Gracht Grabmaw
2014-08-07, 06:45 AM
So I've been invited to a game of Pathfinder and I've already set in my mind to play a necromancer, because honestly why would you ever play anything that's not a necromancer?
Now Pathfinder is a wonderful game and a big part of what makes it so wonderful is the class archetypes. If you want to theme your character around a certain set of skills, there's most definately an archetype for that and if it's a certain type of magic you can approach that magic from almost any direction. And here is where the variety starts to bog me: There's literally 4 different ways (that I've read so far) to make a necromancer or something close to it.
There's the arcane school of necromancy, which is always fun. Hunting for forbidden knowledge in old tomes, discretly carrying off a fresh cadaver after battle so you can do some hands-on research, a neat little laboratory in the basement behind a hidden trap door in your study, trying to keep up the normal friendly but eccentric wizard appearance to your friends and neighbours and all that. It's a good lifestyle (har har) but it doesn't really mix with the travelling adventurer job. On the other hand it's the simplest to justify in backstory, all it takes is stumbling across some old spellbook in the library with some juicy, alluring notes that promise power over life and death.
Then there's the undead lord archetype for the cleric, which I also like a lot. Life after death is a pretty big concern for every religion after all, makes sense that some folks who have dedicated their lives to seeking the meaning of things might look towards extending their lives, for whatever reason. A lot of people see undead as evil abominations and I would like to teach them the error of their ways. Only problem with that is, I don't know which gods exactly my GM is gonna run with for the game and to be frank none of the gods in the death domain in the core rulebook are all that appealing to me. I also see this working much better with the concept I have in mind, my necromancer is going to be from a frontier town deep in the wilderness, not much chance for a classical education but probably very religious.
I also like the blight druid. Vermin and pestilence and all that vile and disgusting goodness, because life is vile and disgusting. A healthy respect of death as part of the natural cycle turned into twisted death worship, very classic fall-from-grace story except after the fall they are in fact more in tune with the cosmos that they were before, so suck it non-blight druids! Let's see who can reach enlightenment first when you're all just gonna die one day and I'm not! I also very much like the idea of a necromancer who is also an outdoorsman, if I can avoid making my character just another lab geek hanging out in libraries and crypts all day and who couldn't throw a punch or jog a mile if his life depended on it. Magic is nice, but I also would like for my character to be able to knock some heads when he has to. Again, this also works nicely with the frontier town background.
And lastly there's the gravewalker witch. I adore the witch class in Pathfinder, it's basically a big mean old middle-finger to everything I don't like about the arcane magic users. Magic isn't science, you can't contain it in books and scrolls and define it with rational thought, magic is wild and crazy and weird ad most importantly alive. Magic doesn't want to be scrutinized over with a scientific mind, it wants to be seduced and coaxed and sometimes it likes it rough. It wants sex and death and love and fear and bonds and sacrifice and the witch is all about that. A gravewalker witch with a spirit patron is pretty much my ideal class for the character I have in mind, the only problem since it's not a core class and kind of out-there, I don't know of my GM will get it and I don't want to hold up the game. Also this is his first time playing Pathfinder and I want to go easy on him, I know he can handle the heroic fantasy theme because he's run DSA for our group and others before, but Pathfinder is a very different beast in balance and mechanics. So should I push for it anyway or settle for one of the other classes for the game's sake? I feel like I could contribute so much more to the party and to the story as a witch, but I'm willing to compromise since thankfully I have options.
Which class do you think is the best to represent a necromancer and why? Also is it okay to force a non-core class on a GM new to the system right away in his first game?
Now Pathfinder is a wonderful game and a big part of what makes it so wonderful is the class archetypes. If you want to theme your character around a certain set of skills, there's most definately an archetype for that and if it's a certain type of magic you can approach that magic from almost any direction. And here is where the variety starts to bog me: There's literally 4 different ways (that I've read so far) to make a necromancer or something close to it.
There's the arcane school of necromancy, which is always fun. Hunting for forbidden knowledge in old tomes, discretly carrying off a fresh cadaver after battle so you can do some hands-on research, a neat little laboratory in the basement behind a hidden trap door in your study, trying to keep up the normal friendly but eccentric wizard appearance to your friends and neighbours and all that. It's a good lifestyle (har har) but it doesn't really mix with the travelling adventurer job. On the other hand it's the simplest to justify in backstory, all it takes is stumbling across some old spellbook in the library with some juicy, alluring notes that promise power over life and death.
Then there's the undead lord archetype for the cleric, which I also like a lot. Life after death is a pretty big concern for every religion after all, makes sense that some folks who have dedicated their lives to seeking the meaning of things might look towards extending their lives, for whatever reason. A lot of people see undead as evil abominations and I would like to teach them the error of their ways. Only problem with that is, I don't know which gods exactly my GM is gonna run with for the game and to be frank none of the gods in the death domain in the core rulebook are all that appealing to me. I also see this working much better with the concept I have in mind, my necromancer is going to be from a frontier town deep in the wilderness, not much chance for a classical education but probably very religious.
I also like the blight druid. Vermin and pestilence and all that vile and disgusting goodness, because life is vile and disgusting. A healthy respect of death as part of the natural cycle turned into twisted death worship, very classic fall-from-grace story except after the fall they are in fact more in tune with the cosmos that they were before, so suck it non-blight druids! Let's see who can reach enlightenment first when you're all just gonna die one day and I'm not! I also very much like the idea of a necromancer who is also an outdoorsman, if I can avoid making my character just another lab geek hanging out in libraries and crypts all day and who couldn't throw a punch or jog a mile if his life depended on it. Magic is nice, but I also would like for my character to be able to knock some heads when he has to. Again, this also works nicely with the frontier town background.
And lastly there's the gravewalker witch. I adore the witch class in Pathfinder, it's basically a big mean old middle-finger to everything I don't like about the arcane magic users. Magic isn't science, you can't contain it in books and scrolls and define it with rational thought, magic is wild and crazy and weird ad most importantly alive. Magic doesn't want to be scrutinized over with a scientific mind, it wants to be seduced and coaxed and sometimes it likes it rough. It wants sex and death and love and fear and bonds and sacrifice and the witch is all about that. A gravewalker witch with a spirit patron is pretty much my ideal class for the character I have in mind, the only problem since it's not a core class and kind of out-there, I don't know of my GM will get it and I don't want to hold up the game. Also this is his first time playing Pathfinder and I want to go easy on him, I know he can handle the heroic fantasy theme because he's run DSA for our group and others before, but Pathfinder is a very different beast in balance and mechanics. So should I push for it anyway or settle for one of the other classes for the game's sake? I feel like I could contribute so much more to the party and to the story as a witch, but I'm willing to compromise since thankfully I have options.
Which class do you think is the best to represent a necromancer and why? Also is it okay to force a non-core class on a GM new to the system right away in his first game?