| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hello everyone !
You may have seen my previous post (https://paizo.com/threads/rzs8lb91?Necromancer-First-Session) about my first session with the Necromancer, and this is the follow-up. I'm not sure if I should have just made another post in the thread, but it had run its course and it felt like necroing it.
Also this is late because scheduling conflicts caused a session to be cancelled (the eternal pain of us all, I'm sure you'll agree) and I had some edits for my novels to complete ASAP. Plus several sizeable health problems putting me on a pill ration (7 pills, two eyedrops and an inhaler, just for the morning when I wake up), among other things.
Anyway, here's my necromancer, as previously :
Talia, Necromancer level 5
Human
Art "Collector" background (Bastion of Blasphemies, playing the campaign in earnest now).
Puppeteer Fatal Method
Blood Fascination
Feats :
Versatile Human -> Canny Acumen (Perception)
Natural Ambition -> Reach of the Dead
Song of the Soul
Toughness
Bony Barrage
Clever Improviser
///
Create Thralls continues to be amazing. Throwing thralls at problems is extraordinarily versatile, and even just using them as bait and/or decoys works surprisingly well. Most enemies, even intelligent ones, will attack undead popping into their areas, doubly so when they've seen them explode with things like necrotic bomb. In exploration I used them to take look from hazardous areas with little risk, and generally as flavorful servants and disposable minions.
This is also DM dependent of course, but thralls absorb an impressive amount of fire. As in enemies use their third action to destroy them. Which I know some in the previous thread pointed out as a weakness, but I generally found it to be a boon instead. Many enemies did not reposition or prevent my allies from repositioning because of this, and for a Puppeteer, a thrall taking an enemy's action to destroy is an incredible action economy boon (the equivalent of getting stunned 1 on a foe for 1/3rd of an action), not even mentioning the fact that as a Blood necromancer, every fallen thrall healed me.
Necrotic Bomb also proved to be terrifying on undead, obliterating them with remarkable efficiency (even during the third session, where I only had 3 hours of sleep and forgot that I was supposed to be dealing 3d12 and not 2d12 damage), as well as fully avoiding friendly fire.
Boney Barrage continues to be very good as a large scale buff with AoE friendly damage if you have the thralls to spare for it.
I have started to experience some thrall strain, where I did not have enough thralls to do everything I wanted, but it wasn't overly arduous, mostly having to choose between providing flanking to an ally or doing a thrall strike. I expect a Reaper would have a considerably harder time in that respect.
Overall, I had a ton of fun ! The Necromancer feels really neat, fulfills the fantasy of 'the minion summoner' extremely well for me, and the descriptions and abilities remain as flavorful as ever. It's, without question, my favorite class in the game.
Oh, right, one last section. I did use the Necromancer multiclass in another campaign. Even as a multiclass, it remains impressively potent, though thralls are far less plentiful and harder to use, they're still fun to have. Does require some feat investment though, to use the focus spells, but that's normal for every multiclass, and in fact this one has far more plentiful and easy to acquire ones.
Thanks! It's nice to hear your experience with the class. I'm expecting it'll be a while before I play one, since I have my next character already lined up, but I have a lot of ideas rolling around for the class. Sounds like it's as much fun as it seems!
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Most enemies, even intelligent ones, will attack undead popping into their areas
I think this behavior makes the class much too powerful.
As a GM, i only attack thralls with mindless creatures. They are a really strong perk against those - my group avoided a TPK due to the wood golem in AV attacking thralls with his splinter wood ability - but intelligent enemies should mostly ignore them, unless the opportunity costs are really low.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
For intelligent enemies they have to make the calculation can I safely ignore this thrall or do I want to clear some out to avoid having them blown up in my face/ turned into a blizzard of bone shards/a bone spear or other antisocial events.
So even though they know thralls are not directly much of a threat there are still reasons for intelligent enemies to "waste" attacks clearing out the thrall herd a bit.
Hello everyone !
You may have seen my previous post Necromancer First Session about my first session[...]
LIFY (linkified it for you)
Thanks! It's nice to hear your experience with the class. I'm expecting it'll be a while before I play one, since I have my next character already lined up, but I have a lot of ideas rolling around for the class. Sounds like it's as much fun as it seems!
No problem ! And it very much is.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Most enemies, even intelligent ones, will attack undead popping into their areasI think this behavior makes the class much too powerful.
As a GM, i only attack thralls with mindless creatures. They are a really strong perk against those - my group avoided a TPK due to the wood golem in AV attacking thralls with his splinter wood ability - but intelligent enemies should mostly ignore them, unless the opportunity costs are really low.
I disagree. Having enemies utterly ignore them, honestly, feels like the worst kind of metagamey, antagonist game master syndrome. Every enemy shouldn't know the ins and out of the party they're facing, the perfect way to counter them, ect, and play as optimized as possible. Just like you shouldn't just ignore the tanks and obliterate the squishy backline.
After all, at low levels, basically nothing is stopping them ? Why not just bypass those pesky guardians and just instantly murder the sorcerers. Makes so much more sense mechanically. Boom, half of the party down, game 'won'.
I'm not saying thralls should be fire magnets. But they're a creature that pops out of nowhere, and will register as a target or even just startle most enemies. Plus, having enemies just completely ignore them completely breaks immersion. Even a common bandit will probably consider stabbing the undead that just rose out of the ground and clawed him, especially if that undead's predecessor exploded into a hail of bones and took out half the bandit camp six seconds ago.
LIFY (linkified it for you)Hello everyone !
You may have seen my previous post Necromancer First Session about my first session[...]
I do not embed links on purpose. Learned that particular lesson the hard way.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I disagree. Having enemies utterly ignore them, honestly, feels like the worst kind of metagamey, antagonist game master syndrome. Every enemy shouldn't know the ins and out of the party they're facing, the perfect way to counter them, ect, and play as optimized as possible. Just like you shouldn't just ignore the tanks and obliterate the squishy backline.
After all, at low levels, basically nothing is stopping them ? Why not just bypass those pesky guardians and just instantly murder the sorcerers. Makes so much more sense mechanically. Boom, half of the party down, game 'won'.
I'm not saying thralls should be fire magnets. But they're a creature that pops out of nowhere, and will register as a target or even just startle most enemies. Plus, having enemies just completely ignore them completely breaks immersion. Even a common bandit will probably consider stabbing the undead that just rose out of the ground and clawed him, especially if that undead's predecessor exploded into a hail of bones and took out half the bandit camp six seconds ago.
That's exactly what a smart enemy should do, though. Which is why tanks have tools to make it a bad idea to do that.
If the players are tactically smart, there's no reason the enemies shouldn't be either (unless they're mindless enemies). No one should expect everything to attack the tank "because I want to be a tank". THAT is metagamey. They attack the tank because the tank actively makes attacking anyone else a problem for some reason.
Likewise, attacking thralls is just so completely useless that unless you have an AoE way to do it, doing so is just the GM throwing the combat. Not to mention that it's remarkably unfun to spend every combat attacking something that you know it's a complete waste of time to attack. That gets old real fast on the other side of the table.
The game needs to be fun for the GM too, and it's a tactical game. So you should expect them to use tactics at some point. The way Necromancer is designed, attacking thralls is usually such a bad idea that anything even remotely intelligent is going to want to do something more effective.
Fundamentally: if the class requires the GM to play stupid to work, then the class has a design flaw.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I can see smart enemies trying to ignore thralls at the start of the battle but after the necro uses some for focus shennigans with explosions/bursts of bones and what not they have to make a choice. Do I let an enemy keep building up this resource they will use to attack us or do we spend some actions to thin the herd.
If an enemy just ignores thralls completely that just cranks up the amount of stuff necros can do and leaves land mines around the map just ready to be ordered around/blown up or otherwise utilized. That is the push and the pull of thralls weak enough you want to ignore them but dangerous resources if you do.
I would imagine if you are a necro and you are constantly having to work from zero thralls at the start of every round it lowers your versatility of what you are doing a lot.
Cantrip thralls are level -1, have one hitpoint, stand around unless directed, and don't even require an attack roll to hit. It really doesn't seem like it should be even a knowledge check to recognize them as a much lesser threat, and I would assume intelligent enemies would usually drop them in priority. I'd make exceptions for impulsive demons or anti-undead Pharasmins who haven't picked out the Necromancer, maybe.
Now... as a player, I love using Illusory Disguise to make members of the party look like a bunch of weak undead- especially party members with empty hands. But those are some active steps and resources being spent to trick enemies.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Cantrip thralls are level -1, have one hitpoint, stand around unless directed, and don't even require an attack roll to hit. It really doesn't seem like it should be even a knowledge check to recognize them as a much lesser threat, and I would assume intelligent enemies would usually drop them in priority. I'd make exceptions for impulsive demons or anti-undead Pharasmins who haven't picked out the Necromancer, maybe.
Now... as a player, I love using Illusory Disguise to make members of the party look like a bunch of weak undead- especially party members with empty hands. But those are some active steps and resources being spent to trick enemies.
This reminds me of Monks pretending to be casters and casters in armor pretending to be martials.
I feel it quickly gets old but YMMV.
Cantrip thralls are level -1, have one hitpoint, stand around unless directed, and don't even require an attack roll to hit. It really doesn't seem like it should be even a knowledge check to recognize them as a much lesser threat, and I would assume intelligent enemies would usually drop them in priority. I'd make exceptions for impulsive demons or anti-undead Pharasmins who haven't picked out the Necromancer, maybe.
I'd argue that enemies DO see Thralls as a threat as they can Flank. Flanking requires you be able to act, so foes clearly don't see them as just standing around doing nothing. And that's before you factor in Grave spells, reactive explosions [bone burst] or their casting spells at them [Reach of the Dead]. I can see plenty of reasons an intelligent baddy would want to clear the field of thralls near them.
|
|
Necromancer being Common and thralls lasting forever until destroyed, it is likely that most creatures know how to deal with them : if you see an undead that does not move, just ignore it. Or Strike it if you have nothing more pressing to do.
That would explain why thralls are non-existent in the setting unless a Necromancer is around. They get destroyed pretty quickly by anything that cares to Strike them.
|
|
I GM for a Necromancer in Abomination Vaults, they can just spam sooo many thralls that it would basically neutralize most enemies if they would focus thralls. 5 each turn, that is comparable with one of the strongest spells of the game, slow rank 6, right at level 1.
Unless the Necromancer is forced to move, destroying all thralls to avoid a bone spear or necrotic bomb does not work, as a single action will create a new one (or two).
Sure, avoiding getting flanked by using a third action to destroy the thrall behind you is worthwile, there may be other situations where it can be tactially feasible, but in most other cases it would make the necromancer absolutely overpowered.
I am in agreement with my player (who GMs other campaigns).
I GM for a Necromancer in Abomination Vaults, they can just spam sooo many thralls that it would basically neutralize most enemies if they would focus thralls. 5 each turn, that is comparable with one of the strongest spells of the game, slow rank 6, right at level 1.
There's generally little reason to spam Create Thrall. You either place 3 and blow one up for a Grave spell or you place 2 and have 1 strike and cast a save spell.
EDIT: Well, I guess you could toss out a few extra if you're a Reaper and you don't have to move but you're placing one less each Create.
Cantrip thralls are level -1, have one hitpoint, stand around unless directed, and don't even require an attack roll to hit. It really doesn't seem like it should be even a knowledge check to recognize them as a much lesser threat, and I would assume intelligent enemies would usually drop them in priority. I'd make exceptions for impulsive demons or anti-undead Pharasmins who haven't picked out the Necromancer, maybe.I'd argue that enemies DO see Thralls as a threat as they can Flank. Flanking requires you be able to act, so foes clearly don't see them as just standing around doing nothing. And that's before you factor in Grave spells, reactive explosions [bone burst] or their casting spells at them [Reach of the Dead]. I can see plenty of reasons an intelligent baddy would want to clear the field of thralls near them.
The Necromancer can still have them strike, so it's not no threat. (Part of the reason I'm really happy for the change from playtest is that there's a credible reason for the flanking threat now.) And, in fairness, "level-relevant attack bonus" and "eventually more than a d6 of damage" are reasons for thralls to appear a little scarier than that level -1 rating. I'd still call it "much lesser threat" overall.
The Necromancer can still have them strike, so it's not no threat. (Part of the reason I'm really happy for the change from playtest is that there's a credible reason for the flanking threat now.) And, in fairness, "level-relevant attack bonus" and "eventually more than a d6 of damage" are reasons for thralls to appear a little scarier than that level -1 rating. I'd still call it "much lesser threat" overall.
For myself, Bone Burst is what increases the threat level above "much lesser threat". If a smart enemy knows about Thrall, the fact that they could explode if they use a manipulate/move action or makes a ranged attack on top of the normal Commands ups the threat level IMO.
|
|
The Necromancer can still have them strike, so it's not no threat. (Part of the reason I'm really happy for the change from playtest is that there's a credible reason for the flanking threat now.) And, in fairness, "level-relevant attack bonus" and "eventually more than a d6 of damage" are reasons for thralls to appear a little scarier than that level -1 rating. I'd still call it "much lesser threat" overall.For myself, Bone Burst is what increases the threat level above "much lesser threat". If a smart enemy knows about Thrall, the fact that they could explode if they use a manipulate/move action or makes a ranged attack on top of the normal Commands ups the threat level IMO.
Note though that this is a feat of the Necromancer rather than an ability of the thrall itself.
Still if necromancers are considered a common class then smart enemies should have some clue that necros can use them to do things. The first time they eat a reactive from one casters are going to have some reason to use an attack to clear a thrall from threat range before they cast.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Note though that this is a feat of the Necromancer rather than an ability of the thrall itself.The Necromancer can still have them strike, so it's not no threat. (Part of the reason I'm really happy for the change from playtest is that there's a credible reason for the flanking threat now.) And, in fairness, "level-relevant attack bonus" and "eventually more than a d6 of damage" are reasons for thralls to appear a little scarier than that level -1 rating. I'd still call it "much lesser threat" overall.For myself, Bone Burst is what increases the threat level above "much lesser threat". If a smart enemy knows about Thrall, the fact that they could explode if they use a manipulate/move action or makes a ranged attack on top of the normal Commands ups the threat level IMO.
Since Create a Thrall is an ability of the necromancer too, it seems a distinction without a difference. You'd use the same Recall to know about either one. I can't imagine anyone basing threat level off a Thrall without factoring in the Necromancer. The Thrall is no better than a potted plant without a necromancer around.
I do not embed links on purpose. Learned that particular lesson the hard way.LIFY (linkified it for you)Hello everyone !
You may have seen my previous post Necromancer First Session about my first session[...]
Noted.
Cantrip thralls are level -1, have one hitpoint, stand around unless directed, and don't even require an attack roll to hit. It really doesn't seem like it should be even a knowledge check to recognize them as a much lesser threat...
When viewed in the vein of stuff happening during an active combat engagement -- tensions are high, adrenaline is pumping, etcetera -- even intelligent combatants are going to, at least, react to thralls manifesting around them. My expectation would be that, on average, only highly trained, disciplined, and experienced (roughly the equivalent of IW Adventurers or RL SpecFor) combatants will disregard or deprioritize thralls. The average highway bandit, low-ranking town guard, or lowly mooks are far more likely to panic-fire at thralls than calmly evaluate them and accurately assess their threat.
|
|
Since Create a Thrall is an ability of the necromancer too, it seems a distinction without a difference. You'd use the same Recall to know about either one. I can't imagine anyone basing threat level off a Thrall without factoring in the Necromancer. The Thrall is no better than a potted plant without a necromancer around.Note though that this is a feat of the Necromancer rather than an ability of the thrall itself.The Necromancer can still have them strike, so it's not no threat. (Part of the reason I'm really happy for the change from playtest is that there's a credible reason for the flanking threat now.) And, in fairness, "level-relevant attack bonus" and "eventually more than a d6 of damage" are reasons for thralls to appear a little scarier than that level -1 rating. I'd still call it "much lesser threat" overall.For myself, Bone Burst is what increases the threat level above "much lesser threat". If a smart enemy knows about Thrall, the fact that they could explode if they use a manipulate/move action or makes a ranged attack on top of the normal Commands ups the threat level IMO.
You could meet a thrall whose Necromancer is far away or even dead. I would allow for RK based on its level to know it for what it is.
The real threat is never the thrall but the Necromancer.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
You could meet a thrall whose Necromancer is far away or even dead.
Given the duration of Create Thrall [1 min], I think it'd be quite rare to find a thrall very far away from it's necromancer.
I would allow for RK based on its level to know it for what it is.
You don't know how dangerous a thrall is unless you can gauge the level of the necromancer as it's damage [and abilities used through it] are level based. There isn't any visual way of indicating the level of the necromancer from the thrall that i know of.
Secondly, you don't need to think about it's level, as "any check made against a thrall automatically succeeds' and Recall is a skill made against it. So anyone that takes the time to Recall knows it's a thrall. They'd just have to spend an action for each relevant piece of information.
Most enemies, even intelligent ones, will attack undead popping into their areasI think this behavior makes the class much too powerful.
As a GM, i only attack thralls with mindless creatures. They are a really strong perk against those - my group avoided a TPK due to the wood golem in AV attacking thralls with his splinter wood ability - but intelligent enemies should mostly ignore them, unless the opportunity costs are really low.
Okay, after seeing the discussion in this thread, and going past my initial reaction, I think there may have been a misunderstanding. When I say 'will attack undead popping into their areas', I didn't mean in an ongoing battle. AKA not 'drop everything and use all I have on a thrall that appeared within reach in combat'. I meant like popping undead into a room with enemies unaware of what's going on.
As I point out later, enemies sometimes used their third actions for thinning out thralls in combat, usually the ones flanking them, if any, or flanking one of their allies.
|
|
You could meet a thrall whose Necromancer is far away or even dead.Given the duration of Create Thrall [1 min], I think it'd be quite rare to find a thrall very far away from it's necromancer.
I would allow for RK based on its level to know it for what it is.You don't know how dangerous a thrall is unless you can gauge the level of the necromancer as it's damage [and abilities used through it] are level based. There isn't any visual way of indicating the level of the necromancer from the thrall that i know of.
Secondly, you don't need to think about it's level, as "any check made against a thrall automatically succeeds' and Recall is a skill made against it. So anyone that takes the time to Recall knows it's a thrall. They'd just have to spend an action for each relevant piece of information.
Can you believe I completely forgot about the 1 minute duration ?