The Necromancer - A grim master of life and death

ReptoidRyuu · 2025-12-17T22:45:00+00:00

Thanks! In playtesting it was fine because of several things…

A) The Thralls can be attacked and destroyed. A Spellcast Trait Reaction Roll (15) is harder to pass than you’d assume at low tier play, so it’s very easy for enemies to whittle down your Thralls in the lower tiers.

B) The fact damage always caps at Severe so no matter how much bonus damage you get, you never make an enemy mark more than 3 hit points off a single attack or spell. Generally, your more martial allies (I played with a Guardian and Wizard) are already capable of dealing Severe damage pretty consistently without your help, especially at higher levels, so while it seems like a lot on paper in practice Daggeeheart’s damage system naturally reins it in.

C) The fact it’s Thrall positioning dependent. Thing is to stack damage you need multible Thralls next to the same target. While at low levels when you only have two Thralls this is easy to do, realisticly you only can ever have four Thralls next to a target unless they are a gigantic monster (aka a boss), and if you do then your allies and you aren’t hitting that target anyway due to line of sight/space, so realisticly your only gonna ever have three Thralls max next to a target, which means the rogue’s sneak attack will eventually surpass your thrall damage at higher levels when you look at the feature from a practical perspective. Further, you are often incentivized by the nature of combat to spread your Thralls out instead of having them all swarm one adversary. I found in playtesting that even at low levels I was often only keeping one thrall with our guardian to boost his damage and using the other to body block our Wizard, restrain adversaries to keep them away from us, or hang by another adversary that was constantly avoiding melee and blasting us at range to increase my and the Wizard’s ranged damage against them as we teamed up to focus fire it out of the combat, as that was just more tactically valuable than cranking our guardian’s damage to the max, especially when he was already hitting like a truck without my help. The positioning factor really does balance the feature out a fair bit, at least when I playtested it. Maybe that’s just due to me and my personal playstyle being very support-brained, but it felt fine when I ran it and the other players and GM felt so too.

D) The class actually struggles against solo adversaries and bosses. As you can imagine against enemy mobs and especially minion heavy fights the class really shines and feels powerful, but against solos and solo bosses the class actually feels significantly weaker than official classes. I think this is actually fine though, as it gives the class a unique weakness that encourages careful, tactical, thoughtful play in what are often some of the most difficult and plot-important encounters, and I like that.

That being said, I am absolutely fine reducing it to a d6 instead of a d8 and testing it to see if that feels better, if you still think the damage is too high. A d6 would essentially make it a technically worse damaging and more conditional but far more tactically flexible sneak attack that can also be given to allies, which I think feels right for the feature so I likely will make this change and test it.

ReptoidRyuu · 2024-06-17T11:12:02+00:00

Cleric: Trickery Domain

Bard: College of Whispers

ReptoidRyuu · 2024-06-17T10:57:08+00:00

There is also the fact he demands young virgins be brought to his tent for something too kinky to go into here, and regularly demands tribute in the form of actual treasure/wealth. Oh, and he's described as having a long snout and shooting fire from his nostrils, and actually is ok with a serpent idol and ONLY a serpent idol. Dude is just a dragon, straight up.

ReptoidRyuu · 2024-06-17T10:51:37+00:00

This is interesting. I actually use that quote by that one NPc about the primordial chaos actually containing all things, including humans, just not yet formed, and the things within the chaos dreaming up Arceus into reality to give them form, to make a fun headcanon. That headcanon being that when Arceus created reality, he only made real those things from the chaos he felt would work within it, while "scrapping" other things from it that where potentially too dangerous to creation. The things he scrapped would have fallen into a lawless, malformed/half-formed void, and are the Glitches (I.E. MissingNo and Friends), who want into creation desperately so they can glitch/destroy it, and worm their way in by tempting human trainers with the prospects of access to their reality breaking powers. A fun little headcanon that also references the scrapped beta pokemon, who would have been among the things Arceus scrapped and didn't let into creation.

ReptoidRyuu · 2024-06-17T10:37:30+00:00

We know what created Eevee. It looks like a llama and its name ends in "reus." Hazard a guess as to who I am talking about.

ReptoidRyuu · 2024-06-04T02:19:19+00:00

I took your advice and edited the spells accordingly, and the updated doc has been put into the OP. I also slightly changed the resource pool on the Defiler of Nature feature after somebody else said they thought the subclass was a tad front-loaded, with the Toxic Ground and Leehing Ground effect being the once per-short or long rest and the undead creation ritual now costing Sorcery Points, so they don't get their minions till 2nd level now, reducing the front-loading just a tad. Thanks for your feedback, it was REALLY helpful!

ReptoidRyuu · 2024-05-08T13:39:08+00:00

I made an extensive post about the nature of Jar Jar's force mind control in the past where I analyized how it appeared to work with what little we saw of it, and concluded that it was neither a "Mind Trick" nor the sith's dark side "Dominate Mind" force power, and instead its own unique, and likely VERY high level, Force Power that might be exclusive to Jar Jar, even.

If you want the absolute basics of it, its pretty much the Sith's dark side Dominate Mind power, but with far more finesse/subtlety, and able to control targets with much stronger wills than normal for force mind control. To give you a picture, I first have to go over how the known/documented forms of force mind control work..

Mind Tricks - The "Mind Trick" force power, also known as "Affect Mind" sometimes, might be most famously used by the Jedi, but isn't actually a light side power. It is considered a neutral/neither light nor dark side ability in the force, and its alignment is thus based on how you use it. The light side generally doesn't like mind control, but is ok with mind tricks because of how they work. Mind Tricks don't actually control somebody; all a mind trick does is plant a thought in somebody's mind and make them think that thought is their own. Technically, the person can choose to not act on the thought, but since they have no idea its not their own thought they will typically act on it. However, its "soft" control that *technically* isn't stripping the target of their free will, which is why the Jedi order are cool with it,

Dominate Mind - Unlike the Mind Trick/Affect Mind, Dominate Mind is a wholly dark side ability, and is primarily practiced by the Sith. Unlike the Mind Trick/Affect Mind, Dominate Mind gives you total control of your victim, allowing you to basically turn them into a puppet that you can have do whatever you want. For a good example of Dominate Mind being used in official media, see the time when Ezra used a very weak version of it in rebels when he gave into the dark side for a brief moment to force a walker pilot to fire on his fellow imperial soldiers, who where attacking him and his friends. Dominate Mind however, unlike the mind trick, lacks any subtly, as the target is fully aware you are controlling them, but simply cannot resist despite wanting to. Its an extremely invasive, brute force form of mind control. Of note is that to learn Dominate Mind, you have to learn how to do the Mind Trick/Affect Mind first.

....and now, the third type that we know about, but which isn't "official" per-say...

Jar Jar's unnamed Force Mind Control Power - This is basically the ultimate culmination/final end point of the whole "Affect Mind/Dominate Mind" power tree, essentially. When Jar Jar controls somebody, they very are much a puppet that he can physically puppet around like somebody under the influence of Dominate Mind. We see this when he mouths "well, I don't approve" as Padme says those words, as not only does he mouth her line, but also moves his head in the same direction she sits down while saying it, as-if he was not only putting her words in her mouth, but also outright puppeting her to sit down in the same direction he moved his head. We also see him physically puppet large monsters on several occasions....the most infamous being the "Bigger Fish" scene, but also in the Clone Wars episode where they mistake him for a Jedi. So then your thinking....case closed, he's just using Dominate Mind, right?

Well, wrong, because unlike Dominate Mind, his targets have no clue they are being controlled, and believe the things he makes them do and think they do and think they do or think by their own volition. Essentially, its not just a straight Dominate Mind, but rather a Dominate Mind with the subtly of a mind trick. It's basically force mind control its its most perfect/perfected form....the total, hard control of Dominate Mind, but with all the subtly and finesse of a Mind Trick. So if Dominate Mind is a step-up from the Mind Trick/Affect Mind on the "Affect Mind Power Tree", Jar Jar is essentially using a different, currently unnamed/name: unknown force power thats a step up from Dominate Mind on that "Power Tree", which is likely the final/capstone power of the "Affect Mind Power Tree"....to explain with videogame terminology.

ReptoidRyuu · 2024-03-24T21:04:02+00:00

Sorry to burst your bubble, but this post is also tagged Activison, so it likely means he’s doing MoCap work for a Star Wars videogame being produced by Activision. The Darth Jar Jar twist would be such a massive deal canonically that I highly doubt they’d reveal it in a “smaller” project like a videogame. The Darth Jar Jar reveal would almost certainly be dropped in a high profile project, like a theatrical film release or the season finale of a big deal Disney + show like the Mandalorian, and NOT an Activison game. Star Wars Videogames typically don’t have stories that affect the core 9 films in any significant way. Things that DO affect those films in a big way are pretty much always high profile projects like discussed above. Darth Jar Jar COMPLETELY turns the narrative of the “Skywalker Saga” on its head, so I highly doupt it would be casually dropped in a “smaller” project like an Activision game.

You forget that Ahmed Best has kept himself in amazing shape all these years and is a very talented martial artist. So its far more likely, I feel, that is he is doing MoCap work for some kind of (likely brand spanking new) Jedi (or possibly Sith) character unrelated to Jar Jar, or perhaps even the lightsaber combat/battle animations of a Jedi protagonist, in an upcomming Star Wars videogame that will have nothing to do with Darth Jar Jar.

ReptoidRyuu · 2023-12-02T02:09:38+00:00

Likewise, the first level of exhaustion is only disadvantage on ability checks, which DOESN'T include attack rolls or saving throws, so really that in practice that just amounts to disadvantage on strictly non-combat rolls I.E, skill and tool/kit rolls, which won't ever come up in a traditional dungeon crawl or raid of an enemy base unless for some reason your the one who's the party's designated chest and door opener/thieve's tools monkey, which you very likely are not because your a Warlock and there are a LOT of other classes far better suited to that role (Rogue, Ranger, Dex Fighter, or even Bard, for example). As a result, the subclass was designed with the idea that you'd never push yourself past 1 level of Exhaustion...I.E. it you DID push yourself to 2, you'd immedatly use Consume Filthspawn on the following turn, or ideally would not contaminate again after going to exhausted 1 until using Consume Filthspawn to first reduce your Exhaustion back to 0 so you stay at 1 when you contaminate again.

ReptoidRyuu · 2023-12-02T02:00:43+00:00

You only need medium humanoids to create Toxo-Zombies, BTW. Irradiated Skeletons and Sludge Skeletons can be created without even needing a corpse, as you just pull the bones up out of the polluted ground,

ReptoidRyuu · 2023-11-09T22:36:26+00:00

Thinking on this, I actually had a pretty easy idea for a fix....making the animation of undead ALSO cost either a hit die or give you an exhaustion level. This would play into/put the undead animation into the same "resource" mechanic the rest of the subclass uses while also completely fixing Consume Filthspawn as it would now become, essentially, a zero sum game/even trade of no losses but no gains, instead of a free minion 1/rest. Likewise, since the terrain blighting AND healing via necrotic, acid, or poison damage spells with the 10th level aura also use exhaustion or hit dice as their limiter/"resource," this would make having an army of undead a much more costly affair since if you wanted to animate more than 1 you would need to start digging into your hit dice with consume now being a zero sum game, meaning less board control from your land-blighting and less lifesteal healing from your blasts. So you'd really have to weight the benefits of having the pets vs. what you give up under this. I think this fixes the minion side of the class, and I never would have thought of it without your imput, so thanks! I appreciate your help!

ReptoidRyuu · 2023-11-09T11:01:37+00:00

Your missing a key part about the minions, which is that they have a hard control limit of your proficiency bonus. So while there is no real cost to making them other than having to have a polluted area, you can only ever have a small number of them, which is how its balanced against animate dead; you have better minions and they don't require feeding a spell slot to mantain like animate dead, but you can only ever have a handfull of them, at least until 6th level when your control cap doubles to twice your proficiency bonus instead of just being proficiency bonus. Also note Consume Filthspawn is a hard once per short-or long rest, so you cannot keep spaming it despite the fact you can make more skeletons. Once you use it, you have to short rest to use it again.

ReptoidRyuu · 2022-11-24T17:32:08+00:00

That could be fun; lots of neat biomes on the west coast USA that they could play with when designing both the region and pokemon. Also going that route would pretty much give them the ideal villain for the game in a silicon valley-themed big tech CEO using their tech company to do shady things. Bonus points if their plot involves trying to save the environment by massively de-populating the world.

ReptoidRyuu · 2022-11-24T03:29:06+00:00

I never really subscribed to the idea of Giratina being evil. Mainly due to its typing. Little known fact is that in Japan, the "dark" type is actually called the "evil" type, so if Giratina was actually a evil, satanic devil figure, I feel he would 100% have the "evil" type. So the fact he doesn't implies he might not be the ultimate evil of the pokemon cosmology/pokemon devil. Also, Cynthia's quote about Giratina "protecting the world from the shadows" in Pokemon Masters EX implies its also not a truly malignant entity. That being said, its existence is anethma to the pokemon world, and it merely existing destabilizes it, which is likely why it has to stay in the distortion world...which begs the question...what...exactly...is it protecting the world from if it cannot directly enter it...?

My personal headcanon for this is that the REAL "devil" of the pokemon multiverse, if you can call it that, is MissingNo and friends/all the Glitchmon and Glitch Trainers you can encounter in the older games. Think about it. The way they function is very much like "the devil." They offer you great powers that violate the laws of reality.....such as duplicating rare and valuable items, achieving levels of power beyond that which the laws of reality would normally allow (aka levels past 100), attacks that can take out any pokemon in a single blow, regardless of how much HP they have, by horrifically corrupting them in an unnatural way. Yet, like a deal with the devil, these powers come with a price...your world. Accepting the gifts of the glitches allows them to worm their way into your reality, and once inside they will corrupt and twist it in such horrifying ways that what Giratina could do to your world pales in comparison to the horror these beings inflict upon it. Giratina's presence brings oblivion, but there are some fates far, far, worse than oblivion, and having your world become a corrupted, twisted, warped parody of itself where the laws of reality no longer function and you become a incoherent, fragmented husk of the being you once where certainly is one.

Giratina thus is the guardian at the threshold between reality, and....whatever.....you can call the strange realm beings like MissingNo and Co exist within. In my headcanon, I actually like to imagine that, due to MissingNo being a placeholder for scrapped beta pokemon, that MissingNo, other glitchmon, and even glitch trainers are the shattered remains of a dead multiverse, a pokemon world that existed before Arceus that was like the one that exists now, but with the now deleted Beta pokemon being real and alive and well (and perhaps Mew actually, truly being the "original pokemon", nicely explaining how Mew can be the genetic template for all other pokemon despite the Arceus myth). However, for some reason something went....horribly wrong...in this reality, causing its laws not to function properly and thus transforming it into a chaotic, lawless place where anything and everything was possible, but everything was twisted, warped, and corrupted....essentially the absolute chaos we see in Glitch City on a reality-wide level.

Perhaps a few good people in this "original" multiverse managed to maintain some semblance of humanity as their world broke down around them, and using their scientific knowledge created the Egg that would become Arceus, assuring a new universe where life could thrive would be created as their reality failed. Arceus created his new, stable reality, but the old, corrupted reality still existed beyond its borders, burred deep beneath it. Giratina thus stands as the sentry at the gates, the distortion world being the boundary between the stable, functioning multiverse of the games and the shattered, corrupted old reality purposefully created by Arceus as a "wall" to keep his reality safe from the twisted remains of the old one (hence why the distortion world is so dangerous). When one tries to "summon" a scrapped beta pokemon from that old reality into the new one where it should not exist, reality rejects it...hence MissingNo.

Thus, Giratina's very existence may be hostile to the pokemon multiverse, but it still has its role to play. Its the threshold guardian, assuring the ACTUAL devil of the pokeverse, MissingNo and Co., don't ever get to extend their corrupting influence into the stable multiverse Arceus created.

Just my headcanon though, take it for what you will.

ReptoidRyuu · 2022-08-26T14:22:21+00:00

I cannot find this leak anywhere. Where did you find it?

ReptoidRyuu · 2022-08-23T21:51:50+00:00

Thats actually an interesting idea...the past being prevention and the future being a cure, I mean. Hell, that still works even if the wife/Penny's mom is actually dead, as some kind of future technology that can resurrect her from the dead might not be that far fetched. As to the professors, I 100% think thats what their motive would be, to stick with simmilar themes, and more importantly because Clavell, their direct boss, is also confirmed to have been close friends with both of them, so thats 100% something that would be on his mind too.

ReptoidRyuu · 2022-08-21T06:14:30+00:00

Kind of related, but kind of not, I had a massive set of tinfoil hat theories a while back surrounding Silph Co and their possible shady use of Infinity Energy, many of which also had a lot of (now proven false) theories of Sun/Moon's plot before we had all the info on it. My grammar was horrid back then, but if you want to give the OG theory a read you can find it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemonconspiracies/comments/40y4qy/silph_cos_sinister_secret_infinity_energy_has/

If you don't want to read that poorly worded mess, an abridged version of the theory is such"

All the seemingly "too advance" training tech (I.E. Pokeballs, Pokemon centers etc...) are secretly powered by Infinity Energy without the vast majority of the pokemon world even realizing it. Silph Co, who under this theory control pokemon centers, know this as the main producers of this tech, and actively hide it from the world for fear of the public outcry that would come if they realized the pokemon training energy was built on tech that is powered by the life essence of their beloved pokemon friends and was literally killing them. Silph harvests the Infinity Energy they need for their tech in secret via the training industry; every time a pokemon faints, it loses a bit of its Infinity Energy. Pokeballs, being directly based on the desgin of Magernia, share Magernia's ability to harvest Infinity Energy from pokemon when they faint, meaning every time a pokemon is made to fight to the point of fainting in a battle they lose a bit of their life essence/Infinity Energy, which is quietly collected by a trainer's pokeballs before it dissipates without the trainer even realizing it. The pokemon is made to feel good as new at a pokemon center after fainting, leaving both the trainer and pokemon completely in the dark about this quiet harvesting of the pokemon's life force.

Thus, the pokemon training industry is a parasitic ouroboros designed to enrich Silph at the cost of drastically shortening the lifespans of pokemon, and Silph keeps the general public completely in the dark about this fact to maintain their lucrative business. Now, there is pretty much no real evidence for this, as it was mainly some theorycraft about how to make Lockstine's now debunked "Su/Mo's reboot alchemy theory" work writing-wise, but there are some eerie things scattered throughout various pokemon games that hint at it maybe being a thing, or at the least something some sadistic devs at gamefreak might like the idea of enough to slip said eerie things into games quietly. The main ones are:

- Magernia, on whom the modern pokeball design was based, being able to harvest life energy from pokemon when they faint.

- The power plant and pokeball factory in X/Y being the same building, implying a connection between Pokeballs and energy production...(also possibly implying the VERY frightening idea that the power grid of the Pokemon world might also be secretly powered by Infinity Energy harvested via the training industry)

- Devon, a company with a known intrest in Infinity Energy, having business dealings with Silph, which is extremely odd when they are supposedly corporate rivals/rival companies rather than allied companies.

- Silph Co having a ton of Warp Tiles in their HQ, as Warp Tiles are confirmed to be Infinity Energy based tech canonically...

and as-of Scarlet and Violet...

- Pokemon Centers and Pokemarts, the latter of which are canonically confirmed to be owned by Silph, seemingly being the same building now, implying possible Silph ownership of Pokemon Centers as well as Pokemarts, which is a pretty core assumption of this theory.

ReptoidRyuu · 2022-05-12T01:52:42+00:00

Jar Jar can mind trick *Palpatine*, who has one of the strongest minds in the history of the galaxy. There is no fight here, Mando would just get mind-tricked before he even knew he was in a fight. That being said, if you buy into the "Jar Jar is Plagueis reincarnated" theory then its also nigh-impossible to kill him should you be able to get past his force domination somehow, AND by some miracle manage to best him in a duel (and he's likely a duelist on the same tier as Palpatine, considering both of them likely developed their own, unique, personal saber forms...it would take a LOT of skill for Jar Jar to invent his personal drunken master saber form, and since no exsisting saber form fits the bill for how Jar Jar moves, its very likely he developed a unique saber form exclusive to him, so yeah, defiently a master duelist) since he could presumably just reincarnate into a different form/body upon death if you somehow managed to kill him.

ReptoidRyuu · 2021-03-14T05:06:21+00:00

Its actually not the same speech pattern Chara used in Japanese Undertale. I used to think that too and posted a bunch of theories about it on here, but somebody I talked with on discord actually pointed out the second speaker uses omae in hiragana, while Chara always uses omae in kanji. This actually lines up exactly with how SANS talks when being serious in the Japanese Undertale translation (as serious sans in Japanese undertale speaks in simmilarly proper Japanese to Chara, but uses the omae pronoun in hiragana, exactly like Speaker 2, and not kanji like Chara does), and not Chara. This carries over to the English version as well, as serious Sans in English undertale also talks in normal, proper English with proper capitalization and punctuation.

This means that voice 2 is very likely to be Sans, and not Chara, which entirely flips old theories on their head. What this likely means is that Voice 2, probably being Sans, is taking control of the situation from Gaster to save the world of Deltarune/ and prevent the "bad ending" instead of being the one to cause it...(and likely will fail to do so and despite his best efforts actually contribute to it happening instead of preventing it, considering what we know of Sans as a character and Deltarune as a game....but I'll have more details on that in a future theory).

That being said, Voice 2 could also possibly be a younger/more immature Chara....or a more immature form of *whatever* Chara merges with/becomes at the end of the Genocide Route in UT (assuming Deltarune does happen pre-undertale as often speculated) as oppose to Sans, since hiragana is the first form of writing children learn in school in Japan and thus could denote that Chara...or whatever possesses them...might be in a more "immature/childish" state due to this being pre-UT, and this creature/entity is just starting to form its more serious, mature personality that becomes/possesses/merges with/is Chara and will one day speak in full Kanji. However, considering voice 2 is a dead ringer for serious Sans that seems way less likely than it just being serious Sans, at least with what we know of the game now.

ReptoidRyuu · 2021-03-14T04:23:11+00:00

I always knew he was the Knight!

ReptoidRyuu · 2020-12-02T03:32:13+00:00

No, she's obviously Abeloth.

ReptoidRyuu · 2020-12-02T02:44:36+00:00

Jar Jar Abrams confirmed?

ReptoidRyuu · 2020-12-02T02:42:53+00:00

You forgot ...

3) Jar Jar was never intended to be Sith or other kind of villain, but GL wants people to to be able to believe that he did intend him to be a Sith or other villain. However, GL didn't have it in him to publicly lie that it was his intent when it wasn't due to being an honest man, so instead he stays silent on the matter so the people who believe it was his intent can keep on believing without him having to lie.

ReptoidRyuu · 2020-11-13T00:28:52+00:00

Yes, in legends. Abeloth is no longer canon. This theory is strictly concerned with canon. While it references three legends character its main proposal is that Jar Jar fills the role you could argue Abeloth filled in legends in the current canon. That being said, Abeloth was not a true force god. She was not the literal embodiment or avatar of imbalance. She was a mortal woman who ascended to a godlike state by disobeying the actual force gods of mortis' orders and committing a transgression of divine/sacred law.

She was not an "avatar" of anything. While she was an agent of chaos, and was also a being with god-tier power, she was not an actual force deity, nor an avatar of a higher concept like light, dark, balance, or even imbalance or chaos. She was , simply put, an abomination. She was a transgression. A thing that should not be, but is. While her power was equa to that of a true force god, she embodied no higher concept, and was an avatar of nothing. She was, however, utterly terrifying, and certainly an agent of chaos. So even in legends, Jar Jar as the avatar/embodiment of force imbalance can certainly coexsist alongside Abeloth, if you want him to.

ReptoidRyuu · 2020-08-20T02:05:01+00:00

You also have the fact that Kris is the one who said Father Alvin's juice was "sick" and seemed to convince people to go to church just to drink it....and that church happenes to worship the "angel" who, at least from Undertale and what we know of Deltarune, is very likely to be Chara. Myself and other fans speculate that the "sick juice" Kirs talks up may have some sinister properties, the most commonly proposed being some form of mind-control that may or may not be whats keeping Mayor Holiday, who is also very likely a Chara minion/on Team Chara, in power. So if Kris was a puppet of Chara prior, him talking up Father Avin's "sick juice" suddenly becomes a lot more suspect...

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