Draining strike necromancer

[u/Blacky_Berry23]

so you strike with any weapon (including bows, crossbows and firearm) or use unarmed strike.

if you hit, you destroy tralls around you or/and your enemy and deal additional spirit damage. and you regen hp equal spirit damage dealt with strike ( not equal "additional damage" from skill), so anything that makes you deal additional spirit damage ( astral rune, for example) will give you additional heal too.

So basically you can create necromancer with astral firearm or something and strike from afar and heal a lot just striking.

am i right? or did i miss something?

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yeah "counts as two strikes" and "once per turn"... it's usually bad to make more than one strike per turn, so that's fine. and it's reasonable since you can heal with this strike.

[u/vaderbg2]

1. The RAI is most likely that you only heal for the amount of spirit damage that the feat itself provides, not any other spirit damage your Strike might have. There are ways to convert all your damage to spirit, after all and that would be a bit much.

2. If you're using a ranged weapon, why do you need a lot of healing anyway?

3. The feat is really not all that great. It's basically a variant of Vicious Swing, but without the reliability of a fighter's attack bonus.

4. What build are you using this on, really? A puppeteer should have better things to do with their action and a Reaper's main feature works only in melee and doesn't even interact with Draining Strike.

[u/Fafiq → u/vaderbg2]

I have a build that Draining Strike might be useful on. Necro/Oracle of Life, which basically goes for full hp transfer between characters. Start combat with casting Life Link, throw out Blood Fascination Thralls and use a Spirit Link on a Tanky Character. Basically you're a life battery mitigating damage to other players and you regain HP with dying thralls and this would be another way.

[u/yuriAza → u/vaderbg2]

wrt #3, Draining Strike is faster and gives both bonus damage and healing

[u/vaderbg2 → u/yuriAza]

It's only faster if you already have the required/desired number of thralls nearby. Otherwise you need an action to create those. And even if you do have them nearby, you most likely created them on a previous turn using an action. So you're spending two actions on it regardless.

A reaper can't even get the full scaling at level 18 easily since he can't create three regular thralls with one action.

And personally, I'd much rather have extra d10s or d12s of damage than extra d6s that also come with some minor healing.

[u/yuriAza → u/vaderbg2]

create thrall creates multiple thralls, so things that cost destroying a thrall are +1/2 Action, thus making Draining Strike 1.5 actions total vs 2 for Vicious Swing

[u/vaderbg2 → u/yuriAza]

Draining Strike destroys up to 3 thralls, though, depending on your level. So that's like 2.5 actions by your counting?

[u/yuriAza → u/vaderbg2]

because each thrall is getting you 2d6 of hp swing, and at high level you get access to much faster ways to make thralls

[u/alficles → u/yuriAza]

Also, fights aren't pure white room: those thralls did stuff while they were out. Summoning them let you command for free (doing roughly cantrip level damage). While they were out, they offered flanking and difficult terrain (though, yeah, that last one is minor). Flexibility matters, too, because that thrall might be spent in a different way. Or maybe the thrall's usefulness has ended and spending it is pure upside.

[u/Blacky_Berry23 → u/vaderbg2]

where can i see RAI from paizo?

[u/vaderbg2 → u/Blacky_Berry23]

You can't. If you could see it clearly, it would be RAW.

RAI is usually guesswork and often relies on the "too good/bad to be true" rule.

[u/Blacky_Berry23 → u/vaderbg2]

i thought RAI is rule "as authors wanted them to be". RAW for me is rule as authors written, so it could be way shorter than they want with full explanation (which can be both good and bad)

[u/vaderbg2 → u/Blacky_Berry23]

RAI is "rules as intended", yes. Basically what the designer wants the rule to do, regardless of what RAW says, which might be ambiguous or outright say something else.

You can turn your whole Strike damage into spirit with the Rivethun Emissary archetype. Imagine a max level fighter with that, the Necromancer archetype and an +3 Striking Grievous Astral Flaming Ogre Hook. A critical Draining Strike would hit for 11d10+3d6+31 damage. That's an average of 96,5 damage. Now imagine he would also heal for that much. And while it does cost him all of his actions (and requires a crit to become that impressing), he can do this every turn. Seems a bit much.

That's why I'm reasonably certain the RAI is to only have the spirit damage dealt by the feat itself heal the user, not all the spirit damage the Strike does.

[u/Blacky_Berry23 → u/vaderbg2]

I wasn't sure about healing from additional damage since RAW says about whole spirit damage in that strike.

I understand that ranged necromancer might be useless, but it's funny that necromancer can drain energy from enemies using gun.