If space is a concern, simply just don't call your full allotment of thralls.
I'm concerned a bunch of people are going to complain to the developers about this and the final class will be much less capable of making bodies.
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I think there should be some sort of base kinesis type thing where you get your thralls to do minor actions, like "bring that thing to me" or "open the door" or "pull the lever".
If space is a concern, simply just don't call your full allotment of thralls.
I'm concerned a bunch of people are going to complain to the developers about this and the final class will be much less capable of making bodies.
Using Create Thrall is the basic way to attack with a Thrall.
Not using you allotment means not attacking.But I agree, Thralls are not really an issue, they don't stop you from moving unless you are the enemy.
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I think the Tumble Through DC should be class DC.
I also think there is little reason to be concerned about dismissing Thralls.
They count as allies, so they do not imped the movement of PCs.
They do count as lesser cover, and that should be addressed, but otherwise, a battle field full of Thralls is the enemies problem, and only a boon to a Necromancer.
"is the enemies problem" means "is the GM's problem." The enemies are another person running all that who would actually like to have fun as well.
I'm having a really hard time with this whole mechanic from the GM PoV. Popping out piles of tokens every turn that basically have no value whatsoever to the player but actively impede the GM sounds extremely frustrating on the other side of the table.
Like, do mindless enemies just waste their actions attacking these constantly? That trivializes encounters entirely, but not doing that requires some kind of metagaming where a mindless creature somehow knows those enemies "don't count" and tries to ignore them, if it can. If it can't because its narrow confines and they're in the way, I'm effectively boxed in far more than players are in terms of movement.
For smarter enemies, they will try to ignore the thralls whenever possible because actually doing anything about them that isn't AoE is largely a waste of time. But it's going to to create a lot of board clutter, a lot of obstacles that only work in one direction, and a lot of annoying situations because of it. And that's every fight a Necromancer is in.
Turn this around and have enemies doing a mechanic to the PCs like this constantly, and players would hate it. But that's exactly what will be happening to the GM, and it sounds like an absolutely miserable time.
PCs can already cause those obstacles with things like walls/summons/companions, but those generally cost resources or put something that you actually care about in danger. Thralls are worthless, throwaway obstacles that mean nothing and have basically no cost/value.
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Encounters with swarms of weak enemies aren't uncommon, so the 'players would never stand for this' bit doesn't make sense.
As a GM I just don't really see the issue. Yeah it's something I'm going to probably have to help a player manage, but thralls are as low overhead as this mechanic could possibly be and have a number of ways to deal with or outright ignore them.
Encounters with swarms of weak enemies aren't uncommon, so the 'players would never stand for this' bit doesn't make sense.
Swarms of weak enemies tend to get blown up pretty quickly and don't reappear every turn for 1 action, though. That would get old real fast if it was happening to players every fight. "Your fireball took out most of the enemies, but now that big one just made them reappear, sorry."
As a GM I just don't really see the issue. Yeah it's something I'm going to probably have to help a player manage, but thralls are as low overhead as this mechanic could possibly be and have a number of ways to deal with or outright ignore them.
Its low overhead for this kind of mechanic, but its not low overhead overall when multiples are coming out every action, and at high level the numbers can quickly get very large.
I just don't think that this is fundamentally the right mechanical design. It's effectively conjuring up obstacles out of nowhere on a near constant basis.
Yeah, it looks like you can endlessly kite an Iron Warden (formerly Iron Golem) or similar around with thralls who are the nearest target. It either strides and strikes (you replace at least one with one action), or uses the poison AOE breath weapon that can't effect thralls.
A large minority of mindless creatures either have ranged attacks (ensuring one action per thrall instead of two) or an AOE (clearing out multiples). But the options to distract mindless stuff seem promising in the unlikely event your melee guys want to sit out the fight and just shoot ranged attacks.
(Or your GM arbitrarily decides the mindless threat assessment program attacks the guy who inflicted the most damage rather than the closest threat in some circumstances.)
Yeah, it looks like you can endlessly kite an Iron Warden (formerly Iron Golem) or similar around with thralls who are the nearest target. It either strides and strikes (you replace at least one with one action), or uses the poison AOE breath weapon that can't effect thralls.
I've seen low level mages with ray of frost kite iron golems to death with zero effort or challenge.
Most golems are a joke anyways, unless you build them into a contrived encounter scenario.
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I mean, the thing about Fantasy Robots is that you can frequently outsmart them, yes. I think that's the trope.
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I mean, the thing about Fantasy Robots is that you can frequently outsmart them, yes. I think that's the trope.
There's playing it smart, and then there's the most anti-climatic monotony ever.
Kiting golems inevitably ends up the latter.
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snip
I agree create thrall (and thralls generally) is a clunky mechanic for all the reasons you've stated. But necromancer is (prima facie) probably the class design with the largest/most interesting decision space in its base kit, and I don't really know how to keep that option breadth and also get rid of everything that's so clunky about how it works.
It's frustrating, because I agree the current way it works has a lot of pitfalls, and you've articulated most all of them. I also just... see an unusually interesting mechanical design for the system and am afraid it'll get flattened into something more boring, in the way magus playtest spell combat was flattened into spellstrike.
I would not be surprised at all if thralls stopped blocking movement and became more limited (e.g. Flourish on Create Thrall, or less/no scaling on thralls created). It would definitely make it run smoother at the table. But the class would be way less interesting for that.
If a foe wipes out a significant number of Thralls with a AOE it's gonna take a significant number of Necromancer actions to replenish them.
Thralls should be able to steal actions, if they force a Tumble Through,and the enemy fails their check ,but a lot of time the opponent will just be able go around.
Tangle Vine is a more reliable way to slow down a foe.
Create Thrall is kinda like a spamable Scatter Scree, with a smaller area.
No matter what,giving the Necromancer an ability to erase Thralls will not make any significant difference for GM or Player.
The player can largely ignore them and Thralls thwarting the GM/ monsters is kinda the point of their existence, just like summons or animal companion, but with less power than either.
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The player can largely ignore them and Thralls thwarting the GM/ monsters is kinda the point of their existence, just like summons or animal companion, but with less power than either.
But far, far more spammable. That's where my issue really is. Animal companions are relatively expensive and you don't have lots of them. If it gets killed, it's not something you can simply get back almost instantly, so there's a risk to throwing it in the way as a blocker without any support. Sometimes it's worth that risk to do it, and that's a tactically interesting decision. (Also players in my experience tend to like their animal companions and don't want them to die. YMMV on that, but my players are invested in their animal comapnion's well being in a way that just won't happen with a disposable resource like thralls.)
Summons use up spell slots and are action heavy.
Having thralls constantly thrown in the way to thwart enemies might feel fine for the player doing it, but it's going to feel less fine to me, who is constantly the one having 3 of the things reappearing every turn to be in the way. That will get old real fast, and the game should be fun for the GM too.
Thralls should be able to steal actions, if they force a Tumble Through,and the enemy fails their check ,but a lot of time the opponent will just be able go around.
I'm not sure there is a DC to target with Tumble Through right now, but it seems like it would be pretty easy for anything with Acrobatics given thralls basically auto-fail against anything targeted at them.
I think that the Thralls being level -1 may indicate that their defenses / saves are also in the "no need to roll" category.
That does uniquely have a wrinkle with Tumble Through, due to it allowing movement with no action loss.
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snipI agree create thrall (and thralls generally) is a clunky mechanic for all the reasons you've stated. But necromancer is (prima facie) probably the class design with the largest/most interesting decision space in its base kit, and I don't really know how to keep that option breadth and also get rid of everything that's so clunky about how it works.
It's frustrating, because I agree the current way it works has a lot of pitfalls, and you've articulated most all of them. I also just... see an unusually interesting mechanical design for the system and am afraid it'll get flattened into something more boring, in the way magus playtest spell combat was flattened into spellstrike.
I would not be surprised at all if thralls stopped blocking movement and became more limited (e.g. Flourish on Create Thrall, or less/no scaling on thralls created). It would definitely make it run smoother at the table. But the class would be way less interesting for that.
Yeah I agree with all of this, much as I'm loath to say it. :) I think that it's going to appeal to a fair number of people and it definitely has some unique things going on.
Sometimes clunkiness is actually part of the appeal. I know I've loved a few video games over the years that were really janky and it was just part of the charm. When they "fixed it" in sequels and such, some of the charm was lost.
So I get that I'm probably in the minority thinking on this and that if they go too far in "fixing it", it'll probably take something away from the whole thing. But I definitely would like it to be less frustrating for the GM side to be dealing with all these tokens clogging up space and getting in the way without hindering the players.
I don't know what that is yet, though. As a player I'd just say "class isn't for me, moving on", but I'll need to deal with it as a GM like it or not.
Yeah I agree with all of this, much as I'm loath to say it. :) I think that it's going to appeal to a fair number of people and it definitely has some unique things going on.
Sometimes clunkiness is actually part of the appeal. I know I've loved a few video games over the years that were really janky and it was just part of the charm. When they "fixed it" in sequels and such, some of the charm was lost.
So I get that I'm probably in the minority thinking on this and that if they go too far in "fixing it", it'll probably take something away from the whole thing. But I definitely would like it to be less frustrating for the GM side to be dealing with all these tokens clogging up space and getting in the way without hindering the players.
I don't know what that is yet, though. As a player I'd just say "class isn't for me, moving on", but I'll need to deal with it as a GM like it or not.
Yeah. I agree dealing with it as a GM will be its own can of worms, too. Given how impactful attacking thralls is (particularly at early levels), it feels like how much fun a necromancer has is partially in your hands as a GM in a way it just isn't for other classes.
Its hard to imagine 3 inert bodies can cause that much trouble.
They are worse at stopping movement than a 2 action cantrip.
They are worse at stopping movement than a Net or Bolo attack.
Thralls are very weak, but having squares on the battlefield that have the barest possible chance of slightly slowing down the monsters is really bothering some people.
I do think having to roll and resolve Tumble Through would suck up time, and the enemy is liable to succeed anyway.
So how about this:anyone can move freely through a Thralls space, but it cost an extra 5' for non-allies.
It's not Difficult Terrain, which means it is not as easily countered and it can stack with Difficult Terrain, making for some cool combos.
No actions of their own,auto dying from any attack,barely slowing foes who walk through their square and granting lesser cover, that is about as non-impactful as a creature can get.
I think "how you treat thralls" is going to depend a lot on how the GM plays the creature that just took a swing at them. Most things are going to want to hit back, which will eat an action and the thrall goes away.
Some intelligent opponents will see "big scary explosions come from those meatpiles" and decide to proactively remove some.
Some especially intelligent opponents will understand the thrall mechanics, but it shouldn't be everybody the party fights.
I would just like to point out one thing regarding this discussion: Create Thrall is a focus spell, so it costs a focus point to use. and as things are currently written, necromancers only get ONE focus point, TWO if they Consume Thrall, and the class as currently written does not have a means to gain any more points, so they can not as currently written do "endless spamming' of thralls. They can do a one action casting to create maybe 4 thralls with legendary necromancy, 8 if they Consume Thrall and use three actions to get them all in one round, and then nothing for 10 minutes.
Unless I am mistaken and focus cantrips don't cost points to use?
Unless I am mistaken and focus cantrips don't cost points to use?
Correct. Presumably the designation 'focus' on focus cantrips is to separate them from cantrips that any member of any class can take. For example, Courageous Anthem is a focus cantrip (and also a composition cantrip)
Unless I am mistaken and focus cantrips don't cost points to use?Correct. Presumably the designation 'focus' on focus cantrips is to separate them from cantrips that any member of any class can take. For example, Courageous Anthem is a focus cantrip (and also a composition cantrip)
Okay. Someone else just pointed out to me as well that per remaster rules, all classes that gain focus spells always gains focus points up to a maximum of three points to their pool and no longer explicitly states that in the spells themselves. My apologies, but I am not up to date on all the changes as I have not had very much gaming experience lately (full table every time I try to sign up), so I didn't know.
That being said, now I see why the concern, but for my, it's still a non-issue; there are any number of spells and effects that can wipe out an entire battlefield of thralls in one action. You just have to worry about the "if destroyed" after effects| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Incidentally, I don't feel like making my player have to outsmart their own abilities is the kind of open-ended problem solving I care to spotlight in my games. In fact, I'm pretty firmly in the camp against "forcing players to exert brainpower" just to be able to get their character to do what they want--not even for the sake of having their character be more effective in the tactical combat aspect of the game.
It seems like if my players have enough brainpower left at the end of the day that they can play Pathfinder with me, I want them to be able to save it for keeping track of the shared story and the elements of the game that are actually fun, not the business of bookkeeping their thralls, or regretting how a poorly placed thrall messed up their flow or worse that of their allies.
I don't know if free thrall deletion is a thing that needs to be in the Necromancer's basic skill set, but I do know for me the winning argument in favour of keeping thrall jank will never be "The skill ceiling needs to be higher, players don't have enough things to think about in combat. Figuring out how to get rid of your own misplaced thralls is interesting and engaging."
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Incidentally, I don't feel like making my player have to outsmart their own abilities is the kind of open-ended problem solving I care to spotlight in my games. In fact, I'm pretty firmly in the camp against "forcing players to exert brainpower" just to be able to get their character to do what they want--not even for the sake of having their character be more effective in the tactical combat aspect of the game.
It seems like if my players have enough brainpower left at the end of the day that they can play Pathfinder with me, I want them to be able to save it for keeping track of the shared story and the elements of the game that are actually fun, not the business of bookkeeping their thralls, or regretting how a poorly placed thrall messed up their flow or worse that of their allies.
I don't know if free thrall deletion is a thing that needs to be in the Necromancer's basic skill set, but I do know for me the winning argument in favour of keeping thrall jank will never be "The skill ceiling needs to be higher, players don't have enough things to think about in combat. Figuring out how to get rid of your own misplaced thralls is interesting and engaging."
I bristle at the suggestion that this kind of problem-solving isn't or can't be fun.
The player side of the table in PF2E is unusually straightforward to me on most classes, and kind of boring for it; I often feel like I have more mental load when deciding what debuff to give with Evil Eye on a 1E witch than on most PF2E characters over an entire combat. Even kineticist (which has a pretty good spread of options that are useful/viable at a time) has felt straightforward. Things rarely feel clever or interesting. Even most rotation disruptions are straightforwardly solved. In general, PF2E abilities have a sort of "lock and key" design that makes decisionmaking straightforward. You have your main shtick and your backup/alternate shticks for certain situations, and you just look at the situation and do the thing the game says is appropriate for it a lot of the time.
Necromancer is interesting precisely because it avoids this problem.
1) Create Thrall (and blocking spaces) is itself strong enough to situationally compete with grave spells and slotted spells. Thralls have multiple, competing uses and can be disrupted.
2) Grave spells don't use slots but require setup for best results; meanwhile, your slots don't need setup but are fewer in number. So it's worth asking whether or not you want to bypass setting up! And again, blocking spaces is strong enough to situationally compete with casting.
3) Moving is taxing on your action economy.
4) Your reactions have fairly substantial tradeoffs, and the one that creates a thrall when an enemy dies allows your plans to change significantly midturn.
This is good gameplay and an interesting decision space. I want the class to keep most of it. I would be very sad if the class were reduced to "make uninteractable thrall, eat uninteractable thrall to do your situationally obvious ability."
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Incidentally, I don't feel like making my player have to outsmart their own abilities is the kind of open-ended problem solving I care to spotlight in my games. In fact, I'm pretty firmly in the camp against "forcing players to exert brainpower" just to be able to get their character to do what they want--not even for the sake of having their character be more effective in the tactical combat aspect of the game.
It seems like if my players have enough brainpower left at the end of the day that they can play Pathfinder with me, I want them to be able to save it for keeping track of the shared story and the elements of the game that are actually fun, not the business of bookkeeping their thralls, or regretting how a poorly placed thrall messed up their flow or worse that of their allies.
I don't know if free thrall deletion is a thing that needs to be in the Necromancer's basic skill set, but I do know for me the winning argument in favour of keeping thrall jank will never be "The skill ceiling needs to be higher, players don't have enough things to think about in combat. Figuring out how to get rid of your own misplaced thralls is interesting and engaging."
I bristle at the suggestion that this kind of problem-solving isn't or can't be fun.
The player side of the table in PF2E is unusually straightforward to me on most classes, and kind of boring for it; I often feel like I have more mental load when deciding what debuff to give with Evil Eye on a 1E witch than on most PF2E characters over an entire combat. Even kineticist (which has a pretty good spread of options that are useful/viable at a time) has felt straightforward. Things rarely feel clever or interesting. Even most rotation disruptions are straightforwardly solved. In general, PF2E abilities have a sort of "lock and key" design that makes decisionmaking straightforward. You have your main shtick and your backup/alternate shticks for certain situations, and you just look at the situation...
Ah, I very much should have been clearer which subtopic of this thread I was responding to. Playtest threads spawn at such a rate and feature so many parallel conversations, it's very hard to keep track of who said what in which.
That being the case, I would like to emphasise that I don't think Nercromancers shouldn't do fun or complex things with their thralls. One of the cons remarked upon by the OP was that there's no way to just get rid of an unwanted thrall without spending a cooldown or waiting out its duration. In response to that, Trip H. on the previous page advocated that you shouldn't be able to get rid of unwanted thralls, because (and I paraphrase a bit), having no means of turning off your own class features is interesting, and that players wouldn't use their brainpower without discomfort.
I fully support such tactically rich gameplay as these two have evidently been designed to accommodate. What I don't support is class features being difficult or annoying to use just because accidentally creating obstacles to waste your own actions is engaging. I just think you should be able to get rid of a thrall that you don't need anymore without spending resources or waiting. It feels like a necromancer who can create thralls at the snap of a finger should be able to put them in the ground again just as easily, and I don't think it makes the game more tactically rich if you can't.
Ah, I very much should have been clearer which subtopic of this thread I was responding to. Playtest threads spawn at such a rate and feature so many parallel conversations, it's very hard to keep track of who said what in which.
That being the case, I would like to emphasise that I don't think Nercromancers shouldn't do fun or complex things with their thralls. One of the cons remarked upon by the OP was that there's no way to just get rid of an unwanted thrall without spending a cooldown or waiting out its duration. In response to that, Trip H. on the previous page advocated that you shouldn't be able to get rid of unwanted thralls, because (and I paraphrase a bit), having no means of turning off your own class features is interesting, and that players wouldn't use their brainpower without discomfort.
I fully support such tactically rich gameplay as these two have evidently been designed to accommodate. What I don't support is class features being difficult or annoying to use just because accidentally creating obstacles to waste your own actions is engaging. I just think you should be able to get rid of a thrall that you don't need anymore without spending resources or waiting. It feels like a necromancer who can create thralls at the snap of a finger should be able to put them in the ground again just as easily, and I don't think it makes the game more tactically rich if you can't.
Oh, fair enough. I kind of like that clunk, personally, but that's one of the more minor things. Removing it does have some weird knock-on effects, though:
-Effects that proc when a thrall is destroyed (the difficult terrain from the one subclass, the L12 feats) shouldn't proc on "dismissed" thralls
-It makes space less of a resource you need to manage. Space is kind of like a cost for thralls, in a way
-It can allow you to get flanking on multiple Create Thrall attacks in the same turn in the same space; minor, but yeah
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Trip H. on the previous page advocated that you shouldn't be able to get rid of unwanted thralls, because (and I paraphrase a bit), having no means of turning off your own class features is interesting, and that players wouldn't use their brainpower without discomfort.
There's a lot that can get lost in the shuffle, but yeah, I'm going to take a sec to tear down that strawman.
I am against the 0A free dismiss for thralls, yes, as that would remove all brainpower from that consideration. If there really is an instant delete button with no cost nor context, then your entire thought process around creating thralls is fundamentally changed, and imo for the worse.
I very much support the addition of more tools that include more ways to remove unwanted thralls than what is currently baseline.
My main agree/disagree "line" is that there must always be some real mechanical cost around the deletion, else you no longer care/think about it. So long as a badly placed thrall creates some "need to change my plan a bit" response, then the puzzle/mechanic is "punishing enough" to meet my goal.
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One specific example of the "more tools, but not a "solve" button" push was when I proposed 2nd grave cantrip that's granted at L1:
Manipulate Thralls:
1A [tag][tag][tag]With a jerk of animating energies, you stir your thralls into action. When you cast this cantrip, you energize up to the same number of thralls that you could add via Create Thrall. These thralls Stride up to 20 feet, and one may make an attack as if freshly created.
Additionally, you may consume any thrall within 60 feet to energize yourself, enabling you to Step before or after your thralls act.
While the genesis of this cantrip was the thrall block question, the point is that it's a genuine multi-purpose tool that gives the whole class more depth. The ability to do a:
1A: [Step](Spender) + [Necro management](not builder!)that includes deleting a thrall, is the missing spender counterpart to Create Thrall's builder nature that really would enhance the class, imo.
That example is not a boring delete button, and having a sprinkle of complexity to the cantrip is required to add the kind of depth that would distinguish the Necro as a rewarding("engaging") class to play.
Again, the point is that the "delete thrall" desire must entangled with other options and choices. And never solved with a "problem over" 0A button.
And yeah, there are so many existing delete options outside of the Necro's kit, that I am not worried about the block being a real gameplay problem.
Right now, you can also cast Create Thrall to make a thrall punch another thrall you want gone, while building Necro's resource.
Outside Necro, you have literally every other conceivable way to do 1HP of damage to something that has no ability to avoid it. It's not hard to remove your thralls, but avoiding the "I've gotta waste 1A to only delete a thrall" worst case requires some actual brainpower, and that process of problem solving is fun.
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It's is genuinely frustrating as hell to be so badly misinterpreted/misquoted like that. If I actually thought "that you shouldn't be able to get rid of unwanted thralls, because (and I paraphrase a bit), having no means of turning off your own class features is interesting,"
then I'd be advocating for making thralls immune to the Necro's strikes and spells, things that actually ya know, would make it harder to get rid of them.
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I'm really confused.
Why the concern about Thralls taking up space?
Am I wrong in my understanding of how moving through occupied squares works?
Is it because you can move through but not occupy a friendly characters space?
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Exactly. The worry is not about Thralls blocking ally movement but occupying squares that melee allies may need to have reach for melee actions.
It's not a big problem at first glance but it become if the the thralls start to surround enemies forcing allies to move to a bad position or even the GM using this against PC moving enemies to use thralls has square shields.
As long the number of thralls can increase fast and some rooms may be very small a good number of thralls may start to difficult your own allies positioning so have a tool to allow to (re)move some thralls from bad positions maybe helpful in these situations.
Trip H. on the previous page advocated that you shouldn't be able to get rid of unwanted thralls, because (and I paraphrase a bit), having no means of turning off your own class features is interesting, and that players wouldn't use their brainpower without discomfort.There's a lot that can get lost in the shuffle, but yeah, I'm going to take a sec to tear down that strawman.
Apologies, I didn't mean to upset you by misrepresentation your opinion. I happened to focus on your first post in defense of keeping "thrall jank" and overlooked the later posts discussing movement options.
I still don't think "whoops, I put a thrall in a place that now actively interferes with my or my allies' ability to attack the enemies" should really waste one or more actions from the party getting rid of that thrall, especially as the number of thralls you stack around a single enemy builds up over a fight. If managing the number of squares you block up is really necessary to the class' power budget, I'll concede that at-cost deletion or movement may be the only way to go, but I'm not really seeing much value added.
And of course, give us ways to make our thralls do menial stuff out of combat. That's very much a class fantasy element for me.
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- I really want to be able to move them for both flavor and mechanic. - Proposed Solution - Perhaps under "Create Thrall" add a line that gives you a choice to either create one or move an existing one with both options ending in said thrall making an attackAs a GM, I really really don't want this. I'm already not liking the idea of having higher level Necromancer players popping out 3 or 4 tokens at a time whenever they bring thralls out.
Being able to reposition them all would just lead to delays and slow combats as people try to figure out how to reposition their thralls to hinder the NPCs (aka: me) as much as possible.
PF2 puts a lot of effort into not having minion spam slow the game down. Undoing that would be a big mistake.
This is misleading. Given that the necromancer can just create more thralls in the right spots. Being able to move thralls at the same rate you could create them instead is really just a flavour/clean up choice.
I want my thralls to be moveable for role playing value.
Encounters with swarms of weak enemies aren't uncommon, so the 'players would never stand for this' bit doesn't make sense.
As a GM I just don't really see the issue. Yeah it's something I'm going to probably have to help a player manage, but thralls are as low overhead as this mechanic could possibly be and have a number of ways to deal with or outright ignore them.
While I understand issues with token spam and game speed, it seems that thralls being unable to act after their conjuration does pose a role playing problem.
If we put aside mindless or instinctual creatures as I agree they'd likely attack the corpse in front of them despite its lack of threat, I do think intelligent enemies are going to be a weird experience. You would expect them to want to fight the thralls, however, once they realise they're incapable of acting they'd ignore them only to reprioritise them when they realise the thralls are fuel for the Necomancer's actual abilities. It is completely at odd with how we'd expect adventurers to treat the thralls of a Necromancer.
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For me, getting rid of an unwanted Thrall without the need for a focus point gets me two things. 1) something else interesting to do when I don't have or want to spend a hero point and 2) ensures that if a Thrall is where an ally wants to go, I can be a team player and get rid of the Thrall.
I'd love to see an ability built into the class that does something like:
1 action
Destroy a Thrall
Gain 2 Temp HP.
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Would be nice if you could just dismiss thralls, as many thralls as you want.
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Having the enemy be able to use thralls as cover to block PCs because you can't move/remove them creates a party problem. The fewer abilities we have that can create inter party angst the better.
Think of small rooms, summoning 2 or 3 per action, meaning you can have 4-6 per round. You could quickly get I to situations that enemies could situate themselves between a hazard or wall and a thrall to prevent most avenues of melee getting to them.
How will you feel when your older thralls that were good when you summoned them are now in the way and you have no power over them.
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Having the enemy be able to use thralls as cover to block PCs because you can't move/remove them creates a party problem. The fewer abilities we have that can create inter party angst the better.
Think of small rooms, summoning 2 or 3 per action, meaning you can have 4-6 per round. You could quickly get I to situations that enemies could situate themselves between a hazard or wall and a thrall to prevent most avenues of melee getting to them.
How will you feel when your older thralls that were good when you summoned them are now in the way and you have no power over them.
Considering that the thralls can also easily be used to box an enemy in and/or create major movement problems for NPCs, especially in a small room, it seems perfectly fair that the GM can turn around and use them to create problems for the PCs.
Having the enemy be able to use thralls as cover to block PCs because you can't move/remove them creates a party problem. The fewer abilities we have that can create inter party angst the better.
Think of small rooms, summoning 2 or 3 per action, meaning you can have 4-6 per round. You could quickly get I to situations that enemies could situate themselves between a hazard or wall and a thrall to prevent most avenues of melee getting to them.
How will you feel when your older thralls that were good when you summoned them are now in the way and you have no power over them.Considering that the thralls can also easily be used to box an enemy in and/or create major movement problems for NPCs, especially in a small room, it seems perfectly fair that the GM can turn around and use them to create problems for the PCs.
This gets fixed real quick if you interpret Create Thrall as allowing you to attack with an existing thrall.
Go ahead and shield yourself with my zombies; that's when they're going to eat you.
That's why I proposed in other topic that the Create Thrall should also give the option to move or attack with an existing thrall instead of just allow to create a new one and attack with it.
This solve the problem and also make it more thematic to the fantasy of necromancer controlling its own undeads.
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Right now you can just add another Thrall anywhere you want one to be, as long as that spot is within 30' feet of you.
Decoupling Thrall movement from the Focus spells will drastically increase their potential range.
IF that is a problem,and I don't know that it is, we could limit the Thralls that can be moved to only those within range of a given casting of Create Thrall.
That would keep the movement range similar to the current Create range.
I'm not convinced Thrall movement is a good idea.
Moving them means resolving how they interact with the terrain and other characters as they move.
Unless said interaction is effectively none existent, it will take up time.
This brings me back to eliminating their ability to force a Tumble Through check.
We could reduce their occupation of a square to nothing more than increased movement cost and the first level of Cover.
We can make the Cover only protect allied and the movement penalty only affect enemies.
We could allow Thralls to be dismissed or moved
We could allow Thralls to share space with other characters, but if we allow them to be dismissed or moved, I don't think that it is a needed adjustment.
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This brings me back to eliminating their ability to force a Tumble Through check.
I think the answer is that creatures auto-succeed Tumble Through against the thralls. Baked into Tumble Through is that squares in the creature's space you're moving through are difficult terrain. So functionally, without any rewriting, enemies just move through thralls as difficult terrain.
Right now you can just add another Thrall anywhere you want one to be, as long as that spot is within 30' feet of you.
Decoupling Thrall movement from the Focus spells will drastically increase their potential range.IF that is a problem,and I don't know that it is, we could limit the Thralls that can be moved to only those within range of a given casting of Create Thrall.
That would keep the movement range similar to the current Create range.I'm not convinced Thrall movement is a good idea.
Moving them means resolving how they interact with the terrain and other characters as they move.
Unless said interaction is effectively none existent, it will take up time.This brings me back to eliminating their ability to force a Tumble Through check.
We could reduce their occupation of a square to nothing more than increased movement cost and the first level of Cover.
We can make the Cover only protect allied and the movement penalty only affect enemies.
We could allow Thralls to be dismissed or moved
We could allow Thralls to share space with other characters, but if we allow them to be dismissed or moved, I don't think that it is a needed adjustment.
You are overthinking about Thrall Stride. They already moves when necromancer uses CONGLOMERATE OF LIMBS, LIFE TAP. The point is to allow to (re)move and reuse then to Strike without use a focus point.
What if you could create a new thrall in the square occupied by an existing thrall. Destroying the old as the new erupts out, treatinf the new one in all ways as a newly summoned one.
That way, if space is an issue, the Necromancer can still get to create new thralls, but the space required doesn't increase. But the space is still a limit to the total number available for use.
Yes but with all the respect because I know that you are trying to solve the problem but this is the dumbest solution thematically speaking. Why to destroy and recreate a thrall in same place just to use a Strike instead of just make this thrall to Strike?
Please don't understand this reply as a personal critic, provocation or attack is just to point that we are already entering in a workaround to a problem that's is caused due a limitation of current Create Thrall cantrip when in fact we just need to adjust the cantrip to make an ability that sould be obvious to necromancer. Be able to control its own undeads.
Some focus spells allow you to move Thralls.
The fact that they are focus spells limits how much that happens.
I'm fine with moving 3 Thralls a turn, but that is more than most of the focus spells do.
I think I like the weak, non-moving Thralls because they open things up for large numbers.
Maybe a Troop or Swarm would be a better way to represent this?
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Since most thrall movement from focus spells is a Stride, they are subject to difficult terrain. It's a bit weird that Flesh Tsunami can potentially limit the effective range of some of your focus spells quite dramatically. And what about the thralls created by living graveyard? Are they automatically knocked prone by it and can't ever be used for any of the movement focus spells since they can't take a Stand action?
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Some focus spells allow you to move Thralls.
The fact that they are focus spells limits how much that happens.
I'm fine with moving 3 Thralls a turn, but that is more than most of the focus spells do.
The idea is that don't allow to move more thralls than you are currently able to create to avoid slowdown the things morte than the Create Thrall would.
The idea is that don't allow to move more thralls than you are currently able to create to avoid slowdown the things morte than the Create Thrall would.Some focus spells allow you to move Thralls.
The fact that they are focus spells limits how much that happens.
I'm fine with moving 3 Thralls a turn, but that is more than most of the focus spells do.
So maxing out at 4 an Action, 12 a turn?
That seems like a lot of interactions to resolve in a short amount of time.Even a single character moving 360' feet in a turn would create a lot of interactions that we don't normally have to resolve in one turn.
Yes it is but except that you have some kind of difficult terrain or the GM wants to uses a reaction when the thralls move in practice will be no big difference between put a token in battle map or move an existing one.
Also I can se a reason to a level 19 necromancer put 12 thralls in game in a single round but I see little reason to it move more than number of players in 99% of cases.
The idea of move options is to use when you need to do minor adjustments or maybe want to move in exploration mode (but honestly makes more sense to have an dedicated exploration activity without the Sustain) not something to do frequently and with all your thralls.
You probably will never see someone doing specially in a end-game:
- Turn 1: I will use my 3 actions to put 12 thralls into the battle and do 3 attacks increasing my MAP.
- Turn X: I will use my 3 actions to move 12 thralls.
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I genuinely do not want to have to worry about moving upwards of 5 different things at once. The most thralls you should be moving at a time is one per action.
A redline design constraint for something like a necromancer is that your turns should not take significantly longer than everybody else's. Summoners and companion people have already established that two bodies is roughly 1 action over a single body with more constraints. The Necromancer should in no circumstances get to make like 14 actions in a turn.