Last time on Impossible Magic, we discovered that the Magus can finally move, the Summoner can finally summon, and Pathfinder's three-action economy is apparently more of a polite recommendation. Now we're back for Part 2, where Paizo hands Ash an infinite supply of disposable corpses, gives Tyler a class built entirely around weaponized graffiti, drops roughly six hundred spells on his to-do list, and introduces magic so impossible that you're legally allowed to cast it exactly once. Welcome back. Somehow, things have gotten worse for the GM.
Show Notes
We survived Part 1, so naturally it's time to make things significantly more complicated.
We start with the Necromancer, Ash's immediate new obsession and perhaps Pathfinder's most enthusiastic endorsement of reusable corpses. Necromancers summon disposable thralls, sacrifice them to power Grave Spells, choose between the martial Reaper and thrall-heavy Puppeteer Fatal Methods, and customize their undead aesthetic through Blood, Bone, Flesh, or Spirit Grim Fascinations. Blood immediately attracts Ash's attention because apparently the correct amount of bleeding is all of it.
The class also gets Mastery of Life and Death, allowing it to play surprisingly flexible games with vitality and void damage. Between healing from dead thralls, creating seas of grasping limbs, exploding minions, summoning enormous undead monstrosities, and eventually dropping a living graveyard onto the battlefield, the Necromancer delivers exactly the sort of wholesome family entertainment we expected.
Then we meet the Runesmith, Pathfinder's newest experiment in making someone at the table track even more things. Runesmiths etch persistent runes onto equipment, trace temporary runes onto creatures, modify them with diacritic runes, and invoke them for additional effects. The result is a flexible new magic system with tons of room for clever combinations, action compression, buffs, debuffs, and the inevitable player who arrives with a spreadsheet explaining why drawing twelve symbols on the barbarian causes reality to explode. Or, as Tyler puts it, weaponized graffiti.
From there, we explore the new Wizard schools, including enchantment-adjacent magic, divination, dimensional manipulation, and what can only reasonably be described as Minecraft Wizard. Automatons also get new options, including more durability and, most importantly, laser eyes.
Then we arrive at approximately six hundred new and updated spells, which Tyler receives with the calm enthusiasm of a man watching years disappear from his life. Standouts include Bone Shield, Murder of Crows, Bone Moth's Kiss, Heartbolt, Living Thunderbolt, and the deeply important Fishing Spot, which creates an extraplanar fishing hole because sometimes saving the world can wait until after you catch a Scholar Salmon.
Finally, we reach the actual Impossible Spells. These aren't conventional character options so much as campaign-level magical plot devices. They can set enormous areas on fire, erase entire periods of history, leave permanent supernatural consequences, and can generally be cast only once by a character. So despite the book's title, Impossible Magic is apparently possible. Once.
We wrap up with strange rituals, spell catalysts, armor and weapon runes, grimoires, spellhearts, staves, magic tattoos, and enough other magical equipment to keep optimizers occupied until Paizo releases another book and starts the process all over again.
The final verdict is overwhelmingly positive. The Necromancer is flavorful and mechanically exciting, the Runesmith introduces a genuinely different approach to magic, the spells are unusually creative, and even the archetypes and magic items feel packed with ideas worth playing.
Key Takeaways
- Necromancer is built around disposable thralls that can attack, block space, fuel Grave Spells, and be sacrificed for increasingly ridiculous effects.
- Reaper supports a more martial Necromancer while Puppeteer leans harder into controlling and sacrificing thralls.
- Blood, Bone, Flesh, and Spirit Grim Fascinations dramatically change the flavor and utility of your thralls.
- Blood looks especially strong, including ways to bypass bleed immunity and regain HP when thralls die.
- Mastery of Life and Death gives Necromancers unusual flexibility with vitality and void effects.
- Runesmith introduces an entirely new magical playstyle built around etching, tracing, modifying, and invoking runes.
- Diacritic runes modify other runes, opening the door to increasingly elaborate combinations.
- Runesmith has enormous potential for optimization, especially as players discover new ways to exploit its action compression.
- The new Wizard schools offer some much-needed alternatives, including dimensional and terrain-manipulation themes.
- Automatons get additional defensive options and, critically, laser eyes.
- Impossible Magic includes roughly six hundred new and updated spells, ranging from genuinely useful combat magic to wonderfully bizarre options like Fishing Spot.
- Bone Moth's Kiss begins with a cute little moth and ends with your bones gradually becoming a medical emergency.
- Living Thunderbolt lets you become lightning, fly through creatures, and damage them as you pass through their spaces.
- Impossible Spells are primarily GM-controlled plot devices rather than normal spell selections.
- A character can generally use Impossible Magic only once, after which their soul is permanently marked against doing it again.
- The book also includes new rituals, grimoires, spellhearts, staves, catalysts, armor and weapon runes, tattoos, and other magical equipment.
- The overall reaction is extremely positive. Necromancer gets most of the immediate hype, but Runesmith may be the sleeper hit once players start discovering what the rune system can really do.
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Meet the Hosts
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Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix.
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Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme.
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Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy.
Join the RPGBOT team where fantasy roleplaying meets real strategy, sarcasm, and community chaos.
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Tyler Kamstra
Ash Ely
Randall James
Producer Dan
