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This is especially the case for the Oracle, for which tying each Mystery to a single Curse has greatly decreased tee diversity.
In the playtest it came out that this was a deliberate choice because in PF1 the curse was generally just chosen to be "whichever curse is not remotely inconvenient" so it didn't really feel like a curse and this is kind of a missed opportunity for flavor.
There's no saying that they won't come out with alternate curses for existing mysteries, but your curse from the life mystery is always going to have something to do with life, your curse from the flames mystery is always going to have something to do with flames, etc. and this is better I think.
^I think they actually had a very good thing going with the Pathfinder 1st Edition Oracle -- the old Oracle's Curses can be binned into groups that are not too far off from each other in power level (see this guide, and they just needed some rebalancing work to get them all into the same bin.
Here's another one you can't do yet in 2nd Edition: Skald. Again, it's the Moment of Clarity problem: You could go Bard multiclass Barbarian or Barbarian multiclass Bard, but your action economy will be just awful.
Yeah, but you can still make that class concept work. Having a barbarian core than can spend a full 3 actions to cast out buffs or what have you doesn't seem to be... Bad? I could be crazy, but it's serviceable.
Which PF1 Classes Are The Most Difficult to Adapt to PF2?
necromancers i guess? at least is what i feel so far
That's a feature, not a bug. The number (useful) of minions is intentionally limited as is there power.
Gone are the days of a necromancer/summoner character virtually replacing other party members.
I remember playing an evil campaign where one player was a necromancer, and I was an tyrant antipaladin. Now I had my schtick of debuffing and could deal competent damage. But the necromancer had an undead that had about as many hit point and dealt about the same damage. He basically covered 2/3 of my character from a single spell.
I'm still bitter about it at times.
Thankfully that's not a thing anymore.
Which PF1 Classes Are The Most Difficult to Adapt to PF2?
necromancers i guess? at least is what i feel so far
Claxon already answered the minion aspect of it, but in general you may want to clarify exactly what you mean by "necromancer." Because you can be a necromancer in game. There's several ways to do so in fact, though not every way that you could in PF1.
So if there's a specific combination of abilities that you are looking for, what are those abilities?
Typically when I see a complaint about necromancers, it's that they can't have a horde of undead minions.
Same reason that summoners are upset too.
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Sure. If I had to guess, I would say your assumption is correct.
But it's still better to actually state that plainly, so that any suggestions on sure to be on topic.
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Male human gentleman 4
LG Medium humanoid (human)
Init +4; Senses Perception +9 (5 in dim light)
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Defense
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AC 22, touch 19, flat-footed 18 (+3 armor, +4 Dex, +5 untyped bonus)
hp 60 (4d10+20)
Fort +8, Ref +5, Will +5
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft.
Melee +1 tactically adapted silver traveling kettle +9 (1d6+5) or sword cane +8 (1d6+4)
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Statistics
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Str 18, Dex 18, Con 18, Int 18, Wis 19, Cha 18
Base Atk +4; CMB +8; CMD 27 (25 vs. dirty trick)
Feats Cosmopolitan[APG], Drinking Buddy, Virtuous Creed (humility)
Traits extremely fashionable, monster stalker, wealthy dabbler
Skills Acrobatics +4, Appraise +8, Bluff +9, Climb +7, Craft (painting) +8, Diplomacy +13 (+15 vs. people from chosen country), Disable Device +5, Disguise +9, Escape Artist +8, Handle Animal +9, Heal +5, Intimidate +9 (+11 vs. people from chosen country), Knowledge (geography) +8, Knowledge (nobility) +8, Linguistics +11, Perception +9 (5 in dim light), Profession (sailor) +9, Ride +8, Sense Motive +9, Sleight of Hand +8, Stealth +8, Survival +9, Swim +8, Use Magic Device +6
Languages Common, Daemonic, Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Goblin, Halfling, Infernal, Orc, Sylvan, Worg
SQ after you, catchphrase, fancy clothes, naive, punchline, something dumb, strong convictions
Combat Gear potion of eagle's splendor (2); Other Gear parade armor[UE], +1 tactically adapted silver traveling kettle, sword cane[APG], ink (2), inkpen (2), journal[UE] (2), measuring cord (10 ft.) (2), paper (10), powder[APG] (2), scroll case, subversive vest[UI], thieves' tools, 5 gp
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Special Abilities
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After You (Ex) When roll init, can trade place with any allly which would go later.
Catchphrase (2d6) (Ex) As a standard action, ally in 30 ft gains d6s used as bonus on skill, save, or attack.
Drinking Buddy (1/day) Once a day, if drunk and within 10 ft. of drunk ally, can reroll on d20 roll as free action.
Fancy Clothes (Tuxedo) When appropriately attired, add both Dex and Cha mod to AC.
Naive -2 to AC vs. improvised weapons.
Punchline (1d4, 5/day, DC 16) (Ex) As a standard action, foe takes listed dam and -2 to att on next att before end of turn (Will neg).
Something Dumb (1/session) (Su) Can change one thing in the game which does not affect gameplay. Lasts until session end.
Strong Convictions (Ex) When crit fail Int/Wis check believe falsehood and can't be dissuaded.
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I'm happy to see "I get significantly more actions on my turn than the rest of the party combined" character concepts go away and not come back, TBH. It's conceivable that this is fun for your to play, but it's actively unfun for everybody else and this is a cooperative game.
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*looks at solo and duo campaigns*
Yes a cooperative game totally not one some people play one on one....
The game isn't designed around those campaigns, to the point where the guidelines for smaller parties recommend changing fundamental parts of assumed gameplay like giving each player separate multiple characters or using Dual-Classing to boost their versatility and strength considerably.
So, yes, a cooperative game.
I mean, some kind of "Undead companion" that builds off the basic minion framework wouldn't enable every necromancer concept, but it'd help out some of the fantasy and the framework already exists so it's not really a power thing.
Could even add a branching path for 'hoard' necromancers that gives you a swarm/troop style companion.
Oh, arcsage is back. Can't believe I didn't notice the lack of punctuation sooner.
I mean, some kind of "Undead companion" that builds off the basic minion framework wouldn't enable every necromancer concept, but it'd help out some of the fantasy and the framework already exists so it's not really a power thing.
Could even add a branching path for 'hoard' necromancers that gives you a swarm/troop style companion.
The Summoner is going to get an Undead option for the eidolon. I could definitely see some sort of Necromancer archetype that just gives you an undead companion with its dedication, too (possibly with a "ability to cast Animate Dead" requirement to keep it as a proper necromancer thing).
But I never want to see a single player controlling five units on the field ever again.
Oh, arcsage is back. Can't believe I didn't notice the lack of punctuation sooner.sorry i wrote it really fast on a mobile and had to edit multiple times
who is arcsage?
Someone with a similar posting style and is interested in playing almost identical character tropes, including specifically feuding with pharasma.
In any case,
stuff
I mean, simplest way to get this is to just play a cleric or witch. Though Necromancer wizards can get familiars, improved familiars even, and are capable of using the create undead ritual and using necromancy spells.
A lot of necromancy spells are going to remain on the divine list. That's a consequence to how they organized magic in PF2. I really don't think there will be any edits to the wizard class that breaks that. Archetypes might be written to do so, but I don't think they'll be exclusive to the wizard class.
The Summoner is going to get an Undead option for the eidolon. I could definitely see some sort of Necromancer archetype that just gives you an undead companion with its dedication, too (possibly with a "ability to cast Animate Dead" requirement to keep it as a proper necromancer thing).
But I never want to see a single player controlling five units on the field ever again.
The undead summoner option right now is a spirits of the dead kind. It doesn't really handle the desire for thuggish skeleton types all that well. Still, the chassis for it is certainly there.
As for "controlling five units ont eh field".... Technically, you can do better than that now (or at least soon). Create Undead limits you to 4 minions at a time. I've not seen that rule elsewhere, but it might exist, and in any case I don't see any real way to get more than 4 minions in play at once without using Create Undead itself. You also have your base character, and a summoner will give you an eidolon.
But what about actions? Well, if you invest a bit further, you can wind up with a summoner who has a familiar, Beastmaster, and two created undead. The familiar gets one action a turn when not commanded from the independent familiar trait, the beastmaster companion gets one action per turn when not commanded (stride or strike) from being mature, the built-in summoner flourish gives both you and your eidolon an action, and you still have two more for commanding both of your undead minions... so you *can* build a character that fields 6 units on the table, all of which have at least one action to work with. It's not necessarily a very effective build, but it can be done... and if you're a dhampir, you can even make them all undead.
Oh! and an important note about minions with respect to exploration turns: "If left unattended for long enough, typically 1 minute, mindless minions usually don’t act, animals follow their instincts, and sapient minions act how they please." So... they're basically only minions while you're ordering them to be minions. That leaves all *sorts* of interesting behaviors up as a matter of interpretation.
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I'm still waiting on the diabolist to be a thing again. I've taken a few shots at it, and no matter what I try, my witch-diabolist from PF1 hasn't proven very effective. Ritualist hasn't quite satisfied the original theme for me, unfortunately, as though the character was heavily invested in planar binding, her day-to-day activities were more focused around manipulating hellfire and other diabolic boons in concert with hexes.
Here's hoping Secrets of Magic can help with that.
I'm looking forward to if/when we get those evil options back, Diabolist, Souldrinker, Demoniac, though my expectations for them being in SoM are fairly low. Expressly evil stuff feels a bit too niche for this book, and I'd expect them to show up in a PF2E version of The Book of the Damned, instead.I'm still waiting on the diabolist to be a thing again. I've taken a few shots at it, and no matter what I try, my witch-diabolist from PF1 hasn't proven very effective. Ritualist hasn't quite satisfied the original theme for me, unfortunately, as though the character was heavily invested in planar binding, her day-to-day activities were more focused around manipulating hellfire and other diabolic boons in concert with hexes.
Here's hoping Secrets of Magic can help with that.
Heck, I'd take the equivalent of something like Evangelist/Exalted/Sentinel too. Someone supremely dedicated to a deity in a way that gets them magical powers, but in a different way from a cleric. I think that's something that could be plausible.
In PbP, having one or more characters controlling a horde of summons might not be such a bad thing, as long as it wasn't overpowered. Unless everybody tends to be on at the same time so that several turns can be played in a row (this can happen but is not necessarily the case), the nature of PbP tends to make the time used to control the horde of summons not be the limiting factor.
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In PbP, having one or more characters controlling a horde of summons might not be such a bad thing, as long as it wasn't overpowered. Unless everybody tends to be on at the same time so that several turns can be played in a row (this can happen but is not necessarily the case), the nature of PbP tends to make the time used to control the horde of summons not be the limiting factor.
Time was a factor with PF1 necromancers, but the bigger issue was simply using spells slots (not even every day) to create an creature that replaced 60% of my character.
The big hulking brute did have my special abilities but had HP/AC/attack/damage comparable to mine.
And that was only one minion.
The necromancer had flying invisible minions for scouting.
Minions focused on AOE.
It seemed like he had a minion for everything.
On top of all his spell slots and class features.
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I think that for many of the people that complain about not having the horde or undead, wont be satisfied by having a troop type undead that represents having multiple undead.
What they're really after is the options of versatility and strength that have multiple (different) kinds of undead offered, including the increased action economy. Stated different, they like that it was more powerful than what others could do.
Not that I want us to cater to them, but rather agreeing that some people wont be satisfied with such a solution, because it was never really about the undead but about the extra power.
I think that for many of the people that complain about not having the horde or undead, wont be satisfied by having a troop type undead that represents having multiple undead.
What they're really after is the options of versatility and strength that have multiple (different) kinds of undead offered, including the increased action economy. Stated different, they like that it was more powerful than what others could do.
Not that I want us to cater to them, but rather agreeing that some people wont be satisfied with such a solution, because it was never really about the undead but about the extra power.
It may be that some of the ones who were playing the minion army remember that and want it, but probably not all of them, and that's not what the ones that come in fresh want. The ones that coem in fresh want the idea of ordering around hordes of undead, and that it's the thing they do, and that it's awesome (just like everyone else has things they do, that are awesome). "Horde minion" isn't a bad start here, but "4 levels below you, at best, plus you have to spend a bunch of money for it" is kind of bad as a continuation.
Like, I personally would be interested in playing a skeleton/zombie master character, and a single sufficiently powerful horde minion might largely satisfy that, but I'd want it to be a case where the horde minion does most of the work (and, one way or another, consumes most of the build resources) and the "master" is mostly along for the ride and giving orders and whatnot.
So... what woudl it take to really give the feel? It seems like the summoner woudl be a good starting poitn, so let's look at that.
- First, the distribution of actions is good. The flourish that lets you default to 3 "eidolon" actions per one character action (or go 2/2 when needed) is jsut abotu right. The half-caster thign is also abotu right - gives you enough spells to throw a few buffs and assists here or there, but not enough to draw too much focus from the eidolon.
- The actual eidolons on offer (in the playtest) don't really work. We'd want divine tradition, and we'd want an eidolon that was explicitly undead. The first is easy enough. The second might take some tweaking, but is probably nto a problem. It's just that this is not currently on offer.
- Half the point of being an undead summoner is that your summons are a great big beefy meat shield tarpit between you and the enemy. Now, for obvious reasons this shouldn't go nearly as far here as it did back in PF1, but it still needs to be a thing. Unfortunately, this is where stuff breaks down. You could certainly get some decent tarpit effects out of the initial, symbiosis, and transcendence effects (if they were swapped out appropriately), but there's just no way under the current system to make them tanky enough that the enemy won't just tear through your mutual HP pool and keep going. The current eidolons are really *very* samey, and the feats to differentiate them (in this case, things like reinforce eidolon, hulking evolution, and Resilient Evolution) just don't seem to come online fast enough. I'm not looking for "better defender than a Champion" or anything, but I'd like to hit "It's a pain to walk around, and more trouble than it's worth to kill", and as far as I can tell by looking at it, that's not really on offer yet.
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What they're really after is the options of versatility and strength that have multiple (different) kinds of undead offered, including the increased action economy. Stated different, they like that it was more powerful than what others could do.
Can't we just structure that like the beastmaster archetype, where you can have however many kinds of animal companions, but only one of them participates in the current fight, but you can swap freely with a 1-minute action?
I think that for many of the people that complain about not having the horde or undead, wont be satisfied by having a troop type undead that represents having multiple undead.
What they're really after is the options of versatility and strength that have multiple (different) kinds of undead offered, including the increased action economy. Stated different, they like that it was more powerful than what others could do.
Not that I want us to cater to them, but rather agreeing that some people wont be satisfied with such a solution, because it was never really about the undead but about the extra power.
Aside from the idea of "multiple different kinds" of undead, it sounds like you could probably get really close to this with the Skeleton Infantry from Bestiary 3.
That Troop has melee and ranged attacks that take various uses of the action economy to determine damage, they can form a phalanx for protection and then charge in the phalanx.
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I think that for many of the people that complain about not having the horde or undead, wont be satisfied by having a troop type undead that represents having multiple undead.
What they're really after is the options of versatility and strength that have multiple (different) kinds of undead offered, including the increased action economy. Stated different, they like that it was more powerful than what others could do.
Not that I want us to cater to them, but rather agreeing that some people wont be satisfied with such a solution, because it was never really about the undead but about the extra power.
It may be that some of the ones who were playing the minion army remember that and want it, but probably not all of them, and that's not what the ones that come in fresh want. The ones that coem in fresh want the idea of ordering around hordes of undead, and that it's the thing they do, and that it's awesome (just like everyone else has things they do, that are awesome). "Horde minion" isn't a bad start here, but "4 levels below you, at best, plus you have to spend a bunch of money for it" is kind of bad as a continuation.
Like, I personally would be interested in playing a skeleton/zombie master character, and a single sufficiently powerful horde minion might largely satisfy that, but I'd want it to be a case where the horde minion does most of the work (and, one way or another, consumes most of the build resources) and the "master" is mostly along for the ride and giving orders and whatnot.
So... what woudl it take to really give the feel? It seems like the summoner woudl be a good starting poitn, so let's look at that.
- First, the distribution of actions is good. The flourish that lets you default to 3 "eidolon" actions per one character action (or go 2/2 when needed) is jsut abotu right. The half-caster thign is also abotu right - gives you enough spells to throw a few buffs and assists here or there, but not enough to draw too much focus from the eidolon....
I think the path that you're traveling down has the most merit to a potential future necromancer focused character, ignoring the desires of people who are in it for the horde of action economy and versatility.
What they're really after is the options of versatility and strength that have multiple (different) kinds of undead offered, including the increased action economy. Stated different, they like that it was more powerful than what others could do.Can't we just structure that like the beastmaster archetype, where you can have however many kinds of animal companions, but only one of them participates in the current fight, but you can swap freely with a 1-minute action?
I don't believe that would satisfy them. Having multiple pets that you can't use at the same time would be deeply dissatisfying to someone who liked PF1 undead, I think. Again, I'm thinking of the last game I played where the other player had a scout undead, a hulk undead, and AoE undead on the field at the same time.
I think that for many of the people that complain about not having the horde or undead, wont be satisfied by having a troop type undead that represents having multiple undead.
What they're really after is the options of versatility and strength that have multiple (different) kinds of undead offered, including the increased action economy. Stated different, they like that it was more powerful than what others could do.
Not that I want us to cater to them, but rather agreeing that some people wont be satisfied with such a solution, because it was never really about the undead but about the extra power.
Aside from the idea of "multiple different kinds" of undead, it sounds like you could probably get really close to this with the Skeleton Infantry from Bestiary 3.
That Troop has melee and ranged attacks that take various uses of the action economy to determine damage, they can form a phalanx for protection and then charge in the phalanx.
I'm doubtful. Part of the appeal of Undead in PF1 was to be able to do everything at once. The options you're referring to are just different kinds of damage dealing. It's not really options like like having an a tiny flying invisible eyeball scout and having undead with supernatural abilities that can do a myriad of things for the party or against the enemy.
The real problem was once you got to higher levels and weren't restricted to zombies and skeletons, you could make undead and basically poach abilities from monsters to use at your whim. And it simply wasn't balanced.
A high level necromancer in PF1 was essentially a 1 character party.
To clarify on my end, I'm fine with things as they are now. I don't want to try to satisfy those people.
You can't easily design a game system really designed for group play and individual play at the same time, and you don't want to aim it at the outliers. That's unfortunate when someone is _among_ the outliers, but if you've got to fail some set of play approaches, those are the ones to fail.*looks at solo and duo campaigns*
Yes a cooperative game totally not one some people play one on one....
I play PF2 as both duo and solo all the time; more often than I go properly. PF2 works really well it, and the guidelines to doing so are in the CRB and GMG (though it is level +3, not +2; +2 is if you also have dual class).
I'm not sure "team of cool creatures" jives with a team based, strategy combat game. Troop summons with whatever caveats are necessary would be perfect for the horde minionmancer though
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If I wanted "a minion for every situation" I'd rather theme it as a protean style minion that can just change to do what it needs to do than something spooky.
When the Advanced Class Guide first came out, I worked on a verminous hunter/feral hunter cross who called upon the insect world to give himself the vermin boosts and picked spells that both fit the theme and were more long lasting buffs (ant haul, endure elements and so on.) I have no idea on how to do him in PF2. Maybe fighter with a shifter dedication when it is available?
When the Advanced Class Guide first came out, I worked on a verminous hunter/feral hunter cross who called upon the insect world to give himself the vermin boosts and picked spells that both fit the theme and were more long lasting buffs (ant haul, endure elements and so on.) I have no idea on how to do him in PF2. Maybe fighter with a shifter dedication when it is available?
I'm not sure that that one was fully rules-legal in the first place.
- you both alter and lose your animal companion- you alter and replace animal focus
Still, I can see how it would work, more or less. So...
- base is split between martial and caster. That's a problem from the beginning, here.
- vermin-related buffs, that cause you to take on the appearance of an insect/arachnid/whatever
- special protection against vermin
- augmented creature summoning - probably of vermin. At high enough level, you get more of them, and they work together with you better.
Crunch-wise, a lot of this is stuff that doesn't happen in PF2 (yet). For example, if there were a currently available way to buff summoning spells, it would be a druid feat. There is no such druid feat (though the 6th level druid feat Insect Shape might be interesting to you). Other than that, it sounds like the thing you want might be similar to a synthesis summoner... and if druid isn't getting summoning spell feats, then summoner is the only place left that might.
Still, shy of that... yeah. If we had a clearer idea of exactly what made the concept go for you we might be able to help out a bit better, but it's true that it doesn't look like you'll be able to get exactly what you're looking for.
Crunch-wise it was the verminous hunter that started with the companion already dead. I was going to talk to the GM to see if I could swap out the teamwork feats and summon animal spells for something else but was ok if it wasn’t allowed. I was uninterested in summoning animals really.
Fluff-wise I pictured him as a warrior who was linked to the world of vermin, internalizing the blessings of the insects to make him a better survivor.
Never got a chance to play him.
Crunch-wise it was the verminous hunter that started with the companion already dead. I was going to talk to the GM to see if I could swap out the teamwork feats and summon animal spells for something else but was ok if it wasn’t allowed. I was uninterested in summoning animals really.
Fluff-wise I pictured him as a warrior who was linked to the world of vermin, internalizing the blessings of the insects to make him a better survivor.
Never got a chance to play him.
Huh. Well, Perpdepog's Crabzerker idea would probably fit this okay. Go with the "Ape" stats, except call it "crab" and make it slashing rather than bashing, then take thematically appropriate feats. It's even got the grapple built right in. On general, though, the whole "I'm in tune with vermin, and gain power thereby" sounds like an Archetype more than anything else. You'd need to homebrew that - something like "verminfriend" - but homebrewing a balanced archetype is a lot easier than homebrewing a balanced class.
I wonder if a summoner that focuses on summoning an undead monstrosity/horde for itself could be viable at some point.
A lot of ways to implement a Medium.
A Medium could even just be a class that gets a multiclass archetype that they can swap on a daily basis.
A lot of ways to implement a Medium.
A Medium could even just be a class that gets a multiclass archetype that they can swap on a daily basis.
I have a homebrew that does exactly that on the homebrew forum.
I’ll revise it eventually, but I’ve been busy with work.