[DDS] Spheres of Power - Death Handbook Open Beta

[Novawurmson]

LINK (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uITVkM7L_FBBovrglY9Uf5FRb8b9DTz-6D22j1UPeQc/edit?usp=sharing)

Hello everyone!

Though thread necromancy is still not allowed, necromancy within this thread is highly encouraged.

I will probably post on this thread about once per day, around this time of day.

Questions, comments, and feedback are encouraged!

[Mehangel]

I know a number of people who are looking forward to the Death sphere handbook, so I sure am glad that this handbook has finally made it to the Spheres of Power playtest.

[khadgar567]

i feel warframe style undead actually more usefull to players then variant human ghost.

[Ironsides]

ITS FINALLY OUT!!! Super excited to see what you have for us.

[Galacktic]

Read through it, but I have a question!

Slay Living is the classic death effect - is there any particular reason why even the Death sphere doesn't have a proper Save or Die even as an advanced talent? It could be a Ghost Strike talent that the target becomes immune to upon a failed save if you don't want it spammable.

[stack]

Might want to add spheres of power to the thread title and sphere after death, just to make it completely obvious to people scanning thread titles.

[Ironsides]

I have had some thoughts about the Death Sphere for awhile and made some homebrew for it. You are free to use what I have and change it up as you wish.

Death Tether Curse (Ghost Strike): You may spend two spell points to make a ghost strike that targets two creatures that tie the life force of those two creatures together (both creatures receive a Will that negates the effect). Any non-lethal or lethal damage that affects either of these creatures affects the other. Curses may be removed with the Break Enchantment Life talent, upon your death, or by your choice as a free action on your turn, but otherwise cannot be dispelled.

Death’s Shadow (Ghost Strike): You may spend a spell point to make a ghost strike that frightens your enemy. Your ghost strike touches a creature causing it to become panicked for one round per caster level unless it succeeds on a Will save. If the Will save succeeds, the creature is shaken for 1 round.

Necrotic Avatar (Advanced Talent?):
Prerequisite: Death sphere, Master’s Presence
When you use Master’s Presence Talent you can control the actions of that undead creature as if you were that creature as a move action. However, while you control the undead creature you cannot use that creature to cast spells.

Necrotic Affinity:
Unintelligent undead ignores your presence and does not attack you unless harmed by you. Also if you have the Command Undead talent you may spend 1 extra spell point to affect all undead within close range. Undead affected this way are permanently under your control if they fail their Will save. However, intelligent undead receive a new saving throw each day to resist your command. The HD of these undead are counted towards the total HD you can control with your reanimate Death Sphere talent.

Skinwalker (Could be a ritual or a talent):
Wear the skin of a dead creature and assume its shape as the Alteration Sphere with the appropriate form talent.

Lay to Rest (Ghost Strike):
Destroy undead and decompose them into mulch if you have control of them from the Command Undead talent or Command Undead feat.

Unstable Energies:
You may magically rig your mindless undead to explode upon their death. You may spend 1 spell point to reshape the energy that animates an undead creature under your control so that they explode with negative energy when they die. Whenever one of these undead dies they release a negative energy explosion that deals 1d4 damage per Hit Dice to every creature adjacent to it (Reflex save for half damage). While this is a negative energy effect it cannot be used to heal the undead.

Advanced Death Talent

Something like the Necrocraft Spell:

Necromantic Rebirth:
You may spend one spell point to reform the negative energies of any unintelligent undead you control effectively reanimating the undead a second time. Doing so you can also change the undead into another type of undead such as changing a skeleton into a bloody skeleton if he has the Expanded Necromancy talent. However, transforming undead this way may change that undead’s effective HD total you may control (such as changing 1 HD skeleton into a 1 HD bloody skeleton will count make it count its HD twice against the limit of undead you can control).

Create Undead Horde:
Give a group of your undead the troop subtype. For players/gms who want lots of undead without hurting the action economy.


Greater Death Tether Curse (Ghost Strike):
Prerequisite: Death sphere, Death Tether Curse, 10th caster level or higher.
This talent works the same as the Death Tether Curse, however, you may have this curse only negatively affect one of the targets leaving the other unharmed when the other target is harmed. In addition, this curse can only be broken through the Break Enchantment Life talent or the remove curse or break enchantment spells if the target’s caster level is at least two higher than yours, or as immediate action. Limited wish, miracle, and wish may still remove this curse.


Rituals:
Desecrate Ritual:
Some ritual to become a lich: Needs to be epically hard to do.

[stack]

Regarding the gunslinger archetype, I wanted to take a quick look at the maximum misfire chance that can be achieved with reasonably normal means (no fire lance or cylinder rifle, since they have unique rules).

2 Start with a 1-2 misfire weapon (lots of options)
4 Broken condition (always on with the archetype, no gun training to reduce it to 2)
1 alchemical cartridge

Gets you to misfiring (no penalty due to the archetype) on a roll of 7. A dedicated range build hitting touch AC on a 7 shouldn't be that hard by the time you get the ability to spend a spell point to threaten a crit with your x4 firearm.

Without gun training, you lose the consistency of +Dex to damage, but I don't think I care for amping up crit chances and minimizing the cost of grit recovery as a compensation. I haven't run any damage sims, so it is possible it works out overall, but I think it needs a close check.

[Mehangel]

Advanced Death Talent

Create Undead Horde:
Give a group of your undead the troop subtype. For players/gms who want lots of undead without hurting the action economy.

Yes, we need an advanced talent to combine groups of similar undead into a single troop or crew. I am thinking:
10 undead (of the same type) can be combined to form a single small troop or crew (which take up a 15ft space).
25 undead (of the same type) can be combined to form a single medium troop or crew (which takes up a 20ft space).
50 undead (of the same type) can be combined to form a single large troop or crew (which takes up a 30ft space).

[Novawurmson]

Read through it, but I have a question!

Slay Living is the classic death effect - is there any particular reason why even the Death sphere doesn't have a proper Save or Die even as an advanced talent? It could be a Ghost Strike talent that the target becomes immune to upon a failed save if you don't want it spammable.

To be honest, I never even thought of it, mostly because I'm not a big fan of death effects. My feeling is that they don't make for engaging gameplay on either side of the table.

If there's a lot of interest for it, I wouldn't mind adding it, and I think your stipulations for it sound reasonable.


Might want to add spheres of power to the thread title and sphere after death, just to make it completely obvious to people scanning thread titles.

Done. Thanks!


I have had some thoughts about the Death Sphere for awhile and made some homebrew for it. You are free to use what I have and change it up as you wish.

There are a few similar ideas in there, but I may have to steal a couple of those.


Regarding the gunslinger archetype, I wanted to take a quick look at the maximum misfire chance that can be achieved with reasonably normal means (no fire lance or cylinder rifle, since they have unique rules).

2 Start with a 1-2 misfire weapon (lots of options)
4 Broken condition (always on with the archetype, no gun training to reduce it to 2)
1 alchemical cartridge

Gets you to misfiring (no penalty due to the archetype) on a roll of 7. A dedicated range build hitting touch AC on a 7 shouldn't be that hard by the time you get the ability to spend a spell point to threaten a crit with your x4 firearm.

Without gun training, you lose the consistency of +Dex to damage, but I don't think I care for amping up crit chances and minimizing the cost of grit recovery as a compensation. I haven't run any damage sims, so it is possible it works out overall, but I think it needs a close check.

Hrm. The goal was to trade damage for debuffing and limited reanimation. I'll need to run some numbers on it again.


Yes, we need an advanced talent to combine groups of similar undead into a single troop or crew. I am thinking:
10 undead (of the same type) can be combined to form a single small troop or crew (which take up a 15ft space).
25 undead (of the same type) can be combined to form a single medium troop or crew (which takes up a 20ft space).
50 undead (of the same type) can be combined to form a single large troop or crew (which takes up a 30ft space).

That's two votes for it the troop subtype. I'll look into it.

[Scowling Dragon]

I vote for the Troop type myself.

Its just such a good way of getting powerful undead hordes that are useful at higher levels but don't waste time.

[NomGarret]

I'll throw another vote on the pile for Troop Subtype. It already exists as an advanced talent in the Conjuration Handbook, so there's an easy enough template to start from. Beyond that, I like what I've seen in my brief once-over. Hope to have more feedback soon!

[khadgar567]

one more vote for troop and eventual legion talents time to get our zombie Apocalypse on.

[Mithril Leaf]

I'm so excited this is finally entering playtest, I've been wanting it basically since the idea of the handbook was introduced. I'm liking a lot of it, although I am curious why there's such a firm requirement in the talents that you possess the things you give to your undead. I get it's probably intended to improve the sort of reanimator who fights with his undead, but why does a cowardly back row necromancer not get the ability to give his undead feats or skills?

EDIT: Also Corpse Forge is kinda weird considering how many other HD limits are already in place. Plus the fact that usually any decent undead will already have more HD than you have caster level. EDIT of an EDIT: Except of Course that Corpse Forge is not limited by using exclusively your base Caster Level and can thus be reasonable boosted temporarily, to useful levels. Works just fine in that case.

EDIT 2: Can we also in this book Codify that you can other variant undead (such as Frostfallen) according to Adam a while ago?

Would it be appropriate to allow Expanded Necromancy to allow you to animate creatures as Frostfallen and Void Zombies as well as the listed options? Generally a ruling that you can make anything you could create with animate dead would be nice.


@Mithril Leaf: I think that should work.


EDIT 3: Any particular reason the Gravecrawler can't get his Class level as his Caster level in the Death Sphere? Also Mobile Drones seems kind of bad considering there's no reason you can't buff your undead with burrow or flight days in advance.

[Halinn]

To be honest, I never even thought of it, mostly because I'm not a big fan of death effects. My feeling is that they don't make for engaging gameplay on either side of the table.

I'll add on a vote for Slay Living / Harm as an advanced talent

[khadgar567]

you know i wish corpse forge actually allows you to create morbid living weapons from the corpse near by instead of sacrificial one undead to boost another one. this way your fallen friend is more useful then mindless automaton.

[Mehangel]

I have an idea for a dual sphere feat to include in your Death sphere handbook (instead of the advanced talent I proposed to you elsewhere):

Shadow's Shroud (dual sphere)
Prerequisites: Dark sphere, Death sphere, Shroud.
Benefit: Whenever a living creature with HD equal to or greater than your caster level in the Death sphere dies in an area of your magical darkness, you may spend a spell point as a free action to reanimate it as a lesser shadow under your control. At caster level 5 in the Death sphere, you may spend 2 spell points to reanimate it as a shadow under your control instead. At caster level 10 in the Death sphere, you may spend 3 spell points to reanimate it as a greater shadow under your control instead. Any spawn that are created by shadows or greater shadows under your control count against the maximum number of undead you control.

Also, while I know I've asked twice before, I thought I would post my request that the Necrotic Marionette be written up as a scaling magical item such as the one I submit below:

Necrotic Marionette
Price 150 gp; Slot none; CL 2nd; Weight 100 lb.; Aura moderate Death sphere; Scaling prize
A creation of necromancers unwilling or unable to secure bodies for reanimation, a necrotic marionette is a puppet that functions as a medium-sized corpse with Hit Dice equal to your Death sphere caster level (minimum: 1) for the purposes of any Death sphere talent or ability - it can be reanimated, absorbed by Tomb of Flesh, detonated by Corpse Bomb, repaired by Corpse Manipulation, and so on. Necrotic marionettes count as as twice their Hit Dice against the total amount you may have reanimated at once.
A necrotic marionette has the following ability scores when raised as an undead: Str 12, Dex 14, Con -, Int 7, Wis 10, Cha 13.
4th Level - 900 gp: The necrotic marionette gains +2 Charisma and Strength, and +1 natural armor.
6th Level - 2,400 gp: With 10 minutes of work, you can increase or decrease the size category of the necrotic marionette to be anywhere from tiny to huge-size (gaining or losing bonus Hit Dice and natural armor according to Spheres of Power, pg 216-217). The necrotic marionette remains at this new size until worked on again.
8th Level - 4,950 gp: The necrotic marionette gains +2 Charisma and Strength, and +1 natural armor.
10th Level - 9,300 gp: The necrotic marionette gains supernatural flight of 60 ft.
CONSTRUCTION REQUIREMENTS
Cost 4,650 gp; Feats Craft Wondrous Item; Creation and Death sphere

There are many benefits to having the item written up as a scaling item. 1st, it becomes dramatically more affordable to low-level necromancers (without hurting them too bad). 2nd, they don't require downtime to upgrade the item's HD. 3rd, format means that the entire item can fit nicely on one side of an index card.

[A.J.Gibson]

To be honest, I never even thought of it, mostly because I'm not a big fan of death effects. My feeling is that they don't make for engaging gameplay on either side of the table.

If there's a lot of interest for it, I wouldn't mind adding it, and I think your stipulations for it sound reasonable.


I concur. Whenever you use a Death effect, you either win the fight without any help from your allies or you've wasted your turn. Neither is good gaming. If I were to include a Death effect in the game, I would probably make a secondary effect (so you're never wasting your turn) and make it rely on hit points (so you're only killing things you've already partially defeated). For example:

Slaying Strike
Whenever an enemy fails a Will or Fortitude save vs one of your Ghost strikes, if they currently have a hit point total equal to or less than twice your caster level, they immediately die.

[Galacktic]

See, my thing with Death Effects is that they're binary but it's not like the Necromancer isn't -already- making the creature useless. It just cuts out the middle man of the person performing a coup de grace.

I could just as easily make the creature's numbers go down low enough that it's not a feasible threat anymore, and -effectively- kill it by myself. No DM I've ever had has made us play out the sometimes lengthy affair of cutting down the last, useless enemy if there was a pack. A Slay Living style effect would just make it more direct.

Plus, there's thematics to consider: What kind of Necromancer doesn't have at least one instant death effect?

And lastly, there's far more ways for a caster to out-do the party and end the effective combat in a single turn without assistance, even within Spheres. Killing one target doesn't do that. It's honestly not very efficient unless you're performing it on a singular opponent, but even then your other spells to make it less effective would be a better use for your spell points since it'd likely make the saves anyway.

[AlienFromBeyond]

If I were to include a Death effect in the game, I would probably make a secondary effect (so you're never wasting your turn) and make it rely on hit points (so you're only killing things you've already partially defeated). For example:

Slaying Strike
Whenever an enemy fails a Will or Fortitude save vs one of your Ghost strikes, if they currently have a hit point total equal to or less than twice your caster level, they immediately die.
So basically Culling Strike from Path of Exile?:smallbiggrin:

[A.J.Gibson]

So basically Culling Strike from Path of Exile?:smallbiggrin:

Nope. It's an idea I've had for a long time. 4e used it at one point as well.

[Talverin]

Can I just say, reading over the stuff thus far...

ESPECIALLY the Shifter archetype...

... Holy CRAP that stuff is creepy. 10/10 can't wait to use it.

[Mithril Leaf]

Is there any particular reason that Swift Demise should only apply to zombies? Even if they don't lose staggered, haste is nice on skeletons as well.

[calyst]

Looked it over and provided feedback on a number of things on the google doc. More importantly YAY death sphere is here, might rewrite my home brew death themed technician archetype to incorporate some of the new stuff.

[Ironsides]

I just have a few more ideas for things to add to the handbook.

Command Undead (Ghost Strike) taken twice

If you purchase this talent a second time, undead that fail their saves fall under your control permanently, obeying your commands to the best of their ability. Intelligent undead receive a new saving throw each day to resist your command. You gain a bonus to the DC equal to 1 + 1 per 10 caster levels you have (should this bonus be higher?).

I really dislike that Command Undead (Ghost Strike) is not a straight substitute for Channel Negative Energy + Command Undead feat, (the ghost strike only lasts for a couple of minutes and you can't even order the mindless undead to end themselves or each other before the duration ends). I think it would be cool if you could take Command Undead (Ghost Strike) a second time to have a permanent duration over the mindless undead and maybe something similar for Intelligent undead with a small bonus to the DCs for taking the talent twice. I think that this change would open up many necromancer builds without needing to make a dip into a channel energy class. Also, I think it is weird that if you lose control of your undead that you can’t regain control of them later with the Command Undead (Ghost Strike).

Specialized Reanimation [Feat]
Prerequisites: Death Sphere, Expanded Necromancy
Benefit: Choose one type of undead listed in the Expanded Necromancy talent. Treat your caster level as 5 higher in all ways when reanimating the chosen undead. This bonus cannot cause you to have a caster level greater than your HD. This bonus to caster level can only be used to control the chosen type of undead.

Practiced Ghost Strike [Feat]
Prerequisites: Death Sphere, ability to use Ghost Strikes
Benefit: Choose one Ghost Strike you have. Treat your caster level as 5 higher when using the chosen Ghost Strike. This bonus cannot cause you to have a caster level greater than your HD.

I saw that you had a couple of archetypes that didn’t have full caster level with the Death Sphere. With these 2 feats you can help all the mid-casters dabbling in the Death Sphere fulfill their chosen niche.

Traits

Uncanny Puppet (Social or Magic?)

Whether you inherited your creepy manakin from a relative you didn’t even know you had or got it as a graduation gift from the Academy of Ethical Necromancy, you now have a Necrotic Marionette you can practice your craft on.

Benefit: You begin play with a Necrotic Marionette. This well-used marionette only has 1 Hit Dice.

I think that this would be an awesome choice for people who want to play a character that uses the death sphere but are in a campaign and/or party that frowns majorly at the undead. Especially if they are in a party with a Lawful Stupid Paladin.

I would also put in a sidebar for Necrotic Marionettes with different sizes and shapes like small sized or horse shaped Necrotic Marionettes. Having a character with a puppet horde makes me smile. The Necrotic Marionette was definitely one of your best ideas in the handbook.

Necromancer Tradition

A hedgewitch tradition based on the death sphere. Maybe specialized on that new troop subtype talent that you are working on :biggrin: and ways to give your minions marching orders.

That’s all I have for now. I really like what you have so far.

[mrguymiah]

Throw another vote on the pile for the troop. It allows play for the classic necromancer army without slowing gameplay. It also introduces some interesting possibilities. For one, assuming you have that combat/teamwork feat sharing ability, you could have a troop with some special ability. You can play on that angle more with further talents;

Legions of the Dead - CL 10
For the price of reducing your overall control (semi-intelligent lieutenants, thus not under direct control?), undead grouped into troops cost 1/2 the normal HD towards your limit. At CL15, this discount is further increased to 1/4th the normal HD towards your limit.

The only question I see being problematic with this line of thought is this; How do you equip them? Normally, from my experience, it's expected that the equipment come out of your WBL. So the question is how you provide the larger amount of undead with some amount of combat viability without breaking WBL (either going super far over or making it infeasibly expensive for a player). My suggestion would be to look at how Conjuration does it* and work it into something like the Empowered Reanimation talent from the Core Spheres book. With some modification of the numbers, it seems a reasonable way to represent undead equipment without breaking the bank on a player or causing undo stress to a GM of how to seed the wealth in a way that doesn't cause strife in the party. And, by tying it directly to the undead instead of any gold value, you prevent the players from using it to break WBL. (You can even reinforce this by saying the equipment is made of ethereal "ghost stuff", which prevents it from being sold as normal equipment.

*[I've reproduced the relevant talents here for ease of reference.]
Armored Companion (form) [Core]
Your companion gains armor as appropriate for its form and appearance (a suit of armor, a tougher hide, buffeting winds, etc.). Your companion gains a +2 armor bonus, +1 at every odd Hit Die beyond 1st.

Battle Creature (form) [Core]
Your companion is learned in the ways of war. It gains proficiency with all simple weapons and when summoned, appears with up to 2 weapons it is proficient with (masterwork, but of unremarkable composition). These weapons gain a +1 enhancement bonus for every 3 Hit Dice possessed to a maximum of +5. A companion may gain this form talent twice. If gained a second time, it gains proficiency with all martial weapons and treats its Hit Dice as fighter levels when meeting the prerequisites for feats.

[Drakhan]

So I know it's been mentioned and may in fact be in the works, but something to make ghost strike equivalent of improved energy blade and/or melee blaster would be nice (or errata allowing those feats to apply as well).

Cannibalistic Urge Talent might be able to save a few words. I know there is a precedent even in spheres, but non-lethal damage inherently becomes lethal if it hits max hp of a character. That's just default in the base rules (unless they have regeneration).

Also, as much as I love the entirety of this playtest atm (so many cool ideas), I'm kind of disappointed that there isn't much in the way of curse effects or guidelines. Many other spheres have some way to trigger a curse effect, but the sphere with the actual curse talent doesn't seem to be expanding on it at all, save some effects from new archetypes.

While I'm sure a list of curse effects isn't likely appealing since there are so many possible custom ones, not to mention guidelines in Vancian casting for more, additional effects specifically for curses would be cool. Something like the following:

Curse Master

Prerequisites: Death Sphere, Curse Talent

Benefit: Whenever an enemy under the effects of a curse you control dies, you may spend a spell point as an immediate action to attempt to move the curse to another target within close range of the enemy. If successful, the duration of the curse continues uninterrupted but applies to the new target. You may spend an additional spell point when the enemy fails the save to also reset the duration of the curse effect. This can apply to any ongoing curse effect, not just your death sphere curses, such as that provided by the Cursed Form feat.

Special: If you have the Master's Presence talent, you can instead move the curse to any target within your Presence range from yourself, or close range of the deceased enemy.

Normal: If an enemy dies while cursed, the curse still afflicts them until it expires.


Alternatively, more talents would be cool, such as:

Curse of Plagues

When cursing a target, you may spend an additional spell point to enhance it to a Curse of Plagues. If you do so, the target of your curse can transfer a duplicate of the curse to anyone they touch. Each creature touched gets a will save to resist contracting the curse. If they fail, they not only suffer the same curse, but are also capable of spreading the curse themselves.


Death Hex

You curse a target so that their death brings great misfortune to their allies. You may spend an additional spell point when cursing a foe to cause that foe to curse all your enemies within 30ft when they die. All curses they are afflicted with affect each nearby enemy, who gets a will save to resist. Each enemy gets one save, and compares it to the DC of each curse effect, contracting all the curses they fail to resist.

Curse of Burdens

You place a curse upon a foe that attracts pain. This curse only works if used in such a way as to affect multiple targets, such as using the Greater Ghost Strike talent, or the Flexible Ghost Strike feat with a blast shape that affects multiple targets. All struck creatures are linked with pain, and instead of the normal curse they now suffer damage from each attack made against any other member afflicted with the same curse. The damage taken is equal to the minimum damage of the dice rolled by each attack. For example, a greatsword would deal 2 damage to all afflicted targets, or 4 if affected by vital strike. A destructive blast cast by a 5th level caster would deal 3 damage to all targets, increased to 5 if they spent a spell point to amplify the damage.

[Mithril Leaf]

So I just realized the second half of Versatile Feeding sucks pretty hard, as it gives a bonus that overlaps with the existing enhancement bonus your undead will almost assuredly have. Until you use it on something with a ton of hit dice in which case it is a short term +2 strength and dexterity.

[Sho]

Is there any chance that there will be a Melee Blaster equivalent feat for the Death Sphere?

[wingnut2292]

I'm supposed that there is no Spheres of Might crossovers. How about A Gravewrought Vetrain that can optionally trade specialites and/or downgrades in sphere proficancies for undead traits. (Do a little if that's what you want, or go crazy and make an undead horror. No spellpoints, these are all passive abilites.)

Or a Living Mummy Lifeweaver who heals by sacrificing hitpoints. The trade starts at 1:2 but improves over the class progression. Further more, slowly becomes unndead, with the sense that you are sacrificing your Constitution score to help your deiety to heal others.

Would Create Neutron Star or Create Black Hole be a Death effect? They are the corpses of stars after all, and if you make a dual sphere with Death and either Environment or Weather, you can give players ways to affect local gravity in creative ways. I'm pretty sure D&D/Pathfinder has gravity rules...

Perhaps a Ghost Commander who supplements his shouts and orders with an otherworldly retniue?

Or a Prodigy who can trade a 5/7/9-step sequence for a Death effect determined by the sequence-length?

Maybe a Zen Sage who's transcendental knowledge of the Cosmos transsennds life and death?

That inspires me: someone stat out a suitably epic Heat Death/Entropy Elemental, the scion of the equilibrium of energy in the Universe.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

I'm supposed that there is no Spheres of Might crossovers. How about A Gravewrought Vetrain that can optionally trade specialites and/or downgrades in sphere proficancies for undead traits. (Do a little if that's what you want, or go crazy and make an undead horror. No spellpoints, these are all passive abilites.)

Or a Living Mummy Lifeweaver who heals by sacrificing hitpoints. The trade starts at 1:2 but improves over the class progression. Further more, slowly becomes unndead, with the sense that you are sacrificing your Constitution score to help your deiety to heal others.

Would Create Neutron Star or Create Black Hole be a Death effect? They are the corpses of stars after all, and if you make a dual sphere with Death and either Environment or Weather, you can give players ways to affect local gravity in creative ways. I'm pretty sure D&D/Pathfinder has gravity rules...

Perhaps a Ghost Commander who supplements his shouts and orders with an otherworldly retniue?

Or a Prodigy who can trade a 5/7/9-step sequence for a Death effect determined by the sequence-length?

Maybe a Zen Sage who's transcendental knowledge of the Cosmos transsennds life and death?

That inspires me: someone stay out a suitably epic Heat Death/Entropy Elemental, the scion of the equilibrium of energy in the Universe.

Those belong in the Archetypes of Power book, not this one

[A.J.Gibson]

Those belong in the Archetypes of Power book, not this one

AoP only covers PF classes, not SoP or SoM. The original idea was to give support to those classes that hadn't received any attention through the handbooks.

That being said, the Death already has more archetypes then any published book.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

AoP only covers PF classes, not SoP or SoM. The original idea was to give support to those classes that hadn't received any attention through the handbooks.

That being said, the Death already has more archetypes then any published book.

Ah, my mistake then. Those are cool archetypes but I guess they’ll have to be homebrew

[Ironsides]

I looked over the playtest and I really like what you have in the playtest so far. I do have some critiques on some of the options you have in the playtest though.

Death Talents

Corpse Bomb - It was mentioned by others but I would like the ability to explode my undead minions on demand. I think that the wording needs to be specific (like corporeal mindless undead) since many undead wouldn’t be a good target for a talent like this.

Corpse Manipulation - The death sphere really needed this talent. However, like others, I would like to see some explanation of “The corpse looks as it did when the creature died”. Like, do the wounds that killed the creature still show or does the corpse look like it just got prepared by an undertaker for an open casket funeral? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind either way but I would like a clarification.

Dark Sacrifice - I would like it if this talent could be used at any time instead of in life-threatening situations. I don’t think that it would be too powerful if it could be used at any time you had a disposable minion.

Experience Necromancer - I like the ability to teach your undead simple tricks. Like others have pointed out, I would like to see the range of your tricks you can teach scale with your caster level increases or have the limitation removed and be able to teach any amount of tricks to your undead. Also, I like the extra of being able to release any specific undead from my service instead of oldest to newest. These value-added things can flesh out a talent that doesn’t have a whole lot to offer on the front end. Good thinking.

Gravetongue - No critiques, I like it.

Haunting Apparition - A thematic ability to use evil spirits as a trap. Nice.

Lich Strike - I am ambivalent towards this talent (the effect doesn’t scale with level, not even a +1 round for every 10 caster levels you have) but I think it will grow on me. It’s not truly a save or die but with the right party, it could be. Also, the victim ends up prone and drops anything they carried. I really like the extra fluff of the victim appearing dead.

Master’s Presence - You mean my necromancer won’t give himself away by shouting orders to his minions? Awesome.

Poltergeist - I would say that this is a curse effect.

Reanimated Warriors - This is exactly the kind of stuff I wanted out of this handbook. Being able to use teamwork feats with my minions is fun (especially if they are betrayal feats).

Shroud - The thought of killing enemies and immediately have their undead body start attacking their buddies is really cool. I will say that this talent could have a secondary effect added to it, like with the Experienced Necromancer has with the ability to selectively release undead from their service. Some ideas of secondary effects:

Uncontrolled undead ignore you for one minute per caster level.
Maybe a secondary effect with another talent such as making the Command Undead ghost strike have a permanent duration.
Something else???


Sustained Reanimation - Having a talent that can be used without spending a spell point is really handy.

Taint Soul - I like what you are going for on both halves of this talent but the first half of the talent feels a bit underpowered (not sure how to fix that though).

Tomb of Flesh - I really like everything about this talent. I know some people dislike this talent but I vote to keep this talent as is.

Versatile Undead - Someone else mentioned it but I’ll add my 2 cents. I think that an exception should be carved out for profession skills (I am thinking of Profession Soldier and Profession Sailor).

Advanced Death Talents

Corpse Forge - I have made a talent similar to this in my own homebrew (great minds think alike). However, I have a few nitpicks on this talent. I don’t think that this talent is powerful enough to justify it being an advanced talent. After all, it caps the maximum Hit Dice an undead may have to your caster level and you can reanimate a creature with Hit Dice up to twice your caster level. I would either make this a normal talent or change the restriction on Hit Dice totals to twice your caster level.

Create Haunt - I would clear up the wording on what sphere effects are allowed. Do you need to know the base sphere? Can it be any talent from any sphere?

Mercy Killing - Can I target undead I have control of? If the answer is no then it should because necromancers should have the ability to snap their fingers and destroy the undead they have created or gained control of. If the answer is yes then it should have be clearly worded that you can do that.

Soul Drain - I think that this is an okay advanced talent but I would lower the caster level requirement to 1st or 3rd level. Constructs are very difficult to touch at lower levels for caster (my melee centric shifter had a hard time with the constructs in the Iron Gods campaign).

Specialized Undead - Either the wording is unclear or this talent is a bit weak at lower levels. Are you stuck with the choice you made when you take this talent or can you choose a different type of undead at no cost? It was mentioned elsewhere but players can just retrain this talent at each level to choose better undead that they can create.

I have more thoughts on the rest of the playtest but I am getting tired and need to go to bed. I'll go through the rest of the playtest soonish though.

Edited some of it so I don't sound like an uneducated hillbilly.

[Mithril Leaf]

I think it would be super both neat and satisfying to have a means of reanimating yourself, via ritual perhaps. You already have the ability as a necromancer to toss your teammates into freshly stolen undead bodies, via the Summon Spirit Advanced Talent, but you can't do the same for yourself. I'd really enjoy having an ability to do that same thing to your own character, perhaps by spending a goodly sum of cash and prep time?

[AlienFromBeyond]

Rage of the Grave kind of already lets you do that right now, but I think you're wanting something more like 3.5's Necropolitan right?

[Mithril Leaf]

Rage of the Grave kind of already lets you do that right now, but I think you're wanting something more like 3.5's Necropolitan right?

Pretty much, I've been missing a chance to play an undead necromancer and this seems the place.

[Aipaca]

Hi team! I hope this doesn't count as thread necromancy given that it seems to be an ongoing playtest!

I'd love to be able to recreate Richter Kreugar (from WHFB, fluff: https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/The_Cursed_Company) in Pathfinder, as some sort of medium or high-BAB archetype with full CL in Reanimate. Possibly working off of the Mageknight class? I'm not sure what a valid trade would be for full reanimate CL but I'd love to hear people's thoughts!

I also have a possible drawback in mind, where you can only reanimate corpses which you had damaged with a physical attack while they were alive.

Hope the Handbook is coming along well and hope this doesn't reach you too late!

[Adam Meyers]

@Aipaca I'll see what I can do.

I wanted to officially announce that the public playtest for Death is done. We will be doing some final internal edits and adjustments, and then it will be moved to layout. Thank you to everyone who's given feedback and helped us make this book what it needs to be!

[Mithril Leaf]

@Aipaca I'll see what I can do.

I wanted to officially announce that the public playtest for Death is done. We will be doing some final internal edits and adjustments, and then it will be moved to layout. Thank you to everyone who's given feedback and helped us make this book what it needs to be!

Which feedback was taken into account? I saw basically no response to anything brought up in this thread, which I'm not saying means that there wasn't adjustments made, but it gives little room for back and forth.

[Scowling Dragon]

Agreed. What will be taken into account and how?

[AlienFromBeyond]

Which feedback was taken into account? I saw basically no response to anything brought up in this thread, which I'm not saying means that there wasn't adjustments made, but it gives little room for back and forth.
I agree, there was a lot of outstanding, unaddressed comments and issues, so to see that the playtest is already over leaves me a bit worried.

[Adam Meyers]

@Everyone; I'm sorry for the way this has been handled. To be honest, we've tried to get this book wrapped up for a while, but the author seems to have disappeared; they have not answered our emails nor been active on the thread for quite some time. When I say the book has moved into final edits, what I mean is that our team has decided the time has come to assume direct control over the work and try do the last bits ourselves; we will be working through all of the outstanding comments and going over everyone's feedback as we try and determine what state the book is in and what needs addressing to finally wrap it up.

Thank you to everyone who has commented either here or on the document, and know that we will be going over all of that feedback as we determine what needs to be done.

[AlienFromBeyond]

@Everyone; I'm sorry for the way this has been handled. To be honest, we've tried to get this book wrapped up for a while, but the author seems to have disappeared; they have not answered our emails nor been active on the thread for quite some time.
Oh wow, I just had figured it was all behind the scenes. If they just poof'd out like that, then there was certainly nothing you could do except take control and try to finish it into a reasonable state. Real unprofessional move on the author's part, and I'm sorry you have to deal with this situation.

[Scowling Dragon]

Aww shucks that sucks. Still wish best of luck to you guys.

[ImmortalTimothy]

Hello,

This is a response to the discussion on Specialized Undead Advanced Talent in the playtest. This is mostly if they decided to change the talent in a way involving templates. Either way, I hope that this can be of some use to you.

"I have went and collected every template that turns a creature into an undead creature. A lot of these are probably not suitable for adding to your minions however I did not want to exclude any based on my perceptions on what should or should not be allowed to be a template for a minion.

So here is all templates:
Animus Shade, Dread Banshee Creature, Dread Crucifixion Spirit, Dread Phantom Armor, Dread Revenant, Dread Sayona Creature, Echohusk, Ectoplasmic Creature, Familial Lich, Fleshdoll, Floodslain Creature, Forsaken Lich, Frostfallen Creature, Gallowdead,Ghost, Graveknight, Lich, Lich, Psychic, Mummified Animal, Mummified Creature, Mummy Lord, Mummy Dune, Mythos Undead, Nosferatu, Penanggalen, Plagued Beast, Ravener, Red Jester Creature, Siabrae, Skeletal Champion, Stellar Vampire, Unhallowed Creature, Vampire, Vampire Spawn Addle-Minded, Vampire Spawn Repeatedly Drained, Vampire Jiang-shi, Vampire Psychic, Vetala Vampire, Witchfire Creature, and Wyrmskull.

Zombie Templates:
Fast Zombie, Plague Zombie, Void Zombie, Alchemical Zombie, Brain-Eating Zombie, Cursed Zombie, Gasburst Zombie, Host Corpse Zombie, Magus Zombie, Relentless Zombie, Zombie Lord, Spore Zombie, Trench Zombie, Zombie Juju

Skeleton Templates:
Bloody Skeleton, Burning Skeleton, Acid Skeleton, Exploding Skeleton, Host Corpse Skeleton, Magus Skeleton, Mudra Skeleton, Multiplying Skeleton, Skeleton Archer, Exoskeleton


I kinda like the idea of mixing this with the Summon Spirit and creating a Ghost (or some sort of spirit undead) by using a template."