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Didn't have a huge amount of time this go around, and after playing both of these classes, I don't think I really needed more time. Eight combats at level 10, eight at level 20. We severely reduced the difficulty of the combats from the usual severe/extreme blender because it was clear neither of these classes could perform at that level.
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Necromancer
Fundamentally this class feels like it was designed for a small corridor, indoor dungeon environment. It just doesn't work correctly outside of that.
The thralls, outside of recurring nightmare, cannot fly. It's questionable whether they can swim. They obviously can't burrow. Given the outright terrible range on your focus spells (as many of them are 10-15 feet from the thrall), that means if an enemy is 20 feet in the air, none of your focus spells function. Same with any party member being 20 feet in the air, you can't muscle barrier them.
In any sort of more open environment, the undead cannot meaningfully block space. They are far too small for that, and you start needing more open environments by higher levels because monsters are too big for dungeons. Never mind the fact that you can just tumble through the thralls anyway. This class never felt like a battlefield controller to me, its control tools were simply inadequate.
2-slot prepared casting feels pretty bad. If you prepare a spell wrong, that's half your spells of that level that are now useless. I'd much rather be spontaneous at 2 slots, at least then half your spells are signatures.
Its action economy is pretty bad as well. The necromancer had beastmaster to deal with the thrall problems, i.e. the fact that they can't move if they want to create thrall and cast a focus spell. Putting thralls in the "right place" is just not really possible with how much the battlefield moves around at higher levels, and how bad your focus spell ranges are. I often found myself with spare thralls on the battlefield that just did nothing except sit there, and having to summon new ones because the range on my spells was too short.
The focus spells do not feel like they make up for the lack of slots, at all, they aren't really substantially better than other class' focus spells, given the additional action cost of having a thrall in the right place to use them. The AoE and ranges do not scale on the low level focus spells, and the higher level ones just... aren't particularly good in the first place.
Most of the time, this class' best contribution was simply casting muscle barrier over and over again. At least I had control over my allies' positioning so they could be within 15 feet of a thrall, and the 50/100 temporary hitpoints was far more impact than any other focus spell was going to get me. By level 20, casting a real spell, even a 6th or 7th rank one, was far better than my focus spells - I would have much, much rather have been any fullcaster by then.
This is easily the worst feeling playtest class I've ever played, at least playtest magus had its highs for all its substantial lows. I never felt like the Necromancer ever had a high point, just many situations where it felt utterly useless and some situations where it was just okay.
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Runesmith
This class is analogous to melee magus. It has the exact same list of issues - stringent action economy to get the best damage, reactive strike, any sort of disruption completely hoses it, very squishy with 8 hit points and medium armor.
The difference between this and melee magus is that when it works, it does actually do great damage. Engraving Strike + Trace/Fortifying Knock + Invoke 2-3 runes (depending on how many etched esvadirs you had) is a huge burst of damage, better than even a fighter with a reactive strike.
Again, beastmaster was used to patch up some of its problems, but it still fell flat on its face when the enemy could disrupt it in literally any way (prone, slow, stun, swallow, etc.) or the enemy had high fortitude, or the enemy had reactive strike.
Originally I thought it was 1 rune per invoke when I first read it, upon reading that it was any number, I questioned the point of all those 2-action invoke 2 rune + minor bonus effect feats.
I do appreciate that, unlike many previous iterations of this 8 hp melee class (magus, inventor, investigator, thauma), there is actually a reason to be melee instead of just going for the strictly better ranged which would solve all your problems immediately. The ranged runesmith deals less than half the damage by comparison, and is probably a bit anemic.
Some people will probably appreciate this type of glass cannon class that can have extremely explosive turns, but is susceptible to shattering if it gets hit in the wrong spot - this is certainly not for me though, I don't like my ability to contribute at all being entirely placed in the hands of what monsters the GM decided to field that day.
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Level 10 combats
Day 1
- 1x Cloud Giant and 1x Deadly Mantis
- 3x Tyrannosaurus
- 6x Chimera (Ankrev head replaces goat head, primal, sonic)
- 7x Aapoph Granitescale and 7x Choral
- (Replaced with) 6x Zecui, 4x Jungle Drake and 6x Choral
Day 2
- 2x Roc and 2x Young Mirage Dragon
- 1x Lich
- 1x Gogiteth and 1x Weak Shadow Giant
- 1x Weak Mukradi
Level 20 combats
Day 1
- 1x Warden of Oceans and Rivers
- 4x Aolaz
- 12x Vilderavn
- 1x Treerazer
Day 2
- 2x Tarn Linnorm
- 3x Weak Nessari
- 2x Elite Guthallath
- 1x Grim Reaper
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Your tests would confirm my concerns. Focus spells are not a replacement for spell slots unless they're somehow significantly better than ordinary (Shatter Mind and Imaginary Weapon), but those rare examples also really shouldn't be available via multiclassing, which the Necromancer's are (unless the multiclass create thrall is nerfed, and then you've probably just made a bad multiclass archetype). Necrotic Bomb was good the one time I got it off, but the stars had to align perfectly dor that to happen.
Runesmith felt weird. It has some high damage potential, but that leaves you with a very strict routine. I also felt I had to be selfish with my engraved runes in order to do damage, and that felt... not great. I like the idea of a support martial they talked about, but Runesmith doesn't feel like that.
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Most of the time, this class' best contribution was simply casting muscle barrier over and over again.
Given YuriP’s assessment of the ubiquity of Muscle Barrier, I have to ask: how “necromantic” does it feel to…buff your allies with viscera…goo? Like I get that there will be more options in the final release, but this isn’t what I would be looking for to be “necromantic”…
I guess I’d like to know more about how the class…feels narratively. I’ve made my distaste for the thralls clear both in terms mechanically AND aesthetically, but I’d like to hear others thoughts on the aesthetics…
I guess I’d like to know more about how the class…feels narratively. I’ve made my distaste for the thralls clear both in terms mechanically AND aesthetically, but I’d like to hear others thoughts on the aesthetics…
I included a bone-shaper necromancer in my runesmith playtest as a villain: Sobe. Narratively, the players found her scary, because her thralls kept appearing and by sheer luck their initial attacks all hit. Since she was also the enemy with the lowest hp and AC (Sobe was 4th-level with AC 18, the other 2 enemies were 6th-level with AC 23 and 7th-level with AC 25), the party focused on her and took her out quickly before she could use any of her abilities from feats.
My wife helped me develop Sobe's backstory. She was a lizardfolk whose ancestral Bone Magic was exceptionally strong. She was misunderstood and shunned, so she left home and became a criminal for opportunities to use her abilities in secret. Since PF2 Remastered dropped alignments, I don't need to worry about whether she was evil or not. She respected the dead and thought that the dead respected her and aided her.
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Most of the time, this class' best contribution was simply casting muscle barrier over and over again.Given YuriP’s assessment of the ubiquity of Muscle Barrier, I have to ask: how “necromantic” does it feel to…buff your allies with viscera…goo? Like I get that there will be more options in the final release, but this isn’t what I would be looking for to be “necromantic”…
I guess I’d like to know more about how the class…feels narratively. I’ve made my distaste for the thralls clear both in terms mechanically AND aesthetically, but I’d like to hear others thoughts on the aesthetics…
Official flavour has never mattered to me. Even if the text says it’s viscera goo, I’d probably just reflavour it to bone armor, the undead literally throwing themself into the way of attacks or whatever.
My issue is more from a mechanical perspective - when I think Necromancer I don’t think “guy who applies a shield”.
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I guess I’d like to know more about how the class…feels narratively. I’ve made my distaste for the thralls clear both in terms mechanically AND aesthetically, but I’d like to hear others thoughts on the aesthetics…
Like you, I'm not a fan of conjuring stationary meat sacks out of nothing and then using them to give large amounts of temporary HP to the Fighter. It doesn't really scream "necromancer" to me at all, mechanically or narratively.
You know how some people really don't want guns in their fantasy and thus don't want Gunslingers around? That's pretty much how I feel about this incarnation of Necromancer.
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Judging by the playtest forum and lack of discussion on the PF2 sub-Reddi,t these classes seem to be a miss for most of us.
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I like a lot of the mechanics of necromancer, but I'm indifferent to the flavor and agree with most of the criticisms here—especially its reliance on limited spellslots against flying enemies.
Granting create thrall a longer range as you level and adding movement types to thralls as you level could both help a lot.
Most of the time, this class' best contribution was simply casting muscle barrier over and over again.Given YuriP’s assessment of the ubiquity of Muscle Barrier, I have to ask: how “necromantic” does it feel to…buff your allies with viscera…goo? Like I get that there will be more options in the final release, but this isn’t what I would be looking for to be “necromantic”…
I guess I’d like to know more about how the class…feels narratively. I’ve made my distaste for the thralls clear both in terms mechanically AND aesthetically, but I’d like to hear others thoughts on the aesthetics…
Official flavour has never mattered to me. Even if the text says it’s viscera goo, I’d probably just reflavour it to bone armor, the undead literally throwing themself into the way of attacks or whatever.
My issue is more from a mechanical perspective - when I think Necromancer I don’t think “guy who applies a shield”.
I think we are on the same page - I have no problem reskinning “flavor” text. By aesthetics I mean larger narrative concepts like “is a necromancer a support caster who clads allies in necro-stuff?…” and for me the answer isn’t exactly a yes. If concepts like Muscle Barrier were in addition to what I actually want to see (as opposed to “legacy” concepts of what necromancers have been) then I might be more interested.
Like you, I'm not a fan of conjuring stationary meat sacks out of nothing and then using them to give large amounts of temporary HP to the Fighter. It doesn't really scream "necromancer" to me at all, mechanically or narratively.
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And again, I would agree,
I think what is really interesting for me is that Paizo has never had a problem making things their own, and I applaud them for moving the needle slightly and occasionally away from classic fantasy tropes that have bogged the genre down for decades. And perhaps most interestingly for me is Pathfinder 2e’s absolute mechanical focus on party teamwork means that a class concept can totally be rewired from “legacy expectations” to be, as in this case, a support-enabled class. At least as so far presented in the playtest.
And ultimately, while plenty of players are going to have no prejudice and play with the chassis and building blocks I am absolutely going to have no truck with either Necromancer or Runesmith in terms of narrative agency and in-built mechanical flavor (same with Exemplar or Animist; Commander and Guardian are still pending mechanically). Much like some APs are a complete snore for some subscribers, some of the new classes are for me. It’s been a long bunch of months since anything interesting come out for me, and the last one was the Thaumaturge, but ultimately, having played one, it fell flat. Tried the Inventor, and it was…anemic.
I mean IDK I know some people have really specific gripes with the class but it sounds like most of the problems aren't existential, just that the numbers aren't quite there... which is the state of most playtests.
I mean IDK I know some people have really specific gripes with the class but it sounds like most of the problems aren't existential, just that the numbers aren't quite there... which is the state of most playtests.
There's a lot of solid ideas, but the thralls are the linchpin of the class and their mechanics pose a massive existential issue, in my opinion.
The lack of movement, limited range, meaningful mechanical variety between them and the disjointed nature of them being both very easy to kill and incredibly limited in numbers, which is against everything we expect of these kinds of playstyles. Normally things work like the weaker they are, more of them you can have and vice-versa.
From what I could experience, the class offers the "Necromancer flavor" we're expecting only at very high levels, with feats that give a lot of thralls and the basic action summons several of them, but it falters in mechanical efficacy due to range limitations, varied movement types and prevalence of AOE effects.
While at earlier levels, you don't satisfy the intended class fantasy due to a lack of thralls and weaker options, but the most common battlefields enable the class to work decently (despite some kinks). Even then, the playstyle feels clunky when you're not in the best case scenario.
It sounds to me like a lot of the Necromancer's problems in particular stem from excessive limitations placed upon their core gameplay, which could probably be relaxed a little: specifically, letting the Necromancer summon their full horde with create thrall at level 1 and increasing the range of their grave spells significantly would make their undead army feel a bit less anemic to begin with, and would allow them to work better in more open environments.
Beyond that, though, the playtest results do seem to indicate the Necromancer really wasn't designed with high-level play in mind. The class needs proper tools to handle flying enemies in particular, whether it's being able to create flying thralls or simply having long-ranged enough spells that they don't feel like they have to be breathing down an opponent's neck to be able to affect them.
On top of this, I also do think there's room for an additional starting grave cantrip that lets the Necromancer move their thralls instead of creating more. It doesn't have to be a super-strong cantrip, it just needs to let thralls feel like actual creatures capable of moving and perhaps also attacking more than once, rather than just tokens to act as fodder for other spells. Again, not an insurmountable problem, but it's understandable that the class would feel incomplete to many while in its current state.
I mean IDK I know some people have really specific gripes with the class but it sounds like most of the problems aren't existential, just that the numbers aren't quite there... which is the state of most playtests.
I have not playtested the necromancer enough to tell whether it has existential flaws, but the runesmith could use a serious reworking from the ground up. It is not that its numbers are not quite there; rather, sometimes its numbers are too good and sometimes they are too bad. That cannot be corrected by changing numbers. I am writing a long, complicated post about it.
Nevertheless, the runesmith theme has potential as a melee character who attacks with nonspell magic rather than weapons yet also has spare magic for support roles. It could be a great class for beginners who want magic but don't want the complex mechanics of spellcasting. The alchemist, barbarian, and kineticist fit the nonspell-magic niche already, but runesmith could be even simpler.
Granting create thrall a longer range as you level and adding movement types to thralls as you level could both help a lot.
I can deal with some other movement types, but the the idea of a high level necro player creating piles of flying thralls that I have to track somehow as the GM gives me a headache just thinking about it.
Fully aerial 3d combat is already a mechanical hassle, tripling the number of things in the air to track is going to be awful to try to run.
In any sort of more open environment, the undead cannot meaningfully block space. They are far too small for that, and you start needing more open environments by higher levels because monsters are too big for dungeons. Never mind the fact that you can just tumble through the thralls anyway. This class never felt like a battlefield controller to me, its control tools were simply inadequate.
In practice the class looks more like a battlefield controller due focus spells that allows them to reduced enemy speed or grab them. The problem is that these spells doesn't looks like to worth due the thrall and focus cost.
2-slot prepared casting feels pretty bad. If you prepare a spell wrong, that's half your spells of that level that are now useless. I'd much rather be spontaneous at 2 slots, at least then half your spells are signatures.
I fully agree. The main impression is that you don't have enough spellslots to nothing beyond Soothe. So in the end you just add Soothe in half of then what makes then useful.
Its action economy is pretty bad as well. The necromancer had beastmaster to deal with the thrall problems, i.e. the fact that they can't move if they want to create thrall and cast a focus spell. Putting thralls in the "right place" is just not really possible with how much the battlefield moves around at higher levels, and how bad your focus spell ranges are. I often found myself with spare thralls on the battlefield that just did nothing except sit there, and having to summon new ones because the range on my spells was too short.
This is normal to almost all classes that have strong use for its 3rd-action and then becomes a turret. IMO it isn't a bad thing but such classes requires the usage of Haste spell to not break their action economy. Fortunately this is relatively cheaper to take via scrolls in mid to high levels.
That said I agree that the class focus spells range are too short. But this is more a general balance problem of necromancer focus spell power than a general class problem...The focus spells do not feel like they make up for the lack of slots, at all, they aren't really substantially better than other class' focus spells, given the additional action cost of having a thrall in the right place to use them. The AoE and ranges do not scale on the low level focus spells, and the higher level ones just... aren't particularly good in the first place.
Most of the time, this class' best contribution was simply casting muscle barrier over and over again. At least I had control over my allies' positioning so they could be within 15 feet of a thrall, and the 50/100 temporary hitpoints was far more impact than any other focus spell was going to get me. By level 20, casting a real spell, even a 6th or 7th rank one, was far better than my focus spells - I would have much, much rather have been any fullcaster by then.
... It's like you said the main problem of the class is that its power budget is unbalanced. The class doesn't get anything significantly strong to justify it be restricted to 2 spellslots per rank nor their action, thralls and focus cost to get focus spells that aren't better than any druid/sorcerer focus spells. Most of the class problems could be solved greatly improving the grave spells power and giving thralls more abilities to become more useful in the battle field and able to deal with different situations like underwater/flying encounters.
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2-slot prepared casting feels pretty bad. If you prepare a spell wrong, that's half your spells of that level that are now useless. I'd much rather be spontaneous at 2 slots, at least then half your spells are signatures.I fully agree. The main impression is that you don't have enough spellslots to nothing beyond Soothe. So in the end you just add Soothe in half of then what makes then useful.
I fully agree, especially for the lower levels. My issue with spamming soothe is that it is just a worse heal and you have you just end up using it to remove dying from allies. At that point it does really matter if you are using rank 1 or rank 3, the ally will probably still go down to one hit. Eventually other spells like synesthesia take over at a certain point. That said, it does feel like you are limited to only the greatest hits for each rank. You just don't have enough room to pick a spell that might be situational.
Its action economy is pretty bad as well. The necromancer had beastmaster to deal with the thrall problems, i.e. the fact that they can't move if they want to create thrall and cast a focus spell. Putting thralls in the "right place" is just not really possible with how much the battlefield moves around at higher levels, and how bad your focus spell ranges are. I often found myself with spare thralls on the battlefield that just did nothing except sit there, and having to summon new ones because the range on my spells was too short.
The need for thralls to be in the right location made what I initially liked about the class much harder to do. I like the idea of announcing your intentions in advance. Placing a thrall in the middle or beside a group of enemies tells them whether you are going to use necrotic bomb or boner barrage. Then they should get to act accordingly, either spending actions to avoid the area or destroy the thrall. My problem was that both options are so easy that you end up just being better off creating new ones every turn. Even if it does work out the payoff is not any better than just casting a slotted spell or focus spells from psychic or oracle.
There was a question in the survey about the number of thralls, the number of focus points, and are the thralls in the right spot. I had to pick the custom option because this problem shifts as you level up. Low level you don't have enough thralls, but at higher levels the enemies have so much more built into their kit that it is hard to keep thralls near them. in both cases you end up having to create thrall on the turn you plan to use a grave spell.
I feel like there are not enough options that can use up the thralls left behind. There are a few, but only one really lets you use the ones no longer near the fight and it has a frequency of once per 10 minutes.
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The need for thralls to be in the right location made what I initially liked about the class much harder to do. I like the idea of announcing your intentions in advance. Placing a thrall in the middle or beside a group of enemies tells them whether you are going to use necrotic bomb or boner barrage. Then they should get to act accordingly, either spending actions to avoid the area or destroy the thrall. My problem was that both options are so easy that you end up just being better off creating new ones every turn. Even if it does work out the payoff is not any better than just casting a slotted spell or focus spells from psychic or oracle.There was a question in the survey about the number of thralls, the number of focus points, and are the thralls in the right spot. I had to pick the custom option because this problem shifts as you level up. Low level you don't have enough thralls, but at higher levels the enemies have so much more built into their kit that it is hard to keep thralls near them. in both cases you end up having to create thrall on the turn you plan to use a grave spell.
I feel like there are not enough options that can use up the thralls left behind. There are a few, but only one really lets you use the ones no longer near the fight and it has a frequency of once per 10 minutes.
As long as the thrall remains 1 action, the focus spells are going to be balanced as if they only take 1 turn to use as opposed to the (without haste/beastmaster) 2 turns. It's the general problem with 3 action and classes that have a 1 action setup + 2 action payoff, they get balanced around constantly using both in one turn whereas in reality the game, especially for shorter range or melee classes, tends to be more 2 action + move.
If create thrall were 2 action and more punchy on its own, you could probably juice the focus spells to be appropriately more powerful for the now 2 turn cost and the fact that the enemy can always choose to move away instead of just standing there, but without a couple of Reactive Strikes on your team, I just don't see this being very effective. It's usually not that expensive for enemies to move away (short of a few enemies who do use 3 actions very well).
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two action create thrall sounds really annoying to play around with.
I don't really understand "we can't balance the ability unless we make it worse first" ... like if the focus spells aren't good enough the focus spells aren't good enough you don't need to compromise when the class is too weak to begin with.
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two action create thrall sounds really annoying to play around with.
I don't really understand "we can't balance the ability unless we make it worse first" ... like if the focus spells aren't good enough the focus spells aren't good enough you don't need to compromise when the class is too weak to begin with.
The problem with keeping it 1a is that you can 1a Create Thrall + 2a focus spell, and that will be, if the focus spells are powerful enough relative to anything else you do, practically all you do in combat. The class becomes a turret unless disrupted, and even things like needing to move will tend towards Beastmaster so you can continually do your rotation. Very little turn to turn flexibility unless you’re absolutely forced to do something else.
2a Create Thrall means that you have a spare action on the turn you Create and a spare action on the turn you cast the focus spell to do something, and also lets you significantly buff both halves of it. Create because its now 2a instead of 1a, the focus spells because they always take 2 turns to go off instead of being possible to do in 1, and that means enemies can always move around it before it goes off.
Mind you, I don’t think that style of necromancer will actually work out that well into later levels. Enemies are simply far too fast for that sort of predicting positioning gameplay to actually work out at all, though I suppose you could increase the AoE sizes and range to try to keep up with enemy speed.
If what people are wanting is a necromancer whose main gameplay loop is predicting where enemies will be next round for an extra-powerful spell, that’s the only way I can see it working. For as long as it remains possible to do the focus spell in the same turn as making the thrall, it will never be about predictive positioning, regardless of how much you buff the focus spells, it will always be correct to do it immediately if you can.
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Based on your play experience, do you think the following changes, implemented together, might make a significant improvement to Necro's gameplay?
First: when casting Create Thrall, one may skip the Strike in order to create +1 thrall.
Second: anytime a Necro destroys or consumes a thrall as part of any other ability or spell, that thrall may first make a Strike as per Create Thrall.
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This first change would give the "setup" uses of Create Thrall more potency in that role without directly improving the attack power. IMO, a single thrall per action before L7 just looks waaay too painful, and even 2 for 1 at L7+ is a bit yikes.
This 2nd tweak fundamentally changes the thrall Strike from being a part of the Create Thrall cantrip, and instead makes that thrall Strike be "banked" inside the thrall itself, accessible outside that 1A action.
Importantly, the change would allow a Necro's "spender-only" turns to include their thrall Strike. It looks to me that this free and decently scaling thrall Strike is the core of Necro, and making sure it's as easy as possible to make use of that 0 MAP swing could go a long way to helping out the class.
The 2nd change would mean that the Create + Focus Spell turns get 2 spell attack rolls, which is a vertical power boost, but IMO that boost is warranted for a 3A turn like that.
Overall, the intent behind these changes is to try to make sure the Necro is able to cash the on-paper benefit of their "Necromancer" features during as many turns as possible, trying to minimize the number of turns where they just feel like an inferior caster.
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IMO, Witch had the right idea by making evergreen ability-like effects triggered passively via familiar hex abilities. For the tiny space they had for such additions in the Remaster, that change added a ton of both mechanical teeth and Witchy flavor to the class. But, the "hex only" limitation to proc/invoke those abilities does significantly cap that benefit during actual play (and it imbalances the class to swing a lot depending on how good your hex cantrip is).
These proposed tweaks would similarly maximize Necro's unique "individually small hits, but never-ending onslaught of the undead" foundation. It would also add room for new feats/ synergies. Most notably, Reach of the Dead burning a thrall with potentially any spell significantly improves the Necro's ability to keep swinging those thrall Strikes (and maaaaybe RotD cold be a base feature for such a range-limited class, pretty Paizo please?).
I agree that the total power of the grave spells will always be limited if the you can create thrall and grave spell the same turn. That said the grave spells as 3 action spells are further behind 3 action spells than other focus spells and regular 2 action spell. I don't believe the 1d6 every 2 ranks is enough to make up the difference.
I think there is middle ground between 1 and 2 action create thralls. Limiting the range of a create thrall, but adding a way to move the thrall(s) with an action. You could still get a thrall in one action, but you would need another to place it where you want. This would also help with the people that want the thralls to move. I don't know if this is what I personally want, but is a potential solution.
Let me put on the record, you honor, that I would sacrifice the Strike from Create Thrall, if it meant that I could invoke 3+ of them from level one.
The Strike+Thrall is nice, but if the cost is for the Necromancer to become a "Totem" Class, I rather have the ideas associated with Totems represented (auras, connections between totems, varied effects, etc) than keep the totally-not-totems Thralls and forcing the Necromancy flavor.
Either necromancers control undead hordes (here's a good place for a Swarm-Thralls or Troop-Thralls), beefy but limited minions (here's a good place for the first class in the game that can sustain all their minions with one class), or they're masters of life and death themselves (no Thralls, but massive Spirit/Void/Vitality based abilities and Astral Projection at low levels). Also, the Scythe edgelords could sacrifice having thralls in favor of combat prowess and reaping their enemies' life-force.
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First: when casting Create Thrall, one may skip the Strike in order to create +1 thrall.
No. I my most recent playtests the additional thrall isn't that useful without the Strike. It can occupy an space and help to flank but this isn't a game change and thralls as only fuel for focus spells doesn't looks good.
Second: anytime a Necro destroys or consumes a thrall as part of any other ability or spell, that thrall may first make a Strike as per Create Thrall.
Now this looks interesting. If the thralls could make a Strike as part of focus spell the thrall positioning along the battle field could be interesting. This also may help the enemies to consider to kill the existing thralls because up to know there's almost no reasons to inteligent enemies to treat idle tralls more than a random object that may be a bit annoying.
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The first half of the change is largely there so that when a Necro wants to use MAP on something other than Create Thrall, they are able to trade that "power budget" of the cantrip's Strike for something else instead of just throwing it away for 0 gain. IMO, the "value" of that Strike is well over +1 thrall, so it's a very safe and Necro-focused consolation prize.
Even in-class stuff like Bone Spear is an attack spell you really don't want to be at a MAP penalty before casting. Hence, a Create + Bone Spear turn will "feel (extra) bad" because you skipped the Strike.
IMO, both halves are important for that change to maximize the help/benefit to the class.
It even subtly improves some turns like Create Thrall + Save Spell: you can first make 2 thralls w/ the "+1 thrall if no attack", then use RotD to burn a thrall and cast a spell.
In that version of events, you still end the turn w/ 1 thrall attack and 1 thrall remaining, but the creation of 2 thralls means that you can always create an attacker's flanking buddy for the Strike.
(which helps out the quirks caused by using spell attack rolls)
In theory, "+1 thrall" could be substituted for another new benefit if one skips the thrall Strike, but that Strike part of the power budget seems to be rather huge. Throwing away that Strike power to make thralls without any traded benefit is IMO the biggest problem/issue in the class right now.
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These changes:
2: let any burn of a thrall "cash out" that Strike power
1: instead of forcing it to be spent in the same action, give more flexibility to 1A Create Thrall so all its power can all be used as a resource builder, the option to "bank" the same "resource token" of Strike power for a later thrall burn.
Currently IMO the best solution to thralls would be:
Create a Thrall:
Create a new thrall in a 30 ft range then choose any existing thrall in range to Step, Stride or Strike (including the recently created by this spell).
Control a Thrall:
Chose one of the thralls that you created to Step or Stride then you can choose any existing thrall to Strike (not only that you choosed to move).
This way the necromancer could choose between create a thrall or control an existing one. If choose to create the player could choose between move or Strike with any of its existing thralls in range allowing to Create+Strike or Create+Move without need to be the same thrall that you recently created OR you can choose to not create a new thrall but you can choose to Move+Strike any thrall but not having to do both with same thrall (you can move a thrall to flank but attack with another if want).
The main advantage of this is that it makes all thrall to be a potential threats not only the most recent one.
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Based on your play experience, do you think the following changes, implemented together, might make a significant improvement to Necro's gameplay?
First: when casting Create Thrall, one may skip the Strike in order to create +1 thrall.
Have never really had thrall quantity troubles, mostly range troubles. I doubt the extra thrall would have helped in this regard, especially at level 7+ where you already make 2+ thralls, I would almost never skip the Strike unless I was going to use Bone Spear.
Second: anytime a Necro destroys or consumes a thrall as part of any other ability or spell, that thrall may first make a Strike as per Create Thrall.
I don't think this would increase the class' power all that much. You mostly destroy the relevantly positioned thralls on the turn you create them (except for the ones you're using as muscle barrier fodder, which probably won't be adjacent to an enemy), so you're usually getting a spell attack -5 strike out of this, at best, if the thrall is actually adjacent to something. With your other main focus spells being AoE (Necrotic Bomb, Bone Spear, Bony Barrage) the thrall might actually not be adjacent to anything to maximise the AoE, or to prevent friendly fire.
If this is a replacement to the Strike you get as part of Create Thrall, then I'd say it's a downgrade.
Overall, the intent behind these changes is to try to make sure the Necro is able to cash the on-paper benefit of their "Necromancer" features during as many turns as possible, trying to minimize the number of turns where they just feel like an inferior caster..
IMO, Witch had the right idea by making evergreen ability-like effects triggered passively via familiar hex abilities. For the tiny space they had for such additions in the Remaster, that change added a ton of both mechanical teeth and Witchy flavor to the class. But, the "hex only" limitation to proc/invoke those abilities does significantly cap that benefit during actual play (and it imbalances the class to swing a lot depending on how good your hex cantrip is).
These proposed tweaks would similarly maximize Necro's unique "individually small hits, but never-ending onslaught of the undead" foundation. It would also add room for new feats/ synergies. Most notably, Reach of the Dead burning a thrall with potentially any spell significantly improves the Necro's ability to keep swinging those thrall Strikes (and maaaaybe RotD cold be a base feature for such a range-limited class, pretty Paizo please?).
I feel the issue starts at the quantity and impact of focus spells you get. Your focus spells are made up of debuffs that aren't competing with slotted spells past 3rd-rank, and blasts. If you don't want to blast this turn, your debuff focus spells aren't particularly good or reliable - just cast containment.
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Extra go through because we had time, this time with a Ranged runesmith trying to use Remote Detonation, and a necromancer without muscle barrier just to see how it was. Neither of them have Beastmaster. Same encounters, level 10. This time the party is barbarian+ranged fighter+runesmith+necromancer instead of champion+ranged fighter+runesmith+necromancer.
Ranged runesmith is so significantly worse than the melee one, the 30-foot range on the 2 action Trace is just not a safe distance, at all, and is practically only good for making you not take Reactive Strike at a rather hefty cost, or tracing against low flying creatures that you otherwise can't reach. In most other situations, Stride+Trace+Trace (or Tracing Trance + Stride + Trace + Trace + Trace) is probably just going to be a better use of your time than trying to use Tracing Trance + 2 action Trace + 2 action Trace. As a result, its damage is backloaded into every second round where it gets to actually Invoke, making it very normal in terms of damage, while still keeping many of the Runesmith's issues due to the low range on trace. Remote Detonation probably had about a 50% hitrate, and as such the runesmith was frequently needing to spend another action on Invoke after using it.
This time, the Necromancer bought 2 wands of containment with their money. They barely used their focus spells. When things got tough, which was fairly often, they cast containment, 5th-rank command or synesthesia. Their focus spells just couldn't compete on the action denial or debuff angle with those three spells, and the blast spells aren't going to turn the tide of battle when you need to reduce the damage the enemy is doing to you. Any other occult caster could have done what they did, but better.
Needless to say, the party lost quite a few of these combats (Mantis+Giant, Chimeras, the 16 10XP enemies, Mukradi) and came quite close to losing another (Shadow Giant+Gogiteth). The Lich encounter was only won because the player specifically took Silence 4th and No Escape on the barbarian to hard counter the Lich (assuming that Drain Soul Cage is a misprint and doesn't let the Lich cast any spell as a free action). In the combats they did win, it was the Fighter and Barbarian doing most of the work while the Necromancer and Runesmith existed.
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This time, the Necromancer bought 2 wands of containment with their money. They barely used their focus spells. When things got tough, which was fairly often, they cast containment, 5th-rank command or synesthesia. Their focus spells just couldn't compete on the action denial or debuff angle with those three spells, and the blast spells aren't going to turn the tide of battle when you need to reduce the damage the enemy is doing to you. Any other occult caster could have done what they did, but better.
This was my biggest issue across all the levels I played or GMed, level 2 through 15. I kept feeling like it was not worth it to use the grave spells and the class would be better off just using it's slotted spells/cantrips. Too much effort, too slow, and too little payoff. to me it was not any one problem that make the grave spells feel ineffective, but the multiple little things that held them back.
Just picking on the lower level grave spells.
Bone spears damage is not great at level 1, has very poor range, and is anti-synergistic with create thrall due to both increasing MAP.
Dead weight on a crit fail is at best a -5 to an enemy's attacks for one round or at worst nothing if the target is already next to someone.
Life tap heals so little it is only useful in getting allies up from dying later in combat, but the drained condition would be better used at the start. Neither side is really worth it on their own.
Muscle Barrier is very strong, but very passive for being the go to grave spell.
Necrotic bomb is less damage, range and area than fireball. Plus, the need of a thrall means that casting it turn one, when it would be most useful, is not happening if you have to move to be close enough.
Ranged runesmith is so significantly worse than the melee one, the 30-foot range on the 2 action Trace is just not a safe distance, at all, and is practically only good for making you not take Reactive Strike at a rather hefty cost, or tracing against low flying creatures that you otherwise can't reach. In most other situations, Stride+Trace+Trace (or Tracing Trance + Stride + Trace + Trace + Trace) is probably just going to be a better use of your time than trying to use Tracing Trance + 2 action Trace + 2 action Trace. As a result, its damage is backloaded into every second round where it gets to actually Invoke, making it very normal in terms of damage, while still keeping many of the Runesmith's issues due to the low range on trace. Remote Detonation probably had about a 50% hitrate, and as such the runesmith was frequently needing to spend another action on Invoke after using it.
I am not sure I fallow on this unless you are talking specifically about runesmiths using weapons. I know that you are giving up engraving strike, but you can take Rune-singer instead of Remote Detonation. This would make the 2 action trace a single action. Meaning you only lose out on the potential damage from a single strike. The runesmith tracks with the inventor and thaumaturge to hit, but does not get their damage boosting.
With Tracing trance and Rune-singer you can get out 4 traces in a single turn and then two more the next turn before invoking them all on the second turn while never moving. I think it is a boring loop, but it was very effective when my table used it. It even gave enough actions in those turns to use composite invocations, though they were not really worth it if you had to trace a single ineffective rune or wanted to invoke on multiple targets. As soon as you get Tracing trance it was easy enough to stack up 24d6 of damage across a couple of enemies every other round, even when having to spend an action each round to move. It scales at the same average as casting fireball from your highest rank slot on two foes every round, and can do more if you don't have to move.
The Runesmith had the opposite problem to me than the Necromancer. It felt like the payoff for the effort was too strong to ignore and seemed like sandbagging if you wanted to do something else with the turn.
I like YuriP’s ideas for thralls, but I feel it might be something the devs considered initially but then dispensed with for making the map swamped with Necromancer minions/bogged down. I also agree there should be something akin to Trip H’s concept of allowing the thralls a strike upon/before being consumed - as YuriP states there is currently no tacit impulse for enemies to destroy them.
I do find there seems to be a lack of consensus among GMs as to how significantly enemies perceive the threat of thralls, and wonder about thralls making foes make extra rolls (to RK?) necessitated where…regular foes..wouldn’t.
Can someone explain the many references to “Beastmaster” - is taking this archetype somehow useful in action economy for both Runesmith and Necromancer?!? What am I missing?
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Beastmaster is kinda the go-to "overpowered" archetype that is useful on every singe PC that is not at the minion cap.
With 2 Feats, you gain and then mature an animal companion that both has its own evergreen special ability while having usable combat statistics, and will even get 1 action independently without a Command.
For 2 feats.
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The Archetype even grants access to Ranger's focus spells like Gravity Weapon.
So many of the feats are just amazing, here's an L8.
[archetype][flourish] 2A
You and your companion move to take down a common enemy. You and your animal companion both Stride. If both of you end your movement within reach of the same creature, you and your animal companion each make a melee Strike against the creature. You can use Pack Movement to Burrow, Climb, Fly, or Swim instead of Stride if both you and your animal companion have the corresponding movement type.
I do find there seems to be a lack of consensus among GMs as to how significantly enemies perceive the threat of thralls, and wonder about thralls making foes make extra rolls (to RK?) necessitated where…regular foes..wouldn’t.
There was a question in one of the surveys about this. So, I think Paizo is at least aware this could be a table dependency problem.
Can someone explain the many references to “Beastmaster” - is taking this archetype somehow useful in action economy for both Runesmith and Necromancer?!? What am I missing?
All of what Trip.H said plus using an animal companion as a mount can get around some of the retractions with mounted combat. At higher levels is basically a free move action with out haste.
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I know that you are giving up engraving strike, but you can take Rune-singer instead of Remote Detonation. This would make the 2 action trace a single action. Meaning you only lose out on the potential damage from a single strike. The runesmith tracks with the inventor and thaumaturge to hit, but does not get their damage boosting.
With Tracing trance and Rune-singer you can get out 4 traces in a single turn and then two more the next turn before invoking them all on the second turn while never moving.
Once per minute you can trace a rune using song alone, removing the need to have a free hand, removing the manipulate trait and allowing you to use the 2-action version of Trace Rune as a single action.
They had Rune-Singer, but that function of Rune-Singer is limited to once per minute - once you use it, it’s back to 2a Tracing to do it at range.
Can someone explain the many references to “Beastmaster” - is taking this archetype somehow useful in action economy for both Runesmith and Necromancer?!? What am I missing?
The mature animal companion gets a free 1 action per turn when not commanded, if you mount it that can be a free Stride, enabling you to move while still using all three actions on non movement things. E.g. a melee Runesmith can command their beast to Stride, then Trace+Trace+Invoke. It’s essentially like being permanently quickened to Stride, and the beast also has very good speed (the Dromaeosaur has 50ft land speed).
Unfortunately this archetype comes with many downsides. It’s not as overpowered as it first looks.
1) Mounted combat rules make you take a -2 to reflex, and limits you to small ancestries.
2) The beast is quite fragile, especially as levels go up - any AoE that hits you is also hitting the beast, their saves don’t really scale correctly and they never get juggernaut/evasion/resolve so multiple AoEs will wear down their HP pool to nothing, if not kill them because they hit 0 while you’re still being hit by AoEs, quickly.
3) If it dies, you need to wait a week before getting a new one - a whole week of being down the main form of movement you are relying on.
4) None of the common beasts allow you to fly while mounted on them, meaning that against flying enemies you will still need to use your own actions to fly.
That’s not to say it isn’t good - it is - but that as a way to solve action economy problems it comes with its own list of problems.
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Also ladders, ropes, hatches, tight corridors, water and other terrain “obstacles”.
I’ve mostly found Mounted options almost never applicable, so while I have some fondness for the concept generally I’m surprised the archetype has reached this level of cheese-ubiquity. Ubiquicheese?
That it is so ubiquitous that it enters playtesting considerations is disapppointing.
Ranged runesmith is so significantly worse than the melee one, the 30-foot range on the 2 action Trace is just not a safe distance, at all, and is practically only good for making you not take Reactive Strike at a rather hefty cost, or tracing...
I'm curious - if you were using a ranged weapon, did you test out applying the damaging runes to arrows and shooting them as normal strikes? It's not explicitly called out either way, but since a creature in possession of an object with the rune on it becomes the rune bearer, and an arrow that hits a creature and deals damage is assumed to stick in them, any creature struck with an arrow that has a rune on it should have that rune "applied" to them, but able to be removed by pulling the arrow out with an interact option.
Tracing trance and melee range trace for two runes (any combo of the two available damage runes, since whetstone can apply to an arrowhead and the fire and lightning ones are "creature or object"), then two actions to try to shoot them. There aren't very many ranged weapon supporting feats, only like three, so there's a lot of room to take dedication archer in it. Then every other turn, trying to get a remote detonation, or using invoke (especially once taking the invoke range + 30 feat) along with prepping an arrow for next turn or giving an ally a rune that could help them out...
Plus having the initial etched runes you can have be on arrows for them sticking around once shot even if you don't detonate them instantly, and allies being able to shoot one or two off as well if you need them to.
Again, I know it's not called out explicitly as working this way, but I haven't seen any reason it shouldn't work. But even if a DM says no to that, whetstone runes should still be able to apply damage to targets adjacent to wherever the arrow is, and if it's hitting a creature and not "transferring," that creature should still be a target option for those. So I'm curious if it would improve things substantially, or just still be worse than a ranged fighter or ranger.
That it is so ubiquitous that it enters playtesting considerations is disapppointing.
I don't see why it should be disappointing that the OP's group has an affinity for a certain archetype.
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It’s disappointing that folks can “cheese” their “build” with such obviously token narrative choices.
It’s disappointing that the playtest classes can be “cheesed over” with a known exploit, and still be less than stellar.
It’s disappointing that Beastmaster, rather than be a master of beasts, becomes a Mounted Cheesemaster.
At least those are the three ways I felt the use of Beastmaster (and not just by the OP given the general credence the concept was given) was disappointing.
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Ranged runesmith is so significantly worse than the melee one, the 30-foot range on the 2 action Trace is just not a safe distance, at all, and is practically only good for making you not take Reactive Strike at a rather hefty cost, or tracing...I'm curious - if you were using a ranged weapon, did you test out applying the damaging runes to arrows and shooting them as normal strikes? It's not explicitly called out either way, but since a creature in possession of an object with the rune on it becomes the rune bearer, and an arrow that hits a creature and deals damage is assumed to stick in them, any creature struck with an arrow that has a rune on it should have that rune "applied" to them, but able to be removed by pulling the arrow out with an interact option.
Tracing trance and melee range trace for two runes (any combo of the two available damage runes, since whetstone can apply to an arrowhead and the fire and lightning ones are "creature or object"), then two actions to try to shoot them. There aren't very many ranged weapon supporting feats, only like three, so there's a lot of room to take dedication archer in it. Then every other turn, trying to get a remote detonation, or using invoke (especially once taking the invoke range + 30 feat) along with prepping an arrow for next turn or giving an ally a rune that could help them out...
Plus having the initial etched runes you can have be on arrows for them sticking around once shot even if you don't detonate them instantly, and allies being able to shoot one or two off as well if you need them to.
Again, I know it's not called out explicitly as working this way, but I haven't seen any reason it shouldn't work. But even if a DM says no to that, whetstone runes should still be able to apply damage to targets adjacent to wherever the arrow is, and if it's hitting a creature and not "transferring," that creature should still be a target option for those. So I'm curious if it would improve things substantially, or just still be worse than a ranged fighter or ranger.
All ammunition is destroyed on use. Runing an arrow and firing it would, I think, do nothing RAW. It would just get destroyed on impact, the rune wouldn’t transfer or get “stuck” in the creature to make that creature the rune bearer.
Some entries in the ranged weapons tables are followed by an entry for the type of ammunition that weapon launches. The damage die is determined by the weapon, not the ammunition. Because that and other relevant statistics vary by weapon, ammunition entries list only the name, quantity, Price, and Bulk. Using ammunition destroys it.
Would it improve things? Probably, but not as much as you’d think if it still requires actually hitting the enemy with the attack. And it would turn the Runesmith into the greedy playstyle of only etching runes so you can Invoke them, rather than using it for party buffs.
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Also ladders, ropes, hatches, tight corridors, water and other terrain “obstacles”.
I’ve mostly found Mounted options almost never applicable, so while I have some fondness for the concept generally I’m surprised the archetype has reached this level of cheese-ubiquity. Ubiquicheese?
That it is so ubiquitous that it enters playtesting considerations is disapppointing.
Yeah it’s not good to rely on it for numerous reasons. Paizo APs tend to feature a lot of terrain without these features, though, and a medium-sized animal companion carrying a small character can fit inside a dungeon just fine.
But some classes feel so otherwise constrained by their action economy that the “free” stride each turn feels almost mandatory to contribute at an acceptable level. Playtest commander was the same - beastmaster let you use Guiding Shot + Strike Hard! Every turn without worrying about needing to move disrupting you.
It tends to be classes that have a good 3 action rotation that doesn’t have inbuilt movement, but are far worse at 2 actions. Somewhat regrettably, that feels like a number of the newer classes now. It’s as if Paizo is overcorrecting to the complaints that many characters don’t have all that much to do with their third action, but in the process created things that don’t feel great when they can only use 2 actions.
I don’t really know what the solution is. For as long as Beastmaster exists in its current state, at such a low cost, it will be used to circumvent the action requirement of moving when your class can’t afford to move for an optimal turn.
I don’t like using it, for the various restrictions mentioned. But I can recognise when it is the best use of two feats for the class, despite the restrictions. In actual play, I’d rather just play a class that didn’t rely on something with as many asterisks as beastmaster to function.
Once per minute you can trace a rune using song alone, removing the need to have a free hand, removing the manipulate trait and allowing you to use the 2-action version of Trace Rune as a single action.They had Rune-Singer, but that function of Rune-Singer is limited to once per minute - once you use it, it’s back to 2a Tracing to do it at range.
That definitely changes thing. I am not sure how none of us noticed, but I am guessing that it is due to not having the frequency listed at the top like Engraving strike and remote detonation. You can do something similar with transpose etching, if you have an ally willing to let you etch hazardous runes on them before combat. players planned to use this in Ruby Phoenix with Rovan, seal of the dead vault. This way it last more than 1 round. They argued that the move penalty is untyped and should stack and I said the strat was cheese enough as is. Thanks to holidays and weather we didn't play enough to test it.
On the use of beastmaster. My table intentionally did not use it as it felt like to much of a crutch. Same with free-archetypes, specific archetypes, and certain ancestries. Mostly things that gave improved proficiencies, action compression, or spells not part of the classes list. We didnt want something like Necromancer taking a caster archetype to get better cantrips or more spell slots. It makes it harder to see how big the problem actually is. Like I don't think I would have know that at high levels missing the extra low rank spell slots still felt limiting.
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The main "RaW exploit" that I'm interested in hearing about in actual play is not really an exploit, it's just spending all your Etches on having a melee PC carry extra daggers pre-loaded w/ the slashing rune.
I don't think any Etch passive holds up to the reality of an *extra* explosion of damage every Invoke as you do the normal RS stuff. Any time you would Invoke those fire/etc runes, and the allied bearer is in melee, then you can add one slash rune boom until you Invoke your total etch limit for that combat.
At L10, 4 bonus explosions of Fireball level damage is just absurd. Hard not to see a combat not being more or less "won" after 4 Invokes.
(Don't forget that the "burst limit" of runes is per-foe immunity to each rune. You can Invoke the Etched runes faster if you can/wish to spread it out among multiple foes.)
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And to build off the Trace-your-ammo idea, that can instead evolve into "Trace your thrown weapons" as those most certainly do stick around after use.
Any ranged RS doing the 2A Trace could instead Trace + Throw a shuriken or something.
A GM might rule that on crit miss the weapon doesn't land in the same square, but bombs and splash do provide a precedent that a miss does place them in the foe's square. IMO, this is actually pretty neat and doesn't worry me so much, as RS is motivated to delay their Invoke till next turn, which gives the foe agency, etc.
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Edit: I forgot about the Word Fly Free + Invoke spam combo.
It's not limited to a Fire(+AoE) combo where you get to do an AoE fireball for each foe in the cone (which is not ally-safe).
The flying rune gets Traced onto all valid targets.
Give the melee PC 20 daggers. Prepare a Slash(+reTrace) tattoo for 2 Etch.
W-F-F is a 1A to Trace all the ally weapons with Slash(+reTrace) runes. You can now spend the next 3 turns spamming 1A Invokes. This is because just before the Fly-sent trace is about to expire, you use the last Invoke to pop all remaining runes. Even if each foe can only be hurt once, this still triggers the auto-reTrace, and extends their duration for 0A.
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Also consider a tank (and perhaps only a shield Champion w/ Lay on Hands has the resilience to do this) loaded up w/ Etched AoE Runes and charging into the thick of combat. This could include fire & electricity Runes too as their ongoing negative effects can be handled. The Runesmith could Invoke three AoEs in round one, and with Sacred Body at 9th, the Champion might avoid a lot of that damage. Time it with a Cleric ready to Heal and who might have added on Resist Energy, and that's a devastating opening salvo. Every combat after a lull to re-Etch. And maybe the second round too, all while Tracing as needed.
ETA: If the Champion has Defensive Advance, one could Ready the Invoke for when the Champion closes with a Raised Shield & with a Strike so they aren't foregoing their own game. Ready goes off (likely timed for closing so the Champion can choose their target based on injuries). If even needed, the Champion Lays on Hands on themselves with their last action.
Right, the ammo being destroyed thing is something I forget about since... arrows do not work that way in real life. At all. Like, even if it "breaks" the wooden shaft, the metal arrowhead is not being destroyed. It's a chunk of steel. Unless you shoot it into magma or something, it's going to stick around and keep the rune on it undamaged.
But, rules as written apparently sublimate steel if fired from a bow, so thrown weapons would be the alternative if a DM decides to go RAW.
Either way, the tendency for it to make a runesmith more greedy is definitely a potential issue, and dropping a missed arrow in an enemy space with whetstone rune to still hit them on an invoke doesn't work for fliers, so I guess it only loosely patches the problems for ranged combat as a runesmith.
Maybe adding an engraving strike equivalent for ammo for a single action trace and fire? But MAP would apply to using remote detonation same round still without any ways to mitigate it currently, so enemies keeping at range you'd be invoking every other round at best still. Might be worth it for a 120' range using short bow and far shot doubling your range increment. And Henge Gate turns it into something absurd at level 14... but that's a bit late for really good support to the play style.
Even in the real world, an arrow or thrown weapon that hits does not necessarily stick in one's opponent. It could as easily graze, fall out, or ricochet (though painfully). And in game that's all abstracted away, so nothing to build Rune-carrying plans upon.
That said, I have advocated elsewhere for an option to Etch onto ammo, likely via a feat that also allows one to deliver the Rune via ranged Strike (and perhaps with the option to Trace on the ammo during combat too).
Hmm, rather than a ranged strike that applies a rune like Engraving strike then, maybe a simple improvement for ranged weapon runesmith would be changing remote detonation to function with a rune cast onto the arrow being automatically invoked to affect an enemy that's struck? Action to apply to arrow, flourish action to shoot arrow and have it auto invoke on struck target, with them having a -2 to their saving throw if it gets a critical hit maybe?
Though really, I feel like the class needs a lot of revision overall. As it is, it tries to be able to be built to do anything but isn't particularly good at anything outside of "enemy without reactive strike is at melee with you at the start of your turn, and is not immune to slashing, fire, or lightning damage.
I'd really like the support runes and debuff runes to be a little bit stronger, both on passive and invoke effects, maybe have traced runes last a bit longer since you already have a lot of restrictions on them (no more than one of the same rune's effect per creature per invoke, short range, verbal component that can be blocked, the initial actions to apply the runes...)
No no, I do think tying trace to strikes is a good idea for RS.
Runesmith is a martial class with full martial profs, yet it's a class that has almost no reason to ever swing for a Strike. Meanwhile Guardian is crying in the corner with their lagging progression.
In another thread I suggested that all Trace change into 2A at base, and any successful Strike contributes 1A toward a Trace. That would go a long way toward balancing the class, but idk if it would be "enough" on its own.
No no, I do think tying trace to strikes is a good idea for RS.
Runesmith is a martial class with full martial profs, yet it's a class that has almost no reason to ever swing for a Strike. Meanwhile Guardian is crying in the corner with their lagging progression.
In another thread I suggested that all Trace change into 2A at base, and any successful Strike contributes 1A toward a Trace. That would go a long way toward balancing the class, but idk if it would be "enough" on its own.
Mm, 2A at base to trace while still needing invokes and without ways to reduce the action cost would pretty much kill the class's action economy. But half-traces with strikes on a given creature would have its own problems with having to track those half traces and their own durations.
If you went that route, you'd have to have the strikes build up actions towards tracing a rune that the player carries, and then expends for a free action trace on any target rather than the one that was struck. Or build one trace charge and then expend it on next successful strike to apply a rune to a target.
It's a similar issue to another of the ideas I had with being able to apply runes as phrases with separating out functions and spending one action per rune in the phrase: Unless you have runes having to be done all in a row without interruption, you litter the battlefield with incomplete runes that have no effect, but might still have durations to track and the ability to complete. If you have them on creatures, you have to mark them on the creatures, if you have them on objects, you have to know where the objects are and with what words. So I figured the only way that one would work is if "building a runic spell" didn't apply it anywhere until you had spent all the actions to fully make the spell and "end" it, then you place it in a completed form. And you couldn't pause one to work on another without the first one fading away due to not having been left in a stable state.
Maybe a ranged engraving strike, combined with a feat that you could take to count enemies off guard against you if they bear a rune, so that remote detonation or other follow-up attacks become more accurate. That would apply to engraving strike itself, too, of course. If you let Engraving strike actually work with two handed weapons and weapon + shield combos while avoiding reactive strikes as well as letting it work with ranged weapons, you could probably weaken the damaging runes just a little bit as well while keeping the damage competitive for martial focused runesmiths, and then include a few more powerful feats for caster style runesmiths to take to help out...
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Right now a 1A Trace means you have to track just as many things total, the only difference is that a 2A Trace + an auto-Engraving Strike passive would mean some runes are 1/2 done instead of being completed.
The real issue is that unlimited runes w/ fireball scaling damage is, frankly, stupid to put on a class for 2A, 0 context needed, as melee RS can do right now (or 2x that damage for 3A turns).
That's focus spell damage with absolutely no resource limitations. I'm still completely baffled that they could post RS with those numbers when I compare it to something like Exemplar, which has far more reasonable numbers/damage locked behind rather precise/disrupt-able Spark juggling.
As-is, Trace & Invoke spam's numbers are so high, that Engraving Strike itself is kind of a trap because the miss chance means that you're better off just doing a 1A Trace and forgoing the possible boost of Strike dmg.
Unless Paizo would rather have Trace itself have a miss chance, I really do not think 1A Trace in melee is going to be possible to balance when that's got so much boom behind it.
And feats like W-F-F will obviously need serious changes. I kinda hate once per day feats anyways, but that absurd cooldown doesn't justify the nonsense of writing it as outright unlimited traces w/ 0 safeties in there.
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I don't even like talking about what maximization is presently possible, and I intentionally didn't mention that RaW you don't need any combos besides WFF. You don't need a melee buddy to carry daggers (though it's still a boost for even more absurdity).
The term "rune bearer" means any creature directly runed, or the one wearing/holding a runed item.
There is no "unattended" catch to tracing runes on objects.
If you use WFF, you can put a raw Fire rune or a Fire(+Potency) rune onto every individual piece of clothing, coin in their pockets, etc, and spam Invoke until every foe in that cone is a smoking puddle of slag, completely RaW.
If you cannot "win" a fight with 5 1A fireball-level booms (sorry, 5 fireballs + # of Etched Slash), then idk what to say. Turn 1 prep, turn 2 is WFF + 2 booms, turn 3 they are toast.
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Runesmith is a complete mess, and I'm tired of dancing around how outright stupid it's damage and gameplay is. The Runesmith class is a walking anti-fun info hazard. None of the complexity around the 2A special Invokes matters when that's never going to do more than 2x 1A Invokes, etc. Nothing RS can do competes with it's own insane damage.
Once you figure out it's tricks, it's completely brain dead.
It's like the worst brain-rot MMO "just memorize this rotation and do it ad infinitum" but in ttrpg form.
There's a reason Exemplars need to juggle their spark around.