PlantThings's page

I'm in a 15th level game atm (started at 14th) as a Puppeteer Blood Necro.

The damage auras are the most annoying to face for me. Some are more manageable than others based on aura size. Regular AoEs have mostly been a non-issue. Lines, cones, and most bursts have been easily mitigated with good thrall placement. The big emanations are scary and more awkward to play around, but I'm sure it's a matchup I can continue to improve on. Reach of the Dead has been a huge asset in all of this.

Most of the time, I really just need one decently placed thrall to survive a round to have a great followup turn. I'm currently testing Recurring Nightmare to help with that. It's not fully functional yet without Effortless Concentration, but I'm seeing the vision as I dabble with it. It's pairing really well with Reach of the Dead. I'll report back once I can free action sustain a thrall into being once per round.

Oh yeah, it would have to say it directly. Boooo

Granting Command a Thrall the Occult trait would be really nice. Almost every other Necromancer ability already has it except Inevitable Return, which should also have it.

I'm biased though, because I assume that would also make Thrall strikes magical. It irks me there's no way to do that currently.

Thanks for working in the new Impossible Magic spells!

I would suggest adding Dimensional Drop to the introductory "Heightened Spells" sections for Arcane 5 and Occult 5.

Unrelenting Gravity is another one. Single target spell that heightens to multiple targets, but at 4th rank. First of its kind at that rank, as far as I’m aware.

Whether the bleeding field is grounded or occupies the entire burst, I think the draining fort save clearly affects the entire burst since it references the area rather than the field.

Personally, I think both effects affect the entire burst because it reads just like Sanguivolent Roots to me. That impulse is a also a burst, specified as vines that grow from the ground, but similarly has nothing else that implies its unable to reach upward in that burst.

Blave wrote:

Just noticed that you got some feat names wrong. The level 8 spellshape is called Infused Void. And the level 10 reach increase is called Skeletal Extention, not Skeletal Exoskeleton.

Thank you so much, I spent large blocks of time writing the guide and some went into the wee hours where I just started to hallucinate feat names apparently.

Looking at my pdf, Infuse Void should be fine as is. I think AoN adding the d is a typo.

I think the Necromancer gets a meaningful powerspike at 18th level with Power Hungry. It requires a 6th level feat, so for two total feats and an action, you get 6 focus points per encounter.

6 focus points per encounter isn't much though if you're solely relying on 2-action grave spells. However, this gives a big boost to the 1-action grave spells that create multiple thralls, enough that it easily pays for Power Hungry's cost with some leftovers. Those are Bloody Tendrils, Skeletal Lancers, and Living Graveyard (20th level). These three grave spells will basically replace the Create Thrall cantrip for as long as you have the focus points. Considering you'll likely weave this in with your 2-action thrall spender grave spells, you can reasonably spend those 6 focus points within 2-4 rounds.

You're essentially doing your regular rotation for your 2-action grave spells, but you're now leaving more and better thralls compared to your usual 2-3 regular thralls from Create Thrall. Bloody Tendrils give you 5 thralls that are physically immune and area damage pests. Skeletal Lancers are also 5 thralls but with a longer cast range and better mobility. Living Graveyard is 5 regular thralls and 1 big tanky thrall, but the casting itself is a huge area prone save.

All theorycrafting of course. This is all from a Puppeteer perspective as well, and I'm not planning on relying much, if at all, on performing Thrall Charge and thrall strikes in general. So far, it makes me feel comfy for my future Necromancer's performance at these super late levels. It's definitely a build specifc thing.

16th level might have something similar. The Recurring Nightmare + Effortless Concentration combo's potential at freeing up an action per round seems interesting, but I haven't given it as much thought yet.

Woohoo more Necromancer guides!

Nice shout out to Freeze Time. The fun to be had with thralls and that spell is what I look forward to the most for a level 20 Necromancer. Well, that and Living Graveyard.

That "or your eidolon were to die" part is a new thing from Impossible Magic, huh? That does clear up a bunch of things. Nice.

PlantThings wrote:

A neat trick you can use with Infuse Void is to use it with any aoe damage grave spell (likely Necrotic Bomb) and have another thrall in the aoe to kill for a guaranteed focus point. So that's 3 actions + 2 thralls = refunded focus point + extra damage vs. 2 actions + 1 thrall = -1 focus point + regular damage.

It's nice if it works, but requires you to already have two thralls at the start of your turn and they must be close-ish to each other and in a position to make blowing them up worthwile. It will happen at some point, I'm sure, but it's not something I would rely on. Might still add it to the feat's description when I get the chance, thanks.

It's certainly not a signature sequence on every encounter, but I think it can reasonably happen enough times on some Puppeteer builds that it's good to be aware of. That said, I do have trouble finding space for it in my builds just because it competes with the premier spellshape that is Reach of the Dead.

Speaking of, it might be noteworthy that Beckoning Dirge has all goods of Reach of the Dead built in without the range restriction. So all those spells you couldn't use with Reach of the Dead is free game there.

A neat trick you can use with Infuse Void is to use it with any aoe damage grave spell (likely Necrotic Bomb) and have another thrall in the aoe to kill for a guaranteed focus point. So that's 3 actions + 2 thralls = refunded focus point + extra damage vs. 2 actions + 1 thrall = -1 focus point + regular damage.

Is that worth it? Likely in some scenarios. I wish this worked with Deathly Scream since it's a 1-action spell, but it doesn't because it deals mental damage and thralls are mindless so it can't meet the requirement for focus point recovery.

I'm glad you mentioned Mobile Thralls with Living Graveyard because it makes it a lot easier to aim that aoe prone optimally. It's practically a 20ft burst aoe if you place it just above the enemies; no worries about trying to fit it in within the enemy formation. Also, great catch on the Stride technicality and thrall production. That's good to be aware of for certain GMs.

I do feel you on Thrall Charge. It could've heightened less obnoxiously at +2 and still be fine; an extra 1d6 at max rank doesn't seem overtuned. That's the second time I've hoped for a +2 heightening on a spell and it disgusts me.

Big thanks for the guide! Congrats on your first one as well!

Will be giving it a read soon.

There are a few new feat options.

Guiding Retort is a great one for reach enjoyers at 14th level. That's often a filler feat level for me. Ooze and Plant Summoners rejoice.

I was personally concerned about the thralls being an action tax, but I think that's only the case if everything goes wrong every round. After the first round, you should ideally have thralls set up and ready from previous rounds. Create Thrall creates up to 2 or 3 for 1 action so as the rounds go by, the action cost quickly diminish. Sure you have to consider the thralls that survived a round need to also be in ideal locations to be in range of their intended grave spell, but to me, that seems like a great and satisfying reward for being thoughtful about your thrall placements.

For me, one of the biggest pain points in the playtest was pre-level 7 where you could only create 1 thrall per action. The action tax was definitely felt there, and I don't miss it one bit.

Others have already pointed out the merit of extra flanking buddies, but I think the thralls providing difficult terrain is also valuable. This difficult terrain is more temporary compared to other sources, but an enemy engaging with them is likely an action or movement cost. Being destroyed is also great for two of the subclasses, either granting incidental healing or creating more resilient difficult terrain.

The worst case scenarios I can imagine are facing enemies that can destroy your thralls without cost. So, basically anything with or can create a passive damaging aura. Proper positioning becomes much more crucial here, so feats like Reach of the Dead and Mobile Thralls shoot up in value. I know I will have to take these feats for one of my games because our GM loves these aura a-holes.

The thrall feature that says they can be moved through and pushed around extends to all the special thralls made by focus spells, right?

Because I think that means the gargantuan living graveyard is an easily pushable entity, which is too funny.

An instant flanking buddy sounds great for martials, especially since the action doesn't even have the manipulate trait (which I seriously hope is also true for the Create Thrall cantrip of the full class).

Oddly enough, the necromancer dedictation itself has the manipulate trait. I thought that was just a typo, but is it possible that's a lost trait meant to be in the description?

Speaking of teeth, my first attempt will be a bleeding tooth fungus leshy blood necromancer. Fascinated by meatbag blood assuming a special kinship with their own crimson fluid exudation. They quickly realize it's not the same thing at all. Remains a sanguimancer due to invested time and effort, but mostly for the fitting aesthetic.

I'm just so glad thrall production is more than 1 per action out of the box. The clunk was too real before 7th level during the playtest.

Also, theres's a chance my first Necro campaign could be aquatic, so I'm quite relieved we got movement options through Mobile Thralls.

Oh man, literally all the Witch clarifications are relevant to the Witch I’ve currently been playing recently. We were treating those ambiguous rules as strictly as possible as an experiment, so now I’m going to get a really good feel on the qol improvements. Big thanks!

Perfectly, I’m also playing The Resentment so that nerf will be felt quite heavily. And boy did I call it being nerfed both in duration and the number of conditions it could extend. I actually didn’t think it was going to get nerfed here, but I had a strong feeling when it did, it was going to be nerfed in both aspects and not just one, which would have been enough imo. Well, I’ll get to see it in action soon!

Most of the classic Witch patron Hex Cantrips removed the temporary immunity clause of the spell, including Stoke the Heart, Shroud of Night, Evil Eye, and Nudge Fate. Is it intended that Discern Secrets still has that temporary immunity?

Mosquito Witch’s Buzzing Bites and The Unseen Broker’s Pact Broker also kept their temporary immunities, unfortunately.

Being able to use tools for skills and Tandem Movement being a class feature are the top two changes for me.

I'd be so happy with just that, but I do think many of the class feats could use a lot of work. Some need to just need updated with the remaster in mind like the grab/knockdown/push feats (those could use a clarification on how they work with Act Together also), but some could use some straight up buffs or simply moved to lower levels.

One thing that's mostly for me is I think Reinforce Eidolon should also be a class feature. Minimally an alternate option to Boost Eidolon, but ideally, I think it's perfectly reasonable to have it free with Boost Eidolon at level 1. I think it deserves the 'feat to class feature' treatment even moreso than Tandem Movement now that Swarm Eidolons are a thing.

I can see certain Necromancers finding value in vitality energy as a tool for working with undead subjects. Can there be a more efficient way to break up undead materials for necromantic purposes than with vitality energy?

Player Core pg. 384

Curse of Death's heightened entry needlessly references damage taken on a success since it already states it increases damage for each stage. The success result doesn't deal damage and simply inflicts the curse at a stage like failure and critical failure. The success result likely did raw damage previously and was changed.

"Heightened (+1) Increase the void damage taken on a success and during the first three stages of the curse by 1d6."

i suggest void and death, i dont think vitality fits into the mold they are building

that would add

1 Harm
2 Sudden Blight
3 none
4 none
5 Toxic Cloud,
6 Necrotize
7 eclipse burst, execute, hungry depths
8 Dessicate
9 Massicre
10 none

its not really that many

Other than the Mastery of Life and Death feature, which treats Vitality and Void as equal counterparts, the initial description of the Necromancer also has this highlight: "These occult spellcasters seek the ever-changing borders of life and death, manipulating the energies—vitality and void—to suit their will." The only doubtful part imo is that the abilities we were shown in the playtest are as devoid of Vitality effects and damage as the Occult spell list. I think it all depends on how far they will commit to this Vitality and Void duality that has been somewhat set up.

The Void trait list is surprisingly small, isn't it? The Death trait only adds Toxic Cloud to the list too, and Power Word Kill if we're including legacy. All very Necromancer appropriate though imo.

I think major word count could be saved by using traits, like how the Fey Eidolon gives access to extra spells.

Would giving Necromancers access to all spells with the Vitality or Void traits be too much or too little? I think it would at least fit nicely and thematically as an additional entry to the Mastery of Life and Death feature they already have.

The last line under Stages has something for being at the highest stage:

If a failure or critical failure would increase the stage beyond the highest listed stage, the affliction instead repeats the effects of the highest stage.

But yeah, only on failure and says nothing on repeating on any other stage.

You can take Whispers of Weakness on any mystery. Lore just starts off with it for free.

Check out the level 10 Oracle feats for comparison. Those feats do have prerequisites based on mystery.

It could be the AP I'm playing but it feels like most of the enemies I fight as wood don't bleed. Half of them don't could as living creatures either. Personally I feel that timber sentinel should be nerfed to once per ten minutes, and given a more competitive (and reliable, a good offensive option against more enemies) offensive option.

Bad matchups happen, but for a solo Wood Kineticist, falling back on full support mode is technically a great place to be in.

My nerf to Timber Sentinel is to simply make its range be tied to your Kinetic Aura, like Fresh Produce. It would be limited to 10 ft until you invest into Aura Shaping. I think people would realize how much that free 30 ft is carrying the feat now that they'd have to stride more often for optimal placement.

If Wood gets a compensation adjustment for anything, it's to their Aura Junction. That junction makes me sad.

You’ve made a guide for almost every class I don’t play so they’re extremely clutch for when I GM for my players that do. I thank you for saving my butt many times when I’ve needed to quickly learn about a class I know nothing about.

oh huh. I didn't notice they nerfed the mosquito witch hex so heavily in the remaster. The old version did damage when you sustained it.

It's kind of funny that mosquito has the 1m immunity still since silence in the snow lost that in the remaster, so it went from being noticeably better than clinging ice to noticeably worse.

I sincerely think the immunity clause remaining is a mistake. I find is suspicious the two preremaster hex cantrips with immunity clauses that made it into Divine Mysteries are the only ones with them. They’re damage cantrips too so you’d expect them to mimic Clinging Ice.

Trade Death for Life from the Paradox of Opposites did expectedly follow Clinging Ice’s lead though. That one debuted in Divine Mysteries as a damage cantrip with no immunity clause.

On my pure Wood Kineticist, Hail of Splinters was the single thing that allowed me to do serviceable damage on single targets. Ironic since it’s also such a great aoe option, but the easy bleed application was quite satisfying. I didn’t feel too behind in damage contribution, especially with a bit of luck on the bleed recovery checks.

I think Teridax has the right idea here. At least for familiars, all respawns getting bumped up one notch in efficiency feels fair for everyone.

- Witches: Familiar is free, has Undying, and can respawn once per day
- Other classes with significant familiar features (like the Wizard): Familiar is free and has Undying
- Everyone else: Familiar is a feat and has Undying

Essentially, just normalize Undying on every familiar, but throw the Witch bone. A daily Final Sacrifice, twice for Witch, seems cute at most. I believe the Animist already fits into this mold, so it doesn’t seem too far-fetched.

At the very least, I think the Improved Familiar Attunement Wizard deserves a naturally Undying familiar. It switches the Drain Bonded Item action to Drain Familiar so losing your familiar feels extra bad when you also lose a major action.

I assume it’s the same reasoning Witches get Undying since losing a familiar also means losing several class features. It’s a lot less extreme for Wizards, of course but maybe Witches probably deserve a little more.

Besides that, I’m surprised we don’t have a spell like Summoner’s Precaution but for familiars. Maybe that’s one avenue that could be taken without stepping on the Witch’s toes.

I think the Paradox of Opposites patron is pretty good. Its cantrip is chip damage and sustained fast healing all in one. The familiar ability is a no save stupified. The Witch is spoiling my Sorcerer with both of these effects so I’m surely biased, but it feels solid from what I’ve seen.

The Ripple in the Deep seems really solid as well. No save shove on the familiar ability seems abusable, especially with certain party comps. I just think the hex cantrip is a tad middling.

Divine Mysteries pg. 298-299

The hex cantrips of both the Mosquito Witch and The Unseen Broker should have their temporary immunity limitation removed.

Buzzing Bites and Pact Broker still leave their targets immune to themselves for 1 minute and, as far as I know, the major QOL change to most of the hex cantrips for the remaster was supposed to be the removal of this immunity. The immunity lines also seem completely unaltered from their pre-master version, so I have a hunch their removal was reasonably missed amongst the other adjustments made to these two spells.

Dash of Herbs (Rage of Elements pg. 34)

Dash of Herbs can grant new save attempts against diseases and poisons, similar to another kineticist impulse, torrent in Blood (Rage of Elements pg. 38), except that Dash of Herbs can potentially cause the affliction to worsen.

I think Dash of Herbs should have the same clause as Torrent in the Blood where "on a failed save, the condition doesn't worsen."

Player Core 2 pg. 261

Dread Secret's duration entry and the duration listed in the success result don't match. The duration entry states 'until the start of your next turn' but the success result states 'until the end of your next turn'.

Hex Cantrips (Player Core pg. 182)

The first sentence concludes that you can "use only one hex each round." I think is incorrect, because every other reference to the hex limit is stated to be once per turn, not once per round.

Hex Spells (pg. 181-182), the Hex trait (pg. 183), and the Hex Master feat (pg. 191) all refer to using or casting hexes as limited to once per turn.

Leshy.

Plants have always been good at putting corpses to good use.

And the spirit part is there too.

A fungus leshy works too, if not too on the nose. But at this point, I'm so desperate for a leshy iconic that I'll take it.

Yeah... I agree it could be higher, but not half-level high.

Probably more akin to 1 at early levels, 3 around 10 and full con-modifier at 15

Mostly because the Commander cannot use certain feats while the banner is planted, needs to spend an action to plant/retrieve it converting it into a 30ft burst, And that the banner when planted is considered an unattended object and can thus be stolen or destroyed making the commander's allies frightened without a save. It's not just a set and forget.

As opposed to Wood Elements Aura Junction that is a passive effect thats basically always on and moves with the Kineticist.

At the very least, the Wood Aura Junction should also scale more neatly at 9th, 13th, and 17th. Those are the Gate's Threshold levels so you'd instantly get the upgraded versions should you get the junction at a later level than 5th.

Besides the poor temp HP scaling, upgrading at 10th then finally at 15th always looked kinda odd to me.

Is a feat like the Summoner's Ranged Combatant for your thralls, or I guess for the Create Thrall cantrip specifically in this case, out of the question.

I think a feat like Advanced Weaponry, also Summmoner, that gives upgrades/options to Create Thrall attacks couldn't hurt. Or these could be feats that grant new grave cantrips options altogether that command thralls to do different things. Although I think even Create Thrall could easily afford to be able to command more than just Strikes baseline.

I'd be open to a spell slot progression like Magus/Summoner depending on what we get for it. Maybe a tad more at 3 slots per two highest rank spells instead of 2.

Or maybe just have options that allow us to sacrifice/"spell blend" slots for other benefits or to activate other abilities. You know those grave spells that need an existing thrall? Maybe if you didn't want to sac a thrall for whatever reason, you can instead sac a low rank spell slot in place of a thrall to cast the grave spell directly from yourself.

Hmm...

Screaming at someone as you leap out from hiding works, but then trying to hide without first pulling a disappearing act... I'm not sure. I think it depends on how much your GM likes Batman.

The less noisy way is to use Intimidating Glare with the Battle Cry Demoralize. However, the visual trait means it would be just as overt.

While not quite the same, an Undead Eidolon has the undead trait and void healing but is considered a living creature due to its initial ability.

I think most people use this sentence under the Dhampir entry as the best guide for how it's intended to work. "You have the void healing ability, which means you are harmed by vitality damage and healed by void effects as if you were undead."

The "as if you were undead" part, which is unfortunately absent in the void healing description, heavily implies that you are targetable as undead if you have void healing, but specifically for void or vitality damage and healing effects. As a Dhampir, you should still be targetable as living for everything else. I don't think it reads that way RAW, but it is how most groups I've seen treat it.

With how many different spells and effects that specify they target living or undead while assuming living doesn't have void healing and undead does have void healing, I think the Void Healing description itself should just specify how it affects targeting, if it's even supposed to.

Yeah, I thought I was going crazy reading the Step part of the Divine option. Triggering as a blood magic option would make it more interesting though.

Its also really wonky in the other direction: a living creature that uses this to get Void Healing is still alive, so things like Heals damage effect and the Vitalizing rune don't consider them a valid target at all and don't do anything. A LOT of effects that do vitality damage specifically say "if the target is undead", which you're not.

The problem is really on those other things and how they limit targeting to living/undead creatures, instead of "creatures with vitality/void healing".

My advice: don't run this RAW, much like how no one ran Arcane Cascade RAW for years.

Now that you mention it, since the remaster, several things that target undead has also added the line “or otherwise has void healing.” It’s not on everything, but I think it’s on enough that it’s heavily implied that’s a given.

And like you said, having vitality/void healing making you count as living/undead respectively despite what you actually are makes everything work smoothly. Things that have effects for both living and undead like Heal and Harm also become unecessarily difficult, otherwise. I mean, that’s how most of us rule for Dhampirs.

Thanks!

This is the additional effect of Nudge the Scales:

In addition, you can mediate during your daily preparations

to place yourself on one side of the scales. Choose life or death.
If you align yourself with life, you are healed by vitality healing
effects, as normal for most living creatures; if you align yourself
with death, you gain the void healing ability, causing you to be
healed by void effects that restore Hit Points and any other
effects that restore Hit Points to undead creatures.

I might be overthinking how this works so I could use some confirmation how far off I am.

On a regular living creature, if you choose death, you remain living but gain void healing. You now heal and get targeted like how a Dhampir would. Easy.

On a Dhampir, a living creature with void healing, if you choose life, you remain living and you ignore your void healing ability. I know it doesn't say "remove" your void healing directly, but I'm sure it's meant to override it with the life alignment effect. You now heal and get targeted like every other full living creature would. Also easy.

On an undead, like a Skeleton or any Undead archetype, if you choose life, you remain undead but ignore void healing. You are undead but you ignore void healing, which I have no examples for.

Since most vitality healing effects requiring living targets, this really doesn't do much for the still undead PCs. Unless of course, does the line "If you align yourself with life, you are healed by vitality healing effects, as normal for most living creatures" qualify enough as 'specific overrides general' to allow the targeting and healing of an Undead PC with vitality healing effects?

The only mystery that would've needed a completely new mystery benefit is Bones. Everything else was completely unique and sorely missed.

Oh and then maybe Lore keeps the extra spell slots since their benefit was one extra spell known per rank.

If you want to also dabble with more earth spells and more spell slots for actual summoning, going Arcane caster with Undead Master archetype is also an option. Otherwise, Undead Summoner is great if you're leaning more towards one big boney buddy and want the Archeologist dedication asap.

Airlift has some neat utility as a single movement Fly spell but for your entire party.