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39. The Time-Stopped Ruins

Ages ago, a magical experiment went terribly wrong, and the entire region surrounding this castle was threaten to be blasted away by a gigantic explosion. A powerful wizard saved the day casting a permanent version of "time stop" to the castle in the exact moment the explosion went off, freezing the towers and halls as they were blowing up. Walls, bricks, trees and items are now suspended in mid-air, partially destroyed and partially intact. Anyone who tries to enter the time-stopped area becomes part of this eternal ruin.

40. The Wandering Mist

A thick mist which covers a 2-miles radius area, never dissipates, and appears to travel in a random way all across the world. People entering the mist report hearing strange noises and seeing blurred figures walking in the fog.

I cite the eldritch precedent set by the 2nd Edition Necromancer's Handbook, which specifically calls out the creation of undead as "Grey Necromancy," neither Good nor Evil

But this class even gets the name "reanimator" (which was the original and future name, from what I read) from creating undead, which is a big strength of the class, and you can't create innately evil creatures as a large part of your activity and be good.

The use of dead matter requires no evil descriptor. Leave it open for GM's to decide. If a particular Campaign setting's cosmology has an "undead-use equals evil" then they can institute it. There is no reason to replicate Paizo's unabated "undead is evil" fanaticism, which should only, if anything, apply to Golarion.

Those are all solid points. For the alignment matter, I propend to remove the restriction more than to keep it, but I need some ideas to justify it. I haven't read the Necromancer's Handbook because I started playing at 3rd Edition, but I really like the concept of a Grey Necromancy, maybe I should develop it and put it into the Reanimator description.

a caster's pH balance doesn't shift every time they cast an [Acid] spell, does it?

As a soon-to-be chemistry bachelor, I had a healthy giggle over this one

Oh, and it should be impossible to take this class with Good alignment, as creating undead is already rightly seen as an evil act within the game.

Good point, I didn't think about it. Alignment restriction restored.

Anyway, your edits sound good to me, BUT may I suggest delaying Sarcomancy until 2nd or 3rd level? I worry that putting it at 1st would make it too easy for a cheesemonger sort of player to snatch one level in this class purely for the sake of that ability.

Damn powerplayers XD you're right, I'll put it at 2nd level along with corpse touch.

Thanks a lot everyone!

Of course they don't. Having pressure for fewer, rather than more, high ability scores is regarded as an advantage.

Exactly, so I can't see why if my class relies on a single ability score, i should "re-think my design".

EDIT: Let's try this

* Spells are now Int-based
* Dark secrets are now Int-based
* Moved "enervated" touch of evil effect to 13th level and "poisoned" to 9th level
* Added "Sarcomancy" class feature at 1st level

I'll build some reanimator PNG and try to playtest them asap :)

If the resusitator is happy with channeling energy three times a day, he can pump his intelligence. The amount of damage/healing will still be the same. If he wants to be able to channel more than three times per day, then his spell DCs will drop a point or two

Charisma determines the reanimator's number of channels per day, the number of corpse touch per day, and the DCs to resist the aura of fear, the touch of evil effects, the SLAs of innate necromancy and the other dark scerets that have a saving throw. Being able to channel energy 3/day means having low DCs for half of the reanimator class features, and I think there won't be many players happy with this. It's totally different from a cleric with 9 levels of spells.

If the ultimate worthiness of your class is truley dependent upon pumping a single ability score, then I suggest you re-think your design.

Using your words, I don't think that anybody downplays the wizard, the summoner, the oracle or the sorcerer because they rely on only one mental score.

That is a pretty solid point, though. You don't want any kind of MAD if this is going to be a class heavily predicated on saves. However, I frankly tend to avoid "save-or-die" or "save-or-suck" mechanical designs. It seems too all-or-nothing. Either the fight is essentially won (which means the fight was boring since none of your friends got to do anything meaningful) or you pretty much wasted a turn (which makes you feel like a rube).

Yeah, an eccessive use of SoD effects can result quite boring. That's why I put many secrets and abilities centered on the "let's create a zombie army" side of this class. My point is that the possibility of making SoD fun is innate in the design of the reanimator. This is because I wanted a base class that could play at least two different roles: in the same way you could play a tank-fighter or a dps-fighter, I thought you should be able to play a "lord of the dead" reanimator or a "energy drainer" reanimator. It's totally true that the second one relies heavily on bouncing up DCs as much as possible, but if there is someone out there who could think "I like this, let's do it!", then why not making it viable?

Allow me to suggest a Dark Secret that could help with that:

Sarcomancy: The Reanimator's scrupulous study of life, death, and the living coffin of flesh and bone rewards them with unnatural resilience, granting them additional hit points per level equal to half their Intelligence modifier.

This could be a great idea to solve the problem, maybe I could even sneak it in as a class feature instead of an optional secret.

I'm loving all the suggestions people, let's keep on improving this class, it's really fun :D

P.S. I edited in some other 2nd+ spells from Ultimate Magic in the Reanimator spell list, and removed alignment restriction.

I'm worried that making the reanimator spells Int-based would make him weaker. This class is all about targeting enemies with "save or very bad" effects. If the player must divide his ability points between two primary stats, it could end in having low DCs for every effect.

But then again, being only Charisma-based would probably result OP when the reanimator becomes undead, as Charisma will determine his hit points as well.

It's a tough decision, but thanks for the advice :)

Decent, BUT I would do away with the alignment restriction and make its magic Intelligence-based.

I'm trying to find a way to justify a good-aligned reanimator, but for now nothing comes to my mind... maybe a necromancer who tries to save those whose soul got stole from a demon, or something similar :)

For the Int-based casting, you mean making him a non-spontaneous caster? Because I can't think of a spontaneous caster who doesn't use Charisma. Also, Charisma score measures the strength of your personality, and I think that a caster who can control many HD of mindless creatures must have a solid inner strength.

EDIT: Thanks to That Other Guy's great suggestions, many tweaks and modifications have been made.

* The name of the class is now Reanimator
* The reanimator now gets a dark secret at 1st, 3rd, 7th, 11th, 15th and 19th level, instead of every odd level
* Added Lesser Animate Dead as a 2nd level spell, moved Animate Dead to 3rd level
* Moved Bestow Curse and Poison to 3rd level
* The Animating Spells dark secret replaces Paralyzing Touch as a class feature at 14th level
* All "touch" dark secrets have been removed. The reanimator now gets an additional effect to apply to his touch at 5th, 9th, 13th and 17th level (similarly to the antipaladin's Cruelty)
* Innate necromancy secret now grants a fixed amount of per-day uses of SLAs based on the level of the spell chosen.

Suggestions, critics and adivces welcome as usual. Also, other ideas for some other 17th-level touch evolution would be great!

First off, I would like to say that if I could play this in a PF game, I would do so without looking at any other choices. Like, instalock, every game for the rest of forever.

Wow, thanks a lot! :D

Spell List: The Resuscitator gets Animate Dead at level 4, along with Desecrate, AND Command Undead, all at once. At level 4, I will choose to learn Animate Dead and Desecrate, no questions asked. Clerics get Animate dead at lvl 6, Oracles at lvl 7, Wizards lvl 8, and Sorcerors lvl 9. Being an arcane spontaneous caster, I think that the class gaining the spell as a 3rd level would still make it very defined, but more comparable in power to the other classes.

Being able to mix both divine and arcane sources for the specialized spell list is very powerful in and of itself. I think the inclusion of Lesser Animate Dead in the level 2 spot would still work well for the class, and it would help bridge the gap. One thing you could do though to give the spell list a little edge without going over the top would be to move Bestow Curse to the 3rd level list.

I actually didn't realize that there's this major powerspike at 4th level. I'll definitely put Lesser animate dead at 2nd level and move Animate dead to the 3rd.

Innate Necromancy: At higher levels, this could get pretty crazy, especially if the DC scaling changes from the spells' normal save to an SLA-ish save like the Witch's hexes. Maybe model it after the Spell Hex feat, or require more charges consumed for higher level spells?

Yeah, I realize the idea of the SLAs is still quite raw, I'll look carefully at the options you've suggested.

I like how there are secrets which augment the corpse touch ability. There should be many of them, so that it is hard to get them all. Not really a criticism or anything, just an opinion. If there are more options than one can take, like a buffet line, then that makes the choice 'seem' more meaningful.

EDIT: Maybe take some of the options/choices from the Antipaladin's Cruelty class feature, reskinned as secrets?

I actually planned more Corpse touch evolution, but I thought there were too much of them and remove some. I'll add those too!

Aura of Fear is written on the table for the class and there is no writeup.

Distraction error XD. I cannot access the document now, I'll write that ASAP, but it's basically the aura of fear ability of the lich.

If you're looking for other names, maybe Reanimator?

Actually REANIMATOR was the original name of this class, but when I translated the corresponding italian word (rianimatore) i got "resuscitator" as an answer. Reanimator will be the name then :D

Thanks a lot for all the suggestion, keep 'em coming!

Sorry I forgot to put it as public :S it should open now :)

Hi everyone!
I put a lot of effort into this, and I would like to know your opinion. If you think about it, the summoner base class is a conjuration-themed wizard. This gave me the idea to create other school-themed versions, and the resuscitator is the necromancy one.

Resuscitator

Any suggestion, critic, question is very welcome. Suggestion on a more appropriate name for the class are also accepted, I named it resuscitator because it was the first thing that came to my mind.

As always, sorry if I've made some grammar errors (I'm italian)

I have this cool Smoke Mystery I found on Necromancer's of the Northwest about a year ago. I used them for a PC once and they were a lot of fun.

http://www.necromancers-online.com/articles/BestInClass/2014/20140113.html

T his is awesome, thanks! I really love the mirror image and smoky exit revelations, and I see that the spell list is almost the same as mine.

So, let's see if this works better.

Thanks people!

Yes I considered the "shadow" spell tree for the bonus spells, and to replace the crushing hand i thought about "weird" too. I'll definitely think about something different for the last spell :)

This is powerful. You effectively have a fireball-sized zone that trips and dazes, and once a creature has been affected, it's doomed for the rest of the encounter. I would rather see it stagger those who fail, and maybe there’s a new save to throw off the effect each round (but a second failed save makes it worse, perhaps). This is also a tough effect to use because it harms one’s allies. Compare it some cleric 8th-level domain/subdomain abilities like Toil, Protean, and Madness.

Yes I imagined this reaction to the choking cloud XD I was just trying to do an AoE version of Hideous Laughter, but with coughs instead of laughs... I'll try to nerf it! By the way, if you read carefully, targets ARE allowed to take a new save throw each turn.

At first this seemed like too little teleportation, but I see it’s a move action. It’s a nice ability, but I would rather see this allow for slightly more teleportation per day yet require that the start and end space have to be within fog, smoke, or a similar cloud-like area.

The idea of teleporting between smoke effects is really cool, but I'm worried it would limit the utility aspect of this revelation. I mean, a shadowdancer can use shadowstep almost everywhere, but there are not many places full of smoke clouds or fog...

Whoa, a 1st-level effect that blinds without a save and with no HD limit? That’s strong. I strongly recommend this obscure the target’s vision like the darkness cleric domain ability, then perhaps at a higher level (7th? 11th?) it can blind on a failed save.

I totally forgot about the darkness domain power of the cleric, I'll definitely use that.

I noticed now that I didn't think about a final revelation XD I guess having never played beyond 15th level has made me indifferent to high-level abilities... I'll think about it and I'll update asap.

Thanks again everyone! Keep it on!

EDIT:

I will remove the Fly skill as well... I guess it's there as a remain of one of the first prototypes I wrote for this mystery

For the final revelation, I was thinking to something like this:

Final revelation: At 20th level, the orcale's body constantly shifts from solid to partially inconsistent. The oracle is always considered under the effect of Freedom of Movement as per the spell.

I've wanted to make a smoke-themed NPC for quite a while. The basic idea was to make not a caster, but a melee character with a few magic effects based on smoke. I tried to build it using official ruels (e.g. a qinggong monk with gaseous form), but I never found myself satisfied, so I thought about the oracle and made an oracle mystery. I would like to know what you people think. Also, i've noticed that each mystery has usually ten revelations, but I've only come up with nine, so suggestions about a possible tenth would be great. Thanks!

P.S. Sorry for my bad english (I'm Italian)