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Necromancer as a player class?
bioshrike
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 4,729 Arc User
OK, so we've gotten Warlocks as a player class - would it be completely out of the question to have "good" necromancers, (or at least ones that aren't totally incompatible with wanting to help Neverwinter)?
If they were added, what sort of class mechanic do you think they would have?
EDIT: I meant to say "Necromancer as a player class?".
2nd EDIT: Meant to say "good necromancers" instead of "good warlocks".
If they were added, what sort of class mechanic do you think they would have?
EDIT: I meant to say "Necromancer as a player class?".
2nd EDIT: Meant to say "good necromancers" instead of "good warlocks".
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"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
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"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
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Warlocks make pacts w/ powerful extra-planar forces to gain their own power.
Necromancers basically deal with animating the dead to serve them, (or animating lifeless material, in the case of golems - though that may be limited to bone or flesh golems). They are essentially specialist wizards.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
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Good points. Does it require any evil/nefarious practice to animate a golem? Is there a type of wizard which would focus on animating, say, scarecrows, cay/wood/metal golems or suits of armor?
Or, what if you were a Necromancer who *only* used the remains of monsters/enemies of Neverwinter as your raw materials? There's plenty of those, after all...
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
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Necromancers are generally evil. In fact before warlocks were added to the game they were the main taboo magic users.
The "good" warlocks would be those who followed in the Fey Pact instead of the Infernal Pact and even that is quite iffy and taboo.
However Necromancers are about as...ick...as they come. Raising the dead to fight battles is not something people take very kindly to and as such the sterotypical cult wizards doing dark rituals in sewers away from the prying eyes of society tend to be necromancers.
However lore and nitpicking of your post wording aside...
Necromancers could be quite fun as a summoner style class spawning a bunch of trash mobs of their own to contend with enemies until they used life syphoning effects of some sort. My experience with fourth edition necromancy is quite limited but that tended to be the gist in previous editions.
Although I fear it would be behave similar to the Infernal Warlock which in terms of skin deep mechanics and visuals behaves like a wizard focused on necromancy and evocation. Of course when you look under the hood warlocks are different than that but it would behave very similarly in combat.
I suppose, as you pointed out, that no civilian would really be able to get passed the "ick factor"...
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
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It depends on the golem. Clay and Metalic golems, no. Flesh Golems and Bone Golems tend to fall into the taboo.
However there are no wizards who tend to focus on this a lot as a main means of combat. Those tend to be guardians of their private locations or a single companion which serves as a distraction like a Guardian Fighter so the wizard can use their other spells to dispatch the threat or opt to save their spells for a more deserving foe.
Give me a minute and I'll pull out a book and describe the different schools of wizardry.
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The School of Abjuration of focuses on magic that blocks, banishes or protects.
School of Conjuration
As a conjurer, you produce objects and creatures out of thin air. You can conjure billowing clouds of killing fog or summon creatures from elsewhere to fight on your behalf.
School of Enchantment
As a member of the School of Enchantment you have honed your ability to magically entrance and beguile other people and monsters.
School of Evocation
You focus your study on magic that creates powerful elemental effects such as bitter cold, searing flame, rolling thunder, crackling lightning, and burning acid.
School of Illusion
You focus your studies on magic that dazzles the senses, befuddles the mind and tricks even the wisest folk.
School of Necromancy
The School of Necromancy explores the cosmic forces of life, death and undead. As you focus your studies in this tradition you learn to manipulate the energy that animates all living things.
School of Transmutation
You are a student of spells that modify energy and matter. Toi you, thhe world is not a fixed thing but eminemtly mutable and you delight in being an agent of change.
Obviously conjuration would be the closest thing. However conjuration is but a focus. Wizards tend to focus in that area but still select from other spells to complete their repertoire. This means that a wizard who summons monsters would be doing so mainly out of a distraction.
Here are a list of fifth edition conjuration spells:
Cantrip (Sort of like an at will) -
Acid Splash [Self Explanatory]
First Level -
Arms of Hadar [Summons Tentatcles from the ground to bash enemies]
Second Level -
Cloud of Daggers [Fills an area with spinning daggers]
Third Level -
Call Lighting [Lighting shoots from the sky into enemies]
Conjure Animals
Conjure Barrage [Fills the air with weapons directed towards a target]
Fourth Level -
Conjure Minor Elementals [Summons lesser elementals]
Fifth Level -
Cloudkill [Toxic gas cloud]
Conjure Elemental [Summons a normal elemental]
Sixth Level -
Arcane Gate [Used to transport you and/or an ally between locations]
Conjure Fey [Spawn a Fey Creature to help you]
Seventh Level -
Conjure Celestial [Summons an angel, duh!]
Okay I am only up to C and this could take a while...but you get the gist. Conjuration is likely the most akin to what you want but at the same time in my experience they tend to be a controller type of class (like the Control Wizard) and rely on their damage to come from more powerful spells (often not conjuration based) or allies.
Alteration/Transmutation school is known as Alteration/Transmutation prior to 3rd edition, and as Transmutation in 3rd and 3.5 editions. Spells in this school alter the properties of their targets. Examples include Bull's Strength, Fabricate, Polymorph, Plant Growth, Move Earth, and Water Breathing. In 3rd edition, many non-mind-affecting spells from 2nd edition's Enchantment/Charm school were moved to the Transmutation school. Wizards who specialize in this school are known as Transmuters.
Conjuration or Conjuration/Summoning school, known as Conjuration in 3rd and 3.5 editions and Conjuration/Summoning in earlier editions, is focused on instantaneous transportation, conjuring manifestations of creatures, energy or objects, and object creation. In 3rd and 3.5 editions, healing spells are also part of the conjuration school, however of the three core arcane classes, these spells are generally restricted to bards. In 3rd and 3.5 editions, Conjuration is divided into five subschools: calling (spells which physically transport extraplanar creatures to the caster, as well as granting them the ability to return to where they were called from), creation, healing, summoning (teleporting objects to the caster's location and/or causing creatures to physically manifest at the caster's location), and teleportation (instantly transporting creatures and/or objects). Wizards who specialize in this school are known as Conjurers.
Divination school is focused on acquiring information. In 2nd edition, Divination was divided into two schools: Lesser Divination (all Divination spells up to 4th level) and Greater Divination (all Divination spells of 5th level or higher) in order to prevent specialist wizards from losing access to certain utility spells such as Detect Magic, Identify and Read Magic, serving a similar purpose to 3rd edition's Universal Magic. In 3rd and 3.5 editions, Divination has one subschool: scrying, whose spells create invisible magical sensors which provide the caster with information; these sensors can be detected and dispelled. Wizards who specialize in this school are known as Diviners.
Enchantment/Charm, known as Enchantment/Charm prior to 3rd edition and Enchantment in 3rd and 3.5 editions, changed dramatically in 3rd edition, when all non-mind-affecting spells were removed from the school and many were moved to Transmutation. In 3rd and 3.5 editions, all Enchantment spells are mind-affecting and Enchantment is divided into two subschools: compulsion and charm. Charm spells, such as Charm Person or Symbol of Persuasion, affect the targets' attitudes, usually making them act more favorably toward the caster. Compulsion spells such as Confusion, Dominate Monster, Feeblemind, Sleep, Suggestion or Zone of Truth, can force the targets' to act in a certain way or avoid certain actions, affect the targets' emotions or affect the targets' minds in other ways. The Compulsion subschool also includes buffs, such as Aid and Heroism. Wizards who specialize in this school are known as Enchanters.
Evocation or Invocation/Evocation is called Invocation/Evocation prior to 3rd edition, and Evocation in 3rd and 3.5 editions. In 3rd and 3.5 editions, Evocation is focused on damaging energy-based spells such as Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and Cone of Cold. It also includes conjurations of magical energy, such as Wall of Force, Darkness, Light, Leomund's Tiny Hut, and the Bigby's Hand spells. Wizards who specialize in this school are known as Evokers.
Illusion/Phantasm school is known as Illusion/Phantasm prior to 3rd edition and Illusion in 3rd and 3.5 editions. In 3rd and 3.5 editions, it is divided into five subschools: figment, glamer, pattern, phantasm, and shadow. Figment spells create artificial sensations with no physical substance. Glamer spells alter the target's sensory properties, and can cause invisibility. Pattern spells create insubstantial images which affect the minds of the viewers, and can inflict harm. Phantasm spells create hallucinations which can be harmful. Shadow spells use magical shadows to create things with physical substance. Wizards who specialize in this school are known as Illusionists.
Necromancy spells involve death, undeath, and the manipulation of life energy. Prior to 3rd edition, healing spells are in the Necromancy school, however these spells are generally restricted to clerics and/or druids. Necromancy can usually be divided into three or four categories: spells that help or create the Undead, like Animate Dead; spells that hurt the Undead, like Disrupt Undead; spells that hurt other people, like Enervation or Vampiric Touch; and spells that manipulate life in order to heal, such as Regenerate or Cure Serious Wounds, which were shifted to the Conjuration school in 3rd edition. Wizards who specialize in this school are known as Necromancers.
Universal spells have effects too broad to place into one class, or too useful for any specialist to consider forsaking. They often can perform multiple effects, or perform a very specific effect that does not fit into another category. The most famous of these spells is Wish, the most powerful spell within the game, which can duplicate spells from all schools. As universal spells are not a school, per se, no one can specialize in them. Universal spells were introduced in 3rd edition.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
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-Summons need to be controlled or they;ll turn against the summoner.
-Thayans are necromancers that will use undead summons as fighting tools, but matter is a bit unclear cause undeads in thay are in higher positions than the living.
Interesting idea for a new class, but I did want to point out that divine classes may opt to dabble in the necromantic arts. A necromantic cleric can be an extremely powerful enemy/ ally. This is not the Eberron setting of course but I do believe one of the main themes regarding the elven survivors that escaped slavery from the Giants is that they practice a "light" necromancy. They keep the souls of their ancestors "alive" so that basically an undead "hive" mind of Elven ancients is available to communicate with, draw power from, etc. This type of necromancy or using chracters that have a neutral outlook on the practice, I.E. using the undead as tools but not necessarily for pure evil goals. Doctors still practice on cadavers today in modern medicine so it is not exctly out of reality to have "neutral" utilitarian goals for using the deceased.
So yes there are limitations on how many creatures can be summoned and how strong those creatures can be. The more powerful the summon the more focus a summoner will need in order to control it. In fifth edition (just because I have the book handy) you get to choose between conjuring a bunch of small creatures, fewer stronger creatures or one really strong creature.
In novels it's not entirely uncommon for summoners to get turned upon by the very creatures they called upon for aid. For instance the Balor Errtu was only brought to the Prime Material Plane due to the recklessness of a novice apprentice wizard in the Crystal Shard. Also in Exile Malice Do'Urden used a ritual to turn Drizzt's father into a mindless fighting machine but the more essence of Zaknafein she permitted the creature to have the greater the risk was of the creature turning on her.
This happens less in PnP and never to PC's in video games due to how the rules work. In PnP you can, if the DM permits, attempt to overreach your bounds with house rules (there may be a rule that I am not aware of) and thus allow you to risk having creatures or magic go beyond your control. However no such rule has been implemented into an Officially Licensed Game that I have ever seen.
As for the "good" necromancer I am assuming you mean the Thayan Wizard who worked with the Reaver? I wouldn't go as far as calling her "oood" but certainly not evil. However while exceptions may exist it is still very much not a "good" path. In truth there's far more reasons why a person would make a pact with a devil to obtain powers for a good reason than to tamper with the bodies and souls of the dead.
Additionally totenkopf77, I think you are neglecting the key aspect of any discussion of this matter: source material.
Remember this is a D&D game. Necromancy is an arcane path and study. There are less savory divine spells too, normally relegated to the less savory gods or individuals, but they are not classified as necromancy.
And the elven guardians is most certainly not necromantic. The first and foremost reason is they have to willingly agree to be a guardian so although they are undead they retain all of their experience from life, their souls and personalities for the most part. Necromancy is more the study of using life and death as a puppet master.
Think in Brotherhood of the Griffon there is a little girl necromancer and she is 100% good.
I do understand that the Eberron setting is 3.5 source material and most importantly used by a rival game...soooo we won't talk bout that no more
I have no desire to get into a semantic war but the 4.0 rule set does allow for the creation of Death domain Warpriests and the use of the spell "Servitude in Death" to make what is essentially a necromantic divine caster.
- Necromancy is evil. Period. Full stop. It's bad enough we have the must-be-evil must-be-pacted to Belial Infernal Warlock. We have an evil class already. Another one is, again, an absolute no.
- It's ridiculous enough that NPCs accept Warlocks in game. Accepting a necromancer after Valindra Shadowmantle? Not. Going. To. Happen. Nobody in Neverwinter is going to put up with it.
- A pet class is never going to work or happen in this game. The one 'pet' thing with the SW we have nobody uses. NPC AI is terrible, and the game has massive issues with having too many things on screen as it is. If 10 people showed up to a Tiamat fight with 5 pets each... Between 78 PCs and NPCs and massive amounts of adds at Cleric phase, we're going to see the early Mod 3 IWD HE problem again of things not rendering. Absolutely not. Never. No. I enjoy being able to play the game, thanks. We all remember the bad old days of Mother Lode and Remorhaz in Icewind Pass when you couldn't see the mobs between items and spell effects and a ton of people. PE chugs half the time even on a good system if people start throwing down spells out of boredom. I almost crashed a couple of times waiting during the Lockbox trading event while 50 people were crammed into a small area and all the DCs/wizards were throwing out non-targetted AoEs in boredom. We don't need that everywhere in game. I'm also against the 'Druid as pet class' idea that gets thrown around. The game engine just isn't going to be able to handle it. Dragon Herald zerg, Tiamat, Gauntylgrym... Oof.
Like I said exceptions always exist but they are EXCEPTIONS.
Totenkopf77,
You missed the point.
Necromancy is by definition arcane only. Clerics are NEVER called necromancers.
It has nothing to do with Ebberon. It's in every D&D Player Handbook.
Necromancy is the act of tampering with the energies of life and death with arcane magic. You will NOT find the words necromancy or necromancer under clerics in any PHB. Hence why I said you are neglecting the source material.
Clerics are NEVER considered necromancers.
General using your arcane gifts to deceive others in normal society, such as to be con artist or flim flam man is generally discouraged. But magic like people are not really bad or good, but formed by their surroundings and environment. Realm laws would not look favorably upon a wizard charming and bilking people of their fortunes. You might eventually have bounty hunters and literal militia's looking for you. Having a visit from the Harpers to remind you of the right way of things would likely get a mage to act properly. Or being polymorphed into a toad by an archmage. Mages are known to police their own, the whole great cosmic powers, much responsibility thing.
Is there any reason why you'd have to use the actual spirits of the dead to animate something? Could you simply call forth some other creature/entity to inhabit and animate a suit of armor or event a statue? What about doing something like negotiating with ghosts or spirits to provide them a physical body made of nonliving material, (made of metal, clay, sculpted wood, etc), in exchange for their service in this new form?
Thanks again!
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
I like you Ambi so I'll simply say you might wanna revise some of those absolute statements. If you go back and actually look at the history of the Necromantic school of magic all the way through DnD's history, you will understand. Wizards, Druids and Cleric can all be called necromancers. I suggest you and Drinnth Google "Velsharoon" or "Cleric of Velsharoon.
Animating the dead either takes one of 2 forms, they recall the spirit of the dead that was once hosted and force it into servitude or they use other known spirits to enter the corpses and reanimate them. Forcibly drawing a soul back from the afterlife to be enslaved into forced servitude is an very inherently evil act. Desecrating burial and corpses is pretty evil, but if you brought your own spirits/souls to inhabit the corpses it wouldn't be as evil, but then again, where are you going to find spare spirits/souls that would willingly be enslaved by you.
Velsharoon was originally the archmage of Necromancy of Thay that thru unlife/lichdom gained a portfolio position. While technically he might have "clerics", I'd be willing to bet most of those clerics were necromancers of the arcane sort to begin with. And most of his followers, follow the tenets and guides he found thru his exploration of the necromantic arts. Again tho, if he is granting Divine power to perform necromantic acts, its not really arcane necromancy per se. Tho with Thayans you never really can tell.
Druids are the anti-thesis of necromancers. Maintaining the balance of life is anathema to undeath. I don't think you would find a necromancer druid.
It boils down to semantics or how far into "DnD lawyering" one wants to go. The "Necromancer class" is at best a 3.5 homebrew creation. You can feel free to check this list ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prestige_classes ) and see if you can find the "Necromancer class". There are prestige classes called Pale Master and "True Necromancer", both of which are arcane and necromantic. Soooo basically the term "necromancer" can be as broad or specific as an individual believes. A Necro-Druid with an undead companion say a bear or worg would be sorta cool but I agree companion AI in this game would kinda blow it. Necro druids are called "Blighters" I believe if you would like to Google.
The very definition of Blighter states, they were once druids but they turned upon their faith and calling and have become fallen. Of course druids in 4th edition deal with the primal and aren't divine casters in this sense. Going from worshipping the balance of life and becoming a worshipper of death would definitely rate them as the term necromancer, but again, they are no longer druids if they turn upon their calling. Just as a priest who no longer follows the tenets of his god, would no longer be a cleric.
First, Necromancers are wizards the specialize in the Arcane School of Necromancy. It's not home brewed with 3.5 Edition and has existed much longer and is at the very least dating to 2nd edition and the release of the schools of wizardry which came out 14 years earlier.
Please read the source books. The only aspect you are correct in is that it is not a class of its own; it's a specialized version of the Wizard class.
Secondly with that claim you have proven that you don't know what a druid is. A druid is very much a guardian of nature. They protect the natural order and balance of life and consider anything unnatural to be an abomination to be destroyed.
Undeath is the pinnacle of being an affront to the natural order. Hence why there are no druid spells which animate anything. That's not rule lawyering...you are arguing something which is very much not true in any source book. It's as if you played DDO and made conclusions rather than actually reading the source material or novels which would have made it abundantly clear that the druids utmost doctrine is to protect the natural order of life and death.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
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I would suggest you take your own advice about reading...( http://gctm.free.fr/add/necromant/ ) is a link to the 2nd edition DM guide supplement..notice the title
Alignment is the point. How will a Paladin be able to steal the scroll in Icewind Dale, be able to work with the Arcane Brotherhood or be able to work with the Zhentarim in the Tyranny of Dragons campaigns? I realize that alignment does not matter in this or any other MMO. Because whinners who would screw up thier role play and not be able to use thier uber maxed out holy avenger would riot in the forums. My point is to people complaining that the "evil" necromancer should not be allowed in the game are the same type people that will gladly accept the mission from the vampire in the well of dragons as a cleric of Kelemvor while riding the Nighmare mount. Gimme a break. It is actions that should matter not race or class I would love to have alignment options. As an example I would love to have the option of killing a pug member instead of voting to kick them when they go afk or pull two or three mobs at a time...:p Maybe then I would do group play more often lol.