Tremaine's page

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,

I don't think a companion rally works that well with the basic class mechanics (though I understand why you'd want it for flavor). Like normally companions need one action from the character to gain one action, which works for some classes better than others depending on your action needs.

The normal rotation for a necromancer in a given round is "create thrall"+ "Cast spell". You could replace the "create thrall" choice with "command companion" but your spell slots are extremely limited and most of your focus spells either need a thrall to power them or create a special kind of thrall.

I can't see "Command Companion + Cantrip" being a very satisfying rotation.

If the Thrall mechanic is what's preventing meaningful created undead, well, I know which I want, so thrall mechanics go bye.

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

Tridus wrote:

GameDesignerDM wrote:

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.

Flipside: Words have meaning. If I make a class called "Wizard" that is actually an illiterate burly greatsword wielding berserker with absolutely no magic skill whatsoever, am I "shifting expectations", or am I just misleading players about what to expect out of this class?

It doesn't lead to a good time when people expect a class to work one way based on what the class is called and says about itself, vs what it actually does. That's especially true when the game itself is inconsistent about that, since so many existing classes do lean into their common understanding pretty well even if they have unique mechanics to go about that.

And that's the problem here, really. Having a "Necromancer" that does something new is fine. Having a "Necromancer" that doesn't really resemble a Necromancer in any particular way since its effectively just summoning pokey obstacles out of nothing is going to lead to disappointment when people expect a feeling the class fails to deliver.

Except it absolutely resembles a necromancer

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.

While I don't really care about the name of a class, I don't think we'll ever get another one that's closer to being a "Necromancer".

The thing everyone seems to associate with that name are lots of undead minions you can order around to do your bidding. But we all know something like that will probably never happen. Limiting the amount of moving parts during each player's turn seems very much rooted in PF2's design philosophy, systems and balance.

So basically, I think it's now or never.

Then don't do a necromancer, this class has very little to do with Necromancy, and honestly renamed and separated from the concept the class chassis could do much more (thralls as elementals or psychopomps or mental manifestations work as well, and honestly better as immobile pseudo undead do).

Tremaine wrote:

Kekkres wrote:

Justnobodyfqwl wrote:

I mentioned this in another thread, but I feel as if "a single, more unique undead that I can have a dynamic with" is a big character fantasy/roleplay dynamic the class doesnt currently support.

.... that's a summoner, or any class with the undead master archetype, we already have that

Summoners don't reanimate bodies to create their companions do they

?

Have some fantasy. Classes' flavor is whatever you say it is. You can absolutely play an Undead eidolon Summoner as a necromancer who brought their companion alive and are sustaining it wiht their own lifeforce (hence the linked HP).

Might work for other people, does not for me. Same reason rules light systems don't work for me honestly. Also having one companion at a time is fine, having it be the same one is meh. I want enemies to see their dead love ones attacking them, not some random undead,

Justnobodyfqwl wrote:

I mentioned this in another thread, but I feel as if "a single, more unique undead that I can have a dynamic with" is a big character fantasy/roleplay dynamic the class doesnt currently support.

.... that's a summoner, or any class with the undead master archetype, we already have that

Summoners don't reanimate bodies to create their companions do they

The fact that there's already a lot of support for arcane and divine necromancy also means a dedicated necromancy class that's occult steps on fewer toes.

Occult necromancy has always been possible, but has had the least support. I've had a lot of fun with a necromancy based psychic in the past, so I welcome Paizo shoring up support for occult necromancy.

Arcane and Divine necromancy suffers from being really bad, unless I am missing something fundamental, you can only create/summon really under levelled creatures.

*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.

Tremaine wrote:

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

Reanimating dead bodies in PF2 is performed using rituals (specifically, versions of create undead), not spells. The occult list does have summon undead for "temporary" undead, if a necromancer wants more than the thralls.

Fair, it just seems odd to come up with a total new concept and mechanics when animating undead already was a thing...an admittedly borderline useless thing, but that just gives it room to be improved

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...

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?

Those aren't "just" tokens for abilities; they're undead tokens for undead-themed abilities w/ lots of macabre imagery and wording. In game, undead are sprouting up, launching themselves at people, exploding into goo, and generally giving a good fright.
And they do have an ability to turn a fresh corpse into a thrall (as a Reaction too), so they are reanimating the dead, and they have spell slots & Rituals available if they wish to summon or create hardier allies.

Anything resembling a Diablo Necromancer is unfeasible in perhaps all TTRPGs, if only for time's sake if not balance. And in real world lore, necromancy never required reanimating the dead, only manipulating them or tapping into their power, both of which this class does.

It does resemble Diablos necro, Bone spear, corpse explosion etc, Not the more 'traditional' carefully ritually prepared corpses for animation route. But thanks for reminding me of Diablo, I can see what the class was going for now.

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

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'

This is a game of rules, it has a baseline used for balance. Part of that baseline is little to no prebuffing. This also includes scouting and ambushing enemies. The rules for encounter building are for when your group clashes head on with an enemy.

Everything you do to change that default makes work for the GM. Either by having to change the encounter balance or just finding out what the players and party as a whole are looking for.

Again, raising encounter difficulty is punishing players for role playing people are aren't suffering from catastrophic TBIs.

Seriously if you dislike players having fun this much, why GM?

Tremaine wrote:

So if the players are doing to well they should be punished? Why?

If the players have found a way to trivialize the game then there's an issue.

It's not about doing well, too well, or anything like that. It's about playing the game versus repeating the same thing ad nauseam because it just works.

But I read before that you dislike combat in PF2. So for you challenging fights are a "punishment" , for me it's part of what makes the game fun. So I don't think we will agree on this question.

Fair point that we wont agree, so I will ask a slightly different question: if players enjoy prebuffing and 'trivialising' encounters, why is that a problem?

I assume you don't mean it this way, but you are coming across like the people who complain about games having easy difficulty settings.

Oh and before people say I just don't like challenging combat: I play wargames for that, and they do it, imho, better for the style of tactical I enjoy.

Like everything, prebuffing is good in moderation. If your players are prebuffing all the time or if your players are never prebuffing, there's certainly an issue somewhere.

Now, if the party optimizes for prebuffing, building a good scouting strategy and paying for feats like Conceal Spell, then it has to be accepted as a party strategy. Of course, balance has to be taken in consideration, if the end result is an overwhelmingly effective party then the GM should intervene. But as the players paid to be good at prebuffing then it should be rewarded.

So I don't think there's a definite answer on prebuffing. It's a good thing when it happens but it can be abused. Like most things, the GM has to handle it with care.

So if the players are doing to well they should be punished? Why?

Unicore wrote:

So to be very clear, @Trip H., you are arguing that having Mystic Armor active would be a casters 1 buff spell, and they would crossing the intended "1 buff per encounter" line if the same caster cast False Vitality?

That just seems excessively punitive and nonsensical to me, and makes playing a caster much worse. Not for this combination specifically, but because there are tons of all day spells that are clearly not meant to be exclusive. Environmental Endurance, for example is often just one part of making deep undersea exploration feasible.

FFS dude, stop engaging dishonestly.

No, I have not argued that at all.

My claims:

1. Prebuffs are powerful enough to imbalance combat to the point of greatly altering the outcome ("breaking" combat balance).

2. The game's own rule/guidance of "one doorkick(pre-fight) prebuff" is super important.

My claimed consequence / needed action created by 1 & 2:

Because prebuffing (combat breaking) is at the fickle whim of player behavior, GMs are responsible for talking through that table's "gentleman's agreement" as to the arbitrary (as in, not mechanically limited like Investment) rules around prebuffing.

Doorkick rules are the most important/balance-breaking, but that's one common expression of the root problem.

Which is unlimited prebuffing.

.

Do note that this is the same core issue that causes some GMs to ban Tailwind Wands. Different specific case, and one that many choose to address via a single item ban. The root problem is not the wand, but prebuffing.

Prebuffing is a big splinter in the very foundation of pf2, and is something that all savvy GMs should beware.

And doorkick/pre-fight prebuffing is such a natural tactic/compulsion that it's something that all GMs should have a rule for, or at least create one in reaction to the first time the players dump their bags and throw a buff party outside a boss door.

And yes, a "no, you guys can't do that, because: because" type of rule...

I can answer why I don't want that limit: it makes combat less unfun. But again that's a me thing.

If your players love the position and status effect gameplay, the. Point out the issue with prebuffing, if they don't then, let them mitigate having to engage with a system they may not actually enjoy, PF2 sits in an odd place for me, by trying to be crunchy but not to crunchy (and if rumours are true being 4e done right) it aims at but misses something's I like (yay simulationist crunchy games), and picks up alot of what chased me away from WotC to PF1...

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.

Tremaine wrote:

...PF2 combat is already stuffed with chores and frustration, don't punish trying to mitigate that dullness to get it over with.

You're going to need to elaborate, as I have no idea what on Golarion You're talking about.

What about Pathfinder combat is a chore; what do you find frustrating or dull?

The way the system is setup so that the theme of most fights should be yakkety sax, that a wall of +1 hunting is between you and doing the actual fun part of combat, beating face, 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. (Honourable mentions for fun also go to blasting things to kibble with spells, and stealth kills)

Tremaine wrote:

Quote:

Or you could let players be rewarded for being cautious and smart...not throw all your toys out the pram while screaming badwrongfun, PF2 combat is already stuffed with chores and frustration, don't punish trying to mitigate that dullness to get it over with.

I would love nothing more than for that to be a good idea.

But, given the reality that it's a game system and not a perfectly mutating narrative that can instantly buff foes to match the 1/3 door kicks that randomly spooked a player, resulting in 2 rounds of prebuffs, your suggestion is not a good idea in practice.

There is no way in-system to prevent (or worse, punish) prebuffs. Alchemy does not have the common "bright and noisy" baggage of spells, and all spellcasters have access to Conceal Spell anyway.

There's just no denying that the game itself warns you explicitly that prebuffing is balance-breaking.

Buffing the encounter is punishing the players,

I would strongly caution against prebuffing, or assuming that's the default in any discussion.

To some extent that's because prebuffing is not reliable as a strategy, and there will be plenty of ambushes, social preamble, etc.

I mostly recommend against (assuming or playing with much) prebuffing because the game rightfully calls out prebuffing as being dangerous for combat balancing (and IMO the text undersells this danger).

Before A Fight wrote:

Casting advantageous spells before a fight (sometimes called “pre-buffing”) gives the characters a big advantage, since they can spend more combat rounds on offensive actions instead of preparatory ones. If the players have the drop on their foes, you usually can let each character cast one spell or prepare in some similar way, then roll initiative.

Casting preparatory spells before combat becomes a problem when it feels rote and the players assume it will always work—that sort of planning can't hold up in every situation! In many cases, the act of casting spells gives away the party's presence. In cases where the PCs' preparations could give them away, you might roll for initiative before everyone can complete their preparations.

To be clear, the biggest issue with prebuffing is that of combat balance. I'm not going to get into the hassle/jank/unfun sides of it.

Without combat actions as the main cost, the prebuff is instead a resource spend. And that resource spend becomes negligible for low R spells / items rather quickly.

While the new spell Benediction providing an outright great benefit at all levels when prebuffed should help draw attention to prebuffing as a danger/problem, I do not want the focus to be on the power of that spell specifically; its new addition should more generally serve as a reminder that this system will continue to add new spells and options over time.

A L10 party that wont kick in a door until a few scrolls of Haste are burned will be *much* more potent in combat than a no prebuff party. Attempting to...

Or you could let players be rewarded for being cautious and smart...not throw all your toys out the pram while screaming badwrongfun, PF2 combat is already stuffed with chores and frustration, don't punish trying to mitigate that dullness to get it over with.

Isn't a Divine Wrath of god beat stick class the Champion?

You'd think, but really no, they are focused around reactions (and the issues I have with some of them...oh boy, not mechanical power, just the play style they seem to be designed to encourage, like a Justice cause with a reach weapon and meat shields to proc reactions off) and tanking (look at the number of defence or shield feats they get vs ones that do damage).

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.

Bluemagetim wrote:

What did everyone expect in a gish class?

Im confused by all this expectation a gish class wouldnt have bounded casting.

People mad at getting exactly what they described they wanted, "A wave casting divine caster all about using weapons against enemies".

Except they don't seem to be that, sure they swing a weapon ok, but their features make them a buff not, which is a weird choice, they aren't the Divine Magus, they are the Bard from wish

Especially because the suggestion he objected to even follows the naming convention. A PC with the Champion Dedication is, by naming convention, a Champion.

I am sorry I have dragged this thread so far off topic, I hope we can leave it at 'I am not wired to think that way' and yes it doesn't do me any favours in real life either.

Have you looked at an Obedience Champion? Here is a simple build that I put together to punish the unholy.

(This is by no means an optimized build, it was simply a thought experiment.)

Thanks

Tremaine wrote:

Ideally a Champion would be a holy striker with little or no reactions focused on crushing the enemies of their faith. The Fighter would be more versatile, able to batter any enemy better than the Champion, except the few the champion shines against.

So basically you want a Fighter that has bonuses vs undead/fiends but weaker stats vs everything else compared to a default Fighter?

Probably a slightly broader list (I would include the opposed Sanctification for instance, maybe as far as worshippers of opposed religion).

But essentially yea.

It might be an underperforming class like that, but it fits the role I would want to play (and honestly that power or lack there of depends on the AP)

Tremaine wrote:

Ideally a Champion would be a holy striker with little or no reactions focused on crushing the enemies of their faith.

So you don't even want to play a Champion in the first place.

I'm sorry but a lot of these issues seem really self-made here. You're getting stuck on a specific class instead of just building a character that does what you want it to. Yeah, PF2 isn't the world's most versatile game and has issues if you want to color outside the lines, but that doesn't seem to be the problem here.

I want to play a champion of (insert chosen deity here), their is a class that is supposed to do that.

But yea probably a me problem, my head is wired weird, I do get caught in 'rpg rules as in universe science', I know I do, doesn't mean I can actually stop doing that...

Tremaine wrote:

Telling me to build a fighter does not let me build a wrath of god champion.

Perhaps you could clarify what you mean by "wrath of god."

You can easily build a Champion with equal accuracy to everyone but a fighter, who uses a big 2H weapon for massive damage, smacks any enemy who dares attack weaker allies, smites enemies (especially unholy enemies) for bonus damage, takes Reactive Strikes when given the chance, has Blessed Counterstrike, etc.

Ideally a Champion would be a holy striker with little or no reactions focused on crushing the enemies of their faith. The Fighter would be more versatile, able to batter any enemy better than the Champion, except the few the champion shines against.

Tremaine wrote:

Ignoring the inbuilt feat tax of dedications, a fighter with a champion dedication is not a champion, the clue Is in the name, one writes fighter on the character sheet, the other writes champion. This is like me asking about a horse and getting advice about a grey hound.

Classes are more of an ability based concept.

You can be a barbarian with only fighter-levels, you can be a rogue with only wizard levels, you can be whatever you want. How competent you are depends on the mechanical choices, but the text you write on your character sheet in the "class" entry means nothing to your played persona.

YMMV, sadly I cannot think like that, not wired that way.

Tremaine wrote:

Pronate11 wrote:

Tremaine wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

Tremaine wrote:

...for instance Champions are tanks, you cannot build one as a wrath of god style smiter anymore, it just does not work)...

You totally can. All you gotta do is make a fighter or other offensive class, then multiclass into Champion.

Then you will have a "wrath of [a] god style smiter" in no time at all.

That is a fighter, not a champion. Dedications are deliberately total and utter traps.

Champion dedication is one of the best feats in the game, what are you talking about. scaling armor is incredible for everything without native heavy armor training, and for classes with heavy armor the champions reaction at level 6 is so good that it's almost a meme how often optimizers take it. A fighter with a champion archetype not only fits you're concept perfectly, it is also one of the best builds in the game

Ignoring the inbuilt feat tax of dedications, a fighter with a champion dedication is not a champion, the clue Is in the name, one writes fighter on the character sheet, the other writes champion. This is like me asking about a horse and getting advice about a grey hound.

Oh and as a multi class. System? Dedications are the worst I have ever seen, Dual Classing in ADnD second edition was better.

So, you like PF1 and dislike PF2. Does not make the latter a bad game though.

Odd choice to come and disparage it on PF2 boards though.

Didn't say it was, only that you cannot build a smite champion, and that I find the dedication system to be so bad I refuse to use it. (Part of that is RP, you cannot play a character that abandons a class, they are a (for instance) cleric forever, even if they become maltheists and never cast another spell, they keep levelling as cleric...)

Telling me to build a fighter does not let me build a wrath of god champion.

Reason to be on this board: my PF1 group is moving on to PF2, so I have to find something, anything to like about the system or stop playing with them. (They were planning to move on earlier, but real life delayed finishing the PF1 game..by a lot.)

Tremaine wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

Tremaine wrote:

...for instance Champions are tanks, you cannot build one as a wrath of god style smiter anymore, it just does not work)...

You totally can. All you gotta do is make a fighter or other offensive class, then multiclass into Champion.

Then you will have a "wrath of [a] god style smiter" in no time at all.

That is a fighter, not a champion. Dedications are deliberately total and utter traps.

Champion dedication is one of the best feats in the game, what are you talking about. scaling armor is incredible for everything without native heavy armor training, and for classes with heavy armor the champions reaction at level 6 is so good that it's almost a meme how often optimizers take it. A fighter with a champion archetype not only fits you're concept perfectly, it is also one of the best builds in the game

Ignoring the inbuilt feat tax of dedications, a fighter with a champion dedication is not a champion, the clue Is in the name, one writes fighter on the character sheet, the other writes champion. This is like me asking about a horse and getting advice about a grey hound.

Oh and as a multi class. System? Dedications are the worst I have ever seen, Dual Classing in ADnD second edition was better.

Tremaine wrote:

...for instance Champions are tanks, you cannot build one as a wrath of god style smiter anymore, it just does not work)...

You totally can. All you gotta do is make a fighter or other offensive class, then multiclass into Champion.

Then you will have a "wrath of [a] god style smiter" in no time at all.

That is a fighter, not a champion. Dedications are deliberately total and utter traps.

Tremaine wrote:

Errenor wrote:

RPG-Geek wrote:

The downside of a tightly balanced system focused on combat is a lack of the build creativity available in other systems.

This I don't understand at all. PF2 is THE system for buildcrafting. Most other systems don't come even close. PF1 is more involved, but is almost completely broken. 5e is broken and a complete joke for build crafting. Rules-light systems aren't build-oriented at all, there most situations are resolved with same rolls, there's basically no builds. Other systems are about on 5e level. There're also constructors I guess, like GURPS. There is a lot of character crafting there, but I'm not sure there's more 'creativity'. Whatever this would mean.

No it isn't, you are handed a tightly curated set of tools, which interact in a very specific way, to come to a tiny range of results, you cannot go off the script (for instance Champions are tanks, you cannot build one as a wrath of god style smiter anymore, it just does not work)

You have to max out your character primary stat to function, you have to do the buff/debuff and position game, with appropriately classed characters, you cannot go off script.

That's they way the system is built, it's a rigidly designed team based combat game, the characters are game pieces who will never, by design, feel powerful alone, they party might, but individual characters will not.

Actually they will, if they play with 1 or 2 free levels.

Now, what they cannot do is build a character who completely on their own outshines other members of the party.

Which is actually great.

Not passing judgement, just describing, tho I will concede the playtest had even tighter maths, but niche protection is very real, and in consequence some character concepts do not function as you could expect.

RPG-Geek wrote:

The downside of a tightly balanced system focused on combat is a lack of the build creativity available in other systems.

This I don't understand at all. PF2 is THE system for buildcrafting. Most other systems don't come even close. PF1 is more involved, but is almost completely broken. 5e is broken and a complete joke for build crafting. Rules-light systems aren't build-oriented at all, there most situations are resolved with same rolls, there's basically no builds. Other systems are about on 5e level. There're also constructors I guess, like GURPS. There is a lot of character crafting there, but I'm not sure there's more 'creativity'. Whatever this would mean.

No it isn't, you are handed a tightly curated set of tools, which interact in a very specific way, to come to a tiny range of results, you cannot go off the script (for instance Champions are tanks, you cannot build one as a wrath of god style smiter anymore, it just does not work)

You have to max out your character primary stat to function, you have to do the buff/debuff and position game, with appropriately classed characters, you cannot go off script.

That's they way the system is built, it's a rigidly designed team based combat game, the characters are game pieces who will never, by design, feel powerful alone, they party might, but individual characters will not.