Rob Godfrey's page

moosher12 wrote:

I always thought that the Warrior muse for the bard was supposed to be the skald replacement.

I mean, so was warpriest cleric for, well, the warpriest, yet we still got battle harbinger.

So we are still waiting.

Erm what's the issue? Youth today don't remember ADnD weapon proficiencies....

Tremaine wrote:

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.

That could work.

Tremaine wrote:

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?

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 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.

Castilliano wrote:

-Corpse Raiser: Maybe untenable given the variety of enemies, but I'd like to see more done with raising actual corpses in the field. Might be a touch too evil.

Most of what I can imagine for this is pretty well covered already. Not only does Inevitable Return explicitly allow you to turn the corpses of your enemies into thralls, but I think create thrall and any other grave spell that creates a thrall should too. Certainly I’d allow a player to say, if they created a thrall in a square that had the corpse of a downed enemy, that they were using that corpse to create that thrall.

Some language to that effect might be nice, but that seems like a sidebar rather than rules content. Maybe tell GMs that necromancers can use any corpses lying about to create thralls if the other players are okay with that, but it isn’t required.

Edit: Oh, what if the inevitable return offered an action saving to grave spells that create thralls, as long as your new thrall is created in the same square as your downed enemy? I want to say this should probably be a feat, but on consideration it might be fine to just bake into the reaction.

Those are still thralls tho, like ok you made it out of a dead enemy, it still doesn't really do anything, isn't animated etc.

Tremaine wrote:

Then it needs to do actual necromancy, not psychic constructs with the undead tag for reasons.

That's the crux of the issue though: I think it IS doing necromancy. What is it doing significantly different from Summon Undead? Or doesn't that spell qualify for you either? Your VERY specific type of necromancy is far from a universal one. What you're looking for is a ritual caster using Create Undead. Your vision fits the current Ritualist Archetype. With that you can dig up and make undead to your hearts content and on ANY character you want.

If the Ritualist, Undead Master etc were not, like most archetypes deliberately pre broken to stop the multi class doom builds of 1st edition, that could kinda work (like create undead allows you to make lvl -4 Minions...which are instantly totally irrelevant, great way to waste money on Onyx I guess.

Not a fan of summon undead as necromancy, but it's a facsimile like other summons, so what ever really.

Thralls aren't that, they are this unique thing, nothing about them says Undeath apart from a tag,

Tremaine wrote:

*pruned wall of text*

kwodo wrote:

...wouldn't that mean that the Necromancer lacks all its core features in "the first encounter or two of the day"? Again, that just sounds miserable to play in practice.

Mmm day might be to much, so have them sustainable/reanimatable over night, but yes a core feature would be reliant on having bodies available, which isn't much worse than having martial classes reliant on level appropriate equipment.

Hell you could have a necromancer that bought bodies before the event.

Except level appropriate equipment is permanent and doesn't become available to you AFTER the fight. What happens when your only encounter in the adventuring day is being held up by bandits on the road, is the Necromancers just useless that day unless they lug around 6 bulk per minion?

They would still be a death aspected caster, so could do at least some casting to do damage/debuff, but should not be anywhere near a same level damage caster.

*pruned wall of text*

...wouldn't that mean that the Necromancer lacks all its core features in "the first encounter or two of the day"? Again, that just sounds miserable to play in practice.

Mmm day might be to much, so have them sustainable/reanimatable over night, but yes a core feature would be reliant on having bodies available, which isn't much worse than having martial classes reliant on level appropriate equipment.

Hell you could have a necromancer that bought bodies before the event.

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

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

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

Tremaine wrote:

kwodo wrote:

The thralls ARE your reanimated undead minions. I definitely agree that we should be able to do more with them, but dismissing them entirely and saying that they're the main reason why this isn't a necromancer is just baffling. Thralls are your disposable undead cannon fodder, via focus spells you can summon stronger thralls or hordes of them and using your spell slots you can summon proper undead minions as well.

No, they are summoned nothings that have the undead tag for...reasons, they are not reanimated bodies. The character didn't have to slit a few peasants throats in a ritual circle or rob a few graveyards for corpses to create said thralls, and those thralls aren't life hating abominations, they won't struggle to get free to go devour anything they can catch.

1) I'm sorry but having to do all that sounds miserable to play and an incredibly disruptive requirement to use your base class ability

2) I repeat what I said in another thread: I fail to see what the crucial difference between Create Thrall and Summon Undead is that one is indisputably necromancy but the other isn't when they both do the exact same thing. Literally the only difference is that your thralls are weaker and cheaper than the undead raised by that spell.

1) which is why an actual Necromancer is hard to play, doesn't mean this thrall based thing is worthy of the name.

2) I don't like that spell either.

Tremaine wrote:

kwodo wrote:

Tremaine wrote:

AestheticDialectic wrote:

I don't think 2 slot per level is taking up all that much power budget at all, and frankly I think y'all should consider that something like getting an undead companion is already covered by the undead master at the same efficiency as it would appear in the class itself. The class will still keep the core thrall mechanic no matter what changes occur

Since the thrall mechanic is what is stopping it being an actual necromancer, I hope not.

I'm very confused by what you actually want from this class. The thrall mechanic IS this class, it's staying.

How is 'I want minion based class that uses the reanimated bodies of the dead' confusing?

But your right this class is not a necromancer, and should not be called such.

Calling this a necromancer is like calling a limbless torso in a box a fighter.

The thralls ARE your reanimated undead minions. I definitely agree that we should be able to do more with them, but dismissing them entirely and saying that they're the main reason why this isn't a necromancer is just baffling. Thralls are your disposable undead cannon fodder, via focus spells you can summon stronger thralls or hordes of them and using your spell slots you can summon proper undead minions as well.

No, they are summoned nothings that have the undead tag for...reasons, they are not reanimated bodies. The character didn't have to slit a few peasants throats in a ritual circle or rob a few graveyards for corpses to create said thralls, and those thralls aren't life hating abominations, they won't struggle to get free to go devour anything they can catch.

Let's just call it Oozemaster while we're at it, cause it can easily be reflavored as an ooze caller instead of an undead conjurer.

Coating all the world in slime.

Call it thrallmaster, and have subclasses that summon elementals, psychic constructs etc.

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

Except thralls are immobile summons that are not created from dead bodies, the spell list is the entire psychic list,.and it misses on every other point.

The class chassis could actually be cool, if it was summoning elementals or psychopomps, but it is taking the space for necromancer and filling it, so we will never have anything else.

If the thralls started out as skeletons you had to prepare in advance, and you could specialise into having multiples,.or into more powerful singular that would be cool, but nope, they just pop up from nowhere, sit on the field until you use another spell to expend them, like how is that necromancy at all?

Tremaine wrote:

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?

Death aspected caster that raises either hordes of lesser undead, or more powerful single undead using reanimated corpses. Has spells to enhance and repair those undead, as well as a limited number of spells that harm the living, usually with rot, disease or in some cases blood manipulation. May or may not have some self only buffs, usually doing things like making armour out of bones, or taking on some aspects of Undeath.

The idea was even mentioned in the original playtest of a large group of zombies using swarm mechanics, but it was in passing during a stream, iirc by Jason Bulmahn

*Removed stuff*

In that same vein, though, one could also take the spellcasting bit out of the Necromancer entirely and focus them around their minions and suitably morbid spell-like abilities, which might address certain players’ expectations of how much power the Necromancer have in their undead thralls.

I'd take the deal of low or no casting with powerful thralls that are actually reanimated bodies (focus casting based around healing, buffing and creating undead would seem most suited, but maybe wave casting could work)

Thralls as presented are...well tokens for abilities to work off, they don't scratch that 'raising the dead of an ancient war to jump up and down on my enemies' itch.

So here’s my regular “first impressions” stuff that I do for these playtests.

My first thing is that necromancers are…kinda problematic. I know that during PFS1 there was a whole controversy regarding using animate dead in PFS, since that was kinda…corpse desecration. I’m a bit hesitant with how usable this class would be outside of evil campaigns when there’s regular “raising undead” stuff going on. It makes it weird that this class is common. Like, doing basically anything around a Pharasmin is gonna cause a lot of uproar.

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **...

Great swords and axes were executioners tools, as well as weapons, so they fit the theme pretty well.

New Necromancer seem..off somehow, summoning not minion pseudo creatures seems miles away from grave robbing reanimator of the dead...

Tremaine wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

Tremaine wrote:

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

Why not?...

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

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

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

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

Teridax wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Ok, let's not overeact here.

Specialization is nice, but it's nowhere near "mandatory to deal competent Strike Damage"

At level 7, even with a one-hander, when you get it it would increase something like 2d8+4 (13) to 2d8+6 (15), nice but hardly mandatory.

That's more than a 15% damage increase for every hit you deal. I do not think you or some others quite realize how significant of a difference that is, especially when multiple threads have been written about how some people will reject certain weapons over smaller relative differences in damage.

shroudb wrote:

At level 15 improving spec to greater spec will increase something like 3d8+2d6+8 (28.5) to 3d8+2d6+11 (31.5).

Even at that level, that is still over a 10% increase in damage. Again, this is far more significant than you are making it out to be. Without these features, martials would be genuinely weak in Pathfinder, which is why they have them in the first place.

And this isn't to say that everyone needs both at those levels to ever want to Strike at all, either: the Warpriest gets caster-grade weapon specialization and sub-par Strike accuracy, and that's totally fine for them, because they're more of a gishy caster who will often use their third action to Strike, rather than a full gish. If a caster wants to opt into a gishier build, their regular weapon specialization and worse accuracy will be fine for those purposes, because given their niche as a full caster, it is totally okay for them to have worse baseline Strikes than a martial. When the subject of discussion is a full gish, however, one who gives up significant amounts of power to be able to Strike like a martial class, that does become a problem, because the end result is a class that sucks at casting spells, but sucks at committing fully to Strikes as well.

10% less damage but offers 5% more Accuracy for the whole party.

Still is ahead.

It "sucks" fully commiting to save based spaells, it...

as what we were led to expect, a more martial cleric, a divine damage based caster, the auras are antithetical to that archetype. 5% accuracy and 10% less damage is so far off base it's not even in the same time zone anymore. Divine Smite was right there...but no, we get a feat taxed buff bot as the 'martial cleric'

Tremaine wrote:

like getting in someone's face and offloading a full round of attacks is fun, running round doing skill checks, casting buffs etc is the exact opposite of fun.

For you, perhaps.

For me, assuming my character is built for it, doing skill checks and casting buffs can be the exact definition of fun.

Don't assume that everybody likes the same things in games

I'm sorry if I came across like I did think that. I don't like pf2e combat and want to find anything I can to get it over with, that is a me thing.

It still needs a lot of work, but I feel these are two points that are frequently overlooked:

The battle harbinger DOES get extra martial damage. It comes in the form of his allies (including the high critting fighter) hitting and critting far more often.

SuperBidi wrote:

Bless costs 2 actions and is worse than Courageous Anthem.

Bless and the other aura spells don't require an action every round, nor additional buy-in in the form of feats or class abilities to potentially increase its duration.

No his allies get extra damage...which for the class that started off being touted as the Divine Magus equivalent is a straight up kick in the taint.. if you want to be a support cleric,. Cloistered cleric is in the main book.

If you were, like me, finally hoping for a wrath of god beat stick class, well, keep waiting.

Teridax wrote:

None of these benefits are new, though. Heroism is a divine and occult spell that grants a status bonus to all non-flat checks, frightened is a condition both occult and divine casters can apply that imposes a status penalty to attack rolls and AC, protection is a divine and occult spell that grants a +1 status bonus to AC and saves (and can even be made into an aura, too!), and forbidding ward is a divine and occult cantrip that grants a status bonus to AC and saving throws.

It IS new in that you can do it from level 1, rather than waiting for level 5 for other buffs to come online.

It also hits the whole party unless everyone is super spread out (and Paizo is notorious for its small encounter areas). Even if you gotta' spend an extra action or two getting there, that's awesome!

Sure there are more powerful options (of which I'm not convinced the bard is one), but they are generally single target, or much higher level.

I'm not saying this combo is the end all be all, far from it; but it IS absolutely something new that divine casters couldn't do as easily before.

More options are a good thing; what exactly are you hoping to accomplish by coming here and insisting (right or wrong) that another class does it better?

Hoping against hope that it can be fixed by errata into a non trap archetype.

Balkoth wrote:

"Wait, that's it? And I can't do anything more unless I crit succeed? And I have do this every round? And the champions can't help me subdue this guy beyond a +1/+2 bonus with Aid? This doesn't make narrative sense."

What? What did he expect? He narratively basically strongly grasped an enemy's clothes or a limb. Should the enemy have died from that? Or have lost ability to cast spells?

THIS is nonsensical, not Grapple.

There are some strangling abilities, but they are at higher level, specialized and strongly depend on GM adjudication to work for the most part.

I think it is how different people see grappling, to me it is like an MMA or Pankration grapple i.e, you are both on the ground, smashing each other with fists, trying to lock in the pin, or move to a ground and pound beat down.

In that scenario, yea complex hand movements and precise wording to cast don't make sense, I mean you could try, but as soon as you move your hands away from defence you get a thumb in the eye trying to kill you.

But that isn't what pf2e grappling is, it's more like a bouncer hold than a savage contest.

Here's hoping we get a war priest closer to the 1e version, reduced spell casting, more reliant on focus spells, and focused on enhancing their deities favoured weapons into usefulness. (Upping a weapon to 1D6 doesn't make it good, just makes it kinda useable).

But apart from that, like the description of the archetypes so far, and having the Slayer sort of back is welcome, while the Inquisitors name being changed makes sense.

It would be pretty weird if you wouldn't notice the difference given the significant mechanical differences between how their damage gimmicks work.

Like even at a most basic level rogues want to land as many attacks as possible in a round while Swashbucklers are built around setting up one augmented attack.

I can't even fathom how you wouldn't notice that in play...

Swashs being set up for single attacks was always weird to me, the inspiration for them is characters famous for incredibly fast bladework, styling on the slow, brutal enemies...yet finishers make you that slow brute (Souls like dodge roll, then a single, powerful strike isn't very Errol Flynn)

But then a rogue with Twin Feint plays more like an historic swash

To not have a quote wall: my take on Kineticists, they are basically a Xianxia/Xianhua cultivation based class, without the martial arts and alchemy (and several other things that wouldn't fit Golarion, like hitting the Heavenly/Immortal stages and having a decent chance at one shotting literal armies, or beating up gods, or in the more extreme examples, being able to shatter planets in a single strike.)

That is cool, it's a cool fantasy, it's not the Wizard/Mage fantasy.

For examples Cultivation aimed at the western audience: the Cradle series, He Who Fights With Monsters, Monsters and Legends (M+L has both class based and cultivation based characters, and the dynamic is interesting).

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Honestly, the argument of "Casters are good, you're just playing them wrong," only really highlights that Casters aren't a class that gives you much build versatility, and supports the "One True Build" idealism that PF2 has tried to go out of its way to demolish by enabling a lot of ways to build a character.

Generalist spellcasters have plenty of build versatility. They do not fill a role better suited to other types of spellcaster. That is not a failing of class design.

If you want a spellcaster that deals damage as constantly as a martial character swings a sword, play a Kineticist.

If you want a spellcaster that has some castings of damage dealing spells available for every battle during a day no matter how many battles there are, play a spellcaster that has damage dealing focus spells such as most Psychics, many Druid orders, and Elemental Sorcerer.

Kineticists aren't spell casters.

Although archetypes like the Captivator and Shadowcaster do encourage leaning into a specific theme, I still don't think it's feasible to commit entirely to those archetype's themes, as the player is neither compelled nor rewarded for doing so. If the player were to pick nothing but cold spells in the case of a cryomancer archetype, that would raise the question of how they'd deal with cold-immune enemies, which one such archetype would have to address in order to fully deliver on its theme IMO.

Because of this, I think the main obstacle to these kinds of dedicated builds is mechanical, rather than narrative: because a caster can opt into spells beyond their designated specialty, they need to be balanced as if they're making use of the full breadth of their spell list, even if they're not. If a specialized cryomancer archetype prevented you from preparing/learning any spells other than cold spells, that would remove that consideration and allow the archetype to be balanced like a proper specialist, including by dealing better with resistance and immunity. That, however, would also create its own knock-on effects: are there enough cold spells out there for this archetype to work well and be interesting? If this archetype is meant to be a blaster, what's it supposed to do with its lower-rank slots? How much power would you need to give, and of what kind, for such an archetype to be balanced and feel good to play?

Blasters (as a named sub class, not a setup by a normal wizard) should have something to allow them to 'combine' lower level slots, to keep them viable for mook clearance

I think the concept of the inquisitor as-is in PF1e isn't really feasible in PF2e because the class did a lot of everything and didn't really focus on anything. It also had archetypes to poach features from literally everyone, so it was a really good jack of all trades. Also, if you were to make a conversion for the inquisitor into PF2e, I think the most logical thing to do would be to mix it with some concepts of the 4e avenger (since it seems Paizo wants to bring some 4e content over to PF2e), which would effectively be the very requested Wis-based support martial that everyone asks for.

How did we.go from 'holy intelligence agent/assassin' to 'wisdom based support martial'?

I think the concept of the inquisitor as-is in PF1e isn't really feasible in PF2e because the class did a lot of everything and didn't really focus on anything. It also had archetypes to poach features from literally everyone, so it was a really good jack of all trades. Also, if you were to make a conversion for the inquisitor into PF2e, I think the most logical thing to do would be to mix it with some concepts of the 4e avenger (since it seems Paizo wants to bring some 4e content over to PF2e), which would effectively be the very requested Wis-based support martial that everyone asks for.

I still don't understand why Paizo want to cross pathfinder with the thing that it was created to reject.

If Paizo want to do '4e done right' then spin it off into its own thing.

My goblin cleric coordinated an international freedom fighting network across 2 continents with dream messages in our Age of Ashes campaign. Non-detection is absolutely vital for narrative adventure writing purposes and is a very well-written version of this spell for PF2. I enjoy getting it for free with my magic warrior wizard in PFS.

Have you even read ooze form? It feels like that is a list of spells you haven’t even fully read, you just dONT LIKe the sound of what they do.

Which Is great, the type of caster you wanted to play is supported, a lot of people's isn't,.or not very well.

Well, you will have to choose what you want from a blaster:

- Staying power
- Damage potential

The Kineticist is was designed, way back in 1st edition as the "all-day blaster". That has always been its nature. In your 30th combat of the day, the kineticist can keep pace with all the martials who don't have resources to track, while the Wizard and cleric ran out of spells 20 fights ago.

What the kineticist cannot do is "reach into the toolbox and grab anything off-theme"(if you're a pure geokineticist and a problem can't be solved with rocks, it can't be solved by you) and it probably can't hit the same peaks for damage as a slot casting blaster in the 2-3 fights where the slot casting blaster decides to go all out.

This is a reasonable way to differentiate these classes and was, in fact, the same way they were distinguished in PF1. Back in PF1 the Blood Arcanist with Spell Perfection on Delayed Blast Fireball did more damage than the Kineticist did, but it could only cast Empowered Intensified Maximized Fireball with 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spell slots and you only got so many of those.

It's not a bad idea to have two classes have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to doing the same thing. Like a fighter with a greataxe and a barbarian with a greataxe play differently. A monk with a bow and a ranger with a bow play differently. This is, in fact, a good thing.

What the kineticist shows is if you're going to get a themed specialist then the difference between "that thing" and "a wizard" is that the wizard is a toolbox character which has options that the themed specialist doesn't have. This is by design and not wanting to use those options is like a fighter not wanting to use the best weapons.

Except the Wizards 'best weapons' are the utterly boring debuffs, that turn them into a sidekick to the main characters...It's even worse for elemental/dragon themed sorcerers, who don't get to do the one thing they were born to do very well.

The Raven Black wrote:

I wonder who the consultant with expertise in matters of DEIB is. With all the name-dropping, it feels weird to me that their name was not mentioned.

They've already gotten into enough trouble doxxing customers, I don't think they have any interest in doing this to a legal professional they've hired.

We've already seen how nasty twitter warriors can be in all of this and I am confident that if Paizo started releasing the names of individuals who will be doing this work at the firm with X or Y specialty that they'd instantly have 5-20 activist twitter stans spending hours if not days aggressively researching anything and everything that named individual has ever done in order to try to pick at each and every seam, thread, and post they've very personally shared publicly or in some cases privately. That is not "accountability" at all, it's encouraging harassment and pointless dirt-digging.

we have seen how dishonest, untrustworthy and evasive Paizo management are. Only deeds will help now.

keftiu wrote:

I don’t feel comfortable monetarily supporting Paizo until the specific allegations about the treatment of trans employees are addressed.

The allegations are meritless, have no evidence, and fundamentally cannot ever be disproven by way of the nature they are presented... you might as well just stop posting here because this is a nothing-burger and if you expect concrete info on it you're going to be left waiting just like the USA waiting for news of WMDs in Iraq.

.

So you don't regard witness/victim statements as evidence?

Maybe someone should put together a list of gaming companies they won't give money to. They could even color code it with the companies being either red or green based on whether they're woke or unwoke.

It's called voting with your wallets, something conservatives have claimed for years we should do in the market..then they scream and cry about cancel culture when we do.

Generally speaking, a union is not going to stop something like the firing of Sara Marie. Most union/contractor relationships are completely discretionary. Meaning the worker can walk off the job for any or no reason and the union can put them right back to work the next day with another contractor. No questions asked. OTOH, the contractor can send a worker away for zero cause and have the union send someone else in their stead.

Of course if this happens to any meaningful degree, one side or the other is going to cry foul. The contractor could just not renew their contract with the union. And the union could strike or "conveniently" not have any workers available for the contractor when needed.

The primary role of the union is simply to create a framework by which the workers, represented by a few elected officials can bargain on equal ground for benefit and conditions with the company who also appoints a few officials to speak for them. Both sides have to negotiate in good faith or both sides will suffer. Maybe not immediately, but in the long run.

I suppose both sides could agree to a no-separation without cause clause, but those can often hurt the employee as much as the company so few agree to such things.

This is all just from the perspective of the US. I have not studied nor participated in any European, African, or Asian unions so I don't know how closely (or different) the US model matches the others. I strongly support unions, but its hard to discuss them because there is so much misinformation and unsubstantiated bias on both sides that it usually devolves into a street fight.

That sounds like an employment agency rather than a Union, interesting.