
siegfriedliner |
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I really like the necromancer it's cool and looks like it would be fun to play.
The most powerful feature the necromancer seem to have besides spellcasting is above average focus/ grave spells which are pretty cool and utilise their thrall mechanic.
But power wise I suspect it might be a little weak especially when compared to the new oracle and animist who have similar defences, double the spell slots and also very powerful focus spells which are comparable in strength with the necromancers grave spells.
Half the spell slots for class that seem to have similarish chassis seems like a fairly punishing. I wonder if the class could afford to be three slot ?

kaid |

I think the play test should be interesting to shake out how far they can lean into the focus spells. I think they are adding so many to figure out what works and what does not and what people like or don't like.
I think once they shake out how that plays they can figure out if necros remain 2 slot casters or maybe get bumped to 3. Right now it is in a position to really force necros to use necro toys to really shake those out adding more spells is a known thing and easy enough change to make for release.

Witch of Miracles |
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I would be very disappointed if it didn't remain a two slot caster with a bajillion unique focus spell options.
Create Thrall is itself one of the strongest single action abilities in the game, I think. I feel like if necromancer is weak, it'll be because it doesn't have enough actions to accomplish everything it wants to do while also moving.
Necromancer focus spells are usually very slightly (but only slightly) ahead of other comparable focus spells, for the ones you can compare to other classes' spells. Muscle Barrier is particularly strong.

Blave |
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It's a focus-based caster similar to the psychic. Except it only has a single focus point and doesn't ever get a bigger pool. The psychic outright starts with 2 focus points while the Necromancer needs to spend two actions to get his "second" focus point during combat.
You're pretty much forced to pick up one or two additional focus spells ASAP. And while there are some decent ones in there, I have yet to spot any that are so outstanding that they are worth 3 actions.
The 2 slots feel a lot weaker than what the psychic gets, since the latter has much more flexibility with them, being a spontaneous caster. And I say that as someone who usually prefers prepared casters for their flexibility. But there's not much flexibility to gain from such a limited number of slots.
Create thrall is a decent control tool. Its damage is negligible, but flanking and blocking squares is good. I'm not convinced that it's anywhere near enough to balance out the shortcomings in casting - both focus and slot based.
All that being said, I still think the necro looks like an extremely fun (but complicated) class to play. I just don't think it's a.paericularly powerful in its current iteration, especially compared to some of the more recent remaster casters.

YuriP |

The 2 slots feel a lot weaker than what the psychic gets, since the latter has much more flexibility with them, being a spontaneous caster. And I say that as someone who usually prefers prepared casters for their flexibility. But there's not much flexibility to gain from such a limited number of slots.
Not only as also psychics gets some extra spells that even come from other traditions in their repertoire and have Unleash Psyche to interact with them.
Necromancer's spells look a bit out of the box of the necromancer. Looks-like an additional tool, useful, but not so well intregrated to the class.

Witch of Miracles |
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It's a focus-based caster similar to the psychic. Except it only has a single focus point and doesn't ever get a bigger pool. The psychic outright starts with 2 focus points while the Necromancer needs to spend two actions to get his "second" focus point during combat.
You're pretty much forced to pick up one or two additional focus spells ASAP. And while there are some decent ones in there, I have yet to spot any that are so outstanding that they are worth 3 actions.
The focus spells aren't worth three actions because Create Thrall is itself giving the value of a full action. It's not like spellstrike recharge, which is actually an empty action without using conflux spells or magus's analysis.
Create Thrall+Necrotic bomb is a 1A spell attack that puts a body in a square (and more bodies elsewhere at later levels). Then that's followed by a 2A that does the same damage scaling as a slotted arcane blast spell in the AoE size of a slotted occult blast spell.

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Blave wrote:It's a focus-based caster similar to the psychic. Except it only has a single focus point and doesn't ever get a bigger pool. The psychic outright starts with 2 focus points while the Necromancer needs to spend two actions to get his "second" focus point during combat.
You're pretty much forced to pick up one or two additional focus spells ASAP. And while there are some decent ones in there, I have yet to spot any that are so outstanding that they are worth 3 actions.
The focus spells aren't worth three actions because Create Thrall is itself giving the value of a full action. It's not like spellstrike recharge, which is actually an empty action without using conflux spells or magus's analysis.
Create Thrall+Necrotic bomb is a 1A spell attack that puts a body in a square (and more bodies elsewhere at later levels). Then that's followed by a 2A that does the same damage scaling as a slotted arcane blast spell in the AoE size of a slotted occult blast spell.
"Puts a body in a square" is a hard sell when the very next thing you do is remove that body from the square, before level 7 lets you go positive in bodies.
There's also the downside of substantially deincentivizing Spell Attack spells as a Necro, since your thralls apply MAP. Not that most SA spells are that good in the first place, but that's a separate issue.

Witch of Miracles |

"Puts a body in a square" is a hard sell when the very next thing you do is remove that body from the square, before level 7 lets you go positive in bodies.
There's also the downside of substantially deincentivizing Spell Attack spells as a Necro, since your thralls apply MAP. Not that most SA spells are that good in the first place, but that's a separate issue.
A 1A spell attack for 1d6/4 levels is plenty acceptable on its own, and it's up to you whether you use focus spells that eat up thralls or do something else. The thralls have value beyond being eaten for focus spells.
The thrall attack applying MAP is an issue for Bone Spear for sure; I flagged that in my own thread. Really makes that thing worse than it looks. That is genuinely 3A if you want to guarantee it going off.

Dubious Scholar |
There's individual parts of the class that feel weak (Life Tap needs some love), but I'd agree that overall they look like they have solid damage output via thralls/focus spells and then they've got full power casting for everything else (even if it's limited in slots, it's the same DC as a Sorcerer and will cripple enemies just as easily)

Blave |

Blave wrote:It's a focus-based caster similar to the psychic. Except it only has a single focus point and doesn't ever get a bigger pool. The psychic outright starts with 2 focus points while the Necromancer needs to spend two actions to get his "second" focus point during combat.
You're pretty much forced to pick up one or two additional focus spells ASAP. And while there are some decent ones in there, I have yet to spot any that are so outstanding that they are worth 3 actions.
The focus spells aren't worth three actions because Create Thrall is itself giving the value of a full action. It's not like spellstrike recharge, which is actually an empty action without using conflux spells or magus's analysis.
Create Thrall+Necrotic bomb is a 1A spell attack that puts a body in a square (and more bodies elsewhere at later levels). Then that's followed by a 2A that does the same damage scaling as a slotted arcane blast spell in the AoE size of a slotted occult blast spell.
Yes, that third action has a (minor) effect on its own. But it's still an absolute requirement to use the focus spell. A druid using an air repeater for their third action can still choose to either fire it or do something else with that action - while still being perfectly able to use Tempest Surge either way.
Imagine Tempest Surge had the requirement "Your last Action was a Strike". Not impossible to pull off by any means but a severe limitation nonetheless.
Necrotic bomb has a 10 ft emanation. That will often mean you have to create the Thrall 10 ft away from your target to not blow up your melee allies. That negates the extra effect of the additional action completely.
That need for this extra action also makes conditions like Slowed and Stunned extra punishing for the Necromancer. You can never guarantee that your thralls will survive until your next turn so the only reliable thing you have left in those situations are your (very few) spell slots and cantrips.
These issues are easier to handle once you create multiple thralls per action. But they are very much present for the first 6 levels which also happen to be the levels you are very spell slot starved.
The lack of focus points is another big issue. Unless you're human, you won't ever have more than one at level 1. You can regain one per encounter but that adds yet another hefty two additional actions required to your second focus spell. And you could in theory play a Necro all the way to level 20 without ever getting more focus points. By comparison, the psychic starts with 2 and gets a third one automatically early on (at level 5 I believe).
I think all necros should get one universal focus spell at level 1, in addition to the one of their subclass. Since many players seem disappointed with the passive nature of their thralls, giving everyone a focus spell that does something like let a thrall Stride and attack an enemy in some manner seems like a good way to kill two birds with one stone.

kwodo |

I think all necros should get one universal focus spell at level 1, in addition to the one of their subclass. Since many players seem disappointed with the passive nature of their thralls, giving everyone a focus spell that does something like let a thrall Stride and attack an enemy in some manner seems like a good way to kill two birds with one stone.
absolutely agreed, i'm swapping my wizard to be a necromancer and i want to summon skeletons but Bone Spear is just... terrible? i don't want to be in melee and 2A+1FP+MAP for 1d8 instead of 1A+MAP 1d6 that Create Thrall does just kinda seem terrible on paper. maybe i'm missing something but it'd be great to get another thing to use my only focus point on before i'm kinda pigeonholed into grabbing necrotic bomb at lvl 2

Blave |
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Yeah, Bone Spear has great scaling but it's terrible at rank 1. It's most likely balanced around hitting at least two enemies, but even for that it falls short even compared to weak cantrips like timber, not to mention strong ones like Electric Arc. In theory it's a bit easier to target than timber since it can originate in any square within 10 ft of you, I guess?
Unless you somehow manage to line up three targets for it, there's almost no reason use it over haunting hymn at rank 1.
It becomes significantly better with Reach of the Dead, allowing you to start the line anywhere within 40 ft. That does cost an additional thrall, though, making it extremely awkward before level 7. And getting Reach of the Dead can potentially delay getting your second or third focus point.
Being an Osteomancer feels like a long-termin investment. Once Bone Spear's scaling catches up, you can create multiple thralls and squeeze Reach of the Dead into your build, it suddenly becomes a very potent source of damage. That doesn't happen befor level 7 of course, once again making the necromancer's early game rather painful.

ElementalofCuteness |
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Bone spear is amazing but the fact it takes 2 turns to use makes it significantly weaker then Imaginary Weapon despite being able to hit 1 additional enemy in the best scenario. I do wish Necromancer focus spells were as good as Psychic's when amped and didn't have the draw back of either needing 2 entire rounds to get use out of them or in Necrotic Bomb's case didn't blow up your other Thralls which some might say that wouldn't work because it is void damage but your Mastery of Life and Death sorta changes that from immunity to flat out just taking damage.

Xenocrat |
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Weirdly Bone Spear says it's a MELEE spell attack, so I think it can provide its own flanking against targets in the line. If (X=Target, T=Thrall, C=Origin) you have this: OXTXT (last thrall is in the square past the 15' termination of the Bone Spear) as your set up both X targets would be off guard under this interpretation.

Blave |

I feel like Bone Spear might really benefit from being a reflex save because of the MAP interactions.
I'm not sure that's a good idea. By level 5, it deals more damage than a fireball. At higher level it outscales even Chain Lightning (in damage per target, not toal potential, obviously). That's a lot of fire power for a focus spell and being save based makes it more reliable than a spell attack. It might be a bit too much.
I still agree that the MAP issue needs to be solved. Maybe it could get a special line saying something like "If your last action was Create Thrall, Bone Spear uses the same MAP as the attack from Create Thrall".
I would also like to see its range increased to at least 15 ft so it can reach someone who's 30 ft away since that's the usual range of short range spells.

YuriP |
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Another solution to turn it a reflex save is just diminish its damage by 1 dice size (and make it to start with 2 dices, start with just one is senseless or just switch to 1d12, 2 dices per spell rank makes the players to roll a lot of dices in late game when we are running the game analogically).
I also suggests that improves its range to 30ft instead of 10ft once that you can create thralls at 30ft, 10ft force the necromancer to go to close of the frontline to make the spell useful. I think that's too much.
Once that is a spell that uses a focus point + thrall (what's pretty similar to a overflow 2-action impulse but that also costs a focus point) I think that to have same power level of a fireball with a range of a Elemental Blast focus spell with 1/4 of its area (because it still a level 1 focus spell) would be fair enought.

Blave |
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The problem with using a last turn thrall on bone spear is that it's very unreliable. The Thrall might not survive that long or the the positioning on the battle fielding change so much that bone spear is no longer valiable (no enemies in range, allies in the way, etc.).
I think a necro will want to use up his thralls on the turns they are created whenever possible. Having one or more left standing on your next turn is a nice bonus when it happens but I would usually not plan my turns around it.

Martialmasters |
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The problem with using a last turn thrall on bone spear is that it's very unreliable. The Thrall might not survive that long or the the positioning on the battle fielding change so much that bone spear is no longer valiable (no enemies in range, allies in the way, etc.).
I think a necro will want to use up his thralls on the turns they are created whenever possible. Having one or more left standing on your next turn is a nice bonus when it happens but I would usually not plan my turns around it.
This is heavily dependant on level and why you plan your turns with what resources and positioning are available.
If the thrall dies, your plans changed.

Blave |
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So... does anything prevent you from using Reach of the Dead to pick a thrall within 60 feet and then use the same thrall for Bone Spear etc? It seems like it works as written, and Reach of the Dead just fails to destroy the thrall because it's already been consumed?
I mean, it's most assuredly not RAI. I'm also not convinced it's possible by RAW, even though I see where you're coming from.
Depends a lot on order of operation, which isn't really clear. Reach of the Dead destroys the thrall after you've calculated reach and cover. The way I read it, you would cast Bone Spear with the thrall as its point of origin but the thrall would be destroyed before bone spear's actual effect is resolved. So by the time bone spear tries to turn the thrall into a projectile, it's already gone and the spell fails to do anything.
Note that the target of Bone Spear is the thrall. At least that's how I read the spell. Its target line being ambiguous was part of my feedback. So you would check if the thrall is in range of Bone Spear - which it it - then destroy it, then cast Bone Spear, which fails due to a lack of a thrall to target.

Dubious Scholar |
Yeah, it's basically a question of when Reach tries to destroy the thrall. I'd read it as destroying it after the spell is cast, in which case things work fine. Probably a RAI issue, agreed.
At any rate, I'm still going to happily use it to do things like Create Thrall>Vomit Swarm, because it's a free action and thus allows you to some really silly things with spells. (Gale Blast becomes an interesting cantrip choice too there, 1d6/rank to adjacent enemies. Though Timber might be a better choice to poach since it's a reflex save and Occult is bad at those)

Blave |

And of course I forgot the whole "has a range" part of it, so that doesn't work sadly. Ah well.
What do you mean? Bone Spear does have a range of 10 ft. It's a valid spell to use with Reach of the Dead.
EDIT: Ah, you meant for spells like Vomit Swarm and Gale Blast. Yeah, it doesn't work with those, unfortunately.

Blave |

Blave wrote:The wording of bone spear says the Thrall is destroyed before the attack happens. So when the attack happen, there is no thrall that could flank.Indeed RAW seems to say no to flanking, but I think RAI was yes. I do not see why they would state that it's a melee spell attack otherwise.
Technically, a melee spell attack would not trigger reactive strikes as opposed to a ranged spell attack. But that point is moot since the casting of the spell will still trigger RS.
There are some reactions that only work against melee or ranged attacks, though. Like Reactive Shield. This being a melee spell attack would at least matter for those.