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Spirit Monger
Thrall Enhancement Your thralls, while still being tied to the physical world, have an incorporeal essence. Whenever one of your thralls would deal physical damage, you can choose for that damage to be spirit or void damage instead.
That and necrotic bomb are the two most obvious sources for void damage that doesn't discriminate against living or dead targets.
I cross-referenced occult spells that deal vitality and void damage, and found the following:
In addition to the Spirit Monger thrall enhancement and Necrotic Bomb mentioned above, there's also the decaying runes you get from the Osteo Armaments feat at 8th level, and that's pretty much it. Interestingly, the Desperate Revival feat at 16th level deals AoE void damage, but only to living creatures, and so can't be used to damage undead (presumably to avoid you healing yourself off of and destroying your own thralls). It's not much, but it's something.
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and at level 1 you could use void warp and grim tendrils to damage undead.
Both of those only damage living creatures immune to vitality damage.
Pretty sure that’s what Luke meant about target massaging, you have to ignore the target or effect limits of the spells to use them for this.
Scouring pulse is good though, good find there. Also, its faction specific, not AP specific.
and at level 1 you could use void warp and grim tendrils to damage undead.Both of those only damage living creatures immune to vitality damage.
Pretty sure that’s what Luke meant about target massaging, you have to ignore the target or effect limits of the spells to use them for this.
Scouring pulse is good though, good find there. Also, its faction specific, not AP specific.
You're right, both effects specify living creatures, much like Desperate Revival. Looking more thoroughly, this is also the case for most other occult void damage spells, leaving vampiric maiden and whispers of the void, both 4th-rank spells, as the only void spells capable of damaging the undead. This means that unless you're a vitamancer, you'd have to wait until 2nd level to pick a feat that makes use of this effect, and then until 7th level to make use of spells in your spell list that would use the feature, short of taking an archetype.
It looks like this is a case of a double lock working against the class's mechanics: normally, the vitality/void split would make sure that those damaging effects would affect only the living or the undead, but because many of these effects also specify on top that they only damage the living, flipping the damage type or anything to that effect doesn't change anything in most cases. The fix to this would probably be fairly easy, though: just add text to mastery of life and death that states you can target the living or undead with a damaging spell or effect, even if the text says otherwise. On top of that, though, you'd likely have to add counter-text to Desperate Revival to prevent damaging your thralls and healing yourself to full (and clearing the map of your thralls in the process).
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Both of those only damage living creatures immune to vitality damage.
Pretty sure that’s what Luke meant about target massaging, you have to ignore the target or effect limits of the spells to use them for this.
Exactly this. I’m honestly not sure that, as a GM with a Necromancer PC in my group, I wouldn’t just ignore the targeting restrictions for this purpose, but (1) I’m actually playing right now, and (2) ignoring targeting restrictions seems counter to the spirit of play testing the class.
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I cross-referenced occult spells that deal vitality and void damage, and found the following:
There is only one vitality damage spell on the occult list, scouring pulse, an AP-specific spell.
Good find!
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Exactly this. I’m honestly not sure that, as a GM with a Necromancer PC in my group, I wouldn’t just ignore the targeting restrictions for this purpose, but (1) I’m actually playing right now, and (2) ignoring targeting restrictions seems counter to the spirit of play testing the class.Both of those only damage living creatures immune to vitality damage.
Pretty sure that’s what Luke meant about target massaging, you have to ignore the target or effect limits of the spells to use them for this.
I feel like "ignoring it" is a pretty viable way to run it outside of the playtest if its still in this state by 2026. Having an ability that just doesn't do what it says most of the time because of seperate targeting limits doesn't feel right, even if it's RAW.
Its not the only place in the system with this issue either: Oracle runs into similar problems with some bizarre outcomes if you don't apply some house rules.
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I feel like "ignoring it" is a pretty viable way to run it outside of the playtest if its still in this state by 2026.
I really don’t disagree. I don’t know why I feel constrained by the play test rubric, because I don't even know that I’ll have useful play test feedback, but I sort of feel like sticking as close to RAW as possible is part of the “game,” so . . .
Having an ability that just doesn't do what it says most of the time because of seperate targeting limits doesn't feel right, even if it's RAW.
For sure.
Its not the only place in the system with this issue either: Oracle runs into similar problems with some bizarre outcomes if you don't apply some house rules.
I honestly don’t understand why X number of years and a “Remaster” into this system we still have this problem.
Wait, what does Oracle and this feature run into problems. I know technically necromantic bomb is a net negative on your undead because your thralls all go bye-bye if hit by Necromantic Bomb which is dumb, very dumb. HOW does this get past the initial write up phrase? Does no one actually read this??? Proof reading is a thing man which I hope they improve.
I'd like to amend another previous statement (again): I mentioned that Desperate Revival would run into issues if made to interact with thralls and would require preventative text in a world where mastery of life and death let you ignore target restrictions, but this isn't as I thought: Desperate Revival deals damage based on the target's level, and thralls count as level -1 for the purpose of any effect that refers to their level. Thus, Desperate Revival would deal negative damage (the other kind) to thralls if allowed to target them. This to me means two things:
I feel like "ignoring it" is a pretty viable way to run it outside of the playtest if its still in this state by 2026.I really don’t disagree. I don’t know why I feel constrained by the play test rubric, because I don't even know that I’ll have useful play test feedback, but I sort of feel like sticking as close to RAW as possible is part of the “game,” so . . .
I feel the same with a playtest. :) The goal is to test it, so you want to use it as written to find the problems. Anywhere that you need to house rule is something that should be feedback as something to fix, like this.
I honestly don’t understand why X number of years and a “Remaster” into this system we still have this problem.
Hell, the remaster made it worse on Oracle, lol. Premaster this was such an uncommon edge case that most likely it just wasn't worth the effort, but now they're making class features that want to interact with this stuff and it just doesn't work at all as written.
I am frankly baffled that the playtest has the same basic problem since it came out what, 5 months after PC2 when this really came to light as a bigger issue? I don't know if they just expect people to ignore the targeting restrictions or these features are actually meant to work in so few cases.
Wait, what does Oracle and this feature run into problems. I know technically necromantic bomb is a net negative on your undead because your thralls all go bye-bye if hit by Necromantic Bomb which is dumb, very dumb. HOW does this get past the initial write up phrase? Does no one actually read this??? Proof reading is a thing man which I hope they improve.
Oracle doesn't have this specific feature, but it has the same problem with its own features, specifically the Bones Curse and Nudge the Scales. Anything that tries to change how void and vitality damage impact things without also changing the targeting doesn't really work properly, because you get into situations where "I can be harmed by vitality damage but nothing that does vitality damage considers me a legal target so this doesn't actually do anything". Or "I'm now healed by Harm but Harm doesn't heal me because I'm not Undead".
Or in Master of Life and Death: "I should be able to cast Void Warp on this creature and harm it despite it's void damage immunity since it takes vitality damage, but it's undead so I can't target it at all."
The root cause of those problems is the same: effects that specifically target living/undead place such tight restrictions on usage that an ability like this that wants to bypass the damage type limitations doesn't work because the targeting restrictions block it.
Oracle doesn't have this specific feature, but it has the same problem with its own features, specifically the Bones Curse and Nudge the Scales. Anything that tries to change how void and vitality damage impact things without also changing the targeting doesn't really work properly, because you get into situations where "I can be harmed by vitality damage but nothing that does vitality damage considers me a legal target so this doesn't actually do anything". Or "I'm now healed by Harm but Harm doesn't heal me because I'm not Undead".
Or in Master of Life and Death: "I should be able to cast Void Warp on this creature and harm it despite it's void damage immunity since it takes vitality damage, but it's undead so I can't target it at all."
The root cause of those problems is the same: effects that specifically target living/undead place such tight restrictions on usage that an ability like this that wants to bypass the damage type limitations doesn't work because the targeting restrictions block it.
Wouldn't the easy fix just be to errata stuff that targets a "living creature" and "undead creature" to instead be "creature with vitality healing" and "creature with void healing"?
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Wouldn't the easy fix just be to errata stuff that targets a "living creature" and "undead creature" to instead be "creature with vitality healing" and "creature with void healing"?
That’s largely the same issue written with more words. I still couldn’t target an undead with Void Warp because it wouldn’t meet the target conditions.
The easiest fix would probably be to add a line in the class ability that states that the Necrimancer can ignore the targeting restrictions on effects that deal void or vitality damage.
A better fix, in my opinion, would be to just get rid of that kind of target restriction entirely. The immunities involved seem sufficient. Fire spells work just fine without a targeting restriction that prevents their being cast on creatures with immunity to fire damage, after all.
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Makes sense, but language updating that would be beneficial so that the question doesn't keep coming up.
Luke's suggestion to rewrite all these spells so they just target creatures, and let void immunity and vitality immunity sort out who gets targeted, seems optimal. Though there's still spells like heal that want to have different effects depending on if the creature is healed or harmed by an energy. Maybe reword those to say "if this spell heals the target" and "if this spell harms the target"? If you refuse to be specific on what kind of energy heals the target, and place the inflection point on the overall spell itself, then swapping out void for vitality would switch the polarity of the spell as intended.
I definitely agree that the target limitations on void and vitality spells are redundant and don't interact well with other mechanics in Pathfinder. It'd be better to change the targets to just creatures, rather than living undead creatures, and whenever something specifically affects one or the other, it would be better to assume living creatures are the default and have the condition of "if the creature has void healing, do X instead". It'd perhaps be important to specify that anything that doesn't have void healing is immune to vitality damage, but otherwise you could just state that a spell deals vitality damage to creatures without having to specify that the targets must be undead, particularly when you have creatures like dhampirs who have void healing but aren't undead.
Makes sense, but language updating that would be beneficial so that the question doesn't keep coming up.
Luke's suggestion to rewrite all these spells so they just target creatures, and let void immunity and vitality immunity sort out who gets targeted, seems optimal. Though there's still spells like heal that want to have different effects depending on if the creature is healed or harmed by an energy. Maybe reword those to say "if this spell heals the target" and "if this spell harms the target"? If you refuse to be specific on what kind of energy heals the target, and place the inflection point on the overall spell itself, then swapping out void for vitality would switch the polarity of the spell as intended.
Most of them can just say "the target takes X vitality damage" or "the target regains X HP as vitality healing." Natural immunities will handle it from there like they do for every other spell.
Heal has to to be a bit wordier since it can do both at the same time, but even then you could say something like this:
"If the target is healed by vitality, it regains X HP. If the target is damaged by vitality energy, it takes Y damage."
Could then add an extra line to say something like "Living creatures are typically healed by vitality effects, while undead are typically damaged by vitality effects" to give new players a hint about what this should usually do, while leaving it working for the odd cases.
That doesn't care what type of creature the target is, and would even work in a case of one interpretation of the Bones curse where both cases could be true at the same time (though I'm not sure that's actually what is intended there).
Heal has to to be a bit wordier since it can do both at the same time, but even then you could say something like this:
"If the target is healed by vitality, it regains X HP. If the target is damaged by vitality energy, it takes Y damage."
I feel heal could actually have its mechanical wording streamlined a fair bit. For instance:
"The target regains 1d8 Hit Points if it is willing; this is a vitality effect. If the target has void healing, it instead takes 1d8 vitality damage with a basic Fortitude save."
And you could then have the three-action version just state it targets all creatures in the area. This would allow the spell to heal any willing living creature, damage any void healing creature (including creatures that aren't undead), and not affect creatures immune to vitality or void, like constructs. In the event that you get a niche mechanic on a monster that lets a non-living creature gain vitality or void healing, the spell would continue to interact properly with them, and Mastery of Life and Death could have a bit of text added that'd let you choose to use a spell's void healing-based effect or its regular effect (so that you could perhaps also heal living allies with a harm spell).
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It's a focus spell, but not a cantrip.
Good catch! I jumped on between turns during a session last night to post that and “misspoke.” It’s too late now to edit that, so thank you for setting the record straight
It's very good as it is!
I enjoyed using it a few times during the session. Since it’s a save spell, creating a Thrall, taking the included attack, and then blowing the Thrall up with Necrotic Bomb can make for a pretty satisfying round. I even used Consume Thrall for the first time so that I could cast a third focus spell in a single enoucnter, but the encounter wrapped before I used the “extra” focus point.
I’m enjoying this class..