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OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 wrote:

I guess I’d like to know more about how the class…feels narratively. I’ve made my distaste for the thralls clear both in terms mechanically AND aesthetically, but I’d like to hear others thoughts on the aesthetics…

I included a bone-shaper necromancer in my runesmith playtest as a villain: Sobe. Narratively, the players found her scary, because her thralls kept appearing and by sheer luck their initial attacks all hit. Since she was also the enemy with the lowest hp and AC (Sobe was 4th-level with AC 18, the other 2 enemies were 6th-level with AC 23 and 7th-level with AC 25), the party focused on her and took her out quickly before she could use any of her abilities from feats.

My wife helped me develop Sobe's backstory. She was a lizardfolk whose ancestral Bone Magic was exceptionally strong. She was misunderstood and shunned, so she left home and became a criminal for opportunities to use her abilities in secret. Since PF2 Remastered dropped alignments, I don't need to worry about whether she was evil or not. She respected the dead and thought that the dead respected her and aided her.

Aesthetically, I'm playing a still low level melee necro and it's ok, in a C- or D+ tier sense of ok on mechanics, but great in the fun department. Adding the melee options still let you get the best focus spells, add some extra durability, and increase your options in battle. I'm playing Season of Ghosts which I've read that has very easy encounters and it looked like a better idea after having an easy (and boring) time with a reach fighter the first couple gaming sessions.

Ideas above (apologies if forgot something):

-Medium armor option
-Better Reaper's Armaments
-Scaling Bind Heroic Spirit (to access earlier)
-Major subclass like Warpriest

I was considering the medium armor too, and how there could be a 4th type of Necromancer that gets "Osteo Armor" or shell; something similar to the 8th level feat for armaments. That AC &/or less reliance on Dex would help early levels, and bone armor looks so cinematic. I could see several ways to implement this, but I'd prefer it advance to heavy armor at say 5th and carry the same Runes as your underlying armor/outfit. Kineticists have abilities with similar strength (and those would be easy enough to pick up at 4th via MCD so it's in competition).

Reaper's Armaments mirrors common Ancestry feats, meaning that as a class feat it should be improved, at the minimum gaining Critical Specialization effects. Maybe +1 void/cold/spirit damage?
I also dislike that it competes w/ Muscle Barrier, meaning it simply is better to gain one's weapon via their Ancestry instead.

Bind Heroic Spirit: yeah, making a Thrall w/ a successful Strike seems modest enough to gain earlier, especially given the amount of investment to build for actually striking. The +3 could be scaled back say to +1/6 levels. Still iffy offensively, but the save boost helps patch a hole. Trick here is we likely don't want martials to gain access to it.

Another idea for improvement would be to Osteo Armaments, since odds are a Str/melee Necromancer will want to purchase a better weapon than that, making the feat more for a backup or tricky weapon (in which cases it's excellent). Maybe keep the feat as is for the baseline with the ability to mimic the Runes on one's Handwraps (w/ the addition of Decaying still available).

Maybe a feat with +1 void/cold/spirit damage damage per nearby Thrall? (how near? adjacent to self? to enemy? who knows.) With a max bonus based on level whatever brings them up to the appropriate DPR. Perhaps incorporate it into Bind Heroic...

I really think the subclasses should be more diverse, instead of just summoning different kinds of thralls. One subclass could be the Reaper/Death knight as you suggest, with a scaling Bind Heroic Spirit as exclusive feature; other could be spellcasting focused, with the Consume Thrall feature or even more spell slots, and the third could be focused on manipulating Thralls and get better Thrall summoning an ability or grave cantrip that increases the attack and damage from thrall attacks and allows some of them to move.

I think the consensus is the second option, you need to pop two thralls.

a baseline Thrall will have better attacks, cost no gold, and operate at a modest range. There's no point.

If you run the math, except at the very high levels when you get your Int apex and Legendary casting, your attack bonus with weapons and your spell attack bonus are within 1 point of each other or are equal; if spells with attack rolls are viable, so is weapon attacks, as long you have the stats for it. And while the Thrall's attack is something, is IMO more a consolation prize from having a extra requirement for the use of Grave spells than a serious source of damage. On the other hand a Striking weapon through runes or Runic weapon could be doing something like 2d10+3 with a reach weapon, easily from very early.

I'm not saying that a pure melee necro is something remotely viable, but another option available to weave with spells and perhaps enhance with archetypes.

I’d ask you to forgive me for the insistence on this issue if it’s similar to another thread I opened several days ago, but I’ve had a lot of discussion in other forums that makes the discussion very different and I’d like to bring this to your attention.

Several of the focus Grave spells, namely Bone Spear, Necrotic Bomb, Bony Barrage and Flesh Tsunami function in essentially the same way, an area with an unconventional point of origin, however the spells’ headlines are all different. It’s difficult to know RAW if those differences denote a change in their function, or it’s merely a result of them not being subject to a thorough editing yet (which would be natural seeing that this is only a playtest)

To clarify what I mean, look at Bone spear. The target says “1 creature (see text)”, and presumably that creature is the thrall you use as fuel. My interpretation is that the “see text” portion of the line is important, as the text describes how the spell is a line that originates from the thrall; it0d be no much different mechanically from, say, lightning bolt except for the attack roll instead of a save except for the Thrall detail.

However there are people that understand that the spell is cast on the Thrall, and then a secondary effect happens, in the same way the Blister happens or perhaps Final Sacrifice would be a better comparison. This is perfectly consistent with the wording on the spell, but I think has some curious consequences; for example, if the line catches enemies that are currently Hidden or concealed to you, you would not need to roll a miss chance against them, since they are not targets of the spell; the Thrall was the only target.

The other spells do list an area in the headline except Necrotic bomb which also has now a “Target: 1 Thrall” line instead of “1 creature”. Anyway, this makes the spells a bit confusing. Normally it doesn’t make a real difference, but I found out that they interact in a weird way with Spellstrike if the necromancer picks up Magus dedication and the Spellstriker and Expansice Spellstrike feats.

It’s difficult to say if Bone Spear is even usable with spellstrike. If the spell is intended to be a line, it would work normally though it’s unclear how the requirement of sacrificing a thrall would work. If the “Target: 1 creature” is what’s important, you could in principle Strike the thrall, and the line would originate from it, making the Spellstrike pointless. Some argue that Bone Spear isn0t even usable with spellstrike.

The others, as they have an area in their headline in principle are usable with spellstrike though it’s still unclear how they interact. Spellstrike with Flesh Tsunami would be straightforward, as it specifies in the text how far the Thrall has to be, however others list the range on the headlines, and Spellstrike makes ranges irrelevant, perhaps meaning that the Thrall can be at any distance.

Also, now that we’re here I’d like to see what’s your opinion on what happens when you Sustain Recurring Nightmare and the thrall is dead. Does it summon the same thrall, or is functionally another identical one? Because if it’s the same Thrall (which re-summoning would imply) then effects cast on it beforehand would persist.

I'm confused as to how Expansive Spellstrike would work on a playtest Necromancer who's multiclassed with Magus and uses the spell Bone Spear, which creates a line that requires attack rolls against the creatures caught on it. In particular, the sentence "The spell affects all creatures in the area as normal" might reference "how the spell is cast in all other circumstances" or "how spells used with spellstrike work normally"

So, I assume that against the primary target, the one you Strike with your weapon, uses the same attack roll for both. So far so good. However against the other potential targets, which one is valid?

- The spell behaves like a spell normally cast after the initial Strike, so it gets a MAP penalty.

- The most straightforward answer and I assume RAI, you just make extra normal separate attack rolls against secondary targets caught in the line with the same MAP as the weapon Strike.

- The most generous interpretation, the spell works as would normally do regarding the rules for spellstrike, so the same attack roll you'd made against the primary target applies to all targets.

Second, regarding range. Bone Spear has a peculiar range of 10 feet and the line originates on the Thrall. However Expansive Spellstrike has precise rules for how areas and Ranges work which would supercede this. Does this mean that you just have to sacrifice a Thrall, which can be any distance away, or does this Thrall have to be withing 10 feet of you or the target for the Spellstrike to work?

Does anyone have the average DPS per action spent on this class?

The best comparative DPS I can see is at level 7, when you are finally expert, can create 2 thralls and use Reach of the dead to work around Bone Spear's attrocious range. In a good case scenario, catching 2 enemies shouldn't be that difficult for a potential 14d8 damage ignoring crits; this is slightly less than amped Imaginary weapon but easier and much safer to use. Bony barrage is much less damaging but can be easily used when the flanking conga line has formed, so in real scenarios might be more useful if facing many enemies, has the potential for slightly better range and adds the thrall's attack. Catching even 2 enemies with the barrage it's a potential 8d10 from the spell and another 2d6 from a thrall's attack

Other than that he has even less blasting potential than other occult casters, which is not good to begin with, on account of the limited spell slots.

Thank you again for doing some testing and sharing your thoughts and results! And good call on the rollback. I don't think the potential broken-ness of the Calm spell needs any playtesting at this point.

To be honest, he was really lucky to be able to catch all 4 melee monsters, 3 of which acted before him, with a 10 foot burst while avoiding all party members.

Thanks for the feedback! I don't wanna only hone in on a small part of what you said, but IIRC isn't the Summon Thrall attack optional? You can create a Thrall, choose not to attack, then two action spell attack at no MAP right?

Yes, it's optional, and the best option if you want to use a spell with a spell attack. But it's obvious that you're giving up the possibility of dealing this extra damage, even if it's not that great. I think that incentivizes the use of spells with a save.

After playing a couple low level sessions in a regular low level campaign and a variety of prepared combat scenarios with a necromancer at various levels (up to level 14) here are my impressions with the class, as an addition to the regular survey. I’m afraid I’m beating an undead horse with some of those, but here they are nonetheless:

The Thrall mechanic is interesting and offers some tradeoffs, with the presence of a thrall needed for many abilities by giving you a way to do a small amount of damage in return. Given that the focus spells are not better than the Amped cantrips Psychic use, I suspect the added strike is supposed to balance the inconvenience of the thrall requirement. However, there are some snags. First, the fact that a thrall attack increases your MAP directly discourages using spells with an attack roll. The occult list doesn’t have many cantrips that force a save: Haunting hymn, Daze and Void Warp. Haunting Hymn is really difficult to use in the same turn you create a thrall, Void Warp only targets living creatures and… we all love Daze, it’s not his fault. This means that at level 1 I felt almost mandatory to be a human and take Adapted Cantrip, (or ancient elf with Wizard or Witch multiclassing, but I went with human for story reasons) so I could shoot some good Electric Arcs if I wanted to properly contribute to the fights. At levels 2+ onwards if you plan to multiclass into Wizard or Witch this is not necessary, of course.
Second, in my group’s and my own opinion, the class really, really needs a way to do something with the thralls that’s not popping them with a focus spell or an ability. They do not feel like thralls. They are not really an undead army. They are certainly not the walking dead. The mechanics fit better a chloromancer that summons shrubs, except that even Timber Sentinel has more autonomy than thralls. No, clogging small maps is not “powerful”, it’s an artifact of module design and production.
Third, the thrall economy changes dramatically between levels 6 and 7. At level 6, when you’re out of focus points and want to use another focus spell, that spell costs 5 actions: Create thrall, consume thrall, create another, cast a 2 action spell. At level 7 is easy to have spare thralls, and do tricks like summon one in the right position to use Necrotic bomb and other in position to flank or strike. The difference in usefulness is brutal, and at level 7 is otherwise when casters start feeling ok so this mechanic compounds with the general misery of low level spellcasters.
Fourth, thralls are virtually useless against flying enemies. I don’t know if this is intentional and the class is supposed to use his regular spellcasting or weapon attacks.
My suggestions: Create thrall creates just one thrall, at all levels, but you can use it as a reaction when a creature dies (like Inevitable Return) or takes Vitality or Void damage. You get additional reactions to use on this or other necromantic abilities (as part of the class or as feats) at later levels. This incentivizes using spells that deal, you know, necromantic damage, especially persistent void damage. Perhaps allow Void Warp to target undead creatures too.
Second, create thrall does not get you a strike. That’s another one action ability, Command Thrall, which allows you to move a number of thralls equal to, say, your Int score up to 15 feet and make a Strike, with a bonus to hit and damage depending on the number of adjacent additional thralls. There you are, now you have a proper horde. It would be also great if thralls could also do actions that didn’t required a skill check, like fetching things or carry you in a palanquin. Now that would be stylish.
The rest of the spellcasting didn’t feel specially consequential; 2 slots per level with prepared spells is very little, and the usefulness and power of the focus spells are all over the place. In some of the mock fights I tried to use the weapon feats; I found them to be really traps, however I didn’t play at level 18+ when Bind heroic spirit is available.