| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Or at least, a playtest of them.
Apparently they're going to be playable at some convention over the weekend too.
Per this surprise(?) stream from like an hour ago.
Necromancers seem to have some kind of 'thrall' mechanic, something less than minions you can have several of and you can manipulate or sacrifice with your other abilities (examples include an ability that kills a thrall to deal AoE damage around it and another with a 10m cd that kills one to give you a focus point back).
Runesmiths have some ability to apply runes to things that provide passive benefits that can be Invoked for special effects. Somewhat similar looking to ikons/transcendence in terms of passive benefits you can cash in but significantly more active since it seems like you can have a lot of them going, though I could be wrong hard to tell from a brief description and a couple screenshots alone.
Title of the stream is 'Impossible Playtest' so... Some sort of Nex/Geb themed book? Fits with the classes on offer.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
These both sound pretty cool and crunchy for people looking for more complexity.
I hope they tell us what book these will be in. Hopefully said book has some class archetypes for other casters that let them do more, lots of minions stuff.
The Runesmith seems really cool in that it uses all four traditions and calls back to Truenaming which is both a cool concept and was a fun class back in 3.5.
Necromancer being it's own class instead of a sub-school of wizard or cleric is a nice touch. Not sure they said or not but I am unsure if prepared or spontaneous fits them better.
The artwork shown for both is also very nice. I wonder if any shown will be the iconic or if it was existing art. Would be cool to have another Halfling Iconic as Lem is kinda lame imo.
How interesting. Given that we've already gotten an Impossible Lands book, it makes me wonder what this could exist to be 'scaffolding'? There's no shortage of places for Necromancers and mages to be hanging out on Golarion...
Animist and Exemplar do a lot for both Casmaron and Arcadia, but this duo and the Battlecry classes are harder to read. I'm a poor diviner!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Do we know what tradition the necromancer will be? I'm guessing either arcane, divine, or being able to choose between the two.
Prepared Occult.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The runesmith kinda sounds like an artificer to me. I hope that's the case.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The runesmith kinda sounds like an artificer to me. I hope that's the case.
Based on the stream nothing like. The runes are magic and have specific names and they cause illusions and other magical effects. Wasn't any mention of crafting or the like. I could be wrong tho.
RUNE 1
OCCULT RUNE RUNESMITH
Usage Drawn on a shield
This rune resembles a broken arrow. While the shield is
raised, it also grants the bearer a +1 status bonus to AC
against physical ranged attacks.
Invocation (illusion, mental, visual) The rune creates an
illusion in the minds of all creatures adjacent to the rune-
bearer that lasts for 1 round. The illusion is of a large
unpassable wall blocking all paths away from the rune-
bearer. Creatures affected by this invocation can't willing
move further away from the rune bearer for 1 round or
until they disbelieve the illusion, usually by using a Seek
action against your class DC.
Artificer in terms of being a magical crafter probably not.
But the way they describe Runes sounds somewhat similar to 5e's Artificer Infusions (in terms of applying them to items to improve their capabilities) with the additional ability to invoke the rune for an alternative effect.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
How interesting. Given that we've already gotten an Impossible Lands book, it makes me wonder what this could exist to be 'scaffolding'? There's no shortage of places for Necromancers and mages to be hanging out on Golarion...
They've said "there's more stuff tied to the Godsrain than we've revealed so far" in a bunch of different ways, and one thing that might happen as a result is that Nex gets out of whatever thing he's been trapped in and things get hot between Nex and Geb.
In that case the Impossible Lands book is good background information, but the new information is "Archmages at War."
Yeah, I probably should have clarified. I don't think the runemisth is going to be some craftsman, but if they infuse effects into people they are effectively what infusions are for artificers in other editions. Though to be fair the "craftsman" class is barely a craftsman besides having auto-scaling Crafting, so...
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Do we know what tradition the necromancer will be? I'm guessing either arcane, divine, or being able to choose between the two.Prepared Occult.
Rounds things out nicely. I don't think we have a dedicated class for that combination yet. Witch comes closest, but is of any tradition.
So...
Wizard
Cleric
Druid
Necromancer
Well, they may have finally given us the class that gets me to play a full caster.
|
I kind of despise Necromancers, but that's a me problem. I'm happy for the people who wanted this.
I'm wondering if Runesmith will look anything like the Runescarred Archetype -- that one's based on Thassilonian magic, though, and as a very early archetype is rather underwhelming.
My big hope for another Impossible Lands book is a Remastered Fleshwarp ancestry.
Pretty sure the runesmith is an idea one of the devs mentioned awhile back in the forums, i would look to find who it was but i need to go to bed like right now.
But whoever it was, I remember!! I have been waiting for this idea to come to fruition since that forum post! So excited!!
Also i am so happy we are getting a full necromancer, my best friend loves necromancer and this seems to be exactly what he wants, so excited!!!
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
I can see either Impossible War, or maybe something like Impossible Magic, that like maybe updates magic lore and stuff post remaster.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Pretty sure the runesmith is an idea one of the devs mentioned awhile back in the forums, i would look to find who it was but i need to go to bed like right now.
But whoever it was, I remember!! I have been waiting for this idea to come to fruition since that forum post! So excited!!
Also i am so happy we are getting a full necromancer, my best friend loves necromancer and this seems to be exactly what he wants, so excited!!!
I don’t know about any devs mentioning that, but I know that I was theorizing about eventually getting a Necromancer class back in July, 2023 and even speculated on getting Necromancer and a Runecaster/Runethane/Rune”X” -class and/or options back when Secrets of Magic was coming out. So, I am very happy this is finally happening.
I find myself hoping that we can maybe get a Remastered Magus and Summoner in this “Impossible” book, too. I also wonder if the book will be called something like “Tome of Impossible Arts”, “Grimoire Impossible”, or “Secrets of the Impossible Kingdoms”…
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
Really really really disappointed that the necromancer is occult and not divine. The divine list is really *the list* that deals with what a necromancer deals with, and occult has been so painstakingly defined in such a way to ***NOT*** be "the spooky list" but instead the vibe-y jungian psychology, collective unconscious, I-do-crystal-healing list. It just seems absolutely and completely mismatched with what they set as the precedent for occult with the bard
| 12 people marked this as a favorite. |
It's not really a mismatch, though. Spirit has been a consistent part of the tradition and it's had a number of undead centric spells on it for a long time. I think you're just letting your personal disdain for the tradition show through here.
Plus we've had a whole bunch of divine-focused content in a row, it's nice to get something different.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
It's not really a mismatch, though. Spirit has been a consistent part of the tradition and it's had a number of undead centric spells on it for a long time. I think you're just letting your personal disdain for the tradition show through here.
Plus we've had a whole bunch of divine-focused content in a row, it's nice to get something different.
occult is a fine tradition and I have no distain for it, I would rank occult as my second favorite after arcane and above divine. The lore up to this point has made it clear that necromancy is related to the life essence specifically and not the spirit essence. Spirit is tied to emotion, something a lot of undead don't even have, but life is the two energy planes and the animating force behind life, and unlife. Moreover the mind essence is about as far from necromancy as possible. Divine is the most appropriate according to the lore we have been given thus far, followed by primal. Occult is third and arcane is dead last. Both arcane and occult shouldn't even have the animate dead spell if we are being consistent with what we've been given
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Both arcane and occult shouldn't even have the animate dead spell if we are being consistent with what we've been givenOn that topic, Animate Dead (now Summon Undead) now says it merely summons an undead creature, and all the flavor text about filling a corpse with necromantic life has been cut out in the Remaster. So assuming that spell lets you just pluck an undead from The Void plane, I suppose the Remaster cleared up that lore inconsistency.
Good to know, that does make it make sense
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I feel Thralls might be a bit different from usual undead. As in not linked to Religion. And maybe not even to negative/void energy. Unless the Necromancer has a way to heal them.
The class does sound like the many creatures class, which was sorely lacking in PF2.
I just wish it had another name, because Necromancers are not the only casters playing with hordes. I admit undead are the most common trope for such hordes though.
I will definitely try to emulate Jackie Estacado and his darklings in the playtest.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Come to think of it, Thralls being magical incarnations of the stories and fears about undead (ie Occult), rather than real Undead would solve a lot of issues.
Not using Void energy to create them would mean they are not almost required to be Unholy and they are not healed by void/negative healing (which the Occult list lacks IIRC) nor hurt by vitality/positive energy.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
It's not off-theme though. Occult necromancy has been a thing as long as Occult has been. This isn't coming out of left field or anything, it's been consistently something within the tradition's sphere for the entirety of PF2.
Hell, even PF1's undead-commanding class was Occult (though PF1 Occult is somewhat different than PF2 Occult.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The summoner isn't really summoning all that much. Maybe the Necromancer adds a new twist to the concept as well?
Thralls seem to be a class resource that's quick to use and easy to replenish. I'm thinking they might work somewhat similar to the alchemists versatile Vials, mechanically. Just as actual creatures instead of items.
|
| 19 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hey Paizo! It's great to see that now freed from the terrible, onerous, burden that was Wizard schools, you can now make new caster classes which represent these potential identities as full fledged classes.
Please don't forget to go back and give the Wizard an actual class identity now!
Strange though it may sound, mastery of void/vital essence may not be the only or even primary tool for controlling undead. After all, if that were the case, surely Primal casters would make the best necromancers for corporeal undead, given their specialization in matter and vitality--the two primary ingredients of a zombie or skeleton--rather than the only tradition that generally has no access to undeath.
It is likely that ability to manipulate spirits, even in the case of corporeal undead, is more vital to the Necromancer's specific strategies and techniques for doing what they do. Not that I wouldn't think Divine a more natural choice, but this way is also interesting. It's not like Occult casters don't have some void in their toolbox, even if the essence is not a pillar of their tradition.
---
I wonder if any presently known big-name "Necromancer" Wizards (or otherwise) will end up re-described as Necromancers in truth, or if we'll simply learn about previously unmentioned undeath specialists from around the world without altering Tar-Baphon or Geb's descriptions. Certainly anyone who can pull off a Create Undead ritual can style themselves as a master of undead hordes regardless what their class description might be. Even bards can be liches (in the lore at least, if not with the lich archetype we have access to)
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Strange though it may sound, mastery of void/vital essence may not be the only or even primary tool for controlling undead. After all, if that were the case, surely Primal casters would make the best necromancers for corporeal undead, given their specialization in matter and vitality--the two primary ingredients of a zombie or skeleton--rather than the only tradition that generally has no access to undeath.
I think the problem there is that the primal spell list is effectively "the Druid spell list", for all intents and purposes. Druids live in harmony with nature, so the tradition that in theory should let you control vital energy doesn't let you control the entire half of vital energy that destroys life and creates undead. Druids are all about wearing leaves and animal pelts and summoning pretty little woodland creatures (and the occasional kaiju), so the tradition capable of manipulating both blood and vitality doesn't get the spell that lets you suck the lifeblood out of your enemies.
I'm being a bit facetious here, and I do love the Druid as a class, but I think the issue here is simply that Paizo's generally been awful at following the rules they've set for themselves on traditions. Secrets of Magic bends over backwards to tell the reader that occult magic isn't just the "ooky spooky" tradition, but that's the way occult magic is treated anyway, and it's the only way to explain a lot of spells in the occult tradition that have nothing to do with mind or spirit (again, like vampiric exsanguination). The defining trait of undead in Pathfinder is that they run on void rather than vitality, which means that the key method of creating undead ought to be manipulating vital energy, something both divine and primal casters are meant to do, but because we have too many divine casters already and the primal tradition's been routinely excluded from most life-manipulating spells with a darker bent, we're set to get a third dedicated occult class when there's still only one dedicated primal caster in the game (and I suspect that's all we're likely to get for a good long while, unless Paizo also decides to drop the Shifter too).
This whole question of which tradition can do what could be solved by giving classes bespoke spell lists or having some system that could tag related spells as being related. Heck, you might even use both simultaneously to avoid confusion about where any given spell fits into the universe...
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
So I have a question. I didn't get to see the stream. Did they say the Necromancer was a FULL caster? Could it have that limited casting like the Summoner and Magus?
I like the idea of the Necromancer as an occulist, and I really hope the speculation that their thralls are something different from the standard undead, because I like the idea of a friendly necromancer.