I will never understand why Paizo got rid of the 2/3rds and half casters for PF2 when these were the classes that often felt the best in PF1. This and removing bespoke spell lists may have made things easier at first, but now it feels extremely limiting to what can be done with the system.Spell rank is a HUGE factor in PF2, significantly more so than spell level was in PF1. Having a class that's outright limited to 6th level spells would feel terrible.
You could give any class that would suffer from that a booster that applies when casting their highest (or even second highest) rank of spells and brings them up to par. Or you could design such that spell rank isn't as important to the equation, and instead level once again takes that role. This shifts how casting archetypes work, but you can count their levels as halved for this purpose without much effort.
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You could give any class that would suffer from that a booster that applies when casting their highest (or even second highest) rank of spells and brings them up to par.I will never understand why Paizo got rid of the 2/3rds and half casters for PF2 when these were the classes that often felt the best in PF1. This and removing bespoke spell lists may have made things easier at first, but now it feels extremely limiting to what can be done with the system.Spell rank is a HUGE factor in PF2, significantly more so than spell level was in PF1. Having a class that's outright limited to 6th level spells would feel terrible.
Giving them low level slots for utility and making their highest rank slots level appropriate sounds a lot like what bounded spellcasters like the Magus already do, no?
Giving them low level slots for utility and making their highest rank slots level appropriate sounds a lot like what bounded spellcasters like the Magus already do, no?
There's a distinction. The 2/3rds casters would only get 6th rank spells which would also impact heightening spells. This gives you a fair bit of extra room in terms of spellcasting impact, allowing casters to lean more heavily into their martial side or gain other abilities.
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Giving them low level slots for utility and making their highest rank slots level appropriate sounds a lot like what bounded spellcasters like the Magus already do, no?There's a distinction. The 2/3rds casters would only get 6th rank spells which would also impact heightening spells. This gives you a fair bit of extra room in terms of spellcasting impact, allowing casters to lean more heavily into their martial side or gain other abilities.
Still seems rather same-ish to me. A Magus can already either focus on more martial abilities or get more spellcasting via an archetype.
I actually think it would be great if all bounded spellcasters had in-class feat options to get spellcasting benefits similar to what an archetype could provide. It's a bit weird that a Bloodrager potentially can cast more spells than a Magus. But then again, I guess Bloodrager is still an archetype.
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Bounded Casters for all intents and purposes are the 6-level 2/3rds casters as far as overall design niche--limit spellcasting to gain cool non-spell abilities, namely martial prowess or an eidolon that fights for you.
Incidentally, I would love to see more bounded casters. I feel like there's a lot of untapped design space for "has some spellcasting but doesn't rely exclusively on it" that could really make some character concepts sing. For one, I would love to see a 'warrior-poet' type Bard-archetype that pulled a Magus but with bardic themes and powers. Would be a spiritual successor to the skald, although perhaps not exactly made from the same DNA.
Will say, I would be INCREDIBLY shocked if we got art of the iconics for these two classes given we don't even have Guardian and Commander's iconics yet.
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Just quoting what seems to be the previous word on the necromancy ethics subtopic, not necessarily a directed reply:
Point is that Paizo has the chance to "decriminalize" the Necromancer as a de facto evil character and make the "art of life and death" available to everyone with a semblance of morality.I just don't see it if they want to keep their current lore. When their central neutral deity totally despises necromancy and undead, when the lore is they are abominations and their animating force makes them always hungry mostly for destructing life, when they are forced to become evil or be evil, when almost all undead-related gods are totally evil...
There is certainly a tension in the lore between undead being (almost) always evil and undead PC options, but I don't think it necessarily has to be a binary between getting an evil-only class or forcing a retcon. It will be interesting to see how/if they attempt to resolve this, but it seems doable to fill in the gap with forms of thrall-type necromancy that escape the always-evil aspects of pre-existing options without necessarily refuting them.
Even leaving aside that undead mastery technically isn't evil without alignment, the Summon Undead spell doesn't have the unholy tag, nor for that matter did its predecessor Animate Dead have the evil trait. At the very least, it seems like creating a short term puppet isn't automatically evil in the eyes of the universe (even if Pharasma disapproves).
Considering the spell list chosen, I speculate that this modern Necromancer won't be forced to be sanctified unholy, which is the closest we have to mechanical evil these days. Without that, it's possible the lore text surrounding the class will emphasize that only cruel and inhuman people are capable of performing the soul-dirge that makes capital-N Necromancy possible, but I rather expect to find a middle ground of 'dark but misunderstood practices' that distinguish themselves from undead mastery as we knew it so that anti-hero characters can have their thrall exploding fun, too.
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Side note, I wish we knew more about the Runesmith. It feels like the discussion is dominated by the necromancer just because there's already so much grounds for speculation, where runesmith is a bit more of an enigma what it's going to look like or do. Ah well, I guess we'll see in a few more days.
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Oh, right, one more bit of speculation because I guess I wasn't done yet.
I think I would be surprised if the Necromancer class was built to clog the battlefield. We know that they're going to have expendable thralls that are individually weaker than traditional companions, and I assume this means you'll have the ability to have multiple thralls at once, but unless the designers are planning to ignore the design philosophy behind minions in 2e up until this point, I imagine that they'll be looking for ways to reap the feel of being a horde master without the traditional drawbacks.
For one, it would be strange if the Necromancer can just control all of their thralls at once in a single turn. Perhaps they can issue general, simple commands (Advance, Group Up, Retreat, etc.) that take up very little extra time resolving each thrall, but no matter how weak the thralls, I don't see them rolling dozens of attacks per turn for their horde. Either they'll be limited to only a couple thralls on the field at a time, or they won't be able to command all thralls in one turn. Possibly both.
Likewise, even if there's a low thralls fielded limit, I wouldn't be surprised if the thralls had a special swarming ability that allows them to share a space with another creature, allowing them to stand among your allies without blocking them from participating in the fight.
(... and if the designers somehow happen to have forgotten about room size limitations, it will be our job to remind them soon)
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I do think the Necromancer is the perfect opportunity to apply the swarm or troop traits to minions, however temporary they may be. To my knowledge there isn't any means of currently summoning a minion with the swarm trait (not even the Swarmkeeper, funnily enough), yet that's the common trait used to bundle weaker creatures together into a stronger unit. Directing a horde of mindless undead against a foe very much sounds like it would be within the class's wheelhouse, and in fact it feels like you could even apply this trait to any kind of individual minion to choose whether to summon a unit or a horde each time.
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I wouldn't be shocked if the Necromancer is something like a beefed up version of the Exorcist archetype, stapled onto a 3 slot caster, bard like chasis, with Int or Charisma as it's KAS.
Thralls working as an encounter resource, which get created and spent analogous to a 2nd set of focus points.
The build paths would then lean either more towards the spiritual side, more closely aligned to the Exorcist above, one, the more material where thralls gets to act like actual minions but are still intended to be spent like the spiritual side.
Minion thralls won't be good for much, but once you hit 3-4, at least deliver on a desired playstyle and theme.
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Yeah, I get the feeling one of the main points of tension is going to come from players wanting a unit micromanager class in PF2e. Summoning in other tabletop games slows down encounters to a crawl as the summoner spends ages directing all of their different minions individually, and Paizo have clearly tried to avoid this at all costs by having minions use up your actions when commanding them, and generally making it very difficult to summon lots of different minions in one go. Either they follow this convention with the necromancer and inevitably get flak from the more old-school players who might see this as the golden opportunity to flood the battle arena with lots of individually-controlled minions, or they break convention and do implement a minion-mancer with hour-long turns, in which case they'd get flak from pretty much everyone else. They're not going to be able to please everyone, and that's okay.
Guys, Troop. I'm surprised nobody (?) remembered this.
ahem.
I do think the Necromancer is the perfect opportunity to apply the swarm or troop traits to minions, however temporary they may be.
I will say, with troops it gets a little complicated with the size adjustments, though if the HP thresholds are made clear to the Necromancer, that could be manageable.
I once ran a spooky scary skeleton oneshot where one of the skeleton PCs could command a troop of skeletons. It was actually pretty easy to handle, all things considered.
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So Since so much of this has revolved around theories of the Necromancer (which is what I'm most interested in too) I'm gonna go ahead and yank the reigns to the left and say, What about Runesmith?
Is it going to be like the Kineticist where He only gets Runes from feats?
Or is it going to be more like the Commander/pre-master alchemist, who can learn all kinds of runes from a list, and choose which ones they can prepare that day?
Will the runes be something applied at daily prep or in downtime, or are they something that can be applied in the heat of battle?
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I'm expecting Runesmith to actually lean towards a remastered Alchemist resource model. Long-term runes handed out at the start of the day to allies, and a replenishing pool of short-term runes mainly used to slap onto enemies in fights.
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Oh, right, one more bit of speculation because I guess I wasn't done yet.
I think I would be surprised if the Necromancer class was built to clog the battlefield. We know that they're going to have expendable thralls that are individually weaker than traditional companions, and I assume this means you'll have the ability to have multiple thralls at once, but unless the designers are planning to ignore the design philosophy behind minions in 2e up until this point, I imagine that they'll be looking for ways to reap the feel of being a horde master without the traditional drawbacks.
For one, it would be strange if the Necromancer can just control all of their thralls at once in a single turn. Perhaps they can issue general, simple commands (Advance, Group Up, Retreat, etc.) that take up very little extra time resolving each thrall, but no matter how weak the thralls, I don't see them rolling dozens of attacks per turn for their horde. Either they'll be limited to only a couple thralls on the field at a time, or they won't be able to command all thralls in one turn. Possibly both.
You know, this is actually possible.
There is a PFS scenario where the big bad is a necromancer with a bunch of low level undead, and they gave it a mechanic where he could, as two actions, issue a command to the horde, but then they all have to perform the *exact* same action. (Move 10' North. Attack the creature in the space to your east. Etc.)
Be interesting if that was a test of concept.
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Looks like they are already handing out the playtest document at PAX and we got some first information.
Both classes are Int-based.
The necro is a 2 slot caster. Creating a thralls within 30 ft takes one action. Thralls have only 1 HP and are automatically hit by anything thrown their way. Thqy can provide flanking. The Necro has a large number of focus spells available (most of them as feats I'd guess).
Haven't looked at the runesmith information close enough to cover it.
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EDIT: Ninja'd by Blave
From a reddit post that says they have access to the classes via a PAX Unplugged playtest:
Necromancer is an int-based, prepared, occult caster with 2 slots per rank. At level 1 they get a focus cantrip called Create Thrall that, as 1 action, makes a thrall w/in 30ft that lasts a minute. Thralls are creatures with 1 hit point that are always hit by attacks and always fail saving throws. They have no actions, but can provide flanking (some feats/focus spells let you move thralls or have them attack with your spell attack modifier). You can destroy your thralls to do various things, like consuming one to gain a focus point once per 10mins. It seems to be a very focus-focused caster, with 14 feats that grant focus spells.
Runesmith is an int-based martial. You get a runic repertoire at level 1 with 4 runes from a list. You can apply runes by etching (10 min exploration activity) or tracing (1-2 actions). When you etch a rune onto something it lasts indefinitely, and you can have up to two etched runes at a time. When you trace a rune it lasts till the end of your next turn. You can use 1 action to trace a rune onto an adjacent target, or 2 to put it on something within 30ft. Both the size or the runic repertoire and the number of runes you can have etched at a time increase as you level up. The runes themselves are considered magical in the same way kineticist impulses are, and have effects scaling with your level. Each rune has a passive effect (either a buff or a debuff), and an invoke effect. You can use 1 action to invoke any number of your runes within 30ft of you; they produce their invoke effect and then disappear.
Looks like they are already handing out the playtest document at PAX and we got some first information.
Both classes are Int-based.
The necro is a 2 slot caster. Creating a thralls within 30 ft takes one action. Thralls have only 1 HP and are automatically hit by anything thrown their way. Thqy can provide flanking. The Necro has a large number of focus spells available (most of them as feats I'd guess).
Haven't looked at the runesmith information close enough to cover it.
Thanks for the info!
First thought:
Auto-hit makes 3rd action attacks more useful for foes who might otherwise just flail and miss, but now get to use it to turn off a thrall.
Also interesting to see how hiring a squad of level 1 NPCs to counter the necromancer's thralls would play out.
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Looks like they are already handing out the playtest document at PAX and we got some first information.
Both classes are Int-based.
The necro is a 2 slot caster. Creating a thralls within 30 ft takes one action. Thralls have only 1 HP and are automatically hit by anything thrown their way. Thqy can provide flanking. The Necro has a large number of focus spells available (most of them as feats I'd guess).
Haven't looked at the runesmith information close enough to cover it.
Thanks for the info!
First thought:
Auto-hit makes 3rd action attacks more useful for foes who might otherwise just flail and miss, but now get to use it to turn off a thrall.
Also interesting to see how hiring a squad of level 1 NPCs to counter the necromancer's thralls would play out.
Readying a Strike to trigger when a thralls appears will probably annoy necromancers to no end.
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Okay, I thought something like two slot casting would be the case for the Necromancer. ANd it looks like the thralls, before any of your feats, are just bodies. to be torn through, which I can definitely understand. And depending on how Action Economy works, I can definitely see you building up a small horde
The RUnesmith is working just like I thought, but Interesting thing I'm catching is that YOU can invoke your runes. Meaning even if you put it on an ally if the invoked effect could save them, you can do it on your turn, saving them actions.
Thralls could have some rider granted to them by a Feat or Dirge that has something to the effect of doing a small amount of damage any time its killed (outside of the AoE ability you can do) so that even if enemies go and kill your Thrall, they are still getting hit with something.
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The RUnesmith is working just like I thought, but Interesting thing I'm catching is that YOU can invoke your runes. Meaning even if you put it on an ally if the invoked effect could save them, you can do it on your turn, saving them actions.
Hey, this may actually be a Mesmerist replacement. That's exactly the mechanism for PF1 Mesmerist tricks.
(Currently playing a Mesmerist in a PF1 campaign and it just may be my favorite class. It's got a playstyle that's a little tricky to wrap your head around, but can do things no one else can.)
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Apparatently the thralls creating cantrip also scales with your proficiency. You can create more thralls as your spllcasting proficiency improves. (I'm guessing two at once at expert, three at master and 4 at legendary.)
Also...
Necromancers get auto-scaling proficiency in undead lore, and they have a level 2 class feat that lets them use undead lore to Recall Knowledge about any creature that has a skeleton
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As info creeps in I'm loving Necromancer
1-action cantrip to summon a Thrall that can flank, gets to attack upon being summoned, takes up a square, has no apparent limit on how many you can have, scales in damage, scales at proficiency ranks for how many it summons, and fuels feats and focus spells or to replenish a focus point!
Psychic progression spells that allow for more power budget to go to class feats and class abilities while still giving decent slots
Int based class (I personally love Int based classes)
Scaling undead lore with a feat that lets it be used on any creature with a skeleton!
What's not to love so far?
Interesting design choice for the Necromancer; kind of feels like a class archetype of Psychic but instead of cantrips they get spawnable minions that support or even potentially be used for damage.
Runesmith being Int does open some nice interactions with Inventor and/or Alchemist, maybe even Investigator. I just hope it has some more mechanics that differentiate it from them in a significant way.
Staying optimistic about it, though. I am definitely more excited about these classes than I have for the previous ones, so I will be looking forward to the playtest document (if/when they post it) for a deeper dive on what to expect.
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Necromancer is an int-based, prepared, occult caster with 2 slots per rank. At level 1 they get a focus cantrip called Create Thrall that, as 1 action, makes a thrall w/in 30ft that lasts a minute. Thralls are creatures with 1 hit point that are always hit by attacks and always fail saving throws. They have no actions, but can provide flanking (some feats/focus spells let you move thralls or have them attack with your spell attack modifier). You can destroy your thralls to do various things...Wow that doesn't sound like a minion master at all. It sounds more like a bank-resources-before-the-fight-then-spend-them-during concept. Personally I'm okay with that, but it's probably not the concept that a lot of the folks clamoring for a necromancer wanted.
That post left off a number of things. I added one just above your post that elaborate more. I think it is looking a lot like a minion master class honestly, though kept within the balance of PF2e and avoids the 30 minute turn issue.
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That post left off a number of things. I added one just above your post that elaborate more. I think it is looking a lot like a minion master class honestly, though kept within the balance of PF2e and avoids the 30 minute turn issue.Necromancer is an int-based, prepared, occult caster with 2 slots per rank. At level 1 they get a focus cantrip called Create Thrall that, as 1 action, makes a thrall w/in 30ft that lasts a minute. Thralls are creatures with 1 hit point that are always hit by attacks and always fail saving throws. They have no actions, but can provide flanking (some feats/focus spells let you move thralls or have them attack with your spell attack modifier). You can destroy your thralls to do various things...Wow that doesn't sound like a minion master at all. It sounds more like a bank-resources-before-the-fight-then-spend-them-during concept. Personally I'm okay with that, but it's probably not the concept that a lot of the folks clamoring for a necromancer wanted.
Exactly. This minimum-maintenance minion method abides to PF2 principles (or that of any polished TTRPG IMO) while providing the ongoing onslaught of undead. One thing I had liked in concept was the D&D4 minion, though its execution created narrative gaps I couldn't abide. The Necro's mechanics smooths those over by tying minions directly to the power budget of a separate entity. Genius. I had kind of envisioned creating creatures in combat, but this extrapolates and refines that so well. (Note I don't recall that I've ever called an RPG mechanic genius before.)
Plus, I'm thinking it's likely that Necros get the opportunity to pick up an undead companion w/ a feat chain. That wouldn't (necessarily) warrant playtesting, if only to give more time to the newer mechanics.
I imagine some interesting archetypes along these lines.
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One action to create within 30 feet and takes up a square? That's broken, hello new bonewall/bonecage. Every turn you block off 3 sides of a boss, if you ever get more then you completely surround one enemy every turn and then can double layer thrallwall. If taking away actions is the name of the game, necro wins.
One action to create within 30 feet and takes up a square? That's broken, hello new bonewall/bonecage. Every turn you block off 3 sides of a boss, if you ever get more then you completely surround one enemy every turn and then can double layer thrallwall. If taking away actions is the name of the game, necro wins.
This is probably why they always fail saves, always get hit and have 1 HP, but I gotta see this in action, but I think it is probably exactly as good as it needs to be
One action to create within 30 feet and takes up a square? That's broken, hello new bonewall/bonecage. Every turn you block off 3 sides of a boss, if you ever get more then you completely surround one enemy every turn and then can double layer thrallwall. If taking away actions is the name of the game, necro wins.
And it scales with your proficiency. At level 19 you can create 4 thralls per action!
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This is the complaint I'm most expecting to see once the playtest drops, honestly. People are going to hear necromancer, jump to a game like Diablo II in their heads, and then either be frustrated they can't have giant blobs of guys, or have to wait a long time to have a mechanic that simulates them.Necromancer is an int-based, prepared, occult caster with 2 slots per rank. At level 1 they get a focus cantrip called Create Thrall that, as 1 action, makes a thrall w/in 30ft that lasts a minute. Thralls are creatures with 1 hit point that are always hit by attacks and always fail saving throws. They have no actions, but can provide flanking (some feats/focus spells let you move thralls or have them attack with your spell attack modifier). You can destroy your thralls to do various things...Wow that doesn't sound like a minion master at all. It sounds more like a bank-resources-before-the-fight-then-spend-them-during concept. Personally I'm okay with that, but it's probably not the concept that a lot of the folks clamoring for a necromancer wanted.
Honestly the thrall system seems way more diablo necro than I was expecting they would let it. You can pop out a lot of thralls but they are super squishy and totally disposable. I would bet there will be feats that let you boss a blob of them around so it probably will scratch that itch pretty well.
Honestly the thrall system seems way more diablo necro than I was expecting they would let it. You can pop out a lot of thralls but they are super squishy and totally disposable. I would bet there will be feats that let you boss a blob of them around so it probably will scratch that itch pretty well.This is the complaint I'm most expecting to see once the playtest drops, honestly. People are going to hear necromancer, jump to a game like Diablo II in their heads, and then either be frustrated they can't have giant blobs of guys, or have to wait a long time to have a mechanic that simulates them.Necromancer is an int-based, prepared, occult caster with 2 slots per rank. At level 1 they get a focus cantrip called Create Thrall that, as 1 action, makes a thrall w/in 30ft that lasts a minute. Thralls are creatures with 1 hit point that are always hit by attacks and always fail saving throws. They have no actions, but can provide flanking (some feats/focus spells let you move thralls or have them attack with your spell attack modifier). You can destroy your thralls to do various things...Wow that doesn't sound like a minion master at all. It sounds more like a bank-resources-before-the-fight-then-spend-them-during concept. Personally I'm okay with that, but it's probably not the concept that a lot of the folks clamoring for a necromancer wanted.
Well, there is always the Undead Master class archetype to fill that niche.
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The poster mentioned they get some Feats that interact with weapons which sound pretty cool -
They've got caster proficiencies, but some feats about using weapons, such as one that lets them use certain martial weapons, one that lets then summon a weapon with maxed out fundamental runes and a Decaying rune, and one that lets them make a strike where they sacrifice thralls to deal bonus damage and regain HP on a hit