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I have a theory that because of how many Necromancers have had an impact on Golarion.
Tar-Baphon the Whispering Tyrant
Geb the Ghost King
Zutha the Runelord of Gluttony
Just to name a few, I feel like in the same vein that the Elementalist archtype and Elemental spelllist were made in SoM and then expanded in RoE.
That that may be a way they can do the Necromancer. A while back one of the designers (I don't remember which one or which thread) posted that they had considered making Necromancy a 5th Tradition of Magic.
I prefer the 4 Traditions myself but I do like that Elementalism has its own list and I feel that Necromancy deserves the same .
What are your thoughts?
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Necromancy as a 5th tradition sounds interesting but not sure how that would be implemented but I'd be all for new necromantic spells to fill a 5th tradition of magic.
Probably easier to create a list like the Elementalism and expand on it, that way any caster could easily take an archetype to fulfil the necromancer flavor. If something came out that had a necromancer list, maybe whatever Blood Magic was could somehow relate to or even be expanded on to create a Necromancer archetype.
Would be nice to see a melee option for those who want that death knight fantasy as well.
I think the Necromancer is easier than the Elementalist. You have an Necromancer Dedication, Requirements spellcasting class feature and spell list with Animate Dead. One of the feats adds the standard necromancy spells to their list like Harm or similar affects. No need for a full new spell list.
I'm also in the "make it an archetype" camp. Mark Seifter also mentioned in the remaster preview stream that the wizard not having a "necromancer" means a whole class could be made, but I think this is not interesting enough for a class. I would prefer either an archetype, or an alternate class to the wizard not unlike the ninja, samurai and antipaladin in 1e. Basically if you choose the necromancer class you are still a wizard insofar as you can't MCD into wizard, and get access to a feat list and class abilities more dedicated to a necromancer. I would be cool with illusionist being one of these too
I don't really see the use of a separate class/archetype, especially with the remaster doing away with schools. Basically, the Wizard school filled that niche. The only difference this would make is that it would allow non-Wizards to choose it.
Besides, with spell schools disappearing, specifically re-creating one seems counterintuitive. I mean, you could do the same with an Illusionist tradition, and so on. I think I read somewhere that in theory they could create a class named the Necromancer now if they wanted to. That seems doable, but you'd need to create feats around it to work. Just a spell list would be way too limiting.
I'm not sure if they have enough meat on their bones to fill an entire tradition. The whole idea of the Elementalist is that it pulls from all spell lists to mix-and-match their own tradition, but I'm not sure if that's true for a Necromancer. Would it just have access to all Necromancy spells, or just the undead-related ones? In case of the second, it'd be way too narrow. There's a reason Wizards got an extra slot per level dedicated to their own school: that's their specialisation reward. The other slots were meant to be filled with other stuff to prevent you from going all-in. Say you're an Illusionist and fill all your slots with enchantment spells. You go into a dungeon full of mindless stuff. In that case, you're absolutely screwed. If it's the former, I still don't see why a specific class would exist for it. Basically any spellcaster can become a "-mancer" class if they pick the right spells. But as I said before, without actual class support they'd feel too shallow to be enjoyable.
I wouldn't want a kineticist-style necromancer... or not exactly. It doesn't fit the theme right. Like, a necromancer is supposed to be out there creating undead, creating zones for undead to thrive in, and so forth. They're supposed to be doing big chunky things that last a day or longer. If a low-level necromancer wants to go to a graveyard to raise skeletons, they should be able to do that. They should be able to raise a skeleton or two or three and then have them stick around for a while - possibly indefinitely with sufficient care and attention. At the same time, they shouldn't be able to raise the entire graveyard.
A necromancer should be a minion class. Create minions, control minions, buff and repair minions, occasionally unleash them as uncontrolled monsters on hapless villagers and then go create new minions. I'm not a huge fan of the spell slot system, but it seems like spell slots would be a better/easier way to describe this sort of setup than anything like the kineticist "I can do this all day" schtick.
Of course, this is PF2, and minions aren't amazing, and summon spells are even less amazing. I don't have an answer for that. People want "necromancer" to be its own awesome thing. That's fair, and I don't really have an answer for that, either. I'm just pretty sure that "kineticist, but necromancy" isn't it.
But if you were going to run a necromancer, what would you want it to look like? How would you want it to play? What should a level 1 necromancer look like? What should a level 20 necromancer look like? Start with that, I think, and work from there.
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I really liked the idea floated for a Wizard subclass themed after Ustalav who focused on necromancy and lightning.
What are your thoughts?
Necromancy as an entire tradition makes no sense to me whatsoever because of how narrow it is. That would be like saying that conjuration is an entire tradition.
(That being said I also don't like that wizards will no longer specialize in specific schools of magic and I don't like that there are even 4 different 'traditions')
I really liked the idea floated for a Wizard subclass themed after Ustalav who focused on necromancy and lightning.
You could easily do that with the new Wizard Colleges they are introducing. Instead of just straight necromancy, you can have spells that focus on controlling/fighting undead.
A Necromancer Archetype would give access to off-list spells and feats that improve your ability to raise/control undead minions. The archetypes from Book of the Dead are a good guidepost.
I really liked the idea floated for a Wizard subclass themed after Ustalav who focused on necromancy and lightning.You could easily do that with the new Wizard Colleges they are introducing. Instead of just straight necromancy, you can have spells that focus on controlling/fighting undead.
A Necromancer Archetype would give access to off-list spells and feats that improve your ability to raise/control undead minions. The archetypes from Book of the Dead are a good guidepost.
It was proposed as a College in a PaizoCon stream, yes - that's what I was alluding to.
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I feel like the Reanimator archetype's gimmick of using fresh corpses for Animate Dead is already a pretty solid baseline for how necromancers should work - as always, assuming summon spells are improved with the remaster. I don't see why you would need an entirely new, separate necromancer archetype rather than simply continuing to expand on the existing one.
Okay - So bear with me here.
Let's say we have an all day every day necromancer... but they cast spells utilizing their companions life pool. They get access to multiple companions (3). They can use their actions to move or attack with their companions. Whenever they use one of their abilities, their companion strikes as a free action. Their abilities drain HP from their companions per usage of the spell. They get a focus spell that brings back all their companions to full life.
That last one feels way too strong. Might work better if they could reassemble and repair their companions over the course of a ten-minute rest?
Really, I think this is trying to solve two different problems, and they kind of lead in different directions. The first problem is that we don't yet have a satisfying minion necro. I still say that that's something that could work off of the summoner chassis, if we could just get a "and now your eidolon is a troop" feat and/or feat chain. I mean, it's true that the actual level of undeadness of the undead eidolon is a bit disappointing, but this is PF2. Undead PC options are a bit disappointing in that way. That's just how it is.
Regardless, the summoner is the chassis we currently have for "my built-in permanent allies are a big chunk of my build budget", and I don't see enough space between what they already have and the acceptable parts of the desired minion necro to thing that we're going to fit something all-new in there.
The second problem is that Golarion is a world with a lot of fiction in it, including some powerful necromancers that really aren't well-described by the currently available player options. Both Tar-Baphon and Geb were able to make enormous areas where the dead just naturally rise as undead without direct effort on anyone's part. They were able to raise undead armies, and direct them in battle. They were able to perform incredible, terrible, world-shaping feats.
Honestly, that sounds kind of like "Mythic Adventures" to me. Does it sound Mythic to anyone else? I suspect that the right sort of mythic options could explain them pretty handily.
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They should have a necromancer class with a cool undead minion ability. Make it so you can be a divine or arcane necromancer with different thematic abilities.
Necromancer been ripe for its own thing for a long while now.
If the elemental blasting kineticist can form a class, a necromancer could do it.
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With Undead Master and Reanimator, there's not all that much left for a Necromancer archetype to really do, but on the other hand something like Elementalist--available for all four traditions--which gives access to undeathly magics from all traditions wouldn't be entirely out of place (and I mean, I love the idea of a dirge-playing bard summoning the souls of the damned to destroy their enemies...) so I'm here for it. Maybe exclude primal because undead aren't 'natural' but also being concerned about what is natural is more the druid's bag specifically, not inherently universal to primal spellcasters, and vital essence and death are both natural things in and of themselves.
Meanwhile I imagine the Ustalav school of magic would include a lot more spiritually-oriented magics that touch on what used to be necromancy, given the slightly more acceptability of seances and spirits compared to the absolute taboo of summoning undead in that land--unless the confluence of necromancy and electricity lets you play corpse reanimator regardless what is accepted practice in the schools.
But yeah, I don't think there'll be any player-facing way to summon large hordes of undead aside from creating them through the ritual and setting them loose on unsuspecting villagers. If anything, it might be possible to have a swarm companion of tiny rat skeletons, with a distant possibility of a troop-like thing, but even then troops just take up so much space on the grid with fiddly mechanics to keep track of, it would be hard to imagine that as a workable solution for players wanting hordes.
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Honestly, I'd love to see necromantic abilities designed like Impulses. A proper minion master isn't going to happen in PF2, but an Impulse that creates, say, a huge patch of skeletal arms that grasp anyone who enters it could be very fun.
It would be interesting playing a Summoner in a free archetype game who has an undead eidolon and spends all their archetype feats on "Undead Master". That's as close to the minionmancer concept as you can get in PF2.
At level 16 you can have two companions and an eidolon, and give them each two actions (leading to none for yourself.) I'm not sure if "Stand there and point- the class" is going to move the needle much.
I'm also in the "make it an archetype" camp. Mark Seifter also mentioned in the remaster preview stream that the wizard not having a "necromancer" means a whole class could be made, but I think this is not interesting enough for a class. I would prefer either an archetype, or an alternate class to the wizard not unlike the ninja, samurai and antipaladin in 1e. Basically if you choose the necromancer class you are still a wizard insofar as you can't MCD into wizard, and get access to a feat list and class abilities more dedicated to a necromancer. I would be cool with illusionist being one of these tooHe seemed to think that the remaster of the Wizard would allow exactly this sort of additional class. But AFAIK he's not writing for Revised, so that's just a personal opinion (regardless of his background).
There's definitely enough thematic material out there to make a full-on class about it. Whether you take inspiration from the latest Gideon/Harrow books, the older Garth Nix's Sabriel, or video games like Diablo with it's three-pronged skill tree, or even go *really* old school and go to The Odyssey for concepts like a land of the dead and blood rituals to speak to spirits, there's a pretty wide set of things to explore. Reanimation, sure, but also information gathering, travel to/through an alternate plane, the ability to interact with spirits, manifesting items made of flesh and bone, etc.
Does PF2E need one? Oh I dunno. I suspect if they did a poll of 'what new classes does the player base want to see', this would rank pretty high. But as you say, it is perfectly possible to also cover the topic through an Archetype. Or a Wizard subclass. Or something like that.
I disagree Mark on thinking that there is enough for a whole class. I think the fairest thing is an archetype for any occult, divine or arcane caster, or even primal ones too if we can theme it right. The thing I want most is an alternative to the wizard class that fits the theming of necromancers being edgy wizards. So basically sacrificing some of the toll box elements of the wizard and rolling in the reanimator or undead master archetype along with some other stuff might be pretty sweet. It's not up to me to make this happen, but I think what amounts to more than dedication but less than a class is the right avenue
And before...
The point is that they're unlikely to stop trying to keep a ceiling on "how many actions you can take in a turn" so people can have a horde of minions so they can take upwards of 10 actions. So it's probably better to theme a "necromancer" class around stuff other than "minions."
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If anyone doesn't think a "necromancer" class could work.
Look at this from 3.5...
https://dndtools.net/classes/dread-necromancer/
Always felt this was one of the lamest classes in 3.5
Uh what? Dread necromancers were awesome!Always felt this was one of the lamest classes in 3.5If anyone doesn't think a "necromancer" class could work.
Look at this from 3.5...
https://dndtools.net/classes/dread-necromancer/
My problems are limited and useless touch ability, the class feature of adding necromancy spells from cleric or wizard, when that could have and should have just been rolled into the class. The whole controlling more hd of undead is the wrong way to do this but understandably just comes from animate dead as a spell already causing play issues with too many minions. I also am not a fan of them being spontaneous and keying off charisma. Particularly because they become a lich. The DR ability also quickly becomes useless too since everything will have magical attacks. Just really disappointing execution
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Verzen, I do understand your main point. Just because something is a proud nail doesn't mean it won't get hammered down at some point, which I whole heartedly agree with, but all but one of the examples you used were never true to begin with, and that one is still mostly true.
And before kineticist, spells are only allowed to be limited. Can't have any unlimited spells..
Cantrips? Especially the Bard's focus cantrips?
And before summoner, all summoned minions must be substantially weaker than the character.
And they still are. All of the summoner's class budget is used up on the Eidolon's proficiencies; in order to analyze that class's math its best to think of the summoner as a permanent minion, and it is in fact weaker than the Eidolon.
And before magus, the three action economy is sacred. No messing with it.
Like half the feats in the game mess with the 3 action economy. It's just a basic thing that the feats are there to enable. The monk and fighter especially have multiple options right from level 1.
And before summoner and kineticist, it is absolutely overpowered for a character to "strike" with elemental damage. (I heard this once when I was proposing Elemental Heart to Mark Seifter during summoner playtest)
There's several examples just from the CRB, but we can start with alchemist bombs.
If these were serious arguments people were putting forward, then I'm sorry, but they were not analyzing the game very well.
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If we get a minionmancer, I expect it'll use the troop rules. Which I know isn't too satisfying, but looking at how those are put together I can see how that can be turned into a summons. Maybe like the Starfinder summoning rules, where there's a base stat block and you add templates on top of it.
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As far as the main topic, Necromancers. I could see that being a thing. I personally would rather see it be a thesis + curriculum, but I think there's enough thematic room for an entire class.
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I think PCs will never get the crowd of minions, undead or others, in PF2. It slows the game too much and the designers are very well aware of that.
It does if each minion is mechanically treated like a bespoke creature. But I think troops and swarms could work just as well on the PC side of the screen, albeit probably requiring a a few balance tweaks in the same vein as undead PCs. You just treat it as one big sack of hit points and give it damage options close to what impulses or an eidolon deals.
The most significant advantage of the undead army would be that you could use it to trigger hazards and encounters by always sending them in ahead, but we already got these tools in construct companions from the inventor and reanimator.
I also think there's a very interesting design space to be explored with a class whose refocus cycle is based around either reanimating what they just fought, or harvesting the corpse for parts to repair the existing army. You can use their level to cap the total size of the pool, and have their adventuring day stop when they run out of bones. Though I wonder what would happen if you lacked enough parts to rebuild. Seems like a weird thing to handwave for daily preparations.
The crunch seems pretty reasonable to me. There are problems to solve for but I'm pretty sure the Paizo team could. The bigger problems might be the flavor. Necromancy and the creation of undead is such a fundamentally evil thing on Golarion. I don't think such a class would be compatible with any AP but Blood Lords. Building an entire class with such unique mechanics which is entirely unusable in most campaigns seems like a bad idea. I think the winning play would be a broader minionmancer class (maybe call it "The Legion") with class paths for undead, constructs, and some other interesting creature types that work well as a troop.
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I feel like the best way to do a necromancer is to find ways to flavor abilities to minimize mechanical impact.
I'd like to see magical abilities that kind of conceptually mirror incarnate spells, invoking undead and spirits for specific effects with short term durations.
Along with a core permanent minion that can either represent a single powerful undead or a troop.
Having 10 individual minions might be a thing Paizo wants to avoid, but there are ways to make the class feel like it has 10 or 20 minions even if it doesn't that might be fun.
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13th Age's necromancer is such a fun class. Works kinda like how keftiu described, lots of making skeletal arms and whatnot. I had a little skeleton butler on mine.
Necromancy and the creation of undead is such a fundamentally evil thing on Golarion.
Isn't Evil gone as a concept now?
Necromancy and the creation of undead is such a fundamentally evil thing on Golarion.Isn't Evil gone as a concept now?
As a concept? No, the planes still exist and there's no indication the whole element of your morality determines which plane your petitioner is sent to is going either. The only thing going is the ability for you to precisely detect / target it. Which means, yes, it could be argued that without that there's no objective upper case E Evil anymore but, given the amount of stuff in setting which'd still point the creation of undead as lower case e evil.
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Also bear in mind that even without Big Evil as a fundamental force of metaphysical reality, its replacement as far as good and evil continuing to be tangible forces, unholy, may well apply to undead in some manner much as fiends.
I don't expect undead to gain a special vulnerability to holiness, but certainly holiness will have nothing to do with the type of creature that animates corpses with void.
On the other hand, unless the create undead ritual actually requires unholy sanctification, any manner of non-holy creature could in theory perform the ritual without any consequence that is not narrative--though given that mobs never were the place to find cautious castings of Detect Alignment, it may be irrelevant whether undeath magic actually stains your soul with the mark of evil or if it's just a metaphor.
Generally speaking, classes should not have a sanctification/alignment component to the class itself. Champions and Clerics are a reasonable exception since they're potentially explicitly taking sides in the cosmic conflict, and you could take either side.
But if we want to have something as a class you need to justify the possibility of being a version of that who is heroic, noble, admirable, etc.
As a concept? No, the planes still exist and there's no indication the whole element of your morality determines which plane your petitioner is sent to is going either. The only thing going is the ability for you to precisely detect / target it. Which means, yes, it could be argued that without that there's no objective upper case E Evil anymore but, given the amount of stuff in setting which'd still point the creation of undead as lower case e evil.Necromancy and the creation of undead is such a fundamentally evil thing on Golarion.Isn't Evil gone as a concept now?
It comes down to whether everything associated with undead creation gets the Unholy trait dropped on it. If it doesn't, then there is a gap. There is a big difference between mostly evil and always evil.