| 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 do have to say tho, having some primal undeath option would be nice. Fungus/plant zombie is a very cool aestetic, and I generally really like the "spooky druid" niche in the (admitedly pretty rare) games that have this option.
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
I hope Necromancer is a wave caster so it can afford to have actual class abilities. Casters don't seem to get much chance to have strong identities in 2e with how much of their potency is locked behind spell lists they share with others.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
I hope Necromancer is a wave caster so it can afford to have actual class abilities. Casters don't seem to get much chance to have strong identities in 2e with how much of their potency is locked behind spell lists they share with others.
Animists are full casters and have a very strong identity. Same with Psychic. And Witch.
I think there's plenty of room for Necromancer to have a strong identity while being a full caster.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The art they picked for the Necro on the Twitter post rules.
| 1 person 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?
They did mention that it's a "full prepared occult spellcaster", yes.
You can find the stream here and James says this at around the 7:35 mark.
|
Thank you! So now the further speculation is how many spell slots. GameDesignerDM Brings up a good point. one of the way they limit spell power in Psychic so they can have power in their class, is to limit their spell slots.
The flavor of the Animist's class comes from it's modified casting and their focus spells.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I wonder what the iconics will look like. There was already an iconic necromancer they introduced for Hell's Vengeance, but that was when they were creating "evil iconics" for the evil AP, and she was a wizard necromancer. I wouldn't be mad if they keep her, her design is too good to be left asside, but they might not want a character made to be evil (and to be of a different class) to represent their new class.
Since Orcs and Leshy are new to the core ancestry and don't have any Iconic, I wonder if they're going to be it. I'd be really down for an iconic leshy necromancer.
| 12 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think the Occult tradition makes sense for two reasons,
1) Mechanically, they do not want the class to have access to the Heal spell and Sanctified spells or Fireball and other elemental blasting spells. So Divine and Arcane are out.
2) Flavor wise, the class is not drawing on Dicine Power. Divine Power always comes from something else, usually something beyond the world if not the material universe. The Archetypical Necromancer this class seems to be based on is doing everything they can to avoid that sort of entanglement.
| 1 person 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
In mechanical support of this: harm is exclusively on the divine list, and is expressly designed to heal undead as well as harm the living. This is mirrored on the Champion, a divine class, with their touch of the void focus spell. With the exception of one rare spell, every occult spell that affects or uses undead is also on the divine list, which also has spells like necromancer's generosity (it's in the name). Incidentally, the divine list also has most of the curses you'd see on a necromancer, such as hemorrhaging an enemy out of pure spite, infecting them with disgusting cravings, or withering their very soul with a contagious disease, so if you wanted a caster who could raise the dead, heal their minions while harming the living, and curse their foes, the divine list has got you covered far better overall than the occult list. I suspect the main deciding factor behind making this class an occult caster was "we've got too many divine casters already, but we haven't yet done a prepared exclusively occult caster, so let's just do that instead".
I wonder if the necromancer will get some cross-tradition spell poaching, a la the psychic and animist?
I hope Necromancer is a wave caster so it can afford to have actual class abilities. Casters don't seem to get much chance to have strong identities in 2e with how much of their potency is locked behind spell lists they share with others.
Both classes seem loaded up on class abilities so yeah, I'd rather them resemble the Kineticist (in volume not type) than the Witch or Thaumaturge. We do want the horde and/or special minion to have some sort of martial impact, don't we? Or maybe a semblance thereof, like w/ waves of undead manifestations not reliant on spell slots (or necessarily statted creature's per se). Ex. a protecting entity much like Wood's tree, bone armor much like the various armors, bones grabbing from ground, etc.
Heck, there might be different necromantic "elements", like bone, spirit, blood, void. Sure, Focus spells could mirror this, like say a Summon Undead Focus spell, and that style could allow for a full spell list, but that feels more like a reskinned Core class IMO. Let me spam!I could see a Runesmith operating in a similar way, but w/ more buffing & personal prowess, taking a generic martial chassis and adding a plethora of runes they dole out and renew in combat (likely w/ stored spell effects it seems?). Ugh, that almost sounds like an Alchemist...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I wonder if the necromancer will get some cross-tradition spell poaching, a la the psychic and animist?
That makes the most sense to me. The Eivine list has a lot of flavorful spells as Teridax mentions, but it also has spells that are terrible fits, like Holy Light, Divine Wrath, and the basic heal spell.
In the same vein, the occult list I think has a lot of spells that have absolutely zero to do with necromancy -- in fact, I'd argue most of them don't. Stuff like dazzling foes with pretty colors, fascinating people with a merry song, or causing them to burst into dance are probably about as far removed from the typical necromancer fantasy as it gets, and neither telepathy nor telekinesis -- both fortes of occult magic -- really align with it either. At least vitality spells have the merit of quickly letting you dispose of minions, particularly those who might start to develop a mind of their own, and counter an opposing necromancer's forces. Though I think the risk may end up self-correcting (you'd have no reason to use heal if you're undead, are surrounded by undead minions, and routinely fight the living), one way to limit this could always be to have a restriction much like the Shadowcaster's, where you just can't cast vitality spells at all.
I will also say, regarding the general conversation around class features, that while being a full caster does draw a lot out of the power budget, there's still room for powerful class features depending on how much casting you get to do: if the Necromancer ends up being this four-slot caster then yes, there probably wouldn't be much room for much else, but as a three slot caster? A two-slot caster, perhaps? Now that's where it can get really interesting. If the base class ends up being super-squishy with really weak base proficiencies, which I'd say would fit the typical necromancer character, then that leaves even more room for truly strong undead minions.
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
Thanks for giving me the character idea of a necromancer who casts spells like Uncontrollable Dance while their thralls play Danse Macabre in the background.
I have very little interest in either of these classes, but excited that this will probably come in a magic heavy, rules oriented book.
The necromancer doesn't sound like a "heal the unded" class, but a "use them and lose them" minion class. Occult seems like a fine list for that plus "force spirits to do stuff for you."
I have serious reservations about another class that is equipment-centric. I guess the theme is Alchemist is to alchemical items as runesmith will be to runes? As long as it doesnt become best in show at buffing I wont be too down on it, but it isn't game space that thrills me.
If this book remasters magus, summoner and psychic (does thaumaturge need remastery at all?) I'll be happy with it. If it gives us more wizard schools, that would be nice too, especially with spells from newer books
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
Thanks for giving me the character idea of a necromancer who casts spells like Uncontrollable Dance while their thralls play Danse Macabre in the background.
And just like that, the Necrodancer is born.
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.
Divine handles the necromancy aspect the best mechanically, even though in-lore, Arcane is the best. Geb and Tar-Baphon are both solid Arcane spellcasters known to be powerful with Necromancy-based magic. For Divine, I wouldn't know for sure of anyone based in Necromancy besides maybe a high priest of Urgathoa or something.
Occult is for "alien" magic more than anything, so unless we're controlling a bunch of aliens from the Alien franchise, I don't see the relevance.
I'll wait for the announcement page and look at the playtest writeups, but so far it's not starting out how I'd hope. If it was anything other than Necromancy, I'd be more positive about it; we don't have a true "minion-mancy" class.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The real biggest issue is that Paizo has made each tradition's list overbroad, way too specific to a class such as druids and primal, and not at all followed the rules established by essences and such. If we stuck with these rules then necromancers would be divine and primal, and this is fine unless they change the lore on undead. I am fine with the lore changing as the positive and negative energy planes that now got renamed to void and vitality feel too much like a DND-ism anyways...and then we can have non-evil(unholy) undead, and pharasma can chill tf out
As it stands I think occult is second most inappropriate spells list with arcane being first and foremost. If they have too many divine casters maybe they should have reconsidered the fact they made divine too good and too broad
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
As I start to watch the actual stream instead of a summary video, the devs specifically calls out the Necromancer as having a "dirge inside of their body and soul", which does feel more in ties with the Occult. They specifically mention ties to Spirits and the soul as well.
As I start to watch the actual stream instead of a summary video, the devs specifically calls out the Necromancer as having a "dirge inside of their body and soul", which does feel more in ties with the Occult. They specifically mention ties to Spirits and the soul as well.
What frustrates me is that the spirit essence is a little bit of a misnomer. It is tied primarily to spirit in the sense you may say someone gave a "spirited performance". It's very much tied to emotion more than souls, which as far as I can tell are still tied to the life essence, aka vitality. Something occult lacks
As I start to watch the actual stream instead of a summary video, the devs specifically calls out the Necromancer as having a "dirge inside of their body and soul", which does feel more in ties with the Occult. They specifically mention ties to Spirits and the soul as well.
That sounds more like an animist than a necromancer to me, since animists channel spirits into their bodies, several of which aren't the most cheerful.
But given that necromancer seems to have multiple definitions now, I am inclined to believe that necromancer is now just a generic term for "person with a positive relationship with undeath," and not "arcane spellcaster with a focus on life/death manipulation." So everyone and their grandma can identify as a necromancer now.
I think if they go the route of burning spell slots to generate thralls or otherwise power their abilities, Occult makes a lot of sense. You're leaning into the Mind and Spirit essences to enforce your mental control over spiritual objects including ghosts, but also the parts of souls bound to bodies to animate them. Life would be more pure vital and void energy that can be used to affect the living or dead, but that's kind of a secondary concern. The Occult spell list itself isn't super helpful for a Necromancer, but that only matters if they don't shake up how you spend slots.
I could certainly see it going Divine, but if you're mostly using your slots to pop out new sacrificial undead, being able to use Harm on them isn't part of your strategy.
If they want the Necromancer to cast Necromancy spells as normal, with some secondary class features that work on their own, then yeah I'd think there's going to be a lot of narrative dead weight on the class in the Occult list.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
As I start to watch the actual stream instead of a summary video, the devs specifically calls out the Necromancer as having a "dirge inside of their body and soul", which does feel more in ties with the Occult. They specifically mention ties to Spirits and the soul as well.That sounds more like an animist than a necromancer to me, since animists channel spirits into their bodies, several of which aren't the most cheerful.
But given that necromancer seems to have multiple definitions now, I am inclined to believe that necromancer is now just a generic term for "person with a positive relationship with undeath," and not "arcane spellcaster with a focus on life/death manipulation." So everyone and their grandma can identify as a necromancer now.
TBF an animist is a kind of necromancer if you ask me. Especially in the root of the word which is "dead prophecy" or rather the ability to talk to spirits/the dead. If you read ancient writings on necromancy as a magical practice it is all communing with the dead, not raising the dead
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
As I start to watch the actual stream instead of a summary video, the devs specifically calls out the Necromancer as having a "dirge inside of their body and soul", which does feel more in ties with the Occult. They specifically mention ties to Spirits and the soul as well.What frustrates me is that the spirit essence is a little bit of a misnomer. It is tied primarily to spirit in the sense you may say someone gave a "spirited performance". It's very much tied to emotion more than souls, which as far as I can tell are still tied to the life essence, aka vitality. Something occult lacks
Huh. I see that passage in Secrets of Magic when the essences of magic are brought up, but I don't think they've ever held to that- The Bard's ties to music and art are intimately tied to emotion, and the Charisma based subconscious minds are based on emotion and imagination. I'll have to browse the bit about the occult tradition specifically.
I think if they go the route of burning spell slots to generate thralls or otherwise power their abilities, Occult makes a lot of sense. You're leaning into the Mind and Spirit essences to enforce your mental control over spiritual objects including ghosts, but also the parts of souls bound to bodies to animate them. Life would be more pure vital and void energy that can be used to affect the living or dead, but that's kind of a secondary concern. The Occult spell list itself isn't super helpful for a Necromancer, but that only matters if they don't shake up how you spend slots.
I could certainly see it going Divine, but if you're mostly using your slots to pop out new sacrificial undead, being able to use Harm on them isn't part of your strategy.
If they want the Necromancer to cast Necromancy spells as normal, with some secondary class features that work on their own, then yeah I'd think there's going to be a lot of narrative dead weight on the class in the Occult list.
To be fair, classes like cleric have extra features/feats as well as spells to work with undead in particular, lending to the credence that mechanically, the divine tradition as well as the cleric class works the best for raw undead interactions. (There are some dedications as well, but these aren't specific to any one type of character.)
Having the spell slots be "placeholders," or giving them access to certain divine-exclusive spells, as well as available relevant features, might be possible in making the class fantasy work. I just know that in-lore, arcane was stated to be the most effective/preferable, and mechanically that just isn't the case, same can be said for occult, so unless the class has these kinds of features, I fear it will fall short of the potential fantasy niche I am expecting it to fill.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Much of the complaining about Occult and undead vs Divine seems to misunderstand what I remember from the Secrets of Magic articles about spell essences.
Mind/Life(or instinct) are generally how you control your magic, but not necessarily what your magic focuses on. Physical/spirit is what you magic actually effects.
The reason arcane and occult have the majority of mind affecting spells is that they can use their mental framework to guide the spell to control the brain or underlying spirit of the target. Both have similar effects. Divine can get some of this (e.g. dominate in remaster) via instinctual manipulation of spirit having effects on actions/mental state, but not everything - charm or suggestion apparently require a more logical framework to override or structure another mind. Primal basically can just instinctually trigger some fear responses by attacking your body's glands. Congrats, everyone can have a little Fear as a treat.
The reason divine and primal have the majority of the healing spells is that you need to use your instinctual/life link to guide the spell, which then does it either through spirit that indirectly heals the flesh of the living, or directly on the physical flesh. Occult can do some mental constructs aimed at the spirit and trust it to figure it out to some extent for purposes of Soothe and some condition removal, but healing is a complicated natural process better guided by instinct boosting what happens naturally. Mind trying to directly effect matter can't figure it out at all.
Undead have both physical and incorporeal forms, but they're fundamentally about controlling/warping/messing with the spirit inhabiting that outward form. Whether you target that spirit via instinct/life or mental/logical control of your magic, that's what matters.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Please let the Necromancer be a "spirit summoner", among other styles, and not your typical "evil-looking undead creator".
Not that hyped for the Necromancer (although at least one of my players will probably be so), but the Runesmith sounds very interesting.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
It seems to be like Thralls being something unique and specific to Necromancers - and not being necessarily little jangly skeleton boys, but also maybe spirits and other things, like how the one art depicted one of them pulling what looked like spirits out of a mirror, which feels very Occult to me - and how they seem to have stuff like exploding them and whatnot to deliver effects, it might end up being the case where just like some people can be fighters, but not everyone is a Fighter, the setting bespoke Necromancer functions differently than a caster that uses spells from the Divine list that interact with undead.
"These? No, these are Thralls - that magic won't work on them, only mine." Or something like that.
I doubt the choice to give them the Occult list was done all that arbitrarily, so I'm very interested to see what they've done with it.
What frustrates me is that the spirit essence is a little bit of a misnomer. It is tied primarily to spirit in the sense you may say someone gave a "spirited performance". It's very much tied to emotion more than souls, which as far as I can tell are still tied to the life essence, aka vitality. Something occult lacks
I feel like I could write a whole essay on this, but I do feel that emotions are the soul, or at least should be. The soul is the bit of creatures that navigates the great cosmic journey from Creation's Forge to the River of Souls and beyond, and is made up of all of that creature's choices throughout their lifetime, whether they were kind or cruel, whether they preferred stability or freedom, and so on. Whether your speech rouses someone to action or your threat drives them to flee, your actions caused them to make a choice because you influenced their emotions -- and, thus, directed their soul towards a more heroic or cowardly path. This is why I think the Bard is a great choice of iconic occult caster: art gives us a new perspective and taps into profound knowledge, so it affects the mind, but it also moves us and changes the way we feel, often to the point of inspiring us to do things we wouldn't do otherwise, so it also affects the soul.
Mechanically, though, the four essences map very poorly onto the spell lists for each tradition, and spiritual essence was probably done the dirtiest. The emotional aspect got co-opted into mental essence, and all emotion effects are also mental (which makes the fantasy trope of turning mindless undead a bit weird to justify), but the aspect of belief got co-opted into vital essence, presumably because both the Cleric and the Druid represents different forms of faith. Occult is probably the most jumbled spell list in my opinion, because a lot of its spells can only really have their inclusion justified by "it's a little weird, so it goes into the weird magic list". Its relation to the undead is also fairly tangential, because the only undead really tied to the occult are spirits, who retain their mind but lack a corporeal form: even so, those undead still have souls and are fuelled by void energy, so the divine tradition would map fully onto those too, and just as well onto undead that lack a mind, but have a body.
On a completely different note, I'd be quite keen to see the Runesmith cast arcane spells, even just as a bounded caster: it'd help better differentiate them from the existing crafter classes, it'd flow well from their usage of runes, it'd better emulate D&D 5e's beloved Artificer class and, most importantly, it'd finally give us a dedicated arcane caster that isn't a Wizard (or, in the Magus's case, a Wizard with a sword). Arcane is great for utility and team support, which looks like the niche the Runesmith is aiming for.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Per the stream, Runesmith doesn't seem to cast spells. Their runes can do spell like things, but I think we're looking at something closer to Kineticist or Thaumaturge. However, the class can touch on all 4 magical traditions and some runes are tied to two at the same time, which makes me wonder if the class will be tied at least in part to training in the magic skills.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I also don't know why primal doesn't get harm or the ability to do more necromancy besides the heal spell. Why can't I be a decomposition themed primal caster who's whole deal is death, decay, soul, decomposition and also the life that then grows from it. Seems like a huge thematic miss to me
Per the stream, Runesmith doesn't seem to cast spells. Their runes can do spell like things, but I think we're looking at something closer to Kineticist or Thaumaturge. However, the class can touch on all 4 magical traditions and some runes are tied to two at the same time, which makes me wonder if the class will be tied at least in part to training in the magic skills.
it has huge kineticist vibes with the whole rune ability thing that is templated like impulses
Because of this, I fully expect the class to stay away from pigeonholing you as a spooky goth.The released pic (is it the iconic?) is all about spooky goth.
But I'll join you in hoping that that's just one of several subclasses or directions that a player can take their build.
One of them is, for sure, but the other one is a little less than that - the Halfling, I think it is, with the mirror. Shows to me there's room for both, for sure.
One of them is, for sure, but the other one is a little less than that - the Halfling, I think it is, with the mirror. Shows to me there's room for both, for sure.Oh, I thought that was the Runesmith, not a second Necromancer.
Yeah, it's one of the Necromancers - the Runesmith art is the Dwarf with the hammer and then the human (?) with the panther pelt and glowing purple runes that looks like she's pulling a sword out of a magical space.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Please let the Necromancer be a "spirit summoner", among other styles, and not your typical "evil-looking undead creator".I find this to be a really interesting question, because I feel like the Post-Remaster era Paizo is so much better about tying together themes and mechanics.
All of the best material from recent Paizo releases- from Tanukis and Exemplars, to the entirety of Starfinder 2e- has doubled down on Paizo designing mechanics to evoke very flavorful tropes and ideas. It's no coincidence that so many feats, from "Get 'Em!" to "No! No! I Created You!", are outright named in a way that makes even using the ability get into the character mindset.
So the rub is, I fully expect a modern Paizo Necromancer to just lean into being a cackling, minion summoning, spooky Necromancer. Not necessarily EVIL, but objectively SPOOKY. I wanna feel ghoulish, I wanna feel wicked, and I wanna be mechanically incentived to perform game actions that reinforce that feeling.
But....y'know.... They're obviously not going to force you to be evil, or even be as comically grimdark as PF1E. I 100% expect the class to go out of its way to emphasize that Necromancy isn't inherently evil, you can play dark and edgy but are expected to play nice at the table, etc etc.
Because of this, I fully expect the class to stay away from pigeonholing you as a spooky goth. "I'm not raising zombies out of your loved ones, I have a magic mirror that lets me talk to ghosts and ask them for help!"
But what's the best way to square that circle? Does the desire to avoid having a specific tone for a class get in the way of leaning into that tone? Does the flavor-first approach to design lately impact how a class is designed?
The best way is for the Necromancer to summon "ancestral guardians". For instance, an Orision necromancer could summon mummified guards, while a Mwangi one could summon zombies, like a JuJu caster.
Skeletons, the ancestry, will likely have... a bone to pick with some, but... I could also see them having a floating talking skull as a familiar.
All in all, "summoning undead" should be focused on "temporarily binding a soul to a corpse".
Didn't the iconic spiritualist, back in P1E, have her dead lover as her eidolon? THAT's what the "atypical goody two-shoes" necromancer should be.
I wouldn't read too much into the artworks. The one with the spirit mirror is from Book of the Dead and depicts the Exorcist archetype, for example. I would assume the other artworks are from some previous publications as well.
With any luck, well get sketch drawings of the new iconic with the playtest on Monday. At least that's been the case for all previous playtests.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think ttrpgs get the idea of necromancers that raise army's of the dead from HP Lovecraft.
Outside of that genre, I think necromancy refered to talking to dead people.
Necromancers were closer to mediums or shaman than power mad wizards.
The movie versions of Aragorn and Harry Potter both used this version of necromancy.
The dead helped them out of obligation or sympathy to their cause.
Jedi do something similar.
From the very first movie, dead Jedi become more powerful and stick around to assist the living.
All of which is to say I hope to see a necromancer that make arrangements with various Spirits.
They might compel or the spirits might help willingly.
Thralls would manifest bodies and attack enemies.
Most everything else would be spell casting via the spirits, kind of like how witches use their Familiars.
I would like a mechanism for draining life force, but any gain resulting from the transfer could be in temporary hit points.
Each character can be as spooky or mundane as they'd like, again like witches.