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This is a very petty point, but I play petty characters. Being a necromancer means being able to wave your hand and some shambling corpse, skeletal servitor, or spectral shade will pour you a goblet of wine. They don't necessarily need to be able to do anything fancy, but I should be able to have menial out-of-combat stuff done without a spell slot. If I have a reason to be casting Phantasmal Minion, then something is off.
- Absolutely, I can ask the GM for this. Almost any of them will say yes, outside of PFS. It's a lot more satisfying to have the class itself support that, and might help the "video game necromancer" feel by giving some roleplay options.
- Yes, there's some cognitive dissonance involved in allowing this without allowing trap checking. (Necromancers should also never walk down a dungeon hallway without sending a disposable undead ahead, but that's not something PF2 balance would ever allow.) But we already have something like that for familiars, so I'm not too worried about that.
Maybe one special thrall per day can be made well enough for this? No duration, takes simple commands outside combat. Then if it's sent to check for traps, it's gone for the day like a Witch's familiar. Or the "attack" option of the cantrip can be an interact or manipulate out of combat.
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Those poor, poor rogues...
Out of the job due to modern automation.
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- Yes, there's some cognitive dissonance involved in allowing this without allowing trap checking. (Necromancers should also never walk down a dungeon hallway without sending a disposable undead ahead, but that's not something PF2 balance would ever allow.)
Um... Why not? Are you sure about that?
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I've been feeling this too!
My idea was an optional "Create Lesser Thrall" the idea being you make an even more fragilely animated thrall that can do menial tasks that would not require a check of any kind, carry light objects. However, Exploration and combat are more mentally taxing and you cannot maintain one of these while in those situations.
familiarsbingo. Also Undead Companions. And some or all of that would probably appear in the release anyway. But it already exists.
Familiars are too small to get the door, etc., and having used undead companions, they're very combat-focused and usually on cooldown after being destroyed. Both can kinda fill this role, but it'd be nice for the class to support it more natively.
- Yes, there's some cognitive dissonance involved in allowing this without allowing trap checking. (Necromancers should also never walk down a dungeon hallway without sending a disposable undead ahead, but that's not something PF2 balance would ever allow.)Um... Why not? Are you sure about that?
Ah, I should be more clear: while Witch can absolutely send their familiar for trap-checking, that's a once-per-day thing. PF2 wouldn't give you a familiar that respawns immediately after being killed, or an at-will movable body that sets off traps.
Not exactly. In mid to high level gameplay is pretty cheap to summon some level -1 creature to sacrifice, including we have a pretty strong spell to do this.
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Ah, I should be more clear: while Witch can absolutely send their familiar for trap-checking, that's a once-per-day thing. PF2 wouldn't give you a familiar that respawns immediately after being killed, or an at-will movable body that sets off traps.
Yet, the description of what a necromancer does during exploration mode says that they do exactly that.
Out of combat simple traps are a bit of a trap option (pun intended). Either the trap is powerful enough to one-shot a PC from the Massive Damage rules, or it is a trivial speed bump that costs the party nothing more than a couple of 10 minute activities to recover the HP lost.
Ah, I should be more clear: while Witch can absolutely send their familiar for trap-checking, that's a once-per-day thing. PF2 wouldn't give you a familiar that respawns immediately after being killed, or an at-will movable body that sets off traps.Yet, the description of what a necromancer does during exploration mode says that they do exactly that.
Out of combat simple traps are a bit of a trap option (pun intended). Either the trap is powerful enough to one-shot a PC from the Massive Damage rules, or it is a trivial speed bump that costs the party nothing more than a couple of 10 minute activities to recover the HP lost.
It says using one to set off a trap that you spotted, which seems intentional- you can't have the thrall walk down the hall to set them off, but you (and the rest of the party) can keep an eye out, and use a thrall instead of rolling to disarm.
I don't really care much about the traps; I just want my undead to be able to do little tasks. Paizo might need to balance that against "but that would invalidate all the traps we built into our adventures", so I'm just trying to think of ways to avoid the problem.
How about unlimited casting of Phantasmal Minion?
I think that would be powerful, but combat limited.
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I wonder if the text is alluding to a feat or ability that we haven't seen yet.
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How about unlimited casting of Phantasmal Minion?
I think that would be powerful, but combat limited.
That's exactly the sort of thing I'd love, yeah.
One fix I'm thinking of implementing is to have "create Thrall" either cause one of your thralls to make an attack, or alternatively move or perform a basic interact action.
This has limited use in combat (though maybe you *really* want the cursed dagger to be anywhere other than where it is now) but out of combat you can handwave it as "the Necromancer directs a bunch of thralls to set up the tent and start a fire" by performing the role of a manager and telling them what to do.
Out of combat simple traps are a bit of a trap option (pun intended). Either the trap is powerful enough to one-shot a PC from the Massive Damage rules, or it is a trivial speed bump that costs the party nothing more than a couple of 10 minute activities to recover the HP lost.
So perhaps when adventuring with a necromancer, the party will stop trying to swindle me into walking down the hallways first.
Not exactly. In mid to high level gameplay is pretty cheap to summon some level -1 creature to sacrifice, including we have a pretty strong spell to do this.
sorry to burst your bubble, but final sacrifice says you need a creature with the minion trait while the sidebar on the necromancer explicitly states that thralls are 'not minions with the summoned trait'
Not exactly. In mid to high level gameplay is pretty cheap to summon some level -1 creature to sacrifice, including we have a pretty strong spell to do this.sorry to burst your bubble, but final sacrifice says you need a creature with the minion trait while the sidebar on the necromancer explicitly states that thralls are 'not minions with the summoned trait'
I know this. I just used this example to say that the concept of "sacrifice your cheap 'minion'" already exists before thrall not that you can use this spell with them.
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I mentioned this in another thread, but I feel as if "a single, more unique undead that I can have a dynamic with" is a big character fantasy/roleplay dynamic the class doesnt currently support.
.... that's a summoner, or any class with the undead master archetype, we already have that
We have rules for Familiars as assistants
What undead familiars do we have?
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What undead familiars do we have?
Book of the dead has 4 specific undead familiars: Crawling Hand, Old Friend, Polong, and Talking Head. I imagine that these and more will be in whatever book has the Necromancer in it.
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.... that's a summoner, or any class with the undead master archetype, we already have thatI mentioned this in another thread, but I feel as if "a single, more unique undead that I can have a dynamic with" is a big character fantasy/roleplay dynamic the class doesnt currently support.
For that matter, I would be quite shocked if Necromancers didn't get the undead companion feat chain. We don't see it now because we never see elements of the class that don't need to be tested.
Incidentally, put me down for full support for being able to make your thralls do silly things outside of combat like pick up and move things. I don't know what limitations it needs, but I know that being able to send a thrall to grab the remote control for you is necessary to the class fantasy. It's basically the necromancer equivalent of Base Kinesis.
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For that matter, I would be quite shocked if Necromancers didn't get the undead companion feat chain. We don't see it now because we never see elements of the class that don't need to be tested.
This. We already have the Undead Master Archetype so we already know how it works.
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.... that's a summoner, or any class with the undead master archetype, we already have thatI mentioned this in another thread, but I feel as if "a single, more unique undead that I can have a dynamic with" is a big character fantasy/roleplay dynamic the class doesnt currently support.
Summoners don't reanimate bodies to create their companions do they
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Have some fantasy. Classes' flavor is whatever you say it is. You can absolutely play an Undead eidolon Summoner as a necromancer who brought their companion alive and are sustaining it wiht their own lifeforce (hence the linked HP).
They actually point out that you can and should be using thralls to trap check.
As mentioned earlier in the thread, they point out that you can use thralls to disarm a trap that the party has found, not to find the traps. But I probably shouldn't have gone into the traps discussion in the first place; it's kind of a tangent.
.... that's a summoner, or any class with the undead master archetype, we already have thatI mentioned this in another thread, but I feel as if "a single, more unique undead that I can have a dynamic with" is a big character fantasy/roleplay dynamic the class doesnt currently support.
Sorry, I thought I emphasized that I don't mean that I want it purely mechanically. It's not even a matter of "using someone's dead loved ones against them" (??), I just was thinking of my experience with players and what they tend to want. Players who make a lot of little companions or fellas tend to want to have at least one "personality" they frequently interact with, so I was thinking about it's roleplay benefits.
People are right to point out that Undead Master exists, and probably won't be in the playtest cause they know the power budget.
However, I actually didn't even know the Undead Master archetype existed! I don't pick up every book, so I fully thought I would have to reskin an animal companion. Even if there's not a class feat for it, I think it might be nice to point a newer player towards the archetype through a ribbon or something.
(Wait, so why does the Commander playtest have the animal companion feat line?)
Commander playtest had the animal companion feat line because it needed to test the unique banner interactions out, and because a mounted Commander could be an important playstyle difference.
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Sounds like base kinesis class feature but for a thrall that's just... Servant.
But seeing as we have both spells and a cantrip that can simulate this well enough, I agree it's kinda petty.
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Commander playtest had the animal companion feat line because it needed to test the unique banner interactions out, and because a mounted Commander could be an important playstyle difference.That makes a lot of sense, thank you!
I'm def gonna point every Necromancer I play with towards the Undead Master archetype - I don't know who would say no to Cool Skeleton Riding Horse
I really recommend pointing them to the zombies instead. All the skeletal options have 4hp/level, so having it constantly dying out from under you is a problem, especially since it's a full week of downtime (not just adventuring) to get it back. Even if the zombies aren't as cool, have lower AC, and get less speed, getting around double the HP is so much more important that it's not a real choice. Put another way: every hit against a skeletal mount hits it as hard as a crit against a zombie mount.
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I do agree that there are some thematic gaps in the Necromancer's kit that would benefit us all if they were filled, though I can also understand why they haven't been filled just yet in the playtest. I do believe there are ways to address some player requests, too:
So really, in my opinion it's less that these requests are impossible to fulfil or that Paizo missed the mark (playtests are supposed to be more focused than the finished product), and more that these are all things that could probably be satisfied in the release iterations with various added feats.