Witch of Miracles's page

Was looking at Runesmith and realized that I'm unsure if I'm wrong or if playtest runesmith is wrong.

To my reading, the duplicate effects rule implies you only get the benefit of something once, not that only a single instance of a spell/rune/etc. can be exist on the target at once. There is nothing that says the instances of mystic armor replace one another, just that you cannot receive the benefits and only one of the effects can "apply"—where "apply" is ambiguous between "stick" and "receive the benefit of." That the opening clause of the passage says "when you're affected by the same thing multiple times" instead of "when you would be affected" implies it's possible, as well—especially given that the subjunctive is used not two sentences later in an example, making the choice to use an indicative conditional there look pretty intentional. And there are common sense cases—like equipping and investing two rings of fire resist—where there are clearly two instances of the effect, but you only gain the benefits of one. It's not like one ring stops existing when you invest the other.

I believe the rule only prevents you from gaining identical benefits twice, and does not prevent you from having additional and useless instances of effects and effect-givers, because of these reasons. But I do think the intent is less than clear as it's written.

The difference usually won't matter, yeah. It's primarily a meaningful difference for the purposes of dispelling. I.E., How many instances of mystic armor are there to dispel if it's cast on someone twice—one, or two? There are certainly cases where you can get one dispel off and have a second, identical effect replace the first—the Resist Energy spell and a ring that gives fire resist won't stack, but dispelling Resist Energy wouldn't get rid of the fire resistance from the ring, and the aforementioned case with two fire resist rings exists as well. So it isn't all THAT nonsense to have "backup effects." It would be odd—though not particularly gamebreaking, and pointlessly costly in slots or scrolls—to have multiple backup casts of mystic armor on you, sure. But I think it seems odd because no one does it, and no one does it since it's utterly wasteful. After all, having multiple casts of high rank mystic armor would take a ton of daily resources for no obvious benefit in the vast majority of situations. To me, this sounds less like it's broken and more like a fringe edge case where you waste resources to mess with people using dispel magic; most spells and effects don't last long enough for this to even be viable, anyways. If there even is a problem, it's a self-correcting problem.

So, running this back to Runesmith:

Runesmith is one of the only other reasons to care, since runes have both passive and invoke effects, and being able to have the same rune active on a target twice would let you invoke while the passive effect is also up. To me, it seems like it could be intended and even fine that—for example—placing multiple fire runes on an enemy and only ever detonating the oldest could give you the fire resist reduction on the detonation damage. The resist reduction scaling isn't even that significant compared to the damage scaling on the invoke. I could be missing something, mind. But given that you can only get the invoke benefit of a given rune type on a given creature once per invoke, I don't really see how placing multiple instances of a rune on the same target is a problem. Even something like whetstone can't affect the same target more than once per invoke. Even if it's invoked from etchings on two different weapons, the target will only take damage once because of the duplicate effects rule. And it's not like you can't already prestack a bunch of whetstone runes on a single person with the class as-written. (Everyone has an unarmed strike, and it doesn't say you have to be wielding the weapon to invoke the rune, so there's some real silliness here.)

However, the sun- diacritic implies you should only be able to have a rune type active once per target, because there's very little difference between adding sun- to an etched rune and just tracing the rune again and detonating the trace first. ...But for the reasons discussed above, I can't see why you'd be unable to. You can equip two fire resist rings even if it's not beneficial, right? And it frankly doesn't seem all that strong to be able to stack runes of the same type on a target, as long as you can only affect a given target once per invoke with a given type of rune. It could just be that sun- itself is ill-conceived and doesn't understand the rules; the damage scaling on runes certainly doesn't follow the damage scaling already in the game, so it wouldn't be the only thing in the class.

So which is it? Does the duplicate effects rule only prevent you from stacking the benefits of duplicate effects (while still letting you have multiple useless instances of the effects active), or does it also prevent you from having multiple instances of a given effect active?

A huge disclaimer: These are initial impressions, subject to change with actual play! I'm fallible, and can misevaluate and misunderstand things here.

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To begin with, I'm going to discuss a lot of class options and features while showing how I think the class isn't really what I expected. The class seemed pitched as a class that wanted to create resources and consume them for a backloaded payoff. However, in practice, this doesn't seem to be the case. I'll examine create thrall itself, and then the thrall spenders, and hopefully it'll be more obvious why.

Create Thrall

Firstly, create thrall itself is actually quite strong, particularly as you gain proficiency. It does the following:
• does a small amount of damage
• blocks movement in certain directions and therefore forces enemies to use tumble through to go in those directions, which basically reduces their speed once if enough of them are summoned
• provides flanking
• possibly makes enemies waste actions trying to deny you resources, or promotes inefficient AoE
• grants whatever thrall enhancement there is, which is of varying value
• summons multiple thralls at once—with no limit on total thralls?—based on your proficiency, both things I would not have personally expected in conjunction with the above. This seems odd for two reasons: one, it means that thralls spent do not have a direct equivalency to actions spent, and two, it means that a necromancer can actually be absurdly disruptive in small 4x4 or 5x4 rooms just by summoning 6 thralls in a turn once they have expert proficiency.

Getting all of this for a single action on a turn you can also cast a spell is a bit surprising; the main limitation on it is the 30ft range. This is a single action that is probably worth more than most other "third actions" in the game. This is technically a setup action, in that it gives you a resource you intend to spend later, but when you compare it to a setup action like recharging spellstrike it starts to look absurd.

Is paizo expecting thralls to be targeted and killed fairly often, either by incidental AoE or MAP -10 autohits? That's the only way I can imagine this feeling in-line. However, that seems like it could be a pretty frustrating bit of table variance to both balance around and ask a player to deal with. Classes with wide degrees of efficacy depending on the GMing style are generally less fun. Without playing both, it'd be hard to know which I'd like more. But I might be happier with a resource that enemies could interact with less that was also more limited in the amount of thralls available. Right now, spenders that you don't want to use on the same turn as create thrall (cough Bone Spear cough) are way worse than they appear because they can be consistently denied by MAP -10 attacks and incidental AoE. Yeah, you can not use the attack on Create Thrall, but that makes it a way worse action.

Focus Spells with Thrall Costs

Secondly, the focus spells that sacrifice thralls... aren't as strong as I would've expected. They're mostly decent, with one outlier; but they don't look that much stronger than comparable focus spells.

• Life Tap
This just seems bad. You don't heal that much off drained, and it isn't that much damage either. It sets up for fort save spells and grappling, sure, but that's a lot of setup.

• Bone Spear
It's in the damage range of amped IW, but consumes both a focus point and a thrall. (Technically, Bone Spear can attempt to hit one more target than amped IW, but getting 3 targets in a 15ft line is... unrealistic. ) It also isn't worth using on the same turn as create thrall, because create thrall gives MAP, unless you forgo the attack and therefore some of its action efficiency. So you get three choices: either use it as a three action spell, effectively (create thrall with no attack>bone spear), use bone spear at -5 (ew), or risk not being able to use bone spear (turn 1 create thrall, turn 2 bone spear). This is way worse than it looks.

• Necrotic Bomb
This looks okay. The damage range is much more in line with +2d6 spells, which is about 1d6 better than many other AoE focus spells. The 10ft emanation is somewhat inconvenient, though, especially if you summoned a thrall to get flanking... and the 10ft emanation is slightly too small for it to provide AoE damage that scales later into the game. I think it's probably fine, but I wouldn't consider it exciting. It's also worth comparing to Bony Barrage (which... is okay) and Sorc Dragon Breath (which it will be slightly ahead of in damage exchange for having a smaller AoE, which doesn't really feel in line with the setup cost).

• Muscle Barrier
Honestly, I wasn't sure about it at first, but the more I look at it, the stronger it seems. It actually gives an absurd amount of temp HP. I think this spell is probably at its strongest when you first get it, as the buffer aspect becomes less relevant as the game becomes less lethal outside of L1-4. Even after that, though, it'll remain VERY GOOD. It's incredibly competent combat healing spell that beats out every other focus spell for combat healing in its level range, blasting cornucopia to bits. This might actually be the strongest thing in the entire kit.

The more I think about this, the more I have concerns about how its strength influences the rest of the kit.

• Bony Barrage
It's a cone that's online earlier than Sorc Dragon Breath (a positive) and doesn't originate from your square (also a positive). But it deals only slightly better damage initially than Dragon Breath, and then begins to scale worse in exchange for giving a status bonus to AC if you boom a second thrall (which is cool, admittedly, but probably not the reason I want to do a cone AoE). This seems fair for 2 thralls and 2 actions... but doesn't stand out either. Without the status bonus to AC, it doesn't feel very good.

• Zombie Horde
This seems like it takes a long time to produce value, damage wise; most of the strength is in creating mobile difficult terrain. That's... okay, but not something I'm itching to spend two actions and a thrall on, especially when creatures aren't even damaged by it until the start of their turns and sustaining it competes with Create Thrall and so on. Consuming thralls to increase the area also isn't that great.

• Flesh Tsunami
When it works, it's strong in a weirdly uninspiring way, because greater difficult terrain is powerful on its own and having your speed slowed inside it can make you nearly immobilized. This strength is only relevant as long as your opponents don't have special forms of movement, though, and it's available at level 16. I'd need to actually check how many opponents only have standard ground movement at this level to give proper feedback on the ability, but it's something I'd have flagged as a concern.

Other Actions with Thrall Costs

Third, the non-focus options for sacrificing thralls don't seem particularly great either.

• Consume Thrall
Fair enough, one thrall for 1 FP. Seems more useful early on in your career, when you have fewer focus points. Also speeds FP regen out of combat if you don't mind it being on cooldown.

• Reach of the Dead
It has no action type listed, so I have a hard time judging it. If it costs 1A, it's... okay? Probably not that great compared to just moving. If it's a free action, that's pretty cool. I'm expecting 1A, though.

• Body Shield
Not inspiring, but also good when compared to carrying an actual shield on action-intensive class like this—especially after you're expert and can place multiple thralls at once. Competes with other useful reactions, though.

• Draining Strike
Has a weird interaction with Create Thrall increasing your MAP and Create Thrall being such a strong third action. Plus up to 3d4 on a strike isn't bad, and you only destroy thralls on hit, so that's okay; also works with ranged weapons if you pick them up. Not too big on the heal, which doesn't feel that relevant.

This doesn't impress me at first glance, but I'm also not really sure how I feel about this string of pseudo-martial feats anyways. Are they here for people to grab with archetyping?

• Bone Burst
Hey, funny not-reactive strike. Not a ton of damage—worse than a typical reactive strike—and you have other uses for your reaction, but it's easier to proc than reactive strike in the longterm because you can have out multiple thralls.

• Reclaim Power
Did anyone bother to compare this to Muscle Barrier? Yeah. This doesn't cost a focus point. But still.

• Osteo Armaments
Part of the weird semi-martial Necromancer feats. Still don't know how I feel about them in general, and it's hard to evaluate thrall-for-decaying-rune without that context.

• Desperate Surge
This doesn't strike me as particularly good to begin with, so I don't want to recharge it by striking a thrall (and increasing my MAP!) either. Leave maneuvers to people with Athletics.

• L12 Subclass Passive Feats
None strike me as particularly strong. Resist all/(half your level) for a round after destroying a thrall isn't bad but isn't great; increasing a +10 status bonus to speed to +20 strikes me as overkill. Vital Conduit at least forces saves for a nasty status effect, but it's on adjacent enemies and that's probably not your jam unless you're the reaper weapon melee necromancer. They're all free real estate, though, so it's hard to call them bad.

Where's the "Big Payoff" Gameplay?

If you've noticed something throughout this analysis, it's that damaging focus spell spenders generally don't exceed the power of a 2A slotted spell heightened from second or third level and are often a little bit below it. (Muscle Barrier is a huge exception here.) Likewise, spenders that don't cost FP seem a bit weak for something that feels like it costs a resource, especially in comparison to spenders that do. (Reclaim Power illustrates this a bit too well.) This is in spite of their setup.

Furthermore, Create Thrall is actually no slouch, and is in fact strangely powerful in enclosed spaces. It's arguably one of the best third actions I've seen in the system, even if its value is strongly dependent on how and how much your GM interacts with the thralls.

So, where's this "backloaded" gameplay loop? For the most part, there isn't much backloading, and that doesn't appear to be the intended class design. If it is, they definitely missed the mark. Instead, they seem to have settled on making Create Thrall strong and worth using on its own merits, then just having the class use what it gets from performing an already-good action.

I'm not sure how I feel about this without a lot of play, but my first impression is it takes away a lot of what I'd expected would be unique about the class. I understand why they did it, though.
-Backloading risks having your abilities come out too slowly and not affecting a fight properly. Making create thrall good mitigates this.
-And if enemies can destroy thralls easily, your setup button often risks giving no value at all. Making create thrall good mitigates this.
-The designers seem wary of upsetting the apple cart and really loading 3A worth of spell damage into 2A on an occult caster that has some normal spells and also has a lot of renewable resources. This is kind of fair, since "renewable blasting" does encroach on kineticist's space somewhat and kineticist has also laid out a template for about where renewable spell-like damage should sit.

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Feedback on Other Feats

• Bonespeaker
Insanely useful. However... might need to specify what does and doesn't have a skeleton.

• Reaper Weapon Familiarity
It's flavorful, but I'm not quite seeing the vision. Maybe good for some archetyped builds (both Necromancer with x archetypes, and y class with Necromancer archetype)?

Actually, I guess this is just the ability to upgrade the good old "caster attacks with a crossbow or whatever for their third action for some damage and it works sometimes" into "caster attacks with a big scary weapon in melee with their third action for some damage." You're d8, so fair enough. I don't much like that it conflicts with create thrall, though.

Also has the same clarity issue as other similar feats that are really just "you can attack a little better as a situational third action." These look like build-around feats, but they really, really, REALLY aren't.

• Conglomerate of Limbs
This is good and feels bad because the majority of its power is loaded into being a 40 HP damage sponge that takes up four EDIT: WAIT NINE, GOOD GOD squares. I would maybe reflavor this to make it clearer that the main benefit is the body and not the grapple attempts.

• Lifesense
Fair. Not something I'll personally take outside of specific campaigns, but fits the class and can be worth taking.

• Quicken
Not seeing an action cost or the daily limit, here. Assuming it's 1/day like usual, it's... fine. I honestly don't like quicken that much in 2E because 1/day means the benefit is so situational, even if it's strong on that one turn. Helpful to free up a movement action, I guess.

• Necrotic Focus
Usual "fast refocus." I prefer these built into the chassis, personally.

• Recurring Nightmare
...I honestly can't tell. It strikes me as weaker than Create Thrall in many situations and costs a focus point, but it also gives you a free action thrall for the rest of the combat in conjunction with the feat that gives you a free sustain. That combo alone could be worthwhile, though you probably also have spells you'd like to be sustaining at this level.

• Skeletal Lancers
Most of the power here is in getting five thralls for 1A with a 60ft range and being able to move them. The piercing damage is a cute bonus. It's alright for that.

• Desperate Revival
Just have Muscle Barrier up before combat instead c:

That's an oversimplification, but I would prefer to keep things from going wrong in the first place than pick up a niche reaction for when things go wrong on an already reaction-heavy class.

• Effortless Concentration
Yeah, it's good. Always is.

• Bind Heroic Spirit
Oh damn, I can use my scythe better now! ...At level 18...

I feel like this would go over much better as a lower level focus spell that gave a scaling +1/2/3 status bonus to attack rolls with heightening, and added the "get a thrall on every hit and +3 status bonus on saves" at Heighten 9th. Maybe you could get a thrall on your first hit with the spell active at heighten 6th, as well. This would help make Reaper Weapon Familiarity feel better.

• Ectoplasmic Aura
Free "fort save or no reactions" forever? That's good, even if I'm still gonna cast roaring applause.

• L20 feats
No strong opinions atm. They're capstones.

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Requested Clarifications

• Is "destroyed" a keyword, here? This is important for Flesh Magician. It's unclear if you get difficult terrain whenever a thrall dies, or only if you sacrifice the thrall.

• Is it intentional that there's no thrall limit?

• Can thralls be critically hit? I'm guessing not, since they have no AC... but this has strong implications for the action economy of trying to kill the larger ones. It's also a really odd place for them to have power.

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General Feedback

Honestly? Cool class. I can't tell you whether it's weak or not, but it seems interesting enough, and there's decent flavor. I want to try playing one for real and see how it turns out, so that's a success.

Positives:
• MtG Black gameplay
• I can have a scythe
• 8 HP class, so being close isn't as miserable. Maybe psychic will become 8 HP...

Concerns:
• GM-dependent power, because GMs will interact with thralls differently and that impacts the class's play a lot. It could feel absurd at one table and much more in line at another.
• Cramped action economy. Create Thrall competes with moving and only has 30ft range. This class may end up wanting haste as badly as magus. A reaction to get a thrall on death, free action sustain, and 1/day quicken can only do so much, especially when most of those come online late. There's a world where they ultimately have too much difficulty setting up while keeping thralls alive.
• I can have a scythe... but it's not well-supported and is actually just there for third action damage
• Most of the class's power is "invisible." This isn't a friendly class and you're unlikely to understand what's strong about a lot of these options without help. A reflavor pass on many of these focus spells could help emphasize Necromancer's area control and make the class more intuitive to play.
• Prepared spellcasting is difficult to begin with in this system, and prepared casting with only two slots sounds like a nightmare. I'm worried the casting side of the class is going to underperform unless you only prepare generic, always-useful spells. Your class options are good enough that this isn't as much of an issue as it could be, but I'm still a little worried.

Topic. I find this REALLY unclear atm.

Title. I was going crazy flipping around and made these. They're ugly, but they work.

Cleric

Sorc

Wiz

Hope they're useful to someone else.

Title. I'm kind of curious if the reason why so many classes have underwhelming class features in their earlier levels is the hidden power they got from the system changes. = /

Just something to tell your players, "buy this and move on with your lives."

Because god, I'd forgotten how tedious manually figuring out all the crap you need is.

By and large, I feel like a lot of the stuff the makes the game feel like 4e is just in the presentation -- old rules are being presented in a new format that LOOKS very 4e, when they're honestly mostly the same as they used to be.

For example, I think one of the single biggest culprits for it "feeling" like 4e is the way things that used to ride on top of other actions (like power attack was a part of an attack, or sneaking was a part of moving)are now their own individual actions (Power Attack action, Sneak action). Toss in the new formatting, and there you go! It looks a lot like 4e. New Power Attack? I'm just choosing which of these at-will powers I want to smack people with! Oh, Combat Grab. I can do this, or grab someone instead, or just strike normally! More at-wills. However -- and this is important -- it's still mainly just stuff you already did presented in a different way. When you understand that, a lot of the "this is 4e" facade melts away, imo.

The proficiency bonus scaling, though, that I understand as feeling very 4e. But I think that's about the only think that's actually similar between the two, at bottom. Most of the perceived similarities other than that are, well, just that -- only perceived, and not actually there.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/occultAdventures/spells/burstOfInsight.h tml

I've had a discussion with my GM over whether or not this should be usable with certain checks that require continuous interaction (namely, Diplomacy to to change attitude, Sense Motive to get a general hunch about the situation, and so on). They're predisposed to disallow using it with said kinds of checks, but I get the feeling the spell is a lot worse than intended if that's how the spell works.

In general, I feel like this also highlights a general vagueness with when you roll for the results of skill checks relative to when the action starts/ends (do you roll at the end of your 1 minute diplomacy interaction, or at the beginning?). I'd be curious about hearing an answer to both.

However, I want them to actually be in line with the other Obediences and Boons, and not ridiculous.

(For quick reference, Feronia is a Neutral Goddess with the domains of Destruction, Fire, Liberation, and Protection. Favored weapon is a bastard sword; areas of concern are fertility, sacred fires, and either wildfires or wildlife -- I'm seeing both, and while wildlife makes more sense to me given the derivation of the goddess and the redundancy with sacred fire, wildfire isn't that odd there, either.)

The reward for performing the obedience seems fairly straightforward; typically +4 on a specific kind of check, or +2 on two different checks. However, the Exalted boons are a different matter, since they balance A) for the PrC being mostly for full casters, B) take into account alignment and ability to heal, C) also take into account domain powers, and D) account for the earliest level you're likely to acquire them. For example, Asmodeus's exalted gets a delayed blast fireball (with damage properties like an unholy version of flamestrike) as their third boon, which is amazing... but you'll never be a healer as a cleric of Asmodeus, which allows the boons to be a lot stronger offensively and still be balanced. I'm having a hard time navigating all this to pick out boons that match the flavor of the goddess but aren't OP given her alignment, domains, and weapon. Something like a creature from Summon Nature's Ally VII might be a solid lock for the third boon, if one of her areas of concern is actually wildlife; that'd line up cleanly with the other third-tier boons. I've got no clue for the other two, though.

As per the build advice part:

I'm looking at this for a cleric that's doubling as a blaster for a party with no other full caster (arcane or divine) in a campaign that'll go to 17 or 18. She's a Human Theologian with the Fire domain, with the following stats:

STR 7

DEX 10
CON 10
INT 14
WIS 20
CHA 12

L1 feats are Spell Focus (Evocation) and Spell Specialization (Burning Hands); she does also have Magical Lineage (Fireball), and one campaign trait that doesn't do a whole lot for the build.

The character is still at level one right now, so things are fairly open in terms of where to go from here. I know the character's build will start falling off extremely hard around ten or twelve (if not earlier) if they level only in cleric, which is why I'm looking into having them prestige (probably starting at L7 instead of L5, so they can pick up fire resistance from their domain and not have awkward extra levels in cleric at the end of the campaign). They'll probably have to backseat and turn into more of a utility caster at that point regardless of whether they prestige or not, but I'm trying to make it easier on them.

Anyone have any advice on how to smooth out the build? Would going straight Theologian make more sense than prestiging -- that is, should she just stick to being a dazing fireball dispenser at higher levels, or do you think there's anything to be gained from picking up a PrC? Does the build benefit enough from heighten spell/preferred spell to just grab them at 3 and 5, respectively? Would having to pick up Deific Obedience and Skill Focus on this build be too much to make Exalted worth it? etc.

(Keep in mind, the build won't technically be optimal -- it's filling a niche it really shouldn't be forced to fill -- but I'm trying to do the best with what's available. Also, note that the campaign -won't- allow retraining.)

Thanks!

Mage's Sword states the following:

This spell brings into being a shimmering, sword-like plane of force. The sword strikes at any opponent within its range, as you desire, starting in the round that you cast the spell. The sword attacks its designated target once each round on your turn. Its attack bonus is equal to your caster level + your Intelligence bonus or your Charisma bonus (for wizards or sorcerers, respectively) with an additional +3 enhancement bonus. As a force effect, it can strike ethereal and incorporeal creatures. It deals 4d6+3 points of force damage, with a threat range of 19–20 and a critical multiplier of ×2.

So, what stat does an Arcanist use? I'd assume INT, since it's their casting stat, but I'd like a more definitive answer. Since the spell specifically lists that it uses INT for Wizards and CHA for Sorcerers (and Arcanist didn't exist when the spell was written), it's somewhat unclear.

I suppose I should also ask a related question -- if a Cleric uses Miracle to dupe Mage's Sword, do they choose whether to use INT or CHA? Do they get no bonuses, because they're neither a wizard nor a sorcerer? It's likewise unclear.

I apologize if this has been asked and answered before, but I couldn't find an answer in the FAQs. Thanks for your help!