Why I Dislike Necromancer as a GM

[Shadecap]

This might be a hot take, but I greatly dislike the Necromancer class and have a blanket ban going forward for tables that I GM.

I currently GM various adventure paths 5 nights a week, and with the exception of a few 3rd party products, I like keeping my games as close to RAW as I can for the purpose of consistency. During the playtest, 2 players started Necromancer characters, and I am not making them change their class, they will finish the AP with what they've started.

I didn't have many complaints during the playtest, I thought it was a bit of a nuisance to handle thralls coming on and off the board (Foundry VTT), but overall it felt fine at the various levels I experienced it.

On full release, both players started using their thralls as minesweepers, having them walk around squares 30 feet ahead of the party trying to trigger ambushes, haunts and traps. They use Thralls to open doors so as to ignore the need to check for traps. All I got left are Combat and Social encounters, everything else is trivial.

I feel like the Necromancer class, with Thralls as a free resource, is rules-as-written, irreparably broken. I don't think I should have to change how a class works to prevent it from trivializing whole sections of dungeons. At the very least, I don't think the class should be Common.

Are there other examples of class abilities that can do something like this outside of the Necromancer that I just haven't come across?

[Master Han Del of the Web]

Thralls cannot make skill checks. Locked doors, even trivially locked ones cannot be opened by them. Same with heavy or stuck doors that might require athletics checks. Set up traps on the doors to trigger after unlocking unless the PCs manage a high thievery check.

Thralls are not alive and are mindless. They probably would not trigger most haunts and traps that sense or target living creatures/thinking minds would ignore them.

Thralls are slow. Without feat investment using them as minesweepers would be time consuming. A nercomancer would be moving at below half speed because they need to spend time to command the thrall forward periodically and standard movement for thralls is 15ft. Put a time pressure on your players.

Thralls are not ever-lasting. You'd be well within your rights to say a thrall coming into an encounter has a reduced lifespan since it was summoned before the fight.

Thralls have 1 HP. Are of effect traps, nested effects, multi-pronged ambushes... all of these could take out the thralls and threaten the PCs or lure them into a false sense of security.

Necromancers aren't uncommon. You are justified in having suitably intelligent enemies identify thralls and react much more tactically.

Let your players have their victories here by being able to bypass or work around problems with their thrall supply but nothing about the advantages they give is insurmountable or 'irreparably broken'.

[Blave]

You could just tell them not to do this...?

It's also not foolproof. Haunts might recognize thralls as something familiar and simply not activate. Traps could only trigger from living creatures, doors can be locked or simply stuck, requiring a DC 10 athletics check to open.

There's probabaly more ways to handle these things that are better than an outright ban of a whole class.

[graystone]

Master Han Del of the Web wrote:

Necromancers aren't uncommon. You are justified in having suitably intelligent enemies identify thralls and react much more tactically.

My necromancer would be THRILLED to have intelligent enemies take an action out at the start of combat to roll Recall Knowledge on my Thrall. ;)

[PossibleCabbage]

It seems like "your tactic is annoying the GM" is a thing we can just have a reasonable conversation about as adults. If you're sending thralls ahead in the hallway to trigger any traps (a tactic that also works with the Kineticist's familiar feats) you either "don't use traps like that anymore" or you seed in a few traps that are better to never trigger at all, since the disposable thrall triggering the trap puts the party at risk.

[Dunwright]

Master Han Del of the Web wrote:

Thralls cannot make skill checks. Locked doors, even trivially locked ones cannot be opened by them. Same with heavy or stuck doors that might require athletics checks. Set up traps on the doors to trigger after unlocking unless the PCs manage a high thievery check.

Thralls are not alive and are mindless. They probably would not trigger most haunts and traps that sense or target living creatures/thinking minds would ignore them.

Thralls are slow. Without feat investment using them as minesweepers would be time consuming. A nercomancer would be moving at below half speed because they need to spend time to command the thrall forward periodically and standard movement for thralls is 15ft. Put a time pressure on your players.

Thralls are not ever-lasting. You'd be well within your rights to say a thrall coming into an encounter has a reduced lifespan since it was summoned before the fight.

Thralls have 1 HP. Are of effect traps, nested effects, multi-pronged ambushes... all of these could take out the thralls and threaten the PCs or lure them into a false sense of security.

Necromancers aren't uncommon. You are justified in having suitably intelligent enemies identify thralls and react much more tactically.

Let your players have their victories here by being able to bypass or work around problems with their thrall supply but nothing about the advantages they give is insurmountable or 'irreparably broken'.

Some of these are relevant points, some of these are not. For the purposes of "minesweeping" it doesn't matter that thralls are slow, have low health and are short-lived- the whole point of using them for this is that they're expendable, and new thralls can be endlessly summoned as a one-action cantrip. Their 15 feet speed hardly even matters for this purpose, you can spend the same action you'd use to command one making 2-3 new ones up to 30 feet away from you, or use 2 actions to create 1-2 in that range and immediately command one to move an additional 15 feet. The slow speed is relevant in combat or if you wanted to try to march with an army surrounding you but it really isn't an impediment to using them as trap bait. The points about them being mindless and unable to take skill checks or or other complex actions are valid and do present some important limits to what kinds of traps or hazards a thrall can actually help you with.

Ultimately the class that revolves around being able to constantly and effortlessly create undead fodder is going to excel at solving problems that can be solved by throwing fodder ahead of you, which describes some but certainly not all of the dangers that you might encounter in a dungeon. I don't think this is necessarily such a big deal or a game breaker personally but it is kind of an inherent feature of the class. Personally I think if you find your dungeons have been trivialized by letting somebody send a thrall to walk ahead of them it probably wasn't a very complex dungeon to begin with. The same problems could also probably be solved with some ten foot poles, ropes, some nice throwable rocks, etc. I mean what, were they just walking headfirst into traps and facetanking them before?

[QuidEst]

I think the logical conclusion to this is that thralls are also auto-failing stealth and giving enemies more heads-up by moving slowly thirty feet ahead of the party.

If it were me, I'd give the party a heads-up that there will be some trade-offs to Necromancer minesweeper tactics. I'd probably have something like "enemies get an exploration activity, so they can have a shield raised, give their group a small initiative bonus, or otherwise set up".

They also will often not trigger haunts, and magical traps will depend.

Showing traps absolutely obliterating one-hitpoint auto-failing thralls can be fun and make the Necromancer feel good.

But hey, up to you!

[Squark]

Repeating the figment spell for a crude fanfare or doodle every 6 seconds fatigues the caster. Continual Creation of Thralls should absolutely do the same, which severely limits their minesweeping ability.

[graystone]

Squark wrote:

[Url=https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=2628&Redirected=1[/url] Repeating the figment spell every for a crude fanfare every 6 seconds fatigues players. Continual Creation of Thralls should absolutely do the same, which severely limits their minesweeping ability.

2 things: #1 create thrall only costs a single action so you could cast it 1/round all day and not be fatigued. #2 You wouldn't create every round. You could create thrall 1 round and then move that thrall with Command a Thrall 1/round for the next 9 rounds, rinse and repeat with no issues.

In Improvising New Activities, it goes into what fatigues you: it's when you use "strenuous activities where the PCs are using the equivalent of 2 actions every 6 seconds" such as a 2 action cantrip like a figment cantrip. It explains that 1 action per 6 seconds isn't fatiguing: "For example, if the PC are Swimming as they explore, consider that travel speeds are based on the equivalent of 1 action per 6 seconds, and that other exploration activities the PCs can keep up without getting tired are generally based on alternating between 2 actions per 12 seconds, averaging to 1 action per 6 seconds."

Secondly, most rounds you wouldn't be casting a spell, so 'Repeating a spell that requires making complex decisions' causing fatigue wouldn't really apply [it's 1 spell per 10 rounds not every other round].

[Unicore]

It is fair to not like classes as a GM, and to be up front with players about why. In my games, a Necromancer is going to run into a lot of social backlash making minions, even in dungeons around most NPCs and I am clear about that and how frowned upon Necromancy is in my games.

I do agree the class should have been uncommon. The idea that Necromancers are common in world (and not just as enemies) feels like a fairly heavy lore change to me that might not have been well thought out. But a lot of people really like the class, so I get the feeling our dislike of the class is not the majority opinion.

[graystone]

Unicore wrote:

It is fair to not like classes as a GM, and to be up front with players about why. In my games, a Necromancer is going to run into a lot of social backlash making minions, even in dungeons around most NPCs and I am clear about that and how frowned upon Necromancy is in my games.

Well, it kind of depends how you depict them. For instance, sanguimancers can have thralls that are "constructs of hardened blood"; I'm making an android and they have clear blood, so my thrall look like water constructs that aren't going to scream 'UNDEAD'. Go necromantic nanites! I have another idea for a necromancer Reflection Time Traveler that draws other versions of herself out of time as thralls. I'll grant you, a trail of skeletons or zombies makes a stronger statement of necromancy.

[Finoan]

graystone wrote:

Master Han Del of the Web wrote:

Necromancers aren't uncommon. You are justified in having suitably intelligent enemies identify thralls and react much more tactically.

My necromancer would be THRILLED to have intelligent enemies take an action out at the start of combat to roll Recall Knowledge on my Thrall. ;)

Not so much of a benefit to the Necromancer if the enemies are spending that action before the battle starts when a Thrall wanders into the room and mindlessly stands around.

[graystone]

Finoan wrote:

graystone wrote:

Master Han Del of the Web wrote:

Necromancers aren't uncommon. You are justified in having suitably intelligent enemies identify thralls and react much more tactically.

My necromancer would be THRILLED to have intelligent enemies take an action out at the start of combat to roll Recall Knowledge on my Thrall. ;)

Not so much of a benefit to the Necromancer if the enemies are spending that action before the battle starts when a Thrall wanders into the room and mindlessly stands around.

Given a thralls speed and the range of create thrall I don't see where the necro would be far enough away on a regular basis to miss out of the first round of combat if they want. Now if it's just for 'attracting an ambush', then, IMO, they'd be unlikely to attempt the Recall anyway; Just toss a hooded robe on them and send them in.

[Red Griffyn]

A natural counter to a strategy of trap fodder is twofold. One disarming a trap instead of setting it off doesn't alert the dungeon to your prescence. Set off could kick off a chained fight or alternate consolidation of multiple fights that are tougher, or allow yhe boss to prebuff. Two, many traps can be perpetual or reset quickly. That leaves them aware of the trap, but still in need to disarm it. In many cases the way to disarm the trap can be on the other side of the area protected by the trap, making disarming harder (also a higher DC) once set off.

What about traps that lock the room door and fill the whole area with danger like flooding (or other dangerous environmental effect) or conjures enemies at both ends of a hallway to sandwhich them. What about a trap that only arms itself when another trap goes off? What about a progressively scaling trap for entering the wrong puzzle answer (i.e., traps that can't be triggered by thralls anyways). There are many kinds of traps other than an instantaneous fireball or pit that are just worse for the party to set off. Imagine a chained encounter where there is a dangerous perpetual trap ahead and enemies rushing from behind with no real escape option. So many creative ways to approach this.

Also remember you don't need to yuck the yum of the players. Traps are intended to be found and either avoided or disarmed by most party compositions. In 90% of cases the PCs succeed. So having a few thrall auto wins with potential consequences is just rewarding good player tactics.

[Kyle_TheBuilder]

Thralls absolutely would trigger normal hazards. Haunts would depend if they have "living creature" in their targeting options or not.

Thrall would absolutely be able to open door. Can't make skill check but most doors in officials APs don't have checks, they only serve as encounter seperations.

As far as "thralls would alert enemies" - I mean, I don't know about you guys but 99% of parties I am part of or play with never bother with any stealth and if raging barbarian, soprano singing bard and exploding fireballs don't alert whole dungeon/keep/castle in official APs cause game is not designed around that - thralls also would not alert anyone but the next encounter which would trigger anyway once "doors are open".

I don't honestly see a problem here. Class specializing in creating cheap meat shields use them as cheap meat shields... seems rather fine with me?

Also, most hazards in APs are just there to annoy players as they are far away from ecnounters or sperated from them so it's basically just a reason to use out of combat healing in most cases.

[The Raven Black]

Summoner and their Eidolon are much more worrisome IMO.

Also I don't get why this thread is in the Rules forum. Feels like it should be in General Discussion.

[NorrKnekten]

I really dont see the issue as written.

The ambushers would hear that the necromancer is nearby before the thrall even shows up, due to the Thralls abysmal speed and Create Thrall being a spell.

Creating a thrall every minute and having it move would be a travel speed of 5ft. Easily fixed by time pressure.

Creating a thrall ala Repeat a spell still leaves plenty of chances to miss the hazard before walking onto it if they want to hold a reasonable pace, Once more due to the horrible speed and coverage. Same reason as the Detect Magic activity.

The Thralls ability to interact is limited, In the same way as something like the Tripkee's tongue is albeit the wording is different its still up to the GM to determine what a complicated movement is. I would consider the spatial reasoning of pushing while also turning the handle or to operate a latch to be to complex for a mindless creature.

Theres plenty of limits there in the rules for how a necromancer can and cannot use the thralls.. some of it up to GM interpretation but with the above considerations I find them just as disruptive as a trapfinder rogue.

[Maya Coleman]

I've moved this to General Discussion since it's more about the class and its use than a specific rule? Correct me if I'm wrong though!