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I finally got some free time with a friend to do the proper playtests of the necromancer and runesmith classes.
This playtest so far has only been for level one, using the fearsome plaguestone adventure and has focused on moderate and higher encounters.
I will not detail each encounter, nor each characteristic, I will only present the most important decisions we made regarding class options and our general impression of how it was to play.
As usual, I will make a post for each level, since the experience can change drastically from one level to another.
And OK, let's go to the party composition:
I had build my runesmith with Engraving Strike and a shield with spikes in order to test the efficiency of Strike + Trace if hits, the Rise a Shield with runesmith action economy and simply trace+trace+invoke.
About runesmith with shield:
It doesn't work well once that trace and invoke actions aren't attacks Rise a Shield just put an unwanted pressure in runesmith action economy and if you do not rise a shield so Shield Block doesn't work. This thing needs to be removed or improved with a Rise a Shield + Trace in the same-action but this doesn't fix the other problem that is you still need a free-hand to Trace what means that your weapon needs to be your shield.
About Engraving Strike:
I was surprised of how Engraving Strike wasn't bad as I (and many others) think in whiteroom. In practice it isn't so hard do hit and trace and even if you miss you still can trace again and invoke in the next round. This may delay the DPR but when Engraving Strike hits it's the opposite and the effect is pretty powerful.
That said play with runesmith was strange because the overkill. Due how strong is Engraving Strike/trace+trace+invoke if you focus in the weaklings you probably will end doing way more damage than needed. What makes the runesmith gameplay to be focused into the strongest or those with highest HP otherwise you will simply will wast most of your damage. But this also means that you need to move more than other classes usually does. This directly affects your action economy efficiency. So unless you are playing vs a single strong creature, usually play with runesmith will be more tactically more difficult and even frustrating than you expect.
Another point that I notice is how terrible AoO/RS are vs runesmith. If you move to get closer to an enemy that has AoO/RS you rapidally will see that you need to runaway or will have to deal with damage every round just because you are tracing a rune. This obviously disable the Engraving Strike too. So your alternative is to keep the distance and trace with 2-actions + invoke, but this weaken your action economy to a point where you become worse than even more weakest spellcaster. You will need all your actions without move just to damage your enemy at range with just a single rune. I can't say that AoO/RS completely disable the runesmith but get close.
All that said I was think that play with runesmith would be more fun but in practice was pretty tediously and frustrating. Basically I just think 'I need to put all my runes in the strongest target and then invoke then to explode it'. Even with many times this not being easier as you think and probably due this sometimes you simple end your turn just preparing the things because you just don't want to Invoke before put all your runes into the targets and this also may be that your target could be killed or strongly damage between the rounds and all your efforts ends in a overkill what is pretty frustrating.
A bit fix about my impression. I completely forgot that Fortifing Knock exists allowing to rise a shield and Trace. Yet this being a level 2 feat doesn't help any lvl 1 shield build anyway. Also it's limited to Trace your shield (and is unclear if you can Trace runes in attached weapons, probably not).
Now we tested some level 2 encounters of plaguestone adventure. Basically some fights vs alchemical modified plants, animals, some orcs and a bloody slime.
As level 2 feat we honestly didn't find anything interesting enought. Rune-singer once per minute limit made we avoid it, Fortifying Knock only works with shield runes, Runic Tatoo only works with runes applied to the body (we consider to get it to get an extra Invoke for Esvadir but the damage runes are already so strong that this will just make the Invoke even more overkill) and the others feats not even looks interesting enought to we to consider them.
So we simply choose to get a Sentinel Dedication and use a heavy armor diminishing the risk of the take down before Invoke the runes (this sum with the necromancer providing temp HP helped a lot).
The gameplay improved a lot now that most enemies had 30HP or more the number os Invoke overkill diminished a lot and the runesmith showed that it is currently the most stronger single target DPR. We made it focus only in enemies with highest HP due this making it responsible for the most victories of the party.
An interesting note was that he also super-efficient vs orc ferocity once it was able to do another damage without failure after hit these enemies with a weapon. Engraving Strike still worked pretty well in this level so worth to be used every turn basically.
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I will say that, for making Runesmith actually function as a martial character rather than a caster, there are a few things that can be allowed to make it feel good. Mostly, they're changes that could be argued as being the intent of the existing rules though.
For melee:
Engraving strike and fortifying knock, assume they ignore the normal requirement of a free hand for tracing a rune, and remove the manipulate action for it. The feats themselves don't include a requirement of a free hand in them, after all, and don't have a manipulate keyword on them, while other feats like transpose etching do have Manipulate called out explicitly on them.
Again, I know that rules as written, an action compression feat should inherit those off of the trace rune action unless explicitly stated otherwise, but if you assume that the intent was to allow a sword and board or two-handed hammer fighter to use these, then it cleans up things pretty nicely. Being in melee with enemies who can take reaction strikes, you can still trace twice by raising your shield and attacking with engraving strike, and have a third action left to invoke if desired, all without taking reaction strikes.
Add in Runic Reprisal, and it comes together very well by level 6.
Even better would be if you made Engraving strike a 1 / turn free action with the activation condition of "you successfully strike a target" to get the trace. That would let you stack it on other melee feats from a dedication feat's extra options, including support for heavier hitting two-handed weapons replacing the shield... But that could be too good, potentially.
For Ranged:
If you assume that being shot by an arrow and having it hit you makes you the "rune bearer" for any runes that were applied to the arrow head, a runic archer build actually opens up. You still don't have anywhere near as many feats that support it as you have with sword and board, but that just means archer dedication is an easy option to add in. It's clear that there's intended to be some reason to go with a bow or crossbow, given that you have a 1st level feat to let you invoke at greater range with an arrow, and the fire and lightning damage runes do fit on objects -or- creatures and target the rune bearer. Plus the whetstone rune can go on piercing weapons, like arrows and bolts.
Melee application of a rune to slap it onto an arrow with only one action, good until the end of your next turn. Tracing Trance could allow you to prepare two and fire them both off, using double or triple shot feats off of archer dedication. Then next turn remote detonation to make them explode from significantly higher than 30 feet away. Short bow with far shot could give 120 feet or something for instance.
Overloaded Ammunition still isn't a great pick since it's only 2/day of a not super well scaling smaller fireball, but it's more proof that a ranged fighter runesmith was intended as an option, despite the lack of an equivalent of engraving strike for ranged weapons. All that is part of why I think the above ruling of an arrow sticking into someone letting you count them as a rune bearer could be rules as intended. Especially with distant invocation not coming with any ways to improve range to trace your runes as part of it. And Henge Gate then just becomes "set up with 2 actions to not need actions to apply runes to your ammo for a while" instead of making an entirely new mechanic for applying runes through ranged weapons at level 14.
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At this 3rd level, the runesmith started to show himself to be truly brutal as a DPR. Almost all of the strong enemies were killed by him, and for those who weren't, he ended up giving the greatest damage contribution.
That said, it's curious how the mechanic of giving all the Traces on the 3 damage runes (Atryl + Evade + Ranshu) and only then using Invoke meant that many enemies ended up fighting 1 more round, which kind of nullified some of this super-efficiency of DPR compared to what the party's magus did, for example. That said, that's just part of the impression, because against bosses this was simply brutal, the runesmith easily took 3/4 of the HP of a very strong enemy unless he was very unlucky with the dice.
However, against weak targets (with the exception of orcs due to Orc Ferocity), overkill and wasted actions were common. Simply Trace all runes made it a waste of actions, at the same time, when you Traced only 1 or 2 runes and then Invoked, sometimes an enemy barely survived and you regretted having saved a Trace (now you'll have to spend more actions again and maybe the enemy still has another round to annoy you). In the end, the best strategy was still to focus on the enemies with the highest HP in reach, it greatly reduced the wasted actions and when it was necessary to move, then yes, you would go straight to the enemy with the highest HP again.
Having said all that, this strategy also made the runesmith the primary target of the enemies several times, after all, he advanced a lot and caused a lot of damage, which created greater pressure on the party's support (the necromancer), but fortunately she was able to handle it because her build was one that provided a lot of HP temp.
In the end, curiously the best situation was always when an enemy had a better initiative and approached in the first round, allowing him to do everything in a single turn along with Invoke.
The other thing I noticed again at this level is how hard it is for the runesmith to deal with RS/AoO. There is no way to stay on the front line suffering RS/AoO every time he needs to Trace (every round in practice), which forces him to retrench and reduce his DPR by 1/3 due to the inefficiency of Traces at a distance. It is not as bad as it is for the melee magus, but it is close. But honestly it is not something that I find unfair given how strong the runesmith is in melee.
One thing that caught my attention at this level is that it was the first level that I got an extra rune (5 now) in my repertoire and here is the lack of good runes at this level. I ended up getting Zohk and never used it, because it is extremely specific to some strategies and the diacrit runes are simply not worth it, and the rest didn't catch my attention. Interestingly, there is not only a lack of more runes here, but there could simply be 3rd level runes already! It is strange to gain access to a new rune and know that you can only get the same runes that you could get before, it gives a feeling of wasting the ability to increase your repertoire.
Speaking of the lack of runes, when we face a Cinder Rat that is immune to fire (so Atryl became useless) we also notice that there are still more runes missing for different damage types, but this would probably create too many runes for different types of damage, instead it would be nice to have a rune that could have its damage type defined during Trace at level 1.
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Now moving the playtest to the end of the first AoA book to be able to test the 4th level.
At this level, once again, we noticed the lack of really interesting feats. After being able to, we ended up choosing Terrifying Invocation. But the fact that it limited us to using Invoke and a single rune at a time made it only applicable to encounters where we had to use Trace from a distance. It wasn't all bad, but it didn't make any really significant difference either.
In fact, there was one encounter where we were forced to use Trace from a distance at this level against a Greater Barghest, which ended in TPK, but the frustration of having to avoid AoO, thus limiting us to one Invoke per round, made it seem like the feat was a consolation prize that no one wants in practice.
Otherwise there were no significant differences from level 3. No new runes, Engraving Strike is still worth it as the Strike's damage is still very close to the 4d6 of the runes, nothing in the gameplay feel has changed significantly in practice.
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Yes, we skipped level 5! I simply lost the material I had ready for this level! :P
The playtest for this 6th level was basically a fight against a Bida assisted by a hazard (red dragon pillar). At this level, some feats finally appeared that really seemed interesting. Runic Reprisal, which potentially makes shields usable for the class without becoming a delay in the action economy, but the option we chose since we had already abandoned the shield build was Tracing Trance, which mainly helps with the action economy against ranged enemies, but can also be very useful if you need to move or use an action to do something else.
That said, Tracing Trance also prevents you from using Invoke in the same turn, which requires you to use it wisely. But perhaps the most limiting characteristic of it that we noticed in practice is the fact that it triggers at the beginning of the turn, which limited its use much more than we imagined. But still, it is a good feat that helps in several circumstances.
Otherwise, the experience was not much different from the usual. The runesmith filled Bida with runes, then exploded her to death. And look, Bida has a formidable fortitude, which slowed down the process a bit, but didn't change the fact that the runesmith was still the biggest DPR in the fight.
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Bida bang, Bida boom!
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Now at 7th level, the runesmith has gained his "weapon specialization". But even so, the difference in damage between armed attacks and Invoke is already noticeable. Now that the damage runes are causing 8d6 damage each, the effectiveness of making weapon attacks is quite questionable. Although it is still interesting in situations where it was necessary to spend other actions, using Tracing Trance and using Engraving Strike in the round helps to lessen the impact of not doing Invoke.
Apart from that, the lack of intermediate runes continues to prove to be a problem. We had to deal with a lot of enemies immune to fire, which disabled Atryl, and there are basically no relevant runes besides it, Esvadir, and Ranshu. The class really needs a much greater diversity of damage runes, runes for other uses, and intermediate-level runes, since at 7th level we were basically forced to take another level 1 rune (Ur-) that we weren't going to use.
...
That said, Tracing Trance also prevents you from using Invoke in the same turn, which requires you to use it wisely. But perhaps the most limiting characteristic of it that we noticed in practice is the fact that it triggers at the beginning of the turn, which limited its use much more than we imagined. But still, it is a good feat that helps in several circumstances.
The ability to become quickened happens at the beginning of your turn, but you are quickened for the entirely of that turn and can use that extra action at any time, not just at the start.
Effectively, you choose if you want to have the extra action but disallow Invoking at the start of your turn, but can use that action whenever. Just FYI! Maybe that's how you played it but I wasn't sure based on your wording.
Unfortunatelly is not how I read:
It is a free action with the trigger "Your turn begins" so you have to decide if you will use it when your turn starts and before you use any actions.
If is the beginning of your turn and you choose to use this free action when its trigger happens you are now quickened and as you said you can use this action anytime during your turn. This isn't a problem, the real problem is the last sentence that says "Absorbed in the act of creation, you can’t use any invocation actions this turn" what's pretty clear that you cannot invoke anymore during your entire turn.
So you have to choose at beginning of your turn if you will use it and will be quickened that turn to be able to get an extra action to Trace but unable to use Invoke or if you won't use it but can Invoke normally during your turn.
Unfortunatelly is not how I read:
It is a free action with the trigger "Your turn begins" so you have to decide if you will use it when your turn starts and before you use any actions.If is the beginning of your turn and you choose to use this free action when its trigger happens you are now quickened and as you said you can use this action anytime during your turn. This isn't a problem, the real problem is the last sentence that says "Absorbed in the act of creation, you can’t use any invocation actions this turn" what's pretty clear that you cannot invoke anymore during your entire turn.
So you have to choose at beginning of your turn if you will use it and will be quickened that turn to be able to get an extra action to Trace but unable to use Invoke or if you won't use it but can Invoke normally during your turn.
Okay yep we agree on how it functions. I just didn't think it was a big restriction (generally I know if I might invoke runes as my turn starts) but I suppose we just have different play patterns.
Okay, so some of the main issues so far are "enemies that are immune to fire / resist lightning," which are both pretty common, really hit damage output due to lack of damage type options. Weapon strikes can't keep up past a point due to just not scaling as well when there aren't dedicated feats to give stance bonuses or other actions that improve your strikes, like every other martial character has. And that half of the chassis you're given just ends up not being used due to being incompatible with other parts.
Most of the last problem, I previously addressed with some ideas for, such as just assuming that you don't need the free hand or take reactive strikes when using Engraving Strike/Fortifying Knock, though the issue of needing the free hand for outside of melee still exists with sword and board, so there's still a temptation to go weapon + free-hand or shield + free-hand.
Damage types really only has two good solutions - either we need runes for all damage types, or we need a rune that can swap damage types, chosen on tracing. I know some people lean more towards the second to avoid being able to stack up too many different types of damage runes to activate at once, but that could lose some of the flavor given to runes we have. "A rune placed on a stone to let it burn and keep a fire going all night" and "A rune that creates a lightning rod to protect you in a storm" are really cool flavor descriptions... all the more so if the DM lets them actually do those things outside of combat. But at the same time, imagine if you have a list of effect runes that you can then apply the elements to - "I substitute the part of this runic formation that means fire for cold, and now I have can have ice that won't melt even in the desert heat to keep my food cool. I substitute this lightning portion of the lightning rod rune for fire to protect the camp from stray embers catching anything near the rod on fire." Making the runesmith runes into complex runes that can be altered instead of a single rune allows keeping the flavor of things while still letting you alter it for your purposes.
Lastly, the weapon damage not scaling... we honestly need more feats that support play styles. We have maybe 3 for ranged combat total, we have a small handful for melee attacks but none to help you hit more accurately or do more damage (other than adding a trace to a hit), and we have a handful for more magically aligned runesmiths. If there was a feat so that "All runebearers count as off guard to attacks you make against them," that could instantly improve things a lot while avoiding any easily stacking bonuses. Having another for "you deal extra damage to rune bearers you strike with attacks" could also be a good option. Treat it as similar to sneak attack but slightly weaker, d4s instead of d6s for instance. Or could use the existing runic optimization for it but let it stack multiple times - "add the value of your Runic Optimization an extra time for every rune affecting the targets of your strikes." Maybe a reactive strike version of Engraving strike that could be taken as well for people who aren't using the shield.
This was our final playtest, with a larger number of encounters. Since we are at the end of the playtest period, we decided to stop here and also give a general impression of the class.
At 8th level we picked Elemental Revision because it seemed interesting against enemies with elemental weaknesses, but we never got the chance to use it.
At 9th level we finally got access to the level 9 rune. Just to note that they're not that great! The Diacrits are interesting, but their use is still not worth it given that we can simply use Trace on more targets with regular runes. The others are interesting, but nothing really spectacular for a 9th level rune. In the end we picked Ichelsu, so we could see the invisible permanently. Ok, it's something we could also get with a wand, but since we had a 4th etch we thought it would be cool. And it was useful, it helped against a night rag.
Other than that, nothing significant really changed. The runesmith would trace the 2 elemental runes on the enemy with the most HP and then use Invoke to "explode" them, causing huge damage and also sacrificing the Evade that was etched on him by default and the other Esvadir that was etched by default on the champion magus to deal damage to another enemy. If he had to move, then he would use Tracing Trance to move and Trace the elemental runes on an enemy and complete with a Strike, or better yet, even 2, because in this case it was worth using Engrave Strike. If he hit, you had 2 runes traced (1 with a free action and another with Engrave) and an extra action to give a second Strike. If you missed, you could just use your last action to give a normal Trace since in this round the Tracing Trance prevented the use of Invoke. This even kept Engrave Strike useful at this level where the risk of failure normally doesn't make up for its use, but when you are prohibited from using Invoke and can't do anything else becomes useful.
Playing with the runesmith was interesting. However, it was also a bit annoying because during almost every level, the high efficiency of the damage runes practically begged the player in charge to simply use Trace and Invoke as much as possible and ignore any other action except getting close.
The only thing changed a bit when the enemy had RS/AoO and using Trace in melee became a huge problem and using it from a distance destroyed a lot of its effectiveness. However, it was still the best alternative in most situations, simply using Trace and Invoke until the enemy died. In the end, it was less penalizing than with the Magus, but it was still annoying. Being forced to move away because the enemy has an annoying reaction doesn't seem like something tactically fun, like looking for a weakness or running away from a resistance, but rather annoying because it simply gives the feeling that the enemy is simply strong against you and your alternative is to accept that you are more limited and weaker against him. That said, Tracing Trance also helped a lot in this situation, allowing us to increase efficiency by 50%, but it was still annoying.
As GM, we didn't see anything special with a runesmith in the group. It was basically a super-efficient DPR, which became the primary target of the enemies until they realized that there was an annoying champion protecting them, who needed to become the primary concern for that reason.
The biggest problem that weighed on the runesmith in my opinion and that of my friend was the lack of good feats and runes.
The damage runes lacked diversity of types, there were basically 3, fire, electricity and slash. If the enemy had resistance, well, there wasn't much to do other than accept it (however, the fire rune usually ignores all resistance). If the enemy was immune, that was it, part of your DPR would simply drop. If the enemy had a weakness, great, you took advantage of it. But since we applied all possible damage runes, in practice there was no tactical use in this, it was just pure and simple increase or reduction in the damage caused in an almost random way. There were some interesting buff runes, such as Holtrik and Evadir itself, but since the latter also had a good Invoke, it was quickly sacrificed.
The class lacks both support and utility runes and more rune levels. You spend a lot of time just getting runes of the same level that don't add much to the gameplay. And the invoke of support/utility runes behaves in a somewhat annoying way. Either it was too good for the player not to use, basically sacrificing its effectiveness as support/utility, or it wasn't worth it and the Invoke entry was ignored altogether, wasting potential. It would be nice if these runes simply didn't have the Invocation entry and instead were passively a little stronger or more versatile, precisely to stop this feeling that something is being wasted, be it the passive effect or the Invoke.
The other point is that some levels are simply filled with uninteresting or very situational feats, which left us in the situation of looking for an archetype. Fortunately, since we knew we would be on the front lines and saw the shield as being much more of a problem than a solution, we ended up taking the Sentinel archetype precisely at the level where we had not seen anything better, which was level 2. In practice, the class needs more interesting feats and, if possible, a heavy armor feat, since the class is very efficient and focused on melee. It would also be good to have a way for Trace to have power by using the weapon all the time, with no chance of failure, to allow the use of shields and 2-handed weapons that end up being restricted by the need for a free hand to use tools.
Other than that, it was a very repetitive class. And don't get me wrong this isn't necessarily bad this friend of mine that I was alternating between GM and player likes classes like this, which are simple and straightforward and already come with a closed action economy. But even so, he felt the same lack as I did in terms of versatility of runes and more interesting feats. In addition, he was the main DPR of the group, performing very well in this role, especially against bosses.