats, not the base cost of invoking and tracing. Reactive strike is annoying, so is it's awkward early ranged support. If your going to lock it's ranged action compression to once a combat, just remove it. But for reactive strike you still have legendary class DC scaling and can rune from range with better return than a magus throwing cantrips from range or burning a very limited spell slot. That class is objectively strong and rewards creative players. When it's officially released it would be nice if it was still strong and still rewarded creativity.
Taking all your issues at fixing them would cripple this class completely. It's identity is quite obvious it's runes along with how creatively you can use them. It's clear they intend a routine of laying on runes then detonating them. I also think strikes being optional is a good thing. This all said it needs plenty of tune up.
This seems to be a incredibly versatile and expressive class rewarding creativity. So it's unfortunate that some runes seem a little boring and some a little weak. I don't have much to offer on the boring side, I'm no game developer. Rune of fire is incredibly niche on its initial effect to the point where 90 percent of the time you only casting it for it's invocation. Why not persistent fire, weakness to fire, you can always use a different rune when you run into something with resistance. Why make impact hurt you if your unarmed? There is so little unarmed support in this play test that this just feels mean spirited. Thunder, why is the scaling on the non invocation+1? Make it 1d4 please. I think if you were to change invoking to once per round (to limit the absurd potential burst while keeping from over weakening the class) you could change preservation to something a little more frequent? Rune of intensity is odd given the removal of ability mod to cantrips. At higher levels it's hard to justify an entire action for a single source is 6-7 damage. Homecoming is a rare example of arguably too much power. Given it has no range limit or even dimension. You could use it to yoink a friendly or if maze. Rune of gravity is one of those rare ones where majority of the time you just don't want to invoke. A lot of runes I feel their passive effect do not line up with their invocation. I want hard decisions. Which means passive effects need to be good as well as invocation. Then we just need some more runes, with just a runesmith can quickly get most if not all the runes. I know it's a play test but it's still worth mentioning. I can tell you majority of the time as a off kas martial, I'm going to be spending my first 3 of my 4 known runes on whetstone, fire and thunder. I'd also like some better feat support. Make engraving strike simply add a strike to your trace. So long as you have the ability to hit the opponent. That means two action ranged strikes with tracing and one action melee tracing. Currently while ranged gets there, it definitely takes a bit to kick in. Feels clunky.
So earliest this example works is level 12. Your using half your daily etchings on your weapons. The enemy has you let you do this what if they have a reaction it's going to hurt. But even with all that, limiting invocation to once per round is probably a good call.
I honestly think this is a strong class right now, ignoring the gish attempts. And it uniquely gets better at higher levels because of how their abilities scale with increased thrall numbers.
My hope for monk is actually in it's dedication. I want them to remove or weaken the feat that gives any class flurry of blows. Personally.
I really enjoy the concept of this class. My issue becomes in how it goes at the table. Every table I've played at has either the GM sighing over the million questions that get asked in attempt to gain a lead and keep it applicable to future encounters yet unknown. Or they don't allow them because of how much this can slow down a session. That's not to say the general impact at the table when other players feel like your slowing things down or taking up too much of the time. Basically in a game that's gone above and beyond in many ways to codify and create rules. Investigator sticks out like a sore thumb. So how do you codify it? How do you change it to work smoothly in a party without the constant "GM may I?" Situation. I think one issue is das being so tied to persue a lead. Why does the investigator need them to be subject of a lead to devise a stratagem? They are basically analyzing their opponent for an opening or weakness. Let it be that, maybe give them a to hit bonus or something else when they are subject of their lead. Das and therefore the classes precision damage being tied to a once an attack per round option is fine. But that option needs to be more consistent then Also making it a fortune effect makes little sense
I wish I could say I had great ideas on this. So instead I ask you all. How would you run, interpret, or change this class to smooth it out.
I'm kinda hopeful on the changes I like a lot of barbarian. But the fact that when you can't rage you can't use majority of your class feats and features. It's not fun when a rogue can't use it's sneak attack but that's monster design, not being knocked out by a lucky crit the round before
My only hope is they do not get Master strikes without a heavy cost to their versatility |
