kwodo's page

I do like the idea of chaining stuff between yourself and your thralls (my initial incorrect reading of bone spear was that the line was from the thrall to yourself and i liked that idea). it would make positioning the thralls an even more fun tactical minigame

Oracle doesn't have this specific feature, but it has the same problem with its own features, specifically the Bones Curse and Nudge the Scales. Anything that tries to change how void and vitality damage impact things without also changing the targeting doesn't really work properly, because you get into situations where "I can be harmed by vitality damage but nothing that does vitality damage considers me a legal target so this doesn't actually do anything". Or "I'm now healed by Harm but Harm doesn't heal me because I'm not Undead".

Or in Master of Life and Death: "I should be able to cast Void Warp on this creature and harm it despite it's void damage immunity since it takes vitality damage, but it's undead so I can't target it at all."

The root cause of those problems is the same: effects that specifically target living/undead place such tight restrictions on usage that an ability like this that wants to bypass the damage type limitations doesn't work because the targeting restrictions block it.

Wouldn't the easy fix just be to errata stuff that targets a "living creature" and "undead creature" to instead be "creature with vitality healing" and "creature with void healing"?

of all casters, why would necromancer be pick-a-list? the three pick-a-list classes we do have (sorcerer, witch, summoner) are that way because the source of magic can vary wildly in its nature (inherited bloodline, pact with a powerful entity, summoned extraplanar entity). Necromancer does not have this variety of sources (it's just undead, you summon spooky gross corpses) and forcing pick-a-list makes as much sense on it as it would on wizard or an oracle. yeah you can kinda ramshackle a justification, but it doesn't feel natural for the class.

Thanks a lot for this experience, I love to see how things work in actual play instead of a white room.

It sure was rough for the necro with the constant AOE damage.

Also, I have a question: why did the necro never use Inevitable Return ? Did he already have enough thralls for all his needs ?

Good question! given a wide scale AoE, the player decided to save their reaction as the 2 Thralls conjured per Create Thrall were enough to fuel their grave spells when they did decide to use them.

I do want to run another encounter soon without such a board wipe AoE (I honestly missed it when I picked Valkyrie as one of the enemies) to see how the Necromancer does when they can build up a steady supply of Thralls over a couple of rounds

Honestly I really like how the dirge is a bit vague, gives me a lot of wiggle room for how to interpret it. For example for my Necromancer I had it be the notes for the song that played during Urgathoa's last party carved onto her heart that changed her heartbeat into an eerie echo of that melody and lent her necromantic power.

INTRO

As part of the playtest, I ran a level 10 Severe threat combat with a party that included a Necromancer. We ran into a couple of things that require clarification with the class, so I have decided to post the play-by-play here. I've also switched my wizard in a campaign I'm in to be a Necromancer so that will give me some experience with the class at low levels (we're halfway through level 1 there).

THE PARTY (LVL 10):

Farron (human ranged Fighter - investigator archetype)

Bathen (skeleton dragon Barbarian - wrestler & martial artist archetypes)

Cheliax's Wrath (hobgoblin obedience Champion - hellknight archetype)

Nadya (human dhampir bone shaper Necromancer - herbalist archetype)

1 - Bone Spear, 1 - Reach of the Dead (Natural Ambition), 2 - Necrotic Bomb, 4 - Zombie Horde, 6 - Bone Burst, 8 - Reclaim Power, 10 - Muscle Barrier

ENCOUNTER DETAILS - Severe 120 XP:

Valkyrie (Valk) LVL 12

Captain of the Guard (CotG) LVL 6

Priest of Pharasma (PoP) LVL 6

Abrasive Monster Hunter (MHA) LVL 6

Brutal Monster Hunter (MHB) LVL 6

The party, by now an infamous band of ne'er-do-wells, have come to the hidden port of Plaeis'naim to retrieve the MacGuffin Orb that has recently been 'liberated' from its resting place in a hidden puzzle-filled tomb by two mercenaries. The party tracked the mercenaries to the port, where they find them delivering the orb to three representatives of the Sons of Pharasma, the party's sworn enemies. Now the party has decided to send the Sons of Pharasma a message by slaughtering them all and securing the MacGuffin Orb!

ROUND 1 TAKEAWAYS:

Create Thrall and Bone Spear both interacting with MAP is not too big of a deal when facing much lower level enemies like this. However, the Necromancer was immediately concerned with the Valkyrie's massive AoE with Storm of Battle, a repeatable 100-foot burst like that is a pretty hard counter to her Thralls when used as it will automatically wipe ALL of them off the map.

ROUND 2 TAKEAWAYS:

This round raised the question of if the Necromancer receives the status bonus from Bless on the Create Thrall attack if the Thrall is outside of Bless's range. I ruled that it does, but I could be convinced that it doesn't as the Thrall is the one making the attack? I would appreciate some clarification there.

Another sticking point was regarding the DC for a Recall Knowledge against the Thralls. Does it use a Level-Based DC for Level -1 (what would that even be? the table starts at 0) as that's the Thralls' stated level? Does it use the Level-Based DC for the Necromancer themselves? If so, does it use the Level-Based DC for the Necromancer's level (DC27) or for the Spell Rank of Create Thrall (DC26)? All this results in a range possible DCs ranging from 13 to 27. which is a massive difference. In the end I just decided to have it autosucceed, but clarification is definitely required here.

ROUND 3 TAKEAWAYS:

Nothing to say for this round.

ROUND 4 TAKEAWAYS:

Nothing to say for this round.

ROUND 5 TAKEAWAYS:

Nothing to say for this round.

ROUND 6 TAKEAWAYS:

Nothing to say for this round.

COMBAT WRAP UP:

After a tough combat, the threat has been dealt with. The nefarious party claims their prize and whisks the MacGuffin Orb away to their evil headquarters. Another victory for the vile villains!

I have them dig their way out of the ground, but i love the offscreen idea

PossibleCabbage wrote:

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.

We know. Please realize that that isn't going to happen. The thralls are the core mechanic they're playtesting, they're as likely to throw it out as they would Elemental Blast on the Kineticist or Rage on the Barbarian.

Here's a thought. Perhaps thralls differ based on the type summoned and thus feel more mechanically useful and varied.

When you create thrall you get the initial choice of:

Skeleton - attacks when summoned
Flesh - attempts to grab when summoned
Ghost - attempts to intimidate when summoned

All would use your SA modifier and all would then be treated exactly the same after the initial roll. All of these things are things any PC can do from lvl 1 so I don't see it as OP, but it would make for some cool variety and make my thralls feel special.

If thos is too strong by some accounts, perhaps that is based on the initial Grim Facination you choose and then there are level 1 feats you can get to add the other choices.

with those I can see an issue with Ghost not interacting with MAP like the other two and, if using Demoralize rules, each creature targeted would then be immune for 10 mins

ElementalofCuteness wrote:

I am intrigued by the fact they don't get any feats to allow them to pick up an Undead Companion unlike Ranger and Druid with animal companions. This would be very thematic to have a sub-class that instead of granting a General Feat or a Necromancer Grave Spell let you start with an Undead Companion.

I agree with others that Undead Master already fills this niche somewhat, but an idea for such a subclass might be an action compressor that allows you to cast Create Thrall and Command your companion as a single action? If that would be too powerful maybe casting it this way could omit the usual free attack from Create Thrall as a balancing factor. This would help alleviate the action economy friction of thralls and companions.

Come to think of it, maybe this theoretical action could allow for Create Thrall + Command Companion OR Sustain a Summon Spell, seeing as spells like Summon Undead are incredibly thematic for Necromancer, but tough to fit into their action economy.

I am intrigued by the fact they don't get any feats to allow them to pick up an Undead Companion unlike Ranger and Druid with animal companions. This would be very thematic to have a sub-class that instead of granting a General Feat or a Necromancer Grave Spell let you start with an Undead Companion.

I agree with others that Undead Master already fills this niche somewhat, but an idea for such a subclass might be an action compressor that allows you to cast Create Thrall and Command your companion as a single action? If that would be too powerful maybe casting it this way could omit the usual free attack from Create Thrall as a balancing factor. This would help alleviate the action economy friction of thralls and companions.

But the point is that, for a Necromancer akin to Guild Wars, or any dark fantasy involving slaying foes and raising them to fight their own friends, this playtest Necromancer completely fails. And that should at least be acknowledged, whether or not that is important to you.

Is this not what Inevitable Return does? The ability could (and should imo) definitely be expanded, but it is there and I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned at all in this post.

kwodo wrote:

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.

I think we disagree not only on what this class should be, but on what is fun to play in a TTRPG on such a fundamental level that further discussion is pointless.

*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?

kwodo wrote:

Tremaine wrote:

kwodo wrote:

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.

I don't think anything remotely playable is going to satisfy you then

After the first encounter or two of the day, should be plenty of bodies lying around, just summon some and torture some spirits into them and off we go.

...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.

kwodo wrote:

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.

I don't think anything remotely playable is going to satisfy you then

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

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.

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.

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?

What about these are "corpses", though? A corpse is literally by definition "a dead body". We're not using dead bodies or dealing with any dependence on access to such things.

We're simply summoning something into existence out of nothing and calling it a corpse. Can it really be "a dead body" if it was never alive in the first place? Does it being described as being in the shape of a corpse actually give any kind of feeling of necromancy if you're not doing anything with actual corpses at all and it makes no difference if there isn't a corpse within 50 miles?

I don't think so. The believability of this whole concept isn't great, and its clear I'm not the only one that is having problems with it. It feels more like a summoner than a necromancer. Where's the necromancy?

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.

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.

I mean, the "pokey obstacles" *are* undead that you are raising so your comparison really isn't remotely equivalent. Wanting the thralls to be able to do more and reflect undead more makes sense but don't act like a class all about summoning disposable corpses is a complete mismatch for the name "Necromancer".

yeah in general these kinds of feats seem pointless

very nice write up!

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

Did they get rid of the evil alignment requirement for this though?

Well, with the remaster Evil alignment isn't a thing anymore, right? Might be changed to Unholy requirement instead but I don't think Paizo has commented on it at all yet.

Also, NO, a level 12 rare feat is not better than a level 20 feat, even a flavor one, because a level 12 rare feat is functionally a non-existent feat. Seriously, do people in this forum play with GMs who allow everything?

I do, yeah. Our table basically ignores rarity altogether.

I think all necros should get one universal focus spell at level 1, in addition to the one of their subclass. Since many players seem disappointed with the passive nature of their thralls, giving everyone a focus spell that does something like let a thrall Stride and attack an enemy in some manner seems like a good way to kill two birds with one stone.

absolutely agreed, i'm swapping my wizard to be a necromancer and i want to summon skeletons but Bone Spear is just... terrible? i don't want to be in melee and 2A+1FP+MAP for 1d8 instead of 1A+MAP 1d6 that Create Thrall does just kinda seem terrible on paper. maybe i'm missing something but it'd be great to get another thing to use my only focus point on before i'm kinda pigeonholed into grabbing necrotic bomb at lvl 2

Maybe you can create one or two thralls adjcent to you when rolling initiative, similar to how barbarians can Rage. That would at least help a bit.

i do think an ability along these lines would be some nice QoL

i don't necessarily agree with all of your post, but more interactions with undead that aren't your thralls would be nice. i'm thinking something along the lines of what Kineticist can do with Elementals like Extract Element and Command Elemental, nothing necessarily groundbreaking but more stuff that reinforces you as a proper necromancer

Now that you mention it, I can't seem to find anythint that suggest bravado has downsides. I know I must have heard or read something along those lines to assume it was like that.

I think you may have read someone theorizing that all Bravado actions would function kinda like After You, despite that not being explicitly said on stream. I remember reading something along those lines too.

Intercept Strike: This is where we get juicy. Change intercept strike's trigger to 'An adjacent ally takes damage or an adjacent enemy deal damage to an ally'.

oh I really like this both thematically and because Intercept would no longer discourage flanking

Finally got to playtest the Guardian with a level 10 (Warpriest, Guardian, Barbarian, Commander) combat against a pair of Stone Giants and a Great Cyclops

For most of the combat, the Guardian was planted in a choke-point between two large rock formations adjacent to the Warpriest, soaking damage and effectively being a wall the enemies had to deal with. This forced the Great Cyclops to burn actions climbing over the rock formation the PCs were hiding behind (as it was Huge and couldn't squeeze through elsewhere) and one of the Stone Giants wasted theirs going around, forcing it into a 1v1 with the Wrestler Barbarian, which ended poorly for it. The Commander hung back and mostly just spammed Set-Up Strike (shortbow) and Strike Hard!. By the time the Great Cyclops got over and engaged the party in melee, both of its Stone Giant lackeys were effectively dead already, resulting in the Warpriest, Guardian and Barbarian ganging up on it while the Commander shouted commands from just outside its range.

My main takeaway for the Guardian is that it felt way better in practice than i thought it would (Quick Intercept resulting in Intercept Strike + Shield Block, meant a potent reduction in damage which felt really cool to pull off). However the big issue is that the Guardian doesn't really have much to do on its own turn (most turns were just Raise a Shield, Strike, Step/Strike again) and these dry turns were very contrasted by the Warpriest the Guardian was adjacent to the whole combat. The Warpriest out-damaged the Guardian for most of the combat (even when the Guardian swapped to 2handing his bastard sword after his shield broke halfway through the combat) and on top of that was throwing out 5th Rank Heals, Blesses, 3rd Rank Fears, Heroisms etc.. It really made the Guardian feel anemic in comparison despite the amount of damage he was soaking.

Taunt came up twice the entire entire combat, both times it was used to debuff an enemy that was already engaged with the Barbarian, which made it feel less like a proper taunt and more like a variation of demoralize. Though it did feel good when the Stone Giant rolled a 1 and got a -3 to its Escape checks (they were unarmed melee strikes, so I'm assuming they were supposed to apply) against the Barbarian's astronomical Athletics DC to escape grapples.

In conclusion, I do think the Guardian solidly has its place in the roster of classes of PF2e and it does feel cool to protect your allies and eat all their damage, allowing them to finish the fight virtually unscathed. However, I feel like the Guardian simply needs more sauce. As is, it's a very reactive playstyle that lacks ways to meaningfully contribute on its own turns. I'd love if it had more mobility options to allow them to protect more than just one ally at a time and maybe more enemy debuffs could help to draw aggro to the Guardian as a consistent annoyance that the enemies actually WANT to get rid of.

EDIT 1: spelling
EDIT 2: Threat Technique, Guardian Armor and Tough to Kill were such non-features that didn't come into play at all that I forgot to even mention them. Oops, lol.

I don't get why some tactics have the Banner trait and others don't.

Yeah same, whether or not any given feat does or does not have the banner trait feels very arbitrary and I can't really spot any pattern to it.

To use an ability that has the banner trait, you must be holding your banner in one hand or wielding a weapon it is attached to.

I'll be honest, I completely missed that Plant Banner shut off everything with the Banner trait, but you're so right. Plant already had the glaring vulnerability of allowing enemies to steal your banner as a single action with no check (since it's an unattended object now), but with this on top I really don't know if the Temp HP and extra aura range is worth it.

There's a level 2 feat for that in the playtest

SHIELDING TAUNT [one-action] FEAT 2

FLOURISH, GUARDIAN
Requirements You are wearing a shield.
By banging loudly on your shield, you get the attention of even the most stubborn of foes. Raise a Shield and then Taunt a creature. Your Taunt gains the auditory trait, and the target takes a –1 circumstance penalty to their save.

It feels like the danger of going down is very real for the Guardian. Makes me wonder why it isn't a 12 HP class when taking damage is its primary purpose.

Why doesn't the Guardian get something decent like DEFENSIVE SWAP instead?

It is kinda baffling that the Commander gets access to a near straight upgrade to one of the Guardian's key features. Definitely an odd choice.

I definitely agree that this feature should be expanded upon. It's probably the easiest avenue for differentiating the Guardian from other classes, which I feel the class could absolutely benefit from.

I do kind of agree that the Guardian could use more sauce to make it stand out more. As is it kinda feels like a Fighter/Champion hybrid class like they used to do in 1e, which has been pointed out already in this thread.

Combat Medic, Deceptive Tactics, Plant Banner, and Rapid Assessment all open up some interesting Archetype combos for Wizard and Witch. They're all L1 or L2 feats (rather than tactics, like the swim and climb switches), so they will be almost immediately available to anyone taking the class archetype.

see now the "Requirements You can prepare at least two tactics." on Combat Medic makes me think that they thought of this and the Commander archetype will only let you prepare one, thus locking those feats to Commander and Commander alone unless a higher level feat in the archetype lets you prepare a second tactic.

Is the banner required to be on hand? Cant you mount it on your armor like the woman image in the playtest page?

More specifically, you are supposed to be a 1-handed martial, like the thaumaturge? Or you are supposed to rely on plant banner to use 2-handed weapons?

Speaking of which, what are the statistics for the banner, object wise? Suppose someone fireball the square with the banner, for example. It's just destroyed?

I agree that we should have something stats-wise for the banner since it's so important to the class functioning. The Thaumaturge's Esoterica trait works the same way, but there it's easier to justify not having specific stats as it represents a menagerie of trinkets and baubles as opposed to a single tangible banner that can be planted or stolen.

A quick question about the reactions given by the various tactics - are these EXTRA reactions, or does a squadmate have to decide to use them vs. whatever reaction(s) they already have?

I'm guessing the latter, but would like confirmation.

Your squadmates need to use their own reactions, yes. Though the 1/round Drilled Reactions class feature lets you give one of your affected squadmates a bonus reaction that can only be used for tactics.

That doesn't mean they cant exemplify a PC build or adventuring concept—far from it! In fact, NPCs like Irabeth are a great way for us to build representation into the game and to explore in-world stories for people that we, as the creators of the adventures you play, can't do. They (or perhaps the gods) are the closes we can get to publishing details about the "main characters" of an adventure.

Out of curiosity, would this mean that if Irabeth shows up again in an Adventure Path for whatever reason, she'd be a Guardian instead of a Paladin? (or a Guardian-like character since NPCs are built differently from PCs)

we shifted this one a little bit earlier in the cycle which means that our text production is a bit ahead of art at the moment.

Ahh, that explains it. Appreciate the quick response!

To expand a bit on Michael's response—we won't "promote" an established NPC to the status of iconic, because an iconic's story is flexible. They're stand-ins for your PCs in the art we publish.

That also makes sense. Got a bit ahead of myself when I was skimming through the doc and vocally shouted "IRABETH???" on the bus since I was so surprised lol. Likewise appreciate the response!

I got really excited thinking that Irabeth was being promoted to Iconic since she's the art used alongside the Guardian rules, but it seems like that's just placeholder art? Previous playtests have included sketches/pencils of their relevant Iconics alongside a blurb that gave some info about them, which is noticeably absent in this playtest doc.

I do love the idea of Exemplar being the simple weapon class that can bring them in line with martial weapons and do cool stuff with them. It really fits the theme of reaching mythical status while coming from simplicity.

I feel this is a bit of a straw man, because so far I'm seeing only one person even remotely looking like they're defending the Animist's current spell slot implementation. The general consensus appears to be that the current stacking of different types of spell slots is cumbersome and could do with a change, but I don't think that automatically means we need to switch to flexible spellcasting, or abandon the hybrid casting model without looking for alternative means of implementing it.

Personally, I find the way Animist currently mixes both prepared and spontaneous slots to be pretty fun and I wouldn't mind it sticking around to release. Plus it's no more complicated than a Wizard taking the Psychic archetype (so long as you have your Apparition entries on-hand, which why wouldn't you?).

Just to reiterate the above: if the Animist had the standard 3 slots per level as a prepared divine caster, but then could have apparition spells override those prepared spell slots and use them for spontaneous casting, you'd genuinely have the best of both worlds.

Isn't this effectively what 1E Cleric had in place of Divine Font? Being able to cast a Cure Wounds in place of your prepared spells using their slots? That could be an interesting way to go about it.

Lanni Talimbi wrote:

And you cannot literally change in and out of Garden of Healing with a single action or a refocus if you didn't attune to Custodian of Groves and Gardens that morning.

You can if you are channeler, which at least as per the playtest rules is the one that you will likely be going to play as I don't see much reason to play sage honestly.

No you can't, Apparition's Whirl only let's you switch which of the Apparitions you attuned to that morning is your primary one (thus letting you use it's vessel spell). If you didn't attune to the Custodian of Groves and Gardens as one of your 2 (or 3/4 at higher levels) during daily prep, then you cannot use Garden of Healing.

I fully expect the Animist archetype to give you access to only a single generic apparition with its own unique (and weaker) vessel spell (think the Swashbuckler archetype's Basic Finisher). There's no way they'll allow martial to get their hands on Embodiment of Battle's vessel spell.

someone on the subreddit has started compiling errors, designer clarifications, etc. in a google doc