I'm playing in a fifth-level one-shot tomorrow, and using the chance to play a necromancer. Conveniently, I already have a necromancer raccoon who keeps skeletal minions in her extradimensional clothing-maws. That translates pretty naturally to a tanuki necromancer, so let's get started.
One-shot information: Grim Symphony, a PFS scenario set in an Ustalavian mad scientist's manor.
Martials receive 100 gp, a +1 striking weapon, +1 armor, and a magic item up to 4th level. Casters receive 100 gp, a staff (or converted coda) up to 5th level, a wand of a 2nd-rank spell, and a magic item up to 4th level.
Necromancer Ira
Ancestry: Tanuki, subbing in for raccoon.
Heritage: Steadfast, picking up Teakettle Form. This allows her to turn into a talking skull, which is a really fun trick for a necromancer.
Ancestry feats: Scorched on Cracked Mountain for first level, just being grabbed to avoid skewing playtest results too much with more of tanuki's shapeshifting. Hasty Celebration to fit the character by bursting into celebrations if one of her thralls crits.
Background is Academy Dropout because she's the least dignified of my mage trio. Dubious Knowledge suits her.
Necromancer
Bone Shaper, since she's going with skeletons.
Feats are Necrotic Bomb for a save-based focus spell and Bone Speaker to have a broader knowledge base, and to test if Necromancer can afford to take a fun feat instead of another focus spell.
Feats: Toughness, Read Psychometric Resonance for out-of-combat options, and Pickpocket for shenanigans.
Spell prep:
Cantrips: Figment, Telekinetic Hand to kind of make up for thralls being unable to do anything, Void Warp for a save-based cantrip, Shield, and Needle Darts (reflavored as bone shards) to have a 60ft. ranged option.
1st: Fear (c'mon, she's a necromancer), Illusory Disguise to disguise party members as mindless zombies - probably need to swap that out, since the staff covers it
2nd: Soothe for emergency healing, Ghoulish Cravings as an up-close debuff. Thralls are skeletal and won't satisfy the corpse requirements to remove the debuff.
3rd: Rouse Skeletons because it's too thematic to pass up.
Free items:
Trickster's Mandolin converted from coda to staff (losing all special abilities), giving Prestidigitation, Illusory Disguise, and Ventriloquism.
Wand of Persistent Servant, allowing leaving a "bound spirit" to carry out a task.
Sleeves of Storage, explaining where all the skeletons for thralls are kept.
Notable purchased items:
Rhythm Bone, a magical bone single-use recording device.
Build thoughts: It still feels like there's a missing feat or focus spell. Taking a first-level feat in a fourth-level slot never feels great, but the second-level feat has to be getting up to two focus points. Maybe lose the subclass general feat, as nice as it is, and just give everyone Necrotic Bomb? Otherwise, looking forward to playing her. The Bone Shaper focus spell looks a lot better once it gets to scale a bit- level one is sad.
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I'm playing in a fifth-level one-shot tomorrow, and using the chance to play a necromancer. Conveniently, I already have a necromancer raccoon who keeps skeletal minions in her extradimensional clothing-maws. That translates pretty naturally to a tanuki necromancer, so let's get started.
One-shot information: Grim Symphony, a PFS scenario set in an Ustalavian mad scientist's manor.
Martials receive 100 gp, a +1 striking weapon, +1 armor, and a magic item up to 4th level. Casters receive 100 gp, a staff (or converted coda) up to 5th level, a wand of a 2nd-rank spell, and a magic item up to 4th level.Necromancer Ira
Ancestry: Tanuki, subbing in for raccoon.
Heritage: Steadfast, picking up Teakettle Form. This allows her to turn into a talking skull, which is a really fun trick for a necromancer.
Ancestry feats: Scorched on Cracked Mountain for first level, just being grabbed to avoid skewing playtest results too much with more of tanuki's shapeshifting. Hasty Celebration to fit the character by bursting into celebrations if one of her thralls crits.Background is Academy Dropout because she's the least dignified of my mage trio. Dubious Knowledge suits her.
Necromancer
Bone Shaper, since she's going with skeletons.
Feats are Necrotic Bomb for a save-based focus spell and Bone Speaker to have a broader knowledge base, and to test if Necromancer can afford to take a fun feat instead of another focus spell.Feats: Toughness, Read Psychometric Resonance for out-of-combat options, and Pickpocket for shenanigans.
Spell prep:
Cantrips: Figment, Telekinetic Hand to kind of make up for thralls being unable to do anything, Void Warp for a save-based cantrip, Shield, and Needle Darts (reflavored as bone shards) to have a 60ft. ranged option.
1st: Fear (c'mon, she's a necromancer), Illusory Disguise to disguise party members as mindless zombies - probably need to swap that out, since the staff covers it
2nd: Soothe for emergency healing, Ghoulish Cravings as an up-close debuff. Thralls...
Looking forward to your thoughts and whether you see the same things as my players did. If I remember that scenario though, I feel you'll have less issue with AoE attacks as my players did, but you'll also find Void Warp doesn't have much mileage in that scenario as it is undead heavy and Mater of Life and Death doesn't change its targeting parameters (so can't target undead or constructs with it).
That scenario is a PFS season one scenario and very fun, but also an easy one in terms of difficulty. Still stands out as a personal favorite of mine as PFS goes.
Looking forward to your thoughts and whether you see the same things as my players did. If I remember that scenario though, I feel you'll have less issue with AoE attacks as my players did, but you'll also find Void Warp doesn't have much mileage in that scenario as it is undead heavy and Mater of Life and Death doesn't change its targeting parameters (so can't target undead or constructs with it).
That scenario is a PFS season one scenario and very fun, but also an easy one in terms of difficulty. Still stands out as a personal favorite of mine as PFS goes.
I already checked with the GM, and Void Warp will be usable despite the poor future-proofing on the targeting.
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Results!
- The class works fine and even well fighting against undead (as long as sensible targeting is allowed).
- Wood Kineticist and Necromancer acting together dramatically slows things down. There's no problem with turns taking longer, but the strong defensive options mean more turns in every fight. We went more than an hour over and still skipped a bunch of exploration.
- Protector Tree and thralls make an interesting combination, at the cost of chewing through the tree's health quicker.
- The class is great in enclosed spaces, tight corridors, etc. The class feels bad at any sort of long range. Bone Spear is impractically close restriction on how close the thrall must be, and I accidentally cheated by thinking it was a more reasonable thirty feet to the thrall instead of ten.
- The lack of options for controlling undead is a bummer. We ran into a group of weak undead, but having no room for Bind Undead with such limited spells, there was nothing to be done.
- Thralls stuck around longer than expected. It was rarely worth wasting time removing them. Even with a Cleric doing AoE heals, only one thrall was ever killed in crossfire.
- Bone Speaker was sadly useless. There was no room in the action economy to roll knowledge checks at all, the class doesn't care if something is undead or not, and a third focus point would have been much more useful in two out of three fights. If this feat is going to remain, it should probably include rolling a free knowledge check against something your thrall hits.
- Consume Thrall should probably have a better range too. If you're stuck using it in combat, it's already harsh enough using a thrall and an action.
- It is probably worth calling out in the thrall text that, as undead, they do not trigger effects that happen when a creature dies- they are destroyed instead. That did a decent job of avoiding even minor "bag of rats" exploitation.
- Necrotic Bomb was so much more useful than Bone Spear. Better range, better area, better damage type, doesn't use attack rolls.
- The only useful prepared non-cantrip spell was Soothe. That's partly on me, but worth noting.