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Necromancer has a lot of ground control, but there aren't any flying thralls and ranges are both limited and usually from a thrall. An enemy hovering at a very casual 35 feet up is immune to just about everything the class can throw at them outside their spells. The class just seems to shut down at that point.
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Same for swimming enemies.
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2-fold suggestion:
1.) Baseline +1 thralls on the cantrip
2.) Instead of summoning two thralls, summon one with a swim speed. At higher levels, instead of summoning three thralls, summon one with a fly speed.
In both cases, they get one action per round that they automatically use to stay in their current square. Skill modifiers equal to Necromancer's class DC if the fluid requires swim or fly checks.
If another Necromancer ability or spell would cause a thrall to Stride, it may swim or fly if they have an appropriate speed.
Super spitballing on this one, but I like it on initial thought.
Create Thrall plus Reach of the Dead let's you put one Thrall at 30 feet, the next at 60 and one more at 90.
Your Focus spells also add to your effective range.
Dead Weigh should be very effective against flyers.
Spell slots?
Though yeah, many undead come with flight, so there should be way to unlock that for Thralls (or for thrall-fueled effects).
This is why you have a party.
The problem is that the game balance doesn't help to stays without an ally in the fight.
Anyway as pointed by Castilliano necromancer still are casters. This is the time to use your spell slots!
Unless you are fighting in plane of air or in a SF2 space battle. So there's a problem for you as necromancer.
What simple weapon has the longest range?
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Crossbow and Heavy Crossbow have 120 ft.
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Create Thrall plus Reach of the Dead let's you put one Thrall at 30 feet, the next at 60 and one more at 90.
Your Focus spells also add to your effective range.
Dead Weigh should be very effective against flyers.
Putting something far away on the ground isn't the problem- putting it high up is the issue. In your example, Create Thrall would create one thirty feet in the air, and it would plummet to the ground and be destroyed. Your second action wouldn't benefit from Reach of the Dead.
Dead Weight can only target a creature within fifteen feet of a thrall, so any creature flying 20 feet up (pretty normal for flight) will be out of reach.
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Good thing Necro is a full caster!
This is hardly a necromancer specific problem. What does a melee focused martial do in this situation? You need to use another tactic.
I don't view this as a problem. The fact that the class doesn't have one ability that solves every single problem isn't a bad thing.
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Good thing Necro is a full caster!
This is hardly a necromancer specific problem. What does a melee focused martial do in this situation? You need to use another tactic.
I don't view this as a problem. The fact that the class doesn't have one ability that solves every single problem isn't a bad thing.
100% agree. That said, I wouldn't say no to a level 8 feat or lvl 9 class feature that let thralls hover in place in the air.
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Step 1: Bring a Ballista
Step 2: Create Thrall in the ballista cradle
Step 3: Fire!
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If this were only an issue of flying enemies, I think it's not a significant problem.
The water-based situations are a bit more of a sticking point, imo.
It's pretty easy for most characters to achieve close to a normal level of expected effectiveness for a period of time underwater, if given time to prepare.
With the Necromancer's reliance on thralls and their inability to maintain position underwater, I feel like the Necromancer's effectiveness would drop off a good bit more than other classes.
This is purely theoretical of course, but I think it bears consideration.
Create Thrall plus Reach of the Dead let's you put one Thrall at 30 feet, the next at 60 and one more at 90.
Your Focus spells also add to your effective range.
Dead Weigh should be very effective against flyers.Putting something far away on the ground isn't the problem- putting it high up is the issue. In your example, Create Thrall would create one thirty feet in the air, and it would plummet to the ground and be destroyed. Your second action wouldn't benefit from Reach of the Dead.
Dead Weight can only target a creature within fifteen feet of a thrall, so any creature flying 20 feet up (pretty normal for flight) will be out of reach.
Good points.
The falling would be immediate, so no chance to use Reach of the Dead.| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Good thing Necro is a full caster!
This is hardly a necromancer specific problem. What does a melee focused martial do in this situation? You need to use another tactic.
I don't view this as a problem. The fact that the class doesn't have one ability that solves every single problem isn't a bad thing.
A melee martial that can fly just flies up and does their thing and as such being able to fly when needed is something a martial character should invest in. Contrast this to a Necromancer who just loses an entire class feature and everything that builds off it and has no way to mitigate that loss and you can see why something, even a costly and inefficient something, would be very nice to have here.
Cantrips and spell slots
You've got spells. So you can cast runic weapon on a bow or crossbow, you can cast Fly, etc.
Seriously, don't underestimate runic weapon cast onto a martial's backup bow. I consider that better than actual anti-flight spells like Earthbind in a lot of situations.
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I'm not arguing that the class becomes useless against anything that flies, I understand that there are spells to be cast, backup weapons to be used, etc. It just seems odd that a major part of your class identity is completely unusable whenever swimming or flying foes enter the picture. Pure melee classes can fly to bring their primary means of attack to bear, but the Necromancer has no presently printed option to use their thralls on anything but a solid surface.
It would be nice to see a feat or class feature that resolves this around level 7 when characters start getting easy access to flight.
So is the early Summoner in the same boat?
I'm not arguing that the class becomes useless against anything that flies, I understand that there are spells to be cast, backup weapons to be used, etc. It just seems odd that a major part of your class identity is completely unusable whenever swimming or flying foes enter the picture. Pure melee classes can fly to bring their primary means of attack to bear, but the Necromancer has no presently printed option to use their thralls on anything but a solid surface.
It would be nice to see a feat or class feature that resolves this around level 7 when characters start getting easy access to flight.
Level 7 is when limited flight is first available via spell effects, etc.
Level 9 or 13 has some ancestries gain flight abilities, and are (give or take) the levels where you get items like Cloak of the Bat or the Winged rune that help with flight.
Level ~12 is when you start seeing stuff like Dragon Barb getting wings, and martial class options to solve flight.
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So is the early Summoner in the same boat?
Yeah. Classes should have ways to bring their primary feature into different environments and those ways should come online around when the fly spell becomes available.
Level 7 is when limited flight is first available via spell effects, etc.
Level 9 or 13 has some ancestries gain flight abilities, and are (give or take) the levels where you get items like Cloak of the Bat or the Winged rune that help with flight.
Level ~12 is when you start seeing stuff like Dragon Barb getting wings, and martial class options to solve flight.
I'm aware of when things come online. Level 7 is when a melee martial can, with help, contribute with their melee damage against a flying enemy.
It doesn't seem unreasonable to allow a 2-action ability to give your thralls the ability to hover in place at around that level. Like I said, it doesn't have to be an efficient option, but it should exist and level 7 wouldn't be an unreasonable place to grant it.
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I'm presuming Summoners get flight for their Eidolons at some point?
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Is a feat like the Summoner's Ranged Combatant for your thralls, or I guess for the Create Thrall cantrip specifically in this case, out of the question.
I think a feat like Advanced Weaponry, also Summmoner, that gives upgrades/options to Create Thrall attacks couldn't hurt. Or these could be feats that grant new grave cantrips options altogether that command thralls to do different things. Although I think even Create Thrall could easily afford to be able to command more than just Strikes baseline.
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Narratively, skeleton archers and flying spirits address this issue.
Zombies could do a dead man's float...
Game mechanics wise,giving out ranged attacks and flight to Thralls gets more and more complicated.
What if Thralls created in the water, or on land, stayed where you put them, while thralls created in the air stayed where you put them until the end of your turn,then went poof?
Alternatively,we could decide that all Thralls stay where you created them,so feel free describe your Thralls as you wish to fit your needs.
Zombies for floating in water or spirits for floating in the air, skeletons for whatever.
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Step 1: Bring a Ballista
Step 2: Create Thrall in the ballista cradle
Step 3: Fire!
If you have a metal/wood kineticist ally it can create the ballista for you in place. :P
Anyway would be fun if in final version we would have some thrall catapult focus spell.
I was thinking more about how boats tend to be good places to go in zombie movies because they're s$#* at swimming actually.I think the water thing is a pretty thematic weakness to have.I believe you're thinking of Vampires. I'm not sure of any lore in any medium that gives Necromancers a thematic weakness or aversion to water.
In many zombie stories the people runs to a island or a boat but always someone infected starts to make the things even worse (now u don´t have any place to run).
I'm not arguing that the class becomes useless against anything that flies, I understand that there are spells to be cast, backup weapons to be used, etc. It just seems odd that a major part of your class identity is completely unusable whenever swimming or flying foes enter the picture. Pure melee classes can fly to bring their primary means of attack to bear, but the Necromancer has no presently printed option to use their thralls on anything but a solid surface.
It would be nice to see a feat or class feature that resolves this around level 7 when characters start getting easy access to flight.
The big problem IMO is not about some eventual fight you have to deal with your other resources. My real problem is that when you are in entire setting that almost all battle are in flight or underwater. This may happen if you are exploring the Plane of Air or in a underwater adventure for some reason.
So for example have a chapter in an AP that you need to go underwater to explore an submerse dungeon or go to the Plane of Air to save some old divine entity. Necromancer will have most of their abilities disabled during this entire part or even an entire adventure if it is a small one.
So I agree that we have flight an swimming options to necromancer won´t hurt. It's like they are now with the vitality damage instead of void as a way to avoid becoming too restricted when facing undeads.
So is the early Summoner in the same boat?
Not really because the game only expects flying creatures after level 7 and Eidolons are way less limited. They can do ranged attacks and casts spells. They are in a way less limited situation than thralls are.
And they can swim like any other character.
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I'm presuming Summoners get flight for their Eidolons at some point?
Cast Evolution Surge at rank 5, and eventually take two Evolution feats to get permanent flight.
A melee martial that can fly just flies up and does their thing and as such being able to fly when needed is something a martial character should invest in. Contrast this to a Necromancer who just loses an entire class feature and everything that builds off it and has no way to mitigate that loss and you can see why something, even a costly and inefficient something, would be very nice to have here.Good thing Necro is a full caster!
This is hardly a necromancer specific problem. What does a melee focused martial do in this situation? You need to use another tactic.
I don't view this as a problem. The fact that the class doesn't have one ability that solves every single problem isn't a bad thing.
Lots of melee martials can't fly. Its not built into most classes at all, you need some other way to get it and throughout a lot of the game (including the levels most people play at), those aren't really options except "get a caster to know that spell and spend their turn enabling me."
The other option is "pull out a ranged weapon."
Hell, what does a caster do against a Golem when they don't have the right kind of spell for that specific Golem? This type of stuff is already a thing that happens and players have to adapt. Having thralls conjured up that somehow just float in the air is just completely absurd sounding.
There will be situations when "I spam thralls" isn't the best option. Use your other abilities. If the class is really so totally dependent on thralls that they must work against every enemy no matter what and that means we just need to bake levitation into them now, then the class design is flawed and needs a rethink.
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Lots of melee martials can't fly. Its not built into most classes at all, you need some other way to get it and throughout a lot of the game (including the levels most people play at), those aren't really options except "get a caster to know that spell and spend their turn enabling me."
The point is that are many options to martial to workaround these problems. For necromancer its only option is basically to abandon the thrall casting. As a pointed to pontual encounters this isn't a problem but a challenge but if this becomes frequently this becomes a problem because you will fell that your class will become way more limited for a long time.
Hell, what does a caster do against a Golem when they don't have the right kind of spell for that specific Golem? This type of stuff is already a thing that happens and players have to adapt. Having thralls conjured up that somehow just float in the air is just completely absurd sounding.
That's why post-remaster "golems" don't have Golem Antimagic anymore. This give so many complains that the designers simply simplified it putting a Spell resistance with a trait/damage type exception that's way less disabling.
There will be situations when "I spam thralls" isn't the best option. Use your other abilities. If the class is really so totally dependent on thralls that they must work against every enemy no matter what and that means we just need to bake levitation into them now, then the class design is flawed and needs a rethink.
I agree yet I think that have options to thralls to deal with this will be pretty welcome.
Also you are a necromancer would be shame if you don't have safe guards to situations like this using your necromancy. It's ugly to see a situation like "Aha! I know your weakness necromancer! You thralls are unable to fly! So you want able to use them" and necromancer just says "OK (sob), I will reduce my self to play as a second rank caster because you hurt my weakness" instead of "It's what you think! For these situations I have this ability (put some thralls fly/ranged attack or
a necromancy themed spellcasting here) to make my thrall deal with this! Don't underestimate the power of my necromancy!".
I'm not saying that this ability needs to be free. Maybe require a feat investment, a focus point or even a spell slot to be able to at last partially workaround the situation.
This happens with melee focused martials like barbarians for example. They not only have the ability to thrown weapons keeping its rage bonus at cost of a feat but some flight able subclasses with wings/flying battle forms or even to extending runes or flying items/ancestry feats to allow then to go melee in mid air. This will punish them costing actions to keep flight or be more restricted due a battle form or needing to use 2-actions to Strike extending its weapon and preventing to do this with other Striking activities. But they have ways to workaround a situation that would disable its rage benefit forcing it to draw a ranged weapon and abandon their rage benefits completely.
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I don't think it's that bad of a problem.
- First of all, like others have said, you have spells and cantrips to rely on, like any other caster.
- Bony Barrage is a 30 foot cone, so unless the opponents are really far away, you'll probably hit them good. For me, that's probably the best solution against flyers.
- If that's not enough, you can take Osteo-armaments (that conveniently becomes available at level 8, when flyers become more common). Since you'll likely invest in dexterity, you can get a free +1 striking crossbow, heavy crossbow, air repeater or whatever simple ranged weapon you want, that becomes +2 striking at level 10 and greater striking at level 12 - and with a free decaying rune to boot if you want to sacrifice a thrall. If you're REALLY intent on having a good backup, be an elf or whatever and pickup longbow proficiency.
- At lvl 14, you get Recurring Nightmare, a specifically flying thrall that can perma-frighten.
And I'm not counting the other ways you can help your party, for instance with Muscle Barrier to keep them in the fight.
That's actually a lot of ways to deal with flying creatures.
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I still think that isn't enough.
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A focus spell that grants all new thralls one special movement type for 10 minutes, after which they melt or lose the features, would be handy. Climbing, flying, swimming, and burrowing undead are all common enough.
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Manny melee characters simply do not have a reliable ranged option (strength giving l focus little Dex)
A melee Magus needs to keep it's int high just to hit enemies from range, unreliably at certain levels.
So I'm not sure why a heavily themed caster shouldn't rely on their spell slots.
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I mean, many martials have the built-in option to gain a fly speed through magic (inc. consumables) so you can run up to the flying thing and punch it.
The Necromancer doesn't really have that option for its basic schtick. But something like "you can create thralls which are floaty ghosts" would be fine.
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Lots of melee martials can't fly. Its not built into most classes at all, you need some other way to get it and throughout a lot of the game (including the levels most people play at), those aren't really options except "get a caster to know that spell and spend their turn enabling me."
At those same levels flying enemies are a rarity at higher levels it becomes relatively cheap to grab an item to enable flight. They have ways to solve the issue at levels where it becomes an issues, the Necromancer, as currently tested, has no way to bring a main feature to bear in that situation.
Hell, what does a caster do against a Golem when they don't have the right kind of spell for that specific Golem? This type of stuff is already a thing that happens and players have to adapt. Having thralls conjured up that somehow just float in the air is just completely absurd sounding.
Golem were widely considered to be a poor fit for PF2 and have been redesigned to solve this problem.
Thralls could easily be flavored as spectral when in flight and as bloated drowners when in water.
There will be situations when "I spam thralls" isn't the best option. Use your other abilities. If the class is really so totally dependent on thralls that they must work against every enemy no matter what and that means we just need to bake levitation into them now, then the class design is flawed and needs a rethink.
The issue isn't that they're dependent on thralls, it's that thralls are roughly half their class budget and rendered entirely worthless in fairly common scenarios. It would be nice to have a workaround even if it's inefficient like adding a second action to the normal thralls summoning action or requiring a feat to share movement buffing spells with thralls.
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A focus spell that grants all new thralls one special movement type for 10 minutes, after which they melt or lose the features, would be handy. Climbing, flying, swimming, and burrowing undead are all common enough.
Giving them a special movement type when they can't move doesn't really help a lot, though. You fall out of the sky if you don't spend an action on movement while flying. So they're more effectively going to just be levitating and stationary in the air.
Reminds me of something out of a looney tunes cartoon, where they don't fall because they don't know they should. ;)
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Golem were widely considered to be a poor fit for PF2 and have been redesigned to solve this problem.
I will note that "literally nothing the Kineticist does can affect a Will O' Wisp" is something that survived both the Kineticist playtest and the remaster.
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There will be situations when "I spam thralls" isn't the best option. Use your other abilities. If the class is really so totally dependent on thralls that they must work against every enemy no matter what and that means we just need to bake levitation into them now, then the class design is flawed and needs a rethink.
I know you have like, a thing against Necromancers but come on. "It's bad design for a class to want to use its class features" is pretty silly.
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Golem were widely considered to be a poor fit for PF2 and have been redesigned to solve this problem.I will note that "literally nothing the Kineticist does can affect a Will O' Wisp" is something that survived both the Kineticist playtest and the remaster.
I'm not a fan of that or sneak attack immune enemies either. That kind of class-punisher enemy isn't the style of game that PF2 is or should aspire to be. There are places where classes should shine or take a step back, but shutting off high-budget features entirely is worth avoiding.
A focus spell that grants all new thralls one special movement type for 10 minutes, after which they melt or lose the features, would be handy. Climbing, flying, swimming, and burrowing undead are all common enough.Giving them a special movement type when they can't move doesn't really help a lot, though. You fall out of the sky if you don't spend an action on movement while flying. So they're more effectively going to just be levitating and stationary in the air.
Reminds me of something out of a looney tunes cartoon, where they don't fall because they don't know they should. ;)
Easy enough to build into the spell. We're talking about living corpses made from other corpses, after all.
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Broadly, I think the kit can handle flying enemies okay. You've still got your cantrips and spells.
However, I can see that wearing thin in a campaign or string of sessions with many flying enemies. So I think an "adaptive thralls" feat that lets you float your thralls in the air (or in a body of water, I suppose) would go a long way.
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Broadly, I think the kit can handle flying enemies okay. You've still got your cantrips and spells.
However, I can see that wearing thin in a campaign or string of sessions with many flying enemies. So I think an "adaptive thralls" feat that lets you float your thralls in the air (or in a body of water, I suppose) would go a long way.
Yeah, something like a 'buoyant thralls' feat can be an easy fix. It just has to allow them to stay in any space they are placed and allow any granted movement to take place in that medium [IE, Fly in air or Swim in water], so that your focus spells like Life Tap work.
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Manny melee characters simply do not have a reliable ranged option (strength giving l focus little Dex)
A melee Magus needs to keep it's int high just to hit enemies from range, unreliably at certain levels.
So I'm not sure why a heavily themed caster shouldn't rely on their spell slots.
The problem is not to rely on their spell slot but don't rely in their thralls. None of other game classes needs to almost completely sacrifice their main abilities because an enemy is flying. Even if you chassis doesn't allow fly like fighters, melee fighters still can use items or external spells/feats to get a fly speed pretty easy.
And finally necromancers:
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Note about Magus: After remasters non-expansive spell strike magus needs to care about Int. Spellstrike doesn't uses it by default and the cantrips no more gives the casting ability to damage. So investing in Int is pretty optional to many magus builds
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The problem is not to rely on their spell slot but don't rely in their thralls. None of other game classes needs to almost completely sacrifice their main abilities because an enemy is flying. Even if you chassis doesn't allow fly like fighters, melee fighters still can use items or external spells/feats to get a fly speed pretty easy.Manny melee characters simply do not have a reliable ranged option (strength giving l focus little Dex)
A melee Magus needs to keep it's int high just to hit enemies from range, unreliably at certain levels.
So I'm not sure why a heavily themed caster shouldn't rely on their spell slots.
I feel like more than half of this list is just "Have a fly speed", which is not really what I'd consider a "reliable" option, nor really an option that exists in most class' repertoires without magic items or having an ally hit you with 4th level spell slots and usually lasts for 5 minutes at a time. To say nothing of the Acrobatics training needed to cope with any manoeuvres more complicated than horizontal flight or a low grade ascent.
A fairly trivial solution: A necromancer that is currently flying may extend that power to any thralls within 30', keeping them aloft as long as they are. If it's good enough for the others it's good enough for everyone else, it's good enough for them. And, as a bonus, it creates the funny mental image of the thrall that gets left behind as the centre of the battlefield changes, who then plummets from the sky as they go out of range.
I like this solution it's a simple and interesting.
About the reliability in most cases have caster with a fly spell in the group, a fly scroll spell or a Potion of Flying will be enough to allow most melees to fight in the air when needed. Also I'm not proposing that these class to fight in the air like they fight in the land as the old "removed from remaster" Air Walk did. Make sense that they have some aditional difficulties to deal with air battle but not being forced to stay in the ground and draw a bow or ignore your thralls and begin to use your hostile spells that's currently necromancer case.
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A personal note about Maneuver in Flight. This is a thing that in my experience most tables just ignore whether on purpose or by forgetfulness. The most tables that I played simply only considers that ascent costs is a difficult terrain and descent is double of you flight speed specially GMs with flying creature. They simply ignore or don't know how when something is considered a "steep ascent or descent" don't make or ignore "reverse direction"checks , forget or simply ignore hover checks and almost never have winds during encounters. So in practice this usually aren't a real problem also most experienced players that I saw have acrobatics to deal with Tumble Through or simply to have a better chance to Escape.