The Value (or Lack Thereof) of Necromancy

M

mikestrauss

Squire
This is a topic that comes up every few years, and I got into a bit of a Facebook discussion on it recently, so I thought I'd raise it again.

Is necromancy actually worth risking the harsh penalty? Should necromancy be better than it is since it is required to be illegal (with a death penalty) in all chapters?

Personally, I think it is underpowered for its consequences and will present my reasons why (spell by spell).

Cause <X> / Chaos Storm / (Chaos Blade)

The purpose of these spells is to cause damage. There are LOTS of ways to cause damage in Alliance, so it isn't really worth risking death just to cause damage. The other benefit is that these spells ignore armor, but this basically only has PvP usage, since most NPCs don't wear armor. Chaos Blade basically runs afoul of the same problem.

Disease

The only thing this spell does is prevent running. It should be a "Mystic Force" spell in my opinion and even then it would still rarely be memorized.

Desecrate

One of the few good arguments for necromancy, except for the fact that it isn't instantly ended by almost any spell in the game. It can be a life saver, and admittedly the next life saving spell of this sort is basically Prison, but it is just a little too easy to negate (body damage, binding above pin, etc.).

Help Undead

Unless you control the undead, healing them is not a good idea. Will talk about rituals in a bit, though.

Control Undead

This is one of the two great arguments for necromancy. In the right module, this spell basically is auto-win. But you would never be foolish enough to use it in a wave battle and it has no PvP potential. In my opinion, this is pretty much the standard which all necromancy should try to live up to: nearly game breaking in the right circumstance.

Wither Limb / Drain

These are both shutdown spells and Drain is, unquestionably, one of the top shut down spells in the game. But even though drain is the other great necromancy spell (in my opinion) it still isn't notably better than other shutdown spells at or near this level (Confine, Paralysis, Prison). And Wither Limb is a step down and one of the practical effects can be duplicated by simply webbing the target and cutting off their limb.

Create Undead

This spell is more of a customer service spell than a utility spell. I see it used more often to send a dead PC stuck behind the lines to a place where they can be revived than as a meaningful offense. The problem is the zombie created is simply too darn weak, especially for a 7th level spell.

Rituals

Rituals are actually quite good, but there are LOTS of overpowered rituals in the game and the non-necromantic ones don't put a death sentence on your head. Unfortunately, unlike every NPC BBG ever, you can't meaningfully use rituals to create an army of undead (because of resource cost and because you need to provide your own NPCs -- plot might be generous and help with the latter).


Overall, I'd like to see necromancy adjusted to be closer on the power curve to Control Undead, so that choosing to be a necromancer is ACTUALLY a choice where you can risk death for "awesome power". As it is now, you pretty much just risk death in order to flaunt the authorities.

-MS
 
Word.
Necromancy is boring. It's illegal, and I was under the impression that was to balance how powerful it is... but that's the thing, it isn't.
Assuming you're a classic "bad guy" necromancer, the most useful spell in your arsenal is Create Undead. Why? Because it gets rid of bodies as fast as you can say: "I call upon chaos to create undead. Kill yourself."

I think PvP, evil, and ultimate power when I think necromancy, and aside from the rituals and some niche uses of the major spells it just... doesn't feel like a big enough threat to have characters up in arms against it like they often are.
I've demonstrated before my lack of perfect knowledge on the best way to balance things, but Mike has some solid points.

I used to play SOLAR, wherein Necromancy was seriously terrifying stuff. Here are some examples of just how terrifying:

-Necromancer Formalists could permanently desecrate themselves/others. Not in the sense of the Desecrate spell, but rather attune them to chaos and undeath. It had concealable but obvious makeup requirements, and reversed the effects of cure/cause life/death, etc.
-They had a 9th level version of Create Undead that was more powerful and much more useful. This undead creation could be "healed" and actually had some meat behind it.
-Spells that simulated certain poison and combat skill statuses: Cripple/Stun limb, Poison, Paralyze, etc.
-Spells that could force a target to speak the truth or lies.
-Creation of limited proscribes at 9th level. (Like the ritual, but super temporary)
-Shatters on crack.
-Death death death.
-Mistform.
-Essence drain. (Yea, they could steal your body points)
-Destroy magic.

I'm not of the opinion that necromancy should be super overpowered. But if it's going to be illegal as a rule, forever, always and never speak of it... then it seems to me, as a random player, that it should be more powerful than any legal methods to make it worth pursuing. It's illegal for a reason, right? It wouldn't be a huge deal if it weren't very effective.

I'd like to see two equally skilled players, one playing a straight earth mage or celestialist, and the other strictly using necromancy go face to face, and for the necromancer to win every time by the skin of his teeth.

Just thoughts and opinions. Don't shoot me. :p
 
Pretty sure the reason necromancy is illegal is to support story and role play, not because it was ever meant to be any more or less powerful than other forms of magic. Alliance is set up to support grey hat PCs and black hat NPCs, and that's why most PCs who go bad end up becoming Plot-driven NPCs (or, you know, dead.)
 
I'm just going to say what I say about this every time the discussion comes up:

Maybe this doesn't matter if roleplay is not your thing in a, well, live action role playing game, but necromancy, its illegality, and my use of said necromancy have given me 3 years of amazing RP with a diverse group of characters, and I'd argue most of them have had as much fun as I have. As someone who plays to engage with the world, its laws, and other people, I literally could not ask for more and have never once questioned whether I should do the thing because of "numbers!!!!!".

Also if you're not having fun with necro and the results of its use (RP and otherwise), you brought the wrong mod party, IMO, 'cause man am I having a blast.
 
I'm largely RP focused myself, but I have difficulty justifying a healthy fear of something that is wholly underwhelming. It's not that I want necromancy to be badass so I can play a powerful necromancer. It's because I want to be able to fear someone who has been labeled as such, and for it to be dangerous to apply such labels because... Holy crap, if it's true, they could wipe me out in a heartbeat.

Necromancy isn't dangerous to its enemies or its allies outside of plot intervention and legality, and that doesn't seem right. But that's just my take on it.
 
Eh.

I admit, the only necromancers I ever fear are the ones with LCO Plot-controlled abilities, like chaos-wands or just massive amounts of damage with the chaos carrier. Necromancy PC-style is handled pretty easily.
 
In response to Kris.

Honestly, the main reason I want to see the mechanics beefed up is to support the role play. It is pretty much a given fact that necromancy damages the world. That is a major negative role play effect no matter who you are (we all need the world to live). That is why it is illegal. So, why would bad guys use necromancy if they weren't getting some significant benefit from it? If necromancy isn't mechanically a really good option, it makes little sense that so many bad guys choose to use it as part of their "master plan." In fact, as it is, it feels like the concept has been swapped. More often, it feels like bad guys use necromancy just to make it clear they are EVIL, not because it actually offers them any meaningful advantage.

That inhibits my immersion with the game and makes it hard for me to believe the motivations of many NPCs.

-MS
 
To be fair, if necromancy were legal and not culturally opposed....I'd probably run out of spells a -lot- faster...
 
If Disease were converted to Slow, I'd memorize it almost exclusively. You walk, I run.
 
Let's be honest here. NPCs don't wear armor, on the whole, and the biggest benefit of Chaos offensively is that it ignores armor. Its sole honest game balance value is PVP ganking, which is absolutely the part of the game that we should least emphasize.
 
One of the problems with the game is that it was designed back when we had one chapter, four events a year, and someone swinging "ten" was unusual. Back then, having a spell that could go through armor and do damage was practically an automatic kill, because no one had a lot of body points.

I wouldn't mind seeing necromancy doing more damage to make it more appealing (and in my books, it is that way!) -- but I'm not sure it would make much of a difference. Even then, no PC would be casting it in a field battle anyway because the "illegal" part of it has to be there for roleplaying plot reasons (as people said above). The only time I see PCs cast necromancy these days is on modules where they can't get caught.
 
Personally, I just want to see the effects be more vicious. I remember nearly dying once from the old Disease spell, because losing 1 body per hour with no way to stop it was brutal. I don't actually recommend adding that effect back to the game because it is mechanically frustrating to track, but at least it made necromancy feel terrifying.

I'd like more of that terror added back. I'd like to see an effect that prevented the target from benefiting from healing (maybe that can be the replacement for the currently underpowered Disease) or maybe an effect that causes you to reach the dead state the moment you reach 0 / -1 body (instead of unconscious or dying) and can only be removed by <appropriate removal> or resurrection.

These kind of effects are a little more vicious. And, at least for the anti-healing one, against the right enemy, it might actually be tempting to try to risk getting away with it in a field battle because the benefit is high enough. As I've mentioned before, the only current spell with that kind of benefit is Control Undead and that is only used on modules because there is simply no chance of getting away with it in a field battle.

-MS
 
I wouldn't mind Drain straight up killing you if not purified within ten minutes, or Wither actually hitting both arms or both legs.
 
mikestrauss said:
Personally, I just want to see the effects be more vicious. I remember nearly dying once from the old Disease spell, because losing 1 body per hour with no way to stop it was brutal. I don't actually recommend adding that effect back to the game because it is mechanically frustrating to track, but at least it made necromancy feel terrifying.

I'd like more of that terror added back. I'd like to see an effect that prevented the target from benefiting from healing (maybe that can be the replacement for the currently underpowered Disease) or maybe an effect that causes you to reach the dead state the moment you reach 0 / -1 body (instead of unconscious or dying) and can only be removed by <appropriate removal> or resurrection.

These kind of effects are a little more vicious. And, at least for the anti-healing one, against the right enemy, it might actually be tempting to try to risk getting away with it in a field battle because the benefit is high enough. As I've mentioned before, the only current spell with that kind of benefit is Control Undead and that is only used on modules because there is simply no chance of getting away with it in a field battle.

-MS
Click to expand...

If you want terror, cut down the vast proliferation of easy defenses. No effect is scary when you have a pocket full of 'no'.

Mike Ventrella said:
One of the problems with the game is that it was designed back when we had one chapter, four events a year, and someone swinging "ten" was unusual. Back then, having a spell that could go through armor and do damage was practically an automatic kill, because no one had a lot of body points.

I wouldn't mind seeing necromancy doing more damage to make it more appealing (and in my books, it is that way!) -- but I'm not sure it would make much of a difference. Even then, no PC would be casting it in a field battle anyway because the "illegal" part of it has to be there for roleplaying plot reasons (as people said above). The only time I see PCs cast necromancy these days is on modules where they can't get caught.
Click to expand...

I think we've both agreed before that the game runs better with lower levels and amounts of accumulated stuff, and it still stands true.
 
I think the big presence of defensive calls and buffs is what marginalizes the effectiveness of chaos/necro in the game. One easy solution that can be utilized is necro/chaos cannot be defended with spell shields/reflects (this also might up the usage in a PvP setting and you can potentially argue it going the other way as well with earth bypassing spellshield and reflect). I say this because I have NPCed undead with spell pyramids and it just feels so underwhelming thinking that I cant even really get a cause wounds to stick with the number of spell shields or reflects people have. With this idea, people would be unable to chain spell shield/reflect and now you really need to make decisions on how to deal with the necromancer who has potentially 4 drains that can only be defended in a more limited fashion (dodge, cloak, and bane).

Chris
 
Having necro bypass defensives is an awesome idea. It might make drain and wither more tempting and it certainly makes fighting undead scary, and fighting undead should be scary.
soleedge said:
I think the big presence of defensive calls and buffs is what marginalizes the effectiveness of chaos/necro in the game. One easy solution that can be utilized is necro/chaos cannot be defended with spell shields/reflects (this also might up the usage in a PvP setting and you can potentially argue it going the other way as well with earth bypassing spellshield and reflect). I say this because I have NPCed undead with spell pyramids and it just feels so underwhelming thinking that I cant even really get a cause wounds to stick with the number of spell shields or reflects people have. With this idea, people would be unable to chain spell shield/reflect and now you really need to make decisions on how to deal with the necromancer who has potentially 4 drains that can only be defended in a more limited fashion (dodge, cloak, and bane).

Chris
Click to expand...
 
I disagree that defenses are what make necromancy "not scary".

As a PC, unless I was about to be hit with a Drain (which I already mentioned in the opening post as one of the few necromancy spells that lives up to its billing), I wouldn't waste a defense on necromancy. That is how little I fear necromancy. I have defenses and I choose to use them on other effects, instead of necromancy.

Make these spells something to fear. I WANT necromancy to be scary. It is supposed to be the most horrible, awful thing in the game. But it is hard to roleplay that when mechanically, it is about as scary as a wet noodle.

-MS
 
To be fair, a large part of that is the necessity to keep it balanced in player hands.

For PVP, necro is pretty scary until you start to reach our version of End Game Content and can start stacking up activated and dumb defenses via magic.

Adding some nastier Necromantic effects in the hands of NPCs would help make it scarier, and I've seen several LCO effects over the years that attempt to do that.
 
Muir said:
To be fair, a large part of that is the necessity to keep it balanced in player hands.

For PVP, necro is pretty scary until you start to reach our version of End Game Content and can start stacking up activated and dumb defenses via magic.

Adding some nastier Necromantic effects in the hands of NPCs would help make it scarier, and I've seen several LCO effects over the years that attempt to do that.
Click to expand...

Which is why Death spells, Prisons, Paralysis, Sleep spells, and Feebleminds are totes illegal. To keep them balanced in the hands of players.
 
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